Vortex 2019

VORTEX 2019

Vortex

2019

A collection of Art, Essays, Plays, Poetry, Scripts, & Short Stories

A vortex is spiraling energy, like a whirlwind or a tornado that exists throughout all of nature. The Milky Way, our greater home, spirals.

Moving water spirals as it flows over and around things.

Our bones spiral.

The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) is an EEO/AA institution and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, or national origin in their programs or activities.

For Title IX/504 concerns, call the following number to reach the appointed coordinator: (480) 731-8499. For additional information visit: http://www.maricopa.edu/non-discrimination.

A Publication of Scottsdale Community College

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Writers and Artists Acknowledgment Poetry Bree Hoffman for “The Backpack”©2019 Marcus Campbell for “Friend Requests” ©2019 Joy Gregory for “Ophelia” ©2019 Robert Buchanan for “All You Could Bear” ©2019 Kristina Morgan for “Finding Stacey” ©2019 Rosario Escarcega for “Cumpleaños” ©2019 Konrad Ashby for “Poem on Love” ©2019 Brooke Beebe for “For Joey & the 130 Addicts in America That Died Today” ©2019 Short Story Steph Rubin for “The Painting” ©2019 Kristina Morgan for “Crossing the Lethe” ©2019 Patrick Underwood for “You’ll Love it There!” ©2019

Kate Price for “Illuminati Janitor” ©2019 Creative Non-Fiction June for “Bad Ecstasy” ©2019 Kristina Morgan for “The Circuit” ©2019 Alex Ruiz-Vasquez for “La Navidad” ©2019 Alyson DiGiovanni for “What is Sacred” ©2019 Bree Hoffman for “My Father, Who Loved Me” ©2019

Script/Play Marie Tomisato for “Pitchin’” ©2019 Thomas Hartwell for “Orion Watches Over” ©2019 Stephanie Cortes for “Silhouette” ©2019 Native Voices and Visions Terisa Leonard for “Unspoken Justice” ©2019 Reyna Solis for “Loss” ©2019 Preslie Thompson for Resilience ©2019 Art Eleanor Babbitt for Puerta Azul No. 2 ©2019 Suzanne Black for Madmen and Butterflies ©2019 Judy Feldman for Belgium Waterway ©2019 Joanne Gallery for Grace ©2019 Barbara Goldberg for Pink Antiquity ©2019 William Goren for Royal Child ©2019 Levi Johnson for Flutedancer ©2019 Elaine Karcher for Around the Island ©2019 Junko Kinoshita for My Mother in Her Backyard ©2019

Gloria Langer for Still Life ©2019 Bonnie Lewis for To Love, Honor, and Obey ©2019 Ellen Nemetz for Full Spectrum ©2019 Angelika Zgainer for Kyoto Station ©2019

Julia for “Black and Blue” ©2019

Cover

Suzanne Black, Nothing Looks Better Than a Girl on a Truck

Oil, 16”x20” ©2019

Back Cover

Kathy Dioguardi, Fred Photobombs Juanita Oil, 30”x30” ©2019

I want to thank all of our student writers and artists here at Scottsdale Community College! It is because of them that we are able to create such an eclectic and high quality anthology. The writing and art in this journal represent a wide range of subjects, styles, and experiences. Without our writers’ and artists’ visions and revisions, without their insights and sensitivities, without their devotion to what they create, we would be diminished as a community of learners and as human beings.

I am deeply indebted to our very smart and dedicated executive administrative assistants! Buffie Diglio and Anna Dragon manage the Vortex contracts and ticket sales, process winner’s paperwork and awards, design and print award certificates and guest name badges, and maintain our website. I am also grateful to Anna and her husband Jason for the smart work they do on solving digital issues we have.

And Michelle Blake graciously and tirelessly assists all of us with the countless tasks Vortex requires. My thanks also go to Ronald Zhang as he designed and maintains all of the online submissions. He has made the contest so much easier and efficient for everyone! I also want to thank Shachi Kale, the graphic designer of Vortex, for her beautiful spirit, artistic innovations, and remarkable skill and long hours spent on the design of Vortex.

I am also grateful to Dr. Stephanie Fujii, SCC’s Vice President of Academic Affairs, for her support of Vortex and its significance to our students. I also want to thank Susan Moore, Chair of the English, World Languages, and Journalism Division, for her continued enthusiastic backing, and Dr. Larry Tualla, Chair of the English Department, for his continued support.

My gratitude also goes to our amazing judges: Dr. Cameron MacElvee, Robert Mugford, Joshua Rathkamp, and Bonnie Nadzam, all of whom sacrificed a portion of their Spring Break for art’s sake! And I want to thank my wonderful colleagues at SCC who continually encourage our students in their writing and artwork!

Sandra Desjardins Vortex Coordinator

Support the Arts!

We need your support to keep the fire of creativity burning in all of our talented students for many years to come.

Please consider a tax-deductible donation to Vortex.

Your support helps to pay for supplies, special programs, annual events and the very book you’re reading.

For more information on how you can show your support for education and the arts, please contact Sandra Desjardins at (480) 423-6415 or visit our website at: https://www.scottsdalecc.edu/alumni-friends/donate-vortex College: Scottsdale, Designation: “Vortex Student Publication”

“It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our hearts sing.”

Steve Jobs, in introducing the iPad 2 in 2011

“In my own philanthropy and business endeavors, I have seen the critical role that the arts play in stimulating creativity and in developing vital communities…the arts have a crucial impact on our economy and are an important catalyst for learning, discovery, and achievement in our country.”

Paul G. Allen, Co-Founder, Microsoft

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Vortex Donors 2018 -2019 Eleanor Babbitt

Laura Fitzgerald

Robert Mugford

Dr. Judy Balan

Dr. Stephanie Fujii

Richard and Ann Pihl

Danielle Boyd

Georgia Fuller

June Rudyk

Robert B. Buchanan

Joanne Gallery

Kim Sabin

Sirio Calogero

Paul and Martha Gould

Jeanne Sabrack

Dr. Ana Cuddington

Doris & Martin Hoffman

Alex Stefan

Sandra Desjardins

Val Kossak

Angelika Zgainer

Stanley P. Desjardins

Robert Lewis

Joyce Erbach

Kathy Newman

Judy Feldman

E. E. Moe

I am deeply grateful for and indebted to you, our donors! Because Vortex depends entirely on donations, we exist because of your generous support of the arts. Albert Camus once said “Real generosity to the future lies in giving all to the present.” So I thank you for giving our students a glimpse of what is possible through encouraging their passion for writing and art.

A Special Thank You to the following for their contributions to the Vortex Awards Event: Barbara Olsen for her extraordinary table floralscapes Vases Courtesy of AJ’s Purveyors of Find Foods Embassy Suites by Hilton Scottsdale Resort and Shelley Brown for their support of Vortex Kim Herbst (IACE) for her suggestions and guidance.

Steve Heywood with Americopy for printing Vortex.

About the 2019 Vortex Graphic Designer Shachi Kale Shachi is an artist, graphic designer, and children’s book illustrator.

You can see her work at www.shachikale.com or on instagram @shachidreams

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Table of Contents Creative Non-Fiction “Bad Ecstasy” June - First Place.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Puerta Azul No. 2 Eleanor Babbitt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

“The Circuit” Kristina Morgan - Second Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Flutedancer Levi Johnson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

“La Navidad” Alex Ruiz-Vasquez - Third Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

“What is Sacred” Alyson DiGiovanni - Honorable Mention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

“My Father, Who Loved Me” Bree Hoffman - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

To Love, Honor, and Obey Bonnie Lewis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

“Black and Blue” Julia - Honorable Mention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

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Table of Contents Short Story “The Painting” Steph Rubin - First Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Grace Joanne Gallery.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

“Crossing the Lethe” Kristina Morgan - Second Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

“You’ll Love it There!”

Patrick Underwood - Third Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

“Illuminati Janitor” Kate Price - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Pink Antiquity Barbara Goldberg.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

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Table of Contents Native Voices and Visions “Unspoken Injustice” Terisa Leonard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Resilience Preslie Thompson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

“Loss” Reyna Solis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Poetry “The Backpack” Bree Hoffman - First Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Madmen and Butterflies Suzanne Black. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

“Friend Requests” Marcus Campbell - Second Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

“Ophelia” Joy Gregory - Third Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

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Table of Contents Around the Island Elaine Karcher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

“All You Could Bear” Robert Buchanan - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

“Finding Stacey” Kristina Morgan - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

“Cumpleaños” Rosario Escarcega - Honorable Mention.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Royal Child William Goren. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

“Poem on Love” Konrad Ashby - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

My Mother in Her Backyard Junko Kinoshita. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

“For Joey & the130 Addicts in America that Died Today” Brooke Beebe - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Still Life Gloria Langer.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

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Table of Contents Plays and Scripts “Pitchin’” Marie Tomisato - First Place.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Belgium Waterway Judy Feldman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

“Orion Watches Over” Thomas Hartwell - Second Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Full Spectrum Ellen Nemetz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

“Silhouette” Stephanie Cortes - Third Place.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Kyoto Station Angelika Zgainer.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Writers’ and Artists’ Personal Statements

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The National League of American Pen Women We gratefully acknowledge the contributions to SCC writers, artists, and musicians made by the Scottsdale Branch of The National League of American Pen Women– the oldest women’s arts organization in the country. We appreciate the continued support of these dynamic and creative women!

Awards Each year, the Scottsdale Branch of American Pen Women honors a winning student in writing, art, or music at the Vortex Awards Reception.

This year’s award is in writing.

June is the recipient of this award for her

Essay, “Bad Ecstasy”

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Vortex 2019 Creative Non-Fiction What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do, is re-engage people with their own humanity. ~ Barbara Kingsolver “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.� ~ Thomas Mann Fiction and poetry are my first loves, but the really beautiful lyrical essay can do so much that other forms cannot. ~ Chris Abani

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“Bad Ecstasy” June – First Place You die twice. The first time is when your heart stops beating, and the second is when your name is spoken for the final time. I was close to death more times than I can count. When I would come close to it and take the time to acknowledge how close of a proximity I was, I would ponder how long it would take for my second death to come.

I imagined it would happen in fewer than 10 years or so. The main cause of my close relationship with the other side was my even closer relationship to my addictions. They caused many failed relationships and experiences, and they brought me to my lowest point, but I fought them for the right to live and I won.

I was born to a struggling single mother in Phoenix, Arizona. When I was brought into the world, she was still in college, and money was always extremely tight. We moved many times throughout my childhood, and it takes two hands to count all the places we lived. The house we stayed at the longest was a home she rented from a friend of hers. It was in a poor neighborhood but coincidentally not in a horrible part of town.

It was an outdated one-story house tucked in between a couple back roads that not many people knew about. The interior of the house was cramped, and all the appliances and decor were decades old and barely functional. The paint would occasionally fall off the walls in small pieces and bugs would make their way inside despite the exterminator’s best efforts. My clearest memories of this house are when I was enrolled in a small middle school not even ten minutes away, and I despised going. From a young age I hated school. I hated being told how to learn and how to think. I hated being told to fix how I wrote or how I solved problems. I loathed structure of any kind and often refused to go, and stayed in bed, read books, and watched the Twilight Zone or

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Seinfeld. Even at this age, I knew I was different from everyone else. I was rarely happy and didn’t fit in with the other energetic, upbeat kids. I would pray for recess to come, so I could walk around outside and have my own thoughts, not ideas that were fed to me. On my best days, I would feel content and go to school but would often leave irritated and full of regret that I even bothered showing up.

Once middle school was over, it was time to decide on a high school to attend. My mother--who was always set on the idea of my success-- chose a private school forty-five minutes away. I texted a goodbye the people I had become close to and didn’t argue.

We said farewell to the house and rented an apartment near my soon to be high school.

It was a step up from the house and was built rather recently with nice appliances and new flooring. It smelled especially clean and had been re-painted before we moved in. I didn’t have much time to prepare for my new school and became rather anxious leading up to the first day. I didn’t know a single person and convinced myself that I would be bullied and shunned by the other children; I wasn’t wrong. All the kids at this school had known each other for their entire lives and were born into exceptionally wealthy families. This was hardly the case for me due to financial aid covering most of my tuition. It became quite clear the first week of school that I wasn’t going to fit in.

The other kids were stuck up, and no one would talk to me unless he or she needed something. The student parking lot was full of brand-new expensive cars, and the kids wore designer clothing and had their own credit cards. I eventually adjusted to being a loner but didn’t like it. I was often made fun of and laughed at. Other students would use me as punchlines for jokes and would call me ridiculous names. One day I walked home from school while my mother was still working, and I looked in the fridge for a snack and came face to face with what seemed to be a newfound friend, alcohol. I started drinking a little every other day, which quickly turned to every day. I would keep bottles in my locker and would show up to class drunk. One day in the gym I was drunk and happily climbing some stairs when I fell and almost broke a couple of bones.

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It seemed like a good joke at the time, and I continued to drink. I drank more and more and went to class less and less and got expelled before the first year was over.

I didn’t mind getting expelled that much, and my mother enrolled me in a new high school for my sophomore year. It was a public high school a little farther away from the original, overpriced private one. I started this school the same as the last, no friends.

One day I got invited to eat lunch with a group of kids that seemed to understand me.

We bonded over many different shared thoughts. One of the biggest ones was that we all agreed that the world was full of identical, boring, and mindless people; but we felt that we were different. Like me, they all came from broken homes and hated the structure of school and weren’t happy go lucky. We started hanging out every day, and I felt the closest to happy I had ever been. For the first time, I had inside jokes with other people my age and had a group of friends that I could confide in and share ideas with. Once they knew I drank, they started inviting me to smoke weed with them every day before and after school. We would pack into the car of our friend we called Puppy, and take turns rolling joints out of bible paper. Our other friend, who we nicknamed K, would steal pills from his grandmother and bring them for us to share. I had never been in love before, but I was certain that this was it. As soon as I would swallow a pill or take a hit, all my problems would go up in smoke and seem to disappear; they would only come back when I was sober. So, I was determined never to be sober ever again.

We started doing cocaine every day and threw parties daily as well. We first started our parties with just ten people. We would line up a couple balls of cocaine on the counter, and a couple of us would steal bottles of alcohol from local stores or we would use our fake IDs to buy it. I would take a couple of dabs, swallow a handful of pills, take lines, and be okay momentarily. As the night turned into the next day, we would sit outside and watch the sun come up and laugh at meaningless jokes while a couple of us

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would be passed out on the bathroom floor. Many times, I would be the person passed out and would awaken the next morning disoriented, covered in my own regurgitated drinks and pills from the previous night. Eventually going from house to house wasn’t enough, and one of the people in our group agreed to let us use his parents’ house that was rarely used, due to their always being elsewhere. The house had no doors inside, and no AC or heat. There were a couple of lamps inside that provided just enough light for us to count pills and find our way from room to room. The only piece of furniture inside, besides a couple of lawn chairs and tables, was an old pool table. The felt was slowly unraveling, but we would often use it as a bed. It was in this house we decided to start selling drugs. We would sell drugs to people we trusted, but it quickly turned into people we didn’t know. We had a couple of glass tables that were always covered in drugs and small plastic baggies. We also acquired a scale that one of us had stolen from a chemistry class, which is laughable today.

I started doing more and more drugs and fell in love with Xanax and OxyContin.

When I needed more pills, I would steal them from my family friend who was a pharmacist or take money from my mom’s bank accounts and feel no remorse. I was also intrigued by inhalants and started buying as many cans of Dust Off that I could afford. I would wrap a shirt around the can to avoid the bitterant as much as possible and take as many hits as I could. I would be slumped in the corner, with dried vomit on my shirt, clutching a can of Dust Off to my chest with a bottle of Jack Daniels nearby.

I would often take a hit and lose the ability to see for a minute, and it wouldn’t even phase me. One time I was standing near a table and took a hit and lost my vision and my balance, and I crashed to the floor, which resulted in a hairline fracture on my shin.

I still have the scar to this day.

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I started failing all my classes and nothing mattered. I lost family members, and nothing mattered. My mother would call me crying and try to scare me into coming home, and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was having enough drugs or alcohol to get me through every day. I eventually met a guy, Sage, with whom I quickly became enthralled. He was a couple years older than I, lived with his mother, and did home invasions and armed robberies with a couple of his friends. They sold meth and cocaine together, and his mother was expecting a long-term prison sentence any day. I practically lived at their house and started to know all the people they sold to by name.

They sold such a large sum of cocaine that Sage would take the leftover coke and make artwork with it by mixing it with paint or just by itself on canvases. When he started doing more and more meth, he developed horrid anger issues and would often beat his mom, or if I was around, he beat me. He would hit me with old softballs or lock me in his room, and when I would finally leave, his mother would wave goodbye and tell me to come back soon. One day Sage got another girl pregnant and went to jail; I never heard from him again.

When graduation started approaching, reality set in. All I had were a bunch of drug addict friends and barely enough drugs for myself. I quickly contemplated suicide and decided it was the only valid option. So, a week before my high school graduation, I attempted to take my own life. I took every pill that I had previously stolen, or bought, and drank as much as I could before I drifted away. I sat upright in my bed against the frame and looked up to the sky that I felt I was about to call home. I recall that I couldn’t stop smiling. I was genuinely ecstatic that I had a one-way ticket away from earth. I fell asleep soundly and woke up four days later in a hospital with liver damage and hallucinations. My mother had found me, called 911, and when the paramedics arrived, I was unconscious and throwing up.

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I got out of the hospital, surprisingly in a somewhat healthy state, long after my high school graduation was over. I cursed the world for letting me live. I hated every second my heart was beating. I decided I had nothing else to live for even although my mom had enrolled me in a community college. I started hanging out with old friends and got into a drug I never thought I would, meth. Meth brought me to my breaking point when combined with painkillers and alcohol. I began to only see red, and it was almost always focused on myself. I would sit and cry for hours. I was always looking for more drugs, and those drugs weren’t enough. I would show up at my drug dealers’ house and cry for them to sell me whatever I could get. I could never find enough substances to satisfy me; an infinite supply wouldn’t have been enough. If I ever ran out, I would break down and go into withdrawals that I can only describe as the most intense isolation and pain that no sickness could ever come close to competing with.

Months later, my mother withdrew me from all my classes and checked me into rehab. months later. I kicked and screamed, but she forced me to go, and I sat in what I presumed to be purgatory for thirty days. I stared at the walls for days and attempted to distract my brain from the unimaginable pain I was going through every second.

The day I was released from rehab, I met a guy five years older than I and relapsed the same day. My mother kicked me out, and I was homeless. I stayed at this guy’s apartment for months. His roommate was a dealer, so there were always drugs around.

I sustained myself on a diet of microwaveable hot dogs, water, or nothing at all. As I hit the pipe or swallowed the pills, I would realize what I had become and would want to throw up. I would avoid looking in the mirror because I couldn’t bring myself to face the monster who looked back. I had lost eighty pounds and was to the point of being unrecognizable. I was a stranger in my own body. The guy I stayed with would often lace my pills with meth to make me feel crazy. He had a vicious temper and would use me as his personal punching bag whenever he felt I deserved it. He would use me to run heroin for him, and in my crazed state, I would take the bus with a couple pounds of tar on me, shaking with fear that a cop would ask me to open my bag. He would kick

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me out in the middle of the night, and I spent many nights sleeping at bus stops alone, freezing, scared, with only pennies to my name. The last time he beat me, I remember trying to cover my head while he used anything he could think of to hurt me. I sobbed with such pain that no sound came out, and I just prayed that it would end, but I couldn’t think straight and passed out.

When I woke up, I packed the few things I had accumulated and took the bus to my mom’s apartment. She let me in under the condition I stopped doing all drugs and stopped drinking all together. I slowly weaned off everything except Xanax. I met a guy at a sobriety meeting whom I am still with today. He urged me to get off the Xanax slowly. And with his help, and the overwhelming fear of being homeless again looming above my head, I slowly tapered down. Then, in March of last year, the emptiness of the void started calling my name, and I accepted. When my mom was conveniently out of town, I invited a couple old friends over and asked them to bring alcohol. I faintly remember taking a couple of sips of alcohol, and I blacked out and woke up the next morning with no recollection of the previous night. I had an inbox full of messages telling me that the two people I had considered to be friends had assaulted me while I was passed out. There were videos all over social media. I realized I had been given a substance I was unaware of. My mind went black, and I picked up bottles of liquor, and drank myself into oblivion. I spent time at strip clubs because the men there didn’t notice me next to all the dancers. I finally went to the police, and they said nothing could be done because of the lack of proof. I had not gone to them right away because I was traumatized, and I didn’t think it would end well for me—which it didn’t. I stayed at motels and tried to stay invisible for as long as I could. I eventually had to come up for air, and I reconnected with the guy that had first helped me get the closest to sobriety. He helped me fix parts of myself, and I finished the jagged edges of myself alone, the only way it could be done and the only way I knew how. Eventually we got an apartment together with a roommate, and I have been getting stronger ever since.

I worked at a couple of jobs and got bored and decided to go back to school. I am currently in my do-over of my first semester and working part time.

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I will never forget what happened to me; even if I tried I couldn’t. I still have nightmares every night, and I have trouble being around people. I have liver damage and heart palpitations regularly. I can’t smell out of one side of my nose. Friends have overdosed or gone to prison, and I’ve lost family. I will never forget what I went through and how hard I had to fight to have a beating heart today almost one year completely sober. I live for my friends who have died and no longer have the opportunity to fight for themselves. I continue to live so I can be a better person tomorrow.

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Puerta Azul No. 2

Eleanor Babbitt

Medium: Oil Size: 24” X 30”

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“The Circuit” Kristina Morgan – Second Place I enter the ward with a click of the door, then another click when it shuts sealing me in like an ambulance. I know this hospital as well as I know my own demons. I have been here nineteen times in the past four years. I want off the train of repeating visits.

The rooms contain two twin beds with starched white sheets and a plastic pillow.

I drool at night, wet circles creating a pattern on the pillowcase, a side effect of my medication. At times, I think I’m going to drown in spit.

The fake glass window allows sunshine to brighten the room. I’m not warmed by it. The unit runs cold to keep us awake and moving. Awake, I’m depressed like icicles hanging from the eaves of roof—bitter cold and fragile—eventually shattering when they hit the concrete driveway and melt away; my mood will fade and leave me tired.

The bedroom doors march down the hall of gray industrial carpeting. They are all the same color, taupe. I am confused. I lose track of which is mine and walk into the room of a naked man. He is completely shaved; his bare dick the length of a hotdog. He screams. No one comes to find out the source of the noise. I leave as quietly as I walked in. Bonnie, a psych tech, shouts out, “Good morning ladies and gentleman! Breakfast is served.” Her voice is a loud supercharged muscle car reaching the last room in the hall, eight doors down.

Patient after patient appears. The breakfast trays are handed out. I drink coffee before they switch it to decaf. I can smell maple syrup. The pancakes are good. In the dayroom there are couches filled with Styrofoam, a white board and round tables. The TV is paused on Forrest Gump running, his beard matted. The room is well lit. There are no dark corners in which to hide. Windows flank each side of the door. Everything is visible to staff. I don’t enter the dayroom. My fellow patients talk too much. I am a cat who never meows; conversation is for the outside world. As a writer, observation

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is woven into my pen. I sit in the outer room and watch Max being Max; he is begging other people for their pats of butter. He looks my way. I pretend I’m not watching by touching my chin to my chest.

It’s not that I don’t care for my fellow patients. I have no opinion of them one way or another. Many of them I know from prior hospital stays. I do not want to be a part of the hospital circuit. I want to be well. I do not know how to get my mind to cooperate.

My mind is a wheelbarrow filled with glass bowls the color of cherries fraught with letters of the alphabet. Some bowls contain words like shoe, door, walk, free. Others contain random letters that I desperately want to make sense of. The bird walks to the edge of the mountain and jumps expecting to fly but finds that a wing is broken. The bird tumbles to the earth. Words like safe could have prevented the bird from crashing in a mix of feathers and blood. I cannot make sense of the things I think about. When stepping out of my mind, I cannot be understood. When I fall into my mind, I make sense. I am a woman who happens to have schizophrenia. I don’t want to be controlled by it. I want freedom like a helium balloon released from the clutches of a toddler’s fist.

My doctor, Doctor Purewal, visits me daily to have fifteen minute conversations. At first, it is always frustrating because I am unable to get him to understand me. Pulling words randomly into full sentences is beyond my reach. I do know, though, that he said he can make the voices I hear go away and bring me into clear thought by giving me a new medication. All I had to do was agree to take it and get monthly blood draws to monitor my white blood cell count.

Fear keeps me from agreeing to take Clozaril. At least my brain is familiar to me, and I am not excessively tired. I am as intimate with my brain as a marathon runner is her legs. I am told by people on Clozaril that their ability to remember things is hampered.

I am told they are always exhausted. It is the only antipsychotic that I have not tried. It makes no sense that I would insist on not taking it. A fourth grader won’t eat broccoli even though she’s never tried it. She is afraid to eat green things but is unable to say why.

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Six patients are known by me. The circuit continues to flourish. I hop on, full speed ahead with no stop in sight. My traveling companions pay a price just as I do. Tony smells like mold. It is not uncommon for patients to smell. Many are too depressed to shower. Tony never seemed able to wash the grime away even though he is a really sweet man. To me, it seems bullies would be the ones who stink. A few of us pace the floor up and down. Once tired, I stand still as a hinge on a closed door. When will I fall into myself ? Normality is suspended.

Gladys is thin and frail, swimming in a night coat the color of salmon with a voice as large as the Liberty Bell at noon on a clear morning of quiet birds. Her slippers hold her ankles in lace. She wears gloves to the elbows. She draws her brows in perfect arcs above each eye. Margaret is a small woman with a high voice. She always seems about to break out into song. She is one of the few women who wears dresses and smells like spice. I place her in her seventies. She is never without lipstick, reminding me of my grandmother. Alberta is a large woman heavy on her feet, preferring the ride of a wheelchair to the movement of her own two legs. Alberta is in me. I, too, see with the unbroken gaze of psychosis. I, too, dialogue with people no one else sees. The medication helps bring me back to palm trees and swimming pools, conversations and grilled chicken. I enjoy washing dishes and returning to a bed dressed in flowered sheets, sleeping in dreams of eating chocolate, reading mail sent to my home. Alberta doesn’t know I’m in her. I am in her like dust in a tornado, night in a star, ice in a glacier.

Sal is another patient whom I see several times per year. He is a retired fireman who suffers from PTSD. It is as if once the flame went out, he didn’t know what to do with himself. The people who died in fires haunt him. And then there is Emily. She was my roommate during another stay about a year ago. I had opened the bathroom door and found her seated on the floor with a plastic knife trying to cut through the skin on her wrist. A year later, and I’m back on the unit with her. Her right wrist is bandaged. It starts at her elbow and wraps around her hand leaving her unable to use her fingers.

She is thrilled telling me she cut through flesh and tendon, almost losing the use of her hand and wrist. So much blood. She says it was beautiful as if she were commenting on a four carat diamond shining against a black backdrop.

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It was then that I knew I didn’t want to see these people ever again. I wanted off the train of repeated visits. I needed someone to tell the conductor to throw away my ticket. I was visiting the hospital every three or four months. A caseworker suggested I should incorporate my stays as a part of my life, a part of my monthly routine. Was she telling me to give up on ever getting well enough to live far away from psychiatric institutions? Was my life so far out of my hands that my permanent residence forced me to live in two places? Where would the strength come from to make this not so?

Emily’s blood haunted me. I imagined stepping in it and slipping. The rubber soles of my shoes not gaining enough traction. The beauty of it was lost to me. I wanted a washcloth; I wanted to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floor clean. I agreed to take the Clozaril.

Doctor Purewal always has a poker face. When I tell him I will take the Clozaril, he smiles and pounds on the table. Let’s do this, he says, clearly believing it will significantly change my life. I liked his use of “let’s.” We are doing this as a team. What is the saying—strength in numbers? I had always seen medication as the enemy, a potion with too many side effects. I would tell the medical staff I was pregnant and could not take anything. They never believed me. Had they believed me, I would still be suffering in the reality of psychosis. I come to the realization that my wellbeing is probably 40 percent medication and 60 percent attitude and motivation. I am up for the task.

I am at the hospital a month longer. Dr. Purewal monitors my progress. I steadily fall into my right mind. The voices that were so real, telling me things I should do--like call the fat man a lard ass, punch the woman in the face who is always crying, knock down the little man with the mustache like a bowling ball would a pin--quiet. The unit feels small to me today. I imagine the walls shuddering with my breath. The door will click open for me soon. I will go grocery shopping with my boyfriend, will select from many chocolate bars, thank God for the quiet that comes after psychosis, and be glad that the pavement is hot beneath my feet, and I have shoes that prevent me from blistering as I walk easily to the car. Time hangs itself in the unit as the calendar moves on. We all

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eat three meals a day with Lorna Doones for snacks. Some bang their heads against the wall, throw a fist into the pillar, jump from chair to chair, burst out laughing. My mind is never emptied entirely of bothersome things, but it is so much better. Many days the voices are just static, and I can clearly say “good morning” to my coworkers and “thank you” to the man who bags my groceries.

I have not been to the hospital for ten years. I continue to appreciate the fact that I can use as much dental floss as I want and shave under my arms when needed. I have two black cats that I got from the Humane Society for ten dollars. They have never been without me. Grams is named after my grandmother and Annie, after my mom. My home is as much theirs as it is mine. Together, we move forward. The calendar clicks off days and nights offer solace. I am happy. The world invites me to take a seat at the table of quiet abundance where I am served coffee with two sugars and cream.

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Flutedancer

Levi Johnson

Medium: Computer Graphics and Digital Photography Size: 5” X 7” or 11.5” X 8”

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“La Navidad” Alex Ruiz-Vasquez – Third Place As long as I can remember, La Navidad, Christmas, has been my favorite holiday.

Looking back, the focus of the holiday was one of celebration. According to Mexican tradition-- which initially was the indigenous tradition of celebrating Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun, later changed by the Spaniard missionaries to fit their doctrine--it is the celebration of the birth of a being who represents love and sharing with others.

Most of the month is dedicated to celebration and exhilarating anticipation. First, some begin their celebrations on December 5th. They go from home to home for 9 days honoring the Lady of Guadalupe, the patron of miracles, empowerment and protection of the people, ending December 12th with a huge birthday party dedicated to Her by Her devotees with hearts filled with gratitude. Then, Las Posadas begin on the 16th for 9 days representing nine months of gestation. These fiestas commemorate the journey, as the story goes, of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem looking for a safe place, a posada –- an inn -- where Mary could give birth. I remember the excitement of a posada as a child. We all gathered on the street at dusk. With small, lit candles, we formed a line in pairs. At the front, 2 people carried a nativity scene. The procession began as we sang about the journey of the weary Joseph and Mary and their search for a posada. We knocked on a door and asked to come in explaining our plight.

Those inside would tell us there was no room and send us away. We repeated the same process two or three times more. We finally arrived at the home of our hosts where they received us with a welcoming song. We responded with songs of joy and gratitude and the celebration began!

For children, the shiny piñata was filled with sugar canes, Persian sweet limes, oranges, peanuts, jicamas, and colaciones (delicious hard candy – round or oval, pink, green, blue or white, filled with candied orange or Persian sweet lime peels, or various nuts). As blindfolded guests tried to hit the piñata, the others sang “dale, dale, dale, no pierdas el tino...” We ate sweet tamales with raisins, drank delicious fruit atole, hot Creative Non-Fiction

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tepache made of fermented pineapple peels and spices, or hot punch made of sugar cane, prunes, apples, tejocotes (hawthorn fruit) and spices. The flavors and aromas stirred my senses. We ran, sang, and laughed as we played games. The adults danced.

The Posadas culminated on the 24th, Noche Buena – Holy Night –- or Christmas Eve, when el Niño Jesús was placed in His manger at midnight in our nativity scene as we sang a lullaby. Some people preferred to attend a midnight mass where, at the tone of a ceremonial lullaby, they placed the Baby in a manger. My abuelita Rosita, made sure to pass this tradition on to us. My father would spend hours creating a beautiful nativity scene, by tradition complementing the Christmas tree, complete with a lake, waterfalls, ducks, bridges, mountains, shepherds, sheep, cows, the 3 Magi, Angels, the Holy Family, the manger, a wooden hut, and the star of Bethlehem.

I remember holding on to the skirt of my female relatives, sometimes my mom and her mother, other times my aunts, as we walked to an old neighborhood shopping for green and Spanish moss and new figurines for our nativity scene. On the sidewalk, the merchants sat with their merchandise in front of them. They were indigenous women wearing shiny satin blouses and skirts of vibrant colors, and some would have a reboso around them holding their baby in place on their back. They spoke with each other in their primary indigenous tongue, Nahuatl, then turned around speaking Spanish to us. In the dance of the sale, we went from one to another bargaining for the nicest products at the best prices. Shopping during busy times was a stressful adventure as a child for we were constantly reminded about the “robachicos.” These were described as mean men who carried a huge bag, and when they would see a child they liked, they would grab that child, toss him or her in their bag. That child was never seen again, so, we definitely had to hold on fiercely if we wanted to return safely home.

The ceiling in my abuelita Rosita’s home was very high because her building was very old. I imagine it may have been built around the turn of the 19th century. The facade was made of perfectly cut stone. Her living room was a vivid turquoise with burgundy furniture. In the corner, by the nativity scene, my father would put a very tall Christmas tree. It was so tall, that my father had to use a big ladder to reach the top. I wonder, how in the world did he get that tree home? He put great attention to detail and spent hours creating this huge nativity scene and Christmas tree;they were his pride and joy.

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Another great memory of Navidad I have is of going downtown at night. The large department stores decorated their store windows with beautiful mechanical displays. I was captivated by the moving trains, the dolls skating, and the singing, the breaking of piñatas, and Santa Claus. The streets were filled with children in awe and laughter! We would also walk to the Alameda where plenty of Santas and Melchors, Gaspars, and Baltasars – the 3 Wise Men--were walking around ready to take photos with awestruck children. Of course, the universal pink cotton candy, roasting chestnuts, tamales, tacos, hot atole, and balloon vendors were also there. The Christmas lights on the streets were also a treat. They depicted scenarios of children singing or breaking piñatas, poinsettias, Christmas trees, nativity scenes, and some would be blinking, so the scenes would look like they were moving. Right in front of the Presidential building and Cathedral, each decorated with white blinking lights that looked like stars in the sky, there is a large concrete plaza. Here is where people still gather today to commemorate the 16th of September’s celebration of Independence “El Grito” every year. Right in the center, there is a flag poll that during Christmas was surrounded by dozens and dozens and dozens of vibrant red poinsettias. Breathtaking!

Days before the festivities, our father would help us write our wish letter to Niño Jesús. On Christmas Eve, we would carefully and expectantly place our letters inside our shoe by the door. I do remember a specific Navidad at my mother’s. My mom, her mother and sister went to purchase our gifts. When they got home, they had us go to a room until we were told to come out. Since we were now in school, we had already heard rumors that our parents were actually Santa Claus. So, when they were not home, my sister and I, giggling mischievously, went on a mission trying to find our gifts. They knew us well. We did not find them which left us wondering if we were wrong. But the celebrations didn’t end then. We still had January 6th. This is the day the 3 Wise Men are celebrated and bring more gifts. There is a big party to eat Rosca de Reyes, Kings’ bread. Inside it, there is a figurine of Baby Jesús. Whoever gets it, hosts a party on February 2nd.

The holiday traditions I grew up with focusing on celebration, gratitude, and honoring spiritual practices continue to awaken memories of joy, fellowship, and sharing. I may not go out of my way to celebrate Christmas as before, I don’t even Creative Non-Fiction

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decorate anymore, but the spirit of la Navidad is still alive within me. Whether Jesus existed or not really does not matter to me anymore. The deeper meaning of celebrating love without expectation is more important to me, just as in WWI, when the soldiers of two enemy nations stopped the fight, sang Holy Night, and drank together for the night. The warmhearted memories continue in my heart, in my body memory, making these holidays still my favorite.

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“What is Sacred” Alyson DiGiovanni – Honorable Mention I knew what he had taken from me. In the seconds after it happened, my purity was stripped away from me like a peeled orange. He had dug his grimy fingernails into the protective layers of skin and pulled them away with zero remorse, leaving nothing but the scattered pieces of what he had so quickly ripped away at. This is how sexual assault feels. This is how I felt. For months after, my perception of myself was tested.

I was swallowed by my own self-pity and guilt that grew in my gut like a cancerous tumor, soiling me on the inside. To overcome something with such a lasting physical and mental imprint is a rigorous battle that almost led me to a point of no return. This is not about how it happened or why it happened, but what came after, which was war, a war with my eternal self, where I was forced to learned through extreme hardship created by a foul person, who knowingly or unknowingly inflicted the worst kind of pain possible.

I didn’t tell a soul for two weeks. During that time, I forgot it happened. I didn’t allow myself to remember. I told myself it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t until I had to see him again that no matter how hard I tried, I could not prevent the reality of what had happened from invading my mind again. He was no longer just a co-worker; he was the origin of the continual fear for my well-being and safety in my own work place.

What would he do if he had the chance again? I bet it would be worse, something my imagination dared not to conjure up. I finally broke my silence with my trusted friend and coworker who had called and expressed her concern; she knew something was wrong, insisting I hadn’t been acting the same at work. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone, I don’t want to cause any problems at the diner,” I asked her. She promised.

“Leonard did something to me.” I was met with silence from the telephone. “He assaulted me.” The words tasted like venom in my mouth. It was the first time I had said it aloud. I hoped I would feel relief, but it never came. Instead, a violent cringe shook my body, and a pain shot through my spin as if I had been whipped by a belt.

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Nessa began to speak, but the words that came from the phone became a shrill of white noise, and for the first time, my once clean conscious began to dirty itself with my own thoughts of how utterly disgusted I was with myself. It had to be my fault.

Nessa broke her promise. Three days following our phone call, my manager approached me and expressed that Nessa had alerted her of the accusations, and Leonard was suspended until an investigation was completed. Following that conversation, I put in my two weeks notice. There was no way in hell I was staying at the diner any longer. The place was nothing more than a constant reminder. It was the X on the map of the place where the deed had occurred. I believed ridding myself of the diner would set me free, but soon the hours I spent staring at the whirling of my ceiling fan while rotting in my own loathing proved my efforts unjustified. I realized the crater he had dug was a lot deeper and darker than I could have expected. Living life normally became non-existent. Anxiety followed me in public, casting a dark aura so strong I could almost see it. Any touch from another being caused me to outright tremble and panic. The air would get thick as Jello, impossible to breath, and my head would become as heavy as my heart was as tears pooled in my eyes while my body shook.

My only safe place was inside the walls of my house. It was like a protective cage that kept me safe from people but not from my fears. Even after I quit, I was required to give a statement to my former employer and the police about the incident. My dread was agonizing. The last thing I wanted was to talk about what had happened; it was hard enough to live with it, even in silence. The most supportive person in my life is my mother. When I had to tell her what happened, I thought my pain would be amplified through hers. But she did not cry; she didn’t say much either. She simply stated that I was going to be okay. I don’t blame my mother for her feeble response, but I didn’t expect it. I expected her shock, questions, infuriation, tears, and foul words. But none of that was expressed, at least not in front of me. My mother kept a calm, strong front.

She alerted me she was there if I needed to talk and insisted on accompanying me to the meeting. “You are my child, and I will be in that room with you,” she declared.

The diner was quiet that morning. The smell of freshly burnt onion rings was pinching at my nose as I sat with my mother in the corner booth. My former manager came to our table, a smile wide on her freckled face.“Let’s go to the back, ladies.” She led 34

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us in to her unkempt and cramped office. Papers were strewn all over the desks, books and binders were stacked high, and half full take-out boxes littered the corner of the room with a few buzzing flies feasting among them. I almost didn’t notice the tall man in dark clothing with a shiny badge standing in the corner with a pen in his left hand, clipboard in the other. I kept my head down and took my seat. “This won’t take too long I promise! We only have a few questions,” she assured us. I answered with as little detail as possible, informing them with just enough of the information they needed.

My mind wandered elsewhere. Anywhere. Their mouths moved and mine did too, but it was if I was unable to hear, almost as if I was watching a movie with the sound on mute. My mother tried to speak for me, but they wouldn’t allow her. I had to do most of the talking, which wasn’t much. I do not remember what questions they asked me, expect one. This was asked by the man in the dark clothes. He stepped out of the dark corner in the beginning of the interrogation. His greased back hair shone under the fluorescent light he had stepped in to. “How old are you, Alyson?” His eyes were glued to the clipboard as his pen sat stiff on the paper waiting for me to answer. “15. I am 15 years old.”

I never heard from the diner after that. The police investigation was dropped, and I refused to press charges. My self loathing continued, and my anxiety increased. I hadn’t been to public school since I was 11. I was an online student, which soon became an accomplice for my isolation. Not being in school detached me from friends and any social life. I would lie in bed for days, and my hair became clumps of dreads matted against my scalp. My bed was my nest, and I refused to leave its safety. When my cushions and blankets could no longer provide a protection from my ravaging inner thoughts, sleep became the last pure escape I had. I slept twelve to sixteen hours at a time. I would not dream, and I had no nightmares. The only thing I saw in my sleep was the dark abyss, providing the numbing pleasure of no emotion or thought from my poisoned mind. My soft white skin grew patches of yellow, and I felt like my bones were weakening. My mother and father grieved, of course, as they were at a loss to know what to do for their fading daughter.

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him on. I was too friendly with him. I didn’t tell him to stop until it was too late. I felt I deserved the pain I was in. I caused a man to lose his job. I am a fucking whore. Finally, so much had been building up inside me, I screamed my lungs one night. I allowed my pain to come out in explosions of shrieking. My hands beat at the floor until they bruised purple. My mother rushed to me and held me as we both wept. I had caused so much pain to myself because I allowed his assault to create a false version of myself; a version where I was the assaulter. I had assaulted myself. I did this to myself.

That next day, I asked for help. I told my mom I wanted to see a therapist. She cried and helped me out of bed. I took a shower and tried to brush out the knots in my hair.

The first session with the therapist was dull. I told my story and felt as I was receiving an interview. She asked the same questions as everyone else, but told me the first session was supposed to be that way. Leaving her office that afternoon, I felt more hopeless than I had before, but I agreed to go again. I went twice each week. Slowly, my sessions helped me to reach out to the stranger on the couch. I cried and I was angry and the hate spewed out of me like vomit. My parents became determined to help me, and they insisted on me getting out of the house. I had breakdowns, sometimes right in the middle of the produce aisle of the grocery store, but at least I was able to leave the house. Slowly, like an abused dog, I began to trust. I licked my wounds, and they began to heal. I invited my friends over for the first time in months. They didn’t know what happened, so they treated me normally. I loved that feeling. It felt like a piece of me was still the same. Although I did not start to forget what happened, I began to move forward.

I had gotten the news a few months later that the diner had caught fire. As horrendous as the news was, I couldn’t help but feel relieved. I put him in that building, allowing him to burn with everything else. My decision to visit the diner after the fire was one of the most crucial moments of healing I had in my journey. I went to look at what remained. In a ratty sweater and socks with flip flops, I stood in front of what used to be the horror house that was my job. The damage was catastrophic, and the structure looked like a bomb site. The once 50s themed restaurant was unrecognizable.

A fence had been built around it, blocking entrance, but I didn’t need to go inside.

Standing in front of the diner, I spoke no words, but felt like I had said everything I felt.

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Returning to the place alone, now strong on my own two feet, I felt my scars fading, and I got the closure I needed. I no longer blamed myself for what happened.

I am sixteen now, and I am able to speak about my experience of assault very openly.

Although I speak on my sexual assault to people who ask, I no longer allow it to be a part of my person. I am more than my story. A mere chapter does not describe the whole book of my life. Though it was an unfortunate hardship that left me with a lot of grief and guilt at first, I know my torment from this will act as a ladder for me to climb to a higher inner strength of my own being and help my growth into becoming a woman. I carry no sorrow for myself now, no hate or suffering. I do not allow him to leave a mark on my life any longer. In the end, I have come to accept that there is nobody more worthy of a happy life than I am. My story does not have to mean anything to anyone but me. I look out for myself, today, tomorrow and the next, and my once deep wounds have become my battle scars. I wear them proudly.

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“My Father, Who Loved Me” Bree Hoffman – Honorable Mention I could hear my dad’s snoring shake the walls from the back room of his parents’ mobile home. It was just after noon on a Friday, and only a few months before my seventh birthday. My mom had dropped me off early in the morning before work, so I could spend the weekend with my dad, whom I only saw on average a couple times a month. I looked forward to coming over to their house, because I missed my dad always, and being at his house meant I could do whatever I wanted. There were no strict rules about when I had to go to bed or when I was supposed to bathe, and I was allowed to spend my days watching movies and eating whatever I wanted. But on this day it felt different.

My grandparents were gone, away at work all day, and wouldn’t return until late in the afternoon. When my mom dropped me off around seven that morning, dad hugged me, took my things to his room, and then put a movie on the outdated living room television before plopping down beside me on the couch. He sat with me for the first half hour of Mary Poppins before he gradually leaned back against the couch, yawning, rubbing his bloodshot eyes and looking at me.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night, Babycakes. I’m gonna go shut my eyes for a few minutes. I’ll be back by the time the movie’s over. Okay?” “’Kay,” I whispered.

I tried to ignore the deep, blunt-edged ache in my chest as he stood and walked away from me without a further word, but I was becoming familiar with the way his time with me was beginning to have an expiration date. Even on our weekends, when I selfishly thought he would belong only to me, it was as though I would see him in thirty-minute intervals before some inevitable distance rose between us. He shut the door to his room and slept. When Mary Poppins had ended, I realized that I had seen all of the movies available to me several times over, and that I wasn’t interested in 38

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watching them yet again. Also, the archaic television set and VHS player were much harder to work than my own at home, and I knew my granddaddy would be upset if I had toyed with it while he was gone. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to wake my dad.

“He’s tired,” I thought. I shouldn’t bother him. I was supposed to let him sleep. I didn’t question in those days why he didn’t have a job, or why he lived with his working class, 70-year-old parents. I didn’t think twice about the refrigerator often being devoid of food, but always stocked up on beer. I thought it was fun that he stayed up past midnight and that I oftentimes got to tag along in those early hours. But the memory of those things didn’t seem as exciting after spending more than four hours alone in the mid-afternoon silence, in a house that might as well have been empty. I may have liked to think myself mature at that age, but four hours can stretch into an eternity from the perspective of any six-year-old.

By the time my grandmother got home for her lunch-break, I was desperate for any type of human contact. I couldn’t bear to let her leave my sight for those brief minutes she was home, and a sharp anxiety began to swell in my chest at the thought of her having to leave. When I would have to face that ominous silence again. It scared me for reasons I was still too young to comprehend fully. I was silently and desperately grateful to her when she woke my dad up for me, and by the time she left for work once more, I felt silly for ever being nervous in the first place. My dad was there, after all. I had nothing to be afraid of. After he shook some of the sleep from his limbs, he swapped his pajama pants for jeans, put some of his smell back on, and settled his blue tinted sunglasses atop his head before he smiled warmly at me.

“Hey Bee, you wanna run down to the gas station with me? I’ll buy you an Icee.”

Even as an adult, there are still no words to satisfy the love I had for him then, and the willingness I had to follow him anywhere. “My cool dad,” I would think. I could barely see over the dashboard, but it hardly mattered. The world that passed around me outside was insignificant. I may have lived full time with my mom and had become closer to her both proximally and emotionally, but at that age it was my dad who possessed my whole heart. I idolized him even in the briefness of our time together.

I didn’t question him, and I never asked why. I especially never asked why it was that I saw him so infrequently in the first place. He bought me a blue raspberry Icee that Creative Non-Fiction

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stained my tongue and lips like ink, and a small bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. When I asked him about the tall canned drink he had bought, and why he could only drink it when it was wrapped in a brown paper bag, he cracked the top of it, taking a sip before we left the parking lot.

“It’s a drink you’re supposed to keep hidden from other drivers. Police don’t like it when you drink it in a car.”

“Oh. Okay.”

That was all the explanation I needed. After that he drove us to the park, and we sat at a wooden table wedged beneath the shade of a low hanging oak tree. I don’t remember what we talked about, only that I never wanted to leave that wooden bench, and that I finished my Cheetos and my Icee, and he finished the tall can in the brown paper bag.

Later in the evening, by the time my grandparents had arrived home, my dad had already gone through another two cans of beer from the fridge. I hadn’t seen him eat since breakfast, but I had seen him smoke almost half the pack of cigarettes he’d bought earlier from the gas station. I realized that I hadn’t eaten lunch either. In fact, I hadn’t eaten anything all day besides my Icee and Cheetos (which had since upset my stomach). But I was more interested in how his eyes couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing for very long, and how his words were slow and sticky like mud. There were times when I looked at him where he sat— unfocused, dozing off-and-on, strewn across the couch, and in those moments, I recognized his face and nothing else. He was familiar only in shape, with the details of him lost in the static of the TV screen. He could have been anyone if he weren’t so irreplaceable to me. My grandmother cooked dinner in the kitchen, and my granddaddy read the newspaper in his recliner, as though everything were normal. Like they didn’t see or feel whatever it was that I could. As the sky got darker, that same nervousness from earlier returned to the hollow of my stomach. There was a subtle discomfort in my core that didn’t have a face or a name, but it told me that I should be alert, that I shouldn’t relax.

“Dad, could we go to the swing set at the end of the street? Please?”

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didn’t dare argue with. But that didn’t prevent a deep dread from curling within me at the realization of having to stay in that house which I had felt trapped in all day long. Some part of me believed that my dad could feel it too, that if he would just go somewhere with me, somewhere in the warm night air, that the glassiness would fade from his eyes, and then we would both feel okay. I didn’t know how to strive for anything beyond okay that night. Dinner came and went, and my grandparents were already in bed by the time 8 o’clock rolled around. My dad tried to teach me how to play chess, but the rules were too difficult to follow, and I was distracted by the overpowering stench on his breath. The slipperiness of his words made the game seem disjointed and fragmented, hard to grasp, even though I tried my hardest to find the value in his lesson.

“Hey,” he whispered abruptly when he realized his directions were only confusing me further. His voice suddenly got low as if he were telling me a secret.

“D’you still wanna go to the swing set?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed in my best excited whisper, nodding my head furiously.

“Okay, okay. We’re gonna go at 10, but we’ve gotta sneak out and be real quiet about it, so we don’t wake grandmother and grandaddy. Got it?”

I agreed eagerly, feeling like we were co-conspirators weaving through the pages of a story of our own. I offhandedly noticed that he was no longer drinking from an aluminum can like the ones from the fridge, but had since switched to a different kind of beverage that he poured into a glass. It came from a large glass bottle, one that was kept out of reach, and sat on the highest shelf above the washing machine, beside laundry detergent and granddaddy’s toolbox. We crept quietly out the back door and soon after through the patio gate, despite my dad having trouble with the lock, unable to find the keyhole in the darkness. Soon, when we were far enough away from the house, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was alive with adrenaline, and felt safe in the stumbling shadow of my dad beneath the flickering street lamps as we made our way to the end of the street, towards a small sandlot with four swings and a jungle-gym to play in.

As we approached, however, I saw that we weren’t the only ones there. A group of about five young adults and teenagers stood over by the entrance to the slide, laughing Creative Non-Fiction

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loudly and a little belligerently, teasing a small Jack Russell terrier that must have belonged to one of them. I immediately withdrew a little, standing half behind my dad, both shy and anxious as we walked the rest of the way to the swings. Once there, I turned my back to the strangers, making it easier to forgot about their presence while I hurried to pick the seat I liked most. My dad leaned his weight against the rails alongside the swing set as I hopped in one of the seats, kicking my legs furiously beneath me to gain momentum. As I went, my attention was only directed in front of me. Swinging higher and higher, I could barely see my dad as anything more than a smudge in my peripheral vision. I was busy propelling myself to the stars, a force in motion, and he came only slightly into focus as a blur of dark color as I shot past him.

I didn’t even notice at first when he had disappeared, when I no longer could see him.

His absence took a few moments to sink in. Then a sound from behind me caught my attention, from the other side of the playground. Raised voices, no longer careless and laughing, but loud and harsh now had me glancing around wildly, through the haze of my hair whipping into my eyes. From high above the world, I caught a glimpse of my dad standing chest to chest with the young man who, moments ago, had been laughing louder than anyone in the group. There was no laughing now. Instead, there was an exchange of loud voices, curses from both, and a cacophony of many words I was still too young to understand. I could only piece together bits and pieces from what I heard as the wind rushed past me. I tried to stop, digging my heels in the sand as quickly as possible to come to a halt.

“You don’t treat a fucking dog like that,” Dad yelled.

“Fuck you, old man. Get out of my face!”

“You don’t treat a fucking dog like that!”

Curses crackled and sputtered, and my dad’s face was hidden from me. Someone shoved someone else, but I couldn’t to see who it was. There was only a swarm of faces and words jumbled together, and I couldn’t seem to get the swing to stop moving soon enough. I jumped midair, calling out to him even before my feet could land in the sand.

“Dad? Dad, can we go? Please, Dad?” My voice was a small thing, pathetic and frail. I couldn’t hear the words even as 42

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they left me. I was too alert to cry. Stunned into stillness, watching my dad get into a fight with a group of teenagers in a back corner of a trailer park. If my dad were to get injured, I would have to try and remember how to get back home in the darkness, alone. To run as fast as my flip-flopped feet would carry me, even though I didn’t know the way.

“I would have to do this,” I thought.

I understood then, the dread which had followed me all day, and the tendrils of fear that came from staying in that house after dark. I loved my dad, but I was afraid for him too. Even if I didn’t know what that meant. There was something wrong with him.

Something I couldn’t touch or cure, even with the crushing density of my love for him.

No matter how much he may have loved me, or how much he wanted to, he couldn’t take care of me. He couldn’t take care of himself either, I realized. For all the times he could be fun, my memory of him was diminished by this realization. I didn’t feel safe around him. I stood in the darkness, bracing, waiting and expecting to see my dad get beaten or overwhelmed by a group that very easily could have taken him down. I called out to him. I don’t remember how long it took. It was probably only moments before the girls of the group pulled their boys away, words still spitting between them even as the distance continually widened, and they eventually went their own way, disappearing into the darkness beyond the sandlot.

I find it strange that my memory ends there. It is perhaps possible that I wanted to spare myself that specific memory of walking home in the vacuous silence of darkness, with nothing but the distant roar of the freeway to fill this new space between us. I don’t know what else followed during that walk home. I don’t think we spoke much, and I don’t remember what he might have said. I do remember calling my mom that night, just before midnight. I cried to her on the phone and asked her if she could come and pick me up. I was too afraid of the dark, I explained to her. I was afraid, and I didn’t want to be there, in that dark house, with people who couldn’t feel it the way I did. I had never been too afraid to sleep at that house, but after that, for the next few months, I couldn’t trust myself to sleep under that roof. Each time I returned to his house, just as the sun went down that dread would settle in me once more, the precursor to a fit

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of hysterics that each time ended with me hyperventilating and panicking under the fluorescent lights of the bathroom, and my mom coming to take me back home.

I was six-years-old then. Shortly after I turned seven, I saw him once on the day of his birthday, and then I didn’t see or hear from my father for ten years after that. He didn’t call, most likely because he couldn’t remember to, or because his parents stopped doing it for him. Or maybe because, in brief moments of clarity, he knew what I had seen. What I now knew about him. What he didn’t understand was how to apologize to someone so young. How to say sorry with words that were soft and sober. Deliberate words, spoken for the love of his daughter. To my father, who loved me, I’m not angry.

I forgive the things he couldn’t fix. I have not forgotten what that love felt like, in the days before the world caught up to us.

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To Love, Honor, and Obey

Bonnie Lewis

Medium: Mixed Media Size: 16” X 16”

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“Black and Blue” Julia – Honorable Mention

The first time I realized my dad had a problem with hitting my mom I was five years old. Even at that age, I knew that my dad’s anger wasn’t normal; he would be happy and joking one minute, and then moments later, his hand would strike my face so painfully it felt like my cheek was ringing afterwards. My dad was abusive, but he wasn’t a violent asshole all the time. He was the dad who would buy us ice cream after school just because he got off from work early. Now, let’s go back to five-year-old me. I remember doing my homework at the dinner table one time when I heard yelling coming from my parents’ room. That was not unusual, but this time they came out of their room and continued fighting in the hallway. The fight didn’t continue much longer because my dad slapped my mom in the face. I can still picture her face to this day, her beautiful white glowing skin and the disappoint in her tear stained eyes. I can still see the tears on her face, and the handprint on her cheek and hear her painful whimpers. I could tell, even at five years old, that this was never the life my mother wished for. This was the day my view of my father changed forever. This was the day I realized I never wanted to let a man, no matter how much I loved him, feel like he had the right to hit me because I had pissed him off; I never wanted to feel like my mother felt that day.

I wish I could say that the incident in the hallway was the only time but that would be a lie. The truth is my parents’ marriage was an emotional rollercoaster the whole family rode on because our parents were too selfish to hide their problems from us. There were times when my mom and dad were the perfect couple with perfect daughters, but there were those other times I didn’t even recognize my father underneath the hate that was oozing out of him. My father made it obvious that things in my family would go according to his mood. And then came the extra special times where he would drink and drive us home because he was such a dick and didn’t want to let my mom drive.

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We lived this way for the first 18 years of my life, and then it seemed like it all stopped. We weren’t walking on the eggshells that was my father’s mood anymore; he was finally being the dad he should’ve been all those years. He stopped hitting us when I was 15, but he didn’t stop hitting my mom until I was 18. He decided to start going to the gym, dedicate himself to God, and go to therapy. However, by the time he decided to make a change, I had built up so much anger and resentment towards my parents that it felt like poison making its way through my heart.

In 2014 my mom was pregnant with my fourth and last sister, Jordana. Her pregnancy was unexpected and very difficult on her because she was 35 and got gestational diabetes; and on top of all that, my dad was still beating her whenever he felt like it. One night they had a disagreement and, as always, it escalated to my dad laying his hands on my mom. But this night it was different because it just wouldn’t stop. The damage my dad was creating was like a tornado wreaking havoc in our house. My throat burned as I yelled “Dad please stop! She’s pregnant, you can hurt her and the baby!” He didn’t even bother to look at me. I yelled even louder, and my voice cracked as I said, “I’m going to call the police, and they’re going to take you to jail!!!” but it just wouldn’t stop. Even my uncle (Dad’s brother), who was living with us at the time, intervened, but he ended up pinned up against the wall with my dad’s hands wrapped tightly around his neck as he gasped for air. My dad didn’t stop until he wanted to stop, he controlled everything and everyone.

After the recession in 2008 we struggled financially. Our home went into foreclosure and our new clothes from the mall turned into outfits from Goodwill and hand me downs from cousins whose parents weren’t completely broke. This financial hardship lasted until 2015, which was the year he started his construction company. Then our family was well off, and I mean REALLY well off. Everything we had we owned. My father paid for me to go to Hawaii with my dance team, and we would take trips all the time. We painted the picture of the perfect loving family, but behind closed doors it was still the same story. My mother and I have never had a good relationship; I was rebellious and stubborn, and it caused the biggest rift between us. We fought almost every day, about big things and about things so small and stupid, it wasn’t even worth it. One day we were getting ready to go out when she started fighting with me about Creative Non-Fiction

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how long I was taking to get ready. We kept screaming at each other until she pushed me onto the ground, scratched up my arms, and ripped my favorite shirt. I immediately went to my dad and told him what had happened. Big mistake. He was absolutely furious, and I knew I had set off a bomb as soon as he stormed out of his room. He pulled my mother by her hair into our living room, threw her on the ground, and began to kick her. I regret that decision every single day. He broke her coccyx, and it never healed right, and now, every time she sits down, she’s in pain. I know it’s my fault.

Although I know it’s not entirely my fault, I know it might as well be because if I hadn’t been such a brat, he would’ve never hit her that time.

Soon after that I began to blame myself for my dad’s behavior, and the fact that all my efforts to protect my mom from his wrath of hell failed. I couldn’t protect her. I was useless. It began to weigh on me and I could tell. I felt like as soon as I got home it was my job to protect my sisters as much as possible; if I couldn’t protect my mom, I would try like hell to protect my sisters. Things were like that until the beginning of 2018. My parents had finally stopped fighting, there was no more hitting, no more tears. We weren’t happy, but we weren’t living on the edge anymore. I don’t know what happened or what caused the life-changing shift. My baby sister wasn’t hiding under the table when my parents fought anymore; I didn’t have to lock all of us in our rooms or break-up fights between my parents. It had all finally stopped. At first, I honestly didn’t think it would last because they had pulled this shit before, and I always felt so damn stupid because I even believed them in the first place. I was disappointed so often that I finally stopped feeling disappointed. I stopped getting my hopes up. And then 2018 came around, and it shifted my world. Honestly, everything that happened all those years made my sisters and me closer. But I am not just a big sister. I think the maternal side of me opened early out of my concern for my sisters’ safety. But this wasn’t for the best because now I hurt when my sisters disrespect me even though I looked after them since I was 8.

It’s been a little over a year since this shift in our family, and I still haven’t been able to recover my balance; I’m still falling along the path of life because I just can’t recover from the endless things my parents have done to us, and to me particularly. My house is finally peaceful, but the ground is still shaking underneath me.

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2018 not all was peaceful though. In May, I discovered that my mom had been having an affair with someone she knew as a teenager. I was so infuriated. I know my mother has been through so much because of everything my father has done to her.

She has always painted herself as a saint while trying to turn us against our father. Then one day, after arguing with my mother, I told my father about her affair. I immediately regretted it because I was acting out of anger with my mother once again. What followed next was not at all how I expected everything to play out. My father did not hit my mother, not once. In the old days, he would strike her for as little as talking out of tern, as he liked to describe it. But now, he finally handled this difficult situation like an adult.

I was stressed out of my mind, and my hair began falling out. I was breaking out and stress eating. My sisters and I were almost certain that my parents’ marriage was over. I could feel myself slowly falling apart out of guilt once more. I blamed myself for being the reason why my sisters would grow up in a broken home without realizing it was always a broken home. After so many years of keeping it together, I just couldn’t anymore. I felt like I had completely failed my sisters and didn’t protect them from pain. If I would have just shut my mouth, all this wouldn’t be happening, and my sisters would at least grow up in a home with both parents. I deeply regretted my part in this new disruption.

Sometimes everything in my childhood seems so far away, like it didn’t even really happen. At other times it feels like my whole body is black and blue; with 15 years full of bruises, it hurts to breathe. I wish it could all just go away. Despite everything, I still think my dad was an amazing father, loving to all five girls and spoiling us sometimes beyond belief. But that isn’t the whole and complete picture. Shortly after my dad started going to therapy, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and suddenly, everything made sense. All those years of highs and lows, his outbursts and the times he spoiled us, his relationship with my mother: it all made sense. We finally had an explanation, but in some ways, it’s too late: I’m still hurting. I can’t heal because I have so much anger and confusion. I walk around my house conflicted. I hug my parents and I feel an excruciating pain in my chest. It feels like my parents are covered with thorns, and their embrace lodges them deeper and deeper into my skin. I can’t even cry because Creative Non-Fiction

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I feel like they don’t deserve my tears; I feel like they don’t deserve those emotions from me. I am so angry at my father for changing when it was too late for me; I’m angry at my mother for letting a man walk all over her when she deserved more. I am angry at myself because I just sat and watched my dad break our spirits and didn’t know how to do anything about it. But from all those disappointing years I know one thing; I will never let a man lay a hand on me, no matter how much I love him; no matter how angry I made him. I will never let a man make me feel the way my mother felt that day.

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Vortex 2019 Short Story I find it intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story. ~ Annie Proulx “Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams.

They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.” ~ Neil Gaiman In writing you work toward a result you won’t see for years, and can’t be sure you’ll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it. ~ Tobias Wolf Short Story

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“The Painting” Steph Rubin – First Place

The cold penetrated my clothing, freezing my joints to an aching stiffness. It was a small funeral, for family only. Later friends, acquaintances, and those needing to make a presence would gather at the widow’s home. The winds lashed the beaded curtain of an escalating snowstorm that only an hour before was no more than a few random flakes.

Shriveling petals blew from the haggard roses that had been laid on his coffin, then drifted into the dark rectangular pit dug into the frozen earth. Chester, my brother’s youngest at six, stood transfixed on the falling snow, a tissue balled tightly in a mitten and a crusty track of snot on his sleeve. He watched as the flakes floated onto the large waxed box then raised his head to catch some on his tongue. For his older sister and brother, Sheila, ten and Roy, fifteen, their father’s death was now real, the heaviness not yet crushing the breath from their chests. Maria, her arm wrapped tightly around Chester’s shoulders, hugged him close, her focus veering from her husband’s coffin to their children then back again, her eyes swollen with loneliness.

It had been a week since I was wrenched from the deepest sleep in weeks by the phone call.

“Ello,” I answered.

“Jeff...Jeff, it’s me, Maria,” my brother’s wife said in a soft shakey voice.

“Maria, what –“ “It’s late…I’m sorry…but it’s Mike --” she stopped.

Swallowing my breath, I choked out “What about --” But she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “It’s Mike...ran off the highway…he’s bad...I’m at the hospital...” her voice again faded.

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“Maria, what have they told you? How bad is he hurt?”

“I don’t know, they took him away somewhere before I got here. A nurse just had me sign some papers. Told me someone would talk to me soon.”

“Did she say anything, anything about him?”

“His head…broken bones…his neck, something inside…said someone will talk to me after they know more,” she sounded frantic and confused.

“Maria, Maria listen to me, I’ll come, OK? I’m going to hang up now and catch the next flight to Chicago. Okay? I’ll call you back. Maria, do you hear me? I’ll be there as soon as I can…okay?”

“Yes…yes…thank you, oh God.” The soonest flight had a layover in Houston, and the next was direct from Phoenix to Chicago but didn’t leave for another five hours. I wasn’t waiting.

The flight from Houston to Chicago was delayed, like all flights going north, due to a severe winter storm. Delayed and rescheduled. I endlessly shifted my sore ass and hips in that damned plastic airport chair jammed among screaming babies, screeching kids bouncing, chasing, climbing over seats, impatiently raised interrupting voices, and weary frustrated short-fused travelers. I gave up reading the same damn paragraph over and over and shoved my book into my pack and called Maria. No answer. I left a message then called a few more times until we finally boarded. There was still no answer.

I stared into the darkness watching splinters of light from waking houses pass and fade away, giving me a sense of motion. Down there a new day was beginning.

“Would you like something to drink?” I was asked.

Looking up into a porcelain smiling face pushing a metal cart through the isle, “Absolutely, scotch, neat,” I responded.

Mike died in surgery somewhere between Houston and Chicago.

The minister, a tall sinewy man with the emaciated appearance of someone who runs on purpose, lectured on life and death as if he had experienced both. He constantly panned the audience, measuring his performance.

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I looked into the somber pit where soon my brother would be lowered. In death, all he had been was left for the living to sort out.

The minister’s droning finally ended, and everyone moved to their cars, exchanging a passing nod or languid half wave. We trudged between the drifts to the long black Mercedes, motor running and heater blowing. The driver held the door while the kids scooted quickly across the back seat. Maria moved to the middle, then me. Snow muffled most sounds but for the blowing vents and the tires crunching through the slushy cratered road, and the slow sleepy metronomal sweeping of wipers scratching across the windshield. The ride was long.

Maria faced forward as if watching the road then spoke softly; “Mike and I talked about this sometimes, never expecting it to really happen. Sometimes joking sometimes more serious, about how we wanted things to happen, you know, when we…passed.”

She paused a moment, remembering, than continued. “Nothing formal, he just wanted,” a whisper now for just my ears, “to donate his organs and have friends come to our house; eat good food, drink his expensive whiskey, just like any of our usual cocktail parties except this would be a cocktail party wake.”

“He’d want to be there, watching everyone celebrating him,” I added.

“Probably,” she responded with a partial smile. “He hoped you guys would have worked things out.”

“Maybe that’s what you wanted, but I can’t imagine him saying that.”

“Frankly Jeff, I don’t really care one way or the other. All that is between you two, or was. He wanted you to say something.”

“Me? A eulogy?”

“No, that’s not what he wanted, Jeff. He wanted you to have an opportunity to say your piece, out loud so others would hear.”

I considered our lifelong contentious relationship; lunge, parry, disengage and strike again. But than again we gave one another something, an energy. Would I miss him?

Hell, I don’t know…maybe.

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The drive from the gates to the house was thick with snow, furrowed with tire tracks, and cleared off at the entry to the house. The limousine had hardly stopped when the kids’ flung the door open and burst out and into the house to the solitude of their bedrooms. I left Maria to tend to her guests, already beginning to arrive, and headed up the stairs to the guest bedroom, desperately needing to peel off the weighty layers of clothing. At home, in the desert, I would be on the porch, drinking something iced, wearing my most comfortable paint stained tee shirt, shorts, and sandals.

This guest room was in a far back corner, over the kitchen, with two walls of windows overlooking the back acreage. The house was built in the early 1900s, a time when industry and banking magnates erected small castles to mimic those of European aristocracy, and my brother’s was no exception.

The savory aroma of food rose up the stairs along with the sounds of preparation. I hadn’t eaten all day, so after changing I went down to face the theater of my brother’s world and find some food. If not for Maria and the kids, I would have gone home. She and the kids were the best of my brother and beyond all he was to everyone else, to them he was a father and husband, loved for who he was for them.

The sounds of the kitchen became more distinct as I walked down. The chef was a devout friend of Mike’s. He firmly directed his staff while stiff coated servers brushed past one another sounding like gloved fingers snapping as they prepared trays and queued their entry into the room filled with guests where they moved between conversations like silent white moths alighting momentarily then drifting off.

I entered the dining room through the door in the rear of the kitchen to avoid interfering with this rhythmic flow. The dining room thrummed with the thick resonance of opulence: whispering voices strumming their own strings in self righteous monotones, eyes moving in and out of conversations, scanning faces, ice clinking in swirling glasses of amber whiskey, smiling stock expressions, gleaming shoes, jewelry swinging and rattling, protruding breasts squeezed tightly into designer clothes. Death creates a sudden social vacuum in this society. Successors, like scavenger birds, peck at the carrion bones to be first to the tender political morsels, claiming valuable gains to be protected at any cost. What struck me was not that Mike was attracted to this world of masquerade, but that it was his world.

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My hard soled shoes clacked against the oak parquet floor but were muffled by the resonating drone of all the pompous chameleons weaving mythologies of their successes and excesses then conveniently shifting to a simulated grief and pain as they raked through the debris of someone else’s failures.

I was famished and on a mission to remedy that issue. My attention turned to a tray of appetizers close to my brother’s business partner, Doctor Edward Bernard Chambers III. He and my brother were abundantly successful cosmetic surgeons.

Eddy carried himself with a fullness of ego. Posing at his side was his current youthful wife, a showpiece of his work, shifting suggestively from hip to hip, her tight fleshy gown salaciously snug. She, as those before her and yet to come, had once been his patient. Eddy traded wives as often as he traded expensive automobiles, both highly maintenanced with the appearance of low mileage.

“Hi, Jeff, sorry for your loss, how’ve you been?”

“Thanks Eddy, I’m fine, no complaints.”

A brief artificial greeting came from the wife, the voice of a valley girl Minnie Mouse with an amphetamine racing impatience, but she was artfully distracted as if bored with whatever was said, unless, of course, it was about her, or maybe she just had issues comprehending complete sentences.

We had no interest in speaking to one another. Eddy soon scoured the room and spotted a young couple on the other side. Mumbling some incoherent excuse, he broke away armed with his abundant enthusiastic smile and dragging along Mrs. Personality.

Across the room, Senator Augustus Stockton Baumgartner stood regally next to Mrs. Baumgartner, seated formally statuesque, her gullied face cosmetically puttied, aged by the years as a politician’s wife, her eyes continuously scouting the room for any important hands her husband had to touch before their exit.

I moved through the crowd to the hallway that led to my brother’s study. Maria was keeping it locked, but shortly after my arrival, she handed me the key encouraging me to take some time there. Whenever I came to town, it was in his study where Mike and I spent time in resolute discussions and reshaped memories, all in self-conscious siblingship posturing. Maybe here, now, I could find some kind of catharsis. My feelings 56

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about my brother had always been conflicted. He was my brother after all, and for that I indulged in a cautious loyalty, but also, I disdained him. He objectified those closest to him, often mom or dad when they were alive, or me, vengefully chastising us for entertainment. Most often I created excuses to avoid his company.

We had long ago exhausted any attempt to remedy our lifetime of sibling annulment.

We were two spiders living their lives on opposite sides of the same web. It was all Mike, this room. The wainscoting was stained in a rich glossy cherry finish. The wall opposite the fireplace was congested with framed diplomas, certificates of merit, testimonials, and pictures of him shoulder to shoulder with the powerful and envied— ‘presidents and other noteworthy politicians, an assortment of prominent actors, and philanthropic tycoons, and of course a healthy smattering of news releases and articles praising his various community contributions. But nowhere in the room was a picture of our parents or of him and me.

Sometimes, when we were alone, our masks would slip, just a bit, aided with bottomless glasses of his favorite malt scotch, Macallan, at ten thousand-dollars a bottle. We apportioned some of ourselves to one another, circumspectly. Often the conversation began with us talking about some fun experience we had shared as kids, than inevitably coursed to our parents’ constant struggle, getting bills paid, food on the table, our dad’s always faltering business; we were poor, stayed poor--what we had was what was needed, no more. Mike resented that life and our parents for not doing better. Remembering always igniting him into a barrage of disparaging judgments, the unceasing failures of our dad, of them, of us. Mike’s shame and anger collapsed the magic of our time together, our peace suffocated in betrayal, and he would once again return to leveraging his ego at my expense.

Now here alone with a glass of his Macallan, I sat in one of his matching fine leather covered barrel chairs facing the oversized electric fireplace. I stared at the painting hung above the crackling fireplace. About a year ago we sat in these chairs; he held a glass of scotch, telling me the tale of this painting, about the dealer of an art gallery who had explained that it was the work of an up and coming artist who in time would be famous, and the painting was very valuable, a wise investment.

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“So I had it delivered and hung there. Maybe it will pay for my retirement,” he said.

I listened intently to this narrative. Mike had never been impulsive, but now he was telling me he bought it on a whim. Acknowledging his intuitive eye for great art, I told him, “Can’t agree more, Mike. This artist is a genius. You’ve got a hell of an eye for this stuff. I happen to know the guy.”

“Really,” he said attempting to stifle enthusiasm.

“Hell, yeah. In fact, big brother, it’s my work, something I did a couple years ago.”

“Are you kidding? Really, it’s yours? This is terrific,” he said somewhat prideful.

Actually I’ve never considered it to be much. Just before an exhibition of my work at a Chicago gallery the dealer called me. “Jeff, I have some space for another piece if you have something.”

“Sure,” I lied. “I’ll get something to you in a day or two.”

I had nothing. So I dug out an old paint smeared canvas and painted an abstract on top of what was there, stark colors in sharp geometric patterns. It was the most popular piece at the exhibition, and its sale covered my expenses for several months. So immediately, I painted a few more.

Our last time, maybe six months ago, thick clouds of choking cigar smoke whirling between us, we were again together in his den.

“This is incredible scotch, Mike.”

“Yes it is, isn’t it?” he replied swirling the glass of amber liquid.

“I’m not much of a drinker, but I’ve tasted some decent stuff that doesn’t cost this much.”

“Not as good as this. I can afford it. It’s what we drink, you and I, when we’re together. This bottle doesn’t get touched except for when you’re here.”

After a moment considering, I asked, “Money doesn’t seem to mean much to you anymore, not since you’ve gained so much.”

“Wrong, money means everything to me. Like influence, you can never have enough,” he said, looking as if he had conquered a long time enemy.

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“What about Maria and the kids?

“Jeff, there’s wealth and connections, a hand in glove thing and there’s family, different stuff.”

“What about—,“ I tried to interject.

“Hold on, let me finish,” he said vigorously interrupting, “I do stuff, say stuff…piss people off, piss you off, but that’s who I am, a forceful, assertive, confident SOB. And that’s why I’m successful, you see.”

“Maybe,” I said smiling. “You certainly have moments.”

Silently gazing at his cigar, twirling it between his fingers, he smiled and pulled it to his lips. “Jeffy, you see colors and I see black and white. First time I look at someone I know right away their value, who and what they are, what buttons to push and when.”

“Well, I—“ again he interrupted.

“Hold on. You see detail no one else sees, the minute detail within detail. You don’t look at a king any differently than your would look at some homeless guy in an alley.

They’re all the same to you. You’ve always been incredible like that.”

I noticed a smile take, something he was sending with no expectations of anything in return. “I can’t figure you out, Mike. Who the hell are you…really? I asked.

“You’ll never figure me out bro, nobody can. Well, maybe Maria a little. But that’s why you love me. You’d be bored as hell if you had me figured, wouldn’t you?”

“You usually insult me and always piss me off, but never bore me.” A few drinks later our conversation came to a close. As it turned out, Mike and I would never have this opportunity again.

Before I left Mike’s study, for this last time, I noticed that the picture was hanging at a slant. As I wrapped my hands on either side to straighten it, a small index card fell to the floor, loosened from the back of the picture.

“Unnamed” -- Painted by Jeffery Thomas Robertson.

It struck me that he hadn’t declared ownership of either the painting or me, but he had pride that this was done by his brother.

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I returned on a red eye and could not sleep when I got home. In my studio, sipping hot black coffee in my paint splattered tee, shorts and favorite worn sandals, I had started a painting and was not aware of time until the dusk glared through the window.

I studied the canvas that held an old man draped in a long gray robe, his sallow face peeking from the hood staring down at a weedy overgrown grave, behind him dark clouds of a parting storm boiled against the washed out green sky and in his hand, a white feathery seeded dandelion.

I’ll miss Mike. Apparently I’ve always missed him. But it’s too late now to tell him that, and it will haunt me.

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Grace

Joanne Gallery

Medium: Acrylic and Inks Size: 24” X 36”

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“Crossing the Lethe” Kristina Morgan – Second Place The Bus Motion gives me a sense of freedom. Freedom isn’t something I take for granted. I grapple with psychosis. I grapple with schizophrenia. I am a plastic pan not meant for the oven. That’s the way I feel when I struggle with the voices I hear being pulled from the air with my mind. That’s what it feels like when I can’t participate in the oven of reality. The heat of life is too much.

I ride the bus every day I can. Some of the same people ride with me. I suppose I could say it’s a social event. And I can’t jump out of the bus while it’s moving, unlike a car: open the door. Jump. Roll. You won’t get hurt. Another car may hit you, but you are Super Woman, The Voices get my attention. I fight not to give in to them. When I drove, they also told me to hit pedestrians. They favor people walking dogs or old ladies.

The bus commands the road, attached to the black asphalt of Washington. The sun shines through the windows. Light punctuates each passenger. I am a comma, I think.

People pause at my six foot frame in black clothes. They aren’t used to seeing such a tall woman. I wear tough boots. Motorcyles boots, black with a silver circle on the band around the ankle. I sit still, watch wind lift scraps of trash thrown on the road and littering the sidewalk, paper the size of small dogs.

The bus stops. I watch the feet of people coming down the aisle. A woman with scuffed shoes the color of custard. A man with large, white feet in flip-flops. Small cowboy boots on a child and a larger brown pair, probably the parent’s.

The door swings shut.

Every time we hit a bump, the motion of the bus pushes my body up. I recall my father hoisting me from the backseat of our car when I was 5 years old. I pretended sleep, silently asking that he do this, lift my body into the air, his strong arms wrapping 62

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around me. He carried me into the house, gently placing me on the couch. I knew I was safe. For this feeling alone, I would ride the bus for hours.

Unit 6: Repeat Visit I appear again at the Behavioral Health Center, Unit 6, after a psychotic break during which I ran naked from the Circle K bathroom out to the street. I thought bed bugs were in my clothes. The first couple of days, I feel nothing. I stand in the hallway still as a hinge. Days four and five, I start coming to. The medicine the doctor prescribes is kicking in. I’m beginning to feel safe in my own skin. The hospital is a cocoon of warmth and clean sheets. Days six and on, I’m agitated. I want out. The doors will not accommodate me. Their locks feel permanent. Only the doctor can release me. My stay is usually ten days.

On the unit, Jeremy, a patient of one week who attempted to converse with me with no luck, leaps. The square window of the nurse’s station allows for his shoulders that are as small as my sister’s. His scrawny ass follows. He thought I was tucked between boxes of Haldol, an old anti-psychotic, on the other side of the nurse’s station. The river Lethe flows between the patient’s area and the nurse’s floor. I imagine him drinking from the Lethe, inviting the underworld to plaster itself to the patient’s area. The nurse’s station remains an area of light. Of hope. At night, it’s the only place that glows. I know this because I’ve woken at midnight and ambled down the hall in search of a handkerchief, my nose runny and cold.

Pharmaceutical representatives bring Haldol with them. I believe it has the side effect of causing my fear that telephones send electrical currents and mice into my inner ear.

Jeremy wants to propose to me before I forget him—Jack be nimble, Jack be quick— before the nimbus becomes too thick, clouding my vision. Jeremy is worth only the weight of his smile.

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The Bus The bus approaches Seventh Street. The bus driver’s voice as he calls out the street sounds like someone with a penchant for chewing gravel. I pull the cord without lifting my head. I bow in penance for the sin I have yet to commit. A sin I don’t even have the words for. It is three o’clock. Too late or too early for anything I want to do.

Unit 6: Jane Doe I draw a picture of wine and cheese the color of cranberries, the color of nurse Helen’s fingernails, the color of tongues on a friendly day. I place it under my bed. The paper can’t hide, its edges sticking out. The wings of a dove from a nest too small.

Kristina, the television calls from the lounge. Kill the television or become a media whore. Lather your hair. Lovely lather loosens lice, lice loosens lovely lather. I drank my shampoo. The alcohol in it didn’t get me drunk. The Voices force this diatribe into being. The Voices pester me. I wish I couldn’t listen. They’re as clear to me as an umpire shouting “out” as a player slides into home plate.

I enter the lounge. The woman in the commercial looks clean under the spray of the shower. Water sprays her shoulders in welcome. I imagine a feather butterflying its way down her skin.

Matilda is in the corner kissing Jasmine behind the back of a psych tech scribbling notes in long hand this side of Lethe. It is becoming dark. The moon promises to be a boulder. Nikki shoots a marble across the circle, knocking the cat’s eye loose. The Voices tell me to call them fags. To call them gay geeks. This I don’t do. I tap The Voices asking them, please.

I return to my room. My drawing is balled up on my bed, killed by creases I can’t smooth out. The young woman who sleeps in the bed one over laughs. The hands that cover her mouth are dirty with charcoal. She has refused to speak her name. The laughter is the first I hear from her. She remains a Jane Doe. Her person fills the room. It is overwhelming. She is locked into her depression, as limp as a rag doll. I am alone with her in the vacuum of my rage. Her long greasy hair provides the handles. I wrap it around my hands like boxers do white tape before sliding on their gloves. I yank her out of bed, the yank as powerful as an upper cut to the chin.

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Was there a shriek? No shriek. The Voices tug at my ears. I hear kill the fucker, pull out her hair, let your anger hang like a silver Christmas ball on a tree.

Before I decide what to do next, a psych tech is on me, his hands around my waist only tightens the grip I have on her hair. The weight of me is pulled back into his chest.

The weight of her is pulled into me. She smells like shit. I pray they have to cut me out of her.

Nurse Helen is asking me something. Her mouth is lovely.

Jane Doe isn’t to come within twenty-five feet of me. The rooms are not wide enough. I still remember how it felt to wrap her greasy hair around my hands.

I scrape one of my hands against the corner of a broken counter. Hydrogen peroxide fizzles. My wound cools like rose petals in winter. There is a heightened awareness of skin in movement. A slight breeze comes from a fan. I breathe lightly; a whisper harnessed. Heaven is just so far.

Tea Time Tiwi waits tea for me in her upstairs condo. The condos are higher than the billboard promoting suitcases and long sleeves, graffiti along the bottom. They border the homeless who beg the occupants to play stereophonic jazz at dawn before the noise of traffic becomes the aggressor and interrupts the few dreams the homeless may have.

Dew beads winter grass. The scent of green arrives with me. The moistness of the smell clinging to the black stubble on my head.

Unit 6: Time There is little to claim my attention. Time moves like a clogged hour glass allowing only a single strand of sand to power through its curves to the bottom of the glass.

Aunt Tiwi Tiwi is an aged aunt to me. I met her at the grocery store. She couldn’t reach the top shelf of jams. Cherry. Tiwi wanted cherry. I was fresh out of the hospital and still had my hospital wristband on. She asked me about it and then invited me for tea. A year later, she is still serving me Tazo Chai—reincarnated tea. Throughout India, chai wallahs serve cups of chai to souls seeking inner beauty. Tiwi is not a chai wallah. She is Short Story

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an aborigine from Australia.

The tea tastes like the length of corridor to a kindergartner the first day of class. Its taste lingers long. It is the first I have had in awhile. I still long for coffee. Coffee is closer, more immediate. Its taste provocative. A punch of drum in silence.

Inner beauty catches up to me at Tiwi’s, just as God does. My hands are free. Nickels fall through holes in the frayed patches of my jeans. I catch some. The rest hit the hard surface. I hear pings.

Tiwi reads from the box of tea, “To ask questions, share observations or simply have a bit of human contact, write us at Tazo, P.O. Box 66, Portland, OR, 97207. Allow two weeks for a written response.” The tea bag comes signed. Two weeks of no human contact can leave a person lost.

Unit 6: Leaving On Unit 6, my mind matches the weight of rain. Rain slaps on the front windows of cars as they speed. Everything is slowed as there is nothing to do. My mind is axed open. My mind is open to life on the side of the nurse’s station. The Underworld is no longer appealing like it is mid-stay when I’m convinced I cannot live in reality. Reality rolls through me down to my toes, staggering my walk, confusing my speech like an adolescent talking about Hamlet. Is it really psychosis again?

I don’t consider psychosis tagged onto The Voices. They are a staple in my world. I am prey to them. Sometimes they drive me crazy like when they mimic everything I do. I pour myself cereal. They say you pour yourself cereal. I walk outside. They say you walk outside. I open my mailbox. They say you open the mailbox And then they comment saying don’t pay your bills. You will be dead before they come due.

Where is the tea? Where is Tiwi? I want to see her hand locked with Dream, poured into the sugar of my cup. I want to float around blind curves, survive like thistle in the forest.

Experts attempt to reach me with their faith in pills. Pills. Manage me. Will they manage me well? Please take the T-shirt from me and fill my hands with blue sky. I want to lounge beneath the sun on the patio outside the Unit.

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Is it still 2018?

Notes to Dr. P, my psychiatrist on Unit 6— Without poetry, I lay in bed haunted, or pace the floors dazed at the fact my body just won’t die. Please don’t take my pens away. Without them, I cannot write poetry. I promise not to write on the walls or stab anyone. Does the point really matter, anyway?

Scabs are forming thick skin covering my vulnerabilities. I recognize that fragility, like the lip of a porcelain teacup, is something I live with. But I also recognize that the porcelain is strong, is protected, is well loved and has been passed on through generations without chips. Do not leave the teacup in the cupboard to stay safe.

The Voices follow me—die, cry, die, cry, do all of it and die. The Voices remind me of a rabid dog looking for purpose, slavering at the mouth. This is true, but the truth goes beyond dogs.

Doctor, please listen deeply. There is truth as heavy as the moon held up in the palm of the sky. I don’t want to be the teacup in the cupboard.

Home The Lethe and a breeze have followed me home. When will the water quench my mind? When will the wind still my thoughts? I no longer have dogs that could drown in the river. Both dogs died. Sasha last year and Brutus eight months ago.

My raft holds me and a salamander. It is pre-dawn. Fire will not hit the sky for another couple of hours.

My home smells of Patchouli. I imagine getting off the raft. The river has run dry. The light wood floor shines from the light coming through three windows into my family room. I hesitate to think family room. There is no family aside from friends. My roll top desk is in this room along with my favorite chair—burnished metal with a flowered, fabric seat.

The blue couch calls my name, invites me to lie down and bask in the freedom from Unit 6. I do this. The length of my body just fits. My head rests on one of the red down pillows. Then it happens. The Voices dig into me. Mother fucker. You’ll never be free.

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You’ll always be in and out of the hospital. You can’t run from us. We contaminate your mind. We are you and you are us.

“Stop!” I shout. I have never done this before. I have never talked back to them.

No. Our chain runs around your throat.

I feel for the chain. It’s not there. My fingers touch skin. My. Fingers. Touch. Skin.

The Voices whisper, Die Kristina. Die. Your life is worth a Bobble Head. Lethe will come back. You’ll be forced to melt into the water, become a part of the Underworld.

Whispers. I can barely hear them. “Stop!” I shout again and sit up. The sunlight washes over my face. I am in control. The new medication. It’s helping me to hold this space steady.

Tiwi will be proud to know I will grab the sunrise and make a hat of it. I shudder in my shoes, the ecstatic moment not lost to bees in the wind. The sun does rise. The darkness fades. Someday, Unit 6 will be a decade away rather than two days. I believe this like I know breeze caught in the upper branches of pine sings softly to the child alone against the trunk.

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“You’ll Love it There!”

Patrick Underwood – Third Place The door to the “You’ll Love it There!” travel agency opens precisely at 9 a.m. and in walks Miss Noreen Sayles, for nearly forty years the doyen of Scottsdale agents.

The Valley is blistering hot as it always is on the last day of June, but it doesn’t seem to faze Sayles as she sashays into the room, her Bavarian-style pointed hat with two pheasant feathers tucked in it leading the way.

“Beautiful day, girls,” Sayles says as she mercifully closes the door on a morning where the temperature is already nearing 110 degrees.

The “girls” look up from their desks, as they always do, to see what the eccentric Sayles might be wearing today. Office manager Glenda Maxwell, fifty-five, sporting a well-coiffed, gray hairdo, has sat with mouth wide open at many an outfit Sayles has assembled over her nearly seventy years, many the products of thrift-store purchases and clothing lifted from discard bins on the street.

Office trainee Sue Case, twenty-four and unmarried, started at the office two months ago and is still amazed at Sayles’ outfits, many out of season and current fashion.

“How do you like my new hat?” Sayles asks as she pirouettes on long legs before them. “I found it at this hidey-hole store in Old Town. Any comment?”

“It certainly speaks to you,” Maxwell says as her sharp, gray eyes fall on the beadyeyed fox stole Sayles has wrapped around her shoulders. But it’s the raccoon fur muff that Sayles has her hands stuffed in that really grabs Maxwell’s attention.

“Noreen, don’t you realize that it’s hot in Arizona in June?”

“Hot? I felt a chill this morning. Regardless, I do think my ensemble is spot on,” declaims the self-described grand dame of fashion, culture, and travel as she hangs her accessories on a coat rack behind her desk.

“Coffee?” asks Sue, fingering her brown pageboy haircut above a captivating, heartshaped face.

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“Certainly, two sugars, as always,” Sayles says as Maxwell takes one last look at the accessories through eyeglasses perched on the end of her long nose.

Maxwell couldn’t be happier to have hired Case, a high-energy, summa cum laude travel-services graduate of Stanford University who loves her marketing and promotional work. Case has been busy this month directing phone calls to employees participating in the big June sales contest that ends at the close of the business day. All employees, except for the office manager, are eligible to win, but Sayles is the odds-on favorite. The winner gets a round-trip airline ticket to anywhere in the world, plus a $5,000 cash prize.

Maxwell peers over the tip of her nose at Sayles and says, “You know, Noreen, with all the experience you have, the odds are in your favor you’ll win this time.”

“Why, thank you, Glenda. That’s so sweet of you to say. Yes, I agree that I have the experience, but I must be doing something wrong to be carrying a thirty-nine-year losing streak into this year’s contest.”

“Keep your chin up, Noreen. I think your time has come.”

“Just imagine, I’m only three weeks from retirement. Can you believe it? Forty years ago, I walked in the door here, and now I’m about to turn seventy. Both anniversaries at the same time. Isn’t that something?”

“It certainly is. I remember my first day almost thirty years ago and all those wonderful outfits I’ve seen you wear since.”

“I do wear my clothing with a certain panache,” says Sayles, who, like Case, began as a trainee and never married as she circumnavigated the globe and sent her clients off to all points of the world.

Maxwell cocks her head, as she always does, and gives Sayles the longest stare. She’s seen Sayles, who piles her red hair in a tight bouffant, become ever more eccentric in manners and dress the past year. Sayles is still enthusiastic about her job, sometimes too much so. She’s also become much more outspoken and prone to nostalgia.

Maxwell then asks, “So, Noreen, where will you go after you win our contest? I’m

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sure it will be a difficult choice since you’ve flown around the globe so many times to so many wonderful places.”

Sayles rubs her chin thoughtfully and stares into space for nearly a minute.

“I’d go to Lebanon.”

“Lebanon certainly has had its difficulties, war and all that, but it still has that sparkling Mediterranean Sea.” “No, not that Lebanon. “I’d go to Lebanon, Kansas.”

“Kansas?”

“Lebanon, Kansas, is just two miles from the Geographic Center of the United States. I think I need to get centered. I’ve been feeling a little off-center the past year.”

Maxwell doesn’t say “that’s for sure,” but she is thinking it.

“So, Sue, where would you go?”

Case dreamily looks at all the travel posters on the walls and says, “Paris. It would be a dream come true.”

Maxwell clears her throat and asks Noreen if she has any sales leads.

“Why, yes, indeed I do. I am expecting a phone call from a young man who’s interested in adventure travel. A longtime married couple are due in at 11:30.”

“Been thinking what your pitch might be for the young man?” Maxwell asks.

“I’m thinking South America’s Amazon Basin. I think he’d love it there.”

Sayles and Maxwell immediately rise from their chairs, place hands over hearts and say in unison: “We are the ‘You’ll Love it There!’ travel agency so there’s no doubt he’ll love the Amazon!”

As Maxwell returns to her work, Sayles looks at the posters of all the places she’s visited. She then picks up travel souvenirs on her desk, pausing to look at one dreamily as if she’s remembering a special trip.

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Sayles peeks into her purse to make sure her green card is still there, the one she uses to purchase medical marijuana. She obtained her card about a year ago when she began to feel off-center. The pot has left her feeling focused, happy and creative. Her one fear is that Case might smell it on her clothing. Maxwell wouldn’t have a clue.

Sayles’ reverie about trips past and medical bud is interrupted by the ringing of the rotary telephone that has set on her desk for nearly forty years.

“Hello. Travel agent Noreen Sayles speaking. How may I help you?”

“Hi, Noreen. Buster Jones here. As I mentioned, I’m interested in adventure travel, something that would be a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime trip. I just got out of graduate school in library science and am desperately in need of adventure.”

Sayles motions to Maxwell and points to the phone as if Buster’s a real keeper, one who would solidify her position in the June sales contest.

“That sounds great, Buster. We’re all looking for that adrenaline rush. I’ve trekked in search of the Himalayan snow leopard, crept to within feet of the Lowland gorilla, and once found myself face to face with a grizzly bear. The bear backed down.”

“Now we’re talking.”

“I have two options for you. These trips are not for everyone, but a young man like you – how old did you say you were?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Yes, a young man of your age just might like a trip that would blow some of that library science crap right out of you before you’re lost in the stacks for the next forty years. My first option is South America’s Amazon Basin, Brazil to be precise. As a member of our guided canoe crew, you would paddle deep into the Amazon River rainforest, sometimes having to wade through chest-high water to portage your canoe.

Are you with me on this?”

“Totally. This sounds awesome.”

“Your guides would have their eyes out for bone-crushing Anaconda snakes, flesheating piranha fish and crocodiles. I can’t ensure your safety, but we’ve never had a problem. Are you OK with this?”

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“I am a red-blooded male in search of adventure, after all.”

“Fine. One other cautionary note. Have you heard of Urechis unicinctus?”

“Say what?”

“Scientific name aside, it’s otherwise known as the penis fish.”

“The penis fish?”

“That’s right. It’s a little yellowish-brown fish, more like a worm that’s up to twelve inches long. It’ll swim up your penis and make itself at home. If it makes it to your bladder, doctors most likely would have to amputate your penis to prevent a slow, painful death.”

Sayles listens for a response, but Jones has gone silent. After a long pause, Jones asks in a halting, weak voice what Sayles’ second vacation option is.

“Oh, that would be south-central Africa, Botswana to be precise.”

“Are there any penis fish there?”

“No, not a one, young man.”

“Uh, tell me about Botswana.”

“You’ll love it there.”

Maxwell and Sayles immediately stand up. Case is a little late standing, but the three women place hands over their hearts and say in union, “You’ll love it there.”

“What was that I just heard?” Jones asks.

“Oh, nothing, my co-workers love working here, too, helping our clients see the world and fulfill their dreams.”

“Oh.” “So, Botswana. I remember visiting there back in the 1980s and staying at the Big Game Safari Hotel near a preserve teeming with wildlife. I’d book you there.

“It was the dry season, bone dry more like it,” Sayles says, her head tilting back as her mind drifts to the trip.

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“We were getting ready to go the next day on safari, deep into the heart of the Botswana bush. Animal roars were at an all-time high as our guides packed for the trip.”

“Oh, yeah, this sounds exciting. Beats the penis fish, for sure.”

“Thatta boy.

“One of our safari clients, Mr. Frank Barton, a senior citizen from Saginaw, Michigan, left a poolside party to go to his hotel room with his wife, and then returned to the pool to relax next to a concrete waterfall. That was the last I saw of Frank. I retired to my room as the nature preserve erupted into a cacophony of animal snarls and shrieks. It was all so exciting.

“They later found two lions feasting on what was left of Frank beside the waterfall.

The extremely dry conditions drew them to our hotel’s “water hole.” I’ve heard staff has since placed a sign warning guests of lions.

“The more I think about it, I’m certain this is the trip of your dreams, Buster. You’ll just love it. What month should we book you for?

“Buster, Buster, are you still there? I can’t hear you. Well, I’ll be. I hadn’t even gotten to the part about the charging rhinoceros before Buster hung up on me. He said he wanted adventure.”

“Maybe you should have taken a slightly different approach,” Maxwell says. “I do realize you are our most-veteran travel agent and have your own style. It’s too bad, though, because that lost sale won’t help you win our June sales contest.”

“I thought I had him at hello, Glenda.”

Sayles shrugs off her lost sale, admires her pink-coated fingernails and stretches her legs.

Case sniffs the air around her. She doesn’t say anything but smiles after determining the distinctive odor of marijuana.

“Who did you say was coming in at 11:30?” Maxwell asks Sayles.

“That would be Mr. and Mrs. George Levine of north Scottsdale. I expect to book them for a big, expensive trip before I take my lunch. Excuse me, I need to step outside for a few minutes.”

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Case smiles knowingly at Sayles as she dons her stole and muff and walks into the heat. Case then wanders the office, looking at travel posters flanking a sales contest sign. She walks past a Paris poster and ponders one displaying Switzerland’s majestic mountains.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Sayles returns with shoulders thrown back and sits at her desk. She complains how cold it is and leaves on her beady-eyed fox stole. But her head is no longer sagging after blowing the sale to Buster. Case thinks she looks more cheerful than before and makes a bet with herself that the veteran travel agent will still win the contest.

The Levines, a fifty-something couple whose dress bespeaks old Scottsdale money, walk into the office, stop and are fixated by Sayles’ stole. George, tall, straight-backed, silver-haired, towers over his diminutive wife, Ruth, whose stringy brown hair flops in her eyes.

“Hello. Welcome to the You’ll Love it There! travel agency,” the three women stand and recite in ritualistic unison.

“My, what a wonderful welcome. Don’t you think so, Ruth?”

“I think –.”

“Of course, she does. Ruth’s been talking for months about taking a big, expensive trip to some exotic locale to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. So, Noreen, where could we go?”

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, George, since you first called me. You did say money was no object, right?”

“Righto. We’ve, I mean I, have worked very hard for a long time to spare no expense in having an exotic vacation. Isn’t that right, Ruth?”

“I –.”

“Of course, that’s right. What’s on the menu, Noreen?”

“It couldn’t be clearer to me. The perfect place for you is the DPRK.”

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“The DPRK, what’s that?”

“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – North Korea. I hear Pyongyang, the capital, is lovely in any season. You’ll be telling your neighbors for years to come how exotic your vacation was. Talk about pageantry and all those goose-stepping soldiers. The country is beyond strange. I can attest to that.”

Maxwell and Case look up and stare at Sayles, who meets Maxwell’s eyes and points to the contest sign as if affirming she’s going to win it for sure.

“You’ll love it there.”

The three women again recite their pledge, but Maxwell and Case now have looks of trepidation on their faces.

Ruth’s eyes are rolling backward as she looks back and forth at Sayles and her husband. She tries to speak, but no words come forth.

“You could get us into North Korea and out without being put on some prison farm gang detail?” George asks with an astonished look on his face.

“I have special connections.”

That news surprises Maxwell since the travel agency she manages has never sent a client to North Korea.

“Full disclosure,” Sayles says, putting on her feathered Bavarian hat. “I’ve been a pen pal of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un for years.”

“We write each other about a lot of things, like where he gets his hair cut, where he gets his natty suits pressed, even how many nuclear warheads are in his arsenal.”

“Definitely intriguing,” Levine says. “An autumn trip just might work. Winter in North Korea would be just too cold for Ruth, right dear?”

Sounds start burbling forth as Ruth tries to speak, but her husband talks over her.

“Imagine that. We’re sitting in the presence of an actual pen pal of the Supreme Leader. I get goosebumps just thinking of going to North Korea.”

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Sayles now looks to seal the deal.

“Didn’t you tell me, George, that you like stamps?”

“Indeed. I’m a philatelist. I love the hobby. So much history. Ruth shares my love for stamps. In fact, I let Ruth lick all my stamps for me. Right, Ruth?”

I –.”

“Her tongue is probably getting a little worn out after all these years, but she’s a real trouper.”

Sayles’ chest swells to almost bursting as she plays her trump card.

“You’re going to love this, George. Kim is a stamp collector, too, and he’s hosting a stamp convention at a new hotel this fall. I’m sure I could swing tickets for both of you.”

George and Noreen lock eyes.

“Imagine that, Kim and I sharing our stamp collections. If Ruth had to lick any stamps, her tongue wouldn’t freeze because we’d be going before winter sets in. Sign us up, Noreen.”

Words begin, at first, to trickle from Ruth’s mouth as she grips her chair and looks directly at her husband.

Finally, words begin to flow, slow at first, then volcanic in sound as Ruth tells George exactly what she thinks.

“I have to tell you something, George. There is NO WAY ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH THAT I AM EVER GOING WITH YOU TO NORTH KOREA!!!”

Turning to Sayles in a much lower, polite voice, Ruth says, “Thank you, Noreen, for your suggestions today, but I’m taking George home now for some overdue consultations.”

As the couple leave, the three office members hear Ruth say, “And another thing, George, I’m DONE, GOT THAT, DONE LICKING YOUR DAMN STAMPS!!!”

“Maybe the fox eyes got to them,” Sayles says as she drops her head and collapses in her chair. I should have put on a turtleneck this morning instead of the stole.”

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“I don’t mean to be catty, but you’ve been No Sayles Noreen today,” Maxwell says.

“You’ve been on the phone a lot today, Sue. Any success?”

“Maybe it’s just beginner’s luck, but I got a call from a representative of a Fortune 500 company. I booked their 100-member sales force for a week in the Bahamas.”

“Outstanding. You’re going to be our June sales contest winner unless someone else comes in with a monster contract before 5 p.m. today.

“Congratulations, Sue. Better get ready to pack your Sue Case.”

Sayles squints at Case. Maxwell stares at Sayles as she walks out of the office wearing her fox stole, fur muff and feathered Bavarian hat. When she reaches the door, Sayles turns and throws back her shoulders.

“It’s always something. I thought this would have been my year. Who knows, maybe I’ll come out of retirement and end my losing streak.

“I’ll be back in an hour. I need some lunch and a long smoke break.”

Case smiles and thinks she sees Sayles wink at her as she walks out.

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“Illuminati Janitor” Kate Price – Honorable Mention

In Ricky’s opinion, being a member of the Illuminati wasn’t what it used to be.

Traditions had died off, and the leadership was pitifully weak. The core mission of the Illuminati had veered from global domination and instead had become reliant on celebrities and chem trails from airplanes for brainwashing. He ached for the old days, when it was a proper international cabal, filled with members who had ambition and grit. After all, what was the point of being in the Illuminati if you weren’t going to torture and enslave humanity into doing your bidding?

The decline had started when they began uniting with other cabals. Ricky had been excited about the Reptilians joining, figuring their reputation as hostile shape-shifting aliens indicated a basic potential for depravity. But instead of ferocity, they were bureaucratic ingrates with zero respect for tradition. For example, the Reptilian jackass they hired to renovate Headquarters in the Denver International Airport was fresh off an undercover gig as a member of the British royal family. He got rid of skulls, torches, and caves and put in sleek marble and fancy overhead lights. That should have ended the stupid “merger” right there and then.

Ricky wore the traditional robes, and only traditional robes. Some of the Wall Street moguls wore suits, but some of the Silicon Valley brats had the audacity to wear hoodies. Ricky liked to keep a little extra weight on, which was helpful for intimidation of one’s enemies. He believed that excessive grooming indicated a poverty of one’s mind and spirit. By that standard, Ricky was a wealthy man. His dark brown locks appeared more like dirty straw glued to his head than human hair. He didn’t believe in friendship as an institution, but he allowed colleagues to revel in his excellence. Marty, a CIA liaison, was one such associate Ricky could tolerate.

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“I’m dying with excitement about the New World Order,” Marty swooned to Ricky.

“Excited? I’m crippled with humiliation! To think, those impotent buffoons who planned this have the audacity to call themselves Illuminati Overlords. After decades of preparation, we’re going to release some chem trails, activate them with some silly ritual that involves celebrity hand signals and radio waves. It’s an insult to the All Seeing Eye!” Ricky shouted.

“What’s your idea then, fussy man?” Marty huffed.

“Total enslavement. Absolute hijacking of the mind via a clone army that will use lasers to penetrate the skull and zap free will. I go into greater detail in my manifesto.”

“That’s sort of harsh.”

“Harsh? What the hell is the point of being in the Illuminati if we’re not creating zombified underlings? You should self-immolate out of shame!” Ricky seethed, clenching his fists.

“Excuse me, bitch; don’t act like you’re better than me,” Marty said, applying Chapstick in a mirror.

Ricky looked up to the ceiling as if receiving divine communication. “Rid these hallowed halls of this filthy little goblin and his ilk,” he whispered.

Ricky had applied for a promotion to recruit new members. Gary, his boss, was exactly the sort of filth clogging up the Illuminati. Most Reptilians were powerful lizards who infiltrated the top levels of society to spy, but Gary was a misfit turtle assigned to NWO management. During business hours, he stayed in his human form: a slightly cross-eyed, gloomy sort of man. He liked yammering about “ensuring a positive culture” and “maximizing productivity,” a bureaucrat to his bones.

For his part, Gary’s interactions with Ricky were characterized by elaborate fantasies of firing him. He came close a few times, but Ricky’s family had been a big deal in the Illuminati, and higher-ups wouldn’t be happy if he were fired outright. “Ah, Ricky, so good of you to come see me,” Gary said, fake smiling. “Have a seat.”

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“I never sit. Sitting leads to weakness,” Ricky said.

“You never sit?” Gary said, hoping this was an attempt at dry humor. Ricky stood with his eyes half open, wheezing and lightly sweating from the single flight of stairs he’d climbed.

“Well, ok then. I got your application, and I have some…well, I have some thoughts.

It’s my job to place people in positions that allow their full potential to bloom,” Gary said, spreading his arms. “I see you as more of a leader within the Illuminati rather than our face to potential members. Recruitment is more of a sales thing.”

“All my life I’ve been an exceptionally inspiring figure,” Ricky said. From the corner of Ricky’s eye, he spotted a Mind Control Mister, a powerful vintage weapon. Ricky decided Gary couldn’t appreciate such a fine piece of machinery and waited for an opportune moment to relieve him of it.

“Of course you are,” Gary said, clasping his hands like a patient school counselor.

“But right now, I think your, uh, flair for discipline is something we need elsewhere.”

“Oh?” “There’s an opening for someone to lead the janitorial staff,” Gary said. Ricky began a violent coughing fit, putting his hands on his knees and dry-heaving. Gary suspected it was a performance to engender sympathy.

“The janitorial crew?” Ricky screamed. “This is an affront to the All Seeing Eye! I’ve never been so insulted in my life. I am an enlightened man, a being of decency and wisdom, and you want me to clean toilets?” He waved his arms in protest, his robe swishing like a bird with loose skin flapping its wings in fury.

Gary took his glasses off and rubbed the space between his eyes. With feline grace, Ricky’s hand shot out and seized the Mind Control Mister, stashing it in his robe.

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“I’m putting you in charge of the janitorial crew for a reason, ok? It’s not something I can assign just anyone.” In truth, since no one could technically leave the Illuminati, the janitorial crew had become a ragtag collection of deadbeats and senile members they couldn’t afford to kick out. A perfect place for Ricky. “I need your leadership right now,” Gary said.

“It’s a leadership position?” Ricky asked.

“Well--” “I accept,” Ricky said magnanimously.

Ricky scurried to his sleeping quarters to stash the Mister. The NWO plans were still in dire need of his guidance, but his promotion as leader was an excellent sign of progress. He whirled the Mind Control Mister around his room a few times like a samurai sword. Ricky wondered if Gary might be testing his psychospiritual fortitude, just like he was doing with his new weapon. That possibility certainly hadn’t escaped him.

Ricky approached one of the cleaning crew, Joe, who’d been demoted after he’d created a faulty Kanye West clone that acted too normal.

“Hey! Are you our new coworker?” Joe said, smiling and waving, which confirmed Ricky’s suspicions. Happy employees were a symptom of widespread laziness.

“My name is Ricky. I’m not your coworker, I consider myself the commander of this fine custodial militia. I bring a message of a glorious rebellion! All my life I yearned for the divine bliss that would come with world domination. The current NWO plans are a disgrace. Whatever happened to enslavement? We might as well be giving humanity Swedish massages!” Ricky yelled, his voice echoing in the massive hall like a charismatic dictator. A few employees stared and went back to slapping wet mops on the floor. A disheveled elf of a woman walked up to Ricky and handed him a scrubber. “You can find divine bliss in cleanin’ the toilets,” she said.

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Ricky’s leadership instinct was to place the rude little hussy in a stockade for insubordination, or perhaps a cage.

“Shut up, Carol; I want to hear this,” Joe said.

“There’s no point in cleaning while the stain of blasphemy befouls our hallowed halls. Join me in a revolutionary act of redecoration!”

“You think we could get better pay?” Carol asked.

“A member of the Illuminati should never have to ask for pay. The whole point is to achieve omnipotence and infinite abundance!” Ricky pulled a wooden handle from his robe and lit the top, producing a dramatic flaming torch. He held it high above his head and arched an authoritative brow.

“Ah, what the hell,” Carol said.

The next morning, Gary was so horrified at the scene before him he briefly shapeshifted into his turtle form, an unfortunate lapse in professionalism. Ricky and the crew had fashioned giant torches on the walls for lighting, and human skulls lined the hall on the ground. It looked like the most clichéd version of what the Illuminati was about, some silly B-grade horror film. “What is this stupid crap?” Gary demanded. “Those stupid torches are not in compliance with the fire code. You didn’t have permits for any of this!”

“It’s traditional Illuminati décor,” Ricky said reasonably. “And since when does the Illuminati care about things like a fire code? Whatever happened to having Illuminati pride? We should not be tyrannized with things like permits!”

“We want some better wages too!” Carol yelled. Gary looked over the barbaric faces of the cleaning crew, no doubt whipped into some violent frenzy by Ricky. He had a fleeting dash of hope: Perhaps this provided a path to solving his Ricky Problem, once and for all.

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The unmistakable sound of a heavy cane smacking the marble floors echoed through the halls. “What’s all the hollering about?” the Leader growled, and his eyes widened as he took in the odd sight of Ricky flapping around skulls. Ricky loathed the Leader, a Texas oil tycoon. But, Ricky reminded himself, revolution was no time to nurture a personal grievance if it compromised victory, so he dropped to his knees and bowed his head. Gary laughed nervously through his teeth and pounded his fists against his hips, bracing for the inevitable shame Ricky would bring.

“Ricky Smith, at your service, my Liege. I was hoping to speak to you about some ideas I have for the upcoming NWO. May I suggest implementing public lashings for laziness or insubordination? I’d be delighted to carry them out myself. I’d also like to speak to you about additional concerns I have,” Ricky said, scowling at Gary. “In private though.”

“Public lashings, huh? Woo, this one doesn’t waste a lick of time!” the Leader bellowed, stomping his cane and hooting. “I’ll be honest, it makes me a tad nostalgic. I like the skulls and the fire. I like the punishment talk. We could use a bit of that around here.”

“No offense, but I need this space to be cleared. This is a logistical nightmare!” Gary pleaded.

“Meh,” the Leader said, waving his hand dismissively. “Skulls help morale. Plus, you’re always bellyaching about needing help. Bring this fine man on as your assistant!”

Behind Gary and the Leader, Ricky saw the cleaning crew rubbing their fingers together in the universal gesture for “money,” and made a mental note to berate their lack of revolutionary vision.

“Unfortunately, he’s the only person who can oversee the cleaning crew,” Gary said, trying to catch the Leader’s eye to convey the inevitable crisis of productivity that would result.

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“Quit being so uptight. He can do both! You said you needed help.”

Gary was afraid that if he stopped smiling, he might start to cry at the thought of working with Ricky. “Yes, sir.”

Ricky sauntered into the war room Gary had set up for NWO plans, eager to determine how Gary had turned things into an orgy of mediocrity. Gary marched over and jabbed Ricky in the chest.

“Ricky, you are my assistant. I’m done playing nice with you. I’m trying to coordinate the brainwashing of seven billion people on the planet. Don’t go poking your fat fingers into everything and making my life a living hell,” Gary said, surprised at his own boldness.

“Oh please. Your version of brainwashing will be nothing more than a light rinse.”

“Ricky, I’m sorry, but you’re a complete idiot. Dragging people through the streets and enslaving them is not a practical reality.”

“Have you ever heard of a little thing called skull penetrating lasers? Or death squads made of clone armies? I thought Reptilians were supposed to be a bloodthirsty alien race!”

Gary rubbed his face in frustration. “Ok, you know what? Shut up!” He slammed a giant reem of paper on Ricky’s desk. “Each sheet corresponds to a celebrity and the hand signal they’re supposed to be giving for the NWO ritual. Check if they’re going to be doing the Devil horns or the Triangle. If it doesn’t match on the computer, change it so the celeb doesn’t flash the wrong gesture during the ritual. Even you can’t screw this up,” Gary said, then left.

Ricky immediately shredded the thousands of sheets. If the success of the NWO rested upon stage-urchins like Justin Bieber flashing a Devil’s horn symbol, they deserved to fail. Besides, he had better things to worry about. He had tried to give Gary the opportunity to see reason, but his attachment to delusion appeared to be bulletproof. The Illuminati was hurtling into the abyss, and the NWO was in less than twenty four hours. He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but he would need to enlist the cleaning crew as his revolutionary battalion.

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For the NWO, the janitors had been assigned as ushers. They waited in the supplies room for Ricky to give them instructions. He burst in, full of confident fury, and stood with his legs splayed in a power-stance. “Comrades, we should be jigging through the halls before the NWO, and instead we’re stuffed in this closet like quarantined lepers.

What is wrong with this picture?” he asked.

“It’s not…clean?” Carol asked.

“No. The proper question is why are we cleaning and assigned to usher duty, and not using the enslaved masses to do it? Being part of the Illuminati should liberate us from such peasant concerns! The Illuminati has been beclowned by these cretins. I say we storm the NWO ritual and demand some changes around here!” The group was rowdy now. A few grabbed torches from the hallway, pumped them in exuberance, and whooped.

“To better pay!” Carol shouted, and the crew roared with approval.

“No, no, no! We aren’t about to go stampeding in there like some rabies-infested hoard over a wage dispute. The whole point is to get slaves to do it for us. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Carol scrunched up her face. “Seems like a lotta effort,” she mumbled. She lined up the crew and chanted to them: “Hey, ho, low wages have got to go!” The janitors echoed her and marched down the hall.

“That mutinous jezebel!” Ricky said to himself, trembling with rage. How could he have erred so catastrophically? How could no one care about global domination? No matter. He would make them care. “The Mind Control Mister!” he said to himself.

“Welcome to the official New World Order ritual!” the Leader said into the microphone, and the hundreds of members thundered with applause. “I can’t hear you!” he shouted, and the crowd cheered louder. Upbeat techno music swirled around the Temple, and everyone was wearing strange animal masks.

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The fire-brandishing janitors burst through the massive doors in the back of the Temple. Marty from the CIA frowned and leafed through his official NWO schedule.

“Did we skip part of the itinerary?” he asked someone in a demonic goat mask.

“I think they’re the backup dancers or…maybe the choir?” the goat-man replied.

Ricky lumbered through Headquarter, certain he was nearing the peak of human cardiovascular potential. He paused to rest, then sneaked into the entrance by the Temple stage. His plan was simple: he would use a minor dose of serum on the Leader, and have him designate Ricky as his replacement, effective immediately. As the crowd greeted their new Leader, he would spray them with the Mister to avoid any dissent on his status.

He crept to the side wing of the stage. Unfortunately, the device was in dire need of maintenance and tech support, which is why Gary had it to begin with. Instead of a delicate mist, a violent blast of pressurized serum shot out of the device, blasting Ricky’s face. The kickback was so strong, he flew into the curtains, bringing down the entire stage.

“Dammit boy, what is your crazy ass doing?” the Leader shouted, untangling various power cords from the horned mask he was wearing.

“Novus Ordo Seclorum,” Ricky mumbled, feeling the brainwashing begin to take effect. The device was locked to his hand like a glove, and he willed himself to complete his mission.

He careened around the room like a child brandishing a powerful firehose, barely able to control the outflow. Even worse, Ricky had the appearance of an obese mansized vampire bat, zooming around in flowing black robes. Members screamed and fled for their lives, unsure of what to make of this strange and violent creature terrorizing them.

Everyone except for Gary. The nano-instant he heard chaos on stage with the Leader, he knew Ricky was behind it somehow.

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“MY EYES!” screamed Marty, collapsing at Gary’s feet, twitching and brainwashed.

His administrative managerial instinct was to call security, but another part of him was done fighting. This was the worst job he ever had, and all he had to show for it was being brainwashed by a power-obsessed janitor. He closed his eyes and breathed in the serum.

Soon, the entire room was soaked in the chemicals. Everyone was moaning or catatonic, a known effect of cranking the setting to the maximum as Ricky had done.

The serum had prohibited the memory function, so it was assumed the NWO was a failure due to a lack of celebrities. Ricky was especially affected, spending years in a brainwashed coma. He awoke in the newly renovated hospital wing of Headquarters.

His eyes fluttered open, and he saw a group of Reptilians and Illuminati having pleasant conversation nearby.

“Lazy guttersnipes ought to be whipped for disobedience,” he instinctively grumbled.

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Pink Antiquity

Barbara Goldberg

Medium: Acrylic Size: 30” X 40”

Art

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Vortex 2019 Native Voices and Visions “There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air, matter, dream and thought. The ways are not alwayst mapped or charted, but sometimes being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And always, in this search, a person might find that she is already there, at the center of the world.

It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nonetheless.” ~ Linda Hogan “Being Indian has never been about returning to the land. The land is everywhere or nowhere.” ~ Tommy Orange

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Native Voices and Visions

“Honoring our Native Voices and Visions� was created to allow an opportunity for American Indian students to share their stories, culture, history and experiences. Each year, Dr. Ana Cuddington, Director of the American Indian Program at Scottsdale Community College, awards scholarships in writing and/or art to winning students.

SCC is honored to be located on the land of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community.

If you are a member of a federally recognized tribe and attend SCC, you can submit artwork and writing in the Native Voices and Visions section of Vortex. For more information contact Ana Cuddington at ana.cuddington@scottsdalecc.edu or call the American Indian Program at 480/423-6531.

Native Voices and Visions

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“Unspoken Injustice” Terisa Leonard

…is being forced to run, hide, anything to escape the capture. …is being forced to be sent away from your family and home, not knowing what has happened to them. …is being forced to endure the torture, murder, abusive trauma that will pass on to a new cycle. …is being forced to cut the long hair flow, which gave strength and dignity. …is being forced not to speak one’s own language, slowly slipping away. …is being forced to wear rigid uniforms, following military precisions. …is being forced to go to a boarding school, learning the newly white ways. …is being forced not to have contact with loved ones camped outside the sinister schools. …is being forced not to practice traditional ways, a forbidden faith in our Creator. …is being Indian, not confident as an Indian, when all has been taken away.

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Resilience

Preslie Thompson

Medium: Bronze Size: 6” X 8”

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“Loss” Reyna Solis

Loss, it isn’t always something you can see, but it’s something you can feel. It can be the loss of an item, a family member, loss of emotion, or loss of a past perception on life. Sometimes it comes quickly like a drunk driver flying through a red light without stopping. Other times it slowly creeps up on you without notice, like running water overfilling a sink when you’re looking away for just a moment. I was that person looking away, I didn’t see what was happening when I wasn’t looking. I envisioned the world as a safe and adventurous place, where nothing could break the bond of family or bulldoze my perception on the good in the world. I never imagined my own family member would obliterate that illusion. In the end my delusion played an enormous part in making me the person I am today.

Throughout my life, my mom tried to teach me to be cautious and aware, to stay away from people who were doing bad things and doing drugs. I didn’t realize those people were right in front of me. Only family members much older than me knew my sister Toni was addicted to drugs and bad habits, like looking for her next fix instead of caring for her children. Being the youngest in a family of six, I tried my best to be like my older brothers and sisters. I searched among them for my place, keeping my head down but trying to follow in their footsteps at the same time. I watched without really seeing, listened but didn’t really hear. Maybe I saw the abuse and the addiction at a young age, but decided to block it out, my mind’s way of escaping, not wanting to believe what was happening around me.

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Growing up, my siblings and I were raised by the same mom, but she was different with her first three children than she was with my other two siblings and me. There were six of us altogether, but my older three siblings were raised by my mom before she got help for her abusive tendencies. My other two siblings and I got part of the abuse, like smacks with belts or shoes, but it wasn’t as severe as our older siblings received, bruises and pulled hair, threats if they didn’t follow the rules.

I could tell you Toni’s behavior stemmed from her abusive childhood caused by my mom, but I think her insides were swirling with blazes of uncontrollable hatred long before that. I remember my sister spitting at me on multiple occasions, “You have no idea how spoiled you guys are, how lucky you are Mom changed!” I always thought “Sure I do, a little bit” because Mom used to hit us too for a while. On these occasions, when my sister was craving her release from her past memories, I would hide away from her hoping we didn’t accidentally bump into each other. I feared her raging memories, the ones where she was abused, neglected, and emotionally tortured by my mom’s past behavior. Her frustration was taken out on my siblings and me. Even though my sister didn’t cause us physical abuse, the emotional and verbal abuse, including abusive comments and jealous fits, were enough to push us away from her in those moments.

But I would end up back under her guidance with the rest of my siblings, ready to follow her on one of her adventures. Toni was mature beyond her age and saw things the rest of us couldn’t, like the signs that mom’s second marriage would fail and mom’s guilt for abusing her children. Even though she was the second oldest, she sometimes took on the role of oldest, guiding us like blind kids in a maze.

Maybe it was just me, but I always felt like we all looked up to Toni and heeded every word she said. Three of my siblings and I were pretty close in age, so we did a lot together, especially following our two older sisters around whenever we got the chance.

We would go on car rides and trips to the corner store, sometimes on foot, loving every adventurous, tiring step. We would blast music that we didn’t quite understand but that was fun to sing to. We were oblivious to the catchy lyrics about drugs and bad choices.

Looking back, it’s as if the music was foreshadowing what, unbeknownst to us, had already begun: my sister’s spiraling life.

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As the suns set and the moons rose, I grew into a teenager, the gloss of innocence no longer clouding my view. I started observing, seeing past the dark curtain that had once hidden me from the destruction that was the truth in our lives. The men my sister chose to be with were loud, controlling, and unwilling to listen to the opinions of women.

The friends she chose to have were always coming and going, leaving chaos in their path and trying to take her with them. She already had two kids, and by the time I was in high school, she had five and I would only see them every now and then. Over the years, she would drop in and out of our lives, reappearing and disappearing like a ghost with a vengeance. One day she was there, the next my mom would be telling the family my sister and she had gotten into an argument and she had taken the kids and left, only thinking of her own selfish needs. The days when my sister was around, I saw the transformations in her five kids, who were once full bodied and healthy. They were now skinny with smelly hair, had bruises poorly covered up, and there was the undeniable stench that was my sister’s drugs. Yet, I brushed these signals away like tangles in knotted hair, quick but painful at times, not yet ready to face these issues. I would hear whispers from siblings to my mom about where Toni was and what they saw her doing.

Her drop-ins were always quick, and before too many questions were asked she was gone, lightning in a storm to those who hadn’t become numb to it. Sure, she was an adult, but being the close knit family we were, it was shocking that months would go by without so much as a phone call from her and her little family. Eventually she and her kids would come and stay with us but not for long.

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Throughout Toni’s life and my teenage years, I watched as her demons picked her apart, fresh mangled wounds attracting piranhas she called friends in what she saw as an eye for an eye world. Not wanting to face the scars she buried within her graveyard of a soul she would let people in her life, blurry faces she called friends, who were only there to use her and leave her more tortured than she was. Being a child, the only comfort I knew how to bring her was my presence. I would try to be around her as much as possible, still unconsciously eager to learn from her and hoping my existence would be enough to make them stay, make her stay. I longed to save her from herself because everyone else had all but given up hope like a family saying goodbye to a bed ridden loved one facing the inevitable truth about their illness. She had been a contributing factor to my transformation from a kid to a young adult. Toni had always been there for me, teaching me how to shave my legs, how to be a badass if I wanted, and how to be myself when I was shy about showing others my personality. I didn’t want to face the inescapable truth that she had completely lost herself and didn’t even realize it. She was hooked on drugs and bad men and was dragging her kids around with her on her nightmare of a life. I was still so young though, I didn’t understand why she was doing this to herself, to her children, and to the rest of her family.

Over time Toni had lost custody of two of her sons, one was around four years old when his biological dad took custody of him. She lost custody of her other son when he was ten and he came to live with us, the family she hated for trying to help her. Her other three kids, three months, four, and six years old at the time, stayed with Toni and their biological dad while they lived life on the go, never having enough money or food to stay in one place for too long. Their lifestyle brought the drugs, abuse, drinking, late night visits of strangers, and uncertainty to them all. Not long after these tirades, my sister would be on her own not wanting to care for her kids at all anymore. Their dad

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was now trying to sober up and decided to care for them. Toni would come around from time to time, but her visits, quick and only occurring when she needed a shower or food, became shorter. During these visits, arguments between her and my mom were predictable. I could hear Toni screaming “This is my life!” at Mom about what she was doing to her kids. Much of her time was spent sleeping off all-nighters on mom’s couch for the duration of her stay. Besides Mom, the rest of us would rarely voice our opinions, we were hushed into silence for fear she would leave again like a criminal in the night, running to escape a life she had created but didn’t want to be responsible for. There were moments when we thought this is it, maybe she’ll straighten up, maybe she’ll see what she’s doing to herself and her kids, but our aching thoughts and hopes were left behind when she would go back to her old habits.

Nights and sometimes weeks spent in Florence Prison were not enough to break her free-spirited, who gives a rat’s ass, this is my life mentality. So days shot past our eyes, night to day, day to night, months seeping into years turning my child like hopes into those of a full grown adult learning to cope with a drug addict for a sister. Toni on the other hand, still lives her life running around the city like a rat in the sewer searching for warmth and a meal. She has her drugs to numb the roaring demons or just because she likes the way it feels, no one will ever know. Nothing about her family or her values has made her think twice.

Two or three years back I even tried to let her into my life with my daughter. I went by myself to pick her up for a family dinner, but she didn’t look like my sister, I could tell she was high by her twitchy head and rolling, dilated eyes. I called her out on it, and she denied it but the truth was in her eyes, so she got out of the car and I never heard from her again. She refused to let go of the drugs. I knew I had to make a sacrifice because I didn’t want my daughter raised around her if she was high all the time. I gave Toni a choice, the drugs or family and she made the predictable choice. Just like when she first started using, she chose the very thing that will eventually be the death of her mind, body, and soul.

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Loss is not always something we see but something we feel as well. I feel the loss of a once amazing, determined, full of potential sister, who had so much to look forward to. I see the loss of her life spent when she does come around, eyes like raccoons’, black circles surrounding them, body sluggish like she can’t go on, stare like she’s retuned from the war and can’t forget the destruction she witnessed. Toni stops by not to see or visit anyone really but simply for food and a place to sleep. I can feel the loss from her kids who watch their mom slowly but surely wither away, grapes on a vine without the right environment. The loss of a daughter from Mom who did the best she could with the opportunities she was given, who turned her life around so we, her kids, could have a better one.

Loss does not always define us but like pebbles skipped over a pond it puts ripples into motion, changing the smallest thoughts a person has on life. I would like to say I understand why my sister turned out the way she did, why I feel this loss but I can’t entirely. We come to a place in our lives where we have to stop blaming others for our choices, our mistakes, and start getting the help we should have taken years ago. I’ve learned it’s not up to me to make the decisions for others, they do that themselves. I can only watch and be there if one of those decisions backfires.

I looked up to my sister and at times even wished I could be like her, but I didn’t really know what I was wishing for. When I opened my eyes, I saw that isn’t a life I want for myself. I want to make people happy not worried, I want to raise my daughter into a beautiful and strong woman, not leave her defeated in my wake. My sister made a choice, accepting and continuing drugs, and that choice and every one thereafter has been hers too, having children and leaving her family, living her life on the streets, letting go of any responsibilities she had for the fix that will not actually fix anything at all.

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I think Toni lost herself and is still trying to find her way and who knows someday she might. I can only move forward and learn from my memories, not let them hold me down but use them to remember how I got to be where I am today. I need to remember that my choices affect my life as well as the people I choose to have in it. I see that loss is a powerful, destructive force, with the ability to dissect and annihilate you, but that doesn’t mean you have to let it take your power or even your hope. I have lost my sister to drugs and even though she is physically very much alive, mentally she is gone, and that is a heart twisting reality I am forced to face. But hope is a powerful force that resides in the heart along with pain. I have come to realize that I am strong enough to hold both as they define where I have been and shape where I am going.

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Vortex 2019 Poetry When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.

When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. ~ John F. Kennedy Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before. ~ Audre Lorde

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“The Backpack” Bree Hoffman – First Place

Walk, stop, adjust— shift the weight from shoulder to shoulder.

Don’t forget to zip the pocket that holds your toothbrush your trauma, your underwear.

You cannot remember where you first picked it up. Or when tenderness became weakness, distorted and harsh.

Take the name of your rapist, drag him past the chafing seams— carry him deeper than the filament stitchwork where your father is woven.

Bury him unmarked, unkind, in the shallow grave of your guts.

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Set it at your feet when you sleep but never let go. Carry it beyond showers and metal-detectors, let your name escape you and the way his tongue touched it.

Tighten the straps with hair ties and tendons, dream of dropping an anchor into the black sea sky.

Unburdened, unencumbered, 
 untethered from your spine.

Lost in the vacuum of a wordless void.

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Madmen and Butterflies

Suzanne Black

Medium: Oil Size: 16” X 20”

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“Friend Requests” Marcus Campbell – Second Place

Two friends I haven’t seen in years, a classmate that somehow found my profile, a bot account promising free sex in my area, the last from my father, Ken. I dread having to break the ice with old friends, ever since I met Ken once, two families ago.

He wanted to play catch, I wanted to play catch-up.

He has a different name now that he is a proud Muslim and no longer a slave.

I didn’t have the eggshell basketball he got me, even though I wanted it, but I kept the words he never meant to give me: bastard, black sheep.

I learned young when he beat my ass, my hands still sweat when I play Mortal Kombat.

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My peers who found me online probably know more about me than my father.

I want to respond with a list of some of the highlights Ken missed: my first steps, my first words, my first fight, or any firsts for that matter, my family’s cheers echoing off steel bleachers, the stench of bleach, sweat, and blood wafting from wrestling mats to a bench, the hollow ting of a baton bouncing off a track, the silence when I fumbled over my speech in Decathlon and lost a medal for my team, or my angry cries when I got screwed trading my holographic Superman comic for a crumbled copy of The Hobbit.

I wonder if I should shoot him a DM to tell him what I’ve learned from my mother.

Instead of him teaching me to be a man.

Pics of me learning to pee with Fruit Loops floating in the final flush of a decades old, piss-stained bowl.

A slide show of how to use a condom on a spoiled, bruised banana bought with a Texaco credit card.

A close-up of my face frozen when a bald man in a mall calls me a nigger and I ask my lily-white mother what a nigger is.

I accept Ken’s request, at least we played catch, and respond, “Sorry it took so long to get back to you.”

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“Ophelia” Joy Gregory – Third Place No hands will lay upon me No stones in my pocket Just the weight of what’s been done Cradled in the arms of the river Begin the ritual I am five Crossed legged, back to my mother A head of tangled vines Any unskilled traveler would need a machete Mom only needed a hairbrush Nothing stops her Whimper nor squirm “Someday You’ll wish this was your only pain.”

When I watch her take the machete to her own head She doesn’t flinch I think “I can’t wait for it not to hurt.”

Begin the ritual I am twenty-one Something foreign crawls inside me Poetry

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Lives inside me It does what it needs to for survival and pleasure I’ll never say no Someday it will consume me My tongue first, so I can’t speak even if I wanted to My legs, so I can’t run away My arms, so I can’t drag my bones It’ll leave my core, my chest, my mouth It cannot lose it’s home In the mirror, I stare at the eyes of someone who was once five Vines uprooting from her scalp She doesn’t make a sound Take the knife to your garden And see what you’ll pull out Rosemary, please stay in bed They say you restore memories I want only to forget Pansy, little bees Suffocate me with thought you bring I do not pluck you from the ground But still I end up with a sting Fennel, let me hear it again, I love the sound “You deserved it.” Because secretly, I wanted this Columbine, remind me to stay makes me stupid Rue, save another daughter, she’s safer in abyss Daisy, it is all my fault, I’m the reason for my ruin You’ll find me down by the water Saving the world from the sins of her daughter 108

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Around the Island

Elaine Karcher

Medium: Acrylic Size: 16” X 20”

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“All You Could Bear” Robert Buchanan – Honorable Mention

Mother and I rode with you often when I was a kid to the cavernous Kansas City train station.

We waited on wooden benches amid gray marble and sharp voices announcing the traffic of trains.

But we never rode a train. You would vanish into the Men’s Room while I colored.

Mother said you were in meetings.

We were captives in the waiting room, trains arriving and rushing on.

I was just beyond boyhood, not yet a man, when Mother shared your secrets with me, you told her she could no longer sexually satisfy you .

I was always desperate for your attention, but you were frozen, a mechanical man, unreachable. Mother began to lean on me.

You were drafted into the Navy at the height of World War II. Despite your electronic skills, you were sent home early something about a “nervous breakdown,” a medical discharge that wasn’t in the official records, a condition whose name was never mentioned.

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You left me by myself, alone in every respect, facing Mother’s endless needs, without help on how to be a man.

I was desperate for your nurture, forced to function way over my head, being emotional support to Mother, who turned to me rather than to you, and a father to Susie, my sister, as her emerging schizophrenia stranded us in hopeless fear.

I remember sitting with Mother in an empty parking lot waiting for the police to arrive to take Susie to the mental hospital.

She had been howling at imaginary black helicopters.

The cops put her in handcuffs, held her head as she screamed, and jammed her in the back of a waiting police car.

We were silent in our agony; you were absent.

You gave me all that you had. but I needed more.

I wanted you to reach for me finally realizing that you had lost me, left me behind someplace where we had been together. I waited.

Only now I see that you had already given all you could bear.

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“Finding Stacey” Kristina Morgan – Honorable Mention

No call at midnight is good.

My hello is soft, tissue falling to concrete.

Stacey’s drunk again. Her friends left her on the ground somewhere near Dunlap and 19th. The caller hangs up, the tone sharp—a banjo in the wrong chord.

She is in the ditch, her head resting on a rock.

I drag her into the passenger seat, her vomit overpowers my car’s peppermint.

Home, she is able to stumble to the toilet but passes out, her jeans wadded up at her ankles, her red underwear crumpled on top.

All night, I sit by the bed and watch her sleep, my baby sister.

I always think to envelop her to keep her safe, my mothering unwanted. Startlingly beautiful, she drove her powder blue Corvette from man to man, hooking up with the wealthy.

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I knew she flirted, my boyfriend said no worries.

But she fucked him, the betrayal lasting for a year, she said she would stop, her tone as if she were reading a grocery list.

For eight years, I carried a grudge pasted into my heart. Then she surfaced like a plastic doll in a dirty dress bobbing upstream.

At my psych clinic, I waited for my blood draw.

I heard her call out Kristy, my childhood nickname, and there she was wrapped in a yellow blanket the color of daisies. The pain in my life paled against her fractured face, the lines of an old woman who smokes and squints, her forehead gathered in wrinkles.

Meth had stolen her teeth. Homeless, she slept on church steps.

I became lighter in that moment, reached out and traced her chin wishing I could find her, pull her into my car, and take her home with me again.

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“Cumpleaños” Rosario Escarcega – Honorable Mention

At work I squat and trace the path of kumquats down an incline to be squeezed for their juice.

On the road home stubborn sunflowers flicker in a breeze.

A surplus of nickels used to buy burgundy marbles and a sapphire goldfish as gifts for a birthday fiesta.

Walls draped in crape surround a piñata.

Fistful of cake thrown in a food fight.

Contagious laughter rings down the street.

To clean up An angled faucet plunges water on puddled milk.

Mi Amor one more year loved.

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Royal Child

William Goren

Medium: Bronze Size: 14” X 14”

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“Poem on Love” Konrad Ashby – Honorable Mention

The sticky way your skin presses into my chest, your itchy cracks burrowing into my form.

Broken and fallen off myself.

Pining at your bare feet.

I don’t want you to leave.

I don’t remember why.

I don’t want you to leave.

I am desperate for something to warm me.

I am desperate for something to tell me things I don’t believe.

I am desperate for something that isn’t myself.

Please.

I have forgotten your name.

I have forgotten why I’m here.

In this cyclical movement. trying to find a way to convince myself that something is happening.

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My Mother in Her Backyard

Junko Kinoshita

Medium: Oil Size: 30” x 24”

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“For Joey & the 130 Addicts in America That Died Today” Brooke Beebe – Honorable Mention

On October fifth of 1995 Rush Limbaugh was hosting his show when he made the claim that drug addicts are ruining this country Are bad people Actively destroying our suburbs They must all be locked up before they start leaving lines on the bathroom counters for our children.

8 years later in October of 2003 he was exposed for his own prescription drug addiction Apparently you weren’t a very good junkie Rush because every addict I know lived by the policy “No Pill Left Behind.”

See what they don’t tell you about addiction is this: I have a disease . It speaks to me in the same voice I use to speak to you now.

It doesn’t just tell me that sniffing that line of smooth cartel cocaine sounds fun . No you see it becomes seductive invites me back to that familiar sea of gray where tidal waves never cease, but they always know my name.

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Addicts are not just dead-beat dope fiends, They are soldiers Waging a war from the inside out Deserving of The Medal of Valor To honor the bullets bleeding out Of our worn belt looped fabric, buckled Over pointed hips to help hold us up until we can stumble home and unload the empty cartridges of ammunition.

Ammo emptied at a trap house on the Lower East Side Shrapnel slicing through our veins Begging to silence the lullaby of heartstrings Two nights after transforms to one night before The cycle begins again Handcuffing our hearts to the resin filled sandwich bag.

It’s been 3 hours since the stash ran out, my anxiety Holds me hostage , pushes me to my knees, Triggers me execution style, pistol Whips me to a dream where the moon mirrors A coffin over my lonely bed, I hear So many stories about who and what an addict is.

I have begun to wonder where me and my story end And when I became Alice And am I the mad one here Or just the rabbit just trying to get somewhere better? “After this, there is no turning back.

You take the blue pill, the story ends, You wake up in your bed and believe whatever You want to believe. You take the red pill, Poetry

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You stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

One is too many and a thousand is never enough So I took both, I am still trying To understand where they have taken me, stuck In some sort of purgatory between where I was And where I want to be, we are the sick Seeking shelter, the degenerates Convicts, felons and frauds Moody misfits craving mayhem All willingly bought a ticket when we heard “Last call for the train heading nowhere fast!”

But when Joey died none of the addicts called him “Loser, loner, deadbeat, panhandler, thug.”

No, that was the normies who had no remorse for the dying dope fiends . See the addicts Heard about how he had been found Cold and blue on his kitchen floor Alone, At least 30 hours after time of death would have been declared.

We heard how his family found him and held one another while we cried, mourned the latest victim of the disease and focused on how we could use his death to save a life. The “normal people” wrote an obituary around his drug of choice . We made him a hero in our hearts Because Joey was not just some 20 year old kid whose only aspiration was to stick a needle in his arm.

I grew up with a frequent flyer mother In and out of rehab, only constant that 500 milliliter boxed cabernet hidden in her Louboutin purse.

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At sixteen I decided to test how many shots I could take before the dopamine triggered me an addict. How many drags I could I take before I became her doppelganger. How concrete the statistics of genetic predisposition would be. This wasn’t the life I imagined, living fix to fix, sick of being sick.

It’s been 18 months since I took that last hit And sometimes my shame still spirals.

Should I continue to be penalized for prostituting my integrity to receive relief from the disease I am powerless over ?

On a Saturday in April of 2017 At only 94 pounds I consumed Adderall for breakfast, Vodka for brunch, Cocaine for lunch, Snorted meth for dinner.

And an ounce of weed for my snack in between, I accepted I wouldn’t make it to Sunday.

A spiritual awakening is defined as when the confused and frightened self transcends to a higher consciousness, an awareness full of love and peace, When my disease asks me if I want to swim back to that native sea of gray.

What it really is asking me is if I want to die, And for the first time since that first peak, I can truthfully tell you, no, I don’t want to die anymore.

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Still Life

Gloria Langer

Medium: Mixed Media Size: 30” X 20”

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Vortex 2019 Plays and Scripts The word theatre comes from the Greeks.

It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation. The theatre is a spiritual and social X-ray of its time. The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation. ~Stella Adler I don’t think screenplay writing is the same as writing — I mean, I think it’s blueprinting. ~Robert Altman

I love the simple poetry of theater, where you can stand in a spotlight on a stage and wrap a coat around you, and say, “It was 1860 and it was winter...” ~Gary Oldman

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Pitchin’ Marie Tomisato – First Place

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FADE IN INT. CARVER HIGH SCHOOL - LOCKER ROOM - DAY CAM (17) sits on a bench, writing in a notebook. Like the dozen other girls in the room, she’s in a SOFTBALL UNIFORM. The team chats amicably, occasionally checking their hair in the mirror.

Cam ignores them, favoring her homework.

The letters on her notebook seem to jumble inside every word.

CAM (muttering) Dammit...

On the other side of the locker room, a bright, bubbly girl, LAUREN, breaks off from the pack and sneaks into the back of the locker room.

Making sure the coast is clear, Lauren opens several lockers, searching through the bags.

She pockets a few cough drops, pens, and a bottle of foundation.

LAUREN (whispering) Shoot.

Lauren frowns. She has not found what she’s looking for.

So she approaches Cam, a false smile plastered on her face.

LAUREN (CONT’D) Hey, Cam? CAM Yeah?

LAUREN Can I use your hair tie?

Lauren points at Cam’s wrist, where a single BLACK HAIR TIE lies.

CAM Oh. I’m using it.

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LAUREN For your hand?

CAM No, later. During the game. I’m going to use it.

The team catcher, CHEYENNE, walks up to them, curious.

LAUREN Oh. Huh. CAM (to Lauren) I’m sure you’ll find one somewhere, like in the bathroom.

CHEYENNE What’s she supposed to do? Ask the toilet?

LAUREN (whispering) Cheyenne, it’s fine.

Lauren tugs Cheyenne away, but it doesn’t stop Cheyenne from glaring at Cam. CAM (to Lauren) Make sure you say ‘please!’

EXT. CARVER HIGH SCHOOL - EAST PARKING LOT - LATER Lauren stands next to Cheyenne as the team loads up the bus with their softball equipment.

CHEYENNE Did Coach Beet say if you were pitching this game?

LAUREN No. I think he wants to see us warm up first.

CHEYENNE He never actually watches, does he?

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LAUREN Not really, butCHEYENNE God, I wish he would just tell us. I have to get in the right mind set.

Lauren looks like a kicked puppy.

CHEYENNE (CONT’D) I mean, you’re fast. The fastest!

But when I’m catching it’s different with Cam because she’s got more junk, more control...

LAUREN Oh. CHEYENNE I’m still on your side!

Cheyenne leaps on the bus and SLAMS the door closed. She opens a window and pokes her head out.

CHEYENNE (CONT’D) Are you sure you don’t want to ride with the rest of the team? It’s a long trip.

Several other girls lean out the bus windows.

TEAMMATE #1 C’mon, Lauren! Kelsey’s dad cut up strawberries for us!

TEAMMATE #2 PARTY BUSSSSSS! Lauren smiles and picks up her bag.

LAUREN Thanks, guys. But my dad said he would take me.

CHEYENNE BOOOOOO! Playwriting

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LAUREN Have a fun time, guys.

The bus speeds away, and the girls wave goodbye to Lauren.

Lauren’s phone rings - it’s her dad, MARK. LAUREN (CONT’D) (excitedly) Hey, dad!

MARK (O.S.) Hey, kid, I’m sorry, but I’m running late.

LAUREN Oh. MARK (O.S.) I’ll still make it by game time!

But you should ride with the team, so you can warm up.

LAUREN WaitMARK (O.S.) Oh, shoot! Boss-man’s here.

Mark hangs up.

Lauren drops her bag to the ground, visibly crushed.

EXT. CARVER HIGH SCHOOL - WEST PARKING LOT - MOMENTS LATER Cam stuffs a RAKE and a BALL BUCKET into the back of her TRUCK. She climbs into the front seat and starts the car.

Cam rolls the truck forward when Lauren LEAPS in front of it.

LAUREN STOP! Cam SLAMS on the brakes, and clutches her chest.

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CAM Lauren, what the hell?

Lauren nervously opens the side door and jumps inside.

LAUREN I need a ride.

CAM And you couldn’t go with the rest of the team? I could have killed you! Run you over like a stray cat and stuffed your body in the back seat!

Lauren’s face turns pale.

LAUREN Have you done that before?

Lauren opens the side door again.

LAUREN (CONT’D) Sorry, just making sure the car doesn’t lock from the inside.

Cam stares Lauren down.

CAM If that’s what you think of me, I will kick-LAUREN I’m sorry! But Coach will kill you if I don’t make it to the game.

CAM (laughing) You think you’re pitching today? Bold.

LAUREN The team needs both of us in the infield. Whoever’s pitching doesn’t matter.

CAM Okay, now say that with a straight face.

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LAUREN The team-CAM Oh, forget it.

Cam takes her foot off the brake and drives out of the lot.

Lauren SIGHS in relief.

INT. CAM’S CAR - LATER Cam drives in silence, seething. Lauren fidgets uncomfortably.

Lauren braces herself and puts on a bright smile.

LAUREN So...do you like anyone at school?

CAM Let’s not.

LAUREN Why not? Do you hate fun?

CAM I’m not like other girls. I’m not boy crazy, I don’t wear tons of make up-LAUREN Yeah, I went through that stage, too.

CAM No, no, please, Miss Priss. Tell me, in all your wisdom, what temporal stage you have boiled my entire identity into?

Lauren drops her smile and bares her teeth.

LAUREN Are you really not like other girls? Or do you just want to distance yourself from the common patriarchal image of women as vapid, narcissistic, sexual objects? And what’s so bad about “other girls”-130

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Cam turns on the RADIO. It’s NPR. RADIO (V.O.) Nuclear waste has been dumped in Somalia, resulting in radioactive-LAUREN You think this makes you better than us?!

Lauren changes the station to MUSIC. LAUREN (CONT’D) You need this.

RADIO (V.O.) (singing) Don’t need no butterflies when you give-Cam changes it back.

RADIO (V.O.) (CONT’D) Illegal fishing from other counties has forced several cancer-ridden citizens to try pirating...

GROANING, Lauren sinks into her seat.

EXT. GAS STATION - LATER Cam pulls her truck into a gas station and begins filling the tank.

She KNOCKS on the side door. Lauren rolls the window down.

CAM Go get some snacks.

Lauren starts to roll the window back up.

CAM (CONT’D) I’m paying for gas. The least you could do is get some sunflower seeds.

Lauren SIGHS and gets out of the car. She shuffles to the gas station store.

CAM (CONT’D) Ranch flavor!

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INT. GAS STATION - MOMENTS LATER Lauren enters the store with a DING. The store MANAGER nods at her.

Lauren walks nonchalantly, pretending to look around as she hides a packet of SUNFLOWER SEEDS in her jacket pocket.

She heads out the door. Not paying.

EXT. GAS STATION - CONTINUOUS Lauren walks swiftly to the truck, her eyes darting every which way.

Cam tosses her the KEYS and sits in the passenger seat.

CAM Your turn to drive.

Lauren opens the driver door.

LAUREN I don’t have a license.

CAM You’re a senior. How do you not have a license by now? How do you get to all those parties you-LAUREN Not everyone’s parents can afford a car.

CAM Oh. Cam has the decency to look guilty before unbuckling her seat belt and moving.

The Manager, PISSED, comes out of the store with a box of FIDGET SPINNERS. MANAGER Hey! You gotta-Panicking, Lauren sits in the driver’s seat, closes the door, and YANKS Cam back inside.

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CAM Did that guy follow you outside?

LAUREN Uh...

Cam sticks her head out the window.

CAM (to Manager) Fuck off, perv!

LAUREN Cam, don’t!

CAM (to Lauren) DON’T TELL ME WHAT TOMANAGER I shouldn’t hafta tell you to pay!

The Manager throws a fidget spinner at Cam’s head, barely missing her.

CAM Holy fuck!

Cam ducks back into the car and rolls up the window.

Lauren slowly reveals the sunflower seeds.

LAUREN I may have stolen-CAM WHY WOULD YOU-LAUREN I don’t know why, okay? I thought if I went fast enough-CAM Classic Lauren, thinking speed will get you out of-Playwriting

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The Manager throws another fidget spinner, CRACKING the back window.

The girls SCREECH. CAM (CONT’D) Jesus Christ!

LAUREN Oh! Go ahead, say the Lord’s name in vain! Give that redneck another reason to-Cam quickly crawls over the driver’s side and sits in Lauren’s lap, taking the wheel.

LAUREN (CONT’D) You’re jabbing my boobs!

CAM Shut up, I’m saving your life!

Cam puts the car in drive. It slowly rolls forward. Cam tries to reach the pedals.

CAM (CONT’D) Press the gas!

The manager shoots off Cam’s TAIL-LIGHT. CAM (CONT’D) NOW, Lauren!

Lauren pushes the pedal. The truck goes 1 mph faster.

CAM (CONT’D) A little more than that!

Lauren takes her foot off the gas.

LAUREN You didn’t specify! This is just like the time you decided to bunt with a runner onA fidget spinner BREAKS the side mirror.

CAM Oh, just fucking floor it.

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Lauren KICKS her leg out, and they speed out of the gas station, hitting a small, metal box on the way out.

The manager continues YELLING at them as they roll off with a FLAT TIRE. EXT. CAR REPAIR SHOP - LATER Cam and Lauren exit the shop, walking past rows of large BALLOON TIRES. A RIVER runs alongside the shop, where Cam SPITS out a sunflower seed exasperatedly.

Lauren anxiously wrings her hands.

LAUREN I can pay you back...

CAM You couldn’t afford sunflower seeds.

LAUREN No, I can! My dad is coming to the game today, so I can ask him-CAM If you think you’re gonna guilt me into letting you pitch this game like the stealing, attention whore that you are just because “daddy” finally showed up-LAUREN That’s not what I’m doing! God, you’re such a-Cam goes to the side of the road and sticks out her thumb.

LAUREN (CONT’D) What are you doing?

Cam ignores her.

LAUREN (CONT’D) That’s not how you hitch hike.

Lauren walks into the middle of the road. And lies down.

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LAUREN (CONT’D) Now people will stop for us!

CAM You’re too perky to be dead.

Cam SIGHS. She pulls her homework out of her bag and plops down next to Lauren.

Lauren frowns as Cam studies her book.

LAUREN Do you ever stop?

CAM Stop what?

Lauren sits up and grabs Cam’s notes.

LAUREN You are so intent on cutting yourself off from the world. All for-Lauren looks down.

LAUREN (CONT’D) You spelled “rabbit” wrong.

Cam reaches for her notes, but Lauren is too quick.

LAUREN (CONT’D) (laughing) Oh my God, how does a junior in high school spell rabbit wrong?

That’s so dyslexic of you!

CAM Well, I am dyslexic. Asshole.

Lauren GULPS. CAM (CONT’D) But I can still spell “bitch.”

Lauren slowly hands back the notes. Cam YANKS them out of her hands.

A loud THRUM of ENGINES makes the girls turn around. It’s-- A BIKER GANG.

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CAM (CONT’D) I’ve always wanted to ride a motorcycle, waving my bat in the air.

LAUREN Just don’t force them to listen to NPR. Lauren waves excitedly to the bikers.

The biker gang comes closer. Cam squints her eyes and sees a RAINBOW FLAG. CAM It’s Dykes on Bikes! We’re saved!

LAUREN I’m not sure I’m comfortable riding with...

CAM You’re okay with greasy biker men but not with lesbians?! That easily could have been a confederate flag!

LAUREN I’m not homophobic! I just don’t want people on the team to think I’m gay!

Cam SHOVES Lauren’s shoulder.

CAM Stop caring so much about other people’s opinion of you. You have no control over that.

Lauren SHOVES Cam right back.

LAUREN Then why are you trying to control me?

Cam pushes Lauren onto the ground and SCREAMS in her face.

CAM I wouldn’t have to control you if you weren’t homophobic!

Lauren GRUNTS, straining as she rolls them off the road.

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LAUREN I’M NOT READY TO TELL MY DAD I’M BISEXUAL! Cam stares wide-eyed at Lauren.

CAM ...what?

Lauren rolls off Cam and buries her face in her hands, already feeling regret.

The bikers WHIZ past them.

CAM (CONT’D) I-I didn’t know-LAUREN How could you possibly know anything about me? You don’t talk to me!

CAM You don’t talk to me, either!

The wind of the bikers finally hits them, DUST spraying them in the face.

The girls turn away, covering their mouths, COUGHING. They sit in silence, brooding.

CAM (CONT’D) So... do YOU have any ideas on how to get to the game?

Lauren glances back at the shop. And then the river.

She gives Cam a genuine smile.

EXT. RIVER - LATER The girls have stripped down to their sliders and undershirts. They’re floating on a fake, blow-up tire like a RAFT. SPEEDING down the river, Cam pushes them forward with their BATS. Lauren clings to two large TRASH BAGS, filled with their clothes and softball equipment.

She YELLS over the SPLASHING of the river.

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LAUREN Oh, GOD! Cam, look!

Cam looks down the river to see jagged rocks, and only one, narrow pathway.

CAM We’ll need to focus on that one entrance! Aim is key!

LAUREN The water’s too shallow. We need to go faster to get over the bump.

Lauren shoves one of the trash bags onto Cam’s lap.

LAUREN (CONT’D) I’m helping. Give me a bat.

CAM No! LAUREN I’m stronger. Give me a bat!

CAM You’ll go too fast and capsize us on a sharp-ass rock!

LAUREN And you’ll die a slow, painful death, stuck between a rock and a stupid place!

Cam looks over her shoulder as they SPIN toward the rocky passageway.

LAUREN (CONT’D) Please.

Cam thrusts a bat in Lauren’s hands. Just in time.

They push down with their bats, heaving the raft above the shallow water, SAILING past the rocks.

The girls stare WIDE-EYED at their accomplishment, spinning in the water.

CAM Oh, FUCK YES WE DID! Playwriting

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LAUREN THAT’S HOW WE DO! They HIGH-FIVE and continue their way down the river, pushing themselves along with their bats.

EXT. PARK - SOFTBALL FIELD - LATER The team is doing LUNGES as COACH BEET blows his whistle at them.

COACH BEET Fourteen! Fourteen people on the team, and no one knows where my pitchers are?

One of the players falls over, eating grass as she tries to lift herself up from another lunge.

COACH BEET (CONT’D) Maybe next year, I won’t take so many subs! What’s the point if no one can keep track of each other?

Cheyenne, in full catcher gear, is by far the SWEATIEST. COACH BEET (CONT’D) The game starts in five minutes! Do you think we’re gonna win in this condition?

CHEYENNE Coach, we’re sorry!

COACH BEET Cheyenne’s outburst just cost you guys another lap! Say thank you!

The girls GROAN and SEETHE. One teammate shoots daggers at Cheyenne with her eyes.

TEAM Thanks, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne WINCES. And then looks in the distance.

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On the other side of the park, in the raging river, Lauren and Cam stumble over each other as they EMERGE from the water like clumsy beasts.

Lauren runs toward the team, the contents of the trash bags dropping out.

Cam picks up the shoes that fall out, trying to balance it with the raft.

LAUREN Leave the raft! Leave the raft!

Cam drops the raft and swings the bats over her shoulder, carrying the cleats in her hands and their socks in her mouth.

CAM Keep going, I’m right behind you!

Lauren trips over a stray pair of pants and starts FALLING. Cam lifts Lauren from behind before she falls completely.

LAUREN Thanks!

CAM No time! Let’s book it!

Cheyenne watches in a daze as the girls approach them.

CHEYENNE Uh, Coach?

COACH BEET What!

Cheyenne points at Cam and Lauren, SOAKED beyond belief and tossing their stuff over the fence.

Coach Beet turns around to see a flying glove SMACK Cheyenne’s mom in the face.

CAM Sorry!

Lauren tries VAULTING over the fence, fails, and then attempts climbing.

Cam pulls Lauren down and points at the gate lock. Lauren nods.

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Lauren lifts up a bat and SMASHES the gate lock to smithereens.

Cam KICKS open the gate, and they run to grab their things.

They wobble to the center of the field, where Coach Beet and the team are watching in shock and awe.

PANTING, Cam pulls a uniform shirt over Lauren. Lauren grabs a visor and puts it on Cam’s head.

CAM AND LAUREN (CONT’D) WE’RE HERE! EXT. PARK - SOFTBALL FIELD - LATER Cam stands at the MOUND, pounding dirt into the foot holes. She takes the ball from her glove and wipes it on her shirt.

Lauren jogs from home base and nervously enters the pitcher’s circle, pacing around Cam. LAUREN I don’t know if I can do this, there’s too much pressure-CAM Oh, please. Three runners on base, two outs, and a full count on the swing hitter? What’s the big deal?

Lauren wipes her sweaty hand on her pants and surveys the bleachers. Cam follows her gaze.

Lauren’s dad, Mark, WAVES. LAUREN This was a bad idea. You should have let Coach Beet put you in-CAM Fuck Coach Beet.

Cam looks over at Coach Beet. And gives him Lauren’s classic fake smile.

Coach Beet gives Cam the bird.

The umpire POUNDS the fence and points at Coach Beet, warning him.

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Coach Beet puts up his hands retreats to the back of the dugout.

CAM (CONT’D) You’re gonna keep pitching. I’d rather lose this game than lose...

Lauren stops fidgeting.

A knowing smirk creeps on her face.

LAUREN Lose what, Cam? Cam scowls and walks to third, taking her position.

LAUREN (CONT’D) (yelling after Cam) Lose what, Cam? CAM (to the umpire) We’re ready! Time out over!

The batter steps up to the plate, and Cheyenne pulls down her catcher’s helmet.

Lauren LEAPS off the mound. The ball WHIPS out of her hand.

The batter SWINGS. STRIKE. The team erupts in CHEERS, throwing their gloves in the air.

CAM (CONT’D) WOOOOOOOOOOO--ph-Lauren TACKLES Cam to the ground with a bone-crushing hug.

LAUREN (giggling) Thanks, Cam. Cam can’t help but grin as the team JUMPS on them in a massive DOG PILE. FADE OUT. Playwriting

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Belgium Waterway

Judy Feldman

Medium: Oil Size: 30” X 40”

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Orion Watches Over Thomas Hartwell – Second Place

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CHARACTERS THE CHRONICLER ATARA FAYE RIGEL

SETTING Two worlds in a faraway time—the otherworldly, private study of FAYE, and a tent in the middle of a battlefield.

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ORION WATCHES OVER (The stage is divided into two separate worlds, one elevated above the other. FAYE stands on the elevated area upstage and speaks to the audience) FAYE There was a time when gods walked the earth. We moved mountains, commanded the seas, sparked the very stars in the sky. We guided our children through their lives, through struggle and torment, to a grand and glorious ending. And we were pretty good at it, too. (beat) But our time is fading. The world is changing, and its children are lost. In the land below: a king gone mad from years of isolation. Years of cruelty and famine. A time desperately calling for a hero—and thus a hero is delivered.

(ATARA jumps on downstage, full of a manic energy and excitement) ATARA Hey! You think you’re better than us? You think you know what’s best for us, locked up there in your castle? For nineteen years you’ve isolated yourself from the world, but today that all changes. We on the ground have had enough of your ignorance—of the cruelty and injustice you’ve allowed to flourish. Your time is up, old man—and we’re coming for you.

FAYE And of course, each hero must have with them a scribe—someone kept close to their heart to document their adventures. A companion. A friend. A chronicler. (the CHRONICLER enters, writing in an ornate leather-bound book) CHRONICLER This is the story of Atara—a child of the gods, sent down to be our savior, full of light and radiance. Majestic is her name and all that she— ATARA No, no, no—not like that!

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CHRONICLER What?

ATARA None of that “gods and radiance” stuff. C’mon! Make me down to earth. A “woman of the people,” you know, that sort of thing.

CHRONICLER All of history is going to be reading this—I have to make you regal, triumphant— ATARA That’s adorable, but no, silly—you’re here to write things as they are. As they happened.

Leave the later generations to editorialize—we’re in the here and now! Now come on—I saw a group of guards near the encampment—we’ll have to mount a counter-offensive to drive them out! (shouting as she bolts off stage) For the glory of the revolution! Aaaaaahhh!

(As ATARA runs off, RIGEL, FAYE’s close compatriot, enters upstage) FAYE Atara was a born leader and a gifted tactician. She was an inspiration to the downtrodden and the oppressed. But more than that— CHRONICLER She was a friend.

FAYE And it was her friends that knew her to be hope of the future—the radiant child of the gods that would lead her people in the promise of a new life and— RIGEL What are you doing?

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FAYE I’m, uh—I’m telling them the…uh…

RIGEL Oh god, you’re not done yet. Faye—the boats are here—it’s time for us to go!

FAYE But—I don’t want to go! Not before I create an ending. Why should we have to leave, anyhow?

RIGEL Because that’s how it works! We show up, we give them guidance, we leave. That’s it.

FAYE But—what if they need more guidance? Didn’t think about that, huh?

RIGEL They’ll be fine. What are you so hung up about?

FAYE Everyone else got to tell their story and have their perfect ending! Resurrections, worlds engulfed in flame and born again, children ascending to gods! All I want is to finish what I started—what we started. Can’t I have that?

RIGEL Faye—there comes a time in every storyteller’s life when they have to let go. We can’t be here forever, and those people down there—they need to learn to live without us. They need to grow up. And they can’t do that until you let them go.

(FAYE doesn’t respond) Faye? Are you listening to me?

FAYE I…I have to finish this. You don’t understand.

(RIGEL, fed up, storms out. FAYE turns back to the audience) He doesn’t understand.

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(downstage, ATARA re-enters and mimes giving orders to some unseen army as the CHRONICLER writes) CHRONICLER My path first crossed with Atara some fifteen years ago. I was on a voyage with my mother when we were attacked by rogues off the northern shore. Our ship was destroyed, our crew taken hostage…and then she came. When I first saw her, the sun had just begun to rise, and its beams adorned her head like a crown. She was magnificent. (beat) So much has changed in the years since. My mother was lost in battle, my home village a faraway memory. But Atara stands now as she did then—my inspiration, my light, my friend.

ATARA (to her army) …and then as soon as their rear flank advances, we strike with our artillery from the east.(to the CHRONICLER) Are you getting all of this?

CHRONICLER Uh…yeah—oh, yeah, all of it.

ATARA You’re writing about me again, aren’t you?

CHRONICLER …maybe.

ATARA (to her army) Could you give us a second? (she moves to the CHRONICLER, takes the book and reads. After a moment she laughs) You know damn well it was midnight when I rescued your ship.

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CHRONICLER What? It makes for a nice image. It’s poetic.

ATARA You’ll never change, will you?

CHRONICLER Do you want me to?

ATARA (smiling) No. No, I don’t. (beat, turning back to her army) Okay, for real this time—get this down. (out, to the army) All right, men, it’s time. The king is well-guarded in his keep, but with the strategies I’ve laid out we can break through his defenses and sneak ourselves in. No one is expecting an attack tonight, least of all from the east, and with our numbers we can— RIGEL (offstage) Wait! Wait! You’re in terrible danger!

(RIGEL runs onstage. FAYE is visibly thrown and watches the action happening downstage) RIGEL Please, you have to listen to me.

FAYE What the— ATARA Who are you?

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RIGEL I’m one of the king’s guards. I came here to warn you.

FAYE What?

RIGEL The king knows you’re coming. He’s laid out a trap for you—thousands of guards line the castle walls, all armed with arrows and catapults. They’re prepared to slaughter anyone who draws near. It’s hopeless.

FAYE Rigel, what are you doing— ATARA Wait, no, it can’t be hopeless— (RIGEL turns out and addresses the army ATARA was leading.

ATARA addresses her remarks to individual unseen soldiers, but her words are in vain as the encampment empties) ATARA No, please, we can do this if we stick together, please. I know it sounds bad, but we’ve been through worse!

Remember the struggle on the fields. We survived then, we can do it now! Please, don’t go…wait, please. Don’t leave me…

RIGEL Get out of here! Flee! Your lives are in danger! The king will kill you all! You have to get out of here—flee! I wish I could help, but it’s hopeless! You’re all doomed if you try to attack. You’ll be overwhelmed! Save yourselves! Save your families! Run!

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FAYE NO! Stop it!! You don’t— Rigel, stop! Please, you don’t understand. Stop!

This is my life! You can’t just ruin, please! I’m begging you, why are you doing this?

Please— FAYE (CONT.) STOP! (the encampment is empty—only those we see are still present. RIGEL starts to leave, but ATARA grabs him) ATARA Wait, you’re one of the guards, you can show us the way in—please, wait— RIGEL I’m sorry. I have to go. (he exits. ATARA and the CHRONICLER are alone) CHRONICLER What do we do now?

(ATARA stares, hopeless. RIGEL re-enters the upstage area) FAYE Get out.

RIGEL Faye, listen to me— FAYE You’ve ruined everything! What are they supposed to do now? Huh? Do you have any idea how this will end?

RIGEL No, I don’t.

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FAYE Exactly! We don’t know! I had a plan—I knew what I needed to do—why couldn’t you trust me?

CHRONICLER Atara, what do we do?

ATARA (suddenly frantic, pacing) I don’t know. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t know what to do.

CHRONICLER Okay, it’ll be all right, just calm down.

ATARA How am I supposed to calm down? My army’s fled. My strategies are hopeless. I’m out of ideas. (turning to CHRONICLER) What do you think?

CHRONICLER What?

ATARA I’m asking you, please, what should I do?

FAYE Look at them; they’re lost. They need me.

RIGEL They’ll figure it out! Why can’t you trust them? You’ve been here for years, supervising every single little detail down there, never once letting go.

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RIGEL Controlled them! You’ve done everything for them except let them live.

CHRONICLER I, I don’t have any ideas.

ATARA Please, you’re always writing in there, even when there’s nothing to write about. I know you’ve thought this through; I know you’ve some miraculous ending in mind. Please, tell me what to do.

CHRONICLER I…all right, let me see. (they flip to a page in the back. Reading:) “…with a stroke of her blade, Atara slew through the hordes of guards, gliding on the wind like an angel. The ships flew in, ready for the siege, the wolves stampeded in from the forest, howling into the night. The birds fled into the sky, the worms dug into the ground, and all of nature with Atara at their lead finally dethroned the king.”

ATARA Okay. Great. Fantastic. How do I do it?

CHRONICLER What? How would I know?

ATARA You wrote it!

CHRONICLER That’s what I do! I write! I don’t know how this works; I just write what happens and imagine the rest. I followed you for everything else.

ATARA God! Everything used to be so simple, so sure. I knew where I was going, I knew what

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needed to be done. I’m so lost, nothing is clear, my mind is…clouded in maybes and what-ifs and oh God what am I supposed to do?

CHRONICLER I wish I could tell you…I’m so sorry.

ATARA Why are you even here? What reason did you ever have? You’ve stuck with me through everything and lost so much to get here. Why are you here?

CHRONICLER Because…because…

ATARA Why? CHRONICLER Because you’re my friend, and I love you.

(A long beat of silence. ATARA doesn’t know what to say. Finally, she reaches out and embraces the CHRONICLER. As she pulls away:) ATARA I know what I have to do.

(ATARA moves downstage, looking up) Hey. Up there in the castle. Can you hear me? (to the CHRONICLER) Quick, get this down. (the CHRONICLER rushes to her book and starts to write) CHRONICLER The king had been watching the commotion in the fields. He stepped out onto the highest balcony and looked down at Atara.

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rule. So I’m here…because I think you need someone to talk to. For nineteen years you’ve locked yourself away up there. For nineteen years you’ve isolated yourself from the world. For nineteen years you’ve been alone. I thought… (she reaches a hand up) I thought maybe you could use a friend.

CHRONICLER Kindness. That’s all it took. A simple act of kindness, and the world was changed forever. The king stepped down from his palace, rejoining the world he had long forgotten.

And the histories started to change—where once the stories told of battles and conflict, now the pages filled with peace and reconciliation. The world and its children were finally starting to grow up. (the CHRONICLER sits far downstage. ATARA walks up and joins her. Upstage, RIGEL and FAYE have been watching the scene) FAYE They made it through.

RIGEL Is it like how you planned it?

No. FAYE (mumbles, embarrassed) It’s better than what I had…

RIGEL I thought as much.

FAYE Did…did you know this would happen?

RIGEL No. I had no idea.

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FAYE Then?

RIGEL I just had to trust that they would survive once we left. Even a god has to learn to have faith. (beat) Faye, it’s time for us to go.

FAYE Can I…let me see this. Please.

(RIGEL puts his hand on FAYE’s shoulder. They watch together) ATARA Watching the stars?

CHRONICLER I’ve never seen so many of them before.

ATARA I used to come up to this hill when I needed to think. The night sky would always calm my mind. (after a beat) You want to see something neat?

CHRONICLER What?

ATARA (pointing up) Look up there. You see that row of stars? The ones so close together? And how the stars around it form an x? If you look at it right, you can almost see— CHRONICLER It’s a person.

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ATARA It’s not always in the sky. I don’t know why. But whenever I felt lost, or alone, I’d look up and there he was. And everything was going to be okay. Because in that moment, no matter what else was happening, someone was there to guide me. (beat) I used to think the stars had an ending in mind for me. Some path I was supposed to follow. But that seems awfully silly now.

CHRONICLER Maybe our lives aren’t meant to have points. Or endings. Maybe the stories keep going, and we’re…I don’t know. Just one in an infinite series of postscripts.

ATARA That’s such a writer way of putting it.

CHRONICLER What do you expect from me?

(ATARA laughs. Then after a beat) ATARA I don’t know where tomorrow will lead. I don’t feel like I know much of anything anymore. But if you’re here, by my side, I think I can figure it out.

(Upstage, RIGEL sits as FAYE stands behind him. ATARA and CHRONICLER sit close to each other downstage, almost in an embrace) CHRONICLER Oh. ATARA What is it?

CHRONICLER My book. I think I know how to finish it.

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(she opens her the book and starts to write. As she writes, FAYE joins in.)

CHRONICLER There was a time when gods walked the earth. But that was long ago. The world is older now— the mountains move on their own, the seas come as they please…

FAYE The world is older now—the mountains move on their own, the seas come as they please.

FAYE And somehow, despite everything, life moves forward. And we continue to live in its story.

(ATARA smiles and takes the CHRONICLER’s hand. Upstage, FAYE and RIGEL watch them as the lights fade to black.)

END OF PLAY

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Full Spectrum

Ellen Nemetz

Medium: Acrylic Size: 24” X 24”

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Silhouette Based on True Events

Stephanie Cortes – Third Place

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FADE IN INT. CAR - DAY HARLEY, early 20’s with medium length black hair and a slight gothic appeal lowers the volume of the music in the car and looks over at Maddelyn, also known as “M.” HARLEY M, are you okay? You haven’t said a word since we left. We can go back if you want.

MADDELYN, early 20’s, with thick eyebrows and a girl next door wardrobe gets up from leaning on window.

MADDELYN What? No Sorry, I want to do this. I really need to know what happened.

M tucks her hair behind her ear.

HARLEY On the bright side, we have the cabin to ourselves for a couple days before the guys join us.

MADDELYN Yeah, let’s hope they don’t flake like they always do...

Harley, can you pull over, I need some fresh air.

Car pulls to the side of the road and girls get out.

EXT. ROADSIDE - DAY M and Harley just stay quiet for a minute and Maddelyn hesitates to speak.

MADDELYN I miss her a lot. She wasn’t the perfect mom, but she was all I had.

She’s was the closest thing to family as I’ll ever get.

HARLEY M, she’s watching over you everyday and she loved you. She still loves you.

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(MORE) HARLEY (CONT’D) I also love you, and I’m kind of offended that you think blood is the only thing that makes you family.

MADDELYN Stop acting like she’s dead. She’s missing, but she’s still alive. You sound like the detective giving up on her case. Ugh, I’m just hurt, mad, there’s so many mixed emotions. I can’t grasp the fact that she never told me about the cabin. What was she hiding?

HARLEY Maybe she was going to give it to you as a surprise one day.

MADDELYN I don’t know, I doubt that. If it weren’t for that creepy landlord demanding I sell it, I would have never known it existed.

HARLEY Hey, I think that landlord was kind of sexy.

M looks over at Harley in disgust.

HARLEY (CONT’D) I’m half kidding. Maybe she used the cabin to bring her secret lovers into the woods. Or maybe, the landlord was her secret lover.

Harley raises her eyebrow at Maddelyn.

Maddelyn smirks at Harley.

MADDELYN Let’s go, Harley. I want to get there before the sun sets.

HARLEY (Sarcastically) So demanding, but fine let’s go, Maddelyn.

Harley and Maddelyn head back into the car.

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MADDELYN You know I hate that name, you ass.

Maddelyn nudges Harley.

HARLEY Yeah, yeah, no one cares. Just kidding. Love you.

Harley and Maddelyn do a handshake.

The girls continue to drive for a couple more hours until they reach their destination.

EXT. OUTSIDE CABIN - DAY The girls get out of car and take a moment to look at cabin.

HARLEY Wow. I’m getting major slasher film vibes.

MADDELYN Shut up. It’s…cute. I think it has character.

HARLEY Character like Jason?

Opens trunk to start to grab all of their belongings and takes everything inside.

INT. CABIN - DAY Maddelyn puts down her last bag.

HARLEY I call dibs on a room with a window, so I can jump out in case someone breaks in to murder us.

MADDELYN You would just leave me here?

HARLEY Hey, survival of the fittest.

MADDELYN Didn’t you fail biology? You know what, you can have whatever you want, I’ll figure it out later.

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Harley smiles and starts to look for a room while Maddelyn continues to look around.

INT. HARLEY’S ROOM - DAY Harley throws herself on the bed.

HARLEY I could use a beer. Maybe some wine. I’m feeling subpar.

Harley gets up and looks around and sighs.

HARLEY (CONT’D) Hey Mrs. Cooper, I know M is upset about this entire situation, so if you’re here, can you please give me a sign by directing me to any type of alcohol.

Harley gives a subtle laugh and starts to change into comfortable clothing.

INT. MADDELYN’S ROOM - DAY Maddelyn looking around the room.

MADDELYN What were you hiding, Mom? Looks through old pictures and other belongings. Box of belongings is found in drawer.

Takes it out sits on bed, looks through it and takes out a candle.

THUMP. Maddelyn gets scared and immediately looks over and sees picture on nightstand fell.

Maddelyn puts candle down on counter. Picks up object and stares at it for a bit. Harley barges in door and shows wine.

HARLEY I found wine, M! Come help me.

MADDELYN Jesus, you scared me.

Puts down picture next to candle.

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HARLEY What are you doing? What’s up with the box?

MADDELYN Why are you asking so many questions?

HARLEY Since when do we keep so many secrets?

Maddelyn begins to walk out with Harley.

MADDELYN It’s nothing. What kind of wine did you find?

Maddelyn closes the door behind them and after a few seconds pass, the picture frame falls.

INT. MADDELYN’S CABIN - KITCHEN - DAY Maddelyn puts needle on record player.

HARLEY I think this is still good. There’s only one way to find out.

Pops open a wine bottle and smells it.

HARLEY (CONT’D) Smells good to me.

Takes sip from bottle.

MADDELYN I hate you. It’s not even 5 yet.

Looks for wine glasses.

HARLEY Well, it’s 5 somewhere.

Maddelyn rolls eyes.

HARLEY (CONT’D) What? We have to have a little fun before you know who comes and slaughters us.

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MADDELYN Life isn’t always like the movies, Harley. I don’t know how Miles puts up with you.

HARLEY Who? He’s irrelevant right now.

Pours wine into cup.

MADDELYN It seems like you guys are never on good terms.

HARLEY I just don’t think it feels the same anymore. He doesn’t even take me out anymore.

MADDELYN I feel you. David kind of ghosted me after my mom’s face was basically on every milk carton.

Harley interrupts.

HARLEY Stop. We’re not about to get sad. Second, what time period are you stuck in? No one drinks regular milk anymore.

Harley starts getting up on chair.

MADDELYN Harley, stop. Don’t be clichéd and make a toast.

Harley puts up wine glass, and Maddelyn just shakes her head.

HARLEY Here’s to an amazing weekend, with us, the guys. Maybe Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger. Oh, and this wine in courtesy of your mother.

Put your glass up!

MADDELYN I guess some wine will do me some good.

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Maddelyn puts glass in the air. Harley starts drinking from bottle, Maddelyn takes sip, but Harley makes her chug glass.

EXT. CABIN - FRONT PORCH - NIGHT Maddelyn sitting on the porch, Harley walks out with two blankets.

HARLEY Damn, it’s fucking cold.

Harley puts blanket over Maddelyn and herself and sits next to her. Looks over at Maddelyn.

HARLEY (CONT’D) What are you thinking about?

MADDELYN Do you remember when we were kids, and we went to get frozen yogurt, and Jessica Andrews was there with her little group of friends, and when we walked in, she said Ew, it’s big chin Maddelyn and her boyfriend Harley.

Harley laughs and flips her hair.

HARLEY Yes! And I said and Ew it’s-HARLEY/MADDELYN Brainless Jess and her dickhead friends!

Harley and Maddelyn laugh.

HARLEY And then I threw my yogurt at her. I swear I felt like such a bad ass in fourth grade.

MADDELYN Yea, in that moment I knew you were going to be my best friend for life.

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HARLEY Dude, we’ll always be best friends! Until the moment Jason comes running out of those woods and chops our heads off.

MADDELYN All right, you’ve had way too much to drink, go drink some water before bed.

HARLEY I think you’re right. Goodnight, M. Harley walks inside and closes door.

Harley peeks out and Maddelyn is staring off in distance.

HARLEY (CONT’D) Pst, M. So like, by water, did you mean the last sip of this bottle of wine because that stuff is so much better.

MADDELYN Go to bed, Harley!

HARLEY All right, Harley, looks like we’re going to bed.

Harley walks back inside, and Maddelyn takes a few moments to follow her in.

INT. CABIN - NIGHT Maddelyn and Harley are cleaning up the kitchen before they go to sleep for the night.

After a few moments, there is a knock on the front door, and the two girls look at each other.

MADDELYN I think you should grab that.

HARLEY Don’t be a baby, I’m pretty sure it’s a neighbor or something.

Harley walks over to the front door and looks through the window and sees a silhouette of a woman. She rubs her eyes and proceeds to open the door.

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HARLEY (CONT’D) Hi, do you need something?

Maddelyn walks closer to Harley to see who it could be. It’s too dark outdoors to get a image of the woman standing there.

WOMAN Is Daylan here? Is she okay?

There’s a long pause before Harley speaks.

HARLEY Um. You’re at the wrong place. I’m sorry.

WOMAN Tell me she’s okay?

HARLEY Um. Look, I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is. Have a goodnight.

WOMAN Goodnight.

Harley closes the door and makes sure the woman walks away. She turns around and looks at Maddelyn and raises her eyebrows.

HARLEY I dead ass just relived a scene from The Strangers. I really have to stop drinking.

MADDELYN Harley, I don’t think you realize we’re in the woods away from people.

Harley begins to walk to her room.

HARLEY I don’t want to think about scary movies right now. I’m going to bed.

Maddelyn starts to walk to her room and tries to process what happened.

INT. MADDELYN’S ROOM - NIGHT

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Maddelyn is frustrated and can’t sleep. She gets up, lights a small candle and takes it to the window.

MADDELYN This feels so stupid. I can’t believe I’m doing this. But I miss you. I miss your red nails, all the gowns you loved to wear. I miss you humming to me.

(MORE) MADDELYN (CONT’D) I’m sorry I wasn’t the best daughter and that I distanced myself. I just got caught up in everything and forgot to check in from time to time.

Now, you’re gone. I just hope you’re still breathing. Please come home.

Maddelyn sheds a tear.

Candle goes out. Maddelyn wipes tear from face. Maddelyn smiles.

MADDELYN (CONT’D) Goodnight Mom. I love you.

INT. ROOM - DAY Harley is making breakfast while dancing/singing. She starts calling Maddelyn and walks over to her room and barges in.

HARLEY WAKE UP M! BREAKFAST IS ALMOST DONE! MADDELYN What time is it?

HARLEY It’s 8:30, but I want to make the most of this trip, so get up.

MADDELYN Be there in a minute.

Harley leaves, and Maddelyn gets up and sits on the bed for a bit, gets up and looks at candle before exiting.

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INT. KITCHEN - DAY Harley putting breakfast on table. Maddelyn walking in and sits on table.

MADDELYN I’m surprised you aren’t hungover.

HARLEY Hungover? My mom didn’t spend all that money for my tuition for me to be an amateur at drinking.

Maddelyn takes sip of juice.

MADDELYN Pretty sure, that’s not why she sent you to college.

HARLEY In my defense, I didn’t want to go in the first place.

Harley sits down at table.

MADDELYN Anyways, are we not going to discuss what happened last night?

HARLEY No, let’s pretend that never happened. What twisted soul names their kid Daylan? Could never be me.

MADDELYN Harley, listen. I’m actually freaked out by the situation.

Maddelyn takes bite of food.

HARLEY We’re fine. We won’t be alone for much longer. Besides. You have me.

MADDELYN And how are you planning to protect us if something were to happen.

HARLEY Simple. I’d light the house on fire and we’d just get in the car and go. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.

Harley takes bite of food.

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MADDELYN It’s mind blowing how you never take life seriously.

HARLEY Hey, we’re not here to judge one another. Let’s just forget it happened and go out and explore, it looks amazing outside.

EXT. WOODS - DAY Harley and Maddelyn walking in woods, while Harley hums a song.

MADDELYN Since when do you know that song?

HARLEY I don’t know, I just woke up and it’s been stuck in my head. It’s probably from my dream.

MADDELYN My mom used to hum it to me when I was a kid.

HARLEY Sorry, I don’t want to ruin the mood, but the woods really freak me out.

MADDELYN Then why’d you want to come out here?

HARLEY Because I know how much you love the woods, and trees, plus I felt like you needed it.

MADDELYN We can go back if you want.

HARLEY No, it’s fine.

MADDELYN What scares you about this? Nature is supposed to be relaxing.

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HARLEY I hate how you’re surrounded by nothing and it’s quiet. Plus, you know how I am, I love slasher movies. In theory, the woods are cool, but they scare me, okay? There. I said it.

MADDELYN Wow, first my mom’s keeping secrets and now you?

Harley picks up rocks and throws them at trees.

FOOTSTEPS ON LEAVES. Maddelyn and Harley look back and see nothing nearby.

HARLEY Yeah, I’m not going to take any chances. I’ll see you back at the house.

EXT. BACKYARD - NIGHT Fire crackling and the girls are eating marshmallows. Maddelyn blows on her corndogs.

MADDELYN The guys get here tomorrow, right?

HARLEY Yes ma’am.

Harley takes bite of her corndog.

HARLEY (CONT’D) All right. It’s about that time, tell me a scary story.

MADDELYN I don’t know any scary stories.

HARLEY I was hoping you’d say that. My turn.

Harley holds corn dog as mic.

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HARLEY (CONT’D) This one is short, but based on a true story. My story. One time I got so high in the car with Miles that we were laughing at everything.

Then it started getting late so we decided to head back. I was driving, and I saw something in the distance.

Maddelyn looks toward the house and sees someone walking in the distance.

Maddelyn quickly gasps and turns around.

MADDELYN Did you see that?

HARLEY M, I didn’t even get to the best part.

MADDELYN I’m going inside.

Harley sighs and puts out the fire. Maddelyn starts to gather everything and cleans up the area.

INT. CABIN - NIGHT Maddelyn and Harley set everything down, and Harley begins to look at surroundings.

HARLEY The house looks a little different. I think someone else was in here.

MADDELYN I’m actually paranoid now, Harley.

HARLEY Stay here, I’m going to look around to make sure we’re safe. Don’t turn on any lights.

Harley walks around the house with a flashlight. Maddelyn stays by the door and looks outside. Maddelyn looks back in the house and sees a woman standing in the kitchen.

Maddelyn gets scared and looks behind her for anything to use as weapon.

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HARLEY (CONT’D) We’re good, M. I think we’re just freaking ourselves out.

Maddelyn looks over at Harley then back over only to find an empty kitchen. Maddelyn and Harley walk to their rooms.

INT. MADDELYN’S ROOM - NIGHT Maddelyn is having a nightmare and gets up quickly. Looks over to the side of bed and at portrait of her mom.

FAINT humming.

Maddelyn freaks out and tries to turn on the lights, but electricity is out.

Tries to relight candle, but has no luck. As she is relighting candle, she gets a flashlight nearest to her and starts to head out.

INT. CABIN - HALLWAY - NIGHT Starts walking to kitchen. CREEK. Hesitates, but continues to walk forward with flashlight facing the floor.

CREEK. Hesitates again.

MADDELYN (Whispers) Fear is all in my head, 1...2...3.

Turns around with flashlight, pointing in all directions.

Turns back around and begins to hear humming again. She starts to walk and the humming stops. Maddelyn begins to breathe heavily and subtly shake.

BREATHING. Maddelyn sheds tear.

Hand touches Maddelyn’s shoulder. She drops everything and runs to Harley’s room.

INT. HARLEY’S ROOM - NIGHT Maddelyn roughly closes door shut and gets in bed with Harley.

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MADDELYN (whispers) Harley, Harley, wakeup! There’s someone in the house!

Maddelyn is crying, and Harley gets up slowly and confused.

HARLEY Woah, chill out, M. What’s wrong?

Harley get flashlight by her stand and turns it on.

MADDELYN There’s someone in the house.

HARLEY What do you mean someone’s in the house?

MADDELYN Shut up.

Maddelyn puts hand over Harley’s mouth.

Harley and Maddelyn calm down. Maddelyn slowly takes hand off her mouth. Harley starts moving toward door.

Maddelyn gets up and gets close to door, gets over on the floor and signals Harley to come over with her. Harley looks under door and sees a flashlight.

HARLEY I don’t see anyone, M. Maddelyn silent for a second. Both look under door.

MADDELYN I’m not crazy.

Both see just flashlight.

HUMMING. Both look at door and each other and look back under.

Flashlight turns off and a moment later turns on and there is a shadow of someone’s feet. Both scream and move back leaning back on door.

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MADDELYN (CONT’D) I don’t want to die.

HARLEY It’s gonna be fine, M. Faint knocking begins to occur.

FADE OUT

END CREDIT SCENE EXT. OUTSIDE CABIN - NIGHT Maddelyn and Harley are out of breath and trying to get in and start the car. Maddelyn is crying and Harley is trying her best to get them to safety.

HARLEY Maddelyn, stop crying, I can’t deal with it right now.

They turn the car on successfully and begin to drive off.

Someone walks out of the front door of the cabin, but only legs and feet are revealed.

The feet and legs are dirty and covered in dry blood. The toes are painted red and person is wearing a ripped/dirty nightgown.

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Kyoto Station

Angelika Zgainer

Medium: Acrylic Size: 36” X 36”

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Art

Writers’ and Artists’ Personal Statements Konrad Ashby I try to make art about things people don’t.

Eleanor Babbitt I am an oil painter who aims to transform realistic images into contemporary, vivid, colorful paintings that will catch the viewer’s eye and transform a room.

Brooke Beebe I don’t know what to write about myself, but I wrote this poem about being an addict.

Suzanne Black I consider myself to be a semi professional artist in that I devote my entire being to thinking about art and expressing myself through painting. I have been a student at Scottsdale Community College over a period of perhaps 20 years and absolutely love taking advantage of the wonderful things that the art department has to offer. Painting is my way to express myself and allow an authentic connection between my soul and the world around me. I’ve always been moved by figurative work in two dimensional art.

The human form continues to fascinate me throughout my life. I enjoy expressing the human condition as well as finding new ways to manipulate my media.

Robert Buchanan Developing my craft as a poet has given me a way to express life experiences that have remained hidden until now. I am grateful for the emotional support of the writing community at Scottsdale Community College.

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Marcus Campbell I am a creative writing and journalism student that lives in Tempe, Arizona.

Stephanie Cortes I am a writer and creator above anything else I do. Period.

June I am 20 years old. I was born and raised in Phoenix and lived with my dad off and on in a small town in Washington State. My career goal is to become an environmental engineer. I am currently in my engineering core and have goals to transfer to an out of state university when I complete it. Once I graduate, I want to move to Seattle or New York. In my spare time I enjoy traveling, reading, painting, and learning new skills and games. I love to learn something new every day.

Alyson DiGiovanni I am sixteen years old. I graduated high school early and now attend college to pursue writing. I have been an avid writer since I was a very young age as I found writing was a way to express myself in ways I couldn’t use my voice. I am very glad to have the opportunity to grow in my writing. For me, writing is an art, and I pride myself on creating the most raw and authentic pieces that come from within me!

Kathy Dioguardi My intention for painting is to create something interesting. Whether it is the subject, the method, the color choice, or some other decision required while creating the work, I always hope that the final piece will be engaging in some way. I enjoy painting and all the challenges it brings.

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Rosario Escarcega I am a male in my 60’s. I enjoy writing and want to improve. I would like to write a book someday. I like birthday parties and enjoy choosing just the right present for the person. It is worth the preparation and clean-up. I enjoy being with friends and family.

Judy Feldman I’ve been passionate about painting for the past 20 years. Being an artist has enabled me to see the beauty in my surroundings, and enabled me to express myself in a unique way. I think my paintings are a window into my true essence.

Joanne Gallery I have been a professional artist since 2001. Presently, I am pouring inks and acrylics using representational images and getting an abstract quality within the painting. I control the color to keep it pure. My paintings are happy.

Barbara Goldberg I paint life from the inside out. The colors and patterns represent the movement of the particles that create all things. My work reflects this movement and the corresponding mood. Perhaps, it is a testament to the universal law that all things are vibrating particles, and we are all connected. It is no surprise to find that the final images mirror nature or may look like something familiar. When viewers are called to stare and may not know why or when the piece generates much conversation, this is success.

William Goren I am a retired Aerospace Engineer, turned artist. I have been enrolled in the SCC sculpture class for about 20 semesters, and am very grateful for the education in the use of clay, wax, and foundry arts. I couldn’t ask for a better use of my retired life than being a sculptor.

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Joy Gregory I am a twenty one year old writer who’s written since I could grasp a pencil. I’m eager to explore all avenues of writing from poetry to screenwriting to non-fiction essay.

Thomas Hartwell I am a student writer and composer currently completing my AAFA in Theatre at Scottsdale Community College. I’m honored to be a part of this competition and everything SCC has to offer for burgeoning writers in the community.

Bree Hoffman I’m an aspiring writer who spent most of my childhood either swept up in elaborate daydreams or with my nose in a book. Later, I realized that I had a knack for putting my own words on paper. I hope one day my words might strike a chord in others the way words have so often struck me. I was born and raised in Arizona, and am a Creative Writing Major who loves telling emotionally driven stories and experiences through prose and poetry.

Levi Johnson I enjoy being creative. That is why I am pursuing a Graphic Design Communication career. I like to help people problem solve their creative designs, and it pleases me to create something new and organic. After my time here at SCC, I plan to attend ASU-Polytechnic campus for my BAS in Graphic Communication and return to my community, the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian tribe, to incorporate the knowledge of design into our cultural ways.

Elaine Karcher As a returning student to the SCC Art Department, I am grateful to be able to take the time to paint. The medium I paint with is acrylic because I like how quickly it dries, and it allows for changes easily. My eye is drawn to brighter but slightly muted colors. I am hoping to continue to learn through trial and error and through studying 184

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others’ artwork and their method and use of color. I have a degree in Art Advertising and Interior Design with a minor in Art, so it is always fun to continue exploring my creative side. In addition to art, I like being with my family, traveling, junk shopping in Round Top, exercising, and walking my dogs.

Junko Kinoshita I have been painting since 2009 and joined the art class at SCC with Mr. Robert You 6 years ago. After a few years of experience painting oil, I think I created my own style by using colors that capture people’s eyes. Art is fun, and I enjoy painting and drawing. I would like to continue learning and try to free myself on canvases.

Gloria Langer I perceive Art as an interface with one’s deepest consciousness and perception of the real. Art is the ultimate way of communication and my choice of interaction with you.

With my artwork, I try to approach the themes of current modern life, to awake your curiosity, make you think, and move you.

Terisa Leonard I am a tribal member of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community. I have four grandchildren and four children. I am also a single parent of a 13-year old daughter. I am currently a student in Erica Litz’s poetry course and other SCC courses.

Bonnie Lewis My work is usually narrative, sometimes whimsical and sometimes mysterious. I love to blend the process of painting, drawing, photography and collage to create something interesting and artistic. I hope my work continues to evolve and change but continues leaving the viewer with a sense of intimacy and wonder.

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Kristina Morgan Writing is freeing. Worries don’t follow me into the zone. It’s simply language passing from my pen sometimes a sentence an hour. I am largely an intuitive writer. Only recently am I learning craft under the tutelage of Sandra Desjardins and Kim Sabin. I am the author of Mind Without a Home: a Memoir of Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia, it’s like hot sauce on buttered toast. I live in Scottsdale with my two black cats, Grams and Annie, named after my grandmother and mother.

Kate Price I’ve had a writer in me since I was a kid, but it has taken me a long time to overcome my shyness and share my creativity, so this award is very meaningful for me. My awesome family prioritized great books and great comedy, and I’m grateful to them everyday for those gifts. My wonderful boyfriend has been incredibly supportive and has pushed me to get out of my comfort zone. I have so many more stories I hope to tell, and I’d love nothing more than to keep learning so I can give you, the reader, the best experience possible through words.

Stephen Rubin I came to writing later in my life, a perfect time to have something to write about.

Alex Ruiz-Vasquez I was born and raised in Mexico City. My life has been colored with beautiful warm memories of time spent with my family sharing our Mexican traditions. After being away from my native country for decades, I still treasure these traditions that enhance my life. I thank my grandmothers, mother, and aunts for having influenced who I have become.

Reyna Solis I am twenty-six years old with a beautiful three year old daughter who is my life. I am going to school for my degree in general business. I work full time and go to school 186

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online and on campus. I enjoy reading, writing, watching movies, and spending time with my family.

Preslie Thompson I am strongly against domestic violence and sexual assault. I speak for the people who are afraid to stand up to violence that has haunted my people for generations. My work aims to bring peace and acknowledgment for the injustice in my Navajo community.

This sculpture represents my struggle with intimacy after my sexual assault.

Marie Tomisato My screenplay is based off my experience of high school softball. I always wondered if I could have become friends with some girls on the team, if it were not for our parents and coaches. There was so much ruthless competition, in-fighting, passive aggression.

And I remember vividly when a star pitcher refused to play because the coach was ripping into the team. The look in her eyes as she watched a grown man throw a hissy fit was simultaneously unforgiving and somber. It was a lesson in ethics I’ll never forget.

Patrick Underwood I am a retired newspaperman who spent 36 years working for daily newspapers as a copy editor, reporter, and photographer. I am a Vietnam veteran who did a tour of duty in 1970-71. At 69, I am a father to two young adults, a daughter and a son who were adopted from Russia as babies in the late 1990s and are now community college students. I’ve enjoyed traveling around the world, visiting all seven continents. My interests include reading, swimming, and hiking. I will soon finish an Academic Certificate in Creative Writing through the Maricopa County Community College District. I am taking two writing courses this semester at Scottsdale Community College, a memoir course and a creative non-fiction course--the first online course I’ve ever taken.

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Julia This was a very difficult essay for me to write because it’s the first time I put any of this on paper. I had to figure out my feelings and describe them the best I could. Thank you for reading my essay.

Angelika Zgainer As a result of my solo travels around the world, I was able to experience different cultures, beliefs, and traditions. My deeply rooted philosophical, spiritual, and romantic ideas take shape on the canvas. I find my own voice in an expressionistic art form by using bold colors and strong brush strokes to express moments in my life, transforming inner emotions into an expression of art, where nudity serves as a reminder to be true to oneself. My art is a rendering of me to my analytic and emotional mind in which I tell my story in a lyrical way without words. I constantly like to explore new techniques and approaches in colors, surface, and design.

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