12 SPACES
Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly. Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
june 2016
Contents 06 Editors’ Letter
08
sia Sierra Chiao
half by Chee Ling Wu
09 l(ac)una by Evelyn Choi
11 six years by Cynthia Huang
vince Anne Lau
12 rubber bands and spacetime by Georgina Savage
17 the longest distance by Jimin Kang
drown Christina Shen
19 one silky summertime by Frances Amos
20 backspace by Constance Lam
24 untitled by Chloe Barreau
every frame Gabriel Lee
cosmos Nicholas Chan
25 ink on paper by Erica Qiu
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ćœ›çŠş by Odette Shan
28 self Emma Kent
hushed, cacophonous by Katherine Yang
31 room for more by Victoria Ngai
34 we never wrote home by Sophie Li nude Michelle Wu
36 waiting by Vanessa Cheok
37 30/11 by Emma Kent Jimin Kang
38 a short list by Vivian Gu
Editors’ Letter Dear CIS, As the opening of the new building nears, as classrooms begin to be dismantled and walled up, and as we move from this familiar space to an unknown one, we start to migrate between spaces: internal and external, emotional and physical, literal and figurative. Within these pages, you’ll find musings on all these different kinds of spaces, ranging from meditations on the past, present, and future, to odes to a myriad of things: baby teeth, rubber bands, windowsills. We pack up these bits and pieces into cardboard boxes and set them aside to be rediscovered and cherished at a later occasion. Together, they add up to form a collection of beautiful, lyrical thoughts from the CIS community on ourselves, this boundless universe, and where we belong. But as with any overcrowded space, eventually these boxes will overflow; our well-worn spaces will run out of room for everything we create and collect. Perhaps it is time we find new ones. Making this issue has been, as always, the best kind of challenge. We hope you are as excited as we are about everything that is to come. Love, Chloe, Cynthia, Rachel, Sophie The Scribbles Team would like to extend our deepest gratitude to Mr. Quinn, Mrs. Parker and Ms. Martignago for their continued support, as well as to Ms. Lee in the Publications Office and Ms. McManus in the Business Office for all their help.
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Writing Director
Art Director
Sophie Li
Chloe Barreau
Deputy Writing Director
Deputy Art Director
Georgina Savage
Christina Shen
Artists Writers Frances Amos Chloe Barreau Vanessa Cheok Evelyn Choi Vivian Gu Cynthia Huang Jimin Kang Emma Kent Constance Lam Sophie Li Victoria Ngai Erica Qiu Georgina Savage Odette Shan Chee Ling Wu Katherine Yang
Chloe Barreau Eve Blondeau-Elman Ben Chan Sierra Chiao Nicole Choi Sasha Corr Madeleine Griffiths Anne Lau Rachel Lee Christina Shen Michelle Wu Shane Yeung
Photographers Nicholas Chan Jimin Kang Emma Kent Ethan Lam Jae Lamb Gabriel Lee
Layout Director
Operations Director
Rachel Lee
Cynthia Huang
Deputy Layout Director
Deputy Operations Director
Katherine Yang
Victoria Ngai
cover photo and back cover photo: Ethan Lam, 11Y1
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half Chee Ling Wu, 11B1 her first wiggly tooth uprooted when she was nine late bloomer they called her when they all had gaps between their teeth anomaly apologetic smiles when only she had yet to grow out her teeth the day when she twisted that wretched tooth from her jaw metallic-tasting relief mingled with that onsurge of something, that made her head swirl hips twirl she bore that Space between her canines and bucktooth like a medal a hollow fulfilment raw and brilliant
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and may I dare say that she finally graced them with a timid toothless smile half a sever half a crack to a fracture of light yet They pursed lips by the cubbyholes pointed fingers by the playground exchanged raised and perfected eyebrows by her favorite sherbet stall, holding bitten straws and half-filled cups she wished she hadn’t been holding that half-empty cup with that unBitten sherbet straw.
l(ac)una Evelyn Choi, 12B2 your hands are only threatening when there’s no space between those fingers. weak alone, strong together. you grab; you rea c (h/t)– or maybe that’s me. hands entangled look the same: twins, conjoined, are you scared? am i scared? the only things sharp enough to cut us open are your fingernails, and their half-moon curves, and the star-scab constellations of absence. on separation: a finger is the consist ency of a hard carrot. and the soft ones are close to the consistency of lipstick, so bite. howl at the m (oo) n, where i’m going. where i’m going we wear gloves. we don’t see knuckles. where i’m going a handprint lasts forever. sound it out, pe ril une, i a m far away from you and clo ser to something larger than you’ll ever be.
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Ben Chan, 11B1
six years Cynthia Huang, 12Y2 When you left, I took my violin out of its box. As I tried to drag my bow (old with resin, new in its charm), the A string shuddered in rusty defeat, then unraveled. D G E followed. I thought of the way you’d always tell me to play you another one of your favourite songs and the ease with which I’d comply. When you left, I chased mountains, leaving the beaches we played by the rocky ones, where we’d catch hermit crabs just to set them free, and the sandy ones, where we’d jump waves just to run away. Now I’m forced ashore from my oceanic dreams forced near a hiking trail, the scent of spring at my doorstep wafting over, promising something so youthful, so beautifully yellow. When you left, I tried to remember you, I swear. I bought watermelon seeds once because of you, ate them the way you taught me to. Their sweetness held no sway over me, but I relished in the bitterness of eating them anyway, always waiting for that satisfying crunch as I managed to split them up. I used to think you’d return, that somewhere sometime somehow I’d see you grinning widely, with the promise of mischief. I’d hear your voice, telling me to practise my violin, or forcing me on another hike. We’d feast on watermelon seeds (they’d be sweet). But for the time being, I’ll make do. I’ll string words together - string sentences - string stanzas - call this whole thing poetry. I’ll sit by the harbour taking in the coming and going of freights, soak up the afternoon rain, let it cascade, and drown myself in worlds blue, green, and silver – for golden worlds are those that are on fire.
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rubber bands and spacetime Georgina Savage, 11Y2 I think about space a lot. Not so much the measurable distance of it the emptiness punctuated by centimetres and metres and kilometres (sometimes I think I can feel them expanding between the two of us) (like a rubber band stretched thinner and thinner but never snapping) More like space the expanse that can’t quite be measured except by light years and eons and not quite time and not quite space the infinities we can only guess at because if we could hold space against the distance between both of us it would seem as small as space is infinitely big it would be minuscule measured in micrometres and nanometres and yoctometres (but when things get that small, they tend to get a bit more illogical) (small things become big things, heavy things) (and we can only theorise because we can never see) I think about how maybe somewhere in that infinity there is a you that didn’t have to go and a me that didn’t have to see you leave because I just can’t leave this notion be and I know you said it would be fine (but technically speaking) (there is somewhere else in space where it’s not) but I guess I’ll just have to hope that this is the place in this space where small things will stay small things and we’ll stop theorising and start seeing where this rubber band is strong enough to snap us back together and this distance is less distance and more spacetime which curves under pressure and ripples through gravity but never rips because we are the stars my love and I know that you and I will burn bright together for millennium to come
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sia Sierra Chiao, 12R1
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left: cosmos by Nicholas Chan, 13P2 right: milky way by Nicholas Chan, 13P2
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Madeleine Griffiths, 13B1
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the longest distance Jimin Kang, 13P1 Yesterday I read that time is the longest distance between two places. A length of five digits is long enough. But how does one quantify half a year? In the caresses we missed? The laughs we lost? The accumulation of hours spent Wishing not to wish? The speed at which my gut can now rise to my lips and speak the myths I haven’t swallowed? Tell me: what could we have become? Is that the longest distance?
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vince Anne Lau, 12R2
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one silky summertime Frances Amos, 11P1 the smell of wild thyme and sea lavender, brown hips hit with yellow in the silky pink sunshine. light haze hits my eyes and whispers soft, come out of your mind, leave it behind, who knows what you might find— I drift upwards blind. rolling through a verdant valley, hills and daffodils grow glowing. red and yellow, green we’re going, going, going, stopping, going, as we move, hand in hand, the light will put us in a trance, drifting hard and drifting fast, drifting till we see the cracks and looking down upon our hands, we will let go, pulled out of trance, floating lonely, floating fast.
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backspace Constance Lam, 11P1 Loosely based on “Friends” by Leonard Cohen
1. We sat down on the banks of the undulating river, glistening in the pale afternoon sun. I beckoned you to come closer, and you did, almost reluctantly. In between my futile attempts to keep our conversation alive, you stared into space and nodded sporadically. Fallen leaves, shrivelled and brown, chafe against the dry grass beneath us. You once told me something about fallen leaves always returning to their roots. I can still see the self-righteous smile that you donned proudly on your face right after you said those words, as if you had said the most profound thing on the planet. That smile lingers on your lips, even at this very moment. I gave you the blankest of stares in lieu of expressing assent. You mistook my silence for ignorance and quickly explained that you were the fallen leaf, unshaken in the core of your own beliefs. You weren’t wrong, not in the slightest. Fallen leaves are shrivelled and lifeless, moving only at the instigation of the wind.
2. For miles and miles, it was just her and I, minuscule dots of color on a pointillist painting. “Come closer,” she told me. She had a voice that was both raspy and clear, much like the rustle of autumn leaves on a cold, crisp day. As she spoke, I watched the migratory birds fly across the river. It is known that birds never return to their nests, contrary to the proverbial fallen leaves, which always return to their roots. The migratory birds did not call, and silence lay between our bare skin, centimeters apart. All that could be heard was the disemboguement of the turbid waters into the sea, which emanated a muted thrashing of sorts. How I savoured this placidity, this yielding, tranquil expanse of silence. Then she asked me a deluge of mundane questions about work, and all I could do was nod, while desperately trying to suppress the rage that engulfed me as she spoke.
3. “Rousseau once said in Confessions, ‘It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living,’” you proclaimed sanctimoniously, eyes not meeting mine. “Have you read Confessions?” You fell silent.
4. The laptop screen is all that illuminates the dark room. I open a blank document. I can open as many of these as I please but in the real world I cannot start again with a clean slate. I begin typing, only to find myself vexed by the tapping sound that my fingers make on the keyboard, and inundated by my thoughts, swirling eddies in a murky river. I hit the backspace key and try again, but I only manage to write one sentence. “My mind is arid and I have run out of things to say to you.”
5. There was a drought in May.
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self 2 Emma Kent, 13B2 background: self 4 by Emma Kent, 13B2
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left and right: wait by Jae Lamb, 11G1 top and bottom: fragment by Nicole Choi, 13G2
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untitled Chloe Barreau, 12P1 It’s a blue night and I sit at the table with deflated ruffles and slit eyes. Around me the men with beards and suits strip themselves from view, But through the glass my pale face cannot help but reflect the blue. The lady approaching will ask me my order, and the smooth curvature of my smile will quiver. After fiddling with words, I resume hollowing out the air. With every space cleared, artificial light reveals itself more brightly. It jumps energetically, quickly without thought, while artificial dark sinks faithfully. Receiving little of the unassuming dark, I sink in the folds of my clothes and the heavy shadows of my company. Their eyes will remain under their hats, and mine below the paint on my face. My skin absorbs little color from the decorative lamps, or the waitress’ bright blush, and I, theatrically misplaced in a snapshot of life, reflect most of the light.
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ink on paper Erica Qiu, 11Y2 i blossomed like ink in water thoughts bloomed from pen to paper words stained black like ink on paper i drift at the edge of the shallow twilight of sleep and as night falls i cling to words and hope they will would linger in my arms until day breaks. ideas leak forth like ink drops scattered in empty air words bleed forth leaking crimson tears from empty cuts pages scatter forth wings fluttering crumpling to the floor raging sunlight sears thoughts from mind and gnaws cavities in my chest i dissolve like paper in water
bamboo and rattan Shane Yeung, 13B1
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望空 Odette Shan, 12Y1 你一定不知道我於你，於當初有你的自 己，有過多大的夢想。
畢竟太陽沒有墜落，天空還是高高地趴在 那裡，我也依然和從前一樣。 吸煙。吃飯。寫字。 與每個黑夜對抗。
也挺好。 臨走前一天晚上，我坐在陽台，手裡緊攥 著舊手機。我愣神了許久，直到冷風都快 要放棄入侵身體時，才猛然覺醒。開機又 關機，沒有任何來自你的消息，於是我決 定把它留在這裡。 我換了手機號碼，也即將要換掉這部破舊 不堪的手機。這樣我就不用每當看到它 時，就想起我們之間太多的不愉快——想 起彼此扯破喉嚨，恨不得把所有美好都摔 碎一地的時候了。 因為我始終還想執拗地相信，我們也有過 好的時候。
我把你留在這間屋子裡的衣服，外加這幾 年送給我的每一件禮物都打包起來了，大 概過幾天就會寄到你那裡。忙活了兩三 天，終於是把和你有關的垃圾全都清理乾 淨了。 往後的生活應該就能好過一些。 離開是好事。因為這樣你就沒辦法找到我 了。 如果你早已放棄找我這件事，那更好。 你再也看不見我，聽不到我，觸不著我。 我同樣靠不近你，抓不住你，抱不緊你。 那樣我就終於可以有底氣地告訴自己，我 們當初拋棄彼此的決定，還不算太糟。
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夜睡著了，我睡不著。 窗簾被拉得緊閉，屋內沒有一絲光。只有 對失眠早已不陌生的我，一個人躺在床上 狂躁。輾轉反側，被紛亂的思緒折磨到受 不住的時候，我總算放棄了掙紮起身走向 陽台，把許久未打過照面的睡眠自欺欺人 地鎖進背後的房間裡。 不知怎麼的，我想到了我們剛開始的時 候。 記得你的眼睛在夜得漆黑中發亮。記得你 微微喘氣，輕聲呢喃我的名字。記得你用 指尖撫過我的頭髮，我的臉頰，我顫抖著 的雙唇。記得你望著我，用盡全身的力氣 把我揉進懷裡。 然後你對我說：“你不能這樣活。你別再 這樣活。讓我把你變好，讓我一直陪著 你。” 重複了一遍，又一遍。字字溫柔，字字堅 決。 你當時那模樣，似乎是要讓我將一整個生 命交給你。也似乎是甘願讓你自己，溺死 在我的懷裡。 於是我信了。縱使那時我不過才剛認識 你。縱使我清楚的知道，我是不會變好 的。
drown Christina Shen, 11P2
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hushed, cacophonous Katherine Yang, 11G2 5. purpling shadows Sehnsucht sax on the wide Rue melting away in waves 4. gold arpeggios painted bar in rough brush strokes playing memories 3. twin bed, musty sheets closed eyes and picking at strings small town summer dreams 2. the bow a weapon concert hall a battleground notes circ’ling the dome 1. ev’ry beat: thousands thrumming rising tipsoftoes readyfor liftoff— … so we unearth solace in the black/white up/down left/right afflicted with some vague sadness we spill out in wordless voice it is this: how far i can pull, before they fall over themselves and tumble through; how much i can push, before they dig their heels in and drag back, back, back. rumble and twitter in one breath. happymaker, dancer in the dark: if my stiff lips will not bend you must listen to my fingers instead.
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inseparable Chloe Barreau, 12P1
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nude Michelle Wu, 13P2
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room for more Victoria Ngai, 11G2 The semi-transparent curtains scrape against the windowsill and waft out only to land on the windowsill again. You shudder as a gust of wind sneaks under the elliptical gap of the curtains and grasps you, kissing your neck, your face. Walls don’t speak, but if you listen, there is more, whispers from huddling leaves, patriotic Chinese songs that emerge from those school buildings, or from your heart. You shudder as a bang slices the air, crippling the silence, but leaving it more silent than before.
Can a curtain act as a wall? A firewall? Does news spread and diffuse like the wind? Are our outward senses influenced by those within? Will we ever transmute the silence? Will we ever know more?
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top: string set by Nicole Choi, 13G2 bottom: Chloe Barreau, 12P1
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top: Sasha Corr, 13G2 background: define me by Eve Blondeau-Elman, 12Y2
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we never wrote home Sophie Li, 12R2 the neck of the moon is gone now, grey arm hitched around the sky’s shoulders, rain clapping lightly on the beat tin roof as in the four walls of our tin confessionals it is time to be rescued from ourselves again, pain our only witness what if we all knew that a word in motion pinned in the space between my mouth and yours is enough to put a name to fire, and that shared grief there is ours the seven days of the soul begin now, our bodies in a permanent state of leaving as children when the cicadas were loud we married silence to the moon, arranged our bones towards change and refused to name what we would be losing and every jackal summer we turned our wrists against the dirt to make sure we weren’t growing our grand-fathers’ hands leaving came easy in the dry season when nothing was green in the desert and now, rain. truth fossilizing on the tongue through the mist our old gods,
resurrecting
vital signs Ethan Lam, 11Y1
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top: every frame by Gabriel Lee, 11R1 bottom: step by Gabriel Lee, 11R1
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waiting Vanessa Cheok, 12B1 i. in spring, pear blossoms drift and waste between the dreams of the sleeping and the awake. as sleepy shutters stir and shake, a chinese fan makes shadows dance with the sigh of its rise and fall, its worn-out edges like swallows’ wings skimming clean and quick across cold walls— flight, when it comes, a surrender to distance. ii. outside, the river is calm now to the waist, pulled soft and unscarring through bridges’ hollow arcs and concaved grace, rippling only ever-slightly as a light sash is caught by the breeze, and lifted— a face forms, then fades. iii. in the shade beneath the willow, a bent cane grows into knobbed wooden branches, dampened and heavy as the night melts into day, and the day into the evening the wind through the willows still ceaselessly drifting, leaving no ruin, only a stillness, a trembling.
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30/11 Emma Kent, 13B2 This November afternoon, Who’s playing the tin man dressed in gym clothes? Grunting, Follow the yellow brick road, Lose enough energy. Nature, an interest in stars, Bright and common. It blew my mind, I had never seen anything like it.
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a short list Vivian Gu, 11P1 One: A cavernous room that’s like a beehive, maybe – sort of cozy, made of carpet and wall after wall of holepunched wood. Cold in the winter, with a permeating chill that you don’t notice until your fingers are too stiff to work with. This place is best at night. The windows turn glossy and black, and rows of round white lights shine brilliantly from the high ceiling, like stars or teeth. It’s a good room to have empty, especially if you’re playing something. Sound rises and soars through this bell jar of a room, and every note you play will have a kind of glow. An aura. Two: A big field full of mud and like three different types of grass – green, yellow, sometimes brown and dead, sometimes full of bugs. There will be potholes, which are hazardous when you’re running full-tilt trying to play some game or another. This place is good during the day, and probably best with a lot of people in it. If it’s warm, waves of heat will rise up, wet and hot and smelling of grass. The sun will roast the tops of everyone’s heads. If it’s cold, it’ll be gray and probably raining, or thick and misty and still freezing. The sun sets messy and orange over the bleachers, and
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background: recursion by Ethan Lam, 11Y1
you’ll want to walk slowly and watch it, or maybe just keep running and running, tearing through the time. Three: A building full of classrooms and hallways with shiny floors and long lines of white lights overhead. You can climb in and out of windows and drop into hedges and onto the courtyard outside. The classrooms are noticeably bright at night, when everything outside is dark. The halls have nice, clean symmetry, and can be theatrical, because you can turn the lights on and off and jump out at people. After dinner, people will start to come in for evening classes or other activities. When it’s quiet, this is a good place to pace up and down in, memorizing poems and speeches and things. You can also hang around the staircases or sit on the cold floor, and look at the photos of those who were there before you. Four: A particular spot behind the long desk in a library. The lights will be switched off, if they aren’t already, as everyone starts getting ready for bed. You can sit on the carpet, leaning against the wall. Even though people will notice you’re not in your room, you can usually get
away with this if you don’t stay down for too long, and if you don’t do it often or regularly. The wall will be cool and grainy, and uncomfortable where it presses against the bones in your back. It’ll be dark, and the space will not be very pretty at night. There are shadowy corners and lots of irregular shapes, all the more if you look around into the dark recesses of the reading area. It might put you on edge, or make you even more tired. This is a good place to be mute and wooden. When you can move again, you’ll go slowly back up to bed. Five: Some place with the lights on and the water running, clean yellow light blazing through the bathrooms and bedrooms and communal areas. It’ll be busy, maybe loud, and people will be draped over couches and stools, or washing dishes, or eating. It’s best during this time. This place is good for retrieving freezer experiments, and for pounding away at them with a spoon and then eating the sweet, icy chips. You can draw and write and tell stupid stories. People will be moving around brushing their teeth in their pyjamas and talking.
without at least seven other people. Depending on whether or not you like company, this is one of the safest places you could ever be. Six: A brick path. Wide, edged with grass and paint and a volleyball court, among other things – pots of lettuce and dormitories and pomelo trees. Good in the early morning, when the gray light’s weak and pale. It’ll probably be raining, or it’ll probably have just rained, or one day you’ll go out of the door and wonder of wonders, snowflakes will be swirling in the frigid air. Or on a hot, blindingly sunny afternoon, you can go with your uniform sticking to your back and get ice cream or stationary with your friends. This is a good place to travel through. You can walk it, you can run it, you can play games up and down it with sports equipment or old pieces of fruit, half-rotten or otherwise. Dawn, or mid-afternoon, or right before Christmas dinner, freezing your toes off in your formals – you’ll be here, on this path, hurrying off to somewhere else.
Most importantly, this is all nothing
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Jimin Kang, 13P1
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Spaces: The Mix
“Technicolour Beat”, Oh Wonder “Hollow”, Tori Kelly “Dearest”, Buddy Holly “Advertising Space”, Robbie Williams “Bright”, Echosmith “The One”, Kodaline “In The Woods Somewhere”, Hozier “Ophelia”, The Lumineers “Space Oddity”, David Bowie “In My Arms”, Jon Foreman “Crooked Teeth”, Death Cab For Cutie “1957”, Milo Greene “Spirits”, The Strumbellas “Maps”, The Rocket Summer “I Love You”, Alex & Sierra “Everything Changes”, Keane bit.ly/1PeqBAE
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We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding�, Four Quartets
left: Rachel Lee, 12G2
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