Sequel 2018-19

SEQUEL 2018 - 2019

Sequel 2018 – 2019

Editorial Staff

Morgan Johnson: Editor, Managing Editor, Designer Michael Roets: Editor David Wolf: Faculty Advisor

Special thanks to the English department as well as the Office of Marketing and Public Relations for their assistance with this publication.

The content in Sequel is not representative of the opinions of Simpson College. Content is the sole responsibility of each author/artist. Subject matter may be sensitive to some readers.

701 North C. Street Indianola, IA 50125 www.simpson.edu

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Sarah Frey – Icy Sunset

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Ashley Merkley Hunger and Desire There is a difference between hunger and desire— and I have felt it in various lovers’ lips, the way in which they lock.

There is a difference between lust and love— and I have felt it in sweet mornings and reckless nights.

There is a difference between hunger and desire— it can be seen in the eyes, auspicious or ominous— like a pacifist seeking truth or a soldier calculating prey.

There is a difference between love and lust— manifesting in a gentle stroke or a desperate grasp of the thigh.

There is a difference between hunger and desire— and yet, sometimes, it all feels the same.

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Kids with Daddy Issues Kids with Daddy Issues— We grew up too fast, learning to make defensive weapons of words, when one should be learning the right way to build a sandcastle.

Kids with Daddy Issues— We grew up too fast, our homes shredded as easily as paper dollhouses burnt by the blade of reality, a reality we wish was all a nightmare.

Kids with Daddy Issues— We grew up too fast, learning to tie mufflers to our ears rather than bows in our hair all in a vain attempt to stop hearing those toxic words.

Kids with Daddy Issues— We grew up too fast, playing dodgeball— except we were the ones dodging in a game with no referee, dodging filthy words and occasionally a fist.

Kids with Daddy Issues— We grew up too fast, fairy tales, playhouses of what childhood is supposed to be stolen from us as quickly as a bandit stealing youth.

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Brayden Biersner Hair of the Dog That Bit You You don’t see You only witness

the devil him

when he’s filling up your cup.

When he falters, you’re a vision— O does he make you up.

Still, you don’t talk the devil’s only witness… You, when you’re filling your cup, why it alters your vision.

Why, do you make it up?

The clear ridges with ripples crashes, clear liquid. He stipples your flesh. With goose pimples, with purple and blue hues. Still, you don’t see You only witness

the devil? him.

When he’s filling up your heart, why, it alters your view.

How the hell does he make it up to you?

No, we. don’t. talk. the devil little-witness you.

When moon you’re full, up your cup.

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O how it smooths the night with purple-blue-green hues.

The fleshy ridges crashed with clear gloss.

of sweetness I stammer at

your flesh with goose pimples and your hair with purple and blue hues.

Yes, you don’t see the devil in you: witness him!

When she’s filling out your clothes— what does she create in you?

What else are you supposed to do?

You don’t see No. You don’t see O no, yes…you don’t see If you did, you’d know

the devil the devil the devil it’s you.

Yes. You’d know

it’s you.

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One Art after Elizabeth Bishop The art of loving isn’t hard to master; choosing which way to lead life ‘tis the same because they’ll both end in lovely disaster.

Pick one—day by day. Ask opinions of those in closets hung up the same—then turn back!

The art of loving isn’t hard to master.

Please practice commitment, sincerely. To care what people think!? No, not that either! Too dulled and bland. “Look a man!” she odes, “Disaster!”

Surely, we know what you’re after. And, look!

Another—rich with seducing power!

The art of loving isn’t hard to master.

Your continued ways now discontinue them too coquettish or not—one…the others will end your balancing act. Dubbed disaster: you, yes you (the choked voice, a lesson of times) shan’t have tried to deviate. ‘Lo the art of loving’s not too hard to master though it may look like one (Despises it!) disaster.

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One Affliction The Light itself roared igniting the End – yet, the beginning.

Life gobbled by embers – Its slender white body in amber/in pain.

So, He starts for it a walk down Memory Ln. addicted, too. – yet, He again is taken – an inhale sends Him back. Another reminds Him – and/of Another.

It’s switched to another pocket, the frozen hand – cold/Alone.

Another drag.

“I wade Grief – Whole sidewalks of it,” Bent trees – a Crack.

“I’ve reached my half, almost done.” – yet, he only started spinning.

Another grounds the man. Another pushes Him through

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to a side of Himself – loosely veiled.

– Now, peeking through under the lamplight – He notes the Squirrel – “…dancing in fluorescence.”

He remembers Time – “How silent.” She passed his glance with vapid eyes to the End – so near.

He sucked up a final, dear Memory.

His hands were still lonely – cold, He tossed it – Far, the embers splashing the street – in still acquiescence – the Light itself too whimpered – “Sleep.” –

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Brooke Schoen Idolatry you are my idol. you are my God. you are my reason for being, my life’s meaning. i pluck every detail of you into my memory, like an apple plucked from some holy tree. until the serpent suddenly notices me. until the serpent slithers over, hisses to me, “you are nothing to her, you see.” and the serpent is right. because i have learned a lot about idols during my short journey, and they are never as merciful as you believed them to be. i picked the forbidden fruit from your evil tree, and now i’m left with me, and no you, because you are not the you i believed to be wholly true, and maybe i have myself to blame for that. because i was the one begging for your Judas kiss because i wanted this to be some sort of bliss, but the problem with that may be the superficiality that shrouded your personality, and suddenly everything i admired you for disappeared within the artificiality of your mentality.

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this you is not the you i once knew, and that i am sure of. my idol taught me it is okay to fall in love but you see me as something to dispose of. and the worst part of idolizing someone is that i’d still be the father to your prodigal son but it doesn’t matter anymore. i will idolize, nevermore. there are no idols, only false gods. i mistook your humanity as divinity, i put my faith in your fucked up fallacy, and now i am left foolish, shameful, and hopeless; my holy trinity.

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Sarah Frey – Sunflower Dreams

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Cheyenne Vanlandingham I thought about him again today, not about that afternoon. I thought about when he would come home in the mornings and after his shower, he would crawl into bed to wake me up. I would feel the cold shiver caused by his wet beard as he would begin to kiss my chest and make his way up my neck and when he reached my face, I wouldn’t open my eyes.

I couldn’t open my eyes. I was stuck, hiding as my body lay frozen on the bed. A shiver runs throughout my body and ignites my eyes, but all I can see is the ceiling. My mind as stiff and my lifeless body a corpse with no power to say no. The silence screaming in my ears while the heat radiated, an inferno. Then everything stopped. I was left alone, cold and shivering.

And I thought about that afternoon again.

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Claire Tillotson Tornado swirling – Caught, blacked out, yellow brick road Goodbye, dull Kansas.

Super Glue A troubled heart You say Can be fixed in no time Like a cracked china cup – Hold it together, you say.

Sure.

Old Highway 34 I went to where the two roads met each other The long green grass on the side of the road blew in the wind An old barn silo off in the distance It was the last thing you saw

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David Robinson The Oracle The Oracle, raving on my temple floor, has a precognitive disposition And, due to her pious position, writes psalms steeped in superstition; She’s found a suitably gnawing verse for my raw nerves, Horrid enough to unnerve a man who sits on the verge.

But have pity; for she is famished for my attention And has a vision she MUST mention despite my contention.

With crystal balls for eyes, she sees the future aflame For only I am to blame for the blaze that won’t STOP chanting my name.

She swears she is merely an engineer of thought — Though what temple towers fraught with WORRYING rot?

The Oracle has an ever-unfolding account of what was, is and therefore may Come in to play. She has always had too much say.

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Eric Rucker Spine Cancer you wouldn’t wish this on Hitler you say head back eyes clench and all my words fall like a pail of water on a forest fire

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I’m Drawing a Circle Around My Life A six-year-old girl was found face down in the Chattahoochee river last night.

Her teenage sister swam out to rescue her and drowned.

This is the only moment I have.

I wake and walk down the spring street.

I change the flow of traffic in my head; I was speaking onto everything; now I listen.

I hear tapping and stop to see the woodpecker.

He is doing his work on this old gray tree.

I want to do my work too, God. He to carve, and I too‌ It is said that after decades of spiritual searching Hafiz sat in the dirt, determined and helpless, 19

and drew a circle around himself and said, “I want nothing outside this circle. All I want is God.” I’m drawing a circle around my life.

How come everything becomes on fire when I stop trying to make it so?

Everything is burning with You. How come my prayer and my life always somehow become about saying no and trying Not To Do, instead of being about what it really is about: saying Yes. Doing the only thing worth Doing.

I was relieved to be reminded that my job isn’t to explain this; my job is to deepen it.

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Untitled Harold was a family man; and I could write 1000 words to explain that but just listen to his son recalling how he and his sister would sit atop the swing set dad had built them, able to see just above the wooden fence, and wait for his blue Model T to turn the corner like he always promised he would at 4:45 and he always did.

He was an artist and a planner; and I could try to explain it to you but just listen to his daughter remembering how he didn’t only build her a dollhouse but also carved furniture, to scale, for each room, and how that dollhouse traveled with them to each house dad built for them.

Dig through the dashboards and closets of his children and grandchildren.

Find the maps, with road trips charted through mountains and valleys, the bank statements that are evidence that he was not rich but was still generous, the drawings, sketches, sounds made for the joy of making.

He was a lover of the holy; oh, he attended the church but talked little of God and I could write 1000 words to explain that 21

but just look at the picture of him and his kids after that hike; one of the few pictures where he is smiling deeply, and let that smile hint to you about what made his heart beat.

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Jessica Arnold Frozen Summer after The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa A– I look into your eyes And I see nothing But everything you broke in me.

No matter how bright that fire glowed, It is extinguished, cold, By the memory Of your failure, my loss And my only friend cloaked in the shadow Of what cannot be undone.

Mind knows blame should not be cast, But a dark heart refuses to see The separation between Consequences and you.

Deep inside myself I am Stumbling to catch the hatred Moving like an iron ball, Mowing down all that dares to block its path.

Violent words could not be stopped In time.

Distance and hours stretch into Infinity.

Joy frosts and suffocates, Becoming blank empty space.

I have no want for ashes and blood, But this path marches forward with Its own bare persistent rhythm.

All that remains are reluctant swords 23

Biting into fraying fabric Until all ties are severed And I am left Alone R– I look into your eyes, Beyond that lifeless shell I have turned into your home, To what lies buried, shrouded, Forever lost in the moaning sea.

A reckless choice scorched The vibrant earth of the worlds we conquered.

A split-second lightning flash Struck us down dead where we stood united.

I can never escape The hollows of your gaze; The knowledge of what rests there Will drive us to the grave.

Every sandy second is haunted with my Regret.

I want to fly away To leave that murky past behind, But an undeniable part of me Wants to linger And poke at angry snakes with sticks, Even if being bitten is all I ever get.

At least I know that there is life, Still beating behind metal chains, That I am not strong enough to drag up and reclaim.

When time comes for your long-awaited chance To destroy me and avenge betrayal I will not resist, For nothing else can cool the burn 24

Of being abandoned with the memory and longing For a life that once was Perfect

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Mikala Williams-Yee Harsh Truths The white man is a cliché.

He’s overused while I’m abused He’s overpaid while I’m “overstayed” He’s appreciated while I’m appropriated He’s represented while I’m reprehended His cheeks turn red but my blood spills it.

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Christmas Eve We climbed in the car, just Momma and the girls. Wearing our most lavish Christmas dresses.

Me, the gold dress that shone like iridescent stones, the one that itches around the collar and the sleeves, the one I willingly put on anyway because it really is my Christmas best.

We sang carols while gliding down the highway. The most angelic snow whirled and swirled just so— I was at the fringe of contentment when Momma slammed on the brakes and instead of gliding we were sliding.

There must have been the screeching of tires, the ripping of cars, the shredding of things not meant to be minced. There must have been so much noise.

But time froze, the air suddenly too trenchant for my senses to function.

Silence.

Hands shaking.

I dialed 9 and then 1 and then another 1. The operator spoke but I don’t remember a word. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Shit. Fuck. I don’t know.” I didn’t mean to swear. I don’t do that normally.

There was a three-year-old boy in the other car.

He’ll be okay. But he doesn’t have a momma anymore.

We were there for two hours but a lifetime passed. Her lifetime passed.

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Misty Robinson Breathe Breathe in.

Ignore the way Tension builds in your throat.

Your body rebels against you.

Just breathe.

Breathe out All your sorrow.

Guilt that nags through the day.

Pain that keeps you awake at night.

Just breathe.

Breathe in.

Never mind that Your lungs won’t fill with air.

You have to remind yourself to Just breathe.

Breathe out.

Forget yourself.

Be at peace here and now.

Forget how you got to this place.

Just breathe.

Breathe in And hold your breath, Until you feel the tears Threaten to pass your barriers.

Just breathe.

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Breathe out.

Look straight ahead.

Relax your aching heart.

Now remember a simpler time, Just breathe.

Breathe in, What’s past is past.

Numb yourself to the world As a shiver goes down your spine.

Just breathe.

Breathe out, And lose yourself.

You may just find yourself Between lines that blur together.

Just breathe.

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Sestina of My Life I don’t know if I will make it through this time.

I don’t want to endure this pain again.

In my heart is it wrong to reminisce?

Alone with myself sobbing back tears.

I have forgotten how it felt to smile.

The weight is heavy on my heart, I feel broken.

Through the shards of glass that are broken, I know I can make it through with time.

I am reminded that I need to smile.

With love comes hope and strength to begin again, To let go all of the years of tears.

Will I ever forget or will I always want to reminisce?

Could we sit for hours and just reminisce?

My husband, my pride for you, broken.

My memories flow from my being as tears.

I am healed by what I do with this time.

Resurgent emotions bang at my boundaries again.

In you, I will always love your smile.

With the face of his father, he will have that smile.

I see my future stretched out before me yet I still reminisce.

When he kicks, I remember why I am here again.

My child, my body for you, broken.

Through the motions, I realize pain will pass in time.

Sweat beads on my brow as my cheeks are stained with tears.

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I revel in the motion of these tears.

It is all worth it to see him smile.

All wounds can be healed with time.

Little moments become the lasting ones we reminisce.

I don’t need to be fixed, for I am not broken.

Outside my comfort zone, reality will strike again.

Nothing will ever be as it once was again.

I never knew the joy of tears.

Myself, my soul, broken Then mended, when he looks at me just to smile.

Together we will create new memories to reminisce.

All as it was meant to be, I’ll understand in time.

When memories cause tears we will learn to smile.

Not because we are broken, but we learn to reminisce.

Again, this too shall pass with time.

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Smoke and Snow I love blizzards.

Which is odd to say Since I hate being out in snow.

Yet standing on my porch At midnight While snow wisps around me Like spray from the lake, Brings me peace.

I close my eyes The breeze isn’t from below-freezing winds.

Instead I am back with my friends At Ahquabi on a cool spring morning.

Snow topples from rooftops In spirals floating to mounds below Like sand slipped from my fingers.

Loose snow scampers Over sheets of ice in all directions Like minnows in the shallows Disturbed by my toes.

Street lamps cast a fiery glow On the reflective snow Giving the illusion of day.

I snicker at the memory Of promising my mother I would never smoke a cigarette.

Inhaling deeply, I smell the bonfires by the lake The warmth of friendship.

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Exhaling, I see no difference in the smoke And my breath As it freezes in the night air.

It is a vice I control with an iron fist.

One cigarette Once a month, Once a week at most.

I stand at the edge of my porch And give in to temptation.

Addiction is real, But I won’t let myself fall prey.

This is my time to be philosophical.

I hold death in my fingers, Allow it into my lungs, And force it back out Into the night.

This is life, Raw and untouched By the Romantic writers Of the nineteenth century.

Realist Howells would be proud.

What would Nana say If she saw me now?

A woman who was, By definition, A chain smoker.

Who died of lung cancer Not one year ago.

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I often wonder If she experienced this Rush of life and death With each puff.

In a sadistic way, I feel closer to her.

This isn’t what she Would want for me, She’d probably agree With my mother.

Smoking is a vice, A nasty addiction, And not something To be dabbled with Lightly.

I stand in the blistering cold And imagine lighter days.

Things will get better.

They have to.

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Paula Palmer The Adult Graduation Poem With trepidation this journey you started, the end it seemed so far.

You wondered if you were doing the right thing, or just wishing on a star.

As time went by, the courses came and went, first one, then two, then three.

You finished each one and started the next, striving to earn your degree.

Working all day, then coming to class, some days so tough to attend.

Raising a family and studying for tests, would the juggling act ever end?

But you did it! Your time is NOW! A reward for a job well done.

You put all you had into achieving your goal and now you can say you’ve won.

Our pride in you is our reward as we watched you grow and achieve.

Our wish for you is to soar in the world and be all we know you can be.

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Sarah Frey - Frozen

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Lauren Villafuerte My One and Only “Te amo mi linda preciosa.

Mi corazón es todo para ti y solo para ti.”

“I love you my beautiful, precious.

My heart is all for you and only you.”

If so, Why is it you find comfort, From the attention of other women, Instead of the arms I have always held open to you?

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Selfish Perspective separates us Experiences ostracize you You want others to understand but one cannot fully understand another We lack your experience or we are too privileged to see the world through your eyes Hearing your story is not enough You want us to live it What you want is for someone to know the terror the struggle, the fear the pain of how you became you But, my love, only you can truly know those emotions and I fear the day that you will meet someone who understands you even a little more than I do because I know you will love them more than me and will leave without a sound.

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Quinn Slaven Cheer Up, Mr. Merwin Your melodramatic look Focusing on that bleak, back cover Other unknowns fill the book Moments soon mem’ries stretch like rubber Like a church used once or twice without a coffin Or a hospital ward of cries Your pessimistic shards may soon soften Without filling your head with lies Light draws validation from dark Take a breath, a sigh Plenty of stars continue to mark One, lonely night sky

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Raven Cynthia Sippel The Disappearing Acts There is magic in fading in and out, and yet it is a magic found in every corner that you never knew existed.

When I look into his eyes, I cannot seem to find myself.

Throwing myself into his iris, strands of blue bear arms to me.

I look for myself in his room, And I try to find where I might be hiding.

Littered are love notes I wrote and gifts I have tried to determine if good enough.

His sheets leave no impression of me.

I cannot find my love hiding in his notebooks.

His clothes leave no fingerprints of mine.

In the tiny room, where nothing fits and everything takes up too much, my name isn’t large enough to appear.

I do not exist in the world I want to be in.

I am captivated by queens, I am captivated by Anne.

I am captivated by kings, I am captivated I am.

The romantic chase is a dangerous one.

The pursuit is the hunt in a masquerade mask, the grand beast that’s far too fast.

Daydreaming about how the mantle will adorn your home glitters into dreaming of the man enclosed with whores, pledging loyalty to you.

Every breath that directs itself to you is the sparkle of the creature, driving your heart into dark forests that shouldn’t be entered.

Every soft kiss, every subtle touch of the waist, 40

every warm regard: running through branches decorated with thorns just to get the slightest bit closer.

I have chased for such a long time; my lungs have no more to give.

I offer myself to defeat, and I fall.

On the way down, I cherish and encase everything that hurts into a museum, because it’s the suffering that becomes the figures on a display.

It is tribute to the chase, to the emptiness in the room.

I will find myself, later in the evening, burning under a worn irrigator, wondering when his touches replaced my skin.

I often ponder what the difference is between drowning and losing someone.

I have held my breath until the last second it mattered, entranced by the warmest sun passing the waves to hold me.

I have desperately swum back to the surface, my lungs burning with need.

I have been trapped under the tarps of backyard swimming pools, foolishly thinking everything was a game, scared that I was about to lose everything as my body went numb against the water.

My dearest, I have faded away again, as have you in the oceans I so desperately love.

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Sarah Frey – Rainy Alley

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Natalia Rose What Are You? I do suppose that I am mixed but not in the sense that two humans of a different race came together in sacrilegious shame Though, yes, white and dark joined together to create some olive tone, a little gold, somewhere in the middle Yet it is not the race of which I’m born empirically white, physically brown Asian in appearance and black in body that makes me mixed, But rather the context in which I exist.

Lugones would say I inhabit many worlds but I would argue I am a world; Venus has her clouds Jupiter has his storm Saturn has his rings And I have myself.

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My Depression My depression is a ravenous beast that sleeps all day, her hunger shakes my bones and saps away all the life and the light that dares to seep through the inky dark, she lulls me to sleep and cradles me when I’m alone, she has a voice like warm milk; silky and luscious with just a twinge of loss, as if her voice is mine but warped and broken.

I cannot cry for my depression.

She is my oldest and greatest friend, she has never let me down.

With her I feel it all and nothing at the same time, with her I float into the nebulous voids and lie in the snow, with her I am whole.

She is not what I need, but what would I be without her?

She claws at my heart with her soft, skeletal fingers and reminds me that I have nothing, I am nothing, nothing, nothing without the crushing weight of her on my lungs.

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Seth Larson - Sparklers

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Sara Lawson Luciérnagas Bajo un edredón de galaxias Perseguimos motas de polvo de estrellas Estallidos de iluminación Chispas de genio Vistazos de inspiración Están aquí un segundo El próximo, desaparecidos Resurgiendo sólo en la visión periférica Tan efímeros como tú y yo y este casi recuerdo El aire, suave pero indómito, Se porta dulcemente el sonido de tu deleite Cuando agarras un tesoro más Lo llamo suerte de principiantes Pero mi frasco sólo tiene tres luces intermitentes El tuyo tiene siete Mis pensamientos mandan mis ojos al frasco en mi mano Abro la tapa Tiro los contenidos hacia arriba Y añado tres puntos más A la constelación que hice con otro amigo Otra noche de verano Tan parecida a esta La noche que aprendí la diferencia entre “esta grama” Y “esa camioneta” Y “aquella estrella” La noche que preservamos en el cielo La noche que aprendí a decir “luciérnaga”

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Fireflies Under a quilt of galaxies We chase tiny specks of stardust Bursts of light Sparks of genius Glimpses of inspiration They are here one second Gone the next Resurfacing only in peripheral vision As fleeting as you and me and this almost-memory The air is soft but untamed And the sound of your delight when you grab another treasure Carries sweetly on it I call it beginner´s luck But my jar has only three flashing lights Yours has seven My thoughts send my eyes to the jar in my hand I open the lid Throw the contents upward And add three more points To the constellation I made with another friend On another summer night So similar to this one The night I learned the difference between "this grass" And "that pickup truck" And "that star way over there" The night that we preserved in the sky The night I learned to say "firefly"

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Dimensiones Quiero ser fuerte Quiero ser una chica que toma el café negro Que firma con tinta Que sabe lo que quiere Que se presenta como ganadora Que el mundo no puede engañar Quiero ser suave Quiero ser una chica que se emborracha con la luz del sol Que dibuja con lápices de acuarela Que dice si no sabe Que admite su ingenuidad Que el mundo le fascina

Dimensions I want to be strong I want to be a girl who drinks her coffee black Who signs in ink Who knows what she wants Who presents herself as a winner Who the world can’t deceive I want to be soft I want to be a girl who gets drunk on sunlight Who draws with watercolor pencils Who says when she doesn’t know Who admits her naiveté Who the world fascinates

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Randy Edwards

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Quinn Slaven A Coin Landed on End ‖ Fiction The auto lockpick felt awkward in Parker’s grip, much unlike the warm embrace of his wife’s hand. Her slender fingers seemed to be a fairer rendition of his. To his regular amazement, their lives were intertwined through chance and not predetermined at birth as their subtly compatible qualities would suggest. Most of his conscience longed to return to her in that moment, to feel her sleepy arms pull him in by instinct.

He resented the lockpick, as well as the act he would use it for. Moreover, Parker resented a society which would lead him to such a thing. He had worked his hands to the bone thus far, yet God bestowed an ugly tragedy on what he loved most. His daughter was too young to face the punishment of his financial burdens. So, Parker would fall on the sword society and fate had presented. After all, he was a martyr to his predicament. He was like Jean Valjean van Damme; a hero being forced to do wrong. What right did those born with silver spoons have to deprive his life of contentment? He never asked for privilege, but simply for his family to be content. In his mind, there was a finite amount of wealth in the world, and if circumstance presented itself in which he was more in need than another, it was his right to reallocate. He was like Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. In this case it was taking an F-250 and giving the money it yielded to a hospital, but the metaphor remained somewhat intact.

Parker’s palms sweat profusely, to the point the lockpick fell from his hands as he fumbled with it. The YouTube videos had made it seem so easy. He wished he had grown up on the streets where his father or maybe a crooked cousin could have taught him such a skill.

Unfortunately, he grew up in Mapleville and had two loving parents with steady jobs, which combined made up a lower-middle-class household.

How did they make it work for so long when Parker and his wife were four years into parenthood and two years into adulthood with an uncontrollable financial mess on their hands? Finally, the door popped open and a loud chirp of alarm sent Parker’s heart jumping through his 50

neck. He frantically ripped open the fuse box and began tearing out the small plastic plugs with pliers.

“For the love of God, please still be asleep,” he said under his breath.

Parker pulled out his phone to review the lesson on hot-wiring and prayed the old piece of shit wouldn’t die before he could complete the job. ...

Joe woke from a shallow sleep to a sudden and unsettling noise, adrenaline already in his veins. Immediately, he inspected his alarm clock, which was resting peacefully on the coffee table in front of the couch. His pillow and blanket had fled to the ground as he turned on the narrow cushions during the night. His wife remained unstirred in the bedroom upstairs, a fact he resented. Joe was not jealous of her deep sleep, but rather wished she shared his exhaustion.

Upon noticing the disturbance in his driveway, Joe rushed to the gun cabinet. He never used the self-defense agents in his possession for anything other than practice and now felt as if his moment had come. He owned his home. He owned his truck. Joe would be damned if any criminal too lazy to work for a living would take what was rightfully his.

What if his children had been there sleeping, instead of living with their mother in Vermont? The principle remained: his Elle, the ten-year-old, and Max, who was seven or eight, would be relying on their father for protection. He was like a Liam Neeson character; a good man who must use force to protect his family. Only in this case he was protecting his values, hard-earned possessions, and a second wife who hardly felt like family. ...

Joe stormed out the front door of his home with the American Dream guiding his every step and a pump shotgun affirming his resolve. At the sight of movement, Parker ducked from the driver’s seat of the truck and scurried along the pavement. His dead cell phone fell to the ground, 51

adding to its numerous cracks and scratches. A shotgun blast peppered the left side of the truck.

“Stop!” Joe shouted. Parker froze immediately with both arms by his head. He looked past the house across the street, into the black night, wanting nothing more than to disappear within it. His heart raced faster than the powerful engine he had hoped to drive away in. His knees shook as if an electric current were pulsing through them.

“Turn around,” Joe commanded. Parker followed the orders, turning around slowly as he held his chin to his left shoulder in timidness. Joe relished in the fear he could evoke, almost forgetting the credit owed to a deadly servant in his grasp. After all, it had begun to feel more like an extension of his arm, a menacing finger pointing through his target’s chest. There they stood, both righteous in their cause and plagued with morality. Joe raised his weapon and executed his obligation.

52

Misty Robinson Memories ‖ Fiction Raindrops spattered my cheeks as I raced the leaves in the stream.

They beat me to the storm drain down the hill by our house. Emmy squealed behind me, but her three-year-old steps were no match for my eleven-year-old strides. I ran on the balls of my feet, spreading my toes to make bigger splashes. Lightning stretched across the sky and split into finger-like endings and we started the count. “One! Two! Three!” We yelled as we reached the drain, “Four! Five!” Emmy slid into my arms and buried her face. “Six! Seven!” I finished with the thunderclap.

“Seven,” Mama gasped as she reached us. “Great job, Tabby.”

Mama grinned and effortlessly scooped Emmy up to warm her.

Daddy wrapped us all in a hug then lifted me onto his back. “The storm is seven miles away. It’s getting pretty close now.”

“Come on, girls, we’d better get inside,” Mama said as she wiped my bangs from my eyes. “You both are shivering.”

I clung to Daddy’s neck and rested my cheek on his soaked head as we headed back to the garage. He wasn’t our real dad, and sometimes I wondered if someone was better than no one.

The clouds had been crying for a week straight, but I usually slept well when it rained. I lay awake debating on whether to get up and tell Mama I’d had the dream again. I had to have been two or three when my first memory occurred. I had been playing in the living room of our old duplex on the West Coast with my stuffed cow Moo Moo. I was petting its plush coat that made it look like a calf blown dry after a bath.

Something fell over down the hall, and I peeked out from behind the footstool. He came out with suitcase in hand. Mama lagged behind in tears, but he left anyways. I squeezed Moo Moo as I saw her collapse against the open door, sobbing. I tried to pull her hands from her face, but she was too deep in tears to respond. Instead, I tucked Moo Moo under her arm and clung to her knee so she’d know I was still there.

53

My biological dad was in and out of our lives for years after that. He even had Emmy with Mama, but soon after she was born he stopped coming for visitation. I often relived that moment and, although I knew there was nothing I could have done, I felt guilty. I couldn’t really blame Emmy for calling the new guy Daddy. He had stepped in when our father left, and he was the only dad she ever knew. Still, the first time Emmy called him that, I lost it. I kept telling her he wasn’t our dad, he never would be our dad, but I started calling him Daddy just the same.

I tossed off the blanket and reached toward the ceiling. There was no point in dwelling, at least that’s what the therapists told me. Even though Daddy had officially adopted us, we still had family in Cali so they couldn’t erase all memory of our biological dad. I opened my closet and dug out the “Winter in California” shirt Mama had got me to wear. She wanted to celebrate the last day before winter break. It was a joke since California didn’t really have winters. It was either summer or fall and nothing in between.

Iowa had all four seasons, sometimes all in the same week. It hadn’t started to snow, which was unusual for the time of year. That meant Daddy would be in the basement a lot more. It was easier to generalize that carpenters were unemployed in winter than to accept that Daddy probably wasn’t a trustworthy carpenter. Mama always said Emmy and I were too smart for our own good, but I was glad we weren’t dumb.

Mama had bowls and Fruit Loops ready for Emmy and me when we came into the kitchen. As I poured I took out any loops that were stuck together in a stack of three.

“Look, Emmy.” I handed her one and she brought it to her lips. “No! You can’t eat it yet.” I held one in my hand too and smiled. “You have to close your eyes and make a wish first. The stacks of three are special, and stacks of four are even more so!”

“That one!” Emmy pointed at a stack of four in my bowl that I had missed.

“Good job, sweetie,” Mama said. She stood at the center island facing us and washed last night’s dishes.

54

I looked down the stairs at the front door and saw the basement door reflected in the glass. It was still closed. “How long do you think he will be down there?” I asked.

Mama sighed and set a plate on the drying rack. “Well, I’m not bringing him breakfast again.”

The handle turned but the door wouldn’t open. It sounded like a chair skidding on linoleum as Daddy kicked it.

I snapped forward in my seat and glanced at Mama.

Silently she mouthed “eat” and nodded at my bowl.

He was fully dressed and kissed Mama before grabbing a clean bowl beside her.

“Where are you off to?” she asked.

“My interview.”

“I thought it was tomorrow?”

His fist hit the counter next to Mama. “No, I told you several times it is this morning. Why are you so ignorant?”

Mama jerked her head back with tears in her eyes and pretended to scrub harder.

Emmy stopped mid-bite and stared at Mama. Her sweet face was never meant for an expression of fear. No, please don’t let that be her first memory, I thought. I bubbled with anger, “She isn’t.”

“Excuse me?” Daddy wasn’t much taller than Mama, but he had the ability to stretch his neck down in anger. I imagined he looked like God did before smiting a sinner. “I am your father. You will not speak to me like that.”

My anger gave me more bravery than I could handle, and I let “You’re only my dad in papers” slip out.

Mama’s emerald eyes warned me to back down.

He stepped a little closer to tower over me and said, “Tabitha Marie, I am the man of this house. You will not disrespect me.”

I rubbed my hands as ice cubes slid down my back. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” A metallic tang met my taste buds as I chewed my lower lip.

He stood a little taller and paused at my chair to kiss my head. “I love you girls. Have a good day.”

55

“Good luck, honey,” Mama called as he left the house. We stayed in silence after the door shut, even Emmy. Mama’s arms were fully extended as they gripped the counter. “You girls are my entire world, the best parts of me. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She exhaled a breath I didn’t know she’d been holding. “Now, Tabby, go get your backpack or you’ll miss the bus.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said and scurried to my room.

The scent of herbal smoke crept into my lungs as I gathered my school bag. Mama was smudging the house again. I saw her in their bedroom though the crack of my open door, abalone shell in her left hand and an eagle feather in her right. Small puffs of smoke rose as she breathed life into the burning sage. Mama wafted mesmerizing swirls to every corner of the house as soon as Daddy left after a fight. I wasn’t sure if we were Christians, like Daddy said, or just spiritual, like Mama acted.

Mama was chanting about Jesus Christ, Satan, and bad spirits when I came to the doorway of their room. “I love you, Mama. Bye, Em.” “Bye bye, Tabby,” Emmy shouted from her blanket cocoon on her parents’ bed. She clung to Moo Moo just like I used to, but it was beyond worn from years of love and tears. Mama just smiled, never breaking her concentration.

Later that night we were gathered around the coffee table with the radio humming around us. Emmy whispered to me pointing at my closest game piece.

“Ha,” I yelled and knocked out Mama’s game piece as mine slid down the side of the board into my “Safe Zone.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Emmy and I chanted and celebrated with a high-five.

Mama leaned back on her palms and smiled at us; “You girls got me.”

“What are we playing next?” I asked.

“UNO,” Emmy shouted.

She giggled as Daddy scooped her up. “Why not ‘JENGA, JENGA, JENGA’,” he chanted in a caveman voice and stomped his feet.

“It’s almost bedtime, girls,” Mama smiled.

56

We picked up the debris from family game night and hummed to the radio. When Mama and I came back from the game closet, Daddy swayed in the middle of the room, holding Emmy.

“Just one last song?” I pleaded with her.

The Delilah Show transitioned to the perfect song, one Mama couldn’t resist, and Daddy handed Emmy to me. He laced his fingers through Mama’s. “How ‘bout it, Mary?”

She blushed as he twirled her out then back in and she melted into his arms. I admired the way they flowed together like professionals with a deeper connection. Daddy sang to her like he’d written the song himself just for her. In moments like this it was hard to imagine the screaming and yelling behind closed doors that I swore the whole neighborhood could hear. I held Emmy to my chest and swayed to the rhythm as she started nodding off.

He emphasized the ending note with a kiss to Mama’s head. Her eyes were closed peacefully as she sighed.

“Alright, girls, bedtime,” Daddy said to coax Mama out of her trance.

“Mhmm,” she agreed and squeezed my shoulder to direct me to Emmy’s bed. I placed her on the bottom bunk, and Mama tucked her in.

“My sweet girls,” she said as she embraced me. “You’re getting so big, Tabby.” She held my head to her chest and I shared the moment with her.

“Son-of-a-! Oof!” Daddy burst out and tripped over Emmy’s toys in the doorway. “Damnit, Tabitha, why isn’t this cleaned up?” He held the frame of the bunk bed as he rubbed his foot.

“Michael,” Mama hissed and pulled me behind her, “keep your voice down. That’s no reason to swear.”

Daddy’s demeanor changed as he searched for another excuse.

“What if there were a fire? I wouldn’t be able to get to you girls!”

Mama gripped my hand and sighed. “Tabby, please have Em help you pick up in the morning. At the least make a path, okay? Goodnight.”

“Yes ma’am, goodnight.”

Emmy was content with the dull illumination from her nightlight at the level of her bed. She didn’t seem to notice the shadows that resembled 57

faces or hands that I could see. They stretched up the corners of our room to my top bunk and made me wish for sleep. Yet I had spent much of the night dreading the nightmares that always came with it.

For a moment I hesitated, but decided it was okay to interrupt Mama’s morning routine as long as Daddy had gone downstairs. Living in a mid-century home made it easy to identify who was coming down the hall by the way the house groaned from their weight and the echo of the steps down the hall. I peeked out to catch a glimpse of Daddy’s robe as he went downstairs. I judged my two steps carefully around the squeakiest boards and let myself into their room.

Mama was snuggled in bed still and had barely begun her six a.m. reading. She looked up from her Bible with surprise, “Tabby, what are you doing up?” She placed the Bible on the side table next to the love notes and poems that Daddy hid around the house for her to find while she did everyday tasks at home with Emmy. Flipping the blanket open on Daddy’s side of the bed, she opened her arm to welcome me in.

I had no problem acting a little young in the moments we were alone.

I crawled up and put my head in her lap as she covered me with the blanket. I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet so I answered her question with another question. “How long do you think he will be downstairs this morning?”

She rubbed my back and nibbled the inside of her cheek. “He’s still working on the last map you girls made for him. You really went hard on the terrain.”

I smiled. “Emmy wanted lots of wolves.”

“Sure, Emmy wanted the wolves,” she smiled back.

“I do like making maps, though. Even when he spends hours on the game, it’s still like I’m playing it with him, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand. He will probably be awhile. The computer keeps shutting down in the middle of the game. He rebooted it twice last night.”

I nodded. “I thought I heard cursing.”

58

“Who designs a house with that big a vent in the floor?” Mama groaned. “We can hear too much through it, especially when Emmy has Kaitlyn over to play.”

“That I can handle.” I snuggled closer. “But I don’t like that it goes straight into the computer room.”

Mama kissed my head. “Yeah, your dad has given that room a toxic energy.”

“I had nightmares again,” I admitted.

She sighed and ran her fingers though my hair, her nails lightly scratching my scalp. “Did you say it?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Why not?”

“I feel stupid.”

Mama smiled softly, “I know, but you can do silly things with Emmy and me.”

“That’s different.”

“Oh, but it isn’t. He is our heavenly Father, in the presence of God nothing else matters.” She patted my shoulder and helped me sit up.

Taking my hands, she smiled and we recited her chant together. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke you, Satan. You are not welcome in this house, or in this home. Flee from me.”

Mama cupped my cheek. “Don’t ever feel ashamed of your faith, He is always with you.”

I hated to admit it, but I did feel better. Instead I asked, “Can we make pancakes for Emmy before she wakes up?”

“What a brilliant idea.” Her eyes lit up. “That’s a great start to winter break!”

Mama taught me how to pour the batter to make perfect circles. I was disappointed when a few of them had splattered on the skillet, but I soon mastered it. I convinced Emmy that the splatters were mini pancakes for Moo Moo when we sat at the coffee table for morning cartoons on PBS. “No, Em, don’t poke my food with your fork,” I sneered. “Gross.”

“Moo Moo needs more,” she protested.

“But that’s not nice to take my food. You need to ask nicely.”

59

“Please?”

I tapped my fingers, “Please, what?”

“Please, can Moo Moo have more?”

I nodded and got up to grab the remainder of breakfast.

“Remember to leave some for your dad, please,” Mama called as I brought the plate in.

“There’s only two left,” I said nervously.

“Well that’s not enough either way.” Mama mirrored my concern.

“I’ll make more. You serve up Emmy and Moo Moo the last of that batch.”

We devoured the last two pancakes as Daddy came up from his den, “Morning, girls. Something smells yummy.”

“Tabby made pancakes,” Emmy said.

“With Mama’s help,” I added.

“Great job, sweetie, I bet they’re great,” Daddy rounded into the kitchen. A couple moments later he said, “Seriously? You didn’t have them leave any for me?”

“Emmy was hungrier than usual. It isn’t a big deal,” Mama said.

“I just don’t see how hard it is to make sure you make enough in the first place.”

“I was trying to teach Tabby—” “Then teach her how to make enough! What else am I supposed to have?”

The show cut to commercial. Emmy sat up on her knees and I turned to follow her gaze in the direction of the kitchen. Mama stood at the center island, already halfway through making a new batch, and Daddy gripped the side of the counter.

“I’m making more, Michael,” Mama said and gestured to the bowl in her hands.

“It doesn’t matter, I don’t have time to wait. Clearly I don’t matter enough in the first place.”

In the corner of my eye I saw Emmy run in front of Mama and point up at Daddy. “No, Daddy! Don’t do that. That’s not nice.”

He slammed his fist on the counter he’d been holding which caused Emmy to jump. “Do not talk back to me.”

60

Mama set down the bowl and pulled Emmy back. “She doesn’t know better. Take your tone down a notch.”

“She knows exactly what she’s doing.” His back was arched as he looked down at them. “Is this how you let them talk to you?”

“No, of course not, I’m their mother.”

“And I’m their father,” he spun around and glared at me. “Why weren’t you watching her?”

I still sat on the floor, my mouth slightly open, but couldn’t grasp a response.

“That’s enough, Michael, you’re scaring them,” Mama said as Emmy climbed up her side and hid her face in Mama’s shoulder.

“I’m scaring them,” he scoffed, “I’m not the bad guy here, I just wanted breakfast like a normal Christian family!”

“This isn’t a normal Christian family,” Mama sighed in defeat.

“Next time, I’ll make a double batch first so we can make sure there’s enough for everyone, even if there are leftovers.”

“Thank you,” Daddy said. “Was that so hard?” He kissed Mama’s head and tried to kiss Emmy’s, but she squealed and turned further from him into Mama’s arm. “Fine.” He threw up his hands and stalked out the front door.

I assumed the sun was setting; it was hard to tell with constant drizzling overcast. After dinner, Mama and our neighbor, Mrs. Parker, asked me to keep an eye on Emmy and Kaitlyn while they talked about adult things inside. Emmy was fortunate enough that Kaitlyn was her age.

Kaitlyn’s brother, Pete, was a year younger than me and was supposed to be watching the girls too. Instead I stood at the end of our driveway in the drizzling rain and watched them alone as they played in the garage.

I looked over our split-level home as if I were seeing it for the last time. I hated the brown paint, brown bricks, and brown shutters. The turd on the block. Despite the monochrome structure, the outside had some charm. As a split-level home, the living room sat above the built-in garage on the left half, and all bedrooms were above the basement on the right half. My favorite feature was the purple wildflowers that lined the seven large steps curving up to the one splash of color we could afford, a bright 61

yellow front door. Right of the door were three thick bushes that masked the half windows to our somewhat finished basement, and to the left were two more that offered padding to the unfortunate soul who might trip on the cement stairs that had no railing. The oak tree in the front yard towered over the roof and gave shelter to two makeshift swings Daddy made that hung on its lowest branches. Under each swing were patches of dirt from earlier childhood memories that were afraid to regrow grass.

“You’re gonna get sick,” Pete teased as he slipped me a holiday cookie from his house.

I rolled my eyes and bit into it. “That’s a myth.”

“That clubhouse would be great right about now.” Pete elbowed me and laughed.

“Don’t hold your breath. Daddy has more important projects,” I said sarcastically and nodded my head with the word “important.”

“Yeah, but, I mean… how long has it been?”

“Months.”

“And it’s still just sitting there?”

“Half finished.”

“Maybe next summer.” Pete tapped his sneakers in a puddle. “How are things?”

“Worse.”

“I’m sorry. I miss playing games with your dad. You remember when he rented that Xbox and we all played Grand Theft Auto? That was sick.” He scanned my face for a reaction, but I didn’t know what he expected to see.

“It’s hard because it isn’t always bad, but when it is, it’s awful. Like, sometimes I think we could be a good family, and other times I wish we could just leave.”

Pete sucked in sharply and let air puff out his cheeks as he exhaled.

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“No one does,” I said flatly, followed by stunned silence.

“It’s freezing out here,” he said finally and gestured to his hands deep in his pockets.

“I’m surprised it isn’t snowing.”

62

Mrs. Parker came out with Mama and scooped up Kaitlyn then motioned for Pete to follow. “See you, Tabby,” he said.

I smiled, “Yeah.”

We stayed up later than usual, waiting for Daddy to come home.

Finally, the carpet vibrated from the rumble of the garage door as it closed.

“Daddy,” Emmy squealed.

We scurried to the back of the couch and bounced on our knees, looking down at the split foyer. I heard Daddy kick the door closed, so I pulled Emmy under me and wrapped around her. I could still see over the edge as Daddy took a few steps up to the split foyer. There were three horizontal frown lines like crevasses in his forehead. I held Emmy a little tighter.

“What is it, Michael?” Mama said cautiously at the top of the stairs.

“We need to talk later.” He rubbed the nape of his neck. “It’s gonna be tight this winter.” Without looking up he descended into the basement and he sealed himself in.

Mama gripped the back of the couch and muttered before clearing her throat, “Alright, girls, bed time.”

The sound of Mama and Daddy arguing downstairs seeped up through the vent under our bunk bed. I came down from the top bunk and cuddled with Emmy. It was nice having a room with her, because we could stay up and play as long as we were quiet. It wasn’t any good, though, if we couldn’t drown them out. They were louder than usual.

Lately, everything had been louder.

“I don’t know why she called you,” Daddy said.

“Michael,” Mama’s voice echoed. “That’s $11,000 total!”

I got down to stretch under Emmy’s bed and shut the vent. “Emmy, do you want to see what I made in school?”

She nodded excitedly and I rummaged through my backpack. I pulled out a clay mask sloppily painted with flowers and ladybugs. “You can have it if you want.” There was a distant hum of conversation no matter how hard I tried to keep Emmy from hearing them.

“Pastor Alan explained it last time. As my wife, this falls on you too!”

63

“What more do you expect from me?”

Emmy looked at our closed door nervously.

“It’s okay,” I assured her and pulled her into my lap. “How about we finish the movie?” I pressed play on the movie we’d been watching before dinner, and Emmy sang along with Aurora about dreams better than the ones I’d been having.

Lightning illuminated our room with no time for a count before thunder shook the house. The remote dropped from the table causing the movie to stop just in time for us to hear Mama yell, “If you take one more step toward me I swear I will shove these scissors in your heart!”

Emmy erupted into tears and I covered her ears. Frantically, I picked her up and swung open our closet. “Put your jacket on,” I said and tossed it to her as I pulled on my own.

“Tabby, what about Mama?” Emmy stood in the corner clutching Moo Moo. I forced myself to smile and said, “Mama will be okay. How about we go see if Kaitlyn and her parents are home?”

Her eyes lit up. “Kaitlyn? Can we play?”

“Sure, Em, you can while I talk with Mrs. Parker.” I gripped her hand to keep her close. “We’re going to play the quiet game until we get there, though. I bet I can make the least noise.”

“Nuh-uh,” she protested and I pressed my finger to her lips.

“Then show me how quiet you can be.” She nodded and I opened our door a crack.

I maneuvered down the hall and showed Emmy where to step so the floor wouldn’t creak. At the end of the hall I wrapped my arm around Emmy and checked the reflection in the front door. The basement door was open and Daddy’s shadow loomed at the bottom of the stairs. Emmy was covering her ears again, so I slid my back down the wall and cradled her in my lap. We couldn’t make it to the front or back door without getting caught. Emmy nuzzled my arm and whimpered as we felt Daddy’s footsteps coming up. I closed my eyes, prepared to be scolded.

He stopped at the landing and shouted, “I don’t want to smell that voodoo crap when I get back, Mary,” then left the house.

64

Emmy squirmed out of my grasp and darted downstairs. I took the steps two or more at a time to try to catch her, but I was too late.

Mama sat on the floor in front of the ancient wood burning stove with her face in her hands. Muffled sobs escaped her fingers. Without saying a word, Emmy tucked Moo Moo under Mama’s arm. She was startled out of her self-pity and cupped Emmy’s tear-soaked cheeks.

“Oh, Em.” Mama and I exchanged concerned glances and her face contorted to anger. “That’s it.”

I sat next to Mama on the king-size hotel bed as she talked with Nana. Long floral curtains shut out the night and clashed with the striped bedspread. Emmy dug her toes into the shag carpet at the foot of the bed as she watched the box TV. The good cartoons were on, though, the ones we could only watch at friends’ houses since we didn’t have cable. Emmy was entranced by road runners, coyotes, and stuttering pigs. The room tried too hard to feel like a home, and I found myself hating it.

“I know, Mom, but the girls and I are okay now. Yes, for now.”

Mama ran her fingers over my back, tickling it softly to calm me down.

“Sure, the holidays were always great by the ocean. Thank you for offering. We can’t just leave. We will be fine. I’ll call you tomorrow, goodnight, Mom.” Mama sighed heavily and hung up the landline.

“Are we going to see Nana?” I asked.

Mama just smiled and stroked my hair. “She says she misses us, and wishes we could see her for the holidays.”

“What about Daddy?” Emmy’s emerald eyes drooped as she fought off a yawn and rubbed them.

“We will think about that tomorrow while we plan winter break.”

Mama patted the middle of the bed and Emmy scrambled up the blankets and settled in between us. As if she could see the unease in my eyes, she promised, “Tonight will be the last night you have nightmares.”

Emmy held Moo Moo between us and made it kiss my nose.

“Boop!”

We giggled until Mama smiled and shushed us. “Good night, girls.”

65

The morning came earlier than usual. I tossed with nightmares again that night and woke up to Emmy starfished in the middle of the bed. It was too early to wake her, but too late to try to go back to sleep. I groaned and slid to the floor as not to wake her. I stretched my worries out and hobbled toward the bathroom. As I passed the desk, I noticed one of the room keys was missing. Mama usually left a note before she left the house, so it was odd for her to leave without at least telling me. Closer to the bathroom I was distracted by muffled voices outside the door. Too small to look through the peep hole, I pressed my ear to the door crack instead. It sounded like Mama, but I couldn’t make out the second voice.

“Adoption went through in April,” Mama was saying.

Another female voice answered, “Then there isn’t much you can do, he threatened an Amber Alert.”

“He can’t take them. They are my girls.” Mama’s voice sounded hoarse from crying.

“There’s always separation. Maybe taking a break would be for the best.”

“And where would we go?”

There was an unsettling pause while the other woman thought. “I’d offer for you to stay with me, I know Emmy and Kaitlyn would have a blast. I just don’t know how Tom would feel…”

“I understand.” Mama cut off the rest of Mrs. Parker’s sentence. “I appreciate you giving me the heads up. You’ve always been a great friend.”

“I love you and your girls. Stay safe.”

I assumed they were hugging goodbye, as Midwesterners always did. In a panic, I locked myself in the bathroom just as Mama slid the card in the security lock. She knocked on the door and told me to be ready to leave in ten minutes.

When I came out, she had the bag repacked and Emmy in her arms, still fighting sleep. We were quiet in the elevator, and Emmy and I sat in front of the burning fireplace while Mama waited for the front desk lady to respond to the bell.

“Checking out?” the lady asked. She was less friendly than she had been the night before as she booted up the computer.

66

“Yes, please.”

“Last name?”

“Quimby.” Mama started fidgeting with her wedding ring, probably hoping the lady wouldn’t know she’d used Nana’s last name.

The lady adjusted her wide-brimmed glasses. “Did you enjoy your stay?”

“Hm? Yes, we did,” Mama smiled.

“Is everything alright?” she asked and slowed her typing.

“Yes, everything is fine. Just in a hurry.”

“Where are you ladies headed at this hour?”

“Home.” Mama glanced back at me, but I didn’t want to look at her.

A cozy house, in a friendly neighborhood, in a small town was great for raising a family—in theory—but none of it mattered if he was still there.

It felt like someone was squeezing my heart, causing tightness in my chest and the rest of my body to feel numb. She still planned to take us back home?

“Alright, you’re all checked out. Thanks for staying with us!”

I choked on misty fog and chilly morning air as we left the safety of the hotel. Emmy was awake enough to walk to the car, but I had to help her into her seat. She pretended to be a choo-choo train by blowing puffs of frosted breath in my face as I buckled her in. Mama laughed and stroked Emmy’s fireball of curls as I strapped myself in. The ride was cold but laughter kept us warm as Emmy told us about her dream of a swimming pool filled with stuffed Moo Moo’s. No amount of laughter made the squeezing in my chest loosen.

Mama stopped smiling when we started passing the signs for the airport exit. “Sometimes I think about jumping on the next flight home, and never looking back,” she said softly.

“I have Moo Moo,” Emmy giggled and played with its ears.

Mama pursed her lips in an awkward smile as if to shrug off Emmy’s response.

“I don’t care where we go, as long as we’re with you,” I said with more resolve than I thought possible.

She held my gaze for a moment and gripped the steering wheel.

“Taking a break might be for the best.”

67

“We’re going to see Nana.” Emmy cheered when Mama turned off the highway toward the airport. I noticed Mama’s shoulders lift and she sat a little higher behind the wheel. I felt a little lighter just watching her.

Maybe we were too smart for our own good, but I didn’t want to be dumb.

I reached over and held her hand as Emmy made Moo Moo dance in the first patch of sunlight we’d seen in awhile.

68

Baillee Furst White Walls ‖ Fiction Plain walls had always bothered me.

Maybe it’s because, growing up, I always felt the walls in my house were always busy. Always painted bright colors and covered in family pictures or other knickknacks my mom picked up at craft sales or made herself. Sometimes it seemed overwhelming, the blue walls of our living room and the framed photos filling all of the empty space. But it was familiar. It was home.

The walls of my grandmother’s house were white, bare, and had small cracks in the plaster along the floor and the ceiling. They had been this way for as long as I could remember. It was something I found normal about the space I visited a handful of times each year.

Grandma Ronnie’s farmhouse was a five-hour drive from our own, and with me being in college and my two brothers’ weekend basketball tournaments taking up most of my parents’ free time, we rarely visited except for the holidays.

In the last month, however, we had been to the property on six separate occasions. It was always for just a few days, sometimes one, no more than three, but each visit got more and more difficult. This one was, of course, the worst of them all.

It was Christmas Eve, a tradition for my mother’s family to get together at my grandma’s. The old farmhouse was just that, old. It was on a huge stretch of property, the size of which I wasn’t sure, but the house itself was oddly small. A few of the rooms had been redone, the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, but the rest of the home was rickety and hadn’t been redecorated since the late 1980s. So fitting grandma’s four children’s entire families inside was always tight, but one we all managed. It was just one day of the year, after all.

My eyes briefly flickered to the small circular dining table set in the middle of the kitchen, which my mom, her sisters, Deb and Carla, and her brother, Ron, had gathered around. Everyone lived close but us, so my dad, brothers and I were the only ones there at that moment other than the 69

siblings. Soon, though, the house would be filled with 30 people, my other uncles, aunt, my cousins and my cousin’s children.

“Do you think she’s going to get any better?” my aunt Carla asked quietly, her hands clasped on the table in front of her. It was my mother to answer, in her normal, direct fashion.

“No. I don’t think so.” The words were blunt, and caused my aunt’s brows to draw together. I had wondered the same thing the last time we visited, which was last week. Grandma Ronnie had been talkative, she had sat in the kitchen and asked me about school, about my boyfriend and had eaten a full meal, something she hadn’t been doing lately. It seemed things were on the upswing. Until we had arrived this morning.

The door leading to the living room swung open, the hospice nurse looked up and met my eyes immediately. I knew what she was going to say wasn’t good before she spoke. “She’s actively dying.”

It took a few seconds to digest what the woman had said. It didn’t really hit until a sob slipped through the lips of my uncle Ron. I looked over to the table to see that my aunts were crying too, but not my mom.

She had cried a lot lately. I wasn’t sure what was keeping her from doing so now.

“Her respiratory system is failing, and her heart is shutting down.

That’s where the choking noise is coming from,” she continued. That was when my eyes met the wall. I had never really studied them closely before, just a passing glance at the whiteness, the bareness, enough to remember that there wasn’t anything there. Except the cracks. The cracks that had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world.

“She’s not going to wake up again. It shouldn’t be too much longer until she’s gone.” There was one crack that was so deep I could nearly see light shining through from outside, through the siding of the house.

“The gurgling will only continue to get worse as her body continues to shut down, until she stops breathing altogether.” And then there were the smaller cracks, some of them looked as though they had been carefully carved. I had heard stories about my cousin Ryan being quite the vandal growing up. He could very well have done it.

“She timed this just right, with all of you being here. You’ll be able to say goodbye.”

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It was so odd to me, that none of the cracks made it to the middle of the wall. They all tapered out before that, sticking only to the edges. What would happen if one made it all the way through? Would the wall collapse?

I could picture it, the spiderwebbed lines slowly growing, filling the whole wall, until they met in the middle. They converged and suddenly the entire structure collapsed in on itself.

It was surprisingly quiet, the sound of the drywall falling away to reveal the snow-filled front yard of the farmhouse. The hole was big enough for a person; it was just tall enough that I could fit through it comfortably. I could walk straight through it and into the wintery fields outside. I could keep walking straight until I hit the highway a few miles away, and then— The sound of a cry broke me from my reprieve. I blinked once and looked to the table to see my aunt Deb with her face in her hands. The nurse walked a few steps over and patted her on the back. A comforting gesture, but one I just found odd. This woman didn’t know my grandmother. She didn’t know my aunt. Why did she think it was her place to be comforting the very family she had just doled out a death sentence to?

“I’ll be back at 5 tonight. If she goes before then, call me. I’ll get everything arranged to have her picked up.” The nurse walked out of the dining room and into the alcove where the front door was.

The room stayed silent as she left. No one looked at each other. It wasn’t until the sound of the front door closing could be heard that anyone moved.

My mom was the one to look up from the table and around at her siblings. No words were said, because what did you say after you were told about the impending death of your mother?

I watched her, waited for her to speak, but her mouth was frozen in an almost word, her jaw hanging slightly open. She was a woman of many words, so it was a foreign sight.

I nearly jumped as I felt my dad’s hand fall on my shoulder. I looked up at him instinctively and was greeted with a head nod towards the other room. I tapped on my brother Carter’s shoulder who in turn got the 71

attention of our other brother, Jared. We turned and followed my dad silently out of the room, through the living room and up the stairs.

The house had four bedrooms. One downstairs for Grandma Ronnie and three upstairs, two guest and one for my aunt. My parents stayed in one room, my mom’s childhood bedroom, and my brothers and I stayed in the other.

As we walked past that room, I looked at the rumpled sheets of the bed I had claimed and the two rollaways Carter and Jared had slept on, folded up and shoved against a wall. Carter had woken me up that morning to ask if I would make him pancakes. We hadn’t eaten, and I doubted any of us would be hungry at all that day.

When we got inside my parents’ room, my dad shut the door behind us. He stood with one hand on the knob as he looked at the back of the paneled surface. Letting out a slow breath, he turned and looked at all three of us. Carter had plopped down on the bed, Jared leaned against the wall next to him and I stood in the middle of the room, arms braced across my chest.

I was still in my pajamas, I noticed then. I never looked like this around my mother’s family. It just wasn’t the way they were. They might have been a farming family, but they always looked put together. I had never seen either of her sisters without makeup or her brother without a tie. My dad had a similar expression my mother had downstairs, his mouth slightly open, no sounds escaping him as his eyes tripped over each of us.

It was Carter who spoke first. “Is Christmas canceled?” He was the youngest of us. Only 11. The baby. I was 7 when he was born, Jared was 4.

The look on my dad’s face flickered into an even more downturned one, just for a moment, before he forced a smile on to his face. “No, buddy. We’ll have Christmas Eve here and then we’ll head to Grandma and Grandpa Lee’s for midnight mass tonight. You’ll be home with plenty of time for Santa to stuff your stocking before tomorrow.” I wasn’t sure if Carter still believed in Santa. Eleven seemed so long ago. I couldn’t have possibly still believed at that point, right? Whether or not he did, he smiled a little bit and gave a small nod. Whatever my dad had 72

planned to say to us was now gone by the wayside. Through the thin walls of the farmhouse, I could hear the front door open and shut multiple times.

The cousins were here. “Why don’t you guys head on down and say hi,” Dad said, opening the door and gesturing out. Carter ran right through and Jared followed, just slower, as he stared at the phone in his hands. I stayed put for a minute, though, watching.

My dad turned back to me as he stood poised to walk out of the room to join the boys downstairs. His large frame took up most of the doorway.

My mom and her family weren’t known for their height, and because my grandpa had built this house, everything was built slightly smaller than standard. My father’s 6-foot-5 frame made him stand out among everyone else. That, and his almond-shaped eyes.

“You good, Lila?” he asked, his head slightly tilted to the side. I knew by the way he was looking at me he already knew the answer.

I nodded as I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t bother to force a smile. “Yeah. Just need a minute,” was my response. Having suffered me through my teen years, he knew exactly what that meant, and shut the door behind himself, giving me just what I had asked for.

I let out a puff and sat down on the edge of the bed. The room looked like it came straight from a Crate and Barrel catalog. Decorating was one of my aunt’s many talents. There wasn’t a trace left of my mom’s old decor. She told me she used to have her walls lined with posters of Michael Jackson, Prince and John Stamos. Her ceiling used to be covered with glow-in-the-dark star stickers that she had placed there by jumping on her bed. She used to have deep yellow shag carpet. All of it was gone.

Erasing people seemed to be another of my aunt’s talents.

The walls, however, had stayed the same. They were white, like every other room in the house, but they were still smooth up here. There were occasional outlines from blue sticky tape my aunt hadn’t managed to scrape up, but otherwise, the white was consistent. No wonder my mother had claimed to cover them so.

I could hear the yelling and the laughter from my younger cousins float through the floorboards. I was at an awkward age in my family. My parents were both the youngest of their siblings, my mother by a 15-year 73

margin after my grandparents accidently conceived her at the tender age of 45. That meant I was almost young enough to be my first cousins’ children's age, but not quite.

Jared and Carter had plenty of others to hang around with. There were a total of 13 grandchildren, including myself and my brothers, and eight great-grandchildren with one more on the way and plenty more expected. The oldest great-grandchild was cousin Tyler, and he was 13.

So that left me in the strange in-between stage of either hanging out with my much older cousins or my much younger second cousins. Or my parents. Or myself. It tended to be the latter.

Things had gotten better since I had begun college, however. I didn’t have to sit in the living room with the kids during meals anymore, and my older cousins sometimes took interest in asking me about school.

I slowly counted to ten before exiting the room and going into my shared guest room. The boys probably hadn’t bothered to change out of their pajamas yet, but I wasn’t about to go back downstairs looking like I had just rolled out of bed. I quickly put myself together, putting on jeans and a sweater, brushed my hair and put on a layer of makeup before descending into the chaos.

For a brief moment I considered staying upstairs and not coming down at all. It was easy to get forgotten in the mess that was our family gatherings, but I decided against it.

I found the landing at the bottom of the stairs, which led into the living room and was right next to my grandmother's room, to be unexpectedly quiet. From where I stood, I could just see into her room. A few of my cousins and my uncle were inside, quietly whispering. And crying. I could see the oxygen pump not far from her bedside. I did my best to quickly and quietly exit into the kitchen before anyone noticed I was there or before I heard or saw my grandma.

The kitchen was surprisingly empty, sans one of my cousins and her husband. They were gathered at the stove, whispering to each other over a boiling pot. I knew Tasha wouldn’t take this well.

She had grown up with my grandma, had lived only a few miles away and now only lived a 15-minute drive from the farm. She had practically lived here growing up. She was the youngest of the rest of my 74

cousins, though she was still 14 years my senior at 32. She had grown up the baby. We had taken that away from her.

She gave me a tight smile when she saw me enter the kitchen and I gave one in return. I wasn’t surprised she hadn’t cried yet; she would do that in private, but I knew she wasn’t alright. None of us were.

“Carter and Jared ran to play with the other kids if you’re looking for them,” she said as she stirred whatever was in the pot. I assumed stovetop hot chocolate. A family holiday tradition. She always referred to us in that way, as separate. My brothers weren’t included in “the kids” and I never was counted with the grandkids. We were always listed separately.

“I’m not looking for them, just passing through,” I said, rubbing my hands nervously over my thighs. It was hard, talking to any of my mother's family one-on-one. It always felt like there was a wall between us, a reluctance. They all seemed to keep the boys and me at arm's length.

Maybe it was the age gap. Or because we didn’t live in the area like everyone else.

Just then a scream came through the door to the den or the “playroom.” My grandparents had built an addition onto the home years ago for my grandpa’s “man cave.” He had passed away a year after I was born, and it had reverted into a room full of toys.

“I’ve got it,” my cousin's husband Stewart said as he gave me a head nod and rushed into the other room, leaving it to just the two of us. I blinked a few times as I stared at the door to the other room and considered following, until Tasha turned off the burner to the stove and asked, “So how’s school going?”

I gave her a weak smile, hardly wanting to discuss college on a day like today. But, hey, she was trying. “It’s going well. I’m thinking about declaring a graphic design major.”

“Really, not pre-med or economics?” she asked with a raised brow.

My response was a blank stare. I’d never had any interest in numbers or science. Sure, my dad was a periodontist, but that was the only connection.

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“No, I don’t really do well with blood and I was awful in calculus.

Kind of turned me off from numbers,” I said, as warmly as possible. There were a lot of us. It wasn’t fair to expect my cousin to remember these things about me. She had kids of her own, after all.

She simply nodded at me in return and busied herself with something on the counter. A spill, maybe? I stepped forward, then, my mouth poised to ask if she’d gone in to see Grandma yet, but it was then that the door to the living room opened and my uncle and his two sons came into the kitchen, eyes red-rimmed.

“No one’s in there now, if one of you two want to—” my uncle began but was cut off quickly by Tasha.

“You can go ahead, Lila.” She didn’t bother to look up from the spotless counter as she continued to scrub at it.

My throat constricted, but I nodded. “Okay,” I responded, my voice tiny, as I turned and walked back through the doorway to my grandma’s room. I could already hear her oxygen tank pumping the moment I walked through the double doors into her room.

The space that was my grandma’s bedroom had as much sentiment to me as any of the other features of the house. Which was minimal.

I did, however, remember playing felt dolls on her floor when I was younger. She had made a special set, just for me, after Jared had cut the hair off of my Barbies.

The dark oak frame I remembered that housed her bed had been replaced with one from the hospital. The light curtains had been draped with a blanket, and there were a few vases of flowers perched on her dresser which had knocked over several of the many framed family pictures she had on top of it.

Nothing, however, was as jarring to me in that room as the sound that came from her. Every few breaths, a wet, choking sound escaped from the back of her throat, as though she were choking on the very air that was keeping her alive. It sounded like a car engine trying to start with a dead battery. And then the breathing would stop all together. After a few moments it would start all over again.

When I finally got the courage to look at her, I felt the tears pinprick at the back of my eyes immediately. Her eyes were closed. She hadn’t 76

been conscious for days now; we just finally knew she wasn’t ever going to be again.

Her mouth was open uncomfortably wide as she struggled to breathe. The skin surrounding her lips had turned a tinge of purple; the rest was nearly as white as the short-curled hair that sat on top of her head, which was matted flatly to her skull. That nearly made me laugh.

Never in my life had I seen my grandma without her hair done. She would often make me assure her when we were together that it looked alright and would frequently complain about her hair “hurting” if it wasn’t correctly in place.

I bit my lip as I looked at her. I was lucky, I supposed, to not have experienced any real loss in my life. I’d had a few great aunts and uncles die. Some neighbors. But no one I was close with. Not like this.

I broke my gaze with her form to stare at the wall above her head. It seemed the walls in here were the only ones without flaw in the entire house. Any color disfigurements. The white surfaces appeared to be without a crack. There was nothing hung on them, not even a simple nail or tape mark for me to remark on. Nothing but a blank canvas.

I wondered what my aunt would do with this room after today.

Would she paint the walls? Remove the furniture in it I had so very closely come to associate with my grandmother? Erase her in the same fashion she had done with my mother’s room?

I forced my eyes back down to my grandmother’s face as her throat caught after a particularly loud breathing hiccup. I looked at her for only a moment before I turned and ran upstairs.

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Seth Larson—Rock + Roll

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Paul Hyatt Crumpled Freedom ‖ Creative Nonfiction It felt like my brain was forcefully pushing against my skull, cracking it, and oozing out into the stale afternoon air. A single warm drop of liquid slithered its way down the side of my face. I wiped it off and started to feel nauseous as I looked at the crimson smear that I now wore on my fingers. My eyes began to water as my nausea increased and I vomited. Through the rainy windows of my eyes, I looked down and watched bile sink into the dirt. I snapped my eyes shut and squeezed them together as hard as I could, hating everything about myself and everything I had done. ...

I stepped outside onto my porch and let the warm, therapeutic feeling of sunlight gush over my body. After months of cold and miserable weather the feeling of being covered in a blanket of afternoon heat felt stunningly blissful. Today would be a great day. I hopped into the driver’s seat of my 2010 silver Pontiac Grand Prix. As I reached to shut the door behind me, I glanced down at the grass. A couple feet from my vehicle lay a dead bird, twisted grotesquely. Its glazed black eye stared at me. I sighed and slammed my door. My mind diverted quickly from the deceased bird as I gripped my steering wheel. I couldn’t help but smile as my hands slid over the smooth leather that encased the wheel. I had spent many months of unsavory work in a scorching kitchen making minimum wage to pay for this car. I remembered hating every minute as I dealt with the unpleasant tasks of serving demanding customers and throwing arteryclogging food in fryers and onto grill tops. It was all worth it now as I had freedom at my fingertips. I could now go anywhere and explore everywhere I pleased without trying to persuade a reluctant friend or family member to give me a lift, to which they would either flatly resist or give me a begrudging “I guess.” I started the car, cranked up the radio, and swung out of my driveway.

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At my girlfriend Kenzie’s request, I had to attend a dance practice to learn complex moves I would forget a couple hours after learning them.

She was on the dance team and every year during their “spring show” they would perform a coed dance. Each girl on the team would set out on her hunt to find a boy at the school willing to subject himself to humiliation in front of a whole gymnasium. Obviously, I was Kenzie’s easiest victim.

This was my second year of participating and I usually dreaded the practice days, but this time I was excited, only because I could drive there.

My mood quickly dropped as I entered the gym and saw the look on all the dancers’ faces. Today was the eve of their big showcase, and I could tell that each girl had been filled to the brim with stress and that a singular drop more would cause them to reach their maximum capacity and consequently explode. A bead of sweat ran down the side of my face as I glanced down at the time on my phone: 1:02. I swore under my breath as I realized I had made the grave mistake of being two minutes late.

Kenzie marched over. Her beautiful features were twisted into frustration.

“You’re late,” she greeted me.

“Nice to see you, too.”

“Sorry, now get over there.” She pointed to a spot on the gym floor.

The next hour and a half were spent jumping and twirling and spinning around with the grace of a sumo wrestler. The signal that all the boys could leave could not have come sooner. I said goodbye to Kenzie and my friends, then darted for the door before they could make me do one more jump split. I spotted my friend Blaise who was oddly drenched in sweat.

He was my sister’s victim this year. His overly generous personality made him a popular target for the dance girls each year. “Yo, you need a ride home?” I called out. It felt so good to be giving rides instead of taking them. Blaise looked up and smiled.

“Yeah, I’ll take one. I totally forgot you had your license now. How long has it been?”

“Two weeks,” I responded as we both got into my car.

“You want to come chill at my house for a bit?” Blaise asked.

“Yeah, you hungry, though?”

“I’m always down for food. Where do you want to go?” Blaise responded.

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“I don’t care, we could go to Knoxville,” I suggested. Blaise thought that over for a second and suggested the Mexican place we both liked.

“Yeah that sounds great,” I said as I peeled out of the desolate parking lot and back onto the road. The next ten minutes of driving were everything I had imagined and enviously hoped for in finally getting a license, a car, and freedom. Each minute was filled with laughter, joking, music, and conversation. Unfortunately, once those ten minutes of joyous freedom were up, they were up. I pulled up to the intersection with a smile plastered on my stupid, careless face. I took my two quick head nods both ways and seeing no one, proceeded into the intersection. I was met by two menacing headlights that sunk into me deeply and quickly as I came to the split-second decision I was about to die. I had no idea where this car had come from as I didn’t see it, but all I could manage to do was let out a quick and final “OH SHIT!” I woke up from the worst dream of my life. It didn’t take me long to realize however that I was still trapped in this nightmare and that I was lucky to still be in it. I lifted my head which now felt like it weighed 100 pounds from the deflated airbag as I looked at the destruction I had just caused. My brain finally snapped into place and began working as I remembered Blaise. My neck whipped around, and I let out a sigh of relief as I saw a confused and shaken, but alive Blaise.

“Shit are you okay?” he asked as he looked me over. I looked forward to where my windshield used to be. The feeling of self-hatred finally kicked in as I realized I had just destroyed the thing I had been working so hard and long for.

“Yeah… I’m so sorry,” I apologized as I looked over at Blaise’s still shocked face.

“Hey, it’s okay, man, it was an accident. I’m just glad we’re both okay.” We both turned our heads toward the empty space in my window as a frantic middle-aged woman rushed towards it.

“Oh my gosh, are you kids okay?” she exclaimed. I told her yes and immediately asked about the other person involved in the crash. She informed me that from what she could see he was fine but would need to go to the ER for back pain. She and another younger male helped Blaise and me out of the carcass of my car. The lady continued to ask me if I was 81

okay and I responded the same way, just nodding. To my surprise she gave me a hug. To my greater surprise, it made me feel slightly better.

After walking around slightly I realized how awful I felt physically, my head pounding with a steady beat from the inside and my legs feeling as if they were about to give out. I sat down and was given water as I waited to talk to the police.

I glanced over at Blaise and then at the grotesquely murdered remains of my once beautiful car. I had about murdered my friend. My mind sniffed that foul information but quickly regurgitated it as it was too much to comprehend. I could have murdered my friend. This time my mind comprehended. I looked at Blaise once again and felt the vines of nausea sprout from the ground of my stomach and up into my throat. He could be dead because of me. I thought of his family and our other friends.

I vomited.

After I was done puking I knew there was no more putting off what I dreaded the most. I needed to make the phone calls. First, I called my parents. My dad answered. There was no good way to put this, so I simply greeted them with, “I got into an accident.” He thought I was joking at first, but he soon realized this was not a joke. After making sure both Blaise and I were okay, he told me he would be there shortly. I thanked him because as the coward I am, I just wanted to leave the situation. Next, I called Kenzie and explained what had happened and that we were fine.

I could hear the fear in her voice as she told me how happy she was that we were okay.

After giving me a ticket, the cop told me what he had gathered from everybody. The car I hit was in the turning lane and then switched to the lane going straight. I never saw him as I turned.

I took one last look at my crumpled piece of freedom as Blaise and I got into my dad’s car. The ride back was a silent one. Angry thoughts continued to play over the loudspeakers in my head, but I glanced back at Blaise again and felt an overwhelming feeling of thanksgiving pour over me. It could have been so much worse. I might have lost my temporary feeling of complete freedom, but that could be replaced. Both Blaise and I walked away with only minor injuries, and I can’t explain how thankful I am for that.

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Afterward, I received the news that the car was totaled. I am now left without a car and with severe anxiety caused by being behind the wheel. Despite that day being one of the worst days of my life, I view it as one of my most essential. Sometime in the future, my automobileinduced anxiety will fade, and I will be given the opportunity to own another car. I will remember being so close to death you can notice its presence and feel its breath as it reaches to grab you. I will remember that feeling every time I drive anywhere, whether it’s just down the street or across the county. I will remember that death will always be sitting in the car with me. Waiting and watching with a diligent and unforgiving eye for me to make a wrong move. I will remember that death’s instincts are much quicker than my own. One mistake, one second, is enough time for death to reach up and take my life, just like picking a flower.

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Abigail Blader Embers in the Ashes ‖ Creative Nonfiction Devo is a 1970s new-wave rock band hailing from Akron, Ohio.

Their name is short for devolution – the opposite of evolution — a descent into a state worse than the starting point. My father always liked to joke that the city they came from was the inspiration for their name. I can’t speak to the truth of that statement, but having lived in Akron I must admit it seems plausible.

When I was three, my family moved to Akron, where we lived for the next five years. I wish I could say that my memories of that time are light-filled, joyous recollections of a time when all was right in the world, that I had a childhood worthy of immortalization in a children’s storybook. I could say that, but it would taste a lie.

The Akron of the early 2000s was a post-industrial ruin of a city located just south of Cleveland and in the center of the Rust Belt. The city’s skyline was dotted with crumbling towers and abandoned tire factories, and a heavy pall of rubber dust hung in the air, coating every surface and running down the sides of buildings in dark streaks that were impossible to remove. Surfaces that in other cities would gleam proudly in the sunlight here offered up only a dull glint in the half-light of the sun that peeked down through the almost perpetual smog. Some winters the snow fell grey upon the shattered pavement underfoot only to melt and refreeze into a dangerous black sheen during the night.

Jobs and wealth alike were in short supply, as is often the case in cities like Akron. My parents were co-pastors at a small church in the city, located in a less-than-savory neighborhood near downtown. The streets were lined with boarded-up windows and curtain-twitching neighbors, while those who had no further to fall hid away in darkened corners. Our church was small, but did what it could, collecting canned and boxed foods to distribute. Sometimes there was money as well to offer to those who came knocking, but more often than not the church’s coffers were as empty as the pews themselves. The church closed down a few years after

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we left in 2007, my parents having accepted a job offer in a place far removed from Akron.

I would be lying if I said my childhood was easy. On the contrary, it would be easy to tell you that my childhood was miserable and that I have been scarred deeply because of it, and while that may be half true, few things in life are ever as black and white as they seem. Akron seemed a dying, ugly blight on the earth, true, but even in the death of one organism still others thrive. When an animal dies, its body then serves as home to a different kind of life as it is broken down by insects and scavengers so that the basic building blocks of life can be recycled. ...

My family lived on Hawk Avenue on the edge of Akron. This street was, as the name would imply, home to quite a few hawks and eagles. It was also home to an abundance of squirrels, thanks to our neighbor, a transplant from West Virginia, who would leave out gallon jugs full of nuts for them during the winter. This combination led to exactly what you might expect: feasting grounds for the hawks and an impromptu lesson on the circle of life for the neighborhood kids. I later learned that my neighbor fed and protected the squirrels because he, too, would eat them.

Five-year-old me was scandalized. Current me knows that meat was expensive and the squirrels expendable. ...

Akron was undergoing its own kind of decomposition, courtesy of the homeless and desperate. Siding was stolen off houses to be sold as scrap at junkyards or recycling centers, often off the sides of people’s own rentals. Few if any people owned property in our corner of Akron; Middlebury, once the neighborhood of the Goodyear Tire Company executives, had by then devolved to be almost exclusively rental houses.

Our church rented out a couple of houses next door that they had inherited when they bought a vacant lot for parking. When one of the tenants lost his pet tarantula in the rental, parishioners just shook their heads in defeat 85

and resolved not to mention it to the next round of tenants. They figured it too would be dead by the time anyone wanted to rent.

There were cops in the church parking lot often enough – regarding drugs, prostitution, or both – that you’d think they were regular attendees.

My mother was propositioned in the church parking lot by a man while her two young children were in her car with her. She declined to open the window or door. ...

My mother tried to grow tomatoes behind our house most years, but her garden never came close to rivaling our neighbor’s garden. We used to speculate on what lay beneath theirs. Even so, between her own efforts and our neighbor’s annual gifts of his extra vegetables, homegrown tomatoes became a staple in our household, alongside governmentprovided eggs. I now gag at the very thought of eating an egg, having eaten them every day for five years straight. My mother developed an allergy to eggs in our final years in Akron. I’m also no longer a fan of tomatoes.

My mother still has a tomato garden, and I still eat the tomatoes regardless any time I’m home. Iowa’s soil has been much kinder to her garden, and this year the plants are higher than I’ve ever seen them grow, with tomatoes that have grown to a much more respectable size. But even though these tomatoes are larger and generally healthier, and although I don’t even like tomatoes, I do occasionally find myself missing the tiny, compact tomatoes of our Ohio garden, with their explosion of tart flavor.

They were like most things in Akron: intense and determined to survive. ...

One day, late in the evening, my mother and I were walking to our car from a meeting with the ladies from our church. We had been volunteering at a local women’s shelter that afternoon, and several of the women from our church had decided it would be safer to walk in a group than to wander off in search of their own vehicles separately. As we 86

walked past an alleyway, I paused to look down it, something bright red at the end having caught my eye. The red was a woman’s dress. I grabbed my mother’s arm and pointed. “Mom, look. There’s someone on the ground. We should help her.”

Our group stopped for a moment. The woman couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.

I never saw her face.

“She might not be dead. Come on,” was the response I eventually received from one member of the group after the women exchanged looks over my head. Back in the car my mother explained that the local gang had a new ploy – fake a death and jump on the people that stopped to help.

The risk was too great with children in the group, she concluded, withholding the more graphic details from her five-year-old daughter until years later.

I didn’t know what to think, but I told her a story about having seen Satan hovering over the woman after we turned to leave so she wouldn’t feel bad about not stopping to help. It wasn’t true, of course, but it was all I could think to make the situation less horrible.

I still see the woman’s face in my dreams some nights. ...

My sister was born in Akron in 2004. I had begged for a sibling for about a year leading up to her eventual birth, and couldn’t have been more excited to have a little sister. As an only child, I had been very lonely before she came along.

It’s strange to my mind that someone so full of light and energy could have come from a city like Akron.

But then again there are parts of her where I can see Akron leaking through. She is not soft, though she is good – she has the edge and resolve that all things in Akron have if they survive long enough. But that is not all she is.

Anna is kind, and loves others so deeply it surpasses any love I’ve ever felt. She is selflessly devoted to any cause she embraces, from marching band to her church youth group, often staying late to help team 87

members and friends. She loves art and music; she’s started writing her own songs in a small recording studio in our basement, set up behind the furnace. She loves snakes and cats and hates drying the dishes. She is fiercely protective of her friends and family and has a laugh that awakens something buried deep inside me and reminds me how to feel again. ...

There were other good things in Akron to balance out the city. There were people there who cared deeply for others, people who believed in others and refused to see the bad in them. There were huge, beautiful regional and national parks that we would hike, my father urging us to see the beauty around us rather than the rot that had taken hold in Akron.

There were good things, wild things, and bad things all coexisting in this strange, broken melting pot. In this city you could meet an angel or a demon walking the streets, and which one you found depended on what you were looking for. Sometimes you found both in the same parking lot.

Looking back, I have come to realize Akron was a city where devolution and evolution wove in and around each other until one became indistinguishable from the other; while it may be true that Akron was decomposing in many senses, this decay was hardly the end for the people of Akron. As the world around them crumbled, there were those who stepped forward as best they could to attempt to rebuild in the midst of the ashes, showing the world, almost unintentionally, that an end is just another form of a beginning.

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Seth Larson - Tunnel 89

Elodie Opstad New Homes Available in Alcafran ‖ Creative Nonfiction “What happened to Norwalk?” I wondered, after a friend posted a map on Facebook with this nearby Iowa community renamed “Alcafran.”

Knowing cartographers once inserted fake towns into their work to identify plagiarism, I thought this new moniker was a digital fake with similar purpose. I thought my friend discovered a secret trademark or identifier, akin to finding geocaching treasure without going anywhere.

Haunted by the deviation and wanting to know how “Alcafran” came into existence, I checked Google map data sources and sent an email with image to Maps.me. Anastasia responded from her Zendesk customer engagement platform inside five days and said their data comes from OpenStreetMap.org (OSM). “There is no name ‘Alcafran’ anymore at OSM,” she replied. “It may be that the place was there when we took the data from the site and it was later deleted or it was renamed.”

Maps.me is headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and Anastasia was likely working from a trendy open office plan environment. It was interesting to think about our exchange, the layers of distance between our governments, and discovering Maps.me helps power Google map functions for Androids, iPhones and BlackBerrys.

The idea of mapping errors, misrepresentations and cascading misperception created a seismic shift in my thinking. “Maps should stand above error and doubt,” screamed my core intelligence.

Settling down, carefully considering and supported by a string of Google searches, came realization the only true representation of anything is an exact and identical replica. Equal and alike in every consideration: dimension, color, consistency, function, thinking, experience and much more. A process far more advanced than cloning. Thus, mapping errors exist, influence and impact perception and opinion.

The map of the world ingrained in our minds and used by school systems nationwide is a worthy example of consistent error. Our minds are trained on command to visualize a 16th century creation called the Mercator projection, an early learning tool used year after year, grade after grade. In 1569 the designer, Gerardus Mercator, stretched and compressed 90

landmasses to drive earth’s image into cylindrical shape for meridians and parallels (longitudes and latitudes) to form even straight lines. Applied to a two-dimensional piece of paper, the uniformity of lines running east to west and north to south, and conformity of spaces in-between, provided a superb navigational tool for explorers like Sir Francis Drake. He circled the world from 1577-1580 aboard the Golden Hind.

Cartographers during this golden age of exploration successfully designed an improved navigational tool but left behind a legacy of misleading worldviews. Pushing and pulling landmasses and oceans to achieve linear conformity grossly distorts shape, size and relationship.

Today, the Mercator projection makes a pretty picture but a pretty dreadful map.

In comparison, a true world rendering is startling. Greenland is much smaller, like a reasonable-sized island, and fits nicely inside the outline of Australia. Brazil is about the same size as Australia, Canada and China are the same, and Africa is gigantic with the United States fitting neatly inside the Sahara Desert.

And Americans need to realize the United States isn’t the center of every world map. The United Nations didn’t succumb to the aberration when designing their logo. They utilized an “azimuthal equidistant projection” of the world, which means using a center point (North Pole) and making continental sizes proportionally correct.

Additionally, China prints world maps for their school children with their landmass front and center. Australia would never use the Mercator projection, which diminishes their homeland and wraps it around the edge of this ancient model.

The random persistent accumulation of map misses, mistakes and misperceptions could be construed as a bludgeoning of credibility, but that would be shortsighted. The long view is to celebrate because error allows question and doubt to exist with wiggle room for the unknown, uncharted and unmapped. Discovery is possible and forevermore, alongside the geographic impact of natural events and unnatural influences.

If I had a do-over, I would become a cartographer or armchair explorer with shower and bathroom facilities for the study of Bulgarian mountain ranges. Their topographical maps are based on ancient 2008 91

satellite intelligence downloaded to geographic data sources and overlaid on existing information. In mapping nothing is 100% refreshed.

Everything is built upon a muddied past.

Bulgaria is interesting. They have a history of complete domination and loss of identity during 400 years of Turkish rule, picking the wrong side during two World Wars, followed by decades of Soviet domination.

This beleaguered country is just emerging with a fragile democracy and recent membership in the European Union.

With international support and funding, Bulgaria is busy exploring their past with abundant archeological activity. Over 1,500 burial mounds, or tumuli, dating from 200 B.C. dot the central region harboring remains of the Thracian culture. These after-life monuments hold intricately designed metalwork, from jewelry to pottery vessels and horse harnesses, with plenty of weapons, bodily remains and coins. This was a culture steeped in wealth, refinement and elegance. The siren call of new discovery is bringing archeologists and cartographers to Bulgaria, a country fitting neatly inside Iowa if outlines are the only point of comparison.

Knowing Bulgaria is mountainous and Iowa is flat, comparing outlines, planimetric area or footprints, constitutes restricted thinking. An alternate approach takes available satellite images and breaks elevated surfaces into smaller geometric-sized pieces, principally triangles, which become measurable fragments. Applying the proper geometric formulas, total surface area can be systematically determined. Using this approach, Bulgaria is twice the size of Iowa.

Up to this point, new insights and small corrections in thinking have been easily accepted as they pass through short-term memory on a path to permanent filing. However, the mega motherlode of mapping error, a mind-filling WOW explosion, is experienced upon traveling beyond the surface we inhabit. Planet Earth is not the nicely rounded sphere we’ve been taught to believe. It’s quite lumpy, which makes sense with all the spinning and gravitational variation impacting our soft and squishy outer appearance. Looking at Earth’s malformed shape, conformity is not an attribute and changes everything.

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Bumps and distortions should add another stratum of doubt to what has been mapped, coupled with a generous slice of suspicion regarding data use and interpretation. Could swaths of unknown unmapped land exist? Perhaps tucked inside the crease or fold of a Bulgarian mountain range?

Foundational error surely exists at every point and step during collection and interpretation with continuous discovery churning alongside. At the same time, quivering principles and questionable truths continue to be studied, absorbed and believed because they constitute the foundational learning upon which we keep building. These fully charged opposing forces seem the very definition of chaos, but actually provide the power and direction for relentless pursuit and forward trajectory.

Because realized or not, we are all on the same ride—a grand course of travel with serendipitous and anticipated correction throughout. And there’s boundless joy knowing all points along this all-encompassing spectrum of discovery, error, interpretation, adjustment and everything inbetween live together in a nonconforming lumpy world—alongside construction of new homes in Alcafran.

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Morgan Johnson Mother and Daughters—How Did We End Up Here? ‖ Creative Nonfiction Herodias: I have always known what I wanted. I take what is rightfully mine…wouldn’t you?

Herodias: a woman of overmastering ambition1. Herodias: evil genius2. I am not a spiteful woman. I just could not stand the condemning of John's words and Herod's clenched jaw. I take what I want and make things happen. What's so wrong with that? I am a woman who gets things done efficiently...so why am I called an adulterous woman or bitch? Oh, I forgot. A strong independent woman is seen as dangerous or a threat or evil and spiteful in a "man's world" because we can do the same damn thing just minus that grotesque hanging thing they use frequently. Ha! I am a force to be reckoned with. I run this show, just look at my robes and crown if you even need to be reminded. Cunning? Please, it's just another word for intelligence and dominance. Growing up all I saw was how the men in a woman's life is all that matters. The only thing that matters about the men in my life is how well they listen and grovel at my feet.

Philip—such a pathetic excuse of a man. I'm embarrassed every time I remember or am even reminded I was married to such a loser. Screw him. His weak will was easy to bend, but I was always left wanting more.

That was until I saw Herod glancing my way. Talk about power and pleasure. The man radiated power. Immediately I knew he was the one for me. Lustful nights turned into heated weeks—I never planned to fall in love. We wanted each other. The power of that crown calling my name was just an added perk I should have never taken for granted. I'm not power hungry; let's get that one thing straight. After you've been in such a boring and dreadful marriage as mine, many of you would understand 1 2

H. V. Morton, Women of the Bible (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1941), 144.

Morton, Women of the Bible, 145.

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the pull of actually being lusted after. The eyes of someone wanting you.

The way those strong hands made the world seem to fit in the palm of my smooth ones. Herod was the man of my dreams.

Those "writers of the Lord" painted him in such an unfavorable light because he loved me. Why are we ridiculed so harshly when their God has committed mass genocide more than once because he got a little upset that people weren't paying attention to him? Life, of course, couldn't stay perfect no matter how hard I tried to keep it that way. I was so damn happy. I had the man, the power. I had it all. All until that bloody preacher stuck his nose in my business and disgraced ME in MY kingdom. You could say I went off the deep end of love when that damn Baptist called me a seductive adulterous. Herod and I were married. Philip was never in the picture, period. Herod made sure of that. Why am I spiteful for protecting the one I love? I was so full of rage and anger that a man, proclaiming to be holy, could rip my newfound happiness out of my hands. Doesn't he understand how hard I've worked to get here? How long it took me to find this love?

Love makes you do crazy things. I knew Herod didn't have the guts to take matters into his own hands. I had to do something. I was blinded by my hate and the preservation of my love clouded my judgement. I never planned for it to end this way. But here I am, holding this plate with this decapitated head like a roasted ham for supper. I am no evil queen. I am just a woman who acted in the name of love. I didn't realize the true value of power.

(Modern) Salome: Dear Mother, I don’t hate you. No child truly hates their parent. I know that you think I do but I don’t…even if I should. I can’t call you “Mom” because you aren’t a mom even if you are my mother. I did call you Mom for many years before I knew what a “mom” was. Now I can barely call you by 96

your first name. People say it’s disrespectful. People scold me at twenty years old for not calling my parent by her parental nickname. The problem is that you are not a true parent and I don’t think you can ever be. There, I said it.

Twenty. Twenty is the number of years I’ve been on this planet. I spent the first seventeen years with the idea that you and Dad not being around was the way most families were. I had plenty of friends with divorced parents who weren’t very involved in their lives. I thought I was lucky that my parents were still together and I got to at least see you every day. I thought I was lucky until I began to be around other “whole families.” I saw how their mothers would send them notes in their lunches and always tell them they loved them when they got out of the car for school. I saw their mothers at every little league game and practice with smiles on their faces and a shirt on with their kid’s number and “MOM” printed on the back. I saw how involved their mothers were and I realized just how much mine wasn’t. You never were, not until I made waves in high school where you claimed all the fame.

I know you saw work as your top priority. I understand that you had to validate your worth by working a very laborious job. You put work over me. You would get up at six a.m. and drive me to an elderly couple’s house before I could even rub the sleep out of my eyes. It wasn’t till late that you got home, and when you did you were tired and just needed to lie down. Your work was your life. You loved what you did and I respect that but your work destroyed you. You came home bitchy every night, getting in screaming matches with Dad about the most minuscule things. You say that you wish you could have taken time to spend with me as a child. In reality, you had the chance. Dad was no better, but at least he took the time to invest in my passion for sports and hard work. Your priorities were work…not me. I hate to sound selfish. In truth, I’m not selfish. You were the selfish one.

We didn’t hug. We didn’t kiss. We didn’t comfort each other. We did not physically touch in a caring way. It took me a long time to learn 97

that touching can be comforting and yours still feels alien to me. My skin crawls just thinking about the “hugs” you say you love so much when I unwillingly come home. The same goes for emotional comforting. You taught me that I did not need other people to comfort me because I learned to do it on my own. I know this can be a good thing but it also made me very secluded. I didn’t want to open up and show emotions because I had always dealt with it on my own. I don’t show emotions. I can’t show emotions. I can’t share my emotions. I’m still not comfortable with being comforted, but you bet your ass that I know how to comfort others who need it. I fucking act like the mom I never had to others. I resent you and Dad for this “character building” fact. I never questioned it. I tried not to complain. I thought it was my duty.

You’ve never been able to think before you speak. You say I’m sensitive or that I need a sense of humor, but in reality you are the one that needs a filter. You never thought about how words can truly hurt a person, especially when they come from one’s own parent. Jokes about weight are not okay. Jokes about weight are not okay. They NEVER are and NEVER will be okay. You don’t understand how horrible it is that you would call out my weight and compare me to a whale as a child. The older I got the worse it got. Your comments on working out and losing a few pounds does not make anything any better. You pushed me into an eating disorder that just got worse as I grew older. It still doesn’t help when you constantly complain how fat you are when you gained twenty pounds and say I’m bound to end up like you. I was bullied by my mother more than I ever had been by peers. Don’t even get me started on the whole “mental health” part of things.

My freshman and sophomore years of college were the years it all changed. They were the best years of my life thus far, even with the close brush with death. I wore what I wanted. I met new people whom I would have never thought about talking to or even associating with in my private high school. I smiled…a lot. I learned about rights I never thought were really mine. I tore my ACL and meniscus but pushed on by my own will.

When my kidneys failed I realized my parents have never truly been there 98

for me and that I am a stranger to them. I had a group of people in my life that I spent every day, every Friday and Saturday night with. I was surrounded by amazing people. I was having the time of my life and you weren’t there. You didn’t take the time to see me be awarded for all the hard work I had done. You came to four things my sophomore year in volleyball. That year I found out a lot while you weren’t there. I learned to be happy with myself and with my accomplishments. I had a lot of people that were proud of me and supported me. My advisor saw the potential I have within me and pushed me harder than anyone else ever has or ever cared to. She mothered me and supported me without being asked too. She saw my mental health was nothing more than two mere collapsing pillars. I found people who wished me well and loved me. I realized that I didn’t need you for that stuff. I didn’t actually need you at all. I shouldn’t have to please you every step of the way to gain your attention or love.

I may never forgive you for all the wrongs you have done even if that makes me an awful person. I am trying to forgive you for the past but I won’t for the future. I’m an adult now. I’m leaving home for good soon and you’ll be in my past. I’ll use you as an example of what I shouldn’t be as a parent if I ever decide to have children. I won’t let you be my excuse. Just know that our relationship will never be strong and you will never have the relationship you want with my own children. Your words will not hurt me anymore. You are irrelevant to my life. I wish you the best with your own when I’m gone. Actually, screw that. I hope you realize what you’ve done. I haven’t even truly begun. Here’s a poem that took me minutes to write but years to finally say: Toxic You were the first faces I saw Yet the last ones I ponder No, I don’t want to come home 99

Why? Oh. I forgot You guys thought you raised me right Ha Let’s back up this janky bus Take a seat; sorry I didn’t have time to clean up Make sure you pay attention As there will be a test One you will always fail as you’ve been gone for too long I never asked to be put on a pedestal One that is always in need of repairs and constant attention I never wanted your backhanded praise about anything But you gave it freely anyway Dear fucking God, stop acting like you care Where were these feelings nine years ago?

Hello …

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Are you still there?

Can you hear me?

Oh, that’s right.

You’ve always been more interested in what you have to say rather than hear my cries.

I mean you handed me off to strangers at three months old for God’s sake!

Don’t get me wrong I’m glad I met and was raised by my real parents They actually took the time to teach me What you couldn’t ever be bothered with Like how to read Or add and divide At least they loved me and tried to act as guides But what the fuck am I supposed to do when you finally want to be active in my life after 20 years?

Receive you with open arms?

What bullshit Go suck a dick 101

Oh I’m so sorry!

I forgot you hate self-expression Please Just let me sit on my ass and take every beating you hand out Like candy during Halloween You’re both so damn hypocritical You can’t even say you love each other There’s too much distain in your veins So don’t you dare say you know what’s best for me When it comes to finding someone who might “love me” Here comes that test:

True or False…

You’ve taught me to hate myself You’ve taught me that there’s no way out You’ve taught me to work myself to death You taught me to push through the pain even if it would cause unbearable baggage 5. You’ve taught me that no matter how mean or nasty family is you still put them before everything else… even my own mental health 6. You’ve taught me that I can’t be depressed because I smile and am optimistic 1.

2.

3.

4.

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7. You’ve taught me that love is painful and unkind and terrible and ruthless and unavailable for most days from 4 to 9 but then its hours constantly change 8. You’ve taught me to be ashamed of my tears and fears as they make me look weak and too emotional 9. You’ve taught me to be stubborn and uncaring in the worst times 10. You’ve taught me how to ignore myself by putting everything before me 11. You’ve taught me not to trust anyone…not even myself 12. You’ve taught me how to distance myself by never being there for me when I really needed you 13. You’ve taught me that love doesn’t exist with all your screaming, lies and lack of communication 14. You’ve taught me that I don’t want to be here 15. You’ve taught me by constantly pushing those little yearning hands away how it feels to be alone And yet you still expect me to come home?

Analysis The death of John the Baptist is both horridly cruel and not for the faint of heart. Although many Christians focus on the message and martyrdom of John, a feminist lens reveals a different side of the story. At first glance, most readers will only view the story as a tragic death scene of a beloved prophet. However, the beheading of John the Baptist is an important story because John’s death is caused by the actions of two women who are manipulated in positions of power.

In Mark 6, King Herod hears about Jesus, becomes concerned that Jesus is John the Baptist, and becomes convinced that Jesus is John Baptist back from the dead. King Herod proceeds to use John’s criticism of Herod’s marriage to arrest John. Of course, being a prophet has never been the easiest job on earth and comes with a lot of adversity. Herodias 103

despises John and wants him executed, but Herod is hesitant to do so because he sees John as a holy man (Mark 6:20). Unfortunately, most prophets meet deadly opposition—which is common for prophets in general and John is no exception. On Herod’s birthday, Salome, Herod’s new stepdaughter, dances and entertains his guests and him so well that Herod offers Salome whatever she wants—even though Herod is not in the right mind to do so and makes inconsistent and foolhardy promises (other instances of men making stupid promises can be found in Judges 11). Confiding in her mother for reasons unknown to readers, Salome askes Herodias what she should wish for. Without any hesitation, Herodias tells Salome to ask for John the Baptist’s head. Not wanting to be embarrassed in front of his guests, Herod gives the order and John the Baptist is executed (Matthew 14:9).

When viewing John the Baptist’s death as a whole, the context of the story paints the women in a less than favorable light. In Matthew 14:3 John is arrested for criticizing Herod for marrying the wife of his brother, Philip. In the current laws of this time, it is only permitted for one to marry his brother’s wife if the brother is dead. Without the fear of the people and John being a prophet, Herod would have gladly put John to death. Herod’s opportunity to carry out his desire comes through Herodias, who is not even mentioned or seen until Salome is granted whatever she wants.

Herodias is the voice behind the condemning of John the Baptist, giving Herod the excuse to get rid of John. This stereotype of Herodias as the deceptive adulterer can be found throughout the Bible, constantly using women as convenient scapegoats3. This portrayal brings into question whether the women in Mathew 14-16 truly have agency or if it is Herod who has the power and they are the puppets. In Mark 6:25 Herodias tells Salome she wants the head of John the Baptist at once on a platter, depicting Herodias as vengeful and full of hate towards John who ridiculed her remarriage to Herod, a very big issue John never let go of.

Another view of John the Baptist’s death involves divorce and remarriage. Even though readers are not told how Herod and Herodias 3

For more examples see Jezebel ( 1 Kings) and Bathsheba ( 2 Samuel)

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come together in Matthew, the prominent issue of divorce and remarriage are the causes of John’s death since he preached against their union. The story of how Herod ended up with Herodias can be easily found in present-day relationships such as celebrities’—it seems as if every day there is a new scandal or divorce featured in the news and tabloids. In retrospect, the marriage greatly elevated Herodias in the social world because she became queen; she had wealth, rank, and fame due to who her current husband was. A lot of power fell into her lap and, as seen in instances with men in power throughout the Bible, (or even now in modern day) Herodias used this newly found—and highly intoxicating— power for bad. Unfortunately for Herodias and John the Baptist—who is seen as a victim even though John does run his mouth often in places he should avoid, especially around a king who does not have to answer to anyone but himself—adultery and bloodshed go hand in hand.

People in positions of power constantly abuse it whether one turns to the Bible or modern-day examples. Throughout Matthew, Herodias is never given the time of day, yet is blamed for the death of John because she voices what her husband wishes. The story of John’s death is more than a report of a prophet’s death—it is about stereotyping and shaming women for men’s benefits, no matter the cost. Neither Herodias nor Salome have agency as Herod has the final say and wishes for John the Baptist’s death in the first place. In the end, Herod is the one that comes out on top while the women are to blame for a highly praised prophet’s decapitation.

My monologue was hard to create as Herodias and Salome in John the Baptist’s death are most times blamed for being the sole causes of misfortune in their own lives. The opening lines were phrases said in Morton’s Women of the Bible in which Herodias is cast in a very negative and damning light. The monologue for Herodias could have gone so many different ways, but, in the end, the modern monologue in Higgs’ Really Bad Girls of the Bible really hit home4. Higgs, like many other authors who decided to tackle the life of Herodias, conveys Herodias as a woman 4

Liz Curtis. Higgs, Really Bad Girls of the Bible (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Pr, 2000). 162-190.

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determined to win no matter what, whether it be in romance, politics, or finance, and who thinks only of her own gain5. I found it amazing and quite disturbing the interrupted lengths many authors go to filling in the blanks, especially Higgs, as the story of Herodias and Salome are ridiculously short and lack many details. As the story is open to any interpretation due to the lack of facts, it is hard to discern which interpretation is the correct one. Coming from a personal female lens, I view Herodias as being a very strong, independent woman trying to survive the time and circumstances she lives in 6. Although it seems as if the power goes to her head in the Bible due to being adulterous and evil, I believe there is a different type of driving force for Herodias. This is why I created the monologue of Herodias, to show that she was a woman many in society today can relate to as she struggles to balance obstacles in her life alongside the men who think they control her. Herodias was a woman caught in the crossfires of love and power, a very dangerous and intoxicating duo that caused more damage than good.

Salome’s monologue was taken from personal experiences and a modern perspective. Unfortunately, there is not much about Salome or how she would interpret her mother’s actions alongside her own. There is even a vivid debate on whether Salome is a fictional role to help further the purpose of the underlying teaching or lesson of the Biblical story7. As Salome’s story is basically unwritten, I took a very personal and creative approach to the story of a girl (or young woman) who had a not-sopicture-perfect relationship with her manipulating mother. Although the lens of women ganging up on other women is not particularly favorable, the reality of the situation is just that: reality. More often than not, women are pitted against each other, which can be seen in society today and other Biblical stories8. Due to this influence of bad relationships between women and the overall situation with my own mother, modern Salome 5

Curtis, Really Bad Girls of the Bible, 173.

Florence Morgan. Gillman, Herodias: At Home in That Fox’s Den (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003). The information on Herodias’ ancestry brings into light the affinities of her Roman family, especially the tendency of divorces for power.

7 Ross S. Kraemer, "Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer: A (Christian) Theological Strategy?" Journal of Biblical Literature 125, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 322 8 Refers to stories like Sarah and Hagar 6

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was born—so to speak—and given a voice of her own, one that has been drowned out by her mother’s highly questionable actions.

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Michael Roets The Gunslinger and the Bullet-Catcher ‖ Creative Nonfiction With dreadful accuracy and complete commitment, the blond Army recruit set down his beer and picked up an imaginary knife. Turning then to our group of three buzzed college students, he asked if we wanted to learn how to kill someone with the weapon. Hell yeah, we did. He was gripping the hilt of the faux blade in such a way that implied memory; he had to have learned the thing he was about to teach us. I wondered who taught him.

We were standing in the living room of my friend’s house. The plan was to drink just enough to be sufficiently buzzed before heading over to the bars for some dancing. Naturally, we were already getting drunker than we intended. And now G.I. Joe was showing us how to stab someone the right way.

His stance was ready, slightly-squatted as he slowly bounced on the balls of his feet. Building the suspense for a good moment in this prepared stance, he glanced up at the excited onlookers and immediately shot down the preconceptions that many people might have concerning the correct way to hold the small melee weapon in close combat.

“You don’t hold it like this,” he said, disdainfully mimicking the method of wielding a weapon, in which the attacker cocks his dominant elbow out and holds the blade with his wrist facing slightly-upwards.

“Too easy to knock the arm away.” He looked at our youngest friend: “Try to stab at me like that.”

Unsurprisingly, the future army soldier easily knocked away my drinking buddy’s arm. I thought I might have heard the sound of the knife clanging against the ground as the demonstration was concluded.

It was hard to believe, looking at my friend, that such dangerous and dark thoughts lurked deep inside his mind. I recalled that just thirty minutes ago he had spotted me grabbing for one of the warm Natty Ice cans in my backpack, and loudly halted me from across the room. “No way you’re drinking that trash! Here, I got you.” He meandered his way 108

through to the kitchen, pulling open the refrigerator and dragging out a six pack of Corona with Lime.

But here he was, almost flippant in his efforts to show us his propensity for and knowledge of killing. He had held a blade like it was an extension of his own hand. And with the lingering implication that the future soldier might one day use the skills he had taught us in an actual fight for his own life, there was a foreboding sense of darkness behind the cheap party trick. Why did such a nice guy have such a willingness to learn and espouse violence?

We had drank together before with no mention of knife fights or the best way to commit government-sanctioned murder. Instead, our conversation danced slowly through the kinds of subjects that a normal set of drinking college students would be apt to discuss. We cursed the names of professors who marked attendance too rigidly, and shouted in drunken reverence for those teachers that would gift students with rewrites on the most ill-contrived of our essays.

My best friend’s girlfriend mistakenly interpreted a silent moment in our conversation as a cry for help and, stepping out of her gaggle of drunk female friends, momentarily shouted, “Michael, did you know he’s in the military?” She was a fellow military dependent, having grown up on the move with a family often willfully bereft of a patriarch. I imagine that she knew that this would spark a spirited conversation between the two of us, and I suppose she was right. She turned back to her conversation, and I turned to my army friend.

He told me that he was going through ROTC with a local recruiting office at the moment, but that he planned to be shipped out to complete a Platoon Leadership Course as soon as his cap hit the floor at graduation.

I asked him what he wanted to do. He told me that he was going to fight.

I thought that the word “fight” was an interesting choice. I was a boxer for a brief stint and I had been in my fair share of unnecessary street fights growing up, so I was no stranger to the desire to both earn and distribute markings that might or might not eventually heal. Sometimes they were stupid or brutal, but they were always fair fights.

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...

My A.P. physics instructor in high school was a bad teacher. He was a brilliant man—a mechanical engineer who was rumored to have won numerous prestigious awards in his field. But as his students, our main qualm was that he was slightly weird, a bit quiet, and far too introverted to be instructing teenagers in our school’s most difficult class.

One day, a favorite student of his took an opportunity during a break in work during class to ask him some questions about himself. I figured that she was likely just trying to get on his good side, but it could have easily been an earnest effort to learn more about our quiet teacher.

He always spoke quickly, as if he was trying his best to shove the words out of his mouth before they permanently occupied and damaged its interior.

“Where did you go to college?”

“Southwestern U.” “Where are you from?”

“Lafayette, Minnesota.”

And so on. The sound of eager questions and disinterested answers filled the science lab, drowning out my music just enough to force me to begrudgingly pay attention to the awkward standoff. Then, suddenly, she asked a question that drew every pair of eyes onto the old bearded physicist.

“You were an airplane mechanic in the Navy, right?”

He initially seemed to ignore the question, and onlookers would have postulated that this was simply because he was tired of getting drilled in cross-examination by a sophomore in his final class period of the day.

But he did eventually begin to speak, this time very slowly. He didn’t seem to fear that the words would stick in the back of his mouth, nor that they would cut deep lines in the interior of his throat. He held onto the words, reserved, thinking.

“Yes, I was.”

At this point in my life, I had had enough unfortunate and embarrassing conversations with veterans to know the kind of awkward road this would likely go down. The girl would ask some insensitive 110

question, about who he might have killed or what he might have seen, and the veteran would either laugh and explain that he never saw combat, or he would shake his head and change the subject. My dad, a Marine, told me never to ask these kinds of probing questions.

But although my predilection to military interactions meant that I was correct in my theory on what the naïve girl might ask, nothing in my own experience had prepared me for the answer that slowly escaped his throat and ran freely down his dark, contemplating beard.

He had worked as a wartime airplane mechanic on a massive aircraft carrier. He never said what kind of carrier he was on—not that the civilians in his physics class would make any use of that information anyway—and mentions of where he was stationed were vague enough that we could generally only infer that he was somehow embroiled in the Gulf War. But he did explain in great detail the nature of his job.

Though aircraft carriers had been around for around sixty years before, the nature of their structure meant that simply taking off was somewhat of a feat. The space contained on the ship’s runway is limited, and it is safeguarded only by endless murky water on every side. My teacher’s job was to make sure that all of the takeoff/landing machinery was in proper shape, both when a plane jetted off and when one landed.

Many of the aircraft forced to land on the carrier had some sort of issue, a loose wheel, injured pilot, maybe a cracked window. The carrier was their refuge.

But space was limited, and landing was a feat.

Our old physics teacher recounted how he was once called from his bunk in the dead of night to assist with helping the pilot of an incoming plane out of the cockpit. The pilot had been hurt, and was trapped inside of his immobilized weapon. My teacher and four of his friends, all working similar jobs upon the stranding seaborne landing pad, took the call and jogged together to the runway. In order to get to the man quickly enough to save him, they were required to regroup surprisingly close to the middle of the landing strip.

They were never given protection, aside from a pair of safety goggles, a stipulation my teacher said seemed like a hilarious irony given their situation.

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This plane never managed to land. As soon as it hit the front end of the runway, one of its wheels snapped to the side, and the plane skidded for a few hundred feet before flipping and exploding into thousands of deadly shards.

Our teacher explained, in the best way he knew how, the hopelessness of the situation in which he found himself. I cannot recall the exact speed he used, but I do remember how he slowly but eagerly scribbled on the whiteboard a figure meant to represent how quickly the average piece of shrapnel from an exploding aircraft can move. He even went through the calculations before our eyes, mirroring in his macabre display the same kind of whiteboard-use we would witness on any other day in his confusing A.P. Physics course.

Because of the speed, he said, pointing to his mathematical iteration on the board, there was no time to react. There would be no chance to avoid being struck by the speeding shards of sharp steel flung by the antilanding. Instead, he said that you would simply stand there. Maybe you’d close your eyes—he said that some people did.

But my teacher never shut his. To this day, I have heard he still impresses students during our annual “build your own rocket” event, where he shoots his creation straight into the air, lands it an inch in front of his nose—but never closes his eyes or flinches.

He said that on this occasion, two of his friends were hit by pieces of the plane. “Dead instantly,” he remarked nonchalantly.

I do not know whether they closed their eyes.

I doubt that he knows either.

War does not seem like a fair fight. ...

We walked outside, eager to hit the bars in town to complete the night. The clubs were all eighteen-plus entry, which meant that we could venture to the mature dance floors after a bit of pregaming. As we stepped onto the lawn, I pulled out my pack of Camel Golds—there were three left. Knowing how my own dad had smoked like a chimney in winter when he was still an enlisted man, I offered one to our army buddy.

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He laughed and shook his head. “Those things will kill you, and my recruiter would kill me.” ...

I remembered a conversation I had with my dad, maybe ten years ago.

Dad always used confusing military jargon when he talked about the Marine Corps. He was in his 18th year, having reached the rank of gunnery sergeant. He was quickly approaching retirement. But like all members of the elite military branch, slang had become so embedded in his everyday vernacular that he would occasionally even catch himself calling Mom’s food “slop.”

But in this conversation, Mom was not around. It was myself, my brother, and Dad. We were having some “guy time.” This was not military code, but it could be called father-son code. Guy time meant he would say things that would anger Mom if we told her. We never did.

He was making fun of a young guy he attended boot camp with years ago. The recruit mouthed off when the drill instructor was giving his introductory speech, saying that he wanted to hurry up and “learn to kill.”

This being the eighties and drill instructors being, in my dad’s own words, “the baddest motherfuckers around,” this comment was not well received.

The DI verbally berated the kid, but he was insistent. In the end, the entire platoon was made to exercise, again, in Dad’s words, “until we wanted to kill the guy.”

The thing that had caught my attention, confused me, was what he called the guy. Through laughs, he said that every guy in the unit hated that “fucking future gunslinger” until they finally graduated.

When I asked him what the word “gunslinger” meant, he just said that it referred to someone who was overly eager to get on the battlefield.

My dad was never a gunslinger. In fact, he used to brag that the only time he held a military weapon was during basic training—and he was glad for it. He thought that guys that were too eager to get out and fight were wrong for it. Dad said that he knew guys who had fought, and he knew guys that never made it back. But he thought that gunslingers were 113

nevertheless important. They were fighters, heroes. And he would always tell me about how these heroes are the reason that America is so great. ...

We had left the bars after only a couple hours, and everyone was inside the house now, sleeping, drinking, or fucking one another. I couldn’t sleep. Trying my best not to wake up one of the many bodies passed out on the grimy floor leading to the back entrance, I pulled open the screen door and stepped out onto the pavement below.

It was fairly early in the night—the group had not timed our drinking well. It was approaching the hours where people would be getting kicked out of clubs and drunk frat boys would be insulting each other in vain from across a busy street. I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but I very rarely do when I go for these late walks. Truthfully, I would sleep if I could. But something about the way my mind works, some ticking abomination nestled deep inside my ventrolateral preoptic nucleus, kept my thoughts blazing late into the night. With the mix of alcohol, caffeine, and cigarettes, this was a particularly tough night for my ventrolateral preoptic nucleus.

Eventually, though, some other part of my brain not involved in keeping me awake began to whisper that I needed food. I ignored it at first, supplementing a few more cigarettes and drunk-person spectating instead. But after a while the whisper grew louder, culminating in a crescendo of unidentifiable stomach noises. I spotted it, my salvation—a $5 pizza shop.

But as I cautiously approached the hipster college joint, I was almost knocked over by two larger twenty-somethings stumbling out of the place.

They were angrily shouting back and forth at each other about how the place “used to be 24/7.” My stomach made some more disgruntled noises, apparently echoing the blind outrage of the hungry drunkards.

Once again, I decided that smoking another cigarette could help me to avoid the pangs of hunger while I planned my next move. Halfway down the street, I saw a scraggly looking man with an even scragglier looking beard drawing from his own paper-wrapped tobacco stick.

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Now, smoking is a very bad habit. The health consequences are severe and societal perception of nicotine is at an all-time low. Still, though, certain elements of the culture of tobacco smokers remain today—and I like that. One element of smoker culture is that if you see someone you don’t know smoking outside of an establishment, it is almost never a taboo to approach that person—so long as you are also smoking.

I walked up to the smoking man, who donned partially ripped clothes and rocked an unkempt and expansive head of dark hair. He presented me with the coveted upwards head nod, which is almost always code for, “you’re alright.”

His name was Thomas. Thomas had spent ten years in the United States Marine Corps, having been stationed, in his own words, “in every -istan you can think of.” We talked a lot about the military, about the reasons that the United States was involved in the conflicts that dominated the time of the major armed forces. Thomas believed there was no reason.

He also said that he believed that if there really were one, we would never know it.

Thomas had joined the military when he was very young, fresh out of high school. I asked him how that was, half-hoping that he would help fuel the minor desire in the back of my mind to go join the armed forces when I graduated from university.

But he had no hope to offer. He just told me that he had no idea what they had signed him up for.

I mentioned that my dad worked as a recruiter for a while, down in Huntsville, Alabama. Thomas scoffed loudly and told me that he would love to be on recruitment duty so that he could “go home every night and fuck my girlfriend.” The alternative, the reality which he experienced overseas consisted of “Jerking off into my hand while my neighbor fucks her for me.” I thought he was joking and let out a laugh, nearly blowing ash from the end of my cigarette in his direction.

He didn’t laugh, but just looked at me.

It had been quite some time since my dad had given me the lecture about what you shouldn’t say to a veteran, and I had drank a good amount back at the house. So, working against both of our best interests, I voiced the question that I knew I really might not want the answer to.

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“Did you see anything fucked up while you were there?”

My mind flashed briefly back to the bearded physics teacher, whose speech became more concerned and deliberate when the difficult question hit his ears. I don’t know why I wanted to know. My physics teacher has always stayed in my mind, and the days following the initial class period were filled with the kind of existential dread that can only come from the destruction of a preconceived and foolish ideal of war.

He looked at me for a long minute, squashed his lit cigarette on the street, and said, “Fuck off.”

I never saw scraggly veteran Thomas again. ...

At some dinner years ago, my dad was telling the family about his day at work, recruiting out of his office in Huntsville. He said that a senior in high school had recently signed up, destined for MOS 0311—rifleman.

I was in a phase where I was obsessed with the idea of marine snipers. My dad had fed me stories of Carlos Hathcock, Marine sniper hero, and of Navy Seal legend Chris Kyle. So, excited, I piped up and asked my dad, “Does that mean he’s gonna be a sniper?”

But the young recruit was not meant to be a sniper. Instead, my dad explained what a rifleman signs up for in the military. Evidently, when in a firefight, the policy of the Corps is to put the youngest guys in the front of the pack. This comes from the natural logic that, while the Marine Corps can easily mold a teenager into a workable fighter, they cannot so easily find a new commanding officer or ranking man. He said riflemen were very brave, true heroes.

They had a word for these young men, those who would be the first ones to face combatants on the battlefield. My dad said that they were called “bullet-catchers.”

I think that Thomas probably didn’t know that he had signed up to be a bullet-catcher. ...

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My childhood interactions with the military were tinted with a forced rose-colored pair of patriotic goggles. Long discussions about wars in foreign countries I had never been to were deeply underscored by the positive and loyal rhetoric of the men of my family, a long line of prideful military men. Mentions of the destruction wrought by costly engagements, of broken families, broken men, and broken promises, were almost always overshadowed by a manly mantra of conviction.

Death was not a word; it became the ultimate sacrifice.

There were no orphans; there were only the children of heroes.

My father was not absent for months and months at a time; my father was fighting for me.

But now, I am unconvinced of my pride in the massive machine that turns boys into gunslingers, and morphs eager young men into prideful bullet-catchers. A deep crimson has overtaken the rose tint of the goggles I now wear.

I was brought up to believe that there is some honor in the things that we do to this country’s children; that the same forces that push men to desire warfare, to learn how to kill with a knife or to sacrifice themselves in wars that they don’t even understand, are the proverbial Gods of our new religion—they always have a plan. I sit back and ignore the gritty personal realities, the dangerous trends and dark turns, because—hey—the military has a plan for us.

But for thousands of untold army recruits, for thousands of old veterans smoking a cigarette outside a pizza place, there is a deeply dehumanizing fight for their souls, one that might never end. What is a force that gives men not only the capacity and inclination to murder, but the happy desire to do so with a smile?

I sat alone on a park bench and smoked my last cigarette. I inhaled deeply and thought about how men are turned into bullet-catchers and gunslingers. I wondered which one was worse. And as I stood up and slowly walked back to a privileged house full of mostly civilians with drinking habits, I wondered if I would flinch or close my eyes when the stark realities of my childhood idealizations flew towards me at physicsclass-worthy speeds.

There is never any time to react.

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Sequel 2018 – 2019

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