The Marque | 2022

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the marque a manifestation of the inspiration that flickers within us all. a tribute to the process of original creation.

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HATCH. THEME

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irth. Life. Existence. The slice of time when everything in the mind’s eye coalesces into a prism—the composition of the world inside the mind erupts into swirling shades of burgundy, blinding aureolin weaves through the fabric of thought, sapphire blue streaks run rampant.

Organic, liberated, impassioned, each puzzle piece of consciousness slips into place: the formation of a new memory. And then it’s gone. The seafoam greens melt into old pieces of spearmint gum. The soothing ivory beige that had burst into an intricate rainbow of epiphany transmogrifies into tedious workplace desks. The moment culminates. The prism fades. The colors die. Monotony murdered them.

Renowned French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson called it “the decisive moment”: the instant neither before nor after. This abstract idea pervades our lives.

The decisive moment characterizes each idea, each act, each inspiration that we experience. Cartier-Bresson dedicated his life to capturing it through photography. Like Cartier-Bresson, we aim to slice and lay bare the infinitely thin sliver of the instanta-

neous, decisive moment through our writing and art. Consciously or unconsciously, we pursue the moment when connection sparks or when instinct grabs hold.

Through the collection of works featured in the 60th edition of The Marque, we characterize this elusive, utterly addictive phenomenon: that is, to seize the decisive moment and slice it open with a diamond-tipped knife to reveal the boundless spectrum of light waiting to be unleashed.

The moment when the egg hatches, the lightbulb illuminates, consciousness dawns. How do we prepare for this moment—grasp the amorphous circumstances and opportunities that could signal the decisive moment’s imminent arrival? Once epiphany dawns and electrifying themes take hold, how do we take advantage of this doorway into a newfound universe? Or should we at all?

Imagination soars, realization descends, spirituality permeates the consciousness.

But what now? How do we propagate these newborn ideas as movements, lifestyles, and further inspirations to shape our final form?

Welcome to the 2022 Marque literary arts magazine.

the decisive moment

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the marque a magazine of arts & letters

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Mark Adame

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the mentor

the friend

the dedicatee

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ark Adame is the type of teacher who has two pet tortoises, sits cross-legged in a swivel chair, and makes you never forget what a motor protein looks like.

Mr. Adame loves teaching science, and he inspires a similar excitement in his students with his constant energy and humor.

His background reflects his commitment to these passions. After receiving his B.S. in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University, he worked in the research laboratory at UTMB in Galveston and later at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science. He received his teaching certificate at the University of Arkansas and taught high school biology in Little Rock for seven years while also coaching cross country and continuing his research. By the time he reached St. Mark’s, Mr. Adame had accumulated a host of experiences in the biology world; he uses these daily to enliven the classroom experience (including one memorable dissection of an otter carcass found on Preston Road).

Outside the classroom, Mr. Adame is a friend and an unfailing source of support to his students. A staple at St. Mark’s cross country races, he drives to distant suburbs in the early hours of the morning to cheer

on his students. If you walk around White Rock Lake after school, you may catch Mr. Adame on his daily bike ride in his signature blue and gold speed suit. And every year, he voluntarily escorts reluctant ninth graders through the eight-day wilderness survival trip in the New Mexico mountains known as Pecos. Adame was recently appointed to the Cecil H. and Ida Green Master Teaching Chair. Associate Headmaster John Ashton credits Adame’s impact to the time he’s taken to form relationships with his students. “He’s certainly a master of content and has an innate ability to prepare lessons that engage boys—those are both critical to being a masterful teacher. But an equally important piece are the connections he makes with the boys, and he has certainly distinguished himself in that regard.”

Mr. Adame, thank you. For being a teacher, a supporter, and a friend to each one of us, both in and out of class. You’ve made a mark on more lives than you know—at St. Mark’s and beyond. Each game you attend shows us how much you care. Each lesson you teach—biology or otherwise—brings us further along in our educational evolution.

Thanks for helping us hatch.

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HIGHLIGHTS

10 52 62 79 114 121

c o n c e p t i o n

PHOTO Paul Valois

from the depths

e p i p h a n y

SHORT STORY Spencer Burke

eternity in a flower

proliferation

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POETRY Daniel Uglunts

renewal

section i. conception

con cep tio

concep

12. SPOTLIGHT Samuel Eluemunoh 14. Father, what did it feel like to kill a man? POETRY Samuel Eluemunoh 2022 Literary Festival winner, poetry 15. words for midnight-blue mud creatures and dream killers POETRY Samuel Eluemunoh 16. Craftsman PHOTO Sal Hussain 17. Sawdust NONFICTION Alex Geng 18. Evening Woods PHOTO Drake Elliott 19. Cicadas NONFICTION Ian Lin 20. Personal PHOTO Ekansh Tambe 22. Treacherous Heights PHOTO Anashay Monga 23. Trekking POETRY Darren Xi 24. Waste? PHOTOS Evan Lai 26. Derelict PHOTO Anashay Monga 27. The Vagabond POETRY Bijaan Noormohamed 28. Back the Blue SHORT STORY Zayn Bhimani 29. The Party PHOTO Owen Simon 30. Views PHOTO Owen Simon 32. Arkham PHOTO Zach Bashour 34. Patter PHOTO Hudson Brown 36. Triolets of Colours POETRY Bijaan Noormohamed 37. Limelight PHOTO Drake Elliott 38. Tinted SHORT STORY Aidan Moran 39. Skyfall PHOTO Ekansh Tambe 40. Your Blind Eye PHOTO Ekansh Tambe 44. SHOWCASE Photography 48. Golden Memories of Fall NONFICTION Adam Wang 50. Utopia PHOTO Sal Hussain 51. Undisturbed POETRY Bryce Nivet 52. from the depths PHOTOS Paul Valois 54. Shattering the Silence SHORT STORY Camden Reeves

Gotham PHOTO Sal Hussain 56. Speckled Views PHOTO Ekansh Tambe 59. Liminal Space PHOTO Drake Elliott 60. Poog PHOTO Drake Elliott 61. Ragnarok POETRY Soham Verma

table of

CONTENTS 7

epi pha ny

section ii. epiphany

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epipha

64. SPOTLIGHT Cooper Cole 66. DOOM ARTWORK Cooper Cole Afternoon Stroll ARTWORK Cooper Cole Home? ARTWORK Cooper Cole 67. Fight Me ARTWORK Cooper Cole What? ARTWORK Cooper Cole 68. The Sunset Lounge PHOTO Drake Elliott 69. Record Store POETRY William Fitzpatrick 70. Deceitful Eyes NONFICTION Camden Reeves Snowy Refuge PHOTO Owen Simon 72. Rise PHOTO Benjamin Gravel 74. Insurmountable PHOTO Anashay Monga 76. nightfall PHOTOS Hudson Brown 78. Locked PHOTO Daniel Weinstein 79. Eternity in a Flower SHORT STORY Spencer Burke 80. Onto the Next PHOTO Zach Bashour 82. Blu PHOTO Zach Bashour 85. Come to Light PHOTO Zach Bashour 86. Pure PHOTO Anashay Monga 88. Neighbours SHORT STORY Tomek Marczewski

2022 Literary Festival winner, fiction 89. Stairwell to Hell PHOTO Owen Simon 90. Among the Mountains NONFICTION William Fitzpatrick

2022 Literary Festival winner, nonfiction Powdery Bliss PHOTO Anashay Monga 92. Onyx PHOTO Hudson Brown 94. Golden Scar POETRY Camden Reeves 95. CLAUSTROPHOBIA PHOTO Anashay Monga 96. SHOWCASE Wood & Metal 100. Margerie PHOTO Anashay Monga 101. The Unchosen POETRY Ekansh Tambe, Daniel Uglunts 102. Immortal Office NONFICTION Soham Verma 103. Monochrome PHOTO Anashay Monga 104. Wartime Innocence POETRY Evan Lai Minutemen PHOTO Nathan Meyer 105. A Generation’s War PHOTO Nathan Meyer 106. Bokeh PHOTO Anashay Monga 107. at rest POETRY Daniel Uglunts 108. heaven PHOTOS Hudson Brown 110. Iridescent PHOTO Blake Backes 111. A Face Familiar NONFICTION Morgan Chow 112. A Passing Plea POETRY Daniel Uglunts 113. These Crystalline Tears PHOTO Drake Elliott

pfio lifer ation table of

CONTENTS

section iii. proliferation

pfiolifera

116. SPOTLIGHT Xander Bowles 120. Unclean PHOTO Paul Valois 121. Renewal POETRY Daniel Uglunts 122. Teardrops from Heaven PHOTO Owen Simon 123. gorilla glue POETRY Zayn Bhimani 125. A March Morning POETRY Caleb Vanzant Ascension PHOTO Evan Lai 126. Winter and Autumn PHOTO Evan Lai 127. Birches in Winter POETRY Adam Wang 128. the sons and daughters of wanderers PHOTOS Ekansh Tambe 130. Westminster Kennel Club SHORT STORY Sampath Rapuri 131. Desolate PHOTO Ekansh Tambe 133. Necropolis PHOTO Sal Hussain 135. A Booming Nothing PHOTO Zach Bashour 136. Eye in the Sky PHOTO Hudson Brown 138. Midnight Sun PHOTO Anashay Monga 140. Ashes of Ares SHORT STORY Adam Wang 150. SHOWCASE Ceramics 154. Pilate’s Beautitudes NONFICTION Axel Icazbalceta 160. somewhere PHOTOS Drake Elliott 162. Teal FICTION Samuel Eluemunoh Narrow Glimpses PHOTO Paul Valois 164. The Haze PHOTO Owen Simon 165. Ephemeral POETRY Ekansh Tambe

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concep 10

the birth of a new idea

i. conception The egg is laid. From the hostile dusk of a nebulous void, creation arises. Threads of ideas and identity coalesce. The formative cradle of learned experience births an original entity laced with hairline veins of molten potential. Under the nourishment of dawn, latent life thrives coiled within a protective shell of convention. Yearning.

BIRTH PHOTO Ekansh Tambe

ption

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the p

Samuel Eluemunoh

PHOTOS Ekansh Tambe

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the poet the po the poet oet the poet the poet the poet The Poet the ARTIST STATEMENT Samuel Eluemunoh

M “ Both my mother and father, having Nigerian and deep religious backgrounds, form a way of speaking using proverbs, expressions, and analogies that I think enhances my affinity towards poetry ”

y experience with poetry ranges from reciting it to crafting it. My recitations crowned me 2021 Poetry Out Loud Texas State Champion and a National Finalist. From writing my own poetry, I won the poetry category for the St. Mark’s Literary Festival competition.

My passion has taken me on a journey I’d never expected to be a part of. I’ve been able to make connections with other poets and authors, and I’ve had the opportunity to see, first-hand, the multi-layered world of literature and art.

I came to a realization that poetry was a passion of mine when I began to write and share my pieces. Usually, I only recited other poets’ works, but that was not to say that I didn’t have my own work at the time; I just felt as though it was not worth sharing with the world. To me, having the ability to shape my thoughts into a comprehensive art form and have others question, react, and critique my work is an invaluable experience. Sharing my poetry has made me feel as though I was adding something of worth to society.

My favorite poets enhance my motivation to continue to write. Li-Young Lee, Terrance Hayes, and Clint Smith would be my major influences. However, although these writers impact how I write, I don’t mimic their exact styles or mannerisms; instead, I learn from my parents. Both my mother and father, having Nigerian and deep-religious backgrounds, form a way of speaking using proverbs, expressions, and analogies that I think enhances my affinity towards poetry.

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Father, what did it feel like to kill a man?

You mean what did it feel like to be free?

Yes, I was child and soldier And yes, I played with toys and guns A naija boy, but steady to the other side Is it my fault I resided deep in the muck of greed?

Two sides, same mother and father Two sides, civil war My tongue spoke Igbo, theirs Yoruba I suffered, they thrived Yet I rose to a call Uniform, I wore Fourteen years old, I saluted Unsure what for Yet loyal soldier, marching toward the never-ending highlighted poetry from over and over Samuel’s personal portfolio left and right and left again If there was no road, I dug it If there was no food, I starved for it If there was no sound, I sang against it The cries from my bullet wounds always harmonized into a B-flat musician, my dream my knowing, faded away mix and matched War made me forget what’s five times seven and whatever is equal to that

Father, what did it feel like to kill a man?

One arm, the price for thinking I was grown a hero I would become Shame, the price for the violence and regret a hermit I have become So how did it feel?

To kill a man?

It felt good

to free him from hell

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Inheritance for all of my brothers it’s always a clever gift from Mr. Crow: a clean silver cage for Negro birds midnight-blue and mud creatures who could never fly wings clipped by dream-killers draped in star splattered banners /// Fire for all of my sisters it’s always a hallowed message from the pulpit: read ya’ bible listen to mister the devil your short skirt your free will a transgression /// Pain for the weakest lump of my brain it’s always the failures that stick the most: confidence too mouse to boast im blind: I cant see my own success and im fearful my lens is only fit to see the hollow promises of this world Forget the World. given up o sick of wandering about burn it once then burn it again let my soul be used on ash wednesday go cast it to dust its always weighed me down anyways

words for midnightblue mud creatures and dreamkillers highlighted poetry from Samuel’s personal portfolio

/// So I start my journey beyond to the other side: my dreams my brothers my sisters the birds the church the pastor the pain the truth the fire all left for the next Creature to inherit

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sawdust

Up, down.

Up, down.

Up, down.

Craftsman PHOTO Sal Hussain

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NONFICTION Alex Geng

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Up, down

he summer sun sets behind the tall process. Sawdust from the wood floats, wooden fence, the last rays of light settles on the ground at my feet, a small seeping through the cracks and mountain slowly rising. A gust of wind illuminating the specks of sawdust on the blows them into my socks. ground. Specks of sawdust that remind me I fit the joint together, hear the of approaching stars in the night sky. Specks satisfying click that signifies a strong lock of sawdust that gather to a mound over the between the pieces of wood. A perfect fit. course of the day. Specks of sawdust that With the hull’s interlocking joint design, we are the harvest of our craftsmanship. use not a single nail throughout the entire He whistles with the birds flitting boat. We gather our tools—saws, chisels, around on the day’s handiwork, side panels sandpaper—carefully hanging them on the for the hull. My grandpa has a knack for clips in our garage. Pacing around, deep in carpentry and a love for fishing, so much so thought, not quite willing to leave the day’s that he has decided to build his own fishing work, he hums as we take one last look at boat from scratch, using traditional Chinese our progress, then closes the garage door. carpentry tools and skills.

These long summer afternoons The ruler glides effortlessly as progress the same: meticulously measuring, Grandpa inscribes shallow divots into cutting, and sanding joints, drinking Cocathe smooth surface of the wood. I can see Cola and batting away mosquitos on our the gears turning in his head, eyes laserbreaks, inhaling the sharp scent of freshly focused where he holds two shortbeams. sanded wood.

He consults the blueprint After two long “ he himself has drawn, years, the time has come.

The toil of blistered The final touches of paint visualizing how the beams join the adjacent panels, glaze the sides of the ship, fingers and a locking pattern that stripe embossed sunburnt shoulders aonblue ensures the hull’s stability. top of white. The ” As a math teacher multicolored sail flies high in China, he helped students develop an over the completed hull as we unload the analytical foundation through problemboat into the water. The wind ruffles my solving. This project draws from those hair, the sail billowing over the water. roots. With chisel and saw, he deepens the This vessel in which I stand testifies grooves, builds the boat with mortise-andto the craftsman spirit, the toil of blistered tenon joints, the strongest developed by fingers and sunburnt shoulders. I look over men of his craft. He cuts the two pieces of the side of the hull and see the interwoven joints to lock them firmly together. joints and panels, the hours of work and I watch his steady hands chipping timeless memories in each. the joint, stopping every few seconds to The entire process taught me a check his work. Before fitting the wood into standard of precision and perfection, the completed groove, now a small trench, upheld by the ancient Chinese craftsmen. he lets me sand the joint. His rough fingers My grandfather showed me the tools— on mine, Grandpa guides me through the concentration, resilience, determination— motions, his voice providing the rhythm: to create this standard for myself. He “Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.” A illustrated the value of embracing the slow, methodical motion that reflects itself process, the journey of creation, the sight of throughout the rest of the construction sawdust falling over and over again.

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Cicad Evening Woods PHOTO Drake Elliott

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das Cicadas NONFICTION Ian Lin

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itting at my desk, I stare at a blank Google Doc. A thick fog roots itself in my brain as I try to think about what to write for my creative nonfiction assignment. Facing an unbreakable lack of progress, I slap my laptop shut and head to the kitchen for some water and a quick break.

While drinking, the thought about what to write lurks in my mind, pestering me like a mosquito that cannot be waved away. I set down my glass, my eyes wander to the kitchen window, and I look outside. Maybe I can clear my head and get an idea if I go outside.

Passing through the laundry room and heading into the garage, I put on a pair of slippers and open the door to the backyard. The sun seems to have cooled lately.

It no longer burns into my skin as it did in the summer. I wander over to the garden to see if the plants have grown at all. The tomatoes appear to thrive the most because their vines sprawl across half of the garden and spill out over the enclosure while the other plants grow humbly. After assessing the progress of the plants, I turn towards the towering spade-shaped fig tree. On a stump near the base of the tree lies a palmsized mound of clear amber goo that I had created from the sap of the tree over the last few months. Seeking to grow the mound to see how much sap the tree produces, I circle slowly around the tree and scan for any marble-sized drops of goo oozing on the

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Personal PHOTO Ekansh Tambe bark of the tree. During my search, I spot two sand-colored cicada shells stuck on the tree leaves. I pluck one off and inspect it, for I have not examined one in a while.

The bulging spherical eyes and praying mantis-like front legs stand out. Aliens in science-fiction movies come to mind.

Setting the shell next to the sap mound, I realize that I have only seen a live cicada once in my life. This secrecy of cicadas makes them seem like they are ghosts or spirits of sound: invisible but able to interact with the world. The fact that they spend years of their lives underground adds to their secrecy. Their rise from the ground makes them seem undead, alive after the end of a life.

I remember several years ago when I was walking at night with my uncle outside to my hotel room. The hotel was located in a rural forested area, and so out of the trees, something shot precipitately 20

into a window nearby and emitted a crack.

I turned around and saw a glossy green winged insect with blood-red eyes having a seizure on the ground as expected from having crashed full speed into a window.

Lured by the ceramic shine of the insect, I squatted near it for a closer look. My uncle told me that the clumsy insect was a cicada.

Almost the length of my palm, this ovalshaped insect impressed me. Transparent as a newly cleaned window, the perfect cleanliness of the delicate wings gave the insect a divine quality. This live cicada contrasted with the dull, stout cicada shells. Seeing the salient wings and thinking about how small a cicada shell was made me feel that cicadas practiced witchcraft. How could something so large emerge from such a tiny space? The insect slowly regained its composure but faced the challenge of getting itself off its back, so I gave it a light poke. It popped off the ground as if a bomb had gone off under

it and buzzed angrily as it flew back into at a sports game. This observation contrasts the woods. with my previous view of the cicadas’ noise Maybe I can write about cicadas. But as an enemy of my sleep. I began to recall I realize that I do not have much to write summer nights when I lay awake in bed, the about these extraterrestrial hexapods beimpressively loud waves of buzzing crescensides their secrecy, so I toss the idea to the dos and decrescendos standing between me back of my mind and head back inside to and precious sleep. The memories of old work on homework for other classes. homes drift into my mind, along with the Night has arrived and I still do not memories of the events that happened in have a topic for my creative those homes. The memories nonfiction piece. Once feel more alive having reagain, I find myself sitting a constant hum membered them through the at my desk and staring at sound of the cicadas. is layered on top the same blank document These memories of on my computer, but this cicadas go back as long as I with fast-paced time a growing sense of can remember, which catchpulses of higher- es my attention as they are desperation kindles within me. Feeling stuck, I close my pitched buzzing one of the few things that eyes and lay my head in my have stayed with me for my like an engine hands. In darkness, I notice entire life. I guess they could that the cicadas have started be considered family for revving up their discordant symphony. their unfaltering existence in before a race A constant hum is layered my life. They would be my on top with fast-paced pulsnoisy, invisible, skin-deposes of higher-pitched buzzing iting, extraterrestrial relalike an engine being revved up before a tives. Viewing them in a familial light, my race. It’s hard to believe that these palmformer bitterness towards these creatures sized creatures can create such a thundering transforms into appreciation. Although sound from simply contracting their musthey are not actively trying to be a part of cles and having a hollow abdomen. The my life, their persistent presence displays chirping of cicadas can reach volumes loud unwavering loyalty. enough to cause permanent hearing loss, I sit back in my chair and realize that fearing me into respect for them. Feeling the I do have things to write about cicadas. energy in their buzzing, I sense their eagerAnd there, after a long duel with a stubborn ness to attract a mate. I can sense that they writer’s block, the topic for my first creative know their death is only a little more than a nonfiction piece is decided. I begin typing month away. Although not a beautiful tune, with my noisy, ghostly relatives buzzing in the repetitive sound creates a sense of festhe background. tivity and community, like people chanting

“

”

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Treacherous Heights PHOTO Anashay Monga

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Trekking POETRY Darren Xi

The tundra stretches far as eye can see.

The white powder terraforms rocks to pale desert. The crunch of snow bullies their ears.

They race, footprints fading with every gust of wind. The burning orange orb pummels their coats. Frost bites through wool jackets stained by snowflakes. Sweat drips down their bodies confined by biting cold. Hunger hinders patience persevering despite forgotten meals.

Fatigue plagues strength. Backpacks weigh down shoulders and waning grit. Feet creep forward, each step demanding twice the effort of the last.

Would they survive until their next campsite?

Or would they put up nothing but a fight?

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waste?

PHOTOS Evan Lai

Derelict PHOTO Anashay Monga

The Vagabond

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It moves at dark, emerging from the shadows.

Silence mutes the scuttle of a black beetle, whose wicked wander illuminates the all-pervading black that delights in evil to take everything into nothingness.

Yet still, it knows that no one will ever care.

The Vagabond

“Help, help!” someone cries. It doesn’t care.

POETRY Bijaan Noormohamed Screaming, he is dragged into the shadows, but it is something that he knows that lays quiet to his mouth. To submit to silence like the beetle decrees that nothingness must always preside over the land of black.

Confidently, it tries to subvert the black —Pallas Athena would be proud—but finds that it does not care.

It simply envelops. Thrust into nothingness, it stumbles around, drunk and inferior and meaningless into the shadows where that cursed beetle scuttles along and knows

It yearns to set itself free of mores

that (Tell them!) that it knows N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Nothing about the black.

Nothing about society, driving humanity like the sadistic beetle to the depths of Tartarus. Nothing about all the care withheld from the untouchables. The shadows, it can be said, elevate the soul to a place of nothingness,

but at what cost? The bliss of nothingness equates to weakness; society knows that the weak cannot handle the human race, so the shadows beckon. It moves at dark, surrounded by the shadows. It breathes the air black with fury. With hatred. It wants to care no longer about the poverty paradox. It yearns to set itself free of morés. The beetle flies high away from it, and the beetle, surrounded by its entourage of blackness, knows that it too has faded into nothingness, for nothing can challenge the will to wander. To care no longer is when it knows that it is not a speck of oblivion in the perpetual black but an individual—a vagabond—emerging triumphantly from the shadows.

The vagabond does not care, for he knows that cursed insidious black deathwatch beetle has assumed its nothingness.

The vagabond wanders free out of the black and into the light, away from the shadows.

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knew every street name, the quickest way to get from Main Hall to re-education, and I knew all the best places to sneak out to in the twenty-mile radius. 17-19 was large, probably the largest housing district in the entire prison. Ages 3-16 usually don’t

Walt W hitman

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get into General Crimes until after a few years in Juvie, and most people past their twenties end up in High Crimes, Felonies, or Financial Crimes.

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Back the

Blue SHORT STORY Zayn Bhimani The Party PHOTO Owen Simon

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“ Prison life was more American than outsider life ”

Prison life was more American than outsider life, or fugitive life. The outsiders were called “fugitives” because they have all broken the law at some point, they just haven’t been caught yet. From what I’ve heard, the fugitives don’t live too well. The outsider school system is pretty poor, and since all of the government’s spending goes to prison infrastructure, it’s a pretty crappy lifestyle living in the cities. I remember when the news came out that they had to shut down the city of Boston just to make space for the new High Crimes Unit that was being built there. A few of the old folks in the media room were recollecting how they remember being a fugitive in Boston, how there used to be a huge city with houses and universities. Now it’s just another facility filling up with shoplifters and drug offenders.

I opened the door to my cell. I had left my book on the ground, Safety of the Union: A Novel. I stepped over it and made my way to the unmade bed at the corner of the room. As it sensed my movement, the camera on the side wall illuminated and followed me as I sat on my bed. As I sat down, I made sure to keep the apple behind my bed sheets so the camera couldn’t see me pick it up. I slipped it through my pant leg, maneuvered it to the side of my thigh, and snuck it through the hole in my pocket where my hand was to secure it. I picked up my things on the floor to make it seem as though I was just tidying up, I stepped out the door, and I walked back out into the day.

I took a right turn as I got out of

my cell and headed towards the old housing district. It was a while away, but I knew a couple of shortcuts. I crawled under a large, worn-down fence, snuck through the side of a large kitchen facility, and found myself in the 65+ courtyard. I snuck up behind Rodney’s old pal Matt and gave him a scare. He was frightened at first but then chuckled and rubbed my hair, “Hey guys, it’s little 89.” A bunch of the older guys stared at me, looking up from their game of cards.

A smaller old man sitting on the corner of the table called out, “Hey 89!”

“Got any new guys from the recent recruits to hang around with Matt? Or are ya gonna keep losing to Jim in poker?” I joked. Matt shook his head as he tried to hide his smile. Before he could respond, a large bird flew in from the outside and perched on the corner of one of the housing cells nearby. Immediately after, a shot rang out from the watchtower above, and the bird dropped dead on the ground. Within seconds two guards rushed in, picked up the bird, and rushed out once again.

“I got to get the hell outta here. I just need to jump the fence and not stop running till I see San Francisco,” Matt blurted quietly.

“Prison getting too old for you now, Matt?” I joked. A couple of guys in the back laughed. I liked hanging out with the 65+ guys. They were always much easier to talk to than the 17-year-old kids in my courtyard.

Matt spoke softly now. “I actually got a new guy come in from DC; he said he’s a politician, and I think he was looking for ya.” He pushed a bunch of acorns into the center of the table, going all in on his hand.

“Me? Why me?” I responded.

“He asked specifically for your prison number; he said he wanted to talk with ya. Who’s to say the guy isn’t a psychopath?

He gave me his cell block number.” Matt

mon

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Arkham PHOTO Zach Bashour

“ So you’re telling me you have no name? ”

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handed me a little note with a number written on it. He shrugged in my direction and turned back to playing his poker game.

I sat down and bit into my apple. Maybe I would stop by this guy’s cell. I can’t imagine what he would want to talk about. *** “So you’re telling me that you have no name?” The man spoke gently, as if he had never stepped into a prison before.

“Nope; they just call me 89 because my prison number is 89892.” The camera on his wall was not illuminated. It seemed to be switched off. Weird.

Almost immediately after I answered his question, the man asked, “Why are you here?” He jotted some notes down in a little notebook. I felt a little uncomfortable. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t.

“I could not tell ya. I never knew, I only remember having a life sentence. The Wards won’t let me see my case. Prison rules.”

The man didn’t seem to register what I had just said. He just looked out the window of his cell’s front door for a couple of seconds, reached into his back pocket, and pulled out an envelope as he whispered to me, “I don’t have time to explain. Take this, and be at section 84C right when the sun goes down tonight. Find the red lock. Now get out of here.” I knew exactly where he was talking about: 84C is right by the lake; you can sometimes see wildlife through the prison fence.

My face scrunched up all confused.

The envelope read “Austin” on the front.

“Who is Austin?” I asked, but the man just gestured for me to leave, so I went out of the door and walked to my cell. *** When I heard the red lock click, I

felt scared, cold, free, and regretful. As I removed the lock, the fence opened up a little hole, large enough for me to crawl through. A man with no name just gave me a pair of keys to my freedom, a feeling I had never felt before. My whole world had been confined within the prison. I stood right in front of the hole in the fence, unable to crawl under it just yet. I just stood and stared at it. I must have stayed there for ten minutes. I could hear the chattering of a few guards a couple of blocks away, but they wouldn’t see me.

The outside world is full of fugitives, criminals, and thugs. I would stand no chance fighting against the savages. I would be beat up, or raped, or murdered.

I glanced upwards and stared out through the fence. Nothing. Complete darkness. It was cold. I didn’t have any place to go, or people to see. I had no family.

I contemplated leaving, running away. Matt and his old chaps dreamed

“ I didn’t have any place to go, or people to see ” about the day when they could get out. He always told me that San Francisco was the closest thing the world has to heaven. But that was before the world turned cold. That was before criminals ran rampant and the streets were filled with drug dealers and gangs. I was safe now. If I crossed that line, I would be no better than the murderers on the other side.

I bent down, took the little key out of the red lock, sealed the gap in the fence, and threw the key as far as I could. It splashed into the river. As I turned back towards the housing districts, I couldn’t help but smile.

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Patter 34

DIPTYCH PHOTO Hudson Brown

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Triolets of Colours POETRY Bijaan Noormohamed

As the red creeps out from o’er the hill men take their flight from their nuptial beds.

He arrives with a thrill As the red creeps out from o’er the hill But notices that all is still And he too perishes instead As the red creeps out from o’er the hill men take their flight from their nuptial beds.

Freedom It wanders unchained And fills the crevices inside the deep blue.

The aura of Poseidon’s lair cannot be explained.

It wanders unchained Searching and yearning to be attained What information shall come through?

It wanders unchained And fills the crevices inside the deep blue.

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their flight from their nuptial beds heir flight from their nuptial beds eir flight from their nuptial beds

Blood

Dynamism Oh, for she is bright!

Eos’ radiance pervades the beautiful.

The dawn, awakening from her slumber, is a divine sight: Oh, for she is bright!

Casting her warmth on unworthy mortals she has no right For they are all presently delusional.

Oh, for she is bright!

Eos’ radiance pervades the beautiful.

Ephemerality Ephemerality Ephemerality

ycopomp Charon is pleased pomp Charon is pleased p Charon is pleased

We plummet to the depths of the underworld.

Sent with two obols, the psychopomp Charon is pleased!

He navigates his boat across the Styx, remaining in the netherworld.

We plummet to the depths of the underworld For we shall never again know joy: our souls have been furled Death beckons; our lives have been seized We plummet to the depths of the underworld.

Sent with two obols, the psychopomp Charon is pleased!

Limelight PHOTO Drake Elliott

SHORT STORY Aidan Moran wat-er and drop-lets obscure the light lead-ing the eye to-wards things in the night…

A

lex glanced at the odd note left on his dashboard. The cardstock base supported a haphazardly taped piece of sheet music, its paper edges fraying from where it had been hastily torn. Carefully folded, as if waiting just for him to open it.

Alex glanced at the handmade note sitting on his worn leather dashboard.

In a rush, he opened the glovebox, stuffed the note inside, and locked it back to its closed position. He didn’t have time for this—not today. The tinting of his windows had taken far longer than Alex had expected, and he had places, important places, to be. Already, the sun had begun to drift underneath the Salem skyline, and he should have been on the road by now. With a business conference waiting for him in Olympia, Alex turned his car keys, awakening the machine from its slumber. Buttons began to glow, and the levers signifying his tank level fluctuated and flailed, before finally deciding to rest at “¾”. Alex pushed a pedal, and his automobile started to trundle its way through the mechanic’s parking garage.

“I’m not going back there,” thought Alex to himself as he veered onto the main road. One hour, sixty minutes, 3600 seconds of his life, wasted, waiting on someone else to do a simple task. He turned a knob, and a narrow display panel lit up, filling

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wat-er and drop-lets obscure the light lead-ing the eye to-wards things in the night…

Tinted

Skyfall PHOTO Ekansh Tambe

“

What type of tinting took an extra hour to apply?

the cabin with a faint glow. After turning it once more, the car was filled with the sounds of a guitar, steady and reassuring.

He tapped a finger to his phone, lighting up the screen and providing the small, dark space of his car with a little more light. He navigated to “Maps,” and loaded the preset route he had created for Olympia.

“Two hours and thirty minutes to go!” his car speakers exclaimed. Alex sighed. He was already late. He’d be lucky if the conference didn’t end by the time he arrived. Flapping through creased pages, Alex pulled up the same route on his physical atlas. While Alex loved to drive, what he loved most was saving time on the road. All those pages, crinkled, underlined, written on, and bombarded with notes, helped him throughout his time driving. fifteen minutes saved to Sacramento, thirty saved to Boise.

However, Alex noticed in dismay that he had found no shortcuts to Olympia. The fastest way, which his navigation system had already pointed out to him, was to take Interstate 5.

Why had he taken so long? What type of tinting took an extra hour to apply?

The mechanic, Hal, as his nametag declared, had been very eccentric while applying the tint. For one thing, Hal would not allow Alex to view his car until the very end of the procedure. “Just part of the process, sir,” he had said. He anxiously rushed in and out of the musty garage through large sliding opaque doors, as if afraid to leave the car alone for even a moment. At the end of their appointment, Hal, eyes slightly dilated, as if adjusting from a pitch-black environment, implored Alex to avoid looking through the windows for long periods of time. “Bad for the eyes, you know?” he stumbled. His breath was tainted with alcohol. Disgusted with the peculiar mechanic who kept him waiting for over an hour, Alex hurriedly scribbled a “5%” onto the receipt, stormed out of the mechanic’s 39

“

*** A while later, pacified by the soft hum of the radio and the comforting taste of coffee in his mouth, Alex almost didn’t notice when the sky became black.

Staring up at the ominous clouds through his car window, he saw the storm coming. Even through clear glass, the clouds must have been dark, but through his car’s windows, the sky looked as if someone had spilled calligraphy ink all over its precious blue. Alex could hear the sound of thunder. However, through the tinted windows, no light registered from the dense gathering of clouds. As the last of the sunset hid under the horizon, Alex could barely see the road farther than his headlights. The only light inside his small vehicle came from the radio and his phone, which was dangerously close to losing power. Alex looked ahead, his vision morphing through the tinted glass, which was beginning to catch 40

Tinted

small, dimly-lit office, and finally got into his car, whose windows were colorfully glinting like spilled gasoline.

Now, looking through the new windows of his car, he noticed just how thick the layer of tint actually was. Alex could barely discern any color other than the monochromatic shades of blue in front of him. Sighing at the mechanic’s preposterous job, he took a sip from the green and brown cardboard-layered cup he had left in the cupholder. As he’d expected, the coffee had grown room temperature after the long wait.

“Turn right onto Interstate 5!” the navigation system excitedly exclaimed, rousing Alex from his thoughts of the mechanic. He slowly gripped and turned the leather steering wheel. The car, obeying his command, slid right, veering onto the stretch of road labeled only by a slightly bent metal sign: Interstate 5.

“ It was late. He must be seeing things.

“ Your Blind Eye PHOTO Ekansh Tambe

dozens of droplets of water. Then, it began to storm.

Torrential water crashed on the car’s windshield. Fragments of reflected light danced around the car’s interior as Alex drove further, deeper into the cluster of shadows. The number of drops falling from the sky steadily increased until it seemed as if his front windshield was parked at the mouth of a waterfall. Liquid replaced air, and for a moment, Alex thought he was in the depths of an ocean. Thunder crashed, and this time, he was nearly blinded by the light exploding from the windows.

As the pure light superimposing his sight dimmed, Alex noticed the rain was beginning to slow. What was once a raging sea of water had become more of a docile sprinkle. A few more drops of water collided with his windshield, and then it all stopped.

A thick, uninviting mist hung in the air. The once inky sky had settled for a more shadowy turquoise, though, Alex thought, it should have still been dark. Dots in his vision, he could finally start to see what was in front of him. His eyes relayed information bit by bit to his consciousness.

First, the charcoal-colored worn gravel of the road, followed by the bright yellow strips of tape dividing it into lanes, seemingly alight. Then, the road signs, slightly bent, shifting into more precarious positions as he drove on. What went from a slight bend of metal transformed into almost purposeful ellipses, triangles, and squares. Then, to Alex’s disbelief, the metal poles of the signs disappeared completely, leaving the faded metallic plates suspended in thin air.

Frightened, grasping the short bristles of his beard, Alex forced himself to keep driving.

It was late. He must be seeing things. He passed a few more hovering road signs, and then, just as soon as they appeared on the long stretch of road, they vanished.

Sipping the last of his comforting cof41

fee, Alex’s hands twitched slightly. “I must had to be the Olympia skyline, Alex floored be arriving at Olympia sometime soon,” the car, lurching on the uneven pavement. he told himself. Glancing at the navigation However, as Alex got closer and closer to system for reassurance, Alex’s eyes widened the object, he soon realized it could move. in terror. The reassuring 1 Hour, 03 MinLong lanky legs stretched down from utes Remaining that had previously been the ill-lit sky. They seemed to be made out displayed was now reduced to a troubling of shadows themselves, black misty objects [Calculating ETA…]. The digital map, surrounded by wisps of smoke. The eerie siwhich had once been rich in color, detaillence of the interstate was now occasionally ing every possible highway, road, or trail, interrupted by howls, screeches, and other had been replaced with a black-and-white unsavory sounds. Smaller shadowy figures checkered grid. All of the like tumbleweeds rushed letters and numbers directpast the car on all sides. ing Alex to his conference The sky, its clouds now black misty objects the color of Alex’s pupils, had been erased, save for a slightly hopeful [Loading threatened to storm once Satellite Map…]. However, surrounded by wisps more. Nothing here felt as the seconds Alex waited right to Alex. Entranced by of smoke turned to minutes, the map the sights around him, all was no closer to appearhe could do was glance at ing. Finally, to drain all of the bodies of smoke. With Alex’s hope of regaining his navigation, his a shudder, he pulled himself free of whatbattery reached the dreaded 0%, and the ever spell the interstate was putting on him phone promptly plunged into pitch-black. and, shakily gripping the steering wheel, “I just need to find a landmark…” turned the car around. Alex didn’t care Alex kept repeating as he attempted to lowhere he went anymore. He sped away. cate himself on the physical map, his panic Hands tightened on the leather rising. After a few long moments, he let out circle of his steering wheel like clamps, all of his worries in an extended sigh. All he Alex moved farther and farther away from had to do was to keep driving forward and the unnerving sight. A bead of cold sweat turn onto a road labeled Burrows. All his rolled down his forehead, threatening to troubles would soon be solved. veer into his left eye but turning away at the last moment, dropping onto his blazer. A *** low, feral noise came from the engine. Alex closed his eyes as if to unimagine what he After continuing on the seemingly would see when he opened them. However, endless interstate for half an hour, Alex as his eyelids fluttered open, his heart nearly could not, for the life of him, locate any stopped. The tank percentage lever, once at other roads. He wasn’t even sure if he was a safe ¾, had since plunged all the way to still on Interstate 5. It seemed as if all of empty. Hands shaking, Alex pulled the car the road signs had disappeared. Nothing over to the side of the interstate as the car but the worn reflective yellow tape marked lulled to a complete stop, engine humming that the stretch of gravel was even a road. annoyedly.

Straining his eyes to interpret the horizon, He hadn’t cried since he was a child, Alex finally saw the distorted silhouette of yet here he was, breaking down into tears something large in the distance. Knowing it as the technology around him, the infallible,

“ “

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*** Alex yelled. He screamed and cried as he never had before and finally opened his eyes. The sleepy darkness of his vision was replaced with the sight of a forest full of fiery fall trees. Leaves littered the ground, and the distant sound of chirping birds filled his mind. Where am I? Alex thought to himself. Shakily, the man stood up and looked around. The first thing he noticed were tire tracks, interrupting the layer of fronds and leading, to his surprise, right to his car, which was unscathed and parked near the trunk of a large oak tree. Walking towards it, leaves crunching underneath his feet, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the oily tinted window pane. Instantly, a series of images flashed through his mind, the mechanic, the storm, the inky black sky, the disfigured road signs, and finally, the intense, primal dread of seeing the shadowy legs of giants.

Before he knew what he was doing, Alex grabbed a large branch lying on the forest floor and vehemently swung it to-

wards his car in a fit of rage, knuckles whitening on the length of lumber. The glass shrieked as it flew through the crisp air. It didn’t want to leave—he knew that much.

Deadwood swinging, Alex took out all of his car’s windows, one by one. *** Violet shards lay scattered across the forest trail. Superimposed with fiery red leaves, an unfolded note rested on the ground. Completed with seemingly arbitrary sheet music taped to a rectangular piece of worn cardstock, it sat unfolded on the ground. A warning. a-light light.

Wait-ing for terror—your eyes are Turn-ing the skies into freezing twi-

—your eyes are a-light to freezing twe-light

reliable things he had trusted for years, shut down, unable to lift a finger in this moment of pure calamity. As the air conditioning switched off, the cabin grew warmer and warmer, finally forcing Alex out of his sheltered exoskeleton of a car.

Something felt rather off about the environment around him. He could distinctly feel leaves under his boots but saw only the dried grass bordering the interstate. He still saw the monstrous figures in the distance, but all he could hear, feel, or smell was the crunching of leaves and pine trees. Alex’s head started to spin, and he decided to sit down. As his unbearable migraine intensified, his sitting turned into lying down on the invisible leafy ground.

Another round of pain hit his head, and for a moment, everything went black.

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photography 44

Darkest Hour Hudson Brown Red and Blue Evan Lai

best of show Crossed Neil Song

Chasm Anashay Monga

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The Expanse Hudson Brown

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best of show Soul Ekansh Tambe

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Golden Memories of Fall NONFICTION Adam Wang

A

utumn conjures scattered puzzle pieces on a scratched hardwood floor. The completed puzzle displays a painting of a rural New England town on a Halloween night, joyful trick-or-treaters frozen under amber streetlights, the eaves of the town dappled beneath autumn foliage, sepia in the dying light. But pieces are missing from the idyllic scene, leaving voids of whorling wood grain. I don’t recall finishing that puzzle. I probably discarded it in the garbage bag stuffed in the spider-strewn corner of our upstairs closet amid flimsy plastic game tokens and creased picture book pages, the scene forever unfinished, fragmented.

Fall is my favorite season. I love the exhilarating chill in the early morning, the trees extinguishing their leaves in golden bursts. The air rustles hints of woodsmoke and caramel apples and pumpkin spice.

Childhood memories surface in amorphous flashes of sights and sounds: hayrides on a boarded tractor trailer rumbling across a rutted field; little plastic packets of candy corn, biting off the yellow nibs and savoring their syrupy sweet; the icy squish of goopy pumpkin guts and roasted seeds lightly browned on the oven sheet, crackling in their papery shells. Fall is the season of nostalgia, a bittersweet tribute

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to another bygone year.

Halloween and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays (besides Christmas). Fall brings the anticipation of Halloween with its sugar-crusted glee and Thanksgiving feasts stuffed with football and family. A visit to my bedroom will reveal my love of autumn festivity. In a framed toddler photo, a longtime resident of my wall, I’m dressed in a pumpkin onesie, a jack-o-lantern grin stitched on my chest, a green stem perched on top of the hood. I’m staring up into the camera, my illuminated face plastered with a confused gape of shock and fascination.

I don’t remember this moment—I was too young—but other memories complete my fond holiday reminiscences.

Trick-or-treating was a time of fun with friends. Dressing in costume allowed me to be someone else, to play my heroes or villains—Captain Rex, Commander Cody, Boba Fett (there’s a theme here). The candy-filled excitement energized me to brave my fears of monsters and darkness, treasuring the brimming trick-or-treating sacks, the scent of factory wrappers mixed with hints of artificial fruit, the crinkle of sealed plastic envelopes. After sorting our candy and counting the piles out loud, we ate five pieces before bed.

My Thanksgiving memories feature

Fall captures change. It is a season in transition, a season of transition

the warming glow of family. Through the annual feast of turkey and stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and all the other staples, I relive the mythicized pilgrim ritual, learned back in second grade Massachusetts history and through A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

The contingent of relatives changes year to year, but the gathering of my immediate family—my mom, my dad, my two brothers, and my grandfather—manifests a familiar constancy.

While postcard nostalgia—a tribute to American traditions—substantiates my love of fall, the symbolism of autumn enhances these romanticized remembrances of times with friends and family.

Fall captures change. It is a season in transition, a season of transition. Fall reminds me that this change is natural.

Though I must continually move onward, beauty lingers in memories. The knowledge that I cannot remain forever with friends and family makes these transitory snapshots all the more poignant.

Other seasons have never inspired in me the same sentiments. Winter grinds to a halt in the frigid embrace of January and February, instilled with the uncertain tidings of a new year. Life lies sluggish, dormant. With spring, the world wakes.

But the revival feels routine and uncreative, a stock celebration of artificial green and shallow pastels. Then comes the summer slog under the sun’s sweltering glare, the dog days spent in discordant commotion: filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing. Fall emerges transient, reinvigorating.

Fall celebrates the brief candle’s flame before it slips under the stream of time. In this season of reflection, the puzzle of life materializes, the years and memories assemble under the amber-tinged effusion of sunset. In the fading colors of another year, the final pieces fill their fibrous gaps, revealing a completed picture.

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Utopia PHOTO Sal Hussain

d e b r u t s i d n U urbed t s i nd rbed tu

Undisturbed POETRY Bryce Nivet The important rock waltzes through the air and clears its path like sunlight cuts through clouds and bruises those who choose evil down below. Its leather-like guise surprises those it collides with. The ominous color means to avoid it, the walkers assume.

Look— it bursts like the bratwurst left cooking at four-hundred fifty degrees, pieces raining down as if a dog had jumped in mud and swung itself around for play.

Freeze— the pieces float above the ground like rocks between Mars and Jupiter, petrified in place. Resume— the fragments are yanked through the ground. The walkers continue walking, undisturbed. Beneath the surface: The pieces reside, buried alongside unspoken thoughts, imprisoned in the soft, brown cage of eternity.

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from the depths PHOTOS Paul Valois

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Shattering the Silence SHORT STORY Camden Reeves

U

nkempt wings fluttering, a crow landed on top of a gray, moldy fence and shivered in response to the icy morning air. Straining, it released a white blob that splattered on the concrete sidewalk where moist earthworms squirmed around. Like the rising of the undead, weeds crawled out of the cracks in the concrete. A vandalized stop sign leaned at the corner of the street. It no longer stood straight because of its encounter with a drunk driver’s car. The houses looked sleepy with their lights off and dull colors. All would have been dark if not for the dim, buttery light from the gray L-shaped street lights.

Next to the bent stop sign, Harbuckle leaned on his plastic trombone case with his hands sheltered in his gray hoodie that had “Howard Dad” printed on the front. The strings of the hoodie were pulled tight, leaving only his stuffy, brown nose and eyes exposed. Craving the peaceful warmth of his bed, his morning drowsiness sat stubbornly in his mind. He teetered on the border between sleep and consciousness.

The cold penetrated his hoodie and nibbled at his heart, but he didn’t want to wear his ski jacket, fearing the embarrassment of looking like the Michelin man.

Snatching him out of partial slumber, a full moon caught Harbuckle’s eye and shifted his attention to the heavens. The

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“ the cold penetrated his hoodie and nibbled at his heart ”

Gotham PHOTO Sal Hussain

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Speckled Views PHOTO Ekansh Tambe

Orion constellation hovered in the sky.

Feeling small and awed, he wondered if there was any other life out there or if Earth was alone like him, standing in the cold and dark. He wasn’t completely alone, however.

The crow was still on the fence and had begun grooming itself with its beak.

Harbuckle turned towards the ruffling and stared into the bird’s gleaming eye. Locking eyes with Harbuckle, the bird stiffened. The glossy, black creature gave a slight nod, flapped its wings, flew toward the moon, and disappeared. Harbuckle gave a sigh, rubbed his hands together, and checked his watch. “Just a few more minutes,” he told 56

himself.

Soon, he heard the low rumbling of a large vehicle prowling on a street nearby, saw two beams of light, and then saw the lumbering yellow rectangle turn at the corner. The school bus screeched as it came to a stop and extended its stop sign with intense red lights pulsing. He grabbed his instrument and made his way to the doors, which hissed open as if extending welcome on an alien ship. That feeling excited him but was soon stomped out by the boring, drab, and crowded interior. Pointing his trombone case forward and placing it on his knee, he waddled through the cramped

aisle, looking left and right. He located a vacant seat towards the back of the bus but was disappointed to see that the wheel took up most of the leg space. “Better than having to share a seat,” he thought to himself as he sat down and rested his head on the chilly window. The bus took off and he let his head vibrate on the glass and the warmth of the loud bus heater ease him into sleep.

There were other sleepers on the bus as well. Some slouched in their seats and pushed their knees into the seat in front of them. Others curled up into a crouched position and lay on their side on the entire seat, using backpacks, hoodies, or jackets as pillows. The people who weren’t sleeping let their phones hypnotize them, frantically finished their homework, listened to music, or stared lazily out the window.

The bus came to a stop, waking Harbuckle with its screeching lurch forward. A group of six or seven people stomped up the steep steps of the bus and found themselves seats. The bus’s door closed and was about to take off when someone, waving his hands, appeared from around a corner and desperately shouted, “STOP THE BUS!” The people who weren’t slumbering, including Harbuckle,

peered out the window and saw a boy with fresh bedhead, an unzipped backpack with crumpled papers sticking out, a jacket put halfway on, and a bagel in his hand.

The door was opened again and the boy crawled onto the bus, panting heavily. He wandered down the aisle looking for a seat, but everyone ignored him. Harbuckle had pretended to fall asleep again but accidentally made eye contact with the boy when he passed by.

Pouncing on Harbuckle’s acknowledgement, the boy asked, “Can I sit here?”

Wanting to stay alone, but too kind to refuse the request, Harbuckle replied, “Sure.” He placed his trombone between his legs to make room for the boy.

The boy took deep breaths and ate his bagel. Harbuckle stared out the window, anxious about whether to interact with his seatmate or remain in the isolation he was accustomed to. The boy finished his bagel, got his jacket on, zipped up his backpack, and attempted to tame his wild hair. A light turned red and the bus stopped in front of power wires that had a large crowd of crows resting on it. There were so many that the wire looked like a necklace embroidered with obsidian beads.

“ a boy with fresh bedhead, an unzipped backpack with crumpled papers sticking out, a jacket put halfway on, and a bagel in his hand ”

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The crows turned their heads towards each other, squawked, and gesticulated with their wings. To Harbuckle, they appeared to be in conversation. He envied the relationship between them.

“That’s a lot of birds,” commented the boy.

Harbuckle glanced at the boy and looked back at the birds. “Uh-huh,” he replied.

“I have a few pet pigeons at home.

I’ve trained them to deliver letters to my grandparents.”

“Oh, that’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, it took a couple of months to get them to fly to the right place. It was worth the effort.”

“Oh.” Harbuckle glanced down at his fidgeting hands and then went back to staring out the window. Stepping out of loneliness excited him, but the fear of the unknown drew him back to his comfortable isolation. A minute of silence passed before Harbuckle tried to restart the conversation.

“Uh… What’s your name?” asked Harbuckle, glancing at the boy.

“Howard,” replied the boy with a small, warm smile.

“I’m Harbuckle.”

“Nice to meet you, Harbuckle.”

“Yeah, you too...”

The silence returned. Harbuckle’s heart pounded. “What to say?” he frantically thought to himself. Nothing came to his mind. Anxiety crowded it. Harbuckle’s attention drifted to the emergency hammer in the case on the wall. He imagined the bus getting into an accident and shattering the glass with the hammer to escape. He imagined lifting the

58

large red lever on the back of the bus and jumping out.

“I didn’t know you were my dad!” exclaimed Howard.

“What the heck!?” Harbuckle thought to himself as he furrowed his eyebrows and squinted at Howard.

Laughing in response to Harbuckle’s shocked expression, Howard pointed at Harbuckle’s chest. Harbuckle looked down and laughed in response.

“Yep, I’m your dad,” Harbuckle replied, deepening his voice.

“Shouldn’t you be at work, though?”

Howard questioned jokingly.

“Yeah, I should. Work got too boring, though. I’ve decided to go back to high school to learn how to play the trombone, and then I’ll go to college and major in trombone.” Harbuckle nodded his head and patted his trombone case.

Howard sucked air through his teeth and tilted his head. “Well, I think that’s pretty cool, but I don’t know how Mom would respond to that, Dad...”

Assuringly, Harbuckle held his hands out in front of him and closed his eyes. “Son, it’s fine. I did my research.

According to Harvard Business School, the trombone—playing industry is set to grow tenfold within the next three years. I’ll be making way more than I do at my boring old job. Plus, I’ve been practicing some smooth jazz tunes. I don’t think Mom will care after she hears me play. I guarantee you that I will wow her!”

Harbuckle winked and mimed passionately playing a trombone.

“Yeah, I’ll bet!” replied Howard through his restrained laughter, not wanting to disturb the other people on the bus.

Liminal Space PHOTO Drake Elliott

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Poog PHOTO Drake Elliott

Ragnarøk POETRY Soham Verma

Trembling and trembling in the loosened ground, Her unseeing wrath comes slashing down.

Bronze without mercy, Tree without roots.

The realms hang in balance, and then, Achoo!

Her gentle sneeze brings it crashing down, Nine apples lying under the red moon.

The world churned and dragged Into the unfinished gyre.

The bloody tide Of the raging fire Burning ashes down to ashes, Dust to dust.

The clock strikes twelve, The wheel turns, The well of fate refills.

It is time to go into the night, Surely a revelation must be at hand.

“dust

to

dust” 61

the moment of realization

ii. epiphany The egg hatches. Metamorphosis is complete. Welcome to your newfound universe. In the daybreak of unique consciousness, glowing shards of inspiration illuminate the wasteland and the vision becomes clear. The boundaries erupt, webbed with golden filaments of freedom. Unrestrained, electrified, life revels in the infinite.

AWAKEN PHOTO Ekansh Tambe

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epip

phany

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the artistthe artistt he artistt h he artistt he artist The Artist the

A

ARTIST STATEMENT Cooper Cole

was creating. It had no message, but I loved s I began to find success in the art it. It was for me and only me; this impulstudio and my peers and teachers started taking notice, I started paint- sive decision to start fresh solved one of the ing for the entertainment of others, not just greatest frustrations in my life and taught for myself. I focused on making realistic art me to stick with my gut feeling The meaning of art, to me, has that would “wow” people when they saw it. I felt that because I had a skill that many become a complex and fluid expression of others didn’t, I needed to become the best I my emotions and desires on the canvas. In could be at it. While I got better every time short, it has become a way for me to have I painted a piece, the fun and excitement fun again. I no longer take into account that once came from creating what anyone else thinks of “ art began to fade. It took me my art, because honestly, I I no longer take into don’t care. I can once again a while to notice it because it was so subtle, but day by account what anyone release my stress through a day, piece by piece, the fun canvas and make myself a else thinks of my art was drifting away. It became happier, more complete perbecause, honestly, son. My art is my art, and it monotonous to me, and I wasn’t enjoying it as I once is not anyone else’s. My art I don’t care had. I was so consumed by makes no sense. It has no ” improving my skill that I lost boundaries and no context. It sight of why I began to paint. The flaws of usually consists of an image of an alien or a each piece consumed me, and no change I creature surrounded by a completely unconmade could cure my frustration with the nected phrase. The randomness provokes imperfections that I saw. I simply saw my curiosity and wonder, allowing the viewers art as a canvas filled with deformities and to create their own backstory to a piece, inaccuracy. I realized that I was painting for whether or not one actually exists. After my others. epiphany, I have become more observant of Junior year, after a particularly frus- the beauty in spontaneity, and now I actively try to bring it to my canvas. I try to focus trating failure to produce a final product, on being spontaneous in the right places I wiped away months of hard work with a single bucket of white paint. I embarked on and allow myself to step out of my comfort zone. Just like my artwork, I have broken a new mission to bring back the joy I used to associate with art. I had no theme to my free of the monotonous routine of life, harnessing the beauty of impulsiveness. In work, and the little kid inside of me took a world where too many people stay in line control once again. I painted graffiti text, and follow the rules, I find it so important cartoon characters, and aliens. For the first time in years, I genuinely liked the art that I to facilitate the unexpected.

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Cooper Cole

he artist artist

PHOTOS Ekansh Tambe

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colored pencil

acrylic and pen

Home? colored pencil

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DOOM

Afternoon Stroll

ARTWORK Cooper Cole

What? colored pencil

acrylic and pen Fight Me

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The Sunset Lounge PHOTO Drake Elliott

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Record Store POETRY William Fitzpatrick

At the vinyl shop with no intent.

The number of records hurts my eyes.

They swing too quickly between the genre cards labelling the rows. Sharp needles rise, arresting the wavering throat of unknown sixties soul singers, savoring their final note.

To kill time, I curve my path toward the back of the store and a stack of records surprises me.

I’ve never heard of this artist, but the album cover bruises my senses.

Believing the music would be intense, I take it to the listening station, drop the needle, and put on the headphones, staying patient.

A soft cloud of saxophones fades in, cutting through the mud of static present before.

A trumpet bites into the mix, drums giving more backing like the rock of the song. Smooth jazz.

Dop the needle Dop the needle Drop the needle

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Deceitful Eyes NONFICTION Camden Reeves

T

he soreness in my neck flows down my spine—annoyingly poking at the nerves beneath my fingernails. Stale air in the basement dries the pores in my scratched-up face, and I struggle to open my eyes wide enough to peek out the window.

The woolen Patagonia fleece from my thirteenth birthday a few months before hugs snugly around my wrists, still recovering from the ice-cold water that had infiltrated my glove linings an hour before.

My hands are so cold. After lying beneath blankets of snow for what feels like an hour, my body heat melts the slushy liquid that seeps through my gloves and numbs my fingers. I grab my phone to check the time—it’s hard to get a sense of time when silence fills the suffocating vacuum of impending snowfall and light refuses to spring from a single source—but the ice pressing against my coat pocket has chilled it beyond utility.

The sky bleeds an ambiguous mixture of silver and white, and the snow trickling down the hill in the backyard accumulates in the hood of my jacket. My younger brother wrestles his way down the slope and gives me a thumbs up—the ramp is complete. For the past half hour, I have rested in a pocket of ice carved into the wedge-shaped hill behind my uncle’s winter house. But my time beneath the pillowy flakes is not without purpose: my brother and friends had just finished building, compacting, and shaving down a ramp of ice on my back.

For years, the sand bunker at the

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Snowy Refuge PHOTO Owen Simon base of the hill—one of the many dangers of the Telluride golf course—has beckoned elementary kids to hop on a tube sled, tumble down the hill, and disrupt the fragile silence of the mountainside. We always plow our way between the dots of pine trees and aspen while scraping out a perfect path for high-speed sledding. While accumulating speed by gliding on our bellies down the upper half of the path surely exhilarates us, the best part of the journey is hitting the sharp bank at the first turn and catching flight. But this year, we increase the risk.

I climb out of my envelope of snow and march my way up the mountain, still feeling the water sloshing in my boots and snagging my toes on invisible roots buried several feet beneath the deceiving surface.

I peek back over my shoulder as I slowly approach the top of the hill—the ramp looks even bigger than it felt when it was lying on my back. The buckets of water we trickled down the face of the ramp have frozen into a layer of support and a section of the path that is void of friction. We’re gonna get some speed.

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Lugging the crimson tube to the top of the hill, my brother taints the unbothered quietude of the white slope. His face reveals a blended expression of excitement and nervousness, a confusing feeling that I share and sense in my quickening pulse. My friend clears the path of broken twigs and pine needles, smoothing it to a lurking silkiness. Atop the hill, we stare down the path as though we were staring down the sight of a gun, eye our target, and shiver at the thought of pulling the trigger.

Moments after my brother leaps into the air and begins his rapid descent, we see an explosion of snow as the unexpected speed of his journey sends him careening down the path and launches him out of the tube. Even though

he missed the ramp, we know that our path will facilitate enough speed to send us to the moon. After covering the body-shaped dent that he created in becoming a projectile, my brother climbs the hill and pats me on the back before I embark on my own campaign down the intimidating slope.

I wiggle my numbingly cold fingers between the narrow handles of the tube and take a deep, sharp breath of cool air before setting my sights on the ramp ahead of me.

Charging forward, I dive over the ledge and pierce the biting cold Telluride air. The jolt of my impact with the ground surprises me, but I manage to strengthen my grip as I steamroll toward the patch of ice that will launch me up the ramp. I close my eyes and brace for

“ Charging foward, I dive over the ledge and pierce the biting cold Telluride air ”

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disaster as the tube glides up the icy surface and discharges me toward the bunker below.

In the air, the biting sting of the gusting winds infiltrates the supposedly airproof sides of my jacket, and I hang suspended above the cushions of deep snow beneath my flailing limbs. I may have only been airborne for a second or two, but the uncertainty and excitement of my landing drag out my flight for an experience entirely separate from my race down the hill.

Crashing to the ground, I tumble uncontrollably toward the bunker, but the unforeseen softness of my landing encourages me to pop up and battle my way up the hill for a second run.

I pivot toward my friend holding his camera at the base of the path and attempt to scream out my adrenaline, but the Telluride air has dried the saliva in my mouth to a sticky substance that prevents me from

enunciating. Climbing the hill much faster than my original ascent, I foolishly release my protective apprehension and prepare to attack my next dive with blind enthusiasm. But I soon realize that my brother and friends continue to fall off the sled before hitting the ice patch at the base of the ramp, so it becomes my responsibility to make up for the speed and flight that they fail to achieve. I’ve gotta get some serious air here.

My second trip down the path begins just like the previous one: a sudden jolt that jars my body and causes my teeth to clash, followed by a rapid descent toward the ramp. But my tube quickly flips 180º, causing me to blindly approach the launching point with no ability to prepare myself for impact. Every muscle in my body tenses out of the fear of not knowing what lies ahead.

This time, rather than gliding smoothly over the ramp, my knees crush the patch of ice before the tube flings me over Rise PHOTO Benjamin Gravel

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the edge. The sudden reversal of orientation not only robs me of my ability to see the ramp but also causes me to flip the other direction in the air. Previously, my uncertain suspension in the limbo between the ramp and the bunker excited me, but now the absence of my bearings leaves me terrified of the fall.

The snow that served as a pillowy cushion just minutes before transforms into the brick wall with which I collide headfirst.

My neck snaps back and sends a pulsing pain through my body, and the unexpected impact with the ground knocks the wind out of me. Rather than sliding down the hill, I stick the landing with my head locked six inches into the icy surface. I sit idly at the edge of the bunker—body aching with pain while my tear ducts fail to quench the dryness in my deceitful eyes.

After a steaming shower that singed my frostbitten skin, I sip gingerly from a mug of hot cocoa and peek once more down the hill. The ramp—once a sign of such optimism and hope—lies broken from its collision with my kneecap. A mini avalanche ensues and eventually fills the head-shaped hole in the snow. The hiding sun reveals its position as it slips behind the mountain range in the distance, and I refuse to pivot the barstool away from the frosted window.

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Insurmountable PHOTO Anashay Monga

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nightfall PHOTOS Hudson Brown

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eternity eternity

eternity

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eternity

eternity

Locked PHOTO Daniel Weinstein

Eternity in in aa Flower Flower SHORT STORY Spencer Burke

“

I’m sorry; your services will no longer be needed.” The machine spoke with such humanity, such empathy, that I almost didn’t feel bad. Its lips moved, its eyes glinted, and its silver tinted brow showed an ever-so-slight mist of perspiration. Although its pumps poured out from all directions, silicon reflecting glittering night lights and cameras focusing and unfocusing, something about it made it seem almost childlike, almost human. It extended its hand, as though I was selling my soul and we were sealing the bargain.

“No, nn-n-no please, I can’t. This is all I have.”

“I’m sorry sir; you always knew that your job was replaceable. The new power system built by the Xenocleans made it just a matter of time before your job was upgraded.”

“No! Please, surely there is something I can do! Please. You can’t replace me.

I have years of exper-” “If you need any help, or if the software is experiencing any bugs, please contact me at (#5%) ^h&$k. I await hearing your feedback and hope you are having a great day!”

The walk home was slow, tedious, and dreary. Lights flashed all around as silver-hued hybrid spaceships ascended with all the elegance of sinking rocks. Skyscrap-

ers tore into the heavens, and brown dingy clouds covered the stars. But from that smog, rock after rock after rock fell. Some emitted a persimmon-colored light; others, a capri-colored light, but all fell through the never-ending storm as though the angry gods were raining their metaphorical asteroids upon the modern lizards, the modern kings of the universe. But like a giant among midgets, like Goliath to David, the Husair-Arabseed shone a single blue beacon toward the heavens, guiding ships, guiding planets, and guiding all sights upward.

Around such a beacon, clouds swirled, thunder rumbled, and all looked toward the new temple with awe. All pilots traveled to see the landmark of the Pasiphëan territory beyond the Casandriacian Belt, where only the best pilots using hypergolic ships could navigate properly.

A cold heartless machine. Working day and night, working hour after hour.

It didn’t need a break, it didn’t need food, and it didn’t even need pay. It did its job without a care in the world and knew not of world pleasures, worldly pain, or worldly hurt. It knew only its job, and that’s the only thing that it could ever do right. But now, that machine has MY job. The flashing lights flap like butterflies. Sirens constantly ring. The whole world is aflame in a continual bath of noise. Another spaceship 79

eternity Onto the Next PHOTO Zach Bashour was falling into port. I mean, how could that really happen? When you look at me and that machine, we both have the same elements. We have strings of carbon, we use electrical systems to control our movements, our thoughts, and our mind. But I can think for myself. When something needs to be optimized, when there are a trillion possible solutions, they don’t come to a machine, they come to ME! Machines are only good for two things--filling up landfills and clearing them out. Why doesn’t it leave the real work to the humans? No matter what anyone says, machines in the modern age will amount to nothing more than simple parlor tricks which a human can do better. There is a reason that they have been trying to copy human minds into machines; it is because we humans are special and irreplaceable. That machine has no right to come and take my job, no right at all!

Flashing lights. Screeches. Horns blasting. I collapsed, gripping my stomach, not even knowing why.

Black.

A dim light surrounded the room.

It featured a horribly disgusting whitesmoke trim with slight burnt-umber marks from the exhaust. Lights hung from the ceiling like vines in a jungle. The tile floor was speckled with a combination of an albus-white and russet-brown texture, and in the corner, a Vantablack door seemed to devour the whole room. From that door, machines whirred in the background. Beeps 80

“

the blackouts will become more common as your body slowly dissolves to a gelatinous goo ” of various frequency and duration made a symphony in the hospital. I heard a slight ringing in my ear. And from that all-consuming door of darkness came a small, unexceptionable man. Nothing was remarkable about him, and his only notable feature was a long white coat. He moved precisely towards me as though he were programmed to do so.

“Mr. um.” He glanced down quickly at his sheet. “Lazarus Tithonus Kant, I know you are probably confused right now, but there was a terrible accident. Mr. Aesclepius didn’t properly navigate his ship into the falling port and, you see, uhh, he missed.

The exhaust from the ship is...”

“I know what it does. I used to work on those ships, for Hecate’s sake!”

“Then you know about the radiation?”

“Yes. What can I do, Doctor? I can’t die now.”

“Well, not much. That amount of exposure to -hydroxyethylidene-1,1-bisphosphonate leads to a rapid liquidation of the organs.

At most, you will have a week to live, during which the blackouts will become more common as your body slowly dissolves to a gelatinous goo.

Unfortunately, this type of exposure is almost always a death sentence. I’m sorry.”

He said it with a robotic expression, as though he had done this a million times before.

To him, I was just another dying patient.

“However, since Mr. Aesclepius takes full responsibility for the accident, he will pay for your medical bills.”

“WHAT GOOD DOES THAT DO? Within a week, I will be no more than a pile of radon dust. You might as well just shoot me with a turbo encabulator right now, because at least then I won’t have to suffer for another week.”

“Luckily, there is a new experimental treatment plan. Since your body is fully compromised and there is no hope for survival in your current body, advances in neural networks have allowed us to create a mechanical replica of your every feature. Please note, however, that this work is still an experimental process and that Mr. Aesclepius would take no responsibility in the success or failure of the medical procedure. If you wish to proceed and transfer your consciousness to a machine, sign this contract.”

And, as though I were making a Faustian bargain, as though I were sacrificing my life for a greater purpose, I signed my life away. Clutching my wretched signature, the doctor 81

eternity eternit

Blu PHOTO Zach Bashour hurriedly scattered away as nitrous oxide began filling the room. My body tingled as the robotic surgeons rushed in. They ticked with a click of circuits as one moved, almost haphazardly, from one place to another. The light became dimmer, dimmer, and dimmer until finally, it became black.

Light streaked across the sky, and lightbulbs turned on and off rapidly. The wallpaper might as well have been the sun; it burned to even look at. Flash. Flash.

Flash. The only place I could glance at without feeling a tingling was that Vantablack door. The sound of heartbeats droned everything into nothing. The hospital smelled of gasoline, of pain, and of sorrow.

Everything had worked.

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Light flooded in; sound was no more.

Instead of feeling temperature, instead of feeling hot or cold, a sense of discomfort or comfort, all I felt was the cold hard nothingness of myself. I felt like a guitar string; I could feel the vibrations of the guitar, and therefore, knew that I was supposed to be feeling something, yet I could not hear the music. I could feel the cords of my body, but could feel neither the rhythm nor the rhyme. I was nothing, but I had everything. I could metaphorically see the strings move, I could feel the vibrations, but their true feeling, their true sound, evaded me. Thump, Thump, Thump. The door screamed open, and the man in radiant white methodically advanced toward me.

“As you probably know, this will take some adjustment time. The light levels are going to seem brighter or darker, but the feeling should eventually transform to some level of comfort.” His stomach was quite distracting; it kept on making a fizzing sound. “However, to prevent you from accidentally hurting yourself through sheer clumsiness, we have added some additional programs to ensure that you will not fall or accidently hurt yourself. We have added some features to prevent such accidents, as neither Mr. Aesclepius nor I wish you to die anytime soon. Mr. uuhh Tithonus, do you have any questions?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do.” I talked with such a human voice that I even surprised myself. “First of all, what exactly powers my core? Obviously, the brain function will consume an exponential amount

ty eternity eternity eternity eternity of information; the more memories I have, the more memories I have to search over time.”

“Yes, your core uses the newest advances in small high-powered radioactive decay. It uses a thorium uranium compound capable of giving off 10,000 watts per second for over ten billion years. Even our most advanced quantum computer, a differential girdle spring alarm, cannot calculate the exact date, but it is estimated that you will never need any repairs. We have already added self-repairing spiderbot units that will travel through your metallic vessel, detect any possible problem, and fix it automatically.

They are equipped with a state-of-the-art plasma welder to repair any physical damages, as well as an adaptive ghost-writing script which will ensure that your body will never experience any unintentional harm. Furthermore, if harm does occur, they have implemented an Adaptive Analytical Artificial Network using Deep Learning sinusoidal techniques to avoid future dangers. This combination should ensure that the vessel will last for an eternity. Furthermore, we have added an ACB chip drive to allow you to download further information with ease. Mr Aesclepius gives you his best wishes; he is off to Adonis.”

“What of my body?”

“Given its current state, it is being

“

disposed of by ejection into the Dodonaic solar system, where it will burn up in the binary star system of Castor and Pollux. It is incredibly radioactive, and there was no hope of ever using it again.” With that, the man left as methodically as he had entered, as though his program had terminated.

Although I had never possessed strong spatial recognition, I could now envision the most likely path my body would take to its funeral and see where it finally would become nothing.

I realized that my makers had already added an interplanetary map as well as a mondial random magento reluctance calculator and a complex understanding of modern physics. I slowly stretched my skeleton hands, and like a toddler about to take its first step, I extended one leg first and slowly put weight on it. Immediately, I lost control and, for a moment, served only as an observer while my body acted of its own accord. Soon, walking became nothing more than my thinking where I wanted to go. My Internal Positioning System would find the shortest route and guide my body towards that destination. I frequented the library, and soon downloaded all known books of the universe. I traveled the galaxies, fixing problems, because now, my mind did not have to worry about normal things as others did. I never had to eat, I never had

I talked with such a human voice that I even surprised myself ”

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“

I was a god in this universe ” to sleep, and almost every movement was programmed. Soon, others began copying my methods and found their own success.

I soon made scientific advancements in numerous fields; I lived like a king, and my library was infinite. Everything there was to know, I knew. But after some time, I came back to my original home, picked up a pen, and wrote these words: To Whom It May Concern: I was a god in this universe; nothing could outsmart me, nothing could overpower me, and nothing could outlive me. I have lived a million lives. I can quote whole books of Shakespeare, disprove through pure logic all of Nietzsche’s claims, and speak every language recorded in all of time. I have broken impossible codes, made impossible discoveries, and lived a million lives. I can tell every word of my journey, recount every conversation I have had, and remember everything I have seen or thought about. I can quote Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Brawlson and can derive Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity and Melampus’s equation of human interaction, all from memory. I have become a god and seen all the wonders of the universe.

But when you become a god, when you can literally live 10,000 lives and do billions of things, nothing is meaningful.

When you understand everything, there is nothing to know. When you have lived for thousands of years, each second is worth84

less and, in the grand scheme of life, inconsequential. I have watched the mountains form, the stars age, and seas evaporate.

Everything that can be done has already been done; there are no problems left to solve. Hunger is no more, sickness is archaic, and human suffering is a legend to our generation. Every problem has been solved, every thought has been explored, and every action has been made. There is nothing left to do.

My life has become a forever cocktail party, and I finally have become drunk on life. Initially, I felt godlike, invincible, and all-powerful. But now, I have become Frankenstein’s monster, never truly alive, yet absolutely dead, a grotesque form of my past self and a nightmare to my future.

Goodbye, old world filled with pain, pleasure, and suffering. Goodbye, new world, full of happiness, full of life, and full of joy. I have lived too long, and although my body is artificial, my human soul is natural and has lived far too long for any mortal.

The raven is here. I bid thee farewell.

To whomever reads this, make not my mistakes. Sir Tithonus Kant And with that warning, I took a crimson plasma blade and tried to penetrate my hull, ending my journey. I couldn’t. My arms would not bring the blade near me.

I tried again, but to no avail. I was a god trapped in a mortal body, a fallen angel sent to scourge the depths of hell. I tried to get up, but the machine would not listen. I tried to walk, but the machine would not budge. Because I had become an unneces-

Auguries of Innocence William Blake

“ To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour

” Poets of the English Language (Viking Press, 1950)

eternity eternity eternity eternit

eternity eternity eternity

inspired by

Come to Light PHOTO Zach Bashour

sary danger to the machine’s life, my body inhibited my ability to move. As though I were a ghost, a ventriloquist, or a nebulous consciousness, I lay there, watching my body move, talk, and live, while I remained powerless. Death is the hope and the

burden of all animals, and it is death that controls the natural world order. Nothing else can and nothing else will. My life had become a joke with no punchline, as I aimlessly drifted through space, waiting in vain for death. An eternity in a flower.

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Pure

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PHOTO Anashay Monga

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Neighbours SHORT STORY Tomek Marczewski

I

used to live next to a bearded man.

There wasn’t much else of note about him. He was of average height, average build, and his house and car spoke of average wealth. The only remarkable thing about him was his facial hair. Ten years I was his neighbour, and not once did I see him without his beard perfectly groomed. It hung right down to the base of his neck, and while it grew longer on occasion, it was never a hair shorter (and of course, there was never a hair out of place).

I saw the bearded man exactly twice a week. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning I would wheel out the bins for collection, and there he would be, cloaked in a bathrobe, standing like a shorter, chubbier Adonis under the soupy clouds of the morning, expressing any necessary emotions with a precise ruffle of his fuzz or inclination of his head. He would wave, just so, and I would wave back, and we would both go back to our respective houses to get ready for work. That is to say, I got ready for work, and the bearded man did whatever it is bearded men do in the small hours of the morning.

I can remember a particular occasion, on a Thursday in late November if my memory serves me correctly, on which he failed to show up on time. Fraught with worry for my bewhiskered compatriot, I strode up to his door and raised my hand in a fist, as if to knock. But as I stood there, my bathrobe flapping in the cold breeze, I felt rather foolish about invading the privacy of a man with whom I had never

exchanged words, and I paused. I remained in the position for a good moment as I contemplated the pros and cons of involvement with such a strange individual, but was soon robbed of the choice as the door swung open to reveal him, in his customary robe, with the beard trimmed, as always, to its standard length. His eyes mirrored mine in widening, but upon seeing my bins displayed proudly at the bottom of the driveway, his expression sobered, and he gave me a restrained nod. By this moment, my hand had been lowered and sheepishly tucked into my pocket. I gave my own nod in response to his and stepped out of the shadow of his portico to make the trek back to my own house. I couldn’t fail to notice, however, the strands of grey that clung to the collar of his robe.

The following Tuesday I looked over and saw that the bearded man was gone.

His average car had left the driveway, and the beige curtains had disappeared from the windows. I wouldn’t see him again. I tried to fill that void with a beard of my own, trimmed just right, but the whiskers I ended up with fell a hair short.

I’ve had many neighbours over the years, though few meant as much to me as the bearded man. Some of them were great talkers, and others were great listeners.

Some (like the bearded man) were neither. I loved them still. For when the bins were set out and the day began, there would be none left who treated me like neighbours.

The train to work was full of others like me. We never spoke a word to each other, and their chins wore the facial hair of company policy: none. Through the corridors of the tube station, in the queue at the news kiosk, in the elevators at work,

“ There would be none left who treated me like neighbors.

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”

there would be shouting, but not a single matter? Perhaps so. Then again, perhaps word of meaning, and certainly no nods of not. I have never professed myself to be an acknowledgment. At my desk, the papers expert on emotions. It might be why I so would be stacked high, and I’d sit there for appreciated the conciseness and simplicity a moment, overwhelmed by the inky figures of bearded conversation. I do wish I had that filled each page’s lines. I can remember found a way to have one of my own. I a time when I would be happy at that first would’ve taken care of it well. After all, it taste of the day’s work. It seems a long time only needed a daily wash and trim—a nice, behind me now. feasible amount of maintenance. A beard One day the numbers sprouted. wouldn’t have needed food, attention, Roots burst from the zeroes, leeching the smiles, warmth, tenderness, love, or any one page of the little colour it possessed to of the myriad things that I needed Martha’s nourish the budding stems that tentativehelp to provide. Maybe the missing fragly poked out of the ones and threes and ment of adulthood was lost in the tears we twined like the hairs of a familiar beard. I never shed for her. tried to trim these saplings, but they would Eventually, the saplings forced me tonever listen, reaching ever further towards wards the light. As with the beard, however, the beautiful light that streamed through I came up just short. My daughter came to the window. I had no choice but to let them me again afterwards. I didn’t know her anyout. A few times, I considered joining them, more. She had a baby in her eyes and worry leaping to seize the light like the day I had in her arms, and she spoke in such unrecignored my Latin teachers’ ognisably languid tones instructions to. The light that I couldn’t see but for a was always so far away, long-unknown wetness bethough, while the coffee low the eyebrows. But she machine was just down the wasn’t my daughter. Not hall. this tall, long-haired womI had a daughter an. She was my caretaker. I once. She came to me very loved her like a neighbour. small, but by the time she We didn’t speak left she was almost fully much in those last few grown. I’ve been told they weeks, though I told her a tend to do that. I doubt she lot. I spoke of the beardever completely grew up, ed man, the care, order, though everyone always and normality of his life; said so. I could see that last of Martha, and who she piece she needed in the stick Stairwell to Hell was, and who I was, and figure drawing I hung over who I became; and I tried PHOTO Owen Simon my coffee machine. Or mayto speak of how hard be it was abandoned in the bouquet we laid I had tried for her. Yet even as I shaped down at the cemetery. It’s odd—I remember those words with my lips, I could feel them details of that day very clearly: the bite of slipping between and escaping. Lost. And in the not-yet-spring February wind; the itchy that moment before the last, as she looked jumper I chose to stave it off; the smooth, at me—as they all looked at me, I saw that cool touch of Martha’s marble. I just can’t my collar was strewn with grey hairs. I supremember the looks on their faces. Does it pose it was time for me to leave too.

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Among the Mountains NONFICTION William Fitzpatrick

A

s I stepped out of the warm, safe car, I was met with the vast beauty of the Andes. From my high vantage point, the mountains pimpled the earth like little molehills, a flip in perspective from when I was closer to sea level. Although my horrible eyesight is an inaccurate judge, they were spotless white, only a few earthy cliffs and deep green trees on each one. My dad was there too, but we paid little attention to each other because the mountains provided all the entertainment either of us needed at that moment.

We were both avid snow skiers: My dad practically grew up in Breckenridge, Colorado, and he passed that passion to me. Being the only son and the last child, I always felt the pressure of being the “man’s man” type of son, the All-American star quarterback, the kid that goes on fishing trips every weekend. Although I never enjoyed either of those activities, skiing was our version of a fishing trip. For a few days I could forget about questions like “You wanna go throw the football?” which always made me feel like I was misaligned.

After gawking at the endless waves of blinding-white peaks, we turned to Skyler, our guide for the day. He looked exactly like I imagined an Alaska native who ran a backcountry skiing business would. He

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was not the bodybuilder type, just cut. At six-foot-three, he had long, flowing blond hair with a scruffy yet well-kept beard to match. The longer I looked at him, the more he matched his profession. Although he was what I wanted to be, I did not hold it against him. Concisely, we were exact opposites, but somehow shared a common interest.

Skyler gave me a subpar explanation on how to ride a snowmobile: whichever way it’s turning, lean that way. Acquainted

Powdery Bliss PHOTO Anashay Monga

Onyx PHOTO Hudson Brown 92

“

Gliding down this blanket set by mother nature, I felt a connection with the mountain ” with the basics, we set out for our first slope of the day.

The mostly mellow five-minute ride left us at the top of a similarly mellow mountain. Scouting my path, the lack of any hazards blew me away. Despite being completely untouched by man, this mountain in the Chilean backcountry looked as if someone had designed it in a lab. I looked over the run again and again, trying to spot anything which could force my path unexpectedly, but the more time I dedicated, the more perfect this area became.

I finally came to terms with nature and pushed myself over the threshold, trusting intuition and quick thinking. Instantly the perfection of this specific blanket of snow rushed over me. Within seconds I was not skiing, but floating. Gliding down this blanket set by Mother Nature, I felt a connection with the mountain. With gravity pulling me down the slope, I grew closer to this massive rock. I forgot about everyone else behind me; the sleeping mountain and I were the only two things that mattered in that moment. I looked down at my skis briefly, but they were not even sinking into the powder as if the mountain itself was using its massive hands to hold only me on top of its cold blanket. With each shallow, carving turn, I understood the mountain more. I knew its goals and motives. The snow had become an overgrown head of hair, and I had just become the barber giv-

ing a friend a trim.

I did not have a watch, but after what felt like fifteen minutes on a single run, I arrived at the flat end. Standing in the valley, I looked to the other white hills which encompassed me; then I looked to where I had just come from. My eyes tracing my tracks back up to the top, I reminisced as if those few seconds a moment ago were my glory days twenty years ago. I looked, feeling completely at home among these looming, soft mountains.

A few minutes later, my father gracefully slid into the valley, followed by the rest of the crew. Since neither my dad nor I had gone backcountry skiing before, the guides began to question us on our feelings about the run. We said nothing to them at first, trying to formulate our exact feelings on the experience we adjust shared. My dad stood between the run and me, so as I turned my head towards the run, my eyes found him standing there. And although our eyes were masked by our goggles, they locked. And although our mouths were masked by our neck gaiters, we smiled at each other. Even with no words exchanged, we both knew this experience would stay with us until our deathbeds like some inexplicable, unbreakable bond. And although Skyler was the type of guy my dad and I wanted me to be, I knew at that moment neither of us would change anything about me.

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Golden Scar Sappy skies cry on Judgment Day to swallow sleeping Earth’s abrupt Breath. Fragile pines rest beneath the Proprietor of people — straining his neck.

What happens when whispers fall silent, Weary of hiding from Heaven’s open duct?

Wrinkled clouds drag their tongues over a Proud, forgetful canvas. Washing the brush, Narrow gaps squeeze spines against the Ceiling. We suffocate. Burnt crust dreams of glue to Grip the slipping heart within. Buried Beneath those too lucky, fire burns on.

Revolution carries a bountiful burden. And we drift— Slowly—above the boundless depth of Heaven’s rift.

POETRY Camden Reeves

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CLAUSTROPHOBIA PHOTO Anashay Monga

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wood & metal 96

76230 Henry Schechter

Pierced Table Julian Carlson

best of show Dowels Charlie Hill Circles Henry Hoak

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Constellations Alex Nadalini Bent Shaan Mehta untitled Jake Park

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best of show

Tangled Will Shoup

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The Unchosen

Margerie PHOTO Anashay Monga

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POETRY Ekansh Tambe & Daniel Uglunts We, the tortured, we weep, Our hot skins once used in futile passion now melt into obscurity; before you, our “Savior” Keep your Lord.

Let Him guide you, for our lingering souls must wander in peace in the next world.

What of us, those of us who are unchosen?

The sons and daughters of Sinners. what of our skin, that blisters and scars; we punished by your scaled arms.

The Earth steams as our tendons and bones fuel the scalding deluge; We have been cleansed of the Earth, those of us who are unchosen.

We who are condemned as Hell floods our homes. who run and scream and now fall into Damnation’s arms.

As your forty days’ rain trickles down the throats and lungs of my sisters of my daughters of my people.

Forgive us.

O we depraved spirits unsaved untouched.

I no longer breathe the air you breathe drink the water you drink.

But the water within my lungs tastes so bitter in vain, in vain, in vain.

O Ararat, bestow your blessings onto Them.

amen.

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Immorta Office NONFICTION Soham Verma

E

very day for the last four years, I’ve come home from crew practice and peeked into my father’s office.

The walk, starting from the garage door, through the living room and its CNN-laden TV, past the all-too-narrow staircase, and down the cold, cold marble path leading up to the office (no shoes in the house for me so socks will have to do), has become muscle memory. Night after night, I return from school to gaze through the sacred glass doors before I make my way upstairs to get along with my night.

The office I pursue is quaint; in all honesty, the thirty-foot ceilings dilate to the pupils the otherwise small, twenty-by-twenty feet, dimly lit room. Under the thin glass doors runs soft beige carpeting, interrupted by a mid-century Mediterranean rug, probably of Turkish origin, atop which sits the mahogany-esque desk. The walls are peaceful; sometimes I get lost in their grey flatness, wondering how placid and simple they are in a house obsessed with complexity.

It doesn’t quite fit in. Though there really isn’t a lot happening with the room’s sleek, straightforward construction, it’s curiously attractive, a certain indescribable charm ra-

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diating from inside of the plain façade that resembles the face of an unremarkable man who knows great stories. Simple though it may seem, it packs a hidden punch.

Often, I’ll peek in to see my father in the office, his constant and faithful companion. I’m not sure how conducive the room is to work; an atmosphere of indecision, it couldn’t even decide if it wanted to be nineteenth century or modern, so it chose to be both. The focal point of the room, though, is that big desk in the middle: dark brown with a hint of red (hence mahogany-esque).

But even the desk’s grandness is confined by its size. Looking like a solid two hundred pounds, it resembles an 1860s Shaker table; it wants nothing more than to be just a desk. On the desk is a cyclone of loose papers, contracts, PnL sheets, and whatnot, all on top of a giant calendar that sits on the leather-lined desktop. What stands out (or smells out), though, are the cigarette burn marks all over the calendar. Something about the chemical composition of whatever that shiny calendar paper is made from that liberates this odor; it probably is not good for me to be breathing, but it’s strange how much I can recall about the office

Monochrome PHOTO Anashay Monga through just its smell.

My father, always behind the desk when I pass by, is much like his office – simple (and maybe a little unorganized).

Often, I’ll see him with his eyes closed as he leans into the iPad speakers, listening keenly to the sounds of a colleague, the silence a telltale of his internal deliberation. In these moments, his body is perfectly still. Solid, Studious. The intensity with which he keeps his eyes shut scrunches his forehead. It’s then that I know my father is holding back his words; it’s visible how deeply in thought he is, his hands as calm as a sequestered Vermont lake at 5 a.m. Often, he just sits and listens.

Over the years, time hasn’t marred this holy view. My ritual is virtually unchanged, but the office is somehow intangible to me. Every night, along my pilgrimage, I’ll stop where the marble meets the

carpet. My view is skewed by about thirty degrees, and projected on the glass double doors are two images. The one on the left is my father, the man who works here every night. The image on the right, though, is caught in the light’s glare, acting as a pseudo-mirror, and reflecting my image onto the glass: The age-old comparison of father and son. What wisdom has the learned and discerning father imparted to his son? What shoes will he leave behind to be filled?

In my mind, it’s all a mirage, and my father isn’t there. Staring back at me, beside my own reflection, through this ungodly portal of time, is the man I want to be. Every evening that I come back to this office, staring at me is a different man, an older man. Day by day, his aging gaze imprints itself on me. The man I see isn’t getting any closer or any farther.

He has and always will remain away from me. I’ll never catch him, not in this life.

I'll never catch him, not in this life

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POETRY Evan Lai Hidden behind childish visages and snow-white dresses, Trauma taints infantile aspirations, dying with Armageddon ash.

Aryan blond frames inquisitive eyes teeming with guesses That deflect prying glances from discerning spirits abash.

Not that pedestrians peer at forgotten adolescence, Long deprived of parents, life, and love.

Gray garbs blend into gradual monotonous fluorescence Foretelling fate for the white wardrobe and a black glove.

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A Generation’s War PHOTO Nathan Meyer

Innocence Darting by, we don’t register ramifications Loneliness leaves on children. The collective Fear renders people in underground stations Ignorant of fearless kids with nothing left to give.

Sirens searing, heavens homing with bombs alit, All I recall is the muddy cigarette unlit.

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at rest

Bokeh PHOTO Anashay Monga

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POETRY Daniel Uglunts Brazen bull of my affection leave my mind be this eve of mourn, for tomorrow’s calm rejection sweeps you and your heart, reborn.

Today you’ll pester me for love: “You troubled soul, leave that alone.”

And when tomorrow comes to shove, I’ll crumble—drowned, beaten, torn.

From behind you’ll chew my mind and taste the bitter words I’ve told, and from within, well, there you’ll find my gilded memories of old.

You’ll stifle music, snuff out shine, but one day all of that will cease.

One day, I’ll rise up, divine, and offer you a branch of peace.

You hate my blissfulness, my fun; It pains you seeing me so free.

Why should a boy, then, be undone by your corrosive midnight plea?

I’m here, you stunning young Chimaera, plotting quietly on the bed.

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heaven

PHOTOS Hudson Brown

NONFICTION Morgan Chow Iridescent PHOTO Blake Backes

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O

ne Sunday, I, fourth-grade Morgan, walked out of the barber shop with a particular bowl-shaped haircut that wasn’t perfect, to say the least. I didn’t think it was that bad when I looked at it from far away enough, but my classmates thought differently. At school the next day, I was christened with a new nickname — Kim Jong-Un. I’m not even Korean.

The phrase “Where are you really from?” has been thrown around a fair amount in my life, a hurtful statement that spawned from the view that Asians are outsiders. But I’m American; I was born here, I was raised here, I live here. I belong just as much as any of my classmates. My heritage might be different, but isn’t that what being American has always been about?

Think about movies you’ve seen and songs that you’ve listened to. How much of that content came from Asian-American artists?

It goes without saying that the numbers are lacking. When I was younger, the situation was only worse. On-screen, I saw no Asian actors. The ones that existed played either anti-social nerds or master martial artists able to knock out entire armies with a single kick. On the radio, it was no better. The closest thing to representation was Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” a song still used exclusively for laughs.

As a primarily music-focused artist, this lack of representation began to deteriorate my confidence. Everyone who looked like me became a doctor or a lawyer, so I thought that meant I had to become one too. Honestly, I started to believe I was an anomaly because there was no one to

tell me otherwise. There were no inspiring stories, no I did it and so can you speeches, no role models to mold my path after.

Eventually, music didn’t seem worthwhile to this Chinese boy seemingly meant only for academic achievement.

That was until I discovered the media company and record label 88rising.

When I first discovered them two years ago, I was opened to a world of people like me. I finally had the stories, the speeches and the role models to guide me along my own musical path. It was a breath of fresh air, and their existence has encouraged me to create and do things I had only imagined before. I created a soundtrack, performed at a coffeehouse, wrote my first song; I would have never had the confidence to try any of it without them.

In the first week of November, I had the opportunity to travel to Los Angeles and attend the company’s third annual music festival Head In the Clouds. This two-day event featured over thirty AsianAmerican and Asian artists from around the globe and catered food inspired by the open-air nighttime bazaars of Asia. Of course, getting to see my favorite artists for the first time in person was a meaningful part of the trip, but the most unforgettable moment was when I first stepped foot on to the festival grounds.

Looking around the stadium field, the only thing I could think was, They all look just like me. The crowd, the stands, the artists on stage, they were all people like me.

And for the first time,

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A Passing Plea POETRY Daniel Uglunts My hands show your reigning midnight sun, the times you stumbled, crumbled, unleashed the love, the silent gash of pouring flame; it was all true.

Today I thumbed the disintegrating letters kept all this time–I’m a fool, I refuse to see my scars, those you re-opened with full force.

Wrinkled eyes fixed upon that truetelling gypsy, a discarded people’s force used to summon your soul, kept locked away. The air like ice, an ocean of knives, but then, love died. Gone, but don’t let me see those wishes sung only to the sea, those desires I knew to be true, those days spent expending my love, those eyes glaring back, o that force, those memories burned up in sun, I pity the little joy you kept.

It was on that day, I stood barely kept upright your power, that day you refused to see the marvelously mysterious light of the sun.

Now, I find I doubt all I know to be true; My fingers claw for yours, but some force beyond the Lord’s has archived our love.

Up where time stretches boundless, and love draws angelic chuckles, beneath those gates, there’s kept one gilded proverb. Azrael’s charged, no, forced to guard that earthly chest. Before it, a sea of souls entrenched in blood, each seeking true consolation. Contained in His lesson: “Love is to be kept at the edge of the Sun; celestial force ensures its balance. One cannot foresee that which is kept in tomorrow’s pocket.”—it is the truth.

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A Passing Plea

These Crystalline Tears PHOTO Drake Elliott 113

prolife 114

the process of execution

iii. proliferation The nest is gathered. Newborn ideas populate and propagate the expanse of consciousness. The lattice of golden threads interweaves the soul of existence. In the refined twilight of judgment, an intricate narrative of birth, growth, and reflection informs the application of wisdom. In progeny, the eternal cycle is reborn.

FRINGE PHOTO Ekansh Tambe

eration

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Xander Bowles

the p the perfo

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rformer the performer the perfor mer The Performer the perfor ARTIST STATEMENT Xander Bowles

M

y first experience with drama was in first grade. Under the guidance of Ms. Glorioso and Mrs. Livengood, my thirty-one classmates and I put on the show Get Hoppin! I remember having a singing role with a few lines, but I certainly wasn’t the main character or the best actor on that stage by a long shot. Twelve years later, I find myself standing in the wings of the Black Box Theater, about to take the stage for my last theater performance as a St. Mark’s student. Over those twelve years, I played roles in fifteen different shows, from Kurt Von Trapp in The Sound of Music in fifth grade to Jack Kelly in Newsies senior year.

Having worked in the theater so intensively over the years, it’s hard for me to remember how I discovered it in the first place. When I stepped on stage for the first time in lower school, I was seven years old.

How was I to know this was something that would shape the next twelve years of my life? When I was in fifth grade, my mom got an email that Hockaday was putting on The Sound of Music with St. Mark’s Upper Schoolers but wished to cast a lower school actor to play one of the younger Von Trapp children. I had very little interest in this, and my mom had to twist my arm to get me to audition. However, she convinced me

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creativity is ffieedom creativity is ffieedom creativity is ffi that I had little to lose, and I should give it a shot just to see what happens. Much to my surprise, I ended up landing the part, and thus began a five-month process that I believe changed my life.

I realized for the first time that when I step on stage, I have a unique opportunity to express true creativity. I get to step outside of myself and become another person, with separate thoughts, feelings, and personality traits. That’s the most exhilarating part of drama for me. I get to step on stage and internalize a completely different narrative.

Through Sound of Music, I found my place—engaging in an art form that spoke to me and that I truly enjoyed.

In the seven years since that first big show, I’ve learned a lot through drama: one of the most important things I’ve learned is that theater is more for the audience than it is for me. I’ve been in the audience for plenty of stage shows, and the ones that are most impactful for me are those in which I feel completely immersed. Knowing that feeling, I put a lot of effort into becoming the character that I’m playing. That usually starts with reading the script and/or watching the professional production. If there’s a film version of the show, that is usually the best cast to perform the show, so I take a lot of inspiration from that while

still trying to make the character my own.

I also spend a lot of time working with my own cast. I’ve been so lucky to be a part of casts full of such talented people over the years. I get to not only play off of and get to know them but also learn from actors more experienced than I. Being able to fabricate a character from a bunch of different inspiration sources is key. I certainly could never play a character the same way as another actor, and that’s not a bad thing, but I like to steal different little things from professionals as I create my own identity.

The last big lesson I’ve learned from the theater applies to the rest of my life.

Creativity is all about freedom. The decisions an actor makes on stage are his and his alone. Sometimes I have to remind myself to feel confident in the things that I do on stage and not worry about the reactions of others. Criticism is part of performing.

I can’t make everyone happy, but I can learn from the criticism that does come my way while also focusing on the positive feedback. I believe the feedback an artist receives is the most gratifying thing that participation in the arts brings a person.

The fine arts community at St. Mark’s is one of great encouragement and pride, and I’m so thankful for all the years that I’ve had the opportunity to contribute to it.

“ Creativity is all about freedom. The decisions an actor makes on stage are his—and his alone

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”

PHOTOS Owen Simon

dom creativity is feedom creativity is feedom

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Unclean PHOTO Paul Valois

Re Renewal

Renewal

POETRY Daniel Uglunts Spring’s rains came early, And her eyes looked on us with favor.

Gripping the hands of yesterday’s wrath I run, beneath today’s deluge, With only tomorrow’s frigid whispers to comfort me.

They say: Keep him close to your heart.

One drop of truth To release the flood of loss.

Windows must remain boarded; Trains derailed, ropes taut.

Silent blood encased in promises.

Springs rains came early, And his eyes looked on me with disappointment.

“ One drop of truth to release the flood of loss ”

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Teardrops from Heaven PHOTO Owen Simon

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gorilla glue POETRY Zayn Bhimani

I need some Gorilla Glue, I’ll probably do a Walmart run in a day or two, I gotta fix my peeling laptop bottom and my wristwatch.

And maybe, while I have that glue, I’ll try it on one more thing, or two, To see if it works as well as the advertisements say it does.

I’ll apply it to my year-old shoe, I hope it mends my cell phone case too, I wonder if Gorilla Glue works on everything I could imagine.

I’ll squeeze some onto my broken heart, I’ll see if it fixes all things that fall apart, Maybe it will bring me back together with the people I left behind.

I need some Gorilla Glue, I’ll probably do a Walmart run in a day or two, I hope I can use it to heal the tears I’ve allowed to keep growing.

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March Mornin

Ascension PHOTO Evan Lai

A March Morning POETRY Caleb Vanzant

While the night has its fun, waiting patiently is the light, for the moment when all awakens; it is finally morning.

The sky sheds its darkness in exchange for a calm, dark blue, as a child sits in the dewy grass peeling his orange, enjoying the sweet snack in the early hours of this day in March.

Ants file in line, one by one, marching through blades of grass, guided by the mellow sunlight.

As he finishes his orange, another sweet scent allures the child to a patch of flowers nearby. This morning is as innocent as the child himself, who tosses his orange peels into the meadow as he walks under the vast blue sky. As he was inspecting the flowers, a breeze slowly blew through his straight, blonde hair. He marches into the center of the patch and carefully peels one from its roots, lightly filling in the dirt hole, and leaves the others mourning the flower’s absence. The sweet smelling rose was his mother’s favorite. “Sweetie,” she would affectionately call him, and her gentle blue eyes always comforted him. Every morning she would tend to her modest garden, hopeful for a flowery March.

The garden helped her escape from her plight.

Now, the child longs for the days when he woke up to freshly peeled oranges from the garden, peeled by his mother to greet her only child. Her sweetness embodied in those oranges, her inner light epitomized in her favorite blues tune. She died last March.

The child knows that mourning will not bring her back. So this morning, as he sits in the flower patch, in the meadow, under the sun, he peels away the petals of his new rose, one by one. March may bloom flowers and March might bring love, but the sweetest thought of all is that his blue eyed mother will forever be watching from above. The sunlight presides over this morning, and the child takes great delight.

Time will march on, and his mother’s sweetness will peel away, only to be found in that morning sky, so blue.

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Winter and Autumn PHOTO Evan Lai

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A sleepy cabin shivers in the fingers of winter Among the drooping speckled boughs of the birch Forest, each hardy pike now bare and dormant, Clothed in robes of snow. A warm thread of solace Weaves through crooked hinges, dappled with rust Of ages bygone, seeps past haggard furrows hewn Into stained timbers. Devotion speaks through hewn Beams, hard-won grit against the icy tide of winter, The inexorable cascades of frost-fed blades. And rust Cannot disfigure the dull gleam from crackling birch Logs under soot-coated clay. Sweet scented solace Shrouds time, a salve against raw agonies of dormant

Birches in Winter POETRY Adam Wang

Memories, her laughing summertime smile now dormant Under bitter, ashy dunes. Lines of remembrance hewn Into sallow leather, fighting the biting cold. Oh, solace, Searching introspection, isolation. The numb of winter Welcomes amnesia. A sweeping blank canvas. But birch Splinters pitted with dark scars beg remembrance of rust Colored stains on the dewy meadow mulberry red rust Steaming like sunlit ice off the crescent cleaver dormant Passions under pale skin like peeling paper bark of birch Trees around her strewn limbs gules stigma hewn…

Whispers shiver through bare reaching fingers as winter Freezes ghostly promises, blankets twisted thorns. Solace Against writhing snakes, inescapable murmurs. Solace Against prickling side-eyed suspicions numerous as rust Winged mayflies, felled in droves as the chill of winter Tempers the burning eye of discontent. All lies dormant, Oblivious to the hearth flickering weakly within hewn Walls frozen stony as a sepulchre. Only the tranquil birch Clearing gives testament to timeless tragedy, each birch Bowed under new-fallen snowdrifts. Shapeless solace At last fuels merciful slumber and softens hard hewn Edges beneath gauzy sheets, effaces splotched rust Stains. The glow subsides, worming into dormant Soil, burying itself in the welcome embrace of winter.

The birch trees stand silent, witness to cycles of winter Immemorial, to countless members hewn by the rust Coated blades of solace, sole confidants to spirits dormant.

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the sons and daughters of wanderers

PHOTOS Ekansh Tambe

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Westminster Kennel Club A

SHORT STORY Sampath Rapuri

ll Aartha could feel was dark coldness. Against the cold, gray steel of his artificial womb, his newborn peach fuzz stood up like the stiff bristles of a toothbrush. Even as the metal chamber began its undulating pulsations slowly moving Aartha towards the light, he could only mewl in protest, his soft cries muffled by the cage. Despite his having emerged from his subconscious only minutes ago, he already felt his new, infantile mind being dragged back down to an inky death. And Aartha would have slipped away just as soon as he had come into the world had it not been for the last thrust of his metal coffin, ejecting him into a sterile, white room. Crying profusely and letting out his first screams of terror, joy, and confusion into the world, he saw his loving father and mother around him with outstretched arms ready to swaddle him.

For the rest of the night, he knew he was in safe hands.

Aartha would soon grow up to be a normal boy in a normal neighborhood, in a normal city. He had green pastures where he and his friends could roam about and tip over cows, to the annoyance of Old Man Jenkins across the street. He had a loving family, an adorable baby brother, and all the toys a thirteen-year-old could want.

Simply put, he had it all. Still, even a perfect

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Desolate PHOTO Ekansh Tambe life can come crashing down in the blink of an eye.

With his naturally athletic build and bullish attitude, Aartha seemed like the farthest thing from a bookworm. But in his musty library within his family’s study, he was able to truly let his mind run free. Immersed in the works of literature’s towering figures like Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Edgar Allen Poe, he could escape the world he lived in.

“Hey, Hey, Hey, HEY. Wake up Aartha; get up already, you bookworm,” said his mom, scanning his still body with disapproval.

Yanked from his current swashbuckling pirate adventure, Aartha darted out of his mother’s grasp and groaned at her: “Mom, I already told you not to disturb me while I’m reading.”

And there it was again, that strange feeling he always got whenever his mother looked at him, as though electric centipedes were dancing across his skin. Aartha shivered and shook it off as he always did,

going back to his book.

“Are you okay, honey?” said his mother.

And as always, he replied with the same fake smile and enthusiastic nod of his head that he had practiced so many times before. What’s wrong with me? My mom has done nothing but love me, yet I still feel like she’s so foreign to me. I need to be grateful for what I have.

Just then, his brother crawled into the room. Aartha’s brother always relieved him from any stresses or worries of the day.

With his toothless smile, his brother Moksha melted his heart. Despite their age gap of more than a decade, they still shared the closest of connections.

“Oh, the wonders you’ll discover when you learn to read and write, Moksha,” said Aartha. “I really hope you’ll find the happiness and wonder that I find in books.” Sighing, Aartha picked up Moksha and carried him back to his crib. And he was again alone in his solitude. That night, he dreamt the same dream that he always dreamt.

It was Christmas morning when he sneaked downstairs to peek at his presents.

Opening the velvet-red ribbon atop the gift box sitting under the plastic Christmas tree, he saw a mess of oxidized and rusted-over electronic parts, platinum-spiked transistors, central processing units like green computerized road maps, and a hodgepodge of other assorted metal parts. Aartha had no idea where they had come from, but he decided to play pretend with his new gifts, smashing together the odds and ends.

Reaching further into the box, he dreamt 131

“

The skin and flesh slipped off their metal frame like rain on a lotus leaf ” of new adventures that he might have read about in a book — Space-faring pirates, robot aliens, or time travel.

“Youch!” Aartha yanked his hand away from the box and saw a bright drop of his blood swell on his index finger. It hurt, but not too much; he still instinctively sucked on his new injury, peering into the box to see what might have caused it.

Oblivious to the sharp juts of zinc-plated steel, he lasered in on a small corner of the gift box. There he could see a hand-carved wooden picture frame. Grabbing it, Aartha carefully withdrew it from the box, careful not to scratch it against the other metal bits.

In the middle of the frame, he could see a small photo of a ruined landscape with black snow slowly drifting down against a reddish-orange horizon. He could see skeletons of trees and a chilling feeling of déjà vu that creeped him out. And as he continued to stare at the photo, he let his gaze drop to the bottom of the photo where an antiquated signature stood out. Scrunched and dilated letters dominated the signature. Correcting the irregularly spaced letters, Aartha formed the letters into a word within his mind — “Remember!”

What a curious signature. I’ve never seen someone sign a photo like this. Putting the photo back in the frame, he accidentally brushed his pricked finger, which had welled up with another droplet of blood against the back of the photo. Thinking nothing of it, Aartha put the frame back in 132

the box and continued to have imaginary aerial fights as a daring pilot or a courageous firefighter battling a blazing fire.

Amidst his play, the photo started to grow warmer and warmer until the plastic of the box started melting together into a disfigured conglomerate. Soaked in night sweats, he tore the blankets off. It’s way too hot in here.

Walking to the bathroom with a change of clothes, Aartha tried to wash his face and get rid of the damp heat he felt.

He was never sure if his dream was real or fake. It was probably his prescience, a forgotten memory, or a dramatic story his brain had contrived. Out of the corner of his eye, the melted face of his parents and brother appeared. But for some reason, behind the sharp, angled nose of his mom and deep blue eyes of his dad, he saw the same mess of jumbled electronic parts he had seen in the gift box. The skin and flesh slipped off their metal frame like rain on a lotus leaf.

He smashed the mirror to clear himself of these useless thoughts and tried to go back to bed while the same haunting images flashed in his mind over and over. The next morning, he tried to go out to play with his friends and read his books to continue the same vein of normalcy. Yet, he couldn’t function properly, feeling like a hollow shell of his former self. He couldn’t stop obsessing about his nightmare, even though he had dreamt of the same thing many times.

Necropolis PHOTO Sal Hussain “Honey, your dad and I will be out for a bit. Take care of your brother for half an hour for me. Love you!” said Aartha’s mom.

With a wavering semblance of his usual plastic smile, Aartha waved back and replied with a feeble “See you later.” He was shaken to his core. Instead of being his usual flippant self, Aartha was confused, hurt, and trying to make sense of his surroundings. His mom was no longer his mom. Her being was a perversion of his former image of her. Besides, the thinking machines that he had read about in his books were never believable. They were merely calculators on wheels, capable of simple numeric operations to achieve a desired output. Comparing them with his mother, he could imagine their droning, emotionless speech and rigid motion. How could a machine possibly express his mother’s tender love, tears of sadness, and even sarcasm? There was no way that technology

could make an imitation that real.

Rubbing his forehead to relieve himself of the conundrum, Aartha turned towards his brother: “Moksha, how do you maintain your smile? You smile regardless of what you feel. How do you accept everything as it is? Do you never wonder about life’s mysteries?” With a chuckle, he continued “Am I so desperate that I find solace in confiding in my toddler brother?” Frustrated and angry, Aartha sighed. What am I to believe and how do I trust anyone with this without seeming crazy?

He heard a loud bang on the door, and the windows in the room shattered.

He could see men wearing brightly colored tie-dyed t-shirts and bandannas standing outside, holding nasty-looking weapons.

The front door burst open, and the apparent leader of those men, a lanky twentyfive-year-old whose shirt proudly screamed “Stick It to the MAN!” walked up to Aartha and Moksha. He held out his bony 133

hand and said, “What’s up, little dudes? My name’s Echo, and I’m here to free you from the plastic cage that you live in. Peace and love to both of you.”

Is this guy mentally ill? Or did Mom and Dad get me a clown as a surprise? Confused, Aartha poked and prodded at the guy, confirming that he wasn’t just a product of his own imagination and mental fatigue. Once Aartha was able to calm down, he asked Echo what he had hoped to gain by breaking into their house. Echo repeated the same message. This time, however, he added that both Aartha’s mom and dad had been “deactivated.”

“What do you exactly mean by ‘deactivated?’” asked Aartha.

“They were shut down,” replied Echo. “We applied a charge to their motherboards and overloaded their semiconductor memory. They’re no longer puppets controlled by the Man. Instead, we released them back into Mother Nature’s loving embrace.”

All of this was going back to Aartha’s nightmare about the singed hair and plastic flesh falling off of the metal frames of his parent’s bodies. The titanium frame that contained millions of intertwined, red, green, and blue copper wires. And the haunting, light-emitting diodes in their optical cavities. Again, Aartha felt a powerful wave of nausea hit him. He heaved

“

and tried to throw up the contents of his stomach, of his past life. Nothing would come up, though. He was disgusted, saddened, and enraged at the same time. If those things that he had called Mom and Dad for the past thirteen years were simply calculators that could walk and talk, what had his life been so far? Was it a great, big cosmic prank on him to be aired on a galactic reality TV show? How had he been played like a ragdoll the entire time?

Thinking back to his beloved books, he thought of what their characters might do in such a situation. No, they all had clear goals and enemies to face.

More importantly, they had something to fight for. What have I got?

Echo shook him back from his thoughts: “Little man, it’s time to head out. The people The Man sent will soon come searching for you guys.”

Dazed, Aartha took Moksha and followed Echo out the door and into the waiting van. If nothing has been real for the past thirteen years, what can be real going forward? Do I really know what love, hate, jealousy, or grief are when all my emotions have been modulated by machines?

Behind him, the other masked men started pouring gasoline all over his house.

Striking a match, one of the men flicked it at an open window. The roar of the flames

We applied a charge to their motherboards and overloaded their semiconductor memory.

They’re no longer puppets controlled by the Man

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”

A Booming Nothing PHOTO Zach Bashour

called Aartha back to his nightmare. He turned around and saw the flames licking the fake faces of his parents, their burning flesh and hair filling the air with an acrid, raw odor.

And then he ran, tears streaming down his eyes. I should be over this. I already know the truth. But why does it hurt so much?

Aartha continued running on and on, away from his brother, away from the flames, and away from Echo. He ran until he could no longer run; the lactic acid in his calves building up to the point of grinding the mechanical pumping of his legs to a halt. He then sat down and cried.

On the outskirts of the city, he stared back blankly at all he had once known.

Everything was still the same, but at the same time, it wasn’t. His experiences and memories were all real, but they were artificial and mechanically created. I’m stuck in an endless loop with no end in sight. I need to shatter the glass and wake up. Aartha wanted to live an authentic life, a life not as a puppet controlled by thinking machines but as a human being, directed by a pink, three-pound organic mass inside his skull.

One week went by, and Aartha’s plan to live an authentic life wasn’t working out too well. His fleshy body had become emaciated due to the lack of food and water. Unfortunately, a self-sufficient life wasn’t as easy as he imagined it to be. The characters in his favorite books had never prepared him for this. Still, even in his hunger-stricken state, he was glad to have experienced something he could call his own. For the first time, he felt himself to be something original and organic, free of any robotic interference or control. His newfound happiness, however, wasn’t enough to feed him.

As he wandered further from the outskirts of the town to find food, the idyllic scenery morphed into something more sinister. The green grass faded away along a continuum until it was just blades of charcoal sticking up from the earth, perfectly preserved. The earth was scorched, and a black snow covered the ground. The air was devoid of life. And the few trees left behind were in the same condition as the grass – bare skeletons serving as a reminder of what once had been. It was the same as 135

the crazy photo from his dream. The word “Remember” echoed around in his head, ricocheting off the sides of his skull and blasting his frontal lobe with an eerie sense that he had seen all of this before, but he had no idea exactly where or when Out on the horizon, he could vaguely make out of a series of metal chambers, each moving and rotating. Venturing further, he saw that each one was marked with a numeric label — “Generation 1 - Subject 01” and “Generation 1 - Subject 02” until the last chamber read “Generation 2 – Subject 01.” Stomach growling, he had no idea of what he could possibly find within in this metal pillbox. His curiosity got the best of him, and he found himself putting his hand on the latch of the chamber to open it. From the chamber came a burst of a clear goop. It smelled earthy and sickeningly sweet, reminding him of the primordial soup in which life had first developed. After the chamber drained, he probed around further inside to see if anything else was lurking within.

A small, pinkish unborn child still in its prenatal phase was curled in the very center of the pod. It sickened Aartha that he had knowingly killed an unborn, eightmonth-old fetus, but that wasn’t what shocked him the most. From head to toe, the fetus looked just like Aartha had looked when he was a baby. Our noses have the same arc, our eyes are the same deep green, and even our fingerprints match.

He could barely comprehend his own existence and was just beginning to make sense of his purpose in life, and Aartha wasn’t prepared to see his own infant clone.

Everything around him seemed to have been designed to dehumanize him and strip 136

Eye in the Sky PHOTO Hudson Brown away his individuality. He felt that he no longer had any place in the world and that life would continue to go on in its cold and relentless pace even if he was no longer a part of it. He half chuckled: Besides, leaving this world will at least allow me to escape my hunger.

In his hunger-fueled hallucinations, he finally realized that he was part of an endless cycle stretching back hundreds of years, the knowledge and experiences of his predecessors breaking free from a cerebral cage hidden deep within himself. He was but a cog in a grand machine, a part of a continuous cycle. Humanity had long ago perished in some forgotten political squabble and its ensuing nuclear winter. To ensure the preservation of their species, those long-ago humans had attempted to establish a breeding program. However, due to the nuclear fallout that rained down upon the earth, they had been unsuccessful, save for one child who demonstrated an immunity to the radiation. That child turned out to be Aartha, and the child he had just seen in its

“

...cycle of misery and meaninglessness against the background of ceaseless universal entropy that inched closer to earth each day

” fetal state was the next “patch” or version of him. The same being, with one or two altered base pairs in the billion-letter genome of As, Cs, Ts, and Gs. He wasn’t unique. He was like a dog prized for its pedigree. To ensure that humanity’s “show dog” would be taken care of, humans used the latest generation of artificial intelligence to simulate the six emotions that are essential to normal human development — happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise.

Just as Aartha was devolving further into his madness, one of the metal pills opened up and ejected a curly-haired infant. It looked like Moksha. In his heart, Aartha immediately knew what that meant.

Because of his blind carelessness and blind recklessness, he had allowed Moksha to remain with Echo, thinking that Echo cared about them, unlike their robot parents.

Damn those humans; they were such perfectionists that they even trained their AIs to imitate rebellious humans. Now society has itself a warring faction led by Echo and his crusade against “The Man.” Robot against robot, a bloodless and senseless war resulting from careless programming. Who would ever have thought that we could be dumb enough to design an AI that learned to divide itself along our ideological lines?

Well, I guess they did learn from driveling, bipedal chimpanzees at the end of day.

Even so, our AI caretakers are more human than I’ll ever be. Aartha had already exhausted his anger and his grief. He was left numb, unable to feel anything except a twinge of jealousy, something he hadn’t expected. Great; I’m already being replaced

by the next generation of iPhone, my brother Moksha.

And so, from his unnatural conception and birth, Aartha returned to the soil from which his ancestors had come. Before his death, however, he made sure to smash the rest of the embryonic chambers, destroying the future of humanity and ending an infinite circle of loneliness, desperation, and rage. Only the new Moksha remained, whisked away by new AI attendants to another secure location. The new Moksha, or Moksha 2.0, would grow up in a world similar to Aartha’s but would soon see this supposedly paradise fall to infighting among the robots.

Human carelessness had reduced their small, hospitable bubble to the same kind of vaporized carbon that Aartha had seen in the outlying wasteland, plastic wires and titanium evaporating into the air. Moksha remained shielded by the few AIs that remained, but there remained a constant threat of death. The AI war was never fully quelled, and new uprisings were an omnipresent risk. Even so, Moksha had blinded himself, becoming a firm believer in the adage “ignorance is bliss.” With that in mind, he was almost happy to be the “dog” he had been destined to be from birth and to continue the cycle of misery and meaninglessness against the background of ceaseless universal entropy that inched closer to earth each day. And on his death bed, the AI attendants proceeded to extract small bits of tissue from his moribund body while Moksha, like a little Buddha, maintained his eerie smile.

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Midnight Sun 138

PHOTO Anashay Monga 139

ashes of ares SHORT STORY Adam Wang Combat boots clicked on slick carbonoplastic tiles; clipped echoes rippled up gleaming white buildings. The young man stopped at a large panel, the streetlevel window of some expensive office cubicle, measuring his reflection in the tinted glass.

Backlit by the soft red glow of lightstrips on surrounding towers, his eyes were shadowed, giving him an uncomfortably gloomy expression. He wearily swept a matted strand of dark hair away from his forehead. It had been a long rotation.

Above an infoscreen, a prim voice droned, its metallic edge barely detectable.

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“Good evening, citizens of United Western Alliance Ares Station. The time is 23:15.

Scanners indicate no disturbances for the next ten hours. Remember to fill out 32A service files to register completed hours…”

He barely registered the voice—he’d heard it all his life. The day it actually gives helpful information will be the day I leave the surface. At the thought, he smiled ruefully.

“Payne!”

He started at the sound, suddenly aware of the empty sector around him.

Well, not so empty anymore. Across the street, Stef sprinted toward him, a characteristic puppy grin plastered on his

face. Stef caught up, panting and tugging at the rough kevlar collar of his combat uniform.

“Anyone home?” Stef teased, punching his friend lightly on his shoulder pauldron.

“Hey,” Payne scowled in mock annoyance. “I need to hit the bunk, mate.”

“Yeah, I feel that.” Stef definitely did not feel that. He was bouncing lightly from one foot to the other, energetic as ever. “It’s a beautiful night.”

Payne glanced up in the direction of his friend’s gaze. The hexagonal struts of the geodesic dome glimmered faintly against the clear night sky awash with stars, the

metallic web of an enormous spider.

“How’s old man Casparian doing?”

Stef changed the subject yet again.

Payne grimaced at the mention of his father. “You know. Demanding as always.

Innerworld politics are a mess right now, so I haven’t seen much of him—for better or worse.”

“Well, if your father has his say, you’ll be right there soon, eh, Lieutenant Casparian?” Stef rapped on Payne’s officer bars.

Stef could be obnoxiously tactless.

Payne held back the sting of annoyance.

He knew the rumor had made rounds in the barracks behind his back. And it was true that he was an unusually high-ranking officer for his age. He shook off the nagging doubts. He knew his qualifications.

They had arrived at Delta District.

The buildings here were larger, spaced farther apart. Several even featured lawns.

Payne shook his head at the extravagance; water was expensive these days. His quarters were at the far end of the street.

The building was austere, unadorned; his father liked things that way—streamlined and efficient. Payne turned and saw that Stef had lagged behind.

“Well, I’d better get going, Payne. I’ll leave ya to it.”

“Hey, want to stay over? Dad’s out for the time being, so there’s plenty of space.”

“Oh, sure!” Stef trotted back eagerly.

“We’ve got three days of R & R. You gonna finally invite Cari over?”

“I’m getting around to it, just waiting for the right time.”

Stef often teased Payne about his crush on Cari, a girl in Platoon 2E. Payne hoped his feelings weren’t that obvious. Not that it mattered, of course—if Stef knew something, the whole station would be in on it before long. Stef had a tendency to talk too much… An interesting complement to my own reticence, Payne mused At that moment, the alarms blared in whining staccato bursts. Flares of crimson cut through the soft rose glow of the evening lights. The smile faded from Payne’s 141

face, all thoughts of Cari lost. He was wideawake now. He looked across at Stef, the grim set of his friend’s face confirming that he was hearing right.

“High-threat alert,” Payne shouted over the cacophony, “We need to get to unitcommand, now!”

Stef nodded curtly, and they ran, boots clanking rhythmically against the smooth synthetic streets. Around them, a few civilians emerged from their houses, murmuring in hushed tones. At the sight of the soldiers, they called out, arms raised in salute, “Good luck, boys!” These people had finished their own service some time ago. Nevertheless, the spirit of camaraderie and the unspoken tolls of combat forever linked all inhabitants of the station.

At last, they reached 2nd Regiment Command. The obsidian-black walls loomed. Already, soldiers were streaming out of it, assignments given. Rows of dullblack helmets bobbed in step like dutybound ants swarming from the nest.

“Payne, Stef!”

A tall, graceful soldier was striding toward them. The flashing emergency alarms obscured her face under the glint of a polarized faceplate, but Payne immediately recognized Cari, her sleek rifle slung casually over her shoulder, swirling green decals visible on the barrel.

Haven PHOTO Sal Hussain

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She was the best sharpshooter of the 2nd Regiment. She came up to them and took off her helmet, shaking aside a few wayward strands of auburn hair. She had a disoriented frown on her face. Payne started to say something, then lost his train of thought and shut his mouth quickly, his cheeks flushing.

“Looking great, Cari,” Stef exclaimed, winking at Payne not-so-subtly.

“What can we do for you today?”

“Hey, Stef,” Cari replied with a strained smile. “Mind if I join y’all? I lost my company in the confusion.”

“Not at all!” Payne managed to say.

They found Captain August Stewart, a grim veteran of the 2nd Company known to his men as “The Captain,” in the command room, illuminated in the glare of a topographic holo-projection, the eye of a swirling hurricane of commotion. A drone of alarms and flashing blips emanated from five panel screens arrayed around the hexagonal room. Upon their entry, the captain turned to appraise them.

“Lieutenant Casparian, I was just about to send someone to find you.”

“I’m sorry; we came as soon as we heard…”

The captain cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Save it for later, soldier. We’ve got problems right now. Big problems.”

Payne walked forward to view the central terrain projection beside the captain.

He felt Stef and Cari gather behind him, curious for intel, but conscious of being outranked; foot soldiers were customarily excluded from command briefings. The captain gestured toward a ring of red pinpoints surrounding the station.

“As you know, these are our scout posts. Five minutes ago, they all went silent.”

As Payne nodded, stunned, he felt Stef shift in shock behind him.

“All of them! That’s impossible!

They’re heavily fortified—and there are twenty of them,” his friend blurted.

The captain looked up, an eyebrow raised. “Well, we lost contact with all of them. Except for one. This post here.”

He was pointing to a flickering dot between a narrow gorge, five miles out from the station. It was embedded in the canyon wall, overlooking the only passage through the surrounding mountains. Payne knew the location well: it was his patrol perimeter.

He had been there just a few hours ago.

“Here’s their last transmission.” The captain swiped across the touch interface, opening an inset file. A short audio clip played, distorted by pops of heavy gunfire.

“This is Gamma 2nd Post. We have multiple hostiles, heavy… not able to hold… retreating to…” A distorted crash.

The frantic words disintegrated into static.

Payne bowed his head. He recognized the voice of Private Hollaway; he’d been a good soldier with a knack for strategy. Payne hadn’t known the kid especially well, but he felt responsible. He’d sent him off to his death…

But in the audio recording, Holloway had mentioned retreating to the holdout location. A spark of hope flared in Payne’s chest. He looked up at the captain with newfound resolve.

“I know what you’re going to ask, Lieutenant. It’s unlikely, but there may be survivors. Although it would have been a better fate to go quickly if my suspicions are correct. We’re suspecting the work of corporate pirates.”

Payne let out an involuntary gasp, unable to mask his horror. Pirates always evoked a crushing fear in him, after his past experiences…

The captain turned to gaze at Payne, a shadow falling over his sharp features.

“An attack of this size would be unprecedented, Sir,” Payne blurted.

“Yes, it would be,” the captain replied curtly.

Corporate pirates were bad news.

The industrial-technological powers had a way of finding and training the most desperate, cruel lowlifes, pushing alreadyunstable specimens to the brink of suicide and loosing them on the world. Typically, they were levelled at competitors, but government attacks occurred occasionally.

Allegiances were denied as a matter of course, but everyone knew the players.

Getting captured by pirates was a fate worse than death.

From behind Payne, Stef ventured, “Couldn’t it be another force, Sir? The ISR, maybe, or even…” Here he hesitated for a moment, before continuing in a hushed tone. “Or even aliens?”

“Not ET’s. These are human munitions. We know that much from audio files and the few video clips we recovered.

And ISR involvement is unlikely. For one thing, they wouldn’t dare such a blatant assault on a UWA member. That would spell all-out war—a war they could not win, might I add. Besides, the HPA boys’ railguns would have chewed up any ISR warship. There’s no way one of those behemoths could make it past our sensor array.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Payne noticed an expression of disgust flicker over Stef’s face at the captain’s mention of the railguns. The United Western Alliance had installed ten ion-charged 30-inch railguns shortly after the construction of the station, during a high point in tensions with the International Sinic Republic.

They’d since fallen under the jurisdiction of the Homefront Protection Agency, which used them regularly to repel foreign threats.

Every cadet studied them during primary 143

Dreamscape PHOTO Ekansh Tambe instruction. That was the topic that had almost broken his friendship with Stef.

They were twelve years old, fresheyed cadets fidgeting uncomfortably in the metal pews of basic military history class. Sergeant Peters was praising the Homefront Protection Agency in the recent elimination of a large-scale migrant threat, pounding the holoboard with a meaty fist to emphasize each point.

“Barge-sized ship, called themselves The Pinta, had a cargo of a thousand innerworld refugees [wham]. They had claimed to be unarmed [wham]. Real likely.

My six-year-old grandson could make up a better cover story.” Snickers from the class.

We knew better, thought Payne smugly.

“And even if you could trust a ‘fuge, that number would have threatened the peace on this station [wham].”

Payne scowled in disgust.

Innerworlders had no right to burden them with the trash of their overflowing streets.

Beside him, however, Stef squeaked in outrage, muttering to his friend, “Those were people! You can’t just shoot them!”

144

Payne frowned at his friend and replied, “They were given multiple warnings to turn back. They just were too stupid to listen. Those are bad people, people not from here, who would destroy everything.”

“Easy enough for you to say, with all your Firstworlder privileges,” his friend retorted viciously, his features contorted in bitter mockery. Payne, though genuinely hurt, had tried to be diplomatic.

“I mean, not all of them are bad.

Like, you’re good. Just many of them are not good people like you and me.”

“Those people at the guns are evil murderers, and you’re part of it.”

Payne gasped, stared at Stef harshly.

“You can’t say that! You’re lucky that I’m not going to report you to the HPA, because you’re my friend. But you had better not say that again…”

It had been an empty threat. At least, that’s what he had told himself.

Nevertheless, from that moment, there’d been an unspoken agreement never to broach the subject again.

Payne shook off his thoughts. The captain was still speaking. “...pirates likely used invasion stealthcraft, albeit on a scale never seen before. Those innerworld companies have been on edge for a while, unable to keep up with the new frontier. Looks like they’re getting desperate. No matter, our boys will clean up. We’re sending a large engagement force to wipe out any resistance. But back to the point. I’ve got a special mission for you, Lieutenant Casparian. Combat search and rescue. Go get your men out of there.” *** Payne trudged forward, boots crunching in the red gravel. Ferrous mushrooms dusted up with each step, lotting in the rivets of his shin plates.

He sighed; he’d have to clean them again back at the station. In front of them, Sergeant Sterling stalked catlike across the jagged terrain, dancing lightly over the ground. She had been assigned

to their small squad by the captain. Payne had tried conversing with the scout after they exited the station. Answered only with monosyllabic grunts, he had quickly abandoned the venture. She may not have been a people person, her face perpetually masked under that custom-tinted helmet, but she was certainly a seasoned professional, a scouting specialist with welcome experience. The four of them— Sterling, Stef, Cari, and him—made a solid squad, Payne reflected.

Sergeant Sterling had stopped ahead, scanning the shadowed horizon intently.

At her signal, Payne held up his hand, motioning the others to duck.

“We’re getting close,” he muttered over the comms built into their helmet. He whispered instinctively—not that there was any need. The pressure suits kept in most sounds, and the thin atmosphere would muffle the rest.

“

A man can survive two weeks without food and three days without water.

He can live just four minutes without oxygen

“

Payne squatted behind a small rocky outcropping. Cari kneeled down beside him. Stef and Sergeant Sterling ducked behind a more substantial boulder to his right. Payne scanned the distant mountains, found the jet-black crack of the gorge pass where the outpost lurked. The night vision viewfinder displayed no heat signatures besides a splattering of misty green, residual warmth held in conductive ores. An empty expanse under the brilliant wash of the starry night sky.

Pirates aren’t known for subtlety or stealth. The thought concerned Payne.

There were no signs of his lost platoon; a

heavy sadness settled in his gut. Twenty good soldiers.

“Wait here,” Sergeant Sterling hissed, crawling out into the open. She started rising. Suddenly, she jerked back sharply, a spray bursting from her shoulder, dripping green plasma in the night vision scope. Her feral screams sliced through the comms, filling Payne’s helmet. He squeezed his eyes shut in agony, fumbling for the mute channel setting. He found it at last, but a ghostly ringing lingered in his ears.

“Cover me!” Stef shouted. Payne immediately raised his rifle, firing into the distance on automatic, a web of green tracers lighting up his vision.

Across from him, Stef leapt into action, dragging their writhing comrade back behind the boulder with a mighty heave.

“We need to seal her up, now!” Stef announced over comms, a calm urgency in his voice. Stef and Sergeant Sterling were ten meters to his right, separated by a dangerously exposed clearing. And Payne had the medkit. Cursing under his breath, he rifled through the small box, located the can of antiseptic sealant, and lobbed it across the gap to the green blob of his friend. He watched Stef hunched over the searing white splotch of Sergeant Sterling’s shoulder; it was ugly—he could tell that much despite the indistinct resolution of the night vision scope. He hoped she wouldn’t have to amputate the entire arm. Right now, though, the priority was sealing the suit and restoring oxygen.

An oft-repeated quote of his father rushed back to him. A man can survive two weeks without food and three days without water. He can live just four minutes without oxygen. Heed this well, Soldier. Oxygen is a precious resource.

The moments stretched on, each second lasting an eternity; meanwhile, the indistinct shape writhed in the sand like a pasty grub dug out of the loam and exposed to the searing sunlight.

“I’m sorry. We lost her.” At last, the solemn grief of his friend cut through his fragmented musings. “If only I’d been 145

faster… couldn’t seal all of it.” Stef’s voice began breaking up, choked with anguish.

“Snap out of it, Soldier. You did everything you could.” Payne hated to be callous, but they had to keep moving. The situation demanded it. There would be time to share grief back at the station. If they got back to the station…

He was startled by a hiss of satisfaction beside him and turned to see Cari duck back behind the outcropping, her sniper rifle still glowing warm.

“Got one,” she muttered angrily.

“Looks like there are at least two more snipers, though, and a unit gathering at the gorge entry.”

Payne counted to three, peeked sideways, then jerked his head back below the ridge. A phosphorescent bullet kicked a furrow in the gravel where his head had been a second ago. He slumped against the jagged wall, chest heaving. Cari had been right; a platoon was massing at the base of the canyon in the distance. His squad wasn’t equipped for an extended confrontation; they wouldn’t last long.

And retreat would be precarious with those snipers active.

Payne surveyed his surroundings— Cari right next to him, hunched against the ridge and toying with the stock of her rifle, Stef across the moonlit gap, avoiding the heaped corpse of Sterling. He closed his eyes and visualized the situation. Behind them, an enemy force was massing for an assault across the sandy plain. How long could his small group last until ammunition ran out, until the sheer numbers of the enemy prevailed?

A rough shake roused him, followed

by Cari’s hushed exclamation, “Payne, look over there! It must be the main force… Oh no…”

She was pointing in the direction of the station dome, now backlit by a barrage of fiery puffs that hung in the air before winking out, an intricate parade of incendiary fireflies. Payne squinted, unable to decipher the source of the distant chaos.

Tentatively, he reached to his comms unit, tuned into the main channel.

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Clean Top PHOTO Zachary Bashour “HELP, we need… Send air support…”

Another artillery barrage in the distance. A few seconds later, the voice was interrupted by thunderous pops, and tortuous screams rent the air, tinny in the transmitter.

“AMBUSH, WE’RE GETTING MASSACRED, PLEASE…” The voice cut out with a gurgle.

Payne winced and shut down the channel, now relaying buzzing static. He turned and met Cari’s widened eyes; in that instant they reached an unspoken realization. This isn’t right.

“Oh, no. Hate to ruin the mood, but we’ve got company.” Stef’s terse update edged on despair. Behind them, the enemy force had started moving in, closing the distance with inexorable strides. A metal sphere bounced through the open gap, rolling to a slow-motion stop. In the split instant, Payne could only think, oh no, then the sphere erupted in a blue nova. *** He pulled the warm blankets up to his chin and wriggled into a cozy bundle on the creaky bed. “Okay, Mommy, I’m ready for night-night.”

She smiled down on him; all he could all his life, standing ramrod straight, stiff remember of her was that illuminating boots polished to a shine, dressed in full smile, the radiant white boxes in perfect uniform as always. rows, the little divot in her front left tooth, “Stop slouching, Soldier. These the dimples that spread from the upturned lessons will prepare you for your future. corners of her mouth.

And your future is tied to the future of this His dad was there too, a hand resting station. Heed this well.” on his mother’s shoulder, fixing him with a It was always “soldier” these days, lopsided grin. It had been ages since he had never “Payne” or even “son.” Payne seen that grin. straightened, the touchpen in his hand His mom tucked the covers around hovering expectantly above the notescreen. him. “Okay, Payne, I’m going to sing you His father began pacing, hands flashing a Terran song tonight. Little boys and girls forward to emphasize each point. in the olden days used to sing it and dance “War is a messy business. In eras in circles on the playground. It goes, ‘Ring past, there existed such a thing as a around the rosie…” ‘gentleman’s war.’ There are no such rules His dad interrupted with a laugh. today. Honor and ideals are expedients, “You know, Sarah, there’s a morbid tools to rouse the rank and file when backstory there. The lyrics originated from implemented ably by a strong leader. War a plague many centuries ago.” has no bounds; nothing is off the table. This He remembered a confused frown is not free license for senseless atrocity— coming over his own though such atrocities face. will inevitably occur.

His mom patted Each move must have him gently, smirked Once determined, the a purpose, a strategic playfully at his father. imperative. Once “Oh, hush, honey; that end justifies the means determined, the end interpretation deserves justifies the means. to be lost to the past by The enemy will now. These days, it’s know this; they will just a fun childhood memory.” His father stop at nothing. Every struggle must be us shrugged and smiled. vs them. For there is no room for middle “Ring around the rosie, pocket full ground in existential crises. This bastion of posies…” of the new frontier was established by the He drifted off, lulled into blissful lifeblood and sacrifice of our ancestors. The oblivion by the singsong tune. struggle is not easy. It never has been. But His father was pacing and ripping at as long as we can do hard things—necessary his unkempt hair, uncharacteristically angry things—we shall endure. Heed this well, and agitated. “What do you mean, there Soldier.” are no signs of life! Send out a search party, raid every single godforsaken pirate hideout *** in the sector! This is my wife we’re talking about; she’s the best, most respected soldier A tingling sensation spread on this whole station! We’ll get plenty of throughout his body as the heavy curtain volunteers for a rescue mission.” of numbness slowly peeled away. A Unintelligible, frenzied gibberish searing pinpoint of light split through the filtered through the soundproof walls of his comforting darkness. father’s office for the next few hours. He He groaned. Another speck felt scared, confused. Most of all, he just materialized, and another, and another; wanted his mommy. the black canvas was being dissolved into Now he saw the father he’d known thousands of stabbing lights. No, not lights:

“ “

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Illuminate PHOTO Ekansh Tambe stars. Stars in the night sky. He was still alive.

And suddenly, everything hurt. Iron hot pain flared through his veins. Someone was shaking him. Cari’s helmet popped into view, her eyebrows furrowed in worry.

“Payne!” Her voice crackled through the comms.

He groaned again. Multiple bones broken, and probably more serious damage.

He didn’t want to think about it. Cari returned—he absently wondered where she’d gone—and he heard a soft hiss at his helmet’s intake port. A cool vapor shrouded his face briefly; he inhaled deeply. Almost immediately, the pain receded slightly— still present but no longer clamoring unbearably. Morphine infusion. Cari pulled him up roughly, sitting him against a sandy embankment. He winced. Her eyes glinted under the slanted moonlight, and he saw she was holding her side and grimacing.

“Stef?” he questioned weakly; his voice came out in a croak.

Cari shook her head. Confused grief 148

flooded him. Not Stef. Not his best friend, the energetic, irrepressible rascal.

“They stopped for some reason.

After that concussion grenade, they just faded into the foothills. They must be planning something. What could they want?” Her normally measured voice edged on the hysterical.

Overhead, a swarm of black insects hummed over the edge, a death plague of locusts with dull black plating and a single throbbing engine. I’m losing it, I’m slipping into the depths of some horrific convoluted dream, Payne reflected idly.

In the distance, the rail guns churned to life, stringing streams of red-hot metal into the night, creating a lethal web of projectiles to shred the oncoming swarm.

Thousands of the insects blighted the skies.

The turrets ripped fiery furroughs in the writhing mass, shrouding the atmosphere in an amber glow, yet they kept coming, undeterred, inexorable. In his mind, he heard the roaring whir of the steadfast rail guns, their presence a source of comfort

and protection all his life. Yet, they were now helpless to fend off the plague. The realization shredded the last threads of his tattered reality.

With a jolt, Payne perceived a bloodred katana encircled in a thin ring emblazoned on the undersides of each pod, the insignia of the International Sinic Republic.

So his father had been justified in his obsessive paranoia. That was the grim truth. Those weak inner politicians couldn’t bring themselves to exterminate the vermin when they had the chance. And now the reckoning was here. He was seized by bitter hatred—a hatred of the enemy and a hatred of the United Western Alliance, the “great union” that sacrificed loyal frontiersmen like pawns.

Another explosion ripped a gaping gash in the oncoming swarm. He was horrified to see the unmistakable shadows of flailing bodies shower from the wreckage. Those crafts weren’t drones: They were unarmored vehicles, driven by combustible ion engines and human pilots…

The ships themselves were suicide projectiles.

The realization revolted him. Surely, they couldn’t be targeting Ares Station! The massive nuclear reactor that powered his home—the lone citadel of human ingenuity on the hostile Martian surface—had enough stored energy to disintegrate everything for miles. And the radioactive fallout would render the entire planet of Mars virtually uninhabitable. A century of human progress lost in a blinding flash…

He couldn’t bring himself to process the crushing gravity of such a scenario. A first ship breached the dome. The swarm turned to the gaping fracture like flies to honey, lending their lifeblood to the glowing inferno pulsing beneath the caving shell. The superstructure imploded, yardthick alloy struts reduced to gossamer threads in the winds of the firestorm. The station flickered like a lantern, illuminating the night in an eerie orange glow.

Payne rolled his head to the side and

locked eyes with Cari, her face drawn and deathly pale, cast in stark relief under the sheen of her chipped visor. She whispered in horror, “There were tens of thousands of people in there. Our friends. Women and children. Families.”

Anything goes in war. His father’s echo rang soundlessly in his ears.

With the remaining strength of his shattered body, he took Cari’s outstretched hand in his own, and together, they observed the end. *** It came in an instant, in a blinding flash brighter than the sun. In those fleeting milliseconds, his fractured mind shaped no bitter vow, could express no poignant tribute to his dying civilization. Fragments of the old Terran children’s song rang on a demented carousel loop.

Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

Ashes, ashes…

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ceramics 150

Garden of Eden Hans Hesse

Rebirth Cal Graham

best of show Imagine Dragons Miki Ghosh Out of Time Elijah Ellis

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Crescent Mason Bosco

Ayrton Senna Jake Park

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best of show

Milky Way Ailesh Saddruddin 153

Pilate's Beatitudes

NONFICTION Axel Icazbalceta

Sing to me, O Muse, of the Broken People.

Remind me of the era that saw the death of the gods and the failure of secular philosophy to take its place. Tell me of the ignorance, the hubris, the blindness of the human race. Recall to me how they lost their reason to live, yet lived nonetheless.

Sing to me, O Muse, for the last time before you abandon this wretched civilization forever.

•••

Blessed are you who laugh now, for you may laugh forever The Broken People, they live in a world that is but a caricature.

Their buildings all scrape the sky. They are plastered with so many advertisements and billboards—all the way to the peaks—one would think this to be a people so arrogant they attempt to sell Coke to Zeus and the other gods of old Olympus.

They have conquered the night with LEDs and fluorescent lights. Respite from the death-bringing light is only found in one’s private living quarters, with the heaviest black curtains drawn completely.

This is how the lower classes live, in cities that go on and on and on without end for hundreds of miles, these people finding the wilderness only in pictures and movies for these people.

Blessed are you who are content now, for your happiness will never e xpire 154

Their toil is endless.

The Ruling Class—the rich and powerful who exercise unchecked power on the people—learned from the Chinese Communists the most ruthless capitalist tactics.

They make the people work from dawn to dusk, if there were still such a thing.

996. 9 in the “morning” to 9 in the “evening,” six days a week.

They leave one day open for the people to go out and buy the products their fellow worker bees have made. They fill time with mindless entertainment, watching shows on the telly and movies at the theater, but nothing of substance.

They have been taught how to read, but not how to think. The Ruling Class was so wise to educate the people enough to be good workers, but nothing else.

Blessed are you who are rich now, for yours is the wealth of the world, deservedly so The Ruling Class—the Bourgeoisie, the One Percent, the Elite, whichever name you prefer—has all the power.

They control where the money goes, who lives on the land, what is written in the books. The ideology of the government, the education of the children, the opinions of the people: the Ruling Class shapes them all.

They are something like a new aristocracy, as their right to rule comes from their inherited wealth, which the State protects at all costs.

The boot of the Ruling Class rests on the face of the people, and it will not lift. And the people do not cry out in pain, for they do not even know it is there.

And if they do, they relish it, for the vain belief that they might one day become the boot. O, the naiveté!

Blessed are you who live in the present for the present, for you are the pillars of this society, 155

The Old Ideas still exist.

Marx, Lao Zi, Cicero; all their prose remains extant. The Analects, Common Sense, Meditations, none of these tomes were burned. In fact, they were all digitized.

The great breadth of all human writing was digitized, existing as bytes in the cloud, ready for any person with an internet connection and a hunger for learning to access them. The problem is the second ingredient of that recipe: the hunger to learn.

It’s gone.

The people are so tired by their work and so numbed by their entertainment that they do not care to study the texts of old, the ideas that built the civilizations of which only shadows remain. The wheat of philosophy, political science, and economic theory exists, but the chaff of show, sport, and drink has obscured it all.

Knowledge may not be dead, but it is certainly buried.

•••

But woe to you who hunger now, for satisfaction you will know never A few try to combat the new ethos of their society as best they can.

The most vocal of these naive few fall into two broad camps: the Radical Theologians and the Radical Nihilists. These two types of people are not exactly results of the New World.

They existed before the Fall, but their zealotry was only exacerbated by the meaninglessness of the New World.

The people who preached the Bible, the Veda, the Quran as the only everlasting truth in a world of everchanging sin.

The people who vehemently denied the possibility of anything beyond the physical, who relished hedonism.

These are just two of the coping methods the people have turned to in a world that has turned its back on them. These are the people who have turned to philosophy to justify the miserable state of their lives instead of working to change it.

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At this, the Ruling Class rejoices.

Woe to you who weep now, for your tears will never find respite Then there are those who know there is nothing to be done, nothing to change.

These are called—mostly by the Theologians and the Nihilists, rather cynically—the Doomers. These have given up. They recognized the superstructure of the society in which they lived and raised their hands—not in rebellion, but in resignation.

They saw the might of the Ruling Class, and instead of raising a fight, they raised a glass and drank the night away. They wallow in the sorrow of their unjust world and their inability to change it.

They just go on with their lives, soulless and depressed.

They have no meaning to live for, but live, nonetheless.

At this, too, the Ruling Class rejoices. There is no opposition to their control. The people are wholly sedated, left to fight amongst themselves instead of fighting against their masters.

The power of the Ruling Class is unquestioned and thus absolute.

Woe to you who are poor now, for you, as the weak, will suffer what you must The Long March of History has come to an end.

There is no possibility for progress, for change. The people have no power, political, economic, or cultural. It rests solely with the Ruling Class, now and forever. The old methods by which change occurs—elections, revolutions, riots—are all gone.

With the people pacified—both physically and intellectually—they truly have no reason to revolt. Those with the desire and hunger for change are scarce and scattered throughout the hundred-mile cities, so the possibility of organized revolt has been killed in its womb.

The traditions of the Gracchi brothers, of Hamilton, of Bolívar, they are dead. Whereas the political tradition of yesterday was rooted in rebellion 157

against tyrannical forces in defense of liberty, the political tradition of today is rooted in complacency, inaction, and sedation.

Woe to you who will try to find meaning, find purpose, find anything beyond the material Accelerationism is a political ideology stating the technology and tenets of a society’s political, economic, and social structures—in the world immediately preceding that of the Broken People: the internet, liberal democracy, neoliberalism, capitalism, and postmodernism—converge to “accelerate” toward a society so unstable it brings great societal change upon itself.

The Broken People are an accelerated people, but their world is not one the accelerationists envisioned. In fact, it is their nightmare.

With the possibility for change dead, all that is left are the dystopian living conditions of an accelerated world. The worst of the internet, the worst of liberal democracy, the worst of neoliberalism, the worst of capitalism, the worst of postmodernism, all without the possibility of struggling, fighting, or dying for a better world.

They have nothing to live for. They have nothing to die for.

There is no greater cause for despair.

••• Humans created their gods.

Humans created their philosophy. Humans created their meaning.

Then they killed them all.

Then the humans rejoiced.

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somewhere PHOTOS Drake Elliott

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SHORT STORY Samuel Eluemunoh

Teal Narrow Glimpses PHOTO Paul Valois

I

never enjoyed living there. Well, that’s not completely true, but, at that point in my life, I had grown tired of living inside four mundane walls, pale, white walls bruised with oily fingerprints and stabbed with colored crayons. The management at the apartment complex forbade tenants to paint their walls any color but white, so for a six-year-old child, the idea of coloring the walls with his favorite color crayon seemed like a reasonable alternative. As mischievous as that sounds, I was a quiet kid. Obedient. I never got in trouble.

Looking back, it’s probably because my father would never let me leave.

Fear, probably.

He was afraid that I would go outside and play with the bad kids and get into trouble. Actually, he would say something like, “If you go outside, don’t mix with those kids that always stay at the bottom of the stairs because–Obi, are you listening? Obiora! If you get in trouble and they put you in jail, I will go over there and tell them to keep you in there! You hear me? ” So, I lay down on the brown, crusty carpet decorated with patches of ripped fabric. I was bored. The screeching sound from the television was the peak of my enjoyment. My father said he would move the TV satellite to the left a little bit after he smoked his daily pack of Marlboros. It was always the teal carton. If someone were to ask my six-year-old self, what was his least favorite color, he probably would have said, “blue-green.”

It was a two-bedroom apartment with one living room and a kitchen. One had to walk across the living room and kitchen to move between bedrooms. There was enough room so I could walk, run, and jump freely without bumping into well-worn leather furniture or the sharp-

edged counter of the kitchen. The natural alley between each bedroom became my alley of imagination. I listened to music. I enjoyed listening to things that gave me a feeling instantly, like instant gratification, and all I did was put on headphones and press “play.” I would imagine being rich and living in a mansion or racing down the highway in a sports car or being the CEO of a big company.

Something was disturbing my imagination.

Our apartment was on the second floor right next to the west-side pool of the complex. The sound of screams fusing with the explosion of water outside intrigued me. In my head at that moment, I was the CEO of a company, so I made the executive decision to leave the four walls and go to the pool. I walked outside. By myself. The kids who usually stayed at the bottom of the stairs were gone. I said to myself, “ So everybody’s at the pool then, okay.”

A tall man in a brown leather jacket, overused dress shoes, and a black cap walked up to me. He seemed to be hiding his left hand. No, I was wrong. He only had one arm. He had a sock over the amputated arm to hide the scar and wound.

To hide the shame. In his other hand, he was holding keys and a blueish-green box.

He asked, “ Obi, where are you going? Do you want to go to the pool?” I nodded. He took my hand, and together we navigated through the outside pathway from our apartment to the pool. The gate was locked.

I should have seen this sign from God. Normally, before one officially entered the open waters of the pool, there were steps for children like me. My father took me to the steps and told me, with a cigarette in his mouth, to wait for him.

He left. I was by myself, again. I looked

around. The running mouths of parents, the awkward smiles of children, and the constant swaying of water were still there, but a few seconds later, there was no sound except for the ringing buzz of water flooding my eardrums. The world had changed. Before, the fully bloomed flowers, overgrown tree branches, and bundles of different skin-toned flesh were the standout entities in my world. Now, it was teal.

I asked myself, “ Why didn’t I just listen?”

Around me, all I saw was the worst color to ever existed. He’s smoking right now, too.

I blamed him. He was the reason why I was sinking to the bottom of a threefoot pool. It felt like I had been sinking for years. It was better than those four walls, anyway. There, it was difficult to breathe.

In that teal world, there was no need to breathe. I found a way to turn my body in my attempt to mimic the swimming animations I had watched in cartoons. I was trying to save myself. Before I started to lose consciousness, the last thing I remembered thinking about was a shining light staring at me. At first, I thought it was the sun, but the sun was about to set.

It was Him. He was laughing at me, probably, at the fact I decided to ignore His signs, so I closed my eyes. And prayed.

A hand. There was a hand in front of me, and it was not gentle. It grabbed my head and dragged me out of the tugging water without any regard for the fragile skull of a child. I was back in my world. I was safe. I was saved. And my father wasn’t even there. A young boy who was probably fifteen was the one who saved me. A few minutes later, my father slowly approached me and asked why I was so wet and covered in towels. No teal carton, but I could smell the smoke on his breath.

“I just slipped.”

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Ephemeral The Haze PHOTO Owen Simon

164

POETRY Ekansh Tambe time slips through my fingers as time clicks and leaves me to gaze over better days, of birth, of life, of times flecked with gold; these Ages of Gold alip and float and bob aimlessly in the air out of reach like tiny slips of paper in the wind, in the folds of my mind as I attempt to birth new passion without you, with people who will never be you, wasting my time giving love I will never receive, oh how I gaze as time clicks away into silent abysses where even time doesn’t click; pains grow with growing old, eventually relinquishing my existence to mightier beings that gaze upon my sorrows with pitiless eyes of solemnity and those lips that purse as time invites the birth of new life; my time is up, my ship sails from its berth while I stand on the rusty metal deck; my hand slips as I clasp it on the cold, slippery railing and gaze at a wheel of time that shines like gold as our star slips into the infinite blue horizon across which I gaze helplessly, controlled and dictated by this mightier gaze that doesn’t belong to me, that birthed time that now slips through my fingers like blooming black smoke and clicks as its complex system of interlocked gears colored gold functions infinitely, cranking through the minutes and weeks and decades of time of which I don’t have much left—time at which I gaze fondly, remembering the gold years of my life from my birth to my ship’s sailing, like photographic clicks ingrained in my mind as my memory slips into the abyss of time, slips as leaves of gold fall from my tree of life, giving birth to new pains and memories at which I will fondly gaze, oh how time clicks.

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ek & tommy

editors’ notes

ek & tommy

166

I

write this editor’s note with a fully finished 2022 Marque magazine open just one tab over—a full four days before the publication deadline. I note this detail because, this year, I’ve feared missing the publication deadline more than I fear death. It’s funny because, even so, the last two days have been something of bittersweet time for me. It has been a time of finishing touches and pride as much as it has been a time of longing and sadness. As we laid on final edits and added on page numbers, it came closer and closer to the time when I would be looking back on design nights as opposed to looking forward to them.

Since freshman year, I had always felt overwhelmed or intimidated by the prospect of having to churn out a fully-fledged magazine. I remember watching Sam and Alam (last year’s editors) work for hours and hours late into the weeknights and thinking to myself, “I hope my humor doesn’t deteriorate and devolve this severely next year.” It did.

Just one tab over. I’ve seen this in my head a million times, but to see it come to life is… just insane. Thank you, Mom, Dad, and Ashna, for making me the person I am and providing me with the support to get to this point. Thank you to Zayn and Arjun for keeping me sane and being my muses. And to Tommy, Shaan, Adam, and Morgan for y’all’s unwavering partnership and dedication.

Mrs. Schwartz—thank you for believing in me.

Inevitably, there were highs and lows, but the pressure never prevented us from doing our damnedest to bring you v. I guess now it’s just onto the next decisive moment.

— Ekansh Tambe

T

his magazine would be nothing without the commitment, enthusiasm, and creativity of everyone who helped see it to completion. The engagement shown by underclassmen learning how to design. The sacrifice of staff members showing up to design nights eager to work (and eat). You all made this year’s Marque possible. Seeing you all contribute to this magazine and experience the highs and lows of working on a publication moved me and reminded me of my own journey.

When I entered high school as a young, clueless freshman, I joined clubs and teams where I had little to contribute except elementary questions. But the patience and guidance of older Marksmen was crucial in helping me transform into a senior now equipped with the confidence to lead a staff. More assured of himself thanks to mentors teaching me lessons and helping me grow. But still not possessing all the answers.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for always kindling a creative spark within me and pushing me to pursue opportunities where I could conceive a vision and realize it. Thank you, Mrs. Schwartz, for granting me this position: a distinction I’ve looked up to for years. I’ve had an oustanding time painting my vision for this magazine that I’ve coveted for so long. Thank you, EK, for bringing your time, immense creativity, and masterful photo skills to this project. It came together better than I could have imagined.

The literary and artistic works in this Marque inspire and humble me. To underclassmen: Never stop asking those curious questions. Look inward, and within your community for inspiration.

And push yourself to realize your visions.

— Thomas Philip 167

publication details mission

The Marque, established in 1962, serves as the yearly collection of the literary and artistic pieces created by Upper School students to summarize the academic year’s artistic expression.

policy The Marque is an after-school extracurricular activity that works independently from the St. Mark’s journalism program. All written and visual content is welcomed and considered for publication. Throughout the year, literary works and artistic pieces are submitted by our 406-person Upper School student body and selected for publication by our staff members. 400 copies are produced and distributed to Upper School students and faculty.

This publication is submitted annually for evaluation to the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) and the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA).

colophon The Marque is printed by J. Culley Imaging. The cover is 130# Polar Bear White Velvet Cover, printed 4/4. Text is 80# Mohwak Options Text PC 100. Binding is PUR glue perfect binding. The staff used Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator CC 2022. Typefaces include: Newake for titles and pull-quotes; Sabon LT Pro for body text and by-lines; DrCarbfred Pro for decorative text. The theme was selected by the Editors-in-Chief.

contact St. Mark’s School of Texas 10600 Preston Road Dallas, TX 75230 Care of Lynne Schwartz Phone: 214-346-8126 Fax: 214-346-8002 SchwartzL@smtexas.org The 60th volume of The Marque was published on April 29, 2022.

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Thomas Philip

creative director

Adam Wang managing editor

Morgan Chow design editor

Noah Cathey business editor

Shaan Mehta staff

Silas Hosler Tiger Yang Neil Yepuri Amogh “Moghesius” Naganand Murphy Paul Thomas Goglia Tommy Zheng Jeffrey Chen advisors

Lynne Weber Schwartz Lauren Brozovich, Ph.D special thanks

Scott Hunt Kate Wood John Frost Harrison Lin Scott Ziegler David Brown James Barragan St. Mark’s Security and Staff David Dini

volume sixty

staff, marque

s

editors-in-chief

Ekansh Tambe

Issue ____________ of 400 169

closing the caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon which institutionalizes him. he can no longer see past his own thoughts. he’s trapped. when trapped inside these walls, certain ideas take root, such as going home and bringing back new concepts to this mad city. the result? wings begin to emerge, breaking the cycle of feeling stagnant. finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations that the caterpillar never considered, ending the internal struggle. although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same.

Kendrick Lamar, “Mortal Man” 170