The Marque | Volume 58 (2020)

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02-03

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MULTIDIMENSIONAL The CONCEPT

Marksmen are multidimensional.

Unrestricted by norms or defined paths, students take on a combination of roles in the school’s vibrant community. The student council president is a trombonist– and a defensive lineman. There are as many All-State choristers as Division I recruits on the basketball team. Math team members write for the newspaper. School-spirit leaders design their own “great books” English curriculum, devouring chapter after chapter of Faulkner, Hawthorne, and Twain while their voices recover from cheering.

This community is dynamic, complex, deep—qualities apparent in its art.

Inspired by classical methods of artistic interpretation, we define three layers— form, emotion, truth— that are central to every piece of art, regardless of medium or style. These layers provide a structure with which to understand and interpret each community submission in the magazine. All content is loosely organized into sections that that best exemplify each layer, along with a showcase of a visual art medium and an extended expository story.

Through a synthesis of Swiss-Modernism and Bauhaus design, we accent the art with graphic design reflective of the magazine’s contents. Transparency and opacity bring the depth of the featured art into sharp focus, while variations in color via gradient convey the adaptability of the Marksman artist and his art.

In a time where the role of the man and the artist is shifting and traditional perspectives of masculinity are eschewed for the new modern man, we celebrate the strength and values of the Marksman artist, who adapts to his changing world and finds truth uniquely his own. Confining people and artists to rigid groupings and molds is a thing of the past; we celebrate the flexibility, variability, and durability of art.

In this 58th edition, we honor the layers of meaning in the creations of St. Mark’s.

We revere the form, emotion, and truth ingrained in every work.

With honor, we present the

MULTIDIMENSIONAL 58th edition.

04-05

THE MARQUE

AN ENDURING PRESENCE AT ST. MARK’S, CURTIS SMITH CHATS WITH FORMER STUDENTS.

D E D I C AT I O N

CURTIS SMITH For 43 years, Curtis Smith has guided English students through an odyssey of classic and modern literature, demystifying Shakespeare’s iambs and Homer’s dactyls and connecting them to the works of Thurber, Poe, Eliot and poets Tennyson and Wordsworth. In deconstructing these famed works, Mr. Smith has built the foundations of critical thinking, clear communication, and refined writing. But as an educator of maturing young men, Mr. Smith always challenged his students to apply interpretations of morality and meaning from their study of English to their own lives. And he made sure to challenge himself, too—as Director for the St. Mark’s Brendan Court Summer Program for underserved students and a coach for the middle school basketball team, Mr. Smith’s presence extended beyond the Harkness table that is central to his classroom.

As Mr. Smith completes his final year of teaching, the St. Mark’s community will miss Mr. Smith—his friendly presence in the hallways, his wisdom and humility, and his playful distaste for grammatical “flag errors.” But as Mr. Smith says, “Caesar never dies,” and neither will the legacy of Curtis Smith at St. Mark’s School of Texas.

THE MARQUE STAFF WOULD LIKE TO DEDICATE THIS 58TH EDITION TO CURTIS SMITH

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contents

“ RED MORNING” • TYLER NUSSBAUMER ‘20 8 “ FEAR” • JAMES SINGHAL ‘22 10 CRYPTIC FLUGLEHORN • SHIV YAJNIK ’21 11 QUESTION OF THE LOTUS • NICK KOWALSKE ’20 12 “ AN UNLIKELY PAIR” • LEE SCHLOSSER ‘20 15 “ ANTELOPE CANYON” • COLLIN KATZ ‘21 16 PERSISTENCE • BETO BEVERIDGE ’21 17 ARTIST FEATURE • CHARLIE ROSE ’20 18 “ A TORNADO OF FISH” • HENRY BAXTER ‘23 24 “ DISORIENTED” • TYLER NUSSBAUMER ‘20 25 EVERY 25TH THURSDAY OF THE YEAR • AARON WEISER ’20 26 “ DINNER TIME” • KYLE FISHER ‘20 27 “ SLEEP WALKING” • KYLE FISHER ‘20 28 “ MOON WITH CLOUDS” • TYLER NUSSBAUMER ‘20 31 SHOWCASE • CERAMICS 32 BALANCE • SAHITYA SENAPATHY ’20 36 “ ALONE” • LEE SCHLOSSER ‘20 37 “ SPARK” • WILL ROCCHIO ‘20 39 OM • NEAL REDDY ’20 40 “ GREEK PYTHOS” • KNOBEL HUNT ‘21 42

“ SANDS WITHIN” • LEE SCHLOSSER ‘20 44 FOR ERIN, LONG AGO • JACK TRAHAN ’20 46 “ RIGID” • LEE SCHLOSSER ‘20 47 “ CITY AWAKENS” • CHARLIE ROSE ‘20 51 “ WASP” • COOPER COLE ‘22 52 “ TO FORGIVENESS” • MAX PALYS ‘21 53 “ TO DREAM” • NICHOLAS TSAO ‘20 54 “ UNCONFORMING” • ROHIT VEMURI ‘20 55 FEATURE: CRISIS IN CREATION • TIANMING XIE ’20, SAM GOLDFARB ‘20 56 STUMBLING• ROBERT POU ’21 62 “ AVIAN GAZE” • BENJAMIN GRAVEL ‘22 63 “ SILENT TUNDRA” • WILL ROCCHIO ‘20 64 “ INNOCENCE DRIFTING” • JACK PALMER ‘21 65 SHOWCASE • WOOD AND METAL 66 “ THE GRAND CANYON AT SUNRISE” • COLLIN KATZ ‘20 72 THE TOURIST • CARTER LANGBERT ’20 73 “ CERULEAN FACADE” • BEN HAO ‘20 74

“ LAGOON” • WILL ROCCHIO ‘20 76 “ ANGUISH” • COOPER COLE ‘22 77 “ FORKED TONGUE” • SHIV YAJNIK ‘21 78 “ SELF CARE” • COOPER COLE ‘22 79 A POCKET FULL OF MUMBLES • JAMIE MAHOWALD ’21 80 “ WINDOW POP” • EVAN LAI ‘22 81 “ WANDER” • TYLER NUSSBAUMER ‘20 82 “ DISCONNECT” • WILL CHANCE ‘21 84 “ STUDY FOR DISCONNECT” • WILL CHANCE ‘21 84 “ ISOLATION’S MOUNTAIN” • BENJAMIN GRAVEL ‘22 86 “ SOLO” • TYLER NUSSBAUMER ‘20 87 MIGHTY EVEREST • LEE SCHLOSSER ’21 89 “ PEAK” • WILL ROCCHIO ‘20 91 “ NOIR LAMP” • ROHIT VEMURI ‘20 91 “ SENSATION” • NICK KOWALSKE ‘20 92 “ BIRTHMARK” • NICK KOWALSKE ‘20 93 SHOWCASE • DRAWING AND PAINTING 94

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RED MORNING TyLer NUsSBaUMER ’2O Photo

ECTION

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Art is, in the most fundamental sense, a medium that we can use to speak to our emotions. Form and the visual aspect of art in the real sense is, in a way, the first layer in which art speaks to us. Often, we wait to be awed once we understand the deeper layers of art, but form itself is where art begins. Form itself has meaning.

TIANMING XIE ’2O MANAGING EDITOR

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FEAR James Singhal ’22 Photo

The Cryptic Flugelhorn Observing the dark clouds

and great mountains, I listened to the echoes of a flugelhorn.

Its warm sounds could be heard clearly above the noisy rain and the slightly less noisy wind as we cruised along the elegant, emerald waters of Lake Königssee. A tradition when riding Lake Königssee is playing a flugelhorn and listening to the reverberations caused by the surrounding Berchtesgaden Alps. The music was enchanting, but hidden within the resounding echoes from the stone mountains was history.

The next morning, we ventured into the mountains. The peaks were hidden behind the billowing white and grey clouds. A bus drove us part of the way; then we rode to the top in a golden-colored elevator built into the mountain. When we finally reached the top, greeting us was the interior of the Eagle’s Nest, a place which functioned as a retreat for Adolf Hitler. After we saw the interior of the Eagle’s Nest, we explored the surrounding area.

The clouds parted, and what was revealed beneath was astounding.

The view was picturesque with the alluring grandeur of the mountains, pristine lakes, and tranquil skies.

From the Eagle’s Nest, one can look over Austria and Germany.

After we saw the Eagle’s Nest, we traveled back down the mountain.

Disembarking the bus, we walked into the forest to find the area of what was once the Berghof, Hitler’s home and headquarters in Bavaria. We stood in the very spot where Hitler and the government officials of the Third Reich made major decisions during the Second World War, many of which led to devastation, including the Holocaust. The spot where we

S h i v Ya j n i k ’ 2 1 NONFICTION

stood was once a room with a large window that spanned from floor to ceiling and almost wall to wall.

The window, while it was there, also unveiled a grand scene with forest, mountains, valleys, and a full sky.

The scenery made the place a cruel joke. I imagined Hitler looking down from the terrace at everything he sought to or already had conquered. The spectacular view we saw in the mountains was the same view that Hitler saw every day as he ruled over Germany and Austria.

While people suffered during the Nazi regime and were hunted down during the Holocaust, Hitler was in the Eagle’s Nest, just staring into the distance, plotting. All the evil planned in these mountains was muffled by the pretty echoes of a flugelhorn.

During our journey from Munich to the Rhine River a couple of days later, we stopped at the most dismal place I have ever been. As we entered through the gates, we saw an inscription that read “Arbeit macht frei,” which translates to “work makes [one] free.” The area behind the gates looked as if nothing natural had ever existed before the place was erected. The ground was covered in sharp gravel. It was raining at the time as well, and the dark sky made the surroundings look grey. This was Dachau, one of the concentration camps constructed during the Second World War and after which many others were modeled. We watched footage of Dachau, and it was worse than I imagined: the cramped spaces, barbed wire fences, blank faces, piles of bodies, sheer despair, and the gas chambers disguised as showers. What was paradoxical about the place was that there was much to see, yet there was an emptiness. The camp felt stripped of

emotion and everything human, and all of us felt the weight of the evil that happened there.

After we saw Dachau, I thought about how evil played a role in the human condition and our world.

I was conflicted. It does not make sense to me that someone is evil because his or her evilness is written in stone. Perhaps even Hitler was not born evil; he was born into a dysfunctional family, and his father was known to be violent.

He was disappointed because he could not pursue his passion, the visual arts. World War I influenced many of his views, including his hatred for Jews. But I just visited a place that demonstrates what Hitler’s actions had caused. He led a genocide against the Jewish population; that was an act of evil.

Humans have either the capacity to care about something or to take away something others care about.

I thought about the happiness one feels when one goes into a church or temple or the warmth of a family or a community that cares about me and that I care about. What I felt in Dachau was the opposite.

Humanity’s best gift, caring, was snatched away from the victims at Dachau. Therefore, evil was a result of man. But if man is not inherently evil, I thought to myself, how does man have the capacity to commit such evil? How were “humans...responsible for it all?”

Soon, as we made our journey to Munich, I lost myself in my thoughts and continued to gaze aimlessly out of the window of our Land Rover, listening to something by Liszt.

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THE MARQUE

A Question of the Lotus

Nick Kowalske ’2O FICTION 1ST PLACE, LITERARY FESTIVAL

T

anner was the last one to head home, leaving me standing in the open doorframe, too busy-minded to notice that my precious air conditioning was escaping into the humid June night. As I watched, he walked toward the gate, pausing briefly to admire the koi pond before reaching his notorious yellow Volkswagen Beetle. I was just waiting to make sure he got into his car all right—just being polite—yet I was embarrassed when we made eye contact in the reflection of the passenger window. I turned and walked out to the pond, as if that had been my plan all along, and sat down gently next to the irises. I was looking—staring really—at my reflection in the water as I heard him drive slowly away. I focused back on my face just as a swift-moving ribbon snake swam briskly through it, warping my reflection. I followed it excitedly with my eyes as it glided gracefully onto a lily pad, catching an unsuspecting cricket. The serpent swallowed, then raised its head to the night sky, flicking its tongue into the sultry summer air. It then slid its head slowly over the outermost petal of a nearby lotus, allowing its body to follow, flowing gently into the flower until the tip of its tail slipped behind the soft pink curtain.

The lotuses are the pride of my family. We call it a koi pond, but anyone that has ever visited our home knows that the pond is for the lilies. I was raised being taught how to care for them, how to make them produce strong and vibrant blooms, yet I’ve never really liked the lotuses all that much. They’re fine, I guess. To each their own.

I wondered what Tanner thought of them.

I looked back to the open water as the snake’s last ripples dissipated, excited to see my reflection again. I didn’t want to see it out of vanity; I just had a vague curiosity about what I would see. Nothing new or revolutionary, apart from the fact that my unibrow had started to grow back in. I slowly focused my vision deeper in the pond. The water was clear, but the night was dark. All I could see in the depths of the pond were some roots weaving in and out of the sediment.

I looked to the irises, watched for a moment as they swayed tenderly in the warm breeze, then stood up and walked promptly inside. I passed through the entry and into the kitchen, looking for a snack. My mom had left out an opened pomegranate, but I opted instead for some Ben and Jerry’s that I had hidden from my family in the back of the freezer.

After a few bites I put the ice cream back, either out of shame or satisfaction. I walked upstairs to my room and, without closing the door, threw myself onto my bed. I lay there, spread-eagled on top of my sheets and comforter, thinking. I watched the ceiling fan turn hypnotically, focusing on the warped blade that threw the whole thing off balance. As the fixture leaned from one side to another, the stainless steel chain chimed rhythmically against the body of the fan. This gentle tolling usually lulled me quickly to sleep, but this night it didn’t. I remained frustratingly alert. It was probably just the ice cream.

For the next few weeks, I visited the pond every night, even if it was just for a quick glance. I don’t know why.

A couple of weeks after the last time I had had people over, it was my turn to host again.

We didn’t officially take turns, but we volunteered to host to make sure no one had to do it multiple times in a row. My group is somewhat large, about twenty people. Usually about seven show up. This weekend, the first Saturday of July, everyone was there. I had two spotlights to set up outside, so I used one to illuminate the backyard so we could play games in the grass. I clamped the other to a tree branch out front, focusing its beam on the largest lotus, one that sat directly in the center of the pond.

As people arrived, I asked them what they thought of the lotus. I didn’t really care about their responses, so I didn’t really listen. Despite how bad it sounds, the truth is that I was only asking them what they thought so it wouldn’t seem out of place when I asked Tanner.

He arrived about thirty minutes after sunset, just in time for the illuminated lotus to really stand out. I asked him what he thought of the flower, half-expecting that he would just brush the question off, that he’d give me some quick and meaningless answer. I should have known him better than that.

I watched him eagerly as he prepared to respond, his nostrils flaring slightly as he drew a deep breath. He let the breath out and drew another before answering, making his pause almost unbearable. While he breathed, he looked to the flower for a long while, then looked me in the eyes.

“Are you just asking if I like them?”

“Yeah,” I said, probably trying too hard to sound nonchalant.

“I don’t know,” he said more thoughtfully than I had ever heard anyone say it. I could tell he had thought about it before, and that he would think about it again. The night went on as if we had both forgotten about the question, but I’m sure neither of us had.

Tanner and I are both vegetarian, and both pretty active people, so we’ve bonded over our never-ending struggle to eat enough protein. I’m not sure if it’s sad that protein is one of our most frequent conversation topics.

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THE MARQUE Just a few days after the night that I had asked the lotus question, Tanner invited me over to his house. When he called, he told me he would be making dinner for himself and asked if I would be interested in cooking with him.

“That sounds amazing! I’d love to!”

So much for nonchalant.

We spent about an hour working together on chickpea tikka masala. We didn’t work together very smoothly and were constantly in each other’s way, but I don’t think either of us really minded. When it came time for plating, we really shined, albeit mostly just with sweat.

I split the steaming rice evenly between the two plates before using my cupped hands to gather the mounds and squeeze them into loose spheres. I then used my thumb to create a depression in the top of each sphere and held the plates out to Tanner so he could ladle the masala over them. The chickpeas fell gently into the depression as the sauce cascaded like lava down the sides of the orbs, engulfing them in a rich red orange.

We sat next to each other at the island. I felt we had a lot to talk about, and I thought that sitting next to him instead of across from him would make it difficult to have any valuable conversation.

Once again, I should have known him better than that.

His voice is incredibly expressive. I hadn’t learned to truly appreciate it until we sat next to each other, for once able to focus on the beautiful subtleties of his language and intonation. It was different than any beauty I had ever known before.

It took us longer to eat than it had taken us to cook, probably because we spent more time talking than eating. We talked about our frustration with the impossibility of poaching eggs, the shockingly poor quality of the school’s toilet paper (yes, at dinner), and fear of death and eternal damnation, among other things. All of our friends like to throw in the one about death and damnation just to make sure every conversation has at least one “real” moment. The strategy works pretty well when everyone takes it seriously, but our dinner chat didn’t need it. Every moment had been real, because we had both had genuine interest in everything the other person had to say.

I drove home after dinner and parked in the garage. Without stopping by the pond, I walked up to my room and crashed once again on top of my tightly-made bed. Staring up at the ceiling fan and listening to its familiar chime, I could only think one thought: “I’m so glad we’re best friends. I couldn’t wish for anything better.”

I fell quickly asleep.

AN UNLIKELY PAIR Lee Schlosser ’2O Photo

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Persistence

Beto Beveridge ’21 NONFICTION

ANTELOPE CANYON C o l l i n K at z ’ 2 1 PHOTO

My nostrils, my mouth, my ears are

swarmed by mosquitos, whose needles prick my skin and release drops of vibrant blood. A flow of swear words emits from my dry throat in a raspy release of rage, cursing my aching body and the bug bites that cover it. My hands are occupied with balancing the canoe on my bruised shoulders, leaving my skin helpless against the onslaught of insects. When my throat becomes too hoarse, I scream internally.

Yet despite my discomfort, I must know that I’ll persevere. After all, I volunteered to carry the canoe.

We had canoed since 8 o’clock that morning, carrying all of our belongings in heavy, waterproofed bags. This was our fourth day since leaving Base Camp in Ely, Minnesota and entering the Boundary Waters. The team consisted of five of my friends — Sam, Michael, Daniel, Aayan, and Aadi — along with two parents and a guide. I had left home with enthusiasm, but my mind soon was overtaken by a longing for my pets and parents, for a bed, for my girlfriend, for a steaming coffee, and for some rest.

Now I focus only on my heavy steps, placing my feet in and out of the murky swamp that enveloped the portage trail until I finally see a glint of water in the distance. However, I instinctively remind myself that this hint of water might merely be a pond and that this overgrown trail may very well continue for much longer. But luckily enough I’m able to spot Sam, with broken sunglasses crookedly hanging from his nose, waiting for me alongside the shore.

I wade into the rocky waters and feel the urge to hurl the canoe onto the rocks and tear the kevlar hull to shreds, but instead I methodically place the boat into the calm water. No words are spoken as Sam and I await the remainder of our group. Finally, he hands me my red water bottle, covered with stickers from Iowa, Colorado, and other places I’ve never been. The metallic taste of iodine fills my mouth as I gulp down the water. By now, the rest of the group has arrived, and I carefully enter the canoe after Sam and his father. All of us are exhausted, but our dignity keeps every complaint unspoken.

My hands, with new calluses just below my fingers, grasp the paddle as an extension of my body. I embrace the monotonous rhythm of the canoe, transforming myself into a silent factory machine. Taking the more strenuous bow position, at the front of the boat, allows my mind to wander, as I’m not needed to steer or navigate. Without a watch or a map, I judge our progress by imagining the surrounding scenery —towering trees, mossy boulders, and

jagged shorelines — as checkpoints. A song by The Smiths, “Half a Person,” echoes through my head, “If you have five seconds to spare, then I’ll tell you the story of my life...”

After an indeterminable amount of paddling and portaging, we arrive at our campsite, stow the canoes on land, and begin to construct our new home. The group expertly assembles each tent, but clothes and gear lie splayed out across the dusty ground in scattered, colorful clumps.

The bitter taste of insect repellant pollutes the air as I liberally coat my exposed ankles and then pass the bold orange bottle to my tentmates. My friends assemble around me as I prepare the macaroni and freeze-dried chicken that becomes our meal. Eating has become a silent ritual, our hunger seizing control of our minds, as we make sure to consume every scrap of food from our rugged, plastic mess kits. Sure enough, the meal replenishes our energy, and with it comes laughter. We laugh at everything: Daniel’s inappropriate Chinese phrases, my clumsy attempts at carrying our dishes, Sam’s Fargo imitation.

As I playfully poke our dwindling campfire, I hear Aayan’s cheerful voice ring out. “C’mon y’all, let’s get some photos before it’s dark!” he shouts, his voice echoing around the nearby lake. I groan, not wanting to leave the comfortable log that I was perched on, but eventually, I force myself to walk over to the shore, and after a few forced smiles and well- planned poses, we begin to study our photos. I appear unrecognizable, my shoulders almost sunburned under the light film of dirt, an uncomfortable stubble sprouting from my chin, and my hair wildly erupting over the blue bandana wrapped around my forehead. Suddenly, I’m overcome with a wave of exhaustion, and I begin to feel as tired as I look. The soreness in my limbs is replaced by a numb, jelly-like feeling. I sprawl over a flat rock overlooking the lake and instantly succumb to sleep.

When I wake up, I’m completely oblivious to the amount of time that passed; it could’ve been ten minutes or two hours. The sun has set, but its glow still radiates over the lake, basking everything in orange light. Although I see my friends gathered around the campfire, I choose to stay put and gaze out over the landscape.

For the first time today, I pause and take in my surroundings, and emotion grows through my chest. My eyes pass over the pale birch trees, the glass-smooth water, the cawing loons, and the boulder, adorned with yellow moss, that I rest on. Today’s exhaustion leaves my limbs, and for a brief moment, I look forward to tomorrow.

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DEUTER

A R T I S T F E AT U R E

CHARLIE ROSE ‘20

ANOPIA

GATORADE

20-21

FUEL

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STROKER’S DEUTERANOPIA IS A TYPE OF COLORBLINDNESS THAT AFFECTS THE PERCEPTION OF RED AND GREEN HUES. I FOUND OUT WHEN I WAS RELATIVELY YOUNG THAT I HAD THIS TYPE OF COLORBLINDNESS. EVERY TIME THAT SOMEONE HEARS ABOUT THIS PART OF MY IDENTITY, THEY ASK ABOUT HOW I DRIVE OR WHAT THE AMERICAN FLAG LOOKS LIKE. HERE, I TRY TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN HOW I SEE THE WORLD AND HOW OTHERS SEE THE WORLD. Charlie Rose ’2O

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FLAGS

COKE

24-25

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The Tornado of Fish Henry Baxter ’23 POEtry The water is silent Quieter than a mouse hiding from a cat.

The man swims through the water Breathing through his scuba gear The cold, soothing water is welcoming After the harsh humid air Underwater is a whole different world Breathing underwater is like taking flight Then the fish swarm into view Hundreds and hundreds of silver fish They surround the man More and more come from underneath They swim in circles around the man As if performing a sacred ritual.

The water swells and the noise is everywhere The fish move gracefully as one The man turns in circles  Trying to take in the tornado of fish He sees the sun Cutting through the cloud of fish Then as abruptly as they came The fish disappeared back into the depths The silence has returned This time even more eerie than before

DISORIENTED Tyler Nussbaumer ’2o PHOTO

Thursday 26-27

THE MARQUE

ever y 25 thursday of the year th

AAron Weiser ’2o FICTION

Every 25th Thursday of the year,

I see a line of white in my Darkness.

Sometimes I try to reach out and feel it, but there’s nothing there. I jump to the Up High and grab at the white, but there’s nothing there also. Same with the Down Low. Sometimes I try to surprise the white line. I jump onto where the white stops and the Darkness begins, but nothing is there except the Cold and Slippery. I used to try and stomp to see if more of the white line was hiding below, but the Cold and Slippery wouldn’t let me see. I haven’t tried to stomp at the Darkness in a while, so maybe it’s changed its mind.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I don’t close my eyes. I sit on my Flat and Dry and watch these little dots fly around in the white line. I wonder how many little flying dots there are because the white line goes into the Up High pretty far. It goes up and up and up and up until there’s just a small circle of white. I don’t know why the Darkness doesn’t just escape through the hole.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I think the Up High might go on forever.

At least, I don’t think it’s come down at all. I like to look at the same little flying dot the whole time, but sometimes the other dots fly so crazily that it gets hard.

I wonder if their heads hurt from all the bumping into each other. I once looked really really close at the white line to see if the little dots had wings, but I couldn’t see any, so maybe they don’t have any heads either. The dots fly really

really fast, but sometimes I guess they need a break.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I get off my Flat and Dry and walk into the Far Away. I walk into the Far Away for so long that some of the white line hides from me. I get scared that I won’t ever see the white line again, so I come back to my Flat and Dry. The Cold and Slippery seems to follow the Far Away on forever. Sometimes I fall down because the Cold and Slippery thinks I’m moving too fast. I wonder if the little dots ever fall down when they fly too fast.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I think about flying into the Up High with the little dots. Maybe the Cold and Slippery can’t follow me into the Up High. Sometimes I think that I should walk slowly into the Far Away until I can’t see the white line anymore. I wonder if that darkness would be any different than mine. What if it doesn’t have a Flat and Dry? What if the Cold and Slippery really does go on forever?

Maybe it’s better to stay.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I sit and watch the white line, waiting for it to go away. It makes me think my Darkness is much bigger than it is.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I stand next to the white line and dance.

Moving around the white line, I wave my arms and tap my feet. I feel the tiny splashes of the Cold and Slippery on my toes, but they don’t curl in like normal.

I start jumping and spinning, and

sometimes the Cold and Slippery lets me spin really really fast like it forgot I should fall.

I spin and I spin until my head tells me to stop. I get really Close to the white line, and then I stand in between it and the Darkness. I let it hit me and watch as nothing happens.

I turn around and can’t see the Cold and Slippery, so I dance around more and more. I move out of the white and line and move back in. I run through it and around it. I pretend to slice it into tiny pieces with my hands. Sometimes I jump up and down really high and pretend I’m bouncing. Sometimes I stand completely still and wiggle my toes.

I close my eyes and let the white line go away. I listen to the tiny splashes of the Cold and Slippery.

Closing my eyes makes my body feel heavy. My knees want to bend, and my arms sag to the side. My head bobs up and down as I move towards my Flat and Dry. My eyes try to open, but they’re too heavy. I think maybe I’m like those little flying dots. I just need a break from moving too much, I think. I just need a short break from dancing. I just need a little break, so I can dance some more. I sit and wait for my body to feel ready again. My legs hang off my Flat and Dry, and I forget about the white line waiting in front of me.

My Darkness follows me when I close my eyes. Sometimes I think it’s nice that it’s always there with me. Sometimes I

think that it’s all I’ll ever see. Sometimes I think that it’s leaving. I open my eyes expecting to see my Darkness, but I see the Cold and Slippery. It looks shiny. It’s edges and waves make the white line dance in the reflection. It twists and turns below my Flat and Dry. I start to feel like dancing with it again, but my Flat and Dry doesn’t seem to want me to go. The white line looks brighter in the reflection than it ever has before.

My eyes whizz like flying dots from edge to edge, from wave to wave. I follow the Cold and Slippery to the middle of my Darkness, and the white line gets bigger and brighter. I think back to all the other times I saw the white line.

Maybe the white line wasn’t ready to be so bright before. Maybe it had been tricking me. Maybe it didn’t know how.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, my dreams come true. I sit on my Flat and Dry and watch the white line until it goes away, and I go to sleep. Sometimes I reach out and put my hand in the white line. I think it feels different.

I stand between it and the Cold and Slippery and let it cover me. I walk forward until the white line is in front of my eyes, and I look to the Up High, at that tiny hole, and I close my eyes.

I wait until the white line replaces my

Darkness. I stand completely still, and I smile. I make no noise and think no thoughts, and I let the white line become my new home. I keep my eyes closed, and I smile.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I see little flying dots. I see more than I have ever seen before, and I wonder how they still have enough room to fly so crazily.

I start jumping up and down next to the white line looking for more flying dots, and more and more keep coming. They fly around without buzzing, and they bump into each other without slowing down, and I watch them without blinking. Sometimes I wonder if they have anywhere else to go. Sometimes I think maybe they’re flying around just for me.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, the white line takes a little bit longer to come into my Darkness. I stay on my

DINNER TIME Kyle Fisher ’2o Photo

Flat and Dry, hoping that the longer the white line takes, the more time the dots will have to rest. I think that when the white line finally gets here, more dots than I can ever imagine will come, and they’ll fly around faster and crazier than ever before, and they won’t ever take breaks, and I’ll get to watch them bump into each other forever, and I won’t ever go to sleep, and the white line won’t ever leave and neither will my smile.

Smiling, I wait, and I wait.

And the white line finally comes.

It slowly and loudly crawls into my Darkness, ridding my world of its nothingness, and I sit on my Flat and Dry watching, smiling bigger than ever before. But I want to wait to approach the white line. I want the little flying dots to have as much rest as they can get before I dance with them, but I can’t take it. My smile wants me to go, but my Flat and Dry seems to hold on. I place my hands to the side and push away.

I think I land too fast on the Cold and Slippery, but it doesn’t make me fall.

I start to slide towards the white line.

Faster and faster the Cold and Slippery takes me. Brighter and brighter the white line becomes.

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SLEEP WALKIN G Kyle Fisher ’2o Photo

My feet stop sliding in front of the white line, and my Darkness goes silent. I look into the white line and hope it’s smiling back at me. I wait, and I wait. Filling my eyes with brightness, I start to think the white line is pulling me in and holding me tight. I stare and stare, waiting for the white line to do something spectacular. I don’t know what I want it to do. I don’t know what it can do. But I wait, and I wait. I watch the white line until my eyes begin to tremble, but I don’t let go. I wait, and I wait. I hope that the white line will let slip a smile or a dance, but all I see are the little flying dots. They move around like nothing has changed, like nothing special is happening, like the white line is their world and my Darkness isn’t. They fly crazily and they bump into each other and they take short breaks, but they ignore me.

I start to move around the white line like I’m dancing, but I don’t feel like I’m dancing. I want the white line to dance first. My feet start to slip on the Cold and Slippery, and my hands have to catch my body. I begin to crawl around the white line, hoping that it’s tricking me, hoping that it’s just taking a break too, but nothing

changes. I push myself up and begin to jump. I throw my hands to the Up High and launch myself away from the Cold and Slippery, but it doesn’t take long to hear my feet splash again.

I jump more and more, hoping that soon I’ll start to fly and that the white line will think I’m a dot too. Maybe it will let me be a part of its world. And maybe I’ll start to shrink, and the white line will get bigger and bigger.

I’ll grow tiny wings that only I can see and my head will get so small that I won’t think and I’ll fly around like the rest of the dots. I’ll wait for the years to go by, resting and resting until those Thursdays come, and I’ll be free to fly. I’ll be free to fly, and I’ll fly crazily.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I keep my eyes closed and cry. The tears fall off my face and disappear onto the Cold and Slippery. I look at the white line from my Flat and Dry and wish I treated it better. Wish I hadn’t stared too long. Wish I never saw those little flying dots. Wish I never opened my eyes.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I glare and clench my fists and snarl at the white line, my teeth shimmering in its reflection like serrated clamps. I

wish it never wasted my time. Wish it never got so bright. Wish it would lose those little flying dots to my Darkness.

Wish it never got to shine again.

Wish it would find another Darkness to invade. Wish it would’ve tricked someone else. Wish I never opened my eyes.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I look at the white line and think that it never wanted me to see it. I sit on my Flat and Dry and wish instead of sleeping. Wish it never laughed with me. Wish I never loved those little flying dots. Wish it never came through that hole in the Up High.

Wish I never told it my secrets. Wish I never smiled so big. Wish it never smiled back. Wish I never danced so freely. Wish I saw things clearer. Wish it had told me the truth. Wish I never opened my eyes.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, my eyes glance at the Far Away. I don’t think the Far Away ever leaves, but I can’t see it when the white line is gone. I haven’t walked into the Far Away in a long time, but sometimes I wonder if it’s changed.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I wonder if my body can see with its eyes closed. Everything around me is

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dark, but my legs always know which way to move. I step closer to the white line and look at the Cold and Slippery. I see its soft curves and hard edges. I see its wrinkles and its corners. Its troughs and its crests. Its hills and its plains. Its plateaus and its cliffs. Its rivers and its oceans. Its mountains and its forests.

Its daggers. And its pillows. I move back to my Flat and Dry, my toes tip-toeing across the darkening ground.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I spend the day with the white line in my Darkness. Sometimes I look at the white line, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I just hang my legs off my Flat and Dry and tap my feet like I used to. I still like to feel the tiny splashes on my toes.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I stare into the Far Away, wondering how far it really goes. I sit up and dangle my legs off my Flat and Dry, and my feet feel like they’re being pulled down to the Cold and Slippery. My hands start to tense, my fingers start to curl down, and eyes fall into the Far Away. My body leans forward, and my feet plant down like my eyes have taken over control.

Uncontrollably, I move towards the Flat and Dry, expecting to feel the Cold and Slippery stab me from the safety of its darkness, but all I feel are tiny splashes.

I turn around without thinking and see the white line shrinking, but my eyes say onward and turn away. I walk away from the white line. My eyes stop my body, and I turn around and see the last sliver of the white line pulsing in the distance. I feel my body falling in two directions, my eyes not knowing what to do, my mind going numb.

My eyes close, and I collapse into the

Far Away.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I open my eyes to darkness, but it’s not mine. Sometimes I wonder how I can tell. Sometimes I wonder why I care.

I close my eyes and search for a Flat and Dry. As my feet shift from crevice to crevice and my hands from ridge to ridge, I feel the Cold and Slippery start to change. I try to slide my feet, but they stick. I bend and press my hands down, and they stay warm. I jump and don’t fall. I move around more, searching for the Cold and Slippery to reappear, but it stays hidden, and my lips crack into a smile. I lay down and try to sleep.

I turn to my side and look into the blank darkness. I think that after a while it would become my Darkness, but that might take a while. I think maybe this darkness is impatient, or maybe I am. I try to fall sleep, and I start to tap my feet but feel no tiny splashes.

I try harder to sleep, but all I think of are little flying dots. I see them crashing into each other. I imagine their invisible wings flapping like eyelashes. I reach out and feel them land on the tips of my fingers and move down arm like tiny pebbles. More and more come and they get so heavy that I can’t stand. I fall to my knees, but more keep landing. I think I can’t take their weight anymore, but suddenly I start to fly. The shadows of their flapping wings start to pulse in the reflection of the white line, and my body feels weightless. Higher and higher I soar into the Up High. The hole gets closer and closer. I yell at the dots to soar higher. I reach my arm out.

Almost there. Almost there. Almost there. Almost there. Almost there.

Together, the dots leap off my body, and I fall back down to the Cold and Slippery with a gigantic splash. I open my eyes back up and turn the other way.

I guess the dots needed a break.

I wake up feeling lost. I stand up and look back out of the Far Away, out of this darkness. I move forward, back towards my Flat and Dry, back to the Cold and Slippery, back to my Darkness.

Sometimes I think getting lost is just an excuse to leave. Sometimes I know that I need to. Sometimes I wonder if the Far Away will understand, if it will ever forgive me for leaving so suddenly.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I stand in front of the white line and realize that it’s changed. I realize that it changed a long time ago and that I didn’t. I think about all the Thursdays I watched and all the other days I missed because the white line wasn’t there. I sit on my Flat and Dry, look into white line, and smile. I smile bigger than ever before because I think I understand, and I think that the white line understands too.

I lay on my Flat and Dry and laugh with my Darkness. How crazily I flew.

I sit on my Flat and Dry and smile as the days go on. Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays and Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays pass, waving at me as they dance by. I sit and smile, until the 25th Thursday of the Year comes back around. I watch the white line settled down into my Darkness, and I hear a sudden thud. A crash. A rumble. A break. A splash.

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I stand up, look into the Up High, and watch as pieces crumble and fall to the Cold and Slippery. The hole gets bigger and the white line stretches across the Up High, hiding all my Darkness that it touches. I stand still, mesmerized. The entire Cold and Slippery begins to rumble and the entire Up High begins to seize. Cracks form, Darkness breaks, and splashes start to boom into the Far Away and echo back. There’s no more hole, but a sea of blue.

The brightness pierces my eyes and forces them shut. I turn around and shield my eyes with my hands. Slowly, I open them back up and see. Curves, edges, wrinkles, corners, troughs, crests, rivers, hills, plains, plateaus, cliffs, mountains, forests, daggers, and pillows all fill my world in new form.

No longer masked by my Darkness or blinded by the white line, the Cold and Slippery glistens and dances on its own. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. I wonder if it’s been like that all this time, only hiding under my Darkness. I turn and see my Flat and Dry, stoic and rigid in a sea of twists

and turns. I look back down to the Cold and Slippery and close my eyes.

I feel the brightness behind me fill my body. I turn around slowly, lift up my head, and look to the Up High. So calm, so wide, so deep, so beautiful, so caring, so unreachable, so blue.

I start to climb out of my darkness.

The higher I get the bluer the world becomes. New smells and sounds trickle into my nose and ears. My lungs fill with new air. My fingers and toes claw with new strength. My heart pumps with new blood.

I reach the top and pull myself out, but I remember the little flying dots and wonder where they’ve gone. I start to spin. I start to run. I start to yell. I look and look for the little white dots, but they won’t come out. I just want to watch them fly one last time. I just want to find their tiny wings. I just want to fly again.

I look until my eyes get tired and my legs can’t move. I lay down and begin to cry, but I see something in the Blue.

It’s a hole, and it’s so bright and big that my eyes try to look away, but I don’t want to let go. I stare and stare

into the hole, hoping that the little dots will come out. It gets brighter and bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. It glows red and orange and yellow and even white. It shines and glimmers and dances, and I stare and stare, and my eyes fill with brightness, the blue begins to disappear, and the brightness begins to fade. I see a flash, and my Darkness comes back.

Every 25th Thursday of the Year, I live in my Darkness and wonder if I’ll ever see the white line again.

Thursday Thursday Thursday

25 25 MOON WITH CLOUDS Tyler Nussbaumer ’2o

PHOTO

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CERAMICS SHOWCASE

1. LITTLE BROTHER Aaron Weiser '2O

1

2. BUBBLE M U S TA F A L AT I F ' 2 1

2

3

4 3. SCHOOL OF SKULLS TIM WEIGMAN ’21 4. ON THE ROAD AGAIN W I L L I A M H o lt b y ' 2 O

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CONT.D 6

5

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5. SOUND Brett Honaker '22

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6. MEADOW M U S TA F A L AT I F ' 2 1 7. HANDS UP, DON'T SHOOT ODrAN Fitzgerald '2O 8. 3Y - PUMP J O H N D AV I D M C C L A I N ' 2 O

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9. 3B - WT J O H N D AV I D M C C L A I N ' 2 O 10. TIDE M U S TA F A L AT I F ' 2 1 11. BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE ODRAN FITZGERALD '2O

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BALANCE S a h i t ya s e n a pat h y ’ 2 O FICTION

M

alachi’s mama didn’t tolerate his vulgar language. What happened to the sweet boy she had raised for seventeen years as a single mother? They had gradually grown apart as he entered high school, assuming a new, mired lexicon defined by profane and frequent f-bombs and “damns.” It was the rap music. But what could she do? He didn’t concern himself with her displeasure for the tasteless, gaudy music that filled his playlists. Any dinner time she chastised him for his language—the evident effect of voraciously consuming Kanye instead of Kafka—he would silently leave the rest of the family at the table and run up to his room. He was his father, temper and all.

Maybe that was why she couldn’t control him, even if she wanted.

Malachi engaged in a balancing act for as long as he knew. He had always been different. He felt it. His family felt it, too.

Hell, even a stranger on the road could probably tell. It ignited a wave of burning anger within him, knowing that he wasn’t like his sister. That’s what he was supposed to call her anyway. He couldn’t help having a lighter skin tone, a stocky build, or his fiery blue eyes. Those idiots at school called him a mutt, but he detested that word. It repulsed him— not for the vile vitriol with which they spat the epithet at him whenever he passed them in the hallways or the gym —no, he hated that the word associated him with what he loathed most in the world: his own identity. His father’s perennial absence had bred in him a deep-set resentment for his own heritage.

Forced to assume an unwanted birthright, the community’s stigma against kids with white fathers who neglected to care for their offspring, but unable to relinquish the indisputable truth of his birth,

Malachi lived in a state of racial dysphoria, attempting to balance his “blackness” and “whiteness.” For his whole life, he had sought to understand who he really was— besides Malachi, that is.

It all started at dinner one night when his mama began talking to him about the President’s comments regarding Baltimore.

“That’s only an hour away, you know, Malachi? You should be glad that we aren’t living there anymore. We’re lucky that you and Natosha have a such a safe and supportive community here.”

“Bullshit.”

“Malachi James Edwards! Watch your language, young man.”

Without saying a word, Malachi got up and left the dinner table, leaving his mother staring daggers at him and his sister sniggering uncontrollably. As he proceeded to run up to his room, he felt something different. Turning around, he paused at the front door, deliberating whether to take his car keys. In a state of indecision, Malachi grabbed them and swiftly slipped out of the house.

Unsure of what to do, Malachi thought it best to cool off in the car. But left to his own thoughts—why his mama thought that their lives were so perfect, how she constantly nagged him about his language, when she would let him grow up and act how he wanted—festering in his broiling mind, Malachi decided to explore the town. He had all the time in the world and nobody to hold him back.

It was peculiar, shrouded in mystery, taking on a dark, ominous aura. Its lowrolling hills were almost entirely enveloped by the eerie, pitch-black night like a thick curtain. The only source of light was the lingering glow of a faint streetlight,

illuminating the decrepit stones that made a steady trail of cold, grey rock—though the row seemed slightly imbalanced. Malachi found himself oddly drawn to the cemetery as he passed it. Of course, he hadn’t planned to check it out, but as he thought about it, there was something electrifying about sneaking into the graveyard. Perhaps it was the locked gate taunting him to enter or the cemetery’s proximity to Death attracting him. Malachi didn’t know why, but he suddenly turned around and pulled his car over to the side of the road, a couple yards from the entry gate.

As he stepped out of the car, Malachi felt apprehensive, breathing in the harsh, bitter air that engulfed him. Trudging through the rough gravel, his boots crunched over the rocks and pebbles around the gate. Malachi swore he could hear the gravel scream every time he set a foot down and it sunk into the earth.

Shit, shit, shit. I should be at home right now.

Why is it so dark tonight? Did the moon just disappear or something?

As he approached the ivy-covered gateway— his intrigue now completely sapped and replaced with paranoia—Malachi repeatedly looked around, his stomach sinking while frightening thoughts bubbled up to the forefront of his mind. The screeching wind could conceal a crowbar slicing through the air to clobber his head. Or a robber trailing him to steal his soul and leave his countenance plastered on the “Missing Child” interstate billboards. He shuddered.

Before he could imagine more gruesome scenarios for his death, Malachi reached the graveyard’s entrance. Peering through the forbidding gate, he noted how easily he could scale it to sneak into the cemetery. Taking a quick look around again—just to be sure— Malachi scampered up the gateway and into the graveyard.

ALONE LEE SCHLOSSER ’2O PHOTO

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Back home, his mama didn’t know what to do. Obviously, she couldn’t call the police—who knew what they would do to the poor boy if they found him. She dreaded even thinking about his limp body coming home instead. Considering driving out to find Malachi herself, she was suddenly reminded of her daughter’s presence by the loud shrieks coming from the other end of the table. As she turned to her daughter, now cackling over the phone with her friends—no doubt about Malachi’s anger-induced departure—she felt helpless and guilty for riling him.

I just wish they just could be happy and care for one another! Oh Lord, if I leave now, what’ll she do with the house all to herself?

Not risking a surprise house party hosted by herself unwittingly, she decided to wait for Malachi to cool off and come home. If he didn’t show up soon, she would call the neighbors.

Landing from his jump onto the slick, dew-covered cemetery grounds, Malachi headed over to a nearby bench to catch his breath. As he sat down, he felt the coldness from the stone bench fill his body, spreading from his bottom up to his head and though his fingers. Shivering, Malachi oddly felt at peace inside the tranquil confine of the graveyard.

There was something strangely reassuring about the place.

As he surveyed the cemetery, Malachi noticed the faint outline of a small tombstone to his far left. Drawn to the grave, he unknowingly got up and walked over to the marker.

Peering down at the dusty stone, Malachi noticed the grave’s inhabitant’s name: EDWARDS. Quickly brushing away the rotting bark and patchy moss that covered the headstone, Malachi tried to make out its inscription. Unable to see in the feeble light from the distant lamppost, he pulled out his phone, shining its built-in flashlight on the gravestone.

JAMES FOSTER EDWARDS MAY 13, 1969 OCTOBER 29, 2001 IN LOVING MEMORY OF A FATHER AND LEADER

Malachi let out an audible gasp. This had to be him. This had to be his dad. He hadn’t left their family after all! Elation quickly turned into confusion and anger.

Why hadn’t mama ever told him that his dad had passed away? Who all knew about this?

Subdued by overwhelming delight, though, Malachi finally felt like he knew who he was. His father hadn’t abandoned him; instead, his neglect was only the vicious consequence of black-hearted Death. Nobody could tame the venomous Dark Angel, but now armed with new-found knowledge, Malachi released the chains of his cruel optimism for his father’s return that held him back for so long. Looking triumphantly at his father’s gravestone, Malachi spotted a sole frail, white wildflower hugging the marker. Overcome by ecstasy, Malachi plucked it out of the ground, stuffed it in his pocket, and sprinted back to his car, quickly driving back home. Bursting in through the front door, Malachi began yelling excitedly.

“Mama, mama, I found him! I can’t believe it, I’m so happy!

Did you hear me?”

Malachi’s mama rushed out from the living room, where she had been fidgeting with the phone, deliberating whether to call the neighbors for help. As Malachi began shouting, she ran into his arms, locked in a tight embrace with her son. As she hugged him, she noticed a sickly odor floating around the boy—but she couldn’t identify the smell.

“Mama, I found about dad, he—” “What are you talking about Malachi?”

“I went to the graveyard and saw the marker there, mama, I saw the headstone! It said James Edwards. It said James Foster Edwards, mama. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Malachi, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Your father’s name isn’t James.”

Malachi felt his stomach drop and nausea rise to his head.

Experiencing a burning sensation in his nose, he crawled up the stairs into his room as tears began to fill his eyes.

He’s not my dad, why did I think some random dead white dude was my father?

His fit of anger and sorrow inducing a state of unconsciousness, Malachi woke up drenched in his own

The graceful heron swoops into the mighty sea.

Splash! Dinner is served.

ROHIT VEMURI ’2O HAIKU

sweat. Dazed and weary, he wondered if the whole adventure to and from that graveyard was but a dream. As he pushed his hands into his pockets, though, he felt something slightly squishy and soft, pulling out the once-erect wildflower now squashed and drooping. Malachi tried to steady the flower, shifting its sagging petals only for the flower to revert to its lopsidedness. Staring intently at the deformed flower, which he recalled glistened with a pure whiteness in the cemetery but now lay before him discolored and grimy, Malachi smiled. There was something about it that he found refreshing—maybe it was the imbalance.

SPARK WILL ROCCHIO ’2O PHOTO

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Om

Neal Reddy ’2O FICTION

JAMES SHIAO ’2O D I G I TA L D R AW I N G

Fr o m the aut hor OM IS A STORY ABOUT FATE , FATHERS, AND FANTA SY. SET IN A FARAWAY KINGDOM, THE STORY WEAVES THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND WITH ELEMENTS FROM MY CULTURE’S LORE .

Calling Rajda a town was giving the

settlement a little too much credit. It was really just a few bungalows that happened to be within several hundred yards of each other; still, the magistrate taxed the village heavily.

His carriage arrived on the new moon, to the disgust of the elders.

The assemblage of bungalows that made up the hamlet sat on the northern edge of the bay, where boulders and pebbles replaced the fine sand that lined the shores further south.

The fishermen who called Rajda home had managed to construct a few docks, the busiest part of the village. Before sundown, the men congregated by the docks and counted the fish. It was a chaotic ordeal, men tossing nets onto the wood, the pungent odor of fish in the air, the frothing saltwater splashing with the rocking boats.

Indra was among them, though the wear and tear of time had sapped his strength.

He couldn’t yell quite like he used to, but he grunted and coughed as he counted the village’s earnings.

While the old man was distracted, Om scurried away from the shore onto the boulders.

Despite his age, Indra was sharp, so Om had to time his escape quickly.

While Indra was Om’s caretaker, he knew that the man was not his father. In fact, for all of his life, Om had called him daada, the word for grandfather. Indra’s small eyes and long, gaunt countenance contrasted sharply with Om’s radiant smile and dimples. And even Indra fervently denied having any relation to Om. According to Indra, he had taken the boy in from a nearby fishing town and brought him to Rajda. His father, Indra’s friend of many years, had passed away in an accident, and his mother fell ill, orphaning Om. Pitying the boy, Indra took Om with him to the nearest village, the same village that the boy dreamed of leaving.

Om scampered up the knoll at the edge of the bay, swiftly jumping from rock to rock. He had fallen a few times on these treacherous rocks before, but now the path was etched into his conscience, like the primeval markings engraved on the stones near the bottom of the cliff.

Reaching the top of the hill, Om pulled out a rounded piece of glass. He still heard the commotion of the docks, but it was muted, masked by the crash of the waves on the boulders. From the cliff, he could see the glowing city of Aksara through his makeshift looking-glass, with its towering sandstone walls, the red-roofed huts that reflected the fires atop the ramparts, and the palace and keep

which marked the eastern extremity of the city.

Aksara was a place of dreams in Om’s mind.

He craved the warmth of the conversations that echoed in the narrow streets, the tranquility of the gardens in the city center, the wonder of looking out into the vast sea beyond the ports from the towers of the palace. It felt like the city and its vibrant activity was the perfect remedy for his inner restlessness.

Indra had warned him many times to not venture into the city. It was dangerous, treacherous, and corrupting; the men who worked in the palace that Om practically worshipped were conniving sycophants. As Indra always said, “The men of the city spill blood more than they spill their master’s tea.”

Still, Om wondered what it would be like to live in the gilded halls, with golden bells ringing before every meal.

Watching the lights of Aksara flicker from his vantage point, he imagined sneaking through the sewer system and ending up in the palace kitchen. Maybe there would be some dessert he could steal. He could almost feel the skin of a peach from the courtyard when he felt a scratch on his back.

Om whirled around quickly, armed with a branch and an excuse, in case the old man had followed him up the hill. The squinting eyes of a macaque were staring intensely at him, its spotted tail arched in his direction.

“I hate you,” Om groaned. “I really do. Look, I don’t have any fruit today, so maybe try next week-” Before Om could finish, the monkey grabbed one of the boy’s sandals that he had left at the bottom of the rocks and taunted Om with it, waving it in the air. The macaque scurried into the jungle, and Om followed him, hopping awkwardly with one shoe.

“Hey,” Om yelled into the canopy, where he could see the monkey’s olive eyes glowing like little lanterns in the darkness. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

The mischievous animal started to crawl down the tree, its sand-colored fur contrasting the dark bark of the mangrove. Like a perplexed merchant, it stared at Om intensely. But a rustle in the bushes caught the macaque’s attention, and it climbed up the tree again. This time, it was gone.

“I guess I have to make a new sandal.” Om walked back in the direction of the village, ignoring the growing hissing sound from the shrub in front of him.

As he passed the shrub, a long, speckled snake emerged from the bushes, red, beaded eyes glowing above its striped hood. Om felt the air drain from him, tightening his chest and

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GREEK PYTHOS Knobel Hunt ‘21 S A G A R - F I L L E D S T O N e WA R E

Al l h e c o u l d do i n the m i dst o f t h e f i e ry pai n that s wal lo w e d h i s left leg was c lo s e h i s e y e s and pray, p r e par i n g f o r what seem ed to be the End.

throat. Before he could flee, the cobra hissed menacingly and lunged at his ankle, sinking its teeth into Om’s leg. Om screamed in pain and crumpled to the floor, an overwhelming, burning feeling spreading through him.

Through his tears of pain, Om saw the cobra rear back, preparing to strike. All he could do in the midst of the fiery pain that swallowed his left leg was close his eyes and pray, preparing for what seemed to be the end.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the snake lifeless on the jungle floor, a knife lodged between its eyes. Om strained to turn around and Indra ran toward him, the monkey leading him. Indra had pulled off his turban, revealing long, black hair that grayed at the ends. Indra’s familiar sandy eyes looked fearfully at Om, who had forgotten completely about his wound.

The old man lifted Om into his arms and started trekking between the trees, the macaque leading him. Om, despite the surging, stinging feeling that seemed to spread outward from his ankles, felt safe.

Indra’s arms shielded him from the vines and branches that swept them as they went deeper into the darkness. Though he fought the feeling, an invisible warmth started to pull his eyelids shut.

When Om woke up again, he heard the familiar crash of the sea. The salt water splashed onto his face, droplets flying with the whistling wind, which caused the sails to flap. He rolled on his side, accidentally onto the ankle that had been bitten. To his astonishment, he felt no pain. When Om pulled off the cloth that covered his foot, in the place of the two bite marks, his skin had turned pale, almost as white as the sand back in the village.

On the other side of the boat, Indra steered the boat, his hands working the ropes as a musician would tune a harp. The macaque, who had miraculously followed them, tossed a fish skeleton around listlessly.

Om had no idea what to say to Indra, who had saved his life minutes before.

It had all started with that petulant monkey. The creature had followed him for the last couple of months in search of leftovers and fruit. Om stared at the creature, as if he were directing all of his anger and

frustration at the monkey. I could have come back to the village, if it weren’t for you.

But when Indra looked back at him, Om’s anger turned into guilt. He felt embarrassed for blaming a harmless animal for his mistakes.

It was Om’s own fault that he had run away, ventured into the forest, and caused all of this chaos to happen. How could he even apologize? Indra was probably furious with him. But at the same time, Om wondered where they were going. Om turned around and could see those familiar brown specks of Rajda by the rocky cliffs. But they seemed to be getting smaller.

The boat drifted into low, wispy clouds that made the air wet and sticky, like honey.

“Where are we going, daada?” Om called out to Indra, who was peering out through the mist.

“Why, the city, my child.” Indra’s voice was soft, but melodious, the syllables attached like tones in a musical phrase.

“The city?” Om was stunned. Indra’s rules confined him within a radius of several square miles for all thirteen years of his life. The city was a place of sin and danger, a place to be avoided at all costs. Now, the bustling docks he had observed from afar were within arm’s reach. The specks that he had glimpsed every evening had been transformed into living people, merchants waddling across the docks with colorful turbans and shiny white smiles.

Om didn’t complain about being in the city. But why now? The snake bite on his ankle was gone. In its place just hours later, a scar had already begun to grow onto his skin.

As the boat pulled into the harbor, Om felt warmth hug him and smiled at a man hunched over by the docks, who didn’t return the gesture, his eyebrows inching together like caterpillars. The seated figure wore an orange tunic and a sea of gray, messy hair covered much of his face. The eyes, however, burned through the mist, locking onto Om, whose heart was pounding.

With a shrill scream, the man began to yell. The words were unintelligible at first, but the bustle of the docks ceased as the madman screamed louder and louder.

Indra noticed the man and quickly draped a cloth over Om, shielding him, before pulling a scarf around his face. He lifted Om onto the pier before climbing up himself, followed by the monkey. The boy was still focused on the man, who had attracted a crowd. In the front of the crowd, two massive figures, wearing golden, shiny mail approached the madman. Red jewels adorned the armor of these men, who had taken off their helms, revealing dark black beards and sharp noses.

“Challo.” Indra beckoned to Om, and they disappeared into the crowd. Om caught one last glance at the strange man, who was pointing towards the boat on which they had arrived. They snuck through an alleyway, and the clicks of shoes against cobblestone replaced the sound of water hitting the docks. They crept into the shade, away from the morning sun.

Indra held the boy close against the walls of limestone

building and peered out from the alley into the street.

A dozen horses, carrying men in gold, like the two near the harbor, rode past, kicking dust into the air. Yet one lone horse, carrying an armored soldier, trotted toward them, sword drawn.

Om looked up at Indra. For the first time he could remember, Om sensed fear in his protector’s eyes.

The soldier pulled off his helmet and gazed down at the trio, the corner of mouth curling into a smirk.

“What’s an old man like you doing smuggling pests into the city?” The soldier chuckled. He eyed the macaque that was hissing at him viciously, flapping its gums. “If my father trained monkeys for a living, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Indra didn’t respond. Om felt all the muscles in his slender, lithe body tighten at once. He had never wished pain on anyone, but he felt unbridled indignation at this man, who was spitting at the only family he knew.

“I guess some will never know what it’s like to have a real job, serving a king.” The soldier turned his mount away and headed back into the street.

Om was perplexed. Indra hadn’t given him any explanation for why they were in the city. But before Om knew it, Indra had knocked at the wooden, engraved door at the front of the limestone edifice.

“He’s here.” The door creaked open, and Om sensed the cold grip of an arm pulling him in.

The room was dark, until the torches on the walls lit up in a sequence. Om saw that they were in the center of a large, windowless hall, surrounded by tables of seated men dressed in silver chain mail. Indra stood beside him, the monkey waiting patiently at his shoulder, completely unfazed by the shadowy room.

But Om didn’t feel that way. He was scared, distrustful at the large crowd of men. Yet, Indra had brought him here, all the way from Rajda.

A woman emerged from the group. “Lord Indra, you have done well. We weren’t expecting you so soon.”

“The boy’s been marked.” Indra pointed at Om’s ankle. “Our enemies have turned to sorcery. He’d be safer here than in the village.”

“My lord, is the boy ready?”

“Bring him his sword. It’s time he knows who he is.”

A teenage boy kneeled in front of Om. Everyone else in the room knelt, so naturally Om stepped forward and thought about doing it himself. He felt Indra’s arm on his shoulder, signaling him to stay put.

“Om, my child; you are not a fisherman.” Indra grasped the sword from the servant. “I’m not a fisherman, and your father wasn’t either.”

Om’s eyes widened. He felt like speaking, but the words stuck in this throat.

“Your father was the King of Aksara, and I commanded his armies. I swore an oath as he lay dying on the battlefield to protect you and shield you from his murderers.” Indra knelt before him. “But now, the throne is yours. The city is yours. Long may you reign.”

Om grasped the sword and looked at his people with wonder.

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SANDS WITHIN LEE SCHLOSSER ’2O Photo

EMOTION

SECTION

II

EMO TION Whether in brushstrokes or in commas, artists have always searched for the most honest ways of conveying emotion to their audience. Emotion separates an artwork from an infographic and gives art the meaning and energy to reach across the fourth wall and provide its viewers with something more. We’ve all felt it. It’s a pull that, after passing an artwork once, hauls us back for one more glimpse. It’s a pull that makes our knees wobbly, our jaws gape, that forces us to use the flat benches museums so generously provide. It’s a pull that reaches for our Instagram pages, compelling us to share our experience of art with everyone we can. In the pages that follow, we’ve put together the art that pulls us—art that conveys emotion so well we were forced to take note.

ALAM ALADINa ’21 A S S O C I AT E E D I T O R

M

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For Erin, Long Ago Waking with a gasp, Nathan immediately

knew something was wrong. He had thrown off his blankets while thrashing about in the night.

Suddenly, he remembered his dream, images of crumbling buildings, people screaming, and violence. He glanced out the window that made up the far side of his bed cubicle, one of sixty rectangles built into the stone wall of the dormitory, the personal spaces of Nathan and his classmates.

He found some comfort in the darkness and the coolness of the air, a far cry from the images of fire seared into his head.

Wait? The feeling of alarm returned. It’s so dark outside… With a start, he realized the source of his uneasiness. His window faced the girls’ dormitory, identical to the boys’ quarters in its steel beams, gray concrete walls, and gleaming windows. Not ugly.

Simply… utilitarian. On the seventh floor, the level for all seventh-form students, a light always pierced the night. This light belonged to Erin, Nathan’s only true friend at Croswell Preparatory School.

Erin was unlike anyone Nathan had ever met during his seven years at the school. Her chestnut hair, like a soft spool of yarn, was offset by her small face. Everything about Erin was small, from her quiet voice to her impish stature, in contrast to Nathan’s lanky frame. For a time, Nathan thought he had never noticed her before that autumn because of her size, until a chance encounter in the patch of woods behind the girls’ dorm brought them together. As they began to talk nightly, her eyes, dignified silver pebbles, fixed themselves in his mind. They fitted her personality well, constantly flitting about in search of the truth.

Still remembering the panic of his dream, Nathan feared the worst for Erin at that moment. Perhaps she had finally been caught by Admin, the seemingly omniscient shadowy head of Croswell. Erin regularly hid during the Selection, the monthly contests of strength and fighting that determined the leadership of each form. Gentle Erin was unable to lay a hand on another person even in these simulations. At

Jack Trahan ’2O FICTION

any another time, Nathan might have chuckled as he remembered that that day was the February Selection.

More than anything, Erin feared the dark.

He wanted to believe that the bulb of her lamp had simply burned out. But Nathan was worried, nonetheless. Knowing he had to remain in his cubicle until first light on account of the guards patrolling, the tall youth lay on his side and peered out his window, patiently counting the seconds, minutes, hours until morning.

When the grayish-brown sky finally began to lighten, Nathan hurriedly put on his gray pants and white undershirt with his gray button-up and gray overcoat, the functional uniform of the Croswell student. Guards now stood by each door, so he was free to roam his floor for the next hour before finally gaining the ability to go to the Center and eat breakfast.

Students entered Croswell around the age of eleven and did not leave the premises until they had finished their eighth-form year. Nobody was completely sure what happened after students left.

Occasionally, graduates returned to campus as teachers or security personnel, but they came back as completely different people, seemingly not knowing a soul on campus.

He and Erin had discussed it once. In her steady way, she told him that these people had in some way failed their training and had not been allowed to work for the New American government. The government sent the lucky ones back to Croswell, blank eyes populating their solemn faces. Erin was unsure of what happened to the rest. As with many things Erin said, Nathan struggled to believe her, but sometimes, when he stared into the eyes of Professor Macabee, who had completed her time at the school three years before and who now taught Nathan’s writing course, “The Literature of New America,” he thought Erin might be right.

After showering, Nathan dried and swept back his long brown hair, shaved the whiskers sprouting up on his cheeks, and returned to his bed. He stared

E ri n was unl ik e an yo n e N at h an h ad e ve r m e t durin g h i s s e ve n y e ar s at the sch ool .

RIGID Lee Schlosser ’2O Photo

at the cubicles in the wall across from him. Winston, Tyler, Davidson… He listed off his classmates as his gaze passed across their cubicles. What is wrong with them? All of these boys were just – sheep. Day by day, they scampered to and from their classes and to physical training. Never did they question life at Croswell. Nathan did not know how he had kept his thoughts to himself before meeting Erin.

Erin. His mind returned to his present worry. Finally, the guards standing by the doors to the seventhform quarters departed. Nathan sprang down the smooth stairs, running his hand along the sleek metal handrail before reaching the bottom floor and pushing open the main doors to the dormitory. As Nathan stepped outside, the acrid smell of oil and industrial pollution invaded his nostrils. He took a moment to inhale deeply and adjust to the outside world of Croswell.

As was always the case when he went outside in the morning, Nathan was first struck with the sights and smells associated with pollution. Above the soggy dead leaves that covered the stone bricks of the courtyard separating the two dormitories, a pollution-bred, brown smog mingled with the gray clouds. Some life-supporting sunlight still slipped through this haze. Much of the local contamination came from Pacific City, a New American industrial powerhouse located near the faraway ocean, which Nathan understood to be an endlessly large, flowing pond. The forestland covering much of Croswell’s campus had also fallen victim to pollution. Most of the birch trees and underbrush surrounding the main campus were in various stages of decay.

Staring past the stone-faced guards of the courtyard, Nathan saw a group of girls conversing by the main doors to their dorm. As he approached, he saw the worry in their faces, one girl letting out a sharp gasp as she realized he was walking toward them. He knew these girls, fellow seventh formers. But as with his male classmates, Nathan had little respect for their universally timid, almost cowardly personalities.

Nonetheless, he raised a hand in greeting and attempted to smile, though this gesture did not reach his

cool gaze. Staring directly at Margaret, the blonde girl in the middle, he firmly inquired, “Have you seen Erin this morning?”

Margaret looked at the girls on either side of her, as if seeking escape from Nathan’s question in the deep gray of her companions’ pants. After a long pause, the girl next to her, Sarah, inhaled sharply and replied: “No, we haven’t. She’s gone.”

Gone… Nathan stared blankly at the trio for a moment, Sarah’s words not processing in his head. Of course, Erin was not really gone. She might have broken the bulb of her lamp, but how could she have disappeared?

Margaret, finally gaining control of her tongue, interrupted his thoughts: “Sarah’s right. Something happened last night. This morning, Erin’s blankets were thrown across the floor. We don’t know where she went.”

Nathan could only grunt in acknowledgement as ice clogged his brain and bloodstream. Turning around, he involuntarily shuddered and took deep breaths as he walked away from the girls. Erin is… gone? Where is she? What has happened? He refused to believe that she had been kidnapped or, worse, taken to Admin. Somehow, Nathan had to reach her room and see for himself that she had really left. He knew that the only time he might be able to sneak into the girls’ dorm would be during the day’s Selection, a time when almost everyone would be in the forest.

During breakfast in the Center and throughout his morning classes in the Academy, a concrete and steel monolith that was the stronghold for Croswell’s academics, Nathan did his best to act normally. He did not ask anyone else if they had heard anything about Erin.

Most would have no idea. Others who might have some vague notion would plead ignorance.

So Nathan sat through his history and writing courses, not absorbing a word of Professor Crowell’s lecture on the rise of Xavier Thomas, the founder of New America, or Professor Macabee’s discussion of the American Manifesto, the leading document of the government. At noon, students left class to prepare for the afternoon’s

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events. The Selection, a “Croswellian tradition,”consisted of various contests of strength, agility, and fighting ability, from a brutal upper body climbing course to handto-hand combat. As Nathan walked to his dorm, the clouds above began to leak acidic tears. After retrieving his gray raincoat and boots from his room, he checked the bulletin board posted by the main doors to his dormitory. Finding “Nasser, Nathan,” on a long list of names, he saw he would first be participating in the Dog Run. The Dog Run, affectionately named by students in a time when creativity apparently flowed more freely, consisted of two students racing up a muddy hill to retrieve a yellow pennant. The two then flew back down the hill, each trying to gain control of the pennant and return it to the faculty member “supervising” the activity.

As with all Selection contests, nothing was strictly illegal, only discouraged.

Minor injuries were common, scrapes and cuts from the stones under the mud.

Occasionally, a competitor might break a bone after tumbling down the hill – or meeting the flailing hands and feet of an aggressive opponent.

In Nathan’s mind, the event was pointless, as was the Selection in general.

Despite typically winning the events and earning leadership over the seventh formers for the next month (though leadership only entailed being able to order his classmates about, something he never did), he still disdained the “tradition”, particularly so because of his classmates’ worship of it.

Nathan watched the rain fall from the front steps of the dorm under a small stone outlet hanging over the entryway. Then, thirty minutes later, he began his hike through the sprawling forest that stretched

across the southern region of campus.

Walking for fifteen minutes or so among other Croswellians, their heads turned down toward the dead leaves that squelched beneath their boots, Nathan arrived at the hill where the Dog Run would take place.

He came to a large group of seventh-form boys and girls waiting to begin the event.

Standing apart from them, he waited until Professor Kerry, a short, stout woman with a permanent scowl twisting her deflated face, cleared her throat and welcomed everyone to the February Selection. She then explained the “Pennant Sprint” in her mind-numbing screech.

Finally, pairs of students began to race each other up and down the hill. After the first ten duos had gone, Nathan slowly slipped back into the dense forest. Finally, unable to hear Professor Kerry’s shrieks, he began to jog east, planning his route to avoid other events and eventually circle around to the dormitories.

Twenty minutes later, he reached the break in the forest just before the main campus and circled around the line of trees to a position behind the girls’ housing.

Lying down in the dead leaves, Nathan squinted at the rear of the structure. From what he could see, no guards stood amongst the pipes and vents that made up the back of the edifice. Taking off his boots, he ducked close to the ground and ran through the open area separating the trees and the building.

While Croswell had central heating, many students cracked their windows during the day to prevent humidity from building up in their cubicles. Nathan quickly found an open window on the first floor. He repeatedly jumped and pushed it open further and further with his right

hand. When the opening was wide enough, he dropped his boots to the ground and hoisted himself up, feeling the frigid concrete through his gray raincoat. And then he was in.

As Nathan crawled through the window and into a girl’s carefully made bed, he steadied his breathing and listened intently for any stray guards. Hearing nothing, he padded up the stairwell to the seventh floor.

Reaching the large bedroom for seventh-form girls, he walked down the row of cubicles. Although he had never entered the girls’ dormitory before, the building perfectly mirrored his own dorm. Nathan eventually found a cubicle labeled “Reid, Erin.” Erin’s bed did not show signs of any disruption.

For a moment, he wondered whether he simply had not seen Erin that day; maybe she had hidden herself from the Selection a night early.

Then he saw her lamp.

Instead of burning out, the bulb of Erin’s lamp had shattered, depositing glass on the floor. In the jagged bowl of the bulb was a small note, overlooked by whomever had made the bed. His heart battering against his chest, Nathan seized the scrap and read Erin’s messy script: nate – can’t explain. you need to escape to PC. with landon Questions raced through Nathan’s head. PC? Oh, Pacific City. Why is she there? And who’s Landon? Suddenly, he remembered a conversation between him and Erin during dinner a few weeks

before. She had seemed troubled.

Then, swearing him to secrecy, she had begun to tell Nathan about the world outside of Croswell. According to Erin, in Pacific City a rebel group known as the Wolfpack had fought against the soldiers that sought to keep the Sheep (her term for the city’s citizenry) in line. She had also mentioned that at Croswell the students were being trained. For what, Nathan was unsure.

This conversation, along with others he had with Erin, brought to light Nathan’s long-held uneasiness about the school, an apprehension he nearly forgot at times. Erin had become the only person he could trust. In that moment, he decided he needed to follow her, even though he could never return to Croswell if he did. But Nathan suddenly realized that such a fate did not bother him.

As he retreated back down the stairs to the first floor, Nathan was already considering the practicalities of escape.

Erin’s note tucked in his pocket, he cautiously crept back out his entry window. Putting his boots on over his muddy socks, he slinked back into the forest and returned to the Dog Run. Nathan had been gone for about an hour. When he reached his classmates once again, he saw that perhaps a quarter of them had yet to compete.

Quietly, he stood with them until his time came to face off against Charlie Wislet. Charlie, a small, gawky academician, stood no chance against Nathan’s lanky agility and wiry

strength. The athletic youth’s six-footfour stature blazed past Charlie up the hill, collected the pennant, and hurtled over the boy on his way back down.

Nathan performed similarly in the other events of the afternoon. He clobbered Willy Thompson in handto-hand fighting and set his fastest time ever in the brutal tree climb. His classmates had resigned themselves to yet another defeat at the hands of this accomplished sportsman. Nathan kept grinning in spite of himself, knowing that these competitions marked the final time he would give Croswell what it desired.

Finally, the sky darkened, and the day’s events concluded. The night brought a game of Capture the Flag between the different forms. While the professors met and selected the winners from the day, students sought out a white flag tucked away in the woods.

But that night, Nathan was not at all concerned about finding the white flag.

As Professor Crowell explained the rules to the nearly one-thousand Croswell students in a large clearing, his voice collectively ignored by all of them, Nathan mentally rehearsed his escape plan. As he had done that afternoon, Nathan would circle east and then north from the southern forest. But this time, he would bypass the dormitories and the rest of the main campus. Under the cover of darkness, he would make his way to the much smaller northern forest, where he would eventually reach the fence that separated Croswell from

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Nathan ---Set-----Off-----------for-------the outside world. Once there – well, Nathan would find a way to bypass this barrier when he had to.

At most, Nathan had around two hours until the competition concluded. He had almost certainly won the Selection for the seventh formers, so the professors would immediately note his absence.

When the event began, Nathan jogged through the trees as he usually would. But slowly, he changed course until he was running north, guided by landmarks. Nathan loped past the main campus to the sparse northern forest. Finally, he reached the tall chain-link fence that separated him from the rest of his life. The fence crackled as if – electrified?

Slightly discouraged, Nathan paced up and down the fence for about an hour. He tried to dig beneath the mushy leaves, but concrete slabs protected the barrier from below. Finally, he remembered to look up and found in the darkness a thick birch tree with a thin branch reaching out far enough to make a leap plausible. Not finding another alternative, he decided to climb his original birch. The fence seemed to grow as Nathan climbed.

Nathan despaired, knowing that the hard earth on the other side of the fence would not cushion his landing. But fear abruptly replaced his distress as he heard a distant voice shout, “I think he’s over here!”

Panicked, Nathan frantically tried to recall any mistake on his part that might have led the guards to know he was missing. At the same time, Nathan saw a small glass circle disguised as a knot in the tree that upon closer inspection appeared to be an artificial eyeball of some kind, leering up at him. He thought the eye might have led the guards to him.

Looking far below, he saw Professor Crowell leading three guards in his direction. Instinctively, Nathan scampered across the thin branch that hung past the fence, ignoring its threatening creaks. When he had crawled about halfway, he heard Professor Crowell scream, “Get down here, Nasser!” Nathan ignored the voice.

And then he jumped.

As he plummeted, Nathan twisted to his side.

Smashing against the hardpacked dirt, he felt a sickening crunch in his left arm. But laying on the ground, he believed his legs were fine. Gasping for breath, Nathan saw the guards rushing up to the fence and aiming dark objects at him. He knew he had to move. Pushing himself up with his right arm, Nathan began to sprint, adrenaline fueling his legs even as his lungs struggled for air.

Nathan turned back just in time to see a flash from one of the guards’ gadgets and something whiz past him. More of these deadly balls flew past him. Then, after an eternity, he reached a large tree that provided him temporary cover from the guards stuck on the other side of the fence. Catching his breath, Nathan knew that more guards would soon give chase. Taking one last look at the trees of Croswell Prep, his residence, if not his home, for the past seven years, the boy began to lope through the forest, his left arm hanging limply at his side.

Nathan traveled through the night, not daring to take a break. His arm did not trouble him, although he had no control over it. As dawn’s first rays began to shimmer through the branches overhead, Nathan reached a clearing. He came to a cliff’s edge. From his perch, Nathan stood over a great bay that opened up to an endless pool of water on his left. The ocean… Before his awe had faded, another sight took his breath away. Past the bay was a city, with towers larger and more numerous than he could have imagined. But the city seemed to be smoking, great foggy clouds lifting from the ground to join the gray skies. Nathan laughed at himself for a moment. He had given up his whole life for his friend. Danger surrounded him. He only had the use of one arm. But despite these adversities, with each step during the night he had become more confident in his choice. His life before really was no life at all. In fact, he looked forward to whatever was to come. A man named Landon. And Erin. Nathan Nasser set off for the city.

CITY AWAKENS Charlie rOse ’2O Photo

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WASP cooper cole ’22 Pencil Sketch

M a x Pa ly s ’ 2 1

The diamond, contrary To many important men In austere lab coats, Is not the hardest Substance in the world.

It is you, forgiveness, Who takes that prize.

A hammer would shatter Like dropped glass if it So much as grazed your iron edges.

Hiding in the deepest jungles Of me—I hunt for days among High boughs of aspirations Only to return without you again.

I want your satin Comfort to spread over me and addict Me to you—dissolve my pain And take it with you when again You retreat into crevasses, ravines, And canyons choked in my nostalgia.

Why do you so easily appear to others?

Don’t you understand that I Need you now? I crave their Sobbing exhalations, the muttering Of three words that makes every muscle In their bodies contract And relax.

Despite my obsession, Despite my hunger For you over any other lover, I forgive you.

to Forgiveness to Forgiveness

PoeTRY

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To Dream

Nicholas Tsao ’2O Poetry

Perhaps the greatest question of all is why we dream, Why we see that bioluminescent world beneath the sea that only lights up at night When the last light above is turned off, the iridescent color Of the setting sun finally hidden beneath the frame Of the Earth. Here, in this time beyond time, in the blank Canvas of the empty mind, is the first step Of the journey beyond. To take that first fearful step Across the bridge from light to dark, to cross the boundary between dream And reality is to scrub away the world above, make blank And empty the recesses of consciousness, and enter a dark night Of the mind. Or perhaps such a binary pattern is too shallow to frame Such complex workings better described with smears of color, Mixing and changing, molding into some new color Unknown to the waking world, that we must step Into before we can understand our frame Of mind when the subconscious surfaces to dream.

But what we see after may be no color, no light nor night, But rather some strange, heavenly magic that comes from the blank Emptiness once everything else has been removed. Perhaps a blank Mind is then not so blank, but rather filled with sound, color, And a warm, comforting light that overrides the worldly night.

Perhaps emptying the mind of ordinary worries is a necessary step To create the beautiful masterpiece of a dream, The magnificent flash of artistic inspiration simply seeking a frame.

Is the creation then something beyond, speaking in our frame, Framed in our mind, mindless of the light behind our blank And empty eyes? Then perhaps the contents of a great dream Capture the wandering currents of life and give color To each colorless, pristine, white marble step Giving the temple of the mind a purpose that shines through the foggy night.

In this way, we receive the greatest insight at night, Through our little minds that frame The great heavenly voice that lets us take a meaningful step Upon the great path of life in this otherwise bleak, blank World. In a world intrinsically devoid of color It is then our responsibility and privilege to dream.

In this colorless world, this gray and empty frame, We are free to give meaning to the blank pages of this dream Of life. Only then can we step confidently and purposefully into the night.

o n ly t h e n can we step c o n f i d e n t ly and p u r p o s e f u l ly into the night UNCONFORMING Rohit Vemuri ’2O PHOTO

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Art is indeed an avenue for self-expression—but it is also so much more, for both the artist and the audience, especially during times of crisis.

Guernica. The Scream. Countless pieces of religious iconography, and too many works of fiction and nonfiction to name. Suffering is fundamental theme in some of the world’s greatest works—and perhaps the most ubiquitous in all art.

For the artist, depicting suffering is cathartic—an extremely powerful coping method. Creating art provides the chance for internalization, to process complex events, to make sense of the world. The creative process forces an artist to strip an issue down to its essence, to filter out the unnecessary and confusing interpretations and counter-interpretations swirling in society’s collective consciousness, to find the truth in experience.

The audience’s experience is equally powerful. Art helps the audience see the invisible, express the inexpressible. The whirlwind of emotions that trying times inevitably bring can be dispelled by a striking image or a resonating sentence.

Art heals.

Art brings peace.

Art is solace.

And as all artists in times of crisis must, Marksmen, too, create.

CRISIS IN CREATION TIANMING XIE '2O and SA M G O L D FA R B ’ 2 O MANAGING EDITORs

F e at u r e s t o r y

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T H E O C T O B E R T O R N A D O l e f t m a n y b u i l d i n g s o n c a m p u s s e v e r e ly d a m a g e d .

Another Man's Treasure On Sunday, Oct. 20, a tornado of F3 force ripped

through North Dallas in the evening around 9 p.m.

Although there were, fortunately, no lives taken, the tornado ripped apart many stores, public buildings, and houses, leaving trails of rubble and fallen trees behind.

Freshman John Tagtmeier’s home was one of Mother Nature’s victims, and when he opened the creaking door of his half-bath to see what was left of his house, he knew he was lucky to come out unharmed. Like many other homes on his street, his roof was simply missing, leaves, branches, and shattered glass were scattered everywhere, and the hardwood floor was ripped apart.

Around a month later, however, Tagtmeier found inspiration when it came to his Wood and Metal design phase: by taking his house’s wood floor and repurposing the material into pieces of art.

“I just thought about putting it around my house as a reminder that we can make something beautiful out of the destruction that happened,” Tagtmeier said.

FROM THE RUBBLE OF THE HOME OF JOHN TA G T M E I E R ' 2 2 , A R T WA S B O R N .

“I want to make a few pieces just to have around the house so we can remember what happened.”

Out of his floorboard, Tagtmeier first created rings.

Then, after piecing the rings together, Tagtmeier created three side tables with patterns resembling a tornado, each one increasingly chaotic in design.

Although his base material is still wood, repurposing his hardwood floor into a table presents some challenges Tagtmeier finds himself working around.

“It’s harder because the nails are still in part of the pieces, so I have to cut around that, and obviously, it’s not as pretty as some woods can be,” Tagtmeier said.

“Usually, we use oak, walnut, or ash wood.”

Although Tagtmeier is the only student so far who has incorporated actual storm debris into his project, the Wood and Metal program has saved the copper from the rooves of the school’s buildings in hopes to create more art pieces in the future. Though there are additional challenges relating to methods of joinery and fastening debris material together since they aren’t necessarily clean, square, or flat, wood and metal instructor John Frost encourage students

F e at u r e s t o r y

JOHN FROST HELPS A STUDENT WITH HIS 3D ART PROJECT. FROST ENCOURAGES his s t u d e n t s t o e m b e d a s t o r y o r n a r r at i v e i n t h e i r a r t .

to face the challenges as opportunities to further their education.

“Sometimes it takes more creativity to create the structural integrity needed — especially if the work is supposed to be functional,” Frost said. “These challenges create new problem-solving opportunities we may not have discovered otherwise.”

Additionally, there is some inherent content in materials, and in repurposing materials or objects, it allows the content to be part of the communication, as Frost says. This, in turn, often makes the message more profound.

“One of my all-time favorite projects we used to make was the “chapel chair” project,” Frost said. “The dilapidated and retired chairs were repurposed and transformed into new works of art and furniture. There was a history, a story in the chairs that transcended into the new forms the boys created, adding content and personal connection to the pieces.

While different in nature and context, the copper roofing, sections of Lacebark Elm trees and other debris contains a similar history and connection to the story of the school.”

While the reuse of materials communicates a more profound message to its audience, the process can also give the craftsman a new perspective on events like the tornado too.

“While making aesthetically pleasing objects is clearly one of our objectives and we focus a lot on craftsmanship, design,

and composition, I also challenge the guys to think about ideas and concepts that they want to communicate through their work – “why” they make what they make,” Frost said. “Events and circumstances like the tornado or Covid-19, allow us, and sometimes force us to be introspective and reflect on experiences that change our perspectives. Working through events like these can be very therapeutic for the artist to reconcile and express emotions through a process of building something positive out of a negative experience — bringing order to the chaos, and in this case, creation out of destruction.”

Personally, Tagtmeier has also said that the process of woodworking has been relaxing when times are tough, whether it is in bouncing back as a community from the tornado or the daily demand of schoolwork.

“School can be difficult and chaotic at times, so [woodworking] can be kind of an escape from all that,” Tagtmeier said.

From both his personal experience and from seeing all the destruction in the community, Tagtmeier has learned more about turning a bad situation around.

“Anything you can do — doing anything makes me feel a lot better about all the destruction,” Tagtmeier said. “There was so much stuff destroyed, and I’m happy that I can turn something that would be essentially trash into a valuable piece of artwork.”

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Medicinal Melodies S h i v ya j n i k ' 2 1 a n d r i s h i m o h a n ' 2 1 u s e m u s i c t o break the fearful silence as the st. mark's c o m m u n i t y a n d t h e n at i o n f a c e s t h e c o v i d - 1 9 outbreak.

As students, we may feel boredom having to stay at

home in quarantine, but for those patients in hospitals and residents in nursing homes, one can only imagine the loneliness and worry. With a shelter-in-place in Dallas announced March 22 and community service organizations cancelled weeks before, junior Rishi Mohan found new ways to connect student volunteer music performances and personalized interaction with those most at-risk with such patients and residents as president of Souls in Harmony.

Before Covid-19, Souls in Harmony’s group of student-volunteers would split up at different medical facilities to perform musical pieces of all types of instruments and interact with patients or residents, emphasizing a one-on-one connection. With the shut-down, a physical appearance at these places is no longer advisable; however, that didn’t stop Mohan from serving his community.

“There’s this nursing home near my house called Monticello West, and there’s a resident that I’ve grown very close to,” Mohan said. “I played there a lot, so I recorded a message for her and played some pieces that we had talked about. I sent it to her, and I got really positive replies from the staff there.”

Since then, Mohan reached out to the cancer centers, hospitals, and rehabilitation homes Souls in Harmony had already built a connection with in hopes to bring music, joy, and a personalized message in a time that can be mentally stressful for those who may be alone.

“Our volunteers have gotten to know the people there and have a lot more connections with them,”

Mohan said. “If a student or volunteer has developed a connection that they could record a message, record a piece, and we can send it to that facility.”

Whether it is a simple or complex piece, Mohan believes that what matters isn’t the difficulty of the piece but rather the genuine, personalized message that comes with it that matters.

“I just played two pieces that the resident had talked about because she used to play the cello, and she had remembered two pieces from her childhood that she had played, so I thought that would be nice to remind her of her childhood,” Mohan said. “It’s not always the most complicated pieces that make the difference.

It’s things like that because those are relatively simple pieces.”

Since all fine-arts performances have been cancelled, including ISAS, Mohan believes it is also a good opportunity for students to not let their hard work be for naught.

“At first, it’s about giving students a performance space, and a lot of students like that because they had a lot of solo music that they didn’t get to play as often as they wanted too, except for their family members, and they could play it for a bunch of patients in the hospital,” Mohan said. “That’s great. But it’s more than that. The playing is, in a way, just a mean of interaction while you’re really trying to go for getting to know the other person, who you’re playing for.”

At the end of the day, Mohan encourages everyone to try it, not only during this time of quarantine but in the future when the school year starts up again.

F e at u r e s t o r y

“If you go somewhere like a rehabilitation home in South Dallas or even places in Parkland, there’s people who are very different from you,” Mohan said. “And so you get to experience what they’re feeling, and you get to hear what their life is like, how they ended up there.

It’s definitely not what you’re used to every day with St. Mark’s and the community that’s around St. Mark’s. In a way, it’s eye-opening.”

Austin Street [Center] and another shelter in the area.”

The exact process of fundraising presents a unique challenge—but the internet provides such a range of solutions that Yajnik isn’t concerned.

“Firstly, we’ll raise funds through YouTube monetization,” Yajnik said. “We can also use PayPal or some other kind of link through we can receive the money and donate it.”

In order to qualify for official monetization, the

Shiv Yajnik knew he had to do something.

The club he built—all its musicians, all its meaningful relationships, all its potential hours of service—were cooped up at home, staying safe from the coronavirus outbreak. So much opportunity to do good—Yajnik just had to find a way to tap into it.

He was a composer. A pianist. A leader. So he got to work.

Yajnik’s club, Musicare, started here with a mission to bring music to a range of audiences around Dallas, sharing the healing powers of music with those who needed it most.

“We work with a lot of senior homes at which we’ve performed,” Yajnik said. “We’ve also recently performed at a center for autism research.”

He knew that his audiences would appreciate his club’s work more than ever during the coronavirus outbreak—but he didn’t want to be limited to only the communities he’d served.

“Epoch is a club outside of St. Mark’s—they’re based in Plano and Allen,” Yajnik said. “We began to collaborate back in January when Musicare started to look for a way to grow beyond St. Mark’s.”

Together, Yajnik and the leaders of Epoch came up with a plan to help people struggling with the then-emerging coronavirus—a fundraiser through a live-streamed concert. The team had to decide exactly whom the charity show would benefit.

“We knew that COVID-19 was a very contagious disease—and that people would be asked to shelter in place,” Yajnik said. “But if you have nowhere to live, then you can’t. We have been deeply concerned about the homeless people who have nowhere to go.”

Of course, the two clubs couldn’t just reach out directly to people in need.

“We wanted to help the infrastructure that is already helping [the homeless],” Yajnik said. “We’ve been connecting with other people to help us get subscribers—and to inspire them to help us spread the word. The two shelters this will directly benefit are

Epoch and Musicare Live channel must cross certain viewership thresholds—1,000 subscribers and 4,000 total viewing hours. The concert is planned for April to allow time for the channel to grow.

“We are hoping that we raise not only awareness, but also funds for shelters that do inspirational work in our community,” Yajnik said. “The Performing Hearts for the Homeless concert will help accomplish that mission.”

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Stumbling ROBERT POU ’21 NONFICTION

My head rests on my right arm, my elbow wedged

against the window of the passenger seat of my dad’s white Yukon XL. My Callaway golf hat has shifted awkwardly over to the left side of my head. I don’t fix it.

I stare blankly through the glass. It’s getting dark outside.

I can see the reflection of my blotchy face, shining with fresh tears.

My dad hops in the driver’s seat. Turns on the radio.

Neither of us says anything.

Another tear wells up in my eye. I let it slowly dribble down my cheek. It falls softly on the dark leather of my seat.

The Brookhaven Country Club sign flashes by.

Never again.

My graphite-shaft clubs clink together in the trunk as we turn onto the Tollway.

Never again.

The image of Trent driving a golf ball an entire football field further than mine replays in my head.

I will never play golf again. ...

I’m up first.

I rub my sweaty palm against my khaki shorts, reach into my pocket for a Titleist and a tee. Time seems to slow as I press the tee deep into the soft earth, my shiny white golf ball perched atop, oblivious to the metal stick about to crack it – or so I think.

I stand up straight. Rub my hands one last time. Take one more look at the wide fairway. Roll my shoulders back. And . . . clink . . . the ball makes a tinny noise as it bounces off the toe of my Callaway driver, curving way, way to the right. To the next-fairway-over right.

After regaining my balance from the clumsy swing, I hold my finish, my club pointing high in the air. I can feel Trent’s eyes on my back. I’m too embarrassed to turn around.

“Hey, it’s OK man. You’ll get ‘em next time,” Trent reassures me as we walk past each other at the edge of the tee box.

I want to curse at him for his kindness, but I end up just mumbling a quiet “thanks.”

Cool and calm – both things I definitely was not – Trent, a three-wood in hand, takes a few practice swings and launches his ball perfectly straight, rolling it right up onto the green.

A birdie and a triple bogey later, we finish the first hole.

Trent’s four strokes up. Eight holes left to go.

The rest of my round consisted of even more shanked drives, a few snubbed chip shots, and some pulled putts. I even hit one putt so hard it slipped off the back of a green.

Not to mention I accidentally dropped a driver cover walking up the third hole and only realized it was missing by the time I got to the fifth.

My spikes didn’t touch another fairway for a month after that ninth and final hole. ...

The same quote keeps echoing in my head.

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

I can’t remember where I first heard it, but it strikes me now.

I type the short sentence into my MacBook Pro. Safari says it’s a Churchill quote.

I like it. I print it out, tape it to the bottom right corner of the mirror above the sink in the bathroom I share with my eleven-year-old brother.

Every morning it reminds me. Every evening it reminds me. Every time I brush my teeth or step out of the shower, Churchill’s words remind me that how I respond to failure is a choice – my choice.

AVIAN GAZE B E N J A M I N G R AV E L ’ 2 2 PHOTO

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Innocence Drifting Jac k Pa l m e r ’ 2 1 pOetry

Deep breaths, Stay focused, Remember all the practice, He was finally doing it.

After years of anticipation he was finally doing it.

He was finally of age And he was ready.

But it wasn’t what he expected, This wasn’t what he wanted, Not exciting or fun, And clouds of grey stalked the morning air, The cold wind walked across his face Leaving chilled footsteps in its path, And he wished to be somewhere else, But he didn’t know where, There was one thing he did know, He knew he didn’t want to be here.

Embarrassment would pursue failure, And that was the last thing he wanted, So he worked up the courage His finger gave a reluctant hug to the cold piece of metal Preparing to execute, As he made his final adjustments He took one last breath, And in a searing flash, Sealed the unexpecting soul’s ill fate.

SILENT TUNDRA Will Rocchio ’2O Photo

Murderer, killer, Butcher, criminal, You made a mistake, You have sinned a terrible sin, All of these thoughts raced through his head, And all the innocence ran swiftly from his eyes As the young doe fell with a shriek.

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WO O D & M E TA L SHOWCASE 1. FRAMEWORK R O H A N K H AT T I ’ 2 1

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2. PORTAL RUSSELL WILNER ’2O

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3. SEMÁFORO DANIEL ARDILA ’2O 4. NOT SO FLOATING CHAIR CHRISTIAN SHADLE ’21

3D 5. TRAPPED A AYA N K H A S G I WA L A ’ 2 1

MASTERING AND PERFECTING THE VISUAL LANGUAGE OF THE THREE DIMENSIONAL FORM

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6. LIGHTHOUSE R O M I L M AT H U R ’ 2 O 7. RIFT JASON YOO ’2O 8. CHECKERBOARD J U L I A N I VA R R A ’ 2 1 9. TENSION J U L I A N I VA R R A ’ 2 1

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THE GRAND CANYON AT SUNRISE C O L L I N K AT Z ’ 2 1 PHOTO

The Tourist CARter Langbert ’2O FICTION

G

reg was focusing on the empty highway in front of him when he heard a mosquito buzzing near his right ear, so he swatted at his face for the fifth time that day, this time knocking off his Texas A&M baseball cap. The mosquito, having just escaped death, flew up towards the windshield and situated itself in a corner that Greg couldn’t get to, just between the stained windshield and the roof of the car. “Roll up the damned window, Linda!” he shouted, not caring that his wife of fifteen years was seated very close by his side in their Ford F-150 pickup truck.

“I’ll roll up the window as soon as you stop smoking in the car!” Linda complained, situating her nose close to the window to breathe the fresh air outside. “We’ve been driving for hours, and I just can’t stand the smell anymore!”

“Quit your griping. It’s either this or mosquitos.”

“At least mosquitos don’t leave powder all over the seats for me to clean up!” Linda exclaimed, pulling a napkin from the side door and wiping Greg’s seat. “It’s disgusting!”

“Quit your griping, and for real this time. We’re here.”

Greg turned off of the empty road onto a side trail, a measly excuse for a path with shrubs blocking parts of the trail like flags during a skiing relay.

He just narrowly avoided hitting a rock jutting out of the trail that blended in with the orange dust coating the ground, like a nail on the road at night, cloaked by darkness and ready to puncture rubber. Spotting a scorpion scuttling across the trail up ahead, Greg maneuvered his car to squash it with his right front tire, instantly spreading its insides into the dust.

“Score!” Greg yelled, feeling thoroughly accomplished, a rare feeling to him.

“That little bugger deserved it.”

“You’re insane,” Linda grumbled, internally bemoaning Greg’s boyish behavior.

Back sweaty, beard dirty, lungs struggling, Greg jumped down from the driver’s seat onto the cracked pavement that was the canyon’s parking lot. A strong breeze swept through the bright orange canyon, laden with irregular rock formations. Lizards scurried through the scarce weeds that popped up every now and then from the unforgiving dirt. A hole in the canyon that spread as far as the eye could see was all that remained of a prehistoric water deposit, so fossils of ancient creatures littered the ground. A tourist information booth made of rotting wood and a small, almost illegible information sign detailing the history of the canyon were all that welcomed visitors, other than some faded pamphlets for a “Luxury Canyon Tour” that had been scattered on the ground by the intermittent breeze. A filthy “Back in 15 Minutes” sign was bolted to the booth’s counter and looked like it had been there for closer to fifteen years. No people were in sight, so while Linda waited for him in the car, Greg stood for several minutes in the deafening silence. Greg noticed a hiking trail sign near the entrance, so he rushed over towards it without a word, hoping to escape his wife’s impatient glare.

Before he knew it, he had walked several miles across the dusty

GREG NOTICED A HIKING TRAIL SIGN NEAR THE ENTRANCE, SO H E R U S H E D O V E R T O WA R D S I T WITHOUT A WORD, HOPING TO E S C A P E H I S W I F E ’ S I M PAT I E N T GLARE.

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CERULEAN FACADE BEN HAO ‘2O PHOTO

She came back to the room to find Greg s ta n d i n g i n s h o c k a n d in a puddle of his own vomit, his eyes s ta r i n g i n h o r r o r at his shoes.

landscape. He had been lost in thought when he stumbled on a clump of weeds in the middle of the path. Losing his train of thought made him realize that he was incredibly thirsty. He was starting to understand why his friends came to the canyon in the early spring; the summer sun’s rays smothered Greg with their heat, slowly wringing the water from his body like a fleshy sponge. In a state of dehydrated delirium, he began the trek back to the parking lot, only to find himself at a fork in the road. Both paths looked identical: thorny brush, cactuses, orange powder. Before Greg could start down a path, however, a shrill voice startled him: “You dare disturb these sacred lands?” Greg spun around to find a stout Native American woman glaring at him from under a shroud of multicolored feathers. Physically, she was tiny compared to Greg, but her demeanor made him feel like the small one.

“I got lost while hiking on the trail,” Greg answered, trying his best not to show how much the little woman was intimidating him. “Do you happen to know which way leads to the entrance?”

“Follow me. I have a surprise for you.”

The woman turned and began to walk quickly away from Greg, so quickly that Greg had to jog to keep up with her.

She navigated the canyon without a moment’s hesitation, threading her way through the seemingly endless network of trails. Eventually she came to a stop in front of an enormous palace cut into a canyon wall, went inside, and came back out with a clay cup of water. “Drink,” she told Greg firmly, thrusting the clay cup towards him. “You’re not ready to die just yet.” Greg snatched the cup from her and gulped down its contents in one swallow. His thirst was instantly sated, and he felt incredibly cool inside, like an ice pack inside of an insulated lunch bag. He found the woman watching his face with intense curiosity as he downed the liquid, as if she were checking for something.

When the woman didn’t say a word, Greg looked closer at the rock palace and found several other Native Americans peering at him from the sides of the entrance. Once they realized that Greg had seen them, they hid once again.

“Have they ever seen another human being before?”

Greg asked, trying to be funny.

“No,” she said, stunning Greg, “but the prophecy is coming true. We were told by our elders that a visitor would come at the peak of summer and would help keep our tribe alive,” explained the woman, her eyes boring into Greg.

“I’m afraid there ain’t much I can do for you, ma’am. I never was a survival expert,” Greg informed her.

“I assure you, there’s plenty you can do for us,” the woman said, licking her lips, probably because they were dry.

Without wasting a moment, the woman sped towards the palace entrance despite her short legs, her strides kicking up clouds of orange dust. Greg had no choice but to follow behind, seeing as how she was his only way out of the canyon. When he caught up to her, he found the woman standing in front of a manmade staircase crudely carved into one of the large orange rock formations, leading down into a torch-lit hallway. Greg couldn’t see down the hallway from his vantage point at ground level, making him wonder why the tribe would need an underground chamber.

“You will be most helpful to us in here,” the woman

said. “You’re the ingredient we’ve been looking for to begin our work down below.” She smiled for the first time since Greg had met her. Her teeth were white and sharp like icicles. She motioned Greg to take the lead down the stairs, and he did so reluctantly, suddenly feeling like a shepherd’s docile lamb stumbling forward into the unknown. He knew he shouldn’t be afraid of the woman; after all, she had given him water for his thirst and offered to take him back to Linda. Wait a minute… Linda! Greg had completely forgotten about his wife, so he spun around and asked the woman, “Linda! My wife! Is she okay? I left her at the entrance.”

The woman’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I’ve sent one of my warriors back to the entrance to take care of her. She won’t be an issue. Now, keep going.”

Relieved, Greg continued his descent into the orange earth. Upon reaching the bottom, he saw a room at the other end of a ten-meter hallway. Two guards stood watch outside, though Greg didn’t see why the woman would station her own men there to keep out members of her own tribe. The room itself had no door, so Greg could see a carved rock table long enough for a person to fully stretch out on. On the table was the fresh carcass of an old woman. Two old men dressed in robes and enormous feather shrouds, presumably the tribe’s elders, were slicing into her chest with knives. They had removed her breasts and had made a large hole in her chest to cut out her heart. While one elder held open the hole, the other began cutting into the arteries holding the heart in place.

He then tried to remove the heart from the old woman’s chest, but he also pulled out some of her arteries. He kept pulling, but the arteries kept coming, like a magician pulling scarf after scarf from someone’s sleeve. Once the elder had finally extracted the heart, he plopped it into a bucket of water to wash the blood off. Splattered with blood, the tribe elders eyed Greg curiously as they left the room. The woman who had followed Greg underground seemed unfazed; she scooped up the remains of the old woman and handed them to one of the guards. She came back to the room to find Greg standing in shock and in a puddle of his own vomit, his eyes staring in horror at his shoes.

“That woman was my mother,” the woman explained.

“Her name was Nina, just like mine.”

“But… you just stood there,” Greg said, trying his best to take a deep breath but failing.

“She was already dead,” Nina explained. “There was nothing else to be done but stand there. Now drink. This will make you feel better.”

Nina held out another clay cup of water for Greg, which he gratefully accepted. After he washed down the remaining chunks of vomit stuck in his esophagus, Greg began to feel lightheaded. Nina noticed right away and rushed to help him steady himself.

“You look terrible! Come, lie down on the table.”

Greg did as he was told, not caring that the table soaked the back of his shirt in blood from its last occupant. Greg was so tired that he felt himself sinking into the table, the hard surface surprisingly pliable under his body. As his eyes began to close, he heard footsteps approach and Nina whisper in his ear: “That’s it, get some deep sleep. The three of us will serve you well.”

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E U T H U N O W L E T W A Y S O W N .

The Truth is indeed out there.

Universal, yet intensely personal. Tangible, yet ephemeral. Real, yet illusory.

The Truth is unknowable but always known; for it lives inside each person’s reality.

It is mine. It is yours. It belongs to everyone.

SA M G O L D FA R B ’ 2 O MANAGING EDITOR

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TTR U T H RUTH SECTION

H H

LAGOON WILL ROCCHIO ’2O Photo

ANGUISH COOPER COLE ’22 COLORED PENCIL

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The Forked Tongue

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Beware speaking with a forked tongue today, Or you will suffer with the pendulum’s swing, For tomorrow finds your soul chipped away.

Forked tongues can protect, yet they can betray.

This shield grows heavy, this wall binding; Beware speaking with a forked tongue today.

Slow, as the burden grows, you daren’t gainsay Your words, for they become the truth abiding, And tomorrow finds your soul chipped away.

Forked tongues grow long, the Big Ben grays, But those who see good days and love living Beware speaking with a forked tongue today.

The oceans spin, the planet tilts and sways.

“C’est la vie,” you say, the winds a-changing, And tomorrow finds your soul chipped away.

And still, reality stands calm at bay, The waters evanesced, the sands melting, Beware speaking with a forked tongue today, For tomorrow finds your soul chipped away.

S h i v Ya j n i k ’ 2 1 pOetry

SELF CARE COOPER COLE ’22 A C R Y L I C A N D PA P E R o n C A N VA S

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I am just a poor boy Though my story’s seldom told I h av e s q u a n d e r e d m y r e s i s ta n c e For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises

~

I lay in a flat, scattered pose in the infinite white canvas of the salt flats. A gray overcast sky looms above me like a continuation of the horizon. I’ve set my still flat self between the tracks of a long-driven off-roader, my fourteen-year-old arms and legs barely stretching past the indentions, my earbuds blending into the powder underneath.

In the clearing stands a boxer And a fighter by his trade My fingers are in my mouth, the cuticles bleeding in the Western dryness. On the side of the road, my dad and my brother cast some impromptu repairs and renovations on our ’95 Toyota Land Cruiser. “It’s time to go, buddy,” my dad suggests – he and my brother finish up their last item.

“I-don’t-want-to. The-sky’s-really-bright,” I mumble, each word the same pitch as the last. I pause. I continue, “It’s––it’s-a-little-too-bright.”

“What?” my mother yells.

“It’s really––” “Honey, I cannot hear you. Please speak up.”

I shut my mouth and rise.

••• Netflix just began downloads on its mobile app, so I tap the down arrow of all the titles I think I might ever dream of watching in the next decade before the Mahowalds leave for our summer land-Odyssey of the American West, each leg holding its own weight: Dallas to Boulder [Uncle Dan], to Salt Lake City [the Manns, I think], to Lake Tahoe [ just for fun], to the Bay Area [the Kidders], to Los Angeles [the other Mahowalds].

From here to Amarillo, I swim through a good five seasons of Friends; Amarillo to Denver, I devour several nail-biter horror movies; Denver to SLC, I see enough stand-up comedy to make me hate laughing.

Buzzing through Utah one day, cramped between my broad brother and sister, I ask, “Do-the-Manns-still-livein-Salt-Lake?”

My mother interjects, “What?”

“Do-the-Manns––” “Jamie, what did we say about volume?”

“Never-mind.”

“What?”

“Never-mind.”

When I’m not watching TV, I’m playing and replaying a “new” Simon and Garfunkel song I’ve found called “The Boxer,” whose lyrics snuggle poetry into the warm hold of melody. A poor boy leaves his home and family in search of work, and in his failure he meets a boxer who teaches him the fighter still remains, and every-

thing is okay. Cool.

“Mom?” I whisper at one in the morning, replaying the song on our eleventh hour between Boulder and SLC. She’s driving – the only other one awake. “Have you ever heard the song ‘The Boxer’ by Simon and Garfunkel?”

I bite my nails, waiting for a response. None comes.

SLC to Tahoe is different, though.

I stream a newer Netflix original show called Atypical, a beautiful story of a teenager named Sam, sailing through the waters of normal teenage friendship, romance, responsibility.

Only Sam has autism. Tragedy and hilarity ensue.

Several things about this show halt me, the uncanny resemblance sneaking into my subconscious. The father cares just enough to atone for his not knowing what the hell he’s doing. And the mother – a noisy blonde Amanda Wingfield, a Gothically flawed character with her own smattering of tumult. For Sam, we both have brown hair, brown eyes and stutter sometimes if it wasn’t for his ASD, we’d have essentially the same existence (Why didn’t they just write a show about me?).

The show paints a frustrating yet lovable son in the eyes of his exhausted mother, highlights the towering highs and thundering lows Sam and I experience from family, explores a mother’s desperate attempts to connect with her distant son in the turmoil of her own relationships. But he got her attention.

Why don’t I? ••• My phone charges on a nightstand next to my hotel bed. autism symptoms. Search. autism symptoms late diagnosis. Search. autism symptoms 14 year old. Search.

The song hums in my ears.

All lies and jests, Still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest I know I have it. I grow impatient at Google’s thwarting my attempts to prove something to myself before I can prove it to her. I know I deserve the same attention Sam gets from his mother. I know if – if I can make her believe me, I’ll get back an iota of her mind I know I need.

I compound my Google research into my observations from the show, grind them into one rudimentary

WINDOW POP E VA N L A i ’ 2 2 PHOTO

A Pocket Full of Mumbles

Jamie Mahowald ’21 NONFICTION 1ST PLACE, LITERARY FESTIVAL

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WANDER TyLer NUsSBaUMER ’2O Photo

database of knowledge and actions to take, and I begin.

••• My plan has already swung into motion as we pull up to the rental house on Lake Tahoe, the lone buzz of my music engulfing the empty space. I don’t play it too loudly, because it’s night and because sensory sensitivity is a symptom of autism.

Then I’m laying out my winter clothes And wishing I was gone Going home My parents sit in the front seats, talking in hushed anxiety in the little hours of the morning under the solemn streetlights of the Lake Perimeter Highway, and I slump in the back, wearing the disguise of sleep, inattention, indifference, whatever.

Finally we go in the rental house, and the next day we take a day of rest.

That night, my brother, sister, and dad head out on a night walk around Tahoe City. I ask to join them, but my mother says I’d better stay behind – it’s getting late.

She calls me downstairs (I really just happen to be listening to “The Boxer” in my room), two mugs of tea and a single bowl of Kraft Mac & Cheese prepared on the counter.

She tells me to sit down, to start eating my mac & cheese and drinking the tea, and I say I don’t want to But she just tells me to sit down again, and I ask why I can’t leave, and she tells me to sit down a third time, and I ask her if it would be okay if she doesn’t talk so angrily.

“Fine.”

Five minutes of silence split us.

“Your behavior in the past day or so has… caught my attention.” She pauses as I glare at her. “Stop biting your nails, please.”

I grin, pulling my chewed finger from my mouth, fork quaking in my hand as I eat. Quaking because a tremor of anxiety shoots through my limbs, my torso. My head.

My speech.

“Honey, you’re shaking.”

“No,-I’m-not.”

“You’re shaking really quickly. Please stop.”

“This-is-normal.”

“Put your fork down, put your hands on the table.”

I do, but my hands still rock like I’m playing octaves on a piano.

She sees them. “That isn’t normal.”

“This-isn’t-normal?” I stutter like I’ve just invented language. The tea splashes out of the cup. Onto the table.

“You need to go to the doctor.”

Shit. I don’t. Mom, I’m lying. I’ve been acting this whole time. But I don’t say it. Don’t want to admit I’ve been using it just to get her attention.

“I-don’t-need-to-go-to-the-doctor.”

“This isn’t normal behavior, honey.”

“Please!” My voice cracks. A falsetto I haven’t heard before. “Listen to me!”

“I AM listening to you, honey!”

“I’m fine. I-just-want-to-go-to-sleep.”

“Honey, I CANNOT understand–” “I just want to go to sleep.”

••• The flight back home from San Francisco is almost worse.

I can’t talk.

I think my mother thinks I can’t talk. That’s fine.

I play the song up.

I am just a poor boy Though my story’s seldom told I have squandered my resistance For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises I don’t want to talk, anyway. My pediatrician can clear me of any segment on the Spectrum, and I’ll still have won to some extent.

And he carries the reminders Of every glove that laid him down Or cut him I don’t feel perfect pride at the psychological mind games fourteen-year-old Jamie played. The best reason I can ascribe is sick pride. The lowest, the most disgusting, insensitive manipulation. Two years ago doesn’t seem like enough time between that Jamie and me.

A woman’s grainy voice cleaves the outward midnight living room silence I’ve created with my headphones (I’m at the “ragged people” part of the song). “What are you doing?”

I’m sixteen. I can project if I need to. “Making tea before I go to bed.”

“Honey, I cannot hear you. Please speak up.”

“I’M MAKING TEA BEFORE I GO TO BED.” She collapses into herself. “No need to shout” “Look–” I’m-about-to-say-it “–Why do you need to say that? Why do you have to be insulting about it? What’s making you say that instead of just, ‘What did you say?’ or ‘Can you repeat that?’ instead of ‘Honey, I cannot hear--’” I don’t even let myself make it through the sentence. “Do you know how insulting that is to hear, over and over? How it makes it sound like there’s something wrong with me?”

“Honey, we don’t need to have this conversation again.

You’re going to have to give me some leeway. I can’t just change overnight. It’s like you with biting your nails” A defeated pause sweeps over her. “But yes, I will try to stop.”

I brew my tea in tense, unsatisfied quiet, waiting for the scream of the kettle, my cue to sleep. “I’m going to bed,” I say – the cup singes my hands.

“Honey, I cannot hear you. Please, please speak up.”

Her degradations as routine, as habitual to her as my chewing my nails.

And I wait, hoping every time will be the last she says it.

I’m still singing the silent ly ly ly, ly ly ly ly ly ly ly.

Still waiting.

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D D D

DIS CON NEC T Will Chance ’21

A c r y l i c a n d P a p e r o n C a n va s

STU DY FOR “DIS CON NEC T” Will Chance ‘21

A c r y l i c a n d P a p e r o n C a n va s

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B E N J A M I N G R AV E L ' 2 2 PoEtry

Is he ready for the winter storm?

The barkeep asked the sage Looks to be the coldest yet considering his age.

isol mou He did well to outpace the cold And now he tried to find the good That he and many others sought Although they fell before they could.

At once a long and dreadful howl From darkness foul and frozen Came whistling in on past the door And the one who held it open.

He saw the ghost of a former friend And now remembered, looking back The kindest one, the best of all Threw poisoned knives; his armor cracked.

And with the wind in came a hunter And in his arms an ice-cold childe Caked from head to toe with snow Another fallen to the wild

He fell in shock into the snow Frozen, face bone-white with fear His soul, unbroken, now was split, The cold consuming all held dear.

“Beware, my son, the light might fade,” The knight with frozen beard returned “This broken soul is proof enough That brilliant lights may cease to burn.

His hope began to slip away As he saw death’s scythe beckoning No warmth, no sound, an endless void Inevitable reckoning.

“You boy, standing by the door I see you wish to now commence To brave the cold, the final test The path of sword and recompense.

Though death now wields its rapier His innocence refused to die Now lost in terror, torn apart, His jagged soul in darkness lies.

But listen close, for leave with haste Too reckless yet to understand And climb that mountain: you will fall Unable now to make a stand.”

The frozen childe, thought to be gone, Emerged enflamed out of the dark And from the once abandoned, rose A warped and twisted little spark.

“Though I may now be but a childe A challenge many have I dared; I have survived the thoroughfare No matter what, I am prepared.”

The hollow men from miles around Began to see the brilliant light Found in their hollow kindling lit And gained again their hope so bright.

And so, he left the hollow knight Who gave up living long ago Too hopeless now to stand beside The blooming hero tale of old.

Though bloody evolution hurts And empty husks are what remain Through all the worst a light persists And wipes away eternal pain.

Up the path he toiled and tread His flicker fighting back the wrath; To left and right, the fallen lay, Poor souls who could not find the path.

lation's untain SOLO TyLer NUsSBaUMER ‘2O Photo

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M I GH T Y E V E RE S

T MIGHTY EVEREST LEE SCHLOSSER '2O FICTION

The wind was unbearable, even at only

seventeen-thousand feet. Barron fumbled with the zipper of his sleeping bag, his fingers icy and numb from the past two weeks at base camp.

Finally, the metal teeth budged, and he slid his legs out of the bag and onto a stained tarp that had almost completely soaked through, leaving the ground of his tent nearly as wet and cold as the snow beneath. He poked his head out of the entrance and flailed erratically for his wool cap as the wind caught its grey woven edge and threatened to pull it into the jagged rocks and peaks that seemed to continue endlessly into the cool Tibetan sky. He pulled the cap father down over his ears and tightened his laces… At first, Barron had struggled adjusting to sleeping with his footwear on; it seemed uncomfortable and unsanitary to him, but after all, the snow packed deeply into the grooves on the bottom of his knee-high climbing boots really only made his sleeping bag wet, and it seemed like every piece of equipment he owned was damp and cold anyway.

He glanced back into the folds of the tent, Mali was still sleeping, his breath sneaking out as a viscous fog through the small gap between the sleeping bag and the jacket liner he left on the previous night. Barron decided he would leave him be. After all, Mali had suffered from a terrible cold over the past few days but had insisted on embarking on the climb early the next day. A few cold and arduous minutes later, Barron returned to the tent carrying two thermoses full of burnt instant coffee. “Screw the man who invented snow,” Mali mumbled, his voice stifled by the layers of insulation and cloth wrapped around his head.

“And good morning to you, too!” Barron couldn’t be bothered by his friend’s pessimistic attitude; after all, the climb was about to begin.

Barron’s Timex rattled around his wrist at exactly 3:45 am. It was an ungodly hour, but the sun had already begun to peek its bright yellow face over the rocky crests of Everest, scattering its rays through the mesh on the top of the tent.

This time, Mali was already up, reorganizing his pack. Packs on Everest are large; after all, they are designed to carry food, equipment, and oxygen for up to a month. The massive pack, however, looked small on Mali’s back, clinging tightly to his robust 6-foot-5 frame. Barron himself was almost as huge; he wasn’t as tall, but his build was still burly and strong, years after his football career had ended. His rough beard and long hair added to his sharp nose and brow ridge, making him even more intimidating than his giant friend.

The two gathered their things and lumbered like heavy-eyed bears after a long winter to the edge of the great empty white. A row of multicolored flags flapped in the wind above, echoing out against the flat expanse. Mali’s size 15 feet dug into the snow, creating tracks nearly as wide as a car’s. The pair

had decided to embark on the climb without a Sherpa, a foolish and headstrong choice, of course, but they thought they wouldn’t feel the pride of summiting the world’s tallest mountain if they had a local Sherpa babying and guiding them.

They began their trek, at first easily conquering the gentle inclines at the bottom of the mountain and working their way up to a protruding crest to set up camp. The side of the mountain felt different with no other climbers around: empty, vulnerable, vast. Barron dug the stakes of the tent into the frigid ground while Mali clumsily lit the stove with his massive hands. The first day had seemed easy, be it because of the nature of the climb or maybe just the excitement in the air. Gazing at the bottomless cliff mere feet away, Barron sat back against the rocky side of the mountain, gently angling his body in order

to find a comfortable position. He felt confident, they were both strong and able, and he believed nothing could stop them from conquering the great peak. As he looked off across the Tibetan landscape, the world seemed to melt into oblivion, leaving just himself, Mali, the snow, and the great prize above.

Six days into the trek, Mali’s cold came back.

This time his sickness was more severe; blood dripped from his nose, congealing on his chin in the artic-like weather, and a hollow, spasmodic cough shook him to the core. The two men decided to alter their schedule: they would stay planted at twenty-four-thousand feet for a few days, they had enough extra food to last… barely, but it seemed like there was no other option.

They had encountered two other hikers that morning – a Frenchman and his wife – who had conquered Everest three times before. The hikers were concerned about Mali, but he would be fine, Barron insisted, “He’s a tough one.” That night, Mali’s condition worsened; in the middle of the night, beads of sweat formed on his brow, and his body warmed to create a thin sheet of steam in the tent. Inside the dingy, humid shelter, Barron peeled the damp thermal undershirt off Mali and

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rolled him out of his bedroll like a cadaver out of a body bag, but nothing seemed to help. Mali garbled incoherently and his eyes rolled back into his skull like a wisp of smoke disappearing into the darkness of night. His heartbeat slowed to a crawl, and his muscles went limp, as if all strength and willpower had left his body. Barron frantically reached for his bag to find the satellite phone. It will be fine, he thought. People get sick all the time.

The buttons on the phone had frozen in place; it took minutes of wrapping the icy plastic brick in his fleece to get them to budge. Even after the keys finally came loose, the small LCD refused to blink to life. A wave of fear and dread washed over Barron and swallowed him deep into the abyss of hopelessness. They had no choice but to wait out Mali’s mysterious sickness. The days dragged on, and slowly the two men dug deeper and deeper into their packs, rationing every morsel of provisions to last them as long as possible.

Two weeks had passed, but Mali was just as weak as before. His rosy flesh had turned a cool blue, causing him to blend into the ice almost as if he were part of the desolate landscape. It was time for Barron to decide. They only had three days’ worth of food left, and Mali had sucked up almost all the supplemental oxygen, though Barron had managed without it by staying relatively sedentary and not exerting himself. The prospect of someone finding them seemed hopeless now; no other hikers had been through the pass for the last two weeks. Barron weighed the situation; if he left Mali on the side of the mountain, the food could last up to a week, and it was possible that Barron could make it down the mountain and get help in time to save him. Barron roused Mali from his shallow sleep with a firm shake; “I’ll be back soon.” Mali mumbled unintelligibly and reached out for his friend, grasping fruitlessly at the stinging midmorning air. Barron unpacked the remaining oxygen and food, keeping only a small bag of nuts and beef jerky in his jacket pocket for his journey down the mountain. He laced his boots and looked back at Mali – he wanted to say goodbye, but Mali had already drifted back sleep – the plan was to be back with help before he even woke up.

The frigid landscape had rocked Barron to the core. The feeling was like no other he had ever experienced. Gusts of raw Himalayan wind cut through each layer of his clothing and enclosed him in a glacial coat of numbing cold that made

his bones feel as brittle as ice and his skin uncomfortably tight against his twitching muscles.

Barron thought he would be able to endure, but only hours after leaving camp, the lack of oxygen had slowed his descent to a creep. Some hikers had been known to make it through the death zone with no supplemental oxygen at all, and Barron figured that the trip would be quicker without the heavy metal canisters weighing him down.

That was a crucial mistake.

Without any aid, his lungs burned as the thin Tibetan air seemed to rush away as soon as he tried to take a breath. He could fill and puff up his chest, but his atrophying muscles received no nourishment from the seemingly useless lungsful he swallowed desperately. It was as if he was drowning, dragged down into the depths of an icy ocean gulping for air, but greeted only by the suffocating blue that surrounded him from all sides. Barron laid his head back against the snow; would he really lay down and die? Could he really let Mali down?

Two months later a rescue team found Barron’s body, frozen to the ground like a magnet and emaciated so much his face was nearly indistinguishable. One hand was clenched tight and the other reaching forward past his head, buried deep into the snow as if he had made on last noble attempt to pull himself further. His lips, pursed firmly in a painful grimace, were purple and thin, and his eyes had glassed over, open exposing an ever-present gleam. Mali’s corpse, on the other hand, was in much better condition; when they found him, he was just as Barron had left him. His arms were tucked neatly to his sides, and his expression was relaxed. Mali had found peace in relief, as if he had recognized it was his time to die and welcomed the eternal dark with open arms. In his hand, lay a scrap of paper: “Psalm 39:4 O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am.” Barron, however, had sacrificed everything in a valiant effort to persist.

The swinging blades of rescue choppers lifted the two bodies angelically into the air and suspended them above the great Himalayan landscape. The two Americans made national headlines, but mere months after their deaths they were forgotten; Barron and Mali became another statistic, another horror story, another great casualty to mighty Everest.

PEAK WILL ROCCHIO ’2O PHOTO

NOIR LAMP ROHIT VEMURI ’2O PHOTO

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I tell myself I know myself and yet Have found of late a brand new tenderness.

Though love is what I’ve learned, I feel upset That some call wrong what I call gentleness.

To feel the air of someone that you love Make warm the sprouting whiskers of your face Is finally to learn that what’s above Cannot compete with innocent embrace.

Although our love must never come to light, I know that light is all that it contains.

The whispers rise as does the moon at night, But all relationships must have their pains.

I stare into your eyes as you depart; They’re all that I can see when we’re apart.

1ST PLACE, LITERARY FESTIVAL

A mark upon the skin goes oft unknown, As worldly pressures make the bearer blind To sneaky patch that fate’s sly mind has sewn Upon our coat of flesh for us to find.

A birthmark sits, awaiting our brave quest To find it, and to see it if we dare.

To manage both at first sight marks the blessed, For worlds that grant the right to see are rare.

For some a spot upon a canvas speaks In peaceful tone, a welcome voice to hear.

Some stain their mark to match the canvas, bleak, With hope to drown the ringing in their ears.

The ringing’s nothing more than chiming bells, But quiet’s promise makes it hard to tell.

OCULUS JAMeS SINGHAL ’22 Photo

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SHOWCASE

FRUIT James ShiAo ’2o Wat e r c o l o r o n p a p e r

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CHECKM ATE DANIEL WU ’21 G R A P H I T E o n pa p e r

TWINS OBAID AKBAR ’2O G RA P H I T E o n pa p e r

COLLAG E WILL CHANCE ’21 A C r y l l i c i n k a n d PA P e r O N W O O D PA N E L

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ADDITIV E VALUE JAMES SHIAO ’2O CONTE ON TONED PA P E R

GREEN HOUSE DRAWIN G A R J U N A G A R WA L ’ 2 2 WAT E R C O L O R A N D I N K O N PA P E R

I AM HAPPY TO BE ALIVE, AS LONG AS I CAN PAINT FRIDA KAHLO

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STAFF, THE MARQUE MAGAZINE OF ARTS AND LETTERS VOL 58

FRONT ROW [L-R] Lynne Schwartz Sponsor, Svanik Jaikumar ’23 Staff, Sam Morgan ’21 Associate Editor, Bijaan Noormohammed ’23 Staff, Neal Reddy ’20 Editor-in-Chief, Kasen Roberson ’20 Editor-in-Chief, Jackson Singhal ’20 Creative Director, James Shiao ’20 Creative Director, Geoffrey Stanbury Sponsor

Back ROW [L-R] Rahul Vashi ’20 Staff, Tianming Xie ’20 Managing Editor, Antonio Quinones ’21 Staff, Alam Aladina ’21 Associate Editor, Sai Thirunagari ’21 Associate Editor, Luke Piazza ’21 Staff, Thomas Philip ’22 Staff, Shaan Mehta ’22 Staff, Soham Verma ’22 Staff, Max Chuang ’22 Staff

NOT PICTURED Sam Goldfarb ’20 Managing Editor, Tyler Nussbaumer ’20 Photographer, Rohit Vemuri ’20 Photographer

E D I T O R I A L S TA F F Neal Reddy ’20 Editor-in-Chief Kasen Roberson ’20 Editor-in-Chief Tianming Xie ’20 Managing Editor Sam Goldfarb ’20 Managing Editor Alam Aladina ’21 Associate Editor Sam Morgan ’21 Associate Editor Sai Thirunagari ’21 Associate Editor James Shiao ’20 Creative Director Jackson Singhal ’20 Creative Director

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Traditions. This magazine is one of them. One of now 58 publications. Seeing it now come to fruition in one of the most unpredicted and unorthodox ways causes a bittersweet flooding of emotion. Brainstorming started in the summer, as seniors so eager to do something memorable with their last year of high school with guys, some of which they have grown up with since they were six. As seniors, what an experience to see underclassmen look to you for guidance when you weren’t completely sure if you knew how to guide yourself.

I think that this magazine has helped me see that nobody ever has things figured out. It has gone through many creative variations to reflect the diverse and multifaceted community of St. Mark’s School of Texas. Throughout the lifetime of this compilation of art and literature produced by the community, disaster has struck twice. A landscape-changing tornado that left the campus partly unrecognizable and the COVID-19 virus that has changed the lifestyle of not just our little community, but everyone around the world. Our community, however created beauty out of the disaster, bringing the school even closer. Despite all the difficulties, I could not be happier to have something to look back on and appreciate from all the late nights with Neal in the Marque Suite, to the isolated design nights spent at home during quarantine.

Neal — my guy, what a ride this has been. So incredibly glad to have had you working with me all those nights. You are all about your business, a trait that will take you far. Don’t forget, “you cannot say Pop and forget the Smoke.”

Mrs. Schwartz— thank you for pushing me out my comfort zone and convincing me to take this role dispite my initial reluctance. It has shown me I am capable of more. Mr. Stanbury— thank you for spending late design nights with us. To the St. Mark’s Security Staff, thank you so much for keeping the campus safe those nights we often left after sunset.

KASEN ROBERS ON ’20 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF I still remember that day, about four years ago, now. As I waited in the Admissions Office in Nearburg Hall, I picked up the 54th edition of The Marque. My curiosity turned to fascination and then eventually, it turned into four years of artistic, technical, and literary growth that began shortly after I joined the St. Mark’s community as a ninth grader.

It’s nice to see the final product, the work we’ve put before you. But it wasn’t always a smooth path from its initial conception, and I could not take on such a task alone. With the challenges we faced as a community, it was a team effort to get this magazine on the presses. I’d like to thank all the staff for their continuing attendance and participation in design meetings and gathering submissions.

Thank you, Jackson, for your masterful work in design, your talent continues to amaze me. James— thank you for being our resident artist; I appreciate your dedication. Tex and Sam, thank you guys for the efforts in adding further depth to this volume through your journalistic and literary contributions. Alam, Sai, Sam— you guys have done so well, and I know The Marque will be in good hands for years to come.

Mrs. Schwartz— thank you for putting your confidence in me all these years. I’m grateful for such an amazing opportunity. Your support and guidance through our late-night meetings and the publication process was instrumental to our success. Mr. Stanbury— thank you for joining The Marque as a sponsor this year— it was incredibly valuable to have your input and presence at our meetings, as well as your wise advice during design nights.

Kasen— I’ll miss the time we spent together on this magazine as we go our separate ways. But I’m thankful I had someone to lean on and help me right this ship. You’re creative, humble, and focused, and I couldn’t have done it without you. Also, I’ll agree with you on this for once— Pop Smoke was nice with it.

Through The Marque, I’ve not only carved my own niche at St. Mark’s but also learned to appreciate and take in beautiful art and writing, which I hope is something readers can absorb, too.

NEAL REDDY ’20 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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PU BL IC AT IO N DE TA IL S

PHILOSOPHY POLICY

COLOPHON

SPecial thanks

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.

The Marque is an after-school extracurricular activity that works independent from the St. Mark’s journalism program. All written and visual content is welcomed and considered blindly and equally for publication. Throughout the year, liteary works are submitted and selected by our staff members. Artistic pieces are submitted both by students and faculty members within each respective discipline. This publication is submitted annually for evaluation to the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA).

The Marque is printed by Digital 3 Printing. The cover is 130# Polar Bear Velvet Cover printed 4/4 in four color process inks plus overall soft touch aquaeous. Text is 100# Polar Bear Velvet Text printed 4/4 in four color process inks.

Binding is PUR glue perfect binding. The Staff used Adobe InDesign and Photoshop CC 2020 on 27-inch Retina 5k Display iMacs to design spreads. Typefaces include Brother 1816 (multiple weights and styles) for headers, titles, and folio; Prestage for subheading; and Arnhem Pro for body text.

Lynne Schwartz John Frost Kate Wood Michael Morris Max Palys ’21 Kevin Boone

Geoffrey Stanbury Scott Hunt Debbie O’Toole David Brown Scott Ziegler SM Security

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INAL

And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

T.S. ELIOT "THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK"

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THE MARQUE VOL 58 2019-2020