Penchant 7.1: Abyssal

THE

PENCHANT

UNTITLED by ella song “Let them be devoured by abysses that welcomed them”

ABYSSAL

Irvington High School’s Creative Writing Club is a student-run, interest-based club dedicated to providing a welcoming environment for writers of all kinds to convene and share their ideas outside of an academic setting. Members get a taste of publication through submitting to The Penchant, our online literary magazine. Meanwhile, monthly prompts, in-club competitions, and major writing contests are provided to allow members to explore the implications of writing, improve on their own techniques, and receive feedback from their fellow peers. Overall, our collective mission is to enable the students of Irvington to write what they wish and have their voices heard.

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Photo Credits: Cover Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels 1| Photo by Mikita on Unsplash 3| Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash 5| Photo by Matt Hardy on Unsplash 5| Photo by Nick Iliasov on Unsplash 7| Photo by Pixabay on Pexels 8| Photo by Yan Ots on Unsplash 9| Photo by Dan Lazar on Unsplash 10| Photo by Micah Tindell on Unsplash 11| Photo by Kyle Johnson on Unsplash 13| Photo by Ave Calvar on Unsplash Back Cover Photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash To learn more about us, visit our social media: Facebook: @penchantlitmag Instagram: @the_penchant Issuu: @penchantlitmag To see our submission guidelines, please visit https://tinyurl.com/penchantsubmit, or follow us on Facebook @penchantlitmag.

the penchant Irvington Creative Writing Club EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ojas Vatsyayan CONTENT EDITORS Arindam Datta Francis Luo LAYOUT EDITORS Khloe Fong Kritika Maheshwari

CONTENT Nidhi Bellamkonda Aanjuli Das Arindam Datta Francis Luo Sophia Luo Kritika Maheshwari Ella Song Ojas Vatsyayan

LAYOUT Khloe Fong Sophie Leung Kritika Maheshwari Eliana Yang Yvonne Yun

january 2024

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABYSSAL the deepest, darkest desires of humans; the toughest part to overcome in one’s journey

featured 1| Untitled by Ella Song

prose 1| Untitled by Ella Song 5| A Better Life by Anonymous 7| Nadir by Ojas Vatsyayan

iii|The penchant||JAN 2024

poetry 9| Two Poems by Francis Luo 11| Descend by Vinna Shen

photo/art 13| Space by Sophie Leung

JAN 2024||The penchant|iv

PROSE

UNTITLED He should have brought flowers.

In the beginning, there was only water.

Or that was how it went.

Once upon a time, the world was filled with water, but to be once upon a time, that time had to be over.

The world wasn’t filled with water now, no matter how much it seemed like it for the two people, sinking into its depths.

Tradition dictated that men were to be sent back to the sea when they died. Flowers meant to be thrown bed-like over the form of the dead, and you had to choose their smell and size and shape carefully. Not yet bloomed bulbs for children and thickened wreaths for the elders. Fill the wounds with carnation petals, stuff sweet perfume where infection ate away. The more thick-petaled flowers that decorated the temple and wrists, the richer the corpse once was. It could almost be as fun as it was solemn, choosing how you meant to honor the body. If you wanted, you’d hire a professional to decorate the body for you, say your prayers, send the body off.

But you’d have to wring the neck with silver yourself. That was special beyond just the flowers.

Once upon a time.

by ella song

“Don’t say that.” Alean said on instinct. His skin crawled. But Chem didn’t change his words, which sliced through the tight darkness.

They used twine now. The plunderers didn’t care for twine as much as they cared for the silver.

How long would it be before they ran out of air?

They didn’t have any of that, in the submarine. No twine or flowers or silver—nothing that anyone could have reason to find them for. Nothing that could mark them for death.

“It’s true,” Chem replied. “We could have died with dignity there. Now what? It’s not like our bodies are ever going to be found.” He spoke with a bitter lilt in his voice.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that.”

Alean swallowed. Sourness lingered on his teeth.

Tradition? Alean followed the other figure’s gaze to the hatch, sealed shut, on the top of the submarine. It was barely visible. Was it straining? How much pressure was it under?

“We’re refugees, Chem. What dignity did you think we had in the forest?”

“We’re getting pretty deep now,” Chem said. His expression was unknowable in the damp darkness.

Was there really an entire ocean outside the submarine? “At what point do you think it's going to blow?”

“Do you think it’s gone now?” Chem asked. “ The forest? How many do you think are left? Who managed to leave?”

He imagined that, in his head. No warning—a sudden crack, and an infinite amount of saltwater and seawater pouring in, ripping them apart. Water burning past lungs, bodies destroyed and plunged into the abyss.

In the past, this would have been desecration. That word had lost meaning from overuse.

“It would have been better if we had died in the forest.”

Chem stayed silent. Alean resisted the urge to close his eyes.

I don’t know, Alean thought. Pictures blazed into his mind. Dead, dead, running--desecration and once upon a time in the wake.

Certainly, those who died wouldn’t be sent to sea, he thought. Certainly, they would have been buried, trapped underground with a burial practice not their own.

It’s gone, he thought without thinking. All of it. ‘Cities on fire and salted earth’— that was a borrowed phrase. Loss curdled in his gut.

mikita. 2017

1|The penchant||JAN 2024

“It would be better if we died in the ocean.”

Uncertainty stopped him from finishing.

Alean imagined the “cruel-condescending-jeering-apathyridden-sympathetic grin of the “We can still be saved—“ soldiers copied and printed onto the faces of every citizen and boss and “No one is going to want to save us,” colleague and classmate you’d ever Chem growled. “Who wants to save a have to face, and imagined never people who don’t have a homeland?” looking up at them, because how could he?

“What does that have to do with anything?”

He could choke on a stone, feel spit flung at his face, curl up in ripped Chem cocked his head, a sliver of clothes in a shop that had been light in his eyes. defaced and burned down because of its owner, and every action he took “Who wants to give respect to a would still have to be measured in diaspora?” he elaborated, with how others thought of it. Prove you’re upsetting coolness. “Which nation a good citizen even in the face of will tolerate the existence of a culture adversity, he could hear that not their own? At what point do we saccharine television-voice say, stop struggling and just stop?” because otherwise you’re just as bad as them.

Alean curled his fingernails together, wondering when thinking had But the adversity is that we’re dying started being so painful. What are and you want our response to be you talking about? he wanted to say, silence. even as his brain latched onto those words stubbornly as children. Stop “We wouldn’t be the first to have to go struggling, stop trying, stop through that.” Was that his voice? practicing, stop remembering?

Had he said that? “It wouldn’t all be suffering.”

“Do you really think assimilating will be all that bad?”

In his head, Alean pictured the others, Alean hoped he didn’t sound desperate.

“Maybe we won’t be allowed to.”

Chem retorted. “You think living as outsiders would be any better?”

even in safety, headed into canyons where risk of implosion was ever present. Nations could be abysses and both were more than happy to swallow people to make them their own.

It’s why they sent bodies to the “No. We wouldn’t be wanted, would sea in the past. Let them be we? You’d have to learn some other devoured by abysses that language.” Chen gave out a snort— as welcomed them, let them if that was the most worrisome become one with the sea. To be thing. swallowed by a nation, no less deadly and unfathomable, was no different, really.

JAN 2024||The penchant|2

PROSE “ No, but that suffering still exists, don’t it?” Chem’s voice got lower, withdrawing into itself. “And maybe one day maybe it’ll all be wrapped up into some soap-washed, picturepretty story of overcoming obstacles and no one’s going to ask the question of why those prejudices existed in the fucking first place?”

But hadn’t they left, to resist being devoured by oppression and language and knives? Why did they go from one death-canyon, one absolution to another, just to end up in the same sea of certain becoming-one-with regardless? “ I don’t want to— I want to believe.

We aren’t going to be extinct.”

Alean regretted his word choice instantly. Extinct. They were people, not animals, people didn’t go extinct— they couldn't.

But they could.

Abysses upon abysses upon abysses and both nations and oceans had a habit of eating up silver and flowers and twine, and spat out people the same.

Who can tell the culture of a corpse? What is the nationality of the dead? What grave is to be given to the dead that is not your own? Who cares?

At what point did everything they tried so hard to keep, die and disappear?

“It’s like going back to where you came from,” his grandmother had said, ringing flowers around the scalp of one poor, bloated corpse.

He was in the sea now.

3|The penchant||JAN 2024

He was (they were? ) going to die.

Alean looked up, waiting for an implosion.

He should have brought flowers.

Nothing happened.

“I think there has to be someone out there who’s alive. Who’ll keep what they know alive.” Alean said. “ It’s impossible that—“ Uncertainty stopped him from finishing.

“We lost so much.” Chem sighed, not quite mourning. “There was so much that we had that was lost.”

So much that couldn’t be rebuilt, so much that could have been extraordinary if given time, so many people, and now all that was left was pieces that formed a jagged reality that was there but with pieces missing— “ There was so much that we had to be lost. There was so much that could have been lost.”

—so what did you do with these pieces, losing them entirely, hide them or hold them with the new identity of your new nation, antique thing, mix it with the shards of your new culture and make something new and bope that those pieces won’t be lost in the patchwork reconstruction you have made.

“We’re probably going to die, though.”

And what a thought, to go die in the sea. It almost felt traditional.

“It would have been better if we brought flowers.”

Chem didn’t respond, holding his breath as the metal blocking the ocean from seeping in gave a snap.

In the sea, the submarine spiraled further down.

SONG

Sigmund. 2021 JAN 2024||The penchant|4

by anonymous

The ocean, or at least what we humans call the ocean, is also a sky. Below the abyssal waters lives another species. Humanoid creatures. Inanimate clones. They appear so human, yet so inhuman at the same time. Perhaps it is the fact that their eyes are devoid of any emotion and are merely dull, unwavering spheres that serve no function but to sit idly in their sockets. They look just like you and me but are unlike us. They are immortal; their lands crowd with the vermin of their kind. Their cities consist of horrendous, filthy tenements made of nothing but cold concrete slabs. Their lives parallel ours but lack any motive. These creatures cannot think for themselves. Some powerful force of nature controls their every action, dragging their meaningless lives forward. Their world lacks any color.

If you ever have the opportunity to visit, your eyes will meet depressing slabs of gray, black, and white everywhere they wander. Their world lacks all joys. No books, satisfying sustenance, or gentle sunlight. They merely survive for the sake of surviving, to live and duplicate. Their world is nothing more than an abyss of desolate despair and horrific darkness, like the churning ocean currents before a storm.

5|The penchant||JAN 2024

A BETTER LIFE

PROSE

I was one of them. My brain was merely a sludge in my skull before I made the harrowing journey to the Better World. I have no memory of what my life was like when I lived there. I have no intention of recovering those memories. I am unaware of what drove me to reach the Better World or why it was I who did so. I visited my birthplace once and never intend to do so again.

Now my life has meaning and purpose, joy and happiness. I make all of my own decisions. I can read, visit splendid places, and experience the warm rays of sunlight on my iridescent skin. My eyes are treated by a myriad of colors wherever I look. My ears listen to the wonderful sounds of the Better World–the sound of waves crashing on the coast, the cacophony of birdsong at sunrise, peals of laughter, the melody of guitar strings vibrating. I can feel many emotions, including love. These emotions wash over me like a pleasant day’s breeze.

Happiness is yellow and wonderfully tangy like citruses. Sadness is a dark grayish-blue and feels like a dull needle being pressed against my skin. Anger is orange and feels like the burn of salt on an open wound.

Love is pinkish-red and feels like soaring over the world with wings that never melt.

I like living in the Better World. I am not a

soulless robot anymore, I

feel genuinely alive and can appreciate my life. I

am comfortable in my own skin. I feel

free. You should too. Your world is

an abyss of joy and wonder. Life

thrives in your oceans.

Hardy, Matt. 2018 JAN 2024||The penchant|6

PROSE

NADIR by ojas vatsyayan

There is no more pain. No more sorrow.

I am light.

7|The penchant||JAN 2024

Do it.

October 18, 2045—7:50 AM

Don’t you see? They’re waiting. They’re vultures. The second you do it, they’ll be here . . . crying and wiping their noses with the money you leave them in your will.

Live in 10, people!

But my family . . . they love me.

They want me here.

Where the hell is Marcus?

Where’s my makeup? Where’s the camera crew?

Could someone get me my coffee?

Live in 5!

Didn’t you leave money to them too? This free fall only ends one way . . . there’s only one way up.

Sit down. We’re live in 3. Where’s the goddamn teleprompter?

Live in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1

You’re wrong.

Am I? Look within yourself.

Deep within, where no one else can. Don’t you want to feel light again? Without the delusion? Without the pain?

I...I...

Do it.

One step forward.

Two steps forward.

Welcome back! This is Channel 6 News at 8 A.M. Today’s top story: Drowned Sorrows.

Prominent businessman Harry Bundt was found dead in the Pacific Ocean, underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, late last night by the city police department. No foul play is suspected at this time.

Bundt is survived by his 2 children and his wife . . . the funeral will be located . . .

Three steps forward.

No more ground.

Falling. Falling. Falling. I feel so light. I am levitating. There is no more pain. No more sorrow.

I am light.

Nadir.

Fade to black.

Pixabay. 2016 JAN 2024||The penchant|8

POETRY

ACROSS THE STREET They never bothered to pave over this gravel swath of the parking lot.

Every step awakens a cloud of gray hovering over the ground like a dazed elephant. The passing months have pushed gray clouds into the sky.

At times, I feel as if I can pull myself up into the tenebrous sea of gray foam and drown, or at least see the airplane, booming and rattling as it jets invisibly between the crystal cerulean gaps. A crow is cawing, and another is dead at my feet.

For days, no one has moved it, and it has sprawled on the sidewalk like an addict too high to ever come back down. In this gray, could you blame it? Its jet black feathers are a sleek blemish on the sky's smudged mediocrity.

The elephant and the room is waking up. It looses a trumpet from its trunk and prepares to charge.

Lazar, Dan. 2021

9|The penchant||JAN 2024

TWO POEMS by francis luo

HOMEOPATHY

the static Tindell, Micah. 2020

cuts at the voice's clarity.

Everything a crude impression of your unrestrained spirit, and all the arguments still swirling in your beaker, diluted or corrupted. There's a touch of it lingering on your lips, as if it had danced from your mouth then hastily retreated, ripe for refinement.

Still, you are wandering in your own mind's miasma. And you lash out, weak but never more vicious.

JAN 2024||The penchant|10

POETRY

DESCEND

don’t wander too far now, little fin.

my mother says when I am a child, she hovers in the kitchen, fixing up a whole fish, all speckled gray across a spread of stone with delicate claws, she peels off scales and rubs underneath the spine, pressing soft, translucent flesh I nod, uncomprehending, to her words: remember the story? of Ariel? you must know

it’s a by vinna shen 11|The penchant||JAN 2024

dangerous land, up above,

for this, she turns to face me. I look away from her hands, separating rib from muscle, and meet her gaze.

black scleras greet me, I murmur, ok mama, like a good girl mother’s face slides into a smile, and she removes the thin, wire bone of the fish while I peer beside

mother does not warn me of the ocean’s depth the comforting backstage into mysterious, cloaked fog with rippling waves, a deep navy that human gods rarely pierce

she tells me again that story of a foolish, red-haired girl consumed by her wants and wishes and desires, little dear what are those? a hand tugs through my hair, short, loose waves, and I lay nestled in a bed of soft seaweed. they are things we cannot have. Ariel hoped to be like the gods who walk on land with limbs like arms, no webbing between the fingers, and smooth, smooth skin I ponder the words, then: that sounds weird

here, there is no wandering girl, driven mad and desperate by divine charm, only

covered, consumed, converted to shadow winking, waning, mesmerizing melody and a haunted twinkle, pitch-black field beckoning

my mother laughs, and layers another sheet of algae over my body, indeed, my fin she tells the chronicles with a flowing voice, a cautionary tale of a search too high above, far and caught in insidious magic, lost to the earth

it swirls and moans with a low wail, and I hear the reflection of curiosity, gripped in the heart of who I must not become my mother is calling for me

I am weaned by the legend, warm sun synonymous with lifeless seafoam and an invisible voice I listen well, and stay far

Johnson, Kyle. 2018 JAN 2024||The penchant|12

ART

SPACE

by sophie leung 13|The penchant||JAN 2023