Red Mesa Review 2022

REPRESENTING THE VARIED VOICES OF THE WEST CENTRAL PLATEAU AND THE FOUR CORNERS REGION

Red Mesa Review

2022 Edition

RED MESA COLLECTIVE:

YI-WEN HUANG

CARMELA LANZA

THOMAS MCLAREN

KERI STEVENSON

The Editorial Board would like to dedicate this issue to the community members we lost due to the pandemic: Gallup, McKinley County, and Navajo Reservation were some of the hardest hit areas of the country.

COVER ART:

YI-WEN HUANG

Mentmore Flying Saucer

2021

Gloria Grace Macapagal

Finding out what’s true

Since I found you

Looking through the eyes of love

Now I can take the time

I can see my life as it comes up shining now

Reaching out to touch you

I can feel so much

Since I found you

Looking through the eyes of love

Melissa Manchester Through the Eyes of Love

The nostalgic sound of this music brought me back to four decades ago. I could hear the clap fading as our instructor, Miss Ruby, ends the ballet session with a plié. A second after, everyone was grinning, removing our ballet shoes to pick our soft broom made of dried hay, coconut scrub to keep the old, rugged, wooden floor of our makeshift ballet studio dust free and agleam. The cleaning session becomes fun, hearing only giggles, teasing and innocent laughter. The cheeky Miss Ruby, as we fondly call our teacher’s satisfied smile, seals the day.

The art of dancing did not run naturally in my veins; I was a petite shy, big-eyed, cry baby, and a sleepyhead who loved to tag along to my mother’s workplace. As the youngest of eight siblings, I am showered with all attention of my brood yet seeing the black box that flickers in front of me when a photograph is taken awakens my naiveté which usually rushes some panic into my brain. This awkwardness may have brought some deep thoughts to my parents prompting my registration in this challenging art. Even today, the dance steps I know, are the graceful sway of leaves caressed by the unseen wind.

As we fled away from the only existing public school in our hometown, after the month-long dance training, just a few meters away is the community plaza where

rolling green grass consumed the space for soccer games yet now flooded with reddish brown leaves falling from Mahogany trees that stands guard this safe zone.

Summer it is! Standing just underneath the towering and balding Mahogany tree, children chase the falling dried leaves as they float in the humid summer breeze. We were once told to wish upon each caught leaf to make our dreams come true. The belief of such a myth is the source of fleeting innocent thoughts that brought a curved line to my lips.

My hometown, Camp Phillips, is a secluded place in the heart of the Bukidnon Province, in the island of Mindanao, my beloved country, Philippines. Bukidnon originates from the word “bukid” which means mountain thus Bukidnon speaks of the people who dwell in the mountains or highlanders. The picturesque blue mountains freshened air envelopes the serenity of my youth, the vast pineapple plantation, and the sweet fragrance of the crowned golden fruit is as ordinary as the water-colored painting posted on the old windowsill.

Clang! Clang! Clang! The cup-shaped cast metal resonator with a flared, thickened rim hug in the church bell tower is swinging and we began our pace towards home reciting the Angelus. The 6 o’clock catholic prayer is a devotion commemorating the Incarnation or the Annunciation. This also signals that the clouds are veiled with the curtains of the night, and it calls to be back home. Rushing up the wooden stairs, pushing the door open, all messed as sweat-soaked clothes with an innocent face sprinkled with powdered dust whilst playing on the ground. I am inside the safe place I call home.

The modest structure melodically coated with pale green is one among the uniformed houses lining the street. These candy-colored houses are the humble abodes provided for the workers of the fields of Del Monte, a company carrying a brand of quality pineapple carried for several generations. Being sheltered near the public school was a privilege provided to schoolteachers where my mother used to be an admired Science Teacher.

My Mama, the endearing name I often call out when I am feeling sick, the only person who stays awake while everyone is in dreamland to make sure I am okay. The woman who stands still when the family is in shaken, the strong pillar of the house that raised eight children in the absence of a husband who has always been working in a foreign land to be able to send the children to a better school. So sweet a voice that reverberates within the four corner of fifty-filled students. Gentle yet disciplined, funny and wacky at times, my Mama is a sanctified memory that dwells deeply in the warm chambers of my heart which I hold dearly.

Pitter-patter! A crescendo of this sound is like a melodramatic orchestra on top of the roof, snoozing from my nook of a pillow-crowded, cracking bed, still mesmerized, but I must pull myself up for my morning mealtime. A hot pandesal with cheese and fresh milk is on the sturdy table, staple food, but sufficient to provide for my gastral needs.

Rainy season is here, the time where the flowers in my Mama’s Garden bloom. Red roses, metaorange anthuriums, African violets, pink honeys, and colorful daisies thrive in a more or less 100 square-meter parcel of land. The collection of exotic Waling-waling is one of my mom’s favorite orchids hung in a pelted chopped branch of a Madre de Cacao bush. This orchid is called the Queen of Philippine flowers and is worshiped as a Diwata by the Bagob Indigenous People. Vanda Sanderiana is endemic to our island, the pink variety with dark purple spots is now extremely rare in this habitat.

These beautiful colors often excite my nerves to hack the stalks and bring the bundle to our Flores de Mayo afternoon activity. Together with contemporaries, hand in hand, we pass through uneven, rocky road towards our community Catholic Church. Young volunteers are now waiting for a brief bible storytelling and singing. The lovely voice of innocent children singing echoes in the hollow corners of the church while we offer our wilting flowers to the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Leaving the place, the children once again hustle towards the plaza where patches of rain become a replica of a mini swimming pool. Splashing like water wars and gliding on it was one of the best days of my childhood. Running, chasing, screaming our lungs out to call each other’s name, and the best part of this season is catching fish in the dirt-filled waterways that trigger hypersensitivities on my already flawed skin. Our eldest sister, Annabelle, the nurse in the family, would often fire her litany while dispensing cream to my reddened swollen lower limbs. This is the price I have to pay after the fun part of the day. The clouded night is here and I am tucked in the comfort of my mother’s side.

And now I do believe

That even in the storm we’ll find some light

Knowing you’re beside me

I’m all right

Now I can take the time

I can see my life as it comes up shining now

Reaching out to touch you

I can feel so much

Since I found you

Looking through the eyes of love

Floating in the air in my immaculate white tights and leotards with intricate silvery-sequenced tutu, shy but trying to be graceful. Looking at the crowd, I cannot help but be proud of myself. Still not virtuous, but keeping the next step in my mind. Kick and jump, tiptoe and turn, be like a swan my teacher’s voice resonates with the notes in the background. I can see the nod and the smile of the lady sitting in the front row. I could see the affirmation in her eyes. I made my Mama proud! This is not a dream: this is what I was, and the beautiful story behind it.

These waves of déjà vu reveal vivid details of my past. They are so precious that they necessitate re-encoding in parts in my memory bank and guarding with fondness. The simplicity of the life we had and the journey that I had to traverse is not a saccharine film but the real beauty of my existence in this beautiful lifetime, impeccable to my generation. These thoughts tickled endorphins to where I could only breathe happiness.

Shelli Rottschafer

The Long Walk

The Navajo Long Walk, is a pivotal moment in Diné history. Beginning in 1864 and lasting through 1868, the U.S. government under Kit Carson’s lead forcibly rounded up and removed Navajo people from their sacred homeland in Western New Mexico and Eastern Arizona, along with some Northern bands of the Apache people, who’s traditional land shared parts of this same area. These two indigenous nations were imprisoned at Fort Sumner / Bosque Redondo, New Mexico along the Texas border, nearly 450 miles from Dinétah. Here, they were held as combatant captives, starved into submission, and punished if they spoke their languages or maintained their cultural traditions.

The Long Walk became a death march. Approximately 10,000 people began the journey: many resisted. Some fled and were hidden amongst sympathizing Pueblos, despite the fact that the Navajo were their historic enemy. Others, too tired to continue, dropped in their tracks from exhaustion, or were killed because they could not keep up with the rest.

Bosque Redondo, or Hwéeldi in Navajo, was meant to be a reservation but acted as an internment camp where U.S. Calvary and Soldiers were stationed to guard the frontier and expand their policies of Manifest Destiny. The Indian Agent in charge meant for the Native Americans under his guard to assimilate to white American cultural values. Of the 8,570 people who were held there, the Agent’s hope was that they would “acquire new habits, new ideas, new modes of life”… that they would become “civilized”.

Still the captives persisted. Four years later, the Diné leaders headed by Chiefs Barboncito and Manuelito, negotiated the 1868 treaty with General William Tecumsah Sherman, which secured the release of their people. Originally Sherman hoped to move the Navajo even further East to Oklahoma Indian Territory, but the Diné were stalwart.

The Diné forged a diplomatic relationship with the U.S. Government which made them recognize the Navajo as their own nation. While at Bosque Redondo, over two thousand Navajo internees died. Those who survived were allowed to return to their original land, Dinétah.

Orion shakes his head and leans his forehead into his outstretched palm. His right elbow settles on his desk, sustaining his weighted head so that it doesn’t fall onto his keyboard. As he draws up the file on his computer to begin the Police Report, the tourists sit before him. Masked eyes peer above the fabric and convey their disbelief of what they have just encountered. They all are in shock. Saddened. And wonder what will come of it all.

Yet another odd story to add to Ramah’s ongoing history. It’s a path too often followed. A dead child. Who is culpable? Abject poverty. Life choices. Belief bordering on fanatism. All of them meet here, on the border of the Rez and Pine Hill. It’s an “intersectionality”, to borrow his stepdaughter’s college words, that is rife with problems.

Orion hopes he is part of the solution. He wants to be an example. He wants healing, reconciliation, and most of all revitalization to this village he calls home. In every aspect, it will be a “long walk” out Ramah way.

Earlier that day the tourists drove their Sprinter Van west on I-40 and took Highway 53 which becomes Ice Cave Road. Their destination was the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary on BIA Route 120 past Candy Kitchen. They had heard about the sanctuary from a member of their church who had visited pre-COVID and told the Michiganders that it was a must see on their New Mexican roadtrip. But, by the time they arrived at the chain-link fence and had tried to open the Ponderosa Pine log hogan front door, they realized they should have checked the website. Taped in duct-tape to the ticket entrance, the facility regretted to inform that they would be shut until August 2021 at the earliest as they were doing massive upgrades.

The snowbird-retirees stepped back into the van. Wolfdogs shaded in large cages by piñon bushes, lay in wallowed earth. The canines raised an eyelid wondering why the bipeds weren’t coming into the grounds. Some sniffed the air, expecting the jerky bits the trainer doled out during the tours that had stopped months ago. As the couple from Michigan started their vehicle and headed back to the highway from whence they came, the animals returned to their naps.

The woman studied her New Mexico Atlas and Gazetteer. Only a few more miles to the Ancient Way Café, RV Park and Cabins. Her husband had seen it from Highway 53 and figured they could grab a camping site for the night before going to Inscription Rock the next morning. The woman rolled her eyes at their success

rate. Her husband had wanted to do this trip the “old-school way”, the Gazeteer maps, not Google Maps. Knocking on doors to buy tickets, not advanced purchases online. Mentally she whatevered her partner of twenty-years. At least they would be assured that El Morro would be open the next day since it was a National Monument. Yet, the Michiganders’ plans continued to deviate.

Walking barefooted in the road, her calico skirt dirtied at the hem, a young woman carried a bundle cradled in her bare arms. Her hair blew in strands pulled from a sloppy bun on the top of her head. Tears streaked her face. Road grime dusted her cheeks in contrast to the rivets left in the creases of her frown line. She held the package in her right forearm tightly. She raised her left, exposing a lobster red sunburned shoulder, and frantically waved.

The tourists recognized she clearly was in distress. They pulled to the side of the road and the woman rolled the passenger side window down as her husband edged his body forward to get a better look at the young lady and her swaddled bundle.

“Please”, she gasped and lifted a fold to reveal a half-open-eyed infant. Its skin already turning a pale hue of blue.

The woman opened her door without thinking to put on her mask resting upon the dash. Her motherly instincts took over as she put her arms around the inconsolable person before her.

“What happened?” asked the woman who could have been the age of the babe’s grandmother.

His mother merely shook her head back and forth. No words, only a moan erupted from her mouth. It was a sound of desperation, like some claimed to hear at night near rivers or arroyos. La Llorona lamented the death of her children. Was this a modern day version of that legend?

Between the stranger’s wails, the man called to his wife. “Hon, I saw the Tribal Office down the road by the turn off. We can’t do much more than bring her there. Open the back and have her sit at the dinette. Get her a glass of water. By the looks of it, she’s surely dehydrated.”

The couple pulled their van into the gravel parking area before Tribal Headquarters’s modular building. Orion Begay sat at his desk, returning emails.

Orion is the local Sheriff and liaison between the Ramah Band of Navajo Administrators. He is reviewing the latest COVID Resource Site to make sure that his officers are complying not only with the New Mexican Department of Health, but also the Navajo Nation’s requirements.

“Boss, we need you here. We have a situation”.

Orion stood from his desk and walked to the front door. An older white lady had her arm protectively wrapped around a disheveled younger woman who held what seemed to be tattered clothes. An older man bent apologetically in Orion’s direction and motioned toward the women.

“Sir, my wife and I, came up on this young lady and her child walking along the road out by…”

“Candy Kitchen. There’s a off the grid homestead out there. Some call it a commune. Some call it other names. Miss, are you from out by Sunshine?”

She shook her head yes and began crying again. Outstretching her arms, she gifted Orion the rags in her hands.

“That’s not what you think it is, Mister”, said the elderly man from Michigan.

“Her child is wrapped in there. He needs an ambulance, but it will be a trip to the morgue”. Orion passed off the balled-up clothes to his deputy. Near collapse, hiccupping for air mid sob, the young mother was escorted down the hall by a female officer to make her report to Child and Family Services. The tourists followed Orion back to his desk to tell him what they had encountered.

Orion exhaled and lowered himself into his rolling chair. He grasped the sides of his desk, needing something to anchor him physically and to stop his shaking hands.

“Have a seat. I am sorry to see your vacation turn surreal. Were you trying to go out to the Wolf Sanctuary? It’s closed until August”.

“Yes, we saw the sign on the entrance. What’s this Sunshine place you mention?”

“Well, ma’am. Just before you get to Candy Kitchen and the Sanctuary which is on the left side of the road, on the right up in the foothills and by a grove of ponderosas is Sunshine. It’s people living off the land. They mix their own version of spirituality to justify themselves out there. Some would say they are

Pretendians, they play at being native. The locals around here aren’t keen on them being here.”

“So, you are saying it’s a bunch of hippie young people living in teepees?” asked the older man.

“Well, I am not sure about their set up. I tend to go by the philosophy of “live and let live”. But, I will have to go out there now, that’s for certain.”

“If you don’t mind me asking Officer, if it is reservation land, how did they come by living out there?” asked the grandmotherly woman.

“The Ramah Band of Navajo is a separate part of the larger Diné Reservation. Our traditional land has been checkerboarded. Some natives have land rights. Some non-natives have bought land. It all began back in the 1870s when the US Government sold off acreage that was rightfully Diné. The land-grab continued decades later when natives who needed the money sold off their parcels. Then the following generations who stopped ranching divided their property into smaller lots.”

“So these folks bought one of those parceled off plots and created their own paradise,” the man said with a bit of irony.

“Well, as you can see. Life out here is tough. There is little water and if they are trying to live sustainably, they are making some sacrificial choices.”

“What about health care?”, wondered the lady.

“Excellent question. If the Sunshiners are sticking to their mantra, they are living as naturally and homeopathically as possible. It seems like this young lady didn’t receive all the pre-natal and post-natal care she needed. Not to say that she doesn’t have access, more likely she didn’t choose to receive it. Although, things are more complicated now because of COVID.”

“What do you mean?” chimed the couple.

“We have a local nurse out of Gallup who makes pre-natal and post-natal visits to her patients. She is in-home care and makes house calls. Noemí B is her name. She works for the main hospital in Gallup, Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital. She is super dedicated. Yet once COVID hit, Noemí was transitioned to monitoring patients’ close contacts in order to help stop the spread. So, in-home care was put on the back burner”

“What happened then?”

“Looks like our young lady gave birth at home and was off the radar. Only when a horrible problem struck did she seek help. By then, it was too late.”

“We are glad to have been there for her. We are just sorry we didn’t see her sooner. Maybe things would have turned out differently.”

“Sir, thank you for taking her in to us. We will take it from here. You both did the most you could do. Please don’t get in your heads that there was more. Just lift it up to the Creator that something like this won’t happen again.”

Orion’s frustration wasn’t with the Michigan tourists hope of being the white savior. It wasn’t with the commune’s choices to live as they chose. Officer Begay’s anger was in the fact that people didn’t seek connections with their community. If only the young mother had sought help sooner, had asked for help before she needed it.

Yet, out Ramah way, it seems like everyone is living within their own individualistic microcosm. Way back when, in 1868, the Begay’s were one of the original seven families who returned home to Ramah after Hwéeldi. They had survived the internment camp. Instead of joining the other families in the Gallup area where the heart of Dinétah resides, they chose to go back to their original land. What they called TI’ohchini, the Place of Wild Onions. The TI’ohchini Diné wanted to drive their roots deep, back into the soil, plant their three sisters, forage the ponderosa groves, and tend to their sheep: away from the bilagáana.

At the same time of their return, the United States government encouraged white settlers to come into the area. During Reconstruction, the feds supported the homesteaders because they continued the policies of Manifest Destiny. Mormons were the first wave of settler colonizers to arrive in 1876. They had the money, and they bought the prize choices of land either to graze their cattle, to cut the ponderosas for lumber, or to cultivate near the water sources like Ramah Reservoir or Rio Nutria. Natives sold their land, because they lost their semi-nomadic way of living. Orion’s family was different, they assimilated, which nowadays, Traycee explains, is not what should have been done.

Orion Begay’s paternal side of the family converted to Mormonism. Some say the Mormon’s blind-eye to polygamy fused with some of the traditional Diné’s lifestyle. Orion didn’t see it that way though. He thinks when people struggle, they look for answers. Sometimes a connection to his ancestral spirituality

provides peace. Sometimes rootedness to the land provides solid ground. Other times, it is family that creates a needed network: and that is what the Mormon’s emphasized woven within their brand of Christianity.

Either way, as a contemporary NDN, he couldn’t imagine having more than one wife. It took him long enough to settle down. Asking Brenda Greyeyes Nez to marry him was the best question he has ever asked in his life, hands down. However, marrying in your late forties, and into an already formed nuclear family has its own complications.

As he sees it, Orion hopes to be part of the solution. He wants understanding. He creates community, and is willing to ask for help when he needs it. Not only does he strive to be like his namesake, Orion, the hunter and the provider. He wants reckoning for past mistakes.

Orion is intent on helping his stepdaughters find peace and rootedness. Both have been and continue to be challenged with so much in their young lives. Yanaha went off to UNM in Albuquerque and came back with a belly bump she pretended was the “freshmen fifteen”. Like so many other Native women who have been sexually assaulted, Yani didn’t escape the statistics. But the result of being roofieed at an off-campus party became a lifelong responsibility for her. Jonny Greyeyes Nez.

In naming her son after her cultural trauma, Yani burdened Jonny with a past that wasn’t his own choosing. He is Greyeyes, not because that is also his grandmother’s maiden name, but because he shares a lineage injected into his indigeneity. He is Nez because that is Yani’s father’s name, a man who left his daughters when they were young.

Orion is determined to do things differently. He will be Jonny’s Shicheíí so that Jonny knows he is native. He will show Jonny, that all men don’t leave. Nor that all men don’t acknowledge their responsibilities. Orion is not like all men. That is also why he accepts Traycee, Brenda’s youngest daughter, and Yanaha’s kid sister. Traycee Nez is learning her path and discovering the ways in which her “Two-Spiritedness” is manifesting. Once again, Orion embraces a “live and let live” philosophy; perhaps this is because the way the Diné had lived on their sacred land was stripped of them so brutally. As a contemporary NDN, he wants to right these wrongs by supporting his Native community, and specifically the most important people in his life, his asdzání and their ach’éé.

That is why, this time, there is no turning a blind eye to the tragedy the tourists encountered. A white woman. A suspected cult. A dead infant. It will draw the Channel Four News to the intersectionality found out Ramah way. His community doesn’t need this attention, it already has had enough trying to deal with the complications of COVID. What they need is reconciliation, not more endured trauma.

And so, he makes that long walk down the corridor to the holding cell where the young woman waits after her interview with Child and Family Services. He knocks on her locked door before entering. “Miss, let’s make some phone calls. I am sure you have family back home, who want to hear your voice.”

Benjamin Space

The Still Empty

It’s around 9 PM on a warm July night, most of the evening was spent setting up the telescope for what is promising to be a perfect viewing night. The desert sky sent the day off with an explosion of blues, orange, purple and pinks. Mesas and hill sides stand tall and strong in the backdrop looking like they had been painted onto my mind by some preeminent otherworldly marvel. Not a cloud in sight and the air is calm and clear. Camp is set up in an orderly fashion with the tent and tables all in an area where they won’t become a hazard in the dark. I doubt that I will be using the tent, but just in case. The small area I have chosen is surrounded on three sides by cliffs of rust colored sandstone reaching high into the sky with only one dirt road that leads in or out.

The cliffs are a usual spot for rock climbers and thrillseekers, but during the night, the area becomes a vacant haven for night sky watchers and the occasional camper. With the city lights blocked out the milky way burns its way overhead on its voyage through the ecliptic, reminding me of how truly small I really am and at the same time calming the mind and senses with its perfect wink. The chaos of the daytime world fades, calm settles over the dusty valley. The night is dark. Almost impenetrable darkness leaving one unaware of space, confronting any who face it with the deepest contemplations of eternity. Sitting in my folding chair sipping tea, the quiet of this barren world surrounds and rushes at me. Promising madness and the absurd the very moment perception runs wild into misconception. There is no one around for many miles. I am totally alone in a quirky space that seems to go on indefinitely. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Growing up, camping in the chaparral desert regions of southern California was a major part of our family life. Weekend trips were frequent during the summer, at least twice a month. Sometimes more. We visited the Gorman area and Hungry Valley OHV parks located in the northwestern region of Los Angeles County specifically. Occasionally my father would change things up and we would spend a weekend at the Leo Carrillo campground in Malibu, or sometimes in the Ocotillo Wells area. A weeklong trip towards the end of summer would even find us sleeping under the brilliant starry heavens of San Felipe in Baja, playing in the pristine sands and crystal-clear turquoise waters that make the Gulf of Mexico so magical. It was the dusty old granite mountains of Frazier Park though. The parched, chaparral covered land sparsely littered with ancient, gnarled oak and

cottonwood trees within Hungry Valley and Gorman California where the most time was spent. This is where I formed a deep attachment, fondness for the arid desert regions that I would often be drawn to throughout my adult life.

Daytime during the summer months can be a shock to the uninitiated with temperatures ranging between 70 and over 100 degrees.1 The nights cool, at times just plain cold. A light hooded sweatshirt was often more than enough to stay comfortable though. Snow falls in the winter with a muffled roar, covering the floor of the valley and mountain tops in a powdery white blanket, sparkling, crystalline, like pulverized gemstones.

Despite this, water can be hard to come by. A small babbling stream runs along the base of the nearest mountain year-round but is hardly safe for drinking and is miles from the nearest camp site, anyways. Preparation is vital to survival as all provisions must be packed in. While rainfall is random and rarely enough, an entire microcosm of plants and animals have adapted and thrive in this exceptional little world. Lizards and snakes of all kinds dance along the heated sand and clay while the coyote sings into the night, a deadly game of hide and seek he plays with the long-eared jack rabbit. A roadrunner darts through camp, his shadow toiling to keep pace. An owl hoots into the dark of the night, solemn but beautiful. The grayhaired oak tree who carries a thousand memories takes no offence to the owl lounging in its canopy.

American novelist, environmentalist and historian Wallace Stegner wrote The smell of wetted dust and wetted sagebrush in a desert thunderstorm is a fragrance more packed with associations than the most romantic of flowers.2 The first experience I had with a surprise desert thunderstorm was at a very young age. I can still recall the smell of the wet dirt, the state of tranquility introduced. The warm rain drops fell on my face as the mighty Thor split the sky wide with a deep resounding of thunder so intense the senses arrested, a struggle to process while fear dissolved and gave way to excitement and curiosity. The air charged causing goosebumps to form from head to toe in response. Running through that rain with wet sand and clay clinging to my shoes and legs, intoxicated by the rich scent of

1 According to the CA.GOV Hungry Valley SVRA site, summer temperatures can reach in the low 100’s while winter temperatures in the low 20’s with occasional snow fall.

2 A quote from the book The Sound of Mountain Water, written by Wallace Stegner.

the bone-dry desert soaking in every drop, I was free. Not a care in the world as my parents seemed amused at what I must have looked like.

As I got older, my father would sometimes take me on small camping trips. Just the two of us in the desert for a night or two. Trips to the Glamis sand dunes in southern California located between Blythe and Brawley were frequent. I was old enough to handle my own ATV and watch out for myself. I think this was his attempt to bond. When I was around 14 years young the trips stopped, though. I think we were just too far apart by this point. We both knew it.

It was around the age of 7 when we packed up into the family Chevy Blazer one summer Saturday morning, trailer in tow loaded up with supplies and atv’s for the hour and a half drive to my father’s favorite spot in the Hungry Valley OHV Park. We arrived around 10 am as usual. Camp was set up quickly under a pair of old oak trees at the base of a gradually sloping hillside crawling with trails cut by off road enthusiasts over many years. A weathered wood canopy was in place over two picnic tables situated perfectly beneath the old trees in a way that provided shade all day long. Wildflowers, orange, yellow and purple thickly blanketed the entire valley. The wildflower bloom in southern California is and always will be beautiful beyond words. With perfect sunny weather, the day was amazing, filled with ATV rides covering large portions of the park territory and a trip to the stream that runs through to cool off. Daylight faded as The Doors played in the background. My sisters and I sat around the campfire eating a steak dinner cooked over open flame. Soon it was time to call it a day and crash out. My father had other plans though.

My father and I walked out into the darkness far from camp. The moon was absent this night, and an old Coleman kerosene lamp was all we had to provide light. We settled into a spot unimpeded by trees or anything else. Laying on our backs, the sandy ground was soft and still warm. My father, a stern man of few words, directs my attention up. What I saw in that moment has stayed with me. It changed me and shaped who I would become. The stars densely carpeted the sky, each burning bright, twinkling red and blue while the milky way scorched a path through my field of view. An image that the universe is centered in the belly of a Moroccan geode of the purest Quartzsite crystal comes to mind. As meteors part of a summer shower streaked across the sky like angels falling to their doom, brilliant tails chasing after, my spirit was forever branded.

I felt an overpowering need to question, well, everything. This is the strangest life I’ve ever known, crooned Jim Morrison in one of my all-time favorite songs.3 Words that, for me, describe a state of confusion that persisted in the deepest shadowed corners of my thoughts for such a long time. I have only just started to fully understand. The emptiness and solitude of the desert (especially under a clear night sky) affords the mindfulness and calm for that understanding. I like to think that my parents knew of the power the desert can have. I like to think that they made a valiant effort in teaching my sisters and I to respect that power, and how to tap into it for ourselves.

You see, that night spent peering up into the cosmos with my father was the first, and only, time that I can remember the two of us truly connecting. One of the great philosophers of our time said, Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.4 I haven’t been back to the area of Hungry Valley OHV Park or Gorman CA in a very long time, but what my parents gave us by taking us out into the wilds of the often harsh desert world has been a gift of simplicity and healing that I could never repay.

Early morning hours crepe up on me as I point my deep sky Newtonian telescope East in the direction of the Andromeda galaxy. While Andromeda can be seen as a very faint smudge with the naked eye, it’s so far away5 that even on the darkest of nights the sensitive ten-inch mirror and four-foot light collecting tube will only allow me a fuzzy view of the inner most third of our closest neighbor. Still, what a beautiful and hypnotic sight. Embers of the campfire I enjoyed a few hours ago glow orange, still giving off heat. I confront the fiends of my subconscious attempting to crawl out of the shadows head on, transcending who I was the day before. So influenced by those trips of my youth, it’s here in the still emptiness of the desert lands that my spirit is free to wander. To heal. It’s here that I feel the most at home.

3 Waiting for the Sun by The Doors, Morrison Hotel- 1970

4 A well-known quote taken from the book Seuss-isms, by Dr. Seuss.

5 According to Astronomy.com, the Andromeda galaxy is our closest neighboring galaxy at roughly 2.5 million light-years away. While Andromeda is moving to merge with our Milky Way galaxy at unimaginable speed, it will take 4 billion years to reach us.

Talysha Beck

Cocktail, Pandemic Edition

As I watch this man walk inside without his mask after asking the hostess to speak to a manager, guessing as to what he may say, knowing at the very least it’s going to be a complaint, I have a million things on my mind to remember for other tables. It’s one of those days again. It’s really become so regular that this is the new normal. Who will show up to work today? How many things can you do at once?

Well, here’s another half dozen to do on top of that. Only another server and myself, the bartender, are on to take tables today. Piece of cake, or as Doug from Cocktail would say: “Relax, you’re in the perfect job. There’s no better way to make it than behind three feet of mahogany6 ” We should really consider ourselves lucky that there is a takeout person as well as a hostess. There is no food runner, no dishwasher; the busser will be here later (maybe), and only a couple of cooks are taking care of the entire line. We aren’t open for indoor dining, so my general manager hired a guy to set up a large canopy in the parking lot out front of the restaurant, with a bunch of fake-grass type rugs for “flooring.” There is white plastic fencing around the outside and a bunch of extension cords tucked around in the fencing and tucked under the rugs, with some white tarps around the outside for windy days and all the tables from what used to be our indoor cocktail area pulled outside. Think about what it might look like if all the restaurants in town were competing to recreate their own versions of a janky beer garden at a low budget outdoor festival, and you’ve pretty much got the picture.

There are bar drinks rung in on my expo screen with drinks every time I go inside from the other server, but I have to make my own tables’ drinks as well. The hostess is young and gets flustered when the guests coming in fuss at her, pointing at empty tables. There is a line, and she gives up on telling them there aren’t enough servers and there’s no busser to clean the tables and just keeps seating us instead. Every time I’m inside it takes awhile to catch up on drinks. Sometimes I

6 Cocktail, film from 1988 based on a book and starring famous actor Tom Cruise as a flair bartender, effectively helping to make all us bartenders look cool indefinitely. Fun fact is that Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown both actually had to practice flair bartending for these roles and used real bottles on set. We could probably guess that since Tom Cruise famously prefers to do his own stunts. Had to include a classic bartending film as a reference.

don’t have time to catch up completely because I can see some of my tables through the front windows with their faces turning impatient from waiting to order. Oh my gosh, the hostess double sat me, and I haven’t finished making all the mixed drinks from the large party and family she gave me a couple of minutes ago. I’m left with no choice but to come back. These tables really need to order. There’s no time to check on food. Hopefully the managers notice and help us run food… maybe they had to jump on the line to help cook since we’re short on staff and that’s why all my ticket times are long. I walk back out to the “front patio” with a tray heavy with drinks to confront all the mask-less, angry faces. As I pass one of the server’s tables, a lady flags me down to yell at me to go back inside and make her margarita she’s been waiting. Another man, this time from my section, snaps at me that they’re waiting on their appetizer to come out. My neck and face get hot with anxiety as I pass out the drinks, knowing I don’t have time to go back inside to deal with either because I just have to get caught up on taking orders: Just another day in the Brewhouse.

My heart sinks into my stomach as I see the man waiting at the front desk inside while I go back to the bar to greet a stack of drink tickets waiting for me. I feel bad, since I once took pride in my trade and level of service. “These are not normal times,” I remind myself. As I’m filling the bar well with drinks, the man from my table proceeds to yell at my manager. He goes on about how he’s visited different locations of our Brewhouse restaurant in other states and is a regular for the company. Never has he received service such as this or been made to wait so long for food. My manager stands there patiently as the man continues his tantrum, and eventually has to soothe him, using calm apologetic words to defuse the situation. Looking on, I go from embarrassed to incredulous to angry. My manager’s sleeves are rolled up on his pressed, button-down shirt from helping his line workers cook and trying to run food in between. This angry guest is standing directly in front of my manager yelling without a mask indoors, and I wonder if he realizes how inconsiderate this is given that most of us inadvertently spit a little while talking and our county is experiencing a COVID-19 spike; that’s why no indoor seating is allowed. You’re sitting in a parking lot, sir, of course you’ve never had service like this. How lucky you are, with our local hospitals at full capacity and all of us in the middle of a global pandemic, that your big problem is not getting your food fast enough!

Almost everyone in the service industry has similar stories, some much worse from their experiences working through the pandemic. Sure, there was some light shed on these situations over the past year and a half, and for that I’m grateful. Jobs that fall under the service industry umbrella were largely overlooked and unacknowledged before this time. It seems that caring about or acknowledging the

struggle of this subculture of workers was only popularized during the Covid-19 Pandemic, perhaps only because people were inconvenienced. Never mind the fact that many workers have faced their own specific set of struggles even before this all started, with little if any appropriate coverage or representation in popular culture and many not knowing how to treat customer service positions. Now the situations are vastly magnified and mixed in with customers feeling it appropriate to take out their frustrations about local policies, staffing challenges, objections to news and political beliefs out on service staff employees.

This same group of people interacting with agitated patrons regularly also have their own families to protect or that they possibly cannot see because people are upset that these services aren’t available. On the other side of the coin, large numbers of service industry workers who were laid off during this time suddenly were unable to pay their bills. If some of these workers were called back to work the hours were inconsistent. The added stressors of dealing with the backlash of masking policies, along with attempts at contact tracing that were often poorly executed. Regardless of our own personal beliefs or home situations, we were at the mercy of not only changing local and state policy but our management and owner’s political views. This could influence not only how much you were able to work, but also your managers’ views would determine how seriously work outbreaks were taken or how closely safety measures and masking policies were followed. Imagine all these outside factors having such a heavy influence on your ability to make money or keep yourself safe. We all have our own beliefs, fears, home life situations and families to protect, entangled in constantly having to adjust to changing policies or implementation choices while trying to contribute to the business staying afloat and paying our own bills.

One example that stands out to me from a customer during this time was involving an extremely chatty regular who kept coming throughout changing policies, but complained unempathetically and usually made things more difficult for staff members during his visits. This particular visit, by the time I had gotten out to the table for his drink order he was flushed red and had made the hostess cry. We were very short staffed on servers, again, and those of us that were there had too many tables already. There were still open tables in the patio tent though, and this customer told her he knew me and also it was ridiculous that he had to wait when there were vacant tables right there. He didn’t say any of this nicely of course and got himself worked up arguing with the hostess until she didn’t know what else to say or do but just seat him after bursting into tears. He was completely unapologetic about this and stuck to his guns, defending his actions. When explaining his version of events to me, he went so far as to imply he was being mistreated. Later during his stay, he kept me at the table even though I was clearly

busy with other tables in my section to fuss at me about our indoor dining not being open, how inconvenient it was with the changing policies from the governor and how our company decided to execute these orders. I exasperatedly asked him how he thought the staff and I felt since we worked there. He argued loudly, “How do you think I feel?! I’m the customer having to sit outside in this weather being inconvenienced!” He felt passionately that his rights were being infringed upon because he wasn’t allowed to go out to eat comfortably. Looking back, maybe we should have capitalized off the scenes made by customers; at least then it would have served some purpose. We could have sold tickets, souvenirs, and made enough money to retire from the business: I saw an adult man throw a tantrum in a public establishment and all I got was this lousy t-shirt merch inspired by Waiter Rant7. I knew for a fact that this retired regular came out to eat for lunch, a couple of beers, and then would simply go home to take an afternoon nap. Meanwhile I was on partial unemployment for the first time in my life, was unable to work from home because of my line of work, and hadn’t seen my family, all of whom live out of state, for months now. All so I could be available to serve this man and pour his beers before his afternoon nap.

Though these instances are a little ridiculous, they are only a couple of examples of minor instances that have occurred in my experiences over the entirety of the Covid-19 pandemic. Other workers have had to confront even more difficult and dangerous situations than this of course, along with the anxieties that come with these confrontations, as discussed in Jefferson Center’s blog8. I do not feel at all like I’m alone in my struggles or ignorant enough to assume my cross is the largest. Nor do all these challenges at work reflect how all people feel and act during this whirlwind time. Many kind people would try hard to be understanding, express gratitude that we were open at all, put their masks on while I was taking orders at the table, tip generously because they saw me struggling or knew things were hard for us, just to name a few things. One instance stands out as particularly

7 Waiter Rant, by Steve Dublanica. Very funny book written by a former server and turned into an online blog with postings being updated even to this day. The silly hypothetical souvenir shirt from witnessing a ridiculous public outburst I mention here was inspired directly by a dark, very recent article in August of this year on the online blog called “Save Me a Margarita.”

8 Jefferson Center- with your mind; online blog, specifically the article “5 Ways Essential Workers Can Manage Trauma and Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” touches on struggles faced by previously overlooked types of support industries plus more importantly identifying traumas or anxiety and how to care for your mental health.

touching, during a time when things were exceptionally rough for our restaurant and myself in particular. We were busy, short staffed, and it was freezing outside. After a big surge following establishments being allowed to open at partial capacity indoors, the whole state had shut down for two weeks and we were back to outdoor dining and takeout. I had spent my recent 30th birthday at home, hadn’t seen my family in nearly a year, and we were coming up on Christmas. It was clear I wouldn’t be going home for this holiday like all the others because traveling was unsafe and the amount of people I’m regularly exposed to my mother has no immune system. This particular day was exceptionally rough because most all of the customers had been grumpy and impatient due to the cold. They were shivering and the one machine we had for coffee or hot chocolate kept overheating due to all the hot beverage orders. When the hot food finally came out to the table, it would cool down so fast people just wanted boxes so they could leave.

All day it went on like this, with my section that was way too big as usual on top of the line of tickets down to the floor in the bar inside from people ordering drinks or shots to feel less cold. I try to cheer myself up despite the fact that this day won’t let up by imagining a silly scene from Waiting as people placing drink orders on our patio: “I’ll have a single shot of whiskey, and a double shot of whiskey, and she’ll have a water. Oh, what the hell, it’s our anniversary. Bring her a Pepsi9.” No luck. Defeated and fingers numb from cold, I couldn’t wait for my relief, the PM bartender, to clock-in and for this whole season to just be over. A table of two ladies cashed out their check, telling me to keep the change. After I caught up with the rest of my tables I went inside to organize all the tables’ tickets and realized the change left by these ladies was no less than $100. “They must have miscounted,” was my first thought. I ran out to catch the ladies before they left the table and got home to realize their mistake. Except there was no mistake. They had seen me struggling all through the lunch rush. “Merry Christmas,” they said, effectively restoring my faith in humanity. Fast forward to me standing in front of their table with a tray full of drinks for the patio tables, thanking them for the third time. This time I’m certain it was mostly incoherent as I had unknowingly started to openly sob while trying to explain my gratitude. Instances like this stand out and were so appreciated by not only me but many others in the service industry. Kindness was so unexpected, and such a stark contrast to the long periods of struggles throughout

9 Waiting, 2005 movie and cult classic among restaurant service industry people. This movie is admittedly inappropriate for many kinds of audiences but nevertheless it is funny and probably the most famous movie about the restaurant industry. I wish there was better representation of service industry workers in films or some kind of accurate, witty modern-day Cheers at the very least.

this crazy time. After all this time that has passed since the beginning, we are still experiencing struggles while facing down another surge in the form of the Delta variant. With the holiday season coming back, tensions still high for many, and no clear end on the horizon, I find myself reflecting on everything that happened and what next hurdle is waiting around the next corner.

Talysha Beck

A Chef’s Knife

After pulling out all the produce and ingredients I need, I reach down to pull out my favorite cutting board from the cabinet and, of course, my trusty chef knife. It’s time to start prepping for dinner. Make sure you have all your ingredients needed first, and tools, bowls, and proper disposal containers at the ready because you must maintain Mise en Place. 10 Once you can see you have everything you need as if you are putting together the edible version of an Ikea project, wash your produce, measure, and prep. I stand in front of my spot on the counter with my woodblock ready and reach for my favorite knife laying clean and ready at the side. I sigh, comfortable and confident now that I can tackle the task at hand with this in my hand. If a crafter is only as good as her tools, such as the list included on Mental Floss11, then I must already be off to a strong start. Sure, it’s only a weekday dinner with my significant other now, but it wasn’t always. There was a time when this eight-inch long, sharp blade of metal was my only partner in the trenches of a fast-paced, stressful environment I thought was so challenging I possibly wouldn’t get through it. The grip on this handle absorbed my anxiety, uncertainty, and temper through the trying times of my cooking classes in culinary school.

My first day of Intermediate Cooking started a week after everyone else in class because of a family obligation out of state, and that meant everyone else had also

10 Mise en Place, A Culinary Term Chefs Live by, St. Louis magazine. This is an article published by the magazine with half a dozen chefs sharing what the famous French phrase means to them. Why a French phrase? Because France is considered the birthplace of modern cooking. Prestigious pastry chefs traditionally came from there as well. Many of the proper names for sauces and dishes you learn to make in culinary school are French, like Beurre Blanc (white butter sauce). It is often said or yelled at you while prepping in your culinary classes. I was taught that it means, “everything in its place.”

11 18 Things Professional Chefs Say You Must Have in Your Kitchen, Mental Floss. This is a blog that features some of the best tools for your kitchen according to professional chefs. While I am not a professional chef, I do agree with most of the items included on this list and wanted to highlight that knives are often the first thing suggested as one of the best tools you can have. Just as important is keeping your knives sharp. Chef always said that a dull knife was more dangerous than a sharp knife.

chosen table groups already. Coming in behind, I was placed in the front with a group of two guys who not only knew each other from Intro Cooking but were good friends as well as roommates. Surely, I’d feel like an equal part of the team in no time, and that I wouldn’t be fully under the microscope of my Chef instructor up there, right by his station. “Great, as if I’m not nervous enough as it is.” Sure enough, no sooner had I lifted my knife and made my first cut into my onion, that I saw Chef’s eyebrows go up and he was on his way over to my prep area to show me how to do it properly. Stupid freaking onion, of course I didn’t remember the correct form for chopping it, I’d been avoiding taking Cooking II after the ordeal of Cooking I.

Finally, I was there after a year and a half of avoidance out of necessity, since this was the only class left standing between me and my dream Advanced Baking course. Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly the best at classical cuts for vegetables in Intro but doing bad enough to catch the Chef’s attention on my first prep item my first day was pretty impressive. “What are you doing back here?” I thought as Chef took my knife from me, his instructions getting drowned out by the loud beating in my ears as I felt my anxiety rising. After he left me to it, the disassociation set in, and the negative thoughts were as loud as the beat of my heart. “You can’t do this. What were you thinking?!” My face went hot. Surely, everyone must’ve known what they were doing but me. At least from looking around, it seemed that way. And for twenty panicked minutes, as I watched as one by one others finish their prep faster than me and bring it over to their cooking areas, I seriously considered walking out in the middle of class and throwing in the towel on my whole program.

Okay, the shallots are diced, and I have some minced garlic put to the side, along with a couple zested lemons cut in half. The shrimp has been deveined and rinsed, with their tails simmering at low heat on the back burner the past couple of hours to give me a little last minute, quick improvised broth for my Scampi sauce. I take a swig of the white wine I picked out for deglazing, and this will do nicely to add flavor and pull together the ingredients. You just have to chop up a generous helping of parsley and you’re done with your shift for tonight, trusty knife.

Intro Cooking really did a lot to try my confidence, which honestly, I had a bumpy history with. I had convinced myself to go back to school to pursue my baking passion, that this program would be “just for fun,” and the first class required was anything but. Never have I felt so constantly uncomfortable, and on stage in a way

never experienced before. Strange, since I’ve spent my whole working life in the service industry, and years as a bartender. There were two distinct groups in these programs: the cooks and the bakers. No matter someone’s sex, the nickname for those pursuing the cooking side of the program were the “hot-food guys.” This distinction was a running joke as you saw many of the same people taking similar core classes as yourself, because it was clear that your choice to pursue either baking or cooking often stereotypically landed you into one of two personality types. The bakers typically had high grades, having all their bookwork completed and recipes organized according to the lesson plans given at the beginning of the semester. Their uniforms were wrinkle free with their hair pulled back and usually had an affinity for attention to detail as well as pretty sweets. The “hot-food guys” rarely cracked the textbook open, as they didn’t often bother with the homework. They were usually seen with bedhead and wrinkled uniforms, because they’d rolled out of bed at the last minute without a plan, usually taunting the bakers about their page protected notes by touting phrases like “C’s get degrees,” and whipping up dishes seemingly effortlessly on the fly. Sometimes Chef would change plans on us, wanting to mix things up. Sometimes the produce or meat shipments wouldn’t come in on time, and the required activities were cancelled, and we had to improvise something else entirely, competing with classmates over whatever ingredients were left in the fridge to produce a beautiful balanced dish in time. I highly disliked improvisation days. I wanted us to stick to the plan, and it didn’t help that I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing at all times. At least with a plan I could go into the day knowing I could produce something to present to Chef for critiquing. When you’re in charge of your own dish, there is only yourself to blame when things don’t go right. It demands a level of independence, decision making, and accountability that I wasn’t comfortable with given I was so unsure of myself.

See, I had never thought I was a good cook, or a cook at all for that matter. My mother had often teased me for burning microwave popcorn and boxed mac n cheese after moving out, and everyone I’d ever dated was the person who cooked, certainly not me. It was stressful and demanding, and quickly after starting I often was overwhelmed, exhausted, and discouraged. Then, one night after closingdown the bar, after a long day of cooking labs and a busy night in the restaurant, my limits were tested further. Walking out to my car at nearly three am with every part of me sore and aching, I noticed the back window of my car smashed in and inside clearly rummaged through. Once the initial shock wore off, I ran to the back to open my trunk. “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Please be there, please still be there!” In the shock I had nearly forgotten that I had come straight to work from class, and all my expensive knives and tools were in the trunk. Practically throwing

the door up, I stare at the empty trunk in disbelief. Gone. Hundreds of dollars’ worth of tools, with the knives the most expensive of all. They even took my egg pan. Everything for class down to my spatulas, undershirts, and pens had all come out of pocket. Truly defeated, I was convinced it was a sign I was the silliest person ever to have made the decision to go back to school. Somehow, the next week I had gotten myself together enough to buy another whole set of gear and show back up to class. We were still finishing up eggs while starting on breakfast items, and I felt that I had even more pressure to be amazing because I had spent all this money twice pursuing this. Cursing at my botched poached eggs turned egg-drop soup, I told myself I had to nail these pancakes because who the hell screws up pancakes. After a burned first batch and some more cursing I gave up and had no choice but to present the next batch, however they turned out because I was out of time. Worked up in my mind, I was embarrassed by the time it was my turn to show my plate for critique. And when Chef said they were less than perfect, I broke down and started sobbing right there in the front of the class, to both of our horrors.

The shallots are soft and translucent, so I toss the minced garlic in until fragrant. Minutes later the pan lights up in a quick flame from deglazing with the wine, and it’s all starting to smell so delicious that I know a proper relationship has been formed12, and I decide this calls for a glass of wine for myself as well. Dancing to a little music with my spatula, my love comes in to steal a quick kiss, and I shoo the dogs back out of the kitchen. The sauce is reducing so now would be a good time to drain the pasta and maybe wash my tools. A little TLC is the least I can do in return for the service and what looks like it’s going to be a fabulous meal.

Our personal relationships with food can vary depending on our associations with it. For me, food is complicated as it relates to my life’s fabric because it ties into

12 Food Smells & Aromas: The Science of Smells, by Fine Dining Lovers Magazine. This article dives into the relationship between smell and food, or namely how this relationship enhances your taste experience and our perception of flavor. Even before taking cooking classes, back in an upscale Chinese food restaurant I worked in during the trainings they emphasized that there were many senses that went into the experience of the plate. They talked about how the presentation added to it, as well as the smell and balance of flavors all were part of the receiver’s perception and experience of the dish. This is something I still carry with me both with bartending and cooking.

my childhood, my relationship with some of my immediate family members, as well as my love of sweets and the never-ending struggle with how you look in the mirror. Growing up, my mom was always this incredible cook for our family. She loved nothing more than to host people and go over the top with quantity around the holidays so there was an incredible spread no matter how many showed up, with days of leftovers after. There was an inside joke in our family because my mother always seemed to use an old fork to whip up everything, so my dad started teasing and implying that she would make miracles happen with just a fork, and it affectionately took on the name of “ghetto fork” as the years went on.

My mother didn’t live in the best areas growing up with a young mother, but she so loved spending time with her grandma cooking that she really took it seriously when her grandmother left her all her and the family’s recipes. Her specialty was soul food with some southern desserts sprinkled in, often with no precise measuring at all and no timers. Plenty of stories to go along with each recipe, though. She taught me all these recipes growing up, all with that same “ghetto fork,” and because I never considered myself a cook. In comparison to her passion and talent, I honestly felt like it was wasted on me at the time. Many years and a Culinary Arts degree later, my chef knife from class makes it out to help me for every meal and just about every dish I make. Maybe, without realizing it, this favorite tool of mine in the kitchen has become my version of the “ghetto fork.”

My mother has passed on her and her grandma’s recipes to me, despite me not feeling deserving when she first started giving them. Looking back, what she was saying by sharing all this with me is, “This is where I come from; this is what I love,” and passing that on to me, before I ever thought it was who I was.

Generations sharing recipes and stories becomes part of the family culture, and represents our personal expression, where we come from and everything we’ve overcome to be together sharing these meals. My special tool that I use to add to that, and which represents my own overcoming story, is how this knife is specifically culturally significant to me. It’s not just my own family but so many others who have special foods that represents their culture and upbringing. The association between culture, family and food is explored in an article called Food and Culture13. People use what they have based on where they come from, their resources, maybe their traditions, to come together as a family.

13 Food And Culture - Family, People, and Families, Family Encyclopedia. This was a lovely article that simply discusses how culture or ancestral location influences people’s food preferences, but also how food is often connected to one’s culture or even religion. It suggests that by extension food has an important role in

My breakdown over pancakes was not the last time in my culinary journey that I felt enormous stress, defeat, or that I simply was incapable. On the contrary, these feelings came in varying degrees at many points over the next few years and put a spotlight on what I felt were my shortcomings. Was I ready to face these? It sure didn’t feel like it at the time. So much pressure, with Chefs towering over you, yelling, challenging, pushing. What it really was about was overcoming and facing these supposed flaws in myself in a way I may never have had the courage to on my own without external pressure. What I learned about my capability and potential despite my perceived limits is what I treasure from this difficult time. So, I forgive myself for not being perfect at it because I stuck with it, giving myself the opportunity to prove to myself that I can do a lot on my feet when faced with a problem. I can be uncomfortable, and thrown into the fire unprepared and unsure, and come out doing well, despite how I am perceiving my performance in my mind. I tried and discovered I’m quite good at thinking on my feet and have taken away more confidence from the experience. It gave me the confidence to tackle things I’m not always sure I can do, just to see what happens, and go back to school again for another degree. The anxiety was high when I went into school the day of my final for Cooking II, armed with little more than a knife, and after my last dish was turned in, I felt a wave of relief as well as a sense of accomplishment. Now, when I take my old knife out to make a meal for someone I love, I feel comfort in the handle, familiarity with the new unlocked potential in myself I never knew I was capable of, along with confidence to take on the next meal and pride in everything I overcame to earn it.

family as well as culture and points out the differences in food traditions around the world.

Axel Jerix Balicat

Unexpected: An Excerpt from Journal

Dear Diary, October 2018:

I’ll never forget the first time she approached me in the hallway. My heart began to beat faster as my face turned rosy-red as I blushed. She had long brown hair, light hazelnut eyes, and skin soft as silk. She had asked me out for our first date. I was nervous but was overcome with the feeling of joy and excitement. My heart began to pitter-patter, and butterflies filled my stomach as I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I can vividly remember the first time we shared a kiss, our heads slowly inching close with eyes shut tight. When we shared our first kiss, everything seemed to go in slow motion, the anxious feeling in my stomach ended, and my body was in a blissful state. I felt dizzy and lightheaded as the nervous feeling rushed back into my stomach. From that moment on, I realized that I was in love for the first time.

For the first time in my teenage life, I understood what it’s like to experience what I did about another person; the sense of attachment detailed in romance movies and novels. It felt genuine, and I was confident it was. You take a glance into their eyes and see the same star shining in them for the first time, and you notice that another person feels the same way you do about them. The feeling felt euphoric, like floating on cloud nine, madly in love and not worrying about anything.

For the first time, I truly felt and allowed myself to be comfortable around her. I whole-heartedly expressed my feelings and emotions. I let my guard down. I allowed her to see my true self. I allowed myself to be completely loved. I felt venerable around her. Around her, I would laugh so hard to the point that I would snort, but I wasn’t embarrassed. As our relationship got more serious and intimate, I became unafraid to expose my naked body to her, to be truly adored and cherished completely. I trusted her.

It was also the first time I revealed my insecurities and emotions freely and explicitly. Usually, I would hide my feelings from everyone and keep them to myself, but I trusted her so much that I allowed her to see me break down in tears. I loved her. Everything was perfect with her. But like the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Life is unpredictable, and the unavoidable always occurs. I realized that the person who can bring you the most happiness and joy can also be the person who can cause you the most pain and agony.

I never really anticipated her losing feelings for me and letting me go. I trusted her to protect my heart but seeing her leave, I felt like a sword thrust directly at my chest.

It’s called First love. It’s the first time you will experience heartbreak when it’s over, like someone gripping your heart and tearing it to shreds. Also, the first time you will cry so hard, to the point where you’ll realize that it’s possible to run out of tears. You will feel helpless, like a newly born infant learning to walk. It’ll be the first moment you’ll overthink and blame yourself for something that wasn’t your fault, but you won’t be 100% sure, and make you feel entirely guilty inside. I blamed myself for loving her too much, I repeatedly held myself accountable for putting myself in that relationship and becoming too attached to her. At 16, I believed that my first love would also be my last. I painstakingly gave all I had into that relationship making sure she was happy because her happiness was my happiness. I thought we would be together forever.

Hearing her say ‘I lost feelings for you’ and ‘I don’t love you anymore’ sucked. Nothing compares to you experiencing your first love to be over.

This was my first experience of love. I’ve enjoyed and cherished the blissful moments, but I’ve also learned through my mistakes. It took a while but, I finally snapped out of my fantasy and understood that your first love isn’t like what they depict in the fairytales and movies. No matter how much time and effort we put into the relationship, it doesn’t mean that everything will be okay. I found out that it’s okay for things not to work out with your first love and that it happens to almost everyone. But it will leave you wondering if what you had was real, only because you manifested and longed for it to work. It will leave you feeling confused, lost, sad, and lonely. Most of all you’ll feel numb as you feel like your whole life is over.

First love really hurts when it ends. It will leave you having second thoughts about your self-worth. She left a hole in my heart with her absence: it felt like an empty void, like something is missing. In time, your heart does heal. However it won’t be the same. The empty space in your heart will remain. The scars and pain left by your first love will still be there and never be the same. When your first romance comes to an end, you will feel like you’re drowning, struggling to breathe. You will be yearning for assistance, but the person you trusted and relied on for so long Is no longer there.

The first love will not be the last. However, the first love, it’s something marvelous and magnificent, but it doesn’t mean it will last forever. It’s simply called ‘first love’ because it’s your first not your last.

I’ve taken this heartbreak and learned from it. The heavy burden on your heart will heal as time passes by: although it’s still there, it won’t hurt as much. Right now, I feel a lot better as I have slowly learned and realized these things. Although the feeling is still there, I am not bothered by it as much. It’s just a minute inconvenience that I have to deal with daily. But in the end I felt I’ve learned much from my first love and I’ve moved past her. I’m focused on myself. This truly was an unexpected turn of events.

Quentin Guyonnet

Live and Resist, Love and Cherish

My grandmother was a book. I mean, not literally but she was able to tell you any story from her life at three years old to the present. Her memory was incredible. In the same conversation, she could recall events from the harvesting day festival on October 5th of 1947 to yesterday’s visit with the neighbor. She was a memory beast. Every detail was in her mind, vivid, alive, ready to be expelled as soon as you asked for it. She was like a jukebox, pick a day or a theme, and you will be on a journey back in time. No need for fiction with my grandmother, her life was entertainment. And I, as a kid, had the chance to travel two days a week on a free ride to life. I could open a history book and be one of the characters.

With that said, we never travelled more than 10 miles from her house. That was the perimeter, the “safe zone” for us. I know, it sounds like the exact opposite of an adventure, but the truth is that was all I needed. Going out of our circle would be a strange and foreign land, “on the other side of the bridge,” as she liked to say. In this 10-mile buffer between us and the rest of the world, there were a lot of potential encounters. People were the purpose of her life around the house. The truth is that her region, the central part of France, is amazingly ugly. In this incredible variety of landscapes, we were going from a desertic flat land of corn fields to a desertic flat land of burned sunflowers. The famous highest spot is well known as the local church of St Therese, with her arrogant 55’ façade.

The people over there are a sort of a jungle of broken-toothed farmers and generational alcoholics. I loved them. My grandmother hated most of them. She was always criticizing them, saying that “this one is a cuckold,” and another is “only interested by himself”. The strange thing is that while my grandmother was complaining about of them, she was the one visiting them! She enjoyed her time, laughed with them, and as soon as we were outside, past the door, she would say something like “This one is still the same, a stupid uneducated boy”.

Nevertheless, there was this one friend that deserved to be visited. Her and my grandmother were almost raised together at the local church. Her name was Sister Marie. She lived in this tiny house, adjoining the south wall of the church. When she spoke, her voice sounded like she was rubbing her vocal cords in honey. It was a sweet caress to the cheek every time she talked. Marie had a pot that hung in the kitchen with an inscription on the bottom that said: No husband, no problems. She

liked to say that God is not a very demanding person, and that he is a perfect companion.

After the traditional teatime, we always sang “The International”14 song together. The lyrics made some sense to me, but every word was felt with so much intensity by these two old ladies. For 5 minutes, the flame of courage and honor could be seen in their eyes, as if the threat was right outside, on the street. For 5 minutes, the 30-foot square kitchen became a place of protest, comradery, and hope. I don’t think I realized how lucky I was at that time. At eight years old, I saw a glimpse into the real meaning of the [French] Resistance, and it was more real than any books or course on it.

When I asked my grandmother how her childhood was, she described it as hard but rewarding. When she was a child, every task in the village was shared: the baker was helping the farmer when the pigs had to get killed, then the farmer was giving one pig to the baker who then, in exchange, gave a loaf of bread per week to the farmer. The same kind of exchange happened for almost everyone, from the simple laborer to the doctor. After a long day or week of labor, my grandmother described these big feasts next to the fireplace, where everyone gathered into a small kitchen that was also used as a bedroom for all family members. The floor was a composed of a single layer of packed soil. Comfort was not there but human warmth and kindness was all over the place.

On Tuesday evenings after school, my grandmother came to pick me up. She had this old white yellowish car, a Peugeot 104, sounding as loud as a plane during takeoff. No seat belts on it, so she always told us “Sit back and as far as you can on your seat,” thinking that we would be more protected this way in case of a crash. I would run to the car, put my back far on the seat, and get ready for a 15-minute trip along 3 miles. My grandmother drove slowly, but she was in control behind her huge glasses and a cracked windshield.

As soon as we were home, my grandmother jumped into the kitchen to make her special butter bread: a generous spoon of butter spread on a 12-inch roasted baguette (nicely burned in the toaster then the black burned layer was scratched off with a knife). I loved everything about it. The smell and the taste of the lightly burned bread mixed with a strong salty butter that was always left outside the

14 The international song was the resistance anthem in WWI and shared by anarchist, communist and socialist party at that time. The lyrics describe the explicit violence and direct threat from the resistance in response to Nazis invasion and occupation of French territory.

fridge. I crunched into it like a savage and then licked the remaining melted butter off my fingers. I don’t remember having more pleasure in eating anything else after these. We were not about spending money on expensive ingredients and then mix them according to a complex recipe. Everything was about simple taste and good memories but also about the routine and the pleasure in the making process: seeing my grandmother cutting this long piece of bread with the smile and singing while spreading the strong-smelling butter. Reaching the toaster was a sort of a quest, as it was on the top of a shelf behind the freezer, but the boxes that were on the top of the freezer had to be put on the ground first to be able to reach this desired toaster. Why she never put the toaster on the kitchen table, I will never know… Until today, the taste of these slightly burned toasted bread is carved inside me. Every breakfast we ate butter bread, and every breakfast is now a reconnexion to these moments. This is my own madeleine de Proust15 .

Moving into the next step of our Tuesday evening, we walked into the garden. That was her pride and her reason to wake up early every day. The pleasure of doing things by yourself and be able to say, “These are out of the ground thanks to me” or, “I did this”. After this avalanche of colors and smells coming from every square foot of the garden, we came back inside, warming up the dinner on the old heater that was used as a stove. Once dinner was finished, she put me to bed while singing old revolutionary and resistance songs from WWII.

Even after I left the region where she lived (I was around twelve years old), we always talked on the phone on Sunday afternoon. Everything is about rituals with my grandmother. Our conversion was almost the same from one Sunday to another:

“How are doing grandma?” I asked first.

“Ouch, my belly is painful, I must have eaten something bad,” she always answered

“I hope you’re doing ok though” I always responded.

15 Marcel Proust is a French novelist that wrote “In search of lost time”. In this book, he explains that every time he was eating a madeleine (a type of French pastry) as an adult, he remembered the taste of those that he dipped into his tea while he was a child. The madeleine of Proust is any taste, smell or sound that will remind someone about his childhood and a memory associated.

“Yes, as everyone is telling me, I am in great shape for ninety-year-old women!” she was always proud to tell me.

“Sure, you are grandma, the strongest I know!” I answered to comfort her.

When I turned 26 years old, one Sunday, I called her as usual at 6pm but she did not pick up the phone. I remember that I felt bad because I had to leave on a mission in Kurdistan - Middle East - and I had a poor network for communication over there. I took off in Paris, landed in Istanbul for a couple of hours, and then took another plane to Erbil. While in the air, I was looking into the wide array of clouds and thinking about what the hell she was doing this Sunday as she did not answer my routine call. I wondered whether she was outside enjoying the vegetables’ company. I arrived in Erbil excited and motivated for my new mission in a local hospital. I slept well that night, but the phone woke me up at 0700 am. It was a call from my mother.

“Hi mom, what’s up?” I said.

“Quentin, it’s about grandma” She answered with a calm voice

I have no memory about the rest of our conversion. It was not a conversation though, just my mother giving unnecessary information about who found her, that she was in whatever position when they found her, that a neighbor said that she was probably dehydrated.

“I think I’m going away I can feel it but please don’t say anything to my family” That’s what she apparently said to her hairdresser the day before.

After this phone call, I was left alone, in a war-affected foreign country. I had a terrible moment of despair, hopelessness in front of the people’s condition over there. I was left alone, and my grandmother was gone. I was down for a week.

The next Monday, I woke up and looked through the window: crushed buildings, surgical bombing from the US army, some locals selling tea and saggy fruits in the middle of the road, speaking loudly, and laughing among the collapsed buildings, laughing despite their desperate living condition. This is when it appeared to me, when I realized where I was and what I was doing. My grandmother, no matter in which state and planet she was, was part of my everyday strength. She is the best thing that happened to me, and I felt her beside me watching these poor people from another land, “on the other side of the bridge” as she liked to say. I felt that

she was with me despite the distance that was physically separating us. Even though I could not go to her funeral, all that did not really matter. The memories, the smells, the colors, the tastes, the songs, all this was a part of me. I was what I lived, I was her determination, her passion to accomplish something for yourself and for others, her skepticism about people and human condition in general, and her unconditional love for her family.

Jocelyn Sung

The Love Written into Memories

The world is full of so many memories. They’re everywhere. Sometimes, they’re engraved into the rough bark of a tree, like how two jagged initials sit inside of an uneven heart. Sometimes, they’re delicately interwoven into the familiar scent of a stranger’s perfume as they hurry past us, however fleeting that may be. Other times, they can be stored within a pair of footprints set into the sand, and even when a wave grows bold enough to wash it away, that memory is forever tucked away in the hearts of the two people who once walked there.

These memories are all so different, but it’s in that difference that their similarities lie. These memories are found in all types of places, by so many fateful means and with so many remarkable people. They’re protected within the beautiful words of eloquently-written letters, the allure of late-night phone calls, small acts of random kindness, and more.

Like all of these things, paper has a memory, too.

For example: when we thoughtlessly shove a prescription into a drawer that’s already full with other things, the paper remembers the way it has to curl in order to fit, and that curl will stay. When we’re in a hurry and we rush to fold up a grocery list, the paper remembers the crookedness of the crease. It doesn’t easily forget.

These types of careless actions are difficult to take back if not entirely impossible. Eventually, after a bit of time has passed or our busy lives have slowed down again, we may realize what we’ve done. We may do our best to smooth out the curls, to realign those creases and unfurl those crumpled balls, but the damage has already been done. As much as we’d like for the paper to be new again, free of all mistakes and imperfections, those marks are there to stay.

Paper has a memory, and so do people.

When I got the scar on my elbow, I was probably six or seven young enough to be able to use my age as an excuse if anyone ever asked me how I got it.

“Oh, that,” I would say, a relaxed smile on my face. I would nonchalantly turn my arm to get a better look at it. “I’m actually not too sure how it got there. I was pretty young when it happened, so I don’t remember.”

In truth, that isn’t how it is at all; the day I received that scar is one of my earliest and most vivid memories. I was already in tears, standing at the entryway leading into the living room. I can’t remember why, but I do remember the way it hurt. Those tears were the type that were really difficult to control, where sobs ricochet throughout the deepest parts of your body and you’re left gasping for air. Each breath was a painful one, and that’s all I could really think about: how all of it just hurt so badly.

My mom was there. She was already exasperated, but something must have made her anger rise to its limit. Maybe it was the sounds of me gasping on my own tears, or maybe it was the way I was trying to reach for a fistful of her clothes. Either way, it was enough for her. As my hands brushed against her skin, she threw her arm and sent me flying into the darkness of the hallway.

The shock a combination of dumbfounded surprise at her hostility and from the sheer force of me crashing onto the floor hit me all at once. There wasn’t any more pain, but in its place was a strange disquiet that spread from the inside of my heart to the rest of my body. I was quite literally stunned into silence. For a moment or two, I think it even scared away the tears.

That moment of silence very quickly passed, and my crying began again with a refortified sense of sadness one that was worsened by how badly my heart was twisting. If I was struggling to breathe before, then I was on the verge of passing out now. Even if my mom had tried, I was inconsolable. I was hyperventilating and couldn’t bring myself to understand what had just happened which would have been true even if I hadn’t only been six- or seven-years-old.

In the same way that my crying had been invigorated, so was my mom’s anger. She flicked on the light switch, stomped forward, dug her fingers into my arm, and yanked me to my feet. She dragged me over to the hallway closet, and with me standing in front of the door, decided that it was time for a hilariously late, impromptu time-out.

A minute passes. Maybe it was more, or maybe my memory is exaggerating, and it was actually less. Whenever this memory plays through my head, the timing is the part that I can never accurately recall. Maybe it’s because time moves differently

when you’re younger, let alone in moments like these, when a parent’s definition of love couldn’t possibly be more warped.

I’m standing in my little time-out corner, and just because my mom has said so. It’s as if there are invisible walls keeping me confined to this one spot. I want to run away so badly my instinct is to disappear upstairs, to crawl into my bed and hide underneath the sheets like how I used to whenever I was really upset. Once or twice, I remember my dad coming after me to cheer me up. He was the only one who ever did, even though he eventually and rather quickly stopped. But right now, that wouldn’t have even mattered; even if these invisible walls didn’t exist around me and I could run up the stairs, I knew nobody would be looking for me any time soon.

I notice something out of the corner of my eyes. It’s to my immediate left, and it’s a dark splotch on the wall. I’m pretty sure that it’s never been there before, so I can’t help but wonder what it is. I turn my head to get a better look at it, and there’s a long smear of crimson, jarring against the white paint of the hallway’s walls.

I’m wondering how it even got there, but that’s the shock speaking for me, the process of processing that’s doing its best to protect me. I don’t need to ask myself, because even if I’m not ready to admit it just yet, I already know.

I glance at my elbow, and blood is running down my arm. It’s everywhere. (Even now, when I’m twenty-years-old and writing this, it’s still the most I’ve ever seen myself bleed.) For a few moments, I can’t even tell where all of it is coming from. I’m looking around, almost frantic as I search for some sort of explanation, and that’s when I finally notice it:

There are hundreds of glass shards covering the carpet, razor-sharp edges glittering underneath the hallway light. Fragments of entire mason jars sit in an overturned shower caddy where they had been waiting to be taken into the garage, bloodied and broken after I had been thrown right on top to them.

Despite the overall, almost piercing clarity of this one memory, I honestly can’t remember a single hint of remorse in my mom’s demeanor as she came over to find out what I was screaming about. I think I was even the one who had to help clean my own blood off of the wall.

Now that I’m older, the scar is a faded memory. I feel like most people would assume it’s a thing of bitterness that I keep dwelling on, but I just don’t think about it too much anymore. It’s not that I’ve forgiven my mom, because that couldn’t possibly be any further from the truth. In all honesty, it’s because not much has changed since then. I’m not small enough to be a target for convenient stress relief anymore, but there are other things that end up slipping past the cracks. They’re ugly, hurtful words that creep into a conversation. They’re nightmares that should be easy to discern from reality, but because of that reality, they’re given enough shape so that they always feel possible, to the point that I wake up with the taste of nausea in my mouth.

All of these things, these painful memories, have written themselves onto me. There are pages upon pages of stories with themes similar to this one, where the words convey a sense of disappointment and distrust, where loving someone becomes more of a responsibility than a privilege.

Like how I have these memories, so does paper. When we shove it into a drawer that’s already full of other things, it remembers the way it curls. When we’re in a hurry, and we rush to fold it up, it remembers that crease. It doesn’t easily forget.

But there’s one key point here: if paper has a memory in the creases we make with our careless hands, paper also has a memory with the words that we can choose to write on them. It’s just like how we have a memory of the moments that we do our best to remember and cherish.

Because years later, I remember the way my eighth grade English teacher praised one of the first stories I ever wrote, even if it was only for my weekly vocabulary homework. Now, I find myself sitting at my desk, crafting entire stories that would have likely never existed without her influence.

I remember the time in high school when a friend showed me a song from Hamilton because he really liked it. Years later, I have an entire playlist on my Spotify dedicated to musicals, and I still like listening to them.

I remember the late nights I spent on my laptop, hanging out with a group of people who I had never even met before. I can still see it so clearly in my head: the darkness of the night that stretches beyond my bedroom window, the way the soft light of my lamp illuminates my keyboard as I’m trying to type a cohesive sentence, barely able to breathe because of how hard I’m laughing.

I remember the way I felt when two classmates became two friends. I remember the comfort I felt inside of my heart, the warmth it emanated as I imagined myself turning the career I was forced toward into something that I can actually enjoy one day, as long as I had them to do it with me.

I remember the kindness of a stranger who quickly became one of my closest friends within a year. I remember the way I couldn’t help but smile at his excitement, the way I felt a little more at ease whenever I was around him. I remember the way he cares. I remember the way he made my twentieth birthday one of the best ones I’ve ever had, despite the fact that all of my previous ones were filled with so much disappointment and resentment.

Just like paper, we have memories, too. We choose which ones to act on and which ones we want to use to grow even more. We have creases and folds that were made by the carelessness of other people, but we also have a pen. It’s with that pen that we’re able to choose which memories we want to keep. In that way, it’s how we begin to write our own story.

Jennifer McCandless

Here’s to You

I can recall the day Albert died he was just 27 years old, just a few days before his birthday. He was buried on a hot, Sunday afternoon on July 12th, 1987. Albert was always curious about life, and he tried to make it as normal for himself as possible by learning to read and write, going to school, learning to ride a bicycle, and his interest in electronics and wanting to know how a radio worked.

He loved music, especially his Elvis Presley collection, and he even understood the Apache language and spoke a few phrases.

Albert was handicapped and stood 5’7” tall, always had his left arm folded inward which was his weak arm and dragged his left leg that made him crippled. My brother Albert always wore a cap and his hair was long to his collar, with bangs parted to the side. He had a mustache and never wore a beard. He always dressed himself in a colorful t-shirt and his favorite bellbottom jeans. When he was going somewhere important, he would wear a long sleeve, western shirt with his t-shirt underneath, with his blue jeans and brown cowboy boots.

When Albert was a teenager he moved away to Flagstaff to learn job skills and independent living. He loved traveling and stayed in a group home where he made many friends and he would let my mom know of all his travels. Growing up, I didn’t see much of Albert because I was beginning my life in college at Phoenix. When Albert came back home to stay with my mom he brought a coffee cup that he drank with it all the time and this cup is where this story takes place.

This coffee cup is navy blue with a handle, it has 2 horizontal stripes running across that were centered in the middle, the color of the stripes used to be gold, but over the years it has washed away and has now faded to brown. There is a small chip on the handle and a small chip around the rim of the coffee cup. After my brother died, my mom did not throw the coffee cup away; this cup has sat 27 years in the cupboard. The only person that is allowed to drink with this cup is my mom.

Every morning around 5:00 a.m. my mom and I sit in the garage area on the lawn chairs and start our morning talking about life, family and Albert. There was one time I remember when I was ten, Albert was gone on a Saturday, he had left early that morning.

I can recall our conversation: I asked mom, “Where’s Albert?”

Mom said, “He was going on a trip and Albert said he would be back in the afternoon.”

I didn’t reply, and spent the whole day playing outside with my younger sister Lisa, when all of a sudden a small school bus pulls up by the house. We see Albert get off and he is happy to see us.

I yell to mom, “Albert’s home!”

Lisa and I yell at the same time, “Where did you go?” and “What’s that?”

Albert pulls out his medals that is draped around his neck and says, “I was in Phoenix and our school was part of the Special Olympics.”

There were a total of 4 medals: 1 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze.

Lisa and I asked again excitedly, “What are they for?”

Albert explained, “I got the gold medal in the 50 yard dash, and a silver medal in the 100 meter dash and a silver medal in the 400 meters, and 1 bronze medal in the softball throw.”

We were amazed and very proud of him that day and to our surprise we didn’t know how athletic he was.

I can remember saying, “Can I try on your medals?”

Looking back at this special time of his life with my sister and I, he showed us that he was a role model even though we didn’t see it like that at an early age.

After telling mom my story of what I remember of Albert she smiled and laughed, “Do you remember the time Albert rode the horse.”

I had a smile on my face and said, “Yeah!” “I remember Albert chasing the stray, white horse around the house all day. Somehow he managed to find a rope and got it around the horse’s neck, I thought he had given up in the evening when it was getting dark. I remember you calling us in the house to eat, but Albert didn’t come inside. I remember Cooper saying he was at the abandoned cars trying to stand on

the hood of one car so that he could straddle his leg over the horse. It was close to 9 o’clock at night and getting late. Remember, you were calling for Albert, and he came out of the dark into light riding the horse. You got mad at him and Albert said he would be in soon. That night we laughed and were very curious of how he had managed to get on and off the horse because of his bad arm and leg.”

I told mom laughing, “Those were happy memories.”

After sitting awhile outside and reflecting on Albert, mom went inside to check on the coffee.

Mom will be brewing coffee and once it is done she will grab Albert’s cup and add 1 teaspoon of cream, 1 teaspoon of sugar with coffee and sit outside. She sits quietly, staring off in the distance patiently sipping on her coffee. She is always looking down the street to watch cars, or children going to school and sometimes watching the dogs wandering around in our neighborhood.

One day I asked mom out of curiosity, “Ma, where did Albert get this coffee cup?” She replied, “The people that Albert stayed with, took them shopping in a gift shop in Flagstaff and the staff was going to pay for their cup.”

I questioned her again, “How did you get it?”

Mom looked at the coffee cup, took a drink and said, “When Albert moved back to Peridot, I always saw him with this cup. After he died I wanted to keep the cup as a memory of him. Every morning when I am drinking coffee I am drinking for him.”

I understood how special my brother was to my mom and realizing that maybe the loss of not having him here today was a special way she grieved for him.

The last question I asked before she asked why I wanted to know was, “What are you going to do if the coffee cup breaks or if you die?”

Looking with concern, mom said “Hopefully someone else will carry on what I have done to keep his memory alive, like I have.”

After getting a deeper understanding of why this cup is special and why it is only meant for her to handle, made me appreciate this coffee cup even more. Every day I wash this coffee cup and now I know how delicate and special it is and I handle it with more care, so that mom can continue her daily ritual to honor Albert.

When I look back of how special Albert was being handicapped he proved to everyone and even himself that he was capable of doing many things on his own.

The lesson he taught me to never give up and to focus on how important life is and to live it to the fullest no matter what challenges we face in our own lives.

Yassen Manassra

Wonders of the Red Mesa

As you might wonder why is it so important?

Why, so many colors to see, so many people looking at the sight wondering about thought they might have?

Why so many different colors in different shades from the sun above?

Why so many people loving this sight they we all know ?

People love seeing the history of the place and history of the sight

Wonderful colors with red, orange, and many more With people wanting to wonder why its so important

They seek and look and cant find

But then go and see and finally see why it is important to them.

Christopher Dyer

Ode to Chris: He was a man Of temperate climate

No matter the weather

Calm as a sunrise

Dependable too For students who asked How does it go?

Never a rush

To just get it done But always with A contemplative pause

Do you get it now? Still ever spun From his ancestors thread

Eyes claim distance

Without stamp of ownership

Part of this land

Part of his people

Ever with us

We get it- now

Sarah Llanque

3 Haikus Growth

Transitions are hard. Stagnation is still harder Challenges bring growth

Resilience

What is resilience? Enduring strain then recoil Resilience shows growth

Transition to Nursing

Nursing is Caring Transitioning the mindset to recoil Nurses can recoil

Joseph Lujan

We must take our comfort

We must take our comforts. It drags on as always.

Grinding us down back to dust. Taking more and more away. Small problems sucking the fluids out.

We must take our comforts.

Only so much can be taken from the tree

Before no leaves, no fruit are left.

Refocus on the self.

Feed and water well with time to regrow.

We must take our comforts. Keep warm and cool and rest. Try to fix it early and soon.

Slow ourselves to be vulnerable That we need some help of any kind.

We must take our comforts.

Mars Glazner

Greatness and The Dream

Put a finger down if you want to die.

A man in a button-up is surprised it’s gotten this bad. We know, say the comments, we’re living it.

Likes float across the screen as a white girl twerks to a song about slavery.

A dog in a beret briefly makes it better.

Put a finger down if you want to die.

Footage from a school shooting. Which one?

Children post memes under tables in the dark.

They’ve already sent their ‘I love yous’. A keyboard shortcut made in first grade.

‘Woman raped while having a miscarriage!’

A cop kicks a black man’s face in. Tiny bones uncovered at boarding schools. No longer news.

Put a finger down if you want to die.

Top Ten things to buy this Holiday Season:

Teenagers smirk with dead-eyes. Entitlement, the parents all agree. Music blares. You can tell by her posture he is not as numb as they want to be.

‘Chronically Online’ Anonymous1234 criticizes.

Put a finger down if you want to die.

Author’s Note

Mars Glazner

I wrote this piece as commentary on social media and second-hand trauma. Speaking from my personal experience as someone living in the US, my peers and I are struggling. A crumbling economy and an international pandemic makes finding a job that pays a livable wage extremely difficult and the idea of retirement a laughable dream. Debt is at an all-time high and many of us have intersectional identities which means we are predisposed to being victimized by the system. There is constant paranoia that you 'could be next,' either ending up on the streets, afflicted by some sort of trouble, watching someone you love struggle and being unable to help, etc.

A theme emerges. The prevalence of these issues and the fact that they are constantly in our faces leads to feelings of paralysis and helplessness. Walking around under the constant pressure of these threats and seeing them happen to others every day is going to have lasting effects on our psyche. Therefore, I tried to capture the utter and callous disregard systems of oppression have for us(and have had for the generations before us) and the numb stress this evokes.

Liz Axelrod

Church For Sale

For months I’ve been biking past four marble goddesses guarding a boarded temple door. I assumed they were Greek Hera, Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite. Just learned they are Hebrew Sara, Rachel, Rebecca, Leah. The square shouldered ladies face North South East West. I ride around in circles asking for their blessing. The old sanctuary they shield is beaten up, they stand on cement posts green with age and washed graffiti.

Sometimes there’s a body lying quiet under blankets

I try not to disturb, stop silent place money & water at the foot of the goddess facing south.

Once this was a thriving community, gaining strength and hope from the ladies and their woven copper halo.

Not enough answered prayers I suppose, as I ask for strength to embrace my expanding age & waistline.

Still holding up, just barely, like the Goddesses, their braids and molded marble scarves straight backs, narrow shoulders intact, facing all four corners. Not quite yet in ruin.

Liz Axelrod

At the Georgia O’Keefe Museum

I gazed a perfect bloom reaching for the ceiling

It’s wide mouth full of fuchsia and berry

Picture of an ancient woman resting with a horned skull mounted on the wall above her head

How prolific she was! Little did I know she started at thirteen in the roaring twenties A beauty, taken for a wild ride through NY City

She claimed her power here in the west, bleached bones and sand colored studio her hands gnarled her spirit never broken

I want a gilded age to work in solace

Not this present cage of dust & pestilence I dream of stretching large canvases

Mounting sculls above my mantlepiece As I drive east toward mountains on Route 66

Liz Axelrod

New Voyager

The mirror shows my black-rimmed eyes. I grab a tissue and wipe the etched Deco surface. I quickly moisturize. Age and living in the dessert have syphoned the oils from my body. I need to reapply my shine. I spackle and paint – eyes, face, lips, neck. Use mineral oil to take off yesterday’s remains while adding in today’s new frame. I grab a long thin brush and define my brows with taupe eye candy. I can never get them quite even or straight enough, but without, I’m non-existent. The brow frames the face, and I think of Betty Davis in Now Voyager. At the start of that film, she had a unibrow and glasses resting on her pudgy nose. By the time she comes out of the asylum and gets on the cruise, her brows are plucked and precision drawn. How she took over that ship with just a bit of make-up and new clothes. How she survived her overbearing mother, a mother that wanted to keep her in the shadows, a mother I would never be. My daughter, in from Brooklyn for her birthday weekend, sleeps in my office. Her room. My room. The world has so much to give and take from her. How I long for those days when we shared makeup and I showed her how to line her eyes. Now she shows me new styles, and her sunshine hued glow-in-the-dark hair lights up the room. I want to give her everything; share my zombie masks and make crispy kale for breakfast. I look in the glass and wish for the moon and the stars.

Bridgette Silva

All my life I've been called a failure, but Jesus you’re my savior, when I'm running towards the gate but then I hesitate, or is it just fate, that I'm a mistake, and I can't make it towards the gate.

Then I awoke, my eyes open up, in my mind, my consciousness got me thinking it was just a dream, but it was the real thing!

Every day the price I pay for those wicked ways I played till this day I still pray. I couldn’t take the pain, so I got out of the game. It isn't about the money and fame my life isn't a game!

My heart is still ashamed I got nobody to blame. These days I give God praise, still I strive to survive as long as I got you by my side, you'll provide.

Everday, I take a test I'm so glad to be blessed. No I'm not the best but I pray for the rest, every day before I rest.

Oh, how ill always miss the way you made me feel, & how your love was just unreal.

Never did I know that not loving you could be so real.

I still can't stand the way I feel and cope with how I feel.

Now my heart will never heal.

I just had to show you, you are in my heart, not no one could ever steal. Until the end I have to keep it real on how I will always feel.......

Raymond Britton-Ramirez

Red Mad People yelling, Bullying, People who talk too much, I am red mad

Being told what to do, Disrespectful people, People hitting their dogs, I am red mad Can't beat my video game, Crying all the time, People talking crap, I am red mad Technology not working, Computer crashes, Lost homework assignments, I am red mad

Tom McLaren

I was that Nerdy Bookman

In these days of so-called young intellectuals sorely lacking critical acumen

Obsessed with pronouns & victimhood over essence Oppression Olympians, I think to myself, I was that nerdy bookman My fragile self-esteem and knowledge of the avant-garde and the history of rhetoric really helped with that flat or leak

An overweight feminist graduate student sitting with friends outside the Marquee in the Cosmopolitan, eating Hidden Pizza

Argued atheism to the phrase God is a dj

I told her grad school is a relationship for people who can’t acquire one otherwise that’s why the classes take place evenings

All I ever did was work my ass off for nothing: a few trips around the world, an Asian Old Lady to keep things straight No health insurance

I knew I was fucked when I paid my whole GA paycheck to a 20 year-old plumber who planned to use the money to buy a second snowmobile

I was that nerdy bookman

Before life kicked me around For the better tempered me

Made me tough

Chiseled my mug like Stallone or Chuck Wepner

Taught me to keep my words & arguments concise & tight

Economically stycomythologizing

Like a fencer, Mushashi, or an eskrimator And follow up with fists, if necessary

I was that nerdy bookman who hated old fucks like me

barbarians

freethinkers

Spidersensing bullshit a mile away

Huffing & puffing & blowing down those carefully structured worldviews

I just rub them the wrong way

I can shatter that glass house, Millennial, in 6 notes errr, words I have a tattoo of a hammer

Tom McLaren

I did what Poe should have fucking done, in this Desert Land, Enchanted

Once upon an early morning dreary in the bleak December of a Duke City Ghetto

A crow, shorn and shaven, surely stately, and of the saintly days of yore appeared outside my sliding glass door, cawing continuously

I knew he wanted to come in and perch himself upon my bust of a Qing Dynasty Emperor or my Long-Bearded Chinese Opera Puppet and in doing so, bring me a lifetime of doom and groom

So . . .

I ran down to the parking lot which had been colonized by the homeless since the pandemic

they set up a tent city and cut through the fence, picked up a discarded Air Jordan off the dilapidated stairs, and threw it at the craven, screaming, Get the fuck out!

And he retreated back to the night's Plutonian shore leaving no black plumes

It was no contest

I had just finished the last days of my uchideshi Human agency broke the cycle

Nevermore, Nevermore

Tom McLaren

Tao

I'm the type that sees the YouTube video of the Centenarian in front of the icy temple on the mountaintop in the clouds

agilely & dexterously

reeling silk

spinning spiral energy with a Bagua dao

The big knife weighs over 20 kilos

Yet he plays so freely Handling it, fragile as a teacup drill

And says to myself

You fucking have one just like that Go for it

If you win, you become immortal

If you fail, you lose nothing

I was a Taoist before I met Emilio & Chuck A structured academic Daily researching practicing Neigong, Circle Walking

Falun Gong

Not some Wuwei Psychedelic Zen Surf Guitar Samurai hitting dmitri with hot Asian Americans & Kendall Jenner lookalikes on the Marquee floor while Nora En Pure plays on a hot Labor Day weekend your wife waiting to pick you up on the strip

I’m old school, requiring a martial side to my energy cultivation

I’m such a Taoist hermit, I literally walk around with a damned dragon stick

Andrew McFeaters

Endgame

We begin like chess pieces lining up for what's to come.

Then the first move, which is all that it takes for an unravelling to happen. It's the strangest thing that we can name deserts, or even mountains, which, over eons, rise and fall like waves in wind.

I've taken your pawn, moving it off the board, beyond history. Cultures vanish.

You take my knight, asking where the polar bears have gone.

Under the blankets we fumble, two rogue planets rearranging space.

A body against a body is an equation of force.

I remove your rook, like so many cathedrals consumed by fire and revolution, and we weep like there's water to spare. This is the way that it's always been, dissolving into the music of entropy.

We can go through the motions as if an endgame is a sentence leading to another sentence, but now that we've seen the black hole of M87, there's no going back.

Let's hold hands and listen to each other's voices issue soft stories in the dark like a king and queen bound in passionate stalemate.

Andrew McFeaters

Profit Margins

A man pinches the soil in his fingers and inhales the fruits of his labor in Texas.

His land spreads as far as his gray eyes see.

He samples the dirt on his tongue and winces at the peculiar taste: the iron blood of immigrants, bodies folded over fields, drowned in oil wells, shot in Walmarts on imagined borders, making America into broken dreams.

He surveys his farmland again, thinking, Crops will yield good returns this year.

Andrew McFeaters

Nuestros Hijos

In the shadow of a wall by Rio Grande a striped bark scorpion stares frozen at a button left behind by a doll.

DeLyssa Begay

The Beginning - Dawn

My cheii, my grandfather, said that the world tells you about itself. One must carefully listen and watch –

Morning puts night to sleep

the silence is like a quilted blanket gently placed on a tired loved one

The quiet heft of silence wakes crow

and then it caws to welcome the early light

Birds take flight, horses neigh, and mountain lions return to secret places that hide their shadows

DeLyssa Begay

In Navajo, Tse means Rock

Sandstone

Soft , colorful

Dependent on sand, on pressure, And then wind to break it down Red sandstone with layers of white ribbons And great mounds of fine sand nearby

My earliest introduction to rock were warnings:

Be careful, you could hurt someone. You could break something with it.

I remember staring at massive sandstone formations - many times carved delicately like a woman's armpit and rounded breasts. They towered over my small self as I rolled in fine sand that had become unglued. Like water, it changed shape and form.

Later, I read the names of first loves and graduated classes from different years engraved in rock.

How did the sandstone feel as someone used another rock to scratch in a year or a name into its skin?

Did it feel betrayed, or like an itch had been relieved?

Walking among the rocks, tse t’a, patch-works of flowers grow along the sandstone, Sounds from memory – laughter, questions, and bare feet on rock.

Hollowed alcoves and sculpted cave-like openings encouraged our imaginations.

– “Pretend there are elephants, camels, and giraffes walking along here. That they are thirsty and come to the water that comes from the rock. And those white horses that walk in a line. Those too.”

To children, a rock only aids the imagination – “these gray rocks are horses, and the red ones are cattle, and the white ones sheep.”

A pebble landed on the ground (I am back to now), and in my line of vision I saw lightning slap the sandstone formation. It collapsed in one moment.

The drought arrived soon after, and the water vaporized into a whisper.

DeLyssa Begay

Buffalo Calf Dream

Last night I dreamed about buffalo

One herd

Dust all around

Tangled, matted hair

Dark brown eyes and me

awkward in step

drenched in human smell

heart racing with legs that wanted to run

I don’t know where to go amid the heavy breathing and coarse fur so I stand still muscles already sore

Finally, I admit that I am afraid I feel alone and abandoned in a herd of buffalo

Pity. They take pity on me a calf timidly walks close to me Its nose, moist and soft, touches my hand

I woke up and my hand still tingled.

Carmela Lanza

Dark Mystery

Sancte Michael, defendes nos in proelis

Latin Prayer

He played the violin, carried it with him, an amulet from San Michele, through the fires and the sand blasts, the near starvation and no water, no water, no water the blue light surrounded him always.

The ranchers believe they are bringing him into the real world of work: animal smells, heavy tools, breathing in dust and heat, the small Italian holds on for a few seconds before he has to let go;

the ranchers laugh and wonder how he made it through this world, such delicate fingers, small eyes that look around too fast, they don’t trust him, but it’s time for the photographer, and the ranchers point and shout nothing becomes easier to understand at this point.

When he placed the violin under his bed in the barrack that night, it returned to its cave,

to its burial mound, the mother and her sisters will weave a shroud for it,

San Michele will not abandon it, he prays, but he will not speak of it again, not even to his children when this is all some kind of dream as he turns to the wall, after all the family photos are taken out of the room.

That day, with the sun blasting down on them, no one asks him questions, the ranchers have never seen the ocean he crossed, no one asks him about the taste of it on his tongue, bitter dandelion leaves, garlic burning into his breast-bone. falling in the deep dark mouth of it, whales every night, singing of death, blue light following him, he walked into an abyss and it smelled like the cave of San Michele.

The ranchers float above him in that dry, brittle New Mexico light, and they laugh and laugh, baptizing him in the few drops of desert rain and sweat, Get your ass up, Commando Cowboy, you have work to do

Betty Woods, “Commmando Cowboys.” New Mexico Magazine. March 1944, Vol.22 (1944). Article on Italian WW II POWs in Lordsburg, New Mexico who worked as ranch hands.

Carmela Lanza La Fata di Abramo

In some instances, it is the parents themselves who commit their child to the protection of a fairy . . .”Italian Fairies: Fate, Folletti, and Other Creatures, Raffaela Benvenuto

I am standing in the desert marigold, talking, but you are not listening.

You are another sword for me to carry.

I speak from the tongue of your mother and I kneel in the hard ground, how does this flower grow near your shack?

Do you wonder?

So near your prison?

So near the scar on your back?

With a breath, I could disappear, so Abramo, my child, hold your breath and watch me, close your eyes and see!

The sound of ashes falling like snow, that is the burial ground for all, I am the lady in the desert marigold, speaking for the dead to you, I carry the bones of the nameless, and will your tear stop it?

Io sono la fata dei morti, the fairy of the dead, no wings, only teeth to carry me here to this place. You were buried alive and all you could see were the stars in that desert, and now you are here watching another sky, frozen and on fire, I will stay until you see me.

Aretha Matt

These Feasts Were Rare

I awoke to the soft sounds of the butcher’s blade scraping against the grey stone just after dawn.

I could smell the warm coffee, tortillas, and farina that was already set on the kitchen table.

The sun peeked through the eastern facing windows and warmed the living room.

Mom was already busy with her knives.

She always worked quietly and diligently, especially when she wove her rugs in the daytime, or cooked large meals to feed her tribe.

I sat next to her and watched her work.

She swiped the knives until they were razor-sharp.

My dad and brothers ate quickly and prepared themselves to catch the fattest sheep.

These feasts were rare, but a great delight for everyone in the family.

There was always excitement and a great sense of appreciation. My mom was a Master butcher with no formal training; a highly skilled woman who watched and learned from her mother and grandmother. We all watched and listened to her as she worked through this task. Even the men were impressed; my dad stood quietly by, content with his talented life companion. I watched with wonderment as I held the sheep’s hoof and could feel slight tugs when the wool was removed.

My older sisters prepared the fresh cut meat, and my brothers made a fire for grilling.

Aunties, uncles, and cousins arrived promptly and told funny stories and talked about old times as they grilled tortillas and green chili on a large homemade grill.

They always lifted the soft, cooked bread from the grill using just their fingertips.

When the meat was ready, the men removed their hats and everyone bowed their heads in thankful prayer.

These feasts were rare, but a great delight for everyone in the family.

There was always excitement and a great sense of appreciation.

When the prayer ended, my father said, “Amen.”

We all agreed, “Amen!”

The conversations started up again as we lined up to fill our plates.

We filled our mouths with the first bite of mutton sandwiches, mutton stews, and warm tortillas.

I heard many of them say, “Mmmm, this is so good!”

These feasts were rare, but a great delight for everyone in the family. There was always excitement and a great sense of appreciation.

Aretha Matt

Disharmony

The sounds of dispute send shivers up and down my spine; I can feel something slowly crawl up and down my arms, my heartbeat quickens, and my intestines tighten as my breathing becomes shallow. The shouting and screaming smashes through solid brick walls of an apartment building, leaving me shaken and mystified. I listen momentarily to the switch of impassioned and embittered words spoken by feminine and masculine voices.

The muffled dispute summons memories of turbulent times. He was only a teenager, but already drinking and drugging. He brandished a loaded weapon, and he staggered, slurred, and screamed.

He was angry, sad, and broken.

My small eight-year-old body shivered on the cold, uncarpeted floor; My eyes were drenched in salty tears and strained to decipher the signs of movement in the darkness. I detected sounds of whispers and shuffling by other frightened family members. These sounds were overwhelmed by my racing heartbeat which seemed to beat intensely on my ear drums. I was safely isolated from the blazing bullets that pierced the night air, but I could sense the monsters that tormented him and I feared they would eventually stumble upon my shivering body.

Disharmony came to our home that night. The tiles beneath me rejected my trembling, warm body. Yet, I found solace in the serrated iciness of a hard, un-swept floor.

I fell asleep there, accustomed to the anxiety.

I hear the voices next door grow quiet; I close my eyes for a moment and imagine Disharmony leaving.

Author’s Note

Aretha Matt

I included two poems that represent my childhood on the Navajo Nation. As a Navajo woman, I feel compelled to tell stories about the hardships, the realities, and the blessings of reservation life. Some stories are difficult to tell, but I hope that they will inspire other writers to share their stories of triumph and survival.

Timmia Johnson

The rain pounded on the roof, and the hospital’s walls were battered by the wind. Yet. There was no weather that could compare to the monster I was up against. The wind howled like the beast's terrible chuckle. I drew my sword and clutched my shield to my chest. I didn't blink, move, or flinch, and my stare never strayed from the beast that had taken over my body. It swung a claw at my chest, and the coughing became more intense. No one could face this without surrendering. I groaned and threw down my weapons, admitting defeat. I'm giving up, monster. Corona, you have the upper hand.

Author’s Note

Timmia Johnson

I wrote about me having Covid, I got it last year, and it was terrible.

Langham Bitsoi

Chinese Food with a Side of Reconnection

Ben found himself digging in his fridge for anything to satisfy his hunger during another night of being alone and wallowing in self-pity. Looking through the shelves, he found nothing particularly appetizing at the moment. Maybe another half-hour, and I'll be desperate enough, Ben thought as he closed the fridge door, shutting off the kitchen's current light source.

Moving from the kitchen back to the living room, Ben saw that the end credits of the episode he was watching already transitioned into the beginning of the next episode. It was evident to Ben that he had missed some sort of set-up during that would perhaps be important to the episode later on. The show characters reached the end of a conversation that Ben hadn't heard the beginning of before the cold open ended and the episode's into began. While the cheery music played and the cast member's names flashed on the screen, Ben looked for the remote. A few moments of pacing around the couch and scratching his head (along with the occasional look under the couch), led to the discovery that the remote was on the recliner across from where he had been looking.

The memory of curling up on the recliner to watch TV just a few hours earlier then hit Ben in the head. He could see the sight of him placing the remote on the arm of the recliner before moving to the other couch as clear as glass. He slapped his forehead and picked the remote, rewinding the episode. “Looks like I'm losing my mind,” he chuckled aloud in the empty house. With only an obvious silence as a response, Ben bit his lip and made sure that the episode continued to rewind.

Once the episode reached its very beginnings, Ben allowed it to resume. He plopped onto the couch, placing the remote next to him, making sure to make a mental note of where he had placed it so he wouldn’t have to face anymore unnecessary searching in the future.

As the episode continued on, Ben found out that the cold open wasn't really needed to understand the rest of the episode and that it served more as throwaway joke. That wasn't the only thing that Ben found out, though. By the halfway point of the episode, Ben's stomach started growling. Ben sighed and tried to ignore it, but the growling persisted. It came to the point where Ben eventually paused the episode, only a few minutes before it ended, and headed back to the fridge.

The fridge once again opened, coating the area behind Ben in a hazy, white light as he searched for an acceptable meal. He scanned the shelves, finding nothing but days-old leftovers and ingredients to foods that would unfortunately require time and effort to prepare them.

Ben made a face as he pulled out a carton from a Chinese restaurant out from behind a half-eaten cake that he had bought himself for his birthday a few days ago. It contained several strands of noodles and was definitely past the point of being edible without eliciting some sort of reaction. The issue of how it managed to reside in Ben's fridge for so long was up to question, but it wasn't something that would be an issue much longer as Ben threw the carton away. Now the fridge was free of one less food option, even if the food wouldn't be consumed by any rational person anyways.

The fridge closed shut with a frustrated groan from Ben. He headed back into the living room, already hearing the onset moaning of his empty stomach before he could sit back down. With the sounds of his stomach in the background, Ben tried to think of what he had last eaten in the day. The only memory of eating that Ben could conjure up from earlier in the day came from in the afternoon when he had, what he membered to be, an unsatisfying sandwich.

Maybe I could stand to whip up something really quick, Ben meekly thought while looking back to the kitchen. The thought of the Chinese restaurant carton then flashed back into Ben's head, and as disgusting as that was, it gave Ben a craving. Or I can just order something, Ben thought. The thought of fresh, hot noodles with some fried rice came up, and became appealing more and more by the second.

Wiping away his drool, Ben looked up the closest Chinese restaurant, which happened to be the same place he got the noodles from, but this time would be different. Now he would be able to consume it hot and ready. Confirming that it was still open, Ben checked for any delivery options so that he wouldn’t have to make his way there himself.

When he found that there was delivery, Ben felt ecstatic. Then, only a few minutes later, he felt miserable. With everything added up, the price made the food seem less appealing. Of course, Ben wasn't expecting the delivery costs to be low, as the closest Chinese restaurant happened to be still quite a way from his house (twenty miles to be approximate). Yet, with the delivery cost being almost double the price of the food itself, Ben began sinking into his seat.

If it's this much, I might as well drive there myself, Ben glumly thought, Or I could just not get it and stay here and eat leftovers. A shiver went through Ben at that thought. Microwaved leftovers didn't seem that appealing now with the thought of the noodles he had discovered earlier. It also didn't help, even if the price put him off, once Ben started thinking about the food, he would be haunted by it for the rest of the night.

Still slouched over, Ben looked over towards the door. There his car keys hung, seemingly jiggling on their own, as if tempting him to use them to take a drive.

Or I could drive there myself.

The idea repeated itself over and over inside Ben's head. It banged around his brain, trying to find a way to stick so as not to be swept away the same as any other throwaway idea. Once the idea embedded itself into his brain, Ben found himself standing up and making his way over to the key hanger. He grabbed the key, grand music playing in his head while the keys jiggled in his hand and somehow shined in the dark.

Ben then turned back towards the music, noticing through his self-made flare hat the TV was still on. He glanced towards the door, then to the keys still held high. He also remembered that there were only a few minutes left in the episode.

I'll go after I finish this episode.

A few joke-filled minutes leading up to a resolution of Friends later, (which reminded Ben that he was by himself in his house), Ben made his way out the door. He turned on his car and took off from his driveway, going as fast as he could in a suburban area before he made it onto freeway into the city. The radio played his playlist, providing the soundtrack to his journey and some tunes to sing alone to alone.

Thirty minutes later, Ben stepped out into the parking lot of the Chinese restaurant. The light inside provided a glow for the outside and the neon sign standing above the door displayed the name of the restaurant: Bamboo Express. Ben breathed in, catching a scent of the food being prepared inside. Exactly what he came for.

The doorbell rung as Ben stepped inside almost becoming blinded by the bright lights used to illuminate the restaurant, in contrast to the darkness at home that Ben was more used to. After blinking a few times, his eyes became more adjusted, and he went to stand by a lectern to wait for his chance to be seated. Shouldn't be take too long, Ben thought, surveying the small number of customers that had also decided to venture out late in the evening for some food. After I'm seated, I can eat, then get out of here. Back to TV.

The small number of customers soon quickly came handy as a second later an employee came up to the lectern and instructed Ben to follow him. The two weaved through the restaurants, passing by other customers that Ben noted consisted of friend groups or couples. The two then stopped at the far corner of the restaurant next to a table with two chairs seated across from each other.

“Will it only be you tonight?” the waiter asked. Ben bit his lip and slowly nodded, taking his seat which sat by the window. When asked about his drink, Ben simply ordered a water and watched as the employee swiftly got his drink before

instructing him to grab a plate and help himself to the buffet. Ben nodded and he was then left by himself.

After taking a few moments to stare out the window to watch the vehicles race by and checking out the other open establishments, Ben headed towards the plates and utensils then the buffets. There Ben zeroed in on the noodles and fried rice that he traveled here for. Along the way, Ben also helped himself to some orange chicken and egg rolls, which required the use of an additional plates. With his selected delicacies, Ben made his way back to his table. There, taking advantage of his status as a single diner, he laid out his plates, utensils, and drink all over the table.

As he began to dig in, Ben noticed the waiter coming up besides, with another person in tow. “You said that we were dining alone, correct?” the waiter asked.

Ben nodded in response, his mouth full. The waiter slightly nodded and stepped aside to reveal who he had in tow. “Well Miss. Moore here has requested to be seated with you, if that's alright you.”

Moore. The name seemed familiar to Ben, but he couldn’t quite place it. Maybe they were someone that Ben had done business with sometime ago? Or maybe Ben had unknowingly gone into debt with some loan shark, and they wanted their money back, so they came to see Ben personally? Both options seemed unlikely, leading Ben to think that this person had gotten Ben confused with someone else, and the familiarity with the Moore name came from the name belonging to one of the actors in the show he was watching earlier.

I'm pretty sure that's alright with him,” the person said. After all, we're old friends so I'm sure he wouldn't mind hanging out together.”

We're old friends. That definitely grabbed Ben's attention, and before he knew it, the person was seated across from him. Great, Ben thought. Now I'm dining with some stranger who thinks they know me.

Deciding to take a look at who was seated, Ben was met with the sight of woman who gave a simple smile. “I was fifty-fifty on whether I recognized you from somewhere, but sitting here now, I know I'm not going to have to leave this table embarrassed.” she proclaimed.

Ben raised a brow. Clearly there was something in the woman's head that had cause her to think Ben was someone else. Perhaps I have a mystery doppelgänger out there.

“So, how's life been for you?” the woman asked.

“Uh, pretty alright,” Ben responded, placing his fork down. His meal was going to have to wait for this situation to be resolved first. “How about, you?”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “You don't remember me, do you?” she asked, leaning forward.

“Wow. Uh… straight to the point, ” Ben chuckled. The woman stared at him. Ben stated, “Not particularly. Did you get me mixed up with someone else?”

“Steal making subpar jokes huh?” the woman said under her breath, “It's me. Kleo. From high school. We took some of the same classes in senior year. And we were friends too.”

Ben leaned forward over the table, slurping up some of his noodles. The more that he looked at “Kleo,” the more familiar the details became. He began to remember the dirty blonde hair that hung loose in the seat in front of him in biology class, the joyous smile that greeted him in the mornings, and the lively personality that radiated off of her.

To be honest, Ben hadn’t thought of high school, or anyone he had gone there with, since he received his diploma and began the next chapter of his life. And if

wasn't for Kleo showing up, he would've most likely continued to not think of it at all.

“Oh yeah. I …remember now,” Ben said. He rubbed the back of his neck while also playing around with his food. He could now tell why the Moore surname seemed familiar to him. Kleo Moore. There were other things he remembered about her once decided to take a closer look at Kleo, yet, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what to say. Though, that wasn't really a surprise. Ben hadn't been expecting to talk to old classmates from high school. Or talk to anyone in general. After all, Ben had only dragged himself out to Bamboo Express so he could satisfy his craving without having to pay abysmal delivery costs. Besides, Ben wasn't too well-versed in having conversations with other people either as he spent most of his time holed up inside his house alone.

“So, I see that you also decided to come here at…” Kleo checked her phone, “8:25.”

Ben eyes widened “It's already that late? I thought it was at least 7:30 at the latest.”

“Still got your head in the clouds, even after leaving school?” Kleo said with a smile.

Once Ben came to terms with the fact that he probably wouldn't eat alone, he decided to get started on his egg roll. “Uh yeah, I guess you could say that, but I wouldn’t say I have my heads in the clouds. More like I wasn't really keeping track of time when I left my house.”

“Well, let me get some food first, which should give you some time to think of what to say. I know that I wasn't exactly expecting to meet someone from high school too,” Kleo said, drumming the edge of the table. She gave out another smile then made a beeline to the buffet table.

Ben swallowed hard while staring at the empty spot across from him. He found himself unable to look anywhere else. The plan had been to show up to Bamboo Express to have food, then head home and perhaps watch more episodes of his show. But now, he was stuck talking with someone who he hadn't had contact with since high school. Which led to Ben realizing how much time had passed from the end of high school to and also made Ben wonder how Kleo had managed to recognize him. Was there something about him that had remained unchanged since high school? Maybe he could ask her about that when she got back from the buffet table.

For the remainder of the time that Ben spent waiting for Kleo to get back, he rolled and unrolled his noodles with his fork. After the thirtieth-something roll and unroll of his noodles, the sound of a chair being pulled back snapped Ben out of his trance. He looked back across the table and saw that Kleo returned with her own plate of noodles, kung-pao chicken, and white rice.

“So, what do you wanna talk about?” Kleo asked, taking a bite of her chicken.

“Uh, what's been up with you?” Ben said, “And how are you sure that you even have the right person?”

Kleo swallowed her food. “You're Ben Jameson. Correct?”

Once Ben nodded, Kleo's eyes light up. “So, I haven't gotten the wrong person. Plus, you still have the same clothing style and haircut.”

Ben looked down at his purple polo and jeans while his hand moved up to his hair. “You remember my clothing style and haircut?”

“Of course. We were around each other almost every day, so I managed to pick up a few things about you. By the way, happy late birthday.”

Ben stiffened, thinking back on how his parents were the only ones to give birthday wishes when the day came. Not even his coworkers said anything, but Ben expected that. After all, he wasn't buddy-buddy with them either.

“You remembered? Ben said softly, under his breath, but Kleo caught it.

“Well, yeah,” Kleo said. “I mean, I would think that it's expected to remember a friend's birthday. Even if it was during summer break and I never got to say it before. By the way, you virtually don't exist online.”

“I know,” Ben said, still in slight shock, “I don't really have a use for social media. I don't have any friends to follow, and it just serves as a reminder that I don't do much.”

When the words left Ben's mouth, Kleo winced. “Ouch,” she said. “You have no friends to follow huh?”

Ben then realized what he said. “Oh, sorry about that. By that, I mean that I… haven't really gone out much and made friends after high school. And in fact, I haven’t thought about high school until tonight. So, right now, talking with you, is sort of out of the norm for me.”

Kleo furrowed her brow nodded. “Well, from that sound of that, I can understand, but unlike you, I have thought about high school before, and because of that, I thought it was neat running into you here to have a little reconnection session.”

“Well, sorry about that,” Ben said.

With that, the two took time to indulge in their food, letting the sounds of other conversations fill the air with the occasional sound of some speedster driving by on the road. During the time, Ben managed to finish off his egg roll and started to

focus more on his orange chicken and fried rice. Not how I thought the evening would go, he thought with a mouthful of fried rice.

Looking back to Kleo, Ben noticed that, like him, she was absent-mindedly eating her food. He also saw that her plate was now half-full, which prompted him to look at his own plate. About a third of the food was now left. So, Ben had confirmation that the silence had definitely gone on longer than a few moments. He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad based on their earlier conversation. Which led him to think about how throughout the conversation, Kleo referred to him as a friend.

Thinking back on the times they spent together in school, whether that be sitting next to each other in class or talking out in the halls, Ben supposed that the two were closer than the average classmates. But, Kleo had said that she thought of them as friends, so Ben supposed that he was missing some aspect of their high school relationship. Thinking deeper into it, Ben began to remember other parts of their “status in high school.” The various inside joke they had, the nights they stayed up late to help each other with schoolwork, and the times they spent outside of school (though that was more uncommon, and they did it along with the rest of their friend groups).

“You know,” Ben began, “I might've referred that I didn't have any friends”

“You did say that you didn't have any friends,” Kleo corrected.

Ben smiled slightly and continued. “Well, I did say that. But now, thinking back on it, I would agree with you in saying that we were friends.”

Kleo nodded her head. She took a drink from her cup and made a “continue on"”gesture with her hand.

“Well, like I said, I would now agree in us being friends in school, and with us talking today, I would like to be friends again. If that's all good with you,” Ben

finished. “I can even download a social media app and you can be the first person I follow.”

Kleo swallowed her drink and set her cup back down. She then returned Ben's smile from earlier. “Yeah. That's sounds good with me.”

Ben nodded and took a bite of his orange chicken. Looks like more than just food came out of this, he thought as the two continued with their meal. Then just as the two finished their meal, Kleo spoke up.

“I remember how you said that you haven't gone out much, so how about after this we catch a movie or something,” she asked. Thinking on it for a few seconds, Ben smiled. “Yeah,” he said, “that sounds good to me.”

Mars Glazner

HOLLYWOOD: THE SLOW ZOOM OF GRIEF

CHARACTERS:

THEO: A schoolboy of subjective age (Ideally late middle school or early high school). The quite clever type who is adored by his classmate and teachers alike.

ARIS: THEO’s homeroom teacher at boarding school. He is reserved but caring, respected by teachers, and a father figure to students. Perhaps he is who THEO could grow up to be with a bit of confidence.

MICHEAL(MIKEY): A brief voice off stage. He is ARIS’s other half and another teacher at the school. MIKEY and ARIS are in love yet have not admitted their feelings to each other. They behave like an old married couple anyway. MIKEY is a fun-loving character and encourages the kids to call him his nickname.

CLASSMATES MENTIONED: DAMION, SIMON, KADEN, TOBIAS, TANYA. TEACHERS/PRINCIPAL MENTIONED: MS. HEMSWORTH, OLD MAN JENKINS.

SETTING:

See description below.

[Dim LIGHTS UP on a stage in static chaos. There has been a collapse and buried under the building is a pocket of rubble. Our characters, ARIS and THEO, huddle in the small space. THEO is pinned beneath a slab of concrete, blood pooling out over the edges. Next to him is his teacher, ARIS, who crouches low.]

ARIS: Kid, you there?

THEO: I’m here.

[A flashlight flickers on. THEO has retrieved it from the keychain in his bag and holds it propped on his chest. ARIS looks up towards the light and then away when he sees the state his student is in. He moves towards THEO and sits next to him one leg out, casually leaning against the remnants of a wall.]

ARIS: Just gotta sit tight. Help will be here soon.

THEO: [Smiles indulgently.] Liar. It’s okay. I know. We weren’t anywhere near clear when the building fell. They’ll have to dig down at least ten stories. That’s days. I don’t have days. You don’t have to pretend.

[ARIS turns to face him. They share a moment of respect. THEO and ARIS are very alike. ARIS should have known better than to offer hollow platitudes.]

THEO: [Earnestly.] Don’t worry. I promise I’m not scared. [ARIS bows his head.]

THEO: Will you do something for me?

ARIS: [Voice choked with emotion.] Anything.

THEO: After this I want you to call Mikey. Okay? Can you promise me? [Getting more urgent.] I don’t want you to be alone. You shouldn’t have to be alone. Promise me okay? Promise.

ARIS: Theo, I’m supposed to be taking care of you buddy. You don’t have to worry about me.

I’ll be okay so-

THEO: [Interrupting.] Because I know how you get. We all know how you get. You like to pretend that you don’t care, like it doesn’t bother you, and then it eats you up inside. It eats you up inside and no one can get to you after you’ve decided it doesn’t matter. He worries himself sick when you do that. Mikey does. And in the end, it doesn’t even make a difference because everyone can tell, you know. We all know how big you feel. We can see it. So you have to promise me.

[A brief silence as ARIS attempts to get his emotions under control and respond.]

ARIS: I promise.

THEO: You’re a good teacher. The best I’ve ever had.

ARIS: Liar. [Raw and rueful, as though ripped out of him. Echoing THEO’s words from before.] I’m not a good teacher. I’m not. Because if I was good, if I was good, I’d be able to save you and I can’t, I can’t.

THEO: [Seeming to ignore this outburst.] Did you know that Simon offered to help me with my homework the other day? He must have noticed I was struggling with math. To be fair I think everyone and their mother knows I’m struggling with math but he decided to do something about it. And he even laughed at me when I cussed him out over quadratics.

He’s starting to believe it I think, that he has a place with us. You must have seen it, he smiles so wide now. He looks just like you when he does that. And did you know that Damien has a special studying pencil? You gave it to him when he was freaking out about our history exam. It means a lot to him. The proof that you believe in him. Kaden recommended flashcards and those are helping a lot. He’s planning to show you, next class. You can’t tell him I told you, though. It’s supposed to be a secret.

And Tobias, did you know Tanya is teaching him to make pancakes? I didn’t think it was all that complicated but they’re on their third week of trying and have yet to make anything edible. They’re having a lot of fun. We all know you were the one who installed that nightlight in the dorm hall. It really makes a difference. He’s sleeping through the night now. Him and Kaden.

And Kaden, Kaden looks like he respects himself again. When you’re not around he talks about you like you hung the moon. You’ll never know how much it means to him. The way you hold him to the same standard as everyone else. You make us feel safe. No one’s ever done that for us before.

[Beat. THEO’s breathing has become increasingly shallow and forced. He is fading. There is silence. ARIS reaches over and smoothes his hair out of his face.]

ARIS: How are you feeling?

THEO: Cold.

[ARIS takes off his jacket and places it over THEO’s torso.]

THEO: [Smiles blearily.] It smells like you.

ARIS: Yeah?

THEO: Yeah. Like coffee and toothpaste and stubbornness. It’s nice.

ARIS: [Snorts.] Does stubbornness have a smell?

THEO: [Playfully indignant.] Of course, it does. I just said so, didn’t I? Are you questioning my expertise?

ARIS: Certainly not. If anyone knows what that smells like, it’s you.

THEO: And what’s that supposed to mean?

ARIS: [Affectionatly.] It means that you’re a terrible little brat who doesn’t take no for an answer.

THEO: [Fake offended.] How dare you! I’ll have you know I am a model student.

ARIS: Except for the time that you tried to fight the whole baseball team by yourself.

THEO: They called Simon a slur!

ARIS: [Drolly.] You’re 4’11.”

THEO: So?

ARIS: Or that time you lectured Ms. Hemsworth about different learning styles in front of the whole class.

THEO: She insinuated Damion wasn’t trying because he couldn’t memorize some stupid grammar rule. If she can’t find alternative ways to give information to a student she’s an idiot and doesn’t deserve her license. Her lesson plans have hardly changed from the 1800s. You tell me who the lazy one is.

ARIS: And that time you started a petition against the dress code?

THEO: It’s not my fault the school enforced outdated and unequal standards. Obviously, I had to do something.

ARIS: The school mandates uniforms. How could that possibly be unequal? [He already knows the answer.]

THEO: Well it’s equal now since anyone can wear a skirt or pants as they please.

ARIS: I thought you were going to give Old Man Jenkins a heart attack with that one. You’re lucky a newspaper picked up the story and forced his hand. He’d rather chew off his own foot than utter the word gender-neutral.

THEO: Yes. Lucky. That’s what that was.

ARIS: [Warningly.] Theo…

THEO: All I’m saying is Tanya might have a cousin in the area who just so happened to visit her during the protests. [Inoccently.] How were we supposed to know that he was a reporter?

ARIS: [Sighs and attempts to hide a smile.] I am not paid enough.

THEO: And anyways, you’re one to talk Mr. ‘Touch my student again and you won’t have any fingers left.’

ARIS: [Faintly blushing.] Yes well.

THEO: And what about that time you dove into the lake with all your clothes on because you thought Kaden was drowning.

ARIS: That one is entirely you fiendish children’s fault. You could have told me you were having a breath-holding competition.

THEO: [Raises a skeptical eyebrow.] We let Mikey know. Twice. He was trying to tell you even as you sprinted towards the edge. That is in no way on us.

ARIS: [Clears his throat, embarrassed.] I suppose I was distracted. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Just the horror of all the paperwork I would have to do if one of you died is enough to…

[Both characters are reminded of the situation at hand.]

THEO: Can I ask you something?

ARIS: Anything.

THEO: Do you think, I mean if things were different. Do you think I could have been a teacher?

Like you?

[Brief pause as ARIS breathes through his grief.]

ARIS: Of course. Of course, you could. I haven’t always understood you. I’ve made a lot of wrong calls because I didn’t know where your head was at, where you were coming from. But the moment I met you I could have told you that.

There is nothing on this earth that could stop you. Not a thing. You are so strong and so brave. And so Kind. You are already a teacher in all the ways that matter. You don’t need a piece of paper to tell you that. That’s the fluff, the topping. What makes a teacher is not their ability to draw a graph on a chalkboard but their ability to connect with the people around them and help them grow. You do that when you pretend to be interested in Tanya’s war memoirs, and when you call Kaden out and he respects you enough to apologize. You do that when you come back with Simon’s favorite snack even though we all know it’s not sold anywhere on campus. You do that when you talk Damien down from a panic attack and when you encourage Tobias to finally ask that fool out. You do it when you make jokes with Mikey to put others at ease and when you offer your opinion on his eccentric lesson plans. You do that when you give me an example of how to open up to people and show that I care. It’s incredible. You’re incredible. And I am so proud of you. We all are. I’m so proud I could burst with it sometimes. So proud.

[There is silence. THEO is dead. He is smiling slightly. ARIS does not scream out or beg THEO to answer. Instead, he carefully closes THEO’s eyes and smooths back his hair again. Then he takes the flashlight, pulls the jacket over THEO’s face, and sits head bowed. He takes a deep breath as though gathering his strength. He has one more goodbye to make, and he is not one to break his promises. He pulls out his phone and thumbs through the contacts. Miraculously it connects to a signal and ringing can be heard.]

MIKEY: [Upset and panicked.] Aris, thank god. I didn’t even think to call you. I’ve been worried sick. Where are you, are you okay? Is Theo with you?

ARIS: I lost him.

MIKEY: That’s okay. I’m sure he’ll turn up. He’s resilient as anything. He’ll be just fine. Do you think, I wonder if his phone has any signal. I could try-

ARIS: [Interupting.] No Mike. I…

[Long pause. ARIS makes a decision.]

ARIS: Yeah, of course. I’m sure you’re right. But I had his bag when everything went to hell so I don’t think you’ll reach him. In fact- [Roots around in THEO’s bag for the phone as a pretense, is mildly surprised when he actually finds it.] Yup looks like his phone is here. But you’re right, he’s stubborn as anything, I’m sure he’ll be okay.

MIKEY: [Shaky but reassured.] Right. Right. Of course. If you made it then of course he did. He’s like your mini-me. Of course he made it.

ARIS: … He made it, no question.

MIKEY: Where are you? Did you get clear?

ARIS: No, I’m, I’m trapped pretty good. I’d say I’m quite far down. But I’m not hurt.

MIKEY: Goddamn it. [Quiter to himself.] Okay, okay. That’s okay, I can do this. [Louder.] Sit tight. Help is on the way.

ARIS: [Rueful smile.] Right, help is on the way.

[Awkward silence.]

MIKEY: … You wanna play Twenty-One Questions while you wait or?

ARIS: [Laughs bitterly.] You’re ridiculous. I’m going to miss you so much.

MIKEY: Whoa hey, no, none of that. You’re gonna see me again real soon and then I’m never gonna leave you alone. I’m even gonna follow you to the bathroom. I’ll get real weird with it. You’ll get sick of me.

ARIS: [Teasing.] You say that like I’m not already sick of you.

MIKEY: Hey! We are having a tender moment here, you heathen.

ARIS: You’re right of course, carry on. Please don’t let me get in the way of your one-man show.

MIKEY: [Watery chuckle.] You jerk. See if I ever try and comfort you again.

[Pause.]

MIKEY: No, but really, we’re gonna get you out of this, okay?

ARIS: Course. Heaven help whoever gets in your way. If you’re not pleased with the progress, I’m sure you’ll start sorting the rubble yourself with your bare hands.

MIKEY: …

ARIS: [Warningly.] Mike…

MIKEY: It’s okay really! They said I could help and they’re keeping me away from anything dangerous. I just can’t I can’t sit still and wait.

ARIS: [Sighs.] At least get some gloves.

MIKEY: …right.

[Pause.]

ARIS: Just in case I don’t make it-

MIKEY: [Agitated.] Don’t.

ARIS: You’re right, that was entirely to Hollywood and dramatic of me. It’s like you’re infectious. Let me try again. In the increasingly likely event that I kick it, I want you to know that I respect you. I care about you and I have, I have valued our time together. I know I am not the easiest person to get along with [Mikey snorts.] But I have appreciated your efforts greatly and I’m am so glad you are a part of my life.

MIKEY: [Desperately trying to lighten the mood.] Why are you talking like you’re giving a speech to my grandma?

ARIS: I am not the best at expressing my emotions so I know it’s not healthy to bottle it up inside. Don’t let the kids stew too much, okay? If they’re with you I know they’ll be alright.

You’re good at that. Except, what was that pun you were telling Theo the other day?

MIKEY: [Once more crying.] The one about the tax collector?

ARIS: That’s one. I have never heard a worse joke. It caused me physical pain. So don’t tell that one to them whatever you do, it’d be disrespectful to my memory.

[Mikey laughs incredulously. Beat.]

ARIS: It’s not as quiet as I thought it would be.

MIKEY: What?

ARIS: Being buried alive. It’s not as quiet as I thought. In disaster movies, it looks like this bubble of pressure. Like the air is pushing in on you. They can always hear their own heartbeat and breath in films like that. In reality, well it’s not loud but it’s not that quiet either. I thought it would be more dramatic. But it’s not. It’s dusty and hot and cold and dark. It’s like hiding in an old closet as a kid only we can’t get out. We can’t get out Mike.

MIKEY: We? Is there someone there with you?

ARIS: And I’m just thinking, I’m thinking about your Writing class. Do you remember that time I broke my ankle and you insisted I sit in on your class so you could keep an eye on me?

MIKEY: Yes, what?

ARIS: It was a good class. I know I give you a hard time but you really are a gifted teacher. I admire you so much, he- But I remember, you were talking about dramatic devices. You said if you want to write a tragedy you don’t focus on the big picture. Your reader gets overwhelmed that way and they shut down. They can’t empathize anymore. You said that if you really want to make an impact you don’t focus on the town being massacred. You focus on the socks left scattered in the street. You said that specificity is important. And I’m just thinking in this scenario, the socks would be children’s socks. A little boy’s socks.

[ARIS looks over to where THEO’s feet protrude from the concrete and begins to describe them.]

They’d be blue and white and have little bears on them. They’re real worn down because maybe the boy doesn’t like to buy new things. And maybe, maybe the boy isn’t the type to buy cute socks for himself either. Maybe they were a gift from a girl in his class. Maybe he kept them for so long because he’s not used to receiving gifts even though he should be because he’s so good and he deserves-

MIKEY: Aris.

ARIS: And it’s so frustrating because that’s not how it’s supposed to go. That’s not how it was supposed to be. Really it should have been adult socks. A man’s socks. They’d be black and boring and threadbare. They wouldn’t be anything remarkable, just bulk socks bought from a drug store. That’s more fitting, don’t you think?

Because the man who bought them is a boring idiot who can’t even do this one thing right. If he had just stepped to the side. If he had just taken one step to the side. If he had just done that then maybe he wouldn’t have to watch the little boy’s socks turn red. They used to be blue. Blue on the top with a white body. There were little bears with different expressions. Now you can hardly tell what they are anymore, just blobs, blobs that look like they’re screaming. And it’s not, it’s not as quiet as they make it seem in the movies, because rubble is shifting and the people, I can hear the people around me. I can hear it. If only I had just moved to the side.

MIKEY: [Quietly.] Theo didn’t make it, did he?

[ARIS goes to answer, the call drops and the phone dies. ARIS has a venting of emotion (up to the actor’s discretion.) The rubble shifts ominously and ARIS moves towards THEO again. He curls around THEO’s head as if protecting him from falling debris. In THEO’s bag the other phone rings. ARIS does not go to pick it up. Moment of stillness. BLACKOUT. End scene.]

Author’s Note

I wrote these pieces to grapple with the ideas of death and grief. I find that too often grief has been commodified in the media and on film, making the impact of suffering significantly less. Just as one can become desensitized to violence, I believe we as a country have also become desensitized to others suffering. I wrote these works in an attempt to reconnect with these feelings and share them with my audience.

Mars Glazner

The Way Home Is A Dead End

You think about cliches. The Hollywood slow zoom of grief. The single tear. The prolonged scream of denial. You think about reality. The bugged-eyed fish stare. The silent shock. The surprise of looking up and seeing the world moving on without you. Perhaps another cliche, but a truthful one. You refuse both. Instead, you are dazzling, grinning sharp and feral, and sprinting through life in high heels with a tasteful clutch. You are a personality and loss does not touch you because you are untouchable. You burn defiantly and give everyone a good show on the way out. They clap and do not realize the fuel for your brilliance is skin. You do not warm anyone but your ghosts. The fire is reserved for mourning. There is no intervention, courtesy of an excellent poker face and distant acquaintances.

In dark rooms and back alleys, in salons and bars, on the bus, and inside the Gas Station, everywhere, you are God. Just as he has taught you. And you are benevolent. A testament to the space he held for you. And you are dangerous.

Sniffing out those who reverberate in your bones like a bloodhound. Seeking a truth half-buried. A lesson well learned. You do not remember your childhood but you KNOW with absolute certainty. Every cruel tilt of the head sends your heart spasming in your chest, clues you in to the service that needs to be done. You find joy in the crumbling of an ego and the savage rip of satisfaction. You learned how to protect for him. And you do so now with the ferocity of someone with nothing to lose. Perhaps another cliche, but a truthful one.

On a side street, three blocks from his grave, it happens. You spot a plastic bag leaning against a dumpster and go to investigate. A mistake. Inside are clothes, worn-out past use. Not even worth a trip to the charity shop. Among them is a suede jacket. It has holes in the arms, its texture rough-smooth with time, and just like his. It’s funny the things that will get you in the end. You are unprepared and in that quiet moment of recognition, the fight is knocked out of you. The fire dies. But you are not saved. You think about him. You think about Dave and the funeral you were not allowed to attend. The scornful gazes of his relatives you could not bring yourself to contest.

‘Relatives of no relationship,’ Dave used to call them. Together you would look them up on Facebook. Just to laugh. They looked so unhappy in pictures. Amongst

suffering they were gleeful. You are reminded of the brother gone too soon. Of the mother with early-onset dementia. The man who was supposed to be a father. Your Dave’s death.

You are tired. You slip the jacket on and go to throw the rest of the bag in the dumpster. You stand there for a long time. You cannot bring yourself to drop the bag even though your prize is safely wrapped around your shoulders. You climb into the dumpster. Just for a little while. Just until you can convince your fingers to let go. It feels very important that the bag be thrown out. It feels just as important that the bag be held. The solution is obvious. It takes some doing. The dumpster is not made for getting into. In the end, you simply pitch yourself forward and deal with the fallout. It is painful and you do not feel a thing. You clutch the bag like the Teddy Bear you were not allowed to have as a child and scoot to the very back. It is dark with the lid closed. You do not mind.

It was dark when you first met him as well. It’s a nice memory. He had been drunk and so, so sweet. Bumbling about on the road and apologetic that his friends had abandoned him. He bumped into you and when you went to help he tried to refuse.

‘That’s alright,’ he had said, ‘I’m sorry to bother you. I know I’m a handful.’

‘That’s alright,’ you echoed him, ‘I have two hands.’

It was then that he had gotten a good look at you. At your short dress and flat chest, at the makeup and stubble. You had straightened up. Ready to deflect, to shield. You did not know yet how to protect. That was one of the many things he taught you. A fake smile already forming on your lips when-

‘Wow,’ he slurred, ‘You’re beautiful.’

Another type of deflection was needed then. He was far too drunk for any of that.

‘You flatter, maybe we can have a bit of fun when you’ve sobered up. I’ll give you my number. For now-’

‘No!’ Interrupted again. ‘I mean, I mean I wouldn’t say no to the number but I’m not. I’m not saying that just to say it. I don’t want anything for it. I just thought you should know.

You’re stunning and it kinda makes me want to cry.’

By the end, his speech had turned wobbly, his eyes tearing up just as he said. Alarmed and unsure what to do with a very attractive and weepy drunk you had gone through his wallet to find his address. Upon knocking on the door to be greeted by his father, whose lips were already curling with disdain, you had turned right back around and let Dave sleep on your sofa.

In the morning his eyes had been filled with an emotion you couldn’t quite place. On the third date, you had a hunch. The bartender’s gaze had slid over you and landed on Dave with a contemptuous glance. He had started to loudly complain about people who ought to know better than to get wrapped up in unnaturalness.

Small-town Dave had shrunk in on himself, hesitant and unsure, canting his body to shield you from view even as his shoulders curled inwards. This is when you first learned to protect, tearing into the bartender with eyes that saw things. And out back, when you turned away from the fight with bloody teeth and victory on your tongue, he was giving you that same look and you thought to yourself ‘Where have I seen this before?’

You knew when you secreted him away from his father’s house. He was twentyfour and deathly afraid of change and desperate to get out and become anything else. You were twenty-six and feeling ancient. You helped him pack in the middle of the night, giggling at the danger and shushing each other all the way. He had tripped out the window with the last load and a light had turned on. You took off running after him. The old man came out cursing. Safe in the cab of the vehicle you did donuts on his front lawn. Dave had gazed at you then with that same look.

Worship.

You decide you could be God in a religion where the highest crime is installing a pedestal. Where God and Worshiper are just labels for the roles you occupied, the dynamic you held. Where God loved back just as fiercely and indifference was a distant word. You continued to be God after he passed. A vengeful force full of righteous anger. Now, in the dumpster in the dark, you breathe and you remember. And you are not God. Maybe you never were.

There was a time where you answered a panicked call too late. Where you found him still and quiet. His steady hands turned stiff. There had been a truck that

followed him down the street after the night shift. Full of drunk men. The story is predictable. Perhaps another cliche, but a truthful one.

They had cornered him in full view and nobody had done a thing. His father had arranged the funeral, and you had not been allowed to attend. A light shines down on you from on high. A flashlight. The lid is open. It must be night.

‘Get out,’ says a gruff voice, ‘you’re loitering.’ The police. You must have been down here for longer than you thought. You check your bag. It does not appear you will be letting go anytime soon. The jacket smells like mothballs. You look up at him and do not get out. He comes and gets you with a ladder and rough hands. With your arms behind your back, it is suddenly much easier to let go of the bag. You thank him.

‘Don’t thank me,’ he says, ‘you are not about to have a good time.’

You assure him that is alright. You are not having a good time right now either: you are just along for the ride.

You wonder if the cliche is true, about cops and donuts.

Florentin Smarandache

A Very Short Presentation of Paradoxism: Second Paradoxist Manifesto

A) The Very Beginning:

It was in 1980’s when the movement began...

Together with many of my childhood friends (Cost, Geonea, Beca, Bigioc, Piciu, Boros, Covrig, Cris, Pilă, Chesa, Grasu, Babanu – I am giving only their nicknames!) we were in the village restaurants in the town (Bălceşti, Vâlcea, Romania) drinking beer and joking ...

All were, and still are – except Cost (i.e. Constantin Dincă) and I, non-literary people.

They did not want either to read or to write anything!

And yet, we built a new literary movement (without knowing about it ... paradoxically!!). We made inside jokes, spoke in slang, amused each other while the alcohol had its effect on us.

I then wrotein Romanian Legi de compoziţie internă. Poeme cu ... probleme!” (Laws of internal composition. Poems with ... problems!, Morocco, 1982) as a PREPARADOXIST volume.

Returning to Craiova, Rmania, my work city, I contacted the literary circles and then, with the help of other writers (Constantin M. Popa, Ion Soare, Doru Moţoc etc.), set up The Literary Paradoxist Movement.

PARADOXISM CAME TO LIFE FROM NOTHING AND WAS GIVEN BIRTH BY NON-LITERARY PEOPLE! PARADOXISM CAME TO LIFE FROM EVERYTHING, FROM OUR CONTRADICTORY LEAVING IN A TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY.

B) Definition:

PARADOXISM is an avant-garde movement in literature, art, philosophy, science,basedonexcessiveusedofantitheses,parables,odds,paradoxesincreations. It was set up and led by the writer Florentin Smarandache since 1980’s who said: “The goal is to enlargement of the artistic sphere through non-artistic elements. But especially the counter-time, counter-sense creation. Also, to experiment.”

C) Etymology:

Paradoxism=paradox+ism, means the theory and school of using paradoxes in literary and artistic, but also philosophy, science creations.

D) History:

“Paradoxism started as an anti-totalitarian protest against a closed society, Romania of 1980’s, where the whole culture was manipulated by a small group. Onlytheirideasandtheirpublicationscounted.Wecouldn’tpublishalmostanything. Then, I said: Let’s do literature… without doing literature! Let’s write… without actually writing anything. How? Simply: object literature! “The flying of a bird”, for example, represents a “natural poem”, that is not necessary to write down, being more palpable and perceptible in any language that some signs laid on the paper, which, in fact, represent an “artificial poem”: deformed, resulted from a translation by the observant of the observed, and by translation one falsifies. The cars jingling on the street” was a “city poem”, “peasants mowing” - a “disseminationist poem”, “the dream with open eyes” - a “surrealist poem”, “foolishly speaking” - a “dadaist poem”, “the conversation in Chinese for an ignorant of this language” - a “lettrist poem”, “alternating discussions of travels, in a train station, on different themes” a “post-modern poem” (inter-textualism).

Do you want a vertically classification? “Visual poem”, “sonor poem”, “olfactory poem”, “taste poem”, “tactil poem”. Another classification in diagonal: “poem-phenomenon”, “poem-(soul)status”, “poem-thing”. In painting, sculpture similarly – all existed in nature, already fabricated.Therefore, a muteprotest we did!

Later, I based it on contradictions. Why? Because we lived in that society a double life: on official one – propagated by the political system, and another one real. In mass-media it was promulgated that “our life is wonderful”, but in reality “our life was miserable”. The paradox flourishing! And then we took the creation in derision, in inverse sense, in a syncretic way. Thus the paradoxism was born. The folk jokes, at great fashion in Ceauşescu “Epoch”, as an intellectual breathing, were superb springs. The “No” and “Anti” from my paradoxist manifestos had a creative character, not all nihilistic (C. M. Popa). The passage from paradoxes to paradoxism was documetarily described by Titu Popescu in his classical book concerning the movement: “Paradoxism’s Aestetics” (published later). While Ion Soare, Ion Rotaru, Marian Barbu, Gheorghe Niculescu studied paradoxism in my literary work, Nicolae Manolescu asserted, about one of my manuscripts of nonpoems, that they are against-the-hair.

Ididn’thaveanyforerunnertoinfluenceme,butIwasInspiredfromthe“upsidedown situation” that existed in the country. I started from politic, social, and immediately got to literature, art, philosophy, even science. Through experiments one brings new literary, artistic, philosophical or scientific terms, new procedures, methodes or even algorithms of creation. In one of my manifestos, I proposed the sense of embezzlings, changes from figurative to proper sense, upside-down interpretation of linguistic expressions.

E) Features of Paradoxism:

# Basic Thesis of Paradoxism: everything has a meaning nad a non-meaning in a harmony with each other.

# Essence of Paradoxism:

a) the sense has a non-sense, and reciprocally

b) the non-sense has a sense.

# Motto of Paradoxism: “All is possible, the impossible too!”

# Symbol of Paradoxism: a spiral – optic illusion, or vicious circle;

# Delimitation from Other Avant-Gardes:

- paradoxism has a significance, while dadaism, lettrism, the absurd movement do not;

- paradoxism especially reveals the contradictions, the anti-nomies, anti-theses, antiphrases, antagonism, non-conformism, the paradoxes in other words of anything (in literature, art, science), while futurism, cubism, surrealism, abstractism and all other avant-gardes do not focus on them.

# Directions of Paradoxism:

- to use science methods (especially algorithms) for generating (and studying also) contradictory literary and artistic works;

- to create contradictory literary and artistic works in scientific spaces (using scientific: symbols, meta-language, matrices, theorems, lemmas etc.).

Author Bios

Liz Axelrod received her MFA from the New School in 2013. Her work has been published in Yes Poetry, The Rumpus, The Brooklyn Rail, Electric Literature, Ginosko Journal #14, Maintenent #14 & #15, 12th Street Journal, Wicked Alice by Dancing Girl Press, Counterpunch.com, and more. Her Chapbook Go Ask Alice (June 2016) was a finalist in the Finishing Line Press New Woman's Voices Competition. Liz has written book reviews for Boog City Press, Kirkus Reviews and Publisher's Weekly. She was founder, co-host, and curator of the Cedarmere Reading Series in the home of William Cullen Bryant (2014-2017) and is currently an Adjunct English Instructor at SUNY Westchester Community College, Central New Mexico Community College & The University of New Mexico, Valencia.

Axel Jerix Balicat is a full-time student who is very adept and proficient in most courses that I’ve taken. Besides being a student, I enjoy writing as an escape from the stressful school environment. I have taken a vast array of your courses and feel my writing ability is top-notch. I am reaching out to you about my inquiry about submitting my work to UNM Gallup’s literary art journal, Red Mesa Review. The work I would like to present is titled Unexpected. The results include a short memoir inspired by my experiences of first love and experiences of real heartbreak.

DeLyssa Begay is Dibelizhini (Black Sheep People), born for Honaaghaani (OneWho-Walks-Around People). Her maternal grandfathers are Todicheenii, and her paternal grandfathers are T’acheenii. She is Navajo, and her family’s homestead is in Tse Chizhi/Rough Rock, Arizona. DeLyssa teaches at Rehoboth Christian High School in New Mexico. She is a Northern Arizona University Dine Teacher Institute Fellow.

Born on December 26th, 2004, Langham Bitsoi grew up in Naschitti, New Mexico. While growing up he found an interest in writing through watching movies and reading books. At a point in his life, he aspired to become an author. Nowadays, he keeps writing as a hobby and hopes to continue it on as the years ago by.

Dr. Christopher L. Dyer is an applied anthropologist and the former CEO and now professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico-Gallup. He received an M.S in marine biology from the University of Alabama in 1983, an

M.A. in anthropology in 1986 and his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1990 from Arizona State University. Grants, contracts, research support and donor support to academic institutions rose to date amount to over $33.3 million. Dr. Dyer has received research support from the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Hazard Center (NSF), the Organization of American States, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, Ducks Unlimited, and others. Research interests include community disaster mitigation, human ecosystem modeling, medical anthropology, and disaster assessment. He has directed field research teams in seventeen countries including Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Kenya and the Philippines. Present research includes projects with the Roanoke Area Ministries (RAM House) on impact of the pandemic on homelessness and with the Center for Social Complexity, George Mason University, and four other institutional partners, which will extend into the summer and continue on for at least three years: “Modeling Human –Infrastructure Interactions Following Nuclear Detonation.

Mars Glazner is a senior art student at UNM set to graduate with a minor in creative writing. They work manly with second person point of view when writing and enjoy playing with lesser used forms in fiction. Seeking out and experiment with different formats helps create unique challenges which inform the authors style and characterizations. Going forward they are looking at writing in the horror genre and are hoping to create a discography of work that encompasses their writing range.

Jennifer Macktima Grisenti is from the San Carlos Apache Tribe and currently lives in Parker, Colorado. She is Apache and Hopi. She is a recent graduate from the Tohono O’Odham Community College. In addition, she earned her associate’s degree in liberal arts and general studies from Eastern Arizona College. Her goal is to continue her education and work towards a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies. Someday she would like to work at a college teaching or assisting others. She served eight years in the United Marine Corps and one year in the Army National Guard. She was awarded several military medals, and she is proud of her military experiences and accomplishments.

She has been working for many years, but now her hobbies have become her small business: drawing, sewing and writing stories about her life. She receives encouragement and support from her husband, Dave, her children, and her siblings. She had a late start with her education, but she enjoys her classes, her instructors, and the experience of learning from the younger generation.

Quentin Guyonnet is a second-year student enrolled in the Associate in Nursing program. He is originally from Bordeaux, France and moved to New Mexico two years ago with his wife. They met in the Democratic Republic of Congo while working in a humanitarian mission for Doctors Without Borders. In his free time, he enjoys playing the drums and spending time with his 2-month-old daughter.

Carmela Delia Lanza’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her first chapbook of poetry, Long Island Girl, was published by Malafemmina Press. Her second chapbook of poetry, So Rough A Messenger, was published by Finishing Line Press. She was raised on Long Island in a workingclass Italian immigrant family (her first language was Napolitana). After completing her undergraduate work at Emmanuel College in Boston, MA, she worked at Columbia University Press, in New York City. Eventually she crossed the country to New Mexico where she made the desert her home. As a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, she studied with poets Joy Harjo and Gene Frumkin. She is an associate professor of English at the University of New Mexico at Gallup, in Gallup, New Mexico.

Sarah Llanque A nurse by trade, Dr. Sarah Llanque, has created three poems with the theme of hope, struggle, and growth in becoming a nurse. These poetry submissions are her first attempt to express these themes that can be experienced by those who are new to the subculture of nursing.

Joseph Lujan is a small scale creative that’s lived in Gallup their entire life. After a lot of outdoors experience in the local area, they moved inside and started learning how to work with metal, wood, words, pictures and leather. Always looking for new ways to express ideas, they continue to create practical wood items and currently working towards completing the UNM Gallup Lab Technician program.

Tom McLaren Surréaliste Synesthésique. With my background in the AvantGarde and my Asian wife by my side, I’m John Lennon to this Fab Four.

Aretha Matt is from a small community on the Navajo Nation. She teaches English at the University of New Mexico-Gallup. She writes poetry and short stories about her upbringing on the Navajo reservation and her experiences as an educator.

Jennifer McCandless This submission was submitted for her by her cousin, Nick Brokeshoulder, who said the following about her: I have a cousin named Jennifer McCandless who has an interesting background as a former HS & College Cross Country athlete, a USMC Veteran, and as a beginning writer.

Andrew V. McFeaters is an assistant professor in the English Department at University of New Mexico-Gallup. He has published criticism on authors such as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Flann O'Brien. He is a coeditor for, and contributor to, the Cold Hard Type series, anthologies that celebrate the value of typewriters for writing fiction and poetry.

Gloria Grace Paluga-Macapagal is an Asian wife, a mother of two beautiful kids, and a striving college student at the University of New Mexico-Gallup. Her colorful journey and rich ethnicity embolden her to write her story with the hope of inspiring writers as it has done to her.

Shelli Rottschafer completed her doctorate from the University of New Mexico in Latin American Contemporary Literature (2005). Since 2006, Rottschafer has taught at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. She is a Professor of Spanish within the Department of World Languages. She teaches Spanish Language, Chicanx and Latinx Literature, Film and Gender Studies. Rottschafer writes Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Fiction. Her Travel Writing is published in Wanderlust Journal of Travel Essays Atmosphere Press in Austin, TX published her debut novella, Stay North (2021). Her short stories have been published in Chamisa: A Journal of Literacy, Performance, and Visual Arts of the Great Southwest and Cutthroat: Journal of the Arts

Although Rottschafer doesn’t currently live in “The Land of Enchantment” it continues to call her in the Midwest and it is her hope to return to the Four Corners Area as it is part of her querencia.

Bridgette Silva is currently a student at UNM-Gallup. She is a certified peer support recovery worker, with plans of becoming a substance abuse counselor. She has a passion for helping those with addiction problems. As the case manager at a local recovery center, she assists the homeless and those with alcohol addiction.

She relates to her clients because at a certain point in her life she faced the demons of addiction. She is now seven years clean, and she thanks God that today she is a productive member of society. Every day she strives to become better in all areas of life. She believes we all have a purpose in life, and she chooses to live according to God’s will. Her hobbies include walking and studying the bible. Her faith is strong, and she will continue to persevere when difficulty may arise in her life.

Florentin Smarandache is a professor of mathematics at the University of New Mexico, United States. He got his MSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Craiova, Romania, PhD in Mathematics from the State University of Kishinev, and Postdoctoral in Applied Mathematics from Okayama University of Sciences, Japan.

He is the founder of neutrosophy (generalization of dialectics), neutrosophic set, logic, probability and statistics since 1995 and has published hundreds of papers and books on neutrosophic physics, superluminal and instantaneous physics, unmatter, quantum paradoxes, absolute theory of relativity, redshift and blueshift due to the medium gradient and refraction index besides the Doppler effect, paradoxism, outerart, neutrosophy as a new branch of philosophy, Law of Included Multiple-Middle, multispace and multistructure, hypersoft set, degree of dependence and independence between neutrosophic components, refined neutrosophic set, neutrosophic over-under-off-set, plithogenic set / logic / probability / statistics, neutrosophic triplet and duplet structures, quadruple neutrosophic structures, extension of algebraic structures to NeutroAlgebras and AntiAlgebras, NeutroGeometry & AntiGeometry, Dezert-Smarandache Theory and so on to many peer-reviewed international journals and many books and he presented papers and plenary lectures to many international conferences around the world.

In addition, he published many books of poetry, dramas, children’ stories, translations, essays, a novel, folklore collections, traveling memories, and art albums [http://fs.unm.edu/FlorentinSmarandache.htm].

Benjamin Space is currently a student at UNM–Gallup pursuing a degree in social services and addiction counseling. After 20 years spent in Fire/EMS services, he decided a change was in order and so his goals include further education in psychology and writing. He remains active in community mental health groups and

is an avid outdoors type, sharing a love for amateur astronomy and nature with the curious and adventurous.

Jocelyn Sung is a 20-year-old student at the University of New Mexico. Although she's currently pursuing a bachelor's in nursing, she loves writing poetry and stories and aspires to be a novelist one day. In her writing, she hopes to share different perspectives and provide hope for people despite the difficulty they may encounter in their lives.