PAW Print Hibernation: A Winter Edition

VERMONT ACADEMY

PRESENTS HIBERNATION A WINTER EDITION

POETRY ART WRITING

PAW PRINT

ADVISOR EDITOR WHITNEY BARRETT

KHIEM NGUYEN

COVER COLLAGE: DEER HERD BY KHIEM NGUYEN

LEFT PAGE: UNTITLED BY WHITNEY BARRETT

PAW PRINT 2023-2024

VOLUME 7 ISSUE 3

VERMONT ACADEMY ART AND LITERATURE MAGAZINE

10 LONG WALK, SAXTONS RIVER, VT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SKI TOP

BY: CODY MARCONI

MOONSHADOW

BY: AMY RAAB

TAKE ME TO YOUR RIVER

BY: AMY RAAB

OVER THE RIVER

BY: AMY RAAB

THE COMPLICATED AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

BY: SUKI LAMBERT

SANTA FE SPRING

BY: AMY RAAB

ACROSS THE VALLEY

BY: AMY RAAB

CRYOMORTIS

BY: ANDREW LISS-NODA

FRESH POWDER DAY

BY: LEO LYRA

FIRE AND ICE

BY: AMY RAAB

LONGEVITY

BY: KHIEM NGUYEN

LET ME KEEP MY OWN PAINT

BY: KHIEM NGUYEN

CHRISTMAS WARMTH

BY: RAYMOND FENG

MOMENT OF BIRTH

BY: KHIEM NGUYEN

THE FINAL LEAF

BY: KHIEM NGUYEN

GONDOLAS

BY: CODY MARCONI

SHIP IN A BOTTLE

BY: SUKI LAMBERT

BY: MASON EVANS

SNEAK PEAK BY: LERAN CHEN

ON DISPLAY (INTROSPECTIVE)

BY: MAYA CARBONE

UNTITLED BY: DARLENE TASHOBYA

BLUE BOX

BY: LUKE PENNELL

UNTITLED BY: DARLENE TASHOBYA

STREAM OF CONCIOUSNESS

BY: SOFIA BIANCONI

SKABOOSHKY BY: LUKE PENNELL

UNTITLED BY: DARLENE TASHOBYA

BIOLUMINESCENSE

BY: SUKI LAMBERT

BY: DARLENE TASHOBYA

SKI TOP

BY: CODY MARCONI

MOONSHADOW

BY: AMY RAAB

TAKE ME TO YOUR RIVER

BY: AMY RAAB

OVER THE RIVER

BY: AMY RAAB

THE COMPLICATED AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

BY: SUKI LAMBERT

I still love you I still remember you. I still remember the music. I still remember the theater. I still remember our little talks. I wish I told you.

I hope you are well. I hope we meet again. I hope you remember me. I still love you.

It’s been a while. You haven’t texted. You haven’t called. No contact at all. Do you remember me?

Do I still love you? I’m not sure anymore.

I used to love you. But I see now. It’s all futile. It’s all pointless. Did you ever love me too? Or was it all just an illusion?

SANTA FE SPRING

BY: AMY RAAB

ACROSS THE VALLEY

BY: AMY RAAB

CRYOMORTIS

BY: ANDREW LISS-NODA

Pendle had been servitor to the Hibernator for three interstellar journeys before, so he knew immediately that Dr. Stricklen had meddled with the cryo pods within the first few weeks of the run. Another eight months relative on board before their arrival at Proxima meant there was a great deal of time yet to pass where much could go wrong.

Pendle remembered the way the cybernetic joints on his right side, ankle to hip to shoulder to elbow in permacrete and rough stone, had whirred in agitation when he had brought news to the Captain. Pendle didn’t remember what he had said, only that it was mumbled modestly. Pendle didn’t like watching the Captain’s face; the Captain couldn’t look on Pendle with anything other than disgust, no, revulsion.

Predictably, the Captain had ignored Pendle’s suspicions, and had punished him with banishment from the ship’s corridors as well. So it wasn’t until three weeks later, after Pendle had managed to find a route through obsolete bulkheads and old, out of code air recyclers from the underdecks back to the bridge.

Pendle half rolled and half hobbled out of the bulkhead and onto the bridge with a series of mechanical clicks as his joints protested his unlimbered form.

“Captain,” he whirred, his voice partially voxillated by his artificial larynx, “I’ve come to report. I apologize that it took me so long to… ” Pendle paused as he took in the bridge.

The spacious room, half of it taken up with un-kept stations, and half taken up by the yawning maw of the void outside the transplast, was buried in papers and old vellum-bound books. The Captain was suspended from a bulkhead by an amalgamation of ropes and milky-white hull sealant.

Pendle briefly noticed the whites around his pain-stricken eyes before his attention was drawn to another figure huddled in an engineering control station.

“Pendle, is it?” asked Dr. Stricklen. He only half turned from his work to address the broken shape of the servitor.

“Yes,” Pendle replied.

“Kill him, servitor. Kill the Doctor.” The Captain’s voice was weak, barely audible over the everpresent hum of the ship moving at speed.

“Hardly,” said Dr. Stricklen, rising from his station and approaching Pendle.

Pendle couldn’t help but cower slightly as Dr. Stricklen stood over him.

“Soulless filth, kill the Doctor, I command you, ” the Captain softly cried.

Addressing the Captain without looking away from Pendle, Dr. Stricklen continued, “No, I do not think I have much to fear from this quarter.”

“The cryopods?” asked Pendle.

“Indeed,” replied Dr. Stricklen. “You see, even this refuse heap of a man knew before you, Captain.” He turned up toward the Captain, “You might not find yourself in your present condition had you heeded its warning.”

Pendle shivered as the Captain let forth a string of curses; Pendle had been the typical target of those epithets in the past.

“Enough,” said Doctor Stricklen quietly, “ or need you be taught further?”

The Captain was silenced, and the Doctor turned back to Pendle.

“Please make sure the Captain is fed, Pendle. And please do a once over with the medscan just to be safe. Three witnesses will only be an improvement on two, three souls on board is perhaps more auspicious than two.” As an aside to the Captain, “And, yes, I do believe that Pendle has a soul, despite our current society's prejudices.”

Pendle retrieved a medscanner from a station and slowly, painfully scaled the effusion of the Captain’s inflicted cocoon to minister to him. Presently, Pendle deduced from the shape and depth of the restraints that the Captain’s limbs must have been removed elsewhere. Pendle felt a pang of sympathy, though it quickly dissipated at the Captain’s obvious disgust at being this close to the servitor.

“Three souls?” said Pendle, “the travelers?”

“All dead,” said Dr. Stricklen. “Their bodies are still intact in the cryopods, but their brain function has ceased, and, theoretically, their souls departed.”

“I don’t understand,” said Pendle as he climbed down from the Captain’s perch, medscanner a cheery green despite the obvious trauma.

“Have you heard of Prophet’s Reach?” asked Dr. Stricklen. “No.”

“I would be surprised if you had, but there is no telling with these deep space ships, what you might have heard at one port or another.” Dr Stricklen was once again in the engineering station poring over an ancient tome with withered pages. He did not look away from the book as he spoke.

“The powers that be expunged the information whenever possible. Prophet’s Reach was a colony, not too far from Celestine. Two hundred objective years ago, all five-hundred thousand colonists there were slaughtered. In order to contain the cause, the planet’s surface was glassed from orbit.”

“Why?” Pendle asked.

“Because it had been visited by a ship, incidentally it was called the Nightingale. The only reports which made it out of Prophet’s Reach before contact was lost said that, quote, ‘demons’ had gotten off the ship and proceeded to desecrate and destroy. ‘Demons.’”

“As it turns out,” continued the Doctor, “The travelers in cryostasis aboard the Nightingale had died in transit, but their bodies had been preserved perfectly, and when they were automatically resuscitated upon their arrival at the colony, they woke back up from death.”

“An experiment,” said Pendle.

Dr. Stricklen turned away from his study briefly, “You’re the brightest semi-automaton I’ve come across. Yes, perhaps the most important experiment in the history of our species. In a manner, I’ve sent them to hell to see if they can come back alive. Of course, it would perhaps be wiser in this instance to not wait until we ’ ve arrived at another defenseless colony.”

With his last, Dr. Stricklen adjusted something at his station. Pendle turned as a holographic stream of the cryodeck lit up the bridge opposite the Captain’s form. Pendle recognized the familiar combination of lights and emissions that signaled the cryopods were starting the revival process.

“They’ll simply remain dead,” said the Captain, his voice hoarse and hollow.

“Perhaps, but we’ll see soon eno… ”

The hologram lit up with flashes of orange and red, the image dissolving into random static. A few long seconds passed before the image coalesced once again. The flashes were vibrant flames as dozens of cryopods burst asunder. Indescribable figures seeming to emanate waves of heat stalked among the pods. Pendle watched one figure stab his hands into another pod to rip apart the body of another traveler, gore shining crimson even through the heat haze of the demon’s form.

Pendle slowly turned his attention away from the hologram to see Dr. Stricklen was struck dumb by the events on the cryodeck. Pendle hobbled to the nearest station and ordered the combat bulkheads locked between all decks; he wasn’t sure it would do any good, so he also instructed the ship’s computer to prepare the ship’s fusion bottle for rupture. It would vaporize the ship, if needed.

Pendle was about to check the Captain’s health with the medscanner once again when his attention was drawn by a flash of pure white light in the midst of the crimson pervading the hologram.

There, standing in the center of a hoard of red death, hovered a woman with massive, white-feathered wings.

Perhaps, thought Pendle, he did have a soul.

FRESH POWDER DAY

BY: LEO LYRA

FIRE AND ICE

BY: AMY RAAB

LONGEVITY

BY: KHIEM NGUYEN

LET ME KEEP MY OWN PAINT

BY: KHIEM NGUYEN

Vietnamese culture prioritizes respect and commitment to family over everything else. In my family, my sister and I both have a burning passion for art, and for as long as I can remember drawing together bonded us.

When I was nine, she needed watercolors for a science project and asked me to let her borrow my paint and brushes. I am six years older so often when she asks to borrow my supplies I hesitate. She is careless. I immediately said no because I purchased high-quality supplies with my money. I didn’t want to take the risk that she would be wasteful. She cried, threw a tantrum, and ran out of my room, screaming for my dad. Even with my dad’s intimidation, I said no. Individuals are expected to put their family's interests ahead of their own and to treat other family members with preference. My dad was displeased. I remember he said to me:

“If you

don’t know how to share, not even with your own blood family,

If you

only know to think and care about yourself,

What

purpose does your life have?

If you choose to act like this, I don’t want to see your face,

You

can go live with the rats down the street.”

Families have a collective face; one ’ s actions influence one's own family's name and reputation. The family’s harmonious dynamic, respect, and selflessness are crucial to maintaining the image of the family. I felt lonely.

Isolated by my own father for one small action. I was being conservative; trying to save money I worked for. I did what I felt was right and it was somehow wrong. Feelings are unreliable I realized, so how do I know which ones to follow through with? I had to figure out what feelings I could show, and what I must hide so that I wouldn’t become a disappointment in my parent’s eyes.

From this experience, I started not to trust myself to make the right decisions, and I didn’t trust other people. I worried that showing them another side of myself might drive them away. I shut myself away from everyone and couldn’t even hear myself. My heart got cold. I feared isolation but then I went and isolated myself.

Art was already rooted so deeply within me at that point that it was the only thing I could hold onto. Art allowed me to dissect my thoughts, my struggles, my pain, and my fear and gave me the will to present them.

Art resonates with me. It is a comfortable place for me to dive into, escape, and hide away from reality, but also a language for me to connect with people. At that point, it was the only way I could find to connect. When I thought I had done closing myself away from society, art reopened that door. It made me realize that I can’t live in the shadows. I showed people my art and they asked questions. I felt connected again.

As a self-taught artist, what captivates me is the process of experimentation and exploration. In the years after this event, I was looking for a path that wasn’t defined by my parents. The idea of independence captivated me.

I needed a creative process that allowed me to fall down a spiral, forcing me to face all my emotions, to face my parents. I wanted to understand myself, to understand them.

I need to find my voice.

I need to be loud enough that I can hear myself. To create my own path, to find my own success. Art is the reason for my consternation, but it also made me realize I can’t protect myself by hiding, I want to put myself out there to fail, feel pain, sorrow, abandonment.

Strengthening me enough that I can show my parents my desires, powerful enough to talk to them about drawing my own path.

CHRISTMAS WARMTH

BY: RAMOND FENG

MOMENT OF BIRTH

BY: KHIEM NGUYEN

THE FINAL LEAF

BY: KHIEM NGUYEN

GONDOLAS

BY: CODY MARCONI

SHIP IN A BOTTLE

BY: SUKI LAMBERT

UNTITLED

BY: MASON EVANS

SNEAK PEAK

BY: LERAN CHEN

I was holding on to the handrail on the bus. The bus was driving on an uneven road and I was being tossed from side to side. I looked through the heads and shoulders of the shaky crowd, and there was a girl sitting in the back. It was the girl I am really obsessed with.

It has been 2 years since I liked her; when she remembered my name and my heart melted with the sound of her voice. She is perfect both in how she looks and how she treats others. Every boy in the classroom liked her. I tried to talk to her but I felt like all of the eyes from all the world were suddenly staring straight at me, warning me to stop. So, I decided to hide this feeling deep in my heart, hoping it would disappear with time.

The more I tried to stop, the more I liked her. I started to think about her everyday, every hour, every minute. She was inside my mind all the time, when I was sleeping, when I was eating. I could not control not looking at her when she was nearby.

It was a hot afternoon, and I was walking on the street with a few people nearby. I saw a tramp with a bunch of books in front of him that seemed like he was selling. Only a few people were still doing this right now which made me curious.

When I was browsing the books, the title of one suddenly popped into my eye, it was called ‘Mind Invasion. ’ Like it could get into other people’s minds and see what they like. But if it is real, then I could see how her life is. To understand what she likes and dislikes. To get to know her and make her interested in me!

I checked the price list; the book was way more expensive than I could afford. I had to do this. I grabbed the book and ran away. 'Stealing is bad' was quickly beaten by I have to have her.

The book said your mind would start to fly and be able to stick to the mind you choose, but you cannot change anything or have any impact on them; you can only look at the world with their eyes. The book also said that the body would stay the same as the daily routine. So and so. I could not finish the book and jumped to the last page to see how it really works. By speaking out loud: soijdoahw.

‘Saoijdoiahw!’

When I woke up, I was already on her. There was no time for me to think about how I got here before I was so shocked by the screen that I did not expect.

It worked just like how I normally see through my own eye, but everything turned out differently. The color was very weird. The leaves of the tree became purple, and the trunk became white. All the streets that should have been black turned red, and the sky was a kind of color that I could not describe. It seems like a whole new color that is mixed with rainbows and vomit. Before I felt nausea, I noticed the ‘people’.

People in her eye seem normal on their body; but all the heads were replaced by different types of animals. The cool kid had a tiger head, and the kind teacher had a deer head.

And it was the time when I noticed me, the body without my soul, doing the things I did every day. It was obvious that I sneaked a peep toward her and stared at her. And my head does not belong to any type of animal; it is a monster-like creature that keeps changing, distorted like a worm.

When I peeped her, the whole head changed color from white to blue, from blue to black. And she pretended she did not see.

'Hey, have you noticed the guy sitting behind you?’

'Yeah, what about him?’

‘Do you think he totally changed like a different person after that day?’

‘I don’t know man; it is more like he lost his soul.’

ON DISPLAY (INTROSPECTIVE)

BY: MAYA CARBONE

UNTITLED

BY: DARLENE TASHOBYA

BLUE BOX

BY: LUKE PENNELL

UNTITLED

BY: DARLENE TASHOBYA

UNTITLED

BY: DARLENE TASHOBYA

STREAM OF CONCIOUSNESS

BY: SOFIA BIANCONI

I take my walk to the art studio as I do every day. The pavement under my feet is now covered in snow so I am careful to not slip and fall. I remember once I fell last year in the parking lot in front of two people I did not know. I think it would have been less embarrassing if I had fallen in a group and someone I knew had helped me up, but that time they just awkwardly stared at me deciding if they would help me or go about their day. I hope I don’t fall during this quiet walk to the art studio because I am alone and I don’t want the awkwardness of somebody I don’t know appearing and seeing me. The air is cold and I reach the frozen metal doorknob, thankful that the ground is less slippery under the ledge of the roof. I walk into the back of the studio and wander to my area, covered in paints and unorganized paintbrushes. It is better than my jar of paintbrushes from last year, which I swear people stole my paint brushes from. I still don’t know where my old flat edged brush is, which reminds me that I have to get a new one. I don’t know when I will have time. I bet I know who stole it though because she stole my palette knife last year and I caught her red handed, letting her bright colored paints dry into an unremovable rock on my precious knife. She had always taken my stuff for no specific reason though.

I pick up my palette, now covered in paints on both sides. I remember getting the wooden palette last year, grabbing it out of a crafts store's isles and hoping it would look like this beautifully abstract one that sat in the corner of the art studio. It is not good quality, and cost about two dollars, but I still use it today and wish it was as pretty as that other one. I remember last year realizing that it would never be as pretty as the other palette, and that the other artist must not have been very good. The reason that their palette was so colorful and pretty was

because they put small blots of paints on and separated them, only dipping their bush in from the top.

A true artist would douse their bush in paint on both sides and smear and blend the paint on the palette, never on the canvas itself. I put a blob of titanium white on my wildly messy palette and know that even if that artist had a pretty palette, their paintings must have sucked. I mix my titanium white with a bit of retarder, to make the paint slow drying. I wonder why they call it that. Maybe it is to humiliate artists when paint store employees ask what they are looking for. That surely happened to me. The paint mixes well, and smells like playdough on my brush. I remember being obsessed with playdough as a kid. I had a little “workshop” in the basement next to my dad’s with fake screwdrivers, hammers and plastic power tools. Instead of chunks of wood, I hammered playdough. It didn’t stay firm as wood did, but I was working on something like my dad. It has been hard to see him go down to the shop less and less. They have now cleared out the room with all the playdough and my mini workshop is gone.

All of a sudden, the paint on my brush splatter on my sweatshirt from the canvas. I run to wash it, thinking about how upset my mom would be if she knew I had ruined another one of my sweatshirts with paint. It has become too much of a problem. The white paint adds the highlights to my piece of Mother Mary, my role model. I love to paint her but realize that I am probably the Catholic stereotype of “praising Mary too much and more than God”. It’s funny how people of ultimately the same religion like to argue so much. It’s not that I praise her more than God, I know that. Maybe that is why so many old church men don’t like women, because they can’t even honor the mother of God. How dare He come from a woman. I wonder if they think that we are all doomed because of Eve instead of a mutual mistake. I’ve been told that on the playgrounds at my Catholic middle school.

You are less than us says a blonde boy with a lisp and headgear, head recently shaved from lice and is carrying God knows what else. I wonder what he is doing now, but I bet not well if he ever went to a school that wasn’t Catholic.

His father used to insult me and my dad. He said that my dad was wrong for what he practiced because he interferes with God’s timing. According to that man, gay people were abused as children and my father shouldn’t treat them. The next day I put a love is love drawing on my locker. I made it myself and used glitter and rainbows. Not a day later, it was ripped off, crumpled, and thrown into my locker. I remember complaining to my least favorite teacher, Mr. Regan, and he said that he doesn’t disagree with the student who ruined my art. He was the man having a conversation with that boy’s father. I wonder what the odds are that I could someday treat Christian and Mr. Regan and all the other men like that in a hospital. I still have to treat them and can’t refuse care. Maybe I can put a love is love pin on my white coat though.

The paint starts to blot on my page. I need to add more retarder- where is it? I hate painting at night, my meds must have worn off. I can’t find where I put anything. Oh it’s just in my cubby. I add more and squeeze more paint out of the dying, suffocating tube. I definitely need to get more paint. I don't know if I should make the halo for this painting gold or yellow. Maybe blue for Mary like the renaissance? I love the old painting with the bright blue, but I don’t know if it would match my theme. Maybe I should try and copy the old style, but I can’t mess it up. Is it disrespectful if my paintings are bad since they are about Mary? Could I get in trouble for this? I don’t know if I can sell paintings about God. I can be right because all of the old merchants in the middle ages did it. But they also dumped their sewage in the streets so I probably shouldn't take much advice from them. I should just pray on it but I hate not getting direct responses, which is hard because I rarely do.

I know it takes time to hear from Him but Lord you can hear my thoughts so why can’t you answer them in a way I can tell so clearly right now? I’m not patient like I should be even if it is a virtue. But I don’t know how long I can wait if I am asking you if I should paint this blue or gold or yellow. I kind of need that sign now for that question. Ok I don’t hear anything so let me open my eyes and see what color I find first. Blue? Perfect. I squeeze the blue out on my colorful palette and start painting all of the loud thoughts away.

SKABOOSHKY

BY: LUKE PENNELL

UNTITLED

BY: DARLENE TASHOBYA

BIOLUMINESENCE

BY: SUKI LAMBERT