The Oklahoma Review, 21.1 by William Carney

Volume 21

THE OKLAHOMA REVIEW

Fall 2023

The Oklahoma Review

The Oklahoma Review Volume 21: Issue 1, Fall 2023 Published by: Cameron University Department of Communication, English and Foreign Languages

The Staff

Editor in Chief RYN SWINSON

The views expressed in The Oklahoma Review do not necessarily correspond to those of Cameron University, and the university’s support of this magazine should not be seen as any endorsement of any philosophy other than faith in—and support of—free expression.

Managing Editor KALEY MUSE Senior Editors WILLIAM CARNEY & LEAH CHAFFINS Editors ROSEMARIE BILLINGS KEMAR NOEL SAMANTHA TOWELL CLARA WILLIAMS EMILY WOMACK

The content of this publication may not be reproduced without the written consent of The Oklahoma Review or the authors.

Call for Submissions

The Oklahoma Review is a continuous, online publication. We publish one issue a year in the fall.

Layout and Design DAYTON HORN KEMAR NOEL RYN SWINSON SAMANTHA TOWELL EMILY WOMACK

The Oklahoma Review only accepts during one reading period. • Reading dates for the Fall issue will now be from March 1 to June 15. Work sent outside of this reading period will not be considered.

Copyeditors KALEY MUSE GINA WELBORN

Guidelines

Cover Art DAYTON HORN

Submissions are welcome from any serious writer. Email your submissions to wcarney@cameron.edu or lellis@cameron.edu. Writers may submit the following: • Prose fiction pieces of 30 pages or less. • As many as five (5) poems of any length. • Nonfiction prose pieces of 30 pages or less. • As many as five (5) pieces of visual art– photography, paintings, prints, etc. • All files should be sent as e-mail attachments in either .doc or .rtf format for text and .jpeg for art submissions. We will neither consider nor return submissions sent in hard copy, even if return postage is included. • When sending multiple submissions (e.g. five poems), please include all the work in a single file rather than five separate files. • Contributors should also provide a cover paragraph with a short biography in the body of their e-mail. Artists can also provide an artist statement. • Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please indicate in your cover letter if your work is under consideration elsewhere. • Please direct all submissions and inquiries to wcarney@cameron.edu or lellis@cameron.edu. Follow The Oklahoma Review on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/theoklahomareview/

Artist Statement Mountains from Home by Dayton Horn Mountains from Home is a digital illustration in which inspiration derives from the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge holds many memories for not only myself, but for the community as well. I wanted to capture the peace many feel when they visit the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge. I chose to frame the illustration with white margins as well as incorporated a serif typeface to have a sleek, and professional composition.

Mission Statement

The Oklahoma Review is an electronic literary magazine published through the Department of Communication, English and Foreign Languages at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. The goal of our publication is to provide a forum for exceptional fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction in a dynamic, appealing, and accessible environment. The magazine’s only agenda is to promote the pleasures of edification derived from high-quality literature.

America Faces the Nuclear Age by Carie Schneider 6

Artist Statement “America Faces the Nuclear Age” (2023) is a series of six acrylic paint monoprints using found natural materials (dandelions, ferns, daisies, rocks, bark). Images are printed on pages from America Faces the Nuclear Age, edited by Johnson E. Fairchild and David Landman, Sheridan House, 1961, found in the CU Library discard pile, 2022. This printing process simultaneously beautifies and defaces the book pages, calling into question the integrity of the text. Repurposing pages from this obsolete book, which envisions a future which has already passed, evokes the strange temporalities of the nuclear sublime. One print in the series features the ghostly impression of text from another page, not present, on the aftermath of Hiroshima. In juxtaposing botanical prints over text about nuclear threats, even innocent natural materials are imbued with a menacing aura. This process appropriates the very rhetorical gesture inherent to radioactivity itself: using material from nature for destructive purposes.

Carie Schneider is Associate Professor and Director of Composition in the Department of Communication, English and Foreign Languages at Cameron University. She researches and writes on literary theory, American literature, and the environmental humanities, and is working on a long-form project examining the rhetoric and cultural entanglements of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nuclear waste repository in southeastern New Mexico. Originally from Tucson, AZ, she has lived in Lawton, OK since 2018.

Devon Tower by Joseph Bichsel It’s taller than every Tree that won’t grow here anymore, Skyscraper that marred the sky before; A blemish that rises over rooftops And watches you driving down Walker. It’s the body of a giant blue syringe, Pumping gallons of oil into the ground Just to be brought up again By earthquake. Every December, They drop a giant Christmas ball from the roof. Bright red, it shatters (not the ball, which embeds itself in the broken ground like a monument to fracking).

A poet by trade and an Okie by heart, Joseph Bichsel grew up on the south side of Oklahoma City, at the edge of where the houses turned into long grass. He is a graduate student at Truman State University in Kirksville Missouri, pursuing a double Master’s in Education and English to pair with a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing and minors in Folklore and Film Studies. Four of his poems have been published in Windfall Magazine, exploring a range of topics from The Great Gatsby to flying tomato/mango hybrids. He has three siblings back home, and when not writing, he loves to read, play board games, and cook delicious meals. 8

A Day at the Zoo by Tara Ostergard “Welcome to ExoZoo! Where our motto is: If you can’t go to space, let space come to you! Explore our wide variety of intergalactic species optimally selected for your education and enjoyment! Download our free app to access our curated map for a guided experience through each of the zoo’s exhibits. Follow along with the app to learn about each species as you go! Take a walk on the wild side…of space! Don’t miss our brand new exhibit featuring the recently discovered Z-23-BG only at—ExoZoo!” As the recording finished, I watched as the newly arrived family stopped to check their phones, presumably taking a moment to download the zoo’s app. I observed them as unobtrusively as possible, despite how out of place I felt in my elaborate disguise, complete with groundskeeper uniform. Continuing to collect the trash strewn about the grounds, I listened as the parents showed the zoo’s map to their kids, as if they were old enough or mature enough to have any cognizance about what they would see here today. Elephants, peacocks, camels, zebras? Yes, the zoo held some Terran mammals. Apparently, Earth’s governments provided tax deductions for successful breeding programs for endangered animals. They needed all the funds they could get to procure and maintain the myriad of extraterrestrial species humans had thus far collected. Capturing and transporting them from their homeworlds to the zoo here on Earth was not cheap. Just last week, I played the role of server at a lavish party held inside the zoo with humans dressed in what they considered finery. Why humans wore bits of metal and rock and applied value to them was beyond my understanding. The matron of this family was similarly adorned. I watched them as they moved toward the nearest exhibit, the children’s eyes drawn to the small, blue skinned Luzas kept in the first enclosure. “Mom! They look like Smurfs!” the small male exclaimed, pointing and shouting his astonishment to the Luza’s great embarrassment. The male Luza held his mate as she looked longingly at the child before her. One night, long after the human staff had left, the male had explained to me how difficult it was for her to see the young ones prancing about as her children had done on their home planet. The humans had no idea they had taken these parents away from their children when they took them and brought them here. They had attempted communication with the humans many times, hoping to convey their situation and pull on the human’s heartstrings. Maybe they’d be allowed to go home and look for their children. They’d be grown now. Oh, how I had wanted to leave the Luzas with promises of retribution or escape but I couldn’t bear to give them hope that might not come to fruition. Instead, I had left feeling saddened yet relieved that the female wasn’t aware of the Hyack children several enclosures away who were taken without their parents. To humans, 9

he supposed they did look fully grown but to one who knew the Hyack people—all tall, thin, spindly humanoids he supposed they could be reasonably mistaken for adults. One thing there was no mistaking was the roar of the Reks in the aviary. The humans assumed they were vicious creatures, mistaking their desperate, screaming roars for aggressive threats. The winged creatures were terribly social with their own kind and needed the support of their flock to thrive. The humans had attempted to breed them, having figured out that they had managed to capture and hold in their possession a male and a female, but the stress of being separated from their flock would prevent any pregnancy from being viable. The humans had assembled quite the assortment of “aliens”, as they referred to us, and had built a variety of enclosures to meet each species’ basic needs. A zero-gravity enclosure for those who couldn’t abide Earth’s gravity; a cold enclosure for the thick-skinned Boggles; a hot, dry one for the Kousi; and several different enclosures for beings who breathed gasses other than those which comprised Earth’s atmosphere. Several of the alien species had discovered various methods of communication with the humans, achieving a sort of quid pro quo which granted them extra food rations if they allowed the zoo guests to feed them. For those more food motivated or those for whom the humans had yet to figure out the appropriate dietary requirements, it was a beneficial arrangement, even if they must stoop to the level of trained monkeys. The most disgusting display, however, was that of the aquatic Laitians being directed to perform along with Earth’s dolphins. The Laitians were known as one of the most intelligent species in the known galaxies, but their need for water and lack of overt communication skills indicated to the humans that they were less than. And so, the Laitians made friends with the dolphins who also hadn’t figured out how to establish effective communication with the humans even after all their years working alongside them and being from the same planet. At least the Laitians had intelligent life on their level with whom to socialize. In fact, all the aquatic species shared a tank, the size of which was vast, according to the humans. But for creatures who swam all day and all across the oceans of their worlds, it was no better than an aquarium. I didn’t know much about the Orcas from this planet, but they seemed just as miserable. At night, their cries for their pods echoed over the zoo along with the screaming of the Reks. And then, to find out that the large main aquarium was for public viewing and “performances” and that each species returned to a smaller space at night when not supervised made my insides churn. Then, there were the humans who walked around this park in awe of the alien species around them, completely unaware of the misery and hopelessness that exuded from the enclosures they paid good money to view. All under the guise of educating their public about these creatures that existed beyond their own star 10

which they might not otherwise get to see or experience. Experience was the key word. The human experience. Something all foreign life was learning to fear. To be visited by the humans meant to come here, to be on display. They seemed to feel they were superior to each and every planet they visited. No matter if they were met with honor or disgust, peace or violence, they responded the same to all. It was the human way. Capture. Obtain. Display. It had become a vicious cycle that humans seemed to thrive on. I had come to understand that this type of establishment was common on Earth’s planet, with Terran creatures contained in zoos scattered around the globe. Fortunately, anti-zoo rhetoric in the form of pieces of media and in-person demonstrations were already in place before ExoZoo’s creation and those same humans who fought for the freedom of their own planet’s species had come to our rescue as well. They previously had much success, as slow as it was, in dismantling the wild animal aspect of the traveling circus, not to mention the backlash against exotic zoos after the popularity of the “Tiger King”. Unfortunately, after delving into Earth’s history, it became clear that their economy took precedence even over the rights of other humans. This, combined with their fear and hate toward anything that didn’t look or act like them or share their values left me feeling desolate and hopeless. If humans couldn’t save themselves, couldn’t have compassion for themselves, their planet, or the creatures on it, who would be able save us? The answer? Me.

THE END

Tara Ostergard is a senior at Cameron University pursuing a major in Accounting with a minor in English. As a military spouse and busy student who loves spreadsheets, she makes it a point to find time to lose herself in a good book series and, when none are to be found, to create one of her own. Having grown up with shows about superheroes and space travel, it’s no surprise to learn of her passion for concepts that blur the possible with the impossible to create exciting stories that sweep their readers away. When not lost in other worlds, she enjoys spending time with her two adopted dogs, wishing she could rescue them all. 11

A Villanelle for Charlottesville by Molly Sizer I tire of jack-booted jargon and facts that are fake mocking our sisters who agonize over sons on the streets of hate. It’s time to awake. Here today, angry old men shout, flags wave, and fists shake. Later, they’ll feel bruised, demoralized by their jack-booted jargon and facts that are fake. Jesus said to love our neighbors. Is it a mistake to love those who taunt and brutalize our sons on these harsh streets of hate? How long can we wait? Their jobs are threatened and hard, and they have no stake in the wealth they produce. So they devise their jack-booted jargon and facts that are fake. These old men fear revolution—a sudden outbreak of justice, fairness and compromise washing down these streets of hate. Their last stand is too late. Still, their angry sons stand with them and all of us quake as crosses illuminate the baptized beliefs in jack-booted jargon and facts that are fake. Let us walk in peace despite the hate. It’s time. Stay awake.

Molly Sizer is a retired rural sociologist living in southwest Oklahoma. She is a perennial student in the Creative Writing program at Cameron University. Poetry still surprises and delights her. She’s read some of her poems at Lawton’s Third Saturday readings, Duncan’s Reading Down the Plains, the Woody Guthrie Poetry Readings (2018, 2022), and the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival (2019, 2022, 2023). Her work has been published in Westview and The Oklahoma Review.

The Buffalo Are Gone by Joseph Bichsel Sponsored by the Oklahoma Nature Conservancy in 2004, “The Spirit of the Buffalo” was a ‘community art project that celebrates the diversity of artistic approaches among Oklahoma artists while benefiting the Nature Conservancy of Oklahoma’ (from The Oklahoman). One of the 100 statues can still be seen on display in the Oklahoma City Zoo. Their multicolored hides once stood Along the sides of city streets, saying, “We are here!” Now one lives inside the zoo, fiberglass that stands alone among a herd of flesh and bone. Its pelt is mottled tiger stripes, leopard spots, okapi legs; forgotten what it’s meant to be. What perfect way to reminiscence The mighty herds that roamed the west! Just like the ones that came before, They once were here, and are no more.

America Faces the Nuclear Age by Carie Schneider 14

Library by Shannon Truax Sitting alongside Dad in the old red and white Chevrolet single cab truck with a stack of books between us, we backed out of the driveway and drove through the quiet tree-lined neighborhood streets. Dad had a great sense of humor and kept the best smile under that black mustache, which now had some hints of gray. As he drove, he abruptly asked me “Do you know why the king potato wouldn’t let his daughter, the princess potato, marry Walter Cronkite”? I looked at him, knowing this was a joke by the chuckle he was trying to hold back, then answered, “No.” He tilted his head up a little, preparing to laugh, and said, “Because he was just a commentator!” I didn’t get the joke at first, but he helped me out by saying “Common…tater”—creating one of those “dad joke” moments way before they became a thing. Even though I was young, I understood enough about royalty to know there were the nobles and the commoners, and since Walter Cronkite was such a huge name on CBS at that time, and our television set was always on during the evening hours, I caught on quick. We headed six blocks south of our house to a small shopping center named Casa View. Opening in 1964 as part of the Dallas Public Library system, our local public library was there, too, just behind the shopping center, appropriately called: the Casa View Library. My parents moved into the Casa View neighborhood when I was six weeks old in the late summer of 1969. Dad was an avid reader and frequent visitor to the library. So when I was old enough, he took me with him on those Saturday trips. By its style, you could tell the library was built in the 60s—with pebbled concrete, big plate glass windows, lots of smooth stained wood, a flat roof and a lot of shrubbery and trees on the outside. Inside, the space was wide open, aside from a presentation room and the rows of shelves. Walking into the foyer from the covered outdoor entrance, there was a book return desk on the left and Dad would stop there first, dropping the books into the large opening just below the counter. He would then walk a little farther to a table featuring some of the new releases. He took his time with the new releases, standing there in his Saturday attire—denim jeans or, if it was summer, cutoff denim shorts just an inch or two above the knee, a t-shirt with a pocket that held his eyeglass case and a pen, and canvas slip on deck shoes. He would pick up the new releases and not only read the back of the dust jacket but also flip to a few pages in the body of the book and read some to see how the author writes. 15

At this point, I separated from him and headed directly behind us to the large open children’s area. It was the focal point of the library, and the shelves were wooden and only two levels high so parents could easily keep an eye on their children while they went up and down the taller stacks. I had a favorite corner where the Maurice Sendak and Arnold Lobel books were, and I would pull up a cozy bean bag chair and sit with my lap full of Little Bear and Frog and Toad books. When Dad was done picking out books until the next visit, he would come get me and we would head back home. Sometimes I checked out a book to take home, but usually I had time to read them while I waited. As I got older, and more adventurous with my bike, I rode to the library by myself. I would eventually get my own library card and move from the children’s area to the young adult/youth shelves. Often the library was a central meeting place for my other friends, and from there, we would take off together, riding our bikes around the shopping center and stopping into Moses 5 & 10 to look. And if I had any money, I bought something small. In elementary school, I was in a Talented and Gifted class, known then as “TAG”, and the 5th and 6th graders got to write and illustrate a book, and a local high school let us use their book binding machine. The finale to the project was a “meet the author” event held at the Casa View Library in the presentation room. These 2 years of meet-the-author events were the only times I went into the presentation room. Covered with smooth cherry wood and large windows and heavy drapery, the room was quiet and private. This was an afterhours event and our teacher expected us to dress nice. Fruit punch and cookies were set in the foyer. Presenting my book to the teacher, classmates, parents, and the library staff on hand, I was both excited and nervous. Moving on to high school years, my interest in library trips with my Dad began to wane. He still went and still always had a book nearby to read when he had time. That was one of the constant things about him: needing to always have a book nearby— books that were almost always from the library. I don’t remember my Dad ever buying a book unless it happened to be from a yard sale. I lost interest in reading and spent my time writing poems and just doing the things that teenagers do. Books I read were required by my English teachers and I scoffed at the thought of having to read any of them. Some of them are on some current banned book lists. Fast forward to my mid-twenties, and I am living on the east coast, and my parents are living in southern Oklahoma. I had recently begun reading a little again—a series by Frank Peretti and the newly released sequel to Gone with the Wind, Scarlet. Since I was reading again, my dad mentioned that I should read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. He said that it was basically his life growing up in Oklahoma during the Dust 16

Bowl and the climb out of the Great Depression—except that his large family of thirteen did not have the funds to move to California like many dust bowlers during the time. It was large, 479 pages, but I devoured every page knowing it was a glimpse into his life before me. Years later, I moved back near my parents in Oklahoma, and as I became a mother and re-enrolled in college, reading again took a backseat. My kids would discover favorite authors and series over the years, and I would admire them for the time they spent unplugged and absorbing stories through words alone. And now that I am almost in the empty nester phase of life, I think about those trips to Casa View Library and how much it was a part of my young life. I would love to go back and visit, but it was demolished in 2008, replaced by another library built a few miles away. Just as the pages of a book reach the end of a story, so does the shelter that houses all of those books. I’m regaining my joy in reading, finding the genre that speaks to me, and reading some of the old high school assigned reading books I scoffed at once upon a time.

Shannon Truax resides in Oklahoma after spending her earlier years in Texas. After a number of years away, she’s recently reconnected with her passion for writing and art. Rooted in the southwest, she especially enjoys experimenting with all forms of media that reflect the scenes and imagery of the region. Recently her work has appeared in the Oklahoma Women’s Journal and in the Santa Fe Literary Review. Email: sltruax@yahoo.com

Wheelbarrow Offers by Diane Webster Outside antique shop wheelbarrow collects rain water like it refuses to retire from hauling here to there, only sunshine rewards its toil, accepts offered drink, savors each molecule as water depth recedes to rusty dust, a beach exposed after flood moves on.

Diane Webster’s work has appeared in El Portal, North Dakota Quarterly, Verdad and other literary magazines. She had micro-chaps published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022 and 2023 and was nominated for Best of the Net by Star 82 Review in 2022.

Love by Stephanie Osburn Love comes in waves like the seas Branding our soul like brimstone Torturing our hearts like a disease The future is only a tease It’s not like we can use a seer stone Love comes in waves like the seas It can’t be cast out on a breeze Everyone accomplishes this milestone Torturing our hearts like a disease It won’t float off like the leaves on trees It clings to us like a clingstone Love comes in waves like the seas It hits us sharp enough to fall to our knees Like someone is slinging stone Torturing our hearts like a disease Do your worst and leave me be please Don’t give me that tone Love comes in waves like the seas Torturing our hearts like a disease

Stephanie Osburn is a creative writing student at Cameron University. Her primary writings are fantasy fiction and poetry. She enjoys writing various types of poems, short stories, and is currently working on her first novel. In her free time, she enjoys doing activities with her children and reading any book she can get her hands on.

Family Curse by Rosemarie Billings I firmly believe that I was meant for a rich life. The kind where I can wake up whenever I want because I don’t have to work at an actual job to pay the very real bills ominously sitting on my kitchen counter. I could have been a D-list celebrity turned into a social media influencer “suggesting” stuff the common folk should buy when deep down I know that a majority of them can’t afford it. I should be going on shopping sprees for things I don’t need and probably won’t even use but will end up donating a year later to some fancy, upscale boutique and all my Instagram followers will praise me for how kind and generous I am. Instead, I work a full-time job in a call center. Weekend trips aren’t a thing because gas is expensive, and my shopping sprees include buying the name brand version of my favorite snack or getting the 24 pack of toilet paper instead of the 6 pack one. I sometimes wonder how my life is like this and the obvious answer is that a generational curse was put on my family way before I was brought into this world. We’re going to ignore my impulsive spending habits because I know for a fact it’s a generational curse. A generational curse is a habit or some type of behavior that has been passed down from one generation to another and typically doesn’t break until someone in that family line changes that specific habit for good. Most curses break when the caster of the curse dies but generational curses are so strong that, even after the caster dies, the curse continues to infect the entire bloodline. For example, there might be a family where only women develop alcoholism, or all first-born males die before age 50. In my family, we come from a long line of lower middle-class working people who seem to miss those opportunities to make me an heiress. The details of this family rumor are foggy at best and there’s not much concrete evidence (well, none really) to prove its validity. So, what had happened was that in the early 1900s, my dad’s great-grandfather, Henry M Billings, worked in a little chocolate shop in Upstate New York called Merkel’s Chocolate. One day, he invented a puffy rice (kind of like Rice Krispies) that had a delightful crunch to it. On a whim, he tossed the puffy rice into some melted chocolate and made a chocolate bar. He gave a piece to his boss who loved it so much that he stole the recipe and sold it to Nestle. That, my dear friends, is how we have the Nestle Crunch Bar. Now, a quick Google search tells the story of the Crunch Bar in a similar way, but it’s of course from the Nestle corporation’s perspective. Maurice Michaud was working at the main chocolate production facility for Nestle in Upstate New York, roughly around the same time frame, and he would routinely bring home chocolate pieces from the factory, add the puffed rice and give it out to family. One day, Maurice brought this chocolate concoction to the factory to share with coworkers and the treat was so delicious that everyone from line workers 20

to managers wanted the recipe. It’s not that big of a stretch for some large candy corporation to take a regular person’s story and manipulate it so that it fits their own product story. This next instance is a little more believable. My grandfather used to work on Wall Street in the 1970s and was presented with an investment opportunity. There was a silver mine that was predicted to do really well, or he could invest in a little up-and-coming juice company. I didn’t really know my grandfather too well as a child, but what I do remember is that he was a very intelligent and hard-working man. According to my dad, my grandfather scoffed at the mere idea of investing in a juice company. “Who would waste their money on juice?!” he would passionately say with his fists in the air as lightning struck somewhere in the background. This was also in the ‘70s when Tang and milk reigned supreme. So, my grandfather did what any logical man would do and invested in the silver mine. Within a year, the silver mine was shut down due to permits not being renewed (or something like that) and the little juice company is now known as Snapple. My dad, uncle and aunt share an annual check of about half a penny from the silver mine. What could someone do that would constitute such a terrible curse? I’m so glad that you asked, and I must say it was quite the scandal. It was 1870 and the Billings were a very prominent and wealthy Protestant family living in a big townhouse in the Upper East Side of New York City. When I tell you that these Billings were wealthy, what I really mean to say is that they were stupid wealthy. Like “spend your money on the most ridiculous stuff and still have enough money to jump into a swimming pool of cash like Scrooge McDuck or buy your own rocket ship that hovers in the clouds for a few minutes” wealthy. One day, James Billings met a woman named Emma (last name unknown) and fell absolutely head over heels in love with her. Emma was the moon and stars that filled James Billings’s galaxy. He had never heard such a laugh that filled the world with a beautiful, gentle melody, or how he couldn’t stop writing poetry about his heart thumping out of his chest at just the mere thought of beautiful Emma. She was just as madly in love with James, and normally this would be the part where the lovebirds get married and all that good stuff. Unfortunately, the one-and-only problem with this lovestruck romance was the same problem in many relationships, past and present: the mother. When James told his family about his future engagement to Emma, the only thing that his mother could think of was how her sweet angel of a boy could fall in love with the likes of…her. James was handsome, educated, and from a long line of money, while Emma was an Irish Catholic immigrant who also happened to be the maid. Poor people, am I right? 21

Mommy dearest did what any hater would do—she gave James an ultimatum. She told James that he could either end the relationship with the Irish gold digger and have his choice of any of the eligible vapid socialites of the Upper East Side, or he can marry the trollop and spend his life living in poverty as he would be cut off from his family, the wealth, and the whole world at his feet, and spend the rest of his life in poverty. James made the easiest decision of his entire life, and packed up his personal belongings and left to begin his life rich with love with Emma. I believe that the moment James Billings gave his rich family the middle finger and left his life of wealth and luxury was the exact moment this dark financial curse began to slowly poison its way down my family bloodline. Today, I stared at my paycheck just pending in my bank account and wondered how would someone break this type of a curse? Do I have to fall in love with someone and then reject them for money? Just get rich? Sounds easy enough. I guess for now I’ll just impatiently wait for my paycheck to deposit into my account and resist the urge to add things to my Amazon cart.

Rosemarie Billings is a student and writer from Lawton, OK. She grew up with a wanderlust that she could only satisfy with reading and currently enjoys writing about nature, whimsical things and memories from her childhood experiences. She is currently working towards getting her Bachelor of Arts in English with emphasis in Creative Writing and when Rosie does have some free time, it’s usually spent finding ways to mildly annoy her cat, Sir Hans Ludwig or getting lost in daydreams. She is currently working on a series of poems about nature, fairies and childhood experiences.

America Faces the Nuclear Age by Carie Schneider 23

The Burns by Makenna Hill The leather seat burns my thighs. Waves dance over the asphalt. Silence burns my ears outside of the hum of the AC. Sweet sorrow fills my soul when I see that this is the end. It should be. Your words turn hollow. My nail polish falls in flakes as I scratch it off. You’re holding out, but why? I know enough to leave before my eyes start to burn. The song fades into the heat of blazing summer. My heart is on fire. I’m alive for the first time in years. Sprouts of little flowers rise from my ashes. Tears flow down replenishing the growth. The burns are over. I finally am free.

Makenna Hill is a senior at Cameron University who will be completing her Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Language Arts in December of 2023. At Cameron, she is a PLUS scholar, vice president of Cameron’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, and a writing tutor. In April of 2023, she presented a research paper at the annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). She enjoys reading and writing about feminist writers and about nature. In her free time, she spends time with her family, friends, and dog Apollo, watching movies, reading thrillers and classics, and learning new things all while drinking tea.

Festival by Shannon Truax I’m admiring handmade ceramic mugs neatly displayed under a canvas tarp live music is playing in the background, and it includes a fiddle a mixture of smells of grilled onion burgers and popcorn slide under my nose people are milling around- some with dogs on leashes—not really aimed towards any direction have to watch where you step, rains came early morning, grass is damp and puddles waiting to catch shoes it is barely noon and plastic cups are being filled with foamy beer parking has shifted from pavement to grass as the storm clouds scatter and the sky turns blue I realize I’ve been wandering for a bit now and slip my hand in my back pocket to check my phone a text message says, ‘look to your right’, so I do through the crowd of locals and tourists—young and old, human, and canine my eyes search and I see you across the meadow standing there watching my every move we slowly walk towards the other meeting halfway near the first aid tent your eyes say to me that you are ready as mine return the thought we turn in unison back towards the parking area against the sea of people coming, we are leaving at the truck you open my door and I slide up onto the seat nothing but the clicking of seat belts and the sound of the engine starting the windshields that were on when we arrived scraping the now dry windshield as you put the truck in reverse, I know that you belong to me, and I belong to you.

Here Be Monsters by Paul Juhasz The world was all before him. Or that’s how it seemed to Miles, standing at the edge of the old woman’s back yard, vast, fulsome, and green. He filled his lungs with the foreign smell of fresh-cut grass, laced with just a fecund hint of manure from an unseen farm, and smiled. An adventure lay before him. The verdant acreage seemingly unlimited. Cutting across the back quarter, a gently-rolling creek, its singing susurrus a lullaby. And, if he could figure a way to cross the creek without getting his new Skechers with the flashing LED lights he had begged his mom for months to buy wet, there was the woods beyond. And beyond that? Who knew? At the edges of the maps of the old explorers, the ones whose names were invocations to Miles—de Soto, de Gama, Magellan, Pizarro—were labeled with admonitions and warnings: Here Be Monsters; or, Here Be Dragons when they wished to be more precise. How Miles loved to read of these men, these conquering heroes, in his World Book Children’s Encyclopedia, how he internalized the rhyme, “In the year 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” as if it was an incantation, how he longed to find a world of his own, unexplored and far away. And here it was. Vast, fulsome, and green. Miles once again breathes deep and smiles. He takes his first steps toward the creek, and beyond the creek, the woods, and beyond that? Who knew? The world was all before him. Where to choose? “We’re going to have a little adventure, you and I,” his mother said the night before, hastily throwing clothes into his roller suitcase, the one emblazoned with Buzz Lightyear and his bravado catch phrase: “To Infinity, and Beyond.” She was packing like it was a game, like she was trying to beat a specific time. Chasing a record. In the rush of excitement and novelty, Miles failed to notice things, small details, details that his nineyear-old brain wouldn’t understand, but which would be stored in memory, parsed over, analyzed from the wizened perspective of Miles-as-adult, details like his mom’s shaking hands, her subtle movements to keep the left side of her face from view. Miles-the-child failed to notice these things. Instead, Miles-the-child asked, “Is Daddy coming?” “No,” his mother answered, perhaps a bit too quickly (although this too Miles-the-child missed). “Your Daddy is not coming with us. This adventure is just for you and me.” And for some unexamined reason, this satisfied Miles. And so, he helped his mother pack, helped her beat that specific time she seemed to be chasing. They drove through the dark night, down back roads, his mother marking the occasion as special with a 26

stop at a roadside convenience store, buying Miles a candy bar and a chocolate milk. Miles chewed the Snickers bar, drank the milk, slowly, savoringly, honoring the rareness of it. Then, despite the sugar rush, despite the novelty of the night, Miles fell asleep, his head pressed to the car door window, against which the reflection of headlights against the roadside reflectors were reflected back. When Miles awoke, it was day again. Had been for a few hours, but just. The car was parked beside a large blue house fading to grey, the color of a day-old bruise. His mother gave Miles a shakily-propped smile, a look that seemed laden with import beyond him. “Here we are,” she said, in a voice that seemed hollow, emptied of certainty. The old woman, in a denim dress broken only by a white strip of cloth used as a belt, let them in, gestured them into what she called “her parlor,” offered Miles gumdrops from a crystal bowl. “I know it’s early,” she said to his mother, “but after all.” Miles was disappointed to find that no matter the color of the gumdrop, it was licorice-flavored, the flavor of staleness; like the old woman’s dress, of a by-gone era, a taste faintly reminiscent of dust. There was talk of paperwork. The old woman said “and of course, we don’t use real names here.” His mother spoke with the caught-breath of holding something in, something back. There were periods of silence. After one of these, the old woman suggested Miles go outside, explore the backyard. Before the door closed, the old woman added an admonition to be careful near the creek. But that’s where Miles eventually found himself. At first, he just ran around in the vast greenness of the lawn, luxuriating in its vastness, its greenness, things Miles had only dreamed about, things so novel, so foreign. But then, Miles was at the creek. Not for the sake of the creek, but for what lay beyond. He was old enough to know there were no elves in the woods beyond, but still young enough to regret this knowledge. There would be animals in there, though. Animals that, if he was quiet, and patient, he might see. The wildest animal he ever saw at home was an over-urbanized squirrel racing across the chain-link-fence surrounding the dust-choked rectangle back lot behind the townhouse that until yesterday . . . But who knew what wonders he could see in these woods? Deer, certainly; maybe a porcupine, or even a hippogriff. No! he chided himself for his foolish, childish forgetfulness. Not a hippogriff. There are no such things. So, not a hippogriff, but maybe, Miles thought in a spirit of mollification, maybe a leopard. Miles stood at the water’s edge, worrying about how to cross. How would Pizzaro or Balboa or de Leon handle such an obstacle? But before Miles’s imagination could retrofit the facts and figures from his 27

encyclopedia into an answer, something caught his eye. Something metal, blinking in the morning sun. An old fishing net, rust-mottled, artificial-green nylon webbing mostly frayed. Mostly. There was still enough netting intact to encourage Miles to grab the handle, dip the webbing into the creek, and run along its shore. At first, he was unsure if he’d catch anything. Then, with the stubborn, recidivist optimism of youth, he was unsure what he’d catch. A frog, maybe, or a fish. Maybe a whale. Yes. That was it, Miles thought to himself. I’ll catch a whale. The unacknowledged impossibility of such a thought made him run a little faster. Miles ran. He ran as if he was trying to beat a specific time. He ran as if chasing a record. He ran until he was out of breath, and could run no more. Then he pulled out the net to see what he caught. Miles did not catch a frog. Nor was there a fish in his net, unexpectedly thrust into an intolerable, unsustainable environment and gasping for breath. And Miles most certainly did not catch a whale. But he did catch something. There, tangled in the mostly-frayed artificial green netting, was a monster. Armored and clawed, the faded red of a scabbed-over wound. Eight spindly legs writhed, as if a second creature was trapped underneath, desperate to flee. Its two unearthly eyes stared up at Miles, giving nothing back. Two antennae, protruding just above the creature’s churning mandibles (a word Miles had only a theoretical knowledge of via his World Book Children’s Encyclopedia), waved wildly like a demented conductor’s baton, or a switch cut to fit a punishment. To either side of these, over-sized claws flapped and clapped in dreadful applause. Miles’s thoughts—if thoughts they could be called enmeshed in such horror—were of parasitic blooddrinkers, of demons and devils, of the warnings and admonitions scrawled onto the edges of maps. He drops the net as if stung. As it floats down the creek with its monstrous rider, Miles runs back to the house. He is desperate to tell his mother that such hideous, horrible creatures exist. Although, as he runs in his now wet and grass-stained Skechers with the flashing LED lights, he somehow understands that she already knows.

Paul Juhasz was born in western New Jersey, grew up just outside New Haven, Connecticut, and has spent appreciable chunks of his life in the plains of central Illinois, in the upper hill country of Texas, and in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. Most recently seduced by the spirit of the red earth, he now lives in Oklahoma City. A graduate of the Red Earth M.F.A., his work has appeared in several literary journals, most recently Concho River Review, Poetry Quarterly, Oklahoma Review and Main Street Rag. He has been serving as curator and coordinator of the Woody Guthrie Poets since 2020. His first book, Fulfillment: Diary of a Warehouse Picker—a mock journal covering his six-month stint in an Amazon warehouse—was published by Fine Dog Press in 2020. His second book, Ronin, a collection of (mostly) prose poems—also published by Fine Dog Press—was named a finalist for the 2022 Oklahoma Book Award in poetry. His second collection of poetry, The Inner Life of Comics, was published by Turning Plow Press in the fall of 2022.

7 by David Bublitz 29

Artist Statement These found poems draw their inspiration from David Morrell’s novel First Blood, and the visuals are inspired by select stills from the First Blood film starring Sylvester Stallone. When recounting his time in combat during Operation Desert Storm for the U.S. Army, my father said it was the Vietnam veterans who taught him how to survive. Those Vietnam veterans learned from the veterans who came before them. The purpose of my work is to explore this lineage of combat and to resist the culture of silence associated with combat veterans and mental health. After uncovering the poems, I created all of the artwork using Adobe Photoshop (primarily the pen tool). Morrell, D. (2017). First Blood. Grand Central Publishing.

David R. Bublitz is the son of a veteran. He completed an MFA at the Oklahoma City University Red Earth program. He is a 2015 Pangaea Prize finalist, a Naugatuck River Review narrative poetry contest finalist, and a founding editor of Oklahoma City University’s graduate literary magazine, the Red Earth Review. His first book of poems, Combat Pay, was published through Main Street Rag Publishing Company in March 2020. He has also published poetry in CONSEQUENCE Magazine; O-Dark-Thirty; f(r)iction; Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks; and Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors. 30

The Occipital Lobe Exercise by Durell Carter There’s rain on the windshield And there’s a home for the excitement A Friday brings, burrowed under tires And oil and the roadkill That is yet to unexist. There’s Thursday optimism in a can Of whatever caffeinated bad habit I’m believing in and A fellow traveler I’ve never known is in the car behind me staring at the mist That is ahead of us. The unknown We both believe in acknowledging but exalt With the gusto of a 7 am road zombie. There’s a beautiful home where my thoughts Make sense to me, and I’m currently not sitting on its couch. I am awake, my highway neighbor might be too, But the rain on the windshield won’t let them know The man that is living for any Friday With an “hopefully I’ll stop drinking this bullshit someday” Screaming in his chest.

Durell Carter is a writer and a teacher who lives in Oklahoma. He graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a graduate degree in English. He currently serves as director of education for Red Dirt Poetry. He has work published in Drunk Monkeys, petrichor, Fauxmoir, Midway Journal, and others. You can find more of his work on his website durellcarter.org. 31

Lost Lake by Cullen Whisenhunt Littered with lily pads less the blooms but still a steep oak leans over for a better look its leaves adding with each wind-ripple shimmering circlets of green Meanwhile fishing line flosses blackjack and brush along the grinning bank bark rolls like smoke -paper ash dust dirt swept clean of campsite mix with loam of maple trees fall-dropping great splotches of red pink yellow brown orange 32

for me to shamble on lost but liking what I see

Cullen Whisenhunt is a graduate of OCU’s Red Earth MFA program, and his work has been included in Dragon Poet Review, The Bamboo Hut, and The Ekphrastic Review, among other journals. He has also published two chapbooks of poetry with Fine Dog Press. He helps to organize poetry events with the public library in McAlester, OK, and co-hosts the Lost Street Poetry Series in Durant, OK.

America Faces the Nuclear Age by Carie Schneider 34

Wars and Rumors of Wars by Vicki Russell Myers They say World War II officially ended September 2nd, 1945. For Ester Meir, like many other women, it would never end. Ester would be haunted by unimaginable atrocities every waking hour of her life. At the Krakow Ghetto she witnessed and experienced unforgettable acts of savagery. Her sleep gave her no reprieve. At bedtime the nightmares overtook her and she felt paralyzed, as if she was drowning in viscous suffering. Reading Matthew 24:6, in the Christian New Testament, made her breakout in a cold sweat. She understood it to mean that wars and rumors of wars would take place, yet they would not bring the end. She was beyond ready for the end and yearned for it to come quickly. Thanks to Dr. Jakub Per Anders, suicide was no longer a daily option for her. With his help, she constantly kept suicidal thoughts at bay. That very moment she was sitting in the Suicidal Pavilion for Women in Vienna, Austria, waiting for her session with Dr. Per Anders. As if she was fully there, her mind suddenly took her back to the Podgorze District, to the Krakow Ghetto. She saw the ghetto walls built of barbed wire and stones shaped like Jewish gravestones. Inside the walls were four heavily guarded gates, three on the east side and one on the westside. The German military and the Polish Blue Police reveled in their acts of barbarism toward any Jewish person, man, woman, or child, who unwittingly ventured toward the gates. The guards brutalized them to death or near death with rifles, pistols, pokers, canes, knives, bayonets and whips. The women and girls often received double doses of brutality by being shamed, stripped of their tattered clothing, and sexually attacked. They were often raped in view of everyone, as guards cheered and Jews, men and women alike, turned their backs to the painful brutality. Such brutality was used by the Nazis to further demoralize the Jewish people and take away any hope they might be desperately clinging to. The Krakow Ghetto covered 50 acres. It was established March 3rd,1941 on the southern side of the Vistula River. Thirty streets were developed. Twenty thousand Jewish people were forced to live in the Ghetto. Streetcar tram lines ran through all four gates, but the streetcars never stopped. There was an assembly point near the west gate in front of Optima Factory between Wegierska Street and Krakow Street. People were forced to gather at the assembly point. They were shot, beaten to death, tortured, raped, and mutilated. The ones who survived the inhumane treatment and torture were transported to concentration camps and gas chambers where mustard gas was sprayed on them, or exhaust gas was piped into the gas vans. Zgody Square was an assembly point near the northeast gate where Jews were assembled before deportation to Auschwitz. A labor office and an infectious disease hospital were next to the east gate, north of the gate. In truth, the hospital was a place where people went to die. Euthanasia was the predominant cause of death. Ester witnessed women unwillingly 35

receiving abortions. She, herself, had been ruthlessly raped and impregnated by a Nazi officer, known as The Butcher. In one fell swoop she lost her virginity, her innocence, and her spirit to live. She hid her pregnancy but once it was discovered by the Blue Police, she was taken to the hospital and forced to have an abortion without benefit of anesthesia or pain killers. While there, she observed many women receiving abortions which resulted in their deaths. She felt as if her soul slipped away when she observed a vivisection of a Jewish girl pregnant with twins. Watching the begging girl and her baby twins being dissected alive pushed Ester over the edge to insanity. All abortions in the Krakow Ghetto were performed to protect the offending German soldier or Nazi officers. It mattered not if the mothers of the aborted babies lived or died. Public baths, a Jewish Aid Agency, a ghetto prison, a police station, and ZOB, the Jewish Fighting organization headquarters were a part of the Ghetto. Three hundred and twenty, one or two story, buildings were built. All windows facing the Aryan side were bricked up. Four families had to share one small apartment. Many lived in the streets and were targeted for the worst kind of brutality. Those, living on-the-streets, spent most of their time cowering and hiding from the guards, Nazis, the Gestapo and the Polish Blue Police. They knew, without a doubt, if confronted by those in charge, they would most likely be beaten, kicked, stabbed to death and even have their intestines eviscerated. Few of them survived such an encounter. They didn’t even trust their former Jewish friends, for fear of being betrayed by one of them. On September 6, 1939, Nazis entered Krakow and began the occupation. Krakow was inhabited by approximately 70,000 Jews. Persecution of Jews began almost immediately. All synagogues were closed and the Jewish people had to wear Star of David armbands and work where they were assigned. Starvation efforts were started throughout Krakow. The Nazis stole all their property and belongings. Mass shootings of the Jewish intelligentsia; the teachers, rabbis, priests, physicians, civic officers, and the upper class were conducted. All organizations operated under the Gestapo. In 1941, Ester joined all the other Jews forced to live in the Krakow Ghetto. However, she was there by design, so escape was not a consideration for her. She was a secret service agent for the Polish Underground State formed by the resistance organizations, including Akiva Group and ZOB. She worked in the Eagle Pharmacy in Zgody Square. It was owned by a Polish pharmacist who received special permission to sell medication to Jews 24/7. It became the center of contraband in the ghetto and the central meeting place for the surviving intelligentsia. It was used as a hiding place for people to prevent them from deportation to death camps. Medication was provided free to Jews and food was smuggled to them. Without exception, all people living in the Krakow Ghetto were thirsty and starving. Food, fresh water and warm blankets were the most 36

sought-after commodities. Secret information flowed in and out of the pharmacy. Ester’s job was to gather intelligence for Tish Oldman, a leader, courier, and smuggler for the ZOB. Tish became Ester’s dearest friend. Sadly, Tish Oldman was captured by the Nazis, tortured in unimaginable ways, and brutally murdered three days later, on May 29th, 1943. She was a trusted agent of the Jewish Combat Organization. Most of Ester’s time had been spent on the pharmacy roof observing and gathering information for Tish. Ester forever proclaimed her pride at being one of Tish Oldman’s many sources. As Ester sat and waited for her turn to meet with Dr. Jakub Per Anders, she recollected his life. He was a true Holocaust hero and a survivor. He married Miryam Abrams in 1941. She was forced by the Nazis to abort their first child, a baby boy. She died in the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp. She and Jakub were arrested in 1942 and sent to concentration camps. Dr. Per Anders was moved between three camps, including Auschwitz where he remained 3 years. His father was also at Auschwitz and died within four months of being imprisoned. His brother, also at Auschwitz, died of starvation and gangrene in a gunshot wound, shortly after his father died. Dr. Per Anders helplessly witnessed both painful deaths. To his deep sorrow, he learned his mother was killed in a gas chamber. Upon capture, Dr. Per Anders had been forced to destroy his unpublished manuscript, The Spirits and the Message. He claimed to have survived due to a sense of purpose, to find his young wife and to complete another manuscript he had been working on. He was released in 1945 when the USA soldiers freed the Auschwitz captives. By that time, he was a mere skeleton with little meaning to go on except for his wavering purpose to live. He soon discovered his wife, Miryam, had died years before, shortly after her capture, in the cruel camp where she had been deported. He gave thanks to God that he had not learned of her death earlier, for he would have surely died. In 1946, he re-wrote The Spirits and the Message, and then completed Rescued by Human Will and Courage. Ester was but one of the young women who endured rape, torture with pokers, and unspeakable acts. She could still hear the Nazi soldier’s animal-like grunts, smell his rancid breath, see his demonic, twisted face and feel the sharp stabbing pain in her private parts. He permanently damaged her both physically and emotionally. Thankfully, soon she would hear Dr. Per Anders voice which would help her extinguish some of the unbearable, searing pain of wretched memories and the knowledge that September 1, 1939, was the worst day of her life. Ultimately, it stole all her innocence and desire to truly live. It was the first day of World War II. As it was now her turn to see Dr. Per Anders, a world renowned psychiatrist and scientist, she knew he would give her the strength to live another day. She was his patient by lucky chance or a miracle. She agreed with Dr. 37

Per Anders that the best of them did not return, for they were the ones who gave away their last morsels of food, pieces of wool blankets, and precious rations of water, as well as defended those being tortured. The good ones died due to sacrifice and acts of inhumanity bestowed on them for retaining their human hearts and compassion for others. Ester’s search for meaningful reasons to live was an endless journey. Dr. Per Anders taught her the one thing which could not be taken from her was her choice of attitude about her horrific life experiences. It was time for Ester to leave the Suicidal Pavilion for Women to care for Emma, the half-crazed, aged mother of seven children who carried teeth in her tattered pockets. She jingled the teeth as if they were precious coins and treasured them with her whole heart. She took great pride in describing each tooth. They were given to her by a Nazi monster who had tortured and mutilated her seven children to death with his bayonet. He had pried out their teeth,before their bodies were thrown in trenches and burned. He craved for the moment he could cruelly place the bloody teeth in the hands of the woman who gave birth to all seven of the children he had so brutally destroyed. He even envisioned the blood smeared teeth over-flowing from the woman’s hands, as she shuffled to rescue them from the dirt. What he had not anticipated were the words of gratefulness flowing from her soiled, trembling mouth and the thankful look in her sorrowful, tear-stained eyes. To his deep dismay, he had not completely broken her, so he struck her in the face with the butt of his German rifle. She collapsed unconscious, and was left for dead. However, during the nighttime hours she regained consciousness and crawled to an alleyway where she hid herself away from savage eyes. She lived on the streets, in a brain damaged fog until Ester rescued her and placed her in an abandoned, rat-infested room. Ester poisoned all the rats and made the ‘cubby-hole of a space’ at least livable compared to the perils of living outdoors, in the ghetto streets. Ester was able to keep herself and Emma alive throughout their tormented experience in the Krakow Ghetto from 1941 to March 16, 1943. From March 13th to March 16th, 1943, the Schutzstaffel (SS), a paramilitary organization under Hitler and the Nazi Party, and the police authorities, operating under the Gestapo, liquidated the Krakow Ghetto. During the operation, the SS killed over 2000 Jews in the ghetto and transferred another 2000 Jews, the members and families of the Jewish Council and the Krakow Ghetto Police Force to Plaszon. The SS and the Police transported approximately 3000 more Krakow Jews to AuschwitzBirkenau, where the camp authorities selected 499 men and 50 women for forced labor. The remaining 2450 people were annihilated in the gas chambers. Through divine intervention or by sheer luck Ester and Emma were selected for forced labor. During the selection process, Ester warned Emma to stand slightly behind her and to remain quiet. Emma stood like a statue except for quietly rattling the teeth in her pockets. Thankfully, no 38

one noticed Ester and Emma beyond inspecting them for their ability to work. They were viewed as if they still had enough strength to work in the labor camps, at least for an amount of time worth sparing their lives until they became too weak to benefit the Nazi cause. Ester was identified as a young woman and Emma was seen as a sturdy woman; however, both were emaciated and skeletal in appearance—as were all the captured Jewish people.They were exceedingly grateful they had lost their physical beauty, which helped keep them from being tagged as sexual fodder. Both women were transported by train to the Dachau Concentration Camp in Upper Bavaria in Southern Germany. As they watched the landscape pass them by, each individually wondered how such a beautiful place could be infested with hate, death, barbarism, and complete inhumanity. Once they reached Dachau and were processed, Ester knew it would not take long for Emma to be deemed unfit to live. Her mental disturbances were undeniable and she could not refrain from jingling the teeth in her pockets and describing them to any Jewish person willing to listen. Ester knew she must devise a plan of escape for Emma and herself. They eluded their captors easily, for they were not, by fear, blackmail or intimidation, compelled to stay. Both women had no loved ones left behind which could be brutalized and murdered as punishment for their escape, for their family and friends had already been ripped from them and destroyed. Ester and Emma found their freedom from the Nazis and were thankful for it; however, neither of them allowed themselves to become deluded enough to believe their minds would ever escape the atrocities they both endured and witnessed. Eventually, their stories became testimonies to help forge the way for a modicum of justice to be restored in humanity. To do so gave them fractured meaning to continue living and have hope to love and be loved again. Dedicated to Frank Myers and his extraordinary mother, Emma. Vicki Russell Myers, of El Reno, OK is a registered nurse who has practiced nursing for over 40 years. She is known to say, “If anything, I am a nurse.” She is co-founder of Russell-Murray Hospice, Inc. (RMH), a nonprofit program, established in 1988, named in memory of her father, John Russell, who died at age 57 yrs., of a terminal condition. She serves as executive director of the four RMH offices, which are in El Reno, Kingfisher, Weatherford and OKC. Apart from her nursing degree, Vicki holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Ethics and Religion from Mid America Christian University. She completed a Palliative Care Course of Study in London and Scotland through the Queens Institute in UK and became a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist from a Nationally Accredited School of Hypnotherapy. She counts her career paths in psychiatric nursing, home health and hospice nursing as her most rewarding professional experiences. Those fields of nursing have allowed her to practice in-depth psychosocial nursing and leadership skills which she identifies as her true professional strengths. Her passions lie in promoting palliative care, preventative health, suicide prevention, and mental health care in the State of Oklahoma. Being a positive influence, on family, young women and others in her life, matters a great deal to her. Doing her part to help improve the state of health in Oklahoma is important to her. Vicki’s hobbies include writing, collecting Native American art, cultural and religious studies, politics, and nature. She is an animal lover. Caring for and loving the three little dogs, Sky, Stormy and Marco, in her ‘every day’ world gives her balance and perspective.

Fern’s Cafe by Shannon Truax Fern grabs her keys and heads out the door knowing it is way too early for anyone to set feet on the floor, yet she shuffles her feet in her shoes – brown and broken in. The sun not yet peeking above the mountain range, and once again, the morning tea was made but left idly on the counter to wait until she returns at end of day. The Volkswagen needs time to warm up, but she’s got to get headed down the lane and the rains made the front garden a giant puddle again, so she goes back inside the utility room for her wellies. There’s a cacophony of bird songs breaking the pre-dawn silence. She knows that loaves of sourdough lie in wait to bake, and she can still smell yesterdays in her hair. The old waist apron already tied upon her – it’s a wonder if she ever removes it, except for sleep and washing day. She drives up to the back, unlocks the door, and flips the light switch. Staring around the kitchen, tugs her hair back and fastens a quick chignon. Fires up the oven and grabs the flour jar following Mum’s recipe just like she was taught. The tables are dressed in fresh cloths, and she writes on the board with the broken chalk, “Special of the day: Shepherd Pie with Lamb.” The worn shades are pulled up then she straightens her frock. It’s half past eleven in this country village and she’s created a menu of traditional British cuisine. The blue-collar folks are already at the door for it is lunchtime at Fern’s Cafe.

10 by David Bublitz 41

Buried by Patricia Adhosy It happened all at once, we didn’t even have time to resist. We just adapted. More appropriately, we submitted and assimilated to our new way of life. Vacant bodies doing what we must to survive. Surviving was a privilege in those days. Our ancestors would be ashamed. We were void of any embarrassment at the time as emotions were not a necessity to survive. The only part needed is our bodies. Desensitized to our surroundings, we all became orphans that day no longer belonging to our families. We belong to them. What have we become? Her grandmother’s voice trails off as the click and slight hum of the blackout curtains rise up, ending the dream and darkness in the bedroom. The sun pours in the room, unveiling the vibrant colors of the room and its occupant. Deidre lies asleep in her bed surrounded by pillows and her large comforter. The room alerts the time of the rising sun. “Date: 20th June 2566. Time: 06:21 am.” Deidre yells out, “Shut up.” Attempting to cut off the automated alarm. It doesn’t work. “Date: 20th June 2566.” “Stop,” Deidre says firmly. The alarm doesn’t continue with this response. “Girl?!” Deidre calls out to her room’s automated voice command that she renamed, ‘Girl,’ an attempt to make their exchanges more personable. “Change the automated snooze command to ‘Shut up,’” Deidre states. The room responds, “Automated snooze command changed to ‘Shut up,’” Deidre lets out a sigh. The room is quiet once again. Downstairs her parents enter the dining room for their breakfast and morning coffee. Plates with their desired meal await them at their usual seats around the table along with fresh cups of steaming hot coffee: their desired morning drink. A folded newspaper also lies near their plates. They both pick it up and start reading their contents. The newspaper is a shell of what old paper newspapers looked like, only having a front page, back page, and the inside of those pages. The contents of the articles change in real time as the news is updated. Deidre tosses and turns in her bed trying to find the comfort she lost before her alarm went off. Accepting the first defeat of the day, she decides to get up and start her day. She flings the covers off of her and makes her way to her bathroom. The light automatically turns on in the room as soon as she steps inside. As she moves closer to the mirror, the vanity lights beam and written words appear. “I will succeed today.” “I can handle anything that comes my way.” She has it set so that affirmations, proverbs, and quotes run along the banner. She brushes her teeth, blankly looking at the mirror as they pass by, ignoring them as many of them 42

have become monotonous at this point. Her morning fatigue hasn’t worn off yet, and the tedious motion of moving her brush back and forth makes her muscles ache in her right arm. She places her non-dominant hand on the back of the dominant arm for support. This helps but the fatigue still remains. She glances at the round silver case lying on the counter. Deidre stops midbrush, placing her toothbrush in between her teeth so that she can free her hands to pick the case up. Even though she knows what is in it, she hasn’t opened it since her mother gave it to her three days ago. She opens the container and sees the automated toothbrush customized for her teeth. The automated toothbrush is shaped like a mouthguard but is lined with small bristles on top and bottom designed to brush all 28 of her teeth. She had her wisdom teeth removed right after her eighteenth birthday. She runs her index fingers across the automated tooth brush before closing it, placing it back on the counter. Fuck MS, she thinks to herself as she spits out the last remains of toothpaste and rinses her toothbrush off. A quote comes across the mirror that catches her eye. “In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? Is but a dream within a dream.- Edgar Allen Poe” Just then she recalls her dream. It wasn’t one of her normal insignificant dreams. This one was the last conversation with her grandma that played over and over. Now full of excitement, she heads downstairs to the living room. The kitchen and dining area are in the middle of her path from her room to the living room. A third plate of food appears with a cup of orange juice, signaling their daughter’s arrival before they even see her. Startling them, they both make eye contact. The father asks for the time, the room responds it’s 6:45 am. “Good morning,” Deidre yells out as she rushes by them. By the time they respond, she is in the next room. Upon entering the living room, she hears one of her grandma’s TV shows and sees her sitting in her recliner. She fights the urge to sit next to her grandma’s legs on the floor as she has done when she was younger needing the closeness of her, but she doesn’t want her grandma to think anything is wrong. Deidre takes a seat at the end of the sofa closest to her grandma’s chair. “Tell me more.” She rephrases as she doesn’t want to sound rude. “I mean can you read more of the entries to me, please?” Her grandma can feel her excitement and smiles. Her grandma won’t indulge her with any more entries until she eats her breakfast. Disappointed, she joins her parents at the dining room table. It took all of her control to not scarf down her food and return to the library. But she knew her parents would disapprove. Deidre bursts the yolk on her over-easy eggs and blends them with her hashbrown casserole. Her utensils clank on her glass plate loudly 43

disrupting the silence in the room. “Did you try your new toothbrush?” her mother asks out loud. Deidre knows that the question is directed at her. “No,” she says blandly, hoping not to trigger a response. “We’ll have to follow-up with the orthodontist if there are any issues or concerns regarding the fit,” her mother replies. She insists on using ‘we’ when she talked about her MS. She does this so Deidre wouldn’t feel alone in her fight but really Deidre knows she feels guilty about not getting her checked out sooner. Deidre’s weak ankles and joint pain was blamed on all the sports she played. She doesn’t blame her, but it was hard not to be annoyed by her concern. “I’ll try it out tonight,” Deirde says as assuringly as she could. Her mother nods then places her attention back on her newspaper. Diedre finishes her food then downs her orange juice in record time. She excuses herself then returns back into the living room. Her grandma is asleep, her head is slumped to the side, and the magazine she was busying herself lies disheveled on her lap. Deidre approaches her, removing the magazine and covering her with a sofa blanket that is always kept on the back of the couch. Deidre lets out a small sigh before going up to her room. *** Deidre takes her usual route from her house to the cafe downtown to meet her friends. Her grandma was still sleeping by the time she left, leaving her questions unanswered. She decides that it would be in her best interest to take her Segway 3.0, as she doesn’t trust her feet to get her there safely in this unresolved state. She places the machine in cruise control after selecting the cafe’s address as her destination. As she rides, she tries to get a handle on her thoughts. What is she going to ask her grandma when she makes it home this evening? How could she not know that there was more to their history? How could her school just skip over the most important detail in her history courses? The human factor. If her grandma’s ancestors documented everything that transpired, how many other journal entries are out there? And how many of those stories didn’t make it to a journal? The truth is now buried with them. By the time Deidre arrives at the downtown square, her thoughts are drowned out by the busyness of the city. The city’s background noise is filled from the sounds of running cars, people conversing, and hums from nearby machines. As Deidre waits at the intersection’s crosswalk across from the cafe, she can’t help but to pay attention to the lady she is near. The lady is having a video call with another woman without earbuds making the 44

conversation available for everyone within a 5 foot radius. “I just finished at Dr. Bridges,” the lady says, pointing to the bandage on the right side of her face. “Oh my goodness, I can’t wait to see it,” her friend replies. Both of them seem older than Deidre but not by much. “It looks so good. I love it!” the bandaged lady says. “Hold on. I’ll lift up the bandage so you can see.” She peels the bandage on the lower part of cheek and lets out a squeal of excitement. Deidre is able to catch a glance before she puts the bandage down. The bandage covers her newly grafted gold plated skin. It perfectly fills the once imperfect skin below giving the surface a smooth appearance. “It looks so good!” her friend responds. “I know so much better than the plant graft I had before and, the best part is I don’t have to go back to the doctor’s office for routine visits. The gold will last for the rest of my life.” The lady says excitedly. The crosswalks arrows light up signalling the crowds of people to walk. Deidre stays close to the lady, trying to hear the last bit of her and her friends’ interaction. “Did they have options besides gold?” her friend asks. “Yes. Gold, silver, rose gold, and titanium. I picked gold because it looks better with my skin tone. When I get back to my cubicle, I’ll call you in holographic mode so that you can feel it.” The lady’s voice trails off as she turns in the opposite direction of Deidre. Deidre reaches the front of the cafe as its entrance is not far from the intersection. She parks her Segway, and right across from her she sees a billboard above a nearby medical facility. Before and after pictures of clients appear. Some clients before pictures show their previous reptile skin or plant grafts and their after pictures show their newly augmented skin. “New skin grafting available now. Make your appointment for replacement and preliminary.” She notices how all the clients’ skin in their after picture look like the lady’s. Pretty and smooth. Upon entering, she notices Clara is waiting at their usual four-top. Clara, doesn’t notice her as she is enthralled in a pamphlet. “Hello,” Deidre says timidly. Clara looks up from her reading, “Oh, hi.” She stands, and they give each other a quick hug. “You’re early. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” Deidre states as she takes a seat right across from her friend. “I had a consultation.” Clara holds up the pamphlet so that Deidre can see. The pamphlet is from the 45

medical facility across the street. Its advertising is very similar to what she saw on their billboard. “Nice. So did you set up an appointment?” Deidre asks. “Not yet. I’m a little nervous. The results are beautiful but I don’t know. I just feel less…less.” Deidre finishes her sentence. “Human?” Clara chuckles. “It’s not that deep but for a lack of a better word, yes.” Clara lifts up her leg with the reptile graft. Poignantly looking at it. “I’m just going to miss Sherbert.” Clara fell in her treehouse when she was young. Her leg was caught in between the hole built around the tree, and it left a big wound on her leg. At the time, reptile skin grafting was all the rave as it was proven to help with the healing process. Clara chose Corn snake skin as she had a pet snake that recently died, and she wanted to honor him. Before the others arrive, Deidre takes the opportunity to tell her about the entries her grandma has read to her. Clara is her longest and closest friend, and most importantly, non-judgemental. Clara listens intently and without interruption—another trait that she appreciated about her friend. When Deidre finishes, “So have you ever been told stories like this?” “No but my family goes with the ebbs and flows of society. Blindly following.” Clara responds. “I never thought about that before, aren’t we all blindly following?” Deidre asks. Clara shrugs. “I don’t disagree with that. I mean look at me. I’m considering the latest surgical fad just because it’s shiny, new, and available.” “You know, my grandma said that gold and silver had value way back when.” Deidre animates the passage of time with a hand gesture. “Really? That’s weird.” Clara says surprisingly. “I wonder what else wasn’t taught in school.” After her visit with her friend, Deidre makes her way home. The evening sky makes the ride home more enjoyable.Being with her friends always makes her feel better, but now that she is alone with her thoughts, she can’t help but think about what is buried. And by who. And why. Why were their ancestors deemed an acceptable loss? Deidre’s nose begins to tingle, she grabs as if this motion would stop the tears from forming. Her eyes fill with tears, she doesn’t understand why, but all she knows is that she has to talk to her grandma. She knows her grandma will be in her room, getting ready for bed when she makes it home. That doesn’t stop her from asking her mom where grandma is when she comes in the door. Her mother responds, “Grandma Ruth is in her room. Don’t forget to sanitize your hands before going into her room.” Deidre doesn’t respond but does as she is told. She lightly knocks as she opens the door and enters. 46

“Grandma?” she calls out. “Yes, dear?” her grandma replies, oddly alert. Deidre tries not to be taken back by this and sits down by the foot of her grandma’s bed. “I can’t go another night without knowing. What happened? What was lost? What is not being said? Who is to blame?” Deidre stops there even though those are starter questions. However, based on grandma’s response. She asked the right questions. “Hand me my journal, sugar.”

Patricia Ahdosy, Junior, English Literature and Business major. 47

Ode to Red by Joseph Bichsel I. The clay is washed with the color of their blood. It soaked from their feet and leaked from their eyes and ran in streams to paint the water That cut them off from Texas. I was molded from the drowning riverbed and the land breathed into me, baked me dry from the inside and left me heavy with its guilt. Rust still runs through my veins. They hold me upright even as their legacy becomes the dust smeared into a crying wind. II. It becomes ink covering the page. I prick my finger and smear it through rhythms, Over images, across time. The paper is the color of my skin, a safer place for the scores of imperfection and perfection Dancing in my soul. What right do I to a man dying? My voice cannot save the orphan, trembling and cold, Who was driven at gunpoint across the Mississippi. III. I carry it in a bottle in my pocket. I save them for when my brain cries out, spinning from hills and bends where they might have died. Little cylinders I swallow with chapped lips because there is no water, only parched throats and waving grass whispering Goodbye and Hello. My great-grandmother gave up her name so instead I took my mema’s vertigo. 48

IV. I still see them sometimes, painting a sunset while I drive west on I-240. Their majesty is swallowed by the darkness and scattered to the spirits of the stars. Even their constellations have been forgotten For the legends of some old, dead gods. Once there was a proud and haughty people torn apart by illness, held hostage by false words drenched in alcohol, humiliated by white men with black powder. Their ghosts still bleed into the clay and linger in the soul.

Flycatcher by Makenna Hill Slicing through the sunset Chattering in the thick summer air Infecting the land with a natural allure Scarlet feathers you have match the bloody sunsets and Sky dances that entrance those all around. Oklahoma. Radiating nature in its purest form Taunting us with tales from the past All from your branch on that old hackberry If only you could understand the depth of the Lacerations you leave on our souls.

America Faces the Nuclear Age by Carie Schneider 51

An Answer by David J. Neumaier Clara lounged in her recliner, a mild consolation after her most recent tragedy. A wool blanket covered her arms and legs. She had donned looser clothing for the day: it was easier to wear and easier on her stomach. She and her husband, Jack, had made every effort they could to preserve this pregnancy. They were seven years into their marriage and had yet to have a child, though not for lack of trying. “How are you feeling?” Jack asked as he brought Clara a glass of water. The game show on the television made Jack’s voice mute in the ears of his wife. Only when she looked up did she notice he had asked a question. Assuming it was the same one he asked nearly every day since the bulge in her belly became noticeable, she answered, “Everything feels okay.” She rested her palm over her stomach. Seven months down, one and a half to go, she assured herself. They had been avoiding knowing much about the pregnancy, including the gender or anything, relying on Hope that their prayer would be answered. But I was sent here for another purpose. Unbeknownst to either of them, the child was already nearing death. A winner on the game show caused a smile to spread across Clara’s face. I placed my hand on her shoulder, and the smile faded. Jack was nearly to the kitchen. He had returned from work about an hour ago. Dinner had not even started, but he eagerly awaited the thawed steaks in the fridge’s meat drawer. “Jack,” Clara called from her chair, trying to force the footrest down and sit up. “Your cravings aren’t back, are they?” Jack responded. “I was going to make the steaks.” “No, Jack, it isn’t that,” she said. “I think I need to go to the hospital.” “What? Is everything okay?” he asked, the words barely articulated as they rushed from his mouth. Jack rushed to his wife’s side, cradling her hand in his. “I don’t know. I just have a feeling I need to go there.” Jack did nothing. “Now!” Jack stumbled back from his position and ran to the coat rack, retrieving from it his own coat and his wife’s. He helped her into the coat and wrapped the blanket around her front. The snow had nearly blocked him in this morning, and he could only hope that the roads would be safe. Slowly, but in hurried steps, he ushered her down the steps of their apartment complex to the passenger 52

seat of their only car. Clara gave a strange look to her husband when the passenger door opened. “Oh, sorry, still haven’t moved it since we got the crib,” he said, pushing the seat back so there was plenty of room. Once Clara was well situated, buckled and bundled in her blanket, Jack tread over the icy parking lot to the driver's side and climbed inside. Jack drove the key into the ignition and it sputtered. “Not now, not now!” he complained. I set my hand on the hood of the car and the ignition finished. The car roared to life. “Good job, Maggie!” Jack said, slapping the dashboard. The roads were fortunately unoccupied, allowing the drive to the hospital to be efficient. I managed to calm Jack enough to keep him from going too fast and causing the car to slide on the thin layers of ice. When they arrived safely, I went ahead to the check-in counter, which was empty for the moment, and placed a hand on the shoulder of a nurse who still had a few minutes of break left. She arrived at the counter to retrieve some documents the moment Clara and Jack stepped through the door. The nurse was ready to turn away and let someone else handle the job when Jack shouted, “My wife needs to see a doctor!” The nurse was glad the waiting room was otherwise empty, because the desperation in the man’s voice had convinced her that this truly was urgent. “What’s wrong?” she said, wheeling a wheelchair across the room when she noticed the woman’s belly. “How far along? Are you feeling any contractions?” “We’re not sure, but she’s in her eighth month,” Jack said. “I just got a sudden feeling that something was wrong,” Clara said honestly. “No contractions or anything.” The nurse led the couple to the delivery room, changed Clara into a hospital gown, and the doctor was with them within minutes. I had aided him in his diagnoses of his other patients and would aid him in this one. The doctor, with my hand upon his head, thought it best to begin with a cervical exam. It took less than a moment of his inspection to grab the room phone off the wall. “I need an O.R., now!” The stirrups that supported Clara’s legs were quickly collapsed and without another word to Jack, the doctor rushed with the woman to the first available operating room. She signed something on the basis the doctor said she needed to. Jack had been left stranded by the hospital staff, but not by my friends. I went with the doctors and nurses to the operating room and stood silently while the doctor began the procedure. Behind him, I guided his hands as they carefully cut her stomach open and delivered the child. She was crying, a joyful noise indeed. The doctor declared to the operating room the time of birth, “January twenty-fourth, seven-o-five p.m.” 53

The child was washed and placed in the NICU for the night. Clara was sown back up and her bed was carted back to another room where she would be able to stay the night. Jack soon followed, led by another nurse. When Clara came to after about an hour, the doctor explained, “You had a cord prolapse. The umbilical had slipped into your cervix and we had to perform an emergency C-section.” I do not understand how men can maintain such stoic faces, even when delivering happy news as the news he was preparing to say. But then the smile spread across his face, unable to contain such a joy for himself. “We safely delivered the baby girl–” “Is she alright?!” the couple exclaimed. “Yes,” the doctor said. “And it was a miracle no less that you thought to come here. The cord was in the cervix enough to cut off the necessary blood flow, but it is no wonder you didn’t know what was wrong when it happened as it was not very pronounced.” “Oh, thank God,” Clara said. With that, I knew my work was done, but what are a few more happy moments on Earth when eternity is at my disposal? “Can we see her?” Clara asked. “Of course,” the doctor said, “as I was saying, she’s in the NICU, and we’ll keep her there for the next day or so just to make sure everything is okay with her. It was an early delivery after all, but so far she seems perfectly healthy. Let me grab a wheelchair and I’ll show you the way.” The doctor did so, but Jack insisted upon pushing the chair. They arrived at the NICU and saw the newborn baby. She was swaddled in a rose blanket. Their silent prayers of thanksgiving and praise wisped their way through the air like incense. I gathered them, ready to usher them to their intended recipient. “Have you already decided on a name?” “We had gone over names for both boys and girls,” Jack said, resting his hand on Clara’s shoulder. Her hand rose to meet his. “Lucy Claire,” Clara said. Then, Clara looked at the doctor’s name tag, and I realized at that moment that he shared my name. “Thank you,” she said, “Dr. Raphael.”

David J. Neumaier: As for myself, I am presently a seminarian for the Diocese of Tulsa and Eastern Oklahoma. I have my Master of Arts in Catholic Philosophical Studies from Saint Meinrad and a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri. I grew up Catholic my whole life and lived in China for some time. I have self-published a book titled, Guardians of Aranor: Rebirth and am a published journalist. I also participate in St. Meinrad’s student publication, writing short stories. You can find my journalism portfolio and some short stories (not this one) here: https://davidjneumaier.com/

A Graveyard of Geese by Cullen Whisenhunt In this mist -drunk day dawning, they bed down between headstones, their own heads buried beneath their wings, their own bodies buried beneath the heat of being together. A few strays paddle a reflecting pool, feeding on bread crumbs of grief and kindness.

3 Short Writings By Shannon Truax Today I was in the shower and in the midst of shaving my legs, the name Somerset appeared in my thoughts. I immediately placed it as the writer Somerset Maugham although I could not for the life of me figure out why that would come to mind. I hurried out of the shower and into the office where I could jump on the internet and see what works Somerset Maugham had written that would be familiar to me, and as the way things often go with how the mind works, there really were not any. A case of pure happenstance I suppose. He actually was the editor for works more familiar to me such as David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick and War and Peace. I sat at my desk staring down the list of his books, short stories, and plays and with my chin firmly in the palm of my hand stared away trying to break down how my mind works. I suppose it is my own internet browser and, in an instant, I can recall countless pieces of information. Some make perfect sense, and some are useful only when solving a crossword puzzle, such as the case likely, with the English writer William Somerset Maugham, whom I apparently have a more personal relationship with that I may remember him as “Somerset”.

Today I thought how nice it would be to have a correspondent to send letters to, a pen pal, but less informal. Maybe someone that I do not even know but I could send letters and ask questions such as, “how do you feel about autumn” or “if you could experience a private concert by someone, who would it be’? I would not mind it if they did not reply, I’d rather prefer it as the answers might not suit me, and honestly, it is none of my business, but they could reply and ask me a question and make me think about something that I probably wouldn’t have on a particular Tuesday in April.

I woke up this morning and remembered there was a fourth of a baguette in my handbag. I put on my robe and slippers, went into the kitchen, and there it was—wrapped loosely in napkins inside my handbag. Remembering a similar moment about 10 years prior when I placed my hand down inside another handbag and surprisingly pulled out some warm and very old brie cheese I had forgot about. I wished I had them both at the same time so I could have a lovely picnic in the early morning sunshine.

Canyon Country (Oil on Canvas) by Joseph Bischel The sweat on his shirtcuffs Iron-pressed into steam by sunlight. Salted beads of nectar, dripping from the Navajo brow, staining the Navajo collar, watering the Navajo soil to sprout still withering blades of off-green grass from sand picked clean by sheep the color of clouds sailing across a sky so blue you could swear it had been painted. Hat tipped back, a monument to a land that never existed, where men rode saddle-stride like great swaths of blue jeans and plaid shirts and sparkling silver pistols on a landscape woven from the long grasses. The shadow of the mountains drift ever closer. Everything brushed gold and red by the setting sun. He closes his eyes and dreams of the wind, while white ewes nibble on the dust of the pop-art dime novels buried in the soil.

Mountain Trail by Cullen Whisenhunt Too high to hear the lap lap of lake water, but watch the wind below whip wave blips chopping at the roots of white bone sycamores lining silt sand beach. Perched atop this red rock cliff face, the world is all cerulean bluster, pale lichen, and the verdance of pines nuzzling each other as if for warmth or to whisper secrets into cracked-bark ears. Crow calls mingle with a lone dog barking into blue sky oblivion.

Story Prompt by Gina Welborn There must be something—a story, a thought. My mind sees nothing. What is less than naught? Black screen, movie scenes, yellow submarine, ’cross land, ’cross sea, it’s all unknown to me. Give me a token. The bulb is broken, lost in the ocean. Words left unspoken. Fifteen minutes— not enough time to write—yet I need to write. Yes, I need to write a story of should’ves, could’ves, and oughts. Tight lungs. No air. No thought. The band plays with the clock. Time’s a passing. Don’t you watch. The clock’s a ticking. The clock keeps ticking. It’s always ticking ticking ticking tock. There has to be something. Story new, story old, kangaroo, pot of gold. A white rabbit to chase, anxiety on lace, blank space, a smile on face. My mind is a disgrace. I cannot go forward, cannot go back, cannot breathe, cannot talk. Tick tock tick tock. Climb ladder, pitter patter, hopes scatter. A mental corrosion, mind broken, unchosen. No story, no spell, no escape, just hell. Every step, every rung riots breath from my lungs. Fifteen minutes— not enough time to write—yet I need to write. Damn, I need to write with a purple pen that scribbles and scratch, as fingers pound keys with clickety clack clickety clack clickety tippity tappity tap tap tap tap tap tick tock. No more scenes. No swords, sabers, knights, or queens. No more words or thoughts. Bombs sometimes go off. Dig for a story, dig, dig, dig. Don’t stop. A little jot can halt the ticking clock. There must be something. New story, new thought, yet my mind sees nothing. What’s less than naught? Is there something that can stop the tick tock? Stop thinking. Stop digging. Stop climbing. Shhh. Just stop. Just stop. Just stop and take a breath. Stop living life by someone else’s clock. Stop listening to the tick tock tick tock. Ignore bombs going off. You don’t need to write. Take a cruise in a yellow submarine. Save the child in the psychedelic dream. Grieve harder. Drop daggers. Hope matters . . . more than beating tick tock.

Gina Welborn is the author of twenty-three romances, having reached Publishers’ Weekly, ECPA, and Amazon bestseller lists. The Promise Bride, book 1 in A Montana Brides Romance Series, won Western Writers of America’s Best Historical Romance. She lives with her two catlings who grew up to be young ladies. Her hobbies do not include poeticizing cats (no, that’s a lie; she’s practically a cat poet). Learn more about her books at www.ginawelborn.net.

America Faces the Nuclear Age by Carie Schneider 60

Cameron University 2023 Illustrated by Dayton Horn