The Talon Fall 2015

the talon

the talon fall 2015 woodberry forest school volume 67, number 1

coleman, nolan, and chris| tiger wu | 18 x 24 inches | acrylic on canvas

editors

editors-in-chief david willis & rob prater evan backer poetry chris oldham art adrian cheung design editors-in-training photography jackson monroe prose kyle kauffman poetry max johns

poetry review

art review

prose review

ford boney, brian cho, eli levy, caleb rogers, jack sari, roy toston, tae min kim, richmond mcdaniel, bennett parks, junepyo suh, ward bissell, andrew jacobs

photography review

david gussler, andrew holmes, daniel japhet, jimmy king, jordan silberman, roy toston, maxwell barnes, james carrington, ben lytle, kj pankratz, clay tydings, jerry yan, michael deng, crawford humphreys, trip hurley

faculty advisors front and back cover design cover page art

title page art

sam carter, graham goldstein, henry hartmann, john pittman, win sompayrac, jared thalwitz, maxwell barnes, joshua diaz, ryan kacur, josh kearns, ben lytle, clayton noyes, rocco zaytoun, crawford humphreys, scott pittman david gussler, spencer goodwin, jordan silberman, lee caffey, d’angelo davis, hayes jiranek, greg manning, charles moorman, kj pankratz, rhodes smith, philip williams

karen and rich broaddus rob prater, chris oldham, david willis fizz | chris oldham | 6 x 4 inches | linocut print zeus | tiger wu | 8 x 11 inches | drypoint print

kikujiro | michael deng | digital photography

prose

12 it started with the pinkie

david willis | fiction

34 metamorphosis

stephen guo | fiction

55 the thing itself

john amos | nonfiction

20 the waltz

rocco zaytoun | fiction

40 joe shoes

carson becker | nonfiction

63 edward

cole dickinson | fiction

24 nine pounds nine ounces

ford boney | fiction

46 blackstone

chris oldham | nonfiction

76 obliviate

rob prater | fiction

30 her

jang woo park | nonfiction

poetry

86 letter from appalachia

sam carter | fiction

11 the devil’s deliverymen cole dickinson

42 skipping stones in iona 66 welcome to the future gus dupree sam carter

19 bienvenidos a medellin sam carter

45 dreams of china 中国 max johns

70 walker pond gus perdue

22 end of the line evan backer

48 guarding life philip williams

73 the outfielder 家 ben lytle

28 dream to fly hayes jiranek

53 skin on skin clayton noyes

78 running from the night richmond mcdaniel

29 lake jocassee rising jackson monroe

56 cracks and sparks spencer goodwin

79 solitude trevor barker

38 aisle 18 david willis

60 haiku caleb rogers

82 home

stephen guo

61 sleeping suburb evan bubniak

art

15 study of the hand

charles moorman

27 contrast

daniĂŤl trengove

65 wu ming shi

tiger wu

16 hakuna matata

tiger wu

35 reinvent yourself

maxwell barnes

71 day's end

charles moorman

17 jade merchant's daughter

greg manning

37 split cross

ward bissell

80 lollapalooza

spencer goodwin

21 let's bump

kelly lonergan

50 wet floor

rhodes smith

84 fifty miles

kj pankratz

26 newspaper man

jack perdue

51 believe

kj pankratz

88 space dunk

spencer goodwin

58 unity of two sides

james henckel von donnersmarck 62 knife

ward bissell

crazy fingers | greg manning | 47 x 30.5 inches | acrylic on cardboard >

buzz | jimmy king | digital photography

photography 44 peeping into utopia

michael deng

67 kandor

rob prater

18 the painting

jordan silberman

47 nordic yacht

scott gullquist

68 lower saddle

andrew holmes

23 up late

rob prater

49 when there's thunder

david willis

69 backburner sky

tilden winston

28 utopia analogia

jang woo park

52 sonnenblume

clay tydings

72 crisp as the rockies

rob prater

31 pool penne

david willis

54 clockwork

clay tydings

74 moms and their phones

jackson monroe

32 equadorian waters

shep sims

57 marsh

jordan silberman

75 road trip

kj pankratz

33 las grietas

trip hurley

59 don't touch me

clay tydings

78 pluto's city

rob prater

39 crystal waterfall

daniel japhet

60 pudong lampost

daniel japhet

83 july fourth, times square

junepyo suh

40 hanging on the line

clay tydings

61 dry creek

david willis

85 fifty miles

kj pankratz

10 roosevelt island

junepyo suh

43 summer day

kj pankratz

87 champ

andrew holmes

roosevelt island | junepyo suh | digital photography

the devil’s deliverymen by cole dickinson Billy Williams drowned this morning.

You never go swimming alone.

But Billy decided it was a good day for a swim in the evil river. I found his body cold and pale on the bank.

The engine hums solemnly in the still night.

I’m meeting the mortician at the end of the road.

Things are quiet; there is no breeze.

The man next to me is young—new to the trade.

He stares into the dark of the night, his hands clenched tightly on his lap.

The Spanish moss hanging from the old oaks claws across the top of the truck and over the black tarp in the back.

We crawl down the dirt path, rumbling until we reach the pavement that disappears into the darkness.

I cut off the engine and step out.

It’s hot and boggy.

My partner tugs at his collar.

A tall, black silhouette stands in front of us.

Creeping forward, he hands me the money when he spies Billy wrapped in black.

He gazes down at us, greets us with red eyes and a wide grin.

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it started with the pinkie fiction by david willis

T

he nurse had placed a tray on the bedside table, although it couldn’t really be considered such. Cold and metal, the station rolled through room after room, holding scalpels and scissors and suture kits. Now it held a tray. Curled up on its center in a neat, flat nest of paper towels were what looked like two metal spiders. With five legs instead of eight, these half spiders and their spindly, jointed limbs lay dead. But they weren’t metal spiders. The doctors who had done the operation knew that, and some of them even wished they had been.The boy whom they had operated on would wish that, too. For now though, he was asleep. He turned and tried to pull the sheets up. For some reason he couldn’t, so he shivered and was still again. Goosebumps washed over his body, pricking his hairs up.

The cursor of Microsoft Word blinked metrically at him—almost

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like it was batting its eyes, flirting.

Edmond didn’t flirt back; he had an empty page, and it needed to be filled. Julliard didn’t mess around.

In a college counseling meeting, he and his counselor had watched a girl audition for their theatre program. At least, she tried to audition. Five seconds into her monologue, Elizabeth’s from Frankenstein, the auditors “ahemmed” into their microphones and told her they “weren’t looking for girls.”

Then what were they looking for? If they turned an entire gender away just to meet a quota, they were harsh. He could still see the wet eyes between that poor girl’s fingers.

Those weren’t the only wet eyes he’d seen that fall. In the mirror in the bathroom of the Buell Theater: 2nd sink, first floor, 1350 Curtis Street. Edmond had met those same, desperate eyes—his— in the mirror. Gaunt, sunken bags

framed his nose, skin pulled down across his cheekbones in a tight frown: it was the face of failure. He had practiced all summer. How had he made so many mistakes? Where other kids had gotten tan, he had been getting ever paler.

But after months of preparing, Edmond made a crucial misstep: execution. The Denver School of the Arts Back to School Gala was supposed to launch him to the top of his class where he would graduate as the music program’s top performer with distinction—Summa Cum Laude. Instead it made him the subject of pity. Teachers applauded his risk; they had said he was “brave.” But behind every “You sure went for it!” or “I’m surprised you did that well for such a hard piece!” there was the same message—only fools rush in.

Edmond played the piece perfectly the day before, but

something about that piano—the felt on the hammers or the tension of the wires—and the theater and its seats and the hot breaths and hotter stares of a thousand people crippled him. It was all too much— the sweat on his knuckles, how tight his skin felt, his hands pallid and shaking, the veins popping, and the tendons rigid—so he messed up. Hallmarked by soaring octaves and big chords, Scriabin’s masterpiece fell flat under Edmond’s nervous hands. The notes rang through the space and then wilted.

Edmond jolted up out of the hypnotic lull induced by that stupid, blinking line. He raised his hands from the home row and looked at them. They were small and stubby like burnt cigars. A true pianist could cover almost 16 keys with a single hand outstretched. Running towards his keyboard, he splayed his fingers. Edmond pulled the webbing between them tight. He put his thumb on C and tried to crawl out to another with his pinky. Edmond couldn’t even grab another half step. It wouldn’t be some stupid, goddamn essay that would keep him from Julliard.

It would be his hands.

The clock on Edmond’s wall read 1:13 in the morning. It had been six hours. Edmond’s room looked like the hand of God had come down and flicked it. Framed

concert posters leaned up against the wall, cracked. Torn sheet music clung to the corners like spat, chewed fingernails. However, Edmond’s ordered desk stood out.

Two medieval gloves sat on it. He had used leather from old sandals,

Every day the knuckles grew bigger, more pregnant with pain. book bindings, and belts to craft five sets of rings—one to fit behind each knuckle—that constricted with greater pressure. It reminded Edmond of those Chinese fingertraps he used to win at arcades—how he had tried so hard to extricate his fingers, but the harder he pulled, the tighter the trap became.

He had taken apart his office chair. Mounted on the top of Edmond’s instrument was its swivel with four holes where it used to screw into the legs. Now it would be screwed into the ceiling. Edmond had told his parents he was “installing a speaker system” when they wondered what he was doing with the drill. Parents never bothered the smart ones. It was their curse and their gift—why fix something that wasn’t broken?

It hung from the ceiling like a roosting bat. He slid his fingers

into the binding and tested the apparatus with his left hand. The fastenings held tightly under every knuckle and pulled at his skin. The more weight, the tighter the girdle.

Edmond bit his lip, putting his second hand into the glove. Then he hung. As he got tired, he supported himself less. He didn’t know what time it was; Edmond couldn’t make out the clock. Had he knocked it down before? His vision blurred, punctuated by white flashes of pain when his knuckles cracked. Each time his body would go rigid and limper than the time before. Finally Edmond just sagged there, totally hanging, with all of his 172 pounds bearing down on ten, tiny fingers.

When Edmond awoke, the world veered sideways. He tried to pull himself up and instead tore his rig out of the ceiling. Drywall flakes fell around him. Edmond collapsed to his knees and bit the leather, desperately trying to loosen the gloves.

His hands were blue. Every joint was black, darkest where the ties had been.

It had been three weeks, and Edmond had refined his technique. An array of high strength cables and bolts anchored his apparatus into the ceiling—he had attached it to the same winch that held his ceiling fan. Each night he would take the fan off to reveal the hand rig, and each night he would

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remember nothing but the sweat.

How it dripped over his eyes and down the length of his body like the vertical slice through the pigs that swung from chains in slaughterhouses. How he only slept naked now because he grew tired of waking up to soaked pajamas. Every day the knuckles grew bigger, more pregnant with pain.

Edmond obsessed over those keys. They would unlock his future, and every moment not stretched taut between his ceiling and the floor was spent over the ivories.

Edmond’s parents would come in and watch him play, too entranced by the music to notice anything wrong.

His fingers had almost doubled in length. The tiny bones couldn’t be pulled any farther, and the skin around his hands had been pulled so thin that Edmond could see blue crisscross around his fingers. They had to be stretched. He couldn’t risk them shrinking—not this close to the date.

Edmond’s hands looked tattooed. Drawn dark to stand out against the deep purple of the bruises, dotted lines crept up to each fingertip. With one week left, he had collected everything he needed to keep going—28 lengths of thin, steel rod; 18 tiny, silver ball bearings; and a scalpel. He sliced up his left pinkie first. A bead of blood

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welled at the point of incision, and Edmond fought to hold his breath.

Shakily exhaling, he picked up a “finger”—3 rods connected by 2 ball bearings—and pinned open the two sides of the cut pinkie.

Edmond slid in the rod and felt it align on the groove along the bottom of the bones. He waited to hear the click of the ball bearings as they popped into the spaces between the distended knuckles and then continued sliding. The skin tore apart as the rod was inserted deeper, splitting like chapped lips. The pinkie was done. It now measured six

The chord rang in the rafters for a long time when Edmond finally took his bandaged hands, now red, from the piano. inches long. Now the stitches. He threaded the needle in and out of the skin. It took him an hour to suture completely. His hair hung ragged and wet over his forehead.

Ring finger. Middle finger. Index finger. Thumb. Once the left hand healed enough, Edmond would do the same to his right.

The boy with the bandaged hands walked into Julliard’s performance hall. Save for the very tips

of his fingers, his hands were obscured in gauze. He nodded politely at the auditors—he did not shake their hands—and walked up to the piano. Edmond’s hands burned. He applied a salve every morning, but there was no longer enough skin to cover his entire hand. Parts of his fingers were just muscle covered in bandage. He began to play. The pain shot through Edmond so intensely he arched his back and tasted iron.

He could not think, but his hands knew the part, his fingers knew where they had to be. They flew across the piano, independent of their master, and played intervals wider than the auditors had ever heard with speed they thought impossible. The hands glided across the keys, and Edmond writhed as his stitches threatened to be undone by the movement. Warmth spread from his knuckles. His hands played the last flourish, and Edmond snapped back to lucidity.

The chord rang in the rafters for a long time when Edmond finally took his bandaged hands, now red, from the piano.

Edmond’s mother sat in a chair next to his hospital bed, head buried in her hands. His father stood over her with his hands on both her shoulders. When they saw that he was awake, both tried to say something, but in the end, all they could

manage was a weak gesture. In scary unison they raised their palms to the sky. Edmond turned to his right and saw them. The pair of metal spiders.

Somewhere at the bottom of a His hands, his wonderfully long, worth-it hands. His future. And an red bag inside a red bin the flayed acceptance letter, sent from Julliard bits of finger glistened in their own blood. They had no master now. and already opened.

study of the hand | charles moorman | 8.25 x 9 inches | graphite

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hakuna matata | tiger wu | 24 x 18 inches | graphite

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jade merchant’s daughter | greg manning | 20 x 15 inches | charcoal on newspaper

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the painting | jordan silberman | digital photgraphy

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bienvenidos a medellin by sam carter Stores and banks are locked and quiet— the streets busy with fiestas.

Red, blue, and yellow fly high and proud: Día de la Independencia.

Used wheels sold by a friend of a friend.

They agree to a price of one million pesos, but no money changes hands.

“We’ll pay tomorrow, amigo.”

A pair of red wheels takes to the streets, and the lovers explore the city.

Green turns to red, and they come to a stop.

A faster pair of wheels pulls up.

Two men: blue jeans, white shirts and black helmets.

Mafiosos.

The man on the back climbs off and lifts up his shirt.

His voice is muffled, lifeless. “Gringo, el moto.”

A cold pistol stares them in the eyes; it’s over in less than thirty seconds.

The police do nothing.

It’ll take un millón de pesos to spur them into action.

Walking out of the grey police station, shoulders slumped, they pass a sign: Bienvenidos a Medellín.

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the waltz fiction by rocco zaytoun

I

went to the corner of the ballroom to meet my partner. Chains hung around her neck, and she was wearing a lovely black dress with bold letters written across her chest.

She swayed slightly back and forth.

February gusts circulated through the rickety building and lured goosebumps to rise. We started with a slow waltz—not too difficult, but a good warm up. I worked my way around in a ¾ time. Progressively, I developed my movements into foxtrot, my footwork being the key to a good dance. It wasn’t fast, but it was precise and powerful. With every maneuver, she reacted with elegant moves, keeping me bouncing on the insides of my feet.

As the dance’s tempo increased, so did the temperature.

The complexity of combinations diminished and turned to force.

We were swing dancing at this point. I would push her out, caressing her chest swiftly, and she would come swinging back in, caught with my authoritative arm.

All my goose-bumps melted.

After a while on the dance floor,

With every maneuver, she reacted with elegant moves, keeping me bouncing on the insides of my feet. we tired. The dance was now a cha-cha with little complexity or power but with constant movement. We saved the rest of our energy for the final round.

Once the music had started to speed up again, our dancing became

let’s bump | kelly lonergan | 42 x 22 inches | acrylic on cardboard >

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more spirited and evolved into a salsa. As I sprang around on the front of my feet, I shifted around where she hung, making her spin with my combinations. With every dominant blow, I sent her twirling out until she was caught by her chains and came flying back into my arms.

It was over. Our rehearsal was done for the day. With my face mashed in her side, I stayed clinging to my companion, panting, and waited for my beating heart to ease.

As I slumped to the ground, I untied my gloves and unwrapped my hands. They were red from the compression. I rolled up my handwraps and tossed them and the gloves in my bag. Condensation clung to the inside of the windows.

I looked back at my lady with her canvas dress reading EVERLAST, and then locked the doors behind me until the next night.

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end of the line by evan backer As the metallic doors closed, they pulled the rope of fabric tighter. The tie strangled him.

The man twitched.

His balding hair dripped with sweat.

Late five times this quarter— another tardy morning could kill him.

Why didn’t he leave the house ten minutes earlier?

Now he had to ride the damn thing.

Ding. The doors sealed his fate.

Raising a pale, shaking finger, he pushed the plastic button that read 13.

The finger retreated to his jacket as if it felt some sense of security buried inside cotton armor.

Ding. He almost lost his balance when the monster yanked upward.

Sick white paint covered the walls and cracks ate the dark corners; the smell of mold engulfed him.

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Someone had painted the floor a speckled brown like dirt around a coffin.

Underneath the buttons sat a metal telephone compartment, but the phone probably didn’t work anyway.

10 11 12 13 Ding. The metal claws creaked open as a warm light pierced the icy enclosure; he scurried out like a beetle from under a rock.

The man darted to his cubicle only to find an ugly note stuck to his computer screen: Please see me in my office. We need to talk.

-Mr. Roberts

up late | rob prater | digital photography

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nine pounds nine ounces fiction by ford boney

F

ort Worth, Texas wasn’t the greatest place to get pregnant at sixteen with conservative parents and a boyfriend who wanted nothing to do with the situation. Becca’s friends didn’t recognize her anymore, and frankly, she didn’t recognize herself. How could she? The weight had slopped on, and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t stop eating.

Whatever she did eat was immediately discarded in the toilet between classes. Time moved slowly, and so did she. Doing everything to accommodate two wasn’t a picnic. In a weird way, I was suffering with her.

After three months of coping with the burden of holding two lives in one vessel, Becca decided to find some outside help. She had heard of organizations that could do away with her problem. The library at school had computers. That seemed like a good place to start. No, no this wasn’t going to help at all. Her dad would crucify her if he ever found out. Okay, what to do, what to do?

The school counselor was a pleasant enough guy. His mustache

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was a little creepy, but he was supposed to be trained to handle these mishaps.

“Have you thought of raising it yourself ?”

“Of course I’ve thought of it, but do you realize how that would change my life? Everybody already thinks...” She looked down at her stomach. What had once been tight and tan was now bloated and thick.

Her arms, hips and face had also been victimized.

“I’m sure that’s not true. They just don’t understand the gravity of the situation. I’m positive that if you just take the time to explain it to them.”

“Are you kidding me? I’d be eaten alive!”

Weeks passed. Clothes didn’t fit anymore. This thing was getting bigger and hungrier and more anxious in captivity. Occasional punches and kicks reminded her that it wasn’t exactly happy confined in its dark, damp cage. No window, no light, nothing.

Five months dragged by, but she had finally come to terms with

her problem. She didn’t even know if it could hear, let alone appreciate her efforts to appease it, but she had taken to reading out loud and playing Mozart in the computer lab in attempts to sooth the nagging entity.

A note jutted from the slat in her locker door. “Come to the health office.“ Too short to be good. The door was closed, but she could see through the clear glass panel. Inside the school counselor—mustache tweezed and greasy as ever—sat next to a nurse and a portly man who was dressed in a white shirt, black slacks, and a blue and white striped tie. His navy blazer was slung around the back of his chair. Becca entered tentatively and maneuvered herself into the closest chair.

“We may have found a solution to your problem,” said the counselor.

“What did you have in mind?” she replied.

“Mr. Williams here represents an agency that connects girls like you to families who want to be a part of this process. We realize that this may be a little abrupt, but we feel that this is your best option at this point.”

“I don’t understand.”

Mr. Williams stayed in constant contact with her over the next month with emails and phone calls—any way to talk about the situation at hand. Apparently there were several families interested. She had no idea that so many people wanted to be a part of her mistake.

People she didn’t know came from all over the country to talk to her and hopefully take away what she had been creating for the past six months. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she felt oddly obligated to be protective: her first semblance of maternal instincts.

The first meeting was seven months in. She trudged into the room already worn out. Her sweatpants and loose T-shirt hung from her bulging frame. Opposite her sat a man intently studying a newspaper. The door clicked shut. He stood briskly and walked toward her. His smile was uneven with his top teeth white and straight and bottom teeth crooked and yellowing. His combover fluttered as he walked.

“Ah, Becca, I see you’ve already met Mr. Johnson,” said Mr. Williams.

“Not yet.”

“Stephen here has come all the way from New York to talk to you.”

The strange man nodded in agreement.

“Well,” she said slowly, “it’s

door clunked open. Hot Texas air slammed into her lungs. Mr. Johnson ran to get help as she leaned on the silver BMW clutching her stomach, hiding it from the world.

Rubber coated hands plopped her into a wheelchair.

Everything in the room was white and immaculate apart from the girl who lay writhing on the bed. Hours passed. There seemed to be no end to the contractions.

Her face twisted and contorted in a desperate effort to escape. A man She had no idea so many stood between her knees—mouth people wanted to be a part and nose covered, hair secured, hands gloved. The creases stitched of her mistake. into his forehead twitched and undulated as he worked.

“Alright Becca, ten centime“We just want you to be as com- ters. Are you ready?” fortable and as happy as possible.”

Take your bottom lip and pull The Johnsons were tending to her it over your head. There is no betevery need. They probably wanted ter way to describe the feeling. All good baby karma or something. the while a chorus of “push!” echoed Pain. Her body was racked through the room. Sweat, blood, and with wave after wave of nauseat- tears trickled to the floor. And then, ing pain. Her fists clenched, nails pop! The thing that she had poured cutting into her palms, as contrac- nine months of her life into just sat tions came closer together, getting in the doctor’s hands. The doctor stronger, lasting longer. The car ride flicked his wrist: the spank of life. was even worse. Every jostle, every There I was, all shiny and new. bump and dip seemed to snap her Nine pounds nine ounces. A quick spine in two. She couldn’t open her snip and we were divided. No longer eyes, but Mr. Johnson kept assur- one. Two weeks later I was over a ing her that the hospital was just thousand miles away with no recolaround the corner. lection of her. My whole life ahead Brakes screeched and the of me.

good to finally meet you, I guess.”

“Let’s get to it.”

The apartment was nice, certainly nicer than where she had been sleeping. Firestone West 7th was one of the nicest places to live in Fort Worth. The tearfully elated look they had given her when she said yes was just too funny. Now she was propped up in her queen bed, eating cookies and watching Full House reruns.

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newspaper man | jack perdue | 16 x 12 inches | acrylic and newspaper on cardboard

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contrast | daniĂŤl trengove | 16 x 12 inches | acrylic and newspaper on cardboard

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dream to fly by hayes jiranek

I saw a man fall from the sky, Propelling down onto the ground.

I guess he thought that he could fly.

I did not know him but still cry When in my dreams this scene is found Where I am falling from the sky.

I heard that he was a real nice guy, But damn, he made an awful sound.

I saw a man fall from the sky.

And in these dreams I see a guy Who laughs before I hit the ground.

I guess he thought that I could fly.

I started laughing, I don’t know why.

He saw me laugh; I saw him frown.

I guess I thought that he could fly.

I dream to live, but live to die, And this dream feels so profound.

I jump and fall down from the sky— I guess I thought that I could fly.

utopia analogia | jang woo park | digital photgraphy

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lake jocassee rising by jackson monroe Rise shape, from 300 feet below the surface of a Monet lake with darkness hidden in the fish infested water.

Cool wind drags at the droplets on my skin as I stand atop the large cliff.

Rise fog, out of blue-green darkness like zombies emerging from the ground.

Trees dangle their roots into the flooded graveyard, forever letting them drink.

Rise mountains, sky piercers, with the mysterious mist grabbing and slipping down the steep slopes.

Pink haze splits through nature’s monuments climbing out of the water. I jump, and wind fights gravity.

Rise corpse, floating to the surface with me.

A body bobs up from the cemetery released from its watery grave.

In 1973, four rivers flooded Oconee County, South Carolina. The Jocassee Valley was home to a lodge, a cemetery, and a few houses. Those structures and sites now sit below water, and every now and then, a body will rise to the surface.

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her

nonfiction by jang woo park

S

he stood in front of me and the fragrance of her shampoo wafted towards me. Lavender. I tried to pretend I wasn’t shy.

“Girls, gather on the right and boys on the left, please.”

I loathed this part of swimming class the most: standing in awkward lines facing each other. It felt as if we were in some kind of variety show. I didn’t want a clumsy encounter with her, so I hid behind my friends. Even standing in line, I knew where she was. Her eyes darted to and fro.

I fiddled with the vinyl strap of my swimming bag. The strap grew warm and slippery under my hands.

They were sweating—not all over, but enough for me to sense the clamminess. My body was hot and cold at the same time.

She was chatting with her friends, softly caressing her hair. I loved listening to her, especially her laughter. The lavender aroma was

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so enticing, so overpowering, that I couldn’t believe it came from shampoo. There must have been hidden flowers woven into her hair. Her backside, her voice, and her fragrance conquered my senses.

Whenever I heard her laugh-

Whenever I heard her laughter through the halls, I pictured her smile; it always gave me one, too. ter through the halls, I pictured her smile; it always gave me one, too.

I was painfully aware of her presence; when she stood near me I was doubly conscious of how my hair fell or if my clothes were wrinkled.

I checked my reflection in the glass door to the pool, and my nerves had frozen me as stiff as one of my younger brother’s robots.

The teacher shouted our names to check that everybody was present. I wanted to check where she was, but I feared accidentally meeting her gaze. What if she were looking at me? She caught my stare. At that moment, thousands of thoughts bounced around inside my head. Her eyes shattered my rationality. Do I wave? Do I say hi back?

“Hey, Jang Woo.” She waved with a smile.

Her greeting punched me in the face. I hated myself for not being manly enough to talk to her. I waved back.

The teacher beckoned us to the pool. Simply imagining her in a bathing suit set me ablaze. All the boys went downstairs into the men’s locker room. I watched her for as long as I could.

The dankness greeted us. Chatter echoed through the humid space.

I swiftly put my school uniform in my locker and went into the shower.

In less than a minute, I was going to

meet her half-naked. The steam obscured my reflection in the mirror.

My right hand automatically reached to wipe it off, but something made me hesitate. I pictured how I would look.

How she would see me.

In my mind I looked pale and afraid. My skin, covered with goosebumps, dripped with water. My hair was sopping. My swim shorts showed the silhouettes of thin thighs. And I was shy, but I realized I was the one who had made all the encounters awkward.

I rubbed the mirror. My prediction was right. My hair was a mess; it looked like a bunch of seaweed pulled from the ocean, but I was confident.

At least, I would act like it.

I was the first one to arrive at the pool. Across the partition, I heard her voice; I could always distinguish her voice among a crowd. When all the guys were ready, we walked around the pool to stretch. Then she appeared. In her bathing suit. pool penne | david willis | digital photography

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equadorian waters | shep sims | digital photography

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las grietas | trip hurley | digital photography

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metamorphosis fiction by stephen guo

I

Fifty percent of caterpillars die during metamorphosis.

noted this in my scrappy, little notebook as he walked in. His shoes shone. His blazer fit him perfectly, tight and sharp, with a black tie. He stopped in the middle of the stage and cleared his throat like the prime minister before a speech. “Fellow classmates, good afternoon.” He pulled out a sheet of paper from his blazer and placed it steadily on the desk. “The Central Government has brought up a new exchange program for the elites.”

There had been several exchange programs already. I lost interest.

“This time, the board will send one of you to America. For free.”

These words caught my attention.

“This is a government-funded program to let suburban students understand the outside world.”

Abroad? They are providing us an opportunity to go abroad?

“After thorough discussion, the

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board has already picked the lucky one.”

Then came the tipping point of my life.

“Yi is chosen.”

They knew very well that we didn’t speak English, so they threw me and a couple of the other chosen ones into Rush Camp. We woke up at six in the morning and showered and dressed within five minutes.

We folded our bed sheets into a perfect rectangular block. Fun fact: We practiced this over a thousand times. Then, like the day before and the day before the day before, we started reading books.

A person, dressed identically to the black-suited-black-tied man who sent me here, would sit in the front of the room, watching us and taking notes on our pronunciation.

We started with easy books, books for children. Then gradually, in about a month, we started pushing through sixteenth-century drama like nothing. Later, after our English skills matched that of the students

in America, we went over science, math, and history—in English.

Caterpillars eat as much as they can before going into metamorphosis.

Two months passed in the camp, and we were as educated as any students on the other side could be. The suits nodded and smiled when we read through the hardest of literature—Faulkner and Joyce and Melville and Tolstoy. All of us could fold bed sheets perfectly with our eyes closed. We were as American as boys and girls born in suburban China who breathed that coaly air could be.

One day in the late afternoon, a man dressed in a silky grey blazer walked in. He cleared his throat.

“Fellow students, you are now well prepared, and it is time for you to depart. But beware, it is dangerous on the other side. There will be things that are unfamiliar to you, and there will be times when you feel weak and hopeless, but remember, you are the ones chosen

reinvent yourself | maxwell barnes | 25 x 30 inches | paper collage

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by the great chairman, for he will bless you, and you will overcome any hardship, because you are the future of the People’s Republic of China!”

I barely managed the nineteenhour flight. I had never sat still for so long—and next to a stinking old lady. Outside, the air cleansed every bit of that stink. I had never tasted anything so fresh before. I inhaled in huge gulps and exhaled as hard as I could.

Caterpillars spit out all the unwanted silk to construct a cocoon.

School was easy, incredibly easy. Local students seemed to have problems. The dorms were magical.

Two students per room? Like a hotel. The phones, computers, vending machines—all so advanced and modern. I couldn’t understand how the food here was so barbaric; the only way Americans cooked their veggies was by steaming them. A global superpower couldn’t even season green beans.

Four years passed in school. I became one of the best students and received a scholarship for a medical program at Emory. If that man hadn’t walked into my classroom that day, I’d probably be working on an assembly line right now. My roommate insisted on celebrating, and so he dragged me out to a nightclub with his friends. I’d

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never drunk before. Not too long ciency Syndrome. I remembered after the vodka came, I blacked out. reading about it in a textbook, AP A headache woke me up. I had Biology. AIDS hijacks your body somehow fallen asleep kneeling, and weakens it until you die from and my legs, slumped beneath me something like a cold that turns and drained of blood, struggled to pneumonia. I wanted to treat to support my weight. I reached people, not be treated. Four terrible for something higher—looking letters had derailed my full scholfor anything to support myself as arship. Imagine what my friends I tried to stand—and touched an would think. Hell, imagine what ice-cold rim. The toilet. I pushed my parents would think. myself up, thinking I could bear my A caterpillar digests itself inside the own weight, but the nausea forced cocoon to prepare for metamorphosis. me back down on the grimy tile.

I searched the pockets for my My roommate was glad when I arrived back to dorm as the sun set. It had taken me all day to think up a solution. I dressed in a black If that man hadn’t walked into my classroom blazer with a full black tie hanging around my neck. I bought the that day, I would probably most expensive shoes I could find. I be working on an waited until my roommate left and wrote a note: I decided to take anassembly line. other flight. Don’t worry. I am well prepared. phone. Not the rectangular bulge I put on another tie over the or the familiar weight—nothing. black one, but this one wasn’t thin Someone must have stolen it last or silky. It was thick and scratched night. I slowly lifted my head, and my neck. I took a deep breath and six streaky words came into focus: exhaled slowly. This would be just Welcome to the world of AIDS. like the butterflies that I had read Red like vomit, the lipstick about so long ago. message seared itself into my brain.

I stepped off and flew.

AIDS? Auto Immune Disorder?

Fifty percent of caterpillars become Disease? Deficiency? Wait, what butterflies. The other half wither does the A stand for? It’s not Auto. in their cocoons.

Anti? Accelerated? Acquired! That was it—Acquired Immune Defi-

split cross | ward bissell | 6.5 x 4.5 inches | forged iron

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aisle 18 by david willis

Two years later we met in a Target as if that giant, red bullseye wasn’t a clear enough sign of something incoming.

For a second I thought it wasn’t her, and even though she looked different—longer, pink hair—she was the same, the same nose she always wanted to have fixed for looking too big, too Jewish. Dreck.

A Friday in the fall of eighth grade, we hung out for the first time and tried to watch a movie, but the TV didn’t work, just hummed static and refused to comply.

So I left early, and she apologized.

She said sorry a lot—even in emails.

I learned more about her than I wanted and had to give advice on things I didn’t know.

That spring her writings, her personal diary that never should have been mine, were scrawled onto a new journal—different ink, different paper, and in a language where everything was straight red lines.

But writing didn’t do and actions did; actions that moved almost too fast for my bike to match and for me to crash through her door and rip the belt from her hands and off her neck.

crystal waterfall | daniel japhet | digital photography >

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We froze somewhere between a hug and a handshake, so we slapped our hands down to our sides like two pacifist enemy soldiers and chatted in the electronics section—a vortex of competing sounds, twenty different on-display speakers and TVs. We shuffled apart, both thinking “God, that was awkward.” A single TV had disconnected from the store feed and glowed blue, hissing black and white noise.

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B

ack in Gramp’s day, the streets of Newark were run by corrupt politicians and organized crime. Growing up in a ghetto, he witnessed the rise and fall of the Italian mafia. His father was gunned down by gangsters and lived to tell the tale. The mark this made on him has never faded. Known to his friends as Joe Shoes, the English translation of his Italian surname, Gramp has seen a unique side of the twentieth century—not the pretty side or the side you see in movies, but the side that rarely makes it on record.

Gramp lived in the gritty underside—the dark part of recent history.

At eighteen, Gramp married and began a long career in the New Jersey Labor Union, offset in 1961 by a minor crime involving a fight. The judge gave him three options: army, navy, or

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jail. Gramp chose the army. Fort Benning, Georgia soon became his new home as he trained in the elite special forces group the U. S. Army Rangers.

Here he developed a phobia of snakes

After his “captors” waterboarded and gassed him, they threw him in a box of snakes that squirmed and writhed against his bare skin... from simulated capture and torture training. After his “captors” waterboarded and gassed him, they threw him in a box of snakes that squirmed and writhed against his bare skin for an hour before he escaped. Ranger

life was often rough. His sergeant, a World War II vet, threw a grenade into the barracks, thinking it was a pineapple grenade with a low blast radius. “Dumbest son of a bitch I’ve ever met,” he told me. The old sergeant was wrong, actually throwing the latest, most powerful grenade model. “It took the whole barracks down on top of several men, trapping them overnight until we dug them out.”

Gramp would likely not be here today if it weren’t for pure luck. As his unit geared up to fight in Vietnam, a pressing situation arose in a neighboring state. The first African Americans to attend the University of Alabama were receiving threats from white supremacists. Gramp, by chance, was the only member of his unit to have received riot training.

So when President Kennedy dis-

joe shoes nonfiction by carson becker

hanging on the line | clay tydings | digital photography patched a group of soldiers to protect the students, Gramp was ordered to Alabama. By the time he had extinguished the riots—a constant storm of rocks, gasoline, and gunfire—his unit had already left for Vietnam. This very well may have saved his life.

Even at seventy-two years old, my grandfather is an intimidating man, standing tall and strong with his black hair barely fading to gray. About two years ago he fell off of his porch roof, and to the whole family’s concern, refused to visit the hospital, but he hasn’t experienced any problems from the fall. I don’t know many people his age who look so strong. Gramp had to be intimidating. He dealt with crime families like the Genovese that had large stakes in the New Jersey Labor Unions. Gramp testified in Congress, shook hands with gangsters like John

Gotti, and even had a brief business relationship with Malcolm X. Gramp crossed paths with some of the cruelest, most evil people in the country.

His own father worked for gangsters for a large part of his life and carried a bullet in his chest to prove it.

Gramp stopped working in the New Jersey Labor Union over ten years ago and now lives in New Hampshire only about two hours from me in Maine, so I visit him frequently. His stories always surprise me. My brother, cousins, and I work around his house with him or watch football. Sometimes we take short day trips. Now an older man, Gramp still enjoys working construction, even managing to outwork the most athletic twenty-year-olds. His personal life has always been somewhat chaotic, complete with a few different wives

and a couple of homes. The world has changed since his days as Joe Shoes, and he has changed with it. Gramp still carries a slight roughness—a reminder that the mean streets he came from left a permanent mark.

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skipping stones in iona by sam carter

Let’s go back across the pond, back to the rain and wind and cobblestone.

Stumbling and joyful, let’s explore cities together.

Rooftop restaurants and basement bars illuminate our smiles.

Suspension bridges sway in the breeze.

One way roads take us where we’ve never been, winding down into valleys and back up into the fog.

Thin trails guide us to the top of the world, and mossy rocks lead us to the sea and stone at the end of a pier with our four dangling legs.

Four turns to two and the blue harbor stays silent as the mist rolls in.

Let’s go back across the pond.

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S summer day | kj pankratz | digital photography

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peeping into utopia | michael deng | digital photography

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dreams of china中国 by max johns

6,940 miles bridge two worlds.

I’ve trained my tongue to utter its characters 汉字, and my body to bleed good luck red 红 and imperial yellow 黄.

Thick smog saturates its cities, invites my foreign body 外国人 to taste gutter oil meat, the skewered street food of Wang Fu Jing 王府井, to walk beside centuries-old relics that protected it from northern invasion, among the spirits of long-lost dynasties in the Forbidden City 紫禁城， to relive twentieth-century revolution and hear the shouts of the Red Army, to see the fallen bodies of Tiananmen Square 天安门广场.

Mao Ze Dong lives and breathes 毛泽东活着 in Made in China, in the heavy traffic of his beloved nation.

I wish to see the fireworks 烟火, try the dumplings 饺子, and celebrate the year of the monkey 猴年.

6,940 miles never felt so near.

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blackstone

Y

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nonfiction by chris oldham

ou’re lucky to be here now. We haven’t had blue sky in weeks.”

Toy squinted as he gazed up from his kayak. “The good weather must be following you, huh?” he prompted along with a noise that was either a chuckle or an expulsion of the salt water in his throat—maybe both.

I don’t think anyone was even listening, though, because as we floated through the fjord and around the corner of the high and rocky cliff, the peeking vista of Blackstone Glacier sucked away both our breath and attention. The most mammoth ice field that I think ever existed instantly dwarfed the three days I’d spent paddling through Prince William Sound with ten other wimpy eighth graders. With every stroke of the paddle the panoramic azure crawled farther and farther across the horizon until it surrounded me. The white sun sent waves of reflection across the massive barrier, and cornices cast dancing shadows along the sapphire screen.

“Alright guys, I know you feel like magnets, but you can’t get any closer. Believe it or not that beauty is a friggin’ halfmile away, which, as you can probably guess, isn’t too big a distance compared to

that.” Toy motioned at the giant. “When it calves, the waves are gonna get pretty big, and they’re gonna come straight this way. Any closer and your boats would probably flip when that happens, so soak it up from back here.”

I already felt like I was right under it. In a lingering instant, the ice split, and three or four thick sheets crashed into the sea below. The brittle blast hesitated and then raced across the water to my ears and beyond, bouncing off of the seals, the floating icebergs, the pebbly beaches, and the sharp mountains.

Every surface in Alaska resonated with Blackstone’s humbling roar. Skyscraping, white explosions burst at the foot of the glacier where the titanic chunks met the water, and mist hung in an epic sphere. A second white explosion detonated, this one from the sky.

The rocky cliffs beside the frozen fort leaked with birds, thousands of them.

A nesting ground for seagulls in the craggy, steep mountainside released a tornado of whirling fowl that stood out like freckles. As if to beg for our attention back, Blackstone reached down and grabbed the ocean, shaking it up and down, and sending undulating green crests in

all directions while time resumed its familiar pace. As the sea pulled me up and down, Blackstone’s calves moved the same way as I did, bobbing and swimming in the same sound. They rolled and split until they looked like all the older bergs.

Blackstone’s new face had the same features: sapphire and opal

Skyscraping, white explosions burst at the foot of the glacier where the titanic chunks met the water, and mist hung in an epic sphere. veins and pearly tattoos, but hosted the same dancing reflections and shadows with the avian neighbors.

It seemed no smaller, no younger, no less energetic or less sage. In fact, it just seemed more confident, which just made me feel littler. Every day of the summer, way out in the Alaskan backcountry, vast Blackstone Glacier continues to calve, even when nobody is watching but the birds.

nordic yacht | scott gullquist | digital photography

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guarding life

by philip williams

As time slips by overhead, a heavy breeze ruffles the guard’s uncombed hair.

He holds tightly to his red life buoy.

Assigned to monitor, he awaits a save, a chance to show his worth.

The young man scans outside of total coverage.

He gazes past the flailing horizon and into the lifeless clouds while here on Earth an opportunity drowns.

when there’s thunder | david willis | digital photography >

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wet floor | rhodes smith | 24 x 18 inches | chalk pastel

believe | kj pankratz | 20 x 16 inches | graphite

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sonnenblume | clay tydings | digital photography

skin on skin by clayton noyes

Lying next to her, I felt her chest rise and fall as she breathed, the respiratory rhythm flowing through her.

I shared her warmth, her thoughts, and I savored her scent as she pressed up against me.

Then I laughed a little bit because there I realized that our bodies were skin on skin, but I still wanted to pull her closer.

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clockwork | clay tydings | camera obscura

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the thing itself nonfiction by john amos

A

few years ago, during a visit to the local nursing home, I met an elderly man wandering the halls in his bathrobe. I smiled, introduced myself, and asked his name. His heartbreaking response: “I used to know, but I don’t anymore.”

A stark reminder of what old age brings.

My mind drifted to Lear.

When it comes to the human condition, Shakespeare writes as one who knows. In The Tragedy of King Lear, he shows us what we can expect in our dotage. The picture’s not pretty.

The play should be required for anyone who’s ever looked in a mirror and wondered where the strength of youth has gone, for anyone worried about who will tend to us in our final days.

The story has a simple, fairy tale quality about it: An aged king retires and divides his kingdom among his daughters, assuming they will take care of him. They don’t. In fact, they

ignore him and treat him as though he’s a burden. Hurt by their callousness, enraged by their lack of respect, he takes off one night and finds himself alone, without shelter, wandering the countryside during a terrible thunderstorm. Bereft of power and position, he loses even his sanity.

Nothing in all of literature is as pathetic as the naked king, exposed to the elements, raving madly at God and Man and Nature. The au-

I see my own hair graying. dience can but weep.

In a brief moment of lucidity, the king reflects on the way his subjects used to bow down to him. He says pathetically, “They told me I was everything. It is not true. I am not agueproof.” (Ague is Shakespeare’s term for the flu.) Lear knows suddenly that he is mortal, that even kings catch cold.

A few moments later, when a

loyal companion tries to kiss his hand to calm him, Lear quips, “Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.”

I see my grandfather, a handkerchief tucked in his mouth to stop the spittle. I see my grandmother, so strong, proud and independent, bedridden in a nursing facility, crying to go back home. I see my mother, at 57, dying of cancer. I see my own hair graying.

Shakespeare coins a phrase in King Lear that’s worth remembering. When you strip away all the stuff from a human being—clothes, possessions, job, sophistication, status, even physical strength and mental acuity—what you’ve got left is “The thing itself: unaccomodated man.”

I am at heart an optimist. I believe that God is good and that life is beautiful. But I also study Shakespeare, and I’ve seen enough of suffering to know that he’s right.

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cracks and sparks by spencer goodwin The cold steel of the skeet launcher glistens as the white sun sucks the moisture from the earth.

She twirls her finger through the waves of her blonde hair.

“So how does this thing work?”

It was simple.

Push the arm down, load a clay disc, pull the lever and watch it fly.

I smile at her, and push the arm down.

Her fingers clasp the lever, and I watch the arm fly, chopping into my left side.

It cracks.

“Oh my god!”

I shouldn’t have worn white; this shirt is ruined.

“We’re almost there!”

She clasps my sweaty palm and leads me inside.

Her grey boots are covered with dust.

“Does it feel any better?”

I try to smile as best I can.

She leans closer.

It was simple.

My ears ring, and I feel my heart beat.

What was she thinking?

I plop down in the dirt, resting my back on the black tire.

“Do you need anything?”

With each breath I winced.

The sound of a wounded animal comes from deep in my throat.

“We need to get you to the hospital!”

The engine rattles, or is it my ribs?

Black leather burns my skin.

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marsh | jordan silberman | digital photography

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unity of two sides | james henckel von donnersmarck | 6 x 4 inches | linocut print

don’t touch me | clay tydings | digital photography

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The night, unspeaking.

Far below, aimless people.

I teeter forward.

pudong lampost | daniel japhet | digital photography

haiku by caleb rogers

sleeping suburb by evan bubniak

Thoughts drift around with no direction underneath a brilliant sunset where blue sky and red sun collide in a light, violet taper over a sleeping suburb.

When you close your eyes and let go, you can see, smell, hear, and feel the permeating nothingness that creeps into the mind and instills a kind of euphoria.

If you wait long enough the sun rises, and the suburb’s gears begin to turn as you put on a funny mask and speak in a confident voice, telling superficial jokes and speaking assurances about things you don’t know yourself.

dry creek | david willis | digital photography

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knife | ward bissell | 11 inches | forged iron and crafted bone

edward fiction by cole dickinson

E

dward sat in the grass with his back up against the barn wall tossing little rocks out into the woods. I had never been one for sitting in the dirt. I stood and rocked my weight back and forth between my legs, my eyes shifting between the ground and the pasture in front of us. The bright, yellow ball in the sky cast a burning light that shined off Edward’s hair and beat down on his red face. He handed me a cigarette.

Every day after class, Mr. Curtis would drop us off, and we would hear the creaking and moaning as he shifted the bus in gear and rolled away. Walking down the gravel road, we rarely talked. We would veer off toward the red barn at the top of the hill. We never really used the barn anymore. Ever since Daddy died things had been different, and Mama wouldn’t come near the old wooden building. That’s where we smoked.

his tall, limber body into the tightest places. Now while his father mowed, we smoked. Afterwards, he would get in the truck with his dad and drive a mile down the road to the trailer park. The fire would rise in his father’s eyes as the sun set.

The next morning, I saw Ed on the bus. I bumped his shoulder as I sat down in the brown leather seat, and he cringed. Bruises ran down his arm, and his throat was swollen and tender from the unforgiving Edward would be right grip. There were no cigarettes that there with them, stuck day. in the smoky, woolly The summer I turned fifteen, Ed cotton brains of his brought me a Bud Light he’d stolen from the country store down the lost innocence. road. While I was drinking my beer, Ed was sitting up against the barn I had known Edward a long getting high. He never said much time. His dad tended our property, about home. I asked him about it and often he’d bring Ed along. He one time, but my eyes were met with mowed; we played hide-and-seek. the same lifeless glare I saw on the Ed had always been very good at bus back in middle school—a stare hide-and-seek, managing to snake that doesn’t look at you but through The cigarette, though bent and crumpled from being in the pocket of Edward’s jeans, was still usable.

He had always stolen cigarettes from his dad as he slipped off to school. I could never imagine stealing cigarettes from my dad—taking what he had and shoving them deep into the pockets of my jeans to be trashed and forgotten.

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you. A cow in our pasture.

Edward was kicked out of school for fighting and drugs. It was all bullshit. You never messed with Edward on the days when he didn’t have cigarettes. The drugs created a different creature. Growing up in that trailer park branded him, but the brand was never hot enough to shake him out of it. He’d end up with junkies on cramped wooden porches full of flimsy plastic chairs.

The plants drooped down like the limp limbs of a dying man. The old men sat smacked-out staring at the rotted wood of the porch. Edward would be right there with them, stuck in the smoky, wooly cotton brains of his lost innocence.

The last time I saw Ed he had two kids, a boy and a girl with soft faces and their father’s dark, powerful eyes. They spoke with a lost passion and dragged their feet when they walked. His wife had bleachblonde hair and thin wrists. Her pale skin was draped with a dress more fashionable in the sixties. I had never imagined him being a father. Maybe he didn’t plan on it. I guess he could be a good dad: softspoken, tough, stern. Things could work out for him. I just hoped that he wouldn’t put out the glow in his children’s eyes like his own fire that his father had dropped, stepped on, and forced out with a twist of his shoe.

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Since then I had gone to JMU and gotten a job in the city filing insurance claims. Small fires, basements flooding, stuff like that.

Events that would shake these small families were nothing but paperwork to me. It was a good job, and I moved into a nice house. The money bought bikes for my girls and Olive Garden dinners and two-star action flicks on date night.

Just last Sunday night Mama called and told me that there was a story on the news about Edward.

I changed the channel from the football game to the local news station. The air felt taut. Scratching my head, I took a deep breath and adjusted my position in the deep leather chair. There was a reporter on the scene standing in front of the bright yellow tape surrounding a little shop. Police were moving in the background, and the blue and red lights fired off in the drug store window. A city cop shot Edward after he robbed the drug store, the newsman reported. I adjusted myself in my seat. In the picture of Ed, his face was thin, his eyes hollowed, and his tan skin wrinkled. He’d left behind a wife, two hungry kids, and a pool of blood on the pavement.

I dug my feet into the carpet as I got out of the recliner. Taking shaky steps outside on the porch, I thought about what he could’ve been. I finished the Bud Light in

my hand and sighed. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled the crumpled pack of Marlboros out of my pocket and opened them up. There were no cigarettes that day.

wu ming shi | tiger wu | 36 x 20 inches | mixed media on cardboard

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welcome to the future by gus dupree

We’ve waited for so long, and finally, it arrives, but robots don’t clean our homes, and cars don’t cut the skies.

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We fight wars with swift strikes and look at screens all day.

These tragedies, we like them, using a Facebook page.

We’re more distanced than ever before; in silence we’re never alone.

We’ve heard voices across the world but only on our phones.

Not happy with the way things went, you wish it wasn’t true.

You blame by pointing fingers.

They only aim at you.

kandor | rob prater | digital photography

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lower saddle | andrew holmes | digital photography

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backburner sky | tilden winston | digital photography

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walker pond by gus perdue

Unzipping the water, the boat slices the lake in two, a silent world interrupted by the roar of the motor.

The small, rugged island lies in the distance along with its memories.

The sailboat on a windy day, flying like a race car, is pinned against the rocks and then wedges onto the island.

The breeze tugs at the skin on our backs as the sun slowly disappears over the horizon.

We are not on earth anymore.

This is our own little world, a safe haven in the middle of a lake surrounded by rocks, where we sing to the world while it sits and listens.

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day’s end | charles moorman | 7.75 x 9.75 inches | colored pencil

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the outfielder by ben lytle

The white leaps off the bat.

I instinctively step back, dropping towards my left.

I race to beat the ball to its destination.

While I fly across the green, my eyes barely make out the red stitches against the blue.

I’m silently praying, hoping the ball will meet the black leather attached to my hand.

Then it happens— with a satisfying pop the red and white collide into black, and I return to my position.

< crisp as the rockies | rob prater | digital photography

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moms and their phones | jackson monroe | digital photography

road trip | kj pankratz | digital photography

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obliviate

fiction by rob prater

G

liding across the floor, we left streaks of black and silver.

Mari danced better than any date I ever had. Her grip was strong, yet her hands were soft. Her eyes shimmered a deep blue, and her teeth gleamed. Everyone said I had the hottest date at the dance, but I didn’t see her like they did. She was too perfect, too fake. But I couldn’t stop talking to her, stop dancing with her. She was magnetic for all the wrong reasons.

“Run. Jump. Good.”

Her long blonde hair whipped my face as she spun back in and jumped into my arms.

“Leg, leg, and let go. Good.”

Her legs wrapped around my body, locked, and she bent backwards.

She made a show of it—typical Barbie—and with a flourish, her hands flew out, grazing the floor. I pulled her up but slipped. At the last second I grabbed her hand, caught her, and flipped her around, covering my mistake.

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“You did that so well, but let’s try it again!” I reassured her nervously.

I turned her out and in again.

Her legs locked behind my head right as the trumpets swelled. We linked hands, but my hands were sweaty and so were hers.

The jazz horn screeched louder and louder. In midair she grabbed for something: a hand, a shoulder, a partner. A claw found my hand, but it was too late. The lively blue became a lifeless black. An unfamiliar face looked up at me, contorted. Her nostrils flared. Her mouth opened wide and shrieked until—crack.

Her head slammed into the floor, and then came the red that dripped on my feet and splattered the walls.

It spilt over her pure skin and stained her hair.

The EMT whisked her to the nearest hospital in a blur of sirens and fading jazz. She was rushed to the E.R., and I sat waiting. I ex-

pected to see Mommy Barbie and Daddy Ken walk in any second, but they never came. Dr. Calloway, the best brain surgeon in Atlanta, operated on Mari. I stayed with her because no one else did.

I wrote Mari letters to let her know what happened. Even as she sat in that chair wasting away, I stayed.

She faded. First, the make-up, then her hair, and finally, her elegance. She wasn’t fake anymore.

May 3rd, 2015: Mari, we are in Atlanta. I feel so bad about what happened.

Trust me, I am not going to leave your side. I started reading Harry Potter to you. Sometimes I imagine that you’re only sleeping. I make stuff up and have Harry do ludicrous things, things that J. K. Rowling would never write, just to see if maybe it’ll be funny enough to wake you up.

May 5th, 2015: Harry, Ron, and Hermione just found out what the Sorcerer’s

Stone is. It’s crazy, the thought of everlasting life. This little rock can keep someone alive forever. Kind of like your IV tube. Ha. In this one scene when Harry, Ron, and Hermione are trying to sneak out, Neville stands in the way. Hermione casts a petrifying spell on him. He falls and— May 9th, 2015: Mari, I have been playing Big Bad Voodoo Daddy for you because I know you love them. When the Kid had a trumpet solo, I saw your hand twitch, and I called the doctors in! They are doing diagnostics now.

May 10th, 2015: Harry faced Quirrel in the final room and got the stone. He was left there to die after being mor-

I wish there were a spell that could give you your memory back. I need you to remember. tally wounded by Voldemort. His friends found him and saved him. Without them, all would have been lost.

May 15th, 2015: My God. You are conscious! Dr. Calloway showed me that you have normal brain activity. I have enjoyed sitting here reading Harry Potter with you. I really miss you, Mari. P.S. We started the Chamber of Secrets.

May 16th, 2015: Tomorrow was too long to wait. I had to see you. I came to your room at midnight when you were sleeping. I touched your shoulder, and you opened your eyes. When I started telling you about how I snuck in, you raised your hand and stopped me, and then I remembered that Dr. Calloway said that due to your brain damage, you may lose your memory. It was not the friendliest welcome I have ever received, but it was progress. Mari, we are on our way.

May 18th, 2015: We’re back in D.C., but all you can remember is music, especially jazz. We are now with Dr. Ellington, the best neurologist in D.C., and he is not sure you will recover. We finished the Chamber of Secrets. Using a broken wand, Professor Lockhart accidentally strikes himself with the obliviate spell, which causes him to lose his memory. I wish there were a spell that could give you your memory back. I need you to remember.

May 28th, 2015: All you ever do is listen to jazz and beg me to read Harry Potter to you. You are interested in Lupin’s transfiguration—how he loses control and memory and forgets everything that happened. You asked me if you would recover your memory. I hope so. Yesterday you asked me to teach you how to dance. I don’t know how.

May 30th, 2015: You’re in surgery. They are looking into your brain. I told you

that everything would be okay. Your sweaty hand slipped out of mine as they rolled you back into that white room. I felt like I was in Azkaban. I was locked in this waiting room waiting for you to wake. The nurses walked by, guarding me from you, sucking some of my soul out with each pass. Dementors. But I have no wand, no magic, no power.

June 1st, 2015: How are you still asleep?

It has been almost two days. We are about to finish Prisoner of Azkaban. Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, can transform into a big, black dog. I overheard some of the nurses talking about bringing in puppies to brighten some of the patients’ days. I bet you’d like a puppy— A long beep interrupted my letter writing. The sound of the flat line morphed into a terrible screech of jazz horns. The eyes were the only part of Barbie that remained. What was in perfect shape had atrophied into nothing, shriveled like a grape.

“Wake up, Mari,” I croaked. “Please?”

June 15th 2015: I finally met your family. Your younger sister—she looks so much like you. I miss our days in the hospital. I miss you. As Sirius Black said, “The ones that love us never really leave us. You can always find them in [your heart].”

Love, Sam

77

running from the night by richmond mcdaniel Run away from the dark fingers of night as a river cuts through the depths of stone to find yourself in a place away from sight.

Run like you did chasing that old frayed kite in the open fields you thought were your own.

Run away from the dark fingers of night.

The blackness reaches out away from light, trying to reach down deep into your bones.

So run away from the dark fingers of the night.

Don’t leave your collar at some great height to leave me lost in the great unknown.

Go find yourself in a place away from sight.

Don’t close your eyes, just fight with all your might I knew this would come since the first bite. against the odds, into the new alone Your once young coat fading with a big moan. to find yourself in a place away from sight.

But please, run away from the dark fingers of night to find yourself in a place away from sight.

pluto’s city | rob prater | digital photography

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solitude by trevor barker At nightfall, the light of the chapelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stained glass casts my shadow before me.

I wave to him.

He waves to me, for he is an old acquaintance of mine.

Continuing down the road, he jumps from streetlight to streetlight after me, anxious to stay at pace.

Eventually, the streetlights pass, and I am by my lonesome.

I gaze up at the moon, clouds flocked around it like sheep.

Another figure approaches walking opposite me as dark clouds dance.

79

lollapalooza | spencer goodwin | 22 x 24 x 13 inches | mixed media

80

81

home 家 家

by stephen guo

WeChat.

Red flashy words sting my eyes: Happy National Day! Tap to find out where you and your family can relax.

Well, I guess it’s easy to miss the Chinese National Day in Virginia.

I scroll through the pages— lanterns, dumplings, friends smiling; everyone is going back home.

My thumb starts pushing the screen faster and faster— fireworks, noodles, starred flags— but the pictures won’t go away.

They leech something from me.

As if I am hungry.

As if I need something.

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july fourth, times square | junepyo suh | digital photography

fifty miles | kj pankratz | 18 x 24 inches | chalk pastel, graphite, colored pencil

84

fifty miles | kj pankratz | digital photography

85

After sliding Milly into her bed, I covered her with the space blanket from my bag and put her to rest.

The crinkled metal wrapping on the blanket distorted my face in a shattered mirror. I covered her one shovel load at a time and watched as her shroud slowly disappeared. On top of the grave, I stacked rocks and pebbles; the vultures wouldn’t eat today.

I set off down the trail again. The sunset transformed the once bright white road into a landscape of goldenred. The ice rhythmically crunched under my feet as I stared at the photo. I rubbed my thumb back and forth from Sarah to Milly. I had Sarah’s letter in my backpack. I pulled it out, sliding the picture under a paperclip I’d placed in the top right corner. The letter was lined from folding and the writing smudged but still legible.

Ben, We’ve lost our sense of adventure.

When was the last time we went camping instead of trapping ourselves in some resort? Our ideas of an escape are too different. Your career is the most important thing in your life right now, and I understand that, but I’m not going to stay here and waste away in the prison cell we call an apartment. I’m taking my backpack and heading north. I’ve always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail and look back at the mountains when I’m finished.

I’m just not the person you thought I was.

I can’t settle like you wanted me to. I need to see the world through my own eyes. You can keep Milly. She was always your dog more than mine. I’m sorry.

—Sarah The sun had set, but the moon and stars lit up the trail. The heat was long gone. I walked off the path toward a dead pine tree with bare limbs and charred bark. I broke off the low branches, and the crunch and pop echoed as I gathered enough for a fire.

Once I’d cleared away the snow and built a tepee of fuel, I fished the tinder and flint from my backpack.

Most of the sparks drifted away into the sky, but some caught and flared and spread. The shadows danced as the flames licked at the stars, the smoke swirling and stinging my eyes.

The heat bit at my legs and singed the standing hairs. Sliding my hands over the soft fleece of my jacket, I wished for Milly.

I waited for the fire to rekindle itself, but I’d run out of twigs and tinder and couldn’t reach the dead branches of the pine tree. The white around me had melted into green, and as the minutes turned into hours, I fed the flame. I stood up and stared at the stars. As the flames yearned for more fuel, I let the memory slide out of my grasp.

The fire flared. A shooting star streaked above, and I realized there’s something special about watching a fire die. When the charred logs lose their flame and break and fall into a glowing bed of hot coals, the wind spreads grey ash in with green grass and brings life and death too close together.

champ | andrew holmes | digital photography

86

letter from appalachia

I

fiction by sam carter

heard the squeal tear through the icy air. As I crested the hill, the orange glow of the sunset reflected off the snow. The earth on either side of the road was covered in rocks that jutted out like talons. Whimpering on the ground next to a blood-streaked rock lay Milly. A cougar with a frosted and bloody coat circled a deer carcass nearby. Hands frozen, I fumbled with my .22 pistol until shots echoed through the wilderness.

I rushed to Milly. Her nostrils flared, the snow around her warm with blood. A single rib had torn through her once golden blonde fur, now matted and red. I spun the cap of my canteen and poured the last of our water on her side, and then I tore my shirt off, pressing it against the wound. She shuddered in short, raspy breaths. The blood quickly soaked the cloth and began to drip onto the ground. I lay down, scared to touch her too firmly, and stroked her forehead. As she panted, I could feel her shivering.

“It’ll be okay girl. We’ll be okay.”

I ran back to the trail and picked

up my backpack, feet crunching through the thin layer of ice covering the snow. The trail continued for miles behind me, miles of foot and paw prints. Looming in the distance, the Colorado Mountains served as a reminder of how isolated we were; there was not going to be a rescue.

A vulture took flight and rose above the tree line. Milly wasn’t moving. It started to snow again as

Sarah had surprised me for our fifth anniversary with a dog, and I bought her a camera. It took twenty minutes before Milly sat still and we figured out the photo delay, but I got the shot I had wanted for my wallet that day.

“It’ll be okay.” I petted her forehead. There was no whimper, no cry, only the sound of a woodpecker hammering at a pine tree and its echo in my head. The warmth had left; her legs

When the charred logs lose their flame and break and fall into a glowing bed of hot coals, the wind spreads grey ash in with green grass and brings life and death too close together.

I sat down next to her. Snowflakes landed and melted on her fur, disappearing forever. I pulled out my wallet and opened it to a photo the size of a credit card. The edges were cracked and wrinkled, and the picture itself was worn down from constant rubbing. In the picture, Milly sat between Sarah and me.

were stiff and her eyes stared through me.

I pulled out the collapsible shovel from my pack and struck at the earth, but the hardened dirt did not give. I struck again and again until slowly a mound of dirt formed over my shoulder.

The vulture landed on the top of a pine tree, a black silhouette as the sun set.

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space dunk | spencer goodwin | 18 x 21.5 inches | mixed media

88

It’s a big day for me. I’ve been tossed around, ruffled through, peered at— and I’ve never been happier. After opening me up and reading me from cover to cover, you probably think I owe you some kind of explanation: the little things about me, the details.

To start things off, I’m a semiannual publication (which means I’d like to think I’m a Gemini, the two halves of me always striving to be better than the other, but then again I am a magazine). I’ve featured the literary arts of Woodberry Forest since my conception in 1949, which makes me 67. I age well.

My parents, ironically a bunch of teenagers, decide what I feature based on blind review by student boards. The editors encourage submissions from any member of the Woodberry community, though sadly, we’ve never received anything from a faculty pet. All opinions

colophon expressed within me are neither mine nor those of Woodberry Forest School, but are the intellectual property of the authors and artists.

brother in May) until finally, I’ve arrived in your hands.

This year, the editors strove for a sleek look that emphasized the My creation takes place both inside visual strength of local artists and and outside the academic day— photographers. My spread designer believe it or not, those guys can’t get Rob Prater, with the assistance of enough of me. Editors are selected David Willis and Adrian Cheung, from review boards, to which used lines and colors to create artists and authors can apply, by motion and unity, and in doing so, current editors and faculty advisors. sharpened the focus on featured Particularly I would like to thank word and image. Using lines as Kelly Lonergan for helping with art a thematic element, it’s quite appropriate that they decided review. He helps me look good. that I should get lines as well—a Created on an Intel-based iMac monologue. I hope you’ve enjoyed using Adobe CS5, I am very hip. your time with me. I know I have I’d go as far to call myself “modern.” with you.

How’s that for 67 years old? My titles are in Telugu Sangam MN, By the way, I’m also a proud and my body credits and text are member of the Columbia Scholastic in Adobe Caslon Pro. Over in Press Association and the National Waynesboro, I and my 849 perfect- Scholastic Press Association (I get bound selves are printed by around).

McClung Companies. The editors The Talon distribute me in December (and my the talon 898 woodberry forest road woodberry forest, va 22989 www.woodberry.org/talon

the talon, fall 2015 woodberry forest school woodberry forest, va 22989 www.woodberry.org/talon