2022 National YoungArts Week+ Anthology and Catalogue by YoungArts

YoungArtsSelectworksby the 2022 Finalists in Design Arts, Photography, Visual Arts and Writing Anthology + Catalogue

SelectYoungArts3worksby the 2022 Finalists in Design Arts, Photography, Visual Arts and Writing

Anthology + Catalogue

2022 National YoungArts Week+ T-Shirt Designed by Maya Ragazzo (2013 Film)

On the pages that follow, YoungArts proudly presents the awarded works of the 2022 YoungArts Finalists in Design Arts, Photography, Visual Arts and Writing. In addition to attending a life-changing experience at National YoungArts Week+, it’s important to note that for many of these Finalists, this might be the first time their work is lauded in a curated display through this published Anthology and Catalogue.

Acknowledgmentssee

Above all, we would like to acknowledge this year’s artists for believing in themselves and taking the extraordinary step to join our community of 20,000+ award winners. Now, more than ever, artists need support to share their voices and point of view. Through YoungArts, these winners can access that support of unique creative and professional development opportunities for their artistic career. This Anthology and Catalogue is dedicated to our 156 finalists, their families, teachers, and mentors.

The last year has been one of transition to say the least, and we are so incredibly proud of these young artists’ steadfastness and ability to create, inspire, and share a perspective in the world. We are thrilled to continue honoring the work of our young authors through a virtual public presentation as well as the works of our talented designers, photographers and visual artists, through a virtual exhibition. This presentation of work is key to the artistic craft, development, and sustaining factor of the YoungArts experience. We believe that hearing their own voices in the presence of others, and discovering the impact of their work, is an invaluable aspect of our program.

National YoungArts Week+ takes place each January, yet our work is a continuous process that depends upon the knowledge and commitment of a vast network of guest artists, teachers and educators. We are grateful for the many partnerships and artists who helped shape this monumental week and inspired this next generation of artists. We extend our gratitude to Anthology Editor, Jordan Levin and Exhibition Guest Curator, Marie Vickles.

The publication of this volume and all other National YoungArts Week+ programming is made possible with generous support from Aon; Carnival Foundation; City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; Tarell Alvin McCraney; State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; Miami Downtown Development Authority; Sidney and Florence Stern Family Foundation; Sandra and Tony Tamer; and Truist Wealth. YoungArts continues to provide opportunities for artists throughout their careers and the generosity of all of our supporters helps make these activities a reality. Please

youngarts.org/donor-recognition/ for a complete list of our donors.

Sarah Arison Chair, Board of Trustees

ForewordCongratulations!

We are grateful to be a part of your journey, and we can’t wait to see what you bring to the world.

These are historic times. And yet, at the beginning of this year, you will join us virtually for workshops, seminars and master classes that will help you pursue careers in the arts. You are now part of a four-decade-long tradition of recognizing, affirming and championing emerging artists who we have seen change the face of arts and culture in this country.

We look forward to many more years of providing you and future YoungArts award winners with life-long access to funding, mentorship and creative and professional development. With more than 20,000 YoungArts awardees, 820 U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts, and artists across 10 creative disciplines, we are still just getting started.

We are delighted to welcome you to the YoungArts award winner community this milestone 40th anniversary season. From the first classes of award winners including Terence Blanchard, Vanessa Williams and Queen Esther, to you, the 2022 award winners, who despite the challenges created by the pandemic, have stood firm and declared, “I am an artist” — we honor each of you.

We applaud you and the entire community of artists: artists who have shared music that can bring us to tears, art that inspires a better world, poetry that can motivate a nation and design that changes the way we live.

Jewel ExecutiveMaloneDirector

Niveah Glover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Reed-Mera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 Abel Reyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Jayden Robinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94

Caroline Berthin

Izabela Cookson .28

Lei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

2021-2022 Supporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Luis Sandoval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Kim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Evan Lai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

Reaugh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Nine

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2022 Guest Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Dohyun Kim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Kyra

Isabelle Rogando

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Li . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Ethan Lin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

Ian Kim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

Madeleine Case

Sara Homma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Jennifer Chiu

Ella

About YoungArts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Notable Winners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Anya Jiménez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

Anna Vismantas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Jessica Kim . . . . . . . . . . .

Sophia Bassett

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Danielle Sung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Raisa Effress . . . . . . 31

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Thomas Hicks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Stella

Clara Schiavo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Lucia Silva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98

Nolan Baynes II

Ayana Askew

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Zhou Zhang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Salome Agbaroji

Youjaye Daniels .29

Kirby Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Miye Sugino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

About YoungArts

Guest Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Jack Dunlap . 30

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Natalie Kennedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

Connie Jiang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Table of Contents

Tyana Barton

National YoungArts Week+ Supporters . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Special Thanks to Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Natalie Hampton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Grace Tapia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Louis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Tomek Marczewski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Carolina Marrero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Jacob Martinez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Jasmine Morgan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Chinonye Omeirondi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 Jaya Parker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Qadir Parris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 Eleanor Pimentel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Kaiser

Kate

Saya Ahn

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95

Kaila Harunzade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Natalie Wang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

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Select Works

Zoe Goldemberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Chaewon Kim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

YoungArts Anthology + Catalogue

Select Works

by the 2022 Finalists in Design ArtsPhotography,Arts,VisualandWriting

My tears crystal constellations on my cheek.

Spoken Word Gahr High School Cerritos, CA

Insomnia

You have taught us cocoons to ﬁght demons by Counting sheep.

Salome10

My Nigerian mother says / “gaa la bha1.” / Fear burrows in the octave-low tremolos of her voice / so I cocoon myself away and lay brainless on my back, / a tradition that goes back farther than counting sheep2 / a ritual receding / farther than hairlines and / cracking whips. / So I reminisce. / I let the / nighttime / mist whisper through windows / make lava of my floorboards in the form of sleep paralysis. / But I Will Not Sleep. / I will stay fixed on my / clenched fists, / nails carve hieroglyphs into my palms / and squeeze harder to make sure I still / exist. / But I Will Not Sleep.

My bed now a pool of

Because you are afraid of the dark. Please, Do not compare your sleep deprivation to mine. You are sleepy and I am three/ﬁfths alive.

I have dreams that a white cop let his gun cock, turned A young black boy from a humble block to an inkblot. And I must be a prophet because my dreams

Mama didn’t know when she came America That African-American and Nigerian blood is the Same sweet nectar-nicotine for demons. I am trained by my mother to ﬁght these demons

sweat.

Don’t blink—Gunshot—Blood leaks—Lungs shrink

By clenching my ﬁsts until the build-up of scar tissue Allows me to feel Nothing.

You Back Again

2. sheep. White cotton clouds in those ﬁelds…

Keep Keep Keep coming true.

I clench my ﬁsts and feel nothing.

3. ikpere m di nala. “My knees are down” (in the Igbo language)

Ikpere m di nala3 / I pray to God that I won’t close my eyes / I wouldn’t survive the shadows I’d see / You persecute me / for laying dormant as the monster under your bed / when I’m the one with lungs being crushed under your weight. / Your bed built on the broken / backs of African empires. / Just wait till Lil Miss Nigeria becomes a big girl / and Boogeyman don’t scare her.

1. gaa la bha. “Go to bed” (in the Igbo language)

See bags under my eyes and hand me concealer to disguise it. You expect a prize for having a black friend, while for black girls making that walking home in a little black dress at around 10 is an accomplishment. We can’t sleep cause we’re scared of death. You don’t sleep and our men don’t live past the age of forty for the same reason:

Agbaroji

Place ear to pavement, hear:

I’ve been to places pretty.

See street markets where black women sell incense and head wraps And mark it: “perfect location to reinvent hot yoga!”

Pretty11

Nah, that ain’t pretty. I’ve been to places pretty. And I assure you, those pretty places Got nothing on the heart of this city.

2. clatter of tumbleweed-ed dice rolled about two blocks down

I’ve been to places pretty. Like Hollywood and its Walk of Fame. If Dorothy’s ruby slippers were red bottoms She’d be trotting this white gold road, feeling Oh so OZtentatious, feeling Higher than their class, Higher than their all glass renovated high-rise buildings, Higher than their credit scores, And their high rise Lululemon leggings Where most are foreign to the concept of begging.ButI’m

Places of LA

3. soft-spoken escape routes never received

I’dPretty.hoped

Not like that sweet little old lady with only six teeth but still smiled at me anyway Like I was her own granddaughter.

The same place where Obinne, the Nigerian art collector Sells a portrait of afro Mona Lisa on the curb for $50. Starving entrepreneurship; reparations In our own hands.

Or to build a bank that will deny those same black women loans.

the sound had been the coming of Jesus, ﬁnally So the painting of Black Messiah in Obinne’s art shop Made more sense, made more than cents, ﬁnally Because this living is protest.

5. the subtle rumble of white Porsches approaching from the hill side gentri is coming.

This is the heart of LA that beats and weeps all the same.

But investors bleach its arteries with Beige colors and Caramel fraps.

Pretty places like Beverly Hills, Where mimosas and liquid diamonds crash on the shoreline. These beach dwellers collect inner-city properties like sea shells And trade real estate like spades cards. These places pretty enough for screen time on your television, Pretty much the poster child of Los Angeles, And epitome of daddy’s money.

The corner man whistles tunes only Sufferers know.

4. the color of marigold by girl eating mangonadas for her forever-th time

A cavalry on credit-drawn carriages Coming to make the place

sure you’ve never been to the lowlands of Los Al: The dark basement the brochures don’t show. Where no one knows a Dorothy, But Dominique in her un-creased low rise dunks Is always found walking where Drugged corners intersect at Broke lanes.

1. Queen Calaﬁa’s war cries

This is what you call PrettyPretty. shines like heirloom pearls. Not like pretty glimmer of grills in teeth. No, pretty like veneers and messy bun, Not pretty like barrettes on little black girls Or streetOrtacos.grafﬁti done by people far too talented for their circumstance. Or brokenOrglass.theunironic musicality of barber shops.

Design

RooseveltArtsHigh School

Saya12 Ahn

Seattle, WA

Op Art Calendar Design Adobe CS, CAD Keyshot 2021

Booker T. Washington Senior High School

Letter to my grandfather

you loved me before I knew what love was; That was something you always gave more than enough of: Unwavering, unrelenting, never ending love. Right now I need your love. Send down a dove from heaven to comfort me and remind me that you are here even when I can’t see it.

You told me I was beautiful before I even realized it. You saw me through real eyes before my eyes were prime enough to see My Youbeauty.toldme

Ayana13

You remind me that you’re proud of me because you know I only hear it from you. You were the reason I worked hard and pushed through, Pushed through life’s ups and downs because I knew if I called on you, You would always be around To pick me up when I felt like giving up, Giving me the motivation I needed when I felt I wasn’t enough. You were my rock, My biggest supporter, And until I see you again, Just know that I love you. Sincerely, your granddaughter.

Dear granddaddy, I know that death is inevitable; The pain it brings is unbearable; The heartbreak, irreparable, Once face to face, Now I’m facing your burial.

You are here, you hear every word I say, You see the tears rolling down my face And you remind me that you’re in a better place; That you walk on pavements made out of gold, That heaven is even better than the stories we’re told, That you’re the happiest you have ever been And then you smile and say Ayana, don’t worry you’ll see me again.

Askew

Spoken Word

Norfolk, VA

I always looked up to you, now I’m looking 6 feet down, My feet stuck to the ground; I wish I could fly with you to heaven, But I’m ground bound. Bound to the earth by life, While death carries you to the heavens Or as you like to call it, up yonder. But I wish I could hold on to you a little bit longer, Feeling your warm embrace once again, My chin resting on your shoulder, The warmth of your soul encapsulating me, Until you pull away And gently place your hands on my face And call me beautiful.

Not only must we remember the pain but we must remember the strength. We must remember the thing with feathers that reminds us that after a storm comes a calm. After a rainy day, the sun will peep through the clouds shedding light on our future. Hope became an eternal flame sparked by the heartfelt freedom songs sung despite captivity, Sparked by June 19th, 1865 when Texas ended slavery and all enslaved people were free, Sparked by the shouts of jubilee echoing across the United States, Sparked by the strength and resilience it took for Harriet Tubman’s feet to go from running from slave masters to walking into freedom, Sparked by Phyllis Wheatley’s words setting the stage for me to walk on, But like minister Louis Farackan said, emancipation is freeing a bird into America’s cage, But hope was the explanation for why the caged bird still sings, Why grass can push its way through the concrete, Why the blues was born through the bellies of sadness, And why, I, a black girl, can live in the world freer than they could ever imagine.

Invisible14 Freedom

Their crowns of royalty became crowns of thorns. Their broken backs became America’s backbone. Taken from their home and thrown into bondage Was Comme, 18 years old, 59 inches, arrived in 1819 on the slave ship Juanita. Kosse, a little girl only 24 inches tall, a baby still learning to crawl. History was not written in stone which is why the grave stones were often unmarked. It was written in the scars of bodies used as whipping posts, Found in the blood shed on American soil. They try to white out our history but the truth will always bleed through. They can’t erase pain because it was never written in pencil.

I once read that hope is the thing with feathers which is able to weather life’s storms. So, on this Juneteenth look down and see that we stand on the wings of phoenixes And even in the midst of our jubilee, let’s be grounded in the roots of history, And not wait for freedom to be bestowed but rather To bestow upon ourselves the true freedom of our mind, spirit and body.

I once read that hope is the thing with feathers. Its resilience is able to weather Life’s storm, the waves that form and come crashing on African shores, Sweeping us away into the ocean of sorrows Created by the salty tears of our ancestors, By the incessant rain of the white man reigning supreme, But somehow, instead of drowning, they treaded on their hopes and their dreams As they journeyed to America.

StiversPhotographySchool “Dwelling Maturation”

Tyana15 Barton

Series Silver Gelatin Print 2021

for the Arts Dayton, OH Image 1 of

Sophia16 Bassett Visual InterlochenArts Arts Academy Interlochen, MI Cumulative Experience Mixed Media Installation 2021

Nolan17 Baynes II WestPingryPhotographySchoolOrange, NJ Rust 35mm film photography 2021

Caroline18

2020

Sobremesa de Familia Acrylic paint and collage on canvas

Berthin

Visual DesignArtsand Architecture Senior High School Miami, FL

CUT TO:

Do you care?

SHEILA (CONT’D)

(patronizingly)MARK

She holds out her hand.

Please come in, make yourself comfortable. Can I get you anything

AUGUST

I’m Sheila, and this is Mark! We are so excited to meet you!

She makes eye contact with AUGUST (23), scrawny, pierced, and sweaty, the drummer of the band performing. They both smile.

A punky crowd is pulsing with energy while music blares. There are flashes of bright, white light that disrupt the pink and blue LED. SARAH (23), a slender woman with long dark black hair and lots of eyeliner, weaves through the crowd holding a camera. Another light flashes as she takes a photo.

Hard Core

Madeleine19 Case Play or Calabasas,ViewpointScriptSchoolCA

Shouldn’t you ask before you do that?

THE PRESENT. INT. CAR - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

SARAH

Taking a deep breath, Sarah knocks on the door. A very put- together couple, MARK and SHEILA, swing it open.

INT. HALLWAY - DAY

EXT. SUBURBAN HOUSE - DAY

THE PAST. INT. CONCERT SETTING - NIGHT (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

It’s after the concert, she assuredly walks up to him and takes his photo.

CUT TO:

GIRL (muffled, giggling) -What are you doing?

Not really.

AUGUST

AUGUST August.

AUGUST (VOICEMAIL) (yelling over music, drunk)

SARAH Sarah.

Hey baby, I just wanted to call and say I love you. It’s been an unforgettable night-

Sarah (26), now with many Zoe Kravitz-esque tattoos and dark circles under her eyes, is sitting in an old beat-up car taking deep breaths in front of a classic, beige, suburban house. She grabs her phone, sitting next to a camera, and begins to listen to a voicemail.

MARK AND SHEILA Hello!

Out of shock, she throws the wig at him.SARAH

AH... what...what are doing?AUGUST

SARAH

I am. Didn’t you know that before Annie Leibovitz was famous she was also a half-drowned Walmart princess?

SHEILA

I can’t imagine. Are you doing this all by yourself?

THE PRESENT. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

AUGUST Sarah?

Sarah awkwardly sits on a chair in the dull and clean living room and Mark and Sheila sit, in unison, on the couch across from her.

THE PAST. EXT. OUTSIDE APARTMENT COMPLEX - DAY (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

Right, I thought you were a SARAHphotographer?

SARAH

Being romantic? What the hell happened to you?

AUGUST

INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY

Sarah slightly shakes her head and looks down to process the memory.

Well, I had a lot of fun last night and would love to hear all about little Morgan over dinner?

SHEILA

SARAH

I’m ok. Thank you.

SHEILA How have they been?

I’m sure.

They’ve been alright. To be honest, I’m a bit overwhelmed by it all.

BEAT

Have you met with a lot of couples looking to adopt?

Um... a few.

TILT DOWN to see that Sarah’s black tattered sweater is stretched over a baby bump.

August waits outside Sarah’s building with flowers and takeout bags. His eyes widen as he sees Sarah who is sopping wet, holding a blonde wig, wearing a ripped Cinderella costume, missing a shoe, and limping towards the building. She focuses on wringing out her dress.

AUGUST (CONT’D)

August smiles.

August looks nervous and holds up the takeout bags. Sarah looks skeptical, but smiles.

SARAH

AUGUST

Um...I may or may not be the world’s most...affordable... birthday princess and little Morgan wanted to see if Cinderella could swim.

to drink? We have water and sparkling water. I’d offer you a coffee but, you know, baby first.

Um, what do you think your parenting style will be like?

They look at each other lovingly. (maintainingSHEILAeyecontact)

SARAH

Um, Santa Cruz. Go Banana Slugs.

AugustBEAT rests his hand in his palm, looks at her, smiles, and starts to blush.

We’re ready to be parents.

MARK

I love you.

Something catches August’s eyes, distress floods his face. Sarah follows his stare. There is a young girl uncomfortably being hit on by a guy who grips her arm as she tries to pull away. August goes over to the guy and taps his shoulder.

Mark places his hand on Sheila’s.

AUGUST

SHEILA

THE PAST. INT. BACKROOM OF CONCERT SPACE - DAY (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

MARK (CONT’D) Where did you get your (half-assed)SARAHdegree?

THE PRESENT. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

MARK

THE PAST. INT. AFTER A SHOW CONCERT - NIGHT (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

Sarah, looking down, fiddles with her rings. She’s flustered, looks up at the couple, and insincerely smiles at them.

Well, Sheila and I have had a lot of infertility issues, and we’re at a point where adoption just seems like the only answer.

As Sarah and August play with a drum set, the rest of the room buzzes. He stands behind her, conducting her hands so she learns a beat. They laugh.

Thank you... I just want to start by asking a couple of questions. Why do you want to adopt?

Oh... well we’re here to make your life easier.

Sarah and August are sitting on a couch in a grimy, smoky concert space backroom. She takes pictures of him doing various poses, all smiling, while they laugh.

Sarah turns red and awkwardly takes another photo.

We just want to give our baby unconditional and... forgiving love. I think we both feel that is the most important thing.

Awkward pause

That along with education. We believe that it is imperative and priceless. We actually met at Stanford. Go Cardinals!

Um yes, I’m doing thisSHEILAalone.

SARAH

Sheila smiles.

Sarah grins.

Holy shit! Is your handSARAHok(exhaling) -I love you.

No, I look like I lost a fight.SARAH

AUGUST

What...this has nothing to do with you.

August sits on a doctor’s table and Sarah delicately holds ice up to his face. Her hand is bandaged too.

GIRL

THE PRESENT. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

THE PAST. INT. DOCTORS OFFICE - NIGHT (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

You know, you look prettyAUGUSTbadass.

The guy looks at her, shocked, and staggers away. Sarah starts shaking her hand in pain and gives August her other hand. He looks at her in AUGUSTamazement.

AUGUST

Hey, leave her alone, man.GUY

He’s right. Stop.

Sorry about him. He always likes to find a way to bring up college. (flustered)SARAH

SARAH

What... oh no problem.SHEILA

Yeah, you look bad.

MEDIUM SHOT of Sarah impressed by August, but her eyes widen and concern takes over as fighting noises sound from in front of her. She runs over to August who is on the floor bleeding, the other guy who clearly “won” stands over him.

SARAH Leave!

AUGUST (CONT’D) It took you long enough to say.

Sarah quickly pulls him toward her and kisses him. They smile, and she rests her head against his forehead.

SHEILA

We also have some questions. Do you or the father have any concerning...predispositions that we should know about?

Sarah looks the guy in the eye, takes a breath, and punches him in the face.

BEAT

Let’s not make this a thing. She’s clearly not interested.

AUGUST But you still love me?

Sarah shakes her head and starts breathingSARAHheavily.

No worries, it’s down the hall to the left.

THE PRESENT. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

THE PAST. EXT. OUTSIDE APARTMENT - DAY (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

THE PRESENT. INT. SUBURBAN BATHROOM - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

SARAH I need you August.

Sarah sits on the lid of the toilet holding a positive pregnancy test. She is distressed and looks up trying to hold back tears.

SARAH

SHEILA

August and Sarah are arguing.

Sarah breathes heavily in the bathroom. She splashes water on her face as she tries to focus on her breathing. Her hands are shaking.

INT. SUBURBAN BATHROOM - DAY

AUGUST (near tears)

Sarah rests her hands on the sink and looks in the mirror. She takes another deep breath and moves her hands to stroke her belly.

I know... and I don’t say it often, so don’t screw this up.

SARAH Thanks.

August gets up to leave and smiles back at her.

Sarah teeters a bit as she goes to sit on the lid of the toilet. She rests her head on the wall and plays the voicemail again.

AUGUST (VOICEMAIL) (yelling over music, drunk) Hey baby, I just wanted to call and say I love you. It’s been an unforgettable night-

Sarah? Sheila asked if there were any issues with you or the father that we should be worried about.

THE PRESENT. INT. SUBURBAN BATHROOM - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

NURSE

Hi guys. Can I borrow August for a second? In case of concussion, we just have to do a couple of scans, and then, you should be free to go.

Take good care of him. He’s more fragile than he looks.

I don’t know if I can handle this. I’m so scared.

He leans forward and rests his forehead on Sarah’s. The moment is interrupted when the nurse comes in.

MARK

(sarcastically)SARAH

THE PAST. INT. BATHROOM - DAY (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

Sorry, can you give me a minute? I’m just... so exhausted. Where’s your bathroom?

NURSE

Hi, Sarah. He passed about fifteen minutes ago. It was peaceful. He was asleep.

SheBEATanswers the phone. She puts her hand over her mouth, shocked, almost hyperventilating. She closes her eyes trying to find composure.SARAH

She slams the door to the house on her way out.

(into phone) Ok, I’m coming.

Glioblastomas are terrifying and aggressive, but you’ve been so strong. Cancer is monstrous...I am so sorry he was taken from you.

Sarah hastily opens the bathroom door and speed walks to get her bag.

Sarah looks down. She rubs her belly, her hands shaking.

THE PRESENT. INT. HOSPICE - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

SARAH

She tentatively goes into the room where there is a lifeless and diminished August. His piercings are out. He is colorless. A nurse walks in.

Sarah is terrified of the August that is in front of her. She tries to touch him, but wavers. She takes one last inhale and touches one hand on her belly and one hand on him. She gingerly goes to rest her forehead on his.

(muffled, giggling) -What are you doing?

Her phone starts ringing, interrupting the voicemail, and she looks at the screen.

It is the same day as the fight. August has a busted lip, and he is waiting with Sarah on the hospital bed laughing. A nurse walks in.

INT. HOSPICE ROOM - DAY

24 GIRL

INT. HOSPICE HALLWAY - DAY

NURSE

Sarah gets out of the car and nervously looks at the building ahead of her, slow piano begins to play. She is breathing heavily. HANDHELD TRACKING SHOT of her as she slowly and uneasily walks by a sign that says A Grace Hospice Care. Her anxiety is palpable.

SARAH

THE PAST. EXT. OUTSIDE APARTMENT - DAY (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

She stops in front of a room and fiddles with her rings, she looks up and breaths out slowly.

The same flashback from when they are arguing before continues from when it was cut off.

I’m so sorry. I really need to go.

INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY

THE PAST. INT. HOSPITAL - DAY (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

EXT. PARKING LOT - DAY

Sarah gives August a concerned look.

NURSE (CONT’D)

August, your brain scans came back. You’re not concussed, but we did find something we don’t like.

I need you August.

BEAT

August looks bad but he is awake in the hospice bed. He is tapping his fingers to drumbeat on Sarah’s smaller baby belly. He smiles at her and Sarah does a fake crowd cheer.

Sarah breathes shakily, holding back her tears, and hugs him.

SARAH (CONTD)

Sarah’s face is inscrutable as she tries to hold back everything. She then tentatively covers him with a sheet and falls to her knees.

Listen. Please, Sarah.

BEAT

August comes up to her and grabs her hand.AUGUST

CUT TO:

THE PRESENT. INT. CAR - DAY - DAYS LATER (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

Sarah is sitting in her car in front of Mark and Sheila’s. She looks just as tired but a shadow of a smile under her sadness, as she strokes and looks down at her belly.

SARAH (audible pre-cry lump in her throat)

SARAH

I don’t know where else to put my love, so I know I need to be a mom. I really hope you find the next member of your family.

THE PAST. INT. HOSPICE - DAY (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

She confidently knocks on the door to the house. Sheila answers and Mark is behind.

I need to figure out this photography thing. Nobody wants a pregnant Cinderella.

You don’t know that those things are going to happen. I need hope. What if you could be okay?AUGUST

Sarah, you are extremely strong. I need you to never question or forget that. Okay.

The doctors said that if they take the tumor out, I could become explosive. They said that I could be confused, angry, or dangerous. It’s not worth gaining a couple more hard months, where I won’t really be here. The last thing I want to do is hurt you or miss a second of you and theSARAHbaby.

THE PRESENT. INT. HOSPICE - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

SHEILA Sarah?! We’ve been wondering if we were going to hear from you.

Hi...I never answered your question...about the baby’s father. I loved him...plainly and truly, but he’s gone now.

AUGUST (CONT’D)

What is happening to me is inevitable. Not having the surgery is my choice.

EXT. FRONT DOOR - DAY

BEAT

I can’t...I really need you.AUGUST

SARAH

August is holding a phone.

Awkward pause.

The camera zooms in on a photo in the corner. August when he told her he loved her for the first time.

AUGUST (yelling over music, drunk)

What are you doing? Why are you leaving me a voicemail?

INT. CAR - DAY

Alright, good luck, Sarah.

Because I always want you to be able to hear me say I love you. They smile.

Hey baby, I just wanted to call and say I love you. It’s been an unforgettable night... Sarah comes up to him.

THE PAST. INT. CONCERT SETTING - NIGHT (VINTAGE 16MM FILM)

THE PRESENT. INT. GALLERY - DAY (CANON BLACK MAGIC CAMERA)

SARAH (giggling)

SHEILA

Sheila looks confused and faces Mark, then turns back to Sarah, who is standing tall.

August rests his forehead on hers and looks at her lovingly and alive.

AUGUST

END

The credits roll as Sarah walks through her own photography exhibition with a stroller. The camera follows her as she passes photos of August’s band at various concerts, memorializing Sarah and August’s old, colorful life.

Sarah is in the car and plays the voicemail.

Chiu

Supermarket Peaches

You wondered if there was a way to save the peaches, press them into juice or pulp somehow, but you didn’t have the time. Or rather, you were both too lazy. That’s why Kevin likes to buy the crunchy peaches, the ones that are firm in the hand, that haven’t yet begun the process of softening and sweetening. Your mother taught you how to pick a good peach when you were young—how to identify the correct plumpness, the perfect coloring—but Kevin says that this is all wrong. He shops in bulk, with the expectation that everything that is bought is to last for the longOnrun.Monday, he takes you grocery shopping, and you rummage through the stands together. Peaches are still on sale—a dollar a pound—and they will be for at least the next week, according to the ad you picked up on the way in. There are peaches stacked on top of each other, peaches rolling across the surface. Kevin explains that you need to pick the hardest peaches, the unyielding ones, the ones that don’t give. These will ripen over the week, lengthening their lifespan for a few more days.

Short Story

White Station High School

The peaches spoil anyway. Next you try putting them in the refrigerator, but this, too, only adds a few days. In the end, the cold shrinks the skin and leaves the fruit desiccated. When you bite into the peach, it is dry, leaving an unpleasant dull taste on your tongue. Over dinner, Kevin urges you to eat more peaches—maybe peach salad, he says, peaches in your morning yogurt. You yell at him to stop eating the chocolate bark, which doesn’t expire until nine months later, and snack on peaches instead. He’s trying to eat more healthily, having convinced himself that switching from milk chocolate to dark chocolate is enough. You are too, but you have an unrelenting sweet tooth.

Kevin hates it when you leave the peaches on the counter, plump orange skin bruising when squeezed. You stare at them when you do your morning pages at 8 A.M. like you do with the productivity videos you watch, trying to describe the colors as you scrawl messy thoughts on the page. You find it ridiculous that all the shades of oranges are named after foods. It feels sacrilegious to describe a peach as apricot or cantaloupe or carrot or tangerine— even worse: salmon. At first, you try to describe them the way you would a sunrise, but peaches are too mundane and sunsets too majestic for this. In the end, you write some ugly sentence, not one you’d ever be proud of, but one that you wipe from your mind as soon as you set the pen down. That’s what you like about journaling 750 words early in the morning: there’s no expectation to make it poetic or beautiful. Because the peaches aren’t beautiful—they’re mottled, bruised, white mold forming speckles on their skin

Memphis, TN

first went on sale at the farmer’s market, you and Kevin could go through all the peaches in the week before they started to spoil, flesh numbing and decaying from the inside. Last weekend, Kevin bit into a peach only to find that the flesh had begun to rot. You balked when he tried to throw it away because your mother had always taught you to eat what you could, waste no food, but when you tried it, you agreed: it had to be thrown away.

When the morning comes, the peaches are still not ripe, but you take a knife and cut one into slices anyway—you are already so tired of waiting. The fruit crunches in your mouth, and you are only a little disappointed to find that the taste is not nearly as sweet as you’re used to. This is what small relief you take: in some way, you have cheated time, derailed the peaches on their path to ruin, and for this you are willing to give it up, the sweetness. You remind yourself to note this in your morning pages later, taking another piece of fruit. The coolness sticks against your throat as you swallow, and you wash it down with water before you can begin to choke.

He’s annoyed when you zone out for a few minutes, saving some phrase he said on your phone. Your notes app is a confused mess of lines that struck you randomly: half your own thoughts, half Kevin’s. Not because he’s particularly eloquent, but sometimes he says things that are striking and off-kilter enough to jolt your mind. Tonight, he has said something about blue whales. How the rare 52-hertz whale calls are at such a high pitch that they can’t communicate with any other whales. How lonely, you think, it must be to sing a solitary whalesong and have no one to share it with. But you also think about the passage of time, how things must seem to move slower when in isolation. In this way, you

Jennifer27

Whenalready.thepeaches

If all the peaches are destined to spoil, then you are determined to savor what is good while it lasts. You put the peaches on the counter. Kevin moves them to the refrigerator, and you move them to the counter again. He moves them back. He says he is buying time. He likes to chase every small extra bit he can, but you are more impatient. You don’t have the time. Instead, you resent having to wait for them to ripen and soften.

somewhat envy it, envy the loneliness. You never seem to have enough time: you devour your meals in twenty bites, steal minutes of rest between errands and tasks. The peaches always rot before you can eat them. A 52-hertz whale, you think, would be able to eat its peaches in time.

on dresses, with flower appliqués 2021

Miami,

Cyanotype

Bela in Three Stages prints on sewn

fabric

Visual DesignArtsand Architecture

Izabela28

Cookson Senior High School FL

After the painting,‘Sugar Shack’ by Ernie Barnes

full of dusty, aching men: shades of burnt sienna, auburn, and copper from working in the mines. They look for good times, gyrating towards deep, curvy sistas--bodacious and vibrant; their perky coconut breasts and blushed nut brown faces held towards the few dangling lights swinging above their flawless skin as they jazz and sway wearing rusty tomato reds, saffron yellows, and deep indigo blues sewn on breaks, the fine cotton fabric from textile machines, mills needing their woman’s touch for sixteen hours, only to come here and Lindy Hop, spinning into the arms of their men like thick, wool fibers, stomping their pearl-white mule heels against the creaky, chestnut wooden floors shined and polished just for Big Daddy Rucker’s arrival; singing away the greedy pests of third shift worries, heavy leather boots echoing the rhythm of the blues-their dust-clogged lungs plunged and cleansed by the smooth bass of the tenor saxophone, the velvet pitched notes of the battered, acoustic guitar strummed by an old soul reaching his last note, a trumpet scatting along with Big Daddy Rucker, and one drum following the heartbeats of beat down worker’s, their eyes shut, floating above the smoke-stained roofs with the B Flats and F sharps, keeping their heads above water, grinding against the sweet smell of cocoa buttercoated sistas just before their next shift: women weaving yarn in webs of thread, sweat, and heated, spindle oil; while men cramp between walls of tremoring, coal-infested rocks. Rocking, and squeezing, and kissing, and hugging, rubbing onto their smooth arms like abraded igneous rocks, sharing golden, sugarcane rum spilling over the rims of their mason jars tasting the thick, molasses joy of the Sugar Shack.

in a large glass pitcher with painted white daisies and spearmint green vines sitting on the picnic table: for the babies running in their scrubby sneakers playing Cops and Robbers in Summer’s furnace. Leftover red Solo Cups from last night’s kickback cover the playground; burnt, broken black and milds become fair game: picked by the kids assigned as cops wearing linty towels around their necks like capes—villains— amongst wood chips covered with dried blood, burnt brown and burgundy. Small fist-sized hearts beat with thrill as robbers toting bright lemon colored water guns search for an old BIC lighter in trash cans crusted with mold and remnants of their siblings loaded diapers—trash bags tied inside, but never taken out; festering and rotting like the floorboards on their balconies. And the cops wait by picking up old cups to sip icy cold Cherry Kool-Aid: sweat dripping from their sunburnt foreheads like the water droplets on the curvy pitcher, and their light brown lips stain cardinal red as they throw their heads back and forth like their taking shots of sour Vodka and Mama’s Henny. Laughing, they collectively guzzle down a whole bag of sugar, nine packets of Cherry Kool-Aid, and a gallon of water. The robbers rush to get a gulp carrying a neon rainbow of lighters with about two strikes left in each one. Fathers are still at the store buying formula milk or heading to their second Afternoon job; and Mamas are in their homes resting their bones fractured by arthritis—preparing for their fourth shifts—or watching the “Real Housewives of Atlanta:” dreaming of taking the place of these personas picking pieces of Prada, Gucci, and Versace with their husband’s finances, he and children unable to interrupt their cameos, but they’re present in their lives of drinking bubbly drama through wine glasses they could never afford on their own, their injections mummifying their teen Coca-Cola figures before pregnancy, and never having to carry their entire family on their narrow shoulders: kicking their babies out to play and explore the hood to find a life of their own intoxicated with spiked Kool-Aid, yelling with their raspy voices, Stay in or out and stop letting all my damn cool air out that motherfucking door! The cops and robbers work together in their uniforms caked with drips of Kool-Aid, tawny clay, and wood chips. One robber lightly holds the weak bud between his two fingers the size of the Black and Mild, and a cop grabs a scuffed fluorescent, lima-green lighter and flicks—and flicks—and flicks a stinging callous on his thumb. Another cop tries, one strike gone—the bud trying to scoop up the heat and ignite. The last strike catches and they suck and pass and suck and pass the bottom of the Black and Mild, their throats and stained tongues burn and sear like fresh seasoned steak placed in a hot cast iron skillet. Choking and coughing up the ash, they rush to the pitcher of Cherry Kool-Aid bright red like the roses on the concrete spilled from the heads of their old playmates and they quench their thirst. Sooth the tightness in their chest. Resurrect their burnt lungs to run again. And repeat.

Daniels

Youjaye29

SouthPoetryCarolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities Greenville, SC

Welcome to the Sugar Shack

An Ode to Cherry Kool-Aid

Jack30

Visual Arts The Kinder High School for Performing and Visual Arts Houston, TX Cross Section Found wood, sheet rock, brick, concrete nails, acrylic paint 2021

Dunlap

Effress

Harvard-WestlakePhotography School Studio City, CA

Dreamer Digital photography and pen on paper 2021

Raisa31

Niveah32

Pour their heart into speeches they’ll give when I no longer open my eyes.

I wish markings to be left explaining my Iexistence.prayforparades and streets to be given after my claimingname,with pride I’ve done something great.

Don’t talk about the times I couldn’t get out of bed enoughlongto walk those streets.

I want for my family to speak nothing but graciousness at the mention of my name.

Trail around the assumption that I didn’t actually want to be here.

Glover

I hope for them to say this emptiness was thatfullness,the light in my eyes never dimmed, always Tellshined.everyone who asks of me that my courage wasn’t just merely a smokescreen, but my actual boldness.

Spoken DouglasWordAnderson School of the Arts Jacksonville, FL

Once I’m Gone.

Skip the question if they ask if I was satisfied with what I thought I would be.

Once I’m gone, make me wish I was still here

Just make me sound great.

Once I’m gone,

Make sure they know I had it all figured out, that I happywas with all my choices

Blues33on

ToSo,the man in the red fedora that sat behind me and my grandmother, I see you and I acknowledge you for teaching me the blues.

the Blues:

To the man in the red fedora that sat behind me and my grandmother, I see you.

I could tell you were grown. Facial hair well-trimmed, suit unwrinkled, lips pursed up prepared to spew colorful language.

“Otis Redding knew the blues; Al Green knew the blues. Hell, even ah—what’s that boy’s name? That young cat that’s always begging in his songs.” No, you didn’t know Keith Sweat’s name, but that was fine because the bus was yours.

To the man in the red fedora that sat behind me and my grandmother, it couldn’t have been your first time.

I heard more “shits” from you that day than I had in my entire life. You said, “Man you don’t know shit about the blues!” No, you weren’t talking to me, but I listened anyway. I like how language glided out of your mouth, The tip of your tongue spinning words like bottle caps.

Your comfortability in the space made it feel like it was your place. As if that chipped blue seat was your couch, and we all were in the midst of your home.

You said, “Awe—just know, I know, what I’m talking about. You don’t know a damn thang.” No, me and everyone else whose ears fell in your hands didn’t know ‘a damn thang’. Cuz’ your blues could never and would never be ours.

I was captivated by your gritty words, they clashed with the strong comforting hand of my nana. She would squeeze my fingers gently and hold onto me. But you, you kept my interest, made me repeat your words in my head until they rang true.

You said, “I’ve seen the blues. I live the blues. My woman left me, took all my shit too. Took me for everything I had. Even took the kids too. Momma sick and Daddy gone. Got laid off, and ain’t nobody call me back, only Teddy speaks sweet with me. ‘Another fight, things ain’t right, I’m losing again. Takes a fool to lose twice and start all over again.’ I know the blues.”

You filled up the bus with your smooth, sly, saccharine words. You were the blues and the flow of the blues. You were Teddy, Al, and Otis all in one.

Goldemberg

Design Arts and Architecture Senior High School Miami, FL

Gurafoonk

2021

Zoe34

Alcohol-based marker, paint marker, ink, color pencil, and translucent paper. Background created on Procreate. Composition created on Adobe Photoshop.

Design

In one block, my breathing hastens (in half that if I forget my inhalers); in a mile, my legs burn, but I keep running. Plastic shoes melt on frying-pan pavement in Southern Summers, shin splints spike down the sides of my calves, and I pass by the same group of middle school girls in Lululemon that judge my hand-medown shirts and old gym shorts. But if I’m dizzy enough, I notice nothing.My family wasn’t built for running. My mom collects injuries like trophies as proof of her former hard work: plantar fasciitis, strained hamstring, aching back. My dad walks marathons for miles to 80’s music and history podcasts but never picks up the pace. For my brother, walking was a rarity turned impossibility with age. When I run, I feel I need to down extra miles like a jug of soda until I feel sick to compensate for the rest of my family.

***

The first time a seizure stole my brother, we called the ambulance and prayed. I cried at first because my parents did and I felt I should, and then I couldn’t stop the tears, even when their eyes dried. In my head, I scripted a list of goodbyes, but I didn’t know the proper pattern of words, and the list was too short and too shallow—I could tell him I loved him and I’d miss him, but I couldn’t capture the list. It was incomplete. It wasn’t right.

Then I run a little more until I feel truly motion sick, and I sit down and stretch—pull and tug at muscles to loosen them— and I wonder what it would feel like to cut my muscles right in half until I couldn’t move at all. Until I too was bound to a wheelchair.

In second grade my family went to Disney World with Make-AWish and stayed in a little village of dying kids. A group of teenage girls volunteered to paint our nails at La-Ti-Da Spa in the Castle of Miracles so they could embellish their graduation robes with blue and white community service cords. They talked about their plans for college: taking a year off for a mission trip, borrowing money from estranged parents to pay for New York, heading to junior college with plans to transfer. Maybe they didn’t consider that most of the kids whose delicate nails they filed and painted with bedazzled jewels wouldn’t make it to college. Maybe they didn’t want to.With Make-A-Wish, fast passes cut us to the front of lines. People stared as my brother rolled by. Others watched out of the corners of their eyes instead, pretending they were above noticing abnormalities. They fooled themselves that not staring was the first step towards countering ableism. They thought themselves revolutionary. But they still watched, just more discreetly. The question hung heavy: What was wrong? When I looked at him, I asked the same question. I asked how the heat of the park made him feel; I asked what he thought of the trip. I asked myself how he always felt. But he couldn’t answer.

Hampton Nonfiction

Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts

Houston, TX

By his final year, seizures were a standard of my brother’s life. His breath caught, his body fell rigid, and we counted the seconds trickling into minutes until time resumed for him, but

It took five minutes for my parents and the ride operator to strap my brother into the chair, ensuring the nylon straps weren’t so loose he would slam against the back and weren’t so tight that they squeezed his skin red. Three sharp buzzes sounded, and the lights dimmed, and the cart bumped along its track. Within moments, that morning’s sickeningly sweet cotton candy rose in my throat, and I threw up in my mouth. I felt gnarled fingers knotting intestines, cold sweat trickling through warm air on goosebumped skin, and black spots of vertigo seeping through vision. Between turns and hills, my parents whispered of motion sickness and medicine, and I thought of the scene when the kids rode their unconscious nanny like a cart through their deformed house of bent chairs on walls and fires blooming out of suspended toilets. At least they didn’t vomit.

***

Motion Sickness

Natalie35

I run until my vision blurs, until I cannot make out the lyrics of whatever break-up Taylor Swift is lamenting this time in my headphones, until I forget what street I’m on and can’t decipher the sign anyway.

I run until I lose my own body, until I am lost like him, until my head spins and I wonder if on the next step, my foot won’t hit pavement, and I’ll float away like that flying house from Up and my heart could be the old man inside. Most days, I run on an empty stomach. (Why? To help with cramps; I have no appetite; I want to be skinnier. I don’t know.) It makes me dizzy. I do it anyway.

The sensory conflict theory explains motion sickness as what happens when the body’s three main sensory inputs send mixed signals the brain cannot handle. When I think of my brother, I still feel the mixed signals. The world, the ashes, the funeral, the eulogy all proclaim he is lost. But he cannot be because how does a star blink out of existence? No—he was meant to shine and last longer, even if doctors said he wasn’t. They said he was lucky to make it to seventeen.We have four Netflix profiles under our account: my parents’, my sister’s, mine, and his. Two years and no one has used his. Once a week, I click on his profile to see the Continue Watching bar, forever locked between scenes of Shrek, the red

Research suggests that motion sickness and partial seizures may be triggered by the same electric waves from the brain. Motion sickness is a common ailment: sensory overload, sudden nausea, spinning room, but you recover, move on, nothing more than a blip. Seizure effects linger. Thoughts fuzz and become beads on a bracelet growing harder and harder to string. Headaches tear through your temples. Sleep summons, but when you close your eyes, you can’t. You lie awake and try to dream in color.

Creative

First park, first ride: A Cat in the Hat roller coaster in Seuss Landing. Years before, the movie had clawed white scars in my memory: a grown man clad in fur, whiskers jutting from weathered cheeks, purple jelly smeared across the children’s furniture.

I feared one day his clock would stop too long. I wish he hadn’t been robbed of speech by then. I wish I could have told him that I too felt suspended in that constant state of motion sickness, of electric waves from the brain. I wish I could have told him all we had in common, and I wish we could have discovered even more that we shared beyond genes.

When I was younger, I dreamed of exploring the universe. I would be the first contact with alien life, bringing them under human control; I would take the first step onto Martian dust, claiming the planet for America, claiming it as a natural extension of mankind and all the other rhetoric I inhaled.

60% to 80% of space travelers experience motion sickness. Before promethazine was introduced, the incapacitating nausea led to a 10% reduction in efficiency.

Now, my childhood vision of exploration rings of historical colonization and cruel subjugation. Now, I know I would vomit on takeoff. Now, I’m more content to watch the stars from afar and craft my own constellations without swimming through the silver liquid streams.Except sometimes I want to feel my brother’s seizures. I want my senses overloaded. I want to feel motion sick. I can’t board a rocket, and so, I run.

For the rest of the trip, I held my brother’s hand, skipped the lines, and stepped aside as we got to the front of the rides, feeling breakfast rising. My brother only went on the tame rides, so we sat together and waited, and I wondered if the same motion sickness filled him.

***

We still call it his room. Not the guest room it has been repurposed as, not the game room we almost made it: Jake’s room Is it worse to call it Jake’s room like he is still here, or to pretend it’s any other room like he never was?

Whenever I think of him, it takes a moment to switch to past tense. In English, I reflexively say Jake is and have to correct myself to Jake was. In Spanish, when I deliberately consider the translation of every word, it’s easier to remember: Mi hermano era. But when my teacher corrects it to Mi hermano es, I let him. The transition between tenses is bumpy, and I feel the gnarled fingers knotting intestines, cold sweat trickling through warm air on goosebumped skin, and black spots of vertigo seeping through vision. I feel the electric waves from my brain and I feel his seizures and I feel like him. I am back in Seuss Landing, but this time, I cannot hold his hand and avoid the line.

never to gain another pixel on the remaining grey bar. I see the recommended movies: all that the algorithm thinks he would enjoy but won’t be able to verify.

Kaila37

Harunzade

LosBrentwoodPhotographySchoolAngeles,CA Drown Digital photography 2021

Thomas38 Hicks Visual Arts Greer High School Greer, SC save, save, save/repair Collage on found images with crochet appliqué 2021

Homma Episcopal San Antonio, TX

for

Visual Arts TMI

2021

Sara39

No Nos Quieren Aquí Oil paint and yarn with wax (“Mexican yarn painting” background--banner and red/yellow symbols) on canvas

The hitchhiker wouldn’t shut up. But he didn’t talk about himself, not about how Alice broke his heart. Or how Alice reminded him of his mother, who left him when he was eleven, and then just died when he was thirty-two. Or, how he saw a therapist for his attachment issues and lack of fulfillment.

The hitchhiker climbed into the man’s truck. It was like fate. All those Ted Bundy documentaries, all those Ted Kaczynski shows, all those nights reading about Jack the Ripper. It was his education. Every great man needs an education. His father had always talked about how genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. It was their mantra. His father was the man who sold his soul to sell real estate and left his son at home to peel apart crickets by himself.

“And then, meanwhile, I have this growing college debt.” She ignored his comment. “Like a fortune. No joke. A fortune. What am I even going to do after college? I’m gonna work at Walmart. Watch. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. No offense, I mean, if you work at Walmart. Walmart’s great. These shorts are actually from Walmart. They were on sale. Two bucks. Pretty good, right?”

***

Short Story

The hitchhiker climbed into the man’s truck.

Then the hitchhiker started blabbing about the stupid Grand Canyon. No, he’d never been. No, he wasn’t afraid of heights. Yes, he saw that video of the guy pushing his girlfriend off the cliff. No, it didn’t bother him.

“You know, the Grand Canyon’s actually six thousand feet deep. It’s basically a vertical wall, and the catwalk is all glass, so you can see through your feet, and you can’t even see the bottom. It’s all a smudge of orange and brown. It’s like skydiving, but not really.”

When she closed the truck door, he cranked up the air conditioning. Her bright yellow sundress hurt his eyes.

“What“Uh-huh.”about you? Got any family around here?” she asked. “Oh, um. I got a cat. Alice.”

And the man said, “No, jus’ cut trees.”

They listened to Kenny Rogers, and for a while, they were just that—two people in a truck, on a road trip, listening to country tunes.

The man asked her, “Where ya headed?” She said, “Boston.”

How predictable was he?

Palo Alto Senior High School Alto, CA

The man drove past a red farmhouse sitting next to a row of glinting grain silos and a pen full of pigs. Through the AC vents, the smell of iron slipped inside the truck’s cab.

My ma died a couple years ago,” he said.

The Hitchhiker

As he drove forty miles down the straight highway, Kenny Rogers tunes blared through the speakers. Mosquitos slammed into the windshield, and the wiper smeared their guts. God, he hated bugs. He was gonna scrape them off later and spray that window with disinfectant. While they passed a swamp drowning in algae and surrounded by foxtails, he wondered how many bodies were rotting in that hellish green water.

“It was pretty disappointing.”

“Just family. My mom. I don’t really have time to go to Boston because of school and everything.”

***

“So what’s at Boston?” he asked.

“Alice? Like Alice in Wonderland?” “No, just like my ex.”

“I once read somewhere,” she continued over the music. “It was a short story and stupid, but it said that falling from a really high place is just like a Glad bag of vegetable soup exploding on impact. Can you imagine that? We’re all just Glad bags full of vegetableTheysoup.”passed a dairy farm full of fat cows with heavy udders.

***

On either side of the road, the forest cast long shadows over the highway, making daytime dark. The turnoff remained partly hidden beneath misty white fog that crept up from the lake. He knew this spot well. The small lake would do the job.

Connie40 Jiang

She asked the man what he did for a living, and he said he was a tree cutter. She said, “You mean landscaper?”

“Sorry,” she said. They passed a semi truck. She made the hand gesture, and the semi-truck driver honked his horn for her. It sounded like the blare of a cruise ship.

“I once went swimming with sharks but without the cage,” she said.“Did’ya now?” Was she trying to impress him? The last person who impressed him was Jeffrey Dahmer. “Well, that’s jus’ stupid.”

“I also went kayaking over a waterfall once.” “Yeah?”

“No, I like seeing that look on her face when she opens the door and freaks out. I should be studying, but I have to visit my mom, right?”“Idunno.

He ambled out of the truck and opened the hood. Picking at her hangnails, she watched his hands through the slit between the hood and the truck, as he tinkered with the engine caps. Her mother always scolded her about how it was so uncouth, biting at her skin

She reeked of the damp end of a mop, and her pores were like orange peel, but she was enough like Alice that she would do. So he told her, “I can getcha as far as Cambridge.”

Palo

It was a Saturday morning, 11:17 a.m., on a road outside of Dartmouth. Sometimes college girls hitchhiked here since the bus came about as often as his urge to floss. He’d spied her from a distance with her thumb in the air.

The hitchhiker climbed into the man’s truck. He asked her where she was headed, and she told him Boston. He looked to be in his late thirties and smelled like weed and duct tape, she thought. “You go to Dartmouth?” “That obvious?” she asked.

“A lotta folks, I mean, there’s a lotta people ‘round here that go to Dartmouth.” “Oh yeah, no, I knew what you were saying.”

She paused, and he prayed she would shut up. Kenny Rogers was singing about a gambler.

“So you’re one o’ those damn thrill seekers.”

“That so?” he paused. “Your mom expect’n you?”

“Well, I went to the copper mines in Strafford a few months ago to cliff dive. It was badass.” She pulled out a piece of gum and stuck it in her mouth. “I read about some marathon runners in China who froze to death just a few weeks ago. Isn’t that strange?” she asked. “I wonder what it felt like. I mean, the other runners probably lost some fingers or toes, but these people, did they just faint while running? And then what, just died?”

The hitchhiker climbed into the man’s truck, knowing this moment was coming.They were talking about her thrill-seeking adventures, and he said, “I gotta pull over real quick. Something’s wrong with the engine.”As he pulled the truck onto a dirt road, gravel crunched beneath the tires. The trees swayed overhead like quiet gods, casting shadows dark enough to hide cars and corpses.

The man spotted the turnout up ahead.

With her thighs nearly blistering in the humidity, the hitchhiker stepped out of the truck, spitting her gum onto the gravel while mosquitoes buzzed around her legs like fresh meat. Heat glistened on the man’s face while he leaned over the open engine. He reminded her of her high school PE coach, the one who was arrested for being inappropriate with the kids.

“Look, I swear. I wasn’t gonna kill you. I’ve never killed anything in my life.” She held the knife up for a few more seconds, and then she jumped up and laughed. “I’m just kidding.” She reached out her hand to help him up. “C’mon, the ride was getting a little boring. We had to spice it up somehow. Don’t you think?”

His bottom lip shook. “I just wanna go to Boston. That’s all!”

But she knew that he knew that she knew. And so he lay there for a few more seconds before rising on his own.

The muscles in her track-runner legs flexed.

She took a step closer, and he felt like he was reliving one of those scenes that they play on TV where the criminal is going at the police officer with a knife, and the police officer shoots him. Except he wasn’t a cop, and she was just this college student with an adrenaline addiction who was living out her deranged fantasy.

The truth was, the man had never gotten this far before. Sure, he’d picked up a bunch of hitchhikers; sure, he’d bought the equipment: duct tape, knives, zip ties, bleach, chloroform. But he’d smoked so much weed. And actually pulling over this time to do the deed felt like sixth grade, when his science teacher was hacking at her seventh frog of the day like it was nothing.

“So, how are you planning on doing this?” she asked. “‘Scuse “Youme?”look like you could murder a dog right now.” He looked around. “A“Look,dog?”Igot in your stupid truck. You drove me out into the woods. Do you think I’m an idiot? I mean, c’mon, you have that whole Charles Manson vibe, the half-grown out facial hair, and that bumper sticker? Hate Humans Love Cats? Are you gonna do this thing or not? Otherwise, I’m just wasting my time.”

“Aww, come on. All this suspense for nothing? Seriously?” She posed in a running stance. “How ‘bout you give me a thirty second head start? I’ll run that way.” She pointed toward the forest.

And then she pulled out a switchblade from her shorts. A switchblade! From her Walmart, two bucks-shorts. He liked to imagine girls wearing sundresses, and sundresses never had pockets or switchblades. He spent too much time imagining murders and mayhem and not enough time paying attention to his surroundings. It was a good knife too. It glinted even in the shade. It was the same model as the one he had in his front pocket right then. He put his hands in the air.

“Look, I just wanna get you to Boston. I figured out what was up with the truck and everything’s fine now. So let’s just go to Boston and get you to your mom. Okay?”

***

When the hitchhiker climbed into the man’s truck, she didn’t expect to be the one holding the knife. Her heart was alive and all her blood vessels prickled. Her legs stretched like rubber bands. Running like a bulldog, he was picking up speed, his legs longer than hers. The feeling of chasing him was the greatest high she’d

He was feeling his sandwich turning in his stomach.

That was it. He was gonna go home and he was gonna call Alice. The girl, not the cat. And he was gonna give up this nonsense. He wasn’t a killer. He just lived in his head too much. Dined on sick fantasies that weren’t even his own. Maybe he’d binged on too many Netflix serial killer documentaries while shoving Skinny Pop into his mouth. Or maybe it was the Creepy Pasta mixed with a bit too much Stephen King. But the time for pondering had passed. This girl was coming toward him, so he had no other choice. He turned and ran.

ever experienced. It was better than the sharks, than the waterfall, than the time she scaled the hippo fence at the zoo. She was the predator and he was the prey. What a strange turn of events.

On the way back to the car, she said, “I’m really starving. You wanna stop at Denny’s? There’s one off of Route 75. They have banana splits and blueberry syrup. We can dine and dash?”

“I am a little hungry, but you pay,” he sniffled. “My treat?”

“Yeah, that’s fair. You think?”

Lunging at him, she grabbed his leg, and they toppled forward together in the forest, the wet earth meeting her face. She scrambled on top of him, holding the knife loosely in her hand. As his pulse beat in his temples, he stared at the tip dangling over his head. A spider crawled over her bare knee, but she didn’t flinch.

When the hitchhiker climbed into the man’s truck, he wasn’t prepared for what he got. Alice was never like this. She was a perfectly normal young woman with perfectly normal sensibility. She would never swim with sharks. Or cliff dive. Or get into trucks with strange men. And what kind of idiot rides a kayak off a waterfall? How did this woman even get into college? The man wondered. All these college kids think they’re so smart, and they can open a book and read it, and take a stupid test, but they have no sense. None at all. It’s amazing so many of them were still alive. Where was Alice now? What was she doing? Did she still eat raw bell peppers with cream cheese? Would she like that new lavender soap he’d been using?

“Look, Miss, I dunno what fantasy you’re tryna live out right now, but I’m just tryna fix my engine.”

His steel-toed boots were the kind he wore when he chopped down trees, not the kind he wore when he ran, which he never did. Her gaze pummeled him. Was she waiting for him to look up? He knew that if he looked in her eyes, they would both know the truth. And then what?

***

“So you weren’t gonna kill me?” She smiled and waved the knife like a conductor. “Because I swear I got the vibe that you were gonna try to kill me.”

Voicemails

I lost the fucking ring, I think I’m gonna die. They might kill me, they seriously might kill me, it was a big fucking ugly diamond and the ceremony starts in twenty minutes and I can’t find it anywhere, call me call me call me.

on seven actors with phones in their hands. Each phone rings in unison three times, the actors shifting slightly with each ring. Then: seven overlapping personalized voicemails play. It is completely unintelligible, but each person seems to understand it completely. Finally: beep. Each character speaks in rapid succession.)

Play or ProfessionalScriptPerforming Arts School New York, NY

(musical)6:

Hi, baby, I’m at the vet. I think we’re going to have to put him down. I’m sorry. I wanted to wait until you get back, but I don’t think we can. I’m so sorry.

(LightsOPENINGup

(quick,5: frantic)

Hey, honey. Just wanted to see if you had the chance to swing by Keyfood and buy me some half and half?

become unbearably loud and repetitive. The cast members start moving, pacing as they speak. Their worlds collide. They move chairs/blocks onstage as they speak, layering in volume and intensity. After the set has been placed, and after about twenty seconds of this, all characters exit. They all stop speaking at once, in a clean, full stop. The lights go down and we immediately transition into the first scene with the sound of a phone ringing. In the darkness, A and B move center stage, facing the audience, with some distance between them.(Lights up.)

(Ring. Ring. Ring. Beep.)

Jiménez

Anya42

(loud,7: staccato)

Hey, it’s nothing important, so if you’re busy, you can just-

GOODBYE.(Themessages

4: Hey. You looked kind of sad earlier, and I really wanted to say something, see if you were cool, but I didn’t, and I don’t know why. So. I hope you’re feeling okay. Call me if you want.

FOR THE BEST

EGGS. TROPICANA ORANGE JUICE. RYE BREAD.

Don’t come by my house. I dropped your shit off at the Quizno’s, so don’t try to come back for it. Delete my fucking number.

Hello, my name is Alex, and I’m a representative for Councilman Antonio Ramirez. If you have a chance to chat about the upcoming election, please call me back at this number, or visit our website, councilmanramirez.net. That is C-O-U-N-C-I-L R-A-M-I-R-E-Z dot N E T. Thank you so much. I hope you have a great day.

A:(Beep.)

B:(Beep.)

(Pause. A’s face slowly falls. Then, A decides to call again. Ring. Ring. Ring. Beep.)

B: Leave a message.

A: Leave a message!

A lot.

B:(Beep.)

I know I said I’d call you back last night, I’m really sorry about that, I just didn’t. I mean. I just fell asleep. Long day.

B:(Beep.)

Hey, it’s me again, I don’t know if your phone is dead, but-

No, all good, my phone’s been glitching lately, I think the new model is coming out or something because it just goes black when -

B: I miss you.

A:(Beep.)-

I know I said that it wasn’t that important, with - when I said the other day that -

A: Leave a message!

Sorry, just got off the train, the delays were fucking terrible today, I don’t -

B:(Beep.)

I don’t know how I keep missing you -

It is important actually. So I’m free after 6 and -

But I’m thinking about you.

Hey, sorry, I can’t believe we keep / missing each other.

A:(Beep.)

Sorry for missing your call, I’m here now, though, so

B:(Beep.)

A: Leave a message!

But I feel like I’m really ready to talk now so -

A:(Beep.) Um-

I just want to -

(Beep.)

You know what? After 7 would be better.

If you’re free tonight -

But I found this recipe online that -

It’s not the same as a real date but -

I ran into your mom today -

Hey.

Leave a message.

So I guess that’s 3 your time.

It doesn’t have to be dinner actually -

Maybe we can make dinner on the phone -

A: And I -

I just want to talk about -

B: Together.

A:(Beep.)

I know I haven’t been good about telling you how I -

I just mean you don’t have to eat late for me soA:So 4:30 for you.

Haven’t had a date night since September and -A:

Let’s say 7:30.

Or dinner for me, I mean.

B: I looked this up, so I know it’s realA: But I could just tell.

She told me she missed me at Thanksgiving.

B: Or we can cook whatever you want.

It was weird seeing her.

A: I missed her. And it was nice.

I’ve been bookmarking recipes for like two weeks so -

I can actually cook something you like.

B: Anniversary gifts -

B: And apparently, A: She doesn’t like my hair.

I think it’ll be nice.

Where each anniversary represents an itemA: She really liked the red.

Chicken Alfredo.

And that she missed you more.

A: Your mom isn’t weird, I just mean -

B: There’s this whole system of giftsA: She didn’t say it -

B: Or we don’t have to do pasta.

A: She’s too nice for that -

In Bryant Park.

But it was weird.

B: I’m hoping that next time I see you,

A: She told me about Spork.

A: I didn’t know he died.

B: No idea who came up with it, but -

A: Like a lot.

A: He was always so sweet, he -

B: It’s okay if you don’t.

A: I didn’t even like dogs, but -

B: To make up for it.

A: I miss him.

B: So sorry about that.

B: With the letter I wrote you -

A: It’s - (sigh)

A: I know I’m rambling.

B: Get you a nice new sweater or something.

B: Actually, do you still have that?

A: I guess we just haven’t had the chance to -

But I guess I kind of did paper -

B: And the 3rd anniversary is leather -

A: I don’t know why.

B: I’ll add cotton to this year.

A: I miss a lot of things.

Or a material -

B: The first two anniversaries were paper and cotton apparently-

A: I miss him.

B: But anyway -

B: That’s a really long way of saying that -

A: And I don’t know why it fucked me up so bad -

This year, I’m gonna cook for you -

B: So I’m starting easy -

B: That I want to cook with you on the phone -

Oh shit -

A: Another long day.

B: With the Chicken Alfredo -

B: I gotta stop telling you all your gifts.

It’s just that so much has changedB: So as much as I want you here -

A: And as much as I want September back -

B: You’re a much better cook than I am so -

A: Seeing your mom, I just -

A & B: Maybe it’s for the best.

B: You don’t have to taste it.

A: Like I was meant to see her today.

A: It’s been a long week too.

A: I guess it’s just been a long day.

A: And I’m never even in Bryant Park, so I feel like B:And that way, if I fuck up -

A: And a long month.

Or I guess -

(A and B walk off in opposite directions. A 13/14-year old sits at a desk in the middle of the stage. An old desktop computer sits in front of her, almost blocking her face. Lights up. She uses a landline, twirling the string as she anxiously listens to the telephone ring. Eventually, a voice answers.)

I think we should talk about -

Looking at plane tickets to see -

CELIA: Hi. ANGIE: HiCELIA:

(Beep. Angie takes a second to register what she’s about to do. Then, she speaks, reading from her computer. Her speech is overly formal, and it’s clear that she doesn’t actually talk like that. Her performance is an imitation of adulthood, and it reveals her age.)

But I love you.

A(Beep.)&B:

When I can come up -

Call me when you can.

But I don’t think I can do this.

Where this is going -

REACHING OUT

Oh.

I don’t want to say this in a voicemail -

(Spoken at the same time:)

You’ve reached the voicemail box of / Celia, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I can.

Cause you’re always on my mind and -

ANGIE:

Actually, this was going to be a surprise but -

Because I don’t know where it’s going -

I know I’ve said this a million times

Hi. I don’t know why my calls aren’t going through, so I don’t even know if you’ll get this but. The service just ended. Everyone sends their love. The priest made us wait ten minutes because he had to finish up a different service down the block. Didn’t know that’s how that worked. Never been to a funeral with a priest on rotation but. I’ll be home in an hour or two. Tia Yesenia gave a speech. It was beautiful. It looks like it’s going to rain today. Which is good because it was very hot out. I wanted to look nice but I couldn’t stop sweating. I wore that tie you bought me. Thank you again for that. (Pause.) I couldn’t cry. Maybe I will when I get home. (Pause.) I don’t know what else to say, but I think if I stop talking, my head will fall off. (Pause.) I don’t think he would’ve liked the grave. Too close to the road. I know he wanted to be under a tree. And back home. But instead he’s in Florida by a highway. (Pause.) I’m glad you got to meet him. That meant a lot to me. He loved hearing you sing. (Pause.) I wish the world would stop for a little. But it hasn’t. And all the cars and trucks are driving past like he was never here. But he was. He was.

Hello. My name is Angie, which is short for Angela. You may not think you know me, and I only barely know you, but I am reaching out because I had to make a family tree for my biology class and I am your biological daughter. I wanted to see if you would maybe be available to talk with me about who I am and who I am from. I wrote about you for my creative writing elective. It is my first year of high school and things are going good. If you are interested, I would really like to send you pictures from my eighth grade graduation, and I would also like you to come to the winter play if you think you can make it. I do not think it’s going to be that good, but they gave me a couple lines this year, and it would mean a lot to me if you could come. It would mean a lot to me if I could meet you. I know that you have your own life to worry about, so I don’t want to bother you, but my creative writing teacher read my story - my paper - and said that I should try to get in touch. (Pause. That’s all she wrote. She improvises:) I don’t have to call you mom if you don’t want. We can just pretend like I’m your coworker. Or - (she thinks she sounds dumb.) That’s all I really have to say. Sorry. My email is angie.firework@gmail.com by the way if you want to email instead. (Pause.) I got a new lamp on Monday, and I like it a lot. It looks like stained glass but it isn’t. The old one broke. Or died. (Pause.) My hamster died too. He ate a battery. (Pause.) Do you have any pets? Let me know. I hope you have a dog. (Pause.) Thanks for giving birth to me. I hope you have a great day. And your name is really pretty.

(A hard shift to the next monologue. E storms onstage, in the middle of a voicemail to her older sister. She speaks quickly and angrily. D stays onstage for the first few lines of the monologue, unable to escape despite the

C:ABUELO

ANGIE:

in the silence of the afternoon. Then, he begins to slowly put his phone away as lights fade on his side of the stage. A teenage girl walks onstage, eyes and nose red and

Yo. Don’t know how serious you were about driving me around when I needed it. But. I need it. I’m at uh. 25350 Rockside Rd. It’s not close. To your house. But I can wait. I just think I really need. A ride. Right now. Uh. (A small beat: a decision.) I was pregnant this morning. And before that. But now I’m not. And I’m glad I’m not. But I feel like. Different. Lady at the desk said it wouldn’t feel like this forever. But you said you can pick me up whenever and this is. Yeah, this… (Pause. She trails off.) They had these volunteers. Outside the building. Who were there to go in. With people who were, you know. If they didn’t have anybody with them. Because you have to have somebody with you. So this lady named Margaret helped me. And she had these really pretty earrings. She said she liked my stick and poke. (Pause.) I feel really, like, old. And really really young. So. Yeah. I need a ride. When you get this. Thanks. Bye.

VOICEMAIL MACHINE: You have reached the end of the recording.

(She hangs up the phone. C appears at a different part of the stage, wearing a black suit. His tone is noticeably somber.)

Goodbye.(Hestands

D:DIFFERENTpuffy.)

(E walks offstage. A couch appears center stage. A mini-fridge appears next to it. F holds the phone between her shoulder and her ear, pacing back and forth in front of the couch, and holding a piece of paper in her hands. The sound of cicadas can be faintly heard throughout the scene.)

voicemail being over. Eventually, the lights fade on her as well - this can take place about fifteen seconds into Hey, Kid.)

So there he is, having this fucking moment, like Christ himself made him see the light, coming in at 3AM with this newfound fucking - I don’t even know, this new - like, fuck, I can’t believe he’s doing it again, I cannot fucking believe he’s doing it again. Acting like he wants to be there for me, like out of nowhere, and, out of nowhere, I believe him. I believe and believe and believe and then he gets too close, and I can smell him, and I can smell the whole fucking bar on him, and then I just have to wait till he leaves so I can cry. Like I’m six again. But I can’t cry until he leaves, ‘cause he’s in the middle of his - I mean, did he ever do that to you? That fucking - it’s the - it’s the “Hey, kid.” That’s what it is. Every time. That “hey, kid,” that “hey, kid, I know I haven’t always been a good dad” or “I know it hasn’t always been easy” or whatever the phrase is of the night, but it’s always that “hey, kid.” And he cares. You know? That’s. He does. And I wish he didn’t. ‘Cause I know somewhere in him, like. There’s something in him that’s still him. And it always comes out a little after midnight. But sometimes I wish he just left like he said he would. You know? Mom said that I’m an ungrateful little shit for that, but whatever, you know? ‘Cause if he just left, he would just be gone. I wouldn’t have to keep crying about not having a dad even though he’s right there on the couch, passed out, acting like he’s just - I don’t know - having a rough day. Be my dad or don’t. You know? But I know when he says he loves me, he means it. And I also know he doesn’t know anything about me. (Pause.) Senior year fucking sucks. I miss you a lot. Like a lot a lot. And Randy is being a little bitch about everything. He needs to get over you ‘cause he keeps moping in the back of Physics and it’s literally so annoying ‘cause he keeps asking about you, and it’s just like. I don’t even know what it’s like. Everything is really dumb right now. (Pause.) Mom said they don’t have Whataburger up there. So. I hope you’re having a really good time. But also college isn’t as good as the honey butter chicken biscuit, I bet. I got my first paycheck from H&M by the way. Retail sucks too. So. I don’t want you to drop out or anything. ‘Cause I’m proud of you, or whatever, but. If you did, I would spend the paycheck on two honey butter chicken biscuits, and if you’re nice, you could have one of them. So. Just keep that in mind I guess. And let me know when you’re coming home. Love you.

HEY, KID

Hey. If you get this one first, just don’t listen to the other ones, because I wrote something down this time, and I actually know what I wanna say now, and the voicemail lady cut me off when I was trying to say this in the last one, so I’m just gonna talk really fast and we can talk about this again when you get service and I can send you a picture of what I wrote too if you want to. Follow along. So. (she clears her throat) I want to marry you. And not in like a “aww you’re so cute I love you” kind of way, in an “I can’t imagine my life without you” kind of way, but not in a creepy desperate stalker kind of way either. Sorry, I’m - that part wasn’t on the page, let me - (quickly, under her breath) Iwanttomarryyounotinlikeaawwyou’resocute yes okay, here. (She clears her throat.) I know you probably don’t feel the same way. And I’m sorry for trying to go to NYU with you, I don’t even want to go to NYU, or college at all, so I really don’t know why I paid the application fee, and I know you would hate having me there with you anyway because you’re starting your future, and I know that that future is so bright, and I know I sound like a kindergarten teacher when I say that, but I mean it, and I love you, and I think I always will. And I know the answer to my proposal is probably “no,” because we’re eighteen, and there are so many things that just can’t happen because it’s not the right time or the right place or whatever people say about this kind of thing, but I don’t want you to be the one that got away. And I don’t want to be the one who can’t let go. I know it doesn’t make sense to tell you that I want to spend the rest of my life with you and that I want you to spend the rest of your life without me in the same voicemail, but that’s what I got. I want someone to bring you bowls of strawberries and kiss you on the forehead, and I want someone to come to all of your galleries, and take care of you the way you take care of me, the way we took care of each other, and just… my handwriting fucking sucks. I’m gonna - I’m gonna stop reading. (She throws the paper on the floor.) This hurts. A lot. And I feel like

F:MINI-FRIDGE

G: Yeah?

G: Hello?

Did you just pick up?

Thank you for loving me.

I can’t believe I left my mini-fridge.

Yeah. I have it right next to me. (pats the mini-fridge) But don’t worry, I’m keeping it warm. Or cold. (Pause.) So you only heard the part about the fridge?

Like a mini-fridge?

What other part was there?

Yeah, I did.

F: Hi. G: Hi.

Thank you for loving me too.

Okay. I can do that. (Pause.) Are you okay?

F: (laughing)

I’m great. Tired, but great.

Oh, no. Nothing. There… do me a favor and don’t listen to the other voicemails when you get this. Okay?

How much did you hear?

G: (laughing, still half-asleep)

Good. Good. That’s - I’m really happy to hear that. (A moment.) Hey.

F: Yeah. Are you?

If you ever need anything, I’m always …

I may have scared you a little. I would also be scared if you left me seven voicemails at 2AM. So if you don’t want to talk to me again after this, I understand. But I just need you to know how much you mean to me. I am so proud of you. And everything you do. And I don’t have a ring. And you don’t want one anyway, so it all works out. But… I think everything happens for a reason. Mostly. And I believe that this really happened for a reason, even though it’s ending. (Pause. She sits on the couch.) And the real reason I called is because you left your minifridge at my place and you just talked so much about how you’re gonna be the dorm with all the snacks, and I figured you probably really want the mini-fridge, so I can drive there or I can drop it off somewhere, or -

(F hangs up the phone. We hear the call end. A is left alone onstage for a moment. She puts the phone down. She takes a deep breath, then kisses her fingers and places them gently on the mini-fridge: a goodbye. We’re left with the sound of cicadas. Lights dim on her part of the stage as she removes her hand from the

I think I always will.

F: You miss them?

I can hear the cicadas.

Well. I should probably let you go.

G: Yeah.

F: Okay. G: Okay. Goodnight.

ANYWAY,mini-fridge.)ILOVE YOU

Hey! I’m not home right now, or maybe I am, and I’m taking a nap. But (small laugh) leave me a message and I’ll get back to you when I can. Hope your day is beautiful. (Beep.)

(The mini-fridge disappears. H sits on the couch and dials I’s number. He might have a kitchen towel draped over his shoulder. He’s holding a post-it note in his hand. The post-it note has a strip of tape attached to the top. He waits, hearing ring after ring after ring. He knows he won’t pick up, but sort of hopes he will. It goes to voicemail. It’s a personalized I:message.)

G: Goodnight.

F: Yeah, anytime.

I’ll text you tomorrow and you can tell me where to drop it off. Cool?

Yeah. Cool.

Thank you. Seriously.

(A pause.)

Like a mini-fridge.

(He hangs up.)

Hey. It’s me. It is 5:58pm. Wednesday. Finally stopped raining. I’m waiting for the oven to preheat so I can put in this - I’m making a quiche, actually. Which, I don’t know, I only like eggs sometimes, so I don’t actually… it’s probably a bad idea, but there’s bacon in it, so I can just eat around the egg maybe. Like a five-year-old. So I have a little time to talk, is what I’m saying, and. And I wanted to talk, so. I just wanted to call you ‘cause I had this dream. And I wrote it down. Started writing them all down actually. Most of them are on, like, post-its, and the sticky parts aren’t that sticky, so I keep losing all my dreams, but I know they’re somewhere in the apartment. But with this one, I woke up and wrote it down and taped it up on the wall so it wouldn’t get lost and uh… Yeah, I’ll just. I’ll just read it. So. (He clears his throat, prepares himself to read.) We were in a field. And in my head, it was October, but in the air, it was Spring. And you were in that sweater, that really tacky Christmas one that kind of makes your nipple look like Rudolf’s nose, with the snowflakes on it. I kept tracing your face with my eyes, and then my fingertips, and every time I looked at you, another snowflake made its way into the yarn. And this butterfly kept flying past, and it’s this kind of little purple butterfly that I’ve seen a couple times over the past, like, two weeks, and it kind of just. Feels like you. So you were in the field, in the Christmas sweater, and you were in the field flying over me, and I was watching you. And you. And halfway through the dream, my brain decided to make it a lavender field, so we were sitting there and the sun started setting at the same time as the moon, and it was like nothing I’ve - it was just. New. And you had this really ugly nail polish on. (Pause.) And I woke up thinking about our first kiss. Because I guess that’s what the kiss felt like, that lavender and moonlight and sunlight. I was thinking about you. And me. And us. And kissing you felt like all the stupid cliches. All the fireworks and explosions, but also all the light in the world, just moonlight and sunlight and warmth, and then it also felt like killing my grandma. Like calling her on the phone and telling her and hearing her hit the ground, you know, like her heart would be too Catholic to take it. And sometimes it feels like killing you. And I know I didn’t kill you, it was the truck, or the impact of the truck, or the airbags, or the steering wheel, or the ambulance taking too long, or the fucking… (He gets choked up. He can’t speak. He starts over.) Sorry. (A breath.) People don’t know how to talk to me anymore. Or I guess they never did but. Especially now. (Pause.) I don’t know if you can hear these. And I feel a little bit stupid. But, you know, if you can hear them, then I guess that’s good, but if you can’t, then you know, wherever you are, I hope you’re good. It would be pretty sick if you haunted me. I could be like that little kid from the Sixth Sense, all “I see dead people,” just freak everybody the fuck out. Like even if it was a little scary, that would be cool. To see you again. Not cool, it just... (He starts crying again. He can’t finish his sentence. This is a full-body cry, one that feels endless. This can take as much time as it needs.) We were supposed to have a lot more time. (He eventually manages to catch his breath. Pause.) Everybody’s been sending me flowers. I know it doesn’t make sense, ‘cause they’re indoors, and I live on the eighth floor, but. I want to believe that they’re gonna bring a purple butterfly into my room. Even if you’re just passing through. (A beep goes off in the background.) That’s the oven. (A moment.) Anyway, I love you, and I wish you weren’t dead.

Let Call You Sweetheart

Natalie54 Kennedy

LawrencePhotographyHigh School Lawrence, KS

Digital photography 2020

Chaewon55 Kim Design OrangeArtsCounty School of the Arts Santa Ana, CA Mugression Rhino, Adobe suite 2021

do not approve of my affinity for antifa

—Bong Joon Ho

my56parents

the name / tattooed / and all you can say is / getting through / the name has / a body / singing / kissing / colliding / the stockbroker winds / his throat / like a clock / howling at trees / the bodiless dancing / their own circus / because i too / have yet to be afforded / existence / for without proof / of coin / what use / is the body / question these hands / small as they may be / test me / and you / will see veins thicker / than his neck / these hands / can knot a snake / if they need to / these hands sick /of prayer / ready to burn / until heaven tosses / all the batteries / out the smoke alarms / mother how / can you pray / for coin / at a time / like this / nothing on the horizon / will save us now / not even the sun / can raise the shoreline / to wash / the slaughterhouse clean / and here / is where i admit / until / i watched Parasite / i had forgotten / about war / that there is / a war / and that in / a war / a body floats / bumps heads / with all the other poor souls / knocking / on the ceiling / some arbitrary line / and i suppose this / is why koreans / don’t vote.

Dohyun Kim

NorthPoetryHollywood High School North Hollywood, CA

“It’s impossible to describe: nauseating, stinging, hot.”

We shuttle voters to stop a homeless shelter. Too close to themyschool,mom says.

and its vents spat a desert in our faces.

Maybe a house or two and a pension to grow old on. This theirbothfault and true.

Question: is it possible to be gentrified by your own people? They don’t smell of sweat.

probably thought so too. The body has an allergictoreactionnewsoil.

Plenty time for walks in the park and radio. Americandream.

EveryV.

of the LA riots by an ex-Koreatown boy who never lived through it

second of it. I have never seen this country tangled in so much telephone wire and candlelight. Making them dance over the cracks of the sidewalk. The goldfinches have fled. How we hammer a birdbox into ink, awaiting their return.

They said all they did was punch a couple holes into the blackened sky for Apparentlylight.hefellfromthesupermarket’s roof. Nobodytheapproachesbody.

Our house pays— we have made gods of holes in the sky.

Mom religiously opposes the Little ThefindthatredistrictingBangladesh-Koreatownplan,somuchsosheiswillingtovote.Iimagesontheinternet.GajuMarketwherewewalked the stroller sagging. The bags heavy and my little brother heavier because we had one car

started calling it “Saigu” after they shot one of their own boys.

TheyI.

I don’t know what she’s talking about. We came here in 2008.

II.

III.

TheIV.National Guard had stopped at the gates of Beverly Hills. Koreans had armed themselves to defend and make this land ours.

I wouldn’t trust Dad with a gun.

chronicle57

There are condos on Wilshire. They are ugly. But we are proud. We’d rather sit and let our lungs mold.

Living in Beverly Hills and working an office job that lets off at five.

I never imagined I would need to relearn the earth.They

Ian58 Kim Harvard-WestlakePhotography School Studio City, CA Untitled Film 2021photography

Jessica59

Kim

America doesn’t have a body—just the rupture from a pistol, broken like a mother’s backbone. One night, I return home to find her collapsing into her own tongue: a secondhand language she bought for a dollar. Mother rinses her mouth clean, cleanses her face until it becomes an envelope for undelivered love letters. To love my country is not about forgiveness as it is about indifference. How I can sleep soundlessly with the glaring redness of a rocket. Outside, the sky is a deadweight, hole-punched by another bullet and not fireworks. Please, I want to indulge in history without retreating in pain like a crumpled newspaper jammed into the bottom of my backpack. Tonight, the mockingbird keeps me awake and afraid. Tomorrow, I will imprison myself, Los Angeles skylines wired into my palms— it’s better than encountering myself in a mirror at the department store. Girl fluttering her wings like a monarch, never reaching home. Too fragile to be American. I can’t help but become obsessed with the lipstick that’s only worth thirteen days’ of starvation, possibly less. At school, the fingerprints of girls on tabletops like countries quadrated into pop quizzes. To love my nation is to talk about one-sided revolutions. On the battlefield, a victory. At home, a mother afraid of school shootings—says be careful almost as if I am not already full. Tight-stomached, pulling my body closer to hers because it’s the only unhardened object within reach. Unlike America, I inhabit a body I wish to vacate, and I know this isn’t the answer she is searching for. I am defeated again, when the syllables of the American Dream vibrate like bombs ticking, ready to burst: xenon-smeared lips. If only I could contain the wholeness of a language in a poem, yellowed at the edges. To love America is to model my mouth into a fat zero, having nothing left to surrender.

LaPoetryCañada High School La Cañada, CA

Broken Abecedarian for America

Last summer, halmeoni moved to California, bone-dried and thinned like seaweed on the kitchen counter. She asks why I have not thinned, fattened instead like a whale ready for slaughter, and blames the grease on miguk food. I want to tell her I am not American, hangul thinned into the back of my tongue and unreceptive to the stench of modernity. The only word I remember in Korean is sijang, hunger. Oceans thinned by extinction, a harbor split by upturned boats, famine kneeling in front of our bruised mouths. Halmeoni says sijang also means market, thinned aisles of canned tuna and fake kimchi, the commodities of my past I want forgotten. What remains of my weekly allowance, I squander on thinned cityscape portraits and white pearl necklaces. Maybe this is why halmeoni mistakes me for an American girl, future Hollywood star. Foolish, thinned with dreams about dead origin stories. Yesterday, it was about a father aspiring to be a mayor, also sijang. Today, it turns into an elegy for my father, thinned white hairs as trench lines in warfare. Halmeoni reminds me of the Korean wars I have not lived through, dynasties wrecked by bullets, history thinned inside the barrel of a rifle. The summer before my father’s death, halmeoni swapped his body with an aircraft, propelled it towards the Pacific-thinned waves, escaping westward. Midway, shipwrecks invaded his body, so I learned to spill his ashes into Californian seabeds before I had ever known the thinned callouses of his hands. This summer, halmeoni moves back to Korea, says loss is too foreign to her. Alone, I unlearn jeonjaeng, war, the memories thinning.

Ghazal60for

Design Arts Peddie Hightstown,SchoolNJ

MOD SketchUp, Illustrator, Photoshop 2021

Kate61 Kim

St.PhotographyMark’sSchool of Texas Dallas, TX

Twice Cooked photography

Vegetables Digital

2020

Evan62 Lai

In Pennsylvania, she transposed her tongue from Sichuanese to English. Pried apart tā (she) and tā (he) so the syllables no longer lay symmetrical on her tongue, untwinned by distance. On weekends, she rented Hollywood slashers and watched them until she had memorized the cadence of each dying, the pronunciation of fear. The cashier at the video store said

Part One: Liqin and Esther Zhou 1990

You must have a strong stomach to deal with all that gore, and she swallowed the truth that she always looked just left of the screen, recognizing the characters by voice instead of face, that she hated blades and masks and blood but kept watching because at least screams were identical across languages—at least they told her when to be scared.

Stella63 Lei ConestogaNovel High School Berwyn, PA

Plus, they were an easy way to make cash.

***

Her mother clipped the shirt onto the clothesline. “However far it takes to be forgotten.” Cotton fluttered above their apartment balcony, arcing like a snagged wing. Liqin’s mother picked up a dress and frowned. “Or to forget where you’re from.”

Evenflat.before Liqin left herself behind and clawed into this country where people’s bodies flickered translucent in the sun, yellow hair casting them in a spectral glow, she gave birth in a plastic tub. It was a slow, involved process, spanning thirty-nine hours. Thirty-nine hours of agony, of Liqin sliding into the tub, limbs merged into water, of tilting her head back and wishing the baby would just. swim. out. When he did, the child emerged blue-faced, choked before he could breathe. A birthmark splashed across his neck in a cruelty of black, tangling into his chin, its shadowy fingers splayed wide. Liqin gripped the tub. Her feet scrabbled in the shallow water, fingernails denting the edge, as she waited for the tiny chest to rise. For the rush of wind that would finally prove she could carry a life beyond her own, that her body was capable of giving back all it had taken. Liqin slid her fingers over the baby’s cheeks and into his mouth, unhinging it like a locket with no picture inside. No faces to remember or forget. Still, she reached in his jaw and tried to grab any vestige of breath, tried to wrest his ghost free like a fisherman dragging carp from the river, scales shimmering out the dark. If only she could grasp that shine before it disappeared. If she could scavenge it from bloodless flesh, she could loosen her baby’s neck and teach him to swallow, his mouth awakened by spit. But Liqin’s fists emerged empty and white-knuckled, robbed of any lineage she could hold. All this is to say that Liqin knew ghosts as well as the moles braceleting her wrists. She could lick her finger, point it in the air, and find spirits as easily as wind. It was like a chill just beneath the skin, a quiet permeation through tendon and bone. That was the true map of the world. No north-south-east-west, no borders or seas, just a compass of its dead: where spirits are concentrated and who tramples above them, their ankles mysteriously wrenched at the curb; where ghosts howl, regardless of day or night; where they lurk, silent, in wait. And knowing this, Liqin could easily say what a haunting was. Inevitable. There was no escaping it, no matter how many exorcisms one performed, how many prayers one breathed into sky. It was best to accept it. To bow one’s head and let the spirits wash over you, fingers tangling through hair.

When Cicadas Sing for the Dead

Chapter One

Liqin thought this was too broad—her mother left every morning for work, and she wasn’t a ghost. She wrung the water from a shirt and passed it to her mother. “How far do you have to go to become one?”

For the first month, she called her mother every morning. English is a language for the dead, Liqin said. It reaches into your mouth and strangles everything inside. Anything it doesn’t kill, it steals. She wrapped the cord around her finger until it swelled, blood filling the spaces plastic didn’t invade. Did you know they spell ghost with an h because Flemish typesetters messed up? It’s like patchwork tearing at the seams, unable to hold even itself. Still, each evening, she opened her mouth in the mirror and flexed her tongue against her teeth. Bit the tip until it bled. Licked every intonation

Hauntings took many shapes. Folktales said they were warnings, stand-ins for something worse. White women on reality TV said they were spaces where the air felt colder, denser, as if the molecules had slurred into a body over a blocked vent. The horror movies Zhou Liqin watched said they were revenge—a debt incurred through dying, passed down and paid back by the protagonist’sTheselife.explanations were, Liqin thought, fèihuà. Bullshit. Liqin had grown up surrounded by her ancestors’ ghosts, a lineage carried through speech as well as blood. Her mother told her stories about these spirits as they washed dishes, folded laundry, swept the floor, their lives an extension of her own. Liqin’s favorite was of a grandfather four, five generations ago who went to America searching for gold. Disappeared into the Gold Mountain and mined so long he became indistinguishable from dirt, his body buried before his death. Even when he was alive, the family only saw him through the money and letters he sent, his face blurring with distance and time. He was like a specter, proving again and again that he was real, the gold his spirit returning to the family until he died. “A ghost is any type of leaving,” Liqin’s mother said, “even if the person isn’t dead.”

When her mother told the story, she talked like she knew the grandfather personally—the grit under his nails, the weight of his absence—even though he died before she was a seed. That was how intimate her family was with their dead. Even as she walked to school, the land open and breathless around her, the air thrummed so thick with ghosts they buzzed against her skin.

Esther Zhou arrived in the United States at twenty-eight years old, returning to college so she could get a job in this new country. It seemed redundant—why repeat an education she already had, a degree she had already gotten? Still, with the conversion rate, you could make more as a waitress in America than as a teacher in China. If she ran her own business, she could earn enough to start a new life, to move forward from dirt. She knew the years of gold-veined mountains were over, but she thought of them as she walked through the airport—that blind hope that consumed people,

“The Chinese I know hide their names; sojourners take new names when their lives change and guard their real names with silence” -Maxine Hong Kingston

Decades after that grandfather passed on, Liqin also unhooked her body from country to country, unclasped her feet from the ground. She watched Chongqing shrink outside a fogged airplane window, that universe of a city reduced to a tawny square, skyscrapers thinned into needles pricking the Earth. As the airplane rose, she imagined plucking each building, holding them between her teeth like her mother had when she darned Liqin’s jacket sleeves, metal adorning her lips. This is how you fix a hem. This is how you blend thread and cloth so the hole disappears into itself, consumption in reverse. This is how, this is how, this is how. Liqin pressed her palm to the glass. Rubbed the frayed hem of her shirt. If only she could cut a swath of her city and stitch it to her coat, lining fabric with concrete. Dust. Something familiar to keep. The intercom buzzed and the pilot’s words garbled out, indistinguishable from static. Liqin closed her eyes.

Esther gripped the phone and paced her apartment, floor creaking under her feet. “This will be an easy, stable job,” the representative continued, “a foundation for your new life.”

Five years later, Esther joined the network of Ghost Cleaners— people who relieved spirits of their ties to the Earth, carrying

“It’s okay,” Esther said. She walked under the mold, watching it straddle the white like a birthmark on skin. “I’ll do it.” ***

He smiled, teeth shiny as pearls.

Prior to joining the Cleaners, Liqin worked multiple jobs, saving up to open her own laundromat. She budgeted meticulously, tallied her wages again and again, held onto the promise of flexible business, low labor costs, steady income. When she had own business, she would set the hours. She would determine when the doors opened and closed, when the sun in that building rose and set. If she ran it alone—self-service machines decreased the need for staff—all the profits would be hers. Gold, flowing in the shape of water—an elixir in those pipes.

***

“I will live on campus at Greenbrook College.”

them into the sky and setting them free. Like snipping the threads on buttons and watching them roll loose. Her job was simple. 1) Receive the ghosts each night. They would be brought in by Carriers and delivered to Esther’s hands, usually from wealthy families who wanted to ensure peace for their passed. Another luxury afforded to the rich. 2) Cleanse the spirits of anger, regret, or whatever tethered them to the ground. She rinsed each ghost with water from the Cleaner’s Association, not unlike a nursing home employee washing the old, lathering them until they lightened and floated away. 3) Collect her payment.

When they were alone, Esther called the boy Yùtù, tapping his forehead where the rabbit ears would be. “Yùtù,” tap tap, “Have you been good this week? Have you been happy?” Tap tap “You’re the happiest baby I ever met, you know? That’s good. Never change.” Tap tap. ”Promise me you’ll never change.”

***

He laughed and grabbed at her hair.

so that bright myth and reality became one. The customs agent had a gold pin on his breast, and she watched it as he stamped her passport, wondering if it was real.

He repeated after her in his sticky child voice, the syllables stretched around his lips. “Yee-twu,” he tugged the end of her ponytail,“That’s“yee-twu.”you,” she smiled. “You should know your name.”

Esther’s first job had been babysitting for a white family. She watched their baby boy while they were away on Saturdays, doing whatever it is married couples do when they want to forget about the mundanity of their jobs, their suburban home. They left her with a schedule, notes about his likes, his dislikes, his habit of pulling hair when one picked him up. The child was twelve months old, language still soft in his mouth. He giggled at Esther in a voice bubbling with spit, and she grinned down at him, petting his head, kneading his fingers with hers.

Esther lost the job when the parents came home early and saw their son sucking the jade cicada, his tongue twined around its wings.They shouted many things, including irresponsible, and choking hazard, and what the fuck were you thinking, which Esther held in the back of her throat, repeating the quiet blow of the k

“Why are you coming to the United States?” Gold flashed as he shifted in his “Where“University.”seat.willyoube staying?”

Esther was at college on a grant—enough to cover a two-year degree—but she still had to pay for personal expenses like groceries and clothes. So, she worked part-time as a barista, a restaurant host, a cashier at a 24-hour gas station, tallying her paychecks with care, simultaneous jobs supplementing each other as the hours ticked on. The gas station was quiet at night, buzzing gently with fluorescents and the slushie machine. She did her homework at the counter. Propped her books up behind the register, scribbled sums while waiting for customers to arrive. So what if she had no time between classes and studying and work, forever moving from one place to another, no time to breathe? If she only saw her roommate between her evening shift and going to bed, the girl toweling her hair as Esther crept inside? The future was more important than any struggles in her present, and she reminded herself of this as she pinched herself awake, nails biting white marks around her thigh.

She located the laundromat in a strip mall in the suburbs, a place where the streets seemed scrubbed by August heat. Even the parking lot was an exercise in crisp precision: lines cleaved into perfect right angles, blacktop so fresh it stuck to her heels. Her first time on the property, Liqin pressed her sneaker toe in the tarred seam where asphalt met asphalt and turned slowly, relishing how it gave under her weight. How the ground churned, no matter how small, beneath her foot, imprinting the memory of her motion. When she stepped back, the whorled tar winked at her, shiny andTheblack.evening before opening day, Liqin watched as street lamps illuminated the business’s sign: LUNA MOTH LAUNDROMAT, block letters gleaming through the night. The moth adorning the words unfurled its wings into an expanse of green, forever poised to fly. Around her, the air thrummed with cicadas, their screeches vibrating like a tuning fork adjusting itself to the dark.

***

Liqin shook out her wrists, gripped the handles, and swung open the doors. Air conditioning billowed out and shrouded her in cold, as if the room had filled its lungs and sighed—perhaps in anticipation, perhaps in relief. Liqin believed that everything was alive in some sense, the way roads circled towns like arteries, ferrying people in and out of its beating heart. As a child, she had squatted by the roadside and pressed her palms into the ground, feeling the thrum of each passing bike or car. Taking the pulse of dirt. Now, she exhaled in time with the walls and surveyed the rows of new machines, the squeal of tile under her feet, the glistening glass like scales plating the walls, shifting silently under the fluorescents’ glare. How each moving part harnessed water in its veins. Took in the soiled and made it clean.

Esther stood in the kitchen and observed the ceiling mold. It hung dark, dense, pooling over the fridge like a shadow in reverse.“Think about it, Esther. Contact us when you’ve decided.”

Before all this, Liqin was a waitress on the evening shift of Golden Fortune Buffet, a thick-scented establishment where the floors were constantly sheened with oil and light leaked soup-like over one’s feet, as if the chef had mixed it into a roux before installing the bulbs. Liqin’s manager was a small man with a barcode-like combover plastered to his scalp, and she imagined him presenting

“Let’s live together forever, you and me, on the moon.”

He tapped the keyboard, lazy and slow. “And you are staying here Estherpermanently?”forcedasmile. “Permanent. No.”

“How does that sound, eh? We could cook together every day, make mooncakes for the holidays. We could be like the goddess and her rabbit—they made pastries too, you know—you could be my little Jade Rabbit.” She bounced the boy in her arms.

She had moved to the United States to make money and, when faced with the offer, it seemed logical. Few additional hours, almost full control over price. “Customers expect to pay upwards of one, two hundred dollars per ghost,” the Association representative said over the phone. “Anyone who requests our services is already flush with cash. Don’t be afraid to charge a little more.”

When she put him down for naps, she whispered stories to him in Sichuanese—shiny ones to color his dreams. A monkey king, born from stone. Painted dragons that roared to life when their eyes were drawn in. A goddess in the moon and her immortal Jade Rabbit Yùtù, forever mixing the elixir of life. Esther had a jade pendant of her own—a cicada, not a rabbit—and she dangled it in front of his face, letting him bat at it with his tiny fists. “If you were my son,” she whispered, “this pendant would be all yours.”

This manager never said goodbye before hanging up. ***

That evening, Liqin shed her uniform and sheared it with a pair of sewing scissors, watching each strip unfurl quietly into the trash. She packed the rest of her belongings—a couple sets of clothes, toiletries, the plates and silverware without chips or dents—and bundled them into a duffle bag. Most of the furniture didn’t belong to her, but she lowered the backseat of her car and crammed her secondhand loveseat inside, heaving until it fit. Her

The prospect of cleaning ghosts didn’t scare Liqin. She had already grown up with them, wore them over her skin, held them in her hands. What did a few more matter? And the Cleaner’s Association promised enough additional income—potentially double, triple what the laundromat already made, little to no risks, just do your job—that it seemed the natural choice. What was there to lose when she had given everything up, her country, her marriage, her son? So she made the phone calls, signed the papers, scribbled Liqin Zhou on the dotted line. The Association would not control which ghosts she received, their appearances, or the circumstances of their deaths. The Association would not regulate Liqin’s activities as long as she submitted records and turned in 40% of the profits. The Association would not be liable for any harm to Liqin’s body or mind. Fine. No matter. She couldn’t afford a lawyer anyway, and what was there to sue when her body had already betrayed her, her debts long laid bare?

During this time, Esther worked nine-to-five as a call center telemarketer, reciting a script to disembodied voices, most of whom didn’t reply. She talked until her throat sored and her mouth dried, like her spit had evaporated over the line. Hello, my name is . . . I am calling on behalf of . . . How are you today? The script imprinted itself in her mouth and sometimes, she imagined she could feel the words brailled on her tongue—the bitter consonants, the caustic tang of each industrialized line.

The woman shrugged, wiped her thumb like Esther’s previous deaths were nothing but dirt. Spit. “No clue. Just something I heard somewhere.”

“Thank you for your generosity.”

Liqin didn’t mind her manager as much as the black cotton of her uniform, which absorbed every splash of sauce or grease, stains invisible to the eye. Still, she felt them accumulating against her back in layers of grime, like the oil pressed itself into sedimentary rock, fossilizing her as she strode from table to table, clearing plates and refilling glasses of Diet Coke. A stack of plates was a stratum of stone weighing her spine. A table of frosted glasses, condensing rings into the plastic tablecloth, was another. A milk-fingered child tripping over a chair and spilling orange chicken across her shoes was at least fifty. And so on.

Every evening, Liqin scrubbed her shirt in her apartment bathroom, lathering it in Dove soap that she bought in bulk from Dollar Tree. She smeared it over fabric until the black was unrecognizable beneath foam, then rinsed it in a slow trickle, forever conscious of her water bill. Soap scummed the faucet. Suds strangled the drain. Cloth scoured her knuckles into a rash, the backs of her hands perennially chapped. Even in summer, when humidity knelt on the ground and slicked the world in sweat, Liqin’s hands cracked and bled, skin spreading its translucent wings and peeling away. Still, she scrubbed. She bought pots of Vaseline with her soap and gloved her fists in it at night, as if petroleum jelly could anchor her body to itself. And maybe it did. After all, Liqin performed her ritual without stop—shirt, soap, rinse—and her hands remained on her wrists, unable to fly without carrying the rest of her as well. And yet, even after she finished, she never knew if she was clean, the cloth’s darkness concealing its rot.

that guides me through every storm. Sometimes, she shifted the details just to see if they would notice. One day, her husband was a schoolteacher, a lover of kids. A week later, he worked in a button factory, producing fastenings for clothes that didn’t yet exist. The next month, he had no job at all. He is looking, she assured the coworker, but times are tough right now, so I have to work extra hard. She didn’t have photographs, but no one asked to see them anyway—the hint of a life beyond this building was enough. How wonderful! A family to provide for. That’s the most important thing, you know. Family.

his head to the checkout counter, scanning it instead of clocking in and out. Beep. Beep. 1 middle-aged man, 2 sweat stains crystallizing salt rings beneath his arms, 300 bits of stubble on his unshaved chin. Beep. Beep. Thank you! Please come again. Often, he would rub his palm over his head, smoothing nonexistent flyaways as he watched the staff work. That was the motion Liqin associated most with him—that constant rubbing, like he was a stonemason polishing the marble of his skull. Like he had to sand away his thoughts before he could think them. For months, she wondered if she could stand next to him and observe her reflection in his scalp, if it would distort and fracture amidst his hair. But when she finally did, skimming by him on her way to the kitchen, she saw nothing but shiny skin and meager hair, her own face nowhere to be found.

At the office, she was Esther with the low ponytail winding around her neck. Esther with the clothes that smelled too sharp, like someone had taken a pocketknife and whittled the air around her until it was too unwieldy to hold. Esther with the mole below her lip, pearled black as a burn. In the break room, a coworker pressed her thumb against the mark and said, “Did you know? Apparently moles reveal how you died in past lives.”

***

This was the type of interaction Esther adapted to while working there, every question open-ended, everybody slipping away before she learned their names. How each person folded into the grey of their cubicle, dialed from the same lists, readied the same words to speak. Perhaps this is why, at work, Esther told her coworkers about her husband back in Chongqing and the son living with him. My two men, back home, she said, though she had learned never to trust men because they pillaged everything worth taking and expected nothing less. My baby boy, the light

Liqin had already wanted to move into the laundromat’s second floor, tired of paying rent, chasing her roommates down for rent, and settling on IOU’s that took months to pay back. Tired of cleaning their messes, the glasses they left scattered through the living room, each rim fogged with spit and grease. Tired of being surrounded by bodies and their waste. The Ghost Cleaners’ nightshift hours pushed her to finalize the transition. After all, Carriers couldn’t deliver ghosts in the middle of the day, and the spirits seemed to materialize better at night, their bodies dissolving against light. So Liqin quit her job at Golden Fortune, handing her letter of resignation to the manager after her shift. He dipped his barcoded head as he read it, oily fingers staining the edges of the page, paper going translucent in his grasp.

In the following weeks, Liqin cleared out a station in the laundromat’s back room, installing the shower head and water supply the Association sent. “We will provide you with a complementary 3,500 gallons of water every month,” the manager had said on the phone, “but if you run out, you must either suspend business until the following month or buy water from us yourself.” This manager spoke in a whisper-like rasp, even at full volume, and Liqin imagined them cupping the phone to their mouth, rubbing the receiver instead of their scalp, massaging their voice before letting it go.

Even though her English was improving, Esther practiced her pronunciation on the bus to and from work, holding each word under her breath as the sun dipped below the horizon. Other passengers checked their watches, shuffled their feet, turned away like her murmuring was a curse spiriting away the lives they knew. Like the cracks in her broken syllables were laced with metal, fire, more blood than her own. Still, Esther turned to the window, watched her face through the grime, opened her mouth. Hello, my name is Esther. Her lips seemed pale in the glass, fading against the buildings and Pennsylvanian sky. My name is Esther. My name is Esther. Hello, hello, hello ***

Esther resisted the urge to bite her finger, to taste that surety in one’s past. “What does mine mean, then?”

ghost passing through the atmosphere and into outer space, body suffused with stars.

So Esther did her job. She set up her station, took in the ghosts, nodded at the Carrier as he left after his shift. She kept careful records of all her spirits and their resentful weight. In the morning, she scrubbed the chalky residue the water left behind, nestled in the edges of the grout, feeling the bump of each tile as she wiped.Inthe daytime, she monitored the laundromat, mopped the floors, watched customers lean their heads against the wall or sift through pouches of coins, slotting quarters into the machines. She began to recognize regulars—the student who always read a book as she waited, the mother and her two little girls, stopping to load and unload clothes between groceries and Sunday lunch, the old man who sat quietly near the far wall, settling onto the bench with a sigh. She greeted them as she made her rounds, cleaned, emptied lint filters in long sheets of gray. Good morning, she said, I hope your classes are going well, I hope your family is in good health. Hello Esther, they said, hello, hello, hello ***

The manager’s breaths slowed, contemplative, but they answered, voice languid through static. No, there weren’t time or geographical limits on ghosts, though they would usually be recent and local for practicality. “Remember that almost every customer is a wealthy family seeking rest for their passed. It makes the most sense to hire us days or weeks after their loved one dies.” However, most ghosts lingered behind, families without the funds or spiritual beliefs to pay for their passage. Some ghosts were bound to ideas, objects, or people rather than locations, and they followed these anchors after their deaths, traversing continents and seas. “These ghosts mostly float around, harmless, but sometimes they inhabit a building and the owners request they get cleared off the property. That’s where we come in.”

***

“Twenty pounds and eight ounces. That’s,” Esther punched the numbers into her calculator, jamming the enter key when it stuck, “one-fifty-two.”TheCarrierpulled out his wallet and counted the bills— cash only—thin fingers flicking through twenties with uncaring precision. It wasn’t his money anyway. He’d send the customer the receipt and get his Association paycheck in a week.

“So it would be possible to receive an old ghost from another country, right?” “Possible, yes. Probable, no. You likely won’t be able to tell, so don’t worry about it too much. Just do your job, and you’ll be fine.”

Her first night as a Cleaner, Esther mopped the floor until her limbs floated murkily through its reflection, distorted by gentle swells beneath the tile. She polished the glass faces of each machine, Lysol piercing the air into a disinfectant fog. As midnight crawled near, she rushed to the back room to check the water supply and shower heads, kicking a bucket as she went. It rolled across the room and clattered against a wall. Its handle rattled through the night. Esther gripped her apron in her fists, thick fabric roughing her palms, white callouses against white cloth. As she approached the counter, she rolled out her neck and flexed her fingers by her side. The Carrier opened the door.

pillow, towel, and blanket she piled into the passenger seat like a companion made of cloth. The mass seemed the right size for a young boy, and when Liqin watched it in her peripheral vision she could almost imagine him nodding along with the car, drowsy and slow.She carted her belongings upstairs in three trips, pausing periodically to set her load down and gasp, sweat punctuating concrete in lazy drips. The loveseat she had to carry vertically, arms hooked beneath it, its backing scraping the wall. When she dumped her things in her future living room, they hit the ground in thuds, her life summarized in the echo of their weight. ***

Esther folded the money into her apron and tried to smile at the Carrier, a lopsided gesture of solidarity, perhaps saying Thank you, or What a strange business this is, or I know you are someone beyond your dead, but he merely bowed his head and turned away, walking to his car to retrieve more ghosts.

A month into being a Cleaner, Esther called her manager with questions regarding the ghosts. The phone rang eight times before they answered, presence indicated by breaths rather than words, quiet exhales floating across the line. Esther skipped the pleasantries—the longer she worked as a Cleaner, the more pointless she thought they were—but cleared her throat before speaking. The cough stuck in her mouth, making her words emerge in a nasally rush. “Must the ghosts I clean be recently dead, or is there a time limit? And must they have lived and died here, or can they come from around the world?”

Soon, she developed a routine for the ghosts. She washed their chests first, then their backs, arms, legs, feet. She learned how much water ghosts of certain weights required, the heavier ones needing more to release their ties to the earth. She learned to subdue angry ones with a well-aimed spray of water, wrestling them into the station and pinning them down as water flowed forth. She learned to hold babies in the crook of her arm as she wiped their faces, as she slid their eyes closed for the final time. And every time she received a male ghost, regardless of appearance or age—who was to say spirits stayed the same across time—she ran her hands along his neck. Pressed her fingers into the sides of his throat and checked for a birthmark. A shadow. Anything to call her own.

He was young, swimming in an aviator jacket, and his nostrils flared as he shifted the ghost in his arms. The spirit was much more defined than Esther expected, its body just south of solid, sliding through air like plasma in a woman’s shape. Her blouse billowed around the Carrier and obscured his face, buoyed on nonexistent wind. As he walked, the washing machines flashed like dozens of eyes, reflecting the haunting down the walls. Esther nodded at him as he approached the counter, wiping her palms on her pants. He hoisted the old woman, dozing against his chest, onto Esther’s scale, and she typed the weight in a spreadsheet, filling the first boxes of her new life.

Esther hauled the old woman into the cleaning room and settled her into the station. She lay still, head lolling backward, and Esther grabbed the shower head attached to the wall, holding her wrist so she didn’t float away. Her skin—or what would have been her skin—was soft with age, Esther’s fingers sinking into the murk. All things considered, this was a gentle introduction to her job, a quiet passage from her past world to her new one. With a gentle heave, she turned the woman around, brushed her hair over her shoulders, and washed her back, sliding the shower head from side to side. The woman’s skin revealed itself in soft expanses of white, like an afterimage that didn’t fade. A faint medicinal scent permeated the room, light and clean, skimming above them as if separated from the rest of the air. Esther extended each of the woman’s arms. She guided the shower head from shoulder to creased knuckles, watching water collect in the folds of the woman’s skin. It gurgled, clouded and thick, down the drain.

Soon, the woman hovered slightly above her seat, chin knocking her chest as she rocked mid-air, hair swaying like a nest of gauze. Esther shut the water off and held the woman’s hands, leading her to the window that gaped into the room like a black hole. Careful not to hit her against the wall or windowsill, Esther eased the woman out, letting her dissolve into night. The cicadas were so loud she thought she quivered on the soundwaves—song buoying her into sky. She peered out the window, imagining the

Dad smiled. “If she was here, we’d be eating steamed shrimp and cooked cabbage with salt and Sichuan peppers.”

***

Short Story

“It’s your life,” she said. “You’re old enough to figure it out.”

“I gotta go, bye. Thanks for having me!” I waved at my tennis teammates who were lounging around the swimming pool in Karina’s backyard. I navigated around the hedges and tree branches to the front yard. Mom’s car sat parked at the curb, the engine running.Inside,the air conditioning blasted, and I squeezed my damp towel around me.

“It’s fine.”“Mom hated lasagna,” Justin interjected, shoving a bite into his mouth. “Too much cheese and cholesterol.” He chewed.

“People are coming whether we want them or not.”

“Your cholesterol is too high. You have to stop eating carbs and eat healthier. I’m making white fish tonight,” Mom said.

“Do you know who’s coming?” I asked Dad.

The look on her face was like that of someone considering a complicated scientific question. “I was just like you.”

“Is Mattie coming?” my brother wanted to know.

“She’s your mom’s best friend from college. They went to high school together in Chengdu. Don’t you remember? She lives in New York. They talked on the phone all the time. How can you not remember that?” Dad wiped his face with a napkin.

Basking

It was a terrible response. I wanted a distinct answer, but she closed the door and left me with a plate of food I didn’t eat.

That night, my Dad, my brother, and I ate dinner at the bar in the kitchen, which faced the deck and the trees. This time of year, the trees looked skeletal. The heater kicked on as we gulped lasagna, dumplings, and baklava that the neighbors had brought over.

Justin pointed to my bag and asked, “Is that all you brought?”“Yeah.”Wegot in Mom’s Toyota, and Justin blasted the heater. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

“It’s up to you.”

***

“And saying, ‘We should take a walk after dinner,’” Justin added.

We ate and sipped our Arizona green tea while the wind kicked up outside and clanged our windchimes.

The problem was I never felt that much guilt before. If it visited, it left me quickly. Sure, I felt other things. I’d felt sleepiness from jet lag after landing in China, hunger from not eating all day

I stuffed myself with so much lasagna that nausea rose in my throat and made my mouth water. I wiped the kitchen counters, put my plate in the dishwasher, and shoved the leftovers into the overstuffed refrigerator.

Kiss-Mark Mask

As the train sped under bridges, past car-congested roads, beside power stations, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through Pinterest looking at pictures of women with red and blue hair. Which color would I dye my hair? And how long was I going to look at pictures before deciding? I considered texting Mom to ask her about it, but then I remembered and put my phone back in my pocket. A person walking down the aisle asked if they could have the seat next to me. I nodded and scooted closer to the window.

Kyra67 Li

“Uh, yeah, I remember.” I had no idea. My memory was slippery like grease. It held nothing except for the jingles of commercials and TikTok videos.

When the train pulled into Summit Station, my brother was standing outside by a trash can, his black winter puffer zipped to his chin. Along with hundreds of other passengers, I funneled out of the train, down and up the escalator, and out the gate.

“Since when do you take art class?” I’d asked. ***

“I don’t know.”

“How’s college?” Dad asked me.

I hated it. I was miserable. I wanted to stay at home in my room over the garage and never leave. I wanted to tell Mom about the disgusting food and the avalanche of work. I wanted to ask her whether I should change my major from psychology to business.

When we pulled into the driveway, my childhood home looked like a haunted house.

“You shouldn’t watch so much television on your computer. You’re going to get cancer and go blind. It happens. I read it on NIH.”

“And washing it down with Ban Lan Gen,” I said.

I’m here, Mom’s text message read.

“Who’s Mattie?” I asked.

“Vacuuming, cleaning windows.” Justin pulled onto the main highway.“Arewe having people over?”

I climbed the stairs to my room. What was that smell? Were mice still dying in the attic? I set my bag down on the carpet and flicked on the light, which illuminated the painting of a seaside village on the wall, all orange before sunset that turned the ocean black. Mom had painted it the year before and hung it on my wall, saying, “I painted it in art class.”

An hour later, Mom arrived holding a plate of fish, rice, and vegetables. She set it on my desk.

“No.” But then my throat burned like something was trying to get out.Inthe car were Mom’s belongings: her kiss-mark mask she used to wear to Costco and her unopened travel-size Chex Mix. I picked up a stub off the floor and read the label: Lincoln Center Symphony. Since when did she go to the symphony? I put the stub in my pocket.“What’s Dad doing?” I asked.

I closed my computer. “What were you like when you were younger? Were you always eating the wrong stuff and watching television? Or were you perfect?” I could’ve sounded sarcastic if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to.

“Just tell me what to do. Should I go to dance or go to the game with my friends? I really need your advice.”

“Your cousins from Connecticut, your Mom’s cousins from China, and some of her friends from the neighborhood.”

Mom didn’t speak. She just pulled away and drove down Henderson Lane towards home. She had that expression on her face that she did when she was angry. It was a vacant face, no emotion, eyes on the road, hands in the ten and two o’clock positions.My stomach twisted. What did I do? Was she mad because I wasted so much time trying to come up with food to bring to the pool party? We had rushed to the store, found Ritz crackers and a cheese plate, and then rushed to the party. Was I asking her for too many rides? Oh god, that was it. She had been my taxi all week, taking me to dance, to environmental club meetings at school, to Six Flags, to New York City. When she wasn’t taxiing me around, she was delivering packages to my brother at college. Did she do anything for herself? When was the last time she’d gone out with friends for lunch or gone shopping to buy herself a new tea set?

The Pingry School Ridge, NJ

Clutching the door handle, she was about to close it when I asked, “I’m thinking of going to my school’s soccer game on Tuesday night, but I should go to dance class. But I really want to go to the game. What should I do?”

“Uck. Fish again?” I grabbed the Halo Top ice cream from the freezer and headed up to my room.

“Okay, fine,” he said and flicked on the movie Seven Pounds with Will Smith, about a guy who commits suicide to donate his organs. I’d seen it before, but I didn’t say anything. I knew that the main character was going to fall in love with a woman who was suffering from heart failure. But I didn’t tell my brother how it would end. I just stole glances at his face, waiting for his eyes to water. But he just sat there, face like a concrete wall. I told myself, don’t cry. Crying is embarrassing. It’s just a movie. They are actors. No one is actually dying. At the end of the day, the actors go home to eat take-out Chinese food, play video games, walk their dogs among mansions. When the main character stepped into the bathtub, I tipped my head back, let the water sink back into my tear ducts, and didn’t sniffle.

My stomach ached with emptiness as I flipped through the pages, gawking at the images of fried mini buns with condensed milk, braised pork belly, and spicy chicken. “I’m going to have the stir fry, but I don’t know what to put in it,” I replied.

I pressed “Mom” on my phone, and she answered on the first ring.“Hi Mom, Margaret and I are at Spice 24, and I can’t remember what we usually get. What should I order?”

For the next hour, Margaret and I feasted on Chinese food. The lamb with mushrooms and quail eggs filled my stomach, but I kept eating, as if I had nothing waiting for me to do back home.

Across from me in the noisy restaurant, my friend Margaret held open the Spice 24 menu and asked, “What’re we gonna get?”

“What do I usually get?”

“You get lamb with Enoki mushrooms and quail eggs, and you should get some vegetables too,” she said. “When are you coming “Afterhome?”we

eat, Margaret and I are going to the mall. She wants to stop by Zara.”

“Okay.” I hesitated. I thought about asking him what he thought I should wear tomorrow, but then I decided I didn’t care at that moment. If I greeted our guests in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, they should be happy.

“Whatdoor.do

After the movie, I trudged up the stairs to my room. Justin followed behind me. He said, “Set your alarm for tomorrow, for around 8:00. The guests will probably get here sometime in the morning.”

***

at school, and sadness when my high school friends left me out of group chat on iMessages. But guilt had been something unfamiliar, like romance or religion. Did I ever apologize? I couldn’t remember a time. In the car, I sat there while my mom drove. I watched families outside playing basketball in their driveways, walking their dogs, and riding their bikes. I wanted to say, Sorry

When I closed my bedroom door, I noticed the smell. Dead rats? Dust? Mom always said that the attic above my room got mice, so she would lay out traps. Did one of her traps snag a mouse that now lay up there rotting? I lit the orchard cider candle in my bedroom and let the room fill with the smell of apples.

At home, I raced up to my room. In the kitchen, Mom clanked around as usual. I showered and sat at my desk, contemplating how to procrastinate the mounting summer reading homework in my Canvas file. I wrote “do homework” in my planner as I clicked on YouTube. Mom knocked. Oh no, here it comes, a lecture. She knows all my weaknesses. She’s going to obliterate me with words like, “You have no self-discipline. You’re going to flunk out of history. And I’ll stop being your taxi service if you do.”Instead,

“Bring the plate downstairs when you’re finished.”

“I don’t know what you want,” she replied. The background noise of traffic told me she was driving.

***

you want to watch?” Justin asked.

With our bellies full of lasagna, Justin and I sat in front of the television while my Dad climbed the stairs and closed his bedroom

***

Lying down on my bed, I fell asleep to images of my mother, climbing the ladder in the corner of my room, her feet on the top rung, her head disappearing into the opening.

“Oh, yeah,” I said.

she opened the door and set a plate of kimchi rice on my desk, my favorite meal.

“Okay, well, don’t be home too late. You have to work on your college applications.”

“That’s new. You usually don’t let me pick.”

“I want to get the duck.”

What would we do without Mom to deal with the mice? Who would stop the water from leaking through the back door? Who would tell me what I like to eat when I can’t remember? Who would I call when I need someone to ask?

Ethan69 Lin Design NorthfieldArtsMount Hermon School Mount Hermon, MA MOD SketchUp, Illustrator, Photoshop 2021

Kaiser70 Louis

Ma Mère, L’hémérocalle

Visual Arts

The Lois Cowles Harrison Center for the Visual and Performing Arts Lakeland, FL

Graphite, acrylic gel transfer, ink, acrylic paint, colored pencil, dibond board 2021

Marczewski

The

Tomek71

Texas Dallas, TX Edge White oak, walnut 2020

Design Arts St. Mark’s School of

Carolina72 Marrero Visual Arts New World School of the Arts Miami, FL Mama, aféitate 2021Painting

Visual DesertArtsHills High School St. George, UT

Jacob73 Martinez

Wheel thrown b-mix, wheel thrown porcelain, crystaline, ceramic 2021

A peak at the soul

Only when it serves me right.

I’m trying. It’s these damnMARCUSsleeves.

Jasmine74 Morgan Play or Script West Orange High School Winter Garden, FL

Start heading backstage! Please and thank you, please and thank you.

INT. CHANGING ROOM - AFTERNOON

Oh so now you wanna talk about being perfectly holy?

CUT TO:

PRESENTER (O.S)

The audience is brought into a sudden Forte from the rest of the band and vocal choir - a quick-paced R&B gospel that could almost pass as a modern-day pop song. On stage we see several girls dancing to the music, Imani in the center. On cue, all the girls start filing off the stage into the audience - the performance at its height but coming to a close.

IMANI

Marcus grabs her wrist and they run off.

I think we can all give one more round of applause to the Beeman Park Praise Group.

INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - MOMENTS LATER

One, two, ah one two three four.

IMANI, a young black girl, is frantically getting ready in a dressing room. Outside of the room, we hear various instruments and lots ofMARCUSchatter.

INT. AUDITORIUM - LATER

CUT TO:

MARCUS (O.S)

A large group of students who have finished their performances are walking backstage.

IMANI

Girl, if you don’t hurry up. You got like 5 minutes.

PRESENTER

A mellow first cord from a trumpet choir starts off the tune of a slow gospel. Roughly 3 bars later there’s a diminuendo.

Uh uh. I know you’re not cursing 5 minutes before go on and praise the good Lord.

IMANI

Verse

Imani rolls her eyes. She then steps out of the dressing room to see MARCUS fiddling with his trumpet.

You’re stunning. Now come on.

TRUMPET 1 (whispering)

So, what do we think?MARCUS

Applause fades as they move further backstage. Out of the crowd, Imani appears talking to some of the other dancers.

Hey!

Not the same kinda worship from my day but I’d say you did a fine job sweetheart.

MARCUS

Imani and her dad hug. Marcus approachesIMANI’Sthem.MOM

-- A poster that reads “Youth Lead Bible Study in the Auditorium every Friday at 3:00!”

The bell rings and students start coming through the doors; all of them, in classic private school uniforms.

EXT. SCHOOL QUARTYARD - MORNING SERIES OF SHOTS:

Yeah, I think so. Thanks.IMANI

IMANI

CUT TO:

Marcus does a little jog towards Imani as she’s in the lunch line and pops up behind her.

There’s our girl! Gave the Lord a good praise didn’t ya?

IMANI

-- A banner for the Black Student Union

INT. CAFETERIA - MOMENTS LATER

Thank you, dad.

IMANI’S DAD

I know that’s right, Mrs.IMANI’SWilliams.DAD (to Marcus)

IMANI

It was good seeing ya, Mr. Williams.

Marcus nods and Imani walks off with her parents and the conversations happening backstage fade back in.

I saw you up there doing your little jazz thing. You’ve improved a lot, haven’t you?

-- A kid praying by a fountain

Oh, I try, I try.

MARCUS

IMANI’S DAD

I’ll text you in a bit okay?

IMANI’S MOM

Ahhh, nope! I hear a long conversation about jazz theory about to happen and imma have to cut it off before y’all get into Clifford Brown and his legacy.

Well, as the lady wishes.MARCUSMarcus.

They dap each other up to part ways.

Hey? What are you so happy about?

MARCUS

Well if you can’t have fun in church, where can you have fun?

They all laugh.

Imani nods and Ms. Law hands her the cookie.IMANI

Marcus looks around for people who might be MARCUSwatching.(CONT’D)

Thank y-

MS. LAW Boy, if you don’t get out my MARCUSline.

IMANI

QUARTYARD

You kids get one date and think everything revolves around you. Marcus turns back shocked but Imani pulls him away.

Maybe.

MARCUS

You know she knows everything. So who is it? You know what, don’t tell me!

Marcus, I would be happy in my presence too but you never say “hey” you just start talking. So talk. What are you so happy about?

MS. LAW rolls her eyes but smiles a bit as she pulls out a cookie for Imani. The two are clearly familiar with each other.

MARCUS

I can’t be happy to see you IMANInow?

You’re lying! Oh shoot, hold on. (to the lunch lady) Hey Ms. Law! You think I can snag one of those cookies off you today?

MS. LAW Here.

Ms. Law pulls her hand back.

Hey Ms. Law you think I can get one of-

(raising hands in defense) My bad, my bad.

Imani laughs and they start to leave theMS.line.LAW

They walk out the doors and begin to head to the other side of the quart yard.

MARCUS

Thank you, Ms. Law.

IMANI It’s Dylan, isn’t it?

Guess who’s got a date.IMANI

MS. LAW You pay for it next time, ya hear?

MARCUS

IMANI

Okay first of all - “in your presence” - I didn’t need you to get all cocky your highness. But fine I’ll spill it.

LAUREN

Right. Me and this guy are starting a group for people interested in deconstruction. You know, breaking down the Bible from the way we were forced to learn it and understand it for ourselves - see if this whole biblical thing is IMANIlegit.

I know he doesn’t believe in the Bible and I think that’s enough information to know that I should stay the heck away.

IMANI

Ahh, I knew it! Just make sure to text me during, okay? I need to be living vicariously throughMARCUSsomebody.

What happened? LAUREN That guy over there.

IMANI

Oh hey, what up?

No, and he came into our class acting like he was some kind of genius.

You know it.

Oh.

She gestures down to the fliers with herXAVIEReyes.

Come on Lauren. You don’t even know the guy, chill.

She quickly walks over to Xavier.

IMANI (to Marcus) Don’t touch my cookie.

Imani takes a look back at Xavier, seeing that he’s sitting alone on his phone.

IMANI

XAVIER

He’s just trying to get people to join his weird meeting. This is why I can’t stand atheists who come here on scholarships.

Well non-believer or not, he’s new. I’m gonna go say hi.

IMANI

She gets up from the table.

LAUREN points towards XAVIER, a young black man. He hands out a flier before going to sit down at a table near him.

IMANI

Well, what’d he do?

IMANI

Hey, man!

Nothing. You just got a lot of people talking about you, wanted to see what all the hype was about.

IMANI

Imani and Marcus reach the lunch table they are sitting at. There are 3 other girls there. (whisperingLAURENtoanother person)

IMANI Cool.

IMANI

XAVIER

Nothing I just - you sound much less like a-

XAVIER Like a Bible-hating atheist?

Imani pulls out her laptop and quickly types into the search bar: is slavery okay in the bible Her finger hovers over the “Enter” key for a few seconds. She instead quickly shuts her laptop and grabs her phone instead.

MATCH CUT:

Xavier hands her the flier.

There is a close-up on the last bullet point.

To Marcus: could use some vicarious living through rn. anything?

INT. IMANI’S ROOM - NIGHT

What?

It’s all good. Here.

XAVIER (CONT’D) You should come.

I’ll definitely think aboutXAVIERit.

CLOSE ON:

IMANI’S SCREEN:

Three bubbles pop up and then disappear. She sighs takes one more look at the flier before moving to the edge of her bed. She gets on her knees and begins to pray.

Xavier walk away and Imani takes a look at the flier and scans through it to see that it reads:

Okay, cool.

A place to understand the things that were never taught to us. Such as:

*why we were taught “purity”

Yeah, sorry.

XAVIER

Um, well I should go. It was nice meeting you..

DECONSTRUCTION MEETINGS!!

*missing books from the Bible

Xavier looks over at Lauren.

XAVIER

IMANI

XAVIER Xavier.

IMANI

*pro-slavery verses

IMANI Imani.

INT. EMPTY CLASSROOM - AFTERNOON

Leon cracks a smile.

XAVIER (To Imani) So what’d you think?

Roughly 10-15 students sit in chairs in a classroom with no tables or teaching materials. The typical pre-meeting chatter isn’t present, everyone is just sitting and waiting.

It was good. I did have a question though. That flier you were handing out, said something about slavery. I was just wondering what that was all about.

CUT TO:

Xavier smiles very briefly, almost proud that she mentioned it.

IMANI

Xavier’s words are almost comical to her.IMANI

Look into what? The idea is bullshit, he didn’t set us free to keep us in chains.

So, thank you all for showing up! I know this for sure isn’t the most popular club on campus, but I’ve been thinking the school needed something like this for a while. So, Xavier and I are really glad y’all decided to come out. So, Xavier if you wanna..

Imani is still packing up.

Xavier pops up out of his seat and takes the CLUB CO-PRESIDENT’S space.

Xavier gestures Leon to begin.

Alright, so right off that bat I wanna make it clear that we are not here to tear down the Bible, and even more importantly, we are not here to disrespect those with differing opinions. When I kinda pitched this idea to Liam I think he thought I sounded a little crazy..

TheLATERlined-up

LEON, a young man with a cross around his neck, stands in front of a huge whiteboard with something written on it that we can’t quite see yet. Xavier sits in a chair right beside him while they discuss something before the meeting begins.

XAVIER (CONT’D)

XAVIER

LEON

But I think he quickly realized we want the same thing and that’s for people to find the truth for themselves so for today’s meeting there’s just one question...

Xavier moves to the side to present the words written on the whiteboard: WHAT IS DECONSTRUCTION?

CUT TO:

chairs have been placed into a circle and people clear the room talking much more than they did when they arrived.

XAVIER (CONT’D)

Imani enters the room and gives Xavier a wave and a smile, he smiles and nods back then she takes her seat.

Leviticus 25:42-46. The Israelites could not own each other. But what about slaves from another nation? We’ll get into it but you should look into it.

A beat as she looks up at the sign.

-- She watches another video, this one of a black woman showing off her crystals.

She hangs up the phone and continues down the street. She passes by a couple of buildings but something makes her hesitant to continue walking. She turned towards a building with the sign AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORICAL LIBRARY.

XAVIER

CUT TO:

-- A video of a very passionate preacher appears on her screen

END ImaniMONTAGE.sitsforward on her bed tapping her highlighter on her book, completely zoned out. In the background, we can hear the sound of a saxophone, only when the playing stop does Imani snap out of her gaze.

IMANI Damnit, Marcus.

You sure about that? Listen, I wasn’t trying to upset anyone when I put those points on the flier but we gotta start asking ourselves how things got to be the way they are. You think they ain’t find a way to defend the way they treated black folk by using the Bible. They did that shit with women, they still doing that shit with gay people.

INT. HOUSE/LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

--MONTAGE:Imaniflips through the books like she’s studying them for an exam.

Thoughts?

IMANI Yeah.

Look, just look into it, alight? I even got a YouTube channel ya know if you wanna check me out of there.

EXT. SIDEWALK - AFTERNOON

XAVIER (ON SCREEN) The church got black people defending slavery we don’t even know it.

PREACHER (ON SCREEN) It’s time we start truly studying his word!

Imani doesn’t humor his self-promo.

Imani sits on her bed with two open books in front of her, one of which she’s annotating. Beside her, her laptop displays a webpage about African American spirituality.

Imani appears frustrated waiting for someone to pick up her call.

XAVIER

-- On her laptop screen, a video from Xavier’s YouTube video playing.

Xavier takes note of Imani’s lack of response and backs off.

Imani’s Dad sits in front of a music stand in dim lighting, playing something slow and Imanimelodic.lets the melodies wash over her as she listens in from the other side of the room. A few phrases pass before Imani’s Dad notices she’s IMANI’Slistening.DAD

INT. IMANI’S ROOM - NIGHT

INT. AUDITORIUM - DAY

Imani lets out a slight laugh.

No, no, don’t even start. I’ve just taken an interest in the history of it all I guess.

LAUREN

Appreciate an anti-Christian view at a Christian school? Sure.

Xavier. But yeah I actually think it’ll be pretty cool honestly I think many of the students would appreciate it.

Imani shrugs.

IMANI’S DAD Hm.

Goodness, get your head out of your ass Lauren. Not everyone at this school is a Christian. Partially ‘cause of people like you who wanna hate on every idea that offends your privileged little view of the world.

Imani realizes she drew some attention to herself when not only Lauren stares blankly at her, but so do some of the other students, as well as the instructor.

LAUREN

Honestly, the choreo for this routine feels way off.

IMANI

I like it. It’s calming.

IMANI’S DAD

Imani’s Dad puts down his saxophone and heads over to the seat in front of the grand piano.

GIRL 1

Well, I’ve been telling you it’s the music of our people for years. Why the sudden interest?

I’ve been learning more about Jazz. Well a bit, I mean. Like music and how it kept us all IMANI’Stogether.DAD

A rehearsal is being held at the same stage we first saw the students perform their praise dance with the band.

IMANI

You keep learning about our history. Musical or not, it’s important.

Are you finally gonna let me teach you a little piano? Because we can start right now baby girl, say less.

CUT TO:

Her anxiety briefly appears again but the swing beat her dad begins to play brings her back into the moment as they both begin to hum rhythmically to the music.

He goes to flip the pages in his music.

Imani sits at the edge of the stage with a group of girls.

IMANI

Imani’s Dad smiles and gestures for her to sit by him.

IMANI’S DAD

The whole service is gonna be off. I heard they were giving a student preaching spot to that new kid.

IMANI

IMANI (hyperventilating)(CONT’D)

Imani stumbles out of the church and falls to her knees as soon as she’s out of sight. Her heart is beating in her ears so much it becomes a light siren - then she gets a text that brings her IMANI’Sback.SCREEN:

Imani wobbles a bit as she goes to stand up. She takes a deep breath and shuts her eyes for just a moment.

IMANI (with eyes shut)

In the church, the choir is singing on stage and is accompanied by clapping from the audience and those who brought instruments such as tambourines and leg drums.

You know what, I’m not feeling this today.

IMANI

In the midst of the praise, Imani claps along with the rest of the congregation but not with nearly as much enthusiasm as those around her, including her mother. Imani looks over and sees a woman who’s been “hit by the holy ghost”: shouting, praising, throwing her arms in the air, and crying. She looks back upfront and her mind starts to take over.

XAVIER V.O

Stop, please God you have to..

IMANI’S SCREEN:

Under the messages with her mom: “momma something happened” “sorry i left early”

Imani tries to clear her thoughts by rubbing her eyes but when she looks up from behind her hands, the choir is suddenly chained at their wrist as they sway and sing. The music fades to the background and in every direction Imani sees people in chains - she stops clapping. Her head swings over to the woman from before. Only now, a man with a whip stands behind her as she shouts, throws her arms up, and cries

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stop, you have to..

IMANI Jesus.

Imani gets up, walks down the steps to get off the stage and heads out of the auditorium.CUT

The woman cries out even louder.

If that was a sign, thenShe can’t find the words but it’s clear that if she could find them, they’d be filled with anger. She opens her eyes to roll them and then quickly walks out of the doors.

IMANIout.

INT. CHURCH - MORNING

The church got black people defending slavery we don’t even know it.

From Marcus: “meet up real quick?”

(under her breath)

The sound of the whip amplifies.

TO:

A woman shout’s “Won’t he do it!”

Tears form in Imani’s eyes as she looks around the church room for someone to help her. Everyone is still chained, looking forward, and clapping.

IMANI Wear this.

A beat.

Fine.

Imani, I just wanted to tell you what happened alight? I’m not tryna take it further than that.IMANI

83 CUT TO: INT. PARKING LOT - MORNING

Imani and Marcus sit face forward in the car. Marcus very clearly has a black eye and a busted lip.

MARCUS Okay?

MARCUS (CONT’D) Fine, but just because I love you.

She takes off the necklace hidden behind her top and hands it to him. There’s a fairly large purple crystal on it.

MARCUS (CONT’D) What do we think?

old behind evangelicals, I swear to - If you had told me sooner, I would’ve told my dad and he would’ve done something. I mean you’re basically his son and he wouldn’t let someone hurt his kid like that. I mean-MARCUS

IMANI

IMANI It’s a crystal.

Alright, fool, we don’t gotta get all sentimental.

IMANI It looks stunning on you.MARCUS Awe.

IMANI Jesus, Marcus, it’s considered a protection thing. Just put it on. For me?

ThoseImani.

There are a few beats before they speak to each other.

MARCUS Girl, now what in the witchcraft is this?

MARCUS You been shopping for new religions?

IMANI Here.

Imani rolls her eyes and he can tell that his joke didn’t land well.

Marcus slips the necklace on.

IMANI

We could have Dylan’s dad MARCUSfired.

IMANI Marcus called. He needed some help getting somewhere.

IMANI’S MOM

IMANI Momma, I never said the Bible was a lie.

Hm. You know when you took the car your mother had to get a ride from your instructor. She said you got in an argument and walked out of rehearsal?

Nothing. I just should’ve known you were looking for favors, that’s all.

It’s not like I’ve even been saying anything. I just talked about what I thought.

MARCUS

Then what did you say?

Oh wow.

Imani, we’re just a bit confused. Just last month you were leading the praise and worship team, you went to your Bible studies... And now we’re getting told that you and some kids in a club are telling the other students that the Bible’s a lie?

IMANI

Well. Wanna take me to my jazz lesson?

Imani quietly walks through the door with a IMANI’Sbag.DAD (O.S)

Imani. Would you mind coming here?

You wanna tell me what happened in church today?

INT. HOUSE/DOORWAY - NIGHT

Hey, y’all.

IMANI’S MOM

IMANI’S DAD

IMANI

What.

Imani starts up the car.

Marcus laughs.

Boy, if you don’tThey laugh and drive out of the parking lot.

IMANI’S MOM

IMANIHuh?

Imani doesn’t respond.

Imani’s parents are sitting at the table.

INT. HOUSE/DINING ROOM

Hey, you can’t attack me for asking. Protection crystal, remember.

MARCUS

IMANI

CUT TO:

Imani tries really hard to fight back tears but IMANIloses.

There is only one God Imani! There are no more to know!

IMANI’S MOM

The church was forced on IMANI’Sus.

FADE TO BLACK.

IMANI’S MOM

Imani’s mom starts to cry and leans into her husband’s arms.

IMANI

IMANI’S DAD

Imani closes the door behind her and wipes away her tears before heading over to her dresser. She looks at herself in the mirror and notices the cross she has hanging on the wall behind her. She places her hands on the dresser as if she needs it to support her and bows her head down. After a few moments, she makes her way to the ground to get on her knees.

Listen, I know we’ve always been a little.. passive when it comes to the Bible. Some might even call it progressive these days but you have to understand that your disbelief in the word of the Lord it- it feels like losing an eternity with you, Imani.

And what do you think? You just suddenly believe you’ve been lied to all your life?

IMANI’SAnd-MOM

Of course not! It’s not about lies, it’s- I mean do you even think half of the black community would be Christians if we weren’t forced into it? Honestly, do you?

It’s the fact that our ancestors had God’s that died on their way to the states, God’s we’ll never even hear about or-

IMANI’S DAD

MOM

Imani leaves her mother crying in her Dad’s arms.

So, now you wanna abandon it? What is this even about Imani?!

Just leave us for a moment, okay? It’s fine, sweetheart.

A lot of people say you can either have faith or you can have control, but you can’t have both. Well, our Father who art in Heaven, I’m giving up control. If you want me to have faith, show me something that’s not an old book. Until then... amen.

IMANI (looking up) Is this what you wanted?

IMANI

Imani begins to laugh, causing tears to well up in her eyes again.

Imani gets up from her knees and trudges over to her bed. Slowly, she pulls the covers over herself and turns off the light.

You wanna talk about our community? The church was all we had, the church was our community.IMANI

CUT TO:

INT. IMANI’S ROOM - NIGHT

Dad..

IMANI

Even though Isabella had beautiful hair, she was lonely. At CVS, I saw a package of three My Little Pony figures, a pony mother and two pony children. I asked my father if I could get it and he said no. I didn’t cry. I curled my toes and wiped my face blank. He said we’d get it next time, but we never did.

evening, I had a performance in the children’s choir. We were called “Joyful Noise.” I sang on stage with straight, flat-ironed hair. As I lifted my voice in praise, my lips could not stop curling, for I was certain I was one of God’s angels. My mother had taken the burning bush and smote the sinful coils on my scalp, smote and smote until my ears burned, and when I was finally cleansed of sin, I was an angel, bone-straight and beautiful. Holy wings hung from my head.The next morning, the sin returned and I shed tears. I was no longer an angel. That afternoon, a real, adult angel approached me during recess. She was unusually joyful, like all angels are. “I saw you singing in the choir yesterday!” she exclaimed. “Your hair! I was like WOW! It was so beautiful!” I told her thank you. Gave her a smile. “What happened to it?” She smiled at me, but she couldn’t hide the disappointment in her face. The sin was written all over me. It was pouring from my scalp. The angels in my class whispered about it, grumbled with their godly eyes, told one another they found my sin on their clothes and in their books. I told the joyful angel that I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t tell her that I’d barely slept the night before, trying to preserve my flat-ironed beauty and righteousness, and that I cried upon discovering that the devil made my bone-straight locks shrink and clump together during the hours of dark. There was no time for my mother to light burning bushes and smite it in the morning, so my dad used metal teeth and gnashing and took me to school.

My sister hung from the edge of the bed like a dead animal. I hated coming in when she did this. Shea butter and coconut oil had made love with her scalp and fingers and filled the room with a thick aroma. It was a strong, beautiful scent. I asked her why she was dying, and she said it was so her hair could grow. As she hung there, upside-down and limp, I wondered how long it would take for the blood to rush to her head. How long would it take for it to leak from her eyes and trickle down her forehead to mingle with the love on her scalp? She was making herself beautiful, was she not? So, I said nothing.

The Hair Lady takes a finished braid from the back of my neck and puts it over my shoulder. It hangs over my breast, limp. “Is this the length you want?” I stare at the braid for a while, and put on a smile to mask my uncertainty. The Hair Lady watches me, daring me to complain. I cannot meet her eyes. The braid is black, color 1B, and is slightly above medium size. I want the braids to be long. Not too long, just long. I grab the braid she put over my shoulder and tug it. The tip reaches my belly button. Not long enough. I look up at my mother, smiling, speaking with my eyes. Her eyes reply with indifference, and she speaks aloud, announcing that the braid is long already! My eyes mutter and grumble, but I nod my head in agreement and say that the braid is fine. “Are you sure?” The Hair Lady raises her eyebrows. I say I’m sure and my toes curl. I convince myself — she’s making me beautiful

Creative

***

When I was little, little enough for my father to fill empty water bottles with milk and sneak them into my lunch bag, the lights in the house were always yellow. I loved evenings, when the house would bathe in gold and black pepper. Plates and cooking utensils would clink and clang in the kitchen, CNN would be background noise to the chatter of the living room, and the air conditioning would let out a smooth, baritone hum — an orchestra of warmth and anticipatory nostalgia.

***

I was lost, months later, learning she’d shaved it all off. I feared for her. For how could she be a black girl amongst angels?

The Hair Lady lost her baby. My mother whispered this tragedy in my ear last night. My face was blank. My toes curled. I told her it was sad. I wish she hadn’t told me. I hate knowing such things.

My mother called me in the night, when the house was yellow. Come, she said. I came and collected my materials — a wide tooth comb and Argan Oil From Morocco spray bottle. She sat on the edge of the living room couch, her back facing me, head turned towards the screaming television. A Nollywood movie about an outcast village girl being tormented by her husband’s mother danced on the screen. The girl was keening, wailing from deep within her bruised body for the ugly mass of flesh and blood that fell from her womb. Her mother-in-law had gone to the village witch doctor, and after a bout of strange chanting, placed an evil

Blank-Faced Angel

Cypress,

Chinonye86

Black, plastic teeth are gnashing against my hair. Gnashing gnashing gnashing, then stop. The Hair Lady looks at me, eyebrows raised, smiling as she speaks. “Are you sure this is the hair you want?” Her voice takes on that playful, questioning tone that good teachers use with children who are confident and fragile. I nod my head yes and the gnashing resumes. My toes twist and curl through every knot that meets teeth, but my face remains blank. Gnashing stops. The Hair Lady attaches straight, smooth braiding hair to the gnashed box of coils at the nape of my neck with swift motions. My brows furrow involuntarily — it’s too tight. It’s always too tight. The pain wears off as she clicks her nails together, braiding synthetic hair into mine. I start to smile. She’s making me beautiful, I hope.

Cypress

***

I always dreamed of beautiful hair. Beautiful, bone-straight hair that twinkled like Isabella’s. I asked God to give me beautiful hair, to make me beautiful, beautiful like His fair-skinned, fair-haired angels. I praised Him in the church, gave Him all the glory, and thanked Him all the time because all the time, God is good! One

The Hair Lady braids my hair in focused silence. If she grieves, her face does not reveal it, nor do her hands, twisting and turning with vigor. I sit and stare at my phone, and allow the sensation of tugging hair to fill my mind. She grips my hair too tight, but I pretend it doesn’t bother me because I know the pain is something I can bear. I am no angel; she is an angel-maker. Is the pain she bears greater than my own? I wonder how it feels. Making the children of strangers beautiful. Unable to make your own child beautiful because she never breathed. To have memories of a child with no beauty, no life.

Under these yellow lights, I had a My Little Pony doll. Her skin was a soft magenta and made of cheap, sheer plastic. She had a pink and purple mane and tail with holographic hair tinsel, and I’d named her Isabella. I watched my older sister divide Isabella’s colorful mane into three pieces, and then take each outside piece below the piece next to it and in between the two other pieces. I watched her go below and between, below and between, and below and between until she had created this interlocking mass of beauty — a shining braid, curled at the tip. She undid the braid on Isabella’s mane and handed her to me. I copied my sister’s movements, below and between, below and between, and created my own tangled, twisting mass of beauty. I stared at Isabella and her beauty, the beauty my own fingers had spun, and my heart swelled with accomplishment. Look! I told my mother. Look! I told my father. They said it was Beautiful! and I beamed like I was too. Isabella’s hair tinsel twinkled under the golden lights.

Omeirondi Nonfiction High School CA

***

I shook the spray bottle, sprayed its contents on a section of my mother’s hair, and began gnashing with black teeth. Gnashing, gnashing, gnashing, then stop. I asked my mother, Does it hurt? She said no, and refocused her attention on the film. I gnashed once more and then split the section of hair into two. I grabbed those two strands and twisted them together. I did not take three strands and go below and between because my fingers are too slow to braid efficiently. So, I sprayed, gnashed, and twisted until my mother’s head was covered in my tiny rope-like creations. She had told me to pull out any gray hairs I came across, but I’d ignored her. There were too many. I told her I was finished twisting. It wasn’t pretty, but my mother gave thanks like I’d made her sin bone-straight and golden.

I love her.

The Hair Lady wraps a towel around my shoulders and gently lowers my braids into a large bowl of hot water, fresh off the stove. She does it in four sections, two in the front, two in the back. When she dips the braids in the front, a cloud of hot steam wafts in my face. I close my eyes and ignore it. I don’t want her to think she’s inconveniencing me in any way, don’t want to hear her say sorry.

charm on the girl’s uterus. All her children will die within her. She will wail until she runs mad.

***

I ignored the film. I hate Nollywood movies like this. They allow evil to win and win until your mind is abuzz with helplessness and misplaced pain. I can’t stand it.

After she finishes dipping my hair, I let her trim the ends even though I don’t want her to. Trimming the ends makes them look choppy and unnatural. I convince myself that I don’t care. She’s making me beautiful, remember? The Hair Lady makes her finishing touches to my hair, collects her stuff, jokingly haggles with my mother about prices, and leaves in a rush. She says she has work in the morning. As the front door locks behind her, I stand in front of a mirror, searching for an angel. I know angels don’t have dark skin and wide noses and thick lips, but I keep looking. I search for wings and halos. I search for blue eyes and golden auras. I rummage through this strange, haunting reflection, flick through the light rays dancing on my retina, and cry when I realize the angel is not there. I do not cry like the cursed village girl, but like myself, silent, blank-faced, and still. Tears pour and my face remains soft. My mother and father call for me and I shape my face into a smile. How do you like your hair? they ask. I tell them it’s beautiful.

Black Men of Arts Gelatin Photography

StiversPhotographySchool for the Arts Dayton, OH

Silver

2021

Jaya88 Parker

Qadir89 Parris Visual Arts New World School of the Arts Miami, FL Intrusions Cyanotype, Acrylic on Canvas 2021

Eleanor90 Pimentel Design MoscowArtsHigh School Moscow, ID We Bleed Package Design Adobe Illustrator Adobe Photoshop 2021

Visual LovejoyArtsHigh School Lucas, TX

Documentation Pt. 1 Black ballpoint pen on Stonehenge 2021

Ella91 Reaugh

Humans, although made of calcium scaffolds, fall apart over time. Mountains of stone are governed by air, unbreakable rocks dissolve in rain. Everything seems to be penetrated with the unforeverness of it all, even trains of pure steel that fly like bullets down unsuspecting rail lines exist with impermeable momentum only for a brief moment.

It’s nighttime now. There’s a song in the backyard singing do-do-dudu and if you listen closely you can hear it over the Atlantic City Rail Line. I’m walking to my job at Black Gold Records, a job I’ve wanted for a long time. The storefront says “We Put the Record in Recorded Time.” It’s not open now because

Wishbone Remix

Bard College at Simon’s Rock Great Barrington, MA

It’s Ty, screaming his head off because he didn’t get anything under his pillow for the fourth tooth in a row, and somehow, there’s toilet paper covering most of the floor. Daja’s in the corner sucking her thumb and crying because Ty’s being loud, and mom’s in the middle of the Charmin Ultra Soft nest standing very very still with her eyes pinned shut, which she does when she doesn’t want to cry. I think she likes to keep the tears inside.

Mom has to go to work, and she tells me to make food for Ty and Daj. On her way out, she has to slam the door five times so that it actually shuts, and it sounds like a scratching record and our apartment falling apart. Ty is reading a book about dinosaurs that we got through the donation service. He tells me in his sophisticated eight-year-old voice that T-Rexes have wishbones just like chickens. “Those must be some huge wishbones!” I say while removing an entire solo cup from Daja’s mouth.

Mom works at the factory. It’s right behind the baby palace, and all she does is screw the caps onto oil bottles. It’s almost like Pusha T is looking at our life through a keyhole when he raps: “twenty plus years of packing Johnson & Johnson,” it’s true, she’s working for “baby faced monsters,” no wonder there’s “diaper rash on her conscience.” But she signed a waiver that acts as a pacifier, so she can’t join labor unions or leave until her five-year term is over. She comes back home sometimes around nine thirty smelling like lavender and vanilla beans.

Time passes.

I’m listening to Life after Death when I see Sabel. Sabel is Ty’s friend, he’s a few years older than Ty and he lives in a complex close to ours. He’s the typa kid that’s changing so fast you can see the growth pains on the back of his knees. I see him standing across the road under a streetlamp, stretching like a lost shadow. He does this when he’s got a verse he wants to show me.

If you can talk you can sing, if you can walk you can dance –Zimbabwean proverb

Here’s the deal with Sabel: he wants to be something, but there’s this trench between his dreams and his realities, and it’s his speech impediment. He says the words in his head, but they come out all sliced and diced like he’s the fruit ninja of sentences. A lot of people can’t stand it, since sometimes there are long silences between syllables that give you time to think about your toes, or death, or the president. But I’m cool with him because he smiles like the Cheshire cat when I say that one lyric in Heavy Metal Kings that says “Without order, nothing exists. Without chaos, nothing evolves,” and I remind him that just because his words are out of order, it doesn’t mean that he is. And I need his erratic edge, because it makes me want to pull my hair out and dance at the same time and I swear every time he freestyles even the tables

The next morning, I’m back at Black Gold, so I listen to my idols, Nas, Pusha T, Relient, and Tonedeff, and I start freestyling to the banging of the train and the ticking of the clock. And as I’m about to leave the place, I think for a moment that it’s like a graveyard, that all these voices that aren’t used today are trapped in the vinyl. But I realize it’s a sanctuary, and we are keeping them alive.

of the pandemic, but boss told me I should go in and make sure everything’s all good in there.

Nine92

When we get back to his place, we have the same last conversation as usual, where he asks me when I’m gonna put out my first track, and I tell him in time, and he tells me I’ll miss all the shots I don’t take, and I tell him that if you miss all the shots you don’t take, write them letters.

When my first paycheck comes in, I run to the Union market and buy one thing, a bag of tangerines. They’re mom’s favorite fruit, she used to eat them when she was a kid and you can see them in her eyes when she opens them in the sun. She’s doing better, and I pick up Daja and Ty and her and we go to the park. The tangerines I bought blend right into the sunset when we hold them up. There are these moments that you will always save for harder times and I’m feeling like this is one. Mom under the sky with her tight black curls pointing everywhere, smiling awkwardly ‘cause she never uses those muscles. She has her eyes closed under the sun, and there’s grass between my toes, and I just want to ask her what it feels like right now, what she’s thinking; what’s under your eyelids when you close them and laugh?

Short Story

There is one nurse that is almost never there, and she’s moving so fast in and out of rooms it’s like I can see right through her. Mom’s in the room and I’m out of it. I’m seeing time go by and just letting it happen, I’m flipping my wrist up and down, mouthing the words to Bite My Tongue by Relient K: “I’m sweeping up the seconds that tick off the clock, saving them for later when I’m too ticked to talk.” It’s hard watching her go to sleep, because, like Nas says, sleep is the cousin of death. And I’m not allowed to go in but I’m pressing my face to the narrow window and seeing her sleeping, back to the bed and head to the sky, and I’m wishing she was laying on her side instead cause maybe it’s just the movies, but no one dies sleeping on their side.

Reed-Mera

It happened faster than Usain. I heard mom coughing more than usual one night, but she kept going to work until she couldn’t get up. And then, just like that, the factory shuts down because of the virus. They tell everyone to go get tested, and I have her arm around me on the way to the medical center and she’s wheezing and saying something about insurance and I’m not listening.

Bus ride home, and I’m thinking about the soft space between the womb and the tomb and where mom might be in that space right now. And about really needing a huge T-rex wishbone.

It’s day twelve of definitely not dancing in the rain when the nurse says I can go see her. Mom’s little heart rate machine goes up and down steadily like red lighting, and I’m crying to the beat of the beep beep beep and she’s propped up and all the way alive and all the way beautiful. I tap the beat on the wall and start rhyming.Momma

said that rapping won’t sustain us. But it keeps me going. After all, we are all born rappers. If you plug your ears when you talk, you’ll realize you’re just laying down lines to your own heartbeat, forever.

Nothing takes you out of a dream like waking up in a nightmare.

Sabelturn.asks

if I’m heading back and if we can take a detour through the park so we can talk about his verses, but I know it’s really because the guys in Crown Heights make fun of him. He pulls a laminated map out of his pocket and points at the trail in Prospect Park, and it takes me a moment because I hadn’t seen a map like that in a while, with a satellite image and everything in detail. There are houses on houses on houses and we call it New York. And there are shining cars and infinite people pressed between the boulevards, squeeze them together any harder and they might just fall into the sky.

Visual DesignArtsand Architecture Senior High School Miami, FL

Chosen Family Colored pencil and denim, cotton, and polyester textile swatches 2021

Abel93 Reyes

Jayden94 Robinson BookerPhotographyT.Washington Magnet High School Montgomery, AL All for One Digital photography 2021

Hagiography in Zion Zion National Park, UT

Rogando

My conductor says it’s all about the approach, so I near the chamber music gently. Listen: this Tagalog throat, circled tight with bass. Guerrilla rimshots. A cymbal of strain pooling careful sound. As a child I teetered likewise at the gape of gouged Western canyons, hoping to bounce back— an American echo. My mother pulled me down, malleted my skin with wristing harshness. Baby, she sounded, some words aren’t fit for our kind. Some actions are reserved in language only. Still disobedient now, I rebound and rebound to practiced applause, hard feet that drown the ground in beating. Sing to me of lifetimes before, when the Japanese chased my grandparents to caved mountain crags. Their footsteps throbbed: heavy rhythm through the staccato invasion of guns. An orchestra of hunting; the most lovely performance. It was night and all their stars splintered to loss, and even today their daughters still camouflage in lightness made sharp. The whiteness they see. Skin spangled like a surrender. The music of warfare is a language: the only kind every land knows. So listen: in each snare stroke is a pilot knocked from his cockpit; that falling body gashing the air. How offbeat—this vicious impermanence. I turn back my gentleness like hands on a clock. Out of tempo. Out of time. All the blood could have been yesterday. When sound tears through the concert hall I crash to thought: how freeing it would be to tear to bits, to tan the sky with my constellation of skins. Like a child told they can’t wing. Violent girl swordin silence. Listen. How these histories have churned in typhoon gut. Rainstick. Ocean drum. Listen. I know I could be lovely if only I am seen. Known, if only I am heard. I will live past myself— I am nothing like my mother

First-Gen Poet as Percussion Rehearsal Virginia, USA

ThomasPoetry Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Alexandria, VA

So heaven looks like this: limestone ridges gaped open, spread palms, waiting for the descent of soul. Round freshwater streams converging around the campsite like fire ants. This tripwire, or alarm system—how the shock of two women would quake the kingdom whole. My father is baptizing himself downriver. Brother whiffs a gunshot like wine. They think nature is something guiltless, honey-soft and safe. But the clay dust slurs different parables, urge sparking hot sin to light. Praying. Preying. I stick my heart down the barrel of a wild rifle. My girl and I are also homonyms of the other; our secrets sift like sugar between pearl teeth. Summer-dizzy desire. Remind me of yesterday, when the shadows stole our echoes and I knelt, neck anointed with moon in the half-light. I wanted to petition: let us hide. Let us unsheathe the colony of our bodies. Transfigure to women that bear the weight of our movements, that string the riverbed to silk and gash the sky in two. A jealous martyr. Fall on me like a sword and follow me: the mountaintops crowned in my limbs. My girl, I pray, the wildfire trailing from our touch is violent, but only to itself.

Isabelle95

Lucas,

Visual LovejoyArtsHigh School TX

Reversible Toy Denim, bleach, fabric dye, thread and floss 2021

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Clara97 Schiavo Design Arts Design and Architecture Senior High School Miami, FL Second Skin Part I Biodegradable Bio-Plastic and White Mesh 2021

Lucia98 Silva Visual KinderArtsHigh School for the Performing and Visual Arts Houston, TX Body Plywood, red oak wood, concrete 2021

CA Reconstructed Photos, flowers 2021

Visual Cañada High School Cañada,

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Visual PhillipsArtsExeter Academy Exeter,

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NH The World in Black and White Air dry clay, Sumi ink 2021

WhenAngry. I’m angry I don’t speak Spanish I’m just me.

The angry spanish myth

Tapia

I guess it was my desperate attempt to be more “Latin”

There’s ridges left from every use The undeniable traces of fingers who have ventured to touch it To use it

To reap its benefits and give nothing in return I wonder if I’m like Shea butter I wonder if you can see my ridges the parts of me that I can never get back

Grace101

There are times I wonder if I’m like Shea butter Hard to the touch but filled with soft healing and loving The byproduct of the hard work of mothers and daughters Crafted for the sole purpose of softening Maybe I’m like Shea butter because all I do is soften I soften my appearance so as to be digestible I soften my tongue so as not to be to abrasive I soften my feelings so they don’t spill out and drown you You see the thing about Shea butter though is you have to be rough to really use it to blend it into your skin

I used to say that when I got mad I could only speak Spanish But that was a lie

Shea Butter Femme

Spoken RepertoryWordCompany High School for Theatre Arts New York, NY

To embody the worn out stereotype of fiery women whose anger is more enticing than it is menacing so I could feel like I really belonged But really when I’m angry I can’t even speak I have to pause, take moments of loud silence so I don’t bust right open You see I fear my anger so when I feel it I stop. Fidget my knees. Slam my hands on whatever surface is available to me. Softly so as not to Butdisrupt.whenI’m really angry, so angry I can’t stop to think to wonder if I’m continuing some cycle of trauma or turning into what I fear most Spanish isn’t what comes out It’s streams of English coated with the flares of where I’m from My A’s become Uh’s and my hands start to become part of a presentation When I’m angry all need to conform to whatever the fuck latinidad means leaves my body And I am just me.

102 Untitled Digital photography 2021

Anna Vismantas School Delray Beach, FL

AmericanPhotographyHeritage

A few beats of awkward silence, during which we are treated to our first look at the bride -- the tiny, ditsy WILLOW MYERS -- standing next to her stony-faced, six-foot-three husband, KEITH MYERS. GUESTS around them stare at the beheaded cake-toppers.

WILLOW

WILLOW Cleo!

Hushed noises of anticipation. A laced arm -- the bride’s -- comes into view, gripping a knife. We hear cheers as she takes the first slice of the cake... which fade slightly when the slice goes clean through the figurines of the bride and groom.

WILLOW

I’m not getting divorced.CLEO

You don’t understand, I practically eviscerated the poor caketoppers. Keith’s got beheaded.CLEO

CLEO What?

BRIDE (V.O.)

WILLOW

Glass House

Natalie103 Wang

WILLOW --bridesmaid--

CLEO

--as your bridesmaid, I’m required to give you some advice. Friendly advice.

Great, so we’re going for annulment. Have you or have you not consumed any alcoholic beverages in the past six weeks?

CUT TO: INT. WEDDING VENUE - LATER

I know you don’t like him, but it’s my wedding day! Couldn’t you at least try to pretend you’re happy? For me?

Exactly. It is your wedding day. And as your best woman--

CLEO

Redwood City, CA

Play or StanfordScriptOnline High School

TOP OF A WEDDING CAKE

Willow, hiding in the corner of her own wedding, chats animatedly to CLEO SONG, shabbylooking and perpetually irritated. Between Willow’s extravagant wedding gown and Cleo’s horrific black smock, they stick out like a sore thumb. Neither seems to notice.

Sorry! God-- Sorry, accident.

The reception of the most typical white wedding: guests milling about, soft string music, cake slices being handed out by Keith-the-groom.

CLEO

WILLOW What’s that?

You could get divorced the traditional way, but that’s a hassle. Might take a while. I’d appeal for an annulment -- we could claim you were of unsound mind, which wouldn’t even be a lie, considering--

(shortly) Good.

WILLOW

I’m not getting divorced. I’m not getting my wedding annulled. I’m not separating from Keith. I love him. And... I want someone to spend the rest of my life with him.

FADE IN:

And I didn’t get to say this before, what is that thing you’re wearing?

CUT TO:

The clearing is nearly empty, save for Willow and Cleo.

Willow smiles.

A poignant pause.

WILLOW

I’m sure. No one cares about me the way Keith does.

Oh, Keith’s not as bad as you think. He’s got a big heart. You’ll see.

Cleo!

Yeah, he’s a real teddy bear. (beat) Really, though... I do want you to be happy.

A pause. For a moment, Cleo looks as though she’s about to say something -- something important -- but...

As the pair moves from their corner, we hear the organ swell to a heart-soaring crescendo -- the iconic tune of Wagner’s ’BRIDAL CHORUS’ -- drowning out Cleo’s reply, drowning out everything...

WILLOW I know.

What was that thing you said at our anniversary last year? “Another year of eternal misery”?

Cleo eyes Keith from the edge of the room, who glowers hatefully at his piece of cake.

WILLOW (CONT.)

CLEO

So you really are of unsoundWILLOWmind.

EXT. GRAVEYARD - DAY

We are gathered here today to say farewell to Keith Myers...

WILLOW

Listen, I appreciate you coming with me. But really -- you don’t have to stay. I mean, you didn’t even like him.

What have we said about you comparing my wedding to hell? (beat)

CLEO I did so.

104

Abrupt, complete silence. Familiar GUESTS from the wedding in all-black.

CUT TO:

Near the back of the group, we see Willow and Cleo -- older but as inseparable as ever -holding hands. Willow, crying silently; Cleo, exhausted.

EXT. GRAVEYARD CLEARING - LATER

They share a smile.

CLEO

And you’re sure about this? I know it’s already the reception, but it’s never too late.

Good. In that case, let’s grab some food, shall we? Only good thing to come out of this hellishWILLOWday.

To the front: a PRIEST and a casket. Oh. It’s a PRIESTfuneral.

CLEO

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - ENTRANCE - CONTINUOUS

Forgot how polite of a hostess you are. Next you’ll be ordering me about like a maid.

WILLOW Not a mansion.

CLEO

Coming!

WILLOW (O.S.)

WILLOW You’d make a pretty shoddy maid.

WILLOW

CLEO Keep telling yourself that. In the meantime... (indicating suitcase) Do you expect me to lug this thing up myself?

CLEO

As long as you need me.WILLOW

CLEO

(incredulous)CLEO Why’re you asking me?WILLOW

Cleo moves her luggage into the doorway.

Hey. Every time I’m here, I swear the house gets a little bigger.

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - STAIRS - CONTINUOUS

A grand, old-fashioned estate. Thick hedges line the property. Willow’s car pulls up to the driveway and she gets out. She lugs her suitcase to the front porch, ringing the doorbell with her other hand.

CLEO Sometimes you scareWILLOWme.

Hey-- everyone deals with grief in their own way.

I’m sure. Besides, it’s been ages since I’ve stayed at your mansion.

As it takes to what?

Anything’s bigger than that shack you call an apartment. Come in and try not to track mud everywhere.

Willow helps Cleo with her luggage.

CLEO

CUT TO:

Hmm, that doesn’t sound like me. (beat)

The inside of the house is clean and empty. A winding mahogany staircase leads upstairs.

WILLOW

If I wanted to get a maid, I’d hire one. Perks of being a rich widow. (beat) Too soon?

FOOTSTEPS. Willow opens the door a little too eagerly. Cleo notices.

You sure?

105

Touché.

CLEO

EXT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - EVENING

Alright, I admit I wasn’t best buddies with your husband. But you loved him-- and that’s all that matters to me. I’ll stay for as long as it takes.

I guess the house has a certain charm. Almost wish they hadn’t changed it so much. It’s so... extravagant now.

Glass-framed: An old prairie house surrounded by hedges. An unsmiling farmer and his wife stand near the edge of the clearing, American Gothic style.

And that’s... Keith’s grandparents?WILLOW

106

WILLOW

A tiny little room, bare except for a too-large painting on one wall, encased in glass. Cleo’s belongings are strewn all over the floor.CLEO

WILLOW

CLEO

You... you’re gonna be okay by yourself tonight? I wouldn’t mind staying in your room.

WILLOW

I’ve come over, what, dozens of times?

CLEO

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - CLEO’S ROOM - LATER

They share a smile.

WILLOW

CLEO

Cleo flushes.

Right. You’ve never told me the story behind that god-awful painting. The farmer gives me the creeps.

Two bedrooms face each other: Willow’s and a guest room.

I’m okay. I’m serious. You being here... it makes all the difference. (beat) Come on, I’ll help you unpack.

Cleo, it’s generally not good practice to proposition new widows... no matter how young and attractive they are.

God, you’re the worst

CLEO

Far too many.

CUT TO:

WILLOWlook.

Cleo nods in recognition.

WILLOW

It’s a painting of the house. See-- you can almost make out the windows of this room. It’s before Keith’s grandfather remodeled it; that’s why the new wing isn’t there.

Plumbing. There’s nothing wrong with plumbing.

CLOSE ON THE PAINTING.

Cleo drops her suitcase in front of her door. Then she pauses, hesitating.

A beat. Willow turns to Cleo with a serious

Right. You remember where everything is -- bathroom’s down the hall, your room’s to the right.

Yeah. Happy-go-lucky bunch of folks, weren’t they?

CLEO Guess not.

She yawns, then squints at her watch.

107

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - WILLOW’S ROOMCLEOCONTINUOUS

WILLOW

Would you stay? I just know Keith’s grandparents are going to kill me in my sleep if I’m alone tonight.

CUT TO:

CLEO

Something’sNothing. wrong.

Cleo speaks angrily into her phone.

God, it’s late.

Willow?

CLEO (CONT.)

Alright, then. Move over.

WILLOW

WILLOW (CONT.) (softly) Thanks.

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - CLEO’S ROOM - THE NEXT MORNING

CUT TO:

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - DOWNSTAIRS - LATER

CLEO

I’ll see you in the morning, then.

Cleo checks her watch and looks around,CLEOgroggy.

Willow smiles, grateful.

Aw, Cleo-- scared of grandpappy and nana?

CLEO

As they fall silent, a ray of moonlight hits the painting. Keith’s grandfather is no longer carrying a pitchfork.

WILLOW

No Sheanswer.getsout of bed and checks Willow’s bedroom.

No need. They really are scary.

I won’t be if grandpop puts his pitchfork away.

No note, no message, nothing. The car’s still in the garage. I’m telling you, she wouldn’t have just disappeared like that. It’s been a whole day.

Yes, I checked(beat)everywhere!

Willow gets into bed after Cleo, on the side facing the painting. She flicks the switch on the lamp, turning off the light.

Yeah...

The portrait is back to normal when Cleo wakes up, alone. Nothing about the room has changed, but Willow is nowhere in sight.

Willow?

I told you, her phone’s still in her room. (beat)

Willow gets up, hesitating. She looks resigned, almost reluctant.

She turns to leave. Cleo frowns, understanding Willow’s reluctance, and--

WILLOW (CONT.)

108

CUT TO:

He tries again; she blocks him.

CLEO She attended her husband’s funeral yesterday. She’s mourning, and now she’s missing. I’m going to file the damn report, and you’re going to help me find her.

CUT TO:

Her husband died recently, I’m keeping her company. (beat) I’m on my way.

SHERIFF

Do you see me laughing?SHERIFF

SHERIFF If you’re sure-CLEO Of course I’m sure!

SHERIFF --you can come into my office, tell me every detail you know about what happened.

I told you about my missing friend. You told me to come down to the station. I’m here. (uncomfortably)SHERIFF

Cleo doesn’t.

This isn’t funny.

Uh... you’re in my way.CLEO

Are you the sheriff? We spoke on the phone earlier.

Cleo walks into the shabby little police station, deadly calm. She’s determined, she’s Shefocused--walks into the SHERIFF, a burly, middle-aged guy.

Right. Get out of my way.

INT. POLICE STATION - LATER

CLEO

Look. There’s nothing we can really do at this point. People usually wait another day or two before filing a missing persons report. Unless you have evidence that your friend is in danger, there’s--

SHERIFF Okay. What do you want?CLEO

SHERIFF Woah! Watch it.

(beat)

Oh yeah, missing friend. Listen, give me a minute and I’ll get right to you-- just gotta grab lunch.

Then move.

He tries to get around Cleo, but she blocksSHERIFFhim. (CONT.)

The sheriff considers her.

He peers at her, annoyed.

CLEO

SHERIFF

Cleo SCREAMS, throws herself against the wall, what is happening, and she notices-CLOSE ON THE PORTRAIT

CLEO

SHERIFF

When she opens her eyes, she glances at the portrait, and suddenly, horrifyingly, like in a nightmare sequence-- the old woman, Keith’s GRANDMOTHER, takes up the whole frame. She’s muttering GIBBERISH, eyes wide.

Cleo lies on the edge of her bed, slipping in and out of sleep. It’s quiet, too quiet...

Look... I don’t want to say it, but...

You have to consider the possibility. We see it all the time with young widows.

SHERIFF

CLEO What?

Then what are you saying?SHERIFF

INT. SHERIFF’S OFFICE - LATER

SHERIFF

Cleo shakes her head, unconvinced.

They’re heartbroken. Nothing left to keep them going.

I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming.

109

CUT TO:

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - CLEO’S ROOM - NIGHT

From the path leading down from the house-- Willow, running, waving desperately.

Cleo pours herself a glass of water. Her hands shake.

You don’t know Willow. She wouldn’t-- couldn’t have hurt herself. We had plans... she was going to sell the house, travel... she was laughing the last time we talked. We joked about that painting in my room... (beat)

CLEO (to herself)

...and she stayed in my room to sleep. And when I woke up, she was gone. I’ve told you this already, I don’t remember anything else.

CLEO

INT. WILLOW’S HOUSE - KITCHEN - NIGHT

Are you saying... are you saying Willow killed herself?

SHERIFF No!

CUT TO:

Just-- she might’ve done something rash. People act out when they’ve lost someone.

SHERIFF

CLEO

Cleo sits across from the sheriff.

We got through everything together-- even her marrying that asshole Keith, rest his soul -- and she wouldn’t just leave. Something’s wrong.

Reveal Cleo horrified. Beyond horrified.

It’s only been a day. I’d go home, get some rest, and wait for her to come back. There’s nothing more you can do.

The miniature portrait-Willow waves more desperately, mouthing something that we cannot Cleo,hear. sobbing, picks up one of the items on the floor -- a slipper -- and smashes the glass of the portrait.

WILLOW

He picks up the candle, illuminating theGRANDFATHERroom. (CONT.)

What. the. hell.

But she’s not.

What is going on? What was that thing? Why’s the room-- there’s no furniture, there’s no--WILLOW (dryly)

INT. PORTRAIT HOUSE - CLEO’S ROOM - NIGHT

Willow says nothing, and Cleo deflates slightly -- could it have been a dream?

CLEO WILLOW!

CLEO

But:

CLEO

She gets a few feet from her bed when the room goes out from under her-- and the glass and portrait swallows her whole.

CUT TO:

Cleo, opening her eyes -- she’s in the same room. Except the portrait is gone, her belongings aren’t on the floor, there’s no furniture except for the bed... and Willow is leaning over her. Cleo panics, sits up.

I was waving at you to go away. You should have left me and gone away. We can’t ever get out now-- either of us. You should’ve gone away. I was trying (shouting)to--CLEO

What--?

FOOTSTEPS in the hallway.

And now the world tilts on its axis because the old woman is there-- physically in the room with Cleo, CACKLING. Cleo turns back to the portrait -- portrait-Willow shakes her head violently -- and makes a run for it.

110

Through the doorway comes two figures: the old woman -- Keith’s grandmother from before -- and an old man -- Keith’s GRANDFATHER. They giggle, half waltzing with each other.

No plumbing, either. The portrait was painted before the renovations.

WILLOW (hissed) Hide!

GRANDFATHER (shrill)

We are going to celebrate! Tonight there is to be a ball. He searches the corners of the room in lurching movements. Then-GRANDFATHER (CONT.) There you are!

Young ladies! Young ladies, come out!

She pushes Cleo under the bed-- out of the light of the one candle on the floor. (whispered)CLEO This is not happening.

Come on, don’t be shy. Smile. Honey catches more flies than vinegar, you know!

You’re touching me. Why are you touching me.

His grinning face appears at the foot of the

Come along, don’t be shy! (to GRANDMOTHER)

CLEO What?

GRANDFATHER

CLEO

Cleo shivers.

The darkened room is completely bare. The old man gestures to Cleo and Willow.

GRANDFATHER

INT. PORTRAIT HOUSE - DINING ROOM - MOMENTS LATER

WILLOW

The grandfather leaves the room.

Isn’t he? (beat)

He died in this house, you know. He was mad.

He steers her into an elegant dance. When the old man finishes -- with a complicated jig -- he bows, kissing the back of Cleo’s hand.

Where are you going?WILLOW

Come on, follow me.

Come on!

CLEO

CLEO (deadpan)

111

What the hell

WILLOW

Now what?

He’s a lovely dancer.

Let the musicians start now.

CUT TO:

Come on.

Without a word, he turns and limps out of the room. Cleo stares at Willow, bursting with questions.

I’ve been here for a long time. Don’t know how long. But every night there’s been a ball.

GRANDFATHERbed. (CONT.)

GRANDFATHER

CLEO You could’ve told me that before I came to live with you.

There is no music. The old woman smiles, swinging the candle.

Willow gets out from under the bed.

Lovely young ladies, shy over their first ball! Go ahead, young ladies!

He approaches Willow, dancing solemnly. They begin to waltz.

The old man comes over to Cleo, touching her shoulders.

CLEO

Silence. They stare at each other. Cleo shakes her head in disbelief.

CLEO

Cleo walks over to the window. The sight is normal, at first-- the hedges, the road, the sky... and the outlines of a bed. Cleo’s bed. Cleo’sWILLOWroom.(CONT.)

They will.

I’m dreaming, aren’t (hollowly)I?WILLOW

I thought he’d stay dead.

CLEO

Cleo puts her head in her hands.

WILLOW

I went to the police station today. Filed a missing persons report. If I disappear too, they’ll know something’s up.

Come look.

They’ll find us. Or... or it doesn’t matter, anyway. ’Cause this is a dream. You disappeared, I’m under stress, my subconscious really hates that painting, and I’m going to wake up any second now.

A pause, then:

CLEO

If you say so.

WILLOW

They will.

CLEO You don’t believe me?WILLOW

WILLOW Impossible.

CLEO And they’ll come get us.WILLOW

God, I wish.

WILLOW Unthinkable.

This convinces you that you’re not dreaming?

CLEO That means I’m talking to myself.

Beams of light stream into the room from the WILLOWwindows.(CONT.)

This is insane (indulgently)WILLOW Insane.

CLEO Unthinkable.

WILLOW

CLEO

112

And you’re a figment of my imagination. I’m not really talking to you right now.

I believe you.

CLEO Impossible.

A terrible moment as that sinks in.

I think you might have a jealousy issue.

I think we have bigger problems to deal with here. I got kidnapped. By my best friend’s psychotic grandparents-in-law. Who live in a painting.

And to think I used to say your wedding was the worst day of my life.

113

Yeah. (beat)

WILLOW

Listen, I knew it was a bad idea. Typical of Keith-- haunting us from the grave.

CLEO

No, it’s not.

CLEO What...

CLEO (flippant)

WILLOW

Are you still not over that?CLEO

I am. (beat)

WILLOW

First few weeks I was here, I convinced myself it was a bad dream. CLEO And it’s not?

Then they collapse into sick, uncontrollable laughter.

A beat of silence.

Richard, the ever loyal older brother, took a loaded gun and broke into the farmer’s house and threatened him. And so, the farmer didn’t press charges.

Donnie released all the cows from a farmer’s pen. They flooded the field, trampling all of the season’s crops. He was arrested that same night and the farmer insisted on pressing charges, which meant Donnie would be locked up during the birth of his first son, Chris, with Rita, his girlfriend at the time.

While waiting for the bus to arrive, the older man gets a phone call. He picks up and glances over at Chris for a moment before saying, “Naw. He’s already on that bus.” Chris can hear somebody sigh into the phone and the older man says his goodbyes and hangs up.

Rita didn’t talk about Texas in her later years. She stayed there for a few years after she left Johnny, though. She followed her oldest son over to South Carolina later on and bought a little trailer on a dirt road across from a cornfield. She decorated her house with posters of Elvis Presley and rooster statues. She became a devout Methodist and then a devout Presbyterian before settling on being a devout Baptist. A third husband came along as well, one more soft spoken than the others. He worked at a fiberglass plant and his only request when he got home was for a beer and to watch NASCAR. No talk of Johnny, only the occasional I ♡ DALLAS t-shirt worn around the house, or a stray photograph in an album. Rita standing with her family in front of the shed Johnny made his meth out of.

Johnny Clemmons made meth out in Dallas. He lived with his wife, Rita, on a big plot of family land with nothing on it but a little house and a blue shed. He used the shed to make his meth and kept a big padlock on the door and flew a Texas flag above the American one. Rita made Johnny and their two sons take photos in front of the shed so she’d have something to send back home to Georgia where her other two sons from her first marriage, Chris and Jason, lived with her parents. Johnny was a sales manager for Dixie Lye Lumber Company and Rita was a secretary at a lawyer’s office. It was July of 1992 and a month before Rita would turn thirty-five when Texas police raided the house and arrested both her and Johnny for operating a meth lab.

Wilson lived out of a Texas hotel. He had a daughter back in Florida and by the end of 1993, he’d have a son, judging by the way his wife Melinda’s stomach hung low and heavy. He had moved out to Texas from Florida to be closer to his mother, Rita, and before Florida there was Georgia, the state he was born and raised in. He left Georgia at the end of the 80s in an attempt to get back at the prison system that transferred him all the way from up near the Tennessee border to back down just out of Savannah. His first arrest came after he hid a grand stolen from a convenience store his two little brothers robbed. The three of them buried the money in the swamp, but got caught anyway. Now, he worked at an oil rig to cover the cost of the hotel.

“Some other county says they got a warrant out for you. If I was you, I wouldn’t ever come back to Texas.”

Kirby114 Wilson Creative Nonfiction South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities Greenville, SC

On the way to the hotel, the boss pulled off into a gas station and asked him to fill up the tank while he went inside for a moment. Chris agreed and stepped outside of the car, watching his boss scurry inside. A few moments later, several police officers surrounded the car and took Chris in and arrested him on theft. He’d spend another year in prison.

In a photo Rita sent home, she leaned over in the dirt at the side of the house and picked a tomato plant. On the back of the photo she wrote, “New hobbies out here ha-ha. I miss you all and I’ll see you soon!” My father keeps this picture in a plastic tub under his bed, and every year during spring cleaning when he looks through the photos, he holds this one in his hand for a second longer than the others. I think he’s trying to find proof for himself as to whether or not Rita knew what Johnny was doing in their backyard.Drunk,

nearly-born son. His boss offered to drive him home from work one afternoon, and Chris accepted the free ride.

And Chris never did.

Criminal History

a free man, Chris Wilson gets to sit in silence on his own time. An older man the prison sent is driving him to a bus station, where Chris had a one-way ticket back to Georgia. Melinda was in Florida and had given birth to a boy and was already pregnant again with Chris’s best friend’s kid.

At the oil rig, Chris stole from his job. Big deal. Small things to pawn off somewhere to afford food for him and his wife, maybe even so they could start saving up to afford anything for their

In 1973, Donnie Wilson lived out in the boonies of Clyo, Georgia with his older brothers. He was a slim guy who already had a few teeth rot out of his mouth by the time he was twentytwo because of his avid tobacco chewing. He did construction work for the county and he’d later lose two fingers on his left hand while working on a job. The oldest brother was Richard, who took after the Wilson side in terms of his stocky build. There was no competition for who would be considered the strongest man of Clyo in 1973, but in a town of 2,000 people, there weren’t many competitors to begin with. Donnie’s father barely functioned with his failing liver which kept him bedridden. Donnie and Richard would taunt him from outside his bedroom window, throwing rocks and hiding when their father screamed at their mother to go get his shotgun. Neither felt bad about what they’d done.Chris

Richard carries his nephew, my father, on his shoulders in a photo where they’re standing outside of the trailer Donnie and Rita lived in. Rita’s on the front porch steps, cradling a newborn boy, while Donnie leans in the door frame, staring at the camera. Donnie and Rita would separate when my father was eight. Then, Rita would meet a man named Johnny and have two of his kids in Dallas, leaving my father and his younger brother with her parents. Donnie stayed in Georgia for a while, but when his oldest moved to South Carolina, he went with him. He bought a falling apart trailer and several hunting dogs despite being physically unable to hunt because of his injured knee. He gets drunk and invites his grandkids over to go raccoon hunting with him. Or even just to talk.Now

Untitled pencil,

watercolor, newspaper 2021

Zhou Zhang

Visual HighlandArtsPark High School Highland Park, NJ

Colored

115

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Past YoungArts award winners include Daniel Arsham, Terence Blanchard, Camille A. Brown, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Amanda Gorman, Judith Hill, Jennifer Koh, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Andrew Rannells, Desmond Richardson and Hunter Schafer. For more information, visit youngarts.org, Join the conversation

YoungArts award winners are further eligible for exclusive opportunities, including: nomination as a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, one of the nation’s highest honors for high school seniors; a wide range of creative development support including fellowships, residencies and awards; professional development programs offered in partnership with major institutions nationwide; additional financial support; and access to YoungArts Post, a private, online portal for YoungArts artists to connect, share their work and discover new opportunities.

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YoungArts was established in 1981 by Lin and Ted Arison to identify the most accomplished young artists in the visual, literary and performing arts and provide them with creative and professional development opportunities throughout their careers. Entrance into this prestigious organization starts with a highly competitive application process for talented artists ages 15–18, or grades 10–12, in the United States. Applications are adjudicated through a rigorous blind process by esteemed discipline-specific panels of artists. All YoungArts award winners receive financial awards and the chance to learn from notable artists such as Debbie Allen, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Germane Barnes, Wynton Marsalis, Salman Rushdie and Mickalene Thomas.

Camille A. Brown

1984 Film†

Allegra Goodman

Jennifer Koh

Hernan Bas

Billy Porter

1997 Theater†

1999 Visual Arts†

Jason Moran

Kerry Washington

in the Arts †YoungArts Guest

Doug Blush

1994 Classical Music

1983 Theater

Doug Aitken

2015 & 2016 Writing

1996 Photography, Visual Arts

Amanda Gorman

Eric

Jazz*†

1987 Theater

1997 Dance*†

1994 Theater†

Chris Young Scholar Artist

2003 Voice*† *U.S. Presidential

Hunter Schafer

1986 Visual Arts†

2002 Voice

Timothée Chalamet Theater Gerald Clayton 2002

Viola Davis

Roe 2000 Classical Music*†

1998 Dance

Daniel Arsham

Judith Hill

Terence Blanchard

1999 Theater

Desmond Richardson

1986 Dance*†

1993 Jazz

Sarah Lamb

Owens 1988 Voice†

Notable120 Winners

Tarell Alvin McCraney

Andrew Rannells

Elizabeth

1985 Writing*

2017 Design Arts

2013

Wynton Marsalis

Eugene Richards

Sir Salman Rushdie

Paula Scher

Jeanine Tesori

Jeffrey Zeigler

Lisa Fischer

Naeem Khan

Bobby McFerrin

Mickalene Thomas

Dr. Joan Morgan

Carrie Mae Weems

Derrick Adams Diana Al-Hadid

Jonathan Groff

José Parlá

Debbie Allen Paola Antonelli

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Guest121 Artists

Michelle Dorrance

Frank Gehry

Ron Carter

Bill T. Jones

Rosie Perez

Dawn Gardega Design Arts Discipline Coordinator

Writing

Marshall Davis, Jr. Dance Coach

Stephen McKinley Henderson Theater Guest Artist

Guest Artists

Devin Caserta

Jake Fridkis Classical Music Guest Artist

Angela Myles Beeching Jazz Guest Artist

Visual Arts Discipline Coordinator, 2006 Visual Arts

Nicole Cabell

Christopher Castellani

Visual Arts National Selection Panel

Jason Ferrante Voice National Selection Panel

Writing National Selection Panel Chair, 1990 & 1992

Tia Fuller Jazz Guest Artist

Rick Delgado Film National Selection Panel, 1992 Visual Arts

Rudi Goblen Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Writing National Selection Panel, 1984 Writing & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Leticia Bajuyo Visual Arts National Selection Panel

Writing Guest Artist

2022122

Lemon Andersen Writing Guest Artist

Robert Chambers

Patricia Delgado Dance Guest Artist

Peter Jay Fernandez Theater National Selection Panel

La Tanya Hall Voice National Selection Panel Chair

Shari Carpenter Film Guest Artist

Amadi Azikiwe Classical Music Guest Artist

Vanessa Garcia Writing National Selection Panel

MaryAnn Hu Theater National Selection Panel

Lucy Jones Design Arts Guest Artist

Nicole Cooley

David Hilliard Photography Guest Artist

Loni Johnson

Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum

Alitash Kebede Visual Arts Guest Artist

Richard Blanco

Joan Lader Theater and Voice Coach

Interdisciplinary Guest Artist, 1987 Classical Music & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Marika Hughes Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Chuck Hudson Voice Guest Artist

Classical Music National Selection Panel

Classical Music Guest Artist, 1997 Classical Music

Sam Hamashima Theater Discipline Assistant, 2014 Theater

Photography National Selection Panel Chair, 1995 Photography & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Nona Faustine Photography Guest Artist

Interdisciplinary Guest Artist

Kenny Easter Dance Coach

Yashua Klos

Voice Guest Artist

Rosie Herrera Dance National Selection Panel

Victoria Collado Writing Guest Artist

Robert Hill Dance National Selection Panel

Elinor Carucci

Clinton Edward Dance Discipline Coordinator

Luke Guidici Film Guest Artist

Javon Jackson

Visual Arts National Selection Panel

Thurmon Green Voice Discipline Assistant, 2008 Film

Kate Burton Theater Guest Artist

Lillian Barbeito Dance Guest Artist

Daveed Buzaglo Voice Discipline Coordinator, 2012 Voice

Dave Eggar

Germane Barnes Design Arts Guest Artist

Len Cook

Jazz National Selection Panel Chair, 1983 Jazz Catherine Jimenez Photography National Selection Panel

Natalya Antonova Classical Music Guest Artist

Photography National Selection Panel

Corinne May Botz

Visual Arts National Selection Panel Chair

Ignacio Berroa Jazz Guest Artist

George Cables Jazz Guest Artist

Naomi Fisher Interdisciplinary Guest Artist, 1994 Visual Arts

To learn more about the 2022 Guest Artists, please visit youngarts.org/national-youngarts-week.

d. Sabela Grimes Dance Coach

Gino Grenek Dance Coach

Lucia Cuba Design Arts National Selection Panel

Chip Abbott Dance Coach

Kimberley Browning Film National Selection Panel Chair

Jay Holben Film Guest Artist

Tanya Kalmanovitch

Yvonne Lin Design Arts National Selection Panel

Nikki Rollason Classical Music Guest Artist

Ana Lía Orézzoli Design Arts Guest Artist

Antwaun Sargent Photography Guest Artist

Raphael Sbarge Film Guest Artist

Mario Zambrano

Visual Arts Guest Artist, YoungArts Trustee, 1990 Winner in Visual Arts & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Jacob Olmedo Design Arts Guest Artist

Risa Steinberg Dance Coach

Dan Wilson Voice Guest Artist

Chris Low Film National Selection Panel

Nicola O’Hara Dance Coach

Classical Music National Selection Panel Chair

Aaron Miller

Jordan Tiberio Photography Discipline Coordinator, 2011 Photography

Jules Wood Dance Discipline Assistant, 2010 Writing

Patrick L. Smith Jazz Guest Artist

Design Arts Guest Artist

Stacie Aamon Yeldell Consultant, Guest Speaker

Classical Music Discipline Assistant, 1998 Classical Music

Stephanie Yung Design Arts Guest Artist

Christell Roach Writing Discipline Coordinator, 2015 Writing

Marcus Quiniones

Michael Pohorly Film Guest Artist

Dr. Joan Morgan Writing Guest Artist , YoungArts Trustee

Jean Shin

Nicole Mujica Theater Discipline Coordinator

Tom Williams Jazz National Selection Panel, 1980 Jazz

Classical Music National Selection Panel, 2004 Classical Music, Jazz

Voice Guest Artist

Marie Vickles Curator and Guest Artist

Jessie Montgomery Classical Music Guest Artist

Carlos Arturo Torres

Becca Stevens Voice Guest Artist

Vernon Scott Dance National Selection Panel Chair

Grace Talusan Writing National Selection Panel

Catherine Russell Voice Guest Artist

DeLanna Studi Closing Keynote Guest Speaker

Pascal123LeBoeuf

Elizabeth Nonemaker

Raul Midón

Classical Music Discipline Coordinator, 2008 Classical Music

Interdisciplinary Guest Artist, 1994 Dance & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Kenneth Noel Mitchell Theater National Selection Panel Chair

Paul Moakley Photography Guest Artist

Visual Arts Guest Artist

Lydia Liebman

JeanCarlo Ramirez Film Discipline Coordinator, 2012 Film

Anna Tsouhlarakis

List as of 2/4/2022

Daniel Watts Theater Guest Artist, 2000 Dance

Vic Shuttee Writing Discipline Assistant, 2011 Writing

Chat Travieso

Marlon Saunders Voice Guest Artist

Gerard Schwarz Classical Music Guest Artist

Chris Sampson Voice National Selection Panel

Design Arts National Selection Panel Chair, 2003 Visual Arts & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Johnathan McCullough Voice Guest Artist, 2010 Voice

Dr. Nadhi Thekkek Dance Coach

Demondrae Thurman Classical Music National Selection Panel

Jeremy Manasia Jazz National Selection Panel

Yusha-Marie Sorzano Interdisciplinary Guest Artist, 2000 Dance

Reid Schlegel Design Arts Guest Artist

Voice Guest Artist

Marina Lomazov

Christian Reátegui Jazz Discipline Coordinator

Special124

Jennifer Calhoun Nigel

Ning AndrewAn Anderson

Marie Gaschler Jim DanielGasiorGee Cordova

Aneta JenEfrainLluviaMadisonAmyRebekahJessTylerMicheleHaydenSteveSihaoDeshawnMelissaKathleenMarkKelvinGregAmandaErinEricDaveJuliaCaseyAlexSuzannaKatherineAnaLenaHenryAnitaLawrenceKatieCliveZacharyDannyElizabethAnthonyToddScottAngelaPepeMarkJulianaJenniferGilaPatrickCassandraTimothyMelissaElanaJosephFaunaJamesYehudaHectorJennySarahRuthRoderickGenovaGeorgeGersonGibsonGiffordGilGiladGilesGilleGilmanGizziGlosmanovaGloverGnehmGoeserGoldsteinGolonkaGondekGonderGonzalezGoodlingGouldGowersGozzoGrayGreenGreenbergGreensmithGreveGreyGriffinGronnierGrozmanGuiguiGulloGuzmanHahnHallHallHammondHankinHannonHardyHarrisHarrisonHartHarte-GilsenanHasebrookHawthorneHeHearnHelmsHemmingsHendersonHendricksHessHeumannHicksHigueraHinojosaHirsh

Monica Hoenig

YoungArts by the

ScottKellyBrendaChristineAlrickGiselleLeonidIrinaWhitneyJeffreyHopeBanyonMarkJamelChandlerLindaMichaelHansLeanneKevinDanielTemaJohnBethBrandonSibbiAlvaroAlexGuineaGuineaLisaDanDanielleJeanMartinMartinPhillipJeffreyItzelDr.AmyBradXiaoJinBrettDarciDonBenDavidLuzvicLilitJanetJimKyleLeahAngelaTobyBillTuckerAndersonAntellAnthonyAppelApteArsenault-BarrickAthaydeAveniAverettBabayanBackstromBadgleyBagbyBaileyBalkomBanducciBaoBarfieldBarstonJonathanBassBasualdoBaykal-RollinsBeattyBeaverBejeranoMarcBekaldiBelenBellBellBennet-PriceBennett-PriceBerkoBermudezBernhardssonBerrettBiglerBlackBlackstoneBlakeBlancqBlockBoeppleBoitzBonBoothBoothBoschenBoydBoykinBradetichBradshawBriskinBriskinBrodskyBrownMarieBrownBufalinoBurkeBurns

Richard Aaron Soyeon Ahn Neela Amaravadi

Melissa Darcey Chanel DaSilva Marat

Linda Holland Diron

Chris

Thanks to Educators

SarahMyungKyeongClaraNadirJimJean-MarieWesKevinTomJosephJaymeNinaMarkKathleenAlanMasaoOlyaUmaCourtneyDianaJuliChizuruRobynCourtneyKatherineJasminnHeatherHansBrendanRobinLisaKoMaksimCarmenJodiEduardoJenniferBrookeScottMathewDouglasJeffeJeffeNathanJaneKimYi-FangBrendaAndreAnneLauraSuzanneMeredithPeterAliceKaitlynDarlaJulieDougTonyaHollowayHollowayHolzapfelHom-MondellHooverHopkinsHopperHorvathHotardHoustonHowardHowarthHuangHuangHuangHuberHuffmanHughesHulsHulsHumpherysHuneHuntIadevitoIevoloIglesiasImprotaIntorre,Jr.IvanovIwasakiJablonski-ClarkJankowskiJenningsJensenJohnsonJohnsonJollyJonesJudgeJurmanJuteauKahnKaiser-SandlerKarkalaKatsmanKawasakiKayKeadyKelloggKellyKelmigianKemperKendallKennerKenneyKentKetchKhashimovMinhyeKimHwaKimKimKim

2022 award winners. We can only do the work we do to identify, recognize and award outstanding students in the arts with the support and effort of educators, teachers, instructors, coaches, homeschoolers and arts practitioners.

would like to acknowledge the following educators, named

TomJoseBethRobertMargaretNatsukiJohnKennethAshaKellyCarrolSaraSonjaLisaJean-MichelMichaelaLeaGregoryElizabethKevinKevinJohnDanielCraigJoannaJuliannaRalReenaRyanNathanVenessaTaylorDaveLauraTriciaSteveChrisDwayneCatherineDavidChristinaChristopherGenevieveChristopherRobertStephanieEricRinaBrianBrentAndrewMichaelThomasNickBrianBobSusanStevenPaulJoshuaDerrickDaukayevDavisDavisDavisEspadaDawsonDeaverDebooDelgadoDiberardinoDickinsonDillowDixonDodsonDokkoDokshitskyDomuretDorian-SmithDorriesDorseyDowdyDoyleDragoneDuarteDunnDunnEarlEarleEbarviaEdwardsEggarEigstiEisenmanEklundEllisEsmailEstevenzEvansFanFanianiFelsenfeldFiaetaFitz-GeraldFitzgeraldFlaisigFletcherFlodenFlorioFonteneauForkishFosterFowlerFrangipaneFrederickFrenchFreudigmanFrostFukasawaFunkhouserGageGarciaGarciaGarling

WandaFrancoJoeRebeccaEmilyNicoleDylanKerryRobertBingLisaGabrielJohnCatherineJoeyPaulCarlaOliviaScottSarahBruceNicoleJamesIngridRichardEmilyPaulTanishaWilliamChuAmyYonaWookRufusCatherineJosephDavidYuananJenniferHung-KuanIsabelleLynnEricShanaCarolynnEdelmiroBrittanyRosilandGilbertCarolynLeoBenMollyRonaldWalkerBethToddSemajCampbellCampbellCampbellCanterburyCaplanCapponCarrCaseCastanedaCastellanoCastellanosCauthenCavalleroCavazosCeciliaChandlerChangChangChapuisChenChengChengChernyavskyChisholmChoChoiChoiChongChristmanChuChurchCidelCiganCinquemaniCioncoClarfieldClarkClark-SpringerClaypoolClineCmielColeCollinsContosContrerasCooperCoriglianoCossCotieCoxCrossCrottyCroyCroyCurnutteCurtisD'AleoD'AlessandroDagen

James Burton III Billy MarciSarahBusscadungugCalabretta Cancio-Bello

Trisler Jayce Tromsness Mala Tsantilas I-Yun BrooksTuTurner Turner Franklin VedaDavidDannKaiLilyJunDavidYohanJoobinNicholausNicoleJasonArielSandyStellaAngelaSlawomirJesseLindaJoshJessicaAlexBriceTeresaCarolPatrickDeborahCraigHeidiEvelynTomAutumnAngelaZhaoDongshengGigiEugeneChristineCarolynJacquelynnJessicaSylviaSookaMicheleJordanGraceMaryKatherineLisaJohnDavidMarkPeterDebraHelenaMollyGeorgeJaimeSharonLaceyCynthiaRolandAlmitaCatherineTurnerUnderwoodVamosVamosVanMaanenVanReethVanValinVanderVeldeVariamesVaughanVestermanVilesVinogradeVogelWaddellWalcuttWaldsteinWalkerWalkleyWallaceWalshWalshWangWangWardWareWarnerWarnerWatanabeWatsonWeiWeiWellmanWestWhaleyWhiteWhitusWichWilliamsWilliamsWincencWinnerBlumeWinstonWintzWolfWoodWoodRolloWooleryWozniakWrightXuYamamotoYangYantzerYarlingYeeYiYiZerkelZhanZhangChiZhuZinnZobellZuponcic

Michele

DrewBriceJohnErinSusanRebecaLauraLisaBrendanLizaKarenLucaAndrewAlexKathleenPamelaCherilynSharonJonKrysMikePeterCarolynChelseaFrankMollyDamianLeeCatherineMingjiaChiu-TzeChien-KwanChunfengMichaelHeatherYuSangMinhaeMikeJenniferJeanBethDavisAdamRaoJadeMartyAndreaCoriKimberlyJeanaiJoanMinjiDinaAshleyJenniferDmitriLeonardIanStevenKennethThomasKarenSarahJonathanLiliSaleemahTomLeannaYongMin125KimKirchoffKirinskyKnightKobielskiKohKooKosogladKotcheffKreuzerKronauerKrouseKrubsackKulevKulevKuraszKuznetsovaToliverKwonKwuonLaVitaLababitLaemmelLaMainaLamarLambert-SmithLanLarsonLawLeBlancLeeLeeLeeLeeMeeLeeJeongLeeLescailleLewinLiLinLinLiuLivengood-LewellenLobenhoferLongLongLopezLorlanoLovettMackMahanyMalcolmBelcManasseMannMarrocoMartchevMartinMartinezMartzMasalaMataMataMathewsMatskoHamiltonMatulaMauleonMcCainMcCarthyMcCarthyMcCaslandMcClellan Jamond McCoy Joe DouglasCathyEricIndraniLindaMinFranciscoHaeSunAlexandraKarynLauraAaronDerrickKarenRichardYvonneLorraineJeffreyAkiCraigMeredithGayleIraTylerAyakoPolinaLewisJospehJoseJonGuyOleksanderVictoriaDimitriMaduraiOlivierLauriePinaBrentBobSusanStevenRyanDavidAmberRJStephannieYongAmandaErnestoWilliamNaimaStevenKristyJoshuaValdineGregChristopherEmilioRicardoTiffanyShipraNathanJoeRichKeenanMeganMattAndrewMcDonoughMcGinnMcKaganMcKayMcKenzieMeddMedinaMedleyMehrotraMelansonMelendezMesaMichelMillsMishkinMishrikeyModiaMoeckelMoffet-WardenMolineauxMontesMontiglioHiMoonMooreMorelMorrisMorrisMorrisMortierMosesMosierMoungerMozzaniMuñizMunozMuralidaranMurrathMushkatkolMycykMyersNakamatsuAntonioNaranjoNardinoNashNazaykinskayaNeidichNelsonNepusNicholls-AliNiekampNiesNishiguchiNorrisNubarO'DeaOattsOlivoOrtegaOrullianOsgoodBrownOverstreetPacheco-GarciaPaikPaisCardosoParkParrParthasarathyPattersonPaynePeck Michael MichaelDanielMatthewOliverJakeMillicentDavidBijayiniNabilaCynthiaAliciaLianaEliasMichaelKathleenTomaszBarbaraSusanClaireAlanPeterBethMelindaBrannonBethanyVidalAngelDouglasBrittanyTomDavidRosaIgorMichaelSarahMarthaKrystalGudrunJohnJustinLavanyaKrithikaHemaAlanMattiErrolMartinJoeyShwetaJaquelineNinaZwiKyleCristinaCristinaJonathanChristianKileyEricDamaniDaneGregMaitlandBrianAngeliaMannyRaulErinRicardoMadelinePelleraPenaPenaPenderLevinePerdomoPeresPerkinsPeterPetersPetitoPhilipsenPhillipsPiercePiercyPincockPinsonPintonPla-GuzmanPleasantPlesserPolonskyPorterPrachandePrescottQuinnRackipovRaekallioRaffertyRajagopalanRajagopalanRajagopalanRamosRangelRaschenReadReedReichRemyResnianskiReyesRheeRiccobonoRigdonRiothRiveraRiveraRobinsonRockwell-CharlandRodriguezRohdeRoshegerRossiRoszkowskiRourkeRowesRzeczyckiSadoffSakashSalazarSalinasSandersSannerSanta-CristoSatpathyScaliseScarlettSchaeferSchlafferSchlomerSchnelleSchwartz Astrid Schween Audra PhyllisNickJuliusRyanMauraTeresaLucyChristopherPhillipEmilyNaokoAlexander-RamesesJohnJudithRickyBenKristenAkilaBenjaminQuinnEricJeannineKimLeahNancyJeffreyAnupamaSujathaSreelijiChrisCathyAdamaManuelYusha-MarieGiovannaLyndallNatashaWarrenBenjaminElaineMarkMattRachelJayneInesaCarolCelesteMatthewLeahHooverJeffTheresaRaenaJennyOryKathleenAmySusanDivyaLaurenEddieAnnJaredAlanLeanneMattLeeMaryStephenScottScottScurlockSecardSeifertSelfSemerdjianSessinkSetzerSevernSevianShankerShawShepherdShermanShihorShinShiraliShovlinSiegfriedSilasSilvaSilvaSimoneSindellSinkevychSlederSlighSlocumSmallSmith-PurcellSmolenSneedSnitkovskySodenSorondoSorzanoSosaSowSpenceSprouseSreedharanSrinivasanSrivastavaStaffordStagnittaStahlSteinhauerStemmerStombergStrasselStuartSubramanyamSummersSutinSweumSwitekSyzygyTaiteTanakaThomasThomasThompsonThurberTierneyTigheTilbyTolentinoToscanoTreigle

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Board SarahChair Arison President of The Board

Dave Adams Director of Communications

Tanya Reid Vice President of Finance

Lee Cohen Hare Creative Director

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Luisa Múnera Associate Curator

Ty Taylor

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2012 Theater, Voice & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

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Alyssa Krop-Brandfon Director of Advancement Operations

Executive Director

Lauren Snelling Artistic Director

Dee Dee Sides

Josybel Martinez

Jazmyn Beauchan Digital Communications Manager

Social Media and Video Strategist

Rebekah Lanae Lengel Deputy Director 2000 Writing

Vice President of Strategic Communications

Roberta Behrendt Fliss Director of Productions

Manager of Operations and Archival Media

Senior Director of People and Culture

Sarah Watson Gray Director of Institutional Giving

Candia Joseph Accountant

Claudio Sampaio IT Manager

JewelExecutiveStaff131OfficeMalone

Claire Traeger

Jennifer Toth Manager of Winner Programs

Kelley Kessell

Neidra Ward

Strategic Communications

Lauren Nesslein Advancement Operations Manager

Hamza Lamrani Education Outreach and Recruitment Manager

Megan Gillespie 2004 Voice

Ayane Nakajima 2019 Classical Music

David Potters 2010 Voice

Michelle F. Patrick 1993 Theater

Eddie Brown 1998 Theater

Roxanne Young 2006 Dance

Mara Jill Herman 2003 Theater

2009 Visual Arts & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts

Vic Shuttee 2011 Writing

Deborah Magdalena

Presenters132

Priscilla Aleman

Eli Dreyfuss 2016 Photography

Kierra Gray 2018 Voice

SHENEQUA 2011 Visual Arts

Alanna Morris-Van Tassel 2003 Dance

Thurmon Green 2008 Film

Cristina Trabada 2016 Film

Every year we work with past award winners and members of the YoungArts community to help promote the competition and opportunities for artists in schools, teen programs, community organizations and non-traditional classroom settings.

UBS

is proud to support YoungArts in its eff orts to nurture the next generation of artists

Financial Services Inc. 299 Park Avenue New York, NY 10171 212-821-2030 ubs.com/fs

UBS

Make a celebratory gift to support young virtuallygenerationsworkcreativecentercontinuehas20,000-strongOuracrossartiststhecountry!40thanniversaryisacelebrationofthecommunityofartistsYoungArtssupportedsince1981.Thisseason,weourcommitmenttoputartistsattheofeverythingwedo,encouragingtheprocessandsharingtheextraordinaryofYoungArtsawardwinnersacrossthroughprogramsinperson,andwithpartnersnationwide.Tocontributeonline,visityoungarts.org/donate.Formoreinformationortomakeagiftbyphone,pleasecontactDirectorofAdvancementJeriRayonat305.377.1140x1804orjrayon@youngarts.org.Mailpaymentsto:YoungArts2100BiscayneBlvd.Miami,FL33137

The National Foundation for the Advancement of Artists