Blue Rider 2024 : simplebooklet.com

Table of ContentsLetter From the Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Bella Ciao* by Anna Cook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Prologue for the Bird-like Dancer by Madeleine Moon-Chun. . . . . . . . . . . . .4Drought* by Oliver Gillett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6The Great American Race* by Kennedy Maberry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Homecoming Queens by Alex Huynh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Worn Heart* by Kaila Pearson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Me & You* by Jayden Clay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Grandpa’s Jade by Alex Huynh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Dolls* by Madeline Reynolds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Wait Your Turn* by Joanna Wallack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13The Troll in the Hallway by Mariama Reese. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Still Life* by Kate Kurzius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16Hold Your Applause (Until the End) by Gia Ilardi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Snow* by Dasha Borodovskaya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18The Love of a Viper by Rachel Morrison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Forward* by Isha Parashar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22Protect Black Art* by Jasper Sibille. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23some night games of a savvy how town by Brodie Gross. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Gear Triquetra* by Kaila Pearson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Unlikely Friendship* by Rachel Ringstrom. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Time Eternal by Nayla Kanaan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Glass Jar* by Liam Tang. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Word Strangulation by Emerson Moore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29Work Gone Unnoticed* by Calvin Jardina. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Stranded at Sea* by Rohan Ramalingam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Train Tracks* by Oliver Gillett. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Travis by Brodie Gross. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Everything Goes Around* by Selam Aman. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Stocking Boy in the Alley* by Ian Cambas Stocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43City on the Donau* by Rohan Ramalingam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46Skyline Ring* by Kaila Pearson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Born in the U.S.A. (Bruce Springsteen)* by Hannah Clare Campbell . . . . 48*Indicates visual art

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3D* by Rowan Oxley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Answering Punky’s Question as a Literature Major by Brodie Gross. . . . . 50Winter Window* by Sasha Robbins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53Stitched Stories* by Audrey Ferguson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54Evangeline’s Post-Mortem Baptism by Gia Ilardi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Derealization* by Sienna Vanegas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56Portia by CJ Crenshaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Building* by Oliver Gillett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62191 Peachtree* by Nat Hamrick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Pondering* by Caroline Grin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64Better Left Unsaid by Kenzie Leonard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Lonely Road Home* by Rohan Ramalingam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70In My Grasp* by Luke Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71Innite by Nayla Kanaan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72Promises* by Justin Magliocca. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Keys* by Katy Cywilko. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75King of Lies by Zoë Daniel-Arillo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Untitled* by Sophia Wu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78Old Souls in a New Age* by Niko Carpenter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79Remnants of the Desert* by Olivia Colby. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80Lives Lost in Lockdown by Annabeth Meeks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81Red Truck* by Oliver Gillett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83The Summit* by Gabrielle Howard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Trust by Sonia Alizadeh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Turtled* by Lexi Resnick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Storm by Grin May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87Granddad’s Boat* by Phoebe Luscher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88Sailor’s Last Address by Grin May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Self Portrait* by Cordie Kakareka. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90The Seaside Cottage by Rachel Morrison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91Through Dead Dreams to Another Land by Rachel Morrison. . . . . . . . . . . 93Seaside* by Mauro Drocco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94*Indicates visual art3D* by Rowan Oxley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Answering Punky’s Question as a Literature Major by Brodie Gross. . . . . 50Winter Window* by Sasha Robbins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53Stitched Stories* by Audrey Ferguson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54Evangeline’s Post-Mortem Baptism by Gia Ilardi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Derealization* by Sienna Vanegas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56Portia by CJ Crenshaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Building* by Oliver Gillett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62191 Peachtree* by Nat Hamrick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Pondering* by Caroline Grin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64Better Left Unsaid by Kenzie Leonard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Lonely Road Home* by Rohan Ramalingam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70In My Grasp* by Luke Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71Innite by Nayla Kanaan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72Promises* by Justin Magliocca. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Keys* by Katy Cywilko. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75King of Lies by Zoë Daniel-Arillo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Untitled* by Sophia Wu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78Old Souls in a New Age* by Niko Carpenter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79Remnants of the Desert* by Olivia Colby. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80Lives Lost in Lockdown by Annabeth Meeks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81Red Truck* by Oliver Gillett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83The Summit* by Gabrielle Howard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Trust by Sonia Alizadeh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Turtled* by Lexi Resnick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Storm by Grin May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87Granddad’s Boat* by Phoebe Luscher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88Sailor’s Last Address by Grin May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Self Portrait* by Cordie Kakareka. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90The Seaside Cottage by Rachel Morrison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91Through Dead Dreams to Another Land by Rachel Morrison. . . . . . . . . . . 93Seaside* by Mauro Drocco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94*Indicates visual art

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Letter From the EditorIt would almost feel redundant to use this space to earnestly place this magazine in the context of a changing Paideia. We all know the school is changing—this alarms some, excites others, pushes some into cynicism. Any claim I could make as a senior would seem exag-gerated to later readers—those who, hopefully, will peruse this mes-sage in years’ time—by virtue of my limited perspective. That being said, the alterations to the formula of the Blue Rider that I, Sarah, and the team have put into this thirty-eighth volume seem signicant enough to warrant brief comment.The decision to incorporate the visual art directly, rather than placing it around or behind the literature to be appreciated by itself, helps to communicate the thematic intersections we’ve discovered in the selected pieces. One of the most prominent thematic inter-sections I’ve found is the desire to escape conning eyes, gazes, and default perspectives. The protagonists you’ll encounter in the pages ahead are either eminently self-possessed or crushingly half-formed, some by way of social and structural isolation, some by way solely of their own actions and personae. The new format allows Paideia’s well-developed artistic platforms to become equal subjects and, hopefully, to accent each other. From the writer’s perspective, I’ve discovered that our characters and notions can breathe easier with composed and expansive visual expression just adjacent. I think you will agree.The literary side of the Blue Rider’s project has always, to me, felt incidentally rebellious. With no current formal creative writing pro-gram at Paideia, the magazine must (granting the crude metaphor) mine for the pieces of imaginative work we know our students are capable of producing, or may already have in their unseen written catalogs. Why I love my position as editor-in-chief is partly because of this more hoighty-toighty, theoretical expression of the magazine’s role. But probably more signicant, and more personally reward-ing are the nuts-and-bolts of the process, which prove to me that Paideia’s community is willing to work rigorously for its artistic ends. As the omniscient owner of Google Documents and Sender of Emails 1

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on which all recipients were frustratingly bcc’ed, I consider myself deeply privileged to oversee this web of small processes.To those people whom I have overseen in their individual and collective artistic moves—our editors, sta, authors, and artists—along with Paideia’s visual arts teachers and department leaders, I want to express my sincere gratitude. Layout Editor Sonia Alizadeh, a newcomer to the school’s literary magazine who has put in such dedicated and enthusiastic work over the past few weeks, is the reason why you are now able to experience the Blue Rider in this altered, integrated form. I will also use this space to personally and collectively thank the magazine’s faculty advisor—and my inspiring English teacher of three years—Sarah Schi, who has not only read and considered each piece of written work included in the magazine, and who has not only oered a plentitude of organizational support, classroom resources, and oers for external literary opportunities, but also has guided me and our editorial team to the exclusive end of giving us serious creative control over the Blue Rider’s outcome. Her role was vital, allowing each of the student voices involved to speak more clearly, the pieces of Paideia’s creative expression to distinguish themselves more brilliantly.The last party I’d like to thank is the reader, both she who reads this volume cover-to-cover, and she who picks a story or photograph at random and takes a moment out of her day to meditate over it, to critique it, to enjoy it and to fold it into the many other events that her day at Paideia throws at her. If, like me, she nds herself moved by this volume’s indications of the highly active and intelligent creative energies of her peers, her students, or her friends, then I’ll know, on some subconscious level, that the so-far distinct Volume XXXVIII pres-ages the continuation and expanded output of good art for Paideia, a—as some will always call it—changing community. Brodie Gross, Editor-in-Chief2

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Grandpa’s Jadeby Alex Huynh My Grandpa’s got sparkly eyes. You should see the way they light up like the little moons. He looks at jade that way—his eyes pooling with some curious boy wonder. The varying hues, white, orange, red, green—he loves it all, always wearing the same piece of jade looped into his belt by a red string. The jade is the size of his st, but the weight never seems to bother him. Rather, the jade hangs there like a part of his body, a piece of his soul carved into cranes and tigers, mountains and buddha gourds. Its colors slide across the stone like little rivers—bending and molding into the other like wisps of smoke. I always believed my grandpa would have been a geologist in a dierent life. Together, we’d nd the best rocks wherever we went—rippling stripes of red sandstone and cool at ducks and drakes for skipping. We don’t collect rocks anymore. He doesn’t get out much: just stays inside all day with his sunower seeds, his house plants, and my grandma. My grandma. He loves Grandma like jade and green tea, two things he couldn’t do without. They’re always nag-ging at each other, like two ravens in a storm, but I couldn’t imagine them any other way—a red string eternally tying the bow, tting just so, like stung in a bun. He smiles at her with those sparkly eyes. My grandfather always had a crooked smile. Perhaps it was his uncountable number of lost teeth, or his not quite tting dentures, but his cackling smile was always true—loud and boisterous. But something is dierent now. The left side of his face is losing muscle composure, and suddenly, his crooked smile doesn’t look so inten-tional anymore. It’s harder to see the sparkle in his eyes, because his face wears like a sad rag on o days. I’ve always pictured him as some eternal being—unchanging as the jade swing from his belt loop. I’m not so sure anymore. It’s hard to tell while he is bent over a walker for the rst time, wearing a imsy hospital gown, swaying, swaying, like the jade in his belt loop, that is no longer there.11

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The Troll in the Hallwayby Mariama ReeseThis was not good. Oh no, it was not good at all. Matthew and Emmy stood in the center of the hallway, dozens of kids pushing past them to be on their merry way. However, the two were focused on one tall kid making his way towards them, Andrew Pierce. The most feared person on the planet for the younger Hen-derson kids. Andrew had made it his mission to make each and every one of their lives as awful as he could. He had been at it ever since he was in sixth grade, sticking gum in Emmy’s hair. Now he was in eighth grade and boy, how he had grown. Now, normally the two kids wouldn’t even be phased by his pres-ence because, while he did pick on them when they were alone and separate, when they were together they tended to have the upper hand. That upper hand was named Maxine Henderson. But now Max had graduated eighth grade and was o with the other, older Hendersons and the twins were completely defenseless. “I believe we should run,” Emmy said, set in her decision. “Let’s go.” She grabbed her brother’s hand, the boy staying put. He used his free hand to straighten the cap on his head, one that had been gifted to him by his older brother Charlie when he was six. It was his lucky hat.“We’re not running. Now that Max is in high school, I am the oldest in the elementary and I’m going to protect our family honor,” the curly haired boy nished. Emmy had thought this whole speech was very noble, and she admired her brother greatly for it. However, last time she saw Andrew she had to get a change of clothes from the lost and found, and today she happened to be wearing a very cute skirt. “That was a very good speech, Matty, but now–”“Well look who it is.” The two kids looked up at the gru voice, Andrew now standing over them with a wicked smirk on his lips. He placed a straight hand 14

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The Love of a Viper: An Homage to Anton Chekov’s “The Letter”by Rachel MorrisonThey had a little house in town. It was comfortable—in the nice part of town—but not free of aws. The comforts of the little re-place and the creaking chairs with the patched up cushions suced, though the bitter winters found the couple donning wool scarves and fur coats if the cold intruded upon their little paradise. Every sound from the street could be heard through the walls: the rhythmic clips of horses’ hoofs on the cobblestone streets, chatter from passing parties of village ladies, shouts of merchants, and laughs of skipping children. Eva’s favorite part of their house was Pyotr’s impressive library of foreign literature. He could talk endlessly about the Russian authors’ depth of understanding for the pain of being human, and there was rarely a quiet moment in the library. She loved running her ngers up and down the spines of his books: red and brown leather emblazoned with gold titles. He told her she was free to read any that interested her. She did not care much for the written word, but enjoyed his scribbles in the margins—ranging from intellectual commentary to crude jokes about the likes of Eugene Onegin, the rich idiot who lets his life slip away (something Pyotr swore he would never do). They did not entertain very often, for there were few people in town who held any degree of respect for them. They heard people whisper in the streets about Pytor, the shameful son of a holy man, and his mistress living in a house of sin. This used to make them laugh. They used to believe they were untouchable, but she had believed for too long that they could survive o of love alone.She was married when she met Pyotr. She was married to a cruel man, about fteen years her senior, a pick of her father’s. He would hurl insults at her and leave her with bruises and cuts after he’d spent too much time at the bar. Neither the authorities nor her neighbors would help her even when she ran out into the street crying. The 19

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cold had stung her open wounds as blood seeped through the blue cotton of her dress. Somehow the bitter, biting snow was more com-forting than the warmth of her supposed home. She wished to be forever buried beneath the blanket of snow to nally escape the hell she was living in. It was one of these sorry nights that she met Pyotr. He was kind to her, and he would barely grace her skin when they touched. She liked the way his eyes shone when he smiled. She even liked his crooked teeth and his calloused hands. She would risk her husband’s rage just to catch a glimpse of Pyotr. She could not imag-ine what would happen if her husband had found out that she was in love with another, but Pyotr made her feel alive. After months of irting with the idea of a life together, he instructed her to gather the belongings she needed from her house and promised that he would take her away with him. The next night, she left her old life behind, and put all her hope in Pyotr. They would stumble down the rain washed street of ickering lamp posts together, laughing and holding each other. Pyotr would sing her French love songs and make poetic and impossible promises of forever. People did not know that she was promised to another, only that she and Pyotr had not wed. She was dreading the moment when her old husband would return to steal away her new life. What would he do to Pyotr if he found them together? Thoughts like this kept her awake at night. She would sit by the window and light a candle. She would watch the spring rain or the winter snow or bask in the stillness of a summer evening, and she would think. In the row of houses all compressed on their little street, theirs was the only one with a candle burning in the window at night. She would watch it until all that was left was a wisp of smoke. Ladies in the village began to pity her. The sad, sad mistress of the disgraced holy boy—what a shame. She was not sad, she just did not trust her own happiness. Her parents had not spoken to her at all in the three years that she and Pyotr were together, and Pyotr’s parents were unaware of her completely. One night, when she was watching the red and yellow licks of ame play out all the horrors of her life, she heard a creaking of the chair and looked up to see her Pyotr. He wordlessly slid her a piece 20

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of paper and let out a sigh. In the candlelight, his young face seemed gaunt and brooding. Her hands trembled as she held the parchment, for she had never experienced a speechless Pyotr. She read the words on the paper and felt a tension in her chest. An anguish rose in her body, and she could feel the world that they had once laughed at coming back to tell them of their ruin. “From your father?”Pyotr nodded. He seemed tired, though not completely aected by the contents of the letter. Her face signaled a deeper hurt that Py-otr was not expecting. She looked the way she did the night they rst met: warding o tears and looking anywhere but his face. Horried that the man who raised him had hurt the woman he loved most, Pyotr said, “My father is a small-minded man. He has no concept of real love or real happiness: what we have.”“A viper… he called me a viper.”“Eva.”“No—he is right. I am a viper. I have poisoned your life, and now you must live in disgrace. You must live forever in ruin because I was too pathetic to love the man I was betrothed to.”He stood away from his chair and went to kneel in front of the woman that would be his wife if only the world were a kinder place. He took her hands in his and said with a re she had only ever heard from him when discussing Dostoyevsky, “Your husband was an evil man, and you… you are the best thing about my life. I do not sub-scribe to my father’s idea of God because I think a God that brought about the trials of your previous life is not a just or fair one. I never meant to upset you. This letter is but a joke to me. My father never had this kind of literacy. I know not who wrote this missive, but my father simply does not have access to such language.”She continued reading, then let out a tearful laugh. She pointed to the bottom of the letter, where a casual postscript about the local school’s newest teacher was scribbled beneath the reprimands.“Those would be his own words. My father is a fool.”He gently took the letter from her hands, raising it above the can-dle. They watched the crisp edges turn black as the ame overtook the Deacon’s paper. Eva’s fears and Pyotr’s rebellion came together to destroy the enemies to their love. 21

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Travis by Brodie Gross 1Lisa was born in a since-destroyed hospital in this city, grew up here, went to the good state university for undergrad much of whose campus resided right in the urban center, and had since bounced between customer-service jobs near and around Hey Naan with the engagement and inevitability of a girl connecting the dots in a dentist’s waiting-room. Hey Naan was the preoccupation of the last year and a half, and, while her passion had been for customer-ser-vice—the most direct and palpable line of engagement to a city’s make-up—she had not met Travis’s arrival and immediate devouring of that station with envy. For it was obvious, in comparing both of their customer meal recommendations, their respective command of colloquial ow, that Travis had surpassed her by nature. And she liked her go-to next position well enough: Dish Lady, or Dish Manager. It was a position that required the absolute inverse of the skill one needed for customer service, the skill which Travis exuded. This was a proclivity for dirtiness, directness, the willingness to look somebody in the eyes and give them the precise inection of the eyebrows that would sow momentary embarrassment, permanent resentment. Something that might make a customer weep. She also felt that this secondary (and perhaps more foundational) responsibility was a clearer path to management, as, if one had to estimate based on his ever declining gait, Je seemed to be on his way out of leader-ship, and maybe even was no longer suited for urban life in the city Lisa knew so intimately. Another plus was that she was allowed, as Dish Lady, to pop in her ear buds and listen to the soundtrack to the jukebox musical Mamma Mia in its entirety over the course of a day, bound internally to images of Dawn Detergent and the block of the city she ogled on her lunch break. So when this plus was taken away from her, that is, when the portable CD player and disc of the album were removed from their typical break room drawer, this was a mas-35

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-sive and manic problem for Lisa.They’d never ociated Travis’s job. Molded somehow with the capacity to appease, neglect, shun the dicult or timorous, he was the obvious choice. Something about his worn but earnest counte-nance, which he had no impetus to aect, meant that all he had to do was craft an utterance or two and the customer would sigh, take a few moments, ask zero-to-three further questions, and proceed to order assuredly the most expensive option that was in combat with another. He was the Customer Man as Lisa was Dish Lady, as Peter was—however his askew, untraceable but also unreable expertise may manifest (usually in diligently assisting one of the Department Head employees at their serious and foundational work). Vigorous customer service was Travis’s art, relieving the stress of the Counter Order, as Hey Naan was a place where waiters meet you twice, once when you order, typically giving them just a number—what was this, the men-over-thirty thought, a Burger King?—and then, nally, when they release your wired wicker-basket / slim brown bag with greased base onto your table, respective of your response to the waiter’s inquiry, in the former encounter, “dine-in / take-out.”Seeing Travis in that glistening, dominant space, presiding over the stool and the register (he’d never sat down, though James had given him the option) doing the dirty social work that had always held Hey Naan back from the greatness its lucrative suburban location had virtually guaranteed, allowed his coworkers (not to mention the managerial team) to take pride from him, and of the store. Travis, denitely white, apocryphally from Southern Ohio, was the gure-head of an Indian Street Food place whose credibility rested on its aesthetic authenticity. And yet, somehow, Travis was right for it. The racial elephant bowed out of the room, deferred to his own defer-ence, noticed and heeded his social animism.Peter, who had nally nished constructing a new work-relation-ship-taxonomy when Travis was two and a half months into his ten-ure at Hey Naan, was not an especial fan. Supporting the foundations of this taxonomical device was simple: he had only to look into Travis’ eyes and pick a greeting: a) cold, cordial, respectable workplace-fare; b) overwhelmed by the preceding aairs of the day, the embracing 36

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and comforting approach of the new friend (he also used this one, albeit at a greater frequency, to weld and iron him relationships together with those he had an interest in) —borderline irtation; or c) bona de irtation, eyes bouncing voraciously up and down, left and right to capture each organ-of-interest, mind (while upholding a calculated countenance) substituting a more attractive, amiable alternative for the bewildering, ctitious man in front of him.As for Travis’s response to this experimentation, if A, B, and C are thought to form a cycle, then Travis took Peter’s option (variegated randomly day by day, so that the former gentleman couldn’t deduce the formula) and added two in his response: A—B, B—C, C—A, with increasing regularity as Peter’s experiment rened and revised itself—the law of large numbers, he gured, being the basis for continuing this form of clinical social experimentation that he had begun to excel at with “Bitch Samuel” in eighth grade, which wasn’t even his name, Samuel, his parents had named him Sam, nothing more, but he insisted even to the administration that they needed to call him a name that wasn’t even his because it suggests more, what, sophisticated repute, perhaps to compensate for his bumbling teen-age-ity, which Peter had never really shared, and perhaps that failure to adhere to the interpretative patterns of those child-adult relations that Peter had always just kind of rolled with, that was what Sam had envied and that was why he had to insist on that kind of articial per-sonality-extension, modeled so clearly by those phony three letters he’d have you believe were always there. “Woah, there! Hands o of the register, or I’m going to have to wipe it down again,” Travis said. An impertinent grin meant this admonition was irtatious. How did he know that today Peter would choose A?“Ah,” Peter said automatically. “Apologies.”“No, not at all, not at all. I’m just, you know, looking out for health and wellbeing.” Travis gestured to the loose metallic door, closing in on a once translucent circular window, alerting his coworker to the reference.A rhetorical question. Both parties understood that the obvious-ness of the answer implied an emergent desire, on Peter’s behalf, to 37

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exit the current conversation. Peter, conscious of Travis’s desire to thaw him with coquetry, and of his own obstinacy, betrayed a falsely knowing, impish eyebrow-impulse, and quickly left Travis to his register, waltzing through the lthy nautical doorway just referenced, to unwrap the Peter classic, Hummus Falafel Wrap with Kale no Raw Onions. A clean execution all around. This all was on the same Thursday that Travis had threatened to call the police on the twenty-four year old who had refused to leave the restaurant after calling him something akin to a cute but feisty (forgive the vulgarity) little boy, out of his element. Travis said he’d tried to do other things, physical things, but was blocked by the wooden Kabab model (a tacky relic of the Palestinian diner in place here twenty years ago) that Travis pulled down 180 degrees, which separated the employee zone from the ordering area at waist-level. Travis had taken a violent and panicked step back, and raised his voice at the man, biting o a tad more than he could chew, as it were, in his disquisition to the ocers which touched on, merely touched on, the problems of rhetoric and embracing of a nouveau multicul-tural urbanity (really, what year was he living in?). But despite his grandstanding he could not suppress how endearing the light was in which this situation framed him. The special attention now paid to his white-guy demeanor somehow only made the pride that this Au-thentic Indian Restaurant took in him more eminent, more essential to its brand.38

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2Peter, having forgotten to lock his apartment door in his stupid initial rapture, exhaustedly plopped himself back down, out of breath from this annoying doubly-taken movement. His notebook was where he always left it. Centered and convenient, loud and unmissa-ble because the hypotheses/data that needed to be recorded in it would not fare well against distraction. Tonight it was the discovery of another Travis Interaction Category: d) sexually motivated but still uncomplacent internal variation. If that made sense. In case it didn’t, he elaborated:1. Travis makes subtle mockery of Manager Je Anderson’s gait. I, Peter, reply with witty admonition. He laughs before the joke is over, as if knowing a convincing laugh was mandatory for the successful pulling of this premonitory string (could it be?), he wanted simply to get it out of the way.2. Incredibly base (probably even baser to mark down like this) brush of shoulders.3. Comes back into the restaurant to buy food, out of mostly hun-ger, convenience of free meal not cashed-in in a while, but probably also desire to experience Travis’ customer service?What can we make of this breed of impulsive scribbling? It wasn’t until much later that the layers of verbal pretension that had then concealed the latent content of this embarrassing interaction of Pe-ter’s would be entirely removed. But, as of now, Peter had discovered the same thing he’d discovered each of these last six nights, embed-ding voluptuous paragraphs on thin pillow-pages devoid of theme or substance, paragraphs that, like all raw thought-on-page, serve mostly to alert the thinker to the exaggerated triviality of their yet unarticulated psychologies; Peter had discovered, in hypothesizing a new category in his work-taxonomy, that Travis’s slick deance of his system was thrilling. It was bad. But unlike all the other bad things in Peter’s life so far, it was so in a manner that would lose all impact when written down. For Travis existed on a plane beyond triviality. Travis was—or seemed to be—life itself.40

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Three days later, on Saturday, Peter went back in with the claried intent to touch Travis, physically and psychologically, as many times as possible. He wanted to break into and subvert Travis’s taxonomies as Travis had imploded his. How ecstatically beautiful the prospect was of doing something non-experimental, for the purpose of im-ploding one’s ideas about those rigid personal relations, rather than solidifying them! The only orderly motion Peter would allow himself this morning was a methodical bodily wash-and-perfume, for the stink of rotten, unused kale seemed to have infected most of the clothing and furniture in his apartment, and hadn’t yet been fumi-gated. The virus even spread to the loud notebook, which reeked so awfully that Peter had almost considered scanning its better contents and then burning the physical thing altogether, but settled on plac-ing it in a more discreet location, perhaps on one of those forgot-ten bottom rows of a bookshelf, or in a cabinet of old high-school binders, places where one keeps things only remembered when in danger of removal.Were you at Moulin Rouge last night? I believe I saw you going up the mezzanine stairs, at intermission,” Peter said and grabbed his clean apron o of its pin, commencing with a novel attempt to pick all of the lint out of his apron’s central pocket. The recently popular musical was at the Mill for the next week or so.“Entertaining show. Wasn’t quite sure where it was going, and really I didn’t enjoy the tenor—you remember him, the central tenor, taller guy—he led it, you must know who—yes, you do, though why can’t I remember his name! But you know what? The second act sur-prised me. I felt like it really all, like, came together, in the end. Yeah, I enjoyed it. You? Were you there?” These last, summarizing words were labored—why wouldn’t he elaborate on those sparks of developing opinions, none of which truly convinced Peter, however admirable he found Travis’s willingness to criticize an enviable young charmer like the Christian understudy from last night—but they were sincere enough to keep going. “Yeah, yeah, I came with some—I enjoyed it too.”Travis glanced lazily through the nautical door as if he were about to ask another obvious question regarding Peter’s responsibilities 41

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3The unfortunate thing about this particular day was that Peter, after having vaguely, then bashfully, then wholeheartedly, then me-thodically attempted to tear open the nautical door and its window, so as to have a direct line from the kitchen’s (A) hallway to the Travis cash-register, had nally succeeded. But for Lisa, Dish Lady, to leave the port permanently open would be detrimental to Hey Naan’s eth-ical and optical positioning within the shopping center, and broadly, within the city. The urban aspect, in particular, pushed Lisa’s buttons. She had decided that any threat to the security of the nautical door was enough of a threat to the restaurant’s position to warrant immediate, even unusual action. Emerging from a lengthy visit to the restroom, she saw all that she needed to: the door entirely removed, Peter arrogantly taking its place, a endish backside of gluttony and winning. Lisa charged, hesitating a few feet away from him, and exaggerated her breath.“Peter. Is everything alright here?”“Oh, yes. Yes, it’s alright.”He did not turn around, but remained staring at Travis, undergoing a rather uncomfortable exchange with a young man with a familiar appearance. Travis had his right hand rested uncomfortably on the Kabab model, pushed down like on that Thursday a few weeks ago with the police and Travis’s ineectual but alluring tirade.Peter mouthed the words he could just barely hear. A dramatical-ly adorned reference to Manager Je Anderson’s gait. A defensive brush of the shoulders. Travis turned his eyes back with nerve and confusion: did nobody else recognize this oender? But they did, and Peter and now Lisa, along with four-or-so other employees, each with a similarly voyeuristic delight, watched as Travis treaded out his defensive but still ecient conversation. A few remembered him even pointing to #6, the Paneer Tikka. Some remember a melody, which Peter has since determined must be that wonderful song that, by a mistake of the artistic universe, ended up the heart of originality in that tired, jukebox musical.The kicker was the joke that came before Travis managed to remove the menace who now seemed a friend to the waiter. Some-44

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-thing, again, whose words nobody could decipher, but with a rhythm and voice unfortunately known to those that had been so concerned with Travis. The tone of that joke about the FDA guide-lines. The gentle nudge away that you could only know was such if you were a third party. That, then, is what Travis has. The capacity to remove you from the implicit heart of your own conversation, some-thing Peter had long considered it his own talent to get to. So Peter, who gured if he couldn’t reach Travis’s internality in conversation, he may as well attempt it in physicality, started walking, and walking, and wouldn’t stop until he was pulled o of Travis and warded o with the kebab, by the newly defensive, endeared customer. When they all looked up, and when Lisa had determined it was time to put the kebab back into its rightful place, Travis was nowhere. Three steps to the right of the spot he had so conspicuously occupied, where Pe-ter recovered on the oor, Lisa’s CD Player. And Mamma Mia, undent-ed. It had fallen from Peter’s sticky-stained apron-pocket.Lisa’s note was what nally pushed Peter out of Hey Naan. The restaurant was a partnership, not a trio or triangle, allowing for none of the trivialities those social shapes could entail. And naturally, Peter’s exit allowed Travis to return, without being informed; the guarantee was implicit once he stepped back to the register. After the woman’s bout of damage-control, the nautical door appeared reinstalled one day, but far deeper into the employee area, defending Lisa’s oce with more insistence. Nobody had seen any repairmen or trucks outside the center, so it was supposed Lisa had come in early with a few screwdrivers and exercised the admirable physical clause of her vocation. The door was in view of her oce, but now turned the wrong way, so that the nauticalism, expressed by the circular, regular, slightly playful surrounding of that window, and its scued, comforting external aspect, was most visible on the inner side, Lisa’s side.She didn’t come out of her oce for lunch. One or two custom-ers saw her each day, now, but only them. Maybe she believed her presence needed to be preserved for Hey Naan customers. Maybe she felt that anything the outside, unadulterated urban world that was lurking near, from which people like Peter would spring out and 45

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Answering Punky’s Question as a Literature Majorby Brodie GrossIf I become a rst lieutenant, Would you put my photo on your piano? Simon & Garfunkel, “Punky’s Dilemma”Yes, this question is technically a yes-or-no. And yes, it’s frank, and from a frequently forgotten little number on a dazzling yet poi-gnant record, ranked Number One or Number Two in the collective consciousness of Simon & Garfunkel devotees—a consciousness stored predominantly in Subreddits, dusty living rooms with plastic couches, defunct online music review boards, and ostracized corners of literature classrooms. But this question’s intrigue, its multifacet-ed diculty to my mind speaks for itself. I pull over my bicycle to re-queue the two minute and twelve second song three-or-so times whenever I have Bookends on and feel the impetus to scratch the strange intellectual itch that it sends into my right earlobe (the left is rather scathed by the less-pretty phenomena of angry car upon angry, busybody car zooming past me in Atlanta trac). But, I say, enough of that. Would I put your photo on my piano?In order to do this question justice, I assert it is necessary to rst dene the aspects of the inquiry that would lead me to answering a resounding Yes, a skeptical No, a pitiful Maybe, or any of the inni-tesimally distinct answers in between. For this question alludes to an iconic and potentially problematic American aesthetic, while also ironically prodding at the military institution that the song, “Punky’s Dilemma,” and its titular Punky are concerned with. Let’s begin with the grammatical wonkiness on display, which might clarify its syntax and what our action looks like in response to our speaker’s inquiry. The use of the phrase “If I become” seems to 50

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establish a question in the rst-conditional. It should be followed by the future noun “will,” but we get “would,” suggesting a second-condi-tional statement; in this case, the opening clause should have read “If I became.” The question then becomes a colloquial plea, e.g. “Would you please just do this for me?” Our speaker, the drafted American youth Punky, begs the public of his country to allow him into their domestic iconography; let my memory live on, he demands, on the pianos of your middle-class suburban homes. Otherwise why is it worth allowing oneself to be shipped o? Why is it not preferable to malinger or allow one’s reputation to sink into the opposite of the Domestically Dignied, a shameful identity the lyrics intimate is equally iconographic: “Old Roger, draft-dodger.” Punky, by limiting his direct inquiry and decision to rely exclusively on this piece of imag-ery—the supercial but socially vital appreciation awarded to one who ghts for their country—precludes the stated geopolitical aims of the United States in interfering in Vietnam; there’s no question as to the nobility of the conict. If I, the multitudinous object, the public to whom Punky sings, would put his photo on my piano, it will have been worth it. He will have chosen the right identity.But I’ve been asked to give my best answer, as a person and not a public. And my response is thus a brand of historical ction, some-thing that’s really only fun in the long form. So let’s push aside the historical, and think as people think, and have always thought! Can my aesthetic decisions—whose photo I put on my piano—impact such far-away wars? Art, literature, music, via metaphor and synecdoche, wants you to believe that you can. That your life, sitting at the top of a supply-chain, maybe, rests on the assumption that the processes of labor, of war, of foreign policy, will not suddenly erupt and evict you from your cushy circumstance. For me, it’s my cashmere clothing. For my family, their Nespresso Machine (I would understand this aesthetic if the coee wasn’t stale-as-all-hell). Marketing, which I maintain is not art, the counterpart to art in one’s cultural conscious-ness, wants you, appropriately, to believe the opposite. That a photo on the Steinway is just a photo. That my cashmere, your Nespresso, starts and ends at our enjoyment. Of course I’m not vowing to, or even encouraging, complete 51

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Portia by CJ CrenshawJuly 25, 1948Oona is pregnant. The baby is late. Her due date was the 17th. The doctor says not to worry. Her mother says to relax. It’s as common as rain, bunny rabbit, you were late yourself. As for Oona, she feels ne. So ne, she almost wonders how it’s possible that she’s nine months pregnant. Her stomach is as round as the moon. Her children poke at it and ask about the brother or sister they have in there. Her husband has been a tremendous help. He watches the boys, keeps up the house, lets Oona rest. He doesn’t make her do anything. Instead, he pauses to kiss her belly, cradle her face, and asks for a daughter this time. A beautiful baby girl, as beautiful as her mama, all right? Oona giggles. I’ll do my best. She eats right, goes on walks, sleeps well. This is her easy baby. William was early, Joseph required a C-section, Henry cried day and night, but she feels certain that this baby, this time, is an easy baby. It’s a rainy Sunday when she goes into labor. The contractions start slowly—not too painful, and besides, after having had three children, she knows what to do. Her mother-in-law comes by to watch the boys. Her husband drives her to the hospital. She smiles gratefully at the man attending the door, smiles at the receptionist, she can’t help it. She just feels so lucky. She has a beautiful baby. An easy baby. When she’s wheeled into the delivery room and the nurse places her feet in the stirrups, she is still smiling. This baby will be perfect. A perfect little girl. July 27, 1948The nurse is trying to talk to Oona, but Oona does not understand. She mostly gets fragments. Medical jargon, legalese. Words that are meaningless to the uninitiated ear. Craniofacial defect. Nasal de-formity. Superuous limb. Some of the words she does understand. Previously undiscovered. Seemingly impossible. They want to give 57

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Oona tests, they want to run tests on the baby. All the doctors are rushing into the preemie ward to get a look. Oona has more adren-aline coursing through her than she’s ever had. She feels more fear than she’s ever felt. More than giving birth, so much more. When the nurse nally pauses and looks at Oona, expecting questions, the only four words she manages to choke out are: Can I see it?Three nurses bring the baby into the room. Oona’s heart is pound-ing, pounding, pounding. The rst nurse sets her child gently in her lap. She mumbles, It’s a girl.Oona looks at her daughter’s face. Her heart stops.Suddenly, all of the nurse’s words make sense. Her daughter does not have a nose, she has a snout. She does not have feet, she has hooves. Her ears are pointy. Her extra limb is curly at the end. Oona’s stomach drops like an elevator. She keeps scan-ning the baby’s face, noticing more and more things that are wrong, wondering how this could be possible. How it is possible that she could give birth to this freak—A nurse touches her arm lightly. She looks up.The nurse’s eyes are kind. They are deep sea green. They shift to the oor and stay there as she whispers, The doctors are thinking of calling it fetal hog syndrome. August 10, 1948Oona nally brings the baby home. Her sons are clustered at the bottom of the stairs. They whisper and glance, nudge each other for a better view, shue and angle, until Oona nally asks, Do you want to see it?They bob their heads. She brings the bundle to them. They stare, in silent, solemn contemplation, until the oldest boy—William—gig-gles. She’s not a sister, she’s a pet!Look at her tail!Oink, oink! Haha!We should call her Piglet!No, Porker!No, Bacon!No. Oona’s eyes brim with tears. Her name is Portia. She takes the 58

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bundle and goes down the hall to her room. Her husband waits for her, quiet and red-eyed from lack of sleep. She lies down with him. Her daughter screeches when the bundle hits the sheets. It’s an an-imal screech, a noise you would hear on a farm, it’s not a noise from a perfect baby girl. Oona looks at Portia and laughs, but soon the laughter slides into crying. Her husband holds her, he rocks her back and forth like she is the baby. The real baby won’t stop screeching, screeching, screeching. October 6, 1951Oona is making lunch in the kitchen. She is stirring Campbell’s Al-phabet Soup. The phone rings. Portia wails at the loud sound, toddles over to her. Her hooves clatter on the oor. When she approaches, Oona swats her away.The girl stumbles back with a whimper. She is shocked out of her sadness. Oona cannot look at her. She goes to get the phone. She knows she is a bad mother, a terrible mother. She’s not de-luded. Portia can see that she isn’t loved, isn’t wanted, by the wom-an who brought her into the world. Oona tries to hide it. She acts like everything is ne in front of her husband, because she knows he wouldn’t understand, he doesn’t have to watch over her every second of every day, he doesn’t have that knowledge hammered into him that he brought this child here and she is his responsibility and he, nobody else, is ruining her life. Every night, Oona goes to bed sick to her stomach, her mind is churning. When Portia tries to roll in the mud, should Oona let her? Are there any other children like her, any freaks, she can’t help thinking? Darker, darker: should she put Portia in a home? It’s a new feeling, constant guilt. It’s become almost like a friend resting on her shoulder. A burden, but, worse, a comfort. A comfort in its familiarity.One thing Oona can’t stop thinking about: it took her two years to stop calling her daughter an “it.”She picks up the phone. Her neighbor Sandy’s voice chirps through the line. Well, hey there, dear! How are you? You know, I feel like we hav-en’t talked so much since the baby, so I decided to give you a call. Sandy pauses. Oona guesses she is trying to recall her daughter’s name. 59

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How’s she doing? She’s walking and talking and everything?Oona forces a smile, even though Sandy can’t see it. Hi, Sandy. She’s walking. She’s having little conversations, you know—Arthur asked her to say “dada” the other day and she—Aw, that’s too precious. Is she sleeping through the night? I know that was the hardest thing when I had Dottie. Oh, yes, she’s—it’s much better now—Good, because I remember you telling me she was wailing like a stuck pig!Sandy stops abruptly. Oona can hear the pause on the other end of the line before she mutters, Oh, I’m sorry, honey. You know how I get sometimes. Oona nods blankly, forgetting she’s on the phone again. She twists the phone cord around her wrist until it leaves angry red marks behind. I run my mouth something awful, honey, and that’s the truth. You just forget I said anything. Oh, but how’s little William? I heard he just started fourth grade! My Charles, you know, he’s in fth—Oona nods again, gives the obligatory mumble. Her ears are ringing. In her head, all she can hear is the noise that announced her daughter to the world for the rst time. The screech, that animal screech. Over and over again. I wish I knew how to love her. I wish I knew. I wish I was strong enough. September 1, 1953It is Portia’s rst day of school. Arthur’s just driven o. Oona is standing in front of Orville Wright Elementary School with her arm around her daughter; she’s not sure when to let go. She sees parents all around her waving their kids goodbye, giving their tiny foreheads one last peck, but Portia’s arms are wrapped tight around her mother and she is moaning. As always, the noise isn’t quite human, and as al-ways, Oona inches at it. She still inches when she hears her daugh-ter laugh. Her heart still hurts when she hears her daughter cry. Mommy, I don’t wanna do it. I don’t wanna. Are we gonna go home?No, sweetheart, I can’t—everybody has to do this. You and William and Joey and—60

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Henry?Yes, Henry too. Oona shifts a little and sees a little boy out of the corner of her eye. He’s Portia’s age, tugging on his mother’s arm. He’s probably asking her a whole load of questions she can’t answer. She closes her eyes. And even me, back when I was a little girl.Wow. That’s been Portia’s new thing lately—everything that’s even a little bit surprising is wow. That was a long time ago!Oona laughs a little. She gives Portia’s arm a gentle squeeze. Yes, I know it was. It was a looooong time ago. A very long time.Portia giggles. She fusses with the ends of her freshly combed hair. Mommy, I have another question. Can I ask you?Yes, sweetheart. Oona looks at her watch, then at the school build-ing. Almost-empty courtyard, deserted front steps. She needs to get going if she’s going to make her coee with Marla. When I get home, can we play shadow puppets? Portia looks up at Oona hopefully. Her eyes are wide and playful and they make Oona’s stomach lurch. She sees something human there—so human. How has she never noticed it before? I wanna do the kitty one. Where you make your hand like this. Portia demonstrates, clumsily. Oona laughs. She wants to give her daughter a kiss.Instead, she says, We can if I have time, honey. Now run inside so you’re not late. I love you. As Portia heads o, Oona watches her. She knows she will be late, but she can’t move. She feels a surge of something, she doesn’t know what it is. It’s something that’s been building since she laid eyes on her daughter for the rst time. Maybe fear. Maybe worry. Or maybe hope, guilt, anger, love? 61

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Better Left Unsaidby Kenzie Leonard Dust. After seven years it continues to hang like a musty cloud, carpeting every surface in a thick lm. The children still joke it’s the closest that they’ll ever get to snow, just like their parents and grandparents did before them. Dust is the one thing everyone can count on, but to the woman driving alone one Thursday morning it is unsettling. It brings back memories.Turning on the windshield wipers and rotating the stereo knob to the right, she hopes the static voice of the local station can suppress the growing feeling of melancholy and guilt beginning to overtake her stomach. She looks out the window to the miles of at grassland and dead corn and broken street signs. The woman had hoped that this visit would prove her memory faulty in its bitter convictions, that something would have changed. Had hoped adolescent angst and teenage pessimism had given her an inaccurate representation of this place, and now, after a little more life experience, she would re-discover a childhood of comfort. She is instead, of course, reminded of the constant state of seasonal depression brought about in a place with only one season. Heat, sweat, stinging your eyes and salting your mouth, and dust.So it is in this state between old and new that the woman in the small car arrives at the wooden house. Shifting it into park, the wom-an takes in the view she is faced with. Now the familiarity welcomes a small sense of comfort. The house has not changed, and despite a few fallen shingles it still radiates a sense of being trapped. Her atten-tion shifts to the sister leaning against its side. She is not so perfectly similar but still adjacent in her sameness, which medicates the wom-an’s guilty stomach slightly. The sister is still long and stretched, but her cheeks are a little fuller, skin draped a little looser on her frame, letting the angular bones peek through. Their age gap has been at the forefront of the woman’s stomach guilt for some time now, but it becomes more apparent when viewed in the esh, as the woman is taken back through the years since they have last seen one another. 65

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The sister’s hair is longer yet has managed to circumvent the onset of gray that comes naturally to women of her age. She had always, to the woman, been a little above human things, always uncanny in the grace of her steps, the length of her strides, the tone of her voice. It was the inescapable distinction between them that tainted the woman like a bruise. The sister has a coee mug clasped tightly between both hands and a bathrobe hanging over her tank top and pajama bottoms as she rests her spine against the wooden house, as though it is the last thing in the world that can bear her weight. The woman shuts o the ignition, slowly opens the car door, and places a foot onto the gravel drive. As she walks up the stairs onto the wooden porch the two sisters look at each other. Standing, unsure of the next logical action, the woman reaches her arms out shakily to invite a hug. Her muscles relax and she exhales as the sister wraps her hands around the woman’s back, gripping her tightly as her ngers press into the woman’s spine.“I missed you,” the sister says slowly as the two draw away from one another.The woman suddenly feels two feet shorter as she thinks about the impersonal nature of the statement.She doesn’t miss me. She misses everything else. I’m just the only one left to tell.She instead responds, “I’m sorry,” and she means it.They enter the house and begin. “Still looks just like it did last time,” the woman says mostly to herself.“Well, it’s only been seven years.” The sister stops to set her cup down on the circular kitchen table.“I’m sorry,” the woman repeats, unable to face her sister’s too-large eyes.She looks downward and suddenly becomes hyper-aware of the socks she is wearing, and resists the strong compulsion to itch her legs. “It’s okay,” the sister looks sincere, “I’ve never needed an explana-tion,” but she speaks a beat too quickly. “Anyway,” she sighs, “All that’s 66

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really left is his, well, his old records that he kept up in the closet.” All while saying this the sister intensely studies the wooden wall, eyes tracing up and down every notch and groove as if they make up a language understood only by her and the sideboards. “Just throw them out back,” she continues, “please.”The woman is relieved to feel useful in some way and starts down the hall towards the bedroom while the sister continues to talk with the wall as her nger gently rounds the curved rim of her mug. It has been empty this whole time, but she hasn’t yet realized.The husband had been, by most accounts, an honest man. He cooked and cleaned, he was friends with his co-workers, he volun-teered at the church, and he still called his mother.“He’s traveled,” the sister had explained animatedly over the phone some years ago, “He’s exciting and surprisingly funny. I think this could turn into something.”It had turned out that the husband’s post-college trip had been enough for him, and the two decided to settle down and get mar-ried. It was, at least initially, the right choice. The sister was happy and things were continuing well even after the honeymoon phase. The calls, however, stopped a few months later. The sister had always been private in nature, and the woman hung on her every word. As a child, she looked up to her sister with almost religious adoration, and even now she excitedly awaited hearing from her like a dog under the table, ready to inhale the smallest food scraps with immense gratitude. The woman tried not to worry, knowing that mood swings and sudden disappearances were not uncommon, but as time wore on it became clear something else was at play. It had been a Sunday when the woman made a call of her own, and a Sunday, in twisted irony, that the sister made her confession.“I can’t do this every day. I don’t want his things in my room, I don’t want to drive by his oce, and I don’t like his friends and the stories he repeats for the millionth time like it was ever funny in the rst place. And you know what bothers me most? The smell, his smell. I don’t even know how to describe it but it’s completely invasive. Now I can’t be inside it for more than a couple hours without feeling my lungs contract like I’m having some sort of allergic reaction. I’ve been 67

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taking it in for so long now I’m almost used to it but I’m done this time, I’m really done. I don’t care if I have to bleach every single wall, I want it out.”The woman focuses her gaze back on the closet door, slowly pulling it open. The space is mostly vacated, wire hangers dangling skinny, naked, and self-conscious on a metal rod. As the woman looks down she sees the carpeted oor of the little closet is completely covered in stacks of old media, everything from records to CDs to mixed tapes to DVDs. As she ips through the expansive collection she feels the growing sense that these are private things and disturb-ing them could lead to something far worse than is worth satisfying curiosity. So, with both arms she grabs a manageable stack from the left corner and heads towards the back door, propping it open with one hip. The trash can is still in the back of the overgrown little yard, reclaimed by a variety of invasive species of vine. Using her elbow to push open the heavy lid, the records cascade down in perfect symmetry like a line of dominos to the bottom of the empty can. She feels the sudden onset of a t of coughing and is knocked back a step from the fury with which her lungs expel the dust gradually making a home within her. As she prepares to haul the next load, a ash appears in the corner of her vision. Overtaken by the compulsion to nd its source, the woman turns briskly and lowers herself closer to the ground. Wiping the sweat from her brow and covering her eyes she begins to system-ically scan the dirt in grid fashion, rst horizontally then vertically, as though searching for the last message of an unnished crossword. Within approximately twenty seconds, she has located the object. It still harshly reects the sunlight, making the details hard to deter-mine, so the woman crouches onto her knees and cups her hands beneath, pulling it under the shade of her gure. The object is, in fact, plural. Two silver bullets, capped in dried blood.As children, the sisters had always despised the shotgun kept in the basement of the wooden house. Their father had been a recre-ational hunter, enjoying the sport with a group of other enthusiasts most Saturdays, leaving the house before dawn. The father found the 68

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outings fundamentally natural, grounding even. The mother called them murderous. The sisters tended to agree with the mother. Need-less to say, both had made a pact that when the house belonged to them that the gun would be long gone. Four days prior, some time before dawn, a husband and a wife lie next to one another on the little bed in the wooden house in mid-June. The hum of the electric fan does not disturb the husband, who lies on his side, back to his wife, in the middle of another violent nightmare. He has been having them more frequently than before, he suspects, due to stress. The arguments have been more persistent, more passionate, more aggravating as the days drag on. The husband is not stupid—that he is sure of. He is simply an optimist. The wife will get over it.The wife is not asleep. How can she be when the husband is suo-cating her? She sees him, she hears him, she smells him, and it’s too much. She slips o the sheets, slips out the bedroom door, slips down the stairs to the basement.The woman is suddenly ice cold. Each bone in her ngers is del-icately shattered then reformed again, knit together by thousands of tiny strands of white thread. She watches them shake, unable to reconcile their attachment to her body, watches the bullets roll back and forth between them. It is at this moment she realizes something she has known for a very long time. The sister has always been just a little too perfect to be real; maybe it is the grace of her steps, or the length of her strides, or the tone of her voice. Maybe it is all three. Something was bound to happen. It’s just the nature of balance. The woman thinks back to their last phone call four days prior, two words ringing in her ears, vibrations banging on her skull.Heart attack.Should she have paid closer attention to the cadence in the sister’s speech, the length of her words, the frequency of her pauses during their shock-ridden conversation? The woman’s phone weighs heavily in her pocket, begging her to punch in those three little numbers with her broken ngers, to drown out the ringing in her ears with the ringing of the dial tone. Let the operator take control, take her out of this place. But one last thought quiets the rest, buzzing at her on all 69

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The Seaside Cottageby Rachel MorrisonThe wind was erce and the snaking paths were lined with wooly, unbothered sheep. These hills did not belong to anyone and the girl and her family were the only people wandering them. Ascending the mountain was exhilarating for the twelve year old girl, and the grass was a brilliant green. She had never been anywhere quite like this. She saw her future in the choppy waves of the splendidly blue ocean and the emptiness of the sky that threatened no rain. The wind was a messenger for the words often ignored by her friends. The majesty of the Irish hills distracted from the lectures of her parents. The girl who might never be important and may never be powerful could dream on this hillside. She was enchanted by the waters around the moun-tain that stretched to the horizon. She could spend hours imagining what might be beneath or beyond them. Inspired by the scene, her greatest and most private dream was born. The dream was one of quiet solitude. She would return to this dream whenever life became too complicated or when she felt freedom had escaped her. In her mind, she would go to a little house with a thatched roof and walls the color of golden butter, that sat on a brilliantly green hill. She would be steps away from the sea at her little house and there would be no one around for miles. She would have patches of red and purple wildowers growing around her little cottage. She would sit with the owers and watch the waves. She would have some sheep and a sheepdog, and a small library of her favorite books. And there would be wild red roses climbing up the butter walls of her seaside cottage. She would sing, she would paint, and she would laugh to herself because she was the only one around. She would fall in love with her life and never leave. The charms of the owers, the sheep, the grass, and the walls would never wear o. There would be no grief or sadness that the playful ocean air and the climbing roses could not cure. She wel-comed the rain and the gray skies just as she delighted at the sun and the cotton candy-like clouds. The owers who danced in the 91

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seabreeze were far more elegant and lovely than the gures in any ballroom. The elds of buttercups and lilies stretched out far be-yond the little house. She could go running for hours and still not reach the end of them. She could lie down in dewy grass and watch the clouds drift by. In the summer she would sit outside and enjoy fresh strawberries with dollops of overly sweetened cream. It hardly ever snowed, but if it grew cold enough, beautiful patterns of frost would appear in the glass windows framed by red curtains. She did not need clocks in her little house because she never thought about time. If she did not want a moment to end, it simply wouldn’t. There was no one to ask anything of her. Her favorite part of the day would be watching the colors of the sun bleed into the ocean as the moon began conducting the movements of the tide. Her seaside dream was her escape from a world that never slows or quiets. Her dream was serene and beautiful. It was everything to her on the days when everyday life became too painful and confusing. In an old house, at the top of a ight of creaking stairs, there is a photograph of the girl at the top of the small mountain in Ireland. Her father and her brother smile for the picture while she stands res-olute with her back to the camera, her hair swept back by the wind, and her mind full of dreams. 92