The Apprentice WRITER

Volume 34 $3

apprentice writer : 1 learned by working on one or more of the four magazines the Susquehanna Writers editor: Introduction Institute publishes each year. If you are Glen Retief Welcome. The Apprentice Writer an- interested in learning more about the Cre- nually features the best writing and ative Writing major and progams related to Adultery photographs from 2,000 entries we re- associate editors: writing sponsored by the Writers Institute, Brittany Hunzeker, Morgan Green, ceive each year from secondary schools see the back page for a summary or go to Sabah Iqbal Joshua Wertz, & Katherine Wer- throughout the United States. Every susqu.edu/writers for details. Advanced Writers Workshops Albertson, NY September we send copies printed as ling a public service by The Daily Item in Send material to be considered for next Each summer, the Writers Institute offers the one-week Sunbury, PA to nearly 3,500 schools. year’s issue to [email protected]. For Production editor: Advanced Writers Workshops for High School Students. I was a woman full submission guidelines, please visit Anthony Santulli Susquehanna’s Creative Writing http://www.apprenticewriter.com/submis- The 2017 Summer Workshops will take place in late June or who was so much major now enrolls 160 undergraduate sion-guidelines/. Please be sure to include early July. Participants live on campus and concentrate on fic- students. Our program in Editing and Special thanks to Stronger your name and address on each page. The Codie Nevil Sauers tion, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Publishing gives our majors an op- deadline for submissions is March 10, 2017. The fee of $810 (early application by April 15th) covers all than they deemed me. portunity to showcase what they have costs, including room and board.

Go to susqu.edu/writers and click on “Writers Workshop for H.S. Students” for more information and an electronic appli- I was a woman Table of Contents cation. who would always Fight POETRY PROSE against what they said. 3 sixteen ~ Sydney Kim 5 it’s Not Worth It ~ Olivia Cardenas 3 Ground Zero ~ Abbey Zhu 7 bystander ~ Stephen Hunt 3 adultery ~ Sabah Iqbal 12 a Growing Concern ~ Bethany Disanno I was a woman 4 louisiana Summers ~ Elizabeth Dunn 16 ambidexterity ~ Alan Lin sixteen Ground Zero 4 you ask me if I recall Greennoble ~ Maitreyi Rajaram 17 the Night My Sister Left ~ Alexandra Paul Sydney Kim who stood 6 a circle of circlets ~ Hunter DiCicco 18 confessions of a Social Phobic ~ Alexandra Franchino Abbey Zhu 6 of the Scent of Hyacinths ~ Christopher Louzon 20 seventeen Laps ~ Kristen Martucci Weston, MA Tall Montville, NJ 6 accident ~ Jolinda Sciscione 24 chopsticks ~ Evelyn Ho in front of the crowd. 10 exit Signs ~ Melody Xiao 26 ice Cold Reality ~ Caroline Benedetti i swallow growing pains After “Departure” by Carolyn Forché 11 elysium ~ Mairead Kilgallon 27 ride ~ Dongeun Kim like cough syrup 11 fears ~ Georgia Cyriax 31 skin ~ Emily Kirshner in that hospital of proficiency 11 moon Eyes ~ Leah Gaush 33 mother Knows, Father Tells ~ Leandena Dankese I leave it behind, the roar I was the woman i am incurable of an airplane piercing the sky 11 after the Handshake ~ Emma Weiss 35 elemental ~ Joni Keaton un-diagnosable 12 if I Had No Memory, I Would Say This Is Perfect ~ 36 trabajadores del Tabaco: Cubans on the Cusp ~ echoing into nothingness, a cold who people Dylan Winsick Warren Kennedy-Nolle one by one the doctors shake their heads. their x-rays are grinning alienation as when land disappears Gawked at. 14 porcelain ~ Ellie Zupancic 38 the Other Girl ~ Emma Bruder singing of a fool’s disease beneath me and the windows 15 daisies ~ Maitreyi Rajaram 40 the Spur ~ Tom Yuz 15 keepsake ~ Isabelle Kulick 42 indigo ~ Alaina Johansson with make-believe symptoms brush the clouds, where the ghosts 19 the Orchestra – Victoria Laboz 44 violet and I ~ Madison Wade springing from the brain. of my past lurk and drift for But now 19 Graveyard Tongue – Victoria Laboz 46 how to Be Popular ~ Allie Reed a visit. The person sitting I am the woman 21 like July ~ Jessica Wang 47 the Columbiners ~ Lauren Toscano today is yesterday’s impersonator; next to me has ear buds i move dimly through flat mornings, 22 eternal Return ~ Maitreyi Rajaram 49 toil and Trouble ~ Julia Withers in, and I want to ask Banished from society, 22 how do you explain something that kills you? ~ 50 a Thing of the Past ~ Katia Hardesty unsettled by the artificial Sarah Minchin 52 black Sheep ~ Abigail Walker lack of shadows in the hallways if ghosts listen to music A Pariah 23 pickle ~ Melody Xiao 53 honey ~ Liam Maguire mute when the slew of voices to hide from their realities is all that they call me. 23 early Mornings ~ Abigail Walker 54 Good Morning and Goodbye ~ Bobby Bruce splash the walls in loud colors as much as I do mine. 24 california Dream ~ Katherine Brown overrun by the clicking of keys Row after row of straight- 25 aunt Helen’s ~ Leandena Dankese PHOTOGRAPHY while my own fingernails frost over. backed seats, luggage stowed 30 the summer we were free ~ Emma Gallagher For falling in love i am the carbon copy of nobody in particular; in the overhead, faces that 30 history of Bathing ~ Letitia Chan 6 Fog of Athletes ~ Rebecca Kanaskie there are fistfuls of sugary smoke with a man who 31 nature ~ Jenna Lebovits 17 Cup of Tea ~ Danielle DeVries in my lungs. fade in and out of existence– 31 little things ~ Katharine Boyajian 25 We’re Not in Kansas Anymore ~ Vivian Holland I will be a different person never loved me. 32 home ~ Jack Li 29 If Winter Comes Can Spring Be Far Behind ~ and i suppose i have lived a chlorine pipe dream when I land. Here is the soil 34 a Winter Note from Greylock ~ Pierce Gidez Simran Malhotra where the panacea must exist– of your homeland part n, But was instead ther 32 ou nit e ogether Kayley Goertzen 39 o ~ Catherine Wise Y K M T ~ perhaps i have lived the greatest deceit. 40 a Study in Silence ~ Leandena Dankese 42 Untitled ~ Nolan Stern the scent of your best friend’s detergent, Obsessed i say, the world’s on sale but no one’s buying 43 la Banda ~ Abigail Walker 46 Time & Space ~ Jackie Young the last breath of goodbye another capsule couldn’t hurt with what he 45 mixed kids thanksgiving ~ Youssef Ahmed Mezrioui 51 Fingerprints ~ Rebecca Kanaskie the only thing you’ll have left. 54 Bright Eyes ~ Hannah Robertson they form the column of my spine had done with me. the brittle sinew of my bones. I am the one you will all the doctors say, there’s nothing there. forget, shrinking and shriveling i am ready for the operation– into a wilted flower, the death Cover photo: Ariel Sabo, Allendale, NJ i am as healthy as can be. of something already gone.

2 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 3 It’s Not Worth It Louisiana Summers You ask me if I recall Greennoble. Olivia Cardenas Elizabeth Dunn Maitreyi Rajaram Houston, TX Greenwich, CT Dayton, NJ It all started with Hae sitting on the library steps in Jake Machala’s cat hair-covered fleece. (Jake Machala is an idiot; he once confused Alcatraz and Auschwitz.) Their knees are touching, and he pokes at her nose and tugs on it as if he’s holding a drawer handle. That’s when I honk. She looks startled, like she has been caught doing some- Growing up, Louisiana summers meant Minnie I’d like to tell you that I imagine the thing wrong. guarding the door, the buttery smell of Coppertone sloping roofs of Spanish-styled villas Hae has a way of shrugging her shoulders whenever she sees me, and I’m tired of feeling like the green dog shit reeking under her shoe, always feeling like she’s pissed permeating from her flour speckled apron whenever I hear those lush syllables, that I exist. So I drive around the block to calm down and come back for her. the pine trees tugging at that eclectic space “You’re late.” as she dabbed the tips of our noses and in my memory, bundles of fir spread against “And you were talking to Jake again.” ears with the thick, sticky whiteness. each lobe like mistletoe. “You were late! So you have no right to tell me who I can and cannot talk to.” “It’s not about being late. It’s about trust, and I don’t trust him.”

I’d rather inform you that my mind often trails “Or me apparently. But whatever, maybe you shouldn’t.” We scampered past her protesting along the wooded path from the back porch of She went on forcing ideas into the nooks and crannies of my brain, explaining that the root of our relationship issues was my hatred for her. That makes so much sense! “Aw, come on Minnie! Do you want your cousin’s brick house with the crumbling I’m dating her yet I strongly despise her and am jealous of her “prestige” and accomplishments? This is all classic Hae. She’s smart enough to get a 2370 on her SAT but not mature enough to let me speak or think for myself. us to be pale as ghosts forever?” Greek stone pillars to the underpass where our grandfathers used to smoke I reach towards the radio, and she swats my hand away, leaving the pink trace of her fingers among my arm hair. This fight is not over, and as my brain starts to transfer “Yes, ma’am,” Minnie would retort with a soft laugh, amongst lime green moss, and her complaints into incomprehensible nasally squeaks, I decide I don’t want to go to her stupid house with the stupid cactus sculpture garden. All of her bullshit nagging is “That’s exactly what I want.” our great grandfathers etched making me hungry, and usually smiley face pancakes are all it takes to shut her up. Time for a detour to IHOP because eating is one of the only things we both enjoy. I turn the car around in search of the nearest pancakes, and we are hauling through the desert, surrounded by sand, rocks, and a hairy neck on a billboard for laser hair the names of their lovers in the mildew. removal.

Hae has to pee. She always has to pee, and I refuse to drive back in the opposite direction, so she can go use the restroom at the gas station with homeless people who The day I packed up our silver car to begin I’d recount with your mother’s alacrity the long trek towards a place of higher education, eat French-fries from the trash while sitting on the toilet. She would rant about that, something pretentious like “How can those people still live like they do with all the that time when your uncle’s van got stuck resources in this country? They have NO excuse.” Blah blah, blah and she’d drone on about her immigrant family and how if they made it, anybody can. So we’re not turn- Minnie had been bustling all day long in the in the mountains for weeks, some say ing around. kitchen, baking my favorites: peach crumble, it was a flat tire, your aunt says As she “uses the potty” on the side of the road, it occurs to me that Hae has a mustache and that her breath always smells like Funyuns. She can’t even pronounce a it was a pretty Ukrainian tourist. double S and always says “Bleshh you” instead of bless you. I’m tired of being called “ISHHac.” I’m tired of being her coat provider when she’s cold. Is it really so hard to two dozen pralines and a whole caramel cake. And maybe I could also narrate my daunting bring your own damn jacket? I’m tired of her pale neck. No matter how lightly I kiss it, she always ends up with hickeys and yells at me. I’m tired of having to tell her she’s She walked out of the kitchen at half past four adventures up those peaks, in the midst “stunning and unique” when she’s being an insecure little bitch. and wiped her hair from her face, leaving a streak of winter, your grandparents in tow. I decide I’m done with her calling my ideas “underdeveloped and unoriginal.” I’m done being a powerless little puppet existing only for her kissing desires and prom You never knew that I could drive clutch stick, picture purposes. of flour and butter across her forehead. I didn’t either, my urban feet shakily pumping “Damn it, ISHHac! I have sand in my underwear now.” on the gas pedal. So here we are, ladies and gentlemen, on the side of the road in Nevada. Hae yelling at me for accommodating her bladder as best as I can, and I decide none of it is worth I wrapped my long arms around her middle, it. I wish I could tell you that When I sit down beside her in the sand and offer her some Kleenex, she snaps about how I’m invading her privacy and that I haven’t even given her the time to zip up clenching my fingers tightly together at her back it’s just like what we’ve all heard; her pants. She snatches the tissues, blows her nose and shoves the yellow-snotty mess back into my hands. and burying my head into the soft folds of her apron. it never snows in Greennoble, “Hae, I think we need to talk.” She rested her chin on my hair as I listened to her though it should according to David “Talk about what? How you’re a dick for making me pee on the side of the road? How you’re an IDIOT who doesn’t understand common courtesy?” from three doors down who is a “Nah, I want to talk about us.” breathe in and out, in and out, real slow. practiced meteorologist in theory, Hae recognizes the infamous break up lines; she’s not an idiot. To tell you the truth, I always worried she’d do it first, that I’d be left sniffing bags of Funyuns and calling so long as he can finish his broadcasts at five her over and over again until she answered. I’ve envisioned her loudly inviting Jake Machala over to her house the day after the break up in order to create a sick and twisted to come home for Jeopardy and microwaved love triangle where she’s pregnant with a nonexistent baby that could be Jake’s or mine. But this is going to hit her by surprise. It even surprises me. Being dumped by me “Minnie,” I whispered, keeping my cheek pressed firmly against her. probably feels like being called annoying and ugly by your grandma. It’s unexpected and embarrassing. ravioli in the next hour. Shirley is still trying “Yeah, honey?” she cooed. I swallowed my breath, “That’s funny because I need to talk to you, ISHHac, about how this won’t work, ya know?” (Trust me, I know.) to write her lifetime romance novel- as I gazed at the front door and remembered the sun And as the conversation escalates, she’s screaming in my face with her onion breath telling me about how her friends were right; it was a bad idea to sneak around with you know, the one she’s been at for years- the hairy weirdo who wasn’t allowed to attend co-ed parties or watch the videos in history class that reenacted war. beating down on its white wood all those summers ago. in her aunt’s wine cellar. Carter insists that it’ll “I thought you were going to be something different, culturally exotic like me. But you’re boring. Thoughtless. You’ve become too much of a sidekick and not enough of “Minnie,” I said again, my voice rocking back and never make it out of the spaces between the a boyfriend.” corked glass bottles, he’s still going to forth between childhood and adolescence “I’m sure as hell not a sidekick or even a loyal boyfriend for that matter. And by the way, you’re not unique, you suck at debate, and you’re kinda bad at sex.” Not my night school every week though. Just as they say, finest moment. And not hers either because there she is, in her 95-pound glory, shoveling handfuls of sand in my direction as she screams that she hates me. every winter is warmer than the last. The sand is in my mouth, coating my tongue and choking me, and as my vision becomes a gritty blur, my palms reach out to knock her muscular arms away. In this as I pictured an empty room with four white-washed walls pixilated search, I find my chapped palms wrapped around her neck. She calls me a crazy-ass psycho, and I decide maybe I am. I’d like to tell you this and more but and a springy mattress one thousand and three hundred miles away. So instead of letting go and proving her wrong, I grab on tighter, feeling the oil of her skin collecting on my fingertips. This moisture mixes with her tears and saliva, and the only memory I have of that place, I tighten my grip. I can feel her pulse slowing, the panic setting in as she comes to the realization that I will kill her. “Minnie,” I croaked, but she hushed me with a faint Polaroid of technicolor yellows Her eyeballs are threatening to explode out of their sockets and my knuckles are tired. But letting go is not an option. Hae always complains I never finish anything. I her soft, vanilla voice and stroked my hair and tainted browns under my eyelids, hold my grip for minutes until she is a sack of organs and skin lying in my lap. I hold hands with her as my body heaves and chunks of my vomit end up in her hair. Her body is now pretzeled in the back of my car and as it cools, her skin pales. I am on autopilot: wipe the tears off of your face, get in the car, and go give her back. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said, “I know, I already know.” is my cousin lifting me on his shoulders so I could see the ice cream flavors on the vendor’s board, Now I’m in front of the stupid cactus sculpture garden. I heave her dead weight over my shoulder and put her on the front step. I wipe some of the vomit out of her hair I chose vanilla of course. and kiss her cheek one last time.

I ring the doorbell and don’t bother running.

4 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 5 become dangerous and difficult, prompt- stomach growled, and his car began to ing Robert to pull off onto the shoulder sway because of the harsh winds and the Bystander of the road, to wait for the weather con- under-inflated tires on the left side of his Stephen Hunt ditions to become more favorable. He old station wagon. A break seemed ideal pulled out the novel he’d been reading for to him. He scanned the highway ahead, Oak Park, IL some time now: The Tortured Soul. Rob- looking for signs identifying rest stops, or The rain fell softly, the wind blew gen- ert found this story to be quite relatable. exits leading to fast food restaurants. He tly on the quiet, lonely interstate connect- The story follows a young man Gregory was truly in the middle of nowhere. There ing Illinois and Iowa. Robert Mitchell’s Getties, through his childhood of parental were very few trees and he’d seen only 2005 Honda Accord lurched and creaked, abuse and schoolyard bullying from boys about one farm every 10 miles. Finally, he going 55 on a road with a speed limit of 75. much bigger and stronger than he was. spotted the first sign of civilization he’d His car was too old and defeated to meet Abuse that both Gregory and Robert had seen all night. He got off at an exit with a the freeway’s required speed. He was in endured during their childhoods. Gregory sign for a rest stop just a half mile off the no danger to, or from anyone. The road persevered through all of the adversity he highway. As he neared the ramp he heard was abandoned. The moon could barely be faced at such a young age, and worked his sporadic, muffled thunder claps. seen through the mask of clouds, and the way up through various newspapers and He reached the rest stop town, which hazy rain fell silently on the road ahead. magazines, finally becoming an author, had only a few businesses—a convenience The night was darkest at this hour—12:13 fulfilling his childhood dream. Robert store, a hardware store, a gas station, and a.m. Robert’s journey began at 6 o’clock always believed he had a knack for writ- a garage—all separated from each other that night. He was not a wealthy man, ing. He was good with words; his father by abandoned lots. It was an ominous not in any sort of way. When he heard always told him that. location, empty, unknown. Off in the the news of his mother’s passing, he was The rain began to subside, the fog be- distance, a car turned off a side street, forced to get in his worn out car with gan to clear just far enough to see the sur- onto the road Robert rolled through. The 100,000 miles on it, and drive to the site of rounding cornfields, and the moonlight vehicles passed, each driver exchanging his mother’s funeral: Perry, Iowa. Perry shone dimly through the clouds. Robert a look through each windshield. Robert was Robert’s childhood home, and coinci- restarted the engine and continued on pulled into the “Grab N’ Go Mini Mart” dentally the site of his tragic childhood, through the interstate highways of west- and parked in the lot occupied only by a the childhood he would like to forget. ern Illinois. As he drove along, Robert’s 2009 Ford Mustang, presumably belong- His mother wasn’t a young woman, dy- thoughts drifted away from the road. He ing to the owner of the store. The inte- ing at the age of 61; and was not a healthy wasn’t sure yet if he was sad about his rior of the store was like the interior of Fog of Athletes one either, sporting a smoking habit, and mother’s passing. She was never particu- any convenience store; they all looked the Rebecca Kanaskie limping around with a bum knee from a larly kind to him; she viewed him as the same. Aisles that go only up to a grown Tamaqua, PA bad fall on ice on her 30th birthday. Even- “problem child,” at least that’s what she man’s chest, rows and rows of candy, tually lung cancer took her life. Not a told him. She always cared for Chris the chips, and store brand donuts and pastries surprise to Robert, or his two older broth- most; he was the three-sport athlete, he on poorly made wire racks. White floor, ers, Patrick and Chris. His brothers also made honor roll, he had the beautiful chil- white walls, white ceiling, and buzzing Of the Scent of Hyacinths made the trip back to Perry, to pay their dren, and he made the most money of all white fluorescent lights. The counter was a circle of circlets Accident respects to their lost parent; however, Hunter DiCicco Christopher Louzon her sons. Robert was the youngest broth- in the center of the small store. A man of Jolinda Sciscione these men were far better off than Robert, er, and was treated as such. His brothers about 30, white, backwards red St. Louis Marriotsville, MD Cream Ridge, NJ Denver, PA with six-figure incomes, enough to buy didn’t care for him much either. They ex- Cardinals flat brim hat with a shaved i’m harboring a group of light beings Bells with plane tickets to Des Moines International cluded him from games when they played head underneath, leaned against the case in my ears, eyes, nose and mouth. petals of blown Glass shards scattered the stage; airport. His brothers had arrived in the as children, and didn’t share toys. When of rolling hot dogs, yawning. glass rustle. afternoon; Robert was to meet them the his brothers would eat out with his moth- “What’s up, bro?” he said as Robert they are four legged circlets of purple A porcelain doll draped over the wheel. next morning. er, Robert was left at home. He continued walked in. and pink, who headbutt each other at The air became mistier, and fog be- high speeds to gel and mingle. A breeze laced with drops of She reaches out to the audience-- to think of his past mile after mile, with Robert nodded to acknowledge him. rose water wisps along the blue gan to creep further onto the road ahead. every passing farm and cornfield. Rural He moved towards the back of the store don’t be frightened - they’re friendly - surface, leaves Her eyes one way, her arms in others-- Robert’s view of the road had become Illinois highways made it easy for one’s where the drinks were in a transparent until you force them together. miniscule clear spheres behind. obstructed, the moonlight barely showed Sirens applaud as a distant spectator, mind to drift. refrigerator. He grabbed a Pepsi—he pre- once that’s done, a light problem through the clouds, making the only clear The ride grew longer. It was approach- ferred that over Coke, unlike most—then will turn heavy. The sweet pheromone All while her makeup continues to run. part of the road the ground dimly lit by the seduces the ing 1 a.m. and the moon continued to hide moved back to the front and scanned the they eat like pigs, write penny poems, botanist. weak high beam headlights of his 10-year- behind the clouds. The rain fell harder, and rows of candy bars. and dream of steam and outer space. old broken down station wagon. The the wind started alternating, first blowing “Twix or Reese’s…” Robert mumbled wind began to pick up. Driving had now east, then west, then east again. Robert’s to himself. “Twix or Reese’s …?” He

6 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 7 shook his head back and forth, weighing Robert let out a whimper of pain as his We cool.” The clerk handed over his wal- cally with panic on his face. His eyes met and you’ve been through quite the ordeal. gated to get out and see what happened. his options. back slammed against the wooden frame. let. The man in all black took everything Robert’s, whose mouth was wide open in I’ll call some units in and we’ll review the He grabbed a coat he’d kept in the back “You gonna pick something homie or The pain made him drop to his knees and out, driver’s license, credit cards, even his horror of what he’d just seen. The gun- security tape. It’s going to be fine.” seat, pulled it over his head, and dashed are you just gonna keep talking to your- grasp his lower back. GameStop PowerUp Rewards card. Then man rushed towards Robert, grabbed him, Robert thanked him, then walked out out of his car door. The wind blew hard in self?” asked the cashier. “We ain’t lookin’ for trouble, man” the he threw the wallet at Robert, hitting him and stood him up. the door, and back to his car. The rain his face, then hard on his back. The rain “Sorry…I’m sorry, I just can’t decide. clerk said, a tone of panic in his voice. in the cheek. The robber raised his Glock “Listen to me, boy. You ain’t seen noth- fell harder than it had all night, and the made it hard to see, and he struggled to Which one’s cheaper?” Robert asked. “Empty your pockets, both of you, 9 in line with the clerk’s head. in’. This never happened,” the robber said wind continued to rock his Honda back walk through the uneven grass to get to “They’re both $2.50 bro, just pick some- right now,” the man in black said sharply, “Register, now,” he said calmly. as he pressed Robert up against the coun- and forth. As Robert drove away he re- the crash site. thing… you’re freaking me out.” yet calmly, as he waved his gun around, “Whoa…whoa…Yo…” the clerk said, ter. flected on what he’d just seen. The images When he finally reached the door, “They’re both $2.50? That’s so expen- first pointing at Robert, then at the clerk. still talking softly, taking short breaths. “What? You just shot someone!” Rob- were haunting him, and making him lose he knocked on the window. The door sive, how can you price something like “It’s all good man, just relax…we ain’t “Put that down, bro…we all good…I got ert stuttered. concentration on the road. He wondered opened, and inside sat the armed robber, this so high?” lookin’ for trouble…” the clerk replied. you. ” He moved his hands slowly to the “Shut up!” the gunman smacked Rob- about the clerk, and he wondered how a look of pain on his face. “Just the way it is bro. You wanna go “Hey, scrawny boy on the floor, empty cash register. “I’m opening it…see?... just ert across the face and pressed him even he was ever going to get over watching “Ah! Help,” he said. “Please…my gun buy candy somewhere else, be my guest, your pockets now! I ain’t playin’” the man calm down.” The clerk pressed some keys harder up against the counter, digging a man be shot. He approached the exit went off when I hit this tree, I can’t reach this is the only store for 21 miles. I price screamed at Robert, getting impatient. and the cash drawer popped open. The into his already bruised lower back. “You ramp leading back onto the interstate, but my phone, I need help!” my shit accordingly.” “I….I… OK” Robert said, trying to man in black took out an old yellow pil- ain’t seen nothin’! This never happened! when he got close he just couldn’t bring There was an obvious bullet wound in “That’s like stealing,” Robert said. “I sound calm. He slowly reached for his left low case from his black bag, and held it Say it with me, ‘I ain’t seen nothin.” himself to get back on the road. He was his leg. He was grabbing it, putting pres- only have $4.00 to spend. How much is side pocket, pulled out his wallet, grabbed open while the clerk scooped out all the “But…” Robert closed his eyes in fear. too shaken up to drive right now, and he sure on it, but it continued to bleed. He this Pepsi?” the $4.00 he had in the cash slot, and cash and coins, and dropped it in the sack. “But nothing!” The robber smacked understood this. He drove past the exit looked pale, but seemed coherent as he “$4.99. If you can’t afford it, I don’t handed it towards the armed robber. “Are we good now?” the clerk asked, him harder and continued to press him up and continued moving through the quiet begged Robert for help. care, that ain’t my problem. I make plenty “What the hell! Is this all you got? This catching his breath. “I gave all I have to against the counter. “Say it! ‘I ain’t seen rest stop town, with very few homes, very “Please…call an ambulance, I need one of money, so I can’t say I know how you is nothing! Are you serious?” give.” nothin’.” few businesses; pure emptiness. The wind now! I’m bleeding out!” feel.” “I don’t carry a lot of money around “We’re good,” the man said, with his “Alright, alright…I didn’t see any- blew the trees back and forth, side to side, Robert stood in the rain, with a dead “This isn’t fair.” Robert replied softly, with me.” Robert replied meekly. guard still up, eying the door. “You both thing!” Robert blurted out. “Just please, east to west, never deciding on a true di- stare fixed on the man’s bloodied leg. He but sternly. “Whatever, whatever. Credit cards, made this harder than it had to be.” let me go…I didn’t do anything.” rection. Robert’s mind continued to drift, didn’t know what to do, again. His arms “I ain’t in this business to bargain, bro. gift cards, pool pass, AARP card, every- “Hold on, man,” the clerk said, look- The gunman grunted, dropped Robert, uncontrollably, the night’s events on his holding the jacket above his head went If you don’t got money to pay, then leave thing you got.” He paused. Robert didn’t ing down. “I dropped some cash on the darted out the door, hopped in his car and mind. limp, as his mind raced with flashbacks of me in peace, and stop talking to yourself, move. ground. Let me get it.” The clerk paused, sped away. Robert was so panicked by As Robert drove deeper and deeper his previous encounter with this man. too. That shit’s weird.” “Now!” the robber fired back. reached under the counter for a few sec- the crook’s assault on him, that he hadn’t into nowhere, the rain fell harder, thun- “Please…! Please call help…please!” “Can’t you make any exceptions?” Rob- “They won’t do you much good, they’re onds, then completely dropped down be- noticed the clerk had stopped screaming. der claps alternated with large flashes of Suddenly, a rush of confidence fell over ert was feeling desperate, eying the candy. all maxed out,” Robert explained. hind the counter. He was passed out with his head on the lightning both up close and off in the dis- Robert. Now he was in control for the “I’ve been driving all night, I need to eat “Give me your wallet, kid, you’re start- “Whoa! Get back up here now!” the checkout counter. Robert, coming out of tance. It seemed to get darker and darker first time all night. He continued to stand, something.” ing to piss me off. I don’t got time for armed robber shouted, as he peered over his shock, grabbed his phone and dialed the further he went. deep in thought, soaked by the buckets “Not my issue, man. Just leave the this.” the edge of the counter. 911. “You ain’t seen nothin! You ain’t seen of rain being dumped on top of him. He store if you can’t pay.” Robert tossed the wallet to the man in Suddenly the clerk shot up from be- When the ambulance arrived, with nothin!” the voice of the armed robber broke the stare, and looked up at the man Robert didn’t object any longer. He all black and attempted to sit up. The pain hind the counter and punched the robber a cop car following, the clerk remained still rang in Robert’s ears. in all black. made his way back towards the refrig- in his back was tough to handle, so he square in the face, causing him to stumble passed out, and Robert sat against the Off in the distance, there was a red “I don’t see nothin’,” Robert said. erator and put the drink back. He walked eased back up and tried to stretch it out. back, disoriented. As a reflex, he blindly desk, with his hands covering his face, light, dim, barely visible. Robert increased “What? C’mon kid…Help me, please!” back towards the front approaching the “Who said you could stand up?” the fired his gun in the clerk’s direction. horrified at what he’d just seen. The para- his speed, curious to see the source of the “I don’t see nothin’.” door. As he walked, a car pulled up. It was robber belted. “Sit down!” He darted to- “Ah!” the clerk screamed. The bullet medics rushed in and strapped the clerk mysterious light. As he got closer, it be- “Ple-” Robert shut the door before the a broken down Chevy Impala, very old, wards Robert, and angrily shoved him hit in his left shoulder, just under the col- came clear that this red light was a brake wheels deflated, paint scratched, and the back down. “Don’t you ever move again… larbone. to a gurney. man could speak what would most likely left side headlight didn’t shine. A white you try anything I’ll pop your ass,” he “Oh shit...” the armed robber gasped. “We’ll take it from here sir,” the one in light, on the rear of what appeared to be his last words to another person. man dressed in all black, black coat, black barked at Robert. “Shit.” charge said to Robert. be a white car, but the make and model “No more.” Robert said to himself, as hat, black pants, black worn out boots, “Now you.” he looked at the clerk. “Ah! Ah!” The clerk was screaming The state trooper walked in a few min- were too tough to make out because of the he walked away from the broken down hopped out and darted towards the door. “Give me what you got, credit cards, debit and wailing in pain, gasping with every utes after the paramedics had left, with heavy rain. Robert drove closer, and saw Chevy Impala, breathing its last breaths He crashed through the glass door and cards, cash, anything else, give it up. Then breath. the clerk in the back of the ambulance. that this white vehicle was smashed dead on the side of the road to nowhere. pulled out a small handgun. He looked I want the register, all of it. Every quarter, Stepping backwards, the burglar Robert told him how the incident went center into a large tree, hood crumpled, Robert got back to his car, soaked, cold, straight at Robert who stopped dead in his nickel, and dime you got.” reached his hands to his head, momen- down. car totaled. He slowed as he drove up but too confident to shiver. He opened the tracks when the man burst in. “I got you man, I got you,” the clerk tarily thrown off by the gunshot, and still “Are you gonna be OK, kid?” the troop- alongside it and tried to look through the door, sat down, started the engine, and “Back up!” he yelled, shoving Robert said quietly, slowly. “Just put that gun reeling from the punch. Then, gathering er asked when Robert was finished. side window, but the weather was too bad drove away. back, and into the front counter. “You down…we all good…I ain’t lookin for himself he quickly holstered the gun in “I don’t know…” he replied shakily. and he was too far away to see through “No more.” ain’t goin’ nowhere.” trouble…neither is the kid down there. his waistband. He looked around franti- “Go home and get some rest; it’s late it. He was still shaken up, but felt obli-

8 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 9 Exit Signs Fears Moon Eyes After the Handshake Melody Xiao Georgia Cyriax Leah Gaush Emma Weiss Livingston, NJ Allendale, NJ Woodbridge, VA Upper Saddle River, NJ after Dorianne Laux I have a dream about my

She had two moon eyes 1. 3. dead grandfather. And only in the dark of night, Delicate frames of black holes He takes out his disjointed fingers I was afraid of everything: pretty and puts them in mine There are peacock feathers in the kitchen Inside your temple body, Buried deep and wise when the name slumbers on the ceiling above you girls, mean boys, the daily dinner and they form and the mirror’s broken in the bathroom. a monk walks over dusty marble two moist towelettes can you see your own face. dirtied from his frown. and bows before the idol in the cage. table bout of shouting, tears from Rich craters untold

You don’t know the friend who’s never sad, The Penned upon dark honey crisp Clouds too low, A cold hand brushes my shoulder Savored midnight coal air too slick, if there’s anybody left Wall in gym class, the mirror on grip too tight. as I walk by the open door. 6. He watches our besides him bad nights, and monstrous parasites hushed conversation I have ten pairs of shoes, Orbit through the mist between two and the dragon that probably only exist in click- of which I wear four. Of ancient cereal bowls naked, An open umbrella hangs curled up around the idol’s neck, bait articles. I was terrified that my Milking ideas shivering ring fingers. from a ladder in the garage. roaring. mom could sense when I have done Bidding goodbye, I have seventeen black pens, Cows jump overhead I head home and Perhaps they just don’t have a way out. things she won’t like, that maybe sleep with dragons of which I use three. Man in the moon, dyslexia, things were as bad as she thought, and their smelly ashes One of the dining room chairs Love’s aura is dead of forgotten lessons or that maybe they were much and proper demonstrations. pulls away from the table by itself. I have nine lives, 4. worse. I was afraid of becoming She pushes and pulls water All I do is think, of which I have wasted all. and A faucet is dripping lost and never found again, like a Tides of emotion taught her everyone else does it right. I open the drapes to let the sunlight in somewhere in the house, lone green sock in a pile of whit- and everything is okay. a quivering plink on metal, ish socks, travelling the whole of 7. a violin string on a brightly lit stage the universe without a pair. I was Elysium shivering and throwing rosin into the air, The plane is dropping from the sky. Mairead Kilgallon afraid of my arms, of the school, a young girl standing in the snow Bedford Hills, NY 2. which seemed to be a powerful, at a bus station, Everything shakes, easily offended authority figure, Is there anything left to find? It may be three in the morning I have been digging for seashells waiting for the one twenty-six to New York. rattling like frozen bones the bunnies living in my backyard, but your earphones still thread their way for so long that I have forgotten that are about to hit the ground their short lives made shorter by what flat, expansive sand around your arm and throat, and shatter. the cat who fell asleep on top of my looks like. I found aches 5. The safety demonstration in places that I never gave a blood vessels journeying towards feet each night. I was scared that A name. second thought, while those an iPod heart never warned you about this. I could be a millimeter away from same shells rest on my counter, In a moment of calm playing something you never listen to. death and not even realize it. I was my bedside table, my windowsill, A word you think that the lights on the floor afraid of being too sad, too gay, too my chandelier. I find beauty in A dog barks down the street, that holds a person in its swoops and dashes, small things, the whistle of are redundant. straight, too whatever, so I only a tolling bell in the London fog cradles a head on its knees, a cold wind that seems less so The walls tear outwards ever pretended to be happy, my now. I have been traveling and that has moved out of London. and whispers instructions like origami lotuses. smile stretching to the end of the discovering and seeking and And softly, sweet as honey Maybe this is what the shooting stars questioning for so long that I universe, past my lonely house, past have forgotten what peace feels ever so softly, into the listening ear. you once wished upon as a child my school, past the moon and mars, like. But then I find hope in your heart taps really were. into another dimension completely, the soft rustle of footsteps It dresses up as a gentleman on a snowy day, in the cathedrals against the ironwork of your ribs. and gives you a matching mask; a dimension where fear comes in And as the wind howls in made purely out of vowels and consonants it claims a romance, monster form, not in family or adorning shelves, in the ecstatic beauty to suck your screams splattered on canvas from the It is quiet. an obsessive possession, scars or friends trying so desperate- out of your mouth, splinters of fraying minds. This hopes leads and it calls the noose it loops around your neck ly to make up for the monsters that you fall into your bed. me to realize that I have not jewelry. they become them. forgotten peace. I have found it.

10 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 11 someone sinks into a couch after a they missed. It wasn’t late enough creeps. Especially with the way he as “Teddy’s big brother”, or “Luc’”, If I Had No Memory, I Would A Growing Concern long day. that they would’ve been too tired kept glancing over at Teddy. since Teddy adored that nickname. Say This Is Perfect Since I was stuck in the same po- from their last quest to stay awake “Hey mister,” I cleared my He wasn’t a stalker or a kidnapper Bethany Disanno sition that I had been sitting in for either. Teddy would sleep wherever throat, “do you need something?” I or something, was he? Was he? Dylan Winsick Saddle Brook, NJ the past few hours, I decided that he could, whenever he could. But turned my head to look him in the Maybe I was overreacting a little. Upper Saddle River, NJ I should entertain myself. It was everyone else? They could like weird eye, since that was currently the I could protect myself. I did learn Train rides were long. I always either that, or stare off into space, sleeping places like Teddy. Maybe. only body part I could move. some self-defenseand all, even if it which was a thing I had discovered Of course, if I was right, then the He smiled. It wasn’t a smile that was because Mom wanted me to be I sit inside, forgot that, especially just before my little brother Teddy and I actu- was way less fun than it looks like. man staring at us from across the I would call malicious or anything, able to protect Teddy. I wasn’t great trying to swallow water, ally had to ride one for a while. If you were going to rate it from aisle and a little to my left would’ve but it wasn’t genuine either. (Trust at it, but I had reached blue belt at looking for a reflection Which was why I only brought the one to ten on the fun scale, I’d give looked completely tired too. Unfor- me, I’ve seen a lot of genuine smiles least. it a -12. -12 because while it was tunately he wasn’t, since I could see from babysitting Teddy all the “Oh, okay. Cool.” I answered as of my face bouncing off my glass. essentials during today’s trip. If I had remembered how long the ride mind-numbingly boring, there were his burning stare in the corner of time.) His eyes didn’t crinkle all the I felt Teddy sink further into my There’s nothing there. was going to be, I would’ve packed a things that were definitely worse my eye. way, and his lips didn’t part into a arm. out there. I remembered that he had been grin. It was a smile that I usually “Are you not proud of him?” the Memories cloud my vision, little more. Like a book that I hadn’t already finished, or a notebook that Like being stuck in another world there since Teddy and I had shuf- saw on my aunts and uncles when man asked, glancing over at my I’m trapped. wasn’t completely full or something. with only an eight year old and a fled onto the train earlier this morn- Teddy started getting too energetic brother, “he is doing very well so goldfish to keep you company. That ing. He was a regular. I could tell. about something he liked. Like they far. I have heard from the others.” “Clean up your trash,” But, that nagging voice in my head had to point out, it’s not like you’d would rate a -20 on a good day and You learn to pick out the regulars were looking down on him for some I shrugged weakly. Teddy would I tell myself, be able to move with Teddy using a -100 on a bad one. But it’s not like and the newbies once you go on reason. fall face first into the goldfish bowl “everything’ll feel squeaky.” you as a pillow leaving you with I would know anything about that. these trains often enough. Regulars Shoot, his mouth opened, didn’t if I didn’t. “They’re just fetch Not at all. had a system. They knew which it? quests. It’s not a big deal. We’re She doesn’t believe it. his goldfish on your lap. Sure, my arm was beginning to go numb, but Anyway. seats they sat at and they knew the Quickly, I snapped back from really just looking for a way home.” She’s facing me, hey, the kid was asleep at least. He The first unusual thing that I ticket collectors well enough to chat drifting off into wondering if this A nauseous feeling began to pool in noticed in our train car was the qui- with them as they went down each guy was like one of my boring old my stomach when he kept staring raising her glass needed some rest after getting up who knows how many hours ago to etness. I mean, I didn’t expect it to row. They knew that no one would relatives and actually tried to catch at Teddy, like he was some sort of to me and say catch our stupid train anyway. Plus, be noisy or anything, but there was care if you took up more than one the last few words of his sentence. deity. Everyone in this world did, usually some sound in there. Like seat, since none of them bothered “…just observing…little light…” when they thought we weren’t “Cheers!” he looked pretty happy. As happy as a comatose, drooling eight year old teams going over their quest re- to use the baggage compartments What did he say? looking. I guess this guy didn’t my mouth refuses to move, can look I guess. So really, it was quirements in thinly veiled excite- anymore. Those things always got “Sorry, but I didn’t catch that,” I think I would notice. Or maybe he but she doesn’t care. just me who was suffering on the ment, or a couple playfully com- stuck, so if you needed to rush off said. didn’t care. I wasn’t sure which was plaining about their last mission the train after it stopped, you’d be Hearing this, he finally cracked a worse, if I was being honest. My She’s always believed in me, way. Everything was pretty much with the people in the seats next to better off keeping everything next smile. If you looked carefully, you stomach hurt either way. always reminding me normal then. them, or a group of friends cheering to you. Giggling and joking around would’ve noticed that he was miss- He frowned after hearing this. over their last adventure so loudly with the people next to you was ing a few teeth. “It is fine. I was just “He could be a proper hero for this I’m still tangible. With nothing to do and no one to do it with, I was stuck watching ev- that the conductor could hear them fine, so long as you didn’t bother the observing your brother’s progress, world. Why must you leave so She makes me want ery other poor soul that had ended way up in front. Teddy and I made ones who were napping between little light.” soon?” He sounded almost disap- noise on the train sometimes, since jobs. Being friendly and welcoming “Um…” I started to speak, but I pointed, like when an adult is about to stay strong up on our train car that day too. Even though only people on quests the kid could warm up to strangers to the newbies was always encour- paused to think, staring down at to go preaching about your “full po- and be proud of who I am. like us were allowed on, there sure like he’d known them for his entire aged, so they wouldn’t be scared out Teddy’s goldfish instead. “That’s tential” when you don’t do as well I don’t want to forget. were a lot of occupied seats. The life. of their pants. The regular riders not my name, mister.” as you should. But today, I could barely hear always made the train fun. Seeing His grin grew wider, if that was “I’m not.” I deadpanned, “We I want to sit section that we had settled into was fairly full. It wasn’t packed a whisper coming from the rows one of them as we plopped into our even possible. “Your name, Lucas, have to go home.” right in this chair exactly, otherwise Teddy and I around us, even from the regulars usual seat always made Teddy’s it means light. You are the little “Why?” He reminded me of that we had become friendly with face light up like Christmas had light.” My gaze whipped up to meet Teddy when he was learning some- to celebrate. wouldn’t have been able to dump some books on the fold-out table coming and going before. It was come early, and gave me a warm, his. How the heck did he- Wait? thing new. To smell New York’s toxicity without getting dirty looks. Still, like all of the energy that was usu- familiar feeling in my chest. Like He was a regular on the train right? I froze. Why wouldn’t we want ally bursting out and about was I was back home, even though we So he was bound to have heard my to go back? This was home he was To live with the trash it was full enough before to keep one of us from spreading out on the sucked up. Which was weird, since hadn’t made any progress getting name sometime, right? It’s not like I talking about here. Home, with on the world’s muddled surface. seats, which was partly the reason it wasn’t the early morning any- back to our own world yet. just went around shouting my name Mom and Dad and our house and why my little brother was currently more. Not too many people would I liked the regulars. everywhere though. Teddy was the everything. “Because,” I huffed, sinking into my arm the same way still be catching up on the sleep Just not that one. He gave me the social one. Most people knew me “we have to.”

12 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 13 “That is not a proper explana- “Shut up!” will be well prepared for the jour- tion.” He was just as stubborn as I must have shouted, since the ney ahead.” He began to make his Keepsake Teddy too. lazy quiet of the train car suddenly way down the aisle to the end of the Daisies Maitreyi Rajaram Isabelle Kulick “…It’s our home. We’ve gotta go snapped. Anyone who wasn’t train car, his voice getting further Dayton, NJ Upper Saddle River, NJ back.” I knew that the second that absorbed in their own business was and further away with each step. we ended up here. So why didn’t I definitely alert then. I could feel “I’m sure we’ll meet again. Good I wanted to call Tom before his recital, though I imagined sound more sure of myself? everyone’s eyes on me, burning into luck, little light.” he would probably be in church now, humming Jacob’s Ladder The sky is prowling “Do you wish to take him away my skull. It was almost like they “Hey wait a minute!” along with the other dreary-eyed, slouching men in tight pews, from us? From his calling?” I heard wished to say something, but they That man, whoever he was, was or maybe watching the quick curls of the small children’s dresses underneath a cake of that stuff before. I never got the were shocked into silence. The gone before my question could as they rotate with daisies around the gossiping women, yet pearly fog. full story, but people in this world stillness in the air was suffocating. even pop into my head. Stuck in regardless I know he is pressing her face indefinitely to his aging memory, seemed to think Teddy was a hero Earlier, I might’ve been glad that the quiet again, I could clearly hear fingers still laced in the yellow petals crinkling across pages of his Bible. or something. I still don’t know the pain in my stomach stopped, Teddy groan and move his head where they got that idea from. I but now I would’ve been happy back into a comfy spot. The two He’s never been particularly religious, but sometimes A pearl pierces flesh, didn’t want to know. Teddy was feeling anything besides the trem- of us probably had another hour or the stiff collar of his Sunday shirt dampens around the edge, Teddy, and that’s all he needed to bling in my hands and the twisting two until we finally could get off, I near his silver hair, when he brings his mother along, drooping a wrinkly ear. be. thought. More time sitting around knot in my stomach. knowing he must recite the prayers with a newfound fervor - I shifted in my seat, the weird When I looked up, I saw that doing nothing. usually concealed in the streaming digits of her health bills feeling getting stronger and stron- the man wasn’t fazed at all. Heck, At least I had something to think that rest in sags beneath his eyes. The ear begins to bleed, heating the pruned skin. ger. “I guess. I guess I do.” he looked….pleased. Proud, even. about. “This world needs him, Lucas,” “You’ve got more spunk than I From her bedroom, I can now make out the soft linens The pearl becomes too heavy, he explained, “Why are you being heard.” planted in patterns of rectangular suits and yanking against the old hole. so selfish?” “Shut up.” I whispered, hold- curves of long skirts. The fresh smelling lavender, Porcelain cotton wisps from the old department store’s freshener, Selfish? ing onto the goldfish bowl for dear “I am?” life. Mom would’ve lectured me Ellie Zupancic float amongst the tropical conditioner in her damp hair.

“Of course. Do you think your if she was around. We were never Le Claire, IA Numbness breaks the heat, brother wants to go back? When allowed to tell an adult to shut up The room is her garden, and the ripened fruit that dangles he can be a hero here?” By now, I once. Twice was enough to get lace kissing skin from strands of her curls unfold their roots in the and she drops the earring to the ceramic floor. had noticed that his grin had turned me killed. But I don’t think I re- and lace in your hands, creases of stained business suits. into a smirk. “Have you even asked ally cared then. “Teddy’s eight. He i imagine your whirring breaths His boss was surprised in the confidence he proudly wore him?” shouldn’t hafta be a hero or save the Her heart falls into her stomach “Well…I…” I couldn’t remember world. He should be a kid. It’s not are comets streaking the sky. when he asked for the day off, though it is unmatched if I ever brought it up. Going home fair he’s gotta grow up so fast.” your chest rises and sets like to the exuberance of the priest when the ripples of Tom’s bowstrings as the earring glistens on the tiles on his fourth grade violin had finally danced to “Amazing Grace”, was what you’re supposed to do, “You are speaking from experi- the sun, rises and sets like the echoing in the still chambers of her heavy bones, like a glass vase, shattered. right? When you leave home, you ence.” He wasn’t asking, I noticed. metronome have to go back sometime, right? It sounded more like he was saying and through the roof of her lead lungs.

I was sure of that, but what about a fact. to which i inversely breathe. He likes to remember that his mother told him Teddy? What was his choice? “…I Before I could say anything, the you etch my skin into marble he was born as gold as the daisies that grew Her mother’s voice sounds didn’t.” train screeched to a stop, making like porcelain china, between the cracks of the sidewalks on their front lawn, Hearing this, the man leaned back our luggage look like jumping beans with the wind. though his aunts would call it jaundice. into his seat. “I thought so. You’re streaks of blue for a few seconds. the one that wants to leave. Is there to match the timbre of your The man sighed, almost like he The steam iron mimics the low hiss from the crowd something wrong with this world to didn’t want to leave. “This is my voice. on another Saturday Night Live, and her full lips The fog shatters you? Are things too different here stop.” He stretched before shuffling vibrations of honeyed words form the crowns of petals as she watches for you? Do you dislike being only to get his bag next to him. “I apolo- dancing across my surface. sun- tired bags fill the corners of her eyes – her late mother’s earring. a hero’s brother?” His smirk grew gize for upsetting you. I was curious they all seem to match a sigh. wider, “Are you afraid that’s all about you two. Making you shed ­streaks smooth your spine; She longs for Spring. you’ll ever be? Stuck in the shadows those tears was never my inten- winking and humming Lately, she’s been sinking in her bottle of daily pills, never noticed, never praised while tion.” and kissing you farewell, in medicine drawers lined up across the living room, you watch the one you’ve given up Was that why my eyes felt wet? and he can’t seem to find a way out of the just as i do. everything for prospers? Are you He continued, “You care a lot plastic tubes stemming from her pale lips.

jeal-” about your brother. Good. You both

14 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 15

Ambidexterity May crashed down onto me, and I im- Cup of Tea I forgot to bring my sax to my first mediately tightened my mouth, Danielle DeVries Alan Lin sax lesson. In my defense, I didn’t bringing the note up into tune like Johnson, NY Warren, NJ even know it was my first sax the cart of a roller coaster reaching September lesson. My previous lesson with the peak of a hill. And unlike that Reeds were wetted, ligatures jazz band director Mr. T had been roller coaster cart, it could only go were tightened, and doors were exclusively on clarinet. But still, I up from here. opened. I gingerly stepped past the felt pretty dopey as Mr. T fumbled moderator into the audition room, through the back closet of the band September three judges’ backs staring back at room for a backup sax, backup I vaulted out the door of the gray me. Poised behind the lone music mouthpiece, backup reed, and so Honda SUV I had carpooled to on. Fully suited up, I placed the stand in the repurposed classroom, my high school in and prepared cumbersome, large reed onto the my muscle memory kicked in. to gun it to the band room. Audi- mouthpiece, tightened the neck Flurries of semi-confident notes tion results were out. After push- strap, and brought the strange ing past crowds of upperclassmen creeped out of the horn of my alto instrument to my lips for the first sax: scales, jazz etudes, improvisa- and actually entering the school, I time. was already out of breath. Pretty tion, and the like. A sigh escaped I blew into the mouthpiece with embarrassing, considering all the me as the mouthpiece dropped a smidgen of force, drawing no cross-country training I’ve en- from my lips. Whispering a quick response from the horn. Anx- dured, or at least tried to. How- “thank you,” to the moderator, I iously, I applied more and more ever, before I could make my final scurried out of the classroom, into pressure into the instrument. A sprint, I heard a voice calling out the bathroom, and vomited into single sound finally escaped its my name. one of the open stalls. Well, not bell: a squeak. My eyes widened “Alan, Alan!” called the myste- quite, but that was what my brain as if I was caught in the plot twist rious voice, “You made Chame- wanted to do after that blunder- of a cliché horror movie. The leon!” ridden audition. mouthpiece dropped from my lips. The voice belonged to friend I had never intended to learn the A sigh escaped me. Mr. T placed a and fellow auditionee Tyler, who alto sax. It had always appeared reassuring hand on the back of my had made Chameleon himself to be a heavy, unwieldy lump of shoulder. on his trusty trumpet. My body “Loosen your embouchure. instrument to me. I myself much responded with a monotonous Think of a round tone. Try again,” preferred the intricate silver keys “wow, cool,” as I was running on he told me like a swinging reincar- and subtle, African Blackwood five hours of sleep and no coffee. nation of Mr. Miyagi. I gave him curves of the clarinet. Unlike the My brain, however, shed tears of a small nod and turned back to the alto sax’s awkward plastic pads, joy. Loud tears. horn. my fingers molded over the clari- The past five months have been “OK,” I thought to myself, net’s engraved holes with ease, comprised of transition after tran- “Loose. Think loose thoughts. pleas tipping my tongue. She leaves the sink with dye like an NBA player swooshing sition: from the straightforward The Night My Sister Left Baggy pants. Solids and/or gases classes of middle school to the Alexandra Paul The shutters sway on their smearing the eggshell coun- in a foul shot. But, when you get that don’t have surface tension, rigor of high school, from the pure, Dover, MA hinges and her suitcase is tertop. The door clicks shut, accepted into a school with a jazz unlike liquids.” band as fantabulous as NA’s, you Once again, I blew into the straight tone of the clarinet to the She dyes her hair first. at the door with the zip- and I listen to the leaky got to do as the Romans do. The mouthpiece, this time with a raw power and vigorous vibrato of Ink spills down her blonde per jammed halfway. She faucet. The drops engorge, clarinet was an accessory instru- the alto sax, from the technicality rounded embouchure and a round- curls, hesitating at the tips. wrings her hair and washes drinking from the mouth of ment in the jazz band. I had to ed mindset. of classical music to the freedom play some other instrument to be A shallow cry escaped from the of expression found only in jazz, I watch her in the mirror her hands. Her callouses the faucet, then they fall. able to join. I was learning alto sax end of the instrument, more in from the known to the unknown; from the bathroom floor, are stained steel blue now. Drop. Drop. Drop. Stay. to play clarinet. tune to the note directly below it And yet, I’m ready for more.

16 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 17 Confessions of a rate at which my heart was beat- back. I was overcome as panic pany and fearing it are two very Social Phobic ing. The lights were dim, and welled up inside me, and I made different things. I try to busy The Orchestra Alexandra Franchino the air, thick with laughter, was a last ditch effort to save myself myself until it is time to sleep, making it near impossible to the imminent embarrassment. but even then I am haunted by Victoria Laboz Livingston, NJ hear anything else. The surfaces My mouth opened and out came the prospect of tomorrow. I slip New York, NY We are hidden all over. Seek- of tables, and even some couch- an incoherent squeak, mimick- deeply into a fit of worry, in- I walked to the beat that monotonously pulsated ing shelter in the quiet places, es, were completely submerged ing the sound a mouse might tense and persistent. Sleep is and pounded in-a-de-quate in my ear drums. the insignificant places. At the in a sea of red plastic cups. From make upon the realization that it not my friend. It melts the days local pond, we sit at the fur- The guitar strummed hope on a high and less on my strategic position in the cor- has caught the eye of a house cat. into one another, and as soon as thest bench from the entryway, a low. The pianoforte trilled mis-er-y in a glissando ner of the room, I prayed I would my eyes flutter to a close, they the one fully engulfed in shade. downwards. The trombone bellowed pain in a legato. remain disguised. I watched as will just as quickly reopen, join- In class, we can be found in the And the cello howled numb, reverberating against girls confidently strode past ing the dread a new day holds. back corner, vigorously retracing the walls of my hollow mind. me, choosing any boy they liked Dragging myself through the I spend all of my time mak- our notes to appear too busy to and finding their way to them. treacherous school hallways, I ing excuses to avoid the simple be called on. We are those who But the musicians lost themselves in the sound of They batted their long, mascara- avoid eye contact with the fac- things. Why go to the library for stutter at the cash register, those the doleful music that emanated from their drenched eyelashes, intertwined es swimming past me, wearing the book I’ve been dying to read who write the correct answer on instruments. Fingers bleeding and eyes bloodshot, feet, and ran manicured pointer their expectations like chains when I won’t be able to ask the the page but refrain from raising the sticks beat holes into the drums, the guitar fingers down the legs of their around my ankles. God forbid librarian for guidance in finding our hand to share it, those who strings wore and tore, the pianoforte trilled out of tune, prey. Quizzically, I observed anyone tries to be polite and it? Why go to the mall to shop stare at the telephone for an hour the trombone squealed with friction, and the cello their methods, taking notes in greet me with a smile; I start to when I can just do it online? bow shred. The orchestra continued on with its before gaining the nerve to pick my head and growing even more ramble to myself as sweat drop- Why keep a journal of poems lost staccato rhythm and chaotic melody. I snapped it up and make a call. We hide convinced of the fact that this lets begin to form on my neck. locked in my nightstand drawer my baton in two, but there was no stopping the noise. behind memorized food orders was not where I belonged. I made What if my voice catches? What if when I will never allow anyone imprinted on our tongues as we my way across the room, leaving it comes out sounding weak? What to read them? Waking up each sit in the same restaurants, nev- my comfortable corner for an in- if they can tell I am weak? What day with such a compelling fear er needing to glance at the menu. Graveyard Tongue creasing sense of vulnerability. if it wasn’t me they were speaking of life, it is hard to see the beau- We hide inside ourselves, the Victoria Laboz Searching the many faces for my to? What if I respond and they don’t ty in living. shell that is our body, built to New York, NY friend, hoping to fake a sudden hear me? What if they choose not And yet, I do. I see how this shield us from the outside. We My tongue is a graveyard illness and make my swift get- to? My breathing quickens as I fear is simply a disguise for my buried deep with the bones of unspoken thoughts live beneath the radar, where our away, I became a target. A boy try to resist the pair of invisible ferocious desire to live. I see that sprawl out like the snapping branches of a tree in the dead of winter, only goal is to be absolutely un- or my shivering veins underneath my thin blanket of skin, had placed himself between the hands tightening its grip around how much I want my life. So remarkable to the point where an irrigation system of sorrow. door and me, resting against the my throat. I live for my walks badly it seems, that it is with ev- we go unnoticed, bathing in se- counter, blocking my path and home. My hollow footsteps are ery bone in this tired body that I open my mouth to speak clusion. Invisibility is quite the and the bones begin to rattle and the ground begins to shake. appearing to have no intention the background music to the I wouldn’t consider trading any art, and we have become masters A gust of wind kicks at the soiled memories and swooshes out of moving. Meeting my eyes for silence that soothes my heart. of it: the trembling hands, rac- as I howl at the bare sky barren of life. of it. So if you are trying to find half a second before they quick- Finally free of the day’s obliga- ing heart, and shortened breaths. My own echo is the only response in this blackout of a world. us, good luck. You’re going to My howl recedes back into myself as I realize ly found the floor, he started to tions. But each step is greeted Because how could you be this need it. that my graveyard tongue is the most spirited place that remains. make conversation. Racking my with an impending loneliness. terrified of losing everything,

brain for a response to his abrupt Each step reminds me how close without first possessing an un- It unravels into a path like a scroll accounting the past. My nails dig deep into their stepping-stone names interest in me, I felt my cheeks I am to spending the remainder deniable, all-consuming love for and I leave a trail of paw prints in my wake. flame, as each word climbing up of the day in my room. Being everything. I dig, excavating the bones and crunching my sharp teeth into them, The raging music’s slow my throat with the hope of es- alone is not a choice; it is a vital sucking my own marrow thoughts dry and burying the hollow bones thumping was no match for the as I dismantle my graveyard tongue. caping my mouth was swallowed survival tactic. Disliking com-

18 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 19 Book leaning up against the steering But now reading time is consumed the universe—because relating life word ‘long’ at the end—that’s a sistency in our days. Seventeen Laps wheel, we read it together as I gig- with talking time because a mo- to space gives a measure of worthi- word picture.” It is time to get back to work Kristen Martucci gled at the triangle and oval-shaped ment’s rest must stay productive. ness. “Obligations would be a little She had not realized this, and nei- which I do not want to do; I would Pennington, NJ people. The silence that filled my Now I know that age for us has bit less of an obligation if everyone ther had I until recently—I could rather find time to read again—Zen mouth in between the words I care- been talking all along—the atten- kept perspective,” we agree. We not interpret these things at age & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, She would let me sit on her lap fully composed felt natural. My tiveness of my voice in pronounc- would like to follow our own phi- three, I could only feel the shape of The Opposite of Loneliness, This in the front seat of our car, parked Mom and I enjoyed not talking as ing a new word and year-by-year losophy. the words between my teeth, and Side of Paradise, The Elegance of the outside of Starbucks at Mercer much as we did. She wanted me catching onto the intricacies unique Like a sugar rush, it comes crum- that was enough. Hedgehog. “We are going to read Mall. She would tell me in jest or to learn and to know words.It did to English. bling down all at once. By lap sev- At that moment, I did not know this year, Mama, and talk about the in subtle caution (I could not tell at not come easier to me than my sib- So, we take walks. Morning, en, we are done for this part of the what Daniel and Lauren were do- books like we used to,” I say. But age three) that Mercer Mall had a lings; I just happened to spend a night, mostly around our backyard. day; conversation winds back down ing, and I would talk with them we are both busy and talking will high crime rate but the Starbucks larger portion of my childhood lis- I find it hard placing purpose on and enough deep thinking tides us later. Only being part of this ex- just have to do for the moment— was good so we would continue to tening and observing. Reading was walking if I am not at home, where over until our second round in the change in words weighed by senti- one day, after it feels like the fu- go. She would say, “Climb up here my preferred source of meaningful all the relevance of our most recent evening. “Oh, I found a heads-up ment was significant. ture is in our hands, and the pres- Peanut, and we’ll read a Bob Book.” interaction. I loved learning new pasts is stored. penny on the way to the Chapel Eventually, our conversation ent does not include business, those Before dropping Daniel and Lau- words and knowing the way they Lap one is “get to know you this this morning; I put it in our little comes full-circle: talking to her is books will still be waiting. ren off at Princeton Junior School, held so much more than a word. Our morning. What has been going on chest,” my Mom said. “Hopefully, one of the most pleasant ways to And when I am too tired to work, we had listened, on audiobook, to time together was short yet long- today?” Even though we have both it will bring good luck,” I respond. end my day. But, like reading when I will go downstairs and watch the Dicey’s Song, most words of which I lasting. been at home since we got home to- The day drags on until lap eight, I was younger, there is no way to eleven o’clock news on CNN with knew but meaning I could not com- By the time we picked-up Dan- gether. I am tired because I always when it has started again: “Hey, end a story, a conversation—I have her; it is nice to hear someone else prehend. In the car ride as a pre- iel and Lauren, I knew that reading am, and she is awake and well be- I have a lot of work yet to do but learned that an “okay” and a pat on talk. She is going through a bunch reading exercise, I would ask her to would be independent and her at- cause “every day is a new day.” My I haven’t done it yet because I’ve the back will do. of old things, and says, “Remem- give me spelling tests, too, and to tention would be split. I was fine voice is the sound of my eyes when been too busy doing pretty much Lap seventeen may or may not ber this? Maybe we could give it be a harsh grader, not to grade me with that, content just to think and I first wake up—foreign to the light nothing, which I don’t really regret have existed. It was insignificant, away,” holding up Bob Books Set 1: easily just because I was the young- snack on a tiny sandwich. Abso- and being used again so soon. because it was great.” A little less and sixteen was close enough, but Beginning Readers. That past is no est. I felt most included through lutely no crust, I would think. Tri- Lap two should be louder but we formal than morning because fret- my Mom and I like to consider that longer so recent. I remember it, connections with words, and I was angles, always, just like the Bob walk too fast for early in the morn- fulness turns casual when there is seventeen means something—the and I am not upset, but I am sad quite proud that I could spell “kin- Book figures. Four in first grade, ing, and I should exercise more. some sort of end near. We set off number of years I have been alive, because I know that at one point I dergarten” and “punctuation” by and two in second. If my parents I listen at first. I do not have at a brisker pace, which, unfortu- the months that had passed before I would have been. kindergarten. cut my tuna sandwiches into rect- much to say when I have not been nately for my friends, dictates how first said ‘I love you’—just for con- With their usual bout of morning angles or squares, or ever left a up for hours like she has. “Dad fast I walk at school. To this day, crankiness, my siblings slammed trace of brown on our white, fam- has been breathing down my neck I have never been able to walk in a the car door, upset at Mom for ily-sized bread, my stomach would to call the insurance company, and straight line, and I cut her off con- Like July making them go to school when refuse their mistake and allow no make sure the eye doctor bill is paid, sistently, just like when I speak. Jessica Wang so, I’m going, ‘Okay, well, I’ve had My brain scatters with each step they did not want to. Tough lot. chance of redemption. Madison, WI “You’re my last hope, little K,” I was too young to realize that five hours of sleep, and I have to tu- until new thoughts arise because Mom said, patting me on the back Bob Books ­did not graduate me to a tor and make you and Daniel some- talking can do that to me: we will watch before with humor in her eyes. “Daniel higher level of reading, and I was thing to eat,’ it’s like ‘Oh Mom has “Have you ever thought about the pearls of purple we fade plop too and Lauren have already turned also too young to realize that, as all the time in the world, she just word pictures—can you see them? fire from into pockets mean.” Grown up some—that I grew, speaking began to carry has nothing better to do,”’ she tells The ones in Latin, for example, weeping air of light me. I give my answer to this story where the words ‘snout’ and ‘ex- is what I think she meant; I was much more significance. And I listen to the boom find the young and attached and listened to thought my Mom then was also I know well, peaceful in knowing tended’ are placed at opposite ends of exploding roof her, because I was serious. I silent- young because we read the same we can talk about more at my age: of the lines of text to represent the stars to feel and the murmurs the thrum of bodies ly etched my Mom’s words into my level together—I did not know “Do what makes you happy,” I say. dog’s extended snout in the simile floating through fog falling so close mouth—but not to be repeated—as what age really was. She laughs, “…if only,” as we finish of the dog chasing the hare in the another three laps. story of Daphne and Apollo. We wait for promise I extended my little hand, return- Reading with her was big to me the dotted to leave the pink ing the pat less noticeably. then because it seemed infinite. It But, by lap six, I am hard to keep can’t do that in English, but it’s ink pansies I climbed into her lap seated on was fulfilling, and relaxing, and quiet as we talk about everything worth knowing; it’s like writing to paint our pain for white, and let’s please on night mirrors avoid the cliché. the driver’s side, and with my Bob time passed a little more freely. under the growing sun—or under a run-on sentence and placing the

20 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 21 wonder if he could feel the pain like we can. a moving object will stay moving and arrows Eternal Return How do you explain something until an external force acts upon it to keep away the monsters under the bed Maitreyi Rajaram pickle Sometimes I think that my math teacher moves in circles. that kills you? Melody Xiao i do wonder until i realized Dayton, NJ He drinks black in tall porcelain mugs, the thick spools Livingston, NJ what Sarah Minchin exactly there are no monsters sliding like tar along the edges of his lips and dampened Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ 1. made my mind start moving more real My single best shot was a cappuccino. as you grow up overlapping rings wetting the edges of stacks of paper. in the first place than the ones It was warm by the counter, and the Sometimes I sit awake at you begin to realize some things we become He tells us that we are growing up too fast. I do not feel old night wondering about how 6. steam from the machine spun dizzily the world works. 2. and I do not feel young, though I do feel both simultaneously. happiness 9. across the room, sticky summer heat pickle the teddy bear is more of a burden to be hoisted around its eleven at night He is recurrence: in his sets of ties, and hourly breaks, As cheesy and pathetic as it stood sentinel at the head of your bed upon aging joints and weary shoulders and im writing this and striped shorts, and swinging ponytails, sounds, it's true. I lie there incessant cycles of coffee and weekly grading with since the days you still sucked than it is a it felt like Christmas and cocoa and jumpers. There looking at the ceiling think- on a pacifier relief even though red pen highlighting the sides of his hands; I am ing about my life, reviewing was a line past the pastriesand I waited behind and critiquing it. my math homework isnt done Kennedy’s bullet, Tolstoy’s revolution, and the coffee shop. you believed the smiles that hang upon our lips my tea is half drunk a Mets Baseball Cap with a slender blonde occasionally that he could fight the dragons are weights my brother is crying for a companion Flashing memories come up, that came to burn your castle down that drag the rest of our faces down i dont want to go to bed fondling his waist. I watched a fly dance over the like when a word triggers a There used to be a Buddhist monk on the side of the in your dreams and a lackadaisical happiness baguettes. Mets Baseball Cap was turning on his thought. I see my grandma's is better than a real one there may be angels at the four corners subway platform by my street, who sat cross-legged, old house. I see her healthy. and maybe even now there may be lambs crossing fields tablet and asking the arm attached to his waist about I see her smile. A real smile. with waxy pupils shifting under heavy eyelids and you have trouble believing 7. there may be numbers in red the free wifi, and ordering a whole wheat muffin with Then I see her getting older, that pickle big words like blue bare feet pressing against the cold, callous bricks. putting the “for sale” sign in doesnt actually do that ANTEDILUVIAN yellow his debit card. I held Tolstoy in large print in my right hand, the front of her soon-to-be From the street, his thin image folded in between and and changed my name for the fumbling barista that stood old house. I see her moving 3. FECUND but January’s snowfall and the creases on his palms into a smaller house. I see my i was five seem to be necessities with a baffled smile and a Sharpie grasped in his left hand. brother and I sleeping on the reminded me of the dulled pages of newspapers, the first time i remember scraping for our future success cypresses root between the trenches of my chest floor of her living room, and I my knee on the poppies bloom in place of my eyes the unclassifieds lying open against my warm morning see myself climbing into bed pavement what do they even mean and a single white rose sways My wifi password’s twenty digits long, with her when I got scared. cup, as I try to comprehend another string of weary on my way to in the breeze of my breath. a slur of unconnected letters and numbers I see my brother, and I wake school a guignol headlines and distant names. It is then that I remember up smelling bacon and pan- that my dad can shout from the file folders is probably what you I only pray with my eyes open. cakes in the shapes of stars. mommy gave me a drink on the holidays under the cable box if you want it, and I can kiss on hoping others find you to be

pull a twenty from a pair of jeans in the Then it goes blank. the forehead sophisticated Early Mornings I saw Mets Baseball Cap on the C line last week. before putting a band before you find yourself Abigail Walker laundry hamper if I haven’t used it on books Now, the part I don't hardly aid on staring at the inside of a plastic bag He got in two cars down and I felt the side of my ear Marblehead, MA for my English class yet this week, because I ever want to remember. the bloody patch heat up at his lopsided stare. I allowed myself a small and nugatory Shampoo sheds the smell of imitation really love to read old classics at midnight sitting in the I see my mom come in my but the older you may be the word that describes glance; he was carrying two long duffel bags across his lavender, a bitter kind that’ll give a headache, corridor of faint light next to the humming fridge in my room and tell me “Grandma get the more your friend shoulder, wrinkled brown paper bag- probably a muffin - in has cancer.” wounds a kiss and a pushing you towards the one it catches on an eyelash, falls limp, oversized sweaters, developing my irregular eating habits, I see myself lying on the word cant fix who makes your heart wills the suds on to eyes his left, and a mocha with a green sleeve in his right. He ground crying asking God dance inside the oversized jail cell lengthy verses and uncensored thighs. that have grown familiar with the stinging-- raised an eyebrow. As the subway began to move, out of all the stars in the sky because no of your ribcage why dull the brightest one? words are going to fix with looks that tell you my mind was pulsing with the sour extremities of caffeine, I drank an Espresso at three yesterday and puked the bloodless fracture inside your if the flowers die instead of bloom for my habit of showering in the dark and the rhythmic intersecting tracks, cars lurching My grandma is a strong mind she wont be there before I missed the bus. I doubled over and heaved woman. And cancer has and is hereditary, on either side like gunshots. If he was also thinking about streams of milky brown and thought of skipping my still is taking a toll on her. I 4. and a lacuna has rolled off the broad shoulders cappuccinos and old baguettes and muffins and can hear my mom in the back a dog sounds like the azure glass of big-legged women whose brittle first class because my stomach was lighting flames of my head saying, “I thought is not of a bay in the caribbean islands baristas with green caps and generic nametags and the hair is crisp like the dried out across my chest and burning holes in my brain. we lost her.” prone to ever so slowly lifting veil of steam around the checkered tables, and if the kinds tearing at the chains of shell of a tangerine It is difficult to write my English paper when I see my grandma losing hair. of thoughts dirt and stone and their paunchy faces swallow we are connected by steel wire and glass door and tired I see her with no hair. And we are to meet its brother heavy pools of cream slide along the edges of our cheekbones, any definition we reflections of tight suits and pencil skirts and stained sleeves see her sitting on my aunt's maybe on the other side my throat, and all I can think of is my history teacher couch at Christmas opening because were allotted. But my and twenty seven three-digit avenues, then maybe: replaying the assassination of Kennedy until I can see a a gift my brother gave her, it does 8. spongy stomach -- skin, pale a knitted blue hat he made. not care pickle silhouette of his upturned face under my eyelids. The kids in I see her put it on her cold at all was once the keeper of dreams like soap, drives us I will always be in two places at once. my class cover their eyes but I can’t stop staring as the head. I see her cold smile turn to undress 5. warm, just like her head did. i gave him swords in blackness bullet skims his jaw, and ricochets off his skull, and I always newtons law of inertia states that and knives a still object will stay still and

22 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 23 “Hurry up.” angle, fold it, and put it back on the Chopsticks table.

Evelyn Ho Every other pair of chopsticks sits on Aunt Helen’s Livingston, NJ the restaurant’s china plates, or is laid Leandena Dankese My grandpa sits on a metal chair that on the plain white tablecloth, which is My grandma sits in her black rocking Lexington, MA has no back and crumples up his nap- now stained with soy sauce from din- chair, reading the Chinese newspaper, kin, placing it in front of me. He sees ner. The smell of wine and beer from her worn pink slippers on the floor in that I can’t eat fish balls without pok- ten or fifteen mouths is stronger than front of her. I lean back in my chair and Today I will go to Aunt Helen’s, the smell of tofu and rice noodles and look out the window from the dining ing one chopstick through them to get that clean white house in the woods. them to my mouth. He puts his right batter fried fish, which no longer steam table, my feet on the ground, my elbows on the table. The top of the tree is too hand in front of me, using his left hand in the air in front of me. The storm will have cleared first to slide one chopstick between the “Eat more—you’re too skinny,” Aunt high up to see, but it still does not bear tip of his thumb and third finger, then Margaret tells me. She puts chicken many leaves—the side of the tree facing and the sun will come out. to slide the other between his thumb in my bowl, along with one of the the building is mostly bark. and fourth finger. He picks up the nap- Styrofoam-like chips that are really The fat,white noodles are submerged kin with the sticks, puts it back down, only there for show. I hear Uncle John in the soup in my bowl. My siblings and picks it up again. I watch, my chin laugh—maybe too loudly—from across fool around on the couch, having just I’ll throw my wet coat aside barely clearing the table surface. My the room, and Aunt Nancy plays with eaten. As they shove each other, laugh- five year old mind is in awe. her newborn granddaughter, bouncing ing, my four year old cousin sits on a cold from the battering wind. her up and down on a knee and pinch- raised chair between me and our grand- It takes many more fish balls before My boots left by the door I pick one up, unscathed, un-punctured. ing her cheeks. pa with a smaller bowl of noodles in I eat it through a smile, and he laughs, Christmas lights blink near the en- front of her. Brigette knows how to use so that my tired feet may rest. taking one for himself. trance of the restaurant, distracting a fork, but my grandparents have chop- customers from the drab, grayish-green sticks out. My grandpa tries to teach her And Aunt Helen will take this tired pilgrim tree underneath. The lights in the res- with the wooden chopsticks they have, taurant reflect off the window. When and I hold mine out to demonstrate. in her arms so perhaps The streetlight burns orange out- I look outside, I can only see colorful She gets frustrated, letting out a small, side—one in a city of thousands. shopping bags floating past in the night. dramatic sigh that she no doubt learned she may relieve me from my tiresome journey. I listen to my cousin Christine ask from watching so many kids’ cartoons Through the window I see the pointy Side by side we will sit on the screen porch top of a scraggly tree that barely meets my sister about school. The tips of on TV. My grandma gets out a fork. the windowsill. I am last. Every other my sneakers brush against the bristly, and it that moment it will seem like eternity. pair of chopsticks is on the green and red carpet. I add some soy sauce to the white tablecloth, and the water in my noodles in my bowl, mixing everything California Dream cup trembles as my dad paces back and with the tan plastic chopsticks from forth in front of the TV, speaking in the restaurant. A few seats to my right, Katherine Brown Today I will go to Aunt Helen’s rapid Cantonese with my grandma. my mom whispers to my grandma, Woodbridge, VA I sit on a chair wrapped in the plastic who smiles. My brother and sister run where the weather is fine around with a younger cousin between We stumbled through a Californian dream, scratching packaging it came in (my grandma our way over stucco roofs, the Crayola blue sky and no longer does the cold plague me. likes to keep things “new”), my feet the three or four tables our family has a shaky median between the ocean and a smokescreen reserved at the back of the restaurant. dangling off the edge, my legs too short of dry atmosphere posing as heaven. Her garden will be ripe with vegetables and fruit to reach the ground. I pick at the rice in Almost every seat is filled; my dad sits my bowl. Difficult to put in my mouth at my left, and my less-familiar rela- Your hands slipped from mine at the boardwalk, the lilies in full bloom now. when it was hot, it is now cold and hard tives are at the next table. The golden my mouth gritty with sand and dirty promises, to swallow. dragon and jeweled phoenix look on, the kind that were hard to swallow-- Where food will be bountiful I feel the heat of voices rising in vol- hanging from the wall, watching, as pulpy Sangritas, sharp with alcohol. ume; both my dad and his mom think they would in any Chinese restaurant and I will finally be full. we go to. I lost you to California, to the very thought We’re Not in Kansas Anymore they know more than the other. Eat of blurry west coasts you created when you faster, before they notice. I try, and gag. I spin the Lazy Suzy in the center of Vivian Holland Where all the shirts are pressed and starched, the table to pour myself more Sprite. were a teenager, your hands sticky with paint They go into the back room. I scoop and disappointment. Tenafly, NJ where the linens are heavenly soft myself more eggs. My grandpa turns The Coca-Cola sits there, still sealed, on the TV from his leather chair in the as the foam in my glass dissipates to Before I had even gotten to you, in undergrad, so I may finally find some peaceful rest. corner, asking me why I eat so slowly, reveal the clear, carbonated sugar water you were spiraling with this dream, your skin and I cannot answer. It’s not just be- underneath. (According to my mom, vibrating with its guarantee of sun, cause I don’t speak Cantonese, and he caffeine from Coke will make all the thick with yellow verandas and paper parasols. doesn’t know English. children hyper, including me.) I have And side by side we will rest to sit forward to put the soda back in And maybe I’ll go on, stand out on ledges of My dad comes back into the main rock and cold, frothy water, remember you room of the apartment, exasperation the center, and my red napkin falls off on her screen porch the table into my lap. My dad picks it as my skin reddens, peeling like citrus. twisting his face as he listens to my I’ll set you in the water, give you the amnesty watching the lilies in full bloom. grandma try to talk to him from the up, handing it to me and saying with to breathe in the sea brine, to inhale the smog, other room. He sees my chopsticks, a slight smile, “We’ll be leaving soon. without me. still in my small hands, and says, Finish your food.” I open up the napkin into a red rect-

24 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 25 as she got off and slammed the door after what seemed like the blink of slopes. I could conquer the trail shut. Ice Cold Reality an eye, the looming mountains of again, even if I didn’t have my Ride The whole time, Marlie looked out- “Can I call you later?” Caroline Benedetti Massanutten Ski Resort cast shad- poles. I was wrong. Dongeun Kim side the window. She pictured a girl “You can try,” she said. “Wait, ows across my face. The window, I made it down a third of the Milton, MA Midlothian, VA smoking a pack of Virginia Slims on Jake. Do you happen to have any ciga- fogged with my breath, allowed slope before I lost any thought of the highway curb. Cigarette butts scat- rettes?” Marlie grinned as he tossed her I have an addiction. I’m addict- mere glimpses of the snowy slopes, control. Trees started to blur, and Marlie woke to the feeling of be- tered her feet, glowing red. Suddenly a pack and a lighter. “You’re the real ing stared at. She opened her eyes and the trails that would be broken up I started desperately trying to cut Jake clutched her leg and told her she deal.” She stuffed the valuables into ed to the rush of air, the bite of saw a brown cat glaring at her from a by my brand new skis. across the snow, fighting the icy was shaking. her bra and walked into the hospital. the cold, the thrill of slicing snow shelf. She got up and shooed it away. “Look at you. You’re a mess.” She saw the receptionist banging her beneath my skis. Every year, as We spent all morning on blues, grip of the mountain. Any thought Her house was full of cats and fish and Marlie eyed him closely and gen- head in the air with her earphones on, the autumn months begin to fall with a few greens sprinkled in, of escape seemed to melt away as smelled like rotting salt. The phone tly pushed him away. “You have to go just like the Jesus bobble head that used away, I sit, biting my fingernails, getting our stiff legs loose. Final- I was yanked left. Towards the started ringing in the living room. now.” to be in her parents’ car. That was two waiting for the first snowflakes to ly, it was time. Rachel and I skied moguls. Suddenly, I was tossed, “Hello?” “Why?” years ago. Marlie tried to slip past the dress the naked ski mountains. down the short trail, which took thrown from hand to hand, like a “It’s Jake.” “I have to go see my dad.” front desk unnoticed. I started skiing when I was six us to the hardest section of the child juggling a ball. , My whole “I don’t know a Jake.” “I thought he was dead.” “I may be crazy but I’m not stu- “Everyone knows a Jake.” mountain– black diamonds. We body seemed to disappear beneath “I lied.” pid.” The receptionist took out her ear- years old. The pizza-cutting, little “Well I don’t.” skied for a bit, taking on all the the snow for years at a time before “Do you want a ride?” phones and sighed. pink puffball that I was fell in love “We met yesterday at the party.” “Sure.” Marlie groaned. “Penny, there’s lit- with the sport immediately. I re- challenges that we were confront- peeking back up, barely grabbing a Marlie remembered Jake but she erally no one here.” member first conquering the easy ed with. As we rode up the ski lift, breath as I again dove below the sea didn’t say anything. “Rules are rules, kiddo,” she said, greens, as I proudly bragged to Rachel and I joked the entire way of snow. I was terrified. Worried “Are you alone?” They walked in silence, and Marlie passing Marlie a form to fill in and a my parents about how well I was up, making small conversation that this was the end. I thought I thought that their dark shadows rip- waiting number. “Is he doing any bet- doing. Then came the blues. Al- and talking about the condition of would never get to say goodbye. pling over the pavement looked like ter?” though terrifyingly steep at first, the snow. But I got lucky. Instead of im- Jake was wearing glasses and an cloaks. Marlie raised one eyebrow and orange T-shirt, the kind street ped- “I noticed the last one had mo- “What kind of car is that?” grabbed an apple from the front desk. I soon began to crave the speed paling myself on a branch in the dlers sold to tourists in Times Square. guls on the left. We should prob- woods, my ski got caught on the “A beautiful kind. She’s a 1980 “Sure, if you consider being dead as do- that came with the medium level It said, “New York Dolls - Made in Chevrolet Silverado.” Jake turned on ing better” She bit into the apple and slope. Soon, after hard work, and ably avoid those,” Rachel said snow, and I suddenly saw white. I Queens.” the radio to a rap station. There was left. many ski trips later, I made the absent-mindedly. I nodded, but was tumbling down the hill, phone “Hell girl, what’s that smell?” He no static this time, just breeze, air, and leap. I finally convinced myself to I was barely listening, as I was discarded, both skis strewn about frowned, and white wrinkles sunk into beats. attempt a dreaded black diamond. formulating a plan in my head. I on the mountain. When I finally his forehead like lines of cocaine. He Marlie searched for the girl as they Marlie’s phone started ringing in As I cut the snow, swooshing didn’t have a GoPro, but I was go- halted to a stop, I lay there for a walked into the apartment, swatting entered the highway, but all she saw front of the elevator. It was her mother. across the mountain, an addiction ing to film the mountain as Rachel moment, staring at the sky, barely the air in front of him. “Is this some were plastic bags and crushed Coke She picked up but didn’t say anything. kind of zoo?” and I rushed down it. cans. She dangled her hand outside “Marlie?” started forming. Year after year, I aware of the throbbing in my head Marlie laughed. “Cats and fish.” “Would you hold my poles for and the now melted snow drip- the window and watched it surf to the “What.” kept coming back, taking another “The only good cats are dead cats,” rhythm of the road. They passed by a “Open the door.” dose of the icy air. My time spent me?” I asked. “I want to use my ping down my back. A ski patrol said Jake. “Why so many, though?” priest supervising construction work- “I’m not home.” skiing grew, and so did my confi- phone to film our ride down the stopped, worried about me, and I “I’m pet-sitting this summer.” ers painting over a wall of graffiti. “Well then how am I supposed to dence. I began racing down slopes mountain.” Rachel nodded her finally stood up, limbs groaning, Jake nodded slowly and started tak- They soaked red onto roller brush, and get inside?” faster and faster, seemingly with head, a grin filling her frozen face. to hike back up to retrieve all that ing off his shirt. “Where are your par- with each stroke, the wall lost color. Marlie didn’t respond. She studied no control. The video would show the world I had lost: My skis, my glove, my ents?” “Where to?” her reflection on the elevator. It split “Dead.” The winter of my seventh grade our skills, how we slid down the phone, my confidence. “Take a left and go straight until into two as the doors slid open. Jake looked at her for the first time. mountain with ease. you see West Florida Hospital.” “Marlie?” year, I heard the news. The mom I did end up patching myself up “Charming.” At the top of mountain, I ner- and I still continue to ski, but the “That’s where you’re going?” “What.” of my best friend, Rachel, was Marlie felt the swelling of heat “Yup.” “What’s wrong with you?” planning a ski trip with a few vously handed over my poles, fall that day unearthed an ice-cold overtake her body. She watched as Jake “Is he sick?” “I’m just tired.” other girls. Immediately, I start- worrying about handing over my reality. Gone was the idea that I tossed away his shirt and sat down on “Shh... don’t ask so many ques- “Says everybody. Tired of what?” ed piling my suitcase high with a main source of comfort and con- could conquer any slope easily. the couch. He was staring at her. The tions,” she mumbled. She turned the “Paying attention.” helmet, gloves, goggles, sweaters, trol. Rachel noticed my slight Gone was the hidden reckless- sound on the radio switched between radio off and listened to the sweet socks. I was ready for my next shakes, smiled slightly, and I in- ness of speed. Replacing them was static and soft punk rock. She knew sound of nothings. And for a moment, what he had come for and she figured dose. The day of the trip crept stantly reassured myself. I had a stomach constantly edged with that’s all the world was: nothing. The elevator doors opened on the that this was her big chance, in a way. skied my entire life. I had grabbed fifth floor and she saw a few patients closer and closer. My stomach be- worry that I could tumble again, She didn’t want to go to college as a the bull by the horns before, and and, this time, I would not be so and their visitors strolling in the hall- gan to fill with anticipation. Soon virgin. She wanted people to think she “Thanks for the ride,” said Marlie way. She stuffed her cellphone into her I was piling into Rachel’s car, and quelled the rebellion of the icy lucky. was mean.

26 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 27 pocket and walked to her father’s ward. ie was sitting on and stole her cigarette. Suddenly it occurred to Marlie that “I don’t know, there must be some- She quickly yanked opened the door. She smiled, and then she smoked real her mother might slap her. Or even kill thing wrong with you.” It was a habit. She had a feeling that smooth, like a criminal. her. Soft words rolled off his tongue and this time she might catch her dad out Marlie frowned. “Rude,” she said. “Stop visiting him.” into her ears. Marlie closed her eyes. of bed. She couldn’t explain it. She was “Hasn’t cancer ruined you enough?” “Okay.” She liked it when he spoke. His voice wrong. “Yeah, but it clearly hasn’t ruined “I said stop!” calmed down all the voices in her head. Marlie made herself comfortable enough of me.” Her mother fell off the bench, and on the bed across from her father and Marlie laughed. “Yeah, clearly,” she Marlie ran. She ran into the streets and fumbled for her cigarettes. Up until last said, imitating the girl’s voice. “What’s stopped when a strange Hispanic man Marlie jumped out of the bed and week, they had been sharing the room your name?” fluttered towards her. He was trying to splashed into a puddle shimmering with a lung cancer patient. He died. “Kat,” she said, still smoking. sell a baby. Strange words started pour- with an oil rainbow. She watched Jake She lit one up and started smoking. As “Hey, Kat—” ing out of his mouth as if there were drive away. A few feet away from her, she laid there, she thought about what “You think smoking is cool, do a torrent of woe, of red, of insanity in she saw a familiar brown cat stretched exactly it was that she liked about ciga- you?” Kat spoke slowly and quietly. him that would never stop. From a dis- out on the pavement. She picked it up rettes. She liked the first bite—it tasted Marlie looked at Kat. She didn’t say tance, Marlie saw two joggers approach and looked up to her apartment floor. black. She liked the white smoke—it anything. the street. She couldn’t see their faces Jake must have opened the window was her kind of art, fume art, so deli- “Do you think that this,” said Kat, but their skin was sunlight. They dis- that morning and not have bothered cate and free. Suddenly, it occurred rubbing her bald head, “and this,” flash- appeared. The man leaned over her, and to close it. She was surprised that the to her that smoke never sinks when it ing a stitched scar that cut above where his round, bald head covered the sun. cat lived through the three-story jump. dies; it floats. her right breast should have been, “is He looked like an eclipse. He breathed She was surprised that it hadn’t fled. cool?” Her breath started coming in heavily. She stood calmly. They both short gasps and her body started trem- waited for something to happen. He “Psst, hey, care to share?” bling. roared and pushed her onto the ground. Marlie fed all the cats and fish and Marlie shot up and looked across the “Kat, listen to—” The baby’s wails started to sound like turned on the radio. She never even room. A girl about her age was smiling “You want your father to die, do sirens. Marlie clasped onto her dress listened to what the people were say- at her, ghostly in a hospital gown that you? You ungrateful little bitch.” Kat and murmured, “Don’t, don’t....” ing, it was just the sound of their voices was too big for her skinny bones. She started screaming into Marlie’s face that she liked. It was her way of treat- was nearly bald and had blue eyes, but and wouldn’t stop. The nurses heard ing loneliness. the flesh surrounding them was pink. the noise from the hallway and came The floor shook and Marlie woke “Marlie?” Dark creases carved under them and rushing in, and Marlie just stood there up. Her face was wet but she was fly- Someone was knocking on the door sunk, trapped into her skin. watching her scream, writhing to break ing. No. She was in a truck bed, but and ringing the bell. “Please?” The girl giggled and out of their grips. she still felt as if she were flying. She “Marlie.” closed the door behind her. “I promise “I’m so sorry.” Marlie whispered silently watched the world smudge It was her mother. She hurried to I won’t tell.” into her hand. She grabbed her stuff into one color. Marlie peered into the the door and looked through the peep- “It’ll kill you.” and was gone. back window and smiled. It was Jake. hole. The girl sighed. “Well, then I would The car began to slow down as it ap- “I can hear the radio, Marlie. Come have finally managed to die after prac- proached her apartment. Marlie lis- on and open the door.” ticing for twenty years.” Marlie walked out of the hospital tened to Jake park the car. He walked Marlie couldn’t hear a trace of Marlie watched closely as the girl and into a playground. It smelled like to the back of the truck where she was. drunkenness in her voice. Her mother If Winter Comes Can Spring Be Far Behind? tiptoed over to her father. water. The swings and seesaws stood They looked at each other closely. could sink in lakes of liquor, it seemed, Simran Malhotra “Is he dead?” motionless and abandoned, the slides “Really nice truck,” said Marlie fi- and float up to the surface as dry as a Millburn, NJ Marlie laughed. “I wish. He’s in were empty, and the sandbox was wet nally. cardboard, flattened. Marlie watched a coma. Been laying there for over a with yesterday’s rain. She walked to Jake nodded and climbed into the as her mother held out her arms, wait- year, now. A real human vegetable.” the benches and saw her mother. She bed next to her. “It was my dad’s first ing for her to open the door and fill Marlie watched as the smoke she ex- was holding a Foster’s beer bottle with one.” them. But she didn’t. She sunk to the haled escaped out the window like rib- her fingertips. She let it go and it broke. Marlie pulled the lighter and pack of floor with her back against the door bons of silk. “I knew you would come here,” her cigarettes out of her bra. Jake laughed. and listened. She listened to the curses “You think he’s going to wake up?” mother mumbled. She smiled and lit one up. She saw the and the rattling door knob. She lis- “Hope not. My mom’s selling the “What?” light illuminate his face, and for a sec- tened to her body bruising from the house so he won’t have anywhere to Her mother began to roll over. She ond, he looked very sad to her. He nod- kicks against the door. She listened to go.” tried to stand up, and her feet smeared ded again and took the cigarette. His the quiet. She listened to the sound of “Then what are you going to do beer across rainbows of chalk art. body curled into a giant Z, like the way footsteps and wondered what exactly with him?” Swirls of colors muddled and puddled. she used to sleep as a child. She asked it was that made the sound of arriving “I don’t know.” “I’m going home,” Marlie said what was wrong with him. footsteps sound different from leaving The girl walked up to the bed Marl- slowly. “Nothing. What do you mean?” ones. “You are going nowhere.”

28 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 29 decided whether or not you feel the summer we pretty but also has decided whether Nature Skin or not you are accepted into soci- were free History of Bathing Jenna Lebovitz Emily Kirshner Emma Gallagher ety. Letitia Chan Allendale, NJ I have pale Skin. I cannot tan in Why do we give Skin so much Rye, NY Milton, MA It’s that strange time of the year when the sun, and I have freckles every- power? Why is what’s on the sur- I lean out the window and it’s already dark where. I’m always the person at the face more important than what’s seven at night and black swallows me up When my mother broke her arm I bathed her the weather can’t seem to make up her mind. beach with 70+ SPF, while all of my on the inside? I long for the day stars here at home are small and scarce when Skin is no longer omnipo- like an only daughter. What surprised me On the calendar it’s fall, friends are lying out getting darker and darker by the minute. I look at tent. When humans finally strip I remember the nights but some days it still feels like spring when they filled up the sky like the freckles on my arms and legs was the lack of grace in it, her low voice photos of my mom and my grand- Skin of its power, and it does not mother and my aunt, all with dark, create unequal barriers between and I was so dizzy with the most pure exhilaration of instruction and of something so long and others like winter, I was certain I would pass out sun-kissed complexions and my equal people. Skin is only as power- like mood swings, stilled as though it had made sense of itself cousins with soft bronze Skin with ful as we make it, and the day we the phone connection crackles and gives out again like the way anxiety causes your breath not a freckle in sight. Then, there’s decide to stop paying attention, it and I am left in the black alone before it happened, and I saw where I inherited with nothing but the same grainy polaroids to change instantaneously, me. will cease to be anything more than and they don’t even come near the truth of what they show my body, two small breasts, isles of moles I am the only one in my family what it is. from slow to a pace you can’t control. who cannot get a tan. My mom I am more than the color of my and oiled marks, the stitches on her stomach of dark water rushing fast underneath me Today it feels like winter, thinks I’m insane, when every topic Skin.“Pale” is not the only adjec- drowning in sweaters and salt and laughter from which I must have emerged. of conversation always ends up back radio and freedom and purple sky all I know tive that describes me. I am more fog hugs the dry, hard ground to my Casper the Ghost-esque com- than what I look like, and so are There was no frail like a winged thing, of sleepless nights and never getting tired and I am wrapped in a blanket plexion. I hate that I cannot get tan, you. worn out converse pounding the pavement no god offering to say aloud, no poetry and that has made me hate my Skin. motels and hair dye and scary movies of icy, brisk air, I hate that I spend so much time yellow lights cast upon empty streets to make of it. Nothing to allow for breathing, that masks your arms and legs in goosebumps, worrying about my Skin, and I feel the future can’t touch us woman in her states of losing and staying, crazy that this is the extent of my Little things and turns your cheeks a pale pink. worries. My relationship with my of fiery sparks uncontainable as you and I Katharine Boyajian spilling and wonder and dissolve. The sky is a gloomy, pale, pastel gray Skin has caused me so much trouble inked flowers on the envelopes of letters sent from home Upper Saddle River, NJ that we resent each other. I blame secrets and stories that I only told you And still, her put together so differently and several light, thin clouds hang low, sprinting in the middle of the night my Skin for all of my insecurities. It Living in the real world means breaking the rules just to feel the blood I can hardly believe I am made from the same almost kissing the frozen ground. has become such a problem that all a broken fog light and scratched paint. coursing through our veins at the speed of light I seem to talk about anymore is my rib and skin, she from my grandmother, Today it feels like winter, It means your Mother has to skip her PTA soft mountains melt into deep sky Skin and its color. Then I start to and my flannel still smells like smoke there are no birds chirping, meeting to fix the problems you stir up. reminds me of you and all of our friends and my grandmother from a mother before her, think is this all I am? An empty, no sky gently painted shallow person only worried about Living in the real world means buying a shirt washed so many times it is faded, my Skin? and I’m back on the phone half priced valentine’s day chocolate for I laugh as you tell me about your week in blue watercolors, Throughout history, Skin has made more of wash than white and then, your friend, the kind with gummy caramel and your hockey team been wreaking havoc for people all and the song you found that I need to listen to so far later on, my own children, their washing, no vibrant lilac or purple flowers. and orange crème filling, and I tell you about the book I just read over the world. Skin has caused It’s almost a ghost town, everything’s dark and hazy. wars and violence.Skin has in- after that kid with the crimson sneakers said and what happened at the football game last weekend followed by the unwash, disintegration, trace “I can’t” to prom. and we talk about who we like But this is nature to me. troduced segregation and racism. and moving to the city this distance between cleansing and cleansed, Skin has allowed one person to I love the smell of the cold air, Living in the real world means seeing the and what we want to do with our lives perhaps an imprinting from inside. take another as a slave. Skin has dead cat on your lawn, and the feeling of the dark and pale grays in the sky, caused so much trouble as long as I blink and my clock has gone from ten to two humans could write that the color salted tears, when the police officer tells you to get there’s nothing I can do to stop and the stillness. a trash bag . the words you say of our Skin is not just a fact but a from winding away in the hushed breeze The stillness is ever occurring, culture, a personality, and a trait. Living in the real world means hearing your and it kills me every time you call almost another form of silence. Skin can make you a criminal. that I can’t capture the fleeting minutes like fireflies little sister walk down the stairs in high heels. Skin can make you rich, poor, or glowing in my hand Connecting us a thief. Skin has caused people to “we are going to be late,” until I let them fly free but no kiss goodbye. to the plants, literally wear their stereotype on their sleeve, but why? I breathe in the autumn air animals, Why has society let the color of hear the crinkly laughter over the phone lean out the window our Skin define who we are? Living in the real world means, staying and ourselves. look up and drink in the night sky Even I, a white girl from Con- up until midnight to see your favorite star, as the breeze that caresses my face It is everywhere, necticut, not at all a part of the only to realize the sky is nothing but bloated hushes on by. we are the stillness. minority, have let the color of my black space.

Skin define who I am. Skin has

30 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 31 ground, one further underground like in den. The grey lights give the filthy car a Mother Knows, Father the Capitol. They would build it deeper metallic sterility. It reminds me of the for protection against attacks. But Dora cliché hospital morgue ―so cold, so unfeel- Tells had heard about the underground there, ing. My skin rises at the cold, seeking out Leandena Dankese where the escalators took so long to reach the heat beside me, but I stay still. the bottom that people satdown on them. The lights flicker again, soon they will Lexington, MA There was no reception there either, and burn out. Energy —electricity, has better It was the 13th of May, and a miser- it seemed to be more of a tomb than trans- use and down below —so deep and dark able May it was, since the April show- portation. down below— no one needs it. No one ers did not indeed bring May flowers but The shaking soon became increasingly cares. rather more May showers. The grey skies violent until out of the pitch dark tunnel We stare straight ahead, side by side, loomed over the city as sharp wind and the train thrust forward just as it seemed like perfect soldiers. My eyes drift up to heavy rain cut through the streets. The that the whole building would collapse the posters staring down at us. A wom- city laid in silence on this miserable day, from the tremors. an, bending happily over the floor with the only sign of life the blinking red lights Martin rushed in as the doors opened. her head bowed, smiling in contentment crowning the monoliths. Most everyone The great, big blue eyes of a woman at the floor. I wonder how it must feel, had gone home long ago, and little kiosks watched her from the poster above the rail, clad in a dress and heels, as she polishes lined up along the street announced the smiling down at all. MOTHER KNOWS her floor, circle after circle. Do her hands curfew: ALL STUDENTS MUST BE AC- BEST. The posters were plastered all over smell like polish? Are they rough and COUNTED FOR BY 8:30. the old tiles and brick walls of the tunnel. coarse or soft like I imagine her hair to A plastic bag fluttered its way uptown MOTHER KNOWS BEST and FATHER be? Her perfect hair, coiffed in curls with as Dora Martin attempted to run down IS ALWAYS RIGHT. not a strand out of place, an angelic halo the stairs and into the metropolitan un- crowning her as the pinnacle achievement derground. It was a tedious task with an of society. CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO ill-fitting school dress that rode up higher The trains ran on time today. I had to GODLINESS are proudly displayed un- on her with each step. The boy standing run down the stairs to catch mine. The der her —the only thing that ever will be. with his mother at the auto-ticket glanced tunnels are abandoned again. No one on The faceless man, whose torso and her over once and then twice and then the stairs, no one at the gates, or at the below we only ever see, stands behind again. platform. It was completely abandoned her with his arms crossed. I wonder, do “Daniel, you do realize that it’s rude to until the upper level by the auto-ticket. they use the same model for him as the stare.” She attempted to chastise him be- Two gossiping housewives stood there, one next to him? The moving graphic fore looking over to the girl. “Well, boys one with a brat. I almost pity them. constantly showing the sad specimen of will be boys.” She sighed smiling at the They’re as trapped as rats. a male. So small and skimpy he seems to woman in line next to her. And then there was a cop three blocks belong more to his mother’s womb that “Well at least you know the he’s not down near the fruit stand on the corner of this world. The mockery of his small You Knit Me Together like that,” she mollified the mother in a the jeweler’s district. It was a fruit stand frame shudders as he attempts to push Kayley Goertzen hushed whisper. at least. I remember going to the market open the pharmacy doors. The pills —the And over the rails where the cars depart with my family members, buying whole- sports, the work, the strength that follows Wheaton, IL there hung a moving graphic that was far sale from the vendors. The mix of lan- those white little tablets— until at last the too large for indoor display. The screen guages flowing between tentpoles, carts shadow of a boy is chased out from him remembering stories of her home the tender care she gave me torn and pitted with my entire life. swayed ever so slightly back and forth as running against the cobblestone, and cop as a titan replaces it. The grabbing that Home the tunnels trembled with a happy wom- cars would sometimes go by chasing on follows as the girl who mocked him, who Jack Li burnt-out apartments and rusty My nanny Ms. Aida won’t return an and man standing side by side at the the highway just past us. During the sum- rejected him, submits happily to his grab- pale pools of crimson She is longing for the rustic cherry blossoms altar on it. TO PROTECT ALL THAT mer months when the sky was clear and bing, greedy hands. Mendes co,. MALE Los Angeles, CA Her brothers and sisters and betrothed shot down, and azaleas beckoning in some bomb-proof nook. IS RIGHT AND SACRED, the wording blue, you could see planes going overhead, MUSCLE SUPPLEMENTS. MAKE HER For weeks my nanny lost, one by one in the civil strife She carried her suitcase flashed as the graphic repeated itself. the commercial kind that were freelance. YOURS! flashes proudly before my eyes. Ms. Aida coughed and slept in pain “The next train will be arriving short- The city was loud with the honking of Oh how nice it must be to be a boy. Ms. Aida opened her suitcase - across oceans, wars, and memories, her only ly.” The automated voice announced. It horns, the chattering and smiling people, The metro scrambles onward towards she refused to spend any more on medicine; dowry all her life - cancer had emptied her coffers inside lay her ancestral wedding gown was an unneeded announcement though the wailing of sirens chasing through the the homestretch. I glance over to my stroked, for the last time Some peoples’ lives are in others’ eyes and more for courtesy than informing. city, and plane engines sputtering over- right, twisting and contorting my body She wanted to return home, a disaster, sadness You see, this city was constructed as head. The city is forever trapped under a to see the mother plastered above us. Se- the smooth dragon and phoenix where all her family were buried The sun, moon, and the faint glowing stars but Ms. Aida knows her purpose - sturdy as a paper model. The metropoli- cloud of oppressive silence now. cretly I steal a look at her. Her lips are the embracing beneath the ground She will trudge for miles to her old village tan was very old, the oldest in the country There is a girl sitting next to me in the color of spring hyacinth with small pink And flying white horses... perhaps. And since it was old it had the abandoned car. It is safer to be alone to- buds. Do her lips feel as soft as a flower’s She took a flaky Ibuprofen, she knows that soon gether. We sit side by side with our legs petal? My heart races faster as I imagine fingering the pale white tablet In its lace hummed the warmth of the her brothers and sisters will find her unfortunate conundrum of being more of ancient bodies of her ancestors. a prototype than a working model. The drawn together and heads bowed. We those very lips parts gently in a kiss. before swallowing it And her beloved will once again street acted as the roof, and even in the are tortoises attempting to withdraw fur- Before this, I could test my hypothesis. with lukewarm water. *** take Aida into his arms newer buildings people on the fifth floor ther into our invisible shells. There is no A few glances and choice words, a rebuff

*** This morning: She will don her wedding gown, and and below could feeling the shaking and sound but the screeching and halting of or an invitation, and in the emptiness of I helped Ms. Aida into the car he will gently pull her away vibration of the passing trains. metal against metal as the great beast spi- the night an answer would be found. I re- Last night, from the ruins of home - Of course Dora Martin rather preferred rals further down into its lair. The lights member before, in the crook of a school she cried leaving for a flight that costs a little under Aida will leave her suitcase behind. it this way. The city had been discussing flicker back and forth sometimes, but they hallway or the crevice of the metropolitan plans for a newer metropolitan under- are no Atlas, so unequipped for their bur- underground. Before, when no one asked

32 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 33 and no one told and there were only whis- then, a pair of slim spectacles bal- “W-why,” she began, “why can’t pers and looks to guide us. ancing on his nose. you just grow them in labs? The MOTHER KNOWS BEST. Elemental “Copper.” elements? Why are we the soil in The lights go out and we are left in A Winter Note from Greylock Joni Keaton He shook her hand firmly but which they must grow? Isn’t it an complete darkness now. There are no Pierce Gidez Rockville, MD said nothing else. He busied him- awfully big hassle for nothing?” shouts of surprise or groans of complaint. Oradell, NJ The only surprise is that they held out self with the instruments in the Chuckling to himself, the doc- that long. The blending from fall to winter is the most nostalgic time of year. “Copper 69874.” room, arranging several metal ob- tor turned back towards her. It was Gently, something brushes past me. The moody oranges and tonal reds twisting themselves from their perches The nurse stood in the doorway, jects on a counter and checking the apparent that her question amused The girl must be shifting in her seat. She And cascading down towards the muddled pool of browns and greens. patiently gazing around at those readings on a machine before com- him, and he seemed to be mulling is older than me, but there is no ‘husband’ As the night tugs at both ends of the day, and the rolling winds toss the leaves across the landscape, who sat in the room. Her eyes ing back over to her. over how best to answer this brash with her. Not quite a girl but not a woman their color fades. seemed to be reading who they “I am going to give you a numb- girl. yet. By the first twinkling of winter, the color has all but drained from the leaves and returned back to were, what they were made of. ing shot to eliminate any pain you “Where do you live, Copper?” The workers’ lights briefly flash bright the earth for a long winter’s nap — Copper stood up slowly and walked might feel. There will be no anes- “The Pennsylvania countryside. light into our car. They’re always doing carefully toward her, her eyes shift- thesia, so you will have the chance Near Blue Bell.” Copper struggled something down here. It’s one large net- Or so that is the story that, like the leaves, passed down from those above to those below. ing nervously down, right, down to see inside yourself, to see what to keep her voice even, trying to work of never ending uncompleted proj- again. She looked back, her mother your contribution to society is. I ignore the strange smile creeping ects. I wonder if they’re building nuclear Wandering through the virgin wintry scape that legend nags at the strings of my memory. fallout shelters in here. Somewhere, I The story goes that when all the color has gone, and the earth is still and quiet, the spirits above cry. nodding approval, and identified am obliged to say that you are now over the doctor’s face. think the news said in the east, there is a Their falling tears chill as they get closer to the ground and become snowflakes. herself to the nurse. She was led an official member of it.” “Not such a place exists as coun- new threat arising. We’ve gone this long Once the mountains and valleys are blanketed in delicate sheets of snow, color can come. down several winding hallways, With that she felt a sharp pinch try, my dear. Call it what you without killing each other in international They say that white is the first color. the walls all bleach-white and the in her left arm, and then imme- want. But it is all concrete. All bar- conflict; I wonder why they think it will lights too harsh. They turned a fi- diately felt nothing. The doctor ren. That’s why we’re where we happen now. I wish there was war though. As a child, the first snow was a sacred event. nal corner and stopped in front of made her lie down on the table in are today, why you have such an A real war with fighting. They’d need In a single breath, time rested its relentless pursuit forward, and watched a room. the middle of the room, and in a artificial organ with such artificial nurses then, and I could volunteer. After As the first timid snowflakes fluttered down to the ground. “Please wait inside. Doctor K few swift movements with a scal- things in it.” all, don’t they say ‘A WOMAN’S CARE will be in shortly.” pel had the layers of skin covering “But now, I won’t let your ques- DOES THE TRICK!’? Maybe I would get The purity of their simple white contrasted to the terrific storm of colors in the sky. There was nothing gray about that first snowfall — With that, Copper was left alone. her abdomen peeled back. It was tion linger. One word answers it shelled or shot there. Some action at least. This was her first harvest, and her difficult to see looking down her entirely: corruption. The process The light disappears again, and we are In each snowflake a piece of the sun lit up the ground left alone in the dark. The car jolts, and In the sky above, the brilliant reds and pinks full of fire tumbled into the gentle blues: nerves were on edge as she exam- chin, but she could just make out of collecting the elements is, as you the girl is pushed against me and into my An abstract reflection of the deepest reality painted across the largest canvas in the universe. ined the items in the room. On one the small terrarium inside of her. say, tedious, but safe. Safe from lap. She steadies herself but says no apol- side there was a large poster ex- It was nestled where other less vi- manipulation, safe from people ogy. Her hands shift against my thigh, The further the days plunged themselves into the nights, the more could be seen. plaining the history of the Elemen- tal organs had been, her appendix, willing to risk humanity to sate a and I freeze. I knew that there were feel- To the eyes of a child, the vastness of the delicate scape felt scared and alone. tal System. It proclaimed the salva- spleen, and a section of her small materialistic desire. You see, we’re ers on the underground but I never came Yet it was in those remote moments of light that the stirrings of life lifted themselves from their tion it offered, how the growing of intestine having been removed all connected in this funny way. in direct contact with one. They were dormant chill elements inside people was what years ago. The doctor picked up a The ink in your pen could be com- just a myth of the government. Should And cried out to be seen. allowed life to continue. There was small pair of shears and began clip- posed of a girl your own age living I scream? Or maybe it’s just an accident a picture of a child with a cartoon ping at a bronze-colored substance, halfway across the world. But our and my dirty mind’s betraying me. I stay Knobs of chapped bark and fragrant pine needles played colors off each other Like two symphonies vying for the same childish prize. bubble proclaiming the words: “My cutting away at the metal stem. He dependency on one another is ever still, and she shifts back into her seat. name is Xenon 249. That was the placed the carefully collected sub- pervaded by our skepticism of the How long though has it been since I The still water in the pond beneath, not quite frozen over but strong enough to stand against the wind, was last touched by a woman? The math Turned the landscape back on itself. element selected for me to grow, stance onto a small tray on a cart human race. Infuriating, isn’t it?” would be tedious but it has been so long, Staring into that mirror, the matrix of empty maple branches and snowdrifts laced the facade of the and I shall faithfully provide the beside him, collecting all but the All she could do was stare at the too long. The feelers are everywhere now. majestic Berkshires soaring behind. xenon that will sustain us.” root of it. When he was satisfied doctor, and it occurred to her then Half a year ago, they got Samantha Miller, The humbling image staring back was extraordinarily introspective: It was a phrase she was famil- with his work, he picked up a vial that K, in Doctor K, stood for po- caught her in her brother’s uniform. They Each resemblance reflecting beyond the imperfect blemishes and attempting to understand their iar with, recited from a young age, containing a murky green fluid, tassium. sent her for ‘corrective gender behavior life of the past season — what lived, what died, what was born, and what dreamed. but with the name replaced for her and, using a dropper, let six drop- “Good-bye, Copper.” therapy’ since her dress was ‘unbefitting own. Copper thought about the lets splash into the small garden in- The doctor left the room then. for a woman’. You don’t hear much about Trudging through the silent carpet of snow, that story stung as the bitter winds slapped it in my nurse and the name tag that had side of her. This would prepare her And she listened to his receding them now. I wonder what they’re up to. been pinned to her shirt, which had for the next harvest. Then, as me- footsteps as they echoed in the “University Stop.” The voice says. face back and again. Each gust chased the warmth from my cheeks as tiny cottontails burrowed deep in the crevasses displayed in bold letters: Arsenic thodically as the rest of the proce- halls, getting further and further The station lights come into view and 11326. It was her experience that dure had been, he stitched her skin. away. She sat for a few minutes, I can see the girl’s reflection across from of my wrinkled eyes and bare ears. me. Her eyes shift to mine before she people named Arsenic did not tend Finally, he spoke. pondering his words, and then left gets up. This must be her stop. A college Now, broken ground and shards of timber blot the hills and separate the land in an ever changing puzzle, to live very long, despite assuranc- “See you next month, Copper.” the room herself. She took the back student.I doubt the feelers would take in Altering the familiar air that lifted my young spirit and cradled it. es that this had nothing to do with He injected another shot that exit that led into the alley behind someone with the ability to think. She They say the story is dying, never to reveal its secrets again. their element. But either way, ele- brought her nerve endings back to the building, and slouched against brushes past me as the doors open, and But the free winds blowing through the deep roots of the forests beg to disagree. ments were selected randomly and life, and made to head out of the the wall, closing her eyes. I stare at her swaying hips. In the back- This new winter may have erased all the color from the surface distribution was fair, which was room. She plucked at the stiches mark- ground a poster of a man pointing stares but white is the first color: beneath it, a storm of life and excitement waiting, just waiting. another thing she had always been “Wait.” ing her side, and wondered if the back at me. FATHER CAN TELL. taught. The doctor looked back at her, next wire she handled would be A tall man walked in the door puzzled. made of her.

34 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 35 was healthful. For some time, we shipped back for them to purchase its most rebellious professional, tee shirts for tourists, his cigar- rate of roughly 800 to every 1000), Trabajadores del Tabaco: peppered the workers with ques- at nearly 1.2 CUCs (around $2.00). the legendary Argentine doctor, chomping visage has become a you’d think we’d raise eyebrows, Cubans on the Cusp tions. How do you dry it? How They consumed what they made Ernesto “Che” Guevara. After critical means for Cubans trying but we hardly raised a local head Warren Kennedy-Nolle much money do you make? How even while it consumed them. winning the crucial battle of the to eke out a living. (Sainsbury and Waterson 465). much does the government take? Yet tobacco has always been a Revolution at Santa Clara, this Like second-hand smoke, These big fins deposit their el- Bedford, NY They demonstrated the pro- mainstay of the Cuban economy. Marxist served as minister of what comes around goes around. derly tourists at Vedado and Old The smell of tobacco was the cess of hanging and drying the While we were there, we were industries and head of the Cuban Nowadays, Cubans are trying to Havana restaurants like El Patio, first thing that hit me. It was leaves, each as big and brown as often approached by jiniteros who bank. Although he sought to ally sell anything to tourists as they where one can sometimes catch as stale as an old attic, but as a baseball glove. First, the work- tried to get us to buy cigars for the Soviet Union with Cuba, he readjust to the thawing U.S-Cuba Frank Sinatra songs being per- promising as dank cellar soil. ers strung together the day’s crop smuggling back into the U.S. later criticized the Soviets for ca- relations. Whether it’s a lone Bay- formed in Cathedral Square again. We stopped alongside a frayed on twine, puncturing the stems Before the Revolution, the expen- pitulating to the Americans after amo pedestrian cooing, “Ameri- Each day, American tourists tot- frame secadero, or tobacco drying and skewering each leaf, careful sive smell of hand-rolled Petit the Cuban Missile Crisis; for this, canos, I LOVE Americanos,” ter along, repeating Hemingway’s house, and got out to explore. We not to damage each one. The full Upmanns filled Havana cabarets he was exiled from Cuba to start or buskers peddling handmade pub crawl from Hotel Ambos were just outside Vinales, in the skewers were then placed between and casinos like the Tropicana Revolutions elsewhere. But Che wares of carved birds, woven reed Mundos to La Floridita. His hotel heart of Cuba’s tobacco territory. poles stretched across the high and the Capri. Catering to the believed in his ideals of labor, dis- snakes, or needle pointed table- room is a shrine you can visit, It was harvest season now, but warehouse ceiling. This would usual vices of gambling, pros- cipline, and self-sufficiency. Soon cloths, many Cubans are desper- replete with his typewriter, straw stout, green stalks were drooping air-cure the tobacco, leaving it titution, and drugs, such places after, he became minister, the ately trying to find a path to the hat, and a model of Pilar, his be- from drought. Three trabajadores tanned and with a nicotine con- offered a chance for well-heeled asthmatic cigar smoker insisted prosperity that lies just ninety loved boat. This kind of tourism del tabaco, or tobacco workers, centration. Roughly 70% of Cu- Americans to rub shoulders with that the plan for an elevator in his miles off their coast. is all the country can offer; it is glanced up from the fields and ban tobacco is grown in the rich mobsters and movie stars. The new office building be scrapped. Their isolation has left them the decade they have been stuck slowly made their ways through Vinales valley. At the end of the nightlife was immortalized in After all, if he could walk up the with rarely a phone (forget about in. But how can you go forward the dry rows. One wore no shoes, fermentation period, the govern- the many black and white photo- flights, so could everybody else. cell phones!). There is usually just when you always have to look the other only the soles of worn- ment takes 90% of the best crop. graphs of Errol Flynn, Ava Gard- Never mind his office was on the one T.V, like one doctor, assigned backward to make a living? down flip-flops, and the third, The remainder is sold to tourists ner, and Lucky Luciano, framing fourteenth floor.ii to each village whose buildings Probably only those like Frank, a pair of worn ebony boots the or locals (Baker). the lounge at the Hotel Nacional. Now a giant hanging of Che’s more often than not crumble into and not the trabajadores del tabaco, shade of his skin. “How long have you been a While Ernest Hemingway made beret-clad profile, along with that ruin. Instead, Cubans enjoy us- will benefit. Even so, our Frank “Hola, mi amigo,” one of the tobacco worker?” Frank trans- his daily visit to La Floridita and of fellow Revolutionary, Camilo ing their doorsteps and take full was no Frank Sinatra. He boasted men said to Frank, our guide, lated, and one worker pointed La Bodeguita bars, the mass of Cienfuegos, frames the outside of advantage of other simple ways his ancestors were key players in who answered briefly, heavy in at his hands, which revealed his Cubans were like the trabajadores that office building in Revolution- to socialize, found, say, in long the Revolution, printing leaflets his own Paco Rabanne aroma. gnarled, furrowed history. His del tabaco: poor, illiterate, and ary Plaza. In the years following bus queues. What will happen to in Santiago and running guns for In Cuba, Frank told us, every- fingers were caked in a tar-like, powerless. his CIA-execution in Bolivia in these intangibles when Cubans Castro’s uprising at Comandan- one was family. By the looks of gluey substance that stank and With one stroke of the pen, Fi- October 1969, Che was forgot- are lured by the coming flood of cia de la Plata, Castro’s guerrilla Frank’s potbelly, it was hard to looked like it wouldn’t come out del Castro changed all that in 1959. ten. Then, after his body and gringo goods? compound in the Sierra Maestra. imagine he had any relation to no matter how hard the scrub- He nationalized industries and the piranha-eaten remains of the Blissfully oblivious to the Yet Frank could just as easily dis- the stick-figure tobacco work- bing. Calluses crested the top of closed down the vice operations. other revolutionaries were finally dangers of the digital age, young avow this past, telling turistas in ers. Frank’s signature sunglasses the palm from picking tobacco Starting in the island’s “Oriente” found and returned to Cuba, his men focus for now on selling an the next breath how his Chinese (Louis Vuitton) glared under leaves day after day. Another three years earlier, Castro first defiant image was resurrected to antiquated Cuba aimed at baby grandpa ran a store that the revo- the late March sun, while sweat trabajadores was fifty-two, but organized rebels who overthrew the cultural forefront. Once an boomers of the Ricky Ricardo era. lutionaries closed down, reducing dripped off his head like off a he had the features of someone the corrupt Battista regime, which embarrassment to the regime, he’s They proudly pastel-paint their him to begging, not much differ- glazed ham. From the time he had twenty years older. His hair was had cooperated fully in letting the now a popstar, hip epitome of ’60s 1950s cars, relics from before the ent from the tobacco workers we picked us up at the airport, he had graying and receding. His mouth mob-run hot spots flourish. With attitudes. Martyrdom sells. Tiny embargo. But it’s true that these were now confronting. bragged about his rich clients like was pinched, and when he opened the revolution came abuses, but Santa Clara now draws thousands diesel-belching antiques are all It was almost sundown and “Mr. Nabisco,” who left him with it to speak, there were large gaps, also free, quality medical care. of turistas who flock to the pyra- they have to get around with. they were shifting their feet, big tips and standing invitations some stained black, like his hands. Castro’s literacy brigades were the midal mausoleum for Che and his While visiting Havana, my fam- probably expecting a tip for the to their yachts. The trabajadores After every shy answer, he asked, greatest legacy of the era. Cuba doomed compañeros from the Bo- ily was one of many that took time taken. Even though I wanted eyed us warily. “Comprendes?” His eyes crinkled now boasts a 99.8% literacy rate.i livian mission. It was opened in part in the nightly auto-tour cara- to help them, I didn’t want to “Qué deseas?” They wanted to up when he talked, as though we Cuban citizens can now study 1997 with Castro’s lighting of an van along the Malecón, the oth- appear patronizing. I gave them know why we were there. were in the way. When I snapped to the level of a Ph.D, as long as eternal flame, and attached to it is erwise deserted, famed Corniche a 20 CUC note. They never told Traveling on the required aca- a shot of them, they all looked at they pursue a degree in an under- a museum dedicated in his honor. of Havana. The turistas perched us their names, and they were demic visas, my family wanted to the ground, almost apologetically. represented field and attend a Moreover, in every town, tipsily on the trunks and cheered surprised that we wanted to shake learn everything about Cuba, in- While we talked, all three tra- local school. They only make $20 Che’s handsome, determined face wildly. But we were tourists, too. hands. But I like to think that cluding tobacco agriculture. One bajadores emptied pack after pack month, but that money goes far appears on billboards along with In a hot pink convertible Chevy, we took some of the sludge off ironic benefit of the 1962 Ameri- of their Cohibas. What fumed in a socialist country. I wonder if his sayings like “Hasta la Vic- we joined the nightly caravan their hands, and, for a moment, can embargo wasthat all produce from the corner of their mouths these revolutionary benefits will toria siempre” and “Libertetad ou of Ford Edsels, Chrysler Plym- took some Cubano culture into grown in Cuba was perforce or- might have been made from the remain as the country sidles over Muerte?” The man who loathed ouths, and Hudson Hornets that our own. Then they asked Frank, ganic. Denied Dow and DuPont, tobacco they picked and sold for to an American way of life. imperialist Yanquis is now the cruised Havana. With a Cuban “Hey, why don’t you bring more Cuban farmers had to rely on nearly nothing. Once exported Perhaps the most ironic prod- ironic icon of capitalism. Plas- car ownership ratio of only 38 cars tourists to us?” manure for fertilizer, so the food and refined with chemicals, it was uct of the Revolution concerns tered on license plates, mugs, and per 1000 (as opposed to America’s

36 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 37 ming and splashing. The weight We walked hand-in-hand “I don’t know what you’re say- bathroom. my head. Look for something to fill of his arm around me felt as nec- around the fair, appreciating all of ing.” His voice was monotone, My heels felt like knives on my the void where the weight of your The Other Girl essary as oxygen. the performers and booths. There and his eyes faced the lake. unsteady feet. I braced myself on the arm used to be, make it all go away. Emma Bruder “I ended things with her. She were artists creating masterpieces “You know what I mean. We sink. Who was I? Certainly not this I wonder if she knows about Franklin Lakes, NJ could never be more than what with chalk on the ground, bead- haven’t even touched each other aperson. I couldn’t be. He couldn’t me. Something to dull the racing He and I sat on the tall rock she is right now to me. I only ers surrounded by pre-teens, a in a week.” be. I didn’t think he was capable of thoughts through my head of the wall, about six feet up off the want to be here with you.” string quartet serenading us, and “What do you want?” He still that, that I was capable of it. My role I served for you: merely a dis- ground by the deck of boats. His “I trust you,” I told him sim- much more. Stopping at an origa- wouldn’t look at me. disbelieving eyes travelled up to the traction, a notch on your belt. I’ve feet dangled over the edge, and I ply. He had wormed his way mi booth, I watched the younger “I want things to go back to mirror, staring at the other girl. already burned all the traces from sat cross-legged, facing him. The around my shield. kids folding paper and shook my how they were. Us, that is.” that time that I could: the red paper sun was setting, as the moon and head when he suggested we join “Okay.” Standing and picking crane we exchanged and the pictures the stars were revealing them- them. up his red bag, he claimed, “They are ashes, but you’re still so present. selves, but we had to go a curfew “Come on, it’ll be fun. I’ll will.” Take another swig. Change into Yet in a completely different world. to make. We had been talking for Feeling his chest expand and help you with it,” he persisted. a more exposing shirt. Wink and So cheers, here’s to hoping that hours, sharing stories about fam- contract against my back with A quick peck on my lips eventu- I sat next to him at the table touch the boy who has the swagger- you are waiting for me at the bot- ily, friends, and other silly ran- his breath, I snuggled as close as ally melted my resolve. His swift with our friends. Even there, filled saunter and confident hair flip. tom of the bottle. domness. possible to him on the couch. His hands finished his crane in less he felt miles apart. Turning my Anything I can do to get you out of “What time is it?” I finally long arm tightened around my than two minutes, and the wom- head to look at him, I hoped he asked, dreading the answer. waist, and I shifted my head to an aided me with my mess of a would return my gaze. This time, “We’ll go in a minute,” he mur- make sure I didn’t crush his other project. Embarrassed, I held up he was staring straight ahead. mured while his light brown eyes arm. When I told him I didn’t my crooked monstrosity by his want to move too quickly, he Other beckoned me closer. pristine bird in flight. He fold- Catherine Wise smiled at me with those dimples ed my small fingers around his Wayland, MA and wonderfully light eyes and crane, gently took mine from my Saying goodbye to him when reassured me as I was drifting other hand, and paid me an infec- he moved was still difficult, On Christmas morning, grandma makes Arroz Caldo, Our fingers touched when we into a peaceful sleep. tious smile. I kept the gift on my even though I knew we weren’t says it is healthy, good for bones, and scoops for me. both reached for the sweet Twiz- “Don’t worry, I can wait. I like together anymore. Maybe him She tells me to never forget I am Filipino, that Asian nightstand, hoping it would grant is not good enough. She tells stories zlers concealed in my lap, as we you... a lot.” me dreams of him. leaving made our separation all weren’t allowed to have food in The dreams were beautiful, but I too real for me. My friends and I of herself, my age, a little girl unaware the auditorium during recitals. I woke up too soon. I knew it; the sun- got together to see him off. I gave she was in a warzone – remembering how she was chased down a dusted street by Japanese soldiers, guns in hand, until she fell felt a tinge of electricity, or may- light was too bright. him one last hug before he turned I dropped my bags and lay on be I just imagined it. I drew my “Is everything okay, with us, I and walked away, breathing in and rolled down a cliff, split her head. Her brother fingers back, slowly, giving up the carpeted floor, too tired from mean?” I asked as we walked back his scent and imagining I could found her, and carried her back home. the heat from his skin. His strong the hot summer day to move. hear his steady heartbeat. They had to leave, her mother said it was not safe – to our friends who were waiting she left with only one thing: a recipe book. hand found mine again, grazing Even with my eyes closed, I could for us. feel his gaze on me. I struggled my skin and bringing it back to “Yes, Emily.” He draped his fa- Mother scoffs, remembering her childhood of straight A’s

him. A smile turned on my lips, to keep a smile off my face as his miliar arm around my shoulders. and home on weekends. She left one time, wanting to be white I found out about her a couple for a night, not knowing she would be locked out, sleeping in cold. and I glanced at him. He stared footsteps came closer, and he bent “I promise, I’m a pretty honest down next to me. I readied my of weeks later, through a picture at me. The butterflies swarming guy. I’ll tell you if something is She pulls me aside, says grandma isn’t able to understand on social media. in my stomach batted their wings lips for the soft pressure of his. up.” I believed him, or at least I that times are different, always growing Happy one year, baby, I love you as I realized I had never felt any- Instead, I felt a sudden grasp on desperately wanted to. I was too with my bones and body – says I represent my own past, Instagram screamed profanities that we each make our stories thing like this before. my waist as he started to tickle paranoid; I didn’t want to lose my exposed stomach. He was too at me beneath the picture of the this. from stories we choose to hear. happy couple. Their arms were big for me to fight back. It was no I asked after fifteen minutes I see what I’ve made: nose of mother, mouth of father. around each other, and his magi- use. Shrieking and laughing un- of silence, “what are we even I am a mix, a mutt, and belong to no breed, a disrespect to grandma. My head leaned against his cal eyes smiled at the girl with controllably, I was on a new kind doing?” We were sitting on the strong shoulder as we sat on the of high. fiery red hair. My head began to Every day I become less and less of the past, same porch with the beloved forgetting the Arroz Caldo and the Japanese, wooden swing and looked out spin, and my ears rang. I was at a swing, but this time we were on forgetting to get straight A’s because I choose not to listen – onto the lake. I could hear distant fancy restaurant with my family, lost in a future that has no past, and never will. two separate chairs. shrieks of happy toddlers swim- so I excused myself to go to the

38 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 39 congesting the air. The way he saw it Mason’s wife began to have chestnut hair, there were two types of people: the en- propped up in a messy bun that spilled er might have considered this the sched- ence, Daren said, “been better, but we’ll Aa distant church bell bellowed, mark- The Spur vironmentalists and their smoking next slightly in the front, alsoelvish ears and ule of a businessman in high fashion, or be fine real soon. Planning on leaving any ing the passage of another hour, the death Tom Yuz door neighbors. a Grecian nose. When she suddenly at- perhaps a renowned actor. In reality, the day now.” of a moment, the protracted progress of a calendar was four years old, its columns Josh shrugged off a faint shadow of un- falling sun. And abruptly Josh was calm, Paramus, NJ From the corner of his eye, Josh saw tained eyes like honey-dipped pinecones, Mason press his forefinger into his lower Josh rushed back into his house and heavy with the ink that embodied Josh’s ease, knowing that Daren had been plan- flying lightly above despair on his thin life. A snapshot of the past and a remind- ning on escaping the city for years. Fam- wings. Life like whiskey flowed from the On Sundays, Josh stole Mason’s news- spine, as if searching for what lay below. slammed the door behind him. Yet again er of the future, the calendar masterfully ily was not meant to wander apart. September dawn into Josh’s frigid shell, paper. Even as the sun climbed the sky’s Heaving himself up, the gardener gazed he found himself recanting the haunting tricked time to be available in the present. “Good to hear. I know you have a client and as the heavens burned above him he clouded ladder, Josh was awake and half- intently up and down his front lawn, will- images of his ex-wife, an exercise that Today is Sunday the 21st, Josh thought. at 2 so I won’t hold you for long. Do you was elucidated, a dreamer awaking in the way through his blue-jelly pop tarts. Pass- ing the summer to resuscitate what al- threatened to snap the thin thread of his Searching for the third Sunday of July, have the sixteen pre-rolled?” real world as all dreamers do. ing through his petite living room, its ready grew a season before. From the way already tender will to live. Josh found the box labeled Sunday the Daren picked up a yellow Curious sagging upholstery aging like fine wine, Mason’s chest widened like an umbrella, Calm now, Josh shot himself a nod 24th; as the years change, so do the dates George tee, wrapped up like a hitchhiker’s Josh turned the key in the ignition, and he gave himself a nod in the porcelain- Josh knew that some primitive pride con- as he made his way to the unfinished describing them. As a matter of fact, the knapsack. Josh could see the grey face of put on 103.9 at a volume of 23. Reaching framed mirror. He liked to think it was tinued to make him flush with excite- kitchen. In the corner was an antique, only persevering constant proved to be a cigar sticking out curiously from the over to the passenger compartment, he subtle, a move that only he would be able ment. Ears piercing the stale air, Josh felt scallop-striped Elizabethan chair. Declar- Josh. Index finger pressing down on the side. Nodding, Josh motioned the package pulled out a jade lighter and gently burned to notice. his heart pound rhythmically with the ing a silent victory, he slipped out of his date’s number, Josh read, “Meeting with over. the cigar’s expressionless face. Slipping Stepping outside, Josh cast his glance tapping of Mason’s steps up his awning’s clothes and sat down on it, reading the Daren, 4 o’clock behind Van Swan Park.” Teeth grazing his lower lip, Daren out of his Polo, he put on the curious past the Victorian columns of his porch granite stairs. A crooning jingle marked newspaper. He never understood why Seeing Daren’s name stirred in him the threw the bundle over, and Josh felt a George Shirt, and admired his slightly ex- and into Mason’s garden. From his van- the opening and closing of Mason’s Ro- his wife adored the damn chair. After all, deep, placid pools of memory. Friendship heavy thunk as it fell into his lap. Scan- posed belly in the mirror. One last time tage point he could see a plaid shirt crawl- manesque steel door, and Josh wondered Queens had backsides just like everyone forged in the fertile soil of childhood be- ning the empty parking lot, Josh quickly he would reap the merits of a distant past. ing around three Autumn Rouge bushes. if Christmas had arrived early. else. Shaking his head, Josh scrutinized gets a root stronger than steel. To Josh, passed over two neatly bundled stacks of For a while he alternated between Hurricane season was particularly quar- Shoes drumming on the pavement, Josh the black-inked letters encased on the Daren provided an internal corridor of 20’s through his window. smoking and listening to music, until relsome last year, and Mason’s week- walked straight to Mason’s driveway, unfeeling white background. Five years courage. In the midst of his divorce, the A pin would not have had time to drop eventually he could no longer hear the day labors vanished like melting snow. bent under an old 2004 Subaru hatchback, reading a stranger’s newspaper and noth- one memory infused in Josh’s mind is before Daren gunned his engine and took faint buzzing of Daren’s Mustang in the Suddenly Josh could no longer hear the and picked up the Sunday Review that al- ing had yet to change. From the blanched Daren pushing aside an open door at 3 off. Dazed for a moment, Josh’s immedi- parking lot, until he could no longer see crunching of defeated leaves, and up ways inadvertently rolled there. It was a faces of those touched by the blind hands A.M. with a bottle of beer and a sympa- ate thought was to wonder if Daren would the disapproving woman sitting in his popped Mason’s black-bearded face. grand scene. of disaster, to pictures of modern Machia- thetic ear. Daren had given him the cal- still make the reservation for dinner on passenger seat. Then he gunned his own With a tempered sophistication, Josh Turning and strutting on a rubber heel, velli’s drinking apple martinis, living vi- endar that day, and Josh had kept it since. Tuesday. Hands as tranquil as the sur- engine and drove home, one hand on the waved at his neighbor, and Mason ges- Josh stopped to peer at Mason’s pillared cariously through the thin leaflets became Gingerly Josh reached for the key geon’s scalpel, Josh undid the top of the steering wheel and another on the bottle tured back grinning. So began a war of cottage. Though chiffon curtains blocked quite redundant. taped to the calendar’s spine. Returning knapsack and looked in. There was a half of pink lemonade. attrition. His back pressed up against a his view, Josh still painted Mason’s living Sighing, he folded the paper over and to his kitchen, Josh unlocked a thin ma- empty glass bottle of pink lemonade and By the time he saw Victorian columns mahogany chair, warm from the sun’s room with the colors of his imagination. approached his calendar. The marble tiles hogany cabinet and looked inside: indeed one Cuban Cigar masterfully tucked in glinting in the sunlight’s dying rays, the caresses, Josh smoked a Marlboro while He pictured Mason’s wife making spicy of the floor chilled his feet as he searched he needed to refill his stockpiles of Cu- the shirt’s ragged edges. bottle was empty. This time, he walked Mason molded the freshly-watered soil pumpkin pie or slipping a needle master- for the date. Blue ink handwritten notes, ban cigars. Although Josh thought clever Sighing, Josh smiled to himself as he into the house and stopped by the mirror, of his garden. Taking a deep breath, Josh fully through an azure scarf or maybe even outlining restaurant dinners and Mid- platitudes the bane of intellectual reason, thought to call the police, feeling forgot- hands on his three-legged console table. could smell the bitter scent of cigarettes flirting with a canvas and a brush. Then, town plays packed the margins. A strang- he still conceded that business was busi- ten phantoms of panic grazing his stom- Josh nodded nice and slow, for the whole ness. Without tribute to pay the bills, he ach. He almost found it funny that Daren world to witness, unmasking his very ex- would have no place to lean back and read had chosen to steal from him, a habitual istence in the nascent air. his stolen newspapers. thief and his brother by anything but Taking the newspaper and tucking it A Study in Silence Reluctantly putting on his checkered blood. After so many years of nonchalant under his armpit, Josh picked up the cal- Leandena Dankese Polo and matching khakis, Josh made his thievery of Mason’s belongings, Josh had endar on his way out, planning on ad- Lexington, MA way to the 84 Pontiac resting in his drive- become desensitized to the concept of pos- dressing his wife’s chair later. He went way, rust plaguing the maroon edges of session. Betrayed by and literally divorced around the back of his house, and, lifting Today I saw someone in the hall. Passing by, its doors. Purposefully, he played his al- from the past, Josh allowed himself to be a tin cover, threw the calendar in the gar- I turned my head to down the other end —where the mirror sits on the wall. ternative rock station 103.9 at a volume of stranded in the routine of the present, and bage. We did not smile at one another, exactly 23. In the past he would have had complacency thus robbed him of a future. Shoes drumming on the pavement, Josh to keep it down in the car, with a volume But still, to have Daren, oh Daren, steal walked straight to Mason’s driveway, disappointment reflected. of 20 serving as both a physical and moral from him thawed the fragile encasement bent under the old 2004 Subaru hatchback, At noon I heard someone at the door. Staring at it in fear, ceiling. But now, there was only the ghost of his nerves. To be cast aside by anybody and dropped the Sunday Review as if it the mail fell through the slot. I forgot the mailman has a key to the gates. of a woman sitting in the passenger seat, else would have been akin to a bug land- had inadvertently rolled there. Eyes glint- It wasn’t till the iron swung shut and the truck rattled away —going tat tat tat— and ghosts, fortunately, could not turn ing on his windshield, but with Daren it ing with traces of subtle bemusement, he that I ventured near. dusty knobs. was like looking at himself through the noticed now that Mason’s curtains were He saw that Daren’s bumblebee Mus- fragments of a broken mirror. drawn aside, revealing a poorly lit living The grandfather clock rung tang convertible was already waiting for At that moment, Josh knew that Daren room furnished with two archaic, plush — breaking the silence. him in the lot of the park as he slid beside was gone, really gone. For the first time, couches and a plastic dining set. I thought I heard someone in the parlor, the pitter-patter of feet. it. Josh could hear the persistent buzz of Josh ran his fingers over memories he Josh paused for a moment, just watch- But I am alone here. the Mustang’s engine floating over the once thought were sealed in the cages of ing the house, waiting for something to These old houses have soul they say. It feels too empty for me. narrow gap between the two cars. his subconscious; here Daren had cracked happen. In his mind’s eye, he felt himself I wonder if houses get lonely too. “Hey there, Daren, how are the kids?” a small hole in a wall he once helped to close the shades to a home that he once Josh asked, taking note of Daren’s eyes, build. In a flash, grief and loneliness fes- yearned to emulate. Then he slipped out Then maybe, in silence, with bags under them like crushed blue- tered for four whole years blazed in a vol- of his clothes, and lay down right in Ma- we’ll be together. berries. canic eruption, and the telluric spew of son’s garden. Like the August Rouge, he Shrugging with an air of blasé indiffer- raw emotion left Josh feeling numb. felt as if he was being born anew.

40 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 41 a stupid teenager, single-mind- his laugh will be contagious, and I I will live in a dream. ed. I didn’t hate myself. I didn’t will die knowing it was his disease I will live in a dream. Untitled hate myself. I didn’t hate myself. that killed me. He will make me I will live in a dream. Nolan Stern I don’t. I don’t hate myself. I content. He will make me okay. I will find my dream. Upper Saddle River, NJ made an ill-advised decision that I will walk around in nothing changed the course of my life from but a bra and panties. I will look easy and sultry to heavy and noth- in the mirror and see through the ing but talk. spots of ice scattered about my tan Every kiss I am granted is tear- limbs. I will talk to him about the filled, pity drenched or stopped mess in my head. And he will lis- short of its climax. Every touch ten. He will listen to me. riddled with anxiety, I am held the way you might embrace a lit stick of TNT, the way you might caress a knife pressed against the fragile skin of your neck. A smile in my La Banda direction is reminiscent of the grin Abigail Walker given to a gun directed toward Marblehead, MA your heart. “Geovanni, who came from the southern state of Puebla and If I had just known I wouldn’t plans to return, said banda is both a distraction and a way of have gotten addicted to the toxic staying connected with Mexico.” -The New York Times habit. If I had known I would have a love made of autumn and In Queens, New York, after the sun slips, lukewarm, orange fire. He would a man, thin, scraping griddles, longs warm my indigo fingertips with to taste his grandmother’s chalupas and beans, his breath but he would never burn instead ducks out from his $12 an hour apron me. He would see my body and ig- and into snakeskin boots, carrying him to nore the wreckage of another time, La Boom, a local club that can’t stop a time before him, a time before thumping to El Recodo’s Mexican hip-hop. the version of me he knows. He would run his fingers up discol- Strung together by a seven year old promise ored hips as if they are pristine, as that he’d sit alongside his mother again, Indigo ed to be cherished and cradled in mean, everyone was doing it so if they are not what they are. He the young man unravels to the hissing Alaina Johansson the arms of another, a lover. My why not? But now I can’t wear would run his fingers up my hips of a snare drum, the bottled up honking, intentions were not pure, but I got short sleeves without looks of as if they are not evidence of my of trumpets which got him seeing I hate that I did this to myself. what I wanted. And eventually, I worry and disgust. I can’t walk by barbaric brutality. double, drunk on la banda, and he’s brought back If I had known how permanent got what I deserved. families without mothers pulling He would not trace my scars to Jomulquillo with its roads that always it would be, maybe I would’ve at Most people will tell you that, their children out of my way. with his fingers. He would not coughed up dirt from the back of their throats, least done it less but maybe not. either way, I’m screwed up in the Why the hell did I do this to my- kiss them as if he could make my spewing gravel as cars rattled My motives were never very true. head. They’re right to an extent, self? You know, hindsight is such inhumane actions disappear with across their crooked spines. It turned into a fun way to see red but I didn’t do anything out of a haunting thing, but it’s worse the help of his saliva and pink lips. instead of the release everyone self-hatred. I did it out of a need when you have a body full of re- He would not make me tell him But nightspots deflate else valued it for. It was my teen- to fit into a group that was so tight grets. Weeks at the beach have things that are not the truth just at around 1AM when these cowboys, age version of alcohol, and alcohol you could only make it in if you turned into thousands of horrified so his ears could hear what they fathers, sisters, waiters, dishwashers is what replaced it. It was just like were just like them. So I became glances landing on my hips, my want. He would never look at me are slowly sucked back to their drowsy apartments vodka. It burned, but I got a buzz. as if I were a monster that crawled just like them. I saw a group of wrists. Every date I go on turns in Elmhurst-- a twenty minute, 2,000 mile walk. So my teenage self drank it again out of his closet one night. people my age who had infinite into a pep talk and a false promise He treks up 58th St, swears he feels that heat and again and again. This man, the man of my wild- love and support for each other, so to call me. Every one night stand of the desert sun frying his back, The worst part was that I wasn’t est dreams, the man that does not I wanted to take it all for myself. becomes a midnight confirmation like leaving home and sneaking into this country, sad like all of my friends were. I I was malicious back then. that I’m not acting like this to feel exist, he will understand me on now with a similar shuffle across Queens Blvd, crouching will honestly admit that I did it for But in the grand scheme of better and a waste of a seventeen such a level that it pisses me off. behind scrawny shrubs, scrambling over foreign hills, the attention, for the affection. I things, I received a heaping por- dollar romantically scented can- He will be cliché in his love for his long, hard haul north, did it so that I would be spoken to tion of consequences that are still dle. me. He will laugh when I tell him the way I spoke to others. I want- working their black magic on me I used to be able to look in the my sins and I will get mad at him every Sunday night. to this day. I tore into myself. I mirror without contempt. I was but then I’ll get over it. Because

42 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 43 the stories of how his mouth met whatshername’s Violet and I mouth and how gnarly the whole thing was. Mixed kids thanksgiving Youssef Ahmed Mezrioui Madison Wade One more story for the books: dark rooms, loud Livingston, NJ Peace is what I want music, clouded and tainted air, a boy and girl dance Happy family eating at a table She was America’s sweetheart, Daddy’s little and laugh and use their hands to memorize each But what do I get

girl, Mommy’s perfect angel. Titles that don’t illus- other’s curves and flaws as if their bodies are poems apartheid inside my own house trate her; illusions she has displayed in order to save angry tremors written for just their eyes. Like a trust fall she stands, rusty painted crowbars which look like pimp canes face, her face, her real face. I watch as she sits at the arms crossed and ready to float into his awaiting arms, rusty axes

dinner table slightly uncomfortable, while conver- but he can’t catch her fast enough, he can’t protect her death threats sation swarms around her. She is stuck in her own drama from the harsh reality that he never loved her. head thinking about how her 1 D, 2 C’s , 3 B’s , and I watch her sit up in bed and run her hands over her my racist brother yelling pick my cotton and me staring shocked talking him out of insanity 2 A’s aren’t sufficient enough for her dad. How the tired face. I watch as she notices flakes of herself lit- saying you are Hispanic lack of drive to succeed has slowly drained from her what if you got blamed for throwing cake at a car assumed you did it cuz u were poor meaning jealous at tered across her hands like pieces of a puff pastry. some ordinary man only different in color said mow my lawn developing body and been replaced by a “I’ll get to The dam that she has spent years building behind like Hispanic man your mother

that later” attitude. her eyes breaks suddenly. It starts to rain on my face. and he says uncivilized black people are meant for the n word Her eyes often have a hard time meeting others i said its all in your word choice She cries as the memories of him lighting his cigarette just remember that not all good black or Latino persons are rich because she thinks if she makes eye contact long and littering ash coated kisses on her arms and thighs chilling in the hills or nameless in offices and not all the poor people are causing kills or drug deals for profit enough then her truths will spill out of her like a bust through the tight vault they were secured in. He running faucet, and her lies will surface and every- yea look at me i know ima dumb porch monkey was supposed to love her. I vowed that there wouldn’t a moving target a prophet eating watermelon one will know how fraudulent she has become. Her be a next time; I would never let her feel pain again. there is order in the middle of the chaos and there are righteous poor people in a bad rich city lies include: “I’m fine,” “I was invited but can’t go,” Saturday night a year later, her phone vibrates off “I never really liked him, I’m glad he would prefer I grow ashamed of the whiteness within me the metal nightstand. “You up? I’m missin you right Whats up with ya brother man her over me,” “I’m just really tired.” I know she now.” The digital prison guard reads 1:50am. The time He’s drunk buddy pissing on the tar and asphalt and concrete and grass would rather be sarcastic and dry instead of embar- in relation to the message breaks her, shatters her and pretending to protect us just to fight rassed and alone. I watch as she fiddles with her over what the tears come faster this time than the last time. She over what hands and scratches at her skin as if she is trying reaches for a problem solver while I scream a plea for cake on a Mazda over color to remove lichens. She doesn’t like my friends. She her to stop. He doesn’t deserve her saltwater kisses, prefers a Friday night consisting of french fries and i roamed the night shrugging my shoulder he doesn’t deserve her body or mind or soul. She tells i told him shouldnt say things like that thats rude rom-coms drowning beside her in the sea of blan- me she’s okay and is heading to bed, but before I turn Generalizing the whole spiel I can’t change how he feels I can pray though kets instead of drowning in a sea of loud music, around and fall into my silent abyss,the blue light bodies on bodies, and the burn of liquor. Sorry I ruined your thanksgiving god bless glows and a message is sent. “I am missin you too rn.” trudged dragging my feet off the porch The best part is her naivety. Let’s set the scene: is all she says. I began tearing up biting the corner of my mouth in anger a car stopped I was afraid who would come out seeking vengeance boy meets girl, girl falls for boy, girl settles for be- It was some Africans darker then me ing “one of the guys”. Two years later on a Ferris They said are you okay kid good just wanted to make sure you were good Wheel at the town carnival, boy and girl kiss , boy reminded me to lift my head up says that they should define “what they are” after we are all god’s people they “hit third base”, girl says no, and the boy says, I am against racism in all forms saying only uncivilized in society the n word “we’d better stay friends.” he got called white trash he has a trade job working for people my brother is racist and wouldnt sit in the seats of Again, another story, different ending: girl meets the corporate slave masters boy, boy says that he thinks of her “as a really good because we are all slaves they have us divided against ourselves friend”, girl settles for being the best friend. She lets unite and change the system This isn’t a threat sits up on Friday nights waiting for him to get Just consolations home so she doesn’t have to worry about who his Our ancestors death wish The humble desire mouth is getting to know, because if he’s home then to live in a house beside the road as a friend to man and not hurl the cynics ban nor sit in a scorner seat that’s the only poem my granddaddy knew when he tried to talk to me about poetry to relate to my interest which was heart warming she knows that he is alone. The next morning she Tired of the nostalgia filters I wanna rest in peace is rewarded for her friendship and devotion with shove fingers in my ear don’t kill my vibe let me rest in peace and die

44 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 45 Time & Space Jackie Young show too much interest you’ll be called a nerd. You don’t want to be a nerd. Shop at Forever 21. Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ The Columbiners Start straightening your hair. It’ll take away the Lauren Toscano frizz that makes people tell you to “go back to the circus.” Wear makeup, but don’t ever wear Drums, PA bright colored lipstick. Mascara and eyeliner Growing up as a teenage girl, I’m aware of all the stereotypes will suffice. Go on a diet. Publicly check the that bombard others like me, saying we have posters of boy celebri- calories of every piece of processed food you ties plastered all over our walls.I’m not going to deny this one; I’ve eat. Break up with Manny and tell your friends got Edward Cullen, the boys of NSYNC, and the Workaholics how clingy he was. You know he was really boys on my wall. But some girls have pictures on their wall that just in love with you, but they don’t need to. would disturb people. School shooters. Namely, the Columbine Get bad grades. You’re allowed to take honors school shooters. classes, but you have to have at least one bad I don’t even know if I was alive for Columbine. Maybe I was. grade. Tell your friends you don’t care about I think I was probably a year old. It doesn’t matter. A majority of it. Get grounded by your parents for it. Go to these so-called “Columbiners” weren’t alive for Columbine. They every dance. Wear short shorts, even if it’s cold weren’t even ideas in their parents’ heads at that point. Yet, there out. Dance with multiple boys, letting them are so many girls posting all over social media platforms such as come up behind you and touch you however Twitter and Tumblr about their love for Eric Harris and Dylan they’d like to. Let them place one hand on your Klebold, the perpetrators of the mass school shooting in Colorado. right hip and work the other up your shirt, Serial killers are interesting, I guess. My mom used to be ob- while their bulges rub against places you don’t sessed with the OJ Simpson case and other crime cases. When I want them to. Never say no. If you tell them was in sixth grade, I watched a documentary on the Zodiac killer, not to touch you, they’ll call you a prude and and I was so intrigued by it. So, yes, I understand the interest with point at you and laugh and you’ll be known as serial killers, but these “Columbiners” go one step further. These the prude for the rest of your life. You have to girls write lengthy fanfictions describing what it would be like to be a slut because people like sluts and they flirt date Dylan or Eric. They edit pictures of them with hearts around with sluts and flirtation is the gateway to popu- larity. Point out Manny to your friends. He’s the shooters’ faces. They create different scenarios, like, “Imagine standing all alone with his hands in his pockets. if Dylan carried your books to class for you!” They obsess over the You may want to be with him and tell him home videos made by the pair. They’ve watched every documen- that you’re sorry and that you love him. Laugh tary that even mentions Columbine. They make homemade t-shirts instead. Shop at Urban Outfitters. Don’t be with “Natural Selection” and “Wrath” written on them, just like caught dead shopping at Forever 21. Wear leg- the ones Eric and Dylan wore when they committed the atrocity. gings multiple times a week. Reference Mean I’ve even seen two girls on Tumblr post pictures of their Colum- Girls wherever possible. Play a sport, and be bine-related tattoos. good at it. People can’t wrap their brains around And my question, as a seventeen-year-old girl who is the same someone who simply doesn’t like to play sports. age as some of these obsessed girls, is why? Don’t they know that How to Be Popular can’t. Giggle with your friends during class, and when the teacher says, Go out every Friday night. If you ever want to these two teenagers shot up a high school and killed thirteen people Allie Reed “Girls, what are we giggling about?” giggle some more. Buy a trainer bra. stay in when everyone else is going out, say that and injured many others? Don’t they know how these victims’ Tell all of your friends. When everyone else buys trainer bras, buy a bra Dover, MA you’re grounded. That’s the only excuse. Start parents must feel day to day? Don’t they understand that what Eric with cups. Tell all of your friends. Start dating Manny. Besides, you’ve drinking coffee-- you hate the taste, but you’ll and Dylan did was disgusting and disturbing and will go down in Don’t pick your nose; nobody likes the nose picker. When the teacher grown to like him from pretending to like him. Hold hands whenever get used to it. Go farther than anyone in your infamy? says it’s naptime, stay awake. Make sure others know that you stayed possible. Beg your parents for a cell phone. Get a cell phone. Place it under grade has gone with a guy. Next time, go even But they’re cute. Dylan and Eric, I mean. They’re cute. Typical awake. Refuse to sweep up your crumbs after lunch. Have a best friend. your desk between your legs, and text your best friend something mildly farther. Never say no. If you say no, you’ll for- grunge-y boys of the ‘90s who wanted to rebel against “society.” Pressure that friend to sweep up your crumbs after lunch. If you ever funny. She’ll crack up. Tell your friends whenever you’re on your period, ever be “the only girl who ever said no.” Leave Combat boots. Backwards baseball hats. Trench coats. Band t- throw up in the classroom, you’re done. The kids will tease and you’ll be and complain about how crampy you are, even if you’re not. Invite Manny Manny in the dust. Go out with your friends shirts. Long hair. They were poster children for the grunge move- referred to as “the girl who puked” for the rest of your life. Have a crush to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Even though it might be awkward, slow twice a month. Take pictures every time. If ment that blessed the 1990s. They looked like typical kids. If you dance with him. Put your arms on his shoulders and let your eyes drift. on Manny. Although you don’t like Manny, everyone else does, so it you didn’t post it on Facebook, it doesn’t count. look at regular pictures of them, pictures where they’re not dead doesn’t matter. Manny always carries Chap Stick, and you should like Never stand by yourself. Kiss Manny. Ideally, you should be the first of People won’t believe that you’re having fun un- and bloody on the library floor or firing guns in the woods in a that. Never wear the same shirt twice in one week. Even if it’s washed your friends to kiss a boy. Tell them about the kiss, so they’ll circulate the less they see a picture to prove it. Go to a party. and clean, don’t wear it again; the mean girls will smirk and say, “Didn’t story through the school. Make sure this kiss happens in middle school. home video, they look like regular teenage boys. Dylan’s nose is Drink. If you don’t get drunk, pretend. too big for his face. Eric has a baby face. They don’t look like kill- you already wear that shirt this week?” and then you’ll say, “No” and If your first kiss is in high school, keep it to yourself. After the age of 15 Oh. tuck your chin to your neck but they always know. Accumulate a group they’ll make fun of you and say things like, “I just lost my virginity, and ers. They look like extras in a teen movie. I guess if I didn’t know You’re not skinny? they were soulless killers, I’d think they were cute, too, maybe. But of friends, and always sit with them at a full lunch table. On some days you still have virgin lips.” Don’t raise your hand in class. Hold your head Don’t bother. you might just want to sit alone and read your book during lunch. You up with the palm of your hand at all times to appear uninterested. If you I realize and understand how wrong their actions were, so naturally

46 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 47 right then. another hour, Dorothy. You’re the one “I love you, Johnny, because you don’t I do not feel inclined to think about them every night before I go to bed or write their names all over my Toil and Trouble with no damn right to do this to me.” lie about how much you hate women,” I math notes. Julia Withers My skin flushed red every time Johnny whisper. “You never lied to me about how Thanks to Google, I found there’s a fetish for serial killers. It’s called hybristophilia, which is apparent- said my full name like that. Jim only ever much you hate me. I’ve always known, Staten Island, NY ly when someone (usually a woman) is sexually aroused or attracted to someone (usually a man) who has called me Dot because my full name re- Johnny. That you hate me, and you think These women stampeded through my minded him of the Wizard of Oz and he you can use me like this. You have no re- committed atrocities like murder, rape, or armed robbery. This kind of stems off of one of the ideas that didn’t like the Wizard of Oz because his spect for me, or Charlotte, or anyone. You psychopaths are generally attractive to others because of their so-called charisma. However, I don’t think doors like pink pack animals. Clutching their pearls and waiting for some release first girlfriend Katherine broke his heart in have a little bit of pity for Jim; you feel bad these fifteen-, sixteen-, and seventeen-year old girls fall into this category. I think what attracts these that felt more human than pills and parties. the cool dark of the cinema in 1939. That because he does cry when we make love, young girls to the killers is the “bad boy” aesthetic. Nancy arrived twenty minutes later. was eleven years ago, and Jim was a shell- because the only person he ever killed was Until then the girls had held on to their shocked shell of himself now. I made him an old man by accident, and because he can Obviously the two were “bad boys”, According to some glossy teen magazine I’d read when I was Pina Coladas because he said they taste like never be as good as you. No one’s as good fourteen, girls like “bad boys” because they feel like they can “make them good.” Dylan and Eric smoked, drinks like they were life preservers, sip- ping slowly to give the impression that the Pacific where he was stationed and he as you, Johnny, are they?” they got drunk, they partied. And, oh yeah, they shot up a school. Some girls feel like they could’ve they weren’t dying to swallow the whole said in his sleep that part of him died when Johnny was silent. changed them. Some of the girls on Tumblr think that if they were seventeen and attended Columbine in thing down and be done with it. When he shot that old man for being out past cur- “You’re the only authentic thing in my few, when he yelled at that damned old 1999, they could’ve gotten Dylan and Eric to fall in love with them, and maybe they wouldn’t have shot Nancy floated into my living room, the life,” I confessed. “None of them have any women attacked her, swarming like lep- man to turn around and show his hands but respect for any of us but at least you don’t up the school. ers around Christ. She had the key to their the man was deaf and kept stumbling along, try to hide it.” And oh yeah— why did Eric and Dylan shoot up the school? Revenge. Well, Dave Cullen, author of happiness, the plastic products that would and Jim got nervous and pulled the trigger. “You’re just as vapid as the rest of them. the book Columbine, thinks Eric was a sociopath and felt virtually no emotion, but the bottom line was solve all their big important problems. He got drunk and he told me he loved me You think you’re so much better because but not as much as he loved the way he felt revenge. They were misunderstood. Got bullied a lot. They were left out. In one of Eric’s journal entries, Charlotte as usual remained at my side, you say you’re not like them? Because you breathing her rancid breath all over me. I before he had blood on his hands. And he don’t pop your pills in private, and you he said something along the lines of, f--k you guys who never invited me to things. Something like that. wondered if she could tell that I was sweat- held me, kissed my neck, put on the T.V. sleep with your ugly best friend’s husband? One time, people pelted tampons covered in ketchup at Eric and Dylan and they didn’t tell anyone, they ing or if she knew why. and never ever called me Dorothy. Hadn’t Someday, the boys in blue are going to find “How rude of her not to greet you,” she a single time since our wedding. you like they find all of them, with your just sat in class, covered in ketchup stains. Some people at Columbine say that they never saw Eric and Still, I controlled myself. Dylan get bullied, which infuriates the Columbiners. They say that the people who never saw bullying spat into my ear. “And you’re the hostess.” brand new KitchenAid toaster in the bath- “I am, aren’t I?” I forced out. “Do me “I never asked you to lie to Charlotte, tub and your dead hands still clutching a were the problem. The Columbiners insist that Eric and Dylan were broken, driven to commit such a a favor and offer her a drink. I’ve got to and I never told you to come here,” I stated bottle of brandy.” deed because of the merciless bullying they faced by their peers. check on the, uh, boiler.” defiantly. My eyes look over the furious “Johnny-” And, yeah, that seems like that probably was the motivation. The only real people who know the true “Look at you, modern woman! Jim’s body of the Adonis before me. I’ve seen “You hate women too, Dorothy. It’s sad- him in the most vulgar, most human of der because you’re one of them.” motivation are the police who confiscated the “basement tapes” which were videos shot in Dylan’s base- back now. He should be taking care of that sort of thing!” She ejected a jarring laugh. I ways, a thousand different times over, yet “Johnny.” ment where the two say their goodbyes and express their motives. But the police aren’t releasing them, tried to ignore the lipstick on her teeth and every smooth surface, every ripple, fold, “I’m going now,” he whispered hoarsely. which just pisses off the Columbiners even more. Sorry. stretched my lips into a convincing smile. scar- his body looks so deliberate. It is “Bye, Johnny,” I called after him as he While the revenge motive strikes pity and makes sense, it doesn’t make it right. We’ve all been bul- I rushed into the kitchen and down wrought with intention, carved precisely crawled out the basement window. and cast in bronze. “Bye, Dot.” lied. Some more than others. Some way more than others, and they haven’t shot up a school. I think it re- the stairs into the basement, forgetting to switch on the light beside the doorframe. “I want you to leave, Johnny. I can’t I didn’t have a name, this time, for what ally boils down to which kids are getting the help they need. Mental illness is such an unspoken topic in At the bottom of the stairs, I felt a hot keep doing this.” I was feeling. Johnny was slamming the today’s society. Yeah, Eric might’ve been a sociopath, but how would we know? He’d never been evalu- breath against my neck. I inhaled sharply. Johnny looked bewildered, his eyes window shut, and I was wringing my ated. It’s not that his parents didn’t care; from what I’ve read it seemed like his parents cared a lot. It’s “It’s been nearly half an hour, Dorothy,” crackling with electricity. hands. “I’m not leaving, Dorothy.” I headed up the basement stairs to join just that at that time, no one really thought about that stuff. Mental illness stuff. Now, we kind of have a he growled into my ear. I exhaled deeply, fumbling for the chain on the overhead “I’m not asking. Get out.” Charlotte and the girls. They might be witch- grasp on it, but it’s going the opposite way. Today, all teenagers think they have depression and anxiety lamp. I pulled so hard I nearly ripped the “No.” es, but at least I have a coven, I reassured my- disorders, and it’s making it harder for the people who actually do have these things to get help because bulb out of its socket. “You’re a pig, Johnny. I should tell self. At the top of the stairs I reached for the they’re looked at as attention seekers. It’s just as bad as it was in the 90s in some ways. “You have no right to talk to me like Charlotte.” closest bottle on the counter. For all I knew, “Tell her you seduced her husband? That it could’ve been gin or water or cough syr- But can we martyr two teenage boys who killed thirteen people just because they were bullied? No. that, Johnathan,” I said calmly. My voice was steady, but my pulse was quickening. you’re a whore?” up. I let myself listen to the familiar sound But does that mean we can identify with them? Obviously not the school shooter part, but the bullying I could feel the 1-2, 1-2 speeding up in my “It takes two, Johnny. You know damn of the cap unscrewing and wrapped my lips part. We can identify with being an outcast. We can identify with having one friend or maybe no friends wrist and neck. A warm body closing in on well that it takes two.” around the bottle. Holding it by the neck, I mine. Clutching, childish hands. Johnny was silent, bristling with rage. tilted my head back, tasting nothing, feel- at all. We can identify with these boys in a lot of ways, when you think about it. Their teenage angst. He looked mad enough to burst out of his ing nothing. I wasn’t ready to go back in Their sense of style that might’ve been rejected by their peers. Feeling lonely for no reason. And when “Don’t I?” he asked, playfully building courage. own skin. He took a forceful step forward. there but the ooh’s and aah’s of my guests you think about Eric and Dylan as just that, as just two boys, you do sympathize a little bit. In a way, the “No, you damn don’t!” I took a timid step back. were summoning me back. I was the host- system failed them. In a way, we failed them. But it’s too late. Thirteen people lost and too late. I spun around, pushing his 6’4” frame off “I love you, Johnny,” I whimpered, ess, after all. of mine. I was surprised, then, by the vol- pressed up against the cold brick of my Through the crack in the kitchen door But think about it— what are we always bombarded with on the news? Crime. Murder cases. Drug basement. Of Jimmy’s basement. I could see the girls gathered around Nan- busts. Abuse. Robberies. We live in a society where we place murderers on the same platform as attrac- ume of my own voice. I wondered if Char- lotte could hear me or if she was ignoring Johnny took a step back and looked at cy and her tupperwares, just as I had left tive celebrities. We’re fed this mentality from such a young age— as soon as we’re old enough to read or me in the cocktail I had so dotingly made me with what I could only call disgust. them. It was Salem in rose quartz and understand what’s going on on television. “Charles Manson” is as much as a household name as “Kim her. “You don’t love me, Dorothy. You love powder blue. These girls were the kind of “I’m not your woman,” I said, quietly that you don’t have to hear me talk in my witches who rode Dyson vacuums instead Kardashian.” sleep. You love that I don’t cry when we of broomsticks, traded in their bonnets for I don’t know how long this Columbiner thing will last. For the girl who has a picture of Eric and this time. “But aren’t you?” make love.” Johnny shook his head. He beehives. Dylan tattooed on her ribcage, maybe forever. But for the rest? Who knows. Some of them take their His voice was angry that time. Angry looked dejected. “He used to talk in his So I smoothed my apron. They might be obsession so seriously they say they want to go into the forensics field. And maybe that’ll work out for that I would even dream of daring to stand sleep during the war, too, Dorothy,” John- witches, I think to myself, but at least I’ve got ny said. “Something about the Wizard of them, or maybe they’ll realize working in a forensics field doesn’t mean you work with cute school shoot- up to him. a coven. “You told me they wouldn’t be here for Oz. We all called him the Cowardly Lion.” ers all day. I wanted so badly to fall into his arms

48 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 49 mon for a girl to sit by herself eating bread and check who it was. Morning sun shone life like that, and I had to slow down which me from being alone. tried to think my way out of it and sug- A Thing of the Past in the poor neighborhoods of Siberia. On through the window the next day, and I made them slow down too. The boys that One afternoon when the girls and I gested that the boys should go first since I my way home I’d run, afraid to get stopped started to awaken with the heavy feeling were behind us grabbed one of the girls and went for the last walk to the store, they would be slower. They were smarter than Katia Hardesty by bullies. of a person up against me becoming more dragged her away with them. The other screamed “Malchik!” and sprinted, grab- me and forced me to climb over. On the Saddle River, NJ After I arrived home one of these times, and more real. As I opened my blurry eyes, girls looked on, terrified, as if she was al- bing my hand once again and dragging other side, we approached a pathway, and I heard sniffling and soft talk out of my I looked over, and my grandmother was ready dead. From what I could see, they me along like a rag doll. This time when I I saw my friends standing there. The boys grandparent’s bedroom. I walked towards beside me sleeping soundlessly. Her face were dark skinned and tall, about nine or slowed down, they didn’t slow down with stopped in their tracks and were about to My full name is Ekaterina Alexan- the sound, where I found mama crying in was blurry to me and misshapen, but my ten years old. No one saw that kidnapped me, but let go of my hand. I continued to strike when a tall, womanly figure con- dra Nurgatina. My name was changed to my grandparent’s bedroom. I was afraid vision slowly came back. As it sharpened girl after that day, and I never got my food. run, but not fast enough, and before I knew fronted them. She was a teenager, but not Ekaterina Rose Hardesty when I entered to go inside because I had never heard my her, face become more clear and visible. Two or three days after the incident, I it, they got me. I tried to resist, and wig- a young one. She had a body of a teen but a America, since my new parents had no mother cry so loudly, but I entered any- Her wrinkly face and closed, veiny eyes met up with the girls again in the usual gled and screamed, but no one helped me. face like an older woman. She said “let her idea of my complete name, and I was too way, only to find her kneeling down by were against my shoulder, wrinkling her spot. It was kind of warm out, enough to The other girls all just looked back at me go,” and reluctantly, they actually did. I young to tell them. Dedushka’s bed holding his hand, as Ba- face even more. Her face was blue-col- not need a coat. Out of nowhere, the kid- with terrified and apologetic faces. I didn’t ran to the girls, and the boys disbanded. I I was born in Siberia, Russia on July 17, bushka comforted Mama, but still wept ored. Her hands were still, as was the rest napped girl showed up, torn and beaten know what was going to happen to me. I never figured out who she was, but I was so 1997. The apartment we all lived in con- over my grandfather. I was unsure of why of her body. There was no chest rising up down. She had a bruise around her eye and wondered if they were going to beat me up extremely grateful she was there. sisted of four rooms. My learning to walk everyone was crying until I crept closer to and down. I jumped up, pushing her down God knows if there were bruises on her like that poor other girl. They spoke to me See, I was the ugly duckling in this situ- along the corridor took me from wall to look over my mother’s shoulder. on the couch with a sudden jolt, making body.She was covered up, so no one could slowly but in a hard way, demanding that ation, the runt in their litter of puppies. I wall and bump to bump until bruises cov- His body was still and his face and fin- her fall gracefully upon the couch. I looked know. Secrets were passed around which I follow them. I was now surrounded by don’t even remember if I was scared for the ered my body. When I thought I got a han- gers were a light shade of blue with wrin- at her with fear and pain in my eyes and were not shared with me. I was told I was two boys in front of me and two boys be- girl who got beaten. Those girls were the dle of it, the next thing I knew I was on the kles all over. His face showed no emotion started to shake her to wake up her un- too young to know, but my eyes didn’t lie. hind me. I couldn’t ditch them, since they barrier that protected me from the outside. ground again, but that was just the begin- as his right hand was placed upon his belly beating heart, but nothing was working. I saw those boys had beaten her badly. I be- were faster and I couldn’t hide, since they They took me in like I was one of them, ning of my life and the least of my worries. and his left was held by my mother. I never I screamed and wailed for her to awaken came afraid to be around those girls again, all were watching me. We walked up to a even though I wasn’t. No one can know Two years passed, and I began to realize spoke a word to them, afraid to cry myself. and say one more thing to me, but nothing yet something about them kept drawing fence they told me to climb. The first two how it felt to be me. I was different, and I the world around me more vividly. I came I just stood there next to them until men came from her sealed mouth. me in, like they were my saviors, stopping boys climbed over, forcing me to follow. I still am, because of the past. to notice who the people in my life were arrived to check the time of death and plan I ran out of the apartment to where and what use they were to me. My mom, a burial. Mama was, and when I ran through the I called her Mama, my grandma, Babushka, The next day I was told to dress and get doors of our apartment Mother was laying and my grandpa was called Dedushka. My ready to leave. There were black cars sit- in her bed sound asleep. I shook her awake Fingerprints dad, well, there was no such thing in my ting outside our house. I saw a big, shad- and screamed to her that Babushka wasn’t Rebecca Kanaskie life. I have always thought he left Mama owed figure in the back seat that almost moving. She sprang from her bed and ran Tamaqua, PA when I was just getting born, but that was touched the ceiling of the car. I was told to out the door in her bed clothing, not car- just a supposition. I have never given a get into that car and ride all the way to the ing about me. But I couldn’t blame her, I thought to why I didn’t have a papa since cemetery. I then realized it was anything wouldn’t think about anything but my own it was the norm. but ordinary. I was riding with a dead per- mother at that moment in time if I were My grandparents were somewhat son next to me. Halfway through the ride, in her place. As I slowly made my way to wealthy and could keep a family of four out I gathered up the courage to touch it and where Babushka was, I saw my mother sit- of hunger for a period of time. Babushka say a prayer in my head, thinking I will ting by her near the couch, embracing my was always good to me, always took care never have him this close to me again. The grandmother and hysterically crying. of me and helped my mother get through ride soon came to an end, and we all went I once again could do nothing but watch tough times, but I feared Dedushka. He inside a church to hear a priest say his and reflect on the memories of her and was in a wheelchair and had no legs, well, blessings and send him to heaven. me together. Like the one time where she he had legs but he had to put them on, and Months passed, and life just turned into told me to go buy something yummy like then when he put on legs he was a monster a party. Babushka started to drink inces- candy, but instead I went and bought a loaf that hovered over me and stomped around santly. Mother and Babushka stopped tak- of bread for the family. Little things that like an elephant. I always ran and hid from ing care of me. They seemingly forgot that she did for me I tried to do back for her. him every time he had legs. How could he I was in the room and looking at every- That day changed my whole life from bad possibly have no legs one minute and legs thing they were doing. Drinking had be- to worse. the other? No words could ever describe come an everyday thing from that day on. One morning on my way to the store, my life in full detail then. Then one night, the worst of the worst I met a couple of girls that looked a little It was a year after that day that my happened. Mama, Babushka, and I were older than I, and they somehow became pleasant days became a thing of the past. at a party that had plenty of liquor to go my friends. These friends were the only I became hungry and yearned to have food around, people were there talking and danc- people that made my life seem somewhat in my stomach every morning, so I’d sneak ing and laughing like idiots, and Babushka normal, but that didn’t last long. I walked early to my grandparent’s room to check if and Mama drank a lot. Russians tend to do with them to the store that morning and they were sleeping.Then I’d go behind the that, they drink a lot and then pass out un- suddenly I heard a scream. “RUN!” I door where their coats hung and reach into til the next morning with a hangover. The didn’t know what they meant, so curious their pockets to pull out money. I’d sneak night gradually progressed, and I sat on the me looked back to see who was chasing back out and run to the store to buy bread, couch to sleep. us. They grabbed my hand and dragged since that is all we could afford. After I In the middle of the night, I felt a fig- me into a sprint. My feet couldn’t carry me bought it, I’d sit on the ground near the ure lay next to me, putting its head on my that far, and soon my legs and lungs gave store and eat it. People stared at me, but shoulder, but I was too tired to wake up out. I have never had to run before in my were not surprised, since it wasn’t uncom-

50 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 51 and Jesus, we’re going to make us the slobber on the good tablecloth ach churn. And once his face the bread neatly balanced on the Black Sheep look as awful as my mom’s sis- and then deny everything when turned as red as Drunk Uncle Pat- Honey rim of the plate. The man gave his ter’s new waistline. Boy, has she my mother asked why the dog was rick’s, he hurled out, “Girls, just Liam Maguire thanks. She poured more coffee. Abigail Walker He gave his thanks again. “Sure had a tough couple of decades. throwing up in the backyard. drop it.” Hummelstown, PA Marblehead, MA thing,” she said. She bought a one way ticket to the Now Mom’s talking to her sister What early morning light there Uncle Patrick’s picking his The water from the eggs had city after ditching the 11th grade- in the corner, and my sister is still was crested from beyond the soaked the corn beef hash and it nose, his grubby fingers half way -no way her potential could fit in stuck at the kitchen counter. Dad’s But she wouldn’t stop talking cityscape spires andfell slant and had turned to something else en- up inside his face, and he’s flicking this rural town, let alone an alge- on the phone outside in the drive- about it, couldn’t keep her mouth dusty across the diner. A single tirely. Mush or meal. The eggs it at his mother-in-law again. I’ve patron sat in a booth and huddled were tasteless. When he was fin- bra classroom. Besides, New York way plowing gravel with his feet shut, so I walked over to the kitch- been hearing about his table man- over his table, sipping coffee. ished with them, he pushed the City would make her a star, one and kicking up dirt and dust. So I en counter. Maybe I just wanted to Dregs and water. Typical fare. ners for years, my father relaying plate back with his thumb and of those women you see holding sit on the couch with my cousins, defend myself to Mother-In-Law, “What’ll it be, hon?” The patron sipped his coffee. stories whenever Mom left the perfume bottles on highway bill- saying nothing, unsure if they’d to grab a handful of trail mix, to glanced up, grimacing. Notepad “Everything good, honey?” room. Not that she didn’t already boards, and she couldn’t wait to noticed me or if I’d want them put my dirty plate in the dish- and pen in her hand. Face pallid “Yes, hon.” The waitress be- hate her fat, parasitic brother with and fleshy, corpse-like. Bloated. gan to turn around, stopped. The live in a four story penthouse with to. We’re playing a videogame, or washer or maybe in the sink, to his white trash wife, white trash Five days old, maybe a week. She patron watched her. an infinity pool and her own strik- they are. It’s the kind with targets let the yappy Chihuahua back into smiled, dead-eyed, flashing false that’s sitting out on the deck, try- “What was that?” she said. ingly handsome butler. But she and guns and dead animals. You the house, to stretch my legs. But teeth barely glued to their blotched “Can I ask you a question, ing to mooch Grandpa of a couple ended up sharing a run down, 400 could tell these boys never get off a wine glass shattered on the hard- anad speckled gums. Her sockets honey?” He said. She looked wari- grand for this new project she’s a ruinous waste, blue-lidded and square foot apartment with a man their asses; they’re as filthy and wood floor. The thwack left White ly at him. starting, some huge, original, watery. Too many late nights. Too “Sho thing.” who she claimed to love. Though, unmotivated as their goddamn Trash’s fist hanging unnaturally world-spinning, hillbilly bullshit. much coffee. A thick and sagging “Do I look sweet to you?” once, he came home late, smell- parents. All of them live at home above the picnic table, and her eyes throat, turkey’s wattle. He thought And with every slap of her fist Her eyes narrowed. ing like cheap scotch, slammed the still, none went to college or even grazed my cheek without mov- a moment and said, “Huh?” on the picnic table, each shake of door, punched a mirror, and dislo- looked for a job, a perfect example ing her head. So she sat with her “Oh, yeah. Eggs, corn beef hash, “Would you consider me a cocktail, his Alzheimer’s pro- some toast. Another cup, too.” cated her shoulder, so it only took of what I can never become, the mouth still stuck mid-sentence as sweet looking?” gresses. She’ll bark him right into “Sure thing, hon. How you want “I don’t...” a couple weeks for the bathroom most rotten a person could pos- Grandpa’s wrinkles unlaced them- a nursing home. em?” she said. “Then why honey?” walls to close in on her, push her sibly be. The one in the middle selves in the clean cut silence. The “The eggs?” She nodded her My father and I can laugh at the “What?” into a corner, and empty her medi- shoots a lion in the back of the sound zapped my uncle up straight head. “If I ain’t sweet, why call me homeliness of Uncle Pat’s absent- cine cabinet with a glass of water. head with his rifle and asks me to with his shoulders stiff above his “Poached, thank you.” honey?” he said. She sputtered, minded, snot-covered mother-in- “White bread, whole grain, She woke up alone on the floor the pass him the orange soda. ears, and his Poor Excuses looked raising her hands. law because we’ll never need to or…?” “What’chu going on about?” next morning, still breathing. But then my sister begins talk- away from the television screen, see her again. She’s sitting at the “You got rye?” “Honey. Honey, you know, It’s been seven years since I’ve ing to that mother-in-law, and my stood up from their couch, and “I think.” counter, talking to my sister about bees? Buzz buzz. Sugary. Cheeri- seen my three cousins, all boys, all name comes up, something about stared at my back-- not the glass. I “Then rye.” os.” A dim flicker of realization a time she went to Paris and had at least five years older than me. the time I started skipping classes, sunk down to floor, thought about “Okay hon,” she said, turning crossed her face. the finest pastries. Now her lip- around and waddling off. The The last time was Thanksgiving not the whole story. biting into the quiet with an expla- “Yer crazy, hon.” stick stains plastic cups, and there man shook his head and looked “There it is. Hon. I’m not a at my parents’ house when I was And pulling myself out of the nation, and I sent my hands rat- are clumps of mascara on her eye- up at the ceiling. Black patches of barbarian at the gates, am I?” eight, when my manners were as sofa, I say, “Quit it with that.” tling towards the shards of glass. furred mold grew among the folds lids. She chews with her mouth “How does that do with a bad as Uncle Pat’s, when a table She turns around in her seat But I froze once I found my head of corrugated tin. A fan chink chink thing about me speaking?” open, her crooked teeth far from full of mashed potatoes and home- and towards me, her back to that hovering above the feet of Mom’s chinked faintly. Where the colum- “Do I look like Attila the subtle. So I can’t picture this made- made dinner rolls and pecan pie mother-in-law, and spits out, “It’s broken sister. And as I looked up nar light fell on its spinning blades, Hun? Huh, hon? Am I the Scourge moiselle sipping coffee or ordering yellow motes of dust swirled. The of God?” Her goitered gorge wob- wasn’t an anomaly, when my then true, I heard mom talking to dad to see her expression, the way she foie gras with her flawless French. man yawned and rubbed his eyes bled as she shook her head. “Then six-year-old sister and I would about it the other night.” must’ve been frowning down at with his knuckles and set an arm Dad and I just dip carrots in ranch why call me hon?” The man looked poke fun at our cousin’s acne. We “It’s none of your business,” I the girl who skipped school, all I back on the boothseat and looked up at her, tilting his head. dip and wonder where on God’s made a point of sitting next to tell her, “and besides, you--” could see was her fork still stuck outside. “Yer crazy,” she said, waving green Earth she got her hair done. each other just to feed the dog tur- You could hear the screen door in that pecan pie. “Here you go, hon,” the waitress him off. He simply shook his head But we have to knock it the said, setting a steaming plate of and said nothing. key underneath the table, to wipe shut, my father walk in, his stom- hell off because we just got here, eggs and corn beef on the tabletop,

52 : susquehanna university apprentice writer : 53 My favorite thing was that he would dad, I’d expect it. But he was awake… his body. He thinks slower and will Good Morning and Goodbye always make the tastiest popcorn. I knew that much. I started to lift hardly look people in the eyes. His Bobby Bruce Some could say, that this was my him back onto the couch, except he hugs, still warm and cuddly, are one Park Rapids, MN happy place. Not anymore. wasn’t using any effort; none at all. armed, but for him, I make an excep- That’s when I called Matt in from tion to my rule. I still blamed myself Waking up to coffee aromas on That morning, last October, was the kitchen to come help me hoist for not getting him help sooner. any morning is my preferred way of eerily cold, heck, maybe he forgot our large father back to a comfortable Somedays, I still catch myself blam- waking up. Throw in his wonderful to turn the heat on as well. October spot. He is a big guy. I was proud ing it all on me. The pain I felt, the cooking, and it was perfect. Some- wasn’t as cold to him as it was to us, that we lifted him up. Then I took pain I still feel, stays bottled up and times, I could see the steam from his and the old fart was getting more for- a second to observe my strangely locked away. It aches. But, we move delicious cooking come through my getful. I walked into the quiet kitchen limp father. His left arm, we acci- on. floor vent from the kitchen under- to see my brother preparing to go. dently got it smushed under him. In If dad would have been healthy, neath. In the morning, he always had We both had to be gone by eight, so any normal situation he would have maybe none of this would have hap- our favorite radio talk show on, and we could make it to Bemidji for Up- yelped. I mean, it did look to be in a pened. We’d still be a happy family. I we’d laugh the morning away. ward Bound, a college prep program, pretty painful spot. Matt helped him would still be able to visit him every by nine. We didn’t want to keep Jada put it into a comfortable place. Dad weekend and have him take care of I had to be up early that morning., I waiting. I didn’t honestly think I had must have really been tired to be act- me, instead of me taking care of him. knew that getting adequate sleep was the time or effort to make food, so ing like this. What was going on? I miss the serious side of my father, important, but I never liked getting gas station food sounded pretty swell. We could hear Jada pull into the the big scary guy. I miss his guid- up at seven on a Saturday. In fact, I I didn’t want to bother waking up my driveway, and that’s when we said ance his wise words. That side of hated it. Not to mention, how bad I youngest brother, Adam. He would our goodbyes. I have a rule that him died after the stroke, never to be was at gettingto get myself up, but he see me later. I did decide to go wake comes to hugging. I prefer a person to found again. He still has his humor said he’d wake me up. The thing is, up dad and wish him farewell, maybe use two hands when they hug. My though. I still have him. He still hugs he didn’t wake me up that morning, even give him a little crap for not dad knew that. But when I hugged me, holds me and tells me he loves there was no coffee brewing, no radio waking me up. Matt told me he was him, he didn’t hug back. I looked at me. Except I feel as if our roles have booming, and no steam rising from in the living room hunched over the him straight in the eyes. His eyes flopped. I tuck him in at night and my vent. couch. What did that mean? were not focusing on mine. I told wish him sweet dreams, just like he Weird. Weird. him that I loved him. I dontdon’t used to for me. It’s as if I am father- Maybe he overslept too. think it registered to him right away. ing him, keeping him out of trouble. My dad was well renowned for his But in a slurred speech, he said it It’s not so bad. At least I still have My room started upstairs, in a loft. awkward sleeping positions and his back. Then Matt hugged him, and him… But… I miss him... The stairs are a steep journey, but a terribly bad snoring. But dad’s knees we left. When I walked out that I thank God I still have him. I I journey well worth. At the bottom were bad. Why was he sitting like front door, I felt sick. Something was look at his silly grin when we drink of the steps were two doors. One that? I knew he wasn’t asleep, terribly wrong. I knew that because coffee, and it makes me happy. Some to the outside and the other for the based on the fact that his snor- of the staleness that wouldn’t leave mornings when I play our favorite bathroom. Our bathroom was never ing was nonexistent. Maybe he was my mouth. We hopped into Jada’s radio talk show, I’ll make him break- pretty best to leave it undescribed. stretching. He liked to stretch. Or, car and started to drive off. We fast and we will sit and talk about Our house was shared by guys, so maybe he was just waiting for me to explained to Jada what just happened the dumbest things like a father and Bright Eyes you can guess it wasn’t always the scratch his back. He loved it when I the condition my father was in. The son are supposed to do. It makes me Hannah Robertson cleanest. Our kitchen, cluttered with did that. . When I made it to the liv- thing she told me made my heart feel better. I had a lot of time to look Clarksburg, nj dishes, was pretty average. Sink, ing room, I got the vibe that some- sink. back on what happened and located stove, fridge, but it did have the thing was terribly wrong. “Call your mom, it sounds like the facts. Dad had bad health. I boombox, which we’d jam out with Very weird. your dad is having a stroke.” knew that. But I was so blind. Blind on nights where he wasn’t tired. Our enough to forget all warning signs. kitchen, dining room and living room It didn’t feel right, leaving him The next week was the hardest, It’s all weird to think about. I try to were all connected. From the din- like that, so I asked him if he needed most stressful week of my life, and ignore it as I sip my coffee and chit ing room, you were like an all seeing some help getting back on the couch. that scenario of me waking up and chat with my best buddy, my hero. eyeball. Yeah, our house was tiny, After about five seconds of silence, seeing dad that way played like but with all of us together, it didn’t he said yeah. Silly dad. Why does he an endless record, haunting every matter. We made the best of it every need my help? Maybe he is in some second of my existence. Why didn’t day. We had the most fun in our sort of deep sleep, like those episodes I see it sooner? Was I that stubborn living room. We didn’t have cable or people have when they sleep talk and to see my own father was in pain? He internet, so our TV time consisted interact quite well. Coming from my now only has use of the right side of of rentals and Friends marathons.

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Susquehanna University’s Writers Institute Endowed Writing Prizes and Scholarships: If you would like to know more about any provides students with the opportunity to Writing scholarships of $5,000 per year are of the programs for high school students receive nationally-recognized undergradu- available to incoming Creative Writing or receive information about the Creative ate training in all forms of creative writ- majors based on the quality of their writ- Writing major at Susquehanna, see our web ing through its Creative Writing major. ing portfolios. Prizes of as much as $1000 site at www.susqu.edu/writers or contact Students work closely in fiction, poetry, are awarded to students chosen each year Dr. Glen Retief, Director, by e-mail at creative nonfiction, and the technology of on the basis of work published in our stu- [email protected] or by telephone at 570- editing and publishing with faculty who dent magazines and in senior portfolios. 372-4035. are the widely-published authors of more than forty books. Small workshops and Internships: Susquehanna’s Creative one-on-one instruction are enriched by the Writing majors have had recent intern- following programs: ships with national magazines, advertising agencies, professional writing organiza- The Visiting Writers Series: Six writers tions, nonprofit foundations, newspapers, visit campus each year (one of them for public relations firms, radio stations, a week-long residency). Recent visitors churches, businesses, and schools. have been Melissa Bank, Dan Beachy- Quick, Eula Biss, Lydia Davis, Nick Graduate Programs: Creative Writing ma- Advanced Writers Workshops Flynn, Lia Purpura, George Saunders, and jors have received fellowships or assistant- Lauren Slater. For more information about our ships to such outstanding graduate writing summer Advanced Writers Workshops, programs as Iowa, Columbia, Johns The Susquehanna Review, Essay, and see our ad located on page 3, or visit: Hopkins, Indiana, Washington, Arizona, RiverCraft: Three distinct magazines Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Houston, are edited and produced by students— www.susqu.edu/about/writersworkshop.asp Boston University, Ohio State, UNC- a national magazine featuring work Greensboro, George Mason, Rutgers, and from undergraduate writers from across the country, a nonfiction magazine, and The New School. a magazine of fiction and poetry from Susquehanna student writers.

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