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Phineas 2017 Phineas 2017 The Literary Magazine of San Bernardino Valley College Number 48 © 2017 Phineas is produced each spring semester by the Literary Magazine Production class, English Department, San Bernardino Valley College. The contents are the work of students of SBVC, and all rights revert solely to the authors and artists upon publication. Phineas supports free creative expression, but any opinions or viewpoints expressed in the works in this magazine do not necessarily represent the views of the editors, faculty advisor, English department, college or district. Contents Fiction Art Jonathan Tovar E-Flat* 4 Amanda L. Muñoz Oculus Hound FC Ayo Amadu Switzerland, Not Australia 14 David Mitchell The Life of Gilligan 3 Ruben Escobar Cycle and Restrained 25 Ingrid Melchor Night Terrors 7 Alexis Rascon The Water’s Reflection* 30 Malcolm Armstead Fox and Maiden 8 Matthew Sadergaski The Undeceived King 10 Poetry DeAndrea Brooks Butterfly 13 Roman Duro Civilized 18 Lucinda Crespin Silent Observation 3 Ingrid Melchor Casablanca Mood 20 Alexis Gonzalez I Was Once the Moon 8 Amanda L. Muñoz Iniquitous 22 Jonathan Tovar Perpetuation of Life 9 Matthew Sadergaski Why So Serious? 24 Kimberly Morales 11/1/16 11 Amanda L. Muñoz Satyr Senses 28 Ashley Pacheco After Sonnet 130 ... 11 Ingrid Melchor Fill in the Lines 31 Elizabeth Duran the last bit of grace 12 Roman Duro Dysthymic 32 Devin Mitchell I Said Love 13 Matthew Sadergaski Charcoal Study 34 Lucinda Crespin Roses and Violets 19 Jasmine Barajas Isolation in Heaven* 35 Ayo Amadu Future Past 19 Malcolm Armstead Mystery Samurai 38 Lucinda Crespin In My Dreams 20 Matthew Sadergaski Eazy Duz It 39 Ryann McCurry A Woman’s Recovery 21 Matthew Sadergaski Why They Hatin’ For?* 41 Penicia Sims I’m Afraid 23 Malcolm Armstead Spider Stuff 43 Devin Mitchell The Wanderer 24 Matthew Sadergaski What Happen? 46 Vanessa Ramos Ramirez I Am … 28 Amanda L. Muñoz To Gaze Beyond 48 Devin Mitchell And the World Goes …* 29 Delia Rose Mejia The End 49 Ayo Amadu Fear 32 Matthew Sadergaski Still Life BC Jonathan Tovar Sonnet for D. C—— a 33 Kimberly Morales 1/16/17 33 Jonathan Tovar An Epitaph 34 Ayo Amadu Desolation 35 Ha Ly The Storyteller 36 Award Winners Elizabeth Duran An Empty Vase 38 Elizabeth Duran The Sound of a Wilted Lily 39 Works noted by the * symbol in the contents Ashley Pacheco foresty type words 40 list and by special notations within the Alissa Ramirez 11/11/16 42 magazine have been recognized by faculty Devin Mitchell Taught 43 judges as outstanding pieces in their genre. Devin Mitchell Manifested Illusion 45 See last page of magazine for more Jonathan Tovar Pulcinella’s Favor 44 information on the award winners and the faculty judges. Malcolm Armstead Burning Air 46 Alissa Ramirez Candle 47 Eve Mulhall I Am 48 Ashley Pacheco the apocalypse came …* 50 2 Silent Observation Lucinda Crespin Watching the students as they walk by, With each step they head into the future Unseen and unknown. Wherever fate will take them, who will decide? Who, how or why? Some will be successful While others dreams will die. Is it determination that will ultimately decide Why some dreams will blossom While others fade and die? If I had the answer I would post it on a wall, So all students would be successful And dreams would never die, With step by step instructions You could follow till the end Till you graduate and reach the top. But I only have this pen The Life of Gilligan David Mitchell 3 Fiction 1st Prize E-Flat Jonathan Tovar You think that I am crazy; you must, or else you might not have detained me. Very well; perhaps, for an hour or two, I was—not crazy, per se; shall we say instead that I was “without sanity”? I can see how the evidence against me is damnable—but a murderer? I am no murderer! I have killed no one! My actions might have resulted in a death, but they were enacted without conscious motive to harm. Simply put, she was in the way… I have behaved without reason; yet, is not every instance of unreasonableness, of any presumed fit of madness, nothing more than the awful and disjointed effect of some relevant cause? Are you not able to concede that I might have been influenced into misdeeds? I am not of sound mind, and I have not been well for many years. I suffer from no form of dementia or delusion, only the somber effect of mourning—were it not for which, they would have had no reason to place me in the Willow’s Inn asylum—“to rest for an indeterminate length of time”—and I might not have encountered that cacophonous spur to insanity. My arrival at the inn?—it passed without much ceremony on December 2. The scenery was beautiful: the lawns were vast, peppered upon which thriven acreage were no less than a dozen gorgeous willows, the largest of which obscured the inn itself—an ash-toned reconverted chateau with teal trim. Aria would have loved it… Mr. and Mrs. Wymond, each donning a smile as false as their teeth, met me direct as the taxicab parked at the gate. The weather was chilly and the neighborhood quiet, save for my host’s conversation, which began in soliloquy as soon I stepped out the vehicle to retrieve my luggage from the trunk. I have not known one inquisitive person yet whose company I enjoyed. “We’re most pleased to have you here, Mrs. Drustan—” I corrected her form to “Ms.” “So you’re a bachelorette? Ah, I remember those days,” she whispered, with a chuckle. Mr. Wymond said nothing but, with a smile, he held open the white picket fence with one hand and offered his other to carry my heavier suitcase. “Forgive me,” she continued, without notice of the transfer. “I just assumed you had a husband. The man who called for the reservation—is he not a future husband perhaps?” I dissented as politely as I could. Imagine it—my therapist, my future husband. Were it not so disgusting, it would be laughable. “No? Well, a lovely girl like you is certain not to be alone for long… So tell me, what brings you to stay with us this week?” Rest, I told her, which, of course, incited further questions about my career, et cetera. We three walked, with me between them, with scarce an ear to listen to Mrs. Wymond, up the garden-lined cobblestone walkway to the filigree-bound double doors of the inn. Once inside the inn, the wholesome aromas of cut wood and autumnal spices flooded my lungs. The lobby was furnished with a burning fireplace, an overstuffed mahogany bookcase, and a twin-divans set with ornate trims. On the walls were hung tranquil landscapes of forests and meadows, and a few photographs that might have dated a hundred years. “Have a look around, dear, and get comfortable. Mr. Wymond will take your bags up to your room—the first door on your right in the hall at the top of the stairs. There are four other tenants boarding this week, two of whom are due to arrive soon with their daughter. Oh, do you have any children, Ms. Drustan? No? It is not too late, dear. Ha ha. Anyhow, dinner will be prepared and served in the dining room at six. You’re more than welcome to join us.” 4 Being in no rush to bury myself alone in my room so soon—the deplorable manner by which I had lived for months—with an eye on distraction, I decided to browse about the inn; about the forgotten novels and the dusty encyclopedias in the lobby, about the kitchen and its sugar-dipped pastries and the kitschy décor of hanging pots and colorful pencil-sketches of children with enormous eyes, and about the fruit bowls and the family-style arrangement of the dining room; all was very quaint—a veritable antique dollhouse. The den, however, was rather curious. Communicating with the lobby via a door directly beside the stairwell, it contained two notable objects: a six-foot tall grandfather clock, whose pendulum beat as a metronome; and across from that, a vintage upright burgundy piano. I could not approach it, for the disease that is memory afflicted me then with an ache that froze my very muscles. From not delirium but grief, I almost saw her—my precious Aria—an apparition, seated on the adjacent bench, and I feared even to look at it. Her music, I almost heard… so intricate for a girl so young… I shuddered when a frail hand lay atop my shoulder. “She is our pride at the inn,” said Mrs. Wymond. I had not heard her step. “She was built into the frame of the wall by the house’s original contractor.” When I asked why, she bade me near it, whereupon she invited me to strike a key. I struck Middle C, and the tone seemed to reverberate through the very walls themselves. “You could play a song from here, and hear it anywhere in the house, in any room. Now, is that just not the loveliest invention? And wouldn’t you know—neither Mr. Wymond nor I know how to play it. Ha, ha! But we always welcome our guests to play… You wouldn’t happen to play piano, would you, Ms. Drustan?” Her eyes and her tone held in them less inquiry than persuasion. I am certain that, when you set the reservation, you had informed her of my capability, which I was prepared to deny when the doorbell rang and saved me of a lie.