RE the flagler review FLA FLARE: the flagler review Spring 2015 FLARE the flagler review Volume 25 Issue 2 © 2015, FLARE: The Flagler Review, a publication of Flagler College. Visit www.theflaglerreview.com for subscription information and submission guidelines. Volume 25, Issue 2 Spring 2015 Staff Editor Fiction Editors Laura Henning William Evan Davies Jean Hernandez Daniel McMillian Senior Managing Editors Arialexya Pijuan Ari Corsetti Michael MacDonald Poetry Editors Assistant Managing Editors Caitlyn McCrea Dana Pederson Terell Robinson Rose Rossi Sierra Shahan Libby Svenson Art Directors Michelle Henning Non-Fiction Editors Matthew Quann Caroline Havens Kevin Ip Marketing Manager Kalel Leonard Lynnsay Baxter Advisor Social Media/Web Editors Brian Thompson Hannah Porter Briana Ramirez Editor’s Note NON-FICTION Laura Henning Ever since FLARE became student-produced in Spring 2012, our covers have featured an individual figure–from the mythical Artemis the Huntress (Spring 2012) to a “Shadow Person” (Fall 2013) rendered gesturally in charcoal–a motif which continues with this issue’s cover. POETRY The moment I saw our cover piece, however, I was not thinking about our running theme of “the individual.” Instead, I was struck by how gorgeous this girl was and how, in some nebulous way, I could relate to the complicated emotion behind her gaze. She is not making direct eye contact with us, and yet she imparts such feeling; she is looking beyond herself toward greater things. This semester my gaze, too, has turned outward, widening to fit ever-expanding horizons. I have experienced so many conflicting emotions during my last semester as editor, including, but not lim- ited to: sadness, relief, frustration, and profound nostalgia for the smallest things. Perhaps this is why I relate so deeply to the girl on our cover. There is a complexity to her that cannot be uncovered by a quick glance, or even a closer second look. Her expression is one that is timeless, and consequently takes an eternity to unpack. If I have learned anything from my final full semester at Flagler, FICTION it is that we do not spend enough time in our daily lives just thinking, just looking, just being. We’re always onto the next thing, rushing here and there, scrambling to meet deadlines and make meetings. We need to find “the area of pause,” as Charles Bukowski mentions in his poem ART by the same name, before we “become unalive / because [we] are un- able to / pause / undo [ourselves] / unthink / unsee / unlearn / roll clear.” I hope this issue of FLARE encourages you to find that quiet space within. Our world is a crazy one, but luckily for us, literature and art have the ability to calm the blur. 4 NON-FICTION Stu Pierce Five Years 7 Will George The Diary of a Garden Thief 10 Nick LaRocca Shaving the Dog 22 Dawn Cunningham Whopperjawed 27 POETRY George Bishop Roads 37 Liz Dolan A Rising Rugby Star 38 Dies in a Slurry Pit My In-laws Perfect 40 the Sweet Science Planting Season 41 Deborah Gang eBay Has Apologized for 46 Sale of Holocaust Objects Joe Kraus Three Stories about My Body 47 Richard King Perkins II Evil Sun in Black Boots 48 Gary Pierluigi Brown Skinned Girl 49 Travis Truax Kansas, 1959 50 Charles Rafferty Backyard Wolves 52 FICTION Charles Calia Corn Maze 54 ART Catherine Pinyot Light Blue Cover Katie Evans Perpendicular 6 Dr. Ernest Williamson III The Spring of Summer’s Flair 36 Catherine Pinyot Tangerine 43 Memory II 44 Tobias Oggenfuss Curved Circus 53 5 Non-Fiction Perpendicular Katie Evans 22” X 30” - Pencil on Paper 6 Five Years Stu Pierce My cat died back in 2005. We had him for 20 years. He had been a constant companion in my life and we had been through a lot togeth- er. He’d seen me through the good times and the not so good times. When he died 8 years ago it hit me unexpectedly hard. So, I did what any normal, grieving person would do in a similar situation. I froze him. Well, I’m not sure everyone would do that, but that’s the route I took. I froze him, but before I did I put him in an air tight vacuum sealed bag—actually five of them. I’d put him in a bag and seal it and then repeat the process. And inside each consecutive bag I put those little packets designed to absorb moisture—the kind you find in bags of food. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Anything that would keep moisture out was considered to be a good thing. I couldn’t find a place to buy those moisture packets wholesale, so I decided the most cost effective way to obtain them was from bags of beef jerky. I considered many other options as I walked up and down the food aisles at Wal-Mart, but after I did a cost benefit analysis, beef jerky seemed like the most economical option. I must’ve bought $60-70 of beef jerky just to get what I thought was enough moisture packets. After all these vacuum sealed bags were tightly layered on top of my recently departed loved one it quickly be- came clear to me that there was a couple of clear cut problems with this whole situation. None of which were the very obvious psychologi- cal issues inherent in my behavior. One of the problems I saw was that if I did put my cat in the freezer as it was then if (on the rare occasion) I had guests over I had to either keep them out of my freezer (which could give rise to any number of awkward moments) or I would live in constant fear of them helping themselves to some ice. I couldn’t have that either. No. Some added measure had to be taken to prevent it from being so clearly visible should any prying eyes find their way into my freezer. Solution—a plastic box I had seen at Wal-Mart. It was blue and not at all see through. It also seemed like the perfect size to house my long- term companion, but not too big either. So, I transferred my friend yet again (only taking him out of the freezer in brief spurts). I got him into his box (his “casket” if you will). 7 I considered sealing the box in an air tight bag as well, but its sheer size precluded it. Enter another solution: two rolls of Saran Wrap. I wrapped and wrapped and wrapped. After it was all said and done it probably added two inches to the container’s actual size. After doing all this—going to such great lengths—it became clear that this thing would never fit into the modest freezer I had gotten through campus housing. So, I did the only thing I could think of late on a Tuesday night—I bought a deep freeze. It seemed only logical. Well, a mini deep freeze, but still. I drove to Wal-Mart at 2 in the morning and spent hundreds of dollars “honoring” the memory of a cat who was, by all accounts, se- nile for the last six years of his life. Getting it out to my car was difficult, but actually getting it in the trunk of my 1992 Ford Tempo proved to be impossible. It just wouldn’t fit. It was simple physics. It was weird too because I thought my mea- surements were spot on. I did get an A in high school geometry, you know. So, here I am, standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot at an ungodly hour with a deep freeze that I just dropped a sizable chunk of money on that I couldn’t fit into my trunk and on top of that I had a frozen cat at home depending on me. This, ladies and gentleman, is a crazy man’s dilemma. Then this random guy passed by in the parking lot and took pity on me. He got a rope out of the bed of his truck and helped me get it wedged as far as it would go into the trunk of my car and then fastened it down with the rope. The whole time it felt like we were doing some- thing illegal. It had all the makings of a Sopranos episode. We both agreed that if I went slow and avoided major potholes that I should probably be fine. So, I drove home exhausted and proceeded to take this behemoth into my apartment. And as I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in a moon lit puddle of water, I couldn’t help but be reminded of some de- ranged sociopath I had learned about on a news program. Names like Dahmer...Gacy...Bundy...all flashed through my mind. Was I headed down that same path? I eventually lugged my freezer into my apartment and got it all unpacked and running. I justified the purchase to my friends as an im- pulse buy, nothing more. I just had to have it I told them. They never questioned it. It seemed believable to them. They would come into my apartment from time to time—little did they know what was just a few feet away. I found myself forgetting about it as well. It just became ordinary to me. 8 I kept my friend frozen in there for 5 years. Perfectly preserved and pristine. The way everything we love should be. But that isn’t al- ways the case—not in the real world.