*I. : 'a i* ta Fe d *e Southern Voices Volume Sixteen Spring 2004 Staff Judges Editor Art Judge Jeremy Crawford Selden Lambert Freelance Artist Assistant Editor Studio 206 Preeti Kumar Photography Judge Art Editor Birney Imes, III Jordan Richard Photographer: Juke Joint Staff Members (University Press of Mississippi, 1990) Hayley Hill Whispering Pines Brittany Hollis (University Press of Mississippi, 1994) Tina Jenkins Jessica Jennings Poetry Judge Addie Leak Beth Ann Fennelly Nyssa Perryman Author of: Open House Advisor (Zoo Press, 2002) Emma Richardson Tender Hooks (W.W. Norton, 2004) Cover Photography Kimberly Golden, “Bloom” Short Story Judge and “Oh, hey!” Jack Riggs Author of: When the Finch Rises (Ballantine Books, 2003) Essay Judge Eric Daffron Author of: Romantic Doubles: Sex and Sympathy in British Gothic Literature, 1790-1830 (AMS Press, 2002) Table of Contents Essays Poetry Jamie Ausborn Monica Cook “My Black and White Medium” . .6 “A Moment” . .27 Mattie Brown Jeremy Crawford “Who Ate the Last Piece of Chicken?” . .44 “Poetry” . .40 Jeremy Crawford Chris Gresham “Whoopings” . .26 “Felt Tip Pen” . .8 Tom Feng Hayley Hill “My Little Tiger” . .46 “Spring” . .37 Hayley Hill Brittany Hollis “Fluff” . .24 “Jordan” . .7 “Walking in the Rain” . .15 Jessica Jennings “The First Rung” . .19 Jessica Jennings “Last Night As You Lay Sleeping” . .7 Addie Leak “The Color of Gone” . .23 “A Typical Monday Morning” . .41 “Dance” . .40 Jordan Richard Preeti Kumar “Columbus 23” . .20 “Hands” . .39 Jershuntas Webber Addie Leak “The Essence” . .10 “Autumn” . .21 “Flowers at Dawn” . .27 Ken Wells “Stained Glass” . .38 “A Hard Path” . .9 “Waiting” . .38 Jack Neldon Short Stories “Demented Thoughts” . .21 Brittany Penland Jeremy Crawford “Melancholic Bliss” . .23 “Cigarette Breaks” . .16 “Characteristic Nostalgically” . .42 Hayley Hill Nyssa Perryman “Uncle Jim” . .34 “Beautiful Blue” . .22 “Random Thoughts of Life” . .36 Nyssa Perryman “Dixon Grey” . .12 Jordan Richard “Biorhythmic Repetition . .15 Ryan Scott “Comfort” . .37 “Virgos” . .3 “Grey” . .45 Caitlin Wolfe Quinnon Taylor “Modern Immortal” . .29 “Reflection Gone” . .43 SV Art Photography Hannah Burnett Hannah Bruce “Ella” . .15 “Natural Coordination” . .21 “Beauty” . .24 “Natural Bridge” . .22 Jeremy Crawford Kyle Doherty “Hallowed Trees” . .40 “Vertigo” . .31 Orlando Croft Kimberly Golden “Woman of Night” . .28 “The City That Never Sleeps” . .5 “Fractal” . .38 “The Past Lives” . .11 “Nude Woman” . .43 “Past Reflections” . .26 “Self-Portrait” . .46 “Bloom” . .Front Cover “Oh, hey!” . .Back Cover Eric Davenport “Say Cheese!” . .18 Laura Beth Moore “Celestial” . .27 Andy Guan “Grass” . .8 Sara Peek “Rolling Field #2” . .23 “Tiline” . .9 “Me?” . .44 Kristin Klaskala “Notre Dame” . .20 Nyssa Perryman “Wave of Midnight” . .42 “Fallen Angel” . .43 Felicia Mo Brandon Thornton “Hands of Time” . .39 “Left Behind” . .6 “Ford” . .37 Jordan Richard “Phoenix” . .35 Laura Amye Williams “Wonder” . .38 “una mariposa transparente” . .22 Jordan Smalley “Vertigo” . .21 “Jacy” . .45 Lekha Sunkara Angels Guard Me “Woman” . .13 Through the Night Emily Vance “Operation Condor” . .25 “Rumble in the Bronx” . .47 Kristin Klaskala’s glass etching, Angels Guard Me Through the Night, was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Art Competition. Due to technical limitations, the work is unable to be represented in this publica- tion. The staff of Southern Voices expresses its apology and congratulates Kristin on her accomplishment. SV Virgos by Ryan Scott Honorable Mention, Short Story Competition His hands shook a little as he fumbled those that might be the future. He saw vividly through his glove compartment, looking for the entrance to Mountain View Hospital in his box of Turkish Jade Camels. It was not Gadsden, Alabama— that ethereal place where uncommon for his hands to shake, for he was he had lived for over a month in a constant a nervous child. He had long been labeled as haze brought about by twenty-four-hour-a-day “troubled” by those nearest him so the shaking therapy and the rigors of de-tox. “We believe was hardly of note to him anymore. His face, that each patient has individual needs that normally a plaintive olive, had, after flushing must be mutually identified, planned and met bright red, drawn a melancholic pale. He bat- in order to facilitate the attainment of his/her tled with the cheap lighter until his cigarette optimal level of functioning and maximum had finally been lit, and then glanced through health potential,” the check-in sheet had read. his rear view mirror at the blue duffel bag, He thought it funny that he could still remem- green pillow, and red quilt that he had hastily ber its exact wording. thrown into his back seat a little over four He had tricked himself for a while into hours before as he blew his first puff of smoke. believing that these people were totally insane “I suppose I’m done crying” he thought. It and he was completely and totally separate wasn’t a conscious choice of defiance and per- from them. He then came to believe that it had sonal strength; his glands were empty, his eyes been those on the outside that were the ones were sore and more tears were literally impossi- insane and that he had finally found “his” peo- ble at this point. He took a small sip from the ple and a place to belong, but this too was bottle of Sprite that lay in the cup holder of his false. “You are in control,” his psychiatrist had Jeep Cherokee before putting the cigarette back told him. “It’s not easy— It’s a fight every day to his lips, taking off the safety brake and to the death— but you are in control.” He had putting the vehicle in drive. “I’m almost to believed her. Perhaps he still did. “Don’t stay Georgia—don’t want to stop now.” here,” she had told him. So he didn’t. And He had no idea where he was going. He within a month’s time he had left Mountain honestly could not remember why he had left. View, according to his sign-out sheet, a “recov- Surely something traumatic had occurred that ered bi-polar.” ”What signifies recovery?” he could spur him to make the decision to aban- angrily demanded, silently in his head to God don his life at home, but he could not think or whatever higher being was there to define what it was. Something must have driven him the limits and boundaries of “recovery.” Had to continue driving on across the Alabama he really recovered? Was recovery even a realis- state line into Georgia, but he did not know tically possible goal? what it was. Something must have happened. He remembered that James, one of the There had to be something. But no. Nothing. patients at Mountain View, had been totally The sun went down as he directed his route convinced that the idea of recovery was a lie north to South Carolina. Nights were never told by societal heads in order to suppress indi- easy for him. Ever since he could remember he viduality and force conformity. Perhaps James had had nightmares or bad thoughts in the had been right. He had liked James a great darkness. The setting of the sun literally deal. James was, unlike himself, unashamed of drained him of all energy. As the stars came what society considered to be his weaknesses. out, his mind became a fluid pool of time and James was flagrantly open about an addiction space. Events, places, and people of the past to some form of speed as well as his homosex- intermingled with those of the present and uality. But the fact remained; he was on the SV 03 outside. James was still in. Perhaps there was the particularly commercial entertainment something to be said for shame, at least in known as the musical theater. They had fooled some instances. themselves together into thinking that what He blamed his mother. Perhaps too much. they were doing was artistic and important and She had tried tirelessly, but the genes were still a means by which to gain the love of others. hers. He blamed his father for not being able The venture had proven to be a devastating fail- to understand him or his mother, leaving them ure on many terms for the both of them. alone to their own devices of recovery, which “I was going through one of our old pro- more often than not included a bottle of Jack grams the other day. Your number fell out of Daniels, a handful of Sominex, and a box of the pages. I just had to see if it still worked.” Kleenex. He blamed them. And he found “I’m glad it does,” he said. blame in the entirety of society for their stand- “It was written on that little piece of nap- ing. He also felt guilty and more than a little kin, remember? We were talking out on the ashamed, for he knew that the driving force of back patio at the closing night party. We said his life had been a search for someone or we’d keep in touch because us crazy Virgos had something on which to place the blame. But he to stick together.” had not found it. And he knew he never He laughed a little, remembering how would. “Why,” he wondered, “must someone they had discovered upon their first meeting be lower for me to be higher?” He couldn’t that they had the same birth date, and how answer that question. But he accepted the theo- excited Eileen had been, being intensely inter- ry behind the question as truth, and whether ested in astrology, at the prospect of discover- right or not, he refused to refute it.