METAPHOR Undergraduate Literary Journal Metaphor Is Weber State University’S Undergraduate, Interdisciplin- Ary Journal, in Its Thirty-First Year of Publication

Home , Born in the Dark, Hail to the Thief, Shake the Room, Twist My Arm

METAPHOR Undergraduate Literary Journal Metaphor is Weber State University’s undergraduate, interdisciplin- ary journal, in its thirty-first year of publication. The journal is staffed entirely by Weber State University students. Metaphor accepts submissions in visual arts, poetry, fiction, academic literature, and music from students of Weber State Univer- sity, and selected pieces from national submissions to the National Undergraduate Literarature Conference. Publications in Metaphor are chosen through a blind submission process. The author, visual artist, or composer of each piece is unknown until that piece is selected for publication. Metaphor is funded primarily through student fees and is distrib- uted free of charge to students, faculty, guests at Weber State University’s annual National Undergraduate Literarature Confer- ence, and the community. Copyright © 2012 is retained by individual authors, visual artists, and composers.

Printed in the United States of America by Weber State University Printing Services, Ogden, Utah.

Metaphor Weber State University 1404 University Circle Ogden, Utah 84408-1404 Visit us on the web: www.weber.edu/metaphor Cover Design by Jennifer Sanda Book Design by Shannon Allen METAPHOR STAFF

Faculty Advisor NULC Section Jan Hamer Coordinator Andrea K. McFarland Editor-in-Chief Quincy Bravo Website Manager Michelle Paul Assistant Editor Cynthiann Heckelsmiller Publicity Specialist Katherine Trottier Creative Director Shannon Allen Reviewers Alexandra Sauvé Art Editor Andrew Balls Jenny Eckenbrecht Bree Rydalch Carey Francis Elise Nielsen Fiction Editor Jennifer Sanda David Glen (Harrison) Josh Nelson Kurt Jensen Music Editor Logan Cox Josaleigh Pollett Melanie Walker Samantha Postma Nonfiction Editor Sarah Kortkamp Alexandria Waltz Shannon Beverley Thomas Alberts Poetry Editor Jason VanDaam Acknowledgements

Metaphor would not exist without our dedicated staff. Thank you all for your time, patience and service to this publication. Thank you for putting up with me and for facing every problem with swagger and confi- dence. Thank you for your friendship, work ethic, and for always keeping a smile on your faces and keeping a smile on mine. This year’s Metaphor is dedicated to you. I hope you enjoy it. We would also like to thank the following individuals:

Shannon Allen, our Creative Director, for her long nights designing this spectacular publication, and for her patience with me as we compiled the book. Jason Francis, Cindy Stokes, and the Printing Services staff for answering our questions, making the book happen. Robin Scott, Kim Webb, and the English Department staff for helping us with advertising, questions, and directing students to our door. The professors of Weber State University for encouraging their students to submit their work. Dr. Kathy Herndon and Dr. Vicki Ramirez for their continued support. The undergraduate students of Weber State University for creating such wonderful works of art. Thank you for allowing us to share in your thoughts and experiences. The Weber State University Student Senate for their financial support. Jan Hamer, our Faculty Advisor, for her support and guidance as we struggled along. Our staff was good at coming up with ideas, but she made them happen. Thank you, Jan. You are fantastic, and we love you. Cynthiann Hecklesmiller, my Assistant Editor, for being right there with me through all the stressful times. She was all I could ask for in an Assistant Editor, a reliable partner, and a good friend. The Section Editors of Metaphor for their hard work and dedication. The spouses, family members, and significant others of the staff for their patience and support. We could not do what we do without your support behind us. EDITOR’S NOTES

Quincy Bravo Editor-in-Chief

True works of art, no matter their popularity, are not just words and pictures; they are more than that. It begins with an artist’s vision: an idea born in the dark that arrives with a violent flash of light. And it moves just as quickly as it came, racing like a current through the artist’s head and into his hands, down to his feet and back up his legs before finally resting in his heart. But a heart cannot contain such a feeling for long. It begins to beat harder, faster and faster, until the beating doubles. Then the heart splits and art is created. That is what the pieces featured in this book are: living entities that echo the heartbeat of their authors, and I am proud to have the opportunity to present them.

I have been a part of Metaphor for four years, and still, I am amazed at the talent that Weber State University has to offer. What makes Metaphor so fantastic is the wide range of arts that it encompasses. Literature, Research, Visual Arts, and Music are all featured within these pages.

I had the unique and amazing experience to be a part of every staff this year, and I am thankful to be able to read/see/hear so many stellar works, published and unpublished. Also, I feel particularly honored to be able to work with such a wonderful and talented staff. Thank you, all of you, You are what makes Metaphor great. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Music...... 9 James Ezra (An Elegy) Rochelle Dawn Brown...... 25 Devan Bailey...... 10 I found my feet at. . . Alex Gerrish...... 11 Jennifer Sanda...... 26 Fox Van Cleef...... 12 Streptopelia turtur Christopher Pink...... 13 Murielle Parkinson...... 27 Zodiax...... 14 Pink Flower Caitlyn Jensen...... 28 Josaleigh Pollett...... 15 Wading in the Muddy. . . Quincy Bravo...... 16 Jennifer Sanda...... 29 Windows Laurie Innocenzi...... 30 Synesthesiac Quincy Bravo...... 31 Monologue Poetry...... 17 Karleigh Weeks...... 32 Forty Winks and. . . Nothing More Melanie Walker...... 18 Quincy Bravo...... 33 Angels can’t get cancer Kito’s Bar Jason VanDaam...... 19 Jason VanDaam...... 34 Crabapple Blossoms Persephone at One-Eyed. . . Rochelle Dawn Brown...... 20 Melanie Walker...... 35 To My Valley, from your. . . A Hole in My Hat Murielle Parkinson...... 21 Kory Wood...... 36 Taurus Alpha Heavy Murielle Parkinson...... 22 Jennifer Sanda...... 37 Carrick-A-Rede, Ireland When I was Young Andrew Balls...... 23 Alyse Haymond...... 38 For The Love Of A Child Design Emily Oliver...... 24 Michelle Paul...... 40 Half the Light Happy Birthday Grandma Sean Peak...... 41 Megan Wilson...... 59 What Loss Feels Like Texas Ghettos Alexandria Westover...... 42 Carey Francis...... 60 Heat Seeker Harvest Alexandra Sauvé...... 43 Adriana Moore...... 61 Substantial, But Not. . . outside box Sean Peak...... 44 Melinda Taggart...... 62 All Differences Aside where is my heart Alexandria Westover...... 45 Melinda Taggart...... 62 High Up Places Deus Ex Machina Alexandria Westover...... 46 Andrew Balls...... 63 Summer’s End trapped Lyn Bardwell...... 47 Sharon Salmond...... 64 Procrastination Kory Wood...... 48

Fiction...... 65 Shake the room ART...... 49 Kory Wood...... 66 Visual orientation SONG OF SORROW Various Artists...... 50 David Glen (Harrison)...... 73 Cover Art Gracious Hero Various Artists...... 51 David Glen (Harrison)...... 75 One More Night Dragon Slayer Landon Jeffery...... 52 Jeff Martinez...... 79 suggestions of. . . Two Minds Tyler Van der Stappen...... 53 Ross Morrill...... 81 The Opposite of Sex Strangers at a Card. . . Trent Olsen...... 88 Tyler Van der Stappen...... 54 . Captivating Liberation Ash Megan Wilson...... 55 Sami Postma...... 90 Heavy Laden Revoked Megan Wilson...... 56 Kory Wood...... 94 We Shall Find Catch of the Day Jenny Eckenbrecht...... 57 Michelle Paul...... 96 Awareness The Art of Falling Sharon Salmond...... 58 Emily Oliver...... 98 N onFiction..101 Forgotten Heroes. . . Eladio Bobadilla...... 102 Writing (Parenthetically) Kory Wood...... 109 Only Crumbs Remain Logan Cox...... 111 A Prayer-Like Request. . . Kory Wood...... 116 Death of The Zucchini Elizabeth Hedgepeth Spencer...... 118 The Flight of Planets Logan Cox...... 124 Radiohead’s 21st Century. . . Devan Bailey...... 125

nulc...... 129 Fiction: Tales of Three Blind Mice Portland State University Jason VanBuskirk...... 130 NonFiction: The Dangers of Forbidden. . . Washburn University Emily Simons...... 133 Poetry: By Smell Pepperdine University Evanne Lindley...... 140 Something intimate Western Kentucky University Ryan Hunton...... 141 Tippy Golden Flowery. . . Weber State University Lee Nguyen...... 142 For the Female Wolf Spider Capital University Rebecca Muntean...... 143 MUSIC Introduction MUSIC

Music Editor: Josaleigh Pollett Music Staff: Andrew Balls Cynthiann Heckelsmiller Elise Nielson Josh Nelson Logan Cox

INTRODUCTION

Music, simply, is everywhere. We don’t always notice how it conducts our emotions and experiences through day- to-day life. In an intense moment in a film, while driving and singing on our way to work, or sharing a romantic moment with a loved one, these times in everyone’s lives are soundtracked by music in some way or another. Music not only expresses how the artists themselves feel, but is used to express feelings by everyone around the world. How many times do we use someone else’s song to portray how we feel about something? Music creates feelings in people that they never knew existed. From the haunting melodies we all know but don’t know where they came from, to the violin solos in classical pieces, to the consistent drum beats used in religious ceremonies music is in everything that we do. You’re probably listening to some as you read this. To be able to create music that creates a feeling inside of someone else is a tremendous talent, and the artists we have featured from our own university certainly have this talent. Music, like any other art form, is a gateway to the inner workings of an artist and tends to be emotional, raw, and beautiful. It takes courage to show it to anyone else. Musicians are brave. We have the proof right here.

The artists have submitted recordings of the proceeding pieces and have allowed us to put their music online; we ask that you please follow up reading these summa- ries by visiting www.weber.edu/metaphor for free downloads of the songs.

9 Devan Bailey

Devan Bailey was born and raised in Centerville, Utah, in a home where music was a constant. The youngest of six children, he was surrounded by the best and the worst of most every genre of music. He started a slew of bands beginning in 9th grade, the most successful of which was Lexi Sayok, a noise-pop band that released three albums: It’s a Secret (2006); Pseudo Science (2008); and, Anxious (2009). From there he became less concerned with merely making noise and focused on solo work in a new direction. In 2010, he released an album with Carter Smith under the name Ghosts of Cinema called Regarding Time, Color, & Objection to Both. The songs included in Metaphor are all solo works that Devan wrote, performed, and mixed himself. He is truly a jack of all trades and creates magical songs that will take you to another place. Inspiration to “The World” The basic outline of “The World” was written on a napkin while visiting New York City. I spent an evening alone exploring the city and ended in Times Square where I felt — as cliché as it sounds — inspired to write something that expressed the sensation of all the lights, people, sounds, smells, et. al. Inspiration to “Nostalgic Nights” Written to capture a longing for a conclusion that once seemed becoming, and the subsequent concession process that’s first obscured in denial, but inevitable, and eventually realized. Inspiration to “A Sudden Change in Motion” The most honest and unmasked song I’ve written. Incidentally, it remains the last I wrote — before she knew. MUSIC Bailey & Gerrish

Alex Gerrish

Alex Gerrish is studying music for a Bachelor of Arts. He enjoys all kinds of music, especially jazz, blues and classical styles. These inspirations shine through in his debut as a public singer-songwriter. He is a native of Salt Lake City and Kaysville and hopes that you enjoy this song.

Inspiration to “Stormy Monday Blues” It was at the end of the semester, and like everyone else, I was exhausted. When the charge came to write a song for a class, I didn’t want to. I struggled with the inspiration to write anything, let alone something good. Finally, the thought dawned on me that if I couldn’t write about anything else, so I wrote a song about how I didn’t want to write a song. And thus the “Stormy Monday Blues” were born in the ashes of a semester’s worth of homework.

11 Fox Van Cleef

And it came to pass in the small hamlet of Ogden nestled in the snowy mountains of the Wasatch Front that several young men and one woman would produce a musical adventure nobly entitled Fox Van Cleef. And it was so that the music was good and diverse and danceable and enriching to the life experience for all who came under its sunny beams of hazy psychedelic soul and funk. And lo, the people rejoiced and began to boogie down and jive and do whatever it is the kids do these days. In 2011, Fox Van Cleef, by now an experienced touring and performing band, released the instant classic (in Fox Van Cleef’s mind) Prescrip- tion Tea Party. An accumulation, and an acclimation, of songs and ideas and colors and spices from the highly eclectic tastes and minds of some very strange people, Prescription Tea Party is meant to evoke, challenge and caress the senses and energy of all who hear it. The following songs are all from Prescription Tea Party. Fox Van Cleef is Dustin Bessire on larynx and strings, Chase Face Baur on thick strings, Mathew Froling on sticks, Jesse DuBois Hodshire on strings and things, Anna Mouse Hodshire on saxophone, and Erich Newey on 88 keys and larynx. Mathew Froling is a junior in sociology, and Anna Hodshire is a junior in physics. Inspiration to “WASPS Ruined My Picnic” Various members of Fox Van Cleef have long had a fascination with Middle Eastern modes and forms of music, not to mention odd time signatures and shifting tempos. Combined with dyi punk bombast and the slick production style of Stax and Motown classics, this wary and world-weary tale of the quotidian struggle for the green stuff packs all these elements and much more in a tight package of aural fun. Inspiration to “Voodoo Chicken” The kaleidoscopic nature of the music unfolds as it slides from sparse desert to lush gardens of soul and sonic washout and back through the rear alleys of the mind. Beware of becoming the sacrifice in someone else’s story. You wont make out too well, as our protagonist learns. Inspiration to “Oh, Mercy Me” A somewhat light-hearted take on the nature of God and belief, “Oh, Mercy Me’s” romp through some rather heavy topics is perfectly belayed by a diverse mixture of reggae, roller-disco, and slow-burning psychedelic-fuzz-boogie; a nod to you believers, non-believers and burners alike. MUSIC Cleef & Pink

Christopher Pink

Christopher Pink, a sophomore in computer science, has been making music since he was 15. He started with more electronic type stuff and moved into hip hop, which is originally what inspired him to become a musician. The album that got him into beat making was Nas’ Illmatic, back when he thought rap pro- ducers actually played all the instruments. Christopher has been doing it ever since to varying degrees, and lately he’s trying to branch out into film and video game scoring. Inspiration for “Monolith” I was just looking for a dark sounding orchestral riff for the body of the song when I came up with that. I’m also a big fan of horn hits, so that’s where the brass comes in. I typically try and blend hip hop and classical, and this is just a good example of that. I also don’t really sample that often, so everything was played, including the drums. Inspiration for “Venetian” These days I’m trying to move away from just doing straight hip hop instrumentals, and my girlfriend has helped me with that. This is one of the songs I’ve written for her, which is usually a Christmas/her birthday kind of thing. I believe this is the most recent.

13 Zodiax

Chanoknun Cody Xayvong has been making music for six years. He grew up in Ogden, Utah, and music is just one of his many passions. Since his family didn’t have many musicians, how he came about to be a talented artist is truly inspiring. Chanoknun is a freshman with plans in English and secondary education. Inspiration for “Can You” My inspiration for this song is based on the many people I have met over time that have big dreams and goals. They are willing to step over anyone who gets in their way, and I just don’t feel this is right. Even if you do become successful some day, if you have no compassion, who’s going to be standing with you in the end? MUSIC Zodiax & Pollett

Josaleigh Pollett

Josaleigh Pollett is a junior studying anthropology and geosci- ences here at Weber State. She is an Ogden native, a coffee en- thusiast, and has been singing, writing, and playing music for the past 12 years. After she won the Standard Examiner battle of the bands in 2009, she was able to release her first full length album, The Body of Water. Her sophomore album is due to release early 2012. You can catch her in Ogden, playing coffee shops, or walking her cats on leashes. Inspiration to “Danger and Blush” The inspiration to “Danger and Blush” comes from somewhere between my parents, my friends, and the solitary corners of social gatherings. It’s about what happens when you are no longer around someone that you opened yourself up to, and what that means when you find out your folks were just like you at some point in time.

15 Quincy Bravo

As Mr. Bravo approaches an English degree in secondary education, the world should be prepared to see more imaginative, bril- liant, and polite high school students. This 23-year-old is inspired by the likes of Bob Dylan, Harry Nilsson, and the Violent Femmes, and they shine through his songwriting like a train in the distance. With his immense love of music, it is a surprise that he has only recently emerged as a songwriter in the public eye. His songs tell stories that are applicable and exciting to everyone at any age. He lives in Ogden and is adored by his family and friends. Inspiration to “Katie Ann” The inspiration for “Katie Ann” was about falling in love with a woman that is so alluring, so intoxicating, that you are willing to do anything for her, regardless of the consequences. It is written as a traditional folk ballad, which I think is to amplify this feeling. Inspiration to “Living in the Impact” The inspiration to this song comes from the difficulty of being around somebody that you are attracted to and not knowing how they feel about you. I want to thank Josaleigh Pollett, who wrote the music and sings on this track; no other person could bring such life to this song. POETRY Introduction POETRY

Poetry Editor: Jason VanDaam Poetry Staff: Alexandra Suavé Jennifer Sanda Josh Nelson Melanie Walker Shannon Beverly

INTRODUCTION

What is poetry? Pressed for an answer, Robert Frost made a classic reply: “Poetry is the kind of thing poets write.” Frost was not evading the question, yet possibly, forcing you to think. It is you, the reader, that must be pressed into thinking for yourself the answer to the great question. What is poetry? Here in this your Metaphor, the fantastic and unique undergraduate journal that, through the process of blind submission such worthy and significant poems were selected from so many individual Faberge eggs. Each egg, so delicate and stunning, chosen and unchosen for publication was consumed after breaking. Scrutinized, loved, and eaten like some priceless omelet. As a staff we thank you for such a lovely meal of words and emotions. Hav- ing had the pleasure of serving two years as poetry editor, it is my duty to inform you how significant it was for the improvement of my own writing. It is our hope as a staff that you should have this experience for your- selves. Weber State is our home, and as a student body, Metaphor has become our heart.

Here, at Weber State, understand art is being made because it must be made, not out of any hope of financial gain, but to further the human condition, to genuinely communicate with other living people through truth, style, and words. It is our pleasure to present this, your 2012 Metaphor. Stepping down as editor, I look back to the most enjoyable two years of my collegiate career so far and from one of the most exquisite experiences provided by life thus far. So, to my staff, my editor, my professor, and most of all to you our readers: Thank you. 17 Forty Winks and a Bottle of Gin Too Late Melanie Walker

The ebbing breeze, she shivers when she talks to me— Out by the patio, the wild Boston ivy is climbing near hornets. I was dead—I didn’t let on, she couldn’t see. Black tea in china laced generously with whiskey, The clock chimes four, her petal face blanches and she frets— The ebbing breeze, she shivers when she talks to me. Shuffling dove-gaited to the parlour’s amber ashes, with her softly Faded pink slippers against the stone-cold floor, she forgets I was dead—I didn’t let on, she couldn’t see. Midnight now— she’s sleepless, sweet honeysuckle drifts up softly— She folds her thin-skinned walnut hands neatly on the coverlet. The ebbing breeze, she shivers when she talks to me. In morning, silver hair damp from garden mist, she digs serenely. The clock chimes four, her forehead furrows and sweats— The ebbing breeze, she shivers when she talks to me. I was dead—I didn’t let on, she couldn’t see. POETRY Walker & Van Daam

Angels can’t get cancer Jason VanDaam

For Jessica It is cold in the car where I sit While you get your haircut not Wanting to be one of those couples That fights over money there Is always enough I wait with longer hair Snow fell so lightly It looked like ashes From angelic cigarettes Earth became an ashtray All of us the butt of some Cosmic joke because Angels can’t get cancer Imagining the hair falling from your head Fresh like newly mowed lawn assuredly You turn thoughts over a grilled cheese Sandwich in a frying pan Evenly browned on both sides Loving you because in you there Is always enough Wanting to be the butter for your bread? Or, the water that makes your lawn so green? Yet, I am not the dairyman or the gardener Or, the beautician still it’s quite possibly Right now, I might be the cook.

19 Crabapple Blossoms Rochelle Dawn Brown

We tore them up — Those three Crabapple Trees out front. A relieved end to those hard, Useless fruit-droppings. We used to ride our bikes over them Splitting their russet-red skins, With rubber tread And weight, Revealing their white insides. The branches clawed at our scalps In passing, spread out into the road To entangle mailmen’s golf-carts. Constantly ugly Except in the spring Pink and white blossoms Fanned deep, red hearts burst into bloom. In spring, they were worth it. But here in that season’s passing, We wouldn’t wait. POETRY Brown & Parkinson

To the Valley, from your loving Mountain Murielle Parkinson

Do you remember our inland sea? Where sea lice played, and parrot fish Dropped green plumage? You painted my feet with their scales. As seaweed became grass, the tides shaped hedges, you made fences to show where it had been, and welcomed wet sheep, marveling at their caged calmness. The retreating sea pulls at my corners, and you cover my alkaline heart with forgotten fish feathers. I can’t hear you now, I’m listening for the wind, the only sound that is still familiar.

21 Taurus Alpha Murielle Parkinson

Aldebaran, my red, my star. I watch you from my window, The Hunters’ way you bar, As your light barely reaches snow. I watch you from my window, Opposite Sirius, As your light barely reaches snow. As the passing years try us. Opposite Sirius, Carry the Sisters, As the passing years try us. Turn to protect them from presuming young misters. Carry the Sisters, The Hunters’ way you bar, Turn to protect them from presuming young misters. Aldebaran, my red, my star. POETRY Parkinson & Balls

Carrick-A-Rede, Ireland Andrew Balls

Up here the taste of salt air erodes the stones. The sun has nothing, and the wind is thought. The ocean harbors on the horizon while some old, wrinkled rocks, broken down by age, allow the sea to bash against them, The dawn frames it all.

23 FOR THE LOVE OF A CHILD Emily Oliver

It was a day so long ago, I met a darling girl. She gazed at me with big blue eyes; Her hair had gentle curl. She had a great big smile Which shone throughout the day. She loved to laugh and giggle And was very fond of play. She’s told me all her secrets— Some important, some absurd. I am always steadfast, And will not say a word. I’ve always been there for her— Through the good, and through the bad. I’ve been there when she is happy, And there to hold her when she’s sad. I cannot count the many times She’s cried into my chest. But once she’s felling better, She’d tell me, “You’re the best.” But when my girl was happy, We played and laughed ‘til dawn. She read me stories, told me jokes, We played out on the lawn. We’ve gone on fun adventures, We’ve travelled to and fro— No matter what the weather, Sun, rain, sleet, or snow. I’ve watched her learn, I’ve watched her grow, Though she’s grown more—and less—verbose. Even still, when it is night, She always holds me close. I have always been by her side And will be until the end. No matter what happens now, I’ll always be her friend. And though we’ve both grown older, She knows I’m always there Whenever she may need me— Her old, stuffed Teddy Bear. POETRY Oliver & Brown

James Ezra (An Elegy) Rochelle Dawn Brown

I remember those light Blue eyes that had seen so much They were softened by me, they say, — Danced at my petulance. I don’t remember them not dancing. Maybe they always danced for me. Or maybe I was too young, As you were. Seventeen when you enlisted You’d lied about your age. You didn’t know then what breath you’d breathe — Gun powdered, rotting Iwo Jima You survived though Your heart was purpled and bruised for them Still, they forget to mark your resting With a flag on Veteran’s Day. Though I remember You were sick, they said And much too young You gave your strength to a stranger. You, the quiet Veteran hero I cannot mourn you anymore But I’ll remember.

25 I found my feet at Birdsong Jennifer Sanda

Fifty feet across the parking lot from Rainbow Gardens Gift Shop, barely a hundred yards from the urbane, my feet leave the comfort of concrete for the duality of dirt. Birds and breathing become the sound, a sound that requires stillness, a stillness that brings my metro-roots out of the pocket I hid them. The only choice is to move, To catch the nuance of the path, to find the ones I miss as my foot falls a few inches too far, jars my tarsal against tibia and fibula, slides patella into femur which rolls inside pelvis holes, taps coccyx and sacrum, and finally sends a tremor through each vertebrae until the mandible clamps together, tongue free, this time. Regardless of the rises and falls embedded with rocks waiting to, again, roll my ankle, I note the rush of water to my left (a future exploration), but don’t try to follow the change of blue, green, grey. I did not expect to find here, but I know I found my feet. POETRY Sanda & Parkinson

Streptopelia turtur Murielle Parkinson

Though dear to me and you, well loved. I smile and softly say This poem is for my Turtle, Dove. She is wild-child, untamed, Who wears no shoes at all in May, Though dear to me and you, well loved. She hides in apple trees, above, Watching as I dig in clay, This poem is for my Turtle, Dove. She looks out the window, framed Dreams mysteries, and counts the day, Though dear to me and you, well loved. Follows arbore paths, without her gloves, Ducks clothes-lines and hides for fay, This poem is for my Turtle, Dove. Smiling, eyes tight, closed, I know her, though yet far away, Though dear to me and you, well loved. This poem is for my Turtle, Dove.

27 Pink Flower Caitlyn Jensen

Today I will put a pink flower in my hair, Because I want to. Today I will write the letter “F” on a job application, Because I’m told it matters. Today I will not nurse my baby, Because security refused it in a public place. Today I will have a group of men whistle at me, Because “it’s a form of flattery.” Today I will be coerced by my boyfriend, But told to “nurture his sickness.” Today I will be told to vote through my husband, Because my place is in the home. Today I will not fight in the front lines of war, Because I’m “too fragile.” Today I will be called a “Lesbian,” Because I used the word “Feminist.” Today my reproductive rights will be denied, Because “God said so.” Today I will be called a “Fag Hag,” Because my best friend is gay. Today I will be exploited in pornographic advertising, Because it’s the only way to “advance my career.” Today I will be raped in my own car, Because I forgot to check the backseat. Today my husband will beat me, But the police will ask what I did to “deserve it.” Today I will eat an apple, And humanity will lose its innocence. But today I will not be silent like you expect, Just because I put a pink flower in my hair. POETRY Jensen & Sanda

Wading in the Muddy Ripples of Myself Jennifer Sanda

You lean against the low-hanging tree, its trunk more serpentine than the others. I remember, once, leaning there with you, the trunk and you coiling around me. The air is stagnant, suffocatingly clean after the last burst of rain, making the mud leak into my shoes as I stand opposite you, no tree to lean on. Reflected so clearly, the vanishing sun casts you far into the water opposite the muddy ripples of myself. The slight smile on your face asks me to join you out there, on the water, iridescent in your easiness. The indecision to join you keeps me in the shallows, tangled in the mud, lost in the ripples.

29 Windows Laurie Innocenzi The window I see life through was once clear and unbroken. I saw the bright rays of the summer sun through the flawless work of the Master Glassmaker. Your birth-death shattered my perfect window into a million tiny shards of darkness and sent my broken spirit to cower in the blackness that remained. I cursed the Glassmaker’s gift and the sun I had once loved. I longed for the peace of oblivion to numb the anguish in my heart. In the darkest night of my winter the star of the magi pierced my sorrow and taught me that as birth brings death, so death brings birth and new life. By the light of that ancient star I gathered the shards of my window and with trembling, bleeding hands, laid them before the Master Glassmaker. Now my window is no longer clear and smooth but the sun’s single winter ray casts a kaleidoscope of light and color through the unbroken prism— an exquisite gift of love. POETRY Innocenzi & Bravo

Synesthesiac Quincy Bravo

The rhythmic tap-tap-tap of the dance pounds. I stare across the room at the girl who brought me here, she commands me with a word and she knows it. I stare and she dances her way to me. She moves and I taste coffee on my tongue, warm and thick, gently gliding down my throat. I grab her hand and squeeze softly her frame cradled in my arms whisper promises to my ears. the smell of her perfume swirls shades — olive and violet across my eyes. She leans into my ear and laughs, and her voice smells fragrant in my ear. I don’t think about where we will be next week Tonight, I am content dancing with my senses and a beautiful girl.

31 Monologue Karleigh Weeks

I am a staged and stringed massacre Hello, I have a good name, you know but call me Clown or Reckless or Sin I am as you perceive me to be See, for the paint—bleeding down my face like it tends to, and, to that, I say you’ve seen too much, and not tired yet?— it speaks my emotions raw and real But I powder my face: pucker, pout burst my mouth, shove my small hands and feet into visible existences until even I say it’s humorous I plant skyscrapers, juggle beams on tightrope, tame lions concaving my chest with hoarse shouts of rape and the pounding of my pleading, rubber nose—hear it? And I think it’s for entertainment perhaps livelihood and sometimes it’s purpose; although, these days I feel wrong and desolate and dry—can’t step straight I want to tell you: my mother was a circus star of sorts, did flips and grins and overt twists, often teased for those elevator legs, often alone There is a price set to me lately Hear the troupes are calling, and I’m a cup of tea, funny—funny enough ‘cause I’m not seeing straight, there’s so much— Hey, don’t just shut off the light—you see sometimes I have a word to say, but often my throat buckles, and I—stand center stage, stiff upper lip trembling This is purposely a grin of sorts I stack joker cards on my tongue, and I play allegro strip poker—all or nothing is my motto—daily And I think it’s for entertainment the circles I run often and still can’t stop wiggling the knees; the black crowd here, not so seen even—but, I know I bow mildly leave the roses for the next act POETRY Weeks & Bravo

Nothing More Quincy Bravo

Together, in a dim restaurant, we sit The table like a trench between us You, wearing your faded red dress, With your callused lips and geranium skin And I in my wrinkled suit With my mercury eyes and die-cast hands The waiter smiles, and hands us our food I lean in and whisper, “I’m not hungry” And you reply, “Neither am I” But we remain in that dim-lit room We struggle to swallow Forcing food into our unappetized stomachs Keeping the fork in my right hand I slide my left to join yours You apply pressure and I return it No words are shared between us No look or smile Just an act, nothing more And without letting go We continue to eat

33 Kito’s Bar Jason VanDaam

Gabacho what are you drinking? Sweat blood and tears poured Out as more tequila sinks in Mexican migrant workers in Alaska Fish feeds border town children Can you smell the machismo? Wide far flashing smiles Deep throated chuckles Slapping each other on the back Like the fish they fit into cans. POETRY Van Daam & Walker

Persephone at One-Eyed Jack’s Melanie Walker

Succulent plum serpentines through the smoke haze, beckoning that which stalks to seek a cooling dew. Persephone at the bar slouched between a biker and his old lady, the bottle of Jack at her elbow breathes in wolfishly as she baits with a stiletto hanging from her toe. Smoke tendrils wreath about her like dirty moths attracted by the light glinting off her curved cheek. The cigarette on her lips nearly plummets as she bears canines for oaths of untasted wildness, teething out staggering drunkenness and pulling tight the chased frenzy upon which we feed.

35 A Hole in My Hat Kory Wood

“I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe. . . and am not contained between my hat and boots. . . ” -Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

I’m combusting And compressing. I’m a turkey with no dressing, And between my hat and boots I’ve shut my soul. Never lazy, But quite boring, And aware that I’m ignoring That my belly button’s birthing a black hole. Sucked-in light, Dull, dense mass, Stars and planets up my Nose; I’m afraid my thoughts and feelings might make waves. Apathetic And generic I’m observant like a cleric, And I had the poet’s roadlesstraveled paved. So I grabbed A pair of shears, Then I snipped right o’er my ears And I added to my hat a useful gap. Breezy thoughts No more would drown Twixt my bowler and my crown As they floated out the new hole in my cap. Up they floated, Up they grew, Towards the heavens, towards the blue; All my cogitations fine-ly taking flight. Oh, they shone Against the clouds My brainchildren beaming loud, And they joined the sky in heavn’ly pillow-fights. POETRY Wood & Sanda

Heavy Jennifer Sanda

There are things that sit heavy between the coupling of the earth and sky. Things that curl around the bony trees, slide over the green flesh edging the water, and feel the crouching sky, feel its blue and purple streak among gold. These things live between the ripples, move from reality to reflection, fade into the coupling, and become dreams that slip into consciousness.

37 When I was Young Alyse Haymond

Remember autumn days without obligation? The piles of leaves we burrowed in together? You were young then, And your doe-like eyes constantly seemed to weep when the brittle bed was too shallow. You wanted to drown in the dead foliage. I would watch you sink, And rinse the needles from your hands. Disappointment at its best, we needed to be consumed. Velvet visions of honey layered hair in my mind. Your pony tail wisped its way around the playground. Taunting all those shapeless little boys It still does. We dodged Balled into swollen pride Remember how we ran? My legs — pinwheels Broken and short, vibrating against the slippery slope of maturation They stayed stumpy, yes. . . But, Knock-kneed and crawling from the cocoon, stood a woman with purpose in each step. I now waltz into each room — Tipi toeing to this pretty idea of perfection. And yet, I still can’t dance . The rhythm, stale — A bore, A beat, A beast, A bitch , POETRY Haymond can’t find that tempo that everyone else seems to hear But you? You pulverized the dirt with your name-brand sneakers. I saw you once catch a bumble bee in your mouth, you sprinted over me, stepping into my stomach. One gallant leap through the air It stung my eyes to see you disappear like that. You never landed. Remember? I saw you once, hovering there, ebony buzzzzzzzz about you. In my ear you hummed that secret I forgot. And, I find myself stalking the neighborhood gardens, digging my teeth into flower beds. Searching for that Honey Combed word. tangled. Pulling my braids around my neck Sweet vinegar, I drink without regret. I’m looking for you stranger. . . in the lilies I can tell me apart, and as of late? I sniff out the dandelions, no purity their roaring lies they are pretty. . . to a five year old. To a five year old, it was magical. The dirty lifeless leaves, the scratching rebirth, fighting our way to the crisp air. Sunset Drifting outside my car, I think that was you. In fact I know it was. I swerved, then. Now? I renew. And I think to myself, What a sticky rot game. I yell into that empty girl. Sitting on the swing; “PLEASE Dear girl, Where did you go? Where have you been? I’d really like to know. . . ”

39 Design Michelle Paul

No moon tonight Just me Tracing stars with knowledge Old men pretend to have. A man there A creature here A thing, a name Their designs. Not mine. A giant blackboard with white chalk dots I retrace, redraw, reorder Improve. A Harp for a Lion To tame the wild beast A Belt for a Queen To adorn the lady’s form A Small Bear, Great Bear But where is the Middle? One Twin on each Scale A perfect balance, united And there are so many birds Maybe one mates with the Bull There are many people, too But people gave them names Then My power ends The Light fades to bright Blinding Overshadows The dimness of innocence. They’re just stars, now Unfeeling, remote. There are brighter things in life. And yet. . . I redrew the stars one night But time doesn’t play the same. Light travels its own pace. I’ll be long hidden in the ground Before I get to see the brilliance My intelligent design. still maybe I’ll redraw the stars again When I’ve lost a little Light Or maybe all No one will notice. POETRY Paul & Peak

Half the Light Sean Peak

You are half the light of your mother, half the light of your father, and something wholly your own, with worlds of complexity defining and redefining your simplicities. I see your light. I see more and more of it every day. It is the light that will change things before it leaves this place. It is a light that has changed me, has made me become a better man.

In a life which may, or may not, one day become ours, I see half of your light and half of mine congregating in the darkness, a star forming along the edges of the Milky Way, creating something wholly its own, greater than both parts.

41 What Loss Feels Like Alexandria Westover

As I walk, my feet fall through ice and into snow. I see a straw standing alone, all around it white. I think, Why are you here? There should at least be a tree to protect you, and cast a shadow during hot sun, and to block the biting winds, and hail, and snow. The winds and hail and snow become fierce. I watch my little friend begin to bend. It leans. I sit in the snow, watching, knowing that if I reach out, it will be the end. Perhaps not today, but another day certainly. A slender line of snow grips along the stalk. It seems an insignificant amount, as a snowflake settles on an eyelash, but it is too much. My friend lies down. In a moment, there is nothing, Buried, I lie down also, and feel the snow burn my cheek. POETRY Westover & Sauvé

Heat Seeker Alexandra Sauvé

I am a Heat Seeker. You are the heat. Our crescent halves fit back to back. Me, The littler, inside the Bigger. When you’ve gone into the mornings, I search out to the ends of our ocean. I feel a warmer current where you must have been not long before. I revel in Fitting myself into your Bigger, moonlike shape. And when the warmth is gone, And the day gives me its calling, I continue my heat seeking Until the night hour.

43 Substantial, But Not Rigid Sean Peak

Comfortable with concrete and steel, we sometimes forget the world is less rigid and more substantial. On the land you begin with certainties, but they will soon be forgotten. You will lose yourself. This is necessary. When you are found, you will have new certainties, but they will be lined with knowledge. You will recognize the method of the Bombus in flight. You’ll understand why the Devil’s Sea has taken one thousand lives out of the Chancellors’ sight. You will no longer ask where Anguilla Anguilla comes from, and their blood will still burn you. You will see that the Universe is more understandable than Earth’s ocean, and often more forgiving. When you ask Oakville citizens about the biological storm on August 7, 1994 you will trust their stories. You will remember, with certainty, that gravity is only a theory and that the only thing that holds us to the earth is substantial, but not rigid.

POETRY Peak & Westover

All Differences Aside Alexandria Westover

Crashing waves on the rocks. As if by happy accident, I giggle and grin and lift up my skirt and challenge the tide with my eyes. I run to shore, ahead of the biting froth. My mirth is evident. As I tumble onto the moist sand I see the holes and begin a hunt. What am I looking for? I nudge my finger down into the sand until I see the earth stir, birthing an enraged crab. Red and hard, with emotion. I prod it with a twig and tease the tiny crab like I would a man.

45 High Up Places Alexandria Westover

I know a place that you would like above the pluvial shoreline. You cannot drive there. Walk. Feel the rocks under your feet. It will be difficult in the beginning How does it feel? Do not stop now. The place I know is worth it. Soon you leave the trees. The shade is gone. There is a breeze. It will not always be here, either. You climb until you can see for miles and miles. The place is ahead. I cannot tell you when you’re there. You will know. It is a place to forget. And remember who you mean to be. It’s easier here. This place already knows. POETRY Westover & Bardwell

Summer’s End Lyn Bardwell

Now the grass may recover; Now the swings may rest. Dormant rooms will reawaken, And the buses will resume. The world is turning us, And leaving our merry frolic-time To catch its breath. But, Oh! It was fun while we were free.

47 PROCRASTINATION Kory Wood

I can promise, You’re not a wimp If you’ve been feeling void of free time. Completing vital tasks Seems impossible. Oh, the bleak irony. There are so many Absolutely necessary things That are naught. How does one so plagued With to-do lists Combat this age-old frustration? I recommend a healthy dose Of some good old Procrastination. Procrastination feels right Because it’s secretly Therapeutic. Suck it down like warm root beer, Left on the picnic table From hours past. Watch prior anxieties Scatter off As leaves ‘neath a lawnmower. Take some time to waste some time. There’s much to gain From losing precious hours. Meet responsibilities, Of course, And do enough to see success. At least, Your own interpretation of success, Which only you know. But there’s more value In value-less activities Than people think. And doesn’t it always seem That those hurried least Are happiest most? ART Introduction ART

Art Editor: Jenny Eckenbrecht Art Staff: Andrew Balls Jennifer Sanda Josh Nelson Melanie Walker Michelle Paul Sarah Kortkamp

INTRODUCTION

Art has been with us since the beginning. Across the world, cave and rock paintings, petroglyphs, and ob- jects of art have been dated to being forty, seventy- five, even a hundred thousand years old. Art is an inextricable part of the human existence, an instinc- tual act of expression and means of connecting to the world around us. In this way, art is a dynamic experience between an artist’s purpose and the viewer’s experience with a product of that purpose. Works of art can communicate emotions, events, or important symbols that are otherwise incommunicable, they can act as a way to facilitate healing for the artist and viewer alike, and they can serve as a method of inquiry or a catalyst for change. Art has the ability to fundamentally change the perceptions of ourselves and others. Metaphor presents these works with the hope that they will inspire further creative works, speak truths and secrets previously unknown, and help the viewer to experience the world in uniquely meaningful ways. .

49 Visual Orientation Carey Francis Hillary Clayton Markie Transue Robyn Mahon

Cover Art Collection Antonio Moya Carey Francis Cynthiann Heckelsmiller Edna Pedroza Jenalyn Hancock Jennifer Sanda Jonathan McFarland Laurie Asay Mandee Miller Melanie Walker Michelle Paul Quincy Bravo Sara Brook Sarah Kortkamp Tyler Van Elvis ART Various Artists

M e t a p h o r 2011 Clever

Metaphor

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Weber State University 2011 Volume 31 Volume 31 Weber State University

A laugh in the sea of sadness The noise is music to his ears He swam in the sea of diamonds His belt was a snake curling around his waist Love is a growing garland Your friendship is the picture to my frame Authority is a chair, it needs legs to stand up Once your heart’s been broken it grows back bigger His hair is a white snowflake and his hair is a messy haystack He is all heart broken The pigeons fountained into the air Her hair was bone white He tried to help but his legs were wax It’s raining men Words are false Idols Ideas are wigs Kicked the bucket The sea is a hungry lion She is a dog when she is hungry A heart of gold A light in a sea of darkness Strength and dignity is what she is made of Heart of a lion He is the sun of my sky Light of their life Pull your socks up Life is a mere dream, a fleeting shadow on a cloudy day Drowning in the sea Jumping for joy Rolling in dough Apple of the eye It rained cats and dogs Fear is a beast that feeds on attention A laugh in the sea of sadness The noise is music to his ears He swam in the seaV of diamonds His belt was a snake curling around his waist Love is a growing garland Your friendship is the Metaphor picture to my frame Authority is a chair, it needs legs to stand up Once your heart’s been broken it grows back M bigger His hair is a white snowflake and his hair is a messy haystack He is all heart broken The pigeons fountained A laugh in the sea of sadness The noise is music to his ears He swam in the sea of diamonds His belt was a snake o E

into the air Her hair was bone white He tried to help but his legs were wax It’s raining men Words are false Idols T curling around his waist Love is a

Ideas are wigs Kicked the bucket The sea is a hungry lion She is a dog when she is hungry A heart of gold A light in a A growing garland Your friendship is Volume 31 sea of ldarkness Strength and dignity is what she is made of Heart of a lion He is the sun of my sky Light of their life P the picture to my frame Authority H Pull your socks up Life is a mere dream, a fleeting shadow on a cloudy day Drowning in the sea Jumping for joy is a chair, it needs legs to stand up Once 2011 u O Rolling in dough Apple of the eye It rained cats and dogs Fear is a beast that feeds on attention A laugh in the sea of R your heart’s been broken it grows back

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Love ism a growing garland Your friendship is the picture to my frame Authority is a chair, it needs legs to stand up O messy haystack He is all heart broken The pigeons fountained into the air Her hair was bone white He tried to help

Once your heart’s been broken it grows back bigger His hair is a white snowflake and his hair is a messy haystack He L but his legs were wax It’s raining men U is all hearte broken The pigeons fountained into the air Her hair was bone white He tried to help but his legs were Words are false Idols Ideas are wigs M wax It’s raining men Words are false Idols Ideas are wigs Kicked the bucket The sea is a hungry lion She is a dog Kicked the bucket The sea is a E

Weber State University when she is hungry A heart of gold A light in a sea of darkness Strength and dignity is what she is made of Heart of a hungry lion She is a dog when 3

lion He is the sun of my sky Light of their life Pull your socks up Life is a mere dream, a fleeting shadow on a cloudy 1 she is hungry A heart of gold A light in a sea of dark-

Ogden, Utah day Drowning in the sea Jumping for joy Rolling in dough Apple of the eye It rained cats and dogs Fear is a beast that 2 ness Strength and dignity is what she is made 2 of 0

feeds on attention A laugh in the sea of sadness The noise is music to his ears He swam in the sea of diamonds His 1 Heart of a lion He is the sun of my sky Light of their life Pull 0 2 belt wasX a snake curling around his waist Love is a growing garland Your friendship is the picture to my frame your socks up METAPHOR VOLUME 31 Life is a mere dream, a fleeting shadow on a cloudy day Drowning1 Authority is a chair, it needs legs to stand up Once your heart’s been broken it grows back bigger His hair is a white Weber State University 1 snowflakeX and his hair is a messy haystack He is all heart broken The pigeons fountained into the air Her hair was METAPHOR bone white He tried to help but his legs were wax It’s raining men Words are false Idols Ideas are wigs Kicked the Ogden, Utah bucketX The sea is a hungry lion She is a dog when she is hungry A heart of gold A light in a sea of darkness Strength and dignity is what she is made of Heart of a lion He is the sun of my sky Light of their life Pull your socks up Life is a mere dream,I a fleeting shadow on a cloudy day Drowning in the sea Jumping for joy Rolling in dough Apple of the eye It rained cats and dogs Fear is a beast that feeds on attention A laugh in the sea of sadness The noise is music to his ears He swam in the sea of diamonds His belt was a snake curling around his waist Love is a growing garland Your VOLUME 31 | 2012 friendship is the picture to my frame Authority is a chair, it needs legs to stand up Once your heart’s been broken it grows back bigger His hair is a white snowflake and his hair is a messy haystack He is all heart broken The pigeons fountained into the air Her hair was bone white He tried to help but his legs were wax It’s raining men Words are false Idols Ideas are wigs Kicked the bucket The seaMetaphor is a hungry lion She is a dog when she is hungry A heart of gold A light in a sea of darkness Strength and dignity is what she is made of Heart of a lion He is the sun of my sky Light of their life Pull your socks up Life is a mere dream, a fleeting shadow on a cloudy day Drowning in the sea Jumping for joy Rolling in dough Apple of the eye It rained cats and dogs Fear is a beast that feeds on attention A laugh in the sea of sadness The noise is music to his ears He swam in the sea of diamonds His belt was a snake curling around his waist Love is a growing garland Your friendship is the picture to my frame Authority is a chair, it needs legs to stand up Once your heart’s been broken it grows back bigger His hair is a white snowflake and his hair is a messy haystack WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY, METAPHOR He is all heart broken Her hair was bone white He tried to help but his legs were wax It’s raining men Words are 1404 UNIVERSITY CIRCLE false idols Kicked the bucket WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Jumping for joy Rolling in dough OGDEN, UTAH 84408-1404 METAPHOR VOLUME 31 | 2012

WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY

Metaphor 2012 Metaphor 2011-2012 2011-2012 Metaphor

Thir ty-Fir st Edition st ty-Fir Thir Volume XXXI 20 11 -20 12

Weber State University Weber State University 31 st Edition Metaphor Weber State University Volume XXXI weber.edu/metaphor WeberState u n i v e r s i t y

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he m Metaphor 2012 e he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless does not admire it. The only excuse for making a uselessMetaphor t thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite use- thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite use- a less. – Oscar Wilde A guilty conscience needs to confess. A less. – Oscar Wilde A guilty conscience needs to confess. A p h work of art is a confession. – Albert Camus Well, my book is work of art is a confession. – Albert Camus Well, my book is o writtenM – let it go.E ButT if Ait were onlyP toH write overO again R written – let it go. But if it were only to write over again r there wouldn’t be so many things left out. They burn in me; there wouldn’t be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can’t ever be said. and they keep multiplying; but now they can’t ever be said. And besides, they would require a library – and a pen And besides, they would require a library – and a pen warmed up in hell. – Mark Twain Life isn’t a support system warmed up in hell. – Mark Twain Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around. – Stephen King There is for art. It’s the other way around. – Stephen King There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter nothing to writing. METAPHOR All you do is sit down and bleed. – Ernest Hemingway And by the way, everything in M

at a typewriter and bleed. – Ernest Hemingway And by the Volume XXXI e t

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life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, p way, everything in life is writable about if you have the out- Volume XXXI h

and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to crea- o going guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The 2 r tivity is self-doubt. – Sylvia Plath No tears in the writer, no V worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. – Sylvia Plath No o l tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in u

0| m tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the e 11 the reader. – Robert Frost You must stay drunk on writing so X writer, no surprise in the reader. – Robert Frost You must reality cannot destroy you. – Ray Bradbury We have to con- X stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. – Ray _ X I

\\ tinually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on Bradbury We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and 2

the way down. – Kurt Vonnegut Tomorrow may be hell, but 0 1 developing our wings on the way down. – Kurt Vonnegut To- 2

today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days morrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and nothing else matters. – Neil Gaiman If my doctor told me I on the good writing days nothing else matters. – Neil Gaiman had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a lit- If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I would- tle faster. – Isaac Asimov Always be a poet, even in prose. – n't brood. I'd type a little faster. – Isaac Asimov Always be a Charles Baudelaire The reason that fiction is more interesting poet, even in prose. – Charles Baudelaire The reason that fic- than Many other form of literature, to those who really like to tion is more interesting than any other form of literature, to Metaphor study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the Volume XXXI truth without humiliating himself. – Eleanor Roosevelt Art is author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself. 2012 /_/ the lie that enables us to realize the truth. – Pablo Picasso I – Eleanor Roosevelt Art is the lie that enables us to realize the Weber State University Metaphor V dream my painting and I paint my dream. – Vincent Van Gogh truth. – Pablo Picasso I dream my painting and I paint my ol. Weber State University weber.edu/metaphor | Music Weber State University expresses that which can- dream. – Vincent Van Gogh Music expresses that which can- Volume XXXI 31 _ not be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. not be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. \\ weber.edu/metaphor – Victor Hugo Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to – Victor Hugo Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to M 51 One More Night Landon Jeffery ART Jeffery & Van der Stappen

suggestions of fragmented memory Tyler Van der Stappen

53 The Opposite of Sex Tyler Van der Stappen ART Van der Stappen & Wilson

Captivating Liberation Megan Wilson

55 Heavy Laden Megan Wilson ART Wilson & Eckenbrecht

We Shall Find Jenny Eckenbrecht

57 Awareness Sharon Salmond ART Salmond & Wilson

Happy Birthday Grandma Megan Wilson

59 Texas Ghettos Carey Francis ART Francis & Moore

Harvest Adriana Moore

61 Outside the Box Melinda Taggart

Where is My Heart Melinda Taggart ART Taggart & Balls

Deus ex Machina Andrew Balls

63 Trapped Sharon Salmond FICTION Introduction FICTION

Editor: David Glen (Harrison) Fiction Staff: Bree Rydalch Elise Nielson Michelle Paul Samantha Postma Sarah Kortkamp Thomas Alberts

INTRODUCTION

In fiction, we see possibilities. Fiction is a means and an end. In fiction, invention becomes truth, and truth becomes what we will it to be. Whether these things are beautiful or ugly, optimistic or dystopian, they are ideas which are brought into an elegant authenticity by the use of our most important gift: creation. With fiction, everything is possible. The pieces within this section were selected based on their strengths in providing a window into a portion of existence. At its very best, art is a mirror detailing our wishes, our fears and all that lies between. Sometimes it’s cathartic to feel turmoil; sometimes it’s nice to just have a good laugh. In these pages you will find honesty and fantasy, sadness and laughter, obscurity and understanding. . . more often than not, you will find many or all in the same piece. When we are young, we play to learn. It’s when we learn to play that we find ourselves in serious trouble. I hope that you, the reader, will find these works as enjoyable as we have.

65 SHAKE THE ROOM Kory Wood

“What do you mean, you don’t go to church?” I leaned against the goalpost and looked at Will as he tried to balance on top of my green basketball. “We go sometimes,” he said. “When my grandparents are in town.” I was beginning to feel the water from the muddy, November playground seep into my socks, and I crinkled my toes up and down inside my shoes. “That’s crazy,” I said. “We always go.” In fact, I didn’t know you were even allowed to miss, unless you were sick. And in our house, sick meant throwing up, which my mom would unsympathetically check. Otherwise, it was church. “What do you do on Sundays?” Will tried balancing again, but tottered wildly, and ended up splashing his shoe into a big mud puddle. “Go fishing. Watch TV. You know.” I didn’t know, actually. I thought that TV shows didn’t run on Sunday mornings. “Why don’t you go every week?” I asked. “It’s boring. Mom doesn’t like to take us, ‘cause she gets all mad every time.” Will sat down on the basketball and picked mud and wet grass from his pant legs. “And Dad just doesn’t like to go. He doesn’t have a tie. Plus, he sits in the garage on Sundays and fixes things.” “Like what?” “I don’t know. Things.” Will was turning fidgety. “Why do you care so much?” “I don’t. . .I. . .never mind.” My mind was blown. Not go to church? Will was throwing the ball up into the sun, purposely trying to lose it in the light, then diving after it as it fell back into his sight. FICTION Wood

After a few throws, I leaned away from the old goalpost, rubbed paint chips off my back, and joined in his game. Our eyes grew poached from staring into the sun, so we took turns hiking the ball to each other between our legs, like a football. I read the printed signature on the rutted surface of the ball, running my fingertips over and over it. Gary Payton. Star point guard for the Seattle Supersonics. I was sure Gary Payton went to church. No way he’d be that good at basketball if he didn’t. I flipped the ball back to Will, then stopped to shove my damp hands into the back pockets of my jeans, wiping them against my backside. I pulled them out and blew on them, and the hot air made the blood in my hands hop. “Do you believe in God?” Will stood, holding the ball with both hands just behind his head and stared at me quizzically. “I don’t get what you mean.” “God,” said Will. “I mean, what you learn about at church. God, and praying, and all that.” “Yeah,” I said, but was disappointed at my own lack of conviction. “I mean, we pray a lot. And we go to church every Sunday.” “Yeah. But why?” “Because.” Because my mom would get mad if we didn’t. Be- cause for all I knew, air wasn’t breathable outside a church building on Sundays. Will looked unconvinced, but my 7-year-old brain was already leaking out of my ears. Such philosophical grounds were unfamil- iar to me. Do I believe in God? What kind of question was that? Of course I do. What else is there? Just then, the bell rang. Will hiked my ball once more to me, and we plopped through the muddy field, over the asphalt and into line behind our teacher, Mrs. Barlow.

I sat on my bed after school, alone in the room I shared with my little brother, batting the green ball back and forth over my blue flannel sheets. My hands rubbed against the lined material. As I rolled the ball around the bed, I thought back to my school- yard conversation with Will. He didn’t go to church. That floored me. And he asked me if I believed in God. Were there really people who didn’t believe in God? What reason did they have? Maybe they knew something that I didn’t know. But then who created the Earth? And why? My childhood intellect flitted around like a hummingbird. If the world were a factory, my brain would have been a top, spinning madly on the floor between the machines. Surely, someone has to have seen God. I mean, they wrote a book about him. And churches had sprung up all over the place! Just between my house and school, I could think of at least four. Five, if you included Old Man Barker, who held Bible study in his

67 front room every night while his wife played the organ. I wanted to ask my parents what God looked like. My dad would know, at least. He knew everything. He could tell you the winners of every Super Bowl since the 1970s. He knew how to make macaroni with hot dogs cooked right into it. For sure, he’d know where God was and what he was like. But I was too bashful, and a little worried I’d get in trouble. If I asked my mom why we went to church, she might think I was trying to get out of it. Maybe I could just get God to come say hi. I mean, I was always hearing how he and Jesus were telling people to come unto them. I was sure he’d be obliged to return the favor. Besides, they were always working miracles, those Bible people, and if Jonah could get eaten by a whale and live to write about it, then why couldn’t I just ask God to come down and explain things to me? But then, I thought, God’s probably got a lot to do. There’re all those starving people in China my mom’s always talking about at dinner, and they probably need more attention than me. I guess I might have qualified for an angel, but I wasn’t really sure what to say to get one to come. In the Bible, they were always just appearing when people didn’t expect it. I picked up the ball and tossed it lightly into the air. As it reached its zenith, I stopped, struck with an idea. The ball THUN- KED noisily off my knee and ended up under Casey’s bed across from mine. God could just send a message. My Sunday school teachers were always telling me how God speaks to us, and can give people visions and whatnot. Thinking for a moment, I screwed up my nose and rolled my eyes up into my head. What could I have God do? And how was I going to ask? My parents prayed with me every night and had shown me the proper take-off procedures. Fold arms. Check. Bow head. Check. Close eyes. Okay. I couldn’t remember how to start, exactly, but I figured sincer- ity overruled ceremony. “Father,” I managed, then paused for a few moments, thinking about what route to take. “I have a question. Today, my friend Will. . . you know him, from down the block. He was wearing Ninja Turtles sneakers today- Anyway, he asked me if I believed in God. And why I go to church. I told him that I go because I always do, and that I was pretty sure you were there.” I paused again, not wanting to offend. Had to play my hand right this time. God probably was good friends with Santa Claus. “I do think that you’re there because my parents told me you are. They’re both teachers, so they know a lot, and I don’t think they’d just believe in something without thinking about it. Like I did that time Brian Smithson said his sister was marrying that guy who played Batman.” I squinted my eyes again and wrinkled my nose. “I was won- FICTION Wood dering, if you’re really there, could you just let me know? With a sign or something?” I worried for a moment about the details. “I know you sent birds to Moses and Noah, but I don’t think my mom would want a bird in the house.” Wracking my brain, I squirmed a bit. “I have an idea. Maybe you could just shake the room a little bit. I promise, if you shake the room for me, I’ll always believe you’re there. Does that sound okay?” I asked, waiting a few moments. “Well, I guess it’s fine. Okay, so I’ll just sit here, and you shake the room. Ready? Go.” Grabbing the sheets and wrapping my fingers in the material, I braced for the sign. My eyes were screwed so tight, they began to ache. Seconds fizzed by in my brain. One. . . two. . . three. . . four. . . five. . . Anything?. . . seven. . . My eyes opened. . . Hello?. . . ten. . . The walls seemed farther away and more solid than ever. As far as I knew, nothing had been knocked over or even moved. Frustrated, I folded my arms again and opened the connection. “Okay, I guess maybe you didn’t want to wreck the house. Which makes sense.” God wasn’t making this easy. “Maybe we can try something on a smaller scale.” I leaped up and searched the room. It was nowhere in sight, but I remembered it had rolled under the bed. Dropping to my knees, I pushed past a box of Casey’s G.I. Joes and rolled the green basketball out. Dust came with it, and I sputtered for a moment as it clung to my nostrils. Hopping back onto the bed, I set the basketball next to me and folded my arms again. “God, this should be easier for you. Not that you need something easier.” I panicked, then took a deep breath. “I just mean, it’ll make less of a mess than shaking the room. See, what you could do is, you know, just roll the ball off the bed and onto the floor.” I couldn’t help but smile at the simple genius of my idea. “If you do that, then I will for sure believe. Always, I promise. Deal? Okay. Go.” This time, I turned and stared at the ball. I thought I almost saw its bumpy surface shift a little bit, but realized that was just from me jostling the bed. My eyes burned holes through the basketball, wanting, yearn- ing for it to just move off the bed. I wanted to reach out and smack it, help it a bit. It didn’t even need to go over the edge. Just give it a little nudge, God, I thought. Just a wiggle, and I’ll believe. I growled in frustration and punched the ball, which careened off the nearest bedpost and came back to smack me in the nose. WHOMPFF!

The big purple swamp man appeared out of nowhere in a rush of air and glittery leaves, just behind the little boy. I covered my eyes with my hands and peeked out between

69 the gaps in my fingers. The little boy just wants to find his lost piglet, I thought. Why does the big purple swamp man want to eat them? This was terrifying. The reactions of my classmates to the puppet show varied. Some kids laughed out loud as the puppeteers made the little boy cavort about the stage, looking for his pig playfully but barely missing the big, hairy, purple swamp man as he lunged to eat him. Others, like me, found the show completely age-inappropriate. A hairy, slimy swamp monster that can appear out of nowhere and eats little boys? Not funny. I could barely keep from wetting my auditorium chair. “Here, pigletpigletpigletpiglet Heeeerrreeee pigletpigletpiglet!” Some of us giggled, some of us had clipped-on, terrified smiles, and some of us couldn’t even feign entertainment. It all ended happily, of course, and Mrs. Barlow made us stand up and thank the sadistic puppeteer. I clapped emptily, seeing the hairy man appear in my brain in a flash of purple, his teeth gaping hungrily. I shuddered and dreaded the night ahead of me. All afternoon, I followed my parents around closely. They asked how the puppet show had gone, but I refused to dwell on the subject. “Fine,” I said and hovered a little closer to my father’s legs. My dad tucked me in and wished me good night, and I wanted desperately to leap from my covers and cling to his knees, but something manly in me anchored me to my pillow. I looked over at Casey, but his round little head was already turned away, and the breathings of sleep echoed off the wall. I lay motionless, my fingers clutching the edge of my covers, my eyes darting about the room, searching for any sign of light and life, or worse, a flash of leaves and purple and hair and teeth. After a few panicked, immobile minutes, I began to study the ceiling. It began to rise farther and farther away from me, and my eyelids grew squinty of their own volition. Eventually, I was down to only one eye, though it was the one nearest the room, so I could survey the largest amount of area. Gradually, that closed, too, and the terrors of the puppet show were not enough to keep me from sleep. WHOMPFF! Leaves! Purple! Hair and teeth! I shot awake and backed into the wall against my bed, pulling my covers around my legs and whimpering. My shoulders shook as I sobbed, and my eyes darted back and forth, scanning for a gaping mouth or the swamp man’s sudden appearance at the lip of my bed, where he would grab my feet with his long, hairy fingers and drag me under the bed to eat me. Steadily, I regained touch with the room, but I couldn’t stop crying. Casey was still asleep, and the room appeared empty. It was dark across the hallway under the door to my parents’ room, but that didn’t stop me. I leaped from my bed with my blanket still wrapped around my shoulders for cover and ran what felt like miles across the FICTION Wood hardwood floor to my parents’ door. I threw it open as quietly as I could, less for consideration of their sleep and more in worry that the swamp man would hear where I was. Making my way to the bigger mound on the bed, I leaned in close to my father’s head. “Dad,” I managed to squeak out through the short breaths and the tears. “Dad!” “Unnnhhh,” he groaned and moved deeper into his pillow. “Dad, please,” I whispered, my blanket clutched tighter. “I had a nightmare and I can’t go to sleep by myself. Can you please come sit in my room?” “Unhhhgghh.” Then nothing. “Dad!” “Aarrgh!” he rumbled, then brought a hand up to rub his face. “What time is it?” I looked over at the wall clock but didn’t know how to tell time yet. “It’s dark. Can you please come back with me?” For what seemed like ages, my father slowly sat up, then slowly rubbed his eyes some more, then slowly popped the joints in his shoulder, then slowly scratched his head, then slowly stood up, then slowly flexed his feet against the ground, then slowly and finally gave in to my tugging and pulling to follow me to my room. As soon as we entered my room, I vaulted the end board and snuggled back into my bed, making sure to keep a vantage point of all my surroundings. “Now, what’s the matter?” My dad’s hair ran comically in one direction, and his eyes were still closed as he talked. He sat on the edge of my bed and scratched his chest. I proceeded to tell him all about the evil puppet show and the hairy, purple swamp man who chased the innocent little boy around and how he could appear out of nowhere and gobble me up. He listened with a patience that could only have been aided by semi-consciousness, then reached down to rub the top of my head, which was the only part of my body I was brave enough to let outside my covers. “Buddy, it’s okay,” he soothed. “Just go back to sleep. I’ll wait here for you till you do.” He continued to sit there, fighting off his own drowsiness, occa- sionally letting his head bob and waiting for me to fall asleep, but I could do no such thing. My eyes stayed wide open, nervous, and the fear-wracked sobs hung close to my throat. “Will it make you feel better if we say a prayer?” my father asked. Oh, great. “Uh, I guess so,” I said, though the words rang hollow. “Good,” said my father. “Then we can get you to sleep, and I can go back to bed.” My father began praying, and I admit, I had a difficult time keeping up. Or caring. “. . . and please help him not to worry about the swamp man. . . ” I rolled my eyes. I’d been here before. From my experience, you

71 did not get what you asked for. “. . . and help him to fall asleep and not have nightmares. . . ” What kind of a God would let children see such an awful, ter- rorizing puppet show? “. . . and help him to feel you watching over him. . . ” Hold on. . . What was this warm feeling in my toes? “. . . and also, help him know his parents love him, as you love him. . . ” The warm feeling spread upwards, relaxing my tight little legs, then filling my belly. “. . . and. . . bless us. . . snuv. . . with. . . habba. . . ” My father lapsed into silence and his head leaned down against his chest. Soon, he began to snore. I lay there, tears in the corners of my drooping eyes and a smile on my face, my little foot brushing up against my sleeping father. “Amen,” I said and fell asleep. The next morning was Saturday, and I sat at breakfast with my green ball under one arm and a Pop-Tart in the other. My dad, bleary-eyed and fumbling with his bathrobe, thumped into the kitchen and sat at the table. “Muhhnnn,” he grumbled. “Morning,” I said. I nibbled at the corners of my Pop-Tart as my father tried, zombie-like, to find his mouth with a spoonful of oatmeal. “Did you sleep all right?” he asked. I nodded and went back to eating and contemplating. “Dad?” I asked. “Would you do something for me?” He looked up from his oatmeal. “Sure, buddy. What?” I set the basketball on the table. “Could you knock this ball off the table?” My dad gave me a funny look, then reached out a big hand and batted the ball off the ledge. It bounced to the ground, then slipped off helter-skelter into the living room. I smiled. “Can I go play at Will’s house today?” FICTION Glen (Harrison)

SONG OF SORROW David Glen (Harrison)

The woman tied herself to the humid breeze, counting grains of sand with her toes by the light of the indigo atmosphere. The sparse palm trees behind her were bartering wind and soil for a closer look at the setting sun. In the distance, the storm clouds were shaking hands with the ocean and spitting compliments on their way toward land. The woman’s cheeks forgave the salt trails which enveloped their pores in a translucent rivulet. The moon compelled its apprentice to succor the woman with white noise and wet kisses. “Gentle moment’s fantasy Sweetness, divine fallacy As you left me by the sea This illusion comforts me. . . ” The woman’s fingers bent into her palms. The ghosts of tranquil lovers danced around an ethereal flame. The sun dipped itself, inch by inch, into the cool water below. A lungful of air burst through her vocal chords and was lost in the cacophony of Elysium. The apparitions moved fluidly about each other, their lambent gaze now set on her. Her eyes sought the solace of the absent ones. And as the dark vapors and lightning bolts came ever closer, she fancied for a moment that she could almost imagine them. “The two arms you sent Drinking through light indignant One impatient scene No one’s left for me. . . ” The flood finally pursued the soles and sand, the woman’s cheeks had lost their patience. Fingernails bit into palm, bleeding. The spectral waltz indented the earth all about her until a circle of glass became her purgatory. The sun finally gasped its last

73 breath and gave rise to the diamond spark of a million stars, who were counting the minutes before their next retreat. What once were lovers in embrace were now shadows chasing and laughing at each other with heavy hearts. As the woman stood, the phan- toms snapped into stasis, their eyes still intent on hers. “I claw through twenty-eight weeks Without trust or hope to speak One life won’t last I will die within the past. . . ” The woman walked forward toward the flash photography of the looming storm. With the stars at her back and the moon now blind, she stepped over the polished ring into the two open arms of the depths below. The salt of the sea consoled the salt of her cheek. Now as she dances through the flame, only the ghosts still speak her name.

FICTION Glen (Harrison)

GRACIOUS HERO David Glen (Harrison)

I woke in my daily nightmare, trapped in the place that I knew I couldn’t leave. The room was dark, but I had been there long enough to know my way around. There was the smell of old malt liquor and the musty odor which made inescapable the fact that the doors of the house had long since been sealed. The only sound I could hear was the high pitched whine of silence. I made my way out of the room and stupidly tried to locate a window, but they had long since passed from existence. None of the doors led outside, and her presence was in every room. I searched for something to eat, as it felt like I hadn’t had any sustenance in ages, but all I could find were old packets of salt. I knew that she was following me, but she didn’t let me see her anymore. I only caught faint glimpses out of my periphery that reminded me what she had once looked like. I made my way to the sink but was not allowed to use the glasses in the cupboard and so had to cup my hands to fill my mouth with the stale, brown water that issued from the tap. The inside of the house was faintly lit by the memory of windows and chandeliers. I sat on the grimy floor in the corner of the kitchen and tried unsuccess- fully to meditate the feeling of food in my stomach. We had built this house together, her and me. When it was first finished, it had been an intimate masterpiece. The windows stretched from the floor to the ceiling, almost encompassing every exterior wall. The carpet was a deep red and so soft that one would sink into it if he stayed in the same place long enough. We had hung paintings between the windows, and the furniture was set up so that no matter where one sat, some kind of art was always visible. We used to hold each other at night and watch the storm clouds erupt in the distance. The house used to be warm. Then one morning I woke up and noticed a deadbolt on the front

75 door. At first, I didn’t pay it any mind; it was just a way to secure this gorgeous life we had built together. I hardly noticed when the door was welded shut. I stood up and walked to the staircase, but it had become brittle and had finally collapsed into a wooden skeleton too weary to stand any longer. The bones and joints that hadn’t already rotted away had fallen through the floor and were piled in the vast, sightless abyss below. I could feel her standing behind me, but I didn’t dare turn around. When I did, she was always gone before I could utter a word. “One floor left,” I stated the obvious and inevitable. Even though she didn’t speak anymore, I could feel that the unpleasant tone I had taken was about to set her off, so I amend- ed the statement, “. . . less complicated that way.” Every day there was another inch of concrete on the walls, floor and ceiling, and I didn’t want to give her reason to increase productivity. Weeks passed before I screwed up my courage enough to lower myself onto the broken xylophone of decaying lumber and begin to throw the pieces to the floor above one at a time. She wanted to know what I thought I was doing, so I said, “I’m just cleaning up. I want our house to be alive again.” She let me finish, and I set the longest plank against the corner of the stairwell and began to climb out. I was almost within reach of the floor above when the board corroded beneath me. I fell downward, expecting to hit the ground, but never did. The last sight I caught before all light was gone was that of her rabid-ocean blue eyes. When I woke again, the passage between the guestroom where I now slept and the rest of the house was too narrow for me to get out other than by shuffling through sideways. Once I found that I could just make it from side to side, I went back, tilted my mattress on end, and spent the good part of an hour pushing it through the ever-shrinking slit. I forced my way through, turning my neck until it felt like it was about to break. I set the mattress in the middle of the living room floor and lay myself down, exhausted from the effort. I tried to close my eyes, but when I did, the house shook me so violently that I had to sit up. I looked back toward the old guest room, but the opening was now just a thin crack in the cement. The familiar garrote of anxiety took over, but I did my best to push it back down into a deeper part of myself. “Good morning, beautiful,” I half whispered, knowing that she was close enough to hear. “Can I see you today? I’ve missed you.” I looked around, but except for the numb sensation of her prox- imity, I found no indication that she even existed. I glanced toward the stairwell and could just make out the shattered ribcage of the now gray two-by-sixes. She had left the hole in the floor, but I fancied that I could still construct a ramp to the second level. With every successful and failed attempt to place a board between the floor and the angle above, I would comfort her saying, “I still love you. I still love you.” I succeeded in securing eight boards, four wide, stacked two deep. I cautiously made my way up the ramp. With every shuffled FICTION Glen (Harrison) step, the boards beneath me creaked and crackled, and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get down again should I reach the top. The void beneath me groaned, breathing cold bursts of air in and out, in and out, faster and faster the closer I came to the top. When I finally crawled onto the carpeted floor of the second story, the tumult had ceased. “There’s still carpet up here?” I “As I came closer asked, but the house tried to shake me into the empti- to the door, I ness below. I lunged down the hallway, saving myself, could smell the but the makeshift staircase had been sucked into the flowers that I blackness. used to pick for The walls up there were still painted, and the hallway her before the was nearly as wide as the family room below. Nostal- door outside was gia gripped me for a moment, and I felt the pang of sealed. There something that I had long since ceased to be. As tears was something collected and dropped from my eyes, I was blinded by else. It was a light coming from beneath a closed door at the end barely audible... She was singing.” of the hall. It was coming from our room. I stood para- lyzed. After what was probably a quarter of an hour, my eyes adjusted sufficiently for me to move forward. As I came closer to the door, I could smell the flowers that I used to pick for her before the door outside was sealed. There was something else. It was barely audible, but the sound was so sweet that my few tears became twin rivers. It was her. She was singing. She’s in that room, our room. I couldn’t yet make out what it was that she was singing, so I made my way closer until it began to be discernible. I stood before the door, listening to her entrancing voice and staring down at the knob. “She’s in there.” Finally, in one swift motion, I turned the handle, opened the door, and stepped inside. The light had gone out, and for a moment I was blinded by the familiar darkness. I called out to her, but she had stopped singing. The scent of flowers had gone, and the stench of stagnation had returned. When my eyes readjusted, I found that I was back in the living room, and the walls were tighter than they had ever been. I shrieked out of desperation, but the walls had ceased to provide even the smallest reverberation. “I can’t do this! I can’t keep doing this!” The walls rippled and the foundation cracked. “Why are you doing this to me?” I began to sob. “I can’t rebuild something when it only wants to crumble,” I said dejectedly, collapsing on the floor. “I just want to leave,” I repeated, “I just want to leave.” “No!” It was her. The walls fractured, and the ceiling began to splinter. The room quaked violently and tried to close in even more. “I’m begging you,” she bawled invisibly, “please don’t leave me!” “I have to.”

77 “Oh my god, what did I do?! Please tell me. I’ll change anything! I can fix myself! I have to. You’re the one. I can’t lose you!” “I’m sorry. I just can’t do this anymore.” The ceiling crumbled, and everything went black. I came to in the guest room. The space in the wall was back; although it was still tight, I was able to scrape my way through it. I couldn’t feel her following me anymore. I looked around at the living room which had re-expanded. The filthy mattress was still in the middle of the floor, but there was something else. I had glanced over it once before, not noticing that it was there because my mind refused to believe it. It was a door. It was our front door. Quivering, I walked to it and was astounded to find that the lock had been removed. I turned the knob, and, taking one last look at the once immaculate interior of the house that she and I had created for each other, I opened the door.

FICTION Martinez

DRAGON SLAYER Jeff Martinez

I am Gus Hagan. Sir Gustav, and at nine years old, I am the youngest knight in the kingdom. Just a few days ago I was on a quest to discover a new place to settle. I took with me a round metal sword I took from the king’s garage, and a trash can lid I used as a shield; it had a handle and everything. Before I left, the leaders gave me a lump on my head, and it was throbbing pain- fully. And a bruise had appeared on my arm from them tossing me across the room; I was sure I had one on my butt as well. My tears tasted like saltwater when they touched my lips, but I stopped them because knights do not cry. Knights are brave and strong. When I thought about the cruel leaders, I slammed my metal sword on the sidewalk as I walked. I got past the houses and into the field, following the dirt road to the creek I had once played in. That would be a good place to start my own kingdom. As I walked, I thought about the castle I would build and the servants I would have and the queen I would marry once I found a princess. Pain distracted me from my plan- ning. The lump on my head hurt worse as I walked, but the sharp sting in my butt had gone away. Soon I had arrived. “This land will be known as Gus’s Kingdom!” I yelled and held my sword up to the sky declaring my land. I dunked my head into the creek. The water was faster than the last time I was there, but it was cool and felt good in the summer’s heat. A few feet from the creek stood a tall shading tree. It would be the perfect place to rest before I looked for wood to build my castle. I leaned my sword and shield against the tree and sat down, and I heard quiet purring coming closer. A fat orange dragon approached me. I picked it up, held it in my lap to I pet it. When I bent down to snuggle him, it scratched my face and arm. I swore

79 out loud and jumped to my feet. Blood spilled from my cheek, and he looked like he was going to attack again, so I hit the dragon with my sword. He fell to the ground and let out a long mewhaa. My flesh stung where it scratched me, so I hit it again, and I started to cry. Thoughts of the leaders flashed in my mind as I hit the dragon until it stopped moving. After it was dead, I sat down next to it and cried. Even though knights are not supposed to cry, I no longer cared. I put the dragon’s body into the creek, and the water took it away. I decided I had better go back to the kingdom so the leaders would not be angrier with me, so I grabbed my bloodied sword and shield and walked back through the field. Once on the dirt road, a pickup with an old man and woman stopped and stared at me. They stared at the blood and fur on my hands and clothes, and I thought to myself: they must be dragons too. FICTION Morrill

TWO MINDS Ross Morrill

The endless realms of humanity have always fascinated me. Perhaps this is why I became a psychologist. I am drawn to the fact that it is in the mind where human realities are processed and perceived. Over the years, I have learned that though it is our minds that process and view the realms of humanity, they originate somewhere else. Our minds have only the power to perceive and interpret; the realms of existence originate outside the com- prehension of our minds—they originate in our consciousness. I cannot adequately define what consciousness is, but its enormity and complexity frightens me. Perhaps the only thing that com- pares in magnitude is the universe itself. My entire life has been devoted to my enduring fascination with the mind and its desperate attempts to understand existence. For eight years I studied psychology at a university level. After I gradu- ated, I went on to work with some of the more renowned psychologists in the world. Finally, after many years of hard work, it all paid off when my dream of having my own practice came true. For eighteen years I helped people with troubled minds and became one of the most respected and well-known clinical psychologists in the country. During those eighteen years, my awe and fascination with the human mind only grew. The more I learned about the human psyche, the more I wanted to know. The theme that followed me during my clinical days was that of realities. Throughout history many psychologists and philosophers alike have mused over what is real. Droves could be written on the subject, but let it suffice now to say that my job often came down to trying to make peace between individual realities and social realities (which was often a difficult and painful process). In my eighteenth year of practice, I received an invitation to become one of the presiding psychologists at a new institute for

81 the study of psychology. The institute would be called the “Pro- methean Institute.” I was flattered by the invitation and somewhat fed up with purely clinical work, so I accepted. I would be doing much more research and theory at the Promethean Institute, which was something that excited me. I had already written many articles over the years for the various psychology journals, but they were mainly practical articles. I would be theorizing and projecting and, in essence, sharing my innermost realities with the social consciousness. I went to work and found I loved it. I felt as if I was a part of psychology instead of a machine that only analyzed and then dispensed it. Day after day I studied the most interesting minds in the world. Each case titillated my consciousness and led me further into the human psyche. Then there was Adam and Cassian. They arrived at the Promethean Institute about the same time and were given to me to look after and evaluate. Adam was fourteen. Physically he was a large, healthy boy. I often felt intimidated by his size, but of course my unease could have been caused by his disability. I have worked around people with mental problems for most of my life, but Adam was the only person with a disability that made me uncomfortable. Adam had no sense of self. If it wasn’t for the people around him Adam wouldn’t know he was alive. In fact, Adam had to have an attendant with him constantly, or else his mind would begin to shut down. This, of course, had been a hardship for his family. Many times Adam had ended up in the hospital after having been left alone for too long a period. At the Institute, we left him alone in an observation room once to see how he reacted. The experience is seared into my memory. For the first thirty seconds Adam paced the room wildly searching for where the last person with him had gone. Then he began screaming. Actually it was more of an unearthly howl. The howl only lasted about ten seconds until Adam collapsed. He thrashed for a bit and then became very still. He had fallen at the perfect angle, and I could see his face from behind the opaque viewing wall. His eyes remained wide, but they became empty, devoid of life. It was appallingly similar to looking into a dead person’s eyes. There was nothing there. No Adam. When his breathing became shallow we sent in the aids to revive him. It wasn’t just that Adam had to be attended twenty-four hours a day, but he assumed the personality of whoever was with him. When he was with more than one person, he usually picked up bits and pieces from anyone present until he was a wild conglom- eration of personalities. His habit of being the person or persons around him was probably the most eerie thing about him. He could mimic facial expressions, body language, voice timbres, in- tonations, and dialog perfectly. When you were with Adam it was like being with yourself, only a belated recreation of yourself, like watching an instant replay of your life just after it happened. Ev- FICTION Morrill erything you said, he said. Every movement you made, he made. When you spoke to Adam, he simply spoke right back at you as you. The perfect copycat. We used mirrors to try to help Adam identify himself, but it was as if he couldn’t even see his own image. I remember sitting in front of a mirror with Adam. I pointed at his image and said, “Adam.” He then pointed at my image and said, “Adam.” I tried pointing at my image and identified myself, “Lisa.” He pointed again at my im- “His mother was age and said, “Lisa,” exactly as I had said it. a sensitive wom- He ate only when someone else was eating, he slept an and a devout only when someone with him was sleeping, he used Christian. She the bathroom only when the person with him used the firmly believed bathroom. I remember sitting at my desk doing paper- Adam had come work with him sitting in my office copying me exactly. from god, and she intended to When I wrote something, he mimicked me. He didn’t care for him any actually have a pen and paper; he just went through the way she could.” motions of writing just as I was. I looked over at him. He looked at me. “You are nobody because you are everyone,” I said. “You are nobody because you are everyone,” he said. “I don’t understand how you’ve even managed to survive so long,” I said. “I don’t understand how you’ve even managed to survive so long,” he said. I actually did know how he had survived so long. His mother was a sensitive woman and a devout Christian. She firmly believed Adam had come from god, and she intended to care for him any way she could. For thirteen years she was his almost constant companion, only receiving a break from him when her husband relieved her. She made sure he did everything that was required for a human to do by doing it right along with him. I in- terviewed his mother extensively. She told me she grew to love having him as a constant shadow. “It was like god sent me an angel to keep me in line by showing me exactly how I was behaving. He’s the best conscience anyone could have,” she told me. The rest of Adam’s family finally intervened and convinced his mother that Adam needed help and she needed an extended break from him. She acquiesced and agreed to have him come to the Promethean Insti- tute where his condition could be studied and hopefully ameliorated. While he was at the institute, she visited at least once a week. Everyone at the institute was fascinated with Adam, especially the psychologists. He was a human mystery. Never had anyone with the type and scope of his condition been studied. After six months, though, we were no closer to understanding or helping Adam.

83 Then there was Cassian. Cassian was Adam’s opposite in every way. He was a small, frail boy. I remember thinking he could break apart at any time. His skin stretched over tiny bones like a painted skeleton. Cassian’s physical stature and poor health were caused by the difficulty it was to get him to eat, and it was difficult to get him to eat because of his disability. Cassian had no sense of anyone but himself. He didn’t much acknowledge the existence of the physical world at all. When you talked to him, he didn’t even look at you. He never spoke, and hardly ever moved. He was nourished mostly by feeding tubes and IVs, and he had a catheter to collect his paltry wastes. It would be easy and fair to have assumed Cassian was brain dead, except for the alarming evidence to the contrary. First, there was the visible evidence. When you looked in Cassian’s eyes you knew something was there. They danced about, alive and seeing something no one else could see.Sometimes he appeared happy, other times sad, sometimes it was as if he were seeing a terrible monster, and at other times he wept. Then there were the tests. He was given an EEG test, and his brain activity was off the charts. Something was happening in his head, something huge, so huge he could not escape it for long enough to deal with the reality of his own body. Cassian was completely lost in the realms of his own mind. What we could do for Cassian was very limited, especially since he didn’t even recognize we existed. We tried to “wake him up” every way we could think of ,including a mild form of shock therapy, but Cassian remained in his world, far away from us. I remember sitting with Cassian, desperately wanting to know what was going on in his mind. It seemed a tragedy, no one but himself. I was sure it was spectacular. Cassian ended up at the Promethean Institute basically because nobody wanted him. His single mother had cared for him lovingly until it had apparently become too burdensome for her and she killed herself. The rest of his family didn’t want a twelve- year-old kid who was alive only as a technicality, and the father was nowhere to be found. So Cassian bounced around in the state system until some state psychologist took an interest in him and sent him to the Promethean Institute. It was a miracle he was alive. These two polar opposites continued to cause fascination amongst the institute’s staff, but they made no progress towards becoming better. Then one day as I sat at my desk thinking, I had a sudden idea, one that seemed so obvious. What would happen if the two boys were put together? It would be interesting if nothing else, and they weren’t making progress otherwise. I decided to try it. Arrangements were made and then carried out. Cassian was placed in one of the viewing rooms and then Adam was led in. The door was then closed, leaving the two boys alone. Myself and many of the other doctors watched with breathless anticipation. Cassian, of course, just lay there lost in his world. Adam franti- FICTION Morrill cally searched the room for another person. He found Cassian. Adam approached Cassian and immediately assumed the same laying position. Cassian’s eyes were wide and still experiencing something far away. Adam made his eyes fidget and wildly search just as Cassian’s. For most of an hour, they simply lay there together. I began to suspect nothing would happen. I never had a reason to believe anything would occur, but I had hoped. I quickly got over my disappointment. We had at least found the perfect person to mind Adam. Just as I was about to leave the viewing room something happened. In perfect unison, the two boys convulsed. It was a quick but violent convulsion, and then they both sat up. I was shocked. It was the most I had seen Cassian move his body. They sat facing each other, looking into one another’s eyes. I was doubly shocked. Cassian had yet to look directly at anyone, but there he was, staring into Adam’s eyes. Then more shock. “Hello?” Adam said. I nearly fainted. Adam had spoken without copying anyone. The other doctors and aides who had remained were muttering excitedly. Holding our breaths, we waited for more. For fifteen minutes they sat staring at each other. During those fifteen minutes I saw their focus refine. It was as if they were gaining whatever they had been missing before. The emptiness that had been so obvious in both of their countenances faded until they almost seemed like two normal boys having a serious staring contest. “Can you see the change?” I said aloud to those who were with me behind the viewing wall. There were nods all around. “What is happening?” one of the other doctors nearly whispered. “I have no idea,” I replied. Looking back I like to speculate that their consciousnesses combined in some miraculous way to form a complete person. Adam began looking down at his own body, apparently exploring something new. Cassian reached out and touched Adam’s forehead. It was as if they were awakening from a long and confusing dream. Neither spoke, I didn’t think Cassian could actually speak, but they were communicating with their motions and, I suspected, within their minds. Then they explored the plain white room around them. When they found nothing interesting in the room their focus returned to each other and whatever was happening in their minds. After some time I decided to enter the room to see how they would react to someone new. I quietly and cautiously opened the door. Both of their heads whipped around at my appearance. They looked scared. I held up my hands. “Hello boys, I won’t hurt you.” Cassian obviously didn’t understand a word I said. Adam looked at me curiously. “Who you?” he said.

85 “I am Lisa, a friend.” Adam’s eyes squinted with suspicion. He then pointed to Cas- sian. “He very big and very small, I not whole. He make me and I find him.” Adam was obviously having trouble forming complete coher- ent sentences. I realized that this was because he had never really done it before. “You found him?” I asked pointing at Cassian. “Yes, and he make me. Very good.” I smiled. “Yes, very good.” I didn’t entirely understand what Adam was saying—Adam found Cassian, and Cassian made Adam? There were amazing and unseen things happening in the room and within the boys’ minds. For nine months the boys were inseparable. We tried once to separate them to see if they would revert back to their for- mer conditions, but they both became so violent and desperate that we desisted. Adam became more practiced at speaking to the point where he could make adequate conversation. Cassian remained mute, but it was clear the boys could communicate between themselves, so Adam became their collective voice. They both learned to accomplish basic tasks like eating by themselves and using the bathroom. We gave them toys. Adam immediately took to the building blocks and toy cars. He built tall towers and then crashed into them, only to rebuild them. Cassian grabbed up the crayons and scribbled. There seemed to be order to his drawings, but no one could define what that order was except for Adam. When I asked Adam to explain what Cassian drew, he gave detailed descriptions of what could only be an imaginary world. Adam’s family visited the boys. He recognized them in some vague incomplete way, but not as members of his own family. I could tell this hurt his mother, but she took it well. She wanted to take him home, but I explained that their recovery was incomplete and misunderstood. They needed more time together, and we needed more time with them. Adam became more social with the aides and doctors, and soon he was giving more attention to the aides and less to Cassian. He was a quick learner and eager to do whatever he was told to do. Cassian was more reserved and introspective. I thought the progression was natural because of how each boy had been. Then I noticed trouble between the boys. I first noticed it when they spent the better part of a day staring angrily at each other. The next day I caught Adam yelling at Cassian incoherently. I entered the room, and Adam stopped his tantrum. “What is going on, Adam?” I asked. Adam looked at me with exasperation. “He won’t do what I tell him,” he said, pointing accusatorily. I frowned. “I’m sorry, but you can’t tell Cassian what to do.” “But I found him. He would still be lost if I hadn’t found him.” “Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can tell him what to do now. Besides, I thought you said he made you?” FICTION Morrill

Adam pouted. “Well yes, but he should still do as I tell him. I know what’s right. We should be institute men.” One of the aides had recently explained to Adam and Cassian that they were in a special place called an institute, and that the institute men and women wanted to help them. Adam had taken the aide’s expla- nation to heart and now wanted to be an “institute man” as well. I immediately recognized an opportunity to help Adam see that he and Cassian were separate individuals. “Well, you can be an institute man and Cassian can be something else.” Adam’s face turned grave, “No he cannot. He has to be what I say.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t work that way, Adam.” Adam grunted in frustration and turned to his toys. I sighed and left the room. It was strange for Adam to assume such dominance over Cassian, especially since he had been nothing more than a copycat, unable to think for himself. I went back to my office to make record of the conversation and to ponder its meaning. Early the next morning I received a call—something had happened with Adam and Cassian. I rushed to the institute and ran to their room. We had stopped keeping twenty-four hour surveil- lance on them only the month before. My heart was in my throat as I entered the room cautiously, praying nothing had happened. Adam was sitting on the floor next to Cassian’s body. Cassian’s face had been smashed to a bloody mess. Adam’s hands were covered in blood. “What did you do?” I cried out to Adam. He looked up. “What did you do?” he cried out, perfectly matching my shock and horror both in voice and expression.

87 STRANGERS AT A CARD GAME Trent Olsen

An elderly couple sits around a rickety wooden table in the kitchen of their small apartment. The electricity is out, and the only light in the room comes from a single candle on the table- top. A window on the far side of the room lets in the pleasant summer’s-night air. The candle’s flame dances and flickers in the breeze, tossing the shadows of the elderly couple to and fro on the walls behind them. They play a game of Rummy to pass the time. As the old man deals the cards, he says, “Norma, what’s been the happiest day of your life so far?” Norma sighs deeply and picks up her hand and says, “You only dealt me nine cards, Francis.” Francis hands her one more card, places the remainder in the center of the table, turns the top one over and says, “Was it the day we were married?” Norma draws a card from the stock pile. She stares at it for a few moments, then places it in her hand and discards another. She says nothing. “Was it the day Joseph was born?” Francis asks and plays the card Norma discarded. He looks at her over the candle’s flame and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. The old woman looks back at him across the table but again ignores his question. She plays a card from the stock, adjusts her hand, then lays down a run of clubs. “Was it the day—” “Francis,” she interrupts, “I have to tell you something. I’m not getting any younger, for Christ’s sake, and I’ve been keeping this in for close to fifty years now.” “What is it, Norm?” She hesitates, then says, “I’ve never loved you. FICTION Olsen

To be honest, the day I married you was the absolute worst day of my life. The only reason I married you is because my parents forced me to. They told me that marrying you was the right thing to do after I got pregnant.” Francis leans back in his chair and stares. He opens his mouth to speak, but Norma raises a hand and cuts him off. “And the day Joseph was born,” she continues, “was the second worst day of my life. I wanted an abortion when I found out I was pregnant with your child. He is “And the day a constant reminder of my loathing for you and the life Joseph was we’ve lived. I wanted to go to UCLA and be an actress. born,” she con- I had such talent; such promise.” tinues, “was the Francis looks as if he’s just been stabbed—his face second worst day of my life. is without color, and his eyes look as if they’ve instantly I wanted an aged ten years. abortion. . . ” “I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally let that out of me,” Norma says. “I’m not sorry, either.” “I’ll tell you one thing, Norma,” Francis says. “You are quite the actress. You deserve one of those stars on the sidewalk in Hollywood.” He returns his gaze to his cards. Smiling, he lays them down and says, “Rummy.”

89 ASH Sami Postma

I don’t remember how I died. You’d think I’d remember something like that. I can’t find any scars, so it wasn’t by blade or bullet. Those who suffered the scorn of their lovers say they can taste poison in their mouths forever. I don’t know if that’s true, but I don’t have that sweet-foul flavor. The blue and bloated victims of stolen breaths make me look pale. The gnarled old ones make me feel foolish for wasting my young body. I remember my life, more than they do. I remember sunny days filled with laughter and snowy days curled in front of the fire. I remember looking at the mountains through a screen of tears, searching for an anchor. Gods, my life sounds like a child’s story. I remember so much noise and feeling like I would never have time to catch my breath. I remember hurrying from one appointment to the next, forgetting minutes, hours, days. They blur together now. More important, I remember that smile. I remember arms that held me through storms. I remember love. I remember a face long since forgotten to the world. These hills and plains have been here so long. It’s hard to imagine there’s anything left that’s been here longer than I have. But nothing will exist soon. Fires cover the land. I wish my soul could catch fire, too. I wish for the sensation others whisper about. My hand sweeps across the land. Scoring it. Burning it. This place is nearly done. It no longer resembles the land it was. Do I? I shove the question away. Of course I do. We all do. I remem- FICTION Postma ber someone saying you can’t take it with you, but they were wrong. It always stays with you. Your body reflects every action of life. Those who sought to escape into peaceful nothingness carry their sins. Blood pours from their wrists and necks. It won’t ever run out, just as they never will. My hands flutter over my body. I’ve done this a thousand times, and I’ll do it a thousand more until I start counting again. I wish I knew how I died. But nothing changes. My death is a secret. Maybe I’m not meant to remember my death. I don’t remember my birth, after all, and that held just as much trauma. To go from the soft warmth of a mother’s embrace to sudden noise and brightness and pain. Yet I’ve forgotten that, too. It doesn’t seem so odd that I’ve forgotten my death. It was only going from that world into the quiet and softness again. But everyone else remembers their deaths. They regale each other with death tales. The charred land sparks again with a flick of my wrist. Why am I doing this? The Master has decided and so we toil. Purge the world with fire so that it may be reborn from the ashes. I gather a handful of the ash at my feet, letting it sift through my fingers. I can’t see how anything can be reborn from this. I watch one of the others pass, limping his way towards a stubborn rock that refuses to crumble. They all treat me differ- ently, as if they too sense there is something wrong with me. My partner says that is good; those in charge shouldn’t behave like those they lead. But even he keeps a distance. Everyone here had something stolen from them, so they walk instead of resting. Their last breath, their life and love, their hope. . . Those who find the peace they lost in life get to turn away from this work. I just know that the memory of my death is the key that unlocks that path. The hair on the back of my neck prickles. Someone is watching me. Others avoid me, so it is new. A hand closes on my shoulder, and I look up to see the Master standing next to me. The dust stirs with His sigh. Wind stretches out from us to dance across the barren land. “My little one, you are letting yourself fall prey to distraction.” I duck my head in embarrassment. He warned me of this before, but I can’t pull my mind from the nagging thoughts. It’s getting worse with time. “Are you so desperate to know what has passed that you cannot focus on what has been set before you?” “I am sorry, Master.” I hate the quaver of my voice, but fear keeps it there. “Dwelling on something you may never know is getting you nowhere. You will only harm yourself if you continue.” I can’t raise my head to look at my Master. But with the same surety that I know something is wrong with me, I know I cannot

91 avoid the question in His voice as easily as His eyes. “My death, Sir. I just. . . ” My voice drops, hidden by the whisper of the wind He created. “I just know that if I can remember my death, I can move on like so many of the others have.” I shudder at the loss of contact as His hand slips from my shoulder, and I fear what He will do about my words. I still will not look at Him even as He walks around to face me. His hand forces my chin up. “Are you unhappy with the job I assigned you? Do you wish to leave this place and my presence?” He must feel my trembling as much as I do. My mouth opens and closes twice. What can I say? He steps back, His hand falling to His side. His eyes are hard, foreign. “You have asked me about your death before. You have instructions to let the matter rest.” He sighs again. I cannot stop shaking. “Little one, you are different from the others. You do know that?” “Yes, Sir. The others avoid me.” “I shall have to talk to them about that. Do you know how you are different?” “I cannot remember my death, Sir. Unlike the rest of them, I only have snatches of my life.” “It is not your life.” I stare. My voice disappears with all thoughts. “You are older than all the others here. You have watched the world go from youth to old age. You have watched lives rise and dim. You have taken some of those memories as your own. Every- one is here because they have had something stolen from them. You understand this, yes?” “Yes, Sir.” “What was stolen from you was never yours. You cannot remember your death because you were never alive.” A steady headache beats at the back of my mind. It started small. So small, I could barely hear it. But now it beats loud, in time with the Master’s words, nearly drowning out his voice. “But. . . I remember. . . ” I can’t find my voice for more than a glimmer of a moment. “You remember the lives of those you have watched.” “What am I then, Sir?” The wind howls through the silence. “You are mine.” That same hard edge is in His eyes, as if He knows what is happening to me. My head feels like it’s splitting open, but I can’t even raise my arms to hold it together. He knows what pain I’m in. His eyes show how sorry He is now. They also tell how much worse it’s going to get. “You were the first to occupy this land of the between. You were created solely to exist here. You are an extension of myself. You direct souls that exist here until they can find their way.” Fire flashes behind my eyes. The thundering ache in my head is unbearable. If I could move, I would have curled up on the ground. A whimper escapes through the torturous pain, splitting FICTION Postma apart the seams of my being. “This knowledge is destroying you. It nearly obliterated you the last time you insisted on knowing. A false soul is not something that should exist. You exist through my power, and this knowledge removes you from me.” My legs tremble. The cold tears on my lashes sizzle on my cheeks. I am not real. “You are very much real, little one. You are something different. You are my trusted servant, the only one I will allow to lead the world of lost souls.” Darkness consumes me, thick and billowing, like the smoke that fills the sky. “I must take the truth from you. I will restore you to your original state. Do not pursue this again.” Another whimper echoes. I can’t even find my voice to beg Him. “It is no use pretending you are anything but a curious creature. But I hope that soon I will have something else to offer you.” Firm hands press against the sides of my head. The flames and smoke evaporate in a blinding white light. A scream wrenches the sky in two. I crumple to the ground. Ash flutters around me like a comforting blanket. I sit up, blinking into the ruined landscape. This area is complete. I must lead the teams onward. The Master won’t be patient much longer. The world shall be purged to make way for new life. I stand, watching lost souls scurry around me. They are here because they had something stolen from them. We all had something stolen. We are as lost in this place as the ash that floats through the air. I pull a handful of the soft grayness close while my eyes search. Footsteps approach before my partner is beside me, looking over the land with the same cold analysis that our Master uses. He was a good choice for the second Lead. He sees things that I do not. He remembers things I do not. I don’t remember how I died. You’d think I’d remember something like that. His quick steps carry him forward, chasing off a wayward soul who was resting before her time. I follow, the ash sliding through my fingers. I don’t remember how I died.

93 REVOKED Kory Wood

Two men showed up at my house last night, rousing me from my nap as they nearly knocked a hole through my door. I opened it hesitantly, rubbing the snooze out of my eyes. The man nearest the door was small and twitchy, itching at the hair on his upper lip. Behind him stood a Buick of a man whose size blocked out the street lights. “I’m Vinny,” said the one with the moustache. “And this is Guido.” Guido casually waved a fist the size of a ham. “We’re here to revoke your man card,” Vinny said. I balked. “A man card? What’s that?” “Check your wallet,” said Vinny impatiently. I fumbled for a moment until Guido offhandedly lifted me by my ankles and shook me. Retrieving my wallet from the floor, Vinny swiftly pulled from the folded leather a steel-gray rectangle that said MAN CARD on the front. Pulling a pair of scissors from his pocket, he deftly snipped it in half, dropped the remains at my feet, and turned with his brutish companion to leave. “Wait!” I cried. “I don’t understand. What’s a man card, and why don’t I deserve mine?” Vinny halted huffily, then whipped back around. “We’ve received reports that you haven’t been true to your man-dom.” I thought a moment. “But that can’t be true,” I said. “I’m a sports fan. I had a steak last week. I think about Angelina Jolie at least once every two days.” Vinny snapped his fingers, and Guido pulled a long, folded list from inside his suit jacket. Perusing the list, he began to read aloud. “Sports fan, huh?” he said. “Does that include competitive FICTION Wood dancing? Because I see you’ve been watching a lot of that recently.” “Well, you know, I just got married, and my wife really likes. . . I don’t see why that one thing gets my man card revoked.” Vinny turned back to the list. “That steak you mentioned. Was it beef? Or was it. . . let’s see. . . a cilantro lime tilapia filet?” “Um. . . ” “And I see you paired that with a spinach salad,” said Vinny. “With a raspberry vinaigrette dressing.” Guido shook his head. “My wife likes to eat healthy. What’s wrong with…” “We also see,” interrupted Vinny, “you’ve thrown away your old AC/DC concert T-shirt and replaced it with a lavender v-neck from Hollister.” “My wife says it looks slimming.” “And you’re on your way to see which movie tonight, again?” “You know, that new Bruce Willis one.” Vinny checked his list. “We see you have tickets for a French movie about relationships.” “Oh. Right.” Vinny grinned smugly, handed the list to Guido, and made to leave again. “But wait!” I cried. “I have proof that I deserve my card! Just last night, I was in the mall food court, eating some jalapeno nachos, reading a spy thriller, and checking my fantasy football rankings. How much more male can somebody be?” Vinny considered this, glancing over at Guido, who shrugged sheepishly. “Why were you in the mall by yourself?” he asked. “Well,” I said. “I was waiting for my wife. . . while she shopped at Victoria’s Secret.” They stared at me in silence. “Guido, break his kneecaps,” said Vinny.

95 CATCH OF THE DAY Michelle Paul

The ropes groan as they haul up their load. I peek over the railing to watch, breathlessly waiting for that moment when the laden net breaks the surface, and I’m the first to see what nature and luck has brought us. One of the deckhands calls to me to get back, but I ignore him. A spray of icy water blasts into my face as the ship dives between two towering waves. I grip the frozen railing with both hands, bracing myself, my eyes stubbornly watching the progress of the well-worn lines. Even then I almost miss the sudden surge of white, the dull crash as the net slides into view. My heart leaps into my throat, and I lean forward further. Our bounty is revealed little by little, dragged relentlessly through the depths until the entire load pops out. It soars up through the air, salty water streaming as it swings, helpless and free. Within the mesh of ropes, I spot the trapped creatures struggling, colorful scales glinting in the half-hidden sunlight. But it’s more than just scales. I feel the rush of excitement as I spot something different entangled in the mess, something that has the deckhands suddenly shouting with rekindled enthusiasm. I hang back impatiently as they hook the net and swing it onto the deck. It lands with a dull thud. My father shouts orders from the helm, and I pick out the carefully controlled triumph in his voice. The other captains had doubted his choice of location, but it wouldn’t be the first time he would have something to rub in their faces. But I wasn’t present for the other times. I’d never been close enough to hear the futile slapping of wet bodies against wood, to smell the distinctive stench or feel the frozen mist chill my core. Miserable conditions, my mother had said. But it was all worth it for this. Worth it for the moment when the men release the net’s FICTION Paul trappings, sending their catch sprawling onto the deck. Worth it to watch as they hurriedly position ropes and open trapdoors to holding chambers below. Worth it as the prize of the entire trip— for many, the prize of their careers—at last reveals itself, confirming what I thought I’d seen in the tangle of oceanic bodies. The scales are pure gold, and the fins are long and trailing. An adult, obviously. I can see that it’s weakened from the journey to the surface, and the deckhands take advantage of that, wasting no time to loop ropes and hooks around whatever they can. They begin to drag it to the open trapdoor even before it’s fully secured, and it takes the strongest man to boldly shove the creature down through the gaping hole. I see the small splash as it slides smoothly in. The trapdoor is slammed shut and locked. The men begin congratulating themselves. My father tells them to take a break, and they retreat to the warmth and the promise of a drink. I wait until they are gone. Then I creep to the trapdoor. The top is clear plastic so deckhands can monitor their catch below, and I peer down through the window. I see something move, and then two hands press up against the other side. The fingers are webbed, the skin a light green. I see the glint of eyes as the creature stares up at me. For some reason, I shudder. But I’m sure it’s just the cold. I break away and hurry to join the rest of the crew.

97 THE ART OF FALLING Emily Oliver

The bus never changes. The same stained and tarnished, dull blue seats, the same ads through the same side windows proclaiming that they should “Vote Experience. Reelect Turney for City Council” with the tip of the too serious, balding man’s head poking out just above the third row of seats. The same smell of stale, cheap booze and sickeningly sweet perfume, of cigarette smoke and gasoline. The same rushing roar of engines and the squeaking of the doors bouncing in place as the bus trundles along the crowded city streets at a crawl. It’s always the same people, too. Always the same washed up drunks. Old, young, short, tall, fat, skinny. They come from all walks of life and rarely take a moment to live, or they took too many moments to “live” and forgot life along the way. They all smell of the same stale sweat and cheap tequila. They mumble about relationships gone wrong, and government gone wrong, and economies gone wrong. They don’t need responsibility, and responsibility doesn’t need them. They smile their toothless smiles, and laugh their too loud laughs and add to the excess of stains on the itchy woolen seats as they sleep off the hangover that is their life. Like maybe if they sleep long enough their problems will disappear and the next generation—which is so smart you know—will fix everything. . . Or maybe they’ll just chip grandmother’s old china even worse than their parents did, and finally the tired, ugly green dishes will just break already. Always the same students. Overweight, under-rested. Head- phones on, blank, monotonous, apathetic stares, counting minutes until they’re at home, looking up the Spark Notes—because Cliff’s Notes are at the library, and that walk is fifteen minutes longer than the one to the computer—for The Great Gatsby so as to preserve their weekend from actually doing homework and having a Godforsaken original thought for once in their pitiful, over produced, non-lives. Although, this could be through no fault of their own; their teachers reiterate the same tired lesson plans and same tired lectures begging them to gaze into the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg and see God, to realize the inevitable fall of the American Dream as depicted by car crashes and green lights and ash heaps. The ash heaps, God damn it! FICTION Oliver

Neither teacher nor student sees that they’re still falling. They all reach for that same dream of prosperity and love. . . Futile attempts for fantasies that dance in the minds of innocent schoolgirls until they fall grace- lessly down the rabbit hole. But now we’re mixing meta- phors. Rewrite and be simpler. Stick to the text! “The text,” their professor screams at them to understand! “Nobody stops to Just please understand so that maybe he’ll be awarded say hello; commu- tenure this year! Maybe, maybe this year. nication is dead, Always the same driver, every day at five PM. Smiling except to that and welcoming you aboard, and exact change please, annoying guy at and would you like a transfer, and no sir not today, and the front who you have a seat, kid. He might have picked up your name can hear above at some point, if you’ve been a regular for long enough. the engine from He might talk to you and make you laugh and you’ll all the way at the call him by his name, too, and ask about his children back yammering and grandchildren, but it’s always superficial in the end into his phone. . . ” as you deposit your petty cash into the slot and move to the back corner, move back, make room as the bus overflows with commuters on the way home. Nobody stops to say hello; communication is dead, except to that annoying guy at the front who you can hear above the engine from all the way at the back yammering into his phone that “No, not next Friday, he said Sunday,” and you think the person on the other end must be daft because even you’ve gotten the memo already, and the man will repeat Sunday, Sunday, Sunday until he’s blue in the face, and it no longer sounds like a word anymore. The bus is always too crowded, and with each stop, it fills further, people sitting on laps and squashing like sardines in order to get as many people from point a to points b through double-z as humanly possible in one trip. The drunks get off at the bar, settling in early for their nightcap, followed by a few meat-headed over- 21s—and a few ballsy unders—that are determined to find out what three beers and half a dozen Jell-O shots feels like in the morning. The large mass of students pile off at the apartments unofficially set aside for them by the sane residents of the city who want to sleep at three in the morning. The day workers pile off one by one, two by two until the bus is racing along the empty old highway, nearly devoid of human life—save yourself, the man who you can’t tell if he’s passed out drunk or dead and. . . A new face. It’s a pale one with freckles. Her white blonde hair glints in the weird blue lighting, and nervous bright eyes zoom around, taking in everything and nothing as they determinedly follow the signs proclaiming each stretch

99 of the curb as a “bus stop,” a shiny new badge hanging on a re- tractable key ring from her backpack shoulder strap—the tell-tale signs of a freshman. An errant smudge of blue sits high on her left cheekbone. It mars her pretty young face—too young and too beautiful for her own good. But your fingers ache, and you reach into your bag for pen and paper to etch this fairy being into your memories and portfolio. You notice as you draw a kind of firmness to her face, her jaw locked in a set expression of fierce willpower. It is then that you notice the stains of chalk on her jeans, the dried pigment of pastels on her fingers—the colorful canvas at her feet. You see yourself in her as your pen outlines her surprisingly hard eyes. You’ve heard the sighs, the scoffs, the jeers as you told everyone your life’s ambition. There’s no money to be gained in art. You’re throwing away such a bright future. And for what? A silly hobby? Art will get you nowhere, Julius. Your brow furrows as you trace the resolute stare the beautiful, young girl has perfected. No doubt she has heard it all, too. And you hope she will prove them wrong as you were unable to do so many years ago as you morosely sent in the application to law school. You glance up at the street momentarily, pull the cord signal- ing the driver to stop, and carefully slide the finished drawing into your messenger bag and make your way toward the door. You stop to peer at her painting for a moment as the bus comes to a halt in front of the old, decaying church house before calling a quick thanks to the driver and stepping out onto the curb. You blow a kiss of luck to the back of the bus as it pulls away—to the hopeful young artist who captured the color and sorrow and passion, the hope and hopelessness of a burning for- est encroaching on a crumbled city. You hope she can say with her pictures what you never were able to with yours, what they have never been able to with their precious words. Her future is already lost. They gambled foolishly with their present, and in turn they lost the future. There’s nothing left to lose anymore. All that’s left is the determination and drive to take up what little weapons they left for us and fight to find some semblance of truth. It is her job to rediscover it all for herself—to thrive, whatever the cost. You hope she won’t give up—won’t fail like you did so many years ago. She has that fierceness in her eyes that you’ve never had. Maybe it will be she who makes them all see the colors of the world as it rushes past us as we continually, inevitably fall from grace. And you hope that it won’t be too late for everyone to climb back out of that rabbit hole and fix the world they’ve left in ashes and then maybe. . . Maybe they’ll be able to look into the eyes of that old and tarnished billboard some forgotten, yet infamous artist painted years ago, and maybe—just maybe—this time, they’ll see God peering back at them. NONFICTION Introduction NONFICTION

Nonfiction Editor: Alexandria Waltz Nonfiction Staff: Bree Rydalch Cynthiann Heckelsmiller Logan Cox Thomas Alberts

INTRODUCTION

Every year, it seems as if the nonfiction section of Metaphor increases in submissions and quality, both in creative nonfiction and academic research. For this reason, the nonfiction staff always has a difficult time choosing between the high quality work submitted by the many talented writers Weber State University has to offer. After individually rating the pieces according to a numeric scale and ranking our top selections, however, we feel confident that we have chosen the best work to represent WSU. This section includes both academic papers (ranging from literature reviews to historical essays) and creative nonfiction stories. We truly appreci- ate the fine submissions we received this year and are proud to highlight the talented writers of our university.

101 Forgotten Heroes: Minority Soldiers During World War II Eladio Bobadilla

American involvement in the Second World War is often framed as a just and righteous undertaking. On the surface, America’s enemies personified evil and stood for hate, discrimination, and injustice. America, by contrast, signified democracy and equality. For the non-white (and non-Christian) soldiers who fought in the American armed forces, the truth was often more nuanced and complicated. They fought not only the enemy forces that sought to take their lives, but the prejudice that made them second-class citizens at home and robbed them of their dignity, citizenship, and humanity in the “free” and “democratic” United States of America. To ignore the sacrifices and the struggles of minorities who fought fascism in World War II is to, as Michael C. C. Adams argues, “leave out . . . questionable aspects” of the traditional sto- ryline of the war. Minority Americans who fought and died in the name of democracy and justice often found neither accessible to them before, during, or after the war. Yet they fought with distinc- tion, honor, and courage, and many gave their lives for an ideal that was denied to them. Sometime before the outbreak of war, many people of Jewish heritage began to sense something was going deeply wrong in Europe. Robert A. Nusbaum, a young Jewish American, enlisted in the Army in 1940, sensing something was amiss and believing war against fascism was coming; he saw it as a matter of when, not if. While many Americans were wary of war and were determined to stay out of it at any cost, Nusbaum knew it was inevitable, seeing that “terrible news from Europe continued to pour in.” Nusbaum believed it was his duty to join the Army in preparation for the war he knew would come. NONFICTION Bobadilla

The worry about fascism was, for some like Nusbaum, inti- mately personal. News of oppression against the Jewish people in and around Germany made him anxious and fearful. He believed that the threat posed by fascism was not a far-away, distant problem. He was familiar with anti-Semitism and saw the events in Europe as having too much potential for spreading to America. He worried that “home-grown all-American hate mongers [might pick] up the hate theme, especially against the Jewish minority.” He had to take action. After enlisting in the Army and finding himself bored by the life of a soldier in what was still technically peace time, he submitted an application for Officer Candidate School and was prompt- ly accepted. Being an officer gave him status and excitement. He noticed that “when you moved up from the enlisted ranks to the commissioned ones, your social life got a boost.” Being in the Army insulated Nusbaum from much of the anti-Semitism he had seen in the civilian world. In the Army, his religion didn’t much matter, so long as he was white. Discrimination within the Army was not really an issue. Strangely, the only discrimination he felt was from civilians, directed at him not for being Jewish, but for being a soldier. Before the war began—before it was glamorized and glorified—soldiers of all races often experienced discrimination from civilians. Once war broke out and Nusbaum found himself in a war zone, his first instinct was to throw away his dog tags. Having heard about German cruelty of POWs and aware of their deep hatred of the Jewish people, he “knew only too well that an American soldier, if captured by the Germans with that ‘terrible’ H on his dog tags, was most likely to become a dead soldier—pron- to.” As the war raged on and the world began to find out about the Holocaust, Nusbaum reflected on the irrationality and evil of racial prejudice. He also wondered how America could claim to be a blessed, righteous nation, when it too, was based on a system of racial inequality and injustice. He wondered how the U.S. government could at once condemn the attitude of the Germans while segregating its own armed forces and sending Japanese- Americans to internment camps. Of this particular group, he said, “These Japanese American citizens had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor, and our political leaders should have known better, but nevertheless they acquiesced with the prevailing hysteria.” Even after many Japanese Americans had been relocated to the internment camps (in a bout of fear in the wake of Pearl Har- bor) that bothered Nusbaum so much, many Japanese Ameri- cans showed their allegiance to the United States by joining its armed forces. One such Japanese-American soldier was Minoru Masuda. Masuda was an educated man, having earned degrees in pharmacy and pharmacology from the University of Washing- ton. Along with his wife, Hana Koriyama, he was interned in May 1942 at Camp Harmony, located in Puyallup, Washington. In 1943, as the war raged, Masuda volunteered to fight against the Axis

103 Powers. He was sent to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an all Japanese-American combat unit. Far from being resentful of his situation, Masuda, like most other Japanese-American soldiers, saw it as his duty to fight for his country, even if he felt his country had abandoned him. Masuda’s letters to his wife reveal unshakable pride in his contributions to the war effort. He spoke of the Army as an organization which was “very considerate of us” and which provided Japanese Americans an outlet to prove that they were as American as anyone else, and as courageous and fierce as any other Army unit. He was shipped off to Italy, where he served as a medic for his unit. In Italy, his day to day life was bland and uneventful. In one of his letters, he told his wife that “life here goes so smoothly and on the quiet side, so much so that it can be boring at times” and in another that “This life of inactivity can be quite boring.” In Italy, the biggest problem for the men of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was often homesickness and boredom, as Masuda’s letters show. In 1944, the 442nd RCT was redeployed to southern France, where “the Germans had been ordered to defend this territory with all their resources.” Masuda’s medical detachment logs reveal there was sustained fighting and consistent shelling there, quite a contrast from the situation he had experienced in Italy, where he had seen little combat. His letters to his wife, however, seldom addressed the fighting, perhaps realizing her situation as an internee was bad enough without having to worry about him. He stressed, instead, his desire for the war to end and his hopes of going home soon. As reports of the Japanese surrender began to reach Masuda’s unit, the tone in his letters became more hopeful, and although his actions clearly showed where his allegiances lied, he could not help but feel compassion and sympathy for the Japanese people, who by the time of his last letters home (in late August of 1945), had experienced the horror of two atomic bombs dropped on civilian populations. He wrote, “I’m glad both for Japan’s sake and the thousands of our boys, sacrificed to be, that this world conflict draws to an end.” The war soon ended, and Masuda and his fellow soldiers of the 442nd RCT were sent home, often to “help their parents out of relocation centers.” The America these soldiers returned to had not learned the lessons of hate and prejudice. Often, the very men who had fought for “freedom and democracy” were greeted by signs at stores that read “No Japs Allowed” or “No Japs Wanted” Many Americans continued to view Japanese Americans as second-class citizens and treated them with mistrust, if not outright contempt. Despite becoming some of the most decorated and accomplished soldiers, not just of World War II, but in the history of the American military, the contributions of Japanese Americans during World War II were often ignored, and their sacrifices and contributions recognized at the highest levels of government only recently. Another group of American soldiers often forgotten is Native NONFICTION Bobadilla

Americans. For many, the American plight was their plight. Put- ting aside the historically poor treatment of their people at the hands of the U.S. government, many flocked to recruiting of- fices even before the draft came into existence. To many Native Americans, who still embodied the warrior spirit, fighting for their country against fascism and imperialism was a righteous endeav- or. It was also a way to assert their Americanness and their dual identity as Indians and Americans, and to prove that there was no contradiction between the two. One such soldier was Hollis D. Stabler, an Omaha Indian from northeastern Nebraska. He joined the Army in 1939 against the wishes of his mother, who was “very concerned about [him] being treated badly because [he] was an Indian.” Stabler was sent to Northern Africa and then to Italy and France. In Italy, he was wounded by enemy fire, near the place where his brother, also a soldier, had been killed. Of this experience, he wrote: “I was about a half mile from where my brother Bob had been buried.” For his wounds, Stabler received the Purple Heart, and for his other military achievements, he received the French Freedom Medal, the Bronze Star, the American Medal, and the Combat Infantry Medal. Stabler wrote that he did not experience much racism in the Army, and in fact noted that “I had many friends, many of the white race.” It was after the war that he felt the sting of racism back in the United States. He recalled coming back home from the war, still in uniform, and finding a bar in Omaha where he could relax and have a hamburger and a beer. He was surprised when “somebody called the police. Here comes a policeman in there. He said, ‘Are you drinking?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ you know. ‘Indians aren’t supposed to drink.’ That’s what he said to me.” To many Americans, the love and appreciation for the uniform Indian vet- erans wore was outweighed by their prejudices. Twenty-five thousand American Indians served in the military between 1940 and 1945, fighting and dying as their white coun- terparts did. Most of them were volunteers. And yet, their treatment back home was atrocious. Stereotypes and mistreatment of Indians continued in America, and the respect they had earned as soldiers was soon forgotten. The war forced profound changes in Native American culture, for better or for worse. Many, having joined (or been drafted) into the Army, left their reservations and did not return after the war, instead, as a Department of Defense report says, “adapting [permanently] to the cities and to a non- Indian way of life.” On the other hand, many acquired skills which benefited them greatly, and their post-military benefits provided them a higher standard of living. Like Native Americans, Hispanic Americans were ready and willing to defend their country, putting aside long-standing racism and discrimination in order to defend the United States. Hispanic parents (who often had many children) sometimes had to endure the pain of seeing multiple children head off to war, as was the case in Joe Arambula’s family. He and two of his brothers were

105 drafted into the military and were sent to the European theatre. Joe, the second oldest member of the family, survived the war, but his two brothers did not. Arambula, the son of Mexican immigrants, was designated as an infantryman and was involved in some of the fiercest fighting of the war. He said of the Battle of the Bulge: “We had a lot of ca- sualties then. I don’t remember the names but I recognized faces, and when we organized, they just weren’t there” and added that the “Battle of the Bulge was especially hard. Complete chaos.” Arambula found war disturbing and personal, having lost two of his brothers and many of his friends. Soldiers like Arambula, or Jose Galindo—another Hispanic WWII veteran—often found themselves feeling more accepted in the military than ever before. Outside, as civilians, it was not un- common for them to be taunted and harassed and to be treated as second-class citizens. Galindo was born in Mexico, but became naturalized shortly after the war started. He said, “I wanted to vol- unteer. . . [but] they wouldn’t accept me because I was a Mexican” and wanted to serve to “show them that we [Mexicans] can do it just as good.” Eventually, he was allowed to join. In the military, Galindo was met with camaraderie and acceptance and found that he enjoyed meeting other minority soldiers and befriend- ing them, “especially the Jewish people, because they, you know, went through hardships. I guess in a way, like we did.” After the war, many Hispanics returned to a world at peace, yet still full of discrimination. Galindo needed a loan after the war just to get by, but he recalled, “The banks would laugh at us.” Like other minorities, the sacrifices of Hispanic Americans were often disregarded, and their racial status remained largely unimproved. Perhaps more than any other minority, African-American soldiers were singled out for systematic discrimination during World War II. Initially, the military structure during World War II allowed Jews, Hispanics, Native Americans, and even Asian Americans (with the 442nd) to fill combat roles and permitted some Jews, Hispanics, and Native Americans to fight alongside whites. Blacks were barred from combat altogether. This created a situation in which “a disproportionate share of the fighting and dying fell to underprivileged and unskilled [whites].” This both put the burden on whites and robbed blacks of the opportunity to share the burden and the credit with their white countrymen. Significant pressure from African-American civil rights leaders led to the military’s creation of all-black units. One such unit was the famed Tuskegee Airmen. Named for their training site, the Tuskegee Airmen, known formally as the 332nd Fighter Group, were “formed as a kind of experiment to prove that African Americans were capable of flying airplanes under combat conditions.” One such African-American aviator was Alexander Jefferson, a young black lieutenant, who after studying at Clark College and Howard University, joined the Tuskegee Airmen and was shot down over German-occupied France in NONFICTION Bobadilla

1943. As he was flying low there, he recalled in his memoir: “I felt a loud thump shake the plane. I glanced at the instrument panel, and now everything was in the red. I felt a tremendous rush of air. I looked up and there was a hole in the top of my canopy just in front of my head. I thought, ‘What the hell?’ Fire and smoke were filling the cockpit.” He ejected from the cockpit and was almost immediately captured by the Germans and held as a POW until the end of the war in Europe. What Jefferson found behind enemy lines was a curious situation. In many ways, he was treated better by his German captors than by Americans back home. His rank as an officer was recognized and respected by the German official in charge of the POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Jefferson remembered one officer “named Gladovich who always treated us well, and who after the war even attended some American POW reunions.” Jefferson even forged a friendship of sorts with another German officer, who as it turned out, had studied in the United States. He even seemed to admire Jefferson’s unusual status as a black officer and aviator. Still, Jef- ferson recognized that this was largely a form of military courtesy, and that “if Germany had won the war . . . I would guess they would have treated us in much the same manner they treated the Jews because they considered us both to be less than human.” Still, this military courtesy was more than he and other black of- ficers were used to in the United States, where their rank counted for nothing when dealing with whites. Even other white American POWs came to respect Jefferson as an officer and aviator. Jefferson wrote in his memoir that one white POW who had flown B-17s, upon hearing Jefferson was a Tuskegee Airman, “he ran over, grabbed and hugged me, and exclaimed, ‘You’re a Red Tail! You goddamn Red Tails are the best damned unit . . . You guys saved our asses so many times!’” The reputation of the Tuskegee Airmen grew steadily, and they quickly proved that they were as good as any aviator group in the U.S. military. Jefferson’s camp was liberated on April 29, 1945, as General Patton’s 14th Armored Division stormed the camp, freeing the POWs. It was a joyous occasion, as “it was announced that in seven to nine days we would be on our way to England and that shortly after that we would be heading home.” The war was soon over, but upon returning home, these black soldiers who had fought valiantly and served honorably once again encountered racism, ignorance, and discrimination everywhere they went. The sacrifices of minority soldiers were often forgotten or ignored. Yet with the war over, they geared up for another kind of fight: the fight for recognition as full Americans with equal rights. Victories came slowly, but they came. Historian Howard Zinn once wrote that “Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment . . . but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zig-zag towards a more decent society.” That was certainly true of progress in race relations. The contributions

107 of minorities during World War II set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement by providing a new consciousness and by shedding light on the hypocrisy of the American government—and the American people—which at once spoke of democracy and equality, and kept non-whites (and often non-Christians) in a position of inferiority which no sensible human being could associate with those values.

Bibliography

Adams, Michael C.C. The Best War Ever: American and World War II. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1994. Arambula, Joe A. Interview with Michael Taylor. Voces Oral History Pro ect. October 13, 2001. Austin: University of Texas. Department of Defense. “Native American Heritage Month.” Accessed April 12, 2011. http://www.defense.gov/specials/nativeamerican01 wwii.html. Galindo, Jose. Interview with Lisa Cummings. Voces Oral History Pro ect. N. d. Austin: University of Texas. Globalsecurity.org. “100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry.” Last modified May 23, 2005. Accessed April 12, 2011. http://www.globalsecurity.org/mil tary/agency/army/100-442in.htm. Jefferson, Alexander. Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: the Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW. New York: Fordham University, 2005. KEET (PBS). “The Original Patriots.” Last modified 2007. Accessed April 12, 2011. http://originalpatriots.com/pbs/html. Masuda, Minoru. Letters from the 442nd: The World War II Correspo dence of a Japanese American Medic. Eds. Hana Masuda and D anne Bridgman. Seattle: University of Washington, 2008. McNamee, Gregory. “Honoring the Tuskegee Airmen Today.” Britannica Blog. Last modified January 20, 2009. Accessed April 12, 2011. Nusbaum, Robert A. Once in a Lifetime: The World War II Me oirs of a Jewish-American Soldier. Bennington: Merriam, 2006. “Omaha Tribe’s Stabler, WWII Vet and Author, Dies at 89.” Sioux City Journal, November 13, 2007. Accessed April 12, 2011. Stabler, Hollis D. No One Ever Asked Me: The World War II Memoirs of an Omaha Indian Soldier. Ed. Victoria Smith. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2005. Steffen, Jordan. “White House Honors Japanese American WWII Vete ans.” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2010. Accessed April 12, 2011. Voice of America. “African-American Soldiers in World War II Helped Pave Way of US Military.” Last modified May 10, 2005. Accessed April 12, 2011. Zinn, Howard. You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal Hi tory of Our Times. Boston: Beacon, 1994. NONFICTION Wood

Writing (parenthetically) Kory Wood

Peer critiquing in the college creative writing process is a double-edged sword. On one hand (this is a double-edged metaphor), someone will pick up your whimpering, fledgling little creation that you painstakingly crafted and politely tell you it is total donkey compost. On the other hand (edge), you get to vo- raciously tear through another student’s creation, thus validating your own weaknesses. On the last occasion, I was told by my peer critic, Steve, that my frequent use of parentheses (they look like this (parentheses)) was distracting and, ultimately, bad writing. Naturally, I reacted very well to this criticism and did not in any way lash out against my peer (suck on these rounded bookends, Steve!). To graciously counter his points, I would like to demonstrate the effective uses of parentheses (1. like this), and hopefully lead the reader to the larger philosophical question: Does a true artist learn the rules and zealously adhere to them, thus creating artistic perfection, or does the artist learn the rules and then knowingly bulldoze them? (Obviously, the point I’m going to lead you to is that he bull- dozes them, but you should stick around anyway; it gets good.) Parentheses are enormously useful, despite being a funny word that sounds like the name of a Greek warrior (have you ever noticed that Greek names sound a lot like parts of the anatomy? “Doctor, I fell on my Hippolytus, and I think it gave my Orpheus fissures”). They can be used to frame the thoughts and freeze the surroundings of a main character, as utilized by Zach Braff (in Scrubs), Mark-Paul Gosselaar (in Saved By the Bell) and Hamlet (in Macbeth). Those curvy little lines are also very useful when inserting non- sequitur material into writing (a non sequitur is a statement that 109 does not follow logically from what preceded it; so, actually, this parenthetical tangent is not a good example of it). Let me try that again (Donald Trump has awful hair!). They are used in math to let you know what part of the problem to read first (parentheses indicate the first step in the order of operations. Do not read the non-parenthesized segment of this sentence, because it will be redundant and you will have wasted your time. If you knew what you were doing, you would have read this and realized that). Parentheses can be distracting (die, Steve, die!) on occasion, but they can also be crucial to a piece of good literature. For instance, D. H. Lawrence, the famous (to English majors) writer, once said the following: “I hold that the parentheses are, by far, the most important part of a non-business letter.” In the great English tradition, if someone famous who died at least 30 years ago said something, it must be right (seriously, though, you can get away with saying anything you want as long as you follow it up by telling people Winston Churchill or C. S. Lewis said it). While parentheses are admittedly distracting (SEX), they are often necessary. They(D) can(O) also(N) be(‘) very(T) sneaky(M), such(E) as(S) when(S) they(W) are(I) inserted(T) randomly(H) into(M) sentences(E) to(,) send(S) readers(T) secret(E) and(V) friendly(E) messages(.). (A quick side-note: parentheses can also be used for quick side-notes.) Finally (I know this isn’t easy to read, but you’re almost there), I come to my point. I am sure there are a zillion textbooks (and Steve) that say parentheses should be kept to a minimum, and they (the books and Steve) are probably correct, but my philoso- phy is that, heck, if they feel right, use ‘em. But don’t even get me started on ellipses. . . . NONFICTION Cox

Only Crumbs Remain Logan Cox

Most normal people have a gross misconception of prison. They have these notions that prison life falls into a few categories. One scenario is that people change for the better. They get in there and meet some inspiring young or old convict that teaches them the secrets of the universe. There’s one thing wrong with that scenario. The universe doesn’t reveal itself in a cell. The universe conceals it from you and you from it while slowly losing your humanity in that cage. Another misconception is that people think prison isn’t so hard. Family members send magazines, and you sit and meditate on things. This is wrong because all families are different. Friends drop off the map, and you can’t use Facebook to keep up with them. They’re too busy to visit, if they want to visit at all. A lot of family members drop you from their docket. No Christmas cards even after you get out of the pen. And after you get out it’s a whole new story. While he tells me this, his physical appearance contrasts with the surroundings. His body looks like it’s poorly photoshopped into the scene. The dim overhead lighting doesn’t vibe with his loose fitting jeans. The nicely folded white napkins, shaped into triangles next to the silverware and placed on top of a crimson tablecloth, blend into his white wife beater tank top while the crimson of the tablecloth seems to bleed into his stomach. Men in business suits keep throwing deprecating glances his way. His tattoos glitter in the dim lighting. He ignores the napkins, but stares at the silverware. His hands twiddle underneath the table, and his body is still. As the salad comes, he grabs the salad fork and stabs the leaves with precision and lightning speed. He continues his story. When I first get in the holding tank, the place where they pro-

111 cess you, my vision wavers and fades. Excitement and fear battle inside of me. But it is more than that. Something greater than fear eats at me. I try not to show fear. I try not to show emotion. Fear is weakness; weakness means assault. I don’t want beatings. I don’t want to die. I want invisibility. One police officer looks over hordes of violent men. He stands in his bulletproof cubicle and watches. Prisoners mill about. Norte- ños mingle with each other. Red shoelaces glance across other red shoelaces, while hands with red bandanas float in the air, while sign language with a meaning of death is spread across the room. The Norteños split their index finger and middle finger while rotat- ing their thumb around. I don’t know what it means. Their arms bulge and rest at intervals consistent with their heart rate. Their heart rate is steady. Their eyes are narrow, and they glare at me. I have no gang affiliation. They hate me for not being with them. On the other side of the room are the Sureños. Their blue shoe laces scrape across the dirty and spit encrusted concrete floor. Their blue bandanas wrap around their heads hiding their hair line, and they glare at me and the Norteños. They hate me as much as they hate the Norteños. I have no gang affiliation. They hate me for not being with them. The floor, originally grey, is stained black and looks diseased but the two gang colors give it life. It is like a dirty rainbow split into three colors. Diseased concrete, the red of the Norteños and the blue of the Sureños. And in the middle of the dirty rainbow lounge the drunks. The rainbow splits and revolves around them like some sort of carnival hungering for new flesh. The drunks range from obese men who gave up on life a long time ago to 20-somethings that have just developed a love of wasting money on women who wear weaves and shirts three sizes too small. The ravenous packs of gangs shift locations every few minutes just to revolve around the Sun known as the drunks, since apparently they are the only things keeping the violence in check. The police officer at the bulletproof tollbooth reads a newspaper and fiddles with his phone. He ignores all. He ignores me. I stay with the drunks. I sit next to one of the obese classifica- tion. I sit next to a man passed out on the floor and his mouth kisses and de-kisses a black slick on the cement as he breathes. His boozed drool oozes into another pool, making the décor of the floor more and more squalid with each exhale. He almost forms a second deflated carcass on the floor, but it is just an extension of him. His hairline recedes with his hopes and dreams, but his happi- ness is contained in the bliss of his alcoholic life. He will leave in a few hours. I will leave in a few weeks. On the other side of me is one of the 20-somethings. His bi- ceps are trying desperately to escape from his tight shirt, and he keeps flexing them. His flexing stems from the fear of the gangs and a mild infatuation with himself. He looks at the gangs and then at me. Back to the gangs. Back to me. He leans over to place his mouth next to my ear. He breathes NONFICTION Cox into my right ear and then withdraws his breath momentarily before repeating the cycle. He then starts to whisper into my ear. “I think they took my cats.” His face smirks on the left side of his face. His black hair points towards God and his earrings refuse to sparkle in that brooding holding cell. He stops smiling. A giggle erupts from behind his mouth, but no teeth appear. “Do you think they did it?” He points to the guard. “No,” I say, trying to sound tough, but also trying to avoid attention. “Okay. Well, if you see them, tell them.” He laughs again without showing teeth and faints next to me, his tanned and flat stomach exposed, and his body curled up into a ball. The next hours are a cramped blur. The Norteños and Sureños keep circling and glaring. The drunks stay clustered in the middle, and I try not to show emotion. The next day they take me. They take seemingly everyone. A screeching buzz comes at the door and guards rush in. Blurs of navy blue step on all the red and blue shoe laces. Tattooed men are heaved against walls, and the drunks try to limber up but end up falling back down. Hangover beats fear. A rough pair of hands grab me and twist my hands behind my back. “Stay still,” says the stern voice. His protective vest rubs against my back as he puts cuffs on with no love or prejudice. Books of paperwork are processed and I am now officially a prisoner of California, Stanislaus County, Modesto Department of Corrections. They move me through steel doors with locks requir- ing more than just a house key. They lead me through narrow alleyways with barren walls, past desolate doors and by emotionless bureaucrats with guns and vests. As the door to the main cell housing opens, stunning fear engulfs me. A mass of criminals, all presumably guilty, all presumably violent, stare me down. Not all of them, but too many of them. Their arms hang out of cages as do their remarks. Slang I don’t understand and improper Mexican attacks me. Or maybe the guards. I don’t know which the insults are directed at. The red of the Norteños and the blue of the Sureños are replaced by the orange of the state. Their personality and viciousness is not removed by the state however. Sneers greet my eyes. Taunts shake my ears, and cold unforgiving concrete meets my feet. After passing halfway through the literal concrete jungle, I stand in front of my cell. The guard standing behind me unleashes me from the mobile prison caused by the handcuffs and tosses me into the stationary prison caused by the prison cells. After stum- bling into the cell the guard slams the door shut and with the bolting of the lock, walls spin around me. Never have grey walls, normally so neutral, been so aggressive, so angry, and so violent. Never have neutral colored walls been so vivid, so frightening, and so bloodcurdling. The walls already seem to crush me. The eight by eight walls begin the process of

113 suffocating me. The silver toilet, stained with rust, sits in the back center near my cellmate’s head. The bunk beds stand stoically in the corner, which is also the center of the room, and it fails in its attempts to cast a shadow. The mirror, also stained with rust, reflects only half of my reflection while the window is blurred out to prevent gangs from seeing in and out. As the guard walks away to the taunts and spits of the inmates, my roommate looks up from his prone position on the top bunk. Lettuce scatters around his plate. His fork dangles off the edge of the plate, and he waits for the main meal. He looks at me with emotionless eyes and says, “You get good at waiting while in prison.” Shadows dance around his eyes waiters try to avoid being around him by lingering around the men with business suits and the families. “You get good at a lot of things in there. Can’t put ‘em on a resume though. And I was only there two weeks” The main plate comes. A steak comes out with a depression in the middle of it. The steam rises to his eye level, and I notice the bags that weren’t there before. The features not on his face before prison now dominate my attention. Baggy eyes, no smile, forehead wrinkles are only a part of it. Prison was a factory where he went to be salvaged, but he came out broken. He languidly pokes his steak and pushes the dried up and withered vegetables around his plate in a circle. He ignores his drink, and he sits, waiting, doing some of what prison taught him. “And I was only there for two weeks.” He drones. He continues his story. Brown, squinted eyes glare at me. No emotion on my side or his. I take my bunk without hesitation and sit. Taunts and calls ring out in the row yard, but my cellmate is quiet. I sit there for a while and wait. Nothing to do. Then I wait again. I think about nothing because there is nothing to stimulate my thoughts. The blankness of the walls becomes who I am. The drabness consumes me. Time stops. Family stops. Friends stop. The past never happened. The future won’t come. Time suspends itself. I sink further into the walls. Already it’s been a few hours, and I memorized the top bunk’s mattress patterns. The intimate details now firmly in my memory, I try to draw mental pictures on them. But the blandness of the walls creeps into the mattress to be just as nondescript. One foot dangles off the edge of the top bunk. Then another one. My cellmate drops down, his shirt is off, revealing light brown skin and tattoos sprawling across his chest. A red X4 hangs on his shoulder, his shoes are off, his pants start to come off. He turns around and sits on the toilet. His eyes recede into his forehead, and he stares at me. Brown pools behind his nose start to absorb me. His eyes start by staring at my forehead then saunter down to my feet. “Who you?” he says to me with a tinge of street and a speck- ling of hopelessness common to prisoners. My eyes widen. Then I quickly narrow them to regain compo- NONFICTION Cox sure. I give my name. “Why you here?” Again his voice carries the pain and anger of the ghetto. “Held a liquor store.” “She-it. You biddin’ for a week?” He continues his toilet adventure. “Two weeks. Get out early. Too many of us in here already.” I avoid eye contact. “You affiliated?” “No.” The stench clutches at my nose. The early warnings of vomit rumble up my stomach. I smash the rebellion in my stomach, but it still retches. My face shows nothing. “You need to. Ink up. Nobody gonna hire you again anyways. You straight convict now, bruh.” My face crumbles. He stands up and wipes. Paper is tossed into the toilet and he flushes. Decomposed food swirls around the toilet and tries to resist going down. The weight and force of the water forces every last bit down. The toilet is empty. He leaps back up to his bunk. His head is by the bars and he speaks to the next cell. “New beezy,” my cellmate says. Beezy being slang for bitch. “Playing hotel for a week.” An anonymous voice comes from behind the wall. It’s scratchy and angry. “He affiliated?” “No club.” Sweat streaks down my orange jumpsuit. It leaks out of my pant legs and onto the bed where it dies in the absorption of the blanket. My bladder goes out of control. Fear grips my legs and turns them numb. No drugs allowed, so no way to deal with the fear. My arms curl next to my chest, and I sit hunched in the corner. As he tells me this, his arms draw closer to him. His tattoos de- mand attention. A red IX covers his right hand, and concealed and scattered beneath the sleeves of his collared shirt reside more of his tattoos. Knives on fire and a few R.I.P.s on his stomach and side. He fiddles with his silverware. “Not used to silver anymore. Not used to being trusted with it anymore.” He balls his fists and crushes the triangular napkin, untouched since the beginning of the meal. It flattens against the surface of the table. He clutches it, crumbles it, and throws it onto his plate. A waiter comes over and removes the plate with the napkin on it. The waiter walks over to the garbage can and tosses it all away. “One theft cost my life. Now I’m stuck in it.” He tosses some crinkled and faded bills on the table and walks away. He pulls open the door and lets it slam behind him. Only crumbs remain.

115 A Nondenominational, Pseudo-Religious Prayer-Like Request to the Universe on Behalf of All Students for this New School Year of Two Thousand and Eleven Kory Wood

Oh, Universe, we are grateful once again to be back on cam- pus, getting an education that many people, in many other life situations, would do so much to obtain. We ask that these people know what it feels like to wake up sweating at 4 a.m., wondering whether or not their term paper on “Anti-Industrialist Themes in Frankenstein and Dracula” is due in three hours, and hopefully these people will go back to what they were doing. We would also like to express some pre-gratitude for helping us find a parking spot every morning, even though we procras- tinated buying a better parking pass AGAIN and ended up with a “W” pass, which are about as exclusive as a Great Clips punch card. Universe, we are also very pre-grateful that the professor in our first class doesn’t count attendance as part of the final grade. We ask that this year go well. Specifically, we ask that it go better than the last one did because we already lost that academic scholarship, and we don’t want to pay for another year of school by having to go back and work at that same ice cream place that we worked at in high school. Universe, that would be very humiliating. And hard on our new diet. Please watch over the new freshman boys. Help them realize that they are loud and obnoxious, especially when loitering in large groups. Turn around their ridiculous, flat-brimmed hats that point in ludicrous directions. Yank up their baggy jeans. Break their longboards. Teach them that the people on Jersey Shore will all be dead in 10 years. Most importantly, turn them all into ac- counting majors. For the sake of the freshman girls, Universe, help all of those 29-year-old guys who “still haven’t decided on a major yet” to NONFICTION Wood graduate and move away. We are so happy to have our knowledgeable professors and ask that their health is preserved. Even the mean ones who think that it’s okay to have an exam on the same day that a large assignment is due. Or the ones that think being really, really smart means they don’t have to be nice to people. And especially bless the professors who “don’t like to give out A’s because it inflates the grading system.” Even them, Universe. However, if you run out of health to spread around the entire faculty, consider leaving the math teachers to “Universe, help their own luck, which might help some English majors all of those to finally graduate. 29-year-old Bless our sports teams that they may stay unin- guys who ‘still jured, and help them give the student newspaper good haven’t decided quotes that aren’t just drawn out of the Big Bucket of on a major yet’ Ultra-Safe Sports Clichés. to graduate and move away.” Help students learn that “liberal” is not the same thing as “godless socialistic whoremonger,” and “conser- vative” is not the same thing as “everyone who lives in my parents’ subdivision.” We ask for more open-book tests, Universe. Also, snow days. A smaller amount of badly constructed PowerPoint lectures would also be appreciated. And, last of all, we are sincerely grateful for people who can read mildly sacrilegious (and mildly spiritual) essays and just laugh.

117 Death of The Zucchini Elizabeth Hedgepeth Spencer

This is a story about how a zucchini made all the difference in my life. My parents had just bought a brand new RCA VCR Player. Keep in mind that the year was 1988 when VCRs were the latest technology in home entertainment and were much more ex- pensive and useful than they are today. My mom says they paid over 1,300 dollars for it and only had a handful of VHS movies to watch with it. I remember them, Star Wars, Indiana Jones: Raiders of The Lost Ark, My Fair Lady and A collection of Looney Toons. Elliott and Braden, my two older brothers and I, who was five, were in the family room jumping from one couch to the other trying to escape the make believe venomous serpents we had fashioned out of licorice and stale pizza crusts from the movie party the night before. We re-enacted scenes from Indiana Jones as it played loudly in the background. Harrison Ford’s voice saying, “Snakes, I hate Snakes!” was the soundtrack to our Saturday morning romp. Smells of homemade zucchini bread wafted in from the kitchen along with the constant drum of the Kitchen Aid mixer and the clank of pots and pans, where mom was hard at work, cooking and cleaning to make up for a week’s worth of chores that had been neglected as a result of both my parents working outside the home. Dad was an artist for Young’s Sign Company in Salt Lake City and Mom was a fourth grade school teacher at Hillcrest Elemen- tary. Both jobs were demanding. Mom always brought home stacks of homework assignments to correct and Dad would spend most of his weekends in his studio creating drawings of buildings and signs to present to his boss. “Turn that TV down,” Mom yelled from the kitchen. NONFICTION Spencer

We ignored her and our playing only grew more rambunctious. Annie, our golden retriever, began to bark at something she’d seen in the street. “Annie be quiet!” came another warning from Mom. Annie didn’t stop, either. Just then, Braden hollered, “Kill the nazi spy!” and swung a pillow square at my head. It caught me right in the jaw and threw me off the couch. I flew stomach first into the coffee table. The table knocked the wind out of me as I spilt all three of our breakfast cereal bowls, still half-full of lukewarm, Captain Crunch flavored milk onto the carpet. Elliott, the oldest brother, rushed to my side and helped me to my feet. It took me a few seconds to get my breath back, but when I did, I really let Braden have it. “Ahhhhhhhh, that hurt, jerk face!” I screamed as I broke loose from Elliott’s grip and barreled into Braden head first like a bull. I caught him off guard and knocked him backwards. As he went down, he took the lamp and the VCR with him. “For heavens sake, what is going on in here?” Mom entered the room seconds after my 1,300 dollar mistake had been done. Everything must have collided at once for her, the dismantled furniture, the licorice and pizza scattered all over the floor, along with the split milk and Annie still barking at the neighbors. To her the walls themselves must have seemed to be oozing with mess and closing in on her, but it wasn’t until she saw the shattered VCR that she snapped. “Everybody get outside now!” The thunder in Mom’s voice sent us all scrambling to our feet. We ran out the door just like Annie with our ears flat and our tails tucked under us, not even pausing to put on our shoes. Outside, we climbed onto the storage box under the kitchen window and stood barefoot and tippy toed in our pajamas, trying to see what Mom was going to do. “Good going, sis. You got us all into trouble,” Braden accused as he shoved my shoulder, almost knocking me off the box. I shoved him back. “If you hadn’t knocked me off the couch, I wouldn’t have pushed you over.” “Hey guys, shut up. I can see Mom,” Elliott hissed. Mom stormed back into the kitchen, still hell bent with fury. She grabbed hold of a large dark green zucchini and lifted it above her head. “What’s she do—” Wam! The sudden sound and violent image of Mom slamming the cucumber shaped zucchini against the counter’s surface made all three of us jump at once. Our hot breath fogged the windowpane as we stood there dropped-jawed and unbelieving of the scene before our eyes. With each wack of the zucchini, the windows and the dishes in their cupboards rattled. Mom worked herself into a rhythm of summer squash beating and a frenzy of angry phrases. We only

119 caught every couple of words. It went like this, “stupid. . . son of a. . . laundry. . . bills. . . dishes. . . all damn day. . . VCR!” Finally, when the vegetable that had become our whipping boy was too beat up and limp to go on and Mom’s fiery words ran out, she set the squash down and rested her plump hip against the counter. She took a few deep breaths, wiped zucchini juice off her hands, and picked bits of green skin from strands of brown silky hair that had come loose from her bun. She must have seen our three horrified faces lined up in a row, peering in at her from the windowsill, because she suddenly looked directly in our direction. Unprepared to meet her gaze, we ducked our heads under the windowsill and waited silently for our own fate. Mom took off her gore covered apron, straightened her hair, and headed for the back door where we had escaped minutes earlier. “Okay, guys, you can come in now.” We didn’t dare move. “Come on, it’s okay.” She said in a reassuring voice. As we stepped inside Mom gave us a set of instructions. “El- liott, you and Braden go clean up the family room. Elizabeth, you come help me clean up in the kitchen.” The tension in her voice was replaced with kindness. The rage in her eyes had faded to calm. We did as she said without the slightest resistance. I remember being responsible to clean up the remains of the murdered zucchini. I scooped up the carcass and entrails with paper towel in one hand and a dust pan in the other and let it slide down into its final resting place, the garbage can. I said a silent prayer of thanks to the zucchini for taking the rap for my brothers and me and shut the lid. Later that afternoon, after Mom had finished her chores, she came to talk to me about what had happened. I apologized and so did she for our behaviors. “I’m sorry if I scared you guys. I was very frustrated and sometimes moms do strange things when they get frustrated.” “It’s okay, Mom. I shouldn’t have pushed Braden.” She hugged me and kissed me on the forehead. “When your dad gets home, we’ll talk about how you and your brothers can help to earn another VCR.” The story of “The VCR and the Zucchini” has become a family classic. I’ve heard it told around the kitchen table time and time again. My mom, my brothers, and I recite it as if it’s a play. Each one of us has a specific part to tell and commentary to add on cue. We laugh and joke about how unruly we kids were and how silly Mom was. But to me this story has become more than a fond memory of my childhood. It has become a valuable lesson on dealing with stress in family life and a tribute to how wonderfully my mother raised us, especially when compared to another family story of a time when her mother got upset and there were no vegetables around to save her. It was a late August day in 1962. The lazy afternoon in the sub- NONFICTION Spencer urbs of Ogden, Utah had settled to a low simmer. My ten year-old mother set up stage on the back porch of her parents’ red brick rambler home. Nestled between the shed and the patio, the porch was a perfect place for her to perform in front of an imaginary audience. The pleats on her cream colored dress with the Peter Pan collar fanned out as she skipped and danced around, pretending to be Ginger Rogers. She became so carried away with her own daz- zling performance that she barely noticed the horde of grasshoppers that had settled themselves all around her, “Her scream car- on the walls, the patio furniture, even the carport ceil- ried itself from ing that hung over her. But, there they crouched, poised the porch to the and ready to jump. When the first one jumped, her eyes open bedroom flitted in its direction only to be fixed in fear as a deto- window where my grandma had nated chain reaction of jumping grasshoppers assaulted just laid baby Kim her body. The hard exoskeletal insects bounced off her down for a nap.” sweaty sun-kissed skin, caught themselves in the folds of her dress, and kicked violently as they tried to free themselves from her short dark brown hair. My mother had no escape. Her only defense was to scream. Her scream carried itself from the porch to the open bedroom window where my grandma had just laid baby Kim down for a nap. Kim woke with a startle and screamed, too. If there is one thing my grandmother couldn’t stand, it was a crying baby. She was a hard working woman who valued accomplishment and had little tolerance for anything that disrupted her routine of tasks. She dropped the laundry she had been doing and flew out the door to the porch. She appeared as suddenly as the grasshoppers had. “Damn you, Charla. You woke the baby!” Grandma said with a tone sharp enough to cut a child’s throat. The dark bags under her eyes put there by insomnia and anxiety accentuated the crazed glare she had when she became angry. Mom stopped screaming immediately and set off at a dead run away from her. She knew what happened if she got caught. My mom had been slapped, smacked across the face with a broom handle, and pushed down the stairs on several occasions by my grandmother. She learned that no amount of pleading or screaming would help, but she did it anyway. “I didn’t mean to. They scared me. Honest, Momma.” Words could not slow Grandma down. She ran after her child in a fury, kicking and slapping as she went. My mom dodged past her and ran into the house, hoping to get to the bathroom and lock the door before Grandma caught up, but her ten-year-old legs were no contender for my grandmother’s heated pace. She swung open

121 the bathroom door on my mother, grabbed the poor child and pushed her backward over the empty pink porcelain tub. My mother says she just remembers fists flying at her left and right, hitting her in the face and ribs. She didn’t have the strength to push up against her, so all she could do was cry and beg, “No mama. I love you. I love you. Don’t hurt me!” Had it not been for my grandfather who had arrived home from work a little early that day, my mom says she probably would have been beaten unconscious. Grandpa grabbed my grandmother by the crook of her arm and yanked her away from his screaming child. “What the hell are you doing, Genille?” My grandmother pushed him off her and stormed out the door without a word. He turned back to his little battered child and with his strong, gentle arms lifted her beaten, sniffling body out of the tub and carried her to her bedroom. He sat on her bed with her head on his lap and stroked her hair until she fell asleep. I don’t know what words were spoken between my grandfather and my grandmother after that incident. My grandfather was an extremely patient man. I think he knew that Grandma often took her frustration out on the kids, but the best he could do was stop her when he could and just let it slide when he wasn’t there to hold her back. To this day, my mother can’t stand the sight of grasshoppers. Last summer she called me over to go pick some vegetables out of her garden because she was too afraid to deal with the grasshoppers that had infested her harvest. Whenever she sees one, she experiences the same sick feeling in her stomach she felt that day when her mother beat her over the tub. They’ve become a symbol of the terror she felt from her mother’s anger and violence. After I’d picked all the vegetables I could, we sat down together and took inventory over a glass of lemonade in the warm September breeze. I picked up a big beautiful zucchini and dusted it off against my jeans and reflected on the poor zucchini that had been beaten to a watery pulp on the kitchen counter over twenty years ago. I turned to my mother with it still in my hand. “Thank You.” “Thanks for what?” “Thanks for taking your frustration out on the zucchini, instead of your kids.” My mother smiled and laughed as the memory of the day we kids broke the VCR flooded back to her. “You’re welcome.” “How did you do it?” “Do what?” “Well, Grandma was beaten by her parents when she was little, and you were beaten by her. How did you stop yourself from beating me?” “I didn’t ever want you to feel the fear that I did when my NONFICTION Spencer mother snapped. I vowed that I’d never hurt you or your brothers like my mother hurt me. Besides, a zucchini can’t love me back, but you can. I wanted to do everything thing I could to make sure I deserved your love.” I smiled at her and gave her a hug. Now that I have become an adult and have a family of my own, I understand the feelings of frustration both my mother and grandmother felt. I too can feel the monster inside me start to grow when the laundry and dishes seem endless and the baby needs to be fed and changed, not to mention the host of homework deadlines that creep steadily forth. Sometimes everything seems to come on all at once. One time I threw a pillow across the room that knocked a glass of water off the night stand. I hadn’t slept for weeks, and there seemed to be no rest in sight with my newborn son’s cries and constant need of attention and care. My husband woke with a startle from the crash of glass on the floor. He flipped on the light to see me sobbing and shaking. “I can’t do it. I haven’t slept for days!” Todd rubbed his sleepy eyes and tried to make sense of my babbling. “Honey, I’ll take our son tonight, you just get some rest.” I cried myself to sleep. Though I was embarrassed for my be- havior, I also felt relieved that I had passed some sort of test. I’ve always been worried that I might be like my grandmother and resort to violence when I hit my limit, but for now I can say that the only damage I’ve done was the broken glass. It’s in times when I’ve reached my limits that I feel pity for my grandmother for resorting to violence. I wonder what she must have felt when she stepped back from her beaten child and realized what she had done. But it’s also in times like these that I have a great respect and admiration for my mother because her choices broke the pattern of abuse that ran in my family. She rose above what she had been taught by her mother and became better. Now it is my turn to be the parent, and I pray that I end up like my mother. I want my son to love me in the same way I love her. I too want to do everything I can to deserve his love.

123 The Flight of Planets Logan Cox

We stand glaring at each other. In his hand rests my Boba Fett action figure. Its war-torn and faded green armor sits beneath a faded jungle-green helmet. My hands shakily clutch a thermometer. “Give ‘em back. He’s mine,” I scream-whine. He scampers behind Chinese bamboo in response. Red hair and freckles peek around the grassy shoots. “You’re never gonna get ‘em back. Not even if you tell mom!” Red spikes duck behind the bamboo but reappear again a short time later. Elliot stretches his hand outward and shows Boba Fett’s severed head. My knees bend and feet spread apart. Time for the Power Stance of a scrawny-kneed nerd! I twist my arm and bend my left elbow to ready a throw. Elliot sees my arm go up and shouts “There’s mercury in there!” “Planets don’t live in thermometers,” I shout back. He sprints behind the miniature water fountain. I take the opportunity and chuck the thermometer as hard as possible. It spins through the air and crashes into the rotted wooden fence. The contents spill onto the bark, and shattered glass scatters into the bushes. While running inside, he punches my neck. Inside, he explains to me how dangerous mercury is, and I wonder how anybody lives through childhood. NONFICTION Cox & Bailey

Radiohead’s 21st Century Political Arithmetic Devan Bailey

Radiohead wastes no time on convention in their 2003 release Hail to the Thief – their first track 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm) im- merses one into a disorienting mood and setting that accurately represents the abhorrent confusion and misinformation that has ironically taken the age of information by storm. Though almost a decade late, my analysis of both the musical styling and lyrical content ingeniously used to demonstrate the political and social themes are themes still with us today — more excessive now than ever. Though not a “complete” story by any means, Radiohead informally uses fundamental elements of narrative in their lyrics to convey an abstractly representative contemporary reality. Further, Radiohead infuses their take on twenty-first century turbulence through indirectly divisive and almost surreal figurative and metaphorical language. My method in coming to a comprehensive understanding of their zeitgeist-framing message will depend in part on dividing and conquering their employment of afore- mentioned fundamentals in story telling: plot, character, conflict, theme, and setting. The name of the song itself comes from George Orwell’s 1984. In Orwell’s world, the population under the direction of an authoritarian regime is forced to reject logic and reason and accept the answers that the state has fed them. This particular reference serves as a basic conceptual theme and is appropriately paral- leled to reflect that very Orwellian brand of irrational unreason that contributed to the unsubstantiated and outright lie-empow- ered invasion of Iraq in 2003. It helps to note that this album was released just months after the United States and Britain entered Iraq. Each song on Hail to the Thief includes two names; the sec- 125 ond name of 2+2 is The Lukewarm. This particular word represents the analogy of lobsters cooked incrementally through slight increases in heat, beginning, of course, with lukewarm water. The same general principle is what allows an ambitious, overbearing government to change public opinion through effectively propagating mistruth to a population. Authority must not begin with outlandish claims; it is essential that they incrementally increase fear and irrationality in a population by slowly propagating light deception, eventually ending in deeply muddled, outright lies. The setting is fixed initially with an off-beat driven drum machine punching your speakers in a 7/4 time signature of overtly computerized pitch-adjusted kicks. It takes a moment — even for those familiar with music theory — to recognize and become oriented with the meter and order of the beat. The time signature and irregularity of the kicks themselves are intentionally incorpo- rated to foster the social confusion that the song will soon en- compass. The lyrical narrative includes a beginning, middle and end. The setting, or mood, changes throughout each of these sections per aggression in instrumentation and tone in Thom Yorke’s voice. At first timid, the individual or population metaphorically represented in the narrative loses perspective and individuality, which is reflected both in lyric and, arguably, music. By the end, the individual or population is engaged in unfettered rebellion, backed by guitar distortion and overbearing instrumentation, including chaotic imprecise strumming that’s increasingly aggressive, perhaps symbolizing imminent revolution. In the beginning, we are introduced to our subject, who’s referred to as “you” throughout. This is our/the character’s(s) en- trance; their specifics are up to one’s interpretation. I contend that the “you” addressed, however, does not likely represent a particular person, but rather a faction of a perplexed population — the faction who still cares to understand political and social issues. Or, conversely, “you” could be intended to invoke the listener person- ally, as if Thom is speaking directly to you, from the first lines, “Are you such a dreamer / To put the world to right?” (Radiohead 1-2). Here the initial narrator questions the integrity of the population, or listener. I say initial because the narrator clearly is not static — the tone and perspective positions of the narrator change at least once throughout the song; we’ll leave that alone for now. Enter the basic conflict and plot outline: The listener or population is being tested by the narrator — someone of authority, we can assume, by his or her presumptuous, myopic question. In the question, the initial narrator first preemptively cuts into the subject(s) by implying their answer could render them “dreamers” (an insult for those with no imagination), and then asks essentially if they truly believe, they can make the world right — a virtual authorita- tive truism (the world is so complicated, mere rabble can hardly understand what it’s really all about, something along those lines). In consideration, it’s a fair question: a “dreamer” must know the extent to which they maintain their core values, their belief NONFICTION Bailey in democracy, their social optimism, etc. From here the conflict is such that the subject must either accept or reject the imminent authority channeled first by the initial narrator. The plot continues by introducing the authoritarian propaganda game. Seen clearly is the initial narrator’s deception, “I’ll lay down the tracks / Sandbag and hide” (Radiohead 5-6). The narrator is intentionally creating the metaphorical illusion of danger in both his creation of tracks and placement of sandbags. He’s cleverly not outright lying yet; it’s merely the illusion of danger he situates, before hiding. The population will doubtless conclude there is danger, though, as tracks are associated with the threat of a wild animal, and sandbags indicate the threat of floods. Insert your own metaphor, as both wild beasts and floods can be applied to a variety of symbolism. At the same time, Radiohead is literally laying down music tracks to convey their message — clever doublespeak, no doubt. Unsubstantiated fear ensues, while the disingenuous and cowardly authority hides — truly a remarkably clever image to depict governmental fear mongering. The lyrical content is ambiguous throughout, yet purposeful: it resonates when considered in the context of a post 9/11 world where nothing adds up; nothing is quite what it seems. Following the first three stanzas, the instrumentation and lyrics both project a loss of hope. Through what could be considered the first bridge, the initial narrator is repetitively instructive in the subjects need to “pay attention” (Radiohead 15-18, 20-23, 25-28 & 30-32). The idea is that a lie declared ad nauseum becomes truth. Add that to previously uncovered propaganda, and it apparently has its effect on the subject, who goes from saying, “Yeah, I’m not feeling it” (Radiohead 19), to “Yeah, I need it” (Radiohead 24), and finally to “Yeah, I love it, the attention” (Radiohead 29). Here is expressed the danger and effectiveness of unchecked incremental power over another. As time passes, the subject becomes more and more subservient. As the subject becomes more enchanted and conforms to authority, the music — particularly the guitar — becomes more chaotic, as if to symbolize the subject’s loss of cognitive individuality, rendering the subject’s mind immersed in turbulence and illusion. Don’t worry: like all great stories of hero- ics, our subject must momentarily fail before he can triumph. The next verse begins by our subject coming to his senses, “I try to sing along / I get it all wrong / Because I’m not” (Radio- head 33-35). Clearly the narrator speaking here has been assumed by the he or she who was previously the subject. This is an interesting spin on Radiohead’s part; it would appear that the narrator’s position is sustained by the party who holds the power — it was first the authority, and now is the individual or population subject to the authority, which ironically then have de facto authority by virtue of the nature of power. From these lines we see that the subject of the authority — be it population or individual — has not entirely had his reason compromised. That they are unable to integrate and be manipulated by illegitimate authority

127 is realized, whether consciously or not. Our subject has not been overcome, and the rest of the song includes various notions of the subjects disillusionment and explicit rebellion, beginning with “Oh, hail to the thief / But I’m not” (Radiohead 42-43), followed by a binary switch in the population or individual asserting power, demanding, “Don’t question my authority or put me in a box / Because I’m not (Radiohead 47-48, italics mine). Finally, in a fit of revolutionary passion backed by swirling guitar and forceful synth, the subject declares brashly, “Oh, go and tell the king that the sky is falling in / But it’s not” (Radiohead 50-51). The falling sky symbolizes the crumbling of authority and the disillusionment of the people. What’s more, the falling sky is applied only to the king’s situation, as implied by the immediate incendiary contradiction that it’s in fact not falling at all. To be clear: the final lines represent both mind-freeing disillusionment and the fall of authority at once, which logically results in the rise of the people. Radiohead masterfully ends the dystopian themed song optimistically. To elaborate briefly on a particularly clever use of doublespeak, the incorporation of the phrase “hail to the thief” is an allusion to the song “Hail to the Chief,” a march primarily associated with the President of the United States. Its playing accom- panies the appearance of the President at many public appear- ances. Doubtless, the swapping of “chief” for “thief” is an explicit social commentary on American, and by association British, and historically western civilization’s imperial foreign policy. The obvious charge that goes unspoken in conventional public discourse is the aggressive “thieving” of both resources and dignity from countries all over the world. That the allusion would directly relate to American authority is no coincidence, given the current state of world affairs. Radiohead’s lyrical imagery is less than concrete, and yet unparalleled in effectively projecting such serious contemporary matters against contemporary music. This and the jux- taposition of experimentation combined with raw and traditional chord progressions all in the space of a few minutes exemplify just why and how Radiohead is important to music today.

Works Cited

Radiohead. “2+2=5 (The Lukewarm).” Hail to the Thief. Parlophone (Co lombia), 2003. CD. NULC Introduction NULC

NULC Section Coordinators: NULC Staff: Andrea K. McFarland Clint Kingsley

INTRODUCTION

The National Undergraduate Literature Conference, hosted each year by Weber State University, brings together some of the most talented student writers from across the country. Each year the conference receives hundreds of submissions, and we have the privilege of publishing some of the finest work inMetaphor . It is our sincerest hope that the pieces in this section will entertain and inspire future writing.

129 NULC: FICTION

Confessions of a Man-Teller: The Tales of Three Blind Mice Jason VanBuskirk Portland State University

It had been weeks since I had seen Mr. Harbaugh when I finally watched him hobble through the bank’s lobby. His face was pale and resembled one of a horse. His soot-covered over- alls matched his unkempt five o’clock shadow. The poor elderly man inched his way across the bank amid blinding tears and announced his presence with agonizing quiet moans, as he balanced most of his weight onto his hospital issued crane. As I watched this pathetic creature loom about I began to ask myself, “Where is Lady Justice?” She was obviously on vacation if you went by the lack of concern that was expressed for this old man. His tears and groans came from “accidentally” falling down a set of stairs. Surprisingly his girlfriend, Lee Ann, was standing behind him when he “accidentally” fell. While recovering from this “fall” in the hospital, his tramp of a girlfriend took out over $15,000.00 in payday loans from one of those check cash- ing joints. Since Mr. Harbaugh had signed a power of attorney with Lee Ann, he was left to pay back all of those loans with his monthly Social Security check. As Mr. Harbaugh approached my teller window, he walked around the line dividers cutting in front of a blind woman. The flowing tunic she had on reminded me of something a hippie would wear. I would have pegged her for being one of those free-love kinds of people except that she held her guiding stick like a sword. Since Mr. Harbaugh looked in worse shape than she did I decided to help him first. I figured it probably would have been less of an inconvenience to hurry him along, instead of correcting the old man. The woman seemed to be able to sense what had happened, but quietly went to the next available teller. I noticed a stench arose from him, which reeked of neglect NULC: FICTION VanBuskirk and uncleanliness. His retired marine hat covered his greasy- uncombed hair, saturated with dandruff. I could barely stand to look Mr. Harbaugh in the eyes, which were blood-shot from pain and painkillers. Somehow I was able to put on my professional face, “Hey Mr. Harbaugh! How are you doing today?” “Better than yesterday,” he breathed heavily, interrupting each word of his usual reply. After regaining his breath from walking into the bank he asked for a cashier’s check to be made out for fifty-five dollars to a woman in the Washington State Penitentiary. Mr. Harbaugh non-chalantly added that he was no longer with Lee Ann, and that he had found some one else through E-Harmony. Ever since his wife passed he had been in an ongoing search for the next Mrs. Harbaugh. Most of the women he had found couldn’t stand Mr. Harbaugh for more than a week. His quick temper and hygiene issues were enough to keep most people away. Lee Ann didn’t care if Mr. Harbaugh showered daily and her temper could always consume his. She was an ex-con from Oklahoma and used Harbaugh like a Sugar Daddy. “So did you and Lee Ann break up?” I pushed aside my business manners trying to appease the desire of hearing ripe details of a failed relationship. “No we didn’t break up!” Mr. Harbaugh snapped at me. “She’s dead.” He continued with no tears. “That bitch got what she deserved. Died the morning we were suppose to get married. She stole my money and painkillers, so I made sure she drank good every night,” he confessed with a grin. I ignored the last phrase thinking to myself that Lee Ann didn’t need a nudge from Mr. Harbaugh to push her off the cliff of debauchery. No, Lee Ann would’ve gladly jumped from that height all by herself. “I’m sorry to hear of your loss,” I responded with a robotic banker reply that could easily be translated as “I don’t give a damn.” It wasn’t that I didn’t give a damn about Mr. Harbaugh, but . . . it was just business. “Did you hear me boy?” Harbaugh lowered his head and whispered, “I killed her.” I tried to shrug off his confession as just foolish talk, but the look in his eyes made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I continued to stare him in the face trying to see any evidence of a bluff. “I sent her to buy her favorite booze. That was the best bottle of vodka I ever bought. I poured every drink for her that night. That whore got what she deserved! I could’ve been a rich son-a-bitch.” He began laughing. I longed to see such deep-belly-laughter as proof that he was making a morbid, inappropriate joke. I wanted to perceive Mr. Harbaugh as a pathetic person, but his cackle blinded me from this deception. I was left to listen to the evil creature rejoice in his revenge. “HAHAHAHAHA! It ain’t fair what she did to me, so I made it even.” Harbaugh persisted on pleading his case in a whisper, “Nobody cared when she pushed me. Nobody. I was left there for two days before—“ “I’ll go grab that cashier’s check Mr. Harbaugh,” I tried to let business interrupt his confession and began walking away when he snatched the sleeve of my blue shirt.

131 And being grasped by the man I had no choice but to look him in the eyes as he whispered with assurance, “I did it,” once again. “I paid for the liquor. I poured the liquor. I gave her the pills.” Tears began to well up in his eyes, but then a blind glaze crystallized his look. “I’m proud I did it,” he continued. “I did it!” he boasted as he began laughing with satisfaction. “I fucking did it!” He squeezed his confession out of his uncon- trollable laughter, which caused every eye and ear to focus their consciousness towards Mr. Harbaugh. His head cocked back and his whole body shook with glee soaking up all the attention that his victory call brought. Instantly his laughter was quenched. His hand went to his chest and he began coughing as if he was having trouble breathing. I ran from behind the teller line and caught him as he fell to his knees. I laid him on the ground and shouted for someone to call 911. “Mr. Harbaugh stay with me.” I slapped his face trying to get him to focus on me. His eyes were wide open, but he looked past me as if he were blind. “She deserved it,” he confessed one last time. I was relinquished from my post by an off-duty nurse that happened to walk into the bank. It didn’t matter though. Mr. Harbaugh was dead. “What did he get so excited about?” someone asked in the crowd of witnesses. I ignored the question, thinking that I was no judge or jury. How could I cast judgment on such little evidence? I was blind to all the facts. And besides, I didn’t want to get involved. I had no choice, but to lie. “I don’t know. The old man was crazy.” “You aren’t kidding!” One of the other tellers backed up my testimony. “You lie,” a voice from behind said. “You know what he did.” “How do you know?” I began to defend my stance without looking behind me. As I turned to face my accuser I said, “You didn’t see any—” but the features of the person who was willing to judge me caused my voice to trail off. I looked into the blind woman’s dark pair of sunglasses that covered her blank stare. She brought conviction, but I couldn’t confess. I didn’t want to get mixed up in this mess, so I excused myself and ignored her words as I walked to the break room. “You’re right,” she calmly stated. “I didn’t see anything.” NULC: NONFICTION Simons

NULC: NONFICTION

T.M.I.: The Dangers of Forbidden Knowledge in Doctor Faustus and Frankenstein Emily Simons Washburn University

In January 1818, Mary Shelley anonymously published Fran- kenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, a now famous cautionary tale that examines the dangers of pushing natural human limitations and overstepping moral boundaries in the scientific arena: “Learn from me,” Victor Frankenstein advises Robert Walton, “if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than nature will allow” (57). Through Frankenstein, Shelley warns readers of the troubles they may endure if they seek knowledge that is meant to be beyond human understanding. While Shelley wrote that the inspiration for her novel came from a dream in which she saw “the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an un- easy, half vital motion,” the concept behind her novel is not new (24). Forbidden knowledge is the guiding force for characters in an array of literary works, including Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, whose main character sells his soul to Lucifer in order to gain twenty-four years of God-like scientific understanding and ability. In both Doctor Faustus and Frankenstein, striving to move beyond conventional scientific and moral boundaries results in severe consequences, including the loss of relationships and death. By examining the ambition, isolation, and regret experienced by John Faustus and Victor Franken- stein, Marlowe and Shelley demonstrate that some knowledge should not be pursued in an unrestrained manner. Because both works exist in multiple versions, it is important to note that this paper examines Roma Gill’s edition of Doctor Faustus, based on

133 the A text, and the 1831 text of Frankenstein, edited by Johanna M. Smith. Ambition, isolation, and regret all contribute to the demise of Dr. Faustus and Dr. Frankenstein. We will begin by looking closely at the characters’ ambition, a trait that was not necessar- ily viewed in a negative light when Doctor Faustus was written during the sixteenth century. Joseph T. McCullen, author of “Dr. Faustus and Renaissance Learning,” outlines principles that pre- sided over learning in the Elizabethan period. He observes that a “few noteworthy principles governed the Elizabethan concept of learning, and these were thought to embrace everything that would contribute to happy living. These principles included the pursuit of self-knowledge, faith in man’s spiritual destiny, the acceptance of responsibilities to society, and proof of wisdom in conduct. In brief, the end of learning was to prepare individuals for better service to both God and the state” (7). McCullen demonstrates that the pursuit of self-knowledge, or an ambition to learn, was a desirable trait during the Renaissance, as long as it was used to better one’s community and serve God. While Dr. Faustus rejects many Elizabethan principles of learning through the choices he makes, he certainly pursues the path of self- knowledge. Faustus is an extraordinarily ambitious man, dissatisfied with the amount of knowledge the world has to offer. He exemplifies his disdain for ordinary knowledge by denouncing each category of academia he has extensively studied, including logic, law, divinity, and medicine, in an early soliloquy: “Are not thy bills hung up as monuments, / Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague, /And thousand desperate maladies been eased? / Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man. / Couldst thou make men to live eternally, / Or, being dead, raise them to life again, / Then this profession were to be esteemed” (Marlowe 1. 20-26). Faustus laments his inability to gain honor through ordinary means. Although he has had a very successful career at Wit- tenberg, Dr. Faustus yearns for knowledge, discoveries, and power beyond acceptable human limits, such as the ability to raise the dead, which Frankenstein also seeks. Faustus offers a clear solution to his dilemma when he states in the same soliloquy, “A sound magician is a mighty god. / Here Faustus, try thy brains to gain a deity” (1. 62-63). Dr. Faustus determines to make himself a god, and is willing to turn to necromancy in order to achieve his desired result. This certainly pushes the natural limitations and moral boundaries that govern the actions of most men. Although Dr. Faustus embraces an ambitious pursuit of knowledge, he notably lacks reverence for the other previously mentioned principles of Elizabethan learning, specifically the acceptance of responsibilities to society. He does very little to serve the state or God, as he wastes his new abilities on what one might consider party jokes. Dr. Faustus’s motivations for learning are completely self-centered, as he admits when he contemplates the benefits black magic will bring him, stating in NULC: NONFICTION Simons the first scene, “O what a world of profit and delight, / Of power, of honor, of omnipotence / Is promised to the studious artisan!” (1. 53-55). Instead of thinking of ways he could better society, Faustus dreams of power and riches, such as the signory of Em- den, and is willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve them. Faustus outlines the boundaries he is willing to cross in a soliloquy in scene five: “The god thou servest is thine own appetite, / Wherein is fixed the love of Beelzebub. / To him I’ll build an altar and a church, /and offer the lukewarm blood of newborn babes” (5. 11-14). Because Dr. Faustus serves his own appetite, he is able to admit he does not care that his deal with Lucifer may have effects on other members of society. While he may not actively hurt society through his pranks, nonetheless Faustus does demonstrate his willingness to sacrifice the innocent through his nonchalant attitude toward newborn babes. Like Faustus, Dr. Frankenstein is exceptionally ambitious, which, as he explains to Walton, began at a young age: “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things, or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my enquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or, in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world” (Shelley 45). Frankenstein is not interested in languages, government, poli- tics, or any other acceptable category of academia; like Faustus, he dreams of delving into the darker secrets of life by seeking knowledge that is well beyond natural human limitations. This is foreshadowed through his ongoing fascination with Cornelius Agrippa, a German magician, occult writer, and alchemist believed to have had the power to summon the dead, whom Dr. Faustus also admires and references as “cunning” and “honored” (Marlowe 1. 117-118). Against the urges of his father, Frankenstein begins reading the works of Agrippa at a young age, and continues to study him during his stay at Ingolstadt. This directly cor- relates to his ambitious thirst for omniscience, which he channels into learning how to assemble and reanimate a lifeless corpse. Although he initially believes in the words spoken to him by Professor M. Waldman, “the labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind,” it is not a desire to better society that prompts Dr. Frankenstein to begin the construction of his creature (Shelley 54). Paul Northam, author of “Legacy of Fran- kenstein: The Monster is the One in the White Lab Coat,” states that Frankenstein “. . . undertakes his project not for altruistic reasons, not to advance human knowledge, but primarily for the glory it will bring him, and isolates his family and loved ones” (480). Much like Faustus, Frankenstein ignores the moral compli- cations that his creation may have on society. He does not think of all of the possible consequences of his actions, including the loss of loved ones or death; instead he thinks solely of personal glory and becoming distinguished in science and discoveries, as exemplified when he expresses to Walton the desire he felt to father a new race: “A new species would bless me as its creator

135 and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs” (Shelley 58). Dr. Franken- stein sets his monstrous task in motion, believing his creation will be a glorious human-like creature that is thankful to be alive. Blinded by ambition, he does not consider his creation could be quite the opposite: a monstrous hybrid who curses his own existence. Having focused on the overly ambitious nature of Dr. Faus- tus and Dr. Frankenstein, we will now turn our attention to the isolation both doctors experience. Man is naturally a social creature, yet Faustus and Frankenstein yield less and less to this convention as they seek and utilize knowledge that is not read- ily available to the rest of mankind. Dr. Faustus departs from natural conventions as he becomes obsessed with the power of immortal beings and searches for a way to become a deity. Be- fore Faustus trades twenty-four years of immense power for an eternity in hell, concerned scholars attempt to help him, recog- nizing that he has “fallen into that damned art,” or necromancy (Marlowe 3. 29). Although these scholars notice Dr. Faustus’s ab- sence and seek to once again immerse him in acceptable fields of academia, Wagner, his student and servant, prevents their help. The scholars become increasingly worried, with Scholar 3 making the observation that it looks as though “he is grown into some sickness by being / oversolitary” (13. 7-8). Scholars notice changes in the way Faustus presents himself, and assume that his isolation has led to sickness. While Dr. Faustus initially does not want the scholars to help him, as the hour of his eternal damnation draws near he finally accepts their attempts to aid him. In the play’s final scene, Faustus instructs the scholars to pray for him, saying “Ay, pray for me, pray for me; and what noise soever ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me” (13. 50-51). Although Dr. Faustus encourages the scholars to pray for his soul, he recognizes that he is surely damned, primarily because he has isolated himself from God. Dr. Faustus’s isolation from his colleagues is a pivotal part of his downfall; however, his alienation from God is more detri- mental as it leads to his eternal damnation. While faith in man’s spiritual destiny was important in Renaissance learning, Faustus shows his lack of concern for this convention by treating his soul much too lightly. Dr. Faustus cuts himself off from God in the greatest possible way, by selling his soul to Lucifer with the help of Mephastophilis in scene four: “Here, Mephastophilis, receive this scroll, /A deed of gift of body and of soul: / But yet condi- tionally, that thou perform / All articles prescribed between us both” (Marlowe 5. 89-92). With these words, Dr. Faustus buys Mephastophilis’s service, and condemns himself to a hell he neither understands nor believes in. Dr. Faustus effectively turns his back on God, and spends the next twenty-four years of his life ensuring that God knows it. He promises Lucifer in scene five, “. . . never to look to heaven, / Never to name God, or to pray to him, / To burn his Scriptures, slay his ministers, / And make [his] NULC: NONFICTION Simons spirits pull his churches down” (5. 268-271). Faustus completely removes the possibility of ever serving God, vowing instead to destroy places of worship and instruments of service. He is entirely isolated from mankind, finding a very unnatural companionship with Mephastophilis only, who is less than human. Like Faustus, Dr. Frankenstein begins to reject his family, friends, and nature as he becomes completely immersed in his scientific experiment, resulting in his solitude. “It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature,” states Dr. Frankenstein to Walton. He continues that “the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time” (Shelley 59). When Frankenstein leaves for school, he devotes all of his attention to his scientific studies at the university. He deprives himself of experiencing the gran- deurs of nature, an act that would have been viewed as almost sacrilegious to English readers during the Romantic Period, who valued a deepened appreciation of nature’s beauties. Franken- stein also neglects his family and friends, whose support may have enabled Frankenstein to see the monstrosity of his experiment before it was too late. This total lack of socialization enables Victor to push natural human limitations and cross moral boundaries without fear of criticism; it also leads to a rather unhealthy existence. Examples of Frankenstein’s failing health as a result of his isolation are abundant throughout the novel. Frankenstein reveals that his “cheek had grown pale with study, and [his] person had become emaciated with confinement” (59). Dr. Frankenstein’s intense focus causes his skin to visibly pale, demonstrating that he has spent a damaging amount of time sequestered indoors. Addi- tionally, his inability to care for himself while maintaining his level of ambition towards his studies causes him to become malnour- ished. By isolating himself from friends and family as well as neglecting his personal health, Frankenstein’s appearance becomes increasingly unnatural, and he begins to resemble a monster himself. Frankenstein privately admits his mistake immediately after his creature comes to life: “For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (60-61). While Frankenstein crossed acceptable boundaries to create a living masterpiece, his creature was not what he had hoped for. Frankenstein experiences total isolation from humanity, with each attempt to reintegrate himself ending in death, first of his loved ones and finally his own. Like Faustus, his only lasting companionship is with something less than human, as the creature becomes his only consort, however unwillingly. We have already established that ambition and isolation are two important recurring themes in Doctor Faustus and Franken- stein; another noteworthy theme is regret. While Victor Fran-

137 kenstein’s conseince weighs on him heavily from the very beginning of his experiment, John Faustus’s guilt sets in slowly. His eventual lament is foreshadowed as he prepares to sign away his soul and his blood refuses to cooperate. Faustus questions the significance of this event as he speaks to Mephastophilis in scene five: “What might the staying of my blood portend? / Is it unwilling that I should write this bill?” (Marlowe 5. 63-65). Dr. Faustus’s blood knows that his deal with Lucifer can only bring about his downfall, yet his mind remains stubbornly in the dark. It is not until Faustus’s time of reckoning approaches that he realizes what he has done. “Now, Mephastophilis,” says Faustus, “the restless course / That time doth run with calm and silent foot, / Shortening my days and thread of vital life, / Calls for the payment of my latest years” (9. 87-90). Lucifer comes to collect payment much sooner than Faustus anticipated, although he admits he never put his temporary divinity to good use: “God forbade it indeed, but Faustus hath done it: for the vain pleasure of four-and-twenty years Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity” (13. 36-38). Faustus experiences buyer’s remorse, realizing that the cost or consequences of his pursuit of knowledge over- shadowed the temporary vain pleasures he received. He openly states that he regrets his decisions, and wishes that he had never seen Wittenberg or never read a book (13. 19-20). Faus- tus contemplates his loss until the clock strikes twelve, at which time he bemoans his fate as he exits the stage with devils. Prior to gaining temporary divinity, Dr. Faustus superficially understands what such a level of knowledge will cost him: his eternal life. Dr. Frankenstein, however, does not have the same luxury of foresight. He sees his God-like role as only positive until after his creature comes to life, and advises Walton not to repeat his mistake. “I see by your eagerness and wonder of hope which your eyes express, my friend,” states Dr. Franken- stein, “that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery” (Shelley 57). Frankenstein admits his mistake immediately after his creature comes to life, and expresses his regret for his actions throughout the rest of his narrative. His regret deepens as the creature he so carefully designed and labored over systematically slaughters his family due to the immediate rejection it experiences. Justine, a family friend who is sentenced to die for a murder committed by Frankenstein’s creature, is one of the first of its victims; the regret Victor feels causes him to believe he suffers to a degree that is greater than her suffering. He notes his anguish the day before Justine is sentenced to die, stating, “The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony. I gnashed my teeth and ground them together, uttering a groan that came from my inmost soul” (84). By overstepping moral boundaries in an attempt to play God, Dr. Frankenstein becomes like the wick- NULC: NONFICTION Simons ed man in Psalm 112:10, who will “see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing” (NIV). His refusal to abide by natural human limitations sends many of his loved ones over the awful boundary between life and death, including William, Justine, Henry, and Elizabeth. While Faustus ends up in a real hell, Dr. Frankenstein’s life becomes a virtual hell as his loved ones are continually laid to rest by a creature he is incapable of loving or catching. By examining the roles ambition, isolation, and regret play in the downfalls of Dr. Faustus and Dr. Frankenstein, Marlowe and Shelley create cautionary tales in which striving to move beyond natural human limitations and overstepping moral boundaries results in the aspiring heroes learning their properly limited human place. Both stories overwhelmingly demonstrate that the desire for forbidden knowledge often leads to undesirable consequences, including the loss of relationships and death. Perhaps the strongest allusion to the dangers of too much knowledge comes in the epilogue of Doc- tor Faustus: “Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, / And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough, / That sometime grew within this learnèd man. / Faustus is gone! Regard his hellish fall, / Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise / Only to wonder at unlawful things: / Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits / To practice more than heavenly power permits” (1-8). Dr. Faustus and Dr. Frankenstein become engineers of their own destruction by ignoring limitations and boundaries set forth by society and God when they do more than wonder at unlawful or forbidden knowledge. While both men were given natural talents that could have been beneficial to society, their ambitious nature leads them to experience isolation and regret, and culminates in their hellish falls.

Works Cited

Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984. Print. Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. Vol. 1. The Norton Anthropology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. New York: W. W. Nor ton & Company, Inc., 2006. 1023-55. Print. McCullen, Joseph T. “Dr. Faustus and Renaissance Learning.” The Modern Language Review 51.1 (1956): 6-16. Print Northam, Paul. “Legacy of Frankenstein: The Monster is the One in the White Lab Coat.” American Scientist 86.5 (1998): 479-80. Print. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, 1831. Ed. Johanna M. Smith. 2nd ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. Print.

139 NULC: POETRY

By Smell Evanne Lindley Pepperdine University

When we pulled her off the trailer, the black mare, she spun and flung her scent across the green paddocks and the trees draped in Spanish moss. She threw her haunches, stirred the dirt around her, took a breath of this new place and blew it back full of what made her black and sleek. In a moment, he could smell her, his nostrils flaring, the grey gelding who knew her, once, some time ago. Knew her, then, by her smell. The sudden memory of a place he had been before captured in the air. Of a black mare with clicking hocks. Of a tail that swished at his face for an entire summer, keeping the flies off as they stood, mirroring each other. He began to nicker for her. Coy, she didn’t answer. His nicker, more like a scream, lasted all night until the morning when the haggard groundsman, who hadn’t slept for the gelding’s desperation, walked him, prancing, the distance to her paddock. They danced around each other for a moment before settling each into the presence of the other. Only a gelding, and yet he loved her like that: desperately and by smell. NULC: POETRY Lindley & Hunton

Something intimate Ryan Hunton Western Kentucky University

Something intimate, not forced, like a car rolling down the hill on 8th Avenue, gravity pulling it down without acceleration, without gasoline, pulling downhill into downtown, looking at the world through the windshield and rearview mirror. It’s there but there is something missing. Tomorrow I will open my door and walk among the grass and trees – and the world will speak to me. I have cork in my ears. I cannot hear what you are saying because I’m too self-absorbed. And the radio says I’m not self-absorbed at all.

141 Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (Ode to Camellia Sinensis) Lee Nguyen Weber State University

Dimbula’s springtime opening In the bottom of a cup Dried Himalayan raindrops, measured and weighed By sight and palm, mixed with drops of bergamot Gyokuro relaxing in Yixing purple clay Smells of shaded sun and fog Lapsang Souchong’s smoldering liquid Swirling in upon itself I learned the sound of my son sleeping from milk and honey How bud and leaf taste the seasons I learned of God from tea and plum blossoms And that faith tastes like Ceylon and sugarcane NULC: POETRY Nguyen & Muntean

For the Female Wolf Spider Rebecca Muntean Capital University

Toeing the blade with a flocculent leg Birthing the youthful sac Five hundred fifteen lulus on her back Within the silk, sipping the yolk from the egg Undermining his life, for which he had begged A zarf in the gut, his will but a taste Serving a duty, then leaving as waste Swallowed by mother—intentions carnally vague Her shrine, a self reflection, soft yet pukka An abode for the load, the dynasty’s haven Broken through the walls, twenty thousand knees emerge Created in her image and perfectly pukka Death not to a virgin, but a soldier, but a maiden Left behind a legion, left behind to surge

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