Acknowledgements • Student Editors: Cheston Axton, Andrea Greer, and Cody Buczkowske • Managing and Fiction Editor: Tempi Hale • Visual Art Editor: Dr. Christal Hensley • Poetry Editor: Dr. Sandy Hiortdahl • Non-Fiction Editor: Josh Archer • Visual Art Editor: Donna Wilt • Fiction Judge: Deanna Bradberry • Poetry Judge: Gerrie Fischer • Non-fiction Judge: Tamara Baxter, • Visual Art Judge: Laken Bridges • Design: Jonathan Brooks • Printed by: The Printing Connection Special thanks to William Wilson, Robert Carpenter, Debi Beverly, Jim Kelly, Thomas Wilson, Beverly Leonard, and Russell Bowman for help with the production of this magazine. All rights to individual works are retained by the authors or artists. For permission to reprint, contact the author or artist directly. The works published here were created by current students and chosen by outside judges, who are experts in Visual Art and Literature. Views expressed herein are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the editors or of Northeast State. Northeast State Community College is one of 45 institutions in the Tennessee Board of Regents system, the sixth largest system of higher education in the nation. The Tennessee Board of Regents is the governing board for this system, which is comprised of six universities, 13 community colleges, and 26 area technology centers. The TBR system enrolls more than 80 percent of all Tennessee students attending public institutions of higher education. Northeast State is committed to the education of a non-racially identifiable student body. The college does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status in the provision of educational opportunities and benefits. The college complies with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Inquiries concerning nondiscrimination policies and guidelines should be directed to the director of Human Resources. Northeast State is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award the associate degree. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lance, Decatur, Georgia 30033, or call 404.679.4500 for questions about the accreditation of Northeast State. NeSCC-1 07-004 Rev. 2/17 i Echoes and Images . Northeast State Community College Contents Acknowledgements i Contents ii Patrick Brian Cooley On the Porch, in the Summer 1 Wesley Trent Payer June 22, 2015: Inmate Intake 2 K. C. Fitzgerald Thought to Thought 5 Patrick Brian Cooley On Church Street 6 Patrick Brian Cooley Marmalade 10 Rachel Starnes To Be Me 11 Patrick Brian Cooley The Boy in the Green Jacket 12 Kevin Carrier Drawing in a Breath from the Sky 14 Kevin Carrier Smoke 15 Chelsea Temple The Fun Ones 16 Patrick Brian Cooley Busboy 20 Kayla Mullins For This Child We Have Prayed 21 K. C. Fitzgerald Toxic Marbles 25 Brad Simon Metamorphosis 26 Allison Smith Benny 27 Emily Overbey Rainbow Connection 28 Emily Overbey Angelic Shadows 29 Shayna Richardson What Lies in the Dark 30 Shelby Minogue Wesscourt Lane 31 Brad Simon Bound Skull 32 Hannah McClain Emotions 33 Tiffany Washburn The Skull 34 Jenna Jacobs Alexithymia 35 Erica Birchfield Symphony of Ravens 36 Cheston Axton Another Day For Mary Shelley 37 Kevin Carrier Cry of the Timberwolves 38 Shianne S. Milbourn Washington County Animal Shelter 40 Split Tessellation Split Tessellation 41 Allison Smith Fairy Tree 43 Matthew Bennett Consumerism Museum 44 Madison G. Phillips Unlovable 45 Shianne S. Milbourn Tweetsie Trail 46 Kevin Matthew Bennett Forlorn Stranger 47 Daniel Radle Bonnaroo “Fun” Run 49 Kristi Celene Fitzgerald Sterling Muse 51 Delaney Dunne Ice Cream Will Never Taste the Same 53 Judges 55 Contributors 56 Spring 2017 . Volume 27 ii On the Porch, in Summer Patrick Brian Cooley First Place, Poetry The Old Man sits, cross legged applying milk-chocolate paint in thick layers like frosting, then spreads them thin. The dog, Blondie, overeager for his attentions runs up and nearly hurls herself into the paint. She is reprimanded coarsely. I guide her away— tail wagging uncomprehendingly—down the stairs. I pause to watch her play in the grass, but she simply lays. It is here I notice a board—broken—removed: Beneath is a world of dried gossamer spun by living spindle. Unthinking, with curious finger I encroach. Defying the sovereignty of nature, I gingerly press at a small casing, which dislodges and tumbles to the ground, spilling eggs like dried amaranth into the breeze. ‘It must have been there ages,’ I think, ‘Perhaps the heat killed them—shame.’ I turn to look toward the yard, But from the corner of my eye, movement. With eight fleet feet she flies across the wooden beam and stops: There’s nothing left to mind. 1 Echoes and Images . Northeast State Community College June 22, 2015: Inmate Intake Wesley Trent Payer First Place, Non-fiction My mom and I were lying on a bed I didn’t want to believe it. But when I got in our living room down at our house, which home, there she was, all the evidence I had only been ours for about half a year. needed. As we watched movie after movie, I began Now here we were, six months later, to realize that I would be without her for on the night before she had to go. You a long while, a long, dreadful while. All I could have heard a pin drop through the could imagine was how she felt. Did she whole house with all of the silent, continuous feel sad, scared, and angry at the world? Or thinking going on - her thinking about how was she as calm as she was acting, ready it was going to be, how she was going to to go start her journey and get it over with? survive, and me thinking about where I was Sleep wasn’t even considered that night, going to live, how school was going to be as we both knew it would be our last night when everyone started talking about it. I together until the long, quiet car ride to West could hear the shakiness in her voice every Virginia. Throughout the whole night, I tried time she spoke, every time she said every- to hold my emotions in, but even our dogs in thing was going to be okay. I knew it was the house were acting weird, like they knew going to be okay, but I didn’t want her to something was about to change. leave. I didn’t want her out of my life again. I had packed all of my stuff the day I wanted her to stay lying right beside me, to before, having friends come and see how I never leave, so we could watch movies for was doing and to tell her goodbye. My mom the rest of our lives. When the clock struck had not only come back into my life, but my 6 A.M., though, we knew it was time to get friends’ lives too, giving them a motherly ready and take the last car ride with each figure that a few of them didn’t have. Here other for a while. I was, about to join their ranks, going from It killed me to watch her go through Mom never being around to her getting taken the house, reminiscing about memories. We from me when she’d finally come back. Why had only owned the house for about six to would she do something like this? eight months, but it was the longest time I The day I finally found out the truth had ever lived with her, the longest time I was horrible. I went to my mom’s house, had ever spent with her. She was always in now just an empty, caution-taped house and out of my life, moving from place to of dust, just about every weekend. I never place, only coming to see me every once in knew anything was going on, never actually a while. And here I was, once again, going noticed the way she and my stepdad were motherless, a pain I had felt for years, but acting with their sleep-deprived nights. Then this time was different. It was different one day while hanging out with my friends, because she was there for me. She had I got a text that devastated me: “Dude, your always cared about me, but this time more mom’s meth lab just got busted.” What was than ever before. I remembered all the times I supposed to do or say? Why didn’t I listen I would come home after having a bad day to my dad and others when they told me her and go lie with her in her room, watch TV, house was bad and what she was doing? and talk about my problems. She was my Spring 2017 . Volume 27 2 world now, and I could protect her like I and would no matter what she was going tried to do when she lived in the other house. through. I watched her get beaten half to death by my Finally, we arrived to the place none stepdad for years, a pain that was always of us wanted to be, the Hazelton Federal there making me worry every day if she was Correctional Institution. As we inched closer, alright. And now, I didn’t have to worry. I could feel my emotions coming on strong, She was there with me. I was her protector. along with everyone else’s in the car. When I wouldn’t let anyone touch her, but I knew the car stopped, it was like my whole world in a few, dreadful hours I wouldn’t be able to stopped, too.