�''"f ,, Vf�1t1 ,,,,_,,,, Literary Editor Art Editor Brian Fugate Tom Podejko Literary Advisor Art Advisor Frank Edmund Smith Paul Andrew E. Smith Literary Judges Art Judges Anjelica Honeycutt Amber Abboud Ali Zaidi Chris Cutch Guy Landgraf Charen Linder Cover Art John Lech AJt� f./.� �A>f./. /.1fAf iff l>�Af./.... acrylics 30 x 20 Bridget Bartholomae Professional Services John Callahan, Photography Vis-0-Graphic Printing, Inc., Printing Point of View, a publication of literary and visual creative works, is selected, edited and produced by students. Anyone-student, faculty, staff, administration-connected to Harper College may submit their work. Sponsored by Student Activities, William Rainey Harper College in cooperation with the Liberal Arts Division. Cash awards for outstanding writing and art funded by The Harper College Foundation. Special thanks to John Callahan, Harley Chapman, Richard Johnson, Cathy Lindstrom, Kurt Neumann, Jeanne Pankanin, Tony Trigilio, Andrew Wilson, Joan Young. Copyright © 1999 William Rainey Harper College 1200 West Algonquin Road Palatine IL 60067 All rights to creative work belong to their respective creators. Printed on recycled paper 0 Linda Baldwin Susan H. Chun * 28 Inside Out 13 Winding Up, Running Down Bridget Bartholomae *** Clinton Harman cover and the earth holds its breath ... 21 That Damn Smile Colleen Gentry Allison Herbon 4 Depth 3 Peacoat 36 Untitled Roya Kashanian Buddy Hanson 25 Glass 9 Figures Emerging From The Clouds Represented With Symmetrical Shapes Steve Kim And Towers Composed Of Human Hands 31 Conversations With Spaceman 11 Human Hand Composed Of Worms Grasping An Apple David J. Marshall ** 5 Heliocentric Festus ],,. Johnson 20 Old School Player Debbie Pickup Ed Kowalczyk 37 Kameraden 27 Treppe Shannon Plate Guy Landgraff, Jr. 29 Untitled 42 Dance of Fire 30 Figure in Distress Bryan Weiss 10 Untitled Jennifer Lesiak 1 untitled Owen Lloyd 19 Bubbles Eugenia Makowski 2 Arch 26 Seven Pointed Star For Jessie 24 Twelve Fishermen And A Guide Winner of the Point of View Award* Winner of the Vivian Steward Award** George Voegel Winner of the Ray Mills Award*** 12 Emerging Knowledge HARPER COLLEGE LIBRARY PAI i'Tl�IC , , 'rw11s 60067 untitled Photo 8x10 Jennifer Lesiak •.' ll>e/. limestone Eugenia Makowski Allison Herbon Lost inside its navy blue arms, two missing buttons, where they landed, I can only wonder ... The crashing seas of Vietnam, rolling green pastures of Portugal, through the chilly nights of Spain. I can smell the memories in the thick wool, trapped within the lining, nested in the pockets, are stories of times past: A man lands on the moon, while a young sailor dances to the Stones, sharing a kiss with his would be wife. The laughs and tears weaved inside of each single thread. The worn and torn cuff that brushed against their clenched hands still lies ripped. The floppy long lapels once beaded with sweat from a nervous sailor grasping a gold ring in his hand. and now.. it's my turn. My chance to kiss the foreign air, and experience life in its immense arms. 1>1.,tlt photo 4x6 Colleen Gentry bouncing atoms and ideas in his brain coalesce, he attempted to vertically balance a black pencil on the polished desk, using the sharpened side. Each David J. Marshall effort failed, of course. The pink eraser falling one way, then the other, as if it I. were the bobbing head of someone Sitting in his Buick in a bitch of a jam trying to stay awake. Somewhere in his on the 1-90 inbound, Greg Kepler mind, Greg knew he could do it. If the air watched the crying jets on approach conditioning quit for one second, or the desperately trying to land at O'Hare Armani dick in the next office stopped International. It was a Bad Sun Day, the talking on the phone, or if gravity four hundred and sixty-third, according to surrendered its perpetual struggle for a the newsman on the crackling car radio. moment, a brief cease-fire, Greg knew it The angry Sun oscillated, alternating was possible. He released the pencil. It between bright and dim, large and small, fell, rolled to the edge of the desk, and pushing and then pulling the sleek metal then dropped, hitting the hard floor airships. musically, bouncing exactly four times. The first jet, a small Jetstream 31, Wendel walked into Greg's office Greg watched struggle through what without knocking and quickly closed the looked like icing conditions. The nose door. "Where the fuck have you been? sank too quickly, the left wing skidded My God, what the fuck. Three damn and sparked on the cement, igniting the weeks, Greg. What the fuck?" fuel almost instantly. The explosion was Greg sat calmly, knowing Wendel anti-climactic, like ripe watermelon needed him. Wendel wiped the sweat dropped by a clumsy grocer, thudding from his balding forehead. Greg smiled, and splashing to a clean floor. remembering Wendel's shaggy brown The next, a DC-10, Greg watched head of hair back in '67 right out of vibrate in midair, as an engine and pylon college at that recruitment seminar for separated from the immense left wing the NTSB. like leaves from a branch. The giant Wendel sighed, calming himself. rolled, colliding almost perpendicular with "You have to do this one, Greg. This is a the ground, a stellar flash outshining the big one. You've heard about the Sun, the sonic blast shaking six lanes of Mid-east Commuter crash?" cars on the freeway, causing Greg to "Yes," said Greg, "Are they all dead?" steady himself on the wheel. "Yes. Please, Greg. They're one of The last, a 747, hummed like a tenor our biggest clients. You've gotta do it. I god swooping down over the houses, don't know where you've been or what buildings and cars, trailing misty fuel. the hell is going on with you, but you've Greg closed his eyes as it passed over just gotta." him, imagining silver metal growing black "I'll need to see the site," Greg said, feathered wings and red eyes, then standing up and straightening his black swallowing itself in fire, flinging one pillar jacket. of white smoke, one black. "Thank God," said Wendel, rising, The burning Sun shook slightly, like a sighing again. "Thank God." bad comedian holds in laughter born of Greg looked at the floor and said, his own device. "But that's it Wendel ... l'm out, effective ·11. today." Greg Kepler sat in his corner office, waiting for his boss. Trying to let the Turning to the door, Greg walked out The cause of this crash was easy to of his office for the last time. find. Almost four years ago, the Sun Wendel stood alone, looking left to became jealous and angry, periodically right with his hand in his pocket like a increasing and decreasing its gravity: the man in an empty parking lot gripping his same exact day that Greg Kepler quit as keys, suddenly realizing his car has been chief investigator for the NTSB. Greg stolen. looked up at the pulsating sphere in the 111. orange sky and squinted. He thought of On the way to the site, Greg sat in how hard it was to find causes. Now it dead traffic and his thoughts drifted away just looked at him, at everyone, never from the killing Sun. He thought of the blinking. heaven, of the bed in Champaign with V. Later at the press conference Helen. No young women were named Greg left the podium; the reporters' Helen anymore, he thought, nor did they faces were sprinkled with tears. They launch a thousand ships. Greg tried to cried like new hungry birds finally being leave the bed of the small hotel after a fed. He answered the "what' and "how," week, getting as far as the front desk. and even the "who is responsible" with The heavy night auditor looked up from the ease of giving a child chocolate. his computer suspiciously, seeing Greg Because he knew the real question was stop and turn around. Greg knew then "why." Why were they torn away so that the Sun did not matter, and he quickly? Why does love have to die? walked back to room 128. He opened Why do things like this happen? the door without sound, slipped off his Knowing these, Greg appeased and shirt and pants quietly, and slid under the broke the most damaging inquisitors. sheets like a dolphin into water. Greg With each word, he lessened the dollar palmed her sleeping shoulder. With his impact on his client, each surviving family index finger, he made small circles members settling for one million instead around the nub of skin where her left arm of two, perhaps. He controlled the press used to be. room like a great conductor, raising his IV. hand, calling up sections to sing their As a spokesperson for Mammoth parts, and Greg would set them down, Insurance, Greg Kepler did not really knowing the answers they wanted. have authority or access to crash sites. Orbiting him like a sun, the reporters But he was a legend. asked questions of blame and justice, Now, he just walked like a stiff Jesus forgetting in the bare heat of his center. through the hot ash, pointing out burn Backstage, three interns in navy blue holes to NTSB investigators, telling them suits cried, staring at Greg Kepler, to mark the ground where bodies fell. He wa nting to follow him out the door. would tell the others what to look for, and Wendel, helpless as a mustached they would pick up and bag electrical man in a black hat at high noon, watched wires, scrape blood off of control panels Greg leave without saying good-bye .