The Scop, Spring 2026, Vol. 86

THE SCOP

Literary and Fine Arts Magazine

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The Scop is a literary magazine out of King’s College. It is entirely run and created by undergraduate students from a variety of majors. Its members believe in fostering creativity of all forms, including poetry, prose, and visual arts. the name comes from the term for an Old English bard or poet. The Scop accepts submissions worldwide.

“Chipper”

Charlie Brice

Even from a distance I could tell it was Chip on his bike bouncing over cobble stones on Elmer Street.

Chip was always up, always chipper, so much so that it was hard for me to shut my clinical eye—mania, I

mused, maybe ADHD? Too difficult to determine outside my office.

Today, in answer to my “Hi Chip,” I found ten-year-old misery. “What’s wrong?” I placed my hands on his handlebars—steadied our encounter.

“Dad says we’re moving,” sorrow streamed down his little-boy cheeks.

The year before this, Janie, his mother, succumbed to the cancer that slowly consumed her. I watched her pass our home, first with a limp, then on crutches and one leg, finally in a wheelchair— amputated stubs dangling over its seat.

Her energy and determination went beyond admiration.

After Janie died, Chip’s dad lost his match with loneliness to booze. Still, he found a new woman who wanted a new life.

“I’m sorry, Chip,” I said. “Really sorry.” Chip fought to control his quivering lips.

He pedaled away, a broken heart balanced on a Schwinn. “Come by our house before you leave,” I shouted. He never did.

1• The Scop • 2026

“Reincarnation”

Charlie Brice

Oh boy, looks like I really fucked-up. I died and came back as a cat box pooper-scooper. You might think that the worst part of my unfortunate rebirth is actually scooping up poop, but you get used to the smell pretty quick and the texture of the turds brings fond memories of Tootsie Rolls and Halloween. No, the worst part is the twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes of lying next to the cat box in the basement—cold, alone, and ignored.

Freud wrote that the opposite of love wasn’t hate, but indifference. I’m just a useless in-itself until someone picks me up and puts me to work. After all that loneliness, a warm hand on my handle while the litter slips through my slats is a blessing probably akin to what a homeless person feels when someone places a coin in his palm or hands her a steaming cup of coffee. These are blessings beyond words, which is fitting in my case since, as a cat box pooper-scooper, I have no words..

“Your Feet and Mine”

John Tustin

The freezing wind comes in under the door, the door I stand behind, barefoot, my feet getting colder and colder

and I make no effort to put on slippers or socks or move away from the door

because I like being reminded that they would be getting warm if only you were here

in my bed, our bed, with me, under a sheet and blanket; our bodies, your feet and mine safely at rest in our cozy space, momentarily far from the abyss that someday swallows us all.

“The Unlit Path”

John Tustin

We pass the tombstones of old dead love, holding on to each other on the unlit path; first slowly and then at ninety miles-an-hour.

Your eyes, they shine like dew in the pre-dawn; your mouth is a thousand singing birds and your sighs are relentless. Your body cracks open newly –like a flower unfolding in the rain.

3 • The Scop • 2026

“The Animal in the Wild”

Cole Morio

In the silent night where the beast creeps.

A mysterious noise when the sun sleeps.

With eyes burning far and wide, It runs into the dense forest for somewhere to hide.

No woman or man

Can find the path where the beast has ran. The sky darkened and here came the rain. The beast vanished, and one question remained.

The howl danced in the dark

Like a dog with an agitating bark.

Gone like a leaf in the breeze

Through the massive trees.

Never to be seen again, Wondering what it could have been.

“i knew it would take years to mourn the loss of you”

Sarah Karowski

please forgive my lack of grace as i pick myself a-

part — cell by cell. & as i scrub myself of you;

skin raw with pulsing bloodrush —

& i still catch your smell on my shoulders; feel your warts under my thumb. how i believed

“One More Chapter”

Sarah Beth Sweeney

The hot tea rests on the sill of the porch, morning dew coats the grass, robins sing in the distance.

in cliche because i felt them all on your tongue. our eyes; puzzle pieces. legs entangled in grapevine. the ache in my chest soothed by your lips as they gingerly brush against my own — my equilibrium is offset. i still think of you as mine.

The world seems fast asleep, and yet the world of dragons and adventures beckons like a siren calling sailors to crash against the tide.

Just one more chapter.

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Gillian Gurley “Any Day”

At the hollow thwank of that bird against my window, my ears awoke before my mind. Some days, such impacts break them. On others, the small soul’s only stunned, then Flash! Away.

There are tales of beasts who rescued people— a dolphin might float a tired swimmer, a wolf could choose to share its kill.

And some times, there’s nothing to be done. On your dog’s death bed, the vet will say “better to go a day early than a day late.”

But all the sparrows know: any day is a good day to die.

“If Yellow Didn’t Have a Name”

Sarah Beth Sweeney

If yellow didn’t have a name, I’d tell you how the daffodils dance, sun rays shine, and young girls in spring dresses line up for Sunday morning mass.

I’d squeeze the lemons that squish as the Colombian flags sway, and cupcakes with creamy frosting await the ravenous mouths of children. I’d boast that the canaries sing, while butter simmers, and aged wooden floors in summer cabins creak and groan like a pair of lovers.

Michael C. Paul “Quiet Joys”

Oh, wake me up to the smell of bacon and an oven full of baking biscuits, to the sweet singing of the little birds and shafts of golden, dusty, morning light cast across the checkered quilt and pillows, the bed so warm within a chilly room, along the walls the panels stained dark brown.

Let me curl up in the green armchair, to fall headlong into a wondrous book, escape to some far off, enchanted place, and lose myself in art or history, yet still to sit within that pool of light beneath the green-glass shaded reading lamp ensconced within my fortress of old books.

Then let me stay up after dinner late, sitting, quietly rocking on the porch hearing the crickets chirping in the woods and frogs, croaking and splashing in the brook, to share a quiet glass of wine with friends, with bread to slice and heavy slabs of cheese, while talking of old Greek philosophy.

Then off to bed and let me sleep in late. Tomorrow, let me do it all again.

Ramiro Valdes “Grasp”

You grasp the back

Of my neck, And pluck trenches

Out of my vertebrae

For your fingers

To sleep in. You root Yourself in me,

Dig out my veins

To irrigate

The landscape

Where you lie now.

Ivory aqueducts

Buried

Beneath

Feeding the ground above—

My bones

Old relics

You turn into

Pipes, That hymn Blood, Crimson earth.

Nolo Segundo “The Talking Ant”

You are surprised I can hear ants speak, but I can—just now I hear a very lonely ant calling out to the sky [which for an ant is the entire Universe] shouting to nothing, it seems, a stark and forlorn, Are you real?

Of course I could not speak to him directly, my voice could crush his frail tiny body, but I will give him clues from time to time as I do with all of you, my beloved ants…

“Swimming Lessons”

Xingyu Zhao

When I was eight, I remember asking my father

Over dinner how the world was created. His fingers the rafters of a cathedral, He props up a soup dumpling. Rivers Of vinegar between swollen tendons, He says the great turtle Ao lies still beneath The earth, his legs lopped off by Mother Goddess Nüwa to cocoon a crumbling sky. The dumpling bursts, seaspawn and seawrack Tumbling forth onto his neck, minced pork mist And diced chives. Laughing, he scoops them up, Swallows. I imagine the world sliding down His throat, drowning in the ocean of him. At night, he teaches me how to swim. Hands joining in prayer, I watch him dive Into dark waters, before he pushes my head Into the depths, sand and silt shooting up

My nose. My father pulls me out onto shore, Pulls out water from my convulsing lungs, Fish darting, dancing between the driftwood.

Now, the mist of memory clouds my sleep.

I dream about Canggu beach, tourists cradling Baby sea turtles, the sun like hyacinth huddling Against sky. Climbing out of plastic boxes, Bubbles in their nostrils, they paint valleys

On a copper shore with flippers. The crowd Crawls forward, coconut palms lashing air, Craning their necks in bleached light to watch Gingko-green heads bob in a starved blue. I let my turtle out, its eyes the pallid skin

Of the moon, its tiny body heaving across Mountains. It reaches the sea, looks up at me, Foam curdling on dimpled shell. I pick it up, Pressing its head under the waves. Sunset Drips down onto its bruised scales,

9• The Scop • 2026

And my father’s voice calls out Like the capillaries of a seashell: We, the reborn, sing on.

“The Distance Between Stars”

Abraham Aondoana

We grow up thinking the universe is crowded with the light.

Later, we learn it is mostly distance that makes the stars visible.

So much of love is this -vast quiet sewed abruptly and with dazzle.

A friend’s message arriving lonesomeness falls upon the scene. A hand finding yours in a dark theater. Someone remembering

Cithara Patra “weeds”

i pulled the weeds off your grave today yanking each piece out of the ground ripping the leaves and stems apart dirt caking my fingertips as i tear them apart

pulling them from the roots i tossed them aside to clean your headstone polished it, wiped it, scrubbed it down removed every little weed off

the story you told years ago.

Astronomers say we are composed of outbursts of old, dust that would not yield moulding.

Maybe that is why we still have to reach one another-seeing, through the chilly borderlands, a familiar fire.

And maybe meaning itself is nothing more than this:

that in an apathetic universe, we choose to shine upon one another nevertheless.

how dare they grow? how dare they live? how dare they make their home on ground that you never got to walk on? it isn’t fair. it’s never fair to see weeds instead of you

so now when i visit i destroy the weeds before laying flowers on your now empty but clean grave

Sean Cho A “Sun Bear Sonnet #3.5”

in the conservation documentary the narrator uses phrases like habitat fragmentation and human-wildlife conflict. which is to say the forest became a palm oil plantation. which is to say someone needed the land more than the sun bears did. i think about displacement: how the river near my childhood home got rerouted for the highway. how the papers called it development which sounds cleaner than destruction. the sun bear in the video is being released back into protected forest. they fitted it with a radio collar. they’ll track its movements, make sure it thrives. the camera cuts before we see if it remembers how to climb.

“Heat Lightning”

Nathan DeBar

I blink my eyes open and see the flash streak brightly to the ground, silently breathing out the suffocating humidity. The sky is ablaze with bruised clouds stretching out these gleaming fingers to their playmates’ cheeks under the lazy moon. “Heat lightning,”

I mutter softly to the faded rose holding my own hand. I want desperately to believe

the hot passions of wind stir up nature’s lust too. A solitary scout of rain shatters

my illusion. I stand, relieved, to cover the patio chair with its rain jacket and leave the rose to the cold, cold rain.

Myles Sampson Glass “My Love”

Love

Aside from death, love is one of life’s biggest mysteries.

Love is a concept so seemingly understood, while also remaining so elusive.

We try to catch on to what love really is, then come to find love is exclusive.

Love is left to our own interpretation.

To me…

Love is a choice. It can bring joy. It can destroy.

And contrary to popular belief, love is not a choice you make to feel a void.

To love is to live in the unknown, yet find comfort in it. It’s not something we find, but something that finds us when we’re ready.

Love’s complexity lies not in its definition, but in our inability to contain it.

Love Blinds

Its roots tangle in shadows, blooming where logic cannot tread.

Love Deafens

Its frugality and loose ends can get scrambled, causing us to put our faith in a mask.

Love Deceives

inhibiting us to see what’s right in front of us.

Love Destroys

Love can wear you down until you feel paralyzed, hanging on to a feeling that once transpired, leaving you tied in vain.

The voices of insecurity and doubt drowns the peace out of life, consuming all reason, blocking the sense of discernment.

Love Settles

Two souls, both imperfectly unique, share one goal… To love.

A silence so loud when your eyes lock on with one another, a stare that says more than anything we can speak.

A language only we can understand. When you’re in each other’s arms, the noise of the world ceases to exist, and time comes to a halt.

Love is unconditional

And that comes from one being. Lord, you see us at our weakest. Yet, still love us for who we are.

You loved us before we knew your name.

A love we cannot repay.

In the brokenness of our sins, you still choose to forgive. You’ve given everything in your sacrifice. You, on the cross. You bled for us, and with every drop you freed our souls.

If not aware… love can plague the mind, leading us to believe in a false reality, 2026 • The Scop • 12

Maudie Bryant “Tap the Rind”

They caught me at the door, stacked high in the produce aisle, sun-kissed skin glowing, small harvest moons carrying the weight of seasons.

He loved cantaloupe— his hands, sure and steady, tapping rinds, a safecracker waiting for tumblers to fall. At home, his knife slid easy through a dimpled hide, revealing sunrise flesh.

I touched one, my fingers hesitant, hopeful, as if I could summon him from its weight in my hand, the scent of his summers. And maybe I did.

At home, I’ll slice it open. I’ll eat every bite, let the juice run reckless down my chin, like I’m still the kid in his kitchen bathed in sunlight, laughing while he tells me this is the best one yet.

“Urban Foxes ”

John Stocks

Here the foxes are well fed by bearded naturalists, kind old ladies, plates of apples, scraps, nestle in the snow. Smug and sleek, their russet coats glisten with urban chic, as they strut arrogantly up the avenue, at all times of day.

Bold and brazen, cocky opportunists much sharper than their country cousins, streetwise slick brats, who rip black bin bags leave half-gnawed chicken ribs in the street.

It is only the indifferent vixens spoilt for suitors, who keep them in their place, smirk contemptuously as they squat and wail like lovesick fools, making their ‘yup, yup’, calls and chasing every teasing scream.

Marjorie Sheaff “My Mother’s Clover”

Eternal, timeless, everlasting sprouts slip through my stover. I didn’t plant or sow it, yet the meadow shrewdly grew; I’ll never liberate myself from out my mother’s clover.

Not quite a weed or flower, but a rug of green to cover-Her voice gleams like a will-o-wisp within the darkness true. Eternal, timeless, everlasting sprouts slip through my stover.

Lest I scramble with intent or wander as a rover, My footsteps leave a trail of pockmarks in this verdant hue. I’ll never liberate myself from out my mother’s clover.

The tender hum of yellow-jackets’ gossamer wings hover. At dawn, her presence stirs the fields and rustles loose the dew. Eternal, timeless, everlasting sprouts slip through my stover.

No matter where she migrates to, her mother will have drove her. I loathe the stench her fragrant blossoms once again imbue. I’ll never liberate myself from out my mother’s clover.

I ache and wish to separate and from your grasp eschew. But Mother, even in my wrath, I’d never plow you over. Eternal, timeless, everlasting sprouts slip through my stover-I’ll never liberate myself from out my mother’s view.

“All

the World’s a Stage”

Jae Kraengel

They say all the world’s a stage but I’m not quite sure where I fit on it.

I walk into auditions and I can feel the casting table measuring me with their eyes. Not my voice. Not my presence. No. They measure me in inches. In my hips. In my waist. In how much fabric it’ll take to “make me fit.” they’ve already cast me before I’ve even opened my mouth. I’ll be the funny best friend

With sharp one-liners and endless patience for somebody else’s happy ending, but never my own.

Or If I’m lucky enough, stereotypes and caricatures

All catered specifically to fit my ‘big personality’ Into their narrow-minded views

Will shape a role they deem me ‘worthy’ of

And suddenly, I’m Ursula. with her loud laugh and hips and tentacles that take up the stage. And booming voice

My body becomes menace, my power becomes grotesque because what else could a fat girl be, if not too much?

Or maybe I’m Juliet’s Nurse, Motherly and caring. Afterall my body read as nurturing, as safe, as if I was born rocking babies instead of chasing dreams of my own.

Or if I’m really lucky I’m Tracy Turnblad. The lead role in a musical I get to be funny, and caring, and talented And my character flaw is that I’m fat

• The Scop • 2026

My story is always my size.

About how “brave” I am to love myself.

And I’m dancing faster and cleaner than anyone else to prove I deserve a chance in the spotlight

Both in character and out because I hear a joke made by the choreographer about how surprising it is that I can even keep up. And I wonder

Do others have to apologize for their own existence on stage?

And then come the costume fittings. When I tug at a dress that cuts into my hips but droops at my waist.

I laugh in embarrassment

And whisper apologies to the designer: as if I need to apologize for my body’s refusal to match store standard pattern sizing.

But Joann’s is gone

And I’m still here, getting looked at

As if my body is wrong, as if I am wrong

My casting calls read like stereotypes stitched into fabric, and I wear them until the seams split.

Never allowed to be Ariel.

Never allowed to be Juliet. Never allowed to be Christine Daae.

Never the Ingenue

Never the girl someone would cross a battlefield for, because who could ever believe that love runs to me?

Instead I’m the grandma, The witch

The funny best friend

The stage is supposed to be magic, a place where you transform, where imagination makes the impossible true. But somehow, my body is the one thing they refuse to suspend their disbelief for. Too much space when I walk,

2026 • The Scop • 16

too many folds when I sit, too much of me to fit into the love story, But never enough of me to be taken seriously.

Because here’s the secret no director will say out loud: We’re allowed to be adored by the audience, but never by the leading man. We can make them laugh, but not make them want. We can carry a scene, but never carry the love story.

Instead, they hand me one note jokes about my body, and call it a three dimensional character. They hand me roles that ironically flatten me, and call it representation.

So when the world tries to stuff me back into the box of “grandma,” “witch,” “funny best friend,” I step out.

I spread wide across the stage and say this body is not an obstacle for you to overcome. This body is my art piece. This body is made to love and be loved.

And maybe someday, when the lights come up, a girl like me will be allowed to be the leading lady not despite her size, but because she took the space they tried to deny her and made it hers.

Because all the world’s a stage, And I am not sorry for how much of it I take up.

17 • The Scop • 2026

“Valises”

James B. Nicola

Some lug an invisible valise that’s lightweight vinyl and just about empty so that when a gale storm comes to knock it out of their hands if they hold on tight enough all the wind does is lift the thing into the air waist high or so and spin the unsuspecting soul around a couple of times and you would swear they are expressing themself with pirouettes or other fancy dance steps or possibly performance art.

Others’ valises are made of sturdier stuff and stoked with blocks of lead or bricks presoaked in poison fumes so when the storm comes (and it always does) it won’t raise the thing but fumes leak out through the porous canvas and into the air we all have to breathe who are anywhere near the soul with baggage agitated and arms tired.

Yesterday a friend of mine, a dear soul really, was in just such a situation. I started to sense the fumes and almost even saw the invisible valise for a second or two and so I said Drop the bag, you don’t need it! I said it three times till I was heard.

And what do you know, they dropped the thing.

And the wind stopped.

Their arms were dead tired from lugging their baggage for so many years but at last they’re free and have begun giving great two-armed hugs to all of us around who now breathe sweet air.

Oh if only I had both arms free.

Stephen Barile “The Train Came Down Tulare Street”

When the train came Down the middle of Tulare Street

In the late afternoons,

The rotating headlamp, in its day, Was so bright and intense That the light was frightening. Like looking into a god’s-eye, Or a whirling demon, or a fiery orb Coming in this direction.

Because, in Fresno, California, A train trundled down The middle of Tulare Street

For 80 painstaking years. A diesel locomotive

Hauling a dozen boxcars Of freshly-packed fruits And vegetables grown In the cultivated fields Around the farm town.

Leaving from the packing-sheds, Federal Fruit Distributors, And Edwards Packing Co. Inc., On the south-side Of Tulare at First Street.

The Southern Pacific Pollasky Line Departed from the depot, going East in the middle of the street.

Marcus Pollasky, a lawyer, a fraud, And president of the Pollasky Railroad, When he reappeared in Fresno in 1891 With a brilliant idea of building

A trans-Sierra railroad, originating From the Central Valley town of Fresno.

Secretly paid by the much despised Southern Pacific Railroad, sent to persuade The rich among Fresnan’s to begin building A railroad with their own money, By letting them in “on the ground floor.”

From Pollasky’s lavish and majestic home Near where Tulare Street turned east, Adjacent the train depot at First Street, He entertained and inveigled the wealthy. Track laying began in 1891, the route Coursed out East Tulare Street, continued On a right-of-way along McKenzie Avenue.

Railroad tracks came first To the east/west Tulare Street alignment, A two-lane oiled-dirt and asphalt road Was constructed around the tracks As the municipality grew eastward Steadily toward the distant Clovis Avenue. Once he was exposed, after the rail-line Reached the tiny settlement of Pollasky [Clovis] He disappeared to “parts unknown.”

For five city blocks, to Ninth Street, The train came down the street, Then the tracks turned northeast Crossing Cedar, (Twelfth Street), At East Ball Avenue, on to Clovis Avenue And north to Tarpey, Clovis, and Friant.

The city of Fresno tore out the rails, Sold them for scrap, in the early 1970’s And widened Tulare Street to four lanes. Raised the speed limit to 40 mph. In its place, east/west traffic

On Tulare Street was no longer disrupted By a freight train in the street.

“Asset in Theory, Liability in Practice”

Clementine Mwefu

Every Morning, I wake up –I push myself too hard. Because I am built for hard days, I am not looking for easy days.

When my feet touch the ground in the morning – I hope to be an asset; many times, I end up Being a liability.

Life is hard and then death comes. Appreciate the present moment – because those days of feeling like an asset and liability –will come just be resilient.

Some moment hit where you feel helpless, and tired –not just physically tired but souly tired.

Jaanu, you are souly tired not because you are not able to Practice generosity, righteous living, or advancing the kingdomBut because we are spiritually bankrupted.

“Laying Your Ghost”

Thomas Phalen

What point to start this useless empty day

Without you, save the you who haunts my head?

The haunting that defies your ghost I lay The haunting that deceives me you’re not dead.

No mere oak carven box of ashes, no,

But your warm hands and face in flesh I see From me now plundered for all time I know Save as sweet ghost you can’t come back to me.

I’m told you live forever in my heart

But I don’t have forever you to give. If in my heart you live, then you will part When this lost man decides more he can’t live.

I’d end the haunting now, Love, if I could But I’d take you out with me if I should.

21 • The Scop • 2026

End Medias Res

S. M. Rosen

Marc Janssen “IN CONCLUSION III”

And with that the day graciously folds itself, like a small and delicate origami into dusk, where the colors are slowly one by one replaced by shadows and you, thin sweater clutched about your bare shoulders, shiver, and walk slowly down the gravel trail to the house whose lights, just now, look like owl eyes scanning the lawn for a frozen and isolated mouse. Seeing you pick your way I had to write a poem for you,

Now that love, faded Tattered, a little ripped Is seized by wind-

I remember your Smile and a laugh not so Very far away-

I watched our future

Memories evaporate Like September’s leaves.

The sun has fled into the waiting arms of the Pacific as I walk out across the packed sand, a nameless beach, Lincoln City somewhere behind me, something close to eternity ahead, though it just looks like waves, grains of sand moving north and south; the sand has been here forever, only this forever had a starting point and, in time, this forever will too disappear like the image of a white sweater behind a closing door.

“Promenade”

Sara Winslow

It’s going to be an awesome night. Audrey glides down the walnut staircase, fingers skimming the polished banister. Her other hand holds a fistful of satin, making sure her silver dress doesn’t catch on her sparkly high heels.

Mom stands below, clicking photos. Dad must be outside, waiting to snag Thomas between the limo and their front door. To give him the talk that fathers give their daughters’ prom dates. “Her curfew is midnight,” he’ll say. “Sharp.” Dad will grip Thomas by the shoulder as he adds, “Her dress stays on, young man. All night.”

Already smiling for the photos, Audrey suppresses a giggle. Dad will say all this to Thomas in the tone she can almost remember him using to scold her when she was four. That time she slipped out the front door and walked into the street. Right after he scooped her up in his arms. Right before he said, “I love you, sweetheart. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Audrey can’t wait to dance with Thomas, hopes they’ll play that Taylor Swift song. The one she thinks of as their song. She wonders why Thomas and Dad haven’t come in yet. She’s not really worried. Thomas is never late. And Dad has always been there for her. Like that time he taught her to ride a bike. She conjures up the details from that day. Her hot pink bicycle with its training wheels, streamers flowing from the handlebars. Her father’s hand steady on her back as he jogged alongside. The pavement still damp from the morning’s rain.

Dad, her biggest champion. Any second now, he’ll come through the door, his arm around Thomas. Thomas will whistle his sexy whistle. Dad will say, “Sweetheart. You’re so beautiful.” Won’t he?

Audrey reaches the bottom step and sees concrete, not walnut. She releases a fistful of stiff gray material. The hem of her Goodwill dress skims the black heels borrowed from her mother.

Mom waits by the maple tree to take photos. Thomas pulls up to their apartment building, driving his parents’ Jetta.

Audrey doesn’t need a grand staircase, a satin dress, sparkly shoes, a limo. She wants

25 • The Scop • 2026 to believe she doesn’t need a father, either.

Mom wraps her arms around Audrey, careful not to muss her makeup. Audrey breathes in her mother’s vanilla perfume. Here is the parent who kept her from running into traffic. The one who bought her a secondhand bike and taught her to ride it. Mom’s the one who has always been there for her. Her biggest champion. Audrey knows that a better daughter would just be thankful.

But it’s the happy times like tonight when she feels her father’s absence like a missing part of her own body. Times like this when it guts her that he disappeared before she was even born.

“Look at you, my lovely girl,” Mom says, pulling back from the hug and dabbing at her eyes with her fingertips.

Thomas walks toward them, looking good in his rented black tux, white shirt, shiny shoes. He whistles his sexy whistle. He hands her a pink rose.

Audrey stands up a little straighter, arranges a smile for the photos. Tries to convince herself it’s going to be an awesome night.

“No Home to Roost”

S. Mubashir Noor

My scaly feet ached from zigzagging over cutting stones. No-man’s-land was no place for a rooster on the run.

A mad-eyed soldier and a street urchin with a slingshot wanted me dead. Was it because I’d asked, “Got any millet seeds to spare?”

How could I tell if they’d understood my crowing—or if it was my imagination? After that, my pleas for reason fell on deaf ears.

Maybe the three-eyed crow who’d lured me here with promises of corn was right. Something about the world was strange. The wind blew the wrong way, whispering in an unknown language.

Any other afternoon, a cock-of-the-walk like me would’ve outrun these chumps without breaking a sweat. But this godforsaken earth skinned my legs and blunted my spurs with every dash and swerve.

The bare country was the shade of acid rust, rolling endlessly until it bowed before the Hindu Kush mountains or slipped under miles of thrumming barbed wire on the Pak–Afghan border.

Huff, huff—the infernal urchin had nicked my comb with a razor flint; the soldier’s bullets had nearly torn my head off and sullied my auburn-and-cream plumage.

The kid carried a weight on his shoulders that belied his thin limbs. When he hopped, his kameez looked bulkier than it should have.

I’d promised the missus and chicks I’d bring home dinner, but unless my luck flipped, these two might be picking my bones come nightfall.

Panting, the soldier bent and cupped his knees. “Wraksha. Get lost, mutt!”

The boy scoffed and gave him the bird. “De khra zo. Hand over the rifle, son of a donkey. Let’s see you dance!”

Aha. Could I turn them on each other and slip away? I could dive into the foxhole nearby, but that risked a face-off with my thieving nemesis.

I scratched the turf and hissed. Same as a cockfight—one won, the other turned into a bloody pulp.

I scampered to the saddle between two hillocks; they followed and attacked.

I tripped and cracked my beak; my tail feathers frayed in the dirt. Still, I persevered.

My heart drummed against my ribs, each beat daring me to prove I was still a winner.

“Catch me if you can, losers,” I squawked, kicking dust and bobbing my neck.

They froze and gawked.

Ugh, again? Did they really understand me, or was it another coincidence?

The soldier crept toward me with small steps. The urchin was carefree—his slingshot pulled back, a wide grin on his lips.

Wait for it, I thought, flexing my wings. I had to time my leap just—huh?

The boy’s grin had snapped into a grimace. Blood spurted from his neck. His slingshot fell as he gurgled, his eyes all white.

His clothes were dyed crimson when he crumpled to the turf.

A few gasps later, he was gone.

A shiver seized me. Not a bullet’s whizz nor a recoil’s crack. How?

The soldier sat cross-legged, calm, pistol in hand with a long muzzle. He looked at me, weary, and waved me away.

His eyes sagged, lips parted like the last twig of kindling on a dying fire.

Oh … I wasn’t his target. “What the hell did you do?” I shouted.

His mouth formed an O. “Ah, so it wasn’t the heat playing tricks.”

“It wasn’t supposed to end this way!”

He pointed at the boy, whose kameez had ridden up to his belly. Beneath it, a thick,

27 • The Scop • 2026

dark vest—the kind that goes kaboom.

“I know Judgment Day’s near, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to blow people up,” he said.

Then he shuffled toward his watchtower, his head hanging low.

A red fox emerged from a burrow, keeping its distance, wryly smiling.

I stared at the boy. Why were they dying so young? How could any brood let its chicks die in vain?

The fox padded toward the corpse, ready to chomp flesh. He was bigger than I’d imagined—but I could take him.

My wings fluttered; I screeched at full tilt.

Our gazes locked. It bared its teeth and knotted its brow.

Metal tasted across my tongue. I had maybe a minute of brawling left before my legs gave out.

This hadn’t been a fair fight. The kid was someone’s chick too. No matter how doomed, no chick deserved to rot in no-man’s-land.

Daniel Ditty “Infraction”

The turn was tricky. That needs to be said. A complicated intersection with an unprotected left and streets that didn’t meet square. And there was a hill and a bump and oncoming traffic could just appear out of nowhere. The light was hard. Fall, late afternoon. Glare everywhere. The sun in your eyes wherever you looked. So she didn’t see them and she wasn’t sure anyone would have. Maybe it was the glare. Or maybe the side mirror obscured her vision because they weren’t in front of her; they were to her left, in a blindspot.

But there were no cars coming and she had a green light and so she went, barely slowing down.

She wasn’t on her phone. She knew that. She wasn’t on it. Certainly, she was rushed. Because of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, banks were closed but everything else was open and she had just closed a deal on Saturday and the buyers were getting anxious. She needed to get them papers to sign. A place to put their energy or they’d get antsy and they’d walk. So she was definitely thinking about that and she needed to call Carole and make sure that everything was in order for Tuesday. She needed to text her but she wasn’t on her phone. She was just rushing.

The car stopped all on its own. Tires screeched. The steering wheel shuddered. The car braked hard and beeped and her sunglasses fell off her face. It was a new car with features and so it stopped all by itself. She was scared, startled and panicked. Disoriented, like being woken by an earthquake.

She saw the father. She saw his hand on the hood. Saw his ridiculous floral shirt, red and blue and yellow. She saw his face but not his eyes because he wore sunglasses too and his face, with his eyes unseen, was stoic. She saw him fall. Because the car didn’t stop soon enough.

But she didn’t see the children until she got out.

She was barefoot when she jumped out. She had just gotten a pedicure, celebrating the sale, so she had been wearing flip flops but she had kicked those off and they were lost on the floor of the car somewhere. The pavement was cold.

They were all scattered. The little boy was toward the curb, prone on his stomach. The father, right in front of the car. The girl, another ten feet up the street, on her side, fetal. They were all moving. Right away, they were all moving. And there was no blood.

The father was standing, already on his feet. He got up so fast. Almost as if embarrassed to have been on the ground. Then he froze and he looked to the little boy and then to the girl and he was stuck for a moment, not knowing which way to go. Needing to decide something he had never had to consider before.

A woman on a bicycle stopped and set her bicycle against a pole. She wore an enormous, bright yellow windbreaker and a white helmet that didn’t sit straight. She went to the girl and so the father went to the little boy. No one was crying.

Traffic resumed. It had paused for a moment but not for long. Just enough time to recalculate, then start again, indifferent. Cars wove around them. Wove around the family, scattered in the street, and wove around her car, stopped sideways in the crosswalk. Flowed around them as if they had always been there.

She heard herself saying, Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Repeating it at odd intervals until she realized that maybe it could be construed as an admission of culpability and she remembered, vaguely, being advised by someone to never offer such a thing.

The father walked the boy to the sidewalk. You didn’t hit your head, did you? He sat the boy beneath a fence. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head? People were coming out of their houses, milling about, asking questions, hands on chins, concerned and disapproving.

The cyclist insisted the father call the police and he did. He stood on the side of the road with his cell phone to his ear and answered the questions from dispatch. Everyone was fine; she heard him say it. Then they waited.

She moved her car. Pulled it over onto the sidewalk, assuming the situation granted her some sort of exemption, a minor infraction obscured by a larger one. She retrieved her information from the glove box. She knew exactly where it was–tucked carefully in a faux leather folio, expired but accurate. She presented it to the father. She held it out like an offering, arms straight, palms up. The father seemed unsure. Maybe take a picture, she suggested. He fumbled with his phone and snapped a photo but said nothing.

The cyclist left. The neighbors returned to their homes. Nothing more to be learned, nothing to be done. She was left alone, standing along a roadside fence with the father and his children, her hazard lights showering them over and over again with their yellow light. The family sat in a huddle on the ground. The father, leaning back against the fence, a child on each side leaning into him, an arm draped over each of them, as if they were sharing a book or watching a movie. All of their faces variations on the same theme.

They did not talk, not even to each other.

The silence was heavy and nearly impossible for her to bear.

Do you live near here? she asked.

I’m sorry, he said. I’m too angry to talk to you right now.

I understand, she said. You’re probably in shock.

I’m not in shock; I’m angry, he said.

The police arrived. They blocked traffic, carelessly, and filled out reports. They took her information and asked questions. Drugs? No. Alcohol? No. Phone? Definitely not.

And then the police left and the father and his children walked away, continuing whatever journey this incident had interrupted.

Surely, he was still angry but perhaps he felt lucky as well. Lucky that the worst had not happened. Lucky that this terrible accident had left them with nothing more than some bumps and some scrapes. Maybe they even laughed on the way home. The boy saying that he couldn’t wait to tell his friends he had been hit by a car. That no one would believe him. Maybe the father after he called the children’s mother felt some relief. The retelling being the last step of the whole ordeal. It could be forgotten now.

But maybe later the girl’s ankle swelled and the pain brought her to tears and they spent the evening in the ER, chasing x-rays and scans and pain meds. And maybe a week after that the little boy had a mysterious stomach ache and the father couldn’t shake the fear that this was the result of some unrecognized, internal injury caused by the accident and he wished every minute that he had said, Yes, send an ambulance. We need to be sure, until finally the child’s fever broke and his smile returned. And maybe for weeks after that day the father couldn’t sleep. First, because of his bruised and swollen hip and his bloodied ankle that stuck to the sheets. But, later, after those have healed, it is the realization that despite all his best efforts to protect his children, it is only chance that keeps them safe. And it is that truth that haunts him and scares away his sleep.

And, perhaps, every morning when the father drives home after dropping the girl at school, he sees the woman’s face and her name on the bus stop bench that she has purchased to promote her real estate business. The father sees her face, smiling and confident and unblinking, and he is reminded anew that the walls of his world are flimsy and that he has no more reinforcement to offer than crossed fingers and prayers in which he cannot force himself to believe.

“Shooting Cats”

Ty Cronkhit

Last week my roommate, Slim, left on a business trip. Since then his girl has taken to wearing thong underwear and half-shirts around the house and I’ve taken to watching her. The first two nights she paused at my bedroom door before going to bed, then on the third I left it open just a little wider than usual. She came in and explained that she used to have this friend that gave her backrubs and it always led to something more.

“Do you want to give me a backrub?” she asked.

Well, I did want to give her a backrub, but I got this kinda loyalty to my friends that I don’t mess around with their girlfriends. These things always get out, and I just didn’t want to have that happen because it could cause a lot of friction between Slim and me, and then I’d have to find another place to live, and it would just be an all-around bummer in the end.

All this I explained to her as I massaged her bare back, half-shirt lying on my bedroom floor.

“You’re probably right.” She rolled onto her side and fell asleep. I curled up behind her, my arm over her side, my head sleepless and wishing she would’ve argued the point.

Yesterday morning Slim and I sat outside on the balcony shooting at cats with his new BB gun.

“Hey, see if you can hit the back window of my car,” I said. It was raining.

He took careful aim and shattered the back window.

“Hmm,” he said.

Later in the day I returned from somewhere and noticed the neighbors milling about my car.

“Do you know who did this?”

“Who lives in apartment Four C?”

“Who is Slim Fittle?”

They shot questions at me like BBs.

“That guy in Four C, he busted my car window and yours too it looks like.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” I said and left as I had warrants out for my arrest, and it looked like a situation that might eventually involve the cops.

Late last night, early this morning I came back, drunk. I crawled up the stairs and Slim opened the door for me. He too was drunk. He started asking me questions about what I told the cops and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” I said.

But he was angry and spoke of the police and stuff and I thought he might be jealous because I smoke cigarettes with his girl every morning and slept half-naked in the same bed with her while he was away. But that wasn’t it at all, he explained, barely able to hold his tongue inside his throat and his face reddening as quick as fire, pint of Canadian Hunter almost gone. You told the cops I shot your car window out!

“I did not!”

“Liar! You did and I know it because they told me your name!”

“Listen. I didn’t even see any fucking cops, okay, because I left because I’ve got these warrants…”

“You did too! You told them it was me you bastard!”

“Fuck you” and suddenly there was a ringing in my ears and I couldn’t hear anything else even though his lips were moving and his face looked surprised and the red had gone away leaving pale white and drunken confusion behind. The blackness closed in on me and I fell onto the couch until I realized he hit me with his empty whiskey bottle and shattered it on my head. Mad with shards of glass between my teeth and cheap whiskey in my throat I went at him like a mad dog and he cried for his girlfriend to come help because I was killing him.

She did and saw that it was me bleeding profusely from the head, not him. She cleaned the wound while he paced on the balcony and I wondered what had just happened.

Later we apologized.

• The Scop • 2026

“Dead Blank Space”

S. M. Rosen

I never noticed my skeleton while it was whole; I certainly notice it now that it’s broken. I remember the treetops that were above my head more than I remember the fall itself—the flash, crash, and horrifying realisation that my vertebrae were rubbing, clicking inside of me. I prefer to remember the trees.

My body makes itself known now. Whatever nonchalance I once managed to curate towards it is gone. What’s left? Well, I’m not quite sure how to articulate it.

‘What are you having?’ Asks the man running the cafe.

Osteoarthritis, broke his wrist two years ago.

‘Flat white, please,’ I reply.

‘Won’t be a minute,’ he says. I sit by the window.

Your body protects you from the pain. Numbness spreads like shockwaves from the injury. The doctor said I was lucky, that the nerves I crushed weren’t in my spinal cord, that I’d gain the feeling back one day. She didn’t say when.

The man sets the coffee in front of me.

His wrist aches more than his joints today, maybe it’s going to rain.

‘Thank you,’ I respond.

I lay still for a month after the fall, waiting for my bones to knit themselves back together. I discovered that, in a pinch, I could go 12 hours without a wee. That a pack of beef jerky and a bag of crisps could keep me full. That the only person I could rely on to take care of me was me.

‘May I sit here?’

Vitamin D deficiency. No osteomalacia, yet.

I nod. The young woman sits.

I ponder the clouds through the glass. We all have a vitamin D deficiency this time of year, anyway.

My chair pushes against the dull fuzz in my back.

I have a sip of my flat white.

The doctor showed me an x-ray of my spine after I fell a year ago. When I pointed out the fractures in my vertebrae, she asked if I was a doctor too. Not that kind, I explained.

‘Terrible weather,’ I venture to the young woman sitting beside me.

‘Hm?’ She replies.

‘Would be nice to get some sun,’ I continue.

‘Mm.’

No use. But I knew this already. I go back to my coffee.

The only person who can take care of her is her.

There’s an irony in an archaeologist breaking her back on the job. I’ve seen enough old bones with the same injuries. A cracked vertebra, a crushed vertebral body. It could have given me a new outlook on my research, I suppose. But I can’t go back until I heal, they said. So, I get my flat white and watch the passersby instead.

A greying man passes the window. He’s leaning on a silver cane. But even if he weren’t, I’d still know something was wrong.

Crack in his acetabulum. That’s a serious hip injury—ah, a fragility fracture. Osteoporosis.

I watch him disappear down the street.

Some say that if an artist has no outlet to create, they eventually lose their mind. You can’t suppress the need to make art, it just sublimates—into some flavour of misery, mostly. I wonder if academics are the same. A PhD in my pocket, only qualified to drink coffee.

A family walks by.

The little girl has a broken toe.

35 • The Scop • 2026

Dad carries her pink rucksack.

He has a throwing-injury in his shoulder.

I smile. He carries her bag anyway.

Some say that if you lose your sight, your hearing eventually improves to compensate. Of these two explanations for what is happening inside of me, I hope it’s the latter.

‘Sorry, love.’ The edges of my injury tingle as an older woman pushes past, pressing the chair into my back. Dull fuzz around dead, blank space.

‘That’s all right,’ I respond.

And it truly is all right. My skeleton tells me so.

Nothing wrong in her bones. Fantastic! She could live to 100!—Oh.

A young woman follows close behind. Round face beaming. She is beautiful, and beautifully happy.

More than one skeleton inside her—

The women sit.

Oh.

‘How are you feeling today? Any more kicking?’ her mother asks.

Oh, no.

‘I feel absolutely perfect.’ She is so happy. ‘No kicking though.’

Oh. Please, no.

The first time my skeleton spoke was the day after the fall. Bedridden, miserable, and dosed-up on codeine. I never used to be like this. Even when piecing old bones together, I never thought of them as something…alive. But my skeleton speaks now, and I am compelled to listen.

‘He doesn’t move much,’ beautiful, round-faced mother chatters.

Osteogenesis imperfecta. Brittle bone disease, rare.

‘But I know he’ll be running around in a blink.’

His bones—I can’t—oh God.

I feel my skeleton shifting and shouting inside me. Screaming that something is wrong. What do I say? What can I say? Nothing. The only person who can take care of her is her. There’s bile in my throat. I dart to the door. The only person who can take care of her is her.

I hurry onto the busy street, away from mother and her dying child. The crowd heaves around me.

Eburnation. Osteomyelitis. Colles fracture.

Bodies press against me and my skeleton screams.

Scoliosis. Hallux-valgus. Osteophyte.

I feel it all. Every pinch, every ache.

Kyphosis. Spondylitis. Jones fracture. Gout.

Everywhere except the dead, blank space in my back.

The rain is sudden, heavy, and cold. The crowd thins, searching for cover. I stand alone on the wet pavement, my bones quiet but stomach still churning.

‘Excuse me,’ a voice says. ‘Do you need help?’

‘Me?’ I don’t look around. ‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

I’m silent.

‘Just thought I’d check, seeing how you’re standing in the middle of the road.’

I turn. A young man smiles at me. He’s handsome, with kind eyes.

Neoplastic disease, osteosarcoma. Goddamn it. Goddamn it all.

37 • The Scop • 2026

‘Whoa, hey. I can help! That’s what we’re here for, right, to take care of one another?’

I am weeping. Dead, blank space throbbing.

‘Can you tell me what’s wrong?’

‘What’s wrong?’ I choke. ‘You want to know what’s wrong?’

‘Yeah, I do,’ he replies.

‘Okay. Your leg, just below your right knee. Can’t walk far, keeps you up at night? Get it scanned. It’s cancer. Now go ahead and lock me up or something.’

‘How did you—‘

‘Just get it scanned. You’ll see.’

‘Okay, I will. Thank you,’

‘What?’

‘Thank you.’

‘I don’t—‘

‘My leg’s a mess. Has been for ages. I’ll do what you say and get it scanned. Thank you.’

‘You will?’

‘If you’re right, you just saved my life.’

I never noticed my skeleton before it was broken; I certainly notice it even now that it’s healed. It only whispers, but I hear it. That we are human and connected. That we are held together imperfectly, impermanently, like the fragile joints between our bones. That dead, blank space only stays empty when you keep it that way.

“The Ironing Line”

Terry Sanville

My father taught me how to shave and I’d slice my peach-fuzzed cheeks with a Gillette safety razor. My mother taught me how to make a bed with taut blankets and perfect hospital corners. And my sister taught me how to dance, nights listening to the radio air late ’50s tunes and stumbling around her bedroom. Nobody taught me how to iron.

In my freshman year at college I lived in the dorms, studied architecture 18 hours a day, and only dreamed about having a girlfriend. But Saturday afternoons in early autumn, I’d haul my guitar out onto the lawn, and in the shade of a California sycamore, struggle to learn tunes from my Weavers songbook. I was shy, terrible at small talk, but enthusiastic about music and the emerging folk-rock sound. One Saturday, Liliana walked over and plopped down next to me.

“Have you been playing long?” she asked.

“If you’ve heard me, you know I haven’t.”

She grinned and stared at the open pages of the songbook. “We always sang at home, mostly in Spanish. None of those songs are in books.”

“Can you play guitar?”

“A little.”

I handed over my nylon-stringed wonder. She sang a ballad in a minor key, her fingers struggling to cleanly play the chords.

“Looks like we both need to learn,” I said. “But you’ve got a wonderful voice.”

“Thanks. Me and my sisters harmonize; it comes naturally to us.”

“That’s cool.”

She sat quietly while I noodled around on the guitar, showing off my meager repertoire. I quickly ran out of things to play and words to speak.

Finally, she stood and examined her skirt for grass stains. “Well, I’ve got to go study for a Home Ec exam on Monday.”

“Ah . . . can you come by next Saturday?”

“I will.”

She disappeared into the girls’ dormitory. For Saturdays after that, I’d drag my guitar out onto the lawn and Liliana would join me. When it rained or got too cold, we’d move into my dorm’s lounge and hang out near the piano. We never really dated, me being too consumed by my architecture studies to make time for a proper girlfriend. But then she kissed me and I kissed her back. It was almost enough to make me change majors.

Shortly after I met Liliana we were ensconced on the lawn when I noticed a line of guys forming at the side door of the girls’ dorm. Most clutched bunches of shirts and pants on hangers.

I pointed. “What’s that all about?”

She chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a bunch of guys having their girlfriends iron their clothes. Talk about sexist.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Let me explain. A few of my sister Home Ec majors see their degree as undergraduate studies in marriage. And ironing their boyfriends’ shirts and trousers is one signal of their intent. Plus the guys are too lazy to learn.”

“Ah . . . I’ve never learned. That’s why I’m always wrinkled.”

Her face darkened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that you’re lazy. I kind of like your wrinkled look . . . sort of depression-era drifter.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for.” I laughed.

“Well, women’s liberation sure hasn’t reached this campus,” Liliana said and sighed. “And they still have pinning ceremonies in our lounge.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Not important. But . . . but I can iron some of your shirts if you want me to . . . no strings attached. It might make a better impression on your professors, show that you’re serious.”

“Okay, maybe a few. You don’t think your dorm mates will get the wrong idea?”

“I don’t care. They’re already jealous that I’m friendly with a guitar player. They think Chicanas should only date Braceros.”

I smiled at Liliana. “Are you Chicana?”

That’s when she kissed me.

The next week I brought three shirts on hangers to our music session and she said that she’d have them ready in a couple of days. “Just bang on the side door and ask the RA to call me down. There may be a line.”

“You sure this isn’t . . . demeaning?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if it was.”

“Fair enough.”

When I arrived on Monday afternoon at the side door, the RA gave me a strange look. I’m not sure if it was disbelief that I would be seeing a beautiful girl, or that Liliana could be dating me. But when Liliana showed up with my shirts, the RA stared at us from her doorway and I could almost hear the gossip forming that would travel through their dorm like a virus.

“Thanks for the shirts,” I said.

Liliana looked pleased.

I held one up to admire it, then the next and the next.

“So you’ve noticed?” she said.

“Ah . . . I’m not sure.” I didn’t want to be critical. But the right sleeves of each shirt had not been ironed and were very wrinkled.

“I know you’ve noticed.”

“Well . . . yeah.”

“I’ve left the right sleeves un-ironed, just to remind you of who you are, my depression-era drifter.”

“Well . . . next week, leave the left sleeves wrinkled. Us hobos tend to lean to the left.”

“I will . . . and that burn mark on the back of one shirt was already there.”

I grinned. “Sure it was.”

Other doors along the hallway of the girls’ dorm had opened and heads popped out then withdrew, like prairie dogs from their dens. Liliana offered me her lips to kiss, which I gladly did. I could hear the giggles and sighs from the covert onlookers. There were three guys behind

41 • The Scop • 2026

me, waiting their turn to pick up or drop off ironing. They snickered, probably figuring that I wouldn’t make it through freshman year before doing something stupid that would take me out of the game.

But what took me out of the game was the game itself. I barely made it through the first and second years of college with really bad grades, too much time smoking grass, and a gnawing feeling that I didn’t belong. By then, Liliana had moved off-campus into an apartment with three of her girlfriends and I’d rented a converted tool shed on Casa Street for ten bucks a month. We hardly saw each other. My guitar gathered dust hanging from a wall. I struggled with difficult classes and long hours in the design labs. I’d grown a beard, not by intent but from neglect. My wrinkled existence had grown with a vengeance.

By the Summer of Love, 1967, I’d had enough. I ran into Liliana in the meal hall the day I’d decided to drop out. She was with this guy who I guessed was her boyfriend.

“I’m quitting school,” I blurted.

“Really? You think that’s a good idea?”

“No, but . . . but this place is driving me crazy. I know I can’t last another two years.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“I have family and friends back east, thought I’d hitchhike there and see them, maybe check out the World’s Fair in Montreal.”

“So, you really will become my wrinkled drifter.”

“Something like that . . . at least for a while.”

“You know, if you’re not in school, they’ll draft you and you’ll end up in Vietnam.”

“Yeah . . . but I can’t do this any more. Maybe the war will end before they catch up with me . . . and there’s always Canada.”

She frowned and her lips trembled. “Well . . . good luck and stay safe.”

We hugged, a long hug. The boyfriend shifted from foot to foot and looked pissed. I couldn’t blame him.

Liliana proved right. I didn’t drift for long before I got drafted and sent to Nam. I spent most of my year near the DMZ, shoving H.E. rounds into 105mm Howitzers and hoping the booms wouldn’t destroy my hearing. But my guitar and I survived. I came back to The World and got a job with a plumbing contractor in my hometown, in the great San Joaquin Valley. After appren-

by the hundreds, nothing fancy, but families seemed to like them. The firm grew and we expanded into SoCal markets and went upscale.

I was able to avoid the suit and tie crowd for a while. But my knowledge of architecture and building plans eventually got me promoted to field supervisor. I ended up spending most of my time managing people and not laying pipes.

Five kids, three grandkids, two divorces, and almost five decades of plumbing later, I fled the San Joaquin and retired to a studio apartment in my coastal college town. I became one of the almost-invisible old men that frequent outdoor cafés, bars, park benches, movie matinees, free concerts, art exhibits, and occasionally the senior center. A sidewalk café along a downtown street became my favorite spot. I drank Mexican mochas, read books, and played guitar for tips and conversation. After half a century, I wasn’t half bad.

One hot August afternoon I sipped an iced coffee and played Gershwin’s Summertime in the umbrellaed shade of a curbside table. The tune was complicated enough that I had to make sure my stiffening fingers hit all the right notes. I heard the scrape of the metal chair across the sidewalk next to me. I finished the tune and looked up. A large woman balanced precariously on the diminutive seat.

“You’ve really improved,” she said.

“Thanks . . . ah, have you heard me play before?”

“In another lifetime.”

“So, do . . . do I know you?”

“Well, you’re still wrinkled as hell and could use some ironing. Have you been drifting all this time?”

My throat tightened. With a shaking hand I reached for my coffee and took a big gulp, buying myself a few seconds to recover. “Well, my wrinkled clothes now blend with the rest of me. Sorry, Liliana, I didn’t recognize you. In my mind’s eye, you’re a beautiful college sophomore.”

She laughed, a deep contralto sound. “I’m neither in college nor beautiful. But thanks for remembering me like that.”

“You graduated and stayed here in town?”

“Oh, hell no. In ’69 I went to work for Cesar Chavez and the UFW. I was a liaison between Cesar’s inner circle and the press. I left in the early ’70s when the infighting got too bad, moved to LA and worked for General Mills in the Betty Crocker division. I ended up marrying one of the guys I supervised. So . . . I heard that you were in Vietnam.”

• The Scop • 2026

ticing for a couple years I became a journeyman plumber. We worked on new homes being built by the hundreds, nothing fancy, but families seemed to like them. The firm grew and we expanded into SoCal markets and went upscale.

I was able to avoid the suit and tie crowd for a while. But my knowledge of architecture and building plans eventually got me promoted to field supervisor. I ended up spending most of my time managing people and not laying pipes.

Five kids, three grandkids, two divorces, and almost five decades of plumbing later, I fled the San Joaquin and retired to a studio apartment in my coastal college town. I became one of the almost-invisible old men that frequent outdoor cafés, bars, park benches, movie matinees, free concerts, art exhibits, and occasionally the senior center. A sidewalk café along a downtown street became my favorite spot. I drank Mexican mochas, read books, and played guitar for tips and conversation. After half a century, I wasn’t half bad.

One hot August afternoon I sipped an iced coffee and played Gershwin’s Summertime in the umbrellaed shade of a curbside table. The tune was complicated enough that I had to make sure my stiffening fingers hit all the right notes. I heard the scrape of the metal chair across the sidewalk next to me. I finished the tune and looked up. A large woman balanced precariously on the diminutive seat.

“You’ve really improved,” she said.

“Thanks . . . ah, have you heard me play before?”

“In another lifetime.”

“So, do . . . do I know you?”

“Well, you’re still wrinkled as hell and could use some ironing. Have you been drifting all this time?”

My throat tightened. With a shaking hand I reached for my coffee and took a big gulp, buying myself a few seconds to recover. “Well, my wrinkled clothes now blend with the rest of me. Sorry, Liliana, I didn’t recognize you. In my mind’s eye, you’re a beautiful college sophomore.”

She laughed, a deep contralto sound. “I’m neither in college nor beautiful. But thanks for remembering me like that.”

“You graduated and stayed here in town?”

“Oh, hell no. In ’69 I went to work for Cesar Chavez and the UFW. I was a liaison between Cesar’s inner circle and the press. I left in the early ’70s when the infighting got too bad, moved to LA and worked for General Mills in the Betty Crocker division. I ended up marrying one of the guys I supervised. So . . . I heard that you were in Vietnam.”

“Yeah, I survived a year, then worked for a plumbing contractor in the San Joaquin. I’ve been back in town for only a couple years.”

“Me too. I moved here to be near my daughter’s family after my husband died. Do you have family?”

“Two ex-wives and a bunch of kids scattered everywhere but here.”

She smiled and somehow her face relaxed into the one I remembered when sitting on the grass under the California sycamore, playing Weavers’ songs, the face I remembered kissing. Everything was out in front of us then, both the exciting and the frightening.

We talked all that afternoon until the sun dropped behind the hills and the evening air filled with the cooing of mourning doves.

“I’ve got to go before my daughter sends out the hounds,” Liliana said.

“Hey look, I’m . . . I’m here on Wednesdays. I’d like to buy you coffee and talk with you some more. You can sing some of your family songs again.”

“Good Lord, I haven’t done that in years. And my guitar playing is as bad as it ever was.”

“You just sing, I’ll figure out the chords.”

“That would be nice. And . . . and next time bring along some clean shirts. You still look like a depression-era drifter. A little ironing and you’ll get better tips.”

“Yeah, I’ve never learned. But leave one of the sleeves alone.”

“I will, the left one I’m sure. And there’s no line this time.”

“Proof in Pain”

Connor Wrobleski

Freshman year of college. Wrestling had just begun, and I was already finding success. First came small victories, then big matches that helped the team win. My coach praised me every chance he got. I was the example, the one who showed what doing things the right way could lead to. It felt amazing. Every drop of sweat, every early morning lift, every extra rep was finally paying off. Then, all that momentum vanished as quickly as it came.

The sound came from within me. A crack, like an old branch splitting. The air rushed out of my lungs all at once. In that moment, a few months into my freshman year, I learned how quickly everything can change.

My coach constantly reminded us that being tough was the most important aspect. He said those injuries were bound to happen and pushing through is the only option. So, I went back to competing, and disappointment followed.

As the season went on, the wins started turning into losses. My strength faded along with my breathing. The fire was still there, but my body wouldn’t cooperate.

My coach, who once praised me in front of everyone, now tore into me after every loss. What used to be words of encouragement turned to anger, disappointment, and shame. I went from being an example to being an embarrassment. Every match felt like proof that I was letting my teammates, my coach, my family, and myself down.

After persuasion from my family and finally having enough of the frustration, I went to the doctor. They sent me for an MRI and when the results came back, I was met with more disappointment. They said I was perfectly fine. No break, no injury. Nothing’s wrong. My heart sank, and my first thought was about what my coach was going to think.

When I told my coach about the results, he said that I made it all up and I needed to get tougher. Tougher. As if the nights lying awake trying to breathe weren’t tough. As if dragging myself through practice every day wasn’t tough. As if losing everything I’d worked for wasn’t already tearing me apart. But the doctors said I was fine, and maybe he was right. So, I went back to competing, and more disappointment followed.

The season was finally over. My chance to heal and get back to normal. But it didn’t happen. If anything, it got worse. My core tightened like my own body was locking me in place. I’d wake up and it hurt just to breathe. Some nights I couldn’t sleep at all. With the physical pain came something even heavier. The frustration. The doubt. The fear that maybe this wasn’t just an injury I could work out.

Slowly, the mental strain started to outweigh the physical. I felt my mind breaking, questioning everything. My thoughts swirling until even the simplest decisions felt heavy. It was more than just wrestling, it had leached into every aspect of my life. I lost that fire that I once had. During this time, I

leaned heavily on my family and teammates. Their kind words and support carried me through, and for that, I’m forever grateful. But the new season was approaching, and my coach wanted me to come back. So, I did. Even then, I was still tangled in the emotions leftover from the previous year, and it showed. Every match became a battle, not just with my opponent, but with my own mind and body. I could feel the tension in my body before I even stepped on the mat, the doubt settling heavy in my chest.

The hurtful words from my coach only made things worse. They weren’t just comments anymore, they became my mantra.

“If you’re that pathetic in a match, imagine how pathetic you’ll be in life.”

That phrase burrowed deep, replaying at the worst moments. It haunted me, shaping how I saw myself. But I kept competing, pushing through, but with every match, more disappointment followed.

I still knew something was wrong, but scan after scan insisted nothing was. Each appointment with the doctor felt pointless. By the fourth one, I finally gave up. The mental, physical, emotional exhaustion caught up to me, and I let it. It was a constant cycle each year that I could not handle anymore. So, by junior year, I stopped wrestling and convinced myself that this was my life now.

I’d heard a new coach had taken over, and he wanted me back. He believed that something was wrong. With his support, I went to a surgeon. I wasn’t hopeful, but I went through the same motions anyway: another scan, another set of images, another waiting room.

When the surgeon finally walked into the room, he looked at the results, then at me, and said exactly what I thought he would.

“They said they didn’t find anything wrong.”

But then he looked at my rib, which was protruding from my skin, and decided to look at the scan himself. Instantly, he saw and showed me. The scan showed my right side was completely calcified from damage, and my ninth rib was hooked underneath my others and stabbing my lung.

“How were you even functioning?”

I didn’t know how I was functioning, but somehow, I just was. Mentally, I felt a weight lift. It was proof that I wasn’t weak, that I hadn’t been imagining it. That Thursday, I finally had the rib removed. And with it came a physical relief I was craving. For the first time in years, my body and mind felt free.

Now, a few months removed from that chapter of my life, I look back and realize just how strong and resilient I was during that time. The disappointment I once carried has transformed into pride. A hard-earned pride in having endured, persisted, and come back stronger. So, now I am back to competing, confident I can overcome any obstacle, in a single sport or in life.

• The Scop • 2026

“Upper

Olivia Vest

Falls”

The trail at Ricketts Glen begins low, near water that gathers rather than falls. Before the climb asserts itself, the land feels open and almost forgiving. A stream rests below the ridges, held by stone and distance, its surface catching light in long, unbroken stretches that look like sheets of glass laid carefully over motion. Mountains rise behind it, layered and steady, their slopes softened by trees that blur the sharpness of rock. From the bottom, the scene feels complete, as if nothing more could be added without disturbing its balance. It would be easy to stay there, to believe this is the view the trail exists to frame, to mistake stillness for fulfillment. But the path turns away from the stream almost immediately and begins to climb, as though refusing the comfort it first offered.

Stone steps lift out of the earth in uneven intervals, darkened by water and years of passing feet. Some lean slightly to one side, others sink into the soil, all of them bearing the quiet testimony of erosion. Leaves pressed into the ground break down into pulp beneath each step, releasing a faint sweetness that mingles with dampness. The trail narrows, then bends, then narrows again, drawing the body inward. Water announces itself from somewhere ahead, its sound threading through the trees and guiding the climb like an unseen current. The hike asks for attention rather than speed. Boots slip if placed without care. Balance matters more than distance. Each step becomes a small act of trust between sole and stone.

Other hikers move along the path in both directions, their presence woven naturally into the terrain. A man steps aside on a narrow stretch and smiles as I pass, his breath visible in the cool air. A woman warns me about a slick rock just ahead, her voice low but steady. These small exchanges settle into the rhythm of the hike, reminders that the trail holds people gently without belonging to any of us. There is no sense of isolation here, only shared movement through a place that requires patience from everyone who enters it. Our footsteps form a temporary chorus against stone, then dissolve.

As the elevation increases, the forest closes in. Trees grow taller and closer together, their trunks darkened by moisture that never quite dries. Ferns crowd the edges of the path. Light filters through branches in broken patterns, striping the ground in shifting gold and shadow. The air cools, then thickens, as if layered with something unseen. Somewhere between one set of falls and the next, the smell changes.

It does not arrive sharply. It builds. At first, it resembles damp earth after rain, but deeper, more saturated. Then something else enters—water, leaf, stone, decay, growth—woven together into a scent that does not separate easily into parts. The air feels heavier, fuller, textured against the lungs. Breathing becomes an act of noticing rather than habit. I slow without deciding to, drawn into the physical act of inhaling as though the forest itself were teaching me how.

I have no precise language for the smell. It does not resemble pine or moss or rain alone. It feels ancient, not in a romantic sense, but in a material one, as if the forest is releasing what it has been holding for centuries. The higher I climb, the more present it becomes. It fills my chest and settles there, grounding rather than overwhelming. I realize I have never smelled air like this before. It feels untouched by engines or walls, unscripted by industry. It carries time within it.

Waterfalls appear in succession, each shaped distinctly by gravity and rock. Some fall in wide, translucent sheets, water breaking into silver strands as it meets ledges on the way down. Others drop cleanly, striking stone below with force before dispersing into mist that hovers briefly, then disappears. Spray dampens my sleeves and darkens my hair, settling cool against my skin. Railings slick with years of moisture guide the path where the ground falls away sharply. My hand closes around metal worn smooth by countless palms.

I stop often, not from fatigue, but from interruption. Each waterfall redirects attention. The repetition does not dull the experience; instead, it sharpens perception. I begin to notice how sound changes with distance, how one cascade roars while another hums, how echoes fold into the trees and return softened. I notice how water behaves differently depending on the angle of stone, how pools at the base of falls hold leaves in slow rotation before releasing them downstream like quiet decisions. Time feels less segmented here. There is only movement and pause, inhale and exhale.

At one turn in the trail, the forest opens just enough to look back. Below, the stream reappears, smaller now, its surface partially hidden by trees that seemed sparse from the bottom. The mountains beyond it remain, stacked and patient, their ridgelines tracing familiar shapes against the sky. From here, the scene feels distant, contained, almost hushed. The climb has shifted my relationship to it. What once felt central now feels foundational, something I stand upon rather than move toward. Perspective rearranges meaning without altering the landscape itself.

I continue upward. The steps grow steeper in places, carved directly into rock. My calves tighten, my breath deepens, and sweat gathers at the back of my neck despite the cool air. Effort clarifies sensation. Near the top, the trail levels briefly, and the forest deepens again. Trees crowd closer, their branches knitting overhead until the sky narrows to thin ribbons of light. The smell reaches its fullest point here, rich and layered, impossible to isolate into components. It feels alive in a way that resists metaphor. I stop and stand still, breathing deeply, trying to understand why this scent feels so grounding.

I realize that the air here has not passed through pavement or vents. It has moved through leaves and soil, over water and stone. It has filtered through roots and bark, carrying fragments of decomposition and renewal together. It carries the quiet labor of the forest within it. Breathing feels like participation rather than consumption. Each inhale becomes a joining, each exhale a return. I am not separate from this exchange.

The final waterfall appears without ceremony. It drops through a narrow channel carved into dark rock, water striking and breaking before gathering again below in a restless pool. Woods

• The Scop • 2026

surround it on all sides, enclosing the sound until it feels immersive rather than distant. There is no wide overlook here, no sweeping vista to mark arrival. Instead, the space feels contained, almost intimate, as if the forest has drawn a circle and invited stillness inside it. The trail ends not with spectacle, but with immersion.

I step closer and feel mist settle on my skin, cool and persistent. The sound fills the space completely, steady and unchanging, a continuous ribbon of motion. I sit on a fallen log and let my backpack slide from my shoulders. My clothes are damp. My boots carry mud and leaf fragments pressed into their seams. None of it matters. Discomfort dissolves into presence.

Other hikers arrive and pause nearby. A couple stands quietly, hands resting on the railing, their heads tilted toward the water. Someone nods in passing, a brief acknowledgment that requires no words. Voices remain low, as if raised volume would fracture something delicate. The space accommodates us without strain, absorbing our presence the way moss absorbs moisture. We are temporary here, but not unwelcome.

Sitting there, I feel safe in a way that does not depend on control. The forest does not promise comfort, yet it offers consistency. Water falls because gravity pulls it. Trees stand because roots hold them. Rock endures because it is shaped slowly rather than quickly. Nothing performs for us. Nothing rearranges itself to heighten our experience. The integrity of the place remains intact whether we witness it or not.

Reflection arrives not as articulated thought, but as sensation spreading quietly through the body. The climb asked my muscles to work, to negotiate each stone with intention. The top asks them to rest, to surrender effort. Between those two states, something loosens. I become aware of how often I move through daily life buffered by noise, by urgency, by the constant pressure to respond. Here, attention narrows and deepens. Breath steadies. Time stretches without demanding anything in return.

Loving nature, I realize, does not mean idealizing it or casting it in gentle metaphors. It means accepting its indifference as a form of honesty. The forest does not reward effort with beauty as payment. It simply continues in its own rhythms. We arrive or we do not. The experience belongs to presence, not entitlement. That recognition feels both humbling and liberating.

When I finally stand to leave, the waterfall continues without pause. The forest does not shift to mark my departure. The scent remains, full and steady, clinging faintly to my clothes. The descent feels different from the climb. Gravity assists rather than resists. My steps lengthen. I pass familiar waterfalls again, each one unchanged, their constancy almost reassuring. More hikers move upward now, their expressions focused and expectant. I offer the same smiles, the same quiet warnings about slick stones. The shared care continues, passed hand to hand like something fragile and necessary.

As elevation drops, the smell fades gradually. I notice its absence only because of how deeply it settled within me. Some experiences teach by contrast; they reveal what is possible, then with-

draw, leaving a shape behind. At the bottom, the stream opens again, broad and calm, reflecting sky in wide, patient strokes. The mountains rise behind it, steady as before, unchanged by my small journey. From here, it is difficult to imagine the dense woods and falling water above. The trail folds its secrets inward, holding them for those willing to climb.

I leave with mud on my boots and something quieter carried inside me. Not an image preserved for display, not a moral neatly formed, but a physical memory of effort leading to stillness. Of air that asked nothing except that I breathe it fully. Of water that fell without audience. Of trees that stood without commentary. The knowledge is subtle yet persistent. When noise presses in and urgency tightens around my thoughts, I return to it inwardly. I remember that attention can alter experience, that shared care creates safety, that the world extends beyond the narrow frame of routine. The trail remains. The water falls. The forest breathes. And somewhere within me, that rhythm continues.

51 • The Scop • 2026

Colliding Worlds

Audrey Hettleman

Where Flowers Meet the Sea

Betsy Allen

53 • The Scop • 2026

55 • The Scop • 2026

Patterning

57 • The Scop • 2026

• The Scop • 2026

Birds of a Feather

Elise Heiss

Have You, Love You

Tracks into Fog

The Valkeries

71 • The Scop • 2026

For the War Nothing

73 • The Scop • 2026

75 • The Scop • 2026

Visual Art Contributors

Alexis E. Jacobson enjoys reading and writing historical fiction, creative nonfiction, memoirs, and micro-essays. Outside academia, she loves just about anything outdoors and social, and is always looking for ways to blend the two.

Roger Camp is the author of three photography books including the award winning Butterflies in Flight (Thames & Hudson, 2002). His work has appeared in numerous journals including The New England Review, New York Quarterly, and Orion Magazine. He is represented by the Robin Rice Gallery, New York.

Loralee Clark’s artwork is featured on the cover of two of her chapbooks, Solemnity Rites (Prolific Pulse Press, 2025) and A Harmony in the Key of Trees: A Healing Myth (Dancing Girl Press, 2025). Her art will also be featured in Pictura Journal, April 2026. Clark resides in Virginia.

John DeAngelo was born and raised in Greenwich Village, NYC. A Viet Nam vet, he graduated college and pursued graduate study at Rutgers’s University. In 2022, he published My Other Wing, a celebration of Love in both poetry and art, and a book of poetry, Conspicuous Denial, in 2023.

Zoe Marzo is an artist and writer. She works with imagery from dreams. Her artwork has been exhibited in LACPA’s exhibit, “Mirrors of the Mind.”

Willy Conley’s books include Space is Deaf Like Me, Photographic Memories, Plays of Our Own, Visual-Gestural Communication, The World of White Water, Listening Through the Bone, The Deaf Heart, and Vignettes of the Deaf Character. Born profoundly deaf, Conley is professor emeritus of theatre at Gallaudet University in D.C.

Mindy Kober is a contemporary pop artist living in Los Angeles, and her preferred medium is gouache on paper. Her work explores the themes of reconstructed memories, societal codes, and the natural world, and evokes an illustrative charm typically found in storybooks. You can find her on IG at @kobermindy.

Camellia Paul is a PhD student of Comparative and World Literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is an award-winning visual artist with her works of translation, fiction, poetry, and art regularly appearing in magazines, journals, and anthologies. Camellia is passionate about owls, nature, reading, and exploring cultures.

Visual Art Contributors

CA Fichtelman is a writer and artist whose work has appeared in print and online: The Helix; Glass Mountain Review; Dream Fantasy International, Wisconsin Review & The Brussels Review. A member of the St. Louis Artists Guild and Missouri Writers Guild, they currently live in St. Louis, Missouri.

Audrey Hettleman is a Brooklyn-based journalist and visual artist specializing in graphite drawings and collage.

Gordon Massman paints without inhibition, censorship, or obedience. He unleashes the visceral onto canvas regardless public opinion or critical noise. There’s the tube of paint, the canvas, and the sum total of your life. That is all.

Richard A. Hanus had four kids, but now just three. Zen and Love. Art for Art’s Sake.

Lucero Vargas Almeida, known as Luciérnaga Azul, is a Colombian-Canadian bilingual poet and textile artist in Edmonton. She writes between languages and cultures, weaving memory, migration, silence, and love into poems and arpilleras made with recycled fabrics inspired by her mother’s legacy of creativity and resilience.

Vincenzo Cohen is an Italian multidisciplinary and social artist. He earned the MFA from Fine Arts Academy and the MD in Archaeology from “La Sapienza” University in Rome. The artist deals with social painting and desert photography, and his production revolves around issues related to social and environmental justice.

Clementine Mwefu is a King’s College student double-majoring in Criminal Justice and Philosophy and triple-minoring in Social Work, English Literature, and Sociology. She loves writing, fashion, and photography – they let her capture emotions and moments in her own way. Music is part of her everyday life; it moves with her through everything. She hugs trees when she can.

Elise M. Heiss is a Professor of Chemistry at King’s College. Her enthusiasm for chemistry education is fueled by hope, zeal, and copious amounts of coffee. She has visited four continents and is scheming her next international excursion. Acrylic paint and aggressively-hopped IPAs and bring her creative visions to life.

Visual Art Contributors

Molly Bowden is a freshman in the Physician Assistant program at King’s College. She has been making art her whole life, serving as a means of expression and escape. Alongside art, Molly loves to learn, especially about anatomy and biology. Additionally, Molly is an admission ambassador here at King’s, as well as a chem lab aide.

Rifat Moma is a Management in Health Care student at King’s College. She enjoys capturing meaningful moments through photographs and videos. Her work focuses on emotion, connection, and everyday beauty. She is passionate about leadership, working with people, and creative expression, combining visual storytelling with interest in management, marketing, and human connection.

Betsy Allen is a King’s College student earning a doctorate in Occupational Therapy. Her art is inspired by her love for the city of Charleston, South Carolina, along with the peace that the ocean brings her. The pastel colors and incorporation of the hydrangea flower represent her personal style as both have a special place in her heart. Her art features Charleston-inspired pieces that incorporate light soft colors.

Poetry Contributors

Nathan DeBar is a poet and short fiction writer from Leakesville, Mississippi. His short story, “The Long Morning,” was selected as Editor’s Top Choice by Styx Papers Lit Mag. You can find him and all of his published works on his Instagram and Linktree: @nate.debar.

Jae Kraengel is a King’s College alumni with a bachelor’s in Theater currently pursuing their Master’s in England.

James B. Nicola is the author of eight collections of poetry, the latest three being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, Turns & Twists, and Natural Tendencies. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Actor’s Guide to Live Performance won a Choice magazine award.

Stephen Barile is an award-winning poet from Fresno, California, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. He attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. His poems have been anthologized, and published in numerous journals, both print and online. He taught writing at Madera College and CSU Fresno.

Nolo Segundo, pen name of retired teacher L.J. Carber, became published in his 70s in 240+ literary journals and was nominated for the Pushcart, thrice for Best Of The Net. Cyberwit. net has published 3 softcover collections: The Enormity of Existence, Of Ether and Earth, and Soul Songs.

Xingyu Zhao is reading literature on the sunny island of Singapore. His work has appeared in Portside Review, Cordite Poetry Review, ONE ART, Funicular Magazine, Aethlon, and elsewhere.

Myles Sampson Glass is an emerging poet whose work draws deeply from trauma and personal experience. He blends humility and strength to explore memory, identity, and growth, crafting pieces that resonate with honesty and quiet power.

Michael C. Paul is a writer, illustrator, and historian who lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, daughter, and stepson.

Cole Morio is a senior accounting and finance student at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Born and raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania, he is an emerging writer in the community.

Poetry Contributors

Sean Cho A. is the author of “American Home” (Autumn House 2021), winner of the Autumn House Press chapbook contest. His work can be found in The New England Review, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, and The Massachusetts Review, among others.

Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His ninth full-length poetry collection is Tragedy in the Arugula Aisle (Arroyo Seco Press, 2025).

Ramiro Valdes is a poet from Miami. His works include themes of love and nature.

What is there left to say about Marc Janssen? Maybe, his verse is scattered around the world in places like Pinyon, Orbis, Pure Slush, Cirque Journal, and Poetry Salzburg, also in his book November Reconsidered. Janssen coordinates the Salem Poetry Project and keeps getting nominated for Oregon Poet Laurate.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection from Cajun Mutt Press is now available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/ B0C6W2YZDP. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Sarah Beth Sweeney, King’s Class of 2015 and 2024, teaches 9th and 10th English classes at Mid Valley High School. Her poetry appeared in Cicada in 2008, in issues of The Scop from 2011-2023, and in Poetry In Transit in 2022 and 2023. She hopes to travel to all 63 National Parks.

John Stocks is a UK-based poet, novelist, historian and free-lance journalist who has had work published in magazines worldwide. Widely anthologized, his proudest moment is sharing a page with Maya Angelou in the anthology Heart Shoots.

Gillian Gurley is a civil servant by day, and an aspiring writer the rest of the time. She moved from New Orleans to San Diego in 2022 and writes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and plays.

S. M. Rosen is a poet, anthropologist, and award-nominated university lecturer, working primarily in prose poetry and lyric fiction. Her work can be found in the Ustinovian Magazine and her slim volume, Conjunction, published by Ellipsis Imprints in 2023.

Poetry Contributors

Abraham Aondoana is a writer, poet and novelist. He is a recipient of Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop 2026. His works has been published in Kalahari Review, Prosetrics Magazine, Rough Diamond Poetry, The Cat Poetry Anthology, IHTOV, The Literary Nest, Ink Sweat and Tears (UK), Rogue Agent, Alien Buddha, and elsewhere.

Maudie Bryant is a Pushcart-nominated poet, multidisciplinary artist, and editor of Audi Locus, an online poetry journal. A graduate of the University of Louisiana Monroe (M.A. in English), she balances full-time work, motherhood, and creative practice in Shreveport, Louisiana, where she lives with her husband and two young sons.

Sarah Karowski (she/her) has an MFA from the Mississippi University for Women and teaches at Tallahassee State College. Her debut chapbook, Americana Folktale, won the Northwest Florida Poets Write Now 2024 Poetry Chapbook Contest. Her work has been featured in the Passionfruit Review, Macrame Literary, The Dewdrop, and others.

Thomas Phalen is an Irish-American dual citizen and retired lawyer. He has his Master in Philosophy degree in Creative Writing from the Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing at Trinity College Dublin. He is an editor of The Muleskinner Journal. He lives alternately in Phoenix, Arizona and in Dublin, Ireland.

Marjorie Sheaff is a young professional opera singer and multimedia artist based in Oklahoma. Fueled by an innate desire for authentic creative expression, Marjorie strives to evoke emotion and leave lasting impressions with her art in all its forms.

Clementine Mwefu is a King’s College student double-majoring in Criminal Justice and Philosophy and triple-minoring in Social Work, English Literature, and Sociology. She loves writing, fashion, and photography – they let her capture emotions and moments in her own way. Music is part of her everyday life; it moves with her through everything. She hugs trees when she can.

Born in North Carolina, Cithara Patra has spent time in Puerto Rico, Ohio, Nebraska, and Texas before settling back in NC. Besides writing, Cithara loves things from the ocean, dachshunds, and cooking. In their spare time, they travel with their family around the city and check out brand new restaurants.

Fiction Contributors

Sara Winslow is a repenting (a.k.a. retired) government lawyer turned creative writer. Her work appears in several literary journals and anthologies. Sara lives in San Francisco. She has visited all 50 states and is working on the seven continents (two to go). You can find her on Instagram @winslow_writing.

S. Mubashir Noor moonlights as a mediocre communications professional by day and crafts absurdist satire laced with magic realism at the crack of dusk. A Pakistani expat based in Malaysia, he enjoys photography, sharply sketched TV shows, and the fleeting euphoria of reaching his weekly word count.

Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his artist-poet wife (his inhouse editor) and two plump cats (his in-house critics). His short stories have been accepted more than 600 times by journals, magazines, and anthologies. Terry is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist.

Daniel Ditty was born in rural Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in Transfer, Two Hawks Quarterly, and The Barcelona Review. He lives in Oakland with his wife and two children and is currently at work on a novel.

S. M. Rosen is a poet, anthropologist, and award-nominated university lecturer, working primarily in prose poetry and lyric fiction. Her work can be found in the Ustinovian Magazine and her slim volume, Conjunction, published by Ellipsis Imprints in 2023.

Ty Cronkhite teaches composition and English Literature at a community college in Greeley, Colorado. He has published short fiction and poetry in venues like The Xavier Review, Idiom 23, Lost Lake Folk Opera, The Stray Branch, and miller’s pond.

Nonfiction Contributors

Connor Wrobleski is a psychology student at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He is native to Northeast Pennsylvania and is a part of the wrestling team. Connor is an emerging writer.

Olivia Vest is a student majoring in Psychology at King’s College, pursuing a career in child psychology and studying English Professional Writing. Raised in small town in Pennsylvania, she writes sensory-driven work inspired by nature, reflection, and fantasy. She enjoys hiking, growing herbs, and preserving flowers, drawing from these experiences.

Editorial Staff Bios

Faculty Advisor

Robin E. Field is the Manus Cooney Distinguished Service Professor at King’s College. She teaches in the English department and writes fiction, poetry, and short plays. If you stop by her office, she’ll offer you a spider plant.

Staff Advisor

Josh Ulanoski works as the Associate Director of Creative Services in the Office of College Marketing and Communications. When he’s not doing whatever that entails, he’s probably sleeping or trying to find the motivation to do something other than sleeping (he’s very tired, just all the time).

Layout Designer

Sam Smith is a junior Mass Communications major and Social Work minor. She is the layout editor for The Crown as well as a mentor for the Juvenile Justice Mentoring Program. In her free time, she enjoys hanging out with friends, playing videogames, and painting. You can almost always catch her behind a screen playing a game, whether it be on PC, Xbox, or Nintendo Switch.

Editorial Staff Bios

Editor

Alex Arnold is a junior Pre-PA major with a Spanish minor. This is his second year with The Scop, and his first in the capacity of the Editor. He is also a part of the Causing a Scene improv group, as well as the Cantores Christi Regis choir on campus. In his free time, he enjoys reading, spending time with friends, and enjoying nature whenever possible.

Social Media Editor

Giovanni Sariti (or Gio for short) ’26 is the social media coordinator for The Scop and is a Mass Communications major and Professional Writing minor at King’s. He aspires to be an artist, but in the meantime, he is focused on finishing his degree. He loves reading, mainly graphic novels, and writing short stories. Other than his work with The Scop, he is the president of the Gay-Straight Alliance and a member of the Lambda Pi Eta, Chi Alpha Epsilon, and Sigma Tau Delta honor societies. When he is not stressing out over deadlines, he enjoys journaling, doodling, and playing solitaire during class.

Staff Bios

Shelby Shepanski is a sophomore from Nanticoke, PA, majoring in Early Education and Special Education. She works at Pour Coffee House and enjoys spending time outdoors as well as focusing on her studies.

Stephanie Dunlap is a King’s College graduate with degrees in English Literature and Philosophy. When not buried in a pile of half-read books or half-filled notebooks, she can be found aimlessly digging in the garden or listening to music with the volume all the way up. She is grateful for the time she has spent with The Scop and is eager to see what comes next!

Madysen Thomas is a sophomore Accounting major at King’s College. She commutes to campus from Pittston, Pennsylvania. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, drawing, and bicycling.

Darling Victoria is an aspiring queer writer and artist and a member of Sigma Tau Delta. They’ve published articles in The Crown, presented short essays at the Women and Gender Studies Conference, and much more. Their work focuses on exploring issues of mental health, systemic oppression, and family trauma.

Isabella Viglietta is a student in the undergraduate phase of a 5-year Physician Assistant program and the Honors Program at King’s College. She is involved in the outdoors club, campus ministry, The Scop, and the pre-PA Society.

A Letter from the Editor

Art is, and forever will be, a subjective medium. What one finds beautiful or powerful, another will inevitably find boring or tasteless. The most acclaimed writings will always have strong critics, and in the same way, the most hated works will almost certainly have at least one avid enjoyer.

In this edition of The Scop, we’ve amassed many pieces for your viewing enjoyment, some of which may speak more strongly to you than others. Even if you are not entertained by the magazine as a whole, my hope is that something within these pages will inspire you, whether it may be a poem, a short story, or one of the many drawings of owls we somehow managed to collect.

On behalf of the entire literary staff of The Scop, I’d like to thank everyone who played a role in making this a reality. Without the authors, poets, artists, reviewers, or designers who breathed life into these pages, none of this would have been remotely possible. And, thank you, whoever may be reading this, for taking the time out of your day to leaf through these various works. These pieces may have power, but without an open-minded audience, it is all for naught. So, without further ado, please enjoy the 86th edition of The Scop.

alex

arnold

Editor of The Scop

The Scop would like to extend a formal thank you to the King’s College English Department faculty for their contributions during the voting process.

THE SCOP

Literary and Fine Arts Magazine scop [ shōp / skōp / skäp ] an Old English bard or poet