Vortex Magazine of Literature and Fine Art: Fall 2025 Online Edition

V0RTE X

Vortex Magazine

Literature and Fine Art

Fall 2025

Dear Reader,

For the last fifty years, UCA students devoted to literature and art have found a home in the Vortex. Across these decades, undergraduates made time between assignments, exams, and managing their budding personal lives to contribute their artistic perspective to this magazine. Behind the scenes, many of these students made time every semester to come together and produce this encapsulation of UCA’s artistic community. This semester has been no different. In the midst of this stressful and important time for every student, we still demonstrate the creative spirit prevailing. In making this edition, we maintain this campus’ home for students with stories to tell, poems to read, and paintings to show. I could not be more proud to present to you the Fall 2025 Edition of Vortex Magazine of Literature and Fine Art.

This magazine is only made possible by the effort put into it by its staff and submitters. Thank you to the 2025-2026 Vortex Staff. Our section editors, managers, and judges made time in the midst of their strenuous academic pursuits to give this edition of Vortex its voice. Thank you to our amazing Associate Editor, Drew Reyolds, for being the most reliable partner I could have asked for. Thank you to our Layout Editor, E Lamb, for helping this edition find its visual identity. Thank you to Acie Clark, our faculty advisor, for his instrumental support in the making of this magazine and his fostering of the creative community here on campus. Thank you submitters to Vortex, for allowing us to share your inspiring work with the rest of our campus community. And of course, thank you, reader. In reading this edition, you allow so many creative moments from a time passed to come alive again.

It means so much to help continue an artistic lineage with this edition of the Vortex and the pieces featured are assuredly just the beginning of these young artists’ inspiring contributions to the world.

I hope you enjoy.

Take

care,

Blaze Robb Editor-In-Chief

Masthead

Editor-in-Chief Blaze Robb

Associate Manager Drew Reynolds

Layout Editor E. Lamb

Social Media Manager Megan Woodworth Betts

Faculty Advisor Acie Clark

Script Editor

Skylar Nelsen

Script Judges

Noah Misenheimer

Harmony Etherton

Lia Ureta

Maria Cornejo

Zach Adams

Art Manager

Jaslyn Castle

Art Judges

Maria Cornejo

Kaelyn Bouwens

Camilla Robinson

Devin Hemphill

Abigail Ball

Zach Adams

Masthead

Fiction Editor

Clover McEntarffer

Fiction Judges

Max Haughey

Noah Misenheimer

Chloe Richards

Lia Ureta

Lily Caudell

Abigail Ball

Tyler Nicholson

Nonfiction Editor

Caroline Robison

Nonfiction Judges

Aeron Tavares

Lily Caudell

Bryan Lucas

Tyler Nicholson

Poetry Editor

Hailey Rodden

Poetry Judges

Chloe Richards

Devin Hemphill

Harmony Etherton

Camilla Robinson

Kaelyn Bouwens

Bryan Lucas

Max Haughey

Kendra McLean

Breakfast

By Leo Critz

Ten Woes, Ten Souls

By Abby Hall

Woe to the quiet soul,

For they see what the world cannot, Woe to the soft soul,

For their heart is as fragile as a butterfly’s wing, Woe to the lovely soul,

For their beauty is a curse, Woe to the soul who sings,

For the world tries to take their blessing away, Woe to the soul who heals,

For they feel every pain, Woe to the strong soul,

For they will be broken, Woe to the admiring soul,

For they cannot see the truth, Woe to the lonely soul,

For they are loved more than they know, Woe to the soul who creates,

For they face destruction, And woe to the writer’s soul,

For she feels every soul.

The Chaotic Roots

By Lakeyn Biling

TENEBRIS INFERIS

By Garrett Rackley

PAUSE

By Amanda Chastain

Home Welcome, Welcome Home

By Victoria Walter

Runny ink

Yellowed pages

I try to look away

From the window

Still Water

Clean linen

I used to come by

To the Space

From life To home

Let me leave Let me stay Let me be Let me be Somewhere else Somewhere here

Far away Close by

The Others

By Kendra McLean

The world isn’t what it used to be. It’s succumbed to absolute disaster. Consumed by nothing but ash, fear, and silence. Everything that once breathed with life is now in ruin. Children no longer laugh in the streets like they once did before; the sound of joy has been replaced by the hum of drones and the occasional echoing of crumbling stone. Not even a thing once called Thanksgiving exists, after all, there’s nothing left to be thankful for. But of all the losses and pain this world has endured, pregnancy is the worst of them all. I constantly sit and wonder how we could’ve possibly let our world come to this.

It’s October 31st, 2219. I remember learning about an old holiday called Halloween. Supposedly, it took place on this very day. People would dress up as fictional characters, or even as killers from the past, and would wander door to door, asking strangers, “trick or treat?” I never understood what that phrase meant, but the thought of it still makes me ache with longing for something I never even had.

What I wouldn’t give to see children, tiny, innocent things, running through the streets in costumes they’d chosen themselves. But that dream, like all others, has been buried under the rubble of our civilization, not because I dislike the idea of toy skeletons or glowing pumpkins with scary faces. No, because I can never bring myself to have children.

Medically, I can reproduce. But morally? Emotionally? I cannot. Every day, babies are still born. Some are normal. But for every normal baby, there’s something different, something wrong, being born right next door. At first,

they look human. Perfectly human, even. But soon their differences become unmistakable: teeth that grow long and jagged, eyes with the slits of snakes, fingers that stretch twice as long as they should.

We call them the Others.

There’s a one-in-five chance of giving birth to one. The government runs simple tests to determine which one a mother is carrying, human or Other. You might wonder, why not terminate the pregnancy? Simply, because we’re not allowed to.

At first, the government banned pregnancies that resulted in Others. They feared them just as we did. But fear quickly turned to fascination. Soon, they realized what these creatures could become or rather how they could be trained, weaponized, and controlled. Now, termination is considered treason.

No one knows exactly how the Others came to be. The first was born on August 28th, 2200. They called her Number One. She taught us everything we now fear: how she eats, hunts, grows. Roadkill sustains her. She moves on all fours, faster than any human or animal. Most terrifying of all, she has yet to stop growing. Every year she grows taller, stronger, hungrier. No one knows if she can die. Some whisper that she’ll outlive us all.

Once a month, every woman is required to take a pregnancy test at the government clinic. And today just so happens to be my turn. I tell myself I’m careful—careful enough—but in truth, I live in denial. Each visit, I cross my fingers, say a silent prayer, and hope I’m spared from evil.

As I step into the clinic, the air feels heavy, pressing against my chest. I clutch my coat tighter and tighter by the minute, feeling a deep ache in my

stomach that’s half longing, half dread. The thought of a baby, a real baby I mean, fills me with warmth. The thought of an Other turns my blood cold.

“Athena.”

My name breaks the silence in the room, but not the rampage of thoughts in my mind. I rise, take the plastic cup, and walk toward the bathroom. My hands tremble the entire time, but I know the drill.

Hours later, I sit at home waiting for Ethan, my husband, to return from his shift cleaning the city’s wreckage, which is one of the very few jobs left for men. I stare at the cracks in the wall, listening to the wind howl through what’s left of our windowpanes.

The phone rings. “Hello?” I say. “Hi, Athena,” says a flat, almost robotic voice. “I’m calling from the Pregnancy Testing Center. Congratulations on your new pregnancy.” My heart skips. For a moment, I almost smile. Then the voice continues. “It’s one of the Others. We’ll be in contact with you regularly. Have a nice night.”

Have a nice night? The words echo in my head, absurd and cruel. My breath catches in my throat. How could I possibly have a nice night? I pace the floor, heart racing and head spinning. I can’t tell Ethan. How could I tell my husband that I’m growing something monstrous inside me? That I’m the host of what the government calls “the future?" No. I can’t. I know what I have to do.

That night, Ethan comes home exhausted. He kisses my forehead, oblivious to the storm behind my eyes, and collapses into bed. My heart pounds so loudly I wonder if he can hear it through the silence of the night.

By morning, I’ve made my decision. I stare at the peeling paint on our bedroom wall, imagining every possible outcome. If I’m caught, I’ll go to prison, or worse. But if I do nothing, I’ll bring an abomination into the world, and then there’s a fifty-percent chance of surviving an Other birth. Personally, I’m not a gambler. Especially with my own life.

I reach for the phone. “Izzy?” I whisper when she answers. “I need you to come over.” She doesn’t ask why. She never does. That’s just who she is.

When she arrives, I can barely speak. She hugs me before I can even get a single word out. “You don’t even have to tell me,” she murmurs. Tears burn my eyes. My voice shakes. “I’m pregnant.” For a moment, her face lights up and then quickly darkens. “Oh, Athena…” she breathes. “I’ll make a few calls.”

Hours pass. The silence is unbearable. I call her again and again, but there’s no answer. Panic swells in my chest. Something’s wrong. I run to her house on foot, because cars are a luxury I can’t even dream of affording. People stare as I sprint down the cracked pavement, but my mind is else where. By the time I reach her door, it’s hanging open.

“Izzy?” No response. The air inside smells of metal and dust. My hands tremble as I push the door wider. The silence presses on me like a weight. I should’ve never dragged her into this mess. My mess.

When I finally return home, Ethan is there, hours early. My stomach turns into one big knot. Inside, Izzy sits beside him. My heart sinks. “I was worried about you,” I say, voice trembling. “Your door was open, and you weren’t answering—” Ethan stands up abruptly, his eyes dark and cold. “You were going to kill my baby.” My breath catches. “It’s not a baby.” Izzy can’t even and won’t even meet my gaze. “I’m sorry, Athena,” she says softly. “But I’m not going to

prison for you and neither is Ethan.”

It’s now August 2nd. I sit in my prison cell, staring at the cracked ceiling, my hands resting on my swollen belly. The baby—the Other—kicks. They call it a miracle but I call it my curse. The guards treat me better than most, but only because I’m carrying the government's precious child. Yesterday was my due date, but the creature inside me seems content to torture me a little longer than needed.

A guard appears at the bars. “Get up.” “Where am I going?” I ask weakly. Instead of a response I just receive a hard slap across the face, then the cold grip of his hand as he drags me down the corridor. I guess that’s what I get for asking an obvious question.

The room they bring me to is cold and dim. Rusted surgical tools gleam under flickering lights. No anesthesia. No comfort. Only the doctor, waiting with gloved hands. I lie back, staring up at the ceiling, and slowly close my eyes. I think about the world before it fell apart or perhaps the world I could’ve lived in, the laughter of children I’ve only heard about in stories, the warm orange glow of Halloween pumpkins I’ll never get to see. I think about what it means to be human in a world that’s forgotten how. And as the pain begins, I realize how weak my body has gotten. How frail my arms are. How malnourished my face is. I know that these are my last moments but rather than feel sorry for myself, I simply feel sorry for the world I’m leaving behind. A very broken and very corrupt world.

Visiting My Younger Self

By Lily Meeks

If I could visit my younger self, I would go back to the day when my laugh could fill a room. When I wasn’t constantly feeling judged for my looks or what I ate. When I was just a little girl who didn’t have a care in the world. When I viewed my mom as this big, beautiful lioness fighter, who is my hero. I knew I could count on her for all my needs. I miss how my dad made me feel like the shiniest and most important gem that he ever saw. How he would get me flow ers every time I had a small achievement, it felt like he was proud of me. This, of course, was before the swift clock made me start a countdown. The amount of times I would feel these types of ways. See, when you’re a kid, you think that life could go on forever, and you couldn’t fathom believing that every butterfly that lands on your nose is Nana because you miss her so much. And you don’t expect the sudden thoughts that will flood your mind until you end it all. All the late nights that could be spent on homework, but are spent on salt streaks going down, down your temples, and into your week unwashed hair, shim mering, like depression at its finest. When even the sunniest days, have a gray cloud that makes you lie in bed all day. Kicking your lazy self for not living up to your potential. Kick, kick, kicking until that hole in the wall is as vast and empty as the one in your heart. Except you can easily patch up one, while the other one is left as expansive as a black hole, sucking in the only happiness you have left. Your parents’ screams turn into hundreds of millions of remind ers of why you’re such a failure, why can’t you make them proud? Why is it the only flowers I’m getting now are the ones I place on gravestones? I would

The Lover’s Goodbye

By Abby Hall

You could feel it in my bones, Death’s lovely cold, The promise of anew, From leaving you, You tell me not to go, But all I feel is gone. My heart ebbs softly,

As the gentle wind calls me,

My eyes blur as the light shines in, Heaven’s precious calling, So, until then…

The cold hand of death’s embrace,

The fiery heat of my face, The future in her eyes,

As she leaves our world behind, I struggle to find her,

Until I find she’s gone, Pain ruptures my chest,

But it’s not me who’s dead. Stinging, my eyes find hers,

The cold kiss fills her gaze, And I’m left, In a place far worse than death.

Chinatown

By Bianca Martin

"Beauty is Pain"

By Zaria Montogomery

Polyhedronal Diadems

By Bryan Lucas

Polyhedronal diadems flash smiles so radiant they burn the sun with their cold embrace

Hexa-diagonal slipstreams moan and chant and the founders flip flop their flaccid face

Metro moo-cow flesh tights stretching reality to the limits of their under-reactive imagination

Aboriginal epiphany tokes a homie to didgeridoo with ne’er a double treachery for explanation

Sugar-baby strap-ons reigns ever high-n-mighty crying foul when it all comes down-n-tumbles

Chicken-headed flash-pan mobs out Old Aphrodite moving towards the abyss while grace grumbles

Nanna–booboo dolt-see-does the wizz-bang frew as she gathers all the whimsy for the attack

Coochie-coup cutie-pie laps up like morning dew all the rice-krispy clowns going on out back

Hang-ten friends til kingdom comes around and then she’ll brace your head between her teeth

Lurkie-lou goes hops-scotch skipping in the sand

oblivious to objectives arising from here beneath

So clodhopper klump, my fits-me-foug, for she grips the gripe fantastic a shortly long while And Raven-ears snap wings flashing all ebony transitions transcendental, gives a wave, a smile.

The Ironic Textures

By Lakeyn Biling

Mono Music 1

By Devyn Summons

Mono Music 2

By Devyn Summons

Watching A Chess Match From A Distance

By Riley Foley

On the seashore, two blurred figures hunch over a set chessboard. The pieces stand smooth and vague from millions of games, each a great thinker attended by Death in their final hour, doubting all the ideas that comforted them in the past. The arbitrator of all ideas, he filters them in, but gives no response to those who wail at him, “What lies beyond?”

Now, after removing some binoculars from our horse’s saddle bag, the tool allows us to see that he is one of the players. And across from him sits a knight. Blond-headed and square-jawed, this knight appears calm under the great pressure of his opponent’s visit. He often gazes out across the sea as his calloused hands finger a worn Crucifix covered in sand, perhaps looking for an answer to the lifelong question, “What lies beyond?” in the similarly unending mass. His head returns to the board, presumably disappointed because the sea offers no answers, only questions. He looks at the board once more, but I won’t bother you with the silliness of their moves or the falling of their pieces. You most definitely know whose king will fall, for I’m positive you’ve heard earlier stories of Death’s unfailing duty. Think of the tale of another hero, Sisyphus, who cuffed Death in chains long enough to make a brief escape. You’ll

note that Sisyphus is not among the living today, and occupies a rather unappealing place in the afterlife of man’s oral tradition.

Though Sisyphus’s story may lead the majority of you to believe that Death is a man of great anger and vengeance, he is as kind and understanding as an old saint or teacher, politely asking his acquaintances whether they are prepared for his grim embrace. Often, he brings smiles to the faces of those he meets; the ones who sit in hospital beds or battlefields with their bodies all out of shape and pain swallowing them like a mass of red ants. These are the ones most ready to face the beyond, for it must offer them something better than the suffering that chokes their mind and senses. They do not beg Death for more time or ask him any questions but just smile at him or, in the case of some more distinguished gentlemen, shake his hand.

Again, I turn to the shore with my binoculars to peer at the players and see them still locked in combat. They move a few pieces. To be honest, I cannot tell what they are moving, I stand too far away, and my binoculars are second-rate. But look now, dear reader, they appear to be packing up. Death writes down the layout of the board in a dark ledger otherwise filled with names, for the game is not quite finished, while the blond knight gathers all the pieces and begins to find a place for the board in his crowded sack. It seems that they are exchanging a few words, and now, Death begins his descent into the pale sea, his black cloak growing even darker in the salty brine, the water swallowing his figure before his familiar silhouette disappears without a ripple. It appears that the knight has stalled long enough that Death had to attend to other business. However, I doubt that this knight will find an answer to his question in his remaining days, though undoubtedly, he and every other man I know will continue the search until their dying minute, fighting to pierce the impenetrable abyss beyond the chessboard.

Hell of a Morning

By Jessica Morgan

The door jingles as he steps into the crowded diner. Small and antiquated, it houses about fifteen scarred tables, their surfaces dulled by years of use. The air hangs heavy with the scent of mothballs and suffocating despair.

“God I hate these quaint little, small towns. The slow people moshing about without a care in the world.” Inigo muses. “The polite smiles and waving to every person you see on the street. As if everyone was neighborly and the best of friends. Pretending to not know each other’s dirty little secrets. Take Office Bradley here.” Inigo shifts his focus to the Officer standing at the checkout counter in his freshly dry-cleaned uniform. “Officer Bradley is married with 3 rambunctious boys. His wife, Sandy, has seen better days. The once bright emerald, green eyes now lifeless. She knows she let herself go but doesn’t care enough to make a change. She also knows that Officer Bradley fancies Keira, the 22-year old new dispatcher. Keria met Officer Bradley during the department’s required “ride along”; where the new dispatcher must ride in the patrol car and see the day-to-day situations officers experience. What everyone but Chelsea knows is that Keria gave Officer Bradley the ride of his life in the backseat of his patrol car behind the abandoned K-Mart. Not to mention old Mrs. Knight saw Keira bent over the hood of the patrol car just yesterday when Officer Bradley was supposedly working overtime.”

The waitress walks up “Can I top you off Hon.” Interrupting his internal monologue.

Mary-Louise a dark brunette with ocean blue eyes, and Snow-White fair

skin. She has been a waitress here for three years now while she is studying to be a nurse. She didn’t choose that profession because “it was her calling to help others”, she chose it in the desperate hope she can snag a rich doctor to take care of her so she will never have to work again. Mary-Louis is quite famous in town having affairs with married men. She prefers married men over the usual fuck boy to make herself feel better about her miserable life since her daddy ran off with his mistress when she was twelve years old.

“Sure. How’s your day going so far, Miss Mary-Louise?” Inigo coos, his voice dripping with effortless charm. Mary-Louise can’t help but smile, her face lighting up at the attention of a man so impossibly beautiful.

Inigo had once been among the most radiant angels in Heaven, a being of breathtaking beauty who never imagined he would defy God Himself. Yet he did and the price was exile, three millennia entombed at the bottom of the Euphrates with his three brothers. Now, with the river since dried and the world transformed beyond recognition, he has clawed his way back into existence. To survive among the creatures God so adored, Inigo abandoned his celestial form, donning the fragile disguise of humanity. Nevertheless, traces of his immortal splendor linger; olive-toned skin stretched over a sculpted frame, a jawline carved with impossible precision, and starlit eyes, with a silver sheen that betray his unearthly origin.

Inigo, who thrives on the hidden rot in human minds, toyed with the thoughts of Mary-Louise.

Her lips moved with meaningless chatter about the county fair and the morning rush, but her bright blue eyes betrayed the filth beneath. Inigo pushed past the surface noise, savoring the raw pulse of her secret hunger. She wasn’t longing for rest. She was craving the thrill of her break, eager to rut with the married man a few booths away, the one smiling politely at his wife

while already belonging to another. The hypocrisy bled like perfume, sicklysweet, and Inigo drank it in with silent delight. Her next victim. The husband Jake, an insurance man, pale and polished, tethered to a stay-at-home wife whose shopping addiction bled his accounts dry. She was the type: a sorority-bred trophy, all hollow laughter and weekend parties with the girls, keeping up appearances while her marriage rotted underneath. He and Mary Louise met weekly at a city hotel. Not the Ritz, of course, that was far above her station but the Marriott, which to the waitress gleamed with the cheap shine of luxury. To cover the stench of their affair, the husband told his wife he had business at the main office. In truth, the only business he was focused on was between Mary Louise’s thighs.

“Ah”, Inigo sighs, “How I detest this fake bullshit. Well, time to shake things up.” Mary-Louise gives him a long-puzzled look. “Mary-Louise darling. Would you mind topping off my friend over there.” pointing to the married man. His eyes blazed with an otherworldly fire, and the demon’s will surged through them. Wrapping around Mary-Louise’s mind until obedience was no longer a choice, but a law written in her soul.

Mary-Louise sashayed over to the table with the husband and wife enjoying their morning brunch. Without a word she set the coffee pot down on the old, discolored tabletop and perched beside the married man, a mischievous gleam in her eye. Before he could react Mary-Louise starts unbuckling his belt.

Jake stiffened. His wife’s gaze sharpened immediately. “Mary-Louise, what—?” His wife’s hands shot up, trying to intervene, her voice tight with anger. “Do not…!”

“What’s wrong Jake?” Mary-Louise beamed “You were about to make me do it in the men’s

stall. I rather it be out here for the whole town to see it. Fuck it, let your wife watch maybe she can learn something. But it ain’t all her fault. Is it Jakey? God!” She slaps her hands in her lap and throws her head back, chuckling as she says, “Do you know how hard it is to fake a gag with nothing gagging you.”

Mary-Louise begins laughing hysterically. Suddenly, her expression changed. She pressed her hands to her face, mortified. “Oh… I… I didn’t mean…this isn’t what I…” Her cheeks burned crimson, and tears welled in her eyes as the embarrassment finally broke through.

Jake stood, trying to calm his wife, but even as he did, there was an all too noticeable tell emerging from Jake’s slacks. When his eyes met his wife, a spark in his eyes betrayed his conflicted excitement. His wife’s anger only intensified. In the tense silence, unspoken truths hung in the air, and the casual brunch turned into a quiet battlefield of hidden desires and revealed secrets.

Inigo watches from his seat, a cruel twist tugging at his lips and a cold glint in his eyes. He gets up, tosses a few dollars on the table, adjusts his custom suit and struts out satisfied with the chaos unfolding behind him.

"In the West Field"

By Garrett Rackley

Broken Crayons

By Kayla Vazquez

Rat Race, 1AM

By Bryan Lucas

It’s 1AM and I should be asleep but I’m not

A state I find myself in more often

Then I’d care to think about…

But ya know how that always goes –

The thinking seems to just kinda happen on his own; There in the background, a rat running to nowhere

On a squeaky Hamster Wheel that if I could just

Find that damned bottle of 3-in-one oil

I might be able to fix it

To stop it from squeaking so much

To stop it from annoying me like it

Always seem to do and maybe then I can

Get on with the rest of my damn life

Or maybe just get to sleep…….

That’s the way it is with the Mind

Oh, yeah, it’s a such wonderful thing

So wonderful that all I want to do

All I can’t seem to do

Is get it to shut the fuck up.

I sit down at the foot of the bed

I sit down and cross my legs

I sit down and I try to think

I sit down and I think of nothing at all

And the wheels on the bus go

Yes they certainly do go round -n- round

And the wheels on the bus go

Yes they certainly do go round -n- round

And the wheels on the bus go

Yes they certainly do go round -n- round….

Hypnodaisy

By Falon Scott

Nature

after The Kiss

By Zoe Schultz

by Gustov Klimt

Pale hands seep through emerald leaves and curl around a nape adorned with shivers disguised as chills from a tinkling rain of sun.

Lips stain a cheek pink, fingertips slide over bare shoulders and faces, a twilight sky and wind. I think we are fated.

Stars slip through our archaic love and spin on our cloaks of blushing golds and cosmic swirls.

Yellow and orange flushes of flowers grow on blessed land between you and me and the earth under our feet.

Fill me with sunlightNature is your body on mine against a damp earth, squishing soft buds that will regrow when we leave.

Mardi Gras

By Bianca Martin

Venezia

By Bianca Martin

To Devon

By James Cain

Hey, remember a while back, I think it was sophomore year, when I gave you that thank you note? Of course you do, I’m pretty sure that note made your whole year, but do you remember the promise we made afterwards? The promise that we’d never forget each other? Well, I’m hoping you’ve held up your end because I’ve held up mine. I still remember all you’ve done for me; I don’t think any sane person would ever forget that. I’m honestly hoping one day I can come down there and visit. It’d be nice to see you again. Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading this, I’m putting my heart and soul into it. Take care and thank you.

“Lilac, breakfast’s ready!”

A little girl lays restless in her bed. She’s awake but secretly wishes she wasn’t. That’s because today is a big day for her, it’s her first day of kindergarten. She was excited about today for weeks but now that the day is here, she couldn’t help but feel that the anticipation is eating at her. She knew the moment she got out of bed was when the day began, and she didn’t want the day to begin, not just yet. She lay in her bed, anxiously staying away from its edges when a soft voice came from beyond her bedroom door.

“Lilac, breakfast’s waiting for you downstairs, are you-”

Lilac’s mother stops in her tracks when she sees her daughter. She had a feeling this was going to happen, after all it was not the first time it had. Every time something big comes up that involves her it makes her anxious, for some reason she just can’t handle the anticipation. However, Lilac’s mother has come to understand this behaviour, and knows how to deal with it accordingly.

“Lilac, sweety, are you okay? What’s going on?” Lilac’s mother says as

she sits on the edge of Lilac’s bed and begins stroking her hair.

“School.” Lilac says plainly and softly

“School? But you were so excited about it just last night, I could barely get you to bed.” She says with a chuckle.

“I know I just...”

“Too big and scary?”

“...mhm”

Lilac’s mother sighs. “Sit up, look at me.” She says with a calm and reassuring voice only a mother would have. “Look, I get it. Anticipation is a lot to deal with. Anything could happen at school. You could have a good day or a bad one, most likely the day you’ll have will be somewhere in between. But you’ll never know if you don’t go out and try to live that day. You can’t let the chance of things going wrong stop you from living your life. Otherwise, you’ll grow old, and you’ll shrivel up like a raisin...”

“Like grandpa?” Lilac chimes in.

“Yes, like grandpa” Lilac’s mother responds, feeling bad for her father. “...and you’ll regret having never lived a good day just because you didn’t want to have a bad one.”

Lilac, with her mother’s comforting words taking root in her ears, begins to smile.

“So,” Lilac’s mother finishes up, “Are you going to spend all day in here becoming a raisin, or are you gonna go out there, take that chance, and live your life?”

“Yeah!” Lilac responds with excitement once again.

“Alright” Lilac’s mother says while getting up from the bed. “Now go wash up, the bacon’s getting cold.”

Lilac spends the rest of her morning reinvigorated by her mother’s words. She quickly eats her breakfast, washes up, gets dressed, and before she even knows it, they’re out of door and heading over to the local elementary school.

They arrive at the elementary school just on time, and Lilac’s mother walks with her daughter to the front entrance. At the front entrance, the principal is there to greet them.

“Ah, you must be Miss Janewell” He reaches out a hand to shake hers. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I hope things are going well for you, I know solo-parenting is a hard task, but something tells me you’ve got it well under control.”

Miss Janewell responds sheepishly “Oh, well I’m doing as well as any other parent can.”

“That’s good to hear. Let me remind you that if you ever run into any trouble and need a hand, don’t be afraid to reach out. I know plenty of resources for single parents to aid them in their troubles, there is also group chat shared between all of the single parents of students at our school if you ever want to join it.”

“Thank you, I’ll look into it.”

The principal looks down at Janewell’s side to see little Lilac. “And this must be your sweet little angel.”

“Lilac, right?” He says, now talking to the little girl.

Shy but trying her best to be brave, she responds. “Y-yes sir.”

The principal smiles and looks up at Janewell. “She’s got good manners.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The principal looks back at Lilac. “It’s your first day of kindergarten, right?”

Lilac again shyly responds. “Yes s-sir.”

“Well, let me give you my solemn promise, as the principal, that today will be the best day you’ve ever had. Alright?”

“...okay”

“Alright, let’s get you to your class”

Janewell lets go of Lilac’s hand and crouches down to be on Lilac’s level “I’ll see you later today, alright?” Lilac nods her head in response. “Alright, I love you kiddo.” They hug, and before long Lilac is in the school in her first class.

The day starts off normal enough. The teacher begins the class by introducing herself as Mrs. Caden, and she lets the students introduce themselves through a game of catch. The students toss a ball to each other, and whoever

holds it must introduce themselves. Mrs. Caden lightly tosses the ball to a kid in the first row. He introduces himself shyly and passes the ball to someone behind him. This next girl then introduces herself as she tosses the ball to her left. This goes on a few more times, before someone tosses it again to someone on their right. Then, suddenly, a kid jumps into the air and snatches the ball before anyone else can catch it.

“YEAH! I GOT IT!...OH uhhh, introduction....my name is BRAYDEN, and I’m going to be a future baseball star! Just like my dad!”

“Ok Brayden, please don’t jump up out of your chair like that again, you could hurt yourself.” Mrs. Caden says, trying to calm Brayden’s boundless energy.

“I’ll never hurt myself, because I’m INVIN...umm...what’s the word...INVINCIBLE!”

“Ok Brayden, now give the ball to someone else”

“Oh right, sorry” he says, as he scans the room for his catcher. Lilac sits, with eyes wandering, patiently and quietly in the corner. Then, she accidentally locks eyes with Brayden. Brayden, having finally found his catcher, rears his hand back just like his father taught him, and he throws it. With a terrifying WOOSH the ball flies through the air and, before Lilac can even think to catch it, lands square in the center of her face.

Lilac, surprised by this event, falls out of her chair and onto the floor. She’s tempted to cry, but she’s a strong girl, so she holds it in. Mrs. Caden rushes to her side to see if she’s okay. Lilac, with tears slowly pooling in the corners of her eyes, simply nods a yes. Mrs. Caden gets onto Brayden for throwing the ball that hard at another kid, and then she takes Lilac to the nurse’s office. She’s given a bag of ice and is sent back to class. Because of the incident, she’s told she doesn’t have to introduce herself today if she doesn’t want to, and class carries on like normal.

Sometime later lunch arrives, and the students are told to get into a single file line in front of the classroom door. Eagerly Lilac grabs her lunchbox her mom had made for her and gets in line. The ball incident earlier may have been bad, but at least she gets to enjoy her mom’s cooking. The students walk from the classroom into the lunchroom and sit in their assigned chairs. Lilac can barely keep the excitement in her while she’s opening her lunchbox, but she couldn’t have predicted what would follow. When she opens the lunchbox, nothing is there to greet her. Astonished, she can’t believe what

she’s seeing. Did her mother forget to fill her lunchbox? No, she couldn’t have, she saw her putting food into it during breakfast. So where was the food? Where was her mother’s cooking? Suddenly, the kid in front of her looks at her, realizing what he had done.

“Wait, was that yours? Oh...I’m sorry I ate it during class, I didn’t realize it wasn’t mine to eat...sorry. You can have my lunch if you want, I’m not hungry anyways.” He hands Lilac his own lunch, one of the free lunches the school gives out. It’s nothing like her mother’s cooking, she can barely bring herself to eat it. She wants to cry, but she’s a strong girl, so she holds it in.

After lunch, recess begins. Finally, this day wasn’t great, but now she can relax and at least have some fun on the playground. All the kids ran out of the doors of the elementary school towards the playground, Lilac included. However, fate had other plans for poor little Lilac. As she runs out towards the playground, before she can even get to it, she slips and falls face first into a slick muddy spot in the grass. She slowly pushes herself back up, covered in a thin layer of mud, and tries to push on. Then, she notices something. Her left foot feels noticeably wetter now than before. She looks down only to realize she’s missing her left shoe. She desperately runs around looking for it, but to no avail. Her left shoe is gone. She really wants to cry now, but she’s a strong girl, so she holds it in.

The day carries on, with a few more minor hiccups along the way, and before long school is over and Lilac’s mother comes to pick her up. Lilac is guided by the teachers to the front door towards the car riders area. There, Lilac’s mother is waiting for her. Upon seeing her mother, with an eye blackening, and mostly empty stomach, and a missing shoe, she desperately wants to cry, but she’s a strong girl, so she-

“WEEEEHHHHH!!!” Lilac cries while running to her mother. She clings onto her for dear life and won’t let go. Janewell tries to ask her what’s wrong, but Lilac doesn’t respond, so instead with a crying child wrapped around her leg she limps over to vehicle, gets Lilac into her seat, and drives home.

After having such a horrid day, Lilac can barely get to sleep. She has nightmares of the coming day, and before long the sun rises with barely a wink to her name.

With the morning’s arrival, she knows she must get out of bed but doesn’t want to. She remembers what happened yesterday, it sticks to her thoughts

like a spiderweb caught in her hair. She just cannot shake the feeling that if she goes back to school, the day will be just as bad if not worse than yesterday.

With a creak, the bedroom door slowly opens. Lilac’s mother slowly walks into the room and sits down at the edge of the bed. She once again begins to stroke her hair.

“What happened yesterday? Why were you crying?”

“...I don’t wanna talk about it...”

“Sweety...I won’t be able to help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong”

“I said I don’t wanna TALK ABOUT IT!” Lilac shouts, punching her bed.

Janewell sighs, she was really hoping Lilac would have a good first day, now she has to come up with some way to get her back to school.

“...look, Lilac. We all have bad days, even I do. Here’s the thing about bad days, they never last. You can’t have a bad day forever, there’s always a brighter sunrise coming. You’ve just gotta keep going, you can’t let yourself miss out on those good days just because you had one bad one.”

Lilac is silent in response, but in Janewell’s eyes it’s better than disagreement.

She leans down to Lilacs ear to whisper. “If you go to kindergarten today, I’ll buy you ice cream afterwards.”

Lilac’s ears perk up. “Really?” She says softly.

“Yep, and if you have a really bad day again, I’ll buy you a whole LOT of ice cream.”

“REALLY?” Lilac says, suddenly reinvigorated to go back to school.

“The whole store.” Janewell says, hoping she won’t eat her words later.

This promise was just the push Lilac needed to get going. Before long, her breakfast is eaten and she’s washed up, properly clothed and ready to head out the door.

When they get to the school, Lilac is understandably unwilling to enter. However, remembering the promise her mother made with her she eventually enters the school.

She sits in her classroom, anxious and barely able to pay attention to what’s being taught.

She just can’t shake the feeling that something is off. Suddenly, the teacher calls on her.

“Lilac, can you tell me what 2+3 is?”

Surprised by this sudden task, she quickly scrambles herself together to come up with an answer.

“Uhmmm...uhhh...5?” She responds sheepishly, unsure if it’s the correct answer.

“...Correct, good job Lilac, now come up here and get a piece of candy since you answered correctly.”

Lilac, astonished that she got it right, quickly rushes to the front of the room to get her prize. As she goes back to her seat and sits back down, she thinks to herself “Is this it? Am I finally going to have a good day?”

Before long the lunch bell rings, and the kids gather at the front door. Lilac, remembering what happened yesterday, kept her lunchbox close to her all throughout class, so she knows for a fact her mother’s cooking is in there. The students make their way to the lunchroom and sit in their assigned seats as usual. Lilac prepares herself to open the lunchbox. She slowly opens it, and to her surprise its jam packed full of all her favorite goodies. Everything she could ever love about her mother’s cooking all contained in one little box. She digs in, happy she finally got to treat herself to what she missed out on yesterday.

After lunch, recess begins, but she doesn’t want to play. Instead, she’s going on a mission to find her lost shoe from yesterday. She checks all around the muddy spot, being extra careful not to slip again, when suddenly she hears a noise behind her.

“woooOOAAHH SPLAT.” Lilac quickly turns around to see what happened only to find the boy who threw the ball at her yesterday had fallen in the mud behind her.

“Are you okay?” Lilac says, quickly running over to Brayden.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay, it’s not the first time I’ve gotten muddy like this. It happens a lot when I’m playing baseball with my dad.” He says, quickly patting himself down trying to remove what mud he can. ”OH, I uhhh, I got something for you” Brayden reaches into his back pocket to hand it to Lilac. Lilac almost can’t believe what he has. It’s her shoe.

“Yeah...I found it yesterday while coming back inside from recess. I would’ve given it back to you then but...I was too scared to after throwing that ball at your face...but I got it now! So...here you go.” Brayden quickly hands it over to Lilac in embarrassment.

“Oh, thank you so much, Brayden! I can’t believe you found it! Thank you!!!” Lilac responds, happier than ever. Her day just couldn’t have gone better than this.

After school lets out Lilac rushes quickly out of the front doors to her mother, who’s waiting patiently by her car. She gushes all about her day to her mother, who couldn’t be happier knowing that her little angel had the good day she deserved. Lilac quickly hops into the car with her mother, and off they drive into the downtown area for the ice cream she was promised that morning. She relaxes in her seat, knowing her mother was right. There always is a brighter sunrise.

As Lilac and her mother walk around the downtown area, ice creams in hand, Lilac quickly finishes hers and begins to run ahead of her mother excitedly. She’s happy she got her good day. Suddenly, her excitement gets the better of her, as she forgets to look where she’s going and runs straight into a man waiting idly at a crosswalk. She falls to the ground and looks up, only to see a man who looked almost like a statue with how emotionless he was. He barely glances down at her, and for some reason she can’t shake the feeling that the expression on his face is one she’s had before, maybe even this morning. A face she couldn’t quite explain.

Janewell rushes over, promptly apologizes to the man who says nothing in response, and motions to Lilac to keep moving. However, as they walked, a question struck Lilac. Something was off about the man...and she just had to know what.

After they were already a bit of a ways ahead of the man Lilac lets go of her mother’s hand and runs back to the man. Janewell tries to stop her but it’s too late, she’s already on a mission.

The man stands idly at a crosswalk. The crosswalk light is green, he can go, but for some reason he just can’t bring himself to walk. He can’t take that step forward. Suddenly, he feels a tugging sensation on his left leg. He looks down to see a little girl tugging at his pant leg. In fact, it’s the same girl that ran into him just moments earlier.

“Hey mister?” The man is quiet in response. “Why are you sad?”

“What?” The man responds quietly in confusion. What is this little girl talking about?

“Did you have a bad day too?

“What...what do you mean? Why are you asking this?”

Lilac shuffles a bit in her place. “Well...you have the same face I did this morning...when I woke up and had to go back to kindergarten after a bad day. Did you have a bad day too?”

The man is astonished that this kid could tell. He decides to humor her for a bit and answer her question.

“Well...I guess you could say that, although it goes a little deeper than that.”

Lilac makes a motion with her head to signify that she doesn’t quite understand.

The man sighs. “You said you went to kindergarten, right?”

“Yep!”

“And you had a bad first day, right?”

“...yeah...”

“...well, imagine I went to school, and I had a bad first day, but despite that, I kept going in hopes that I’d get my good day. However, as I kept going to school...the bad days kept coming, and they kept getting worse. Every day I would...go to school and have a bad day. And as this went on, it made me wonder w-why I was even going to school in the first place.” Tears start forming in the corners of the man’s eyes. “...a-and I’m scared...because...because I don’t know, how many more bad days I can have at school-” The man start to talk more slowly and anxiously. “-b-before I drop out.”

“Drop out? What does that mean?” Lilac asks, concerned for the man.

“Quit...before I quit school...Every part of my body and mind is telling I should just quit and give up because why even li-...go to school when it’s nothing but bad days.” The man eyes look like they’re about to burst at the seams with tears.

“...well,” Lilac responds quietly yet confidently. “What if you miss your good day?”

Suddenly, the man is taken aback. “What?”

“This morning, I didn’t want to go to school because yesterday was a really bad day for me. But my mommy cheered me up, and I went. And I had the BESTEST day EVER! I got a piece of candy, I got a real lunch, and I found my lost shoe! If I didn’t go to school today, I would’ve missed that. And I really don’t want to miss that. Sooo, why miss yours? I’m sure you’ll have yours someday, maybe even today! I don’t think you should miss your good day.”

With those last words said by Lilac, the dam opens. A stream of tears runs down the man’s face, something he hasn’t felt in a very long time.

“Are you okay?” Lilac asks, unsure if she did anything wrong.

Suddenly, the man cracks a smile and begins to laugh. “I can’t believe it.” The man is barely able to talk between tears and laughter. “Kid, it’s not... you know what, yeah sure, you’re right. I wouldn’t wanna miss my good day for the world.” The man then mumbles under his breath, “Childlike innocence, what a wonder.”

Janewell stands behind Lilac. Having heard every bit of the conversation, she was astonished. Yet, Lilac stands, confused as to what going on. She walks to her mother and asks if she messed up.

“No-no Lilac, you didn’t. He’s crying because he’s happy.”

“Really?”

“Yes...I think you just made that man very, very happy.”

After some time of Janewell talking to the man and exchanging numbers and information, Janewell reassures the man that there are resources for him, and he can get the help he needs. Afterwards Janewell grabs hold of her daughter’s hand, and they walk home. Lilac is still unsure of what she did, but she knows one thing’s for sure. She did the right thing, and whatever it was, he’s surely happy now because of it.

He relaxes in his mind, knowing the kid was right. There always is a brighter sunrise.

He just has to live to see it.

Thank you for being the brighter sunrise.

Through Glass

By Hannah Byard

Fingers

By Madeline Koger

I have holes in my fingers.

Real holes, jagged and aching, on the back of my pinky, the inside of my ring finger.

“It’s biology”, they say. As if that’s supposed to make it easier. As if knowing the science makes the pain less personal.

My muscles have turned to bone. Slowly, quietly, as if my body is betraying me in secret.

And when there’s nowhere left for the bone to go, it breaks through. Out through the skin. Out through the holes in my fingers.

And I pretend not to notice, but every time I look down, I see that even my own body is trying to escape me.

Alleyway Song

By Riley Foley

Is this a twister or the runt

Of the the litter, made for a cold Grave and quail for dinner.

Some random eunuch asked For a telephone. I said where Is your own phone? Nothing Played in his head, nothing

Danced in his shoes, but By golly, in his heart

He knew the blues.

Rum soda in a black paper bag, He whined,

As the alley became undefined. Nothing seemed And nothing quaked,

But you could see this man was pretty baked. Potato man, he whined at me, Hand over your monopoly money.

I gave him the cannon, Cause I always play with the ship, And I saw his disappointment

In his droopy lower lip. Is there a god? He wheedled endlessly, Repeating the call of every century; Am I sane beneath my own rain cloud, Or is dancing in this open alleyway not allowed.

Graphite Still Life

By Leo Critz

Clown Theory

By James Cain

There’s this new brand of science

That’s come into town. Its name is Clown Theory, the antithesis to all frowns.

The idea is nonsense, and making sense from all non.

With a wave a wand, rationale is all gone!

Reason has no meaning and meaning has no reason. You live with no logic And keep insanity in season!

Take not a grain of salt, but a pound of sugar.

Take the beauties for a night, and marry the hooker!

You can walk on the plates then eat off the floor!

And those that call us pseudo?

You can kick em out the door!

Let your thoughts run rampant. Have fun with your pride. The only matter is you and your own wild ride.

You can steal from the poor, And then give to the rich. Make any devious deed that’ll satisfy that itch.

You can cut your wrists open and watch honey pour out. A gallon of satisfaction as your lights fade out.

While everyone is busy, let’s burn the house down!

Was your family inside? They never mattered anyhow!

Do the right things wrong And the wrong things right, for a party that never ends where there is no goodnight.

Because when nothing is serious and disaster makes for song, there will be no one to notice when you’ve done something wrong.

So why not listen to those voices and pick up that gun. You’ll be forgotten by sunrise when everyone’s having fun.

Creature

By Alexis Denny

Elaine’s Lament

By Max Lawrence

Barefoot and blistered. Frightened and full of grief—mad and deprived of hope. All of these emotions, blended and hidden in the vessel of a singular woman. A woman in white, fleeing through the forest; devoid of hope and light, much like herself.

Cold and heartless, like the life she lived.

The snow underneath her bare feet was unforgiving. It burned, it blistered, it ached. And still, she kept running. Her tears of grief had long since frozen to her face—stiff and refusing to melt away. Her fingertips, shaking violently, had started to blacken at the tips. She was losing feeling in them. Just as she was losing feeling in her feet. If the creatures in the night didn’t take her, the cold certainly would.

She had been running for so long—yet there was no location she was running to.She only intended to run as long as her body would carry her until she collapsed from the cold or from exhaustion. Until she would quietly pass away in the thick snow, and let the night reclaim her. Just as it had her husband.

She could have given herself the plague if she had truly wanted to—let herself pass away in the same nature her husband had—but that wasn’t a quick death. And it was a quick death she wanted.

And there was nothing more beautiful than letting nature claim your body; than offering yourself up to God—but no matter the reason for her death, no matter how poetic it was, God would still turn away when she offered up her soul. Any death self inflicted was a sin, no matter the reason; no matter the intent.

The trees reached out with bare, leafless limbs to snag at her hair and scratch at her face. She could hear them cackling in the harsh, bitter wind— mocking her. It felt as if her skin no longer belonged on her body—instead it was freezing off, little by little. She felt as if she was dying.

But that was what she longed for, after all. She longed for death. The same death that had stolen her husband away in the dark of the night. The same death that had taken away everything that filled her life with warmth and light. And as she ran through the brutal, winter night, she could feel death closer than ever. Snarling at her heels and ripping at her clothes. Entangling in her hair, and freezing in her throat to choke her.

“Is this what you wanted, child?” The wind hissed at her as she stumbled over her own feet. “Do you long for death? Do you long for the fires of hell? Do you long for suffering that will follow you for eternity?”

The woman shivered from the biting wind, clutching her thin nightdress to her body, even as it provided no warmth at all. No safety and no protection.

Death would find her freezing and afraid.

“Blasphemy…” The wind whispered. “Selfish, wretched woman… who will never find love again…” The wind blew at her nightdress, engulfing her with an icy cold that made her entire body tremble. “Hell awaits you…” It taunted. “You will never find peace at the gates of Heaven.”

The woman sobbed in response, shaking her head; as if to block out the noise.

“God has abandoned you.”

The woman collapsed to her knees, crying out in exhaustion as the wet snow dug into her skin. She wept with her head in her hands, her long hair matted and tangled with ice that had no intention to melt. She wailed out in agony, covering her eyes with her hands that felt like they were minutes away from falling off.

No. She didn’t have that long.

No creature in the woods heard her cry or took pity on her. None at all. There was no wolf prowling up to her to make her a meal, no vultures circling overhead to scout out when she’d perish. The world heard her cry out for death, and it ignored her.

God was not there, and neither was the Devil. And perhaps that was the most agonizing thing of all; neither of them cared enough to lead her into death. They ignored her. She was too blasphemous for God, and too pathetic for the Devil. So both of them turned their backs on her.

And she wept—she wept so much that her eyelids stung, threatening to

freeze themselves together; so much that her throat had become raw from the wails and cries. But even as loud as she wept, nothing heard her.

O Death, send me a sign… she thought to herself. Could Death even hear her thoughts? Would she summon it just by thinking? I have lost all hope. If you are hungry for a soul, take mine.

She desperately wished that her thoughts could be heard. She didn’t think she was capable of speaking anymore—her voice was just as exhausted and weary as she was.

I beg of you, Death.

Her knees had lost feeling, her fingertips black and numb. Her hair matted and frozen in big chunks and strands. Her heartbeat raced instead of slowing down, like she desperately wished it would.

Come to me… she begged inaudibly—with how desperate she was, she would’ve assumed her inner voice was shaking and raw. Still, she tried to say it again, this time aloud.

She lifted her head from her hands, her face red and splotchy, and her eyes glossy and swollen. She looked up towards the black night sky—at the bright full moon that contrasted it. Snow fell on her face, sticking to her eyelashes and cheeks as if kissing her goodbye.

The words themselves came out in a quiet murmur, raspy and weak; from lips that were trembling from the effort.

“Come to me…” She whispered aloud, lowering her frozen hands from her face. She expected the trees to reach forward and snag at her again, but all they did was sway and crack in the wind.

“I beg of you… come to me.”

And perhaps, at her plea, something finally did hear her. Something, either nature or God, heard her cries. Her pleas for a sign— a quiet, soft chirping. A ruffle of feathers, something moving in the snow.

She turned her head to the source of the noise, her eyebrows raising in excitement and expectancy. She didn’t know what she expected to see; perhaps she expected to see one of the vultures, staring back at her with beady, hungry eyes. Perhaps she expected to see a wolf, head lowered to the ground and eyeing her with a malicious hunger. She saw neither of those things.

What she saw was much sweeter. Much purer—white as the snow, small enough to cup in her hands. A dainty white bird, ruffling its wings to shuffle the snow off of its feathers. It chirped quietly. Something that sounded like a symphony in her ears, pure and angelic. It was much kinder than the harsh whistling of the wind and the snapping of the branches.

She couldn’t fathom how a fragile little thing found itself out here, in the unforgiving snow. How this tiny, vulnerable dove had managed to fly through the storm and land right in front of her—at such a time where she needed a sign. A sign from anything.

Was this little dove her sign? Her sign to live? Was this fragile thing an angel in another form? Coming to aid her to heaven? Coming to comfort her? To convince her to live? To convince her that hope wasn’t completely lost?

The little bird chirped again, shaking its head as it ruffled its feathers. Like a shiver. An audible complaint of the cold. It understood the concept of freezing to death, it seemed.

Perhaps this was a sign—from God. To take this fragile little creature in her hands and clutch it to her heart, the warmest part of her, to save it from the very fate she wanted for herself. The harsh, barren cold was no place for such a small thing; or for a frightened woman like her.

“Oh, little thing…” She attempted to whisper, her words lost in the wind— barely audible to anyone but herself. She would hold this poor thing close, and she would carry it back home. She would keep it away from the cold. She would provide warmth and safety. And when the weather was warm and forgiving, she would release it and watch it fly back home. And she would—

Watch it die.

Before she could even blink, the bird was no more. A flash of black, a strangled cry from the poor thing, and a splatter of blood onto the white snow. A harsh, crimson contrast that made her heart stutter in her chest. A low, ragged snarl as the bird’s cry was ripped from its little throat. It was bloody. It was gruesome.

In a flash of black, in the most horrid way possible, she saw the slaughtering of the very creature she had just sworn to protect. Ripped apart in front of her.

Her entire body froze. No gasp escaped her lips, no cry of terror. She was in too much of a shock to make a sound. Her eyes only widened as she watched

the bird be ripped apart by something she couldn’t quite see. Only that flash of black and pitying cry registered in her mind.

This poor creature. This poor, poor creature that had no means to defend itself against evil. Ripped apart in the most gruesome way possible.

...Oh God.

Death.

Whatever this thing was, it was hunched over in the snow, clutching the massacred body of the bird in its hands like it still had the strength tofly away. Gripping it so tightly she swore she could hear its tiny bones being crushed. She could hear this thing, snarling and lapping up its blood.

And this thing… It had the stature of a man. She could see it as clear as day—or night. The moon shone its light on this monstrous man, highlighting the blood on his face, and the back of his head. Like a horrid spotlight, showing her exactly what she needed to see. Long, black locks, impossibly smooth, hung down over his shoulders and back. It almost blended in with his cloak, which was as dark as a winter night without a moon, and long enough to drape down past his ankles; long enough to drag ominously behind him when he walked.

Death… O God… Death.

Suddenly her numb knees and frostbitten hands didn’t matter anymore. The cold seemed to completely fade away, giving her a moment of eerie silence as she watched this devilish man feast on something in such a gruesome manner. And she found that she couldn’t make a sound; she couldn’t cry, she couldn’t scream. Not for help and not for mercy. She only stared, her mouth hanging agape as her tongue froze inside her mouth. Could the cold have frozen her mouth? No, it couldn’t have.

The only thought occurring in her mind was this: Death had come for her at last, and he was much more terrifying than she had ever imagined.

“Oh God-” She managed to whisper aloud, her voice cracking from the terror. Or perhaps the cold. “Have mercy on me.”

And he heard her prayer. The monstrous creature turned his head, his dark eyes wide and hungry from his previous hunt; like a trained dog locking its eyes on a fox or a hare. His shoulder censored his bloodied mouth from her eyes, and he dropped the empty, massacred bird back onto the thick snow with a soft, nauseating plop. And he turned towards her. Slowly. Slow enough to

make sure he could keep his eyes on her before she could turn away and flee; slow enough to reveal every horrifying feature on his face at a pace that instilled a deep, insufferable dread in her.

He lifted his face, its dark, horrid eyes completely locked on her own. The sight of his mouth—bloodied and stained with the remains of the dove— made nausea build up in her stomach, climbing up her chest and attempting to claw its way out of her throat. The moon illuminated his skin: pale and sickly looking. A corpse that had not yet reached the stage of rigor mortis, but dead nonetheless. The moonlight gave the illusion that it was glowing.

The monstrous man turned to face her completely, lowering his head like a wolf on the prowl. His hands, boney and dreadful, hung by his sides. Seeing those hands made that ill feeling spike up again, and she had to choke back a cry of fear. Those hands, those blades for fingernails, could be used to claw through her. She would suffer the same fate as the bird.

She had longed for death, but now it was standing in front of her. And she was paralyzed.

The monster lifted a single hand, reaching out to the woman without touching her. His hand was steady, despite the cold; it wasn’t trembling like hers. ”Stand.” He ordered. His voice was gravelly and rough—like this was his first time uttering a word after decades of silence; and yet, soothing and seductive like silk. Compelling and hypnotizing. Despite her fear and temporary paralysis… she couldn’t help but obey.

She slowly forced herself to her feet, although her knees threatened to give out from underneath her. She could hardly support her own weight anymore—and yet, as if under a spell, she stood. She locked eyes with the monstrous man, only able to utter a quiet whimper in response—a sound that escaped her lips before she could consciously swallow it back. Her entire body trembled, but not from the frigid air.

That outstretched hand of his, reaching for her and yet never touching her, stayed right where it was. And the man did not remove his gaze from her face. His gaze only reminded her of how inhuman he really was, although she couldn’t place why. Perhaps it was the way his gaze seemed to go through her; the way his dark eyes seemed to stare into the depths of her very soul. Perhaps it was because of the blood that stained his pale, deathly complexion.

Perhaps it was that cold, deadly look in his eyes.

The man slowly approached her, taking long, careful strides across the

thick snow. She couldn’t even hear the snow crunch underneath his feet, if it did at all. He almost looked like he was floating over the snow rather than walking atop it. Her breath escaped her, leaving behind a white cloud in the icy air; and her lower lip quivered.

She couldn’t move; she didn’t know why. She knew she should- she knew she should’ve ran as fast as her trembling legs could carry her as soon as she saw this monstrous man slaughter the bird. And yet, her feet were frozen in place. Her blood had stilled within her body, as if halting at the stranger’s command.

The worst part of it all was the simple fact that she couldn’t tell if this was some dark magic cast upon her by the man, cursing her to freeze where she stood—or if this was all by her own volition; if she was subconsciously listening to this man because of her wish to die. That very wish that was moments away from being granted.

“You… call out for Death…” His callous voice rang in her ears as he approached her, his dark eyes locked on her own. He never broke his gaze, not once. Not even to look upon her frostbitten hands with pity or disdain, or to eye her up and down to take in the sight of his next meal. He only stared into her eyes; stared into her very soul.

“... And I have come in His stead.”

She couldn’t explain it; she couldn’t explain the warm feeling that washed over her at the sound of his voice. Whether it was pure, unbridled terror, or an exhausted relief—whether it was a fiery, gut wrenching shame, or a strange, lustful longing for what was to come. She couldn’t identify the feeling, and perhaps that was what terrified her the most.

“... You long for Death… you cling to it.” The monstrous man stopped just a foot or two away from her, looking down on her with those harsh, inhuman eyes. ”Like a child to her dying mother.” She could see into those eyes now, as she raised her head to gaze into them properly—those eyes stared back at her in return. She saw the slightest twitch of his facial features. The small tilt of his head, the subtle furrowing of his brows as a knowing look made its home on his face.

“... Or a wife to her dying husband.” He whispered, that voice melting over her ears and providing her with a warmth that was both comforting and unsettling.

She felt paralyzed under his eyes—those eyes that were sharp and piercing like the tiniest needle in the pad of her thumb… and yet there was a soulful, serious longing hidden behind the darkened irises.

“... Yet you shiver when you are in its midst…” He reached out a damned, gruesome hand—slowly and tentatively. And she braced herself, her eyes closing as an audible shudder escaped her trembling lips. ”And you tremble when your call is answered.”

The entirety of her body shook. She expected him to slice her open with his nails, or to grab her throat and snap her neck in half. She expected most of all for him to lean in and tear her throat open with his teeth.

This was what she wanted. This was what she prayed for: Death. No matter how gruesome it was, no matter how painful it was. She called for Death and this is whom she received. She would die horribly, and bloodily, and there would be nothing left of her to find.

She was this monster’s meal, and she would be left lying in the snow, vulnerable and massacred.

This was what she prayed for, and she was suffering the consequences.

She waited for the pain. She braced herself to cry out in agony as the monstrous man brutally sunk his teeth into her throat. She braced herself to say her prayers as well as she could before her voice was lost to her and she was choking on her own blood. She braced herself for what she had asked for.

She prepared herself to welcome death.

But the man’s hand didn’t grab her or claw at her neck. He didn’t exert violence with those sharp nails and bony fingers. He didn’t clamp his mouth onto her neck the way a malevolent wolf would to a weak, trembling lamb. She didn’t feel the sharp, agonizing pain of her neck being sliced or ripped apart. She didn’t feel rough, horrid hands grab her by her neck to strangle her or keep her in place.

As her chest heaved up and down with her ragged breathing, preparing for the worst… she felt something gentle and tentative rest against the side of her scalp, near her temple. She felt the back of his bony hand—strangely careful and affectionate—rest against her forehead and slowly glide down over her matted hair. She jolted from the touch at first; an unexpected reaction from the

icy temperature of his skin.

“And yet…” He muttered, his hardly audible voice cutting through the cold, harsh air and wisping past her ears—

She felt his middle finger twirl around the tangled strand, as if he was taking in the feeling of her hair against his fingertips. All as he gently dragged the back of his knuckles down from her temple to her cheekbone. And despite all of it, she couldn’t help but lean into the touch—touch she had longed to feel again. Her lower lip quivered as she took in a raggedy, tearwrenched breath.

Affection. Tender and caring. It was enough to make her heart still in her chest—for that warm, unidentifiable feeling return to her.

“... Something… as beautiful as you…” He continued, an aggression in his voice that she couldn’t quite identify or place. He sounded serious; insistent, even; and yet despite the aggression… there was an undertone of gentleness and sincerity. His words brushed past her freezing ears, providing a temporary warmth that was both soothing and ominous. “... should not rot and waste away.”

There was a sudden wisp of harsh, ice ridden air that tore past her face and ears, like a hurricane passing through her, nearly knocking her off of her feet. And the woman opened her eyes with a jolt to face the monstrous man whispering to her—yet when she opened her eyes, she found that not only had the man completely disappeared, but she wasn’t standing in that snow ridden, dark forest anymore.

She opened her eyes to find that she was standing in her home, kneeled in front of the home’s stone fireplace. Surrounded by those thick, wooden walls that she was all too familiar with. No longer could she hear the wispy wind cutting past her ears, mocking her misery—but the gentle crackling of the newly lit flames in the fireplace. She took in a breath of air, blinking in alarm and confusion.

Her head whipped around frantically, as if expecting to see the strange man standing in the corner of the room, or even looming behind her. Yet, she saw nothing. Nothing at all.

She only saw those wooden walls. The faded paintings covered in dust and ripped at the seams, the candles nearly burned down to the wick. And the fire in her hearth, a wonderful warm contrast to the deadly storm outside. The very storm that had almost claimed her body and soul.

Had it all been a dream? Was she hallucinating?

Had she completely lost her mind?

No. It was only when she looked down at her hands to see her blackened, bleeding fingertips—when she could feel the phantom recreation of that cold hand against her temple—did she conclude that she had not gone mad. Yet she desperately wished that was the case.

The Ascent of Shapes

By Lakeyn Biling

The Right (the privilege)

By Emily Moody

In our attempts to find the profound, We are blinded from our commonality

In our attempts to push past the bounds, We forget about those in captivity

Our skin has the same material, Has the same fragile hold.

I still find the right of breath, undeniable, While they asphyxiate, growing stone-cold

What grants a right of existence? What permits an attempt of survival?

Is it the oceans, the long distance?

Are they, perhaps, truly so deserving, vile?

Our hands both cradle what is treasured

Our feet guide us down our paths

Where I started lets me go untethered

And they are shot down at the pass

In our attempts to find normality, We are blinded from what truly matters In our attempts to live in complacency, We forget that it is danger it favors What decides these conditions, and why? We live as we first greet the earth, And they are breathing, alive, just as you and I Therefore, they deserve all they are worth

Mono Music 3

By Devyn Summons

Nature’s Arrangment

By Lakeyn Biling

My Sister

By Caleigh Meeks

The one person who can make me feel literally every emotion In just one single day

We can go from laughing so hard we can’t breathe

To screaming at each other over the most ridiculous things You frustrate me like no one else ever will

But you’re also the person I couldn’t imagine life without We’ve been through fights and tears

But we’ve also shared the kind memories

No one else in this world could ever understand

The late night talks

The gossip over our newest crush

The car rides where it’s just us against the world

The jokes that only we find funny

The glances at each other followed by laughter

When someone does something we’re unsure of

Those are the moments that remind me that Beneath all the arguments

There’s a love that never goes away

You know me in a way no one else does

The real me

The side that’s unfiltered

Messy and sometimes

Well a lot of the time hard to love

And you still never turn your back on me

And never stopped loving me

That’s what makes you more than just a sister

You’re my safe place

My anchor

The person I can always come back to no matter what I may not say it enough

And I’m sure I don’t show it enough

But I hope you know how deeply I love you

Life would be so much emptier without you

You’re not just my sister

You’re my built in best friend

My biggest rival

And one of the greatest blessings I will ever have in this life

Goulish Stare

By Alexis Denny

Fish and Flesh

By Alexis Denny

ENGROSSED

By Meagan Porter

INT. ZORA’S BEDROOM - MORNING

ZORA (12, female) stands in front of a mirror with two different shirt options on hangers posed in front of her body. Behind her are piles of clothes on the floor. Zora takes her phone and takes a picture of one of the shirt options and sends it to her friend, LAYLA (12, female).

ZORA (TEXT)

Which one should I wear? This one

Zora takes a picture of the second option and sends it.

ZORA (TEXT) (CONT’D)

Or this one

Her phone DINGS and she reads Layla’s response.

LAYLA (TEXT)

Definitely the fitted one. And wear that cute skirt that you never wear

Zora nods and changes into the fitted purple shirt and pleated skirt immediately. She puts on black socks and black tennis shoes. She places her arms flat against her sides, measuring the length of her skirt. The skirt is just below her fingertips. She smiles.

She grabs her backpack and rushes outside.

EXT. FRONT OF BROOKS MIDDLE SCHOOL - MORNING

The bus pulls up to the front of the school and opens its door. Zora shoots up and hurries off the bus, almost tripping. Layla sees her and runs up to her. She grabs Zora’s hand and pulls her aside.

LAYLA

YOU. LOOK. SO. GOOD!

Layla holds Zora’s chin to look at her lips. There’s black lipstick all over them, overlined and done poorly.

LAYLA (CONT’D)

Where ya get the makeup?

ZORA

I borrowed my mom’s. Ya like it?

Zora makes a kissy face. Layla lets go of her face.

LAYLA

Yea! Henry’s gonna think you’re so hot now! (beat)

He’s over there at our usual spot with Sam, Zeke...and Chase.

Layla points to where HENRY (13, male), ZEKE (12, male), SAM (13, male), and CHASE (13, male) are on the black top. Henry is chasing Zeke and Chase on all fours like an animal, he GROWLS. Sam is recording them with his phone. The boys LAUGH and SCREAM.

LAYLA (CONT’D)

Sam told me that he heard from Chase that he overheard Henry telling Zeke about how he might ask you out!

Layla and Zora SQUEAL but the boys don’t hear them. Henry catches Chase, launching at him and making them both fall on the concrete. The boys erupt in LAUGHTER. Sam positions the phone towards them and replays what he recorded.

SAM

You guys look so stupid!

The bell RINGS and students start to file into school. The boys’ LAUGHTER subsides as they walk towards the entrance but Sam keeps rewatching the video, wiping his tears and GASPING for air. Zora turns to Layla.

ZORA

C’mon.

Zora grabs Layla’s hand and she runs in front of Henry. Once she gets in front of them, she starts walking slower. She tries to sway her hips to make sure Henry sees her. Layla looks back to see if Henry saw.

LAYLA (whispering) He wants you so bad!

Zora and Layla GIGGLE as they enter their first class.

Zora and Layla find their seats. Henry enters and smiles at Zora.

HENRY

Uh hey Zora.

Zora pretends not to hear him and starts a conversation with Layla. Henry clears his throat.

HENRY (CONT’D)

Nice outfit (beat) You look...hot

Henry pokes Zora’s shoulder. Zora’s face starts to feel warm and she CHUCKLES awkwardly. Henry goes to find his seat, smiling. The teacher walks in.

ZORA T- thanks

Layla tries to keep from GIGGLING. She slaps Zora’s shoulder.

LAYLA (whispering)

EEEEE! See I told you!

Zora glances at Henry and he smiles. Zora turns her attention back to the teacher as class begins.

INT. CAFETERIA - AFTERNOON

The cafeteria is loud with CHATTERING middle schoolers. Zora grabs her tray and looks for her friends in the crowd. She spots them at a table by the wall. Layla sits by Sam at the end and Chase sits beside him. Across from them sit Henry and Zeke. Layla waves Zora down.

LAYLA

Zora! Over here!

Zora sits beside Layla and in front of Henry. Zeke has stirred potatoes, spaghetti, peas, and chocolate milk into a horrible concoction on Henry’s tray. Zora scrunches her face.

ZORA

Uh- what’s the dare this time?

Zeke mixes the concoction, creating loud SQUELCHING sounds despite how loud the cafeteria is. The boys dramatically make GAGGING sounds.

HENRY

Zeke dared me to finish all my food in under two minutes!

Zora makes a confused face and takes a bite of her food. She SLURPS up a forkful of spaghetti and licks her lips, wiping off most of her black lipstick.

ZORA

Why’re you mixing it together?

CHASE

To make it harder, duh. You know how fast your boyfriend inhales his food.

Zora’s face flushes and she chokes on her food. Henry CHUCKLES awkwardly.

LAYLA

Shut up Chase. You’re too chicken to do Zeke’s dare anyways. (to Zora) Zora, you okay?

Layla pats Zora’s back. Zeke takes a bag of chips and applesauce out his lunchbox. He CRUSHES the chips in the bag.

CHASE Am not!

LAYLA

Just shut up.

She rolls her eyes as she continues rubbing Zora’s back.

CHASE

Whatever. (beat)

Sam didn’t wanna do it either.

Chase sticks his tongue out at Sam and Sam gives him a “nyah nyah” glance. Zeke opens the chip bag and pours the crumbs on top of his creation.

SAM

I can’t puke today, I got a quiz sixth period. (beat)

And you know how Mr. Bruce is about making up quizzes.

Zeke dumps his applesauce into the mixture and stirs everything in. He tries to hold back a GAG.

ZEKE Chickens.

ZORA

What’s the catch?

SAM

That if Henry doesn’t eat it all in under two minutes, he’ll have to do Zeke’s homework for the week.

HENRY

But if I eat it all before the timer runs out-

CHASE Without puking!

HENRY

Without puking...then Zeke does my homework for the week.

Zora shakes her head and takes another bite of her food. Zeke finishes mixing the ingredients and gives Henry the fork.

ZEKE Bon appetite!

Henry grabs the fork, the mixture is a discolored mess of slop dripping through the gaps. He looks at Zora.

HENRY

Zora can you uh...time me?

ZORA

Uh, yeah sure, sure.

She takes out her phone and pulls up a timer. She sets it to two minutes and clicks starts. Immediately Henry starts shoving forkfuls of the mixture into his mouth. Everyone watches intently as he CHEWS and SLURPS it down. Henry GAGS but fights through it. Layla makes a disgusted face.

LAYLA (sarcastic) How romantic.

The timer is halfway done and Henry has more than half of the concoction left. Zora tries to give him a look of encouragement without gaging. She smiles awkwardly.

ZEKE

There’s no way he finishes it all.

Zora looks at the timer and makes a worried face. Henry shoves more of the mixture in his mouth, not bothering to swallow what’s already in his mouth. He GAGS. The boys GASP and YELL at the sight.

At the last second, Henry shoves the last of it in his mouth. The timer goes off. He SLAPS the table in triumph. Zora smiles.

ZORA You did it!

He smiles back with his mouth full of food. Zora cringes. He swallows the last bite and Zeke shoves him. Sam BANGS on the table with his palms like a drum. Zeke YELLS in agony.

ZEKE What the heck man!

SAM WOOO!

LAYLA

I have to admit, I’m impressed.

CHASE He was just tryna impress his girlfriend.

LAYLA Shut up Chase.

Henry GAGS but forces it back down. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. Zora grabs a water bottle out of her backpack.

ZORA Here. Water might help.

Zora hands it to Henry and he CHUGS it. He BURPS loudly.

HENRY

Thanks. (to Zeke) Looks like I won’t be doing homework for a week!

ZEKE

Yeah, whatever.

The bell RINGS, signaling the end of lunch. The group starts packing up their trash. Henry grabs Zora’s arm, pulling her to the side. Layla wiggles her eyebrows at Zora, teasing her. The boys are still in awe of what just happened.

ZEKE (CONT’D)

How did he stomach all of that?

SAM

That boy is a machine.

CHASE

I say you call a rematch...when Zora isn’t there

SAM Ugh shut up Chase.

Sam, Zeke, Chase, and Layla head to class while Zora and Henry stay back. Zora looks at Henry’s hand on her arm and she blushes. Henry notices and lets go. He CHUCKLES awkwardly.

ZORA

What uh, what’s up?

HENRY

Would you...uh Henry GAGS again.

HENRY (CONT’D) Would you like to be my girlfriend?

ZORA

Y-yes YES! I’d love to!

They smile at each other.

HENRY Great. There’s an awkward silence.

HENRY (CONT’D)

We should probably head to class. I can walk ya to yours if you wanna.

Zora smiles and nods.

ZORA

I’d like that.

Henry starts walking Zora to her class. He reaches out to grab her hand. Zora blushes again. They reach her classroom and they stand at the door. There’s an awkward beat. Henry’s stomach GRUMBLES.

HENRY

Guess I’ll uh...see you late then.

ZORA Yeah.

Henry waves and starts walking away.

ZORA (CONT’D)

Henry wait!

Zora catches up to Henry. She cups his face in her hands and pulls him in and gives him a kiss on the lips. The kiss is stiff and awkward. The rest of her black lipstick comes off on his lips. She pulls away.

Henry’s face goes pale and his stomach GURGLES. He covers his mouth with his hand and runs to the nearest trashcan.

The slop that he forced down his throat finally forces its way out of him. He projectile VOMITS into the trashcan. Zora rubs Henry’s back as he leans over it. He PUKES for a while and she tries to hold back a LAUGH.

ZORA (CONT’D)

I won’t tell Zeke you threw up.

Henry CHUCKLES.

HENRY

Thanks. Throwing up and doing two times the amount of homework would suck.

Zora LAUGHS.

ZORA It would. (beat) Want me to walk you to the nurse?

HENRY

No that’s okay, I don’t want you to be late to your class. I’ll just stay here for a second.

ZORA

Okay. I’ll see you later.

Henry smiles and waves as Zora heads back to her classroom. She opens the door and sneaks inside. The class has begun.

INT. CLASSROOM - AFTERNOON

Zora tiptoes to her seat and sits beside Layla.

LAYLA (whispering) So? Did he ask you!

ZORA (whispering)

Yes! Right after he walked me to class!

Layla and Zora GIGGLE. A student SHUSHES them.

ZORA (CONT’D) (whispering)

And...I kissed him!

LAYLA (whispering)

EEEEE! That’s so cute!

ZORA (whispering)

I know! (beat) ...but then he threw up

Layla tries to hold in a LAUGH and shakes her head.

ZORA (CONT’D) (whispering)

But don’t tell Zeke. (beat) Or Sam. Promise?

LAYLA (whispering)

Okay okay. I promise. I won’t tell on your little vomit boyfriend.

ZORA Hey! Layla LAUGHS and Zora smiles. The same student SHUSHES them again. FADE OUT.

Tiger’s Intuition

By Lucas Abernathy

If only there was a warning

By James Cain

When a life falls apart, broken into pieces where memories turn sharp and dreams shatter, you’re told to pick them up, to reshape the pieces into a form recognizable to what you recall your life to be. But no one tells you of the pieces that disappear under the couch or get carried away in the wind, that they’ll be lost for a time unknown.

No one tells you of the pieces that remain scattered around you, that the thin edges of the shards can cut your hands like razors.

No one tells you of the pieces too heavy to get off the floor, a task near impossible to someone with no longer the strength.

No one tells you of the pieces that won’t quite fit anymore now meant for a life that is no longer yours to live.

They only tell you

“Pick it up and move on”, as if rebuilding your life is a task you’ll finish within your lifetime.

Sisyphus

By Lily Meeks

I hope my daughter carries the strength that I do not

Rather than the burdens that weigh me down at night

For the promise of forever with him

It’s sweeter than the temptation of a life alone

The feel of his hands on me

My face stinging from the contact

The curves of my body being lightly traced

The promises that escape his mouth

To end it all

To stay forever

I hope she feels the shield I put up as protection

Not as a barrier that she can’t escape past

For if she were to ever endure the inferno I have

I don’t want to find out if she’d be able to survive it

To talk him out of pulling the trigger

To talk him out of running away

To put all of your worth in the intention of forever

Although forever feels like hell if you can’t fully live

I want her to see the clear days

Never having to see the fog that rain brings

Keeping your head down

Not allowing anyone to gawk at the black hole

Casting your eye in the endless abyss

I hope my daughter carries the strength that I do not

Rather than the nightmare that I sleep with

Face Wash Epilogue

By Blaze Robb

Yellowed walls in my apartment bathroom backdrop my slumped frame, arms

braced straight, gripping the edge of the silestone sink. Staring back, eyes sunken and dark

hair scratching skin where it erupts, above my lips, on the rim of my jaw and down my neck, like my father photographed in 2011

Small stache, soul patch, and accompanying black stubble framing his angular smile and jutting cheekbones, his arms secured around my shrunken body.

Against his shoulder rests my meager, oval head that I try to remember living inside of.

Now, eyes glazed over in tears of an exhausted, echoing adolescence, the mirror view smears, and suddenly Dad is crying at the sight of his son, through the glass.

Grief stricken, empty nest syndrome, he succumbs to a silent sob

that I only know how to bawl alongside. Until it is done, expelled from our bodies.

Wiped eyes, my reflection reformed in front of me. A silent nod, the light switch flipped, and the door closed softly.

Iris,Ivy,Rose

By Sydnee Holcer

We name our children after flowers; with plush petals, only strong enough to survive a gentle breeze.

Like a child plucking its first rose, we drag joy into the world, only to doom it to wilt just as quickly.

Songbird Girl

By Mackenzie Cook

Lines

Shapes, colors,

Bridges, mountains, waterfalls

Sounds of songbird

Delicate laughter layered like chirping in the morning

Hands, fingers, smiles, crinkled

Carefully laced and wrapped around Their bodies, soft, scarred but willing

Intertwined in shapes of ribbons lacing, curling in another

Seamless

Dancing around the room

Sacred and gentle, like wind

Bubbling waves veil beds like sheets in whispered wings,

The songbird flew

Smiling sunken into lines, Shapes, and colors.

St. Mark’s

By Bianca Martin

Sonder

By Andrew Carrington

Dishwashing. Hand on rag, rag to ceramic. A monotonous task, but one that he knew well. It was the one thing, among other household chores, that rekindled his otherwise dormant processors. His programming did not, in fact, cover technical maintenance and nannying, which he had been growing accustomed to these past few months. He was certainly aware of this— if one could define “awareness” as the whining of his cerebral unit: this automaton has the basic package for domestic labor; please visit your local bottech for access to this feature, referring to whatever maternal care he may have been doing at the time. He did not know why he had strayed so far from his initial design, or even how, but it’s not like he could be checked for a malfunctioning logic core. All bottech services had long since been discontinued.

He interrupted his washing cycle when his hand rotor started to act up, as if caught on something. This happened at least three times a day. Ordinarily, he’d perform diagnostics on the troublesome limb, but it was considered separate from his internal wiring, because it wasn’t actually his own. It was indeed compatible with the clavicle socket, but it wasn’t apart of his original manufacturing. Like every other time, there was no obstruction to be found, and like every other time, he was forced to pause what he was doing to tend to it. This usually involved striking it with something blunt or, failing that, cracking it open and loosening the rotor with a few twists from a screwdriver. Today, the former worked well enough.

Unfortunately, the noise drew attention, though not necessarily the unwanted kind. “Morning, Papa,” a tiny voice said, strained by a yawn. Its owner, a small girl, would emerge from behind a bead curtain not a moment later.

Now, usually, automata didn’t feel “bad.” Shame wasn’t an emotion that came standard. They could mock it when the need arose— say, if their masters showed displeasure with their services— but it was otherwise foreign. Still, knowing his rotary fit had roused her, he felt something close to it.

Nonetheless, he replied, “Hello, Anele.”

“We goin’ to the store today?” The question by itself tickled old protocols. His long-disused scheduling application even tried booting itself up, to no avail. He had probably thrown out the module associated with it to save on processing power. Punctuality was a bygone virtue, anyway. If time had no meaning, deadlines were irrelevant.

“As promised,” he’d answer. “Can you get your coat, please?”

With a little ‘mhm’ and a bob of her head, she hurried off to do just that. The girl looked like her mother: dark hair and green eyes, flecks of brown dotting her cheeks. He said that as if it were any surprise, why? His cerebral unit mused about genetics like it was obvious, which it was. He wasn’t disputing that. He meant it more matter-of-factly. The girl looked like her mother indeed. Or perhaps he meant it sentimentally. There will always be a little bit of you in a little bit of her, or something to that effect. But he didn’t have that package either.

Actuators creaking, he hoisted himself up and moved to the door, askew on its hinges. A little like himself, actually. Once Anele returned, they both stepped outside, where the great, rolling dunes stretched out before them. The absence of daylight made it cold and quiet, so that not even white noise permeated the space. If lifelessness had a sound, it would have been this. In the distance were a band of harvesters, impossibly large, plowing past the horizon on gargantuan mechanical limbs. Even from afar, one could see how they surfed the overcast. Not an uncommon sight, but that didn’t stop Anele from being awed by them. Sometimes she’d ask questions; other times she’d just stare,

mouth half-agape. Today turned out to be an “ask questions” kind of day.

“Have you ever talked to one?”

“No, I have not. I do not think they are capable of speech. Their function has no need for it.” Quick and concise. He had to wonder if, were he designed for it, he might have been softer about it, more gentle and humoring. The girl looked down at her shoes, then to the harvesters, then back up at him. Her brows only furrowed like this when she was trying to devise a comeback. It never amounted to anything more than another question. Speaking of which… “Would you ever talk to one?”

This query, unlike most, gave him pause. It was subjective. Automata and subjectivity did not mesh. Synthetic intelligence simply didn’t account for it, making opinionated machines scarce. If they did exist, their opinions came preset, and even if he had any, he wouldn’t have an opinion on this particular topic. Too random. Yet, something within him stirred the longer he considered the question, until his cerebral unit had produced something uniquely his: a thought of his own, though it more or less verged on indifference.

“If they could speak, which they cannot, then yes, I would talk to them.”

“Maybe you could make them stop. I bet they’re super tired, always walking around and getting stuff.”

It would have been easy enough to say mechanical beings did not suffer fatigue. Logically speaking, that was true. But that probably wasn’t the response she was looking for. This was suggesting harvesters felt anything at all, which they did not, but he would humor the notion. “Maybe,” he whirred. “But they have known nothing else. They cannot do as we do and live a life outside of their parameters. They would not know how,” nor could they fit in any man-made domicile. “Still, letting them rest would be a kindness, both to them and the land they consume… even if they could not appreciate it.” He

took note of her expression: she only pursed her lips like that when she was about to add something vaguely related.

“I wonder what it’d be like to ride one.” Then, she doubled down, “I wanna ride one.” His voice box crackled with simulated laughter, which made her huff, feigning offense. “Really! You could touch the clouds and stuff.” A part of him wanted to rain on her parade by pointing out that touching clouds would only result in a damp hand, but for now, he stifled it.

The two had been walking for some time. An hour at least, for about a mile. But finally, as they crested the next mound, he could spot a distant structure: a long defunct convenience store. Even the name eluded him now, though he could have sworn he’d been there before. Without a clear connection to the net, there was no finding out either. It was the same reason the harvesters hadn’t stopped (or couldn’t stop) harvesting. Without the middleman, there was no way to receive the order. A concept too complicated for Anele to understand, unfortunately. As they approached the store, she finally took notice of it through the blur of sand and darkness.

“Is that it over there, Papa?”

“It is,” he buzzed. The girl had been coaxed here with promises of Old World baubles: toys and playthings for children. In truth, he was hoping to find batteries, which, while common in stores like these in the pre-era, were rarer now. The store itself was half-submerged in silt, obstructing the door, but a nearby window still allowed them entry. Anele went first, boosted up by her mechanical companion, before he followed suit. The interior, aside from the grains littering the floor, was largely unscathed. In front of them laid a row of checkout machines, manned by dormant cashier bots— not totally unlike him, though they lacked legs and were instead suspended on a pipe. The ability to move wasn’t necessary for those whose job it was to be behind a counter.

Off to the side, the girl was trying to lift up a fallen shopping cart,

though her meager strength didn’t allow for it. With his help, though, it was set back upright. The signs that ordinarily would have denoted the aisles were long gone, and since the shelves themselves were barely stocked, a cursory glance didn’t help much either. So, it was a guessing game. Down the first aisle was an abundance of dust and lint, and the next aisle was much the same. Past the empty coolers and the not-so-fresh produce section, they arrived at a wall brimming with—

“Toys!” she exclaimed, plucking a rotund teddy bear from the stuffed hoard and presenting it to him for inspection. It was missing both of its button eyes and was riddled with puffy seams, but its sewn smile was unwavering, even as the girl held it to her chest. “Can we keep him?”

The answer was obvious, but this was once again in pursuit of normalcy, fleeting though it was. His voice box chittered, the equivalent of a thoughtful hum. “I suppose we can, but you have to go to bed when Papa tells you to. Can you do that?” Once she agreed, he continued, “Put him in, then.”

“In you go, Teddy,” and with that, they departed the aisle. The others were far less lucrative, at least for Anele’s purposes. Near the back, they bumped into a rundown tech department. This wasn’t necessarily where one came to buy full-fledged automata, but rather individual plug-ins and upgrade parts. For domestic labor models like himself, this is where specialized attachments were sold: multi-jointed, tool-inlaid hands for increased cooking efficiency; a torso with a built-in washing machine and dryer; miscellaneous learning chips for childcare. He wouldn’t have minded stumbling across the latter.

“Hey, Papa,” suddenly chimed the girl. “How many of these did Mama get you?”

“Unsure,” he droned back. With how many parts he had replaced over the months, he wagered the only pieces from his original manufacturing were his

head and frame. All else, including his tantrum-prone hand, was outsourced. How long until he was something else entirely? “She treated me well, but luxury expenditures like these were rare.” His optics, as well as his hand, fell upon the teddy bear in the cart to emphasize his words: “Money was better spent on you.”

For a moment, she appeared downcast. He knew what was on her mind; she clung to his cold iron leg only when it was. “I hope Mama’s okay,” she mumbled, receiving a pat atop the head in turn.

“Me too.”

Sadly, the tech department had lacked anything useful. What little he did manage to find— a variety of translation chips— wasn’t compatible with his software. It did, at least, provide passing entertainment for Anele.

“What’s it do?” she had asked.

“It teaches me a language. They come standard with interpreter models, but it is otherwise monetized. This one is Japanese.”

“Oh, okay! Can you use it, Papa? Can you say something?” But as mentioned, it was incompatible. He nonetheless jacked it in and produced the foreign language, though it was little more than an error message demanding assistance from a bottech. She didn’t need to know that, though. She hummed, “Huh! What’s baai wa… gijutsu kudasai… all that mean?”

“It means ‘you are very smart and very pretty’ and ‘your mother raised a good child.’” The girl bunched up her shoulders in mock fluster, and in turn, he ruffled her hair. “But let us continue. I have not found what I am looking for yet.”

“Whatcha lookin’ for?”

“It’s a surprise,” he replied. A cop-out answer, but he somehow doubted Anele would understand its importance. So, though she grumbled, she went

along with it. Down yet another aisle, this time filled with crafts supplies. While he perused the shelves, Anele discovered a convex mirror that had fallen from the ceiling, and in the corner of his optic, he watched as she fussed over her appearance. A rotary fit had caused him to break the mirror they had at home, so her own reflection had eluded her for some time.

Eventually, she hobbled over to him and prodded at his torso. “What’s this called again?”

“That is my chassis,” he answered. Having reminded herself, she returned to the mirror and chose now to poke at her belly, as if confused. Her eyes shifted between her own flesh and the frigid steel that made up his frame.

“Papa. Where’s my chassis?”

“You do not have one.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are flesh and bone. You are man, and I am man’s creation.” “But Mama was man, and Mama made me.”

“You misunderstand,” but how else could he explain it? He joined her by the convex mirror and knelt at her side, continuing, “I am a machine. I do not have a heart, nor am I sustained by the blood it would pump. But you are genuinely alive, whereas I only fake it.” This did not seem to convince her. If anything, she seemed more determined. Wordlessly, she hopped up and returned to the crafts aisle, fetching what was later revealed to be a permanent marker. “Anele?”

Then, the marker’s inky tip was pressed against his chestplate, sketching a crude outline of— “There,” she said proudly. “Now you have a heart.” Indeed, the cartoonish shape had been inscribed on his chest. He couldn’t help but lay a hand over it, couldn’t help but be bewildered by the warmth that

blossomed in his chest. His logic core must have really been on the fritz…

“I suppose I do.”

Before they could leave, the girl had demanded they pay first, because Mama never shoplifted— even if there were no laws to heed nor credit to exchange. If nothing else, it resulted in an amusing encounter between the two and a cashier bot whom he “woke up” at Anele’s behest. Their total came out as a slew of random numbers and null errors, because without the net (and an economy, for that matter), the price couldn’t be properly calculated. So, they inevitably “paid” with a few loose screws they found strewn about the floor, which, for the girl, was satisfactory enough.

The course for home was set. The knolls beneath them quaked with a harvester’s footsteps, feeling closer than before, though Anele’s sprightly banter made him dismiss this. This time, her questions involved such things as the wildlife, before the evacuation and the land’s subsequent decay. She guessed lizards and snakes, but surprisingly not. He explained that, before it was barren, it was acre upon acre of rural countryside, far from industrialized suburbia. Rather than lizards and snakes, it was deer and foxes. She cocked her head at this, far too young to remember, but she didn’t question it either. He was rarely wrong when it came to objective facts.

In time, they made it home. What was once a speck on the horizon had grown larger and larger with every nearing inch, until eventually they were at that askew door again. When they began this multi-hour trek, the moon had long since claimed the sky, so it was around midnight now. More than a few hours past Anele’s bedtime, though routines like that were frivolous and hardly mattered anymore. It was mostly to avoid the girl seeing what happened at this hour.

A taste of death.

His monitor was inconsistent, even at the best of times. Silent at most intervals, but ballistic at others. Domestic labor models like himself were programmed to “seek rest” in the later hours, to hook up to the nearest charging port and “slumber” until morning, but for an automaton running on fumes, this was more like a fit of panic. It began with errors and warnings in a havrond font scattering across his vision— a bit like malware, though he knew it was entirely by design. Unregistered modifications detected, please contact bottech services; incompatible software detected, please contact bottech services; battery power at critical levels, shutdown imminent. Yet, despite the pained whirring and wheezing of his metallic body, he never fell asleep, never slipped away. It was a temporary thing— quiet, subtle— and Anele rarely noticed it before it had already passed.

He steadied himself with a chitter, much like a human takes a breath, before calling out to Anele, “It is time you went to bed. The hour is late.” This was met with a moan and a groan, of course.

“But I only got up a few hours ago.”

“And what did you promise Papa back at the store?”

“That I’d go to bed when you told me to,” she said resignedly. This marked the end of their back-and-forth, and she soon trudged off to bed. Her mechanical companion was by her side a moment later, drawing the sheets over her shoulders. “You goin’ to bed too?”

“Yes,” he answered plainly. “Only for a little while. If you need anything at all, do not hesitate to awaken me. You remember how?” It was a simple process: wedge open his chassis cavity and jam a magnet near the wires to create an electrical current. She had done it enough times to know it by heart, and so she nodded at him. As he moved aside, however, Anele’s arm peeked out

from beneath the covers to pull at his finger.

It was the stuffed bear, extended now in his direction. “You can have Teddy tonight.” Without thinking, he slipped it into a cradle, as if dropping it would somehow harm it. Through the girl’s eyes, it very well might have. As he balanced himself against the wall, he ignored the grousing of his cerebral unit, berating him for his fallacies.

“Goodnight, Anele,” he said, feeling too weak to fuss over it, too close to the end.

“Night-night, Papa.”

In their slumber, automata did not dream. Instead, they were greeted by the net, which was less of a place and more of a “binary codescape,” where ones and zeroes replaced bricks and cement, black and white for true and false. But now, he was greeted by nothing, by number strings and drifting algorithms, all quiescent. A few months prior, he could pick up on the static droning of other sleepers: bots awaiting an activation they would never receive, or eking out their last few minutes of power needlessly performing a task. This was no longer the case, though.

Sometimes, he felt pressed to call out into the great, boundless void, to look out into nothingness in the hope something would look back. But they never did. It was better that way, perhaps, in much the same way a human wouldn’t want to hear a reply in a morgue. So, like all the other times, he remained silent while he kept the dead company. Time would pass, and morning would come, and the cycle would continue. Another trek through the winding dunes, another ramshackle convenience store, another dozen questions about trivial topics, which he would diligently answer.

Except, morning never came.

He was pulled from the codescape with a rousing zap, ones and zeroes

melting away to reveal the interior of the house. The sun had yet to rise. The girl was in front of him, half-nestled in his lap and with a hand shoved inside his chassis cavity. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t pick up the words, still in the process of rebooting. He did not need to hear to sense the rumbling, however. It was indistinct at first, like distant thunder, but grew to a fever pitch over time. Closer, closer.

Before the first impact, he jolted forward and rolled under the bed with Anele and Teddy in tow. In moments, an enormous pistoning limb crashed through the roof while another steadied itself just outside the window. Although he couldn’t see it without peeking, he could assume what was happening next: myriad appendages would shoot out from its shell, raking up the concrete tiles and reducing them to their base materials: first to sand and clay, then to silica and aluminum, from molecules to atoms. The girl clung to him like her life depended on it, suffocating the stuffed bear between them.

In the dim gloom, only the harvester’s floodlight provided any glow, like the eye of an angry god.

Yet, this was when something occurred to him, or rather, he was conveniently reminded of something. Without thinking, he tilted Anele’s head and asked her, “Do you trust me?”

This was obviously an illogical question— needless, irrelevant. He did not need her trust, so long as what he was about to do saved them both. Perhaps it was an old protocol, the need for a master’s permission before acting independently… or it could have been out of fear of harming her, even if it was for her betterment. But automata did not fear, right?

She looked up at him and nodded fervently. She did not resist when she was pulled out from underneath the bed and held to the floodlight’s rays like

a sacrificial lamb, nor when the woodchips landed in her hair, nor when the walls threatened to crumble. In the presence of an organic, the floodlight turned a bright red before the appendages retreated. The thrall still remembered its lord, still respected their command, but it did not leave either. It simply stood there, a titan among ants.

The two stared in silence at the great, immovable construct, as if it might consume them at the slightest provocation. It hadn’t been given more than a minute to harvest the house, but it was nonetheless ruined: the roof had been laid bare, the windows blown out, and the door all the more askew. Far from a fixer-upper. “It wants us to leave,” he finally said, as if it could “want” anything. Anele jostled in his grasp, paradoxically obedient and defiant. In the end, it was the former.

He had long wondered when this day would come. Every day before then had been a choice between buying himself more time or ensuring the girl’s time continued. Again and again, he had selfishly chosen the former, though it was not out of self-preservation. He didn’t know what it was for. Even as they plowed through the whipping silt, he still didn’t know. Anele was at his side, embracing Teddy and whatever else she had deigned to bring with her. Meanwhile, he carried far less, only a screwdriver and a fishnet holding batteries. It wouldn’t be enough, and yet, it had to be. The world was dying. If he continued to stall, they were soon to join it. He did not share these thoughts as they crested the next hill.

The girl was uncharacteristically quiet. Her only question had concerned where they were going. “Home,” he had said. She pushed the topic no further. On the horizon, the harvesters prowled, daring to blot out the rising sun, but she paid them no heed. Her eyes stayed on her boots, idly kicking up sand.

An hour passed, then another, then Anele grew so fatigued that she needed to be carried. The scorching heat was soon to follow, kept at bay by

the gales, but they would make it. She would make it. Past the toppled buildings and the urban ruins, he spotted it, a spire of hope amid the wasteland. The girl noticed it too, throwing out her arm to point at it.

“Is that it over there, Papa?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be there with me when we go?”

This time, he did not reply. The vessel in question, a spacefaring shuttle, awaited a few dozen paces in front of them, through a gate and up a ramp. The distance was irrelevant; he kept going. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, even as the winds buffeted dust across his vision. The closer they came to the launchpad, the harder it was to see the sunlight reflecting off of it, but so long as he could see his own two feet, he kept going. His optics grew hazy and his joints stiffened, his body threatening to keel, and yet, he kept going.

He kept going, until he could push no more. It was at the ramp’s zenith that his frame went slack, arms still wound tight around Anele. Through the blur of his own impending demise, he caught a flicker of the girl’s face, peeking out from behind her coat flap, until that, too, crumbled away into darkness. The ambient sounds of shifting sand and raging gusts followed suit.

Battery power at critical levels, shutdown imminent.

There was no sugarcoating it: his spark had been snuffed. No power remained to spur on his iron husk, not even an ounce. The worlds of sight and sound were lost to him, but he could still feel a weight in his arms, a presence providing a warmth unlike the desert heat. Something deeper, more vivid. He could feel where her small hand pressed against his chest, where her tiny fingers traced the outline of his sketched heart, and when her body vibrated with words he could not hear.

By Falon Scott

Twenty-One

By Madeline Koger

Twenty-one is coffee gone cold on your desk, in a mug your grandmother got for you.

Your laptop hums like a second heartbeat. It is late nights in a dorm room too small for everything you are trying to become.

You are half a woman, half a work in progress, trying to build a life that feels like your own.

You promise yourself plans you might never make while dreaming about cities that feel like freedom.

You learn that peace does not come easily. You have to carve it out of the noise.

You write of truth and justice, then wonder what either one really means.

Because you are still learning how to be kind to yourself.

Every mirror is a question: Who am I becoming?

Every morning is a quiet dare: Keep going, even if you do not know where.

There is power in your solitude, grace in your resilience, and a quiet, stubborn hope that one day you will look back and see how far you have come.

Twenty-one is not wild. It is about searching and bravery.

A gentle whispering: You are not behind. You are just starting.

Witness’s Sin

By Zaria Montogomery

Faulty Model

By Piper Knight

EXT. PLAYGROUND - DAY

A cheerful ALEX (seven, light brunette hair, soft brown eyes, wearing a little gold cross necklace and a blue friendship bracelet. Her pink ruffled dress flows violently with her vigorous activity.) chases a poor scared RODNEY (also seven, buzz-cut brunet hair, thin eyebrows, and wide, terrified brown eyes) under the jungle gym. Rodney jumps over a large pile of rocks, which some extra STUDENTS are building.

Alex leaps over the pile with little issue, speeding up her pace. Rodney looks behind him in horror while his legs continue to sprint him forward. Alex continues to tail him until lunging forward at him like a starving tiger. She strikes. Landing on top of him, the two skid backwards in the dirt. She remains on top while he screams like a banshee.

ALEX

I caught you! Now you have to marry me!!!

RODNEY

No! Never!!

The boy squirms under her very easily lifted weight, maybe not for a seven year old, but the more he wiggles, the more she smirks. Alex looks over, in the distance, her best friend, ELAYNA (seven, short dirty blonde hair, quite skinny, pink friendship bracelet, chewing on a piece of grass). Elayna giggles, pointing at the poor boy. She trots over to the pair, squatting to address Rodney.

ELAYNA

You’re gonna make a gorgeous groom, Rodney.

The girls giggle and Elayna puts her hand on Alex’s shoulder. The audio of Rodney fades out, leaving the two girls isolated in their own world together. They stare at each other for a moment. Alex starts to smile at Elayna, spotting the shift, she takes her hand back and begins to run. Alex jumps up, and sprints after her, who glows in the sunlight of the end of day recess. Eventually, after ducking under the pizza swing, Elayna takes a moment to

breathe. A moment too long, as Alex swings in and tackles her. The girls laugh as Elayna forfeits.

ELAYNA (CONT’D)

I thought you only chased boys you like?

Alex pants, and her smile fades. She stands, backs away, and runs off.

INT. ALEX’S FAMILY HOME - MORNING

Alex eats cereal on the floor in front of the recliner, in it sits her mother, CARRIE (45, auburn hair, green eyes, french tip nails, 5’1) as she puts on makeup. On the television screen is a news report covering the “don’t ask, don’t tell” movement. Carrie scoffs.

CARRIE

It’s bad enough these people want to flaunt this in the open, now they want to be apart of our country’s military? For what? Our military is perfectly fine without them.

ALEX

Who’s them, momma?

CARRIE

Oh-

Carrie grabs a hair brush from off the side table that’s also cluttered with makeup, hair ties with beads, and a single coffee with milk.

CARRIE (CONT’D)

Homosexuals, darling.

ALEX

What’s a homosexual?

CARRIE

It’s a person who’s going against

God’s will by having feelings for someone of the same sex.

ALEX

Same sex?

CARRIE

You know how you’re a little girl, honeypot? It’s like if you had romantic feelings for another little girl.

Carrie grabs a fistful of her daughter’s hair and begins to brush with a beaded hair tie around her fingers. Alex stares directly ahead, unmoving, her eyes full of curiosities.

ALEX

Doesn’t God love those people too, Momma?

CARRIE

Afraid not, dear. Because of their willingness to commit these sins and even worse, be proud of them, they’re casting God out of their lives. Therefore, they’re going to end up in hell.

ALEX

Really?

CARRIE

Lets change the subject, Alex. Carrie gathers up all the hair she needs for a ponytail in Alex’s hair and pulls it tight. Alex winces.

CARRIE

Stop it, dear. You’re fine.

INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - MORNING

Folks line the church pews, bible in hand or raised to praise the lord. In the front right row sits Alex (now 11) and her parents. At the front, standing behind an oak podium is PASTOR DAVE (late 60s, balding, usual pastor garb).

PASTOR DAVE

In loo of our usual sermon, I wanted to take this moment to remind our parents to protect our children during this time. God has allowed very sinful people in our midst to thrive on his Earth. For what reason, we may never know.

Please keep them safe from sin.

TIM (46, short black hair with a grey stripe in the front of his head, 5’11) stands nodding along with the sermon. Carrie holds her daughter tightly, who stares at the floor. Tim leans over to talk to his wife.

TIM (quietly)

If I were president, they wouldn’t be in this country anymore corrupting our children.

CARRIE (quietly)

You know, in other countries they still stone people for having perversions like that. Why not just deport them?

The pair theorise amongst themselves as their daughter’s hands become restless.

ALEX

May I use the restroom?

TIM

Okay, but be back soon, baby. I

think pastor Dave is just about done for the day.

ALEX

Okay, okay. I love you, Daddy.

TIM

Yes, I love you too.

Alex walks toward the back of the room and into the hallway.

INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS

Alex slowly drags her feet along the hallway, directionless. An icon of Jesus looms over her, half inviting, half scolding. She catches his gaze and plops to her knees in front of the icon, and clasps her hands together, closing her eyes.

ALEX

God, if something is wrong with me, please fix it. I love you and hope that you love me, but if you have to fix me to love me, please just do it.

She gazes back up at the art piece, it doesn’t move, neither does she. Her breathing quickens and she holds her chest, trying to silence her panic.

INT. FRAT PARTY - NIGHT

A now 20-something Alex stands with her friend, NOAH (female, long strawberry blonde hair in braids, a purple crop top, and black shorts). She wraps her arms around Alex, who is holding a drink.

NOAH

Dude, come on and dance with me, you’re like a million miles away!

ALEX

Oh, yeah. Sorry, I’m just thinking about my project I have in biology.

NOAH

Right now?

ALEX

Well, it’s due in two days. Noah laughs, taking Alex’s hand and leading her into a main room with the loud speakers.

NOAH

Dance now, project later. Yeah?

Alex sets her drink down on a fold out table and allows the music to take her. Noah wraps her hands around Alex’s neck, revealing a rainbow tattoo. Alex raises her eyebrows.

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT - MOMENTS LATER

The girls lie in bed, scrolling through the photos they took from the party. Above them is a bunch of vines and butterflies Alex pinned to her ceiling. Sun catchers in her window, movie posters line the walls along with various indie bands. Alex eyes Noah’s tattoo again.

ALEX

Hey, can I ask you something?

NOAH

Yeah, of course!

ALEX

Are you gay?

NOAH

Oh, yeah. You saw my tattoo?

ALEX

Yeah, sorry, I like to observe people.

NOAH

So, you’re a creep?

The two girls share a laugh and Noah grabs her wrist. Their laughter ceases and their passionate stare becomes more prevalent. Noah moves in for a kiss, Alex backs away.

NOAH (CONT’D)

Oh, are you notALEX

No, no. I think I am, I just... I uh, I don’t know.

She clutches the cross that she hasn’t taken off for the majority of her life. Her face drops.

ALEX (CONT’D)

Here, I’ll get you home. Alex gets up and helps Noah to her feet. They walk to the door.

EXT. ALEX’S APARTMENT - MOMENTS LATER

Alex opens the door to Noah’s uber, Noah hesitates.

NOAH

I hope I didn’t make things weird.

ALEX

No, if anyone did, it was me.

NOAH

Will I see you again? A silence takes places that feels like it’s costing the Uber driver time.

ALEX

I hope so. (beat)

I don’t know. Please text me when you get home safe.

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT - MOMENTS LATER

Alex lies in bed, the night growing old as it casts moonlight on her tor-

mented head through the blinds. She moves around restlessly. She sits up , first glancing at a photo of her parents, her bible on the desk, and then a drawer. Alex feels a pull, gets out of bed and opens the drawer. In it sits a small pride flag, one that could fit in a side pocket. She grabs her face, collapses, and releases a primal scream.

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT - MORNING

Having not left her room since last night, she watches a video on her phone of her mother singing. She closes the video and calls her mother.

CARRIE (O.S.)

Hey baby!

ALEX

Hey Momma, weird question. You would love me no matter what, right?

CARRIE (O.S.)

Of course, baby. Why? What’s going on?

ALEX (beat)

Nothing, just wanted reassurance, I guess.

CARRIE (O.S.)

Oh. Okay, baby. I love you!

ALEX

I love you too, Momma.

Alex hangs up, looking in the mirror on her desk. She sees her golden cross necklace peaking out of her shirt.

INT. SMALL COLLEGE CHURCH - MOMENTS LATER

Alex sits alone in the pews, staring at the artwork behind the podium. She hasn’t changed out of her pajamas. A MAN (20s, neat brown hair,

6’1) walks in.

MAN

Oh, sorry. I thought this place was empty.

ALEX

You’re good. Could I ask you something?

MAN Sure, shoot.

ALEX

You think sometimes God makes mistakes when making us?

MAN

Nope! Never. Everything happens for a reason.

Alex sighs, slouching in the pews. She prays one last time to the icon in front of her, closing her eyes and bowing her head. After a long moment between herself and god, she opens them.

FADE TO BLACK.

Teeth of The Glory

By Ayda Lovett

Sanctuary

By Hannah Byard

A Real Poet

By Sydnee Holcer

I’m watching a poet read. A real poet, not like me.

She is in a bright orange dress, which bleeds into her shoes.

She said orange is her favorite color, “but color is real and imagined;”

I wonder what is real and unimagined.

She speaks of plants in cages while I stare at my shoes, scarred, dirty from wear, shameful because of the dirt.

I ask her, when she has finished, how I could be a real poet.

“You are a poet,” she replies, as if, just by writing a word, I’ve become something real, beautiful, unimagined.

Winter Oak

By Sydnee Holcer

When melting snow drips on my frozen forehead, I look up.

The grey sky’s splintered, shattered by the branches of an ancient oak.

Sunlight spills through, streaking the crystalline snow, warming my blushy cheeks.

Melting snow drips from branch to branch to forehead, down craggy bark, where too-bright moss is etched into the trunk like seeds in the sourdough.

Another drop falls.

Supernova Remnant

By Mackenzie Cook

You once told me deer hooves don’t leave marks in the grass

And that our life is nothing but a star stagnant within the galaxy

But neither do our footprints leave a mark in the long tall grass, They do not know that every star is a million burning embers

That the deer is the delicate image of us; elusive, tender, and wildly aloof

And the stars rave within their own heat to stretch out a fated burst of light, Deer flee in flight upon an inkling of danger, even in small moments

And our atoms are our own little system of stars, and our bodies rave inside themselves awaiting our inevitability

While we wade playful and skittish through this long tall grass

And without leaving a mark, I tell you,

This life leaves a remnant stain on everything we’ve ever touched Bright blue, distant, and dissipating but pure

And real.

Garden of Memories

By Lucas Abernathy

The Tree and the Champion

By Justin Arendt

The sapling took root above the Earth where I’m found. I nourished these roots as they grasped at the sea. It took many years; I think one thousand and three. It took all that time to figure why we were bound. Because alone we had limits here stuck in the ground. But when the roots gripped my body, our spirits ran free. A dangerous thing to cross me and my tree. So we reached for the shore line and wailed to the stars. As if we could ever escape this forest of ours.

The roots grip my throat now snuffing my sound. My friend makes me suffer down here underground. I can’t really move, I can never see. All that exists is just roots, dirt, and Me. The Tree does not mind, he stands tall with his crown. He commands talking creatures, they think him profound. None dare to cross him, he brings nations down. He can cast a few spells or send beasts to your town. He drains me of strength to make my soul weak. For his aims up above, all the madness he reaps. But my power’s not empty, I’ve one final squeak. “I call out to the stars, send the Champion I seek!”

You’ll hail from a place so countlessly far. The one with the purpose of breaking my bars. A soul made of fire, and so hopelessly bleak. You’ll steal a king’ s throne with your powers unique. When you crash from the sky your journey will start. The World may impede you; it’ll tear you apart. To be forged in fire is a hero’s perilous art. So destiny will guide, as long as hate’s in your heart. His allies will leave him, you’ll bring the fall of his peak. You’ll then stroll right in to his derelict keep. When his bark is ablaze I’ll awaken, my friend. I’ll even give you my power as one final send. Your journey complete, we’ll make the world bend. When our souls dance forever, at a villain’s treacherous end

On Teaching for the First Time

By Sydnee Holcer

Watchful eyes, smiling at their own jokes, watching me, trying not to let on that I’m drowning –in new clothes, not made for me; unknowns, insecurities. Trying to hide in plain sight, behind years of open books and study nights.

The minutes tick by, the leaves turn scarlet; now the water’s calm.

Those watchful eyes, watching me, no longer see a struggling stranger, but a teacher.

My last name is no longer foreign to my ears; it’s buoyant –floating on laughter like a lifeboat after a storm.

The Lower

By Kristin Tabor

“Althea, do we got any more rabbit left?,” my thirteen year old sister, Viella, yells at me from across our one bedroom rental. The baseboards are cracked and the wallpaper is peeling but it’s home, it’s shelter, and it does it’s job.

“No, we ran out last night. I was fxing to try and get some more this afternoon, but with this rain I’m not sure if I can.”

She walks into our bedroom and moans as she fops down onto our bed, “Ughh.”

I parallel her moans with a fippant look, although my face turns sympathetic once she’s covered herself with the sheets.

I know she’s hungry. I am too.

I loop another knot into the pants leg I’ve been trying to hem for the past hour. It’s hard to stitch with the bandage on my right hand. I had to wrap it up after I sliced myself while skinning the rabbits we ate yesterday. I was gonna wait until next week when it would be healed up, but I need them for my interview in the morning.

I haven’t been inside any of the expensive looking buildings since I was a baby. I’m not completely sure what to wear, but these pants are the best I got, and I fgured if I wore them with my Sunday shirt I would look well enough. It’s better to look as rich as you can get to be asking for a job like I’m interviewing for, seeing as only Highers ever actually get one.

My family wasn’t always in the Lower Status, but it’s easier to downsize than it is to scale up. Almost no one ever scales up. If you fnd yourself being a Lower, you’ll likely stay a Lower till the day you die.

Lower, lesser, beneath everyone else; that’s what we are. We don’t get jobs. We don’t get cars. And wherever you were born is likely where you’ll die. Quite literally since we can’t pay for a doctor either.

“I still need new shoes,” Ella reminds me. She’s only fve years younger than me, but that only makes it harder for her to forget our childhood, before Dad died, and took all his accomplishments with him.

“I know, but I still need two more tabs before I can pay for them. I’m planning on selling some of the skins we got tomorrow, so you should have them by then. You don’t need ‘em any sooner, right?,” I ask her.

“No, that’s fne. I can wait, but what am I supposed to be doing while you’re gone?”

“Taking care of Momma,” I tell her as I get up to try on my newly hemmed pants. I hike them up my legs and check the bottoms to make sure they’re the perfect length to look like I got them tailored to my frame.

“They look good on you,” Ella says quietly, sitting up on the bed.

“Thanks.” I smile at her. “Let’s hope they do the trick, huh?,” I say as I kiss the top of her head and leave to check on our Momma.

She’s sitting where she always is in the living room with her feet propped up and her head leaned back against the cushioned headrest of her recliner. Her eyes are closed and she’s taking in heavy breaths through her mouth. It almost seems as if she fell asleep watching the tv set up across from her, but that thing hasn’t been on in years seeing as we can barely afford electricity as is. Even if we could keep it plugged up there’s nothing to watch anymore.

Entertainment can only be seen with viewing screens nowadays. That’s why we were never able to sell the thing either; no one wanted it. But I guess it gives our little home a vintage feel.

I look toward Momma’s hand and sure enough she’s still got her viewing screen attached to her like honey on her fngers. A lot of Lowers end up like my Momma; too unhealthy to care for themselves since they rot away staring at screens.

Viewing screens are the only source of peace we have left from society. They’re not cheap, but they’re almost the only thing Lowers will spend their scarce supply of money on, using them as a means of escape from the world the people behind the screens created.

The rest of our things we buy with “tabs” among ourselves. We collect the tops of old cans found in alleyways or trash heaps and trade with those. It started as a small way to be able to sustain ourselves and slowly grew into the normal for Lowers to buy off each other using can tabs. Now that it’s more normalized the only way to collect tabs is through trading them.

The manufacturing of pop top cans ended once we started taking money away from the Higher businesses. Without trade being illegal they couldn’t do much else, but get rid of our supply. Even though they don’t make them anymore we still seem to have just enough to scarcely trade with one another in our little communities.

I lean over to feel Momma’s forehead and replace the cold, wet towel I’d left there this morning.

Still hot. Still sick. Still too stubborn to fght it.

We may trade with tabs amongst the Lowers, but the only way to pay for a doctor is with legal money. That’s why I’m trying to get this fancy, Higher job. It’s all for Momma. Her health has declined a lot in the past few years and the only way I can see her surviving now is if she gets medicine soon, and to be able to get that for her I need real money and a real job. In a way, I guess this interview is the last hope I have for her.

In between tending to Momma, Ella and I play cards for the rest of the night, until it’s well past sundown and our eyelids become too heavy to read the numbers in front of us.

When I wake up the next morning the sun is just barely peeking its head above the hill outside our window casting faint rays of light in through the curtains. I slip out of the bed, careful to not wake Ella, and put on my new pants and my white buttoned up blouse. I fx my hair up in the way momma taught me when I was real little. She told me that’s how she used to do her hair when she was a little girl and would go to school dances, and it was how she used to do her hair to go to church when she was well enough.

Before I leave the house I take a good look in the mirror and as soon as I step in front of it, I see her. My mother was there staring back at me. She looked exactly how she used to when I was small enough to be carried in her arms. It took me a minute to process that I was looking at my own refection, and once I did I also realized my eyes had begun to water. I miss that girl in the mirror, as much as I try not to admit it. I hadn’t seen her in so long, I had almost forgotten what she looked like. Disgust and pride war within me as to who will show themselves alongside her.

“Wow,” I hear a sleepy whisper behind me.

I turn around to see Ella blinking at me, eyelids heavy, still lying down with the blankets covering half her face.

“If they don’t give you that job,” there was a brief silence, “well, then they’re just dumb.” That got a little smile out of me. “You look like one of those rich ladies we see in the dress shops,” she marveled at me. Then her face softened and quietly she said, “You look just like her.”

I smile at her and kiss the top of her head, and then I spin around to show her the full outft. She nods in approval.

“Alright, well I better get going before the sun’s all the way up or I’ll be late and they’ll never take me. Take care of Momma and I’ll bring you back some new shoes if I’m lucky,” I call to her as I grab my bag and make my way out.

On my way to my interview I pick up a bit of scented oil from the Tabs Market and rub it behind my ears and on my wrists. I made sure to pick one

that wasn’t extremely popular in hopes they wouldn’t recognize it wasn’t a perfume.

As I pass by the dress shop Ella and I used to marvel at through the window, I stop and take a look at the women inside, all dressed up in clothes they have no clue they’re so lucky to afford. I watch as one of them hands a check to the man behind the counter. I take a deep breath and keep walking.

When I make it to the doors of a tall refective building, I stop and lift my eyes, letting myself slowly scan the entirety of it. I let them linger on the giant letters above the facade, “BEAUMONT & JAMES.

To be completely honest I’m not entirely sure what they do here. All I know is it’s a Higher’s life in this building and I applied for a clerk job in the development department. I only heard about this job from one of Momma’s old Higher friends who came to “visit” her last month. She said her son has been looking for a new receptionist for ages and can’t seem to fnd somebody “who is willing enough to stay quiet and do their job.” Sounded like one for me from the get go.

I make my way inside the revolving door and fnd a map on the wall that directs me to the third foor. I have a thing for not trusting elevators so I opt to take the stairs instead and to my surprise when I get to them they start moving on their own. There are two sets; one going up, and the other going down. I can’t quite wrap my head around where each step is disappearing as it fows into the foor like a waterfall.

Maybe I should’ve took the elevator, I think.

I hesitantly step onto the fowing stairs and I’m amazed as I foat my way up to the next foor. I round the corner and then foat up to the next. I make my way down the long, pure white, hallway until I get to the development department. I’m not quite sure where it is I’m supposed to go from here and there’s no one sitting at the front desk so I ask the frst person that walks by.

“Hello, I’m here for an interview. Would you happen to know where it is I’m supposed to go?” I try to say it like the Highers would.

The gentleman was dressed in a full suit and he looked me up and down before saying, “The offce in the very back,” and then went about his way.

“Thank you very much!,” I call after him, but he’s too far gone to have heard me, or maybe he just didn’t want to.

Either way I straighten my blouse and make my way to the very back of the offce building, passing a bunch of little cubicles flled with pristine looking men and women in fancy light colored clothing, doing various tasks I assume people usually do in an offce. Tapping on the keyboards of their expensive

computers, printing important looking papers, and making phone calls that require them to sit perfectly upright and stare at their screens. They almost look as if they’re sleep-walking, moving robotically with worn expressions on their face. I make absolutely sure not to disturb a single one of them as I walk past, observing silently.

So this is all it takes to stay rich? A cushioned chair? A few hours of pretend work?

It surprisingly made me more angry than anything. Angry that something so simple is what’s keeping me from being able to live properly. Keeping my Momma from living at all.

I try to tamp down my frustration as I open the heavy wooden door at the back. The frst thing I see is not the man sitting at the giant mahogany desk in the center of the room, or the outrageous number of plaques and certifcates hanging on the wall, beside photos of what I can only assume is this man’s family at a country club, the beach, and foreign countries. It isn’t the dog sleeping in the corner of the room in his own massive fuffy bed, with a basket of brand new toys next to it. It isn’t even how plush the carpeting is, making the whole room feel even cozier, along with the freplace lining the right side of the wall. What I notice frst is not how the whole back wall behind this rich man and his desk is nothing but foor to ceiling windows.

What I notice frst is the breathtaking view outside of these windows. Through these windows, I can see the early morning sun, just beginning to peek over the ocean while the tide gently ebbs and fows. I see people on the beach, buying and selling fresh produce from one another. I see trees and grass and so much greenery. The grass is always greener... And as I look out this window my rage begins to mingle with jealousy, just like the tide shifting between one another, and I’m not sure whether I want to scream or cry.

“Hello, may I help you?,” the man behind the desk asks me.

Snapping out of my daze I say, “Oh, yes! Sorry, I’m here for an interview. My name is Althea.” It’s second nature for a Lower to only give their frst name. I know this, but I still can’t bring myself to say my father’s name out loud. Instead, I stretch my arm out to give him a handshake.

“Oh Althea, right on time. Please, have a seat,” he says as he reciprocates my handshake, and I sit in the plush chair on the other side of his desk. “Thank you for coming in today. I’ve been looking far and wide for a good receptionist.”

“Yes I’ve heard,” I say before thinking and as soon as I’ve said it I pray he didn’t hear me.

“You’ve heard?” Dadgumit.

“Oh yes, well you’re mother is a friend of my mother’s. We had her over the other day, you see, and she was talking to us about how you just couldn’t fnd anyone, and suggested that I apply. That’s how I heard about this job.” Not completely a lie.

“Oh really? Well, that’s nice. What’s your mother’s name? I’m sure I’ve heard of her.” Without thinking I say, “Jane Bauer, sir.”

“Oh,” he squeaks. “Your mother is a Bauer? But your last name is different on your application.”

Oh no. I’ve done it now.

Nervously I say, “Yes, sir. I have my fathers last name, although he passed away a few years back.”

“What a shame.”

The way he said it, it was almost a whisper, and I had a slight feeling he wasn’t talking about my father’s death.

I’m not sure what to say so I keep quiet and wait on him to start asking me questions, but only a second later his phone starts to ring. He picks it up and averts his eyes from me, looking at the wall flled with his fnest achievements. I try not to listen because I think that might be rude, but I can’t quite help it much being so close.

“Yes, okay. No, that’s fne, I was just fnishing up this interview here. No, I don’t think so. We’ll just have to keep looking. Okay, and send me the other applications, will you? Thanks, I’ll be there in a minute.”

Confusion sinks in as he hangs up the phone.

“Do we need to postpone my interview? I can come in on another day if y-”

“No, that’s fne. I’m sorry to have made you walk all the way here, but I’m not sure you’re really who we’re looking for right now,” he interrupted.

I must have sat there blinking at him for what seemed like an eternity before he says, “I would just love to stay and chat, but I’ve been called into a rather urgent meeting. I’ll, uh, walk you out if that’s okay.”

Gaining my consciousness back I say, “Can I ask why?”, trying to gain clarity on the situation. Now I feel as if I’m sleep-walking, my dream slowly transitioning to a nightmare.

Now it’s his turn to do the endless blinking. “Um,” he clears his throat and I feel my breath begin to thicken in my lungs. “Well, you know, I’m just not sure you would be very comfortable here. I mean, It’s not really where people like you tend to work. I’m afraid you might feel… out of place.”

People like you. I guess he does know who my Momma is.

I try to hide the sting of it as I coax the stirring fames in my stomach to settle.

“Oh. I see,” I say absently. His shadow hovering above me makes me realize he’s waiting for me to get up, and I start making my way to the heavy door I just seconds ago opened and walked through. He guides my way, hovering a hand over my back and opening the door for me with a smile on his face, the picture of hospitality, as if I were a guest in his home.

“So, is that it?,” I ask, not accepting my fate here.

“We’ll keep you in mind?”

I take one look at his pretend ignorance and my fnal straw snaps.

“So let me get this straight. You,” I say, touching the tip of my pointer fnger to his chest, “aren’t even going to speak to me simply because I’m… because of where I’m from? You’re not even going to give me a chance?” Against my will, my voice cracks with my last words. I’m getting louder now and I know it by the way the offce workers, who I previously was invisible to, start to actually acknowledge my existence. This time it’s my turn to ignore them, even though the man in front of me is taking in their expressions with a worried look.

He chortles to try and diffuse the tension I’ve knowingly built and lowers my hand while reassuring, “I’m sure you’re a fne young lady, but like I told you in my offce you just wouldn’t be comfortable here.”

“Oh and I’m supposed to believe you care about me being comfortable when you haven’t even asked me why I want this job? Although I bet you already know, seeing as you seem to know exactly who I am and what family I come from.” His expression and silence tell me everything I need to know.

I swallow the lump in my throat and try to ignore the sting in my eyes. “No. You know exactly why I need this job and you’re still throwing me out like a piece of garbage.” I scoff, shaking my head in disbelief. That’s all I am to him, to any of these people.

When I’m met with silence again, I decide to just start making my way out. He’s already made up his mind and I’ve already deduced that I don’t have a chance here. I’ll have to fnd another way to get my Momma the medicine she needs. I will find another way. I’m almost to the front desk and I’m already

trying to think of other solutions and tame the fre in my gut when I hear footsteps behind me.

“Wait!” I hear him yell to me and I turn around to see him briskly walking my way. “Tell your mother I hope she gets better, okay?” he whispers, with the audacity to pat me on the shoulder and smile as he does.

I look down at his hand on my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t imagining it, and I’m afraid the fames might make their escape.

“Tell your mother to stay at her own damn house,” I bite as I walk out the door and out of the building.

I don’t look back. I don’t stop. I will myself not to cry. I have to stay strong, for Viella.

I trudge my way home, legs feeling like rubber beneath me, making an effort with every step to make the next one more controlled. I’m lost in a daze, the blazing sun beating down on me and making me feel even heavier than I already do.

I could sell a few things, do some yard work, or clean someone’s home. I didn’t have any useful skills other than the ones I developed once I started having to take care of Ella. I could babysit but I’m not sure if any Highers would allow me to take care of their children. My mind is spinning, feeling hopeless, as I make my way upstairs to our apartment.

Ella sits up as soon as she sees me walk through the door, looking at me with big, hopeful eyes.

“Well?,” she asks.

When she sees I’m empty handed her face falls in understanding.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Instead a long, heavy breath escapes my lungs. My throat tightens, and all my will to stay strong vanishes. I clench my fsts at my side and crumple next to Momma’s chair, my face pressed up against the worn fabric, and my hair shielding me from the world.

I don’t realize I’m crying until I taste salt on my lips, and I feel small arms wrap around me, and the warmth of my sister’s embrace.

“We’ll fnd another way,” she whispers into my hair.

I open my eyes and notice what looks like the end of a paintbrush sticking out from under the coffee table. There beside it is a box labeled “art supplies”. I had forgotten about my old art stuff, but now, here on the foor, it’s right in front of me.

I take a deep breath and return her hug, soaking up every bit of

strength she’s feeding me like she’s the sun and I’m desperate for warmth.

It’s easy to think I’m alone in this battle, fghting it all on my own, but with her here next to me I fnally understand that I’m not. We’re in this together, and together we are stronger than we know. I meet her gaze again and wipe my tears before pulling her back to me.

“Yeah,” I say, holding her as tight as I can. I let my eyes focus on the box in front of me.

“We will.”

Don’t Say It!

By Justin Arendt

“I’m sorry”, to himself the Boy said every night he would do this just before bed. If his room wasn’t tidy, or he did something wrong he’d say “sorry” with a pout and move right along.

When his soup went un-eaten, because he didn’t like soup he would toss it away, and ask forgiveness to boot.

“I’m real sorry”, he’d whimper intensely and stern for many times the Boy had laughed out of turn.

When he didn’t know what exactly to say “Forgive me”, to say, was like running away.

“Oh I apologize”, he’ll sheepishly chuckle after a misunderstanding or conversational scuffle.

When he tells a bad joke or talks for too long he sings an awkward “I’m sorry”, it’s his shameful song. Confused eyes are things that stab and that sear so he’ll tell you he’s sorry to save him your tears.

“Pardon me”, a phrase he exclaims everyday, if you ask him how come he’ll say he can’t say. Because apologies can keep your verdict at bay so the Man must say it, “I’m sorry, okay?”

Peeping Tom

By Jennifer Salinas

Hugh Pelley

By Caroline Robison

“Well, that’s all for now, folks. Tune in at one for the story of Kaden Dobbs, schoolboy turned hero when he saved a pig from drowning at the state fair. After a short commercial break, join Clarissa Beaumont at the Shetton High football game, where our Falcons are sure to make some impressive moves out on the field. This is Hugh Pelley, with Channel 9 News, signing off.” Hugh Pelley smiles at the camera, white teeth flashing from inside his square, perfectly tanned face.

Jean likes his teeth. They look like little square moon rocks, something out of this world, beyond human, beyond perfect. She likes the way his mouth quirks around them, a half smile showing more teeth on the right side than the left, bracketed on either side by two craters, two dimples.

She likes everything about him, really. She likes how he always wears crisp navy suits with red ties, except for the holidays. For the past six years, he has worn a tie with tiny snowmen on it for Christmas. For Thanksgiving, he wore one with a turkey wearing a pilgrim hat. The first special tie she’d seen on him had been for Easter; his tie looked like a carrot. He had procured a new tie a few weeks before, for the Fourth of July, a black one with sparks, fireworks in a flurry of colors.

Like his navy suit, his hair always stays the same. He has auburn hair, the color Jean had tried (and failed) to achieve in high school with the help of her father, dangling her head over the bathroom sink until her neck hurt, feeling his warm hands running through it, hearing his little huff of worry as the box-dye stained the sink red. It stands tall, like her father had, stiff with hairspray, paling at the corners near his temples, where his age is catching up to him after fifty or so years of life, twenty-odd years more experience than Jean has.

Hugh Pelleys’s green eyes are Jean’s third favorite thing about him, with smile lines at the corners–crow’s feet, her father had called them. Her first, of course, is his teeth, the glimmering, pearly smile he shares with her at the end of every news segment. The second is his name. Hugh Pelley. Airy, flow-

ing, washing over her, a cascade of warmth, something soft, then something strong, then something soft again. A name so perfect she couldn’t reduce him to just Hugh or Pelley. A name not meant to be split in two.

The TV flickers. Hugh’s smile, meant just for her, disappears, vanishes in the blink of an eye. An infomercial advertising a medication takes over. Something about gut health—or maybe skin health—with smiling people playing basketball, pushing strollers, sitting at cloth-covered tables in a fancy restaurant.

Jean sneers at the smiling woman on the screen, talking to another smiling woman on a balcony overlooking a beach that could be anywhere, and raises the remote, shutting her off, sending her away, making her gone. She couldn’t replace Hugh, not with her fake smiles, not with her gut-skin pills.

The woman sneers back, though. In the black reflection, the woman glares at Jean, twisted into something cold. A pale, thin woman with hair the color and texture of straw, mouth curved down at the corners, teeth gnashing. Jean’s eyes narrow, and so does the woman’s, streams of mascara drawing black rivers down high cheekbones, smudged into muddy ponds, hiding eye bags from not sleeping at all the night before. She’s a familiar sight, a familiar adversary, always waiting for Hugh Pelley to leave so she can taunt Jean. So she can hurt her.

“Fuck off, you ugly bitch,” Jean says, shoulders hunching, voice hoarse and ragged from lack of use. The woman in the TV, faded in the darkness of the screen, slouches, stiffens, a monster in stained, rumpled clothes. Her hand curls around something dark, some weapon of mass destruction, some cruel tool designed to torture Jean.

“Leave me alone!” Jean hurls the remote at the TV just as the cruel woman slings the dark weapon at Jean. It clatters against the dark screen, falling harmlessly to the floor. Jean sneers, and the woman does too, but then her eyes widen as the TV wobbles backward, forward, over.

Jean stretches toward the TV, slamming her shin against the coffee table in her hurry to get to it. “No, no, no!” She topples to the floor, shin radiating with sharp heat, but her pain doesn’t matter, not now, not when —

The TV crashes to the floor, screen first. The cord flings upward as it’s yanked out of the wall and lands on the ground beside a two-week-old box of takeout, limp. For a moment, all is silent, the world standing still, watching, waiting, wondering. Her neighbor slams the world back into motion, pounding against

the wall, indignant shouts muffled by the plaster between them. The sound of his anger jolts Jean back into life, too, and she shuffles on her knees over to the TV, tears springing into her eyes before she even knows, because she knows. Things don’t work out for Jean Smith. Mothers leave, fathers die, TVs fall and crush her heart and how is she supposed to listen to Hugh Pelley talk about a schoolboy turned hero at one if she just killed him.

Her fingers curl around the black edge of the TV, dancing around the plastic backing, delaying the inevitable. Her face, sticky from yesterday’s mascara, grows messier as tears begin to stream down her cheeks again.

Jean does it. She lifts the TV, flings it so that it lands on its back, and glares down at the wreckage. A high, wet moan fills the room, a mist of woe settling across the furniture, across the stacks of dirty paper plates on the coffee table, across her skin.

Her father died last month. He was drunk, and stupid, and driving, but he was her father, he was all she had, all she’d ever had, and he’d gone and wrapped his tiny Toyota around a telephone pole. They’d shown her the fracture in his skull when she went to identify the body. A long crack, jagged, splitting into two as it drew toward his face, above his right eye socket. She’d stared at the fracture for a long time, wondering how something so insignificant as a line on a blue-black sheet could kill him, kill her father, kill her sleep.

The TV looks like that X-ray image, now, a long, broken line carving Jean’s heart in two. Quivering, she shuffles over to the cord and tugs it toward the wall. The TV scrapes against the floor, but she doesn’t care, can’t care, not when she has the chance at plugging in life support, at bringing the dead back to life.

Nothing happens when she plugs it in. She wails, the cries growing in strength before she cuts herself off suddenly, diving for the remote, remembering she’d powered the TV off during the commercial break. Jamming her finger against the power button, she watches eagerly for the world of Hugh Pelley to return.

It flickers on, and relief fills her, a bird in her lungs twittering, flying, a thing of love and feathers. It dies just as it begins to take flight, lying against the floor of its prison, her shuddering rib cage. The TV is on, yes, and that’s almost worse, because she is so close but so far from getting Hugh Pelley back. She can see the bottom half of a woman’s body, a pretty black and

white striped shirt and the tips of curly brown hair, but the upper half of the screen is made up of stripes of its own, stripes of green and yellow and blue and white and covering up where, at one that afternoon, Hugh Pelley’s smile is supposed to greet her, take care of her, get rid of the monster woman hiding in her TV.

Clarissa Beaumont. Her voice rings clear over Jean, a voice like bells, accompanying the high school marching band playing “Seven Nation Army.” She’s talking to a fan, talking about the game, talking about shit that doesn’t matter, not when Hugh Pelley’s gone.

With a shaky press of a button, Clarissa Beaumont disappears. The pale woman’s back, eyes wide and wet behind the fractured screen, scared of the break before her, the divide, the unbridgable gap between worlds. One crack, one little crack, can kill, can end everything, and now the woman can never escape it, can never escape that near-death.

“That’s what you fucking deserve. Bitch.” The words shake and tremble out of her mouth, weak, meaningless, worthless. Hugh Pelley’s dead. Jean killed him with a remote. A fucking remote. Whiskey, remotes, a crack that splinters into two, it’s all just her luck, exactly her luck, exactly everything she’s ever been meant for. Her purpose in life is to suffer, to wallow in the stale stench of her own sweat and box-dye and whiskey on a dead man’s breath.

Her legs shake. For a moment, she thinks they won’t support her as she stands, but they do, as they always do, the only good thing in her life that ever stuck around. Two good legs. Her dad used to tell her she had two good legs, so use them. Use them.

Silently, Jean walks back over to the couch and grabs her phone. Twelve-fifty-two. No missed messages or calls. Hugh Pelley’s smiling but motionless image as her screensaver. She opens Google and drifts her way through searches until she finds the website for Hugh Pelley’s station. Live recordings! Get your local news in real time! Interested in touring a real recording studio, from behind the cameras to the stage? Look no further! Give us a call to schedule a tour and stop by! And there the address is. There’s her chance. The woman is trapped in the TV, but Hugh Pelley is still salvageable, living beyond the fracture in the screen; she can still get his smile back. She can meet him away from the woman, away from all the distance between them, away from everything. She can meet him. She can be happy again.

Almost unconsciously, Jean marches out of the apartment, every step

bringing her closer to Hugh Pelley. She leaves the door open behind her. It doesn’t matter. She won’t be back. Hugh Pelley will finally take her away from this terrible place, will take her away from the apartment she can’t afford now that her dad’s gone, and take her into the sunset like in those old movies, the ones her father used to watch, with cowboys riding horses with women in long white dresses. He’ll smile, all white teeth, just for her. He’ll take care of her, like he did when her mom left and her dad took her out of school and the TV became her only friend. She’ll sit before him like she did when she was ten, listening to her father cry in the kitchen, his smile saving her for the first time. This time, he’ll get to see her smile back.

Whispers, murmurs, babbling, the crowd of people on the cracked sidewalk, all talking about her. She knows it. She can see them eyeing her, can hear the jokes they make about her dirty clothes and stringy, greasy hair. They laugh quietly, stifle the sound with coughs, but they don’t get it, don’t get that she’s going to fly away from here, fly into the sad, gray, cloudy sky and leave this dirty street behind.

She stops. A plastic bag rolls past her feet, the wind carrying it along, but the breeze doesn’t push her. It can’t move her, not now, not ever, not when the glimmering future is waiting right there, in a square gray building with TVs in the window. It stands across the street from her, tall, welcoming, a building with arms that reach and beckon. It calls for her. She looks at her phone. It’s three after one.

One step. Two. Across the street she goes, staring at that building, at that promise. Her eyes dart from the concrete walls and land on the TV with every step, with every car that swerves desperately around her. Six screens in two rows of three greet her, each displaying the same video: Hugh Pelley talking, smiling his half-smile at her, as he always does, as he always will. He won’t leave her, not like her father did.

“Hugh Pelley...” Her whisper is breathless. She wonders if he can hear it. Surely he can. He’s always been able to hear her. Always known when she was down, when she needed him most. For twenty years, he’s been there for her, guiding her through life after her mother left and his father disappeared into whiskey, and now they’re finally about to meet beyond the screen.

Someone screams, a high, horrified warning to stop, but Jean ignores it. A car honks, the horn blaring, but she ignores that, too. Hugh Pelley is waiting.

The screech of tires. She can’t quite ignore that.

The world is white, the color of Hugh Pelley’s teeth, and it rings like Clarissa Beaumont’s voice, a never-ending bell. Pain is blue-black, the color of X-Ray film bending in the hands of a disinterested mortician. Awareness is fleeting, coming and going in flashing reds and blues and the faraway wails of sirens. Consciousness fractures, splits in two, one short line of existence breaking at the end, into one splinter stepping toward death, the other toward life.

Jean’s head lolls on the pavement. There’s a white tooth lying beside her, a chunk of the moon that has crashed on Earth. Her head feels like it’s not attached to her body, no longer a part of her, but she manages to turn anyway, turn away from the ambulance that has pulled up near her, away from the always whispering crowd of onlookers crowding the sidewalk beside her. She looks for the screens. Her vision blurs in and out, in and out, but eventually the world drips back into clarity, and she sees him. Hugh Kelley smiles at her, saying something she can’t quite catch over the ringing in her ears. But he’s here. He’s here.

The hospital is cold. She stares down at her feet, two small mountains covered by a cream-colored blanket. She tried to move them, but they wouldn’t budge. Two good legs, huh? Even they left her.

The doctor is talking to her, but she doesn’t care enough to listen. She doesn’t care much for anything he has to say.

He sighs, long-suffering, and reaches for the remote. With a press of a button, the TV flicks on, and Jean lights up.

She’s seen this recording a dozen or so times since she woke up, and the nurse had played it for the first time. She’s got it memorized, now, every word written on the beating walls of her heart. He said her name. Her name. She could spend the rest of her life hearing him say her name, and she’d never get tired of it. She’ll spend the rest of her life lying in this bed, and because of him, she’ll never get tired of it.

“Well, folks, you won’t believe me, but a miracle happened right outside of our building. You heard me right, a miracle. While crossing the street yesterday, a woman was hit by a car. She went into cardiac arrest at the scene, but paramedics were able to resuscitate her and rushed her to the hospital, where I’m told she’s woken up. Jean Smith, you’re in our hearts here at the station. This is Hugh Pelley, with Channel 9 News, signing off.”

Liam Payne Dead at 31

By Emberlynn Pendergraft

I hope when I die, I burn out like a star.

I hope you’ll say you had no clue; it takes so long for light from space to reach the earth.

Craving something big and bright. A televised downfall with a cocktail dres code. Exclusive invitations, your finest funeral blacks, and conscious condolences. Filthy and futile.

Attention and admiration. An orchestrated shitshow.

I hope you all saw it coming

/sun\sifter/swans\

By Devin Hemphill

Mother mangled my living room blinds and now i will never see straight again.

she swiveled swans into sift, leaving shrapnels of sun upon the floorboard in light-slinkie lacerations

her repeated front-door slams slashed the blinds into these sun-sifter-swans, their white vinyl wings chiseled by continual knocking against window grille and glass now

with each blind-draped door’s closure, i see the world’s stake shattered by scintillating-shriek, fixed flock’s gentle guide of light swanning sun into slant:

it is in these slants where power lines matt in gossamer, corners crescent in cobweb-cacophony, warped baseboards intertwine in treetop-tangle, car-tire-crows crowbar cloud’s street—

Mother, she mangled my blinds and showed me that your stilt-veined house is not my home, that your barbed wire snakes cannot bend like my florid flesh.

do you remember?

you cut prospects of my life like loose-leaf paper into tangible shredded stillness, into mounds of my red hair removed— crimson echoing life— upon barber shop floors grandma buzzing in electric hair clipper you look like a girl you look like a girl you look like a girl

you keyed my sapphire skies from every one of your pivots in fear, from every reflex to grab the punishing pullcord, from every anxious drag your finger undulated along key teeth serrations all in hopes to solidify your stay in ignorance’s comfort inn

but you see, crane clawed at drywall and swans sawed at glass until your fingertip pricked

and house with lock was all we saw in place of home

look up from your round bloodsplots spreading and weaving through undeviating asphalt; love is azure, all-rounded corneal sky did you forget?

viscera is a twig-wound hinged door blind-brutalized by your vinyl veil smothering our sun-stricken windows into shadowed silence but when that door is shut repeatedly Blind always bleats back, swanclaw incising window lattice in a sound like cicada wing snips

i first heard this sound from grandmother opening the back door for smoke breaks; it was the sound of her escape from calendar-cut roads burrowing into her forests of life; her suspension her detachment her blinds,

opened rays of sun only for her and her lungs to sift—

my first love was a similar break lined by chestwall chain-link; we were always separate, distanced, never one

stolen glances in parking lots, temporary tangles in wire, cigarette telomeres crimped at fence’s feet

granny opens the back door and i see the memory of them all over again, there, through threshold

yellow/black\car in slant/ yellow/black\car in slant/ ashes litter the swallowtail tarmac

i slant my eyes towards them and i cut vent grilles of their figure into the catacombal ductwork of my mind so when i closed my eyes i could have their image blow the blinds into tap on my mind canvas’ door again and again,

rays of sun only for me to sift

in my mind’s room in my mind’s space knowing that’s the only place i would safely be able to keep them

like bird perch upon power line, phantom twig— infinite run-off with no basin of fruition— caulk strips cast to eternal writhe under glasswater weight— swan in perpetual reach of sun

gnats slam into sunset again and again and again; our barriers tend to be invisible like this but still, i want to believe— i want to believe there is a home behind the blinds i want to believe there is a sun-slant-sanctuary in every space in every partition in every cubicle

you wound our windows with blinds, yes, but sun-sifter-swan’s cutting clatter will inevitably coalesce, billowing in infinite, effervescing fractals between window-grid and vinyl vane until blind and door is all perforation; until in-between is all illuminated; until chrysalis is all mouth, chewing blinds into snap

until glass is merely dazzling dew dappling threshold’s

grass blade feet

all Mother all Home.

Forever Beneath That Scarlet Sky

By Caleb Givens

Forever Beneath That Scarlet Sky

Giant crows and dogs scavenge this wasteland, a parasitic dimension in which the screams of the tortured and the wreak of the rot sends a streak of scorching fear through my veins, whispering an infinite: This domain will be your destiny.

Upon Torrent I galloped across the changing grass from green to red, I passed the smoldering wall, screeching to a halt when I saw it: that visualization of death, that great reference of Hell, the Devil’s castle opposite this foreboding region.

At first I turned back, leaving that symphony of horrors, but curiosity of my eternity led me back to Caelid, where I journeyed through dragon lairs and toxic swamps that sing ensnaring tune of despair, pulling me to sink in its sorrow.

Contemplation of my afterlife sent me spiraling about its contents, portraits of never ending flame and starving, flesh chomping worms who are never satisfied filled my mind until I begged and prayed that God would have mercy on my soul.

I thought: I was born this way, wasn’t I? It’s not a choice is what I’ve tried convincing myself to believe, but for years I was taught that it was a sin with a punishment of banishment. A barring from the gates of His kingdom.

I continue to wrestle with consequences on these late nights when Elden Ring makes me question my forever, and I want to run in terror as these monsters surround me, dogs growling that I’m doomed. Giant crows towering above me, jaws wide.

Beneath that scarlet sky a pitless dread at last consumes me. I bow to the rot, submit to the stories that have been woven into my being. I give up, I give in, and I brace in tears for the eternal feast to prepare myself for the possibility. Though I’m sure it hardly compares to the excruciation of that raging inferno.

The Word Humanity Never Heard

By Caleb Givens

The Word Humanity Never Heard

The whistle of wind

Through the weeds of the wood

Sang a soothing song

That stopped the warring creatures in their tracks.

Each animal was fighting another

Before their ears were filled with A hum, a choir, a roar of A repeated word that drew them to a meadow. A sanctuary.

All flowers were flat, all bushes were bare.

Deep scars had been left unhealed

From the years of continuous calamity

But the song dug deep into the roots of the meadow

And sent wisteria to wrap around the animals’ legs And pulse through them a word.

Watching from afar

I heard nothing but pitter-patter and the light

Whisper of the breeze and the soft

Sighs of the ring of resting beasts.

When the wind ceased

Each creature stood silent for

Moments, eyes still, hearts steady, Ears paused, all in concentration On the holy hymn they were hearing. At last, my own ears awakened For as if the first time Before they scurried from the little meadow, Into the restored woodland beyond.

The meadow stood still as it had, Have I gone deaf? I thought. Until I dropped from the tree I’d been watching from And with the softest crunch of the leaves below I was reawakened with an indecipherable whisper. A word I couldn’t quite make out.

Being too frightened of the unknown, I left the meadow and the wisteria in its empty grasp, And when I escaped the woods to see the Warring humans, I wished I had stayed.

Perhaps that contained whisper could have Saved us creatures from our calamities. But we’re cowards and refuse the help to Change for good, so the war outside The wood will continue, until at last, If ever, we accept the awakening, Let in the roar and hear the divine word for what it is.

Poem Giver (Excerpt 1)

By Momnah Mukhtar

Chapter 00: A world without a friend

This new world without a friend smelled different. The air quality was different. The hue around me was different. I tried attending madrasa but nothing held my attention. I was grieving.

I sat quietly under the Chinaberry tree, where the air carried the scent of dust, memory, and something unnamed. The wind was still, yet heavy with things unsaid. The tree stood like an ancient witness, its branches heavy with secrets and longing.

And then—without warning—the leaves began to fall.

One by one, they descended like rain. Not the harsh, stormy kind. But like gentle weeping. A soft mourning that touched the ground with grace. Each leaf shimmered with something more than chlorophyll and decay—each carried a poem.

They floated down slowly, purposefully, as though they knew where they were going. As if they had always waited for this moment, this soul, this sorrow. One leaf landed in my lap. I didn’t move.

There’s nothing benign in thinking the memories that I once lost are still breathing within me.

In a never ending loop like a malignant tumor living, circulating, dividing In multiple cycles

yet still lost…

Another brushed my cheek. I closed my eyes. And cried.

The poems kept raining. One after another. I read them all. They didn’t ask for permission to make me feel—they just did. And with every verse, I felt the ache stretch deeper, as though I had been waiting for these exact words to remember how to feel again.

When was I honest? when I told you about the depths of my despair Or when I told you about the skies I crossed

When was I honest?

when I told myself of the lies I commit Or when I told myself It’s okay to be someone you are not

Would you listen to me

If I stare in your eyes And whisper the lyrics of my deprived soul?

In a blink of an eye I turned into wrinkles and experience

When only I just learned that the sky is blue and I can fly

where she shines wearing silver slippers among the depths of sky and success

I am not shy

I just feel more than an emotion I just want more than a whisper I just need more than a touch

I saw her for a person with soulful eyes and red spirited hair with a nostalgic laugh and naive beauty

I saw her that day who dances among angels with a song “never enough” playing to the lyrics of her heart

I saw her

And I continue to see her in all her glorious moments

Isn’t it strange that I used to look into your eyes and would trust every broken word now I can’t even remember the color of your eyes?

I saw her for the first time with wonder and awe

Wonder if she will be my friend

Awe of her colorful spirit

I saw her for countless days with nothing to talk or think about But then a day came Where pictures became our words

I saw her that day with new wonder and awe

I saw her for a friend in between blank faces and sour mouths

I saw her for a companion in between study of life and histo- ry of life

I saw her everyday with books of study and friendship I saw her for her ways full of ambition and hope I saw her for her future

I would like to be buried under a tree with pink flowers and ancient roots

So my remains would stir each time, a wave of wind comes and goes So my love would blow each time, a bundle of flowers flow and fell

I am fall. sensationally chilling, pretending to be cold. Changing my colors like fallen rusty leaves. Hiding my patterns like a rugged playboy.

I am falling. Lacking my vigor and pulsing pride.

Cold and Dark Waiting alone…

My beautiful face scarred by my own demons

And one day I stopped thinking about my tomorrow and I found my today.

Yes, one day I stopped feeling for my future and I started living and breathing…

In moments of calm and tranquility, I remember the chaos we were in. You and me.

Hanging by the swings, Walking on the narrow streets. The tightrope of our time, Gone in a whirlwind.

There is no cure for one’s misery. No resuscitation for one’s cold, desolate heart.

I always forget that

You and I

We live under the same vast sky

We walk on the same soiled ground

We breathe the same aromatic air

Yet yet

we live in vastly different universe

Years apart, memories afar

You and I

Different branch of the same tree

Always finding our way back to each other

Yet lost in each other’s soul…

I feel so minuscule, nonexistent,

As though my breathing soul has no value.

I feel almost invisible, hidden,

As though my emotions have no credence.

I feel not enough, unreplenished,

As though every molecule in my body has no weight.

I feel lost, indefinitely,

As though nothing could save me from myself..

I look in the mirror sometimes and suddenly I lose myself in the abyss of beauty

The gentle curves and edges of my myself

awe me and the concavity of the flaws is mesmerizing

There’s so much of me that I would like to change just so I can fall in love

I never lose myself

But I’m not the same. After all this turmoil and chaos.

I’ve crossed the bridge and I’m on the other side. Safe and shocked.

I’m not the same.

Tis not the end that frightens me, But the long awaited future. But the beginning of something unknown.

Tis not the end that saddens me, But the moment to say goodbye. Or maybe the thought of incomplete farewell.

Goodbye, my friend.

Coffee Date Rachel

By Kristin Tabor

INT. APARTMENT - DAY

DANIEL (young 20s, male) stands in front of his mirror, buttoning up his nice, ironed shirt. He’s fixing his appearance when he gets a text message.

COFFEE DATE (RACHEL)

(on text message)

Hey! I’m on my way to the coffee shop. Excited to see you!!

After texting a reply, Daniel shoves his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. Excitedly, he grabs his jacket and keys and leaves his apartment.

EXT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY

When he arrives, Daniel walks up to the door of the coffee shop, looking in through the windows, trying to find Rachel. Not seeing her, he walks in and looks around inside. He spots a blonde girl with a ponytail sitting by herself in the corner of the shop.

DANIEL

Hi, are you Rachel?

RACHEL

Yes! Hi, it’s nice to meet you.

RACHEL (young 20s, female) sticks her hand out to shake Daniel’s. She’s wearing a satin blouse tucked into a long pencil skirt. A matching blazer hangs on the back of her chair.

DANIEL (with a nervous chuckle)

Nice to meet you, too. Sorry, I’m a little nervous.

RACHEL

Oh, don’t sweat it. To tell you the truth, I’m a little nervous myself.

They both titter and go quiet for a moment before a barista comes to their table. Rachel already has a half-drank, dark colored coffee sitting in front of her.

BARISTA (facing Daniel)

Would you like anything to drink?

DANIEL

Oh sure. I’ll take a latte. With oat milk, if you have it, please.

BARISTA

Gotcha.

The barista walks away, and it goes quiet again for a second. Daniel is visibly trying to work up the nerve to say something when Rachel begins to speak.

RACHEL

So... Where do you see yourself in five years?

DANIEL

Oh, um. That’s a good question. I, I guess, I would say married. In a house, not an apartment. Doing something I love, and staying active.

RACHEL (nodding thoughtfully)

Great answer. I love that.

DANIEL

Thanks. What about you?

RACHEL (surprised)

Oh... Um, I guess the same. That sounds nice. Rachel takes a sip of her coffee and then puts down her mug.

RACHEL (CONT’D)

What do you usually do in your free time?

DANIEL

I love to write, actually. Yeah, it’s more of a hobby right now, but I’m getting better at it. I’m hoping to write a novel one day.

RACHEL

Oh wow. That’s impressive. Takes lots of time, though. Think you’ll have enough to write a whole novel?

DANIEL

Oh sure. If I write in my free time, it’ll take a while, but I think I can do it.

RACHEL

Alright. I like the determination. Picking up a pen, Daniel didn’t notice until now, Rachel jots something down on the napkin next to her coffee and flips it over so Daniel can’t see what she wrote.

DANIEL (pointing at the napkin)

What’s that?

RACHEL

Oh, I’m just taking some notes. Nothing to stress about.

DANIEL Right.

RACHEL

Anyway, what would you say motivates you?

DANIEL

Like, in general?

RACHEL

Yeah. Like, what gets you out of

bed in the morning?

DANIEL

Well, I guess my alarm. Rachel laughs and then waits for a real answer.

DANIEL (CONT’D)

Um, I guess I have high expectations for my future. And I just keep telling myself that I need to work hard to meet them.

RACHEL

Right. That’s so true. She flips over the napkin and jots something down again. Daniel’s confusion grows.

RACHEL (CONT’D)

We’ve talked a lot about your future. What are you looking for right now?

DANIEL

Right now? Right now, I just want to do the best I can. Get to know someone and see if they’re right for me.

RACHEL

Yes, I get that completely. You know, not everyone is right for this job... But I think you might be.

DANIEL (with a soft smile)

Thanks. I think you might be, too.

RACHEL (chuckling)

Well, I sure hope so. The barista comes by and sets Daniel’s latte down on the table in front of him.

DANIEL (to the barista)

Thank you.

RACHEL

Okay, let’s cut to the chase. What’s your availability like?

DANIEL

My availability? Um, Tuesdays I’m usually free. Or anytime after 4.

RACHEL

Ooh, 4 is kind of late. Are you sure that throughout the day wouldn’t work?

DANIEL

Well, I mean, when were you thinking?

RACHEL (checking her watch)

You know what? Why don’t we just schedule a follow-up right now, and we can talk about this then?

RACHEL (CONT’D)

It’ll give you some time to think about it.

DANIEL (visibly confused)

Okay yeah.

Rachel stands up and gathers her things, draping her blazer over her arm and stuffing the napkin in the pocket of it.

Daniel stands up after her but doesn’t leave the table, watching what she’s doing and trying to make sense of it.

RACHEL

How about next Tuesday at 9? We’ll meet here again.

DANIEL

Yeah, okay.

With a quick smile, Rachel leaves the coffee shop, and Daniel watches her as she walks out the door. Dumbfounded, he sits back down at the table and begins to sip his coffee, deep in thought.

As he sits and stares a hole in the table, his phone pings with a text message. He reaches into his back pocket.

COFFEE DATE (RACHEL)

I can’t believe you stood me up. I waited for you for so long. I thought you were different.

RACHEL

Sorry, I forgot my pen.

Rachel reaches over Daniel and grabs the pen sitting next to her empty coffee cup.

RACHEL (CONT’D)

You know. I really do think you’d be great for this job. You’d love our office.

DANIEL Job?

RACHEL

You know, the editor position? You’re Stephen, right?

DANIEL

No. I am not Stephen. And you weren’t here for a date, were you?

The Light and the Dark

By Alexis Denney

Adroit, Ashes,Still

By Devin Hemphill

A cigarette is a road, and it is a road I never take. Dead end. No outlet.

A hand is a firmament, and it is a sky I never touch. Loose end. Faulty outlet.

And yet, I still find myself tangled in the vascular net, DNA coils wound in its frays. A hand cupped into a crane wing; a flick of the spark wheel; a flicker— no fruition of full flame. It takes two more attempts before the air pivots and my skies are an amber hum, sun-seeping chasms between my fingers.

Now, I am there. The road unfurls in its rugged asphalt rug. Smog billows in the horizon, a lingering haze silently strangling the air. It compels me to walk forward and enrapture myself in its charred wisps—a thought pipetted into the nucleus of me.

Born from a family of smokers, I would have taken the scissors, cut the road out of that map, and incinerated the strip at any other time. But it was you, eyes like moon-seeping chasms, that led me to the shoulder to the arm to the hand: adroit ashes, still.

It was when I approached you in the parking lot consumed by darkness where archipelagos of streetlights scatter the pavement. Scalp sprayed ink; eyes indicated an impending break of silence, eyelashes outstretched in forth-

coming wish.

“Here.”

You knowingly handed the pliers to me, and I was rewired.

I take my first drag, and I am taken to the road: the first streetlight ignites. Walking towards it, astrals like bicycle spokes pierce my eyes. Light rays impale the smog, translucent curling plumes illuminated in their isthmic expansion. The haze writhes, contorts, and twists; all to permeate into the space they fill—a false cloud built only from desire-fueled flame.

Second drag. Second streetlight. I follow, feeling the sweat from a hot summer night on my late grandmother’s back porch; she couldn’t sleep unless she smoked. I look up to the bulb where ash moths beat against the glass, yearning to be fire again. Bug-eclipsed—I still see the glint of the light through them.

Third drag. Third streetlight. I blink, and smog morphs into worn bedding—I can’t sleep if I think about seeing you again. I trace the stitches enamored with starlit embers and imagine myself caressing the chasms of your infinitesimal ridges instead. But until then, I’ll bury my sleeping face and hold the thought until I dissolve.

Fourth drag. Fourth streetlight. They are dimming now. We can’t be in the light, but the need for your firmament grows. The tap, tap, tap of my footsteps grow quicker as the hand of me inches toward the slipping hand of you. Mar my hands into cinders until I am nothing but ashes upon the pavement— midnight littered with stars.

Fifth drag. Fifth streetlight. Blinking. In a flick of a spark wheel, a flame is ignited. And in a flick of a spark wheel, a flame is lost. They tap, tap, tap away our twinkling, celestial remnants and dispose of us in their ash-

tray. The yellow sign nears all over again: “Dead end.”

The blinking stops. Face to face with the smog horizon, the edge of the road summons, and I plummet off its crumbling edge, falling into the ashtray of the void.

You knew it would end the moment it began; I didn’t.

A hand cupped into a crane wing; a flick of the spark wheel; a flicker— no fruition of full flame.

And there, our thumbs held stagnant.

Andy’s Snowmonster

By Caleb Givens

Unsugared strawberries

Hidden in the vanilla, There to surprise my senses

With every spoonful.

From the menu I knew that

They were included, but the sudden sour flavor

Mixed with the sweet ice cream startled my tongue

Despite the number of times I tasted the Tartness, widening my eyes a bit more with each bite.

Similar to the sight of the setting sun

Hitting my pupils, the urge to resist is profound

Squinting, as if that could sweeten.

Discarding the berry pieces, as if that could eliminate

The already mixed flavors from the melting heat of the afternoon.

Sugared strawberries

Would not have met their trash bag fate,

And after I’ve thrown them away I see that It’s sad that things slightly unsweet

Are often easily deemed sickening. Imperfect and worthless as if they’re in need of fixing. As if they’re the ones in need of a change.

Hot Coco Social Secret Santa Potluck Jeopardy

By Erick Montoya

I’M GONNA BE HALF AN HOUR LATE TO MY OWN PARTY

It’s not my fault though!

Heaven forbid that whimsical ambition overtakes me as I, for once in my life, feel that I’m able to graciously host a party for loved ones, but not just any party, rather a party containing the most fun things anyone could ever do at a party (besides drinking alcohol). I workshopped the idea with friends: (I asked coworkers about their thoughts on a Hot Coco Social Secret Santa Potluck Jeopardy).

(They said, “A what?”)

(I said, “A Hot Coco Social Secret Santa Potluck Jeopardy.”)

(They said, “Holy moly, that would save my life!”) (I say to myself “Let’s fucking go!”) From here, the gears were set in motion anticipating the big day in December.

This day. This haphazard plan for a party with coworkers that was supposed to happen in December of 2023. December, you know, a reasonable date to host a secret santa? However, the act of moving the date for Hot Coco Social Secret Santa Potluck Jeopardy (HCSSSPJ) turned from option to obligation when we discovered that our friend Lex is moving back to Chicago to live with family as their life in Arkansas became unsustainable. Along with their deployment in the Navy slated for the end of the year, any other time to see them is unforeseeable. The HCSSSPJ is going to happen here and now in November, so technically I’ll be at the party a month early (lie).

I’m late, yes, but it’s genuinely not my fault.

I’m mulling it over; thinking on how I’m going to cook my contribution to the potluck and make hot coco simultaneously, when I got a call from my twen-

ty-six-year-old friend Cabie saying “Yo my alternator is ass can you get me a ride?”

Mother bitch, I don’t even have the milk for coco and you want me to drive out half an hour for your ass? I mean it’s not like I can just NOT have Cabie at the party! He’s the GOATgoat, but, dude, I thought you worked at the DMV; why the fuck do you not have alternator money?

“Yeah I gotchu! (I don’t got him) I’ll be there in half an hour (Am I truncated why am I a fucking liar).”

At this point the plan that had been in my head for nearly a month is out the window, and all I could do is trust in the fact that people would find my apartment and make themselves at home while I’m gone. How everything else ought to fall into place would be discovered on the way to Cabie’s apartment.

Parked in front of Cabie’s, I make a note of every ingredient I have for coco, realizing that I’m only missing dairy products. Since I’m opening the coffee shop for my Sunday shift after the party, I made sure to make a mental note of milk that was going to go bad in the store prior to the event, so as to ethically say fuck you to my boss and not be wasteful. The reality is that we’re still wasting millions, but they can’t take the love out of me.

There were a lot of people I invited to this party; most of them being coworkers from this coffee shop we’ve since sworn against because our ex-drill-sergeant-manager could feasibly be alleged of any crime and my friends and I would believe it. For what it’s worth, that experience in the trenches made of ground coffee beans spilled over the counter, as well as getting paid minimum wage to educate people about the drink they just ordered (I need customers who don’t know what a macchiato is to do a Google search and exercise an ounce of curiosity in their life I’m fucking sick of this), the time I spent working at this coffee shop was life changing. Getting to watch as all of my friends quit and either left for graduation or simply know better to have

other options brought me closer to them than I could’ve ever imagined. This party is going to do so much for me and knowing the people I care about; possibly even getting to know people I’ve never met before, yet are all close in their own ways.

Cabie walks out of his apartment towards my car, and I brace myself for the imminent conversation of why I should play Helldivers 2.

“Yoooo what’s up?!” I said.

Cabie replied “Yoooo nothin’ much… just uhh… filling in my quota.” Not even three seconds in man.

I say, “Dude I have schoo--”

“THE SCHOOL WILL BE THERE WHEN YOU’VE FULFILLED YOUR GOD GIVEN RIGHT OF DEFENDING SUPEREARTH!” Wanting to get out of this line of dialogue as soon as I can, I conjure the meanest thing I can say to him.

“Alright bro maybe if I worked at the DMV I’d have the money to supp–”

“OH MY GOD I DO NOT WORK AT THE DMV BRUH HOW MANY TIMES I GOTTA TELL YOU!!”

Okay.

We make our way back to not my apartment, but rather the coffee shop where I will perform the heist on whole milk and heavy cream respectively. I should feel guilty for my actions, and maybe if I was working for a bedridden grandparent there would be some remorse, but these people can afford to lose like fifteenish dollars. Winter is here, and rent is due at the end of the month, man. While we’re at it, I might as well steal the seasonal cups. This shit with some coco will bang hand on a bible, word to my mother, scouts honor, etc..

I’m carrying the milk, cream, and cups back to the car as I look at my watch to see that I am in fact half an hour late to my own party. I had foreseen this future. Once my hands are free of being dairy digits, I check my phone to see three missed calls and a text from my friend Sarah (picture Doris from the Shrek franchise if she played Fortnite). I open the text and it’s a gif of Sonic the Hedgehog impatiently tapping his foot.

I can’t delay this anymore. I must get to my apartment.

There’s no fucking space in my own apartment complex for me to park in front of my apartment. My forearms look juiced as I carry the goods from a block away from my car to the door of my apartment. To my surprise, all of my friends are here! Amazing.

MY NAUGHTY AND NICE LIST GOING INTO THE HCSSSPJ (WITH EXCEPTIONS)

Cabie - Nice. Cabie is short for Cabrion AKA the strongest barista in Arkansas. He’s the GOAT. He got me the job at the coffee shop before he left to work for the government. Cabie’s the guy who I spent the most time with off the clock; from going to the gym, going to get dinner all around central Arkansas. He makes jokes all the time about his concern for fitness; also acknowledging that because he’s black he doesn’t have to put any effort into his physique. He’s the only friend I have who is a guy and is open to hearing about my phases of yearning. I have a really hard time talking about love interests as it feels really cheesy to discuss as I’m pushing 20. It’s an arbitrary and childish thing to say that you can’t talk about the love you feel for someone, and it’s nice that Cabie is really honest with me when I’m making a mistake. One more thing about Cabie, I got hacked by an Indian guy named Tahmid. Tahmid asked Cabie for $50 through CashApp. Thinking it was me, Cabie sent $50 to my CashApp before Tahmid could send over his CashApp. The conversation went something like this:

Don’t mind, do you have $50 i need emergency i’ll back you 4 january

Yuh make a CashApp Request

To you

Yuh

I’ll request you $50

Ye

So i dont sent it to an indian man

Its happened before

Send me your cash tag Again

$cabrion

i requested $50 accept now

Hi

*missed call*

You there

Ur wifi ass bro

Im checking m my cashapp

I sending cash app, plz send this

*sends random number*

Its cash app number send it

Dafuq dis

Check ur cashapp vro

I already sent lowkey

*sends number again*

Send here

BRO ITS TOO LATE WYM LMAOOOO

I’d end up sending the money back, but I know who to call in the event of my financial ruin.

Katy - Nice. A month into having met her she invited me to her wedding. It was the first wedding I’ve ever been to in which I was invited. She’s in the same department as me and we bond in the adversities I currently face from a professor she formally had a class with. We’re hoping he gets mauled by a bear in Alaska. Outside of this one professor, she is who reaffirmed the love for my degree mainly in the space that professors provide students. One of her most cherished professors passed away, and she was given a cardigan that used to belong to them. She would come to my party wearing this and her coveted yellow crocs.

John - Nice? He’s married to Katy, so that certainly means something! He is a big white guy with a mustache, a cowboy hat, and frankly looks like someone who would own a gun. I’d put money on it.

Iselle - Nice. Really bad first impression on my end, but to be fair she would constantly wear open-toed shoes in the colder months of spring. Over time when we clocked into more shifts together, I got to see that Iselle is exceptionally chill. She has a killer routine for her hairstyle and a bonnet to preserve all of her work.

Zideen - Naughty. For petty reasons frankly. Zideen has been dating Iselle for a while, and I met him peering over a glass display case we have at the coffee shop. I found out he liked this fighting game I was playing a lot when I first met him, but the more time I spent playing with him, the more I realized that he’s very blunt and sometimes just kind of an asshole for needless reasons whether we’re on or off the sticks. When we were at Katy’s wedding I wanted to roll up the sleeves on my dress shirt. I asked Zideen if he could help me out with it and all he had to say was “You don’t know how to roll up a sleeve?”

I didn’t really need that energy. I asked Cabie for help right after and we got it done with no hesitation. I’m sure he’s nice, but I haven’t seen it yet.

Lex - Naughty. Lex yearns pretty bad, going as far as yearning for a regular that comes into the coffee shop a bunch. Even after Lex quit working there, the regular continued to regular and I kinda got caught in the middle. I can’t imagine any long distance working between Lex and the regular, but for their sake I’m sincerely hopeful. Outside of this unrequited situationship (hate that word), Lex has definitely been in a slump not only reflecting on their inadequate lifestyle of “work all day, sleep all night”, but they’re also dreading the return home away from their best friends. I don’t really like who they are right now, but that’s not gonna stop me from being the best host I can be tonight.

Brooke - Nice. Every now and again I’ll meet someone I am in deep admiration for just based on their mindset. There hasn’t been anyone I’ve met that’s quite like Brooke in the way they eloquently speak on numerous subject matters. She’d end up adding me into an Instagram group chat titled “Entrepreneurial Trout Farmers” that included her sisters Amy and Claire, as well as her cousin Aya. Unfortunately I didn’t know them comfortably enough to invite them to the HCSSSPJ, but I’m sure they’re all nice if they’re related to Brooke.

Ryan - Nice? I haven’t formally met Ryan, but I’ve never been wronged by them, so who am I to assume any malice on their behalf. Everyone keeps calling them Ed Sheeran and they never text the group chat. A very elusive figure.

Compass - Nice. Easily the best coworker that’s still working with me right now. Good vibes, we meet after work to go to the gym sometimes, and it was really nice of her to invite her friends over. With that being said,

Amanda - Nice? I haven’t formally met any of Compass’ friends.

Angela - Nice? Not a single one.

Lala - Nice? I hope this changes tonight!

Sarah - Nice. WE LOVE SARAH! She’s so silly! She’s also in the same department as Katy and I, and we’re also taking the class with the terrorist professor. We have nearly the same interests, and of everyone I’ve met in college thus far,

she’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to having a “best friend” or whatever I think a best friend is. Thinking about that is really finicky, but she’s cool in my book regardless of any labels. We speak on hyperfixations, help each other with homework, and we’re really funny (lie). It doesn’t get better than that.

HOT COCO SOCIAL

I enter my apartment greeting all of my guests. Pleasantries are exchanged as I make my way into the kitchen as I whip out a witches cauldron of everything needed for, quite frankly, the greatest hot coco of all time.

The weight of my promises is palpable as I frantically put together the mise en place for the coco (that’s French for “you should’ve done this an hour ago, dipshit”). All of my pent-up stress makes the hot coco process feel so much harder than it actually is. What makes this recipe special is the absence of sugar, as it’s replaced by evaporated and sweetened condensed milk. Heavy cream is added to the mix to make for an exceptionally thick milk base that acts as a canvas for chocolatey flavors. It’s like tres leches hot coco. I love it.

Once the milks homogenize, that’s when it’s good to add cocoa powder, chocolate, espresso powder, vanilla, salt, and cinnamon if the goal is to get a really nice and festive kick in the pants. One problem, it takes so fucking long for milk to homogenize and then for cocoa powder to bloom. The mixture needs to be hot so as to make each step easier, but too hot then the milk starts to scorch and it sticks to the side and I hit myself on the head repeating to myself “ahhh stupid, stupid, stupid!” By now I’m very stupid as I fruitlessly whisk together my milk mix.

Tessa from across the crowd notices me nearly cutting myself as I break a knife out to chop chocolate. She beelines to the stovetop “Hey dude, you alright?”

It’s my first time having seen Tessa in nearly a year since she invited me to pick up her son from daycare. I didn’t really get a good look at her since the “HCSSSPJ” was looking more like the “HCSSSPJ” if nobody did anything about it. Taking off my self-imposed blinders, I see her with a cozy parka over a striped sweater that a school teacher would wear in an elementary school classroom. She even has a messy bun of curly brown hair to boot. For a moment I thought to ask if she got a job in teaching, but hours have passed and up until now I haven’t known peace. I didn’t know peace until she asked me if I’m okay.

I tell her, “The milk is taking too long to heat up, and I can’t add the chocolate in because the stove isn’t hot enough.”

Tessa replies, “Okay well I can do this if you want to. You should go host your own party. All I have to do is add this stuff in once everything is hot right?”

“Yes! That’s it! Thank you so much!” After tagging Tessa in to making hot coco, I would move my work station closer to the party as I continued to set up

mise en place for coco. Time in this tag-team flew by as the hot coco would be ready in what felt like minutes.

One by one everyone was getting served up some coco in seasonal Christmas cups and all was good in the world, until I heard from Brooke, “This is so good. Is there cinnamon in this?”

Ecstatic, I yell, “Yes!”

Brooke’s face becomes crestfallen, as she says, “Oh Ryan can’t have cinnamon.”

SO YOU’RE TO TELL ME THAT IN THE WEEKS THAT I’VE BEEN PREPARING FOR THIS PARTY, SENDING OUT INVITATIONS, SECURING GIFTS, FINDING RECIPES, THAT RYAN’S HOE ASS CAN’T HAVE CINNAMON?! I ASKED EVERYONE IN THE CHAT IF THEY HAD ANY ALLERGIES! IT’S A FUCKING POTLUCK WITH FRIENDS WHERE ANYONE CAN BRING ANYTHING AND BRO DIDN’T BOTHER TO TELL ANYONE ABOUT A LETHAL CINNAMON ALLERGY? RYAN, ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING MY SANTA SACK?!

I say, “Oh no! I wish I knew sooner! I’m sorry to hear that.”

Ryan aside, everyone loved the coco. It was so good that it made people forget that I was supposed to bring something for the potluck. Huge.

SECRET SANTA

A few weeks before the party, a message was sent to all of my friends, a calling card for them to know who they had and what they were to acquire. As someone who excels in gift-giving, there was no one better as the moderator for this secret santa, as anyone who had questions would come to me for insights and ideas when concerning the gifts.

Or, perhaps we’re all friends, and I didn’t do too much in helping on that front. This could also be true.

THE LINE FOR GIFT EXCHANGE WENT AS FOLLOWS:

Erick (me) -> Katy -> Kylee -> Iselle-> Compass -> Sarah -> Tessa -> Brooke -> Ryan -> Cabie -> Lex -> Zideen -> Erick (back to me).

Some folks decided to opt out of secret santa and left the party early.

Everyone had a collective understanding that no one would spend an exceptional amount of money on secret santa as it was nearing the end of the month, and it provided a challenge for guests to see what fun things they could find >$20. I personally found a “Nice Ass Bro” sticker in the Bass Pro Shop font for $3, and I also got a $17 Arby’s gift card for Katy.

Gifts came and went. My gift from Zideen was a beer glass with Pikachu plastered on the side because my secret santa heard that I love Pokemon (I do). I also got a Spider-Man coloring book. Maybe he’s not so bad after all! These gifts are worthy of the nice list if you ask me.

I had also been given a myriad of items, such as Harry Potter merchandise and ice cream bars to be delivered to Kylee, who unfortunately couldn’t make it to HCSSSPJ. I found the experience to be exceptionally heartwarming, especially people receiving gifts from unfamiliar faces. Sarah got Tessa some sick-nasty cottagecore decor for her kitchen, and when Tessa got a hold of it she had this big shit-eating grin on her face. However, nothing could’ve prepared me for what Lex got for Zideen. Twas a flag that went across his wingspan, depicting Drake’s greatest photos, including the one where he’s biting a straw, a mirror selfie, and the Scorpion album cover. Friends got group photos with the flag, and it was at this time more people decided to leave early, leaving only six for potluck Jeopardy.

POTLUCK

Snackies mmm yummy (I love Walmart marble loaves and bread from Costco; it made for good hot coco sponges). Potluck turned out to be the most lax part of the night since no one really brought anything outside of a critical mass of carbs. It took a lot of pressure off of me, but I know I’d be sweating bullets after I stopped snacking.

JEOPARDY

This shit had my phone buzzing all day. “What’s it gonna be about?”

“Do I have to study?”

“What’s the prize?”

My reply to all of these questions was “I’ll let you know more once I get all of the things I need for the party.” We all know how that turned out.

As the teams pick out names, I realize I’m exceptionally mentally exhausted. I was so fixated on everything being perfect up to this moment. By no means was any of it perfect, but there’s no shot on Earth I could’ve asked for a better support system for everyone who put their trust in me to host, and I got to close it out in this moment.

“Alright alright alright, thank you everybody who was able to make time for the big event that is HCSSSPJ Jeopardy! Tonight we will have Team Big Booty Bitches (BBB) (Cabie, John, and Zideen) face off against team Flat and Furious (F&F) (Iselle, Katy, and Lex) for the prize of… something I will decide when I have money again! Before we get started, I must ask how each team will be buzzing in for an answer. I recommend having a specific sound or phrase to make.”

BBB’s sound of choice was collective fart noises, while F&F decided to bark profusely to make themselves heard when it mattered most.

“Your categories for tonight are ‘Heardle’ where I play a clip from a song and you have to guess the song. Next we have ‘NPA’ not to get confused

with NBA, this category features words exclusively from the NATO phonetic alphabet. Here we have ‘Portmanteaus’ featuring only fused words, so words like spork, brunch, and smog.”

Katy interjects, “What’s smog?”

Iselle replies with “It’s smoke and fog.” (English is not Iselle’s first language)

Katy with a mouthful of her fist mutters, “Ooh my gosh I’m stupid as shit, please ignore me.”

“Next we have ‘Acronyms,’, a category with acronyms, then lastly we have Before and After. Don’t ask me to explain this shit it’ll make sense I swear. Team F&F the board is yours.”

F&F murmur amongst themselves with a faint sound of “WTF is this shit” coming from the noise. Eventually, Katy requests “Portmanteaus for 300.”

“The alleged strongest barista in Arkansas + a thin rubber sheath worn on a man’s penis during sexual intercourse as a contraceptive or as a protection against infection.”

The silence is deafening as each team assumes shrimp posture looking at the prompt making sense of the text. Then all of a sudden, I hear–“RUHRURURURURHGUHRHG!” Katy from F&F was the first to buzz in. “What is Cabriondom?”

“Correct!”

Team F&F bark in unison, joining their hands together in song and dance as they celebrate being the first to be on the board. F&F would go on to clear the rest of “Portmanteaus,”, with answers such as “Compassenger,”, “Zideez Nuts,”, and “Lextape.”

However, there was one left. “A rubber shoe famous for its numerous holes + to kill (a person or animal) in a violent way, modernly used as a term of endearment.” Now I won’t lie when I say that some of these Jeopardy questions pandered to my guests. In the making of this board, I would’ve sworn on my life that Katy would’ve been all over this, but alas she was stumped, and to my surprise I hear the sound of shart coming from BBB.

John, reluctantly asks “What is Crocslay?”

“Correct! BBB You’re on the board, and for the first time the board is yours!”

John and Cabie had already devised a strategy moving forward with the game. Banding together John’s experience in the National Guard and Cabie’s autistic level of interest in the NATO phonetic alphabet, they’d make quick and

exceptional work of the entire category, leaving the score at 1600 (BBB) and 1400 (F&F). The next category both teams fixated on was “Heardle”, with BBB selecting the category for 300.

“Mm she the devil, she a bad lil b–--”

Zideen shits himself. “Oh uhhh Sexxy Red?”

Cabie immediately follows up with “BRO, DO YOU HAVE CTE?!”

Lex barks in, asking, “What is Paint The Town Red?”

“Correct! F&F you’re back!”

Following a short celebration, Lex asked that we do “Heardle” for 200.

“That’s why I need a–--”

Zideen proceeds to jump up and down like a fucking monkey. Glad I don’t have downstairs neighbors dude I thought he was gonna shit himself. He yells in a blood-curdling scream “ONE DANCE ONE DANCE ONE DANCE ONE DANCE!!!!”

“Correct! Welcome back BBB! You wanna do Heardle for 500? It reads…”

“ ...” Remember that I have specific questions for people at the party?. The streets are saying that I rigged the game. They’d be correct.

Cabie asks, “What is the Halo Theme?”

“Correct!”

A riot ensues from F&F, only for Cabie to riot back, “I KNOW Y’ALL MAD AS FUCK I’LL TAKE ACRONYMS FOR 400 IM CLEARNING THIS SHIT NOW!”

“CAPTCHA”

James, now deflated on the couch, “FUCK IF I KNOW!” Nobody got this one, so the board went back to F&F.

Both teams would trade in answering a majority of the board, with answers like “National Basketball Association” (Cabie), “Jeopardy Theme” (Lex), “Entertainment Sports and Programing Network” (Lex), “Backwoods Barbie” (John), and what I was most impressed by from the “Acronyms” board, “Hot Coco Social Secret Santa Potluck Jeopardy” (Katy), ending up with a score of 2100 (BBB) and 1600 (F&F). All of my friends are on their feet as the game was nearly over with one category left. The board belongs to BBB as Katy asks for “Before and After” for 400.

“A fast food restaurant in which you can have it your way + a cartoon featuring a father with a lucrative business in selling propane.”

Confusion leaves the crowd stunned in silence. Fear overcame my body as I believed in my heart of hearts that this is the dumbest way to present a Jeopardy category anyone had ever seen. I felt so much shame in this silence; hav-

ing been on the receiving end of including shit prompts in Jeopardy is a fate I wish on my worst enemy (he’s a fucking asshole). It has to be one of the most dehumanizing experiences I’ve ever lived through, and in this moment I felt it ten fo–

“RUHRURURUUUHURHURUH! WHAT IS BURGER KING OF THE HILL?! “CORRECT! AMAZING WORK BY KATY! F&F THE BOARD IS YOURS AGAIN” “OH MY GOD GUYS IT’S LIKE PORTMANTEAUS BUT LONGER!”

Won’t beat around the bush. It was a fucking massacre, as Katy and Iselle nailed every “Before and After”, including “Charlie Brown Bear”, “Russian Nesting Dolphin”, “Stuart Little Caesars”, and “Find Godfather”, leaving the score at 2200 (BBB) 3100 (F&F), crowning Team Flat & Furious of the Hot Coco Social Secret Santa Potluck Jeopardy Jeopardy.

The game ended and it’s time for everyone to go. Before we all split ways however, Lex invited us all into a group hug that took up my entire living room. Up until that moment I completely forgot that this is very likely the last time I’ll see Lex for a while. The last time I’d see anyone else for a while. I was in my feelings for a moment, but then I overheard a conversation between John and Cabie where John offers him a ride.

THAT FUCKING SON OF A BITCH CABIE COULD’VE GOTTEN A RIDE FROM JOHN THIS WHOLE TIME AND I COULD’VE HANDEDLY PROVIDED REAL FOOD AND HOT COCO IN A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME WITHOUT SHITTING MY ASS ALL NIGHT?!

Man.

To remember tonight, I asked everyone to sign two big canvases I had ready for the event. I passed around an acrylic marker to everyone as they went about signing their names onto the canvas. Lex would John Hancock all over each canvas, not realizing other people were supposed to sign it, as not only would I be keeping one, but they would get to take the other canvas home with them. Lex upon hearing this races over to me, taking me into a full embrace.

In my ear, Lex says, “Thank you for this.”

All of the stress from tonight went away in an instant, knowing that I did right by them. I’d be lying if I said that hosting this a month early went as good as I had intended, but I wouldn’t have done it with anyone else.

TODAY

We still talk about Cabriondom.

Tell-Tale Whore

By Emberlynn Pendergraft

My name in your household sounds like clicks and gasps in suffocating throats. Of that I am certain. It kills conversation and settles over the room like frost.

Still, there are some things I am unsure about.

I don’t know if you broke up (I hope so. I don’t do things in halves, homewrecking among them), or if your boyfriend tells you anything about me (My drink of choice, that you might have tasted on his lips. My favorite lip gloss, found on the crease of his collar. My broken sobs, heard through tinny phone speakers as he rushed out of the room. My inability to say no, even if I was too drunk to say yes). I’m not sure of my role in his narrative (I suspect I was something like the patron saint of back seats. I suspect I was gagging for it).

Most of all, I don’t know if our bruises match (Fingerprints on the wrist and palms on the waist). I don’t know if the only difference between us is where we sleep next to him (I imagine a marital bed is more comfortable, but he found himself in my passenger seat often enough to cast doubt). I wonder what he is like sober (I wonder if he was kind. I hope, to you, he was kind).

I know my friends keep throwing around the word victim, but it feels awfully heavy. When they lay it upon my shoulders like a laurel, I think about giving it to you.

The other woman is evil. Of that I am certain. She takes and takes and takes and she never says no. Her greed purpleredblue, burning like bruises and bile and blackouts. I hope you never forgive her (I don’t think she deserves it).

I WANT TO TALK TO YOU, AMERICA

By Momnah Mukhtar

You, America, you.

You have enticed me, with your seductive embrace and powerful warmth. You have persuaded me that you are what I need.

You, America, you. You are the culprit of my crippling detachment from myself. To what I knew about the world. You have isolated me. You have banished me from my childhood. Cursed me from my memories.

I don’t know what is past and what is present?

You, America, you have imprisoned me into a world I don’t understand nor do I fit in it. I have become more like a tree with no roots. A dead trunk.

I am a hollow shell.

Swept by the dream you keep showing me. And you know fully well, The minute you see me, You will turn your back. Leave me with an animal existence

Of snarling rage and bleeding tears. But everything will be forgotten once they ask me, “where I am from?”

I will say “America.” and they will laugh. You, America, you will stay put. I will yell, “Acknowledge me!” “Understand me!” “Talk to me!”

And eventually you will talk. Not my language. But. your own.

And even my anger wouldn’t keep me from learning you completely. I will speak your language. I will wear your clothes. I will dream your dreams. I will become your clone, one day. Forgetting why I was angry to begin with. You, America, you Isn’t this what you want?

Through the Veil of Winter

By Amanda Chastain

Five Four

By Erick Montoya

5’4”. I’m 5’4”. I’m not going to get drafted for the Lakers. I’m going to play anyway.

Job at Walmart is buns, but I thank god every day for Rotary Park. Work gets stressful, and being home doesn’t help that, but when I get that phone call from Brendan saying “Yo… down for rotary?” The fog clears.

Can’t remember the last time someone was here before me. Rotary park is just down the road from where I live, and the moment I get that call, it’s salvation down the street. For everyone else it’s around a 20 minute drive, so I get here for some warm up time and more importantly, I get my speaker out before any of them. I get a free say on the songs. I’ll share the queue when they’re here, but that moment that I’m warming up with the music in my hands, there’s something the music does that makes the air bouncy beneath my feet.

Give me a good beat and I’ll try anything. I’ll go for a moonwalk into a no-look layup. I’m never pulling out the moonwalk no-look layup in a serious game, but I like ideas. I’m feeling myself. Even if I miss a few times, the beat brings me back.

First song up on the shuffle is “Lips Are Movin” by Meghan Trainor. If the boys catch me with this, I’m finished. Meghan’s goin’ on the bench. Next up I got “What’s the Use?” by Mac Miller.

Gas is gushing out the speaker.

The bass is electric. Literally. It feels so good, no way I miss a free throw with Mac on.

This game isn’t my job. It’s never going to be my job, but the week-old blood stains on the court say otherwise. My friend Daniel… love him to death… he is not about the game like me. There was one game he was supposed to defend Brendan at the 3-point line, but as Brendan blitzes past him gunning toward the net, Daniel points his finger towards him and lets out the words “Somebody stop that man!” Like he’s a Superman civilian watching a mugging occur– like bro that was your job. I wish he’d put more soul into the game, but there’s one thing I’ll give him credit for.

There’s this girl. We’re talking. It’s nice. What’s nicer though, is Daniel telling this girl about how I slid for him on the concrete court. “That’s my bro in the paint. He bled for me.” Daniel didn’t have to say that. I give him a 4/10 on the court, but an 11 in my heart.

When Daniel gets here, I ask him if he’s got a song, but he always opts out. We know it’s a bunch of K-Pop shit. Now I’m not dissing K-pop, it’s just not the vibe.

One person I’ll never give the aux to is Brendan. He’s one of my best friends, but that dude is 6’3” and 206 pounds, he doesn’t need my speaker. That dude is a walking cheat code. If he hit the gym like he said he would, he’d be able to dunk by now. Posterize everyone and make us pay a mortgage with the roof he put on our heads. Daniel doesn’t make it easy 5’11” and 214 pounds.

I’m my height and I’m 174 pounds. It’s a Cole fuckin World, but nothing is better than when I have Mac in my ear, I cut through both of them, then after I bank the three, those two got nothing to do but watch me do my dance. At that moment, I’d already won.

please. don’t say you’re jealous of the sun and moon

By Zachary Walter

both of us wish you wouldn’t. all we do is sing to the stars. hoping that you’re right. hoping they grant wishes.

every shooting star, every supernova, every explosion that should count for something. each event has heard our songs of longing. you don’t know how good you have it. you can hold the soil and feel it stain you. you can recreate the light.

neither of us have felt the other. the trace of a finger along a furrowed brow. you take for granted that you know a tear’s taste. we dream that we might find ourselves in your shoes.

The dawn breaks

The sun speaks you. your smile does hold a bit of my light. you would find yourself burning. not on fire. you are the fire. there is nothing quiet about being the spark. now you can only sit and wait for your reflection to return. and every day you’ll have to wait for your moon, so are you prepared to watch as he’s hidden from your view? it won’t get easier. please. don’t say you wish to be more like the sun.

The night waxes

The moon thinks you. your eyes do hold a glimpse of my reflection. you would find yourself alone without your sun. you are cosmic and magnificent and necessary and only an accessory. now you can only sit and wait for your light to come back. and every time you slip from her view, you grow colder than you ever thought possible. it doesn’t get easier. please. don’t say you wish to be more like the moon.

Only twice a day can you see both the golden sun and the crescent moon.

It’s just before dusk and just after dawn that you can see the selenelion.

we’re aware it isn’t stars that grant wishes. its only natural that something so fleeting is only for those that aren’t permanent.

it’s the finite that’s worth attention. only now can you see this dappled forest floor. a pond’s distortion is unique to an instant’s gaze.

it makes sense our timelessness would find so much envy for you. able to put everything into a moment.

The sky fades The lovers eclipse

Real Poem

By James Cain

When death begets death by decision, by hand, the cycle won’t cease for desire, for brand. For righteous justice of those who were wronged. To take a life for the lives already gone. What of the killer wielding choice as his blade, fragile souls in the balance against the money he weighed. He never saw what he had done, with green blinding his eyes. From atop his corporate tower where a heart couldn’t hear cries.

What of the killer a vigilante in the night, taking it upon himself to do what the people thought was right. It isn’t justice when it’s wanted with red blinding his eyes, it’s selfish fulfillment under a cover of lies. What of the armchair warriors sitting comfortably behind a screen,

to watch someone gunned down and think it serene. Is it all just a game for someone like you?

A display of entertainment, excitement from something new?

You’ve grown too comfortable to headlines and newsfeeds, your emotions detached from these terrible deeds because you weren’t the one to make the body fall, you weren’t the one whose body would fall. You simply celebrated from afar barely gave a scant look to a gun shot that was real and the life that it took.

The Cola Templars

By Nathaniel Hibbard

Two extraordinary college men stood outside the steps of the University of Central Arkansas’ very own Torreyson Library. Both of them were wearing black suits, white buttoned shirts, and red ties. Completing the look with a long red sash which blankets their jet black coats with half-hazard embroidery which vaguely read “Coke Templars.” While they were individuals in their own right, they preferred to be acknowledged only by their self-imposed rank and as a unit. Behind them, facing forward towards the library doors, was a lone vending machine.

No one could say how they got it there, that is if you ignore the scrap mark trail which led from the machine down the sidewalk towards a Holy red pickup truck that was parked haphazardly behind the library’s neighboring building, Old Main. While the windows were tinted black making it hard to view inside, the engine was still running along with the doors locked.

They stood there for ffteen minutes, maintaining a blocky posture, until one of them spoke. No, a rallying cry to the university students passing by.

“Fret not the medicinal taste of Pepsi, and instead drink from the holy waters of Coke! Glass bottles holding the taste of real sugar cane. The way God intended!”

No one stopped to drink from their blasphemous machine, for too many knew what would happen if you dare to drink a Coke product on university grounds, or so the Templars thought. Most students actively avoided them or stared from a distance, perhaps taking a photo or video. The giggles and other ignorant sounds did not deter the Templars.

All of a sudden the Templars noticed an ally of theirs, or so they thought. Rian, a Sophomore who has yet to declare a major, arrived on scene. This man was a roommate of the Templars, tired from a night of Templar shouting. Or, as the Templars would say, Gospel readings from the CEO of The Coca-Cola Company and prophet James Quincey.

Rian still heard Quincey quotes rattling through his ears. They were just random quotes but the Templars strung them together into some creed, “We’re building this business for the next century, not just the next quarter! Make what you can sell, don’t sell what you can make!”

“Brother Rian, come and drink a pint!”

Rian looked at the sorry excuse for a vending machine which stood in front of him. The machine’s window was tinted, making it impossible to see what horrors laid inside. The buttons on the side panels were foggy, making it hard to see any letter or number to press. Worst of all, the machine was a grotesque faded red which bordered on light orange, sun bleached.

“No.”

Such an answer shocked the Templars, for Rian was their roommate and roommates are like brothers, or so they thought. Heartbroken, a Templar said, “Please, brother, do not forsake us…”

Rian rolled his eyes and trudged into the Torreyson Library mumbling, “I told you I have tachycardia, can’t fucking drink caffne.”

One Templar looked towards the other, “Did you hear that, he can’t drink caffeine. That poor bastard.”

The other Templar tried to hold back tears saying, “I- I know… I brought him this Coca-Cola Zero Caffeine Free just for him…”

“Do not despair, brother, the day is young and with this Coke fowing through our veins, we’ll endure.”

Wiping his eyes, the despairing Templar regained his form, broadened his shoulders and yelled, “Quench thy thirst, imported from Mexico itself!”

Suddenly a tall man with a face obscured by a black Melanie Martinez hoodie walked forth from the library entrance. He stared at the machine and back at the Templars. “Is this like the good stuff from Mexico?”

The ever optimistic Templar responds with a mighty, “Yup!” “How much for a Mexican Coke?”

The newly emboldened Templar puffs up his chest and responds, “Twenty-fve cents, as all drinks should be.”

“Cool, do you take Bear Card?”

The Templars looked at each other and back at the hooded man, “Sorry we only take quarters.”

“Oh, uh can I just take one and pay y’all back later?”

Once more the Templars stared at one another and nodded. Suddenly, one of them dug into their pocket and pulled out a shiny quarter. So shiny this quarter that the hooded man had to cover his face so as to not be blinded by its magnifcence.

All of a sudden, the photonic barrage of the quarter faded and was replaced with an outstretched hand of a dapper Templar, holding a Cola.

“Um, thanks man. I’ll be back” The man turned away towards the neighboring building, Irby Hall.

“You know, he might never come back, but I’ll rest easy this day knowing we made a difference in that man’s life.”

The now fully confdent Templar turned towards his comrade, “Ditto brother, ditto.”

From the feld behind them, a woman in a black and white striped shirt with coal stained rose boots appeared, “Woah there, is this some sort of frat thing?”

The Templars turned towards her, “No, madame we are the Templars of the Cola and we are offering to quench the thirst of all who dwell within these lands for just twenty-fve cents.”

“Cool.” The student walked past them towards the machine. Then, she pulled out a black wallet with a pink Monster High logo on it.

“M-My God, is she a follower of the demonic arts?”

Putting in a quarter and pressing A-3, the student looked back at them, “Nah, I got this from Hot Topic. Big fan of Gen-1.” Then, she took her Cola beverage and left. “Thanks!”

“Do you think that one Cola is enough to let that witch see the light, brother?” “Only time can tell, brother. Only time can tell.”

Their contemplation of Monster High being a cult was soon interrupted by a man wearing a purple Polo shirt and a smooth white beard, which had Pepsi heretic written all over it. Tragically for Cola peace, the man was walking towards them. “Hey, you two gotta permit or something?”

The Templars turned towards the man. They knew coming out here was risky, and it seemed this concern was justifed.

“The Templars of the Cola need no permit from the state to enlighten the taste of mortal man!” A Templar said while looking down at the man’s gold nametag, Xavier.

Xavier looked towards the feeble, yet oddly holy, vending machine. Then, he noticed the sun bleached letters on the side which spell, C O K E.

“Ya boys knows y’all can’t sell this here, UCA has a special contract with—” A Templar spoke up, “Do not speak the word of Pepsi, heretic! Your Earthly contracts mean nothing to us.”

“I see what’s happening, you the types who take the Cola Wars far too seriously.” “No, the Cola Wars are where we take our fnal stands, as brothers! As a people!” the other Templar attested.

Xavier shook his head slowly, not abiding by the words of the Templars, “I’m just gonna call a tow”

“NO!” A Templar roared. At the same time, both unbutton their coats to reveal plastic Coke bottles, “Call a tow and you’ll taste Coca!”

Xavior, bewildered, backed away as he pulled out his nondescript Samsung phone. Before he could look down, the Templars shook their bottles and sprayed him down in brown Coke fuids.

“Ugh, what? That’s… Y’all are dead! Dead!” Xavior ran away towards the neighboring building, Old Main.

“I sense this battle isn’t over, brother. We have offcially awakened a sleeping bear.”

No more students would stop by their vending machine after that, as over the next ten minutes campus police taped off the area from the entrance of the library to the paths leading towards the small steps. Yet, no offcer approached them, only watched from a distance.

“They’re waiting us out, hoping we’ll surrender like sheep…”

The other Templar, ever insightful, corrected his brother, “No, these unfaithfuls are sending in their greatest warriors. No one offcer or even an entire precinct is trained well enough for us.”

“You think they’re sending in The Peps?”

“Indeed, those trained by Pepsiman himself. They’ll wait till nightfall to besiege us, stand tall.”

As the sun began to dip over the horizon, a wicked Pepsi truck entered the roundabout of the entrance lawn. The machine of Pepsi supremacy parked itself in front of our Templars. One man wearing a blue button-up and black pants stepped out.

“Hey, I’m Artemis. How you two gentlemen doing tonight?”

The Templars merely stared at the man, no answer escaping their lips.

“Eh fair. It’s been a long day for me too, driving and all.”

“Listen, my employers got a deal with your school, only Pepsi products. I’m sure you understand.”

A Templar fnally decided to speak, “No, we don’t. You are an agent of the Pepsi Bourgeoisie and we, The Coke Proletariat, defend the taste of the common soda drinker!”

“Oh, so is this like a Communist-Marxist thing then?” Artemis asked.

The other Templar answered while holding up a Cherry Coke, “No, we love Capitalism done right! Under the monopoly of Coke, an ethical company!”

“Damn, well, didn’t Coke, like, commit human rights violations or something?” “Sir, those are lies! Slander to corrupt the good name of Coke!”

Artemis walked to the back of the truck while still facing the Templars. “I guess that means ya’ll won’t let us tow?”

The Templars in union shook their bottles. “What do you think?”

“I can appreciate young men standing by their word, even when it’s so wrong,” Artemis said as he rolled up the back of his truck.

The only thing the Templars saw from the back were the side walls lined with Pepsi drinks and a dark abyss in the middle.

Once the opening was made, Artemis instantly leaped to the top of the truck, surprising the Templars, “The Peps… Brother…”

In an instant, Artemis pointed both his fgures at the Templars, a gust of wind following it, “Attack Peps!”

Just like that an entire squad of metallic blue and silver men ran out of the truck, none with any discernible facial features. Armed, these Peps were holding Pepsi bottles in each hand, aiming it directly at the Templars.

Artemis and his hoard of heathens had the entrance to the library surrounded for it was only two blasphemers to be thwarted, or so these Pepsi Pagans thought.

Our Templars, ready to make their last stand, attempted to spray The Peps with bottles of thirst quenching Coca-Cola products from Diet Coke, Fanta, and Vanilla Coke.

Yet, The Peps were not deterred as they evaded the Templar’s dirty water, their speed unmatched. This was a legion of ancient warriors, agents of Pepsi fueled chaos. To the Peps, this fght would merely be a fipnote in their long history of ensuring Coke annihilation.

Cold terror spread throughout the bones of the Templars, the feeling of pints of Pepsi being sprayed froze the knights. The brothers had a limited supply and they dared not use the machine, a tool of the people not war.

In union, The Peps repeated, “The choice of a new generation, the Pepsi Generation!”

Overseeing the battle from his truck, Artemis gave a devilish smile, “The beverage of a false god means nothing to us, boys!”

In response the Peps chanted, “Amen! Live for now, for the love of it!”

Before he could grab his phone to give an update to PepsiCo, blinding lights from an unseen red truck fooded the scene.

The truck drove in, running over nearly half of the elite Peps. While their metallic bodies protected them from falling victim to vehicular man-

slaughter, it was a sign of a turning tide in the battle.

The truck came to a righteous stop, an old man with a long gray beard and an identical templar black suit stepped out. A Pep approached the elderly man, confused but ready to spray with Pepsi. The man looked down towards Pep.

“Obey your thirst brothers!” The ancient Templar demanded as he withdrew a Sprite and sprayed down the Pep.

Artemis looked on in horror as the Pep dropped his Pepsi bottle and held his chest violently, as if he was having a heart attack. The seasoned Pep fell to the ground, his metallic body making an uncomfortable scrap as he hit the concrete ground, unresponsive.

The other two Templars joined in, “Taste the feeling!”

It rained that night, rainfall of Coke and Pepsi clashing in the midst of an unknowing university. The ground grew sticky and brown with the wills of the Templars ever holding strong.

In their fnal moments, one could hear the Templars yell, “Always Coca-Cola! Viva la Coca-Cola!”

By the time dawn broke, the battle was long over. The Pepsi truck was parked at the front of the library, the logo stained beyond the point of recognition. A man was seen in the Pepsi truck, looking forward in a catatonic state. The ground was stained a tint of brown, yet the smell wasn’t of Pepsi. A glorious shiny red truck was parked at the center feld, no marks in sight. The bodies of the tyrannical Peps were never found, yet the Coke Machine was still there, standing tall, its red ever more vibrant than before. While the brothers in arms were missing in action, their legacy remained in the vending machine.

As students walked under the police tape to do some morning studying or more likely order Starbucks from the library, a lone student wearing a hoodie sauntered towards the machine and deposited a quarter on top of it.

Home Is Where the Hunger Isn’t

By James Cain

There’s a hole where my heart is, an empty socket yearning for peace to fill a lifetime. It searches, desperate to find what once was there but has since run away. “It must be out here, somewhere!” it cries into a sea of found souls ever hungry for what they have. A hunger growing like sickness gorging itself on false hearts known simply as desire. When it doesn’t get what it wants it eats the host alive and the hole grows even wider. Surely my heart found a new home, one where it is safe and content, where peace and quiet is the norm.

I wish to join it and take part in the peace I once took for granted. But until I can find just where my heart ran off to, this false home will have to do. A home that my heart has long since abandoned, where hunger took its place.

Gravity Switch

By Alexis Denney

INT. INSIDE OF SPACECRAFT

BIANCA fiddles with the straps on her spacesuit as her son WARREN (11 y/o) watches; twisting the hem of his shirt in his hands nervously. Bianca looks over to him with a look of pity as she takes his hands in hers.

BIANCA

I told you, it will be just like when I have to go out for repairs. You can even watch me from the window.

Warren looks over to a small object on the counter nearby, it appears to be a mechanical box with a light switch on it. Bianca follows his gaze.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

And it probably won’t even work this time anyways, it’s just the first test after all.

WARREN

True...the glowy rock you put in it seemed scary though...

Bianca looks back to the switch, it’s clear it made her nervous too. She stands up straight and looks back to Warren with a superficial look of confidence.

BIANCA

Well if anything goes wrong, I got my super strong tether to keep me close, my trusty parachute to land on the nearest planet and for maximum safety-!

She holds up her wrist to Warren where she is wearing a watch with a bunch

of stickers and marker on it as well as a small screen embedded.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

contact with the bravest boy in the universe!

Warren smiles and appears to relax at that.

WARREN

Okay... well if you do land on a planet can you bring back something for me?

Bianca beams.

BIANCA

Absolutely!

Bianca returns to configuring her equipment as Warren gathers things in a bag for her. She stands ready as he zips it up and hands it to her.

WARREN

Promise you’ll be back soon?

Bianca takes the bag and secures it to her suit before looking back to Warren.

BIANCA

Alright, alright...

Bianca bends down and holds out her pinky to Warren and gives him another smile, this one feels more exacerbated, as wraps his around it.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

I promise.

Bianca puts on her helmet and holds up a questioning thumbs up to Warren, holding the switch firmly in her hand. He looks her over and fixes a clasp on her suit before returning the thumbs up in confirmation. She enters a small empty room, attaches the tether, and looks back to Warren through the window. He pushes a button on the wall and waves to Bianca. She waves back before being sucked through the door.

EXT. OUTSIDE THE SPACECRAFT

Bianca floats weightlessly outside the ship and Warren watches her through the window. In the distance, there is a red planet and it’s two moons behind it. Bianca takes a moment to admire the view before a light

appears on Bianca’s wrist.

WARREN (V.O.)

Testing, testing, 1..2..3!

She presses the PTT (push to talk) button on her wrist.

BIANCA

Hear ya loud and clear buddy!

The call goes quiet as she takes a deep breath and holds up the switch. An unnatural blue glow emanates from the crevices of it’s worn, metal surface. She takes out a voice recorder and speaks into the mic.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

First test for the Gravity Switch, a device which harnesses the gravitational power of an unidentified mineral to presumably pull the holder towards the nearest planet.

Bianca flips up the switch, turning the device on. She is then violently jerked away from the ship, snapping the tether and sending her in the opposite direction of the planet. The spacecraft disappears into the distance.

WARREN (V.O.)

Mom?! MOM! Are you there?!

She tries to reach the PTT button but loses her grip on the device in the effort. The device rushes forward, just outside of her grasp, but keeps her in its orbit as it rockets through space. She then finds the PTT button and speaks into the communication device.

BIANCA

Warren, buddy, I’m here!

WARREN (V.O.)

Where?! I don’t see you! Are you landing on that planet?

The planet is long gone and Bianca is not slowing down, she looks around frantically. She tries to keep her voice level.

BIANCA

I don’t recognize any stars around me, buddy what does the GPS say?

The communication device is breaking up, Warren’s voice can barely be heard through static.

WARREN (V.O.)

Tryi-...you’re not-...range

The communication device gets cut off.

BIANCA

Warren! WARREN!!

Planets and stars pass by faster than she could process but with none of them ever seem to get close enough for her try to land on one.

MONATAGE - Bianca’s voice logs

--Log 1: Bianca continues to soar endlessly through galaxies at the same rate as when the tether snapped but the device manages to not hit anything.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

Log 1: I think. The device has launched me into the vacuum of space, it appears to be completely disregarding any system of orbit despite contrary to my previous understanding of how it works.

A few planets pass one purple, then red, then green, she tries to get a look at them before they vanish to no avail. She looks to the device.

It’s taking me somewhere but I have no way of telling where that is...

--Log 7: Bianca appears tired and bored.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

Log 7: I’ve been rationing my food and water as well as lowering my oxygen intake, who knows how long I’ll be out here.

She sighs.

--Log 30: She looks exhausted as she weakly lifts her hand up to speak.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

Log 30: The device has picked up some space debris as it gets caught in it’s pull. I think it has been slowing down...

Oxygen is starting to get low... She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

I’m gonna die out here. I’m gonna die alone out here and my work will be for nothing. Warren is alone on that ship...

--Log ??: Bianca is barely breathing and her voice is hoarse, the recording is weak and quiet.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

I miss my son.

END MONTAGE

Bianca wakes up from sleeping in her suit to see something big and dark in the distance as it gets bigger and bigger. She is heading straight for it. She starts a recording anyway, her voice still hoarse.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

Mayday! mayday! I am rapidly approaching...I-I don’t know! Something massive and somehow darker than the space around it I can’t seeShe is cut off as she crash lands.

EXT. THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING

Bianca wakes up with a smooth, black surface beneath her. She looks up to see blurry stars slowly come back into focus as her vision returns. She runs her hand across the ground.

BIANCA

Warm...

She gets up slowly to get her bearings, checking her suit for anything that could have been damaged in the landing then gasps, notices her helmet is nearly completely shattered.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

I can breath here?

She has some bruises but finding nothing too damaged to need immediate attention. She starts to walk around to find that the lights she was seeing weren’t in the distance but marble sized balls of fire of various colors, some had dust particles circling around them. She walks around curiously observing her new surroundings and looks down to her feet, feeling the ground rise and fall slowly. She pulls out her voice recorder again.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

I appear to have landed on a...planet? Or the end of space?

There’s a beat as she observes on of the floating lights.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen!

In her fervor, one of the tiny suns grazes her upper arm causing her to double over in pain.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

Ow! Goddammit!

The marble sun gets knocked over and collides with another, sending a wave of destruction through a three foot radius. She looks to her arm furiously to see a a leathery, brown, marble-sized burn. Her face shifts to confusion as she examines the hole it left in her suit rather than the scar.

The ground rumbles

Bianca looks up in fear as the blackness above seems to shift and spiral around itself like revealing it as the form of a massive creature (EVERYTHING). With every movement the the ground shakes more and more intensely.

EVERYTHING

Who’s....there...

Everything has no face or visible mouth but voice was deep and slow, it’s words emanated through Bianca’s head. Her voice is quick with excitement but shakes.

BIANCA

What are you? Was that a star I hit? What is this place?

EVERYTHING

Little...questions...

Bianca gets up carefully and holds her hands together to stop them from shaking.

BIANCA

I can see the whole universe from here... I can know everything!

It is quiet for a while as Bianca takes a moment to think, her smile fades as she looks to her recorder then her wrist.

The communication device for her son is completely broken (presumably from the crash) and she didn’t notice until then. Everything is still and quiet as ever. She speaks again, quiet and heartbroken.

BIANCA (CONT’D)

It’s everything I ever wanted...

She looks up to the deep void of Everything with a new sense of determination

BIANCA (CONT’D)

I want to see my son.

She thinks back to her last moment spent with her son. From the corner of her eye a light grows brighter in the distance. She runs towards it as fast as she can while dodging the shrunken stars. It leads her to a tiny fleck of dust floating aimlessly. She holds it as gently as she possibly can. It grows warmer as her vision fades to white.

INT. INSIDE OF SPACECRAFT

Bianca opens her eyes to see she is back in the small room by the shuttle door except now her hair is starting to turn gray and the bags under her eyes have deepened. She looks happy.

She open the door to the inside in a daze to see Warren curled up, sleeping in the chair next to the main control panel. His eyes seemed red and puffy but other than that he’s the same as the day she left.

Bianca walks over to him and shakes his shoulder gently. He wakes up quickly and hugs Bianca tightly. She returns the embrace then pulls away just enough to look at Warren.

BIANCA

Sorry...I couldn’t find you a souvenir.

He laughs and hugs her again.

CUT TO BLACK.

Windgate After Dark

By Falon Scott

What Could Be

By James Cain

(Authors Note: While this work uses the script format, I’m classifying it as fiction as it’s meta-narrative means it’s meant to be read on a page, not acted on a stage.)

INT. HOUSE PARTY BASEMENT - NIGHT

A BOY stands alone at the edge of a crowd. With a drink in one hand and the other in his pocket, he’s leaned against the side of a wall trying to play it cool and mysterious. In reality he doesn’t know anyone there and is trying his best to muster up the courage to talk to someone.

He’s stood there for a good while, surveying the crowd for any opportunity he can find. Then, he spots one. On the other side of the room, a GIRL is standing alone, leaned against a wall in much the same fashion as he is. He takes a minute to compose himself and formulate a plan for conversation before taking a deep breath and approaching with as much calmness as he can muster.

BOY

Hey.

The GIRL turns to her right and notices the BOY.

BOY (CONT’D)

Sooo, how are you liking the party?

GIRL

Oh, uhh, it’s great. I’m having fun.

BOY

Cool, that’s...that’s good. They both stand there in silence for a moment. The BOY fidgets with his cup, though in a way that the GIRL can’t see. The GIRL looks at him, looks at the ground, and sighs quietly.

GIRL

What about you? You enjoying it?

The BOY jerks his head back up to look at her.

BOY

Uh-Yeah, I’m really liking it.

The GIRL raises an eyebrow.

GIRL

Are you sure?

BOY

Ah-well... (sigh)

no, not really.

BOY (CONT’D)

I’m actually not much of a party person but, parties seem to be my only excuse for getting outta the room to touch grass lately so...here I am. Touching grass.

That last line is said with a low energy celebratory arm gesture. A quick, short chuckle escapes the GIRL’s lips.

GIRL

Aren’t we all. Well, there really isn’t much grass to touch down here. We should probably get our priorities straight.

A slightly confused look comes across the BOY’s face.

BOY

Right...yeah.

The GIRL takes notice of his confused look and rolls her eyes.

GIRL

I’m saying we should go up top. Both of us, and get out of this

loud, sweaty ass basement.

BOY

Oh-wait, really?

By the time the BOY says that, she’s already walking away. She looks back and motions him forward.

GIRL

Yeah, come on, let’s go.

The BOY lightly shakes his head in surprise before quickly jaunting over to her and following her up the stairs and out of the basement.

EXT. HOUSE PARTY BACKYARD - MOMENTS LATER

The GIRL walks over to the backside of the house, with the BOY following shortly behind. She leans her back against the wall with a heavy sigh, and the BOY follows suit.

GIRL

Finally, some fresh air. That basement was starting to smell like a gym locker.

BOY

Really? It didn’t smell that bad to me.

The GIRL turns to look at the BOY with a face that say “Oh come on”.

GIRL

Dude, pro tip. If a girl tells you something stinks, just agree.

The GIRL turns back to looking forward.

GIRL (CONT’D)

Makes you look gross if you don’t.

BOY

Oh, yeah. I see what you mean.

A moment of silence passes between the two before it’s interrupted by the sound of the GIRL ruffling through her jacket pocket to pull out a box of cigarettes. She opens the box and flicks out two cigarettes, taking one out with her mouth before moving the box closer to the BOY to offer him one.

The BOY takes notice of a small patch of red lipstick on the flung out cigarette from where her lips grazed it. He hesitates.

BOY (CONT’D)

U-Uhm-Sorry, no thank you. I don’t smoke.

The GIRL nods lightly before bringing the box back closer to her and pulling a lighter out of it.

GIRL

Figures. (while lighting cigarette)

You don’t seem the type. She takes a long drag on the now lit cigarette, and blows the smoke straight forward.

BOY

Well, actually I can’t. I’m asthmatic.

She turns to him, and takes the cigarette out of her mouth.

GIRL

Oh shit, really? You should’ve just said so. She turns forward again and brings the cigarette back to her lips.

GIRL (CONT’D)

I’ll make sure to blow the smoke away from you then.

BOY

Thanks, appreciate it. She takes another long drag and blows the smoke to her right side. She looks off in the distance to her right.

GIRL

You know, I never was much for parties either.

BOY Really?

GIRL

Yep. Too loud. Way too loud for the shitty music they always play.

The BOY lightly laughs to himself. The GIRL cracks a smile.

BOY

You’re telling me. If they’re gonna blow out my eardrums they can at least do it with something I’d actually enjoy.

GIRL

Yeah, and it’s always the same few songs too, likeShe starts counting on her fingers.

GIRL (CONT’D)

There’s Fireball, Mambo Number 5, some rap song I couldn’t be bothered to learn the name of-

BOY

Party in the USA.

GIRL

Party in the USA, (smacking her hands together)

It’s the same. Songs. Every. Time. Have some taste people.

They both laugh before a moment of silence falls between them again, with the only sound being the occasional breath of smoke and the now distant feeling party.

BOY

So, if you aren’t that big a fan of parties either, then why are you here?

She turns to look at him.

BOY (CONT’D)

Uh-Not to like, call you stupid or anything, I was just curious.

GIRL

Dude, chill. It’s alright. I get

what you mean. She takes another slow drag of the cigarette.

GIRL (CONT’D)

It’s...the same reason as you, I suppose. Just needed to get out of the room for a while, started to feel a little too claustrophobic for my taste. This was the only excuse I had.

The BOY nods.

BOY

Yeah, I know the feeling. The two share a solemn peace in their understanding. The GIRL looks up towards the sparkling night sky.

GIRL

Hey, can I ask you a strange question?

BOY

Um, yeah. Go for it.

GIRL

...If you could have anything you want. Riches, lovers, fame, anything. What would it be?

The BOY stands there in thought for a moment, staring at the ground.

BOY

...Can I give you a depressing answer?

GIRL

Yeah.

BOY

Friends. I just want friends. Someone that doesn’t feel distant to me, that is as much a

part of my world as I am theirs.

The GIRL stands there, strangely unphased.

GIRL

Tch. That is a depressing answer. A good one though. It’s what you should want.

BOY

Should want? What is that supposed to mean?

GIRL Nothing. She takes one last quick drag off her now dying cigarette.

GIRL (CONT’D)

It meant nothing. She flicks the dead cigarette to the ground, stomping and rubbing it in an almost peeved way till the embers go out.

BOY

Okay then, well what about you? What would you want?

GIRL

Ehh, that doesn’t matter

BOY

What?

GIRL

My answer wouldn’t matter, not to you at least. I just wanted to see how you would answer.

The BOY gives her a strange and confused look, not quite sure of what she meant by all that and whether or not he said something wrong.

GIRL (CONT’D) (annoyed)

You didn’t.

BOY

Huh?

GIRL

You didn’t do anything wrong, god why do you always assume you did something wrong? Didn’t your therapist tell you to stop doing that?

BOY

I-I’m sorry, I don’t think I follow?

GIRL

It’s(sigh, then quietly)

...why are you still here? Don’t you have somewhere better to be?

BOY

O-Okay, I seriously have zero clue what you are on about, what are you saying?

GIRL

Yes you do, stop playing along. Now’s not the time.

The BOY stands there with a dumbfounded look on his face, unsure of what to do next. Then, that face slowly becomes more melancholic and guilty as he looks away from her, off to the side.

BOY

...Why? Why are you doing this? Couldn’t you have just let me have my fun?

GIRL

Sure, when that fun stops being a danger to you and threatening you

GIRL (CONT’D)

Though, what I do know is... (looking back at the BOY) You’ll be fine. It’ll probably take some time, but you’ll be fine before then.

BOY

Yeah...I will. They stand there in silence, his hand in hers, for a short while.

GIRL

Well, it’s getting late for you. You should probably stop writing this script and go to bed.

BOY

Yeah, you’re right. A beat.

GIRL Hey.

BOY

Hm?

I love you. The BOY doesn’t respond.

GIRL

GIRL (CONT’D)

Say it back. A beat.

BOY I love you too.

GIRL

Good, you need to say that more often. (solemn sigh)

Now go. Go and find the real me.

For both our sake.

Pickpocket

By Bianca Martin

To Take a Left Turn

By James Cain

“*BEEP BEEP BEEP* Today’s date is Thursday, March 21st with a temperature of 68 degrees as of 7:30 AM.”

John slowly opens his crusty eyes as his alarm repeats the same thing he’s heard for years now. Every morning is the same routine; get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, feed the cat, and then he’s out the door to take the train to the taxi depot so he can work his job as a taxi driver.

He arrives at the depot with the same face he has had for years. He walks past his coworkers and to his taxi, gets in, starts the car, and drives off to his normal route. “Just another day” he thinks to himself as he reaches the exit to the depot. It’s a T-intersection, and he knows he must go right to get to his route, yet every time he gets here, he wonders...what will happen if he takes a left? He’s worked here for several years now but not once has he taken a left at this intersection. “No reason to figure that out today” he says as he takes a right towards his normal route.

As he’s taking a right on Virginia avenue, he takes notice of a couple in their wedding clothes loudly trying to hail him down. He slows down and stops at the side of the road, and with the energy of someone on the run they quickly hop into the taxi and shut the door. Not once does he look at their faces, he doesn’t need to. He just needs to have his eyes on the road.

“Where to?” John asks the couple with an empty tone of voice.

The man begins to talk when suddenly the woman speaks quicker and louder.

“Anywhere, just take us anywhere.”

John, unsurprisingly, is taken aback by this answer. It’s already weird enough there are two what look like newlyweds taking a taxi, but anywhere? He can’t work off anywhere, he needs a specific location.

“Ma’am, imma need you to be a bit more specific, I can’t just go anywhere.”

“Oh!” the man chimes in, “What about that store on the corner of 28th and 5th? That’s where we met after all.”

“Alright, store on the corner of 28th and 5th, got it.” John responds, taking the taxi out of park and pressing the gas. As he’s driving, he notices the cou-

ple in the back seat eagerly talking to each other. This situation is oddly familiar to him, like he’s lived it before, yet his mind will not let him remember it. He decided to start up some small talk to get his mind off the weirdness of this situation.

“So, you two newlyweds?” John asks the couple.

The man responds “Yep, as of an hour ago. Met this lovely woman 2 years back when I helped her pick out some groceries for a meal she wanted to cook, and now we’re here, bounded by golden rings.”

The woman adds “Oh you should’ve seen the engagement ring he got me. It was a beautiful emerald ring. My favorite gemstone.”

“Yeah, I had to finagle a couple pay raises and a ton of overtime from the boss just to get it, it was worth it though.”

“I couldn’t have been happier”

“Me neither” The man says looking into his wife’s eyes. The more they talked the weirder the situation felt, it’s almost as if he lived this before. Right before the deja-vu could make him mad he arrived at the corner of 28th and 5th. The couple said their goodbyes as the man paid for the ride. “I wish I could feel that kind of happiness again” John says, thinking back on his late wife. Ever since he lost her, he’s just felt stuck, unable to move on. “Not like it matters, I still got work to do” he says, shifting his taxi into gear and turning the wheel to get back to his route.

“*BEEP BEEP BEEP* Today’s date is Friday, March 22nd with a temperature of 70 degrees as of 7:30 AM.”

Once again, John wakes up, eyes crustier than ever. He repeats his routine; get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, feed the cat, and then out the door towards the taxi depot. He arrives at work, gets into his taxi, and once again finds himself at the intersection. “Maybe today” he thinks to himself. “Maybe yesterday was a sign, if I take this left maybe I could feel that kind of happiness again.” He gives the thought some time to process and considers turning his wheels left. He sighs, “No reason to figure that out today” he says as he takes a right towards his normal route.

Again, as he turns right on Virginia Avenue, he sees someone looking quite raggedy not trying very hard to hail him down. He slows down anyways, and pulls up to the curb to let the man in. Once again, he doesn’t bother to look at his face, he doesn’t need to. “Where to?” John asks reluctantly. The man responds in a familiar tone of voice “Grocery store on 17th, the one with the pine tree out front.” “Alright” John says, taking the taxi out of park. The man sits quietly in the backseat, almost as if he wants nothing more than to not be there. An aura of melancholy surrounds the man, a feeling John is all too familiar with. The ride gets too quiet for his comfort, but with more than enough melancholy to fill the taxi surrounding him all he can bring himself to do is tap his thumb against the steering wheel. Finally, after an agonizing few minutes of silence in sadness, John speaks up.

“Sooo, why you heading to the grocery store?” John asks, hoping for an answer.

The man is hesitant to respond at first, but reluctantly responds, “To get groceries...”

“Oh” John says, regretting ever asking.

Presumably tired of the silence as well, the man adds onto his plain answer from before, “Got a rare day off work, so I thought I’d take care of some errands. Getting cat food, food for myself, some more toothpaste, and the like.”

“Oh that’s...that’s good” John says. At first, he criticizes the man in his mind for doing something so basic and mundane on his day off, but quickly realizing the hypocrisy in that he feels bad about it and moves on. He drives the rest of the way in silence, feeling sorry for the man and partly for himself as well. He stops at the grocery store on 17th and lets the man out. He pays, and without a second glance they go their separate ways. He wishes he could’ve suggested something better for the man to do with his day off, but nothing came to mind. He never does anything eventful on his days either, and regretfully he wishes he did. “Not like it matters, I still got work to do” he says, shifting his taxi into gear and turning the wheel to get back to his route.

“*BEEP BEEP BEEP* Today’s date is Saturday, March 23rd with a temperature of 65 degrees as of 7:30 AM.”

Same routine. Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, feed the cat, get to work, start the taxi, drive to the intersection. Once again, he stops at the intersection and wonders “Should I turn left?”. He continues, “Yesterday I got a reminder of what my life is like now, with its boring monotony and simplicity, and the day before I feel like I got a reminder of what my life used to be like, before I lost my wife...so should I turn left?” He ponders this decision, staying at the intersection for much longer than he used to. Again, he decides not to. He doesn’t know what awaits him on the left turn. To change one’s future can be scary, who knows what the future holds. He chuckles to himself, “No reason to figure that out today” he says as he takes a right towards his normal route.

Once again, as he turns a right onto Virginia avenue, he catches a glimpse of a well-dressed and clean looking man patiently hailing him down. He slows down, stops at the curb, and lets the man in. Again, he doesn’t look at the man’s face, he doesn’t need to. With another reluctant sigh, John asks the man “Where to?” The man responds simply and surely “The city bridge, please.”

“The city bridge? Sir, are you okay?” John asks curious and concerned. “Perfectly fine.” The man turns to look at John. “I just got someone waiting for me there.”

“Alright.” John says concerningly. He considers not letting the man take the taxi for his sake but decides it’s not worth the trouble. He takes the taxi out

of park and drives towards the city bridge.

The car ride is quiet, too much so for John’s comfort. He considers starting up some small talk, but feels the mood just isn’t right for it and leaves the man alone. Instead, he grabs a starburst from his pocket, pops it into his mouth, and quietly drives on hoping the candy will distract from his own concerns.

They arrive at the entrance to the city bridge, and John parks on the side of the road. “Alright, we’re here” John says, awaiting payment. Instead, the man turns to look at John, and with a confident voice he says “Look at me.”

“What?” John responds in confusion.

“Just...look at me.”

John sighs, and turns to look at the man “Alright what do you wa-”

For the first time in a long while, he gets a good look of his passenger’s face. He can’t quite figure out why but for some reason he looks familiar, like he’s seen him before.

In the mirror.

It’s himself.

“Hey John...how ya holdin up?” The other John asks.

It’s him. Somehow, it’s himself. Granted he’s looking a little cleaner and he’s got a brighter look on face but undoubtedly it is himself. He just can’t believe it. Himself? How? Does he have a secret twin he never knew about? Did he get cloned? How could this be possible?

“Y’know what, you don’t need to answer. I already know anyways.” The other John says trying to reassure John.

John can barely speak as he stutters out a question, “W-wh-how??? How are you here? Are you real? What’s going on?”

“Look, man. I don’t quite know either, it’s hard to explain. All you need to know is that I’m you from the future. I can’t say how far in the future it’s just... the future. Now come on, get out of the car I gotta show you something.”

John slowly gets out of the taxi and walks with himself towards the bridge. Before they know it, they’re both on the side of the bridge, relaxing on the railing and looking out into the water below.

Older John puts his arm over Younger John shoulders. “Alright, tell me. What do you see?”

Younger John, still taken aback by this whole scenario, tries his best to answer.

“Uhmm...the water?”

“Past that”

“...the...city?”

“Further. What’s at the edge of what you can see?”

“...the horizon?”

“Now what do you think’s past that?”

“Uhhh...I’d imagine the country side, with a few small towns here and there”

“Great, now further”

“Umm I guess the beach?”

“Further”

“The open sea?”

“Even further”

“Wh-more sea???” Younger John says while confusingly chuckling to himself.

“Ehhh I was looking for another country, but I guess that works. Either way, you can imagine what’s out there, right?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not dumb y’know”

“I know, I know, you can hold sass.” Older John says chuckling. “Look, what I’m saying is, you can definitely imagine what’s out there...but why don’t you see it for yourself?”

This revelation shocks John to his core. Why hadn’t he seen the world? Isn’t that what he and his wife promised to do together? But then his wife passed, and he had no reason to travel. All his dreams were shattered in an instant, and he couldn’t move on. He wouldn’t let himself move on. He was too scared too.

“I know it hurts. I know losing her hurts, I was there myself once, but you’ve gotta move on. You can’t keep working a dead-end job in the same city you vowed to leave behind just because you got hurt. You can’t be afraid of the future. I get it, change is terrifying. The future is terrifying. You were hurt once, who knows how you’ll be hurt again. However, that isn’t an excuse to keep living the same torturous, boring life just because you don’t want to take that risk. Sometimes risks are necessary, and they need to be taken. Because if you don’t...this bridge will be the last thing you see before your own fear takes you.”

Younger John is practically on the edge of tears now. He knows he wants to move on, he desperately wants to, more than anything else, yet he just can’t do it. He’s too afraid.

“Wh-what do I do then? Just run away?” Younger John stutters out. Older John responds, “Take the left.”

“What?”

“Next time you find yourself at that intersection and you’re about to head to your route, take a left instead of a right. Trust me.”

With those last words uttered by the older John, he suddenly vanishes without a trace, leaving just John alone on a bridge exiting the city. He walks back to his car, gets in, and turns it on. He shifts out of park, backs up, and turns around to get back onto his route. “What a day” He thinks to himself as the familiar life he’s used to settles back in.

“*BEEP BEEP BEEP* Today’s date is Sunday, March 24th with a temperature of 70 degrees as of 7:30 AM.”

Another day, same routine. Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, feed the cat, get to work, start the taxi, drive to the intersection. He sits there, for just a moment, and thinks about all that’s happened in the past three days. On Thursday, he remembered what he was like before his wife passed. He was happy and wanted to see the world with the woman he loved. He wanted to leave everything behind and start anew. On Friday he realized what his life is like now. Every single day it’s the same boring, dull, and meaningless routine. He wants nothing more than to try something new. Then yesterday, he met his future. He saw how bright and happy he was, he knew what was in store for him, both if he changed and if he didn’t. He saw the path that lay before him. Left? Or right? Risk? Or familiarity? He sighs, knowing which turn to take.

“I think it’s about time I figure that out.” he says, turning his steering wheel to the left.

It's the Hardest Word to Say

By James Cain

INT. ABANDONED BUILDING BEDROOM - NIGHT (RECORDING)

From the perspective of a camcorder sat on a desk facing a torn up wall, a pale looking TREVOR (25, lightly clothed) is sitting in a chair leaning towards the camera. A length of gauze is wrapped around his left arm. He leans back and as he does, a slight pained grunt comes from him, before relaxing into the chair with a deep sigh. Trevor sits there and stares at the camcorder for a brief moment, pondering what to say between labored breaths. Finally, with a sickly tone, he speaks up.

TREVOR

Part of me wonders...why I’m still doing this. Sitting in front of this camcorder, yapping away knowing full well you aren’t gonna see these recordings now when they’re stuck halfway across the country from you. A beat.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

Maybe it’s hope, some strange form of insane, probably fever-fueled hope that you’ll find these and hear what I have to say. Or maybe it’s just me realizing that this’ll be the last chance to say what I wanted to-what I was hoping to say in person once I finally got to you.

Another labored sigh escapes Trevor.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

Though, as you can see, or as you’ve already figured out if you

found me before these recordings, that’s probably not gonna happen anymore. It’s a now or never type of thing, I guess.

He looks back at the camcorder with a melancholic expression.

CUT TO:

EXT. ABANDONED STREET - DAY (FLASHBACK)

No longer through the perspective of the camcorder, Trevor (healthier, heavily clothed) runs through a car-littered street, clutching his left arm. He weaves in between abandoned cars and military vehicles, occasionally looking behind him. While running with a pace and panic that would suggest it’s for his life, he stumbles and falls forward.

Throwing out his right hand he lands on it to soften the fall. After he hits the ground he lays there for a quick second before getting back up. Disoriented, he takes a look at his right hand, checking if he had hurt it in the fall.

He sees his hand covered in dirt and blood, way too much blood for the clear lack of any cuts on his hand. He stares, wide eyed and trembling, at the bloody hand. Then, a sound comes from behind him. Quiet and far away, it sounds like a low, gravely ROAR followed by metal scraping on asphalt. Trevor darts his head behind him. He hurriedly wipes his right hand on his pants and returns it to his left arm, clutching it. He then jumps into a sprint until he’s out of frame.

TREVOR (V.O.)

So, in the last recording, I mentioned something about heading into a nearby city to find some desperately needed supplies.

Well...

INT. ABANDONED BUILDING FRONT DOOR - MOMENTS LATER (FLASHBACK)

Trevor bursts through a door, quickly turning and locking it while still clutching his left arm. Once he’s locked it, he turns again to lean his back against it, in an awkward manner due to the backpack he’s wearing, and spends a moment catching his breath. Once his breath softens, he peels his

grip off his left arm to look at the wound and the once-again bloody right hand. His breath rapidly picks back up.

TREVOR (V.O.)

...I may have fumbled that plan. Really badly.

Trevor scans his surroundings. It looks like some kind of family home, one that hasn’t been inhabited for quite awhile. Seeing a hallway, he bolts through it, looking for a certain room.

INT. ABANDONED BUILDING BATHROOM - IMMEDIATELY AFTER (FLASHBACK)

Standing just outside the bathroom door, he drops his backpack, and rushes towards the sink. He turns the handle, and lets out a gasp of relief as the water begins to run. He aggressively washes his hands clean of all the dirt and blood.

TREVOR (V.O.)

I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe it was something along the lines of remembering how I used to scare you all the time because I had a light step and you wouldn’t hear me walking up, and that somehow made me think I could just sneak through the city undetected.

Once he’s done, Trevor begins drying his hands on the old towel next to him.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D)

Yeah, so much for that dumbass plan.

Trevor puts down the hand towel and throws open the medicine cabinet above the sink. He finds it mostly barren save for a toothbrush, a razor, and an old bottle of ibuprofen that he takes and sits on the counter. He then ducks down to search under the sink for anything else he could use, and he pulls out a small first aid kit and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol.

He has a short moment of triumph before setting both on the countertop next to the ibuprofen. He then goes to take his leather jacket off, being extra slow when pulling his now noticeably bloody left arm out of it’s sleeve.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D)

So yeah, I screwed up, got myself hurt from one of those freaks. I guess it ain’t all too bad, whatever infection they got doesn’t affect us the same way it affected them. We still get sick, yeah...really sick, but at least we don’t become like...whatever the hell they are. Still-

Once Trevor’s arm is fully out of the sleeve, he takes a look to see the mess of a deep cut across his upper arm, already pulsing with small, metallic signs of infection. His eyes widen.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D)

-it could also be a whole lot better.

Trevor’s eyes dart toward the alcohol, and he rushes to grab it. He leans his back against the wall, pops open the cap, and grits his teeth as he pours a ton of alcohol over the wound, squeezing the bottle so hard that it practically sprays out.

Painful gasps and grunts escape through Trevor’s mouth as he tries his hardest not to scream. His breath weakens, his face grows pale, and he slides down the wall as he begins to pass out. Yet he manages to hold on, just barely.

After a moment to recollect his senses, he stumbles back up and over to the counter, grabbing and popping open the first aid kit. He looks through the kit for gauze, and when he doesn’t find it, dumps the contents of the kit into the sink. He then swipes random medical supplies aside until finds the small pack of gauze among everything else, and rips it open. Pulling out the gauze, he starts wrapping his wounded arm up, a pained grunt escaping his lips with each wrap.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D)

You know, it’s crazy to think about

now but...I could’ve died on the spot when I ran into one of those...things. And yet, here I am, still kicking. I guess I was more suited for this trip than I thought.

Trevor finishes wrapping his arm up as he finally starts to calm down, his panicked expression slowly changing to a more solemn and worried one. He pops open the bottle of ibuprofen and swallows a few pills, before turning the sink back on for a tap water chaser.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D) Not enough to survive, but at least enough to say...

Trevor picks up his backpack, slings it over his shoulder, and walks out of the bathroom.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D)

...a word I’ll save for later.

INT. ABANDONED BUILDING KITCHEN - IMMEDIATELY AFTER (FLASHBACK)

Trevor walks into the kitchen and surveys the room. He lowers his backpack to the ground before searching through the cabinets, notably ignoring the malodorous fridge, as he looks for food.

TREVOR (V.O.)

I keep thinking back to that night, when everything fell apart. It’s been almost half a year now, but it’s still clear in my mind. It was a few days after I had seen you leave, dropped you off at the airport so you could continue on with your dream filled life. A life without me in it. I was at home trying to not depress myself to death over you when my phone starting blowing up.

Most of the cabinets are empty or contain a mess of thrown around plates and bowls and other junk. Finally, in the second to last cabinet he finds a can of baked beans, one with a pull tab at that. He moves onto the drawers looking for the one with the silver ware.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D) That’s when I heard the news, metallic beasts that

were once human attacking people. It mentioned the city you had just moved to, on the other side of the country. I remember, after reading those headlines, that the first and only thought that was in my head for the rest of that night was...”I need to be there with you.”

Once he finally finds the silverware drawer, Trevor grabs a spoon and brings it over to the sink for a quick wash before taking it and his backpack to a bedroom back down the hall.

INT. ABANDONED BUILDING BEDROOM- IMMEDIATELY AFTER (FLASHBACK)

Trevor shambles into the thrown around mess of a bedroom, and lays himself down on the dusty old bed after setting his pack down beside it.

He sets aside the spoon and can, and reaches into the backpack to pull out a book. It’s a romance novel. He flips over the cover page where a note is written on the inside.

“Dear Trevor, I know you feel the need to stay behind, for whatever reason. However, if you ever decide to change your mind, just know I’ll be here waiting for you, ready to pick up our little love story from where we left it. -Chris P.S. Thank you for the bracelet. As childish as it is, I love it.”

He flips a few pages over as he sits upright in the bed and cradles the book between his legs. He cracks open the can of beans and begins to eat.

TREVOR (V.O.)

There was something I meant to say to you then, before you left. Something I never got the chance to because...because I was too scared. I thought that if I said it it would, I don’t know, seal the deal or something, that it’d be over between us and I would never see you again.

Trevor slowly scans his eyes over the novel, taking in pathetic bites of cold beans as he does. He tries to focus on the novel but he can’t, his mind is preoccupied elsewhere.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D) I know it’s stupid to say now, considering I pushed you to chase your dreams and I chose to stay behind. Still, I wasn’t ready to lose you yet. I held my tongue, and saved it for when I was.

Trevor finishes the beans, and he sets the empty can on the ground along with the spoon. Trevor closes the book and slides it back into the bag. He then reaches deeper into it and pulls out a camcorder. He stares at it as he rolls it around in his hands.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D)

I wonder...if I said what I should’ve that day, would I still be here? Would I still be in this situation, failing at the halfway mark to cross the country on a...fool’s mission to come and find you? Or would I have been content, smart enough to finally decide that you didn’t need me by your side? Or...maybe I just needed you by mine.

Trevor lazily drops the camcorder back into the bag and turns over in the bed, resting on his side and slowly closing his eyes to get some rest as the sun begins to set.

TREVOR (V.O.) (CONT’D)

(with an annoyed tone)

Eh...whatever. Not that it matters any more, any way.

FADE TO BLACK, THEN CUT TO:

INT. ABANDONED BUILDING BEDROOM - NIGHT (RECORDING)

Back to the perspective of the camcorder, Trevor is still sitting in the chair, leaned over with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands once again clasped together. He’s looking off towards the side, with an empty look in his eyes that would suggest he’s not looking at something, he’s just looking away.

TREVOR

...It’s been two days now, of hiding in this building, trying to

recover but only getting sicker. His eyebrows jump up at a surprising thought.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

I guess that would make it five days so far that I managed to survive in a city. Honestly, that’s not that bad of a number. Not high score material but it’s still good.

Trevor chuckles lightly and, once again, begins coughing.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

Considering what I was up against, I think I did well enough to at least feel a little proud of myself for making it this far. I mean, when I first set out I didn’t know if I was gonna survive the first week. Sure didn’t feel like I was going to. Yet I did, and then some.

He nods his head slightly as a smile begins to creep up his face.

TREVOR

All things considered, (looking at the camera) (MORE)

TREVOR (CONT’D)

I think I did pretty well for a sorry sack of shit like me.

A solemn melancholy begins to wash over his face, erasing the previous prideful expression. He winces as he begins to feel his left arm hurt. He turns to look at it as he brings his right hand up to rest on it.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

Well, I’m starting to get pretty tired...

Trevor looks away from the hurt arm and back at the camera, he leans forward more to get a closer look at it.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

...aaand it seems like this thing’s starting to run low on batteries-

Trevor leans back into the chair away from the camera.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

-so I think it’s about that time. I’m gonna... try and get some rest, and hope to dear god that I wake up feeling a bit better...and if I don’t then, well-

Trevor looks unavoidably at the camera.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

-that’s what this next part’s for.

Trevor closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as he mentally prepares himself to say what he meant to long ago. He opens his eyes.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

I’m...sorry, sorry that I didn’t say this sooner, sorry that I pushed you away to chase your dreams knowing you were ready to drop them because you loved me, sorry that I loved you so much that I almost let you. I’m sorry that I decided to risk my life for these stupid feelings and regrets. I’m sorry that I ended up getting hurt, and that I didn’t make it all the way there.

Trevor sighs, and puts his head in hands.

TRANSITION TO:

INT. ABANDONED BUILDING

BEDROOM

- DAY (PRESENT)

Slowly zooming out from the flip-out screen of the camcorder, CHRIS (23) looks on in distress at the camcorder in his hand. On his wrist is a beaded

bracelet, but the camcorder blocks any view of the letters on the beads. His other hand covers his mouth as tears well up in his eyes. A familiar leather jacket is draped over his arm.

Trevor, in the small screen of the camcorder, brings his head back up, rubbing his face as he does, before resting his chin on his now balled up hands. He’s looking away again.

TREVOR

I know you wanted me to come with you, to be there right next you as you chased your dreams, but I couldn’t. I’d only slow you down and screw things up for you, the same way I always did for myself. A mistake like me never had any place by the side of someone so perfect like you. If you were gonna shine, you had to do it without me. I...

Trevor sighs, then pops his head up when the camcorder makes a battery alert sound. He rests his hands in his lap, then looks straight at the camera, right through it.

TREVOR (CONT’D)

...Chris...I’m sorry, I love you...goodby-

The small screen of the camcorder cuts to black before a red out of battery symbol flashes a few times, then fades away.

Chris chokes back tears as his hand begins to tremble. His hand loosens it’s grip on the camcorder and drops it. With the camcorder out of the way, the letters on the beaded bracelet can now now be seen. They spell out “T&C-THANK-U”.

The camcorder hits the ground with a heavy smash.

CUT TO BLACK.

Transformation

By Alexis Denney

Things You Forget as You Leave Rural Oklahoma

By Caroline Young

The sun-worn tetherball in the backyard, the dog cages, the milkweed, the honeysuckle vines, the dogs in the cages, the one that scarred your cousin’s face and where it went after that.

How to shoot the gun, how to skin the rabbit.

How the only time you ever heard your dad pray was when he killed a deer and let the bile spill from under its chin.

How to recite the Hail Mary and when to kneel stand sit kneel stand.

Mother and Child

By Sela Perez