Inkwell 2018-2019

Blacksburg High School’s Inkwell 2018-2019

Letter FromThe Editor

Dearest Reader: You just want everything to be perfect, don’t you? Not freakish, but not trite. Not pretentious, but hardly unsophisticated. Your life is lived in a careful balance of things that are original, but not too outlandish. Even the thought of undue dampness makes you recoil. Squishy socks. Soft fingernails after a steamy shower. Soggy bread. Welcome to Moisture: a place where the things that go slightly too far are welcomed with open arms. A place where a little bit of cringe is key to unlocking your own inhibition. This wasn’t our original intention. The theme was supposed to be Mirage , something we deemed far more socially acceptable. Changing the theme to moisture began as a joke when we saw that many of our submissions included moist undertones. Indeed, water is ubiquitous. When it came to voting on the submissions, we noticed that we were far more likely to accept the ones that seemed to push the boundaries, the ones that made us shiver in a not entirely good way. If that’s not the point of literature, of art, what is? Without question, artwork as a means of expression has the potential to change the world, but only if you aren’t afraid to get your precious socks wet. With love, Ally Dehoff

Caroline Kirby

Staff

Editor-

Ally Dehoff

Assistant Editor-

Will Marin

Copy Editor-

Ulee Forte

Art Editor-

Emma Lewis

Spread Editors-

Gwen Hawdon Viola Vinatzer

Special thanks to: Mr. Spring Mr. Kaylor Ms. Spencer

Cover art by Mackenzie Guillot

Table of Contents:

Sticky-

Megan Asbrand

2 4 5 7 9

The Retired Baguette-

Sebastian Kocz

Bricks-

Gwendolyn Hawdon

The Tree and I-

Erin Hansbrough

The Off-Limits Shelf-

ViolaVinatzer Rachel Poteet Rachel Poteet

Advice-

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Sestina No. 1-

12 13 17 18 19 21 24 25 28

A Visit to the Tearoom-

Ulee Forte

Gales-

Emma Lewis

Flooded-

Sebastian Kocz

Neverland-

Ally Dehoff

How to Commit a Crime- A Little Sparrow’s Sonnet-

Rachel Poteet

Olympia Ghosh

The Explosion-

Ella Warnick

Dinner for the Guests-

Sebastian Kocz

A Poem About Grass-

Megan Asbrand

28 31 33 37 38 39 40 41 43 44 45 47 49 51 53

Roadside Towns-

Ally Dehoff

Variola-

Gwen Barnes

Fireflies-

Erin Hansbrough Erin Hansbrough

Ghosts-

Verse No. 1-

Rachel Poteet

More Than Metal-

Erin Hansbrough

The Manic-

Will Marin

Heritage Park-

Erin Hansbrough

Drying Mud-

Will Marin

College Admissions in the US-

Alice Xu

The Aspirant-

Creative Writing II

Art Showcase-

Ella Warnick

Mackenzie Guillot

Olympia Ghosh

Ava Lazar

Sticky

by Megan Asbrand

Loving you is like watching paint dry;

you can look but never touch. The paint is plastered hastily on paper walls so pale and thin,

and the slick crimson tint has turned murky and sticks to the wall in chips and bunches. but it would stick under your fingernails. Just thinking about it makes you feel it crawling in all the places you can’t quite reach.

You could pick it off,

You feel the paint bleeding behind your left shoulder blade,

trickling between your toes, whistling within your inner ear.

But you know you’re making progress on this wall,

even if it doesn’t look pretty quite yet, because paint has to dry sometime.

So you live your life

and try not to think about it,

a wall perpetually wet,

because you are too afraid to touch it to test.

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Mackenzie Guillot

Sticky by Megan Asbrand Loving you is like watching paint dry; you can look but never touch. The paint is plastered hastily on paper walls so pale and thin, and the slick crimson tint has turned murky and sticks to the wall in chips and bunches. You could pick it off,

but it would stick under your fingernails. Just thinking about it makes you feel it crawling in all the places you can’t quite reach. You feel the paint bleeding behind your left shoulder blade, trickling between your toes, whistling within your inner ear. But you know you’re making progress on this wall,

even if it doesn’t look pretty quite yet, because paint has to dry sometime. So you live your life and try not to think about it, a wall perpetually wet, because you are too afraid to touch it to test.

Mackenzie Guillot

2

Jessa Brach

3

The Retired Baguette by Sebastian Kocz He sat on the bench, the old bread, Reminiscing forgotten days. Days in the mill, in the store, on the plates. Days he’d somehow lived through Without landing in someone’s face. Truth be told he was now a bit soggy, Maybe had accumulated a bit of mold, Maybe his smell wasn’t as crisp as old times, When he was fresh from under the stove. The young breads sometimes came up to ask him: “Why have you stayed around so long?”

“What really is your use now?” “Aren’t you just done and gone?” To that, the baguette always responded: No, my time has not yet come. I can now do what I’ve always wanted to; Now, I can be an artist.

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Bricks by Gwen Hawdon

Staring out a window is not much fun when beyond the window there is only a brick wall. I count brick after brick after brick, 805 bricks to be exact. I’ve counted and re-counted and counted again. I’ve even gone as far as to start naming them. Once or twice I struck up a conversation with one of them. I’m not insane of course. Although sometimes, the bricks do talk back. They talk about all sorts of things, but mostly they tell me the things happening beyond the wall. Beyond the brick. Beyond this building in which I’m imprisoned. They tell when the trees have begun to lose their leaves, or when the old man mows the grass. They tell me the colors of the sunset, and that a stray dog moved into the neighborhood. They tell me all of the things that I am missing. All of the things I may never see again. And I know it’s all in my head, but sometimes their voices sound so real. But maybe it is simply the sickness. The plague eating away at my brain, eating away at my body. The damned sickness that is keeping me locked inside this damned brick hospital. It wasn’t always a hospital, but when the hospitals fill up, it doesn’t matter much what a building used to be as long as there’s room to stack some not-quite-yet-corpses. Did you know that the average housefly can lay up to 500 eggs? And those 500 flies only live up to about 28 days? So let me tell you, when you see people literally drop like flies, it’s a little overwhelming. The thing is, these people aren’t just sick, they are dying. Every single one of those 500 flies can see the light. You would think that this would scare me. It used to, but as days drag on, death becomes less frightening and more tedious.

This is where the bricks come back into the story. There aren’t many people to talk to around here. They tend to be sleeping or, well, dying. Which leaves me, sitting alone next to my window, counting the 805 bricks. Naming the bricks. And occasionally, talking to them. I’m not angry anymore. I used to be mad at the people who didn’t have to sit in this building. Those who could breathe fresh air and talk to their neighbors, but I’ve accepted it now. Some people are immune to the incurable plague, and others just aren’t. It may not seem fair, but life was never fair and, frankly, neither is death. I used to think there was a point to life. Now I realise how wrong I am. There is no big plan for the human race. We are simply animals, slowly going extinct. We are no greater than dinosaurs, no more important than the wooly mammoth, truly as useless to the world as the dodo bird. Soon enough, we’ll all be gone. Maybe not with this plague, but certainly with another. The human race is not infinite. We are not immortal. Only 5,000,000,000 years until the sun explodes. It may seem like a lot now, but I promise you when the sun turns big and red, all you will hear is that our time came too soon. Because people believe that they will leave a mark on this world, but when the sun blinks out, there will be no one who ever knew we existed. No one will ever kiss our corpses or taste our blood. No one will learn our languages or write our letters. No one will ever find the rubble of the brick wall that the dying girl got her daily news from. No one will ever know.

5

Sam Freeman

6

The Tree and I by Erin Hansbrough The tree and I grew up together, Watching fall turn us red and brown And summer cover us in a green and hidden hideaway, Sitting in silence as the world brought passersby To talk and pretend and fade away again. It was a small tree, and I was a small girl. I sat on arms-stretched-wide branches, And we understood, through the faint, Leaf-caught rain or dappled sun and shade That the tree and I would always be there. The maple and I, we were constant, an island in a storm, And people we loved sailed across the world And stayed a while. Then they drifted away on swift currents, And we never saw them again. Me, the tree, we grew weary of new faces Becoming old faces, becoming gone. After a long time, we started to grow, Twisting into each other until nothing remained But bark and leaf and silence. We dug our roots deeper into the earth And fell asleep beneath the sky, Branches close and tight and one. Time passed. The seas stilled, And no more soft hands reached up To pull smiling new faces into our arms, But we didn’t mind. The tree and I had each other, And in the end, that’s all that ever really mattered.

7

Ava Lazar

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like that, more steadily sombre than he would have preferred. The shelf was out of his reach, and as if the challenge could not stand on its own, Mrs. Scott’s eyes were watching him. They watched him clench his fist and shake his hand and widen his eyes and look at the ground as if he were a criminal, a murderer, a crazy man too dangerous to be left alone, even in a cage. And, even worse, her eyes watched The Shelf . They were glued to it! Unmoving eyes, perfectly focused on two subjects, like the perfectly specific images security cameras were meant to capture. Just before he had been thrown and locked in this cage, every inch of the room seemed to be his, every corner explored, every piece of dust uncovered from the crevices of tiny toys and from forgotten corners. But now... A cage ? The boy questioned his own thinking. He looked above him. Bait! He almost pointed to the treasure dangling above his head, but instead clenched his fist and shook it, just as he had seen angered heroes do in movies and cartoons. Up, up! The treasure, The Shelf , was so far above his head, but maybe, just maybe, not so far out of reach as despair had taught him a moment ago. If only, if maybe he could touch it, see what was inside, take it for himself! If only she would look away, if only some kid could break their leg and be sent to the nurses office, if only Mrs. Scott turned her dirty glare away from him and his shelf! But nothing and nothing and nothing, no child tripped one angle off from the usual, no child bled an extra pint, no child wandered off unnoticed… Raphael jumped and slammed both of his feet onto the ground. Stop! he thought, but he didn’t know what he wanted to stop. Then, he stretched his fingers, as far as they could be stretched, and hovered on his toes, his very tippitoes, and jumped. It fell.

The Off-Limits Shelf By Viola Vinatzer

Reaching out for the shelf above him, Raphael stretched his fingers as long as they could be stretched and hovered on his toes, on his very tippitoes, to the highest they could go. “Stop! You know not to touch the Off-Limits Shelf, Raphael. You know what happens when you touch the Off-Limits shelf, right children?”, “Yes, Mrs. Scott.”, “Good. It’s time for recess. And Raphael, go to the time-out-corner.”, “But-”, “No ‘buts’ Raphael.”, “Yes, Mrs. Scott.” He made his way to the time-out-corner. As he approached it, he stopped, and then he stared. It was there, fixed just between the two walls which made up the corner- The Off-Limits shelf. Everything around it paled in comparison: the toy trucks scattered along the fuzzy blue carpet, the wooden building blocks with all of the different colored letters, the plastic animals textured with hundreds of little indents… To the shelf, they paled, and every second the boy turned his head to the shelf, they paled and paled more, until they were chalk-white. All of the other little children played right outside the window, where green grass spread through little hills (the mountains of the playground), and mulch sprayed out from many pairs of feet, making the island bigger and bigger across the green ocean. Every day, he played on the brown island in the middle of the green ocean, tumbling in mulch, falling in puddles of water, getting grass stains on all of his clothes, tripping and scraping his knees, over and over until his entire body seemed to bleed. Fun! He thought, before his heart retreated into a slow-paced beat, before he, again, remembered. Beat, beat, beat, faster! Raphael hoped for his heart. He was sad when his heart slowed, but he was happy again when it sped up. The shelf, he realized, the shelf is here! And his heart raced ahead just as he had hoped. The shelf, directly above his head and body, floated there like a cloud, so big and close by, so touchable, so fun and fluffy, but still… So far away. Beat, beat, beat, faster! Raphael hoped for his heart. He was sad when his heart slowed, but he was happy again when it sped up. The shelf, he realized, the shelf is here! And his heart raced ahead just as he had hoped. The shelf, directly above his head and body, floated there like a cloud, so big and close by, so touchable, so fun and fluffy, but still… So far away. Pound, Pound, Pound, now his heart pounded

Everything in the room turned dead white.

9

Alistair Bushey

10

Advice By Rachel Poteet Alter your best dress Burn down the old apple tree Cut the hawk from its jess Dream of what you will not see. Eat what was not grown for you Feed demons cut down long ago Gather up what you once knew Hinder freedom, make it slow. Irk the gods down from the sky Jump the fence and break your feet Kill every bird who airs a cry Leave your home in snow and sleet. Milk the cow and break the churn Never let the wolves lie still Oil the gears and let them turn Pick and do what e’er you will. Quiver when the sun comes up Rise for silence, lie for call Sing for pennies iwwn a cup Tear down stones that make you fall. Utter nothing when alone Veer from path and place and part Wear your skin down to your bone X out your name from your own heart. Yell when no one’s there to hear Zip up the sky and all your fears.

11

Kayla Feghali

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A Visit to the Tearoom by Ulysses Forte Bessie sipped at her tea, driven to do so by nothing save sheer, crushing boredom. How pale the morning light that sparkled uninspiringly off the various bits and bobs of her aunt Nora’s silver tea set. How tyrannical the tea, cliché in its tepid normality. And how very long the wait, as the grandfather clock ticked away in the corner, chuckling at some private joke. Waiting for Aunt Nora was a habit of Bessie’s, though not by choice. She would wait as her aunt droned on about the weather or the garden or her various small dogs ( Yesterday Bon Bon insisted on barking at that chest-of-drawers in the den for the better part of an hour! Can you fathom it, Elizabeth? Well, can you? ). She would wait for her aunt to find just the right word, wherever it was hidden in the forest of her demented mind (Nora never seemed to settle for synonyms). And above all, Bessie would wait for teatime’s end, when her aunt would finally allow her to take the carriage into town, and, consequently, to feel as if she had any purpose in life that extended beyond that of a mantlepiece ornament. But if there was one thing that she couldn’t fault her aunt for, it was her punctuality. Each day Nora was sitting in the tearoom at precisely half past nine. Each day, save this one. Bessie glanced over at that damned grandfather clock. Ten thirty one. For an hour she had been sitting in this exact spot. She would have pondered why Aunt Nora hadn’t arrived yet if she hadn’t already pondered that very thing far too many times. Her hand jittered like a newborn fawn as she reached to pour herself what would’ve been her ninth cup of tea. All of a sudden, there came a sound that chilled Bessie to the bone. It was a brittle scritching and scratching upon the other side of the tearoom’s

Ella Warnick

wood paneled door, gnawing at her heart. She fervently told herself not to be silly. She was 15 and a half, nearly a debutante, as her aunt would often remind her, old enough not to dwell on such fancies as what might lie behind the doors of closets, or even those of tearooms. The scratching continued, a slow crescendo, almost like the gathering of kindling or how Bessie imagined the sound of a bear clawing at a tree trunk. “Aunt Nora?” She called out. “Are you alright?” She was answered with silence; the dreadful

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scraping had ceased when she spoke. Surely it was her Aunt making a racket beyond the threshold, possibly in distress. The woman had long been infamous in town for her addled mind. Bessie could still remember waiting in the garden on the clear sunny day of her Aunt’s 40th birthday celebration at which Nora had appeared in front of the crowd and delivered a veritable soliloquy on the proper care and breeding of Yorkshire Terriers. Ever so slowly, Bessie rose and began to walk across the mauve carpeting. Of course the carpeting is horridly mauve, why wouldn’t it be? She thought, attempting to distract herself from the sense of disquiet building in her chest. The room was cramped; the distance from her chair by the window to the door, where she would be forced to investigate the source of that horrid noise, was only a few steps. Almost as an afterthought, Bessie grabbed an ornately crafted silver cheese knife from where it lay amidst scattered pear slices and wedges of brie. As she felt the cool metal against her palm, she reflected that she had never before held something that she thought of as a weapon, though this was not entirely unusual for a woman of her station. Feeling a bit foolish, she held the blade in front of her and walked as calmly as she could towards the door. Quiet still hung in the room like an uncertain mist, making each breath sound a gasp, and each footfall a thud. She was about to turn the knob when she noticed that the key was still in the lock. If she wished it, she could lock herself in to keep out… whatever lurked on the other side. But Nora could’ve gotten herself into trouble. Before she had much time to consider, the scritchety scracheting returned with a hellish force, and Bessie felt sudden resistance against the knob. After a stunned pause, she locked the door and backed away, key in one hand, knife in the other. It was very loud now, a din unlike anything Bessie had ever had the displeasure of hearing that seemed to reverberate throughout the room. A

clattering began to her left, the direction of Aunt Nora’s towering display cabinet of tea implements: bulbous, diminutive pots, hand painted filigree cups, and saucers and spoons of every sort. Each implement quivered behind the glass, a clink clank orchestra made up of the phantoms of countless teatimes past. The room was more alive than Bessie had ever seen it; everything vibrated and shifted with the battering of the door. Whatever was behind that door, it must be immense indeed. She was trapped in a shifting nest of noise, a tiny cabin in a boat tossed back and forth by stormwinds. And the storm had come knocking. Needless to say, nothing remotely like this had ever happened to Bessie. She was a creature of quiet drawing rooms and carriage litters, and the occasional soiree if her Aunt was feeling particularly adventurous. As little porcelain cherub statues shuddered atop dressers, tears began began to well up in her eyes. Panicked, Bessie glanced around for some avenue of escape. The window! She rushed to its sill and grimaced at the gardens a good 20 feet below. She had expected the drop to be infeasible but never realized quite how galling it was. Could some sort of rope be constructed from the velvety mauve drapes? From the tablecloth? Perhaps… The sound of the finest mahogany splitting and fibering apart made Bessie freeze. She summoned all the rules of courtesy that had ever been drilled into her. There was a chance , however slim, that whoever or whatever she was about to encounter had no further desire than a tête-à-tête , or perhaps a spot of tea. Bessie turned around and let forth a horrified shriek. A troll stood in the doorway. It was hulking, greenish, and slimy. Its body seemed a twisted

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melange of woody protrusions and swathes of dull, mucous slathered reptilian scale. Teeth like sharp edged shifting plates burgeoned out of its mouth while orb-like, fungus-tinged eyes glared down piercingly. Bessie had never seen a troll before, but somehow she knew that this creature was most certainly one, a troll of the northern mires who had arisen with webbed hands heaving against the mud banks, who had plodded across low swamps and through heathery highlands, who had concealed itself in hill grottos and the wood sheds of back gardens, often stopping to sleep under bridges grand and small. T’was a creature who sustained itself by pulling air into its primitive amphibian lungs and by sucking upon the bones of the river creatures and unlucky children of the countryside, and who had carried on because of an ancient, exterminatory purpose that felt like blood smeared in glyphs upon reptilian skin and sounded like a faerie whisper half remembered from a dream. All of this flashed through Bessie’s mind like some macabre montage as she backed away as far as she could, pressing herself up against the picture window once she could go no farther. The troll advanced, dripping bog water onto the mauve carpet and brandishing its weapon, a crude wooden scythe with a leering blade of gleaming bone. She decided not to offer it a cup of tea. Feebly, she raised her cheese knife. I shall stab it in the heart! If it seeks to take my life, I… But her thought was left unfinished, for the knife began to wobble autonomously in her hand, and suddenly, it was flying across the room, along a true course into the heart of the advancing troll. The creature stopped, dropping its scythe and clutching the fell blade stuck in its wooden chest. Bessie was in disbelief. What had happened? Why did she immediately sense the troll’s mission, and why did the dagger fly across the room like that?

With a groan, the troll pulled the knife from the bark of its chest. Its eyes were crazed and frog eggs frothed out of its snarling maw. “Blast it!” Bessie shrieked. She glanced about her for something, anything to use. Perhaps… the teapot? And just as she had the thought, the large silver pot hurtled from its place on the table and crashed into the troll. Bessie looked at the other items on the table. Upon her glance, a storm of cutlery and cuisine sprang to life and rained death upon the unsuspecting troll. Teacups embedded porcelain shards into it’s exposed bits of scale, dainty sugar spoons went to work scooping out the troll’s eyes, forks stabbed, brie wheels battered, and finally, the tablecloth, a precious family heirloom, began to strangle the beast with all the artistry of a boa constrictor. The carnage ended in minutes, and the troll was left dead in a heap of table setting. Bessie collapsed onto the ground, overcome with abrupt fatigue and shortness of breath, her eyes closing of their own volition. As the grandfather clock ticked a lullaby, she lay her head down on dreadfully mauve, newly bloodstained carpet and drifted off to sleep.

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Kent smith

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Gales By Emma Lewis Forest grotto,

Birthplace of dragons, Collector of zephyrs A dragonet As gentle as could be, The gale-maker Its wings, painted,

Reciting stories of the dusk And the givers of the dawn Yet illusions can dry, And its spires will fall. Time will whisper its plea. Steal the light, Start the next chapter; It’s time to set the dragons free.

Ava Moltner

17

Flooded By Sebastian Kocz Soothed and sunken, Its remains a coral skeleton, It sat alone. Wed with the sea, it was empty, But for clueless copper citizens, Still lost in shrouds of seaweed. Soaked in ruinenlust, Fallen from grace, The city was silent in the abyss.

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Kent Smith

Neverland by Cecelia Caulfield

Bad fairies live on the side of highways In large discarded McDonald’s cups And decomposing gas station hot dogs. They lull 35 year old world-weary truck drivers Into falling asleep on the gas And overtaking the cars- the people In front of them, Domains of citified 10 year olds, As if to tell all of their fantasy-minded friends

That even if you head towards The second star on your right And fly straight on till morning After morning After morning, You’ll never reach neverland Bad fairies endure So that 13 year old cousins Can wonder What they could have done As their tears Spot the comic books under them Giving superman’s already gray cape Charcoal polka dots, So grandparents Can wonder How long it takes to die instantly As they wait in stained, sunken Armchairs For their instant mashed potatoes

Bad fairies snicker As “recovering” classmates Name their dwarf hamsters Thanatos, Hades, Ares, And eventually Aphrodite, Forgetting what Their childhood obsession With greek mythology Was about But wanting to sustain tradition And bad fairies ogle As we grow Into pharmacists, And teachers, Engineers, Paying for our children’s therapy And even if you head towards The second star on your right And fly straight on till morning After morning After morning, You’ll never reach neverland. As their friends die. Because life is life, And death is death.

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20

How to Commit a Crime by Rachel Poteet

This is, of course, the equivalent of saying that coffee is just warm bean water. In essence, a cup of coffee is just warm bean water, but that doesn’t account for everything. A cup of coffee is a stimulant, a bitter taste, a mode of hydration, and even more. A cup of coffee is a symbol of livelihood to many, of the tucked-away coffee shop where you write your thesis on Saturdays, of the thing your father couldn’t start his day without. It’s jokes and culture and different blends of espresso added to different amounts of foamed milk. It is all this, and just warm bean water. A thing is components, symbology, potential, surrounding connotations, and all that from two things that the first person to ever brew a cup did not create or conceive of– coffee beans and water. In this same way, when an artist ‘steals’ unoriginal elements and combines them in a new way, new things begin to exist. For example, although I know it’s a little worn-out with use, the musical Hamilton combines hip-hop and the American Revolution. Its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, did not invent either of these things, but simply envisioned them together, and then put them together. He did not give the world new things to look at; he just gave us his eyes to look at them, and thus the night was made new. When artists expect themselves to create new elements, they lose their inspiration. When I sit down in front of a blank document and order my brain to make something, it’s like if someone had asked me to build a car without any parts. I need to go out and find things that speak to me– stories from history, interesting paintings, my own memories– before I can make something new. I make the mistake time and time again of thinking that what’s valuable about my content is the view, and not my eyes.

Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth. Lying is inherent to writing, but that’s not the only surface wrong that content creators seemingly commit. I like to joke that I’m on a number of FBI watch lists, since my search history includes an exhaustive list of lizard biology, probably every website that exists on aconitine, several historical accounts of life in a harem, and about fourteen views of a military video of twenty thousand pounds of C4 being detonated. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if I actually was, that’s not the sort of crime I’m talking about either. What I mean is stealing. Almost anyone can tell a story. In whatever language, through whatever means, anyone who can communicate in some capacity can tell a story. Storytelling is one of the hallmarks of human culture; it defines our interactions, our relationships. Anyone can tell a story, but it takes a proper storyteller to tell a story well. This is the defining characteristic of all sorts of artists– directors, actors, comic artists, writers, poets. A captivating, interesting, beautiful story is their ideal end product. Poets, for example, don’t often compose from totally original ideas. Someone writing about a mountain or a pair of shoes or a family is composing from their memories. They don’t first dream up the mountain and then write about it. Painters, in the same way, usually require at least a reference image to draw on. Actors don’t create character from nothing– they draw on the script, on observed behaviours, on their own experiences. Artists are creative, not creators. Since we can’t create ex nihilo, we have to understand that all of our work– our most precious, beautiful work– is, in its barest form, cobbled-together pieces of things we’ve already interacted with. It’s just a new arrangement. We may love it and cherish it, but it’s not completely ours.

21

Bethany Werner

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Alexis Niemiera

A Little Sparrow’s Sonnet by Olympia Ghosh

“ Chiddick, Chiddick, ” can you hear the birds speak? The thunder will clap; watch their wings, they’ll flail and look above to find a sparrow weep. Humanity has breached her breadcrumb trail. She dreams of grass, he dreams of green- begs it. She flees to his open arms of greed, lust, born uncaged but encased by the exits. Shouldn’t murder of freedom be unjust? Yet compassion soars through the trap of time, She can pierce a stone heart to bleed some life. This tug-of-war game, is it worth a dime? Put down your arms and listen to her fife. Listen and learn; her whistle tells no lies, Resilient cries may catch your surprise.

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The Explosion by Ella Warnick

from outside. He looked frightened, and only then did it hit me that he had been through more that morning than most adults had in their entire lives. It likely wasn’t helping that he had also been abducted by the cops. I took the seat across from him, smiling as genuinely as I could considering the circumstances, and started our conversation as I would any interrogation. “Hi. What’s your name?” I asked. He remained mute, refusing to meet my gaze. After a moment’s silence, I tried again. “Come on, pal. How are we going to be friends if I don’t even know your name?” He considered this before answering. “Kayden,” the boy murmured. “Kayden? That’s a cool name. My name is Officer Barnes, but you can call me Ethan if you’d like.” I winked like we were sharing a special secret, but he didn’t react the way most kids did. “You got a last name, Kayden?” Nothing. “Alright. That’s okay, you don’t have to tell me yet. How old are you?” He held up a hand and a thumb. “Six years? That’s pretty old. Do you go to school now?” I asked. He nodded. “Were you at school this morning?” Another nod. “Can you tell me what happened?” This grabbed his attention. He finally looked up, his eyes wide and gray as ash. A mess of long curls had fallen into his face. I noted the bruise on his cheek, ripe and blue. He opened his mouth as if he were about to speak and took a gulp of air instead. “Do you remember anything about it?” I prompted. He fidgeted, hands clasped tightly between his knees. Seconds passed and I considered moving on to the next question, when he suddenly opened up. “There was fire. A lot of it,” he began. “First there was a big boom, and then I woke up and I couldn’t move. Some firemen had to come get me and they carried me out on a moving table. I saw my friends. They weren’t moving. Some of them were bleeding. Were they dead?” Kayden said, stumbling over his words in his impatience to get them out. I put my head in my hands. This kid was going to be seriously messed up. “I don’t know, kid,” I said. This wasn’t my

The boy on the other side of the two-way mirror didn’t look a day older than seven. He sat in the interrogation chair — like a criminal — quiet but clearly uncomfortable. Covered head to toe in a blanket of rubble, his hair and skin color were almost completely unrecognizable. I could vaguely make out the Loony Toons logo on his shirt. “Who is he?” I asked. My partner of four years, Donald Weiss, was helping himself to coffee and danishes from the break room and had the bad habit of chewing with his mouth open. I suppressed the urge to smack the danish out of his hand. I didn’t know how he had the stomach to eat when a school building had been destroyed in an explosion just hours ago. They were still pulling out bodies, but I heard rumors circulating among the other cops that there were no survivors. Hundreds of children dead. We hadn’t even begun to investigate the cause yet. “They found him in the wreckage. We assume he’s a student,” Don said. I stole a glance at the child again. He looked unscathed. “He couldn’t have been in the explosion. There’s not a scratch on his body,” I observed. Don nodded like he had already considered the possibility. “That’s the crazy thing. He was trapped under a support beam, so he must have been, but like you said, the kid’s fine. Paramedics said he should’ve died like all the rest, or at least suffered head trauma or some broken ribs or something. They can’t find anything wrong with him.” “Weird.” “Creepy, right?” Don said. “Anyways, chief wants you to talk to him. See if you can get his parents’ information ‘cause so far he hasn’t said a word.” He walked off, and I was left alone to watch the kid, who was starting to squirm. I wished I had a candy bar with me. When I entered the interrogation room, the boy fell still, examining me with the same judgmental eyes that I had looked at him with

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field of expertise. Kayden needed a psychiatrist, a doctor, or a priest, not a detective. I stood up to leave. He looked panicked as I reached for the door handle. “I know who did it,” he blurted. I turned to face the boy again. “What did you just say?” I asked. “I know who made the explosion,” he repeated. “Yeah? Who?” Intrigued, I returned to my seat but kept my expectations low. I assumed he would give me an answer like Darth Vader or Captain Hook. “Me,” Kayden said. “You?” I asked. It was hard to determine his seriousness. If he was trying to make some kind of sick joke, his poker face was incredible; but then again, what six-year-old would do that? Maybe he did have some brain trauma, or maybe he was already mentally handicapped before the explosion. Could children be pathological liars? Clearly, my police training was clouding my judgment. “I did it,” he said again. “Why did you do it?” I asked. He shifted, looking anywhere other than my face. “Sometimes when I get mad, things happen,” he whispered. “There were some kids being mean to me. They called me names, and they threw my backpack in the trash. When I started crying, they laughed at me. One hit me in the face.” His fingers brushed against the bruise gently. “I got really angry. My head got all hot, and I couldn’t see, and then the room exploded. When I woke up, everything was gone.” He was crying now, and a stream of snot dripped down his chin. “I didn’t mean for it to happen! I just wanted them to stop!” he yelled. The fear made it feel like someone was sitting on my chest. I slid out of my chair and rushed to the door for the second time. “Donald!” I called down the hallway. He appeared in an instant from one of records rooms and hurried over. “What’s wrong?” he said, peering around me at the sobbing kid. I gave him the signal to hush.

“Don, I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s something seriously wrong with this kid. He thinks he caused the explosion or something. I think we need a professional in here.” “On it,” he said and ran off. I took a deep breath before returning my attention to Kayden. His unexpected confessional rant had shaken me, and I was now unsure of what to do. It seemed so real. The heat from the explosion had been visceral as he described his experience, and I could almost picture his bullies flattened beneath the weight of debris in the schoolyard. What would prompt him to say that? When I looked back, he had mostly stopped crying. “Am I in trouble?” he sniffled. “Of course not.” “You’re lying,” he said. I sighed, shaking my head. “Don’t worry. Your parents are going to come get you. Everything is going to be—” I went to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but immediately pulled back. His skin was hot to the touch. It was as if my hand had just been pressed against a stovetop. “What the hell?” I watched in horror as blisters began to form on my palm, red and tender. “You’re a liar. We don’t like liars,” Kayden whispered, raising his eyes to meet mine. He looked at me with the sadness and fear of a six- year-old, but the anger of something else, far beyond my comprehension. His eyes glowed fiery red like embers in their sockets. I suddenly became aware of the room growing hotter around us. “Kayden,” I said. “Please listen to me. We can help you.” The tears had evaporated from his cheeks. His fists were clenched tightly in his lap. No longer in control of himself, he rocked back and forth hysterically. “No, no, no, no,” he said. That’s when I cut my losses and bolted for the door. The last thing I saw was the boy’s reflection in the two-way mirror, except he was no longer a boy. He was a monster breathing fire and poisonous smoke. He was a living bomb.

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Ella Warnick

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Dinner for the Guests By Sebastain Kocz

Blerck. Snerck. The aliens filtered in out of the dark. Knerck? No knerck, I responded.

They were a bit disappointed, for they really liked knerck. Fine. Do you want me do look for some knerck at Kroger? Sherpaderp! They answered joyously. Alright then. I turned to my loyal sheepdog, Dries-Mertens. Dries, can you watch over the house in my absence? He gave me a look meaning that he didn’t want to, but he knew he had no other choice. Good.

A Poem About Grass by Megan Asbrand The grass is breathing. Can you not feel it beneath your feet? A steady rise like the tides as a day goes by. Have you not noticed the way walking at noon

never feels quite unlike a crime? How the ground holds a grudge with each budge, but you can’t put your finger on why. As each second passes, a carpet of grass rises to kiss the soles of your sneakers and slowly sinks back by dark. A sea of green guardians of a gateway to an unknown depth beneath us that we have never bothered to properly delve into because the endeavor of shoveling and disheveling all that dirt is too daunting of an undertaking. But still after all these years, another generation silently guards the depths we fear. They breathe in.

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Ana Czar

Roadside Towns By Ally Dehoff People live here, Places that strangers are always passing through, But too much is opaque through the smudged windows of a gas station, And who would I be to pry? People live here, Sandwiched between gray highways and green mountains, but blue days Are rare Under the smog that’s too thick to be cut With the knives that have brought the crime rate to what it is. People live here, In the land of squawking front porch swings and deepening sidewalk cracks. If there’s a public library it must be well hidden from the likes of me. The lifer’s books aren’t mine to read, As much as their eyes aren’t mine to meet. Still, even if I can’t know them There are

Laughs to gift here, Tears to run here, Love to be had here, So I can’t help but think That maybe people live here. Places where family owned diners Are filled with strangers, Where quiet 90’s hits

Play under an omnipresent din, But even that can’t drone out The whish, whish of passing cars. The background noise for the background towns.

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Megan Weseloh

to join him, Ulster thought to himself as he plodded through the downpour holding the brand new umbrella his sister had bought him. He liked to spin it as he walked, pretending to be one of those fancy rich fools that now wandered freely down the streets of Tiavalen, secure in their knowledge that One-Eyed Iden would not swoop in and murder them on a whim. As much as he liked to joke about it, Iden’s death hadn’t actually caused the increase in unwanted visitors. No, the real culprit was the medical school. Ever since they’d added that damned department to the University, he regularly found trespassers meandering about with wheelbarrows and shovels, looking for corpses to pilfer. Well, they weren’t getting any cadavers on his watch. He had respect for the dead, just as any normal, Aether-fearing man should. As was his custom, he saluted the small

Variola by Miranda Barnes

Ulster Favian had a soft spot for dark and stormy nights, not because he was a particularly poetic type, but because he knew that they were the only times his cemetery would be left completely undisturbed. Back when his father had been the watchman, virtually no one ventured into the graveyard at night. Admittedly, his father’s career happened to coincide with the reign of Aetherlord Iden, back when fear of what might lurk in the darkness kept people indoors, but it wasn’t as if Iden’s death had made the cemetery any safer or less intimidating. Even Ulster carried a pistol, just in case. Just because one damned Aetherling is dead doesn’t mean the rest simply crawled into the ground

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mausoleum holding Faos Tisi as he passed, the light of his dim lantern producing strange shadows on its white walls. He had a special spot in his heart for the little witch. All the stories said that before she helped found the University, she’d fended off Iden with nothing more than a knife and sheer pluck. Ulster wished he could have seen it: that tall, terrible Aetherling getting thoroughly clobbered by a girl half his size. Just the thought made him chuckle softly to himself. A loud clunk jolted him out of his reverie. He squinted into the heavy rain, holding up a hand to keep the wind from blowing any more water into his eyes. “Who’s there?” he asked gruffly. Surely none of the medical students would be out on a night like this. He received no spoken response, but the sounds of frantic shuffling and the creak of wheels over the heavy pattering of rain told him all he needed to know. “They just keep getting worse and worse,” he grumbled angrily to himself. A flash of lightning in the distance lit up the cemetery just enough for him to see the familiar silhouette of a person struggling to push a wheelbarrow through a patch of unmarked graves. Huh. Usually there’s at least two of them. “Stop right there!” The sound of his voice apparently panicked the intruder, who let out a nervous whimper and attempted to double his pace. One of the wheels on his barrow caught on a fragment of stone, causing the cart to pitch over and dump its canvas- covered load onto the ground. As Ulster crept steadily closer, letting his umbrella drop to the ground beside him, the thief ’s head whipped back and forth; he seemed torn between running and attempting to recapture his prize. Whatever his decision might have been, he took too long to make up his mind. With a sudden burst of speed, Ulster lurched towards him, snatching his arm and waving the lantern in front of his face angrily. “What do you think you’re doing, young man?” Thunder rumbled above them as if to underscore his displeasure. His captive shrieked, desperately trying to wrench his wrist out of the watchman’s grip. Though the light of his lantern could only

penetrate so far beneath the intruder’s hood, a few glimpses of smooth, unwrinkled skin confirmed Ulster’s suspicions - another damned medical student. At least this one had the nerve to do it himself. Sometimes they hired people off the streets, which made Ulster’s job significantly more difficult. He could take on a squirmy little University brat; a professional body-snatcher could prove legitimately dangerous. The youth finally managed to latch onto a coherent response. “I promise it’s not what it looks like! I can explain!” Ulster was surprised at the pitch and timbre of this assertion; it seemed he had caught his first female body-snatcher in over a month. Her neck twisted back towards the canvas sack on the ground as if she were afraid it might wander away without vigilant supervision. Ulster followed the thief ’s gaze. “You thought you could get away with it ‘cause you were stealing from the poor half of the graveyard, didn’t you? All you damned—wait a minute. Are those potatoes?” He squinted, trying to get a closer look. Sure enough, dozens of misshapen, brown lumps lay scattered around the sack and overturned wheelbarrow. Letting go of the intruder’s wrist, Ulster stooped over and picked one up. Further inspection revealed that it was in fact a potato, albeit a wet potato covered in a thin, slimy layer of grime. “What were you planning to do with this, eh?!” The thief had been backing away slowly for several seconds, but the question made her stop in her tracks. “Well, obviously they were so I could… um...” Ulster was not particularly impressed. “Let me guess. That sack is full of potatoes. You’re taking a shortcut through the graveyard to sell them at market tomorrow morning.” “Yes! Exactly! If you would just let me… pick all of them up, I promise to be out of your way in a matter of minutes.” Clearly, Ulster’s sarcasm had been lost on her. “So if I just reach down and open this here bag, I’ll find nothing inside it but tubers.” 34

Ulster kicked the sack with his boot, feeling his toes connect with something large and soft that was most definitely not a potato. He’d expected as much - another dead body disguised as something innocent. The students tried to pull those sorts of tricks all the time. He hadn’t expected the sack to twitch violently the second after his foot made contact. Ulster cursed loudly and leapt away, nearly dropping his lantern. The young woman seemed just as startled as he was. “Oh shit,” she muttered, her hands flying to her mouth in shock. “This is bad.” “What in the blazes do you have in there?” A thought suddenly occurred to Ulster. “It ain’t… fresh, right?” The intruder had picked up a shovel lying amidst the spilled contents of the wheelbarrow and was now prodding the sack carefully. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked shrilly. Ulster pulled the pistol from the holster on his hip. He didn’t like to use the thing on people if he didn’t have to, but this was obviously a special circumstance. “Don’t you move an inch, you filthy bastard. Let’s see the poor soul you have cooped up in that sack of yours.” It seemed obvious now: this wasn’t a corpse-stealing medical student. It was a bonafide murderess, come to dispose of a victim. Well, Ulster certainly wasn’t going to let it happen on his watch. Bending over carefully, so as to keep his weapon trained on the criminal, Ulster set down his lantern and unwrapped the now sodden occupant of the canvas bag. It was slightly more difficult than he had anticipated. The body had been stuffed inside headfirst, and with only one free hand available Ulster only managed to reveal a pair of tall, knee- high boots. They were a bit swanky for Ulster’s taste, even with one of the soles missing. He gestured at the young woman who clutched the shovel to her chest defensively. “Well? Care to help?” At this point, both of them were soaked to the bone. Her cloak clung to her body, revealing a wiry figure beneath. “Er - um - I suppose - I’m not

really sure it’s safe to -” Ulster picked up the lantern and raised it to his face, illuminating his scowl. He nodded at the gun. Gulping, the youth grabbed the bottom of the bag and lifted it upward, allowing the rest of the man inside to spill gracelessly onto the muddy ground beneath. “I promise it’s not what it looks like,” she repeated, more quietly this time. For a second, Ulster wondered if she might be a witch; she certainly didn’t look like the type who could murder someone with physical strength alone. If she were a witch, though, she could have surely used a bit of magic to defend herself by now, right? As the intruder backed away from the body, brandishing her shovel, Ulster stepped closer, lifting the lantern to get a better look. He needn’t have bothered, for at that moment, lightning split open the sky directly above them, illuminating the grisly sight in horrific detail. The corpse had fallen with his long legs bent at odd angles and his arms splayed outward as if inviting someone to embrace him. Had his right eye been open, it would have been gazing at the slightly cupped fingers of his right hand. Had his left eye still been intact, it would have been staring directly at Ulster. Instead, he was met with a stark, empty, flesh-lined socket - an old wound, judging by the lack of blood, but still decidedly unnerving. Ulster’s attention lingered only briefly on the corpse’s face before he spotted the set of twisting metal fibers wound around his neck. A gorgette . He had only ever seen one or two before, but the device was instantly recognizable, its thin, twisting filigree clutching a series of milky glass orbs to the wearer’s neck - a contraption for imprisoning Aetherlings. And judging by the shattered glass now strewn across the ground, it was badly broken. Everyone knew that, given time, an Aetherling could heal from almost any wound; Ulster had heard stories of particularly nasty ones regrowing entire limbs in a matter of hours. Few would willingly wander about in human form without a full set of eyes - with one notable exception. “One-Eyed Iden…” Ulster breathed.

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