Why Write?
Blue Memories – Josue Aparicio Castillo
Bryce Augusti
You have only yourself to blame—I wasn’t the one who began reading this with hopes I might be motivated—that I might know why I write, who I write for, or why this horrific gift has cursed me in the peculiar way it has.
But, now that I mention it, that is the sole reason I compose this particular piece. I write these words in hopes that, given a time in the future in which I am unmotivated, in which I struggle to formulate a coherent thought, I will have an iron dogma, an unwavering belief in the notions of my past self—the self currently writing this sentence.
To please all of you(and myself), I will attempt to appease our collective minds by answering this question. Although I find it funny that people need to ask for motivation, seeking something from an external party that, if completely honest with yourself, can only be found internally, “why” seems to be a pressing question nowadays.
I will use myself as a key example, and from there, hopefully, you will learn what motivates you; because, as I have come to understand, this unique question has distinct answers and solutions for each individual.
So, here is your magical answer to the issue of lethargy, your cure to sloth, your quick-fix drug in lyrical prose:
I don’t know—these things(motivation, writing, and whatnot), as any parent or condescending advice-giver might say, you must figure out for yourself. These things, the things of the written word, are the types of things you must think about for a lengthy time, using every ounce of your rationality, because they do not come lightly. Actually, they come quite heavily, with a heavier burden on your time, and your soul, your emotions, than any reprieve it might offer you.
You don’t decide it, writing, that’s for sure. And you sure as hell don’t choose it.
The best example I can provide to prove this point is a small thought I composed at a smoothie cafe in Italy, a moment in which my yearning to write was unbearably strong:
“Well, it seems evident my fingers are potent again—they smell, and I sniff them irreconcilably, hoping to waft any remnants of brilliance they may hold. My face is bent over them, gleaning their grease and seeking their stress; desperately, I desire to understand their movement. You see, the fingers move separately from the brain; only the nose controls them. And to this phenomenon, I say thank you—for this gift, the gift of smell, is the very thing that made me a writer.”
By “gift of smell,” I think, if I can provide insight into my past self, the former me was alluding to that supernatural thing, the itchy part of my mind that is incomprehensible to most people; I was speaking of that writing feeling, the absence of space and time that occurs in a state of pondering, the flow state. I don’t understand it—the machine that churns out words and thoughts, somehow making them legible enough to read.
All writers I know—good ones and bad ones, know the feeling I speak of.
If I can allude to this a bit more, I venture to say that my perspective on what it takes to be a writer differs greatly from the average person’s.
To write, I don’t think you need to be educated, or white, or rich, or spoiled. You do not need to follow any creed, believe in any god, or bow to any master. And, to a greater effect, I don’t think you need to be undervalued, underserved, oppressed, diverse, or have undergone some unbearable trial or challenge. It’s true—struggles make for good stories, but often, those who bear the struggles are unable to express the true depth of their pain.
But, I’d wager to say someone with a good imagination, someone who can falsify an intense amount of emotion within themselves, or, interestingly enough, someone who has unrequited and unexplored feelings, will make just as good a story(given that it is not in the realm of biography) than the person that lived the plot.
If you boil it down, that’s all writing is—complete and utter openness, the words of a person unafraid to discover the true nature of humans and their creations. Anyone can be a writer, just as anyone can cry, love, smile, burp, laugh, and vomit.
Writing is the great equalizer of mankind. I would just as easily read a comic book or some ramblings from an uneducated child as I would the greatest novel ever written, no matter how persuasive the prose was or what wonderful theme was portrayed through simile or onomatopoeia or metaphor or personification—whatever those terms mean.
I realize that a few of you might be confused about the validity of the previous statement. But, as I have previously stated, or tried to, when it comes to literature, everyone indulges themselves in different ways. We all drink from the same source, yet taste a distinct liquid and absorb different nutrients.
Some might think that children’s incessant ramblings, picture books, or scribbles on bathroom walls are not writing but little compositions, deeming them meaningless. I see this perspective but wholeheartedly disagree with its intrinsically unmotivated origin—the idea that literature, words, and creativity are fixed and restricted.
On the other hand, I attempt to saturate myself with every word I read. Through this practice, I will be healthier than someone who only wants to drink from the largest ocean, comprised of novels, and refuses to acknowledge the beauty of smaller phrases.
After all, think of a street sign, post-it note, or any other small “composition.” What makes them different from what we usually deem as “writing”? Do they not tell a story, elicit an emotion, or cause anxiety?
Does a directional sign, something you read on the highway, not give you purpose, educate, or aid you? The distinction between these notes and the most extraordinary novel ever written is nothing more than word count and a few extra intricacies that some might seek to enjoy from a lengthy, well-composed work.
I recognize that this is an oversimplification, but an important one to take to heart when understanding that writing is all around us, ingrained into the very fabric of our human lives.
So, there is your motivation.
Write because you cannot escape it; it is inherently inescapable, which is quite maddening. Write because you have something inside you that cannot be expressed in any other way—and because you are willing to express it. Write because you understand that you can write and that if you do, you will immediately bear the title of author. Whether you attempt to or not, you will contribute to the greatest work ever written—the great American novel—of verse and prose and notes and lines that make up human life and its beauty.
Write because if you stop, you fail yourself and all mankind. Write because you carry the knowledge of all humans that have ever existed, that have ever toiled under the hot sun, in the fields, over the desk, and through the violence of manly encounter.
Write because, if you do, you will become cemented in history as someone who lived—not someone who merely existed, but someone who took the chance to live.
To conclude, here is a quote from one of my works, The Hewer:
“I thought, as a dumb, no-good kid, that when you grow up, the songs that used to be sung to you die out. For all these sappy bastards that had singing moms, the ones that cradled you up all nice and warm and sang you a lullaby or something, well, actually, I have to tell you, they never fully die. The songs that people sing, or did sing, to you become little songs you whisper to yourself—little mantras you use to tell yourself that everything is okay. The songs become little lies, and as you get older, the lies get louder and grow bigger. And, eventually, you belt out something you can’t recognize just to make sound like you used to. I still sing to myself every day like that. I don’t think I will ever stop.”
So, if you need something to hold on to—something to motivate, hear my plea.
“Rage against the dying of the light” – Dylan Thomas
You will die, and then you will stop. So while you live, while you write, never stop. It’s that simple.
Even when you feel as though you make no sense–keep writing; whether your work is getting you nowhere, or you feel you have no time, or you have nothing to write about, or you have nothing worth writing about, or no one to read your writing; or no one that likes your writing, or someone who hates your writing, or someone who tells you that you aren’t educated enough, or something inside you that says your tired, or stuck, or dull, or dead.
Write because I am no one, telling another no one about our collective identity as a significant someone, and yet I am everyone, and you are everyone. And, after I write this word, this character, this line, I am fulfilling the promise of all the nobodies that ever existed and the possible someone that could exist.
So, why write?
Gaia’s Final Plea
Serengeti – Nick DeGiacinto
Gaia’s Final Plea
Grace Garney
When we were first born,
We worshipped the ground Gaia walked on.
In return, she sheltered us from the cold,
Holding us tight to her core.
We were the youngest of three:
The sky, Ouranos, and the sea, Pontus, were first,
But we were Mother’s favorite,
And for that, she spoiled us rotten.
I remember when we decided to kill Gaia,
We took the blade to her breast
And prayed that Chaos turn a blind eye to our sins.
We left her there, with what remained of our guilt,
Bleeding and alone.
But don’t you see it?
The green-turned tar turned billowing smoked sky?
The forest fires raging in mid-July?
Tears spilling from mountain peaks?
Don’t you hear it?
The brutal winds biting buildings?
The wet waves extending their greedy claws?
Gaia screaming, betrayed by one of her children?
Of course, we do not only kill Mother,
We kill our siblings.
Melting ice under Pontus, strangling Ouranos with toxic air,
But it’s okay.
We tell ourselves they are replaceable,
We have found a new mother with kinder eyes and a bigger heart.
We will fly,
Fly away into her suffocating arms.
And now, now that Gaia is dead,
We smoke cigarettes over her lifeless body.
We take a drag from factory smokestacks and an axe to her corpse.
We relax into our old, hateful habits until our lungs collapse.
But wait-
I can still hear Gaia.
She is still alive, sputtering something unintelligible,
But I think I can just make out her dying breath;
She is begging us to turn off the heat.
A Home For This Love (In the Stars)
Highway 2 Stars – Henry Zhang
A Home for This Love (In the Stars)
Olivia Rivera
May 6, 2020 at 6:15 am. Every now and then, I look back to this exact moment, forever frozen in my Notes app on my phone. One month and two days after the hardest day of my life, the suffocating spring was finally beginning to loosen its grip as the promise of summer whispered its presence through the morning chatter of the frogs and the birds. I had been sleeping, when I felt a squeeze on my hand. As I drifted in and out of slumber, I could feel the ridges of a familiar hand in mine: the calloused and strong, yet gentle grasp of my grandfather, my Lolo, pressed against my palm. I was suddenly pulled back into a state of consciousness that wasn’t quite dreaming—but it couldn’t have been real—and I found myself facing the graying leather couch in my grandparents’ kitchen in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. I stared, amazed at what I saw: my Lolo in front of me, with stars painted on his face. They weren’t like the stars you drew as a child; they were the stars that you see in the sky, the stars of the heavens. Then his mouth began moving, still holding my hand. I heard his voice around me, and he told me so many secrets, so many truths, so many words of love that I couldn’t understand it all. I felt a lump in my throat, and even though being with my Lolo felt so real, I knew something wasn’t right. We laughed, I cried without knowing why, and then he vanished. I returned to my bed in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the stars returned to the sky.
Each summer, as my family and I approached the navy-blue painted house, adorned with stone near its base, I always caught a glimpse of three blooming rose bushes, exploding with bright pinks and deep reds. Each bush had a name, and I whispered them to myself, making sure that I had not forgotten them over the past year. Henilee, Xavioli, Kaivon. The names represent each set of siblings between my cousins and my brother and I, and they were named by my Lolo. He never failed to tend to his garden—to tend to us—and his brown skin always wrinkled as he smiled, imprinted by the sun. His laughter echoed throughout the property, danced across the vast, meadowed backyard, skipped across the pool’s crisp, crystal surface, whipped around the circular driveway, and tickled each child as we chased fireworks and fireflies.
My Lolo’s only two rules were: stay away from the poison ivy, and never go in the pool area without someone watching. While I respected and feared the latter, there was no way for me to avoid the climbing, green trap. Staying away from the poison ivy meant steering clear from the bamboo forest, and I was not willing to give up my adventures to the tropical paradise, hidden away in the-middle-of-nowhere-Pennsylvania. Underneath a canopy of oak trees, bamboo shot out of the ground, constructing the best hide-and-seek-spot and the best place to escape everything, just for a moment. I would sit on a small stump in a clearing in the bamboo, turn my face towards the light as it poked its way through the leaves, and let my imagination run wild. I wasn’t always at ease, though, knowing that my Lolo or another adult could come into the oasis and scare the sunlight away as they scolded me about my close proximity to the leafy venom. But I was safe for the most part—when I wasn’t cradled in the bamboo, I watched as my grandfather cut down a fresh trunk from the forest, his stubby frame the polar opposite of the narrow bamboo. He would then gather all of his grandchildren, all seven of us, and teach us the traditional Filipino dance, Tinikling, in preparation for the annual family reunion.
The couches were never empty in my grandparents’ house, always occupied by a family member or friend resting from a long day of entertainment and storytelling. Their house was the house. Everyone knew Vic and Mila, and as the cars lined up on the lawn in the early afternoon of late July, I would be reminded of the abundance of love all around me. Suddenly the burning, sticky air felt like an embrace from my ancestors, transporting me to another country, another time. Once the younger cousins arrived, we bounded straight for the pool, living out fantasies of water wars, ocean exploration, and island relaxation as our parents watched us splash around. The water emitted a refreshing chill as I dipped my toe in, preparing for the plunge. If someone was too scared to jump in and wasn’t pushed against their will, they took a detour to the rusted, metal ladder where fear went to die and excitement grew. The slide teetered if anyone so much as breathed near it, but if you were able to keep your balance, avoid the many wasps nests and tinnitus, and garner everyone’s attention before performing your calculated descent, then others followed suit, longing for the thrill of the old, pale blue slide.
Once my shriveled fingertips resembled crinkled paper, I hopped between the wide, flat stones of the patio, following the warm, garlicky stream coming from the kitchen. I stopped for a moment to admire the gentle, firm body of the great jade plant, passed down for generations, and it felt like my eyes were glued to the green beauty while the rest of my body continued forward rapidly, hungrily. After what felt like hours spent saying hello to all the relatives on my path to the food, I bolted to the dining room, where the catered Filipino food was resting in aluminum dishes, kept hot and fresh by the blue flame of the burners lit beneath them. I filled my plate until it overflowed with meat on a stick, lumpia, rice, pancit, ginataang, turon, and corn on the cob from New Jersey—that all the children had the job of shucking upon its arrival. Constant chatter, the clatter of pots and pans, and scattered melodies rang throughout the house and through the open doors as the reunion progressed in full swing; my heart became fuller, its weight grounding me on the cold kitchen tile.
Eventually, the festivities of the reunion died down as the lawn returned to a sea of empty grass and the couches vacated, leaving a lingering silence in the house. Although we were nearing the end of the trip, my brother and I still woke up earlier than our jetlagged cousins, so we would sneak down the creaky steps to enjoy the stillness of it all. While he played around with the mahjong tiles, the soft taps of the pearly tiles tickling my ears from across the living room, I pushed each key of the piano so gently that no sound could be heard; yet, I could still feel the lull of the percussion inside the instrument meeting the weight of my fingers. It always felt like an eternity, waiting for everyone to wake up so I could play each note as loud as I wanted, but as soon as he came down the stairs, my Lolo would join my playing and sing with his booming bass voice as it rang clear and strong. As I began to wake up more, another sound would be introduced into the atmosphere: the subdued blow of a knife hitting a cutting board would stop my playing, and I knew what was in store for me as I tiptoed across the hardwood floor and kitchen tile to my grandmother. I would say good morning as I hugged her, knife still in hand and juice dripping from her fingers, and she would smile, knowing that my primary motivation for my affection towards her was to steal the fruit. Freshly cut mangoes, plums, and nectarines would glisten in the pool of rays beaming through the mesh of the window screen, tempting me to eat it all. A mirror bound between time and space, I would devour the core of the mango like my Lola did when she was a child in the Philippines, and a sticky, sweet residue would coat my fingertips.
The searing, popping oil from the lumpia pan splattered my suntanned arms, leaving specks of white like the fur of a baby deer. I was always the first to pester my Lola to let me “taste test” her food, and her carefully crafted pieces of treasure, in the form of a crunchy spring roll, would quickly accumulate in my stomach. Round like the bellies of the figurines my grandparents collected from their travels to Asia, I found solace during my food coma on the living room couch, sharing the cushioned arc with my other weary cousins. As I laid against the faded pillows, staring around the room, I saw the entire world, reflected through mementos from my grandparents’ trips: chess boards from different countries, glass jars filled with seashells, mini statues and pottery, and scrapbooks filled with memories. The items rattled as the ceiling shook from the impact of little feet sprinting up the stairs to reach the attic. With this, I knew it was time to return to reality—rather, to discover a new one in the attic as our stories came alive—and join my cousins.
May 6, 2020 at 6:15 am. I stared at my ceiling, the fuzzy outline of the stars burned in my vision, splattered on the white paint. I wondered about the flowers: just one month and two days ago, they were in full bloom. Who would take care of them now? Who would take care of us now? When someone’s gone, how do you remember their voice? How do you keep the stories written in the lines of their palms and along the ridges of their face alive? How can you be sure that it was ever real?
My Lola moved to California, my dad moved the jade plant, dividing the branches into seedlings to give to each family member, and we were all supposed to move on: I believed that I had lost my one, true home forever. The Langhorne home held my grandparents as they built their life in America, saw every angle of the sun, and wove our songs of love between the walls. Now, the backyard has shrunk as two houses were built in my endless valley, the oak trees are a mere patch on the ground of remembered grandeur, and the bamboo forest has disappeared, transported back to a biome where its presence is logical. Another multi-generational, Asian family breathes the air that was once ours, and while I once scoured at the idea of anyone other than my family being rocked to sleep by the creaking structure, I know that this is what my Lolo wanted. I believed that I had lost my one, true home forever, that is, until I found myself facing its front door with my cousins and my Lola this past summer. I covered every inch of the house, starving for the feeling that I had so long ago. Years of memories played in front of my eyes, moving so fast and all at once, and I leaned against the familiar walls for support. How lucky am I, to know this kind of love? With the house or without the house—it’s everywhere. The walls that saw our beginnings, ends, hurt, and joy still echo the breath of our souls, but they weren’t built to hold on to the pieces left of us, forever. Each moment was on its way to the stars. And when I look up, I see it all. I see my Lolo. And I am home.
In Absence
Sunset Tsunami – Issac Freeman
In Absence
Ethan MacLaren
Sea, Swallow Me.
— Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins & Harold Budd)
My last memory before dying was escaping the wretched walls of my asylum. My life ended about a week ago– or at least that’s what the sun suggests. Orion, a stranger whom I only discovered a day or so before my demise, led me to my liberation. I first met him waiting at the bus stop.
********
I rest my head in mourning against the glass pane littered with advertisements for local events and worthless products. I hate the ingenuousness of it all; no one sincerely grins like that while volunteering at a recycling center. The people displayed in these posters only offered the act of a smile, a pose– not a smile from witnessing the birth of your child or the embrace of your lover. Despite this, I promise that my thoughts usually do not bear this weight of insufferable cynicism. The truth is, my emotions have been inflamed since the tragedy last month.
I lost the woman with whom I had searched our souls. Together, we found that no other piece of the Earth held the same vivid depths as our love. In our hearts, we shared a fire, and in her absence, I feel the flames consuming me. Only the aqueous tears that stream down my face and land on my chest keep the inferno at bay.
My watery eyes remind me of the first time we met by Lake Grandeur. The professor of our shared American Literature course had taken us to view the unending horizon above the water, a lesson on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalist philosophy. I liked the idea of finding oneself by embracing nature, and it was by this lake, mulling over Emerson’s texts, that my sublime lover revealed herself to me. With our class scattered around the water’s perimeter to observe it in all its glory, I chose to stand upon a hidden ledge that put me about a foot and a half closer to the lake than the rest of my peers. I stood with my legs stretched into a triangular shape for a stable base, tall and proud of my achievement. I felt that the lake knew my name, as though I alone stood close enough to cross the barrier between mortals and nature, sharing a deadly knowledge only we could bear. But then she came up behind me, wanting a clearer look, and I obstructed her view. Out of courtesy, I stepped aside to make room. As she approached, I had the sudden urge to warn her not to get any closer, for her mind could shatter with the knowledge upon the ledge. In a flash, however, her body moved more swiftly than my mouth, and I blinked in awe as she seemed to know the lake even better than I did.
Her eyes boasted a shimmering metallic texture, and my instincts told me the lake’s secrets lay within them.
“I wonder where it ends?” she asked regarding the infinite basin.
Slightly taken aback by the soothing frigidness of her voice, I responded, “Perhaps it never does.” She glanced at me, smirked, and returned her eyes to the water.
“I wish we had more nature on campus. For every brick building, we could probably fit about a hundred trees.” She replied.
“Yeah and if only they could fit a whole lake as well.” I noticed she smiled again, though this time maintained her gaze on the water.
For the next minute, we stood in perfect silence and listened to the speech of the waves. Closer to the lake than the rest of our class, we became the King and Queen of the wind, water, and shore.
We sat together on the bus back to campus. The students around us had already moved on from the lake, returning to their mortal lives to gossip about their exes and exchange addresses for parties. Even our professor was wholly occupied directing the bus driver who hadn’t the slightest clue of the route back home. Only the girl and I, who had become bonded by Earth’s will, seemed to remember ever having been at the lake. Our vision collectively metamorphosed; nature now always imposed itself to the foreground. As the world raced by through the window, we couldn’t help but capture every tree, cloud, and pebble. During our daily walks across campus together, we heard car’s engines humming like rustling leaves, the voices of students washed over us like waves, and her metallic eyes still shimmered like the sun over the lake’s surface. Years later, nature drew us back to Lake Grandeur, calling for us to host our wedding along its shore. In the same words that we spoke our vows, we worshiped and gave our prayers to the sublime.
Nature’s sublimity has died with her– the sky is no longer an open field, but a cage that constrains me; trees now stand too straight like a child’s Crayon drawing on a disposable menu; the birds sing a song meant to succeed on the radio, not fill the soul.
While lamenting the loss of my lover and the betrayal of nature, I soon find that I shared the bus bench with another man. I swiftly straighten my body and subtly wipe my tears. Despite attempting to avoid eye contact, I sense the man’s eyes fixed on me. Embarrassed and dreading conversation, I glance back to the advertising posters, locking eyes with a model for some roofing company. However, now, in the model’s phony smile, I perceive an impression of death, as though their eyes glare at me full of emptiness. I have to choose to either look at the model or the man and in my flared emotional state, spiteful of the model’s white teeth and perfectly tiled roofing, I twist my body around to witness the gazing entity.
The man bears silver hair, much too gray for the age I discern from his face. A thin beard of the same hue lines his jaw, complementing his metallic eyes that possess a haunting likeness to those of my lost lover. Engulfed by this discovery and pleading that I had found some remnant of her, I clutch the man’s eyes with my own, feeling as though Lake Grandeur shimmers once more. Under the false sky and between the artificial trees, my role with the man quickly reverses as I become the bizarre one staring at the other. Finally, he speaks, releasing me from his trance.
He introduces himself as Orion, and I respond as Julian.
********
I’ve yet to reach any afterlife during death. I suppose my persisting consciousness is an afterlife, but the only thing here is a black abyss. No god, devil, or spirits have presented themselves to me, only an infinite basin of shadows. My life was a short period of my existence, as only the eternal abyss lies ahead of me now.
Floating through the dark abyss, I have discovered that for a few hours at a time, I can leave and roam the Earth as a wisp of a creature floating through the air and passing through walls; no one sees me and I can not interact with the physical world, like a ghost. However, I have only a limited time on Earth each day. Once my few hours are up, the abyss grabs me by my neck and reels me back in. Every day since dying, the abyss offers fewer hours to spend among the living. Today, I had just under thirty minutes, tomorrow I suspect hardly even ten. I spend every precious second hoping to find her ghost roaming around. I have visited our home, her grave, and even Orion’s bus bench, but since I haven’t reached her yet, I suppose she has used up all her time allowed on Earth.
********
I feel egregiously embarrassed after crying in front of a stranger, but Orion drew no attention to my weeping. Half-joking, he asked, “How delayed do you think this bus is gonna be, Julian?”
I check my watch but can hardly calculate its tardiness with my lover’s eyes inserted on his face and muffling my thoughts. He seems like a reflection of my lost lover; I want to take his hand to check if he also shares the softness of her skin, smell his hair to see if he used the same shampoo, but I restrain my urges and simply reply, “No clue, but the damn thing is always running late.”
I don’t mind the bus’s tardiness this time though. Every second spent inside our house constantly reminds me of her absence. While my soul has torn in two, so has the rest of our home. Since her funeral, my dishes pile up in the sink half as fast, laundry clutters the floor twice as slow, and the water bills have decreased considerably. I had forgotten the ease of living alone, and remembering tortured me like a nightmare. My chores have become less onerous upon my body, but my heart aches tenfold. No other tasks in the world could have satisfied me more than making dinner for the two of us or ironing her work clothes for the next week.
For her job, she had a home office secluded from the rest of the house. Positioned in the corner, her prized rustic cocobolo desk spread across half that room– while hardly large enough to fit all of her notes and sketches, she wouldn’t have traded that desk for any other in the world. I haven’t worked up the courage to clear it out yet. Keeping her desk cluttered means there’s another task for me to complete, a chore that should have been taken up by her.
“You going home from work?” Orion inquires.
I respond yes and ask the same of him.
“No, I haven’t worked in years. I don’t think I would last another second in an office. The whole atmosphere of an office is poisoned, you feel? It’s all filtered through the dusty AC system, and the dead paint on all the walls seeps into the air.”
“Why not apply for a job outside an office? There’s plenty of opportunities around this town.” I suggest.
“You see, the thing is that the whole world’s been infected. The poisoned air doesn’t just stay in the buildings, it spills out into the parking lots, goes down the roads, ruins our parks, and even intrudes into our own homes.” Orion’s articulation becomes increasingly enthusiastic the longer he rants.
At the same time, he speaks to me with the ease of talking to an old friend. I don’t respond with much, but repeatedly nod so he knows he has my attention. Finally, after telling me how humans have turned the planet into a devilish creature, he ends his long tangent. During a slight pause, he studies my face, waiting for a response.
“How long has it been?” Orion starts after I fail to speak.
“Well I’ve been waiting here for about 15 minutes, and the bus was supposed-”
“Not that, how long since the funeral?”
Nausea settles into my bones. Orion’s words strike my chest like a lion’s claws digging into a sick antelope. How could he have known about her? Is he a supernatural creature that can read minds? A scam artist trained to exploit the mourning? An obsessed serial stalker who has assumed the characteristics of my lover and now awaits my affection? Or perhaps he is simply God?
“I don’t mean to frighten you, as your eyes just dilated to the size of the sun, but I’ve been in your position before. There’s a certain viscosity and contour to the tears of a loved one.”
He waits for a response. I remain silent.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to intrude on your personal life, but I know how helpful it can be to talk to someone about it. Especially a stranger you never have to see again.”
I should be furious that this man wants me to tell him about my deceased wife. My self-respect should have me jump out of my seat and release a series of rageful obscenities to scold him for his inappropriate behavior. I even catch the perpetually grinning actors sorting trash and roofing tiles cocking back their arms to reach out their posters and slap him across the face. Despite every force of nature willing me to detest his speech, I regrettably blurt out, “You have her eyes.”
Before I can feel the full wave of my impending embarrassment, Orion grins and responds without calling attention to the absurdity of my words.
“You can’t lose your mind over it, Julian. This world doesn’t deserve our emotions. It tears at our hearts when we’re already down, and then walks over us when we need help. Not even the air helps us breathe anymore.”
Orion’s words struck me like sublimity’s death and nature’s falseness. The sky, now a soft pink with streaks of orange, mocks me in my mourning; though colorful, in her absence, it merely looks like a photographed sunset glued to a canvas above.
“I get that. The world seems bleaker after it all happened, but I still want to appreciate the air and everything else in nature.” I offer.
“You’re right, Julian, and I believe nature deserves our appreciation. But we live in an asylum, and true nature exists beyond the walls that confine us.” Just as Orion finishes his sentence, the bus arrives.
“I want to give you this. I know the feelings haunting you now, and this helped me through my challenges.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card.
“Here’s a group I’ve been going to for a few years. Come around when you’re ready. The air’s clean in this place.”
I take the card and swiftly follow Orion onto the bus. I hardly fit with the passengers shoulder to shoulder, so I squeeze myself between the crowd and suck my stomach in as the door closes. Though Orion stands behind me, the crowd restricts my body from turning to face him. Of the unsynchronized breaths warming up my neck, I try recognizing Orion’s; the slow and heavy breath to my left must come from a much stouter man; the quick wheezing blowing across the top of my head from someone taller; the loud airy gasping from a man who works in an office. I start wondering whether Orion had any breath at all.
The bus arrives at my stop and I look back into the crowd as I descend, expecting to see Orion behind where I stood, but only witnessing a sea of unknown faces. I can’t imagine where he went considering the dense crowd. Before I have any time to catch a glimpse of the people behind the front row, the bus departs and leaves me alone on the curb. I quickly forget about Orion’s ghost-like disappearance and make my way down to the house.
********
Only one day remained for me after the initial encounter with Orion. I never completely solved his disappearance on the bus, but I begin to doubt if he ever even stepped on at all.
********
As I walk back to the house, under the artificial sky, I inspect the card Orion handed me. On the front, bold green text spells out the phrase, “Healing Circle” overlaying a photo of a group gathered around in chairs. On the back, I find their address and phone number. I immediately recognize the street; we used to walk it every other Friday night to go to Cafe Vert and listen to their live music. She reeled me into this routine because she adored their performances and fussed whenever we had to miss them. I teased her for her obsession, but the music spoke to her in a language I never understood. She had a particular fondness for the piano lady, though we only knew her as Li because of her hat with the letters embroidered onto it.
Before the cafe at the corner of the street, I remember a building established inconspicuously among the retail stores with a green sign hanging over the sidewalk. Though I never paid much attention to it, I realize now that the sign read, “The Healing Circle”. It was a support group for mental health, and not once passing it with my hands intertwined in hers did I ever consider attending it myself.
As I reach our house and enter through the side door, I imagine her face lighting up as Li dances her fingers along the piano keys. I switch on the lights, half expecting to see her lying on the couch with eyes full of music, but I come upon the room too clean and quiet. The only mess left in the house presides in the office across her cocobolo desk. She got the desk through a bitter argument with Mr. Goursuch, the owner of our local butcher shop just a few blocks from Cafe Vert. After failing to prepare her prepaid catering order of enough sausages and chicken thighs to feed her entire work building, Mr. Goursuch only offered 30 bucks to our $450 payment. While my lover usually flowed calmly like the runoff of rainfall, at a moment’s notice she could turn her shimmering eyes into bitter ice and orate with a sharp frigidovertone sitting at the tip of her tongue. Against my lover’s verbal assault, Mr. Goursuch initially stood his ground like a stubborn mountain, but she eventually iced him out. She hung his pride in the freezer next to the rest of his livestock and forced him to concede his autonomy. While she ended up delivering a full catering order to her colleagues, she also managed to negotiate taking the desk sitting behind his counter, a wholly unnecessary prize that she kept as a glistening trophy holed up in her office. Partly in awe, partly in fear, I tried my best to remain in her good graces. Luckily, I experienced the warmth of sitting together on the couch far more than her glacial bitterness.
I lay across our couch and imagine the cushions as her arms and the pillows as her torso. I let out a sigh as I stretch across the furniture and reflect on Orion’s words from the bus bench. I can’t help but suffocate in my own house now, feeling the dust settle at the bottom of my lungs from the AC-filtered oxygen. The only mercy I am offered is when I eat dinner, the same meal I’ve had for a month. Though every bite of my unseasoned chicken and square potatoes tastes the same, the act of chewing and swallowing monetarily spares me from having to breathe the air. Even when I wash my food down with a drink, the water blocks any oxygen from poisoning me. During my shower, I hold my breath and put my face under the running water, but the pattering drops aren’t enough. I prepare a bath and submerge my torso. Under the water, I breathe clearer than ever, and after a couple of minutes, when I come back up, I drown in the air. The merciful water reminds me of Orion. His presence washed over my body like waves creeping up on the beach shore; the waves only meet the shore for a short while, but they cool them from the scorching sun. Yearning for his cool presence once more, I decide to attend the Healing Circle.
********
I am visiting our home in the short eight minutes the Abyss offers today. The house is neither mine nor my lovers anymore, but I find it occupied by a half dozen police officers investigating my disappearance. They scour every crevice in every room, searching between the couch cushions, the bathtub, and even my microwave. They find no leads to my whereabouts, but just the remnants of two lovers separated by a month. The only evidence of life is my unfinished draft proposal and the mess she left across her grainy cocobolo desk. Sketches of submarine frames lay scattered on top of notes recording pressure calculations and oxygen tanks. She took great care in her voyaging torpedoes of the ocean, measuring every metal plate out to the exact quarter inch and the density of every nut and bolt with perfect precision. In the closet of her office, the police find the empty box of her scuba gear with extra oxygen tanks surrounding it.
My vision is starting to become hazy with black spots obscuring my eyes, a sign that the abyss has its fingers wrapped around my neck to reel me back in. With time fleeting, I scramble to capture the clearest image of our old house in my mind, hoping to remember every corner and divot once I’m completely cut off from the Earth. I don’t know if the abyss will offer more time tomorrow, but in my desperate final moments, I hear the police speaking on the phone– something about my corpse.
********
I get up slowly this Saturday morning. I left the only work I have today on the kitchen counter: drafting a proposal for the company’s new Outreach Program. Usually, I would have completed it during the week, but my efforts have been lazier ever since she died. I returned to work a day after the funeral, and the bosses noticed my sluggish arrival and unkempt look–I had grown uneven stubble and long hair disheveled. Though sympathetic to my trauma, they needed me at my best during their critical relaunch period. Since I could hardly finish my work, much less with any competency, they threatened to suspend or replace me entirely; grief had no place in their corporation.
I make a late breakfast, the same as every day before, composed of eggs, sausage, and a cup of fruit. I grudgingly start writing my draft as I wait for my food to cool down. With my pen in hand and the eggshell-colored paper beneath it, I feel transported back into the office. Long fluorescent lights buzz above my head and dusty air spins around the room from the AC’s current. The decorations on my wall seem to disappear and only a dead blank surface remains. I can’t tell whether I’m in an office or a hospital. I become nauseated and drop my pen into my fruit cup. I nearly collapse into my eggs and sausages but catch myself. I can’t bear to look at the draft any longer, so I get up and start a cold bath.
The water soothes me, bringing my mind to a calm land. During my spell of clarity, I decide that I must quit my job before it kills me, so on a new sheet of paper, I write a letter of resignation. I should give it to my bosses on Monday, but I fear my judgment may change if I wait the whole weekend. To ease my nerves, I seal the letter into an envelope and mail it to the office. I feel immoral leaving the company high and dry without notice, but I reason that they already planned on firing me.
I spend the rest of the daylight thinking about Orion. The Healing Circle has a meeting tonight, and my only motivation for going is to see him again. I am not sure if I wish to see him out of desire or resentment. His eyes match my lovers, and they both can peer into the same parts of my soul, but Orion’s revelation of the air’s impurity has suffocated me all last night. His doctrine has caused a fog to reside in my brain, leaving me unemployed and unable to firmly grip a pen. When I see him at the Healing Circle, I will demand that he relieve me of this spell.
I never noticed the graffiti over their hanging green sign. A smiley face had been boldly drawn at the bottom of the text, and next to it, a faint frowning face had been rubbed out. I debate going down the street to listen to the Vert Cafe’s weekend jazz show, but through the glass pane of the Healing Circle, I see Orion standing amongst a sea of people.
As I walk in, I enter a jungle. Artificial grass covers the entire floor and huge photos of woodlands decorate the walls. From the ceiling, vines crawl around and obscure the grey square tiles over the air ducts. Small groups of people stand scattered around the room in front of a circle of chairs. They all seemingly wait for the session to get started. Orion stands alone, by the portion of the wall displaying a picture of a raging river. The photo is intimate, personal to the water as if you can feel its power emanating through the wall. The photographer must have felt its pellets of water-like bullets against his face as he knelt and waited for the waves to crash into the jagged rocks, boasting the perfect photo. Occupied by the river, Orion hasn’t noticed me yet. I start walking over to say hello, but before I reach him, the loud voice of a woman spreads across the room like the potent river. She calls the session to begin and everyone takes their seat around the circle.
I try sitting next to Orion, but the chairs fill up too quickly. I end up across from him and next to strangers. Though I should consider Orion a stranger as well, I feel like I’ve known him for much longer. The session starts but the lead woman forgoes any introductions, I suppose most of these people come here regularly as they all seem to have a small group to talk among. Throughout the session, I quickly pick up on the tragedies that bring everyone in. A few seats to my left, a young man in his early 20s spoke of a fatal car crash with his parents, killing both of them instantly. Now, he grapples with the guilt of receiving what they left to him in their will. A woman in a turquoise jacket across from me told the group of her cancer diagnosis– though her jacket masked the drained color from her face. Sitting among this group, I feel like a criminal. I have no intention of gaining any support during my time here, I merely want to see Orion who doesn’t speak a single word the entire time. It occurs to me that I have no clue what tragedy haunts his past, only that he had the supernatural ability to understand my own trauma.
Once the session ends, I rush over to finally greet him. In the supportive atmosphere of the room, I forget my resentment against him. He smiles and exclaims in delight that I made it.
“You were right about the air in here, Orion. It feels much cleaner.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah, but I’m just curious as to why?”
Orion chuckles before responding. “I don’t know Julian, can you tell me what you think?”
Though slightly annoyed at his leading question, I gather my thoughts and give it my best shot.
“I was thinking maybe the green around the room offers a strong enough illusion of nature. It could also be tears dripping from everyone’s eyes that filter the dusty air.”
“Tears, you think? How do you figure that?”
“Well I’m not entirely sure, it’s more of a gut feeling.”
He stares at me, unsatisfied with my answer, so I continue, “After I thought a lot about what you said to me yesterday on the bus bench, about the air being poisoned and all, I couldn’t even appreciate the sky or trees the same way while walking home. But then, when I took a bath last night, after plunging my head into the water, I felt free from the world. It’s the most calm I’ve felt since she died.”
Orion, intrigued, asked “And you think the tears are similar to your bath?”
“It could be,” I reply.
“Well, to be honest with you, Julian, I only said that to get you to come here.”
“What? About the poisonous air?” I fear I’ve quit my job over nothing.
“No, that part remains true, Julian. I meant telling you that the air in here is any better than outside.”
My fear shifts from my unemployment to Orion’s motives, “So why do you want me here at all?”
“Few people ever learn the truth about our world, much less the path to escaping it. The fact you’ve discovered the true nature of water in a single night tells me everything I need to know about you, Julian.”
“What are you talking about? We met yesterday, you don’t know me, and I don’t know any truth about the world or any escape from it.” My fear presents as anger. The room starts eyeing us, so Orion deescalates my nerves.
“Look, I don’t mean to upset you. I can tell you more, but not here. We have to go somewhere else for that.”
I scoff and stagger backward. A magnetic force pulls my body towards the exit, a sign that I should leave the Healing Circle and never return.
“I’ve only known you for a day and I have no reason to follow you anywhere. It’s not like I just came here for you” I lie.
“Of course not Julian. You’re here because of her.”
“Don’t speak of her and my loss like you know me. You don’t even know her name.”
“And do you?” Orion’s challenge causes my head to spin.
I stare into his eyes to view Lake Grandeur shimmering, hoping to find her name within them, but it is lost to me. My heart falters and the artificial grass under my feet begins dragging me down.
Orion catches me when I fall and he insists, “Julian, if you follow me to escape this false world, we will find her name together”
In my desperate deliberation, while looking up at his metallic eyes, I notice a miniscule imperfection under his thin beard: a brown birthmark on the edge of his chin, the same as my lover. At this moment, I denounce nature and pledge my allegiance to him. I know the only way to find her name again is to follow him to the ends of the Earth.
He smiles and gestures to the river on the wall.
“We will escape there and find her name as well.”
I climb into his passenger seat to drive with him. I’ve lost autonomy over my body, and the car carries me like a hospital bed. The night sky looms over us, but now I can see the true asylum ceiling hanging behind the stars. Orion runs off the main road and drives along a dirt path through the woods. The trees no longer fool me, for I notice the glue that sticks them to the walls. We finally reach our destination: a lake much smaller than Grandeur but large enough to lose a pair of goggles in. The car’s fluorescent headlights, pointing into the river and reflecting off the misty air, provide the only light. We exit the vehicle and sit among the rocks on the shore.
“Her name lies here, under the surface, in the infinite basin.” Orion’s voice matches the chill of the night.
“I have to get out of the asylum, Orion. It’s taken my lover’s name from me.” My lips remain stagnant, but Orion hears every word.
“Follow me, for she awaits you in the depths.” Orion stands up, inches towards the shore’s edge, and descends into the lake.
I follow suit. With every step into the frigid water, my body slowly fades away, and soon, only my head remains dry. As my eyes peak above the surface, I take a large breath and catch a last glimpse of the Earth; beneath, the boundless abyss swallows me. Finally, my body vanishes from the Earth, and I have escaped the poisoned world.
I feel the ground under my feet fall away, and the liquid surges through my veins up to my brain. I release my final breath of air from my lungs and breathe in peace under the water. I hear my lover’s voice call my name, but I wish she would yell out her own. I try remembering it, but her name floats through the infinite basin. I float as well, and I soon enter the abyss.
********
I have no time left on Earth. The abyss offered my last three minutes today, and I’ve already used them all up. During my last minutes today, I visited my body in the morgue located in the basement of the hospital’s psychiatric wing. They had shaved my stubble and trimmed my hair to make me look more presentable, as requested by my family. The police had reported my disappearance to my parents and notified them immediately after finding my corpse in the lake during a long and thorough search, the only body they ever found.
If I am to glimpse the Earth again, I must find my lover, for the only remnant of the planet lies within her metallic eyes that boast the shimmering Lake Grandeur. I have an eternity ahead of me, and an eternity I shall spend searching for her so I can relearn her name and tend to the fire in our hearts. I will swim to every corner of infinity until I find the submarines she sketched across her desk; once I knock on its glass window, she will open the hatch and embrace each other’s grace. Finally, during our remaining eternity together, we shall explore every depth of the sea.
Sculpted by the Algorithm
Into the Realm – Cashier Brooks
Sculpted by the Algorithm
Benya Wilfret
It began, as many crises do, with a seemingly harmless decision. I was procrastinating on a Sunday night, the kind of procrastination that convinces you watching something mildly educational is technically productive. My homework sat untouched on my desk, an indictment of my focus, when YouTube offered me an irresistible distraction: Top 10 Creepiest Unsolved Mysteries.
The thumbnail—a shadowy figure in the woods, possibly Bigfoot, possibly someone with sciatica—was absurd enough to click. The video delivered what I expected: ominous music, grainy footage, and theories barely held together by shaky editing and blind faith. It was the intellectual equivalent of eating a gas station burrito: unsatisfying, vaguely regrettable, but exactly what I needed.
But YouTube doesn’t see clicks as innocent curiosity. To YouTube, a click is a confession, a declaration of allegiance to a particular reality. By Monday morning, my recommendations were no longer the soothing mix of cooking tutorials and mildly pretentious TED Talks I had come to expect. Instead, my homepage had transformed into a dystopian circus: “The Moon Landing Was Staged,” “9/11 Was an Inside Job,” and, most disturbing of all, “Birds Aren’t Real: Wake Up, Sheeple!”
The bird video caught my eye. Its premise was as absurd as it was insistent: pigeons, the narrator claimed, are government surveillance drones. “Have you ever seen a baby pigeon?” he demanded, his tone implying that answering “no” would unravel my entire worldview. I hadn’t, but I’d also never seen baby squirrels, and I wasn’t accusing them of espionage. Still, the video sat there, daring me to click.
I resisted, determined to prove to the algorithm—and myself—that I wasn’t falling for its narrative. I clicked on sourdough recipes, a TED Talk about creativity, even a bike repair tutorial. But YouTube wasn’t fooled. A sourdough video was followed by “10 Foods the Government Is Poisoning Right Now.” A guide to fixing a flat tire segued into “How to Escape Surveillance Using Everyday Tools.” The algorithm wasn’t just misunderstanding me—it was remaking me, insisting I become its version of me.
And then came the onion man.
“Doctors HATE This One Weird Trick to Cure Everything!” screamed the title, accompanied by a thumbnail of a man cradling an onion like it was the Holy Grail. Against my better judgment, I clicked. He explained, with the intensity of someone banned from multiple medical forums, that rubbing a raw onion on your feet would detoxify your body. “The toxins,” he whispered solemnly, “are drawn into the onion overnight.”
I stared at the screen, horrified and, I admit, a little impressed. Here was a man willing to risk both his dignity and his circulation in pursuit of his beliefs. The algorithm, naturally, took my click as gospel. My homepage became a landfill of chemtrails, anti-vaxxer propaganda, and exposés about the Illuminati’s supposed monopoly on Starbucks.
It wasn’t long before I felt trapped, a character in a Kafka story where my crime was curiosity and my punishment was endless redefinition. Algorithms don’t punish you out of malice—they punish you out of efficiency. They don’t see nuance, only patterns to exploit. To the algorithm, I wasn’t a person—I was a series of clicks, malleable and infinitely marketable.
Desperate to reclaim my identity, I devised a plan: flood the algorithm with innocence. For three days, I binge-watched PBS Kids. Arthur, Dinosaur Train, and Martha Speaks became my allies, their cheerful jingles a desperate attempt to overwrite the chaos.
At first, it worked. My recommendations softened: How to Draw a Cat, 10 Best Bedtime Stories for Kids, Arthur’s Guide to Friendship. But algorithms, like viruses, evolve. Soon, YouTube began suggesting conspiracies about PBS Kids. “The REAL Reason Arthur’s Parents Are Never Around” theorized they were operatives in an underground aardvark resistance. “Dinosaur Train: Propaganda for Big Oil?” made me question whether fossil fuels were behind it all.
This wasn’t just misunderstanding; it was erasure. The algorithm wasn’t reflecting me—it was rewriting me, one absurd click at a time. The scariest part wasn’t that YouTube thought I was a monster. It was how easily I started to see the monster, too.
I deleted my account that night, but the paranoia lingers. Algorithms don’t just collect data; they sculpt it into identities, flattening complexity into patterns they can monetize. They’re mirrors that distort and direct, showing us not who we are but who they need us to become.
We like to think of ourselves as solid, autonomous beings. But all it takes is a few careless clicks to unravel that illusion. Were we ever that solid to begin with—or are we just shadows flickering in the algorithm’s endless loop?
Opposites
Pretty in Pink – Hannah Mason
Opposites
Mo Zheng
It’s funny, how it seems,
That everything has a pair.
How we pray for happiness,
When it’s already there.
How can we see,
Without first closing our eyes?
How can we learn,
If failure doesn’t rise?
How can we heal,
Without first feeling pain?
How can we grow,
If we always stay the same?
One Friday evening,
The world spoke far too loud.
I lay alone in my muted room,
As voices drifted from the crowd.
The darkest times illuminate joy,
The loneliest nights teach love.
There’s something about opposites—the way they gleam—
Life isn’t always the way it seems.
.
Her Hands
Fern-Wrapped Wonder – Michai Sanders
Her Hands
Caleb Finley
My hands bear a history of calluses.
Before I was born,
They were scarred—
Pricked by the stem,
Hardened by the roots,
Cracked by the whip,
Dried by the relentless sun.
Darker they became,
Thicker than the skin that carried them,
Yet fragile under the weight of time.
Through my own labors,
Through the will of my people,
I inherit their callouses.
The cycle continues
The scars deepen.
The stripes of injustice,
The sirens that pierce the night’s skin,
The bullets that leave us marked,
The laws that grind us thin.
Each one a layer.
Each one a reminder.
I, now carry the hands of my ancestors,
Hardened by their lull,
Strengthened by their pain.
And in my chest,
Where flesh once softened,
My heart, too, is calloused.
Hymn Sung Backward
Look Down – Sophia Quezada
Benya Wilfret
The board, pristine—
a hymn of symmetry.
Light holds its place,
silence hums,
time’s breath shallow
in black and white.
The pieces sleep:
the knight, curved in defiance;
the queen, poised with restless power,
her reach tethered by geometry;
the king, fragile as glass,
yet bearing quiet gravity.
Each pawn, a seed
pressed into unseen geometry.
Then—
a hand lifts the smallest piece.
A pawn steps forward.
This first fracture:
a hymn sung backward.
Possibility folds,
the infinite wounded,
withdrawing like a petal.
Each move devours.
The knight leaps,
its arc rebellion,
yet bound by rules
it will never know.
The rook cleaves the grid—
certainty slicing
through the unyielding grid of space.
The queen sweeps horizons,
her reach straining,
aching to transcend.
And the king—
he endures,
as the board tilts,
the game collapsing
toward his inevitable undoing.
What is this world of squares,
this architecture of precision,
but a mirror of ourselves?
The board remakes us.
Each square, a wound on infinity,
each choice bleeding into beauty.
Checkmate does not end the game;
it ends the illusion.
The king sees himself—
fragility mirrored in every piece.
The board, a lattice of constraint,
through which freedom sings.
Each move narrows,
each step forward a closing door.
We walk the squares of our lives,
custodians of the narrowing.
And yet—
at the searing edge of the finite,
we glimpse the unbearable beauty
of what endures.
The infinite folds beneath our feet.
What We Leave Unsaid
Neon – Samantha Brock
What We Leave Unsaid
Benya Wilfret
Claire hated being noticed. It unraveled her, like a stray thread tugged free from a carefully stitched seam. But the man watching her wasn’t just anyone. His gaze pinned her to the polished barstool, steady and dark, as though he’d already decided who she was.
He stood at the far end of the bar, a whiskey glass in hand, his posture deliberate yet unassuming. For a moment too long, their eyes met. Her chest tightened, her pulse quickened, and she turned back to her gin and tonic. He couldn’t know her—just another guest surveying the room. And yet, when she glanced back, he was walking toward her.
“Do I know you?” he asked, his voice low but sharp.
The practiced smile came easily. “I don’t think so.”
His silence stretched just long enough to unsettle her, his gaze unflinching. “Not yet, then.”
The venue was too perfect, its edges smoothed to an unnatural shine. Polished hardwood floors, muted greens, fairy lights strung with a precision that begged to look effortless. It wasn’t just expensive—it was curated, a museum of happiness. Claire swirled her drink, the ice clinking softly against the glass. The decorations reminded her of lies people told themselves, dressed up to look softer than they were.
Ethan—he introduced himself eventually—didn’t belong in the tableau. He stood too still, watching the crowd like a man counting cracks in the facade. His observations came unbidden, each one cutting through the room’s carefully staged joy.
“That guy,” he said, nodding toward the best man fumbling with his tie, “is in love with her.”
Claire raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know that.”
“Watch him. The stammering when he gives a toast, the way he avoids looking at her too long. He wants to say something, but he won’t.”
“It’s a little cliché,” she replied, though her voice lacked conviction.
“Clichés exist because they’re true,” Ethan said. “And weddings are full of them.”
Claire hated how right he seemed. The best man’s nervous glances, the trembling in his hands—they all hinted at something unresolved. She looked away, the weight of Ethan’s words settling over her. Weddings weren’t about vows or speeches, were they? They were about silences—the things people didn’t say.
The courtyard was colder than Claire expected. The fountain gurgled softly, its rhythm uneven, like the sound of rain against glass. She perched on the fountain’s edge, heels dangling from her fingers, her gin and tonic forgotten beside her. Ethan stood a few steps away, his whiskey untouched, his posture suddenly rigid.
“Do you ever think about how much had to happen to get you here?” he asked.
Claire tilted her head. “Here at this wedding? Or here in general?”
“Both,” he said. “Every decision, every chance, every tiny thing. It all adds up to this. Us, here, tonight. Feels fragile, doesn’t it?”
The words made her shift uncomfortably. The sound of the fountain grew louder in her ears, blending with memories she had worked hard to suppress. “What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice sharper than she intended.
Ethan set his whiskey on the fountain’s edge, his fingers lingering on the glass. “Sometimes it’s not about things you don’t say,” he said softly. “It’s about the things you’ll never say.”
Claire’s breath caught, her grip tightening on the cold stone beneath her. “I don’t understand.”
“No,” he said, his jaw clenching as his gaze fixed on the dark horizon. “You do.”
Her pulse quickened, the sound of the fountain warping into the screech of tires, the twist of metal, the rain on the windshield. She forced herself to steady her voice. “Why are you here?”
Ethan’s eyes met hers, darker now, sharper. “To see what kind of life someone builds after they tear one apart.”
Her stomach twisted, the ground beneath her seeming to shift. “I don’t know what you think—”
“You do,” he interrupted, his voice unwavering. “You just wish you didn’t.”
The memory came in fragments. Rain streaking the windshield, the road slick and endless. The screech of tires. Twisting metal. Silence. A courtroom. Carefully rehearsed apologies. A name she had refused to learn.
She sat in her car, the wedding a blur behind her. Her hands hovered over the keyboard, trembling as the weight of an unnamed dread pressed down on her chest. When the search results appeared, her breath hitched.
The name burned on the screen, stark and undeniable: Ethan. The rain, the screech, the silence crashed back into her mind like a storm she had spent years outrunning. Ethan. He wasn’t just a guest. He was the teenager’s brother. From the moment he’d walked up to her, he had known exactly who she was. Their meeting wasn’t chance. It was deliberate.
But why?
Had he wanted an apology? An explanation? Or something simpler: to see the life she had kept living while his brother’s had ended? He had taken nothing from her—not anger, not forgiveness. Only a quiet reminder of what she couldn’t undo.
It wasn’t his absence that haunted her. It was the truth he’d left behind—and the growing sense that running wasn’t enough anymore.
The road stretched empty ahead, winding into the night. For years, she had told herself it was behind her, that she had left it far enough away to fade. But now, she saw it clearly: the road hadn’t taken her anywhere. It had only circled back, waiting patiently for her return.
Moose
Sunburst Energy – Emma Hessler
Moose
Shivan Chhabra
A moose strolls,
Its heavy antlers weight it down
Through the morning dew
Footprints digging into the ground
leaving a mark
The wind blows dust to cover them
A low song hums from the river,
However, the moose doesn’t respond
Only ponders,
Only muses,
Only disappears,
Into the woods,
As though it never existed.