Markers of Memory
Pastel Pond with Geese – Lilly Ramsey
Markers of Memory
Julia Burnette
And just like that, I’m here again, breathing in the sharp scent of pine as my eyes lift to the soft blue stretch of sky above. It has been six years since I last followed this uneven trail along the icy edges of Lake Superior, brushing my fingers against the birch trees with their curling strips of bark. The ground is still slick in places, though I walk it more steadily now. My grandfather lags behind, leaning on a poplar branch and carrying a limp I hadn’t noticed before. The crunch of gravel under my boots mixes with the distant cry of gulls, their sharp voices cutting through the stillness of the trees. A chill rides the air, and I pull my jacket tighter, realizing how this landscape feels both familiar and unfamiliar, as if the place I recall exists only in memory. Before we came, my uncle sent me blurry videos from that long-ago hike: a dirt-streaked ten-year-old with a crooked daisy crown tumbling down tangled hair, spinning with a joy that belonged only to childhood. My mother, who left Canada for the United States before I was born, always returned to this northern shore with my brother and me each summer, until the pandemic, health challenges, and family troubles stretched six years into silence, slipping away like water through my cupped hands.
The trail that once stretched endlessly now feels shorter, its obstacles less daunting than I remember. I step onto the shore and face the vast expanse of blue water. As a child, my mother told me tales of great ships that vanished in sudden storms, and I sang Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” without fully grasping its meaning. Now, as I watch the waves tumble against the shore, I can almost feel the fear of sailors drawn beneath the freezing surface. My grandfather bends carefully at the edge of the lake, steadying himself as his fingers skim the water. The sight tightens something in my chest, a reminder of how time is impossible to grasp onto. Yet even with all that has changed, I feel a thread that ties me to what was, a continuity that makes this shoreline part of who I am. It brings to mind a haunting passage I once read in Thomas Wolfe’s novel, that you can never truly go home again, that the place you remember is not there (Wolfe).
I turn from the water, and my gaze settles on the stones scattered across the shore. My hands fly to my chest. There they are. Dozens of small, wobbly towers rise from the rocks, some standing firmly while others tilt or crumble into loose piles. As a child, I marveled at these figures along remote Canadian highways and windswept lookouts, never fully grasping their meaning. I had forgotten them until this moment. Inukshuks. For generations, Inuit and other Indigenous peoples built them to mark travel routes, hunting grounds, and sacred places. They served as silent guides across vast, unmarked northern landscapes. Even now, they remain symbols of guidance, friendship, and survival. Many hikers pass by quickly, pausing for a photograph before moving on, but I linger, kneeling to rest my palm on a stone worn smooth by weather.
Building an inukshuk begins with a strong foundation. My grandfather is the first to remind me of this. I pick my way through the rocky ground, trying my hardest to find the smoothest, flattest one to build my own foundation upon. He lingers beside me, pressing the end of his poplar stick against a wide, flat stone half-buried in the sand beside me. “Start here,” he says, his voice low and steady, the same way it has always sounded when we walked the shoreline together years ago. I crouch beside him and brush away the grit with my fingers, feeling the cold weight of the stone before setting it upright. It sat perfectly even. Behind me, the waves ripple softly along the stones, and the air bites my cheeks, but his quiet nod tells me we are in the right place to begin building.
When I was younger, I thought of the inukshuks as silly piles of stones someone had stacked just to pass the time, going up to each tower and knocking them over, giggling with pride. Now, kneeling on the shore with my grandfather, I understand them differently. “They show the way,” he says, steadying a smaller stone in his hand before placing it gently on top of mine. His fingers move more slowly now, his balance less certain, yet his movements are passionate. I follow his example, choosing one stone at a time, testing, adjusting, beginning again when they topple. The work is slow, but in the silence between us, I feel the weight of his presence beside me. The tower begins to rise. Some stones sit easily, clicking together as though meant to fit, like waves settling into the rhythm of the shore. Others wobble and fall, scattering into the sand, and I groan in frustration. My grandfather chuckles softly, the sound carried off by the wind. “Patience,” he reminds me. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, just balanced.” His words settle into me as firmly as the stones themselves. I glance at him, noticing the curve of his shoulders in the cold and the way his hand grips the driftwood stick. I realize how much he has slowed since the summers of my childhood. Back then, he lifted me onto his shoulders when my legs grew tired, steady as the trees lining the trail. Now I watch him move carefully, testing each step before trusting it. The change presses on me, not with surprise but with the ache of seeing what will not last.
When the inukshuk finally stands, we both step back to admire it. The tower is uneven, leaning slightly into the wind, but it holds. My grandfather’s eyes crease with a smile, but I notice the tears gathering at their corners. He does not say a word, and I pretend not to see, letting the quiet hold what neither of us needs to explain. In that moment, the lake, the stones, and his presence combine into something I know I will carry with me long after we leave.
As we turn back toward the trail, I glance along the shoreline. Hundreds of other inukshuks rise from the rocks, some small and hidden between boulders, others tall and tilting against the sky. Each one feels like a story, silent but powerful, left by someone who passed through this place before us. They do not reveal names or faces, but they mark the presence of lives and moments now forever in the shoreline. I know that the next time I return, the lake will look different. Waves will have toppled many of the towers, and the ones that remain will lean in new directions. I may not find the exact inukshuk my grandfather and I built today, but perhaps I will. Either way, I will know it once stood, balanced carefully against time. And if I do, I will think of this memory, of the sound of his voice and the weight of the stones in my hands. Then I will gather new rocks and begin again, adding another story to the shore. Like the stones, I, too, am learning to stand, imperfect yet steady, carrying forward what he has taught me.
Works Cited
Wolfe, Thomas. You Can’t Go Home Again. Harper & Brothers, 1940.
Withering Flowers
The Blue Window – Shriya Bhatnagar
Withering Flowers
Madeleine Brown
Nicholas
It took me far too long to realize what mattered to me in this world. My innocence. My morals. My love. It wasn’t until every one of my values was stripped from me that I realized how much they mattered.
Nicholas Beuren was a smart man. At twenty-one, he’d earned what every young scientist in Landan dreamed of: a place within Grayburn Industries. The laboratory gleamed like a cathedral of reason, promising cures for the sick and miracles for the broken. He believed in that promise. Believed so fiercely that he never thought to question the silence behind its doors.
He could never have imagined that one day he would abandon it all.
Cassandra
It took me far too long to remember what it meant to be human. My name. My dreams. My pain. They took all three and called it science.
Cassandra Flore was a resilient girl. From infancy to the age of ten, she lived in Juliette’s Orphanage, patiently waiting for the day a couple would bring her to their home. When the famous Dr. Gray arrived, she believed her prayers had been answered. Instead, she was bought. For seventy-six pounds of hush money, her childhood was erased, replaced by a number stamped on a wristband: Subject C-Flore.
She had always dreamed of a day when she could leave it all.
January 3rd
Dr. Nicholas Beuren smoothed his hair and steeled his nerves as he called, “Subject C-Flore, please come out with Cane B!”
Today was like any testing day. He’d take meticulous notes as he observed multiple subjects while they hobbled around the sterile, white space. Such a mundane day, but he would take the monotony over the unsavory that took place in the lower levels of Grayburn Labs.
He never had the stomach for that.
The steel door groaned as bare feet whispered across the cool tile floor. Her head hung low, her long dark hair obscuring most of her refined features. Only twelve days had passed since their last session, but something in her shape had changed. Her frame had thinned; the pallor of her skin had become a shade lighter, something he didn’t believe was possible with how ghostly she’d been before.
Concern crept across his face. She was no longer the healthy, vibrant child who’d arrived at the age of ten. He’d only seen pictures of her at that age, having only been a doctor at Grayburn Labs for a year. She’d been his first patient.
He remembered their first session—the day she was sent up from the lower levels, broken by someone else’s experiment. Her arm had been shattered, nerves burned out by a serum meant to enhance strength. He’d been ordered to test a prosthetic that might restore her movement. She hadn’t cried or flinched when he fitted the brace, only watched him with those wide, dark eyes.
He swallowed back his emotion, forcing his expression to stay calm as the overhead light carved sharp edges across her face . . . too sharp for someone so young. But this was the job.
Grayburn broke them.
Doctors like Nicholas fixed them.
He turned back to his charts, making his notes as required: Cane B – Stability compromised, subject exhibiting a tremor.
But the words blurred. All he could see was her.
Cassandra moved carefully, the way one learns when every mistake is punished. Her breath came thin, and when she coughed, the sound cracked through the air.
Nicholas snapped to attention and was at her side in a heartbeat.
“Oh dear, C-Flore . . .” He offered a handkerchief from his lab coat pocket as she fell into another wheezy coughing fit. Another wave of worry washed over him at the sight of black spots against the white cloth as she pulled it from her lips. “Don’t worry . . . I’ve got you.”
He helped her to a chair. “Rest for a moment, let your lungs settle. I’ll meet with Dr. Gray to discuss what to do about this new situation. ” He paused, searching for the right word. “Symptom.”
As always, Cassandra stayed silent. He didn’t hear her speak much, but when she did, it sounded melodic. So soft and sweet . . . But it wasn’t the time for daydreaming.
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
Cassandra
Cassandra Flore sat quietly in the testing chamber, her expression tired. Her body felt wrong. Her throat was scratchy, and her stomach roiled. And now she was coughing up black blood. Of course, she was.
The symptoms had started a while ago, shortly after Dr. Gray had stuck a new prototype serum in her veins. When she had asked what it would do to her, he had smiled and told her it was going to revolutionize the world. He’d said that immortality would be brought to mankind. With her help.
Cassandra didn’t want to be immortal. Would that mean she’d stay at Grayborn forever? She didn’t like that idea. She only wanted to live somewhere beyond the white walls. To read again, though she’d long forgotten most of her letters after years without access to books. To sew like Mistress Julie back at Juliette’s Orphanage. The real world felt like a mirage in her desert of a life. So close, so possible, and yet . . . False. Cassandra couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually dreamt.
She didn’t quite understand what was going on in her body, but it was painful. The doctors whispered about a slow rejection process. She vomited daily now, her stomach raw, while her skull was constantly caught between a fog and a furious pounding as if someone were smashing it with a hammer. Today felt foggy.
Her eyes drifted around the room, searching for something new to hold on to, but there was nothing to discover. Over the 6 years she had been assigned to this particular room, she’d counted the number of tiles on the ceiling hundreds of times. 91. She knew the number of steps it would take to walk the perimeter of the room. 40. She’d rummaged through the drawers in the cabinet and could name every item that was intricately organized inside.
Dr. Beuren returned, holding a small copper device in one hand and a clear bag in the other. She recognized it instantly . . . a nebulizer. They’d used one on her Sister, L-Killigan, when her lungs failed after another failed trial. He knelt at her side, gently placing the mask across her mouth and nose. The machine hissed as a mist filled her mouth, the taste bitter and artificial, the same as every medicine in this place.
“Just breathe in, and breathe out. Alright, flower?”
She liked it when he called her that, a quiet play on her last name, Flore. In a place where everyone was stripped of names and turned into numbers, it felt like giving a piece of herself back. It was a thousand times better than C-Flore.
Dr. Beuren . . . He was kind. Kindness was strange in this place. He was kind even to her other Sisters. Once, she’d witnessed him shove Dr. Jakobsin to the ground for trying to take advantage of Cassandra’s sister, W-Parki.
Cassandra studied his face as she followed his instructions. He was about her age, maybe a couple of years older. He had nicely combed, dirty blonde hair. His skin was light, and he had a small, black mole beside his eyebrow. His eyes were green and bright. Handsome, maybe?
She couldn’t discern his expression whenever he looked at her. It was positive, at least. She drew her eyes away from his face, choosing to examine his clothing. He wore the same white lab coat as every other staff member in Grayburn Industries, but he always liked to personalize it with a burgundy tie. The color suited him. Cassandra wished she could personalize her clothes, too, rather than wearing the same white, loose gown.
“It seems that your symptoms have now started to attack- Affect.” He swallowed, not meeting her eyes. “Affect your lungs. Your left lung is experiencing tissue damage, and your windpipe is irritated, causing the… the blood.” He took the handkerchief from her, placing it in the small, clear bag. “Let’s get you some rest.”
Nicholas
How much longer must I wait before this hellish pit of helplessness overtakes me? I can no longer wait; I can’t waste much more time. Time she doesn’t have.
January 9th
Nicholas Beuren sat in an uncomfortable chair in an uncomfortably bare waiting room, awaiting an uncomfortable conversation with Dr. Gray about C-Flore’s strange illness. The head of Grayburn Industries was already in his office beyond that steel door, speaking with Dr. Walter Jakobsin. He was still surprised that Walter hadn’t reported his and Nicholas’ rather uncivil exchange last month, the one that the other doctor still bore a bruised elbow from. Then again, who would report a fight caused by one’s own wrongdoing? Nicholas’ mouth soured at the thought of what Walter had been trying to do to that girl;Some people were abominations.
Nicholas turned towards Dr. Gray’s office as the steel door began to creak open. He quickly began to collect his papers, but he heard Gray’s voice beyond the door.
“Wait, there’s one more thing I must discuss.”
Walter presumably paused on the other side of the entry, leaving the door slightly ajar. Nicholas felt uneasy about eavesdropping on a private conversation between his boss and his associate, but his curiosity got the better of him. He leaned towards the door, straining his ears.
“. . .Subject C-Flore’s condition is worsening. She can’t be of any use to us anymore. Please dispose of the girl by the end of the week . . .”
The word echoed in Nicholas’ ears like a gunshot. Dispose? Not discharge. Not transfer . . . Dispose.
Kill.
He was moving before thought could stop him. He didn’t take his eyes off the path ahead, mumbling fleeting apologies as he pushed past others in the corridors. By the time his adrenaline steadied, he was standing at her door, breath caught in his throat. He looked down at his hand and finally noticed what it held. Somewhere in the blurred rush, he’d snagged a pistol from the guards’ rec room. The gun seemed to hold all of the weight of the world. The weight of what he was about to do.
He took a deep breath and entered. Like all test-subjects’ rooms, this one was simple. There was a wooden dresser that stored the inhabitants’ clothes, a small bed with a thin mattress and even thinner blankets and pillows, and a buzzing light hanging from the ceiling. Nicholas quickly flicked the light switch, and C-Flore groggily sat up in her bed, her hair messy from an afternoon nap.
Nicholas rushed over to her drawer, grabbing some clothes. “Time to . . .” He stopped. What did he expect her to do? What did he expect himself to do? It wasn’t like she could just . . . Nicholas slowly turned to C-Flore. To Cassandra.
“Dr. Beuren? What’s going on?” Her voice was shakier now, filled with fear that was instilled within her over the course of so many years.
Nicholas spoke without thinking. “We’re leaving.”
For a moment, the world seemed to still. Cassandra stared at him with a mixture of surprise and mild fear.
“I’m . . . Forgive me, can you repeat that?”
“You’re leaving Grayburn, Cassandra.”
Hearing her name, spoken aloud for the first time in years, seemed to spark something within the poor girl. Her eyes widened just slightly, before her mouth curved into . . . God, what a beautiful smile. Nicholas was thrown off by it. How had he never seen her smile like that? How had he lived without seeing her smile like that? It was soft and delicate. So pure.
He took a moment to silently promise himself he would see her smile that way again . . . But first, he needed to get her out of there. He forced his eyes away, moving to the dresser before quickly collecting a few items, not unaware of the fact that every piece was the same stark white cotton with Grayburn Industries’ crest on the front. Cassandra moved too, walking over to him with a renewed liveliness.
“Leaving? Why? How?”
Nicholas didn’t look at her as he spoke, distracted by all the tasks that popped into his head. He’d have to trick the guards into letting Cassandra leave with him, he’d have to.
“Cassandra, I’m saving your life.”
I hadn’t read a newspaper in eleven years, but when I asked, it was the first thing he gave me out here.
Nicholas
January 10th
Nicholas Beuren had never been a daring man. People told him to let loose, but he just couldn’t. He had never let himself do any thrills, never gotten too drunk, never gotten into any real relationships. He had certainly never helped a test subject escape a highly secured medical facility.
He still hadn’t gotten over the fact that it worked. He and Cassandra had maneuvered most of the security that patrolled the labs, then they sort of ran out in a panic, alarms ringing as they stumbled into the city together. Now, rather than sitting in his apartment, comfortably watching the city from his favorite chaise, he sat in an alley while Cassandra hunched over a rubbish bin, retching. It was likely he’d never see his apartment again. The place was probably swarming with Grayburn guards. It’s a good thing he’d never wanted a pet.
He watched Cassandra carefully, his heart sinking with sympathy. He wished he’d been able to bring some more supplies with him. All he’d been able to grab without rousing suspicion were her charts, a nebulizer, and a few vials of Ephedrine. When she stopped dry-heaving into the bin and slowly moved to sit across from him against the other alley wall, he tried to spark up a conversation.
“So… Flower-” She looked up at the affectionate little nickname. Despite her newfound freedom over the past day and a half, she hadn’t talked or even looked him in the eye much yet, so it caught him off guard. “Sorry, Cassandra- It was just a nickname, cause uh, you know..Flore, flower . . .” He trailed off, his face burning. Had he been calling her a nickname she didn’t like for months?
She slowly smiled. “I know. It’s, um, nice.” Nicholas’ heart skipped a beat, and his cheeks reddened a bit more when she slowly scooted towards him, seeming more comfortable now. “My Sisters called me Cass. You know, whenever we were alone.”
“Sisters?” Nicholas raised a brow. Her documents never disclosed any siblings.
Cassandra’s face turned rosy now. It was nice to see the color return to her cheeks. Her voice was quieter now, as if she’d been caught doing something bad. “Oh. Yes, my Sisters . . . It’s just what the other girls in my cell hall called ourselves.” She mumbled something else that Nicholas couldn’t understand.
“Sorry, what was that?” He leaned in slightly, trying to catch her words while ignoring the sudden flip of his stomach. Ridiculous. He was a man of science, not a lovestruck schoolboy. Still, his palms were sweating.
“We called ourselves . . . Sisters in Hell. Forgive me, it’s rather silly . . . Er, it’s more depressing than silly.”
She seemed to sink back into that shell of hers, but Nicholas felt determined to keep her out. He liked talking with her. “No, it’s fine . . . The Labs were like hell to you, weren’t they?” His eyes softened. “And I like Cass.”
“And I like Flower . . . Maybe we can stick with that?”
Another smile. Another stomach flip.
You know what, Flower? If you want to use it, my friends back in University called me Nick. Nicholas is kind of a formal name, anyway, and . . . ” He and Cassandra slowly met each other’s gaze, an unspoken line of trust seeming to tether between them. Neither of them spoke for a moment, the silence wrapping around them like a warm blanket.
Cassandra’s body relaxed, and she finally moved over to Nicholas’ wall, curling her knees up to her chest. Nicholas watched her for a time, his voice friendly. “So . . . What’s.. Your favorite color?”
Cassandra looked at him, her eyes tired but a small smile still on her face. “Yellow. And yours?” The very word, yellow, seemed to lift her exhaustion a little bit. Or perhaps it was his question, the idea of asking her what her favorite color was.
“Guess.”
She tilted her head slightly, her eyes warm. “Yellow as well?”
Nicholas stared at her, the word blue stuck on his tongue. Time seemed to slow just slightly, and he looked up at the blue sky. Then he looked down and saw a little yellow dandelion growing out of a crack in the ground. It was suddenly so much more beautiful.
“I like yellow too, Flower.”
How come time seemed to slow when I was with her? How come our time was so short when every moment felt like a thousand years of bliss?
Cassandra
January 15th
Cassandra Flore’s body felt like glass. She felt fragile, as if one more fall would send her breaking into knife-like shards. Or had she already fallen too many times? Would that explain the pain stabbing her from the inside out? She forced down another rise of bile, her stomach tossing. She was so tired, so hungry. Over the past five days, Nick had tried his hardest to collect food, but they were lucky to have one meal each day, since their faces were practically everywhere. Grayburn had placed bounties on their heads.
Sleeping wasn’t much of a relief from hunger and anxiety. It took so long to fall asleep on the hard cobblestones, and the chilly night air certainly didn’t help either. There were fleeting moments when she wondered if she’d rather die in her cell. At least there was a bed. She rolled over to face Nick, finding it useless to bother attempting to sleep. He sat, using an old box as a table as he scoured her old documents, searching for a cure, as if he could find a way to develop something from the limited supplies he had brought with them.
“Nick . . . Can I have some more medicine, please?” Her voice was hoarse, her lungs weakened to the point that she expected them to collapse. Nicholas murmured a yes, then grabbed the nebulizer from his bag. He tapped the capsule, frowning when he saw how empty it was. He set down the device on his little table and rummaged through his satchel some more.
Cassandra quietly noticed his movements as they became more and more erratic, and she could hear him as he cursed under his breath. He began to throw things out of the bag haphazardly, muttering to himself. He absently discarded empty vials to the side. Vial after vial after vial. Her chest tightened even more when she saw him toss out a handgun.
When the bag was cleared of all its contents, Nicholas ran a hand down his face, cursing again. “Nick?” He looked at her with poorly hidden panic in his eyes. Cassandra propped herself up on her elbows, her concern rising.
“There is no more medicine.”
No more medicine. The medicine that supported her lungs and kept her breathing despite her body rotting from the inside out due to Grayburn’s failed experiment. She nodded in acknowledgement of the news, her expression inscrutable. Nicholas moved to her, his voice soft and apologetically gentle. “Flower, I.. I’m so, so sorry. Maybe I can sneak into the Labs, try to get some more-?”
“Hey! I found them!” A man wearing the familiar navy blue uniform of a Grayburn Industries guard stood at the far end of the alley, pointing. Cassandra took a moment to process what that meant, but Nicholas was already hoisting her to her feet.
“Cass, Flower, we need to run. Can you do that for me, dear?” Even in such a dangerous situation, Nicholas’ voice was gentle. Cassandra nodded slowly, and Nicholas took off, holding Cassandra’s hand as she stumbled along behind him. The guard shouted for them to stop, but they were already racing through the maze of alleyways within the slums.
Nicholas Beuren felt like an idiot. Everything was going wrong; this was supposed to be a life where he could save his Flower, where they could live together in a flat in the countryside, away from Grayburn Industries.
Now, he was racing away from guards as best he could, his body weakened from lack of food and sleep. They were catching up steadily. Cassandra’s breathing had already become wheezy from the exertion of running, and she was hardly staying upright. Why hadn’t he packed more vials? Why hadn’t he made actual, proper decisions before all this? He had never been the rash type, but apparently, love could make a person’s mind turn upside-down. It was madness. He heard the guard’s footsteps following them quickly, but he didn’t look back. They needed to hide.
He and Cassandra fell into an alcove, praying to whatever god was out there that the guards would just run past after turning onto this street. They did. For a few moments, he and Cassandra waited, trying to catch their breath. Cassandra looked pale, and she sounded close to hyperventilation. They needed to escape Landan if they were going to stay free.
He gently guided her out of the alcove after checking again that the guards were gone, and they left the slums, entering the main city of Landan.
Nicholas shielded his eyes from the bright sun that seemed to gleam off the metallic shingled roofs of the apartments and brick buildings around him. His eyes landed on an unattended horse-drawn carriage across the road. The horses looked good and strong, and it wasn’t like the driver would miss just one of them . . . They approached the horses, ignored as if they were any other beggars. They sure looked like beggars, with all the dirt and grime they’d collected from living on the streets the past five days.
He quickly rummaged through his bag for something to release the horse from the carriage with. He sighed in relief when he found a knife he had grabbed while he and Cassandra had left the Labs. He helped Cassandra onto one of the horses, a strong brown thoroughbred. Then, he sliced his knife through the leather straps that harnessed the horse.
Nicholas climbed onto the freed creature, leaning over Cassandra as she weakly handed the reins to him. He shouted for the horse to go, hyah. With a neigh, the horse took off, and the people in the street yelped, forming a path as the crowds parted. He could feel Cassandra’s weak wheezing, her heartbeat going fast beneath him.
As they rode out of Landan, the chase growing farther and farther away as the guards struggled to keep up on foot, he still felt surrounded by ominous doom.
I was his flower. He was my savior. My sisters were wrong. They were all wrong; I was able to leave the cage. I left the cage. God, I left the cage.
Now I wait for him.
Cassandra Flore’s breath came fast and shallow. She felt knives stabbing her everywhere, her skin felt too warm, and her mouth tasted bitter as she coughed up rotten blood. She was on her hands and knees, unsure of how she got off the pretty horse. Nicholas was holding her steady, saying things she couldn’t hear over the blood rushing in her ears. She looked up at him, tears shining in her eyes.
“Nick, it hurts.” She coughed up more black rot, not bothering to wipe her mouth. Sweat dripped from her face. “It really hurts.” After running so fast, her body was going haywire. Her stomach roiled and cramped, her nervous system on fire. She felt so warm, but she was also shivering. God, she was about to die, wasn’t she?
Nicholas Beuren couldn’t stop the tears. He was holding his Flower as she choked on her own bodily tissues, and her skin was so cold and clammy. He ripped off part of his white lab coat, an item he had worn since the escape, trying to absorb the sweat that dripped from her face. He breathed heavily, his mind racing with panic. He dabbed her forehead, whispering to the love of his life.
“I know, sweetheart, I know. I know it hurts. I’ll try to figure out what’s going on with you.” He forced his voice to stay steady, as if that’d help. She retched again, her body lurching as she leaned onto the grass, her fingers digging into the dirt.
He already felt so helpless to stop whatever was coming for his Flower.
It’s unfair. I offered her a way out peacefully, or at least as peacefully as I could think of in that… Awful, god-awful situation. Why did I go like that? Why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she?
Nicholas Beuren, in a mess of panicked tears, ran to his bag, desperately, hopelessly, searching for anything. Nicholas looked up as Cassandra mumbled something about pretty flowers, growing more delirious. After escaping Landan, they had found an empty meadow, maybe a mile away from the city, dotted with small wildflower colonies.
The signs of sepsis were: there, confusion, clamminess, nausea, and vomiting. The young, disgraced scientist racked his mind for answers, but came up empty.
He could.. Feel it, as something just.. Broke within him.
After a moment, he looked in his bag again. A thought occurred to him. She would die in agony if he didn’t.. Give her any mercy. He looked at Cassandra again. He’d let it be her choice. He carefully walked over, carrying the weapon he had stolen from the Grayburn Labs staff and guard rec room only six days ago. He quietly sat beside his Flower, staring down at the Grayburn Industries label on it. He touched her shoulder when she got a small moment of steadiness, holding it out to her. He noticed how badly his voice was shaking.
“It will be painless. Just tell me if you want to. It’s better than dying of sepsis, Cassandra.” He couldn’t look at her. Even if he could, his eyes would still be blurred by the flood of his tears.
Cassandra Flore looked at who she called her savior with bloodshot eyes and a black-rimmed mouth. For a long moment, she felt compelled to take the offer. She was in so much pain. Then.. The light seemed to glint off that familiar little engraving.
Property of Grayburn Laboratories
Her gaze hardened. Grayburn Labs.. Stole her life. They took it from her far too long ago, and she had just gotten it back; she had just been able to defy the gods while she died. What an accomplishment that was. For six days, she dodged death just enough to be able to say her name was Cassandra, not C-Flore.
No. She wouldn’t go back to being a Sister in Hell. She wouldn’t become a bloody, beaten-down test subject on the ground floor of Grayburn Labs. Choosing the option Nicholas offered meant letting them kill her.
She chose to let Immortality kill her.
Nicholas watched as she shook her head, watched as she slowly sat up and swallowed down another round of black bile. The sun, beyond her, setting beautifully, cast a golden silhouette around her, just as charged with defiance and rage as she was. She looked behind her at the sun. When she spoke, still looking back, her voice was hoarse, but it was as strong as she could make it.
“No. They can’t kill me. Not now..” She looked back at him, exhaling. She seemed calmer now. “Nick, we never got to see the sunset in Landan, not very well. Can we watch it now?” She slowly did her best to turn around fully, but Nicholas quickly helped her, tossing the gun away. He settled her against his chest, their breaths slowly finding rhythm. His breath was shaky from tears. Hers was ragged and shallow. Cassandra stared at the sun, and Nicholas stared down at her. The sun seemed to reach across the plain, reaching her face and making the little amber flecks in her brown eyes sparkle as she smiled softly at the wonder before her. His arms wrapped around her in a gentle embrace as he shifted his gaze to the sunset. This was her first and last time seeing the sunset in eleven years. Her voice was weak.
“Nicholas, I love . . .”
Her words trailed off, and Nicholas felt her relax into him. He looked down again. Her smile had faded, and her chest had stopped rising. Nicholas looked back at the sky, his breath hitching as tears flooded down his cheeks. He held her tighter, his voice cracking as he yelled in agony he didn’t realize man could feel.
“NO!” He sobbed into her hair, a hole forming in his chest that was suddenly swallowing everything. “Flower, please, I love you.. I love you, Cassandra, please…”
I am broken glass. Sharp edges, ready to spill blood.
January 16th
Nicholas Beuren didn’t know if he was sane anymore. He didn’t feel like it. It had been a day since Cassandra had died, but Nicholas felt just as dead. He looked to where Cassandra’s body lay.
Yesterday, in a grief-driven daze, he had made a bed of wildflowers; daisies and goldenrod were the most prominent. It was the best he could do. Burial wasn’t an option since he didn’t have any tools. She would’ve liked the arrangement, at least. Yellow was her favorite color.
Now, Nicholas sat in the meadow, absently toying with a dandelion as he pondered. The horse grazed somewhere behind him. It was quiet. Too quiet. He missed the constant noise of the city as pedestrians walked the streets and farmers advertised fresh crops down the street from his apartment. Out here, the only sound was the occasional sigh of the horse and his own breathing. It didn’t match how fast his mind was racing.
He felt angry. Angry for Cassandra. For everyone in those Labs. Angry towards Gray and every other doctor who condoned it all. Angry toward himself, and how he was so indoctrinated into the lie that Grayburn was helping.
He stood, looking over at his things. At that pistol, deadly calm seemed to wash over him.
Gray needed to burn in hell.
I never realized how a man could turn to wrath so easily.
Nicholas Beuren was on his knees in a cold and sterile laboratory, the barrel of a gun resting so calmly on the back of his head. He didn’t feel fear.
After deciding he needed to kill Dr. Gray, he had done what many would’ve called the stupidest act of his life: Riding straight into Landan to find Dr. Gray. As he traveled through the city, he screamed the truth. He explained Cassandra’s story, throwing her documents to the people around him so they could see proof. He probably looked insane, but as long as her suffering was shared with the people, he didn’t care. Eventually, he’d reached Grayburn Labs. Of course, he was brought in with guns pointed at his head from all angles. Now, he waited in this laboratory, awaiting his old boss. His own pistol secretly waited, stuffed into the inside of his old lab coat. He was ready to get a bullet in that old man’s head.
He lifted his gaze from the floor as the door opened and Gray sauntered in. Speak of the devil. His suit was nice and pressed, and he had a smug smile under a thick silvery mustache.
“Well, boy.. You’ve gotten a little big for your britches, haven’t you?” The doctor chuckled, leaning down to get into Nicholas’ face. He resisted the urge to spit. “It’s been a while. Have you finished your games?”
Rage fueled Nicholas’ body as he seethed. “You killed her. You killed Cassandra.”
Gray’s smile widened. “Ah, the girl. You know, it was truly tragic that she died, but you should know that it was for the greater good! You knew that she had immortality coursing through her veins. So what if it killed her? She was a step towards the goal. Besides, it was fate. Everyone’s got to die someday.”
“She was twenty-one! She was younger than I am!”
“So what? The youth die every day, of sickness or accident. Nothing was special about her.”
Nicholas sighed, bowing his head. “You’re so wrong, Gray. She was everything. She was an angel.” He heard Gray chuckle softly, amused, before taking a step back. Nicholas slowly reached into his lab coat, finding the pistol . . .
Gray’s voice was dark. “I heard that on your way here, you tried to share some things about me with Landan. Every action has consequences, Nicholas.” He sighed, mock sympathy staining his words. “I hope you find your lovebird in the afterlife.”
Just as Nicholas whipped out the gun, his eyes flashing with defiance, a bullet blew into the back of his head.
He fell.
Hooked On You
Lioness – Joy Cimino
Hooked On You
Catie Chua
Mom beckoned her tipsy friends around the oak-stump coffee table, the warm overhead lights twinkling in their cracked resin coating like tiny stars that escaped from the dark night sky. With a glass of fizzing champagne in one hand and what remained of her shawl in the other, she looked like the lady on the logo of Columbia Studios — if she had ever-curling locks and a fringed black dress and a dazzling smile, her lips spilling either school secrets or embarrassing stories from your childhood. I had hoped that it was the former, since the adults that were currently present all had kids that went to other schools, but one sniff and a look around the living room soon sealed my fate.
The air was thick and clammy, hinting bitter raspberry that whispered the champagne rosé on the tip of everyone’s tongues. I squeezed in-between Dad and one of his work friends on our cramped couch, and a split-second glance to the stairwell leading to my second-floor safe haven revealed that yet another adult blocked it, his hulking frame letting scant openings of the dark upstairs escape. I knew that my sister had already used the I’m tired excuse, and I had alike gone to the restroom within the last ten minutes. Simply put, I was trapped. I wavered, a small fish in a tank of large sharks, their senses tingling at the piece of flesh that Mom dangled capriciously over their heads. She skimmed over the faces of her guests, set her dangerously low glass of blush-pink poison onto the coffee table, pointed at her left thumb, and promptly betrayed me and my fragile dignity.
“Did you know,” she started, scrutinizing me, totally un-Momlike, “that Nicky got a fishing hook stuck in my finger?”
“Mom,” I groaned quietly, stretching the ‘o’ with faux-exasperation. I channeled everything I had in getting her attention, like Matilda slipping a salamander into Ms. Trunchbull’s water jug. Mom didn’t get my telepathic memo, however, and started telling her silly tale with as much detail as a drunk adult could muster. As embarrassment heated my resigned face, I, too, was thrust into that cloudy, hook-filled September night.
The pier that we were fishing atop stretched far into the dark waters of the Atlantic Ocean, roiling underneath the artificial bright whites of the overhead LEDs. I thread the spiral of coarse, stiff-shelled shrimp through the curve of my mom’s fishing hook while she read out the names of fish that were (supposedly) active during the fall season.
“Nicky, I think we can catch king mackerel and flounder right now!” When those names struck my ears, determination sparked in my chest, like flint striking steel. I saw myself hauling up a great thrashing kingfish, earning my place on the Surf City Wall of Fame as everyone around me watched in fixed wonder. Or, better yet, triumphing in the form of a flounder the size of two dinner plates and taking a selfie with it, then heading home with it descaled and fileted so Mom and I could feast on authentic, All-American Flounder. With the thought of catching such aquatic wonders fresh in my mind, I baited my own hook with a slippery, fleshy shrimp and prepared for it to fly.
Many fishermen say that casting your line is an art form. It requires dexterity, timing, and, in some cases, elegance. Casting is like throwing a thin dart at an invisible scoreboard; you don’t know you’ve hit anything until your score is tallied. I’ve casted my line countless times during my brief time fishing, but never before had I thrown it so far — and into such a vast space, either. I squeezed the cork grip of my fishing rod with my slick, slightly-sticky fingers, and wound my arms back like I was hitting a home run. With a sharp inhale of the fresh, briny ocean air, I propelled my rod forward, waited a second as the silvery line coasted above the water, then snapped my reel shut. Leaning forward onto the wooden brace of the pier, I saw the small, triangular weight disappear with a plop into the navy-white waves below me. I straightened my posture and trained my eyes onto the thin, arcing pole, waiting for the rhythmic bob of the ocean’s influence on the line to be interrupted by a tiny heartbeat of a tug. A minute passed, maybe three – it couldn’t have been more than five – and that telltale snag of a fish upon my hook wormed its way through the rod and up my fingers. With my heart a quickening and heady drum in my ears, I jerked harshly on the rod and drew in my prey, wrists flurrying on the handle of the reel. What emerged from the depths of the sea was glistening, pure white under the artificial lamplights above it, hazy and almost dreamlike. Marked right below its eye was a large, black circle.
I called Mom over from her fiddling with her own rod. “Mom, look, I think I caught a spot!”
“It’s not a bad size, honey! We can’t eat it, but it’s a good start! Teach me how to cast, and I bet I’ll catch an even bigger one than that.” Ever cheerful, she snapped a photo of me and the fish. After slipping it off the hook, I gave it a chaste kiss on its lips and threw it back into the ocean. “Alright, Mom,” I agreed, gesturing for her to pick up her rod and follow my lead, my baitless hook dangling and catching the light. Again, I grasped the rod tight, nodding as she did the same. “So you just pull it back like this-”
“AAAAAHHHH!!!!”
A harsh shriek, piercing and abrupt, came from Mom’s direction. I whipped my head back, noticing that the fishing line trailed from the top of my rod all the way to Mom, my hook buried halfway into her thumb. It hit me then, when I saw the dark blood surge around the hook and bead up to the surface, that I had just harmed my mother. Not only that, but I physically hurt her; it was as if seeing Mom bleed was proof that this whole trip was a mistake. Shame, ugly and sharp, dripped down my back like barnacles on a shell, or grease down a drain. I folded into myself and inside my mind I realized a Leviathan that submerged my body in icy water, drowning out everything and everyone except the sight of Mom, her face distorted in distress and words muffled through a block of ice.
Oh God… Oh God… I thought as I watched a man cut the line that connected the hook to my fishing rod, wrestling the hook out of her finger to no avail. Contempt-filled phrases echoed inside of me like a desperate, lamenting chant that didn’t know whether to seek absolution or exile. Somehow, through my whirlwind of self-loathing, Mom’s surprisingly gentle, clear-cut voice coaxed me toward her: “Come on, Nicky. Let’s go back to the shop; I think they can help us better there.” I trailed behind her like a lost fawn, my eyes downcast and fixed upon the salt-stained planks of stripping wood that fit against each other intimately. My fingers clenched helplessly into my too-hot palms, the pier lights’ strident glowers beating down on me with each step after Mom. I crossed the threshold between the jetty and the tackle store, one coarse and dark and the other exuberant and glowing.
Abruptly, the lights stopped scrutinizing me, and there was no chill in the air. Everything was warm and cluttered and lived-in, and Mom was laughing. With a spirited tone to her words, she told the gruff man behind the counter, “My daughter was teaching me a casting trick when she hooked me instead of a fish!”
He let out a small chuckle, and said, “I can fix this quickly. You have no idea how many people get fish hooks stuck in themselves out here.” With that, the man brought out a thin length of fishing line, bowed it between the hook’s crescent, and gave a single yank to the line. As if in slow motion, I saw the barbed tip that riveted inside Mom’s thumb slip out, then clatter tinnily onto the counter within a split second. Mom was elated.
“God. Did you see that, Nicky? Did you take any photos? It was painless! That other guy, the one who was trying to wiggle the hook out, he was really hurting me. Thanks so much.”
After Mom wrapped a band-aid around her thumb, I could only stare in amazement at the spot where the hook had dug in. It wasn’t bleeding profusely. She wasn’t screaming in pain. She laughed as she exited the shop.
“Sorry…” I mumbled. Mom gave me a wide smile, then pulled me in for a tight hug. She was warm against the brisk fall air.
“Honey,” she began, lightness lacing her words like the first draft of spring, “cheer up! It was an accident, right? You know what, I think you need to learn to brush things off more. It’s not like I lost my hand or anything!” I nodded quickly.
“Thanks, Mom. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures.”
“It’s okay. I got a good story out of it. And we’re gonna laugh at it later, anyways.”
“Stop! Don’t tell anyone… it’s embarrassing.”
I hurried those words out of my mouth, knowing she was most definitely thinking about telling that story to her friends already. But I knew she was right — I was going to laugh about it later, and I did need to toughen up a little.
Mere months later, I huddled closer to the oak-stump coffee table, listening to the end of Mom’s embellished retelling. In hindsight, I thought it silly that I overspun my thoughts, so much so that I forgot the majority of what happened between the hooking and the releasing. Mom’s version was, after all, far more lighthearted than my memory of it. I knew that the next time something that memorable happened, I needed to embrace it… and get photo evidence. After all, I’ll never know if I can top the time I hooked my mom on a fishing trip.
The Coin
Folded Balance – Carlissa Nargassans
The Coin
Angie Martilla
Connell walked up to the cave, fog surrounding the entrance as if warning him to stay back, but he had traveled too far to turn back.
He hastily reached into his cloak while he tightened his grip on the torch in his hand. Out of his pocket, he pulled out a leather-bound journal. From the brown and dirty cover, that had more than enough rips and tears to show its years, to the small, carved initials of C.M. being barely legible in the bottom, the journal looked as if it was something to find at the bottom of a cart of junk alongside scrap metal and rotten food. But to Connell’s father, everything he held dear was in that journal.
And to Connell, everything he held dear were in the very same pages.
He opened the journal, scanning the pages of scrabbled notes and messy pictures hoping to find the very same cave that his father found all those years ago, and hopefully the same cave that stood before him now. But as he turned through the pages, he paused at one. A single page that was not filled with scribbles or sketches but instead three simple photos. One was of his mother, who had her best blue dress on, with the lace and ribbons tied neatly. The one below hers was of his brother, who refused to wear a hat even at mother’s insistence, and Connell s`tanding side by side. They were about eight in that picture, maybe Connell a year younger, even if it didn’t look like it because Connell had stood on his tiptoes to seem taller. He remembered being quite excited to be able to have his picture taken, remembering how his father had saved up coin after coin from working each night in the hot and musty forge just so his family could get a photo. It was a bittersweet memory for the family. The moment after the photos were shot, he heard of a tale of gold, jewels, treasure, and everything fine in life from a traveler in a bar. He vowed to find that treasure and bring fame to the Midian name, even if he had to die for it.
Father always did keep his word.
About a year later, a trader came to town, and handed the same journal to his mother’s shaking hands as she tried to hold back her tears. She tried to hide the novel, but Connell had found it. Just like he was about to find the treasure his father so desperately searched for.
But it was not those photos that made him pause, but the ones at the bottom. It was no formal picture. No one had dressed nice; in fact, they still had muck and dirt on their faces and clothes. They just were lucky enough to find a nice gentleman to snap a photo of them for as little as a penny. It was a photo of his lifelong friends, Berwin and Eddy, young as 11, grinning from ear-to-ear.
Connell’s hand tightened around the spine of the book. Only a few hours ago, they were on this journey with him, crossing a rushing river. But Berwin in his stupidity, slipped and fell into the water. They had managed to get him out, but the fall had twisted his ankle and left a deep gash in his arm.
Eddy wanted to go back. He wanted to return to their town, he said Berwin could not walk the rest, and the gash on his arm could get infected. What foolishness! They were only ten miles of woods away, and those fools were acting like it was a hundred. He told him that Berwin’s gash needed to be treated, that they needed to return to the nearby town down the cliff before his wound got infected.
But Eddy had insisted, but Connell was just as hard-headed as he. So, they left. They crossed the river and went out of his sight. He reckoned by now that they were probably at the Auxilium Town, gathering supplies before making the rest of the way.
Connell began flipping the pages again, thinking of the jealousy they would feel when he returned home with more treasure than his weight, and more jewels than three carts could carry. He imagined the envy they would feel when all the world knew of Connell and his father, of the fame they would gain, and the luxuries they would receive. It filled him with a sort of excitement and pride, as bad as that sounded.
Then he found the page, a sketch of the cave, messy but clear to him. Connell looked up at the structure before him and back at the sketch. All the details were there. The five rocks hanging on the roof of the mouth being shown with disproportionate triangles, the moss that was on the bottom boulders being shown with hurried dots, it was the same.
Inside was jewels, inside was gold, inside was his fame.
So, he took a step forward and held his torch and head up high.
He soon came to a room in the cave. Fog shrouded the back wall making it impossible to see. The cold nipped at his skin, raised the hair on his arms, and his teeth chattered slightly. He looked forward and pointed his torch to see more. In front of him, he found two basins both filled with water. The one on the left was made of gold and shimmering rubies adorning the sides. The one on the right was made of wood, a far more humble bowl. In the center, was pedestal where a wooden chest sat upon it
He smiled at the sight of the chest. His eyes gleaming with greed and victory as he hurriedly opened it, letting the torch fall to the ground in haste. He ripped the box open, and his smile fell as he saw what lay within.
One singular gold coin.
He snatched the coin and stared at it. With each passing second, his grip tightened to the point that his fingers turned red. This was it? A small, meager, insignificant coin?
He readied himself to throw it but paused when a small light emanated from the test before shooting up and exploding into the form of a woman. She was tall with a gentle face and eyes despite being a spirit. Fabric from her white gown fell down her feet like drapes and a simple, humble crown made of leaves sat adorned upon her hair. The light shining from her brightened the whole room but the fog behind her and the basins.
Connell picked up his club and held it high, ready to swing like a bat. “If you want the treasure-“
She shook her head and spoke, her voice soft yet soothing. “Nothing here will harm you. Only your choices.”
Connell refused to lower the bat but listened as she spoke.
She moved her hand to her left indicating the golden basin. “Place the coin here, and you will receive the treasure you seek. You will find all you wish and have all you wish. Place the coin here and your name will become legend among others. Poets will write tales of you, men in battle will sing songs of you, and even kings will know of your name. Place the coin here, and you will join them.”
She pointed to the fog beyond her. Connell listened closely, squinting to see what was behind the mist.
He heard sounds of jovial laughter, of cheery music, and the clinking of gold coins falling. He smelled roasted turkey, mutton chops, and the sweet allure of pastries. He saw faint figures at a table, laughing buoyantly, and he saw the shimmer of gold.
He took a step to the basin but was stopped by the spirit. She held her hand out to the right of her.
“Place the coin here and you will return home safely. With no harm to you and all things healed. Here, you will not have a name of legend come with ease, but here you will have a worthwhile life to live.”
He looked at the humble basin and heard a crackling fire, his mother’s voice, and the laughter of Eddy and Berwin6. He could even faintly smell meat stew, his favorite meal.
He looked up at the spirit woman, hoping for perhaps a piece of advice or any more things to say, but she stared at him silently. From the corner of his eyes, into the fog he saw a face. A face with the same eyes he saw when looking into the mirror, a face that was the same as the photo sat upon the mantel about the fireplace at home, and was looked at with grief.
He did not say a word, nor did he step closer. He merely did a gesture, a small movement of his head before disappearing back into the fog, into the noises of cheering and clinking of coins. Connell looked at the coin in his hand and ran his thumb over the carvings on it.
With a flick of his thumb, Connell flipped the coin into the air, and it landed into the basin with a soft plop.
Smarter Than You Think
A Starry Eye- Shriya Bhatnagar
Smarter Than You Think
By: Mia Sekula
“So how do you think you did on the Bio test?” One of my friends asked another.
“Eh, it could have gone better. Did you put that the substance had proteins because Cyanide has Nitrogen?” My two friends had their regular AP Biology debrief after each test. I hadn’t taken the test yet, so I quietly sat beside them and listened to any insightful tips I might need for when I took it next period.
“Is there anything on the test that’s not on the study guide that I should know?” I spoke during a window of silence within the conversation. Their faces contorted in confusion that I knew what they were talking about.
“You take AP Bio?” One “friend” looked me up and down, on her way back up to my face, the shocked look in her eyes met my slightly confused gaze.
“Haha, yeah? I take the test next period.” I spoke with a slight tone of offense underneath my awkward laugh. Yes, I take AP Biology, Honors Physics, Honors Precalculus AB, and a ton of other difficult classes. Why is that surprising to you? Why is that surprising to anyone?
“Oh. That’s a hard class, you know. What’s your grade?” My two friends exchanged a look that told me they had completely disregarded my previous comments earlier that week about how much I love science, specifically Biology. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that I’m taking AP Biology.
“Why do you seem taken aback? I have a 93.” I looked at them both. My eyebrows scrunched up, my mouth hung slightly open, and my head tilted to the side.
“Wow. I just never expected someone like you to take such a hard class. You don’t strike me as a smart type of person because. . . I mean well. . . your hair is perfect every day, and you always have your makeup done.” They turned and walked away while I looked at my dirty blonde hair with its lighter highlights and remembered how tired I looked in the mirror at 6 AM, putting on mascara, and inspecting the blemishes on my face that I held myself back from picking at. What’s wrong with looking good? That doesn’t mean I’m not smart. I shouldn’t sacrifice my looks for my knowledge. Having below-average looks doesn’t mean you aren’t smart. There are plenty of beautiful women who are insanely intelligent. Marie Curie, for example, found two new elements and became an extremely well-known scientist all around the world. She remains the only person who has won 2 separate Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields. People should recognize that girls– both in high school and everyday life–carry so much potential that goes unrecognized. They can be as bright as Marie Curie, if only they didn’t have their worth determined based on their bodies. A girl can 100% have a beautiful body and angelic face without everyone else thinking she’s a dumb teenage girl.
Despite that, many assume that if a girl always has her hair done, makeup perfect, and works out every day, that she can’t be smart. For some reason unbeknownst to me, she can’t possibly be “pretty” and have straight A’s. Teenage girls and adult women constantly prove that they’re worth more than just a statement piece to their husbands. One night, my hand vigorously filled out questions in my AP Biology Biozone book, and worksheets of ellipses and circles from Precalculus scattered around my desk, Laufey – my favorite music artist at the time – played softly in my AirPods while I focused on the macromolecules on the page. Her new album, A Matter of Time, shuffled songs that soon earned their way onto my playlist. I sat with one foot on the ground and the other on my chair, my knee to my chest, and my mind twisting like the shape of proteins. A specific line of her song “Snow White” brought me out of the mesmerizing spell that proteins and carbohydrates had cast on me. I paused my writing as the silky, flowy, jazzy rhythm of the song blessed my ears and unlocked a realization that had been lost in my brain. “A woman’s best currency is her body, not her brain,” ( Jónsdóttir 2025). I paused, dropped my pencil, and looked around my desk and the floor at the scattered papers and binders, then looked in my mirror to my left. I’m no Marilyn Monroe, of course, but I’d say I have good facial features. I’m definitely not “ugly” per se. Suddenly, everything clicked. I’m very smart, but no one asks for my help because I don’t look like I’m smart. I know for a fact that to some people, I look like I take all CP classes with a 56% average and a 1.4 GPA, all because I take extra time out of my day that’s designated towards my appearance. I always offer my help to my classmates if they’re struggling, and they brush me off and turn to the guy with glasses in the back, quietly yet frantically scribbling down equations. They second-guess my answer when I show them how I did it, and even when I prove that I know what I’m doing, they always give me the same unsure answer: “Thanks, but I’ll just ask the teacher, this doesn’t seem right to me.”
This bias continuously follows me everywhere I go. Even in public outside of school, I’m constantly proving that I am smart and that there’s more to me than what I look like. I was out and about in downtown Wake Forest, shopping with an iced caramel latte in one hand and a bag from the previous store in the other. Someone on the sidewalk, surrounded by a group of people, was pumping a sign into the air that screamed in raging red letters, “GUESS THE BODY PART – FUTURE DOCTORS ONLY”. Coincidentally, I love the human body, and I’m very knowledgeable about it, so I tried getting his attention in hopes he would ask me a question. He paused when he caught my eye, looked me up and down, as if determining my worth based on how much skin I showed and how much makeup was on my face, if any. He shook his head after I saw reluctance and skepticism flash in his eyes and waved me off, ignoring my efforts entirely. He chose someone else who looked like a “smart person” and asked a man in blue jeans and a bland, tasteless white T-shirt what the thigh bone is called. The drab, disappointing “smart” man–whom I admittedly became envious of–nudged his black Ray Ban glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose, he smugly said, “Humerus.” Yikes. That couldn’t have been more wrong. I looked at him like he said the Earth was flat. My mouth agape, my eyes slightly squinted, and my brows furrowed. It infuriated me the way I was robbed of that experience because the man holding the sign didn’t think I knew what the femur was. I brushed it off and stayed optimistic by thinking that maybe he didn’t choose me because I looked too young, or maybe he thought I would have been wrong. Even if I was too young and even if I did get it wrong, I should have still had a chance. I shouldn’t prove people wrong because they look at me and think a certain way. I want the same opportunities that other people get, showing off their intelligence. I believe I should be taken seriously when I worked just as hard for my wits as the next person. Falling into the generic category, “the dumb teenage girl,” especially when I give them no real reason other than how I look, would be letting them win and giving in to the stereotype.
The generalization that you can only be smart if you’re ugly doesn’t only come from my peers. It’s also a mental obstacle that every teenage girl consistently works towards overcoming, but they succumb to the generalization that they are a part of the others. What people say about me often gets to my head. And if enough people say the same thing, commenting on my intelligence based on my appearance, it won’t matter how smart I think I am if all I believe I’m good for are my initial looks to others. One night, I sat at my desk, the lamp providing the only source of light in my disheveled room filled with clothes on the floor. My pink mechanical pencil weaved in, out, and around my fingers as I stared at a problem from my math class. I had a math test coming up soon, and it was crucial that I understood optimization. But I just couldn’t. It didn’t make sense to me, although it should have. I wasn’t used to math not making sense because math was my thing. I sighed, felt defeated, and pushed my chair away from the math problem that looked back at me with disappointment, so I took a break and walked around my room. I stopped in front of the mirror that watched me get ready every morning, and I thought that maybe it judged me for taking too much time out of my day. The time I spent getting ready could have been put towards understanding math concepts. I stared in disbelief, and the girl who fell into the generalization stared back. I valued my appearance over my education and made myself believe that my extra 30 minutes in the morning brushing my hair, choosing an outfit, and putting on mascara, making sure every lash was in place, evenly coated, and perfectly curled, was the reason for my B in math class. I had never gotten a B because I had always been a straight-A student, but playing this constant mental game of great test score vs. great lashes affected how I saw myself. Over the years, the confidence levels deteriorated because of it. I found myself believing what other people said about my appearance, about how I couldn’t possibly look “pretty” and be smart, so it made me believe that choosing one or the other was necessary.
A woman’s brain and intelligence should be the defining factor; it should never come down to how much skin she shows and the amount of makeup caked onto her face. Women in the workplace are considered “pretty little things” who are only looked at, and people think “they only got the job they have because of their body”. Their level of intelligence often gets overlooked by their perfect teeth and symmetrical face. Both men and women go through the same academic rigor for the jobs they have now, yet women are the only ones people believe got to the top because of their pretty faces.
Now and then, when “Snow White” by Laufey comes up on my playlist while I’m studying, I pause and mouth the words to that line, reminding myself that no matter how many honors and AP classes I take, and what my grade is in all of them, my worth as a human being and as a teenage girl will always be judged by my body, not my brain. Departing from that generalization is my responsibility, and it’s a confidence-crushing mindset that I refuse to fall into.
Works Cited
Jónsdóttir, Laufey. “Snow White”. A Matter Of Time, Vingolf Recordings, 2025. Spotify App
Stranger from the Rain
Water Drops on Thorns – Lilly Ramsey
Stranger from the Rain
Evelyn Lunardini
Footsteps echoed against the tile floor as moonlight seeped in through the windows. Marliene walked with a stack of old leather books in her arms to the corner of the ancient library. Her footsteps stopped in front of a tall bookshelf that held a great number of old books. She brushed a piece of hair out of her eyes before running her hand along the spines. She lingered and stopped on a certain book towards the end of the shelf and pulled the false book halfway out. She could hear the pulleys and gears winding behind the hidden door as the bookshelf slowly screeched open. The noise was unpleasant but having been around it so long, Marliene was used to it by now. The door creaked to a stop and she stepped inside the room. She placed down the books in her hand onto the table and reached to her side in the dark to grab the box of matches. She pulled one out of its resting spot and lit it using the wall. Lighting the lamp, she picked up her books and made her way down the dark tunnel. The tunnel was made purely out of stone and she walked for a good half mile before light began to appear in front of her, growing brighter until it broke out into a wide open space.
The room was round with a step down to the middle of the room where a fire pit sat in the middle. Pillows scattered the floors and lights sparkled on the ceilings. Marliene blew out the lamp and set it aside on the floor. She walked over to her bed that sat near the stairs for the second floor. Setting her books on her bed, she rubbed her hands up her arms to try to warm herself and walked over to the fire pit. Taking the poker, she stoked the fire to a consistent blaze. Settling in on a pillow, she watched the flames dance on the wood. As she closed her eyes, a squeaking sound came from under a pillow.
“Pio! What are you doing under there?” She leaned toward the pillow and lifted it up to find the source of the squeaking. Pio, Marliene’s small ferret, rushed into her arms and curled up into a little ball.
“What were you doing under there?” Marliene slid her two fingers across the ferret’s head when a bang on the old oak doors reached her ears. The sound disrupted the ferret and he bounded out of Marliene’s lap and into another hiding spot. Marliene got up from the pillows and ran up the stairs to look out the window that overlooked the front doors. It had started to rain and a man clothed in black was standing at the large brown door dripping wet. Marliene slid down the railing of the stairs and ran to the opening of her cave. She grabbed her lanter, the fire had not yet gone out. Pio ran to come meet her at the door, watching with his small eyes.
They ran through the library until they got to the old oak door. The door was at least ten feet tall with ancient carvings decorating it from top to bottom. She unlocked the huge lock and opened the door which made a low groan as it moved.
“Hello are you Marliene?” The man asked. He was much taller than Marliene, but she figured he was around the same age.
“Yes.” she replied. The rain was coming down even harder now.
“My name is Nevian and I would like to speak with you.” He pushed his dark, black hair wet from the rain out of his eyes. “May I come in?”
Marliene thought about letting him in and decided that even if he was dangerous, Pio would bite and she had a dagger in her boot in a pocket she fashioned months ago.
“Ok.” She stepped aside to let him in. As he walked through the door he looked around in awe at the great library.
“Quite impressive.” He took off his jacket and hung it on the coat rack by the door. Marliene looked around with him and she was in total agreement. From the pale tiles to the winding rows of books, the library had intricate details scattered throughout the building.
“Yes. Been in my family for years.”
“Hmm. Amazing. Well,” he stopped looking around abruptly and walked out of the entryway. “shall we sit down?”
“Oh yes.” She was thrown off by the stranger directing her in her own home, but didn’t correct him. “Follow me.”
She led him to the lounge-like area in the corner of the library and he sat down at one of the old couches. Marliene picked a dark colored green chair across from him.
“Can I offer you some tea? Water?” Marliene got up again and rushed over to the small kitchen area at the back of the small room.
“Yes, tea please. Now, you are probably wondering why I am here and I don’t blame you. It is odd for someone to show up uninvited especially in this type of weather.” Nevian propped his boots up on the table and Marliene cringed inside as she heard his boots hit the antique wood. Once again ignoring his rudeness and busied herself with the tea.
“Let me ask you a question.” He exhaled a long sigh. “What do you know about your family?”
Marliene faltered with the tea bags and his question echoed in her head. She knew nothing about her family to be honest. She had been living on her own, well not entirely on her own if you count Pio, for as long as she could remember.
“What about them?” She tried to hide how startled she was.
“Well, what if I told you one of your relatives was alive?” He raised his eyebrow almost knowing that she was listening now. Marliene thought about what he said and brushed it off immediately.
“What if I told you they weren’t?” She asked back. “I have no family. They have been dead for years.” She walked the cups of tea over to the table in front of Nevian. He swung his feet down from the table and took the tea cup between his hands to warm himself.
“You can deny it as much as you want but they are alive. I’m asking you to leave this place and find out for yourself.” He said before taking a sip of tea. Thunder broke outside and the rain came down harder now.
“Let me guess. You want me to go on some high stakes adventure to get out of my comfort zone and leave the library? That’s asking a lot from someone you just met, isn’t it?” She responded.
“And let me guess. You have been stuck here your whole life never stepping outside to see what the world is actually like only reading about it in stories and claiming you know everything.” Aside from his harsh remark, Nevian was keeping a wide smile on his face as if he enjoyed the fight. Marliene felt his words slam her like a punch to the stomach.
” For your information, I’ve been to town plenty of times. And no. I won’t go. Why would I risk my life for someone who never even came to visit or seemed to care about me before?”
“Reasonable to ask, but they still are family.” He had a point there. Marliene remained quiet and sat drinking her tea. Nevian took another huge sigh and set a piece of paper down on the table.
“It seems that your mind is set so I will leave you alone.” He said as he got up to leave. “If you change your mind though.” He nodded toward the paper on the table and turned to leave. Marliene followed him and shut the door behind him.
As she cleaned up the cups she ran over what her strange guest had said to her. Was she afraid of leaving? It was all she had ever known. She sat down with a big sigh and looked around her home. If it wasn’t a library, it would surely have been a palace. The priceless chandeliers that hung from the ceiling were lit with a dim light and the books on the shelves, that had been dusted thousand times over, had enough adventures and stories for a lifetime. She didn’t need to make her own. Did she? She picked up the piece of paper and read where to meet Nevian if she had changed her mind. Pio came to curl up next to her and she patted his little head.
She and Pio headed back through the tunnel and once in the round room, Pio bounded away to one of his hiding spots. Marliene exhaled a long sigh she felt that she was holding all day. Putting down the lamp by the door again, she walked over to her bed to put on her nightgown. She slumped down onto her bed and opened the piece of paper the stranger had given her.
If you change your mind, I’ll be at the tavern in town until tomorrow night.
She scoffed at the words. Did he really think she was going to go find him? A feeling tugged at the back of her mind. Why did she feel like she should go? Family was never important to her and she was doing just fine on her own. She got up from her bed and walked up the stairs and over to the huge window that overlooked the town. She had, of course, gone into town and met other people, but going out into the world itself on her own felt overwhelming. She watched the rain pour down on the town as the lamp lights flickered in the wind. She rubbed her hands up her arms and tried to decide what her next step would be.
Just One Leg
A Sunset’s Mirror – Oliver Kuhns
Just One Leg
Quinn Scislowicz
The street lamps guiding the cars on the highway flashed in my eyes. The last sight before I felt blood flooding the concrete around me and the broken car parts, scattered. I braced myself for the pain the moment I swerved off the road, but only heard an instant pop in my leg. My ears rang with the sound of sirens approaching my limp body.
After feeling the cold, gloved hands of the paramedics, it finally occurred to me what had happened. My vision became less blurred, and the red Toyota flipped over in the distance came into my vision.
The patterned beeps hit my eardrums hard, coming from the left of me. I don’t recall the transition from the side of the road to the hospital. Fluorescent lights filled my vision.
“He’s awake.”
Suddenly, several people surrounded me, fluttering with chatter and blue rubber gloves.
“Does this hurt?” I felt the sweat beads begin to form on my forehead, and I could practically envision my cheeks turning bright red, exposing the anxiety that I could all of a sudden feel deep in my chest.
“Mom?”
“I need my mom.” I only realized after the fact how harsh my tone was when the room became quiet and eye contact was made throughout.
“Your mom is on the way, honey. Right now, we need to focus on figuring out the severity of your injuries. We can only figure this out by getting information from you.” The nurse gazed down at my bleeding cuticles. She glanced out the door and stopped someone, “Bring me the stress toys.” “I’m going to touch your left leg, can you tell me if you feel anything at all?” I balled up my fist and nodded. She tapped on my leg. My leg was severely swollen, and I gasped at the slightest tap of her finger. She spoke into the intercom. “Torn anterior cruciate ligament, left leg.” I glanced at her, and I recognized whatever scientific term that was.
I lost my train of thought when my mom’s voice echoed from outside the room.
“Where is he?”
Air flowed into the room from the door swinging open, and I was relieved by the sight of a familiar face. She rushed over to me, but before she could get a word out, the doctor asked her to step outside for a word. If it’s about me, why should I be the only one not knowing? Before leaving the room, she handed me a fidget toy and gave a half smile. The ones that all doctors have to give. The fidget was soon covered in sweat, coming from my palms.
“Elijah, we have some news for you.”
My mom’s arms were crossed, meaning this news would be disappointing.
“The pain you’re feeling in your leg is a torn ACL, the harsh impact from your knee striking the dashboard. Luckily, this means only one leg was affected.” That’s why I recognized it, my coach had told us about how her good old days were ruined by a torn anterior cruciate ligament.
Torn ACL.
Tears ran down my cheek. Not of sadness, just of anxiety, remembering how just last week I was worried about my upcoming game, I should’ve been grateful to have to endure that worry. My head stayed down, but my eyes met the doctor and questioned what this would mean for me. I could envision the rest of my life going to complete trash, I’d get no exercise because of a stupid ligament, and become fat. Then the obesity would send me into a depressed state, and I’d be gone by 50. Luckily, a nurse interrupted my thought process.
“This doesn’t mean forever, you will go into physical therapy, and with either crutches or a walker, you can still move around day to day. We will ensure you get on the road to a full recovery.” I picked at my cuticles, just reminding myself that she is only saying this because she gets paid to.
She talked about it as if it would be a relief that only one leg was injured. She opened her mouth to talk again, but once she read my face, she looked to my mom to talk once again outside. They came back in.
“Elijah, the doctor and I think it’s best you get into both physical therapy and counseling, it’s to benefit you and get you better quicker.”
“How is counseling going to help anything? Talking about how my whole soccer career is ruined because I got into a car crash?” She looked sorry for me. I hated it.
“The good thing is, we can have you out of here within a night. After that, we just need to run tests and ensure we can prevent things like damage to the meniscus or other dysfunctions. We will then proceed with 36 days of intensive physical therapy and analyze what will have to be done from there.” Followed with a smile. I still found a way to incorporate sarcasm into the conversation,
“Great, sounds exciting.” I regret that sarcasm, because those nurses stayed with me through the battle.
48 days.
1152 hours.
69120 minutes.
That’s how much time I spent recovering from the torn ACL in my left leg. It doesn’t sound long, but when you’re constantly reminded of what you can’t do anymore. Trust me, it’s a long time. The worst part, though, was having to watch your team play through a screen. The 4th of July was the day I walked without crutches. Surrounded by the sound of fireworks. I think those fireworks were for me. The next day, I attended my team’s championship game. They gave me the trophy. That was the first time I realized how much my teammates were really family. I began to view my leg as a blessing. It allowed me to sit on the sidelines. Mentally and physically. I was so convinced that I needed soccer to basically live. Having it taken away from me let me realize my worth doesn’t come from a sport. I came back to the sport, rusty, but I gained something else. I was a better player; instead of my chest feeling like a knot during warmups, I sensed gratitude for being able to play. You really do have to lose something to realize it’s worth.
I lost just one leg.
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.