Writing

Haiku Collection

by Isabel Vélez

I always tell you

Text me if you need something

I truly mean it.

-I know how it feels

A feathery kiss

Dusts over my cheek and says

I wish you were here.

- When you leave your body

I want nothing more

Than to sleep in your presence

My dreams might retreat.

-Hearing your breathing

She never told you

Because she didn’t know how

She thought you might break.

-Their feelings over yours

To ask her to smile

Is to demand submission

There’s none of that here.

-To the man who told me to smile because it was a Saturday

Dear 2008

For a year, I believed that

There was a God.

-I miss Barack

There is a reason

That I have braids in my hair

And hoops in my ears.

 -Longing for Ecuador

I see her feet ache

I sense her pain in my bones

Soon it is my turn.

-Physical Empathy

the phone call you want

will happen in due time

the voice can’t be mine.

   - I cannot give you what you want

I hated this song

all it did was make me cry

now I’m singing it.

-The songs your parents play you in the car

it didn’t happen

not in the way you assumed

it’s all in my head.

-When you don’t have the words

the ink runs out first

she puts down the pen even

when she knows not to.

- Follow your gut

the world holds nothing

greater than the feeling when

you save your own life.

-Continuing on like never before

look into their eyes

take a deep breath and tell them

not now, not ever.

-When they yell at you while you’re crying

Mother and Daughter

by Edan Morgan-Paul

It was almost five o’clock. She walked up to the front door and stopped within an inch of touching it.

The memories began, even before she turned the door handle. It took forever to reach the kitchen. While she walked through the entry, the old woman gave in to the memories.

One by one, flashes of the past came through her mind. Violent and angry, it seemed, bits and pieces.

It seemed these memories were going backward. From the most recent, to the very first.

There was her daughter, crying. She was always crying.

“Mother,” she had said. “Mother, what have you done?”

What had she done? She?

No, the more important question: what could she have been expected to do? After coming home to her only daughter, her little girl, with a man she had never seen. A man who was so much older. A man who meant nothing but trouble.

She could hardly have walked up and kissed his cheek, said, “Welcome to the family,”, and invited the bastard in for dinner. She could not have done that.

What she could’ve done, and what she did do, was snatch a rod from the fireplace. She showed him the red iron tip and growled.

Daughter had screamed.

The man was surprised. He backed to the door.

But not before she leaped across the room, poker outstretched. Not before he turned back to see her, and she hit him full in the face, and she was the last thing he ever saw.

He had screamed, the man, awful red welts already swelling at his eyes.

The daughter had cried then as well.

In the entry, now, a few blood stains were on the carpet. The paisley white carpet, that she had paid for.

Into the kitchen she went. It would have been a pleasant kitchen if anyone else lived there. If anything else was stored there but bottles, and rancid casseroles, from neighbors who meant well.

Another memory came to her, from a few years ago.

Daughter was there with her, they were chopping onions for a stew. Tears were in the girl's eyes. She fought the flood with her brown hands, but couldn’t stop them from coming.

“Mother,” she had said. “Why can’t I go to the neighbor’s party?”

This question had been asked many times; as if she didn’t know.

“It isn’t just the neighbors,” she replied. “You know the rule. Yet you still ask. I am tired of this.”

“I’m sorry,” the little girl had said, after a moment. “I know the rule.”

But her dark eyes were still full of sadness, as if there was someone to blame, as if she didn’t know what would happen if she were to go to the party.

“Those girls are nothing to you,” she had said to her daughter. “Those girls will be awful.”

“Why?”

And this was a hard question to answer.

“Because they will not understand you.”

“Do you understand me, mother?” she asked.

There was always a pinprick to her heart, whenever daughter called her “mother.” For she wasn’t, really. She shouldn’t have had to be.

“Yes, my darling,” her mother replied. “Yes, I do.”

Leaving the kitchen, now armed with a glass of wine, she walked down the hall, slow, and faltering in her high heels. She came into the bedroom and sat on the bed.

A third memory, this one faded. It had happened a very long time ago.

Daughter, only a child.

Dusty September sunlight, coming in through the parlor window. Daughter was playing on the sofa.

Then, she fell.

The glass table cut her lip, and blood streamed down her chin. She screamed, and did so for a half hour.

After putting her to bed, the old woman had gone back into the parlor. She looked for blood spots on the carpet but found none. What a tidy bleeder the daughter had been.

Why she remembered that, was a mystery.

Sitting on the bed, the old woman watched as the last bit of sunlight faded away.

And then, the last memory came.

This one was longer and very sharp. It was the first time she saw her daughter. Winter, years ago.

She had driven in the bitter cold to her sister’s home, on the other side of town. It had been years since anyone had seen the sister. She had run off a long time ago, and rumor had it she lived here. In the dumpy, filthy side of the city, where only trash and Negroes lived.

Her sister was trash.

She heard from an old fat woman in a yard that Betsy Hexe lived at the end of the road.

When she knocked, a man came to the door. He was tall and thin, and the blackest man she had ever seen. With one look, he knew who she was. And with that same look, she knew as well.

He stood there, looking at her.

“I suppose you’re Betsy’s sister.”

It wasn’t a question at all, because he already knew.

“I suppose I am,” she snapped.

Then, there was a crying sound from the back. Her stomach clenched.

“A baby?” She asked, after a moment.

He nodded, and wiped his brow.

“Where is Betsy?” she had asked, as the baby’s cries grew louder.

But they both knew where Betsy was. The man said nothing.

“So I suppose that baby is yours?” she said.

“I suppose she is.”

And then, silence, except for the wails coming from the back room.

“I think I should come in,” she spoke again.

For a brief moment, he looked relieved. But then, his face returned to the emotionless mask it had been before.

Inside, the house was a mess. A foul odor seeped from the walls themselves - unwashed people and desperation. The stench was stifling, despite the freezing air.

“You can’t take care of the baby,” she said matter-of-factly. It was, now that she had seen the inside of his house, very obvious.

“No,” he replied. “I can’t.”

Then, he looked up at her.

“But she is mine.”

“Oh, stop,” she replied, her lips pursed. “She may be yours in the ways of fatherhood, but you must realize…” She paused. “You must realize that you can’t do this.”

“I can. I am.”

“No,” she said, mimicking him perhaps. “You can’t, and you aren’t. You’re a fool if you think you can go on like this.”

He stood hunched now.

“I will take care of her.” Then he met her eyes. “You can leave.”

In a sudden outburst, she slammed her hand into the foul wall, stomping her heeled foot.

“You are a fool!”

He looked startled.

“You are a goddamn fool!” she shouted again. “This girl cannot be raised by you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she will never fit in.” Her voice shook now. “She can never be shown to the world, they will never accept her.”

He shifted on his feet, as she came within an inch of his face.

“A drunk for a mother, a Negro for a father….” She shook her head, very weary. “Don’t you understand?”

He said nothing, only kept looking down.

“Would you let me take care of her?” she said, in almost a whisper. “You must know, that it would be better.”

There was a long pause.

“I could hide her, you see? I could keep her safe.”

For a moment, he looked up. There was something in his eyes like hope. He opened his mouth.

“No,” he said.

The hope was gone. His eyes were empty.

“You fool,” she said again. “You would do this to your child?”

“No,” he replied. “You would.”

With that, she grabbed her pocketbook and left.

The door slammed behind her as she walked out onto the street. In her mind, there was no intention of driving home just yet.

She walked around the house, quiet as she could in heels. In the back room, the baby had quieted, and must be sleeping. The woman, not so old then, found a window, covered from the inside by a filthy curtain.

The man had left the window unlocked, and she had opened it, and reached in, and there, sleeping, was the baby.

She had taken it.

“I will protect you,” she said when they had arrived home. “I will.”

As she had laid the baby down to sleep, she said again, “I will protect you.” Then, “They can’t hurt you. I won’t let them.

I’ll keep you safe.”

Now, fifteen years later, the old woman sat on the bed. She watched as the stars came out, and the wine disappeared from her glass. The sky was inky black, and the rim of her glass was stained with dry lipstick. She sat there for hours.

Then, she went into the kitchen. She put her wine glass in the unwashed sink.

Then she looked out, through the kitchen window, and watched the sun come up.

A Little Too Long

Monologue by Isabel Vélez

There are times when you’ve gotta accept that you’re gonna hurt people. And I don’t mean hatefully. Hate is a choice. I mean like hurting people in ways you can’t control. Like, for instance, when I was in 5th grade I was sitting at a picnic table with five of my friends. We were all awkward and gangly, nearing the age where sharing opinions was becoming a way to establish power. So. We’re sitting at this table, talking away, and you know how kids in elementary school make one too many of the same kinda joke? Like when one leads into another and another and another, until it becomes all old and stale? Then the forced laughter after the joke expires feels like an old accordion, forcefully pushing out sound? Well, we’re going around the table, making “yo mama” jokes, and towards the end, this one new kid in our class, let’s call him Seth, made one too many. Everyone was quiet, looked at him for a second, and then around at each other, trying to see who was gonna make the effort to force at least a little air out of that laughing accordion. But no one did. There was just too much silence for a little too long. So, as the conversation picked up again, I looked at Seth sitting at the corner of the table, with his legs crossed like a pretzel and his shoulders sagging, staring at an ant running down the table with a crumb. I couldn’t look away from him. All I could think, when I saw his face, was how lonely he looked. How all of us had made him feel dumb as a rock. But there was no way in hell we could’ve backed out of that moment. I wanted to keep looking at him, deep in the eye and say “I’m sorry. It was an accident.” But I didn’t. And he felt a little too lonely for a little too long. Longer than he needed to feel lonely for. Over the next decade I’ve always been drawn back to that moment, where a kid got hurt when he didn’t need to. How I was one of five that were responsible for that little piece of hurt, in a way that we couldn’t really control. He died three weeks ago. Car accident. He was the only one in the car. And that’s my biggest regret. That I waited a little too long for a moment that I only daydreamed about. It might be the most selfish regret around town. How do I know that he even remembered that day? Why would I think I’ve made even a little dent in his life? It might be to make myself feel better, I don’t really know right now. But I regret it every day. Every damn day.

will you still love me

by Meredith Baum

will you still love me

dear mother

will you still love me

if i hold her hand

and tell you how i feel free

and father

will you still love me

if i wear my pride with a smile

even if you don't agree

grandma

will you still love me if i tell you about the girl

that reminds me of honey and the sea

oh grandpa

will you still love me

if there is no boy

and instead there is a she

please just hold my hand

take a deep breath 1 2 3

can you try to understand

that i finally love me

A Mind In Four Poems

Tyler Holmes

Winter 2019

1. Synesthesia

Your voice,

lingering in my headphones late at night,

is a flower petal caressing my skin,

cold and soft,

holding me tight in the state

between awake and asleep

The sky in April,

cloudy and opaque,

like the water in a cup of paint-brushes,

sings a breathy song,

the kind of music that plays in your head

on Sunday mornings

A peach,

fresh and sweet,

properly enjoyed

while kneeling on backyard grass,

tastes like the rising sun’s light

resting on your eyelids

2. Spider

You are inescapable; there are reminders of you everywhere.

Breadcrumbs,

stains,

words scratched on the walls,

traces of you etched into the corners of every room

Motifs of memory, shrouded from sight

Hidden in dark places,

shoved into the bottom drawer,

buried in the backyard,

wrapped up tight and stuffed in the attic

Sometimes you take the form of a spider

I spend hours chasing, beating the floors

And finally, once you’ve met your demise,

proven by the eight spindly little legs

smashed on the sole of my shoe,

I still can’t help but think about the rest of your army

of ants,

moths,

and flies

that are still hiding in the walls

3. Sleep

Within the confines of the moon

is the most precious elixir in the universe

The most sought after medicine,

Universally prescribed

Desperately hunted by the starving neurons

that cry from the inside of the skull

It’s what bloodshot eyes beg for,

the temptation that rests on the ceiling

Needed so badly,

but never conquered

4. When It’s Over

When it’s over,

the ground will catch you softly

as you are welcomed back

into the earth’s warm embrace

and when you stare up

at the sky you left,

the moon buried in a sea of black & blue,

each star dripping with the remnants of your thoughts,

Let the night simply rest above you

and do not try

to cling to the galaxies

to escape the morning;

let the morning come

Because when it’s over;

The sun will be just as bright,

but your fear of being burnt will disappear

The ice you built around yourself

will melt, and those who hold you

will not freeze

The wind will still howl and blow,

but won’t knock you to your knees

And the noisy racket

In a mind that felt so jagged

will become quiet and soft,

And you will hear the birds sing again

A Gambler’s Descent Into Moderate Trouble With an International Gambling Kingpin

Jacob Palmer

Winter 2019

Christmas Day:

My left foot slipped on the gravel beneath me as my right shoulder hit the rooftop’s ground. I rolled to the edge and hit my knee. As I slowly stood up, my knee rushed with excruciating pain. There I stood, the edge of the roof with a fifty foot drop to my back and my front to the towering angry goon. His bloodshot eyes put me on edge figuratively, and his punch put me on edge literally. I was out of breath. That guy had been chasing me for hours!

“Hold it right there Andrew!” The brick-like goon commanded. I should have listened to momma. I was so close! So, very, close. I need to stall him for a few minutes while I think of a way out of this, I thought to myself.

“Heyyyy, Jimson?” I said.

“That’s not my name,” the goon responded.

“Stephensonger?”

“Nope,”

“Tim?”

“Nada,”

“Timbur?”

“No,”

“Bill?”

“Definitely not,”

“Bulregard?”

“Stop these mind games, Andrew,”

“Okay… Bulregard?”

“Stop it,”

“Fine, Bulregard. Can I call you Bull-?”

“Just shut up!” Bulregard, the goon, exclaimed, “I’m getting sure tired of your games and your tiny, wiry body. You have to face me now! The money, Andrew,”

“He didn’t technically win!” I muttered under my breath.

“What? He had a starting hand of pocket aces. You had a jack and king!”

“We never finished the round. Just because the game had to stop doesn’t make him win, idiot!”

“You know the casino rules: ‘if the round is interrupted, the person with the best hand wins.’”

“He set up that roof to collapse because I was winning the rounds! AND, that rule is dumb!” The owner of that casino loved posting crazy rules on the wall that you could only read with a magnifying glass. He posted things like: “If a player uses the bathroom more than four times per game they lose, when there is a tie, the older player wins, and we reserve the right to assassinate you if you win more than $1,000 from the casino.” Wilford really knew how to exploit those “rules”.

“Well, Wilford hired me to get the money one way or another. He said to do this even if I need to pry it out of your mostly severed, skinny hands to get it!”

“Wow, he’s very specific!” I chortled. The goon’s hand felt around in his black trench coat. A shiny, silver 1911 Colt appeared in his hand. He switched off the safety and pointed it at my head. My foot was slightly over the edge. A few pebbles fell off.

“Listen, I don’t want to make you my...” he stopped, and counted his fingers a bunch, “...fifty-sixth victim!” I spied a barred window next to a broken one a few feet down from the ledge. It was my only escape!

“Tell Wilford he can eat dirt!” I jumped off of the edge, catching myself on the barred window with my left arm. The rusted bars squeaked. I grasped the bar with my other arm and threw myself through the broken window. Some of the remaining glass cut my back.

I landed in a dark room. Pain was still rushing through my knee and now lower back. At the top of his lungs, the goon was yelling expletives you’d only hear from a sailor who just lost their job. His footsteps departed from the roof. I grabbed a flashlight out of my pocket and switched it on. I apparently was in a deserted office building. Cubicles surrounded me. I spied the fire extinguisher and apprehended it. Switching my flashlight off, I found a desk to hide under. I waited for a while and caught my breath. What did I get myself into?

Footsteps were nearing me. The door was kicked in and light from the hallway shone on the ground, revealing the goon’s humongous figure.

“Andrew, come on out ‘lil buddy. I won’t hur tch’ya. Well, honestly, that’s a lie. I’ll probably melt your face off with a butane torch.” The goon shuffled around, flipping over desks.

“You’re actually annoying me a bit, Drew. Can I call you Drew?” This question infuriated me. I grasped the fire extinguisher tighter as he neared where I sat. His footsteps shook the dusty floor. He was close. I stood up.

“No one calls me Drew!” I exclaimed as I knocked him over the head with the fire extinguisher. I could’ve sworn that his head bent in the extinguisher’s shape and then popped back into place. For a second, he just stood there and growled. My legs twisted behind me and I ran without any input from my brain. I’m a nervous laugher, and as I was being chased I was consistently laughing at the goon. It was a strange sight: a young, wiry gambler hopping over cubicle walls laughing uncontrollably while a large seven-foot-tall goon walked through friggin’ desks. When I reached the door to the hall, I flipped a desk long-ways to block the door. For a split second I stopped to catch my breath.

All I saw was a large hand, which chopped the stinking desk in half! That was a solid wood desk, just to let you know. As one does, I continued running, this time down the hall. Good thing I’m wearing my ‘running away from a large, scary man’ shoes! I thought to myself. Luckily for me, all of the halls made a square shape, and I could definitely run faster than that goon! I started to gain some distance from him. There were two escape options: run down the stairs, which was very obvious, or take the elevator, which was less obvious. Why not the latter? Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding! My nervous finger pressed the elevator button rapidly. As I waited in terror, my eyes fixed on the dinky little fake Christmas tree in the corner of the hall. It was poorly decorated but strangely filled me with a little bit of Christmas spirit…

Glooooooooglc. The elevator doors opened. Footsteps neared! I pressed the ‘close door’ button as fast as I could. I knew that button did nothing, but why tempt fate?

The doors closed barely before the goon entered the hall. What to do now?! I asked myself. He wouldn’t expect me to go up, but if I did go up I’d be trapped. Maybe he would expect me to do what he wouldn’t expect me to do. I could go to the base level, but what if he knows that I would do something he wouldn’t expect and so he’d expect that? But he might be smarter than that and expect me to do what he’d originally expect because I’d try to trick him by doing that. ARGH! I decided to go with my gut and take to the first floor. Some cheesy Genny K song played in the background as I thought up a game plan. The elevator doors opened at the bottom floor. I ran as fast as I could toward the window I had broken to get into the building. My arms were flailing uncontrollably at this point. I hopped through as I caught a glance of the huffing and puffing goon. He held out his hand as if he were trying to apprehend me even though I was many feet out of his reach. More expletives poured out of the goon’s mouth as he displayed a lewd hand gesture in my general direction.

So now I’m here, having just escaped Wilford’s top goon. Frankly, I’m proud of myself. But there’s one thing left to do: make sure Wilford never sends another goon after some amateur gambler ever again.

Nothing New

by Sydney Stropp

God, I’ve never wanted to kiss her more. No, wait. That's a complete and

total lie. The time I wanted to kiss her most was definitely last week when she asked me to tie her bathing suit top on. Or any time she’d ever instinctively reached for my hand when she got scared. Or maybe that time about a month ago, back when we were tying daisy stems together behind the bleachers during Fletcher’s baseball practice…

“Kiera?” Dot asks, looking up at me.

“Yeah, sorry,” I reply, my fingers less than steady as I raise the lighter to her

cigarette. I tuck the lighter into my back pocket as I raise my own cigarette to my lips, not noticing anything but how utterly gorgeous her eyes look when exposed to fire’s beachy, melty soft serve kind of glow.

I hook my fingernails under the left leg of my shorts and press them, hard,

into my skin as she lights my cigarette with hers. We both know smoking is a bad habit, and we only smoke on occasion, but tonight we’re celebrating.

“We got through high school,” Dot raises her fingers, and her cigarette to the sky

in a kind of toast.

“Hell yeah, we did,” I copy her and try in vain to contain my smile. At

the same time, like always, we blow smoke out of our nostrils and laugh.

“I hope Fletcher doesn't find us. He’d hate to find out we were smoking,” Dot

comments, rubbing her nose.

“I don't give a flying fuck about Fletcher,” I growl in reply.

“And yet you hang out with us all the time,” Dot argues.

“It’s because you're always with him,” I tell her. “You know I don’t like him.”

“You haven't liked anyone I’ve ever dated. Ever,” Dot takes a puff and lets the

smoke billow elegantly from her barely open lips, brown doe eyes following it as it climbs into the dark summer sky and disintegrates into non-existence. Have I mentioned how gorgeous her lips are? They're gorgeous, just like she is.

“Aah, dated. Past tense. I didn't like them because I didn't think they were

right for you, and they weren't. Am I wrong?” Yes, I am wrong. I didn't like the guys she dated because they were guys, not girls. Not girls she's known her whole life. Not girls she's trusted with every secret she's ever had. Not girls who hold her when she’s shaking she’s crying so hard and tell her everything will be okay because everyone knows the girls lying about her are the ones who start rumors just to watch the drama unfold.

Not me.

“No,” Dot admits, “you’re never wrong. But Fletcher’s…”

“...different?” I finish. “Like Michael was? Like Cameron and Stephen were?” It

came out harsher than I meant it to.

“Ouch,” Dorothy sighs, smoke curling from her lips. God…

“No, I’m sorry. That wasn't… supposed to be like that,” I reply sweetly, my

gaze inching up Dot’s face and meeting her eyes. Her eyes, dark like the skeletons of the leaves that cling to dying branches in the wintertime, are dappled with dew drops; the kind that magnify ladybug wings and only come in the morning before the sun forces herself awake and dries them up. Instinctively, my hand finds hers. Relief floods me as I feel her grip tighten. “Are… you crying?” The words slink out shyly; barely a whisper.

“No. I mean, yeah, a little, but not because of you. The smoke,” she pauses to

brush her eyelashes with the back of her finger. “It got in my eye.”

“Okay…” I sigh, nervously holding my crossed ankles and rocking forward a little bit, only half-believing her. “Let’s change the subject.”

“Subject change: summer plans?” Dot flashes her dangerously innocent smile, looking up timidly. I swear, I can feel my heart melting.

“You know my summer plans,” I blow smoke in her face playfully as I speak, “I’m just gonna hang out with you. You are my summer plans.”

“Maybe we could try to bring back last year’s sleepover streak,” she suggests with a little laugh, fanning the air. If I were to try to explain her laugh, I’d end up writing two textbooks titled “Dorothy Ann Stiles: The Paragon of  Perfection.”

“Absolutely.” We’d practically lived together last summer. “Let’s try to get to…” I stop to think, blowing a thick stream of winter-grey smoke.

“Seventy-eight!” Dot interrupts, leaning forward to add emphasis.

“If we wanted to get to seventy-eight… we’d have to start…” I pause, doing the math in my head. “We’d have to start today, Dotty.”

She only grins. Her eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles, and there's

this light that enters them whenever she's happy.

I’ll bet you Fletcher never notices stuff like that.

“Alright then,” I smile in reply. The streetlamp she’s leaning against, the only

one still working in this entire damn park, starts to buzz out. The sudden noise and loss of light causes Dot to jump, and I find myself holding her.

Okay. Forget everything I said. This is the most I’ve ever wanted to kiss her. Right here, right now. I could do it, too. I’d just tuck honey-maple hair behind her ear, stare into the eyes that remind me of the way a bonfire looks when you’re watching it through an iced-over window, and ever so slowly start to close the gap between us until…

No.

              No.

I can’t do that.

I can’t let myself think about doing that.

I can’t let myself love her.

Belting With Darkness

by Samuel Winget

The antique store was older than some parts of the town. It had knick-knacks from all corners of the Tri-state area: civil war antiques, old native art pieces, and even some good thrifting options, but what the kid was looking for was an instrument. Now, instruments are hard to come by, especially the old ones, but the kid had heard from a couple of sources that this place was the real deal when it came to antique instruments.

There were violins made around the time the bomb dropped in Japan, you could still hear the whining drop in the hollow bits of the tuning. Guitar strings with in-laid mourning hairs, mourning strings, and even a harp, one of the last harps to be made of 100% ivory. But the kid wasn’t looking for any type of harp, string, or violin. The kid was looking for a piano, something you could belt on, something you could really feel the passion with.

He spies the store, and sees that the outside’s nice and varnished with an age old veneer to the way it’s been preserved. The pieces are all laid out with that perfect layer of dust. He’s gotta have it, but it’s a little pricey. Maybe the bark of this dog doesn’t match its bite.

So he starts playing, and boy oh boy does it ring; he must’ve played half an concerto on that old piano before he stops to ask the clerk why this beautiful thing is stuck in the back of the shop.

The clerk stares up at him through old reading glasses. A kinda sorrow wanders through those reading glasses, and he just shrugs to the kid.

“Look inside and see for yourself. No need to get so worked up about that piece, we’ve got plenty of pianos in the back that’ll make your heart soar even higher.”

The kid blinks for a second and winces at the clerk. Surely he can’t be serious, this thing sounds as if a thousand organists jumped ship from their churches and ancient engines of sound, and into the beautiful black and white keys of this instrument.

The kid stops playing his tune and walks to the back of the machine. A strange and toxic odor overtakes the kid as they open up the back of the piano to look at the strings. It’s strange, they ain’t made of steel, and they certainly ain’t made of intertwining strings, it’s almost like those music wires . . . are made of something much more organic.

The kid spies a card on the inside of the piano, just near the back of the strings, in fact, right on top of the soundboard. He takes it and reads:

“Sound and ringing made through human screaming, I made a piano with chords and strings from the lowest tones of my grandfather’s groans to the highest of pitches from my daughter’s newly-made stitches. I used their misery as my tuner, nothing better than to make them suffer. A sound so divine you’ll never find, for I have made it through hellish machinations.”

- The Maker -

The kid stops for a moment in a presented horror, frozen in neither flight or fright, just simply frozen. A hand catches him on the shoulder and he turns to see the clerk with the same sorrowful look on his face.

“About twenty years back, police found this here piano in the woods, nothing near it, nothing around it, just it and its seat. They popped open the back, found the note, and have been investigating it to this day. The piano right there, the strings and sound board and all the little working bits, are made from . . . well, you know what. Whoever could do such a thing I’ll never know, but I can’t sell this thing, not for the whole world. The suffering needs no performa–”

The kid slams the cover down in a swift motion and places down three times as much moolah than what the piano’s listed for. A whole wad of filthy lucre neatly placed in the clerk’s unsuspecting hands. The kid’s eyes are starkly wide open, and he catches the clerk with the most spotlightish of stares.

“Such passion, cannot be ignored.”

- Samuel Winget

NUMB

Emie Salome

September 2018

They lounged on the wooden benches in front of a little pavilion, chatting idly until the rotation ended. Ott and Annie were inside, making more wax hands, but I was sitting on the dirt listening to them talk about some video game.

“Ah, a witch, that sounds crazy,” I said. None of them heard me.

Suddenly, the rat-looking one sat up, smirking.

“Let’s stick our heads in the ice water. I dare y’all to stick your heads in the ice water.”

This was a great idea, and the other boys jumped to their feet and swaggered towards the ice bucket like the royalty they were. None of them looked back at me, none of them asked, “you coming?” But because I wished that they would, I felt like they had.

I began to follow, but I lingered at the edge of the pavilion.

I watched as the tall blond one stuck his head in. They started to chant his name, a name which I don’t even remember. They were ruining the quiet beauty of the forest, but all I wanted in that moment was for them to chant my name. The blond pulled his head out of the bucket, wide-eyed and gasping, and they all laughed.

I glanced over at the two girls. “Don’t do it,” said Ott. It felt as though she had read my mind, but she had probably read the lonely expression on my face.

I did my best to replicate the nonchalant manner of the boys.

“Heh,” I said, sauntering away.

The unofficial leader had his head in the bucket now, and they were laughing at how bad he was. For a second, one of them tried to hold his head in, but he was stronger, and he pushed up, gasping for air.

“Um, can, um-” I started. “Can I?”

The only one who heard was the one who never talked. He glanced over at me with eyebrows raised, as though I had just said something mildly interesting.

“Hey, guys,” he said quietly. “She wants to try.”

I don’t think he even knew my name.

They all moved aside, since they had already done it and had gotten bored. The blond asked if I wanted him to time me. I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

That was probably the longest sentence I had ever said to one of their faces.

I crouched down over the bucket, gripping the sides so hard my knuckles were white. In the back of my mind, I was terrified, but the adrenaline outweighed the fear.

I shoved my head into the bucket.

It felt as though the water was shutting me off, closing my throat and numbing my skin. My eyes were closed and it was pitch black, and after a second the only sensation was my thoughts.I wish that in that moment I had come to a realization.

I wish that sitting there, with my head in the ice water, I had discovered Nirvana and fixed global warming.

In reality, the main thought going through my head was, This is very cold.

A close second was, I hope they think I’m cool.

Theatre: The Problem With Theater In High School

By Bella Shepard

The Griffin School is well-known for its creative students, numerous students participating in the likes of 3D or 2D art, music, or photography. However, what is often forgotten, is its theater program. The head of the theater program, Rudy Ramirez, has directed multiple productions at Griffin. This year's production is the famous William Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night. Numerous students in the cast are looking forward to the production after the last play, A Midsummers Night Dream was reconsidered after the news that McCallum High School planned on performing the same production.  

“It has a good mix of heart and a little angst, and it’s really good,” Said freshman Meredith Baum who plays Viola in The Twelfth Night. While she and the other actors are excited about the production, they are also well aware of how little recognition it receives.

Some students at Griffin believe that theater is underrepresented, stating there is not enough attraction, funding, or support from administrations. While programs at other schools in the area such as McCallum has a wider representation for those in theater with 8 main stage and 4 second stage shows every year. This may be due to them having a specific performing arts section. Griffin sophomore Tyler Holmes, who’s playing the role of Orsino, states “theater is overlooked.”

“We put so much work and effort into the performances that we do,” Holmes said “it seems that theater is not put up to the same appreciation as like music and that sort of thing. I believe all art departments deserve to get the same amount of attention.” 

While performing is an integral part of theater, what isn't communicated effectively by teachers and students is how important the crew is to the production.

“There are so many people willing to volunteer [for crew] but don't know it’s an option,” said sophomore Sydney Stropp. Stropp was cast as Viola in an alternate performance of the production. What can often come to mind, for those not involved in theatre, about it being underrepresented in schools is that people may not get involved because many believe it is necessary to perform in order to be involved. Because stereotypes of inflated egos and high strung people may be a pervasive theory, it's important to realize that what the students are really learning is about giving and working together to reach a goal.

“Rudy gives you a lot of responsibility and freedom with your character, and he makes the class feel like a very safe space to be,” cast member and freshman Edan Morgan-Paul said. Paul, who plays Olivia, hopes that “the department could gain more recognition.”

“And gain more publicity,” Paul said. “That would be very helpful.” 

Gaining recognition for the theatre department would be good, not only for Griffin but for all high schools because the students see how valuable it is for their self-expression and is an integral part of a well-rounded education.