Blind Spots
Shattered glass tastes like shock.
Smells like the sanctity of white flowers by the roadside.
What could have been, what was, and what will be,
sitting shoulder to shoulder with ghosts on the eucalyptus leaves and asphalt,
united by the familiar sirens in the distance.
What a cruel joke.
I lived.
That’s the difference between the two of us,
the white flowers and I.
I’m sorry for your loss, I whisper months later.
Shattered glass tastes like shock.
Smells like the car is no longer on the ground, wind in my hair,
Feels like peace.
Peace when it’s all over.
The beating of my heart competes with the screams echoing down the mountainside.
Every night is a stop motion picture
as I remember things that I don’t actually remember.
As I crave emotions I can’t bring myself to feel.
To emote.
As I myself,
crave to shatter.
Catherine Stauffer is a reporter and editor for The Tam News. She loves to read and write, and spends her free time in the water swimming and SCUBA diving!
In Pursuit of Freedom, No Good Citizen Will be Harmed
In this artwork, I wanted to reveal the implications of dictatorship: how violence gets censored. Inspired by the Gwangju Uprising that happened in South Korea on May 18, 1980, which could be called the older brother of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, and the 2021 Myanmar Crackdowns. Even though this event should have made headlines around the world like the latter two, it was covered up by the authoritarian regime. People who grew up in South Korea in the 1980s, even my own mother and father, would not learn the full truth, such as the brutal beatings and shootings, until the late 1980s when the authoritarian regime was finally toppled. One noticeable feature that incorporated into this artwork would be the number of squares occupying certain areas. I purposely used solid colored squares over my graphic art since I wanted to portray the message that such an event was “covered” up by the dictatorship. The medium of this artwork would be acrylic paint.
The motive behind my painting was to portray the true horrors and oppression the Korean people faced in the 1980s when the country was run by an authoritarian regime, which is similar to the oppression conflict in Myanmar today. Even though Korea had prevailed and became a fully democratic nation, I wanted to make an impact with my drawing by showing the difficulty and struggle in order to achieve this freedom. For this specific painting, I incorporated a half black and white effect to the colored picture in order to portray the message that these were gloomy times when the future of the country was bleak and uncertain. The medium of this artwork would be acrylic paint, in which I constantly mixed a bit of grey with the original colors to portray this ½ black and white mood.
Editor Note Issue 25
Editor’s Note
Issue 25/March 2022
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going, no feeling is final.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Dear Reader’s and Writers:
We’ve never asked students to submit writing according to a particular theme, but when each issue is curated, polished and ready to go online, the writing seems to always reflect the current cultural mood. Some of the titles featured in this issue* show us that although there is still struggle, search, and lots of figuring out how to cope going on— creativity and hope are alive and well.
Not sure how we got to Issue 25 so quickly(!), but we’re still championing the idea that reading, writing, and creative work can provide both solace in a challenging world, as well as a sense of empathy and connection to others in these pseudo-quarantined-is-it-over-yet times.
Still engaged in that Sisyphean task of thinking positive, trying not to get discouraged, and figuring out the new normal? Us too. Let’s just keep going.
Molly Hill
Editor
(cartoon by Zachary Kanin for The New Yorker)
*A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, The Things We Love Most in the World, How Coin Tosses Prove God Exists: A Lab Report, Legacy Ends Here, Tormentor, Dreams About Death, Nostalgia, grief, deconstructed, Blind Spots, Bonding, in the margins, Dear Brother, The Homeless Tiger, After Lucy, The Neighborhood Infinite, Smoke Breaks.
The Homeless Tiger
On the first day of kindergarten, I was excited to embark on the new adventure: oscillating between the monkey bars, creating MoMa worthy hand turkeys, stomping down the hallway in my light-up Sketchers, and uniting with new colleagues. It was the day I was going to become a part of a community, something an only-child without pets longed for.
As the teacher goes over the first-day of school protocols, I embrace the unfamiliar environment; I marvel at the colored floor tiles, lysol aroma, and glitter glue. The teacher begins to call the roll. As the teacher exclaims a new name, I swiftly turn my head to match it with a face. Each time, I am greeted with a new wide-eyed smile accompanied by a blonde or brown head. At last, the teacher reaches the end of her list- Annie Wang. As my name is called out, I take note of the teacher’s pronunciation. My name is Wang (W-ong), I politely explain. In Mandarin, Wang is the Chinese word for “king” and is a common surname amongst Chinese people. My mother always talked about how easy “Wang” should be to pronounce for non-native Mandarin speakers, yet few people could correctly execute it. The teacher gives me a blank stare, looks back down to the roll sheet, and examines my name. It says “Wang” (W-ang). No further comments were made, and my new name was Annie Wang (W-ang).
At lunch, my classmates brought packed meals like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with goldfish while I had leftover white rice and vegetables from the night before. I even brought a niángāo (rice cake) to celebrate the first day of school. My peers lean over the table to gawk at my meal and incredulously ask, What is that? I felt unexplainable embarrassment for my home cooked meal and shyly shrugged off questions. Instead of conversing with potential friends, I broke off small pieces of the niángāo and hastily plopped them into my mouth for the rest of lunch. I could feel my dream to unite with new colleagues begin to nervously drift away.
Over the next few years, I became accustomed to that unexplainable embarrassment. After taking group pictures, my white friends would complain that they looked too “Chinese” from the squinting of their eyes when they smiled. In the mornings, I was routinely greeted with Kon’nichiwa by several classmates. In 4th grade, I was shunned for killing and eating dogs for the first (but not last) time. By the end of elementary school, most of my friends had already experienced their first “relationship”; I learned that if boys had a crush on me, it was because of “yellow fever”.
Mastering tongue twisters used to be one of my favorite hobbies. Sally sells seashells by the seashore was a popular one I struggled with because I couldn’t properly pronounce the “s” sound. A few weeks into middle school, I’m introduced to a new tongue twister in homeroom- one dedicated to me. Ching, chong, wing, wong chants one student. I glance over at them and instantly regret it; they’re pulling both of their doe-like eyes back with their fingers. My cheeks begin to burn and my hands sweat profusely. My eyes follow the influence of my cheeks and hands, stinging and swelling with tears. Before any tears drip out, my innocent fascination with colored floor tiles returns to me. No matter how hard I focus on the floor, I still can’t block out their voice. They proceed to mock Asians with broken English. Is that your mom? Does she talk like this?. I’m worried that if I speak, I will cry. I keep my head low and shake it side to side, unable to defend myself or my parents. I’m paralyzed with humiliation. I finally made an effort to look up from the colored squares, only to discover an audience has witnessed me going up in flames.
When I return home from school, I put on a brave face as I tell my mother about the day’s nightmare. As I rehash the details, my bravery quickly slips away. My words turn into cries, and tears begin to flood out. While trying to catch my breath, I express hatred for my almond eyes, embarrassment from the tragic tongue twister, and confusion for how my classmates could simply watch me crash and burn. My mother is a stern woman, but for a fleeting moment my sobs soften her with sympathy.
As I progressed through middle school, I acquired a code of conduct: always stretch after cross country practice, never forget to turn in homework, and -most importantly- do whatever it takes to fit in. Even after all the blatant racism I had encountered, I still wanted to be accepted into this community. At school my favorite food was Caesar salad, I despised academia, and the only pronunciation for my surname was “W-ang”. At home, on the other hand, my favorite food was jiazi (dumplings), I loved to read, and my father’s nickname for me was Lǎohǔ (tiger). In Chinese culture, the tiger symbolizes ambition and nerve – traits that made the emperors of ancient China successful. My royal names were unfitting, considering my ignoble persona.
Despite my futile effort, I still felt excluded from my white counterparts. In history class, we learned about America’s heroes: George Washington, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, etc. I referred to these figures as “my country’s heroes” and a big part of “my history”. Yet, none of these heroes even remotely looked like me. Learning about Asian culture is unheard of in American education: even learning about true American history is rare. On the few occasions Asians were incorporated into the history lesson, China and its people were bashed for being revolting communists and disgusting dog eaters by my peers. Finally, I realized I never saw historical figures that looked like me in classrooms because the curriculum did not see me as a part of the class.
I have conquered countless playground obstacles, created top tier crafts, and raced down a dozen hallways in several pairs of sneakers. I can even swiftly say Sally sells seashells by the seashore. Nevertheless, I have not been able to grasp onto the sense of community I was eager to embrace ten years ago. Desperately reaching for acceptance as an American, my hands always meet a void. I’m frequently reminded that my creaseless eyelids, dark hair, and ethnic surname make me a stray. Regardless of the remarkable value in self acceptance, kings depend on a council to rule a kingdom, just as tigers depend on a jungle’s ecosystem to survive.
Annie Wang is a junior at Hurricane High School in West Virginia. She is a contributor for WV Flipside, the teen branch for West Virginia’s Pulitzer Prize wining paper, Charleston Gazette-Mail. She is also the founder, a writer, and a graphic designer for Advocating101, a youth organization creating media that focuses on pop culture, social justice, and youth empowerment. She also received a Gold Key for work recognized by Scholastic Arts and Writing.
From the Deli on Third
He pointed a finger, crooked from a life of construction work, at a distant building. The sidewalk before it was swollen and cracked like the black eye he’d once told me he got from a broken beer bottle at the Cotton-eyed Joe. Every visit I made, my grandfather told me the story.
“The buildin’ has a slight tilt now, not that anyone’ll notice.” He spat on the pavement through a gap in his teeth, rubbing it in with his shoe in a single mindless motion. “I don’t guess I know how long it’s been so don’t bother askin’ me,” he cackled. “There was a kid who used to clean those windows way up there. It was real routine for ‘em I imagine. He sure as heck’d move fast. Anyhow, there was a windy day in the city and I’d just sat down to get a bite to eat right over there at the sandwich shop.” He ran his hand from the top of the building down to the ground with a painter’s care and described to me some long cables that hung from the platform where the window washer stood.
“I was sittin’ there eating my… well, it must’ve been a meatball sub. Those things had good all through em’. They’d just about make your tongue slap your brains out.” He took a moment to lick a corner of his smile, but then fluttered his eyes ashamed at his digression.
“Anyhow, I saw those cables blowin’ in the wind underneath the platform. They’d gotten so low, a whole loop of it was sittin down by the curb. There was a real sharp young man sitin’ in the booth next to mine. I figured he’d show his concern.” My grandfather gestured with his head signaling for the young man to come over just as he had done on that day. “I said, “Hey, take a look at that cable sittin’ on the street like that. Say if somethin’ were to get a hold of that rope in all this wind…””
He said the boy was polite but paid it little thought and I wasn’t too sure anyone but my grandfather would be keen enough to notice, much less find it at all intriguing. “I betcha not two minutes later, a car came down the road and that blessed loop wrapped right around its mirror. I said, “Oh mercy!” The young man and I burst out the shop and ran towards the scene. That window washer’s platform had tilted and he was holdin’ on tight way up in the sky.”
“Did the car ever stop?” I’d made a routine of asking the question.
“He stopped within fifteen feet of takin’ that loop. He didn’t know anything had happened until someone on the sidewalk got his attention. There really weren’t too many people on the street that day, all at work I guess. When the driver hopped out’a the car, I hollered, “You gotta get that cable wrapped around that telephone pole and then loosen up on it slowly!” He was terrified from what I could see so he took no time to second guess my orders.”
“Why did he need the telephone pole if he was just going to loosen it all?”
“If he didn’t use the pole, the force of the platform would’ve overpowered him, slamming it back into place and risking shakin’ the window washer off the side. It all had to be done slowly. The car driver wrapped the cable two times around the pole and gradually gave it slack.
As he loosened the cable’s tension, the platform moved back into place and the weight of it made the flesh come right off his palms and the cable chip the paint off the pole, but it looks like they’ve repaired it since, not that anyone’ll notice. In fact, it looks like they might’ve replaced it entirely. When all was done, the window washer stood up and shortened the cord below ‘em to get away from the street and went back to scrubbing the windows.”
When my grandfather’s lips returned to their unmoving, limp appearance, he took me into the sandwich shop where he sat that day. He told me it would be the perfect place to eat lunch.
As we made our way to the counter, we looked around and were met with the interior of a shoe store.
“Is there anything I can help you find?” A man approached us from the register. “No, thank you, we’re just looking,” I replied.
The man seemed all too accustomed to the unprofitable phrase and he walked away dissatisfied.
My grandfather turned to look at the building across the street. Its glass was dirty, only subtly capable of reflections. And just below his line of vision was an aged memorial plaque I knew was engraved into the sidewalk. He too was somewhere resisting.
Sam Baker is an author of poetry, fiction, and essays from Louisville, Kentucky. He currently works for the Kenyon Review as an associate and as a teaching assistant for the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. Baker’s reads have been published or are forthcoming in The Pinch Literary Journal, Polaris, The Blue Marble Review, and elsewhere. His work has also been recognized by The Missouri Review, Guesthouse Lit, Penn Review, Apparition Lit, Wrongdoing Magazine, Silk Road Poetry, Smartish Pace, Ruminate Magazine, Columbia University, Kenyon College, University of Massachusetts, Washington University in St. Louis, Sewanee: University of the South, Ohio Northern University, University of Louisville, Bellarmine University, Variant Literature, The Alliance For Young Artists and Writers, and The Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts.