Issue Six

Philip of Macedonia

By Arah Ko

Marble curls clench, blown by an ancient wind

while blind, white eyes search skies

I’ve never seen.

Even in the stillness, he is beautiful.

It may be something in the noble cast of his nose,

the grace of his cheeks or the gape of his lips,

and by being just a head he is perhaps

lovelier than in life, and wiser, too, having won

empires, hearing his son called “great,”

knowing what it is to plumb time,

to die to motion, to witness five hundred

million moments and to be

only one of them.

Arah Ko is an English Major in the Chicago area. When not writing, she can be found frequenting open mic nights, explaining her name pronunciation to coffee shop baristas, and contemplating the meaning of life, other than 42.

Paramnesia

By Noelle Hendrickson

To create the photo, I first took the picture, asking a friend to model. Then I took the raw file into Photoshop CS6, and added shapes, textures, and ultimately editing the photo to convey the title I gave it. Paramnesia is a delusion where fact and fantasy are jumbled, such as deja vu. In the artwork I attempted to show the gap between fact and fantasy, whilst the equal sign bridges the two.

Noelle Hendrickson is an American photographer currently studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia. She combines her photography with her Photoshop Certification to create story-telling visual art. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as The Claremont Review and The Eclectic.

Silenced; Holes

By Joy Xie

These pieces were inspired by my desire to discover more about people and wondering what we all have in common. I wanted to express the words that we don’t say out loud but can be conveyed in our facial expressions. The painting titled Holes depicts a worn, old man but parts of his face are cut out to represent how life at times can tear holes through people and create scars. However, beyond the pain, there still exists happiness as shown by serene scenery past the canvas. For Silenced, I wanted to express how at times I felt like no words could express the emotions I was feeling, bound by inexplicable ropes, as some other girls may also feel. Thus, I wanted people to know that even if our words can be silenced, our art will not be.

Joy Xie is a junior at Mountain Lakes High School and lives in a small town in northern New Jersey. She enjoys painting and reading in her free time, developing a passion for these hobbies as a young girl. She has been published in Celebrating Arts, Aerie International, and AIPF and has received awards in Scholastic Arts and Writing.

Indian Street Entrepeneurs

By Varun Tandon

This photo was taken as I walked from my Grandma’s apartment in New Delhi to a nearby market. I saw this man selling many fruits and vegetables, all piled up and carefully balanced. He pushes his cart of produce outside each apartment complex and waits for people exiting the apartment to purchase his goods. My grandma mentioned how she often looks out over the balcony of her apartment, and when she sees this vendor or another one, she heads down to the street to buy food. I like the way this photo turned out because it shows what a typical city street in bustling New Delhi looks like. I also like the punchy colors of the oranges, bananas, and coconuts in the photo and how the photo captures the entrepreneurial sprit of many of the street vendors.

Varun Tandon is a junior at Homestead High School in Cupertino, California. He was born in California to Indian immigrant parents and has visited India annually since his youth. The influence of these annual trips can be seen in the photography he takes. A technology enthusiast, he believes that aesthetic is as important as functionality, spurring his interest in photography and graphic design. Whether he is biking with friends, eating dinner with his relatives, or running alone, Varun always carries a camera, ready to capture the moment.

Logic at First Sight

By Bryce Langston

Some people cry too easy. In biology class two years ago we talked about osmosis and how some membranes are passive, allowing water to come and go through them. I wonder if that’s why those crying people are like that; their eyes must have passive membranes. They spend much more time crying than thinking.

Murdle was not one of those people. No, he was not. If anything, he was the polar opposite, always searching for a logical argument in that library of a brain, which must have been stuffed with every science textbook and survival guide known to mankind. I had never looked at Murdle and seen a hint of emotion. Sure, we had laughed together before, but humor does not require feeling. Humor is a logical process, just like everything else. At least, that is what Murdle would say.

On this particular day in January, Murdle and I found ourselves in the same English section, debating the concept of “love at first sight,” as assigned to our class by our bubbly professor. The room had been split into halves: one side argued for the concept, the other against, and Murdle not at all, though he stood on the “against” side. I stood on the “for” side, not that I had had any experience with the subject matter, but I enjoyed a challenging argument. Also, I wanted to see Murdle lost amidst a debate of emotion. I anticipated it would be interesting. I was not wrong at all.

“So! Here is our broad question for today’s debate, brought upon us by our readings of Shakespeare and Dickens: Can love be found at the first sight of someone? So! Let us begin with the defendant; Hunter, start us off!” The professor sat down in a giddy excitement, as if she had waited for this debate all semester.

I stepped forward from my group and read our opening statement, “Love is found at the searcher’s own pace, so it is up to him or her whether he or she recognizes the emotion immediately, as Romeo did, or in time, as Charles Darnay did.”

Trish annunciated the opposing side’s opening statement, something about “developing emotions takes time,” but I was too busy observing Murdle, his face set in the most compact concrete contortion of blankness and vacancy I had ever seen. His arms hanging awkwardly at his side like wings on a car, he appeared to have an air of unbelonging about him. Murdle was standing amidst a foreign marketplace, people were speaking in tongues he had never heard, and the items for sale were too exotic for him to notice their usefulness and value. Every now and then, a foreigner would explain something to him and Murdle would just nod his head in feigned agreement, just wanting it all to be over and done.

His eyes said it all. He was not even present that day in class. He had retreated deep into the catacombs that lay inside his head, and the conversation happening about him slammed into a thick eardrum that was too dense to vibrate the message through to the brain; all that Murdle heard were muffled voices.

And so on went the debate. My side said something, cited something from the text, said something, ended turn. Trish’s side said something, cited something from the text, said something, ended turn. After thirty minutes, the professor realized that the riveting and profound debate she had expected was not the one she observed before her. She grew tired of the long pauses between exchanges, the lack of evidence from outside sources, the slacking participation, and everything else that optimistic English professors find wrong with mediocre debates about a topic that, by God, should exhilarate everyone! Look at these sad souls, she must have thought, dragging their feet through the muck of reality, too occupied to care enough about the possibilities they debate! That’s it! I am going to call on someone. Whoever’s name I see first on my attendance list, that is who I will call! That is who will revive this disaster into something spectacular!

“So! It seems that we are having a little trouble here, which is fine, which is fine.”

She obviously meant that it was not fine and that she had become irritated.

“So! Umm…”

The professor looked at the clipboard in her lap, cocked her head sideways in contemplation and spoke in a decisive, final manner.

“Murdle! We haven’t heard anything from you today. Tell us why you are against the idea of love at first sight.”

It was as if Murdle had just entered the classroom. He lifted his head, eyes darting to and fro in panicked ponderment. His consciousness had risen from the catacombs, his eardrums vibrated clearly, and he could just make out what was being said to him by the foreigners. Just barely.

I had stopped breathing at this point. This was exactly what I had waited for. I had no idea what to expect, no idea what to prepare for.

“Love…uh…is a chemical process in the brain,” the terrified teenager stated shakily, “but, it is not love—or what chemical reactions are defined as love—that occurs at the first sight of someone…uh…It is actually considered lust.”

“Well! That certainly is an interesting way to look at things, Murdle, but let’s think of love as a more spiritual, or emotional, reaction. What would you say then?” The professor smiled the way an old southern woman might after offering a glass of sweet tea to a guest, awaiting a specific answer, the answer she wanted: “Yes, I’d love to have some sweet tea, ma’am.”

Murdle did not smile. His lips stuck straight ahead in a required silence. He could not answer the way she wanted him to, there was no possible way. But what other way could he have answered?

Murdle then did something that I still look back on as astonishing and perplexing.

He walked out of the classroom.

With his awkward gait and cylindrical legs he escaped to the door, away from everything foreign and unknown, to a comfortable predictable world. The people in the marketplace all stared at him in confusion, as if they had expected something from his visit. But how could he have done what was expected if he did not understand what was expected?

I swear that I heard him mutter something under his breath as he left, something like, “I don’t understand, I don’t understand…”

Murdle must have withdrawn from that English section after that session; I never saw him there again.

Some people think too much.

Bryce Langston is a dual-enrolled junior high-school student in the small town of Avon Park, Florida. He enjoys composing music and short stories.

Not Your Average Fairy Tale

By Maribel Pagan

“Slay the dragon, rescue the princess. Slay the dragon, rescue the princess,” she repeated to herself over and over as she stepped onto a bridge swaying over a volcanic crater. Lava bubbled beneath her, and she gulped in shock.

She was afraid of heights.

She ran across, panting, desperate to escape the threat of being consumed by molten lava. Upon reaching the end of the bridge, she collapsed onto solid ground.

She sighed, her eyes shutting in relief. “That was a close one.”

A noise burst forth. A roar.

Her eyes widened. She jumped to her feet. “Right! Slay the dragon, rescue the princess!” her mouth suddenly gaped in awe at the enormous castle before her, with its two towers stretching out towards the sky.

In one of those two towers lay the princess. Or so she hoped.

She rolled her shoulders, and they cracked in response. “All right. Next step.”

Another roar burst forth. Light erupted from below, and with that light she saw the enormous shadow of a dragon standing behind the castle.

She gasped, biting her nails anxiously. She quickly caught herself in the act and, accordingly, shifted her hand to her sheath instead. She yanked out her sword, miniscule in her hand compared to the threat of a gargantuan dragon.

She began to walk around the castle, sword ready.

Another roar echoed off the walls of the volcano.

She closed her eyes, sipping a deep breath in. Then rushed forward, eyes open. A roar gushed forth from her mouth.

Once she had reached the opposite side of the castle, she screeched to a sudden halt.

The dragon standing before her was barely larger than the length of her foot to her knee.

She barely contained her laughter. “I’m supposed to fight this thing?!”

The dragon croaked, its voice echoing against the walls of the volcano until the noise had elevated into a hunger-driven roar.

She reeled back, laughing till her sides hurt. “This is so ridiculous!”

The dragon simply croaked.

She sucked breath back into her lungs and wiped her tear-filled eyes. “Well, that was fun! But I have to get going since you’re no threat. Thanks for the good laugh, though.” She patted its head. The dragon quickly attempted to snap at her hand, which she avoided quite easily.

“Oops! You missed!” she laughed, strolling her way back to the entrance of the castle. She walked through its hollow, shallow entrance.

Torches lit up the hallways, always one step ahead of her. She approached the stairway to the left tower. With no railing or support, she carefully made her way upwards, daring herself not to turn her gaze down lest she plummet and have her bones splatter upon the ground.

After a very long, hasty trek upwards, she finally reached the top.

It was empty.

“Are you kidding me?!” A string of curse words spun out of her mouth as she carefully crawled back down the steps and proceeded to the next tower.

“Hope you’re happy, princess!” her voice echoed down the long corridors as she trekked the lengthy distance to the second tower. “It doesn’t shock me that nobody’s saved you yet! Sure, I got orders from your father to save you.” She began to climb the stairway to the second tower. “Or, maybe not. I didn’t exactly get orders from your father to save you. Your father ordered a prince to save you, but that boy couldn’t make it an inch without crying for his papa. At least I offered to do something about his problem and made it here so that a prince could have you. And I was offered a permanent home where I can safely live in for the rest of my life, with servants and everything, if I saved you. So I took up the offer. Me: A servant girl. Saving a princess. Whew! This is… a lot of steps.” She paused, swiping her perspiring forehead with the back of her hand before continuing the long journey up the steps.

And then she reached the top.

Within the top of the tower lay a bare room, with the exception of the bed standing in the middle. She approached it, seeing it was covered in a rough cloth. She pulled away the cloth, revealing a woman with syrup-colored, wavy hair, caramel skin, shut-eyed, and wearing a dress of berry blue silk studded with diamonds.

She marveled, in awe at the sight of the beautiful woman lying before her. She cleared her throat, automatically remembering her status as peasant compared to the princess reposed before her. She pulled her own straw-like blonde hair back, and leaned forward towards the sleeping princess.

The princess’s eyes fluttered opened. “Oh! I’m—I’m saved! But… wait. You’re not a prince?”

“No,” she smiled. “I’m not.”

Maribel C. Pagan has appeared or is forthcoming in Persephone’s Daughters, Every Day Fiction, The Stray Branch, and others. She has received the Junior Reading Giants Award, has made the President’s List in Mohawk Valley Community College, and has received a number of other awards and scholarships. Additionally, she is the host of The Maddie Show on WLMU Radio, a Prose Reader for Apprehension Magazine, and a singer and musician for The Angelic Family Choir. Visit Maribel at http://therollinghills.wordpress.com/.