Red Sky at Morning

Carey stared at me from the corner of the room, chiding me for reading (The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, which I never finished). I ignored her while she paged through my parents’ coffee table magazines: Nantucket Yacht and an untouched Parenting. She slammed them shut, stood up and glared at me.

“What’s the point?” she sputtered, exasperated and wild-eyed, watercolor sunburn splotches down her legs from a haphazard sunscreen application the day before. I looked up from my book. In her left hand, she held a plastic beach toy: a forlorn purple profile of a fish. It was a sad, bloated shape that ballooned and bulged a misshapen tumor tail, its lips puckered in expectation like the punks at our last middle school dance. It looked frozen in shock, with a final one-eyed look of powerless recognition of fate: Caesar’s final gaze as Brutus dealt the hardest blow.

“Come on, Hen!” She shook my arm. Carey was strong: a skin-and-bone arm wrestling champion. “Hen”, short for Henry, simultaneously belittling and endearing, which she loved. She was older by a month and taller by two inches, information volunteered unprompted (“cross my heart it’s closer to two-and-a-half inches”) with enough vigor for both of us. Once, while eating our split ham and cheese on the beach, I pointed out a drip of mayonnaise on her chin. She replied that she intended it to be there and refused to wipe it off for the rest of the meal.

I smirked. “Fine.” Book closed. “What are we doing?” But we did the same thing every day. Summer vacation. Too young to do much of anything, too old to sit at home.

She clapped me over the head with the fish. “Follow me.” She spun on her bare feet and walked out with face-forward determination, knowing I’d run to catch up before she walked halfway down the street.

* * *

The beach was our kingdom. More accurately, Carey’s kingdom and she was king, not queen. With seaweed crown and driftwood staff she carried herself with an awkward, spasmodic regality, shouting orders and castigating her subjects: banishing pearl-less oysters, relegating king crab to court jester.

It was hard to distinguish most days from others. Sunshine, honeysuckle and turquoise sea glass; convincing my mother to pack lunch for two (one sandwich, a party-size bag of chips, a carton of OJ, two fun-size Twix bars), bruises that seemingly appeared from nowhere, round rocks we tried to skip but that often plopped in refusal, the smell of sunscreen and sweat.

We sat atop the steep sand throne and looked down below, across the stretch of beach and water. It was early in the season, a cool day in early June. I don’t think I would have jumped in even if my bones could stand it.

Carey paced the peak of the dune, surveying her dominion as if it were a hundred feet below. I made sad fish imprints in the sand with the toy; mute and purple with that cyclops eye wide, unable to warn you about the sea monster behind your back, impossible to change its hopeless view of things.

“Henry,” she commanded, inflection rising on the last syllable in a proper British accent. Wind swept the paint-splattered patches of seagrass along the dune. I looked up from my petrified fish platoon to see the staff lifted high above her head. I winced and held up my hand in defense. How had I offended the king today? And it was only 10am?

A moment. She rested the driftwood on the crown of my head and said, “Sir Henry, for courage so pure and deeds so bold. Knight of my Kingdom.” I smirked and grabbed the staff, throwing it aside (“Treason, Sir Henry! Treason!”) and jumped on her. She fumbled for footing, my arms wrangled around her neck and feet around her waist (“Guards!”). I seized her crown in hasty revolt and placed it askew on my head. She careened to the edge, left leg tangled up in right; we fell in slow motion (did my lips graze her cheek?) and thumped on impact, plunging down the hill.

We barrel-rolled, tangled, swirled images of sea and sand bled into one another. Blue sand, white ocean, red sky.

I landed with a muffled thud, the right side of my face glued to the beach. Lifting my head, I sputtered laughter, sand-spit spewing from my mouth. My right rib panged, and I looked down to see a viscous trickle of sand-blood flowing down my abdomen. I winced.

Carey lay limp beside me. I prodded her. “Carey.” Lifeless. I observed her. “Not funny, Carey.” I threw half-broken sea shells at her back. Nothing. Repeating, louder, “Carey.” And I wanted her name to be longer, to have a fuller sound, as though perhaps a third syllable would be the one to wake her.

The ocean continued to splash sea and salt, low waves crashing in a white noise that accentuated the silence on the beach.

I shifted to look back to the towering dune. Lifting my legs from my seated inspection, I stepped back, climbing the dune backwards to face toward Carey’s contorted form. At the top, I retrieved the plastic fish, my imprinted fortune-telling fish legion staring at me: “We tried to tell you.”

Back at the shoreline, bedsheet of white foam erasing my footsteps, I flung the fish into the water and watched the piece of floating purple plastic wash out to sea. A fish that couldn’t swim, only drift, climbing the crest of a wave in a dead man’s float.

I walked home alone. An unnaturally wide smile shined from the toddler on this month’s Parenting on the doorstep.

And then gray bedroom, blue fog sleep. Numbness: something and nothing, my entire body like a fallen-asleep foot.

Written by: Gregory Duffy

Photo by: Daniel Charles Ross

Flag

In 1954 Jasper Johns painted his most famous work Flag. Forty two years later I would see it for the first time as a fifteen year old and it would carve a desire to paint into my heart. Twenty-one years and I suppose three months after that, I would see it again and wonder what the hell had happened to my life.

That sounds too dramatic. It probably wasn’t the way that, say, former heroin addicts wonder what happened to their life. It was more the way a middle-aged man, beer gut straining his belt, would look at his high school football picture and wonder where that kid went.

I was chaperoning a field trip when it happened. I was keeping my eye on the five kids I had been assigned to supervise. They were sprinting from room to room, eager to get the tour over with, more concerned with the day out of class than the art on the walls. I was trying to soak things in while keeping the backs of their heads in view when I turned a corner and saw Flag exactly where I had left it all those years ago. Have you ever run into someone you were once in love with? Not someone who left you broken hearted, but one you never actually dated? That way you have no bad memories of them, just some sense of things that never were? It was like that.

I stopped and stood in front of it. You have to stand in front of it to really appreciate its glory, all those underlying textures creating a depth that makes it so much more than a picture. The way that the white wasn’t really white and bits of text peaked through like secret messages, it amazes me and always has. And in that moment I remembered what paint smelled like. The sharpness of acrylic, the tantalizing asphyxiation of oils. I lived in those smells for almost a decade, and yet five minutes before I don’t think I could have brought them to mind. They lived in that painting.

“Mrs. Martin are you okay?”

I turned, seeing one of my students, Emma, looking at me.

“Yes, I just really love this painting.”

She smiled and nodded, “Oh, yeah, because it’s an American flag and you teach American history, right?”

No, not right. But how do you tell that to a kid who has to sit in your American history class the next day? Who probably sees you as the robot in front of the room that lives for nothing but to make them memorize the dates of the Civil War? Okay, that’s too depressing. Technically they know I have a life, but in the same way that I know George Washington must have snuggled with Martha; true, but hard to fathom.

“Yeah, something like that,” I replied because telling her any more wasn’t possible.

We looked at it together. She saw a flag. I saw the corner of my bedroom at my parents’ house, my easel, the paint stains on the carpet that made my mother crazy. I saw myself staying up all night in the summer trying to do what Johns did with Flag with as much success as one can expect at seventeen. I saw the stacks of canvases I have in the corner of my laundry room at home, covered with garbage bags because I just don’t know what else to do with them.

She moved on and I had the sense that I was slipping on my official duty. So I turned and hurried to find my group, looking back to give it one last glance. It sat there, waiting for its next admirer, and I said goodbye to it in my mind. I found my kids in the gift shop. They were laughing over a book of cubist nudes. Since they were at least trying to be quiet, I left them to it. And really, cubist nudes are pretty funny. I browsed near enough to them to still be a respectable chaperone. I thought about buying a book on Johns, for old times’ sake, but shrunk down in reproductions, they really are just pictures.

Eventually the rest of the students made their way through the exhibit and we left to wait outside for the bus. The November sky was gray and cold, and we huddled together for warmth in the bus loading zone.

“So what did you like best, Tariq?” I asked one of my students, trying to take my mind off the cold that was seeping into my sneakers.

“I liked the melting clocks one, although it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“I liked the Jackson Pollock,” added Jordan.

“What? The drippy one? I could do that in my basement,” Tariq shook his head at Jordan’s apparent foolishness.

I laughed because that is what they all say, Pollock fans know that all too well. “No offense Tariq, but I doubt that. Maybe if you worked on it for a few decades.”

“Oh come on, Mrs. Martin. It’s just splattered paint.”

“No, trust me. Getting that feeling right, it isn’t easy.”

“How do you know?” Jordan asked.

I shrugged, “I used to paint.” I waited for someone to ask me about that, but no one did. Instead they turned and stared down the street, wishing the bus into existence. When that didn’t work Tariq turned back to me.

“So which one was your favorite? The drippy one?”

I gave him a smirk. “No, I liked the Jasper Johns flag.”

“Of course you do,” he replied.

“Hey, it’s not just because I’m the history teacher. I’ve always loved it, even when I was your age. It’s just so… deep. The colors and the textures. It’s a flag but it’s not a flag, you know?”

He blinked at me. “I don’t know, it just looked like a flag to me.”

Of course it did. And I guess in some ways he’s right. It is just a flag, a flag made of bits of paper, wax, and paint. And somehow, a piece of my soul, too.


Written by: Leslie Martin
Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

The Misfit Pioneers

Ming hauled the door open, her lips pressed together against the chill. Rubbing her hands, she dusted the white flakes off her coat and hurried inside.

She rarely came to this side of campus. Though it was a small university, the engineering students kept to their quarters and the art students to theirs. A quiet thrill shot through her at this minor act of defiance.

The art studio exhibited a curious architecture. Filmy drapes hung on black bars, almost like shower curtains. Bulging pipes peered from the ceiling. A string of lights crisscrossed overhead with no real symmetry. Concrete walls splattered with ash and paint. At least the low-rise tables and chairs appeared orderly and clean, gathered in blocks across the tiled, gray hardwood.

It was a very American studio, at least in Ming’s mind. Back home they would not tolerate such a design, even for a creative workshop. Ventilation pipes belonged behind walls and makeshift lights would be tossed in favor of unobtrusive ceiling fixtures.

Naked. That is how she would describe the room.

“Escaping the cold?”

She jumped at the voice. Turning, she found a lanky, raven-haired boy watching her with an amused expression. His hands were dark with charcoal dust.

“I wanted to wait for the snow to stop. I parked in the main lot.”

“You’ll be waiting awhile, then.”

Ming shrugged. She did not want to dwell on what prevented her from going home earlier, much less explain it to a stranger.

“Are you a student?” she asked instead.

He nodded. “Just transferred from art history to art. Drop a word from my major’s name and gain another year’s worth of work.” He grinned. “I’m Jonah.”

“I’m Ming, electrical engineering,” she said, knowing that was sufficient explanation for why they were not acquainted.

“Ming,” he repeated. “Cool name.” Jonah glanced at the dirty window, the edges frosted over with snow and ice. “It doesn’t look like the storm is letting up. I make a mean hot chocolate, if you want me to fix some up.”

She hesitated for a moment but agreed. The roads were dangerous, and the hot and humid weather of her hometown had not prepared her for the bitter winters here. Besides, Jesse would not call anymore and Ming did not want to be home alone with her thoughts.

Jonah had an easy, unaffected manner. He filled the silence with small talk about his life as he bustled around the kitchen area. Ming sat at a table nearby and listened. She learned that he switched majors late, so he spent frequent nights in the studio playing catch-up. Unlike most college students, he disliked coffee, but had an unhealthy addiction to hot chocolate.

“It’s my grandma’s recipe. No sugar,” he boasted, as he set two steaming mugs before her.

The warm, rich scent filled her nostrils. “Thank you,” she said.

He pulled out the chair opposite to her. “So, Ming. Does your name mean anything?”

“It’s the same word for ‘bright’ in Chinese. It’s quite common.” She paused. “What about Jonah?”

“The prophet, in the Bible.” He grinned at Ming’s blank look. “God sent him to preach to a wicked city, he disobeyed, and was swallowed by a fish for three days.”

She considered it for a moment. “It seems like bad luck,” she said finally.

Jonah laughed. “He made it out alive. It’s a great story, actually.”

Ming flushed and fell silent. Her family burned incense, prayed for health and prosperity, and tried to live good lives for karma’s sake. In her last two years in America, her circle of engineering friends rarely discussed religion, philosophy or literature. If Jesse worshiped anything, it was Bruce Willis movies, which he insisted were a sufficient lens into western culture and ideals.

“Do you plan to go back to China after school?”

“I wasn’t, but—” Ming stopped abruptly, a painful twinge in her chest. She met Jonah’s eyes, steady and kind. “My boyfriend is from here. He broke up with me today.” The words fell out in a rush.

Jonah’s eyes crinkled. “I’m sorry.” Then he added, “He’s a jerk.”

Surprised, Ming glanced at him. “You don’t know him.”

“Of course not. But he probably is.” He held up a hand to stop her interruption. “Here’s a rule for breakups. Get rid of that urge to defend him.” A crooked smile slid up his face. “I don’t know him. I know you. I’m on your side, alright?”

Ming suppressed the urge to tell him that his logic was convoluted and nonsensical. She had to admit it felt good to have someone on her side.

She and Jesse shared the same circle of friends. Or, more accurately, Jesse formed their circle of friends and drew her in when they began dating. Ming knew this was nonsensical too, that the loss of one relationship could make her feel so unanchored and lonely on a campus teeming with students.

“Thanks,” she said. “My friends were all Jesse’s friends, so…” she trailed off.

Jonah nodded in understanding. “Jesse is from the Bible too. Father of a king,” he murmured. “I’m guessing your ex isn’t that great.”

Ming couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t think so. And how are you living up to your name?”

“I’m all for seeing the inside of a fish.” Jonah grinned. “I like a good adventure. I’m forming a campus club for explorers, actually. The Misfit Pioneers. Have you heard the rumors about this place?”

She had. The administration tried to check wild gossip, but students still whispered about secret passageways and treasure troves buried beneath the grounds. Ming could never decide if it was the typical American obsession with conspiracy, or if there was some truth wrapped in the stories.

Jonah was on the ground, wrestling with something in the tiles. “This is what happens when you spend too much time here,” he called up to her. She heard a crack and an entire tile came loose. A plume of dust rose as he heaved it aside.

Ming yelped and joined him, peering into the darkness.

“What’s—in there?” she asked.

“Not sure. I was going to check it out sometime, hopefully with a buddy.” He met her gaze. “So, interested in joining my club?”

“How many people are in it?” she asked, still distracted by the gaping hole in the floor.

“Well, now there are two of us.”

Written by: Dana Li
Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

Some Farm

When the woman came to paint the farm, I didn’t know what to say, so I asked her if she would like to come in.

She wore a white, crocheted shawl about her shoulders and a colorful bandana in her hair. She had light eyes, blue or green, and a green sweater over a pale pink dress. It was a warm day for early April in Hoosick, the day after Easter, and she arrived as pleasantly and unexpectedly as the warm day had.

“I looked out my window and saw your farm, and I have canvas and acrylics in the car. Would you mind if I set up across the road and try to paint the property?”

I hesitated, at first not understanding what she was asking. I looked past her to the blue Volvo station wagon, where a crystal dangling from the rearview mirror winked back at me. She must have mistaken my pause for reluctance because in my silence she said, “There’s a strip of dead land between your crops that runs along your farm, and from the road it looks like a river.”

“The land’s not dead,” I said. “That’s just where we cut the corn.”

“It’s one of the loveliest, most unexpected sights I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“You’re welcome to paint it. Is there anything I can get for you?”

“I’d love a piece of charcoal, actually,” she said. “If you have it. And some water, if you’d be so kind.”

“You’ll want a chair to sit in, I imagine,” I said. I went to the deck and put a couple of pieces of charcoal into a brown paper bag and got a hard-backed chair from the office. I went to the kitchen and filled a jar with water. She waited in the doorway.

“Would you care to come in a moment? I’m just about to have breakfast if you’re hungry.” She came in and said no thank you. I offered her a glass of water.

“Just for the paints,” she said. I gave the jar to her, and she thanked me.

“Restroom’s first door on your right here, just come on in any time you need to.” I brought the chair out to her car.

“Oh,” she said. “Would you mind if I left my car here?”

“Not at all,” I said. “You want me to drive you over?”

She turned to look at the world behind us.

“You’re very kind, but I’d like the walk. I’ll bring the chair across the road myself,” she said.

“Let me help,” I said. I rarely walked to the road any more. I was almost always in the truck.

“Thank you. I don’t mean to put you out,” she said.

We went on down the drive, a two-person caravan. She didn’t have to stop once to adjust the way she carried her canvas, acrylics, cups, water and brushes. She had perfectly balanced all of it, or she was supernaturally determined not to waste a minute of sunlight, or both. I set the chair down across the road, ending our procession where the Wilsons’ trash bins usually waited for collection.

“Cars come by awful fast, you know,” I said. She smiled as if to respond, Not much we can do about that, can we? She sat down in the chair.

“Perfect,” she said. We were both a little short of breath. She put the canvas in her lap and supplies by her feet. We looked at the land. I think I saw what she meant by the land looking like a river, though I can’t say for sure. “This quality of light is just beautiful,” she said. It was. Looking at the farm from where she sat, the barns stood both out of and a part of the land. It would make for a fine painting, I thought.

“It’s funny. You saying the land between crops looks like a river. From here you can’t see it over the corn, but there’s a real creek, you know. We passed it coming up the drive.”

“Yes,” she said politely but without much interest. It occurred to me that she didn’t plan to paint the land, but the land as she saw it. She had taken one of the lumps of charcoal from the bag and began streaking it across the canvas, looking alternately between the canvas and the land, creating something that was neither.

“If you need anything, just start to walk back. I’ll drive out to meet you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you so much. This is just wonderful. Please, enjoy your breakfast.” She was trying, it seemed, to look meaningfully at me when she thanked me, trying to make sure I understood her gratitude, but the scene had hypnotized her. I reckoned there wasn’t any form of gratitude more evident than her intense pursuit of the work before her.

“All right now. I’ll keep an eye out,” I told her. She hummed in response. As I crossed the road, walked down the drive, past the creek, and up to the house, I felt something like an usher at the movie theaters walking in front of the screen. Down in front, I imagined the woman thinking, wanting popcorn to throw at me. As I walked to the porch, I became acutely aware that I was somehow between and a part of the landscape and the woman’s rendering of it.

After a few hours on the tractor, I walked back up the drive with some water.

“For the painter.” I said. She laughed.

“Thank you. My paints aren’t thirsty yet, but I am,” she set down the nub of coal and canvas and stood, accepting the jar with blackened hands. She stepped away, drinking and looking. “My, what a day,” she said. The canvas was charcoal all over, rough smears and delicate, grainy shading, thumb-smudged adjustments. It looked unlike any farm I had ever seen.

Story and Photograph by: Matt Briggs

Tell Satan Be Patient

Keaton D’Amato once asked me if I’d heard of Robert Johnson. Sure, I replied. Old blues man. That’s right, replied D’Amato. Went to the crossroads, sold his soul to the Devil so he could play the blues. Hmm, I said.

Years later I’m staring down the crossroads. I’ve come to sell my soul to the Devil so I can play my own type of blues, an endeavor that might prove useful thanks to my precarious position on God’s existence. There are however some hiccups in this logic, the old chicken or the egg question of the Godly folk. Can you have the Devil without God?

The blind gypsy man that sent me here said, sure. He said, I don’t know much ‘bout God but me n’ the Devil is real close. He had a cackle laugh and wore a bracelet made of turtle bones. He who’d spent too much time in the Louisiana bayou, too much time with his handmade-dolls whom he called his kiddies, one too many fried gator tongues for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. After I meet the Devil and make the soul-transaction, I plan on writing a short story about the gypsy man -- Wallace was his name.

So like some southern gothic Odysseus signpost, old blind Wallace pointed me west further into the swamp. Out there innit! He pointed and cackled and we both disappeared into the darkness going opposite directions.

As I sludged deeper I thought of my mother. She was dead but once she’d been grand, beautiful like purple clouds spitting lightning during a summer storm, a chill in the air, a breeze on your cheek. She was a believer and a good person, but she died too young. Ain’t nobody say it’d be like this she wheezed, her last words on a bed with bad springs, in a room with yellow water stains on the ceilings and harsh light. Oh well. So it goes.

The surrounding sounds had a life of their own, given my imagination. The wind played tricks with my mind and my senses went spinning in all sorts of misshapen directions, like my inherent fear was dealing with a nasty bout of vertigo. After some time in the dark, as the sky got light and the day’s engine choked to life, I turned a corner and saw three lovelies.

Three, my favorite number. Rolls off the tongue like honey. Better than a pair and stronger than a group. An equal balance with one in the middle, the trio was tied to a whipping post, wearing black scraps that once looked like clothes. Help! they cried, so I went and took my knife, bent low and released them. I gave them water and they were grateful. My name is Mary Lou, said the most beautiful. She had ringlets of blonde hair matted with blood red mud, and in the morning light the swamp was like a church of crimson, a mysterious mist of burgundy that I had not encountered before nor since. The remaining pair were lookers as well with red hair like fire that stood out even from the scarlet swamp. They were named Suzy Q, and Jenny Boo. Respectively.

It’s a fine mornin’ for a rescue, said Suzy Q. We appreciate you kindly. I asked them what had them all tied up and they looked to the ground like little girls, and rubbed their toes in the mud like they was ballet pointing, and finally Jenny Boo - speaking like Nabakov’s Lolita - said, It’s the Devil that done us like this. I told them that was awful unjust, however, I had dealings with the Devil and if they could point me in the right direction I would forever be on bended knee in great appreciation. Mister, asked Suzy, What kinda business you got with that ol’ rascal? I told them of my plan to barter my soul, and they all three shrugged and said in a ghostly chorus, Ain’t no weight in a soul misplaced. I got the shivers right down to my little toe when they pointed me west, but I thanked them kindly and went on my way. I could hear them giggling for miles after that like they had been carried by the wind.

The sun hung up in the sky like a lightbulb, and it musta’ been damn near noon when I came across the building with the peeling paint walls. I came upon a long hallway feeling fine until I heard a noise of rustlin’ at the far end like a creature coming out of the brush, like when me and Daddy went pig hunting, and at that moment the sky went dark and the sun got all eaten up by the hungry sky. It was dark and chilly and that rustlin’ kept getting louder and I was truly afraid.

That darkness seeped into me, and from it came a voice like a thousand crying angels and it said, I’ve been waiting for you, boy! I couldn’t see nothing, but I could feel a presence on the other end of the hall moving slow and sure towards me, creeping and crawling like a rabid dog. There was breathing through a stopped up nose like after Momma used to get the allergies real bad, and a smell most akin to sulphur leaking from the bowels of the world.

I’ve come to make a proposition! I shouted. I’ve got one good soul for a life of fine art! It was then I could see the beast’s eyes floating in the dark. Of what use to me is a good soul? asked the Devil. Well, I replied, I s’pose it’s one less to worry about when the deal goes down. I suppose it is, said the Devil keenly. And what do you want in return for this one good soul? he continued. I want to create great works of art, I said. Works that espouse the human condition. Works that inspire and transcend the cages of the form in which they are binded by. I want to be an artist of great reverence, a genius of Einsteinian proportions. Recognized, is what I want to be.

The devil laughed a shrill laugh and said, I can’t give you that boy. But what about the others that came to the crossroads? I asked. Myths that romanticize - a human condition, answered the Devil. Only so many ways to escape all that drudgery. I nearly began to cry, but the Devil spoke, Neither madness nor lust can get you what you want, though they might have brought you here. Stalwarts of your humanity that they might be, they do you no good in your mission here today. But if you please, the Devil continued, I will tell you the secret of creation.

Awake! he bellowed and fire pierced the darkness and seemed to engulf me. But I felt no heat. I felt no fire. And when I opened my eyes the Devil was gone, the sky was bright and blue making love with the sun, and the crossroads was an empty hallway with peeling paint.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Written by: Logan Theissen
Photograph by: Jennifer Stevens

In the Darkness

 
Her mother named her Desire, then gave her up for adoption. Charlotte and Ben argued about the name as they signed the paperwork. Charlotte wanted to call her Evelyn after her sister, but Ben said they should respect the mother’s wishes.

“It’s the one thing she has from her mom,” Ben said.

“I’m her mom now,” Charlotte pleaded, but Desire stuck.

Desire grew up with no false assumptions about her birth. Her adoptive parents repeated the story constantly—how her real mother was struggling with the sin of addiction, and how Jesus brought Desire to their home to be a beacon of light in the darkness.

Desire, unaware of metaphor or of the silent darkness that is infertility, looked around for the dark wherever she went. She saw it down open manholes and on moonless nights. She saw it in her adoptive grandmother’s basement as it appeared in her nightmares. And then, in fourth grade, her Sunday school teacher Mr. George said it was time to address the darkness head on. It was time for street evangelism.

After church, the fourth graders climbed into the fifteen-passenger van with Eagle Vista Fellowship painted on the side, armed with paper tracts.

“Does everyone have their buddy?” Mr. George asked, twisting from behind the steering wheel.

Everyone did. Desire’s buddy was Brittany, who had won a medal last month for memorizing the most Bible verses. Brittany, whose blonde hair was so long she could sit on it. Brittany, whom Charlotte said had been blessed with a generous spirit, since her little brother had Down’s and was God’s special gift in difficult packaging.

93.8 THE FISH was playing a jangling praise song, and Brittany lifted her tinny voice to sing along with Mr. George. They were headed towards the part of town where Ben and Charlotte delivered meals on wheels to the needy. The front porches were crowded with junk. Some houses had broken windows or dangling shutters.

“This is it!” called Mr. George. “Stay with your buddy, and remember to pray over each house, even if the people don’t want to talk.”

Brittany ran ahead, calling for Desire to catch up. She had already scampered onto the first porch and pressed her pinky into the doorbell by the time Desire made it into the yard. Brittany rang the bell three times, but no one came. At the end of the driveway, the girls held hands as Brittany prayed over the house. Desire always kept her eyes open during prayers to see who else was peeking. Brittany wasn’t peeking. Desire looked at the sky, where she imagined God was glaring down at her for not speaking to him more sincerely with her heart. She saw a giant bird lope through the air and land on a telephone pole.

“Amen,” Brittany said.

“Look at that bird,” Desire said. “I think it’s a buzzard.”

“It’s not!” Brittany said, still speaking in her praying voice. “It’s an Eagle! For Eagle Vista! It’s a sign Jesus is blessing our work here today. We have a lot of people to reach. Why don’t you go down this side of the street, and I’ll take that side? Then we can bless twice as many houses!”

Desire, more from watching Scooby Doo cartoons than from listening to Mr. George, knew they shouldn’t split up, but she also wasn’t sure how much more of Brittany’s praying she could take in one afternoon.

“Okay, but don’t go to the next street until I catch up,” she said.

Desire shuffled her tracts as she waited on the next porch. An old lady peeked through the curtains and glared. At another house, a man thought she was selling Girl Scout cookies, but didn’t want to talk about God. Finally, at 665 Winthrop Street, someone took a tract.

The woman at the door was pale, and so skinny you could pour water into her collarbones and it would stay there. Her greasy, red hair was slicked back, and her eyes were glassy. Desire didn’t want to look at her face, so she looked at her feet.

“I like your anklet,” Desire said.

The woman laughed. “I blinged it out the best I could! Still keeps me on the porch.”

On the black plastic, a little green light blinked among stick-on rhinestones.

“What’s this paper all about?” the woman asked.

“Jesus wants to love you,” Desire said.

“About time somebody did,” the woman said. “What’s your name, church girl?”

“Desire.”

“That’s some name.”

“I’m adopted.”

“For real? Your parents told you that already? Damn.”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t say that word.”

The woman laughed again. “You come up on my porch and tell me what I can’t say?”

Desire backed down the steps into the yard.

“Do you want me to pray with you?” Desire asked, following the script she’d practiced with Brittany.

“Why not.”

Desire looked over her shoulder for Brittany, but didn’t see her anywhere. The bird flapped its wings on the pole, its feathers like long black fingers.

“Well, you gonna pray?” the lady asked.

“Um, dear Jesus, please bless—sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Charlotte,” the woman said.

Desire stared at her, straight in the eyes this time. At that moment, Desire felt Jesus was trying to tell her something: this was her real mom.

“Don’t you remember me?” Desire asked.

“No. Should I? Your church group come here before?” the woman said.

“Did you have a baby nine years ago?”

“Hey crazy, I don’t have kids!” the woman laughed.

From behind her, Desire heard a sound like the screeching of a screen door. She whipped around expecting to see Brittany leaving a house, but the noise was coming from the buzzard, swooping down into the yard.

Where was Brittany? And why didn’t her mom remember? Was Jesus not speaking to her after all?

“Can you help me find my friend?” Desire asked. “And scare off that bird? He’s freaky.”

“They’ll be after me if I leave the house.”

Desire suddenly felt sweaty. Her mother, or Jesus, one, was abandoning her again, and there were people in this neighborhood who would get you if you went outdoors. And she had abandoned blonde-haired, generous-spirited Brittany alone in this land of darkness.

“Please help me?”

“Sorry,” Charlotte said, retreating back into her house. “You’re on your own.”




Photograph By: Emily Blincoe
Written By: Dot Dannenberg

After the Storm

The first frost came early that year, hardening the alluvial mountain earth – with it, soon after, the first winter storm. That meant the main road that cut through the mountains and out of the town was closed early, though it was at some point every winter. So Arata waited.

Time’s forward progression no longer felt like a certainty as the harsh frost froze everything it touched. Arata waited without any assurance that waiting would bring her any closer to realizing her plans. She sat patiently in the quiet of her living room watching the smoke snake out of her neighbor’s detached kitchen. Now and again, a huddled mass could be seen rushing from the kitchen to its attendant house with an armful of steaming food. She thought how curious it was that a detached kitchen, an antiquated and inconvenient architectural design, should still exist. The days and weeks and months passed and Arata continued to sit and wait. There was nothing else left for her to do.

Then spring came.

The winter weather had finally broken and the heavy curtain of cold lifted. The transformation was sudden. In a matter of days, the accumulated snow gave way to a dramatic explosion of green.

Arata gathered her worn suitcase, one her father had given to her before she went off to university, which she had prepared months before that first winter storm. Bits of dried faux leather flaked at its corners, revealing a layer of thin foam intended to mimic the suppleness of real animal hide. Memories of her father soon occupied her mind and she thought of how she had always despised her name. She was older now, but still carried a harmless resentment towards her parents for having given her a boy’s name.

At her doorway, decrepit suitcase in hand, she turned to look at the house where she had raised her family. She had always been, first and foremost, a mother and the house was her domain. From where she stood, the living room to her right and the hallway leading to the two bedrooms to her left, she could see the small kitchen, gently illuminated by the early dawn sunlight, just beyond the foyer where she had spent so many hours of her life. The pots and pans were suspended over the narrow gas range from a rack now caked in hardened grease. The pantry adjacent to the range was stocked with a healthy quantity of dried and canned staples. Arata wondered if she had left any milk in her refrigerator and contemplated checking, but then decided that it didn’t matter.

Arata pictured her children’s bedroom and the bedroom she had shared with her husband, the closets storing decades’ worth of clothing. In the foyer itself, a family portrait sat atop a candlestand table, welcoming visitors as they entered the home. Arata checked her watch and closed the door behind her, leaving it unlocked as she left.

The virgin spring air was cool, a remnant of the long winter. Arata made her way slowly to the bus station on the other side of town, both to enjoy the fresh air and because the slight hitch in her gait forced her. It was early yet, so the shops were still shuttered. She smiled politely at the handful of proprietors getting ready for the day’s business.

“Good morning Mrs. Sato. Going on a trip?” Mr. Yoshida asked.

What was this?

Arata shared the bus into the city with just one other passenger, a young woman dressed in traditional Japanese garb. She regarded the young woman’s beauty and wondered why she was dressed so formally before turning to her own translucent reflection in the clouded glass. Vanity had once been her greatest weakness. Even now, having been humbled by the passage of time, she took quiet pride in her girlish appearance which so often fooled those who attempted to guess her age. Only her hands, with its deep folds and dark blemishes, gave any indication of a life long-lived.

Arata took the sleeve of her thin cotton sweater into her fist and wiped away the condensation on the bus window, leaving a trail of water droplets in her wake. For a brief moment, she could see the world outside with a level of clarity possible only in contrast, but the early morning air quickly shrouded the glass pane with a new layer of fog.

Her right arm was propped against her seat, her left rested atop her suitcase just lightly enough to ensure it was there. The bus was at an incline as it climbed the unpaved mountain roads, still soft and moist from newly melted snow, the trees a continuous blur of green. She wasn’t running away. No, that would imply a shirking of authority or obligation – but there was none of that left, her children and her husband having passed. Doubt was all that was left. This was something different. She wondered if her motivation was even relevant anymore.

There was a past and a future, maybe. But there was no present.

As the bus entered the city proper, the mountain clouds that had clung stubbornly to the bus and the dreamlike miasma that had encapsulated the vehicle, dissipated. The unruly ride of the rural roads gave way to a dull hum of paved highways. Arata wasn’t sure if she had fallen asleep during the bus ride, but when she opened her eyes the world had changed. She turned her body towards the bus’s panoramic windows with a childlike enthusiasm as she saw the urban landscape come into view. Her heart beat headily.

As Arata stepped off the bus, the urban din immediately flooded her head, but the discordance played like a wonderful orchestra to her. The grey of the city was a curious novelty – even the green of the trees were darkened by the shadow of the imposing skyscrapers. Perhaps here she could disappear. Perhaps here, her solitude would be a blessing. This was the present now.




Written By: James Mo
Photo By: Becky Lee

The Creative Process

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. And GO.

Wait, goggles don’t feel right.

And GO.

Wait, wait, wait. Didn’t set my stopwatch.

GO, DAMMIT!

Alright, just like Youtube taught me. Legs stiff, arms extended and forehead barely cresting the water.

One.

Cresting. Gross. It sounds like I’m being birthed. I could go for a good cry right now. Or maybe a spanking.

Two.

What jaghole decided to make open swim from five to eight in the morning? I bet they’re old, like everyone else in here besides me.

Three.

Including this bag of wrinkles in my lane. How are there THIS MANY PEOPLE here right now?

Four.

Alright, chill out. Focus on your breathing. Close your eyes. You’re the only one in the pool. You’re the only one in the pool.

Five.

Fuck! Ouch. Goddamn rope! Am I bleeding? I’m probably bleeding. I should probably stop and make sure I’m not bleeding.

Six.

NO! You will stay in this pool and continue racing this ancient merman! Even if he has no idea he’s in a race.

Seven.

Son of a Speedo! This guy is like the lovechild of Flipper the dolphin and one of the California Raisins! Is he propelling himself with farts or what!?

Eight.

I quit. Racing. Not swimming. Must keep swimming. Must stay fit. Must look good naked.

Nine.

According to Men’s Health, a summer of lap swimming leads to a six-pack. Men’s Health wouldn’t lie. Men’s Health is infallible.

Ten.

Speaking of bibles, I wonder if Jesus was a swimmer? He had GREAT abs.

Eleven.

Maybe he wasn’t walking on water at all?

Twelve.

Maybe his leg kicks were so fierce, he just appeared to be walking on water?

Thirteen.

I wonder if Jesus would’ve been so influential without those abs?

Fourteen.

Would people be so willing to wear him around their neck if he looked more like St. Nick?

Fifteen.

Who has the money for that much precious metal? Rappers. And Baptists.

Sixteen.

What if Jesus wasn’t Jesus at all? What if the Jesus we all know and mostly pretend to love is really just the FACE of Christianity?

Seventeen.

And the real Jesus was like Beyonce’s song writers.

Eighteen.

They create inspiring lyrics about inner-beauty and self-respect, while she performs them in designer outfits and gallons of makeup.

Nineteen.

Real Jesus was probably a hefty gent who ate one-too-many pieces of unleavened bread while rolling through his scrolls.

Twenty.

No matter how compelling his philosophies were, no one could look past the crumbs in his beard.

Twenty-one.

Then one day, while passing a construction site, he spotted a svelte young man telling a joke to a larger audience than Real Jesus could ever even pray for.

Twenty-two.

That’s when he decided to let this sexy carpenter do his preaching for him.

Twenty-three.

Real Jesus started by feeding him a few simple parables, but the underlying messages went right over the crowd’s heads.

Twenty-four.

So they started performing “miracles,” like the time Hot Christ distracted a wedding party with his abs while Real Jesus filled the water pitchers with wine.

Twenty-five.

Or that time when Hot Christ stood on a makeshift surfboard while Real Jesus discretely pushed it across a lake.

Twenty-six.

Or the time when Hot Christ climbed to the top of a mountain and started glowing because Real Jesus reflected the sun on his face with a shiny rock.

Twenty-seven.

That one probably wasn’t even intended to be a miracle. That was just Real Jesus playing a practical joke on his buddy while he was trying to take a leak.

Twenty-eight.

But then things turned sour once Hot Christ let all the hero worship get to his head.

Twenty-nine.

He started believing he truly was the son of God and started writing checks his abs couldn’t cash.

Thirty.

Hot Christ’s preachings went from Real Jesus’ parables to promising everyone eternal life and a blank slate if they committed their lives to him.

Thirty-one.

Real Jesus tried to warn him the authorities were getting a little weary of these radical thoughts, but Hot Christ was already gone.

Thirty-two.

Next thing you know, Hot Christ is getting nailed to a cross and Real Jesus is back to being ignored by everyone in Jerusalem. Especially the ladies.

Thirty-three.

Even Hot Christ’s most avid listeners started forgetting all of Real Jesus’ philosophies.

Thirty-four.

Real Jesus knew his life’s work was decaying like Hot Christ’s body in the cave, so he came up with one final miracle.

Thirty-five.

One morning while no one was watching, which didn’t take long because everyone was kind of over the whole crucifiction thing,

thirty-six,

real Jesus removed Hot Christ from the cave and carried his corpse around town, Weekend At Bernie’s style.

Thirty-seven.

The disciples bought it and quickly wrote down everything they could remember from their time with Hot Christ. And so began the New Testament.

Forty-seven.

Did I just come up with the plot for my first Dan Brown novel, or did I just guarantee myself a warm seat in hell right next to Satan?

Forty-eight.

BOTH! Wait, did I just lose count? Wasn’t I just in the thirties?

Forty-nine.

Son of a BITCH! There’s no way that’s right. I have to go back. Let’s say...

forty-five.

Forty-five sounds about right, right? Is this Karma?

Forty-six.

No, Karma is an Indian thing. What’s the Indian religion again?

Forty-seven.

I want to say it starts with an “H...”

Forty-eight.

HINDUISM! Oh man, talk about a religion you can have some fun with. They do it like gymnasts and all their gods look like Goro from Mortal Kombat.

Forty-nine.

But, that will have to wait till next time. One more big stroke and...

FIFTY!

Jesus, that sucked.

There I go taking the Lord’s name in vain again. Granny always told me I shouldn’t do that. You know who else’s name you shouldn’t say? LORD VOLDEMORT.

Jesus is Voldemort! Do I smell a sequel?

No, that’s just chlorine.

I’ve gotta stop thinking and swimming.




Written By: Mark Killian
Photo By: Christian Goy