Featured Here: "A Story" by Josiah Canto, "Unnatural Fire" by Gabriel Conway-Burt, "The Cafeteria in the Rain" by Danny Holy, "Obsidian" by Christina Nation, "Things" by Cori Pizano, "Where the Light Floods In" by Madison Secor
A Story
by Josiah Canto "I think I think too much"
said Thought, as it sat by the river of colors racing and splashing rainbows above, below and every direction. Undecided sat next to Thought and pondered aloud, "Well, if you think thinking is your biggest issue, I've got to say, I don't know why you seem so, oh, I don't know, what's the word?" Both Thought and Undecided sat in silence until Undecided popped up, standing and sitting in no particular pattern. "Anxious? A feeling of unrest? Conflicted? Curious? Confused? Ridiculous? Hungry? Quizzical? Thoughtful?" Thought chuckled to itself, Undecided could never seem to say what one should say at the time it needed to be said, but somehow, always said what one needed to hear even though at the time it was never what one would think needed to be said. "Perhaps..." Thought waited a few moments, calculating how to describe what it was currently thinking about "Undecided, what happens when us, them and those in-between say goodbye before they know that they are leaving. It seems to me that if one wanted to go, they could choose the when, how, why, even the particulars of all the goodbyes they would want to give so it could be as they truly want." This time Undecided stood up and took a step toward the river of colors and knelt in the way one does when it is undecidedly decided. Undecided looked closely at the playful colors and very carefully dipped a finger in, the colors splashed, curious for a moment and then continued their journey. Undecided removed its finger and stood up decidedly so and sat down next to Thought. Thought starred, amazed at what had just transpired. "Well?" Thought asked with curiosity and wonder. "It appears to me that us, them and those in-between, don't choose, for the choosing is something that no one would choose if given the choice. I suppose some have more opportunities than others for the great goodbye. I could never decide on whom would be the ones I would say goodbye to, of course, maybe hope, faith, questions, words, and you, but there are so many I could not even dare to say. I wouldn't want to purposefully or the opposite of what I really say or do or as you say, think. As you can see Thought, we are only two, and your thinking about thinking is something you must at some point do what I cannot, decide whether you will, well, truthfully, I do not know. As for me, I will always be as I am" Again, they sat in silence, after some time, "Why the colors, and why the finger in their waters?" Undecided looked toward the colors with a sad smile. "I wanted to know if the river of colors could show us a decided pattern of the great goodbye so we could help them with an understanding and those in-between could find rest in an answer". Then Undecided was done and Thought knew that was all that would be said on the question of the great goodbye. Thought sat next to Undecided and held the hand of it's wise and fickle friend. Unnatural Fire
by Gabriel Conway-Burt |
A can hisses open, perturbed by the opening of its lid. Crickets chatter unseen while the four of us take our seats on the bench of the small garden. Before our eyes, a sleepy town wedged between the mountains glimmers, with its many windows and doorways. The street Palisades Drive forms a great Venice-like river between houses. The “movie” has already been burning for about an hour it’s screen spreading across the forest above the mountain in front of us. Sirens can be made out in the distance, salmon swimming upstream. We relax, letting the sights and sounds do the talking. A lighter flickers it’s mouth, a dragon's. Maybe it had been a dragon, a funny thought but we knew better of this world of cement and steel straight mountains. As kids we may have thought differently.
Jack’s pair of dark green converse nestles gently in a grass nest below our feet, his purple pack perching onto it. He wears blue Levi pants, baggy, with the ends cuffed. Normally he wears plain white t-shirts or knitted cotton long sleeves and his favorite colors to wear are browns, greens, and whites. There is definition on his arms, reminding me of the ridgelines he always climbs, however he still carries a lean form. His face is a freckled sparrow’s egg. He is tall and smells like pine trees. His music plays in the background, even now I think of its good taste and we savor it. His hands are soft except for the tips, which are calloused and eroded by his bass. His hair is a fluffy and curly brown, yet it’s shorter today now that it’s just been cut. I am in mid conversation with him now, and as usual I always find myself talking during movies.
“I like the trailer, but it’s only gonna have like four guns.”
“I don’t know man, Battlefield 2042 looks pretty hein.” He scoffs.
(Please don’t look hein up; it shows up as a French word for “eh” which I didn’t actually think was a word. It's Jack’s short form of heinous. And yes you’re allowed to search that one)
“You’re not going to buy it?” I say back.
“Nah, it needs to grow up.” He says.
“What?” I ask; confused.
“It’ll get better as it gets older. More developed. More features. You know?” He shrugs his shoulders.
“Who says it gets better when it gets older?” I say.
“Most games do.” Jack retorts.
I sigh: “I’m scared it won’t.”
Anna’s points towards a small hole under one of the bushes to our left in the public garden, which had become our theater. Jack, Anna, and I had gone and dug this hole a week earlier. Not with our hands but with rocks, we weren’t animals. Come to think of it, we were all nearly adults, or even: already adults. The horrifying title of adulthood seems so uncertain at this age. Whatever the case, I think to myself that nights like these tend to teach us how to escape such titles. Anna is short compared to me and Jack, straight bamboo beach blonde decorating her head. She is never one to hold back on her words, almost standoffish at times. However, her mood stayed tranquil as the pond beside us, the scene in front of us playing off of it, screen sharing. The great reservoir tucked in the center of the mountains connected to the bluetooth of that scene, reflecting our show.
“Nnnow!”
“Ah, look another one, I can just see it!” Dylan would chirp.
He had begun predicting when the metal birds would dip their talons into the screen of the reservoir and manually dump them onto the star of tonight’s show. Hummingbird wings lost in a blur of violently fast movement. He smiled as we looked in shock, the close shaven beard that journeyed up the sides of his face moving with the smile. To Dylan I knew back then, shaving was a thing that we didn’t have to worry about. His white socks with a strip of brown bark on them moved up and down with the music, even now the same unconscious reaction would occur to me. The socks reminded me of the long socks of the Von Trapps, and reminded me we had both played brothers in that musical. Both of us have journeyers upon our faces, in similar fashions. Both of our heads writhe with brown snakes curled in attack. Dylan and I had been constant denizens of each other's “snake dens.”
Funnily enough I’m reminded that snake dens were featured heavily in a game we used to play in our dens: Realm of the Mad God. Back then we had journeyed through a stone and moss gate, taking us to a different pocket sized world. I would’ve been carapaced in steel, him in wind-flowing robes as we ventured through dark labyrinths of vines that were easily mistaken for more venomous and scaly lookalikes. As we made it to the end a great crimson coil of wired snake unplugs itself from the mossy ancient stone walls of this den. It’s fangs extend, USBs ready to connect holes into our necks. Injecting our young minds with a torpid yet all knowing cyberspace. Perturbed and hissing the giant snake would always try to grab one of us, having faced this foe countless times already we had learned that it was best for me to be captured by its first move, because my armor would block its inevitable attacks. Casting blazing spell after spell the super snake would eventually disappear, a brown or purple bag of loot appearing where it had once slithered.
“Remember the Realm of the Mad God?” He would say.
“Of course, it’s even better now though with the updates.” I would catch myself saying, then be taken aback for a moment.
The brown macadamias that formed eyes would light up and I would find him and myself transported back to those mossy gates. Me and him agree to start playing again once we get back home. He reaches into Jack’s purple bag, holding a dragon that clicks its claws as the lighter opens its maw again. The moon is getting higher in the sky. Moments more are tenderly drawn out, soon we begin to leave.
The ashy smell of the show still lingers as we pile into the sleek white flower that will take us downstream. We pull in each of the petals, closing us into it. The flower turns on and soon we are making our way down Palisades Drive. We can’t see much of a difference in what we were watching, it still spreads across the forest far from us. Embraces are met one by one as we stop on each other's parts of the river. Each of us returned to our glimmering dens. The night withdraws and the movie ends. I’d learned later someone had gone around and set about several fires along the hill.
Jack’s pair of dark green converse nestles gently in a grass nest below our feet, his purple pack perching onto it. He wears blue Levi pants, baggy, with the ends cuffed. Normally he wears plain white t-shirts or knitted cotton long sleeves and his favorite colors to wear are browns, greens, and whites. There is definition on his arms, reminding me of the ridgelines he always climbs, however he still carries a lean form. His face is a freckled sparrow’s egg. He is tall and smells like pine trees. His music plays in the background, even now I think of its good taste and we savor it. His hands are soft except for the tips, which are calloused and eroded by his bass. His hair is a fluffy and curly brown, yet it’s shorter today now that it’s just been cut. I am in mid conversation with him now, and as usual I always find myself talking during movies.
“I like the trailer, but it’s only gonna have like four guns.”
“I don’t know man, Battlefield 2042 looks pretty hein.” He scoffs.
(Please don’t look hein up; it shows up as a French word for “eh” which I didn’t actually think was a word. It's Jack’s short form of heinous. And yes you’re allowed to search that one)
“You’re not going to buy it?” I say back.
“Nah, it needs to grow up.” He says.
“What?” I ask; confused.
“It’ll get better as it gets older. More developed. More features. You know?” He shrugs his shoulders.
“Who says it gets better when it gets older?” I say.
“Most games do.” Jack retorts.
I sigh: “I’m scared it won’t.”
Anna’s points towards a small hole under one of the bushes to our left in the public garden, which had become our theater. Jack, Anna, and I had gone and dug this hole a week earlier. Not with our hands but with rocks, we weren’t animals. Come to think of it, we were all nearly adults, or even: already adults. The horrifying title of adulthood seems so uncertain at this age. Whatever the case, I think to myself that nights like these tend to teach us how to escape such titles. Anna is short compared to me and Jack, straight bamboo beach blonde decorating her head. She is never one to hold back on her words, almost standoffish at times. However, her mood stayed tranquil as the pond beside us, the scene in front of us playing off of it, screen sharing. The great reservoir tucked in the center of the mountains connected to the bluetooth of that scene, reflecting our show.
“Nnnow!”
“Ah, look another one, I can just see it!” Dylan would chirp.
He had begun predicting when the metal birds would dip their talons into the screen of the reservoir and manually dump them onto the star of tonight’s show. Hummingbird wings lost in a blur of violently fast movement. He smiled as we looked in shock, the close shaven beard that journeyed up the sides of his face moving with the smile. To Dylan I knew back then, shaving was a thing that we didn’t have to worry about. His white socks with a strip of brown bark on them moved up and down with the music, even now the same unconscious reaction would occur to me. The socks reminded me of the long socks of the Von Trapps, and reminded me we had both played brothers in that musical. Both of us have journeyers upon our faces, in similar fashions. Both of our heads writhe with brown snakes curled in attack. Dylan and I had been constant denizens of each other's “snake dens.”
Funnily enough I’m reminded that snake dens were featured heavily in a game we used to play in our dens: Realm of the Mad God. Back then we had journeyed through a stone and moss gate, taking us to a different pocket sized world. I would’ve been carapaced in steel, him in wind-flowing robes as we ventured through dark labyrinths of vines that were easily mistaken for more venomous and scaly lookalikes. As we made it to the end a great crimson coil of wired snake unplugs itself from the mossy ancient stone walls of this den. It’s fangs extend, USBs ready to connect holes into our necks. Injecting our young minds with a torpid yet all knowing cyberspace. Perturbed and hissing the giant snake would always try to grab one of us, having faced this foe countless times already we had learned that it was best for me to be captured by its first move, because my armor would block its inevitable attacks. Casting blazing spell after spell the super snake would eventually disappear, a brown or purple bag of loot appearing where it had once slithered.
“Remember the Realm of the Mad God?” He would say.
“Of course, it’s even better now though with the updates.” I would catch myself saying, then be taken aback for a moment.
The brown macadamias that formed eyes would light up and I would find him and myself transported back to those mossy gates. Me and him agree to start playing again once we get back home. He reaches into Jack’s purple bag, holding a dragon that clicks its claws as the lighter opens its maw again. The moon is getting higher in the sky. Moments more are tenderly drawn out, soon we begin to leave.
The ashy smell of the show still lingers as we pile into the sleek white flower that will take us downstream. We pull in each of the petals, closing us into it. The flower turns on and soon we are making our way down Palisades Drive. We can’t see much of a difference in what we were watching, it still spreads across the forest far from us. Embraces are met one by one as we stop on each other's parts of the river. Each of us returned to our glimmering dens. The night withdraws and the movie ends. I’d learned later someone had gone around and set about several fires along the hill.
The Cafeteria in the Rain
by Danny Holy
by Danny Holy
It was raining out. Not the soft kind of rain, but the kind of rain that signaled that it was time for Catherine to get home, make a late dinner, and add marshmallows to a cup of hot chocolate.
She stepped out of her last class of the day, slung her black backpack over her shoulder, and tugged the hood of her hoodie up. She stepped to the side so the rest of the class could file out and go their separate directions. Some walked across the street and headed in the direction of the library while others spread to the left and to the right. Catherine assumed they were walking back to their dorms.
She untangled her earbuds, plugged the cord into the bottom of her phone, and slipped a bud into each ear. She pressed play on her playlist and nineties rock music filled her ears. There had been a girl she had known – perhaps she had been her friend at one point, but perhaps not – who would have insisted on 2000s pop music instead.
Catherine shoved her hands into the pockets of her black jeans and walked with purpose to the parking lot next to the soccer field. All the while, droplets of water tapped insistently against her.
She passed by the school cafeteria. With a wide staircase leading up to it and floor-to-ceiling glass walls, it was one of the larger landmarks on campus. She had yet to eat there this year, since it was always filled with students. Whether they were there to grab a rushed meal before their next class or they had set up shop with their laptops on the table and their backpacks on the seat next to them, students filled the building from open until close.
She walked on the sidewalk along the fenced in soccer field and turned her head to the right to look at it, but she couldn’t see anything except blackness, the outlines of soccer goals, and the shadows of trees waving gently in the wind. She returned her focus to the sidewalk in front of her and followed her shoes, scuffed and beginning to rip towards the top of her toes, with her eyes. As she approached her car, she reached into her left pocket to retrieve her keys. It was a black Acura TL, old but thankfully not beaten up. The car had wound up in her possession after a stroke of luck led her friend’s father to give it to her. She pressed the unlock button on the key fob and swung her backpack off of her shoulders, grabbing the carry handle at the top with her left hand and pulling the driver’s door open with her right. She hesitated to put her bag in the car, staring at its soppiness and then the car’s clean carpet.
“Fuck,” she mumbled to herself. “Fuck, fuck.”
She closed the car door, pressed the lock button on the key fob, and then swung her backpack back onto her shoulders. The rain continued to pour down on her. The steady downpour sunk through the fabric of her clothes. She hadn’t shivered yet but if she didn’t get out of the rain it was only a matter of time. With hurried steps, she walked back the way she came, passing the soccer field and turning to ascend the stairs to the cafeteria.
Just as she anticipated, even towards closing time, the room was packed. Even through her earbuds, she could hear the unintelligible hum of students chatting with each other.
She walked on the right side of the cafeteria. Wooden tables filled the center and to her left. Booths lined the glass walls. She passed by a few of her classmates seated at one. One of them, a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes whose name she never bothered to learn, waved at her. She nodded her head back.
She didn’t know the names of any of her classmates, come to think about it.
An empty section towards the back of the cafeteria was where she took up residence. She slid into the center of one of the booths and set her backpack on the floor between her legs. The cushion against her back was ripped and the tear in the material pressed uncomfortably against her back. She shifted forward, reached her hand behind herself, and pushed on the material until it was flat rather than protruding. Then, she leaned back, placed her hands on the table, and watched.
At one table, two boys talked animatedly. Catherine could not understand what they were saying – the music in her ears blocked out the noise – but she assumed they were talking about football. One wore a jersey with the number twelve on it and the name Brady etched onto the back. It was red with white typography. The other boy wore a black jersey with gold around the neck. He was facing her, so Catherine couldn’t see the name on the back of the jersey, but she could see the number nine, also in gold, across the chest.
At another table, two boys played a game of tic-tac-toe with a black ballpoint pen on a napkin as they ate their dinners.
At yet another, a girl with a plate of salad sat down next to a boy in a leather jacket, who was seated next to a boy in a long-sleeved shirt, who was seated next to the final member of their group: a girl with a book closed in front of her, a white ribbon bookmark jutting from the pages.
Catherine saw all of this and interlocked her fingers.
She looked outside, through the glass wall, and watched the rain batter down. By the time she turned away to observe the cafeteria again, a girl, far too recognizable for her own liking, was fast approaching her table. She too was drenched from the top of her sandy brown hair, to the scar just above her lip, to the blue sweater wrapped around her frame, and all the way down past her fading jeans to the Converse she wore. Catherine noted a barely-there limp in the girl’s right leg. She pulled her left earbud out of her ear as the girl stopped in front of her.
“Hi,” the girl said, offering the barest hint of a smile.
Catherine looked away and then back. “Hey.”
“Is there room next to you?”
“There’s no one here except me, is there?”
The girl’s jaw ticked. “May I please sit next to you?”
Catherine relented and patted the seat next to her. “Yeah, go for it.”
The girl walked around and, again, Catherine noticed that same limp. She took a seat on one end of the booth, keeping ample space between her and Catherine. Catherine watched as the girl’s hands disappeared within blue sleeves. The girl extended them outwards, locked her elbows, opened her mouth wide, and let out a yawn.
“What’s with the limp?” Catherine asked.
“What?” The girl looked down between her stretched arms at her right leg and then back up as though she had just noticed it for the first time. “Oh, it was a soccer injury. Well, more like a practice injury, really.”
“A practice injury?”
“I was putting in some additional work late at night on the field and I tripped and fell. I guess I landed weird because the next thing I knew it was hard to put pressure on it. That was a week-or-so ago. It hasn’t finished healing yet.”
“Sounds painful. And also like something you would do.”
The girl frowned and leaned closer in Catherine’s direction. “What?”
“Trip over yourself.”
“Ouch, that’s cold.”
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. “You know me.”
The girl looked at her and shrugged back. “I suppose. What are you doing here this late anyway?”
Catherine pulled her other earbud loose and wrapped the cord in a tight circle. Then, she shoved it, along with her phone, into her left pocket. “Waiting for the rain to die down, which is what I’m assuming you’re doing.”
“It’s not actually.”
“No?”
“My dad has to work late, so I’m here until he can pick me up.”
“Sorry that you’re stuck.”
“I didn’t say I was stuck,” the girl said. She raised her sleeve-covered hand up to support her chin. “And neither are you. You could get in your car and leave.”
Catherine shook her head. “Didn’t want to get water all over the carpet. The car’s clean and I’d rather keep it that way. It’s better to sit in here, dry up, and wait for the rain to stop.”
The girl’s lips curled upwards and the look in her eyes was fond. Catherine looked away from her and towards the other students, all absorbed in their own lives.
“Is that what you do?” the girl asked a few moments later.
“Is what what I do?”
“You’re staring at everyone here. Do you just watch?”
Catherine looked back at her and nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“Doesn’t it get boring?”
“Well, I haven’t stopped yet, have I?”
The girl’s jaw ticked once more in what Catherine could easily identify as frustration. “I suppose not.”
They fell silent, each observing. The girl watched Catherine closely and Catherine watched everyone but the girl. A faint hunger began to creep its way into Catherine’s stomach, but, although she did not want to partake in further conversation, she stayed in her seat. The boys in football jerseys looked towards the outdoors and so Catherine did the same, seeing nothing but the drops of rain that streaked their way down the glass.
The girl cleared her throat and Catherine glanced over before regretting her decision. She faced forward once more.
“How have your classes been?” the girl asked, and the inflection in her voice convinced Catherine that she was genuinely curious.
“They’ve been alright.”
“Just alright?”
“They’re classes. There’s not much to write home about. I’m still majoring in English. Poetry is a challenge; I don’t really have the brain for it, but I’m doing fine. How’s soccer?”
“It’s good. We’re 5-0 this season.”
“That’s nice. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” The girl’s phone rang then and her shoulders jerked upwards, forming a protective shell around her face, before lowering once more. She picked up the device and answered the call. “Hey dad! I’m alright, I’m just in the cafeteria with…” She looked over at Catherine, who looked back, “…the rest of the kids waiting out the rain. When are you going to be here? … You’re still at work?” She sighed, deep and frustrated. “Yeah, I can wait another hour. I love you too. No, it’s okay. Okay, bye.”
“Still think you’re not stuck here?” Catherine asked when the girl hung up the phone.
Expecting another jaw tick, Catherine was surprised when the girl’s lips curved upward into a small smile. Instead of answering, she countered with her own question. “Do you ever miss me?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I listen to music and think about what you would listen to instead. Or I walk by the park around the corner from my house and I remember when you fell off the swing and cut open your lip.”
“What about the blanket forts we used to make in your living room? The ones we used to watch Disney movies under? Do you remember those?”
“Yeah, those too.”
“And what about the other times we spent together?”
“I try not to think about them too much. How’s Adam?”
The girl frowned and tilted her chin down, as though she could hide it in the confines of her sweater. “He’s good. We’re going strong.”
“Well, that’s good then.”
The girl cocked her head slightly, her eyes opening with surprise, and studied Catherine with a look of uncertainty. “Do you really mean that?”
“What else is it supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know.”
The silence returned. Instead of watching the people in front of her, Catherine watched the girl as she brought her sleeve-covered hand to her lips and bit into her fingernail. Her eyes alternated between looking at the table and staring for a beat too long at Catherine. She brought her hand away from her lips, moved her jaw as though she were trying to find another topic to discuss, and then brought her hand back up.
Catherine wasn’t sure how long they sat there for, but neither of them spoke again. Catherine wasn’t particularly inclined to. She felt that everything that needed to be said had been said. So, she turned her head away to once again watch the rain cascade down the glass.
When the rain cleared away, Catherine offered the girl a ride, if only because they had once known each other.
She stepped out of her last class of the day, slung her black backpack over her shoulder, and tugged the hood of her hoodie up. She stepped to the side so the rest of the class could file out and go their separate directions. Some walked across the street and headed in the direction of the library while others spread to the left and to the right. Catherine assumed they were walking back to their dorms.
She untangled her earbuds, plugged the cord into the bottom of her phone, and slipped a bud into each ear. She pressed play on her playlist and nineties rock music filled her ears. There had been a girl she had known – perhaps she had been her friend at one point, but perhaps not – who would have insisted on 2000s pop music instead.
Catherine shoved her hands into the pockets of her black jeans and walked with purpose to the parking lot next to the soccer field. All the while, droplets of water tapped insistently against her.
She passed by the school cafeteria. With a wide staircase leading up to it and floor-to-ceiling glass walls, it was one of the larger landmarks on campus. She had yet to eat there this year, since it was always filled with students. Whether they were there to grab a rushed meal before their next class or they had set up shop with their laptops on the table and their backpacks on the seat next to them, students filled the building from open until close.
She walked on the sidewalk along the fenced in soccer field and turned her head to the right to look at it, but she couldn’t see anything except blackness, the outlines of soccer goals, and the shadows of trees waving gently in the wind. She returned her focus to the sidewalk in front of her and followed her shoes, scuffed and beginning to rip towards the top of her toes, with her eyes. As she approached her car, she reached into her left pocket to retrieve her keys. It was a black Acura TL, old but thankfully not beaten up. The car had wound up in her possession after a stroke of luck led her friend’s father to give it to her. She pressed the unlock button on the key fob and swung her backpack off of her shoulders, grabbing the carry handle at the top with her left hand and pulling the driver’s door open with her right. She hesitated to put her bag in the car, staring at its soppiness and then the car’s clean carpet.
“Fuck,” she mumbled to herself. “Fuck, fuck.”
She closed the car door, pressed the lock button on the key fob, and then swung her backpack back onto her shoulders. The rain continued to pour down on her. The steady downpour sunk through the fabric of her clothes. She hadn’t shivered yet but if she didn’t get out of the rain it was only a matter of time. With hurried steps, she walked back the way she came, passing the soccer field and turning to ascend the stairs to the cafeteria.
Just as she anticipated, even towards closing time, the room was packed. Even through her earbuds, she could hear the unintelligible hum of students chatting with each other.
She walked on the right side of the cafeteria. Wooden tables filled the center and to her left. Booths lined the glass walls. She passed by a few of her classmates seated at one. One of them, a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes whose name she never bothered to learn, waved at her. She nodded her head back.
She didn’t know the names of any of her classmates, come to think about it.
An empty section towards the back of the cafeteria was where she took up residence. She slid into the center of one of the booths and set her backpack on the floor between her legs. The cushion against her back was ripped and the tear in the material pressed uncomfortably against her back. She shifted forward, reached her hand behind herself, and pushed on the material until it was flat rather than protruding. Then, she leaned back, placed her hands on the table, and watched.
At one table, two boys talked animatedly. Catherine could not understand what they were saying – the music in her ears blocked out the noise – but she assumed they were talking about football. One wore a jersey with the number twelve on it and the name Brady etched onto the back. It was red with white typography. The other boy wore a black jersey with gold around the neck. He was facing her, so Catherine couldn’t see the name on the back of the jersey, but she could see the number nine, also in gold, across the chest.
At another table, two boys played a game of tic-tac-toe with a black ballpoint pen on a napkin as they ate their dinners.
At yet another, a girl with a plate of salad sat down next to a boy in a leather jacket, who was seated next to a boy in a long-sleeved shirt, who was seated next to the final member of their group: a girl with a book closed in front of her, a white ribbon bookmark jutting from the pages.
Catherine saw all of this and interlocked her fingers.
She looked outside, through the glass wall, and watched the rain batter down. By the time she turned away to observe the cafeteria again, a girl, far too recognizable for her own liking, was fast approaching her table. She too was drenched from the top of her sandy brown hair, to the scar just above her lip, to the blue sweater wrapped around her frame, and all the way down past her fading jeans to the Converse she wore. Catherine noted a barely-there limp in the girl’s right leg. She pulled her left earbud out of her ear as the girl stopped in front of her.
“Hi,” the girl said, offering the barest hint of a smile.
Catherine looked away and then back. “Hey.”
“Is there room next to you?”
“There’s no one here except me, is there?”
The girl’s jaw ticked. “May I please sit next to you?”
Catherine relented and patted the seat next to her. “Yeah, go for it.”
The girl walked around and, again, Catherine noticed that same limp. She took a seat on one end of the booth, keeping ample space between her and Catherine. Catherine watched as the girl’s hands disappeared within blue sleeves. The girl extended them outwards, locked her elbows, opened her mouth wide, and let out a yawn.
“What’s with the limp?” Catherine asked.
“What?” The girl looked down between her stretched arms at her right leg and then back up as though she had just noticed it for the first time. “Oh, it was a soccer injury. Well, more like a practice injury, really.”
“A practice injury?”
“I was putting in some additional work late at night on the field and I tripped and fell. I guess I landed weird because the next thing I knew it was hard to put pressure on it. That was a week-or-so ago. It hasn’t finished healing yet.”
“Sounds painful. And also like something you would do.”
The girl frowned and leaned closer in Catherine’s direction. “What?”
“Trip over yourself.”
“Ouch, that’s cold.”
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. “You know me.”
The girl looked at her and shrugged back. “I suppose. What are you doing here this late anyway?”
Catherine pulled her other earbud loose and wrapped the cord in a tight circle. Then, she shoved it, along with her phone, into her left pocket. “Waiting for the rain to die down, which is what I’m assuming you’re doing.”
“It’s not actually.”
“No?”
“My dad has to work late, so I’m here until he can pick me up.”
“Sorry that you’re stuck.”
“I didn’t say I was stuck,” the girl said. She raised her sleeve-covered hand up to support her chin. “And neither are you. You could get in your car and leave.”
Catherine shook her head. “Didn’t want to get water all over the carpet. The car’s clean and I’d rather keep it that way. It’s better to sit in here, dry up, and wait for the rain to stop.”
The girl’s lips curled upwards and the look in her eyes was fond. Catherine looked away from her and towards the other students, all absorbed in their own lives.
“Is that what you do?” the girl asked a few moments later.
“Is what what I do?”
“You’re staring at everyone here. Do you just watch?”
Catherine looked back at her and nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“Doesn’t it get boring?”
“Well, I haven’t stopped yet, have I?”
The girl’s jaw ticked once more in what Catherine could easily identify as frustration. “I suppose not.”
They fell silent, each observing. The girl watched Catherine closely and Catherine watched everyone but the girl. A faint hunger began to creep its way into Catherine’s stomach, but, although she did not want to partake in further conversation, she stayed in her seat. The boys in football jerseys looked towards the outdoors and so Catherine did the same, seeing nothing but the drops of rain that streaked their way down the glass.
The girl cleared her throat and Catherine glanced over before regretting her decision. She faced forward once more.
“How have your classes been?” the girl asked, and the inflection in her voice convinced Catherine that she was genuinely curious.
“They’ve been alright.”
“Just alright?”
“They’re classes. There’s not much to write home about. I’m still majoring in English. Poetry is a challenge; I don’t really have the brain for it, but I’m doing fine. How’s soccer?”
“It’s good. We’re 5-0 this season.”
“That’s nice. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” The girl’s phone rang then and her shoulders jerked upwards, forming a protective shell around her face, before lowering once more. She picked up the device and answered the call. “Hey dad! I’m alright, I’m just in the cafeteria with…” She looked over at Catherine, who looked back, “…the rest of the kids waiting out the rain. When are you going to be here? … You’re still at work?” She sighed, deep and frustrated. “Yeah, I can wait another hour. I love you too. No, it’s okay. Okay, bye.”
“Still think you’re not stuck here?” Catherine asked when the girl hung up the phone.
Expecting another jaw tick, Catherine was surprised when the girl’s lips curved upward into a small smile. Instead of answering, she countered with her own question. “Do you ever miss me?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I listen to music and think about what you would listen to instead. Or I walk by the park around the corner from my house and I remember when you fell off the swing and cut open your lip.”
“What about the blanket forts we used to make in your living room? The ones we used to watch Disney movies under? Do you remember those?”
“Yeah, those too.”
“And what about the other times we spent together?”
“I try not to think about them too much. How’s Adam?”
The girl frowned and tilted her chin down, as though she could hide it in the confines of her sweater. “He’s good. We’re going strong.”
“Well, that’s good then.”
The girl cocked her head slightly, her eyes opening with surprise, and studied Catherine with a look of uncertainty. “Do you really mean that?”
“What else is it supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know.”
The silence returned. Instead of watching the people in front of her, Catherine watched the girl as she brought her sleeve-covered hand to her lips and bit into her fingernail. Her eyes alternated between looking at the table and staring for a beat too long at Catherine. She brought her hand away from her lips, moved her jaw as though she were trying to find another topic to discuss, and then brought her hand back up.
Catherine wasn’t sure how long they sat there for, but neither of them spoke again. Catherine wasn’t particularly inclined to. She felt that everything that needed to be said had been said. So, she turned her head away to once again watch the rain cascade down the glass.
When the rain cleared away, Catherine offered the girl a ride, if only because they had once known each other.
Obsidian
by Professor Christina Nation
by Professor Christina Nation
My mom eased the van off the freeway, down a ramp that led into a dust-covered nowhere—a gas station, an attached taco shack long-closed, and nothing else that I could see. We were somewhere along Arizona and New Mexico, straddling the border.
As I stared out at the night sky, the stars brilliant in the absence of civilization, my mom took several turns, then skidded to a stop on a gravel road beside the gas station. She looked at me, her eyes wide and sparkling in that way they did, like a child on Christmas morning, up early and shaking presents before the grownups are about.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and practically leapt from the car, then motioned back at me. “Over this way.”
I followed her, stumbling in the midnight darkness, the dim light from the gas station not quite reaching where we walked. I watched my feet, the swirling shadows of interrupted dust, as we passed behind the gas station and down a small slope.
Then she stopped. “Do you see that? Incredible!”
I looked up. About thirty feet in the distance a glow emanated from a rock the size of a small mountain, a wide slice cut down the bottom half, as if it had been cracked open, and inside an interconnected series of stone dwellings, what must have once been homes.
I recalled having been here, or somewhere like it, eight years before. It had been the summer before 6th grade, on the road trip that moved our lives from the solid plains of Illinois to California, land of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Venice Beach. There had been five of us then—my mom, my brother, and me, and another single mom, and her daughter, a girl younger than me and older than my brother.
Crammed into the woman’s pale blue, two-door Chevette, we had hiked along the Grand Canyon, stood at Four Corners, and consumed stacks of still-warm tortillas sold on the streets of Old Town New Mexico. We had spent six weeks sleeping in tents, the Chevette, an occasional sparkling Motel 6, and rest stop benches—until that one time when I woke in the middle of the night to find what looked like a wolf, but may have been a large coyote or wild dog, sniffing around my mother and then the other mother as they lay asleep in folding chairs beside my picnic table bed. The wolf went away, and I fell back asleep, but we didn’t spend nights in rest stops after that.
We circled through nine states, my mom dropping job applications along the way like bread crumbs that would lead us away from home, not back to it.
The woman and my mom were friends, although I wasn’t sure how. I think she ran a group home for disabled adults, something we had done once, for half a year, when my parents were still trying to see if they could make it work. She had babysat us a few times, when my mom was in a pinch, stopping after that time my brother pushed me through her glass coffee table.
My mom continued toward the flood-lit rock, and I followed, thinking of that trip and the woman. Once we had moved to California, she and my mom lost contact.
Five years after our move, she appeared on our doorstep, panting, her face smudged with dirt, as if she had walked rather than driven to our door. Later that afternoon, I found her dancing in our living room to music no-one else could hear, arms and legs flailing in time to an irregular beat. She had lost custody of her daughter, after losing a string of jobs, her house, and a solid grip on reality.
I saw her dancing again the next morning when I left my room seeking breakfast. Her movements appeared more frenzied, frantic—feet pounding against the carpet, arms punching toward the ceiling, then the window, no two limbs ever moving at the same moment. Her ragged blue T-shirt clung to her where circles of sweat had seeped through. Sweat coated her forehead too, and I wondered how many hours she had been up dancing. If she had slept at all.
We took her in for two weeks, acted as if the dancing, which she couldn’t stop, was normal. And then one day, without warning, she was gone again.
A twig snapped somewhere is the dusty dark, outside the arc of artificial light. Before my muscles could even respond to my brain’s message to tense, a sound like thunder rang out. I had never heard a gunshot before, not in real life at least, but I automatically recognized the sound of near death.
My mom rushed to my side, grasping my wrist and pulling me away from the rock, away from the still echoing ring of gunfire.
Then a deep voice called out from the darkness, “Stop!”
And we did, our bodies responding without our minds even able to question if it was the right thing to do.
A man emerged from the shadows. He held a shotgun pointed toward the sky, the upturned angle giving me some measure of relief. Walking with swift, smooth strides, he was soon close enough to be seen in the starlight. He had long dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail. He wore dark pants and a tank top, its thin material straining over his extended middle, which pushed out and then over a wide silver buckle dotted with stones, turquoise perhaps.
My mom moved in front of me. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been here before. Such an unexpected find. I wanted to show my daughter.”
The man swung the arm that didn’t hold the shotgun forward and flashed on a light. He flitted it back to me, then shone it full on my mom’s face. His hard features softened into a sort of half grin. “Well, let me show you around then. I stay in the shop back there.” He flashed the light across to a small building beside the mountain-sized rock, almost under one side. “I keep an eye on the place.”
As we followed him toward the building and the cracked rock, I thought of a game I had played the summer after fourth grade. My friend and I, prepared with a bag of snacks and games, took turns picking which streets to turn down until we got ourselves lost. Then we would stop somewhere in the shade—a park, the corner of someone’s front lawn—sit down on the grass and have a snack and play with cards and Chinese fans and collected rocks. Once done, we’d find our way back again. Until the day we couldn’t, and I had to call collect from a payphone in front of a theatre. Then we waited for my mom to pick us up while a strange man tried to convince us to walk to the back of an adjacent building, claiming he needed our help to open up a door from the outside, that he could not do it alone. My friend wanted to go.
This dusty midnight walk felt like that, and I wasn’t sure if we were going to find our way back home this time.
The man led us up to the cave front. “The Anasazi lived here once, the Ancient Ones. Then they disappeared, or so they say. But their blood lives on in my tribe, and others.”
Up close, the cave dwellings appeared surprisingly intact for the thousand plus years they had stood in this desert land. They were spectacular, and little-known, and I could see why mom had brought me here—my mom who had helped me find my first real arrowhead along the rivers of Indiana and who proudly told tales of every Native American strain that bled into our winding family line.
After leading us along the rim of the cave dwellings, the man took us to the small building, creaking the door open and shoving the shotgun somewhere behind it in one movement. He was an artist, and paintings and drawings of deserts and headdresses and caves cluttered the shop walls. Dusty glass cases leaned against walls, their interiors filled with an assortment of jewelry—copper and silver inlaid with turquoise, jasper, obsidian.
I heard but tried not to listen as the man told my mother about another woman he had taken here one night. How he had covered her naked body with nightshades, then picked them off one by one with his teeth. I tried to not see the way his eyes raked over my mom’s body as if she too wore a mantel of nightshades waiting to be plucked by his willing lips.
I don’t remember how my mom got us out of there. I do recall him offering to paint her. Her refusal. Him leading us back to the road with his flashlight, his steps slower this time, as if reluctant to let us go.
We got back to our car—my mom flushed, me laughing over the gunshot, the nightshades, laughing through taut nerves at what could have happened.
As we drove away my mind flashed through that summer of getting lost, that first road trip, that other single mother dancing maniacally in our living room, and the many other stranger-friends who followed her, who slept on our couch, who ate at our table.
And there were many could haves too. When what could have happened would have destroyed us or me, but never quite did.
As I stared out at the night sky, the stars brilliant in the absence of civilization, my mom took several turns, then skidded to a stop on a gravel road beside the gas station. She looked at me, her eyes wide and sparkling in that way they did, like a child on Christmas morning, up early and shaking presents before the grownups are about.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and practically leapt from the car, then motioned back at me. “Over this way.”
I followed her, stumbling in the midnight darkness, the dim light from the gas station not quite reaching where we walked. I watched my feet, the swirling shadows of interrupted dust, as we passed behind the gas station and down a small slope.
Then she stopped. “Do you see that? Incredible!”
I looked up. About thirty feet in the distance a glow emanated from a rock the size of a small mountain, a wide slice cut down the bottom half, as if it had been cracked open, and inside an interconnected series of stone dwellings, what must have once been homes.
I recalled having been here, or somewhere like it, eight years before. It had been the summer before 6th grade, on the road trip that moved our lives from the solid plains of Illinois to California, land of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Venice Beach. There had been five of us then—my mom, my brother, and me, and another single mom, and her daughter, a girl younger than me and older than my brother.
Crammed into the woman’s pale blue, two-door Chevette, we had hiked along the Grand Canyon, stood at Four Corners, and consumed stacks of still-warm tortillas sold on the streets of Old Town New Mexico. We had spent six weeks sleeping in tents, the Chevette, an occasional sparkling Motel 6, and rest stop benches—until that one time when I woke in the middle of the night to find what looked like a wolf, but may have been a large coyote or wild dog, sniffing around my mother and then the other mother as they lay asleep in folding chairs beside my picnic table bed. The wolf went away, and I fell back asleep, but we didn’t spend nights in rest stops after that.
We circled through nine states, my mom dropping job applications along the way like bread crumbs that would lead us away from home, not back to it.
The woman and my mom were friends, although I wasn’t sure how. I think she ran a group home for disabled adults, something we had done once, for half a year, when my parents were still trying to see if they could make it work. She had babysat us a few times, when my mom was in a pinch, stopping after that time my brother pushed me through her glass coffee table.
My mom continued toward the flood-lit rock, and I followed, thinking of that trip and the woman. Once we had moved to California, she and my mom lost contact.
Five years after our move, she appeared on our doorstep, panting, her face smudged with dirt, as if she had walked rather than driven to our door. Later that afternoon, I found her dancing in our living room to music no-one else could hear, arms and legs flailing in time to an irregular beat. She had lost custody of her daughter, after losing a string of jobs, her house, and a solid grip on reality.
I saw her dancing again the next morning when I left my room seeking breakfast. Her movements appeared more frenzied, frantic—feet pounding against the carpet, arms punching toward the ceiling, then the window, no two limbs ever moving at the same moment. Her ragged blue T-shirt clung to her where circles of sweat had seeped through. Sweat coated her forehead too, and I wondered how many hours she had been up dancing. If she had slept at all.
We took her in for two weeks, acted as if the dancing, which she couldn’t stop, was normal. And then one day, without warning, she was gone again.
A twig snapped somewhere is the dusty dark, outside the arc of artificial light. Before my muscles could even respond to my brain’s message to tense, a sound like thunder rang out. I had never heard a gunshot before, not in real life at least, but I automatically recognized the sound of near death.
My mom rushed to my side, grasping my wrist and pulling me away from the rock, away from the still echoing ring of gunfire.
Then a deep voice called out from the darkness, “Stop!”
And we did, our bodies responding without our minds even able to question if it was the right thing to do.
A man emerged from the shadows. He held a shotgun pointed toward the sky, the upturned angle giving me some measure of relief. Walking with swift, smooth strides, he was soon close enough to be seen in the starlight. He had long dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail. He wore dark pants and a tank top, its thin material straining over his extended middle, which pushed out and then over a wide silver buckle dotted with stones, turquoise perhaps.
My mom moved in front of me. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been here before. Such an unexpected find. I wanted to show my daughter.”
The man swung the arm that didn’t hold the shotgun forward and flashed on a light. He flitted it back to me, then shone it full on my mom’s face. His hard features softened into a sort of half grin. “Well, let me show you around then. I stay in the shop back there.” He flashed the light across to a small building beside the mountain-sized rock, almost under one side. “I keep an eye on the place.”
As we followed him toward the building and the cracked rock, I thought of a game I had played the summer after fourth grade. My friend and I, prepared with a bag of snacks and games, took turns picking which streets to turn down until we got ourselves lost. Then we would stop somewhere in the shade—a park, the corner of someone’s front lawn—sit down on the grass and have a snack and play with cards and Chinese fans and collected rocks. Once done, we’d find our way back again. Until the day we couldn’t, and I had to call collect from a payphone in front of a theatre. Then we waited for my mom to pick us up while a strange man tried to convince us to walk to the back of an adjacent building, claiming he needed our help to open up a door from the outside, that he could not do it alone. My friend wanted to go.
This dusty midnight walk felt like that, and I wasn’t sure if we were going to find our way back home this time.
The man led us up to the cave front. “The Anasazi lived here once, the Ancient Ones. Then they disappeared, or so they say. But their blood lives on in my tribe, and others.”
Up close, the cave dwellings appeared surprisingly intact for the thousand plus years they had stood in this desert land. They were spectacular, and little-known, and I could see why mom had brought me here—my mom who had helped me find my first real arrowhead along the rivers of Indiana and who proudly told tales of every Native American strain that bled into our winding family line.
After leading us along the rim of the cave dwellings, the man took us to the small building, creaking the door open and shoving the shotgun somewhere behind it in one movement. He was an artist, and paintings and drawings of deserts and headdresses and caves cluttered the shop walls. Dusty glass cases leaned against walls, their interiors filled with an assortment of jewelry—copper and silver inlaid with turquoise, jasper, obsidian.
I heard but tried not to listen as the man told my mother about another woman he had taken here one night. How he had covered her naked body with nightshades, then picked them off one by one with his teeth. I tried to not see the way his eyes raked over my mom’s body as if she too wore a mantel of nightshades waiting to be plucked by his willing lips.
I don’t remember how my mom got us out of there. I do recall him offering to paint her. Her refusal. Him leading us back to the road with his flashlight, his steps slower this time, as if reluctant to let us go.
We got back to our car—my mom flushed, me laughing over the gunshot, the nightshades, laughing through taut nerves at what could have happened.
As we drove away my mind flashed through that summer of getting lost, that first road trip, that other single mother dancing maniacally in our living room, and the many other stranger-friends who followed her, who slept on our couch, who ate at our table.
And there were many could haves too. When what could have happened would have destroyed us or me, but never quite did.
Things
by Cori Pizano
by Cori Pizano
I clamber up the mountain of bits and bobbles, boxes of old knick knacks, newspapers from 1970, moth-eaten clothes, books about medicine, wooden toys, rosaries, and, eventually, I reach my destination. A bare mattress balances precariously on the eccentric slope, shifting under the slight weight of my eight year old frame. I carefully fold my legs criss-cross applesauce and survey the cramped room from my new perch. Things fill the space from wall to wall, the floor so far away and foreign that it might as well stretch down infinitely, an abyss filled to the brim with paper clips and periodicals, candles and cabinets, an awful leopard print coat that was probably on sale somewhere in ‘64. I spot a book within arms reach (finally, something familiar) and start to peruse the yellowed pages of a half filled out elementary school workbook, complete with dorky cartoon graphics and crossword puzzles. I am content for a while as I read under the dusty light, my head inches away from the popcorn ceiling, close enough to feel the warmth of the lightbulb and listen to its unsteady hum.
When most people think of “grandma’s house”, they think of chocolate chip cookies, sweet rambling stories about times gone by, fancy china plates, a cozy sofa with throw blankets and decorative pillows. When I think of grandma’s house, I think of chipped paint, stepping across jumbled floors like hopscotch, overflowing shelves, and a front door propped open to let cold drafts drive out the stale, stuffy air.
My grandma always was, even while she was still around. “What was grandma’s job?” “She was a nurse.” “Where did she come from?” “Oklahoma, but she was born in Mexico.” My mom told me she was beautiful. She had twelve siblings. Grandma’s life was so seeped in past tense that it wasn’t much of a shock when she slipped into past tense herself.
Her house, though, very much is. And what an is it is. That tiny blue building on the corner of the street is packed so tight with things that are that it might burst at any moment, or implode into a black hole of past, preterite, and present tenses.
To spare the neighbors from being sucked into a grammatical void, my parents and I spend our Saturdays shoveling stuff into garbage bags. We smash apart old furniture and shove it into the bin, we sift through piles of mail miles high, we sweep and scrub and shine the floors that haven’t seen the light of day in ages. There’s no room for is in my mom’s plans. Houses aren’t allowed to just sit and be, they have to be lived in or rented or sold. My mother lives in future tense. So according to her will, the things must come out of the house.
My grandmother spent her life gathering, grasping at straws. She kept every object or item or paper or gadget that could possibly have one more use, and many that most certainly could not be used for anything. She wrapped herself up in her house-full of things, material things, yes, but mementos, too. Birth certificates and family photographs alike are still swimming in that ocean of is. The last thing to get swept away was her memory. Unable to recall which was more important, her family or her things, she chose the ones who were always there. The ones who gathered around her not just on holidays but on Wednesdays, on long lonely nights when nothing stirred in the house except the rats rustling underneath the floorboards.
I think grandma’s hopes and dreams were things as well. But I couldn’t tell you what those were. There’s a lot of things I don’t know about her. All that I know are— the pictures in mismatched frames, black and white faces she loved but I can’t place. The avocado tree that litters the yard, whose pit she supposedly planted with her own hands. The musky perfume that pervades the house, a scent she would never be caught leaving without. The bike that she’d ride down the street, now rusted and crawling with ivy. You could say I know the little things.
But now that grandma isn’t there to cling to them, the things are funneling out of the house like water down a bathtub drain. Soon, there will be no more shelves sagging under the weight of a museum curator’s worst nightmare. That mountain of artifacts that I conquered as a child will be mowed down like so much loose dirt. The rats in the floor will be trapped and uprooted, the weeds in the backyard exterminated. The future has no room for is. So give it a year, or two or three, and all I’ll know about that little blue house on the corner is— well, it was my grandma’s house.
When most people think of “grandma’s house”, they think of chocolate chip cookies, sweet rambling stories about times gone by, fancy china plates, a cozy sofa with throw blankets and decorative pillows. When I think of grandma’s house, I think of chipped paint, stepping across jumbled floors like hopscotch, overflowing shelves, and a front door propped open to let cold drafts drive out the stale, stuffy air.
My grandma always was, even while she was still around. “What was grandma’s job?” “She was a nurse.” “Where did she come from?” “Oklahoma, but she was born in Mexico.” My mom told me she was beautiful. She had twelve siblings. Grandma’s life was so seeped in past tense that it wasn’t much of a shock when she slipped into past tense herself.
Her house, though, very much is. And what an is it is. That tiny blue building on the corner of the street is packed so tight with things that are that it might burst at any moment, or implode into a black hole of past, preterite, and present tenses.
To spare the neighbors from being sucked into a grammatical void, my parents and I spend our Saturdays shoveling stuff into garbage bags. We smash apart old furniture and shove it into the bin, we sift through piles of mail miles high, we sweep and scrub and shine the floors that haven’t seen the light of day in ages. There’s no room for is in my mom’s plans. Houses aren’t allowed to just sit and be, they have to be lived in or rented or sold. My mother lives in future tense. So according to her will, the things must come out of the house.
My grandmother spent her life gathering, grasping at straws. She kept every object or item or paper or gadget that could possibly have one more use, and many that most certainly could not be used for anything. She wrapped herself up in her house-full of things, material things, yes, but mementos, too. Birth certificates and family photographs alike are still swimming in that ocean of is. The last thing to get swept away was her memory. Unable to recall which was more important, her family or her things, she chose the ones who were always there. The ones who gathered around her not just on holidays but on Wednesdays, on long lonely nights when nothing stirred in the house except the rats rustling underneath the floorboards.
I think grandma’s hopes and dreams were things as well. But I couldn’t tell you what those were. There’s a lot of things I don’t know about her. All that I know are— the pictures in mismatched frames, black and white faces she loved but I can’t place. The avocado tree that litters the yard, whose pit she supposedly planted with her own hands. The musky perfume that pervades the house, a scent she would never be caught leaving without. The bike that she’d ride down the street, now rusted and crawling with ivy. You could say I know the little things.
But now that grandma isn’t there to cling to them, the things are funneling out of the house like water down a bathtub drain. Soon, there will be no more shelves sagging under the weight of a museum curator’s worst nightmare. That mountain of artifacts that I conquered as a child will be mowed down like so much loose dirt. The rats in the floor will be trapped and uprooted, the weeds in the backyard exterminated. The future has no room for is. So give it a year, or two or three, and all I’ll know about that little blue house on the corner is— well, it was my grandma’s house.
Where the Light Floods In
by Madison Secor
by Madison Secor
The heavy door creaked open, and as it did, light spewed into the house. The beams rushed past the two sets of legs that blocked the sun’s path, stretching across the hardwood floors.
“Here we are! The ‘Holloway Estates’ property.” The realtor smiled as he walked inside, flipping on a light switch.
An older woman stepped inside after him. Her first reaction of the house was one the realtor could not quite place. From what the realtor could gather, she was a woman of high status. Her clothes attested to this as she wore a dark blue pantsuit complimented by a gold necklace. Her graying hair was tied back into a bun, and her eyes were shielded with a pair of large sunglasses.
“As you requested, this property is a four bedroom and three bath. It’s got a large living space and an acre of land out back. Very hard to come by on this side of town. I can give you a few minutes to take a look around and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have.”
The realtor followed the woman around as she toured the property, taking note of how much time she spent studying certain aspects of the house. He couldn’t tell if this was a good sign that she was interested or not as she would tour the house without a word before moving to the next room. Her expression never wavered as she gave a stern pursing of the lips with her sunglasses hiding the rest of her face.
It hadn’t dawned on the realtor that he may have been standing too close until the woman turned around to shoot him a look. Apologizing, the man stepped closer to the entry of the living room and watched the woman as she took in the space. She studied the light fixtures carefully until her eyes made their way down to the floorboards in front of her. She studied the rather bare wall in front of her for a moment before turning to the realtor to take in another detail about the house. The realtor didn’t know what she was thinking, but whatever it was, it made her wince.
“This doorway will need to be moved.”
“I’m sure we can work something out with a local contractor, Mrs. Paige, but we would want to consider the age of the house. Some changes you cannot go back from once they have been made.”
The realtor stepped out of the way as the woman walked past him towards the front room. She swiped at the stair railing as she passed, rubbing her fingers together to bring back dust.
“Not to pry,” the realtor spoke, “but I would assume you’re looking for this to be a family home, maybe?
Mrs. Paige peered at the realtor through her sunglasses.
“Or not at all!” The realtor held his clipboard close to his chest, feeling a chill run down his spine. “I just, it is such a large property for only one person. I thought, well I don’t know what I thought.” The woman rose an eyebrow at him. “I shouldn’t have assumed. I apologize.”
The older woman approached the realtor. Her heels were like a gavel on the wooden floors, echoing the hall with every decisive step.
“If you must know, I was planning this to be a vacation home for my family, but they are away at the moment,” Mrs. Paige told the property realtor. “I want this place to be perfect for when they return.”
The realtor took in a sigh of relief. “Well, in that case then this would be an excellent choice. What does your husband do for work?”
The woman tilted her head slightly, studying some of the ornament details on the wooden baseboards that framed the ceiling.
“No, I don’t think he’ll like that.”
“Come again?”
“High ceilings, Mr. McCarthy. I requested high ceilings on my list of ‘must haves.’”
“Yes, well, finding a house in this neighborhood with all your requests is hard to come by. There is another property closer in town that has some of the desired features-”
The woman held up a hand. She tapped on the doorframe leading into the living room.
“I remember this being bigger.” Pivoting, the woman pointed around the room. “The photographs you sent me showed this house to be of a much grander scale.”
“I assure you, remove some of the interior furniture and you’ll have the desired floorplan.”
“Perhaps. I would just hate to remove the original furnishing if I didn’t have to,” the woman spoke to herself. She considered the size of the living room before returning to the realtor. “You said there was one property left on your list, correct?”
“Yes,” Mr. McCarthy pushed his glasses up on his nose as he flipped through his notes. “The property is on Kingston Avenue, 2,050 square feet-”
“No, that’s too small. I need at least 4,500.”
“Well, this house is the only one available that matches that size,” Mr. McCarthy told her. “Besides, compared to the other properties we’ve seen today, this one ranks at the top of your list. You’ll have great neighbors, and the school is only a few miles away so that leaves you as remote as you can get around here.” He looked up to see she wasn’t listening. “Which, if I recall, was one item off of your ‘must haves?’”
Mrs. Paige drummed her fingers on the coffee table, catching a glimpse of the backyard through the long windows.
“When I was a child, my family did not have much,” the woman told the realtor. “We grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in the city. The opposite of lavish, but it provided a roof over our heads and kept us off the streets. It was always cold in there. My mother collected bedding and blankets from thrift stores to furnish the apartment the best she could. I remember the toys I received for my birthday were made from old clothes that I had outgrown. My mother had sewn them together herself. A lot of what we had was previously owned, never new.
“But my mother had a small garden on our patio. My father was a carpenter, so he built a small planter box out of old crates that were to be thrown out from work. He thought he was doing the boxes a favor by granting them new life. My mother grew what she could in our garden to save up for groceries. Tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots, we even had a separate pot for fresh basil. My mother was Italian, so basil was a must for every dish. She and my father did the best they could so that I could have a good life.
“I had a wonderful garden growing up. I’d like to have another one here.” The woman gave a final set of light taps upon the coffee table. “Yes, I suppose I will.”
Mr. McCarthy swallowed. “So, you like the property?”
Mrs. Paige took another look around the room, considering her answer, and nodding.
“Wonderful! Well if you are ready,” Mr. McCarthy held out his clipboard and a pen, “I have a few papers for you to sign.”
The woman skimmed through the documents before signing them off. The relator looked them over when she was finished. Seeing that everything was in order, he filed the papers away into his clipboard. He smiled.
“I will follow up with the remaining papers you will need to sign in the morning to officiate the process.” The relator dug into his pockets and dropped a set of keys into the woman’s hand. “Congratulations, Mrs. Paige.”
The realtor waved goodbye as he left through the front door, turning off the light switch as he did. He kept the front door open for the light to seep through, leaving the woman alone in the large house. She tucked away her sunglasses into her purse and walked slowly around the room, taking it in as if for the first time. A few quiet moments passed as Mrs. Paige walked the empty hallways, seeing the potential a home could make with new eyes.
As she did, the old house creaked to life with her presence, a stillness that was suddenly awoken. With every step she took, Mrs. Paige felt the warmth that the house would provide. She could hear the laughter from her daughters now as they ran up and down the hallways, chasing each other around the house.
When she made her way downstairs, Mrs. Paige found herself back in the living room. Most of the items that the house was furnished with were outdated, but there was so much character that the woman couldn’t ignore them. From the old photographs to the wooden floors covered with rugs, Mrs. Paige felt she had stepped back in time. The home’s antique furniture had been covered in clear plastic to preserve it from years of dust and dirt. Drawing up the plastic from the loveseat, Mrs. Paige folded it and set it aside. She sat down, feeling its worn, dark fabric run underneath her fingernails.
“This place is a marvel,” she spoke aloud. “Amelia can take the room down the first hall since she is the eldest. The twins can have the Jack and Jill rooms next door. I know they wouldn’t want to be too far away from each other, but I think if they had their own rooms, it would suit them well.”
Peeling off her coat, she draped it over the loveseat and stood.
“The master suite is upstairs to the right. It has the most beautiful French doors that lead to an indoor patio. The architect of this house was from Naples, and his handiwork can be found in all the wooden carvings. I couldn’t help myself in researching more about this place when I found it online. It just seemed too perfect to be true. But now seeing it in person, I can’t help but admire it more.”
Mrs. Paige strode towards the back room. She crossed her arms as she admired the backyard, studying it as she would an oil painting. There was only green before her. The sun’s rays cast a warm glow over the trees concealing the property lines as it began to set.
“The kids can play in the backyard, and during the hot summers we can have a trampoline. I know you said those things can be dangerous, but think of the fun the girls will have. I’d rather want them running outside in the grass than being cooped up in here all the time. And for us, we can set up some chairs on that deck. We’ll need a firepit for the evening while the girls chase the fireflies. I remember doing that with my parents when I was Amelia’s age.”
She pointed to the left of the deck and smiled.
“We can build a garden over there and grow squash so that I can make soups. Around the house, we can have flower beds with violets and marigolds. I’ve heard the plants themselves attract butterflies. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
A hand braced her shoulder as she looked out into the backyard. The woman smiled softly and took the hand, reaching for something that wasn’t there.
“Oh, you would have loved this place, Ken.” Mrs. Paige sighed. “Did you see the stereo system? The old mahogany piece in the front room? I can play my records while I read and paint the house. This place could use a fresh coat of paint anyway. I still have our wedding song saved away in a box somewhere, you know. It’s probably next to the Pink Floyd albums you fawned over. You can choose which ones you’d want to listen to, and we could dance every night if we wanted.”
She felt the grip on her shoulder loosen but could still feel something that must have been there.
“I want us to start a new life here, where we can have peaceful days and the girls can play without worry. I’m going to work up a deal tomorrow to have this house in our family’s name, so no matter what a Paige can call this place home.”
Mrs. Paige felt something brush past her face. She shook her head. “I’m not. I’ve thought this through. I’ve been working my whole life for our family to live in a house like this. It will only be perfect when you all are here to enjoy it with me.”
A soft hush overcame the house, a sound Mrs. Paige knew all too well. For years, the sound came when the time ran out of their day, just as the crickets woke up for their song and the owls flew over dark trees to hunt their prey. It would be the time she has ever felt the loneliest.
“I’ll find a way to bring you back, and until then, I shall wait for you and the girls to return.”
She turned to face the living room. The sun cast shadows she had not seen before, but she could make out the inerasable shapes of her family’s silhouettes. She watched as the shape of her husband’s hand stretched out, reaching for her embrace. She could feel her husband take her hand in his, even if she couldn’t see it, and they stayed like that until the sun finally set, and the images of her husband and children faded away with the light of the sun.
“Here we are! The ‘Holloway Estates’ property.” The realtor smiled as he walked inside, flipping on a light switch.
An older woman stepped inside after him. Her first reaction of the house was one the realtor could not quite place. From what the realtor could gather, she was a woman of high status. Her clothes attested to this as she wore a dark blue pantsuit complimented by a gold necklace. Her graying hair was tied back into a bun, and her eyes were shielded with a pair of large sunglasses.
“As you requested, this property is a four bedroom and three bath. It’s got a large living space and an acre of land out back. Very hard to come by on this side of town. I can give you a few minutes to take a look around and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have.”
The realtor followed the woman around as she toured the property, taking note of how much time she spent studying certain aspects of the house. He couldn’t tell if this was a good sign that she was interested or not as she would tour the house without a word before moving to the next room. Her expression never wavered as she gave a stern pursing of the lips with her sunglasses hiding the rest of her face.
It hadn’t dawned on the realtor that he may have been standing too close until the woman turned around to shoot him a look. Apologizing, the man stepped closer to the entry of the living room and watched the woman as she took in the space. She studied the light fixtures carefully until her eyes made their way down to the floorboards in front of her. She studied the rather bare wall in front of her for a moment before turning to the realtor to take in another detail about the house. The realtor didn’t know what she was thinking, but whatever it was, it made her wince.
“This doorway will need to be moved.”
“I’m sure we can work something out with a local contractor, Mrs. Paige, but we would want to consider the age of the house. Some changes you cannot go back from once they have been made.”
The realtor stepped out of the way as the woman walked past him towards the front room. She swiped at the stair railing as she passed, rubbing her fingers together to bring back dust.
“Not to pry,” the realtor spoke, “but I would assume you’re looking for this to be a family home, maybe?
Mrs. Paige peered at the realtor through her sunglasses.
“Or not at all!” The realtor held his clipboard close to his chest, feeling a chill run down his spine. “I just, it is such a large property for only one person. I thought, well I don’t know what I thought.” The woman rose an eyebrow at him. “I shouldn’t have assumed. I apologize.”
The older woman approached the realtor. Her heels were like a gavel on the wooden floors, echoing the hall with every decisive step.
“If you must know, I was planning this to be a vacation home for my family, but they are away at the moment,” Mrs. Paige told the property realtor. “I want this place to be perfect for when they return.”
The realtor took in a sigh of relief. “Well, in that case then this would be an excellent choice. What does your husband do for work?”
The woman tilted her head slightly, studying some of the ornament details on the wooden baseboards that framed the ceiling.
“No, I don’t think he’ll like that.”
“Come again?”
“High ceilings, Mr. McCarthy. I requested high ceilings on my list of ‘must haves.’”
“Yes, well, finding a house in this neighborhood with all your requests is hard to come by. There is another property closer in town that has some of the desired features-”
The woman held up a hand. She tapped on the doorframe leading into the living room.
“I remember this being bigger.” Pivoting, the woman pointed around the room. “The photographs you sent me showed this house to be of a much grander scale.”
“I assure you, remove some of the interior furniture and you’ll have the desired floorplan.”
“Perhaps. I would just hate to remove the original furnishing if I didn’t have to,” the woman spoke to herself. She considered the size of the living room before returning to the realtor. “You said there was one property left on your list, correct?”
“Yes,” Mr. McCarthy pushed his glasses up on his nose as he flipped through his notes. “The property is on Kingston Avenue, 2,050 square feet-”
“No, that’s too small. I need at least 4,500.”
“Well, this house is the only one available that matches that size,” Mr. McCarthy told her. “Besides, compared to the other properties we’ve seen today, this one ranks at the top of your list. You’ll have great neighbors, and the school is only a few miles away so that leaves you as remote as you can get around here.” He looked up to see she wasn’t listening. “Which, if I recall, was one item off of your ‘must haves?’”
Mrs. Paige drummed her fingers on the coffee table, catching a glimpse of the backyard through the long windows.
“When I was a child, my family did not have much,” the woman told the realtor. “We grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in the city. The opposite of lavish, but it provided a roof over our heads and kept us off the streets. It was always cold in there. My mother collected bedding and blankets from thrift stores to furnish the apartment the best she could. I remember the toys I received for my birthday were made from old clothes that I had outgrown. My mother had sewn them together herself. A lot of what we had was previously owned, never new.
“But my mother had a small garden on our patio. My father was a carpenter, so he built a small planter box out of old crates that were to be thrown out from work. He thought he was doing the boxes a favor by granting them new life. My mother grew what she could in our garden to save up for groceries. Tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots, we even had a separate pot for fresh basil. My mother was Italian, so basil was a must for every dish. She and my father did the best they could so that I could have a good life.
“I had a wonderful garden growing up. I’d like to have another one here.” The woman gave a final set of light taps upon the coffee table. “Yes, I suppose I will.”
Mr. McCarthy swallowed. “So, you like the property?”
Mrs. Paige took another look around the room, considering her answer, and nodding.
“Wonderful! Well if you are ready,” Mr. McCarthy held out his clipboard and a pen, “I have a few papers for you to sign.”
The woman skimmed through the documents before signing them off. The relator looked them over when she was finished. Seeing that everything was in order, he filed the papers away into his clipboard. He smiled.
“I will follow up with the remaining papers you will need to sign in the morning to officiate the process.” The relator dug into his pockets and dropped a set of keys into the woman’s hand. “Congratulations, Mrs. Paige.”
The realtor waved goodbye as he left through the front door, turning off the light switch as he did. He kept the front door open for the light to seep through, leaving the woman alone in the large house. She tucked away her sunglasses into her purse and walked slowly around the room, taking it in as if for the first time. A few quiet moments passed as Mrs. Paige walked the empty hallways, seeing the potential a home could make with new eyes.
As she did, the old house creaked to life with her presence, a stillness that was suddenly awoken. With every step she took, Mrs. Paige felt the warmth that the house would provide. She could hear the laughter from her daughters now as they ran up and down the hallways, chasing each other around the house.
When she made her way downstairs, Mrs. Paige found herself back in the living room. Most of the items that the house was furnished with were outdated, but there was so much character that the woman couldn’t ignore them. From the old photographs to the wooden floors covered with rugs, Mrs. Paige felt she had stepped back in time. The home’s antique furniture had been covered in clear plastic to preserve it from years of dust and dirt. Drawing up the plastic from the loveseat, Mrs. Paige folded it and set it aside. She sat down, feeling its worn, dark fabric run underneath her fingernails.
“This place is a marvel,” she spoke aloud. “Amelia can take the room down the first hall since she is the eldest. The twins can have the Jack and Jill rooms next door. I know they wouldn’t want to be too far away from each other, but I think if they had their own rooms, it would suit them well.”
Peeling off her coat, she draped it over the loveseat and stood.
“The master suite is upstairs to the right. It has the most beautiful French doors that lead to an indoor patio. The architect of this house was from Naples, and his handiwork can be found in all the wooden carvings. I couldn’t help myself in researching more about this place when I found it online. It just seemed too perfect to be true. But now seeing it in person, I can’t help but admire it more.”
Mrs. Paige strode towards the back room. She crossed her arms as she admired the backyard, studying it as she would an oil painting. There was only green before her. The sun’s rays cast a warm glow over the trees concealing the property lines as it began to set.
“The kids can play in the backyard, and during the hot summers we can have a trampoline. I know you said those things can be dangerous, but think of the fun the girls will have. I’d rather want them running outside in the grass than being cooped up in here all the time. And for us, we can set up some chairs on that deck. We’ll need a firepit for the evening while the girls chase the fireflies. I remember doing that with my parents when I was Amelia’s age.”
She pointed to the left of the deck and smiled.
“We can build a garden over there and grow squash so that I can make soups. Around the house, we can have flower beds with violets and marigolds. I’ve heard the plants themselves attract butterflies. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
A hand braced her shoulder as she looked out into the backyard. The woman smiled softly and took the hand, reaching for something that wasn’t there.
“Oh, you would have loved this place, Ken.” Mrs. Paige sighed. “Did you see the stereo system? The old mahogany piece in the front room? I can play my records while I read and paint the house. This place could use a fresh coat of paint anyway. I still have our wedding song saved away in a box somewhere, you know. It’s probably next to the Pink Floyd albums you fawned over. You can choose which ones you’d want to listen to, and we could dance every night if we wanted.”
She felt the grip on her shoulder loosen but could still feel something that must have been there.
“I want us to start a new life here, where we can have peaceful days and the girls can play without worry. I’m going to work up a deal tomorrow to have this house in our family’s name, so no matter what a Paige can call this place home.”
Mrs. Paige felt something brush past her face. She shook her head. “I’m not. I’ve thought this through. I’ve been working my whole life for our family to live in a house like this. It will only be perfect when you all are here to enjoy it with me.”
A soft hush overcame the house, a sound Mrs. Paige knew all too well. For years, the sound came when the time ran out of their day, just as the crickets woke up for their song and the owls flew over dark trees to hunt their prey. It would be the time she has ever felt the loneliest.
“I’ll find a way to bring you back, and until then, I shall wait for you and the girls to return.”
She turned to face the living room. The sun cast shadows she had not seen before, but she could make out the inerasable shapes of her family’s silhouettes. She watched as the shape of her husband’s hand stretched out, reaching for her embrace. She could feel her husband take her hand in his, even if she couldn’t see it, and they stayed like that until the sun finally set, and the images of her husband and children faded away with the light of the sun.
Header Photo Credit: Joe Dudeck