Winner of University President's Award, 27th Annual Young Writers Conference, CSUF, April 21, 2007

Winner of University President's Award, 26th Annual Young Writers Conference, CSUF, Spring 2006

Potato-Mixed-with-Apple Salad

by Lena Yarbrough

     When I was in third grade, I overheard some of my classmates discussing the menu for Christmas dinner at their houses. "We always eat chicken at my house," one rowdy eight-year-old bragged. "Well, we eat chicken and turkey," said her friend. "GREEN BEANS!" bellowed another. Judging by the awed silence that followed, green beans were the crowning glory. I diplomatically chose not to contribute anything to the conversation, because I had an uncomfortable feeling that the beet soup, mushroom pierogi, codfish, and potato-mixed-with-apple salad my family ate every Christmas would be perceived as “weird” by my meat-and-potatoes counterparts.

     Ever since I can remember (and my memory stretches remarkably far back), a peculiar sort of balance has been maintained in my family. This is due entirely to the fact that my dad is from a small town in Mississippi, and my mom moved to the U.S. from Poland in the 1980's. Two such very different backgrounds might have resulted in a clash of epic proportions, but thus far, casualties have been minimal. It would be misleading, however, for me to imply that my parents never had any problems in deciding how to carefully intertwine their backgrounds in such a fashion that their children would not grow up to be socially ostracized foreigners in their own country.

     My parents discovered the need for this delicate balance at the beginning of my life. My mother wanted to give my sister and me American names; my father, on the other hand, decided he wanted to saddle us with difficult-to-pronounce Polish names (“Magdalena” and “Antonina” were the results of his decision). My mother wanted us both to speak fluent Polish, and therefore consistently spoke Polish (in lieu of English) to us. The unfortunate consequence of this was that we spoke better Polish than we did English for a year or two, and wound up with conspicuous Polish accents that didn’t disappear until we started school. Fortunately for my sake, my parents decided that in the future, they would try to be equally influential in my upbringing.

     Throughout my life, my family and I have spent some winter breaks in Mississippi and almost all summers in Poland or other parts of Europe. Therefore, while I've been immersed in European culture (the high and low-brow varieties), I've simultaneously accumulated a wealth of knowledge about the southern United States. I have my mom to thank for my intercontinental sophistication, but it is my father (a novelist) who introduced me to the literary works of Southern writers William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, thus fostering what grew to be my intense appreciation for books and fiction-writing.

     High school was the beginning of my passionate love affair with history. This new passion, predictably, greatly benefited from my parents' diverse backgrounds. When I expressed an interest in World War Two, my mom encouraged me to talk to some of our Polish family members about their own experiences in war-torn Poland, and I was enthralled by the stories my relatives shared with me about the Warsaw Uprising. Later, when I studied Communism, I was able to talk to my mom about her life under the system. I have also always been interested in US history, and my dad has been an avid supporter of this interest. It was he who generously loaned me Shelby Foote's Civil War Trilogy, and who finally stopped nagging me to return it to his study, when he realized that I had a designated the trilogy a place of honor on my bookshelf, complete with a snazzy sticker that read, "DO NOT REMOVE."

     Because I've always considered myself a "people" person, and therefore strive to understand different people (even though their backgrounds and lifestyles may differ widely from my own), the fact that I have traveled so much and been exposed to different cultures from such an early age has been immensely helpful. I think it's egocentric of people to isolate themselves from the rest of the world and imagine that reality consists of only what they know. Rather, I think it's important to learn as much as possible about everyone else. Because my travels have broadened my horizons, I've also become a better fiction writer. I've always had a good imagination, but now, my imagination is rarely limited by a lack of knowledge about how other people live, because I have observed (and, to a certain extent, experienced) different kinds of living first-hand.

     I'm an amalgamation of two unique worlds, and while my dog and I may be the only ones in my house who don't have accents, I'm delighted that I'm able to appreciate the importance of multiculturalism. I feel the positive effects of my upbringing every day of my life, and if somebody were to ask me now what my family eats for Christmas dinner, I wouldn't just rattle off the bizarre menu—I'd say, "I am potato-mixed-with-apple salad."

The World's Last Night

by Marina Olson

We maintain our worship in a blackened cathedral.
A layer of dust covers stone frozen worshipers.
Will these rocks cry out praise?
And the silence cuts deeply as a knife
To the God who is rejected.
A dancer on the street charms a star
But the star cannot fall for love.
So instead it bends its light away.
And on earth,
Another light is lost and darkness calls.
Burnt out rebels with no fight.
Nothing to call for arms and
No one to hear.
They dissipate into oblivion
Slowly creeping over.
Apathy pervading the senses
A dulling, numbing, what is numb?
Senses help to block out glimmers.
Fire sparks no longer wake up
The giant of change.
Complacent artists paint by numbers
Looking for inspiration in the concrete.
Their view into Heaven
Rejected for stone.
Does death win when the living reject life?
Creating a kingdom of false death
When even true death cannot be grasped
Lying in our graves until nothing comes
Nothing stops the feeling of anything.
So I stand up to watch the stars die out,
Beauty in the destruction of it all.
When destruction is all that’s left, I choose to watch
The world’s final night of life.
And we can’t even destruct with passion only…nothing.

Stream of Conscious

by Marina Olson

Winner of Fresno Poet's Association Award, 27th Annual Young Writers Conference, CSUF, April 21, 2007

Flip circles into squares

And fire rain falls down

With silhouettes catching on fire

And burning up the shadows.

There the edges of a rose start to turn black,

Bed post death forcing itself through life,

Icicles melt to tears

Spilled over like old coffee.

Smile at the grass stains on your arm

Where a dance never has to end.

And those crystals calling home

The fourth dimensional hypercubes

Escaping from a sell phone rave in a purse.

The bottom of your shoes squeak

After you walk out in the rain.

So go barefoot

And watch the stars burn away the ground.

The Broken Youth

by Marina Olson

We are the broke youth.

We are empty connections.

Standing alone

Relationships based in nothing, scared!

Our world so small

The only way to hide is in the open.

Trying to be invisible,

Praying we get shot,

Because then we are seen.

Life without breath,

Struggle without opposition

Unable to out run the demons inside.

There are those who embrace them

Merging the darkness and the light;

Violent internalization only killing

Us without connections,

Us broke youth.

The fears I out run

To preserve one flick, one spark.

The whispers in black

Could around us shackling us

Into a death.

And the visions flood us

Through pictures in raindrops

Much more washed out

Than our graffitied lives.

Dressed up too old and young

Too scared to be our age.

Terrified of seeing something more than shadows.

Mary had a little spark

Who lit a giant fire

And everything that this spark touched

Rose up to fight the liar.

Youth refuses to give in

To lies that only lead to death.

Yet growing up and growing old

Can only have one end.

When it is proclaimed that we killed God,

And God himself killed Death,

Then what is left but for us to stay

On earth, rejecting both

Our highest Heaven and darkest Hell?

And what if what they say is true

And God turned his back on man

Well what we forget is

Even the back of Divinity

Is more than we deserve.

Choose a side from

A tunnel of screaming words

That echo on and on and on

Because someday we will be heard.

Peace….can it exist?

Can we maintain such a fragmented ideal?

Be…to trust in the nature of existence.

For what good is knowledge if we

Are merely dreams?

With you…real connections in this web

We must connect and no longer will we be…

No longer broken youth.

Unfinished Sentence

by Gabrielle Castro

10 November 1938

     Yesterday morning, I went over to Anneke’s house. Together, we went to the synagogue, prepared to stay there all day.

     There was to be a party there, later that day, for the bar mitzvah of my boyfriend, Samuel. Personally, I was delighted. In the midst of all this terror that Hitler currently forces upon all of us Jews, it would be nice to attend a ceremony and a party, especially for Sam.

     We only started going steady less than a week ago. He was my first boyfriend. He walked up behind me at school at lunchtime, while I was putting my apron on. I didn’t see him, and he grabbed my hand while I was tying the apron around the back of my waist.

     I turned around slowly. Samuel was taller than me by about a head—but, then again, I am quite short—so I looked up, somewhat breathlessly. His bright blue eyes sparkled—he was one of the few Jews I knew who had blue eyes—and his dark brown hair complimented the captivating eyes. “’Lo, Marya,” he said plainly.

     “’Lo,” was the longest reply I could muster.

     He fixed his gaze upon me, speaking in our native Hebrew while pretending to be older than he really was. “Word around the community is that you’re single.” Sam had always been quite the charmer, even though he was only thirteen years old…well, at least, almost, at the time.

     I smiled up at him, knowing fully well what he was going to say next, but played innocent, pretending like I was clueless. (The boys always like it when they think they know something we girls don’t.)

     And I waited.

     Finally, the question came.

     “I’ve liked you for almost a year, Marya. Will you be my girlfriend?”

     A tear fell onto the page, splashing against the ink and nearly blotting out an entire word. Marya stopped moving the pen that had been so diligently poised in her left hand, with a sort of dignity embellishing the grace of its now-halted movements.

     Questions flooded the twelve-year-old girl’s mind: why her? Why not someone else? Of course, there was a burden upon her that she could never voice these opinions, for fear that she would be thought of as selfish and ungrateful.

     It would be shameful to be thought of in such a way. Despicable. Outrageous. Especially because of the fact that her life had remained, and so she had been granted the ability to write it all down; all the history, every event.

     Perhaps it was fate; perhaps it was passion for her “first love.” Either way, she forced herself to once again pick up her pen and was guilty of causing it to glide seamlessly along the page.

     Of course, I said “yes.” After all, I’ve liked him for a while, now, too. I would have been a fool to say “no.”

     Even before then, the had invited me to his bar mitzvah, so I had been planning on attending, anyway.

     Yesterday, after a sheepish grin from him and a passing but reassuring embrace from me (we were both virgins of the lips), he walked up to the front of the synagogue and crossed the threshold of manhood, past the point of no return.

     “The point of no return.” It certainly fit; it was ironic; certainly seemed that it was true.

     It was true.

     As I watched him mount the podium with pride and smile broadly as he read from the Torah, my heart swelled with pride. I swear think I fell in love with him the second that the ceremony started. I liked him before, certainly. But suddenly, my heart was overwhelmed by a surge of something I would not have been able to describe in that moment.

     Her mind had not aged enough to know love.

     I had fallen in love with Samuel.

     Her mind had not been experienced enough to know love.

     It was the first time I’d ever known what folks call “true love” in my life.

     Her mind was too innocent to know love.

     I observed, speechless, prideful, and eyes brimming with joyous tears, which I thankfully ceased from escaping the boundaries of my dark lashes. I embraced him as he dismounted it when the ceremony was over, and he kissed my cheek.

     It was the most wonderful—and only, from a boyfriend—kiss in my entire twelve years. Each moment was filled with tenderness, each time precious as a moment of a lifetime. I melted internally.

     But suddenly, two people broke us apart.

     They were both taller people; I thought they were my parents. Naturally, m parents wouldn’t want their twelve-year-old girl getting kissed by some boy. Naturally, I turned to smirk at them, appearing offended, intentionally. Naturally, I expected my mother to slap me lovingly, feigning chastising me.

     Unnaturally, I was not peering into the faces of my parents—instead, the faces were unrecognizable, though not in the least nondescript.

     Sour faces peered at us, menacing in every way imaginable. The one who was holding me (who happened to be taller than the other) looked down at me. “Hello there, little one,” he said sinisterly in German. “We have a little gift for you.”

     I was paralyzed with fear. These were not my parents, obviously. A strange man was restraining me from running away. He let me go after all was done, but before…what was he going to do? I didn’t know! Suddenly, I heard Sam’s desperate cry in the background. “MARYA! I LOVE YOU!”

     They were the last words I ever heard from him. The next sound I heard was a gunshot and the shattering of glass, and Sam was

     Marya could not bring her graceful hand to write the last word. She didn’t want to. It would be admitting something that she didn’t want to admit; could not force herself to admit. Samuel had made an eternal visit to the afterlife. He was with the Messiah, with the prophets, which his great-great-grandmother and the goldfish that he had been presented on his seventh birthday.

     She was helpless; she could not do a thing. No actions could be taken, and the first person she had ever loved was gone. The horrors of the later-dubbed Kristallnacht had visited her, like death stopped for Emily Dickinson.

     She did not live to finish the sentence; it remained unfinished for the rest of time.

At the Dentist's Office

by Angela Beevers

Unpleasantness

by Angela Beevers

     I knew the underarms of my shirt were a darker shade of green that the rest of it and my thighs felt surgically attached to the plastic of the bus. The window beside me was jammed, and it was the kind of hot one only experiences during a Fresno heat wave or when locked inside a furnace. The kid in front of me was smiling this big smile at me, like there could be nothing more pleasant than being barricaded inside of a hot, loud, school bus for two hours while being serenaded by the local hip hop station. His four front teeth were silver fillings from cavities, and he seemed to treat them as though they were not markers of his detrimental dental hygiene but rather as very pleasing physical attributes. He was a tiny boy of about nine or ten wearing a grubby striped shirt and blue elastic waist band shorts. He reminded me slightly of a yipping dog; he seemed to be positively wriggling in excitement, over what I couldn’t tell, because by this time we were passing the manure piles and the entire bus groaned, with many of the younger ones making overdramatic cries of, “P. U.!” I wiped a bead of sweat from the tip of my nose and sighed. It was going to be a long ride; we had only just reached the high school and I already felt like melting into the sticky plastic of the seats. The bus whined as it stopped and the older Kerman miscreants filed out; the “walkers” running, whooping through the streets, on their way to Kathy’s or to the skate park. The doors opened with what sounded like a refreshing gust of air however I was too far away from the door to be affected greatly by it. The high schoolers clunked up the stairs with their backpacks carefully slung across one shoulder, each one loudly talking their friends, moving as slowly as humanly possible up the steps. They migrated to the back; all around me backpacks thudded against the seats and the alpha teens reclined in their rows, making molting green vinyl seem like plush leather seating.

     I sat alone. I always did. I was the only seventh grader on Route 8 which allowed me enough intimidation to keep the younger grades at bay while affording me enough lowliness to prevent anyone in high school from picking my seat. The system did not however prevent the lower grades from choosing seats adjacent to mine; something I was quickly discovering would have to be remedied if I was to escape becoming a new inmate on Death Row. The aforementioned young boy was rather an objectionable bus mate. He was not only loud and fidgety, but physically violent to those around him, and I being in the adjacent seat caught the brunt of his assault. As I squirmed away to talk to someone (anyone) else, I placed my hand upon the row behind me—the young hellion’s seat. I was consequently made a fool of by a sudden onslaught of speechlessness. However when one feels a rather strange, wet, thing on the back of their hand, one is usually at a loss for words. Not always, but generally (I am assuming, having little experience in the matter myself) when an irritating stranger licks your hand one is speechless, because when the young child licked my hand I sputtered and I’m sure changed a horrid shade of puce. It was quite a violating experience I assure you. Not only when he had finished defiling my appendage, did I have no power or authority to fight back (for I know it would have been equally disgusting, if not worse for me to lick the child’s hand in retaliation) but he laughed at me. The hellion actually laughed, and not in a sardonic, evil, malicious, cackle kind of way, but rather like the chortle of the erudite, the kind that says, “Oh poor sap, now he’s finally tried caviar and finds he doesn’t like it.” It was a thoroughly mystifying and flabbergasting experience. This fine specimen of the hoi polloi laughing in a derisive way, at me? And after having just licked my hand-- unpleasant to be sure. I never placed faith in my bus classification system again; nothing that could allow my hand to be licked in such an obscene fashion can honestly be trusted. What’s worse is the system didn’t even allow me to avenge myself. There’s really very little I could do to the child besides sputter angrily in his vicinity. If I was to call upon a higher authority I would have to explain the crime, which would only damage my pride further—having to explain to a corpulent bus driver named Nacho that I was powerless to prevent a juvenile from licking my hand wouldn’t exactly be a nice, uplifting experience. In essence, it was the perfect crime.

Untitled

by Liz Bushman

     I was only nineteen, but I had already masterminded the downfall of one of the world’s greatest countries. I have lived in grandeur and the streets. I have killed men and led an organization of spies greater than the Central Intelligence Agency.

     I was three when I completed a high-school level calculus course. By then I had become a master pianist, and was a violinist of great skill. When I was five, I had learned to play the flute as well, and read various classical texts. Literature was enjoyable; math was not. I then ignored all but the most simple math in order to pursue forgotten times and fantastical worlds.

     I learned much from these books. Tactical strategies, intrigue, and guile are but examples. Politics fascinated me; I spent many an hour dreaming of leading the world into chaos- or leading it out of it. Tipping the balance of power. Pulling the strings from the background.

     I entered the political scene as a minister’s assistant when I was thirteen. I advised him on certain issues, as well as his political implications with certain acts.

     He himself did not recognize me for the asset I was; it was the Vice-President at the time who saw that. He had been in England as a stand-in for the President of the United States, who had been assassinated some months earlier. He made me the offer to become his adviser, offering to pay for the task. I accepted; what he offered was a greater scope in the world.

     I must say, his staff certainly though he was insane. I was a thin thirteen-year-old; tall for a girl, paler than a ghost, with rough-cut brown hair and shabby attire.

     When they saw how I steered the Vice-President through a war with the People’s Republic of China, they began to grasp my talents. I had maneuvered through a political standoff between both countries and shifted the balance of power sufficiently to give the upper hand to America. I made quite a few enemies, though they hardly knew who to blame. I kept to the shadows, guiding from the darkness of anonymity.

     When the Vice-President stepped down, having been beaten in the elections by a small margin, his successor did not need me. Thus, I was dispensed of.

     Left to fend for myself, I wandered the streets for a time. Somehow, I ended up in California, all the way across the country. There, I met Nate Keehl, a member of the American mafia in high standing.

     I had broken in to a department store earlier that week and stolen some clothes: a pair of jeans, a shirt, a plain black sweatshirt, a pair of sneakers. I had also liberated some money from the registers. He quite literally ran into me on the sidewalk, where I had curled up in one of the worse parts of town.

     “Hm? What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” he had asked in an easy-going manner, lifting me to my feet. He began to brush me off, apologizing, as I took in his appearance. He was very tall, something like 6’5 at least; certainly a good eight inches taller than I was. His hair was bleached-blonde, a row of hoops and studs up his left ear. His eyes were brown, clothing neat but casual. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.

     I think he must have had a clear look at my face; in any case, he appeared to recognize me, which was strange because I was not known to the public. When I knew of his connections to the mafia, I pieced together that he had been warned that I was an important figure in the government by a few well-placed mafia spies.

     He asked me again what I was doing here, querying as to why I was on the streets and not in the District of Columbia, revealing that he knew my identity.

     I turned defensive, until he explained that he would take me on if I was no longer connected to the government. He told me that he was a politico to some extent, though in a vastly different world than the one I had come from.

     Intrigued, I accepted. He took me to a little café in a decent part of town, where he bought me a sandwich and a soda. As I ate, I told him my story.

     When I had finished the simple meal, he leaned in close and said, “Miss Andrews, I have an offer here for you. I told you that I would take you on as my adviser in the political world I work in; I meant it. Your work would entail more of something like espionage than anything. Where I work, violence is the law and blackmail is the key to defeat.”

     Eagerly, I accepted. I think I was half in love with him at that point; certainly I needed a place to bide my time in, and the picture he painted was more appealing than the streets I had been wandering.

     We left, Nate slapping down some bills to pay for my food. I followed him outside, where he hailed a taxi and had us taken to a deserted warehouse. It was actually the base for some of the Californian mafia, inhabited by men and whores alike.

     He led me inside, keeping me close behind him. Men jeered at me as we passed, making lewd remarks and offers I would never consider. Nate silenced the few who went to far with a glare and a tacit threat of violence.

     When we arrived at the third floor, I was amazed by the room that opened before us. A number of leather couches were placed in the center, facing the large screen of a television showing a football game. Several large men in fashionable clothes were sprawled on the couches, some with women seated on or beside them. Full and empty vodka bottles were scattered across a large, dark-stained wood table. From the obvious wealth of the men and the lavish surroundings, I came to the conclusion that these were the men at the head of the operation.

     “Nate,” one of them said companionably as we entered. “I had no idea your tastes were so… different.” He gestured to me, and laughed. The two women in tiny, gaudy silk dresses seated with him tittered at his remark.

     “Not at all, Rod,” Nate said amiably enough. “She is merely my cousin; hardly someone to dally with and I forbid you to touch her.”

     The other men laughed at the rebuttal. Rod grinned, and waved a hand in defeat.

     “Her name is Chloe Andrews,” my protector went on, casually throwing out my name. The men did not recognize me; this told me that the spies were Nate’s. His influence reached farther than I could have guessed. “She’ll be living with me, and coming around with me pretty often.”

     “Hey, hey, no family allowed,” argued a man in a corner. His face was surly, glowering at me.

     Rod spoke up again. “Nate here can bring family, long as it’s not the police.”

     “Yeah, shut up Carl,” someone called. Carl glowered all the more.

     We spent a few more hours there, and I learned all the men’s names. Nate would mutter their rank in my ear whenever one spoke up, so that I could have a basis for understanding the group’s actions.

     Rod, I learned, was at Nate’s level of power within the group, and the two formed a strong alliance. Carl was also at their level of standing, but he was notoriously disliked by many and shunned by the more powerful members. Kenny, a weedy-looking man was next up in the pecking order, having gained his status by being both a drug lord and a sharpshooter without equal. There was Jack, a powerfully-built black man who could drink more than anyone else and hold it, above Kenny, and close friends with the leader, a cruel and sharply intelligent man named Jose.

     There were about five other men, all of lower status than my Nate, who contended between themselves for standing and occasionally tried to usurp Nate or Rod’s positions; they could usually beat up Carl, who only kept his position with endless machinations.

     I spent the next few months learning about the currents in the mafia organization based there. As time passed, I came to know both Nate and Rod, who frequently visited us when not at the warehouse. The two of them, I observed, had something as close as a familial tie. Rod was not as smart or as smooth as Nate was, but he was incredibly strong and almost as quick with a gun as Kenny. His sense of humor almost eclipsed his nasty streak, which could be triggered at any time by anyone.

     Nate in contrast was brilliant, and always knew exactly what to say in order to get his way. He could expertly manipulate people- one reason he was in the place of power he was at now. He was also ambitious, and had enough drive to lead an army across the world. He was rising in the mafia’s hierarchy, and he was bringing Rod along with him.

     From the two of them, I learned the ways of the underworld. I was taught how to shoot everything from a machine gun to a handgun, various ways to blackmail, and some self-defense. Over time I became the third member in their partnership- the invisible one, the spy. My work with the government gave me knowledge of how to do it, and now I practiced it almost daily.

     At the warehouse, I was treated with a sort of respect that a girl among men can garner- the insults were usually empty or with no real bite, as Nate and Rod’s influence shielded me. Only Jose and Jack seemed to know that I was not just Nate’s cousin, but neither ever threatened my cover as such.

     As two years passed, Nate slowly rose to power. His influence grew as his network of spies, commanded by me, infiltrated governmental areas, including everything from the Senate to the local city ordinance. As his power grew, so did his ambitions, and he began to tell me more and more of his plans. My value to him had evolved from adviser to close companion, and I have no doubt that had I been older it would have turned to romance.

     After a year of hard work, blackmail and death, he took over the western part of America’s mafia. That night, I learned his true intentions.

     He was sitting triumphantly in a leather armchair he favored, spinning a crystal flute of champagne between his fingers. “Chloe, a glorious thing has happened,” he began, watching the glittering liquid as it spun in the glass, releasing streams of bubbles. “Our fortunes have risen. We control the western edge of America; soon we will control it all.” He toasted me.

     I acknowledged it silently, nodding assent as I took a small sip of my own. I said nothing.

     “I could never have done it without you,” he continued, with a satisfied smile. “I knew you would be an invaluable asset. When we control all of the Mafia, we will overthrow the government… and take over to reign in its place!” he declared in finish. He downed what was left of his champagne and poured himself some more.

     I knew that he had wanted to rule the mafia, which in itself would take much time; there were still the mafia overlords on the East Coast to deal with, whose families had reigned over the area for decades. But to overthrow the government? That would take skill indeed.

     I did not hesitate, however. I raised my glass once again and let a smile ghost across my face. “Leadership it is,” I said smoothly in agreement.

     And so, he forged ahead, creating a new path as he plotted the downfall of every mafia ruler he came across. One by one, they fell. Piece by piece, Nate Keehl forged an empire of the most dangerous men alive.

     When he finally took out the last of the deep-rooted overlords in the East Coast, I was seventeen. He was ten years older than I, twenty-seven, and the only person to have ever held all of the American mafia in his grip.

     By comparison, overthrowing the government, Nate’s next goal, was, as they say, “like taking candy from a baby.” We accomplished that within six months, and after having orchestrated an elaborate scheme to make it seem like the government was the enemy, Nate was elected to be the leader of the people. Democracy was no more; dictatorship ruled the United States of America, and Nate intended to make it profitable solely to himself.

     We ruled together, he as the figurehead, I as his queen. We conquered the Western half of the world within five years, Rod and other (but less) trusted friends as generals. Our empire was greater than any before us- larger than the British and infinitely more stable than the Romans.

     But now, as I lay here in my death bed with my daughter in power and my Nate dead, I look forward into death. I have lived, and I am finished with the earthly world. My time, with Nate’s, has come and passed. I am free.

     Distantly I hear a voice as the darkness closes in.

     “I could never have done it without you, Chloe… come to me now, my dear.”

Untitled

by Kimberly Gibson

Time has built the trees

To stand like guardians over the land.

Wind’s gentle tease

Has worn the rocks to sand.

Moon pulled and pried

The sea’s stubborn tide.

Cloud, Star and sun

The new day has begun.

Storm's Fair Child

by Kimberly Gibson

In the vale of blackest night

In the sheen of gilded stars

Silent mistress of the night

Touched by chill winds from afar

Now in forest then on hill

Storm’s fair child winter’s tease

Softly falling, swirling still

Caught in crevices clinging to trees

Faces pressed against the glass

Backs to cozy fire within

Watching delicate crystals pass

None alike and yet close kin

Floating body phantom white

Kissed by winter’s frigid bite

Sailing Sonnet

by Kimberly Gibson

Island reaching to the sky

From the ocean’s rustic blue

Where on the water sailboats fly

With sturdy sun-kissed crew

Ropes sit neatly in their coils

Pregnant by the wind curve sails

Sailors finish the last of their toils

Eager bodies press the rails

Smaller boats are lowered from the sailing deck

The water is dug with oars

Across the bay they move at captain’s beck

There on rocks they make their moors

Gravel crunches under shoe

Cloak hems brush fresh morning dew

Two Elderly Gentlemen

by Eric Lindae

A bulge, clear

On the surface of the cap

Water, alive, a cloudburst’s nephew

No longer moving, but in stasis

A veteran of autumn’s latest gale

Rests, comfortably immobile

On the hood of a mushroom, who sits, brooding

The last of his ancient fairy-circle

In the heart of the pine forest.

Comrades in old age, who can comfort each other

As they silently wait

For the dawn.

Okтябрь Pєволюция

(October Revolution)

by Mark Ryan

My stomach yearns.

Lo! alak, for it has conquered my abdomen with a scourge of unpleasantness, invaded my aching spine, and by military coup d’état has quite sneakily assumed control as acting Lord Protector of my head, thereby dominating all thought therein, so that all I might be inspired to do now is surrender to the usurper and allow the corrupt neuro-spark thingies to transmit orders for this regime from the ruins of my brain, renamed New Small Intenstinograd, to my economically crippled hand and its socially unstable writing utensil.

Eisenstein himself couldn’t have put it better. In short, the pain from my stomach demands to be portrayed in verse, quite heroically, by its subject; all considered, I think my pencil, who oddly enough is also named Eisenstein, is doing a pretty good job thus far. Presumably, this is being read, so Eisenstein might be lucky enough to be offered an honest opinion by the reader when all is said and done.

Now, herein lies the rub: knowing this work of art is to be anticipated as a stomachly loyal work of art, Eisenstein must, from this point on, attempt to apply some revolutionary bull feces.

Indeed, my stomach yearns for freedom and the right to stupidly, brutally abuse itself, as is its wont, on October 31 st, paradise of chocolate. It yearns and reaches so heart-wrenchingly that I fear it may break free from its fleshy confines and attempt a reenactment of the famous scene from Alien. This would upset my parents sitting by as I write, so I hope it does not happen, for their sake.

Note: it’s pretty freakin’ difficult to Bolshevikify such a fictionally potential occurrence, so seeing how this work of art is devoted to the very Bolshevikification of my stomach, I am confident that Alien will refrain from being reenacted. Indeed, that being the case (as history and the world around us make clear), the reader, myself, Eisenstein, and my parents can all sleep easy.

Soulmates

by Lena Yarbrough

     When I was in sixth grade, I decided I was going to marry Prince William. I obsessed about him for two years, and told anyone who would listen that I intended to name our first child Cecily, after my favorite Oscar Wilde character. Or, if it was a boy (God forbid), I'd name him Odysseus (provided I didn't put him up for adoption), because a boy with a name like that would surely do great things. I also planned out my strategy for lobbying Parliament so effectively that eventually it would decide that the future monarch and head of the Church of England could marry me, despite that inherently suspect set of beliefs I subscribe to, known as Catholicism.

     After a couple years, however, my love for Prince William waned, and I found myself seeking out a worthier candidate for my affections. This was largely due to my realization that Prince William's teeth had started growing at an alarming rate. And frankly, I just don't dig that rabbit-y look. Also, as an ambitious young woman, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life filing my husband's teeth. That struck me as an abnormally gruesome procedure. Anyway, it was vital that I find a new soul mate as soon as possible. One day, flipping through my history book, I came across a picture of a beautiful and intelligent-looking man. Picture, if you will, a male Marie Antoinette. Our eyes met—okay, mine met his—and I was instantly smitten. I finally tore my eyes away from his piercingly blue ones long enough to glance at the caption below his portrait, which informed me that my beloved was, unfortunately . . . Alexander Hamilton.

     Oh, horrors! Oh, diety! The liberal in me cringed at this newfound knowledge. My soul mate was an elitist snob who catered to the upper classes and had lukewarm attitude towards democracy. The fact that he was dead bothered me far less than his politics. I immediately set out on a quest to prove to myself that Alexander Hamilton was not as bad as he seemed.

     I spent the next year supplementing my regular reading with books about Alexander Hamilton and the era during which he lived. Although I had initially delved into the Jeffersonian era in order to read about my alleged soul mate, I soon found myself engrossed by that time period, and by all the other Founding Fathers as well. After a while, I wasn't just reading about that particular era in history; I had moved on to Shelby Foote's Civil War Trilogy, and then I decided, on a sudden whim, to research Tudor England, since I'd read a lot of historical fiction that took place during that time, and was eager to learn more.

     I've always known that I have an immense appreciation for history, but it was during those first couple of years of high school that I recognized the extent of my fascination. And I did manage to learn enough about Alexander Hamilton to permit myself to love him with a semi-clear conscience. I learned that he had a great deal of respect for his wife's intellect (which was rare attitude for a man at that time), and that he was the mastermind behind the national banking system. Also, he died a wonderfully dramatic death—he was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr (a man who was clearly his inferior in every respect, and who didn't even have good looks to recommend him).

     When I tell people I'm having a one-sided love affair with a dead man, they usually can't identify with me. When they express their confusion or advise me to seek help, I take pity on them, because obviously, their own standards are abysmally low. How many living men have as many accomplishments as Alexander Hamilton? Not a great many. Of course, communication can sometimes be a problem for Alexander and me, but when the going gets rough, I simply remove a ten-dollar bill from the handy jar I keep on my desk, and then I proceed to talk to my beloved for as long as my little heart desires. Granted, he doesn't always respond, but I'm willing to overlook that. After all, it is Alexander Hamilton who helped foster my interest in history, and for that, he has my utmost respect. And if he ever wants anything more…well, I'm not going anywhere.

Painting Mona Lisa

by Lena Yarbrough

     I've spent most of the afternoon pacing back and forth in the crappy little back yard. To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure what constitutes the back yard; there isn't a fence to separate it from the woods, and the woods run straight down to the beach, which curves into the ocean. I like to pretend it's all mine. The real estate lady, a chunky woman named Elma, seemed a little horrified that I decided to rent the house without actually seeing a picture of it, but that's just the way I am. The description made the house seem like a mansion, but I knew it wouldn't be anything special; five hundred a month isn't enough to cover the rent for anything more than a hovel in this area.

     This morning, I tried to clean the place up a little. The people who stayed here before I did must have had young children, because there are crayon marks all over the couch, and several mysterious sticky stains on the linoleum in the kitchen. After I finally realized that no amount of cleaning would make the place look significantly better, I wandered around the little grassy clearing behind the house, which faces towards the ocean. Now, thanks to a gap in the foliage, I can see the horizon, and a skinny stream of water below it, but the trees obstruct the rest of the ocean from view. Wonderful, I think bitterly. Just what a struggling writer needs: a place that lacks any features that could be even remotely inspiring. I assumed a house in a fairly secluded area near the ocean would cure my writer's block and perhaps lend me some great insights, Walden-style. But I highly doubt Thoreau and I are made of the same material.

     I'm wondering what the best route to the beach is when I hear someone whistling. I realize it's coming from the backyard of the hovel next to mine, so after debating for a moment, I make my way over there.

     There's a young woman there, and the first thing I notice is that she's painting on an easel, and she's got some fairly expensive-looking paints. She's not exactly pretty, but nor is she ugly, and women who aren't ugly have always intimidated me. I'm about to sneak away unseen when she looks up.

     "Hi." She sounds a little confused, and I'm wondering why, when I remember that I've trespassed into her yard.

     "Hi. I'm Rick. You've got a nice yard." I really shouldn't open my mouth around women. There's something sinister about them, although this one has undeniably friendly eyes.

      "Well. It's actually kind of ugly, isn't it? I mean, I'm just staying here for the summer. Then I'm going to art school. Are you the guy from next door? Elma told me there was a guy moving in soon. She said you're young. She thought I'd be interested, or that's what she said. She's a nice lady, but she sure likes sticking her nose in other people's business."

     This girl talks a lot.

     "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I'm the guy." It sounds stilted, but even so, I'm glad I didn't refer to myself as the man.

     "You said your name's--Rick?"

     "Yeah."

     "I'd imagine a guy named Rick to be really big. You're what, 5'6?"

     I'm slightly offended. "Five foot eight."

     "My bad."

     She resumes painting, and for some reason, I feel comfortable enough to wander over and look at her work. It's an imitation of the Mona Lisa, and not a good one.

     "I know, I can't paint worth shit. But I'm going to be an artist; runs in the family. Even the grandpa back there--" she motions toward the little house behind her "--is a sculptor. Well, he was until he got sick. He's recovering from a stroke."

    I'm wondering how to respond to this when she spins around suddenly, accidentally flicking paint on my nose in the process. "It doesn't look like her at all, does it?" She gestures at a picture of the real Mona Lisa and then studies her own version of it.

     It doesn't, but I'm not about to say so. "It could be worse."

     "Well, that's the understatement of the century. You could look worse too, couldn't you?"

     I could, and I don't see how this is relevant, but all the same, I'm slightly intrigued. I choose, however, to leave the question unanswered and instead root around for something else to talk about. "Where're you from?"

     "Chicago. I'll bet you're surprised. I don't seem like the big-city type, now do I?"

     I wish she'd stop asking questions that I don't know how to answer. "I'm from San Francisco," I offer.

     "Really? Well, what're you doing off the coast of Washington?"

     "I'm writing."

     "A novel?"

     "Poetry."

     She smiles at that, and stops painting for a moment. "Is your poetry better than my painting?"

     "I hope so." It slips out, and I'm left blushing furiously.

     She merely laughs. "You seem like a nice guy, Rick."

     And then I'm waiting for whatever it is I'm sure she's about to say. It'll be something about how she's just met me, but already she's quite sure she doesn't want to let me leave.

     Abruptly, she turns away. "I've got to finish this." She resumes painting, and I'm left standing there like the idiot that I am. After a horrifically awkward moment of silence, I walk back to my own miserable yard. The surroundings haven't improved, and I'm pissed off at the air-headed Elma for her misleading description of the house. I'm standing there with my hands in my pockets, staring pointlessly at the sky and swaying back and forth when I hear her voice.

     "Come over for dinner at seven, Rick!"

     I continue bouncing on the balls of my feet. I look toward the ocean, and I discover that from this angle, the water is visible from behind the trees. Now I can see not only the horizon, but the glistening green of the ocean itself. The clouds seem to shift, and the rays of the sun peak through for the first time, warming the side of my face and causing me to squint as I strain my eyes to see just as far as I can.