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Fall/Winter 2021 Cover Art: Ephemeral by Jayci Bryant Table of Contents Connect to "TOC Art Title" Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Worship/War Inocencia Su Thar Nyein Small Title Ian Castro Soto Small Title Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" View

Jeneva Hayes Jeneva Hayes serves as the Senior Editor-in-Chief of Élan. She enjoys writing and reading realistic fiction and has won a Scholastic Arts and Writing Silver Key for one of her fiction pieces

< Table of Contents Sa Aking Mga Kamay by Sophia Gapuz Son, Your Mother is Praying for You. By Amaya Thoene 22. And I pray for her too, in the lone hours of Monday mornings. I pour myself mugs of Brazilian coffee and toast brown bread, hoping to draw her spirit from the memories under my floorboards. I light incense as Damini, the girl I hope to marry, wakes. Elizeth Cardoso sounds through my bedroom wall, connected to hers, from a record player we found at the Saturday flea market. Two minutes later, she is knocking on my door, grabbing my hand in hers. This is the first contact we’ve had in four days. Time melts around us, slipping from my aching hands, so I restrict our proximity as best I can. Her smile tempts me to allow myself the pleasure of her company, but this morning is dedicated to my mother, so I settle for smiling back. Conversation is not one of my gifts, but I’m the kind of person one can be around without speaking. Damini has never told me this much, but she is not one who can conceal her thoughts. I pull her into my living room, placing her cup of Peruvian tea on the stained coffee table. Rain whispers for her from the window, charmed by her in the way everyone is. She is sought after by everything beautiful in this world, but nothing quite so much as rain. It succumbs to her every touch, jealousy ever-present in its loyal following. I kneel on the rug next to her, our elbows pressed together. Here, my prayer begins. I am pressed into the pages of distant memory. *** 9. I lie on the porch of my brother's house in Caetés, Pernambuco, sweat crowding like my grandmother’s teeth. My mother died the Monday before, bestowing this house upon my brother. He is nineteen and married to a quiet girl from Rio de Janeiro. Their daughter is silent as the dead, which she will soon be. Sickness has stolen the words from her throat. My sister-in-law begged me to sleep in the house, to take the bed by the window, but I refused the offer. I told her I would not watch another girl in my family die, and besides, that bed was my mother’s. She nodded solemnly at this and kissed my head, whispering a prayer against my matted hair. “I have begun to fear the sight of her: all her baby fat gone, replaced by shadows and the outline of delicate bones.” The porch is rotting, giving way to the poverty in the air, the humidity. I press a finger against the softened railing. Quiet footsteps sound behind me and I squeeze my eyes shut, afraid my niece will try to wake me. I have begun to fear the sight of her: all her baby fat gone, replaced by shadows and the outline of delicate bones. A foot nudges my shoulder, compelling me to open my eyes. If it is my niece, so be it. I will lead her back to bed and place a cool, wet cloth on her head, as she is always warmer than the temperature permits. My niece is not the girl I see. Instead, this girl is the age of my sister-in-law, but the two share no other similarities. She sings Elizeth Cardoso from her throat, strong arms carrying wet laundry from the house to the clothesline. She is barefoot and tall enough that she must stoop to avoid the doorframe. Her foot nudges my arm again and I groan, catching her attention. This girl is my mother, years ago, youth present in her features. She smiles at me, a braid tucked behind each shoulder. “Benício, what are you doing on the porch? It’s hot out today.” She speaks softly, her lilted Portuguese bringing tears to my eyes. Portuguese has sounded wrong since her death—felt different between my teeth—but it is so natural coming from her, even with her thick Peruvian accent and hints of Spanish, her first language. She leans down beside me, worry creasing her forehead at the sight of my tears. Warm knuckles wipe them from my face and she presses a kiss to my cheek. “ Mijo , there is no need for tears. Al mal tiempo, una buena cara. *” Conversation does not find us, but I relish in her company. I fall steadfast into sleep, calmer than I’ve known in weeks, and when I wake, hours have passed with rain falling on my foot. My sock is soaked through, as are the clothes hanging above my head. I look for my mother, hoping for assistance in wringing out the water from my brother’s work shirts, but she is gone, having departed into the early hours of Monday morning. In her place is my niece, feet dangling over the porch, rain cupping softly in her extended hand. Grief is heavy on her features, an emotion I’ve never seen on a child so young. I turn towards the house, unable to bear the sight, and beckon her in after me. She follows willingly. The only sound is her hollow breathing. Inside, I make us toast and pour her a glass of milk, almost doing the same for myself but stopping, instead stealing cold coffee, leftover from my brother. It is bitter, which is surprising, considering his affinity for sugar. I prefer it this way. Final words are not attempted by my niece, who will die in two days, her lungs giving out in the heat of the summer night. Instead, she leaves her toast untouched, coming to join me as I sit in the doorframe. She holds my hand in her small fist, sticky from the milk she spilled on herself. Here, we begin to pray. It is silent and she is shaking with sobs when I reopen my eyes. I find that I, too, am falling apart. This will be our final moment together, the two of us as selfish as children among the dead can be. I wrap the memory in newspaper and bury it beneath my bed. *** 22. Mondays draw dust into the air as I am returned to my prayer. My mother’s name, the same as my niece’s, repeats painfully in my mind. Rain greets me, harmonizing with the music in Damini’s bedroom, caught in the middle of “Luciana”. She turns to face me, resting her forehead on mine. My mother’s voice finds me again, folded between raindrops, drowning under Cardoso’s heavy words. “Death is imminent, Benício. It will not steady if you resist happiness; it will always persist.” In times like these, I remember my mother in such a raw form. She is young, before children, whispering to me with the knowledge of her older self, slipping between Portuguese and Spanish, attempting comfort with words of both our country and our ancestors. These moments are the most painful, because they are everything I have never been. But in this instant, I accept her advice and compress every thought I bear into Damini’s lips. *** 25. And when Sunday evenings call out, Son, your mother is praying for you, I respond. We are praying for you, too, in this American apartment, where we toast brown bread and drink overpriced coffee, our daughter giggling at the rain outside her bedroom window. She carries with her two things tainted by fortune: a Monday morning prayer and your name, carved into her tongue. *In bad weather, a good face. About the Writer... Amaya Thoene is a junior in the Creative Writing department at Harrison School for the Arts. She has been involved in eight public readings since her freshman year and has been published in the Polk County Poetry Anthology. She is a varsity cheerleader and spends most of her free time sleeping out by her pool. About the Artist... Sophia Gapuz is a visual artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida. She majors in drawing and painting, and explores the world in an emotionally abstract lens, continually searching to create something new.

17 < Back Lucky Money Lauren Underberg Lucky Money by Lauren Underberg "It’s as ordinary a place as you remembered—set in a sunburnt shopping center above an Asian market—although you hadn’t anticipated sitting up on the stage." It’s as ordinary a place as you remembered—set in a sunburnt shopping center above an Asian market—although you hadn’t anticipated sitting up on the stage. Usually, it was reserved for a big birthday or family reunion, and you suppose it was technically both, but you follow the waiter as he weaves his way to the very back of the room. From there, you can see the entire restaurant—circular tables curving outwards, waiters pushing carts piled high with meat buns and dumpling steamers, Mandarin and Cantonese and English and a little Spanish running together, until falling in a steady wave at the foot of the stage, then drawing back out. They arrived soon after you did, your Gung Gung helping your Poh Poh up the stairs as she waved off your mom, spotting you with a big smile. “ Luh-len! ” she said, like over the phone. “ Hao-ah-you? ” Next arrived Uncle Raymond, your mom’s favorite—when they’d lived in Hong Kong, he’d take her and her siblings to the park and tell them scary stories before they went to sleep. Aunt Becky (whose daughter is your mom’s cousin, or better known as the one with ten mil’, a spray tan, and enough plastic surgery to be an Asian Jennifer Lopez) was third. She brings you perfume and a brand-new watch. Last but not least was Crazy Uncle Alex—retired Wendy’s chain tycoon, now part-time Uber driver—striding in with a box of gourmet cookies, each one bigger than your hand. You set it across the empty chairs on the side, completing the circle. It’s not the usual round-up from your childhood—technically speaking, they’re either your great-uncle or aunt, but you’d only met Uncle Alex three years ago, and you hadn’t seen the other two since a baby or ever at all. Technically, you were supposed to see them with the rest of your family here in a week, on your Gung Gung’s seventy-fifth birthday. Technically, your mom and her sister are still Facebook friends, but only in the sense that she can’t see your mom’s posts drowning in her feed of the latest Coach bag or vacation selfie with Wannabe Jennifer Lopez. Technically, you’re officially unofficially estranged. In rapid succession, your mom reads off the order, confirming with your relatives before dictating to the waiter, who plucks your menus in a fanlike revolution and steps off the stage. They resume their conversation in Cantonese, bickering back and forth. Mainly, you just stare into space until your mom breaks the conversation for you to share or agree with something. She smiles, and you nod. Nod and nod. The first round of food arrives, and your Gung Gung places a rice noodle roll— ha cheung —on your plate, and then another one. “Oh— uhm-goi ,” you thank him, smile. Fiddle with chopsticks. “—and my dog,” Uncle Alex is saying, swiping through pictures of a fluffy bichon frisé on a chaise lounge. “Oh, your new apartment?” your mom says, and he hands over his colossal iPhone. “Private pool, all to myself.” He nods, sitting back. The ha cheung falls off your chopsticks. “Pool and puppy,” Uncle Raymond tuts, sipping from his tea. “ Ooh. ” Uncle Alex mutters something, launching on a tirade. Your mom glances between them, smiling, shaking her head. She whispers translations to you, including the curse words. “—like a fat buddha. He’s just sorry he doesn’t have a life!” Uncle Alex says, grinning. “I have a son and wife,” Uncle Raymond says, and Uncle Alex’s mouth folds back into a line as he stares at the pictures on his phone. “He’s still in Brooklyn?” your mom asks. You give up on the chopsticks. He nods. “Visited him last month—starting to travel again.” He taps on his phone to show two flights. “Oh, Seoul! She—” “And Auckland,” he says. “—loves BTS, don’t you?” She smiles, nudging you. You laugh a little loudly. He blinks. “You should speak to Uncle Raymond—I’ve been trying to teach her Cantonese this summer because she wanted to learn—you remember, tell him what your name is.” You stare at her, betrayed, but she nudges you again, so you piece together a smile that comes out more like a grimace. Uncle Raymond watches expectantly. “ Lei goh…mei —no. Uh.” You stare at the table. “ Mei goh…hai… ” You flail for something hollow. His expression returns blank. You sigh. “I don’t know.” Your mom laughs. “Ai-yah, it’s because I put her on the spot. My Cantonese is so bad anyway, kindergarten level, right, Ma? Ma.” “Hah?” Your Poh Poh looks up from the teapot. “Remember? You named her ‘Lok-yee.’ ” “Oh, yeh. ” She chuckles. “‘ Hahp-py-girl.’ ” Both of which you’re pretty convinced you’ve failed at . You smile. “ Lok-yee, Man-yee, ” Uncle Alex chants. Your mom’s name. “She said it sounds like ‘lucky money,’” she says, laughing, mostly to silence. Your Gung Gung grins, patting your shoulder. “You and yoh mohm ah very lucky, hah? ” Chuckling, he picks a meat bun with his hands to take a bite. You throw down your chopsticks and do the same. “When did you get in?” Aunt Becky asks. “Oh, just yesterday afternoon. We met up with them” —your mom gestures to your Poh Poh and Gung Gung, as rehearsed— “and my brother and his kids yesterday.” “Oh, but no Belinda?” Aunt Becky’s magnified eyes dart between the two of you carefully. Your mom sighs into her response. “ It’s …complicated. I just wanted to come up here once everything settled down, you know? I haven’t since—” “2019,” you say, and everyone glances at you momentarily. “Before we moved back,” your mom concludes. “Besides, we’re here for them.” Aunt Becky nods solemnly. Uncle Alex picks between his teeth. A server comes around once more, leaving yellow tarts on the Lazy Susan. Your mom’s face lights up. “You should try this—it’s like an egg tart that I used to eat as a kid. Oh, ma’am—could we get some spoons? Uhm-goi. ” Daan tat. It melts in your mouth. About the Writer... Lauren Underberg is a junior in the Creative Writing department at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Their work appears in the department’s student-run literary magazine, Cadence. They have been referred to as a long-distance runner on multiple occasions, which basically means they'll never write a short short story in their life.

6f178f10-c39c-4e20-af87-b3599b872ff0 Blooming Petals by Bria Mcclary Rose-Colored Glasses by Mackenzie Rud A single chain-link fence snaked along the property line of San Pablo Elementary. I hardly even noticed it until I had to pass by it every day of 5th grade on my bike ride to school. For some reason, it has always captured my attention. I was so used to seeing fences rusted to hell and back, as if they were mere days from falling apart, but this fence looked so pristine. The clean metal glinted so nicely where the sun kissed it. The gleam was always reminiscent of my mom’s reflective hair clips (silver woven between strands of dark brown until it looped into a half-bun). Thick sheets of laminated poster-board were scattered along the surface, tied in between the chains with thick rope and flimsy zip ties. Each poster was its own planet and had been spaced accordingly to mirror a shrunken down version of the planets’ true distance from one another. All were emblazoned with pictures and facts, but I was always drawn back to the distance. It really forced my kid-brain to consider how vast the universe was. The fence is still standing but it has been deteriorating for a while. It had welcomed every threat imaginable, like moths drawn to a flame. Looking back, the signs were always there. There had always been hints of rust lurking around the chains, waiting for the moment to strike with a parasitic, vice-like grip. The signs were always sun-bleached, any remaining color ready to fade at a moment’s notice. The flowers were always riddled with persistent, invasive weeds. With perspective, your understanding shifts. Facades can crack and crumble, revealing the undesirable underneath; a lesson I hadn’t learned until recently when things fell apart with my mom. It is a tradition, a constant when nothing else is, to pass the fence. Despite not going to the schools in the surrounding area anymore, I still see the resilient chain-link every day, as my bus stop is just beyond the elementary school’s borders. The fence is so familiar, nostalgic, even. I can’t help but draw comparisons between it and my personal relationships. There was never a middle ground when I rode my bike past the fence. I felt obligated to either speed past it as fast as I could or go at a snail’s pace. Going fast caused everything to blur together wonderfully. The fence would look all silver, loops of metal indistinguishable from the rest. The flowers planted alongside the bottom would become one big patch of color that followed me as I sped towards the crosswalk. It always felt like something straight out of a cartoon, bright and animated, but going slow allowed me to appreciate the signs. I could take the time to absorb it all. Those were the two polar opposites I faced, either a pause or a rush. To keep the promise of the comparison, this was always how it was with my mom, yet not nearly as positive as the bike rides. Most times, she would unashamedly ignore both me and the tension looming over us. Days and nights would go by with few words passing between us. It was the suffocating type of silence, as if one wrong word would end it all. Occasionally, she would pretend to listen, but it was always clear she wasn’t invested. Her eyes would glaze over, and she would mumble unrelated comments. The latter half, the adrenaline rush, was always a whirlwind of emotions. Her erratic behavior, ever unpredictable, was paired with screaming matches and pointless arguments centered around myself or her ex-husband (my dad, who had escaped her ensnarement years ago). Her deep-seated indignation gave way to a passionate fury as the hours dragged on. She would scream her throat raw until her motive was lost, and everything felt blurred and muddled, until she would inevitably fall back on her constant: Heineken. "Oddly enough, the moment I can pinpoint as the beginning of the end of our relationship involves that dilapidated school fence." Just as it took a while for me to pick up on the fence’s declining state, it would take years for me to realize the ongoing situation with my mom. I was unable to recognize the abnormality of a house being somewhere to tread lightly upon, rather than a home. It became something I was subconsciously aware of yet chose to ignore in favor of avoiding the fallout. I did so until everything was too much to handle. I couldn’t shove my feelings or anxieties down and pretend they didn’t exist. San Pablo didn’t bite the bullet and start repairs until last year either. They waited until the fence had unapologetically gaping holes. Oddly enough, the moment I can pinpoint as the beginning of the end of our relationship involves that dilapidated school fence. It was the summer between middle school and high school, and I was hesitantly awaiting my acceptance letter to a high school I had auditioned for. As soon as I got it, things exploded between my parents. My dad wanted my mom to sign a notarized agreement saying that she would not move away from my bus stop. He wanted me to be able to ride my bike to the pick-up spot. My mom was always late for everything, and seeing how the school was an hour away, missing the bus would be a problem. I have always been under the impression that she believes time waits for her. She received an emailed draft of the papers and had a meltdown. She was convinced there was some secret trick, or something hidden within the subtext. I had read them myself and knew that to be untrue, and I told her such. It was an off-handed remark, really; I had not thought before I said it, but it became the catalyst. She yelled until her voice was hoarse, only to start right back up again. With wild gestures, she told me it was all a big conspiracy. My dad was supposedly creating a masterful ploy to steal custody from her. I couldn't even begin to explain how wrong that was. The papers were so simply written. They stated the only way my dad would get full custody was if she moved me to Orange Park. That request was understandable, as she had moved me there the previous year even though I went to school at the beaches. My mind was reeling at this point. Everything was dull and distant. It felt like I was submerged under water. I told her I was done, that I was leaving, and stumbled towards the shoe rack. She yelled after me with a favorite phrase of hers. I was “misremembering it all”. I don’t know what there was to “misremember” about it as the terms were written down. I had my hand clenched around the doorknob when she made one final attempt to keep me trapped. It was a sob story I had heard endlessly before: my dad was brainwashing me. Every inconvenience, every time she lost her temper, every perceived slight against her was my dad’s fault. In her mind, her shortcomings as a parent were because he divorced her. The speeches were always filled with half-baked lies, but it still stung to hear her talk so poorly of my dad after all he had done to shield me from her mess. He had spent years cleaning up her mistakes so I could cling to that belief of a loving, picture-perfect family. The impact of the door slamming behind me made the window tremble. I felt numb as I mindlessly walked. I hadn’t noticed it before, but tears had been steadily falling down my cheeks. I wound up at San Pablo with my nostalgic memories of elementary school dragged to the forefront of my mind. Not my best years, but hey, I was begging for any distractions. My hands shook as I called my dad. I have no memory of what I told him—repression is a hell of a thing—but the little comfort our talk offered was nice. I wanted nothing more than for him to pick me up and take me home, but I knew that would only lead to a kidnapping claim, courtesy of my mom, whose house had never been my home. After ending the call, I didn’t turn back. I put my hand up on the fence as I walked and let my fingers dip in and out of the gaps. The metal wavered in such a satisfying way. I returned to the house after an hour to my mom with a glass of wine shaking in her twitching hands. She apologized with a sickly, honey-laced tone, but as soon as the bottle was drained, she pounded on my bedroom door and returned to the verbal barrage. Weeks later I returned to San Pablo, aching for the familiarity of the fence, but my heart dropped. That was when I finally realized the poor state it was in. My naïve perspective, my rose-colored glasses, shattered. My favorite planet poster, Venus, swung in the wind and made an awful raucous as it hit the metal links. The onslaught of disappointment was crushing. It felt as if the decay had happened overnight. My mom’s steady decline had spiraled as well. She always had a balancing act between her narcissism and her addictions, but it began to teeter. It would take getting Baker-Acted for meth usage and suicidal tendencies, being held in a facility for weeks, a second eviction looming over her head (without anywhere to go), and me outright saying I did not feel safe for her to sign away her custody. She still claims she did nothing wrong and expects me to come running back. She claims my dad is ruining our relationship, but she has texted me three times in the three months following her giving up custody. It has been very weird living at my dad’s house permanently. It’s liberating and wonderful, but it’s hard to believe I’m free from the suffocating tension I lived with for so long. I feel like I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for some unforeseen consequence to rear its head, but I am slowly getting back into the swing of things. With the opportunity to step back, reflect, and to fully take off those warped rose-colored glasses, my perspective has been broadened, and both her and the fence’s facades have cracked. Return to Table of Contents

< Table of Contents Editors' Note É lan has begun to stride into the new as we enter our 38th year. New thoughts on our legacy, new perspectives on our future, new voices and artists to elevate, and new promises to you—our readers who have been willing to go on the road of self-discovery with us. We remain committed to our purpose, yet we are excited to continue towards the next stages of our growth. As the year draws to a conclusion, we stride to strike a balance between the familiar and everything we are on the precipice of. É lan's Fall/Winter 2023 nestles itself comfortably between sentiment for the past and longing for the future. This issue's work reflects this, encouraging readers to establish their own balance by focusing on self-evolution, relationships, and the parts of ourselves that want to bend and expand. We ask that you be open to the new and explore the realm of words and art these artists have created. Signed, Niveah Glover, Emma Klopfer, Jaslyn Dickerson & Avery Grossman

Once an Editor-in-Chief of Élan when she was a student, Tiffany Melanson has been Élan’s faculty sponsor for the last 11 years. Recently, she stepped down from her position in Élan to further her artistic career. The mark Mrs. Melanson has left on our publication is unmistakable. It is through her that Élan became what it is today: a vibrant magazine embodying the hearts and minds of teenage artists from around the world. We are honored to continue creating in her legacy. This issue of Élan is dedicated to you, Mrs. Melanson. We thank you for all that you have done to bring life to our publication and wish you luck with whatever you do next.

13 < Table of Contents Lament by Kierra Reese About the Artist... Kierra Reese is a junior at Douglas Anderson .At the school, Kierra is a draw/paint major who dedicates her life to her artistry. She creates art, generally in acrylic, because of the beautiful colors and contrast acrylic's make.

< Table of Contents Still Holding On by Andie Crawford The Myth By Hannah Rouse Mermaids, much like humans, have fingers so they can thread through seaweed. The only differences are their shimmery, scaly tails and magical lungs or gills or whatever they use to breathe underwater. Maybe their skin is seafoam green, and their fins like stained glass with the texture of damp leaves. In my head, they look just like in the stories and the movies. They’re out there somewhere, singing ships to sleep. Perfect and perched on jagged rocks. Dancing in waves that collapse into nothing. They fall in love with sailors and revel in the wreckage of storms. They’re not afraid of sharks or the vast, aqua emptiness that is their home. *** I always wanted to be a mermaid. Even when I wouldn’t swim in the pool unless my parents checked it for spiders and frogs. I wore Disney Princess floaties on my arms, a small inflatable tube on my stomach, and green and blue goggles to protect my eyes from the sting of salt water. I wouldn’t put my head underwater until I was five or six years old, when an older girl asked to play mermaids with me. After that, I finally managed to dip my skull beneath the ripples. My long, brown hair, pulled lovingly into a braid by my mother, once dry, dripped with dreams of my legs merging together and growing gold or green scales. *** I used to reenact the giant rock scene from The Little Mermaid at the mini-golf course. I sang “Part of Your World” softly to myself. The rough surfaces scratched at my skin but all I could think about was swimming with Flounder, about having a dinglehopper. At seven years old, I still wanted a Snarfblatt more than anything in the world. My new room at my grandparents' beach house was decorated entirely by myths: dolls, ornaments, signs, and miniature statues. With my toes in the sand, I observed the whitecaps breaking in the distance, wondering when I’d see her for real. *** There is a painting hanging on my wall: a mermaid sits on a rock, arm outstretched toward a white unicorn—beach waves in her hair, a pale gray seashell bra, and a glittery green tail. The sky behind them swirls, pink and purple around a flaming sun. But their reflections show them as they are. A girl and a horse under a boring blue sky, fantasizing about a life where they could be something magical. *** “I pretended that my swimsuit was made from scallop shells.” Until I was thirteen, I wore a full-length pink mermaid tail in the pool. Exhilarated by the sensations of gliding, slicing through the thick water. I took my hair down and let it float behind me in the chlorine, a cloud of thin brown strands with a mind of their own. I pretended that my swimsuit was made from scallop shells. Imagined that I was fearless enough to swim, not in the confinement of a pool, but engulfed in the ocean’s cerulean darkness. *** “I’ll give you a dollar to stand by that shark,” Mimi said, pointing to Tommy, the giant fifty-foot statue of my worst fear, whose gaping mouth was the entrance to Jaws Resortwear. I didn’t look at him, but knew all too well what the store and Tommy looked like. Beady, black eyes. His sharp teeth pointed at any poor soul who wanted to enter. All the windows next to him were covered in towels with the terrifying creatures printed on the front. Other sharks, Tommy’s friends, I presumed, were posed to look like they rose through the concrete, their faces full of hunger. I shook my head. Just the thought of standing anywhere near the store made me sick. “Five dollars,” she smiled. I did not. “Ten dollars?” I wouldn’t have stood by the door of Jaws Resortwear for anything. She upped the offer to twenty, thirty, then finally, forty. I always refused. For the rest of the week-long vacation, Mimi tried to make that same deal each time we passed Tommy, the ominous entrance to the store. Not once did I budge. Not once did I even think about actually letting her take the picture of me standing in Tommy’s mouth. On the surface, this is why I cannot live in the ocean. *** For him, my bra was not made of seashells, but rather of wires and lace and polyester. I did not have a tail. My hair draped across the armrest as if again just released from its braid, free to float. I reveled in the way he looked at me. Perhaps he was just a shark, like Tommy, and I just never noticed his bloodthirsty mouth. Or maybe he was the ocean. Seaweed limbs wrapping around me. Hands all over, the stinging tentacles of a jellyfish searching for something shiny in a shipwreck. But he found nothing worth loving in the rotting planks of wood. Drowning in the stained leather of the couch, I began to see myself as the reflection in the painting. The reality. No magical lungs or gills or whatever the mermaids would use to breathe in the chaos of the ocean if they were real. Nothing more than a girl trying to touch something that looks mythic, magic, but is just as raw, as real as she is. *** Now, I don’t dare go in the ocean. Not a single painted toenail touches the seafoam. Even pools scare me when I can’t feel the floor below me. The concrete scraped holes in the thin fabric of the pretend mermaid tail I outgrew. But I still think if I stare at the ocean for long enough, I’ll see the sparkle of a mermaid's fin somewhere in the distance. So, I watch the waves closely, waiting for my girlhood to return. About the Writer... Hannah Rouse is a junior Literary Arts major at Appomattox Regional Governor’s School. She has been published in Asgard, Fledge, Under The Madness, Appelley, Free Spirit, and You Might Need to Hear This. She won runner-up in Georgia Southern University’s High School Writing Contest, as well as fiv e G old Keys, a Silver Key, and five Honorable Mentions from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She received first prize nationally for the Sarah Mook Poetry Contest in 2023. Hannah is also a competitive dancer and enjoys spending time with her two cats. About the Artist... Andie Crawford is a 12th grade visual artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Her best mediums are drawing and painting.

< Table of Contents Welcome to the Family by Amrita Ketireddy to my mother, who never cried in room 207 After Ocean Vuong By Aarushi Gupta “i dread the red of your eyes like a / twenty-nine-year-old dreads his birthday.” under a painting of indra (1) scorned, you make your mandir (2) in the familiar dip of the mattress. soon, the view will be replaced by the smiling portrait of your mother, who lays in bed behind. the mattress will turn white, for the only south indian snowstorm is the whirl of dupattas (3) at funerals, icicles melting under the weight of unshed tears. i dread the red of your eyes like a a twenty-nine-year-old dreads his birthday. not black remembering, but the pink of your unpolished nail forgetting itself, pressing crescents into my arm. red, commutative as death itself. if time is a mother, why does it freeze in hospital rooms, where the umbilical cord is forged again and again? locked in this furnace, withstanding the heat of being ganesha (4) for once, you think of the last time you prayed to god in this room. go on, mother, pick up the phone and call. morph into parvati, remember the time they churned my stomach, a samudra manthana (5) . painkiller amrut, splattered on the floor outside our house. floating in that puddle, i saw an eyelash, its shortness a gift you gave freely. yours or mine? perhaps, neither. it belonged to nani (6) first, but so did you. i wish i was there with you, wish i could feel the cosmic pulling of draupadi’s saree (7) pause. i wish i could tear a hole in it, sew an extra yard of cotton into the dupatta of time. but if there’s one thing i learnt the day you first walked into room 207, it’s that no one can hide from a mother’s wrath. (1) indra is the hindu god of rain, storms, thunder and lightning. (2) mandir is hindi for temple. (3) dupatta is an indian garment, similar to a shawl. (4) ganesha is the son of goddess parvati in hindu mythology. (5) samudra manthana refers to a myth wherein the gods churned the ocean to obtain the holy nectar called amrut. (6) nani is hindi for grandmother. (7) draupadi’s saree refers to a tale from the mahabharata wherein there was an attempt to humiliate draupadi by pulling off her saree. however, lord krishna intervened, making the saree infinitely long and preserving draupadi’s dignity. About the Writer... Aarushi Gupta (she/her) is a high school senior from Bangalore, India. You can find more of her work at www.aarushiwrites.com . About the Artist... Amrita Ketireddy is a junior at Creekside High School. She has done fine arts for nearly ten years alongside tennis. She is a member of numerous honor societies and clubs, though is an officer of her school's Creative Writing Club, Film Production Club, and FBLA. In the future, she hopes to study Software Engineering along with Fine Arts and follow her passion for creating things from the ground up.

Fall/Winter 2022 Cover Art: The Photographer V2 by Mary Lefleur Table of Contents Connect to "TOC Art Title" Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Art Title" Button Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Small Title Connect to "TOC ARTIST" Small Title Small Title Connect to "TOC Title" Connect to "TOC AUTHOR" Connect to "TOC ARTIST" View

Incandescent by Daysha Perez His Mother's Cries by Anai Harris On the 16th Street Church Bombing, 1963 Mama cried for her ; s he cried for the little brown girl that lived at end of our street who was no longer with us. But instead , buried underneath the ruins of the church . I felt my mother's cries. I could tell by the way her tears stained her cheeks : she was losing her faith. She had been there after the explosion. When the little girl's mother ran through the crowd and fell to her knees at the foot of the ruins. Where she found nothing but the sho e she had put on her daughter that morning. The girl's mother sat there asking God why. Soon after , my mother began to do the same. Every night , she would ask God why. Why he’d taken something so precious. Not long after , we stopped going to church. My mother claimed there was not a church to go to and my father was just happy to sleep in on Sundays. My mother cried , knowing that horrible things were always happening all around her. Mostly , she cried knowing that she could do nothing about it. Yet another tragedy m anufactured in the eyes of hate. Hate so strong that death was not a sacrifice b ut a relief. I cried for my mother. She cried for the world. Who cried for me? About the Writer... Anai Harris is a junior in Creative Writing at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. With five years of experience in writing plays, ballads, mysteries, and numerous poems, Anai has developed a diverse and impressive portfolio. She has participated in various contests with her original work, including the Tomorrow's Leaders Contest and the NaNoWriMo Contest. This year, Anai was honored with an award from the James Weldon Johnson Young Writers Contest. Anai is excited to bring her creative writing to new heights as she embarks on her next writing adventures. About the Artist... Daysha Perez is a 11th grader at Douglas Anderson school of the Arts. She is a visual arts major who has always had a passion for creative artistry, particularly painting. Most of the art she creates is acrylic paint on canvas. She fell in love with the medium in elementary school and works with it frequently.