The Plume 2016 Fall

THE PLUME

The literary magazine of Keystone College, Fall 2016

desk behind which he sat concealed maintained. It still met my needs at that
his stature. Before me now stood a moment. I hurled myself into a stall and
giant of a man. He towered over the vomited once. This brought immedi-
young woman and probably stood a ate relief, though it did not completely
full seven inches over me. His joints cure my condition. I flushed the toilet,
cracked as he gained his full height. walked over to the sink, and washed my
His chair gave a short squeal of relief. hands and face.

My stomach started to turn slightly “There is nothing going on here to be
as we headed down one of the hallways. worried about,” I told myself, making
It seemed as though a miasma of perfect eye contact in the mirror. I
dread thickened the further we ven- walked back out and rejoined the nurse.
tured. Moans, whimpering and other
mournful, fearful sounds emanated “You alright?” he asked dryly.
from nearly every door we passed. “I am fine.” I replied.
We finally came to room 407, the
“You’ll speak with the Colonel,” my Colonel’s room.
guide informed me. “Here we are,” stated the nurse. “This
is the Colonel’s room. Mind yourself.”
“The Colonel?” I asked. The last bit seemed to come off as a stern
“Yeah, his name is Colonel warning.
Frederick Hosser. He was in the first He opened the door. As he pushed
group to come back after the initial the door open he announced, “Colonel,
incident,” he stated. “He has been here there is someone here to talk to you.”
the longest. He also seems to be With that he turned and walked away
coping better than most.” from whence we had come.
We rounded a corner and I became I stepped into the room. A low dry
outright nauseated. My guts seemed cackle came from behind a drawn
to react violently with the very air curtain. I fought back the nausea,
around me. Noticing my obvious swallowing deeply so as not to vomit.
discomfort, my escort said, “There is a “Um,” I stammered “Mr. Colonel, sir —”
bathroom just over there.” “Yes!” A shrill response
I peeled myself away from him and erupted through the curtain.
entered the restroom. The light flickered “I am here to talk to you about
intermittently in the bathroom. A vampires.”
low ringing noise permeated the air.
The drab interior was boorish and ill

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THE PLUME

The literary magazine of Keystone College, Fall, 2016

Chrysalis

By: Alexandra Grace Rizzuto

I'm surrounded by a myriad of ephemeral beings
A cataclysm of cynical creatures bound by the same burdens of existence
We want to be enveloped, safe inside a chrysalis
Yet lawless and nebulous
We're a breathing contradiction
We're cascading into oblivion
What flowed once with ebullience is now arid and decrepit
The problem is that we aim to emulate that which we cannot comprehend
And don't see ourselves diverging from our fated path to diligence
A human race of hedonists
Seeking pleasure in opulence
Finding livelihood in all that is desolate, a life void of honest solidity —
There is a sort of fandom for what is precocious
Yet we are fed from a spoon tainted with prosaic nonsense
You spurious fool! Unfog your God-given binoculars to experience the

difference between what is fortuitous and what is inevitable
We get bogged down in the inconsequential
And digress from all that is aesthetic
When we realize we aren't clairvoyant, our ultimate conscious will develop and

make us sage
The world is not a concept meant to be perceived continentally
This world flourishes inside every one of us and it is up to us to water it gently,

to let it grow into happiness
Most fail to realize that this world must experience inconsolable agony in order

to reach a point of reconciliation
The failure of man lies not in what is done to him but rather in what he

subconsciously does to himself
By denying himself internal tranquility he deviates from his vital purpose
And forgets he is not a world but better yet a man

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THE PLUME

The literary magazine of Keystone College, Fall 2016

The Forest and the Trees

By: Kimberly Boland

Some metropolis has been calling me all my life, ringing my soul off the hook.
Their recruiters solicit me from the room where all the hauled away payphones
went. I scream into the receiver for them to tell me why they’re calling me
because I know on a city street I am just another tourist, taking up space,
standing, blank-faced, the river of the rest of humanity streaming by and past
the rock time has turned me into. Former versions of myself always took the
call, never contemplated that freedom only involved throwing the phone out the
window.

I never knew what "belonging" was. I sought the answer constantly, but still, I
never knew. It might be like the recipe for hot chocolate — warm and sweet,
milk, somehow, by adding water, with marshmallows and given to me for free,
where we all do something kind, and you return my love, accept me, after
centuries? Is "belong" the same as the porch lights on at 2 a.m., blindly bright
proof of God-in-life-itself that I guide myself towards?

Why do I have to make a choice that gives up the only home I have ever known?
It leaves me with only potentials, buy-one-get-one-not-free life experience
enticements, so I can foot race papers, tossed from briefcases that held the secrets
to lifelong success, blowing away faster from me every year, down the street, as I
desperately try navigating between gridlocked cars, as the wind and the malice
work against me?

I don’t want to lose this quiet country beauty. This is the only life I have ever known.
It's said people are just like plants: we both have roots (and we both know what
soft earth mine are planted in).
The trees in my backyard have grown up with me. They are lush green in the
summer, thick dizzying spectrums of repeating patterns, enveloping me, a
canopy to hide me. Or in the winter, eerie strength as skeletons covered in snow.
Dead giants guarding me.

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THE PLUME

The literary magazine of Keystone College, Fall, 2016

Driving the empty roads at night, in the thick summer sauna fog, the stillness
and the solitude renews; the hazy memory preserves me.
Where is my guarantee that I’ll get this back? Forget improvements; I’m in
turmoil over this proposed trade-off.
I have no idea what it feels like to belong. I only know silence.
I still hide here because I am one with the trees. No one else would accept me.
The people, the strangers I have known all my life, knew I wouldn’t belong here
until I felt it: the magnet that keeps me here, keeps us all here. The understanding.
Ten years I have wrestled with the unsolvable dilemma: to know I must leave but
cannot. (Utopia literally means "no place." I cannot.)

Let's be honest, I tell myself, watching the sun rise despite the snow.
I’m too weak.
I need too much sleep.
I’ll miss my family too much,
and I’m ashamed I’m supposed to be ashamed that I’ll have to pretend I won’t.

Going across 6 and 11, flying up and down 81, 60 in a 40 regardless of whether
it's in the teens or the hundreds, all the years of getting spider webs caught in my
hair, prickly leaves, finding dead mice, twigs and grass and other leftovers
hanging from nature’s ceiling, strewn around her floor, with everything full of
oxygen, the electrification of the living state, of moving through this space —
I am one with all these, too.
I can't migrate, transmute, and adapt to the new challenges of the city.
The endless noise.
The people.
A mess on the sidewalk I can’t identify, missing what stop was announced on the
train. Night without stars, oxygen without space.
I won't uproot myself.
It would hurt to give up this place, and life here is hard, but it's rewarding, and I
want to try. I will try.
I’ll remain, and stay brave enough, grateful enough, and I’ll try.

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THE PLUME

The literary magazine of Keystone College, Fall 2016

Photo by: Don Catlett

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