Perceptions 2023-2024

“Stop acting surprised when I don’t talk to you,” I said, with a lump in my throat. The car radio buzzed in the deafening silence as I waited for a response. “At some point, you’re going to need to forgive me,” he responded, his voice callous and condescending. I couldn’t bear to look at him, my f***ing face on his face. “This is what you have to live with.” “What I have to live with? No. This is what you chose,” I responded, my voice cracking under pressure. Hot tears began to swell in my eyes. I looked out the window, reading the illuminated sign promoting egg fried rice, chicken wings, and tostones to stop myself from crying. “I can’t change the past,” he declared, annoyingly at best. He gently placed his hands on his lap, waiting for me to say something. I thought about how much I hated when he acted so high and mighty, above all conflict, exempt from punishment and accountability. I wished him dead. “You can’t keep wanting to feel this way. Grudges aren’t healthy,” he said, finally breaking the silence. I began fiddling with my fingers, declaring a thumb war against myself. I lost. I propped my arm up against the car door, resting my chin on the palm of my hand in frustration. “Whatever. Just take me home,” I murmured into my hand, half hoping that he wouldn’t hear me. This was the only opportunity I got to spend time with him. The buzzing from the car radio started up again. “You’re right. This is what I chose. You need to accept it,” he asserted after some time. The car’s engine began to rumble as it reversed out of the parking spot, the light from the street elongating itself into thin lines in my eyes. I felt my cheek become moist and quickly wiped any sign of feeling off my face. “Yeah. Okay,” I mumbled meekly, thinking I would rather be asking why he couldn’t choose me instead. Water of the Womb by Isaac Carrión 88

The echo of a wrong code reverberates. Silence swallows the room again. Alex: Useless. What’s next, genius? Jamie: (Voice flat) Shut it, Alex. It’s not like you’re pulling miracles out of nowhere. Alex: My birthday, then. Since we’re playing guessing games with our lives. Jamie: (Bitter laugh) As if the date you crawled into the world would be our ticket out. A pause filled with the sound of defeat as numbers are entered. Another error. Alex: Worth a shot. Got any brighter ideas? Jamie: Bright ideas died the moment we got dumped in this hellhole. Alex: (Angrily) Focus, Jamie. Think. There’s got to be a reason we’re here. Jamie: (Coldly) Oh, I’ve been thinking, Alex. About Ethan. About the lake. Alex: (Tensely) What’s dead should stay dead, Jamie. Jamie: (Snarling) Dead because of us. Because we were too drunk to see a drowning man. Alex: It was an accident. We didn’t mean— Jamie: (Cutting off) Intentions don’t float. Bodies do. Ethan’s didn’t. Alex: (Whispering) Jesus, Jamie... Unforgiven by Wyatt Wunker 89

Jamie: You think this is chance? Us, here, in the dark? This is reckoning. Alex: (Voice breaking) We were kids. It... it got out of hand. Jamie: (Ruthlessly) And into the water. Where he died. Alone. Silence, but for the sound of guilty breaths. Alex: So what now? We just accept this is the end? Our purgatory? Jamie: (Scathing) There’s no redemption for us. Not after what we did. A moment's breath. A shift in the air. A cold that seeps into bones. Alex: (Desperate) Ethan, please. If there’s any mercy in you... forgive us. Jamie: (Scoffs) Mercy died with Ethan. The room drops in temperature. Their breaths visible. A physical manifestation of their guilt. Alex: (Panicking) Jamie, it’s... it’s getting colder. Jamie: (Resigned) This is it, Alex. This is what we deserve. Alex: (Crying) No, no, no... I can’t... I don’t want to die here. Jamie: (Voice fading) It’s too late for wants, Alex. We’re already dead. The sound of their desperation fades into nothing. The cold becomes absolute. Darkness consumes all. End. 90

The first thing I do when I wake up is grab the knife from underneath my pillow and hack away at the vines that wrapped themselves around me in my sleep. They almost reached my chest this time, I note. The second thing I do is check that my train ticket is still underneath the loose floorboard where I hid it. A part of me that unraveled overnight, twisted apart by the vines, strings itself back together when I feel it, cool and delicate beneath my hands. I’ve memorized every inch of it, but I look over once more anyways. Grand Junction Station, Platform 1, 15:30. Everything in its right place again, I can get dressed and take a few steps towards the door as the discarded vines, dark green and thorn-lined and suffocating, dissolve behind me. Next, I make myself an omelet and play with today’s number in my head. 45, the number of days left until I leave, converts itself into minutes and hours and seconds, stretching out and squeezing in on itself, switching between nothing short of eternity and the moment it takes for me to crack an egg open. If I blink, I just might miss it. I hope I do. “No eggs for your mother?” I freeze up like I’ve been caught doing something terrible, which I kind of have. But when I turn around, I let my shoulders relax, just a little. Out of the hundreds of expressions I’d prepared myself to see, the one on my mother’s face, perfectly made up despite how intentionally she’s ruffled her golden blonde hair in an attempt to make it seem like she just got out of bed, is serene, a smile that stretches up to her icy blue eyes. Mine are the exact same shade. EN POINTE by Angelica Fortuño Art by Jayden Rivera (‘27) 91

“Well, I didn’t think you were up yet,” I smile sheepishly. She doesn’t say anything, just walks behind the counter and gives me a kiss on the head. I’m almost as tall as she is now, so this gets harder and harder for her to do each day. “Good morning, sunshine.” Her eyes still trained on me, her hand reaches over to the counter and straightens the carton of eggs, like it’s instinctual. Like a part of her mind is split from the rest, constantly on the lookout for anything that could break up the symphony of her perfect home, for any way to compensate for the one glaring inconsistency in her perfect life. Her restless hand makes its way to my shoulder, and as her manicured nails lightly dig into my skin, I feel something snaking out of her sleeve and around my arm, climbing out of her collar and wrapping around my shoulder, cracking through our perpetually broken floorboards and rooting my feet in place. The same vines that I wake up extra early to hack into pieces, that follow my mother everywhere she goes– not that she goes to many places these days, that is. It isn’t polite to mention them, I’ve learned, so I don’t. “Good morning, Ma,” I say instead, already preparing responses for the questions that lie ahead. How are your grades? And how’s rehearsal? And what did you get on your last practice exam? And did you add that move to your routine, the one I told you about? Good and good and close to perfect and no, but I will. For her, it’s another subconscious mechanism to make sure the one extension of this house that reaches the public eye is pruned and perfect. For me, it’s like another one of my dance routines, and we both tense up in recognition of the fact that I’ve faltered on my last answer. I serve my omelet onto a plate and eat it hastily. She walks away, her steps echoing throughout the house, but the vines stay, squeezing harder at my ankles. After cleaning up, grabbing my schoolbag, and prying the vines away from my ankles, I walk out of the kitchen, past the table of medals (mine and the one’s my mom got when she was my age are so seamlessly mixed together that you’d think they belonged to the same person), out of the house, to the bus stop. All the way there, I stare down at my feet and count my steps, starting over when I reach 45. 92

The wind whips against me, but I don’t bother putting my coat on: it’s colder where I’m going, and I’m too busy thinking about my routine. Angeles is a livable dead end, a relatively self-sustaining mountain town where I won’t ever get to be anything more than what I am right now. The only train away from here runs through terrain that’s expensive to fight off into a city up north that’s fully capable of swallowing you whole as soon as you step foot in it. As such, trips in and out are infrequent and cost more than most of us have. The only real way out is through a competition hosted by the Harris Conservatory. William Harris, the founder, was born and raised in Angeles, pulling himself out through the sheer desperation that runs through veins like mine and building one of the world’s most famous dance conservatories from nothing. By coming back to our town where even the most elite ballet teachers and professors at our one academy fall below the level of those at the city, Harris lowers its standards– but only slightly. The competition that they host rewards the student with the best marks on a series of exams and the best ballet performance as determined by a panel of judges from the conservatory. There have been certain years where they’ve deemed none of us fit to join them, casting a 12-month wave of shame that seemed to blanket the whole mountain, but most of the time, one person a year is chosen to join the conservatory is in the city, to attend university and train until their limbs perpetually ache and start every day while it's still dark out, to beat the sun at rising. It was around when my mom was my age and, if I have kids, which I won’t, it’ll be around when they’re growing up, too. In this town built from constants, this is the only one that still manages to excite people, to wake them up from their resignation and give them a glint to their eyes and a hunger to their words that makes them bearable to be around. Many of them have private coaches for exams and performances, scraping their savings together and throwing them at a way out. I don’t need any of that. I have my mother. Like me, she was a finalist, one of ten performers given a ticket out and one of nine who had it ripped from their grasp after they failed to meet the judges’ standards. She was favored to win that year, everyone who knew her has told me. The unanimous top pick of the circle of people who, for decades, have bet on the outcome of the competition. 93

And, to this day, no one knows why she didn’t. In the middle of her routine, the one I’m sure she still does in her head whenever her gaze fixes itself on empty space, she just stopped. Tripped and fell over nothing, then looked at the judges like there was something there they were supposed to be seeing. Widened her eyes when she realized that they didn’t. I’ve never asked her what happened. I don’t think I’m allowed to. She stayed home, settled down with a man her parents liked, and had me. And she was happy at first, is what my dad tells me. But the house quickly began closing in on her, suffocating her with everything she could’ve been, everything that still lay within my father, who I haven’t seen since his job (one of the only ones in Angeles with meaningful tires elsewhere) relocated him to a job in the city and left me alone with my mother, and me. One day, I woke up and found a small stem coiling through the crack beneath my door. It never left. I’ve been trained for finalist status my whole life. Rather than feeling like I’m perched atop the penultimate rung of a ladder now that I’m there, the amount of work I have left is stretching farther and farther above me than ever. On the bus to school, my feet unconsciously move from first to second to third to fourth to fifth position and back as I mentally outline the day’s tasks. Exam prep during lunch, practice after school, exam prep when I get home. Oh, and adding the new move to my routine. I have about two weeks of modifications left before I should lock down my routine, but I still feel my feet quicken as I wonder why I didn’t add it earlier. In my mind, I’m not a finalist yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like one, I consider as the bus lurches over a bumpy dirt path and I stare at the modest houses and crumbling fences that line it, even if I make it all the way to the conservatory. When you make it, my mother’s voice reminds me, though the words ring hollow. She’s admitted that she doesn’t know why I’m a finalist, that I haven’t really put in the work, not like she did. Even when the house loosens its grip on her and she’s happy enough to feel something like pride for me, it always ends with a vineladen squeeze on my shoulder and an “I wish I was you!” 94

I get to school, I study, I walk to the local studio and into one of the practice spaces reserved for finalists. Until I change into my uniform to dance, I keep my head down all day. Only now is it light enough to hold up, even though I feel, like always, that I’m holding it up for two people, dancing two routines, stichting together two lives. I walk home, choosing to quicken my pace rather than put a coat on to combat the rising chill. The sun has already fallen, and it’s thanks to my flashlight and the occasional dingy streetlight that I’m able to make my way home. Right now, when the world has gone quiet and the snow on the ground has almost faded away, is when it looks most beautiful. Right now, I can stop thinking about leaving, just for a second, and it’s the shock of that moment of contentment that sends me running all the way home. I’m slightly warm from my run when I step through the front door, but I go cold as soon as my gaze falls to my mother. I’d expected her to be here– she leaves the house less and less every week– but I’m not fully prepared to see her like this, an envelope in one hand and a feather duster she’s running over our table of medals in the other. She turns to face me, and the tilt of her smile and the cloudiness in her eyes makes it clear that she’s been drinking. I can trace the outline of her next words before they tumble disjointedly out of her smudged lips. “Your father,” she spits, holding the envelope up, “is staying away for another year.” When you spend your whole life dancing to the same song, you learn to recognize its dips and crescendos, when to pirouette and when to stand still. This yearly letter, extending my father’s stay in the city for reasons that get more and more insignificant every time, is one of them, something I know I must have learned to anticipate and react to by now. And yet, every year, I falter. I open my mouth, close it again. “I… I’m sorry, Ma, I-” 95

She laughs, throwing her head back and almost knocking an old trophy over with the duster. “Oh, you aren’t fucking sorry. Because that’s going to be you soon, isn’t it? Not that it’ll be any different. How many times have I talked to you this week? You never make any time for your mother, you’ve never cared about me, you–” I can almost hear the violins rising as the song becomes more frantic, starting to slip out of my grasp. Unable to find the right time to make a move, I just leap in. “I’m sorry, Ma. I’m studying a lot, and my performance is in 45 days, and, hey, I put in the new move you told me about and I really think it’s-” “You don’t get to interrupt me!” I fail to land the jump, and her eyes narrow in anger as she throws her hand out and knocks a medal to the floor. “All you care about is your fucking performance.” Did you ever teach me to care about anything else? I can see the vines starting to snake out of her hands, her feet, her mouth, shooting towards my legs and tying me in place. “I’d rather have a good daughter than a finalist. And yet you think you’re so cool, don’t you? They give you one little ticket and so now you’re the shit, huh? Well, let me tell you something.” She gets close, too close, and I feel my stomach turn at the wine on her breath, see right through her unfocused blue eyes into a nothing I fall straight into. “I was a finalist, too. And you only go as long as I say you can go. I’m the one who runs things around here, and I’m the one you’re going to respect.” When you spend your whole life dancing to the same song, you get bored of it. You find ways to pass the time. One of mine is seeing how straight I can keep my face when this is happening to me, how tall I can stand, how long I can go without breaking eye contact. I get a bit better every time; I’ve even grown to pride myself in it a little. But the tears that fill my eyes break through that pride and crack it in two, making my veins heavy and cold with fear. 96

All of a sudden, I’m catching my breath on the floor of the stage, staring up at the judges and realizing they can see right through me. She knows she’s found her angle and she keeps yelling and I keep crying and the music keeps getting louder and louder. Eventually, she tires herself out and I can make my way back to my room, staring at my feet to avoid the vines. As soon as my shaky hands close the door, I pull the ticket out from under my floorboard and just sit with it for a while. I knew this would happen, I tell myself. I knew that, sooner or later, she’d threaten to take this away. That’s why I hide the ticket and that’s why I wake up early to cut the vines away and that’s why I’m happy, because it’s finally over with. Because I don’t have to wait for the obvious tension that becoming a finalist has created to snap anymore. And yet the tears keep falling and my hands keep shaking and my feet keep going from first to second to third to fourth to fifth and a corner of my mind keeps redoing the question I got wrong on my last practice test over and over and over. I’m happy, though. It wouldn't make any sense for me not to be. That night, I don’t sleep, just lay awake watching the vines creep underneath the door a little faster than usual, ticket in one hand and knife in the other. In the days that follow, I put the final touches on my routine and start to leave for school and the studio before the sun comes up and don’t come home until it’s already set, hoping to go a day without seeing my mom. But she almost always meets me at the front door and sets my exam prep schedule back a full hour. On one of my worst, most exhausted evenings, a dam inside me breaks and I yell back, only to hear her own voice coming out of my mouth. I barely speak at school for days afterwards. The vines start growing faster and more violently every night, cracking through our walls, our roof, my floor. Every day, I wake up earlier and spend more time hacking them away. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, my head is down more often than not, my eyes scanning the ground for flashes of green preparing themselves to wrap around my ankles and pull me to the ground. My few friends at school start pointing out leaves in my hair. I pull them out like it’s nothing, then hide my trembling hands in my pockets. 97

One day, when I sit down at my desk, my head throbbing and my feet bloody and my eyes dipping in and out of focus, I open up my textbook and see a vine snaking out of it. I slam it shut. On the day of the exam, only one finalist is eliminated, since exam scores are usually only considered alongside the performance unless they’re exceptionally low. I don’t just get a passing grade, though: I get the highest one. It makes the early mornings and late nights a little easier to stomach, my head a little lighter on my shoulders. And it makes my mom proud, in her own rough-edged and slightly forced way. One unusually warm Saturday morning, she actually walks me to the studio, holding my hand and perking up whenever a conversation we pass turns hushed. “See that?” she whispers, the new light in her sky-blue eyes chasing the years on her face away in a way that no amount of makeup ever could. “They’re talking about you, I know it. You’re a motherfucking star now. My star.” Her hand squeezes mine a little tighter. I silently pray that no one notices the vine creeping out of her sleeve and squeezing it, too. In the days leading up to my performance, she’s kind to me more often than not. She greets me at the door with teary eyes or old photo albums, and it almost makes me forget about all the times she’s made the knot in my chest tighten before. One night, I’m too tired to respond to her as well and as quickly as I should, and all my medals get snatched from the table and thrown at my feet. I remember pretty well after that. The morning of, though, I go downstairs to find my omelet already made. “Good morning, sunshine.” My mom serves it on a plate with a smile. For a second. I forget about my performance and can only see this glimpse into how everyone else’s world looks, and I know that we’ve done everything wrong. Then, I remember that not everyone else is a finalist and a strange sort of comfort shoves those other thoughts out of my mind, without feeling the space they left behind enough for me to really feel comforted. 98

“You didn’t have to do all that for me,” I say. “Yes I did.” She hands me the eggs, and it takes me a second to take the plate from her grasp. I had forgotten all about them. I force the omelet down my throat, my appetite a thing of the distant past. Then, I gather my stuff and we walk to the studio. Right now, all I want is a quiet run to slow my mind down before my performance, but I practice putting my best face on instead as I respond to all my mother’s questions with perfect form: I can’t afford to upset her now. Once I’m there and dressed, she helps me get ready. She runs a straightener through my wavy blonde hair, as she insists on doing before every performance, before sticking it in a bun and doing my makeup with an uncharacteristic patience. As her soft hand brushes my cheek, I see a smile spread across her face. “What?” I ask. “I’m proud of you,” she says. “Anyone who sees you on that stage will say you look just like your mother.” She sticks a mirror in front of me, and she’s right. I don’t know how to feel about it, so I don’t, pushing the thought down to the spot in my stomach where my omelet is currently swirling nervously. Instead, I sharpen my expression until it's pointed enough to hack away at the fear I feel wrapping around my throat. I remind myself that I was built and bred for this. I remind myself that I’m going to get out, even if I have to drag myself all the way there. I remind myself that I’m going to win, because that’s all I’ve ever been taught to do. My mother’s nails dig affectionately into my shoulder. An hour that feels like a day later, I realize that I’m walking onto the stage, waving at the audience and shooting a calculatedly humble smile at the judges. A razor-sharp calm envelopes me, straightening out the usual frantic, disjointed pace of the blood coursing through my veins until every part of my body, from my finally still hands to my blistered and bandaged feet, feels clear and directed. 99

Until every inch of what lies ahead of me feels like it’s under my control. The click of the tape starts the music and stops my thoughts. I don’t have to think: this comes more naturally to me than anything else. Not because I’m a natural dancer: I’m not a natural anything. I’ve just spent my life taking apart and rebuilding myself for this very moment. For going from first to second to third to fourth to fifth. For this jump I just landed, more gracefully than I did during any of my practices. For the smile I just flashed at the crowd. And for the look I’m sharing with my mother. It only lasts a second, but in that time, the whole audience falls away, and all the thoughts that have kept quiet for the whole performance suddenly come rushing back. I try to say something to her with my eyes, maybe a sorry or a thank you or an am I doing this right? Are you sure I’m doing this right? But nothing about the look on her face tells me whether or not she’s responding. Her smile reaches her eyes, but the sharp steel thing living behind them that usually keeps me in place has retreated and, for once in my life, I see fear in her gaze. The same fear I know lives in my own, no matter how much time I spend trying to perform and practice and perfect it away. I always tell myself I’m nothing like her, scrutinizing my features until I’ve scared off any similarities. But, right now, I see only one difference between us: I know exactly where my fear comes from, but I have no clue what scares her. Are you afraid that I’ll leave or that I’ll stay? I don’t get a response. She keeps smiling and the music keeps playing, but the song in my head overpowers it. And I can’t help it: I have to look down. That’s when I see them. The vines are creeping down the aisle, around the chairs, under the judges’ table. There’s less than a minute left of my routine, and I feel tears well up in my eyes as I pray to my mother, to the conservatory, to anyone who might be listening, that I finish before they reach me. I can hear the crowd shuffling to the edges of their seats, a collective inhale sucking the air out of the room as the first drop hits the ground. 100

The vines are speeding up now, reaching the stage steps as I’m preparing for my last jump, the move my mother insisted I add to my routine all those weeks ago. Her final move, I remember. The first of them reach my ankles, and my heartbeat becomes frantic again as I force my gaze up. There’s no way the judges haven’t noticed, and as harsh as they are, I’m sure I’ll be asked to restart the performance any second now. And yet my feet keep moving on their own accord, placing me into position for a jump I may never even get to do. I can’t stop: I made sure to never learn how. And maybe I’ll never have to, I consider. Maybe, I think as I gather the force to leap from the ground, I’ll land this jump before the judges figure out what to do about the vines coiling around my legs, and they’ll disappear for good. Instead, my left foot snags on a vine. I hear the crowd’s gasp before my own, and then I don’t hear anything as my face hits the ground and the sound of my embarrassed heartbeat fills my ears. I catch my breath and lift my head to look at the judges, my mouth already curling into an apologetic smile as my mind races through the performances I grew up watching to try and figure out if I can get points docked for technical difficulties. Four blank stares meet mine, and I realize that the pressure on my ankles has disappeared. The beating of my heart, the roaring in my ears, even the shakiness that has come back to my hands– all at once, every part of my body finally stops. I stop thinking again. I just stand up, occasionally glancing back at the empty stage and hoping for the first time in my life that I’ll see the vines, and walk back out to the dressing room. Once my hands start shaking and my heart starts beating again, all I can think is that my mom is probably outside the door. For now, I can look in the mirror and see my own face staring back at me, but my mom is probably outside the door, and as soon as she opens it I know I won't be able to tell us apart. So, instead, I open the window and climb out. I hit the ground awkwardly and get dirt all over my dance shoes, but I don’t waste a second before breaking into a run. 101

I still have my ticket, and when I said I’d get out even if I had to drag myself there I meant it. My breathing is heavy with the horrible feeling of the town closing in on me, and I realize that I’d never considered what I’d do if I didn’t win. I’d never considered what a future here might look like. But, now, I can see it stretching out in front of me more clearly than ever, and it’s that image of a life spent stepping over cracked floorboards and telling everyone I run into that I used to dance once that keeps me going until I finally get home. I race upstairs, grab my ticket from underneath the floorboard, and ignore the splinters breaking through the weakening soles in my shoes as I run down the stairs and into the yard. I jump over our little white picket fence and keep running through the grass, the path to the train station another routine that has been engraved into my bones from all the times I’ve run there to clear my head. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get there, but I already know what the rest of my life will look like if I don’t, and that desperation courses through my veins and keeps me running even when I hear a voice calling out behind me. “What are you doing?” “No, no, no,” I mutter to myself, but then she yells it again. “What are you doing? You don’t get to leave, you lost.” Despite my disobedience, she’s calm and collected, like she already knows how this is going to go. I tell myself that she doesn’t. “No, you lost, I’m leaving and I’m sorry and–” But the vines start wrapping around my legs harder than ever and pulling, and soon enough my hands are digging into the dirt as they drag me across the ground. Soon enough, I’m staring up at her from the back doorstep, crying and pleading and saying everything I can to try and get her to let me leave. For a second, I think I see her eyes start to soften, but then they’re sharp again, and she takes my ticket from my hands. I let out one last gasp as she crumples it into her pocket. “Get up,” she says calmly, like I’m a toddler making a scene in public. I stay on the ground. “Oh, you’ll get over it.” She lets the door slam on me as she starts to walk away. I barely register it. “I don’t know how you turned out to be so damn stubborn.” 102

I am the woods. The eternal and solemn watcher. My dotted trees that erupt from the ground serve as home to the bluejays and mockingbirds. My restful rocks with weathered patches of turquoise moss serve as jungle gyms for squirrels. My dear paths serve as secret passages to hidden rivers. The leaves are my instrument, and the wind, my soul. I am the woods, I am the collector of stories, I am the place where everything begins, and ends. This is the story of a girl who once was the woods. … Well, well, well, I’m John and this is J. Say hi J. “Hey.” And we’re, well, why don’t you tell em– “We’re worms.” Yep. Worms, those little things that crawl around in the grou- “You know, you’d be surprised at how important our feces is to dirt health” Cut it out J. We’re not here to redeem our species. “No, we’re here to-” Just cut it out for a second. It gets confusing with all the quotation marks. I’ll narrate, just interject whenever you find it necessary. Got it? “Yeah.” Once upon a time, by that I mean a couple of years ago, a baby girl by the name of Alphonse W. Durham stumbled into the woods. She was the daughter of two newlyweds who had just moved into the deep woods of our hometown, Dishmill. Thomas, the father, had grown up in Northern New York, about half an hour away from Ithaca. His parents had been in the lumber business and he’d been raised in a small town. The type of town where everybody knows everybody…quite similar to here, at least that’s what I have heard from my worm connections. Alphonse got her bright red hair and her silly personality from her father. He was big and warm, with a contagious laugh that seemed to spread to everybody within a one-mile radius. The Lives of Alphonse W. Durham by Christopher Kit Jackson 103

Alphonse got her sophisticated demeanor from her mother. We think Thomas and Susan met in college and we think they fell in love. Then came marriage, and a baby in a baby carriage, and Thomas’ nostalgic desire to raise his girl in a small town led to little Alphonse Durham stumbling into the woods of Dishmill, our woods. She hobbled past the tree line with flowers that she’d picked in her yard dotted across her hair. No sign of hesitation could be observed in her swift nature. She crawled around the coarse loam that covered the fecally fertile soil (J, will like that) staring up at the towering tree tops, and then in one subtle move she changed all of our lives. In the middle of the woods of Dishmill, our woods, Alphonse W. Durham, a girl with no more than two years of life experience, plopped herself down, closed her eyes, and started meditating. Earnie, our fox friend was the first to find her sitting there in complete silence. You can imagine his shock: a baby human was just sitting there in the middle of the woods meditating and emanating a “humm, humm”. This was wild, even for the wilderness. Soon, he alerted all the friends of the wood, and we gathered around baby Alphonse in confusion. “Since when do baby humans meditate,” exclaimed Herbert, one of the stream snails. “No clue,” responded 5 deer in unison. “Earnie, could she be dead?” I asked. Alphonse’s mother, Susan Worchester, had grown up on the outskirts of Boston in Brookline. Her father was a banker for Credit Suisse and her mother, a housewife. She’d grown up a member of the upper middle class, attended boarding school somewhere in Massachusetts, and then met Thomas. 104

“I’m really not sure, I found her here, eyes closed sat completely peacefully,” he responded sounding just as confused as I was. “Meditation is good for your mental health, it said so in the latest Men’s Health Magazine,” announced Mike T. Malcolm, the Blue J holds Men’s Health Mondays, so we always get the scoop from any magazine that may have been read by one of the humans around. We all just sat there in a state of complete stupor. “What are we going to do?” I finally asked as the silent uncertainty became unbearable. And then J was like– “I can say my own lines, John. I was like ‘What if we all blow really hard and try to wake her up, ’ And then everyone was like ‘Why would we do that?’ and then I was like ‘She’ll think it’s the wind and will wake up peacefully, or she won’t wake up and we’ll know for certain that she is no more and must be taken to a resting place.’” “Jeez, J, that's pretty intense,” said Herbert. Herbert paused and then proceeded to comment, “That’s not such a bad idea.” So we all took deep breaths and prepared to blow on the count of three. One, two– “Hold up!” said Earnie, “do worms even have lungs.” We didn’t know the answer so me and J just shrugged. We began to count again. One, two, thre– “WAIT!” followed by a grandiose gust of wind, in flew Sandar, the wise owl with his deep and bellowing voice. We all stood there expectantly waiting for Dishmill’s resident guru to provide wisdom… and boy did he ever. What did he say J? “He stood in front of all of us, perched on a branch perfectly overlooking us plebians, and remained silent for a while. Then after the suspense had mounted sufficiently, he cracked a smile and said, ‘Worms don’t have lungs!’ and everyone went wild. It was sick.” No, he didn’t J. Sandar said something completely different. He told us he had seen the whole event happen. He’d been carefully watching Alphonse since she first arrived in Dishmill in a pink car seat in the middle back seat of her parents’ silver Subaru. 105

He’d watched her eat dinner that first night, read bedtime stories with her father and giggle in bed, he’d seen her get reprimanded by her mother for looking out the window for too long, and most importantly, he’d seen her stumble into the woods, plop down and meditate. “But we already knew most of that Sandar,” responded Herbert annoyed at Sandar’s pompous air of deep wisdom. “Yes, but what all of you failed to glean, was the little girl’s peeking.” “What do you mean peeking?” I asked. A faint giggle sounded over our section of the woods. “Look, she’s awake!” Earnie whispered to me. Alphonse had fully opened her eyes and began crawling in my direction. “Do you think she can see us?” I asked Sandar. She giggled again, “Of course I can see you.” Everyone looked around seemingly alarmed, Sandar responded, “Tell me, young human, can you understand us?” She looked up at Sandar, “My name is Alphonse, and yeah, I can understand you too,” she paused, “you guys sure did stand around and chat for a while, can’t a girl meditate in peace.” We all blushed. “It was pretty funny though,” She giggled, “you’re all such interesting people. Hey! Do you want to be friends!” And so it began, baby Alphonse became a friend of the woods. She would crawl out of bed and into the woods nearly every day. Only to return when beckoned by her mother for supper. She would hang out with all of us but spent most of her time with me, J, and Earnie. We became close friends, and I made it my personal duty to show her around our home. I started by showing her our pine trees, there is a large section on the edge of the riverbank where pine trees loom, their prickly firs fascinated Alphonse, particularly because of their ticklish nature. We would talk for hours and hours about our dreams in life and the beauty of the woods and we’d play games and scheme pranks on to eventually pull on Sandar. Alphonse was a great listener, you could tell her anything. 106

She would sit with a twinkle of wonderment and subtle appreciation as J and I shared all of our ridiculous stories and conspiracy theories on random things like the moon landing, and such… just the regular. There was such depth and joy within our friend that we wanted to be around her all the time. But that wasn’t possible, you see, she lived two lives. When Alphonse wasn’t around we were always thinking about her, the magical girl in the woods, our leader. When we furrowed in our holes at night and the warm dew would sweep through the soil, J and I would sometimes wonder what Alphonse was up to. In our dreams, the freckled girl with flowers in her hair consistently made an entrance. I dreamed up answers to my urgent questions like, “I wonder if she talks about us with her family?” or “Does she eat food.” In these dreams, sometimes she would eat only meatballs and mintchocolate chip ice cream, or she would go shopping for bell peppers and corn with her father, riding his shoulders as sophisticated discussions on the color yellow took place. Such were the ideas I dreamt up. We could only wonder what our curious friend was like outside the woods. To us, she was the woods. She was all of its pines, riverbanks, leaves, and eerie “hoo” sounds that Sandar would make throughout the night. To us, baby Alphonse was our Alphosne only when she stepped beyond the tree line, and from the moment she first did– She was everything. Granted, we did have some ideas of what life was like outside the woods. Malcolm and all the other nosy birds would tell us stories deep into the night on what Alphonse was up to. We were told she was always playing with her father, and begging him to read for forever at night. We were told she had a small but cozy room, in a small but cozy house. “It's the kind of place where flowers like to grow, pots are hung up on their walls, and the living room and dining room are one. The whole house is joined by a now dormant fireplace, the welcoming hue of warm lamps, and perhaps most importantly, hand-knit blankets so big they could cover 5 Alphonses. Perfect for creating worlds of all types,” Malcolm told us one night. Most of Alphonse’s life was composed of the serene tranquility and eccentric sophistication that had brought her to meditate in our woods. 107

We also heard other stuff. Alphonse consistently butt heads with her mother. While detailing Alphonse’s bedtime stories Malcolm would always emphasize Alphonse’s mother’s scowl as she entered the room with one purpose, “Time for bed.” She was also the one who called her in for supper and held her home on rainy days. She would yell at her for getting the house muddy, and tell her to be “proper”, and although Alphonse would protest, she typically departed with a somber melancholic disposition from these types of situations. It hurt to hear these stories, and Alphonse shielded us from any leakage from that life. I wanted to protect her, to reach out, “we all did,” but see the thing is, we only knew Alphonse of the woods, our friend, and bridging that gap over to the other world was something only Alphonse could pull off. So for that first summer, everything was great. After the pine trees, we showed her the riverbank. We took the time to introduce Alphonse to Herbert and his 200,000-something cousins. She patiently smiled saying, “Nice to meet you,” to every single one of them. She then learned to skip pebbles. We swam in the summer waters and sun-bathed on the mossy rocks which would glisten when they got wet. Earnie even got in the water one time. We all laughed, because wet foxes look funny– don’t think he ever got in again. Next, we took her to the “clearing,” a large field with one ginormous tree in the middle. It’s my favorite place. Late afternoons with purple clouds and light blue skies at the clearing are quite possibly the best thing in the world. Dear always play tag running around at paces so quickly that I confuse them for the wind. Foxes play hide and seek, and at times you see them jump up above the clearing’s tall grass. They look like little red dolphins, in a sea of life and joy (not that I have seen actual dolphins, it's the magazines I get this stuff from). Sandar always sets up camp in the tree and most of us sit below and listen to his stories of the past. He tells us of big storms that once showered over our Dishmill. He talks about our families, what they were like, who they hung out with, and what jokes they laughed at. After tiring herself out in the field, Alphonse would always end up here. That first summer was all of us cuddled up in a ball listening to Sandar reminisce on what once was as the days faded into nothing. It was everything. 108

As the first summer came to an end, Alphonse plotted a scheme to tickle old Sandar with the pines. “Ok, John, J, Earnie, are you all in your positions,” Alphonse asked. “Roger,” “Roger,” “Roger,” “Aye, aye,” we all responded in affirmative. She had selected a clearing with four bushes surrounding it and had stationed each of us in a bush, while she hid overhead perched up on a branch. In the clearing Alphonse had left a handful of blueberries, Sandar’s favorite treat, and had instructed us to wait for Sandar, then count to 30 and charge from our hiding places with 10 carefully selected pine needles. These were of course picked out by Alphonse herself. We waited five hours! Every ten minutes Alphonse would ask once more, “Are you all in your positions.” “Roger,” “Roger,” “Aye, aye,” “Roger,” we would all respond in affirmative. Then came our moment. Sandar swooped in from overhead, circling above the berries for a while and then ultimately landing beside them. We were all in position and counted to thirty just as baby Alphonse had told us to. And then… “Tickle Time!” we all screamed rushing out from our carefully selected hiding places with confidence. Sandar was shocked by our attack, but his instincts quickly kicked in. He reacted in the only way birds of prey know how to. Sandar slowly cocked his head back towards me, we locked eyes, and as he lunged towards me with his mouth wide open he, he um… I’m actually not sure what happened next. 109

I am the woods. The eternal and solemn watcher. It is at times difficult to recognize jarringly different sides to life as one. There are two worlds they said. Two worlds became the reality lived by a little girl who was told she could only live in one. Consolidated by death, Alphonse of the wood, our Alphonse, is no more. As I retell this story, that first summer once was but no longer is. Between the two worlds there lies silence; the calm meditation of waiting and watching. I am the woods, I am the collector of all stories, I am the place where everything begins, and ends. Art by Ella Álvarez (‘27)110

Prologue: This is a collection of journal entries discovered recently along with some other 16th-century Spanish artifacts from the Yucatec peninsula. The journal entries seem to be from an expedition leader on a journey to the rumored city of El Dorado. Historians argue the validity of these entries, yet, the nature of their discovery, and many linguistic and archaeological analyses of the material continue to undermine doubts of their validity. The city of El Dorado is largely thought to be just a myth, but these entries have the potential to shed more light on its origins. These are ordered chronologically, though it is still unconfirmed if the jumps in time are caused by missing pages or if they are authentic. The records have been translated into English for this publication. 15 de noviembre del 1520 Today, November 15th, marks the beginning of the most important expedition of my life. In the last year, the rumors of a city of gold in the New World have spread throughout Spain. Today I leave with a crew of the best navigators under rule of the crown to find this city and with it my glory and the glory of the Spanish Empire. I’ve been warned of the treacherous landscape and advised to bring a larger crew, but I think the 7 of us have the combined experience to embark on this journey and be successful. I know not what this journey holds, but our glory awaits. El Dorado awaits. 22 de noviembre del 1520 We’ve been almost a week at sea. We hope to arrive in 5 weeks, but we can’t predict what weather we’ll encounter. Our rations are doing fine for now, but we will run out if we fail to arrive within our window. Even still, I know we will find our glory, God shines brightly on our expedition, and I can feel it. The Illusion of El Dorado by Lorenzo Nuñez 111

Roberto doubts if the treacherous trip is worth the gold, I’m realizing now he may have been too young to go on this trip. I promised his mother I would bring him back safe, and safe and rich he will return. 27 de Diciembre del 1520 We arrived yesterday with barely enough rations to keep us going for another week. It seems God was in our favor. We’ve set up camp on the coast of New Spain, we’ve had no contact with the natives as of yet, but we’re expecting it and are prepared for a hostile encounter. I know we have to travel further inland if we want to find the city, but our camp on the coast will have to do for now. As the evening closes in I wonder if the rumors are true, did I leave my country, my family, for a lie? I must not lose faith in our expedition, for the sake of the men, and, I suppose, for my sake as well. We are one step closer to El Dorado, one step closer to glory, the gold will be ours. 12 de enero del 1521 We’ve been moving further inland for 5 days now. Our celebration of the new year was a highlight of the expedition, I suppose a much-needed one considering our current situation and the journey ahead. We lost two men yesterday, Carlos and Felipe, we took the time to give them a proper Christian burial but not much could be accommodated in the jungle. This terrain is rough and unpredictable, Carlos and Felipe died yesterday of a disease I hadn’t seen before. It gripped them with a heavy fever and cough for 2 days, the last 2 days they could barely move, and they succumbed to the illness yesterday morning. One of the other men seems to be showing similar symptoms, I just hope we can find the city before we all die out here. Roberto continues to worry me, though he has been doing a fine job of navigating so far, with fewer men comes more responsibilities for us who remain, he is young and inexperienced, and I fear that pushing too much on him could jeopardize us all. We will rest tomorrow and continue our journey inland, I can see a smaller native city from the cliff we are stopped at, and I feel we should try to avoid contact when we can. 112

22 de enero del 1521 We arrived at El Dorado yesterday. The most beautiful golden buildings and decor I’ve ever seen are here, the men and I now know our journey was worth this incredible sight. I will bring back gold and glory in the name of the crown. Though, since yesterday I’ve noticed some of the gold has begun to turn green and rot, I’ve never known gold to do that, but for now, I will take it as another strange mechanism of this strange new world. We do not know what’s next, the catharsis we feel from finally reaching our fabled El Dorado has brought the men and me to tears, our bodies are tired as well as our minds, I suppose for now we will rest and collect our gold. Glory to God, and glory to Spain. 24 de enero del 1521 It has been three days in this place. El Dorado is not what we thought it was. I woke up this morning to Roberto eating the skin off of his hands, and the other 3 men with boils all over their body and in excruciating pain. I don’t know what ungodly pagan curse has fallen upon this city, but I can feel myself losing my sanity. I’ve barricaded myself in a temple away from the other men. I feel this might be my last entry. *no date* I attempted to take my life, I could not take the screams anymore, but it seemed I could not die, I hung from a pillar for hours, gasping for breath, this infernal place would not allow me to end my suffering. The illusion of El Dorado has broken completely, the gold has turned to rot green, and the plants have all died, it seems as if God or someone else has punished us. I can still hear the screams. *no date* *This entry was illegible, consisting of scratches and scribbles across the page. According to our translators, only one Nahuatl word could be seen at the end of the page, “MOTZOL” meaning greedy or ever-grasping.* 113

God was the first artist, cursed with an infinite canvas: boundless power in a realm of existence without meaning. God worked tirelessly over Eve. A miserable artist, he hunched his impossible form over his workbench, desperate to make something. Something that was of any worth to him. He molded her tiny, crimson veins after the stretches in the sky and the rivers on Earth. Her irises were the color black, made to mimic the oblivion he was so familiar with, an homage. Finally, he gave her a mind, modeled after his own. Unbeknownst to him, he had just made the only other entity who could create, who was like him. God loved Eve as dearly as anyone could ever or would ever love. As he saw her open her eyes for the first time, he knew he had done it. Regardless of how cursed he was with dissatisfaction for the rest of time, he knew he had created the best thing he would ever make. Anguished, he left her to live on her own the first few years. As he was unable to comprehend what a “beginning” was, he had no idea how to help her settle. She assured him it was alright, rolling her eyes. “You are so embarrassing.” She groaned, as he tearfully hugged her goodbye, his form dissolving into the ethereal. The Myth of Creation by Sofia Abreu Ever since she was created, Eve understood she was lucky. She looked around, at God and his misery, at the green grass below her, at what appears to be an impossibly vast sky, at her own reflection in the water. She understood there weren’t many (any) like her and God, and given that she wasn't deranged, she was pretty sure she was lucky. But when she heard the wind rustle the leaves and her head whipped around because she thought it was someone else’s voice, she couldn't understand the empty feeling in her heart. 114

She tried everything. She sang long, crooning songs to fill the uncomfortable silence. She carved beautiful, intricate designs onto her pottery, pretending somebody had made it especially for her. She even wrote epic tales about her own creation, knowing they weren’t true, to fill her painfully empty hands, even if for a moment. The more she made these little efforts, the larger the void in her seemed to grow. Before long, this void grew so large she stopped being able to sleep. Her eyes grew sunken, her voice raw. She was starting to lose herself. But to what? What was missing? When God came back, he found Eve had used the world as her personal art studio. He found her little projects scattered all over, ranging from mindless doodles to massive, ornate temples. As he traversed through Earth, he began to snivel and sniffle, the proudest he would ever and could ever be. Eve would be groaning in embarrassment if she saw him now. Speaking of which, where was Eve? God found Eve releasing broken cries, tears falling like two endlessly flowing rivers under an apple tree, her favorite spot in the whole world (literally). He rushed toward her in utter panic. Who did this? Who could have? Who or what would he have to make writhe in agony for the rest of time? “My child. Why are you in such pain?” He asked with poorly concealed sorrow. She shook her head vehemently, completely and utterly lost. After a few long moments in silence, she finds her voice. “Something is missing. I keep making and making stuff, but none of it is real. None of this,” she gestures wildly to her surroundings, “is worth… anything! It’s all just here.” Seeing the hurt in his eyes, she reluctantly embraced him. “I’m sorry. It's beautiful. I just didn’t think it would be like this.” His eyes wandered to her hands, calloused from all her work. He suddenly noticed the dark rims under her eyes, mirroring his own. Horrified, he finally recognized the longing in her eyes. He knew what he had to do. 115

He found a small, sharp rock by his foot and cut his palm right in the middle. He knelt down and gently reached for her hand, letting the blood dripping from his palm seep into her skin. “This, my child, is what you seek. With this, you shall create the best thing you will ever make. My blood will now become your blood. And your blood shall…” “Shall what?” She snapped impatiently. He simply chuckled. “All in due time, my child.” Rolling her eyes, she picked her needlework back up. “You and your mystery.” Eve had been struggling to make the whole “blood” thing work. Why was God stringing her along like this anyway? Why did he have to be so frustrating and mysterious? She kicked the tree in front of her in frustration, before holding her foot in pain and losing her balance, coming crashing down on the ground with a thud. Face to face with the dirt, she sighed. Looking at the ground, she reflected on all the clay she had used over the years to make all her pottery. As her thoughts flew away from her, she started to wonder, what was the world if not a canvas? That's what it was made for, she knew, but there was more. She was sure of it. She placed her hand on the ground, and sighed. She closed her eyes, feeling the gritty texture of the dirt between her fingers when suddenly, she heard cries. And so, from the Earth sprang forth something new: a baby. A red, swollen, ugly little creature wrapped in its own blanket of life. She held the child close to her heart, the warmth of her blood, now his own, coursing through his veins. Holding her child, teary-eyed, she knew she would love him as deeply as anyone could or would love, ever. 116

I was brought to an island. Where no one knew my name. Three years ago my feet touched the sand for the first time. I was surrounded by a new language and faces I did not recognize. I did not know that I would not be leaving the island for a long time. I knew no one and had no friends over the years that I stayed on the island. The island was louder than my past. I heard coqui frogs repeating the same croak of “coqui '' over and over again. People examined me as the foreigner acting as though they had me all figured out when they didn’t know where I came from. I saw tourists arriving on the island, embarking their cruise ships after pulling into the marina. Planes soared along the shoreline with visitors inside. When these visitor’s vacation was over they would return home, but I remained here. The sound of Caribbean songs in the distance started to become easier for me to decode as I stared out at the turquoise sea surrounding me. The flippers on my feet met the edge of the sea. As I waded into the water a coolness rushed over my body. My purple rash guard clinged to my body to keep me warm. My breathing began to slow as I relied on the tube in my mouth for air and I adjusted the clear mask covering my eyes. As I paddled out to the deeper water, I started to emerge myself into an entirely different world. Mountains of coral reef, rocks and fish of all colors surrounded me. It was easy for me to identify the trumpet fish that passed by and the group of parrotfish beyond. In my head I scanned for trunkfish, blue tangs and butterfly fish. Patiently, I swam out past the rope that indicated I was headed towards the deepest end of the reef. A sense of peace surrounded me and I only heard the sounds of crashing waves in the distance. Searching inside of holes and nooks in the rocks, I fixated on something that seemed too soft to be a rock. White suction cupped alien-like arms protruded from a small den in the rocks below me so I was not sure if my eyes were failing me. I Called Her Lily by Sophia Silverberg 117

Diving down, I was met with a pair of eyes staring back at me. My mind flashed images of sea creatures from my hours of research as I desperately tried to identify what was in front of me. Overcome with emotion I could not control the undetectable smile underneath my mask and the rapid kicks of my flippers. The creature's arms started to creep out of a den, its eyes scanning the area for possible danger. Pale with fear, its arms remained cautious until the entire animal revealed itself and instantly turned red letting me know that it was curious to meet me and no longer wanted to hide. Several open clam shells in front of the entrance to its den indicated the creature had recently eaten lunch. Trust is the key in any friendship. As the creature sat in the sand exposed in an ocean full of danger it trusted me to watch it and I trusted that it would not harm me. Its flashing colors told me that it was trying to communicate or even say “hi”. I longed to communicate with it but words or facial expressions failed. All I could do to understand this creature was observe it. I did not know I was making a friend and I never even expected to see it again. After some time it picked itself up as if it were a graceful ballet dancer swimming away blending into the color of the sand. A week later I returned to the beach following my usual routine of snorkeling in my free time. As I paddled out to the same reef, the familiar cooling feeling overtook my body. My mind went blank and I did not think about what happened the last time I was in the water. I paddled out to the deep end of the reef. When I reached the end of the reef I began to study the corals hoping to find creatures hiding out in the narrow passages of the rocks. Multicolored fire worms crawled over the rocks while I scanned for sea creatures. Sandwiched in between two rocks I noticed what I believed was a reddish brown squishy rock. A familiar pair of eyes stared at me, letting me know that I was not looking at a rock. Immediately I knew that this was the very same octopus I saw just one week ago. It was peacefully immobile while resting on its rock bed. Mesmerized, I did not want to forget what it looked like so I snapped a photo of it with my underwater camera. Realizing an octopus needed energy to hunt at night, I tried not to disturb its sleep so I gently swam in the opposite direction. 118

Over the past several weeks, I immersed myself in this octopus's life. I knew the holes it liked to hide in best and which side of the reef it liked. Finding it week after week became an easy skill to master. One day, I decided to take our budding friendship one step forward. Slowly, remaining cautious as a protocol to not frighten it, I approached its den and inched my finger closer to one of its eight tentacles as an offering of friendship. Gently my index finger met the soft outer skin of its tentacle. A few seconds later, my finger became instantly immersed in a few dozen of its pale suction cups which started to stick themselves onto my finger. Each suction cup independently started investigating my finger sticking to me with the strength of a super glue. Minutes later, its suction cups continued to study my pruning finger, understanding every line up to my fingertip. This first touch removed a barrier for our friendship and the start of a reciprocal trust. One day, I came to the reef to visit knowing I would always find that same octopus. Visiting the octopus became a part of my weekly routine. It continued to amaze me when it allowed me to pet its soft, squishy skin and it never retreated. I enjoyed photographing and observing it visit after visit as months went by. During each visit, I studied its behavior and analyzed its changing colors and textures which indicated its feelings. I was even able to figure out its favorite meal for lunch based on the frequent nearby clam shells. After this routine kept up for a few months it was a shock when one day I came to the reef and could not find the octopus. I swam around the entire reef and it was not in any of its few favorite spots for the first time since it had appeared to me all those months ago. Thoughts flooded my head wondering what could have happened to it. What if it was attacked by a hungry barracuda with big staring eyes that never seemed to blink or was sniffed out by a bright green moray eel who squeezed in between the rocks and crept up on it. After visiting my other friends, the pair of puffer fish, the peculiar trio of squid and the flat flounder with the turquoise spots, I was prepared to leave for the day still wondering where it had gone. 119

As I made my way into the warm shallow water I said goodbye to the large school of yellow fish that stayed by the shore. Out of nowhere, like a delicate ballerina, it swam towards my face, eye to eye as if it did not want me to leave the water without noticing it. It flashed bright red to grab my attention, taking a risk in the shallows. Octopus can recognize people. I believed it remembered me for frequently wearing my purple rash guard and transparent snorkel mask. I followed it to a rock where it sat, exhausted from showing off its color and texture changing ability, where it eventually retreated under the rock. Now I could leave for the day, I got to see my remarkable and intelligent nine brained friend. Perhaps it was thinking the same thing. I called her Lily. Photo by Matt Hardy on Unsplash 120

The intersection between Dagsboro Road and Route 113 had taken us along the long highway, surrounded by dead cornfields and rusting sprinklers. Worn-down barn houses sparsely materialized themselves, an ode to the minimum age requirement for a property to be exempt from taxes. Gray clouds loomed in the sky and signaled an incoming snowstorm. To my right, a mid-sized billboard read “Keep America Great. Trump. Promises Made-Promises Kept.” Underneath it, a billboard of the same size, “For the Winter Warriors. Dunkin’ Iced. 4 miles ahead on right.” “Deborah, how could you vote for him twice?” my mother asked, in broken English. Deborah’s husband, Angel, is Puerto Rican, like us. He’s a retired cop who’s lived in the United States for most of his life. He and Deborah never taught their 20-something-year-old son to speak Spanish. So maybe he’s not that much like us. Angel claims he won’t return to Puerto Rico because of the political situation; he just can’t stand it. Brincó el charco. It’s ironic because he chooses not to vote in the United States either. No matter, he’s not the one who has to live in the funk. He left at the age of 18 to join the military and never looked back. All I can think about is his mother, how much of his life she must have missed out on. Angel visits Puerto Rico now and then, but speaks of it in such a way that sometimes I forget I live there too. “I don’t know, but I sure as hell won’t be voting for him again. Good Lord,” responded Deborah, her Baltimore accent sliding across her tongue and spilling into the pores of her tomato-white skin. Deborah’s family is mostly white, apart from Angel and her nephew’s Chinese fiancé. They never treated us differently, mostly because they had already learned how to tolerate Angel. But, they’re die-hard conservatives who vote red no matter what. I guess Deborah has been with Angel long enough to have come to her senses, but it was only when policies started affecting her. The American Dream by Isaac Carrión 121

We had driven for long enough to finally reach a massive collection of outlet stores, one of many of their kind in the unwalkability of the good ol’ First State. The cold air was the first thing to hit me as we got out of the car, my nose quickly starting to ache from the inside. This was all new to me: the weather, the long drives to nowhere special, the massive malls for overconsumption. The overwhelmingly homogenous population. Every cream-colored corner seemed to be staring at us as we walked past the shop windows, their glass eyes piercing through us like icicles. The clothing store we entered appeared to be full of like-minded, look-alike people who turned their heads at the sight of something different. As we reached the front of the checkout line, the young lady at the register asked my mom and I where we were from as we paid. When we answered, “Puerto Rico”, she gave us a high-pitched “Oh!” and a half smile, a hint of pity and distaste in her wide-eyed look. Art by Marcos Rivera (‘27) 122

Deep in the heart of Venice, a young boy sat on his balcony overlooking the busy fish market of San Polo. It was a sunny day, not a single cloud in sight, the absolute perfect weather for a gondolier gliding across the web of Venetian canals. The boy bit and yanked hard on his half-stale bread, a poor imitation of the cicchetti served at the local bacaro and regretted ever having tried true cicchetti which now makes all his quasi-meals seem dull and bland. “Dante!” a familiar voice yelled from below. The boy grudgingly got on his feet and meandered over to the railing, looking down at the man in a yellow-striped white polo, tilting his hat to block the sun. “Sorry I’m late! Come down here and give your pops a hand! I’ve got a surprise for you too!” shouted the man. Dante slowly went out the door, not locking it behind him, since no one in this “perfect little town” would ever take the chance of potentially being exiled from their paradise. He scoffed at the thought of it, taking note of the joyous laughter from within the apartments on the way down the stairs. “Look what Virgilio from the market kept for you,” his father smiled as he gestured to the shiny cylinder in his hand. Dante, intrigued, came closer to inspect it. “Apparently they found this metal pipe looking thing in an oddly purple-stained oyster in the reef in place of a pearl and thought you might take an interest since you’re always looking for scraps to build that model boat of yours,” he commented as he handed it to Dante. “Now hurry and come aboard, I need you to come drop these off with me at the Southern restaurants,” said the father as he gestured to the buckets of crustaceans at the back of the gondola. Dante halfheartedly nodded his head, still infatuated while observing the pipe from all angles, there seemed to be something strange about it, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it before stuffing it in his pocket as his father undid the ropes and the gondola started to move. As usual, Dante shuddered when he heard the polyphonic dissonance of creaking and scraping of wood against brick as they sailed under one bridge after another. The absolute suffocating coffin-esque feeling as they were below each bridge visibly creeped Dante out while his father stood at the head of the ship, leaning to his right, slowly rowing forward. The Golden Pearl by Jerry Chen 123

Dante posed a question he has ruminated over for many years, “Don’t you ever feel restricted going through these same narrow canals day after day?” The father sighed, “That’s the life of a gondolier, son. Just like your grandfather always said, ‘these canals are the bloodstream of us Venetians, cutting them off would be to kill off our spirit.’” “But isn’t that a closed-off way of thinking?” interrogated Dante in slight annoyance. Going down these tunnels like ants in a colony, someday something or someone will come kick this anthill down… what will happen then? Dante wondered. Well, no matter what happens, he will be fine. He will be fine because he is prepared for a life outside these worn-down walls. He will be a traveler of the mighty seas, a voyager of the vast ocean waters that extend far beyond the line of sight from atop his usual balcony view. His thoughts were interrupted by a holler from the dock that was around the corner. “ALDO!!” shrieked a ringing voice which was completely disproportionate to the tiny woman frantically waving her hands at them. “Caterina! Sorry for the delay, I’ve got your regular order right here, Dante will haul it up for you,” his father replied as he motioned with his hand towards the two white buckets near the foot of the boat and glanced for Dante to get moving. Sighing, Dante lifted the bucket over his shoulder, the exoskeletons clacking against one another as he made his way, step by step, out of the gondola and into the ristorante through the backdoor with a vexed Caterina leading the way. “So, looks like I’m going to be seeing you a lot more now, huh?” she prodded. A brief pause ensued before she continued. “After all, with your dad and that bum leg of his he can’t make nearly a third of the deliveries he used to make, much less take passengers since no one wants to take the slowest gondola in the world!” she cried out, with a sardonic smirk on her face. Dante’s face turned blank as he stopped abruptly and dropped the bucket where he stood. Without saying a word, Caterina watched as Dante turned and stormed out, blocking out her fusillade of complaints and threats with an aegis of ignorance. “What’s wrong, bud?” his father questioned, puzzled as Dante emphatically plopped himself down on the gondola, refusing to make eye contact. Aldo seemingly understood the situation and let out a sigh as he used his oar to push off the dock, leaving the other bucket of shellfish ashore. 124

It was a quiet ride home, yet Dante’s anger flared higher each time they passed under another bridge. Eventually, the unbearable shadow forced out his words and he blurted out, “Why did you have to save that stupid mutt?” “Well, Dante, if that ship model you love so much feel into the canal, wouldn’t you dive head first to save it?” hypothesized Aldo. “But that’s different! That’s my creation and hard labor of two whole years… That dumb dog you saved though… you’ve never even met him before! You saw how Riccardo’s gondola was about to crash into the side of the canal, yet you still jumped into the gap between them. Sure, you saved a dog, but now your leg will never recover, and you can’t operate a gondola normally without putting pressure on your left!!” Dante burst out. Aldo lowered his head and took a big breath before saying his next words. “You weren’t there. There was a little girl screaming her lungs out from the gondola, screaming for someone to help her dog, and when she cried out his name…” he paused, “I couldn’t even assess the situation rationally before plunging in. Because, that dog’s name was Dante.” Dante spun around in disbelief as they locked eyes. As the gondola emerged from below the bridge, the sun’s rays scattered all around them. The sunlight bathed them in a warm, golden light, casting his father in a light so divine that for a moment, he appeared to Dante as a guardian, an angel in the mortal realm. His rage dissipated. Yet, the tranquility was short-lived and after a brief moment, his eyes were once again blazing with wrath, this time more red-hot than ever before. If only the canal was wider. No, if only that gondola was bigger, so gargantuan that something like this would’ve ever happened. Suddenly, his right pocket began to feel unnaturally heavy. Dante hurriedly pulled out the metal cylinder that was the suspected root of the problem. In his hands, it began to tremble and grow in size and weight. It also turned warm, and warm quickly rose to scorching as Dante let out a yelp before instinctively dropping the metal piece in the water. Peering over the edge, they could clearly see the water bubbling and churning beneath them. Before they could react, a deafening boom dazed them and they lost their balance. 125

When Dante opened his eyes once more, he was lying flat on a hardwood floor. Groaning in pain, he slowly stood up and was bewildered to see that he was at eye level with the local campanile. In a frantic attempt to figure out what was going on, he found himself atop a huge steamship as wide as several churches. Strangely, he did not feel unfamiliar to the ship. Then, it struck him. This was an exact model of the one he was building at home! As he made his way to the quarterdeck, he was surprised by the blaring of a resounding horn as the ship’s engines roared to life at his presence. Noticing the fearful yells of the onlooking citizens of Venice, he cast them a glance, but at this height, they looked as small and as insignificant as ants scurrying about their tiny dirty mound. He wanted to leave. His desires translated into commands as the behemoth moved through the canal, laying waste to the decades of architecture and leaving everything in shambles. Dante couldn’t care less. “WOO-HOOOO!!!” Dante excitedly howled into the wind. “That’s what I’m talking about!” He was enjoying his dream come true in the most paranormal way, a wild grin splitting his face as he reveled in the sight. His tunnel-vision rendered him oblivious to his father standing just a couple meters away, looking down at the carnage unfolding before him, his face ashen and his eyes, wide with disbelief and horror. “The bloodstream of Venice… it’s all gone now,” Aldo muttered under his breath. He turned on his heel, only to see his son still caught in a fit of maniacal laughter. “Is this what you really want, son?” His words were lost in the wind. They sailed out of the demolished canal and were thrust into the open ocean’s embrace. Hours trickled by as the sky shifted from striking orange with a sun as hot as a thousand phoenixes to a deep cold indigo. As the sun bid farewell to the horizon, the leviathan of chaos abruptly shrunk down and transformed into a single hefty golden pearl in Dante’s hand as he fought to keep his head above the waves. 126

Dante tightly clutched the pearl in his hand, feeling its weight as though it bore the entire weight of Venice – its history, its culture, and its people. The realization hit him with the force of tsuinami: the town he had wanted to break free from, the canals he had thought to confine him, were not just the veins of Venice but of himself. Memories of his father resurfaced, the embodiment of love and sacrifice, the essence of Venice, he had sought to tear apart. As darkness enveloped him, the vast indifferent ocean claimed him, not as a conqueror of the seven seas but as a lost son of Venice, swallowed by the very freedom he pursued. 127

"Joder, tío, no puede ser," said Thiago as he realized he didn’t have time to make it to his grandpa's funeral. Thiago's heart sank into an abyss as the realization hit him like a cold wave: he wouldn't make it to his grandfather's funeral. A sharp pang of grief clutched at his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs. His eyes blurred, not from the wind but from unshed tears, as he imagined the solemn faces of his family, standing under the grey, weeping sky. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if he were walking through thick mud, each one a reminder of the moments lost with his grandpa, now just memories fading into the distance. One thing that had always bothered him was that he could never truly understand how someone as strong as his grandpa had died. He had been there for him since Thiago was a child, always making sure he had every chance and opportunity he wanted. Living in Cadaqués was never the best, but his grandpa made it bearable. Cadaqués had narrow cobblestone streets that paved the way to houses. The town lay cradled by rugged hills, a silent witness to the restless sea that kissed its shores. At sunrise, the water turned to molten gold, painting the buildings in warm hues, and at sunset, it all seemed to drown in shades of purple and blue. The air carried a salty tang mixed with the scent of flowers from the hills. Guess was right behind Thiago, trying to catch up so they could go to the funeral. "Jeriel, Thiago, ¿qué vamos a hacer?" said Guesa, worried and breathing hard. Thiago replied, "Es mejor si voy a trabajar." The bar, a cozy haven of dim light and shadow, hummed with the low, comforting whispers of conversations. Flickering candles on each table cast dancing shadows on the walls, creating an ambiance of mystique and warmth. The wooden floors, worn smooth by countless footsteps, leading to the back of the bar, glasses clinked as Thiago polished them, the rhythmic sound a familiar tune in the evening's symphony. As Thiago was readying to close for the night, the door creaked open, casting a sliver of light that was quickly swallowed by the surrounding darkness. Regrets Anonymous 128

Into this light stepped a figure, his entrance casting a long, distorted shadow that crawled across the bar's floor like a dark, fluid creature, stretching and twisting with his every movement. This man, with hair like spun gold and eyes of an unsettlingly deep blue, seemed almost to command the shadows, his presence causing them to dance and flicker. The sharp contrast between the brightness of his hair and the depth of the shadow he cast added to the air of mystery that surrounded him. Dressed in a meticulously tailored black three-piece suit, he moved with an odd, zigzag walk, each step punctuated by the tap of his cane against the wooden floor, the sound echoing in the hushed atmosphere of the bar. The shadow that accompanied him seemed almost a living extension of his being, a silent companion that mirrored his every move, enhancing the enigmatic aura that surrounded him, leaving Thiago with a feeling of intrigue and a sense of anticipation for the story yet to unfold from this mysterious visitor. In a soothing and calming voice, he said, “Hazme un carajillo.” Thiago, not wanting to reject a customer, went ahead and did so. "Qué lindo poder beberme un carajillo después de un día largo de trabajar," dijo el man as he was sitting down at the bar. "Tómate una también," le dijo a Thiago. "Se te ve que has tenido un día largo." Thiago accepts and pours himself one as well. The man looks at Thiago and offers him a piece of advice. "Muchas veces en la vida, no se puede hacer todo lo que querían." He finished his drink and slammed it on the bar as he continued speaking. "Asegúrate de hacer todo lo que deseas." Thiago turns back to clean the glass, and when he turns back to ask the man something, he finds a coin on the bar, the door swinging open and closed, and the man nowhere in sight. Where did this man go? thought Thiago. He was puzzled because this was the first time anything like this had happened while working at the bar. Stunned, he closed the shop, handed the keys to the owner, and set off to his house. Walking down the cobblestone streets, he felt like he was being watched. A stinging feeling coming from every alleyway. Thiago finally arrived home and made sure to lock the doors before going to sleep. Thiago rested in his sleep as disturbing nightmares kept entering his mind. 129

He randomly woke up in the twilight of the night and decided to go eat some bread by the ocean with the sound of the waves crashing to relax his nerves. When he sees his friend Guesa and Jeriel walk by, and connect eyes. They all asked, "¿Qué haces despierto?" and they all responded with "No pude dormir." So they all sat down on the jaded rock wall and looked at the ocean. While they were talking about what they were going to do the next day, in front of them, a small track began to form. On it, a hand car came with a paper saying “Montense” and instructions. Bored and without being able to get sleep, the three guys got in the handcar. On the cart, they found a fairy and asked it where they were going. It responds, “A un castillo.” Jeriel nervously asks, “¿Qué vamos a hacer en este castillo?” The fairy says, “Explorar.” They all looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, and so they began pushing the handcar. After 40 minutes of Jeriel and Thiago working the cart and Guesa sitting down complaining, they were able to make it to the castle. The fairy told them to enjoy as time passed much more differently here. Jeriel checked his pocket watch, and the second hand was moving much slower. When they got off the cart, they were met with 2 ginormous wooden doors, which opened to present them with the feast, but in front of them was a small stand. It had 3 instructions on it: 1. No entren cuartos con puertas negras. 2. Váyanse antes del amanecer. 3. No coman ni tomen nada. Thiago and Jeriel looked surprised at this while Guesa could only think about the feast in front of him. The table had a lavish spread of glowing fruits that shimmered with an inner light, pastries that seemed to dissolve into sparks of flavor on the tongue, and platters of food that rearranged themselves to the viewer's desire. Just like a cartoon character, he began to hover towards the food, drawn in by the enticing aromas and the luminous glow that bathed the table in a warm, inviting light. 130

The ambiance of the room, with its softly flickering candles casting shadows that danced along the walls, added to the surreal aspect of the feast. Thiago and Jeriel seemed to be unaffected by the feast and were able to stop Guesa, but not before he put a chocolate chip cookie from the huge table in his pocket. Thiago and Jeriel decided to carry Guesa away from the feast. Going deeper inside the castle, they found many rooms where they could have fun. Through the green door, they entered a room unlike any other—a go-kart driving track that spanned seemingly endless miles. This wasn't just any track; it was a winding path of adventure that stretched into the distance. After a long time of racing, they went into the room next door. It had a purple door with a cinema inside it. By saying any name of a movie or TV show, it would play on the massive screen. By clapping your hands, you could summon a bag of popcorn the size of Guesa and a drink twice that. Thiago and Jeriel had to repeatedly get away from Guesa. After getting tired of the movies, they left for a red door. The red door revealed a world where gravity seemed to have lost its grip—a vast bouncy castle painted in a kaleidoscope of colors. Their laughter echoed as they soared, momentarily freed from the weight of their worries. It was a reminder of the lightness of being, of the importance of holding onto joy and wonder even in the face of life's challenges. It seemed like all three guys were superheroes. This eventually turned them to have a play fight with themselves, throwing cars and trucks at each other. While fighting, Guesa began to roll towards the back of the room where there was a small black door. This door had rows of skulls from top to bottom. Jeriel and Thiago came charging at Guesa with cars in hand, not realizing they were so close to a black door. Sadly, they crashed into the Guesa and knocked each other into the black room. The door rapidly closed behind them, and a thick fog began to cover the room, separating the three. The fog that rolled in was alive, whispering in a thousand voices, a chill that seeped into their bones. As they were separated by the thickening mists, the sense of isolation was immediate and overwhelming, the darkness was smothering their courage and breaking their spirits. 131

Nervous, Guesa took a bite of the only thing he had left in his pockets. The cookie he stole. In the moment of contact with the forbidden cookie, Guesa's taste buds were assaulted by a sweetness that was almost painful because of the high intensity. Thiago heard a scream that eventually faded away. Jeriel found himself wrestling with a fear that had long lingered in the recesses of his mind, now magnified by the surreal experiences unfolding around him. It wasn’t the looming shadows or the eerie whispers of the castle that unnerved him the most; it was the gnawing realization, sharpened by the adventure's urgency, that he might be wasting precious time. Each magical space, from the expansive go-kart track beneath the green door to the boundless cinema behind the purple, served as a reminder of life's infinite possibilities and how he might not have time to explore them all. He could only sit there and think about all the time he was losing. Thiago was trying to be as careful as possible, but he accidentally bumped into something. He was so nervous the hairs on his arms stood up. The man turned around and said, "¡Hola, Thiago! ¿Cómo estás, nieto?" Thiago fell backward and couldn’t believe it. His very own grandpa was right in front of him. Thiago goes to hug his grandpa, but as he’s getting close, his grandpa says, "¡Adiós!" and fades away. Leaving Thiago falling and hitting the ground. For the first time, Thiago really felt that he was gone; he was alone at this moment the room of black smoke cleared. He found Guesa and Jeriel in a trance-like state. He quickly gets both of that state and realizes that it’s almost sunrise. They quickly rush out of the castle and pedal the hand car as fast as possible. The light starts glimmering in the sky, and they’re about to make it. As they’re stepping off the cart, the sun comes up, and they all vanish. Thiago quickly jumped up, realizing it was just a dream. Shocked, he goes to tell Guesa and Jeriel and tells them about the dream he had and how he realized that he could die and didn’t do everything he wanted. They tell him that they had a similar dream and that they both also faced their worst fears. The next day when Guesa and Jeriel went to go see where Thiago was, he wasn’t in his house. He went to explore the world. 132

I have played basketball for a long time. The problem is, I'm not good at it, nor have I been able to improve. If anything, I'm the worst player on my team. Personally, I think it's because I always feel lightheaded when I step onto the court, or because I'm the shortest person on my team, or because none of my other teammates took the time to help me improve. On the day before the city finals, I was at an empty court practicing my dribbling and shooting. Well, it was more like dribbling; the ball would always hit the board and bounce back to me, no matter how hard or careful I threw. This frustrated me so much that I wanted to just kick the ball and break a window. Regardless, I kept my composure and continued practicing. As many hours went by, I felt the sweat trickling down my forehead and the sound of the ball became like a drum. Suddenly a male voice came behind me saying "Save some for the game, Jason." When I turned around, it was my coach, Palmers. "Sorry, just warming up," I replied in an exhausted voice. "Listen, it's getting late, so why don't you head on home," Palmers suggested. I didn't realize night had fallen, but I also had no energy to speak, so I nodded my head and went home, possibly leaving a sweat trail behind me. When I got home, all I could do was shower and go to bed, already imagining our massive loss and everyone staring at me disappointedly. When morning came, I awoke as soon as the sun hit my face. I grabbed myself a banana & toast for breakfast and rushed to the gym where the finals would be. Once I got there, I met with Palmers and my teammates. He laid out all the plans, and I realized I wouldn't be benched. "Remember, no matter if we win or we lose, I'm proud of all of you," assured Palmers. Not all of my teammates seemed to be enthusiastic. "Whatever, we just want to win," uttered a familiar voice; it was Oswald. I glared and grunted quietly at this realization. Oh, how I hated Oswald. He was the bully of the team who'd make fun of me for failing my shots. Heart of a Player by Sebastián Vázquez-Guillemard 133

He would laugh and point at me every time I stepped onto the court and even told some team members to never give me the ball. But I didn't have time to get annoyed; we've got a game to play. Our team jogged to the court, with everyone chanting a battle cry. We saw the opposing team arrive, with their red jerseys severely contrasting with the dominant blue-colored aesthetics of the gym. The referee came with the ball and threw it in the air as he blew his whistle. Our team snagged the ball and we dribbled to the opponent's basket. A player passed the ball to Oswald, who tried to make a shot, but it bounced off the board and into my hands. Since I wasn't surrounded by any opponents, I made a throw. However, my aim came up short, so the ball landed in the hands of an opponent. I heard and saw Oswald say something, but since it was drowned out by the cheers of parents, all I could make out was "idiot." The opponents dribbled to our side while running like Usain Bolt, with our team in hot pursuit. They prepared to make a shot but were thwarted by Toby, who is the star of our team. He dribbled quickly to the other side and dunked the ball. The entire gym roared with cheers. The opponents grabbed the ball and attempted to get payback, but in a few seconds, Oswald dove through them and snatched the ball. He hastily passed it to Toby, who now went for a threepointer and scored easily. For the next few minutes, the game consisted of only dribbling, shooting, and passing, with Toby scoring a basket or so. The opponents also couldn't get even one shot in. But everything changed in the last three minutes. At that point, I was feeling worn out and my body felt hot like burning coal, and the opponents realized this. Suddenly, they'd run up to me, fake me out, and make a basket every time they would shoot the ball. As if that wasn't bad enough, they all circled Toby every time someone passed him the ball, like sharks to a minnow. They had probably already recognized him as the main threat. As a result, he was forced to make rash decisions, like passing the ball to me, which was probably because I never had any opponents surrounding me. I'd always try to make the shot when he passed, but I also missed as much. After that, an opponent would swoop in, recover the ball, and score. Eventually, the half-time buzzer went off, which saved us from further humiliation. 134

I took a swift peak at the scoreboard, and I was not happy with what it read: "HOME: 12 AWAY: 27." We were the home team. When our entire team got together during half-time, it was an unpleasant situation. We were all yelling at each other as if it were an anarchy. I cannot recall exactly everything I heard, but I do remember hearing a few phrases well. "I can't believe we're getting creamed out there!" said someone in a panicky tone, while someone else in the same tone asked, "How are we going to catch up?" "It's over, we lost," said another teammate who was feeling hopeless. Meanwhile, Oswald was furious and only said insults like "This is all Jason's fault! Why is he even on the team?" Some people shouted "Yeah!" after that; I felt like a tiny ant, with Oswald being the giant kid with a magnifying glass ready to burn me. I was seriously questioning why am I still in the team if I can't play half as good as anyone. Eventually, I heard the voice of Toby shout "That's enough, Oswald! We're all in the same team, so like it or not, we're all in this together. Jason is our teammate, and we need to support him, not blame him!" "Toby's right," said Palmers as he approached us. "Jason is trying his hardest, just like I know everyone else is too. Being a great team player is not just about playing the best, it is about being supportive and helping your peers improve, something you should focus more on, Jason!" After that last sentence, I heard a quiet "Ooh" coming from a few teammates. Palmers continued with, "And what was it that I said before we started? The outcome does not matter; what matters is how much we try our best! So let's get back out there and keep on playing until the end." After that, we jogged back to the court despite not feeling confident. However, Palmers took me aside and said that I'd be benched for a while, probably because I was sweating tremendously and needed to rest. Since I could only sit down, I practically spaced out on the game, not paying attention to who had the ball, what commands Palmers gave, or what the score was. I thought to myself "This will be just like the first half again," with the opponents dominating us. I was wrong. After a long while, I heard the sound of someone falling, and when I looked at who it was, it was Toby! 135

Apparently, he had rolled his ankle while chasing after an opponent, and so he hurt his leg badly. Palmers quickly ran to the court to pick up Toby and carry him back to the bench, while the other teammates looked down, thinking that it was all over, and so did I. Before Toby was put down, he signaled me to approach him, and he then whispered "It's up to you now. You can finish this!" Palmers similarly said "What are you waiting for, Jason? Get in there!" I trembled as I began making my way to the court, and I felt my hands shake uncontrollably, my heart racing and even saw the basketball hoops laugh at me. Only when I looked back at Tony and Palmers and saw them smile was it that I felt a serious boost of energy flowing everywhere in my body. This energy made me feel more brave, more confident, and more powerful. I tuned out everything around me: the screaming of the audience, the sounds of athletes running, and I even stopped feeling the burning sensation in my legs. I approached the court with a smile, and when the referee blew the whistle again, the opponents took the ball. However, I bolted through them and snatched the ball, doing a lay up on their basket. To my surprise, the ball went in! As soon as it did, all of my teammates went wild, and all of a sudden, we had hope, and the basketball hoops stopped laughing. The opponents then took the ball and tried to score a lay up as well. When one of them went to take the shot, I slapped the ball out of the air and it hit the floor. I quickly picked it up and went for a three-pointer, which went in! The crowd went loud, and my teammates started chanting, "Jason!" I think I even saw Oswald smile at me and join in. I felt unstoppable and was ready to secure the win. For the remainder of the game, I intercepted the ball from the opponents, put many points on the scoreboard, and not once did I let them score on us. However, I did not realize how much time was left until I heard Palmers shout at us to gather where he was. When I glanced at the scoreboard, it read that we had thirty-five points, and the opponents were up by two, but we only had five seconds left. 136

Yet, just knowing that I scored almost twice more points than we did in the first half made me feel glorious. When we huddled, we discussed what play to make. "Five seconds left!" stated Palmers "Do we go for the tie or for the win?" "Forget the tie. Let's get the win!" shouted Toby. "Yeah! Let's go!" we all shouted together. We stepped into the court, the referee blew his whistle, and went for it. Oswald took the ball and threw it to me, but I was immediately swarmed by the opponents. Feeling desperate, I took a long step back and threw the ball with all my might. It went higher and higher, and I could not help but cover my eyes. I didn't open them until the buzzer went off. Eventually, I did and to my shock, the opponents were cheering and saw that our score hadn't changed; my shot had missed. At this realization, my eyes began forming waterfalls and I ran out of the gym. I felt like the biggest failure. I didn't know where I was going, but all I knew was that I needed to be alone. Eventually, I stopped at a secluded beach with rugged rocks scattered everywhere. I sat on the smooth, yet scorching sand, and started throwing rocks into the salty water as a way to cool down. I don't know how much time had passed, but I felt like it was an eternity. "You okay, Jason?" asked a voice coming from behind me. It was Toby. I didn't respond; my body wouldn't allow it. I didn't even look him in the eye. He decided to come up and sit next to me. That was when I quietly said, "I failed you. I failed you all." "You did NOT fail anyone," objected Toby. "You played incredible out there. In fact, I think you did better than me. Aside from that, you tried your best just like I did; just like everyone did." "I guess," I responded weakly. "Do you know why I like to play basketball?" Toby asked. "To have fun. Playing sports is not mainly about winning, it's about trying your best, to have fun, and to be part of a team." "He's right," suddenly said Palmers's voice. When I turned around, he was behind me. "And you know what? You're a winner. A true champion doesn't win the most; they try the most. And if you give it all your effort to play the game, you already win. 137