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Volume 112, Issue 1. Coraddi represents the art and literary community of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and has been published, in various forms, since 1897. PRIZE WINNERS Three equal prizes are awarded to our writing and visual art pieces, as judged by members of the UNCG community. Anyone may submit to Coraddi, but only non-staff members are eligible for the contest. WRITING, AS JUDGED BY TITA RAMIREZ: Caitlin McCann - Blue Adam Thorn - From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990) Lynne Buchanan - Indelible HONORABLE MENTION: Caitlin McCann - Forsaken Caitlin McCann - After Hours ART, AS JUDGED BY BELINDA HAIKES: Luke Flynt - Bicycle Melissa Sullivan - Untitled 1 Heath Montgomery - Mask CORADDI EXECUTIVE EDITOR Taryn Cowart PRODUCTION MANAGER Zack Franceschi LITERARY EDITOR Catherine Conley ART EDITOR Ashley Weinberger WEBMASTER Jay Lee FACULTY ADVISOR Terry Kennedy LITERARY STAFF Andrew Bauer Ryan Boye Laura Brown Silas Burke Kayla Cavenaugh Meen Cho Caitlin Conway Donovan Dorrance Katie Fennell Dustin A. Frost Lauren Gorman Katie Karambelas Victor Mendoza Amber Midgett Sara O’Brien Brian B. Schumacher Levon Valle Andrea Waldon ART STAFF Stephanie Case Elena Dalsimer Samuel G. Dalzell Alexa Feldman T. Lee Gunselman Ivan Gilbert Kelsey Hammersley Katie Minton Joseph Santaloci Max Shipley THANK YOU to: our hardworking volunteer staff, Terry Kennedy, the sweethearts in the University Media Board, Funda Mills, Elaine Ayers, judges Belinda Haikes and Tita Ramirez, and all of our contributors for their continued enthusiasm and commitment to this publication, as well as to Heath Montgomery for allowing us to use his piece Leaf Bustle for the cover. WRITING The Sultry Escape...................................................................10. Lauren Wilson Izanagi and Izanami..................................................................11. Tristin Miller Apple Butter..............................................................................12. Nightmare...................................................................................14. Mary Sullivan Lopez Leopard Shark..........................................................................15. Reid Drake Backyard Anthropology........................................................16. Chris Welsh Forsaken......................................................................................17. After Hours................................................................................18. Blue...............................................................................................19. Caitlin McCann Dinosaur Havoc......................................................................20. Fires in the Valley....................................................................21. Helen-Marie Pohlig The Cocooning of Pangaea................................................22. The Map-Maker.......................................................................24. Amanda Manis Marriage.....................................................................................25. David Wall Good Night...............................................................................26. Jackie Flannigan I, the Trestle Bench................................................................27. Foreboding Sacrifice.............................................................28. Andrea Waldon The Story: A Sestina.............................................................30. Michelle Esquillo Ursula..........................................................................................32. Unsportsmanlike Grandpa.................................................33. Mandy Arnold CONTENTS Bomber..........................................................................................34. Cameron Prevatte Unknown Lady in a Painting..................................................35. Alexandra Creola Open Air......................................................................................36. Michael Hauck Lovely.............................................................................................37. Darius Scott Requiem in the Dust...............................................................38. Radovan Brenkus The Ants’ Cost/ Benefit Analysis of the Kitchen Sink................................40. I Think That Tree is Fake.........................................................41. Larry Holderfield Linville...........................................................................................42. Paul Vincent Summer of 10th Grade...........................................................43. Alex Craig Here I Sit Upon the Very Toes of Spring.........................44. Gabriel Morgan K’che-sepi-ack.............................................................................45. Samuel Dalzell Filter...............................................................................................46. Curb-Sitters.................................................................................47. Amanda Manis Letters to Heaven.....................................................................49. Meen Cho Indelible........................................................................................53. Lynne Buchanan From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990)....................55. Adam Thorn Mission Control......................................................................57. Zane Gragg Satan Was Pissed...................................................................63. Sarah Sills Street Spirit..............................................................................69. Kelly White ART Parts and the Whole......................................................80-85. Robert McKnight drw3............................................................................................86. drw6.............................................................................................87. Heath Montgomery Bicycle........................................................................................88. Luke Flynt Reeds...........................................................................................89. Paul Vincent Family..........................................................................................90. Janie Ledford Radio ’54....................................................................................92. Ivan Gilbert Alexander Hatchett...............................................................93. Old School Boombox Untitled.......................................................................................94. Jessy Harding Cherokee Hands....................................................................95. Rebecca Bennett Untitled 1...................................................................................96. Melissa Sullivan Birds of Pray...........................................................................98. Corey Erba Fence...........................................................................................99. Matthew Thomason Roommate and Sandwhich.................................................100. Joseph Santaloci Expanding Mass.......................................................................101. Kristin Ashley Carl Ray Carter........................................................................102. Jared Watson Untitled........................................................................................103. Miri Han Native Tongue...........................................................................104. Alexa Feldman Leafy.............................................................................................105. Taryn Cowart Dark Places................................................................................106. In the Name of Our Progress..............................................107. Samuel G. Dalzell Untitled........................................................................................108. Ashley Weinberger Self Portrait................................................................................109. Max Shepard Fender Height............................................................................110. Trust.................................................................................................111. Amanda Nicholas Leaf Bustle...................................................................................112. Mask..............................................................................................113. Heath Montgomery Diagram for Departure...........................................................114. Karen Lepage Colophon.....................................................................................118. CONTENTS 8 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 9 10 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 11 The Sultry Escape Cold feet, dark bottles, and heat. She taps to the street’s seductive bold beat. The moonlit march sinks summer wishes, and hopeful spoons in dirty dishes. Fuming with rush and childhood blush, frail flowers must crush in the tread of contingency. Old faces were flushed as the sensuous strut left an honest lush on the kitchen floor. Lauren Wilson Izanagi and Izanami Their firstborn was an oil-stained lump of flesh. This is not what gods make. Ashamed, they did only what they could do. Tucked tight into a reed knitted basket, it was ofered to the empty hands of the sea. Rocked by the current, Caressed by the salt wind, The child stared back into the blank face of the newborn sky. Tristin Miller 12 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 13 Apple Butter Precious love in a jar. Opened the cupboard and saw The jar his mom gave me, The day before BJ died. She smacked his hand as he reached “I want a taste,” he beseeched “Not yet,” she scolded, “Let it set.” The day before BJ died. It’s unreal yet today How his young life gave way. As full as the fruit, Pulled out by the root. A bullet went stray. He got in the way. It should never have happened. It will never be right. We can never go back To the day before that night. Precious love in a jar. Opened the cupboard and saw The jar his mom gave me The day before BJ died. The taste would be sweet, But I just couldn’t eat Precious love in a jar Stored there for his keep. Again, she picks, She peels, she preserves. She cries, but still Gives the love he deserves. Flowers bloom, bees still buzz, Some things never change. I want to be who I was The day before BJ died. Mary Sullivan Lopez 14 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 15 Nightmare Brightly colored clowns pass by Like lemmings to the sea. They laugh and talk And plot and scheme But never notice me. Standing by the side I watch And never interfere. Robed in black and white, I cry One red Paliachi tear. Leopard Shark It’s beautiful. Mary Sullivan Lopez Reid Drake 16 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 17 Backyard Anthropology when i was young and in love with Adolf Rupp instead of Faye Dunaway, my father paid someone else’s father, one with dinosaur tar beneath his fingernails, to cement a basketball net into our driveway. i shot and shot, and sometimes missed so badly the ball would jackrabbit over the fence. i’d trampoline off the monkeygrass, one hand on the garage, to retrieve my round, orange ego. i’d find it shaded by young, Jung saplings, where we’d buried the pets we’d killed. we were an uppermiddleclass family with guinea pigs, small birds, and goldfish. there were many latchkey homicides. i never saw her but suspected Dr. Kubler-Ross of using treebark calligraphy on the gravemarkers and toilet flush on the bodies. Sherlock Holmes never suspected; he was whacked out on morphine with Eugene O’Neill’s mother. they never played basketball, or helped to dig tiny holes for animals i once named. Forsaken The horses are dead. So is the ground that absorbed their decay. A rabbit is caught in the sharp, rusted fence. Its hind leg gives a final twitch. The peeling paint of the abandoned farmhouse flakes of in the wind. Bare winter trees surround the house like an army of skeletons. One day, before the house falls into itself, I will dig the bullet out of the kitchen wall from the day grandma tried to kill grandpa. Chris Welsh Caitlin McCann 18 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 19 After Hours During the day, when things were quieter, my family and I listened to our upstairs neighbor play the piano. The notes drifted through the ceiling. When her fiancé died, she only played her piano at night. Tangling themselves with the sound of a hand striking a tear-dampened cheek, the notes fell through the ceiling and hit my ears like rain on a cracked sidewalk. My father told me her fiancé shot himself. I imagined the moonlight, leaking through the slit of his blinds, shining upon the Jackson-Pollock-like blood stain splattered across his apartment’s white walls. I wonder if the gunshot still echoes in the nights of his neighbors. Her slow, sad music eventually stopped. Now, all I have are the ghosts of the piano’s notes and my nightlight; pulsating like a heart. Blue I sat on a bench at the park downtown. Stifling air burst from the iron grate beneath my feet. I watched birds collide with the windows of the buildings that cast a shadow over the city. I wanted the glass to burst, for the tattered birds to fall to the ground like stones into a shallow pond. A woman sat next to me. Her eyes were clouded. She asked me the color of the sky. I did not answer. I did not know how to explain what blue is. Caitlin McCann 20 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 21 Dinosaur Havoc I have never seen you run The way you did when you grabbed my hand, Told me not to look back, A mask of desperate fright crawling up your neck, Over your mouth, and into your eyes— Justly so, since the whole ground was being ripped apart Beneath our sneakers, Like an expedited tear in two tectonic plates. I do not want to imagine what the creature Must have actually looked like in his fury, Heart beating a million smashes a minute, Ribs snapping, buildings demolished, Twenty-seven loopy goats devoured in a flash, Gardener screaming for his life, Wondering who will pick up the kids from school Since mamma is getting a perm. Fires in the Valley I am waiting for the days when night will fall and lead me down beaten moonlit paths, cutting through jungle vines and palm fronds bigger than hippo snouts, when the heat will drag my body, a heavy mass of melted clay, up and down the twisted mountainsides and the fires in the valley will send shivers through my heart because a spirit is unable to remain quite calm on feverish Indian nights like these and a body cannot sit still when it is finally in the place it yearns to be. Helen-Marie Pohlig 22 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 23 The Cocooning of Pangaea tell me about continents and oceans and I’ll tell you about highways and planes. continents— fall apart you say, oceans— destroy them. and I say: but look, that isn’t an ending, that’s just change. Pangaea was beautiful, it didn’t need to change. and I say: we all need to change, even beauty must adapt. and I say: I adapted, Pangaea adapted, why can’t you? all that distance, you say: all those miles. there is an ocean between us. and I say: highways— were made for miles. planes— don’t care about oceans. [we sit in silence for some time, to consider this.] finally— what if I can’t find you? you say. and I say: beautiful, I’ll draw you a map. Amanda Manis 24 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 25 The Map-Maker I am settled here—a geographer. a cartographer. an anthropologist. see —I always thought to settle meant to cease to move, but I am heartbeats-fluttering faster than ever. I am a traveler. a student of the world and it is mine and it is ours. I know people. I’ve watched them. most have no idea what the word ‘world’ even means. they’d say a planet. they’d pull out a map of all the continents and say see, there, that’s the world. I’d say no. I’d draw them a map with notations in the margins saying things like the amount of lines on your palm or the exact coordinates of your birthmark. (six hundred eighty three. thirty-seven point two-nine, twelve point three-five.) I’d show them where landmasses form and explain the concept of plate tectonics; how your hand slides along the small of my back. how, curled up, I fit snug against your side. I’d make a note on the evolution of breaths and beats and then another on rotations and weathering. I’d make a heat index chart. I’d say absolute zero is when I wake to your breath on my neck and for a second we cease motion, forget to exhale. last, I’d draw a time-line. there would be no start or end date. it would simply read: foreverforeverforalwaysforever. years down the road, a noted cartographer would find my map and, in stunned silence, realize that he had been doing it wrong the whole time. Marriage Later, she would come to realize That the bruises were not fruits of love. But by then, she really would not care. Amanda Manis David Wall 26 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 27 Good Night Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman. Who traveled the world and sunk and swelled and disappeared. Part of her went to the sky through the clouds through the watercolor sunsets and the glorious warm mornings and she could dance around the rings of Jupiter and laugh among the stars. Part of her went to the jungle with it thick green forests. She became one with the animals in the bright brilliant oranges, yellows, blues, pinks, purples, reds, blacks, whites, and browns. She reflected them like a rainbow and in their chorus she sung. And part of her went to the ocean where she could be surrounded forever by the cool deep water and she found rest in the darkness in the night time of the ocean and the flash lights of the luminescent fishes and comfort in the arms of the octopus. And through these places in all her parts she found her peace. I, the Trestle Bench Placed as a public service in the mid-city park, beneath the shelter of a giant Oak, smug with pride. I, counselor of many shattered hearts, crushed under the pressure of their own beating. The old, battered from abusive years, find their comfort on my trestles. Their canes gently rest against my own weathered graying wood. I, a simple bench, a product of extensive budget cuts. I have no back for those coming to lean on. My humble form provides the bare essentials one needs to sit. I have the technology of a rock. The little girl makes a jungle gym of me when her mother stops for a conversation, or to take a long drag on a cheap cigarette, contemplating her mourning. I am an unsophisticated chaise. All who find me never look. I, the lounge chair on which a morning newspaper is read, stories and obituaries searched for concrete signs of change. I, love-maker to the earth, penetrate her with my solemn presence; alone. A & S, is roughly carved in my seat by immature lovers, longing to prove what they do not feel, faking passionate moments that do not exist. I saw them fight the Tuesday after. I see the years; wishing themselves away, whisking themselves away day after day. Jackie Flannigan Andrea Waldon 28 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 29 Foreboding Sacrifice I wake up to the newly placed ring on my left hand, Walls, covered in shiny, multi-colored beer signs, And clothing, littering the small amount of floor space. A man breathes heavily beside me. I am the girl with the formal living room. I cover my walls with floral paintings, With paintings from foreign countries, With history. My carpets match. I lie next to this handsome man, Observing this alien land That was his bachelor pad. Beer cans line his living room table. They are neighbors with Oreo and Snicker’s wrappers. His bathroom sink is decorated with facial shavings And old toilet paper roles lie gracefully on the floor. I am the girl with the perfect kitchen. A clean kitchen is a happy kitchen. My glasses are nestled in their cupboard homes Neatly arranged by shape and size in their rows. A family-sized Captain Crunch box Rests on his end table, Shoving my stylishly placed candles Mercilessly out of the way. I am the girl with the sheer, white curtains, Potted flowers on her terrace, And a matching floral bathroom set. His kitchen table serves as a filing cabinet. Dirty plates litter the kitchen counters, Dirty plates decorated with crusted two-day old hot wings And peanut butter and jelly. I was the girl with seasonal placemats, Fresh flowers on every table, And everything in its place. Such is the sacrifice of a neat freak in love. Andrea Waldon 30 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 31 The Story: A Sestina They called it romance once upon a time— the damsel in the tower, in the tale, the prince who wins his princess in the end. Back then, they said it was a dream-come-true. Nowadays they say it’s just a dream. No one believes in heroes anymore. Nobody tells those stories anymore: the remnants of some long-lost golden time that now exist only in dusty dreams as nothing more than children’s fairy tales. We don’t delude ourselves that they are true. We all know how the story goes-—and ends. What happens after ever-after ends? That’s not how we tell stories anymore. We’re looking for an answer, something true. Anything else is just a waste of time. Who cares about the moral of the tale? There are other ways to capture dreams. They do not want the magic of the dream. They want the pot of riches at the end. It doesn’t matter who will hear the tale, it’s not as if they listen anymore. To tell the story would take too much time and they don’t know how much of it is true. The story can be false, or can be true. Reality can languish in the dream and strand the dreamer in the mists of time. You think you know how all the stories end? The rules are not so simple anymore. Come here, my child, and listen to the tale. They’ll argue this is just a fairy tale. They’ll say it’s nonsense, say it can’t be true. They’ll tell you not to listen anymore, but know this, child: they who deny their dreams live only life, and that is where they end. The dreamer lives the story for all time. Don’t wonder anymore about the tale. Just give it time, for time will prove it true. You’ll live the dream until the story ends. Michelle Esquillo 32 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 33 Unsportsmanlike Grandpa He plays dirty. He doesn’t play fair. He’ll bite, and pinch, And pull your hair. He never bunts the ball, Or takes one for the team. When he doesn’t get his way, He stomps and swears and screams. He calls a ball a strike And pitches really hard. He’s been known to cause a bruise or two. His curveballs leave a scar. My buddies run away in fear When he steps up to the plate. Their shrieks can be heard all over— The town, the county, the state! He swings for the moon every time, So watch out when he’s hitting. ‘Cause backyard ball’s no joke When Grandpa’s babysitting. Mandy Arnold Ursula The life of Ursula Reversula Is completely topsy turvy. Everyone else likes the straight and narrow; Ursula prefers the curvy. If we all agree that that is that And no one strays a bit, Ursula will certainly shake things up And think the opposite. I know this, for I’ve seen her myself Doing the strangest things. She cleans her house all winter long And sings carols in the spring. There can be a line quite long From here to infinity. Ursula will step to the very front And huf impatiently. I see her son, Amanda, as well, Always on the streets, Driving his mother’s car around With Ursula in the baby seat. But I guess it’s better that Ursula doesn’t drive And she doesn’t do the mowing, ‘Cause she wears her glasses On the back of her head And can’t see where she’s going. Mandy Arnold 34 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 35 Unknown Lady in a Painting The plastered paint is cracking. The canvas is tearing at the seams. In frozen time she smiles, But in silent night she screams. Perpetual pain permeates the eyes Of she who sees but cannot speak, Cannot gesture, cannot move. With waterless tears she cannot weep. Unchanging in her faded glory, The finished stroke of an artist’s brush, She sits in torturous solitude Feeling the weight of ages crush. And as she watches day turn to night She can’t but hope to dream Of life, of breath, of love and loss, Of freedom she has never known, but often seen. Bomber Have you ever been naked? No, seriously, have you ever been naked? I’ll admit, I have. I’ve streaked through a cloud of my friends like a bat out of Hell just to get them to look. But have you ever taken a seat and sat for hours on end, The cold bare back on your flesh and the light shining off of you like a magnified sun? All eyes are on you as glue keeps you fixated in the same position for what feels like hours. By about this time, sweat was dripping down my exposed body as someone cracked a subconscious smile. They weren’t sure if they did it, but I saw it creep over their face. No, this adventure would have to wait, because suddenly.... I couldn’t find my pants! This is what I wanted, but how I hated it at that moment. My heart was beating so fast, it felt like a bomb being set of. The wires were false emotions, The iron casing was uncertainty, and the ignition was my thoughts. At that moment, all I could hear was the panting of my own breath and the sounds of laughter, burying me alive inside the chilly plastic chair. As I sat there, bleeding with nails in my hope, the light started to grow warmer and warmer until it was so hot, it was almost wonderful. Cameron Prevatte Alexandra Creola 36 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 37 Open Air with my hand out the car window I know what it is to be an astronaut, floating in space with a head full of thoughts on what I left behind. cold air brushing by feels infinitely still. my pale skin against the black background dulls the stars of the passing cars and the moon seems to be hiding behind headlights tonight. suspended in time, at 73 down the galactic highway, 400 km never felt so close as it does now. above the beauty, among the giants, remember to breathe: that’s the real challenge. Lovely Lovely crept pitter patter (bottom stair) Lovely dips in pink satin blossom sucking hips, Lovely sits on a mahogany framed chair with taut, taupe tassels at the outer corners of each leg rattling as Lovely taps her prosthetic peg. Michael Hauck Darius Scott 38 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 39 Quo vadis? I am standing face-to-face with naked being. My head got stuck at the base of it, and then it coolly stripped me of my existence. Thinking has caused more pain than all the tears on earth, collected up at every step and drunk down to drying point. Is there anything at all bigger? Any kind of activity merely wastes my time, and its bitter-sweet fruit is crushed here underfoot. As if homeless I have nowhere to sleep. I miss love in a warm, safe place that I can always return to. All sense has left the road. Spurned, I wait for mercy. It’s possible to be or not to be. What is better? Requiem in the Dust The Everlasting Pain A whiskered lunatic with the soul of a child is pulled away from a nurse, while elsewhere a few punks drive a skull with a thighbone for a hole in one. Later one vomits into the crypt of an ancient aristocratic family. God fled from the chapel, when he’d had his fill of transience, the wolfpack hastening after its prey clamped its eyes on his footprints. The Forecast Whoever looks ahead can see his death, and who looks back will encounter it. Half-sleeping I enter the cave. The opening behind me was erased with the blast. I am losing my face. Rid me of the ring that binds me with the dark, for this night is sacrificed among the last ones. Radovan Brenkus 40 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 41 I Think That Tree is Fake drinking black coffee in a white room waiting why do the couches always feel like this waiting please, don’t cough on me don’t sit over here don’t talk waiting this is the worst cofee ever worse than that gas station i wonder how long those mints have been there does anybody ever eat those mints they look more like lint no, not over here sit closer to the bathroom where you can see the tv i’m planning to read that magazine next, don’t take it she’s taking a mint i can’t believe it she took my magazine and a lintmint what is that in the bottom of my cup cofee dirt cofee earth cofee grounds cofee mud puddle in my cup i can see my future waiting drinking cofee in a white room i should have sat closer to the restroom i think that tree is fake Larry Holderfield The Ants’ Cost/Benefit Analysis of the Kitchen Sink Fifty-three percent of scouts report a barren plane prone to floods, filled with the tantalizing aroma of food. Thirty-six percent of scouts carry all they can obtain, overloaded, a river of sisters neatly queued. Eleven percent of scouts, awaited in vain, never return. We may never know what has ensued. 42 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 43 Linville Dylan and I sat, Cooking our dinner In the gorge By stovetop. We sat With our backs to the Cold, leaf littered ground, Curled, nursing the meal. A sizable oak, adjacent the Kitchen and weary from Passing years, creaked out A discomforting pain: …crack!…crraaakk! Our scoutmaster poised His bald head from the One-man tent, discerning The possibility of disaster. Moments passed Unchallenged, the Macaroni nearly Tender. The evening light sagged Like a wet towel, slippery And fell. Night now Blanketed the gorge. Crickets Began chirping dewy lullabies That pervaded every natural Boundary. Summer of 10th Grade The simple maple wood of the stairs bowed beneath your rubber soles, like the rough calloused paws of an elephant, grinding splinters out of its soft shelves. Your voice trumpeting, your dominance was absolute. And me, cowering at the end of the hall, legs trembling, if only they could see me now. Your hands, fingers kneading the soft, fleshy dough of your palm, muscles flexing, tendons and sinews grinding, posturing to make contact first. Eyes snapping and sparking, setting fire to the maple. Nose, strong and bulbous, in and out, spewing thick, hot steam. Tail swishing, the stark white of your ivory tusks blinding in the dim light of the hall. I hope she’s worth it. Your eyes are pinpricks in the night, glowing with white-hot hate. Beneath your skin, thick membranes twisting wet and pumping blood and life and anger, filtering clean the toxins from your cells. Your eyes hollow. You charge. My body is frozen. Paul Vincent Alex Craig 44 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 45 Here I Sit Upon the Very Toes of Spring As the gamebirds haunt This hill on which I sleep And scold the very Marrow of my soul, Their yodels sing The nighttime’s sighs, Of dreams far older than I can dream. Here I sit upon The very toes of spring Like a child at the edge Of his front porch. I kick my feet over oblivion In these Scottish hills With the wind trampling my sleeping bag. K’che-sepi-ack The Chesapeake flows with the same murky salts and nutrients that comprise my own blood. There is something vastly unsettling about these dying and antiquated towns, rusted industrial carcasses leaking petroleum and iron oxide and stinking of long-abandoned paper mills. These places have long outlived their purpose; they will sit in tangled, corroding heaps, relics of our ancient industrial heritage, until the tide finally collects them and bleaches away the scarce minerals that remain. Indeed, this place is haunted. And yet, there truly is nowhere else that I have seen in my life that can compare to the dark and lonesome majesty of this muddy estuary. I have tasted its water on my lips, its tides have nourished me since the cradle. My flesh is composed of its mud, my blood its waters. My soul has long been entranced by its mystical and intoxicating air. The sailboats on Wicomico, the canvas of their rigs bone-white in the hot sun; the dark and pungent sediment that seems to stay imbedded in the soles of my feet for weeks; the dense subtropical forests that sweat in the humidity and press all the way up against the very edge of the shore; the sun- and salt-bleached driftwood left in dry heaps on the desolate beaches like twisted carvings meticulously hewn by some mysterious and unseen sculptor. Upon the soft banks of this vast bay, long after the sea has reclaimed the tired, rusted villages, and long after my ashes have been laid to rest in the salt and motherly breeze, my descendants will live and play and bathe, naked, with the sun softly glancing their graceful, olive-tanned skin. The beauty of it will be startling, haunting, otherworldly. Until the end of time, my people will inhabit these dense forests and narrow strands, and they will always taste on their tender tongues the sacred salts of their ancestry. Gabriel Morgan Samuel Dalzell 46 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 47 Curb-Sitters I ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and she tells me she already has, so I say no, what do you want to be when you grow up and she says an octopus, an eight-legged creature of the deep: solitary, strong. I tell her that’s the kind of answer a child would give but she tilts her head and smiles. she tells me that if she hasn’t grown up already, she must still be a child. I admit my long-legged gloss-toned friend has a point, but then I also tell her she’s a smart ass, because she is. I change the subject. I say let’s look at the moon and she pulls her face and tells me she would rather look at dirt. dirt, yes dirt. everyone looks at the moon she says, everyone. what’s special about that? why don’t we look at something no one has ever looked at before. let’s go watch the streetlamps, let’s go watch the sidewalks. I tell her she’s dificult and she tells me I’m cliché and we end up sitting on the curb in silence. I look at the moon and she’s probably looking at some car tire or the McDonald’s cup that’s been thrown out of a passer-by’s window and I want to force her chin upward, I want to make her see that light in the sky but I can’t look at her and I can’t think to touch her quivering chin because the thought of it makes me want to cry and I know she already has begun to, maybe because she’ll never be an octopus or maybe because I called her a child or maybe she’s just crying because, we haven’t looked at the same thing in a dog-year and it’s beginning to wear on us. it’s beginning to take a toll and I want to look at the McDonald’s cup or take her hand and go look at stop-signs but I can’t. because I’m so frightened that if I give in to her ways, she’ll realize how weak I am, and she’ll leave me. and I’m stubborn, I’m a wild-boar, I’m a horse at the edge of the water and I’m dying of thirst but pride denies me of water. Filter if you wanted to, you’d know where to find me, my red hair burning fierce against my cool pale skin. maybe it is raining out and the car won’t start or the neighbor’s dog ran away and I hear him howling at my door and I should be asleep but I am pacing, pacing barefooted up and down the gentle hallways of my old house with the red front door and the hardwood floors. maybe, or probably, there is a copy of Cummings or Vonnegut or Bukowski in my hands and I am crying—not because I am sad, but because I can’t remember my favorite excerpt and I know you would love it if you were here, which you’re not. that’s probably another reason I’m crying, and I think about finding the passage and how I wouldn’t be able to share it with you anyway, because over the phone my voice may quaver and it would lose its magic and then you wouldn’t love it as much as I did and I can’t bear that thought. sometimes when I breathe, I imagine the particles finding their way to your mouth, your lips, your nose, your lungs, and I feel dizzy then, when I envision my breath swimming through you, kissing you everywhere I never could, and then I imagine the same for me, welcome your exhaled breath into my body, smile at the thought that you are me and I, you. this is not a love note. I don’t want you to think something dramatic like I would die without you; you are not the sun or the moon or the stars in my sky. more, you are the filter I use to look at them and they are all the more beautiful for that. Amanda Manis 48 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 49 Letters to Heaven Letter 1 – August 7th Hi, It’s so hot here! The people are okay, not the best looking bunch, though. I can’t really write much, there’s this thing I have to go to soon. Just wanted to let you know I got here okay! I’ll write more later. Bye. Letter 2 – October 19th Hi again, Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote. Did you get my last letter? I do hope you write back soon. Maybe you’re just waiting for me to write more about what’s going on down here. It’s kind of just the regular old stuf. I’ve seen some friends I knew back in high school and college. Even some professors who I absolutely hated. Can you say awkward? Yeah. The woman in charge doesn’t seem that bad, despite everything I heard about her before coming down here. She does like to keep things clean, which is hard to do with all the heat. Sometimes she lets us use the AC but that’s only on rare occasions. I don’t want you to think she’s a tyrant, though! She likes to joke around as much as the next person but when you’re in charge, you’re in charge, right? Well, it’s time for dinner. Let me know what’s going on with you! I’m literally dying to know! Bye. Letter 3 – November 1st Hi there, I’m wondering if I got your address right. I haven’t gotten a single letter from you yet. Maybe you haven’t received any of mine but I thought we had a promise to always keep in touch, no matter what. I guess you’re busy up there, doing your thing and what not, but it’d be nice to hear from you every once in a while. It’s creepy the way time passes here. I actually have this theory that time just stands still. Every watch I’ve looked at is broken and I I settle on looking at the cup through the reflection in her saltwater eyes and she asks me to stop staring and she asks me to hold her hand and she asks me what’s going to happen to us and all I can say is I don’t know, I don’t know. because I don’t. and I do. we both know. because I still can’t look directly at the cup and she’s avoiding the moon at all costs and we are breaking because we haven’t looked at the same goddamned thing in months and, to be honest, I don’t even think we know how to anymore. Curb-Sitters • Amanda Manis Meen Cho 50 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 51 more if I forgot your name. There’s nothing really to write. I’m forgetting words, too. People here don’t really want to have conversations. They just sit around and throw rocks at the walls. I’m starting to do that, too. I don’t know when I’ll hear from you or when I’ll write again but I hope it’s soon. You should come visit me, please. Or at least write me a letter. I promise I’ll stop writing if you just send me some words, please. Bye. Letter 7 – July 1st I don’t know why I bother writing to you anymore. It just makes me sadder and sadder every time I check my mail and find nothing. People are starting to talk more. I keep hearing about some war or fight or something but I just can’t seem to muster up enough energy to ask people what it’s about. The boss made some kind of announcement but all I do these days is throw those same rocks at the same walls, hoping to make a tunnel to you. Have you heard anything about this? I didn’t even realize there was anything left to fight for, other than you, of course, but I don’t know if I even believe in you anymore. The rumor is that if we win, we’ll get to move to better facilities. I don’t know where but I think it’ll be closer to you, if you even care. I guess if this is a war it means that there will be death. An escape. If you don’t hear from me again it means I died again. Bye. Letter 8 – July 5th I’ve found some time to write you one last letter. Everyone here is so antsy. Some people are saying the war won’t even happen and some are saying that the enemy is too scared to fight. I don’t know what to believe. I just wish I could have seen you or talked with you before leaving for war. It’s almost been one year. Do you still remember me? These past few nights I’ve been having dreams about life. Remember you used to call me your baby? Oh, and remember that night we danced to that song, what was it called? It was by the Beetles, or was it the Beatles? I remember that time we stole newspapers from peoples’ yards and gave them to people who would never get the paper. The roses and the flowers and the salt rocks in the sun. I remember the fighting too and I’m sorry. I was wrong. I wish I could be sure that you’ll get this letter. I wonder if you’ve gotten any of my other letters. It’s okay that you haven’t written back. And it’s okay that you’ve moved on. I can’t expect you to always be mine. But I have a feeling I won’t be coming back from this. I’m not sure I want to come back. People tell me it’ll get better with time and I’ll forget everything that happened in that part of my life but I don’t want to. I want to remember everything and the only way to do that is to die again. There are rumors that when you die here something amazing happens. They can’t find new batteries to put in mine anywhere. What’s weird is that all of them, even mine, stopped on the same time. 2:45. It’s so weird. Write back with your theories on this! I miss you. Bye. Letter 4 – December 25th Merry Christmas! They have an odd way of celebrating it down here. It’s not even a kind of celebration, really. It’s hard to explain. I don’t even know all the details but I’m excited about New Years. Something BIG is supposed to happen. Please write back soon. It doesn’t even feel like winter here. We do get ice cream with dinner tonight, though, so it’s a nice treat. It’s getting kind of lonely here. I tried to make friends when I first got here but no one really cares about much. Bye! Letter 5 – February 14th People always look at me when I write these letters to you. I actually got into a fight with a couple of people because they were making fun of me for writing to you. They think I’m crazy for believing you’ll ever write back after I tell then to whom I’m writing. I believe you will; you’re just busy. But now that it’s after the holidays, I’m sure you’ll find time to send me something. I really do hope I remembered your address correctly. It would suck if these letters were just floating around in limbo. Well, today is Valentine’s Day. Remember that one time I was drying flowers on all of the windowsills and you thought they were trash? I searched through all of the trash cans until I pieced the flowers back together. I don’t know why I’m thinking of that day, but it was a good day. I miss those days. Are you ever going to write back? I don’t want to get angry but I don’t know why you won’t write. Especially today. No one here cares about today. I wish I could come visit you but they say that it’s impossible. They say that you’ve forgotten about me and I should stop wasting the ink and time. I tell myself not to get angry with you but sometimes I find myself punching the walls until my fists are on fire. Please write back soon. Bye. Letter 6 – May 27th? Hello, It’s been a while since the last letter. Sorry. This place makes me forget things. Sometimes I wake up and I can’t remember my name. I wrote it on my hand. I wrote your name, too. I’d hate to forget my name, but I would hate myself Letters to Heaven • Meen Cho 52 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 53 Indelible She asks if it’s going to hurt and I want to scream at her, Of course it’s going to hurt, you moron. It’s a fucking tattoo. I bite the insides of my cheeks and try to smile. “It’s not that bad,” I tell her, “and besides, it’ll be over before you know it.” She stands in front of me with her pants undone, rolled down to the top of her ass-crack. She’d asked for “something tribal with a Chinese symbol that means ‘forever’ in the middle.” I found the character in a Japanese dictionary, but I don’t tell her this. I apply the stencil and she walks to the full-length mirror hanging on my studio door and turns, this way, now that way. She pulls her jeans up and looks again, making sure the branches flowing from either side of the symbol are still visible over the top of her pants. She smiles, and I can tell she thinks it looks sexy. In the industry, we call these upper-butt tattoos “ass-antlers” or “tramp stamps.” She sits on the raised stool in front of me giving me access to her lower back. I give my machine a final once-over, dip my needles in the first cap of ink, position my foot pedal, and begin. To her credit, she doesn’t jump or cry out. Most of them do. When I finish the outline I tell her we can take a break if she wants. She stands and stretches, and asks for a cigarette. She doesn’t look like a smoker. I hand her a smoke and notice her hands are shaking. Some people shake when they get a tattoo, some throw up, some pass out, some go into shock…I even had one guy crap his pants. The body reacts, sometimes violently, to this sort of insult. A tattoo is an intentional injury. Clients would do well to remember that. I open the door for her and we’re headed outside when she collapses. “Fucking great.” I drop to one knee beside her. “Hey! You okay?” I shake her. What was her name? Cammie? Callie? I roll her over and there’s blood on her face. She must’ve smacked her nose on the concrete step. I’m about to go grab a cold, wet rag when I realize she’s not breathing. I put my head to her chest and listen. She’s wearing a little black top with skinny straps and I can smell her fabric softener and I’m aware that my two-day stubble is probably scratchy on her smooth skin, but I can’t say that you get to go back. Like, go back and relive the happiest moments of your life. But others say that if you die again here you stop existing. I think I’d enjoy either one right now. So I guess this is it? Maybe I’ll hear from you or maybe I’ll see you or maybe not, but I know that when I feel the last breath of air release from my lungs, I’ll try to paint a perfect picture of you as I fall. This is my final goodbye. Letter 1 – July 9th The doctors say that you’re getting better and that I can finally start writing to you. I received all of your letters. Thank you for them. It really killed me to have to read those letters and not be able to write back, but the doctors told me if I did write back, they’d throw my letters away. I’m so sorry, baby. I hope you really are getting better. They said the therapy is helping a lot. Please stop hurting yourself. The doctors said that once you stop having these ideas for good I could come visit you! Wouldn’t that be exciting? Your birthday is coming up soon. Do you remember what we did last year? We planted those rose petals you liked to dry so much. I don’t know why, but there’s a plant growing there now. I water it everyday. I attached a picture of it with this letter; hopefully the doctors will let you keep it. Happy birthday. I’m so happy you’re doing better and I can’t wait to see you again. Letters to Heaven • Meen Cho Lynne Buchanan 54 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 55 From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990) My dad used to tell me bedtime stories about a character he made up named Ben the Bear that was constantly in search of the moon. My dad was raised in Virginia in a large upper-class family that was rich enough to aford a black maid. Last night, I went by to ask him about a couch and he was screwing the neighbor on the floor, but nobody deserves to be lonely I guess. I have this picture of him fishing where he looks like this dumb overweight kid that I would have seen while I was fishing. When he was a kid, he played the drums. He stopped playing the drums and got herpes in high school. I think his brother John traumatized him by wearing a werewolf costume into his room one night, screaming, “I’m gonna get you Jimmy,” or something to that efect. My dad got a business degree and hated his father, still hates his father although his father drank himself to death. When we moved into our house on Hermitage Road in Greensboro, he took pictures of all the rooms that were recently abandoned so he could track the process of their reinvention. He watches them grow like children or plants. He would take a picture of a room that had been painted a new shade of peach or of the deck in the process of renovation. He takes pictures of new cars or mopeds that he buys, or sometimes of the house from the view of the street because he’s trying to sell it, but something is wrong with the insulation in the attic. There is only one picture I have of my dad and me together where he doesn’t have a beer belly or hasn’t adorned himself with visors or some kitschy garment like a fanny-pack. It was taken in a photo booth at a fairground in Myrtle Beach in the spring of 1990 on my fourth birthday. I look vague and innocent but I’m not that way now; neither are any of my friends. We’re all crooked or dishonest in some way; somebody is always using someone for something else. I’m not trying to get at the idea of lost innocence. The first time I thought that my dad could quite possibly be insane was a Saturday afternoon when I was twelve. I was in the bathroom trying to shave my unibrow to give the impression of a natural division. He was on the back porch cleaning leaves out of the gutter muttering. There was a thud and then an, “Oh shit, goddamnit.” He had fallen of the ladder he was standing on and landed on the Jacuzzi cover. I heard him rolling of the cover of the Jacuzzi, panting, and then he said, “Oh, I’m sorry lord, I’m sorry, forgive me.” It shocked me at the time. My dark Caucasian face looks up at me when I’m reading in Center hear anything. Just…nothing at all. I run to the phone and dial 911. I’m explaining that I know nothing about C.P.R., no, she wasn’t taking any drugs that I know of, yes, she just collapsed without warning, and I’m holding this girl’s head in my lap and wiping dirt and blood of her upper lip, then the paramedics are here and I’m trying to stay out of their way. A cop pulls in behind the ambulance, walks over to me and takes down my statement, then asks for the girl’s name. I tell him to hang on a minute. I go back inside and grab my backpack and dig around until I find her paperwork. I grab her purse from the counter, and then I go back out. “Her name is Cassie Stokes,” I say, looking at the line on the form where she’d written her name about an hour ago. The medics ignore me. They talk on the radio, write on papers attached to metal clipboards, and speak with the cop in low voices. A sheet is pulled over her face. I call my cab then lock up the shop. Through the glass door I see an imprint of the bloody outline of Cassie’s unfinished tattoo on the linoleum. Must’ve happened when I rolled her over. Fuck it, I’ll clean it tomorrow. One of the paramedics calls me over and tells me they’re taking her to Baptist Hospital. I’m unsure of what to say. I settle for telling him that I didn’t really know her, but that I’ll bet there’s a cell phone in her purse that’ll give him the number of someone who does. I hand him the purse, then my cabbie pulls in behind the police car, looking wary. I climb in my cab, looking the other way as the medics load her body in the back of the ambulance. Heavy drinking is another form of intentional injury. I’m going to intentionally injure the shit out of myself tonight, I think, and then I tell the cabbie where I want to go. Her mother calls me two days later . She tells me that Cassie died of a brain embolism and that there’s nothing anyone could have done. That it’s just one of those random things that happens. That it’s all part of God’s plan. I’m thinking how bad it sucks to be in a world where you can be young and pretty and your brain just blows a gasket with no warning. She tells me she is so glad Cassie wasn’t alone at the end. I think about how little I knew Cassie Stokes and wonder at how alone we are. All the time. My next appointment walks in the door. I have to get to work, I tell her. I’m sorry, I tell her. She’s crying as I hang up the phone. My client is standing on the spot where Cassie’s tattoo left its mark on my floor. If he were to look down, he’d see nothing but a clean patch of linoleum. I shake his hand and say, “It’s John, right? Tell me what I can do for you, John.” I smile and listen, carefully, as he tells me what he wants. Indelible • Lynne Buchanan Adam Thorn 56 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 57 Mission Control I grip her hips with my knees and squeeze as I hold her arms to the ground. Her fingers hook at the air, and her legs bend up against my ass and back, drawing ineffectual little curves in the air. Her eyes are wet and specks of reflection shine from her irises. I say, we’ve got to survive this if we’ve survived everything so far. She coughs a practiced, forceful cough to blow dust that she may have imagined out of her lungs. As my fingers meet hers, her hand stifens into a jagged melody of agony against my palm. “Who says we’ve survived, anyway?” her voice is shattered glass and quiet desperation. I press my back against the stone above us in convulsion. She yelps in surprise. “Are you alright?” she asks through gritted teeth. I smile, or probably grit my teeth, too, and say, about as alright as you are. Zoloft. Celexa. Concerta. Adderall AR. Xanax. A powder kaleidoscope of things to keep us happy and healthy. A building falls victim to a catastrophe we can’t name and we lay here, under it, discovering that we were addicts. That those shades screaming from behind trash cans on our way home could really teach you something about pain. That we don’t know if we want to live long enough to see if we come out alive. Her hand claws at my back, and I bury my face against her shoulder. She’s City Park (I’ve been using this picture as a bookmark for the past week) and I ask it, “What implications do you have?” wanting it to teach me something. There wasn’t anything to worry about at the age of four. A bee died one day while I was waiting for my mother to lock the door of our townhome. That was horrible. Anyway, in the picture there is a plywood backdrop that brings out the contrast of red and white on my dad’s polo shirt and is forgiving of his receding hairline. I’m sitting in his lap and have a crooked smile in place in the first shot. My white t-shirt blends into one of the white stripes of his polo shirt, he’s passing his chromosomes and predisposition towards substance abuse into me with each shot taken. He has cyborg eyes that stretch like something invisible is hooked inside his eyelids. I find this out later from mom, and the first time I get arrested, that this robotic glare was symptomatic of a cocaine and pot combo. My mom went around the seedy fair ground with us that night sitting on benches while my dad and me went through the haunted house or road the fireball. She was pregnant with Rachael. I remember eating funnel cake on a bench in front of a black octopus that had screaming people lodged inside its tentacles. Some music originally produced by an electric organ was playing. I asked mom if I could feed the fetus funnel cake. I was worried that a whole person was stufed inside of her, but my dad told me it was just a fetus. “Don’t use that word,” is all she said. Dad always called my unborn sister the fetus when he was around me. He already resented the new financial strain/responsibility that I was and I can understand why he was using cocaine and marijuana at the time. My dad said before taking a bite of the cake, “If you feed the fetus funnel cake, it might sufocate. It only eats things mom feeds it with her umbilical cord. It’s picky.” Most of my vivid memories came from reruns of The Wonder Years, Happy Days, or The Twilight Zone. I’ve got a memory of a friend’s house that always smelled like cofee ice cream. I remember that picture in the photo booth being taken. I asked my dad who was going to take the picture. He explained that the man who owned the machine kept a midget in there and that when everybody left the fairground at night they would let him walk around and pick leftover food up with a long stick. I watched my dad put two coins in to where the midget lived, or at least spent his evenings. “He’s has to climb up a ladder. It takes a second. They keep him way down in there because he’s so ugly.” I remember putting a piece of caramel on the ground before leaving the fair that night. I hope he got it. From Myrtle Beach • Adam Thorn Zane Gragg 58 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 59 made of stone and digging at my ribs. I open my mouth to speak and the air suddenly feels sinister around me. Like I shouldn’t let it inside me. Like it’s there to corrode me. I’m paralyzed, but I need to get Nico to the… she stopped. She stopped laughing. She stopped laughing. her hand hurts mine but I can’t let go. She seems to be the only thing amidst this near darkness, filled with jutting rocks and quaking like a subwoofer after every explosion or crack. But she stopped laughing. I pull on her hand. she follows this time, closes in on me, the skin of her arm warm and dusty. Without sound or thought, she crawls over me and I feel her sweat on my forehead as it drips. Her breath blows wet across my nostrils. I try to imagine her weight shifting over me, but it just makes me sick. She bends her face down to the water and sucks it up. I feel the moment as an eternity, watch the water flow into her mouth and throat and nose and lungs and feel the cool indiference of drowning she’s drowning even as I feel her pull close to me and over me and back onto her back beside me. I say, I thought you were drowning. I think I’m...are you okay? “That was like a second at most. How could I be drowning?” I say, you don’t sound so convinced yourself. Her fingers are clawing at my arm again. - - - Celexa, Adderall AR, Concerta, Xanax, and Zoloft. Citalopram, amphetamine, methylphenidate, alprazolam, and sertraline chloride. All our senses are in appalling revolt as this litany of gods drains out of us. I breathing staccato rhythms. My eyes are hot and dry, and my skull is filled with pressure. “There’s no way we can get out of here,” she murmurs in stripped tones. The ground shakes around us, the sound enveloping me from behind, rushing past me, and leaving us blanketed in the emptiness behind it. I whimper involuntarily. For nearly a day we’ve been trapped in the tail end of apocalypse. Light leaks through the rubble, but my attempt at heroically moving the rocks ends in failure. Those medium-sized rocks in movies aren’t around, so I’m either digging at pebbles or clawing at boulders. - - - She starts laughing. “We think we’re dying, and we are, but…” Then the laughter swallows her words. The sound is sharp and I’m disconcerted. But, I think. The laughter just keeps coming, but as I pull myself over to her, I realize she’s crying. She’s howling with laughter and tears are pouring down a frieze of animal terror where her face once was. This makes me so very afraid. So very afraid. I’m thirsty. There’s a little water pooled in a corner. I drink from it with my hand, afraid to let go of hers with the other. She still laughs. I pull on her hand. You need to drink, too, Nico, come on. She resists. Her laughter is filling me up, and I don’t really think. Every sound she makes has become some psychic grotesquery, overwhelming me. She goes limp. This makes it even harder to move her. I crawl back to her, only as I flip over from on my back, the whole world stays behind. Everything is dark, blank, tasteless. This is what death is and my vision slams into view, late, sloppy, useless but relieving. My heart is Mission Control • Zane Gragg 60 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 61 I say, I don’t want this either. My body contracts, pulling itself toward my torso, then goes limp. Did it? She doesn’t move. - - - I scream. Something is touching me. “Jack, the light is getting bigger.” I throw her arm of of me and crawl to our little puddle of water. I can hear her crying, suddenly, whimpering in surprise and desolation. The shocks in my head are getting worse. I feel so sideways, I say. What time is it? A bright blue brilliance floods the tiny space as she opens her cellphone. “Oh wow...it’s been two days now.” This isn’t what time it is, but this information seems more pressing. I say, Nico, how are you feeling? “Like a crumpled up, pissed-on piece of paper.” Were you crumpled up or pissed-on first, I ask. It seems important at the time. - - - They have been coming. That’s what she was telling me when all I was afraid of was the cold thing touching me. They find us huddled like scared children, rubbing each other’s hair and mumbling in confusion. It has been two days and we were only hungry. Specks of light become slices of light become a torrent of so much information I think I’m dead. When I pull myself out, with Nico’s hand in mine, dragging her along I vomit. The light is so intense. Amidst rubble and about half a dozen emergency personnel, I puke in response to salvation. The paramedics pull us apart quietly and without words, and sit us down to check to see if we are okay. As he asks me questions, his face seems to blur on one side as it sharpened on the other, back and forth. I decide not to tell him. My arm twitches violently. have never felt so forsaken as I do now. Reality as I know it melted before me in vicious whirls. The lines and angles of my life, every little square and circle, look alien and forbidding to me. I wonder if my arm is bleeding where Nico had kept clawing it earlier. I reach down and it’s wet. I touch this wetness to my mouth, and it was salty and a little dusty. Well, what was I expecting? Sweat and blood taste the same. I feel cold. - - - For the past as long as I can remember, she’s been saying “fuck.” That’s all. Just fuck, in growls, moans, various sighs and keening animal cries. She appears to be exploring the word with whatever executive function is left to her, seeing if it fit with happy, with sad, with frightened, with angry, or with all four at once. I don’t think she was saying anything in particular, just the babbling exploration of something new to this world. Nico, I say. “Fuuuck.” she groans it. I look over and in the darkness I can hear her fingers rubbing her face. Nico we. It echos Nico we across Nico we everything Nico we I am. Nico, we need to pull ourselves together. As I say this, my words take on this fatal evaporation in my mind. Maybe we should make some noise, I say. Help them to find us. “Who are they? Who’s going to find us, Jack? We don’t even know what happened, how do we know there’s someone coming?” Her sudden lucidity startles me, and I stay quiet, mollified less by meaning than by the clarity she seems to have dredged out of the air. “Fuck!” she says, then all of the sudden she rolls over on top of me. I feel her breath against my shoulder and can feel her hair against my lips. “I don’t want this anymore, Jack. Jack, I don’t want this.” Mission Control • Zane Gragg 62 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 63 Satan Was Pissed Satan was pissed. Expenses were up, sales were down, and he hadn’t gotten laid in months. He absent-mindedly poked his talon-esque fingernail into one of the mottled, squishy eyeballs embedded in his desktop. At the faint “…ow…” that ensued, the tension in his shoulders lessened slightly. “Sumac,” he called to his administrative assistant, “What do I have today?” “Ah…lunch with Cain, an appearance at orientation, and a teleconference with Pat Buchanan at four.” “Cancel it all, Sumac. I’ve got some personal business to attend to.” “Very good, Your Nastiness.” Sumac bowed curtly and backed out of the room. “And you can quit with that fucking butler act, I’m not the King of Siam!” Satan rolled his eyes. Sumac could be so needlessly dramatic. - - - As he passed under the flamboyant sign for Serpentina’s, he removed his dark glasses but kept on his wide-brimmed hat and overcoat. “Good morning!” a sales associate chirped obnoxiously. “Welcome to Serpentina’s, distinguished distributor of fine lingerie since 857 b.c.e.! May I show you to Constricting, Pinching, Squishing, or Wedging?” “Just looking,” mumbled Satan in his most generic tone. He pretended to finger a few goods nearby, but quickly managed to make his way back to the bustiers. He had told himself just last week that he would not indulge himself for a long, long time, not unless there were extenuating circumstances. But really, when one is ruler of the underworld, when are circumstance not extenuating? He trailed his finger along the silk covered whalebone of a royal blue number from the “Demonique” collection. It was their most recent style, and it was begging to come home with him. Its black lace seemed to whisper to him, “I want to lie upon your sinewy thighs! And besides, fishnet stocking are buy one, get one!” Satan snatched an XL and two pairs of stockings before he could change his mind. At the cash register, the cashier swiped his SVC card (under the alias of Mack Donaldson) to receive the 5% discount. He handed her “Has that always happened?” Not really, I say. I hear Nico’s voice tremble from about 20 feet away. I wonder what the paramedics think has happened in that dark little crack. I wonder if I know. I ask if I could go home soon. Mission Control • Zane Gragg Sarah Sills 64 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 65 Of course, the next three times he visited Serpentina’s, she wasn’t there. And of course, these visits had to be over the course of several weeks. It wouldn’t do for the employees of Serpentina’s to recognize the tall, red-tinted gentleman as a regular. Wouldn’t do at all. He tried his best to search for her in The Database, but there wasn’t much to go on. Name? Good question. Address? Well…hell. Hades All- Purpose Community Identification Number? Yeah, right. If only he could search by magnetic appeal or breast succulence. “Sumac?” he called, “Get Tech Support on the phone. I need to run something by them. And clear my afternoon; I’ve got…um…an appointment with Jezebel.” From reception, Sumac rolled his eyes. Satan was canceling more and more meetings these days. He was starting to suspect that these were early signs of another nervous breakdown. The rings under his eyes hadn’t been this dark since Constantine declared Christianity the oficial religion of the Roman Empire. Reluctantly, he picked up the phone and began dialing the number of the first board member on today’s meeting list. - - - Back at home, Satan scratched behind the ears of Gomorrah. “Who’s Daddy’s sweet kitty? You are! You are! Does ‘Morrah wanna go for a walk? Oh, yes she does!” Gomorrah writhed unapprovingly at the leash being slipped over her head, but calmed down when Satan opened the front door. “Mew?” she said with a pause when Satan turned left at the corner. “Not the park today, Munchkin. Daddy doesn’t feel like being around people. Let’s go to the lake.” The lake, accessible to only the most elite group, was surrounded by a twelve foot fence. The fence was interrupted only once, by a small guard shack and a hydraulic arm with red and white stripes. It was at this entrance that Satan slid the magnetic strip of his gate pass through the electronic reader. The guard nodded smartly and then returned to his computer screen with a studious stare. Satan knew that he was actually playing dirty Tetris, but didn’t feel like turning around and reprimanding him. Although a little entrail ripping always did ease his mind…no, he just didn’t have it in him today. The lake, boathouse, benches, and gazebo were all deserted. Mostly because Satan was the only member. All the other members of the Lake Woebehere Society were manufactured identities. Biel Z. Bub was Satan’s favorite. He snickered at his own cleverness and made a mental note to create an exclusive ski lodge. Satan was rounding the curve of a mulched pathway, feeling relieved $200 cash (always cash) and declined the ofer for attentive wrapping in delicate tissue paper. Ten feet from the exit, his body froze mid-stride. He eyes, immune to his better judgment, swung determinedly to his left and settled on those of a startlingly gorgeous woman. Her eyes were dark and full of heat. Her lips, painted almost purple, were curved in an amused smirk. Also not going unnoticed were a pair of the most succulent breasts ever manufactured, nestled tortuously in an orange rufled push-up bra. “Save it for somebody else, Romeo,” she laughed, and turned back towards the thong section. Her hips seemed to sing with each step, “want me…want me…” Satan rushed after her, lingerie boxes banging noisily at his knees. “Excuse me,” he squeaked at her back. “I wasn’t. I mean, I know I was…um…but, actually – wow.” As she turned, he found himself staring again at her eyes and momentarily forgot the art of forming words. “Ungh,” he tried, but quickly gave up. Without knowing why, he reached a hand toward her, as if asking her to dance. She rolled her eyes and came forward a half-step, causing an audible sizzle in Satan’s eye sockets with her own eyes. “Tonight,” she whispered, “Please don’t think about me while you’re fucking whatever tramp you can find to wear that,” and she gestured towards his bag. She calmly turned away, breaking whatever evil spell had been binding his feet and tongue. - - - Back at home, the feel of luxurious material against his skin did not please him like it usually did. The intense binding of the whalebone corset elicited only the palest excitement. Even his favorite fuzzy open-toed heels seemed to stare back at him boredly from the mirror. In his mind, it ceased to be his own reflection posing in the mirror, and turned into a vision of her. Her exotic, lavender-toned skin seemed to shimmer, as if she were an apparition. Pitifully, he reached out towards the image, but felt (as he knew he would) only cold flat glass. Before the vision dissolved, he almost perceived a patronizing smirk. He carefully folded his lingerie into strips of pink satins and placed it in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet marked “2006 – Accounts Payable.” He turned the key, placed it in his mouth, grimaced, and swallowed. He shook his head and shufled back to his six-poster bed. And for the ninety-eighth night in a row, the Lord of the Underworld climbed under the covers with scented lotion and two tissues to quickly jerk himself of. - - - Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills 66 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 67 way. “Oh shit,” murmured Satan, and slowly floated towards the bedroom. Was he dreaming? “Hello, Sethie,” purred Stella from a mountain of red satin pillows. “Feeling frisky?” Satan nodded and took a half a step forward. “No, no,” Stella pouted, “I want you to be my kitty! Kitties wear collars.” Her baby-voice carried over to the den, where Gomorrah crawled futilely under the chaise. Satan nodded dumbly and backed out. He found Gomorrah, who was slowly shaking her head, and slipped of her custom designed collar with her name stitched in silver and pink rhinestones. As if hypnotized, he wound the collar around his neck and fastened it securely. He returned to the bedroom and noticed Gomorrah’s water bowl nestled in the center of his bed. “Mommy made you some yummy milk!” crooned Stella. She did not have to ask twice. Satan obediently crept onto the bed and began lapping at the liquid inside. He had ceased to care about ridiculous conventions like dignity, and could think only of gaining access to that perfect, lavender body. “Good kitty.” Stella scratched behind his ears. She did not seem to notice the slightly raised circles above each temple. Satan felt blissfully shaken at her touch. His vision blurred, his limbs tingled. His heart beat ever faster. He fell face first into the bowl. - - - When he awoke three days later, he was naked and dehydrated in his bed. On his nightstand was a card. His stomach shriveled at the sight of the insignia on the front. Inside was a single sentence: “You will always regret ruining Eden.” There was no signature. When he opened the card, a photo fell into his lap. Staring mournfully at him from the photo was Gomorrah, sitting on the lap of a white-clad figure. Satan did not need to lift his eyes to the figure’s face. He knew exactly who held Gomorrah. - - - Thomas eficiently skimmed through all two dozen photos. He almost laughed out loud once, but managed to suppress it stoically. An assistant to the Ruler of the Universe must always maintain an air of professionalism. He placed them on his desk and took the collar from Stella. In return he handed her an envelope with an obscene about of cash, certificates, and real estate deeds. at last, when he saw her. She was reclining demurely on a bench with a book of verse. She was here, in his park, and he did not know how she had gained entrance. Nor did he care. “Mngh!” He attempted, exasperated at his once-again-suspended ability to speak. Clearing his throat, he advanced forward and began again. “Gnt, gnd, good afternoon!” She slowly lifted her eyes as if she had anticipated this very encounter. “Good afternoon,” she responded curtly. Her glance moved to the cat and her countenance brightened. “Oh! A kitty! Come here you little schmoopsie! Oh, look at you! Just look at you. Can I pet the little kitty?” She directed the question at Gomorrah, not yet acknowledging again Satan’s presence. Gomorrah took two steps back and stared imploringly at Satan. “Of course!” Satan gushed. He scooped up the cat and twittered over to the bench. He ceremoniously placed the cat on her lap, the same way an archaeologist would place a dinosaur skull on a museum’s pedestal. He tried not to notice her slight recoil at his touch. She immediately warmed, however, to the fuzzy nervous ball in her lap. Reluctantly, Gomorrah snifed her hand and allowed the woman to pet her back. A hand, after all, is a hand. One must take the attentions that one can get. “Oh she loves you!” Satan declared, pointing needlessly at the cats face. “Just listen to her purr!” The sound of silence, interrupted only by cricket chirps, escaped his notice. “By the way,” he continued, “my name is Sa – Seth. Seth.” The woman scratched Gomorrah’s head for a moment and then finally lifted her face. “Nice to meet you, Saysethseth. My name is Stella.” - - - Back at the house, Satan’s fingers shook slightly as he measured cofee grounds into the filter. He couldn’t believe this was happening. The most gorgeous, intriguing, mysterious woman was sitting one room over, petting his cat, and he was about to serve her cofee. “How do you take it?” he called to the next room. “In the back,” came the reply. “Pardon?” he asked, poking his head around the corner. “I said, just black.” “Right.” Satan leaned against the counter and panted slightly. Just black. Of course. When he rounded the corner with the tray, the chaise had been deserted and Gomorrah sat by herself with a bewildered look on her face. A familiar orange bra lay conspicuously on her head. “Meow?” she wondered, and looked towards the bedroom. One sheer black thigh-high pointed the Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills 68 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 69 Street Spirit “Stories, poems, and art! You interested in some poetry, man? Five bucks for one, seven bucks for two. I write my own stuf! Check it out! Stories, poems, and art!” That was his routine – the old Boone mascot vagrant, Jameson. Everyone in town knew his name, and those who didn’t were quickly educated. It was impossible to miss him. Either you saw him on King Street selling his stories, poems, and art, or you saw him walking down Blowing Rock Road, with his impossibly large backpack and wizard’s walking stick. If you were lucky, you’d find him hanging out at Wal-Mart, hitting on the ladies working there. If he wasn’t doing his sales pitch, he was mumbling to himself, seemingly in deep thought. Once I said “Hey” to him, and he waved and smiled, but never made eye contact. Honestly, most of the time I avoided him. One time, though, I couldn’t. I had been living in Boone for nine months at the time. I didn’t have many friends except for a couple of guys I worked with and my girlfriend, with whom I lived. It was a rare beautiful day in March – one of those days you can’t wait to get outside and for once not layer up in thick shirts and coats. I took the chance to walk alone to The Saloon for some tacos during my lunch break between classes. Jameson was at his usual spot on King Street, by the old movie theater. He was selling his stories and poems with particular energy that day; I assumed the weather afected him, too. He was a short man by nature, but the years of trekking wild and being generally insane had caused his back to curve. It reminded me of Mister Burns from The Simpsons. He had a thin, long grey beard, and extremely natty dreads. He wore the same thing every day – a knitted black skullcap, a brown jumpsuit, and of course, military boots. The stench that surrounded him defies definition. It was the combination of a man who most likely never bathed, slept outside in a tent, spent every day either selling his words or spending time at Wal-Mart, and ate cat food. No shit. The man ate cat food. Now I don’t mean to make it seem like I am talking badly about Jameson. Whenever I crossed paths with him, he seemed nice enough. He never asked for handouts, and refused to take money from people. He only wanted to sell his art, and, I guess, “be free.” I just never really had any interest in reading any of his stories, so like I said, I mostly avoided him. This one day, though, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the wind wasn’t blustering, and it must have been at least 60 degrees, which is a big deal for March in Boone. I was in “Great doing business with you both. Call me whenever you need another demonic superpower to be seduced.” Stella snorted and walked out. Thomas sat down at his desk and began the arduous task of transferring, exaggerating, distorting, and fudging. A payof this large would take a while to cover up. He glanced from his books to his boss, who was contentedly petting his new cat. His glance then fell on the photo on top of the stack on his desk, which depicted Satan in a sparkling tutu with angel wings on his back. Thomas sighed and shook his head. “What a man won’t do for a little pussy.” Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills Kelly White 70 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 71 young man here, my friend Ishmael, requested a tragedy, and I always do my best to please. So with that, do you think you can believe that what I’m preparing to tell you is true? Sure you may buy into that now, but eventually you may decide you don’t want to believe me. You may even find yourself wishing you could stop listening…” He was addressing only me again. He even dropped his voice back to almost a whisper. There was a desperate look in his eyes. It was almost like he yearned for me to believe what he was saying… “Well, get comfortable with this fact right now – reality is unavoidable. And I would never tell you a story that isn’t true. Especially this one.” Then suddenly, he was right back to his jovial attitude. “Where was I? Right, Rocco was wearing his favorite brown jacket. It was beginning to get cooler in the evening, and Rocco had about two miles to walk from campus. He had no desire to be chilly on his way home, even though the sun was pleasantly bright and the low 60s isn’t really that terrible. In fact, what I’m used to, that’s nothing. “Do you know how the air smells in the autumn? Rocco noted this as he took in a deep breath while crossing the intersection. There were barely any cars at that moment, which Rocco thought was strange. It was just after five, and usually the trafic was quite bustling. He breathed deep, and thoroughly enjoyed not smelling the exhaust he expected. Instead there was the incredible smell of dead leaves in the air. He looked up and around and noticed for the first time that season how the trees were colored. There really wasn’t very much variance in the shades, just a lot of dark greens and almost brown reds. No yellows, no oranges.” It was remarkable. Here I was, sitting in audience to a nearly crippled, homeless man. I had always considered this man to be crazy. Totally gone. Everyone did. Yet here he was, telling me a story, in the most eloquent manner. He was intelligent, and clearly very aware of himself. It made me wonder about his usual mumbling ways, but I couldn’t distract myself. Jameson was on a roll… “As he stepped from the street and onto the curb, he was startled from his gazing as a stranger on a bicycle narrowly missed knocking him down as he passed. Rocco had very little time to react, except to feel his stomach turn hot with just the quickest shot of adrenaline as the cyclist sped past. I’ll tell you this, if it were me at that moment, I wouldn’t have let the guy go without something protesting coming out of my mouth. But no, Rocco just shook it of and breathed in the cool autumn air again. Now that he was farther from campus and across the street, houses surrounded him on both sides. There was a faint smell of chimney smoke, and it only added to Rocco’s relaxation. “He felt it suddenly and smoothly rush over him, that feeling of calm. The scent in the air of dead leaves, hearth-burning fires, and even that a good mood, and something just drew me to Jameson that day. “Stories, poems, and art! Hey, man! You wanna buy somethin’ today, man? Lemme tell you a story. For five bucks, I’ll tell you a joke. Seven bucks, and I’ll tell you a love story. For ten bucks, I’ll tell you a tragedy…” It was the way he emphasized the word “tragedy” that stopped me. He looked at me with his old, intense eyes, waiting for me to react. He was holding his callused palm open, and I found myself opening my wallet and giving him a ten-dollar bill. He smiled and revealed what only seemed like seven or so rotten teeth. “A tragedy! The fella seeks tragedy! Oh, have I got a story for you, then, my friend! What’s your name, mate? Or shall I just call you Ishmael?” I didn’t quite get the Moby Dick reference, but I thought it was funny, so as I laughed, I told him my name. He laughed a little, too, and remarked at how few men he knew who had my name. He said he liked it. “Names are important, my friend. They say a lot about your character. Your name defines you. And from your name, I can see why you’re interested in a tragedy. Well, well, well, have I got a story for you. Even better, my friend, this story is true. And it happened right here in this very town. But come now, come. Before I get carried away, let’s make room, and you sit down on the wall here. Perhaps more people will join us if we seem more open…” He ushered me to sit down next to his artwork and stories. They were simple pencil and charcoal drawings, but really quite interesting. The one I remember vividly to this day was of a dark forest. There was a large, indistinguishable form in the middle of the picture, with large piercing eyes. I didn’t have long to investigate, as Jameson had suddenly begun to practically shout his story. I could tell he was attempting to get more people to stop and listen, and I admired his enthusiasm. “It was mid-October. October 13, to be exact. It was just after five in the early evening, and Rocco Granger was walking home from school. He was twenty years old, and a senior at this fine institution to our right. He had wavy, shoulder length hair, and it was the kind of dark brown that might as well be called black. It was always falling in his face, but he ignored his mother whenever she told him he should cut it. He was wearing his favorite jacket, the light brown one that he’d gotten as a birthday gift several years before. He really couldn’t remember how long he’d had that jacket, but what does it matter? It was his favorite jacket, and that’s that. “Now, as I said to you, my friend, this is a true story, whether you’d like it to be or not. Right now, I’m quite sure you’re okay with that notion, all comfortable in this beautiful weather here on King Street. Nothing would probably please you all more…” Upon saying this, he turned his back to me and addressed the strangers passing by as if they were the rest of his audience. “…than to hear a pleasant made-up fairy tale, written by yours truly. But this Street Spirit • Kelly White 72 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 73 else in the town, and darker too. If I ever had the unpleasant need to walk by these woods, I swear I refused to step across the street, or closer than thirty feet towards the border of those trees. When I peered into them, all light seemed to be sucked away, and my soul was truly chilled. There are houses on either end of the plot, but they also seem to avoid the borderline by thirty or so feet. And no one lives in them, either. They are as dead and empty as the trees between them appear to be. Jameson paused. He took a drink of water from his canteen, and I looked around. His spell had broken for a moment, and I realized my surroundings again. Everything around us continued as normal. Jameson’s audience had not grown – the people passing by simply ignored him, just as I had so many times before. My stomach growled, and I remembered my hunger. But I couldn’t leave now – Jameson seemed to have the power to hold me in place. He was mesmerizing. “Sorry, mate. My throat was getting quite dry,” he said with a laugh. “So where was I, Ishmael? Ah, yes. It was eerily silent in the street. He wanted to keep moving, but he felt like some unseen force was holding him. All he could hear was his breath and the leaves rustling in the breeze. He noticed his heartbeat was quite audible now, as it slowly decreased its speed down to a normal rate. There wasn’t even the sound of a squirrel or a single bird. He stood, gazing around. He brushed his hair out of his face, and swallowed his saliva. The breeze that stopped all sounds had also brought on a terrible chill to the air, and he shivered. Something was of, and he was suddenly terrified, though he couldn’t understand why. “His heartbeat quickly resumed its thumping and his whole body went hot when the terror appeared from within the trees across the street. It was obviously canine, yet as thin and as tall as a horse – or at least that’s what it seemed like to Rocco. Its pitch-black fur was uneven and strewn all about, and there were areas that appeared wet. It had a madness in its eyes. And that stare. Oh, that stare was projected directly at Rocco. The first real sound he’d heard in what seemed like an eternity was the low, deep throat growl. It sounded unearthly – way too deep and wet to come from any dog Rocco had ever heard before. “They stood thirty feet apart. Rocco was on the sidewalk across the street, and the beast was on the border of the woods. The woods that I’m sure you know very well, friend. I don’t know of anyone who dares to look into those woods. Attempting to do so would surely cause someone to lose their mind… “But Rocco was now staring into the eyes, and soul, of those woods. There was still no sound but the low growling, and not another living soul seemed to exist at that moment. All Rocco could sense were those mad, purposeful eyes. The beast stood, swaying slightly as if it were unbalanced in shocking odor of dog shit he just passed. It was a beautiful autumn day, the week was ending quite well, he was going home to his dog, Shane, and he was going to have a few beers on the porch while Shane got to run around in the front yard. “He liked his house. It was a tiny, one story hut. The front porch seemed too big for its own good, and Rocco liked it that way. There was a large oak tree in the front yard, which shaded the porch in the evening, and Rocco and Shane spent most of their time there together when the weather allowed it, like these beautiful days in the autumn. “A rather athletic-looking girl was approaching from the opposite direction. She was wearing too-short shorts and a white tank top. First thing Rocco noticed were her huge headphones. Second thing he noticed was no bra. She was walking rather fast, and they were not supported in any way, shape, or form. He quickly looked down at the ground as she passed, and it was all Rocco could do to not look back up at her. He laughed a little to himself after she passed. He thought of her headphones. He recently bought himself one of those Walkman tape player things, but he never listened to it while walking to or from school. He enjoyed listening to the reality rather than blocking it out. “Besides, Van Morrison was stuck in his head, and he didn’t have any qualms about that. The words ‘Ding-a-ling-a-ling, Ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding’ of Jackie Wilson Said kept playing over and over in his head. He began to sing, ‘I’m in heaven, I’m in heaven’ out loud just as he was stepping through some leaves, and the sound of the crunching made him smile. He stepped on a manhole and he smiled again at the dull, hollow clunk. “He thought, This is Fall, and it’s amazing, and I love it. A chilling breeze flushed through the air, and the smell of chimney smoke vanished. And he realized how suddenly silent the street was. He stopped walking and looked around. The houses on his side of the street all had pumpkins out on their porches. Some were carved into comical faces, some were not. There didn’t seem to be anyone near for miles. Across the street was the spot of woods everyone avoided. There was sidewalk, but people always crossed the street before passing this stretch of about fifty or so yards.” I knew instantly what place Jameson was speaking of. Much like Jameson himself, everyone who lived in Boone was familiar with that spot of woods. I always encourage people to visit the town if they’ve never been. I am still quite fond of that area, though I’ve since moved away, and traveled to many places. Boone is absolutely gorgeous in the autumn. These woods, however, are something else entirely. There is an area, about a mile from campus, heading northeast on Rivers Street. This small spot of forest is neither pleasant, nor attractive. I’ve experienced my share of haunting places, but this, I tell you, is something else. The trees grow taller here than anywhere Street Spirit • Kelly White 74 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 75 some reason I couldn’t help but wonder…was it really true? He did say it was true, after all. He spoke again, and I was immediately gripped back into his control. “Do you see? See how I knew in the beginning that you were happy to hear a true story? No matter how tragic I warned you it would be? And do you see how I told you in the beginning that you would eventually wish this wasn’t true after all? Are you getting your money’s worth?” It was as if he was angry with me. He stared at me for a moment and I saw sorrow in his old, grey eyes. It was almost unbearable; my heart sank and I lost my breath. Then he blinked and began again. “He awoke moments later to the noise of growling and yelping and biting and fighting. He opened his eyes and saw two dogs of about the same size desperately tearing at each other. It was dark and he could barely understand what he was seeing, but he recognized one of the dogs as Shane. He was just a Labrador Retriever, and didn’t really stand out among any others of his type. But Rocco knew it was him. There were a few glass shards jutting from his shoulders, and blood all over his neck and front legs. The other dog, however, Rocco didn’t know. It was slightly smaller than Shane, and it had black, wet fur. And it was so skinny it looked to be more like a skeleton with a faux coat of fur on. The dogs were relentless with each other. They were leaping and tearing and biting at each other as if they were immortal enemies from centuries past. Rocco closed his eyes and all he could think was how much he wanted to drown out the horrible noise of the fighters. He wished he had his tape player on him. He wished he could walk over and get it from his bag. He could see it; it was only ten feet away. Ten feet away? How could that be? He felt like he had ran for miles from that dark, evil spot of woods. “He tried to move and get up, but a sudden shock of pain burned from below. He looked down at half of a leg. The other half was several feet away. He remembered and frowned at noticing that his departed foot was missing a shoe. He thought, It must be cold over there all alone and without a coat. I should try to warm it up... The dogs were still fighting. The noise was unbearable. He looked over at them, and said, ‘Shane, stop it! That’s enough…’ “There was a sharp cry so loud that it made Rocco forget about his pain. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. The black skeleton dog was limping away fast, back towards the black hole it was birthed from. Shane stood his ground, with his front legs spread wide and teeth bearing. Blood was coating his neck and face and shoulders. Rocco watched the beast disappear into the darkness, but for a second he could swear he saw its eyes shine back from the depths. “He felt hot breath and a wet tongue suddenly all over his face. ‘Oh god. Okay, Shane. Thank you! …Thank you, Shane…really…’ He breathed in deep, and as he let it out, he could hear faint sirens in the distance. And he fell this world. It parted its mouth and thousands of teeth revealed themselves. The growling continued to drone on, as if the thing were unable to stop it. Or unwilling. White, foamy froth began to form on the edges of all those teeth, and it was dripping uncontrollably. “Rocco knew if he broke his eyes away from the thing across the street it would all be over. He also knew, however, that his house was less than 100 yards away. If only he was able to feel his legs, he might be able to move them and break away. And suddenly he was moving. He immediately dropped his bag, because he knew it would only slow him down. It was the fastest Rocco could remember ever running in his life. He also regretted wearing that damn jacket now. He was no longer all that cold. “The rabid beast, however, refused to let Rocco gain any ground. Within seconds he could already feel its hot breath on his ankles. It was no longer growling; now it was only panting in a ravenous, desperate way. “Rocco could see his house. He knew Shane would be waiting for him to be home soon. He was so looking forward to their time together that day. But now the prospect seemed to be fading away with the sunlight. “He was within a stick’s throw of that porch when his right shoe came loose. Rocco faltered, and all of those hot, wet teeth sunk into his right calf. He immediately fell to the ground, and the beast was on top of him. At first his fear and agony didn’t allow him to scream. All his throat seemed to be able to produce was a disappointing groan. And the hound thrashed his leg, over and over in the same spot. Even in its singular vehement attack, it swayed, unable to keep a balance on its four finger-thin legs. With another powerful bite, Rocco was finally able to scream. He couldn’t move, for the pain was too overwhelming. He tried not to look, but the hot burning adrenaline refused to let him close his eyes. He saw his shinbone begin to split in two under all the blood and open flesh. He yelled again at the site of that blood. It seemed to never stop flowing. It was everywhere. It sprayed over his pants and shirt and even his face. It sprung forth into the dog’s face too. It flowed over the ground and into the grass. Even in his terror, Rocco noticed how the green of the grass and the thick, dark red of his own blood seemed to resemble the leaves of the trees around him. He began to feel cold. He could feel Death’s blue, cold hands touching him. He looked down at the hound again as his leg was finally torn away from his body, and he saw Death’s beady eyes looking right into his. There was a crash of breaking glass to his right, and everything went black.” Jameson stopped. Again, the spell was broken as he cleared his throat and took a drink of water. I broke my gaze from him and looked around. It was still just the two of us. Everyone kept walking by. No one noticed, and no one cared that right at that moment, Jameson, the town mascot vagrant, was telling me the most amazing story. It was ridiculous and unbelievable, yet for Street Spirit • Kelly White 76 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 77 lady? Five bucks for one, seven bucks for two. I write my own stuf! Check it out! Stories, poems, and art!” I shook my head and sighed. I couldn’t help but laugh a little. My stomach growled again, and I looked at my watch. I missed my class, and I had no idea. “Thanks, Jameson.” But he didn’t hear me. Or at least he didn’t acknowledge me. I picked up my bag and turned to walk away towards The Saloon. Those tacos really sounded good now. “Kelly!” My heart dropped as I stopped and turned around. He was pointing south, towards Rivers Street. “You stay away from those woods, mate. Trust me. I would never lie to you.” back into darkness. “Again, he was awakened by noise. This time, however, it was of people shouting. He opened his eyes and he was blinded by the flashing red lights of an ambulance. At first he felt like he was floating, but was quickly annoyed to find he was being carted on a stretcher when it was knocked into the door jam. ‘Sorry about that, buddy! We’re trying to get you in here as smoooothly as possible!’ The EMT was a portly fellow, with a moustache. He sounded like Bert, from Sesame Street. “’Where’s Shane? Is he okay?’ Rocco asked faintly. “‘How’s that? Shane? Is that your dog?’ the fat man responded. “‘Yes…my fucking dog. Where is he?’ The man hesitated, which aggravated Rocco. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t just tell him where Shane was. ‘Hey! My dog, where is he?’ “‘Your dog is dead, son. He was by your side when we got here. There was blood all over him and for some reason, glass sticking out from his shoulders… Your neighbors said he jumped from your window. They said there was an attack? They said you were attacked by what looked like a rabid dog, and your dog…’ “Rocco stopped listening. His head hurt and his eyes burned. The man kept talking, making that awful noise with that awful voice. Now he was asking Rocco if he was okay. No, he wasn’t okay. He was missing half his right leg and his goddamn dog was dead. He began to cry. He was freezing. Particularly, his right leg was quite cold. All he wanted was his dog back, and to be warm. The sunlight from earlier that day would have been nice right then. And why wouldn’t the damn EMT shut up? He thought of his tape player again, and what lovely music he could listen to, in order to drown away the reality of right then. He understood now why people seemed to want to shut out the world’s noise. “But there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing he could do about any of it. He had lost his leg and his dog. And that fat EMT wouldn’t stop talking. “That’s it. The end. Thanks, mate. See you around.” I shook my head in confusion. “Wait, that’s it? Dude, you can’t just stop now! What happened to him? Did he die? Did he live? Did he get a new leg? What happened to the beast? What was the beast?” I was getting angry that Jameson would just stop right there. He stood and stared at me with that painful look in his eyes. “Ten more bucks and I’ll tell you a comedy.” He winked at me and smiled. He tapped his right leg with his walking stick and it clinked with the sound of wood on metal. I stood up, completely bewildered, and without a single idea of what to say. Jameson turned around and began shouting, “Stories, poems, and art! You interested in some poetry, Street Spirit • Kelly White 78 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 79 (next pages) Robert McKnight Parts and the Whole 80 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 81 82 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 83 84 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 85 86 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 87 88 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 89 (previous spread) Heath Montgomery drw3 and drw6 (next page) Paul Vincent Reeds Luke Flynt Bicycle 90 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 91 Janie Ledford Family 92 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 93 Ivan Gilbert Radio ‘54 Alexander Hatchett Old School Boombox 94 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 95 Jessy Harding Untitled Rebecca Bennett Cherokee Hands fall 2009 / 97 Melissa Sullivan Untitled 1 (next spread) Corey Erba Birds of Pray & Matthew Thomason Fence 98 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 99 100 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 101 Joseph Santaloci Roommate and Sandwhich Kristin Ashley Expanding Mass 102 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 103 Jared Watson Carl Ray Carter Miri Han Untitled 104 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 105 Alexa Feldman Native Tongue (next page) Taryn Cowart Untitled (next spread) Samuel Dalzell Dark Places and In the Name of Our Progress 108 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 109 Max Shepard Self Portrait (next spread) Amanda Nicholas Fender Height and Trust Ashley Weinberger Untitled 110 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 111 112 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 113 Heath Montgomery Leaf Bustle and Mask fall 2009 / 115 Karen Lepage Diagram for Departure 116 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 117 118 / the coraddi COLOPHON This semester’s issue includes selections of art and literature submitted to the Coraddi from August to late October, 2009. Body text is set in Hoefler Text 10 pt. Piece titles and other added type is set in Neutraface, and the Coraddi logo uses a sporty typeface called Aktuelle. This magazine is distributed FREE throughout the UNCG Campus. CONTACT The Coraddi Box D2 EUC UNCG Campus Greensboro, NC 27412 web: thecoraddi.com e-mail: the.coraddi@gmail.com
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Title | Coraddi [Fall 2009] |
Date | 2009 |
Editor/creator | Cowart, Taryn |
Subject headings |
Arts--North Carolina--Greensboro--Periodicals Creative writing (Higher education)--North Carolina--Greensboro--Periodicals College student newspapers and periodicals--North Carolina--Greensboro Student publications--North Carolina--Greensboro Student activities--North Carolina--History University of North Carolina at Greensboro--Periodicals College students' writings, American--North Carolina--Greensboro |
Place | Greensboro (N.C.) |
Description | Starting in 1897, State Normal Magazine contained news about the State Normal and Industrial College (now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro). Renamed Coraddi in 1919, the magazine became primarily a literary and fine arts publication and remains so to the present day. |
Type | Text |
Original format | Periodicals |
Original publisher | Greensboro, N.C. : The University of North Carolina at Greensboro |
Language | eng |
Contributing institution | Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries |
Publication | State Normal Magazine / Coraddi |
Rights statement | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ |
Additional rights information | NO COPYRIGHT - UNITED STATES. This item has been determined to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The user is responsible for determining actual copyright status for any reuse of the material. |
Object ID | Coraddi2009Fall |
Date digitized | 2015 |
Digital master format | Application/pdf |
Digital publisher | The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304 |
Digitized by | UNCG DP |
Full text | Volume 112, Issue 1. Coraddi represents the art and literary community of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and has been published, in various forms, since 1897. PRIZE WINNERS Three equal prizes are awarded to our writing and visual art pieces, as judged by members of the UNCG community. Anyone may submit to Coraddi, but only non-staff members are eligible for the contest. WRITING, AS JUDGED BY TITA RAMIREZ: Caitlin McCann - Blue Adam Thorn - From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990) Lynne Buchanan - Indelible HONORABLE MENTION: Caitlin McCann - Forsaken Caitlin McCann - After Hours ART, AS JUDGED BY BELINDA HAIKES: Luke Flynt - Bicycle Melissa Sullivan - Untitled 1 Heath Montgomery - Mask CORADDI EXECUTIVE EDITOR Taryn Cowart PRODUCTION MANAGER Zack Franceschi LITERARY EDITOR Catherine Conley ART EDITOR Ashley Weinberger WEBMASTER Jay Lee FACULTY ADVISOR Terry Kennedy LITERARY STAFF Andrew Bauer Ryan Boye Laura Brown Silas Burke Kayla Cavenaugh Meen Cho Caitlin Conway Donovan Dorrance Katie Fennell Dustin A. Frost Lauren Gorman Katie Karambelas Victor Mendoza Amber Midgett Sara O’Brien Brian B. Schumacher Levon Valle Andrea Waldon ART STAFF Stephanie Case Elena Dalsimer Samuel G. Dalzell Alexa Feldman T. Lee Gunselman Ivan Gilbert Kelsey Hammersley Katie Minton Joseph Santaloci Max Shipley THANK YOU to: our hardworking volunteer staff, Terry Kennedy, the sweethearts in the University Media Board, Funda Mills, Elaine Ayers, judges Belinda Haikes and Tita Ramirez, and all of our contributors for their continued enthusiasm and commitment to this publication, as well as to Heath Montgomery for allowing us to use his piece Leaf Bustle for the cover. WRITING The Sultry Escape...................................................................10. Lauren Wilson Izanagi and Izanami..................................................................11. Tristin Miller Apple Butter..............................................................................12. Nightmare...................................................................................14. Mary Sullivan Lopez Leopard Shark..........................................................................15. Reid Drake Backyard Anthropology........................................................16. Chris Welsh Forsaken......................................................................................17. After Hours................................................................................18. Blue...............................................................................................19. Caitlin McCann Dinosaur Havoc......................................................................20. Fires in the Valley....................................................................21. Helen-Marie Pohlig The Cocooning of Pangaea................................................22. The Map-Maker.......................................................................24. Amanda Manis Marriage.....................................................................................25. David Wall Good Night...............................................................................26. Jackie Flannigan I, the Trestle Bench................................................................27. Foreboding Sacrifice.............................................................28. Andrea Waldon The Story: A Sestina.............................................................30. Michelle Esquillo Ursula..........................................................................................32. Unsportsmanlike Grandpa.................................................33. Mandy Arnold CONTENTS Bomber..........................................................................................34. Cameron Prevatte Unknown Lady in a Painting..................................................35. Alexandra Creola Open Air......................................................................................36. Michael Hauck Lovely.............................................................................................37. Darius Scott Requiem in the Dust...............................................................38. Radovan Brenkus The Ants’ Cost/ Benefit Analysis of the Kitchen Sink................................40. I Think That Tree is Fake.........................................................41. Larry Holderfield Linville...........................................................................................42. Paul Vincent Summer of 10th Grade...........................................................43. Alex Craig Here I Sit Upon the Very Toes of Spring.........................44. Gabriel Morgan K’che-sepi-ack.............................................................................45. Samuel Dalzell Filter...............................................................................................46. Curb-Sitters.................................................................................47. Amanda Manis Letters to Heaven.....................................................................49. Meen Cho Indelible........................................................................................53. Lynne Buchanan From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990)....................55. Adam Thorn Mission Control......................................................................57. Zane Gragg Satan Was Pissed...................................................................63. Sarah Sills Street Spirit..............................................................................69. Kelly White ART Parts and the Whole......................................................80-85. Robert McKnight drw3............................................................................................86. drw6.............................................................................................87. Heath Montgomery Bicycle........................................................................................88. Luke Flynt Reeds...........................................................................................89. Paul Vincent Family..........................................................................................90. Janie Ledford Radio ’54....................................................................................92. Ivan Gilbert Alexander Hatchett...............................................................93. Old School Boombox Untitled.......................................................................................94. Jessy Harding Cherokee Hands....................................................................95. Rebecca Bennett Untitled 1...................................................................................96. Melissa Sullivan Birds of Pray...........................................................................98. Corey Erba Fence...........................................................................................99. Matthew Thomason Roommate and Sandwhich.................................................100. Joseph Santaloci Expanding Mass.......................................................................101. Kristin Ashley Carl Ray Carter........................................................................102. Jared Watson Untitled........................................................................................103. Miri Han Native Tongue...........................................................................104. Alexa Feldman Leafy.............................................................................................105. Taryn Cowart Dark Places................................................................................106. In the Name of Our Progress..............................................107. Samuel G. Dalzell Untitled........................................................................................108. Ashley Weinberger Self Portrait................................................................................109. Max Shepard Fender Height............................................................................110. Trust.................................................................................................111. Amanda Nicholas Leaf Bustle...................................................................................112. Mask..............................................................................................113. Heath Montgomery Diagram for Departure...........................................................114. Karen Lepage Colophon.....................................................................................118. CONTENTS 8 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 9 10 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 11 The Sultry Escape Cold feet, dark bottles, and heat. She taps to the street’s seductive bold beat. The moonlit march sinks summer wishes, and hopeful spoons in dirty dishes. Fuming with rush and childhood blush, frail flowers must crush in the tread of contingency. Old faces were flushed as the sensuous strut left an honest lush on the kitchen floor. Lauren Wilson Izanagi and Izanami Their firstborn was an oil-stained lump of flesh. This is not what gods make. Ashamed, they did only what they could do. Tucked tight into a reed knitted basket, it was ofered to the empty hands of the sea. Rocked by the current, Caressed by the salt wind, The child stared back into the blank face of the newborn sky. Tristin Miller 12 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 13 Apple Butter Precious love in a jar. Opened the cupboard and saw The jar his mom gave me, The day before BJ died. She smacked his hand as he reached “I want a taste,” he beseeched “Not yet,” she scolded, “Let it set.” The day before BJ died. It’s unreal yet today How his young life gave way. As full as the fruit, Pulled out by the root. A bullet went stray. He got in the way. It should never have happened. It will never be right. We can never go back To the day before that night. Precious love in a jar. Opened the cupboard and saw The jar his mom gave me The day before BJ died. The taste would be sweet, But I just couldn’t eat Precious love in a jar Stored there for his keep. Again, she picks, She peels, she preserves. She cries, but still Gives the love he deserves. Flowers bloom, bees still buzz, Some things never change. I want to be who I was The day before BJ died. Mary Sullivan Lopez 14 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 15 Nightmare Brightly colored clowns pass by Like lemmings to the sea. They laugh and talk And plot and scheme But never notice me. Standing by the side I watch And never interfere. Robed in black and white, I cry One red Paliachi tear. Leopard Shark It’s beautiful. Mary Sullivan Lopez Reid Drake 16 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 17 Backyard Anthropology when i was young and in love with Adolf Rupp instead of Faye Dunaway, my father paid someone else’s father, one with dinosaur tar beneath his fingernails, to cement a basketball net into our driveway. i shot and shot, and sometimes missed so badly the ball would jackrabbit over the fence. i’d trampoline off the monkeygrass, one hand on the garage, to retrieve my round, orange ego. i’d find it shaded by young, Jung saplings, where we’d buried the pets we’d killed. we were an uppermiddleclass family with guinea pigs, small birds, and goldfish. there were many latchkey homicides. i never saw her but suspected Dr. Kubler-Ross of using treebark calligraphy on the gravemarkers and toilet flush on the bodies. Sherlock Holmes never suspected; he was whacked out on morphine with Eugene O’Neill’s mother. they never played basketball, or helped to dig tiny holes for animals i once named. Forsaken The horses are dead. So is the ground that absorbed their decay. A rabbit is caught in the sharp, rusted fence. Its hind leg gives a final twitch. The peeling paint of the abandoned farmhouse flakes of in the wind. Bare winter trees surround the house like an army of skeletons. One day, before the house falls into itself, I will dig the bullet out of the kitchen wall from the day grandma tried to kill grandpa. Chris Welsh Caitlin McCann 18 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 19 After Hours During the day, when things were quieter, my family and I listened to our upstairs neighbor play the piano. The notes drifted through the ceiling. When her fiancé died, she only played her piano at night. Tangling themselves with the sound of a hand striking a tear-dampened cheek, the notes fell through the ceiling and hit my ears like rain on a cracked sidewalk. My father told me her fiancé shot himself. I imagined the moonlight, leaking through the slit of his blinds, shining upon the Jackson-Pollock-like blood stain splattered across his apartment’s white walls. I wonder if the gunshot still echoes in the nights of his neighbors. Her slow, sad music eventually stopped. Now, all I have are the ghosts of the piano’s notes and my nightlight; pulsating like a heart. Blue I sat on a bench at the park downtown. Stifling air burst from the iron grate beneath my feet. I watched birds collide with the windows of the buildings that cast a shadow over the city. I wanted the glass to burst, for the tattered birds to fall to the ground like stones into a shallow pond. A woman sat next to me. Her eyes were clouded. She asked me the color of the sky. I did not answer. I did not know how to explain what blue is. Caitlin McCann 20 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 21 Dinosaur Havoc I have never seen you run The way you did when you grabbed my hand, Told me not to look back, A mask of desperate fright crawling up your neck, Over your mouth, and into your eyes— Justly so, since the whole ground was being ripped apart Beneath our sneakers, Like an expedited tear in two tectonic plates. I do not want to imagine what the creature Must have actually looked like in his fury, Heart beating a million smashes a minute, Ribs snapping, buildings demolished, Twenty-seven loopy goats devoured in a flash, Gardener screaming for his life, Wondering who will pick up the kids from school Since mamma is getting a perm. Fires in the Valley I am waiting for the days when night will fall and lead me down beaten moonlit paths, cutting through jungle vines and palm fronds bigger than hippo snouts, when the heat will drag my body, a heavy mass of melted clay, up and down the twisted mountainsides and the fires in the valley will send shivers through my heart because a spirit is unable to remain quite calm on feverish Indian nights like these and a body cannot sit still when it is finally in the place it yearns to be. Helen-Marie Pohlig 22 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 23 The Cocooning of Pangaea tell me about continents and oceans and I’ll tell you about highways and planes. continents— fall apart you say, oceans— destroy them. and I say: but look, that isn’t an ending, that’s just change. Pangaea was beautiful, it didn’t need to change. and I say: we all need to change, even beauty must adapt. and I say: I adapted, Pangaea adapted, why can’t you? all that distance, you say: all those miles. there is an ocean between us. and I say: highways— were made for miles. planes— don’t care about oceans. [we sit in silence for some time, to consider this.] finally— what if I can’t find you? you say. and I say: beautiful, I’ll draw you a map. Amanda Manis 24 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 25 The Map-Maker I am settled here—a geographer. a cartographer. an anthropologist. see —I always thought to settle meant to cease to move, but I am heartbeats-fluttering faster than ever. I am a traveler. a student of the world and it is mine and it is ours. I know people. I’ve watched them. most have no idea what the word ‘world’ even means. they’d say a planet. they’d pull out a map of all the continents and say see, there, that’s the world. I’d say no. I’d draw them a map with notations in the margins saying things like the amount of lines on your palm or the exact coordinates of your birthmark. (six hundred eighty three. thirty-seven point two-nine, twelve point three-five.) I’d show them where landmasses form and explain the concept of plate tectonics; how your hand slides along the small of my back. how, curled up, I fit snug against your side. I’d make a note on the evolution of breaths and beats and then another on rotations and weathering. I’d make a heat index chart. I’d say absolute zero is when I wake to your breath on my neck and for a second we cease motion, forget to exhale. last, I’d draw a time-line. there would be no start or end date. it would simply read: foreverforeverforalwaysforever. years down the road, a noted cartographer would find my map and, in stunned silence, realize that he had been doing it wrong the whole time. Marriage Later, she would come to realize That the bruises were not fruits of love. But by then, she really would not care. Amanda Manis David Wall 26 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 27 Good Night Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman. Who traveled the world and sunk and swelled and disappeared. Part of her went to the sky through the clouds through the watercolor sunsets and the glorious warm mornings and she could dance around the rings of Jupiter and laugh among the stars. Part of her went to the jungle with it thick green forests. She became one with the animals in the bright brilliant oranges, yellows, blues, pinks, purples, reds, blacks, whites, and browns. She reflected them like a rainbow and in their chorus she sung. And part of her went to the ocean where she could be surrounded forever by the cool deep water and she found rest in the darkness in the night time of the ocean and the flash lights of the luminescent fishes and comfort in the arms of the octopus. And through these places in all her parts she found her peace. I, the Trestle Bench Placed as a public service in the mid-city park, beneath the shelter of a giant Oak, smug with pride. I, counselor of many shattered hearts, crushed under the pressure of their own beating. The old, battered from abusive years, find their comfort on my trestles. Their canes gently rest against my own weathered graying wood. I, a simple bench, a product of extensive budget cuts. I have no back for those coming to lean on. My humble form provides the bare essentials one needs to sit. I have the technology of a rock. The little girl makes a jungle gym of me when her mother stops for a conversation, or to take a long drag on a cheap cigarette, contemplating her mourning. I am an unsophisticated chaise. All who find me never look. I, the lounge chair on which a morning newspaper is read, stories and obituaries searched for concrete signs of change. I, love-maker to the earth, penetrate her with my solemn presence; alone. A & S, is roughly carved in my seat by immature lovers, longing to prove what they do not feel, faking passionate moments that do not exist. I saw them fight the Tuesday after. I see the years; wishing themselves away, whisking themselves away day after day. Jackie Flannigan Andrea Waldon 28 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 29 Foreboding Sacrifice I wake up to the newly placed ring on my left hand, Walls, covered in shiny, multi-colored beer signs, And clothing, littering the small amount of floor space. A man breathes heavily beside me. I am the girl with the formal living room. I cover my walls with floral paintings, With paintings from foreign countries, With history. My carpets match. I lie next to this handsome man, Observing this alien land That was his bachelor pad. Beer cans line his living room table. They are neighbors with Oreo and Snicker’s wrappers. His bathroom sink is decorated with facial shavings And old toilet paper roles lie gracefully on the floor. I am the girl with the perfect kitchen. A clean kitchen is a happy kitchen. My glasses are nestled in their cupboard homes Neatly arranged by shape and size in their rows. A family-sized Captain Crunch box Rests on his end table, Shoving my stylishly placed candles Mercilessly out of the way. I am the girl with the sheer, white curtains, Potted flowers on her terrace, And a matching floral bathroom set. His kitchen table serves as a filing cabinet. Dirty plates litter the kitchen counters, Dirty plates decorated with crusted two-day old hot wings And peanut butter and jelly. I was the girl with seasonal placemats, Fresh flowers on every table, And everything in its place. Such is the sacrifice of a neat freak in love. Andrea Waldon 30 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 31 The Story: A Sestina They called it romance once upon a time— the damsel in the tower, in the tale, the prince who wins his princess in the end. Back then, they said it was a dream-come-true. Nowadays they say it’s just a dream. No one believes in heroes anymore. Nobody tells those stories anymore: the remnants of some long-lost golden time that now exist only in dusty dreams as nothing more than children’s fairy tales. We don’t delude ourselves that they are true. We all know how the story goes-—and ends. What happens after ever-after ends? That’s not how we tell stories anymore. We’re looking for an answer, something true. Anything else is just a waste of time. Who cares about the moral of the tale? There are other ways to capture dreams. They do not want the magic of the dream. They want the pot of riches at the end. It doesn’t matter who will hear the tale, it’s not as if they listen anymore. To tell the story would take too much time and they don’t know how much of it is true. The story can be false, or can be true. Reality can languish in the dream and strand the dreamer in the mists of time. You think you know how all the stories end? The rules are not so simple anymore. Come here, my child, and listen to the tale. They’ll argue this is just a fairy tale. They’ll say it’s nonsense, say it can’t be true. They’ll tell you not to listen anymore, but know this, child: they who deny their dreams live only life, and that is where they end. The dreamer lives the story for all time. Don’t wonder anymore about the tale. Just give it time, for time will prove it true. You’ll live the dream until the story ends. Michelle Esquillo 32 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 33 Unsportsmanlike Grandpa He plays dirty. He doesn’t play fair. He’ll bite, and pinch, And pull your hair. He never bunts the ball, Or takes one for the team. When he doesn’t get his way, He stomps and swears and screams. He calls a ball a strike And pitches really hard. He’s been known to cause a bruise or two. His curveballs leave a scar. My buddies run away in fear When he steps up to the plate. Their shrieks can be heard all over— The town, the county, the state! He swings for the moon every time, So watch out when he’s hitting. ‘Cause backyard ball’s no joke When Grandpa’s babysitting. Mandy Arnold Ursula The life of Ursula Reversula Is completely topsy turvy. Everyone else likes the straight and narrow; Ursula prefers the curvy. If we all agree that that is that And no one strays a bit, Ursula will certainly shake things up And think the opposite. I know this, for I’ve seen her myself Doing the strangest things. She cleans her house all winter long And sings carols in the spring. There can be a line quite long From here to infinity. Ursula will step to the very front And huf impatiently. I see her son, Amanda, as well, Always on the streets, Driving his mother’s car around With Ursula in the baby seat. But I guess it’s better that Ursula doesn’t drive And she doesn’t do the mowing, ‘Cause she wears her glasses On the back of her head And can’t see where she’s going. Mandy Arnold 34 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 35 Unknown Lady in a Painting The plastered paint is cracking. The canvas is tearing at the seams. In frozen time she smiles, But in silent night she screams. Perpetual pain permeates the eyes Of she who sees but cannot speak, Cannot gesture, cannot move. With waterless tears she cannot weep. Unchanging in her faded glory, The finished stroke of an artist’s brush, She sits in torturous solitude Feeling the weight of ages crush. And as she watches day turn to night She can’t but hope to dream Of life, of breath, of love and loss, Of freedom she has never known, but often seen. Bomber Have you ever been naked? No, seriously, have you ever been naked? I’ll admit, I have. I’ve streaked through a cloud of my friends like a bat out of Hell just to get them to look. But have you ever taken a seat and sat for hours on end, The cold bare back on your flesh and the light shining off of you like a magnified sun? All eyes are on you as glue keeps you fixated in the same position for what feels like hours. By about this time, sweat was dripping down my exposed body as someone cracked a subconscious smile. They weren’t sure if they did it, but I saw it creep over their face. No, this adventure would have to wait, because suddenly.... I couldn’t find my pants! This is what I wanted, but how I hated it at that moment. My heart was beating so fast, it felt like a bomb being set of. The wires were false emotions, The iron casing was uncertainty, and the ignition was my thoughts. At that moment, all I could hear was the panting of my own breath and the sounds of laughter, burying me alive inside the chilly plastic chair. As I sat there, bleeding with nails in my hope, the light started to grow warmer and warmer until it was so hot, it was almost wonderful. Cameron Prevatte Alexandra Creola 36 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 37 Open Air with my hand out the car window I know what it is to be an astronaut, floating in space with a head full of thoughts on what I left behind. cold air brushing by feels infinitely still. my pale skin against the black background dulls the stars of the passing cars and the moon seems to be hiding behind headlights tonight. suspended in time, at 73 down the galactic highway, 400 km never felt so close as it does now. above the beauty, among the giants, remember to breathe: that’s the real challenge. Lovely Lovely crept pitter patter (bottom stair) Lovely dips in pink satin blossom sucking hips, Lovely sits on a mahogany framed chair with taut, taupe tassels at the outer corners of each leg rattling as Lovely taps her prosthetic peg. Michael Hauck Darius Scott 38 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 39 Quo vadis? I am standing face-to-face with naked being. My head got stuck at the base of it, and then it coolly stripped me of my existence. Thinking has caused more pain than all the tears on earth, collected up at every step and drunk down to drying point. Is there anything at all bigger? Any kind of activity merely wastes my time, and its bitter-sweet fruit is crushed here underfoot. As if homeless I have nowhere to sleep. I miss love in a warm, safe place that I can always return to. All sense has left the road. Spurned, I wait for mercy. It’s possible to be or not to be. What is better? Requiem in the Dust The Everlasting Pain A whiskered lunatic with the soul of a child is pulled away from a nurse, while elsewhere a few punks drive a skull with a thighbone for a hole in one. Later one vomits into the crypt of an ancient aristocratic family. God fled from the chapel, when he’d had his fill of transience, the wolfpack hastening after its prey clamped its eyes on his footprints. The Forecast Whoever looks ahead can see his death, and who looks back will encounter it. Half-sleeping I enter the cave. The opening behind me was erased with the blast. I am losing my face. Rid me of the ring that binds me with the dark, for this night is sacrificed among the last ones. Radovan Brenkus 40 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 41 I Think That Tree is Fake drinking black coffee in a white room waiting why do the couches always feel like this waiting please, don’t cough on me don’t sit over here don’t talk waiting this is the worst cofee ever worse than that gas station i wonder how long those mints have been there does anybody ever eat those mints they look more like lint no, not over here sit closer to the bathroom where you can see the tv i’m planning to read that magazine next, don’t take it she’s taking a mint i can’t believe it she took my magazine and a lintmint what is that in the bottom of my cup cofee dirt cofee earth cofee grounds cofee mud puddle in my cup i can see my future waiting drinking cofee in a white room i should have sat closer to the restroom i think that tree is fake Larry Holderfield The Ants’ Cost/Benefit Analysis of the Kitchen Sink Fifty-three percent of scouts report a barren plane prone to floods, filled with the tantalizing aroma of food. Thirty-six percent of scouts carry all they can obtain, overloaded, a river of sisters neatly queued. Eleven percent of scouts, awaited in vain, never return. We may never know what has ensued. 42 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 43 Linville Dylan and I sat, Cooking our dinner In the gorge By stovetop. We sat With our backs to the Cold, leaf littered ground, Curled, nursing the meal. A sizable oak, adjacent the Kitchen and weary from Passing years, creaked out A discomforting pain: …crack!…crraaakk! Our scoutmaster poised His bald head from the One-man tent, discerning The possibility of disaster. Moments passed Unchallenged, the Macaroni nearly Tender. The evening light sagged Like a wet towel, slippery And fell. Night now Blanketed the gorge. Crickets Began chirping dewy lullabies That pervaded every natural Boundary. Summer of 10th Grade The simple maple wood of the stairs bowed beneath your rubber soles, like the rough calloused paws of an elephant, grinding splinters out of its soft shelves. Your voice trumpeting, your dominance was absolute. And me, cowering at the end of the hall, legs trembling, if only they could see me now. Your hands, fingers kneading the soft, fleshy dough of your palm, muscles flexing, tendons and sinews grinding, posturing to make contact first. Eyes snapping and sparking, setting fire to the maple. Nose, strong and bulbous, in and out, spewing thick, hot steam. Tail swishing, the stark white of your ivory tusks blinding in the dim light of the hall. I hope she’s worth it. Your eyes are pinpricks in the night, glowing with white-hot hate. Beneath your skin, thick membranes twisting wet and pumping blood and life and anger, filtering clean the toxins from your cells. Your eyes hollow. You charge. My body is frozen. Paul Vincent Alex Craig 44 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 45 Here I Sit Upon the Very Toes of Spring As the gamebirds haunt This hill on which I sleep And scold the very Marrow of my soul, Their yodels sing The nighttime’s sighs, Of dreams far older than I can dream. Here I sit upon The very toes of spring Like a child at the edge Of his front porch. I kick my feet over oblivion In these Scottish hills With the wind trampling my sleeping bag. K’che-sepi-ack The Chesapeake flows with the same murky salts and nutrients that comprise my own blood. There is something vastly unsettling about these dying and antiquated towns, rusted industrial carcasses leaking petroleum and iron oxide and stinking of long-abandoned paper mills. These places have long outlived their purpose; they will sit in tangled, corroding heaps, relics of our ancient industrial heritage, until the tide finally collects them and bleaches away the scarce minerals that remain. Indeed, this place is haunted. And yet, there truly is nowhere else that I have seen in my life that can compare to the dark and lonesome majesty of this muddy estuary. I have tasted its water on my lips, its tides have nourished me since the cradle. My flesh is composed of its mud, my blood its waters. My soul has long been entranced by its mystical and intoxicating air. The sailboats on Wicomico, the canvas of their rigs bone-white in the hot sun; the dark and pungent sediment that seems to stay imbedded in the soles of my feet for weeks; the dense subtropical forests that sweat in the humidity and press all the way up against the very edge of the shore; the sun- and salt-bleached driftwood left in dry heaps on the desolate beaches like twisted carvings meticulously hewn by some mysterious and unseen sculptor. Upon the soft banks of this vast bay, long after the sea has reclaimed the tired, rusted villages, and long after my ashes have been laid to rest in the salt and motherly breeze, my descendants will live and play and bathe, naked, with the sun softly glancing their graceful, olive-tanned skin. The beauty of it will be startling, haunting, otherworldly. Until the end of time, my people will inhabit these dense forests and narrow strands, and they will always taste on their tender tongues the sacred salts of their ancestry. Gabriel Morgan Samuel Dalzell 46 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 47 Curb-Sitters I ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and she tells me she already has, so I say no, what do you want to be when you grow up and she says an octopus, an eight-legged creature of the deep: solitary, strong. I tell her that’s the kind of answer a child would give but she tilts her head and smiles. she tells me that if she hasn’t grown up already, she must still be a child. I admit my long-legged gloss-toned friend has a point, but then I also tell her she’s a smart ass, because she is. I change the subject. I say let’s look at the moon and she pulls her face and tells me she would rather look at dirt. dirt, yes dirt. everyone looks at the moon she says, everyone. what’s special about that? why don’t we look at something no one has ever looked at before. let’s go watch the streetlamps, let’s go watch the sidewalks. I tell her she’s dificult and she tells me I’m cliché and we end up sitting on the curb in silence. I look at the moon and she’s probably looking at some car tire or the McDonald’s cup that’s been thrown out of a passer-by’s window and I want to force her chin upward, I want to make her see that light in the sky but I can’t look at her and I can’t think to touch her quivering chin because the thought of it makes me want to cry and I know she already has begun to, maybe because she’ll never be an octopus or maybe because I called her a child or maybe she’s just crying because, we haven’t looked at the same thing in a dog-year and it’s beginning to wear on us. it’s beginning to take a toll and I want to look at the McDonald’s cup or take her hand and go look at stop-signs but I can’t. because I’m so frightened that if I give in to her ways, she’ll realize how weak I am, and she’ll leave me. and I’m stubborn, I’m a wild-boar, I’m a horse at the edge of the water and I’m dying of thirst but pride denies me of water. Filter if you wanted to, you’d know where to find me, my red hair burning fierce against my cool pale skin. maybe it is raining out and the car won’t start or the neighbor’s dog ran away and I hear him howling at my door and I should be asleep but I am pacing, pacing barefooted up and down the gentle hallways of my old house with the red front door and the hardwood floors. maybe, or probably, there is a copy of Cummings or Vonnegut or Bukowski in my hands and I am crying—not because I am sad, but because I can’t remember my favorite excerpt and I know you would love it if you were here, which you’re not. that’s probably another reason I’m crying, and I think about finding the passage and how I wouldn’t be able to share it with you anyway, because over the phone my voice may quaver and it would lose its magic and then you wouldn’t love it as much as I did and I can’t bear that thought. sometimes when I breathe, I imagine the particles finding their way to your mouth, your lips, your nose, your lungs, and I feel dizzy then, when I envision my breath swimming through you, kissing you everywhere I never could, and then I imagine the same for me, welcome your exhaled breath into my body, smile at the thought that you are me and I, you. this is not a love note. I don’t want you to think something dramatic like I would die without you; you are not the sun or the moon or the stars in my sky. more, you are the filter I use to look at them and they are all the more beautiful for that. Amanda Manis 48 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 49 Letters to Heaven Letter 1 – August 7th Hi, It’s so hot here! The people are okay, not the best looking bunch, though. I can’t really write much, there’s this thing I have to go to soon. Just wanted to let you know I got here okay! I’ll write more later. Bye. Letter 2 – October 19th Hi again, Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote. Did you get my last letter? I do hope you write back soon. Maybe you’re just waiting for me to write more about what’s going on down here. It’s kind of just the regular old stuf. I’ve seen some friends I knew back in high school and college. Even some professors who I absolutely hated. Can you say awkward? Yeah. The woman in charge doesn’t seem that bad, despite everything I heard about her before coming down here. She does like to keep things clean, which is hard to do with all the heat. Sometimes she lets us use the AC but that’s only on rare occasions. I don’t want you to think she’s a tyrant, though! She likes to joke around as much as the next person but when you’re in charge, you’re in charge, right? Well, it’s time for dinner. Let me know what’s going on with you! I’m literally dying to know! Bye. Letter 3 – November 1st Hi there, I’m wondering if I got your address right. I haven’t gotten a single letter from you yet. Maybe you haven’t received any of mine but I thought we had a promise to always keep in touch, no matter what. I guess you’re busy up there, doing your thing and what not, but it’d be nice to hear from you every once in a while. It’s creepy the way time passes here. I actually have this theory that time just stands still. Every watch I’ve looked at is broken and I I settle on looking at the cup through the reflection in her saltwater eyes and she asks me to stop staring and she asks me to hold her hand and she asks me what’s going to happen to us and all I can say is I don’t know, I don’t know. because I don’t. and I do. we both know. because I still can’t look directly at the cup and she’s avoiding the moon at all costs and we are breaking because we haven’t looked at the same goddamned thing in months and, to be honest, I don’t even think we know how to anymore. Curb-Sitters • Amanda Manis Meen Cho 50 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 51 more if I forgot your name. There’s nothing really to write. I’m forgetting words, too. People here don’t really want to have conversations. They just sit around and throw rocks at the walls. I’m starting to do that, too. I don’t know when I’ll hear from you or when I’ll write again but I hope it’s soon. You should come visit me, please. Or at least write me a letter. I promise I’ll stop writing if you just send me some words, please. Bye. Letter 7 – July 1st I don’t know why I bother writing to you anymore. It just makes me sadder and sadder every time I check my mail and find nothing. People are starting to talk more. I keep hearing about some war or fight or something but I just can’t seem to muster up enough energy to ask people what it’s about. The boss made some kind of announcement but all I do these days is throw those same rocks at the same walls, hoping to make a tunnel to you. Have you heard anything about this? I didn’t even realize there was anything left to fight for, other than you, of course, but I don’t know if I even believe in you anymore. The rumor is that if we win, we’ll get to move to better facilities. I don’t know where but I think it’ll be closer to you, if you even care. I guess if this is a war it means that there will be death. An escape. If you don’t hear from me again it means I died again. Bye. Letter 8 – July 5th I’ve found some time to write you one last letter. Everyone here is so antsy. Some people are saying the war won’t even happen and some are saying that the enemy is too scared to fight. I don’t know what to believe. I just wish I could have seen you or talked with you before leaving for war. It’s almost been one year. Do you still remember me? These past few nights I’ve been having dreams about life. Remember you used to call me your baby? Oh, and remember that night we danced to that song, what was it called? It was by the Beetles, or was it the Beatles? I remember that time we stole newspapers from peoples’ yards and gave them to people who would never get the paper. The roses and the flowers and the salt rocks in the sun. I remember the fighting too and I’m sorry. I was wrong. I wish I could be sure that you’ll get this letter. I wonder if you’ve gotten any of my other letters. It’s okay that you haven’t written back. And it’s okay that you’ve moved on. I can’t expect you to always be mine. But I have a feeling I won’t be coming back from this. I’m not sure I want to come back. People tell me it’ll get better with time and I’ll forget everything that happened in that part of my life but I don’t want to. I want to remember everything and the only way to do that is to die again. There are rumors that when you die here something amazing happens. They can’t find new batteries to put in mine anywhere. What’s weird is that all of them, even mine, stopped on the same time. 2:45. It’s so weird. Write back with your theories on this! I miss you. Bye. Letter 4 – December 25th Merry Christmas! They have an odd way of celebrating it down here. It’s not even a kind of celebration, really. It’s hard to explain. I don’t even know all the details but I’m excited about New Years. Something BIG is supposed to happen. Please write back soon. It doesn’t even feel like winter here. We do get ice cream with dinner tonight, though, so it’s a nice treat. It’s getting kind of lonely here. I tried to make friends when I first got here but no one really cares about much. Bye! Letter 5 – February 14th People always look at me when I write these letters to you. I actually got into a fight with a couple of people because they were making fun of me for writing to you. They think I’m crazy for believing you’ll ever write back after I tell then to whom I’m writing. I believe you will; you’re just busy. But now that it’s after the holidays, I’m sure you’ll find time to send me something. I really do hope I remembered your address correctly. It would suck if these letters were just floating around in limbo. Well, today is Valentine’s Day. Remember that one time I was drying flowers on all of the windowsills and you thought they were trash? I searched through all of the trash cans until I pieced the flowers back together. I don’t know why I’m thinking of that day, but it was a good day. I miss those days. Are you ever going to write back? I don’t want to get angry but I don’t know why you won’t write. Especially today. No one here cares about today. I wish I could come visit you but they say that it’s impossible. They say that you’ve forgotten about me and I should stop wasting the ink and time. I tell myself not to get angry with you but sometimes I find myself punching the walls until my fists are on fire. Please write back soon. Bye. Letter 6 – May 27th? Hello, It’s been a while since the last letter. Sorry. This place makes me forget things. Sometimes I wake up and I can’t remember my name. I wrote it on my hand. I wrote your name, too. I’d hate to forget my name, but I would hate myself Letters to Heaven • Meen Cho 52 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 53 Indelible She asks if it’s going to hurt and I want to scream at her, Of course it’s going to hurt, you moron. It’s a fucking tattoo. I bite the insides of my cheeks and try to smile. “It’s not that bad,” I tell her, “and besides, it’ll be over before you know it.” She stands in front of me with her pants undone, rolled down to the top of her ass-crack. She’d asked for “something tribal with a Chinese symbol that means ‘forever’ in the middle.” I found the character in a Japanese dictionary, but I don’t tell her this. I apply the stencil and she walks to the full-length mirror hanging on my studio door and turns, this way, now that way. She pulls her jeans up and looks again, making sure the branches flowing from either side of the symbol are still visible over the top of her pants. She smiles, and I can tell she thinks it looks sexy. In the industry, we call these upper-butt tattoos “ass-antlers” or “tramp stamps.” She sits on the raised stool in front of me giving me access to her lower back. I give my machine a final once-over, dip my needles in the first cap of ink, position my foot pedal, and begin. To her credit, she doesn’t jump or cry out. Most of them do. When I finish the outline I tell her we can take a break if she wants. She stands and stretches, and asks for a cigarette. She doesn’t look like a smoker. I hand her a smoke and notice her hands are shaking. Some people shake when they get a tattoo, some throw up, some pass out, some go into shock…I even had one guy crap his pants. The body reacts, sometimes violently, to this sort of insult. A tattoo is an intentional injury. Clients would do well to remember that. I open the door for her and we’re headed outside when she collapses. “Fucking great.” I drop to one knee beside her. “Hey! You okay?” I shake her. What was her name? Cammie? Callie? I roll her over and there’s blood on her face. She must’ve smacked her nose on the concrete step. I’m about to go grab a cold, wet rag when I realize she’s not breathing. I put my head to her chest and listen. She’s wearing a little black top with skinny straps and I can smell her fabric softener and I’m aware that my two-day stubble is probably scratchy on her smooth skin, but I can’t say that you get to go back. Like, go back and relive the happiest moments of your life. But others say that if you die again here you stop existing. I think I’d enjoy either one right now. So I guess this is it? Maybe I’ll hear from you or maybe I’ll see you or maybe not, but I know that when I feel the last breath of air release from my lungs, I’ll try to paint a perfect picture of you as I fall. This is my final goodbye. Letter 1 – July 9th The doctors say that you’re getting better and that I can finally start writing to you. I received all of your letters. Thank you for them. It really killed me to have to read those letters and not be able to write back, but the doctors told me if I did write back, they’d throw my letters away. I’m so sorry, baby. I hope you really are getting better. They said the therapy is helping a lot. Please stop hurting yourself. The doctors said that once you stop having these ideas for good I could come visit you! Wouldn’t that be exciting? Your birthday is coming up soon. Do you remember what we did last year? We planted those rose petals you liked to dry so much. I don’t know why, but there’s a plant growing there now. I water it everyday. I attached a picture of it with this letter; hopefully the doctors will let you keep it. Happy birthday. I’m so happy you’re doing better and I can’t wait to see you again. Letters to Heaven • Meen Cho Lynne Buchanan 54 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 55 From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990) My dad used to tell me bedtime stories about a character he made up named Ben the Bear that was constantly in search of the moon. My dad was raised in Virginia in a large upper-class family that was rich enough to aford a black maid. Last night, I went by to ask him about a couch and he was screwing the neighbor on the floor, but nobody deserves to be lonely I guess. I have this picture of him fishing where he looks like this dumb overweight kid that I would have seen while I was fishing. When he was a kid, he played the drums. He stopped playing the drums and got herpes in high school. I think his brother John traumatized him by wearing a werewolf costume into his room one night, screaming, “I’m gonna get you Jimmy,” or something to that efect. My dad got a business degree and hated his father, still hates his father although his father drank himself to death. When we moved into our house on Hermitage Road in Greensboro, he took pictures of all the rooms that were recently abandoned so he could track the process of their reinvention. He watches them grow like children or plants. He would take a picture of a room that had been painted a new shade of peach or of the deck in the process of renovation. He takes pictures of new cars or mopeds that he buys, or sometimes of the house from the view of the street because he’s trying to sell it, but something is wrong with the insulation in the attic. There is only one picture I have of my dad and me together where he doesn’t have a beer belly or hasn’t adorned himself with visors or some kitschy garment like a fanny-pack. It was taken in a photo booth at a fairground in Myrtle Beach in the spring of 1990 on my fourth birthday. I look vague and innocent but I’m not that way now; neither are any of my friends. We’re all crooked or dishonest in some way; somebody is always using someone for something else. I’m not trying to get at the idea of lost innocence. The first time I thought that my dad could quite possibly be insane was a Saturday afternoon when I was twelve. I was in the bathroom trying to shave my unibrow to give the impression of a natural division. He was on the back porch cleaning leaves out of the gutter muttering. There was a thud and then an, “Oh shit, goddamnit.” He had fallen of the ladder he was standing on and landed on the Jacuzzi cover. I heard him rolling of the cover of the Jacuzzi, panting, and then he said, “Oh, I’m sorry lord, I’m sorry, forgive me.” It shocked me at the time. My dark Caucasian face looks up at me when I’m reading in Center hear anything. Just…nothing at all. I run to the phone and dial 911. I’m explaining that I know nothing about C.P.R., no, she wasn’t taking any drugs that I know of, yes, she just collapsed without warning, and I’m holding this girl’s head in my lap and wiping dirt and blood of her upper lip, then the paramedics are here and I’m trying to stay out of their way. A cop pulls in behind the ambulance, walks over to me and takes down my statement, then asks for the girl’s name. I tell him to hang on a minute. I go back inside and grab my backpack and dig around until I find her paperwork. I grab her purse from the counter, and then I go back out. “Her name is Cassie Stokes,” I say, looking at the line on the form where she’d written her name about an hour ago. The medics ignore me. They talk on the radio, write on papers attached to metal clipboards, and speak with the cop in low voices. A sheet is pulled over her face. I call my cab then lock up the shop. Through the glass door I see an imprint of the bloody outline of Cassie’s unfinished tattoo on the linoleum. Must’ve happened when I rolled her over. Fuck it, I’ll clean it tomorrow. One of the paramedics calls me over and tells me they’re taking her to Baptist Hospital. I’m unsure of what to say. I settle for telling him that I didn’t really know her, but that I’ll bet there’s a cell phone in her purse that’ll give him the number of someone who does. I hand him the purse, then my cabbie pulls in behind the police car, looking wary. I climb in my cab, looking the other way as the medics load her body in the back of the ambulance. Heavy drinking is another form of intentional injury. I’m going to intentionally injure the shit out of myself tonight, I think, and then I tell the cabbie where I want to go. Her mother calls me two days later . She tells me that Cassie died of a brain embolism and that there’s nothing anyone could have done. That it’s just one of those random things that happens. That it’s all part of God’s plan. I’m thinking how bad it sucks to be in a world where you can be young and pretty and your brain just blows a gasket with no warning. She tells me she is so glad Cassie wasn’t alone at the end. I think about how little I knew Cassie Stokes and wonder at how alone we are. All the time. My next appointment walks in the door. I have to get to work, I tell her. I’m sorry, I tell her. She’s crying as I hang up the phone. My client is standing on the spot where Cassie’s tattoo left its mark on my floor. If he were to look down, he’d see nothing but a clean patch of linoleum. I shake his hand and say, “It’s John, right? Tell me what I can do for you, John.” I smile and listen, carefully, as he tells me what he wants. Indelible • Lynne Buchanan Adam Thorn 56 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 57 Mission Control I grip her hips with my knees and squeeze as I hold her arms to the ground. Her fingers hook at the air, and her legs bend up against my ass and back, drawing ineffectual little curves in the air. Her eyes are wet and specks of reflection shine from her irises. I say, we’ve got to survive this if we’ve survived everything so far. She coughs a practiced, forceful cough to blow dust that she may have imagined out of her lungs. As my fingers meet hers, her hand stifens into a jagged melody of agony against my palm. “Who says we’ve survived, anyway?” her voice is shattered glass and quiet desperation. I press my back against the stone above us in convulsion. She yelps in surprise. “Are you alright?” she asks through gritted teeth. I smile, or probably grit my teeth, too, and say, about as alright as you are. Zoloft. Celexa. Concerta. Adderall AR. Xanax. A powder kaleidoscope of things to keep us happy and healthy. A building falls victim to a catastrophe we can’t name and we lay here, under it, discovering that we were addicts. That those shades screaming from behind trash cans on our way home could really teach you something about pain. That we don’t know if we want to live long enough to see if we come out alive. Her hand claws at my back, and I bury my face against her shoulder. She’s City Park (I’ve been using this picture as a bookmark for the past week) and I ask it, “What implications do you have?” wanting it to teach me something. There wasn’t anything to worry about at the age of four. A bee died one day while I was waiting for my mother to lock the door of our townhome. That was horrible. Anyway, in the picture there is a plywood backdrop that brings out the contrast of red and white on my dad’s polo shirt and is forgiving of his receding hairline. I’m sitting in his lap and have a crooked smile in place in the first shot. My white t-shirt blends into one of the white stripes of his polo shirt, he’s passing his chromosomes and predisposition towards substance abuse into me with each shot taken. He has cyborg eyes that stretch like something invisible is hooked inside his eyelids. I find this out later from mom, and the first time I get arrested, that this robotic glare was symptomatic of a cocaine and pot combo. My mom went around the seedy fair ground with us that night sitting on benches while my dad and me went through the haunted house or road the fireball. She was pregnant with Rachael. I remember eating funnel cake on a bench in front of a black octopus that had screaming people lodged inside its tentacles. Some music originally produced by an electric organ was playing. I asked mom if I could feed the fetus funnel cake. I was worried that a whole person was stufed inside of her, but my dad told me it was just a fetus. “Don’t use that word,” is all she said. Dad always called my unborn sister the fetus when he was around me. He already resented the new financial strain/responsibility that I was and I can understand why he was using cocaine and marijuana at the time. My dad said before taking a bite of the cake, “If you feed the fetus funnel cake, it might sufocate. It only eats things mom feeds it with her umbilical cord. It’s picky.” Most of my vivid memories came from reruns of The Wonder Years, Happy Days, or The Twilight Zone. I’ve got a memory of a friend’s house that always smelled like cofee ice cream. I remember that picture in the photo booth being taken. I asked my dad who was going to take the picture. He explained that the man who owned the machine kept a midget in there and that when everybody left the fairground at night they would let him walk around and pick leftover food up with a long stick. I watched my dad put two coins in to where the midget lived, or at least spent his evenings. “He’s has to climb up a ladder. It takes a second. They keep him way down in there because he’s so ugly.” I remember putting a piece of caramel on the ground before leaving the fair that night. I hope he got it. From Myrtle Beach • Adam Thorn Zane Gragg 58 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 59 made of stone and digging at my ribs. I open my mouth to speak and the air suddenly feels sinister around me. Like I shouldn’t let it inside me. Like it’s there to corrode me. I’m paralyzed, but I need to get Nico to the… she stopped. She stopped laughing. She stopped laughing. her hand hurts mine but I can’t let go. She seems to be the only thing amidst this near darkness, filled with jutting rocks and quaking like a subwoofer after every explosion or crack. But she stopped laughing. I pull on her hand. she follows this time, closes in on me, the skin of her arm warm and dusty. Without sound or thought, she crawls over me and I feel her sweat on my forehead as it drips. Her breath blows wet across my nostrils. I try to imagine her weight shifting over me, but it just makes me sick. She bends her face down to the water and sucks it up. I feel the moment as an eternity, watch the water flow into her mouth and throat and nose and lungs and feel the cool indiference of drowning she’s drowning even as I feel her pull close to me and over me and back onto her back beside me. I say, I thought you were drowning. I think I’m...are you okay? “That was like a second at most. How could I be drowning?” I say, you don’t sound so convinced yourself. Her fingers are clawing at my arm again. - - - Celexa, Adderall AR, Concerta, Xanax, and Zoloft. Citalopram, amphetamine, methylphenidate, alprazolam, and sertraline chloride. All our senses are in appalling revolt as this litany of gods drains out of us. I breathing staccato rhythms. My eyes are hot and dry, and my skull is filled with pressure. “There’s no way we can get out of here,” she murmurs in stripped tones. The ground shakes around us, the sound enveloping me from behind, rushing past me, and leaving us blanketed in the emptiness behind it. I whimper involuntarily. For nearly a day we’ve been trapped in the tail end of apocalypse. Light leaks through the rubble, but my attempt at heroically moving the rocks ends in failure. Those medium-sized rocks in movies aren’t around, so I’m either digging at pebbles or clawing at boulders. - - - She starts laughing. “We think we’re dying, and we are, but…” Then the laughter swallows her words. The sound is sharp and I’m disconcerted. But, I think. The laughter just keeps coming, but as I pull myself over to her, I realize she’s crying. She’s howling with laughter and tears are pouring down a frieze of animal terror where her face once was. This makes me so very afraid. So very afraid. I’m thirsty. There’s a little water pooled in a corner. I drink from it with my hand, afraid to let go of hers with the other. She still laughs. I pull on her hand. You need to drink, too, Nico, come on. She resists. Her laughter is filling me up, and I don’t really think. Every sound she makes has become some psychic grotesquery, overwhelming me. She goes limp. This makes it even harder to move her. I crawl back to her, only as I flip over from on my back, the whole world stays behind. Everything is dark, blank, tasteless. This is what death is and my vision slams into view, late, sloppy, useless but relieving. My heart is Mission Control • Zane Gragg 60 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 61 I say, I don’t want this either. My body contracts, pulling itself toward my torso, then goes limp. Did it? She doesn’t move. - - - I scream. Something is touching me. “Jack, the light is getting bigger.” I throw her arm of of me and crawl to our little puddle of water. I can hear her crying, suddenly, whimpering in surprise and desolation. The shocks in my head are getting worse. I feel so sideways, I say. What time is it? A bright blue brilliance floods the tiny space as she opens her cellphone. “Oh wow...it’s been two days now.” This isn’t what time it is, but this information seems more pressing. I say, Nico, how are you feeling? “Like a crumpled up, pissed-on piece of paper.” Were you crumpled up or pissed-on first, I ask. It seems important at the time. - - - They have been coming. That’s what she was telling me when all I was afraid of was the cold thing touching me. They find us huddled like scared children, rubbing each other’s hair and mumbling in confusion. It has been two days and we were only hungry. Specks of light become slices of light become a torrent of so much information I think I’m dead. When I pull myself out, with Nico’s hand in mine, dragging her along I vomit. The light is so intense. Amidst rubble and about half a dozen emergency personnel, I puke in response to salvation. The paramedics pull us apart quietly and without words, and sit us down to check to see if we are okay. As he asks me questions, his face seems to blur on one side as it sharpened on the other, back and forth. I decide not to tell him. My arm twitches violently. have never felt so forsaken as I do now. Reality as I know it melted before me in vicious whirls. The lines and angles of my life, every little square and circle, look alien and forbidding to me. I wonder if my arm is bleeding where Nico had kept clawing it earlier. I reach down and it’s wet. I touch this wetness to my mouth, and it was salty and a little dusty. Well, what was I expecting? Sweat and blood taste the same. I feel cold. - - - For the past as long as I can remember, she’s been saying “fuck.” That’s all. Just fuck, in growls, moans, various sighs and keening animal cries. She appears to be exploring the word with whatever executive function is left to her, seeing if it fit with happy, with sad, with frightened, with angry, or with all four at once. I don’t think she was saying anything in particular, just the babbling exploration of something new to this world. Nico, I say. “Fuuuck.” she groans it. I look over and in the darkness I can hear her fingers rubbing her face. Nico we. It echos Nico we across Nico we everything Nico we I am. Nico, we need to pull ourselves together. As I say this, my words take on this fatal evaporation in my mind. Maybe we should make some noise, I say. Help them to find us. “Who are they? Who’s going to find us, Jack? We don’t even know what happened, how do we know there’s someone coming?” Her sudden lucidity startles me, and I stay quiet, mollified less by meaning than by the clarity she seems to have dredged out of the air. “Fuck!” she says, then all of the sudden she rolls over on top of me. I feel her breath against my shoulder and can feel her hair against my lips. “I don’t want this anymore, Jack. Jack, I don’t want this.” Mission Control • Zane Gragg 62 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 63 Satan Was Pissed Satan was pissed. Expenses were up, sales were down, and he hadn’t gotten laid in months. He absent-mindedly poked his talon-esque fingernail into one of the mottled, squishy eyeballs embedded in his desktop. At the faint “…ow…” that ensued, the tension in his shoulders lessened slightly. “Sumac,” he called to his administrative assistant, “What do I have today?” “Ah…lunch with Cain, an appearance at orientation, and a teleconference with Pat Buchanan at four.” “Cancel it all, Sumac. I’ve got some personal business to attend to.” “Very good, Your Nastiness.” Sumac bowed curtly and backed out of the room. “And you can quit with that fucking butler act, I’m not the King of Siam!” Satan rolled his eyes. Sumac could be so needlessly dramatic. - - - As he passed under the flamboyant sign for Serpentina’s, he removed his dark glasses but kept on his wide-brimmed hat and overcoat. “Good morning!” a sales associate chirped obnoxiously. “Welcome to Serpentina’s, distinguished distributor of fine lingerie since 857 b.c.e.! May I show you to Constricting, Pinching, Squishing, or Wedging?” “Just looking,” mumbled Satan in his most generic tone. He pretended to finger a few goods nearby, but quickly managed to make his way back to the bustiers. He had told himself just last week that he would not indulge himself for a long, long time, not unless there were extenuating circumstances. But really, when one is ruler of the underworld, when are circumstance not extenuating? He trailed his finger along the silk covered whalebone of a royal blue number from the “Demonique” collection. It was their most recent style, and it was begging to come home with him. Its black lace seemed to whisper to him, “I want to lie upon your sinewy thighs! And besides, fishnet stocking are buy one, get one!” Satan snatched an XL and two pairs of stockings before he could change his mind. At the cash register, the cashier swiped his SVC card (under the alias of Mack Donaldson) to receive the 5% discount. He handed her “Has that always happened?” Not really, I say. I hear Nico’s voice tremble from about 20 feet away. I wonder what the paramedics think has happened in that dark little crack. I wonder if I know. I ask if I could go home soon. Mission Control • Zane Gragg Sarah Sills 64 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 65 Of course, the next three times he visited Serpentina’s, she wasn’t there. And of course, these visits had to be over the course of several weeks. It wouldn’t do for the employees of Serpentina’s to recognize the tall, red-tinted gentleman as a regular. Wouldn’t do at all. He tried his best to search for her in The Database, but there wasn’t much to go on. Name? Good question. Address? Well…hell. Hades All- Purpose Community Identification Number? Yeah, right. If only he could search by magnetic appeal or breast succulence. “Sumac?” he called, “Get Tech Support on the phone. I need to run something by them. And clear my afternoon; I’ve got…um…an appointment with Jezebel.” From reception, Sumac rolled his eyes. Satan was canceling more and more meetings these days. He was starting to suspect that these were early signs of another nervous breakdown. The rings under his eyes hadn’t been this dark since Constantine declared Christianity the oficial religion of the Roman Empire. Reluctantly, he picked up the phone and began dialing the number of the first board member on today’s meeting list. - - - Back at home, Satan scratched behind the ears of Gomorrah. “Who’s Daddy’s sweet kitty? You are! You are! Does ‘Morrah wanna go for a walk? Oh, yes she does!” Gomorrah writhed unapprovingly at the leash being slipped over her head, but calmed down when Satan opened the front door. “Mew?” she said with a pause when Satan turned left at the corner. “Not the park today, Munchkin. Daddy doesn’t feel like being around people. Let’s go to the lake.” The lake, accessible to only the most elite group, was surrounded by a twelve foot fence. The fence was interrupted only once, by a small guard shack and a hydraulic arm with red and white stripes. It was at this entrance that Satan slid the magnetic strip of his gate pass through the electronic reader. The guard nodded smartly and then returned to his computer screen with a studious stare. Satan knew that he was actually playing dirty Tetris, but didn’t feel like turning around and reprimanding him. Although a little entrail ripping always did ease his mind…no, he just didn’t have it in him today. The lake, boathouse, benches, and gazebo were all deserted. Mostly because Satan was the only member. All the other members of the Lake Woebehere Society were manufactured identities. Biel Z. Bub was Satan’s favorite. He snickered at his own cleverness and made a mental note to create an exclusive ski lodge. Satan was rounding the curve of a mulched pathway, feeling relieved $200 cash (always cash) and declined the ofer for attentive wrapping in delicate tissue paper. Ten feet from the exit, his body froze mid-stride. He eyes, immune to his better judgment, swung determinedly to his left and settled on those of a startlingly gorgeous woman. Her eyes were dark and full of heat. Her lips, painted almost purple, were curved in an amused smirk. Also not going unnoticed were a pair of the most succulent breasts ever manufactured, nestled tortuously in an orange rufled push-up bra. “Save it for somebody else, Romeo,” she laughed, and turned back towards the thong section. Her hips seemed to sing with each step, “want me…want me…” Satan rushed after her, lingerie boxes banging noisily at his knees. “Excuse me,” he squeaked at her back. “I wasn’t. I mean, I know I was…um…but, actually – wow.” As she turned, he found himself staring again at her eyes and momentarily forgot the art of forming words. “Ungh,” he tried, but quickly gave up. Without knowing why, he reached a hand toward her, as if asking her to dance. She rolled her eyes and came forward a half-step, causing an audible sizzle in Satan’s eye sockets with her own eyes. “Tonight,” she whispered, “Please don’t think about me while you’re fucking whatever tramp you can find to wear that,” and she gestured towards his bag. She calmly turned away, breaking whatever evil spell had been binding his feet and tongue. - - - Back at home, the feel of luxurious material against his skin did not please him like it usually did. The intense binding of the whalebone corset elicited only the palest excitement. Even his favorite fuzzy open-toed heels seemed to stare back at him boredly from the mirror. In his mind, it ceased to be his own reflection posing in the mirror, and turned into a vision of her. Her exotic, lavender-toned skin seemed to shimmer, as if she were an apparition. Pitifully, he reached out towards the image, but felt (as he knew he would) only cold flat glass. Before the vision dissolved, he almost perceived a patronizing smirk. He carefully folded his lingerie into strips of pink satins and placed it in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet marked “2006 – Accounts Payable.” He turned the key, placed it in his mouth, grimaced, and swallowed. He shook his head and shufled back to his six-poster bed. And for the ninety-eighth night in a row, the Lord of the Underworld climbed under the covers with scented lotion and two tissues to quickly jerk himself of. - - - Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills 66 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 67 way. “Oh shit,” murmured Satan, and slowly floated towards the bedroom. Was he dreaming? “Hello, Sethie,” purred Stella from a mountain of red satin pillows. “Feeling frisky?” Satan nodded and took a half a step forward. “No, no,” Stella pouted, “I want you to be my kitty! Kitties wear collars.” Her baby-voice carried over to the den, where Gomorrah crawled futilely under the chaise. Satan nodded dumbly and backed out. He found Gomorrah, who was slowly shaking her head, and slipped of her custom designed collar with her name stitched in silver and pink rhinestones. As if hypnotized, he wound the collar around his neck and fastened it securely. He returned to the bedroom and noticed Gomorrah’s water bowl nestled in the center of his bed. “Mommy made you some yummy milk!” crooned Stella. She did not have to ask twice. Satan obediently crept onto the bed and began lapping at the liquid inside. He had ceased to care about ridiculous conventions like dignity, and could think only of gaining access to that perfect, lavender body. “Good kitty.” Stella scratched behind his ears. She did not seem to notice the slightly raised circles above each temple. Satan felt blissfully shaken at her touch. His vision blurred, his limbs tingled. His heart beat ever faster. He fell face first into the bowl. - - - When he awoke three days later, he was naked and dehydrated in his bed. On his nightstand was a card. His stomach shriveled at the sight of the insignia on the front. Inside was a single sentence: “You will always regret ruining Eden.” There was no signature. When he opened the card, a photo fell into his lap. Staring mournfully at him from the photo was Gomorrah, sitting on the lap of a white-clad figure. Satan did not need to lift his eyes to the figure’s face. He knew exactly who held Gomorrah. - - - Thomas eficiently skimmed through all two dozen photos. He almost laughed out loud once, but managed to suppress it stoically. An assistant to the Ruler of the Universe must always maintain an air of professionalism. He placed them on his desk and took the collar from Stella. In return he handed her an envelope with an obscene about of cash, certificates, and real estate deeds. at last, when he saw her. She was reclining demurely on a bench with a book of verse. She was here, in his park, and he did not know how she had gained entrance. Nor did he care. “Mngh!” He attempted, exasperated at his once-again-suspended ability to speak. Clearing his throat, he advanced forward and began again. “Gnt, gnd, good afternoon!” She slowly lifted her eyes as if she had anticipated this very encounter. “Good afternoon,” she responded curtly. Her glance moved to the cat and her countenance brightened. “Oh! A kitty! Come here you little schmoopsie! Oh, look at you! Just look at you. Can I pet the little kitty?” She directed the question at Gomorrah, not yet acknowledging again Satan’s presence. Gomorrah took two steps back and stared imploringly at Satan. “Of course!” Satan gushed. He scooped up the cat and twittered over to the bench. He ceremoniously placed the cat on her lap, the same way an archaeologist would place a dinosaur skull on a museum’s pedestal. He tried not to notice her slight recoil at his touch. She immediately warmed, however, to the fuzzy nervous ball in her lap. Reluctantly, Gomorrah snifed her hand and allowed the woman to pet her back. A hand, after all, is a hand. One must take the attentions that one can get. “Oh she loves you!” Satan declared, pointing needlessly at the cats face. “Just listen to her purr!” The sound of silence, interrupted only by cricket chirps, escaped his notice. “By the way,” he continued, “my name is Sa – Seth. Seth.” The woman scratched Gomorrah’s head for a moment and then finally lifted her face. “Nice to meet you, Saysethseth. My name is Stella.” - - - Back at the house, Satan’s fingers shook slightly as he measured cofee grounds into the filter. He couldn’t believe this was happening. The most gorgeous, intriguing, mysterious woman was sitting one room over, petting his cat, and he was about to serve her cofee. “How do you take it?” he called to the next room. “In the back,” came the reply. “Pardon?” he asked, poking his head around the corner. “I said, just black.” “Right.” Satan leaned against the counter and panted slightly. Just black. Of course. When he rounded the corner with the tray, the chaise had been deserted and Gomorrah sat by herself with a bewildered look on her face. A familiar orange bra lay conspicuously on her head. “Meow?” she wondered, and looked towards the bedroom. One sheer black thigh-high pointed the Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills 68 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 69 Street Spirit “Stories, poems, and art! You interested in some poetry, man? Five bucks for one, seven bucks for two. I write my own stuf! Check it out! Stories, poems, and art!” That was his routine – the old Boone mascot vagrant, Jameson. Everyone in town knew his name, and those who didn’t were quickly educated. It was impossible to miss him. Either you saw him on King Street selling his stories, poems, and art, or you saw him walking down Blowing Rock Road, with his impossibly large backpack and wizard’s walking stick. If you were lucky, you’d find him hanging out at Wal-Mart, hitting on the ladies working there. If he wasn’t doing his sales pitch, he was mumbling to himself, seemingly in deep thought. Once I said “Hey” to him, and he waved and smiled, but never made eye contact. Honestly, most of the time I avoided him. One time, though, I couldn’t. I had been living in Boone for nine months at the time. I didn’t have many friends except for a couple of guys I worked with and my girlfriend, with whom I lived. It was a rare beautiful day in March – one of those days you can’t wait to get outside and for once not layer up in thick shirts and coats. I took the chance to walk alone to The Saloon for some tacos during my lunch break between classes. Jameson was at his usual spot on King Street, by the old movie theater. He was selling his stories and poems with particular energy that day; I assumed the weather afected him, too. He was a short man by nature, but the years of trekking wild and being generally insane had caused his back to curve. It reminded me of Mister Burns from The Simpsons. He had a thin, long grey beard, and extremely natty dreads. He wore the same thing every day – a knitted black skullcap, a brown jumpsuit, and of course, military boots. The stench that surrounded him defies definition. It was the combination of a man who most likely never bathed, slept outside in a tent, spent every day either selling his words or spending time at Wal-Mart, and ate cat food. No shit. The man ate cat food. Now I don’t mean to make it seem like I am talking badly about Jameson. Whenever I crossed paths with him, he seemed nice enough. He never asked for handouts, and refused to take money from people. He only wanted to sell his art, and, I guess, “be free.” I just never really had any interest in reading any of his stories, so like I said, I mostly avoided him. This one day, though, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the wind wasn’t blustering, and it must have been at least 60 degrees, which is a big deal for March in Boone. I was in “Great doing business with you both. Call me whenever you need another demonic superpower to be seduced.” Stella snorted and walked out. Thomas sat down at his desk and began the arduous task of transferring, exaggerating, distorting, and fudging. A payof this large would take a while to cover up. He glanced from his books to his boss, who was contentedly petting his new cat. His glance then fell on the photo on top of the stack on his desk, which depicted Satan in a sparkling tutu with angel wings on his back. Thomas sighed and shook his head. “What a man won’t do for a little pussy.” Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills Kelly White 70 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 71 young man here, my friend Ishmael, requested a tragedy, and I always do my best to please. So with that, do you think you can believe that what I’m preparing to tell you is true? Sure you may buy into that now, but eventually you may decide you don’t want to believe me. You may even find yourself wishing you could stop listening…” He was addressing only me again. He even dropped his voice back to almost a whisper. There was a desperate look in his eyes. It was almost like he yearned for me to believe what he was saying… “Well, get comfortable with this fact right now – reality is unavoidable. And I would never tell you a story that isn’t true. Especially this one.” Then suddenly, he was right back to his jovial attitude. “Where was I? Right, Rocco was wearing his favorite brown jacket. It was beginning to get cooler in the evening, and Rocco had about two miles to walk from campus. He had no desire to be chilly on his way home, even though the sun was pleasantly bright and the low 60s isn’t really that terrible. In fact, what I’m used to, that’s nothing. “Do you know how the air smells in the autumn? Rocco noted this as he took in a deep breath while crossing the intersection. There were barely any cars at that moment, which Rocco thought was strange. It was just after five, and usually the trafic was quite bustling. He breathed deep, and thoroughly enjoyed not smelling the exhaust he expected. Instead there was the incredible smell of dead leaves in the air. He looked up and around and noticed for the first time that season how the trees were colored. There really wasn’t very much variance in the shades, just a lot of dark greens and almost brown reds. No yellows, no oranges.” It was remarkable. Here I was, sitting in audience to a nearly crippled, homeless man. I had always considered this man to be crazy. Totally gone. Everyone did. Yet here he was, telling me a story, in the most eloquent manner. He was intelligent, and clearly very aware of himself. It made me wonder about his usual mumbling ways, but I couldn’t distract myself. Jameson was on a roll… “As he stepped from the street and onto the curb, he was startled from his gazing as a stranger on a bicycle narrowly missed knocking him down as he passed. Rocco had very little time to react, except to feel his stomach turn hot with just the quickest shot of adrenaline as the cyclist sped past. I’ll tell you this, if it were me at that moment, I wouldn’t have let the guy go without something protesting coming out of my mouth. But no, Rocco just shook it of and breathed in the cool autumn air again. Now that he was farther from campus and across the street, houses surrounded him on both sides. There was a faint smell of chimney smoke, and it only added to Rocco’s relaxation. “He felt it suddenly and smoothly rush over him, that feeling of calm. The scent in the air of dead leaves, hearth-burning fires, and even that a good mood, and something just drew me to Jameson that day. “Stories, poems, and art! Hey, man! You wanna buy somethin’ today, man? Lemme tell you a story. For five bucks, I’ll tell you a joke. Seven bucks, and I’ll tell you a love story. For ten bucks, I’ll tell you a tragedy…” It was the way he emphasized the word “tragedy” that stopped me. He looked at me with his old, intense eyes, waiting for me to react. He was holding his callused palm open, and I found myself opening my wallet and giving him a ten-dollar bill. He smiled and revealed what only seemed like seven or so rotten teeth. “A tragedy! The fella seeks tragedy! Oh, have I got a story for you, then, my friend! What’s your name, mate? Or shall I just call you Ishmael?” I didn’t quite get the Moby Dick reference, but I thought it was funny, so as I laughed, I told him my name. He laughed a little, too, and remarked at how few men he knew who had my name. He said he liked it. “Names are important, my friend. They say a lot about your character. Your name defines you. And from your name, I can see why you’re interested in a tragedy. Well, well, well, have I got a story for you. Even better, my friend, this story is true. And it happened right here in this very town. But come now, come. Before I get carried away, let’s make room, and you sit down on the wall here. Perhaps more people will join us if we seem more open…” He ushered me to sit down next to his artwork and stories. They were simple pencil and charcoal drawings, but really quite interesting. The one I remember vividly to this day was of a dark forest. There was a large, indistinguishable form in the middle of the picture, with large piercing eyes. I didn’t have long to investigate, as Jameson had suddenly begun to practically shout his story. I could tell he was attempting to get more people to stop and listen, and I admired his enthusiasm. “It was mid-October. October 13, to be exact. It was just after five in the early evening, and Rocco Granger was walking home from school. He was twenty years old, and a senior at this fine institution to our right. He had wavy, shoulder length hair, and it was the kind of dark brown that might as well be called black. It was always falling in his face, but he ignored his mother whenever she told him he should cut it. He was wearing his favorite jacket, the light brown one that he’d gotten as a birthday gift several years before. He really couldn’t remember how long he’d had that jacket, but what does it matter? It was his favorite jacket, and that’s that. “Now, as I said to you, my friend, this is a true story, whether you’d like it to be or not. Right now, I’m quite sure you’re okay with that notion, all comfortable in this beautiful weather here on King Street. Nothing would probably please you all more…” Upon saying this, he turned his back to me and addressed the strangers passing by as if they were the rest of his audience. “…than to hear a pleasant made-up fairy tale, written by yours truly. But this Street Spirit • Kelly White 72 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 73 else in the town, and darker too. If I ever had the unpleasant need to walk by these woods, I swear I refused to step across the street, or closer than thirty feet towards the border of those trees. When I peered into them, all light seemed to be sucked away, and my soul was truly chilled. There are houses on either end of the plot, but they also seem to avoid the borderline by thirty or so feet. And no one lives in them, either. They are as dead and empty as the trees between them appear to be. Jameson paused. He took a drink of water from his canteen, and I looked around. His spell had broken for a moment, and I realized my surroundings again. Everything around us continued as normal. Jameson’s audience had not grown – the people passing by simply ignored him, just as I had so many times before. My stomach growled, and I remembered my hunger. But I couldn’t leave now – Jameson seemed to have the power to hold me in place. He was mesmerizing. “Sorry, mate. My throat was getting quite dry,” he said with a laugh. “So where was I, Ishmael? Ah, yes. It was eerily silent in the street. He wanted to keep moving, but he felt like some unseen force was holding him. All he could hear was his breath and the leaves rustling in the breeze. He noticed his heartbeat was quite audible now, as it slowly decreased its speed down to a normal rate. There wasn’t even the sound of a squirrel or a single bird. He stood, gazing around. He brushed his hair out of his face, and swallowed his saliva. The breeze that stopped all sounds had also brought on a terrible chill to the air, and he shivered. Something was of, and he was suddenly terrified, though he couldn’t understand why. “His heartbeat quickly resumed its thumping and his whole body went hot when the terror appeared from within the trees across the street. It was obviously canine, yet as thin and as tall as a horse – or at least that’s what it seemed like to Rocco. Its pitch-black fur was uneven and strewn all about, and there were areas that appeared wet. It had a madness in its eyes. And that stare. Oh, that stare was projected directly at Rocco. The first real sound he’d heard in what seemed like an eternity was the low, deep throat growl. It sounded unearthly – way too deep and wet to come from any dog Rocco had ever heard before. “They stood thirty feet apart. Rocco was on the sidewalk across the street, and the beast was on the border of the woods. The woods that I’m sure you know very well, friend. I don’t know of anyone who dares to look into those woods. Attempting to do so would surely cause someone to lose their mind… “But Rocco was now staring into the eyes, and soul, of those woods. There was still no sound but the low growling, and not another living soul seemed to exist at that moment. All Rocco could sense were those mad, purposeful eyes. The beast stood, swaying slightly as if it were unbalanced in shocking odor of dog shit he just passed. It was a beautiful autumn day, the week was ending quite well, he was going home to his dog, Shane, and he was going to have a few beers on the porch while Shane got to run around in the front yard. “He liked his house. It was a tiny, one story hut. The front porch seemed too big for its own good, and Rocco liked it that way. There was a large oak tree in the front yard, which shaded the porch in the evening, and Rocco and Shane spent most of their time there together when the weather allowed it, like these beautiful days in the autumn. “A rather athletic-looking girl was approaching from the opposite direction. She was wearing too-short shorts and a white tank top. First thing Rocco noticed were her huge headphones. Second thing he noticed was no bra. She was walking rather fast, and they were not supported in any way, shape, or form. He quickly looked down at the ground as she passed, and it was all Rocco could do to not look back up at her. He laughed a little to himself after she passed. He thought of her headphones. He recently bought himself one of those Walkman tape player things, but he never listened to it while walking to or from school. He enjoyed listening to the reality rather than blocking it out. “Besides, Van Morrison was stuck in his head, and he didn’t have any qualms about that. The words ‘Ding-a-ling-a-ling, Ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding’ of Jackie Wilson Said kept playing over and over in his head. He began to sing, ‘I’m in heaven, I’m in heaven’ out loud just as he was stepping through some leaves, and the sound of the crunching made him smile. He stepped on a manhole and he smiled again at the dull, hollow clunk. “He thought, This is Fall, and it’s amazing, and I love it. A chilling breeze flushed through the air, and the smell of chimney smoke vanished. And he realized how suddenly silent the street was. He stopped walking and looked around. The houses on his side of the street all had pumpkins out on their porches. Some were carved into comical faces, some were not. There didn’t seem to be anyone near for miles. Across the street was the spot of woods everyone avoided. There was sidewalk, but people always crossed the street before passing this stretch of about fifty or so yards.” I knew instantly what place Jameson was speaking of. Much like Jameson himself, everyone who lived in Boone was familiar with that spot of woods. I always encourage people to visit the town if they’ve never been. I am still quite fond of that area, though I’ve since moved away, and traveled to many places. Boone is absolutely gorgeous in the autumn. These woods, however, are something else entirely. There is an area, about a mile from campus, heading northeast on Rivers Street. This small spot of forest is neither pleasant, nor attractive. I’ve experienced my share of haunting places, but this, I tell you, is something else. The trees grow taller here than anywhere Street Spirit • Kelly White 74 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 75 some reason I couldn’t help but wonder…was it really true? He did say it was true, after all. He spoke again, and I was immediately gripped back into his control. “Do you see? See how I knew in the beginning that you were happy to hear a true story? No matter how tragic I warned you it would be? And do you see how I told you in the beginning that you would eventually wish this wasn’t true after all? Are you getting your money’s worth?” It was as if he was angry with me. He stared at me for a moment and I saw sorrow in his old, grey eyes. It was almost unbearable; my heart sank and I lost my breath. Then he blinked and began again. “He awoke moments later to the noise of growling and yelping and biting and fighting. He opened his eyes and saw two dogs of about the same size desperately tearing at each other. It was dark and he could barely understand what he was seeing, but he recognized one of the dogs as Shane. He was just a Labrador Retriever, and didn’t really stand out among any others of his type. But Rocco knew it was him. There were a few glass shards jutting from his shoulders, and blood all over his neck and front legs. The other dog, however, Rocco didn’t know. It was slightly smaller than Shane, and it had black, wet fur. And it was so skinny it looked to be more like a skeleton with a faux coat of fur on. The dogs were relentless with each other. They were leaping and tearing and biting at each other as if they were immortal enemies from centuries past. Rocco closed his eyes and all he could think was how much he wanted to drown out the horrible noise of the fighters. He wished he had his tape player on him. He wished he could walk over and get it from his bag. He could see it; it was only ten feet away. Ten feet away? How could that be? He felt like he had ran for miles from that dark, evil spot of woods. “He tried to move and get up, but a sudden shock of pain burned from below. He looked down at half of a leg. The other half was several feet away. He remembered and frowned at noticing that his departed foot was missing a shoe. He thought, It must be cold over there all alone and without a coat. I should try to warm it up... The dogs were still fighting. The noise was unbearable. He looked over at them, and said, ‘Shane, stop it! That’s enough…’ “There was a sharp cry so loud that it made Rocco forget about his pain. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. The black skeleton dog was limping away fast, back towards the black hole it was birthed from. Shane stood his ground, with his front legs spread wide and teeth bearing. Blood was coating his neck and face and shoulders. Rocco watched the beast disappear into the darkness, but for a second he could swear he saw its eyes shine back from the depths. “He felt hot breath and a wet tongue suddenly all over his face. ‘Oh god. Okay, Shane. Thank you! …Thank you, Shane…really…’ He breathed in deep, and as he let it out, he could hear faint sirens in the distance. And he fell this world. It parted its mouth and thousands of teeth revealed themselves. The growling continued to drone on, as if the thing were unable to stop it. Or unwilling. White, foamy froth began to form on the edges of all those teeth, and it was dripping uncontrollably. “Rocco knew if he broke his eyes away from the thing across the street it would all be over. He also knew, however, that his house was less than 100 yards away. If only he was able to feel his legs, he might be able to move them and break away. And suddenly he was moving. He immediately dropped his bag, because he knew it would only slow him down. It was the fastest Rocco could remember ever running in his life. He also regretted wearing that damn jacket now. He was no longer all that cold. “The rabid beast, however, refused to let Rocco gain any ground. Within seconds he could already feel its hot breath on his ankles. It was no longer growling; now it was only panting in a ravenous, desperate way. “Rocco could see his house. He knew Shane would be waiting for him to be home soon. He was so looking forward to their time together that day. But now the prospect seemed to be fading away with the sunlight. “He was within a stick’s throw of that porch when his right shoe came loose. Rocco faltered, and all of those hot, wet teeth sunk into his right calf. He immediately fell to the ground, and the beast was on top of him. At first his fear and agony didn’t allow him to scream. All his throat seemed to be able to produce was a disappointing groan. And the hound thrashed his leg, over and over in the same spot. Even in its singular vehement attack, it swayed, unable to keep a balance on its four finger-thin legs. With another powerful bite, Rocco was finally able to scream. He couldn’t move, for the pain was too overwhelming. He tried not to look, but the hot burning adrenaline refused to let him close his eyes. He saw his shinbone begin to split in two under all the blood and open flesh. He yelled again at the site of that blood. It seemed to never stop flowing. It was everywhere. It sprayed over his pants and shirt and even his face. It sprung forth into the dog’s face too. It flowed over the ground and into the grass. Even in his terror, Rocco noticed how the green of the grass and the thick, dark red of his own blood seemed to resemble the leaves of the trees around him. He began to feel cold. He could feel Death’s blue, cold hands touching him. He looked down at the hound again as his leg was finally torn away from his body, and he saw Death’s beady eyes looking right into his. There was a crash of breaking glass to his right, and everything went black.” Jameson stopped. Again, the spell was broken as he cleared his throat and took a drink of water. I broke my gaze from him and looked around. It was still just the two of us. Everyone kept walking by. No one noticed, and no one cared that right at that moment, Jameson, the town mascot vagrant, was telling me the most amazing story. It was ridiculous and unbelievable, yet for Street Spirit • Kelly White 76 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 77 lady? Five bucks for one, seven bucks for two. I write my own stuf! Check it out! Stories, poems, and art!” I shook my head and sighed. I couldn’t help but laugh a little. My stomach growled again, and I looked at my watch. I missed my class, and I had no idea. “Thanks, Jameson.” But he didn’t hear me. Or at least he didn’t acknowledge me. I picked up my bag and turned to walk away towards The Saloon. Those tacos really sounded good now. “Kelly!” My heart dropped as I stopped and turned around. He was pointing south, towards Rivers Street. “You stay away from those woods, mate. Trust me. I would never lie to you.” back into darkness. “Again, he was awakened by noise. This time, however, it was of people shouting. He opened his eyes and he was blinded by the flashing red lights of an ambulance. At first he felt like he was floating, but was quickly annoyed to find he was being carted on a stretcher when it was knocked into the door jam. ‘Sorry about that, buddy! We’re trying to get you in here as smoooothly as possible!’ The EMT was a portly fellow, with a moustache. He sounded like Bert, from Sesame Street. “’Where’s Shane? Is he okay?’ Rocco asked faintly. “‘How’s that? Shane? Is that your dog?’ the fat man responded. “‘Yes…my fucking dog. Where is he?’ The man hesitated, which aggravated Rocco. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t just tell him where Shane was. ‘Hey! My dog, where is he?’ “‘Your dog is dead, son. He was by your side when we got here. There was blood all over him and for some reason, glass sticking out from his shoulders… Your neighbors said he jumped from your window. They said there was an attack? They said you were attacked by what looked like a rabid dog, and your dog…’ “Rocco stopped listening. His head hurt and his eyes burned. The man kept talking, making that awful noise with that awful voice. Now he was asking Rocco if he was okay. No, he wasn’t okay. He was missing half his right leg and his goddamn dog was dead. He began to cry. He was freezing. Particularly, his right leg was quite cold. All he wanted was his dog back, and to be warm. The sunlight from earlier that day would have been nice right then. And why wouldn’t the damn EMT shut up? He thought of his tape player again, and what lovely music he could listen to, in order to drown away the reality of right then. He understood now why people seemed to want to shut out the world’s noise. “But there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing he could do about any of it. He had lost his leg and his dog. And that fat EMT wouldn’t stop talking. “That’s it. The end. Thanks, mate. See you around.” I shook my head in confusion. “Wait, that’s it? Dude, you can’t just stop now! What happened to him? Did he die? Did he live? Did he get a new leg? What happened to the beast? What was the beast?” I was getting angry that Jameson would just stop right there. He stood and stared at me with that painful look in his eyes. “Ten more bucks and I’ll tell you a comedy.” He winked at me and smiled. He tapped his right leg with his walking stick and it clinked with the sound of wood on metal. I stood up, completely bewildered, and without a single idea of what to say. Jameson turned around and began shouting, “Stories, poems, and art! You interested in some poetry, Street Spirit • Kelly White 78 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 79 (next pages) Robert McKnight Parts and the Whole 80 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 81 82 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 83 84 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 85 86 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 87 88 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 89 (previous spread) Heath Montgomery drw3 and drw6 (next page) Paul Vincent Reeds Luke Flynt Bicycle 90 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 91 Janie Ledford Family 92 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 93 Ivan Gilbert Radio ‘54 Alexander Hatchett Old School Boombox 94 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 95 Jessy Harding Untitled Rebecca Bennett Cherokee Hands fall 2009 / 97 Melissa Sullivan Untitled 1 (next spread) Corey Erba Birds of Pray & Matthew Thomason Fence 98 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 99 100 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 101 Joseph Santaloci Roommate and Sandwhich Kristin Ashley Expanding Mass 102 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 103 Jared Watson Carl Ray Carter Miri Han Untitled 104 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 105 Alexa Feldman Native Tongue (next page) Taryn Cowart Untitled (next spread) Samuel Dalzell Dark Places and In the Name of Our Progress 108 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 109 Max Shepard Self Portrait (next spread) Amanda Nicholas Fender Height and Trust Ashley Weinberger Untitled 110 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 111 112 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 113 Heath Montgomery Leaf Bustle and Mask fall 2009 / 115 Karen Lepage Diagram for Departure 116 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 117 118 / the coraddi COLOPHON This semester’s issue includes selections of art and literature submitted to the Coraddi from August to late October, 2009. Body text is set in Hoefler Text 10 pt. Piece titles and other added type is set in Neutraface, and the Coraddi logo uses a sporty typeface called Aktuelle. This magazine is distributed FREE throughout the UNCG Campus. CONTACT The Coraddi Box D2 EUC UNCG Campus Greensboro, NC 27412 web: thecoraddi.com e-mail: the.coraddi@gmail.com |
OCLC number | 929726729 |
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