Aurora 2022-Final

A Note From the Editor:

Staff

A significant thread throughout the creation of this edition has been distance. The physical distance of our staff living around the country as online students, the distance of time between last semester’s submissions and this one, and even a distance in our editorial reach: this year, for the first time in over a century and a half, we have invited submissions from beyond the Woods commu nity to include creative writing from incarcerated women in Indiana prisons. In fact, even as I write this, I am abroad in Greece, eight hours ahead of Terre Haute’s Eastern Standard Time. There is nothing groundbreaking or exciting about distance—especially not these days— but there is still something beautiful in the interconnectedness we gain by transcending it, in what happens when we choose to come together despite miles and divisions. While there is no official theme to this year’s Aurora , so much of the art, poetry, and prose threads deeply together through the love and passion of their creators who were not only devoted to the act of creation, but also passionate enough to share their work with others—with us. In this way, Aurora works as a meeting point, a place of connection that binds us all together. This edition includes a vast range of subject matter and me dia, from whiskey-soaked cowboy fiction to rainbow octopus art to the delicate imagery of a dance in S. Boyle’s poem, “Respite.” And while there is nothing explicitly connecting these works, they are unified (distance shrunk!) between the covers of our journal. There is profound beauty in connection through distance. It brings new ideas, beliefs, and passions that would have never converged otherwise. That beauty is rampant in this edition. We welcome you to it. Ally Groves

Editors-in-Chief Ally Groves Braden Kelsey

Layout Editor Patricia Henney

Associate Editors Sara Allard Olivia Burns Aine Cunningham Carmela D’Agostino Tavia Hedrick Courtney Schmid Adam Stattner Emma Tomey Emerence Uwamahirwe Ashley Zembrycki Faculty Advisor Josh MacIvor-Andersen

Cover Art “In There Somewhere” Julian Green

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Contents

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Octopus................................................................ Amber Young................. Countertransference....................................... Barbara Mahoney Raffety Jackie.................................................................... Madison Raiser............. From the “Closeness” series.............................. Julian Green.................. Hidden Lights................................................. Lucia Fruchtenicht....... Untitled........................................................... Meredith Williams....... Rushers........................................................... Julian Green................. Early Morning Blue Heron............................ Patricia Henney............. From the “Closeness” series.............................. Julian Green.................. Zebra.............................................................. Madison Raiser............. Fox................................................................. Nicole Potts................... World on Fire................................................. Madeline George...........

Poems Class Haikus.......................................... KHS300, Outdoor Adventure The Last Love Song........................................ Jennifer Cratsenberg.... Who Am I........................................................ Emma Tomey.............. In the Mountain Valley ................................... Bethany Simpson........ Enter the Sea................................................... Matthew Chubb............ Enough............................................................ Lara Campbell............. My Human is Paper......................................... Rachel Shrock............. Respite............................................................. S. Boyle....................... Fiction The Strange Funeral of Reverend Edgar Thomason............................. Addison Hughes........... Creative Nonfiction Fear and Loathing in Mordor.......................... Braden Kelsey. ............ The Exact Same Steps..................................... Sara Allard.................. Running Water ................................................ Rayven Crook............. Art Untitled............................................................. Gray Baldwin............... Untitled............................................................ Jill Benfield.................. Flight................................................................ Madeline George.......... Untitled............................................................. Alyssa Snively............. Joy Passage..................................................... Jenn Sykes.................... Red Winged Black Bird.................................. Patricia Henney............ In Limbo.......................................................... Elaine Yaw................... Heritage on the Breakfast Table...................... Elizabeth Wetzel.......... Here I Stand Before You................................. Katelyn Johnson.......... Rainy Days...................................................... Patricia Henney............ Love: Then and Now....................................... Johanna Murphy.......... Untitled............................................................ Alyssa Snively............. Awakening....................................................... Madeline George......... Wednesday & Pugsley ........................................ Olivia Greve...................

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Gray Baldwin

Untitled

2022

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KHS300, Outdoor Adventure

KHS300, Outdoor Adventure

Class Haikus

* Standing By the water By myself – looking out Serotonin comes over me Content * Drowning A panic for air The reaching of a hand A gasp of fresh air fills the lungs Life saved

A trip with students Exciting times on the road Eager to observe – To see them evolve and grow Learning, growing together * The birds chirp They fly with each other Spring is here * Watching Taking it in As others stroll on by So peaceful and quiet indeed Front porch * Woods are standoffish Aggressive and towering Little do they know Deathly weapons among them Looking to steal their beauty * Grass grows It is very green Very rough to my touch It is extraordinary Spring time

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Jill Benfield

Madeline George

Untitled

Flight

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Jennifer Cratsenberg

Alyssa Snively

The Last Love Song

Untitled

Meet me at the threshold

of time

beyond the stonewalled border , past the goldenrod. The bees will guide you. Hold me under the dangling vines of wild grape. Let the decayed sweetness l i n g e r on our skin, if only for a little while longer.

D a n c e with me, among the remaining milkweeds.

Let us sway with the breeze of the sea as butterflies tousle our hair under a late harvest sun.

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Jenn Sykes

Patricia Henney

Joy Passage

Red Winged Black Bird

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Braden Kelsey

Braden Kelsey

Fear and Loathing in Mordor

to Isengard,” Sam’s “If I take one more step, this will be the farthest I’ve ever been from home”—his “PO-TA-TOES! Boil’em, mash’em, cook’em in a stew,” Gandalf’s “son of a Took!” when Pippin knocks a helmet down a well and into the goblin-filled cave system. We would bond over these clips, rewind them endlessly to make sure we each got the vocal pitch right when saying “...and my axe!” These phrases were all regularly shouts of power among my two brothers and me—phrases of comfort, phrases that you knew somebody would always shout back. We rewound the movies at the same parts: when Aragorn says “It’s the beards” when explaining why it’s hard to distinguish dwarvish men from women; when he throws Gimli onto the orc-infested bridge to protect the Helms Deep gate, or when the Rohirrim charge with the mornings’ break. These scenes were usually out-of-place or extraordinary moments, but there was one we would always try to get perfectly on a still-frame paused screen: when Bilbo asks Frodo if he could hold the ring one last time, before producing perhaps the most frightening moment across any of the films. In the books, when Frodo first visits Rivendell, it had been approximately 17 years and 39 days since Bilbo last had the ring in his possession. Yet, after living with the ring for 60 years preceding Frodo’s obtaining it, it is during Bilbo’s time without it that he physically demonstrates his dependency. He has aged drastically, turning him frail and his mind dull. In the terrifying scene, Bilbo’s teeth suddenly turn sharp and his pupils un-seeing. A black sleeplessness surrounds his eyes and he screeches for the ring at turn-it-down volume. If you get the pause just right, you can see how little distance there is between Bilbo and Gollum, and between Frodo and his inevitable future. Frodo’s eyes are full of fear, yes, but they also have a sense of understanding. It’s at this moment Frodo realizes that his greatest enemy may not be swords and impending treacherous travels, but rather the ring of power hanging around his neck like a noose. It’s not just about destroying the ring anymore; it’s about overcoming the synthetic necessity it has created for itself in his mind—it’s a battle for control, the battle of addiction. * I started smoking regularly on the morning of my 18th birthday. In 2018, this was the legal age, though I had just enough time to become addicted to nicotine before they changed it to 21. I had been in bed the night before my

I recently confessed: all those times I told my parents I was sick and couldn’t go to school? Faked. Obviously, they didn’t get red about it— it being a decade-old crime committed by a middle schooler—but what is success without a vain villain speech explaining every detail of its occurrence? And it’s not like it wasn’t impressive—I duped them. My mother was either working long hours in the ER or as a hospice nurse. My dad was the principal at my school and hardly needed at-home proof that I was a delinquent. It took legitimate brains to get past them, I explained, cutting my mother off just before she could say that she knew I was never actually sick—which was bullshit, because I had a technique. This is how it would go down: I would wake up an hour or so before I needed to be up for school, then layer every blanket I could find and put them over my head making a vacuum-tight space. I would sit there for that hour or so, building heat below the blankets with my exhales, regularly venting out the carbon dioxide by lifting the blanket’s edge. This ultimately either raised my body temperature or gave the appearance that it was raised. When my parents would wake up, I would hide the excess blankets. Although my forehead was scalding hot, I would act cold—pretty good for a pre-teen, I thought. My mother asked why I would go through all that effort just to avoid getting out of bed, but it wasn’t about simply missing school on principle alone. It was all about freeing up my day and watching the entire eleven-hour Lord of the Rings extended cut trilogy in one sitting—a two-liter of Sprite by my side, and one of my dad’s cool whiskey glasses to pour into. * Fantasy ruled the culture in my house. I used to watch my dad play Champions of Norrath on PlayStation 2, and his dad would play Final Fantasy when we’d visit him in Florida. My dad also had this tall oak-finish display cabinet in the hallway, just outside my bedroom door. It contained hundreds of small metal figurines—each no larger than a domino—all hand-painted by him. They were blue wizards, battle-crying dwarves and hairy-footed hobbits, steeds and dragons and gnomes. Most of them served the purpose of fitting with the fantasy theme but weren’t themselves in reference to anything—all except two small childlike figures, both wearing green capes atop brown beaten shirts. Alongside them, a tall white steed, and atop it, Gandalf the Grey. My brothers and I were enveloped in this culture and simultaneously existed in an era of internet parodies; Legolas’s “They’re taking the hobbits

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Braden Kelsey

Braden Kelsey

18th, nearing sleep, when I got a text message from a cute girl asking if I’d go to Kroger with her. She’d been at work all day and needed groceries, but it was 12 a.m. in Terre Haute—not exactly the Disney Land of Indiana—so I went. We had previously dated for awhile a year or so before, but she was older and went off to college, so we kept things short. After shopping, she offered a movie in her room, and while that movie was an insufferable DreamWorks flick, I appreciated the company. After the movie was over, we sat up in her bed talking, before she said she was going to take a shower. I laid there for an hour, saying “here she comes, here she comes,” but she didn’t. I fell asleep, and after however long—long enough for it to be close to sun-up, I went looking for her. Where did I find her? Asleep on the couch upstairs. Ouch. No fault of hers—I was a sleazy kid that got attached too easily—but as you could imagine my ego was in ruins, so I threw a blanket on her and went for a drive. I drove the city top to bottom, playing my “This Will Not Make You Feel Better” playlist. Her house was on the upper north side, though to be fair everything was north of where I lived. I ended up down south by my old middle school, and it would be at that adjacent Speedway that I’d buy my first nicotine product—the infamous JUUL. Back then, every hit sent my mind racing, filling it with nausea—yes—but a good nausea. Those head rushes were like becoming extremely drunk for just a few seconds, until my blood would filter it out and I could do it again. It was wonderful, but by the time I turned 19, those head rushes had vanished, and I was stuck with a dependence no weaker than the one for air. * Tucked deeply within the human brain is the mesolimbic pathway—a cluster of neurons manipulated by the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine shapes behaviors, and is released when undergoing something necessitating survival. When dwarves are ambushed by orcs, dopamine kicks in like a hammer. When a drug like alcohol is present, certain neurons in the brain are suppressed, creating a feeling of joy and satisfaction. Turns out humans like a solid floor of joy and satisfaction. Problem is, there’s no ceiling. No person has ever had enough joy—Gollum had the ring for 600 years, and after he lost it, went through torture and death to hold it again. See his final smile when holding the ring to his eye, as he disappears into the lava of Mount Doom. The use of

outside substances—booze, cigarettes, that first cup of coffee or a magical ring of power—can create releases of dopamine up to ten times more powerful than those occurring naturally in the brain. And while power certainly isn’t a physical drug, it’d hardly take a historian to know its addictive allure. The pain of this lies not in the fact that one is actively harming oneself, but that despite what one wants, they can’t change—their body is a prison. Bilbo can find all the remedies he likes—his residence of Rivendell was a One Ring rehabilitation center, surrounding him with as much joy and peace of mind as his body allowed, and protecting the facility is a magical barrier through which no evil may enter. Regardless, his body will always want it—so much so that it will act beyond his wishes and lash out at his family if it means it can have its dopamine—that sense of safety—once more. Frodo would walk for half a year to the center of a volcano and still refuse this loss of feeling secure. * I got married two months before my 19th birthday. It didn’t work out. But I’m done talking about it, because talking about important things requires vulnerability, and that may as well be the arch nemesis of dopamine. But that’s what nicotine is for, that second of refuge. That’s what that late night joint far away in the home office was for, what marriage was for—a means of survival. It was during our last Christmas together that my wife gave me a small paperback copy of The Fellowship of the Ring . It was just larger than a modern phone, the first of a three part box set, and the words near the binding were a nightmare to read. I still have the copy—its spine has creases like old skin. I would later get the cover, the Doors of Durin , tattooed on my arm. Reading it had the childhood nostalgia of course, but the writing—it was the first time something as mechanical as craft made me cry. It felt like finding the writing you always wish you’d been able to do—like discovering how to say the things you were too blind to find yourself. Every word was in the right spot; it was like medicine to me. When I reached The Two Towers , I saw Frodo and Sam tame Gollum in writing. I never understood as a child why Frodo pitied Gollum. There’s a reason that things like Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholic Anonymous and DAA—support groups and sponsors and speakers—are all so effective at reaching their target audience. People who know pain understand people in

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Braden Kelsey

Braden Kelsey

or chance of returning to the Shire—tells Sam to go home. This is partly because Gollum convinces Frodo that Sam has eaten the remainder of the food, but to a greater degree because of Frodo’s growing addiction to the ring. He’s not willing to risk Sam taking it. Months of carrying the ring weigh on Frodo, and for a long time he masks his pain, before finally succumbing to its will and abandoning those he loves. * Initially, it was thought that people prone to being bored had different resting brain activity than those who weren’t, but that’s not true—they’re the same until the boredom hits. People who are more prone to boredom see greater activity in the right frontal lobe, which is activated during times of stress. That left frontal lobe becomes more active when somebody is looking for stimulation—a distraction, a hit, a puff, a sip. I had quit smoking, and for a couple months I got through my days without it. But the energy seeped out of me, bringing my reserves lower each day. Without my extra-strength, on-command dopamine hits, life slowed down. Days became tedious and were slogged by routine. Minutes crawled together haggardly to form an hour, and hours moved like trees to form a day. Boredom turned to watching mind-numbing internet content and switching through video games because none of them were fun anymore. And sleeping. Mr. Front Right Lobe came crashing in like the battery ram on Helm’s Deep’s gate, and through the splintered wood came flying arrows tipped with hopelessness—a run for the Ents was imminent. I receded, curled into tighter circles until it was just me in the bed, alone with my vices once more. * If I knew how many times I said I was going to quit smoking, I probably wouldn’t bother saying it anymore. Each time I run out, I stand next to Frodo in the heart of Mount Doom, my hand outreached over the lava. Each time, we turn back to Sam’s begging to destroy it, and we say “no.” Unfortunately, I don’t have Gollum to bite my finger off and pry it from my grip, so I waltz out of the entrance and get in my car. I drive down the sparsely lit streets, over the bridge, and to my favorite (the closest) gas station. The owner’s name is Jack, and I only know that because one of his day-shift workers told me—I previously knew him

pain. Frodo feels the weight of the ring, and Gollum felt it for a long time. He takes Gollum on as a guide, and he’s painfully aware that Gollum’s curse is slowly becoming his own. The Return of the King was my support group during the time of my reading it—my Nicotine & Office-Joints Anonymous (NOJA). I had Tolkien’s words for addictive behavior scattered in front of me, a beast in the light. I saw the shape of my behaviors—the roots of their patterns and origins—and my response shifted from dopamine to adrenaline; my body didn’t know whether to fight orcs or run for the Ents. Frodo wanting to keep the ring made sense to me, yet I cheered for him to destroy it while mine pushed me towards rot. I stopped smoking—broke the habit of reaching for it at all points of the day, and I even stopped demolishing toothpicks in my jaws. But demons don’t die; they only shrink under the pressure you subject them to. Take away the pressure and, suddenly, they’re even bigger than you remembered. As Gollum told Frodo in the Dead Marshes, “Once it takes ahold of us, it never lets go.” Frodo carries the ring well for months, but each day it grows heavier on him. Like all addictions, the ring brings side effects—a red indention begins to form around Frodo’s neck as it digs into his skin and breaches his psyche. He can’t sleep, has hardly any appetite, and is often suspicious of those around him. While Frodo can’t stand to part with the ring, an effect of his addiction is that he grows weaker against the ring’s will to return to its master, Sauron. Frodo increasingly loses ground in his battle against the ring’s desires each passing day, until he is eventually captured by the Rangers of Ithilian and taken to the war-torn city of Osgiliath. It is during Osgiliath’s raid that one of the Nozgul flies overhead with his fell beast, and Frodo collapses beneath the will of the ring, walking into the open and offering it and himself to the black rider. Frodo begins to put the ring on and closes his eyes, like an intoxicated man about to leap from a building, but only after one last drink. He’s pulled from his surrender by his most trusted friend and safety net, Samwise Gamgee. They barely escape capture alongside Gollum, and flee the city enroute of Minas Morgul, a desolate trek of gray dust and stone. After six months together living on lembas bread and scarcely any water—constantly dodging ring wraiths, orcs, goblins, Easterlings, treacherous terrain and the dead—the ring convinces Frodo that his companion Sam is the enemy. While on the Morgul Pass heading towards Shelob’s lair, Frodo takes Gollum’s side and laughably—given Sam has no food, water,

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Braden Kelsey

Elaine Yaw

In Limbo

as “Buddy.” Jack works nights generally, the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift, and when I walk in we exchange a “Hey Budd-ay!” He asks me what flavor smoke I want and tries to upsell me the bootleg products that have sat in the glass casing for eight months. I point through the glass at the packages I want and he picks up the wrong one. We do this a couple times before I say whatever in his hands works, and I pay. I head outside with a “Have a good one Buddy,” stepping into the bug-filled gas station lighting before climbing into my car. Most of the time, I don’t immediately open the package. Even when I get home I just hold it awhile, too embarrassed to admit defeat, before I decide I don’t care—either via the excuse of successful smokers or people who smoke their entire lives and still die naturally. I take a hit expecting my head rush, but like the last three years of hits, I’m left waiting for the next.

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Katelyn Johnson

Elizabeth Wetzel

Heritage on the Breakfast Table

Here I Stand Before You

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Emma Tomey

Patricia Henney

Who Am I

Rainy Days

I am the quiet The faint wind of a freshly fall day

Just barely enough to notice. The whoosh of cars driving by And loud voices crossing the street The forgotten voice falling silent through all the noise.

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Johanna Murphy

Alyssa Snively

Love: Then and Now

Untitled

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Bethany Simpson

Madeline George

In the Mountain Valley

Awakening

Water and wind rush around us with merging voices in the Mountain Valley where the Cloud Shadows swallow and disguise our naked outstretched arms.

Yet Sunshine reaches some parts of our gathering and makes us glisten like precious emeralds. Winter may brush our cheeks now, but we can hear Spring’s yawns.

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Olivia Greve

Amber Young

Wednesday & Pugsley

Octopus

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Addison Hughes The Strange Funeral of Reverend Edgar Thomason

Addison Hughes

One thing was certain: Reverend Thomason deserved a better funeral. Sheriff Pettin recounted the day’s events to himself, fiddling with his badge in frustration. Although a skilled reader, the apothecary could hardly sermonize like Thomason had; the Reverend relayed Biblical messages as though he had personally broken bread with Christ at that final meal, and could perorate on them as naturally as the ranchers could complain about the heat or lack of rain. The apothecary could hardly do more than read the verses verbatim— occasionally pausing to offer a definition or translation—with the same zealless stupor one would expect from a diagnosis of lumbago. At the end of it, the apothecary raised a dingy handkerchief to his mouth, proffered up a dry cough, and concluded with a mournful “Amen.” After that, the schoolmarm led the gathering in a chorus of “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Her voice, old and fraying like her hair and the threads of her dress, bore none of the awe of Reverend Thomason’s. His, though not exactly melodious, was rich and booming, exuding a confidence that Pettin imagined most hymns had been designed for. This song felt like a question, as though the congregation had only heard of Heaven that morning. Finally, they lowered the old man into his grave. This, Pettin thought, was the greatest injustice of all; no amount of cactus flowers or hand-hewn crucifixes could turn the arid, dusty sands of the graveyard into an appropriate representation of the lush vistas of Zion Thomason had evangelized. Monochrome fistfuls of dry ground landed on the Reverend’s coffin, slowly burying him. Pettin regarded the mound of dust that covered the Reverend; a strong breeze kicked up, carrying some of it off towards the mountains. The wives had prepared some food for after the service, but the apothecary took longer than expected delivering his passionless speech. Pettin chewed morosely on cold rabbit stew, scanning the dull faces of a similarly dis pleased town. Next to the cauldrons of flat sustenance was a small table, where the bartender, Steven, presided over a few bottles of Old Crow whiskey—Pettin coldly regarded those red-nosed men who partook, laughing and trampling over graves. He glanced across the field, eventually resting his gaze on a stone. His eyes, wet and old, didn’t need sight to remember its markings—Rachel Pettin. He lingered for a moment; the plain metal band on his left hand burned, calling for its lost partner. When he was sure no one would disturb her, Pettin returned to his bowl of unappetizing slop. Just as the late afternoon transitioned towards evening, a hoarse twang rose over the dissolving crowd. “John Pettin, that was quite a service!” The

sheriff ’s muscles tightened, and he brushed the cold pistol hanging at his hip. In Pettin’s adult life, only three people ever used his given name—two of them were underground, and the third was Billy Cohen, who presently took a seat across from Pettin. His six-foot frame barely fit at the table, and his stew looked tiny in his large, calloused hands. Cohen affixed a dirty-red handkerchief around his neck, and laid his sun-bleached leather hat on the table next to him. He flashed a toothy grin—dazzlingly bright in contrast with his light brown skin—and scrunched up his nose, misshapen by one too many hard punches. His eyes were red—with drink, Pettin thought. He was the very picture of a man unfit for society, let alone a funeral. The sheriff stiffened and sat straight in his seat. “Cohen.” He said the name without the usual venom, in an effort to remain in control. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing here? You know you ain’t welcome ‘round these parts.” “Relax, sheriff.” That last word came out with an ounce of irony—just enough to frustrate Pettin greatly. “I’m here on friendly business, on account of the good Reverend’s passing.” There was a moment of tense silence. He sighed, knowing that avoiding a conflict would be better. “Okay,” the sheriff said wearily. “But if I hear one complaint about you, I won’t hesitate to chase you all the way to Delaware.” Cohen nodded solemnly, and took a bite of his food, before letting out a guffaw. “John Pettin, you must agree—this is the worst stew ever made!” Pettin willed his expression to remain unchanged. After a moment, he let himself speak. “Come on, Cohen, cough it up. What are you doing here?” “I told you,” said the outlaw. “I’m here to pay my respects. Thomason was a good friend to me.” Pettin scoffed, unable to keep the disbelief from his face. “What kind of friend? He try to save your soul or something?” “Not exactly,” Cohen laughed. “We were drinkin’ buddies.” Pettin stared at Cohen in shock. “Really. Sometimes—once or twice a month—he’d ride down to my camp, and we’d drink and talk for hours.” Pettin was about to react in protest, but decided to play along with what was surely a tasteless joke. “What would you…talk about?” “Cards, mostly,” Cohen replied. “Most times, we’d play friendly, but sometimes the good Reverend would bring some disposable income to bet. He was good—beat me more often than not!” He laughed wistfully, as though fondly remembering a friend. Pettin was, at this point, firmly convinced that Cohen was trying some strange trick—a mind game, although to what end was unclear.

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Addison Hughes

Addison Hughes

“So what if the good Reverend liked a glass a’whiskey once or twice a month? We all have our demons, and we all have our escapes. Maybe me and the good Reverend were each others’ escapes. He still led you, was still a man a’God, wasn’t he?” Pettin didn’t respond; he could still feel some of the soberest eyes trained on them. “He was,” continued Cohen. “No one is perfect, but the good Reverend tried; he was a preacher, and a smart man. More than it all, he was a good man, and he was my friend. Sometimes, a crook ain’t a crook, and a Reverend ain’t a Reverend. Sometimes, people’s just people, and it feels good to get away from the expectations folks like you push on us.” At this point, Cohen had his finger buried deep into Pettin’s chest, and the two men stared hatefully into each other’s eyes. After a moment, Cohen glanced down at Pettin’s hand, presently hovering over his pistol. “Calm down, cowboy.” Cohen held his hands in front of his chest—not exactly a surrender, but a sign of nonaggression. “I don’t know why he did, but the good Reverend talked high of you. He liked you, and he liked me too. We oughtta leave things where they’re at, just for tonight. For his sake.” Pettin thought for a moment, then grunted in assent as he lowered his hand. “Get out of my town.” Pettin’s voice trembled more than he’d wanted it to, and his vision was wet and blurry. “I’m going. But think about this: people’s more than just what you see. Maybe you should think about that, John Pettin.” With that, Billy Cohen hauled himself up, and walked away from the sheriff, who slowly shrank into his seat. The sun had finished setting, and it was now dark. Many of the drunks had gone home, or else passed out in their chairs. The wives had long left for home to tuck their children in. Those that remained talked quietly among themselves. One man, deep in thought for an hour at least, finally jerked up out of his chair. That motion, and the slow lumbering of his legs towards the food table, felt totally foreign to him. He strode past the near-empty pots of tasteless stew, and finished his journey at the bartender’s table. Sheriff John Pettin smiled tearfully and said, “I suppose I ought to have a glass of Old Crow, in honor of the good Reverend.”

“He talk to you about God?” “Not usually. Sometimes he would, and I’d ask ‘I’m if he was lookin’ to Pettin could feel something growing within him. Not anger exactly, but it was familiar like that—he regarded it as one would an acquaintance. He had felt it once before, on the eve of Rachel’s service. Then, the Reverend had been there, perfect, to break him away. Now, the Reverend was dead, and here was Billy Cohen, claiming that they’d been drinking buddies. It wouldn’t do. “If I’m to believe this yarn you’re spinnin’, I’ll require some form of evidence to the matter,” seethed the sheriff. Cohen grinned, as though he were about to humor a toddler’s fancy. “Sure, sure, you’ll require some evidence. Fair ‘nuff.” The Sheriff loathed Cohen as he lazily dangled a finger towards the food table. “Old Crow,” he declared, “was the good Reverend’s favorite spirit. Why d’ya think Steven brought that one, in particular?” Pettin glared down the end of Cohen’s finger toward the bartender, who smiled reluctantly, like a dog caught with the master’s dinner in his mouth. The sheriff looked at Steven, at Cohen, at the drunks playing horseshoe on the graveyard—and he saw a world demolished. Before he knew what was happening, Pettin was on his feet, shouting at Cohen. “Listen here, Cohen. I ain’t gon’ believe—I simply refuse—that Reverend Thomason woulda wanted a thing to do with you. After all, he was a man of God, and you—you’re just a sorry excuse for a respectable citizen. I’m sheriff, and I think I’d know if the Reverend of all people was ridin’ off to your hovel to play cards. And if you think I’m gonna fall for whatever kinda game you’re playin’ at, then you’ve severely underestimated my intelligence!” For a moment, the revelry died, and all attention was on the pair. Cohen stood, all warmth gone from his eyes—Pettin finally realized the redness was caused by tears. “A sorry excuse—do you hear yourself? I just came to talk, to break bread, to honor the memory of a good friend. I didn’t come to kill, or steal, or cause trouble. Certainly didn’t come to be attacked by some two-bit lawman. “Y’see, the world ain’t as black-and-white as you make it out to be, sheriff. Sometimes, when a man gets rejected by the so-called ‘polite society’ on account of he ain’t white, and he gets rejected by his own folk ‘cause he ain’t really Black neither, it feels good to get treated like a human being. And sometimes, when a man is always expected to be some perfect leader—a representation a’God, without any kind of flaws at all—it feels good to spend time with someone who ain’t gon’ judge you for what you drink, or how much you gamble. join the gang. Usually, we’d leave it there.”

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Barbara Mahoney Raffety

Madison Raiser

Countertransference

Jackie

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Matthew Chubb

Julian Green

Enter the Sea

From the “Closeness” series

Enter the sea Let its breakers Wash away Calluses of years

Though it pulverizes sand It won’t crush you Sink below the breakers Surrender To the rhythm Heartbeat of the wild Face relentless grace Its mystery deep Spilling over earth edges

Embrace it The mystery Let it wash you New

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Lara Campbell

Lucia Fruchtenicht

Enough

Hidden Lights

We never end with “goodbye.” Tastes like sour copper on my tongue Won’t get past the clenching of my ground down teeth. Never even “See you later.” Cannot find its way through the knot in my throat Too many syllables before my voice catches. After the initial 10 years, the bravery has melted from my face. Makeup has gone stale. Ran out of ways to wear my hair. But I could never grow tired of your face. Senses could never dull your gentle voice. Rhythmic cadence of your healing words never gets old. I am a volcano. 2021 Prison Writing Contest – Woman’s Press Club of Indiana Madison Correctional Facility

Years of pent-up frustration, pressure and turmoil suppressed under the surface. Stuffed down the blood-curdling screams I can’t release because I can’t let any of you see my pain. It hurts even worse to walk away knowing you feel the same way. Helpless Sometimes a little hopeless So we always end with “Love You.” Two syllables that graciously spill from our hearts. But I have these two words from you. It’s enough.

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Rachel Shrock

Meredith Williams

My Human is Paper

Untitled

2021 Prison Writing Contest – Woman’s Press Club of Indiana Rockville Correctional Facility

It stands by me: With the utmost loyalty. It can’t hurt me, scold me, or traumatize me. It’s something that has no conscience, no mouth. No soul. A paper identity… The only thing I have To listen to me.

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Julian Green

Sara Allard

The Exact Same Steps

Rushes

Long before McCormick’s Creek was a place for families like mine to make fond memories—of orange leaves and finally beating your dad at checkers in front of the lounge’s fireplace—it was a sanatorium. You might associate that word with the mental asylums of yore, but sanatoriums were much more pleasant. They were mainly designed to treat tuberculosis. Back in the olden days, the most popular way to treat TB was for patients to remain holed up in their rooms, and as far away from the outdoors as possible. It wasn’t until a doctor named George Bodington came along in 1840 that things started to change. He proposed something rather controversial: that fresh air and nutritious food were not only healthy enough to heal TB, but maybe healthier than throwing weak people into a room and throwing away the key. Apparently, this idea was akin to witchcraft, and his proposal was soundly rejected from the Lancet. Fortunately, a doctor from Germany named Hermann Brehmer decided to build the first tuberculosis treatment center. Patients got to eat good food, drink lots of wine and, most importantly, take plenty of walks in the fresh air of the Silesian mountains. Basically, your average trip to the state park. I wish I couldn’t imagine what it was like for the patients before the sanatoriums, forced to hide themselves from the outside world, wondering if that hiding was going to make them feel healthy again. Or wondering when their pain was going to end. In a strange way, though, I can relate to their struggles. The event that always draws the biggest crowd to McCormick’s Creek is their weekend - long Halloween party. After the sun goes down, hundreds of families line up outside the nature center and wait for their chance to walk down the “haunted trail.” Sometimes they’d sprinkle the trees with Charlie Brown or Ghostbusters decorations, all with an eco-friendly edutainment flavor, of course. Other times there would be no decorations at all, and your DNR ranger guide would just turn off her flashlight, mimic some owl calls, and let the eerie echoes of the raptors create the spooky ambiance themselves. However, I didn’t know anything about this trail for years, because little me adamantly refused to join in the fun. Despite loving trick-or-treat as much as the next kid, I hated much of the Halloween aesthetic. My least favorite day of the year was when I saw the black and orange signs start to pop up in our local Walmart, reminding me that one of my biggest nightmares was back for her annual visit—like a distant aunt you really didn’t want to see. My admittedly-contradictory hatred of the season could be blamed on a little something called animatronics. Now, I didn’t know they had a more

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Sara Allard

Sara Allard

someone, instead of being on the receiving end of it. Thankfully, this boy was too busy living his best life to look up from his blur of a straw and notice me. Had he noticed my scandalized gaze, I bet he would’ve seen right through me and known the real reason I was staring: because what he was doing was familiar. As long as I could remember, I was always looking for little things to hold between my own pointers and indexes, just like the boy in the lobby. Bookmarks, twist ties from loaves of bread, dolls (the kind that couldn’t move on their own, of course), my own hair—anything would do. But instead of moving these trinkets back and forth, I would hit my thumb nail against them as hard as I could, over and over again. This was yet another thing in my life that I had to come up with a name for, because no one else did it or talked about it. I called it “tapping,” and it was a habit I didn’t remember inventing or learning from my sister or a cartoon. It was something I always knew how to do. I tried teaching the kids at my church how to tap, but they never seemed to understand the appeal. Of course, it was all fun until I lost the trinket I was holding, or I had to put it down to hold my dad’s hand while we walked. Then my urge to tap would get so strong that it started to irritate me—the same irritation one gets when their sock slips off their foot while hiking, and they have nowhere to sit down and fix it. After the final painful tug on my ponytail told me I could finally stop standing still—standing still for too long made me just as jumpy as not having a toy to tap—I quickly looked away from the boy, so that Mom wouldn’t see my inappropriate staring. Just as I started preparing to burn out all the fiery energy I had from standing still for sixty whole seconds, I heard my mom whisper to my dad, “Do you think it’s time?” Almost no question in the world can make you more excited or scared than that one, especially when people are whispering it behind your back. After settling on my default emotion of scared, I made sure to skip even faster ahead of my parents so I could pretend not to hear them. Before I could get too far, Mom slid up to me and asked, “Did you see that boy in the lob by?” I nodded, hoping that if I was polite enough this wouldn’t become a lecture about why we shouldn’t stare at strangers. As we lazily walked towards the lush trees, she continued, “...and if you’ve noticed, you do stuff like that, too.” I couldn’t believe it. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who noticed our similarities! In awe I whispered, “Yeah, I guess so,” looking down at the mosaic of white circles that dotted my nail beds. My thumbnails always had these gnarled marks, but this was the first time I felt embarrassed by them. My dad

sophisticated name back then, so I would just call them the “electronic dancing things,” which I knew sounded ridiculous while trying to explain why I was hyperventilating next to the candy corn. It didn’t matter if they took the form of an unfairly taller-than-me skeleton singing a corny novelty song, or a candy bowl with a plastic motion sensing witch hand awkwardly screwed onto it. I was completely terrified of them. My parents’ theory was that I thought these so-called “dancing things” were actual flesh and blood, and that’s why they scared me so much. So, they ended up spending many holiday seasons flashing innocent witches and werewolves so I could see their bodies were nothing but flimsy plastic and cords. Unfortunately for them, that did little to stop the panic attack in aisle five, or the dimly lit Halloween activities kids loved for some forsaken reason. In my mind, an inanimate doll being able to move like a living person was way more unsettling than Halloween creatures being real. After all, there was also that time I refused to sleep in my room until a McDonald’s toy with moving eyes was safely ejected to the trash can. That’s what a lot of my early years felt like: a stark clash between all the trick-or-treating, playing outside, and watching cartoons that everyone gushes about in Facebook memes, and the undefeatable horrors that would snap up out of nowhere, leaving me wondering why no one else could see how scary and loud the world was. That childhood joy was very much there, but often just as fleeting as the cherry blossoms and autumn leaves in the state park, swept away because of one clap of thunder. I found the summer trips to McCormick’s Creek to be safer. It was during one of those trips to meet up with my grandparents and their deafeningly loud RV that Mom stopped me in the bricked entryway so she could pull back my always unruly hair. Sitting on the bench next to me was a brown-haired boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. He was holding a straw between his pointer and index fingers and flipping it back and forth so fast that it looked like a metronome some mischievous music student turned to the fastest setting, just to see whether it would explode. For once, I could barely feel the hairbrush tugging through my hair, as I was mesmerized by what the boy was doing. Regrettably, I remember intentionally pretending that I was staring at the boy because his behavior was “weird.” It took effort for me to scrunch my eyebrows down and tug a corner of my mouth inward at the same time, but I thought it was a pretty good replica of the looks that I had gotten from most kids over the eight long years of my life. In a twisted way, it felt validating to be able to give that look to

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Sara Allard

Patricia Henney

Early Morning Blue Heron

then said the boy was acting that way because he has something called autism. This was a new word I had never heard before; not during school, church, nowhere. Since it ended with that “-ism” sound I heard a lot in the park’s nature center, I figured it was important. After Mom followed up with a “Well, you have it too,” it became more important than I could’ve possibly imagined. Now I knew: the reason I needed to tap my toys had a name. In fact, everything I thought only happened to me, seemed to have a name. The “tapping” is called stimming, and autistic people do it to calm down or even just have fun. The yearly existential dread of the Halloween aisle was called meltdowns—and 90% of the reason I had them was because the world is louder and scarier to an autistic’s sensitive ears. All the effort it took for me to sit still and focus on school was autism’s clingy little sibling called ADHD. That day in the park, I learned that I wasn’t the only one who had these experiences and, most importantly, it wasn’t my fault. Now imagine what a visit to the sanitorium must’ve been like for a TB patient when they were new. This likely wasn’t the first time she struggled to breathe, and she had long accepted that she’d be forced to hide away in her room because this was the only thing that would help—no matter how much she hated being separated from the trees, the creek, and the healthy people who got to play and philosophize in both. She probably arrived at this newfangled treatment center expecting more of the same, only for the doctor to tell her that she wasn’t alone and that everyone at the sanatorium would meet her where she was instead of pushing her away. This acknowledgment alone healed her more than any of the fresh air and sunlight—although I don’t doubt those helped too. I know, because this is the exact same healing I got at McCormick’s Creek—even on the exact same steps.

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Julian Green

S. Boyle

Respite

From the “Closeness” series

We walked, arms linked, in the winter quiet breaking silence with laughter and crunching ice and snow. You stopped to watch the flakes, as they fell across the full moon Capturing beautiful things, you said.

I felt awe in your creative spin, on this treacherous time we found ourselves in – ten months, or four years, time like malleable clay in our perception, day after day. The sharp, cold air filled us with vitality that we had been missing With each breath – With each step – We found our way back to normalcy during the few moments when beauty walked alongside us. We counted 1-2-3-JUMP! in honor of our shared past on the street and I wanted to weep with joy and sorrow, both; blended in a tapestry of emotional ambivalence. Later we sang and danced, extending and stretching the moments to memorialize months later,

needing the memory of it again… and again. All while aching for time to move beyond the Pandemic clock’s minute hand.

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Nicole Potts

Madison Raiser

Zebra

Fox

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Rayven Crook

Rayven Crook

Running Water

2021 Prison Writing Contest – Woman’s Press Club of Indiana Rockville Correctional Facility

Truth be told you’re probably right but the difference between the two trains of thought is that one will leave you absolutely joyous with the tiniest thing in life and one will leave you feeling haughty and self-righteous, indifferent to life only until it makes you angry. Don’t wait until you don’t have the small things to become reminiscent of better days. That is no more than a cycle of misery. That takes away from your happiness! It’s a very unsatisfying way to live your life. If you are gracious, you will find genuine happiness in every little thing in your life, and when you don’t have it anymore you’ll be happy to have had it at all. What a way to be alive, being grateful for the air you breathe and the heart that beats inside you. You can’t help but feel anything other than joy. It’s up to you, every day, whether you want to count your blessings. But from personal experience, watching my own life blossom before my eyes under the influence of immense gratitude, I recommend you learn to say thank you. Especially for your running water.

Imagine your life without running water. Imagine a bucket that you squat over to relieve yourself, and then imagine having to periodically take your bucket outside to dump it. Imagine your home smelling of urine and excrement even though you painstakingly dump your bucket every few hours to prevent that horrid smell. Home sweet home, right? Imagine yourself having to cook with bottles of water. How would you wash your clothes with your fancy laundry pods? How would you wash-rinse-repeat with your name brand shampoo and conditioner without that glorious shower pressure quickly rinsing out the residue? I mean really think about it. Lose yourself in the nightmare your life would become if you didn’t have that wondrous thing called running water. Finally, come back to your plush reality and remember you’re too blessed to have any of those things. What can you feel now, for your faucets and your shower heads, other than pure gratitude? I know every one of us is going through something right now. I know at times life is difficult and things may not always go the way we’d like them to. But for the sake of your own heart, don’t let yourself get so lost in all the things you don’t have that you forget all the magical things you do have. People don’t realize the power of gratitude. Honestly, they are more than likely so tired of the word being shoved down their throats they rebelliously avoid it at all costs. That’s understandable because I, too, rolled my eyes at people telling me to count my blessings every time I complained. It wasn’t until, in my one quiet reverie—when I at last allowed myself to count those blessings—that I realized what I had been stubbornly missing out on all my miserable life. It’s easy to be grateful for an unexpected check. It’s easy to say thank you to a friend who buys us an expensive gift. But what about the beautiful sky above you? Can you lose yourself in the utter magnificence of it? Or do you even take the time to do little more than glance? What about the way your friend remembered you don’t like mayo on your cheeseburger? Or when the garbage man doesn’t leave your trash can knocked over when he’s rushing through your neighborhood? What about the overworked people who bottle the soda you love to guzzle down after that cheeseburger your friend brought? Do you truly feel gratitude for those things? Or do you say, “Well, that’s what they’re supposed to do.”

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