Issue 04
August 2021
poetry
fiction
non-fiction
visual art
the dangerous are lonely, but they were dangerous first
You are savior to the rescue, home and hearth,
but your hand still bleeds when she bites, maw
wet and red, her right eye fogged from a past growl
turned violence. She shakes, watching you, and sleeps,
finally, with her teeth in your direction. You think
she is hackles, scar tissue, and fear. Look how she’s endured.
The carcass of an unsuspicious dog rots in a storm drain
a half mile behind your house, swollen and hacked
into strips, festered skin melting down the pavement
in a soft morning rain. Jawbone through its cheek,
a needle through old, thin fabric.
You let its killer into your bed
because you mistake rabid for pitiful.
Husbands
from Anne Sexton's Ghosts
Some ghosts are husbands,
neither honest nor brutal,
their hands weak as stunted aspirations.
Not lovers, but ghosts
who flee on tight-skinned legs,
young boys afraid of the dark.
Not all ghosts are husbands,
I know them on my eyelids;
some are stray dogs
baring their teeth like orphans.
Not desperate, but dead.
They guard the back alleys, convincing
warm hands of kinship.
But that isn’t all.
Some ghosts are me.
Not knights, but ghosts,
pulling grout from stone walls
with bloodied fingertips, hurling
shoulders against white rails, determined
to raze you.
Paige Stewart
is a graduated senior who majored in Creative Writing. She is from Malvern, Pennsylvania, though she recently moved to the northern coast of Maine after graduation. Paige has been writing poetry for two and a half years, and is greatly inspired by our very own Chet’la Sebree as both a writer and an individual.
what if the sea drowned?
everyone knows the sea loves to cry
and afterwards the sand always
soaks up her salt,
but does anyone know how hard the moon tugs
at her tides
and the wind stirs up her insides until
she can’t help but crash
back into the soft sand
even though she’s not supposed to anymore
because the sand begged her to free him from
her paralyzing undertow.
but now when the sea cries
the salt saturates her hysterical waves
with infinitesimal grains of what
used to be
until she’s suffocating
in the memory of him
softening her rigid shores.
but who cares if the undertow
traps her in the depths
of what she always knew was coming
even when she loved rainy days
because it meant he’d keep her dry.
even when she felt like she could
stay underwater forever.
she always knew
the sand wouldn’t settle for
her storm
because everyone knows the sea loves to cry.
but she still believed him when
he said that their ever after would be happy
and convinced herself she could keep
treading through their unconditional channel of love,
but when he pulled the plug
she was sucked down the drain to
where no one can hear her
thrash and gargle,
and promise that she’ll try just a little harder.
but who cares,
because everyone knows the sea loves to cry.
Keeley Schulman
The Door in the Woods
You are lost. You know you are lost, and this is okay. You are alone, and this is okay. You want to be alone. It is good to be alone. The quiet, the absence of people, the removal of any influence but your own, removes the potential to be influenced - to be shoved by an impassable wall towards a gate beyond which you cannot see the other side. There is no potential to harm here; no shards of glass lodged in your heart, no bruises staining your soul, nothing to scar your mind, leaving it hardened and hollow.
Here, you are unbroken, unshattered; the daggers of loss, driven in long ago when Grandfather held you close, and whispered, “I hope the sun shines again at least once before I go,” and you couldn’t hear him over the beeping of the monitors mapping out his spirit, methodical and weak, as it slowly leaves his wrinkled and pale husk of a body, no longer pierce past your own youthful husk, into your true self, solemn, soaked, tired.
Here, there is nothing but the splatter of raindrops on the ground, the sound of a million miniature drums pounding the earth, plop-plop-plop again and again, everywhere, forever. The sun does not shine down on you, illuminating the truth of where you are, who you are now, what you will become. All you know is that you are alone. And this is okay.
You see trees around you in every direction - pale bodies, stained with the brown of rot, dripping down their sides messily, sloppily. The trunks are thin and papery, like straws slurping up the earth, reaching up into hundreds of invisible mouths, hidden in the clouds. The branches reach out and towards the sky like dozens of inquisitive child’s fingers; curious, wondering what lies beyond what they can reach, wanting to touch, to feel.
They are bare, wiry things - not a single autumn leaf remains dangling from these perches. Every seed, every bud, has taken its final fall from grace, becoming devoured by the soil and the rain. (Always, there is the rain.) No other life scurries across these woods; no birds rest in these branches, nor are there squirrels darting through the underbrush, searching for food, for rest. In every sense of the word, you are alone. And this is okay.
You feel the raindrops punching little puddles on your skin, like bullets melting as they try to pierce your body. They seep through your clothes, leaving them nothing more than wet pieces of fabric hanging from your body, heavy with age, with years of use and dirt and grime, now being baptized away by the showers of this new age, this new beginning. Your pores tingle from the chill, from the chance of rebirth. The smell is like a fresh spring day, you think; the smell of rot being reversed, of entropy being slowed, then changing to growth.
The trees rustle from the winds; in the distance, some fall, their dying moans mixing with the growls of thunder. You are lost in this tempest, this force that bends and breaks so many ancient things, that would break you if it could, that creates a crescendo of wind and rain and the dying screams of nature that thunder in your ears. It is Hell’s orchestra given life, and you stand all alone to hear this chaos crashing and crying around you, gnashing its teeth and grinding itself against your bones. And this. Is. Okay.
As you walk, with the bones of the forest crunching under your feet - you don’t know where you’re going, as long as it’s anywhere but where you were - you see something, cloaked in shadow in the distance. From where you’re standing, it looks like a deep purple rectangle, taken from some lost geometry textbook and pulled into reality. There seems to be nothing holding up the rectangle - no walls behind it, no stairs leading to it, no strings dangling from the trees holding it ever-so-slightly off the ground.
You walk closer, the wooden bones of the trees above cracking with every step, the death knell of the forest booming above you as the symphony of the storm shifts to the trombone-blast of thunder, the drumming of the rain coming to a crescendo on the hood of your raincoat. The shadows part for you, their apparent conductor in this parade of noise and broken giants. You see a shimmer of gold, flickering off the surface of the square in front of you; a dissonance of color, marking a change in your perspective. The purple mutes and shifts, taking on a distinct hue you recognize as maroon - the color of sunsets and smiles, forever lost to you. Grains of wood become clear on the surface, carving a pattern unfamiliar, yet comforting; the lines curve and dance like a nest of snakes, in a complex and twisting embrace known only to its makers.
The square, you realize, is a door. A door, in a forest, in a symphony of rain. Now you are not alone, you think, for if there is a door, there must another side.
This is not okay. You are not okay with this. You don’t want to hope, to imagine a world where you are not lost, but found. You don’t want to peek through the door and see a home that isn’t yours, a family that isn’t yours, a life that you haven’t earned. You are alone, and this is okay. You want to be alone. You don’t want to open the door.
“But don’t you?” whispers a voice you thought you locked away, a voice you thought you sealed the lips of and threw into a gated corner of your mind under lock and key, a voice you fear the most because you recognize it as your own.
You turn around, just to check and see if you can leave the way you came. It’s a foolish thought - you’re already lost in some forgotten corner of God’s domain, with not a cent in your pocket (this is okay) or any type of food to satisfy the growing pains in your stomach (this is okay) - but you just want to make sure, because the door in front of you is so small, yet so vast, so real, and yet so impossible to imagine. You want to escape it somehow, but you feel like you can’t pull yourself from its grip; it wants you to open it, to peek your head inside, to go through it and explore the world beyond.
You can leave if you want to, you tell yourself, though the door wants so desperately to stay in your vision - that color, maroon, blasting itself underneath your eyelids, permeating your pupils, until everything looks maroon and you can’t stop seeing that damned shade, taunting you with its brightness. You have to look back. You have to see if you can leave.
The way is clear. No walls block your trek back to the familiar unknown, if you so choose to take it; no gates are left to travel through, waiting to whisk you away to places new and undiscovered, places part of you yearns to find; nothing prevents you simply walking away, right now, and once more joining the rain in its painful chorus. You can be alone forever, or you can take a chance. You can go somewhere else.
You smell something beyond the door. Rich, tangy, prickling the hairs in your nose and causing your mouth to water.
Tears tickle your eyes as your recognize the scent - home-cooked pasta sauce, the kind your mother used to make on weekends, humming familiar tunes that belonged to no song, back when things were bright, when you were just a child laughing in her chair as your mother twirled around with her ladle, like a contestant on some talent show that everyone was watching, before those memories decayed as life’s endless sorrows showered you, like a rainstorm that never ended, pounding you with what-ifs and why-nots and how-do-I-knows, making you a worn and weary drum in a stage orchestra for some omniscient crowd, a Greek tragedy in motion, the flutes fluttering like Grandpa’s wheezing breaths on the hospital bed, the chimes clinking like the alcohol bottles stacking up on the island table like a carnival barker’s game, the blaring of the trombone voices of Mom and Dad screaming at each other again, and you screaming back, into the void, the sorrowful violin at the center of it all, wailing your melodies away, wondering “Why is this happening?” forever and ever but nobody cares, all they want to hear is themselves, and so you screamed so loudly and they couldn’t hear you and so you decided fuck them, fuck the world, it’s better to be alone where you can’t hear them and they can’t hear you and you can just listen to yourself talk forever, and you would be calm, and you would be okay, but it’s not okay because the drums are still playing on your skin and you can still smell the food and hear Mom humming her life away and the door is still here, still that same shade of maroon digging itself into your eyes, and it’s not going away anytime soon, and you don’t know what it wants but you know that a second chance is right in front of you and the rain hurts and the thunder hurts and everything hurts and YOU DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE ANYMORE.
You open the door. The rain stops. You see a kitchen, well-lit through glazed windows, turquoise light streaming it through like aquarium glass. The odor of freshly-cooked pasta sauce fills your nostrils, your skull, your soul, dredging up all these lost memories again, encouraging them to stay, saying, “It’s fine, it’s okay, you don’t have to be alone, I’m here now.” The hiss of steam from a fresh-cooked pot joins in, creating a different chorus, a quieter one, reminding you of when Mom used to play Beethoven on the speakers, and hum alongside the orchestra, and you would fall asleep within minutes as the music took you into your dreams, crafting palaces of clouds and worlds of candy, soothing you, holding you, helping you.
The leaves don’t crunch under your feet anymore; the carpet of the forest’s severed limbs has been replaced by a carpet, soft and steady under your feet - a carpet which you now realize, is a distinct shade of maroon. You recognize this carpet. You owned this carpet. This is your home. This was your home, back before all the screaming and clinking and wheezing. But you don’t see any more bottles on the table; you don’t hear screaming and shouting in the rooms above you; you don’t feel the absence of Grandpa in your chest.
This is home. The home before home. You are not alone anymore, you realize, as the tears finally lose their grip on your eyelids and fall down your face, so many of them, all dripping and pouring on your skin like gentle fingers drumming on your cheeks - a new symphony, born of love, not hate.
You are not alone. And this is okay.
Alex Bigley
Cornered by Covid
Bottles
Abby Tate
is a rising senior majoring in Finance. She is from Charlotte, NC. A fun fact about Abby is that she doesn't have a middle name.
Lessons in Loops, Lines and Letters
Her voice rose and fell as she attempted to portray each character. The girls were narrated in a higher tone than their male counterparts. Those perceived as good, the heroes of the story, spoke in a kind yet assertive tone while the bad, the evil had an abrupt clipped dialect, their words just as cutting as their actions. Although she attempted to keep a steady pace, as we trudged along page by page, the plot dragged her in, causing her to begin the race through the words captured by the need to discover what would happen next. Her finger acted as our guide, underlying each word to make sure we did not lose our place on the page. At the end of the chapter the pages would be folded down to ensure the continuation of the story the following night. These folds and creases left proof that we had been there, we had been part of that story. It was our own little reminder, so that when I went back to the book in another chapter of life, I would fondly touch the bent pages remembering the first time I heard these stories. “Just one more chapter, please,” I would often beg.
Most nights this question was answered with a smile and a soft head shake as she reopened the book to continue on. From my bedroom we traveled across worlds, her voice painting scenes in my mind I could not imagine on my own.
As year after year passed and book after book passed, she began to ask me to take over. We had grown from children’s stories of a damsel in distress to young adult fiction following heroes in a fantasy world. Her finger still acted as the guide, leading me from word to word as I tripped, wandering through sentence after sentence. I no longer was venturing to foreign lands, instead I was looking at a foreign language. I could not lead us on the same adventure, I kept getting lost on the page. Our progress began to slow, battles never reaching an end, no longer discovering the happily ever after. I did not want to be in charge, I wanted her to act as the protagonist once more, I was happy to just observe. The letters did not create words, and without words I could not understand the story. “Just take your time, it will all come together eventually,” she repeated again and again, as if saying this sentence just one more time would somehow make a difference. I did not want to change the narrative we had created. The stories I had once loved were losing their magic, no longer coming life but remaining as words flat on the page.
I have always prided myself on my handwriting. I learned cursive in the second grade, a stern elderly teacher looking over my shoulder as my number two pencil followed the dotted line creating loop after loop. As my classmates whined, I found myself enjoying the repetition, I wanted to get lost in the endless loops. Even though my writing would smudge, as my palm followed the ink across the page, this was a mess I didn’t mind. It was a mess I had created, a mess I could understand.
Once the dotted lines were taken away, the structure gone, a new mess was created. I could still make loops but my loops no longer made sense. All I saw were swirls and lines, no letters. Again, I felt lost within the letters on the page. Where was this table of contents or list of directions I had somehow missed? Who named these letters and gave them a partner, made them into little families to create these words? Why could everyone else understand this, discover others stories, while I struggled to even begin my own? I wanted to drag my hand across the page, smudge what I had written until it was no longer there, erasing my writing, the record that I had even tried and failed yet again.
My mom has always talked about her to- do list surrounding myself and my siblings. As a child, I imagined a large leather bound book, with clean bold printing staging said list. After we read and I was put to bed, my mom would position herself at my father’s desk with the big brown list book, pen in hand and make her revisions. Crossing off what had been accomplished that day and perhaps adding a new item for the future. Learn to read, learn to cook, learn how to do laundry, learn an instrument and how to read music, learn to play fair with others, learn to tell the truth; from my perspective this list seemed endless. These were mazes, more places for me to get lost, unattainable goals that I dreaded, the purpose or reason behind them written in secret language parents must only know. Again, I felt unprepared to face such challenges. I wanted someone else to narrate, read the directions of life to me, a real world finger guide for me to follow along with.
When you solely focus on the letters, their individual sounds, you are blind to the word it creates. When you are writing, you cannot see the meaning of a piece by only focusing on a word. Sometimes, until there is time and distance, you cannot understand the point. In the moment, I did not see the word, understand the stories, or grasp the importance of seemingly menial tasks, I did know that none of this was comfortable to me. I did not understand that this was a conflict I had to face alone. I could not rely on the supporting characters if I wanted the happy ending. The sounds, the loops, the letters, the words, the little girl who loved stories, it all had to come together. She had to begin to pick up the pen herself, and write without lines to trace or a finger to follow. Even if the ink smeared, making her writing illegible to others, she could still understand the meaning.
Bel Carden
is a rising senior from Newtown Square, PA. She is a Finance major with a Creative Writing minor.
The Lighthouse of Tethys Isle
When more stars hang in the sky
than exist humans within miles,
When Charybdis expels her foamy breath,
waves tossed hundreds of feet into the air,
When the wind writhes against her crumbling brickwork
and digs its claws into her window frames,
When desolation wraps its hands around her bodice,
the lighthouse of Tethys Isle comes to life.
When the serpent in the surf
tries so desperately to beach itself,
When the leviathan hums its final song
while sinking to the bottom of the sea,
When the sirens circling overhead
try to dash themselves against the rocks,
When not even the beasts can handle
the sheer isolation,
the lighthouse of Tethys Isle comes to life
and tries singing a song of her own,
mechanisms rotten by salt and wind.
A yellow, ancient light beaming against the dark,
combating the silver of the moon for the
attention of those stirring in the night.
The lighthouse of Tethys Isle comes to life
and dares
beseeches
begs
cries
shouts
whispers
howls
glows
for the specks in the distance to come closer.
The lighthouse of Tethys Isle comes to life
asking to guide them,
to let her hollow womb hold them,
to let her mossy brickwork shield them from the cold.
She begs to remember what company was like,
the sensation of someone
keeping her fireplace lit,
patching her mortar veins,
polishing her glass orifices.
Her last keeper, a handsome man with
calloused hands and windswept hair
who fed her fireplace every night,
once climbed as high as she was tall.
He stood stark against the black abyss
in front of her very eye
and deaf to her cries and churning gears,
he flung himself over her eyelashes
out of sight, out of reach.
Yet another one gone with the coiling waves.
And no one left to keep her warm.
So why must the lighthouse of Tethys Isle
witness the madness of isolation,
the Perpetuan, Lucretian, Antigonean
addiction to self-annihilation
while she watches helpless into the night?
What divine hands breathed life into the rafters and rooms
of the lighthouse of Tethys Isle,
cursed her to a life of icy water at her feet
and bitter wind at her eye?
And where have those divine hands gone now?
Will they ever return some distant day
to topple her to the ground so she may make
new lovers out of the wild stones and bones?
All anyone knows is that on dark and weeping nights,
When sailors know better than to seek out
that forlorn island in the distance,
When the ocean wants nothing more
than to weather her foundation to dust,
When her beds rot and her books rot
and the cobwebs multiply,
When yet another day passes without disturbance,
the lighthouse of Tethys Isle comes to life.
She comes to life
to lament her eternal status
as a wardless guardian now defunct,
disused, endangered, paralyzed
by the eternal temptation to shake
until her walls come done. And maybe
tonight will be the night she lives
and breathes so deep and long that her ribs
crack and her floors snap. And tonight she
might choose to shut her eye and turn away
from the dark
as all things now turn from her.
But best of all, as she comes to life tonight
she does not know what’ll happen next.
She could be gone by morning light,
and Tethys Isle free of its sole survivor.
Or maybe there’s something in her,
a soul or a fear or a dying breath,
that will cleave her spine and free itself
from the stone chrysalis that is her skin.
But if she so chooses to live tonight,
if she chooses to die tonight,
she knows she will finally best the waves and wind.
Because she knows better than the beasts
and the sailors and the hands that made her,
that there are fewer monstrosities or abominations
more fearsome than the mind
when left to its own devices.
As Below, So Above
Brain dead rot finger deep in the earth ants cluttering the slack jawed empty eyed deer in the woods with her dull beige pelt tattered, torn open, and left to flow free in the wind. Mushrooms bloom and live with roots as immortal as stars as they grow from the tree bark from the ground from the grass over fallen logs under fallen leaves over fallen fragile things made of calcium bones and chromosomes. She’s pregnant again, belly ripe with something not dead yet but arguably alive and something you could call parasites and rot or something you could call the circle of life and you could say that the mushrooms will get to us all one day and the worms we mocked as they writhed on wet sidewalks will eventually have their fill of us. Now quit thinking about humans not everything’s about humans and what gall you have you think you’ll last that long with your wars shorter than roots that dig dig dig not just down but long all along the dirt that swallowed up million before you and will swallow millions after and still hungers for more finger deep rot brain dead mindless living thinking of how to best take and take until there’s nothing of you left but dust and carbon so why don’t you get your head out of your ass and think about not-humans for a moment because this is about not you this is about the dead deer you found in the woods that’s traumatizing your young child and what you don’t understand and what your kid doesn’t get is that she had a good run until she was caught and meanwhile somewhere in the world she lives on in the blood and organs of her young daughter who may live or may someday end up on a wall by the road in a wolf in a bear in a person or maybe even under the finger deep rot that will hug her and hold her and caress her and suck from her body until she’s just as bones and mushrooms as her mother is and it’s probably scary for either a child or yourself to think the exact same thing will happen to you both one day.
What I wish I knew
was that silk is still commonly made by killing the silk worms.
By boiling them while they sleep in their shells.
Then the cocoons are peeled away, bleached, stretched, combed,
packaged neatly and sent to my doorstep to spin into yarn.
That’s how I feel about my other creations.
My deepest dreams and my worst fears.
Eight notebooks full of writing on my shelf and a laptop full of drafts.
Constantly watching me while I force myself to labor more words into existence.
I do actually know what it is to think you are so utterly ugly in your current state,
that the only way to be treasured and shiny is by boiling yourself down
until there’s not a flaw left.
But what I wish I knew early on was that
I could have saved myself a great deal of time and tears
by using Eri silk. Peace silk. Silk made after the worms have become moths. It’s
a wonderful thought, to know things can be made gently.
Lovingly.
Mari Yoo
is a junior and Creative Writing major originally from New Jersey. She enjoys writing both poetry and prose in science fiction and fantasy. She eschews sunny weather and does most of her writing in the dark, dreary confines of rainy nights or cloudy days. Despite this, she is most certainly not a vampire as she has a fine appreciation for garlic bread.
Metamorphosis
Clashes of Passing
Sydney Santo
is originally from Brooklyn, New York, and is a current sophomore at Bucknell University. As of now, she is undeclared but is leaning towards majoring in Animal Behavior on a Pre-Veterinary track. Sydney is also planning on taking a minor in Studio Art as drawing is one of her greatest passions. Sydney has been involved in the visual arts ever since she could hold a pencil yet has always been reluctant to share her creations with others. She hopes that by publishing her artwork in Confetti Head she will inspire other shy artists to step out of their comfort zones and show the world how creative they can be as creativity is what makes life fascinating.
Lucid Rupture
I am awake but all I taste is
drowsy sweet
slippery melty time soup
stuff the void with
sweet
crunchy
sticky
gummy
pull out the teeth wear down the flesh
sometimes it’s bitter leaf the taste of light
or what you’ve been told light tastes like
because all taste is light.
I have a PhD in looking for new futures without living the one I’m in
and my thesis was written by the part of me that sleeps and drinks water and exercises
and doesn’t live
with demons.
The prelapsarian me with
straight vision
straight teeth
straight spine
and isn’t haunted by Volkswagen busses and frogs and Burger Kings
and jars knocking against tile.
They say this is the road to perdition, I say it is the road to Casper.
Or maybe it’s Westbury.
Or maybe it’s Recovery.
On the drive I curse,
If it weren’t for those bastards at Swatchmore, I’d be a dropout by now.
I Am A Rock, I Am An Island
S is an oak. Golden leaves and snaking
roots, a system of stability I cannot see
unless I destroy him. But I shouldn’t.
And, really, I couldn’t.
Stronger forces than I have tried.
S is unyielding. As a kid I climbed
oak trees for their height, then jumped. Now
I appreciate the oak for its strength,
that it can hold me up when
everything else drags me down
down
down.
M is variegations of red.
Sangria.
Brick.
Vermillion.
Cherry.
Dancing, shades that thrill
on a canvas and terrify
when running down your arm.
M is liquid smoke.
M is a hearth, and I want
to bake bread and simmer stew
in the warmth of his words.
M is a slow tap, a woodpecker
at 1/16th speed, an almost
rhythmic sound that nears,
passes, and recedes.
B is metal, polished, blackened
and adorned. And underneath
that conductive touch B is so
horribly familiar. If you ask B what
he and I have in common, he’ll respond
“head trauma” and squawk his laugh.
At night B looks like a gale
that threatens to shatter
windows and bring trees
down on the house. At daybreak
I recognize that B is just a gull
in the wind, riding out the storm
with me. The only difference is
I know I’ll survive.
It is some time between
midnight and morning.
I am an island in a sea
of cotton and satin. I reach
into the waves and find a hand,
gentle without consciousness,
sturdy and cool. An orange
warmth in the pure black night.
I pull closer, because he is
tethered where he is in sleep.
My mouth fills with sand and
my eyes with lead and all
I hear is the low tide of breath,
in and out, in and out, lapping
at my consciousness until
I too disappear.
Lindsey Zawistowski
is a graduated senior in creative writing from New Jersey. In the fall she will be pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing at Hollins University. When not writing she likes to read, participate in media criticism, cook, or listen to audiobooks. She also enjoys watching documentaries, especially ones about abandoned retail or totalitarian regimes
Till Death Do Us Part
For whoever is left standing shall be without their heart
For when my loved one leaves me, their journey they will start
They’ll start their walk to Hades land, forever torn away
But maybe we can cheat that Fate, if you will walk with me . . .
Wait for me, we’ll go together
Walk that road to Hades land
Wait for me, we walk together
On that highway, passed the river and the dog with its three heads
Cut your wrist, my dear, blood spills out and take a bone from your own hand
Feed it to that angry mutt so we can pass to Hades land
We’ll cross a field of our design, behind the head, between our eyes
From afar it looks like flowers
Feels like spring and butterflies
But walk a little closer, dearest mine, and putred weeds, they shall arise
See the choices that we’ve made
See the faces filled our lives while we still our lives to live
This grand show, a motion picture, flashes right before our eyes
Sit we must, until it ends, you watch yours and I watch mine
Do you know the old wives tale, of the lovers sworn to walk through all of hell to find each other?
Well sad be sad but they're still walking
Can’t find their missing piece
So forever they shall walk, forever incomplete
So we took our lives in our own hand and came up with a better plan
Wait for me, we walk together down that road to Hades land
Start our journey at the same time and we’ll walk it hand in hand
We’ve hurt some people, true
When we left so very early
Some would say we had no choice, though
Had to start the long long road
To begin our long long journey
So walk on, my dear, closer to that field of rest
No turning back, we carry on
Don’t make it to Hades land by next spring we’re gone, oblivion
Walk on, closer, closer, closer to that field we carry on
Farther, farther, farther, farther
Now the flowers turn to dust
Winter’s coming, so carry on we must
We can feel those we’ve left behind
Not just see, but feel, in kind
It feels cold and dark and dreadful
Is it raining?
No look up- it’s the tears shed for us above
We can feel it
Feel the dread
Dread that we are gone and dead
Gone and dead, gone and dead, no it’s not just in your head
“Not my baby, bring her back” hear a daughter’s mother beg
Sorry mom, I can’t come back
Life is short and death comes fast, we never know how long we’ll last
So I took his hand in mine
And we left this earth at the same time
We walk our journey hand in hand
Because if not, then forever apart we’d walk the realms of Hades land
I’m sorry mom, I can’t come back
Walk on past the loves we’ve left
Move past the field of ugly death
Now at last the times at hand to meet the Fates, so full with all the lives they take
Young and glowing they appear
I listen to their wisdom judge us, their voices filled with sharp distaste
They tell me I was wrong for this, I’ve made my last mistake
Then your hand dissolves to dust, your body turns to smoke
The air inside my lungs dissolves and I begin to choke
The wind tears you away from me
Turning to the path we took I realize it's all wrong
Instead of two sets of footprints, there is only one
Because only I am dead and gone
Like two children promising to jump into a pool,
On the count of three they jump, but one is made a fool
Because while one chose to jump, the other stands above
Looking on with pity at the one they used to love
Sophia Ippolito
is a rising Sophomore from Blairstown, NJ.
On October 23, 2020
the wind’s nudge
frees the orange leaves,
twirling and winding them
like a life, loop-de-looping,
dancing on the
peripheral––
these orange skies of autumn
leaves whip through the soul,
a whirl of calmness
in what is
and what is yet to be––
a single autumn leaf
paints the sky orange,
jumps and leaps,
roaming, delicate,
to the unknown––
Sophia Ross
Used for Issue 4 Cover Image
Mental Break
Pills
Paige Deertz
is from Rye, New York and just finished her sophomore year as a Studio Art and Psychology double major at Bucknell University. Paige creates because she is interested in portraying emotions, mental illness, and other invisible aspects of life through art. She specializes in mixed media, both physical and digital, and mostly focuses on self-expression and identity.
The Water Bubbler
Carrie was a people person, but what she enjoyed most was the water bubbler on the third floor of her office. Carrie had landed the type of job that any sociable human dreads, the kind of job you and I have nightmares about. She was a month into her role as an accountant at a retail firm in Manhattan. Her days consisted of a lonely cubicle and lots of numbers. Her role within the firm was to record and report financial results and transactions to be used in the company's decision-making process. To Carrie, doing anything else would be more interesting. With the help of the old gray, rusty water fountain on the third floor, she would come to understand everything she had chosen to ignore about herself and her life.
Whenever Carrie desired, which was often, she would take the elevator down to the third floor and make her way over to the water bubbler. To get off her chair and take the elevator was refreshing in itself, but when she arrived at the water fountain she felt renewed, purposeful. As she walked down the third floor she would listen closely to the conversations in the hall. Different from her floor, which was full of small white cubicles, and robot-like humans, the third floor was always bustling. “Humanity!” she would think to herself and smile every time she arrived.
The third floor was full of large offices, always occupied by employees collaborating and discussing. There were three receptionists, and they were constantly speaking on the phone, always appearing content. Around the corner was a common space and kitchen where the floor's occupants occasionally gathered. And then there was the water bubbler. Carrie loved it. As she put her face down and indulged in the cold water spurting out of the fountain, she listened to the drops of water that didn’t make it into her mouth land on the stainless steel fountain. The stream ran so close to her ear and made Carrie feel as though she was listening to the “Seeking Stillness” meditation she played every night before bed. Her closed eyes heightened this sensation.
The water fountain was a somewhat other-worldly experience for Carrie. The fountain also happened to be an exceptional people-watching destination. Through the thin doors of the offices and the common space, Carrie could hear everything: gossip between the younger interns, angry male co-workers yelling on the phone, a conversation about family; she was even able to pick up on the newest relationship in the office. She found herself at the water fountain at least thirteen times a day: right when she got to work, when she felt unsatisfied during the day, during her lunch break; it was also her last stop of the day before departing the office. After about a month, Carrie had a handle on everyone on the floor, yet no one knew her.
At 1:00 pm, only on Wednesdays and Thursdays, Dan and Greg would meet in the lunchroom to sit in their suits and complain about their wives. They talked for about an hour every time, and from what Carrie could understand, they could spend their whole day complaining about their marriages. Carrie wanted to speak with their wives. Lizzie and Ryan would get together around noon for coffee in Ryan’s office. Lizzie drank her coffee black, and because she liked it that way Ryan drank his black too. Day after day they would sit together, their bodies leaned across the desk as if they were glued in an awkward diagonal position. Carrie wondered why they wouldn’t just sit next to each other if they wanted to be so close. From his face, it was obvious Ryan didn’t like coffee, but Lizzie would never know that because their eyes were always fixed on each other. Rylie and Hannah, two young interns right out of college, were always talking gossip. They knew all the popular restaurants and bars in the city and Carrie would get at least two new recommendations every time she eavesdropped. Rylie had a boyfriend who lived in Boston, and they were constantly having issues. Hannah, on the other hand, spoke of a new guy after every weekend. Carrie lived vicariously through their sensational young lives. And thanks to the water bubbler she was able to come to terms with her own.
After-work, Carrie jumped on the subway to go home to her small midtown apartment. She always tried to avoid the after-work talk with her co-workers. In her apartment, the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom all melted into one another, as if there was an invisible force bringing them together. Carrie’s apartment became smaller every day, the accumulation of clutter could scientifically classify her apartement as unlivable. She felt her mind might be shrinking at the same rate from all the numbers she dealt with. Carrie had a brown leather suitcase at the edge of her bed. A layer of dust had accumulated on the suitcase.
Carrie’s older brother, Aidan, who lived on the upper east side, loved to stop into her place, unannounced. Carrie liked to avoid him, as she did her parents who still lived in her childhood home in New Jersey. He was tall and powerful, he had an orderly presence to him, a way of commanding a space. He walked between rooms, quietly observing.
“Carrie,” he yelled from her bedroom, “This suitcase has been here for ages, what is it doing here?”
“Oh! Just in case I need to leave or go somewhere under short notice, you know?”
The suitcase was noticeably full and perfectly zipped. The zippers met in the middle of the suitcase as if they were only placed together to be perfectly ripped apart for something better. Carrie knew what that felt like.
After her breakup with Tom, the only relationship Carrie wanted was with the Chinese food from her favorite Chinese place on 37th street. Carrie liked to sit on her red couch -the one she should have gotten rid of ten years ago- with dumplings, fried rice, a dragon roll, a glass of wine, and Robin Williams. “Dead Poets Society” was her favorite movie, it had been ever since she moved to the city. Between bites of sushi, she would follow along with the movie, “But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for,” she whispered softly. Just as she swallowed her sushi, she would come up for air to exclaim, “And you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” She yelled with passion as if she could reach out and claim her life back right there at that moment. When the moment came to an inevitable end, she claimed the remote control, pressed “off” and took her seat back on the old red couch.
Carrie didn’t realize the significance of the water bubbler until last Tuesday when Terry was stuck in line waiting for her to be finished. Terry, who worked in the talent sector of the firm, watched Carrie hunched over the water bubble for five minutes until he felt responsible to ask,
“Carrie, are you alright?”
She spun around and looked at him as if he had just ruined the best scene in her second favorite movie, “Good Will Hunting.” As the water continued to drip down her face and the calm pitter-patter of its sound rang in her ear, Carrie walked away. Once she got back to her cubicle on the sixth floor, she began to think about Terry's question. She hated it. The question narrowed in on her, encompassed her like her cubicle. Carrie felt like it attacked her very core. What she hated most was her answer to his question.
That morning Carrie woke up exhausted. She was up all night thinking about therapy in the morning. She liked therapy and needed it, but she felt as though it gave her a space to sit in her weakness. Her therapist Jenna, a sweet sixty-year-old woman with grey hair and light green eyes, would always ask, “How are you?” at the beginning of each session. Carrie hated her question, as she hated Terry's.
When Carrie would escape to the water bubbler, no one ever asked where she was going. And the water bubbler itself never questioned her. It was the most central people-watching spot in the building. She saw the potential in herself within all of her co-workers. Carrie hadn’t been in a relationship since her boyfriend of five years cheated on her and watching Lizzie and Ryan made her remember a type of joy that had been missing from her life for so long. Rylie and Hannah made Carrie feel like she might have some young spirit left in her. Dan and Greg just reminded her how annoying men were.
Carrie's job made her feel little connection to the world in which she was truly most interested, the fountain and the place of observation it provided her made her feel like she could someday be full again. She was 35. “I have time,” she’d always say to herself.
On Tuesday, Carrie went to therapy. She greeted Jenna and then Jenna posed the infamous and daunting question: “how are you?” Carrie looked at her and immediately responded, “excuse me, I need to go get some water.”
Later that week Carrie was perched over the water bubbler when she sensed someone’s presence behind her. She spun around to see Terry, his eyes open wide, his body standing too close to hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said, in response to the frightened look that hung on Carrie’s face.
“I just feel like I need to ask, who are you? And why do you spend so much time at this Water Bubbler?”
“I’m Carrie.”
But nothing else came out of her mouth. This was the moment she’d been waiting for. A chance to run. Carrie imagined the Water Bubbler detaching itself from the wall and flying into her hands. She’d run down the narrow hallway and the wide streets of New York across town to her apartment where her brown leather suitcase would be waiting for her.
She would run until she found the ocean. It would sit there beaming in all of its mess and delight. Carrie had never seen the ocean but she imagined that the current drove the waves in circles. When it was time for the ocean to reach land, a wave would come up to the coast, excited for something new. It would graze the shore, feeling the rocks and sand, as if to taste freedom, love, beauty, poetry, romance, all to be pulled back out into the ocean, abandoned in a never- ending cycle. Carrie hit the remote control: “off.”
After all, Water is life.
Grace O'Meara
is a rising sophomore from Marblehead, Massachusetts. Grace is currently undeclared in the College of Arts & Sciences, and leaning towards a double major in International Relations and English. Grace loves writing, especially creative writing. She took her first fiction writing class last semester! In her free time, Grace loves thrift shopping and going to the beach. Grace has been experimenting with letting the 'work's intention' of her writing take over her intention as a writer; creating spontaneous and unusual stories. Her submission, “The Water Bubbler,” is one of the creative pieces she worked on during her fiction class and a product of the work’s intention.
My Superpoder
6 Years-Old
Papi, why do they laugh cuando I talk?
Porque tienes un superpoder mija
But entonces if I’m a hero papi,
why do they mock my superpower?
12 Years-Old
It’s better when I don’t speak the strange language
People do not see me as foreign anymore
mamá y papá should not come to the school meetings
Why aren’t they like other parents?
Why can’t they speak English and sound normal?
18 Years-Old
I am looking at my dorm’s white empty ceiling
I miss home, I miss mamá y papá
I miss mamá’s spicy chiles rellenos
I miss papá’s stereo playing Jose Alfredo’s songs
When I call them, I know they understand my broken Spanish, but
I wish our conversation did not feel like a deteriorated simple suspension bridge
The unknown words and expressions are the missing decks of the structure
They are las grietas in the relationship with my parents, through them I see the abyss
21 Years-Old
I am visiting by abuelita in Mexico, the smell of tamales swaddles me
as soon as she opens the door, but the reality suffocates me
I cannot speak with her; I cannot express in words my love for her
I feel the guilt, I am regretful of being ashamed back then
I want to gain my superpower back, I will get it back
25 Years-Old
Estoy hablando with my mamá and papá
I am talking con mi abuelita about recetas and her youth
I feel and know that I belong here, lo sé y lo siento
The bridge is now of iron as strong como mi relación with my family
Mi superpoder is finally back.
Like...
Like the strong farm smell that travels through your windpipes
The same windpipes that transported the spicy childhood aromas to your lungs
Like the water that refuses to travel with the rest, but rather swirls
The same swirl from which your brother pulled you to save your life when you were a child
Like the turtle looking at everyone, observing our strange shape and trails of evolution
The same evolution that took you from being a cuddly baby to an adventurous adult
Like the trees falling and leaving a hollow space in the soil exposing their soily roots
The same roots that you are proud of, but the danger tries to incarcerate you when you show them
Like the slippery wood steps that take you to the top where you can enjoy the gentle touch from the sun
The same sun that dehydrated and suffocated your father while working in the roofs and attics
Like the pink, green, yellow, and purple sprouts rising and growing thanking the rain
The same rain where you danced and smiled, and later mother giving you té de limón con miel
Like the blue sign, telling you not to get lost, pointing and giving you directions
The same directions that your mother just gave you through the phone on your birthday
Like the nests looking alive after winter has passed, the birds are back with their chants and melodies
The same melodies that your proud but softy uncle tried to sing the day of your Quinceañera
Like the corn fields, where the plants are cut, and the short limbs and baby cobs are left exposed
The same exposure you felt when you spoke in front of the class in your broken En-gl-ish
Like the entire trail that through the sounds, the smells, the feelings remind you of...
It reminds you of life
The same life in which you look at the distance and the birds are calling you to join them
The same life in which you join the birds because after all you want to rise up
The same life in which your windpipes swirl and evolve and keep you alive
The same life where your roots make you proud of the sun marks on your viejo’s face
The same life where the directions become clear after you dance in the rain
The same life where the melodies expose your true self through banda y mariachi
The same life where you embrace the faults that makes your life worth living.
Magui Torres Loredo
I am Hurt. Not Broken.
I recall what you did.
You hurt me,
and that other kid
Destroyed me
Painted me to be a villain
Thought you could get rid of me
with penicillin
I want to thank you
Thank you for showing me the person you are
What your intentions were
as you hurt me from afar
Straight Latino Kid from Washington, DC
People like me aren’t meant to succeed
Yet I made it out
while you did it for clout
I am hurt.
Not Broken.
I will never forget
I will forever carry how you made me feel
You couldn’t stand losing
So you took the wheel
Drove yourself to deep
Lies after lies
You continued to
Dig a hole that was way too steep
Thank you for hurting me
Thank you for destroying me
I am hurt .
Not Broken.
Christian Melgar
is a rising Junior at Bucknell University. He is a double English, Literary Studies & Education major and pursuing a minor in Public Policy from Bethesda, MD. He has always hated English. Writing was a task that he did not like and he felt no need for it. However, it wasn't until he came to Buckell where he discovered a passion for reading and writing through his creative writing course with Professor Rosenburg. He felt so inlove with the course that he decided to make English his major. It was this course that opened doors for Christian in finding his passion for literature and policy. Through professor Machado, he discovered a passion for Latinx literature and writing. He was also taught many memorable lessons that he plans to teach his students one day in his own classroom.
The Gazebo
Roman Mercado
The Joy
I whisper as to not wake my mother. Crawling over to my father––a snoring bear in the queen bed––I sit on his stomach until the lack of oxygen wakes him up. His eyes peek up to see me staring. “Five more minutes,” he says. I jump down onto the floor and pull his arm until his torso slides in my direction. I sit criss-cross in front of the master bathroom while he finishes waking up. Then we descend the stairs. I tell him what I dreamed about.
The kitchen chair––my standing chair––slams against the fading wood of the cabinets. My father turns the knob of the burner and the gas flame flickers to life. I am in awe of it. I am not allowed to touch (when Mom’s around). My father sets out everything––the clear bowl, the fork for mixing (we do not use whisks, my mother says they are too hard to clean), the safflower oil, the skillet, the chocolate chips, and Arrowhead Mills Certified Organic and All Natural Buttermilk Pancake Mix. My father does not measure. There is a rhythm, he tells me, to know when you are done. You feel it in the give of the batter; more water or more mix? I lean against my father’s chest, into his sleep shirt. He smells like morning. He is warm like the crackling skillet. The house is quiet. My father shows me how to pour the batter to make the pancakes look like Mickey Mouse.
My father gets a new house; it is far away, I think. There are roads I have never seen before, so it must be hundreds of miles. It might as well be. There is newness everywhere. Couch. Coffee table. Television. Bed. Even a dog whom I do not like. There are no crucifixes, instead dreamcatchers and bongos and oils and bamboo. In the kitchen, my father introduces me to chicken. I pull up a chair. This chair is different. It wobbles and is not as tall as the one we used at my mother’s. I have to stare up at my father as he explains what a thigh is and how it is different from a breast. My father sprinkles pink Himalayan salt onto the raw flesh. I say that I can’t wait to tell Mom I ate something pink. My father puts the chicken in the oven and says that I should not tell Mom that he fed me meat. I do not tell my mother about the chicken. I start not telling my mother a lot of things.
My father develops an allergy. He must be dying because he can no longer eat pizza. I do not know what gluten is, but it is in everything. We buy gluten-free bagels and cereal and pasta. These are not food, but food-like substances. When we cook gluten-free pasta, it loses the molecular structure of a noodle. It turns mushy in our bowls with oregano, chili flakes, salt, pepper, parmesan, and olive oil––limp yet undercooked. Food should be joy. When we eat with my father, food does not have joy.
I cook in my dorm room. Can I call it cooking, when I put a box in another box and it comes out the same, only hotter? I’ve found thirty ways to cook in a microwave. Microwave brownies and soups and oatmeal. A minifridge does not have enough room to store all the herbs and sauces and spices I want. I keep the necessities. I chop red bell peppers on a cutting board propped on my duvet. I cannot find the beauty in food. The snap of a green bean. The slurpy crunch of an apple. The sensuality of spaghetti. The dewy fluff of a Mickey Mouse pancake. The melodies of food are gone from my life, and so is my father.
I am allergic to the food I used to eat. I have inherited my father’s allergies and then some. Gluten. Dairy. Cashews. Eggs. Dates. Prunes. My father is another: something I pretended didn’t hurt to keep around, until life became so unbearable that I had no choice but to quit it. My father and I have not cooked together in six years. I stalk his Facebook profile. He posts about the miracles of juice cleanses and the Keto diet. He is doing no better than my microwave food-like foods. Has he lost the romance? Does the once sweet pancakes leave a bitter taste in his mouth? Does his stomach hurt too, from the flour that now poisons us and from the pain of missing someone so badly?
I whisk, pour, chop, fold, mince, sautee, and think of my father. I can take down his pictures and I can stop telling stories about him. But when I hold a spoon, it is not me, it is my father. Can you ever really erase someone when they’re the one that built you up? Will a building still stand when you take out its foundation? My father haunts me in the food I eat, in the most basic animal function. I could take cooking classes to learn new methods and techniques. There must be other ways to cut an onion. But there is addiction in visiting someone in your memories.
Alexandra Schneider
is a Creative Writing and History major in the Class of 2022 from Springfield, PA. Schneider is a Creative Writing Arts Merit Scholar, as well as a 2019 Cadigan Prize (First Place, Prose) and 2020 Cadigan Prize (Honorable Mention, Prose) recipient. She is the Stadler Center Program Assistant and former Bucknell Arts Council Media Assistant. Schneider is a Campus Co-Chair of Her Campus Bucknell, Fall 2020 West Branch Intern, Speak UP peer educator, and Residential Advisor. When she isn't writing fiction and nonfiction, catch her cooking, baking, and listening to music and podcasts.
The Legend of Mr. Moneybags
Mr. Moneybags is invincible. He sits in ivory armor upon a silver steed. His sheathed sword is made of gold, the shield he clutches from diamond. Well equipped, he bats off monsters and zombies, hordes of poor-folk who only want his money. But they won’t have it; it belongs to him. He earned it with painstaking fervor, countless hours spent plotting, strategizing, sweating, before finally winning. People think the bag of money was handed to Mr. Moneybags, but they’re wrong. He earned it.
See, Mr. Moneybags was chosen. Out of the billions and billions to have lived, died, suffered, it was he—Mr. Moneybags—chosen to lead civilization from savagery to utopia…
…
It all started when the Earth first spoke to him. She asked if he was hungry. He nodded vigorously and she gave him food. She asked if he was thirsty, and he nodded once again. She gave him water.
She then asked if he was satisfied. This confused Mr. Moneybags, but he nodded once more. Like a trained animal, he understood a nod would elicit reward. But this time, the Earth simply laughed at him.
“Satisfied? With food and water? What a stupid little creature you are,” said the Earth to Mr. Moneybags.
“Come with me.”
Mr. Moneybags followed the Earth. She led him to her core, and there, the pair began to discuss the nature of existence. It was a long and boring conversation, a back and forth about physics, religion, as well as other trivial topics.
Finally, the conversation ended. Exhausted, Mr. Moneybags spoke: “If none of it matters, Earth, then why do we discuss it? Why did you bring me here?”
“Fret not, dear Stupid One,” the Earth replied softly, “all will be clear in due time.” As she concluded, the Earth reached behind her back and pulled out something sharp with a handle… a dagger of sorts. Mr. Moneybags jumped at the sight, but the Earth reassured him: “Do not be afraid. With this blade, you shall understand.”
The Earth willed the dagger to Mr. Moneybags with her mind. It floated to him, handle first, and he took it. The Earth then stepped aside and gestured toward her core. “This is my heart, little Stupid Warrior. Do not fear for my health, as I am as resilient as the ocean is deep. Pierce my heart and you shall earn my blessing.” Mr. Moneybags hesitated. “Do it now. Receive my gift to you.” Mr. Moneybags, this time, obliged. He approached the Earth’s core, her heart, and pierced it with the dagger.
…
Instantly, Mr. Moneybags was overwhelmed by all the knowledge of the universe. Just a moment ago he was stupid and normal, without any semblance of special quality—suddenly, he was more. He became Genius. Now he knew why he was so stupid for being satisfied. He understood the purpose of the drawn-out conversation regarding the meaning of life.
What he learned was that all of it: religion, physics, technology, art, the holistic mechanisms that encapsulate humanity and its surrounding beings, existed for his personal gain and benefit.
Mr. Moneybags cried out in ecstasy. The ignorance he had endured for so long was lifted from his shoulders and true freedom finally revealed. He wept tears of joy. He leapt up and down. He took the Earth’s hands in his, and together they danced and sang and celebrated for hours.
Then it was time for Mr. Moneybags to take his newfound knowledge and leave. A tearful farewell with his good friend, the Earth, preceded her final words to him: “You’ve made me proud, Dear One. You were once a stupid creature, having just now graduated to Godly Genius. One last gift for you and your quest, a token of our parting…” The Earth craned her neck upward, revealing her throat to Mr. Moneybags. No longer a moron, he knew just what to do. Excitedly, he gripped the hilt of the dagger and swept the blade across the neck of the Earth. Black blood spewed therefrom, a glorious rain. “Thank you!” cried Mr. Moneybags. “Thank you!”
There was no end to the spraying ink. It accumulated into a tidal wave that Mr. Moneybags rode all the way to Earth’s surface. The eyes of Morons followed him as he cackled with unadulterated jubilance. “Do you see, Stupid Ones?” Mr. Moneybags shouted from his tidal wave of black blood. “This is the way!” The Morons shrugged, indifferent. “Come with me!”
A gathering of Morons formed around Mr. Moneybags. Carefully, he explained his experience: how he had been just like anybody else, dumb as a bag of rocks, until he befriended the Earth and learned her secrets-
“Wait…” one Moron interjected, scratching their head. “The Earth exists… for the sole purpose of increasing your wealth?”
“Now you’ve got it!”
“What about us?” the same Moron replied.
Several others chimed in in agreement, “Hey, yeah, what about us?”
Mr. Moneybags grew furious. How dare these mouth-breathing, smooth-brained, uninitiated swine question the knower of all things, ally and confidant of the Earth itself, Mr. Moneybags? “Now, now, Morons. You shall live to build my wealth and that’s the end of it.”
Among the endless nuggets of wisdom Mr. Moneybags gained was mastery of the art of coercion. Swiftly, he identified those most like himself, both in appearance and mindset, and labeled them Geniuses. This made them feel good, and they gleefully performed Mr. Moneybags bidding, even building some wealth of their own in the process.
Next, he identified those who looked nothing like himself, for they assuredly had an inferior mindset. In a frenzy, he shackled them. These would be his Super-Laborers, entities formed by nature for the sole purpose of serving the wealth of their master. For them, Mr. Moneybags knew physical coercion was the optimal method, and it worked well.
The rest of the Morons were told they would become Geniuses if they were patient enough, and worked hard enough, and prayed hard enough, and were quiet, and cooperative, and stayed out of the way of Mr. Moneybags and his all-important quest. Anybody out of line was shackled and put in timeout until cured.
With this, Mr. Moneybags cultivated perfect civilization and set out to gather all the wealth his heroic heart could muster. As he worked, he recalled a story he was told once about some guy who turned water into wine, and in retrospect, the story was ridiculous. Why would everybody get all riled up about wine? Mr. Moneybags was the superior alchemist without a doubt, after all he could take one mountain and turn it into a billion dollars. With all that money, Mr. Moneybags could buy his own wine.
Still, there were some who, despite every excellent argument made by Mr. Moneybags, were adamant in remaining Morons. They seemed to hate Mr. Moneybags, for what reason he had no idea, and they shouted at him, swore at him, demanded he stop mistreating people and the Earth in the name of wealth.
“Fools!” Mr. Moneybags would call them. “Don’t you understand the Earth told me to hurt her?” They continued to swear at him. “Don’t you understand that my Super-Laborers look differently than me, and think worse?” Why wouldn’t they stop? “Don’t you understand that I have every right to my wealth at the cost of any person or the Earth because it was foretold by a higher power that resources were made specifically for me not you and if you have them I will take them from you and that you will like it and that I deserve it because I’m special?!”-
Mr. Moneybags awakes from his dream. He looks around groggily, slowly recognizing his extravagant home. Silently, he notes to himself that he should purchase a sword made of gold; it’s a nice aesthetic. Next, he laments that the events of his dream didn’t actually take place. Alas, there was no tidal wave of oil that he rode from the earth’s core, or special mission to become rich given to him by some deistic embodiment.
Mr. Moneybags gulps, swallowing the lingering reality of his conquest for affluence. Something that may have once been regret, even remorse, bubbles within him…
He pops an antacid and goes to work.
…