Volume 1, Issue 2
Supernatural
Letter from the Editor
This is our second issue and we have almost doubled production because of the wild success of the first issue. You can check out both this issue and the previous issue at our website (www.whitman.edu/quarterlife). It seemed an almost supernatural force swept all the magazines from campus in a hurry to consume all that Whitman students have been writing. Well, if there was such a force it has come back in crazier and weirder ways in this issue – themed “Supernatural.”
Supernatural: that is above nature; belonging to a higher realm or system than that of nature; transcending the powers or the ordinary course of nature. The writing in this issue includes subjects that are out of the ordinary but still relevant to our lives because supernatural things happen to us and we sometimes experience the supernatural through our very natural beings. The writing still requires and inspires imagination and I hope you enjoy the imaginative journey through this issue of quarterlife.
Humans are supernatural in a sense when we transcend powers of nature – we become either unnatural or immersed in the natural. We do this by implementing nature in technologies and when we communicate inexplicitly and when we surprise each other with personal magnificence.
.
Martians
Drew Arnold
The day Daniel Washington decided to smoke cigarettes stood out in his mind. It was also the day he decided to save life-as-we-know-it in the solar system. It would be a long shot – and not just a long shot par five or Hail Mary pass – he was betting on God (unreliable) and science (reliable, mostly). By the time his plan began to be realized, he was already an established smoker much to his wife’s disappointment. His smoking was only one of her husband’s changes that upset her. More importantly, she wished her husband would quit trying to save the entirety of life in the solar system. She thought it was too much of a job for him. She relied on religion and God – she was a fatalist that way.
“Debbie. Honey.” He had told her, “Sometimes we have to do our best to keep this universe going, too. God isn’t going to do everything for you.”
To which she said, “He is going to do nothing for you. Go to hell.”
After the divorce, they became troublesome enemies. She picketed his laboratories. He sent dogs after her supporters. He talked trash on national television – the worst was on a music channel directed at young adults: “No, she wasn’t even a good lay.” But she was a good lay, he just worked too quickly, but she knew that she was a good lay because after he left for work she could get herself off like none other. But let’s go back; this story has an immense history, as well as an immense future.
Daniel came home one day agitated and smelling of cigarettes. Soon after his arrival he would leave home agitated and return smelling of booze and cigarettes; drunk but slightly less agitated.
But we must go back further, always back. A creation story like this deserves more detail.
Four-point-five billion years ago, the solar system was created by an inconceivably (by the human mind) massive gas and dust cloud that consolidated into planets, comets, and one big star. These planets developed differently and eventually one of them could support single-cell life in the form of prokaryotes, which got energy from inorganic chemicals and through photosynthesis. Their waste caused the atmosphere to fill with oxygen and soon more complex life was evolving on Mars, which leads to the complex story of Daniel and Debbie. Now we fast-forward, always forward.
Mars eventually lost its atmosphere and all life on the planet died. This was after the time of Daniel’s story; however, this began to be a concern during his lifetime. Earlier in the day that he returned to his house agitated and smelling of cigarettes, he was sitting in his office, playing addicting online games, and expecting a study to be brought to him. The study was the one of the last that his team of scientists was working on to determine when the atmosphere would disintegrate so much that significant changes would take place on Mars and life would soon end. The study came in just before lunch and as he ate his usual PB&J he read and reread the study to make sure that the world was going to start ending in just a couple hundred years.
SO SOON, MY GOD!
He called an emergency meeting.
“What can be done? What can we, as scientists, do to contribute to saving life-as-we-know-it? This is just a brainstorm, throw out any ideas.”
Artificial atmosphere. Orbiting space station with solar panels and a greenhouse inside. Move to the moons. Move to Earth’s moon. Stay on Mars and build cities underground. Nothing can be done; life-as-we-know-it will end completely in just a few generations.
“We must think bigger.”
ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERE. UNDERGROUND CITIES. SPACE CITIES. EXODUS TO THE MOONS. OR EARTH’S MOON.
“There is no possible way that our bloodlines can continue in this solar system. We must think bigger.”
An enormous and uncomfortable silence filled the room.
Daniel left that meeting, bought a pack of cigarettes, and drove his Ford Animator to Olympus View Park, just up the road from his office and laboratory. He put his car in park, went to a bench, and smoked half the pack while admiring the view of Olympus Mons. My God, my God made this. My God, what can be done? What what what can be done? His wife will understand. He must tell his wife. Life is going to end-they must not have children-what can be done-his wife will understand.
“Debbie, Mars will not be able to support life in just a couple generations.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Debbie, the atmosphere will be gone, there will be mutations, life-as-we-know-it will not be on this planet in just a couple generations.”
“God help us.”
“God help us figure this out.”
“God save us.”
“Debbie. Woman. I am trying to save you. I will think of something.”
“Daniel, what can be done? Life-as-we-know-it is doomed. We can only pray and live.”
“I need to get out; I’ll be back later.”
Daniel went out to the bar. He ordered whiskey. The whiskey made him unusually drunk because he did not usually drink. It dissolved his atmosphere of intellect and it made him spin. He was rotating faster spinning revolving around the bar until he collided with the bathroom. He projected his insides into a distant urinal where they stayed for the rest of the night, stuck in the drain. He fell against the far wall. Sat. Thought of the fate of his planet, of the life that he knew. He crawled. Crawled to the stall, knelt. Knelt against the toilet and put more of his whiskey insides into the outer bowl. Where did the whiskey go? Why can he now stand? God must have put that poison in the poison water because Daniel puked out the idea that would save life-as-he-knew-it. Projectiles. Send life like insides out to places where they can stay undisturbed and undisturbing. Daniel drove home smoking a cigarette to get rid of the taste in his mouth with an idea to save life-as-we-know-it.
The next morning; hungover and anxious:
“Goddammit Daniel, you’re a fucking mess. I made you toast.”
“Debbie, I can save the solar system.”
“Eat your toast.”
“I’ll take it with me; I’m going to the office.”
Daniel drove a little lightheaded to his office where he asked his lab assistant to compare the facts about Earth with how Mars was when life first started on the planet.
“This will be it.” Daniel said when he got the results back.
“Huh,” said the lab assistant when Daniel looked happy with the results. “Earth can’t support human life. It can’t even support cockroach life! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” He was understandably hysterical; he was going to die and so would everybody else.
“Buddy, we are going to start life on another planet. We will keep this life alive even if we will never see it in a billion years because Earth will be able to support evolution.”
There was a note from Debbie when he got home:
Daniel, I am at the church. I am going to start an apocalyptic group to pray for the continuation of life as we know it on Mars and for the saving of souls. I don’t care what you do. I will pray for your soul.
Love, Deborah Jenkins
Daniel thought: Maiden name. Bitch. Pray for my soul? What about me or my mission to keep life alive? I should have gotten her away from that priest. Creep.
The next day he got his team together and announced their plan to the public. He and his team were enthusiastic but mournful about their loss of life-as-they-knew-it until it evolved independently on Earth.
The newspapers announced: Team of Scientists to Send Life to Earth.
The tabloids announced: Mad Scientist left by Religious Wife, Told to go to Hell.
Daniel and Debbie got on with their plans. Daniel researched sending bacteria to Earth to start the evolutionary process. Debbie organized a group of religious followers to protest her ex-husband’s ventures. Daniel recruited an international staff; Debbie wrote letters, made signs, got out to the public. The public was split: Life must go on…We are doomed…Look at the mountains, the huge seas, the life that we live – this can go on…This is the only life there is, we propagate in marriages, not space shuttles… Well, technically it’s a space capsule…Go to hell.
Foxy News invited Daniel on for a special segment with an aggressive newsman.
“And what are the chances of this bacteria growing into complex life?”
“Well, it’s hard to say. The chances are small, that’s why we are sending tens of thousands of capsules that will fall all over the Earth’s surface.”
“So you think that life on Mars grew out of the same process?”
“Yes, I think that life evol-”
“Does a higher power fall into your beliefs about the creation of life?”
“I believe that God or some force created the conditions for life to grow. I mean-”
“Aren’t you taking over that role then?”
“I mean, look at the beauty of our planet and our lives.”
“Aren’t you becoming like a god to try to start a whole system on life on another planet, giving them a whole destiny of billions of years?”
“I think that starting an evolutionary process on another planet is the noblest of experiments.”
Click-flash and the TV went off in Father (Dave) Reynolds’ bedroom. Debbie and her priest had sex one more time that evening, preferring each other to watching the man that drove them together. Turning off the television while her ex-husband was puffing himself up made Debbie feel once again that power she exercised by leaving him.
“Make it slow. I want you to stay inside.”
Again we go back, leave Debbie and her priest to their pleasures…
The son of God visited the people of Mars and after many years people began to measure time from the date of his birth. The Catholic Church became an established authority on the rules of God and the meaning of man. The people got bored with the Church making them feel guilty with its constructed authority and many new religions were made to make people feel more or less guilty. Apparently people need that authority. But they need it in different ways. Father Reynolds’ church was the most recent break from religious traditions. The Revised Catholics believed that they were the center of God’s purpose in creating the universe. There remained a hierarchy of religiosity and the all-male clergy took vows of celibacy. They believed in the powers of prayer and sacrifice, but they also believed in making the most out of life to gain the most in the afterlife. Some priests were part-time hang-gliders, base-jumpers, and scuba divers because, as Father Reynolds was fond of saying: you gotta live once to live again. The Revised Catholic Church also appealed to the scientifically minded because of the focus on worldly matters. Father Reynolds married Daniel and Debbie.
“Thank God you finally left your husband; he’s been blowing his inherited fortune on this crack-brained idea for far too long.”
“Noblest of experiments, my ass.”
“Speaking of your ass…”
“I don’t know right now, I am already sore from all that we’ve done.”
Then they had sex again and Father Reynolds held her and controlled her, turned her every way he wanted, and she was plastic in his arms – malleable and writhing. They stayed indoors for days and Father Reynolds got pleasure whenever he desired. Debbie was a slave for him, finding pleasure in her simple submission to his needs. They hurt but they could not stop. Their responsibilities were ignored – both the protesting and the healing of souls. After days, Father Reynolds’ supply ran low and they were having sex for hours and hours; rather, Father Reynolds pounded at his sweaty and exhausted will and they both delighted in their pain.
“Dave, I’m giving myself to you because procreation is the most important thing God wants and to be naked with you is the most important thing I want.”
They gave up on the world and turned solipsistically towards each other, finding that sex was they only thing they cared about in a world that was ending oh-so-soon.
“Through human connection is the only way to find God,” he quoted from a church pamphlet.
Intercourse was their connection with humanity in a world soon to be void of humanity. Endless sex was their calling and their celebration.
A week into its progress, Daniel disrupted this intercourse with a phone call.
“Debbie, why are you doing this?”
“Why are you doing what you are doing? You know that this life is special and it’s ours. Who knows what you will create, if anything.”
“If Earth evolves and develops like Mars did, then there is a chance that some life will continue to enjoy the beauties that humans have enjoyed in the past.”
“I am special; I am not some typified object that can be made with mathematical calculations.”
“No one is, but if life can continue, I see enough beauty in it to work my hardest to continue it.”
“Do what you want, I am giving up resisting you like everyone else has and I am going to resign to fate. I am making the best for myself while I can.”
Father Reynolds reached over and took the phone from Debbie and placed it back in its nook. Debbie smiled slightly as she knelt to her knees. The rest of the world resigned in the realization that life-as-we-know-it on Mars was ending. Some gave up all ambition. Some made the best for themselves. Only Daniel and his hopeful team worked to send life to another planet; sending life back in phases and forward in time.
And we go forward, flying like a space shuttle from its stand or semen from the epididymus or vomit from a whiskey-filled stomach, because we know that Daniel persisted in his plans, Father Reynolds continued his thrusting with Debbie, other people continued their own self-involved lives, and elements continued to drift away from Mars’ gravity out to space and their unknowable futures.
Daniel and his team launched their space shuttle filled with tens of thousands of capsules containing bacteria to give life to Earth amongst mildly interested press and spectators.
Launch; ka-plow; zoom.
Oh shit.
“Daniel, we just got information on massive solar action. There is a solar wind that is so powerful it may adjust the path of the shuttle and may even rip off a huge part of our atmosphere.”
A prayer. “Oh God, help us now.”
But pause. And back, more information must be revealed, in a destruction story like this one there are always so many details. Father Reynolds and Debbie, as we all know and may be disturbed by, continued their lovemakingfucking for all this time. The energy of the room was disproportionate; Debbie was in pain but unable to stop as much as she was unable to say words or stand, Father Reynolds did not think but only reacted to his desire to dominate this woman with his paternal power. There was no balance of male and female energies. The motion of the two, Father Reynolds oscillating on top of nonresistant (and even encouraging) Debbie, actually changed the motion of the planet. It was spinning much faster, this had two effects: it pushed off more atmosphere and it made Daniel’s launch go awry. At the exact moment of the launch, Father Reynolds finally let loose the ejaculation that he was pushing for days, the force of which exhausted him of life and killed Debbie on impact. It also spun Mars on an accelerating rotation therefore sending the rocket out to space not in the direction of Earth, but more towards the Sun.
The massive solar wind did in fact re-adjust the rocket’s path back towards Earth and tear off more of the atmosphere of Mars. The capsules inseminated Earth and lives ended on Mars due to heat and lack of atmospheric pressure. But now there is life on Earth and thank God thank science thank sex and the unbalanced relationship of two lovers the misunderstood relationship between God and man and the sun and its eccentricities.
.
The Adventures of Friend Pig
Alec Sugar
Once upon a time, the sun rose over the woods. There was nothing unusual about this, but the events the sun was to witness on this day were most certainly unusual. Sunlight streaming in through the window woke Friend Pig. He was sorry to let go of his pleasant dreams, but ready to welcome the new day.
The early morning was Friend Pig’s favorite time of day. Since he had no children, and his wife was usually still “finishing up paperwork” from the night before, he had the silent house all to himself. This allowed him to peacefully sip his coffee, gather his thoughts, and plan the hours ahead of him. In reality, there was no need to plan anything; Friend Pig always spent the bulk of the day romping through the woods.
To some, the woods may seem like a pretty but uneventful place; but to Friend Pig, they were wonderland. In every nook and cranny lay a free sampling of dead rodents or some delicious fungus. Friend Pig was not the sole inhabitant of these woods; he had his share of neighbors: other Pigs, the Sparrows, and of course Beowulf. But because the inhabitants of the large woods were so spread apart, they only came into contact with each other on occasion. For the most part, Friend Pig roamed freely – as if he were the only oinker in the world.
On this particular morning Friend Pig headed eastward, slightly downhill from his home towards the denser and damper forest. A swift brook ran through the bottom of the hill. In the rainy season when the ground got muddy, Friend Pig would splash around in the brook until he had washed himself clean. Having just eaten, he wasn’t especially hungry. He was looking for whatever thrill popped up and feeling footloose and fancy-free.
As Friend Pig trotted along, something caught his eye. It was a field mouse scurrying through the underbrush. Letting out a joyful squeal, Friend Pig went chasing after it. He had to jump and swerve to keep up with the fast little rodent, but he never lost sight of him. Just when he thought he had him, the mouse darted into a hollow log on the ground. Without thinking, Friend Pig tried to follow him in. Unfortunately, our porky protagonist was a bit too large to squeeze through the log, and he found himself stuck. His hind legs kicked the dirt frantically as he attempted to squirm his way out, but it was to no avail.
At this very moment, Friend Swallow happened to be passing by. He saw Friend Pig’s fat bottom sticking out of the log, and flew down to see what was the matter.
“Friend Pig,” he asked. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m stuck in this log,” grunted Friend Pig, “and I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll go find some help,” and Friend Swallow flew away.
Friend Swallow decided he should get Bridge Pig, since he was easy to find. Bridge Pig was always sitting on the bridge over the brook. Some said that he came to the woods hoping to fill in the brook and unite the land on either side, but it seemed that he mostly just sat on the bridge – affirming its existence but not doing anything.
Bridge Pig saw Friend Sparrow and greeted him with a friendly grunt.
“Bridge Pig, you must help me,” began Friend Swallow. “Friend Pig is stuck inside a hollow log and can’t get himself out.”
Bridge Pig thought for a moment. “It sounds like there’s a problem,” he said.
“Yes,” said the impatient Swallow, “can you help me with it?”
“Mmmhmm,” said Bridge Pig. There was a moment of silence. “So there’s a problem, then,” he concluded.
“Right,” said Friend Swallow. “I want you to help me get Friend Pig out of the log.”
Another moment of silence followed. Friend Swallow stared into Bridge Pig’s beady eyes and blinked twice. Bridge Pig stared back at him and blinked once.
“Mmmhmm,” said Bridge Pig.
This time Friend Swallow didn’t wait for another response. He flew off in search of more immediate help. He followed the brook downstream until he came to the home of Walrus Pig. Almost as soon as he had knocked, Walrus Pig threw open the door, his pearly white tusks gleaming in the sunlight.
“What can I do for ya?” asked Walrus Pig in his husky deep voice.
“Well, Friend Pig is stuck inside of this log in the deep woods. He needs some help getting himself out,” Friend Swallow explained.
“Hyuh hyuh hyuh, that’s a tough one,” chuckled Walrus Pig. “I think I might have just the solution. Come on in.”
Walrus Pig led Friend Swallow to his open refrigerator. It was stocked full of butter.
“We’ll just have to grease ‘im up a little, and he’ll be outta there in no time,” he said with a grin.
The two of them loaded up Walrus Pig’s wheelbarrow with butter and headed down the path towards the deep woods, where Friend Pig was starting to wish he’d just stayed at home and taken a buttermilk bath.
When Friend Swallow and Walrus Pig arrived at the log, Friend Pig was desperately oinking and kicking, his corkscrew-tail drooping. The log shook slightly, but nothing budged.
“Friend Pig, hold still for a second,” said Walrus Pig as he unwrapped the first couple packets of butter. “We’re gonna get ya so greased you’ll slide all the way back home.”
And with that, Friend Swallow and Walrus Pig went to work. They greased Friend Pig up and down, concentrating on the exposed areas just sticking out from the log. Several packets later, Friend Pig was so buttery that even Friend Swallow’s beak began to water.
Walrus Pig grabbed hold of Friend Pig’s hind legs and pulled. Friend Pig squealed, but didn’t move.
“Shucks, you’re a tough one.” Walrus Pig wiped his brow and tried again. This time he put his back into it and gave a count off: “One, two, three!”
Friend Pig went shooting out of the log tail first. It looked just a cork popping out of a champagne bottle.
“Thank God I can move again,” Friend Pig squealed with delight. “I owe you both one.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Walrus Pig with a hearty chuckle. “I guess we all learned a good lesson – sometimes the best way to help a friend is with butter.”
The trio said their goodbyes and went their separate ways: Friend Swallow to his nest, Walrus Pig to his fridge now empty of butter, and Friend Pig to go home and take a buttermilk bath.
.
The Sentence
Lizzie Norgard
It isn’t that I want to follow her. As a matter of fact, what I want hasn’t been relevant for some years. I remember what it was like to want, when I wanted to follow her and it actually brought me pleasure. Unlike the memories of the living, a dead man’s memories become more intense with the passage of time.
I remember her as if she were gone. But she isn’t, and I try to see her anyway. I remember the back of her head, the sweet gloss on which I would imagine her face, looking at me, a mouth moving and saying something to flatter me. My imagination created us both as dolls, her image and mine like vague sketches of people, some parts exaggerated and some deemphasized to suit the simple and static world I imagined. As often as I could I would fix my gaze on the back of her head, perfectly blank and chestnut smooth, and conjure a face there—its expression shifting as it talked to me, eyes glistening in a way I would naturally interpret as flirtatious—and those brief fantasies were almost worth the nauseating fear that one day she would actually turn around. I didn’t want to know what she would say, if she would say anything, or if she would just look at me with an inscrutable expression that I would naturally interpret as contempt, mild enough not to bother her. But still it pleased me to follow her, her perfect indifference to me a blank screen on which I could project all the longings of my reticent, sex-deprived and nervous imagination. But now I feel no pleasure, and I don’t even want her anymore, and my fear of her has long since turned into desperation—that living death that never lies down and dies, as others in my position have said.
I feel no pleasure. But the worst thing about it is that I am not dead enough to feel true despair. I loiter in the threshold between wishful thinking and hopelessness, wondering if maybe I can continue to get away with following her and never having to confront her, and knowing all the same that time will break this spell eventually, and at that point I will have control over neither her nor myself. We will talk, I know it. And it will be the most bowel-loosening moment of my existence.
I follow her against my will because I have been sentenced to do so until we talk. I am not in Hell—at least then I would have the reassuring certainty that my torment would last forever. No, I am not in Hell, because real eternity is maddeningly unpredictable, and Hell is an end reserved only as a nightmare for those who bore easily. Unfortunately, I do not bore easily, which is why I once delighted in following the same girl and imagining the same soft face, giving way to my spirit like sand and blowing away to let me come again and again. I could finger her to be anything, tracing my moods in her smooth hair like pictures on the beach, and I didn’t need to go anywhere else to be at peace. I was once at peace. And when in my perverse idleness I died to the world, and after a time looked around to see where I was, I was like a panicked child who looks up from his game and sees he is completely alone. No one is waiting for him; his game is all he has had for quite some time. So he lingers to complete it, hoping that with the game at an end, his loneliness will disappear too.
Anyway, that was what it felt like when I received my sentence. I was completely alone, and at last I knew it: I was like a hedonist who gets bored with himself and realizes it is because he has been living in the same old body for far too long. And when I finally knew I was completely alone, I could hear my sentence calling me to penance. I do not know how long I was dead before I heard it. I must have been idling in the grave for some time, though, because when the sentence was read all of the angels had aged quite a bit since the last time I had seen them. It was only then that I realized how long I had been out of contact with them, neither in the world of dancing nor the world of watching, simply dead to all worlds. Somehow, I know not by what power, I was summoned from my entombed reverie to the world of watching and heard my sentence. And henceforth I am to follow her until she actually turns around.
She takes ballet. I am there, in the dance studio, with her. Near her, I mean. I am looking at the back of her head, feeling as though we are in the same room though our hearts are in fact in different worlds, different spiritual worlds. I didn’t know that before, lying in the tomb of my fantasies, before I was sent to the world of watching. She is not in the world of watching; she moves without knowing herself, a feral creature untouchable by anything rude or rhetorically gifted. No one can insult her, no one can make her feel guilty. No one can call her any names—she does not need a name to be what she is. She knows what she is not because she ever thinks about herself, but because she lives instinctively on her feet, as I never have. She throws herself around the studio like a fearless child who could only be stopped if someone stopped her, and not without a deafening protest. She forces her way through space like a spectacular parade: this is why I know I don’t stand a chance. Moving her feet on the ground without hesitation is completely natural to her, and I am nothing but a pair of eyes.
I watch and say all these things about her because it is part of my sentence to understand why we are worlds apart; she a dancer, I a watcher. It is part of my sentence to articulate the great gap between us, to know why I was dimly afraid of her before my sentence and intensify that tension in language. I have been sentenced to watch in order to increase my fear, to increase my resistance to the confrontation that is to take place between us. It is the only way I will be free from this: I have to get very uncomfortable in the crow’s nest. That sentence is not some sadistic whim of the power that sent me here; I tilled the ground for it myself when I followed her with pleasure. I made her into an irresistible beast, something to be afraid of, something simultaneously to avoid and to gaze upon with awe from a vantage point, something untouchable. And now I must say it to myself. I must bridge the gap with my report. I must confess, confess, confess.
I take up my watching. She chatters with her friends in a language I understand but don’t speak. I once met a French Canadian boy who could understand German because his grandparents spoke it to him, but could not put together a sentence. If they asked him a question he would respond in French. It is like that with her, not that she ever asks me questions. But I don’t know if she would understand me if I spoke back to her in my language, or if she would just think I was a barbarian.
I can hear what she’s saying, but I have nowhere to put it. It is meaningless to me, but not trash. I put it in my junk drawer. I’m sure I will need it later; I will need to offer it back to her. But I don’t care about her words for their own sake, only as a bargaining tool. Only so I can understand her better and have something to offer her when she walks by. But I don’t even remember what she says. I put it in my junk drawer.
My mind is wandering again. I imagine that I am falling into the junk drawer of all the words and quirks and gestures that make up the play of surfaces that is her identity. I am happy there, pleasantly surprised by every little quip, every anecdote, every color of shirt she wears. She sticks her hand in and rummages about for something she intuits she will need, and the movement makes me laugh, makes me speak as a character in her story, and I am so pleasantly surprised and engaged that I can’t even thing as fast as I am moving. It is like I am stoned and every trivial phrase and movement and image suddenly becomes new and clever and loaded with meaning. She picks me up and looks me in the eye, and…
This is where I would wake up if I were dreaming, because there is no script for what happens next. I have always been jolted out of my imagination at this point, where she looks me in the eye and nothing happens, because we have to write it together. These are my sobering moments. I cannot sleep anymore. I am in the world again, following her, watching her move. I am not imagining what life would be like if I lived in the junk drawer of her personality. I am fretfully on edge, continually on the verge of tapping her on the shoulder and asking her to dance. And I don’t even know any dance moves—I would have to ask her to teach me. The angels tell me that this is how to be born into the world of dancing, beyond death, beyond watching. But few people ever choose it, because one is never more vulnerable than when one is being born.
.
When Human Voices Wake Us
Kim Hooyboer
Case # 5.29 Session # 01 Date 09 / 28 / 06
37 year-old African-American male presents with signs of acute psychosis in the form of auditory hallucinations, delusional beliefs, and paranoia. Patient reports psychosis first arose approximately 6 weeks ago. No history of substance abuse, medications, or medical conditions that would cause psychosis. No evidence of mood disorder, depression, or violent tendencies. Possible diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Recommend initial dosage of 12.5 mg Clozapine, increasing daily by 25 mg until cap at 200mg per day. Weekly psychotherapeutic sessions scheduled immediately.
Case # 5.29 Session # 02 Date 10 / 05 / 06
Session today focused on initial appearance of hallucinations. Psychosis first presented itself with auditory hallucinations in which a voice spoke to the patient in a dream and continued to speak upon awakening. Patient subsequently heard voice with increasing frequency during waking hours. At first, the voice offered a cryptic message expressing regret for “making them.” Patient’s severe paranoia manifests in the belief that the “them” refers to all humanity. Visual hallucinations presented themselves approximately 2 weeks after the voice was first heard. Visions described as scenes of corpses littering the streets. Patient sees himself in the visions as the sole survivor, walking among the dead. He is unsure as to how such a mass murder was completed or how he was able to survive it. Patient insists that the apocalypse is imminent.
Case # 5.29 Session # 03 Date 10 / 12 / 06
Patient not yet responding positively to Clozapine. Recommend continued treatment and a reevaluation in 2 more weeks. Auditory hallucinations are becoming more prominent. Patient insists the voice now actively interacts and engages him in dialogue. Paranoia has increased insofar as the voice now declares the impending arrival of an “end of all flesh.” Patient insists that the voice refuses to answer questions regarding the means to this end. More hallucinations have presented themselves with elements spanning the destruction of both the human (entire cities left surreally deserted) and the natural (windswept forests shrouded in a tangible silence).
Case # 5.29 Session # 04 Date 10 / 19 / 06
Patient hospitalized last night due to self-mutilation reported by the patient’s wife. Patient appears to have tattooed the inside of his wrist with a symbol of unknown origin. The ER physician was able to sufficiently curb the blood flow and put the patient onto a regiment of antibiotics to decrease the chance of infection. The tattoo ink is consistent with that of a ballpoint pen, although the wife was unable to find the needle used in the procedure. Patient insists that the mark materialized on his wrist of its own accord. He does not know what it symbolizes, but he believes that it will protect him against the coming apocalypse and is, in fact, the only preventative measure. The patient still does not know how the apocalypse will occur. He denies any religious or biblical explanations. Recommend increase in Clozapine to 250 mg daily.
Case # 5.29 Session # 05 Date 10 / 26 / 06
The tattoo has been identified as the Hebrew letter M, however the patient refuses to disclose the meaning of the mark. Patient is increasingly more disturbed by his hallucinations. He reports insomnia, saying that neither awake nor asleep can he escape the visions, in which he watches people die in mass, suddenly overcome by an inexplicable inability to breathe. He claims that the youngest died first. Patient made attempt to gain sympathy and attention by singling out Tom from a photo on my desk, saying that he would be taken soon. When asked how the patient’s children would fare, he claims the voice told him that they would receive the mark and are therefore spared. Patient’s wife contacted me yesterday after a pseudo-violent episode in which the patient frantically searched his three children for the mark. The wife worried that the patient would attempt to tattoo the children as well. The patient insists that he would do no such thing, that the mark will appear on its own, as he claims his did. I have recommended that the patient is taken into overnight hospitalization for the time being to protect his family from any further, more violent attacks.
Case # 5.29 Session # 06 Date 11 / 02 / 06
Patient response to hospitalization has been primarily positive. He remains complacent, content in the belief that his presence is not necessary for the manifestation of his children’s preservative markings. However, the patient seems troubled by some new report from the voice. He refuses to disclose what the voice has told him. He claims he is as yet unsure as to whether I’m supposed to know. Maintains that I will find out soon, regardless of whether he divulges the information.
Case # 5.29 Session # 07 Date 11 / 05 / 06
Tom is dead. Autopsy reports indicate asphyxia, due to muscular paralysis of unknown origin. Hannah found him in the basement last night. Hospital security assures me that the patient was under constant supervision and, as such, could not have been involved in the death. It has been suggested that the patient be reassigned to another psychiatrist while I take a leave of absence. Instead, I have increased the quantity of sessions to once a day. The patient expressed sympathy for my loss and assured me that there was nothing he could have done to stop it. The youngest are the first to go. They can only hold their breath for so long.
Case # 5.29 Session # 08 Date 11 / 06 / 06
The patient claims that our work is done and it is time for him to move on. I have advised hospital security to maintain maximum surveillance on the patient at all times, in case he attempts to escape. He seems amused by the idea of hospital security restraining him any longer than he desires. Letonia has taken a particular interest in my personal life, specifically since Tom’s death. Auditory hallucinations now inform him that I, too, will bear the mark. The patient seems genuinely concerned for me in light of this revelation. He warns me that I, too, will be forced to watch everyone around me die. He warns me that I, too, will be unable to stop the rising tide.
Case # 5.29 Session # 09 Date 11 / 07 / 06
He was right, of course. Hospital security reported his disappearance late last night, despite my warnings that they watch him more carefully. The mark appeared today. I could feel it burning on my wrist under the shower’s heat. When I left my house, the entire street was covered in water. Nearly a foot. Passed the homeless man who sleeps in the alleyway on 2nd, but he hadn’t gotten to higher ground in time. The youngest are the first to go. They can only hold their breath for so long. I can hold my breath forever. The water has already taken me. Soon, the waterline will reach my chest, then my head, but I will still breathe air. They won’t though. I can see it beginning. Their lungs will slowly fill with air that’s not air that’s liquid and they will gasp at the sky like goldfish in murky water, gasp for air that’s not there and they will be frantic and raise their children onto their shoulders but even they too will eventually be overcome except for Letonia’s children, all three of them, they will live, and Letonia and me, but I will be alone because Tom is gone and Hannah will soon follow and the youngest are the first to go because they can only hold their breath for so long.
Case # 9.29 Session # 01 Date 11 / 07 / 06
52 year-old Caucasian male displays symptoms of acute psychosis including auditory hallucinations, delusional beliefs, and paranoia. No history of substance abuse, medications, mood disorders, or medical conditions that would cause psychosis. Paranoia stems from belief that the world is currently in the midst of an apocalypse. Hallucinations present as a reverend by the name of Letonia who he claims was a patient of his before he resigned from his psychiatric office two years ago. No official documents indicate that such a man existed, although the doctor kept a detailed case log of supposed sessions with Rev. Letonia spanning the last 40 days. No violent tendencies, save for self-mutilation in the form of a tattoo of the Hebrew letter M. Possible diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia due to trauma stemming from death of his son. Recommend hospitalization in conjunction with initial dosage of 12.5 mg Clozapine, increasing daily by 25 mg until cap at 250 mg per day. Biweekly psychotherapeutic sessions scheduled immediately.
.
Resurrection Happens
Hilary Davis
All his life Bill Kerr struggled to believe, the way a man pushing a two-ton boulder up a hill with his forehead struggles: push as hard as you can until either the boulder moves or your head breaks. After forty years of bandaging up a bloody forehead without much belief to show for it, a person gets pretty depressed.
Sometimes resurrection happens, and the boulder flies away. I wonder if we're capable of knowing what it felt like for Jesus to lie dead in the tomb for two days before he rose from the dead. Sometimes I think we can, just a little bit, like the way we notice parts of ourselves when they come back, parts that we didn't remember existed - the way the desire to practice guitar scales suddenly shows up after two years of all musical ambition dustily lying dormant in the personality attic, filed "irrelevant part, probably hubris." Moments in life actually do take on meaning we wouldn't have imagined possible or imagined at all; picking random notes on the guitar along to a Sufjan CD alone in the bedroom at one in the morning all of a sudden is not just a distraction from the depression that miraculously gets displaced from a room when Jesus walks into it.
I don't think Bill Kerr could have expected the way Jesus was going to walk into his hotel room that night any more than the futile boulder-pusher expects to make it to the top. I'm not sure why he decided not to booze himself into oblivion at the bar that business-trip night, or why he didn't space himself out to sleep in front of the catatonic channel-surf available to him in his four-star television set. Sometimes, like that night, resurrection happens in the form of a blue (or was it brown? the details didn't matter) Gideon Bible that appeared in his hand. What he actually read that night he does not remember, but what he remembers is the way Jesus walked into the room and told him that he would never be alone again.
I was once in the presence of a wisely old Philippino man when he said, "If the God you believe in does not set you free, then it is not the real God." If you'd been there slumped against the mahogany booth of the restaurant that night listening as I was to the hotel room story, there would be no doubt in your mind that Bill Kerr was free. Correction: that Bill Kerr was set free, by a very real God, the same God who was sitting next to us in the booth as Bill looked over at me with that amazed shake of his head and breathed, “I’m so in love.” Somewhere in the eighteen inches of space between Bill's face and mine, somewhere moving in the eighteen inches of space between the crown and the chest where the Spirit descends from head to heart as the Easter Orthodox chant
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
as many times as it takes, as much time as the Spirit takes to make his space, as God prepares a place to make himself known
in our hearts as in our words, Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, help me say it enough until it starts to make sense
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God who lives in me now, have mercy on my unbelief
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner, who is a sinner . . .
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner, because I need it
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner, because you can
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, I am a sinner, but you are merciful
Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, you show up.
The Eastern Orthodox wise men who use their minds to pray this prayer until it reaches their hearts know, as I am learning to know, that our position before God is that of beggar. We need Jesus, and we need to ask him to come. And the miracle is that when we hold out our hands to receive him, his body and blood are there too.
One time Bill was kneeling in church for prayer, distracted by the long chestnut locks of the woman in front of him. The hair, and the woman, were beautiful, yes, but it was the deadness of the hair that distracted him. It was all dead, all the length of the hair and each strand and each head that every strand of hair in the entire chapel was attached to. Each person was dead, filling the sanctuary with a congregation of corpses, come to kneel before a sleeping God.
Then something happened. These rows of dead men began to stand, and walk forward, and hold out their hands as though in sleepwalking prayer - except that something happened to them somewhere between walking forward and walking back. Something happened, and the corpses were alive now, and they were not corpses at all. The living God, in the shape of starchy wafers and germ-tipped wine, entered them. They walked back awake into their rows with his fragrance on their lips, breathing God all over Bill's tired face. Jesus sat next to Bill in his pew and told him that he would never be alone again in a room full of dead bodies. That if he ever walked into a tomb, it would be empty.
Somewhere mixed in forty-five minutes of story coming out of Bill's mouth in the restaurant, sometime between the beginning of the sentence explaining how the Eastern brothers think of "the Jesus prayer" and Bill saying "have mercy on this sinner," Jesus happened. Energy flooded me to remember all the ways in twenty-one years he's shown up to a depressed consciousness and touched spirit to body like the birth of a new song. And that's all I know about it: that I can remember Jesus, that I know what it looked like when he resurrected, that I can recognize him when he does it again, and that I want to watch resurrection for the rest of my life. I keep being surprised to find out that he is making new life happen all around me when I don’t expect it. Or perhaps I tend to wait for life sullenly like Mary Magdalene sitting by the grave before she recognizes that the gardener actually is the Lord. Either way: Jesus shows up, and I find myself resurrected. This sinner better believe it: it sounds like mercy.
.
L’Amour d’un Arbre
Nicole Pexton
While watching you, my tree
I am intimidated
By your openness
Your shameless leaves
Warmly caress me
With loving stories
I am too afraid to live
I step to you
Shyly hiding in your shade
Forgetting myself
In the embrace
Of your branches
The peace I feel
Brings Me closer
Gaining courage
Through your comfort
I look up
Your eyes are the spaces
Between leaves
Where life shines through
In shimmering light
We kiss
Your lips are silk
Not bark as I imagined
It’s not about you
Your mouth is only
My own warmth reflected
I leave your trunk
With a hopeful sigh
Knowing our encounter
Returned my linear path
Back to My cycle
Of renewing passion
I am illuminated
You gave me seeds
Of Myself to spread
I throw them joyfully
And they float along
Light’s rich currents
And to think
No, to feel
Our kiss sparked divinity
In Me
.
Bats
Dan Dennedy-Frank
The blind sun nudges us
to sleep. We close ourselves
in the envelopes of corners
where reflections can’t jump,
wings closed like two books,
soft fuzz resting on our legs.
Eyes mere creases, eyes
looking inwards. All day
we try to get closer and closer
to absolute forgetting.
Small, dark paralysis fists
crunched upside down,
hiding from everyone—hoping
to hide from everyone. Until
the world turns thick enough to
lure us into bizarre atmosphere.
The moon emits sucking noises.
Shines like a live birth.
Masthead
| Editor | Drew Arnold | |
| Layout | Kim Hooyboer | |
| Staff | Ben Gannon Danielle Alvarado Dan Dennedy-Frank Toby Kahn Ben Kegan Lizzie Norgard Diana Peabody Nicole Pexton |
