Raquel Wong ’23
Bad Luck
A Big Blue World
Raquel Wong ’23
Greatness
Raquel Wong ’23
Rough Wind and Water
Raquel Wong ’23
Greenwich in the Sky
Meryl Ramirez ’23
Hope in the Dark
Jimmy Nguyen ’25
Red
Jose Alives-Baquero
The stench. It occupied every last bit of fresh air. The smell of coffee, steam, and milk. The smell of tears, shock, and terror. The smell of rubber, flesh, blood. Bystanders surround Lydia while she screams. “It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!” Everything was red.
Earlier in the day, Lydia woke up around 9:30. She had a shift at a coffee shop down the street called Rosemary Cafe. Her shift was supposed to start at 11 so she was doing fine on time. She got up, showered, put on her uniform, and left the apartment.
As soon as she stepped outside of her building, her senses got flooded. She was met with loud sirens, caution tape, and an indiscernible red blur in her vision. Her eyes adjusted as she stepped closer to the scene. As her eyes focused, she saw that the red blur was from the ambulances and the unrecognizable body of the person on the concrete. She couldn’t understand what had happened. She stepped closer. Lydia saw an arm, what seemed to be a finger, and a torso before the EMTs quickly covered what they could with a tarp. Lydia, shaken from the scene, lowered her head and started walking away. On the ground surrounding the chaos, was a clear straight line of blood, going in the direction she was headed.
After leaving the horrific scene, Lydia decided to go to Starbucks a bit further from her job just so she doesn’t run into any coworkers she doesn’t want to. After getting her usual order, she started walking back to Rosemary. As she walked, she saw red lines appearing everywhere. There was a red line on the building next to her and another line that seemed to be guiding her to Rosemary. The red line abruptly stopped in front of her on the corner she needed to cross. Right as she put her foot out, a car sped by. A bright red car, nicked the toe of her shoe, twisting her right foot outwards. She collapsed backward, her drink spilling all over the sidewalk. Her foot was ok, but the front of her shoe was bright red from the paint of the car. She collected herself and walked across the street to the coffee shop.
Lydia walked into Rosemary, put her apron on and got to work. Her coworkers asked her throughout the shift how she’s doing, but Lydia didn’t say anything. All she can think about is the red mark on her shoe. How close she was to not being able to work that day. How close she was to ending up like that body outside of the apartment. The shift went by extremely fast but also unbearably slow. Her movements making drinks were almost automated, but her mind was racing so fast everything seemed to be moving so slowly. She worked a full day at Rosemary, closing at night.
She finished counting up the register and getting everything settled. She grabbed her bag and turned off the lights. She was still nervous about stepping outside again. Next to the street, cars, and possible red paint. She sat in the dark for a second, attempting to regain control of herself, to be able to get home. “It’s just a few blocks” she told herself. She stepped outside and darts to the left, on a mission to get back to safety.
Lydia kept her eyes down and started walking. Past her feet flew red colors, construction marks, lollipops, and the line. The red kept following her until it stopped at a horizontal end point. In front of the line stood a tall figure. Their face wasn’t visible, all Lydia could see was a white shirt with red gloves. With an indistinguishable voice, the figure said, “slow down, are you ok?” Lydia stopped shocked, “Huh?” “I said are you ok?” Lydia couldn’t grasp what they were saying. It was all too much. The street right next to them was bustling with cars, the pavement, shined red from the brake lights. She was surrounded. “Please leave me alone.” “Let me walk you home,” The person said while walking closer. Lydia stepped back against the side of the building. “No, I’m fine” “You don’t seem fine” they said. Lydia had enough. She screamed, “Please leave me alone!” Any possibility of friendliness from the figure disappeared in an instant. They lunged at Lydia with their red gloves and stripped the bag away from her hands.
Lydia shot backwards screaming. The figure lunged for her again before she put her hands out, elbows bent, and pushed them back with all her might. They stumbled back, tripping over the bag. Lydia realizes what she’d done. In an instant, the figure fell into the street, when a red painted car sped by. In swift motion, the wheels swallowed up the body of the person.
Whatever indication of what they looked like was gone. All that was left was red. Their face was stripped from itself. The white shirt had been stained black and red from the ground, car, and themselves. A brutal crunch and splatter overtook all sounds. A life dissolved into asphalt. The only thing left in one piece was their lower leg. Lydia looked from the top down, first bone, then blood, red tainted skin, and the figures shoe. The shoe was white, with a blood-red mark on the toe. And the stench…. It smelled like coffee.
Lighter
Sophia Ferro ’22
Porcelain Plate
Zoe Bocek ’24
i’m not broken
I don’t remember breaking
you’d think that anyone would remember that
you’d think that a shard of porcelain would remember the plate it used to be
you might even think that shard of porcelain wouldn’t remember anything else
soul
little soul
do you remember when you left the body?
do you remember what your last day with a physical form was?
do you remember the color of your hair?
the length of your fingernails?
do you remember that, little soul?
and so the shard is thrown to the trash
will it remember that it used to live on a shelf
in a cabinet
and sometimes on a dinner table?
little shard,
are you waiting to be glued back together?
little shard,
do you ever think that you now, are as much of a plate
as you ever can be, again?
Opposites
Samuel McGee ’22
I was small (at the time), quiet, and a little dumb.
I saw him on the first day of school and consciously or unconsciously decided I wanted to be more like him. I wanted to answer questions the way he did, I wanted to make friends the way he did, I wanted to dress the way he did. Here’s an example: I remember during recess him describing a movie that his older brother watched with him, which was a big deal as this was an R-rated movie. So, of course I tried to watch the movie that night and of course my parents said I under no certain circumstances could watch that movie. I “watched” it that night anyways. And by watched, I mean I watched the trailer on YouTube that night and then tried to keep up with a conversation about it the next day on the playground with the knowledge of someone who’d watched the trailer. I have no idea why this was the way it was; that’s just how it was.
He was tall, loud, social, and smart.
He didn’t see me on my first day of school, or rather he didn’t notice me. As he tells it to me, he’d been there for a year already and was more concerned with catching up with friends than making new ones. However, he tells me as time passed, he did come to notice me. Ironically, the first thing he noticed was my quietness.
“You were quiet as a mouse.”
He noticed how during classes I almost never would raise my hand and during recess I preferred to read rather than to talk to others or play around. According to him, it was this quietness that he began to admire. He tells me he wanted to embody that aspect, “probably because (he) was tired of getting told by teachers to quiet down.”
We look back on these times where we saw the beginning of our friendship take root, we are awash in waves of warm nostalgia for a time long since passed.
As we got to know each other more, we started to replicate each other’s behaviors. A year had passed, and I had hit my growth spurt; however, we weren’t standing equally to each other in just height. Socially, I was still on the quiet end however he’d introduced me to some of his friends, I started to warm up socially and by the end of that first year my friends were his friends, and his friends were mine. Curiously, the way I dressed also changed because of him. Here’s an example: I remember begging my mom to pick up a pair of these bright firetruck red Vans – still a piece of clothing I find in my closet always – that my friend absolutely raved about. That day he had chewed my ear off about the comfort, style, and (oddly enough) the smell of the shoes; he really loved and still loves the smell of fresh canvas. So of course, after such glowing reviews, I wanted a pair of my own in the same style and color as the ones he had.
He reminds me that he changed a lot after getting to know me as well. He tells me that he took a page from my book and learned how to talk less when he shouldn’t have been talking – or at least how to take on a hushed voice. He reminds me of how I got him into one of his favorite book series of his childhood, Percy Jackson. He reminds me of how after I had introduced him to the series, he went as far as dressing up as Percy Jackson for Halloween. He straightened his wavey hair and got a Camp Half-Blood shirt; the full 9 yards. It was a good costume in hindsight. According to him, prior to meeting me he never would’ve considered picking up a book for fun. And, again unexpectedly, he says that the way he dressed also changed. Apparently, my taste for blue colors rubbed off on him, as he started wearing blue jeans more often instead of sweats, which surprised me seeing as jeans are piece of clothing that is a mainstay in his closet to this day. I mean seriously, as far back as I can remember, he’s never been without a pair. His favorite brand is Levi’s – same as mine.
Looking back on how we’ve grown up and affected each other, I’ve realized how much of an impact he had on my personality and how I chose to express myself and vice versa. The true impact we’ve had on each other is probably impossible to “measure” by any reasonable means. If we hadn’t met, I’ve got no idea what kind of a person I’d be; from how I chose to interact with others to something as simple as how I’d get dressed in the morning, I’ve got no clue. But it’s just that that makes me that much more grateful that I got to know him and that he got to know me. I love the personal style I choose to express myself with, and I wouldn’t change any of the events or people that led me to arrive at it.