Notes from the Underground: Spring 2018: Notes from the Underground, #4

Notes from the Underground:

Maclay Upper School’s

Journal of Creative Writing

Issue 4:  Spring 2018

Editorial Staff

Editor-in-Chief – Chandler Downie

Art Editor – Lee Alisha Williams

Fiction Editor – Daniel Sweeney

Nonfiction Editor – Emma Bell

Poetry Editor – Khadeja Ahmed

Copy Editor – Mercy Bickell

Copy Editor Assistant – Simon Corpuz

Copy Editor Assistant – Lilly Simons

FRONT COVER ART: KATHERINE Dowdy, Seaside Church

Back cover art: Lucy Smith, Beach Trip 2

A Note from the Sponsor

Dear readers and writers,

Here we are. I had no idea that this school year would be more difficult than the last, this semester more difficult from the last. I suppose that’s what’s misleading about the structure of academia—getting to start again and anew and the way you just naturally have hope at the beginning of things, despite your experience and best attempt to be steeled against the danger of optimism. (Did you know that my Persian name Nahal means the hope you have at the beginning of things? Literally, it means young tree, and you can call me saphead if you want to. I’ve been called worse.) T.S. Eliot writes, April is the cruelest month, but I think April got a run for its money this year. This semester, though, we haven’t had to survive an eclipse or a hurricane. Yet, here we are.

In March when I was in Tampa for AWP (You’re not tired of hearing about AWP, are you?), I arrived knowing that I’d already been rescued by some words, by some true friends who sent them my way (see my little poem in this issue, dear readers), but there was more work to do. I was stunned by how some distance really did help me. And I was also stunned by how the weather on Friday, in turning its stubborn back on the cold and rainy forecast, really did help me by delivering gentle sunshine and sunshine on gentle water and by delivering a gentle breeze that wistfully blew my napkin off the table, that little napkin that seemed like a bird. I really thought a white bird had alit on my table while I’d been looking up at these glittering palm trees. How could I not be okay? It’s silly things like this that remind us that it’s good to be human, to be so easily swayed to the good or bad feelings. Sometimes, a word can sway an entire room, shake a nation, start something that can’t be stopped. If you know of such a word, my dear readers and writers, remember this: sunshine, water, palm trees, a bird. Sublimate them, and you will be okay, too.

Here we are. This was a semester of firsts. We had our first snow day. I slept through it, but I hear that it was really something. We tried out this block schedule thing. Who knew I could hang with sophomores for eighty minutes? (I promise I didn’t sleep through it!) As far as the written word goes—well, Writing Club had its first ever reading. I didn’t sleep through that. How could I when your voices were so loud, even if you weren’t yelling (like Chandler kind of was)? You are all ferocious beasts, unafraid to tell the truth or to make me believe a fiction as truth or to throw a poem at me that hits me like a shuriken or that alights on my table like a white bird of peace in the middle of some gentle sunshine. You were so loud that you gave me peace. Shantih. I hope you learn it when you grow old and have your trousers rolled. Find some by surrounding yourself with young people and try not to wish "Make me young, make me young, make me young!" No, really, don’t wish that. Your wish should be only to be there with them. And don’t sleep through it.

Here we are. In Principles, Danez Smith writes about how major change is needed in America. He ends by praying for a world that is good to us /all of us / all us all us / Amen. This is all of us and all us, dear Undergrounders. And just so you know how much you have changed this space, this collection of words, here’s the quantitative breakdown: We have tripled our pages since the fall of 2017, and we have increased the number of contributors by a factor of six. Six. Here we are.

Also at the end of Principles, Danez Smith writes Let us not be scared of the work / because it is hard. / Let us move the mountain / because the mountain must be moved. So, we, all of us Undergrounders, put our hands against this mountain. We leaned into it, and our hands actually sank into stone and became stone for a second. But we did not become stone. We took back our hands, which are our voices. We remained awake and woke up our hands, and we kept leaning in, pushing until we were exhausted, our breath not just stilled but locked by our weariness. Then, we stood up straight and stood back, trying to see what change we had evinced. It didn’t seem like much. We sighed and brushed the dust of the mountain all from our hands. We started mumbling as we turned away. We are going to have to start another story, we said. But we weren’t sure how to. And a low rumble began. It grew audibly louder, and then, we felt the loudness in our bodies, a minor Armageddon, perhaps. We saw that the mountain we had moved was a volcano. Now, whether we decide to stay or to go, to start another story, we moved the mountain, and it is moving on its own. We have to talk louder to one another just to be heard. But it is good, and this is how we measure the arc of our lives: in the volume of our words, in the volume of our words.

Here we are. This academic year, we have survived an eclipse and a hurricane and snow and a reading and a volcano that was a cheesy and clumsy extended metaphor—and we have survived words and a word and so, so much more. This issue of Notes from the Underground is epic. As Holden Crumpler would say, Trigger warning. Massive, massive trigger warning. We are ferocious beasts and warriors and mountain-movers—and here we are. Read this issue at your own risk but for your own good. Try not to fall in the shadow of that mountain or choke on its dust. If you move just a little to the left, there is some gentle sunshine and gentle wind, water and palm trees and a bird. You know what to do. I know what to do, too. I’ve said it before (like in my last sponsor’s note!), and I’ll say it again: I teach to be rescued. I had no idea. I want to tell the story again.

With endless gratitude,

Dr. Jamir

April 30, 2018

Air by Khadeja Ahmed

Ghost 1.3 by Helen Bradshaw

Ghost 2.3 by Helen Bradshaw

Fiction

Losing the Thread

by Mercy Bickell

Connect your Ribbon, he had said.

She warily descended the dingy stairs, wrinkling her nose at the damp smell of the place where she might find a method to untangle her problem.

I don’t want your feelings polluting mine, she had responded.

She stepped with a thud off the bottom stair, cursing as her ankle rolled painfully to the side. The man looked at her with pity.

Fine. Have it your way.

Will it hurt? she asked, squirming in the chair the man had pulled out for her.

You might experience some mental trauma, like the pain of going through a breakup. When she scoffed, he raised his eyebrow. I know you might think that’s the last thing you’d feel, but you should be careful. Every couple has their troubles. You can’t undo this.

She dug her hands in her pockets, pulling out a small HoloPic and placing it down. A smiling woman wearing a long, silky dress floated on the desk between them. This is why.

An affair?

Yes, but not his.

I see. And you’re aware you’ll be violating not only the Commitment Act but also the Posterity Act?

Their HoneyHome was designed to encourage reproduction, but she only felt sick as she walked through the front door. He had been waiting for her, and he sprung on her from behind, restraining her and grabbing at the Ribbon along the underside of her wrist. He pressed his port to hers. She gasped as hurt, confusion, and a twinge of guilt flooded into her. Each time, it was like jumping into a frigid pool; it slowly became bearable, finally fading into a dull awareness. She was sure that her disgust had been like a tsunami to him, but what else would he find, if he dug? She struggled against him, finally managing to rip her wrist from his as she twisted away from him, panting.

You’ve got to let me link up! How else can I understand you? he demanded, holding his wrist out to her.

"You’ve got no damn right." she hissed, covering her Ribbon with her other hand.

We’re supposed to be connected during fights. It’ll make us less angry at each other. What’s with you? Now he scowled, crossing his arms.

Maybe I want to be angry for once. We never should have been threaded.

Dream with me tonight, he had said. She’d shaken her head, but now she looked at his Ribbon with an unsure intrigue. She watched his chest rise and fall. If she could get him to understand in a dream, maybe he’d help her. No, she told herself. Too risky. They probably check the dreams.

Instead, she pulled the two chips she’d obtained earlier from her waistband. All she had to do was press the first one into his port, and in a few hours it would corrupt the Match code. She would use the second on herself, and their Ribbon linkage would be permanently severed. She looked at his sleeping face once more and then pushed in the chip.

When it came, it was excruciating. She hadn’t expected it, bending over in the store as she was picking up some raspberries—expensive, but worth the occasion. Her head throbbed with shame, intense and burning. Her ribbon flailed like a wild snake before digging into her skin, burying itself. She could feel no anger toward the man she had trusted, only an endless void and shame, shame toward herself, an unfaithful, fruitless woman.

Technological Sickness

by Holden Crumpler

No one understood the torture of daily life. To you who are reading this, just know I do not expect you to either. If I truly expected to find someone who understands what I do, my only hope would be a time machine. Some sort of machine that would send me to a time when technology did not rule the Earth and influence everything we do. Seeing as time travel was currently impossible and there are no foreseeable breakthroughs in my lifetime, I have resorted to this. I typed this note out on an old-fashioned typewriter so as to not subscribe to the glow of the screen and the meaningless content that lies within. There were many who would call me crazy, batty, all around ****** up. I would be laughing at them, for it was they who were the crazy ones. It felt as though I was the only sane person left on the planet, and, who knows, maybe I was. People walk around with their faces engulfed in the glow of one screen or another.  As mindless slaves they walk around, doing the bidding of technology and not truly thinking about or caring for the real world. After all, why did we need the real world when we could see it all with our devices with comfort and convenience? Questions like this beat at me like a wrecking ball beating against a metal door. The door may be dented, and the sound is deafening but the door has not fallen. Not yet, at least.

As someone who had not been absorbed by technology and who still had control of his or her own mind, I had learned many things about the so called people or, rather, the pathetic excuses for them that slink all over the Earth nowadays. They were herd animals, always clustering in groups. Those who couldn’t find a group usually end up showing more of what once could be called emotion and sometimes even end up ending their own lives. I paid little attention to these, since their lives seemed to have little meaning in the long run. Who I really paid attention to were the clusters as a whole. While giving each cluster its equal share of my time, there was one that I continued to return to, the smart cluster. Members of this cluster were the most interesting out of all the creatures. They seemed to have all of these ideas, but those ideas continually circled back around to the betterment of technology which, they seemed to reason, would lead to the betterment of mankind. I could reach no such conclusion myself which, being a man of science, led me to be quite suspicious of their conclusion.

Being a man of science, I also recognized that I needed more concrete proof that these creatures really were controlled by technology before I could begin to work out a way to fix it. I decided that I must cause a scene somewhere. This, unfortunately, meant that I had to come into contact with one, if not multiple, of the creatures. I decided to go to a bar I used to frequent. When I entered, as per usual, everything had its phone, tablet, or computer within several inches of its eyes. The bartender was the only one who did not. Based upon my reasoning then, I had to conclude that there must have been some type of brain implant that was stuck in his head. This implant must have allowed him access to technology while making it seem as though he was normal like me. This concerned me the most. Was it possible that, for years, I had been talking to people who were secretly being controlled by technology? I shuddered at the thought and ordered a beer. The bartender served me one with a smile. I drank it all and ordered two more.

After three beers, I was feeling slightly buzzed but nowhere near as bad as the fellow next to me pouring over his laptop. He looked as though he was ready to fall right out of his chair. I realized now that this was my chance to test the controlling power of the technology. I began to talk very loudly in a drunken voice. Not a single person looked up at me. I then turned to the man sitting next to me and bumped into him, knocking him out of his chair. He looked almost dazed, and then, he shot up like a rocket and slammed his fist into my jaw. I tackled him to the ground, pinning him there, shouting for someone to call the police. When I looked up, I felt my stomach drop and my heart sink. People were either standing over me and watching or filming it on their phones. I got up and ran as fast as I could out of the bar. I locked my door from top to bottom when I got back to my apartment. I could not sleep that night. I kept hearing clicking and whirring in the hall.

I left the house for the first time in a few days today. I was getting hungry, and I didn’t really have much food, so I went grocery shopping. What I saw when I walked outside was horrible. There were still people walking and looking at their phones, but they were only giving them glances occasionally. This at first made me quite happy. I only saw what my shocked and tired brain wanted me to see. As I moved about my day I soon found out the truth. I accidentally bumped into someone in the grocery store. She turned around and stared at me for a full ten seconds before saying that it was no problem. When she walked by I could hear the clicks and whirrs. I immediately felt panic surging through my body. This could only mean she has an implant. As I was walking out the store, a man turned rapidly around the corner in his car. He slammed on the breaks and stopped a few inches in front of me. He didn’t flinch or blink. He just stared at me as I walked past. It was not an angry stare but rather a completely blank stare. I got in my car and sped home. I again locked all the locks on my door.

This was complete insanity. I knew what I had seen, and I knew what I’d heard. I just didn’t know how. There was no plausible explanation as to how everyone has been implanted. It was most unlikely that everyone underwent surgery, and it was also most likely that not everyone would have agreed to it. However, if the surgery was forced upon them, why had they left out me? None of it made any sense at all. Then, suddenly, I