Tag: Portfolio
His (Our) Odyssey
by trogers5 on April 21, 2022
Creative Non-Fiction
Aidan Lerner ’22
Bringggg. Bringggg. Bringggg.
As a unit, over eight hundred kids arose and walked toward the wing of classrooms. The full mass of the entire student body was not something which Eddie had ever taken for granted, given his claustrophobic instincts and fear of crowds. But on the list of triggering things in a high school, the morning scrum was relatively low and something to which Eddie had grown more accustomed.
Eddie’s first class was Spanish III and he was dreading it. Señora Mafrey demanded that no English be spoken from the beginning of her class to the end and the results were mixed, to say the least. Eddie slumped into his seat next to his friend Anthony.
“Hola Anthony. Como te weekend?” Eddie sputtered. “Tú escribes el homework? Eso sucked.”
“Hola, el homework made me hate my vida,” Anthony replied quickly and with much less effort.
“Solamente Español!” Señora Mafrey yelled.
Eddie sighed, exasperated. He grabbed the bathroom pass, a miniaturized mariachi-style guitar, and walked into the hall. It was during walks such as these when Eddie came to appreciate the simple design of his school’s hallway. The white brick and purple streaks were so much more appealing when observed alone.
Eddie took care of business in the first-floor bathroom. The smell of vape lingered as always, but Eddie counted himself lucky to not have encountered a squad of vapers. He washed his hands, considering how he could prolong his time outside of the classroom by taking a drink from the water fountain, when he heard a bang and the lights cut out.
Eddie was thrust into total darkness. Only the very edge of sunlight lingered around the corner where the hallway windows gave way to the outside world. Eddie felt his way along the wall and stumbled into the hallway. He had always hated the noise of hundreds of students, but now the silence was disconcerting.
As he looked out into the sunlight, Eddie saw something that thrust a chill into his stomach. There was a hole in the window. It was small and round and broken glass lay underneath it. The glare of the sun hurt Eddie’s eyes as he stared at the hole, wondering if it was the source of the bang he’d heard.
He walked towards it slowly, aware of every deep breath. He thought he could see something just beneath the glare. Maybe he saw someone dressed in so much black he might just be a shadow. Eddie stopped, and the shape did too. The lights flickered as Eddie reached the hole, staring into a shapeless, colorless thing. He was paralyzed by fear.
Against the black, a pop of yellow crawled out and multiplied. The sun was blinding him, but he heard the buzz of a hornet. Eddie could feel the air pouring through the hole.
“Attention students. This is a lockdown,” Principal O’Shaughnessy’s voice announced over the intercom.
Eddie jumped. The beekeeper, clad in all black, sealed the hole closed and backed away. The first hornet sting surprised Eddie more than hurt him, but his move to slap the bee away disturbed another. The second sting elicited a yell and freezing in place was no longer an option. Eddie wheeled away taking sting after sting all over his body, on his arms and legs.
Eddie sprinted around a corner, yelling and slapping the air. Eddie found the nearest classroom and dashed inside, nursing multiple nasty stings and gasping for air. For several seconds, the only thing Eddie was aware of was the absence of pain. Then, he became aware of the darkness as well as the sound of breath.
“Hello,” Eddie said into the silence. “Who’s there?”
Out of the shadows, a reply breathed into the empty room.
“I’m normal.”
“O–okay,” Eddie stammered, unnerved.
“I kissed a girl just last night. It smelled nice.”
Eddie was reaching for the doorknob, wincing with every creepy whisper that punctuated the dark.
“So, some of us are normal. We’re not all weird. We’re not all alone.”
Eddie found the doorknob. He asked, “Who’s ‘we?’”
The darkness laughed. “We’re you, you aren’t. I’m the punchline to her joke.”
“What?”
“I’m going to do it to you now,” he said. “I want you to know why. It’s because—”
Eddie leaned on the door and fell into the hallway, sliding and slamming the door behind him. He shot to his feet and ran. Adrenaline was failing him now, and he felt his stomach open up to a new level of fear he had not previously known. Instead of butterflies in his stomach, it felt like, well, hornets.
Finally, he saw light emanating from a classroom and burst inside, screaming for help. The violinist continued playing undeterred while a minster shuffled his notes.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” a girl in an elaborate dress greeted him. “Are you here for the bride or the groom?”
“What? No. Th-there’s a man with a you-know-what. We need to hi—”
“Oh, Cassie, don’t be silly,” a woman’s voice interrupted. “Eddie is the groom!”
Eddie turned to his right and saw his date to the prom, Allie, adorned in a full-length wedding gown.
Eddie was floored. “Allie, what the—“
Allie smiled wide. “Eddie, please marry me. It’s time to take the next step in our lives.”
“No, you don’t get it. There’s a guy out there with a thingy.”
Allie waved her arm dismissively. “Oh, I’m sure there is. No point worrying about that right now. The ceremony is about to begin! Look, I wore my prom dress!”
Eddie stared, mouth agape. “Allie, that’s a wedding dress.”
She laughed hysterically. “Eddie, I know you like me. Let’s just do it. I mean, are you really going to find anyone you like more than me?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” Eddie replied, “Couldn’t we just date first? Also, I’m a little distracted at the moment.”
If Allie was disappointed, she did not show it. “Okay! I’m going to go marry that guy then! Take a seat!”
“Alright,” Eddie said, baffled.
The music swelled as Allie walked towards the minister and her new groom. Eddie took a seat and tried to listen to their vows. Allie got a laugh from the attendees when she asked the minister to remind her of the groom’s name. Then, the groom died.
He fell like a bag of bricks, and the sound echoed through the classroom. No one moved or made a sound except Allie, who turned to face the audience. Her face was half-covered in red, but she was smiling as radiantly as ever.
“Okay, folks! Looks like we are going to switch gears here and have a little child funeral!” Allie turned to the minister. “Minister, I assume you packed your child funeral materials?”
“Yes of course,” the minister replied. “I never leave home without my child funeral toolbox. Before we begin, does anyone wish to say a few words about the deceased?”
Eddie craned his head and recognized the shape of the man walking forward. He walked to the front and placed his thing down carefully behind him. As he spoke, Eddie realized that the man was really a boy.
“Why I did it,” the boy said slowly. “You arrogant little tyrants. You grow up here all fat and happy, sucking the life out of people with real problems. No. You don’t know true adversity, true pain, until it arrives without warning. It strikes from the dark and makes the continuation of your life feel unfortunate. You should thank me. All of you have everything one can have except suffering. And now you have it.”
Eddie stared into the eyes of a boy, brimming with pain.
The shadow continued, “So, why did I do it?” The boy grinned. “I did it because it was WAY easier than solving derivatives in AP Calc!”
Everyone, including the boy, devolved into hysterics. The sound of laughter drowned out all else; even the minister had tears of mirth streaming down his face.
Eddie shook his head. He had had enough. Still clutching the mariachi guitar bathroom pass, he left and began the walk towards his Spanish III classroom. Behind him, the lights flickered on and Principal O’Shaughnessy announced that the lockdown was over.
Eddie opened the door and walked towards the desk with his name on it. He joined his classmates in standing with his hand on his heart..
“I pledge allegiance to the flag…”
Statements of Fact and Trying Not to Look Stupid
by trogers5 on April 8, 2022
Creative Non-Fiction
Fiona Clarke ’23
Welcome back to “Stupid Things People Say.” This week, our topic is “Living in the State of the Obvious (And Why You Should Immigrate).”
A few years ago, I was minding my own business at soccer practice, surrounded by a gaggle of chirping teenage girls, waiting in line for my turn to take a shot on the goal and watching in great dejection as my teammates continually missed the ball with their lumbering feet. My contemplation of fallen women was interrupted by the girl in front of me turning around and looking me dead in the eye for several seconds. Just as I began to break out in a cold sweat, this bright bulb said: “You have very blue eyes,” and turned back around. I was relieved that she had not started speaking in tongues, or cast some sort of hex on me, but I was also flummoxed. It was neither a compliment for which I could express gratitude nor an insult to which I could deliver a scathing comeback (read: gibber silently in rage). It was a statement of fact that opened up no avenue for conversation. I have no idea what I said in response, if I said anything at all other than “Oh.” With that characteristic raw honesty, I might have said “Yes, I know.” I might have feigned sweet ignorance and said, “Oh, really?” I have no idea.
I am well aware that I have blue eyes. I should be at this point; enough people have told me so by now. Yet I feel that I have never offered a suitable response to this sort of statement of fact. I wish I had the nerve to immediately point out the idiocy of whatever remark just dribbled into my ears and took up valuable space in my brain. I wish I had the grace to do so gently, and I wish I had the smarts to do so intelligibly on the spot. But in the moment, when someone tells me, as if he were proclaiming the terrible descent of the Lord in fire and hail, with all the strut and vigor of one garbed in camel hair, reeking of honey, crunching locusts beneath his feet, that I have blue eyes, all I can muster is a small sputtering wheeze and a foolish stretch of the jaw in sad mimicry of a grin. Now I’m the one who looks like an idiot. That’s just not fair. It’s just not right. If only people would stop telling me things I already know, I would look so much smarter all the time.
King Slayer
by trogers5 on April 8, 2022
Portfolio
Toni Rendon ’24
Here I am standing on a hill
Not at the top
Just here on the hill
Made up of the bodies of the kings I’ve killed
Their blood trickles onto the ground
Barely making a sound and washing my past in red
Their crowns’ weight bowing my head
Suffocating the last of the innocence I had
My sins lay naked before me in my chambers
But I’ll have to confront them later
For tonight another castle I must storm
So, I pick up my sword and blow the war horn
Another crown added to the weight
The previous owner dragged through the street
Only to be thrown on top of the hill
Just another body of a king I’ve killed
Now here I sit at the top
Looking over the land stained red from the blood that I spilled
My sword is rusted, and my face is old
My skin just a bag for bones
The final head drops
The crowns roll
The old story of a king slayer
Waiting to be told
Wish!
by trogers5 on April 8, 2022
Portfolio
Marelle Hipolito ’22
There is wet sand stuck in my wet hair.
There is wet sand stuck in my sweatshirt, and in between my toes,
but I don’t care.
I’m busy looking up at the night sky with you,
rooting for a shooting star.
Not many things have been going our way.
Life has been lonely, and it has not been fair.
Maybe making a wish will turn things around.
There is wet sand stuck in my wet hair.
There is wet sand stuck in my sweatshirt, and in between my toes,
But I don’t care.
I’m looking up at the night sky with you,
Rooting for a shooting—
OH! LOOK! Did you see that?
A beautiful, bright shooting star!
It was quick as a blink, but unmistakable,
A beautiful, bright shooting star!
I turn to tell you to make a wish
But then I remember
that you are not here.
So I turn back around
And I wish
it was not just me, alone,
With wet sand stuck in my wet hair.
Listomania
by trogers5 on April 8, 2022
Portfolio
Artists We Should’ve Had For Spring Concert
- Pitbull
- The Rock
- Will Smith (ft. Chris Rock)
- Machine Gun Kelly
- Frank Sinatra (hologram version)
- Macklemore
- Doja Cat
- Kanye West (featuring Skeet)
- Travis Scott
- Dr. Taylor Swift
- Shawn Mendes (post breakup tour?)
- Rihanna (post hiatus tour?)
- Ed Sheeren
- My Chemical Romance
- Big Time Rush (without Dixie D’Amelio) (sans Carlos)
- R. Kelly (from prison)
- The Friar Band
Tiff and Earl
by trogers5 on April 8, 2022
Portfolio
Dear Tiff and Earl,
I caught my crush and best friend making out in the broom closet at Black and White Ball this weekend. How do I emotionally recover?
Insincerely,
Heartbroken :(
Dear Heartbroken,
I must confess that your story, like a middle-aged man with Santa at the mall, does not sit right with me. Firstly, where even is this broom closet? How did anyone get the key to it? Are you perhaps in Physical Plant? How juicy! But secondly, you say you caught your best friend and crush in the broom closet…but what were YOU doing in the broom closet? Were you perhaps preparing to “make out” in the broom closet with a fourth party? I wonder…
Cheers,
Tiff
Dear Heartbroken :(,
Unfortunately, this is a tale as old as time. Fortunately, you live in the 21st century, at the same time as the music industry herself, Ms. (soon-to-be Dr.) Taylor Swift. What you’re going to want to do is put together a Tay-Tay playlist that captures this particular combination of heartbreak and betrayal. Here are this humble Swiftie’s suggestions: “Picture to Burn,” “Should’ve Said No,” “You’re Not Sorry,” “Better Than Revenge,” “All Too Well (10-minute version),” “Bad Blood,” “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” “my tears ricochet,” and “it’s time to go.” Feel free to throw in Olivia Rodrigo’s “traitor” for good measure!
Happy wallowing,
Earl
Cracks in the Walls
by trogers5 on March 27, 2022
Portfolio
Caitlin Bartley ’24
Nostalgia likes to creep through the cracks in the walls
And seep its way into my pores to suffocate me in my sleep.
The air becomes thick with memory, a stifling heat
That makes my mind hazy with hallucinations.
When it enters my bloodstream, I slip into oblivion
And dream of a girl
That carries herself with the exuberance of a butterfly
Emerging from a chrysalis, showing off its wings.
Nostalgia is a callous chemical that injects ignorance into
My veins and gets me high. The withdrawal is overwhelming,
The chattering teeth,
The useless limbs pinned to the bathroom floor,
My head in a bowl purging lingering naiveté.
How stupid of me to forget
That the girl in the dream is now a woman trapped in a nightmare,
That sparkling trophies and shining report cards
Will fade on far away shelves, collecting permanent dust.
I cover my petal pink walls with
Layer upon layer of gray paint
To stop nostalgia from sneaking by again.
I trade in a butterfly for a moth and exist in a hollow cocoon.
#
by trogers5 on March 27, 2022
Portfolio
Max Gilman ’25
“We use our math to create cattle. Shape this way and that, but eventually your lines will be nothing more than a man with a rifle and you, the fawn child.”
Wonder if this windowed world holds something more,
Peer through the dying streetlight, a window through old construction cranes,
Slowly does the sky fall to dust, rain ashy illness, the foreshadow of what I like to call,
The city of FALLEN livelihood, population deceased.
The people here are mad.
They hate fiction and all those vibrant colors,
So took a knife to the unicorn, they did, spilling its blood like a broken faucet,
The streets bore only blood,
Only blood,
And the unicorn’s corpse,
Continues to be plowed by the onlookers,
I swear I know some of these people— The
Folks who eat raw from Raining
Blood. Leaving the Only
Innocence left to decay, as livelihood—
Ceases
To collate an obelisk— For, nay, dedicated to the sanctum of wastelands, An
Unfailing effort roused by an— UNRIGHTEOUS
Humanity following an illusive ghost, a— “god”
I have this odd tingling in my chest,
I feel like a windy grassy plain,
Cratered by something magnificent
indented, like the unicorn…
I feel the tires of the citizens crush the corpse of the lovely unicorn,
because they hate fiction so…
The horse’s deformed body lays indented from our continuous wheels…
It’s tiring to drown daily with no swimming route,
So I plunge into the street puddles, hiding below the walking men,
And I notice this symmetry, these unholy monuments to perceived honor,
They cannot see me snarling in these puddles, the water muffles my voice,
But I will never forget this sight, these “righteous” squabblers, stepping over me,
—but I know the truth. They walk to work in their enclosure
They run home in their enclosure.
They eat from the ones inside the enclosure.
Maybe they’ll leave for a week, but I will see them again soon…
In this hell—
In this “Box.”
A box without lines, A box with lines, A box of lies
A box without lines, A box with lines, A box full of lies
A box with lines, A box with lines, A box of lies
A box with lines, A box with lines, A box of opened and disregarded FIBS.
There has to be something more,
There must be something more,
God Created Hell.
For people, Like you and I.
and he called it GOOD.
We were given shape, lines,
We were given dead fields and grim city structures,
We took our lines,
and spit on fiction
and ran knives through flesh
and we TOOK our lines,
We created a city (#)
We called it a # (a city)
It’s all hopeless, you see?
You haven’t even noticed yet,
have you?
Our “city” is a box.
The Boardwalk
by trogers5 on March 27, 2022
Portfolio
Toni Rendon ’24
The clack of her coal-black heels on the stone echoes through the empty street as the warm breeze passes through her bright blood-red sundress. Her dark, curly auburn hair glistens under the light of the streetlamps. The shadow she casts is her only company, forever growing and shrinking as she walks under the twinkling lights. The solid stone suddenly becomes shifting sand, forcing her to ditch the two inches the heels provided her. At the end of the sand path sits an old boardwalk, its wood traversed by countless feet over the decade, kept in pristine condition, overlooking the ocean. Its deep blue accents are brought alive by the light shining from the moon. The wood feels warm under her smooth foot, leaving her with an overwhelming sense of tranquility. Taking her time to enjoy the walk to her destination, its music reaches her ears before she even catches a glimpse. Around the corner, the carousel is the only thing operating tonight.
The lights fade from red to orange to yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The animals carved from wood stand tall on the erect metal poles sticking out of the spinning platform, their paint worn where people have sat for ages. There, he is looking as dapper as ever in the black suit, white shirt, and red tie combo that she loves oh so much. His long chestnut hair has red hints from where the dye grew out; it’s box braided and pulled back neatly into a ponytail, two braids on either side of the head hang loose in the front because that’s his style. He sits upon the lion like the king he is, shoulders squared and ready to face anything the world throws at him. They lock eyes. His are pieces of lifeless porcelain sitting in his chiseled, caramel colored face.
“Emily, I’ve been waiting for you.” His rich voice echoes in her bones. It’s clear even as she loses sight of him as the carousel spins round and round. Each time he comes back into view, he’s perched atop the back of a different animal.
“You look beautiful tonight, are you meeting someone?” he asks with a sly smile from the back of an eagle poised to take flight.
“Yes, actually, I am. I think he’s running a bit late.” She pushes a lock of hair back into place behind her ear. He chuckles; it’s a soft rumble that erupts from his core, wrapping her in a warm feeling that she wishes could stay forever.
“Last time I checked, I’ve been waiting for you,” he replies, disappearing from her eyesight again only to reappear sitting in a chariot drawn by two stallions, one as white as freshly fallen snow and another as black as the vastness of eternity.
“Come here, Emily,” he says, beckoning her closer. “I saved you a spot right next to me.”
She starts to move forward, her feet moving on her own toward the man she loves. The thought of dancing forever with him the way the animals on the carousel go round and round entices her, welcomes her. But she hesitates ever so slightly, knowing that what could be shouldn’t always be.
“Victor, I can’t…” she says, her eyes beginning to moisten. “You know I want to, but I can’t. What about everyone else?”
“What about them?” he says, this time from the back of a snake carved to forever be poised in an attack position. “What have they done for you? They left you alone, they look at you crazy, like I’m not talking back whenever you talk to me.” His eyes are closed, teeth bared. It scares her to her core. She hates when he gets like this.
“Victor, calm down. It’s not their fault. I would look at me crazy, too.”
“It’s—it’s—it’s just unfair. It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t have to take the backlash just because I left.” Tears well up in the corners of his eyes. “I shouldn’t have left you behind. We should be going through this together.” This time he places his arms around her and pulls her in. “Emily, I—”
“Shut up, you’re ruining this for me,” she says, looking up at him.
Tears run down his blood-soaked face, the cuts on his face a reminder of the car crash that stopped him from showing up for dinner two years ago.
“Don’t cry, my dear,” she says. “It’ll be okay. We couldn’t have planned for this.” She wipes the tears from his face.
“I’m not crying, Emily; can’t you see the rain?” he whispers back as he fades into nothing, leaving her all alone.
About ten minutes pass before Emily erupts, crumbling and falling to the ground, her sobs penetrating the warm night air. Some time goes by before she decides to collect herself, standing up and dusting herself off. She looks out to the horizon, its light bathing her in hues of orange and pink.
“I’ll see you soon, Victor,” she whispers.
Goodwill
by trogers5 on March 27, 2022
Portfolio
Fiona Clarke ’23
At Goodwill, a good find:
A second, or third, or fourth-hand lamp.
(“Where are you going to put that?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find a place.”)
And so it was:
An old light in a new shape,
A new light in an old place.
So it was, was it not?
I once let out a cry, and asked that I be put under the ether,
Not wanting you to pay for it—
(“Pay for what?”
“I don’t know.”)
But I woke up, and I wised up, and I walked side by side with you,
’Til we stood on a new crack in the old road.
You put a quarter in the parking meter,
And said: “This will only take a minute,”
But we take no time; it falls through our fingers
And taps our shoulders as it passes us by.
A good find, this new lamp,
And where am I going to put this light?
It will make its place for itself,
This light that sinks and always rises,
With weight that grounds and still surprises,
Pours like wine upon me, and colors those empty spaces,
Quenches a thirst and reveals a greater hunger,
A light besides which other lights resemble bruises,
and, shining on those wounds, binds them up.
I once let out a cry: “Where am I going to put this lamp?”
But this crazed corkscrew light that is within me and about me
has made its place for itself.