Tag: short story
Tick Tock
by The Cowl Editor on October 26, 2017
Portfolio
by Marelle Hipolito ’21
Tick Tock. 11:42. Henley stared at the computer, impatiently waiting for an idea to come to her mind, waiting for an idea to turn into words and those into the story that she was supposed to turn in by midnight. Usually inspiration came to her like a flood, but tonight there was nothing.
Tick tock. Henley looked at the time on her computer screen. 11:43. She tapped her feet stressfully, recalling things from the past week that would help her begin to write. Nothing interesting had really happened to her that week, but then again, nothing interesting really happened to Henley at all. After her brother’s car crash, Henley shut herself out. As she withdrew from the rest of the world, no one checked up on her, and no one noticed. Henley didn’t mind, though. She figured that if her “friends” couldn’t ask a “How are you?” or nod their head “Hey,” they weren’t worth keeping around anyways.
So she joined the local newspaper. She was supposed to write a heartwarming story to set the mood for Thanksgiving. It’s only the beginning of November, Henley noted. She always felt contained to a specific mood by the holidays, and more so after Johnny died. There was no way she could come up with a good storyline. There was just nothing to write about.
Tick tock. 11:52. Henley saw the time and suddenly slammed her hand against the desk in frustration. She got up and started pacing back and forth. She had nine minutes to submit a heartfelt story, yet here she was walking through her room racking her brain for some sort of idea. Henley stopped, and leaned her forehead against the wall. I can do this. I can. I just need an idea to get me started. I just need something to start on. Henley breathed deeply and sighed.
Tick tock. 11:55. As she turned back around to her desk to sit back down at the sound of another minute passing, she suddenly stopped. Her chair was already occupied. Wearing the sneakers that their dad bought as a graduation present, with legs crossed in the same faded jeans that he wore every day, in the same green shirt that Henley wore to sleep for months after he died, was her brother. Henley looked for the St. Christopher chain around his neck, but she quickly realized that where she was looking, she only saw her computer screen. There wasn’t a neck to hang the chain around. Or a head to attach it to. Leaning back in her chair, headless, like how they found in him the car wreck, was Johnny.
After what seemed like eternity of standing there speechless, Henley found herself frozen as her dead, headless brother stood up and slowly made his way to her. Once he was standing just inches away from her, Johnny reached for Henley’s hand and dropped something inside her palm. Henley opened it. It was a small clock. Henley watched as the long arm of the clock moved forward a notch. Tick tock. 11:57. Henley looked up, and saw that she was the only one in the room. She held on to the clock tightly, and made her way to the chair that her brother just got up from. Henley clicked the computer back onto a new document, and started typing:
Tick Tock.
Bike
by The Cowl Editor on October 26, 2017
Portfolio
by Julia Zygiel ’19
“We shouldn’t have stopped for that stupid. Freaking. Bike,” Tyler panted between breaths, groaning as his body tried to double up in pain.
“Yeah, if I had known it was real and not some ravenous coyote, I definitely wouldn’t have stopped, Tyler!” Dev shouted, miraculously managing to pull off sarcasm while being chased by some sort of Eldritch creature.
“You said it was the size of a cat!” Tyler shouted back, praying to God that his adrenaline could carry him faster as the sound of large, leathery wings approached.
“I s-said,” Dev heaved, “some people said it’s the size,” another gasp, “of a cat.”
“I hate you.” Well, that’s not quite true, Tyler thought as the sound of snapping branches sounded behind them.
Tyler squinted, it was getting dark. If they managed to outrun this thing for long, soon they wouldn’t have enough light to know where they were going. They were screwed all around.
“Dev, actually… if we don’t make it,” he trailed off as he focused on not tripping on a particularly gnarly tree stump,
“I love you, man.”
Even with terror clouding his brain and the cool October air whistling past him, he heard Dev’s choke out a laugh. “I love you, too, man.”
Despite the bloodthirsty thing behind him, despite his yearning to see his family again, to survive, Tyler felt elation for the briefest of moments. They loved each other.
Unfortunately, this elation distracted him from a root sticking out of the ground, and the next thing he felt was excruciating pain as his foot twisted in an impossible direction. Then, soul-numbing terror as a cold and sharp claw wrapped around it. Then, nothing.
“Hey, man, are you even listening to me?” Dev was snapping his fingers at Tyler, his other hand gripping the chain link fence behind him. Beyond the fence the trees of the forest formed an impenetrable wall.
“Huh?” Tyler shook his head. Another daydream. He ought to talk to someone about those.
“I said, wanna go check out that bike? It looks sick, unattended, and I wanna steal it,” Dev grinned at him, aware that Tyler was a bit of a kleptomaniac.
Tyler frowned, his attention drawn to the woods. A leaf slowly floated to the ground, disturbed by what he thought was an impossibly large, leathery wing. Bats didn’t come that big.
Tyler turned to the bike, which was chained to a tree just at the edge of the forest. It would be so simple to get it. He could think of a million ways to pick the lock on it. Yet the image of the wing was imprinted on the backs of his eyelids. He shuddered.
“Nah, man, I gotta get home for dinner or my mom’s going to kill me. We can steal something from the CVS on the way back.”
Dev groaned, running a hand through his hair as if he meant to tear it out. Tyler placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, a grimace on his lips.
“Trust me, man. The woods are dangerous at night, anyways.”
The Nail
by The Cowl Editor on October 26, 2017
Portfolio
by Jonathan Coppe ’18
“What about these?”
PJ was pointing to some rocks. The boys had gotten together to play baseball in Conor’s front yard—Conor had a very big front yard. But when Conor’s parents left to go shopping, Conor’s dad had locked the shed that had the baseballs, so now they had to improvise.
Ed went over and looked at the rocks. He picked one up. It seemed pretty round, and it was about the size of a baseball if you didn’t look too carefully.
“I guess they’ll do,” he said. “Okay. Sean get up to bat. PJ take shortstop.”
“Jeez, we know the positions, Ed…” Caleb said. So it was. Everyone got into position and the game started. The first two batters took first and then second. It was a three-person dugout, so everyone hoped that the bases wouldn’t get loaded. PJ heard once that cricket had fewer bases and he thought maybe that would work better for the numbers they had, but he wasn’t about to suggest that everyone learn a new game.
So anyway, they were standing there hoping Ed wasn’t about to give up another single when he pitched the biggest rock he had in a fastball straight down the middle. The outfield took a sharp breath. Crack! Bill hit a clean line drive. The rock soared clean past Ed and straight at PJ’s forehead.
The poor kid fell flat on his back, letting out a sharp cry of pain. Everyone ran over to him. He was lying with his palms over his face, but he moved his hand and they all saw blood. “Oh shit! Oh shit!”—Caleb never cursed so his choice of words belied a sense of panic.
Since it was Conor’s front yard, it was unanimously decided that he would run inside to get his parents’ first aid supplies and a couple bags of frozen peas. The first aid stuff was in his parents’ bathroom. Conor ran through the house and into their bedroom. He looked into the bathroom. The door was half open.
First he saw the feet. Bare, toes pointed upward, lying on the ground, visible from about the mid shin. There was no hair on them, and they were too big to belong to a kid.
“Mom?” Conor yelled.
No answer. The feet didn’t move, either. Conor looked around. He didn’t see anybody.
He knew his parents weren’t home; he saw them drive away. He took a few tentative steps toward the bathroom. He checked his back again. Nobody there—nobody creeping up on him. He nudged open the bathroom door.
It was a body, lying there, quite flat, palms down. It was pale. Conor stared. It looked about adult-sized, but the head was too big somehow, too long for the rest of the body. That’s what it seemed like anyway, but it was hard to tell because the face was covered by a cloth.
For some time, he just stood there, looking the monstrous thing up and down.
Conor noticed something else about the head, too. The cloth had a tall bump up toward the top of the head. It was a long, thin sort of bump, like the kind cartoon characters would get on TV when they got hit hard on the head.
Conor checked his back one more time. Still no one. He crept over to the body. It didn’t look like it was breathing.
He took the sheet off the face. He was too frightened to scream, to even make any sound at all. The face on the body was his face. It was his head. It was his body, too, actually, just bigger, adult-sized, but still shaped like a child’s body. And right in the middle of his forehead was a single long, thin nail, driven—as far as he could tell—about halfway in. Two thin lines of blood ran from the nail down the left side of his forehead and onto his hair. His eyes were wide open and stared straight up.
Conor just gaped. It was his body, it was his face. He didn’t want to particularly, but he touched it just to know it if was real; he grabbed its hand. It was cold.
“CONOR, HURRY UP!”
Conor jumped.
“Jeez, don’t freak out.” It was just Ed.
“What?” Conor was still trying to get his bearings. Didn’t Ed see the body? Conor turned back to the body to point it out to Ed and call him stupid for not seeing anything. But the body was gone.
“Whatever, where’s the first aid stuff?”
“Oh, uh…” Conor paused and stuttered, trying to break his mind away from the body that had just been there and now wasn’t. His body. “It’s right here.” And Ed took it from the cabinet, and they left the room.
The Skin Suit
by The Cowl Editor on October 26, 2017
Portfolio
by Connor Zimmerman ’20
In class, my professor lectures about some boring equation that he has up on the board. I decide to ignore him and spend the last fifteen minutes taking a nap. As I close my eyes, I come to the place I love—the stage, the lights shining in my face, the absolute silence, the tension that you can almost taste, and the best part: I can be whoever I want to be. The only thing that can limit me is my imagination, and possibly the script. I can be the knight in shining armor, the weary warrior, or the despicable villain. I can actually be someone exciting. I open my eyes. I see that everyone is leaving, and as I gather my materials the professor says, “Make sure to have a spooktacular Halloween.”
I leave the room and begin to walk down the hallway. As I turn the corner, a person in a hoodie tackles me. As I slam to the ground, the guy pulls off his hoodie and starts laughing, “Did I scare you, drama queen?”
I get up and he laughs and slaps me on the back. “You should have seen your face. It was precious, man.” On the way to the dining hall, Daryl asks me, “Hey, are you going to the Monster Rager tonight?”
I look at him and reply, “Why on earth would I want to do that?”
He replies back, “You know, let off a little steam, socialize, act normal, get your Monster Mash on (or smash, for that matter).”
I laugh at him and say, “Look, man, I’ll pass.”
He shakes his head. “Alright Dylan, have it your way. I’ll just have to come up with something to tell Sarah, ’cause word is she’s hoping you are going to be there tonight.”
I laugh at him. “What do I have that Sarah could want? Trust me, she can find someone better tonight to mash or bash or whatever.”
As I come out of the dining hall, I bump into a person. I hear a clang on the ground and look up. I see a girl picking up her phone and then light brown hair hits me in the face as the girl comes up from the ground. Before I can even think, she goes to hug me. She says, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in forever! Are you going to the party tonight?”
I reply, “Um, I don’t know yet, Sarah. Haven’t decided and all.”
She replies, “Oh that’s too bad, I was really looking forward to hanging with you tonight. I guess just let me know if you change your mind.”
With a cute wave she begins to walk away, and I feel like banging my head against a wall.
At night, I’m in my room with a pile of shirts on my bed. I look in the mirror, as I hear a knock on my door and Daryl comes in. He takes one look at me and my bed and says, “Dude, you are a…dude. Pick a shirt and it will all be good. Sarah likes you, you like her. It’s a cycle, man.”
Dejected, I fall onto my bed and moan again.
Daryl walks over to my desk, leaves something there, and begins to walk out of the room. “Hey, man, it’s cool. I’m heading to the party in a few, join me if you feel like it.” He closes the door. I get back up and take one last look at the mirror and at my reflection. All I see is a puny, five-foot-two, anxious, lousy, infinitesimal freak. In the grand scheme of things, who would even miss me? I punch the mirror, and the glass falls to the floor. I look over and I see a pumpkin on my desk. Daryl brought a freaking pumpkin into my room. Frustrated, I take the pumpkin and smash it to the ground. Suddenly, mist comes out of the pumpkin and begins to surround the room. I begin to cough and I can’t see anything as my eyes tear.
I hear sounds bouncing all around my room. I can barely make out what is happening with the echoes becoming louder and louder. Then suddenly it all becomes clear. “What do you wish for?” Freaked out, I crawl my way to the door, but it’s jammed. Again, “What do you wish for?” I jump and head for where I think the window is, only to hear, “What do you wish for?”
Angrily I shout, “I wish I could be anyone but myself!”
The mist begins to disappear like it was never there. With everything back to normal, except for smashed pumpkin and glass on the floor, I head back to my bed to pick a shirt, but all that is there is this beige thing. On top of it is a notecard that says, “Put this on and your dream will come true.” I pick it up. It feels smooth, yet rough. Soft, yet tough. Kind of like skin.
Suddenly, I feel something on my neck. The thing begins to crawl around my body and wrap itself around me. Before I can move it, it covers my eyes and darkness envelops me. Light slowly peeks through and I look around and decide to pick up a shard of glass. All I see in it is the surroundings of my room. Then, suddenly I see a tall, lanky, blond guy standing where I am. It changes and I see a short, bearded, fit guy in his place. I begin to realize whoever I picture in my head I become.
I walk into the Monster Rager and I look around me. Everyone seems to be having a good time; no one says hi to me. I begin to think maybe this is not all in my head, and then I see Sarah and everything slows down. I realize this is my chance. I can finally be someone that deserves her. I change into some type of guy straight out of a magazine. I walk near her and say, “Hey my name is Brad. What’s up?”
She looks my way, and replies, “Hey, I’m Sarah.”
I ask, “Hey, you’re in my theater class, right?”
She says, “Maybe. To be honest, you don’t look familiar.”
I tell her, “Oh yeah, I’m kind of new here.”
She nods and says, “Hey, if you’re in theater, have you seen Dylan anywhere? I’ve been looking for him all night.”
My heart stops. I can’t believe she just said that. Dylan, of all people. I walk away and head to the bathroom.
My reflection shows me this ridiculously handsome, fit, and tall guy. And she is looking for Dylan. I give her everything any girl could want, and she is looking for me. I try and rip this suit off me, but then again I hear, “You can be anyone but yourself. That was your wish.” I reply, “C’mon this isn’t real. Just let me take this suit off and then you can go find some other person.”
I hear a laugh in my head, “Why do you think you can change into anyone you think of? Once someone puts me on, he or she becomes one of my many faces.” I begin to try and grab my face. I can’t seem to touch anything. I go for my clothes, shoes anything, but it feels like I’m grasping at air. I look in the mirror and I begin to disappear. First my legs, then my hips, then my chest. By the time I can only see my face I say, “Well, I guess we’ll see if anyone misses me.”
Ghost Stories
by The Cowl Editor on October 26, 2017
Portfolio
Chained
Run, hurry, faster! No, don’t look back, stop it! I fling my body around the corner into the darkness, my dripping hand sliding along the old marble wall. Down the stairs I glide, holding the wall to feel where I am. I reach the ground and a sudden tranquility streams through me. It’s over, done. I don’t have to think about it anymore. He’s not chasing me this time. I feel along the wall for the light switch, and as the light flickers to a steady brightness, I see flashes of my burgundy hands, still sodden with the warm liquid. He’s not even real, I tell myself. He’s nothing but fabricated by your mind! It’s not a crime when you’re not causing any harm to the living. But no! I can hear them coming. I run to my room, in the corner of this otherwise obsolete basement, and collapse into my bed to ease my accumulating terror. I close my eyes, waiting for the cloudy chimera of sleep to drag me to the shake that will awaken me on the other side. This time, however, I close my eyes to see nothing but a door that is locked and bolted.
—Erin Lucey ’20
Vapor
I was never scared of ghosts. Ever since I was just a kid, I had seen them watching peacefully on the walls or in the shadows. My mom would always praise me as some psychic, but all I could really do was watch them and sometimes read the words off their wispy mouths.
Horror movies always make ghosts look like demonic figures that want to possess and kill people, but that is not the case. Ghosts recognize that they had their time, and watch everyone they love have theirs. That is, until last night, where I met the soul that would murder anyone it could out of pure, unfiltered rage.
As the sun set and the shadows began to stretch across my old house, the spirits awakened and wished goodnights. They were all friendly to me, as one waved to me from afar. Suddenly, an unfamiliar mist wrapped itself around the hall, and the ghost beside me dropped. As I strained to see through the dark, the ghost’s connotation morphed to fear.
“Run,” the ghost mouthed as the mist entangled him. I fell backwards, trying to breathe, but realized that the mist had already grasped me too. I laid there writhing, suffocating—I could feel the vapor filling my lungs. The misty figure lowered its sullen face, revealing its wrath through its empty eyes and crooked laugh. My body went into spasms, my brain went into shock, and the world spun violently around me. It wanted me to have a slow death, I’m sure, but the neighboring ghosts wrapped their shadows around the mist. It screamed, threw a loud squealing tantrum, as I rolled and wheezed on the floor. As I was beginning to lose
consciousness, I watched the sickly hand reach for my face as he plunged into the floor with the others.
The paramedics came, and as they loaded my still body into the back of the ambulance, I heard them talk about a possible heart attack. I chuckled with what little breath I had left. Though I had never felt fear in the face of the undead, I felt nothing but it now, as my vision blurred silently into one cloud of vapor.
—Jay Willett ’20
Dreaming Versus Reality
“Who goes there? What do you want?” Nobody responds, but the piano keeps playing the same old tune. I can recognize it from anywhere. It is the song that my aunt played at my husband’s funeral. I decide not to wrack my brain thinking too much about the sole piano that continues to play. I ignore the melody and make my way up to my bed.
“Who goes there? What do you want?” I look around aimlessly. Nobody is there; I am extremely confused. I do not respond, and this makes the wandering voice angry. The invisible essence grabs my neck and holds me against the wall, as I’m being nailed to the cross. The voice then tells me, “We will be together forever.”
“Who are you?” I ask the voice, which snickers hysterically.
“Your husband is my love now in the Kingdom of Heaven. Stop wishing for him to come back. He never will for he is mine and for the rest of your existence, I will bless you with my presence.”
“Excuse me?” I ask the invisible spirit.
The spirit laughs uncontrollably and tells me that she will be back tomorrow.
Just then I open my eyes and look to my right. There my husband lays and the ghost of Halloween’s Past is nowhere to be seen. The next night I go to sleep and we encounter one another again. She apologizes for her crude introduction to me the previous night. Our conversation seems too realistic not to be true. I begin to wonder what the difference between dreaming and reality is.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
“I just found my husband lying lifeless on the ground.” I check for a pulse and there is none. “Come as fast as you possibly can.” As the tears fall from my eyes, the piano begins playing the harmonious melody and the spirit tells me that I have killed an innocent man through my thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. The voice laughs relentlessly as the paramedics carry my husband’s limp body out into the ambulance on the stretcher.
I continue to weep, and she continues to laugh. She comes back for many days, never failing to remind me that she is my husband’s new lover.
Maybe there is no true difference between dreaming and reality.
—Kiley McMahon ’20
Lost
The black, velvety water pillows the boat. My only company are a pair of oars and the lonesome sea. Nightfall flushes the sky into a moonless abyss, and the dim stars rupture through the clouds. Fog has invaded and heavily dusts the sea’s surface. My flame-lit lantern, my only source of light, fails to shine through the fog. The wind begins to snarl in my ear, the only sound besides my boat slowly wobbling in the otherwise stagnant water. The coldness of the wind reduces me to shivers and goosebumps. I am left guideless. There are no patches of land in the horizon. Just endless, open water. I have a strange hunch that I’ve been rowing in circles. Suddenly, a headache clouds my mind. I place both palms onto my temples. The vessels in my brain feel like they are going to erupt. What’s going on? Where am I? Why am I here? These are questions that rattle my mind. Overwhelmed, I turn my head to the side of my shoulder and gaze down below the murky fog. I illuminate the water with my lantern and look at my reflection. I see a face; a face that isn’t my own.
—Marisa DelFarno ’18
Conductor’s Plight
by The Cowl Editor on October 19, 2017
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by Dawyn Henriquez ’19
She slipped the wedding band off like it was a long-dreaded hangnail that she was finally able to clip. She couldn’t help but seem delighted in taking it off, as if ridding herself of the husband who often had her come back to me with bruises the color of eggplants and bumps the size of small rotund hills. The golden crown sat on the palm of her hand—the last semblance of any matrimony besides the shared house and the already drawn up divorce papers.
She’ll wear it again later, of course, after we’re done—putting it on like a child puts on their backpack for school in the morning after their bed caressed them into dreams of the sublime. I’ve told her time and time again, “Don’t put the ring back on when you leave,” but she’s never answered, instead, she always wraps her legs around me, shutting me up and turning me on at the same time.
I could see the hope she was holding out for him through her silence. Hope that he’d turn back into the person he was when they first married: a sweet, loving man before he resorted to spending more time with the rims of bottles.
She always placed the ring on the night-stand as if it were the case of a delicate instrument, defying the way she would initially remove it. But, after it was off, a new person emerged, one not concerned with the well-being of what she was playing, but rather more concerned with the music. The shy, reserved woman, who was always composed in the office and focused on her task, gave way to some other sort of person, a prodigy violinist amid an original piece.
This was the woman who could barely utter a word to me at work and yet, somehow, mustered up a different persona, one filled with courage and a cumulus cloud of self-esteem that could never be brought down to be fog. She was soaked with confidence and a
completely different air to her. She writhed around, playing hard to get but knowing damn well that this was happening because a conductor controls the entire orchestra, including the violins.
She was more reserved back when our affair first started, plucking my strings with stage-fright like fear that she wouldn’t be good enough. He did that to her—made her feel insecure about her actions. A couple months of practice, however, changed all that—I brought out the innate talent in her. With time, I had her hauling me into the filing room, pulling my pants down and not caring where we were, devising her own plans for private concerts. But we were in my room then, not having to hold the music back.
Getting her out of her clothes should have been easier, really, but she needed more
convincing of her talents there than anywhere else. Like a proper conductor, I had to start the concerto with a low rumble that would only tease the audience until the full extent of the musical anticipation was evident and then, and only then, would the violins play their sweet song.
I finally tore away the layers that separated our two beings. Her satiny skin draped under mine in backward embrace. The backside of her hands clasped within my palms as the back of her head, decorated with lush black webs of silk, stared at my face with unseeing eyes. And then, just as the symphony was being conceived, just as I, the conductor, with a simple stroke of my right wrist, was going to command the violins to rise and rebel against the quiet sanctity of the orchestra, the phone started ringing—her phone.
I looked over to see her husband’s face plastered on the screen and I cursed every fiber in his goddamn being for interrupting what could have been the grandest of concertos. She left soon after, under-played and soon to be over-worked throughout her busily scheduled day.
Washed Up
by The Cowl Editor on October 19, 2017
Portfolio
by Jay Willett ’20
One of the first places they showed me when I stepped onto campus was a pond tucked between the back alleys, like a young elementary student who misbehaved and was receiving punishment. Perhaps it didn’t deserve such punishment, being hidden away from all enjoyment and all life. I’ve only seen it once, and during that time, I believed that all things good in life would start from this point onward. Despite it having so little life left, it thrived alone in its mossy hole. The pointed stones that encased it acted as its tomb, a monument to a life through the generations.
I often wonder if a man my age pondered the same 100 years ago. It doesn’t beg for attention, in fact, it acts in utter painful modesty. The frogs that leech off its habitat croak to signify that the pond has died, a cannon to a fallen soldier on the brink of war and destruction. We lost it in time, the stench of alcohol overbearing, conquering, and disrespecting the life that once occupied, the vitality of those mossy banks and its inhabitants. It lays there dead, among the rubbish, among the deceased fish, a reminder of everything that is lost and never to be found.
Perhaps I’ll go there again and consider the possibilities of how and when it might have perished. When did people forget and rip out its soul? That soul, ripped though it may be, still lingers, much like the aroma of intoxication. Still it grips at the edge of the cliff, holding on for no apparent reason.
Even if it does manage to bring itself back up to safety, nothing awaits it except for the frigid stares. People who act warm and comforting, their actions go against their words, their ice pierces and rips the warm blanket that covers them. Even if the water was purified, and revived, the result would be the same.
Even if the world gave it one more chance, it would die as soon as the final bits of fabric freeze over. People would often assume that it died because of its own toxicity, but in the end, the water was poisoned and forgotten by its own creators. People often believe that the pond was the filthiest and most unclean thing on campus, but judging by every right and characteristic, it is by far the purest.
On the cliff, it doesn’t pull back up, instead it loiters there, waiting to die in the hands of the toxic. Rich poison seeps into its veins, turning its blood a venomous green. There it lies on its deathbed, in an eternal slumber, waiting for the day when one of the toxic decides to resurrect it. But it should know that that day will surely never come.
Towers are built and destroyed around the pond on the same day; it is an anchor to the origins of campus. Water spirals down, standing the test of time, but for what? Only to be mocked, to be forgotten, to be murdered by its creators. Isolated, the waterfall weeps its tears over and over again, crying for its deceased counterpart. Polluted, the pond seeps its muck time and time again, hoping for the impossible day that it’s revived.
I’m not writing this in hopes of reviving it either; instead, I would rather that its creators remember and pay respects to what it once was. So, I sit there, not exactly praying, but not in idleness, watching and listening to that dead water flow, acting like it’s still alive.
I knelt on the cobblestone, and peered over into its lonely dark abyss. Everything about the pond was innocent, everything from its birth to its demise. I lift my head and hover over the murky water, watching my eyes blink back at me in the reflection. I smile faintly, the pond had a point. Maybe we have a lot more in common than I’d like to admit. The waterfall is not alone in its cries anymore.
The Arrival on Europa
by The Cowl Editor on October 5, 2017
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by Marisa DelFatno ’18
Another space race had begun. It was not with the Russians this time. Instead, it was against China. Predictable. One world power against another. We probably could have foreseen this. After being shelved decades prior, Human Outer Planets Exploration, also known by its corny acronym, HOPE, was no longer something purely conceptualized. It was now a reality, with a slight change in destination. Instead of traveling to Callisto, our actual safest bet, we were traveling to Europa.
NASA had finally received the proper funding they needed, and a small crew of six were plopped onto a ship, isolated deep in the fabrics of nothing but the dark abyss, traveling to Europa, one of the Galilean moons that is always rumored in the Popular Science written articles to be habitable for human life. A moon named after one of Zeus’ bazillion mistresses.
It would take six full years to get to Europa, and another six years back to Earth—a 12 year road trip. The whole purpose of our journey was simply to explore, and be the first to reach uncharted territory.
We already established ourselves to be sung about in future textbooks by going the furthest from Earth than any human in history, but that was not enough. We had to push the envelope one more time. One of us had to get out of the ship, and Frank was our guy. He was about to go on a moon with a temperature of -200 degree Celsius. Antarctica is a lot warmer than that. Like a lot warmer.
Also, Europa has enough radiation suitable for your run-of-the-mill, post-nuclear apocalypse film, though its sister, Callisto, has the least radiation out of all Jupiter’s moons. We wondered why we even chose Europa, a moon clearly hostile for human life, but I realized our sole endeavor was to triumph in this space race.
To top everything off, we lost connection to Earth four months ago. We tried everything to get communication back, from digging like dogs through the wiring in the walls to dissecting computers delicately with tweezers, but all we received was radio silence. Considering the advancement in technology, and the importance of the mission, we thought NASA would provide a solution from their end, but no. We got nothing.
Since at the time, we were four months away from Europa, there was no way we were going to stop and steer our way back home. We did not want to waste a total of 12 years of space travel. We had to reach our destination, and eventually we found ourselves parked in a spacecraft on the jagged surface of Europa, six years away from human civilization.
Aaron, the crew’s pilot, would always joke that a Chinese flag would be planted there when we arrived, much to the dismay of the perpetually serious Thomas and Patrick, who were navigator and commander, respectively. Brooke and I, the crew’s technicians, would lighten up and laugh, but ultimately we could not fully immerse ourselves in humor.
Instead, we shared the same sense of unease and worry. Either my nerves or the freeze-dried stuff we were subsisting on with its endless expiration date made my stomach feel hollow. We arrived, and we had to make sure protocol, procedures, etc. were all set. In fact, we were nearly four hundred million miles from Earth; or in other words, four hundred million miles from any source of help.
However, despite the stress and tension, we still could not help but soak in our surroundings. It was like being in one of those stunning, space themed screen-savers, or watching a sci-fi film with topnotch, realistic CGI on a mountainous screen. Seeing Jupiter, so massive, so close to little Europa, was something so indescribable that words did not do any justice.
Back on Earth, we have all seen that strawberry moon that appears around June, and we easily got astonished by that, but our view of Jupiter surpassed that coolness by millions. The scariest fact was that Jupiter’s beauty mark, that colossal hurricanic spot, could easily fit two Earth sized planets. One Earth alone can comfortably fit in it like a baseball in a glove and here we were, compacted like some old sardines, getting the full perfect view of it, between swallowed by Jupiter’s magnitude. When confronted by such immensity, it’s like being an ant crawling on the sidewalk in front of the Empire State Building.
It was showtime. Frank was fully equipped; his suit almost cumbersome due to all its gadgets and padding. He was so rigid and compressed by the EMU that he looked like the Michelin Man. But he was ready…I think. His ever-so quiet and mysterious demeanor was haunting. He stood there stoic like a statue, waiting to be released from the ship.
Brooke placed her hand on the door latch, a concerned look in her doe eyes directed towards Frank, easily conveying the two words “Good luck.” Thomas placed his hands on Frank’s padded shoulders, another expression of good luck. Patrick was adjusting Frank’s suit like a mom adjusting a kid’s winter coat. And Aaron just had to shout out, “break a leg!”
Frank and I exchanged looks. I smiled and wished him luck. Frank was still quiet, but he sheepishly smiled back. He held his bulky helmet in his hands like a pumpkin, took a quick gaze at it before he plopped it on his head. Only our own reflections were seen, our anxious faces, almost on par with Munch’s Scream painting. Frank’s face could not be seen beneath his murky helmet.
Brooke released the latch and Frank, in his clunky suit, went through the narrow, cramped hallway, shutting the door that separated us from him, and opened another one to free himself from the ship. For a moment, my anxiety almost switched to jealousy, seeing Frank released from the ship while we looked on like caged animals, but then again, given the weight of the current situation, I was glad that all I got to do was watch.
He was out. Quickly, we all glided towards the monitor to watch Frank take the Armstrong step out of the ship. He raised his right foot and lodged it onto the icy, eerily pristine, ground before the amazement could hit us, and he did the same with his left foot. His leap was, of course, slightly inelegant and clumsy, but he slowly familiarized himself to the gravity, making little leaps and jumps to get himself around. The cabin, though brimming with apprehension, roared with cheers.
Frank hopped around for a little, but still was silent. I could not envision the awe he must had been experiencing, the surreal sensation of treading on the raw, unexplored grounds of Europa. It was like his whole life was building up for this moment, to be the first man to lay a foot on Europa. In the monitor, he started to camouflage himself along the icy rocks; his body slowly fading as he walked away like a cowboy in an old, black and white, gritty western.
The cabin was silent now. I could almost hear the glimmer of sweat dripping from everyone’s forehead, in addition to the sounds of our hearts pounding so heavily. We had the dial on max. Thomas shot me a slight grimace, and Patrick had his shaky hand on the radio, ready to adjust it, when the awaited beep came through. Everyone’s muscles froze, with our ears giving full attention. We hovered over the radio like a child hovering over an unopened present. The already mousey Frank was almost voiceless. My gut clenched. His response was nothing more than two repeated sentences.
Man’s first words on Europa: “My God. My God.”
Brooke, hastily plucking the mouthpiece of her headset, immediately started to shout, “What?! What is it!?”
Frank, taking a long, almost unnecessary pause, quivered back. “We lost.”
The Watcher
by The Cowl Editor on September 28, 2017
Portfolio
by David Martineau, ’18
Few men in the history of the world could say that they had seen a kingdom rise and fall, but the Watcher was no ordinary man. He had seen a hundred kingdoms rise, and just as many fall into anarchy and ruin. It was a singular luxury in his life, though he had long ago learned that it could not be qualified as a fortunate one, or even as unfortunate. Such was the nature of immortality. You could experience all of the joys and pleasures the world has to offer, almost exclusively, if you chose to—but there was always the lingering specter of Change hovering at your back, a force that could not affect you, but which compensated for that loss by destroying everything that you reveled in, until you grew tired of loss.
The Watcher had grown immune to much of Change’s snares, however. He had decided, oh, about a thousand years ago, that he would no longer allow himself to be moved by what he saw in the world. Happiness, sadness, joy, or pain—none of them affected him anymore. He could watch the miracle of a child’s birth or the devastation of a smoking battlefield with the same impassive expression, with only a flicker of curious interest at the consequences they unleashed upon the world. He often wondered at the change in himself. He had taken the deal so that he could enjoy life’s goodness for eternity, until the world itself came crashing down around him, forcing him to seek a new home where he could begin it all again. But though goodness was still plentiful, and evil never really triumphed, the Watcher found himself…bored?
Yes, bored, as if he now understood that this mortal life was not something to aspire to, something to elevate or praise. It was a shadow—of something greater, perhaps, or just an empty husk that didn’t matter, to be replaced by something equally as useless, equally as empty.
Not even the momentous workings of history could sway him now, he mused, standing as he did in the midst of a king’s court, watching as the monarch entertained the grievances of a slighted lord. The Watcher knew that the king would lose his life tonight, in an uprising carefully plotted and orchestrated by the underlings he was now entertaining. The Watcher would not warn him—that was prohibited by the rules of his pact—but he no longer believed that he would have, even if he were allowed.
As he watched the king dismiss the angered lord, the Watcher turned his face to the monarch, a face disguised today as an emotionless bystander in the crowd, one of many he had adopted in his millennia of life. It was almost with a start that the Watcher suddenly recalled that before he had taken the pact, he had been the ruler of this kingdom.
Doubtless no one remembered him; he had never been particularly popular, and his disappearance and subsequent replacement had been overlooked with little fanfare. But he had still ruled it, and that meant that this king was his descendant, one of many he had glazed over in the past thousand years, like the phantoms of a daydream.
Should he not at least try to help this king, this distant relative of his? He could not, he knew, but shouldn’t he at least feel the urge? But he felt nothing, not even a tug of interest or desire. Kings and nations rose, and fell, and rose again, and the world spun on no matter what, heedless of their ruin. The Watcher had chosen to join that endless cycle, and he did not regret it. Or rather, he didn’t feel anything about it. Perhaps that is the true price of immortality, he pondered. You win eternity, but lose your soul.
The Good Life for a Good Boy
by The Cowl Editor on September 28, 2017
Portfolio
by Sam Pellman, ’20
From the moment we brought him home, we knew we picked a good one. Not only was he cute, but he was a real beauty. The markings on his fur were like nothing else I’d ever seen. The blacks, browns, grays, and whites were all so precise, it was as if someone had used a brush and painted them onto his tiny body.
He was an only pup, just him and his mom. It was not long after we brought him home that he clung to a new mom, almost imprinted to her and followed her everywhere she went. My mother loved the attention; she now had another baby. I’ll admit I was a bit jealous.
He grew up in our old house; that’s where he found himself. He learned how to face his fear of the stairs and finally turn that wimpy bark into a strong one. I wish I could say I was the only one who truly fell in love with him, but that would be too big of a lie. Everyone he met adored him; I can’t think of a soul who didn’t. The fact is, he wasn’t hard to love, rather it was easy. You fell in love with the way he’d cry if you squeaked a toy too much because it hurt his delicate ears, or the way he would go crazy and throw a barking fit when you changed the garbage bag or took out a bowl from the cabinet for cereal.
He had his quirks, weird quirks, that were just too funny not to love. You even learned to love that god- awful breath of his, the kind that smelled like he had just eaten five rotten fish he found while making his way down the beach in our backyard. He hated the car, so much so that his body would shake uncontrollably and he’d pant the whole way, emitting that awful, awful breath. But it was okay, because you loved him.
He had anxiety when he heard thunder, and worse were the fireworks. For the whole month of July around 9 p.m., you’d wander around the house wondering where he was only to find him arched over awkwardly in the bathroom shower, shaking and panting.
He was a cuddler, and come 10 p.m. you could do absolutely anything you wanted to him because he was too tired to fight you. He slept on the bed and often times stole my dad’s spot if he did not come quick enough to claim it. He loved chicken, but eggs even more. When my dad made eggs in the morning, he’d make an extra just for him. I gave him my yolk, because I didn’t like it, but I knew he loved it.
Max had a good life. He was happy, and best of all he made us happy. He was there for me when no one else was. I would cry my eyes out while he just sat there and listened. And that’s all I needed, his presence. He kept my grandma company when we went on vacation, for he went on vacation to her house, and oh, how she loved him. He didn’t like other dogs but he sure liked people and to us, that was more than okay.
The thing with pets is not to dwell on the day their lives no longer exist, but instead to remember the years and years of endless bliss they brought you. For a dog, we are all they have. We can yell at them, leave them hours and hours in a house all alone and yet as soon as we come back they greet us as if they haven’t seen us for years. That’s something only a dog does and that something is what makes owning one so special. To build a good life for a dog is all that matters, and Max for sure had a very good life.