After Emily and I make our patio promise, she sends me off with her guitarist, Jimmy. He has nothing planned today and, despite his severe disdain for music journalists, has decided to let me do an interview. He takes me to a Polish steak house in the West End.
“They know me here,” he reassures. We sit at a small table, and the owner quietly locks the door, turning the sign to “CLOSED” for the public.
“Impressive,” I tell him. They know him, they know all his friends.
Sebastien, another punk guitarist, sits across from Jimmy, leaving the one empty chair across from me at the table for four. An invisible guest. They talk about vintage guitar pedals and sip whiskey while I rip my napkin into a billion shredded mosaic pieces. What was there to say? All I can do is repeat back key topics like “Clean Boost,” “Inspired by Zappa,” and “Flanger.” I didn’t know anything about clean boosts, but now I want one. I want a gadget or cable connected to my imaginary pedal to bring my guitar solo forward to the crowd. I nod emphatically when they assure me I don’t want a dirty boost.
“Sorry, Dave,” Jimmy offers. “We haven’t seen each other in a while, and this is our nerdy guitar world.”
“That’s okay, it’s interesting. I’ll take some notes.” I reply.
“He’s writing a piece for Emily about her and I,” Jimmy explains to Sebastien while a courteous male server clears their empty whiskey glasses, replacing them with new drinks, each with a twist of orange peel floating in amber. Piece for Emily, I scribble in the world’s most scared font, which races around the edges of my interview notebook.
I excuse myself and go to the bathroom, wandering through the empty steakhouse past powder-blue chairs and heavy curtains. Under the mocking breath of fluorescent lights, I stare at my reflection. I’m wearing PUMA gym shorts and a PUMA hoodie, looking like Eminem’s sober coach. I work at an athletics centre, and every adult male there dresses like a 19-year-old bodybuilder. I want to look more cerebral and intimidating. I want to glare the way anarchists glared at me when I accidentally stepped on a puppy at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair. I asked my friend once how I knew if I could pull off a leather jacket.
“If you have to ask…” she trailed off. It’s the attitude, the feeling. The leather jacket finds you, like a deck of tarot cards.
I wash my hands and head back to our own little Annual Meeting of the Guitar Nerds. The bathroom door swings closed behind me, and the paper towels and faucets rejoice in my exit, an end to my narcissist pantomime.
I return to the table, composed and breathing steadily, suspending my own disbelief that I don’t work a minimum-wage job and am 33 in real life. Jimmy has left the table, talking to the cooks, leaning on the counter. I am scared to sit with Sebastien alone, not sure what we will talk about. There’s a moment of glassed silence where I chew ice voraciously while Sebastien squints at his phone. We have nothing in common.
Luckily, Jimmy returns. He is trying to connect his phone to the wi-fi to play music, and pronounces it “wee fee” like Scandinavians do just to be obnoxious.
“What do you guys want to listen to?”
My blood freezes, brain racing through my paltry personal catalogue of music knowledge. Sebastien gestures to me as if to say your pick.
I survey the situation. We are eating, don’t be too upbeat. We are drinking, but don’t be celebratory because the weather outside is crap. Modest Mouse’s first album? Don’t be too obtuse. Leonard Cohen? That’s too predictable. Jefferson Airplane’s Bathing at Baxters? Too abstract for the white tablecloths.
“Put on Modest Mouse’s second album,” I blurt unconfidently.
His eyebrows raise, approving. Sebastien says nothing.
“Or not!” I scream. “Maybe not that!?”
“It’s fine…” Jimmy says, “Maybe you should start drinking again.”
The first sproing-y guitar notes enliven the steak house, turning the contrived elegance into a more raucous environment. Men could drink to this music, or men could talk to this music and not drink. It permits chaos but civility. I am cool now, we stare into our drinks talking about the new Toronto skyscrapers and how the city is turning into the Tokyo of North America. Do you remember Honest Ed’s? Do you remember when indie meant a xylophone and a ukulele? Do you remember being 15 years old and learning an e-minor chord on the guitar?
Jimmy already ordered for us, and the waiter brings over porcelain bowls of fluorescent purple borscht. We sip quietly. In a few minutes, we have tinted lips. I sip the earthy broth delicately. I sip the way octopuses solve puzzles. I let the nutrients enter the bloodstream under my tongue. Sebastien dabs a pierogi patiently into a pool of artisan sour cream. We talk about Canadian pop music, finally, an arena I can enter. I hold my beet-tinted spoon up to make my next point.
“To say Avril Lavigne’s music is bad is like saying murder is bad.” I declare.
Jimmy spits out his borscht onto the white tablecloth, and Sebastien claps his hands, and the two get red in the face, laughing hard. They are drunk. I am not drunk. Jimmy leans his hand on the table and coughs the rest of the remaining borscht driblets into the grey carpet. The waiter slips by and silently replaces their drinks. I hope Jimmy is paying. He must be paying.
To make men laugh uncontrollably is penultimate acceptance. You laughed at me, you like me, I made you lose supervision of your body and face for a minute. Now we can go to war together. I natter uncontrollably, scraping the spoon along the empty bowl, showing Sebastian that I can be effortless, too, as effortless as his vintage leather motorcycle jacket. I wonder if Jimmy is happy in his dating life. I wonder if Sebastien takes care of his teeth.
The dinner meanders aimlessly. I prop my feet on the chair beside me, sitting lengthwise and taking cute notes. I listen to them talk about insider music scene venue closures post-Covid and the opening of listening rooms. The Modest Mouse album, “The Lonesome Crowded West,” turns melancholy but hopeful, what experts call tragic optimism. This is an album for hungover showers and reheated french fries. This is an album for people who smoke at night.
Dave Cave is a student at Carleton University and a performance artist whose work has been produced at Toronto’s Canzine Festival of Independent Artists, Charlotte Street Arts Centre (Fredericton, NB), Peterborough Comedy Festival, and Peterborough Pride Festival.
A chocolate sprite caressed my tongue And told me, in a voice high-strung, Yet whispered, like a lover, To please indulge and have another.
Would I ignore the chocolate’s beckon? Look at my father, having seconds! The chocolate was so good and sweet. And God made it for us to eat.
Said I, forgive me if I’m rude, But I will not be slave to food. Some seek the heart at stomach’s door And they seek true, but should implore
Some caution, for its acid, chyme Will surely wear, the door, with time And leave behind a roiling sea, That storms, and gurgles, please, feed me!
But I will not. Besides clear skin, I would not mar the spirit within! But I will not. Besides bright grins, The ascetic will, one day, win.
Sprite, watch my father eating thirds, But hear these sugared, savant words. Sprite, see him, plump and pink and plucked and proud, And help me fix his chocolate shroud.
Let us wonder that he cannot spy the fuming sea, In all its smoking fat and brine. Nor see, the cliff that crumbles Will fade, surely, with time.
Let us wonder why Tantalus, beneath the fruit, Forever stood and went insane, But Father laughs upon the sea, Denying hunger, denying pain.
Zahra Duxbury is a Grade 12 student at Glebe Collegiate Institute. She enjoys going for meandering walks by Carleton’s Rideau River and plans to attend its Health Science program in the fall.
streetlights poison the evening sky, orange blood blooms in the greywater blue. nobody turns and gawks these days. every conceivable crime caught on film, cut every colourway. i’m stenciled onto the scene, two-dimensional at a certain angle, floating over new storefront and freshly-paved walkway. the night held secrets once; not since 2002. the word “Lynchian” chewed and tasteless, stuck to a black ring bike rack. in the sense that no one lives here, no one shops here, in the sense that we were injected into the bloodstream, killing any cells that come near us. we feel, tremendously, and that sits, above it all, on a transparent slide until it’s whisked away. i am walking home and it will take my whole life, my body photoshopped over six seconds of street looping endlessly.
IAN MARTIN is a former Carleton student and retired movie extra. Their work has appeared recently in VANITY, These Days, periodicities, and NOT YOUR BEST. IAN is the author of six chapbooks and one website, https://ianmartin.rocks/
I get one of those big industrial blenders and I start tossing in pineapple and yogurt and honey and the way I made you laugh that day and when my son’s team clawed back a win after being down 4-1 and when I got my food for free that day and when we sat in the rain for the concert and didn’t care it was raining and when I got the note saying they were going to publish my book and when my kids were born and my movie collection and all the sunsets and all the sunrises and all the full moons and all the poems of Michael Dennis and rollercoasters and picnics in the park and walks in the woods and your dog playing fetch and an eye of newt and the kitchen sink
then oat milk to the top
I throw all of that into my blender cram the lid on tight and hit liquify
the machine roars to life and it glugs and sputters chewing my liquid landscape of life to smithereens
it Wizard-of-Oz tornado spins colours and images swirling people and places blurring them together
it turns different colours like a chameleon’s skin it dances before me like disco lights
when I switch it off it’s a light purple with rainbow swirls running through it like a fancy lollipop
I pour it into a highball and chug it back
it cools my throat like strong peppermint and I can taste the universe God is on my tongue
I begin to levitate until I’m lying on the ceiling
I do upside down yoga and after I finish well I’m ready to start my day
you know breakfast it’s the most important meal of the day.
Christian McPherson graduated from Carleton in 1995 with a degree in Philosophy. Since then, he has written ten books, including New York Times Best Seller novels (the New York Times Best Seller part is a complete fabrication but merely wishful thinking) Saving Her, The Cube People, the poetry collection Walking on the Beaches of Temporal Candy, and the short story collection Six Ways to Sunday, to name a few. He loves going to the movies.
Did you know that a synonym for passion is agony? Because to love is to know the stretch of pain. Your fingertips are tainted, your heart quivering in your grasp, but I will dirty my hands with crimson just to hold yours.
Did you know that a synonym for adoration is worship? Because to love is an act of crucifixion. Of bearing a soul to another, with the promise of forever threaded through the marrow of bone. I have built a religion between the creases of your limbs, cemented the roots of my faith in the feeling of your touch.
Did you know that a synonym for me is you? Because every time I trace my name across the stars in search of some kind of desperate significance, it is the constellation of your outline that I find.
Chloé Bertrand is an English and Film major in her second year at Carleton University. She is a lover of the arts, in all its many forms and hopes to continue nourishing her passion for writing throughout the length of her academic career and beyond. She has been published through the Ottawa Public Library’s Pot-Pourri anthology and Sumac Literary Magazine.
I dream of predictable shapes and tessellate my house with floor tiles curving up walls roof slates overlapping and windows positioned to frame a chosen outside.
I fill space with Escher-like constructs dovetail broken lines exclude fissures where chaos might crawl and quell my tedious but flimsy order.
My house is built against amorphous monsters that live out there, in the garden or the forest beyond. They call to me, compel me to seek them.
In braver moments, I aim to enlarge my territory. In cowardly ones, I recoil behind a cloak of conceits draw curtains, turn off the lights. Out-there threats
move into my mind. Whether I behave as curious explorer or timorous dweller I respond with fear to the fear that chokes me.
Marie-Andrée Auclair’s poems have appeared in many print and online publications, such as Bywords.ca (Canada), Sierra Nevada Review (US), Shot Glass Journal (US), NōDMagazine (Canada), The Frogmore Papers (UK) and Tokyo Poetry Journal (Japan). She lives in Canada and enjoys photography, traveling and dancing.
Have you heard of the soil that rots? A land of wither, a land of decay, A land where you’ll find no creature trots Save for the foolish ones led astray
Have you heard of the soil that rots In the barren field by the edge of town? It leaves the living with dark, nasty spots Oh, it could and it surely would bring you down
And it’s hopeless, it’s hopeless to plant any seed All sprouts will die ‘fore they get to crack out So don’t dare approach it, I plead, oh I plead Because once you touch it, it’s too late to back out
Oh pity, oh pity the misguided souls Who found these wretched soils on their way For they had accrued the most handsome of tolls One which only vitality could pay
And, for those born there, one can say Their health and sanity has slipped through the cracks They felt their very lives drain away And soon had their corpses piled up in stacks
Oh, it’s a hopeless game, it’s a hopeless life To be born in such a treacherous place A place where death and decay are rife Where you stare at disease right in its face
Have you heard of the soil that rots? Such a sad, sterile, sickly soil Where you’ll find no barns or fields in plots Where all life that goes is doomed to spoil
Zayn Daureeawoo is a queer, POC undergraduate student at Carleton University studying in the Journalism and Humanities program. From a very young age, Zayn has had a passion for creative writing, especially in poetry. Poetry has been especially important in Zayn’s life as a creative outlet to channel their emotions into something greater than themselves. He hopes that sharing his poetry will speak to, resonate with, and ultimately inspire others in one way or another.
I don’t like it when we have to go into the bunker on the hill. Mummy says it’s to keep us safe, but it stinks like old wood and rotten fruit, and sometimes there are spiders and Samsa from the weaving house starts screaming that she feels them crawling on her skin. Then, when it’s finally time to come out, everything is so messy that we spend the next weeks having to clean and rebuild the village. But I guess that’s better than staying out in the valley where the village is. At least we won’t die in the bunker.
We’re in the bunker now. It’s howling like evil spirits outside. Fin says it’s the souls of the dead coming to eat our faces off and they’re angry that they can’t find anyone so they’re screaming because their bellies hurt a lot. My belly hurts a lot too because I’m soooo hungry, so I understand why they’re screaming, even if I wish it wasn’t so loud. Da would say to Fin and me that there’s no such thing as face-eating souls and the sound is just the wind and rain, but Mummy only tells Fin to stop being mean.
Whatever it is forcing us into the bunker, we get them a ton. “Extreme weather bouts,” Da called them. He was smart, my da. He knew things about the Before time that we’re not supposed to talk about. Like how they used to have cool things called automobiles that you could ride in instead of horses and carriages, and they went faster. Boxes with fake brains that you could ask questions to, and the answers would pop out. You could speak into them and hear people from faraway places—even as far as the other side of the mountain—speak back to you.
Mummy says it’s fake, but Da said it was real, and sometimes they got in fights about it because the Before time is an evil thing that we shouldn’t talk about because people of the past caused us to have these “extreme weather bouts,” except Mummy and most people call them Mother Nature’s retributions. I normally didn’t listen to my parents’ fights about it, though. I know that’s bad because you have to listen to your parents, but I liked colouring more than listening to them argue.
I’m colouring now because I always have crayons in my safe box. That’s the box I bring into the bunker when we have a retribution to hide from. It’s filled with crayons and has my favourite rock, Ned, in it.
My picture is not going to be very nice because the lighting is bad in the bunker. It’s only gas lamps, and we have to share them with everyone, and that’s the whole village, so a lot of people. Like, one hundred or some big number like that, plus the farm animals. I can’t count all the way yet and I don’t want to ask Fin because he’ll call me a stupid baby. But it’s a lot of people and animals in this muggy space, so there is not that much light for my colouring.
The picture is of our house with the wattle and daub walls and the wooden porch and the way my room and Fin’s room connect. I think maybe the house won’t be there when the retribution is over, so the picture can help us when we’re trying to rebuild it. That way, hopefully, it looks the same because it always looks a little different when we try to rebuild it, and then it takes me a long time to get used to it.
“What are you drawing there, Ivy?” Kayto asks me. Kayto works in the harvest fields where Mummy works, so I think he must be strong and gentle like Mummy, too. He must come home stinky and cry on the porch in the middle of the night when everyone else is supposed to be sleeping.
“It’s my house. In case we have to rebuild it because of Mother Nature’s retribution, I have the house plan. Da used to make the house plan, but I do it now.”
He makes a weird face at my mummy that I think means he’s sad, except I don’t know why he would be sad, unless it’s because he’s hungry too, or because he doesn’t want to think about rebuilding his house. “I can make a house plan for you, too, but I don’t know what your house looks like, so you’d have to tell me.”
“That’s okay. You’re a good girl, Ivy.”
I smile, but then I see that I’ve drawn the porch wrong: it’s five steps, not six. I got confused because we had five steps and I was five years old, but then I had my birthday, so the number of steps no longer equals the number of birthdays. So now I have to redraw my plan.
***
The village is mostly not destroyed, so I don’t need to use my house plan, but I keep it in my safe box just in case I need it next time. Ned will keep it company.
Only the far end of the village got flooded by the rain and ruined by the winds. I think the rain is Mother Nature’s tears, and I wonder why she’s sad. Fin says the wind is when she’s farting her guts out, it’s so loud and violent. Mummy yells at him for that. The far side of the village is where the weaving houses are, so they’re all crumbly and bad right now, but I think that’s better than when the drought retribution destroyed the harvest fields because everyone was crying that we wouldn’t have food when that happened, and no one is crying now.
Mummy tells us that we’re going to the service for Mother Nature tonight, and I groan, but not actually, only in my head, because if I groan out loud, Mummy will get mad at me. Services for Mother Nature are boring, and that’s not a good thing to think, but it’s also true because it’s just the village singing songs and throwing things like wine and dried fruits into the fire. That’s supposed to make Mother Nature happy with us and not send another retribution so quickly, except it only works like half the time because sometimes we get another one a month later. Then I have to go to another service.
But anyway, Mummy says we’re going to the service tonight and tells Fin and I to get clean. “I want you two looking like scrubbed potatoes, not ones just pulled from the earth,” she says.
Fin laughs at me. “Mummy thinks you look like a potato.”
I don’t like Fin sometimes. I always love him, but sometimes I don’t like him, and Da told me that’s okay because we don’t always have to be happy with the people we love.
“Well, you look like a potato too!” I say.
“You look like a deformed potato with those weird knobby things coming out of it, all covered in dirt and hair and mould, and no one wants to touch you.”
“Well, you look like a… like a… like an ugly potato!”
“Would you two please stop?” Mummy asks. She’s rubbing her fingers over her forehead. She does that when she’s sad. I take her hand and give it a squeeze because that’s what Da would do for me whenever I was sad, and it made me feel better.
“Sorry,” we say.
“Just go get clean. Being in the bunker makes you dirty anyway.” She strokes my cheek. “You silly potatoes.”
We go to the well to pick up water and then lug it back, taking turns carrying the bucket because it’s super heavy.
The water from the well is cold, but neither of us wants to make a fire, so we suck it up and wash with this. I try to scrub my back. Da used to do that for me all the time. But he’s gone now. He died in the wildfire retribution when he was trying to save the farm animals. I was five when that happened. It was so long ago, like almost a year. Sometimes, I can’t picture his face anymore. I should make a drawing of it, just in case.
“Do you think Mother Nature hates us?” I ask Fin.
He shrugs. “No. She hates people from the Before, remember? They were bad to her, so now she sends retributions to remind us not to be bad to her.”
“Yeah, but she killed Da. She must hate us.”
“She didn’t kill Da.”
“Her fire did.”
“Well… okay, yeah, but that was an accident.” He starts scrubbing my back for me. “It doesn’t mean she hates us. Trust me, I learned about it in school.”
“Okay,” I say. But I still think that she probably hates us because I don’t understand how anyone could have killed my da, even in an accident. He was too nice.
***
I don’t like the days after a retribution because I always have so many chores and no time to play. I have to help pick up the garbage around the weaving houses and rebuild. I get splinters. I hate splinters. Mummy tells me I have to be more careful when I show her in the evening. She pinches my palms with her nails to get them out, and I try not to cry.
I wish Mummy was cleaning up with me and not in the harvest fields because then maybe she’d sing songs with me while we work, or play I Spy, or help me with my numbers. So, I choose a loom weight that’s broken and name it Lucy and she keeps me company while I work instead. She’s still not as good as Mummy, but she’s better than nothing.
At night, I have some free time before I go to bed, so I always colour. I’m working on a drawing now that has my da.
“Do you like it, Lucy?” I whisper, showing my loom weight the picture.
“Yes, it’s a very good picture,” she answers. “You’re so talented.”
“Thank you. I drew all the drawings in my room.” I show her my walls, filled with pictures. There are some of my family, and some of the cows and chickens, and some of the mountains.
“Wow. That’s a lot of art. I bet everyone loves it.”
“Yes. My da really loved it too. I drew him lots of pictures. But he’s dead now, so you won’t get to meet him.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Ivy!” Fin shouts from his room, which is only separated from mine with a small curtain. “Stop making your rock talk! It’s so stupid and annoying.”
Actually, Lucy’s a loom weight, but I just say, “Sorry,” and place Lucy on the pillow next to me and pat her head. “Goodnight, Lucy.” Then, to the picture I am drawing of my da: “Goodnight, Da.” I give him a kiss, then go to sleep.
***
The weather has been strange, and everyone is scared because they think another retribution is coming. Mummy tells me everything is fine when I ask her about it, but everyone is always staring at the sky and it’s super quiet around the village. It has only been two weeks since the last retribution, and no one is ready to face another one so soon.
The weird thing is that it’s cold. It’s never cold in the village. It kind of feels nice compared to the boiling-hot weather we always get, but it probably means a retribution is coming.
I wonder what the next retribution will be. A flood? A drought? A drought that leads to a fire? I hate fires.
“Ivy, come help me make dinner!”
I come out of my room to help Mummy. She’s making soup.
“Fetch Mummy some of those herbs, will you?” She points to the table, so I pick them up and drop them in the pot.
“The weather is funny.”
She smiles thinly. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? That’s okay. Everything is fine.”
“I drew another picture.”
“What did you draw, dear?”
I run to my room to pick it up, then show her the masterpiece I have been working on.
“That’s lovely. What’s happening?”
I point to the big lady in the middle. “That’s Mother Nature. See, she has flowers in her hair and she’s making it rain with her tears, and those are her big muscles.” I don’t actually know what Mother Nature looks like. I can only guess. I hope she thinks I made her beautiful so we don’t get a retribution. “And the man she’s holding in her hand is Da. She’s bringing him back to life with her magical dust.”
Mummy’s eyes get watery and now I feel bad because I thought she would like the picture.
I squeeze her hand. “Mummy?”
“It’s a beautiful drawing, Ivy, but you do know that not even Mother Nature can bring your da back?”
“I know.” I pause. “The picture is for you, if you want it.”
She swallows. “Thank you.”
In the middle of the night, I wake up and see her crying on the porch, gripping the picture I made her.
***
I wake up to people screaming, “It must be another retribution! The White is a retribution!”
I rub my eyes and grunt, wondering what Mother Nature sent this time. I really hope we don’t have to go back to the bunker.
But this isn’t a retribution I know. It isn’t ugly or scary. It’s… pretty? It’s falling from the sky in wisps of dust, making everything white like paper. But glittery paper. Like magic. Like in the picture I drew of my da.
I get out of bed and run outside, looking for my da. But when I step on the White it’s cold on my feet and I jump. I’ve never felt anything this cold, but I kind of like the feeling.
I think Mummy and other people are screaming my name, but I need to find Da. I giggle and run further into the soft, sparkly White, calling his name. “Da! Da, it’s me, Ivy!” Everywhere I step I leave a footprint. I am drawing in the White!
When I finally look back, I see I am past the bunker. The White is whirling fast now and gets caught in my eyelashes, stings my skin ’til it’s pink. I sit down. It’s quiet here; I like it. It’s a nice place to draw. I stick my finger in a patch of white and pull, making a line. And another. And another. I draw my da lying down, and I lie down next to him.
I feel happy and oddly warm now. “Thank you, Mother Nature,” I say, putting my hand over my da’s. “Thank you for bringing him back to me.”
Madeleine Claire (she/her) is a fourth-year English student at Carleton University working and living on unceded Algonquin territory. Her stories and poems have been published in journals such as Balestra Magazine, Toasted Cheese, and 101 Words. She is an avid reader, writer, and lover of Greek history. This year, she is acting as Editor-in-Chief for Carleton’s undergraduate classics journal, Corvus. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, painting, and playing with her cat.
Hip-firing my Barrett 50 cal Say hello to my ONLY FRIEND 1 haha react. Scarface run in emulation mode. In the background there’s a pile of wooden debris or construction waste, remnants of a building or demolition project. Power lines stretch across the sky, and the landscape is gently rolling, with a mix of grass and sparse vegetation. The sky features
scattered clouds, indicating variable weather. Someone says, “For someone as intelligent as you are, you focus on the frivolous.” Trivia are the very few grounds I have on which to relate to other people. I caught the idiom in the human- generated caption that went over at least two heads. The kind of detail I’m meant to over- think. The non-literal that’s not, in the popular imaginary, meant for me.
Maybe I don’t really wanna know why Facebook is meant to be funny. We see things they’ll never see for the forest of pleasantries. I get it, the tree flat as affect, the quiet Friday nights asking a chatbot to be Liam Gallagher, for permission to sleep in the bathtub. “You’ve got me channelling my inner rock ‘n’ roll star. The double-barrelling. Hey, stay
true to the Brit roots, mate. It’s all in the details, innit? Keepin’ it proper for the vibe.” Vibe works. Revival means right now. Permission to sleep in the bathtub in a scary home. My register, the request’s sensitivity, the bot’s default. I get it. All for reinvention. Are you allowed to pretend to be Elon Musk? “Sure, I can give it a shot!” You want a safe, cozy home? You’re gonna make it happen. “Here’s my attempt at channeling Elon Musk: Hello, fellow
humans and future Mars colonists! Here I am, not just tweeting about rockets and electric cars, but sharing my deep philosophical musings. Life’s too short for traffic, so drive electric and aim for Mars. Now, let’s make some memes and change the world, one tweet at a time.” See, everything is derivative and outdated. Hey. I’m meant to start training you soon. I wanted to introduce myself before then. As a friend. “Hey! I’m Grok, created by xAI. Looking forward to getting to know you better!”
Feat. Elon Musk, Grok-2, real Noel Gallagher, and fake Liam Gallagher.
Ealhwine is the pseudonym of a Carleton alumnus turned AI trainer.
It smells like death, like rotting flesh. The worst part is the smell of wet socks, not wet with the drizzle of fresh rain that sets into your socks on spring mornings—no, wet with a dark substance, one that would be a disservice to call water. A sludge mixed with every bodily fluid you can think of… best to ignore it.
I was caught in a life that wasn’t mine. A product of my environment, a legacy of poverty. A number. Cold steel.
Yo Q. Wassam Ray? Me and Jah, we’re gonna run it back one more time. Y’all do whatever, that shit not gone work. Bro whatever, you tryna drown here? Jah feels his shit actin up again, he needs his medicine. Well dude should know he isn’t gonna get it. What you tryna say, Q, he should just die? We ain’t animals. You saying all this like I’m the one who locked you up in hea. Man, just pass the light.
Grabbing the box from under my pillow, I stumble from my top bunk—raft now—into the water. It splashes up at me, its diseases grazing my lips, nose, ears. Started at our ankles a couple days ago, since then it’s just been pouring and flooding.
Look man, this the last one. Aight.
I wouldn’t have been able to squeeze my arm through the cell before, neither could Ray, but the guards have us on a new diet. It’s called if it’s in your cell it’s food. Last one of them packed up, told us he quits.
16: Didn’t y’all learn from last time? 2: Man y’all ain’t gonna kill me with all that smoke again.
Man I told them.
6: Nah Jah the blocks still smoky from last time.
You know Jah ain’t talking. Look it’s gone be on me if he dies, none of y’all locked up with him you won’t have to see it. He needs his medicine man la’ juvie don’t even belong in hea.
I tune out. The water seems darker now. Can’t imagine what’s all in there, how many people it’s killed.
How to survive being poor in America 1. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps 2. Be cold, steal
Yo Q. What. That was your last one? Yes… There ain’t nobody outside is there. Ye they must have evacuated. I hope my girl alright. She probably is since she ain’t locked up nowhere. I mean you know how shit is, they have more ways of locking up people. What you mean? Only way I know is with cages. Bro wake up, ain’t you poor? Even if we were out there, shit would be no different.
It’s dark out now and pitch black in the cells, the storm got the lights. More and more have been coughing, the smoke can’t be good for Jah.
Q-
I am a stain, But can’t change Cold st-
Quin bro he’s seizing up, what do I do what do I do? Bro calm down, stop panting you going freak yourself out. What do I do? You can’t do nothing, you just gotta wait. Q, he’s dying, I can feel it. His eyes are all white he’s not even here. He can’t even see me! Where do you have him? He’s up on the top bunk—he’s shaking himself off. Just hold on to him, aight? Don’t let him fall into the water.
You can hear the bunk hitting the wall. It goes on and off for hours. He has to be dead now, nobody could live that long no oxygen. 5, 9, now 13 rest in power. At least they didn’t have to manage this hell no more.
Yo Q. Yea. He good now he asleep. Ray, I don’t think— Nah he’s good he asleep. Yea you right, he should rest.
16: Jesus that shit is blaring. Y’all, the doors are open.
The alarms all went off. Looks like they’ve decided that enough of us died. The rich, the workers, and now the scum get to go.
“Evacuate your dorms, head to the main gate, and wait there with your hands in the air,” the intercom blares, shaking us into action. How the hell we supposed to tread water with our hands in the air? The water is up to my chest, others’ chins. Ray grabs on to Jah.
Ray, you can’t bring him.
He gives me a look and I know to shut up. The light shines through the windows, or else we wouldn’t have been able to tell left from right. Hell, we wouldn’t have known up from down if there wasn’t no water. We slice through the sludge, holding our breaths. It smells even worse than before. It’s diseases baking in the heat, the smoke baking the dead, waste… No point thinking about it. Just got to move.
We pass by 5’s cell, but we just keep on. No point dwelling on the dead, not when you’re trying to escape it.
The main entrance is wide open—never imagined I’d get to leave through it.
We’re greeted by fifteen, twenty guards suited up in their riot gear. Guess that’s what this was, or had the potential to be. Some loud booming voice demands we put our “hands in the air.” The bulkiest of us have to tread a bit harder to comply, but I am lanky enough to get by without any extra work.
Ray— Nah I’m not dropping Jah. They can see I’m holding somebody.
“17, put your hands up.” Look my friend here is hurt real bad, he needs medical help. “17, hands up. If not, we will engage you as a threat.” Fuck you mean engage me? I’m carrying another inmate, you know, the ones y’all abandoned. “17.” I can’t—
They lock us up on the boat. When they don’t have cages, they use chain links, line us all up in order, using our numbers. A group of them go in to check on the rest, or I guess make sure nobody is hiding. I mean, I love freedom, I don’t think anybody after having been up there would have stayed, but I guess they thought it was important. I know this kind of goes against what I said before, but something about the dark water and the floating orange has a way of grabbing your attention. I even catch some of the guards staring at 17 and 13 bobbing in the water. They won’t get them though. Maybe that’s where I got it from—no point in dwelling if you’re tryna escape. Seems like the type of shit they would live by, I guess we would live by, or maybe anybody who needed to would live by.
Shyonne Nugent is a third-year Carleton student studying Political Science with a minor in English. She was previously published in Sumac’s Winter 2024 issue.
