The End LIt - Volume 1

THE

END

Volu

me 1

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ssue 1

Art and Design Editor: Anna Edwards

Nonfiction and Poetry Editor:Laura Beans

(This magazine is a by-product of English 365: Literary Editing at Ohio University, taught by Dinty Moore.)

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We hope you’ve enjoyed the first issue of

The End. Read from the end, read from the beginning. Pick a point in the middle. Read in alphabetical order, or in order of how interesting you find the titles. (You’ll find the table of contents in the back.) The End’s goal is to explore how the sequencing of things in our lives changes them. Our first issue interprets time in many shapes and forms, and the design aims to stretch your idea of how a magazine can be read. We hope you’ve found (or will find) The End enjoyable.

Sincerely,

Anna and Laura

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.rorret // terror.smailliW nayR // Ryan Williams

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.rorret // terror.smailliW nayR // Ryan Williams

the sun was shining.

the distant hum of a refrigeratorspiked the air with long, honestfingersand trickled into our hearts.

a new breedof morningwas born, markedby a slow train coming on rusted tracksand the cold chill of sweat.

shewas the firstto emerge from the hallbut stood still,yawning and transfixed;the sleep hurriedly shooed from her eyes.

a deliberate clock punctuates the kitchen;light softly spatters the wall with yellow.

that daywe lost our friend to monstersand never saw him again.

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In the sixteen years since he died, I haven’t really delved into the stories that make up Don Miller, my grandfather. But I have sat in his chair. Constantly.

It’s a 1986 La-Z Boy Reclina Rocker, purchased as a Christmas present for him by my parents at Landry’s Furniture in Easthamp-ton, Ma. It shipped on January 20th (I just tipped it upside-down and found the slip still tacked on). It’s gold, it’s corduroy, it’s the world’s greatest.

“He spent most of his waking moments when he wasn’t out of the house in that recliner,” my grandma tells me. I’m glad to follow in his footsteps on this point.

“Nature’s way to relax,” the company called it. We call it “The Grandpa Chair.”

I have two extant memories of my Grandpa Don. In the first, I’m telling him about Hank Gathers, the Loyola Marymount basket-ball star who died on-court in 1990 after an alley-oop. At seven, I was surprisingly knowledgeable about intercollegiate athletics, and I remember this conversation being the first in which I felt like a grown-up, involving death as it did. Sports and Geography are kids’ stuff: The Red Sox and the capital of Arkansas. But death? I had hit the big-time.

My grandpa had heard of Gathers, “yes,” he said. He wasn’t a very untalkative person I don’t think, but I’m sorry to say I can’t remem-ber any other words of his besides the “yes.” That night, my family played Trivial Pursuit. I was included and answered “milk” to some question or another. I sat on a white ottoman at his feet. My answer was not correct.

In the second memory, I am sitting in his chair, which I was usually cautioned not to do. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t sit in it. I only visited his house once a month, and it was so, so comfort-able. My family didn’t have a recliner, and the whole venture was such a luxury to me--the rocking, the ratcheting of the footrest, the adjustable back. It was also situated, in all its La-Z glory, next to an intense woodstove that over-heated me to the point of my absolute elation.

teprac eht // the grandpa chairkyzcnaW divaD // David Wanczyk


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Of course, my Grandpa had pretty awful Rheumatoid Arthritis. He’d had to give up work as a contractor in his early fifties because he couldn’t hold a hammer anymore. So I should have immediately vacated. I like to think he enjoyed me enough--because of the ultra-mature Hank Gathers talk, of course--to share it with me that day.

He walks into the room and takes a seat on the couch.

Cheers is on TV. Woody’s trying to sneak into Kelly’s room on a ladder the night before their wedding. It’s Season 10, Episode 25--at least that’s what I can figure. It aired on Thursday, May 14th, 1992. I wouldn’t have been at my grandparents’ house on a school night, so it must have been a summer re-run.

Yes, it was. I don’t feel the heat from the woodstove!

I’m embarrassed because there might be kissing in the show. He’s embarrassed because there might be kissing in the show. So he changes the channel.

It’s the most utterly meaningless memory to have and it’s ushered all the others straight out the window. There is one hug by his front door that’s still there, sketchily. (I feel that memories from the early afternoon may not have as long a life-expectancy as others. I should research this.) Regardless, I cultivate the hug: my hip-level height his hands on my head. I didn’t see him again after that.

Death, the big-time, meant that my grandpa belonged solidly to my childhood. I heard about his goneness in our living room--early afternoon, blank-white-paper February light--and I grew up. A few months later Leanna Barlow grabbed my arm while we were dis-secting a shark at school and my eyes were opened to the world of women the way a baby learns to talk. Something had changed.

My other grandparents lived on, saw me awkward. And my feel-ings about them changed, too. Their aging was my adult concern. And some of the blanks of their lives got filled in for me. Mean-while my grandpa stayed unchanged with his feet up; and a sliver of me stays with him when I lean back into childhood, eased by that old, gold, corduroy relic.

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dnalrednow gnilaets // Stealing wonderland snaeB aruaL // Laura Beans

“i’m convinced that nothing’s true” the avett brothers

the mystery in atoms; the lonely physicists crux:most everything, we come to find out, ismostly nothingand if this world’s an officetowerall the meat and light clusters in an elevator, trappedon the thirteenth floor, and its doors are sealedtight because of recent renovation.

i’ve heard a scientist sayall electrons are everywhere all the time(blips and frenzied static on the radar);executing every conceivable action at onebut only their emergent propertiesoffer a shape we recognize

‘where are they when they’re not here?’like the lover’s fit thrown at the great,anonymous distance between nowand his nearest lady’s kiss.

srevitlum // multiverse; or where have all the electrons gone?smailliW nayR // Ryan Williams

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dnalrednow gnilaets // Stealing wonderland snaeB aruaL // Laura Beans

And so, like it all,the end came crashing in spinning red with warning.

It rained down upon us,and, reeking of innocence, we tripped through its waxy coating.

The Queen of Heartscaught up with us andshouted, “off with their heads!” and we thought, how silly.

Didn’t she knowwe would spew no blood?Only love,

gallons and gallons of red lovewould ever splash her guilty face .

And we, decapitated and enlightened, wouldn’t agonize one bitover our loss.

srevitlum // multiverse; or where have all the electrons gone?smailliW nayR // Ryan Williams

gnikrap tneinevnoc // convenient parking raepS werdnA // Andrew Spear

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teprac eht // the carpet sdrawdE annA // Anna Edwards

My first memory is of carpet. Short-shagged and mottled with a vaguely floral pattern, its shades varied from tan to what can only be described (thanks to my 32 pack of crayons) as Burnt Sienna. For being such a humble first memory, I didn’t even remember it unassisted, but after my mom and I had a conversation on our way home from the grocery store. She always took the main roads on the way there, but for some reason a residential back way to return, through a grid of homes shaded with oaks taller than the ones in our neighborhood.

“See that house?” she said, pointing at a modest white-sided

model in the middle of a block. “Your aunt and uncle used to live there.”

“Really?” I say, genuinely intrigued. I’m old enough to begin

comprehending a life before my memory existed, but only just. I think of my aunt and uncle’s current home, a ranch up a large hill about 20 minutes away, and it’s novel and exciting to look at this imposter with shutters on its windows.

“Yeah. Your aunt used to baby sit you there during the week

when you were little.” “Did she have brown carpet?” The question is unconscious, a

flash, a knee jerk. It’s like the few seconds when I can write per-fectly with my right hand before I remember that I’m left-handed and it suddenly becomes uneven and sloppy.

“Yes, in their living room. How did you know that?” “I remember it.” Again, the thought is automatic and sure.

“Maybe you just saw a photo or something. You were pretty little to remember that.”

But the memory, now clear if brief, continues to boggle me, its

resistance to fade insisting that this did not just come from a pho-to. I can feel the slightly coarse, thin texture of the carpet against my stomach, and I can see the chair, its metal legs and underbelly surrounding me from above, not looking down as a photo might.


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We’ve since passed the house, each block’s stop sign a rocking wave of motion that my mother doesn’t worry about. She’s tied knots in the plastic grocery bags to keep her purchases safe, but my small fingers can’t undo them. The oaks get smaller block to block, and for the first time in my life I push and press the limits of my memory, searching for more.

When I think about it now, an entirely unorganized life calls to mind easily. The smell of my grandma’s coffee creamer and eight different types of breads and pastries when an aunt or neighbor might stop by to visit, the sound of her clock radio mounted under the cabinet. Waking to the sound of my brother’s talking dog gone haywire, the bizarre horror of a plush toy calling out into the night, my mom unable to get the batteries out and burying it in the basement under a pile of cushions until it slowly weakened in volume. Countless swing sets roam with craft hours, piles of books stacked larger than me from the library. At the time, I guess, these memories were happening, or had happened so recently that they seemed commonplace and unremarkable, and therefore unworthy of remembering.

The attempt to push my mind further, though, to hold on to things as unremarkable as carpet and grocery bags, has always lingered.

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i read a list of tips for prosonce and it saidto ‘accept lossforever,’and i didn’t thinkof that adviceoncewhen i was huggingstrangers in thefuneral lineor holding mygrammy’s hand when she told me to give him a kiss goodbye.i was thinking thati was glad i waspretty enough to makemen withmoney stopand stare and that wrinklesshow linesof laughter but this corpselooks like it’d had a face liftand i was wonderingif it’d be selfish to commit suicide at afuneralbecause i’d ratherbe filled with coldwax like my grandfather than full ofblood and with

od t‘nod navata// atavan don’t do shit for me drabbaG eemiA // Aimee Gabbard


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walking heartbeats and i was thinking thatthese pills have made me heartlessbecause i was listeningto pop radioon the way to the funeraland laughing when close friendsand familyrecited‘sorry for yourloss,’

i couldn’t even muster a tear atthe site ofmy grandmother weepingand i didn’t cross myself the normalor orthodox wayevery time the priest sang(be attentive), gloryto godand thank fuck hewas christian becausenow of course weknow he is ina better placeand it’s a good thingi got to the hospital in time to slap oilon his head and announcehim forgivenbecause frank would rathersit in the palm

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of god’s hand thannext tohis grand daughterfor one morefamily dinner

people kept sayingi looked so skinnybut I think theymeant emptyand when my grammyexplained to everyonethat he was just tootired to keep onfightingall i could thinkwas me too, grampy,me too.

emoh gniog // going home seiR eitaK // Katie Ries

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emoh gniog // going home seiR eitaK // Katie Ries

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Mom laughed and laughed, more than I had ever seen, her laughter sparkled in the air; so whole you could almost reach out your hand to catch the individual sounds before they dissolved in rainbow colors, rapidly disappearing, like soap bubbles. I look into her eyes and see the woman she is, and the child she was, and the lovely old lady she will (god willing) become. When the light is just right I can see myself reflected in her too; we have the same hair and face, the same tendencies toward worry and the same self-appraisal that is both a gift and a curse. I could be a slightly altered photograph of her, twenty some years ago. Despite the similarities I see between us I find that every time I go home I struggle with feelings of shame and broken-ness. There are things I want to say to her, but how do you ask for comfort whose source cannot be explained?

At thirteen, I was full of anger, lust and fear. I know that I have done something bad but I cannot figure out how to tell some-one, and the longer I keep silent the harder it is to form words around what I have done. I take all the blame myself. I feel dirty and scared- shaky can’t catch my breath scared- and for the life of me I cannot form the words. I know it was rape, but I didn’t fight back, and I kinda liked it, not the sex part but the feeling of being noticed, the sense of importance that a secret this big can carry. I didn’t realize how haunted I would be, and how hard, how impos-sible it was to voice the truth. Years pass, and the enormity of the event dims, the memory is hazy at best, details elude me, but the feeling of shame stays. That is what I hate most.

September 2003

I am leaving for California. It is my first time on a plane and I am making the whole trip alone. My Mom and Grandma see me off at the gates of the Roanoke airport and I move through the terminal, shaky, excited, amazed that I am really moving to the other side of the country to do AmeriCorps. I have no idea what to expect, I do not have any inkling of how difficult and affirming this experience will be. I am clean, have not smoked pot in many months and my mind is crystal clear.

The plane from Roanoke to Chicago is small and rickety. I try to hide my shaking hands in the folds of my backpack so the other

eno on ot rettel // letter to no one seyeK esoR // Rose Keyes


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passengers will not know that I am a first time flyer. I want to ap-pear self assured, confident. I am twenty years old; I should be able to do this without freaking out. I wonder what will happen if we crash, but I push it from my mind and instead concentrate on the throb of the engines and the novelty of ascending with such a rush of power into the air.

September 2009

I am in Athens, Ohio finishing up my sure to be useful English degree. I have lived here for three years now and the longing to run when things get tough is not as strong as it used to be. I have learned to breathe through difficult situations, and I have accepted that at some point in life running becomes more exhausting than staying put. You have to give up and plant some roots and trust that the water and love and affirmation will come, and so far it has. I try to write in the mornings with my coffee, I try to go days at a time without a cigarette to prove to myself that I am not addicted, that I can control the itching in my palms and the pounding of my heart.

I try to find a reason for the unexpected heartbreak that shat-tered my sense of self and well being into a million little pieces of ash smashed into the carpet under his rapidly disappearing feet. He wore converse, just like me, and we made a good team, walking down the street together. I knew as soon as I met him that I would lose myself in his lack of smell, that his desires would become central to my day. He was mean, but we walked in sync and I fell in love on the corner by the stop sign at the end of my street. I began to realize that he was not who I wanted him to be, and I was not healthy enough to pretend at a relationship, but the closeness of another person overshadowed my concern for the outcome.

Tuesday, Noon

I return from work and he is gone. The empty space left by his toothbrush screams in the silence of the bright warm air. I didn’t even notice the way he merged into my space until all his things were gone. The absence of things is sometimes the only reality we get. I don’t even now who he was, and I allowed him to mold me, to touch, and then abandon me. Vulnerability is a terrible thing, it brings all our fears and unresolved issues into the light of day and forces us to see how far we have strayed. I tried not to see the

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truth, instead I drank bottles of beer in the afternoon and smoked cigarette after cigarette. Feeling the way the smoke tarnished my lungs was a relief from the weight of another waiting afternoon. I called friends and listened to their righteous rage on my behalf, I screamed and punched the door until my knuckles ached, and days later, long after I knew he was gone to Iraq to fight, I cried.

Present day

When I am feeling especially scared of life I try to evoke the memory of being a small child. I close my eyes and imagine myself drawing a bucket of water from the spring at my parents land. In my mind I am at once a child and an adult, and I gently wash my hands and face in the water. It smells sharp and clean, like deep earth filtered with leaves that it pushed through, and I imagine it has magical properties. This water is like a mother’s love, it tran-scends all boundaries and penetrates to places hardly ever visited. I can wash away the sins committed by me and against me. This wa-ter is made of life and death, and in the surface reflection I can see myself and my mother, one image floating over another, reminding, consoling, forgiving.


laiceps // specialroirP loraC // Carol Prior

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I need a guy on my glideto make me feel special

I’ll turn his tide, eclipse his eyesand mimic an intellectual

He’ll watch me dance in a tranceas I lose inhibition

Unaware, that under my starethere’s a sadistic mission

I lure him home, the two of us aloneto give into our desires

He grabs my waist and I can tastehis lack of being wiser

I slam him down, he begins to frownsensing my urgency

I slit his throat then sit and gloatbecause even his blood seems to stick to me

I take my shovel, sift through the rubbleand place his glassy eyes there

I smile to myself, thinking about how he’ll always have to care

I need a guy on my glideto make me feel special

laiceps // specialroirP loraC // Carol Prior

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naeco // oceanesuarK nageM // Megan Krause

naeco // ocean esuarK nageM // Megan Krause

Waves hit the shore.

Curl. Break. Crash. Splash. Splatter. Repeat.

I can’t count how many times I’ve sat on the shore and watched the ocean come and go.

Each year it starts with a road trip. A thousand mile ride down country with a Coleman cooler full of turkey sandwiches smothered with Italian dressing, and a bag of butterscotch can-dies to keep us from going crazy.

Pack the car. Sleep. Wake up at 5 a.m. Roll into the car and fall asleep. Eat. Family sing along (The Who, The Beatles, James Taylor, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Billy Joel). Gas refill. Bathroom break. Repeat. Repeat.

***

During the day, the sun beats down. I have salty air in my lungs and sand between my toes. I breathe in suntan lotion and sea foam, and breathe out the weight of the long winter that led to this moment. I let the heat cook me through. I let the sun burn up any regret that lingers in my bones. By the end of the day I feel drained, renewed and in need of hydration. I think about getting the water. It looks refreshing.

***

When I was ten, I gripped my boogie board close to my chest. My fingers went white against the blue and orange pad-ded board that was my lifeline. I started moving toward shore, ready to ride in a wave. I watched it curl and jumped on. For a split second, I was flying. I could feel the mist cloud sprinkle my back and glitter as the sun throbbed. Next thing I knew I hit the ocean floor, and it gave beneath the force of my bony knees. I struggled against the slimy, silk sand but it had me. The board pushed me down as I tried to un-tether it from my wrist. Eventually the waves pulled back, and I struggled to my feet. My whole body bloated with air as I refilled my lungs and sloshed through pools of water. The last time I felt this way was

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naeco // ocean esuarK nageM // Megan Krause

when the wind was knocked out of me by a tetherball on the playground.

***

Night is different. The sand beneath me feels like stone. Cool, Smooth. I sink into the sand and dig my feet in. The air is dense and fishy, but there’s a calm here. Bright lights speckle the sky. White on black merging with the sea in the distance. I wonder what’s on the other end. I wish I had a bottle to send a message to someone on the other side. Then I’d know.

I soak up the clear landscape littered with broken sea shells that scrape my feet when I walk with my jeans rolled up to my knees. The water pulls me in with its violent beauty. I drift down the shore with the undertow.

***

I sit here and think. Again and again. I gain years, and lose time. I live hellos and goodbyes. I laugh and cry. I spend and save. I choose and regret. I change, and stay the same. I move and sit still. I sleep and dream. I wonder and wander. Again and again. I sit here and think.

***

The ocean makes me feel small. I walk over the wood planked beach access and sun -soaked nails singe the soles of my feet. I look out and imagine someone looking back from the horizon as I look at them. I wonder if they feel as small, as insignificant. I think about the incessant stream of waves, the stars, the grains of sand as I let it fall from my fist like water from a faucet.

I feel completely alone when I’m on the coast, and all I can see is horizon. I’m alone looking left to right down the coast line and off into space where sky and sea merge and the only thing to differentiate them is the slight sparkle that comes when the moon baths the water in its glow. I see no one but I know that I’m just one of many out there and as I try to exist in my universe I block out the rest of the world. Standing here I’m

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gninnirg // grinningsiksvesidaK anirtaK // Katrina Kadisevskis


reminded that as solitary as my experience is, we are all living in this world together. We all share this escape. This beautiful coastline and ocean. It’s always here. No matter our age, no mat-ter our circumstance.

***

We always go back. Maybe it’s because the power of Mother Nature puts us in our place. It makes us see that there is some-thing bigger than us out there and we’re just here to keep our friends and family company until we figure it all out. We jump with the waves to keep our heads above water and stomp through the freezing cold pool as if it were bath water. As if we can control it. We swim against the undertow. We jump against the waves.

They hit the shore.

Curl. Break. Crash. Splash. Splatter. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

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gninnirg // grinningsiksvesidaK anirtaK // Katrina Kadisevskis

grinning

ignorant of the drum ofrain on new leavesfloating in through windowsopen to spring air, still

expecting the sunrisewe’d promised duringthat endless nighttangled in confession and

possibility.


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stnerapdnarg // grandparents ffloW aruaL // Laura Wolff

“I had to go through photos that I’ve taken for the funeral service and I thought this one would be appropriate for your project. I attached one of the last photos I took of him from Easter this year. It’s not the greatest photo, technically or compo-sitionally, but I like that my grandparents are together and their in stiches from laughing so hard. I think it’s fitting not only because it’s the end of a life, but because it’s the end of normalcy for our family. This photo represents normalcy at it’s finest, my grandparents together, with their family, doing nothing really but still finding something to laugh at.”


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rebmemer i // i remembertluaG ffeJ // Jeff Gault

rebmemer i // i remember tluaG ffeJ // Jeff Gault

I remember my freshman college roommate. I remember when he peed on my desk the night after we moved in. It was no big deal really, he was drunk and had woken up in an unfamiliar place, but it’s not the type of first impression that easily fades from memory.

I remember him telling me about how his dad also had the habit of peeing in places man was not meant to pee. On several occasions his mother had walked downstairs in the middle of the night only to catch her husband drunkenly peeing in the oven. This made me wonder whether it was genetic or just a family tradition.

I remember when I found out about my grandma. About how she used to tape over the electric sockets because she thought the government was releasing poison gas into the room through them. About how she used to leave Dixie Cups of her own urine in the fridge with the intention of testing them to prove she was being poisoned.

I remember worrying about my own sanity. They say schizo-phrenia might be at least partially genetic, and it’s supposed to start to kick in anywhere between your late teens and your thir-ties. I became convinced it was going to happen to me. I started to become paranoid about becoming paranoid.

I remember my mom asking me if I wanted to see a psychia-trist because I seemed so depressed lately. This put me in a bit of a pickle. I couldn’t exactly tell her I was depressed because the job I was working drug tested and I hadn’t been able to smoke a joint in months.

I remember working at the mill. I painted things yellow. That’s all I did. A woman had died in a work accident and the gov-ernment was pissed at the company for having an unsafe work environment. So the big brains in the corner offices decided that the thing to do was to paint everything yellow. They handed me a bucket of paint, a 2 ½ inch brush, and said “Go forth”.

I remember stopping at a gas station on my way home from

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work on the Fourth of July. As usual, I was covered head to toe in grease, dirt, grime, and flecks of yellow paint, hoping my sister didn’t have any friends over to witness my naked dash from the garage to the shower, cursing my mom for not letting me in the house until I’d taken off my filthy clothes. The back window of the SUV next to me was down and three small children were staring at me openmouthed. I was probably the dirtiest man they had ever seen. The two girls looked disgusted, the little boy looked jealous.

I remember learning to walk across the top of the monkey-bars in elementary school. The teachers went absolutely mental whenever we did it, but we were young and convinced of our own immortality. Whenever they caught us and yelled at us to stop we made sure to dismount with a flying leap to the ground, just to piss them off.

I remember flying through the air in Bermuda, watching the moped fly over me in a most disconcerting manner. There was no pain yet, even though I assume my leg was already broken. It was quite peaceful, to be honest.

I remember very little of the ambulance ride to the hospital, but my mother swears one of the EMTs turned to her at one point and said “Don’t worry, be happy.”

I remember the first time I rode in an ambulance. We had gotten into a car wreck while with the babysitter, a woman whose face I cannot remember. They suspected I might have a concussion so they dragged me to the hospital. One of the EMTs gave me a small stuffed bear to keep me quiet. I think I still have that bear somewhere.

I remember going to the emergency room for the first time. I had shoved a bead up my nose with no real exit strategy. I’m told that while the doctor was shoving metal things up my nose in an attempt to retrieve the little bugger I suddenly said “Wow, it’s re-ally far up there, isn’t it guys?”

I remember my family doctor, who played guitar and had sev-eral CDs of himself playing music intended for children.

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I remember the time I took some ecstasy and danced with my eyes closed for three hours as a man shredded guitar on the stage in front of me.

I remember when I overdid it and passed out in the hallway of my friend’s dorm. I had not slept the previous night because I was busy tripping on mushrooms. As I was starting to come down I realized I had class in 15 minutes. I rushed to class and did my best to act like a normal, attentive student who wasn’t tripping his balls off. After class I completely intended to go home and catch some sleep, but then my friend called and asked if I would trip on mushrooms with her because she didn’t want to do it alone. Not being one to refuse a challenge, I accepted. Around the time the sun was going down I was coming down again, and I was exhaust-ed. I said goodbye to my friend, and started to walk home.

I woke up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, my friends face hovering above me, asking me if I was alright. “Just tired” I said, “Mind if I crash on the floor of your dorm room for a bit.

She agreed, so I dragged myself to her feet and walked over to her door…

And woke up in the hallway again. I had fallen asleep with my hand on her doorknob. She said I had started to turn it then just fallen backwards. I slept the rest of the night lying on her floor with a rolled up towel under my head.

I remember the first time I ever slept with a woman. It was a disaster.

I remember jumping naked through a bonfire at my friends Halloween party, convinced I was going to feel the hairs on my nethers singe and burn off. But when I landed on the other side the only things missing were my clothes. My friends had stolen them while I was performing feats of idiocy. Luckily I had a pair of emergency pants in my car for just such an emergency, which says something about me.

I remember setting fire to an old Christmas tree my neighbors had left behind their garage. When I realized I couldn’t put the fire out with the trashcan lid of water I had prepared I freaked out

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and ran home, leaving the tree to burn itself out.

I remember a girl who used to chase me during every recess of 4th grade. She always told me that she loved me and would kiss me if she caught me. Like any sane 4th grade boy I found this terrifying, so I ran my little butt off every day. One day I stopped running. I don’t remember why, maybe I was just tired. She didn’t kiss me. She just poked at me, trying to get me to run. She didn’t really love me, she just wanted someone to chase.

I remember my first kiss. The girl had been dropping hints that she liked me for a good month and a half, and I was oblivious to them all. Finally one night she just grabbed me by the ears and started making out with me on her front lawn. It wasn’t a disaster.

I remember the first time that girl broke up with me. I imme-diately called my friend and demanded he accompany me to the nearest strip club for a little emotional therapy. As we were watch-ing an exceptionally flexible girl move around the dance floor my phone started to buzz. It was the ex-girlfriend. She thought she had made a mistake. My first words to her when I answered the phone were “Hang on honey, I can’t hear you over the stripper music, let me go outside.”

I remember how happy I was when she took me back anyways.

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Table of Contents

pg 33 Terror. // Ryan Williamspg 32 The Grandpa Chair // David Wanczykpg 30 Multiverse; or Where Have All the Electrons Gone? // Ryan Williamspg 29 Stealing Wonderland // Laura Beanspg 28 Convenient Parking // Andrew Spear pg 22 The Carpet // Anna Edwardspg 20 Atavan Don’t Do Shit For Me // Aimee Gabbardpg 17 Going Home // Katie Riespg 16 Letter to No One // Rose Keyes pg 13 Special // Carol Priorpg 12 Ocean // Megan Krausepg 9 Grinning // Katrina Kadisevskispg 8 Grandparents // Laura Wolff pg 6 I Remember // Jeff Gault

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Cover art by Anna Edwards

THEEND

Volume 1 | Issue 1

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The End LIt - Volume 1