Heartless Holly

i lie here watching the steady phu-thump-thud of my stomach as an instrument within my being strikes the constant tempo of life. occasionally there is reason for accelerando or for a slow beat but for the most part it is phu-thump-thud. i'm known as happy holly, hilarious holly, heartfelt holly. no one would believe you if you told them the truth, that this happy hippy hilarious holly is actually a heartless holly. the machine keeping her numb existence running smoothly, phu-thump-thud, is just that, a cold metal object with no feelings and no regrets. is that good. why shouldn't it be? sure, there are times when heartless holly longs for a heart but she cannot wish for it from the bottom of her heart so soon her thoughts drift to other ideas. Yes, occasionally there is a catching in the technology of life and a virus allows emotion to ooze in, but an army of subconscious doctors immediately solve the problem and holly is restored to herself, unharmed. what would she be like if she had a heart? different. is that all you can think to answer with? just different? well, what else would she be, hmmmm?
it's not like i would know what i'd be like if i had a heart, if i knew what it was like to be bothered by something for more than a few moments. i do not know. how could i? it's not like i'm unhappy. i would have to have something to compare unhappiness with in order to know and i've always been told that i'm a happy person. why should i argue with them since they seem to know what they are saying and i surely know that i don't.
so, holly, you are just a shallow sub human who mindlessly becomes what people expect? is that what you are?

yes, i am.

well, i guess that makes sense and now everything is okay, right, no more turmoil within the mind searching for the heart. there is no heart so don't bother searching. i'm glad that's been resolved. so this steady phu-thump-thud will remind me, holly, you, that i am not much like others, unless they are like me. if they are i don't feel sorry for them because they don't feel sorry for themselves. to exist is nice enough and there are times when it is comforting to not be in upheaval because of the wild pangs of a shattered heart. yet...
i still. wish i was capable of emotion - to know that i really was and am and possibly will be, human; able to love. just like you, how i am seen, me and myself. happiness is not balanced with reality, and sadness is not true joy, but just a shallow replica of life. (Hannah P.)

O'Caoim Heritage

This is a sketch I made, based off of my family crest. I have a strong Irish heritage, and the crest represents the identity of the O'Keeffe name. For those who don't know, the Gaelic alphabet is quite different from the English version, lacking several letters as well as including accents and dots. This is why O'Caoim (the Gaelic version of my name) is displayed, rather than what most would recognize as my last name. I am proud and always will be of the Irish, but especially of the O'Keeffes of Cork, Ireland. -Meg

A Name on the Wall

It is like being shot down in WW2. A flak hits your plane and the debris from that shattered shrapnel of iniquity cuts through the plane and into the cockpit. Blood is splattered. There are no 12 enzymes to stop your blood flow. Why? There is no source. Your suit is covered in blood; there is blood on the altitude indicator, the clutch, the flap controls. There is a puddle on the ground. Everything is blood. It runs down your face as tears, and like tears, blots out your eyes. You can’t see. Suddenly, you are a child again running on shaky legs over the cracked sidewalks. The sidewalks appear as the desert, stretching into a vast nothingness of somethingness. Adventure lies beyond the view; imagination dictates a new world to play in. So you run run run in a frenzy of anticipation and glee. Yet, the world keeps disappearing beyond the horizon every time your hand reaches out. Soon enough your feet stray wildly off the track and search for new horizons. Screech, scream, and a near splatter. Frantic sputterings of words you don’t understand. A beast is next to you, breathing loudly in a warm aura, mustering mean mumblings. You were later told that you had nearly been hit by a car. The car stared you down and suddenly sounds much like……. The plane is now spinning. “Mayday” you plead and those comfortably listening at command merely mark another friendly lost. They quickly skim over the remaining bogeys and estimate the chance of victory. Expendable, but not dependable. Your voice cackles on the radio as your blood seeps over the transmitter. You scream and cry, but command can’t help you. You scream and cry, but your mother is dead. It is raining and the tears merge with the falling rain and drain into the filling drain. Emotions washed away beneath the red umbrella held over the casket. Beneath the wooden coffin lies a corpse, a shell. The one who screamed in love when you nearly died to the bumper of a car. The one who won’t scream to the death of shredded metal and a glorious blaze of…….. Wind howls into the cockpit spurring the blood, swishing it suave. Like a martini. The kind you get on an Alaskan cruise. You had never seen such blue eyes under blue lights of the northern lights. You tell her she is fit to be a Valkyrie, triumphantly riding the Pegasus across the sky. It is merely a joke, a bad one at best. You knew she knew it was coming. But, you both adored the mythology, the stars, the perfect moment. The warm embrace, the last touch……. The snow fell all around; the ashes fall all around. The ashes from the burning buildings, a street filled with soot, ashes and ashes scattered. Like those of your mother glittering, flickering as they slowly descended down the coast; it was where she first met your dad. He wore a blood red smile of gums bleeding around the teeth. Eyes filled with greed, thumping red, thumping red, pounding, pounding red. A sticky silk substance covers your face, a malevolent mixture of blood and sweat coating the flesh before it is scorched in the explosion. Soon to be….. Annihilated. The buildings are closer… the fires, the bombings….. A city you had to protect, a country you had to… to… die for? An etching on a black wall, merely a name, merely shapes put together to resemble your identity, your life, your love, your loss. Nothing, but a compilation of small scratched names, so some rich fat child can maybe appreciate sacrifice…….but….but…… Those names mean nothing to him. (Andrew Sippie)

Note from the editor

Who are we? This question has plagued humanity for as long as humanity has been capable of asking it. It is a question that we strive to answer individually through competition with peers, through mind-numbingly circuitous self-analysis, through joining collectives to adopt their identity, through achieving notable accomplishments, through many other, subtler ways. As a species, we develop philosophies to explain how our race should or does act, and we research other sciences which explain ourselves relative to our surroundings. Yet, for all the effort invested, we only end up with a flavor-of-the-decade philosophy or an ulcer or being dragged through a scandal with the rest of the "right" group, while the question remains unanswered. Perhaps this is because humanity is simply too complex to define; surely, after our most brilliant minds have failed for millennia, we can consider this. So often, we perceive definition as saying what something is and here, we have failed, for what is man? A skeleton, a dream, an oddity, a prayer—perhaps we should settle for accepting what something isn’t. To do this, of course, requires perceiving man in relationship to man, to nature, to universe, to God. It is when we see ourselves stand as the fallen pinnacle of creation, extend a hand to our fallen brother, walk beside our crippled sister, bow in humble service under the Divine, that we understand what it truly is to be human.
I would like to draw specific attention to the Musical Offering featured in a brief ad sponsored by Joshua Wilson. This promises to be one of the most exciting things to hit Concordia’s music scene this year, and I encourage all to check it out.

The world is dark, and the world is so cold.
It's filled with demons that are far too bold
To allow the young to grow to be old.

I lie in my bed and try to slumber-
To block the screams I hear in great number.
Whether it's real or inside of my head
Means nothing when I fear I'll soon be dead.

Perhaps it will be even worse than that.
This shadow could take me in no time flat.
My soul could be a prisoner of war,
Slave of the demons I've tried to ignore.

The darkness crowds in all around my bed.
Who will save me from this thing that I dread?
Please stop it before its hunger is fed!

(Nate Dorner)

蹴っ飛ばせ！

The image here is a collage with a special secret - i'm in thebackground looking at the viewer and the little images are cell phone camera pictures of my girlfriend and her friend eating pizza togetherafter she got her new haircut. (Eric Zimmerman)