watershed review march 2013

7/29/2019 Watershed Review March 2013

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march 2013

I Am the Bookcase

by Emma Faunce

“Mamma? Why is that boy over there bald?” the boy was saying.“Garry it’s rude to stare.” No no stare all you want, I thought peeking from

my window. This is the most human intercourse I get until nanny pulls me furtherinto the gloomy maze of doors that holds me within her bird-like clutches. I staredat the boy. I stared as if I were the sledge hammer and he the watermelon.Smashing his insides with my eyes but they kept moving along outside where Icould not go. I slid down to the grey floor with its grayness staring up blankly tome like a dead corpse’s eye. I stared at the wall with its wooden bookcase all the way up. Big cold and wooden. The whole house looked like a home that had been long

since forgotten. Like a small cat that nolonger received any love. A thing without

love? That’s what I am. I am the thing wherethere’s no love or hope. The thing withoutplace or reason. I am that old book youopened once with purpose and interest that

was set aside and forgotten, never openedbut once. I am this house, I am thebookcase. Forgotten not loved.

I stared at the bookcase, and I thought.The bookcase feels the same way I do, Iknow this because I see. The bookcase is full,full of knowledge of truth. This bookcaseholds thousands of letters of pages. Not oneof these volumes of lonesome purpose hasever been opened when I have been here andthere has been very little time that I was not

here. I am part of the house for I never leave. I am a bookcase. I lean back and closemy eyes. I must sleep because then I wake up in another grey room in the house. I

know it is not the same room for the bookcase is no longer there. In its place is a painting and there is no longer a window. The rest of the room is lavishly decoratedlike most of the house but it couldn’t be more of pure and total discomfort if ittried. The painting was of children playing, laughing; it is very dull and hideous. Ihate it. Artful perfected strokes form their way across the page, there are brightcolors so vivid and bright. It all looks like mud. Mud because it melds with the

I N T H I S I S S U E

I Am the Bookcase

by Emma Faunce

Photograph: Flower

by Laurel Brooks

Photograph: Sea Captain

by Peter Duda

Poem: i could use some luckby Karen Kitt

A Mention of In Dubious Battle

by Ben Moon-Black

Watershed Review page 1



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place it was put in this wood and brick cage of mine. Nanny enters, with a beam of contrasting light behind her.

“This,” says my warden gesturing to the contrasting light, “is Esmeralda.”“Hello.” She has a stark linen dress that flounces just below the knee and

perfect blue bows in her hair that falls in a wild mane of rings round her face. Themane is a color trapped between mud and sunlight and her eyes are a dull blue that

wavers lightly in the rooms depressing light. Nanny bows and leaves. I stare at the

girl with disinterestedly fogged eyes. She blinks like some sort of night bird back.Then she sharpens her gaze to a point. She shimmies her eyes from my faceto feet and back. Turning up her nose she breathes shortly out crossing herarms.

“If you’re not going to say anything I’m going to leave.” She swivelsround her heel to the door. “And that painting is dreadful.” The door

bangs shut behind her. I sink in my seat.It’s been more than a day maybeless before Esmeralda re enters. Her dress has been painted green but isotherwise unchanged and her ribbons have remained constant. Shemarches into the room and I react as if she hadn’t. She stomp stompstomps her way right up into my nose and bends over till all I can see ismuddy hair and dull blue eye. “Do you talk?” No. I am a bookcase.“Good. Papa says you’re dying.” I say nothing by way of confirmation.“Papa also says I have to be nice to you. He says we need to be friends.”She stops and looks from my face to feet again. “Do you want to be friends

with me?” I turn my head to one side then the other. She disappears anddoes not return.

I stay in my prison lying in desperate wait of the one event that canfree me from these hallowed halls of grey. I do not see Esmeralda again. Ithink about her sometimes but not often. I do not care. One day I amolder and still I have not been allowed out from the grayness. Esmeralda comes back to see me. She sits on the edge of the chair facing mine andtells me of life beyond the grayness, she tells me she understands me now and it’s okay. She forms words so I don’t have to. I feel blessed. This is theonly time in which I was able to let the grayness be grayness. I was not partof the grayness I was me I was free. I played as a child should and forever

each day it was only us. Never anyone else. She would laugh and I would be tightlipped and happy. I was so drawn and so awed by the sheer whiteness of it all Iforgot the pain because it didn’t matter anymore. Oh how wrong I was how very very wrong.

Esmeralda could not stay forever every day she did not have nothing to do.she would have to not come back at time. But she came back always again and we




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n c e would have our forever again. Soon though the playing became hard, and

she had to leave and not come back for a bit. It was not supposed to be long.She said it would not be long. She lied. It was during this time that the eventevery man waits for began for me. She was not there when it began nor there

when it ended or anywhere in between. It was on my last day that I spokemy first word. It was not easy, but I wanted to. I needed to. “Eh-zi.”

-------------------------------

A girl sat on a stool her long curly auburn hair fell down past her shoulders,her brilliant blue eyes filled with tears as she read the letter informing her of her friend’s death. She held it to her heart and wept.

“Papa how awful!” she cried.“You knew he was dying dear, no one could have done anything.”“All these people!” she cried. “All these people see the world blandly

but I saw, he made me see it right! I could name a thousand people thatshould fill his place in the grave!”

“Esmeralda! Esmeralda my dear! Don’t say such things!”“No. No, it’s true and please” She swallowed and looked her father inthe eye “call me Ezie.”

She looked down at the letter and smiled through her tears. Don’t worry dear friend she thought we had forever and someday in the distance we’ll have it again.

Flower by Laurel Brooks




march 2013

i could use some luckby Karen Kitt

lemon sweet magnolia sticky melting in the trees. wild abandon in a dark forest, sunlight slots on a soft, mossy floor.kisses without care. wet raindrops on soft skin, cooling hot blood.now frozen, snow will fall on a full moon (isn’t that lucky? i thought i read

that in an old story with a happy ending).i could use some luck. gold thread for my stitches, cuts left over fromthe bite of fall.

Sea Captain by Peter Duda




march 2013

[2] A Mention of In Dubious Battle

by Ben Moon-Black

Hey. What.

You scared.No. Are you.

A little.Don’t be. It’s never as bad as you think.But what if—The worst that can happen is if they break your arm kid. That’s not so bad.It’ll hurt though.

And.Doesn’t it bother you.

No. It used to. But no.Oh.Silent. Listening to the crickets outside the barn.

When are they supposed to get here. Anytime. What time is it. About seven I think. Anytime. What’s the point of this. We’re protesting.I know that. Why here.No reason. It’s just always been here. Long as I can remember.How long have you been doing this.

Well. I’m turning fifty-one in June. So that’s what twenty odd years. Wow.He hears a noise and starts but it’s just the barn rumbling. The older one

doesn’t seem to notice. He may be deaf. He keeps a pipe and a picture of someonein his pocket in his coat. He’ll cry when he’s dead. He secretly finds his other’s

slicked back hair deplorably ugly. He thinks look better without the greasy locks.But he keeps it to himself. He also thinks he’s a flim-flam little boy only herebecause he’s dumb and quiet. There’s no picture in his pocket. There are only a few matches and an autographed playbook from his favorite prestidigitator named

Wolram the Hasty.




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Fifty-one years. Yea. Born in 1887.Hard to believe to be honest.Huh.

Just since I’m only twenty-two since February. You’re more thandouble my age older than me is all.

Huh.

He looks out the window.Strange that they haven’t gotten here.

What.Nothing. What time is it.

About—No. Light a match.He pulls one out from his depthless pockets and opens his

grandfather’s watch. It’s golden but bronze and stinks your hand if youfeel it too long. It is very large so that it can hold a second hand minute

hand hour hand day hand and month hand. It’s a very nice watch.Hey.

What. What day was it to be on.Fifteenth of March. Why.

Who told you.One of us in the police force.

Are you sure that— A bright glowing object like a massive

golden spider breaks a window upstairs andfalls through the gaping hole in the ceiling onto the floor below. They look at oneanother. They shake hands.

Benjamin Moon-Black

general editor

& fiction editor

Isabel Crane

Jerin Brooks

non-fiction editors

Karen Kitt

poetry editor

Peter Duda photography editor

Brian Boyd

faculty advisor


watershed review march 2013

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