Columbia College presents

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the Criterion 2013

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art editor Jesse Cody literary editor Giesela Lubecke assistant art editors Heather Endicott, Kaity Hallman, Marion McCormick assistant literary editors Hannah Billie, Virginia Pfaehler, Jessica Ramsey, Laura Sessions, Carol Weaver art advisor Mary Gilkerson literature advisor Shane Slattery-Quintanilla layout consultant Kaity Hallman cover art: Marion McCormick Self Conscious

The Criterion is a selection of art and literature created by Columbia College students. The staff of the Criterion encourages all students to submit an unlimited number of works to be judged by a student selection committee. The staff members reserve the right to edit work for grammar, spelling, and clarity. The students submissions are judged without any prejudice toward the artists. The final decision on the status of the submission rests with the editors.

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The Criterion holds the record for being the oldest continuously published literary magazine in the nation for a womens college. It was first established in 1897. It used to be published quarterly and contained only literature; however, for the past 25 years, the magazine has been published annually and has contained both art and literature. Columbia College is a private, liberal arts womens college that strives to instill courage, commitment, confidence, and competence in its students to build a better world. The magazine has been through many transitions and changes, but it has survived and thrived to become an award-winning publication.

The

6 Pablo the Polar Bear Laura Sessions 9 Pre-Mortem Jasmine Stanley 11 the Men Who Raise Us Before They Go Hannah Billie 12 How the Wood Becomes (After Hokusai's "Old Tiger in the Snow") Virginia Pfaehler 15 Salmon Run Stephanie Sarkany 18 I've Got the Blues. Isabella Jones 21 Tree-House Jessica Wagoner 22 Untitled (Armenian Poem) Lilit Makaryan 25 Stillness of the Core Hannah Billie 26 The Deadline Krystle Remigio 28 Hole Giesela Lubecke 30 My Stoddard Temple Isabella Jones 32 A Narrative About My Experience With Poetry Jessica Wagoner 35 Spring Hope: Fruit Virginia Pfaehler 36, 38, 40 Atlanta Deanna Rich 42-43 Tomatoes Stephanie Sarkany 44-45, 48, 50-51, 53, 54-57 The Quarry Maureen Connell 58, 61 Cousteau and Me: A Bond Through the Ages Ana Yanes

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7 Reabsorbtion Faith Mathis 8 Untitled Clare Williamson 10 Adolescence Heather Endicott 13 Before the Wedding Annelise Childers 14 Afflicted Ashley Puckett 16-17 Birth of Rage Kimberly Spade 19 Losing Structure Part 2 Kaity Hallman 20 Turn Jesse Cody 23 Falling Wire Shelby Foster 24 Sweet Indulgence Courtney Cole 27 Rouen Cathedral Kathleen Rush 29 Valor Amanda Belue 31 Koi Dance Marion McCormick 33 Reflection Jesse Cody 34 Salubrious Kaity Hallman 37 Self Conscious Marion McCormick 39 Girl Wrapped Up Anne Meyers 41 Black and White Elise Grider 46-47 Auh Sleeking Kinship Demetria White 49 Tulip Amanda Belue 52 Wisdom Heather Endicott 57 Shes Beside Me Courtney Cole 59 Angler Fish Krystin White 60 Current Events Amanda Belue

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pablo the polar bear

laura sessions
Pablo wasnt like the other polar bears; he didnt enjoy mauling Eskimos or devouring seals ruthlessly. Pablo wanted to be an interior designer. He dreamed of Venetian blinds and chaise lounges with seasonally appropriate accents, both tasteful and reasonably priced for the modern polar bear. Unfortunately for Pablo, polar bears cant go to design school. They also live in large caves where the only accents are the remains of frostbitten hikers and the occasional dog sled teamfor the well-todo polar bear. Pablo was sad. All he wanted to do was design furniture, but polar bears dont use furniture. Then Pablo got an idea. Humans use furniture; he could design for them! So he packed up his easel and catalogue of window treatments and set off for the nearest human settlement. He traveled to the nearest village, but they wouldnt listen. They all thought he was there to maul their flesh and devour their young without mercy. Pablo was sad. He decided to leave and try again. The next village was better, at first. People werent chasing him off with guns or hiding their children in attics (Polar bears are notoriously afraid of heights). Then Pablo noticed something: no one would talk to him at all. In fact, he was seeing fewer and fewer people the more he roamed around. One day, he happened across a group of strange people in binoculars staring at him. He listened close and heard phrases such as species protection and environmental enclosure. They were turning the town into a nature preserve. Pablo didnt want to live there anymore. He wanted to design! Who was he supposed to design for if no one else lived in the entire town? Pablo packed his things and moved on to the next village. The next town actually had someone who could speak Bear. Granted, it was with a ridiculous Panda accent, but Pablo was not about to complain. Not when he was this close. Pablo was ecstatic. He was finally designing and got his first job. They called his ideas dated, his accents tacky, and his prices exorbitant. Pablo wanted to cry, he was so upset. Pablo packed one last time and decided to try once more. He brought along a Bearto-English phrasebook he had purchased with an advance. He reached the last town, and it was wonderful. No one tried to run him off or turn the town into a protected environmental enclosure, and they all thought his designs were fabulous while offering constructive criticism. Pablo was happy.

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Reabsorbtion

Faith Mathis

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Untitled

Clare Williamson

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Pre-Mortem

Jasmine Stanley
The devil has me hanging from a tree Being beat up; I dont know how to Stop it. Ive tried thrashing and wriggling and screaming But all that did was make me hoarse. And Im exhausted, So I just let him do it. He beat me black and blue and Ive accepted the insults. His words penetrated my mind and they became my thoughts. My strengths became my weaknesses, And my weaknesses became stronger. What happened to the brighter side? Now everything is dark and shady. I pretend to be hard, but then I jump. And scream. At every movement. My hand milling around in the dark comes across a wall. A wall of hope A wall of dreams A wall of antebellum A wall of stone. Over the wall I can see what was once mine: The joy in every problem, The benefit of every consequence, A reward in each repercussion, I try for hours every day to find a door in that wall, An easy way to release that wonderful bliss Into the dark and lonely place that I inhabit. But every day the wall continues downward It becomes covered in weed and imps that taunt me: You cant beat it. Youll never make it. I tear at the wall, shouting curses to the darkness, But my hand comes away a deep crimson red, covered in dirt and blood. I give up. Theres no way out. I lay on my back with my legs spread and let the devil do as he wishes. Nothing left to do but pray that God will give me courage. Then, the wall rumbles; the wall shakes; The devil quakes and he trembles. Emerging there is a light, but a different kind of light. Its not what I expected, but it has to be better than this hell I enter.

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Adolescence

Heather Endicott

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The Men Who Raise Us Before They Go

Hannah Billie

Dads die. I realize this sometimes, at moments like when suddenly and without warning, the girl in my class, the girl who lives in the same dorm as me, in the hall above my hall, has it happen to her. I realize this and tell my friend of how I would say I love you to my dad, the truck driver, before he would leave, in case he never came back. I realize this when my friend stares off somewhere so far I know no one should have to go there, and tells me that her dad is Coming to the end of his life span, as if she can see how far it will be to the end, and that its going to happen, and that she will be tired, and scarred, and alone, because when your dad dies, its not anybody elses dad. But the way she says it, the way she says thats the way life is scares me, and I say Im sad to hear that, as if the world is falling apart. But she is prepared. And no one else in the Student Union seems to realize that their dads are all slowly dying, or dead, or that they will wake up and go to class, or work, and lead a dadless life one day, and they will think: I cant call him after work today. And I wonder if they will cry or say that he came to the end. And we all have to keep going until we reach our own ends.

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How the Wood Becomes (After Hokusais OLd Tiger in the Snow)

Virginia Pfaehler
How the black ink on Hokusai's hands lends its motor to the striated outline of a white tiger full of gray rabbits themselves winter shoot-stuffed. He sees the blood move and presses it to the block, black grain to his palm. The tiger's claw shivers snow from the same branches Hokusai climbed as a boy who dreamed of tigers lapping from the river's black pulse, like the shadow that seeps around his fingers as he puts his weight, now more than a tree can hold on the close image: aging king hidden under winter's white shed pelt. When the Empress wants sutras, She goes to washed hills to find Hokusai the man with fingers stained black like those of a muddy boy digging under snow to find the negi's first shoots before the rabbits gorge themselves to ripe gray spheres. She asks how the wood becomes song, tiger, or man and Hokusai grins. It's the same snow for each one and only how much the black ink soaks in that matters.

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Before the Wedding

Annelise Childers

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Afflicted

Ashley Puckett

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Salmon Run

Stephanie Sarkany
Placidity was once my forte, coolness my refuge. Little disturbed me deep in the water and nothing existed beyond. All was shades of blue. Uncomprehending of vulnerability, I would lie with head down: the excitation of my atoms becalmed, unbonded. But now the time has come and I journey with salmon, like salmonfrenzied and panicked, fighting against the stream, waiting for affirmation of survival, life, and self. Life offers so few moments of certainty, fickle things all, and how am I to know what long-clawed predators lie in wait or what feelings are born inside your being, and why ? But I am ready for everything: for spring to come and birds return, for bees to eddy lazily around lush flower heads; I spend my days waiting, poised in readiness for you.

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Birth of Rage

Kimberly Spade

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Ive Got the Blues.

Isabella Jones
I want to write the blues. synthesize the pit in my stomach, the ache of untold loneliness. let the subtle plucking of strings that resonates through my very being come to the forefront. strings that dance, pull, tickle, demand, urge scream. they scream to be heard, to be a part of more than a solitary staccato. does it sound wanting, to you? I want to write the highs of life. the heightening thrill of enlightenment, the muted, comforted reverberations of connection. sounding through my whole body. the warmth is heard from cerebrum to the clenching of my toes. the jangles accompanying you. your sound crashes onto me. it becomes a part of my symphony, and I am growth. I am the knowledge that runs through my veins, coursing to every nerve ending that I own, lighting me on fire from within. I am the refusal of resentment, rather, the welcoming of hope. your sound only adds to me. I think Ive known your song my whole life.

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Losing Structure Part 2

Kaity Hallman
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Turn

Jesse Cody

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Tree-House

Jessica Wagoner
That smellthe first remembrance of time before numbers or years organic air in a coffee house, a bouquet of minerals, scattered and fallen leaves dying, rottingsuddenly new life Under the convergence of evergreens branches green and scaly like lizards feet, trunks peeling fine as animal hair inside, an oval of evergreens eternally vaulted ceilings to the pale blue stinging sky a sprawling green thorn busha wild, wicked, wonderful chandelier it needed workweeds up to here and fallen trees like bone and faith We would practice our secret escape, silent as a dream crawling between colonnades of dead trees away from the werewolves Somewhere a bird squalls; something moves inside a bush/branch leaves/branches intertwine and release; the unseen is with us we launch like Roman Candles when I knew you like breathing We went backthe earth smelled the same we cant go in, you said the thorn bush had lashed out its tentacles grown solid from tree to tree, menacing tangles and thorns do you remember when it happened And a pain lands in my stomach as I realize the thorn bush will devour all this land like it will wrap around us, disassociate our parts, consume us But the biggest truth is now that I miss you and I miss that smell

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Lilit Makaryan
The waters of time may flow, Opening doors of the improbable, Let the audience behold The passions of the impossible, In a story, the good always meets the evil To battle in the name of truth, And by reaching the peak, Rolls the evil from his height. All seems saintly and ideal; All achieve their dreams. Yet, the eye surely does not behold The real role of evil. The evil is the master of all. He lets the good win, But the last word Is always after him. So, as in a fairytale, Three apples fall from the sky: One for the speaker; One for the listener; And the third for the fool Who has faith in the Good.

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Falling Wire

Shelby Foster
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Sweet Indulgence

Courtney Cole

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Stillness of the Core

Hannah Billie
Autumn winds blow on trees, not only trees, but people too. The trees stand still, hold their ground and take the skinning of their leaves, the exposure of their ugly brown. But inside them there must be a core the wind cannot unbalance, cannot shake up, cannot leave raw and cold. Humans have this problem, we can move all we want in the wind and maybe never lose our footing, maybe never have our balance shaken, but we can still shake. We can still be cold, exposed, and groundless in still air, while raw trees make their roots our core of unsteady nerves.

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The Deadline

Krystle Remigio
Surrender Automatic Solitude Electric Deadline Gestation I surrendered while I was in my gestation period. Blah blah blah. My mom, well, my parents must have known that they had to meet the deadline, but did I know this? Was I aware of this deadline? Did I choose to be pushed out? Blah blah blah. It was that gestation period when I felt solitude. Just me. I didnt have to talk or walk, all I had to do was eat whatever my mom was feeding herself. Blah blah blah. That is when I probably knew automatically that I would never feel that solitude again. Its electrifying for me to admit to that lack of space. Blah blah blah. This is crazy. Blah blah blah. I surrendered when I came out to my parents. That lack of space actually occurred most of my life. Blah blah blah. I was in fine solitude, trapped in confinement because I thought I was living in sin. Maybe I still am, but I have found complete serenity while I felt solitude. My deadline was when I was ready but there was no way I could figure out when I was going to be ready. I waited for the electrifying feeling so I could just vomit everything that I have been keeping inside of me for a mere two minutes. Her face automatically spoke to me when her eyes enlarged. It was that moment that I wish I could have gone back to that period of gestation where I felt solitude. I didnt have to talk or walk, all I had to do was eat whatever my mom was feeding herself. She surrendered when she let me go. She surrendered when she told me that she finally figured out the reason why God gave her another child. She turned to me and said, He was sent to me to replace you. Even when she did that, I was able to recover. After a year, when I explained to her my hopes and dreams after graduation via email, she stalled and made me wait only to tell me that she disagreed. Then she continued on by saying, And dont worry about graduation because we are not even going to come. That was when I felt electricity in my veins from my feet all the way to my heart. The deadline.

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Rouen Cathedral

Kathleen Rush

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Hole

Giesela Lubecke
Its November and I dig a hole while my mother plucks at shreds of turkey meat with wooden sticks, speaking secrets I dont know, using words I cannot understand. I begged her once to teach these secrets; she said I was too old, it was too late, Id never learn. I choose the corner of a hill, digging, playing, working, sweating a sweat kids outside with dripping noses know, all wind-worn cheeks and fingers bent in a cold, stiff grasp. The ground is warm, pooling Carolina blood, no hardened veins, no frosted hair. December has not come to infiltrate the clay just yet, so out I shovel clods: One, two, three, four, five feet deep, my body my measuring stick. Its March when she finds my work and when she tends the lawn, pulling weeds, plucking refuse on the grass left from winter, not knowing where I lie, dumps over me the contents of her bucket: dandelions, poison ivy, sourgrass, the brown-white ends of cigarettes.

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Valor

Amanda Belue

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My Stoddard Temple

Isabella Jones
I have been having trouble breathing. A brick set up home in my throat and invited all his friends to build with him a skyscraper, base sitting on my chest, roof writing the same hieroglyphs on my tongue. Different translations of the same words come out. I wonder what everyone else has growing inside of them.

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KOI DANCE

MARION MCCORMICK

A Narrative About My Experience With Poetry

Jessica Wagoner
The bell squalls and cackles as I slide into the cold, hard desk with my book twice as wide and 75 pounds more than me. In my journal time, I complete my daily angsty teen complaint list on environmentally responsible pages. Then the sunken-inskin skeleton emerges from behind his computer and stands over all ten of us, holding tight to his wooden podium/ government issued altar. Page 1452, he says, read the poem and answer the questions. He pronounces a catalogue of questions on us faster than we can write them. You have ten minutes, he says. I read the three page poem seven times over before I focus on the entirety of the piece. Thoughts swim upstream in my mind, pop out like fish: this book could cause a lot of bodily harmI cant decide if EJ is cute or notI dont think I can breathe in this town anymore How much of a failure would my parents think I was if I turned out like Mary WollstonecraftFeminists are so cool... He begins to stalk around the classroom as I scratch across the paper answers that I hope arent too disastrously misconstrued. Wrong, he says. Oh, God. Wrong. Oh, God. Wrong. Oh, God. Wrong. Oh, God. Interesting, but wrong. Oh, God. Wrong. Oh, God. Chuckle. Wrong. Damn. Wrong. Oh, God. Wrong. Oh--

He stands over my shoulder, protruding eyes flick like lightning across my paper. I suddenly become too self-conscious to breathe. Wrong. He swivels behind his podium and enlightens us, lowly AP students, about the meaning of the poem, peeling it apart like a fruit, chunks of meat under his nails, stuck to his desk with juice like glue.

Reflection

JessE Cody
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Salubrious

Kaity Hallman
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Spring Hope: fruit

Virginia Pfaehler
15 miles after the AC quits, we pull into the cemetery. The car ticks, cicadas drone, elsewise silence. No shadows but those under our eyes and where our hands slap sluggish mosquitoes into the unyielding grass, Spartan between headstones. All the flowers agree with the wind. We interrupt the stillness flapping our wet shirts against our backs making the dust jump when we spit. Dates skate past, years, dedications, lives reduced to dirt and faith. By the back chain fence, we discover a tangle of watermelons bowing through holes strained to terrier-size, pushing their fruit despite the iron.

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Self Conscious

Marion McCormick
Atlanta

Deanna Rich
What do you do with a life that isnt yours anymore? With a life you cant go back to? You cant pack it in the closet with other mementos to never see light again. You cant burn it in the fire with old papers, love letters, and photographs. You cant take that life and give it to someone else, though try as you might and wish upon a star that you could. So what do you do with it? My life with Blake is not something I can go back to. Not something I want to go back to. So how do I just pack it up, nice and neat, with clean breaks and no frays? I dont know if thats possible. At seventeen and nineteen, what we had started innocently enough. As most high school relationships tend to go, within a few months I thought Blake was the endall, be-all for a partner. That summer was another tough one. We worked at the same store, usually the same shift, and had only one car. Sometime that summer we stopped talking about real things. Our talks evolved from outlooks on life, politics, and what we wanted from life to one berating the other for that days job performance to silence. I shouldve known we wouldnt work long from our differences in outlooks. Our conversations became no more than logistic coordination, and we knew a long time before we ended that this was never going to work. Neither one wanted to admit it. I think that people on welfare are just lazy and shouldnt get any benefits, he declared one day in the car. We were always in his car, headed to his house, to sit around and watch YouTube videos. My family receives government assistance. Thats really hurtful. My opinion stands. We didnt speak for days, until he decided that all people that live in trailer parks are nasty trash. But Blake, I live in a trailer park. I know. We continued the drive in silence. There were many of those silent drives, the radios noise growing louder as we grew further apart. There were drives to and from Atlanta during which the only words spoken were I have to pee. We visited his friend Josh every other summer, usually in Atlanta. This year was our year to drive to him. The longer I stayed at Joshs, the more I wanted to throw myself from their second-floor reading nook onto their perfectly manicured lawn. I felt trapped. I knew I could never be the woman Blake expected me to be. I didnt want to be. And, then, I knew that there would never be any discussion of what kind of woman I was expected to be. Blake assumed (and I never really did correct him) that the life he wanted was the life I wanted. I dont know if the thought ever occurred to him that I didnt always like

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what he liked, but Id like to think that it did. Josh and Blake got drunk on the back porch. I was half-heartedly invited to join the boys club after Josh noticed how bored I looked. Come on out to the back porch if you want. And you can have some rum, too. Josh asked if I had any hot friends because I went to a girls school. No, all her friends are fuckin ugly, Blake answered, and then he laughed. Well, theres that one Emi bitch. As long as she doesnt speak, Id fuck her. I inhaled quickly, turned so the boys couldnt see me, and let a few tears escape before regaining my composure. How come I never got to meet any of your hot friends? I think you only introduced me to the fat, ugly ones so I wouldnt go anywhere. Blake slurred and swayed on Joshs bed. Not long after logging out of my F acebook page, Blake went to bed. Josh asked me to join him for a drink on the porch, so I did. Blake has been my bro since we were six, and I dont know why he talks to you that way, Josh started. Hes just drunk. Hes talking out his ass right now. I was not sure who I was lying to.

Alright, but just so you know, Id never treat someone as funny, beautiful, and smart as you like this, Josh half-whispered, attempting to hit on me. At that moment, Id never felt so alone.

The rest of the Atlanta vacation was a disaster. Blake said 20 words a day to me, maximum, and then made me pay for food and gas on the way home. Id paid for food and gas on the way there. We got home, and I packed my things and headed back to Columbia for school. We half-heartedly exchanged I love yous and continued our sham of a relationship for another few weeks. "Blake, I think we need to see other people," I half-whispered one Monday night in September. "Okay," He responded, his voice full of confusion and hurt. That was it, a 14-second phone call to end a 3-year downward spiral. A few days later, Blake texted with me a very long message with an update on his parents never-ending list of health issues. His father had a pulmonary embolism and was very close to dying. I didnt respond, not out of malice, but out of confusion. Id never had to deal with something like that compounded on the death of a relationship. I was mourning the loss of the relationship. Everything I knew told me I couldnt handle being a support for Blake so close to the end of what we had.

Girl Wrapped Up

Anne Meyers
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A few weeks after that, his mother texted me asking how I was. I talked with her every few weeks, catching up on the family and talking about my studies, new boyfriend, and plans for the future. I still found myself turning to his mother instead of my own for that comfort only a mom can provide. I got in a car wreck and called his mother before calling my mother or the insurance company. Calling his mother in a crisis was the only way I knew how to function after years of strained conversations with my mother. I adopted his mother as my own mother figure. I still hadnt figured out how to reach out to my own mother after she abandoned me. I called his dad on his birthday, something Id done every year on September 28 for the past few years. I almost made him his favorite turtle brownies before I came to my senses in the baking aisle at Wal-Mart. I found myself calling his mom once, then twice, then three times a week. I would say I was calling to let his mom know I was doing well, but Id always end with How is Blake? His mom sent me a picture of him at his Fire Academy graduation with a detailed recap of the ceremony. She ended with

Daddy George said he was proud of Blake. Those were words Blake always wanted to hear from his dad and never had. She knew I would understand the importance. I think, for a long time, I was the one thing she and her son had in common anymore: I could get Blake to spend time with his family. I never noticed Id substituted his family for mine until Christmas. The Christmas after we broke up, I met my nephew for the first time. My nephew is four. After his mother sent me that message about his Fire Academy graduation, I felt physically sick and very angry. Why couldnt I just have my life back? I wholly rid my life of Blake. I didnt want him haunting me. I burned pictures, sold the promise ring he gave me, threw out letters, and gave away stuffed animals. I scrubbed my skin raw because he touched it. I didnt want him in my life anymore. I wanted my life back. I think I have it, now.

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Black and White

Elise Grider

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Tomatoes

Stephanie Sarkany
It takes a special breed of person to honestly garden. Liking plants isnt enough: you have to be willing to put in countless hours of planning and hard work to create both a beautiful and fruitful garden. If gardening was just a matter of planting seeds in any type of earth and watering it some, everyone would have tables and vases overflowing with the fruits of their non-labor. I like to imagine that gardening is something like becoming a parent, except that the process until that "birth is somewhat harder and I suppose few people have a Cronus complex, devouring their newborn children with something like gleeful determination. People could make (and have made) lengthy lists detailing all of the various chores one must do before they can even put seeds or partially grown plants into the ground, not to mention all that one must do once they have been planted. Like the TV fanatic who plans his or her life around when certain TV shows come on, so too must a gardener plan his or her life, and with an extended return rate on such planning. If you think you want to make a garden, buy a gardening book and read it. If you still want to do all of that work after you have read it, may God (and Allah, and Zeus, and all the rest) be with you. My family has never had a stable kitchen garden, but I can think of two summers when one of my sisters or I harassed my parents into making one. The second garden was mine, and, as I was a novice, it was not particularly fruitful. The strawberries had stubbornly failed to even so much as flower, and the squash put forth one sickly looking offering that failed to grow to ripeness. The only things that grew with a relentless persistence were the tomatoes which I had reluctantly planted. For most of my life, I have hated tomatoes with such an intensity that I shuddered whenever I thought about eating them or saw someone doing so. That did not stop me from planting them in our fruit and vegetable garden, though, along with a variety of other things I did not care for (I did not like squash at that time either). The sole reason that I had agreed to plant the tomatoes was that in our first garden, the tomatoes would not grow for my mother. We chose a few varieties of tomatoes so that they would ripen at different times, though I was relatively assured they never would. Tomatoes are incredibly easy to grow but I figured that if she, the Master Gardener (thats a real title), could not grow tomatoes, then I had no chance of growing them either.

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But, weeks after planting them, my vines began to grow tomatoes. And from that point, day after day and week after week, my tomato vines grew plump, red fruit that I had no idea how to get rid of. The window ledge in our kitchen soon ran out of room because of the disgusting fruit which would not stop growing. My sister would eat some of them because before her tomato allergy was discovered (can I use that as an excuse for myself?), she ate cherry tomatoes like they were grapes, but even she could not keep up with the sheer production of my tomato vines. One day, after being cajoled by my sister, I decided to try one of the cherry tomatoes. Whenever I try something new, I always tell myself that tastes are momentary, that I can easily eat something else to get rid of an offensive flavor. I figured that I had not really given tomatoes a fair chance, that I could be missing out on something great, so I steeled myself and popped one of the little red fruits into my mouth. Everyone in my family thought they were good so I know my gardening was not to fault, but there are no words to describe my acute horror at the taste of that tiny ball of pure juicy tomato. I quickly spat it into the sink and poured myself some strongly flavored cranberry juice.

Not terribly long after my plants started to give off regular produce, I left home for a few weeks for a summer camp. While I was gone, my mom had to take care of my plants. After a few days, my tomatoes began dying. When my camp was over and I finally got back home, they were all dead. Secretly, I was thrilled. Sure, I put up a big fuss about my mom killing what I had worked so hard to grow, but I had actually been dreading coming back to a big vine just bursting with tomatoes that needed to be pruned and picked. It wasnt until recently that we figured out why my mom cant grow tomatoes. Apparently theyre extremely susceptible to a virus called tobacco mosaic virus. As you may guess, it is passed by tobacco. As someone who has smoked about a pack a day since the tender age of 13, my mom will probably never be able to grow tomatoes without scrubbing her hands raw every time before she touches them. I may never be a Master Gardener, but at least I have one thing that I can grow better than she can. Its just too bad that its something so utterly disgusting.

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The Quarry

Maureen Connell
"Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a break in everything That is how the light gets in." -Leonard Cohen Summer hits like a freight train. Like clockwork it becomes a hot greenhouse dotted with numerous exclusive, tiny and overcrowded community pools in which the promise of relief lies. It is 2005, and I am 16 years old. And I am every bit as antisocial as I remain today. The idea of elbowing my way through the sweating hordes, fighting to stay afloat in the sea of overcrowded and overheated hormones is right on par with shoving bamboo under my fingernails. I subvert the public pools conspiracy to make me interact with others by sneaking into an abandoned limestone quarry three blocks from my house. I like everything about it, the walk through the woods, following my well-worn trail snaking towards the high and imposing chain link fence, I love the sense of power I feel when the padlock springs loose after 20 seconds of practiced lock-picking. The tiny pressure wrench hits home and there is a sudden release in its tension, and the gates open for me into a massive three acre swimming hole. The exclusivity and threat of being caught make it all the more appealing. After years of telling me to stop going, my parents caved and even bought a small dock, chained and floating beneath the soaring white limestone bluffs. At its deepest its probably forty feet, and after diving in I always feel a dark thrill, wondering whats on the bottom. My father says it was allowed to fill up with water in the Seventies, when the workers unionized, and that anything could be down there. I dont care. Its beautiful and deep and cool and its all mine. But today Im not here alone. I swim out to the dock, a plastic baggie between my teeth sealing in my cell phone (my mothers sole demand for allowing me to come down here alone). Im lying on my back, the wood of the dock rocking slightly beneath me, my eyes lazily tracing back and forth over the limestone bluffs, remembering momentarily the vertigo when I climbed to the top and jumped, remembering less fondly the sting of the water when I hit, the boredom of being grounded for a month because of it. The bluffs are starkly white in the afternoon sun, dotted with tiny fossils, veined through with rusty silt and hardened clay, natures artwork older than the walls of Troy and much more beautiful. Sound carries far in here, and the boy shuffling down the gravel driveway might as well be leading a parade. I shade my eyes and hope he doesnt see me. I feel a sense of jealous anger that someone has encroached on my place. I roll over and close my eyes, determined to ignore him. His splash makes me jump, and I look up again to see him swimming out to me, his strokes are practiced, smooth and efficient. He reaches the dock quickly and smiles apologetically at me, wiping water from his nose and eyes. I realized about halfway from the shore that youre probably out here to be alone, but I was too embarrassed to turn and go back. Im Hunter. I consider him for a moment. His tribal

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tattoos are ridiculous. My mom likes the color green; my sisters name is Olive. Better than Turquoise. Have a seat, Hunter. Ill share my dock with you. I wouldnt make you swim back. Your dock, huh? I just found this place. I do my runs on the trail back that way; I saw it through the fence. I find myself telling him about my quarry, and realize halfway through my cliff diving story that Im trying to impress him. It probably has something to do with how green his eyes look in the sunlight, how white his teeth are and how smart he is. He makes fun of my name in return, asking me which room in the nursing home I prefer. The one with the window. How old are you, Hunter? Too old for you. I scoff and he laughs at my reaction. Your eyes are going to roll right out of your head someday soon. Im sixteen. You look sixteen. You dont act sixteen. You dont seem sixteen. Thank you. Im assuming from your ink that youre eighteen. Whatever jarhead tattoo parlor you got those in probably wouldnt accept fake IDs. Wrong on both counts. Im not a jarhead. Im in the Army, and Ill be twenty pretty soon. I name the nearby base. Yes maam. Ive been here three months. This is my best conversation here yet.

Mine too. The four-year age difference bothers no one but my father. That is it for me. After our conversation on the dock, I was finished, no hope for return. Hunter is smart, cynical, outdoorsy, sarcastic, funny and loyal, and I love him beyond reason. He is strong and steady and seems in a constant state of ecstatic good luck to be with me. The fact that he is in the Army never bothers or seems different to me. It is just a job, and he is still in the training phase. I see his pale green ACUs no differently than my dads suit and tie or my moms scrubs. Three days after my 18th birthday he is sent to survival/evasion/resistance/escape school, and I am jarred from my delusions by his two black eyes and chipped teeth when he returns. People captured out in the desert look much worse, baby. Dont worry about me. He wont hear any more about it. A week after I graduate high school, he is transferred to Fort Jackson. I dont skip a beat, and I tell him Id always wanted to go to an SEC school anyway. Better football, better weather, no tornadoes. We both love the south, and even the barracks are nicer. He is deployed to Iraq within a week of our move; I havent even broken in my new University of South Carolina notebooks. I feel as though I dont even have time to worry, to cry, to wave the handkerchief out the window or whatever the hell I am supposed to do. I feel lonely, a loneliness not alleviated by seeing my friends in their own happy relationships. They chose the normal route. They befriended and dated people their own age, people in college, people with normal jobs and normal lives. My relationship is carried around by a

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Auh Sleeking Kinship

Demetria White

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TheCriterion2013! / 47

mailman with postmarks from Tikrit and Karbala and Al Kut. I feel the beginnings of a strange and unfounded anger toward him, an anger made worse by the guilt that follows on its heels. I swallow it down, and I am ecstatic when he comes home. He is in one piece, he is happy and healthy, and he had missed me every bit as much as I missed him. His infantry unit had run patrols only and hadnt seen any combat. He loves to tell stories about the kids in the small towns they patrolled, about the dogs and the crazy old lady who cursed at them in Kurdish for accidentally stepping in her struggling flower garden, blaming their clumsy American ways and their combat boots. He doesnt seem any different, and the year following his return is happy for us. He moves out of the barracks and I leave behind the freshman dorms for a house outside the Fort Jackson gates. Everything is new and shiny and almost too bright, but the dog loves the yard, Hunter loves the garage, and I love the wood floors and the fireplace and the working air conditioner. I catch him once on our move-in day, standing with his hand on the never-used stainless steel faucets, staring at them and thinking. His eyes are bright and his voice is hoarse. Its incredible to me. They give me a gun and march me around the desert for nine months; they buy me this house with everything so new and untouched. Everything back there is used, everything is used up and ruined and dirty. They have nothing over there. Nothing. People tried to sell me their houses for my MREs. Their leaders shit in gold toilets and wash their hands with gold faucets and they all have to watch their children starve. He is smudging and wiping the same tiny spot, making and unmaking one little

imperfection. Is that why you do it? Yes. Well then, keep marching around in hell with your gun. Ill be waiting here for you. I love you. I love you, too. Hunter is redeployed a month later, and his second trip to the lovely and exotic Iraqi countryside, as he puts it, is as uneventful as the first. There is something tired in his voice and his writing, something used up like the hellhole he is living in. I am even lonelier in the big new house than in the dorms, but schoolwork and waitressing and attempting a semblance of a social life keeps me busy. He is near a forward operating base, so I am able to Skype with him up to twice a week at times. A ninemonth tour turns into sixteen months, with his R and R spent in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I start forgetting the exact color of his eyes and the pitch of his voice, both distorted by the Skype screen and the thousands and thousands of miles. Every time I watch the news or a war movie I feel a familiar cold place in my stomach. It is a phantom that shrinks and swells indefinitely, and one that sometimes creeps up into my lungs, and it feels hard to breathe. I have a movie night with some friends. They choose Black Hawk Down, and the dead infantrymen on the screen are icicles in my chest. He finally comes home after Christmas of 2009, and we have Second Christmas. The tree is well past its expiration date and probably a viable fire hazard, but the love is real and it is stronger than it had ever

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Tulip

Amanda Belue
TheCriterion2013! / 49

been. He is still the boy swimming out to me on the dock, handsome and happy under the white cliffs. I still see that boy when I look at him, and we have truly never been happier. The machine of war is an enduring one, and it eventually touches everything. It seeps in under the door of our clean, pretty house, it dirties the air around us, and I can always tell when he is thinking about the hungry children in the rubble. On Valentines Day of 2010 he is given a 72-hour notice to prepare for another deployment, this time to Kandahar, Afghanistan. Please God no, says my internal dialogue, momentarily forgetting that I havent believed in God since childhood. He is resolute and brave, but we both know that this tour will be worse. He grips my hands until he has to let go to go through customs. It isnt until he returns that I see how changed he is. He isnt the boy on the dock anymore. He seems so old, and so tired. In Hunters version of the Allegory of the Cave, he had seen the face of war and now could not unsee it, could never look away. Hed had to face it while chasing killers through the Pamir Mountains. He had to become a killer himself, and he couldnt go back. His column takes fire from insurgents in a mountain village, and his regiment loses six soldiers. Three of their wives are my neighbors, and for some reason a bouquet of appropriately somber lilies, a card and a Bundt cake dont seem to be enough. I look at their faces and try to picture what I would do, how I would handle a folded flag. I simply dont know. I have no clue how to touch that kind of loss. When I finally get to Skype him three weeks later, he sits in silence and put his hand up to the screen. I hold mine to

his, thinking of how his speechlessness matches Renees, whose husband has just been shipped home in a box. I have to keep looking at him, keep reminding myself that he is warm and breathing and free and not in a box, not in pieces in a cave. I wish I could feel his hand through the computer screen, but there is only the manufactured warmth of the machine. He comes home two months later, only to be shipped out once more. PTSD had once seemed like a distant threat, a noise from another room, but now I can see its face when I look at him. After he is deployed again, I research post traumatic disorders, trying to decide how to deal with its inevitable presence. For six months I study, I work, I read, I wait. Every package I send or receive is picked through, censored, screened; the Army has its hooks in every facet of our relationship, even our love letters. He protects himself and his regiment like he promises me he will at the end of every letter and every chat. By the end of spring he is promoted to squad leader. One warm summer night I am shaken from sleep by the house phone. Its noise is alien to me because we never use it. No one ever calls it. Its ringing pitch has never sounded through the house. The only people with that number are errant telemarketers and the Fort Jackson administrative office. The people who bring folded flags and bad news. No no no no. The cold place in my stomach lurches and grows. I answer on the fifth ring, pinching my thigh with my free hand. Wake up wake up wake up. Its his case worker. I say my code word for security clearance. Shes talking very fast. Hes been injured in combat. Shot? No no, not shot, blown up. Blown up like the fireworks we just saw in Savannah. Hes

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alive in a military hospital in Paktia. To this day I cant remember the conversation, and Im not sure how I absorb enough of the information to call his mother and sister with the news. A stretch of open road in Jalalabad, a suicide bomber with an explosive made in his bathroom, Hunters the only one who lived, Humvees have a reinforced titanium plate beneath the drivers seat, everyone else is dead, he was thrown, hes collapsed a disc in his back. Made in his goddamn bathroom, the still point of my turning world couldve been killed like the other four from a bathroom bomb. Reynolds is dead, Garcia is dead, what was the gunnery sergeants name? Hes dead. Josh is dead too. Oh god oh god hell never get to meet his daughter. Made it in his piece of shit bathroom. I sit on the floor of my own bathroom, holding myself, realizing absently that Im still pinching my thigh. Its not at all like in the movies. When soldiers whove seen combat come home, theyre not allowed to run dramatically across an airstrip or a terminal into the arms of their loved ones. Theyre quarantined for thirty agonizing hours, theyre debriefed, and usually theyre driven home unceremoniously by a staff sergeant. Hunter is tired and cranky, hes had two back surgeries in four days, and hes been on a plane for eighteen hours. Im determined to keep it light, keep it easy. Ive made him a welcome home cake. He stares at it without seeing from his dark green Fort Gordon issued wheelchair. I hold onto him for a long time, we dont say anything. Im cold inside again, I glance sideways at the phone that brought the news. Its strange to see the messenger

of the news and the subject of the news in the same kitchen. Safe at home, hes safe at home. Hes here with me and not there anymore. Hes alive. My voice sounds strange to me, too happy and too loud. Can you walk? Yes. I dont see what the big deal is then, you look fine to me. He straightens a yellow M&M on his welcome home cake. Im an inch shorter. I didnt know collapsing a disc would affect my height that much. They didnt tell me that, they didnt tell me a lot of things. I know. Theyre all dead, Maureen. I know. Hes talking fast and low now, more to himself than to me, staring out the kitchen window. I saw it. I saw it and I dont remember. The column was taking fire, I swung around to shield them, my gunner took out a convoy. I saw his face, that son of a bitch; I saw him coming for me and I dont remember. Id recognize him anywhere; we hunted him for a month. He took a bazooka to that school bus in Herat. I just cant picture him now, I cant remember. They had to tell me in the hospital. Its the only thing they told me. Hunters case worker had coached me in how to deal with a combat shocked soldier. I could tell she was reading it word for word off Wikipedia. Hell be very anxious. He'll choose something stable, something familiar and latch onto it. It might be the dog, it might be the TV , it might be you. Be prepared. Also, be aware that his guilt is always in the room with you. The survivors

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Wisdom

Heather Endicott

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deal with more guilt and fear than you could know. The next few weeks are like paddling through an alligator pond. The water is too still, too quiet. He follows me everywhere; he goes to the fridge twice every hour to make sure that it is full of food, that it will always be full of food. He has to leave all the doors open. He has to sit with his back against the wall. He is trying so hard to be the boy on the dock again, and I can see it. He wants nothing but to stay in the house with me. He cant handle crowds. We go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart and make it only to the dairy aisle. His eyes are too bright and never still. The people pushing carts behind him make him jump. I keep my hand on his arm. He grips it, his hands red and his face white. Dont go where I cant see you. Please. I wont. Two weeks later the screaming starts. He sleeps surprisingly well and often, but there is always screaming later. I wake up to his thrashing. Once he bites his tongue and there is blood everywhere. He vomits and grinds his teeth. Sometimes he doesnt wake himself up, sometimes he does, but he is somewhere else. His eyes are wild and dilated, black like a sharks. I once have to drag him to the shower and turn on the cold water to snap him out of it. He cant talk about it later; no amount of gentle nudging will make him discuss it. He takes to patrolling the backyard in the middle of the night, sometimes with the dog, sometimes with his M-16. Without my knowledge or conscious notice, our house begins slowly filling up with guns. I find them hidden everywhere. In the closets, in the bathroom, the laundry room, the kitchen. Every nook and

cranny he can find is armed to the teeth. He is creating a fortress from the things he simultaneously cant remember or forget. When the extended clip to an AK47 falls out of the car door and onto my toe I draw the line. Baby, this has to stop. You dont need these guns and neither do I. We are safe here. We are always safe here. No one is coming into the house. I promise. We dont need a machine gun in the front hall closet. He consents and buys a gun safe. One by one he puts them in carefully; cradling them the way youd hold a baby animal. His eyes are unstill again, his face is white. Normal Hunter is still in there. I see him sometimes, and once in awhile I get to spend an entire day with Normal Hunter, but War Hunter always comes back. His back healed but his mind and psyche are sutured and torn open all the time. I stop struggling to understand and ascribe myself to one rule, that I would have his back, be in his corner, and protect him from himself no matter what his flashbacks do to him. It destroys me to see him suffer, to hear him scream, to hold him down and tell him that he is at home and he is safe and no one is going to shoot him or blow him up. We live in a world made safe for us by other people. Were not conditioned to the kind of fear that racks Hunter, and it scorches through him like wildfire. He is required to attend a twice weekly group and private therapy sessions on base. They call it the Warrior Transition Project. He hates it. I go with him a few times, and it is jarring to recognize his face on every other soldier. Blank, cold and restless, constantly watching the door, cracking the knuckles on their gun hands when forced to talk about their feelings.

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Hunter doesnt trust the therapists. They are civilians, they are outsiders. Theyd never felt the flesh of an enemy, never fought one on the ground, never had to gather body parts like firewood. It takes all of my willpower not to remind Hunter that I hadnt either. But I won't and cant lose my one advantage over this machine of war that had taken my boyfriend: I know him inside and out, and he trusts me. Hed latched onto me and he needs me to make him better. He might not trust these unblooded doctors and specialists, but he trusts me. My school and work schedule requires me to leave the house, a fact that Hunter cant bring himself to accept. Anytime I went where he cant see me, it is a struggle. The struggle gets easier when it is made official that he will be medically discharged from the Army. I tell him over and over that hell never have to go back, but he still asks me at least twice a day. He is summoned to Fort Benning to receive a bronze star. He never smiles, and it is the only time I see the medal. Some months later, Hunters sister arrives to stay with us for a week. Her husband is a combat medic receiving orders from Fort Jackson. They bring their four-yearold son Kevin with them. I go to work child-proofing the house, scouring it for open outlets, sharp edges, and inviting drain cleaner bottles. I enlist Hunters help, citing his habitual hiding of unsavory things around the house, a subject that had become taboo. Olive and Kevin have been here four days when I walk into Hunters and my room to see little Kevin on the floor under the bed, peering into a cigar box at a shiny black Beretta 9MM, his Hot Wheels long forgotten in a pile to the side. My heart slams into

my ribs and I swoop down on him, trying my hardest to keep my hands from shaking as I yank the box away. Kevin, listen to me and dont forget anything Im about to say. That is not yours; you shouldnt ever touch whats not yours. This is dangerous and for grown-ups only. You could seriously hurt yourself or someone else, do you hear me? My voice cracks and Im making an effort not to shake his little shoulders. I take the offending box out of sight, not liking the way his eyes keep drifting back to it guiltily. Is it your gun, Aunt Mo? That doesnt matter. Whose isnt it? Mine. Thats right. Its not yours. And what does that mean? That I should never ever touch it. Thats right. He considers me for a moment, clearly doing a cost-benefit analysis of his time-out probability. Its on Uncle Hunters side. Its Uncle Hunters gun isnt it? I consider Kevin in return, his innocence barely registering in my current fear and anger induced adrenaline rush. Yes. Its Uncle Hunters gun. And its very dangerous and not supposed to be where anyone can find it. Why does Uncle Hunter need a gun? Kevin pushes his Hot Wheels around absently on the carpet. Do you remember what Uncle Hunters job is?

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ask? Hes in the Army, like Daddy. Thats right. And sometimes soldiers in the Army need guns to protect themselves and their friends from bad guys. Oh. Okay. Is Uncle Hunter in trouble now ? Almost as much trouble as you. I round on Uncle Hunter as soon as he comes home. Do you have any idea what couldve happened? You shouldve seen the way he looked at that goddamn thing. He couldve blown his own head off. I told you a thousand million times not to have those out in the house. You dont need them. Hes four years old, Hunter. Im going to go out on a limb and say that I know better than you what couldve happened. We stare at each other across the gaping chasm of our experiences. I know hes War Hunter right now, thinking of the children and the rubble and the IEDs. Ive never felt so far from him before. It only lasts a second or two. He apologizes and assures me it wont happen again. He has a long, serious, boring talk with Kevin, which is probably worse punishment than a time out. Dinner that night is a quiet affair of only the three of us. Little Kevin is finally done pouting, and Hunter is somewhere far away. His nephew is staring at him curiously, looking back and forth from Hunter to me, to his Star Wars toys beside his plate. Uncle Hunter, are you a good guy or a bad guy ? Id like to think Im a good guy. Why do you Kevin shrugs. I reach across to his Star Wars figurines. I pick up Darth Vader and push him away. I point to Han Solo. Uncle Hunters definitely a good guy. And so are you. Eat your macaroni, please. Kevins quiet for a minute, then asks, Uncle Hunter, have you ever killed anybody ? The three of us are silent, staring at each other or at the table. Hunter makes an attempt at a casual chuckle, it sounds like choking. He keeps trying, and suddenly hes fake laughing, then hes really laughing. A manic quality seeps in, hes laughing too hard, gripping the table, and his eyes are too bright, the choking sound is louder, and then his face is in his hands. The noise is a strangled and dying roar. Kevin looks at me, confused and frightened; I take him to our room and put on his favorite Elmo DVD. My fingers are shaking when I press the play button. Ive never seen Hunter cry before. Never in almost six years. But hes crying now, bent over the table. He is the portrait of a defeated creature. I do nothing but hold him. It reminds me of the way I held myself on the bathroom floor the night they called to tell me hed survived the IED. Its not so much holding as containing. Im willing him to stay together, to not fly apart into a thousand pieces like he almost did that day in Jalalabad. I kiss the shrapnel scars on the back of Hunters head, I rock him and tell him its going to be okay. It seems to work. He quiets down and goes to the garage to tinker with the car for awhile. We never talk about it again. My academic life has weathered this bumpy road surprisingly well. Im approved for

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transfer from USC to Columbia College, giving me good leeway to bring up the subject of Hunters own academic future, the one without the Army in it. He endures my glaringly obvious hints at college. You have the GI bill, you could go to medical school ten times and theyd have to pay for it. Those of us slaving away under student loans are rather jealous of that situation. Yeah, lucky me. All of my suggestions for education are met with passivity and disinterest. I appeal to him about art school, internships, job fairs; none of it evokes a response. Then one day I find the reason why. Buried in our mail are several letters of correspondence and one contract with an overseas private security company, the one on top asking him what size body armor he would require. I carry the letters to him the way I would carry a dead rat. My vision is too clear and the blood is pounding in my ears. You cant do this. I wont let you. Nothings decided yet. Please calm down. Why would you do this? These people are death dealers. They prey on shell-shocked high school dropouts and dishonorably discharged screw-ups. You arent any of those things. Id be doing security, just somewhere further away than the local mall. Its not as terrible as it sounds. You enlisted in the army because you couldnt stand to sit by and do nothing in a world where the things you saw are allowed to happen. I hated to see you go, but I did it knowing that what you were doing was honorable. There is no honor in this. This six-figure promised salary

here? Thats the price theyre putting on your life. I throw the letters on the table in front of him. I know what Im doing, Maureen. But do you know what youre losing? A future, your dignity, and me. I wont stand behind you on this. He stares at me, looking to see if Im serious. I am. What do you want from me? To go get a degree in philosophy or animation or basket weaving? With all this in my head? With all this on my shoulders? Im broken. Ive seen dead children, Maureen. Ive seen people murder each other like animals. Ive seen their cops looting and burning. Im broken and so is the system. You survived. You got a second chance. And youre going to waste it to go guard sweatshops in Kuwait. You dont know the whole story. My vision is getting fuzzy around the edges. His newest tattoo glares ebony black at me from his forearm. Its a Viking soldier's angel. She has my face. He tattooed me onto his arm, but he won't stop slinging bullets for me. When you go to war, you have your entire family, your friends, your government, your leaders behind you, theyll help you and theyll support you, theyll fix you when youre broken, I say. There is no fixing in this. Youll be guarding the gold mines owned by Middle Eastern billionaires who sit back and watch while those children die. They dont give a shit about you; theyll pay you a hundred and fifty grand to go die so the starving, disgruntled locals wont disturb their oil drilling. You wont get a medal or a folded flag or another yellow

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goddamned ribbon on the front door. Please dont do this. I realize that Im begging, but Im high on my own righteousness. Im swallowing panic. I cant remember what the boy on the dock looked like anymore. I know this is wrong, I know it, and I somehow know that Im going to have to watch it happen. I wish now that he' d stopped and swam back halfway to the dock. I dont know anything else. I have to do this. I glance down at the figure on the contract.

$156,750.00. At least now I know exactly in dollars and cents how much Im worth to you. Its so rare that one gets a definitive number like that. He says nothing. He seems to be testing me. Im not bluffing. Please dont do this. I wont wait for another call. I wont do it, Hunter. I pack that night. He watches for my brake lights from the front window. I can see his silhouette in my rearview mirror.

Shes Beside Me

Courtney Cole
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Cousteau and Me: A Bond Through the Ages

Ana Yanes
The sweet cooling force of the rushing blue and bubbles below, the wafting mist and salt above. My first introduction to the sea and I remember it clearly. Or rather, I remember what people tell me and what I see in the fading pictures. A small toddler, only just two years old, in a pink-and-white striped bathing suit with a hole for my little tummy. My mama held my hand and let me sink under the clear blue waters of Aruba. My first vacationI was lucky enough to experience the ocean. Striped fish and rays swam around me under the waves; above me, the seagulls sang. If we swim out far enough, the dolphins materialize from the depths and play with my hair. My giggles do not scare them. Year after year, I return to the sea and remember a quote by Jacques Cousteau: F rom birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free. How right he was: any time one sinks beneath the surface of water, be it in a bathtub, ocean, or pool, there is a sense of tranquility and ease that cannot be found anywhere else. I owe my first taste and smell of Jacques Cousteau to a frustrated teacher who didnt know what to do with me and sent me to the library. After I confessed my love of dolphins and whales to the librarian, she pointed a delicate finger towards a small collection of books hidden in a far corner. They had obviously been read through, for the spines were almost broken and the corners bent. But they had not received love for many, many years. I opened the first in a series of 21 mini-encyclopedias. The musty, salty smell of the sea wafted out to me, the scent I thought I had left in Aruba and Venezuela. Could it be that the United States is capable of such scents? I voraciously worked my way through all the books, falling more and more in love with Cousteaus legacy and his way with words. His quotes, scribbled here and there, inspired me and to this day, I cannot help but link the smell of the ocean to books, love, and Cousteau. A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it, Cousteau said once. Poignant and interesting, it still applies today in the way people mistreat resources and animals they think are inferior. More people like Cousteau are needed. The ocean needs to be loved, admired, and studied. Never attacked. Maybe I think and feel like Cousteau because he said: People protect what they love. Cousteau inspired me to become a marine biologist because of his breakthrough advances in the field of marine biology. He was a F rench naval officer, an explorer and ecologist, film-maker and innovator, scientist, photographer, researcher, author, loving husband, and doting father. Cousteaus desire to understand the unseen world beneath the surface drove him to invent the Aqua-Lung, under-

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Angler Fish

Krystin White

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Current Events

Amanda Belue

60 / BackLash!

water film equipment, and underwater archaeology explorations. His many fields of experience inspire me to study what I love, and to love what I study, because he was obviously so passionate about the oceans that he spent his life among marine creatures more often than people. The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it. Cousteau, on a sailing trip to the Straits of Gibraltar, noticed porpoises following him for a few miles, so he intentionally deviated from his course by a few degrees. The porpoises stopped following him and went on their wayalong the most effective route. It seemed to him that they knew to follow the best route, even if the allmighty humans did not. Cousteau studied this phenomenon for a while, proving the existence of sonar in cetaceans. Such theories, along with his 50+ books and 120 films, changed the landscape of oceanography and marine biology. He made it a true science and an art (with the help of his films and photography skills.) Along with his scientific ideas, Cousteaus personal philosophies are inspiring. In one page of my favorite book in the sea-smelling series, he wrote: If we were logical, the

future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work. Cousteau had faith in mankind, but he had many reprimands for our treatment of the earth and each other. He was a political and environmental activist, obvious in his copious writings, and he often used his knowledge and influence to help protect the environment not only in F rance but the rest of the world. The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. This quote was in one of the forewords and I believe it to be eternally true. I am captivated by the sea, I have been since I was a little girl, and to this day I cannot help but miss the sea. I cannot help but want to be out there, with the marine mammals that baffle and entrance me, studying them, researching the solutions to the problems humans have created. I am no longer that two-year-old girl, but there is still no greater freedom than to sink into the pages of my favorite books that smell like the oceans or to swim beneath the blue waters that smell like my favorite books.

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Art

!
First Place

Auh Sleeking Kinship by Demetria White

Second Place

Tulip by Amanda Belue

Third Place

Black and White by Elise Grider

Honorable Mentions

Reabsorbtion by Faith Mathis

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Lit
First Place

The Deadline by Krystle Remigio

Second Place

My Stoddard Temple by Isabella Jones

Third Place

Salmon Run by Stephanie Sarkany

Honorable Mention

Tomatoes by Stephanie Sarkany

TheCriterion2013! / 63

Thanks
Randy Hanna

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Cassie Premo Steele

Art Selection Judge

Randy Hanna studied theatre and art at the University of South Carolina. He is a partner in City Art Gallery in Columbias downtown Vista Arts District. The gallery is one of the foremost contemporary art galleries in region, presenting exhibitions by such wellknown artists as Tarleton Blackwell, Robert Lyon, Mana Hewitt and Alex Powers. Hanna is active within the arts community. In addition to being a practicing artist himself, he has served on the boards of a number of local arts organizations including Trustus Theatre.

Literature selection Judge

Cassie Premo Steele holds a doctorate in Comparative Literature and Womens Studies from Emory University. She has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize in poetry, is the author of eight books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and is a creativity coach with two decades of experience teaching within community and university settings. Her two most recent books are a novel, Shamrock & Lotus (2010), and a collection of poems, This is how honey runs (2011).

64 / BackLash!

Note

The

The Criterion has had an exciting year full of change, advancement and success. We have strived to include in this issue a diverse variety of art and literature, consisting of the best work Columbia College students have to offer. We have also expanded our showcase of student work to feature new mediums, specifically film, dance, and music, which will be released on limited edition DVDs and featured on the Columbia College website. Beginning this year is a new, long-term project compiling a digital archive of past Criterion issues. Our archive currently consists of digital copies of the five most recent issues of the Criterion (2009-2013) available on our library's website, as well as the earliest intact issue of the Criterion from June 1897 (the first three issues of the Criterion were unfortunately lost in the 1964 fire). Although the archive is small right now, we hope the project will be continued in the coming years. We want all Columbia College students to have the opportunity to see their peers and predecessors' accomplishments, even when back-issues are out of print. The 1897 Criterion offers us great insight about student life at the college as it was then and still is today. The college president wages battles against students walking on the campus grass, " or where the grass ought to be," according to our former president, Dr. John Rice; during final exam week " nothing but sighs and groans are heard in every department," and students agonize over grades; classes decide which textbooks are the "hardest, dullest, and driest"--in 1897, the sophomore class awarded this dubious honor to their book of Roman Literature. The 1897 issue also features a student's scandalous account of a botany class field trip in the "Local Notes," a gossip section run by nosy editors Miss Mabel Montgomery and Miss Alma Duncan: "--well, I believe I won't tell that we were barefooted, for that would seem to our dignified Professor, too unrefined, you know, for young ladies, even though they were in the country with no one to see or criticise." The Criterion's theme this year was chosen because of our connection to the past. Our history is important and shapes who we are for better or worse, and even when that becomes buried, lost, or long-forgotten, it somehow always seems make a full-force comeback, clear as glass and sharp as a whip's lash. We hope you enjoy the 2013 Criterion. Sincerely, Giesela Lubecke and Jesse Cody Literary Editor and Art Editor

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Art and Literary Magazine