Revised: Cats

“It’s a shame,” says the woman who smells like too many cats, shaking her head at the kittens in the wire cage. “A real shame.”

She’s older, would be a housewife if she wasn’t working at the shelter every day. She would also probably have too many cats, too, because she’s just the kind of woman to find a kitten in the back yard and feed it until was too big to suit her tastes, no longer tiny and adorable, and it would just never leave, just like the twelve cats before it.

I sort of hum in agreement to her observation and dump the cat litter in the trash bin that never actually leaves the room, making the cat kennels perpetually smell like baking powder with an underlying hint of shit.  I lean back as the litter hits the bottom, but I can never avoid the belch of pure eau-de-cat that follows. It’s not enough of a deterrent to keep me from doing my job, but it’s enough that the shame of this particular litter of kittens is almost completely lost on me.

“A real shame,” she says again, looking at the kittens’ papers. “Abandoned on the side of the road, barely even weaned. Not even old enough to fix, yet. A real shame.”

I give a glance around at all of the other cats in the shelter, older but still good, still loving, and that is a shame. Some have been here for weeks, like Lily. She’s the definition of sweet, but she has traits people don’t want – black fur and a missing eye, surrounded by pink scars. She is only two years old and housetrained, but she was given up by owners thirteen days ago, and no one has wanted her, since.

I peek around Cat Lady’s shoulder to see the kittens she’s so emotional over. I’m not moved to tears, but I have to admit that there’s something pitiful about the little animals. They’re still exploring the metal boundaries of their hopefully temporary home with as much curiosity and wonder as they are capable of. One of them bats at a string hung from the top of the cage, and it’s cheap, but for them it’s like every hunting instinct they didn’t know they had has come bursting to fruition. The smallest, white kitten mewls with victory around a tiny cough.

All six kittens have upper respiratory infections, so they’re semi-confined in the back corner of kennel. For me, that’s the real shame – all the little black and white and tortoise shell kittens hidden away, coughing and mewling quietly for attention where no one would hear them.

Cat Lady shakes her head and starts making another circle around the room, and I replace the litter box I emptied into its kennel. I juggle the cat and the box for a moment as she takes the open grate as an invitation to leave, but they both end up in the cage in the end. I glance at the clipboard hanging from the corner of the gate, making sure she’s not still on any medications.

When she came to us, two weeks ago, Lily had been terrified, cowering, clearly overwhelmed by new smells and sounds. She’d padded around her new kennel with her ears low, sniffing here and there and ultimately curling up in the darkest corner she could find, face turned away from the iridescent lights.

“She’s a great cat,” the man of her old family had said. “She’s so gentle; she hasn’t a mean bone in her body. Best friends with the family dog, great with children. But she and our son don’t get along like we hoped.” Their eyes went to the scars around her empty eye socket, and then darted away. “I’m sure she’ll find a nice home,” he said. “She really is too sweet.”

Lily purrs and rubs her body against the bars in greeting, and I scratch along her back as she goes. I’ve volunteered at this shelter for two years, working for volunteer hours and scholarship credit, and of all the cats that have come and gone I’ve never seen one more friendly and trusting than her. Every day, people pass by her cage and read her bio, and every day she purrs and meows and dangles, docile, as arms unaccustomed to holding an animal cradle her close while the humans discuss if she’s worth her ruined eye. And every day, she’s put back in her crate and left behind, crying.

The door across the room opens, sending the out-of-season jingle bells that hang from the knob clanging as they slap against the wood. A man walks in, jeans and a sport-coat like he’s come straight from church, nose crinkling as he holds the door for his blonde, properly pressed wife and their pudgy, eight year old daughter. They all stay there a moment, lingering in the doorway and looking around the ten by twelve by ten room with metal cages lining the walls and living things meowing and yowling for their eyes until the little girl asks what they’re all thinking: “What’s that smell?”

Cat Lady shuffles over to help them choose a cat. I ignore the whole conversation as she begins asking the “important” questions: Do you have other pets? How much time do you spend at home? Do you want a boy or a girl cat?

These people don’t want a cat at all.

There’s always hair everywhere, so I gather up the broom and dust pan and start sweeping. Clumps of fur roll and drift in front of the broom’s strokes like cicada husks, and I look up to see the wife’s lip curl into a slight grimace. She glances at the floor at her feet and tries to make it look like she’s not nudging fur away from her little square of linoleum. Cat Lady doesn’t notice, and gestures to a playful black and white cat called Panda. The little girl starts to push her grubby fingers through the bars, and I lean on the broom to see what Panda will do. Whatever he’s thinking as he watches the wiggling little sausages, he doesn’t get a chance to act on it. The wife swiftly shakes her head and shuffles her daughter forward like a battering ram to get past the black fur and mess to what will hopefully be a cleaner spot.

There is no cleaner spot, but she’s welcome to shuffle her daughter the entire circumference of the room until she makes it back to the door and out Kitty City forever. The little girl keeps slowing her down and shoving her fingers into each cage, though, until one cat makes a swipe at her finger and her mother pulls her away from the crates with a gasp of outrage. They pause briefly at Lily’s cage, the woman not paying much attention as her daughter pokes at the cat’s paws without even looking at her face. Then they’re moving away again and Lily lies against the grate, welcoming more petting if it will come.

 The man follows behind his wife at a more sedate pace, pretending to look at each cat and give a cursory glance at each Kitty Cat Bio printed at the top of each sheet clipped to the kennels. He pauses at Lily, for a moment, looking closely at her papers.

“Honey,” he says, “how about this one? Short hair, house trained, great with kids. She sounds… oh.”

“What?” The woman is trying, unsuccessfully, to dislodge a clump of hair from the toe of her shoe without bending down.

“Never mind. She’s only got one eye.”

“Ew! I wanna see!”

The daughter tries to rush over, eager to gawk at the one-eyed freak cat, but her father catches her by the hand and drags her to the door. Eventually they’re all gone and Lily is pawing at the spot where the man had been standing, mewling.

“That’s a shame,” Cat Lady says, hands on her hips as she shakes her head. “They would have made a great home.”

No, they wouldn’t, I want to say to her. They would have hated a cat. The man with his wrinkled nose and the woman with her fear of hair and the little girl with no respect for claws or lost eyes would have hated any cat, even one as perfect for a family as Lily.

By the time I sweep my way around the room, the dust bin is full and there’s more hair on the floor where I started. One of the cats has knocked its food dish over, too, and the kibble crunches under my feet. I sweep that up, too, and call the task done. A cursory glance around the room makes me smile. Cat Lady has finally stepped out for her afternoon smoke and left me to brush the cats.

It’s a long task, brushing each cat – head to tail, they’re nothing but loose fur and over-friendly claws – but most of them know the drill and are just content to drape themselves over my arm and shoulder. I take Lily from her cage and sit on the only stool in the room, brushing her short fur slowly, gently. Lily settles down and her chest starts thrumming. This is what those people wanted: a purring lap animal. Except there’s still so much hair everywhere that I’m sure the wife would have had a conniption no matter how much she wanted to add an iconic purr to her pretty, pressed home.

The door opens, again, and Lily makes to jump from my arms, so I carefully aim her back at her cage and close the gate behind her. There’s a boy standing there looking lost and more than a little nervous, a crumpled wad of cash in his hand. He can’t be older than fourteen.

“Are you looking for a cat?”

His eyes dart to the left. “Yeah.”

“Do you have any other pets or small children?”

“I… yeah, we have a dog. And I have a little sister,” he says. He fidgets as I start moving around the kennels, checking the pages of each cat. “She’s six. That’s why we’re getting another cat, actually. We had one. Her name was Fluffy. My other sister named her when she was little, before I was born, and she died last month. Fluffy, not my sister. Our dog’s been moping ever since, and she sometimes doesn’t eat anymore –”

“Mmhm,” I say, and it’s Lily’s papers that I stop at. Her owners apparently had small children and two dogs, and the cat had no problems. “Are you okay with a girl cat?”

The boy sidles up to me, looking into Lily’s cage. He smiles. “Yeah. This one looks perfect.”

Lily meows adorably, right on cue, and I can’t keep from chuckling at the way the boy pokes his finger between the bars to scratch her ear. She purrs and walks along the grate, ears and tail flicking, happy to just be-

There’s a flash of black and white, and the boy shouts, snapping his hand back. There’s blood dripping down from two long cuts on the back of his hand. Lily is snarling and hissing, her one eye locked on the boy’s face hackles raised, legs stiff. I take a step back, pull him along as well. She’s never done anything like this before.

“We should wash this,” I say, and my voice is shaking. I lead him to the back sink and clean and bandage him up. He fidgets nervously then notices the kittens in the corner. They cough and mew at him as he stands over them. I tell him none of them will be ready to take home for a few more days. He says he’ll ask his mom if they can come back for the big tortoise shell.

Without another glance at Lily, or any other animals, he leaves.

Revised: Leaving

I’m not leaving because I’m a bad person. I’m not. I hold doors for the elderly and I help pregnant women carry their groceries and I’m nice to animals. But I’m not leaving because she’s a bad person, either. She’s a wonderful person – smart, funny, kind, and great at video games. She’s pretty, too; the pout of her lips and the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles make her face inviting.

But I’m not a lesbian.

I tried, for her, I guess. I mean, I hadn’t ever met a guy I was interested in, so I gave it a shot. We dated, held hands, kissed and went to movies. And when she came out to all of our friends, I was right there next to her, declaring myself to be bisexual and proud. And I was. Proud, I mean, not bisexual.

Shit.

Okay.

We met in elementary school, in second grade. A new school building opened that year, and new zones were put in place, a new teacher told us all to get to know each other and Voila! Katherine and I were BFFs Forever and Always (I know, I know, but that’s what’s in the yearbook my mother bought me so long ago).

I was a shortish, pudgy thing with unruly red hair and two buck teeth. She was blonde with pigtails, glasses, and overalls with pink buttons. I still remember, because I wanted my mom to buy me overalls with purple buttons to kind of match hers. I never got them, but Kathrine and I got matching Barbie backpacks instead.

We did everything together. We had tea parties in the park, painted our nails, and had our exclusive little birthday slumber parties. Time passed, and we got more friends, of course, but nothing compared to the two of us. By fifth grade, people were jokingly referring to us as the same person – Beth-Kat – because we were ‘joined at the hip,’ as her mom would say.

In sixth grade, nothing really changed. Boys were cuter, I guess, but Kat and I made a pact to put each other first. No stupid boy was going to destroy our friendship.

“Promise?”

She was really earnest, narrowing her eyes in a way that she thought made her look serious, but reminded me of my aunt’s poodle when you blew in his face.

“Yeah, yeah, Kit-Kat. I already told you so.”

“Well, yeah, but we should promise to not care about boys, like, at all,” she pressed, leaning close and hissing like this was some all-important swear.

“Well, sure, that’s cool,” I’d said, and I picked up the Nintendo 64 controller, because she was seriously delaying the game and I was winning for once.

“Promise.”

“Geez, Kathrine, I said okay! That’s stupid anyways. What about getting married some day? I thought you really wanted that.”

“Oh please, Bethy, like I’d want to marry some dumb boy. I’d rather marry you.”

I’m pretty sure she was making fun of me, or something, but then she pushed the start button, and I had to concentrate if I wanted to win this round. I didn’t, but I maintain to this day that it’s because Kirby is a crappy character to play.

Looking back, that probably should have set off some sort of warning flag or something. But it didn’t, because she was my best friend. Besides, she’d been talking about a boy named Collin James – a greasy, creepy monster whose only delight in life from second grade to fifth was to follow us around and throw dead worms at the back of our heads. I couldn’t imagine marrying him or any other boy back then, either.

Sometime in the next year, though I can’t remember when (it was a Friday, I think), she told me she thought she might be…

“G-A-Y,” she whispered in the dark of my bedroom.

We were both completely beneath the blanket, facing each other, knees touching, faces close together so we could sort-of make out each other’s features, if we squinted. She’d asked if she could sleep over the Monday before, then spent the entire week quiet and trying to avoid me. It had been obvious that something was up. But this? Being… gay? That was big.

“Are you… like, are you for sure?” I’d whispered back. “Like, completely serious, no bullshit?”

“You shouldn’t cuss.”

“You just told me you’re gay. I think I can cuss this one time.”

“That’s dumb.”

“What’s dumb is my best friend telling me I’m dumb for cussing when she just told me she was gay. That’s dumb.”

She sighed, and I could hear her fidgeting with her fingers against the bed sheet. I saw one of her hands come up to pick at her face, something she did when she was nervous. Her mom hated it.

“What… what if I am, though? I don’t… I don’t want to go to hell.”

“So… don’t be gay?”

“I don’t want to be gay, retard. It just kind of happened.”

“Okay, so it’s not your fault, then, right?”

“You think so?”

“Sure. I mean, we’re still cool, right? Like, you’re not gonna quit hanging out with me and spend all your time with Ashley and those other… lesbians, right?”

“Totally cool, I promise.”

And that was that.

Until it wasn’t that, anymore.

Two years later, Kat leaned in for a kiss, and I didn’t jump away. We were in the same position, but in her bed this time.  She leaned in, and planted one on me and I was so shocked I had no idea what to do so I laid there and let her press her lips against mine.

That was not my first kiss, but it was my first kiss with a girl, so I guess it counts, sort of. When it was over, I inched away and turned my back. I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t a lesbian. But I didn’t get up and leave because this was Kat. She was still my best friend.

We spent an awkward month and a half not talking about it.

After enough broken eye contact and nervous smiles, her mom called mine to ask what was going on with us. We both made up wildly different stories to tell our parents. I told my dad she was busy with school work, since she was always struggling with her algebra. She told hers that I had adopted a stray kitten that died of worms and hadn’t recovered. 

Her drama made me laugh, even though my parents wanted me tested for parasites. When I confronted her about it the next morning at school, barely able to speak through tears of laughter, she couldn’t help chuckling along. And so, we went back to being best friends, like nothing had happened – except she reached out and held my hand on the bus back home from school. She pointed out that I was never interested in guys at our school, whispered in hushed tones in the back of the bus, and asked if I’d never considered girls. I walked over to her house with her and let her kiss me in her room, again. It wasn’t that bad, and by the end of the night she convinced me to agree that we were Girlfriends, instead of just Girl Friends.

We came out our senior year, and it was anticlimactic at best. No one threw bibles and other than a few “No way, you mean they’re lesbians?” no one cared that we were, in fact, lesbians. A few of our mutual friends, girls we had classes with, weren’t shocked in the least. The one outwardly gay boy in our graduating class threw glitter in the air over us at our graduation.

Then we went to community college, where being gay meant small town activism in the form of flyers and poetry slams and rainbow pendants. The LGBT student community was just as vocal as any environmentalist/pro-life/pro-choice/anti-hunger group on campus, and the efforts felt great, important. Kat and I shared the work and helped put on some of the best flyer campaigns that campus had ever seen. We were the local lesbian poster couple.

And then…

Kathrine said she wanted to get physical, like, for real. We’d been together for four years, and she loved me. And Lord knew I loved her as much as I could. Still do. But we’d never gone beyond kissing at our drunkest, because I just wasn’t comfortable with it. It felt wrong, and her hands on my breasts and hips and between my thighs just made my skin prickle. Maybe it was just because I was never in whatever zone she was in – that romance novel, heaving bosom, breathless passion that seemed to be the goal of all.

Generally, I just felt too hot, like she was smothering me.

I knew, deep down, that it hurt her. She sometimes told me, usually when she was high, that she didn’t feel attractive. She’d put on weight in high school, where I’d only gotten thinner after puberty started. Mild acne and glasses made her feel nerdy and uncool. To me, she just looked like Kat, beautiful and sweet. I just… didn’t want to have sex.

“So you don’t love me?”

She put her hands on her hips, and used that reverse psychology bullshit she’d picked up in a basic psychology class. She was always being manipulative that way, like she didn’t think I could tell she was doing it, like I was stupid.

“You know I do.”

“So what? I’m ugly? You’re really straight?”

“How about ‘I’m just not comfortable with this and I’m exercising my right to say no’? How ‘bout that?”

“That is so typical you,” she hissed, throwing her arms up and stomping around. “Always trying to make me look like the bad guy!”

I barely kept myself from blurting ‘Girl’ like some of our more flamboyant friends are wont to do. “I can’t help how I feel. I love you, but this isn’t –”

“So what, you don’t have a sex drive? You think just because you’re a woman –”

The rest is more bullshit.

But that got me thinking. The part about not having a sex drive, not the woman part. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The more I looked back at those important pubescent years with the boys and the girls and the magical fucking changes, I realized that the changes didn’t happen for me. Boys were still boys, and girls were still girls, and Kathrine was still Kat, and I was still…

I tried to explain it to her, some friends, and, eventually, a counselor. The one with the degree in understanding people was the only one who thought I knew what I was talking about.

“From what you’ve told me, it would seem that you’re asexual, Bethany,” he said, glancing at me over his glasses. How cheesy is that? “It’s not a crime, and it doesn’t make you any less of a person. You should talk to your partner and see if you can work through it.”

“How do I work through not having a sex drive? How do I tell my girlfriend ‘Hey, sweetie, guess what? We’ll never have sex!’ like it’s no big deal?” I admit I might have been a bit hysterical.

“I never said it wasn’t a ‘big deal’,” the doctor explained, and he was the picture of calm. “I said it’s not a crime. Sexuality is different for everyone. What you have to do now is work to make it work in your life and your relationship.”

I spent the last twenty minutes of my therapy session switching between crying, swearing, and asking questions. There were some resources available, little online pamphlets and books written by learned psychiatrists. I took a couple home and gave them a read between literature assignments.

I started to spend a lot of time in chat rooms and “Ace Online Communities” where I could find them. It was more of the same of what the doctor told me, except it was coming from people living genuinely happy lives with partners who were either the same or just plain understood. I wanted that with Kat, so I paid attention, asked more questions, and prepared to share a large part of myself with the woman I loved.

We were lying on the bed in her apartment, cuddled close together, with my head on her shoulder. She had her arm around me, and we’d been watching The Little Mermaid.

“Kat,” I said. “I think… I’m asexual.” And I explained it the best I could.

She didn’t believe me, so I brought Kat to see the Doctor.

“She’s asexual, Kathrine. It’s not a crime, and” the rest of the spiel.

After hours of talking and shouting and silence, she said she understood. She said she wouldn’t pressure me anymore. But things only got worse as she promised to help me change. She wanted to be physical, light the fires or something similar. She wanted to express our love and had no idea how I could not want sex. Obviously, she thought, there was something wrong. So, together, we would fix it.

A week later, she told me we’d go to the local sex shop and see if we couldn’t find something to help me – some pill or toy or video that would make me… less of myself and more of what she wanted. I didn’t want to, and said so.

“So what? You won’t try for me? Why are you being so selfish?”

“I can’t change who I am, Kathrine.”

And that was when I realized that I really can’t change. I can’t make her happy, no more than she can make me happy. So, I’m leaving. It’s not because I’m a bad person, because I’m not. And neither is she.

But I’m not gay.

And I’m not straight.

I just am. 

"Spanish Moss" by Ethan Hightower

In Ethan Hightower's "Spanish Moss," the narrator is a young man about to enter high school, dealing with the pressures of growing up. He and his friends, Blake and Tommy, are in a rush to prove themselves "experienced," grown up and mature, before they are freshmen, though none of them are entirely comfortable with the way they decide to suddenly grow up. The three have a lot of internal conflicts, and then are confronted by an external conflict that forces them to understand that their desire to grow up doesn't matter very much in the grand scheme of things. (What are words?)

The title ties in well to the story. The piece opens with Spanish moss and closes the same way, and it adds a sense of finality to the story, so the reader feels no ambiguity to if the story is finished or not. The way that Hightower conveyed the emotions of all three characters, though the piece was in first person, was very strong. As a reader, it was easy for me to tell that Blake was nervous about everything and Tommy wanted to put up a facade of cool. None of them were comfortable, and it showed. The imagery in the piece was also wonderful - I could see the forest, the creek, and the Spanish moss. I could tell that the body in the bag was a small child's without having it explained in detail. Very well done.

It's obvious that the three characters are at least upper middle class, but I wanted to see more detail of that. Trig's parents were doctors, and Blake's father was a lawyer, but how did that translate into their lives as far as material value? Tommy's allowance goes to one joint, but how much is that? I got the idea that these boys were sheltered and soft, but I wanted to see more.

"A Dream" by J.J. Nelson

J.J. Nelson's "A Dream" is about a man struggling to find meaning in his life. He dreams of his life before some undisclosed event, and also dreams of drowning. His life, he finds, is going no where and that dissatisfies him. The conflict in Gabriel's life is internal; he doesn't know how to interact with the people he is surrounded by or express himself. He doesn't relate to the younger college generation.

 I thought the imagery was done very well. In the opening dream, it was easy to see the scenes play out over the dark water, and it was easy to tell these were visions and not entirely separated from the situation. The description of the gravity bong was also very good -- I could see what was happening and what it looked like though I have no experience with it. I thought that keeping the characters of Win and Tori as flat as they were was also a strong point in the story. It helped establish a "Me v. Them" theme for the reader and also was a good illustration of how the narrator did not relate to either of them on any level but the physical high.

Reading this, I wanted to know what had happened two years before that had such a profound effect on Gabriel. There's so much build up on it, but we never get to see what it is, and it leaves the reader unsatisfied. I thought, with the flashback at the end, that you would expand on what was so awful that Gabriel was still affected by it, but the big reveal never came. The reveal would also, I believe, benefit from the reader understanding more about the mysterious girl that Gabriel thinks about enough to motivate him to write again, after being in a creative slump. Who was she in relation to him? How did he lose her? These questions were posed in my head, but I never received an explanation.

"As Big as Light" by Robert Mort

The piece "As Big as Light" by Robert Mort seems to be about Adrian Huxley, a young man trying to follow his heart while his mother was suffering from a terminal illness. The story is told from the view of Dean Overstreet, caretaker of the Huxley's estate, and centers around a conversation Dean and Adrian have after the young man has had a fight with his alcoholic father. The conflict is that when Adrian calls out to Dean, looking for comfort, he also refuses to accept it - Dean's well intended words are met with a wall. But Dean refuses to be disregarded in that way, and Adrian is forced to face and speak about his own feelings. The two of them find comfort in a memory Adrian has of a time when he was young and his mother was well and reassured him.

The emotion in this piece was very well done, and not too heavy handed. The reader was able to access both Dean and Adrian on an emotional level through their actions, expressions, and words. The opening was also very well done, in my opinion; the opening before the actual story only took about a page an a half and didn't detract from the story. Instead, the reader was made to care about the narrator and drawn into the story. Likewise, details about the fight Adrian had with his father, without seeing the fight directly, was a great way of summary and didn't draw out the scene too long.

As a reader, I would have liked to know more about Adrian's mother. We see that she had a close relationship with her son when she was well, but what does Dean think of her? We get a sense that Dean wasn't particularly approving of Mr. Huxley's treatment of his son, but there's so little emotion in this memory that we get to see. Occasionally, he breaks in with narration to remind the reader that the scene happened a long time ago, but everything he tells us is matter-of-fact. Why is Dean Overstreet so detached from one of the few clear memories he has?

"Dreams and Reality" by Lauren Barkley

The piece "Dreams and Reality," by Lauren Barkley, is about a young man named Luke with Big Dreams. He looks to live out the Rags to Riches American Story, rising from what he considers to be a nothing family of dairy farmers to a college baseball player to a lawyer, leaving behind his family's business and cows forever. The conflict comes, however, when his father wants him to stay and take over the relatively successful farm and have a stable livelihood. Tension rises between the two, until Luke leaves without telling his parents to tryout for the University of Mississippi baseball team. Luke is forced to realize, however, that dreams don't come true just because you want them.

The subject matter of this piece was strong and interesting. The American Dream is something that is accessible to many readers on an emotional level and is, therefore, something that can hold the readers' attention. The  point of view is also strong, I think. Third person limited works well to establish Luke as a character that could really be anyone - this is a shared dream by many. The dialogue and emotions that are conveyed between Luke and his father are also well done. There is tension in the beginning, at the top of the second page as Luke tells his father that he doesn't want to be "in the middle of nowhere being a nobody," without having to take pages to  establish that relationship. And at the end, when his father hugs him, the emotion is strong again.

I believe adding to the story would make it stronger. Though the reader gets a sense of the tension between Luke and his dad, I think playing up the fights caused by Luke's desire to leave, as well as a look at their relationship from before this burning ambition rose, would make the emotional stakes higher. Also, I think that emphasizing that he is a somebody in his little town would add another dimension to the story by bringing to focus the difference between the small town popularity Luke has and the "big city" dreams that he has.

"Aveux" by Taylor Hardy

Taylor Hardy's piece, "Aveux," is about a man who has lost his wife and is struggling to remain strong, emotionally, for his daughter, Amelia. After Becca's suicide, he has been a wreck, but he tries to cope - albeit in ways that are not healthy for him or those around him. When the woman he is having an affair with commits suicide with his gun, the conflict of truly dealing with his emotional issues comes to the fore front of his life. In the end, he finally finds some sort of faith in God, which he had lost following his wife's suicide, through the strength of his daughter as they leave their old life to start anew.

The story's point of view works well for the subject matter. First person perspectives like this one make it easy relate to the character and get in the narrator's head. For this type of subject matter, especially (suppression of emotion and using logic to counter "weakness") I think the choice to tell the story with this point of view was a sound one. The pace of this piece was also not too slow. The story begins by pulling the reader in, and then everything flows. When the narrator is arrested, the pace quickens and, likewise, when the trial is over, the pace slows again.

I thought the dialogue between Erica and the narrator was a little stilted. Both are, I assume, at least upper middle class, and, as lawyers, they are sure to have extensive vocabularies; however, I felt the words didn't flow properly for the subject matter. As a reader, I felt that the tone - at least on her part - was supposed to be raw and passionate but I kept being distracted by phrases like "I refuse to leave you in your time of need" and "...will not let themselves attain..." I think bringing the language down, just a bit, would do wonders to heighten the emotional stakes of this conversation.

"Casting Shadows" by Jeremy Hare

Jeremy Hare's piece, "Casting Shadows," is about a girl who has died and struggles with her lack of choices even after death. Living, she was a very passive individual, and dead, very little has changed. The conflict arises when she realizes just how much her free will has been violated - she was killed and forced to become a "death god" against her own wishes - and she must fight to make her own decision. In the end, she wanted a normal life, but, failing to regain this, she chooses instead a "normal" death.

The subject matter was interesting and the imagery (especially as it pertained to setting) was strong in this piece. It was easy to see where everything was taking place. The eerie whiteness of everything in "Sanctuary" was conveyed to the reader well. The reader could also be drawn into the story easily due to the unique subject matter. Though death stories are not too uncommon, this particular story is unique to our class, and, therefore, Hare's Audience.

To make the piece stronger, I would advise Hare to move the fire scene in the early part of the story to the very beginning - it would draw the reader in much more than "the girl woke up in the hospital." As a reader, it took me a long time to feel engaged in the story, as well as form a connection to the narrator. Another way to make the story stronger, in my opinion, would be to focus more on the barely mentioned characters (the person Kain was talking to when the narrator found out she was killed, and the girl with cat ears in the living world, for instance) instead of leaving them to the wayside. They needed to interact with the narrator in some way. Otherwise, why mention them?

"Whatever Gods May Be" by Kody Blackwell

Kody Blackwell's "Whatever Gods May Be" is the story of a man, Thomas Abrams, appointed to lead a congregation after the previous pastor steps down. The conflict arises as he studies the Bible more and begins to lose his faith following his wife's announcement that they are expecting a baby. Though Abrams chose to take the job as pastor, by the end of the piece, he cannot deal with preaching something he does not truly believe in and leaves the church.

The plot of this piece is very interesting, as well as the setting. We haven't seen a piece yet that deals with the faith of a church leader, and I think that setting the story in a non-urban area emphasized the importance of the church in the lives of those in the congregation. The character of Thomas Abrams was also very strong - he had a past, and was a character I found easy to connect to. His struggle with is faith had a discernible cause and steady progression. I also found the tactful use of imagery when the Abrams were "having relations" to result in the pregnancy to be very good - it's very easy to be cliched or tactless when writing something inexplicit.

The story seemed to rely heavily on Abrams' study of the Bible, and I think that placing more of an emphasis on the things he studies as well as his reactions to them would make the piece stronger. I would also advise showing more of Bethany's pregnancy - his concerns as a father-to-be are what start him questioning his faith and the stories in the Bible, so it would make sense that her pregnancy could be used to mark time or remind the reader of how everything began. I would also like to know more about Mrs. Johnson, the grandmother in the nursing home. Abrams goes to her for advice about being a new father, but we never find out why. Is it just because she's old and has raised her own children? Even if so, I'd like to know.