Kazden Bracket
Fieldwork
Henry Woodland
The Experiment
Jscob Elordi Poem
Olive Parker
Bones and the Angel
T.C. Hell
A flat massive thing already
Jane Dabate
Cup Drove Daisy
It was the Fourth of July. Cup called up Daisy and said, “Let’s go for a drive.”
Daisy leaped out of bed and sang ‘God Bless America!’ She showered
and brushed her hair. She clipped little gold crosses to both her earlobes and hung a third gold cross from her neck. Then she sat by the door, peered out the window, and waited for Cup.
They had known each other since babyhood. Daisy had fond memories of their elementary school years. She had taught him how to jump rope. He had taught her how to incinerate ants with a magnifying glass.
Cup picked her up in the car he was given by his father. It was a Rolls
Royce Silver Shadow Drophead Coupé with a gold eagle painted on the hood like a Firebird. He had painted the eagle himself that morning. The paint was still tacky.
“Sweet eagle,” Daisy said.
“Thanks.”
“Where are we going?” Daisy asked after a pause. She was
oblivious.
“Wherever the eagle takes us,” Cup told her. He was flying high.
Cup was barely old enough to drive. At school, he was known for lighting things on fire, all the time and without clear motive. But Daisy knew his heart better than the other kids. Unlike them, she understood that his fires were allegorical. Even though Cup wasn’t aware of it himself, she was certain that his fires were the Holy Spirit, proving a point.
When Cup burned things, Daisy thought of Mount Horeb.
He was the sixth generation in a legacy of Cuppington men to attend their school and was therefore pardoned for each and every fire he set.
Their summer break had been going wonderfully. Daisy was spending all her time with Cup in their Massachusetts suburb, driving in the Rolls. Although he hardly spoke, she could sense his tenderness somewhere private or perhaps even inaccessible to him.
It was a sunny Fourth of July. They motored down the highway at forty miles an hour, Cup in a pale pink polo, his blonde curls flattened beneath a navy baseball cap. Daisy wore a white linen dress.
He had asked her to bring booze. Two bottles of communion wine
rolled around at her feet.
Daisy had only read two books in her life. The first was the Bible and the second was Cup’s journal. She was astonished by the similarities.
In the days leading up to their drive, Cup had written twelve emails to the governor of Massachusetts in aggressive dissent of the statewide ban on consumer fireworks. The first email opened with: “Boom! Did I scare you?”
The eleven subsequent emails opened with: “Boom! Cup again.”
Daisy had fantasies about Cup as an angel, his white wings crumpled like homework. She imagined what it would feel like to smooth them. As they drove, she turned and watched his face. He was somber and tortured and did not know the world like she did.
Daisy knew that God had blessed Cup with an electricity that had to
be used in His name. But Cup did not know His name, so the Holy Spirit flared idly inside him, and he sometimes misbehaved.
In her purse was her purse Bible. She reached for it and cracked it open, pointing to the Lord’s word and muttering about fires. Cup looked straight ahead. His focus was the road, which seemed to eat itself as they drove.
Truthfully Cup did not give two hoots about what Jesus said. He asked Daisy to pass the communion wine, screwed off the cap, and glugged while he drove.
They crossed the border from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, passing a large road sign which read:
WELCOME TO NEW HAMPSHIRE. LIVE FREE OR DIE.
Cup saluted.
Immediately after passing the border, a string of loudly-advertised firework vendors emerged on their side of the highway. Wordlessly Cup took the next exit, spun around, and sped up and into the parking lot of one with a fat yellow sign that spelled FREEDOM FIREWORKS USA.
“Are we celebrating?” she smiled at the sign, purse Bible still in her lap. Daisy loved the Fourth of July. She loved America.
“We sure are,” he said, his voice flat and calm. Cup loved fire.
Daisy waited in the car while Cup ducked into the store. She whistled the national anthem and imagined where they would go next. Perhaps Cape Cod. She loved the beach this time of year.
Cup emerged from FREEDOM FIREWORKS USA with a white plastic bag stretched thin and heavy. Detachedly he flung the fireworks into the backseat. Daisy was beaming. She asked Cup about the Cape.
“Whatever,” he said.
Two hours later they were there. It was an empty little cove of fine white sand and beyond lay the ocean, teal as a peacock. They plopped down in the middle of the beach. Cup pointed out to the water and said, “I want to blow that up.”
At first, Daisy was stunned.
“Blow it up?” she asked.
“Blow it up,” he said.
Cup managed to convince Daisy with almost no effort.
“It’s kinda biblical,” he said. “Fire and sea.”
Daisy paused for a moment before saying, “I guess you’re right.”
She knew they would be together forever in Heaven.
They returned to the car and climbed inside, Cup in the driver seat and Daisy passenger side. He chugged the second bottle of communion wine before twisting his keys into the ignition. The car sneezed before running clear. Then he pulled out of the parking lot and drove across the road and over the beach. The tires lurched and spat sand. He came to a stop at the edge of the water.
They glanced at each other, ans Cup’s face split into a grin. Daisy
caught her breath and lit the match and threw it into the backseat. Then Cup placed his fingers on the gear stick and floored the gas pedal. Daisy said a silent Hail Mary as the car charged into the blue water and glided atop the surface of the sea like a water strider, like Jesus.
The match hit the fireworks and the fireworks hit everything. It was a catastrophic kaboom. The car became a fire and the sea became a
mushroom cloud and the two became debris.
A bright white flash.
A blue sea splash.
The spilling of blood.Reid Williams
Made on Honor, Sold on Merit
Sunset Limited
Rachel Dastgir
The Rabbit
Sedrick Chisom
G 32 22 32
Colton Karpman (Founding Editor)
Editor’s Note
Dilara Koz (Art Director)
Em Bauer (Illustrator)
Isaac Zamet (Poetry Editor)
William McGuire (Prose Editor)