THE CURRENT
2017-2018
Rachael Mann
Bethany Pasko
Sylvie Pingeon
Abi Walsh
Meredith Shah Rayha McPherson Sara Stephenson Isabel Salvin
Emily Stoller
Ms. Adjibodou
Editor’s Note
The Current is dedicated to providing the Rivers community with cultural enrichment and encouraging a strong appreciation of the arts through poetry, prose, and artwork produced by Rivers students and faculty. This year, we wanted to focus the magazine’s theme on cityscapes, and we included both abstract and realistic representations of cities. Many of the images being used as background for the artwork and writing are images captured by Rivers faculty and students. We hoped that this would fully immurse readers and elicit a feeling of traveling. A huge thank you to everyone who submitted, contributed, or helped in any respect to get this year’s edition of The Current where it needed to be. We are thankful to the faculty and teachers, our (small but mighty) group of fantastic Current members, and especially Ms. Adjibodou for taking her first year in the Current by storm and being a positive and supportive prescencethroughout the entire process. Our final thank you goes out to all our readers. We hope you enjoy this issue of the Current! Editors: Bethany Pasko and Sara Stephenson Staff: Rayha McPherson, Abi Walsh, Rachael Mann, Meredith Shah, Sylvie Pingeon, Emily Stoller, and Isabel Salvin Judges: Prose: Elizabeth Graver Poetry: Bailey Spencer 2D: Whitney Robbins 3D: Ari Berenson Photography: Joney Swift Faculty Advisor: Venise Adjibodou
Award Winners
Prose 1st- Biography of a Rosemary Ashley Burgarella 2nd-That Latte at Linden Apsara Balamurugan 3rd- 12 Years: A Death Row Story Bethany Pasko
Poetry 1st- Rhythm Izzy Hardy 2nd- Fabric Bethany Pasko 3rd- Mothers and Daughters Sara Stephenson Honorable Mention- Adolescence Fair Bethany Pasko, Salem Bethany Pasko, Big Black Bucket Phoebe Fogel 2D 1st- Impressions Unposed Joelle Mentis 2nd- Tiger Lily Kendall Zaleski 3rd- Grand Teton Matt Cronin Honorable Mention- Reaching Out Sarah Morgan, Sarah Joelle Mentis 3D 1st- Celtic Moon Michael Webber 2nd- Impaired Caleb Leeming, Intertwined Emily Smith Honorable Mention- Frost Bite Jess Mulder, Sky Pat Lawn, Sculpture Evan Roan Photography 1st- Refreshed Sophie Gourinovitch 2nd- La Ventana Witt Caldwalader 3rd- Winter Approaches Myles Epstein Honorable Mention- Summer Pierson, Pensive Hudson Ramirez, and Cracks in the Wall Georgia Freeland
Downtown Stroll Emily Smith
Foreign Traveler Sarah Morgan
Untitled Meredith Shah
Tik Tok Leslie Schwartz
Sculpture Ashley Shegog
Recall by Sara Stephenson He must not disturb the two sleeping figures lying on either side of him. He is a valley surrounded by two hills, their bodies’ crevices dipping and rising across horizontal lengths far vaster than his own. To move would cause an earthquake, a disruption in the perfectly designed proportion of the arrangement;
to move, quite simply, would destroy everything.
So he lies perfectly still, teeth gnawing at his bottom lip, hands squeezed tightly, ignoring the uncomfortable warmth of his pillow begging to be flipped or his right shoulder imploring him to shift his weight. How strange to feel feet occasionally brush his leg instead of the expansive nothingness dwarfing his juvenile frame. Before tonight, he willingly disappeared into evening’s oblivion. As the life of daylight sputtered out, he held his hands in front of him, watching the blackness creep onto his skin and devour it. Eventually, he melted entirely into twilight’s embrace, freed from earth, no longer a child battered by slurred insults and enraged blows.
He’d nearly forget to breathe. Or perhaps he simply no longer wanted to. He dares to steal a single glance at his father’s motionless frame. He envisions reaching out to brush his fingers against those limp, vulnerable hands before consciousness transforms them into clenched, mutilated weapons. He stops himself from turning, but in his mind he sees the ugly, green-blue bruises dotting his mother’s perfect skin. A sob suddenly reverberates from the depths of his diaphragm, rippling upwards into his throat and constricting as he chokes it back. Trapped between the two beings who share his blood, he is human, and he is awake and alone and frightened. Against his wishes, his chest aches with the need for affection. I love you two. Do you know that? I do. The silences rushes into the canals of his ears in response. His thoughts wail, but at twelve years old, he knows he is too old for fits. He glances at his father’s face. The thin layer of skin that normally stretches over his sharp cheekbones sags into the pillow like a monk’s robe pooling at the floor.
He thinks of last winter and the dog. He had trod to the outhouse, teeth chattering, the sky the subdued grey it becomes after the strain of a snowstorm. Snow leaked into his shoes and filled the gaps where his feet did not reach. He loathed such a walk, dreaded the stench invading his senses, the cold numbness creeping into his toes, the icicles dangling from the rotting roof like barbaric spikes from the helmet of a medieval warrior. He didn’t notice the dog at first. In fact, he nearly bumped into her as he bent beside the outhouse to clean his hands in the snow. She was on her side, breath coming in shallow gasps. He inspected the black pads on the bottom of her paws, wincing as he noticed the raw gashes. Despite her protruding skeleton, her fur stood out in magnificent contrast to the surrounding snow, making it look dirty in comparison. He thought of leaving her. She was almost dead already, and she would only suffer if he tried to save her. And his father, God, if he saw her... His hands had ignored his mind and gently brought the creature into his arms. She whimpered faintly, too fatigued to fully feel pain, but she knew she was safe. He inches closer to his father. He will be satisfied with just one night of being loved.
Long enough for a single heartbeat. As he buries his face into his father’s shoulder, they are finally in the same world: one of musky nightshirts, woody aftershave, and brandy that scorches the throat. His father recoils like an arched cobra about to strike; even in sleep, his arms thrust outwards in instinctive disgust. Humiliation acts as paralysis as pain flares up in the boy’s ribs. The view of the uneven spine further signifies that any portal to his father’s world is now sealed. How heavily emotions weigh upon the soul, he thinks. If only night would come and claim him for eternity. He tests a foot on the freezing floor, easing his weight gradually to avoid any creaks. He walks to his mother’s side of the bed, gently moving her dangling arm to protect it from whatever could be hiding under the bed. The moon’s gaze sends a illuminated beam through the window cascading across her face. He is struck by its vitality; perhaps her face deliberately defies her deteriorating body. His fingers hover above her cheek like a hummingbird, and she stirs. She wakes in lethargy, slowly ascending from the depths of her subconscious. Her eyes absorb her son’s expression. An overwhelming feeling crashes over her, words dying at her lips, so she brushes a stray strand of hair away from his forehead. How does a child of so few years observe the world through eyes of an ancient sage? The longer she stares, the more her heart splinters.
She reaches out to him desperately. As his nose pokes against her chest, he crumbles, his cries inaudible but his body quaking. Her arms wrap around him. They are safe, together, in this sanctuary. She will not let go. He didn’t know that she had seen him the day he found the dog. His absence at the outhouse had lasted longer than usual, so she glanced out the window to assure herself of his safety. She sighed as she watched him stumble. The dog was nearly his size. But as he neared the door, she recognized the new color painting his cheeks and the restored hope brightening his beautiful brown eyes. How could she ever turn away an animal capable of eliciting such precious rarities in a home devoid of everything? She would distract her husband while he and his siblings took turns sneaking the dog outside once a day to relieve herself, she decided. She’d be able to elude the majority of his advances and attacks. She’d start leaving extra scraps of bone on the boy’s plate at dinner, too. He would understand. It was possible. They could do it. One tiny victory. It would be one small secret, one piece of her life back in her own control. She was her children’s ally; her husband was far outnumbered. She is pulled back as he backs out of her embrace. She squeezes his hand.
He freezes. The action reminds him of the day his father found the dog. The kicked door slammed into the wall, the shock reverberating around the room. The dog did not cower. She simply sat, where she was, halfway between the boy and his father. Only when the unbalanced kicks and miscalculated throws of objects began did she flee. The children begged their father to have mercy, hands clinging to his limbs, but he threw them off like flies; they were cast about like debris in a tornado. He was the tornado, broken bottles and shattered windows in his wake. The boy believed the infrastructure would cave in from the commotion. And suddenly, the dust, screaming, and crashes dissipated. The house was a vacuum, a smoking mess in the aftermath of an explosion. The boy’s father emerged from the dust, his snake-like black eyes glittering slits. The dog dangled by the scruff of her neck from his hands, but she did not squirm. With a sneer, the boy’s father opened the door to the house and flung her out with all of his strength. The children wailed. The dog landed in a heap on ground, an unexpected disturbance to the sprouts of flowers poking up through the mud around her. She slowly righted herself onto her paws and took a final look at the boy. Fortified, she turned away and padded towards the trees.
She did not turn back.
The boy’s mother had held onto his hand the same way on that day. She knew he wanted to run after her. To challenge his father, to do anything to avoid powerlessness. She squeezed his hand to remind him of her presence. Wait, she said. Just a little longer. He thinks of the plants. He has matured; his core strengthening to hold up the rest of him like stems thicken to support leaves and blossoms. He cannot flee and leave his siblings alone. He will squeeze her hand a bit longer, until all illnesses pass and the baby’s tiny first teeth pop through her pink gums. One day they will all walk through the door. The black, glittering eyes will see only their backs. The portal to their world will be sealed.
Phie Jacobs Bluebeard’s Wife My dear husband, First husband, Best. Do you trust me? I was caught Like a fish Across the room Your coal-chip eyes shining into mine. You shook my father’s hand, Rings sharp enough to draw blood, Each one worth more than our car that rattled, Than our house that creaked and leaked, Worth more than anything I could earn in a lifetime, And I thought “Perhaps his beard is not so blue, Not so blue after all.” I dreamed often in that house- black dreams, Frozen dreams In that house, Where the wedding was, Where my mother drank too much champagne And my sisters whispered behind their hands and between their phones Jealousy or pity? I could not tell.
Such a pretty girl and married to a man with so hard a face, So blue a beard, And seven times a husband already. Where those seven girls have gone not a body knows. Only seventeen and married to a man so old, Yet see the make and model of the car he drives, The finery of his wedding suit, That silk tie, Those leather shoes. See the way his cufflinks glitter - diamonds like a cat’s eyes And make his beard seem not so blue, Not so blue after all. My dear husband, First husband, Best. I thought I could learn to love you, But in the month that we were married I learned only to love Flat screen TVs And cars with tops that came down So I could feel my hair whipping and wheeling in the wind. Even the glory of your fine old house Could not shine tenderness into those charcoal eyes Or make your beard any less the color of the sea. My dear husband, First husband, Best. Why give me the key at all? You may as well have laid the fabled box itself down at my feet Inside of which slumber all the evils of mankind -
Sloth, drudgery, avarice, and hope And told me not to open it. My dear husband, First husband, Best. Did you know that no soap or water, No steel wool or scratched or bleeding hands Turned red and raw from scrubbing Could scrape the blood from off the key? Even if I had cleaned it So it shone as bright as day You would have seen it in my eyes. You would have seen the seven dresses with women still in them, Hanging and turning on their hooks as if floating just above the floor. You would have seen the basins filled with halfway frozen blood And the way my scream turned to crystals in the air. You would have seen what I had seen; You would have known. My dear husband, First husband, Best. Why did you let me pray? Why did you leave me alone with my sisters? And the phones between which they are known to whisper? Why did you pause with your hands around my throat And turn to watch the headlights as they slipped up the drive? My dear husband, First husband,
Best. I know all the answers to my questions, Knew them at the sound of my brother’s gun, At the sight of blood as it began to blood across your fine silk tie, When your coal-chip eyes went dull. I had never seen a pair of eyes go so dull as that. I knew you then; I understood. I did not dream in this house, Where the funeral was, Where my mother drank too much of everything, Where my sisters whispered behind their hands and between their phones Jealousy or pity? Now I know. Poor girl, He would have killed her, Had it not been for her brothers. A widow now of only eighteen, And all alone in that fine old house where no man stays for very long. Where her second husband has got to not a body knows, But who can blame him, Running off, Away from the ghosts and that woman, Whose hair each day becomes more and more the color of the sea. My dear husband, First husband,
It’s remarkable what some men overlook In favor of a young woman And a fine old house with three cars out front. They see me driving past, Rings on my fingers worth more than their lives, And they think, “Perhaps her hair is not so blue, not so blue after all.” My dear husband, First husband, Best. I go, every now and then, to visit my sisters And their husbands, Each one young and brown-bearded With kind eyes. I leave the house in another’s care, tell him, “This is the key to the safe upstairs, This to the garden shed, This to the cellar where the wine is kept, And this is the key to the freezer in the basement, Where you must never go.” My dear husband, First husband, Best. One day there will be a man whose scream does not cloud the frozen air, Who does not try to wash the blood from off the key.
One day I will find a man who sits at the door and waits for me. One day I will find someone like you.