I leaned against the rough wooden storefront of my family’s cigar shop. After two weeks of Nico stuck soldiering, desperation to spend a day with him absorbed my mind. The last time I saw him, he proposed and asked me to leave Italy when the war ended. After giving a strong “Yes” to the first of those questions, I spent every spare moment debating the second with myself. Though not entirely sure I wanted to leave home, I knew I would if Nico really wanted to.

As I turned to check my appearance in the dirty window of the shop, I watched the reflections of passersby in their tailored suits and wide brimmed hats move together, some stepping briskly and others leaning on the arms of suitors. Sadly, the war raised the cost of fabrics, so the bright summer colors were replaced by utilitarian browns and Prussian blues with the occasional autumn red of a rich woman. A quick moving man crossed the street while I brushed a few flyaway strands of my bobbed hair back into place. Grinning, I whirled around just as the man pulled me into an embrace.

“Ciao, Nico.” I said, my eyes crinkling as Nico kissed my cheek. “It’s about time. I’m just wasting away in this heat, all so you can get your leisure time in.”

Nico gave me a serious look, “Josephine, I can’t stay long. I wasn’t given leave.”

“Oh.” A slight fear began to nag in my mind. “You could have just sent a note to my family’s shop, I would have understood. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I wanted to be with you today.” Giving me his cockiest grin, Nico’s hand tangled with mine. “Besides, I’ll be back before they know it.”

Nico stepped out onto the cobbled street and I took the cue to fall into step beside him; copying the other young lovers I spied on earlier, I rested my cheek on his shoulder. The olive green of his uniform jacket actually smelled of olives. I laughed silently, he must be helping the army cook again, hiding some snacks in his pockets when his shift ended.

Looking up at him, I watched the sunlight bounce off of his sleek black hair, wanting to tousle it to release the curls. The shadows created by the buildings as we passed the open-air shops danced over his cheekbones, taunting me. On his way back into the shade of his cool shop, the town butcher, my father’s closest friend, called out to us and waved, winking at me. The men sitting in the tavern, eating their lunch, also greeted us with friendly “Ciao!”s.

Every time Nico came into town to see me, people would wink and tap the sides of their noses. The whole town looked after us because of the way our courtship began. Nico would stand outside the cigar shop while I worked, playing his guitar and singing, sometimes getting others to join in, until I finally agreed to walk with him. After that, he came every other day and bought me cigarettes that we would smoke in the park.

Nico pulled me to a stop at the corner lamppost. The spiral curve of it dropping a shadow onto his shoulders, he spun me around to face him and, laughter bubbling, I wrapped my arms around him. Eyes gleaming, he leaned in. Our lips met and I felt the warm glow of a smile spread over my face.

The muscles of Nico’s neck tensed. I craned my neck, looking over my shoulder. Three men, carrying rifles and outfitted with the uniform and identification of the military police, were marching down the street, beelining for us. Nico took a step back.

“Dominico Scannella.” The man on the right said, “You need to come with us.”

“Nico, don’t -” I gripped his hand tighter, trying to plant him next to me.

Nico turned on a heel and bolted. The man in the middle of the trio set his rifle against his shoulder, taking aim.

My stomach plummeted. “NO!” I cried, jumping in front of the three men. The speaker of the group pushed me aside roughly as I beat my fists on any part of them I could reach. “Stop! Please! He didn’t do anything wrong!”

Everything became a daze as a thunderous crack filled my ears. Nico roared, collapsing onto the street, clutching his stomach. The uniformed man calmly lowered the gun and looked to the leader. The air thickened and splotched over. Shouting from the tables outside the restaurant rang in my ears, adding to the panic. A woman wearing the same dark skirt as I fainted and for a moment, I thought that she might be me. A man ran outside and carried the woman inside, unfreezing me. I sprinted to Nico and fell to the ground.

“Oh my God.” Rivulets of scarlet ran beneath Nico. I pressed down on the wound that spouted blood, eliciting a cry from him. I looked up and cried for help, my eyes searching the gathering crowd, begging them. The boy who worked at the fishmongers dropped the box he carried, spilling ice and herrings, and ran down the way we came.

The blood continued to pour from Nico’s torso. “Josephine…” He lifted his hand to my forearm. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come today.” He started coughing.

The butcher kneeled next to me and gently moved me aside, putting his heavier weight on the bullet hole. I looked at my hands, covered in the crimson of Nico’s life, and bile rose up into my throat. Throwing myself to the side, I vomited, the smell burning my nostrils. The emptying of my stomach only left more room for the dread to settle. My whole body shook as I clutched at my best cotton skirt, now stained, and torn.

Trying to be courageous, I looked at Nico. A few other men had gathered around, shouting their limited experience at each other, doing what they could before the town doctor arrived. Some were those we passed in the tavern; one was a man who had joined in Nico’s singing the first time he got me to walk with him. I crawled to Nico’s side, caressing his face.

A firm hand rested on my shoulder. Helplessly, I peered up and found Father’s kind face through the haze. He crouched as he slid his arms around me and lifted me from the ground, holding me like a baby. When I tried to wriggle out of his arms, he held me closer and whispered in my ear, telling me the doctor was there and there was nothing more for me to do. Someone leaned in and told him to take me inside and away from the scene, as if I couldn’t hear. Father nodded and as he turned, I buried my face in his chest.

I can’t stay here anymore, Papa.” I murmured, not just meaning the street. In the back of my mind, I knew that if I stayed in Sicily, the looks of pity and feelings of shame would never stop. “I can’t live here anymore.”

–Jael Haney’s short story is based on why her great-great-grandmother immigrated to America. 

I slouch in the car with the windows rolled up, like the trooper in the Smokey hat told us to. We’re on a highway in Idaho but we’re not moving. Something about a truck up ahead spilling a huge number of bees.

Bob deftly removes the bottle of whiskey from his backpack, takes a single pull, and replaces it. We’re stuck and he at least intends to kick back. I catch the brief whiff of hard alcohol over the car’s old upholstery.

“’Million bees? Is that what he said?” queried Bob.

“Yeah,” I mumble.

“Ain’t bees gettin’ scarce?”

“So they say.”

“Okay, help me out: Ship bees, lose bees. No pollen in Idaho so bees die. Now there’s two places without bees.” He wags his finger, his eyes begin to glow, “So a billion years from now, some paleontology guy finds a bazillion bees fossilized. He shouts ‘Omigod!’ They read the wrong travel brochure and flew to Idaho! -And died! The tragedy!”

I cringe inside. I’m a circuit designer. Gates, diodes, resistors neatly embedded in gold on green. That’s my world. I look the part, like I could sell insurance.

Bob is a web developer. Hand him a tangent and he’ll beat Euclid, Descartes, and Turing to death with it. He looks the part, he loves to look the part. They all love to look the part. Ripped blue jeans. Frayed sweater with shirt tail hanging out. Glasses framed like bistro doors. Hat? Bob wears a hat his girlfriend bought at Disneyland. Bright red with Mickey Mouse over the brim. I couldn’t make this up. And it seems to be everywhere.

One time I walked into a cool bar in Podunk, Nebraska. How did I know it was cool? Everyone looked the part. Worse, I’m there twenty minutes and I overhear ‘….I’m in tech…. I’m in web design…. I’m an app developer…. I’m a software engineer…. I’m a digital florist….’ I left after that last one. When I see monkeys at the zoo. Screaming, careening, throwing dung, I want to scribble ‘New Tech Startup’ over their placard.

I stare reflectively out the windshield. It’s like everyone wants to be a geek, or in a startup, or just look like they belong. To be cool. Somewhere the normal human desire for adoration mutated into a desperate need to be seen as a tech warrior. There’s an Idiot’s Guide to Geekness somewhere, and it’s leaked online:

         Want to impress the crowd in the coffee bar? Pull your shirt tail out, comb your hair with a lawn broom, pull on big, square glasses frames. Stand in the espresso line. Just as the overworked barista asks for your order, answer your phone. Wave her away irritably while spouting meaningless vowels loud enough to drown conversations at the tables across the street. People will think you’re a freaking six-figure genius.

         Dejected from losing that promotion and want perk yourself up? Go to your local brew pub and fake like you just wrote a killer app: Seek out the table where they’re babbling jargon. Sit close by. At a break in the conversation stand up, smirk, and snidely comment ‘I created Zarko the Happy Honey Badger who farts discount coupons on the Sears and Roebuck welcome page.’ Watch them sweat as they struggle to top that.

         Want to be an urban god? Go to a city council meeting. Raise your hand. When called, go to the microphone. Suck in all the self-righteousness you can hold and sagely announce ‘I’m a web designer and I would love to pay more taxes!’ The mayor’s head will explode, killing everyone in close proximity.

Want to pick up women? Do something else. Seriously. They’ve long since seen through this nonsense.

Bob’s ravings intrude on me again. A buzzing like the bees now poking menacingly at the windshield.

“…. So the bees are fossils. But the record is incomplete! The truck is missing! Suppose the paleontology guy finds the truck fossilized, too! Everything changes! He’s screams ‘Idiots! They shipped bees to Idaho?! Humans deserved to go extinct!….” He belches. Waving his hand before his open mouth to share the wealth. Green onions with a hint of Jim Beam.

The trooper in the Smokey Bear hat saunters past and nods benignly. I imagine bears ears and a bear’s nose under the hat. His big paw waving toward me, his gravel filled Smokey voice admonishing ‘Remember, only you can prevent your dumbass coworkers from bumming a ride in your car!’ Bees swirl around him, not stinging. Maybe if they did they’d get arrested.

I grip the steering wheel tighter. Trapped between bees and Bob, with nowhere to run, I force myself to remember what I am: I design hardware. Pure essentialness! No hardware? No software. No software? No web. No web? No web developers! No wannabes! The barista barks at you to get your ass out of line and back to the skateboard park. The party in the brew pub wonders who let the homeless person in. Blank looks and mumbling at the city council meeting as the sergeant-at-arms throws you out on your ear.

I look away, wondering if I’ll be fossilized myself before we get off this highway, when something catches my eye. I squint. A few bees are tracing random circles. But up ahead I see tail lights come on. And farther still there’s movement.

“Progress!” remarks Bob, yawning. The fit has passed. He pulls his hat lower. His frontal cortex now covered by Mickey Mouse.

We start to move, I brighten.

“’Figure out what you’re going to say at the party?” he yawns, stretching.

Gloom again. I shudder inside. It’s not a party, it’s a roast. A web developer is retiring. Roasting a web developer is like standing up in court and delivering a devastating closing argument before a judge and jury consisting of roosters.

“Maybe,” I shrug despondently.

Pleased, Bob thumps me on the shoulder. “See dude?! Take a bazillion pissed off bees, add guru Bob, and voila! IN-SPIR-ATION!” He hoots, pumping his fist. Then yawning again, he taps me on the arm “Hey, that new chipset you guys loaded? It made my app scream! You rock!”

The bees are gone. The trooper fades away in the rear view mirror. Mickey Mouse smiles vacantly as Bob begins to snore.

A lost hour on a road to nowhere with a web developer, a million angry bees, and Smokey the Bear. Inspiration?

I’ll start with patience.

 –Mike Bailey is a retired IT professional in the Creative Writing program at Highline College. 

after “Letter to the Ceo of Ancestry” by Shankar Narayan 

They say to measure everything.

Be sure to read the instructions correctly.

1/4 White, an American European mutt.

3/4 Mexican, a mixture of indigenous bloodlines and Spanish bloodshed.

To people around me I’m made of water and oil.

I can’t roll my “R’s”, but I can speak with a sharp tongue soaked in

an accent that’s a border away.

To friends, I’m too white, barely carrying my language on my shoulders.

To white people, I’m too Mexican, they give me looks, ask me,

“Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”

I’m from Seattle.

It’s about an 11 mile walk from where I live now.

If they cared to measure.

But people don’t seem to follow recipes anymore.

No matter how much you direct them, teach them, offer them lessons.

They still do it by sight.

They see the tint of my skin, browning and rising towards the heat.

They hear the bachata blaring through my headphones,

But they also hear the quiver of my voice when I croak out a “Yo no se.”

The desperate look I wear when I get lost in translation.

To them my measurements don’t add up.

Will I warm into a rising apple pie?

Or will I ooze like a piece of tres leche?

But I’m both, I wear a peasant blouse y huaraches.

I sing of the star-spangled banner and rise for allegiance.

Don’t ignore one side of me for the other,

you can’t forget the eggs but remember the flour.

It won’t taste sweet without the kick of salt.

I’m not a recipe to be changed.

So, read the instructions carefully before you try to make me.

–Mylina Baez’s poem was inspired by another poet’s work; focusing on relevant topics we find today regarding race. 

after “A Globe is Just an Asterisk and Every Home Should Have an Asterisk,” Aimee Nezhukumatathil 

From the coasts of Morocco

to the curves of Kenya I contemplate

Longing to find my globe but

unsure of which direction to spin.

I too desire to find lands where

The span of my hand won’t quite fit.

I stretch fingers shore to shore though,

home I cannot seem to trace.

Instead roots hover along event horizons

that will swallow my culture whole. So,

Dear sweet Aimee at least you know where to place your wrist.

At least you know where your fingers won’t fit.

–Chalisa Thompson is a sophomore at Highline College.  She enjoys writing poetry and volunteering with the youth in her community.  

Dear artist who will paint my portrait,

please do not make me look like my father.

My melancholy gaze may match his

but give me the proud smile of my mother instead.

I want my background to be a cacophony

of colors, a catastrophe of reds and yellows

and purples, and to show I’m a real man,

add a dash of pink.

Have my portrait standing ten feet tall.

(I’m serious, the canvas should be at least

a story tall.) I want to walk the ocean.

It may look ridiculous now, but fifty

years from now, I’ll show my grandkids the painting

and tell them their abuelo is a ten-foot tall man

who dabbles in walking on water.

They’ll call bullshit, but they’ll still show their friends.

Give me the exact same haircut I had at seventeen,

the one that all the girls complimented

and all the guys asked, “Ese, who cuts your hair?”

Make sure the lines shaved into the side of my head

are crisp, because what kind of vato would I be without them?

Finally, give me a beard. None of that patchy tío

Fernando shit either, I want that Drake circa “Hotline Bling”,

perfectly shaped, but not shaggy either.

–Kaden Alexander Bell is an 18-year old Running Start student at Highline College and a high school senior. 

after El Mundo, Paco Pomet 

listen, little one: you are not a sheep. you do not have

hooves to pound into the dirt floor of this field you call home,

and cannot bleat against the thunder of cotton candy

clouds from above. so, if not a sheep, what are you?

look up, for an answer. bathe the whites of your eyes

in the clouds’ holy tears, and do not stare too long, or

else those tears will collect inside your head and split

your shoulders’ wiry spindles straight through.

when the clouds go away, the sun whispers against

winter. the sunlight scintillates through you slow as a

crawl. is it trying to fill your lungs with fire, and turn

your body into a furnace? will it burn you

from the inside out? yes, it is true: sheep burn.

but you won’t. look inside yourself: what do you see?

feel your toes digging into the earth, the sun’s heat

smothering your cracked, austere human knees.

you are no sheep, little one. you walk this field

human, with a shepherd’s crook in your hand.

 – Isabella Stewart is currently a Running Start senior at Highline College. She loves stories of all kinds, writing, coffee, overcast weather, and fantastical video games.