Case Reserve Review: Spring 2010

CASE RE

SERVE REVIEW

Spring 2010

2 Case Reserve Review 3Spring 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Student Reader

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Kayla Gatalica

Bridget O’Dwyer

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Jack Rooney

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Rachel Hunt

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Sarah Gridley

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TIM COLLINS


Would I pin your monogram to the clothes line and set the sails over silos. Bud lost the mourning shade into broken sunbeamed skirts. Hot air blows a shallower basket breath, sighing into the suspended quilt. We’re spending cloud tender for every aerial embrace past blurred fence stitches. The gravel drive is just a shoestring bridge mapping brush to overgrown windowpanes, the chimneyed forest crown. Wind sieved through the screened porch and unswept rusted chairs distill last year’s leaves. Like the ten-foot azaleas, you can’t see darkened roots. My hollow display flushes inquisitiveness. The demanding sap rain from the tulip poplar glues carshells silent but the unbreakable ivy sets fire to our feet and fingers.

The Ivy

FIRST PRIZE POETRY

RACHEL SILVER

DAN HILL


Oh, the tangled webs we weave and the places that we call home;

On Thursday it was pouring,as I pirouetted to the drone of a rainstick melody. Bare foot. Callous toes.

Emulating the instructor’s movement,as she stepped her motion was like a medulla on an underwater harp. Defined by equilibrium and harmonic vibrations from each string in liquid suspension.

On Friday night I sippedcoffee with grandma, discussing herworld travels and day on the backof a camel in Egypt.

Those gypsy children pestered herwith their juvenile insistence,while the skillful thieves snatchedpossessions in midsentence.

I pillaged her basement,And discovered a pair of roller-skatesAnd two dozen peacock feathers.She smiled at me in her dresses.

I glanced at her and there she was brazen and rosy,standing before me as she did in the 1920s photographshe was a wild woman and for a moment we were the same age, there was a pause, she apologized for the mess.

Coffee table Bohemia

SECOND PRIZE POETRY

JACKIE BON RACHEL HUNT


GRACE EDER

My family fitsChristmas in six plastic boxes. Shares

chocolates with me so they might fulfill someresolution. Lost in the receding lens of end-of-season lights tripped, we

transfer wrapping redandgreens to trashor to a new yearend. And boxes

find themselves slippinginto underground attics, basesmeant for hibernation. And we

find ourselves mappedin an almanac we tryto lose so the obvious pencil-marksof coming weeks will not show

up beneath the watercolorwindows where we shiftour wait and rest.

Resolve

FATIMA ESPIRITU


DORIAN SANDERS

The recentness of you, horrible continentof knuckle, breath, and thinstrands – how I lookedfor the sound that every wordovertook. The body parts of usstuffed with grosspotential. Kinetically uneasyI am distorted by your leaving

limbs indexed as highway pictographsof lampposts holding handswith headlights. Wound aroundyour bright white scream, a synonymfor red fastforwarded throughknuckle, breath, brow.

When I got there, the lights had already gone out.

Your bodyparts crematedinto a Picasso painting.I got scared and slepton the cold concrete,

dreamt your calm speech sizedextra-large against my wretchedverse. And there is nothingI could not believe

in you. A dirty oceanof recession. All the sand-strewn beasts thrustinto a cell or two. How youwere grainy by the endof us. Raw by the p.s.

Instrumental


The hour of the reluctant LazarusAnd the time of unwilling resurrectionAnd the age of the last unleavened deadAll saved the silvern labor of belief:He was a midwife unto lesser life,And his are hands for yarrow and surcease. This was his augur, and there lay his spade;This was the balmy yard of amarantsBefore reform, when none were property.One for remembrance and the rest for thole:

Our momentum was justyesterday repunctuating itself, when,over tea I told

you – I would like to get awaywith not showering for a week,

Remember how you shut the cupboard door,laughing You don’t surprise me, anymore.

FATIMA ESPIRITU

An Exequy for Revival

Wrote:“Went to Bartholomew, got four, one cutAnd no extremities. Could not succeed—Dogs after us and Bill arrested early.Small ones fetch little and the risk too grave.Five yesterday, one pocky and no pay.Always the river or our Mr. Vickers,Who knows some country galens—credulous.Then to one of our better haunts for dratchells. Benjy said—he’d had too much absinthe then—‘Ever dig one made you want to get out?’Said, ‘Don’t remember one after the next.They are too many, and you have no eyes,But let me think before I’m out for evening. Last year one that I can’t forget—cold color,Rain-grey eyes, rather like old muslinet.Hair full of withes, old baubles on the wrists—As if to pay some Charon for his bark.Never saw one so lively outside burkers’.(Seemed not to have had time to pour and settle.) Took it to Cyril’s den; three sizars came.A little row but nothing worth a word.In the end went to Mr. Perithous.Don’t know what happened after, but those eyesAnd skin full of the umbers of that night.Seemed never to have been above at all—Not kilned with us but grown in deeper bowers.Too soon for harvest, but we had no thought.Took something never born of God and rentA thewy heart from earth that beat black bileTo sow our haws and tangles all to green.’”

JACK ROONEY


Thick like charcoaled Hackberries, the coal she had to drink, shared blood runs towards and away. We’ll get to that bridge when we cross it. Marching up to the crater lake to wade with wisdom dropped from Saturn, maybe it’s time to once again believe in Vitalism, to send half-lived existence back to Port Moody or possibly revisit the backyard. It’s been a long time since we carved the doors apart and didn’t muzzle the dogs. Independence bleeds into Thanksgiving like crisp printed hopes and accidental tea-stained watercolors. Lucky how friendship defies the fear, and calls in the middle of the night to say she might have taken too many… Tragic to feel the pressing of years on your chest of struggling silence and of never calling and of can’t now. Tell her now. People stop me for directions at least three times a week Is that normal? He says I have friendly eyes. He listens to me count these stories.

22,500 milligrams

RACHEL SILVERJOE ALLEN


DORIAN SANDERS

A perfect stitch sewnin the land that is a fabricand she reaps the strange somethingas she trims the hem

The green from God’s vegetablethe white from God himselfthe striped arrangement is just lines

The pipe smokes silently in preparationof a new and strange situation.The anxiety of new friends and a new restaurantwaiting out theremixed between the California highwaysand shady patches

Product shines in from windowsstopping for a moment as her head turns to noticethe serial numbers and polymersdistributed cathartically from bays of manufacturersa string of cord rolled around a reelrolled down to the dock and into a truck“At least I’ve made this myself”

Home sewn skirts suits

MAX JENSEN


TSUNGHAN TSAI

December in the Midwest

JEFF ATKINSON

I.Diamonds lie in the ash- colored frost,Betwixt crystalline blades of grass.Blessed with life by the morning light,They shimmer stubbornly in listless eyes,An alliance against the dead Earth.

II.Dark shop windows leave lethargic reflectionsOf lonesome cars driving down salt-stained streets.Exhaust streams from hot tail pipes, whipping and thrashingThrough the frigid air like anguished spectersWho only now vie for the heavens.


STE

VE

N S

PRIN

GE

R


Constant in the fog, the gardenerhews in particulate grey, the suspendedprecipitate the sound of snow with lowvolume, the descended cumulousnon-ascending, greens slick with droplet float

watching the rain not fall, I am hungry for bread,warm, heat, the touch of soft from a blanket, notfor comfort but to extend the possible limit of self-made heat and escape into againthe cold outside refreshes and wakes up

the loon on orange, brass orange, trumpetson the lake in fugue, pierces the cabin’s lumber,a black-headed call, a summoning to the seareturn, but only by boat, or so calls the loon,mimicking my wooden battleship in the tender

the cacophony of reeds in orchestra, the frogshumming the wet sand scent, the carried,the vessel of erosion yielding cool at the feet,a contracting cool an azure lick like a puddleforming, the fish settled for the day

we, under stars eat the velvet dance,the backdrop for theater in the traditionof the moon, the visions of night projectedfrom the schemes of smoke, the talk of lines,rods, boats, and stones for skipping at nighttime

To be seven at Lac du Flambeau

JON BACKMANNYI-HSIN (FRANCES) CHENG


Mama they tell me I’m prettier when I’m frowning and cuter when I’m mad and an insult from me might as well be a kiss— I have never seen a nicer expression than on this woman after I called her a whore, and she said, “Honey, the correct term is ‘bitch.’” And when I’m yelling I see them reach their hands so enthralled at this red fluster. They laugh. Mama, they tell me in my anger there is a twisted shade of beauty a twisted overlap of shades of beauty, in my beauty—

Mama they tell me I’m prettier when I cry and cuter when I’m screaming and all the explaining in my hands might as well be a hand game with an empty room. This man gave me a look over his coffee 2 AM at the airport, when I flicked him off, he tipped his hat, winked, beaming. And they are smiling and elbowing his side, at the little beautiful girl who flashed her finger in his face. They point with their eyes. Mama, they tell me in my spunk there is some brilliant beauty a brilliant overlap of sparks of beauty, in my beauty— Mama they don’t listen unless it’s an outburst and they don’t care unless it hurts and they only listen to half my voice, the accent. And Mama I’m running out of forethought thinking— When did we become another hyperbole? When did we become this out-of-world, this inside-out-joke, this beautiful open-mouthed clucking?

“open-mouthed clucking”

SARAH JAWHARI

As if you could ringthe doorbell on a basinedeulogy of earth, callHello! to some small hollow laughingout its colors in an ankle-sprainingarc.

You can’t be measured – a gravething to consider of anything.I want what is your absence,what distinguishes you, what’s inheritedby another vacancy – or severalsmall ones. How fantastic and burlesque to bean infant crippled into infancy.

I want what isn’tthere, the machinery that tookit. The cold appliancesof removal – now too many refugeesand no uniting language.

How terrific and grotesque to seeat least an imprint where the mouth should be.

Ding Dong, Ditch

FATIMA ESPIRITU


LUKE MADDEN

following the sunrise i step out of the seamy camellias on the balconystill quietly blushinglike that first treasured momentwhen i took off from your palmcarrying a gift to the windsand all these years I lingeredfor a season without separationbutterflies in blue tuxedosfluttering into the red velvet duskbut side by side this timewe fly together

Home Garden

YUE QI


MATTHEW HALM

CAITLYN NGAM


time floating on a gondola oars beating a constant pulse the sound of that name as obstinate as a harpsichord ripples across the surfacerising sinking rising sinking hypnotized i became quiet quiet even quieter stranded i would write write until the day i wilt frantically flipping through the dictionary to find the right word to describe but i cannot catch up anymore

Ground Bass

YUE QI

Acting is easy.They called you the prophet.Everyone has phases.Everyone has touched a stove top.

You loved it.Who were they to you anyway?It was damned heavyIt’s rude to return presents.

Friend of chaos.You strut across power linesYou couldn’t escape.The ether had never been so thick.

You rode your tiger into the hillsAnd saw into the dreams of your children.You twisted your head and said“I think I’m going to go home for a while.”

Escape of the Mystic

JEFF ATKINSON


The orange’s flesh openedthrums a wet squelch.Fingers had dug under the basketball skin,not peelingbut tearing chunks out of the fruit’s water-flecked wrap.Fingers had carved the grooves evenly to divide the center,or to divide evenly the flesh.With the body torn, the remains scatteredon the tabletop are the solar system:the juice-spray the asteroid belt,the shells, the planets, the malnourished twin, the sun.There is no crescent for the Earth.It does not lie in the center of everything,of anything, of nothing.The tongue examines the seedless segments,licking away the orange blood.The mouth breathes in sharp citric ethersas thoughts turn to plantations in Bahia.

The Maidenhair Tree’s Thoughts About Tuesday

SABRINA GORSE

GRACE EDER


TIM COLLINS

Looking for the land where the good thieves go, they swallow a dried monarch husk

There were daffodils in Babylon, kept by the ocean phoenix and ox

in a thousand stories away and adrift, drunk icebergs in a cup

orange vinyl orange plastic orange water washes orange and grainy

A post-script, too, was given, more as a foot- note, a stinging in the mind

ocean vinyl ocean plastic ocean water preserves and picks away

battered ribs, lips, and the taste of the color of moths and iron

Broken Doors

JON BACKMANN


GRACE EDER TROY HOFFMAN


FIRST PRIZE PROSE

La Esposa del Viarejo DelfínThe Dolphin Traveler’s Wife

[I] globalizationNortheast’s flight attendants were encouraged to take personal liberties with the standard cabin safety precaution routines.“...and in the unlikely event that this flight turns into an luxurious ocean cruise, your seat cushion may be used asan alternate flotation device. Thank you for choosing to fly the friendly skies with Northeast Airlines.”The plane lifted off the runway as Ellis leaned back, closing his eyes. If God hadn’t wanted people to fly, He wouldn’t have allowed aerospace engineers to develop the means to overcome gravity with jet propulsion engines and laminar airflow.“Is this your first time flying?” Asked his neighbor in the aisle seat.“Me? No I loved flying since I was a kid, so I made a career out of it.”“Ah. Mr. Riviera, is that right? We’re probably flying in one of your designs since Northeast updated their fleet about a year ago.”He couldn’t remember having seen her before - was this the daughter of a corporate financier? A colleague’s wife? A company representative?“Tercel C527, more fuel-efficient than the previous generation,” he said, combing his memory for a name, a company, any identifying detail that could connect this stranger to his networking ledger.“Don’t worry, I’m not a mind reader.” She laughed as she switched off her overhead cabin light. “Francis keeps me updated on your work.”“Francis?” He repeated, drawing a complete blank.“Dr. Francis Inia. Am I asking the wrong Ellis?”“Oh, Dr. Geoff Francis Inia. He prefers to go by his middle name, but he won’t let me call him ‘Frank’, go figure.”

She straightened her verdigris headband before offering him a handshake with a warm smile. “Dr. Merina Setacea. May I call you Ellis?”“Sure. What brings you to the Amazon?”“There’s a small clinic near a section of the river where I’ll be working with your friend.”“That’s odd,” he thought as he returned the gesture. “Frank told me he wouldn’t be in South America at all this month. What else is he hiding from me?” Ellis shook his head in disbelief as he thought of the other potential details Francis might’ve failed to mention over several years. Even now he felt like he didn’t know him any better than he did before they first met.“You went to East Castern Preserve Institute?”“Yeah, Frank and I went to ECPI.”“Small world, isn’t it? You graduated three years after my class.”Ellis nodded, allowing his seat to recline as the jet made a calculated arc towards the equator. Globalization had its drawbacks, but a small world made air travel a hell of a lot easier.[II] femoris interruptusThe only difference between New York and Amazonian nightlife was that the latter had a few more trees than the former, judging from the din emanating from the rainforest. Dr. Bynn tossed and turned underneath a mosquito net, exhausted by jet lag yet unable to sleep in such a familiar and unfamiliar environment.He smiled, the dog-tired haziness bringing back wonderful memories of ER rotations with other listless medical students as they shuffled past countless aseptic lavender walls in pursuit of the attending M.D. leading their section around the pathology ward.Somewhere in the distance, he heard the snap of a dead tree limb and pounding footsteps.Seconds later, Dr. Bynn tumbled out of his hammock in his rush to meet the figure that had collapsed halfway into the tent entrance with an agonized cry. At first, he suspected the man had sustained facial lacerations from the red streaks that glinted in the faint light but upon closer inspection, he recognized the ocher markings worn by the local medicine man.“Te ayudaré. ¿Dónde está tu dolor?” Dr. Bynn knelt down to tilt the LED lantern illuminating the patient lying on the ground.“Escúchame, Doctor.” He clasped the doctor’s hand, and trembling as he spoke.“Estoy escuchando.”“Tú y tus conocidos se encuentran los monstruos.”


“Monsters? What kind - er, ¿Qué tipos de animales son?”Dr. Bynn took the opportunity to assess the patient during the lull in the conversation, as he was too frightened to speak for a few minutes. Years of clinical experience allowed him to keep a neutral expression when he discovered the man’s right leg, twisted at a sickening angle from the rest of his body. The sound of a tree branch had actually been the shaman’s femur fracturing under the stress of his mad dash toward the clinic. Dr. Bynn gingerly palpated the hip joint to check for damage, his brow furrowing with worry, as the indigenous residents were anything but fainthearted. In fact, he’d seen them net gigantic catfish and piranha, handling their edible trophies barehanded before eviscerating them and laying the fillets over a makeshift grill. Yesterday, when the sound of a jaguar’s yowl stopped him cold on the trail, a young lady, noticing his concern, set down her basket of acai berries and proceeded to remove a leech trying to feed on the back of his neck.“Doctor,” the shaman whispered, “escúchame. “Estamos en una situacíon peligrosa.”“¿Qué?”“Los encantados son espíritus del río Amazonas y brujas ponderosas - pueden cambiar y caminar entre nosotros sobre la tierra seca!” Dr. Bynn understood each and every word but found himself lost for an appropriate response.He heard the tent canvas rustle as another physician stepped in, stopping short of the wizened figure lying limp on the ground.“Dr. Inia, could you please-”“¡Dios Mío!” The patient shrieked, making a frantic attempt to distance himself from Dr. Bynn’s colleague. Holding up both hands in a conciliatory gesture, Dr. Inia looked increasingly worried as the medicine man shook with a frenzied rage.“Ssh, soy un médico, quiero ayudar.”“¡Vete!” He hissed, staring up at Francis with a savage glint in his eyes. Ducking to avoid a handful of rusty herbal powder, Francis decided distancing himself was the best option at the moment for everyone involved.“I’ll arrange for an emergency transport,” he said, brushing off his lab coat as he backed out. “My presence is only compounding his psychosis.”“Thank you, Dr. Inia, I’ll try to stabilize him in the meantime.”“¡Criatura diablo! ¡No nos moleste, encantado!”

[III] the mythos of iniidaeDr. Bynn found himself slipping in and out of drowsiness as he metabolized the residual adrenaline accumulated from the events of last night.“¿Qué te pasa, calabasa?” chirped a nursing aide carrying a carafe. “¿Estás cansado?”“Si.” He massaged both temples with his fingers. Jet lag might’ve been classified as a minor medical condition, but it made international shifts abroad downright hellish.“¿Demasiado cansado para decir más que una sola palabra?” She sat down beside him, pressing an earthenware mug of coffee into his free hand,“Gracias, Rhea.” Taking a large sip, he winced at the intense bitterness. Milk and cream of any sort was rather hard to come by in this area, and he’d resolved to abstain from sugar when he could - his last blood test had come back with pre-diabetic fasting glucose levels.“¿Tomás, qué estás pensado?” Dr. Bynn gazed at the ground, mulling over the medicine man’s warning. Though the elderly shaman had clearly been in a psychotic condition, his genuine terror and enigmatic ramblings about monstruos continued to haunt Tom’s memory.“¿Qué son encantados?”“Cosas mitológias, supposedly,” she said, code-switching to English. “You’ve never heard of them before last night?” Tom shook his head.“Your uncle could barely to describe them to me, he was absolutely terrified.”“He’s not the only one.”“What are they?”“Encantados? They live in the in the Encante somewhere in the depths of the Amazon river, but they often travel inland to partake of our riverside fiestas and the señoritas in attendance. After bewitching them with their gifted speech and elegant appearance, they kidnap a few girls and ravish them for the rest of the evening.”“So they abduct young women, seduce them by the river, and drown them afterwards?”“Some come back pregnant, though they have no idea who the father is. And several months later, they bear the children of the boto.”Tom stood up and stretched, wincing at the sore spot on his shoulder where he’d hit the ground after tumbling out of his hammock.


“At first they sounded like hedonistic, shape-shifting magical dolphins, but now...”“They’re not sadistic creatures, they find us interesting to interact with because of their curious nature. To blend in, they usually take the form of a young man in formal attire. But they always wear a hat because they can’t make the hole in their head disappear like their tails and fins, and they have to touch the river water every month or so. Their only other weakness is a powder of manioc root and dried chilis.”“Pepper and flour. You drive them away by seasoning them?”“Only medicine men know how to use it, but the entranced victims are almost as difficult to deal with once they’re under that spell. Unless they’re tied down, they’ll walk straight into the river.”That explained why Rhea’s uncle had targeted Dr. Inia with that reddish concoction. He’d been wearing his favorite team’s baseball cap since they’d gone on a winning streak a couple days ago, the residents of his hometown being requisite fanatics as well.“Rhea, would you be so kind as to wake me up when Dr. Inia has a moment to talk?” She nodded, leaving a small cup of ice water beside his cot to replace the mug. A medicine man carrying an ample satchel of manioc-chili dust had nothing to fear from an encantado.“Something else must have scared him into running for his life,” Tom thought, dozing off as the sun began to rise.[IV] an osmotic relief“Frank, did you try to give me the slip again?” Ellis smirked, donning a straw hat to shade himself from the sunny afternoon. Dr. Inia suppressed the impulse to strangle him with a stethoscope while asking Merina if she could give them a moment in private.“Dr. Bynn’s office is the third tent from the left, he’ll be able to show you around.”“Take your time,” she said, starting to walk across the encampment. “It sounds like you guys have a lot to catch up on, so I’ll just explore the surrounding areas.”With an exasperated sigh, Francis removed the stethoscope around his neck, pocketed it to remove the temptation, and sat beside his old classmate in a reluctant reunion. He’d been looking forward to the next week, as the villages nearby had invited the clinic staff to an evening picnic as an appreciative gesture for their services.He’d also planned to act as a tour guide after a brief orientation run through the clinic, since this was the first time Merina had visited this area.

“Look,” he said, “I really appreciate you coming all the way down here to visit, but...”“Francis. I’m worried about you.”Dr. Inia said nothing at first, taken aback by his abrupt solemnity. The last time Ellis had ever deigned to call him by his proper middle name was, well...longer than he cared to admit.“Why?”“Look at yourself! You’re a wreck in a lab coat, that’s what. I know you want to help people, but how can you when you’ve been neglecting yourself like this?” Francis watched him uncap a stainless-steel canteen, slumped halfway with his head in his hands. “When was the last time you had any water?”“I meant to get a container yesterday evening, but there was a late-night emergency.”“Frank. People die of thirst in four days!”“I’m not that thirsty, though I’m burning up. Just pour it on me for now, I’ll ask Rhea for a glass of water soon as I’m not so dizzy.” Ellis obliged, but stopped when he noticed the cap’s brim was deflecting the liquid away from its wearer.“It’s not gonna do anything if you’ve got your head covered up - and I know, I know they’re on a roll back home, and that you and your city are followers past the point of insanity, but this won’t take long, I promise.”Francis hesitated before removing his cap but felt a sense of relief when a cool, soothing sensation from the rivulets of fresh water drawing away the stifling warmth in small droplets tricking down-Realizing some of the water had gone down the wrong way, Dr. Inia went into a sudden fit of coughing.“El...Ellis!” He spluttered. “What the...what the hell was that for?” His friend patted him on the shoulder affectionately and replaced the cap on its owner’s head.“Just a little water, not like it’s gonna kill you or anything.”“Did I ask you to drown me with your canteen?!”Fortunately for Ellis, Rhea walked in moments before Francis could throttle him, stethoscope or no stethoscope.“Dr. Tom Bynn wanted to talk to you as soon as you...dry off. Want a spare towel?”“Yes, please.” Francis glowered at him as he took deep, grateful breaths without being interrupted by painful spasms.“No problem. Ellis, he’s taken, his girlfriend’s visiting the clinic for a few weeks.”“Frank, how does she know my name?”


“They’ve been together for almost five years now. But I’m sure you’ll find other decent, handsome guys out there. Besides, ‘Ellis Inia’ sounds more like a bacterial genus than a name.”Ellis was utterly lost for words as Rhea backed out of the tent as nonchalantly as she had entered.“...Who...what the...?”Seeing his talkative friend reduced to stuttering in less than a minute, Francis sat down to avoid collapsing on the ground laughing. When she returned, he stood up again, shaking and smiling in an attempt to quell his amusement.“Thank you. Thank you, Rhea, I really needed that.”“You don’t laugh often enough. Here, catch!”“Mmmnn!” Seeing Ellis simultaneously muffled and blinded by a small cloth, Dr. Inia stumbled out of the tent practically sobbing with laughter.[V] falling actionsThe gentle evening breeze did nothing to alleviate Merina’s vertigo or nausea as she wrapped a thin grey sarong around herself.“Don’t drink the water, don’t eat anything you’re not sure of,” she’d repeated to herself several times as soon as the flight had landed at Bélem International. “Let your guard down one time, just once, and you’re in for it...”Startled by the rustle of dead grass near the riverbank, she winced as she stood up, one hand over the stitch in her side. She cleared her throat repeatedly to keep herself from retching in front of the clinic’s other administrative physician.“Dr. Setacea, have you seen Dr. Inia? I’d like to talk to him, please,” said Tom, carrying a thick manila folder in one arm.“Last time I saw him, he was talking to a friend near the center.”“Thanks, Merina!” He jogged back towards the encampment.A sharp pain lanced through her stomach, forcing her to sit down again as her insides writhed against each other in a peristaltic frenzy. Never again would she even think of sampling food from an elderly street vendor.“What exactly is pescado frito en harina de mandioca con pimiento, anyway?” she thought, leafing through a thin Spanish pocket dictionary. After translating the whole phrase, Merina realized her gut feelings were anything but an immune reaction to a food-borne strain of S. aureus.“No wonder I feel so bad...ooh. I can’t stand it anymore.”Dr. Setacea removed her sandals and arranged them in a neat pair on the bank beside her, immersing her feet as she reclined on the mahogany dock. She sighed with relief as the sensation of a familiar current brushing past her flukes made the dizziness evaporate into nothing, the twisting knots in her stomach

straightening themselves out as she undid the verdigris ribbon around her hair. Merina sat up abruptly when she heard someone striding through the foliage, several thin branches being swatted aside. Ellis found himself speechless for the second time that day when he saw Dr. Setacea throw herself into the river, her undone headband caught in the median notch of her tail.He managed to find his own voice again as the ribbon sunk beneath the surface into the depths of the Amazon.“Oh, f-”----“-orgive me for the intrusion, Francis. Were you awake around 1 AM last evening?”“Yes, why?”“The patient from last night had to run past your tent to get to my end of the encampment. Did you see anything—anything chasing him, any clue to what he was running from?” After a few pensive minutes, Dr. Inia turned to his colleague, shaking his head.“I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary other than him. Sorry, Tom.”“Oh well. Guess I’ll pick this one up in the morning, then.” Dr. Bynn gazed wistfully at the late afternoon sun, the manila folder tucked under his arm. “I meant to give Merina an idea of the clinic’s layout before sundown. Have you seen her recently?”“No, I haven’t. She said she’d be exploring the surrounding area.”“I talked to her by the docks earlier, but when I came back around, she was gone.”“She’s probably on her way back here, then.”“I hope her things aren’t scattered on the dock like they were the last time I saw them.”“Son of a...” Francis dashed out of the tent towards the other edge of the encampment.“Dr. I — oomph!” Tom found himself sprawled on the ground covered in medical records and X-rays after beingblindsided by a panicked Ellis.“Frank, wait! I saw her!” He screamed, hoping for a small miracle as he continued to sprint after his friend. His prayers were answered when Dr. Inia was forced to slow down around an large tangle of tree roots in the middle of his path. He came to a full stop when Ellis tackled him face-first into the leaf litter.“Get off of me!”“No, I have to tell you something, stop! Stop! About her, I—”“Ellis, what did you do to her?” “She’s drawing you towards the river, you’re under a spell!”“I’m going to propose to her, you idiot!”“You’re making a huge mistake!”


“What the hell is your problem?!” Ellis fought to catch his breath, praying that his friend would listen to reason.“So you think she’s not who I think she is?”His prayers were not answered this time.“No, she’s not, Frank.”“You’re not who I thought you were, either.” Dr. Inia landed a solid right hook to his opponent and raced towards the docks.“Yeah? Well, neither were you, ya frickin’ bottlenose!” Ellis shouted after him, nursing his fresh injury with one hand while blinking back tears of frustration.----“Rhea...”“Dios mío, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!” She said, wrapping the towel she was about to fold up around him as he staggered towards her. “Where’s Dr. Inia?”“Ellis had him pinned to the ground, insisting he was under a spell and that Merina was an—”“A what?”“You’re not going to believe this, but I think he was implying that Dr. Setacea was an encantado.”“No...”If not for the natural color in her cheeks, Rhea would’ve looked even paler than Tom did. A box of butterfly needles and anticoagulant vials tumbled out of her arms as she fled towards the outskirts of the clinic.“Daddy?! Papá! Come back!”Baffled by her sudden departure, Tom stared after her silhouette rapidly retreating into the sunset. Burying his face in his hands, he shook his head — this could not be happening, this could not be happening...“Has everyone lost their bloody minds?!”An eerie silence greeted Dr. Bynn, now the sole occupant of the deserted camp. “...Sod it, things couldn’t possibly get any stranger than they are now.”He took comfort in the fact that a panacea for his overtaxed sanity would be waiting for him here. If he made it back in one piece.----Ellis could didn’t mind the contusion to his zygomatic arch. Bruises would heal completely in a few days, but the wound to his heart was a different matter altogether. After all, Francis had been calved the same season he was, and they’d been pod mates since he could remember. “I can’t let him do this,” he murmured. “I can’t!”He replaced his hat and chased after his adoptive brother with renewed determination. “Geoff Francis Inia, you get back here

right now!”Dr. Inia came to a standstill in the middle of the creaking dock, swaying as the planks moved against each other with the push of the incoming tide. Disoriented, Ellis tore past him, colliding with an astonished Dr. Setacea.“You’d do the same for me, Frank!”Pushing off the edge with all his remaining strength, he sent them both into the water with a loud splash. A verdigris sash and straw hat rose to the surface amid the bubbles rising up around where they’d fallen in. Dr. Inia almost lost his balance again when someone else ran past, missing his elbow by a few inches.“Oh no...papá!” Rhea wailed, falling to her knees and leaning over the edge. She scooped the hat out of the river with the utmost reverence and wept as she pressed it over her heart, the rising tide continuing to rock the mahogany platform.[VI] platanistoideal“Papá...?”Her voice trailed off as a pale pink dorsal fin meandered towards the dock from the middle of the river. “¡Papá!” she cried, tossing the hat in the water and watching it drift back towards her. The dolphin swam back and forth, staring at her for several seconds.“Daddy, I’m so sorry. I thought you’d recognize me.”“My god...Rhea, oh, you’ve grown up so fast!”“Wait...she can hear you?”“Yeah, Frank, she’s my little girl!” Ellis hovered several inches from the dock, keeping his head raised out of the river’s surface.“Encantado de conocerle, Rhea.” He anticipated the stream of unintelligible clicks and whistles as Ellis reproached him for using such a tawdry pun. Another fin sped past them, disappearing under the water as it approached the shore.“For once, I agree with him.” Dr. Setacean retied her headband, abandoning any further attempt to wring out her soaked clothes as she stepped back onto the wooden pier. “That joke’s been done to death a thousand times over.”Dr Inia turned around, pressed a hinged scallop shell into her palm, and knelt down in front of her.“Merina, will you marry me?” After several seconds of stunned silence, Dr. Setacea placed her right hand on his shoulder and leaned towards him.“I’ll think about it,” she whispered before shoving him into the river.


S. LIMJOCO

Moments later, another dolphin, tinged a slightly darker pink, emerged beside Ellis, who was expressing his mirth with a rapid series of squeaks.“Ahahaha, well done, Merina!”“...Was that really necessary?”“I wanted see how much we had in common,” Dr. Setacea laughed as Francis blushed an even deeper crimson in response.“See? See?! I tried to tell you she wasn’t what you thought she was, didn’t I?”“Ellis, would you shut up for once?”“Of course I’ll marry you. I thought you’d never ask, Francis.”“Hear that? She said yes! Yes! Yes!!”Dr. Inia leapt from the water, a pure expression of unbounded joy which finished with a landing that drenched the applauding figures on the dock.“Well, I’ll be damned,” Dr. Bynn said with a low whistle. The whole series of events had unfolded before his eyes as he’d concealed himself behind the undergrowth. “I wish you both the very best for the years to come. Congratulations, Francis and Merina.” Without any further ado, he made his way back to the encampment, looking back every so often to ensure no one was tracking him.

Fortunately, he’d had the presence of mind to keep a flask of gin in his luggage for such an occasion.

DORIAN SANDERS

Documents

Case Reserve Review: Spring 2010