Table Of ContentAcknowledgements:
The staff of the Sefer would like to express
their gratitude for the help and assistance of
the following persons:
The English Department, especially:
Dr. Nancy Barendse
Dr. Carol Drowota
Professor Dawn Leonard
Dr. David Phillips
Dr. Scott Yarbrough
and
The Literary Society
2301
Table of Contents
Reality, Heather Falco 3
SmokeandAshes, Sarah Benton 4
The Man Who Could Take No foranAnswer, Mandy Rudloff 5
Homecoming, Heather Pipkin 8
Photo: 5O'ClockShadow, Lili Gresham 9
Something ofLate November, Steven Walker 1
Vanishing Spring, Cindy Hanna 1
Acting Lessons, Nancy Shealy 1
The Overhead Light Flickers, Eddie Becker 1
MindGames, Lindsay MacPherson 14
Slow Ice, Sarah Benton 15
My Mountain, Lindsay MacPherson 21
Breaking Waves, Katie Staubes 22
Photo: Mountain Stream, Lori Crocker 23
The Starry Night, Heather Falco 24
The Candle, Matthew Scott 25
Fantasy, Cindy Hanna 26
Void, Charlotte Bice 27
The Lesson, Sarah Benton 28
White Lines, Katie Staubes 29
Golden Rain (welcome), Steven Walker 30
Independence Day, AngelJohnson 31
Little Darling, Cindy Hanna 35
Photo: Untitled, Kristin Cleary 36
Carolina Summers, Sarah Benton 37
Voices of Waves, Charlotte Bice 38
Come Back To Me, Lindsay MacPherson 39
Control, Jennifer Sloan 40
DinerScene, Nancy Shealy 41
Explosion, Heather Falco 43
Artwork: Untitled woodcut, Burnett Singleton 44
The Celebration, D.J. Hedgepath 45
Femininity, Cindy Hanna 46
Gettysburg, Sarah Benton 47
CoverPhoto by Kristin Cleary
SEFER
According to the Analytical Concordance to the
Bible, the word "Sefer" is taken from the Hebrew
and means "work ofwriting" or "book."
2
—
.
Reality
Phony laughs fill the solemn
space where carelessness abounds;
her holloweyes are searching.
A woman has never lived
in a heart such as hers,
an anguished soul tothe say least.
To find worth, she skips down
life's highways in her illusoryworld,
ignoring blatantfears.
When she comes to a rock
in her path, she will leap . .
without the hand of luck.
Fear is afolly, and crying,
she reasons, is a great shame
problems, it seemsthere are none.
She'll hide what she doesn't
want you to see and continue
on living her masquerade.
HeatherFalco
3
Smoke and Ashes
The embers flicker
as the smoldering
cigarette dances
with his fingers.
He draws itto his
lips and takes a
long drag allowing
the smoketofall
down his throat,
climb back up again,
and billowout his
mouth filling the
tiny, blue room.
It waltzes overthe bed,
touching the pillows,
tiptoes overthe solid oak dresser,
and is careful
to touch all oftheir
memories.
The smoke swirls around
his hands and halos around
her hair and curls around
the doorknob as heflicks the
ashes tothe cold floor.
Sarah Benton
TheMan Who Could TakeNoforanAnswer
Exceptforthe man himself, everyone knewthatWalter
O'Riordan would die young. He would work himselfto death just like
his father. In the shop bythe lilting riverbankthat was steeped in the
perpetual rancoroftransmission fluid he ripped open the barnacle-
laden underbellies of boatsand patched them backtogether. He fixed
lawnmowers and chainsaws, weedeaters and cars; anything that
pumped gasoline through a set of mechanical veins obeyed his touch.
The truth was thatWalterO'Riordan onlyworked at night. This fact,
combined with a chronic anemia, produced in him a spectral appear-
ance, which, byWalter's acquaintances, was often compared to a hol-
lowtree.
Penelope Molina came totown everyyearat the dawn of
summer in the back ofa dying pickup truck, shaded from the sun by a
washed out campertop overthe bed. She rode a long way, breathing
the same recycled airas herparents and two lanky brothers. They
stayed until the ground crusted overand the apples faded awayand
then left bya different road than theycame on. WalterO'Riordan
wasn't sure how many years she had been coming, but he remem-
bered the dayshefollowed herfatherand one ofthe lanky brothers
into his shop as thefather managed totell him in his Spanish-English
hybrid that he wanted an oil change and afuel filter. Penelope Molina
was toothin to be a great beauty but propped up againstthe Coke
machine with restless hands and greasy hairWalterthought she had a
worldlycharm. He looked atthem with feigned disinterest.
"Come back in two hours."
Aftertheydisappeared intothe afternoon haze he examined
the truckwith a surgeon's eye. With 197thousand miles choked up
on rotting domestic parts, he knew its last ownershould have gutted it.
It wasn'tthefuel filterthat needed to be replaced, butthe pump. He
wished he'd have told them to come back in less than two hours.
Less because ofthefuel pump and more because the Coke machine
seemed like aface without eyes since she stopped leaning on it. Her
existence sparked in him a nearlyarresting fascination that was not so
much about herasthrough her; he was compelled totrytofill the gaps
between them. In thejunkyard thatwas a proliferation of dead rats
and straydogs he found afuel pump thatwould fit.
When the man came backfor his truck, Waltercould only
perceive a sort ofseasoned blankness in the thick airaround him, like
the requisite mundaness of permanent scars. He glanced atthe bu-
colic inside ofthe shop with a contented effusiveness and brought his
eyes to a slowstop directlyon Walter.
"Senor, you have fixed thetruck?"
"Yeah...thirty-three bucks, and I putthat newfuel filter in like
you wanted."
"This is good work you do, a good place...." The serrated
arch of his eyebrow made his forehead look like still-living leather.
"It's an O.K. place; it pays the bills well enough." Walter
5
spent an instanttrying tofocus on the vacant space behind him, but
she did not come thistime.
That night he gazed up atthe hovering insects and thought
aboutfliesfrom here tothe swarming, humming, dancing infinity of a
streetlight in the emptiness. Among half-finished seascapes in his loft
above the shop, he began to reinvent Penelope Molina on canvas as if
she was Jesus' own child. He had neverattempted a human subject
because, until now, he had neverfound onethat endowed him with
the degree of inspiration he needed to begin. In contrastto his previ-
ous works, he would use onlythe cheapest materials he could find.
Walter O'Riordan believed that the onlygood people in the world were
poorand consequentlycould only be realistically represented bythe
rudiments ofthe trade.
It was a promising start; the canvas was grainyand the
paints had achieved the desired thinness. The brush itself was aus-
tere enough to have sprung from Calcutta in the days ofdrought. Slid-
ing into a differentworld, itwas beautiful atfirst, like walking through a
doorthatwas always open but not always accessible. WhatWalter
could not understand, however, was whythe more he moved his
brush the less the image resembled the subject herself. Afterseveral
painstaking attempts to represent her nose, he was irritated bythe
thoughtthat he could not paint her as she was. Whatwas obvious did
not occurto him; he was an impressionist at heart. Observed from a
distance, beautywas evident buttruth only revealed itself to men who,
unlike Walter, possessed a certain eye for detail thatforces one to
notice loose threads on the collarof a shirt. At a barren hour in the
dark ofthe morning, he stopped laboring overthe portrait. / willleave
this dayandthis minute foreverandI'lltake allthe breath andallthe
life with me. He was tootired notto believe every stroke.
When he studied itthefollowing day in the two o'clock sun
that seeped through the moth-eaten curtains, he shifted ittothe cor-
ner. That afternoon he rebuilt atransmission. Love ofroses must
meansomethingbutlove ofcarnationsmustmean somethingbetter.
He thought about her kind ofwomen who had passed through before.
Old and young, he remembered the waytheysometimes wore them in
their hats. It seemed to him that Penelope Molina was the onlyone of
her kind who wasn't a breath awayfrom the grave orthe cradle. He
feltthatthese flowers must be one of her great passions and so, that
evening, he added oneto his portrait.
Her people always inhabited the dustysummer hot dog
stands that were burgeoning goldenrod to a waterless town. Walter
knewshe sometimes worked at one bythe trackwhere the breeders
ran their ponies on gray mornings. He had seen herthere before. For
several days, he thought about herstanding in the shade ofthe hot
dog shack before it occurred to him to actually go there. So he did.
Stripping off his yesterdayself to expose a raw and porous
today, Walter ambled uptothe stand with money in one hand and a
barely breathing flower in the other. He deposited them both on the
grittycounter. She turned and smiled. He noticed the wad of bills in
her apron pocket and the waythe powdered sugardulled the lusterof
6
hergold watch.
"Can I get you something?" she asked in a saccharine voice.
She didn't have an accent.
"I want some fried dough."
"Is theflowerforyour mother? My motheradores carnations;
myfatheralways getsthem for his motherat Easter." She wiped the
sweat awaywith the back of her hand. "Do you want this in a box?"
"Sure," he said, staring.
She packed ittightly, locking in all the steam from the grease,
pausing onlyto glance at his peculiargaze.
"You look at me like a bad Christmas present."
"No," he said slowly, "I wasjustthinking."
"Anything else can getforyou?" She handed him the box.
I
"No, butthanks anyhow." He stared foranother instant. She
stared back.
"Listen, my brother is coming in totake over in half an hour
and they're having a dog race atthetrack." She nodded her head to-
wards the shadowofthe lumbering grandstand. "You want to come
with me? There'll be lots of people since the sun is breaking through."
She tookthe lastcigarettefrom a crumpled package and chewed on
the filtera little. "Anyhow, I'll be there ifyou wantto meet me."
"Yeah, I'd like that." His eyes gotvery narrow when he
smiled. He picked upthe box but leftthe flowerand walked home in
the muted sunlight. He did not come back.
MandyRudloff
7
Homecoming
Mama always told me
Once I left, itwould never
Be the same coming back.
remembertimes
I
When thought
I
The sun rose and set
In my backyard
And just knew
I
My lightning bugs
Werethe brightest
In the world.
But now my room
Smells of dust
And old memories.
An aged prom corsage
Sits withered and crackling
On my dresser
Next to a picture:
High school sweethearts
Arms tightlyclenched
Sure thattomorrow
Would nevercome;
But if it did
We would still betogether.
Sadly, am reminded
I
Howquicklytoday
Becomes nothing more
Than tomorrow's yesterday.
HeatherPipkin
8
