Behrend Showcase
an exhibit of Behrend students' expressive thoughts
The Desert
Magician continued from the Oct. 16 Showcase
I cooked two steaks, one for me and one for the lady. The kids weren't around anymore. I already
mentioned my daughter, Heather, who's in and dut of court looking for child support from that
bastard, but she don't talk to me anymore. The information is brought to me from my wife. My
son, George, lives in Fairbank, Minnesota, on a horse farm. He breed 'em. I could go on about my
youngins, 'cause I have five of them altogether. In my sixty years of livin' I kept pretty busy with
Janet.
The steaks were mild, thin, juicy planks that turned out magnificent in the heat of my charcoal
grill, and nothing set it off better than a sample of that good ol' potato salad. It was a family recipe.
The chill desert night was perfect. The two of us sat outside and gazed across our property. It was
good to stop thinking about the magician and the stories surrounding that stone. Soon, however,
there was a knock at the door. On the other side was the magician. My gun wasn't on me, so he
had me at knife-point with nothing for me to do.
"Gah," I exclaimed, completely unprepared. Your guard doesn't generally have to be so high
when you're a sheriff in these parts. "What do ya want with Larkin?"
There was no answer. I stared straight into the blackness of his hooded face. Then, I noticed
he had the stone clasped tight to his side, between what I supposed was his ell:krw and his ribs.
There was no.real knowing if he had those amenities because of the dark cloak the covered his
whole body. Only his hands were visible, and they were - completely inhuman! They were a pale
green, gnarled at the knuckles, and scaly, not as in frog's skin but a drier scaly. The hands had red
streaks in them, seemingly veins that were entirely too close to the surface of the skin. Janet en
tered the foyer from the back door and dropped our dinner plates in horror at the intruder.
"What do you want with us?" I asked again, slowly stepping back toward the kitchen from the
foyer. The magician kept the knife to my neck the entire way. I had a shotgun over the stove, but
it would take awhile for me to walk him close enough to where I could grab it. As I moved further
and further away from the door, he began to make a gurgling sound that one might relate to a
calmer version of a garbage disposal, but I didn't stop moving toward the kitchen. My wife
screamed and ran upstairs to the only phone in the house. I figured she would do that, because I
leave it to her to think of the most textbook thing to do in a dangerous situation.
Suddenly the magician let the stone drop from being clenched on his right side to being in the
palm of his hand. It, then, slammed the stone onto my kitchen counter. It glowed quickly for a mo
ment and then faded. I was too enthralled with everything that was going on. The mystery of it
never happened around here in Larkin. I was halfway between the entrance to the kitchen and the
stove. The magician lowered the knife from my throat and then stabbed it brutally into my left
shoulder. I screamed in pain and fell to the floor, but my brain seemed to focus more on the magi
cian than on the pain. The knife, left bluntly in my arm, the magician raised both hands to lower
1* hood. The gurgling came and went as if it were its breathing pr'dgegs. When the yloqd was
dropped,ihe a - rt came through the kitchen window to meet the face of the alien. It was that same
pale green, but there were no eyes. A bulbous neck led to a bony, rather skeletal head, which only
had two nostrils and a mouth. Those same red veins continued throughout the flesh.
"What the hell are you?" I asked, finally pulling the knife from my shoulder and pulling
myself toward the hidden shotgun. Its drooling mouth opened suddenly to reply, "From beyond
the stars." As I pulled myself up from the floor, not taking my eyes off of the magician, the stone
began to glow and seemingly start to radiate heat. I pulled the shotgun down from above the stove,
simultaneously with a slew of other events.
My wife descended the staircase to report the cops were here, assuming that if officers were
coming, an alien would become afraid of our inferior race. The stone became brighter and hotter.
I heard the sirens of police cars pulling in front of my house, the desert sand stirred up to the
sky. Jim Hicks and Harry Burrows stepped out of their deputy cars, with several other officers
from adjoining towns and raised their guns to my house. A rescuing attempt through megaphone
began. Yet, the stone became brighter and hotter still.
I focused on it. The vibrant blue light seemed to eat away at all material, first the counter and
cupboards, then the refrigerator, followed by that closest side of the kitchen wall. It was destroying
all matter and getting more and more powerful. This was the end. The magician was next. Each
strand of its cloak was devoured first, and then particles of its skin and blood were absorbed until
there was no alien left standing before me. The shotgun I had finally retrieved had now become
useless. I stared in awe. The heat began to melt my hands, yet there was no pain. My arms and
legs were then enveloped in the radiating pulses, the fibers of my clothes and internal organs
turned into nothingness within the stone.
I would not be recreated once inside the stone, and it would devour all of Earth
There was nothing left of me, and it was the end of peace in Larkin
He thought that by leaving them with me, maybe I'd eventually understand where he came from. Maybe I'd understand
where he wanted to go. 'He didn't know the only person's shoes I was gonna put myself in were my own.
Molly Nosko, junior communications major
Nathan Carter
sophomore english major
Mil
GasAs
Ift the MOW, the black bird perches,
sibsgin g on the gnarled branch of a tree.
in the rain the spider's web glimmers
on the twisting twigs trembling against the wind .
Tice black squirrel scuttles up, up
up the sloped lawn, chattering,
cluttering and chirping Green grass
sways in the cool breeze .
The lady bug, moving- against the sand,
scuttles slowly up my arm.
Tickling the tight tensed flesh
as gooseflesh breaks out
The path cut into the slope,
where at black squirrel scuttles,
and a black bird perches paitiently.
Spiders and lady hugs watch too:
walk thinking- of Gnarls,
a being we all know.
The ghost of the forest
who watches LIES,
The path, witnditing matted,
trampled down by boots and shoes.
The tree, swooping ,and drooping,
moans itts witnter song- as I walk by.
Through the duck thatches above,
the butterfly parades,
t s wings I&ke stained glass
dßumina.ted by the sun.
In a !lonely patch,
wherengnt qv:or:wanly. took, As*,
swinghatwotow"
kAY four spindly ropes.
It gets dark, it always does,
and !leave the swing to arc
in Its eternal pendulum motion,
to go back home through the woods.
I walk thinking of Gnarls,
at being we all know .
The ghost of the forest
who watches me
John Dennis Hadlock
sophomore English literature major
dying branches of this tree aren't enough to shade the graves stands beside,
ikes us wonder who has left the area so alone, who stopped caring.
y Nosko, junior communications major
November 6, 2009
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