student life

CREATIVE WRITING



Our Lost Sister by Andrei Serbin Pont and Nichevo by Jonas Brunschwig were written in their 2009 Creative Writing course.
The course covered short stories, poetry, essays, novels, and film criticism in a workshop format. The students wrote and developed many excellent pieces. These pieces by Andrei and Jonas were selected by the class to be published on the CLUC website. Congratulations gentlemen.



  •                                                                            OUR LOST SISTER
  •                                                     To those foreign to the idiom of our motherland,
                                                        The one’s who recall our god and not our saint,
                                                        Those unaware of patria,
                                                        For you I must construe:
                                                        Second of the fourth
                                                        Zabala and Veron.

                                                        Soberania, at last was ours.
                                                        Orgullo y amor, replenished our hearts.
                                                        Pueblo, reunited for a cause.

                                                        To those who ignore our fighting hawks,
                                                        Who misunderstand the air wolves and their French teeth,
                                                        The one’s who do not know Giachino,
                                                        The ones who consign to oblivion the gore on the soil.
                                                        Sons shed their blood;
                                                        Men fired.
                                                        Six hundred and forty nine.
                                                        Quintana, Ojeda, Ruiz and Ávila.

                                                        Ordenes, pushing for ensigns.
                                                        Coraje y valor, ruled their minds.
                                                        Honor, exchanged for blood.

                                                        To those foreign souls extraneous to our proud standard,
                                                        The one’s who mistake the shirt for the flag,
                                                        Those who ignore el pabellon nacional,
                                                        To you I address this manifest:
                                                        One thousand one hundred and eighty eight
                                                        Monzon and Silva.

                                                        Celeste, on their left arms.
                                                        Juventud y dolor, to lose and mourn.
                                                        Blanco, now stained.
  •                                                     To those who ignore the general’s lost ship,
                                                        Those who offend and mistake her name,
                                                        The one’s who overlook Seineldin.
                                                        Mothers spilled their tears;
                                                        Women healed.
                                                        Fourteenth of the sixth.
                                                        Gonzales, Luna, Ferreira, Monzon.

                                                        Dictadura, crumbles from the scam.
                                                        Verguenza y rencor, assaulted our minds.
                                                        Traicion, forgiveness is nowhere to be found.

                                                        Foreigners, aliens, outsiders,
                                                        Visitors, newcomers, colonists,
                                                        Migrants and strangers,
                                                        For you I recite.
                                                        For my sisters understand
                                                        For my brothers coincide
                                                        About the definition of our land.

                                                        Clichés of honor, sovereignty, pride and emblems can describe
                                                        But will never transmit.
                                                        Images of the deaths, the wounded and the absent will chronicle
                                                        But will never translate.
                                                        Stories, tears and our mate will provide
                                                        But you will never apprehend.
                                                        For our loss was beyond territorial.
                                                        
  •                                                                                   NICHEVO

       It was in part due to his boundless impatience which he evidently inherited from his father, an overly restless sculptor who suffered from insomnia, that he did not wait for the others to get up that morning. He wasn’t known for being an early riser, but on that day something seemed to be engaging his mind, something that had not yet fully made its way to his consciousness, but was slowly ascending from his innermost, like a soda Bubble fizzing its way up to the surface. His morning routine was indisputably troubled, resulting in an inconvenient culinary experience of the addition of two teaspoons of salt to his coffee; quite unusual for a paladin of plain black bitter coffee.
  •    Right after this first mental glitch he ventured off on a bicycle ride in the attempt to win back his lucidity, for in his worldview, the absence of self-control and moderation was one of the main deadly sins. The bike was nothing like those he had admired overseas at some fancy two-wheelers exhibition for green crusaders earlier that year; nevertheless he thought its rusty frame and retro design somehow suited his iconic style. It was the perfect day to indulge in an open-air activity. The last days had been particularly warm, and surely any country up in the northern hemisphere would have monopolized the media with practical advice on what to do to avoid heat strokes and any other heat-related illness; but on that day a fresh breeze from the south had brought the relief everyone had been looking for.
  •    The unpaved road was less of a bother than the dust, a perpetual irritant for which he usually showed little tolerance. On this occasion, however, he managed to suppress his intolerance and take pleasure in his ride; wondering about the lives of the few peasants he passed by on his early morning escapade. ‘What is their first thought when they get up at dawn, having spent the night in a small room shared with every other member of their family? What worries do they have? How close are they to the truth? What is meaningful to them?’ These were some of the thoughts he was visited by, while touring the unusual and fascinating landscapes. Before unseen trees and birds filled the air with a highly volatile wispy scent, liable to every dust cloud that rose high enough in the air to dissolve it. He felt as if he were stopping with everyone without stopping with anyone, and presumptuously dwelt on that feeling for a while longer.
  •    He had been pedalling for a good half hour accompanied by the squeaky sound of the bicycle chain, which the sun must have dried over the years, when his second mental lapsus occurred: as his eyes got caught like magnets to the contrail of an airplane flying at almost forty thousand feet, his front wheel was punctured by an unidentified ground object. Hans Guck-in-die-Luft his mother used to call him. “Fuck!” he exclaimed this time with a hint of aggressive frustration. ‘What is wrong with me?’ he thought. And as the question slowly faded from his mind, the answer finally seemed to rise. The soda bubble had made its way to the surface, and at last he realized that a deep-rooted feeling of general dissatisfaction tormented him. The truth. Right there, in that precise moment, crystal clear: ‘The swamp of spiritual and bodily sloth in which my whole being has sunk’ he thought recalling Joyce. Nothing was right in his life. It wasn’t the first time he had felt that way, but in the past he had always rationalized it as a conflict with which he had to live, a trench war fought on three fronts. Imaginary vs. Symbolic vs. Real. It was habit that had settled all previous conflicts, condemning the imaginary and symbolic and grounding him to reality. This was the one and only life he had, and no matter how dissatisfied with it, in the end he always came to terms with it; forgiving everyone and everything for being the way they were. Habit kept him grounded like fog in an airport.
  •    At this point he could choose to accept his sentence, reverse his way and walk back to the others; or to persevere awhile longer in the same direction until he’d accepted it and turned back. He decided to continue.
  •    ‘It is not what we carry with us, but what we let go that defines who we are.’ he repeated in his mind like a mantra; taking pride in his perseverance, which had never lasted so long in the past. He was feeling light, light and relieved, although experience taught him that the feeling wouldn’t last much longer; that no matter how tawdry and vacuous his existence was, he hadn’t come up with an alternative lifestyle that’d cut him free from his ties to the actual world. His life was ordinary and meaningless, and it did by no means match the vitality and content of his thoughts; which on the other hand had never been powerful enough to cut him loose from his straight-jacketed existence. He was still handcuffed to the world of conventions, of countless masked smiles and interactions soaked in politeness, of blind relations where affinities are measured in terms of one’s ability to restlessly imbibe alcohol and mainstream opinions dictated by the laws of alienation. His mind was only bright enough to provide him with the means to realize his helpless condition, but not to elevate him above it. Purgatory.
  •    Ahead of him, at the edge of his range of vision, a blue plastic tent stretched from what seemed to be a rudimentary shelter to a solitary tree right next to it, and the outline of a person entered his field of view. He hastened his steps until he could see that the shack was the result of constant modifications with any kind of debris its owner could find. There didn’t seem to be much care put to into it; whoever lived in it certainly wasn’t concerned with aesthetics and even its functionality could have been questioned. It had all the hallmarks of a homeless persons’ house, the house of a vagabond.
  •    As he approached, an old man came out from the shelter. His first impression was that of a nearly seventy years-old man, with not much time left on his side. He seemed to be wearing a checkered blue shirt—probably the only shirt he had, judging by the condition it was in—and a pair of brown shorts that looked like they once were beige. His feet were bare. He thought of a short book by a tailor he had read recently entitled “How to be a good Gentleman.” Chapter six covered what a gentleman ought to do, and it recited something like ‘make polite conversation with a homeless person, because a gentleman is never supercilious’. Supercilious.
  •    “Ola’!” he said in the old man’s direction, revealing his slightly foreign accent.
  •    “Buenas.” the old man mumbled back at him.
  •    “Lindo día!” he said as he walked closer to the old man to hear if he had a foreign accent too, but realizing he was toothless, which was what made it hard to understand him.  [continue on page 2]
  •    “Hablas ruso?” the man asked, unveiling what must be his origins.
  •    “No, inglés?”
  •    “Yes, English.” He seemed eager to talk. He assumed the old man didn’t get many chances to, and wondered if he’ll ever find someone speaking Russian up there, considering how people were idolizing his group of English speaking friends – one of their rare chances to meet foreigners.
  •    “Why are you here?” he asked the old man, thinking that would give him the chance to speak for a while.
  •    “Why are you here?” he immediately asked back, now with a clear Russian inflection and the typical rolling “r”.
  •    “Vacation.”
  •    “Aaah. Vacation. You got hole in your bike?”
  •    “Yes, I was distracted. Thinking probably.”
  •    “You like thinking?”
  •    He smiled at the old man. Did he like thinking? “Sometimes I really like thinking; sometimes I really wish to be stupid - perfectly stupid.”
  •    “I like thinking too. Come, let’s go under tree talk. Better, too much of this sun no good.”
  •    “Yes, you’re right. Thank you.”
  •    He was fascinated by this man. He hadn’t expected anyone speaking at least three languages living in those conditions. The old man must have been interested too, he thought, since not many foreign visitors made their way up to that poor northern province. They walked to the shade under the tree and sat on a log that served as a rudimentary bench.
  •    “I take it you are from Russia, sir.”
  •    “Yes. Yes, Russia. You know Russia?”
  •    “No, I’ve never been there, but I am somewhat familiar with its geography and history.” He liked the grumpy tone in the old man’s voice; it put the right distance between him and the world. Involved, yet distant. “I once had a thing for a Russian girl, she was born in Magnitogorsk.” he added.
  •    “I am from Magnitogorsk. I lived there until the fall of Soviets. Magnitogorsk is most grey city in the world. So grey that colour movie producers there all go bankrupt. Bah.” He couldn’t hold his laughter at this colourful description of the old man’s native town.
  •    There was a moment of silence; both men were not in a rush to talk.
  •    “How did you end up living here, if I may ask?” he wondered if the locals knew about it. Of course they knew; they must have known something about him to even tolerate his presence, to make sure he was alright.
  •    “When I left Russia I was young, your age.” he started, which meant he was not nearly as old as he had thought. He must have been less than forty years old, if what he was saying was true. Less than forty and toothless. Flabbergasted he let the man continue.
  •    “I went away because I felt detached from my country, any country really, and any group. I am stateless man, metaphysical stateless, like the stoic men from Roman Empire. Stoic men felt like citizens of world, which is same as citizens of nowhere.” He immediately felt some energy shocks buzzing through his body; what a surprise the world had retained for him on that day in the middle of nowhere. There, in the midst of his identity crisis, hearing about stateless stoics from a vagabond living in a randomly built shack in one of the poorest regions of the country: he was truly amazed.
  •    He waited for the man to continue, and he did.
  •    “I went to see the world. I had money. Then I arrive here and finish money, so I started beg for money. Best place was next to church, in town. There I get enough money to eat. Sleep is no problem, it’s always warm here. Not like in Magnitogorsk.” He was intrigued and wanted to ask why he begged instead of looking for employment, but he didn’t want to interrupt him. There would still be time to ask.
  •    “Then one day police come and say ‘no begging here, governor come visit and he does not like to see beggars.’ So police put me in van and drive me away to river, and there they hit me and throw me in river. I was too injured for swim, so the river bring me here, to this campo, and now I live here with what I find and what people bring.” He was disturbed at hearing what the authorities had done to the man, he could feel it in his guts, how he wished to go after them, nevertheless he couldn’t deceive the man’s truthfulness with merely some petty compassionate sorry words, so he kept it to “I’m sorry to hear, sir.”
  •    “Nichevo.” the man replied. They both understood that there was no need to indulge on that part of the conversation and so they moved on.
  •    [continue on page 3]
  •    He was still wondering why the man hadn’t looked for employment; he surely was qualified to do more than almost anyone there, he thought; so he asked him.
  • He replied “It is with extreme lucidity I understand it is necessary to accept humiliation and suffering just to refuse to have work, to do things I not like. My thought and my actions come down to this: to live with no purpose. That is why I not work, why I live at margins of society. I am stateless and I want to be. I don’t need motherland; I don’t want to be part of anything. I think only the man who keep himself aside, who does not do like others, keep ability to really understand something.”
  •    Again he could physically feel his own exaltation, his senses were sharp like a predator’s, stimulated by the man’s words, which he knew were all in himself as well, just not as organized and violent. He was soaking up the man’s wisdom, and all he could think of was‘more, more, more…’.
  •    “I take it you are not very fond of people?”
  •    “Fond? What does that mean?”
  •    “You don’t like people very much?”
  •    “Nyet!” he exclaimed, “All individuals are negative models. I only interested in ambiguous side of men, and here men are more simple, they understand more essential things and are closer to reality.” It is so that the man justified staying there, but he thought his worldview would also imply that going away would be against his belief, which he was living up to as dearly as possible; and that was probably the point for which he admired and respected him more than he had admired and respected anyone before.
  •    He had one more urgent question, before he would completely submit to the elegance of the man’s existence.
  •    “Do you, or have you ever considered yourself as a failure?” he asked, ready for the ultimate mental derangement. The man smiled at him. They understood each other on different levels of madness.
  •    “Failure is essential for spiritual progress. It is capital and fertile experience. People that succeed in everything can only be superficial. Failure is modern version of nichevo, of nothing. You see, failure is more meaningful than success.” The man’s fragmented thoughts defeated every structured reflection, each fragment born from a different essential experience. He was trying to be as irresponsible as life, he thought.
  •    “Listen, you are the greatest contemporary philosopher!” he told the man as a verdict, as to condemn every contemporary author he had read.
  •    “Are you making fun of me? Are you teasing me?” the man replied, surprised at what his younger companion just asserted.
  •    “Absolutely not. If I tell you this it is because you live, you reflect continuously; you experience problems, and your problems are tied to your life. Your existence reminds me of that of Greek philosophers, discoursing in the streets and markets. Your words are altogether with life itself.”
  •    Those were the last words he spoke to the man. He believed there was no need for more on either side. He had gained the last piece of awareness, so he abandoned the bicycle and wandered off in the same direction he had been following all morning, thinking of how much the vagabond knew about the world, even though his last encounter with actual worldly affairs dated back to the day the police threw him in the river to please a governor’s sight with a beggar-less city.
  •    He had cut the umbilical cord and wandered off to become his own masterpiece.
  •