by Allie Williams “Okay, so you see this number?” I nodded, “we want to get this down to 140.” I nodded again. The girl whose name I could not remember handed me a bag, “okay now hand this out.” The car pulled up and I smiled and handed them the bag. They drive away. “Okay good!” She smiled at me but it didn’t quite seem real, “next time try to say thanks or have a nice day or something like that.” I nodded again. One of the boys I went to high school with walked behind the counter and I sighed with relief. He’d help me. A person I…
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Chapter One – Trenches
by Orion Waters This is bullshit. I joined this galactic shit show of an army to be the damn hero! Because I’m just that good; I was supposed to be in the officers training course, I was supposed to be climbing the ranks, I was supposed to have made the rank of master chief blowing people up from orbit, I was supposed to be in the Navy, not in these filth ridden trenches with a gunshot wound surrounded by idiots. “Will one of you fuckin Dykes get over here and give me some god damn first aid!” The trenches are in a chaotic mess. Soldiers, scrambling to get to…
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Reflection in Nature
by Johanna Kumpula What do you see? I see white blanketing the frozen ground like a mother tucking in a child. I see green and grey giants towering above the Earth like soldiers protecting their land. I see the world around me dancing as the wind steals the cold and ushers it towards the mountains but most importantly, I see a home. The home I grew up in, chasing dragonflies and skinning knees, laughing with friends and screaming into the void. There’s an old rope swing tied to the tree in the middle of the yard. I used to fly up into the sky and chase the birds on…
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Why Do Humans Laugh?
by Caleb Rauch Laughter is a real puzzler in terms of evolutionary study. What possible reproductive benefits could come from hooting like a deranged owl? Why is this behaviour instinctive, while something like hunting needs to be taught? While vocalizations from play fighting are nothing special in the realm of animals, only humans and a few primate relatives explicitly create laughter when they find something amusing or to communicate complex messages. We respond almost unconsciously to social cues that promote laughter and end up laughing even when things aren’t funny. It’s a complex phenomenon, but the question is simple: what causes laughter? In the book The Humor Code, author and…
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Lists
by Caleb Rauch ○ Top 10 Anime Betrayals ○ 15 Shocking Pictures of Kylie Jenner You Won’t Believe ○ 37 Things Conservatives Would Rather Do Than Watch Obama’s State Of The Union Speech ○ 15 Pictures of Hedgehogs With Things That Look Like Hedgehogs ○ 43 Celebrities That Are Only Famous to Other Celebrities Former Mother-In-Laws ○ 21 Foods That Forgot How to Food ○ 5 Reasons Why The Universe Doesn’t Exist (And There’s Nothing You Can Do About It) ○ 44 Salads that Will Make You SCREAM ○ 50 Ways to Murder, Skin, and Otherwise Mutilate a Cat ○ 13 Wedding Gowns That Influenced the 2016 Presidential Election…
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Prologue
by Orion Waters Galactic Network News “Welcome viewers to GNNT! I’m your host Jeffrey Kyte and here’s my co-host Sydney Lee. It’s 7 o’clock galactic standard time and the date is 11/21/91. Please standby for your local weather report.” Weather APP: The weather is cloudy with a chance of rain. Back to the GNNT. “Welcome back. Here’s a news update on the peaceful protesting on the planet of Mefisto 7. The protests turned violent today and some are calling the protestors victims of police brutality. My co-host Lee is at the scene with more details. Lee?” “Thanks, Kyte. Behind me, you can see the aftermath of the fight between…
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Intruder
by Gabby Pierce I woke up last night to my wife telling me there was an intruder in the house. She told me to grab the baseball bat from under the bed. I rolled over and told her I hadn’t heard anything and it was just the dog. “Honey, please just check.” “Fine.” I sighed, rolled out of bed, and grabbed the bat. I strolled out of the bedroom, half awake, stumbling as if I was drunk. I checked the bathroom, the kitchen, and even dragged myself downstairs to check the bathroom down there, as well as our family room. Nothing. No one. I went and crawled back into…
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Smartphones: Delivering Your Daily Dose of Dopamine in a Convenient, Pocket-Sized Package!
by Addy Wright Have you ever checked your smartphone, found no notifications, and turned it off, just to find yourself checking again thirty seconds later? Rest assured, you’re not alone. The reason you and so many others get that irresistible urge to constantly check your phone is that it and the apps on it are specifically designed to be as addictive as possible. Today, smartphone addiction is so prevalent that the psychological attachment to our phones has its own name: nomophobia. This name derives from the phrase “no mobile phone phobia” (Valdesolo, n.d.). Smartphones themselves are purposefully designed to be addictive, and so is each individual application on them. If…
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Three Books on my Nightstand
By Sara Hinojosa Editor’s note: A first-year student from Chicago, Sara Hinojosa, ’22, describes the books she couldn’t leave behind. This assignment is from Sara’s FA18 Media Writing class. When I decided on a whim to go to school in Alaska, my plan was to fit my life into a single suitcase. Though I was tempted to haul all my favorite books along, I decided on three that I’ve never finished reading: “Under the Banner of Heaven,” by Jon Krakauer, “A Man Called Ove,” by Fredrik Backman, and the Bible. I started “Under the Banner of Heaven” solely because Krakauer, a journalist, is a writer I most aspire to be like.…
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(Inhu) Man’s Best Friend
By Sarah Cooley —– Plyll had been in deep cover with the K’alopeon Observation and Infiltration Corps. for an entire planet-cycle, and they were hopelessly bored. They had originally volunteered for an assignment to the newly discovered planet XB-24357–the natives called it earth–because it had sounded like an exciting opportunity to finally get off their cramped, research-class vessel, and their only other assignment option had been a much colder planet with less moisture in the atmosphere. An all around bad time. But now, here they were stuck in a frustrating routine of putting on physical-enhancements, attending an academic institution, going through the motions of being a human…
