In the Style of E. Munch//Calissa Hanson & Paper Cranes//Elaine Morgan

In the Style of E. Munch//Calissa Hanson

Paper Cranes//Elaine Morgan

My fist was having such a hard time holding up my face that the skin was all scrunched up around my eye. You’d think if our church wanted a youth program, they’d have found a better pastor than a 70-year-old man with the most monotone voice I’d ever heard. Not to mention there were only, like, seven of us. It was a small town, Hulmer, way up in Michigan, where it was always cold. Unfortunately, the young population wasn’t very large. It mostly consisted of older people… you know, like the “youth pastor.” 

I wasn’t going to pay any more attention here than I did in the main service, sitting between my two perfectly poised parents. Liars. All three of us knew they refused to talk to each other at home and would make me pick favorites. 

Isn’t one of those ten commandments, “Thou shalt not lie”? They were all pretending to be better than they were. And I knew it. We all knew it. We just pretended we didn’t. 

I knew everyone in that room with the youth pastor; none of us were listening. The three snotty girls in the corner with a dozen layers of makeup were snickering, whispering stupid little secrets behind painted fingernails. Tapping his fingers on the table, the boy next to me had a bruise on his face from the last fight he’d gotten into at school. Those fights were becoming a regular occurrence. Next to me, another boy who I never really noticed, with his hood up so I could see only the tips of his hair and nose, was playing around with the pamphlet we were given. So far, at least none of them were liars. Except for the daughter of the pastor, scrawny neck holding her head higher than it should’ve been, acting all modest and wallflower-y when everyone knew she’d slept with half the athletes in our school. 

I was folding and unfolding the corners of the pamphlet when I glanced over at the quiet kid. Sitting right in front of his criss-crossed legs on the floor was a clean, sharp-edged paper crane. A smile lifted the left corner of my lip. 

Then the youth pastor prayed some “blessing” on us, and we could leave. I left with my parents, flawlessly clad in their Sunday best, but I wasn’t looking at them. I watched the quiet boy walk, head down, toward his parents, tossing that paper crane in the trash. His parents barely even looked at him, certainly didn’t say a word to him. 

I never noticed that the boy was in most of my classes at school. But there he was on Monday, in the back of the class, hood up, fiddling and folding his notebook paper into a thousand tiny paper cranes before tossing them away into the trash can on his way out. Sometimes my algebra teacher would yell at him for having his hood up –we weren’t allowed to in school– and when he took it down you could see the bruise or little cut on his face from a new day of kids messing with him in the halls. The teachers never asked what was wrong with him. 

They already knew. They just didn’t care. They pretended to care but they didn’t. Not one bit. More liars. There were liars all over the school, athletes who all boasted the highest body count when we all knew they all just slept with the same people interchangeably. Preppy girls, like the three in youth group, who prided themselves on being the prettiest, when I’d seen them in the bathroom, coercing each other to stick their fingers down their throats. The teachers and coaches, who went out of their way to say that they cared about the wellbeing of students, yet turned a blind eye to everything that went on in that hellhole. Then they came to church on Sunday mornings, said “Amen” to the sermons about helping those in need, and turned right around and ignored their amens in everyday life. 

They ignored the boy, especially. Everyone did. Even me. He sat all alone at lunchtime. Sometimes he didn’t even try to eat in the cafeteria and would instead just hide away in the halls. I saw him sometimes when I walked by. He was there on Thursday afternoon. And I sat next to him. He didn’t say a word, he hardly even looked up. The paper he was folding was rustling beneath his fingertips. 

“Why do you fold so many of those?” I asked after the silence got to be too annoying for me. 

He shrugged. “Like ‘em.” 

“But you throw them away.” 

He shrugged again. “Yeah.” 

Not the greatest conversationalist, really. Didn’t know what I really expected, though, since I’d never heard him talk before, ever. His voice was soft, raspy. When the bell rang, signaling we had to go to class again, he gently set the paper crane he’d folded on my knee before standing up and walking away. I carried it with me to class, and made eye contact with him when I put it in my backpack to take home. 

Sunday morning, church rolled around again. I woke up early, squeezed myself into my Sunday best once more, and got into the car with my parents who strategically refused to speak to each other and instead spoke through me. Church wasn’t much different. Everyone “spoke” to each other, talking about nothing more than how peculiar it was we hadn’t gotten any snow yet and “How is work?” “Good, good.” I could hardly be glad to get away, walking into the youth group room once more. 

The youth pastor didn’t say hi, just grunted as I walked through the door. The snotty girls were huddled in the corner, and I caught a glimpse of incredibly bright purple eyeshadow smeared across the tallest one’s eyelids. That purple was similar to the color on the eye of another boy, who’d gotten a fresh bruise on his left eye from yet another fight. And the pastor’s daughter was there in her demure Sunday skirt with ditsy flower print, a stark contrast from the tube top she’d gotten in trouble at school for wearing on Friday. The boy wasn’t there yet, but I sat next to the chair he’d sat in last week, hoping he’d sit there again. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a possibility, because the pastor’s daughter slipped right into that seat. As the youth pastor called us all to our seats, she leaned over till her pointy chin was almost touching my shoulder. 

“Did you hear about what happened?” she asked. I didn’t say a word, tapping my fingers on the underside of the table. Unable to handle my silence, she went on without my prompting, “Sam Gregory hung himself with his father’s belt last night.” 

The boy. 

“It’s just awful, I think,” she continued, and I listened vaguely, in shock, “His father called my dad this morning after they found him.” Then she raised her hand. “Can we pray for Sam Gregory?” 

As my youth pastor bowed his graying head and prayed in his monotone voice, I drowned him out. I didn’t want to hear him pray for a boy he didn’t even care about. He didn’t even know him. The pastor’s daughter didn’t care till after hearing his death– she’d probably talk about it all day Monday. No one bothered to get to know the boy, not till it was too late, and now they pretended like they were praying for his dead-and-gone soul. Liars. 

I wondered impulsively, repulsively, if he’d folded his note into a paper crane. 


Paper Cranes-Audio

Calissa Hanson

Calissa Hanson is a senior graphic design major with minors in studio art and advertising. She creates colorful art and is inspired by a variety of different styles. A member of the Morningside Choir, Morningside Activities Council, and president of Morningside Anime Division, how she has time for anything is a mystery, yet here she is. This is her second published artwork in the Kiosk

Elaine Morgan

Elaine Morgan is a freshman at Morningside University. She is on the swim team and is involved with Active Minds on campus.

Churchgoers // Joshua Miller & Reflective Still Life // Calissa Hanson

Churchgoers // Joshua Miller

We sit and listen

in rigid pews in plain churches

To the words of a man

learned in the ways of the soul

He dictates his view of the biblical reading

In his many garments of green and white

Advising us how to better

ourselves and our siblings in Christ

With many blessings and ancient phrases

we meander our way

through old traditions

of another age

Kneeling, standing,

Seating, singing

As instructed

Praying as our thoughts wander

to the farthest thing from holy notions

We take and eat

the very God we worship

Then we leave

Churchgoers // Joshua Miller

Joshua Miller Jr. is a sophomore from Lincoln, NE, double majoring in biology and English double and minoring in chemistry. At Morningside, he is a part of the football team, PPHC, and ODK. From a young age, Miller has enjoyed reading. Miller had never written poetry until last semester and was initially intimidated but found the shorter nature to be easier than fictional stories.

Recorded by the Kiosk Editorial Staff

Reflective Still Life // Calissa Hanson

Calissa Hanson is a senior from Sioux City, IA, majoring in computer science. At Morningside, she is a member of the choir.