“What is love, Papá?”      Celio had just gotten home from Kingston Canyon Elementary school and was waiting for her father to come home from work to talk to him. She did it so often now that it became a routine, one that was a comfort, especially since her mom started picking up the afternoon loads at the hospital. Talking to her father was her secret place.      “What is love, papá?” she asked, leaning over her father’s shoulder, who now sat with his coffee-filled mug on th

On August 11 th , 1919, the first president of the Weimar Republic of Germany, Friedrich Ebert, signed into effect the Weimar Constitution. This constitution detailed a representative democracy with provisions commonplace in many governments of this sort. Nationally, power was split between the executive and legislative branches. The executive branch consisted of a nationally elected president and a chancellor who was appointed by the president and was required to cosign on a

Valentine’s Day is loved and dreaded by many, so in this fifth issue of Delectable Discourse , where I ask college students a scrumptious new question each month, I asked the following: If you had to replace Valentine’s Day with another holiday, what would it be called, and how would it be celebrated? “Now you got me thinking. I’d make it Frog Day—a day where you celebrate frogs because they are amazing. They are neat creatures that actually provide a lot, and I think they de

Okay, Edna. Just relax, maybe you’re just having a nightmare or something. Let’s just retrace how we got here . Edna Beezler tried to remember how she got to the unnerving sight before her.       Winter was her favorite time to take walks, as the soft snowfall put her mind at ease when she needed some time to simply think. The calming atmosphere was disrupted by a buzzing in her ears, and the snow began to fiercely pick up. Once the flash blizzard subsided and her vision was

The holidays were a one-Christmas-tree ordeal when I was a kid. My brothers would trudge through the dry snow in their bunny boots and snow shoes, I would trail behind, and together we would pick a tree, but the trees we chose were not plushy farm-grown varieties like the Douglas Fir, White Spruce, or Scotch Pine. No, the trees we picked grew in the woods around our house and had levels, like those tiered cookie trays at Christmas parties, and their branches didn’t arrange th

Tis the season for watching cheesy romantic movies where a spiritless big-town man moves to a small town where he falls in love with a small-town girl who believes in the spirit of Christmas. These movies all seem to focus on destroying the non-belief in the spirit of Christmas, leaving everyone jolly and reinspired to engage in capitalism. Many Christmas movies center on the trope where the responsibility of being Santa Claus is passed on to someone who is unwilling, so in t

In the morning I found you sleeping under the rosemary bush. In the afternoon you are hiding behind the mulberry tree, Tail wagging as you move between the sweet potatoes, cacti, and lemongrass. Waiting for me to throw your ducky so you can fetch it. Anapaula bathes you and brushes your coat. She untangles and snips off the knots in your fur. Together we towel you off and you shake yourself dry.  And you follow Anapaula into her car Off to your vet appointment. I heard you be

She receives them with a warm smile, making them feel light as the fireflies that rise in her November moonlighted sky. And as more arrive, she lets them all into her large but warm and cozy abode, filled with romantic light that always flows. Romantic light that sometimes likes to make it all the way out of the windows to complement and dance with the night, who gladly gives into his delight. November— no one can forget her, with her sleepy, aged caramel eyes that always see

Filling my lungs in preparation to exhale Tanner Wareham’s “Bitterman,” I tried to steady the restlessness inside me. We were going to be late. I despise being late. To arrive even on time feels perilously close to failure. The traffic ahead was Gothic in its own right—a slow, mechanical dirge, like a funeral. I pressed the clutch, lifted my right foot off the brake, pressed the accelerator, and lifted my foot off the clutch. The car would be momentarily lifeless if my t

Although the purpose of Thanksgiving is to reflect on and be thankful for the positives and the privileges one experiences in life, many people associate Thanksgiving with a time where one’s gluttony can overtake oneself in a socially-acceptable manner, stuffing one’s face with as much food as possible, having to unbutton one’s jeans to accommodate the new circumference, and then passing out in a food coma. Consequently, in this third issue of Delectable Discourse , where I a

I’m Lewis, I’m 18 years old, and judging by the tally marks, it's been a month since I’ve been here. I don’t know how I got here, and I...

I see everything from this window. I spend most days here. I watch the creatures below roam the streets and enter this building, but I...