“And the Moon Sets” – First Place for the Wallace E. Knight Fiction Award (2023)
A lyrical allegory about burnout and heartbreak, “And the Moon Sets” follows the Seer as he fulfills his daily duties to the kingdom. As he does so, his use of magic twists his ribcage into increasingly painful positions surrounding his unbeating heart–an injury he hides under a perpetually maintained glamor. The only time magic does not hurt, though, is when the Seer is with the Angel With One Eye Open. The Seer struggles to find a way to stay with the Angel, all while performing his duties and hiding his twisting bones.
Photo Credit: Myself, taken outside of the Marshall University Rec Center
“The Gods’ Reactions to Humbaba’s Death Between Books V and VI” – First Place for the Maier Award for 200-Level Critical Writing (2022)
Half critical essay and half pastiche of Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, this essay attempts to fill in the gaps of the worldbuilding in the original epic poem.
While reading Mitchell’s translation, I was puzzled by the lack of retribution Gilgamesh and Enkidu faced for killing Humbaba, the supposed guardian of the Cedar Forest. Usually nature guardians are explicit forces of good, and their murders are met with swift and vicious punishment. In Gilgamesh, however, Gilgamesh and Enkidu only suffer after their confrontation with the goddess Ishtar and the Bull of Heaven, with the death of the Bull and Humbaba seemingly serving together as the crimes resulting in Enkidu’s fated death.
In this pastiche, I copy the language Mitchell uses in his translation to create a “Book V.v” to extrapolate what happened immediately after Humbaba’s death to explain what I felt was an inconsistency with the gods’ logic for their divine retribution.
Photo Credit: Amazon.com
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