Denison University

Jung, Vania DeEun

South Korean Educators’ Knowledge, Views, and Values on Inclusive Practices for Students with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

Bibliography

Vasistha, Spruhaa Bhargava

Preference for cues from different quality diets in the Longear Sunfish (Lepomis megalotis)

Malin, Maggie

Exile 
Volume 72 Number 1 Article 8 
Passing Through 
Maggie Malin 
Denison University 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Malin, Maggie () "Passing Through," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 8. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/8 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been 
accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please 
contact eresources@denison.edu. 
9 
Passing Through 
Maggie Malin 
 
The chill was biting. Twenty-five degrees was too cold to be out in nothing but a tank top and a 
zip-up sweatshirt. I stuffed my hands into the sweatshirt pockets, sacrificing form for function as I tried 
to keep an even pace while the mucus at the back of my throat congealed in the morning air.  
I like to tell people I run twice a year—once when I feel so pent up in my own head that I have 
no choice but to convert my potential energy into something kinetic, and then six months later when 
the same thing happens again. For all the walking I do around my university campus on a daily basis, 
I’m not an active person. Most New Year’s resolutions die out by the end of January. So February 
seemed like an okay time to start going for morning runs before class.  
It was a project in accountability, I decided. I wasn’t trying to develop perfect cross-country 
athleticism in a week—I just wanted to prove to myself that I could be responsible for developing my 
own independent habit. So at eight o’clock on Monday morning, I was awake, leggings on, protein bar 
in hand.  
It’s only a few yards from the front of my dorm to downtown Granville, a college town just 
east of Columbus, Ohio, whose population of five and a half thousand makes it small enough to 
classify as a village. Most of the interesting (and sidewalk accessible) parts of downtown are to my left. 
Monday morning’s run took me aimlessly in that familiar direction. I could hear the local birds beyond 
the fairly generic pop/rock mix I had selected as my morning soundtrack. The birds would be there for 
me to tune into tomorrow—I wanted the music for energy today.  
Before my fifteen-minute timer went off (accountability!), I passed a number of shops tucked 
into the residential area that I hadn’t known about: a vintage shop, a lumberyard, the home office of 
the campus nutritionist. I realized as I ran that I was less familiar with this town than someone who has 
been living there for almost three years maybe should be.  
I was proud of myself for not feeling miserable when my alarm went off on Tuesday morning. 
In an intentional act of “forgetfulness,” I hadn’t charged my earbuds the night before, ensuring that I 
would try something different for my second run.  
In the predictably fickle fashion of the Ohio springtime, the temperature was up to fifty-five 
degrees, which made a world of difference. I wasn’t worried about my hands freezing off, and the air 
was easier on my lungs. There was something homey about it, too—fifty-five degrees is a pretty normal 
morning temperature in the California Bay Area. The familiarity of the warmth and the smell of 
springtime wetness brought out the differences between my hometown route and the one in my college 
town. The familiar air didn’t fit with the square Midwestern houses stacked two stories high and made 
of bricks of all things—earthquake liability! Porches stood high and backyards dipped low. There was 
10 
something uncanny about the way I saw the neighborhood—it looked comfortable, but it remained 
foreign to me after so many months of living there. 
Without music, the run became a meditation. I found myself drafting a reflection in my head, 
thinking about the sights and sounds that were important to me. I listened to the birds the whole time. 
They sounded different from the birds back home. It made sense—just as trees and flowers were 
regional, birds are too—but the first time I had heard the Ohio birds sing had been a conspicuous 
reminder that I was moving somewhere very different and very far from the place I had grown up.  
On Monday, I had collapsed onto my floor when I got home; on Tuesday, I took a little more 
pride in stretching after my run. I felt like I was moving forward.  
* * *  
The alarm that woke me up on Wednesday was shrill and terrifying and came at 5:43 in the 
morning. In my adrenaline rush I hurried to check my phone.  
“Emergency Alert,” read the notification. “National Weather Service: TORNADO 
WARNING in this area until 6:15 AM EST. Take shelter now…”  
How serious was this? I couldn’t hear any bustle in the hallway. I turned to a campus-wide 
Discord server that buzzes at all hours of the day with all sorts of life updates. There were a number of 
native Ohioans in this chat I knew I could trust. A slew of peers were quick to reassure me, the West 
Coaster, in the midst of calming each other down. An upperclassman sent a screenshot of a map of the 
tornado’s predicted area. Our town was at the very edge of the danger zone. Another shared a link to a 
moving meteorological map of the area. From the first floor lobby of my building, beside the 
windowless kitchen where a number of residents were sequestered, I scrolled back through the last 
twelve hours and watched the red pixels sweep in from the west and pass right by our town.  
Maybe this isn’t “needless to say” for people who have grown up around tornadoes, but I 
didn’t go for a run on Wednesday morning, even though the rain had stopped by eight fifteen. I had to 
actively remind myself that it was not a personal failing of mine for skipping a day. I was being safe. I 
had never had to be safe in this way before. I was immersing myself in something new—I had no 
choice.  
* * *  
“I try to, like, hold myself accountable and figure out when I’m just feeling lazy or when… I 
should just have a day off,” says Sarah, a recently-graduated friend of mine who is currently living a 
busy life in New York City as a general manager associate for a theatrical production company. I can 
hear the sounds of passers-by, traffic, and self-checkout machines on the other end of the line as I call 
her during her lunch break—but she still has time to run in the mornings four to six times a week, just 
as she did throughout college.  
Sarah cites pain, illness, and tiredness as valid reasons to skip a day of her morning habit, which 
she has fostered for five years. Still, even if she wakes up at three p.m. on a weekend, Sarah says a spin on 
11 
the treadmill is “still, like, the first thing that I do in the day.” I admire her for this. Sarah is the kind of 
person who posts pictures of herself running marathons on Thanksgiving morning, before I’ve even 
unplugged my phone from beside my bed.  
My last big question to Sarah before she gets back to her office is if being a runner is an 
important part of how she describes herself. “No,” she says, and chuckles. “No,” she repeats, surprising 
me by doubling down. “I wouldn’t call myself an athlete… I like moving my body ‘cause otherwise I’m 
a couch potato,” she explains.  
This shocked me. Sarah runs consistently, so to me, an outsider, she is a runner.  
But who am I to make that call? I live in Ohio eight months out of the year. I do not call myself 
an Ohioan. To me there’s more weight to the title than my temporary status earns.  
* * *  
On Thursday, it was back to the grind. The tornado had brought back the cold and it was 
twenty-five degrees again. I zipped my sweatshirt all the way up. At least it was sunny this time.  
I didn’t expect to be thinking about home so much as I ran. The details of the regional 
birdsong and the non-earthquake-proof houses had been an amusing backdrop on Tuesday. 
Wednesday’s tornado made them impossible to ignore.  
The tornado became a mirror. It came in from the west, like me. It shook the place up. Our 
hilltop campus was blessed to have not received much more damage than dirty sidewalks,  but the 
entire roof was blown off the public restrooms at Lake Hudson, a popular summer swimming hole 
barely a mile out from campus, where several trees were severed and collapsed. 1 
But a week later, life goes on. By Sunday, volunteers at Lake Hudson were righting trees and 
clearing debris. Out-of-state students had called their parents and then forgotten about it. I couldn’t 
help but marvel. How long in my wake will I leave an aftermath to speak of?  
Friday was much the same as the day before. I turned left for a final victory lap into the busiest 
part of downtown—our block and a half of local restaurants and boutiques. I listened to music again. I 
knew what to expect from the birds, and by that point in the week I was anticipating the bricks and 
porches too. For all anyone knew, none of this scenery was out of any kind of ordinary. For all I knew, I 
couldn’t not notice it all, even when I wasn’t focused on it.  
My week of morning runs did have a mental effect—not the relaxing, endocannabinoid release 
known as runner’s high, which might require running “for several miles at a time to reach the point 
where [it] could occur,”2 inaccessible within my allotted fifteen minutes before class—but something 
more reflective. The importance of my morning runs came from being out in my local world and 
identifying myself as a moving part within it.  
2 Holland, K. (2020, October 13). Runner’s High: What It Is, How You Get It, and Other Benefits. Healthline. 
1 Miller, A. (2024, March 1). Some Wonder Whether Storm Damage at Granville’s Lake Hudson Was Caused by a Tornado. 
The Reporting Project.  
12 
Maybe there’s a future where a neighborhood like Granville becomes my ordinary; where I 
learn proper tornado protocol, and visiting my parents out west will feel foreign. Maybe that will never 
be the case—maybe I’ll move to a city on the East Coast with a population big enough to encompass 
several Midwestern villages. Maybe I’ll move back home. For all I know, like a tornado that leaves 
behind a trail of kicked-up dirt on the sidewalk, I am just passing through. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


English

Passing Through

Stauffer, Maya

Exile 
Volume 72 Number 1 Article 19 
Pondering 
Maya Stauffer 
Denison University 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Stauffer, Maya () "Pondering," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 19. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/19 
This Image is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been 
accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please 
contact eresources@denison.edu. 
24 
Pondering 
Maya Stauffer 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Pondering

Thompson, Tyler

Exile 
Volume 72 Number 1 Article 30 
Doe a Deer 
Tyler Thompson 
Denison University 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Thompson, Tyler () "Doe a Deer," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 30. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/30 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been 
accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please 
contact eresources@denison.edu. 
35 
Doe a Deer 
Tyler Thompson 
 
Oliver Hamilton lasted three days, four hours, and twenty-six minutes on the job without 
throwing up. His father had explained how the job was certainly not for the faint of heart. Over their 
Hamburger Helper instant beef-pasta dinner last week, Oliver watched the noodles congeal into a 
gelatinous mass as he listened to his father. When Father talked, you listened.  
“Hamiltons are meant for this kinda work. We ain’t no pussies, I’m telling you. We do the work 
that nobody wants to do, you know what I mean?” Marshal Hamilton had been shoveling the pasta 
into his mouth for the last twenty minutes. Pieces of beef were encrusted in his dark beard as he spoke 
about his highway work; work he had been doing way before Oliver was even thought of. His napkin 
remained in his hand, crumpled up and unused, for added emphasis of how Oliver was going to love 
the family job.  
“You’re just gonna love it. Just you and the road until you have to stop. That’s the less fun part 
but you’ll get used to it. The smell used to bug me a ton, but now it smells like home. Need a candle of 
that smell,” he said.  
“You want a candle that smells like roadkill?”  
“It’ll be my next project.” Hamilton was always working on some sort of project. They sat in 
the back of their van alongside the other unfinished ones.  
“But come on, you'll love it. Something we can do together,” Hamilton said.  
Oliver wasn’t too sure this line of work was for him, but better to keep that to himself. 
Whatever plan Father has for you, you’re doomed to complete it. So, picking up roadkill would be his 
calling.  
“But you gotta start by yourself though on Saturday. My daddy did the same with me. Just me 
and a highway map. Nicer now with them GPS apps on your phone, but you shouldn’t be using them 
anyways. Your eyes should be looking for prizes.”  
“I am still kinda getting used to driving, Dad. I don't think it would be best—”  
“Nah, nope. Don’t want to hear it. You’ll be fine. Highway’s best way to learn.”  
Oliver didn’t want to learn, but learn he must.  
 
His father’s white box van, decaled in an obtuse swooping font that declared the Highway 
High-Men had arrived to get the “dirty stuff done,” was sitting on the gravel barrier of the highway. 
That was his pride and joy; one of his only finished projects.  
In the back, in large clear industrial garbage bags, were the rewards of a hard day's work: three 
racoons, a dog named Susie based on her collar, five squirrels, and a barn owl. The garbage bags kept 
36 
most of the smell contained but every so often, when he stopped at red lights, waves of intense rotting 
consumed the front seat.  
Oliver was assigned to patrol along part of the U.S. Route 30 for the morning, which laid on a 
stretch of land encompassed by intensely dense woods, which every few miles would break up into an 
open clearing of fields engulfed in a sea of wildflowers. The barrier between the highway and fields were 
dusted with the signs of human involvement: crushed plastic water bottles, one pink sock, a leaflet 
proclaiming “Jesus has Risen,” and now Oliver’s lunch. Oliver had always been curious how the hell 
these things end up being thrown out of speeding vehicles; but it wasn’t his job to question, just to 
pick up and dispose, per his father’s request.  
Oliver’s lunch of a turkey sandwich on rye with light mayo had come up about five minutes 
after he spotted the body. His green bile, mixed with small chunks of pink turkey, swam in the tiny 
crevices of the gravel towards the one lacy pink sock.  
Regaining his composure with his hands on his knees, Oliver decided it was time to get the 
dirty stuff done. Brushing his long dark hair out of his face, he looked at her again.  
It was her eyes that made him throw up; or, more accurately, the lack of eyes, picked away by 
birds. The doe was hanging–half in the gravel, half in the clearing hidden by the wild wheat stalks. Her 
worn brown fur was extremely matted, revealing the lines of her ribs that encased her organs. She had 
been struck by a car. Her legs were broken in such an unnatural way it was like she was praying to God 
with her hooves. It had been recent. Oliver could still make out the path she had made against the 
ground. Strips of torn skin from her side had dried up in the gravel. There was no smell. At least no 
smell of rot. He could only smell the richness of the flowers surrounding her body. She had looked as if 
she dragged herself with whatever she had left in her into that bed of flowers, only barely reaching it, 
before dying. Large carpenter bees danced around the flowers, paying no attention to Oliver’s steps 
forward.  
“Jesus Christ,” he said before dry heaving again. It wasn’t fair the doe had died in this way. 
Oliver tried to believe in fairness. He knew what was fair. It was fair to work for his father because he 
was the only one who put food on the table, albeit not great food. It was fair to steal Lucy Malvano’s 
lunchbox during second period after she called him a creep for his job.  
Left to just rot away, until she’s bone and fur? That wasn’t fair, not one bit.  
He solidified with the urge to bury her. Putting her into a sealant plastic bag was against her 
nature. She was not meant to be tossed out. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, the 
driver was in the wrong place. The highway went through her woods. Would burying her even be her 
wish? He hoped so.  
Normally, he and his father burned the bodies of what they had collected over the day. The two 
lived out behind one of the largest plastic manufacturers in the state of Ohio, so their smoke and smell 
of burning carcasses were successfully mixed in with the burn off from the factory’s smokestacks. His 
37 
father had dug a large crater in their backyard just to manage the loads. His father would back up the 
van into the yard, toss the bodies in, and then douse them in lighter fluid. These times were the only 
time Hamilton allowed himself a cigarette. Just to light our jackpot, he would say. The fires would 
burn for days before dying down. Oliver knew she did not deserve that.  
Standing up straight, Oliver walked back to the van to grab any supplies that would help him. 
Father did not believe in wheelbarrows or shovels to carry. They were for weak men. Highway 
High-Men carried their honor. All he had was a pair of black latex tipped gloves. They would have to do, 
he thought. Over the other decomposing animals was a blue tarp, perfect to wrap her up in.  
Holding the tarp in both hands, he took one step closer to her. She was larger than he expected. 
She had been old enough to be a mother. All does had to be mothers at some point. Maybe her fawn 
was somewhere around here? He knew that the fawn had to be alive. It had to be the reason she crossed 
the highway. Yet again, how would he survive without her? He was probably dead. He must have been 
lost after her death, wandered around before laying down in some clovers to sleep. Then slowly faded 
away.  
He laid the tarp down like a picnic blanket next to her. He would have to roll her onto the tarp 
just to carry her. It seemed more dignified. Something they would do in a movie. Behind her corpse, 
the field loomed as the only possibility of where to put her. It really wasn’t too far, easy peasy.  
Oliver placed his knees in the gravel, practically level with her. He put his hands up against her 
side, alarmed by how solid she felt, as if she had been a vision in his head before. He pushed. Pushed 
with all his anger that she was here. Pushed that he was even there in the first place. Pushed with an 
aggressive compassion to let her just rest. She folded into the tarp with a hard thud accompanied by the 
cracking of her ribs as they collided with the ground. Her eye sockets peered at him, like they were 
thanking him before he wrapped her up. He took off his leather belt he had made in Boy Scouts ages 
ago. He could tie her up with the belt nicely with a bow. He lifted her body up so he could shimmy the 
belt beneath her chest.  
Then he just held her. The tarp crinkled as he cradled her in his arms, rocking her back and 
forth. He was weighed down by her, but she needed this. He embraced her.  
“Doe a deer… a female deer,” he sang.  
His words were breathy and slow but sounded beautiful to her. They meant everything. 
Silently, he rose to drag her deeper into the field. There was a dead spot of grass about fifty feet from 
the road, surrounded by Queen Anne’s lace. This would be where she lay. He began digging with his 
hands. The gloves ripped against the dirt with such a veracity; digging, scrapping, excavating a place for 
her.  
After digging for an hour, the grave was about two feet deep. He had not taken a break since he 
started, and he was exhausted. She would barely fit.  
“I’m sorry.”  
38 
It was all he was able to say as he lowered her into the shallow grave. The blue tarp stuck right 
out of the grave. He picked up fistfuls of sandy dirt as he attempted to bury her. The dirt covered most 
of the tarp, only a few blue specks appeared mixed in with the hump in the ground. He laid his hands 
on the mass, not knowing why but that he needed to.  
“I’m sorry,” he said. He was unable to look back as he left. He didn’t want to disturb her even 
more than he already did. Let her rest surrounded by the flowers she so desperately attempted to die in.  
As he went to sit in the van, the sour smell of decay caught in his nose. He caught himself in 
the rearview mirror. He was caked in dirt. It was all over his face, in his ears, and even underneath his 
fingernails inside his gloves. He was bright red from a mix of exhaustion and probably sunburn. He 
had spent four hours with her. He rested his head on the steering wheel, and he sobbed.  
Cars streamed past going to and from. The dirt on his face had streaked, creating a thick mask 
of mud. He headed home. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Doe a Deer

Hogeland, Moose

Exile 
Volume 72 Number 1 Article 37 
Fish Inside a Birdcage 
Moose Hogeland 
Denison University 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Hogeland, Moose () "Fish Inside a Birdcage," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 37. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/37 
This Image is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been 
accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please 
contact eresources@denison.edu. 
45 
Fish Inside a Birdcage 
Moose Hogeland 
 
 


Fish Inside a Birdcage

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Edgar Wright’s The World’s End: What Really Matters?

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