Forewarning: To keep the amount of pages to a minimum there are A LOT of short stories in this page!!
In order: Portrait of a Flame, My House, Dry as a Bone, The Unnamed Dragon, On a Playground, Nickel, What You Wanted, Spiders, Shades of Red, Coats, Crisp Sundays, The Things We Carry, The Spray-Painter, I'm Not Afraid, Quarter to Midnight, New Years Snow, My Life Now, Through the Looking Glass
Portrait of a Flame by Maya Reichenbach
We scream over the church roof into the orange headlights of early morning. The softness of it wraps around our bodies, turning us to bronze statues. The first kiss of fall smells like wildflowers and our shoes are heavy, grounding. For the first moment in my life, I don’t care who sees me.
The cross that crowns the church makes a shadow across our legs. We play God as we look over our town and try to track the differences between everyone’s lives. They’re all asleep, oblivious to how their days will start. We should be getting up for school in a couple hours. Instead, our voices travel across the mountains and into the reflections in the lake. It’s a copy of our lives. Like a painting of this moment. It’s blurry and the trees are endless, like a little too much water was added to watercolors.
“I wonder about the different versions of us in there.” I look down, past our bodies on the tip of the roof and into the duplicated world of evergreen.
“Maybe they’re simple,” she says with a smile and a look in my direction. And then it fades and all I’m left with is her eyes creasing at the corners.
The birds cry as if they’re hollow, not caring whether we can hear their caws. Ravens shout, I’m here! and we answer them with calls of our own.
Bones were found on the beach yesterday. Clustered among seaweed and clamshells. They drifted inland, held onto the current just long enough. Brittle fingers swimming to shore. I think we’re more similar than we know. Always inches away from our own fate. I wish we weren’t so quiet.
Crash. It’s one clink and then it’s all icicles falling onto concrete. We whip our heads backwards. It’s like someone is stepping on glass right behind us. Maybe we got caught? I turn against our nest at the edge of the church. I head toward the door and the ladder-laced passage way that climbs up to the roof.
“Is anyone there?” I ask into the doorknob. I twist it. And again. And again. And it’s as if I’m the portrait, not the painter. I have no control of my body as I throw myself into the wooden door. “Get over here!” I yell. And then we’re both pushing into the door with no response back. “Help!” I cry over the roof. There’s nothing that can save us. “We could jump” she says.
All her hope is gone. We could jump.
“Maybe we can find a stick or something sharp?” I ask, looking around.
“We could pull one of these tiles.”
“Let’s try again, together.” Jammed. And then the flames are vines crawling up the church.
“Help!” We scream. Maybe we deserve it.
What time is it? I look down to check my watch but it’s still sitting on my nightstand.
“Smell that?”
The burning is hellish and angry and I don’t even scream. Until I do. The flames erupt into the church, eating away at the vertical siding. A domino effect, spreading, tangling itself between the windowpanes. We scream until our voices can no longer catch up with us. Until they’re cobwebs, rough, sore and tired of waiting. We’re always waiting, it seems this town is a purgatory of time. Never moving forward or back. Just stuck.
“What do we do?”
And I’m begging the clouds to cry, just once. For us.
And the roof falls through and we are flightless birds. Trying so hard to be something we’re not. We cave in on ourselves. A painting of two girls falling. It’s all muted grays and not quite right.
Our bodies tear through wooden floorboards. We’re echoes of the people we were yesterday. We’re nowhere to be found.
I watch my body as it halts. My lugs settle into my back bones, deflated. Lips parted, ready to sigh my last breath. I see her. She’s colder than she’s ever been. A gaping cut runs up her leg, breathing into a cloud of smoke.
My hands point to the ceiling, looks like they aren’t connecting to wrists. We’re molded like a clay sculpture gone wrong. My head on the ground, I struggle to move.
Ironic how I could never relax.
And when I open my eyes, I expect a crisp white abyss. Instead, I see a statue of a man draped in cloth. Nothing but a body strung over a cross. Hands tied, as mangled as mine. And I see her, sitting up, as the debris from the ceiling details her face, a black smear of a cross between her eyebrows.
We scream over the church roof into the orange headlights of early morning. The softness of it wraps around our bodies, turning us to bronze statues. The first kiss of fall smells like wildflowers and our shoes are heavy, grounding. For the first moment in my life, I don’t care who sees me.
The cross that crowns the church makes a shadow across our legs. We play God as we look over our town and try to track the differences between everyone’s lives. They’re all asleep, oblivious to how their days will start. We should be getting up for school in a couple hours. Instead, our voices travel across the mountains and into the reflections in the lake. It’s a copy of our lives. Like a painting of this moment. It’s blurry and the trees are endless, like a little too much water was added to watercolors.
“I wonder about the different versions of us in there.” I look down, past our bodies on the tip of the roof and into the duplicated world of evergreen.
“Maybe they’re simple,” she says with a smile and a look in my direction. And then it fades and all I’m left with is her eyes creasing at the corners.
The birds cry as if they’re hollow, not caring whether we can hear their caws. Ravens shout, I’m here! and we answer them with calls of our own.
Bones were found on the beach yesterday. Clustered among seaweed and clamshells. They drifted inland, held onto the current just long enough. Brittle fingers swimming to shore. I think we’re more similar than we know. Always inches away from our own fate. I wish we weren’t so quiet.
Crash. It’s one clink and then it’s all icicles falling onto concrete. We whip our heads backwards. It’s like someone is stepping on glass right behind us. Maybe we got caught? I turn against our nest at the edge of the church. I head toward the door and the ladder-laced passage way that climbs up to the roof.
“Is anyone there?” I ask into the doorknob. I twist it. And again. And again. And it’s as if I’m the portrait, not the painter. I have no control of my body as I throw myself into the wooden door. “Get over here!” I yell. And then we’re both pushing into the door with no response back. “Help!” I cry over the roof. There’s nothing that can save us. “We could jump” she says.
All her hope is gone. We could jump.
“Maybe we can find a stick or something sharp?” I ask, looking around.
“We could pull one of these tiles.”
“Let’s try again, together.” Jammed. And then the flames are vines crawling up the church.
“Help!” We scream. Maybe we deserve it.
What time is it? I look down to check my watch but it’s still sitting on my nightstand.
“Smell that?”
The burning is hellish and angry and I don’t even scream. Until I do. The flames erupt into the church, eating away at the vertical siding. A domino effect, spreading, tangling itself between the windowpanes. We scream until our voices can no longer catch up with us. Until they’re cobwebs, rough, sore and tired of waiting. We’re always waiting, it seems this town is a purgatory of time. Never moving forward or back. Just stuck.
“What do we do?”
And I’m begging the clouds to cry, just once. For us.
And the roof falls through and we are flightless birds. Trying so hard to be something we’re not. We cave in on ourselves. A painting of two girls falling. It’s all muted grays and not quite right.
Our bodies tear through wooden floorboards. We’re echoes of the people we were yesterday. We’re nowhere to be found.
I watch my body as it halts. My lugs settle into my back bones, deflated. Lips parted, ready to sigh my last breath. I see her. She’s colder than she’s ever been. A gaping cut runs up her leg, breathing into a cloud of smoke.
My hands point to the ceiling, looks like they aren’t connecting to wrists. We’re molded like a clay sculpture gone wrong. My head on the ground, I struggle to move.
Ironic how I could never relax.
And when I open my eyes, I expect a crisp white abyss. Instead, I see a statue of a man draped in cloth. Nothing but a body strung over a cross. Hands tied, as mangled as mine. And I see her, sitting up, as the debris from the ceiling details her face, a black smear of a cross between her eyebrows.
My House by Faith Crawford
I’ve started eating my breakfast on the patio. It always feels safer out there. I can’t eat my dinner outside because they won’t let me. I almost never eat a full meal in that house. It is my house, to be clear. I own the very walls that trap me with a suffocating grasp. I can’t sell the house. They won’t let me. They push me out with unforgiving stares but keep me in with an anguished hunger. It is agonizing to live in a place where you feel equally unwelcome and dangerously linked to every floorboard and nail that holds it together. My skin crawls as I re-enter the living room. It is heavy with the atmosphere of the impassioned cruelty that saturated this house since the day it was built. It feels like varicose veins and arthritis and losing your memory to the dark vortex that is the construct of time. Getting old is harder when your house hates you. There is no escape from the cruelty of your aging body. There is no comfort to your own bed in a place like this. I can’t remember the last time I was in my bed. They don’t let me go in my room anymore. They don’t let me sleep.
I’ve tried to escape to the woods surrounding the house. They’re out there too. The patio is the only place that makes me feel safe. I can’t hear their voices there. They call out to me from every corner of my mind. I try to tell them I’m sorry. I really am sorry. Please believe me. I sit down to catch my breath. The couch is comfortable, I had forgotten how comfortable it was. I don’t think I’ve sat down in days. My heart beats faster. I can’t breathe. The house is crumbling around me but the walls are still in place. The floors are collapsing beneath my feet, sucking me into the angry ground. I’m still sitting on the couch, catching my breath, with a beautifully decorated room around me in the house my loving husband built. I am also drowning in a pool of dirt and anger in the pit that has been threatening to swallow me for years.
A final pain squeezes through my chest and the ravenous pit of my thoughts quiets itself for a moment. I’ll miss these walls. They say goodbye like an old friend wishing you well, but they take that last breath out of my lungs with their own bare hands.
I’ve started eating my breakfast on the patio. It always feels safer out there. I can’t eat my dinner outside because they won’t let me. I almost never eat a full meal in that house. It is my house, to be clear. I own the very walls that trap me with a suffocating grasp. I can’t sell the house. They won’t let me. They push me out with unforgiving stares but keep me in with an anguished hunger. It is agonizing to live in a place where you feel equally unwelcome and dangerously linked to every floorboard and nail that holds it together. My skin crawls as I re-enter the living room. It is heavy with the atmosphere of the impassioned cruelty that saturated this house since the day it was built. It feels like varicose veins and arthritis and losing your memory to the dark vortex that is the construct of time. Getting old is harder when your house hates you. There is no escape from the cruelty of your aging body. There is no comfort to your own bed in a place like this. I can’t remember the last time I was in my bed. They don’t let me go in my room anymore. They don’t let me sleep.
I’ve tried to escape to the woods surrounding the house. They’re out there too. The patio is the only place that makes me feel safe. I can’t hear their voices there. They call out to me from every corner of my mind. I try to tell them I’m sorry. I really am sorry. Please believe me. I sit down to catch my breath. The couch is comfortable, I had forgotten how comfortable it was. I don’t think I’ve sat down in days. My heart beats faster. I can’t breathe. The house is crumbling around me but the walls are still in place. The floors are collapsing beneath my feet, sucking me into the angry ground. I’m still sitting on the couch, catching my breath, with a beautifully decorated room around me in the house my loving husband built. I am also drowning in a pool of dirt and anger in the pit that has been threatening to swallow me for years.
A final pain squeezes through my chest and the ravenous pit of my thoughts quiets itself for a moment. I’ll miss these walls. They say goodbye like an old friend wishing you well, but they take that last breath out of my lungs with their own bare hands.
Dry as a Bone by Hanna Alwine
Here were the remains of the last bit of summer. A singular orange peel, a pair of Monopoly dice, a long ago faded wrapper that might have once contained a fruit by the foot.
Here were the remains of the last bit of summer, pushed to the center of the bowed wooden porch. She sits in front of it, legs crossed, left over right, her hands pressed flat against the wooden slats.
Here were the remains of the last bit of summer. Artifacts, memorabilia, souvenirs.
She picks up the orange and holds it out in front of her. She spins it around - once, twice, the dark orange of the rind oscillating with the pale underside.
“Danny!” her mother calls, the sound breaking the stillness of the afternoon. “Come eat!”
She jerks, her pigtails swinging wildly over her shoulder.
“Danny!”
The peel falls from her grip as if in snapshots. One moment crushed in the fist of her hand. The next caught as if by a sudden breeze, suspended in the air. Now lying in a mound of pulp, juice leaking onto the floorboards.
“Danny!”
It’s two steps to the screen door of the porch and from there three to the kitchen. Today she makes her steps small and quick. One, two, three, four, five. A staccato burst of pink soled tennis shoes.
Her mother waits for her in the kitchen. Her back is turned. She faces a large bank of windows overlooking the valley.
“Looks like rain,” she says without turning around.
Danny stands still, head bowed to the tops of her feet. In truth, she longs for rain. She remembers the sound of it, pennies clinking on the tin roof and the way the air pressed its cool fingers to her forehead, her eyelids, the back of her neck. It had been summer for a long time. She knows it will not rain today.
Lunch: a sandwich and a glass of milk. Peanut butter, smeared in a thick layer on the rye toast, sticks to the roof of her mouth, coats her tongue and teeth. The jelly is sickly sweet, a synthetic shade of red that points to strawberry, but could be currant. She reaches for the milk set on the corner of the placemat. Something’s not quite right. She tips the glass forward onto her plate and watches as the milk falls out in chunks. Curdled. Spoilt. Cursed.
Danny begins to cry, tears dripping down her face and into her open mouth. She pauses, the sudden moisture shocking. But the tears do not refresh. Instead they taste of salt and ash. She begins to cry in earnest now, deep hiccuping sobs wracking her tiny frame. Her mother leans over, her face molded into a picture of concern.
“What the matter, my sweet?”
Her eyes take in the wreckage, the mound of milk on Danny’s plate, the empty glass beside.
“Oh dear. Seems we’ve had a spill.”
She reaches out and catches Danny’s face in her hands, lifting her gaze up to meet her own.
“Don’t cry Danny-Dear. A little spilt milk never did anybody any harm.”
Danny’s face cradled in her mother’s strong hands, her mother’s sound logic echoing in her ears, she realizes just how ridiculous she sounds. Who cries over spilt milk? Her mother wipes a tear off her cheek. A quick flick of her thumb across her cheekbone, a reassuring pat and she returns to the window. She crosses her arms, left over right, and surveys the land below.
“And don’t worry now. It’ll rain tomorrow. I’m sure of it.”
It did not rain tomorrow, nor the day after. Days passed into weeks, passed into months, passed into years. And still it did not rain.
The hot summer sun beat down, cracking the dry earth and withering the surrounding plants. The boards of the old porch grew weak with lack of moisture, gaping holes opening up, creating a hazardous hopscotch to the front door.
Danny still sits on the porch before lunch, legs crossed, left over right, her hands pressed flat against the wooden slats.
The shrunken orange peel tops the pile, a hard puck that no longer smells of citrus, but age and dust. Long strips of shiny shredded wrapper blink in the late afternoon sun. A pair of yellowed plastic cubes sit bare -- stripped of their customary spots.
Danny and the dice and the orange and the wrapper sit in communion.
But they are no longer the only occupants of the deck. The collection of items has grown over the years, through a careful parceling of the surrounding property and a discerning eye cast over the detritus of the house.
She runs her hand over a broken bust. The profile of a man with grecian curls, a strong brow, his nose broken off and missing, his ears chipped at the lobes. The trickster god her mother had called him, spitting the words as if they left a sour taste on her tongue.
A hemisphere of milky white glass catches the light of the fading sun, the reflections playing on her face as if sent through a glass of water. She still remembers moonless nights when her mother would call her down to the kitchen table, the illuminated glass (a globe then) casting strange shadows on her mother’s face, as she wove stories of lands beyond, of monsters, of madness from the swirling mist inside.
To her left, a moth eaten hat - her name sewn in uneven stitches. “From a time before,” Danny’s mother had said and refused to say any more.
Some objects no longer have memories attached. The trailing spiderwebs of time have long ago been swept away by the inconsistency of memory. A tube of lipstick, a pen that no longer writes, a piece of yellow string torn from a scarf.
Here are the remains of what was supposed to be the last bits of summer; a summer that had grown long and arduous, terrifyingly dismal, alarmingly dull. A day repeated. A season that would never end.
There is a call from the kitchen and Danny jerks, her brittle grey braids swinging back and forth, pendulums set in motion.
She moves to stand, her hands, spotted with age, struggling to find purchase on the deck.
It’s two steps forward, one to the side -- the porch has caved in here. One more step to the screen door. Three more steps to the kitchen. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
Her mother stands facing the window, legs sticks of bone, cotton dress hanging loosely on a skeletal frame. Danny stands next to her, looking out on a field of dust and destruction.
“Looks like rain.”
Here were the remains of the last bit of summer. A singular orange peel, a pair of Monopoly dice, a long ago faded wrapper that might have once contained a fruit by the foot.
Here were the remains of the last bit of summer, pushed to the center of the bowed wooden porch. She sits in front of it, legs crossed, left over right, her hands pressed flat against the wooden slats.
Here were the remains of the last bit of summer. Artifacts, memorabilia, souvenirs.
She picks up the orange and holds it out in front of her. She spins it around - once, twice, the dark orange of the rind oscillating with the pale underside.
“Danny!” her mother calls, the sound breaking the stillness of the afternoon. “Come eat!”
She jerks, her pigtails swinging wildly over her shoulder.
“Danny!”
The peel falls from her grip as if in snapshots. One moment crushed in the fist of her hand. The next caught as if by a sudden breeze, suspended in the air. Now lying in a mound of pulp, juice leaking onto the floorboards.
“Danny!”
It’s two steps to the screen door of the porch and from there three to the kitchen. Today she makes her steps small and quick. One, two, three, four, five. A staccato burst of pink soled tennis shoes.
Her mother waits for her in the kitchen. Her back is turned. She faces a large bank of windows overlooking the valley.
“Looks like rain,” she says without turning around.
Danny stands still, head bowed to the tops of her feet. In truth, she longs for rain. She remembers the sound of it, pennies clinking on the tin roof and the way the air pressed its cool fingers to her forehead, her eyelids, the back of her neck. It had been summer for a long time. She knows it will not rain today.
Lunch: a sandwich and a glass of milk. Peanut butter, smeared in a thick layer on the rye toast, sticks to the roof of her mouth, coats her tongue and teeth. The jelly is sickly sweet, a synthetic shade of red that points to strawberry, but could be currant. She reaches for the milk set on the corner of the placemat. Something’s not quite right. She tips the glass forward onto her plate and watches as the milk falls out in chunks. Curdled. Spoilt. Cursed.
Danny begins to cry, tears dripping down her face and into her open mouth. She pauses, the sudden moisture shocking. But the tears do not refresh. Instead they taste of salt and ash. She begins to cry in earnest now, deep hiccuping sobs wracking her tiny frame. Her mother leans over, her face molded into a picture of concern.
“What the matter, my sweet?”
Her eyes take in the wreckage, the mound of milk on Danny’s plate, the empty glass beside.
“Oh dear. Seems we’ve had a spill.”
She reaches out and catches Danny’s face in her hands, lifting her gaze up to meet her own.
“Don’t cry Danny-Dear. A little spilt milk never did anybody any harm.”
Danny’s face cradled in her mother’s strong hands, her mother’s sound logic echoing in her ears, she realizes just how ridiculous she sounds. Who cries over spilt milk? Her mother wipes a tear off her cheek. A quick flick of her thumb across her cheekbone, a reassuring pat and she returns to the window. She crosses her arms, left over right, and surveys the land below.
“And don’t worry now. It’ll rain tomorrow. I’m sure of it.”
It did not rain tomorrow, nor the day after. Days passed into weeks, passed into months, passed into years. And still it did not rain.
The hot summer sun beat down, cracking the dry earth and withering the surrounding plants. The boards of the old porch grew weak with lack of moisture, gaping holes opening up, creating a hazardous hopscotch to the front door.
Danny still sits on the porch before lunch, legs crossed, left over right, her hands pressed flat against the wooden slats.
The shrunken orange peel tops the pile, a hard puck that no longer smells of citrus, but age and dust. Long strips of shiny shredded wrapper blink in the late afternoon sun. A pair of yellowed plastic cubes sit bare -- stripped of their customary spots.
Danny and the dice and the orange and the wrapper sit in communion.
But they are no longer the only occupants of the deck. The collection of items has grown over the years, through a careful parceling of the surrounding property and a discerning eye cast over the detritus of the house.
She runs her hand over a broken bust. The profile of a man with grecian curls, a strong brow, his nose broken off and missing, his ears chipped at the lobes. The trickster god her mother had called him, spitting the words as if they left a sour taste on her tongue.
A hemisphere of milky white glass catches the light of the fading sun, the reflections playing on her face as if sent through a glass of water. She still remembers moonless nights when her mother would call her down to the kitchen table, the illuminated glass (a globe then) casting strange shadows on her mother’s face, as she wove stories of lands beyond, of monsters, of madness from the swirling mist inside.
To her left, a moth eaten hat - her name sewn in uneven stitches. “From a time before,” Danny’s mother had said and refused to say any more.
Some objects no longer have memories attached. The trailing spiderwebs of time have long ago been swept away by the inconsistency of memory. A tube of lipstick, a pen that no longer writes, a piece of yellow string torn from a scarf.
Here are the remains of what was supposed to be the last bits of summer; a summer that had grown long and arduous, terrifyingly dismal, alarmingly dull. A day repeated. A season that would never end.
There is a call from the kitchen and Danny jerks, her brittle grey braids swinging back and forth, pendulums set in motion.
She moves to stand, her hands, spotted with age, struggling to find purchase on the deck.
It’s two steps forward, one to the side -- the porch has caved in here. One more step to the screen door. Three more steps to the kitchen. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
Her mother stands facing the window, legs sticks of bone, cotton dress hanging loosely on a skeletal frame. Danny stands next to her, looking out on a field of dust and destruction.
“Looks like rain.”
The Unnamed Dragon by Graham Lively
And there he stood astride a heap of bodies, broken and battered and undoubtedly dead. His eyes shone with a feverish brightness, his outstretched arms trembling with a ferocity common only to those surviving on desperation. The gash in his side gaped like a horrid maw, flesh and blood staining his green overcoat already dulled with mud. The acrid sulfurous smoke curled around him, his body barely visible through its wretched swirling.
He stood barely upright, gazing into an abyss I could not bear witness too. His mutterings were horrid and raw, spat from his lips as if bitter. This man was clearly reckoning with Death, and yet I could not move from my position, supine on the ground held up on one arm. Despite the bodies, despite the fire, despite the pain of my shattered fingers, I couldn’t tear my eyes from this man, this frenzy of brutish force, of primal resolve and primal terror. The blackness surrounded him and he reveled in it, this man of pure chaos.
He could only have been twenty-two, barely old enough to be an officer and yet here he was reconciling with humanity’s primordial burden. His circumstance had not molded him -- he had adopted circumstance, he had reverted back to a form of mind that can not ever be seen until a man is in the last convulsions of life, slipping into oblivion like a ship on stormy seas.
The moanings of the dying, the sullen silence of the dead, the distant shots of cannon and rifle were nothing compared to his wrathful tremors, and suddenly, he laughed. I momentarily saw a part of his soul, that part which only came out in battle -- in peace, he was silent and cold, striving to find excitement in his dull life, yet in war he became alive, faced Death with a rigor only the men who have given up on the color life can muster. Some may call him nihilistic, some may call him reckless, yet I call him alive, even if it is only to die.
He had given himself to the darkness that opposes the light, the darkness that calls to every man. He had seen chaos and instead of forging a life anew from its grasp, he embraced it, laughed with it, and channeled it. It is a wonder he had survived this long. On that hellish landscape of dark and dread he laughed, laughed as though he had seen the cruel comedy of life. Perhaps he had. It was an insane laugh, the laugh of a man who knows what is to come. It was a laugh that spat in the face of Death. And suddenly he stared at me, eyes lucid, and croaked out only a few words.
“Do you think the great men of history knew their place amongst this wretched march of time?” It was all I could do to stammer out a response.
“How could they not?”
Slowly, he replied.
“Good… good.” And with that the unnamed dragoon keeled slowly forward, eyes glassy, mouth framed in a final laugh, a final taunt to that final leveller of us all.
And there he stood astride a heap of bodies, broken and battered and undoubtedly dead. His eyes shone with a feverish brightness, his outstretched arms trembling with a ferocity common only to those surviving on desperation. The gash in his side gaped like a horrid maw, flesh and blood staining his green overcoat already dulled with mud. The acrid sulfurous smoke curled around him, his body barely visible through its wretched swirling.
He stood barely upright, gazing into an abyss I could not bear witness too. His mutterings were horrid and raw, spat from his lips as if bitter. This man was clearly reckoning with Death, and yet I could not move from my position, supine on the ground held up on one arm. Despite the bodies, despite the fire, despite the pain of my shattered fingers, I couldn’t tear my eyes from this man, this frenzy of brutish force, of primal resolve and primal terror. The blackness surrounded him and he reveled in it, this man of pure chaos.
He could only have been twenty-two, barely old enough to be an officer and yet here he was reconciling with humanity’s primordial burden. His circumstance had not molded him -- he had adopted circumstance, he had reverted back to a form of mind that can not ever be seen until a man is in the last convulsions of life, slipping into oblivion like a ship on stormy seas.
The moanings of the dying, the sullen silence of the dead, the distant shots of cannon and rifle were nothing compared to his wrathful tremors, and suddenly, he laughed. I momentarily saw a part of his soul, that part which only came out in battle -- in peace, he was silent and cold, striving to find excitement in his dull life, yet in war he became alive, faced Death with a rigor only the men who have given up on the color life can muster. Some may call him nihilistic, some may call him reckless, yet I call him alive, even if it is only to die.
He had given himself to the darkness that opposes the light, the darkness that calls to every man. He had seen chaos and instead of forging a life anew from its grasp, he embraced it, laughed with it, and channeled it. It is a wonder he had survived this long. On that hellish landscape of dark and dread he laughed, laughed as though he had seen the cruel comedy of life. Perhaps he had. It was an insane laugh, the laugh of a man who knows what is to come. It was a laugh that spat in the face of Death. And suddenly he stared at me, eyes lucid, and croaked out only a few words.
“Do you think the great men of history knew their place amongst this wretched march of time?” It was all I could do to stammer out a response.
“How could they not?”
Slowly, he replied.
“Good… good.” And with that the unnamed dragoon keeled slowly forward, eyes glassy, mouth framed in a final laugh, a final taunt to that final leveller of us all.
On a Playground by Emma Stephens
The school was deserted. The lights inside the building were off, making the windows seem like black curtains obscuring the view all the desks and whiteboards inside. A long stretch of blacktop ran from the back door of the school to the playground. A little boy sat on a swing, curiously observing the eerie scene of the schoolyard that is often so vibrant. His feet dragged as he casually swung back and forth, surfacing a patch of black dirt beneath the bark. The boy was lost in his thoughts, the soothing motion of the swing lulling his thoughts into daydreams.
This melancholy quiet was short-lived. A wild roar snapped his head up to the clouds where a magnificent winged lizard was swooping angrily toward the playground. The boy tried to anchor his feet to the ground so he could get a better look at the creature. A shooting pain alerted him to the red hot surface below him. The ground at his feet had turned from mulch into oozing, lethal lava. Alarmed, he stood up on the swing and began planning out his escape. The dragon hadn’t seemed to notice him yet, so he stealthily leaped onto a metal pole that made up the structure of the swing set. His foot slipped almost cause him to lose his balance but he had made up his mind that he wasn’t dying today.
His heart was threatening to beat out of his chest and his nerves made his hands quiver. The creature was huge, and less than 100 ft away from him. Surely it would catch his scent soon and he would have to kiss his life goodbye as it swallowed him whole. He looked up at the clouds only to find that the sky had darkened to an unholy shade of black. Thunder and lightning cracked through the air, sending chills down his spine. The boy traveled from swing to swing meticulously until he reached the main structure of the playground. He stood for a moment to take in his surroundings; the dragon was nowhere to be seen. At that moment a gust of hot air blew down his neck, his shirt nearly ripping from his body from the force. Slowly, he turned around to see the face of the enormous dragon at an arms length away.
He willed himself to think quickly, probing his mind for any ideas for escape. He was standing on a metal island in the middle of a sea of lava; running wasn’t an option. Unless… An idea sparked in his mind and he waited for his time to act. There was an area of grass that jutted out near the end of a slide. He averted his eyes from the foul creatures scaly face to a spot of white in the sky. Just as he suspected, the dragon turned his head away to follow his gaze. The boy ran as fast as he could to the end of the slide, half tumbled down it and jumped for his life. He braced himself for impact with either the hot lava or the scorched grass but instead was stabbed with small blunt objects.
Wood chips stuck to the back of his shirt; he reached up to shake them off with his skinned hands and noticed the sky had returned to its former glorious color of blue. He could hear birds chirping just like they should be on any other spring afternoon. No matter how frantically he searched, the dragon was nowhere to be found. He returned to his spot on the swing when he was convinced it was safe enough to travel. His mother beckoned from the opposite side of the schoolyard. He ran to her, partly to make sure she was okay and partly because he was still terrified about the dissipating threat of the dragon. She took his little hand and led him to their parked car. She acted like she had seen nothing or heard nothing and when he mentioned it to her she laughed and disregarded it as a childish fantasy. The boy was disappointed at his mother’s disbelief and in shock at what he had just seen. He opened the door of the car and saw, out of the corner of his eye, a figure ducking beneath a cloud in the air. He knew his mother saw it too because she stopped what she was doing to glance with wonder at the cloud. They walked on, hand in hand, leaving their fantasies behind them.
The school was deserted. The lights inside the building were off, making the windows seem like black curtains obscuring the view all the desks and whiteboards inside. A long stretch of blacktop ran from the back door of the school to the playground. A little boy sat on a swing, curiously observing the eerie scene of the schoolyard that is often so vibrant. His feet dragged as he casually swung back and forth, surfacing a patch of black dirt beneath the bark. The boy was lost in his thoughts, the soothing motion of the swing lulling his thoughts into daydreams.
This melancholy quiet was short-lived. A wild roar snapped his head up to the clouds where a magnificent winged lizard was swooping angrily toward the playground. The boy tried to anchor his feet to the ground so he could get a better look at the creature. A shooting pain alerted him to the red hot surface below him. The ground at his feet had turned from mulch into oozing, lethal lava. Alarmed, he stood up on the swing and began planning out his escape. The dragon hadn’t seemed to notice him yet, so he stealthily leaped onto a metal pole that made up the structure of the swing set. His foot slipped almost cause him to lose his balance but he had made up his mind that he wasn’t dying today.
His heart was threatening to beat out of his chest and his nerves made his hands quiver. The creature was huge, and less than 100 ft away from him. Surely it would catch his scent soon and he would have to kiss his life goodbye as it swallowed him whole. He looked up at the clouds only to find that the sky had darkened to an unholy shade of black. Thunder and lightning cracked through the air, sending chills down his spine. The boy traveled from swing to swing meticulously until he reached the main structure of the playground. He stood for a moment to take in his surroundings; the dragon was nowhere to be seen. At that moment a gust of hot air blew down his neck, his shirt nearly ripping from his body from the force. Slowly, he turned around to see the face of the enormous dragon at an arms length away.
He willed himself to think quickly, probing his mind for any ideas for escape. He was standing on a metal island in the middle of a sea of lava; running wasn’t an option. Unless… An idea sparked in his mind and he waited for his time to act. There was an area of grass that jutted out near the end of a slide. He averted his eyes from the foul creatures scaly face to a spot of white in the sky. Just as he suspected, the dragon turned his head away to follow his gaze. The boy ran as fast as he could to the end of the slide, half tumbled down it and jumped for his life. He braced himself for impact with either the hot lava or the scorched grass but instead was stabbed with small blunt objects.
Wood chips stuck to the back of his shirt; he reached up to shake them off with his skinned hands and noticed the sky had returned to its former glorious color of blue. He could hear birds chirping just like they should be on any other spring afternoon. No matter how frantically he searched, the dragon was nowhere to be found. He returned to his spot on the swing when he was convinced it was safe enough to travel. His mother beckoned from the opposite side of the schoolyard. He ran to her, partly to make sure she was okay and partly because he was still terrified about the dissipating threat of the dragon. She took his little hand and led him to their parked car. She acted like she had seen nothing or heard nothing and when he mentioned it to her she laughed and disregarded it as a childish fantasy. The boy was disappointed at his mother’s disbelief and in shock at what he had just seen. He opened the door of the car and saw, out of the corner of his eye, a figure ducking beneath a cloud in the air. He knew his mother saw it too because she stopped what she was doing to glance with wonder at the cloud. They walked on, hand in hand, leaving their fantasies behind them.
Nickel by Rowan Young
Dear Diary,
I believe what’s on the inside counts because after all we are made of the same things. I think. I’m not really that sure. I’ve heard about zinc but I’m not sure if we are all made of zinc.
Let’s talk about my feelings. I just don’t understand why everyone always picks the 25. He thinks he’s better than us but in reality if you put 5 of me together you get an equal to him, so he needs to calm down and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around him. I’m just as shiny and just as useful. Thomas Jefferson isn’t that much weirder than George Washington. I mean sure, he was the first president, but TJ was the third so there’s basically no comparison here. I just feel like people need to stop making such a big deal over these other things and maybe focus on me for once! Being silver and shiny is very common apparently but for some reason no one ever picks me to use. For example, just today I was sitting with a couple of 1s, three 10s, and a 25. This guy walks over and picks up everyone except for me and a marked up, scratched up 1. A couple minutes later a little kid was walking by, saw the 1 and exclaimed “Heads up! Good luck!” and picked up the 1 leaving me to sit alone. So here I wait until tomorrow when hopefully someone will realize that they need an extra $.05, so I can finally be of use.
Dear Diary,
I believe what’s on the inside counts because after all we are made of the same things. I think. I’m not really that sure. I’ve heard about zinc but I’m not sure if we are all made of zinc.
Let’s talk about my feelings. I just don’t understand why everyone always picks the 25. He thinks he’s better than us but in reality if you put 5 of me together you get an equal to him, so he needs to calm down and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around him. I’m just as shiny and just as useful. Thomas Jefferson isn’t that much weirder than George Washington. I mean sure, he was the first president, but TJ was the third so there’s basically no comparison here. I just feel like people need to stop making such a big deal over these other things and maybe focus on me for once! Being silver and shiny is very common apparently but for some reason no one ever picks me to use. For example, just today I was sitting with a couple of 1s, three 10s, and a 25. This guy walks over and picks up everyone except for me and a marked up, scratched up 1. A couple minutes later a little kid was walking by, saw the 1 and exclaimed “Heads up! Good luck!” and picked up the 1 leaving me to sit alone. So here I wait until tomorrow when hopefully someone will realize that they need an extra $.05, so I can finally be of use.
What you Wanted by Briana Ank
“Don’t you realize?”
The pale nurse comforting the small boy turned an even whiter shade as she listened to his voice. He was overly calm, as if explaining something to a child like himself rather than a woman who could be his mother. Patient, cold, unfeeling. Just stating a fact.
“I was born to die.”
She stopped. She wanted to assure him that no, of course not, he was just like any other seven-year-old in the country, that he would grow up to make a real difference in the world. It was what he’d grown up hearing.
Half of it was a lie.
Half of it was the truth.
Sam’s life was better than nearly every person’s. He was safe, secure. Had no hope of contracting the infection that ravaged the outside world, just beyond the hospital walls. He never went to bed hungry. He was never too cold and never too warm. He had all of the entertainment he could ever want. None of his clothes had holes or tears. He could read and write, like only the extremely wealthy could. He had a bed and a roof over his head.
But Sam was robbed of one thing that every human desperately craved, and the nurse knew it. He was robbed of his life.
Normality was a lie for him. But Sam would make a real difference in the world. It was all that mattered.
Sam was perfect in every way. His skin, hair, and eyes were without flaw. Raised from a genetically modified fetus within a sterile lab, he lived out his entire life in the white-walled hospital. He had never known that the world could smell differently from antiseptic and that children used to play with other children, before the dark ages came again.
But he wasn’t supposed to know what he was being raised for.
Scientists worked for hours on Sam, altering his DNA so drastically that he was immune to the infection that was killing by the thousands each day. A genuine lab rat, he was isolated and kept in the highest-quality and most humane quarantine possible. His life was excellent. He experienced what most others would kill for.
She told herself this as she made herself choke out the lie again. Sam was sick of hearing it. The nurse was sick of saying it.
“I was born to die,” he insisted. Strangely, though his words carried a weight that would normally be said with melancholy or defeat or even outrage, he was apathetic. But then again, Sam was far from normal.
The nurse wanted to throw up, all over his tiny cell. The nausea was replaced by a split second of panic – the first sign of the infection was vomiting – before letting the revulsion take over again.
More and more she was reminding herself of what she had to do, and what she had to do it. For people like her parents, who told her stories of the day when everyone could go without wearing a surgical mask and gloves when they went outside. For children like her son, who died of the infection before he could turn two. For children like Sam.
“Sam,” she began, swallowing hard.
“That’s why you’ve come, right? To take me away. For them to use my blood to make the cure.”
How did he know?
Blood roared in her ears. Everyone was very careful not to say anything about the procedure around Sam. He was not to know. He was to have every shred of normality as possible in his life.
Someone must have slipped, she thought. It was probably Marie. She was always soft around Sam. She answered all of his questions, doted on him. She had a son, too, and three daughters. All of them gone. She was to blame for this. Marie would be fired, for certain, and have no chance of receiving the cure when it was found.
“Is it why you’ve come?”
It would be easier if Same was screaming. He was too calm. It was unnerving.
Instinctively, the nurse found herself nodding. No. He can’t know. You can’t tell him. But it was too late. Sam had already seen.
“What are they going to do to me?” His voice was devoid of emotion, as if he were a slightly more human-sounding computer program rather than a boy.
“I…I don’t know.” She was being honest. No one knew about the procedure, but that surgeons themselves.
Sam nodded. He was considering something, turning something over and over in his mind. The nurse began to sweat as she waited, on her knees before him, as he asked his next question.
“Is it for good? Is it for a good cause?”
It made her mouth run dry. A boy at age seven shouldn’t be considering these things, she knew. He should be free in the world, filthy and disease-trodden as it was.
She thought about her son, then, barely old enough to walk before he got sick. She though of Marie’s children, all four of them, and finally her parents. It could all be undone with this boy. No more children dead.
Just one more.
She had to repeat it several times before she could even begin to believe it, and once she did, she hated herself for it.
Again, her head moved up and down without having to be told to. “Yes. It’s for a good cause. Of course. You will save many people, Sam.” The nurse managed to smile, and rubbed his shoulders with her hands as her parents used to with her.
He nodded with her. “Good.”
Still, his words burned at her brain. Born to die. How horrible it would be to live, she thought, knowing that you sole purpose was to die!
“I’m ready,” he said. He was just as cold and apathetic. The little automaton that the doctors made was more effective than they planned. Chilling. Chilling, yet fascinating.
“Good,” the nurse parroted his words. She seemed incapable of saying anything else. Bile had risen in her throat again. She stood, offering Sam her hand. Wordlessly, he took it, and together they walked through the halls to the operating room.
The nurse had to clear her mind. Tears were pressing at the backs of her eyes, and she had to ignore the realization that the boy never laid eyes on the world he was going to save. It was just another piece of trivia, a mere detail. But it made her throat close all the same.
As they walked, Sam looked at her. For some reason, she had the illusion that the eyes of an old man instead of a young child were gazing back at her.
“You know what?” His voice revealed the slightest bit of emotion. He sounded cheerful, though, not at all regretful or sad. “It isn’t so bad, knowing that you were born to save others.”
“Right,” croaked the nurse.
“Don’t you realize?”
The pale nurse comforting the small boy turned an even whiter shade as she listened to his voice. He was overly calm, as if explaining something to a child like himself rather than a woman who could be his mother. Patient, cold, unfeeling. Just stating a fact.
“I was born to die.”
She stopped. She wanted to assure him that no, of course not, he was just like any other seven-year-old in the country, that he would grow up to make a real difference in the world. It was what he’d grown up hearing.
Half of it was a lie.
Half of it was the truth.
Sam’s life was better than nearly every person’s. He was safe, secure. Had no hope of contracting the infection that ravaged the outside world, just beyond the hospital walls. He never went to bed hungry. He was never too cold and never too warm. He had all of the entertainment he could ever want. None of his clothes had holes or tears. He could read and write, like only the extremely wealthy could. He had a bed and a roof over his head.
But Sam was robbed of one thing that every human desperately craved, and the nurse knew it. He was robbed of his life.
Normality was a lie for him. But Sam would make a real difference in the world. It was all that mattered.
Sam was perfect in every way. His skin, hair, and eyes were without flaw. Raised from a genetically modified fetus within a sterile lab, he lived out his entire life in the white-walled hospital. He had never known that the world could smell differently from antiseptic and that children used to play with other children, before the dark ages came again.
But he wasn’t supposed to know what he was being raised for.
Scientists worked for hours on Sam, altering his DNA so drastically that he was immune to the infection that was killing by the thousands each day. A genuine lab rat, he was isolated and kept in the highest-quality and most humane quarantine possible. His life was excellent. He experienced what most others would kill for.
She told herself this as she made herself choke out the lie again. Sam was sick of hearing it. The nurse was sick of saying it.
“I was born to die,” he insisted. Strangely, though his words carried a weight that would normally be said with melancholy or defeat or even outrage, he was apathetic. But then again, Sam was far from normal.
The nurse wanted to throw up, all over his tiny cell. The nausea was replaced by a split second of panic – the first sign of the infection was vomiting – before letting the revulsion take over again.
More and more she was reminding herself of what she had to do, and what she had to do it. For people like her parents, who told her stories of the day when everyone could go without wearing a surgical mask and gloves when they went outside. For children like her son, who died of the infection before he could turn two. For children like Sam.
“Sam,” she began, swallowing hard.
“That’s why you’ve come, right? To take me away. For them to use my blood to make the cure.”
How did he know?
Blood roared in her ears. Everyone was very careful not to say anything about the procedure around Sam. He was not to know. He was to have every shred of normality as possible in his life.
Someone must have slipped, she thought. It was probably Marie. She was always soft around Sam. She answered all of his questions, doted on him. She had a son, too, and three daughters. All of them gone. She was to blame for this. Marie would be fired, for certain, and have no chance of receiving the cure when it was found.
“Is it why you’ve come?”
It would be easier if Same was screaming. He was too calm. It was unnerving.
Instinctively, the nurse found herself nodding. No. He can’t know. You can’t tell him. But it was too late. Sam had already seen.
“What are they going to do to me?” His voice was devoid of emotion, as if he were a slightly more human-sounding computer program rather than a boy.
“I…I don’t know.” She was being honest. No one knew about the procedure, but that surgeons themselves.
Sam nodded. He was considering something, turning something over and over in his mind. The nurse began to sweat as she waited, on her knees before him, as he asked his next question.
“Is it for good? Is it for a good cause?”
It made her mouth run dry. A boy at age seven shouldn’t be considering these things, she knew. He should be free in the world, filthy and disease-trodden as it was.
She thought about her son, then, barely old enough to walk before he got sick. She though of Marie’s children, all four of them, and finally her parents. It could all be undone with this boy. No more children dead.
Just one more.
She had to repeat it several times before she could even begin to believe it, and once she did, she hated herself for it.
Again, her head moved up and down without having to be told to. “Yes. It’s for a good cause. Of course. You will save many people, Sam.” The nurse managed to smile, and rubbed his shoulders with her hands as her parents used to with her.
He nodded with her. “Good.”
Still, his words burned at her brain. Born to die. How horrible it would be to live, she thought, knowing that you sole purpose was to die!
“I’m ready,” he said. He was just as cold and apathetic. The little automaton that the doctors made was more effective than they planned. Chilling. Chilling, yet fascinating.
“Good,” the nurse parroted his words. She seemed incapable of saying anything else. Bile had risen in her throat again. She stood, offering Sam her hand. Wordlessly, he took it, and together they walked through the halls to the operating room.
The nurse had to clear her mind. Tears were pressing at the backs of her eyes, and she had to ignore the realization that the boy never laid eyes on the world he was going to save. It was just another piece of trivia, a mere detail. But it made her throat close all the same.
As they walked, Sam looked at her. For some reason, she had the illusion that the eyes of an old man instead of a young child were gazing back at her.
“You know what?” His voice revealed the slightest bit of emotion. He sounded cheerful, though, not at all regretful or sad. “It isn’t so bad, knowing that you were born to save others.”
“Right,” croaked the nurse.
Spiders by Reghan Ruf
People are inconsiderate. We care an irrefutable amount about appearances, and we leave each other behind in order to achieve our unintentional goals of superficiality. People are overdramatic. We struggle with putting situations into perspective, with being able to remove ourselves enough in order to clearly see how our actions affect another being, both drastically and diminutively.
People walk into spider webs all the time. We run into them, usually accidentally, and we carry on with our day, completely oblivious to the enormously detrimental effect we had on that spider and its lifestyle. We see it as a minor inconvenience, as something that left us in a bitter mood for a moment or two, but as something that was small, and unassumingly irrelevant.
A spider’s web is not simply a place where they lure flies and other bothersome insects to die; rather, it is a place that contains an entire life: a food source, a shelter, a place to raise their young, a place to potentially then eat their young, or a place to hide. Some spiders have an extraordinarily difficult time building their webs: web-building may take hours, or days, or even weeks in order to craft and perfect.We walk into it, wave our hands around, and ruin it. Then we walk away.
People find themselves in the midst of others’ webs quite frequently. We allot a ridiculous amount of time to seeming smart, to presenting ourselves as available for conversation. We make assumptions. We try to relate to people in a raw, innate manner which is difficult to bite down. We talk, utterly oblivious to the effect our words have on a person’s webs of emotion, of self-confidence, of being. We walk into a person’s web, wave our hands around, and ruin it. Then we walk away.
Spiders and humans are not terribly different. We each rely on our webs to protect us and offer support throughout our lifetimes. Whether it be a web of self or a web of life, we depend on it so heavily that we fail to acknowledge that it too can come tumbling down as fast as a word leaves a tongue, or as fast as a foot leaves the ground. We turn our backs on damage that we cause, leaving a spider, or a person, drowning in our collateral damage.
We are inconsiderate, but we can change. We are resilient, and, like the spider, rebuild. We do not allow our webs to remain ruined. We gather ourselves until we are back on our two feet or eight feet, and we begin to create our new dream homes and webs, stronger than before.
We have changed.
People are inconsiderate. We care an irrefutable amount about appearances, and we leave each other behind in order to achieve our unintentional goals of superficiality. People are overdramatic. We struggle with putting situations into perspective, with being able to remove ourselves enough in order to clearly see how our actions affect another being, both drastically and diminutively.
People walk into spider webs all the time. We run into them, usually accidentally, and we carry on with our day, completely oblivious to the enormously detrimental effect we had on that spider and its lifestyle. We see it as a minor inconvenience, as something that left us in a bitter mood for a moment or two, but as something that was small, and unassumingly irrelevant.
A spider’s web is not simply a place where they lure flies and other bothersome insects to die; rather, it is a place that contains an entire life: a food source, a shelter, a place to raise their young, a place to potentially then eat their young, or a place to hide. Some spiders have an extraordinarily difficult time building their webs: web-building may take hours, or days, or even weeks in order to craft and perfect.We walk into it, wave our hands around, and ruin it. Then we walk away.
People find themselves in the midst of others’ webs quite frequently. We allot a ridiculous amount of time to seeming smart, to presenting ourselves as available for conversation. We make assumptions. We try to relate to people in a raw, innate manner which is difficult to bite down. We talk, utterly oblivious to the effect our words have on a person’s webs of emotion, of self-confidence, of being. We walk into a person’s web, wave our hands around, and ruin it. Then we walk away.
Spiders and humans are not terribly different. We each rely on our webs to protect us and offer support throughout our lifetimes. Whether it be a web of self or a web of life, we depend on it so heavily that we fail to acknowledge that it too can come tumbling down as fast as a word leaves a tongue, or as fast as a foot leaves the ground. We turn our backs on damage that we cause, leaving a spider, or a person, drowning in our collateral damage.
We are inconsiderate, but we can change. We are resilient, and, like the spider, rebuild. We do not allow our webs to remain ruined. We gather ourselves until we are back on our two feet or eight feet, and we begin to create our new dream homes and webs, stronger than before.
We have changed.
Shades of Red by Rowan Young
They taught us a lot in Catholic school, except the one thing I was interested in: murder. Of course I was always told that killing is a sin, which I totally get it and everything, but isn’t it fascinating. I mean, come on, why would anyone choose to remove someone else from this life? What goes through their mind that in an instant makes them more powerful and better than everyone else? From a little bookstore in Maine, this is the intriguing question I will be examining.
Writing can be the best way to investigate and examine an idea. This is one of the only things I actually learned in school before dropping out. The horrors of high school were only muted by my reading and writing experiences. Reading and language can give someone the power and knowledge to accomplish anything. Armed with this knowledge, I dropped out, left my beloved family, and moved 375 miles to Ellis Pond, Maine.
I got a job working at a small, locally owned bookstore where on average only about 17 people visit per day. This was a fantastic opportunity to pursue my love of reading and writing. With all of my free time sitting in the shop I decided to start rewriting the endings to popular works of fiction. Remember my recently stated fascination with the mindset of murder? Applying the psychotic pattern of thinking to classic stories could be very interesting so why not give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen?
One day I was hard at work writing an alternate ending for Jay Gatsby, which includes a bloody double homicide involving two house servants, when an old man named Jason comes in and leaves a white canvas, a red rose, and a note on the counter that reads “Angry and half in love your heart beats on. –Jay G.”. The seemingly fresh cut rose against the white canvas had a similar contrast as newly spilled blood on a marble floor. With this blank canvas, lots of rewritten stories, and a lot of time in the empty bookstore, I decided to put my words into color. Using my favorite AB-red, I painted Jay and his untimely death.
Thrilled with my most recent success of a painting, I bought my own canvas to attempt To Kill a Mockingbird’s Tom disappearing into a crowd with Scout close behind. The canvas was outrageously expensive and was purchased from my neighbor Thomas’s art shop on the corner. With this unacceptable action in mind, I painted Tom’s disappearance using my newfound deep O-red.
That night, after carefully washing my clothes, due to a pesky red stain on my white shirt, I encountered a group of amateur astronomers outside of the bookstore observing a blood moon. They also seemed to be observing the bookstore’s display window which was featuring The Martian. Seeing their enthusiastic yet annoying obsession with the book I decided to rewrite this ending as well. Mark’s story of surviving on Mars would take a turn for the worse and end in suffocation and a slow demise. A man named Marcus who frequents the shop mentioned my newly rewritten ending and how it was very unoriginal and predictable. Not wanting to cause a scene and remedy the confrontation, I invited him over for tea at the store later that evening where I would demonstrate to him my newly found art skills. After all I do my best work when I can isolate a problem. Judging from a fresh paper cut on his finger I would be using a very bright B-red color for the shades of The Martian.
The Friday after Marcus and I had tea I was inspired to see a production of Sweeney Todd, at a local theater. Trying my hand at rewriting an ending to this magnificent work of art couldn’t hurt could it? I found it so intriguing that Sweeney could murder client after client at his barber shop in cold blood, and not be suspected or caught by anyone in the town. This detail is an important one to keep in my current rewrite as well as any in the future as I find this cycle of bloodshed to be very compelling. Not even my closest relations could stop me from pursuing this expression of life through art. After all they do say an ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of love. With this in mind I take out a crisp, new canvas to wait for my next customer when I hear the shop door open. My next vic- I mean, customer, of course. I look up from my desk to see my mother. Fascinating, I haven’t used A-negative yet.
They taught us a lot in Catholic school, except the one thing I was interested in: murder. Of course I was always told that killing is a sin, which I totally get it and everything, but isn’t it fascinating. I mean, come on, why would anyone choose to remove someone else from this life? What goes through their mind that in an instant makes them more powerful and better than everyone else? From a little bookstore in Maine, this is the intriguing question I will be examining.
Writing can be the best way to investigate and examine an idea. This is one of the only things I actually learned in school before dropping out. The horrors of high school were only muted by my reading and writing experiences. Reading and language can give someone the power and knowledge to accomplish anything. Armed with this knowledge, I dropped out, left my beloved family, and moved 375 miles to Ellis Pond, Maine.
I got a job working at a small, locally owned bookstore where on average only about 17 people visit per day. This was a fantastic opportunity to pursue my love of reading and writing. With all of my free time sitting in the shop I decided to start rewriting the endings to popular works of fiction. Remember my recently stated fascination with the mindset of murder? Applying the psychotic pattern of thinking to classic stories could be very interesting so why not give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen?
One day I was hard at work writing an alternate ending for Jay Gatsby, which includes a bloody double homicide involving two house servants, when an old man named Jason comes in and leaves a white canvas, a red rose, and a note on the counter that reads “Angry and half in love your heart beats on. –Jay G.”. The seemingly fresh cut rose against the white canvas had a similar contrast as newly spilled blood on a marble floor. With this blank canvas, lots of rewritten stories, and a lot of time in the empty bookstore, I decided to put my words into color. Using my favorite AB-red, I painted Jay and his untimely death.
Thrilled with my most recent success of a painting, I bought my own canvas to attempt To Kill a Mockingbird’s Tom disappearing into a crowd with Scout close behind. The canvas was outrageously expensive and was purchased from my neighbor Thomas’s art shop on the corner. With this unacceptable action in mind, I painted Tom’s disappearance using my newfound deep O-red.
That night, after carefully washing my clothes, due to a pesky red stain on my white shirt, I encountered a group of amateur astronomers outside of the bookstore observing a blood moon. They also seemed to be observing the bookstore’s display window which was featuring The Martian. Seeing their enthusiastic yet annoying obsession with the book I decided to rewrite this ending as well. Mark’s story of surviving on Mars would take a turn for the worse and end in suffocation and a slow demise. A man named Marcus who frequents the shop mentioned my newly rewritten ending and how it was very unoriginal and predictable. Not wanting to cause a scene and remedy the confrontation, I invited him over for tea at the store later that evening where I would demonstrate to him my newly found art skills. After all I do my best work when I can isolate a problem. Judging from a fresh paper cut on his finger I would be using a very bright B-red color for the shades of The Martian.
The Friday after Marcus and I had tea I was inspired to see a production of Sweeney Todd, at a local theater. Trying my hand at rewriting an ending to this magnificent work of art couldn’t hurt could it? I found it so intriguing that Sweeney could murder client after client at his barber shop in cold blood, and not be suspected or caught by anyone in the town. This detail is an important one to keep in my current rewrite as well as any in the future as I find this cycle of bloodshed to be very compelling. Not even my closest relations could stop me from pursuing this expression of life through art. After all they do say an ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of love. With this in mind I take out a crisp, new canvas to wait for my next customer when I hear the shop door open. My next vic- I mean, customer, of course. I look up from my desk to see my mother. Fascinating, I haven’t used A-negative yet.
Coats by Emma Lane
Marcus and Liz walked to school without coats, gloves, or hats again. It was the fourth consecutive week that neither child had looked warm while walking into the building. Their teachers both noticed, but were too timid to ask them why they didn’t dress warmly. When their friends asked why they didn’t have coats on at recess, they just told them that they had woken up late, or they had left them outside in the rain and they had to be washed. But, no matter what, every morning their noses were red and the tips of their ears were pink with the settling cold.
“Liz, are you sure you don’t need to borrow a shirt of mine?” Marcus asked his twin sister cautiously. Last time he asked her if she’d like to borrow an extra pair of socks, a shoe had flown by his head and hit the wall next to him. He thought he would ask, though, because they weren’t even outside yet and her nose was starting to run.
“NO! I told you for the last time, I’m fine! You don’t need to baby me; we’re the same! You know what, I’m five minutes older than you, I should be asking you if you need something of mine!” anger burned red in her cheeks; they were already getting a late start walking. “Let’s go, if we’re late again we’ll get detention. Steve probably would take away our comic books again”. Hurriedly, the two walked out the door and into the windy, spinning mass of colorful leaves known as autumn.
It was colder than expected. Liz had her hands clamped over her ears under her hair in an attempt to keep the warmth in, and Marcus had his hand stuffed deep into the pockets of his jeans. Frost glittered on the grass and on the windshields of cars. They weren’t even ten minutes away from home when Marcus stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Marcus, lets go! We need to get to school on time! Marcus… Marcus? Are you listening to me?” Liz turned around and stood next to her brother, but still he didn’t move. Then, with a sudden jerk, he pulled his hands out of his pockets, which where beet-red and shaking. “Marcus, your hands… should we go back home? We-“
“No! I’m just tired of this! I hate having to go to the bathroom when we get to school to take of the extra shirts I’m wearing and hide them in my backpack! Don’t look surprised, I know you do it too! I just-“
“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear you two talking, but could I talk to you for a second?” Marcus and Liz whipped their heads around to find an older woman standing behind them. She had ginger hair with streaks of gray in it, but it also seemed to have brown and blonde strands scattered around as well. “I’m sorry to bother you two, but I’ve noticed that you don’t have any hats or scarves or anything when you walk to school, so I wanted to give you these”. The woman held out a large brown bag, and Liz eagerly snatched it away.
“Liz, you can’t just take it, you don’t know what’s in it-“
“But Marcus, look! There’s a coat for me and you, and gloves, and hats, and even scarves! We’ve never owned scarves before!” Liz excitedly dug through the bag, shrugging off her backpack to try on the pink coat. The woman laughed warmly as Liz tried to put on a pair of black gloves backwards.
“Please, I insist you take them. I see you walk to school everyday looking so cold and miserable, and I couldn’t stand to see it any longer. Autumn is my favorite season, and I want everyone to be able to enjoy it as much as I do. So, please, keep them”.
Marcus looked into the bag again and saw how nice the coat that was picked out for him was. He took it out of the bag and put it on. It was warm, and the gloves in the bag matched. They were also orange, which was his favorite color. Marcus looked up into the woman’s eyes with admiration as Liz happily smiled, wrapping her new scarf around her neck.
“Ma’am… thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means to us. Who are you, by the way? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before”.
“Oh, I don’t live here. I only stop by once a year, around this time. Now, you two must be on your way to school. I don’t want to be the reason you’re late!” The woman smiled, turned around and started to walk down the sidewalk. Liz shouted a quick, “thank you!” before happily skipping down the sidewalk. Marcus stared at the woman a few seconds longer, then started to run to catch up to Liz. When he was next to her, he turned around to look at the woman again, but she was gone.
“Marcus, you know what?”
“What?”
“That lady didn’t seem cold at all. But when I took the bag from her, her hands didn’t seem warm or cold at all. They were perfect”.
“That’s weird. I’m kinda glad I didn’t touch her, even though she gave us these. Now lets go, we’re going to be late to again”.
*Author's Note: I got inspiration from my elementary school. I knew children in my grade that didn't have warmer clothes for the colder weather, so my family would try to help them out by buying them things like hats and gloves.
Marcus and Liz walked to school without coats, gloves, or hats again. It was the fourth consecutive week that neither child had looked warm while walking into the building. Their teachers both noticed, but were too timid to ask them why they didn’t dress warmly. When their friends asked why they didn’t have coats on at recess, they just told them that they had woken up late, or they had left them outside in the rain and they had to be washed. But, no matter what, every morning their noses were red and the tips of their ears were pink with the settling cold.
“Liz, are you sure you don’t need to borrow a shirt of mine?” Marcus asked his twin sister cautiously. Last time he asked her if she’d like to borrow an extra pair of socks, a shoe had flown by his head and hit the wall next to him. He thought he would ask, though, because they weren’t even outside yet and her nose was starting to run.
“NO! I told you for the last time, I’m fine! You don’t need to baby me; we’re the same! You know what, I’m five minutes older than you, I should be asking you if you need something of mine!” anger burned red in her cheeks; they were already getting a late start walking. “Let’s go, if we’re late again we’ll get detention. Steve probably would take away our comic books again”. Hurriedly, the two walked out the door and into the windy, spinning mass of colorful leaves known as autumn.
It was colder than expected. Liz had her hands clamped over her ears under her hair in an attempt to keep the warmth in, and Marcus had his hand stuffed deep into the pockets of his jeans. Frost glittered on the grass and on the windshields of cars. They weren’t even ten minutes away from home when Marcus stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Marcus, lets go! We need to get to school on time! Marcus… Marcus? Are you listening to me?” Liz turned around and stood next to her brother, but still he didn’t move. Then, with a sudden jerk, he pulled his hands out of his pockets, which where beet-red and shaking. “Marcus, your hands… should we go back home? We-“
“No! I’m just tired of this! I hate having to go to the bathroom when we get to school to take of the extra shirts I’m wearing and hide them in my backpack! Don’t look surprised, I know you do it too! I just-“
“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear you two talking, but could I talk to you for a second?” Marcus and Liz whipped their heads around to find an older woman standing behind them. She had ginger hair with streaks of gray in it, but it also seemed to have brown and blonde strands scattered around as well. “I’m sorry to bother you two, but I’ve noticed that you don’t have any hats or scarves or anything when you walk to school, so I wanted to give you these”. The woman held out a large brown bag, and Liz eagerly snatched it away.
“Liz, you can’t just take it, you don’t know what’s in it-“
“But Marcus, look! There’s a coat for me and you, and gloves, and hats, and even scarves! We’ve never owned scarves before!” Liz excitedly dug through the bag, shrugging off her backpack to try on the pink coat. The woman laughed warmly as Liz tried to put on a pair of black gloves backwards.
“Please, I insist you take them. I see you walk to school everyday looking so cold and miserable, and I couldn’t stand to see it any longer. Autumn is my favorite season, and I want everyone to be able to enjoy it as much as I do. So, please, keep them”.
Marcus looked into the bag again and saw how nice the coat that was picked out for him was. He took it out of the bag and put it on. It was warm, and the gloves in the bag matched. They were also orange, which was his favorite color. Marcus looked up into the woman’s eyes with admiration as Liz happily smiled, wrapping her new scarf around her neck.
“Ma’am… thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means to us. Who are you, by the way? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before”.
“Oh, I don’t live here. I only stop by once a year, around this time. Now, you two must be on your way to school. I don’t want to be the reason you’re late!” The woman smiled, turned around and started to walk down the sidewalk. Liz shouted a quick, “thank you!” before happily skipping down the sidewalk. Marcus stared at the woman a few seconds longer, then started to run to catch up to Liz. When he was next to her, he turned around to look at the woman again, but she was gone.
“Marcus, you know what?”
“What?”
“That lady didn’t seem cold at all. But when I took the bag from her, her hands didn’t seem warm or cold at all. They were perfect”.
“That’s weird. I’m kinda glad I didn’t touch her, even though she gave us these. Now lets go, we’re going to be late to again”.
*Author's Note: I got inspiration from my elementary school. I knew children in my grade that didn't have warmer clothes for the colder weather, so my family would try to help them out by buying them things like hats and gloves.
Crisp Sundays by Karina Ciocca
"Make sure you wear a jacket!" my mom shouts at me from the kitchen as I'm rushing outside. I stop in my tracks to head into the closet to rip a pink and purple windbreaker off of a hanger. Shoving my arms through the sleeves I run out the door to the small oasis across the street. All of my friends are there already, their arms so full of leaves that their faces are covered. Everyone is carrying them to the same pile right next to the Mystery Box. They're all over the neighborhood, these enormous, green, metal boxes, but I don't know what they're for. No one does.
I greet my friends and immediately get to work, squatting low to the ground and gathering fallen foliage into my short arms. Finally, after some time, it is complete; the pile is big enough. It's bigger than me! I can't even see the top!
"Do you wanna go first?" Savannah asks me. I can't believe my ears. Everyone agrees that I should get to jump first (because I'm the smallest and will do the least damage to the pile, but who cares!? They picked me to jump first!). I climb on top of the enormous Mystery Box one leg at a time and stand up, towering over the heads of all of my friends, for once. My heart beats faster as my feet inch ever closer to the edge of the Box until my toes are over the edge. All of the girls are cheering for me while I bounce a few times to warm up for my big jump. Then the countdown begins: "Three, two, one, JUMP!"
With all of my might, I jump from the edge of the Mystery Box high into the air. I've never been so high before! This must be what birds or airplanes feel like! I close my eyes and take a deep breath just before plunging into our homemade sea of leaves. That crunch was incredible. It shattered through my ears and into my brain as I sunk deep into the pile, keeping my eyes closed, unable to face the fact that my adventure was already over.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the most beautiful array of colors I could ever imagine. Ruby reds, golden yellows, rusty oranges, and earthy browns all danced and played together just as my friends and I were. I was entirely enveloped in these amazing shades of autumn.
My friends called for me to get out of the pile, so I emerged and went to the back of the line. Now it was Jenna's turn to jump, but all I could think about was how long I had to wait until it was mine again.
"Make sure you wear a jacket!" my mom shouts at me from the kitchen as I'm rushing outside. I stop in my tracks to head into the closet to rip a pink and purple windbreaker off of a hanger. Shoving my arms through the sleeves I run out the door to the small oasis across the street. All of my friends are there already, their arms so full of leaves that their faces are covered. Everyone is carrying them to the same pile right next to the Mystery Box. They're all over the neighborhood, these enormous, green, metal boxes, but I don't know what they're for. No one does.
I greet my friends and immediately get to work, squatting low to the ground and gathering fallen foliage into my short arms. Finally, after some time, it is complete; the pile is big enough. It's bigger than me! I can't even see the top!
"Do you wanna go first?" Savannah asks me. I can't believe my ears. Everyone agrees that I should get to jump first (because I'm the smallest and will do the least damage to the pile, but who cares!? They picked me to jump first!). I climb on top of the enormous Mystery Box one leg at a time and stand up, towering over the heads of all of my friends, for once. My heart beats faster as my feet inch ever closer to the edge of the Box until my toes are over the edge. All of the girls are cheering for me while I bounce a few times to warm up for my big jump. Then the countdown begins: "Three, two, one, JUMP!"
With all of my might, I jump from the edge of the Mystery Box high into the air. I've never been so high before! This must be what birds or airplanes feel like! I close my eyes and take a deep breath just before plunging into our homemade sea of leaves. That crunch was incredible. It shattered through my ears and into my brain as I sunk deep into the pile, keeping my eyes closed, unable to face the fact that my adventure was already over.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the most beautiful array of colors I could ever imagine. Ruby reds, golden yellows, rusty oranges, and earthy browns all danced and played together just as my friends and I were. I was entirely enveloped in these amazing shades of autumn.
My friends called for me to get out of the pile, so I emerged and went to the back of the line. Now it was Jenna's turn to jump, but all I could think about was how long I had to wait until it was mine again.
The Things We Carry by Michaela Coplen
(Inspired by Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried”)
Regional Scholastic Gold Key Winner and American Voices Nominee
We carry their letters in our backpacks. We encase them in plastic, try to catch grains of sand that slip from the seams under stamps. In the late afternoon, after slogging through school, we dig through our homework for these buried deserts, spend an hour or two sifting through layers of cursive undertones. They never speak of war, except in missyous and behomesoons–instead they offer poetry and platitudes, advice that arrives a week too late. We press the gritty envelope flaps to our tongues, wonder if this is what they taste before they brush their teeth at night. We carry the “Love” they use to sign their letters, hold it like a Bible to our chests and dare God to intervene.
We carry what we have been taught to carry. Batteries. Sewing kits. Pens, pencils, erasers. A palm-sized journal. Wristwatches. Maps. Shoelaces and duct tape. We carry paranoia. The back-to-the-wall, where-are-the-exits, how-many-people-are-in-this-room, stay-out-of-crowds twitching that clutters cheap diner tables. We carry pocket knives and twine. We carry Run, Hide, Fight like a tattoo on our wrists. We carry an eye for anomaly, an ear for alarm, and a survivalist instinct that burrows itself into our guts.
We carry walkie-talkies and the NATO phonetic alphabet through the dark night of a gated base. Code names. Flashlights. We force our feet to be silent as we slip past MP stations and through curfew’s closing fist. We carry each other, holding on to friendships with the ferocity of knowing that we carry even more goodbyes. We camouflage ourselves in black and set up command centers in empty playgrounds. We borrow strategies from the History Channel and our parents’ dinner party conversations. We steal hidden flags, swear they’ll never touch the ground. We laugh and run and carry the pretending that these elaborate games of manhunt are not our way of practicing for Whiskey-Alpha-Romeo.
We carry our bag and shoes to the gym, where people say “have a good workout” like it’s “have a good Christmas.” A water bottle. A sweat towel. A playlist labeled “workout warrior.” We unpack the gifts of our bodies on machines and tracks and benches, carrying the weight of the knowledge that self-sufficiency is strength. We carry our biceps and six-packs like a sign on the lawn reading “Security System Installed Here.” Gatorade. Deodorant. Hair ties, sports bras, transience and the nomadic need to move. We compete with ourselves and carry a list of our shortcomings like a splinter in our sole.
Textbooks. Calculators. Honor Rolls and transcripts. We carry libraries from house to house, making the smallest cardboard boxes the heaviest ones. Notebooks and binders and mugs of late night coffee. We carry hours of study in bags under our eyes. We work so that our parents will have one less thing to worry about. We work so we’ll have time to see them when they come home on leave. We carry the wanting to do more than make them proud–the harder, sharper wanting to make ourselves proud. We carry that pride. We carry intimate knowledge of the biology of transplantation and the physics of a bullet.
We carry the practice of statistics. The rate of increase from one thousand to two thousand to three thousand. Percentage times three tours times thirty years equals x before retirement. The probability that it will be somebody we know. The probability that it will be our somebody. The knowing that there are things worse than death. We carry coffins and couches with equal force but different gravity.
We carry questions. More than the paradox of a countdown clock that keeps adding time, or the problem of a map without title or key. We carry whowhatwhenwherewhy like a piercing on our tongue, use it to tap out messages against our teeth (the things we’re afraid to ask: How many movie-theater-discounts does it take to buy back a childhood?). We carry our silence in mouths chewed raw from lack of speaking.
We carry stones–smooth and flat, picked up along the road–to place on grandpa’s grave. It’s hard to find him, another uniform white slab among rows of thousands (pristine and regimented as ever). He is black-lettered and not yet fading, sandwiched between an immigrant and an eighteen-year-old. We walk home carrying the need to write a poem for every gravestone. We carry the aunts and sons, the coaches and dog-lovers, book worms and runners, the painters and preachers, politicians and pacifists, the tough guys, philosophers, sweethearts, the parents who lie here. We carry the veterans lying on city street corners, and those who never made it home. We carry the sisters and cousins that stand in their place. When the time comes, we too will carry the torch. We wear helmets made of stoic steel and lined with hope.
We carry safety pins like bad habits and dog tags like talismans. We carry dandelions in our hands and countries on our backs. We carry on.
Michaela Coplen, currently attending Vassar College, spent the 2013/2014 school year as one of five National Student Poets for the Scholastic Art and Writing organization, traveling the east coast and furthering poetry appreciation with both students and adults alike.
(Inspired by Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried”)
Regional Scholastic Gold Key Winner and American Voices Nominee
We carry their letters in our backpacks. We encase them in plastic, try to catch grains of sand that slip from the seams under stamps. In the late afternoon, after slogging through school, we dig through our homework for these buried deserts, spend an hour or two sifting through layers of cursive undertones. They never speak of war, except in missyous and behomesoons–instead they offer poetry and platitudes, advice that arrives a week too late. We press the gritty envelope flaps to our tongues, wonder if this is what they taste before they brush their teeth at night. We carry the “Love” they use to sign their letters, hold it like a Bible to our chests and dare God to intervene.
We carry what we have been taught to carry. Batteries. Sewing kits. Pens, pencils, erasers. A palm-sized journal. Wristwatches. Maps. Shoelaces and duct tape. We carry paranoia. The back-to-the-wall, where-are-the-exits, how-many-people-are-in-this-room, stay-out-of-crowds twitching that clutters cheap diner tables. We carry pocket knives and twine. We carry Run, Hide, Fight like a tattoo on our wrists. We carry an eye for anomaly, an ear for alarm, and a survivalist instinct that burrows itself into our guts.
We carry walkie-talkies and the NATO phonetic alphabet through the dark night of a gated base. Code names. Flashlights. We force our feet to be silent as we slip past MP stations and through curfew’s closing fist. We carry each other, holding on to friendships with the ferocity of knowing that we carry even more goodbyes. We camouflage ourselves in black and set up command centers in empty playgrounds. We borrow strategies from the History Channel and our parents’ dinner party conversations. We steal hidden flags, swear they’ll never touch the ground. We laugh and run and carry the pretending that these elaborate games of manhunt are not our way of practicing for Whiskey-Alpha-Romeo.
We carry our bag and shoes to the gym, where people say “have a good workout” like it’s “have a good Christmas.” A water bottle. A sweat towel. A playlist labeled “workout warrior.” We unpack the gifts of our bodies on machines and tracks and benches, carrying the weight of the knowledge that self-sufficiency is strength. We carry our biceps and six-packs like a sign on the lawn reading “Security System Installed Here.” Gatorade. Deodorant. Hair ties, sports bras, transience and the nomadic need to move. We compete with ourselves and carry a list of our shortcomings like a splinter in our sole.
Textbooks. Calculators. Honor Rolls and transcripts. We carry libraries from house to house, making the smallest cardboard boxes the heaviest ones. Notebooks and binders and mugs of late night coffee. We carry hours of study in bags under our eyes. We work so that our parents will have one less thing to worry about. We work so we’ll have time to see them when they come home on leave. We carry the wanting to do more than make them proud–the harder, sharper wanting to make ourselves proud. We carry that pride. We carry intimate knowledge of the biology of transplantation and the physics of a bullet.
We carry the practice of statistics. The rate of increase from one thousand to two thousand to three thousand. Percentage times three tours times thirty years equals x before retirement. The probability that it will be somebody we know. The probability that it will be our somebody. The knowing that there are things worse than death. We carry coffins and couches with equal force but different gravity.
We carry questions. More than the paradox of a countdown clock that keeps adding time, or the problem of a map without title or key. We carry whowhatwhenwherewhy like a piercing on our tongue, use it to tap out messages against our teeth (the things we’re afraid to ask: How many movie-theater-discounts does it take to buy back a childhood?). We carry our silence in mouths chewed raw from lack of speaking.
We carry stones–smooth and flat, picked up along the road–to place on grandpa’s grave. It’s hard to find him, another uniform white slab among rows of thousands (pristine and regimented as ever). He is black-lettered and not yet fading, sandwiched between an immigrant and an eighteen-year-old. We walk home carrying the need to write a poem for every gravestone. We carry the aunts and sons, the coaches and dog-lovers, book worms and runners, the painters and preachers, politicians and pacifists, the tough guys, philosophers, sweethearts, the parents who lie here. We carry the veterans lying on city street corners, and those who never made it home. We carry the sisters and cousins that stand in their place. When the time comes, we too will carry the torch. We wear helmets made of stoic steel and lined with hope.
We carry safety pins like bad habits and dog tags like talismans. We carry dandelions in our hands and countries on our backs. We carry on.
Michaela Coplen, currently attending Vassar College, spent the 2013/2014 school year as one of five National Student Poets for the Scholastic Art and Writing organization, traveling the east coast and furthering poetry appreciation with both students and adults alike.
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The Spray-Painter by Harriet Rankin
*Scholastic Honorable Mention Winner Marvin was 18 when he began. In the start, it was a doodle. A harmless scribble in his irrelevant math book. The sluggish teacher yawned at the front of the room. Vomiting boredom and contempt, the glug flying astray along the walls. Marvin tried dodging, twitching away from the flow of despair. The squares in his exercise book were stained from years of pent up anger towards the gum-chewer in the third row. Marvin was a stick figure on a surfboard under the waves. Now the waves were green, a pungent stench of mediocrity stirred with a lack of independence. Marvin looked again; maybe, just maybe the projected agitation would work in his favour. Marvin was 19 when he lept off his cliff of indecision. The winds of opinions and close-minded concerns urged him, pleaded him to step away from the ledge. He was shoved by the invisible monster to return to his desk and obey the black and white. Marvin didn’t sway from his like of irrational reasoning. He flung paper at the shopkeeper that was too glazed and withdrawn to count the correct amount. He grasped the can. The metal reflective of new ideas shone in the promise of tomorrow. It burned, singing his skin; an incision to never heal. He stood by his cliff, it was a spectacle for an audience of no one. He shook with all his might. He shook the 18 years spent eating leftovers off the squares in his notebook. He shook to adhere to the desperation of his frozen muscles itching to constrict. Marvin saw the waves below and screamed. The sound so piercing his stick figure changed the direction of his board. The scream so agonizing the world over the horizon wept at the sound of their insides bursting at the seams. Marvin’s screams only ceased when he could scream no longer. The blood of response, of awakening spirits dried crusty upon his tongue. Marvin was 20 when he sprinted along the train tracks. He was barefoot, abandoning the solid materials of conformity. The tracks were cold- surrounded by swooping willows and blades of overgrown grass swaying on its own accord. Marvin gasped as he ran from the demons in their suits of sameness. Never had he ever felt so free. He was a bird, flying towards the undiscovered beauty plastered upon the dirt. He was becoming the undiscovered beauty; subtle additions to his world thereon, demanding the attention of the planet. He dyed a waterfall of mystified clarity with the filthiest truths that he could muster. He drowned the teacher, her yawn so wide the liquid seeped through her veins. He swam among mud, soaking his skin and setting in place. Inhaling without fear of choking, exhaling with the understanding his command of power. Marvin was hit by a damn train. Marvin was 21 when he came alive. He was everything and nothing simultaneously. Euphoria was tattooed along his being as he tagged the wretched monuments. He demolished the grey devastation, replacing with bricks of the brightest red clay. Marvin was a showman, breaking through the flocks of sheep to discover the meaning of it all. He was the surfer; with no board in sight, he grasped the fin of a vicious shark and split the waves in two. He was a wanderer, forever alone in his company of diversification. Marvin was the definition and antonym of life itself yet burned the dictionary to ashes. He was the illustrator of the true world all because of an insignificant doodle. |
By Megan Lyons
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I’m Not Afraid By Megan Lyons
I’m playing inside the house with my toys when I look outside onto the porch and see the toys that I all of a sudden feel like I really want to play with. “Mommmmmyyyyy!!” I yell. “Mommyyyy!! I want to go play with my toys outsideeee. Can I pleasssseee mommy?” I say in the voice that I think will most likely get me what I want even though it’s really whiney. Mommy walks over to where I am sitting and looks outside. “Sure sweetie. You can go outside.” She walks over to the glass door and slides it open for me. I run outside with a wide smile on my face. “Yayyyyyyy. Thanks mommy!” Now I am outside, playing with my toys on the porch. What feels like forever passes and then I look through the bars of the banister on our patio. I see my tree. It’s the tree I always love climbing because it makes it like an adventure and I’m actually small enough to climb all the way up to the top. I all of a sudden get an urge to climb it because I’m bored and I want adventure. I move the chair over that’s on our porch and climb up on it. I swing one leg over the banister, then the other. I jump down and run to the tree, excited to be doing something that’s so much fun. I grab the first branch and pull my leg up. I start climbing higher and higher weaving through the tangle of branches that surround and are my tree. I get to the top of the tree and there is a slight breeze. I feel like I am on top of the world. I love it up here! This is so much fun. It’s an adventure, and I can do it even though I am only four years old. I don’t know why Kayla is too scared to do this, it’s not that high. Oh well, I’m not afraid. I stand and listen to the breeze from the top of the tree. In the middle of the breeze I hear, “Megannnnnn!!! Where are you?!?” I think that was Mommy. Uh oh. I’m washing the dishes when I hear my little girl call for me. I finish up rinsing the plate I was washing and dry my hands before walking out to the living room. I look at her and realize that she is asking to go play outside. I look out the glass door and think for a second. Well, there is a railing even though we are on the ground level, and she is only four. I guess there would be no harm in letting her play on the porch for a little bit. “Sure sweetie. You can go outside,” I tell her and the biggest smile comes on her face that I can’t help but smile back. I go and open the door for her before heading to the back room to check on Kayla. I knock quietly first and then open the door to see her with her eyes of course glued to the TV watching Barney. I love my little girls; I hope they never grow up. “Are you okay in here Kayla?” I ask. She just nods her head not once wandering her eyes. I chuckle to myself and close the door. I head back down the hallway to the kitchen and continue on the dishes finishing up the last cup in about 20 minutes. I wipe down the counters and wash my hands before deciding it’s time to go check on Megan. She should be fine, but I should really check; she’s the one I have to watch out for. I walk to the living room and look out the glass door to see an empty porch with toys all over it. I can feel my eyes go wide as I quickly go through the house to make sure she had come back inside or something to use the bathroom or watch Barney with her sister. When I see no sign of her inside the house my heart starts to race and I run outside. “Megannnn!!!! Where are you?!?!?” I yell hoping my baby girl hasn’t gone too far. I walk around the grass outside the apartment building for about a minute when I hear a small voice say, “Mommy, I’m here! I wanted to climb my tree.” All of sudden I can breathe again. I look up at the little troublemaker and I say, “Get down here right now. You are going inside and you are not coming back out unless your dad or I am with you. Do you understand?” She shook her head as she climbed down and solemnly walked back inside. I’m going to definitely have to watch out for this one when she gets older. If she can do this now, who knows what she’ll do then. |
by Anna Biddle
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Quarter to Midnight by Delaney Kronheim
It was quarter to midnight, New Year’s Eve. The city was brimming with life and everywhere people were eagerly waiting to greet the new year with open arms and drunken smiles.
In an almost forgotten corner of the city lay a girl, eyes filled with the possibility of tomorrow. Her hand, shaking with the cold, scraped out a list that detailed the dreams that would never come true but still persisted beneath the unforgiving nature of reality.
Next to her lay a boy, who she barley knew. Sometime during the night he had stumbled upon her and hadn’t found the energy to leave. His steady breathing melted into the background as her bleeding fingers forced her dreams onto the torn scrap of paper she had found in the trash next to her hiding spot.
I will get out of here.
She had been writing those six words for the past five years. Before that, she had filled her paper with fantastical nonsense about being a better person. Now, her only resolution was to get out. She didn’t know where she wanted to go, only that she had to leave.
It was quarter past twelve. The freezing air was filled with the shouting of the drunken people, staggering home from their parties, mixed with the ring of fireworks shooting though the air.
The girl could barley keep her eyes open and she no longer knew if the boy was breathing. He was cold to the touch and his skin was unnaturally blue. She closed her eyes, the list still clenched in her fist. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep and dreamed of a tomorrow that she would never see; her one resolution finally fulfilled.
It was quarter to midnight, New Year’s Eve. The city was brimming with life and everywhere people were eagerly waiting to greet the new year with open arms and drunken smiles.
In an almost forgotten corner of the city lay a girl, eyes filled with the possibility of tomorrow. Her hand, shaking with the cold, scraped out a list that detailed the dreams that would never come true but still persisted beneath the unforgiving nature of reality.
Next to her lay a boy, who she barley knew. Sometime during the night he had stumbled upon her and hadn’t found the energy to leave. His steady breathing melted into the background as her bleeding fingers forced her dreams onto the torn scrap of paper she had found in the trash next to her hiding spot.
I will get out of here.
She had been writing those six words for the past five years. Before that, she had filled her paper with fantastical nonsense about being a better person. Now, her only resolution was to get out. She didn’t know where she wanted to go, only that she had to leave.
It was quarter past twelve. The freezing air was filled with the shouting of the drunken people, staggering home from their parties, mixed with the ring of fireworks shooting though the air.
The girl could barley keep her eyes open and she no longer knew if the boy was breathing. He was cold to the touch and his skin was unnaturally blue. She closed her eyes, the list still clenched in her fist. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep and dreamed of a tomorrow that she would never see; her one resolution finally fulfilled.
New Years Snow by Carol Etzel
Every year begins louder then the last. My father’s booming voice, the music from the apartment below us, my crying cousins throwing their toys against the wall. Even the glorious fireworks were ruined by the obnoxious people stumbling drunk down the street below us. I have come to dread this holiday more then the rest.
It was 10:30 and I had just barely survived a third interrogation about my future. A nightmare conversation for any child, but one even harder when your only older sibling is currently behind bars and you have no career direction in mind.
Another minute in this congested room and my head will explode. I made my way through the swarm of family members and out to our apartment’s balcony. As soon as the fresh air touched my face, I began to feel better. Time dragged on as I watched the city move below me
.
“Jonah!” my mother’s voice echoed from inside.
“Outside, Ma!”
She made her way through the door and wrapped her arm around my side. Seeing her in this environment always baffled me. Her quiet nature and calm voice seemed out of place in the loud apartment.
“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I know this isn’t your favorite day of the year.” She offered me a small smile, which I returned. She understood how much I hated New Years because she felt the same way. She was just better at hiding it.
“Anything I can do to help?” I asked.
“Actually, there is one thing,” she started. “Your father is looking for yesterday’s mail, it would be a huge favor if you took a quick look around and brought it to him in his office. I know everything is a mess in there, so if you can’t find it then don’t worry about it.”
The look of stress on my mom’s face was enough to encourage me to venture into the stuffy room again. “Sure thing,” I said. “I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.”
Walking back inside that room made my lungs want to close up. I forced my way through despite my discomfort and found the pile of mail hidden under someone’s purse.
My father was in his office with the door cracked open. He insists on having these parties every year, yet he’s spent the majority of tonight locked up in this room. So much for family bonding.
“Thank you son, just got some important things to finish up before I forget. Didn’t want this stuff to get misplaced tomorrow.” He looked through the envelopes in his hand.
I was half way out the door before he spoke again. “Wait, Jonah, can you throw this out for me please?” He handed me an envelope.
“Why? What is it?” I asked, confused.
“It’s not our mail and it’s got no return address. Just throw it out please.”
I nodded and left the room. The envelope was weathered and in pen was a barely legible handwritten address. It looked like our address. Maybe it was a mistake. That didn’t make much sense, though. The mailman must’ve read it wrong.
Eliza Ridge
34 66th street, Apartment B
New York City, NY
I took another long look at the letter. This could be important. No one sends mail anymore unless it’s really important, right?
Even if it was important, what could I do about it? I held it under the light of a nearby lamp and examined the scribbled address. There was something off about the street address, a smudge of ink over the numbers. The color of the smudge was one shade lighter then the color of the ink, making it barely distinguishable from the writing. The address read 56th street, not 66th street. That was quite a difference, 66th was on the other side of town.
I ran to the computer and looked up a map of the city. Sure enough, the address matched perfectly to what I saw online. I looked out into the snow-covered city and decided to follow my gut. Anything was better then staying here, and I was in the mood for adventure.
By 11:15 I was standing on a crowded subway car heading to the other side of Manhattan. The guilt of leaving home unannounced was beginning to weigh me down. With all the chaos no one will notice I’m gone. No one except my mom, and she has enough to worry about already. I didn’t want to make this night any harder for her. But somehow I ended up sneaking out before I could think twice.
As my watch turned to 11:40 I was shivering in front of the apartment building. It looked well kept but oddly quiet. In fact, the whole street was silent. Not a noise to be heard except the distant hum of New Years celebration.
The interior of the building smelled of pine, and there was a Christmas tree lit in the corner of the lobby. According to the list of names on nearby mailboxes, Eliza was on the 5th floor. After a long climb, I arrived at her door.
I held my hand to the door to knock, but then hesitated. In this day and age, was it really smart to track down a stranger in the middle of the night? Should I just slip the letter under the door or knock and deliver it personally? She probably isn’t even home. I don’t think I should have come.
My three loud knocks shattered the silence of the hallway. Footsteps approached the door and it slowly creaked open.
I stared blankly for a moment before regaining my composure. “Are you Eliza Ridge?”
The woman nodded, hands resting on a pregnant belly.
“I believe this is yours.” I handed her the worn down letter.
Her eyes grew in disbelief. “Where did you find this?” she exclaimed.
“It was accidentally sent to my apartment. I figured out it was meant for this address instead.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s New Years Eve, why are you delivering this right now? And why did you track me down at all?”
I froze and every thought in my head suddenly flooded out. “I’m sorry, this is really sketchy. My dad invites our entire massive family to our apartment every New Years and I hate it. I dread this night. And my grandmother said I’m going to end up in prison like my brother but I actually just have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life and I was really curious about this letter and I snuck out and now I’m here. I was just going to leave it by your door but what if someone stole it? I’m sorry I know this is-”
She smiled, “Woah, kid take a breath. It’s okay. What’s your name?”
“Jonah.”
“Why don’t you stay here until the New Year, Jonah? This place is too quiet anyways, I could use some company.”
Ten minutes later we were standing side by side on the roof of her building. She told me coming up here to begin the new year was her tradition. The alive city was gleaming with freshly fallen snow. It was beautiful.
“Five minutes left in the year,” she said. “Any resolutions?”
“Not this year. I don’t see the point in them, anyways.”
“Why’s that?”
“People promising to themselves that they’ll go the gym everyday, or start eating healthy, but two months later they’re back to their old habits. It’s a bunch of crap.” I felt bad for spilling all the negative thoughts jumbled inside my head, but I was never going to see this woman again after tonight anyways.
“I suppose it is. It’s weird watching the celebration from so far away.”
I looked into the dark night towards the commotion. “Yeah, kind of puts things in perspective. It’s more worth watching it all from here.”
She nodded with a smile. It was the first time she looked truly happy since I met her.
We watched the snow fall on New York City until we heard the shouted countdown from across the streets.
5 4 3 2 1
Happy New Year! Celebration echoed through the streets from every corner. I smiled at the appearance of the booming fireworks. This was definitely one of my better New Years experiences. I looked to my left to see Eliza holding the now opened letter in her hands. She was crying.
“Are you alright?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she smiled. “I am. My husband will be home from deployment in time for the baby to be born.” She looked at me with glassy eyes of sincere gratitude. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing me this. My year is already off to a good start.”
I grinned, nodding. “Must’ve been fate.”
Something about that sentence was hilarious to us. Maybe it was the obscurity of our situation, or it was our shared uncertainty about the ways of our universe. But in that moment, we both understood each other.
We watched the snow color New York City with a majestic purity and the fireworks paint the sky in silence.
When I returned home, my mother was furious. She cried and hugged me, telling me never to run off like that without telling her ever again. I agreed. Once I explained the night I had, she was glowing with pride.
The holiday season came again a year later. On the first day of winter break a letter with my name on it arrived in our mailbox. There was no return address.
Inside was a Christmas card from a family of three. Two parents held their young son in their arms. It was signed: Eliza, Andrew, and Jonah.
Every year begins louder then the last. My father’s booming voice, the music from the apartment below us, my crying cousins throwing their toys against the wall. Even the glorious fireworks were ruined by the obnoxious people stumbling drunk down the street below us. I have come to dread this holiday more then the rest.
It was 10:30 and I had just barely survived a third interrogation about my future. A nightmare conversation for any child, but one even harder when your only older sibling is currently behind bars and you have no career direction in mind.
Another minute in this congested room and my head will explode. I made my way through the swarm of family members and out to our apartment’s balcony. As soon as the fresh air touched my face, I began to feel better. Time dragged on as I watched the city move below me
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“Jonah!” my mother’s voice echoed from inside.
“Outside, Ma!”
She made her way through the door and wrapped her arm around my side. Seeing her in this environment always baffled me. Her quiet nature and calm voice seemed out of place in the loud apartment.
“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I know this isn’t your favorite day of the year.” She offered me a small smile, which I returned. She understood how much I hated New Years because she felt the same way. She was just better at hiding it.
“Anything I can do to help?” I asked.
“Actually, there is one thing,” she started. “Your father is looking for yesterday’s mail, it would be a huge favor if you took a quick look around and brought it to him in his office. I know everything is a mess in there, so if you can’t find it then don’t worry about it.”
The look of stress on my mom’s face was enough to encourage me to venture into the stuffy room again. “Sure thing,” I said. “I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.”
Walking back inside that room made my lungs want to close up. I forced my way through despite my discomfort and found the pile of mail hidden under someone’s purse.
My father was in his office with the door cracked open. He insists on having these parties every year, yet he’s spent the majority of tonight locked up in this room. So much for family bonding.
“Thank you son, just got some important things to finish up before I forget. Didn’t want this stuff to get misplaced tomorrow.” He looked through the envelopes in his hand.
I was half way out the door before he spoke again. “Wait, Jonah, can you throw this out for me please?” He handed me an envelope.
“Why? What is it?” I asked, confused.
“It’s not our mail and it’s got no return address. Just throw it out please.”
I nodded and left the room. The envelope was weathered and in pen was a barely legible handwritten address. It looked like our address. Maybe it was a mistake. That didn’t make much sense, though. The mailman must’ve read it wrong.
Eliza Ridge
34 66th street, Apartment B
New York City, NY
I took another long look at the letter. This could be important. No one sends mail anymore unless it’s really important, right?
Even if it was important, what could I do about it? I held it under the light of a nearby lamp and examined the scribbled address. There was something off about the street address, a smudge of ink over the numbers. The color of the smudge was one shade lighter then the color of the ink, making it barely distinguishable from the writing. The address read 56th street, not 66th street. That was quite a difference, 66th was on the other side of town.
I ran to the computer and looked up a map of the city. Sure enough, the address matched perfectly to what I saw online. I looked out into the snow-covered city and decided to follow my gut. Anything was better then staying here, and I was in the mood for adventure.
By 11:15 I was standing on a crowded subway car heading to the other side of Manhattan. The guilt of leaving home unannounced was beginning to weigh me down. With all the chaos no one will notice I’m gone. No one except my mom, and she has enough to worry about already. I didn’t want to make this night any harder for her. But somehow I ended up sneaking out before I could think twice.
As my watch turned to 11:40 I was shivering in front of the apartment building. It looked well kept but oddly quiet. In fact, the whole street was silent. Not a noise to be heard except the distant hum of New Years celebration.
The interior of the building smelled of pine, and there was a Christmas tree lit in the corner of the lobby. According to the list of names on nearby mailboxes, Eliza was on the 5th floor. After a long climb, I arrived at her door.
I held my hand to the door to knock, but then hesitated. In this day and age, was it really smart to track down a stranger in the middle of the night? Should I just slip the letter under the door or knock and deliver it personally? She probably isn’t even home. I don’t think I should have come.
My three loud knocks shattered the silence of the hallway. Footsteps approached the door and it slowly creaked open.
I stared blankly for a moment before regaining my composure. “Are you Eliza Ridge?”
The woman nodded, hands resting on a pregnant belly.
“I believe this is yours.” I handed her the worn down letter.
Her eyes grew in disbelief. “Where did you find this?” she exclaimed.
“It was accidentally sent to my apartment. I figured out it was meant for this address instead.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s New Years Eve, why are you delivering this right now? And why did you track me down at all?”
I froze and every thought in my head suddenly flooded out. “I’m sorry, this is really sketchy. My dad invites our entire massive family to our apartment every New Years and I hate it. I dread this night. And my grandmother said I’m going to end up in prison like my brother but I actually just have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life and I was really curious about this letter and I snuck out and now I’m here. I was just going to leave it by your door but what if someone stole it? I’m sorry I know this is-”
She smiled, “Woah, kid take a breath. It’s okay. What’s your name?”
“Jonah.”
“Why don’t you stay here until the New Year, Jonah? This place is too quiet anyways, I could use some company.”
Ten minutes later we were standing side by side on the roof of her building. She told me coming up here to begin the new year was her tradition. The alive city was gleaming with freshly fallen snow. It was beautiful.
“Five minutes left in the year,” she said. “Any resolutions?”
“Not this year. I don’t see the point in them, anyways.”
“Why’s that?”
“People promising to themselves that they’ll go the gym everyday, or start eating healthy, but two months later they’re back to their old habits. It’s a bunch of crap.” I felt bad for spilling all the negative thoughts jumbled inside my head, but I was never going to see this woman again after tonight anyways.
“I suppose it is. It’s weird watching the celebration from so far away.”
I looked into the dark night towards the commotion. “Yeah, kind of puts things in perspective. It’s more worth watching it all from here.”
She nodded with a smile. It was the first time she looked truly happy since I met her.
We watched the snow fall on New York City until we heard the shouted countdown from across the streets.
5 4 3 2 1
Happy New Year! Celebration echoed through the streets from every corner. I smiled at the appearance of the booming fireworks. This was definitely one of my better New Years experiences. I looked to my left to see Eliza holding the now opened letter in her hands. She was crying.
“Are you alright?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she smiled. “I am. My husband will be home from deployment in time for the baby to be born.” She looked at me with glassy eyes of sincere gratitude. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing me this. My year is already off to a good start.”
I grinned, nodding. “Must’ve been fate.”
Something about that sentence was hilarious to us. Maybe it was the obscurity of our situation, or it was our shared uncertainty about the ways of our universe. But in that moment, we both understood each other.
We watched the snow color New York City with a majestic purity and the fireworks paint the sky in silence.
When I returned home, my mother was furious. She cried and hugged me, telling me never to run off like that without telling her ever again. I agreed. Once I explained the night I had, she was glowing with pride.
The holiday season came again a year later. On the first day of winter break a letter with my name on it arrived in our mailbox. There was no return address.
Inside was a Christmas card from a family of three. Two parents held their young son in their arms. It was signed: Eliza, Andrew, and Jonah.
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My Life Now by Kalysta Bush
As I wander the streets of a town I once knew, I begin to visualize where I would have been right now. It was 3:00 o’clock and school had just let out. I should be at the diner right now enjoying the rich taste of a slice of cheesecake, like I did every Friday. I should be laughing in the company of my two best friends. But I’m not, because ghosts don’t do that. Every day I watch as everyone continues their normal lives, their daily problems: being late for school and not knowing when the next bill will be paid. I’ve always thought that when I died, I would move on, find peace in some vision of the afterlife. If there was an afterlife worth finding. Instead, I’m stuck here roaming the streets I once called home, over and over again. No matter where the streets lead I always seem to end up at my grave. I stand there for hours staring at my tombstone. I wait for a time machine to appear; as if this was simply a twisted experiment. I wait for my alarm clock to snatch me back to reality. I simply wait and watch as two people who seemed like strangers approached me. Vanessa and Ashlee, my two best friends since grade five. I watch as they kindly place two white roses on the edge of my grave. They will do this every year for my anniversary. In a world where time seems to have disappeared, I seem to have forgotten what today was. My thoughts were interrupted by the quiet sobbing of a past friend. “No matter how many times I come here, it never gets any easier.” “Of course it doesn’t Ashlee. She was our best friend.” Vanessa continues to sob as she asks the single question I ponder every day, “Why did Mason do this to her? Why does he get to live?” Ashlee simply replied, “I don’t know, although I wouldn’t say partying all the time is actually living. We’ll get through this though, together.” Vanessa wipes her nose on her sleeve and watches as the November wind blows the petals away from a once white rose. “Come on, let’s go to Maggie’s and get some cheesecake. It’s what Emma would want.” Ashlee says while wiping a single tear from her cheek. Vanessa chuckles a bit and walks away slowly with Ashlee, keeping the memory of me forever imbedded in her mind and heart. As their car pass, I am torn away from my abstract concept of life, and am placed into a new setting, a memory. I’m at North Shore High School. The leaves have turned from a violent green to dull reds and browns. I could still feel the cold chill that blew through the air that November morning. I could still visualize the spot where I did my morning reading, under the huge oak tree beside the broken, old picnic table. The best part of that tree was that no one knew it even existed. In the distance, I heard the faint chime of the afternoon bell. I quickly grabbed my belongings as I stumbled into fourth period. There was a note waiting for me on my desk when I arrived. On it was scribbled, “See ya at the party, tonight at 9” with details and the signature of “with love, Mason” written at the bottom. Looks like I was going to a party tonight. As the party raged on I became uncomfortable surrounded by my drunk classmates and the blinding lights that I decided to get some fresh air. I couldn’t find Mason for the last hour, we must have gotten separated in all the madness of the party. I went to the place where I knew no one would be. Well, where I thought no one would be. I remember this moment clearly, Mason with another girl. At that moment the best part of the tree seemed to wither away, like the leaves that prepared for winter. At that exact moment I died, at least on the inside. My memories began to surround me like a forest and I was forced to endure the memories I had once cherished. Our first encounter, our first date and our first kiss flooded my tear stained eyes. I didn’t know what else to do except run. I ran from the betrayal and anger with the faint whisper of “wait” fading in the background. It was raining now. The pungent rain pierced my skin like thousands of little needles. I ran until I found my car and stumbled to find my keys. If only the memories would wipe away as easily as my tears. For a second I watched the rain fall and like my tears it seemed endless. Before I knew it the key was in the ignition and the car was moving. With a tear-stricken face, the road was blinded by my crying. At every bump that made the car jolt, even the slightest bit, I gripped the wheel. As the rain beat against the windshield and the car drove along the rocky road, I could see myself getting nervous. When the blinding lights raced toward the car however, I didn’t have time. I screamed as if there was something I could do, something I could change. But it was too late. I wasn’t aware at the time of the silence that could fill a void or of the rain that glistened on my skin but I was aware of one thing. I was dead and it was inevitable. I could explain all the reasons why I was and wasn’t aware but one thing I was certain of is that I wasn’t ready to go. As I assessed all the choices that led me here, I realized I wouldn’t have changed a single moment, a single memory, because now memories were all I had. Moments later, I was placed back into the world I knew now, marking the end of the slideshow called my memories. Alone and full of despair, I continued wandering the streets that were once my home. |
Footsteps by Megan Lyons
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Through The Looking Glass By Jackson Hoch *Scholastic Silver Key Winner
I came wet into the world. On both sides there were cliffs, white cliffs that were my mother’s thighs. And I didn’t cry though it was cold by the white cliffs and I was afraid, I came wet into the world. - an old Eskimo man relating the memory of his birth in a snowhouse on the sea ice. From one of my signed books, Dogsong by Gary Paulsen While packing boxes for a move to a new home, I had to decide which parts of my life I wanted to keep and then toss the rest. So I opened up old cupboards that coughed dust as their barely used hinges squeaked open. I found what at first glance looked to be a mess, but every object that sat on the shelves meant something greater than its economical value. I wondered, what made all those memories so precious? Could it be that each object had a story attached to it, or the fact that I didn’t want to let things go? I revisited the past and then a connection hit me so suddenly. Everything worth remembering had occurred at a place that I now called home. It’s where I learned to walk and ride a bike. Where winters spent with family were always warm while sitting next to a fire. Looking out of the floor to ceiling windows from our two-story family room one could view the winter wonderland when storms arrived along with the bitter cold Canadian air. But now all that was changing. My parents didn’t feel like this was home anymore after seventeen years. The cold truth was that it was time to accept things weren’t going to be the way they used to be. It was time to grow up and move on. I didn’t feel content with just moving on to another home. Our Civil War era row home had become a part of me. It had special nooks and cranny’s a young boy could hide in and unique woodwork in all of the rooms. There were six ornate fireplaces and each one had its own special character. The house was only one room wide but it was very long. As one entered the front door they would walk through each room to what seemed like an endless journey. When exiting the last room of the house they would be confronted with what can only be described as a secret garden in the middle of town. I used to play in what seemed to me like an enchanted forest growing in the back yard. A yard where spruce trees rose from the dirt and hydrangeas and honeysuckle bloomed in the spring with other flowers of all shapes, sizes and colors. The garden was an oasis from the noise and activity happening just a few hundred feet away in the streets and alleys of our small town. The grass was always kept trimmed and a wooden fence bordering the property allowed for privacy and the dog to run freely. One of oldest walnut trees in Pennsylvania grew within this small, enclosed sanctuary. It had long ago stopped producing walnuts but its canopy still provided cool shade on hot summer days. I would walk around exploring the yard looking for new discoveries. From my attic bedroom I miss the noise of cars zooming by outside with their visible lights dancing on the ceiling at night guiding me to sleep. In the morning you could hear college students conversing while walking on the brick sidewalks that clicked underneath the hard soles of their shoes. When I first heard we would be moving I was unaware of how serious it was. I don’t know what changed that but eventually the reality of it all set in. Deep down I also realized moving is about having a fresh start with a fresh foundation. It’s about reinventing oneself. My parents needed that, and they seized the opportunity when it came. “It’s time to pack all your boxes,” my dad said, “we’re moving, isn’t this all so exciting?” are the words that made me realize the move had begun. My brother seemed to care less than me. He was curled up on the couch, more concerned with racing Mario on his Nintendo. My parents were thrilled; my mom cried tears of joy and my dad smiled widely when all offers were accepted. All I could think was thanks for not asking me first. But I kept those words to myself. They were words I didn’t want to speak. A few days before our moving day I sat in my bedroom which was now piled with half filled boxes and thought about the times when my dad would read me signed children’s books. My parents would sometimes stand in line for hours at book signings to talk to the authors and then have them sign the books for my brother or me. And I’d say, “Can you read just one more please, just one more?” And he’d let me pick one more story to read. Sometimes I read through those untouched books along the dusty top shelf when no one was watching. Eventually moving day came and we left behind the garden, and polished wood staircase. The creaky floors and drafty windows were left behind too. Driving by the house now I see that it has changed. Its trim has been painted jet black and the front door baby blue. Some of the antique shutters are becoming loose on their hinges and they hang a little crooked. The flower boxes by the front door are not overfilled with exotic flowers like I remember they were every spring and summer. I often think about everyone who ever lived there throughout its existence and all the stories that could be told. Why would anyone ever want to let it go? I imagine people who I don’t know and I wondered if they loved that home just as much as I did. I wanted to desperately know, did they share that same love and did it run as deep? Today I look through the looking glass that hangs above a bathroom mirror in my new home. I still miss the old house but it is also time to move on and to make something of what’s here, now, at this new place under my feet. |
Photograph by Anna Biddle
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