2022 Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology

2022
Ralph Munn
Creative Writing
Anthology

2022
Ralph Munn
Creative Writing
Anthology

© 2022 Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
All rights revert to the individual authors.
Printed and bound in the United States.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2022
Ralph Munn
Creative Writing
Anthology
Editorial Team Lead
Megan Branning, CLP – Squirrel Hill
Editorial Team
Heather Cowie, CLP – Main
Elspeth Harwood, CLP – Main
Anya Oukaci, CLP – Downtown
Kevin Seal, CLP – Main
Beth Zovko, CLP – West End
Book Design
Justin Visnesky, CLP – Main, Communications
Copyediting
Adrienne Jouver
Cover Illustration
Makenzie Sing

TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the Ralph Munn Creative Writing Contest . . . . . . 6
Judges’ Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Short Prose
1st place
“Afterimage” by Kay Mi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2nd place
“Partners” by Mia Sanford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
“Reflective Surface” by Lilah George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
“A/D/H/D” by Eva Dubreil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
“Maps” by Roan Hollander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
“Cardinals at Night” by Sophia Whitman . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
“Room 83” by Sophia Whitman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
“Dreamscape” by Jahzara Aurelia-Mae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
“How the Buffalo Felt” by Andrew Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
“Healing, In Fragments” by Madeleine Ng . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
“The Silence After the Flame” by Natalie Shaffer . . . . . . . . . 75
“Met the Desert, Felt the Heat” by Avery Slagle . . . . . . . . . . 79
“Fireworks” by Sarah Gallogly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
“once a mother” by Ben Winslow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
“The Director” by Ben Winslow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
“A Shareholder Letter” by Daniel Kochupura . . . . . . . . . . . 101
“Competition Number 59” by Lucy Potts. . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
“Bees” by Ashnavi Ghosh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
“The boy” by Everest Gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
“Timbre” by Elaine Gombos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
“Rocket Fuel” by Daniel Kochupura . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
4

Poetry
1st place
“Lessons for My Daughter” by Leia Leviathan . . . . . . . . . . . 141
2nd place
“militant violins” by Anna Mares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
“the universe” by Kamryn Natale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
“Facing vs. Pondering” by Jade Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
“Enlightened” by Connor Dalgaard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151
“Silence is” by Lucy Caroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
“Mother’s Hands” by Lucy Caroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
“Dog Eat Dog” by Leia Leviathan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157
“fourteen (14)” by Linda Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
“Worms On My Skin” by Katherine Odenthal . . . . . . . . . . .161
“In This Case, It Was You” by Aria Narasimhan . . . . . . . . . . 163
“on spring” by Anna Mares. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
“Flower of Fauna” by Madalynn Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
“Sugar Pop” by Jamie Ziegler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
“Everlasting, My Love” by Alex Scott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
“Text me in the morning.” by Theresa Lascek . . . . . . . . . . . 175
“the tragedy of Amonute” by Katharine Peng . . . . . . . . . . . 177
“Taco Wednesday” by Luciano Lanz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
“Lacroix: Extra Sad” by Hannah Russell . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181
“Dreamland” by Jason Lu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
“Death and Fate” by Helen Zhang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
“On a One-Way Road Off of Pioneer” by Lucy Potts. . . . . . . .187
“The Blood of the Covenant or The World |
Inescapable Prognostication” by Olivia Belcher . . . . . . . . . 189
“Brown Mother” by Lashe Daini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
“Palms, Blooming” by Linda Kong. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
“oh, what a pretty bouquet” by Audrey Coleman . . . . . . . . . 195
“rift” by Kay Mi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
“Dear You” by Jalainta Houser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .202
Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology 2022
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ABOUT THE RALPH MUNN CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST
Born in 1894, Ralph Munn started his library career
as a reference librarian in Seattle in 1921, became
Flint Public Library’s Librarian in 1926 and then on
to the Directorship of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
in 1928 until 1964. During that time, he held the
positions of Director and Dean of the library school
at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie
Mellon University, until it became part of the
University of Pittsburgh in 1962. An endowment fund
created to honor his legacy now provides support
for creative writing opportunities for young adults
through the Library.
Thanks to research by Sheila Jackson and the
Development Office, we know that the original use
of this endowment, contributed by friends of Ralph
Munn, began in the 1960s for a lecture series on
librarianship and transitioned to use for creative
writing workshops in the 1970s, under supervision of
the Carnegie Institute, which oversaw the fund. After
a hiatus in the 1990s the contest was revived in 2007
with additional help from other bequests. Library
staff and volunteers led workshops and formed an
editorial board to judge entries to the contest and find
professional writers to choose contest winners. In the
first year, the contest took off, receiving nearly 300
entries, and it has not stopped being a popular and
anticipated part of Teen Services.
6

Since the creative writing contest joined forces with
The Labsy Awards under the Teen Media Awards
banner, it continues to evolve as a way for Allegheny
County teens to be acknowledged, published, and
awarded for their work and creativity. The libraries
in the county are proud to support this creative work
and provide spaces, mentors, and resources toward
that end.
Tessa Barber
Chair, Ralph Munn Creative Writing Committee (2015–2016)
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JUDGES’ BIOGRAPHIES
Prose
Rachael Lippincott
Rachael Lippincott is the coauthor of All This Time, #1
New York Times bestseller Five Feet Apart, and She
Gets the Girl, and the author of The Lucky List. She
holds a BA from the University of Pittsburgh. Originally
from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, she currently resides
in Pennsylvania with her wife and their dog, Hank.
rachaellippincott.com
8

Poetry
Yona Harvey
Yona Harvey is the author of two poetry collections,
You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love, winner of
the Believer Book Award for Poetry, and Hemming
the Water, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
She co-wrote with Roxane Gay the Marvel comic
World of Wakanda, a companion series to the
bestselling Black Panther comic, and co-wrote with
Ta-Nehisi Coates Marvel’s Black Panther & the Crew.
Harvey is also a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow.
yonaharvey.com
Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology 2022
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Short
Prose
10

1st place
“Afterimage”
Kay Mi
2nd place
“Partners”
Mia Sanford
Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology 2022
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12 Short Prose

Kay Mi
Grade 11
North Allegheny Senior High
Afterimage
I.
In the garden, there sits a girl who is made of flowers.
She is lovely, elegant, refined—an effortlessly poised thing, beaming like
the arch of colors formed in the sky by sunlight and droplets of rain. At
times she sways in place to the music, eyes closed with lashes so long they
look like the feathers of ravens; at times she is unmoving, a portrait captured
on the day nature decided to paint the shades of her song.
In the garden, there sits a girl who is made of flowers with a voice that
glows brighter than the essence of summer. A crown of roses rests on her
head, red dipping into sun-kissed strands of gold, and her dress is a study
in color, all shimmering waves of gossamer. Where the rest of the garden
is faded, she is not—her voice is the definition of grace, folded petals and
poetry in music, beauty in inward dreams.
All at once, the melody ceases.
The traveler takes a step back, dazed. The girl made of flowers opens her
eyes to stare her full in the face, unblinking, expecting. When the traveler
speaks, the question scratches at her throat. “Who are you?”
“Hello, Eraline,” the girl says. Her mouth molds the impressions of music
even when she does not sing. “You know me, and I know you, collector of
tales. Why don’t you come sit?”
Eraline’s breath is caught in her chest, suspended in disbelief. “Collector
of tales—they never told me about you.”
The girl’s mouth twists. “You are the collector,” she says. “I am the legend.
You grasp at phrases and strings of stories, and you twist them into
Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology 2022
13

verse. I am the lyric, the myth—I take the shape of everything you’ve ever
dreamt alone in the dead of night.”
“What do you want?” Eraline whispers.
In a motion that makes the petals of her dress ripple like water, the girl
cups her hands and brings them up as if in offering. When Eraline bends to
look in them, they are empty but for the radiance.
“I— I don’t understand.”
The girl smiles, a gesture so lovely that it makes Eraline’s stomach flutter
like a dove. She smiles, lowers her face to her hands, and then, her lips
coming to shape a perfect circle, she blows.
Rose petals pour through her fingers like a stream of crimson water,
scattering themselves at Eraline’s feet.
She blinks at them, wide-eyed.
“What do I want?” the girl says, rising at last. She takes a step toward
Eraline. “I want to make you happy. I would give you everything you want,
everything you couldn’t have—I can show you what it is like to love freely.”
Love freely. The words burn in her throat.
“Only for a day,” the girl whispers. She reaches up to brush a finger over
Eraline’s lips. It leaves a thin dusting of pollen, a spread of sweet honeysuckle.
“That is why you came, is it not?”
She wants to deny it. The words are on her tongue, lying on her lips,
but the refusal is subdued by the taste of the nectar. She wants to deny
it, but she cannot—Eraline knows she is trapped, unable to turn the offer
away. She wants and she wants and she wants, wants this more than she’s
ever wanted before, a chance to love the way she’s always loved but loudly,
without being suffocated.
“One day,” she repeats, feeling herself give in, come apart, heart trilling
like a bird against the cage of her ribs. “What will we do? What shall
I call you?”
The girl made of flowers reaches down to take Eraline’s hand. “The garden
holds the deepest truths, which shine brighter than all the stars in the
sky. I will show you the stars, Eraline, and you can call me Desire.”
Desire—how rare and beautiful, she thinks, she is.
So Eraline nods, and together they turn to face the rising sun.
14 Short Prose

II.
There is an apple tree that stands just beyond the beds of flowers, leaves
turned golden by the rays of the sun. It is a great poem of nature, much
like everything the garden contains, bark carved with rivers of rain and
branches stretched upward to drink up the light as if it is water. A soft
wind ripples through the air, throwing Eraline’s hair into a ring around her
head and causing the stems of the apples to sway gently, as if they too are
dancing to the garden’s song.
They climb the tree and sit in the spaces between the branches, swinging
their legs as they look out at the landscape below. At one point, Desire
reaches up and plucks an apple from between the leaves, handing it to
Eraline. “Eat,” she says. “There is no need to be afraid.”
Eraline brings the aureate fruit to her mouth and bites into it, sweetness
exploding across her tongue. It anchors her here, narrows the world to this
garden and time to this moment. She turns toward Desire, who shimmers
with the same gold—gold, gold, this entire day is gold. Eraline feels it coursing
through her veins: the wanting, and the knowledge of what has been
given to her; suddenly the visions are flashing behind her eyes, images in
the wake of the sunrise, dreams painted in swathes of all the colors written
across the sky.
This is what it would be like, her mind whispers, in the voice of Desire.
Keep your eyes open, Eraline, and look.
She looks.
In another life she is a girl again, with a face not yet creased by lines of
stress and hands not yet broken with calluses. The kitchen is bright in the
early morning. Fear does not wrap its fingers around her heart, and her
hands are tender too.
“See.”
Running home in the rain, singing from dawn to dusk, laughter spilling
from their lips. She kisses the girl defined by grace on her doorstep. She’s
forgotten her sorrows, and her joy is endless, so fierce and full of light.
How easy, she thinks, it is to shine.
“Swear to me that you’ll always be like this,” Desire whispers, “so beautiful
in your illumination.”
“How?” Eraline says, in wonder of the scene laid before her.
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“Here is home,” the girl says. “The dream, and what can be true. Here
is home.”
Home.
Yet a sort of sadness fills Eraline’s heart. Perhaps in another world hope
has grown like honey on her tongue, and she lives in the sun and her untamed
youth.
Home.
Now, she cannot remember a time when the skin on her hands was soft.
III.
They sit in the apple tree until the world is bright under the midday sun.
When her feet finally touch the ground, she feels as if she’s flown across a
thousand worlds, a thousand skies. Home, she thinks again, staring at the
girl before her. This could be home.
Desire leads her to a pond just beyond the tree. There, they sit among
the pickerel flowers and mosaic plants and striking blue irises, gazing into
the flat mirror-surface of the water.
Eraline does not think she recalls another time in her life in which she
felt so at ease.
Desire leans forward, reaching up to curl a strand of her hair behind her
ear. “Watch,” she whispers. “There is no need to be afraid.”
The water is hypnotizing, twisting time with its rippling figures. Eraline
turns toward Desire, whose eyes shine silver. Haunting, she thinks—silver,
silver, they are both reflections of silver. So different from the dullness of
the people in her village, those so repulsed by the nonconformity of the
flickering girl who hates the idea of loving a boy.
Watch.
She casts her gaze toward the water, the reflection of two girls with flowers
at their feet and stars in their eyes, and suddenly the picture is warping,
shifting, falling away under the sun.
This is your wish for your future, Desire whispers. Keep your eyes open,
Eraline, and look.
She looks.
Moments like this can only be created in dreams. The scent of rain lays
16 Short Prose

heavy on her lover’s skin, her hair like down feathers beneath her fingers.
Their hands are wrinkled, and the corners of their eyes are creased from
years of laughter. Age has been kind.
“See.”
In their youth they ran to hidden scenes, sunset-stained streets and
ancient oaks and wild earth, marking them as places of their own. Now,
they recall them with peace—they’ve kept all their promises unbroken,
bliss locked in the dandelions beneath their feet and the roses they’ve
woven into crowns.
“Swear to me that you will always remember this,” Desire says, “that you
can live in a world without the pain of silence.”
There is nothing that fills her heart more than this.
“How?” Eraline whispers, feeling tears press against her lashes.
“Here is time,” the girl says. “We do not have to steal these years to be
together. Here is time.”
Time.
“I want this to be endless,” Eraline says. “Please.” She takes in a breath
and lets it out, soft as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. “Make it last.”
Time.
Desire smiles and takes her hands. “I will make it last.”
IV.
When she opens her eyes at last, it is night.
Eraline sits up, dazed, hands reaching up for the sun and finding nothing
but the moon’s steady gaze. Beside her, Desire is sitting at the edge
of the pond with her knees pulled up to her chest. Light trails from the
petals of her dress to the wildflowers in the grass, and Eraline finds that
she cannot speak.
But Desire sees her, and she is kind. “Would you like to dance?” she asks
softly, still staring into the water.
“Dance?” Eraline repeats.
Desire rises to her feet and beckons.
Eraline expects nothing when she takes her hand, but the moment their
fingers brush, the sky breathes to life. The stars are numerous, a dozen pin-
Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology 2022
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pricks of light, shattering the world into a thousand planes and dimensions.
They are so formless, Eraline thinks, so formless and far away.
Infinite.
Undefined.
“Dance,” Desire says. “There is no need to be afraid.”
So Eraline spins once on the heels of her feet, and they dance.
The thrill is like fire, an inferno alighting in her blood. She turns toward
Desire, whose vibrancy bursts through her skin like the clearest picture of
her spirit—light, light, all their souls are filled with light. Her aspirations
are carved in flame, and her kiss on Desire’s fingers is reverent, drowning
in the taste of honey and wine.
This is what you are, Desire says. Keep your eyes open, Eraline, and look.
She looks.
Blue, blue, unending blue, blue stretching on for days on end. They see
it in the sky, the great canvas on which all their wishes are painted; they
see it in the sea, the mirror of the unfathomable dome. They see it in the
tiny, indescribable things, like the violets growing in their neighbor’s flower
box on the cusp of spring. Spring—what an inscrutable thing, the vision of
warmth in the dead of winter.
“See.”
Their thoughts unravel like a spool of thread, mapping the distance between
their dreams. Fear cannot find them here in these mellow landscapes
and honeyed terrains, cannot intercept the vibrance of the words drawn
between their lips. They throw their heads back in glory, revel in the sound
of the wine and the taste of the music. Here, their happiness is infinite.
“Swear to me that you’ll always encompass this,” Desire says, “the abstract
and all-free expanse of wanting.”
Her sorrows bleed free from her throat, and she is finally clean.
“How?” Eraline whispers, doubt sowing seeds in her mind for the first
time since her arrival.
“Here is form,” the girl says. “We’ve laid down the portrait of beauty, the
watercolor images of desire. Here is form.”
Form.
Desire is darkness plated with gold, sweeping away the memories of her
people and her flame-filled yearning to break free.
18 Short Prose

Form.
Day goes in one hand and night in the other, Eraline thinks, and turns
her gaze up toward the sky.
There is no shape to starlight.
V.
Eraline, as she is beginning to discover, tends to avoid the truth.
Now that she has seen Desire’s light shine under a temporary pleasure,
she does not wish to strip away the layers. Here, she has finally come to
know what it is like to forget, to love, to shine; here, she has finally witnessed
art and seen through the veil of time; here, she has heard true music.
The thought of letting it go is almost as impossible as the garden itself—unimaginable
and regretful.
Desire’s fingers are deft as she braids a flower into Eraline’s hair, and her
breath on the back of her neck is warm. “Have you lived tonight?”
Eraline runs through the words, again and again, in her mind.
“I have… wanted you freely,” she says at last, chewing her lip.
Desire leans back, her hands falling away. “Good, then. I would like you
to stay.”
Eraline turns to look at the girl over her shoulder. “Will you stop me if
I try to leave?”
Desire’s lips curl up into a soft, sad smile. “No.” She folds her hands over
her dress. “The question becomes whether you yourself can turn away. Do
you have the ability to wrench yourself away from the creature that holds
your heart?”
Yes. No. Her throat constricts; it is difficult to swallow. “You sound as if
you speak of love.”
A shake of her head. “I am not love, sweet one.”
“Well, then, does desire root itself in the head or the heart?” Eraline
murmurs, questioning.
“It is everywhere, my dear.” Again, that smile. “Desire is everywhere—it
is the burden that presses on your chest when you think about your betrothed,
the weariness in your bones when he lifts your chin to kiss you. It
is the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, which twines its
way around your aching thoughts. It is written into the stories you tell at
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night, the songs you hear in your dreams—it is who you are, and more.”
Eraline knows that if she escapes the garden, it will never welcome her
back—she will be stepping from a myth back into her prison of a home, that
cage around her deepest desires.
But cages can be broken, and prisons can be remade, reformed—she can
become something vibrant, if she so wishes to.
Desire laughs again, heartbreakingly beautiful. “You’d leave if you knew
what was good for you. But then again, I suppose they all would.”
All. She is not the only one whose soul has come to rest here, here in this
strange imitation of paradise. But she has the time to bloom, to break her
future’s chains—defy the boy, ignore the contempt, and make beauty from
her own tenacity. If the truth is incandescent and love is true, then she will
blossom in all the colors of the spectrum.
When Eraline turns to Desire for the last time, the sorrow carved so
deep into her expression is almost enough to make her stay.
Instead, she drops her gaze.
“This is not love,” she whispers, even as she bends to kiss the creature
on the cheek.
“No,” the girl murmurs into Eraline’s hair. “No, it is not.” Silver tears line
her eyes as she pulls away.
The traveler hears Desire’s next words clear in her mind, and they make
her heart ache. You are so beautiful, and you are so right.
Eraline stands, and the flower falls from her hair, withering as it hits
the ground.
So beautiful, Desire says, ruefully. I wish, Eraline, that I could have
weight in this world. But try as I might, I am only a reprieve.
I am not love.
VI.
The melody begins as a gentle susurrus, a collection of see, see, see and
dear, sweet, shine and eat, watch, dance. It is as lyrical as it has been before,
but as Eraline draws herself farther and farther from the garden, the words
blur once again, notes slipping into minor keys of grief.
She cannot help but feel that it is a lamentation of a day born from beauty,
a day that she will never get back. She thinks of Desire, alone with those
20 Short Prose

souls that chose to make the garden their home forever, walking among the
fading flower beds in a dress that no longer shines.
The traveler takes a deep breath as she winds back to the path that will
take her back to her village, that gray, lonely world. And, closing her eyes as
if she can still hear Desire’s voice in her ear, she thinks of her visions.
This is what you’ve lost. Keep your eyes open, Eraline, and look.
She looks, but there is nothing to see. There are only the words in her
mind, the eulogy to a freedom that lives only in her dreams.
Here lies a final memory, she thinks, touching her hand to her lips to
feel a phantom kiss. Am I the poet or the poem?
Perhaps it has always been a dream.
I am chasing an afterimage, one I will never get to touch.
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22 Short Prose

Mia Sanford
Grade 12
City Charter High School
Partners
Love is a partnership, two people dancing to the same music. That’s what
people would usually say. They are partners in the dance of life. It all seems
more poetic than what I would think humans are even capable of.
Rome and TK were the love story I always wanted to tell. We had known
TK our entire lives, he was the kid that no one ever really knew where
he came from. His grandmother, his Nonna, was straight from Italy and
though TK can speak the language, he’s never been. He lived with his Nonna
just down the road from us, but I don’t know how our families met. One
day TK just started showing up and he’s never left.
From what I can remember, Rome and TK became friends really fast,
connected at the hip by ten, and started dating five years later. Dad says
he knew it was bound to happen, mom always said she was still expecting
grandkids. I was the one who knew first though, it was the hardest secret I
have ever kept to this day.
I was ten when I caught them together. I had come home from school
to an empty house, or what I assumed was empty. I didn’t knock when I
walked into my shared room with Rome so it was a surprise to all three of
us when I caught them together. They were all cuddled up in Rome’s bed,
limbs tangled together, faces too close to be anything but intimate, and
everything else seemingly forgotten. I froze for just a blink before breaking
out into a mischievous smile.
I used this new discovery as blackmail to get everything my young heart
desired at the time—everything from new toys to desserts to extra time on
the computer. Of course, it also meant I had to knock more, and I had to
give TK and Rome more alone time when TK was over, and, of course, I had
Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology 2022
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to keep it a secret. I was good at keeping secrets though, so Rome and TK
told mom and dad later when they were ready.
When I was younger, I was completely enthralled by the idea of loving
someone, the idea of lying close to someone with your hearts ticking the
same beat. I never thought I was the type of person to fall in love though. I
confessed this to TK’s Nonna, the fact that I found it unlikely that I would
ever truly love someone, and she would always reply, “Oh Penelope, il mio
amore, don’t say that. You are but still young. You will find someone who
will sing for you.” I would always think, No. No, I won’t.
Sometimes I think it was because of the way I grew up. My mom and
dad weren’t very lovey. In fact, the closest they would get to a “dance” was
the dance they would do to avoid a fight. So, the closest I got to knowing
love as poetic, as what everyone said it’s like, what it’s supposed to be like,
was from Rome and TK.
Rome used to tell me what it was like to love someone like TK, when
they first started off, when love wasn’t a word they used yet. He would tell
me it was like shouting at someone who was listening to music too loudly
or like chasing a car that was going above the speed limit. He said it was
like holding your breath while underwater, like when a slow song starts
picking up, like an inside joke, like finishing your thought without being
interrupted, like making someone laugh after they’ve cried. Loving TK was
fulfilling but hard to understand, satisfying in the most perfectly imperfect
way. He said at first their love was ice cream versus asphalt. He would tell
stories of shouting and miscommunication, crying, and sobbing. But they
were both too stubborn for the fire to burn out, too proud to say it was over,
so they started talking and listening and communicating. His stories would
change, and their love turned to strawberries covered in sugar during summer
break. Their love was a new season of your favorite television show
coming out, remembering a joke, lying on the ground in the winter, letting
the snow cover you in a thin blanket. He said loving TK was like being
dragged out onto the dance floor with the loudest most mainstream song
playing in the background, but it feels like you and your partner are the
only ones who know the lyrics, and you sing them, you scream them, you
sway and jump and bounce to the beat until it’s all you are. You and them.
Dancing partners.
When I would ask TK what it was like to love my brother, he would always
look at me with an eyebrow raised and say something like, it’s a piece
a-work that’s what it is or, fuckin annoying. Then he would break out in a
24 Short Prose

loud laugh while Rome punched him in the arm.
Once though, it was so late it was the next day, and we were sitting on
the roof of his van. Everyone had fallen asleep already, but it was such a
bright night, the moon like a spotlight, I couldn’t sleep. I asked him what
it was like to love Rome and he said it was like riding a skateboard without
a helmet. He said it was like eating too much honey, laughing with your
friends at something that wasn’t even funny. He said it was like swimming
in a cool lake on the hottest summer day. Lighting a match, finally passing
that level of Mario that you’ve been stuck on for the past forever. As
if you’re pulling someone onto the dance floor with the most annoying,
catchy song blaring in the background but dancing as if you’ve never heard
the song before. He said he would tell Rome all of that one day, maybe pull
him out to dance, one day when it didn’t feel weird and didn’t make his
face red. One day when the time was right, maybe under the stars like that
night, he would tell him.
It was super sappy and gross, so we sat in silence watching the stars
after. I didn’t hear TK ever say something like that to Rome until two years
later when we were toasting their marriage, surrounded by white flowers
on dark tablecloths, like stars in the night.
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26 Short Prose

Lilah George
Grade 10
Taylor Allderdice High School
Reflective Surface
Upon entering my parents’ room, my eyes lock in the hidden, most left corner
of the room. The walls cry out for attention with their dandelion decor
and the bed frame creaks cautiously. This room, in particular, defines itself
in its distinctive disposition, but yet, my focus is still drawn to the very
left corner of the room. The summer colors with begging patterns on the
wallpaper demand my attention, but my eyes pass them all like a skilled archer’s
arrow chasing a target. A girl stands, impending doom looming over
her. She bears a terrified face, with hair unkempt and clothes stained. She
resembles a doll dragged through mud by a careless young owner. I know:
this girl promises the threat of misery to anyone who dares enter her life.
She does not curse others, but rather, is a curse.
I must keep my eyes on the girl in the mirror. I stand there, still as an
aged tree with its roots sturdily fixing themselves in the ground. However, I
do not have the wisdom that comes with being old, as my thoughts reflect
that more of a newly awakened sapling, trembling by the slightest breeze.
The girl in the mirror presents situations uncharted, dangerous. I know I
must stand there, ensuring she stays in her glass cage.
“Lydia?” my mom questions, breaking me from my focus. I stutter in
response, unsure how long I was staring, for how long I stood in their room.
“Why’d you come here, kiddo?” my dad asks, placing his book down
on his chest.
“I—I don’t remember,” I answer truthfully, stumbling out of the room
and into the hallway.
I hear them chuckle slightly as I leave.
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~~
She’s sneaking into more surfaces, getting ever so close to me. When
I walk along the hallways where I once fled from her in her purest, crystal-clear
form, she hurries to match my pace. Glass picture frames display
some of my family’s favorite comics, mine included. They remind me of
days when I would spend mornings reading the comics section of the newspaper,
enjoying a pleasantly simple Sunday. My amusement quickly turns
sour as I see her exhibited in the glass ever so lightly. Even if her presence
is delicate, it is still there. She is still there.
Escaping the hallway, I slam the door. Crash! It goes, like waves commanding
their importance over feeble sands. The impact sends waves of
minuscule needles throughout my body, poking me repeatedly. No one can
reach me here, I affirm as I stand. There is no purpose to me standing so
desolately, isolated here; I plainly observe the door situated in front of me.
The doorknob in particular calls to me, reflecting its golden shine.
Reflections—
She’s there, taunting me. Her face furrows, repulsing and contorting in
the tightest, unnatural look. She is here to hurt me—I urgently race to
throw a towel over the image projected by the handle. No version of this
woman, whether it be through my parents’ mirror, or the picture frames, or
even sneaking in the doorknob, will come near me. She will be entrapped
in her dimension; she cannot escape to mine. Things have been going well,
and this girl cannot come and mess things up. When I had problems before,
I drowned harmful voices until their throats were filled with so much water
the ocean admired enviously. Now, regurgitating back to the surface is
a girl here to pledge my destruction. Her contempt … her hatred … of me
tells me all I need to know.
I cover all surfaces the girl could possibly sneak her way into. Windows
are dimmed with shades, reflective surfaces covered with dulled objects.
Life is now dulled back to its perfection, with no girl to interrupt. Instead
of this creature taunting me into a place where she can hurt me, I close
myself off from her—from every opportunity where she would hurt me.
She cannot find me with my family, as I am not with them. She cannot find
me among my favorite comics, as I no longer dwell with them. Time spent
outside this room is time she can find me, and I cannot take such a hearty
gamble. Rather, I wait inside, where my impromptu bomb shelter serves
me as a hard shell does to a turtle.
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Screens flash, and I distract myself. She is there, somewhere, in the wild.
But she cannot consume my mind when I have my eyes fixed on something
else. Words beat out from the computer, clicking against a rhythm like a
metronome. However, the sounds share another quality with a metronome:
their monotony. I cannot entertain myself with these words, no matter how
much I try to focus… my mind drifts to her. When will she come in? When?
It is no longer a matter of if, but when.
Suddenly, the video playing tells a joke. And I chuckle, slightly. It is
funny! I enjoy this!
No—no. I cannot laugh, as the sound will alert her to my location.
I quickly turn off the computer in front of me.
There she is.
I expect to see a horrible, twisted face, beyond human repair. I expect to
see a bloodied, disfigured thing, soul beaten out of it and replaced with a
motive to ruin. I expect to see beady red eyes, unproportionally small to a
mouth full of razoring teeth.
But instead, I see a young girl smiling.
Maybe she isn’t so harmful.
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30 Short Prose

Eva Dubreil
Grade 9
Upper Saint Clair High School
A/D/H/D
Attention
Saying Jacob lacked an attention span would be completely incorrect.
His life was a testament to his ability to focus so wholeheartedly on something
that the rest of the world was completely blocked out.
No, saying Jacob didn’t pay attention would be incorrect. It was rather
that he never seemed to be paying attention to the right thing. Which
wasn’t for lack of want. Still, there was always that which his brain wanted
to do that took priority.
He thought his brain was like the Earth, stuck in the Sun’s orbit. Constantly
being pulled toward this bright, burning intense need to follow
through with his brain’s most recent interest. But he couldn’t tell anyone.
They wouldn’t understand.
Deficit
At five, Ophelia learned the word deficit. The amount by which something
is too small, likened to shortfall. That seemed fitting. All her life, Ophelia
seemed to fall short of the expectations set for her.
Thoughts drifted too easily out of her head, her mind always picking up
whatever caught her fancy next. She was forgetful and could never focus on
anything long enough to complete it. Something would pique her interest;
she would follow her train of thought until she wouldn’t remember what
she’d started off doing. As she got older, she wondered if she simply wasn’t
trying hard enough.
Her brain was like a tree with leaves of thought that fell in autumn;
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she forgot and lost track of those. Yet all the leaves that were lost were
replaced with new ones. Ophelia could never tell when she had forgotten
something; she wouldn’t know until the piles of leaves at the foot of the
tree became so large that she could see them clearly. Forced to remember
what she hadn’t as it came back to bite her. But no one would know. She
would suffer in silence.
Hyperactivity
It was as if Alice could feel her whole self speeding up. Everything
around her was stopped; time had left her to her own devices. But Alice
couldn’t stop; she needed to keep moving, do something. Exactly what, she
wasn’t sure, but she needed to rid herself of her hyperactivity.
She felt like she was bouncing off the walls, feet tapping, fingers drumming.
She felt too aware of everything around her, the bright lights, the
ends of her hair on the back of her neck. She was shaking with the effort of
keeping herself in place, having long ago given up on staying still.
Alice’s mind was a piggy bank, full of ideas as shiny and bright as a newly
minted coin. But it kept shaking, rattling the coins around. They hit the
imaginary sides of the bank, her mind, too fast for her to see or keep track
of, creating such a cacophony that Alice thought she might cry. Everything
felt too big, too bright, too loud. She willed the tears forming in her eyes
away. She wouldn’t cry. Or at least, she would wait until she was hidden
away, where no one could see her.
Disorder
Backpack, bursting at the seams with useless things. Arms, full of papers
they don’t need. Their hair was messed up, glasses falling off their face,
clothes rumpled. Their order, to the rest of the world, was the opposite. Fin
knew what they wanted, what they were doing.
They knew that sometimes they got distracted, and they moved on
before they had finished what they were doing. And they knew that upset
people. But it was better than when they were too scared of failing to
meet people’s expectations to act, letting the work pile up until they were
overwhelmed. Or when they made plans, telling themself they’d have time
later, only to look up at a watch and see that two hours had passed, and
they were late.
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The stream that was their mind flowed swiftly but steadily. Back when
they tried to resist the current, they had nothing but sorrow and pain. Now,
finally, they had chosen to go with the flow, to be themself; they were happy.
Maybe other people didn’t understand why this was their life, but that
was alright. It wasn’t up to them. Just Fin. They would live anyway. Out in
the open, surrounded by people, all alone, but beating the world. Flowing
through their stream of disorder.
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34 Short Prose

Roan Hollander
Grade 12
Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12
Maps
1. You know that you were abandoned, but you follow the urge to retrace
your steps anyway.
2. The same phone number calls you every Monday at noon, but you ignore
it. You think about blocking the number, but realize you enjoy the
weekly ritual. It’s like a game neither you nor the caller knows they’re
playing. Something like torture, maybe. Or tug-of-war.
3. You have memorized the letter your biological father wrote to you before
vanishing. It said that he missed getting to know you. It wasn’t his
choice to give you up. You see that he dots his i’s in the same way you do.
4. You hate your biological mother because you do not know her. She left
no trace. You throw imaginary rocks at her imaginary figure for catharsis.
Wherever she is, you hope she knows you hate her.
5. Cynthia is your biological sister. You don’t know she exists, you’re the
younger sibling. She watched you plump your mother and didn’t give
up on meeting you when you never came home, and your mother’s
belly was back to normal.
6. The man who wrote the letter to you? Not actually your father. It was
the doctor who delivered you. His daughter had recently died, and he
thought that you were her being reborn. After he wrote your letter, he
quit his job and fostered five children.
7. Your birth mother thinks that you know her. In fact, she thought she’d
finally meet you at a coffee shop last week after she mailed you an invitation.
Fat Cow’s at 12. This was a meeting you were unaware of.
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8. Cynthia has a genetic terminal illness. Her dying wish is to save your
life in case you inherited the same poisonous chromosome she did.
9. You search for your father. You had a happy life growing up, but something
in you will never be whole until you locate the man who wrote
the letter. You think finding the author will heal you. When you do find
your father, you won’t feel any different.
10. You know DNA tests are risky and your data is being mined. You think
this as you spit into the collection tube and tape the Ancestry box shut.
11. Charlotte, your birth mother, wasn’t upset you didn’t show for coffee.
She’ll find you or die trying.
12. Your parents moved to a larger house shortly after adopting you. The
only thing you remember from the old house is the fish-shaped mailbox.
People tell you this is impossible; you were just an infant. But
you’ve never trusted anyone more than you trust yourself.
13. Would you have gone to meet Charlotte if you knew? What would you
have said?
14. Cynthia is so ill, her only transport is a wheelchair. She can’t find your
address online, only your phone number. She has internet stalked you
for months, but you’re elusive.
15. You pride yourself in finding people, but you hate the thought of
being found.
16. Charlotte has been sending you boxes of chocolate truffles every Christmas.
She mails you letters for each birthday, filled with lopsided scribbles
of hearts and smiles.
17. Your test results come back. There is the name of your father. You realize
this means he took a DNA test, too. Has he been trying to find you?
18. Cynthia spends her Mondays at the phone. She calls you at 12 and waits
patiently for a call back. It doesn’t bother her that this is a fruitless
cycle she repeats each week. Part of her illness is forgetfulness, but she
will always remember you.
19. Your mother has the wrong address, and all the gifts and letters she
has sent never reached you. The homeowners who receive them have
stashed them in what they call their ‘memories closet.’ They wait patiently
for a ‘My Baby Girl’ to come pick up 30 boxes and 31 letters.
20. Your father was never trying to find you. He wanted you to find him.
It’s this desire to be found that you cannot understand. Yet.
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21. Cynthia will finally locate your address. You won’t believe your friend’s
Instagram post was so careless, but the damage will be done.
22. You search for your father on the internet with desperation. All that
appears are names in the obituaries. You slam your laptop shut and
watch NCSI until 2 am.
23. Before driving to the cemetery, you return to your first childhood home.
You need to prove to yourself that the mailbox was, indeed, shaped like
a fish. The current owners will finally solve the mystery of who ‘My
Baby Girl’ is.
24. Cynthia will show up on your doorstep.
25. You will open 31 letters together.
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38 Short Prose

Sophia Whitman
Grade 9
Upper Saint Clair High School
Cardinals at Night
Raina slid her backpack off her shoulder and let it hit the ground with
a thud. She sat down on a step of the staircase, the step right under the
streetlamp, and pulled a blue spiral notebook from her bag. She flipped a
couple of pages until she came to her set of math problems, all neatly written
in from that day at school.
As she scribbled algebra into the margins, she pulled the elastic out of
her hair, letting it down from its tight ponytail. She ran her fingers through
the loose strands and glanced down at her watch. The illuminated screen
read nine o’clock, but Raina knew the watch was about six minutes behind.
She wasn’t sure whether to be watching for her mom’s car, an old,
scratched up white Toyota, towards the bottom of the staircase in her art
studio’s parking lot, or for her friend Jordan, whose shift waiting tables at
Mike’s Pizzeria in the strip of restaurants on the top of the hill should have
just ended.
She looked over her shoulder and listened for Jordan’s footsteps.
Nothing. The night was silent except for the white noise of traffic and
the buzz of cicadas.
The streetlamp overhead flickered and went out. Raina sighed and
tucked her math back into her backpack. It was too dark now to see her
homework clearly, but she was exhausted anyway and glad for the excuse.
Raina heard the beep of her phone and pulled it out of her pocket. She
read the text but didn’t bother to respond. Mom: Jordan’s driving you home
again. Try to be home by ten.
Raina, for a fraction of a second, felt empty inside, staring down at the
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39

ight white screen. No stay safe. No I love you. No congratulations on
placing second today. No your brother would have been so proud. No nothing.
Nothing at all.
She only startled back into reality to the sound of someone walking
down the stairs. They sat down a couple steps behind her.
“Hello,” Raina said, no emotion in her voice.
“Hey. How’s life?” Jordan answered from behind her.
Raina shrugged and turned to look at them, even though in the dark she
could only make out their outline. “It’s… fine, I guess. My painting placed
second at the studio.”
Jordan nodded. “Cool. You earned it.”
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked abruptly.
“I’m good. Why do you ask?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Your voice just sounded kinda high, that’s
all. I thought you might be sick or something.”
“No, I’m fine,” they said, sounding a little hurt. Quickly changing the subject
back, they continued, “Anyway, you were saying you placed?”
“Yeah, second… but I was really hoping for first… I really thought mine
could beat Ev’s, but I guess not.”
“Well, there’s always next time.”
Raina nodded.
“What’d you paint?” Jordan asked.
Raina hesitated but didn’t reply.
“It’s okay, you don’t need to tell me. Sorry I asked… ”
“No, no, it’s okay. It’s of a bird in a tree. It’s for my brother, Marley. He
died a year ago today, remember?”
Raina thought she should cry, but all she felt was emptiness, like she
had poured out all the emotion she had ever had inside of her a year ago
today and there was nothing left but the shell.
“I’m sorry… ,” Jordan said.
Raina wanted to yell at them that being sorry didn’t help because there
was nothing Jordan could do now to stop Marley from having been flung
over the handlebars of his bike when he hit the juniper tree. There was
40 Short Prose

nothing they could do now to make sure the stupid kid had a helmet
strapped on his head. There was absolutely nothing that anyone in this
world could do that would turn back time.
But strangely, it helped.
Raina was silent for a moment before answering, “Thanks… ”
There was another pause before she continued, “My mom, well you
know, my stepmom, she’s been really distant again lately. I don’t know if
she’s just thinking about Marley a lot, you know with the timing, but I’m
scared she’s having more mental health issues and stuff… ”
Raina sighed. “My grades are slipping, money’s tight again. In a few
months, we might not be able to afford my art lessons anymore. And until
my birthday, I won’t be able to find many jobs. I can’t even drive. So yeah…
fine, I’m perfectly fine.”
Jordan waited a moment before responding. “That must be hard for
you… I don’t really know what to say except that I’m sorry… I know it
doesn’t help much… Just hang on, okay? Things could get better… ,” they
trailed off.
“It’s like walking on glass,” she said miserably, putting her head in
her hands.
They patted her awkwardly on the back. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. Just…
remember who your friends are. You can always turn to your friends for
help, okay?”
In the dark, Raina heard something overhead and looked up. For a second,
the lamppost flickered to life, and she glimpsed a bright red cardinal
soaring across the night sky.
“My mom always says that cardinals appear—,” she sniffled, surprised to
find herself crying for the first time in a year.
“When angels are near,” Jordan finished the phrase.
“Yeah,” she agreed, quickly brushing her tears away. “I’ve never seen a
cardinal at night before… so maybe that’s Marley watching over me.” She
laughed, but it came out as a sob.
Raina heard her phone ding in her pocket, but she ignored it.
“Jordan—” she started, about to thank them, tell them she loved them, to
say something, but she never got the chance to figure out exactly what she
wanted to put into words.
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“Jordan?” the person behind her said, sounding bewildered. “Sorry, but
I’m not Jordan. I didn’t realize you thought I was.”
Raina, stumbling over her words, began apologizing, “I’m sorry, you’re
not, I—I thought, Jordan was supposed to, I—”
The person interrupted her, “Is your friend alright? Like, you know, if
they were supposed to meet you here?”
Raina’s embarrassment was instantly replaced with panic. She fumbled
with her phone. The first thing she saw on the lock screen was a text.
Jordan: I’m so sorry you’ve been waiting so long, I needed to cover someone
for like twenty minutes, I’ll meet you on the stairs at 9:30.
Raina exhaled. “Yeah. They’re okay,” she said softly, not really sure if she
was talking to herself or to the person sitting behind her.
“Good.”
A car pulled up to the art studio. At the sight of it, the person behind
Raina stood up and walked past her.
“Nice talking to you, stranger,” they said.
42 Short Prose

Sophia Whitman
Grade 9
Upper Saint Clair High School
Room 83
Hello Sir,
I know we are not acquainted, but my name is Robert Baily, and I work
as a secretary under my sister Principal Elizabeth Baily for Rosemary Elementary,
which opened only in March of last year, 2071. It has come to
our attention that you work as a counselor for a high-scoring neighboring
school and were wondering if you could take an afternoon of your time to
visit. Any day next week between 3:00 and 9:00 p.m. would be ideal. We are
currently testing a new program, which we implemented a few months after
the opening of the school. This program entails a unique teaching method
and curriculum, which we believe will be beneficial to our students. If you
are unavailable, we completely understand, but we would love the opportunity
for you to work with some of our students and give us feedback on our
new program.
Sincerely,
Robert Baily
Rosemary Elementary
1243 Vivid Lane
Nicolas knew the address. 1243 Vivid Lane. It was a horrid place, and for
a school of all things, he thought to himself. Already, he was dreading the
visit to Rosemary, but he was more than halfway there and reasoned it would
be foolish to turn back now, after navigating through a maze of alleyways.
Nicolas was dressed smartly, wearing black dress pants, a collared shirt,
and patterned tie. He kept his eyes on the ground as he walked to avoid
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43

stepping on any shattered glass; he was afraid it would cut through his
loafers. He wasn’t sure why there was glass on the ground, but whether it
was from broken windows or smashed beer bottles, he knew it wasn’t good.
In his concentration, he tripped and landed in a pile of debris, no doubt
a remnant of the series of natural disasters forty years ago that had left
most of the city in ruins. Much of the city had been rebuilt, but not only
were many people lost and places destroyed, but ideas that had been preserved
for thousands of years were gone, possibly forever. And even if the
knowledge still existed, people were more focused on basic necessities than
on reviving the luxuries of the past.
As he climbed over the splintered wood and crumbling brick that had
once been the side of a house, Nicolas tried to recall his life before the
disasters. He had been only five years old at the time, but he remembered
water coming out of pipes. He remembered the little rectangles you could
talk through. He remembered sturdy buildings that reached high into the
sky. Most of it was blurry, but that much he could remember. And of course,
he remembered his family. He remembered that he had shared a room with
his older brother Landon, who had wanted a baseball bat and glove for his
birthday. Baseball had been forgotten when it became so nasty outside that
it was dangerous to leave the house.
Nicolas remembered how hungry he had been. The family had to ration
food for weeks. He realized now that his parents had been putting on brave
faces for him and Landon when they comforted them. They must have
been as scared as he had been, if not more. He had only seen the tip of the
iceberg as a kid.
Nicolas shook his head and pushed the memories to the back of his
mind. It was no use thinking of them now. He brushed himself off, glad he
hadn’t been hurt from tripping earlier.
Finally, Rosemary came into view. For an elementary school, it was dull.
The walls were made of plain red brick and there was no indication it was
the right place except for the address.
Nicolas pushed open the door and found that the inside resembled
more of a dreary dentist’s waiting room than anything else. The walls were
painted beige and there were empty gray chairs lining the room’s perimeter.
In the corner, a few outdated magazines sat in a cardboard box.
Behind the front desk was a young man with broad shoulders and curly
brown hair. He looked bright enough, though a bit disorganized. Papers
44 Short Prose

were scattered across the surface of the desk.
“Sir!” he said cheerily when he looked up at Nicolas. “You must be Nicolas
Moss, sir! I’m Robert Baily. It’s so nice to meet you in person, sir.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Baily,” Nicolas replied, shaking his hand.
He felt a twinge of guilt for dreading the visit to the school. Though it
wasn’t in the nicest area and the building was bland, Robert had given
him a warm welcome, and there was nothing Nicolas enjoyed more than
working with kids.
“Right this way, sir,” Robert said, leading him to a door on the left side
of the front desk.
Nicolas followed him into an office where two women were having a
conversation. The younger of the two eyed Robert in the doorway and nodded
at him. She stood up from her desk, pausing her conversation, and
greeted Nicolas, shaking his hand, “Hi, I’m Liza Baily, nice to meet you. I
apologize for the rush, but I’m in a bit of a time pinch with meetings today.
I’m sure Robert can handle things from here.”
With that Liza turned back to the lady and continued, “So sorry, where
were we?”
Robert led Nicolas out of Liza’s office, past the front desk, and down another
hallway to the right of the lobby. The hallway was long, and it seemed
to Nicolas like it wrapped around itself like a snake, making up most of the
floorplan. There were several doors on either side, all of which were closed.
Each door was numbered and a clear plastic compartment protruding from
each one held a manilla file folder.
Robert approached room 1 and handed Nicolas the file. Nicolas opened
it and skimmed the first page inside. In the top right-hand corner was
a picture of a small boy with red hair and a big jack-o-lantern grin. His
name was Connor, he was nine years old, and he suffered from social
anxiety. Nicolas couldn’t help but think that it was a bit strange that only
one child would be in this classroom, but Robert had said that they were
using a new method.
Nicolas slid the file back into its case, and Robert pushed open the door.
They stepped into the room.
Much like the rest of the building he had seen so far, the walls, floor, and
ceiling of room 1 were painted in varying shades of boring. A chalkboard
hung on a wall, and a table was randomly placed toward the back of the room.
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In the very center was redheaded Connor seated on a stool. Kneeling
next to him was a girl with glasses and stick straight hair.
“Good job on that one! Okay, but on number twelve, the comma would
actually go here,” she was saying.
Nicolas cleared his throat, and the girl looked in his direction and waved
but didn’t stop teaching.
Robert, who was still standing in the doorway, said softly, “That’s Miss
Josephine Heart. She gives Connor his grammar lesson at this time of day.
We’re on a very tight schedule for this program, so most of the teachers
probably won’t stop their lessons for you.”
“She looks like a kid herself,” Nicolas muttered. Robert didn’t respond.
Nicolas stood quietly for a few minutes as Josephine corrected clauses
and proper nouns on Connor’s worksheet.
“Alright, Connor. It’s your social time now, okay?” she said calmly, taking
the worksheet from his hands.
Connor whispered something Nicolas only caught part of. “Miss Josie…
not the girl from room 83… please?”
“No, Ethan from room 2. Do you like him?”
Connor shrugged.
Nicolas moved out of the way as a kid Connor’s age and a teacher carrying
his stool walked through the door. The stool was set down, and Ethan
climbed up onto it. Josephine made the two boys face each other.
“Hello,” Connor said robotically.
“Hello,” Ethan said, his voice shaking.
“How are you.”
“Fine. I—I mean… good.”
Connor waited quietly until the other boy asked him how he was. Connor
replied with the scripted-sounding “good.”
Then, it was silent. Connor kept glancing over at Nicolas and the other
adults in the room. Ethan stared at the ground. Connor kept flushing and
then going pale. Ethan fidgeted with his hands, which he held in his lap.
The scene painfully reminded Nicolas of a younger version of himself, and
it made him visibly cringe to watch. He remembered stumbling over his words
in class, or worse, being called on by the teacher and not having the answer.
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Robert checked his watch. “Sir?” he whispered. “We should go visit room
53 now.”
As they walked down the hall and up a few flights of stairs, Nicolas questioned
Robert, “So, do all the kids have one-on-one lessons?”
“Yes, for the most part,” he answered.
“Was that Connor’s recommended treatment to help with his social anxiety
then? Having planned interactions with other kids?” Nicolas asked out
of curiosity.
“Yes. It made it a little quieter since Ethan has a similar problem, but the
kids get to see each other at noon for lunch and recess. And of course, kids
like Connor have social time every other day.”
They arrived at room 53. Robert handed Nicolas the file. The picture in
the corner showed a blue-eyed girl, age seven. Unlike in Connor’s photo,
the girl, named Annaleigh, was staring blankly at the camera, an almost
sad expression on her face. Her mouth was downturned, pressed into a thin
line. Under her name, age, and photo was her condition: arachnophobia.
Nicolas could understand why a fear of spiders would restrict a child
from going to an ordinary school. Most buildings, schools included, in the
area were infested with vermin but were too poor to pay for exterminators
or traps, which had become an expensive service recently. He also didn’t
know the extent of this particular child’s phobia, so it was possible her fear
affected her even if no spiders were present.
They returned the file and stepped into the room. Annaleigh was
perched on her stool. Her teacher, like Josephine, was very young. However,
when Robert and Nicolas entered, he didn’t seem to be teaching any sort
of lesson. He instructed the little girl to cup her hands in front of her, but
she wouldn’t. Annaleigh kept vigorously shaking her head side-to-side. She
held her hands balled into fists and pulled them tightly to her chest.
Nicolas watched, horrified, as the teacher grabbed the child’s hands and
tried to force them into a cupped position, but Annaleigh was stubborn,
not to mention strong. Finally, he gave up and put something on the girl’s
head. Instantly, she screamed. Slowly her screams turned to soft cries, tears
streaking her face. She held her hands in her lap, her back tall, and her eyes
squeezed closed. Nicolas could hear her raggedly breathing in an attempt
to calm herself down.
Then, Nicolas saw what was making the girl panic. Annaleigh shuddered
as a spider crept down her forehead and along her nose. The shock
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wore off, and Nicolas took action. He willed himself not to panic and make
the situation any more chaotic, but he walked up to Annaleigh and knelt
down. Carefully, very carefully, he put his palm out and pushed the spider
off the tip of her nose.
In hindsight, Nicolas wished that he had made sure Annaleigh recovered
from the scare and hadn’t been hurt, but in the moment, he found
himself captivated by the spider in his hand. In his experience, Nicolas
found that nature had a way of announcing danger, which is why he was
startled to see yellow markings along the spider’s back.
“Excuse me,” he said, tapping Annaleigh’s teacher on the shoulder. “What
kind of spider is this?”
“I don’t know,” the teacher replied with a tired shrug.
“You don’t know?” repeated Nicolas, indignantly. “As I’m sure everyone
here is quite well aware, spiders can be dangerous. Shouldn’t you maybe
know if one is venomous or poisonous before putting it on Annaleigh’s head?”
The teacher rolled his eyes. “I just work here.”
Nicolas turned to Robert, waiting for him to chide the teacher, fire him
even, but Robert stood there like he witnessed this happen every day.
“Sir,” he addressed Nicolas, “I will check on the spider thing. I’m almost
certain it’s harmless. On a positive note, Annaleigh is showing signs of improvement.
She didn’t pass out this time, at least.”
Nicolas asked, “Mr. Baily, do all of your students have the same treatment
plan as Connor, Ethan, and Annaleigh? This method of being put into
a situation where they are forced to interact with whatever it is that causes
their condition?”
“Yes, sir. That’s the core of our program. It varies slightly depending on
the condition of the child, but for the most part, yes,” Robert explained.
“I believe you have good… intent… but I don’t think this method is the
way to go about it. Do you have any qualifications to prove that you are
even competent in this field of expertise?”
“I’ve done my fair share of research—”
“But do you have a degree?”
“Well, not exactly—”
“So, no, Mr. Baily, I’m a school counselor. My job is about helping kids
get on the right path. I can help them cope with the regular aches and
48 Short Prose

pains of growing up, but the most important part of my job is being able
to recognize that a child needs help and being able to get them to the help
they need. I am not qualified to diagnose let alone treat children with such
disorders, and you most certainly aren’t either.”
“Our method has worked over the past year.”
“On how many occasions? How many kids have had noticeable improvement
since they enrolled? How many have graduated from your program
and been able to rejoin a traditional school?”
“Three children were able to rejoin a traditional school, two of those
children graduating fifth grade.”
Nicolas opened his mouth, dumbfounded, and said nothing for a few
seconds as he processed what he had just been told. “So, you’re telling me
that one child benefitted, two aged out of the program, and all the others
have seen no progress whatsoever?” Nicolas groaned slowly, pinching the
bridge of his nose.
“We still have a few more students we’d like you to meet… ”
Nicolas scowled and declared, “I’ve seen enough.”
Robert was quiet for a second, seeming much like a scolded child himself.
“Would you like to speak with my sister?” he said at last.
When Nicolas entered Liza’s office, he burst. “This is absolutely AB-
SURD,” he cried.
“What’s wrong?” Liza asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You’re traumatizing children, that’s what’s wrong. In some cases, your
treatment plan could even be deemed unethical. These kids… they’re all
different. Yes, exposure therapy might work for certain people, but some
of these kids should have medications, or—or therapists, or, I don’t know,
maybe qualified professionals helping them!”
“Our teachers—”
“Your teachers? The way your teachers—”
“Don’t interrupt me. Our teachers are volunteers. Josephine’s in high
school. If you think we should hire professionals—”
“Great. Wonderful. Fantastic,” Nicolas shouted sarcastically. “Not only
are you and your brother completely incompetent, the majority of your
staff are high schoolers.”
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Nicolas stormed out of the office. Robert tried to chase after him, pleading,
but Nicolas responded mockingly, “Goodbye, sir,” and slammed the
front door on his way out.
When Nicolas got home to his apartment, he got out an address book.
Though it was tedious, he spent weeks finding the listings on all the families
enrolled in Rosemary and writing them letters explaining the situation.
He also wrote to the police station, asking for them to follow up on
his inspection.
A few weeks later, he received a stack of letters in his mailbox. He sorted
through them and discovered that most of them were thank-yous from
parents, but then Nicolas came to this letter:
Hello Sir,
Robert Baily here. Liza and I were visited by the police at Rosemary the other
day. The school system is officially shut down, but we still have plans for
the future. Liza is going to attend college to hopefully work at another elementary
in the future. As for me, I guess I’ll get a new job, but I plan to keep
Rosemary open as a sort of recreation center. Josephine, as well as many of
our other volunteers, have signed up to continue, not as full-time teachers,
but as tutors at the center. We’re going to put in some basketball courts and
things, it’ll be a fun time. Anyway, I’m writing this letter to tell you that all
the students but one have \\been removed from the program. I didn’t know
who else to contact about this student (room 83). I hate to take more of your
time, but could you possibly give us some advice on what to do?
Sincerest thanks and apologies,
Robert Baily
Rosemary (Not) Elementary
1243 Vivid Lane
Nicolas trudged through the debris two weeks later, dark circles under
his eyes. He’d decided that no matter how much he disliked the school, he
would have to return. He couldn’t trust Robert to help the child from room
83. If he wanted something done, he would have to do it himself.
When Rosemary came into view, it looked as depressing as ever. Inside,
empty chairs were still lined along the walls, and the beige paint on the
ceiling was still peeling, but the magazines were gone, and files that should
have been arranged on Robert’s desk were strewn across the floor.
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“Robert?” Nicolas called, peering down the hallway.
Rosemary appeared to be completely vacant. Nicolas had thought that
at the very least Robert would be here, as well as maybe some of the tutors
or some people converting rooms into recreational spaces.
Nicolas wandered down hallways, up staircases, calling for Robert. After
what felt like an hour, he stopped in his tracks. He had reached a dead end,
and on his left was a room labeled 83. Inside the folder, he found only blank
pages. There was no picture in the corner and every prompt was either labeled
as “unknown,” “inapplicable,” or just completely unanswered. The child
had no name, age, or condition recorded, let alone height, weight, or IQ.
After a moment of thought, Nicolas took a deep breath, and turned
the doorknob to room 83. He jumped. The child was staring right at him,
smiling playfully. She had short, choppily cut, dark brown hair pushed
behind her ears. Her eyes were strange, one a deep brown the other a kind
of gray that seemed to change to blue then to green. It reminded Nicolas
of a kaleidoscope.
She sat up straight with her hands gripping the sides of the stool. Her
fingernails were chewed and covered in a chipping dark blue polish. He
glanced down at her feet. She was wearing purple converse. Her ankles
were cuffed to the stool.
As Nicolas looked her up and down, he noticed she was doing the same
thing. Her eyes flicked from his light brown hair to his shiny shoes to his
patterned tie. He forced himself to hold still under her inspection.
“Hi,” she said, looking him dead in the eyes.
“Hi,” Nicolas answered, kneeling down, “I’m Nicolas.”
She stared at him as if waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, her
eyes flitted across his face like she was looking for something.
“I know,” she said blankly. Then before he could react, she asked, “Are
you scared of me?”
Nicolas forced a laugh. “Why would I be scared of you?”
She tilted her head and eyed him for a few more seconds. Then she answered,
“Most people I meet are scared of me. But you… you’re not exactly
scared. Just a bit… uneasy.”
Nicolas remembered what Connor from room 1 had said. “Miss Josie…
not the girl from room 83…please?”
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She nodded. “Yes, Connor is afraid of me. All the kids are. I don’t have
lunch or recess with them anymore.”
There were so many questions Nicolas wanted to ask. Why was she
chained to the stool, where were her parents, why were the kids afraid of
her, and how could she predict exactly what he was thinking? He hesitated.
He didn’t want to upset her.
The girl smiled sadly. “You want to know why I’m stuck here? The adults
are all afraid of me, too. My parents sent me here and won’t ever come back
to get me. Now everyone here knows what I can do that made my parents
hate me… Robert and Liza chained me up because it was all they could
think to do with me… ”
She leaned closer to Nicolas and whispered, her voice as soft as a breeze,
“What they don’t know is that I can escape them.”
Her kaleidoscope eye dilated, and she seemed to glitch out of the chains.
Her voice was low and raspy as she asked, “Are you afraid now?”
Nicolas clambered to his feet and raced out of the room, slamming the
door shut behind him. She pounded on it almost as loudly as his heart was
pounding in his chest.
“Don’t leave!” she cried. “No, please, don’t leave! Alone, I’m all alone! Please!”
She started to wail, almost melodically. Nicolas turned away from the
door and bumped directly into Robert.
“I—I,” he stammered, trying to put into words what had just happened.
Robert glanced between Nicolas and room 83. “You went in, didn’t you?”
Robert guessed. He sighed. “You weren’t supposed to go in.”
—
No matter how afraid Nicolas had been the first time he had seen the
girl, he always returned. It had been months since the first encounter he
had had with her. As strange as it sounded to admit it, well, he’d started
liking his visits to Rosemary.
When he entered, Robert was sitting at his desk, but this time there
were other people bustling around the building. A couple men were carrying
floorboards down the hall. A woman with her hair tied back wearing
old jeans and a t-shirt was painting the walls in bright colors.
When she turned around, Nicolas said, “Liza?”
“Hey. Nicolas Moss, right?” she answered, with a nod. “You’re still around?
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You know we’re turning this place into my brother’s dream rec center.”
Nicolas smiled. “I’m glad to see it’s coming along.”
Robert looked up from his desk. “Hello, sir. I assume you’re here to see
the girl?”
Nicolas nodded.
“Go on up.”
When Nicolas opened the door, there was the girl, the same as always:
intensely staring eyes, chipped nail polish, chained ankles.
Nicolas, as usual, kneeled down.
“Hello,” he said. “It’s me, Nicolas.”
She smiled and answered, “Hi.”
Nicolas paused, realizing something. “You’ve never told me your name.”
She looked down, her hair curtaining her face. “I don’t have one… well,
I might have, at some point, but I don’t remember it.”
“Do you want a name?” Nicolas asked. “I can call you whatever you want.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Will you call me Ava?” she asked sheepishly.
“There was a doll named Ava. She had dark hair like me.”
“Sure.”
They sat quietly, the man and the little girl, until she finally said, “You
know, you’re the only one that’s ever come back.”
“Ava,” Nicolas said, his voice breaking a little. “I’ve been meaning to tell
you something. I think… I think now that this isn’t a school anymore that
maybe you should come home with me. I’ve gotten all the paperwork done,
and at least for now, I think that would be good. For both of us.”
“Really?” She smiled, and her eyes gleamed, and for a fraction of a second,
she looked just like an ordinary kid…
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54 Short Prose

Jahzara Aurelia-Mae
Grade 9
Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School
Dreamscape
“Hello, Lucidity, how have you been? It’s been a while since we’ve met up;
you should come to see me sometimes. I miss you, and there are some updates
prepared for snake, so come by as soon as possible. If she’s broken or
anything, I can make you a new one. Anyways, I really do miss you, so visit
me soon. It’s been a really long time since we’ve seen each other and you
know I want to see my little sister, so come see me soon. I want to hear what
you’ve been up to and make sure you’re okay.
Love, your big brother, Illicit.”
I haven’t seen Illicit in about four years, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t
miss him. The main reason I haven’t gone to visit him since he left is because
I feel like I’ve been abandoned. He has messaged me every other
week for the past four years, so I guess my feelings of abandonment are
invalid. If anything, Illicit is probably the one who feels unwanted; his little
sister barely replies to his messages and hasn’t even shown any interest in
visiting him. His birthday is in a month, though, so now would probably be
the best time to go see him.
“… Lu… Luci… Lucidity?!” I opened my eyes to see Miyocka hovering
over me with a worried expression. She reminded me of the nurse who
cared for me when I first woke up from the accident.
“Yes? Sorry, I was zoning out; did you need something?” I’ve been working
as Miyocka’s assistant ever since Illicit left; the only thing she ever has
me do is get food and drinks.
“No, not really. Actually, could you go down to the cafe and get me the
sweetest drink they have? You can get yourself something too, of course,
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ut make sure my drink is really, really sweet! It takes a lot of energy to
write a novel, especially a psychological horror novel!” Miyocka has quite a
bubbly personality and love for sweets for a world-renowned horror author.
People are often shocked to see her true character during book signings
and events; some even think it’s all an act or that she’s not the real author
of her books.
“Alright, I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Text me if you need me to get
anything else.” Miyocka thanked me and returned to her desk, typing furiously
as I walked out the door.
The trip to and from the cafe only took a little more than ten minutes
since fewer people were there than usual. When I got back, Miyocka opened
the door and thanked me again before taking her drink and returning to
her laptop. The rest of the day went by with Miyocka typing and consuming
alarming amounts of sugar and me trying not to fall asleep. Somewhere in
all of that, I told Miyocka that I’m going to visit Illicit for his birthday. She
reassured me Illicit would love for me to visit and said I could take as many
days off as I need to see him.
It takes at least a week to get to Midnight City from where I am, and
there aren’t any “safe” routes to get there either. Every path from where I
am to where Illicit is either goes through military tolls or gang territory,
and it’s not like I have anyone who could go with me.
I spent the next week planning my trip to see Illicit. For the first time,
I actually found the “pet” he gave me useful. On the day Illicit left me, he
gave me an electronic pet snake which he creatively named Snake. For the
first few months after he left, I kept Snake close to me, letting her wrap
around my shoulders. After that, I kept her in my bag or at home; I didn’t
like looking at the reminder that I was abandoned. I’ve never needed to
calculate the safest and quickest route to get somewhere before, so I never
really realized how useful she could be.
“I have calculated the safest route. This route will take you approximately
two weeks,” Snake’s mechanical voice spoke. Her eyes projected an image
of a map.
Shit. I’ll have to leave earlier than I thought. To get there before Illicit’s
birthday, I would have to leave in two days.
“Snake, call Aisui.” There is no way I’d be able to make that trip alone,
and Aisui is the only person who would agree to travel with me on such
short notice.
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“Calling… Aisui.” Snake made a ringing sound for a few seconds before
Aisui picked up.
“Hello? Lucidity?! Is it really true? Lucidity Starlight is calling little ole
me?!” This trip really isn’t going to be fun, but I hope it will be worth it.
“Yep, it’s me. Anyways, you want to go on a trip with me to visit my
brother in two days? I know you have nothing better to do, so you better
say yes.” My demanding tone would put most people off; however, Aisui is
a bit of a masochist.
“Of c—course, I want to come with you! I’ve never met your brother, so
it should be super fun!” That’s exactly what I thought he’d say. “What time
are we leaving? Do I need to drive? Where does your brother live? Didn’t
you say he abandoned you?”
“What?” The hell did he just say?
“Nothing! Just message me the details, mmkay?” This passive-aggressive
idiot.
“Yeah, whatever. Make sure you pack enough; I’m not buying you shit,
asshole.” While it was probably a mistake to ask Aisui to come with me, it’s
not like I had any other options.
“Hehe love you too, Lucidity!” I hung up on him.
Miyocka already knows I’m taking a month off; hopefully, she won’t die
without me. She’s probably able to get her sugar fixes on her own, and that’s
all I ever really do for her.
“Snake, switch to charging-mode.” I really must be useless.
“Charging-mode activated, powering off.”
As I went through the rest of my nighttime routine, I started to feel an
uneasiness in my stomach. It felt like a tiny squirrel was crawling around
my intestines; the feeling intensified as I got closer to sleep.
I decided to blame my feelings on the sound of quick-paced typing and
hysterical giggles. Miyocka gets in a weird mood when writing at night; she
always blames it on the moon.
Even with my uneasiness and Miyocka’s giggles, I still felt like I fell asleep
easier than usual. It felt like I blinked and opened my eyes to a dream.
Everything looked blurry, yet I could tell where I was; the hospital room,
the oldest clear memory I have. There was no sound except the beeping of
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machines. The sweet scent of flowers and candy mixed with the smell of
cleaning supplies all hospitals have. It felt more like a memory than a dream.
The door creaked open a moment later. A person dressed as a doctor
came in and stood next to my bed; their face looked blurry, but I could see
they had dark green hair.
Illicit? Why would he be here? I rarely dream about my brother, and
even when I do, I can never see more than his silhouette. It feels like he is
really in front of me…
“Lucidity, it’s been a while. I missed you. You’re going to visit me soon,
right? I’m glad if I’ll get to spend my birthday with you.” He came closer to
the bed, and my eyes finally focused on his face.
This voice could only belong to my older brother; there is no way I could
forget it. His face was different; he looked older and tired, yet he had the
same smile of self-hatred and pity. He always looked like he was on the
verge of tears.
“Lucidity, are you okay? You’re probably confused, right? These things
are like that.” His voice melted in my ears like caramel melting in your
mouth and getting stuck in your teeth.
“These things? What do you mean?” He looked at me with an expression
I’d never seen before. The only expressions I’ve ever seen him make are depressed,
sexually deprived and guilty. This expression looked more empty
and mournful.
“Right, I came here to tell you about that. Has Snake ever mentioned something
called a dreamscape?” His voice was scarred with regret and remorse.
“I think so,” I never really paid attention to Snake’s updates or really
anything she says when I’m not talking to her.
Illicit turned away from me; his gaze remained on the candy beside my
bed as he continued talking.
“We’re in a dreamscape right now. With Miyocka’s help, I used Snake
to alter your sleep state, so I could access your subconscious. I needed her
help because Snake was offline, and I can’t access her in charging mode.
You can use Snake to enter dreams as well, but the person has to be close
enough to you for Snake to read their vitals; she does that by biting them.”
It feels like he’s told me this before.
He turned to face me when he finished talking. His eyes were cloudy and
empty; he was hiding something, not just from me but from himself. If we
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weren’t in my head right now, I think I’d be able to see the guilt welling up
in his eyes and clouding his vision.
My head hurts. “Why are you telling me this now?” Illicit has a habit of
giving crucial information at random times. He would often tell me how to
do something after I had already done it wrong.
“You’re visiting me, right? The closer you get to Midnight City Hospital,
the more likely you’ll need to use this ability. I just want to make sure
you’re prepared. If you have trouble or get hurt, make sure you contact me.
I have to go now, sorry.” He turned away from me again and walked over to
the door. My vision distorted, and everything faded to black.
I woke up on Miyocka’s couch with Snake wrapped around my shoulders.
Miyocka was asleep on the carpet below me.
“Updating… Dreamscape Software… Updating… Vital Analyzing Software.
You have a new message from… Illicit; would you like it read out
loud?” Snake’s mechanical voice started a few seconds after I woke up. She
never updates while I’m sleeping, but after that dream, I’m not surprised.
“Yes, please,” Her eyes lit up, and she began projecting the message from
Illicit.
“Beginning message—
Dear, Lucidity, I’m sending you this to make sure you understand what
happened while you were sleeping. That dreamscape you had was real, and
that really was me talking to you. Snake should have gotten some updates,
so make sure to look into those. I miss you a lot Lucidity and be careful on
your way here. Love, your big brother, Illicit.
—Ending message.”
I guess there isn’t room for doubt anymore.
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60 Short Prose

Andrew Hall
Grade 9
Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School
How the Buffalo Felt
July 12, 20XX
To whom it may concern,
My expedition to South Africa came and went in what felt like an instant.
I still cannot begin to describe how fortunate I am to have the opportunity
to travel here all the way from the States, as well as to witness this
magnificent country’s wilderness first-hand. Writing this, I am thinking of
all the adventures I’ve experienced and know that they will keep me well
stocked with pleasant stories for the rest of my life. However, oddly, some
memories have persevered more than others.
The hours I’ve spent waiting in dense airports and in cramped flights,
which felt never-ending at the time, now almost feel like a dream. All the
muggy, sleepless nights spent in my tent; as well as the tyrant sun and its
legions of mosquitoes, who were only ever driven away by the reeking candles
we had to burn constantly. All of the waiting, sweating and biting—all
seem to be fading from my mind, even as I write this. Like a fine morning
dew dispersing by mid-day, those unpleasant memories are now far outweighed
by the exciting ones.
My trek began in the Cairo Airport, and from there I knew this was going
to be quite an adventure. From Cairo, I flew to many smaller local airports,
each flight growing less exciting than the last. I got very little sleep
during this part of the trip, as good rest was uncommon in the days traveling
to my intended destination of Johannesburg. Once there, I took a smaller
airplane out with my tour guide and a few other travelers, and together
we made our way to the first safari.
The first expedition, although exhilarating, was uneventful; however,
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the second was anything but. The passive grasslands that we rode our Land
Rover along seemed almost uninhabited on the first trip, apart from the
constant buzzing of insects. But, the next day, they were now the stomping
grounds for a herd of Cape buffalo. Hundreds of them, maybe even more,
made their way across the savannah, grazing as they pleased—and they
smelled. Even from where we were camped, about five hundred feet away,
we could still smell the wafting scent of manure. We asked the tour guide if
this was normal, and he assured us that we would get used to it by the end
of our trip. I didn’t know what to make of that at the time, but now that my
trip has concluded, I can say with confidence that I got very used to it.
One thing I’ll never get used to, though, is what I saw next.
After all the stomping and bustling had died down, and the herd had
moved on to greener pastures, was when we saw it. Some of the buffalo had
fallen behind the rest of the herd, and I could not help but to fixate on a
very old, very sickly cow who was lying on its knees in the tall grass. Now,
normally, I would think, ‘Hey, that’s life’; however, this buffalo made me
pause, and I couldn’t figure out why. Something about the helpless, dull
look in its big watery eyes sent ripples of mixed emotion through me. Was
it sadness? Sympathy? Anxiety? I couldn’t tell, and for a moment I was lost
in thought. The moment passed as a figure appeared overhead. Above the
buffalo, tracing lazy circles in the bright blue sky, was a vulture. Its feathers
were black, with white wisps around its huge, hunched back and neck. Its
face bore stark pink skin, and its empty eyes peered down at the soon to be
corpse. Upon seeing it, I dreaded what was going to happen at once, but I
just couldn’t look away. I held my breath as it landed, walked a few feet
forward on its long legs, lurched its neck foreword—and stopped. What? I
was perplexed. I took another look, dialing my binoculars to another magnification.
But I saw the same sight. The vulture stood in the tall grass,
watching the sick cow. And, before long, other vultures followed suit. Each
one seemed to float down just a few feet closer than the last, inching ever
closer towards their meal. By the end, there were dozens of them sitting
motionless on the ground, waiting for the buffalo to die. I can’t remember
if I cried, but I definitely felt like I should. It was just so surreal, watching
what felt like the most private moment of a creature’s life. As well as this
feeling of deep surrealness, I also felt a little guilty. I mean, if I put myself
in the cow’s shoes—sick, and injured, and probably terrified—I’d like to
think I’d feel a little irked that these strangers are just sitting around watching
it all go down like some sick reality television show. Maybe I’d moo
something rude at them out of spite. Or, maybe it didn’t care, or even notice
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us at all. I’ve been thinking about how that sick buffalo must have felt in
the moments before its death all trip, and I still can’t come up with a good
answer. Maybe I’ll never know, and I think I’m alright with that.
My flight is almost boarding, so I’ll continue this on the trip home—god
knows I’ll have the time.
Sincerely,
Philip
July 13, 20XX
Disaster,
I find myself in a waking nightmare.
Just a day ago—or, what seems like it, I’ve lost track of time—the plane
taking me back to Johannesburg experienced a technical malfunction. I do
not know the exact magnitude or manner of this error, but I do know of its
implications. As we were flying over the sunset-draped savannah, our plane
experienced some minor turbulence. Nothing of concern, as over the course
of the trip I’ve come to know turbulence quite well; however, it did keep me
from dozing off. For a period of about 15 minutes, this turbulence continued
and increased. Over this time the flight went from a slight rock to a myriad
of bumps and dips, and finally we began to show some concern. The pilot
calmed us, telling us it’s just some unanticipated wind, and that it will pass
very shortly. As he said this, though, the dash of the plane lit up in a bright
red, and the emergency lights began to flash on and off down each row. We
began panicking again, and this time, we were not met with reassurance.
The pilot turned to the controls, pushing buttons and prodding levers of
many kinds, but to no avail. In a last-ditch attempt, he pulled up on the
wheel with all his might, but I don’t think it would have made a difference.
In the minutes before the crash, it was pandemonium. It seemed like
there were three times the amount of people on board than when we departed.
There was screaming, shoving and trampling, kicking, biting; the fight
for survival was barbaric—and it reminded me of the Cape Buffalo stampeding
through the grasslands. Luckily, I was too shocked to get out of my seat
and decided to use the little airtime we had left to tie myself down with a
seat belt. A thoughtless move—but what else was there to do? The tussle was
stopped by the loudest sound I think I’ve ever heard in my life, and I can
only imagine it was the hemorrhaging of some great, steel organ of our
plane. We began to nosedive. All the passengers looked at one another as we
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fell, and I can remember their expressions so vividly. In that instant, the
moment right before everything came crashing down, and my life was ripped
into the unknown by the invisible hand of fate, I saw them all.
And I heard a scream, “We’re going down—!”
When I awoke, it was morning.
I don’t know exactly how long I was out, but I do know I’m lucky to be
alive. If it weren’t for my seat flying out of the plane before the crash, I’m
sure I would have met the same fate as the rest of the passengers. The plane
had landed somewhere, from what I can tell, deep in the heart of the savannah,
and its impact had caused it and the surrounding tall grass to catch
fire; however, I did not see the blaze myself. From where my seat landed, I
could make out a thin line of smoke rising into the sky on the horizon, and
I began to make my weary way towards it. Up until now I did not feel very
frightened, only utter shock and disbelief. While walking, I laughed—morbidly
and absent mindedly—that you never think things like this are gonna
happen to you until they do. My plane couldn’t possibly crash land in the
middle of the deadly South African shrubland, no, that would be ridiculous!
I thought it was almost comical, how slim the chances of this happening
to me were. And yet, miraculously, here I was. It was an unpleasant
thought, but it gave me a moment’s relief.
I stopped thinking it was funny when I saw the plane.
The moment I saw its scorched hull in the distance was when fear finally
crept its way into my mind. It was like all of the past few days were a
dream: Seeing the buffalo, writing in my journal, boarding the plane, the
crash—all of it. It was all one big hallucination, and seeing the sad, withered
remains of the plane was what finally brought me back to reality. The
gravity of my situation hit me at once, and I broke down.
After I collected myself, I scavenged what I could from around the wreck.
I did not dare go into the plane.
When I was finished, I picked up anything useful I could—a mangled
suitcase with a few full bottles of water, a duffle bag with sunscreen, and a
pen—and started to walk. I didn’t know where I was going, I just didn’t
want to stay where I was any longer. The sun was rising much higher now,
and I was more than thankful to have found the sunscreen amongst the
rubble. It did little for the heat, but at least I wasn’t burning alive. Burning
alive. The thought sent a shiver down my spine, and I walked harder to
keep myself from despairing. Time seemed to be going by much faster as I
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walked across the grassland, although I don’t know why. I thought of very
little and only felt the searing heat on my back and the occasional pang of
mortal dread. Maybe my brain had switched to low power mode to save
battery, knowing that I would be needing all the energy I could get. It hardly
matters, anyway.
It took me finding a miracle to finally snap me out of it. It was later in
the day now, and the sun was making its steady way to the horizon. I was
still walking—walking myself to death, I thought. But, as I walked
through a patch of tall grass, I felt something rigid beneath my boot.
Thinking it was just a rock in my path, I kicked it out of my way; however,
what I saw tumble out into the dust was not a rock at all. It was a
book. A small, leather-bound journal—my journal. Somehow, someway, it
had landed away from the rest of the crash, and I just so happened to
pick a path right on top of it.
Astounded, I picked it up and dusted it off with the end of my shirt, before
taking the pen I found out of my pocket. I stopped walking to write the
next entry, the very entry I am finishing now.
I’m scared, but at least now I’m not alone. I’ll see you in the morning.
Sincerely,
Philip
July 17, 20XX
Wakey wakey eggs and bakey,
Good morning, journal! It’s not morning at the time of writing this, but
I’d like to think that whenever I close you is when you fall asleep. So, naturally,
opening you to write is when you wake up, hence the greeting. But,
that begets the question, how do journals sleep? They don’t have brains to
shut down or metabolic rates to slow or even eyes to close: all things necessary
for sleep. Do they dream? Do they have nightmares? Do they get
journal sleep apnea?
I’m rambling, I apologize. It’s been a lonely few days.
My mother would always say that phrase in the morning, “Wakey wakey,
eggs and bakey.”
When I was a child, and it was difficult to get me out of bed for school,
she would sing that tune over and over again. She cooked the best breakfast,
and she would always make it just in time for me to eat it, so the toast
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was nice and hot and the bacon juicy. Yes, mom always knew how to wake
me up. She would open my bedroom door just a tad, enough to let in the
smell of fresh pancakes or french toast or crepes, so it was completely impossible
for me not to get hungry. Then, from just beyond my door, she
would say:
“Philly, it’s time for breakfast! You better hurry, or I might just eat it all
without you!”
That was more than enough to get me up and running, no matter how
tired or whiney I was. I always loved mornings with her as a kid, and even
as I grew older, they never lost their magic. My mother passed away a few
years back, and at first it was difficult without her, but now all I can recall
are these good memories. The breakfast memories.
I have other things to think about now.
It’s been several days since I last wrote, and I’m running on empty. The
14th of July was spent walking, as well as the 15th and part of the 16th. By
then, I was exhausted and was quickly running out of water. So, I decided
to take shelter next to a small acacia tree. I made—or, at least, attempted to
make—a rudimentary shelter with sticks and bundles of leaves. The kinds
you see on the Discovery Channel, where the survivors whip one up real
easy in an hour or so. It couldn’t be that hard, right? Wrong. When I was
finished, I had an unstable hodge-podge of twigs piled against the skinny
trunk of a young tree. It looked like a toddler made it. Well, at least now I
had a little shade, which in all fairness helped tremendously. Since I’ve
been stranded out here, I haven’t gotten a better chance to rest. When each
day is spent shuffling across the grasslands, and each night is spent huddled
under my jacket getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, my shelter might
as well be Caesar’s Palace. Except, maybe it was missing a few things. Besides
the gambling and the marble statues and fancy water fountains—my
Palace was short of one very crucial thing.
It had no food.
I’ve barely survived a plane crash and have been walking around the
savannah like an idiot for almost a week, and when I finally sit down to rest
in my shelter is when it crosses my mind. I haven’t eaten in a week. One
whole week! And I haven’t even noticed! No stomach pains, no thoughts of
endless buffets, nothing. I was shocked, and a little astounded, at how
much the human brain could block out in times of stress. I wondered what
else I was refusing to remember, and the thought unnerved me. But it also
made me think I didn’t completely reject the idea of food. I’d been thinking
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about my mother—someone who in my mind is closely connected to food—a
great deal today for no particular reason. I thought it was just me being
morbid, seeing as how I’m more than likely to see her again soon, but maybe
it was something else entirely. Maybe, a part of my brain was trying to
get me to eat, even though another part was trying to make me focus on
getting out of here; and they wrestled with one another until the starvation
side finally won. Or, maybe I’m delusional, and my brain isn’t working right
because I’ve gone insane. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m sure there’ll be
plenty of time to think about it.
But for now, I think I’m gonna lie down and get some sleep. Let’s hope
my stomach will let me.
Sincerely,
Philip
July 23, 20XX
To the damn birds that won’t shut up,
The last of my water has run out, but all I can think about is the stupid
birds above my hut. I can’t stand it. For the past few days now, all it’s been
is squawking and screeching and flapping about, and it’s really starting to
get under my skin. I haven’t been able to sleep because of it, which is just
about all I can do in my current state, so you can see how it’s becoming a
problem. I swear, since the first one got here a few days ago there seems to
be more and more each time I look outside. July 20th was starting out to
be an average day, about as average as starving alone can be. I woke up and
got out of my makeshift bed—a pile of the least prickly dead leaves I could
find—and decided to do a little walking. I don’t quite know why, I haven’t
really been thinking rationally lately, but I digress. I stuck my head outside
and was met with a morning breeze that felt great on my burnt skin and
thought that today might actually be quite pleasant. I could also see a few
wispy clouds that promised some shade. They floated high in the gray-blue
sky, and, although I knew it was highly unlikely, the thought of rain was
more than enough to get me moving. So, that’s what I did. I grabbed a semistraight
stick to use as a cane, put on my boots, and began to walk—but
before I even stepped out of the entrance, something came soaring just
over my head and caused me to fall onto the ground. The mass then
swooped right around the side of the tree and perched on a branch just
above my hut. I jumped to my feet and turned to the animal, raising my
stick like a mighty club to defend myself; however, when I saw it, I couldn’t
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ing myself to move, let alone swing. Staring back at me, equally motionless,
was a bird. A big, ugly, miserable, black bird. Its head and neck were
featherless and pink, and its huge shoulders bore long, white-tipped wings
that tucked into its sides. It was a vulture, and when it looked at me with
its big, empty eyes, I couldn’t help but tremble. So, I just stood there, with
my stick raised and an anxious look on my face, waiting for the bird to
make a move.
It felt like an eternity standing there, but I can’t imagine it was more
than a couple of minutes. After a while, the vulture tilted its head to one
side, figuring I was just some crazy tourist and that I was nothing to
worry about, and went off on its way. If I said I had a sigh of relief, that
would be an understatement. I immediately dropped the stick I was
holding, and fell to the ground with it, curling into the fetal position. I
was so relieved, in fact, I think I might have cried—which, now that I’m
thinking about it, I definitely did not, as I’m far too dehydrated to spare
some precious water on tears.
Which brings me to now. After I crawled back into my shelter, the next
few days were uneventful, apart from the noise. I don’t know how long the
vultures will stay for, but I’m sure I know what they’re after. Although I’m
not intending to go down without a fight. Heh, maybe I’ll hit one with a
rock when it’s not looking, and have myself some chicken—wouldn’t that
be a silly twist of fate?
Anyhoo, I think I’m starting to black out, so I’ll pick this up when I regain
consciousness.
Sincerely,
Philip
July XX, 20XX
All good things must come to an end,
It’s been fun, but this is my final entry.
The following events describe the fate of, well, myself—Philip.
Sometime ago—the days have blurred beyond distinction—I heard
something peculiar in the distance amidst the caws of the vultures that had
gathered above me. Wearily, I managed to peek my head out just enough to
see its source, and what I saw shocked me. Just in the distance, not even a
hundred feet away, was a lone Cape Buffalo. I was amazed. The cow could
have wandered anywhere in the savannah, anywhere at all, and it chose to
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walk right up next to my little shelter. That’s not all, though. From where I
was sitting, it looked to be quite ill, and I watched as it shuffled its way
through the dust. Until, suddenly, its shaky legs gave out, and with a thump
it landed belly-first into the dirt. Just like the buffalo from all those days
ago, back what feels like eons. Its massive head laid to one side, and I almost
thought that it was looking at me, begging me to help it with its big,
watery eyes. I don’t know if it was the lack of food, the dehydration making
me go mad, or that I didn’t want to watch that poor buffalo suffer again,
but I felt like I had to do something. So, I did.
I’m glad I know how to laugh at myself, because man, this was one
dumb move. With the last ounce of my strength, I managed to get to my
feet, and I started running to the buffalo. I don’t have a clue what I would
have done if I ever reached it—I just ran. I ran all the way over to it, as fast
as my tired, starved legs could carry me; but just as I reached it, the cow
disappeared, and I collapsed square in its place.
It didn’t really surprise me all that much, either. In the back of my head,
I knew it couldn’t have been real—just the final act in a practical joke my
brain had been playing on me since I landed out here. Well, too late to be
mad at a mirage now, I was stuck. So, I didn’t get mad, but did get scared. I
couldn’t move a muscle, and I was stuck all the way out in the open. I knew
what was coming next. I think if I had any moisture left in my body, I
would’ve been sweating.
Sometime later, the vultures saw me, and began flying circles overhead.
It was only a matter of time. However, oddly, the fear I felt so prominently
before was gone, and a wave of acceptance washed over me. At first, I was
confused, and thought maybe it was because I knew my fate. But, as my
stomach growled for the last time, I began to think this feeling (ironically)
went back to food itself. Just like how I would do anything for a steak right
now, these vultures probably felt the same way about me. Their lives were
on the line too, and maybe next time they’ll be the ones on the buffalo-end
of things. Maybe the vultures really weren’t that bad, or maybe I’m really
not so good. Maybe this is how the buffalo felt.
Or, maybe I’m finally dying, and my brain is giving me a nice ending to
my journal—I’d like to think it’s the former.
Regardless, I’d like to thank you for sticking with me until the end.
Sincerely,
Philip
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70 Short Prose

Madeleine Ng
Grade 10
Oakland Catholic High School
Healing, In Fragments
“Where are we going?” I ask as he drags me by my shirt sleeve. We move
across the grass, tangled and rough and free. The warm air swirls around
us gently; the lull of the cicadas dims. We move far too quickly under the
moody, slate sky, and his steps lengthen before me. He only laughs in response,
and I have to smile.
Our pace breaks into a run, and my mind races with us as I begin to
think of other times.
- - -
I remember him first from the coffee shop. He was cleaning tables at
the window, head down, brown hair glowing flaxen in the slant of the afternoon
sun. He wore a pensive frown which could be quickly masked with
a calm smile. I noticed that he stared out the window while he worked,
searching for something in the distance.
“What are you doing?” I asked him. Twice.
“I’m thinking.”
“About… ?”
He picked up a tattered rag from the counter and walked away, shooting
me a warning glance before he disappeared into the kitchen. His eyes were
caramel, and as he left, I could only think of one word: golden.
He was golden. Like honey, like bronze, but cold like steel.
- - -
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Another time, I had watched them run after him.
One afternoon a group of jean-jacket guys trailed after him. At first, he
ignored them, his hands stuffed in his pockets and eyes staring straight
ahead. One guy with dark hair and a crooked smirk called out to him, but
he would not let himself look back.
Suddenly, the same guy sauntered up beside him and shoved him off the
edge of the curb, knocking him into the street. Fear flashed in his eyes as
he rushed back onto the sidewalk, and he was immediately cornered by the
group. Across the street, I slowed to a stop when I recognized him as the
busboy from the coffee shop.
The guy who shoved him yanked his earbuds out by the wire. Then he
spoke a single, inaudible sentence, his mouth upturned in spite.
Slowly, he backed away from the eruption of laughter, his face crumpling.
I saw that his golden eyes were dull as he turned and ran. The first
boy dashed after him, cruel eyes dark with mischief.
I did not know what he heard, but I could see that those few words
sent him running; running from the name-calling, running to find a place
where he belonged.
- - -
He was always a block ahead of me to the library. The first time, I ran to
catch up with him; the times soon after, the distance between us narrowed
until he started waiting for me by the lot after school. And as we talked on
our way to the library, we became something like friends.
Yet, our sentences remained a careful dance around our personal lives.
His smiles, though they became a more frequent occurrence, remained
guarded. And he allowed our conversations to fade once he felt that they
strayed too close to him.
One day, we took the shortcut through a neighborhood of flat, gray
houses. Most of them were boarded up and covered in graffiti. There was
something unsettling about the way he checked the road behind us, which
was littered with cigarette butts and sparkling green shards. I found myself
walking faster on this part of the street.
“You can wait here.” He hovered in place, uncertain. He had to pick up a
book at his house.
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“It’ll only be a minute. My place isn’t too far away.” Then, with a sigh –
“Never mind. I’m sorry. It would be safer if you went with me, if you want.”
He led the way, shoulders slumped as we approached an apartment
complex with rusted balconies. His eyes avoided the paint-chipped door
and darted back at me, daring me to say something.
I tried to look past the pieces of trash strewn across the lawn. I tried not
to look at his downcast expression, heavy with disappointment, resentment,
and something like shame.
“It’s ok if you go.”
I knew what he meant. No amount of talking could help diffuse the tension
between us at this moment. We had to drop the formalities—we had
to face everything we left unsaid. I recalled his controlled, faint smiles; I
realized he knew it could all go away, if I wanted it to.
But was this what he thought he was, gray houses and litter and
broken bottles?
No, I knew what he was. He was smiling at the raindrops racing down
the windowpane. He was standing outside, waiting to walk to the library
with me. He was listening to Arabesque no. 1 under the shade of green trees.
He was glowing, like iridescent dragonfly wings flitting above the ripple
of a shimmering stream.
He was golden.
“I’ll stay.”
His eyes softened, and his face broke into a small, however brilliant, smile.
- - -
The sky only dims, and we are still running. The breeze scatters oak
leaves on our path up the hill, and finally we reach the top. I double over,
catching my breath.
When I pick my head up, I see the world ahead of me, overflowing past
the horizon. Fiery streaks of clouds hang overhead, casting golden shadows
on our silhouettes. We are not running from the world—rather, we are running
to our future.
“Do you know where we are?” Playfulness sparkles in his solemn tone.
He likes practical answers, so I say, “We’re on top of a hill. In the park.”
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He shakes his head.
“We’re on top of the world,” he says softly, like a wish whispered to the
starry night sky. “At least, for now.”
He is healing. He turns back towards the setting sun, face illuminated
with hope.
I sense the words “from now on” on the tip of his tongue. He is not ready
to say them yet, but I hope he will someday.
74 Short Prose

Natalie Shaffer
Grade 9
Deer Lakes High School
The Silence After the Flame
Seven thousand four hundred and fifty-nine of my letters to you lay scattered
on the floor in front of me. I strike a match and a small flame of destruction
is born. I throw the match into the center of the pile and watch
as the letters ignite. The fire feeds on the pieces of paper, growing larger
and larger with each letter it devours. The smell of campfire and birthday
candles fills the air as a snake of black smoke slithers from its nest of words.
I look down at the letter still in my shaking hands. Its straight blue lines
are filled with my cramped handwriting. The folds in the paper are starting
to tear from the countless times I’ve opened and closed it. I shake my head,
holding the letter over the fire as I try to let go of it. The flame makes a
crackling sound as it spits out a scorched corner. I can’t let it go. I pull my
arm back, cradling the paper to my chest. The fire starts to spread, catching
on surrounding pieces. I take the letter in my hand and unfold it, again. My
eyes trace the worn-out words.
Letter #1
Dear Cameron,
You know how it feels when you look up at the stars? When those
magical orbs of light peer down from the sky and suddenly, you feel
peace. Like you had been lost your whole life, a navigator without
a compass. Until you finally look around and realize that you’re not
alone. The stars, they bring comfort. Well, that’s kinda how I felt
when I met you. I think that’s how you felt when you met me too, at
least I hope so. We’ve only known each other for a couple months, but
there’s this feeling. I’m not quite sure what you’d call it. Happiness?
Joy?
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Well, anyway, today we built a fort. A fort larger than—
SNAP! A few feet away from me, a burst of fire erupts from a pile of
papers as it explodes into flames. The fire reaches out, clawing its way towards
me. I take another step back from the edge of the inferno. It radiates
a fierce heat causing droplets of sweat to form on the back of my neck. I
scan the rest of the letter with a newfound sense of urgency.
—anyone ever made before. (Well, maybe not that big, but to us it
was the biggest.) We built our fortress with kitchen chairs and pillows,
your old sheets, and your mom’s new comforter. And then we
played and played and played some more. We played until the sun
retreated wearily to its bed and the moon came out to say hello. We
played as knights fighting the greedy dragon, as wizards going on a
great quest, as generals leading our armies into battle. We were heroes
in our own special world. I never want to forget the joy on your
face as we played. Or the way your bright blue eyes brimmed with
curiosity as you thought of a new game. I never want to forget how
you were invincible. I hope you don’t forget it, either. That’s why I’m
writing these letters, so we can look back on the old times together, so
we’ll never forget—
Forget.
The word haunts me like a bad dream. How was I so naive?! I clench my
fist, further wrinkling the piece of paper. Warmth rises from my core and
spreads throughout my body. The crackling of burning paper mixes with
the echo of my sharp breaths. I look around the room at the destruction
before me. The fire has formed a wall that nears closer and closer. The
burning monster casts broken shadows all around me that contrast the
red and yellows of its flames. Before I realize what I’m doing, before my
heart can catch up with my brain, before the flame dares to step another
inch forward, I rip up the letter until it is nothing but thousands of pieces
of paper. I toss them into the fire and watch as they float lazily into the pit
of death. The tongue of the fire licks up the remains of my letter before it
even touches the floor.
I look down at the fiery wave. Its speed has increased as it races towards
me. I take another step back. Only two feet separates me from the
blazing monster.
My eyes scan the letters that sit at my feet. Sentences glare up at me:
Dear Cameron…
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Today was the best day ever…
A spark flies up, burning a whole in the center of the letter.
We fell down in a fit of laughter…
… never leave you…
My eyes start to burn. I watch as the fire feasts on the papers in front of
me, transforming them into nothing but ash. The words best friend melt
in front of me. The sound of my beating heart fills my ears. Memories of us
flood my brain. I take another step back, crashing into a small bookshelf
filled with accounting books. I get up in time to see a hint of movement
through the flames. I focus hard and manage to get a glimpse of you sitting
at a small oak desk. There’s only one thing left to do.
I turn around and begin to root through the bookshelf, frantically ripping
the books off the shelf, sending them flying into the fire behind me.
In less than a second, the books join the letters in their dreaded demise. I
pick up a book and tear through the pages until I find a blank one. I rip
it out and search the floor for something to write with. Spotting a pen
amongst a pile of burning literature, I grab it and shove the bookshelf
in the way of the fire, hoping it will buy me some time. It topples to the
ground with a loud crash. I take the pen and paper in my hand, and, with
a breath, I begin to write.
Letter #7,459
Dear Cameron,
I remember the day we went to the zoo, and you fed the elephants.
And that time when we went to the science center. You were
so amazed by all of the stars and planets. I remember how we went
home and built a cardboard spaceship. You told anyone who would
ask that when you grew up you would be the first person on Mars. I
remember the days you would spend coloring, drawing comics that
you would then proudly show your mom. And days spent at the park
and the pool. In the snow and the woods. I remember every joyous
second I was with you, all the fun we had together.
Smoke blurs my vision as tears start to gather in my eyes. Tendrils of
smoke stroke my face as the flames lay their hands on my back. I don’t
dare look up.
But you seem to have forgotten. Why did you forget? Why do we
no longer build blanket forts in the living room? Why are your eyes
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now a dim, dull blue? Why do you spend your life filing papers instead
of exploring space? Why do you no longer talk to me?
Why are we no longer friends?
A spark jumps from the ground, searing a hole in the worn paper. More
and more sparks fly, determined to eat away my last words to you.
I have written seven thousand four hundred and fifty-nine letters
to you, each one a memory of a time we spent together. They are now
ablaze, fuel for my signal flare. This is my last letter to you, for I fear
there aren’t any more times for me to write about. Unless you notice
me. Unless you answer my fire. But until then, I will remember.
I look up, searching for you through the fire. I am just barely able to
make out your figure. You sit at a desk, carelessly flipping through stacks
of paperwork, oblivious to the chaos surrounding you. As I’m about to put
down my pen, you turn your head towards me, and for a second, I think
our eyes meet. You blink as I press down my pen to the paper and in big
swooping letters sign:
Sincerely,
Your Childhood Imaginary Friend
78 Short Prose

Avery Slagle
Grade 10
Penn Hills Senior High School
Met the Desert,
Felt the Heat
Tom’s eyes peeled open. Light flooded his vision, smeared and blurry at the
edges with stabbing brightness. His head thumped and his body felt like
rocks in a wet burlap sack. He blinked hard a few times, clearing away the
aching fog and focusing on whatever picture the light covered.
To his surprise, it was a bedroom. Decent sized with aged yellow walls
and a floral-patterned strip lining the middle of each one. Dark wood furniture,
no doubt heavy and well-loved, filled most of the space. In front of
the bed Tom lay on, there was a large horizontal dresser, complimented by
a vase of flowers and various books and trinkets crowding its surface. On
the wall to his right, a vanity and bench of the same color as the dresser,
with what looked to be a rosary hanging off the mirror’s edge. Tom looked a
little harder, though it hurt his head, and spotted his wallet on the vanity’s
corner. His jacket was plopped beside the fixture, lying limp in a pile looking
as if it had deflated. His shirt was gone too, somewhere far from where
he could see it. A cold realization swept over him in a wave. He had never
been in this room before in his entire life.
Tom began to panic a bit, sweat forming on his brow. He went to stand,
but he felt something holding him to the bed. Looking at his right hand, or
more at his wrist, he found there to be a pair of handcuffs chaining him to
the bed. He looked at his other wrist and found the same thing. It was just
then he saw the two of them.
To his left was a man who looked a little younger than himself and a
teenage boy. The man was propped in an old green chair, body sunk into
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the aged velvet cushions. He was dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of sweats
that were rolled up at the waist. Tom looked at him with more focus. The
man’s breathing was even and steady in its pattern and his eyes were closed
softly; he was asleep. Looking at the teen, he came to the same conclusion,
though the boy’s position looked uncomfortable. He was propped up
against a different dresser, this time short and vertical on the left, with his
neck bent odd and his legs sprawled in a V-shape. The kid was wearing a
tank top and blue pajama bottoms, which looked like hand-me-downs from
someone two sizes larger. Both seemed to be dead to the world. The part
that tripped Tom up was the hunting rifle nestled in between the man’s legs.
The barrel was long, and the stock was made from stained wood that was
nicked and worn at the butt. The bolt and its handle were scraped, probably
ragged from years of buck and rabbit hunting. It was not so delicately
propped up against the man’s left thigh, kept from sliding by his right foot.
Tom breathed a little faster upon seeing the piece. He hadn’t had the
fondest memories of men with guns. The metal bat that the teen was cuddling
also clocked in his mind, though it seemed a lesser threat. In all, they
weren’t so great at keeping guard. Tom blew a puff of air out of his nose in
amusement. He focused back on the cuffs; cool shiny metal gripped lightly
around his wrists. The chain looked small though, Tom thought he might be
able to break the dainty looking metal line. He tried flipping his hand every
way imaginable before he decided just to yank until something happened.
Tom watched though, keeping an eye on the man with the rifle; he was still
asleep, just shifted a little in his seat. Tom let go of the breath he didn’t even
know he was holding and started to pull, light at first, but getting rougher
the more the chain refused to budge. He could see that he was leaving
divots and scratches in the slat of the headboard with every tug. It made a
unique little sound, a cross between knocking on a door and the jangling
of keys. Tom wrinkled his brow and huffed in frustration. He stilled the
second he heard a breath break pattern.
Looking over, he saw the teen had scooted himself more upright on the
dresser he was leaned against. The rifle hadn’t moved from its perch on
the man’s leg. Tom closed his eyes and breathed deep, then opened them
and started pulling hard again on the handcuffs. He switched his focus for
a moment, only to look and pull at his right hand, but it too didn’t budge.
When Tom went to turn his head back, that’s when he felt it.
Well, he heard the soft clicking as the man picked it up, then he felt it. It
was cold and pressed lightly into the base of Tom’s skull.
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“Shit,” he whispered. He was a statue, rigid and hard despite the ache in
his muscles. The man spoke for the first time since Tom had woken up in
this little room.
“Turn around. Slow.” The man still had gravel in his voice as he ordered
Tom, as though he wasn’t fully awake yet. Tom did what the guy said and
turned. Who was he to deny the demands of a gun’s cool muzzle? Tom was
met with hard blue eyes glaring down the rifle’s barrel, which was now a
few inches away from the space between his eyes. Strands of hair flopped
into the man’s face and brushed against his cheeks. Tom couldn’t quite pin
down what color it was, but it looked darker than a dirty blonde.
“Raph? Raph, wake up.” Tom hadn’t even taken into account the fact that
the boy still hadn’t woken up yet despite the clamor. “Raph, get the fuck up.”
The man glanced at the kid and kicked one of his gangly legs. The boy woke
with a start and immediately made eye contact with Tom. His eyes widened
and his face turned sheet white, mouth gaping open and closed like a fish.
The teen, Raph, fumbled a bit but gripped the baseball bat he previously
had been using as a teddy bear.
“Go get Ma.” The man spoke again, never breaking eye contact with Tom
as he stared down the gun’s barrel. Raph stood up quickly with his bat,
anxiously watching Tom as he backed towards the exit, like if he stopped
looking, Tom might grow into the boogeyman and eat him. He watched as
the kid reached behind himself and turned the doorknob with one hand,
though with slight difficulty, and left the room. So here he was: beaten up,
handcuffed to a bed in a way he didn’t like, tired, hungry, and with a dirty
old hunting rifle leveled at his face. He wasn’t going anywhere, so he figured
he may as well just keep looking at what he could.
Tom gazed at the man, who only had to be a year or two younger than
he was. The guy was built stocky with sturdy shoulders, like any farm boy
would be. His eyes were burning holes in Tom’s head, but they were a nice
shade of cornflower. Their shine was darkened by thick brows crunched
into a scowl. Tom bet if he didn’t look so angry, they actually would be
quite beautiful. The glow of the lamp, which was now dimmed in contrast
to how it blinded Tom earlier, glinted on the cerulean shadows of
the man’s iris. His hair was still hard to grasp. It was longer and brushed
against the man’s cheekbones and neck, like a greaser’s hair except without
any product. The color was indecipherable. Was it blond? Brown? Tom
couldn’t tell. The closest color he could think of was flood water, murky
and brown with gold streaks flashing in the light. Tom was snapped from
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his frustrating task of matching a color by the sound of floorboards creaking
and a flood of voices.
It sounded like two women, one younger than the other, but both pestering
the voice whom Tom could only assume was Raph. Just as Tom was
starting to focus on what they were saying, the door busted open. In the
doorway stood a frazzled looking woman in her nightdress and carrying a
bag by her side. Behind the older-looking woman stood another young lady,
perhaps just settling into her twenties, who was carrying a plate and glass
of water, and bringing up the rear was Raph. Tom’s belly ached a little as he
smelled the ham and cheese sandwich from where he was on the bed. His
stomach gave a loud gurgle as all three furthered into the room, the older
coming to sit by the bed, the younger moving to set the food on the vanity,
and Raph standing in the spot where he had previously been sleeping.
The man was still aiming at Tom’s head, but his stare now flitted between
the woman sitting with her bag on the bed’s edge and Tom. With a
hard sigh, the woman on the bed stuck out her hand and pushed the rifle’s
barrel towards the ground.
“Put that thing down. He’s in no shape to hurt us.”
The man looked at her like she’d grown three heads, but he was met
with a look of demand. The man side-eyed Tom as the lowered the rifle
and put it back in its previous position of lounging on his leg. The older
woman shook her head, set her large bag down on the floor, and sharply
turned towards Tom, smiling widely. “Hello dear, I am Mrs. Jeanine.” She
quickly pointed to herself, then jutted her arm out towards the man in the
chair who was lightly scowling. “That right there is my son, John.” She gave
him another disapproving look when upon seeing the frown on his face, he
quickly returned to a hopefully neutral expression. Still the lady, Jeanine,
continued introducing those in the room.
“He,” she said, aiming her arm now at Raph, “is my other son, though
I don’t know where he got those legs from.” Jeanine laughed lightly at
her teasing, making Tom crack a swift smile. “And that,” finally, Jeanine
pointed at the young woman standing awkwardly beside the vanity, “is
my beautiful daughter Naomi.” The woman, now known as Naomi, gave
a weak wave as she tried to find a comfortable angle to lean on the large
dresser. She had short black hair cut into a bob and a petite figure like a
coke bottle, which was well-suited to the fuzzy pink robe she had on. Tom
wondered what the fur on her collar felt like as he returned the wave with
a janky two-finger salute.
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He turned his attention back to Jeanine, “Ma’am, may I ask where I am,
or why I’m handcuffed to the bed?”
“Well,” she started, “you’re in my guest bedroom in a town I don’t think
you’d know by name, and as for my husband’s old cuffs, that was his idea.”
She gave an accusing point to the man now known as John. He tilted his
head and huffed as he gave the pair a weary look.
“It was in case he woke up and tried to hurt us,” he grumbled.
A sharp pain stabbed Tom’s chest as he gave a little laugh. “Try to hurt
you in case I woke up? When I woke up you two were borderline lifeless.”
John’s jaw twitched as Naomi tried to pass a chuckle for a cough.
“And I think he,” Tom said pointing to Raph, “might’ve even been drooling a
bit.” Raph crumpled in on himself as he blushed, hurriedly wiping around
his mouth to check if the statement was true. John lurched forward. His
hands staring to outstretch into a position as if to strangle Tom, or maybe
break his neck, but Jeanine caught him in the middle of the chest and
pushed him back into the chair.
“What?” John huffed, eyes hard. It seemed like anger was the only emotion
this guy knew.
“What? What do you mean ‘what?’ This man already looks like he’s been
chewed up, spat out, and ran over, and you try to kill him? Boy, he’s barely
been awake twenty minutes and you’re already running him out of this
house and making sure the door hits him on the way out!” At his mother’s
words, John slunk into his seat and kept his gaze down with the expression
of a hurt puppy. Tom smiled a little bit, maybe a bit too widely because
Jeanine’s chiding turned to him.
“What’re you smiling about? You’re not any better for talking down on
my boys that way, especially the state you’re in right now. I was the one who
took you in when you came to my doorstep, no, fell onto it, so I expect some
respect out of you, which I have seen truly little of so far.”
It was Tom’s turn to bow his head and feel like a child again while John
cracked a tiny smirk. “Sorry, ma’am. It won’t happen again.” Jeanine sighed
and put her hands in her lap.
“It’s alright. I did come to tell you about how well your body is holding
up right now.” Tom picked his head back up and met her eyes, filled with a
mild concern and a gentle air of calm. “You look awful, probably feel like it
too, but you’ll live. And I am deeply sorry, but I did have to cut away your
shirt to stitch up the gashes on your chest and back.” She put a hand on
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Tom’s knee and looked over his chest with pity, a hesitant smile gracing her
face. “There’s severe bruising all over your chest, face, and just about everywhere
I could see. You somehow managed to bruise three ribs, split your
knuckles wide open and yet not break anything; something that honestly
astonishes me,” she laughed, making Tom smile softly.
“I try,” he remarked. Jeanine chuckled at the poor attempt at a joke. The
grinning warmth lessened in her face as she scooted closer to Tom and prepared
to speak. He leaned toward her to meet in the middle.
“I don’t know what happened,” her tone dropped to a concerned murmur
once she was in his space, “but I hope whatever it is, I want my family to be
kept out of it.” Tom leaned back and stoned his face to give her a firm nod.
Jeanine returned the gesture, leaving the other three in the room to look
around at each other for answers but ultimately came up empty. “Oh and,
I’m sorry, but there is a large cut on your face. I’d say I can grab a mirror
for you, but it’s probably best to wait until it isn’t so fresh.”
A cold-hot feeling swished in Tom’s chest. He could feel goosebumps
blooming across his skin, but a burning bit the inside of his chest. And
though his ego wasn’t that large, they had messed with his face, an unforgivable
crime. He nudged his head as close as he could to his chained hand
and gently touched around his face. His fingers brushed near his nose and
a shot of white flashed in his vision. The pain felt like lightning bolts firing
into his eyes, stabbing, and pricking their way into the sockets. A thick line
presented itself under his touch. This wound would scar and scare everyone
off even further. This cut, painful and inconvenient, would become the
headliner to the plethora of others. Tom faced his head forwards once more.
He couldn’t be bothered to find the second cut she mentioned, though he
thought it might’ve been down through his left eyebrow. He could feel its
dull ache if he focused on it. A hollow look filled his face as his eyes began
to focus solely on the far wall’s floral pattern.
The others in the room hesitated, fervently looking at one another for
something to say. John shifted to lean forward and say something, but
Naomi waved him off it. Raph posed a questioning look at her, but her
expression read of unsteady reassurance. Quietly, she grabbed the tray of
food that had long since been forgotten and began to move towards the
right side of the bed. Her weight dipped in the mattress as she set the tray
on Tom’s lap.
“We need you to eat. Do you think you can do that for us?” Naomi’s tone
was soft, coaxing Tom back to the surface and out of the fog. She placed a
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hand on his knee and squeezed gently. He jumped a little at the touch and
let his eyes refocus on her face.
She was beautiful up close. Blue eyes glittered in the dimness of being
backlit, thick lashes framing them perfectly. A halo of warm lamp light
grazed over pitch black hair, contrasting wonderfully against her flushed
skin. Full lips with a deep Cupid’s bow pulled into an easy smile and straight
teeth filled the expression. Dark fibers bounced as she flicked her head to
the food, prompting Tom to analyze the dish in front of him.
It felt like the air had stilled as Tom nodded for Naomi. Jeanine looked
at her eldest son and nudged his foot with her own. Tom couldn’t quite see
what she had mouthed to him, but he furrowed his brow in disagreement
and stood, trudging out of the room and disappearing from the doorway.
And as if a spell had been lifted with John’s departure, Raph sprang forward,
flopping ungraciously into the green chair. He got as close as he
possibly could and leaned even closer as if to interrogate Tom.
“Are you, like, a hitman?” Raph asked. Tom looked at him and saw the
genuine curiosity in the kid’s eyes. Like if he didn’t answer, the fate of the
world would be completely doomed. Tom began laughing despite the aching
of his chest. Raph chuckled anxiously and wondered quickly if Tom was
just a killer that was tricking them. The thought made him grip the handle
of his favorite bat tighter. Naomi started to laugh with Tom. “Is this a joke?”
Raph asked. “Are you guys okay?” Jeanine giggled slightly and placed a
hand over her mouth. Raph’s ears were starting to go red, and his neck
felt hot. He mentally urged his brother to come back in so that he may be
spared this embarrassment.
“N—no, kid. I’m not a hitman,” Tom said. The laughing fit ceased as they
all took a breather, smiles still present. A weight lifted off Raph and his
clamped hand loosened on the bat’s handle. The electric crack of pain over
Toms face had diluted itself down into a prickly ache as he smiled wide at
Raph. The air of humor started again as a large hand planted onto Raph’s
face and pushed him back into the chair. His head snapped back a little as
a large ‘whoosh’ huffed out of the cushions, suddenly pressured by the full
weight of Raph’s torso. The hand came from a familiar source who, without
anyone hearing him come in, got irritated that his brother took his seat
and the fact he was making jokes with some random guy that passed out
in their doorway.
Tom, chuckling at the way Raph attempted to sit up again but John just
stiff armed him back into the vermillion seat with almost no effort, noticed
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how big John really was. The guy was short and muscular, as Tom had
presumed, but he was wide with a proud chest and shoulders. He had this
air of threat around him, like a bubble that sent chills everywhere. This
bubble seemed to affect no one else but Tom, like it was a normal state
for John’s shoulders to be rigid and his eyes cold to the point of blistering
whoever looked into them. The thin-lipped scowl looked to be a permanent
expression from what Tom gathered. This deep frown never moved despite
the round of chuckles that passed around the room at the brother’s antics.
John was in his own little world as he fished the small silver keys from
his hand and went to unlock the cuffs, which had started to become itchy.
He was eye-level with John’s collarbone as he unlocked his left wrist. Then
he went to unlock the right one. He had to lean over Tom and, thus, Tom entered
the bubble that had scared him so much. To his surprise, Tom found
this force field smelled like fabric softener and radiated a gentle warmth
that only a body could produce. Something like sweat hid under the layer of
detergent and woody-scented deodorant that permeated this aura that hovered
above Tom. While his vision was covered by a white-shirted sternum
that was dangerously close to his face, Tom could hear Jeanine shooing the
other two out of the room.
“But Ma! I still have to ask him stuff!” The exasperation in Raph’s voice
was enough to make John crack a tiny, minuscule grin. Tom thought it looked
better on him than the frown. It brightened his eyes too, made them more
vibrant, but only for a moment before dark brows pulled down once more.
“I don’t care. Just ask in the morning!” Jeanine was quite literally shoving
him out of the room whilst Naomi just waltzed out. A grunt came from
John. Tom figured by the way his wrist was being jostled, the former was
having trouble undoing the other set of cuffs.
“It is the morning though! At least,” Raph was quite insistent, his tone
pleading and pressuring, “if you think about it!”
Then, like a choir of annoyed angels blowing their heavenly trumpets,
the others responded in unison, “Shut up, Raph!”
The scold was enough to make Raph retreat into the hallway and disappear
along with his sister. A sigh came from Jeanine as John finally moved
from Tom’s field of vision, revealing the woman leaning against the door
frame, chunky medical bag in hand. She and John looked at each other before
the latter flopped firmly back into the chair where he once slept. Tom
sat himself up, though with difficulty and severe pain, and began to eat the
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small sandwich on the tray in front of him. Jeanine made a weird cough
sound, drawing the men’s attention.
“Eat, then rest up, please,” she spoke. “John will be in here if you need
anything, mostly because he’s stubborn and paranoid, but also because I
don’t think you’d make it ten steps on your own.” Her voice was earnest,
putting Tom at ease despite the lingering glare that burned Tom. He gave a
firm nod and began eating again. With that, Jeanine nodded at her son and
left to scrape together whatever sleep she could find.
Tom paused his chewing for a moment and started, “I didn’t m—”
“Just eat.” John’s words were rough, gritted out and mean.
Tom made his words firmer as he swallowed his final bite, “I didn’t mean
to come here. Just know that please before you judge me.”
John just scoffed, like Tom had just said something blasphemous.
“I just want to protect my family,” he said stubbornly. “Now, sleep.”
A realization occurred to Tom as he grumbled and handed the tray to
John. He was still stiff, shoulders reminding Tom of the rocks he saw once
in Arizona. The image fit well on the man. John was arid, like the desert he
had visited. The boiling, choking aura that radiated off the ground in that
wasteland was the same as the anger he saw around John.
Memories of dry, hot air filled with dust clogged Tom’s mind as he shimmied
back down to sleep, feeling John’s stare on him.
John was the desert.
Tom had long hated sand.
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88 Short Prose

Sarah Gallogly
Grade 11
City Charter High School
Fireworks
For most people, the dark thoughts come at night. Not me. Mine come in
the morning.
There’s something more haunting about tragedies that happen in the
daytime. The birds chirping, the dew fresh on the grass, the children grinning
as they bound up the steps of the school bus, eager, basking in the
glory of a new day. Yet, all that possibility, hope, joy, can all be obliterated
in less than a minute. Hell, a whole life can be ruined in less than a minute.
Mine was.
I haven’t been back to school in so long. My mom wants me to. Of
course, she doesn’t speak it, but she doesn’t need to for me to know she’s
worried about me.
I can’t just decide to go back, for it will never be that easy again. Every
choice I make is shrouded with fear and doubt, paralyzing me with the
memory; being crouched under my teacher’s desk, a hand over my mouth
to silence my ragged breaths. The loud pops and shrieks, the sound of a
body hitting the floor. At that moment, that’s all he became. Nothing more
than a body. His soul, gone. His eyes, blank. His voice, his laugh, never to
be heard again.
It’s not as if I haven’t tried to move past it. I’ve tried, over and over again,
to erase the images from my mind. But this prison is unyielding, impenetrable.
I might feel this way forever. I might be trapped in an endless cycle
of panic attacks every time I hear someone drop a book or slam a door.
The summers are especially bad. He used to love watching the fireworks,
bright and bold and celebratory. The grin that graced his face was like
nothing you’d ever seen. Not even on Christmas, or his birthday, did he ever
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look as happy as he did on the Fourth of July. He wasn’t especially patriotic—his
love of Independence Day was not at all based on the origin of the
holiday. He just liked to sit on the back deck at the end of the day, watching
the bursts of color through the trees and listening to the thundering coming
from miles away. Mom would bring us popsicles, and we’d sit in our
little rocking chairs way past bedtime. It was as if there was nothing more
important or more exciting in the world than sitting there on the deck in
the insufferable July heat, just me, mom, and Jamie.
Now the fireworks just send me back into that classroom, reminding me
of the person the world lost.
Now, all I can hear on the Fourth of July is gunshots.
90 Short Prose

Ben Winslow
Grade 11
Winchester Thurston School
once a mother
I can still remember her face. How could I ever forget it? Olive skin that
was dotted with freckles and green eyes that never seemed to leave you.
Full lips, cracked from the blistering sun that swayed across the water, and
thick hair, matted from her never brushing it. She was so beautiful.
Her father never sang to her. He would hum as he moved around the
house, hand shuffling through papers and leafing through books. He would
run his fingers through the dust on the tables that I had not cleaned in
weeks, and he would never sing to her. She would beg for it as she lay in
bed at night. He knew that it was the only thing that would get her to fall
asleep. He never did it and instead, she would stay awake all night crying
and screaming. He would sleep through it all, but I had to listen all night.
She was insufferable.
When I was pregnant with her, I could feel her moving around within
my stomach. She would stick her feet into the walls of my uterus and push
until I could see an outline of her foot against me. He would lean down and
kiss her feet when she stuck them out. I would laugh and never complain
even though she hurt me. I couldn’t wait to meet her. I couldn’t wait to hold
her. I couldn’t wait to run warm water over her hair as she sat in the sink
and smiled at me. The waiting was the hardest part. She was all I wanted.
When she was born, he smiled down at me. He kissed my forehead and
wiped away the beads of sweat that ran from my brow. He pushed my hair
back and laughed as we watched our daughter be pulled from inside me.
She cried and cried and cried and cried. The nurses wiped the fluid from her
face, which was red and mournful, and handed her to me. She laid down on
my breast, and I could feel her breath on my skin. She was a part of me in
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every sense of who I was. I had been nothing without her. She was all of me.
When we brought her home, I did not know if I would be able to make
it. A life was in my hands now, and I was in no way qualified to handle it. It
felt like I was walking around holding a vase made of the most expensive
glass in the world and every second I held it I felt more and more unsure of
myself. She would cry and I would rock her and move her, and if I stopped,
she would cry again. She was always crying.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” I don’t know what I am doing.
My mother set a fire in the kitchen. She was trying to help me. She
would rock her while I tried to write, and she cooked whenever I slept
upstairs, too exhausted to make a dinner. My mother started the fire while
making pasta. My baby was sitting in a rocker near the fire. I scream at my
mother, who was only trying to help. My mother wanted to save me. She
only wanted me.
My eyes were so heavy from everything. I felt unable to move or leave
my bed or look my husband in the eye or wash my face or wash my clothes
or bathe my daughter. All I had wanted before was to hold her and watch
her as she smiled at me. I could not even see her now. Tears would form in
the bottom of my eyes and fall from my face as I watched my husband rock
her and read to her. She was always crying over him.
I can’t get up. I can’t move,” I would say to him. Why can’t I move?
She loved crawling. She was always moving, and I could never get her
to stay in one place. I would look away from her for one second, and she
would end up in another room. I couldn’t do any work. Was I the only
mother who couldn’t do this? Why can’t I just love raising her? Why is it
so hard? She was making me want to leave. She made me want to pack my
bag and run away from this house and this life and this child. She was also
the only thing that made me stay. She was pushing me away, but whenever
I got too far her small hands would hold onto my shirt and pull me back.
She was my life.
When was the crying going to stop? That was all I wanted to know. If
she stopped crying, then I could sleep. And if I could sleep, then I would
be able to laugh. And if I could laugh, then I would be able to be happy. I
would be able to live. I was living so much though. No one could ever understand.
That was how I felt. It was the highest I had ever been in my life,
but my highest high felt the same as my lowest low. How could that be?
How could I be so selfish?
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1. Eat well
2. Exercise
3. Set realistic expectations
4. Make time for yourself
This was what the books said to do. This was how to fix the way I was.
This was how to feel good again. How could I eat well? Or exercise? I had
no time for that. I had to cook, clean, wash her clothes, wash my clothes,
wash, and do all of it while keeping an eye on her. Where was my husband
in all of this? Not helping like I needed him to. I was being realistic about
my situation. I was being completely truthful. I had no time for myself. She
was too much. She was all of my time.
I think I am a bad mother. The way I felt about raising her, I think that
it made me a bad person. Her voice was forming now. The cries had turned
into words. Her first word was Dad. Not Mama. Not me, who did everything
for her. Not me, who had not slept well for over a year. Not me, who loved
her more than anything in the world. She was cruel.
Do you think I was a bad mother? I do.
She loved the ocean. The way that the waves washed against the shore
and tickled her feet. She would roll in the sand and grab fists of rocks in her
small hands. Bubbles foamed all around her. She was so simple. She was so
pretty in the sun. Her skin never looked more olive. Her eyes never looked
greener. She looked so much like me. She was me.
My husband took his eyes off of her for no more than two minutes, but
that was enough for her. She walked into the ocean and was swept away.
That is what the police said anyway. My husband, who never did anything
for her, killed my sweet baby. He killed her. But I was the one who grieved
and mourned and died with her. She was gone.
I never wanted to be a mother. When I got pregnant, I was young. I was
still immature and stupid. I had never wanted her. Does that make me a
bad person? I gave away my life for her. I gave up my career, my schooling,
and everything else that I had wanted, all so that I could have her. I loved
her more than anyone could ever understand, but I had never wanted her,
and now she was dead, and I was free. I could live again.
I could breathe.
She was dead. Elena was dead.
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94 Short Prose

Ben Winslow
Grade 11
Winchester Thurston School
The Director
“Something about this isn’t right! Move! No, not you. You! Stand in the
corner, your awful red hair is messing with the camera,” he shouted into
the room.
The disgruntled group of people around him shuffled themselves until
they felt they were in the right spot. He watched from his chair as they
struggled to please him. Truth be told, he was planning on scrapping this
scene anyway.
The Director’s career had taken a plummet after his first movie was
panned by critics, and this film was heading for the same path. The lighting
was awful, the set looked lusterless, and the red-haired actor in the background
had been aggravating his creative eye for the entire five-hour shoot.
“Quiet down everyone, cameras ready? Action!” and the scene was moving.
“I’m trying really hard to feel you, but I just don’t understand.”
“You cheated on me!”
“We kissed once. It’s barely cheating. We weren’t even dating yet. We’d
only been texting!”
“You hurt me? Can’t you see I’m in pain?” The actress delivered her line
with the sort of energy you would find on the stage of a middle school performance
of Hairspray.
“I just don’t see what I did wrong. I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to work!”
“You’re breaking up with me? After everything we’ve been through? Even
after I made myself vomit and pretend to have the stomach bug so we
didn’t have to go to your nephew’s baptism?”
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“I just can’t do this any—”
“Cut!” the Director shouted at the actors. “Have you ever even seen a
movie? How about a TV show? For god’s sake, David Schwimmer could act
circles around all of you right now! Put a little heart into it, feel the script,
feel the movement, you all look like goddamn corpses,” the Director spat.
“It’s the writing, it’s surface level. We need the indie stuff that they are
doing over at A24.” The actor who had the courage to speak up felt the
room fall frozen around him. The Director jumped from his chair and slowly
stepped towards the one who had spoken.
“Indie stuff?” the Director inquired. “Last time I checked the indie stuff
wasn’t winning Oscars and Emmys. Actors are supposed to deliver their
lines, stand where they are told, and keep their mouths shut unless spoken
to! I will have you know my writing won a daytime Emmy award in 1992
for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series. Well, my boss won the award,
but I worked with him, so I practically won.”
He settled himself in the director’s chair, with a confident smirk across
his face. “Let’s do it again and can someone please get rid of the extra in
the back with the red hair!”
“Quiet on set, cameras ready? Action!”
The actors began.
“I’m trying really hard to feel you, but I don’t understand.”
“You cheated on me!”
“We kissed one time. That is barely—” the smart-mouthed actor stopped.
His face went a deep shade of purple as though he was going to lose the
contents of his lunch. “I, um, I forgot my line,” he finally managed to utter
through lips that had turned blue from being squeezed so tight.
“You forgot it? It’s alright I understand, it happens to the best of us.”
“Thank you, sir. I promise it won’t happ—”
“You’re fired,” the Director interrupted him.
“What?”
“You are fired! I want you off of my set, now preferably.”
“But I have a contract. You can’t do this!”
“I don’t care, leave now, or I will have you removed by security,” the
Director pressed. He leaned forward in his seat to relish the sight of the ac-
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tor’s quivering fingers. “My assistant will show you where the door is.” The
actor stomped from the stage and followed the woman with a clipboard
who had grabbed his arm to lead him out.
“This is a low-rate movie studio in Orlando. We don’t even have security,”
the actor shouted before being ripped away by the assistant.
“Alright everyone, now that we got that unpleasantness out of the way, I
think we are ready to start again,” the Director sighed.
“We don’t have anyone to replace him. How are we going to do the scene?”
the producer whispered in the Director’s ear. The Director sat in silence for
a few minutes, twiddling his thumbs as he sank into the chair, the actors
milled about on the set before him.
“I’ve got it!” he announced with a pleasant tone. “I will replace him and
play his part. After all, I acted in a few episodes of General Hospital back in
the day. The director of the show said I had some real talent.” He didn’t tell
the actors that he hadn’t booked an acting job since.
The people before the Director averted their gaze to either the floor or
the ceiling. “Does anyone have any problems?” the Director asked the room.
Silence greeted his inquiry. “No, well then let’s get started. We’ve all been
here long enough.”
He situated himself next to the starring actress. She nervously looked
him up and down before taking a deep breath.
“Everyone ready?” a faceless person asked from behind the lights.
“Yep!” the Director shouted without even looking around to check
for protest.
“Cameras ready? Action!” the voice shouted back.
“I’m trying really hard to see where you’re com—” As the Director-turned-actor
delivered his first line, suddenly the world melted away. His
breath caught as the set around him swirled into a mirage of pastel greens,
yellows, and oranges. Abruptly the world stopped spinning and a bright
light appeared in front of him. He heard the roar of laughter greeting him
and realized he was on a stage. Not just any stage, but a massive one, with
an enormous audience seated before him. The line popped into his head:
“You know Jim, if you keep treating your son like a dog he might turn
into one!” The audience roared with laughter, and he felt the heat of pride
fill his cheeks.
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Suddenly, there was a man next to him who squawked back:
“Might do him some good, he already acts like one.”
“That’s no way to talk about our son,” a small woman from the far side
of the stage contributed.
“I’m sorry honey, you know us guys. Once you get us going you never
know what’s going to come out of our mouths,” the actor next to him replied.
“Would you join us for dinner?” The woman across the stage asked.
“I think I will.” Suddenly the world swirled away again, and the Director
stumbled blindly. In the madness, he found a door handle and yanked it
open. He fell through the wall and ended up in the packed lobby of a theatre.
“That one guy was really good,” a lady dressed as though she had picked
her outfit with her eyes closed announced.
“He was magnificent, too bad they never said his name,” the woman she
was with responded. The Director knew she was talking about him, and he
reached to introduce himself, but the world swept him away again. When
the world stopped spinning, he found himself seated in the audience in
front of a large stage. Next to him, was the actor who played Jim in the
play that had happened just moments before. He wanted to ask what was
happening to him, but he never got the chance.
“And the Tony Award for Lead Actor in a Play goes to… the Director!” All
eyes turned towards him, and he felt his heart fall to his knees. Each face
greeted him with a smile, and they slammed their hands together, mounting
a thunderous applause. He got up from his seat and walked towards
the illuminated stage. His arms, feet, and legs trembled, but he managed
to make it up the steps. The trophy sparkled in the woman’s hands as she
reached to deliver it to him, but the moment ran from him once again. It
was everything he had ever wanted, the praise, the love, and the attention.
Was it a mirage? Was it a hallucination? Was it a sick figment of his imagination?
He didn’t know or truthfully care; it had been a spoonful taste of
his wildest dream. He had craved the light his entire life and imagine his
surprise when he found himself seated behind the camera rather than in
front of it. All he wanted was for people to know his name. He resented
those who followed their dreams, rather than settling for a life behind the
picture frame.
The world spun back into view, and he was once again on the set of his
low-budget Florida movie. The cheap fluorescent lights aggravated his eyes.
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“Are you ok?” the tall actress next to him asked.
“Um, yeah, I think so. Let’s wrap up for the day everyone! Come back
tomorrow prepared to do better because you all sucked today—now get
out of here!”
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100 Short Prose

Daniel Kochupura
Grade 11
Winchester Thurston School
A Shareholder Letter
To our shareholders,
There are two ways to measure your life: the depths of the lows and the
heights of the highs. Three years ago, I was a first-year Goldman associate
with a head full of dreams and twenty-two years of experience doing nothing.
It was a difficult time to be a dreamer, and there were plenty of hardships
to keep me down, but the lessons I learned then helped me get where
I am now. Three years ago, I had an idea—a promising, world-changing
idea. Now, we have this company.
Since our initial public offering one year ago, Plenexia Industries has
seen explosive growth and nonstop media coverage. The reaction has been
beyond our wildest dreams. The public is obsessed with us; competition is
envious of us; most importantly, investors love us. Frankly, I can’t blame
them. Through all the talk of cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens, and special
purpose acquisition companies, there’s a reason Plenexia is the true
darling of Wall Street. We’re the first through the door in this brand-new,
lucrative market of corporations with nuclear capabilities.
Although we have significantly fewer warheads than the nine nuclear-armed
countries, demand for our products has blown past even the
most optimistic expectations. Legally, I cannot disclose our clientele to the
public; however, I invite you to watch for glee on the faces of leaders worldwide
to find pleasant mysteries only we could facilitate. Plenexia is making
people happy, and it just so happens we’re pocketing a tidy amount for
ourselves, too.
Not to break tradition (although we are very much disrupting the rental
and nuclear research industries), but a few individuals who aren’t affiliated
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with the company—authors, lawyers, friends, mentors—asked if I wanted
any help with the construction of this letter. It’s nice to hear from those
people during new and unexpected times when you might need assistance.
I told them I would seek out their help once they, too, could end human
civilization on a whim.
Plenexia does the honest work of renting out nuclear weapons to nations
that couldn’t otherwise obtain them. These leaders can have the nuclear
codes to operational, world-ending armaments for just a daily rate and a
few hidden fees. Our clients have used our services to spice up celebrations,
display their power to neighbors, and gain an advantage during negotiations
with other countries. In addition, we have a “discharge surcharge” of
currently twenty times Plenexia’s market capitalization for the ultimate
use of one of our products. Given the lively characters which make up our
customer base, the likelihood that this fee comes into play in the next five
years is an exciting opportunity for profit.
If you read some reports, you might think I’m an unstable 25-year-old
who, on account of never being elected, should not have access to nuclear
devices. Evidently, some people were unaware of the sensationalist, anti-corporation
bias of Reuters and ProPublica. However, in the interest of transparency,
I’ll tell you the real story of how Plenexia Industries came to be.
It all started at age twenty-two when I woke up in the Siberian snow
after a self-care rager. It was cold. It was really cold. It was so cold I knew
if I didn’t find shelter in the next hour, humanity would lose one of the
greatest minds of this generation. But I would not let my light go dim, for
surrendering to the freeze would rob the world of the immaculate services
my abilities could provide, and I had so much left to do.
After five minutes, I had given up. I was digging my own grave hoping
that, by going missing, people would think I had been bested by a yeti,
when my fingernail broke on what felt like steel. I bravely swallowed the
pain and brushed away the sleet to reveal a word in Russian—“danger.”
To this day, I don’t know what transcendent being intervened to save
my life. However, some cosmic order provided me with a door out of the
cold and into my next chapter. I had stumbled upon an abandoned Soviet
missile silo, nestled in the Eastern mountains and forgotten about by the
rest of the world.
As we would later find out, the outpost was a secret operation unlisted
in the ‘80s to avoid enemy detection. When the Soviet Union fell, most of
the higher-ups who knew about the missiles were upon retirement age, and
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those who carried out the day-to-day had no incentive and no one to tell.
That morning in Siberia, I had recovered information lost to the ages, and
my next three years would go to ensuring that miracle wasn’t wasted.
Once I was safe inside the shelter, I called my father to have a crew
explore the facility while I formulated my next moves. I had already set up
Plenexia Industries when my private college counselor said I’d need a little
something more to get into USC (as evidently, the rowing door was closed
for the near future), so the hard part was already done. Through the help
of my lawyers and a handful of open-minded Supreme Court justices, we
were able to list the Soviet goods as Plenexia property, and a new titan of
industry was born.
Renting out the missiles was remarkably easy. I had amassed an impressive
Rolodex of the powerful’s children from summer camps and boarding
schools, so leveraging those contacts quickly turned into our first job with
the good people of Libya. We gave the administration a unique code to
launch the nukes from our newly-constructed silo, ensured by an unarmed
test rocket launched into the sea, and they held onto that information until
their rental expired, and we changed the codes. Now, if I had to give one
piece of advice to inspiring entrepreneurs, it would be this: never underestimate
the power of word-of-mouth reviews. After our Libya deal, Saudi
Arabia, the Phillipines, and Turkmenistan flooded our lines in hopes
of renting access themselves. Those leaders knew they would never see
the nukes, and they knew that our partnership would only be temporary.
Still, the rush that these world leaders felt, to know they could blow up the
world if they were in that mood, was enough to pay us for rental. Ultimately,
that’s what we sell. We’re not selling access. We’re not selling leverage.
We’re not selling attention. We’re selling a feeling.
On a more somber note, President Berdimuhamedow’s comments regarding
the threatened use of our product against his own country to combat
civil protest were horrifying and disappointing to everyone at Plenexia
Industries. We took it upon ourselves to charge him double for his comments,
in an attempt to discourage corrupt uses of Turkmenistani federal
funds and ensure Plenexia has the resources to avoid such a situation moving
forward. Coming out of the debacle, we have salvaged a bad situation
with an exciting new state-of-the-art artificial intelligence system that can
anticipate public feedback and suppress backlash from the embarrassing
nukes-for-rent deals which might otherwise make us look back. We know
the power of public perception, and the lessons we learned from Turkmen-
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istan ensure that similar situations don’t occur in the future. At least, it
ensures the public won’t know about it.
Some investors brought up concerns that nuclear treaties might be
amended to threaten our business model. I ask them not to worry. Plenexia
has undertaken a three-layered approach to eliminate such a danger that I
am delighted to detail for you.
Our first line of defense is the industry-leading corporate counsel we
have employed to dodge any unfair regulations. Our team has centuries of
combined experience defending companies from federal overreach and has
already devised novel interpretations of existing legislation to keep us clear
of the world’s bureaucrats.
If that fails, we bring in our team of lobbyists. The Plenexia squad on the
Hill and worldwide consists of the powerful’s siblings, friends, and significant
others. Although we do not expect them to become necessary, a few
well-put words at Thanksgiving dinner would quickly solve any problems
that might trouble us, and the loyalty of the powerful’s inner circle has
proven to be power in its own right.
Finally, Plenexia’s nuclear deterrent is an actual nuclear deterrent. The
proposition of strategic product placement, or threatening-to-give-your-enemies-a-nuke,
will end whispers of negativity from any country on Earth.
We are so proud of our relationships with nations around the globe, and
they are as well, as they are well aware of the alternative.
Everything we do aligns with Plenexia’s four integral aspects of identity,
which we call the core four. These are the principles and goals that get us
up in the morning and push us to do better.
1) Creating the industry
We, at our hearts, are innovators. Where there is nothing, we build
something. Plenexia differentiates itself by charging into the unknown
with a determination and delight unmatched in any other firm. Who else
could leverage human survival instincts like we have? Who else could make
headlines and spark protests like we did? Who else could bring world leaders
to the negotiating table like we could? Everything we do, we do differently,
and those deviations are what separates Plenexia from any other
corporation to ever exist.
2) Disrupting the industry
We are the new kids on the block. Even after creating an entirely new
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kind of company for Wall Street to obsess over, we surprised everyone with
a novel corporate structure that empowers the CEO and forms the support
system around executive power. The world never knows what Plenexia Industries
is going to do. Before our rise, one company made something, and
another turned it on its head; we both made the business plan and ruthlessly
reformed it. That rejection of the status quo is what makes this place
Plenexia Industries.
3) Saving the environment
Climate change is real. This might be an uncomfortable fact for some,
but we need to take a long, hard look at how we’re going to address the
hottest years on record and rising sea levels that threaten the Eastern seaboard.
Independent of financial interests, climate change affects all of us.
It will take selfless action from influential figures and their supporters to
ensure that our Earth isn’t scarred by the terrible consequences of human
neglect and greed. We hope someone does something.
4) Making a difference
American industry has improved the standard of living around the
world. Yesterday’s giants like General Electric, International Business Machines,
and Hewlett-Packard not only delivered fantastic returns for their
shareholders but also changed how we experience life. It is my hope that
Plenexia, through healthy doses of diligence and creativity, can reach those
same heights. And we’re beginning to see that occur.
If it wasn’t for us, our clients would be pouring 50% of their tax revenue
into nuclear programs, neglecting schools and infrastructure in favor
of a slim chance at nuclear capability. Many people want to pretend we’re
the great problem of the world, but they should be happy that we’re the
figures against whom they play hero. I’m a good person. We’re doing good
things. If they don’t like us, they can short our shares and watch their war
chest disappear.
Last year, we brought in more than the Red Cross, Doctors Without
Borders, and Unicef combined. The way I see it, the money those governments
saved on their nuclear programs and instead spent on their citizens
is much more impactful than the amount those NGOs raised and spent on
those populaces. That we did so from a boardroom in San Jose just means
we took a different path to make it happen.
Critics have existed forever and will harp forevermore. It took the lows
of my youth to get us here, and now, as our market capitalization skyrock-
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ets, we rise to the highs we earned. Plenexia is the innovator, the disruptor,
the benefactor, and the archetype all in one. Congratulations to the team
for a job well done, and I look forward to continuing our tradition of excellence
through the next fiscal year.
Yours,
Adam Ziegler
Founder and CEO of Plenexia Industries
106 Short Prose

Lucy Potts
Grade 10
Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12
Competition Number 59
There’s a certain type of feeling associated with sitting in those three rows
before you go up to perform. It’s like fire on the horizon, but you turn to
look the other way. Impending doom, yet you dive headfirst. It’s adrenaline.
Pure, rushing, addictive adrenaline. Maybe that’s why I always go up three
competitions before my own. I sit in the middle of the third row of chairs
every time and move up as the next competition starts. At some point, it
becomes a lifestyle. Arriving early just to get anxious, panicking you won’t
lose sight of why you’re there.
I sit silently and pretend the other dancers aren’t next to me. They’re
just names to faces I don’t care to place. Girls with fake curls, colorful tiny
dresses. I never pay attention to any of them. They stand out against the
beige walls and plain colors of whatever venue could be afforded, but I
make them fade. Irish dance isn’t about making friends. Competitions, or
Feises, aren’t about playing nicely. They are about winning.
Sitting in the third row, as always, I practice my dance with my hands.
I’m alone, two empty chairs to my right and seven to my left. Nobody else in
my competition is as dedicated as me. An easy win. I count the beats to the
accordion’s music that repeats itself every eight counts. Switch two three
and right two three. Right, step up go over two three. My dance is like the
lyrics to the song. I lean my head down and continue to tap my dance with
my hands. The chairs and the performers fade. It’s just me and the music. I
close my eyes. Left and left. Right and right. Right step flick again up two—
“Is that a school uniform or… “ I open my eyes. My hands are stopped
mid-dance and the music goes on. I miss my counts. On my thigh is the
corner of a blue sparkly dress. A dress that would belong to a dancer. A
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dancer who’s talking. To me.
“What?” I ask, raising my head to look at the speaker. She’s pretty
small and has a huge curly bun with red curls framing her face. Like
most other dancers, she wears heavy makeup and a bulky headband. It
matches her dress.
“Is it a school uniform or a costume? It doesn’t look as flashy as some
of the other boys’ costumes I’ve seen but I also don’t recognize the school,”
she says.
“It’s a costume. I’m just not a big fan of all the sparkles,” I say hesitantly.
“Okay. Well, you can probably tell that I am,” she says, motioning to her
dress. I get a better look at it. It’s a light shade of blue, completely covered
in sparkles. Tiny blue sparkles on the black velvet swirls, tiny blue sparkles
on the white sleeves, tiny blue sparkles on the cheerleader style skirt. It’s
certainly an unconventional dress with the skirt and the lack of Celtic knot
outlines. “What school do you go to anyway?”
Has this girl never been to a Feis before? You don’t talk to the competition.
Period. Maybe ask to switch seats if you’re sitting next to someone
from your school, but no small talk. I turn away from her, trying to distance
myself from her questions as much as possible
“I go to Bell. What about you?” she asks again.
“Firedance,” I say, without looking up. Instead, I’m counting the music
and repositioning my hands so I can go over my dance. If she’s smart, she’ll
do the same.
“Wow, that’s all the way in California. I guess that would explain why I’ve
never seen you before. What are you doing all the way up here?” she says.
“Just in the area?” I say. Why does she care? I don’t know what to do.
The logical thing is to ignore her but that’s… rude? Is it ruder to ignore the
unwritten rule?
“Wow, you like being early. They aren’t even done dancing yet,” she says,
leaning back into her chair and crossing her arms. She’s probably creasing
her dress.
“You’re here too,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“I thought you knew something I didn’t.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, maybe in this Feis you have to be like an hour early,” she
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says. Like the “Great Lake Feis” in middle of nowhere Ohio would be different
from a Feis anywhere else. Because a convention center that blends in
with everything else makes this Feis so special.
“It’s like you said. I like to be early.”
“Alright. Clearly, you like to be left alone as well.”
“This is a solo dance isn’t it?” I say. She looks over at me and then back
at the dancers.
“Yes, it is,” she says quietly. I instantly feel bad but I’m not sure why. This is
what you do at a Feis. You keep to yourself. It’s what everyone does. Except her.
The dance ends, and the performers leave. The girl and I get up and walk
to the next row. Competition 57 is dancing. We have two dances before our
own. I take a seat in the middle of the row. She sits down next to me, once
again leaning back into her chair. I can’t imagine how it’s comfortable. We
sit on plastic chairs that crack in the cold. I look through the heads of the
dancers in the competition before me at the people performing now. The
frenzied tapping of feet on the duct tape stage seemed deafening before but
now not so much. The echoes of the audience’s conversations ricocheting
off of the tall walls and getting trapped in the ceilings barely seem to make
it. The entire convention center including all three of its makeshift stages
seems to fade. I think back to my first Feis and how I tried to talk to the
kid I sat next to. He was tall, intimidating, but he couldn’t have been more
experienced than me, yet he was much more versed in the rules the dancers
follow. He wouldn’t even look at me when I spoke. He stared at the dancers
and the soft movable walls. Back then dance was about making friends,
having fun, enjoying yourself. I hardly know those concepts anymore. I
look over at the girl. She’s sucking in her lip and glaring at the judges. One
foot taps the stained blue carpet. Sparkles from her dress fall onto my lap.
I barely think before I ask, “Where is Bell anyway?”
She looks at me like I’m a gift she doesn’t want. Hidden disgust and
confusion. “Pennsylvania. Near Pittsburgh,” she says.
“Okay. Is it good?” I ask, not sure if I care about the answer.
“Yeah, it’s good, I guess. A ton of work but I keep placing,” she says, fluctuating
her voice. Any sort of anger she held seems to be gone.
“Is that a threat?” I ask.
“Depends on how good you are. I’m Aislynn by the way.” She extends her
hand. I take it.
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“Oliver.”
“Nice to meet you, Oliver,” Aislynn says. “So, have you been in prizewinner
for a while?” I remember finally placing in novice and being able to
move up to prizewinner. It was years ago when I was fourteen. I had been
there since I was ten. People stay in levels for years. Beginner, advanced beginner,
novice, prizewinner, they keep going on. It’s rarely about how good
you are but how many other people are in your competitions. The smaller
the competition, the fewer amount of people you have to beat. That’s why
it’s nice to come to Feises in the middle of nowhere like this one. They’re no
different from Feises anywhere else, except for the lack of teenagers camping
in corners of hallways and the smaller crowd around the fresh slips of
paper ranking every dancer on the wall farthest from the stages. A familiar
setting I’ve known forever.
“Yeah, for three years,” I say.
“Oh, how old are you?” she asks.
“Seventeen,” I say. Another girl walks up to us then sits a few seats away.
I can’t tell if I blame her or not.
“Oh, so you get the benefit of being born early in the year so you still
qualify for under seventeen and you’re a boy. Jeez, you picked all the right
cards!” Aislynn says, laughing. I don’t laugh.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. She instantly looks uncomfortable.
“Well, this is an April Feis and you’re already seventeen so you have a lot
more experience than some of the other people in the competition. “
“I know that but what does me being a boy have to do with anything?” I
ask.
“Nothing really,” she says, but I’m not convinced. I look at her and she
averts her eyes. I start dancing with my hands again. “What are you doing?”
she asks.
“Practicing.”
“Why?” I look at her.
“You’re funny,” I say.
“Why am I funny?” she asks. I cannot believe this girl. She doesn’t know
the importance of getting here early, when she does get here she doesn’t
practice, and she says stuff like picking the right cards. Who does she think
she is? Why have I never seen her at a Feis before? Why is she like this?
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“What do you mean by picking the right cards?” I ask, growing more and
more annoyed with her.
“Haven’t you ever noticed it? At performances, it doesn’t matter how well
the boy does, he will get the most applause. Boys never stay in one level
for too long,” she says. The next dance ends and the performers leave. We
move up a row and five new dancers in our competition sit down next to us.
Competition 58 is dancing now. We’re up next.
“I’ve been in Prizewinner for three years,” I say.
“And I’ve been here for five,” she says. I can barely hide my surprise. That
means she qualified when she was just eleven. I’ve never heard of anyone
qualifying that young. I thought she might have been new or inexperienced
because she was talking to me, but she’s been in prizewinner since she was
eleven? “Look I’m not saying you’re not good, it’s just that if you weren’t
good, you still would have gotten applause and a higher placing than a girl
who might have done similar or even a bit better than you,” she continues
as if it were obvious. “And if there are five or more boys in a competition,
you get to be in a competition of your own, only competing against four
other people. You’re lucky.”
That’s exactly how I moved up to Prizewinner for my hornpipe. A type
of hard shoe dance, the fast pace makes it difficult to keep your technique.
I would have had very little chance against twenty-six other people, but
there had been five boys including myself in my competition, so we got
to compete just against each other. A couple months later, the same thing
happened in my slip jig, the one I’m about to do now. The boys in the competitions
were fine dancers, but I hadn’t thought about how they wouldn’t
have gotten that high of a placement if there hadn’t been enough boys to
create their own competition. Otherwise, I might not have placed. I watch
the two dancers performing now. A boy and a girl. The boy isn’t bad, but
he misses his heel clicks a few times and doesn’t look at the judges. Instead,
he watches the girl’s feet as if his dance wasn’t different from hers. I look at
the judges, their eyes fixated on him, barely noticing the girl. Three more
dancers sit down in our row.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. She can’t. I would
know if I was placed higher simply because I was a boy. Wouldn’t I?
“I would argue that I do,” she says. “You know what, let’s not talk about
this now. What is your dance like?” I love my slip jig; it’s my favorite category,
but I can’t remember it. All I can remember is how when I was a
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eginner, I forgot my entire dance and made something up on stage. I was
randomly adding little moves and heel kicks and watching the girl I was
dancing with and copying some of the things she did. The dances girls and
boys do are different from each other since boys wear hard shoes in softshoe
dances. Some of the moves she did I could never do because of my
shoes but I did them anyway. I still think back to it and cringe. Yet when
I was done dancing, everyone applauded anyway. The judges clearly were
fooled because when I looked at the results, I had gotten third place. It had
qualified me. For years I applauded myself for being able to come up with
a dance so good on the spot. Now I’m not so sure. If I were to ask Aislynn,
I know what she would say.
“What is yours like?” I ask defensively, but she doesn’t have time to answer.
The competition before us was pretty small so now we’re being ushered
up to the stage.
“Up next is competition number 59!” One of the judges calls. We take our
positions and wait for the music to start. I count every two dancers and realize
that Aislynn and I will be competing against each other. The first two
go up. They count the music and start dancing. There is only one other duo
before us. I look over at Aislynn, her fake smile makes my cheeks hurt. She
stares at the judges. I suddenly get the feeling that she wanted me to feel
like this. This conflict, this anger towards everyone here. The confusion, am
I good or are they just biased? “You were trying to psyche me out, weren’t
you?” I say through gritted teeth.
“Careful,” she says. “You don’t want to lose whatever advantage your
privilege gets you.” The dancers finish, and the next two start. I should be
watching, making sure I know when to go up, but I can’t. All I can think
about are these judges that will only be watching me and the parents who
don’t care about their daughters, just their sons. The ones pointing to me
and trying to get their own kids to dance. My mom was so proud of me
when I started dancing, she tried to get my younger brothers to do the
same. I had a solo in a group dance once. It seemed like the audience had
nearly broken the sound barrier for my dance, but the more advanced girl
after me barely got a few seconds of full applause. Aislynn walks up, getting
ready to start. With some hesitation, I do the same. A boy who graduated
recently from my school ended in the second level of preliminary champion,
while the girl who graduated the same year and who was arguably
better had ended in the first level. Aislynn is so confident with her fake
smile and cheerleader dress. She points her toes and stands upon them.
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A beat later she starts dancing. I watch her switch her legs and leap over
them, sidestep, turn, but I’m unable to do the same. I wonder what those
watching me think. The moms debating whether to cover their children’s
eyes, the judges sitting at their school desks holding their red pens in the
air, who should be watching Aislynn but can’t take their eyes off of me, the
musician who falters for just a second before continuing his song, the dancers
behind me who shift in their spot on stage, trying to determine whether
I’ll still be their competition. I wonder what they think of the pitiful image
of a bewildered boy who can’t find the motivation to even go up on his toes.
I barely know what I think.
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114 Short Prose

Ashnavi Ghosh
Grade 9
North Allegheny Intermediate High School
Bees
I am trapped.
Limited in societal experience. Cooped up at home. I never achieved
going outdoors for a substantial period.
Sometimes I contemplate going to school. The symptoms of going outside
are always everlasting for me, so I’ve never attempted before.
My bare feet shift in the soft sand as my head lies on the rocky path. The
capacious nose I’ve grown fond of flares from the briny scent.
“Roy, you need to come inside to help clean up for tomorrow!” I think
my favorite sound is Ma and Pa collecting the plates. It never ceases to
comfort me.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
There was this one moment a few years ago. There were these bees in
my head. I’m not sure why. I felt guilty because Ma and Pa were finally procuring
customers, and I couldn’t help with their orders that day.
“Roy!”
I don’t think I can anymore. The bees won’t allow me. I don’t know how
to tell Ma and Pa. From that day onwards, I’ve only helped them from the
solace of the kitchen. Behind closed doors. At least whenever it’s crowded,
I like to stay shrouded from anyone in the restaurant. I adore hearing how
the ceramic plates are stacked on top of each other, especially when no eyes
surround me.
My hands curl into a fist, grabbing some of the sand. I don’t know if I
want to leave this place. I push myself off the jagged stone path and shake
the sand away from my exposed feet.
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“Hi, Pa. Hi, Ma.”
“Roy, there you are. You need to stop going out when it’s so dark outside.
I get worried.”
“Sorry, Ma. I won’t be going out starting tomorrow, anyway.”
“That’s correct! Excited about your big day at your new school? Don’t
forget that it’s a culinary one. You’ll never stop cooking now!” Pa lets out a
laugh. It’s not very amusing.
A few rays of starlight peek through the dusty windows. “It’s late.”
My dreams are haunted by visions of my imagination.
The sun journeys across the sky. The morning fog blankets the street in
an alluring glow. Unforgiving gray clouds bear across the new landscape. A
large building stands ahead of me, clean-cut white stone with gold accents.
A perfect black road lies in front of me. All that’s left to do is step forward.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
I kneel, covering my ears with my hands. The road is harsh against
my knees. This is too much. A grand school like this isn’t comparable
to a small-town restaurant. A sea of people begins to permeate the twisted
iron gate. Everyone is staring. I rush into the building to escape from
my perturbation.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Rich scents greet me, unfamiliar and tantalizing. Rising steam curls and
twists from the building. Low lamplight is cast from the windows above.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Something is wrong.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Something is very wrong. I just know it.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
My loud footsteps echo in the unfamiliar and empty halls as I begin to
run home as fast as I can. Anxieties within me rise like bubbles in boiling
water. My heart is hammering. I don’t think I can take any more of my
thoughts. The bees buzzing in my head are always a manageable nuisance,
but now all I wish for is to be thinking clearly.
Musing on the pristine stone, my vision is hit by the dawn light peeking
through the gauzy curtains. I never would have thought the day would
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come when I didn’t appreciate the sunrise. I don’t want to be here.
I hear the sea of voices brighten within the building. Wild shadows appear
on the polished white walls. I should have been more careful. I should
have listened when they tried to warn me. I should have realized.
I hasten out the door, the sharp iron gate almost piercing me. The cool
morning breeze burns my eyes. The perspiration across my forehead almost
touches my nose when I finally see the familiar opalescent waves and
the weather-beaten sand. My head is clear. I am alone. A slim line of orange
across the horizon is all I can see of the sky. I feel safe here. I’m home.
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118 Short Prose

Everest Gray
Grade 10
Quaker Valley High School
The boy
There is fire, oh so much fire. He is not in his own eyes.
The boy is, instead, in the eagle, soaring above, just low enough to feel
the smoke through her feathers. He is in the grass, singed and covered in
ash, feeling the warmth on his cheeks. He is the walls, collapsing under
the exposed rot and dissipating promise as they slowly burn away to nothingness.
He is in the basement, pipes still dripping, without even a hint of
what is lost. He himself is the fire, dragging everything into oblivion. Generations
old and new in paintings on the wall, cobwebs in forgotten corners,
rust under the sinks and basins, and a handcrafted crib, to never be used.
All will soon be forgotten, as it drifts away in the growing flames, in the
rising smoke, into dust.
In the valley there is a fire. Oh, so much fire. He is not in his own eyes.
He cannot bear to see through them. He can only register the pounding of
hoofs, rushing men on horseback to salvage what is left. The commands
thrown back and forth, who will fill the water, who will pour. People running,
running out, running in. Over everything is the ringing in his ears, a
film of blur in his eyes that won’t seem to go away.
“Are you alright?” he is asked. He cannot begin to answer.
“Are you alright?” she asks again. He does not recognize her voice. He
cannot hear her clearly. He doesn’t hear through his ears. He can only hear
through the eagle, too far to register, the grass, muffled in dust, the walls,
surrounded by the hissing of fire, the basement with its steady drip drip drip.
He lived there, at Brooksvale House, for seventeen long years. Raised to
be the best man he could by his grandmother, he couldn’t ask for a better
upbringing. His parents were killed only weeks after his birth in a fire at
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Brooksvale House. Ironic now.
The house was strong, as his grandma said, it was full of enough heart
to never fall. His family lived there for centuries, expanding the house, and
leaving new memories with each generation. Miraculously, the fire that
killed his parents was contained to their bedroom. A candle fell in the night,
and the fire was out by morning. It never spread. Otherwise, there wasn’t
a scratch. The bedroom was never rebuilt. It pains him now, that the fire
originated from the very same room.
He had an older brother and two sisters, all who shared the bedroom
next door. The house had enough rooms for three families, but grandma
wanted them to know how it felt to share.
As they grew older, it was clear that he was different. Grandma would
ask a question about multiplication or long division, and he would always
have his answer a little bit quicker than the others. He would write paragraphs
and pages of letters to nobody in particular in his free time while
his siblings played outside. He would draw the most beautiful pictures, and
grandma would put them on her wall. He was smart. Too smart.
As you can imagine, this created some jealousy among the children.
“Are you going to eat that?” his brother would ask every morning at
breakfast, right after grandma would leave them alone to eat.
“Yes, I am,” he would always answer.
“Well, I don’t think so,” his brother would say, like clockwork, and devour
whatever was left of his meal. The boy never said anything to grandma
about it. He figured his brother was older and stronger, so of course he had
more power. His sisters stayed silent most of the time, as they were afraid
of him too.
The family was quite well off. Money trickled down the family line, all
the way back to the original owners of Brooksvale, who planted the vineyards,
spanning miles around the property. The smell of burning grapes
hits his nostrils and thrusts him back to the present. There is fire. So much
fire everywhere. His senses return, as he begins to realize that everyone is
gone. Maybe the fire became out of control. Maybe there was no hope in
saving it. He faintly recalls a voice screaming, “We have to go! Why are you
just sitting there, we have to leave!” But he wasn’t really hearing with his
own ears. He still isn’t.
The sibling dynamic didn’t change as they grew. His brother was hand-
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some, as the girls would say. He had many suitors once he reached an appropriate
age. He married the day of his sixteenth birthday, right when he
was deemed old enough. He chose the richest, most beautiful girl in town.
She had blue eyes and fair skin. She was funny and bright and not at all in
love with him. She had already fallen years ago.
The boy had caught her eye in the town square, walking with his family.
She wore a purple dress with a big bow and her hair in neat little braids.
She winked at him, and he returned a toothy smile, automatically smitten.
For the next three years of his life, all he could think of was her. On the
boy’s thirteenth birthday, he was finally allowed to leave home on his own.
He knocked on every door until he found her. He would visit her every day.
They began to do everything together. They roamed the town, explored the
forests, and planned a future together.
“One day, I’ll get us out of here. We’ll have a cottage to ourselves, just
you and me, with only the sounds of birds chirping and streams rushing.
Nothing but the sounds of each other,” he used to tell her.
“Is this the fate I deserved?” the boy stands up and screams to the sky.
His chest rises and falls with every deep breath. He sees in double, unsure
if it is all truly real, and whispers at the flaming remains of Brooksvale.
“Is this what you deserved?”
As was tradition in the family, all the well-off maidens in town would
stand in front of the house, and the eldest women would ask the eldest son
which lady he would like to wed. On his brother’s birthday, he announced
his answer. The boy never expected to hear her name. He cried and shouted
at his brother for the first time, in retaliation, but his brother didn’t seem
to care. She was young, rich, and beautiful, and he was cruel. Her father
didn’t seem to care what she wanted. Nobody seemed to care what they
wanted at all.
Soon after they were wed, grandma passed.
It was hard on the whole family, except his brother, as it seemed. He
buried her with a secret smile, feeling not the weight of her absence but the
weight of his newfound wealth.
The boy was made to leave Brooksvale.
“My sweet love, why must you let him do this!” he said to her, as his
things were thrown out the door. “You don’t have to live this life! We can
run right now! I’ll build us a cottage. I swear my love, I swear.”
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“Our love died many years ago. That flame has long been put to rest.
I am happy here. I think you should go.”
The boy built his cottage alone.
There he stayed for many years, trying to forget. He heard whisperings
of his family but nothing more. He heard his brother was trying to have a
child, to continue the bloodline, but was unsuccessful. He was told when
his sisters passed of some sort of infectious disease. He was told rumours
of the girl, not being so faithful to her husband. Only rumours, he assured
himself. Through all, he stayed where he was. That was until the news
reached him. The worst pain of them all.
She was caught with another man. The boy didn’t understand how she
could dismiss him so quickly yet share herself so freely. How could their
love mean nothing to her when it was once so consuming? His brother
found her at Brooksvale, returning early from his travels. In his rage, he
beat her to death.
That flame had been put to rest, she said? Fire is consuming. There is
fire, oh so much fire. He is not in his own eyes. He is in his brothers, watching
the flame creep under the door. He is in her eyes, watching his brother
raise a candlestick above his head. He is in his own, just ten minutes
before, setting a spark where the house was most vulnerable. He is in his
grandma’s eyes, watching from above, watching her history give in to the
destruction. He returns to his own eyes.
There is fire. Brooksvale, consumed by fire. What did he do?
122 Short Prose

Elaine Gombos
Grade 11
Shady Side Academy
Timbre
The melody began, forever and kind.
This melody’s beginning marks the birth of this story, a story whose
narrative is told through sound, whose sentences are inextricably tied to
the oscillations of music.
The melody, and hence the story, starts from a mundane source. At
times it is soft and other times it crescendos, jumping out to surprise you.
The melody fluctuates, but I assure you that it eventually surpasses the
blinding of the stars. Regardless, you must listen with care, for the melody
may appear in the places where you least expect it.
Take notice of the soft buzzing of streetlights above the songbird’s fluttering
wings and the screech of a tire slicing through the cold, refreshing
ring. You may hear the crash of a wave, the creak of a wooden floorboard, a
welcoming echo, and a deafening roar. Listen to the sigh of a flute, the toot
of a horn, and the violin’s cry that signal the rebirth of music, with notes
suspended and adorned.
And most importantly, remember the familiar voice that soothes you to
sleep. The voice that paints you visions in your dream, whose every intake
of breath and every gentle escape reveals landscapes of purple and causes
resonance to ripple in graceful circles.
I remember the first time I heard the sound of a flute.
It’s one of my earliest memories. Either that or my parents have told the
story to me so many times they have tricked me into thinking I remember it.
We lived in a big city. Outside, car horns honked and tooted, people shouted
across the street, lights buzzed with energy, and pets barked, fluttered,
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chirped, and roared. I especially enjoyed the sound of wheels—the screech
of tires, the constant rum of a bicycle, my stroller bouncing along the uneven
sidewalk. But the city was never alive until the street musicians emerged.
My parents were taking me out for a stroll when we walked past someone
playing the flute. I can’t recall any of the other elements of music—the
pitch, the dynamic, or the duration—but the flute’s timbre engrained itself
in my being. Each crisp, sharp note cut through the morning air, yet it was
so soft and welcoming, like my mom’s sigh as she held me in her arms,
stroking my soft hair. Its tone rang through the air, prancing in waves and
circles in a way that painted the gray streets a sapphire blue.
My parents would say I couldn’t take my eyes off the flutist, but I know
that wasn’t it. It was my ears that couldn’t bear the absence of that sweet,
angelic sound. I didn’t start throwing a tantrum as soon as the flutist was
out of sight, as they would say, but only when that crystal melody was replaced
with a monotonous emptiness.
Actually, I do believe I remember this. It’s easy to describe events, action,
appearances, and visuals. But to remember those sounds the way I do?
That timbre? My parents could not describe that to me after the fact. This
memory is my own.
Dr. Weldman’s footsteps echoed in the open room.
“We’ve learned about pitch, dynamic, and duration. Now we must learn
about timbre—the fourth element of music. Simply put, timbre is the character,
the quality, the distinct personality of the sound. It relates to resonance
and overtones and—”
“Huh? I don’t get it.”
The echoes stop. He sighs.
“Tell me. What color does the sound of your flute remind you of?”
“Sapphire blue.”
“How about a violin?”
“Orange. A warm orange.”
“My pipa?”
“Um. A pearly white.”
“Hmm. I’d consider it a jade green myself.” His clattering footsteps began
echoing again. “But the point is, we have so many instruments for a reason.
Each of them has a distinct, identifiable sound. Timbre is the color of that
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tone. It is influenced by not only the instrument itself, but also the musician’s
technique. Timbre, combined with the other elements of music, create
a melody that evokes different emotions, memories, and connections.
Timbre adorns each and every note.”
“But what if timbre didn’t exist?”
A floorboard creaked under his footsteps. It echoed too.
“Music wouldn’t exist. Everything would be monotonous.”
“Oh. I can’t quite wrap my head around that.”
“Me neither.”
You know the sound of, like, just pure concentration?
I am so focused on something that it lets me notice everything. Do you
ever feel that?
Like, I hear my breathing, I hear my flute, but that’s all secondary. It’s
more like I feel my breathing and I feel my flute. I literally feel the air molecules
bumping into my eardrums in whichever particular configuration
I demanded of them. Oooh, and the crazy part too is that, beneath it all,
I hear the space. I hear my inanimate, still surroundings. You know that
sound you hear when you hold a seashell up to your ear? It’s similar to that,
the sound of crashing waves, a hum, a buzz, a flutter, but different. I used
to find it monotonous and empty, but now I’m starting to enjoy it. It has
its own kind of melody. It’s like I’m staring into a void, except in terms of
sound. There’s still got to be something that I’m staring at, since I’m staring
at it, but it’s also just nothing. Does that make sense? No?
Um, I guess it’s just a musician thing then.
A knock sounded on my bedroom door, soft but sure.
I dug my head deeper into my pillow. There’s only one person who can
produce such a knock.
“I’m coming in!” Yep. It’s mom. Her voice was gentle but firm. I waited
until she could see my face before turning to face the other direction.
“Come on. Sit up,” she said.
I groaned in protest, but both of us knew that I wanted her here, needed
her here. I sat up, pretending to be reluctant. She sat down and put an arm
around me, pulling me towards her. I yielded.
“So, you got in trouble at school today.” I whined and pulled away, not
wanting to talk about it, but she held me close. “What happened?”
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“I don’t want to talk about it.” My voice cracked as tears threatened to
fall. Although we sat in silence, the scenario played over and over again
in my head. I heard the frustration in my teacher’s scolding. I heard the
shame and confusion in my “why?” And I heard the condescension in my
classmates’ giggles, even though they barely knew the names of their own
instruments. These sounds made the tears fall and the words pour.
“I was so excited for music class. I was so excited to finally get to play
my instrument in school! So, I got to class and I immediately unpacked my
flute and started warming up, but then Teacher was talking and I didn’t
hear her, and then she shouted at me to put my flute away and that I had
to sit in the corner and I couldn’t play it for the rest of the class. But I was
just so excited! And now Teacher hates me. I don’t want to go to music class
ever again!”
I felt a sympathetic sigh in my ear, but it probably was a stifled giggle.
“Hey, they’re just not ready for you yet. You need to be patient with them,
okay?” I continued sobbing into Mom’s shoulder. “You have Dr. Weldman’s
class tomorrow,” she said while rubbing my back. “He always understands
you, doesn’t he?”
Her voice calmed me, and I slid down into my covers and hugged Mom
around her waist. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I love his class.”
“I know, sweetie.” She paused before speaking again: “You still have to
listen to your teachers though, you know that right? But you’ll be okay.”
I drifted to sleep to the sound of her voice. Its timbre was reassurance,
trust, and love. It was uniquely Mom’s.
That night, I dreamed that I was playing my flute.
I watched as my flute painted sapphire blue puffs in the air, swirling and
prancing. Then a puff of light purple emerged, mixed in with some ash gray.
I was creating a masterpiece, and nobody could stop me. But something
was missing. I couldn’t hear in my dream, only see. My flute vanished from
my hands in a dissipation of white glitter, leaving me behind amidst the
explosion of color. I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding. This was
what I knew: one day, I’d create that masterpiece with sound.
The audience erupted into a deafening roar of applause.
My hands still hugged the keys; my flute remained horizontal.
My last note lingered and rang until it thinned and disappeared.
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But I hardly heard it; I wanted to listen to the roar instead.
The spotlight shone on me as I relaxed and bowed.
It shone so bright, like a star.
I let it blind me. I let it consume me.
Because this was where I wanted to be.
This was where I belonged.
I spied the mailman delivering the letter today.
Let me tell you, the butterflies in my stomach had been fluttering incessantly
for the entire week up to that moment. So, whenever I was at home, I
kid you not, all I did was sit by this window. I could not focus a single minute
on my homework without looking up to see if the decision had arrived.
Every other high school senior I’ve talked to has been doing the same thing.
I promise you I was not crazy.
When I saw that letter enter our mailbox, all my butterflies dropped
dead. Soon, there was going to be an end to all this anticipation. I heard the
pounding of my heart in my ears and the blood screaming in my veins. My
insides wound up like a spring that was about to snap. I somehow managed
to retrieve the letter and open it with my family, and whatever happened
immediately afterwards was honestly such a blur. There was probably a lot
of, like, screaming and shouting. But I do remember this: I GOT IN!!!
I couldn’t believe it.
All the practice and frustration and fatigue were worth it. I’ve finally
reached the opportunities that will propel me to the stars. I would be
spending the rest of my life exactly how I thought I wanted it: with my
flute and music.
I heard the school bell ring. Crisp and clear.
Outside, classmates were strolling along in their small groups, the autumn
wind wrestling with their scarves. I put on my favorite red trench
coat, adorned myself in an array of scarves, hats, and gloves, and stepped
out of the building. The handle of my case felt slippery against the fabric
of my glove as I joined the students milling around outside. Their distant
chatter blurred with the forceful crescendo of the wind as I approached the
fountain at the center of campus. The soft tinkling of little droplets of water
joined to create this huge, powerful crash.
Alone, I sat on the ledge, my back facing the roar of crashing water. My
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head started to ring. My hands clenched onto the ledge. Deep breath. 1,
2, 3. It sounded so forced, so jarring, so uncertain, so unsupported. The
chattering, the crescendo, the tinkling, the crashing, the roar, the whirring,
the jarring. In one swift motion I had flung my case with all my might. The
chattering abruptly stopped, but everything else continued. The nearest
students rushed to the case and opened it. I heard their sigh of relief at the
sight of my flute—whole and unbroken.
They brought it back to me and placed it right by my feet. I wanted to
flee, to get myself as far away as possible from that case. They turned to
leave. One turned back to say, “Hey. It’s okay. Burnout happens to the best
of us. Give it some time.”
1, 2, 3. Deep breath. “The coursework doesn’t give me time.” My breath
was shaky, uncertain, unsupported. But they had already left.
I hated the cold, but I let the wind scream in my face, the appalling case
still at my feet.
And I just cried, my tears silent and powerless.
Dust drifted, floated, and gathered on top of my case, stuffed away in disgrace.
The melody is nowhere to be found. The melody that used to fill my ears
and soothe my mind, the melody I heard even in a void, void of sound. The
melody that fueled my passion, from mundane source and simple cause, is
gone.
SILENCE rings loud and clear.
There is no crash, no screech, no flutter, and no roar—because the stars
blind, too bright.
I shouldn’t have aimed for the stars. I shouldn’t have let their brightness
drown out my melody. I shouldn’t have let the audience’s cheers overtake
my flute’s ring. I shouldn’t have allowed other people’s validation to undermine
my love for music. I have a million regrets and no remedy. I am
almost certain my melody will never—
A knock sounds on my dorm room door. Soft but sure.
I know that knock.
“I’m coming in.” I know that voice. Its timbre is reassurance, trust, and
love, slightly scratched from time. It is hope. I listen.
The stars’ brightness parts just enough for me to hear the hint of a melody
starting in my ear. I look into my mother’s eyes, and I don’t turn away;
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I fall into her embrace.
There is no doubt that my melody, and hence my story, will continue to
oscillate and fluctuate. But I will continue to paint colors with my music. I
will continue to tell narratives through sound. I will continue to listen to
the timbres that surround me, with care. And I hope, this time, my melody
will stay forever and kind.
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130 Short Prose

Daniel Kochupura
Grade 11
Winchester Thurston School
Rocket Fuel
“Did you pack trail mix?” Molly asked.
“Didn’t plan on it,” Benny responded.
“Well, what if you want trail mix?”
“Then I’ll have to make a noble sacrifice.”
In all fairness, trail mix would be difficult to leave behind. Benny stared
at the coral-colored gems adorning the trees as they glided through miles
of identical peach orchards. Maybe this would be the last time she saw real
peaches. Maybe this would be the last time she saw fresh fruit. Florida was
now only hours away, and from there, she would only be eating what the
scientists sent up for her.
“My friend, Benny Callas, the astronaut,” Molly said. “I never knew, but
somehow, I always knew, you know? Just somewhere deep inside.”
Fifty years of positivity had been kind to Molly. Her blonde hair spilled
over the back of an MIT crewneck; the same one she had received with her
admission letter some thirty-three odd years ago.
The alumni office had asked for Benny’s admissions sweater when NASA
announced her for the research trip. It made sense, in theory. History. Pride.
Tradition. The school wanted to show off her accomplishments, just like
they had for countless astronauts before her. She was the model alumna.
Still, something in Benny suspected that earth might be just as happy to see
her go as she was to leave it.
“Be honest. Aren’t you going to miss this place?” Molly asked, turning
away from the road to study her lifelong friend.
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“I don’t know, Mol. Josh was the only reason I stayed. Now that he’s gone,
I’m ready to leave this place.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Molly said, facing forward again.
They sat in the sound of the pickup’s easy hum. I bet she wanted me to
say I’d miss her. She thought for a second before electing not to. The moment
had passed.
“But you’re never coming back,” Molly said.
“Someone has to go up there. I’d rather it be me than someone else. And,
truly, I’ve always wanted to go.”
“You’re sure?”
“It’s a little late not to be.”
Molly again diverted her eyes to Benny and said, “I just worry that Josh’s
funeral will interfere with the launch. You signed up for this mission right
after you found out he had cancer. And really, we buried him just three
hours ago.”
Benny’s eyes stayed out of the window.
“You deserve some time to process.”
“Mol, I’m going to be fine.”
As they got out of the truck, Benny hugged Molly for all the times when
she hadn’t done so and for all the times when she’d wish she could. Benny
had once read in a book that said, someday, she’d say goodbye to her friend
for the last time.
Usually, though, she didn’t know which meeting would be the last.
With nothing but the clothes on her back and the bag in her hands, Benny
turned away from Molly and towards the double doors leading into the
compound. Tomorrow, she was going to the moon.
Benny’s eyelids opened to an unfamiliar ceiling above her, a vast mountain
range carved of popcorn ceiling staring back at her in the darkness. An
alarm clock glowed from the table beside her, squatting next to a frame of
Benny’s late husband. 4:56 am. In four minutes, someone would knock on
the door, schedule in hand, to escort Benny through her last steps on earth.
Her mind moved to what the day could bring—what she might do, who she
might meet, how she might spend her moments—before she was strapped
into a rocket ship.
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She thought about the funeral. Mr. Joshua Callas slept peacefully under
a polished gravestone in Charlotte, buried twenty hours ago. The procession
was pleasant—full of charming, outgoing friends who Josh had collected
through fifty-six years of a charming, outgoing existence.
Josh had been a stabilizing force in her chaotic life, and his absence
fundamentally changed how she spent her time on earth. News of his death
pushed her to take on the mission, to forever say goodbye to the only home
she’d ever known.
Still, what she was going to undertake was an enormous accomplishment.
NASA had spent half a billion dollars pioneering a mission for one
astronaut who was brave enough to set up the necessary structures to begin
a colony on the moon. However, with the weight they were lugging off
the earth, the government couldn’t bring the individual back. The astronaut
would live the rest of their life a quarter-million miles away from their
friends and family.
They were looking for a young person, someone with endless energy
and the physical strength to exert themselves for years to come. Benny, at
fifty-four, had applied for and gotten the job. Her old co-workers read about
it in the New York Times. Her old classmates heard about it on CNN. Benedetta
Callas was going to be the first resident of the International Lunar
Base, located at the Tycho crater. A footnote in the broadcast read that her
husband lost his battle to cancer mere hours before she was accepted into
the program.
She heard the knock on the door.
“Good morning, Mrs. Callas. It’s time.”
The schedule was unforgiving. Every minute was filled with appointments
and appearances, an effort anxiously tended by a slender ginger kid
who was supposed to keep her on track. Before Benny knew it, she had eaten
a twenty-minute breakfast with a senator, had a twelve-and-a-half-minute
conversation with a fellow astronaut, and used a hurried-up bathroom
break that would have raised red flags with OSHA. Every step was taken
with purpose. Every issue taken was taken in stride. At least, that’s what
the intern kept muttering to himself.
Jake stopped suddenly and frowned at the itinerary.
“Someone was supposed to take this off.”
“Someone was supposed to take what off?” Molly asked.
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“It was supposed to be a surprise. I’m not sure how good of a surprise it
was, but your husband was adamant that it be a surprise. Very sorry to hear
about him, by the way.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Benny responded. “But where are we going?”
“This way.”
Jake led Benny through a maze of hallways, past rooms where faceless
armies of lab coats and button-downs toiled away so that Benny’s mission
would be a success. The measured march had been replaced by a frantic jog,
punctuated by occasional references to the schedule. Finally, Jake stopped
in front of a closed, unmarked door she had never seen before.
“Your husband asked us to make sure you went to confession before you
left for the moon,” he said.
Benny stared at Jake in disbelief. She held the gaze, seeing how long
Jake might meet it before feeling awkward and turning away. He quickly
turned to move things along.
“Mrs. Callas, we’re on a schedule.”
“Of course,” Benny replied as she opened the door.
“Father, I don’t remember the Act of Contrition,” Benny muttered as she
settled into the lonesome chair that made up her side of the confessional.
“Worry not, my child,” replied a raspy voice behind a veil. Benny’s
room was dark, illuminated only by the hole of a window that was covered
by the cloth.
“How long has it been since your last confession?” the priest asked.
Benny thought for a second before responding, “A long time, Father.
Too long.”
“You face a great obstacle today,” he said. “You are taking a risk with your
life, one few would consider. Might there be sin behind that decision?”
It had been a long time since Benny had been to confession, but something
felt off. Maybe the questions weren’t as forward during middle school.
Maybe she was imagining things. Maybe the priest came off a certain way.
“What kind of sin?” she probed.
“Well, child, only the very depths of your heart may know. It could be
envy. It could be pride. It could even be wrath. But I understand that these
past few weeks have been filled with obstacles for you.”
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Benny stared at the veil between them. A cloth that might have once
been an angelic white had fallen into a pale yellow. The entire room seemed
beyond its glory days. Benny had some trouble respecting a space that the
Creator hadn’t bothered to preserve.
“Father, these weeks haven’t been easy for me, but He has gifted me with
strength. I am prepared to help my fellow man by traveling to the moon.”
“I know He would understand if you had, after learning your husband
was passing away, taken on a burden for which you weren’t truly prepared
for,” the priest said.
Jake poked his head into the room before Benny could respond.
“I hate to interrupt, but you’re late for the next appointment.”
Benny tried to still her spinning head as she followed Jake to a dark sitting
room, furnished with chocolate-colored sofas and steel coffee tables. A
short, seriously dressed woman typed on her phone, a bright-blue lanyard
emblazoned “Media’’ resting on the table. Benny steadied herself, put on a
winning smile, and strolled in.
The journalist wasted no time introducing herself as a writer for Time
magazine. It was her entire credibility: four letters read by millions and
respected by millions more. Benny herself had been a proud subscriber for
as long as she could remember, but this woman’s eager affiliation made her
question how great it really was. She didn’t strike Benny as someone who
took the winning side.
The questions were simple and formulaic, each linking Benny to her late
husband. The journalist prodded about her marriage and asked about the
grief she had felt. She followed up about the emotion and hardship. Benny
was a sob story, a capable woman whose life had been brightened by a
patient husband and hardened by his early departure. Benny stole glances
at the clock throughout their conversation as the half-hour block expired.
Benny rose from the sofa and shook her scribe’s hand. She quietly pondered
the idea that, if she died hours later, the last recorded memory of
Benedetta Callas would come from those questions and that journalist.
For everything she had worked hard to become, her legacy piece would be
about her husband more than it would be about her.
Hours later, Benny climbed into her seat and strapped into the five-hundred-ton
flying machine. After applying, learning, and training, the moment
had finally arrived.
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“Mission control to Columbus One, how do you read? Over,” buzzed the
headset underneath her helmet.
“Columbus One to mission control, I read you loud and clear. Over,” she
replied.
Benny’s space suit was heavy, but she had never felt so free. Her imagination
wandered to what the rest of her life might look like. She could
contribute to humanity, do her part to make a better life for the kids being
born today. She might not meet any of them, but she was certainly going to
help. And no one was there to hold her back.
“Mission control to Columbus One, we’ll begin the launch sequence very
soon. You have a couple minutes to settle in. On behalf of the program, I
would like to thank you for your participation in this mission. Having buried
your husband just yesterday and with the understanding you won’t return
to earth, uh, just know that you’re a very well-respected figure among
the whole base and the whole world. Over.”
“Columbus One to mission control, I appreciate that. Good of you to say.
Let’s make some history. Over.”
Through the glass of her helmet, Benny inspected her surroundings. Every
inch of the cockpit was covered in buttons, some big, some labeled,
some she suspected were only there to take up space. It was like her own
private galaxy of mechanical stars.
Taped to the window was a picture of Josh, the same one Benny had
set up next to her bed that morning. His smile lit up the image. Josh’s face
was facing the camera, but his eyes were looking off to the left. As Benny
remembered, Josh had prioritized monitoring her over taking a second for
a good photo.
Mission control to Columbus One, we’re just about ready to get started.
You good to go? Over.”
“Columbus One to mission control, yes, all good over here. Just one thing
I need to fix. Over.”
Against the strain of the seatbelt, Benny pushed herself towards the
window. She examined the picture of her husband.
He had never really wanted Benny to go to space. When the two were
sophomores in college, each had the world at their fingertips. But over the
years, Benny had continued to excel while Josh fell behind. He began to
persuade Benny not to reach for the next level. It was envy. It was pride. It
136 Short Prose

was wrath. The charisma that Josh pedaled masked a hope that he wouldn’t
be dwarfed by her accomplishments.
Then Josh was diagnosed with stage IV liver cancer. The doctors said
he had months to live, and Benny saw the man she loved become weaker
and weaker. Immediately, her eyes began to wander—not to other people,
but to how else she might want to spend the rest of her life. It destroyed
her to argue with Josh while he was in that condition. She felt bad that she
was inflicting more stress on a dying man, but she was certain her dream
wouldn’t escape her. Getting into the program had been a longshot, but she
couldn’t abandon the hope that she could do something with her talents.
Benny crumpled up the image in her hands and threw it behind her.
This was a new chapter.
“Columbus One to mission control, let’s go to the moon. Over.”
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Poetry
138

1st place
“Lessons for My Daughter”
Leia Leviathan
2nd place
“Militant Violins”
Anna Mares
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140 Poetry

Leia Leviathan
Grade 9
Environmental Charter High School
Lessons for My Daughter
If my daughter is anything like me
(Which I hope to god she isn’t)
Then she will be clever and kind and horribly ill-prepared to enter this
world
I would teach her four things, if I could
But really, I just wish I could teach myself
Back when I was little
And my bones hadn’t welded
And my teeth were still small
And the world was so big and so not-awful
1. You will lose those things that you love
I loved to read
I burned through books like wildfire
Hungry, insatiable
A novel per sitting and another before bed
Now I hardly read at all
That place inside of me has been emptied and filled with nothing
Filled with dust or sand or that expanding spray foam
Filled with something worthless
I have lost that which I love
2. You will never rest
The days I wake up rested are rare now
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I am tired in my bones and my blood and my skin
Every night is the same and every day is exhausting
The stardust in my cells yearns to return to that far off place from whence
it came
My water wants to evaporate and my dirt to return to the earth
These parts of me are tired of being part of me
And so am I
I will never rest
3. The sadness never leaves
That sadness you felt when your first dog died?
It never goes away
It hibernates somewhere deep and quiet
But it sleeps light
And it will pay you a visit whenever it likes
It never stays for very long (except when it does)
But whenever it leaves, you know it will be back
It’s a friend you’ve never liked but who’s always by your side
And sometimes that sadness is the only thing to feel
And sometimes that’s okay
4. Bite
Do not be afraid to bite.
Do not be afraid to scratch and claw and scream and piss.
Do not be afraid.
Be angry.
Girls are taught to be small and quiet
Be big
Be loud
Be angry
Bite.
142 Poetry

Anna Mares
Grade 12
Mt. Lebanon High School
militant violins
I
black glasses
frame pensive,
tired eyes.
Shostakovich’s
thin russian lips
murmur soft melodies from
boris godunov,
when camel-kneed
russians
bowed before the tsar.
II
Symphony no. 5
per stalin’s request
“the practical creative answer of a Soviet artist to just criticism”
he scrawls
stolen melodies
inverted chords
sweet russian folk songs
now,
rotten goat’s milk in babushka’s cuthbert.
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III
stalin
obliviously
allows quiet moans of rebellion
from wailing violins
in wrinkly
velvet concert halls.
IV
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
volga rivers
flow from
sun-dried,
callused faces.
Shostakovich’s love song to the russian people.
V
but now,
Ukraine needs her love song as
isolated panelaks
house feeble,
frantic fingers
grazing ivory keys
coated in faded
Detskiy chas stickers
for piano-playing daughters
waiting in Kiev.
spidery drywall veins
spitter thick ash
from reverberating framework
on wet
mascara laced eyelashes
144 Poetry

as fingers,
now bandaged
from sweeping broken glass,
sing of sweet
sweet home
Glory to Ukraine
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146 Poetry

Kamryn Natale
Grade 10
Mt. Lebanon High School
the universe
i like to think about the universe
i wonder if she likes the way the earth turned out
or if she resents the evil she created
i wonder if the universe appreciates
the beauty she made
or if she can’t see past
the wars and the pain and the terror
i wonder if the universe looks at the flowers like i do
petals creating a purely natural mural
or if she doesn’t have time to enjoy the little things
does she have time to smile down on the earth
or is she too busy
trying to fix us
i wonder if the universe ever looks at a sunrise
and thinks
this is a new day
or is she too busy
trying to heal the melted ice caps
rebuild the forests we destroyed
restore the lives we ended
i wonder if the universe regrets making us
because we take
and we take
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and we take
we take things that don’t belong to us
we take lives
and we take land
and we take away basic human rights
but we forgive ourselves and say
it’s for the future!
but deep down
we know there won’t be a future
if we continue upon this path of destruction.
i think about the universe sometimes
i wonder if she ever thinks about me?
148 Poetry

Jade Davis
Grade 11
Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School
Facing vs. Pondering
My morning walks start down Edgewood Lane,
The autumn trees dance making the leaves crash in sync with the wind,
I turn and quicken my pace to hurry past Peacock Street,
Where I’m inevitably interrupted.
The pigtailed girl gazes and gulps for understanding for what she sees;
instead, she runs away from me!
What a white picket problem.
The mother shouts, I suppose it was meant to be a whisper—
‘Take pride in your recessive genes… Blonde, frail, and pale!’
‘But mommy, why does she look like that? Her skin looks like it
has Black Mold in it.’
‘That’s right, you wouldn’t want that to get on our WHITE lace,
now would you, darling?’
‘—Unless the police are around… ’
‘WE WILL intimidate and congregate and eliminate the Black shadows
around.’
Excuse me, the Karen means ‘AfriCAN AmerICAN’ to be politically correct!
Now you,
Get Out!
GET OUT!
GET OUT!
I know, I know, White (plus) Woman, the equation equals hierarchy—or
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direct access to the patriarchy, no math needed.
They cannot see us as the Queens of Egypt!
We built our throne—
Now, our kingdom is built of century old rock—
That is firmly placed on the soil of the Plantation—
Today, as I try to take a mental break, I am still stuck to her cup; dripping
sweat—as if I am condensation on her very glass.
I feel the heat!
That bounces from you KAREN—on to me!
Because I know what you’re contemplating…
Those three numbers—
911
Let me ask you…
What have I done?!
150 Poetry

Connor Dalgaard
Grade 12
West Allegheny High School
Enlightened
packs of forest wolves
howl sweet nothings to the moon
precarious life
a halibut treks
amidst hordes of grim steel hooks
idle predators
Poseidon’s rage mounts
banishing interference
cycles of rebirth
our school swept inland
pawns in the Creator’s palm
ancillary pests
an olde stone cottage
nestled between sequoias
natural wonder
beside the fire
warmth cools our innate cravings
satisfaction blooms
the ark is empty
worldly thoughts find Freedom’s wings
our revelation
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152 Poetry

Lucy Caroff
Grade 9
Obama Academy
Silence is
Silence is the comfort
You find between soft covers
Wrapped tightly and warm
melted into the softness
Silence is the irritable
Feeling of being too hot
In a jacket, but too cold
If you were to take it off
Silence is a home cooked meal
That fills your hunger and heart
But loses its magic after
It turns into leftovers
Silence is reading a new book
It becoming your favorite
Finishing that book and knowing
The second read won’t compare
Silence is the first run through
Of a piece without any mistakes
Hands moving swiftly and
Afterwards they are sore
Silence is having a new
Best friend, who is funny
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And kind, and knowing
You’re losing your old one
Silence is trying your hardest
At a subject you hate
And the feeling you get
When you pass the big test
Silence is dancing in the rain
Drops mixing with the music
Until your body goes numb and your
Clothes are uncomfortably wet
Silence is trying a new food
For the first time and
Loving it, but then getting
Sick from having too much of it
Silence is forgetting to
Change your clothes on
The weekend, feeling gross
But still not getting changed
Silence is a deck of cards
With which you begin an
Unwinnable game because
It is missing a singular card
Silence is a memory of
Past happiness, a good
Feeling, then knowing you
Will never experience it again
Silence is bittersweet
And good in small doses
It can heal wounds and create them
It is so peaceful yet so empty
Silence is complicated.
154 Poetry

Lucy Caroff
Grade 9
Obama Academy
Mother’s Hands
Her hands were once young. Her fingers, thin
And long but never frail, held a
Cigarette up to her lips and she drew
In a breath, her cheeks were full
Of color, and her eyes were bright with
Dreams of the future, she smiled and
She made friends, a tattoo pierced its
Way onto her ankle, a reminder of the
Faith she held close, she had a belief in
Herself, visible in her shining young eyes.
Then she blinked, no cigarette has graced
Her lips in years, though sometimes she raises
Her worn-out fingers to her mouth like she
Believes one to be there, the shimmer in her eyes
Is faint, dulled by the lives she has lived.
Her friends have been lost along the way
And the tattoo is hidden away from the world.
Her bland eyes are now for crying, and her
Wrinkled fingers wipe the tears off
Of her daughter’s cheeks whose passion
Is still present in the stare they share.
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156 Poetry

Leia Leviathan
Grade 9
Environmental Charter High School
Dog Eat Dog
Sure, this house is long abandoned
Empty rooms
Rusting pipes
Electric wires chewed through
Carcass rotting from the inside out
But what about the sparrows who nest in the rafters?
What about the mice who raise their babies in the walls?
The spiders whose homes are in the cobwebbed corners
The grass that grows in the cracks between floorboards
The soft sponge of moss in that shaft of sunlight that pours
through the broken window
These things are alive
They grow and reproduce and thrive
Just because you built this house fifty years ago
Built it for people and monetary gain
Does that mean the creatures inside it do not deserve to stay?
Will you evict them like your last tenant
Because she couldn’t pay the rent?
Are we really more sophisticated than these creatures that
eat and sleep and mate?
With our trucks and our economy and our canned peas?
And what of the cat that hunts sparrows in the overgrown yard?
The possum that hides under the battered porch
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The dog who sleeps on the faded rug in the front hall
They are more like us
Mammalian in nature
Do you wish them death as well?
Do you believe in their right to survive?
Of course you don’t
It’s a dog-eat-dog world, after all
158 Poetry

Linda Kong
Grade 9
North Allegheny Intermediate High School
fourteen (14)
come on, come with your all &
clench your fists, take this ticket
& hold on tight. in for
a ride, you bet. & you’d be right
but careful! it won’t be what you
expect. settle in ‘cause time flies
& you haven’t got time for
nothing these days. you know it’s not
what you wanted but you get
what you get & you don’t get
upset. but you aren’t
stoic, you’re still searching for
your teenage dream. you’re here
& everyone knows it. the acquainting
stage is over now: it’s time
to start the show.
*
because you’ve got it all
figured out, you see? never looking
back: past you
was so silly. & you better
remember teenage you in the
future, because you’re making history,
kid, & there’s nowhere to go from here
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ut down. & you’re not doing that, are
you? you’ve finally figured it
all out, while floating through this
cyberspace, this shifting
place because back in the real world
everything’s hit pause. but
when it starts back up again you’re
what will come next. &
nobody better forget.
*
come on, let’s rule the world,
do everything. time will envy our
ability, our schedules
packed. no apologies. you’ve
changed, you got it? no more
being nice. walk in like you own
the world because
it’s true. this time you won’t
pretend anymore.
(you still do.)
*
you’ll think of me
someday. you’ll look back & wish
you were 14 again, because
there was no better time
to be. you’ll think about
how this was the moment.
the pinnacle of discovery.
you’ll look back
with fondness,
smiling. you’ll
think, maybe
14 wasn’t so bad
after all.
160 Poetry

Katherine Odenthal
Grade 9
McKeesport Area Senior High School
Worms On My Skin
When I was 5, I would look at the ugly red lines
on my tummy and call them worms.
My mom would laugh and my brother
would get mad because he too had worms
on his tummy and he didn’t find it funny.
When I was 8, I noticed the worms on my
skin again and they were in more places.
My arms, my legs, my thighs. Each a different
color and some longer and some shorter than
the other.
Silly little worms, I thought to myself.
You found a home in me.
My mother didn’t agree. You see, she too
had worms on her tummy, on her arms,
her legs, and her thighs but she didn’t call
them worms affectionately like I did.
She didn’t find the worms on her skin
welcoming. She found them to be disgusting;
the invaders of who she thought she should be;
who she wanted to look like.
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Soon I did too.
The once wonderful worms on my beautiful body
became the predators and ate my brain alive leaving
only the thoughts of why do I look like this, why me? alone
in my head.
I wasn’t even a pre-teen yet when I felt the weight
of the world on my worm-carved shoulders with thousands
of feelings pounding in my heart.
Silly little worms, I thought to myself.
You found a home in me.
162 Poetry

Aria Narasimhan
Grade 11
Winchester Thurston School
In This Case, It Was You
I
never believed I could thrive ‘til I climbed
to the top. Your precious hands begging me to stay, a
clash between our bodies. One mountain
in between us was all it took, and
I’m glad that I left and that you’re gone. I
wasn’t sure if I should even try, but eventually I turned
away. When I looked around
and found myself and
a me without a you I
realized my mistake. I saw
that your fingers were really clipping my
wings. This strange reflection
was a gift born from the hand dealt to me in
darkness. My head blacked out by the
avalanche that buried me: snow-covered,
I died slowly. You caused the hills
to come raining down on me, ‘til
my sister and my friend and my mother (the
ones who wanted a landslide
to sweep you and the chaos you brought
away) told me
to never stop flying high, even if you yell at me to come down.
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A golden shovel poem written for Landslide written by Stevie Nicks,
sung by Fleetwood Mac.
(“I climbed a mountain and I turned around. And I saw my reflection
in the snow-covered hills. ‘Til the landslide brought me down”)
164 Poetry

Anna Mares
Grade 12
Mt. Lebanon High School
on spring
I
I stall amidst the familiar scent of dewy air,
winter melted by spring’s passionate kiss
quiet submission
in the sky.
passersby move quickly
oblivious to the sensuality of spring
her bosom luring winter’s snowy breath
she brings him to the bed of floral fantasy
so we can experience
fresh spring.
II
Affected by the external
I’m shaped by the changing seasons
audacious enough to believe the show is for me.
III
Spring’s sunlight is
fresh
not yet steeped like summer,
when concentrated sun coaxes worms from watermelon.
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Spring’s sun flickers
on paisley suburban rugs.
Sometimes I’m convinced sunlight doesn’t age—
the one entity immune to the disease of
age spots
and back pain.
IV
Transported by the cycles of life,
I’m brought back to the early springs of other years,
when Dad coaxed my brother and I
from our body-imprinted couch.
Why did we want to stay home
so
bad?
Why did we put up a fight?
For a man raised on
spring sun,
Croatian woods,
I’m sure we hurt him.
Who would want to stay in a
cement
communist
city?
For the price of loading blankets in the back seat,
we begrudgingly entertain him,
bringing the atlas blanket
that still calls Russia
the USSR.
V
Back in the moth-ball basement
with Shostakovich records and
hair scarves,
166 Poetry

we split the price of that $1.00 yard sale blanket.
VI
This March,
I ask my brother what he imagines
when winter retreats to the shadows
and small tulip leaves peek their curious
heads
out of the soil.
He says,
quite simply, “Dad.”
V
What does it
mean
to absorb the majesty of changing seasons as yourself?
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168 Poetry

Madalynn Hill
Grade 11
Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School
Flower of Fauna
Within the thicket of Earth,
to be found by their mother,
the doe huddled between
wild chicory and dark pine;
the tall sleeves of cracked brown.
Moved was the fidgeting creek,
drawn where the hillsides caved in and
broad grass became damp river rock.
Dense tree roots flood beside
the heel of liquid movement as
water bugs hoisted themselves up,
swiftly waltzing down the pacing surface,
before a strike into moss-grown stone.
The cry of a fox, tender and wretched,
bellowed against the woodland border,
its echo wedged beneath brittle bark,
much like the doe.
As the welkin mingled, blending itself
with the evergreen’s foliage,
a flower of fauna ceased while
the stream ran steady.
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170 Poetry

Jamie Ziegler
Grade 9
Allderdice High School
Sugar Pop
I’ve lost my mind
I think to myself
As excruciating popping noises continue to fill the rooms with despair.
The thickening air challenges the thin walls of this school, of this building.
It wouldn’t be the first battle it’s faced.
The popping gets louder… closer
I look around at the faces surrounding me
The look of genuine fear, the anxiety seeping off of these lucid bodies
Spreading in between the floorboards, evaporating into the air, the same
air that we breathe.
It soaks into the lights
The lights that then radiate onto our depleted bodies
The bodies that are beaten, privileged, oppressed
We are now all the same.
I can taste my sweet, sweet tears as the popping edges towards the door
The one thing shielding us from the inevitable.
Pop… pop… pop…
It goes silent.
The floorboards creak
they creak so slowly I start to question if it’s actually happening.
BAM
The door flies open
Tears stream down my face, comforting me with the warmth I’d always
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longed for.
That feeling of safety
The waves conceal me, covering me like a large blanket
They come crashing
What was once salty
Is now sweet
What happened to the popping noises?
I open my eyes, full of curiosity
Ready for my turn.
I scan the room
That’s when I saw them.
The bodies, so many bodies.
No longer leaking anxiety
No longer fearing death
For that’s what they’ve become
I then look up, right in front of me
And there it is
The red balloon
It goes up to the dead center of my forehead
I close my eyes, for a final time
And that’s when I realize
It’s impossible to lose your mind
When it never truly belonged.
172 Poetry

Alex Scott
Grade 12
Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School
Everlasting, My Love
Dried autumn leaves collected in your curls
The sun had abandoned warmth
For the everlasting affections of autumn’s chill
Soft pecks from chapped lips
Grazed cherry cheeks
While hands grasped for familiar hips
Our shared heat felt godly.
The moon’s glow bleached our skin
Clouds dispersed to reveal our starlit sky.
Pupils deepened
As we fell in love with midnight’s desires.
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174 Poetry

Theresa Lascek
Grade 10
Mt. Lebanon High School
Text me in the morning.
The phrase always stems from two sides of a coin,
Or rather two edges of a sword.
One from longing and love,
The other from hope and fear.
Someone wishes that their conversation may never end,
With their feelings fueling desire.
Someone else hopes that their life preserver is caught by the next morning,
With their fears keeping them up all night,
Clinging to the end of a rope made of white letters in a blue bubble.
The waves tossing the line could be phantoms in the mist,
Or could they truly be sending those in need back out to sea?
I saw you out there in the waters,
I sat in silence on the phone as you cried,
Your tears slid into the vast blue,
Though while I was with you, the currents were still.
There were times when you simply
Breathed.
And I listened.
I listened as you tried to laugh off the anguish plaguing your senses,
Knowing the laugh was more for me than you.
The fact makes me feel sick.
That you,
Even in your state,
Wanted for me to feel comfortable,
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With a small laugh.
But you soon returned to crying,
As you recounted how you fell into the sea.
You sobbed as you clung to the cliff’s edge,
White claws reaching up from the foam beneath you,
And you said that she was with you too.
You said that she shed just as many tears,
And loosed just as many shaking breaths.
But I know that she stood atop the cliffside while you hung on,
And I know that she carried you to the site.
At least she set you off the edge,
And did not push.
At the very least.
You love so deeply,
You consider everyone but yourself.
You feared for her,
as you,
fell from the cliff.
So, I wait with my rope,
Gazing at the ocean encircling my raft.
I look for signs of you on the horizon,
Swimming towards me on the wings of the sunrise.
Maybe you are far too strong to need my worry,
Maybe I could be sleeping,
Though my palms still gain callouses from my grip on the coils of straw.
You will be fine,
I will be fine, so
Text
Me
In
The
Morning.
please.
176 Poetry

Katharine Peng
Grade 11
North Allegheny Senior High School
the tragedy of Amonute
Amonute was how you were born
with earthen eyes and hair adorned
with silver stars and golden leaves,
the daughter of the Powhatan chief.
Matoaka, they called you so
within your tribe so long ago
But the Little Snow Feather grew her wings
and flew from home the first dawn of spring.
Pocahontas is who you became
when the foreign men came to stake their claim
on your home, and took your name
and buried it beneath your grave.
Rebecca was the girl that died
out of place, the savage bride
was all the English could ever see
And while you were scorned, your people grieved.
So come, young princess, come with me
journey back across the seas
for home is where you ought to be,
home is where Amonute runs free.
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178 Poetry

Luciano Lanz
Grade 11
McKeesport High School
Taco Wednesday
My school’s bowling team had a match every Wednesday.
There I met a boy who gave me a taco.
He wasn’t great at bowling,
But he was good.
I wanted to know him.
Seeing that we were on opposing teams
He obviously gave my attempts the cold shoulder,
Nevertheless, I encouraged him from the sidelines of the bowling alley.
He grew fonder of my presence apparently,
As I grew fonder of him.
I begged in my mind for this to be the beginning,
Continuously cheering him on.
My strategic approach brought us closer through sportsmanship.
By the end of the third and final game,
I gave him the most awkward but humble hug using the excuse
of sportsmanship.
Surprisingly he approached me
And asked me for my contacts
To keep in touch.
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180 Poetry

Hannah Russell
Grade 11
Pittsburgh Sci-Tech
Lacroix: Extra Sad
If I were to be a drink
It would be Lacroix
Lacroix: Extra Sad
Watering down and covering up every flavor of myself
With the sting of fake facades and made-up smiles
Every story carbonated with normality to keep away from attention
I’ve been soda pop
Bold and honest
But slowly it faded
For the fear of rotting people’s hearts like teeth
With the oppressive punch of my emotions
I’m healthier for them now
Better for their hearts
Worse for mine
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182 Poetry

Jason Lu
Grade 11
Upper St. Clair High School
Dreamland
When the sky is traced
with pseudo-celebratory blaze
take your lover’s hand
Your thoughts take wing,
my eardrums ring,
thence comes the sweet dreamland
Where none is tragic
all is magic
days are bright and grand
Moon emits as nights are lit
snowmen made from sand
Where there’s no war
nor any gore
peaceful peeps form bands
Of technicolor coats
and harmonious notes
humanity unites again
Reality wakes
the concrete shakes
guns and planes are manned
The bombs are dropped
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from grim sky atop
seconds left to spend
With a silent scream
we dropped our dreams
and looked into each other’s eyes
Our smiles beamed
so fake, it seems,
our final moment is nigh
With a hug and a kiss
we reminisce
and calmly face demise
Descends the abyss
along with a hiss
apocalypse, you and I
When the sky is traced
with nuclear blaze
take your lover’s hand
Just a slight sting
as our eardrums ring
thence comes the sweet dreamland
184 Poetry

Helen Zhang
Grade 11
Winchester Thurston School
Death and Fate
Born again from a sewage pipe
He was dragged out by the callused hands of revolutionaries
By those he had proclaimed to be
“cockroaches” and “rats” and who took up arms against him
He is now beaten to a blood orange pulp atop dirt and concrete
Slashed through by insults and spat on by his captors
His neck now bends at an ugly angle as
Blood drips from his forehead
The red waterfall engulfs his right side
A border between skin and it drawn by
Mounds of powdery dirt soaking the excess
He is shot in the chest as blood spurts out like a roman fountain
And onto his button-up shirt
His corpse lies there, deceased
As the people, always so helpless
Kick and beat his lifeless body in the streets over
And over and over again
Muammar Gaddafi is dead.
Muammar Gaddafi dies over and over again
In the mind of Vladimir Putin he dies repeatedly
In the midst of his Invasion of Ukraine
Exuding the pungent smell of soaking in the dark
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Bathing in a toxic bath of paranoia and self-worry and inner madness
Smells strangely nostalgic like the shells in Chechnya’s riverbank
Black smoke in Georgia’s sky or the casings amongst the wheat of the Donbas
Except something has gotten very out of hand
A crescendo from the ease of invasion to the resilience of “cockroaches”
Holding onto every last suburb
Cornered into the Black Sea
Protesting him despite his attempts at retribution
As the Western machine storms in to get him
Something has indeed gotten very out of hand
Born again from a sewage pipe
He was dragged out by the callused hands of revolutionaries
He is now beaten to a blood orange pulp, the cold concrete
He is shot in the chest as blood spurts out like a roman fountain
As the people, always so helpless,
Kick and beat his lifeless body in the streets over
Vladimir Putin is dead.
186 Poetry

Lucy Potts
Grade 10
Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12
On a One-Way Road
Off of Pioneer
My family expected a third child,
thus outgrowing our home like crabs.
We traveled near and far to find a fit
and the orange brick house with red door and porch
had not been inhabited for 25 years,
instead grown drafty and weathered,
holes in the floor and living room ceiling made clear.
It was simply not a deterrent
for Maggi and Jonathan, with too much
on their minds to even notice the chips
in the peeling mistletoe wallpaper.
Did they expect us to love the house
as they did or simply turn blind to the shortcomings?
The windows, while stained, were cracked,
the sliding doors were entrances for people
as well as mice, the curtains and blinds grew mold,
the heaters were burnt. Years later
the concrete floorless basement
would still be branded “unfinished.”
What did they see in the hundred year old house
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when the for sale sign was removed?
They knew that we, their children could never
be satisfied. Could we please share a room?
It was our solution to the crab problem
and our wish was granted, but bunkbeds along
with the rest of our things were placed in the new house.
And so, the 540th was lived in once more,
with my seventh birthday the first to be celebrated.
Where I saw a mess of 25-year-old breadcrumbs,
my parents saw a kitchen. Where I saw mustard paint
my parents saw fresh forest green. Where I saw a brick shell,
nothing more than a rotting building, my parents saw a home.
I never knew that years of living would go by
and hair would be found years after the pet,
the laundry chute’s tile would crack,
purple paint would stick to ripped Star Wars posters,
old chairs would scrape hardwood,
the hallway corner would become the timeout corner,
games of tag would kill the grass,
flower crowns would pick all the white clovers,
and the evidence of life and living and love
would pile up so high that even us,
the hesitant children could no longer
imagine being raised anywhere else.
188 Poetry

Olivia Belcher
Grade 12
North Allegheny Senior High
The Blood of the Covenant
or
The World | Inescapable
Prognostication
Inspired by Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth
Christina—
“Can I call you that?”
Christine, Krissie, Kris
Rissie, or Chloe (They all mean the same thing.
Predestination made eponymous.)
Let me tell you a fable of a teenage girl. “This is a work of fiction.
Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events,
is purely coincidental.”
Regardless, she falls, in the silverthorn field.
(The story is the same every time.)
Below her dress’ hemline, her knees (bare, for it is June, regardless of the
dust storms)
Take the worst
The worst of the hawthorn hit and
Her peel, her rind, her animal’s hide, spills stark vermillion honey to
Sweeten sickly viridescent herbage
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The locusts’ feast of epiphany, a desperation that
Fills the air that fills her lungs
And—Also—
An ecstasy like salt-flats laying stagnant on her tongue
THE WORLD
(Christina’s world that is) is small
A barn, A farmhouse
A horse-stable, A bath
(The Hated, Putrid Labyrinthine Embrace of the Womb),
Christine realizes. This is all she has (and will ever have). An
INESCAPABLE PROGNOSTICATION
No-escape. Not for Christine, no, not for her.
But—Also—
The prickly pear points of the plants on her
Skin? It is the best
The very best thing she has ever felt
And she laughs, plum-colored giggles, until she
Sobs and her father calls her for
Supper
190 Poetry

Lashe Daini
Grade 11
Nazareth Prep
Brown Mother
My Mother, brown and round, hair grey and short
Whose back was broken for mine, and dark knees wobble
Under the star-filled sky, black and blue with tomorrow’s Blueprint
Your tears wash my feet, and laughter treats my ears long for.
Seldom do your teeth burst out of your mouth, head thrown back
and joy remedy your eyes.
Is it I, brown and square, with hair dark and long
Whose back stands because yours was broken, and Knees cracked
for mine to bear the world on my shoulders
the root
My Mother, Vanquished with pain.
Pain wrapped with guilt
a perfect gift,
with a bow of nightly tears
My feet clean and strong with gratitude.
I hear the sulks of your heart when the sun goes to sleep.
The worry of your voice when I hurt
I see the agony your face hides as days dance along
My Mother, dear and lovely
Though I learn to fly with shrivelled wings
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stitched on me from your fractured ones
Gentle and loved
One day I’ll Sprout and flourish
I’ll clean your tears with mine.
I’ll mend your broken heart, with stitches of gold
I’ll fix your wings so hope becomes your name.
And joy your duly Anthem.
192 Poetry

Linda Kong
Grade 9
North Allegheny Intermediate High School
Palms, Blooming
I use petals
to carve
my own urn.
They pull
the clay into
a thing
that will hold
me. Hands caked
in dirt
when the deed
is done. Flowerpot
for the dead petals
afterwards. Oh,
how it opens. I
see my body
in my hands.
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194 Poetry

Audrey Coleman
Grade 10
Mt. Lebanon High School
oh, what a pretty bouquet
i was born with a bouquet of flowers
a mix of dusty roses, soft baby’s breath, a few sprigs of lavender too
oh, and don’t forget the daisies and sunflowers
a lovely mix of light pink, white, purple, yellow, and blue
i cared for my bouquet every day
made sure it had water and sunlight
never letting a single petal fade to gray
always keeping my pride and joy in sight
this bouquet stayed by my side as i changed
adding new flowers every once in a while
occasionally fixing the way it was arranged
though no flower ever faced exile
then came the time when people started to notice my bouquet
they gravitated towards it, enchanted by the assortment of colors and scents
everyone mesmerized during the entire school day
captivated by this simple bundle’s contents
people fawned and preened over it as much as i did
maybe a bit more than normal
but hey, i was just a kid
nothing seemed that abnormal
there was this one day though
a friend of mine was looking quite sour
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so upon them i bestowed
a lovely looking flower
alas, this small action did not go unseen
i was now expected to hand out my flowers to anyone who needed one
good god i was barely a teen
but i saw no harm in the long run
the first flower went to the girl who wasn’t comfortable in her own skin
the second for the girl who couldn’t keep her meals down
the third to the boy who could barely hold up his chin
the fourth to the boy who always had a perpetual frown
the fifth to the friend whose family tried to pray the gay away
the sixth to the classmate who was best friends with the blade
the seventh to the girl who just didn’t want to stay
the eighth to the boy who always felt betrayed
the cycle went on and on and on
unbeknownst to me of course
my flowers became more popular than a common coupon
some even taking a one or two by force
until one night i realized
i had all but one lone flower left in my sad little bouquet
to be honest, i wasn’t that surprised
just a single dusty rose to put on display
i cling to that flower now like it’s my lifeline
making sure it won’t ever die
for without that flower, my life would begin to decline
my blood would run bone-dry
though now i’ve come to terms with the fact that even if
my last little flower dies
if the light pink petals fade to gray
i’ll fly high in the skies
while i live on in a different bouquet
196 Poetry

Kay Mi
Grade 11
North Allegheny Senior High
rift
& yes, the storm
& yes, the waters
or haunting myself,
cliff face worn away
my mother, in my triumph
i am a rift,
shaking hands tired
where i first drowned
& yes, my soul-stained hands on the sea where
i am stuck drifting
where my mind keeps bonds of familial ashes
& i am a cruel-cut
by the tide—there in my spring-red
visions where i blame
where i blame my father &
bitter carved truth pried open by spite &
of words like shards of glass rooted deep
within my belly, right
the moon.
& yes, it is easy
to blame my
of my bones, holding
not communicate
nights i swallowed
own throat like
then it cannot be
to be caught
mother & remember the ghost of her that
still haunts the marrow
me at midnight the way god first held his newborn
clay—but if she did
her sleeplessness & bleeding desolations on
all the rage-soaked
ocean water, if her ragged team of
angels hosted a choir against my
the sky wages war against the blameless &
soaked rage-sea,
any fault of mine
wanting singing.
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& yes, it is easy
to blame my
thorns crawling
seawater & something
teeth—&
hollow-boned
wax candle
of seawater &
so yes, the waters
& yes, the storm
dreaming or drowning
cut cruel anchor
i cannot blame
i am
carved bitter heart pried
broken glass tempest,
word drenched in salt
weep
father & touch the armor he has made for
himself, all twisted words &
up a lighthouse taller than me, sulking violent
vines cloaked with
like shame—something like a legacy crushed
between my
in my dreams
& hollow-eyed fish swim in the melted candle
wax of caring,
melted of his love for me:
daughter-not-daughter & legacy-not-legacy
our bone-hollowed grief.
& yes, my stained soul longing on the
sea where i am stuck
myself, where my mind keeps bonds of
familial ashes & i am a
unmoored by the tide—there in my red
spring regrets where
my mother or my father &
a rift,
open by disgrace & minds tired
from the song of a
like in all the faces of the moon where
forgiveness is a
& weeping spirits, a word that
will never belong to spirits who
like me.
198 Poetry

Jalainta Houser
Grade 10
City Charter High School
Dear You
I love you…
I wonder if you’ll know who says this
Whom you shared good and bad times with
I bet you CAN’T tell me whom
As years have gone, so have I slowly
Now I think I’m reaching the end
For I am in a place beyond recognition
Whereas inside is anything BUT cozy
shivering at nights, I am,
Seeping deeper in a pitch-black pit
With countless wonders on why you are amiss
Praying until I can no longer, this IS a sham
There’s no sign of light
I’m scared out of my mind
Light used to shine around me day and night
This world can NOT be mine
In this darkness, there’s only one thing I see.
They are thoughts
And lots
Swirling like a tsunami
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This has been the only thing I’ve seen for a while now
I’ve read most
And for when I do inch close,
The thoughts read only bring me down
I bet you don’t realize
But I hope you find this true.
I’ve filed this complaint to you
Over a million times
Have you still not caught on to who I am yet?
I am you.
You’re shocked, I bet
But I’m not you, I’m the real you
The one deep within you
The one prior to the new you
The one before anyone acknowledged you
The one ahead of you unleashing you
I am you
Please stop ignoring me
Let me out or I will shout
What will you do with that lead?
Will you call me loud?
As you have before
When I tell you the truth
You will, I’m sure
But my voice WILL break the roof
Stop seeing us for less than what we are
build a connection with me
and stop being so stubborn
And only then, we can advance beautifully
I love you.
love me back
200 Poetry

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you so much to the talented
teen writers who entrusted us with
their work. Sharing your writing is like
showing people a little piece of your
mind and heart, and it takes courage.
I loved seeing what each teen wrote,
as well as the larger patterns that
appeared, revealing what many young
people are thinking about. Topics like
gun violence and war, but also love.
Huge thanks to our guest judges,
Rachael Lippincott and Yona Harvey.
You took the time to read each piece
with care and make the difficult decision
of choosing winners. Your feedback to
the finalists will be a wonderful gift to
inspire them as they continue writing.
202

This anthology could not exist without
the editorial team, who worked hard
on reading and discussing the entries,
and making tough decisions. Thanks to
the people working behind-the-scenes
to edit, lay out, and print the anthology.
If you are a parent, teacher, librarian,
mentor, or any caring adult in the lives
of these teens, you also deserve thanks.
Your support and encouragement are
vital. Please continue to nourish the
creativity of young people in your lives.
Sincerely,
Megan Branning
Youth Services Librarian,
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
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2022 Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology
Written by Allegheny County high school students, grade 9–12
Compiled by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh staff
2021 Cover Art Winner: Makenzie Sing