1) When I crawl out my window that night I am crawling into another world. Literally. There is a portal right outside my window that has been appearing every night at 1 am on the dot for the whole summer. I have no idea how it got there or why it’s there, but I do know that one night while I was wasting away watching TV shows or something, I noticed a glowing light from behind my curtains. When I cautiously but curiously opened them I noticed a giant portal right in front of my window. Needless to say, I immediately texted Jennifer who responded,
“OMG my window too, wtf dude I was just about to text you!”
After a week of late nights performing multiple very scientific tests involving bike helmets and makeshift shoelace ropes, we discovered that the portals led to the same place. What this place was exactly we weren’t entirely sure. It dropped into a luscious sunlit grassy field, peppered with wildflowers. There was a cool breeze in the air swaying the grass and most peculiarly a castle in the distance. It was incredibly large with white spires and red flags on the tops of the towers. It was straight out of a fantasy book. Today was the day we were going to reach that castle.
2) The two girls lean over the edge of the dock, hands gripping the end, and stare into the murky, freezing water below.
“There is definitely brain-eating amoeba in there,” Kate worries, turning to Maria.
“Pshhh, that is so stupid, there is literally no way. You’re just paranoid,” Maria decides, dipping her fingers in the water.
“No trust me, some guy just died from that! He jumped into a pond just like this one and brain-eating amoeba got in his ears and ate his brain and he died. Standing water dude, it’s over”
Maria gets up putting her hands on her hips, “Amoeba can’t even live in water this cold, right?” She turns to her phone placed a bit further down the dock, “Hey Siri, how warm does water have to be for brain-eating amoeba to survive?” She shouts.
“Naegleria fowleri is a heat-loving (thermophilic) organism, meaning it thrives in heat and likes warm water. It grows best at high temperatures up to 115°F and can survive for short periods at even higher temperatures.” Siri responds promptly.
“See,” Maria smiles, satisfied, “No way there is any of that in this freezing-ass water. Come on man we’ve already got our swimsuits on, we have to plunge.”
Kate sighs and stands folding her arms over her chest and staring suspiciously at the water, “Yeah yeah whatever you say. If my brain gets eaten it’s yours and Siri’s fault, and you’ll be crying at my funeral.”
We are sitting and waiting. Waiting for the train to come. The bench we are sitting on is cold and it is raining. It is the end of May but that did not stop it from misting a little while we waited around for our train to arrive. A few minutes ago we had gotten off our bus from Budapest. We were outside of Graz, Austria. The directions said that the train station was a five-minute walk from the bus stop but we did not anticipate that the bus stop for Graz, Austria would be in the middle of nowhere, on a commercial road with only a few shops, while additionally being in a country that we did not speak that language. With our suitcases in hand, we begin to make our way to the train station. Rolling a suitcase on a sidewalk never makes a pleasant sound but the sound of the wheels on the concrete sounds even louder when the only other noise around is the woosh of passing cars. The cars make me nervous. I never like to walk on the sidewalks of big streets, especially with a suitcase full of my stuff. The gray sky and mist coming down made me want to get to the train station quicker.
This isn’t the first time we have had to walk on the side of the road with all of our livelihood in our luggage. We have been to 20 countries in the last two months. Some cities, big cities, the middle of nowhere. We have been everywhere.
I did not think that we would be living like this a few months ago. Back home, I was going to school. Worrying about homework and getting into college. Life was so normal back then. I took it so for granted. I was bored and wanted something to make my life more exciting. But I never thought I would end up here, spending months on the run, never being able to go back home again. I miss worrying about homework. I miss eating lunch with my friends and feeling bored.
1. The gingko tree was a shadow against the dawn. It was the last dawn, maybe, for a long, long time. Underneath the falling leaves, the last leaves of this tree to fall, the last tree to grow in this space for years and years to come, stood a woman. She was out of place in her sleek business attire, pinstripe suit, impractical heels that pinched just a little too much in the toes. There was a rip in her collar, but she covered it with a pin from the other side of her jacket. After all, she was here for a funeral of sorts. These things have a dress code.
She considered checking her watch, but knew that there wasn’t much point in it. She was killing time now. Strange to kill time that’s already dead. Like taking a corpse from the morgue just to match the stab wounds over and over again. It was exactly the kind of thing she didn’t like to think too much about on days like these. It was exactly the thing her mind always spun back to anyway. Again, and again, and again.
She watched the sky as the sun kept rising. It was unpardonably rude to be early to a funeral, but sticking around for the service isn’t always an option. She leaned against the ginkgo tree and sunk to the ground, grateful to relieve her tired, pinched feet from her weight for a minute. After all, she had a minute. The sun kept rising, and the sky got brighter. And then there was a second sun, a second star in the sky, and it got brighter and brighter and brighter. She wiped the mascara from her eyes, preserved her dripping makeup as the world grew warm and hot and hotter. She took one last look at the bright red sky. At the towering figures on the horizon taking a last breath of the autumn air. This was her cue to exit, but the tree was comfortable and sturdy against her back. She had a minute.
2.
She was tapping her pencil too fast to keep a consistent rhythm. This bothered her as much as she imagined it was bothering her friend next to her, but she couldn’t get her hand to cooperate with any sort of regular beat. She leaned her head back against the brick wall she was sitting against, rough edged and heavily graffitied.
“Do you think they’ll actually shut down the show if I stop breathing on stage? Or will it be a ‘the show must go on’ situation? Because I can’t be held responsible if I get us closed on opening night”. She considered punctuating this with a cough for dramatic effect, but decided against it. Then started coughing anyway because she had pneumonia, which will do that.
Her friend laughed, looking up from his textbook, and shaking his head at the state of the stage in the background.
“I’ll pay you good money to get us shut down actually. I’m serious. How much would you charge to not take your inhaler and then hold your breath for a while on stage?”
She laughed and kicked him lightly in the shin, reaching her leg around their backpacks and scattered notebooks. They’d both given up on homework hours ago, but neither had any scenes today. She was allowed to sit out of most of the run anyway, to catch up on the weeks of missed schoolwork. He was not technically excused, but as long as no one could see him behind the half wall he had positioned himself against, it wasn’t likely anyone would care.
1) The window had been left open overnight, and although the sun comes streaming in there’s a chill in the air. Rainbows scatter over the quilt on my bed from the floral swirls of frost slowly melting off the panes of glass. I pull the covers up around my chin dreading the feeling of my feet touching the cold wood floors. What finally motivates me is the smell of coffee seeping under my door, along with orange paws shoved through that narrow gap batting at the air, pleading to be let in. I bite the bullet and throw the covers off me, make a mad dash for my robe, let Peach in, and follow my nose to the kitchen. Marigold is sitting in the fruit bowl again with her arms crossed and her wings tucked tightly behind her back. “Morning,” she says, “or is it even morning still, I’m honestly not sure…” The sarcasm drips off her words and I roll my eyes. She continues, not waiting for a response “anyways, we have a lot to do today”.
I’m helping her redo her house which is nestled in a tangle of bittersweet that has grown in a way that creates sort of a cave. I love Marigold, but I swear sometimes it’s like she forgets I’m doing this as a favor, and really where would she be without me? It’s not like she can pick up twigs that she wants to use as bedposts for her new queen. She said the moss on her previous bed was too firm, so last week I spent an entire afternoon following her around as she tested different patches over the yard. A fluffier variety was chosen and she monitored me carefully as I peeled it away from the rock it was growing on and trimmed it to the right size.
I turn to her “I know I know, I’m getting there just give me a sec.” I take a final gulp from my mug and dump the rest in the sink. I don’t bother changing out of my pajamas into real clothes, and grab my coat as Marigold flutters over and settles on my shoulder. “Brace yourself,” I say. She pulls part of my collar around her and I open the door.
2) She sits at the end of the long kitchen table of her grandparent’s house in Sarasota Florida, no longer wearing her travel outfit that somehow was suited neither for the chill of Massachusetts nor the mugginess of Florida. Her grandfather leaned against the counter and asked her to guess where he went yesterday. She knows him well, and the options will probably be limited to the grocery store, a game of bridge, or maybe he took his wife to the orchestra. The girl did not provide an answer but instead asked “Where?!” matching his enthusiastic tone. The grandfather went on to list all of the things he got at Publix, the deals he was able to find, and placed specific emphasis on the fact that he got Hagen Daz coffee ice cream knowing it was her favorite. A few moments later her grandmother would come into the kitchen and jump at the opportunity to bring out the tiny silver tea spoons that her granddaughter loved to use, and the grandfather would sit across the table grinning as he watched the girl scoop it out into a bowl. She’d sit there for a while, slowly turning the scoops over with her silver spoon in order to scrape the melted part off the bottom. It was her favorite part, the kind of soft serve texture that it had; her grandfather would always let out kind of a half shout half laugh amused by her particular eating habits. They loved making her happy. Beaming at the chance to put a smile on her face.
1. A lot of people lie. There’s every reason in the world for someone to lie. I don’t think you meant to (is it a lie if you don’t mean to?) but I think your father did. He said he bought that doll for you. He said he hand-dyed its hair but made a little mistake and that’s why its arms have splotches of red dye. He said he colored its eyes in and that’s why there’s dirt brown smudges on its cheek. I think he lied for love. He didn’t want to tell the truth to a kid.
He said he would get you a pretty toy after you begged and begged. But it’s grey outside and the toy store down the road has been closed since we marched into town. But he promised, and how can you offer something up and then take it back? Maybe he views failure as cruelty. Or maybe I just want to know his definition of cruel because sometimes I look at the red stains on your doll and am reminded of my definition of cruel. He’s lying to you and trying to lie to me.
She saw it when she ran away. She told me when we met, far down the road and into the woods under the shade of evergreen trees. She said we couldn’t discuss this where our parents could see us. And in the cove of dark green, she told me she saw another little girl holding the doll. She told me that the girl’s hair was white and her skin blue. She told me that she saw that little girl’s parents — white-haired and blue-skinned — curled around her begging. She told me that she saw the little girl crying into your doll’s hair. She told me that the blue people had no weapons, their nails weren’t claws and their eyes were red from crying, not from bloodlust. She told me that her dad killed them as my — no, your— father watched. She told me she saw that man, the one I can no longer claim, grab the doll from dirty, bloodied hands.
That’s when I told her she was the liar. The blue people only hurt. They’ve been rising from the ground and advancing on us for years. They’ve torn down villages and leveled churches. They drank our blood and used it to live immortal and strong. They don’t cry and they don’t have kids. They’re not human like us; they’re monsters born from dirt and snow, not out of love.
But there are splotches of red on the doll and its hair is black. There’s dirt on its face but he said he looked at you softly and said he bought it new. But how could he be telling the truth?
What if I’m the one lying now? What if I just take every opportunity to distrust a story? What if they got to her? What if they control her mind? They aren’t supposed to do that, but they aren’t supposed to bleed red either. They aren’t supposed to care or feel. They aren’t supposed to live in town and run toy stores down the road for their young. They aren’t supposed to die from advancing soldiers, they’re supposed to be the advancing soldiers. We aren’t supposed to kill innocents, we are supposed to be the innocent that they hunt.
And your, our, your father isn’t supposed to be cruel. The hand that gave you the doll was gentle, worn, and protective. How could it have maimed? How could it have lied?
But this house isn’t ours and I don’t know why we are marching. Your doll isn’t meant to be yours — somehow, I don’t think that’s a lie.
2.“I’ve always loved the color black,” Alex says to Kiera.
Kiera blinked at him, unsure why he picked black, of all colors, as his favorite. Her apprehension must have shown blatantly on her face because he continued:
“Ok sure, maybe that sounds dramatic, but I’m drawn to it.” He groans, frustrated, “Ok that sounds dramatic too, sorry, just- just let me explain.”
Kiera didn’t know if anything he said would make sense. She always hated the color black. It was too dark, too all-encompassing, and unforgiving. But she didn’t hate Alex, so she nodded at him to continue.
“I mean, there’s this stereotype of darkness — of evil — right? The villain always wears black robes or torn black lace dresses, and their magic is black smoke, or death, or darkness and, it’s boring, isn’t it? Black is dark sure, but it’s simple and it’s loving.”
“Loving?” she interrupted. “How could it be loving if it covers up all the light?”
“Who said the light was good?” He laughs. She can’t help but smile in return. “Seriously Kier, think about it! Everyone wears some black, right? Look,” he points across the courtyard, “it’s the color of his bag.” He points down at their feet, “It’s the color of our shoes.”
“So, it’s universal, what’s so special about that?”
He continues, softer, “It’s the color of your hair and sometimes your eyes. It’s mystifying. It sparkles in a way no other color can.” He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “When your hair hits the sun and you turn to me, sometimes I lose my breath.” His hand stays resting in her hair, “Black is love and tragedy and hope. It is everything and as my father would say — the spectroscopy nerd that he is,” he laughs, “it is nothing.”
“Alex-” she starts.
“It reminds me of you.” He emphasizes.
“Well, let me change my answer then. My favorite color is brown.” She glances up at his hair, and then down at his eyes. He grins blindingly back at her.
Coming back in the rain was annoying when carrying several pounds of graphite covered paper. He was rejected again and for the fourth time this week. Not surprising in an institution that would rather focus on lengthy research papers and the tears of overworked students. That’s what was expected. Not art, not creativity, not anything meaningful, just government regulated projects and information.
And Kay was tired. No civilian was willing to hire an artist anymore and the government had no reason to. And he knew, he knew, that it wasn’t the quality of his work or a reflection of himself. But hearing rejection over and over again made him doubt.
So, he stood in the rain and let the water soak through the pages. He stared at the way the water dripped down the pages taking the drawing and all his hope with it.
“Kay?”
He looked up. It was his roommate who functioned more as a homeless shelter for Kay alone. Kay was broke, useless, a waste. Maybe he should give up and return to the Academy, wear the stupid uniform, and give up his soul to monotony.
“It’s raining,” Al said blandly. He was standing well under the roof of the front porch just watching with the emotionless expression he always wore. Kay used to think it was from his government job but he now knew that Al was just like that.
Kay gave a defeated sigh, “No shit.”
“You’ll ruin your drawings.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Kay shrugged.
“It does to you,” Al said.
“No it doesn’t,” Kay said, not making any move to get out of the rain.
“At least get out of the rain,” Al spoke in a matter of fact manner, never betraying emotions. And it never bothered Kay until today,
“Just shut up,” he snapped, “Just shut up and ignore me like everyone else. Go back to wasting your days in a fucking office and let me die alone in the gutter! Another starving artist for parents to warn their kids about.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re an idiot,” Al repeated.
“You–”
“Stop trying to convince yourself that you’re not the most talented artist in this country and come inside.” He said it with a conviction Kay had never heard before, like he actually believed it.
So Kay stared him in the eyes and dropped the soaked papers in the mud forming around his feet.
Al sighed at Kay’s display of defiance. “Just–” he took a breath and, less blunt than before, “just come inside. Let’s have a cup of coffee and you can tell me about your next project.”
That left Kay confused. “My next project?”
Al nodded towards the ruined papers, “You’ll need to replace those, right?”
“I–uh…”
“Yes, you will,” Al stated.
Kay stared at him incredulously while Al just met his gaze, a small smile on his face.
“Alright.”
2.
She doesn’t understand any of the words he’s telling her. That’s fair. She’s what? Six? What’s the point in explaining the secrets of the universe to a six year old? But she won’t stop asking questions and he can’t help but answer them.
“Are black holes real?” she asks, nearly vibrating. It seems she’s kept this question in her mind the entire time he explained how stars form.
“Yeah, kid,” he smiles, “they are.”
“Woah! I knew it!” she shouts, doing a little spin, her pink dress twirling around her. She stumbles a bit but steadies herself before he has to step in to catch her.
After reorienting herself she giggles and asks the most terrifying question of all time: “And how do black holes work?”
And he only sighs, and gears up for another thirty minute conversation about theoretical physics. But he’s not annoyed. How can he be annoyed when she stares up at him with sparkling eyes and endless wonder.
“Well, remember how we talked about gravity being a powerful force?”
1. Maddie was hanging from the tree branch, until her hands slipped and she crashed down. The drop was only five feet, but as a kid that felt giant. But the strangest thing happened. When Maddie crashed to the ground, she had vanished. She smacked to the ground and disappeared into thin air. There was no trace of her— no blood, no loose earring, not even a strand of blonde hair. The kids who watched her disappear screamed for her mother, and she struggled to believe what they saw. The whole town came out to search. Flashlights in the bushes in the nearby forests, bracing for the worst. Maddie’s toothless grin was plastered on the side of the school milk cartons. Everyone knew. The billboard on the only highway out of town was taken over by her face, purchased out by her desperate parents on public funding and a loan. 6 months passed with no trace. The town debated cutting down the tree, out of respect. Sophie sat at the base of the tree, protesting its removal. She laid back, remembering how her and Maddie swung on this tree everyday after school, pretending to be the gibbons they saw in the National Geographic magazines in Mrs. Smith’s classroom. Sophie heard voices in the ground, and she pressed her ear deep into the dirt. Could her friend be stuck under there? Surely it was Maddie! Sophie dug and dug and dug and the dirt was all under her nails and flying into her mouth but her friend was under there and she was the only one who could save her. The neighbors watched the poor girl dig like an animal, and insisted the kids of this town had lost it.
2. MJ woke up on the freezing cold porch, her eyelashes frozen from the cold. Dear God, had she hit rock bottom like this? She was trying to recount the night, through all the alcohol. She remembered the pregame, the drinking games and chanting along to ABBA. She went out every weekend to “advance the plot of her life” in her words. But really she hoped someone would see her from across the dance floor, or out on the porch smoking, or just that someone would see her, like really take notice. She hoped this person would admire the curves of her hips and her full lips and would ask her about what makes her stomach churn and her heart swell and her hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities. She wanted someone to devour her fully, and still crave more. They would be the only ones to speak her full name, Marianne Jane, and it would slip off their tongue as a hymn that would be her salvation. But nobody noticed MJ. Nobody even wanted to drunkenly makeout with MJ. She soothed herself with shot after shot and she burned all over. And now she woke up on the porch. She would have to piece together the night through everyone else, but that recount might be too embarrassing to bear.
1) Sophie is by my side for maybe .3 seconds, then she is across the yard. Something over there must have been calling her name. Everything seems to be calling her name these days. She seems to hear things that we don’t. There is a slight breeze as her fuzzy self is suddenly on the opposite corner. A more noticeable one as she returns to my side with the ball. A small twister as she keeps me from taking it from her mouth. A larger one as she starts chasing her tail again. My ponytail comes undone and my long hair chaotically whips around in the frenzy. The few remaining leaves on the trees get caught up in the wind, following Sophie as she zooms around. The twister is picking up the snow on the ground, letting it fall all over again.
2) “What does terraforming have to do with the evolution of mosquitos?”
Not a question that Jillian thought she would be asking that day. She should have expected something like this, since odd conversations like these were pretty much guaranteed whenever she talked with Wayne.
“Think about it!” Wayne said. “If the land had been shaped differently somehow, maybe different creatures would have been introduced and evolved in different ways! So we might have gotten a completely different version of a mosquito!”
Skeptical of this logic, Jillian pulled out her phone and quickly searched something up.
“Huh,” she said. “Apparently, mosquitos mainly evolved to bite people in dry areas like Africa.” She held out the phone screen, and the two both studied the search results in fascination. “I guess if they had lived in a wet area, they wouldn’t have had to evolve to be vampires, then.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” said Wayne. “Which begs the question: Would they be worse, or better?”
“I mean… I don’t – it depends? I guess?” Jillian stuttered.
1)
I awake to the blinding sunlight and a woman hammering a flyer into my side. Ouch. I’ll never get over that feeling. I hear a bird up above me and realize I have a resident— a robin mother building her nest. That’s rare. I introduce myself to her as she builds her nest.
“Most birds are off-put by my presence,” I tell her. “They don’t like how much attention I get and would much rather be somewhere more secluded.”
“What attention do you get?” she asks me, completely ignoring the fact that she’s building her nest in my heart-shaped branches.
I told her it was a long story but she had time. When this city was built a group of women came to me because they were having trouble finding love. They had always tried in their old town but this was a new city and took an interest in me and declared me fortuitous. They liked the small hearts that traveled from the bottom of my trunk to the top. My branches that formed hearts and swirls and bright red leaves. My leaves never change. They stay this fiery rid even in the snow and rain and heat, making me the center of attention all year round. The women saw me as a fortune of love. They would come to me and wish to find love, so I granted them whatever they wished for. Whenever they got something that they wished for they would come back and thank me with hanging string lights through my leaves and planted flowers around me. It’s all very flattering. But apparently, these women never got the love they wished for. They would find someone after I granted their wishes, but they would never be treated right. They would come back to me and start inscribing more wishes in my body with pocket knives they would plant more flowers and adorn me with ornaments even so far as climbing up to the top of me thinking that if they could get to the top somehow they would have a better chance of getting what they wanted. Their flattery became torture. The more I grant their wishes and the more they are disappointed by them the more tired I get. They keep coming back. But I always gave them what they wanted. It wasn’t the fact that they didn’t get what they wanted. I think they didn’t want what they asked for.
“Anyway,” I tell my new resident, “I don’t think a single person that I have granted a wish to has found true love.”
It’s all anyone asked for from me.
Maybe one day I will grant someone a wish and they will find a love that lasts forever.
2)
After school, she bolts out of her father’s station wagon and runs to the front door trudging through all the fluff getting stuck in the crevices of her shoes and on the fabric of her socks. When she gets inside she throws her books down pulls out her coral iPhone 5c and wired earbuds and blasts All About That Bass by Megan Trainor. All day at school she was craving pepperoni pizza rolls. Her dog Oreo comes up barking at her as she rummages through the fridge looking for the rolls and her mom calls her as she rips open the box and her friends are texting her about some dance that’s coming up and her dad is asking her how her day was her skirt is too tight and it is too hot to be wearing a uniform all she wants to do is listen to her music and eat her pizza rolls.
I watch the half moons rise under her eyes every morning. They are dark, like the dreams that plague me now. I am always trying to get somewhere in them and failing. Towering walls, impenetrable buildings, oceans that must be crossed, mountain paths that lead to nowhere. I look at her and I know what she is thinking. She’s afraid of what it will be like to not feel the earth under her feet. She wants to be a seed inside of an apple that has just fallen. She wants to be something that will eventually find its way back to the place from which it originated.
We pack as many of our belongings as we can carry and prepare for the journey. We walk to the place where they said the bus would pick us up. The weight of our bags make gravity feel close, like a loved one. There is just me and her and gravity now. Everyone else we know has already left. While we wait I try to comfort her by holding her hand, but I can’t comfort myself. It’s coming soon and it’s going to take everything, they say. Make it all disappear. I wonder what it will look like afterwards – land that is devoid of life, devoid of man-made structures, devoid of everything. I imagine looking into the distance having nothing obstruct my view. Must be like staring out at the ocean, I think.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the bus approaching. It’s already getting dark, so I’m glad that it’s not too late. I look into the bus. I can see bodies pressed against bodies. There is condensation on the inside of the windows. We rise from the damp ground we were sitting on and wait for the doors to open. After a moment they do and we board. My hand is tightly grasping hers but she isn’t holding mine back. There are no seats open, so we must stand. My feet are already aching. As the bus slowly rolls away, I look back at where we came from. On the ground, sitting alone like a widowed elderly man, is Katie’s Hello Kitty doll. I look into its eyes and tell it to hold on tight.
Isabelle concocts a tasty mixture of butter and sugar in the kitchen. She likes to pretend to bake alongside her grandmother, who is making her famous blueberry cake. After it is in the oven, the two of them sit at the table, looking out at the lake. Isabelle’s grandmother smooths out the red gingham tablecloth with her hand while Isabelle asks her how long it will take until the cake is done. “You have to be patient”, her grandmother says in response. She enjoys instilling such values in her grandchildren. Especially this one, with the messy hair and clothes that never match. On some level she feels that she hasn’t been parented correctly. She doesn’t know her place, and when she wants something she gets it. “Such a shame”, she thinks to herself.
After a while, the timer goes off and Isabelle’s grandmother takes the cake out of the oven. Isabelle can hardly contain her excitement as her nose fills with its sweet aroma. Once it cools, her grandmother puts a small piece on a plate for her. Too small, Isabelle thinks, but that was her grandmother. “Grandma B, I love your cake!” she says, happily munching on the fluffy morsel. “Your cousin, Aaron, he really loved it”, her grandmother says, as though it were a competition. “I do too”, says Isabelle, vying for the place she knows she’ll never get in her grandmother’s heart.
1. My Papa makes magical food. I’m not talking about it tasting so good it’s magical, although it does seem like that sometimes because he is quite the chef. No, my grandpa makes MAGICAL food. I don’t know how. Maybe there is some magical pepper that he mixes into the concoctions he has made or he himself is magical, I’m just really not sure. But honestly, it doesn’t matter to me, I just love my Papa’s magical food. When I take a bite of his world famous mac n cheese or lasagna, the inside of my body just becomes warm, and every cut or wound I have on my body is gone. Honestly, I think that is part of the reason why we make breakfast in bed for my Grandma. She is quite fragil and I think part of the only reason she is still alive is Papas healing food.
Just because Papa makes the food magical doesn’t mean that we don’t get to help make breakfast in bed for my Grandma. Each of my siblings has a job. My brother washes and peels the potatoes, I cut the potatoes, my sister cooks the potatoes and helps my Grandpa season the potatoes. Papa cooks all of the other food, like the eggs and bacon, I am not sure why but he always just did such a good job.
Papa’s food has always been magical, but it continues to grow in power. I hope that maybe one day, a bite of Papa’s famous potatoes will allow me to fly, or maybe get superspeed.
2. Amelia sat there, cider in hand, staring at the campfire infront of her. The flames were so playful with each other, dancing back and forth. She looked around and saw her friends having conversations with each other, some were laughing and joking around while others seemed to be talking about something serious.
“You okay Meels?” asked Max.
Amelia smiled and laughed lighty, replying “Yeah I’m okay, I’m just thinking.”
“That’s ominous,” Aubree chimed in.
The light on everyones faces would grow bright and fade, showing and hiding their features.
“I mean, I just feel happy right now.”
“Oh, and why is that?” Ryann asked.
At this point, it seems like most of her friends were focused on Amelia and her response to this question.
“Don’t you ever just take a second to look around you and appreciate… just …everything? Like, I don’t even know how to describe it. I am just happy right now.”
Amelia took a sip of her cider and everyone sat there for a moment in silence, just thinking. Then out of the blue Max cracked a joke and everyone erupted in laughter and the lively conversations continued on. Amelia sat there smiling for a
1) He’s cooking… cooking what? They’re not sure. He doesn’t cook often. It never goes well. Alice and Bob watch as he grabs something green out of the freezer, it looks like leftovers and has a strong smell. Scared for their stomach’s they clenched and thought about how they had no other choice than to eat his food or starve. They haven’t eaten all day. Grandma left early for work and left him in charge. He looked so satisfied while mixing up that monstrous dish, smiling from ear to ear. His teeth are abnormally sharper than yesterday. “This might be my best dish yet” he snarls, totally forgetting he had 2 other people to feed. He wasn’t worried about their taste buds. The pot bubbling over with putrid hot smells splatting into the atmosphere as they pop. Alice and Bob may be young but they know when something isn’t right. They rush to the living room, next door, and hop on the counter to reach the wall phone better. Alice grabs the phone as Bob prepares to dial, contemplates if 911 should be called before Grandma. Across from them they hear a can being clawed open followed by a lingering smell of dead fish. Dreading their fate Bob quickly dials 911. Their hearts pound in fear as the house became warmer and the traveling sounds of the spoon banging on the sides of the pot as he stirred grew louder. “911, what’s your emergency”… *dial tone*.
2) Clench teeth, jaw pops, uncomfortable. Never knew why he does that. 2am, clench, drag, pop, no sleep. He talked to her full of glee that day, with those baby teeth sturdy and pearly. She’s tired, sleepless nights make her forget what she’s in it for. He’s such a sweet boy, her baby boy, but it’s getting hard to do it on her own. She doesn’t really know what to think of it. Her thoughts interrupted by the sound of the fridge being peeled open by her husband Chris.
13 responses to “Conversion Exercises (Tues)”
1) When I crawl out my window that night I am crawling into another world. Literally. There is a portal right outside my window that has been appearing every night at 1 am on the dot for the whole summer. I have no idea how it got there or why it’s there, but I do know that one night while I was wasting away watching TV shows or something, I noticed a glowing light from behind my curtains. When I cautiously but curiously opened them I noticed a giant portal right in front of my window. Needless to say, I immediately texted Jennifer who responded,
“OMG my window too, wtf dude I was just about to text you!”
After a week of late nights performing multiple very scientific tests involving bike helmets and makeshift shoelace ropes, we discovered that the portals led to the same place. What this place was exactly we weren’t entirely sure. It dropped into a luscious sunlit grassy field, peppered with wildflowers. There was a cool breeze in the air swaying the grass and most peculiarly a castle in the distance. It was incredibly large with white spires and red flags on the tops of the towers. It was straight out of a fantasy book. Today was the day we were going to reach that castle.
2) The two girls lean over the edge of the dock, hands gripping the end, and stare into the murky, freezing water below.
“There is definitely brain-eating amoeba in there,” Kate worries, turning to Maria.
“Pshhh, that is so stupid, there is literally no way. You’re just paranoid,” Maria decides, dipping her fingers in the water.
“No trust me, some guy just died from that! He jumped into a pond just like this one and brain-eating amoeba got in his ears and ate his brain and he died. Standing water dude, it’s over”
Maria gets up putting her hands on her hips, “Amoeba can’t even live in water this cold, right?” She turns to her phone placed a bit further down the dock, “Hey Siri, how warm does water have to be for brain-eating amoeba to survive?” She shouts.
“Naegleria fowleri is a heat-loving (thermophilic) organism, meaning it thrives in heat and likes warm water. It grows best at high temperatures up to 115°F and can survive for short periods at even higher temperatures.” Siri responds promptly.
“See,” Maria smiles, satisfied, “No way there is any of that in this freezing-ass water. Come on man we’ve already got our swimsuits on, we have to plunge.”
Kate sighs and stands folding her arms over her chest and staring suspiciously at the water, “Yeah yeah whatever you say. If my brain gets eaten it’s yours and Siri’s fault, and you’ll be crying at my funeral.”
We are sitting and waiting. Waiting for the train to come. The bench we are sitting on is cold and it is raining. It is the end of May but that did not stop it from misting a little while we waited around for our train to arrive. A few minutes ago we had gotten off our bus from Budapest. We were outside of Graz, Austria. The directions said that the train station was a five-minute walk from the bus stop but we did not anticipate that the bus stop for Graz, Austria would be in the middle of nowhere, on a commercial road with only a few shops, while additionally being in a country that we did not speak that language. With our suitcases in hand, we begin to make our way to the train station. Rolling a suitcase on a sidewalk never makes a pleasant sound but the sound of the wheels on the concrete sounds even louder when the only other noise around is the woosh of passing cars. The cars make me nervous. I never like to walk on the sidewalks of big streets, especially with a suitcase full of my stuff. The gray sky and mist coming down made me want to get to the train station quicker.
This isn’t the first time we have had to walk on the side of the road with all of our livelihood in our luggage. We have been to 20 countries in the last two months. Some cities, big cities, the middle of nowhere. We have been everywhere.
I did not think that we would be living like this a few months ago. Back home, I was going to school. Worrying about homework and getting into college. Life was so normal back then. I took it so for granted. I was bored and wanted something to make my life more exciting. But I never thought I would end up here, spending months on the run, never being able to go back home again. I miss worrying about homework. I miss eating lunch with my friends and feeling bored.
1. The gingko tree was a shadow against the dawn. It was the last dawn, maybe, for a long, long time. Underneath the falling leaves, the last leaves of this tree to fall, the last tree to grow in this space for years and years to come, stood a woman. She was out of place in her sleek business attire, pinstripe suit, impractical heels that pinched just a little too much in the toes. There was a rip in her collar, but she covered it with a pin from the other side of her jacket. After all, she was here for a funeral of sorts. These things have a dress code.
She considered checking her watch, but knew that there wasn’t much point in it. She was killing time now. Strange to kill time that’s already dead. Like taking a corpse from the morgue just to match the stab wounds over and over again. It was exactly the kind of thing she didn’t like to think too much about on days like these. It was exactly the thing her mind always spun back to anyway. Again, and again, and again.
She watched the sky as the sun kept rising. It was unpardonably rude to be early to a funeral, but sticking around for the service isn’t always an option. She leaned against the ginkgo tree and sunk to the ground, grateful to relieve her tired, pinched feet from her weight for a minute. After all, she had a minute. The sun kept rising, and the sky got brighter. And then there was a second sun, a second star in the sky, and it got brighter and brighter and brighter. She wiped the mascara from her eyes, preserved her dripping makeup as the world grew warm and hot and hotter. She took one last look at the bright red sky. At the towering figures on the horizon taking a last breath of the autumn air. This was her cue to exit, but the tree was comfortable and sturdy against her back. She had a minute.
2.
She was tapping her pencil too fast to keep a consistent rhythm. This bothered her as much as she imagined it was bothering her friend next to her, but she couldn’t get her hand to cooperate with any sort of regular beat. She leaned her head back against the brick wall she was sitting against, rough edged and heavily graffitied.
“Do you think they’ll actually shut down the show if I stop breathing on stage? Or will it be a ‘the show must go on’ situation? Because I can’t be held responsible if I get us closed on opening night”. She considered punctuating this with a cough for dramatic effect, but decided against it. Then started coughing anyway because she had pneumonia, which will do that.
Her friend laughed, looking up from his textbook, and shaking his head at the state of the stage in the background.
“I’ll pay you good money to get us shut down actually. I’m serious. How much would you charge to not take your inhaler and then hold your breath for a while on stage?”
She laughed and kicked him lightly in the shin, reaching her leg around their backpacks and scattered notebooks. They’d both given up on homework hours ago, but neither had any scenes today. She was allowed to sit out of most of the run anyway, to catch up on the weeks of missed schoolwork. He was not technically excused, but as long as no one could see him behind the half wall he had positioned himself against, it wasn’t likely anyone would care.
1) The window had been left open overnight, and although the sun comes streaming in there’s a chill in the air. Rainbows scatter over the quilt on my bed from the floral swirls of frost slowly melting off the panes of glass. I pull the covers up around my chin dreading the feeling of my feet touching the cold wood floors. What finally motivates me is the smell of coffee seeping under my door, along with orange paws shoved through that narrow gap batting at the air, pleading to be let in. I bite the bullet and throw the covers off me, make a mad dash for my robe, let Peach in, and follow my nose to the kitchen. Marigold is sitting in the fruit bowl again with her arms crossed and her wings tucked tightly behind her back. “Morning,” she says, “or is it even morning still, I’m honestly not sure…” The sarcasm drips off her words and I roll my eyes. She continues, not waiting for a response “anyways, we have a lot to do today”.
I’m helping her redo her house which is nestled in a tangle of bittersweet that has grown in a way that creates sort of a cave. I love Marigold, but I swear sometimes it’s like she forgets I’m doing this as a favor, and really where would she be without me? It’s not like she can pick up twigs that she wants to use as bedposts for her new queen. She said the moss on her previous bed was too firm, so last week I spent an entire afternoon following her around as she tested different patches over the yard. A fluffier variety was chosen and she monitored me carefully as I peeled it away from the rock it was growing on and trimmed it to the right size.
I turn to her “I know I know, I’m getting there just give me a sec.” I take a final gulp from my mug and dump the rest in the sink. I don’t bother changing out of my pajamas into real clothes, and grab my coat as Marigold flutters over and settles on my shoulder. “Brace yourself,” I say. She pulls part of my collar around her and I open the door.
2) She sits at the end of the long kitchen table of her grandparent’s house in Sarasota Florida, no longer wearing her travel outfit that somehow was suited neither for the chill of Massachusetts nor the mugginess of Florida. Her grandfather leaned against the counter and asked her to guess where he went yesterday. She knows him well, and the options will probably be limited to the grocery store, a game of bridge, or maybe he took his wife to the orchestra. The girl did not provide an answer but instead asked “Where?!” matching his enthusiastic tone. The grandfather went on to list all of the things he got at Publix, the deals he was able to find, and placed specific emphasis on the fact that he got Hagen Daz coffee ice cream knowing it was her favorite. A few moments later her grandmother would come into the kitchen and jump at the opportunity to bring out the tiny silver tea spoons that her granddaughter loved to use, and the grandfather would sit across the table grinning as he watched the girl scoop it out into a bowl. She’d sit there for a while, slowly turning the scoops over with her silver spoon in order to scrape the melted part off the bottom. It was her favorite part, the kind of soft serve texture that it had; her grandfather would always let out kind of a half shout half laugh amused by her particular eating habits. They loved making her happy. Beaming at the chance to put a smile on her face.
1. A lot of people lie. There’s every reason in the world for someone to lie. I don’t think you meant to (is it a lie if you don’t mean to?) but I think your father did. He said he bought that doll for you. He said he hand-dyed its hair but made a little mistake and that’s why its arms have splotches of red dye. He said he colored its eyes in and that’s why there’s dirt brown smudges on its cheek. I think he lied for love. He didn’t want to tell the truth to a kid.
He said he would get you a pretty toy after you begged and begged. But it’s grey outside and the toy store down the road has been closed since we marched into town. But he promised, and how can you offer something up and then take it back? Maybe he views failure as cruelty. Or maybe I just want to know his definition of cruel because sometimes I look at the red stains on your doll and am reminded of my definition of cruel. He’s lying to you and trying to lie to me.
She saw it when she ran away. She told me when we met, far down the road and into the woods under the shade of evergreen trees. She said we couldn’t discuss this where our parents could see us. And in the cove of dark green, she told me she saw another little girl holding the doll. She told me that the girl’s hair was white and her skin blue. She told me that she saw that little girl’s parents — white-haired and blue-skinned — curled around her begging. She told me that she saw the little girl crying into your doll’s hair. She told me that the blue people had no weapons, their nails weren’t claws and their eyes were red from crying, not from bloodlust. She told me that her dad killed them as my — no, your— father watched. She told me she saw that man, the one I can no longer claim, grab the doll from dirty, bloodied hands.
That’s when I told her she was the liar. The blue people only hurt. They’ve been rising from the ground and advancing on us for years. They’ve torn down villages and leveled churches. They drank our blood and used it to live immortal and strong. They don’t cry and they don’t have kids. They’re not human like us; they’re monsters born from dirt and snow, not out of love.
But there are splotches of red on the doll and its hair is black. There’s dirt on its face but he said he looked at you softly and said he bought it new. But how could he be telling the truth?
What if I’m the one lying now? What if I just take every opportunity to distrust a story? What if they got to her? What if they control her mind? They aren’t supposed to do that, but they aren’t supposed to bleed red either. They aren’t supposed to care or feel. They aren’t supposed to live in town and run toy stores down the road for their young. They aren’t supposed to die from advancing soldiers, they’re supposed to be the advancing soldiers. We aren’t supposed to kill innocents, we are supposed to be the innocent that they hunt.
And your, our, your father isn’t supposed to be cruel. The hand that gave you the doll was gentle, worn, and protective. How could it have maimed? How could it have lied?
But this house isn’t ours and I don’t know why we are marching. Your doll isn’t meant to be yours — somehow, I don’t think that’s a lie.
2.“I’ve always loved the color black,” Alex says to Kiera.
Kiera blinked at him, unsure why he picked black, of all colors, as his favorite. Her apprehension must have shown blatantly on her face because he continued:
“Ok sure, maybe that sounds dramatic, but I’m drawn to it.” He groans, frustrated, “Ok that sounds dramatic too, sorry, just- just let me explain.”
Kiera didn’t know if anything he said would make sense. She always hated the color black. It was too dark, too all-encompassing, and unforgiving. But she didn’t hate Alex, so she nodded at him to continue.
“I mean, there’s this stereotype of darkness — of evil — right? The villain always wears black robes or torn black lace dresses, and their magic is black smoke, or death, or darkness and, it’s boring, isn’t it? Black is dark sure, but it’s simple and it’s loving.”
“Loving?” she interrupted. “How could it be loving if it covers up all the light?”
“Who said the light was good?” He laughs. She can’t help but smile in return. “Seriously Kier, think about it! Everyone wears some black, right? Look,” he points across the courtyard, “it’s the color of his bag.” He points down at their feet, “It’s the color of our shoes.”
“So, it’s universal, what’s so special about that?”
He continues, softer, “It’s the color of your hair and sometimes your eyes. It’s mystifying. It sparkles in a way no other color can.” He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “When your hair hits the sun and you turn to me, sometimes I lose my breath.” His hand stays resting in her hair, “Black is love and tragedy and hope. It is everything and as my father would say — the spectroscopy nerd that he is,” he laughs, “it is nothing.”
“Alex-” she starts.
“It reminds me of you.” He emphasizes.
“Well, let me change my answer then. My favorite color is brown.” She glances up at his hair, and then down at his eyes. He grins blindingly back at her.
1.
Coming back in the rain was annoying when carrying several pounds of graphite covered paper. He was rejected again and for the fourth time this week. Not surprising in an institution that would rather focus on lengthy research papers and the tears of overworked students. That’s what was expected. Not art, not creativity, not anything meaningful, just government regulated projects and information.
And Kay was tired. No civilian was willing to hire an artist anymore and the government had no reason to. And he knew, he knew, that it wasn’t the quality of his work or a reflection of himself. But hearing rejection over and over again made him doubt.
So, he stood in the rain and let the water soak through the pages. He stared at the way the water dripped down the pages taking the drawing and all his hope with it.
“Kay?”
He looked up. It was his roommate who functioned more as a homeless shelter for Kay alone. Kay was broke, useless, a waste. Maybe he should give up and return to the Academy, wear the stupid uniform, and give up his soul to monotony.
“It’s raining,” Al said blandly. He was standing well under the roof of the front porch just watching with the emotionless expression he always wore. Kay used to think it was from his government job but he now knew that Al was just like that.
Kay gave a defeated sigh, “No shit.”
“You’ll ruin your drawings.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Kay shrugged.
“It does to you,” Al said.
“No it doesn’t,” Kay said, not making any move to get out of the rain.
“At least get out of the rain,” Al spoke in a matter of fact manner, never betraying emotions. And it never bothered Kay until today,
“Just shut up,” he snapped, “Just shut up and ignore me like everyone else. Go back to wasting your days in a fucking office and let me die alone in the gutter! Another starving artist for parents to warn their kids about.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re an idiot,” Al repeated.
“You–”
“Stop trying to convince yourself that you’re not the most talented artist in this country and come inside.” He said it with a conviction Kay had never heard before, like he actually believed it.
So Kay stared him in the eyes and dropped the soaked papers in the mud forming around his feet.
Al sighed at Kay’s display of defiance. “Just–” he took a breath and, less blunt than before, “just come inside. Let’s have a cup of coffee and you can tell me about your next project.”
That left Kay confused. “My next project?”
Al nodded towards the ruined papers, “You’ll need to replace those, right?”
“I–uh…”
“Yes, you will,” Al stated.
Kay stared at him incredulously while Al just met his gaze, a small smile on his face.
“Alright.”
2.
She doesn’t understand any of the words he’s telling her. That’s fair. She’s what? Six? What’s the point in explaining the secrets of the universe to a six year old? But she won’t stop asking questions and he can’t help but answer them.
“Are black holes real?” she asks, nearly vibrating. It seems she’s kept this question in her mind the entire time he explained how stars form.
“Yeah, kid,” he smiles, “they are.”
“Woah! I knew it!” she shouts, doing a little spin, her pink dress twirling around her. She stumbles a bit but steadies herself before he has to step in to catch her.
After reorienting herself she giggles and asks the most terrifying question of all time: “And how do black holes work?”
And he only sighs, and gears up for another thirty minute conversation about theoretical physics. But he’s not annoyed. How can he be annoyed when she stares up at him with sparkling eyes and endless wonder.
“Well, remember how we talked about gravity being a powerful force?”
1. Maddie was hanging from the tree branch, until her hands slipped and she crashed down. The drop was only five feet, but as a kid that felt giant. But the strangest thing happened. When Maddie crashed to the ground, she had vanished. She smacked to the ground and disappeared into thin air. There was no trace of her— no blood, no loose earring, not even a strand of blonde hair. The kids who watched her disappear screamed for her mother, and she struggled to believe what they saw. The whole town came out to search. Flashlights in the bushes in the nearby forests, bracing for the worst. Maddie’s toothless grin was plastered on the side of the school milk cartons. Everyone knew. The billboard on the only highway out of town was taken over by her face, purchased out by her desperate parents on public funding and a loan. 6 months passed with no trace. The town debated cutting down the tree, out of respect. Sophie sat at the base of the tree, protesting its removal. She laid back, remembering how her and Maddie swung on this tree everyday after school, pretending to be the gibbons they saw in the National Geographic magazines in Mrs. Smith’s classroom. Sophie heard voices in the ground, and she pressed her ear deep into the dirt. Could her friend be stuck under there? Surely it was Maddie! Sophie dug and dug and dug and the dirt was all under her nails and flying into her mouth but her friend was under there and she was the only one who could save her. The neighbors watched the poor girl dig like an animal, and insisted the kids of this town had lost it.
2. MJ woke up on the freezing cold porch, her eyelashes frozen from the cold. Dear God, had she hit rock bottom like this? She was trying to recount the night, through all the alcohol. She remembered the pregame, the drinking games and chanting along to ABBA. She went out every weekend to “advance the plot of her life” in her words. But really she hoped someone would see her from across the dance floor, or out on the porch smoking, or just that someone would see her, like really take notice. She hoped this person would admire the curves of her hips and her full lips and would ask her about what makes her stomach churn and her heart swell and her hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities. She wanted someone to devour her fully, and still crave more. They would be the only ones to speak her full name, Marianne Jane, and it would slip off their tongue as a hymn that would be her salvation. But nobody noticed MJ. Nobody even wanted to drunkenly makeout with MJ. She soothed herself with shot after shot and she burned all over. And now she woke up on the porch. She would have to piece together the night through everyone else, but that recount might be too embarrassing to bear.
1) Sophie is by my side for maybe .3 seconds, then she is across the yard. Something over there must have been calling her name. Everything seems to be calling her name these days. She seems to hear things that we don’t. There is a slight breeze as her fuzzy self is suddenly on the opposite corner. A more noticeable one as she returns to my side with the ball. A small twister as she keeps me from taking it from her mouth. A larger one as she starts chasing her tail again. My ponytail comes undone and my long hair chaotically whips around in the frenzy. The few remaining leaves on the trees get caught up in the wind, following Sophie as she zooms around. The twister is picking up the snow on the ground, letting it fall all over again.
2) “What does terraforming have to do with the evolution of mosquitos?”
Not a question that Jillian thought she would be asking that day. She should have expected something like this, since odd conversations like these were pretty much guaranteed whenever she talked with Wayne.
“Think about it!” Wayne said. “If the land had been shaped differently somehow, maybe different creatures would have been introduced and evolved in different ways! So we might have gotten a completely different version of a mosquito!”
Skeptical of this logic, Jillian pulled out her phone and quickly searched something up.
“Huh,” she said. “Apparently, mosquitos mainly evolved to bite people in dry areas like Africa.” She held out the phone screen, and the two both studied the search results in fascination. “I guess if they had lived in a wet area, they wouldn’t have had to evolve to be vampires, then.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” said Wayne. “Which begs the question: Would they be worse, or better?”
“I mean… I don’t – it depends? I guess?” Jillian stuttered.
1)
I awake to the blinding sunlight and a woman hammering a flyer into my side. Ouch. I’ll never get over that feeling. I hear a bird up above me and realize I have a resident— a robin mother building her nest. That’s rare. I introduce myself to her as she builds her nest.
“Most birds are off-put by my presence,” I tell her. “They don’t like how much attention I get and would much rather be somewhere more secluded.”
“What attention do you get?” she asks me, completely ignoring the fact that she’s building her nest in my heart-shaped branches.
I told her it was a long story but she had time. When this city was built a group of women came to me because they were having trouble finding love. They had always tried in their old town but this was a new city and took an interest in me and declared me fortuitous. They liked the small hearts that traveled from the bottom of my trunk to the top. My branches that formed hearts and swirls and bright red leaves. My leaves never change. They stay this fiery rid even in the snow and rain and heat, making me the center of attention all year round. The women saw me as a fortune of love. They would come to me and wish to find love, so I granted them whatever they wished for. Whenever they got something that they wished for they would come back and thank me with hanging string lights through my leaves and planted flowers around me. It’s all very flattering. But apparently, these women never got the love they wished for. They would find someone after I granted their wishes, but they would never be treated right. They would come back to me and start inscribing more wishes in my body with pocket knives they would plant more flowers and adorn me with ornaments even so far as climbing up to the top of me thinking that if they could get to the top somehow they would have a better chance of getting what they wanted. Their flattery became torture. The more I grant their wishes and the more they are disappointed by them the more tired I get. They keep coming back. But I always gave them what they wanted. It wasn’t the fact that they didn’t get what they wanted. I think they didn’t want what they asked for.
“Anyway,” I tell my new resident, “I don’t think a single person that I have granted a wish to has found true love.”
It’s all anyone asked for from me.
Maybe one day I will grant someone a wish and they will find a love that lasts forever.
2)
After school, she bolts out of her father’s station wagon and runs to the front door trudging through all the fluff getting stuck in the crevices of her shoes and on the fabric of her socks. When she gets inside she throws her books down pulls out her coral iPhone 5c and wired earbuds and blasts All About That Bass by Megan Trainor. All day at school she was craving pepperoni pizza rolls. Her dog Oreo comes up barking at her as she rummages through the fridge looking for the rolls and her mom calls her as she rips open the box and her friends are texting her about some dance that’s coming up and her dad is asking her how her day was her skirt is too tight and it is too hot to be wearing a uniform all she wants to do is listen to her music and eat her pizza rolls.
I watch the half moons rise under her eyes every morning. They are dark, like the dreams that plague me now. I am always trying to get somewhere in them and failing. Towering walls, impenetrable buildings, oceans that must be crossed, mountain paths that lead to nowhere. I look at her and I know what she is thinking. She’s afraid of what it will be like to not feel the earth under her feet. She wants to be a seed inside of an apple that has just fallen. She wants to be something that will eventually find its way back to the place from which it originated.
We pack as many of our belongings as we can carry and prepare for the journey. We walk to the place where they said the bus would pick us up. The weight of our bags make gravity feel close, like a loved one. There is just me and her and gravity now. Everyone else we know has already left. While we wait I try to comfort her by holding her hand, but I can’t comfort myself. It’s coming soon and it’s going to take everything, they say. Make it all disappear. I wonder what it will look like afterwards – land that is devoid of life, devoid of man-made structures, devoid of everything. I imagine looking into the distance having nothing obstruct my view. Must be like staring out at the ocean, I think.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the bus approaching. It’s already getting dark, so I’m glad that it’s not too late. I look into the bus. I can see bodies pressed against bodies. There is condensation on the inside of the windows. We rise from the damp ground we were sitting on and wait for the doors to open. After a moment they do and we board. My hand is tightly grasping hers but she isn’t holding mine back. There are no seats open, so we must stand. My feet are already aching. As the bus slowly rolls away, I look back at where we came from. On the ground, sitting alone like a widowed elderly man, is Katie’s Hello Kitty doll. I look into its eyes and tell it to hold on tight.
Isabelle concocts a tasty mixture of butter and sugar in the kitchen. She likes to pretend to bake alongside her grandmother, who is making her famous blueberry cake. After it is in the oven, the two of them sit at the table, looking out at the lake. Isabelle’s grandmother smooths out the red gingham tablecloth with her hand while Isabelle asks her how long it will take until the cake is done. “You have to be patient”, her grandmother says in response. She enjoys instilling such values in her grandchildren. Especially this one, with the messy hair and clothes that never match. On some level she feels that she hasn’t been parented correctly. She doesn’t know her place, and when she wants something she gets it. “Such a shame”, she thinks to herself.
After a while, the timer goes off and Isabelle’s grandmother takes the cake out of the oven. Isabelle can hardly contain her excitement as her nose fills with its sweet aroma. Once it cools, her grandmother puts a small piece on a plate for her. Too small, Isabelle thinks, but that was her grandmother. “Grandma B, I love your cake!” she says, happily munching on the fluffy morsel. “Your cousin, Aaron, he really loved it”, her grandmother says, as though it were a competition. “I do too”, says Isabelle, vying for the place she knows she’ll never get in her grandmother’s heart.
1. My Papa makes magical food. I’m not talking about it tasting so good it’s magical, although it does seem like that sometimes because he is quite the chef. No, my grandpa makes MAGICAL food. I don’t know how. Maybe there is some magical pepper that he mixes into the concoctions he has made or he himself is magical, I’m just really not sure. But honestly, it doesn’t matter to me, I just love my Papa’s magical food. When I take a bite of his world famous mac n cheese or lasagna, the inside of my body just becomes warm, and every cut or wound I have on my body is gone. Honestly, I think that is part of the reason why we make breakfast in bed for my Grandma. She is quite fragil and I think part of the only reason she is still alive is Papas healing food.
Just because Papa makes the food magical doesn’t mean that we don’t get to help make breakfast in bed for my Grandma. Each of my siblings has a job. My brother washes and peels the potatoes, I cut the potatoes, my sister cooks the potatoes and helps my Grandpa season the potatoes. Papa cooks all of the other food, like the eggs and bacon, I am not sure why but he always just did such a good job.
Papa’s food has always been magical, but it continues to grow in power. I hope that maybe one day, a bite of Papa’s famous potatoes will allow me to fly, or maybe get superspeed.
2. Amelia sat there, cider in hand, staring at the campfire infront of her. The flames were so playful with each other, dancing back and forth. She looked around and saw her friends having conversations with each other, some were laughing and joking around while others seemed to be talking about something serious.
“You okay Meels?” asked Max.
Amelia smiled and laughed lighty, replying “Yeah I’m okay, I’m just thinking.”
“That’s ominous,” Aubree chimed in.
The light on everyones faces would grow bright and fade, showing and hiding their features.
“I mean, I just feel happy right now.”
“Oh, and why is that?” Ryann asked.
At this point, it seems like most of her friends were focused on Amelia and her response to this question.
“Don’t you ever just take a second to look around you and appreciate… just …everything? Like, I don’t even know how to describe it. I am just happy right now.”
Amelia took a sip of her cider and everyone sat there for a moment in silence, just thinking. Then out of the blue Max cracked a joke and everyone erupted in laughter and the lively conversations continued on. Amelia sat there smiling for a
1) He’s cooking… cooking what? They’re not sure. He doesn’t cook often. It never goes well. Alice and Bob watch as he grabs something green out of the freezer, it looks like leftovers and has a strong smell. Scared for their stomach’s they clenched and thought about how they had no other choice than to eat his food or starve. They haven’t eaten all day. Grandma left early for work and left him in charge. He looked so satisfied while mixing up that monstrous dish, smiling from ear to ear. His teeth are abnormally sharper than yesterday. “This might be my best dish yet” he snarls, totally forgetting he had 2 other people to feed. He wasn’t worried about their taste buds. The pot bubbling over with putrid hot smells splatting into the atmosphere as they pop. Alice and Bob may be young but they know when something isn’t right. They rush to the living room, next door, and hop on the counter to reach the wall phone better. Alice grabs the phone as Bob prepares to dial, contemplates if 911 should be called before Grandma. Across from them they hear a can being clawed open followed by a lingering smell of dead fish. Dreading their fate Bob quickly dials 911. Their hearts pound in fear as the house became warmer and the traveling sounds of the spoon banging on the sides of the pot as he stirred grew louder. “911, what’s your emergency”… *dial tone*.
2) Clench teeth, jaw pops, uncomfortable. Never knew why he does that. 2am, clench, drag, pop, no sleep. He talked to her full of glee that day, with those baby teeth sturdy and pearly. She’s tired, sleepless nights make her forget what she’s in it for. He’s such a sweet boy, her baby boy, but it’s getting hard to do it on her own. She doesn’t really know what to think of it. Her thoughts interrupted by the sound of the fridge being peeled open by her husband Chris.