- Write a 1-page story emulating Justin Torres’ style (diction, prosody, sentence structure, tone, themes, voice, point-of-view, etc. …whatever is relevant to your story). If you are stuck, let the story within Torres’ novella prompt you to write about a story from your life, but since this is fiction, find a way to walk that border / take freedoms with fictionalizing the personal. I am looking to see how your critical investment in the novella is conveyed through your creative piece.
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“But how can a forest fire be good for the environment?” Asked Liam.
The everglades park ranger clearly loved this question. “Well, you see, certain types of plants need them occasionally. Sometimes destruction can be good for a growing ecosystem. Like did you know that pine cones explode during fires to release their seeds?”
“They what?” I blurted out.
“Yessir, they explode with enough heat.”
We didn’t have to say a word. Before they park ranger could return with his smug granola smile Liam’s backpack was filled with pinecones.
“We need small ones too, to start.” Liam advised.
“Good idea. But more big ones.” I said back.
Liam bear hugged the backpack for the entire bus ride. We planned every minute detail, the kindling, the fuze, the distance we would duck behind cover and the probable velocity of a projectile pine cone. We were pyromaniacs and safety experts, and it was only fourth grade.
We wanted more, but we agreed to start with a medium sized pine cone. We gently placed it on a pile of kindling under a teepee of sticks then lined a dozen matches as a fuze.
Neither of us would let the other light it. We weren’t afraid of the shockwave- we had already done this with hundreds of fireworks. But neither of us was going to wait behind a fence while the other was enveloped a ball of fire.
So we lit the fuze and ran together.
We waited. We waited for the thunderous boom for a minute before we peaked our heads over the fence in sync.
We could see an orange glow around the pine cone.
“It just needs time to heat up.” Liam suggested. I nodded. Our eyes were already exposed over the fence, there was no use hiding again.
So we waited.
Minutes later the flame died out. No projectiles, no mushroom cloud, no shockwave to blow us out of the suburbs. We walked over to the smoking grave of our creation. The slightly charred pine cone was laughing at us. We studied the mess for few minutes, taking notes, filing reports, making re-calculations.
“I guess this pine cone was defective.” Liam surmised.
“We should try a bigger one next time.” I added.
“And maybe more fire.”
Fahmid Rashid
March 10, 2019
Corner Room
Dad had just changed jobs, and since Mom was still as busy as ever, this meant when there was no food at home, we would have to order something. Our little thumbs struggled to type into the keyboard the digits on that shiny gold card. We were in awe; how could this tiny device with our mother’s name on it somehow fulfill our needs? The magic surrounding this device was beyond the comprehension of this 9-year-old. We respected its powers, its ability to make food appear within the hour, to do what our parents were too often too busy to do. At least we weren’t going to bed hungry, even if we had often been going to bed alone.
Some weekends we spent with our friends. Other weekends, confined to the limits of the internet. Sometimes, Louis and Han Seung were our best friends. Other times, it was Youtube. We would spend countless hours together, watching anything and everything. How come, in such a busy household, we couldn’t help but feel so lonely? The irony.
Some weekends we went to work with Mom, and sat in an empty office in the corner room. It was loaded with games that would keep our young mind preoccupied for hours. A part of us thinks that those countless hours in that corner room led to a greater affinity for video games.
One day, we woke from our hypnotic trance of staring into the screen and, after being exhausted from playing games, walked over to the big room. It had a shiny gold plaque by the door; the same shiny gold as that magic card, again with our mother’s name on it. We went into her room, over to the desk where she was reviewing a paper of some sorts. There were red pen marks all over the paper; we recognized it as her handwriting.
I asked if it was almost time to go home.
Mom was in such a deep train of thought, that at first she hadn’t realized I was standing there. Once she did however, she asked if I was feeling bored.
“I prefer the computer at home,” I said.
“I’m sure you do,” she said. “I’ve got to stay for a couple more hours, but why don’t I get someone to drop you home? I’ll see you after dinner.”
In our family, the weekend doesn’t always start on Saturday. Some Saturdays, we would wake up to an empty home, with just the maids to keep us company. Sometimes it was meetings. Other times, a company lunch.
Back then, I never understood what kind of work my mother did; what kind of job makes her have to come in on some Saturdays? That was supposed to be a day for us. Even Dad, who some weeknights I wouldn’t see at all because by the time he got home I was asleep, could be relied upon to be propped on that couch in the living room reading a newspaper every Saturday morning. Was this some sort of lesson I was supposed to learn? How to be independent, how to take care of myself, how to be alone?
No matter how many friends we had, for some reason we still felt alone at heart. Throughout the years, learning to spend time by ourselves never got any easier; we just got more used to it.
Glimmers from the sunrise met my gaze through the window. I groaned; Maggie forgot to close the curtains again. She snored beside me, drool dripping from the crevice in the corner of her mouth. She was usually so pretty when she slept. I rolled over to check the time and cursed. It was a quarter past six. Maggie’s alarm would toll at thirty past the hour. Even though her shift started at 11:00 AM on Saturdays, she preferred to wake up early for a morning spin class. I promised her I would go with her this week. “Fuuuuuck.”
I rolled over to look at Maggie’s face, as if to count her many freckles. We had been together for almost a year now. We met shortly after February, were engaged in July. I didn’t mean for things to happen so quickly, but Maggie is so wonderful, and I felt that it was time. “You’re almost 30,” my ma said to me, “you’re not getting any younger, and she’s not getting any uglier.” Thanks ma.
I twisted under the blanket onto my back. I let out a sigh, breathing in the fresh morning air. I closed my eyes and, as I do every morning, thought of her.
It was summer when we first met, just teenagers. Back then, the sun shined as bright as her eyes when she smiled. Together, we journeyed to boundaries new to the both of us, our bodies sewn together by the welcomed warmth of young love. Neither of us has been with anyone before, as though, without knowing, we had waited for each other. We laid beneath the covers, legs intertwined. I took her hand in mine, running my fingers through her matte-black hair, across her golden-brown skin.
“I think I may love you,” I told her.
“You think, or you know?” She questioned.
“I know.” I replied
“Good, because I love you too.”
RIIIIIIIIING
The analog clock roared as the clock struck 6:30. Maggie rolled to her side, shut off the clamor, yawned, stretched. Finally, she turned to me, grinning.
“How did you sleep, darling?”
“Fine,” I answered out-of-hand.
“Did you have pleasant dreams.” She pressed her temple to my shoulder.
I smiled fondly, almost lovingly. “Always.”
We were at the edge of the water, two bodies, shoulders barely touching. There was an absence to our eyes that I could see in lake’s reflection. A testament to the complicated coping mechanisms of our small bodies. The yelling voices, like the reaching rays of light coming from the house’s windows behind us, danced across the expanse of the water’s glassy surface.
She turned to me, the scratch of her baby blue raincoat’s material making a fuss against mine.
“What if we never went inside?” She raised a young, thin arm a swept it out against the expanse of the peachy horizon.
“And went where?” I asked. I was younger than her, my eyes wider and my mind still learning about the little things, the obvious.
“We could go to a beach somewhere,” she turned towards me, the scar on her upper lip quivering against her ideas, “and watch people fall in love.”
I looked at her. She turned away. “I don’t think I could walk that far,” I admitted.
She didn’t hear me. Her chin was turned up, her eyes far away from me now. She seemed older in the creeping shadow of the dark, her chin sharp like our mother’s.
I tried to look through her line of sight. Did the thing where I went beyond the sorbet of the sun and I looked up into two people, one figure, swaying in sand. I thought I saw the white foam of waves behind them. Their silhouettes saluted ours from across the lake, somehow. We felt an allegiance to this documentation of their love.
I think that her face was towards me, one of the women. I wonder how she took in the unabashed openness of my curious eyes and the meek nature of my huddled figure against the strength of my sister’s. Would she know that I was loved by the way my shoulders hunched? Or would she see right through me as she soaks up the familiar touch of her lover?
I wanted to ask them about their love, about if it would last. If they would yell through open windows, their daughters standing barefoot at a lake’s open mouth. As it kissed their toes and distracted them through the wonder of its movement. I wanted to ask about how many fears they shared: fears of the dark, of wandering alone, of wondering with no promise of an answer.
It was cold under my feet and my hands were searching. I let grains stick to the inside of my hands, broken down rock nestling into the splayed wrinkling of my palms and between my fingers.
No it was grass, not sand. The stuff that screamed if you breathed the right way into the flat green of it.
She turned towards me. I heard the squelch of her feet as she lifted herself from her commitment to adventure. The mud wanted us to stay. It wanted us to sink into it and find the beach that she wanted. The place of the lovers and the welcoming, vibrant light. Of us, learning that we can be loved the right way.
“Let’s go. They’ll stop if we come in.”
“But our feet are dirty.” I was scared.
“So are your hands.” She took my right into her left. She was scared too.
We weren’t expecting to see her back so soon. She, they, told us they’d be back on Tuesday. Today was Sunday.
Mom locked eyes with Maya and I as we reached the bottom of the stairs, still in a bleary nine o’clock Sunday haze, and that look was enough to jar me out of it. My eyes weren’t yet fully smile wrinkled from the fleeting elation of seeing Mom before my face fell back down. The smile had evaporated in somber air when I saw her wet eyes. Something was different and I didn’t want to know what.
“Where’s Dad?” Maya asked.
We shared furrowed brows. “Why are you home now?”
I was suddenly wrapped around Mom’s left leg and Maya around the right. She whispered, voice hoarse, “Dad’s in the hospital.” She sat on the edge of the tan booth in the corner of the kitchen and cradled us. My dreams of fluffy Sunday pancakes had collapsed. I covered my big eyes and thought and thought. I tried to close eyes to the world but they stayed as open as they ever had been to soak in the emptiness.
“Is he going to be ok?”
I realized that Uncle and Aunt had been standing there too, unnoticed in my shrine of hurt.
Later, the house was filled with people. I should have known how to talk with them. They were family members I had grown up spending the special days of the year with. Hugs suddenly seemed the hardest thing in the world. Dad connected us all and now that pillar was removed, obliterated by some stupid heart thing. It was the first time I had cried in a bit and it made me happy to know I cared.
Someone said “we need each other in moments like these” and Maya and I saw some nods from family. “Thank God he kept everyone so close”
When next day’s dinner rolled around I hadn’t quite figured out who I was now.
Raising her glass, Maya forced out a toast of sorts.
“I keep thinking of the moment when Dad took us fishing on the bay. He hated fishing. I wanted to go and he never said no to spending time with his kids.”
“He loved his family,” someone said to the room.
It was true; he had built his happiness around his wife, and kids, and brothers and sisters.
I managed to choke out, “I love you Dad” before finishing the rest of the half-cold spaghetti that was buried in the black plastic take-out tray.
We found ourselves here, and by virtue, farther away from there, as the space between us whittled down like soft, cedar wood, the shavings scattered on the floor. It was a Sunday afternoon and the forest welcomed our quiet footsteps. Step, step, step. Stop. Your eyes caught a mushroom, one with orange specks above and a waved, white bottom below.
“Don’t eat it,” I said as I recognized at the spark in your eyes.
The spark went out, out as fast as it had arrived. We walked on. Step, a birch, step, pass a beech, step in front of the oak that reigned tall, above the growing saplings. Our feet aligned with one another, a pattern we created – synchronized and rhythmic – yet independent one each other all the same. I followed your gaze forward with the path we were following, and found your next target. A smaller, slimey, orange newt that blended in and hid below with the fallen autumn leaves. Or it was a salamander. What’s the difference anyway? Who stands to correct us out here? Who stands out here?
“Let it be,” my voice called out without my eyes even meeting yours.
Your shoulders sagged and your face sulked at my call, but there was no leaf to cover you, or for you to hide below.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, “that was harsh.”
The air wrapped your arms and small goose bumps rose up, springing and blooming and budding as flowers, or as weeds. You stood still. The hairs on your arm caught sunlight similar to the way it wove through trees, illuminated; the warm sun touched our faces.
Now in silence, in silent treatment, we step, and together found a spot to sit. We sat on that fallen log, on the moss grown over, on that window sill of time without moving forward. We had wandered far now; almost out of sight of the mighty power lines that keep almost all in line. We were the exception. Out of line, of sight from others, of eye, of hope. Wandering and waiting, wading in the waters along the creek instead of taking the bridge of stones. Our feet wet, and socks soggy, and the reflection in the waters below were the only eyes watching us.
“Are we there yet?” you cried out, almost if not to me.
“We are here,” I replied.
“We are here?!”
Your eyes caught the light of the sun and in that moment held each ray, gleaming.
“Well we are here, not there.”
The rays shot back to the sun at the speed of light itself, “oh c’mon,” you rolled your eyes.
“We are here for the now.”
In this moment, the very now that we are in, you do not seem to understand. You can feel the future to the tips of each of your fingers, and here I sit on this rotting log, watching you, step, into the next. The space that is between us grows as you make your way there, farther away from me here in the present.
Recess
I was never very good at playing with the other kids, or getting along with the other kids, or tolerating the other kids. They irritated me, I didn’t like them. I didn’t waste any time pretending otherwise. Except for Cale. Cale was my best friend. Cale and I used to climb to the tops of the trees at his house, and once we were there we should just yell. I would yell, and then he would yell, and then we would yell.
“I’m at the top of a tree” I yelled.
“I’m at the top of a tree” he yelled back.
He really was a friend of mine. He was always at my side as I made noises when the teacher turned around, always at my side when I would push it too far, always at my side when we sat out in the hall until she came to yell at us. I think that’s selfish. We would bother her, so she would send us into the hall, where we could bother the rest of the school. Really doesn’t make any sense. What did make sense was Cale, always there, my friend.
Always there. He was always there. And then he wasn’t. It was recess, and him and I spent the whole hour throwing wood chips at Tall Boy. Tall Boy was in our class, he had his own friends I think, and he always liked to mess with me and Cale. We always liked to mess with him though too, so I guess it was a mutual understanding. That day, Cale and I climbed on top of the playground, both of us with a t-shirt full of wood chips we had picked from the ground below. Feet wrapped around the monkey bars, one hand holding the t-shirt tight to make sure none of the projectiles fell out, the other picking and throwing, picking and throwing, picking and throwing.
Tall Boy wasn’t just tall, he was also stupid, a winning combination Cale and I said. At 8 years old, I couldn’t throw a wood chip very far, neither could Cale, even if he was 9. But Tall Boy didn’t know that. I hit him with a wood chip, he yelled at me, Cale and I almost fell off the playground from laughing so hard, and Tall Boy would stay in our limited range.
“What an idiot” Cale said.
“Such an idiot” I responded.
I don’t think that it would hurt to get hit with a wood chip. They put them on school playgrounds, where they wrap everything in rubber padding, they can’t be that bad. But Tall Boy got mad, really mad, the idiot. Then the whistle blew, and recess was over, it was time to go back inside and bother the teacher.
Cale got off the playground, I got off the playground. Picking up my feet, I began my run toward the door. It was just then that I felt a hand in the back of my head, Tall Boy’s, and then a wave of wood chips in my face. Because he was so tall, he had a better angle to thrust my face into the ground, the idiot. I rose slowly, embarrassed. He didn’t even say anything.
“What a jerk” I said, looking for Cale.
I waited long for a response, and it never came. Cale ran ahead and left me there, wood chips falling off my tattered face. I just sat there alone, pain in my face, pretending. Pretending it didn’t hurt. Pretending the greatest pain that I felt came from the wood chips stabbing me. I never wasted time pretending, my imagination never was very good.
“We the Animals” Response
William Blastos
We ran through the woods. Chasing and running away from each other. Winding paths Dad and I had cleared and had turned to walking trails for me and my siblings. It was summer 2009 by the time we’d worn the trails down enough to not have to clear them again every year. That summer passed slow, hot and sweaty. I don’t remember much, besides running through the woods and skipping stones on the pond where we sat waiting for the bullfrog to peep its head out of the water. And the house in the middle of nowhere, on a mile long road with only one other house.
Two years later, blond hair caught in brambles when I fell down into the ravine and Emma had to run inside to get Mom. Hot sand and garter snakes on the endless paths underneath the power lines on the opposite side of the trees that lined my side yard. Footprints and shotguns shells beside abandoned beer cans. This was the summer of 2011. The neighbor’s kids were there too beside my sister and brother and me. They were there when we found the dead stag, freshly eviscerated by coyotes. Flies were swarming and the wounds were fresh, and the blood was still wet. Wet like the blood from the cut on Nate’s thumb from the his swiss army knife. The same knife he would drop in the sand the following summer.
We spent an afternoon excavating the sand in a ravine trying to find the red multi-tool, only to leave sunburned and knife-less. Summer of 2012 was the summer of tick checks after a kid in town got lyme disease in June. Every night Mom would check the soft skin where ticks would collect. They were medals of honor, the ticks on the backs of my knees and in my armpits were indications of a successful day. We learned kill a tick by crushing it between your fingernail and your thumb, or by placing it on the woodstove and burning it with the lighter Dad used to light the fire pit on a cool clear night.
We had a fire pit the night before we left for our new house closer to town. Emma, Nate, Me, Mom, and Dad. That was the summer of 2014. Dad made hamburgers and we ran around the trails in the woods and skipped stones on the pond. The bullfrog had disappeared two summers before, but we still looked for its eyes on the water as we threw the flat stones. We watched Mom and Dad sit by the fire as we carved our names into the porch.
Augie Schultz
3/11/19
Prof. Cassarino
Together-Thing
We were all tucked in, my brother and I, ready to watch the night turn bright, apart. Lijah’s bed was still being assembled, and even though he dreaded sleeping under the same blanket, I was thrilled. This was my chance, finally I could prove how mature I’ve gotten.
I couldn’t wait until his approval showered over me. Soon, I thought, maybe even tomorrow. In the same bed for the first time in forever, our legs met. His leg was harrier, but mine was catching up. Mine was still bare.
I fantasized about explaining how things will be different when I’m older — how I’ll carry the dog’s refrigerated lunch box, and he’ll wet the toothbrushes for when mom checks, I’ll divvy up the pieces for chinese checkers and he’ll be the cute one telling guests to take off their shoes before dinner parties because it’s less snarky to hear it from a seven-year-old than an adult.
Mom came up to ask a question and interrupt my fantasy.
“Do either of you boys know where the remote is? Your father can’t find it anywhere.”
I saw Lijah hide the remote under the dog’s bed before dinner. He liked to play this trick every few months so we’d get more time before we had to fall asleep.
“I think I might’ve left it on the kitchen counter,” I muttered.
The best parts of Lijah’s approval were his eyes.
“You shouldn’t lie to Mom, ya know,” He said sanctimoniously.
When my eyes looked up to meet his, the giggles percolating inside of me, that I’d worked so hard to keep in there when Mom was up, burst through my lips and, evidently, evolved into a guffaw.
Lijah was a less than effervescent boy. It made the smiles we shared more warm, more intimate. It made this laughter more vivid and it almost made me forget how it always is.
His disciple, right-hand-man, subsidiary, partner in crime — in this moment I was so charmed to be his brother. I didn’t want to be older. He’s so good at it.
“Sometimes you surprise me, dude,” Lijah admitted.
I didn’t want to grab ahold of him, but I didn’t have a say. I was startled and now my heart was beating closer to his chest than mine. I let go quickly, before he had a chance to reciprocate or convulse in disgust.
I desperately wanted Mom to come back up. I needed to impress him again, we needed to pull another fast one, engage in another thing, I don’t even know what we would engage in together, another thing, please, one more thing, together, as long as it’s together, anything together, he’s always cold, he’s always cold and now he’s warm, please Mom, come back up, one more together-thing.
I looked down and turned to face away. I didn’t check but I knew he wasn’t looking back.
“G’night, Lijah.”
Snooze
I lay awake in bed, hands flat against my cool sheets, waiting for the sound of my alarm to tell me I can start my day. Snooze. I don’t get up. Snooze. I should really get up. Snooze.
I no longer have Father to yank the sheets off me and splash my face with a cold glass of water. Snooze.
It’s now 10 o’clock and I am frantically putting on my skinny jeans, brushing my teeth, and trying to remember if I have my work completed for a class that starts in ten minutes. I run out of the dorm and trip on my untied shoelace, papers fly everywhere. I shouldn’t have hit snooze.
Class begins and ends yet I’m still caught up on my failed attempt of a morning. Why couldn’t you just get up like the rest of them? Why can’t you get your work done? Am I good enough for this?
Early bird always gets the worm, Father used to say.
It’s lunch time. Yes! Finally a break. Oh wait, where do I sit? I pile food onto my plate, waiting for a familiar face, wishing I was somewhere else, I guess I’ll sit alone again.
Father used to sit with me.
I sit down with some people I don’t really know and paint a smile on my face. It’s hard to know others without knowing yourself.
Lunch ends and I wonder back to my dorm. What now? Work I guess.. there is always work. An endless supply of information that is supposed to do what? Prepare me for the world? I wish I could hit snooze.
I trudge along to my next obligation, not fully there, not fully engaged. Nobody likes the motions. I want to be passionate. I want to want. I tell myself that there’s nothing to say. I have nothing to say. I sit down in my final class of the day, hoping I don’t get called on, wishing I knew more, wishing I wanted to know more.
Class ends and I walk back to the dorm alone. Father used to walk with me.
My day is complete, and I sink into the covers once again. I set my alarm and close my eyes, thinking of that snooze button. I fall asleep thinking to myself, when am I going to wake up?
Cecilia Needham
March 10, 2019
We The Animals Response
Summer Sprint
We run until our steps are slow enough to feel the heat of the pavement. Collapse a foot off the path into scratchy, shady grass. We are two bodies, two beating hearts, two heaving chests, four closed eyes, and twenty burnt toes. We sit up to look back and see no one chasing us. Mom doesn’t like to play games. Dad is gone, he will be home soon. We look up to the sky, seeing a fire-breathing dragon and a scaly lizard in the sole two clouds in the sky. The rest is just a blinding sun and an aggressively bright blue sky.
“You know, if you look directly into the sun for long enough, you won’t be able to see anymore.”
“What do you think Mom would say?”
“You know Mom. She’d be so mad. You know, the sky is blue because it’s reflected light off the ocean. The ocean covers seventy percent of the earth.”
“Did Dad tell you that?”
“Yes. He also told me that snakes can eat prey bigger than their heads. It’s because of their flexible jaws.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“When he gets back, he’s gonna teach me so many new things.”
“He’ll teach us so many new things.”
“Yeah, us.”
Us two little beings, sisters, finding meaning in the clouds. We rise to our feet and begin summiting the hill that we hurtled down just moments ago, tentatively scampering between shade and grass. Past the playground, past the babysitter’s, past the neighbors’ lemonade stand. At home, we don our abandoned socks and sneakers before setting the table for Mom. Three placemats tonight and one bare patch of table. She serves spaghetti and meatballs. My favorite. Us two’s favorite. I lean over and whisper in her ear.
“Did Dad like spaghetti and meatballs?”
“You mean ‘does Dad like spaghetti and meatballs?’”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“It’s not whatever. It’s not like he’s dead.”
“Jesus, sorry.” And then, “Well does he?”
“I don’t remember.”
We look up. Mom has that really scary face. She hates it when we have side conversations at family dinner. We know what is coming, so we get ahead of her scolding and middle-name-using by explaining our conversation. But my sister tells the truth, and I kick her under the table for it. A long pause and angrily, “Last I heard, he’s a fucking vegan. Fucking one too.” We nod our heads, then it’s back to us twirling our noodles on our spoon and neatly placing them into our mouths in the most polite fashion. We don’t want to get yelled at again. We don’t want to have to go to cotillion, either.
It smelled like hay, dust, and corndogs. The sun beat down, pouring rays of heat down as sweat dripped from the brim on my navy-blue Red Sox cap. The grassed shriveled under the heat and constant weight of restless feet.
After a long summer of vacancy, this park was suddenly full of life. Pigs, cows, sheep giant slides, flashing lights, ring toss, fried food. I stuffed myself with fried-dough coated in powdered sugar and a mountain of whip cream. I ate until I couldn’t, but with the prospect of the day ahead of me I seeked something new. There were not enough hours in the day to fulfill the plan I had in mind.
I begged Dad to give me some money for the tickets. Told him I would have lemonade stands every Sunday to pay him back. Sunday’s were best for business because that’s when everyone went to church. What’s better than a cup of “fresh squeezed” Minute Maid and Joseph Smith’s version of Christianity. Finally, I got Dad to budge. He handed me a crisp $10 dollar bill. I grasped the edges and thought of the possibilities that lie ahead. First the giant slide, then the BB-gun, then the pirate ship, then the corn maze. I had the perfect plan.
I raced to the ticket booth, and shyly peeked over the edge: “20 tickets please.”
Invigorated by my conquest, I set off to seek the giant slide. Stop number one. I grabbed my potato-sack sled and began my summit to the top of the yellow mountain. I raced to the top of the stairs, exhausted but proud. Running off of sugar and excitement I flew down the slide. Again I went, but I could not get distracted because I had a plan to keep.
After shooting the BB-gun, on my way to the pirate ship, something caught my eye. A ride that I had never seen before. Covered in thousands of lights, shaped like a UFO, I was entranced. I watched as the ride spun like a top leaving those who stumbled off dizzy and ecstatic. I surged with excitement and nervousness, getting in line before I changed my mind.
Th inside was dully lit, the conductor sat in the middle like the captain of a spaceship, so as one of his passengers I took my place. But there were not seat belts or straps, just a pad on the wall. I got nervous. Is this safe? What is gonna happen? Can I get off? But then it started. We spun and spun and spun. The force pinned me to the wall where I stood. I couldn’t move. The seats slid. I couldn’t move. Finally, we came to a stop. I stumbled to my feet.
“That was sweet!” I screamed to my Dad, who read the paper at a seat nearby, “I’m going again”
Slightly nauseous and a lot less nervous I got on again. And again. My third time stumbling to my feet and the spin-cycle stopped, I did not feel ecstatic. My stomach turned, impatiently I ran off the ride, looking somewhere, anywhere. And made it as far as the exit sign when I was greeted by my fried dough and lemonade, in a much less desirable way. People stared and Dad wiped my face clean of defeat with his red-bandana. Sick and disappointed and my weak stomach and over confident mind, I went home with eight tickets in my pocket, ready to come back next year.
Madison Middleton
March 10, 2019
“We the Animals” Response
We were cave dwellers. We sunk our toes and fingers into the mud, stuck our heads into the dirt, watched our hair turn black. We followed each other in a line, heeding the stones under our feet. One of us might trip or bleed from the sharpness. One of us might buckle from the cold of the underworld. But we kept a straight line, walked the edge of the river that ran through our cave. At times one of us would lean down and sip from it thirstily. Then we’d pull them back, point to the things floating down the river. We stalked the flowing water.
Sometimes we would remember our life outside the cave. Before we entered, it stormed. The clouds professed their love for the ground and swept us away. In the river, in the torrent, we crashed and floated and stumbled. We caught cows by the tail, pulled them into our path. We were river rats. We plummeted into the cave and were transformed.
When one of us started to remove our sodden clothes, Jonnie turned and said, “Cold?”
One of us replied, “So hot.”
Jonnie disagreed, “No, cold. Keep your shirt on.”
One of us snarled but did as we were told. We left our shirts and trousers and shoes alone. We were hot, but Jonnie told us our minds were fucked. After a day in the cave, we knew that he was right. Our bones were cold. Our eyeballs were cold. The skin under our fingernails had turned purple. And that’s when we noticed the things floating down the river.
The cows’ bodies were like balloons. We laughed. Our stomachs grumbled. But Jonnie held us back from fishing out the carcasses. One against many. Someone escaped his clutches and flung themself in, paddled toward the cattle, and was swept away. They became a dot in the darkness. Then no more.
Our hunger led us to the place from whence we first fell. Our faces grew warm from the sun rays above. We closed our eyes, we counted to ten, we opened them. Jonnie asked, “Hot?”
We replied, “So hot.”
The river tumbled over the cave’s opening. Trees crooned beyond. We had forgotten the sight of colour. The river thundering against stone was too much for us. We stuck out our tongues and stepped under downpour.
The kitchen
I wanted more. We were sitting at the kitchen table, hungry, impatient, begging. We were two minds and four hands and forty teeth and skin and bones and stomachs. Empty stomachs.
“Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes!” We banged our small, aching fists against the wooden table. It shook, unable to contend with the might of our hunger.
Something brown and fluffy and in the shape of a certain cartoon character appeared on my sister’s plate, and when Nana turned back around to the oven, it slid onto mine. His ear is messed up, she whispered to me.
Later, after we had eaten our fill, my sister her perfect smooth golden-brown animals, and me my burnt and doughy shapeless blobs, Nana cupped our satisfied faces in her hand. “Such beautiful girls,” she said.
I smiled, and Stephanie grabbed a fistful of my hair, holding it up for inspection. “Her hair is too short.”
I began to whine. “It’s not too short!” Nana grabbed my hand and rubbed it with her own, the hand that had held my father’s in the store when he was five, and had held my mother’s hand in the wedding photos, and held me in the hospital mere minutes after I was born.
“Stephanie.”
“It is! Look at her! It’s not like my hair. I can braid my hair and look like Dorothy! She can’t.”
“Stephanie.” A little sterner.
“It’s. Not. Too. Short!” Tears were springing like fountains in my eyes, threatening to spill over.
“Yeesss it is!” Stephanie was having fun.
Suddenly, Nana turned around, hands now holding not me but two plates. “Who wants bacon?”
“Me! Me! Me! Me!” We joyfully shouted simultaneously.
The waiting room
My father nudged me back to my senses, launching me out of my daydream and back into the most depressing living room I had ever seen, accompanied by a pervasive scent of hand sanitizer, blinking of the yellow fluorescent lights, and smell of death. Wait, no, probably not death, but certainly the absence of life.
“Are you girls excited to see Riley later?” We had gotten Papa a puppy for Christmas, to help.
I nodded, but I don’t think anyone saw, because Stephanie suddenly leaned across me and asked, “Are they going to kiss us today?”
I stiffened and stared at the corner, not looking at anyone but waiting for the answer.
Dad closed his magazine, and looked at us. “That’s just how they like to say hi. Back in the old days, everybody kissed everybody. Also, a lot of these folks don’t get nice visitors like you two.”
I didn’t look up.
He added, “But if it makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to talk to anyone but Nana today.” There was a pause.“Have you girls thought about those stories like I asked you to? I want each of you to share a nice memory with her today. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” Stephanie said.
“Kelly?”
“Yes.”
“What stories did you think about?”
I spoke up. “She used to make us pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse.”
“That wasn’t Nana. That was Papa. He would buy the cookie cutters and then add whipped cream smiley faces.”
I didn’t say anything; I know instantly she was right, it had been Papa, and thus began the fading of a constructed memory that never really happened.
“Someone’s got a bad memory,” she added.
“Well, we are in an Alzheimer’s nursing home.”
“Hey!” Dad interrupted. “I’m going to grab something from the vending machine. Do either of you want anything?”
We both nodded.
I pretend she doesn’t exist, I pretend she has faded away in real life like she’s starting to do in my mind. It shocks me when I see her face. Often it seems like it was all a dream, so when I see her face I’m startled.
She has my last name, we share this one last connection that we shouldn’t, she shouldn’t have my last name, what is she doing with it anyway, carrying it around like a badge of honor?
She has to go. She shouldn’t still be a part of my life, she never should have, she never ever fit like she was meant to.
She was standing there in the parking lot, smiling, a big round brown face with a mole and I stepped down from the schoolbus in unease. She gave me those long red rain boots that never fit me right so I wouldn’t track dirt in the house after playing behind the fireplace with my little villages. She made turkey and cheese sandwiches with the avocado smashed into the mayonnaise that Sammi loved so much she broke being kosher for, maybe that’s the one thing I liked about her. Otherwise, she was always an illusion, an image I would give to people when they asked, always better than who she really was.
The unease never left, it was always there. We just ignored it, closed our eyes, hoping it would go away. We tiptoed up those tile steps, we pretended that the explosions weren’t happening, that the giant house wasn’t sinking into the sand as we held onto the pillars trying to eat a nice Sunday breakfast in silence, smiling. My dad puts his hands over his ears to stop hearing her shrieking and crying as the horrible antique table cracks in half and me and her are pulled under.
She and I have our first and last confrontation, and I’m weak so when I’m face to face with her instead of finally standing upright I dive away, I decide to drive away forever, leaving my flower skirt from sixth grade and my old bras that don’t fit me anymore in that white dresser I always hated, forever. For months at least, until my father brings a big bag of all my stuff to the garage as he’s emptying his house, cleaning out any evidence of the people that lived there.
I hate her, I hate the person she was finally revealed to be. I hate that the unease never left, that she just couldn’t, in the end, be the beautiful woman I told everyone she was.
Once, though, she was in my dreams. She and my father had had a child, and the child was beautiful, a small little blonde toddler sitting next to a hedge in my grandma’s backyard, and I loved my baby sister with all my heart and the unity and love she brought to our family.
But it’s all over. She’s fading, like I said. Soon, hopefully, she’ll be gone forever.