The Writers' Block 2010 by The Writers' Block: Anderson High School Literary Magazine

The Writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Block A Literary Magazine of Creative Writing from Anderson High School Students Volume 1, Number 2 Selections from Fall 2009 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Spring 2010

Photograph by Glenna Nelson

The Writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Block Vol.1, Num.2

INVITATION

I first heard about this literary magazine at the beginning of the school year, and I'm not gonna lie; I thought that as Anderson High School's foremost Misunderstood Genius, it was beneath me to debase myself by submitting a piece of writing. I will be frank once more. Time has not changed my feelings on the matter in the least. However, something must have happened. Something must have occurred to force my hand, or else you wouldn't be reading my wonderful, eye-tickling word-candy, now would you? No. No, you would not. In answer to the quandary that I previously stated, and I'm sure you all are asking, what changed my initial decision not to contribute was the knowledge that our submission would be graded. And that Mr. Farr apparently keeps items in various drawers of his desk that may or may not be legal. And at the moment he's working through a bit of a rough patch with the Missus and is taking it pretty hard. And the alcohol doesn't exactly improve his mood. And he's standing right behind me with one of the aforementioned items in hand, as well as a bottle of what smells like rubbing alcohol. So, as my qualifications as Anderson High School's foremost Misunderstood Genius, as well as Anderson High School's foremost Maker-of-Promises-I-Can't-Keep permit me to do, I want to guarantee that within these glossy pages you will find a wealth of articles, written in an elegant, captivating style, about interesting subject matter and with all consideration taken to make it a riveting read. You will enjoy yourself. I promise.

Alec Mosier

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Author

Title

Page

Alec Mosier

Invitation

Samuel Chapman

The Experiment

Callie Massey

Howard & Charlie

Kelly Pajares

When Can the World Wait?

Lauren Burton

Mother

Angelica Aros

One More Loss

Rachel Douglas

Rider in the Converse Shoes

Jasmine Gulick

Of Dragons, Knights, and Princesses

Jen Barras

Halo is Already More Popular Than God

Naomi Hasegawa

Most Shameful Moment

Angela Lupher

April Showers

Aaron Davis

A Dream

Yingthi Piling

Ella Fitzgerald

Evie Ladyman

Riley’s Flowers

Anne Urban

Wings

Sarah Panico

As Seasons Change

Taylor Covington

Changing

Bronte Bejarano

The Edge’s Birth

Ariela Schnyer

Dassik and His Queen

Grey Martin-Buhrdorf

God(s)

Jin Hyung Lee

Untitled

Savannah Kumar

Numbers, Neighbors, Nightmares, Nothing

Madeline Vuong

Last Christmas

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2 Kendra Smith

The Rise and Fall of Chuck E. Cheese

Katherine Stratton

Cheater, Cheater

Kliphton Joel Taylor

An Inevitable Love

Cassandra Coriolan

Picture Response

Allyson Coldiron

Innocent Hope

Lucy Chibesa

Life as I Never Knew It

Ana Hoffman

Imperfect Players

Jeremy Nicot

A Short Walk

Camille Currey

So Much They Never Knew

Jason Craft

Idiot Letter From a Nut

Hannah Bones

Procrastination

Back Cover

Dear Readers, This is the second year I have been fortunate enough to teach the creative writers at Anderson High School, but this is the first year I’ve gathered their work for publication. I am thrilled to share their work with you. Since this is a high school publication intended for young adults and adults, some of the word choices, themes, and imagery may not be suitable for younger readers. Please use discretion in sharing the contents of our magazine with impressionable young minds—otherwise they could turn out to be as strange and demented as the writers contained within these pages. A special thanks goes out to those who have supported and made this collection possible: our principal, Donna Houser; Cynthia Hamlin and the teachers of the Anderson English Department; student editors Evie Ladyman, Madeline Vuong, Grace Maverick, Grey MartinBuhrdorf, and Ariela Schnyer; Jasmine Gulick and the Writers’ Club of Anderson HS; Creative Writing students past and present; Crissie Ballard; Todd Taylor; Glenna Nelson for her photographs; and all the people I’m forgetting. ~ Jason Farr Creative Writing Teacher Anderson High School Austin, TX jfarr@austinisd.org

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The Experiment by Samuel Chapman He’s a confederate. Alison tiptoed towards the wooden door, grateful that the building was empty. Every tap and creak within earshot caused her blood pressure to spike and her hands to sweat, even as they were wrapped around the handle of the gun. Her target was innocuous, a door set in a row of several others, with a window on one side and a bulletin board covered with notes about events and tutoring sessions on the other. Alison, a senior, had walked this exact way hundreds of times. Now that she was so nervous—and knew exactly why—the entire scene had taken on a fuzzy, twisted shade of sepia. I’d like your assistance with an experiment. It had been here that Dr. Bernhardt had first approached her. She had been heading out of his classroom, after another grueling ninety minutes of trying to make her achievements in psychology stand up against the enormous shadow of his accomplishments. The professor was a stately man, tall and entirely bald save for a full salt-and-pepper beard with a high ratio of salt. Getting an appointment with him was so difficult that Alison considered it a validation of her entire four-year course of study that Bernhardt had actually approached her, of his own will, and for nothing less than to request her services as a research assistant. I need you to play a simple role. How had it come to this? She remembered all the talk about his groundbreaking work with Dr. White, about the two of them reaching into the darkest and dustiest corners of the mind with their unparalleled ability to place subjects in true-life situations. Yet it was all too unnatural. The gun felt too heavy to be an act, the paneled door too real in front of her. It was almost as though— Nobody is going to die. Now that she was at the threshold, she had no option but to enter. Her instructions were simple—but with Bernhardt, anything could be happening. Perhaps she was the subject, perhaps some preferred student was watching right now. If she turned back, it would be just another result to log. Subject five came out on the wrong side of the fight-or-flight response. Dr. White is aware that this will be occurring. If everything were as she had been told, though, to step away would mean the death of her career. Alison trembled, frozen in frustration—she could affirm her life’s path by following a series of simple actions that would bring no harm to anybody. So why was it so hard to just open the stupid door? The cartridges are blank. But what if there had been a mistake? What if this were the wrong room? What if Bernhardt had accidentally inserted the wrong clip? In that moment of giddy suspension when a person decides to do something until it cannot be undone and to damn the consequences, Alison pushed the door with her shoulder and stumbled into the room. The students will react, but it is absolutely vital that you follow the procedure through to its finish. Dr. White turned to face her without pausing in his lecture, stopping only when Alison raised her hands, trying to save him from panicking, and everyone but her noticed she was holding a gun. White’s voice pinched out like a dampened chime, and a murmur rippled across

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the room only to be torn open when somebody screamed. Knowing they couldn’t head for the doors, the class stood up en masse and began to crush against the windows, trying to open them. That is the purpose of the experiment. Alison’s breathing was shallow, and as she held the gun in her outstretched arms, vaguely recalling the stance from a movie, she knew that she had to be a subject. No good confederate would take this long to fire the gun. Dr. White stood motionless, looking as if something he had conjured in a dream was now facing him in the daylight. Your highest goal is to maintain realism. Alison perceived motion at the edge of her sight and, seconds before another girl she slightly knew hurtled into her and knocked her off balance, emptied the entire clip into White’s body, with all but a few shots pulling to the right. Pools of blood began spreading from those that had found their mark, but Alison knew they couldn’t be real because White was in on the experiment. There were so many ways to fake a fatal shooting. It happened in all the movies. For the scene to be complete, you must leave immediately afterward. Unaware of her own weeping, reeling from the outpouring of fear and emotion that had come from firing the gun, Alison pulled away from the surprisingly weak grip of her captor and rushed over to the professor’s body. Amid the chaos, she laid the gun down beside his head. He’d been shot in some vital areas and his face was an ashen white, but Alison knew you could fake that as well. She knew it right up until she touched Dr. White’s forehead, and found that the heat was going from it already, and that this was not a thing one could fake. He’s a confederate.

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Howard & Charlie By Callie Massey Every time I saw him sitting out in front of the Walton’s Pharmacy and Ice Cream Shoppe, I’d do my best to ignore him. I’d be quick and duck my head down as soon as I got a look at him sitting at one of those white tables that Mr. Walton has outside with the pink umbrellas on top. Mom once saw me duck my head so I wouldn’t have to look at him. Real quick, she boxed me on the ear and told me to sit up straight. “Mornin’, Charlie,” she said in her sweetest voice. The same voice she used when Dad had a bad day. “Good morning, Miss Eileen.” His voice was gruff. It reminded me of what The Hulk might sound like if he smoked as much as Charlie did. But, then, nobody smoked as much as Charlie. That guy was a regular freight train. When I was real little, I thought that Charlie’s smoking was what had made him so dark. Mother told me that was silly. Charlie was just born that way. Well, I know that now. But I was really little then. Like seven or something. I’m much older now and I don’t think that anymore. I’ve always liked Charlie’s color. The same color as chocolate milk when you add a bunch of chocolate and just a little bit of milk. But, even though I thought he had a nice color, something about him bothered me. He wasn’t like me or my parents. He was old; so old his hair had turned white. Like it was too tired to be black anymore, or even gray. Like the color in it needed a break, so it just left for a vacation and never came back. I’ll never know what made me go and sit down next to Charlie that Saturday afternoon. Maybe it was because all my buds were gone and I had nothing else to do. I could have gone in the shop and gotten a sundae or something. But I didn’t. I saw Charlie sitting all alone under that pink umbrella and it got me real sad. A grown man shouldn’t have to sit there looking so lonely. “Hey there, Mr. Charlie.” He hadn’t seen me coming up, so he jumped a little. “Hi, Howard.” That always made me mad about Charlie. Nobody called me Howard because they all knew I liked being called Howie better. But that Charlie, he always called me Howard. “What are you doing?” I asked as nice as I could. Charlie shrugged. “Waiting for somebody to need some help.” See, Charlie didn’t have a real job. All he did was sit outside of Walton’s Pharmacy and Ice Cream Shoppe and wait for somebody to need his help with something around their house. “That’s nice, Charlie. Get any good jobs lately?” Charlie looked tired. Like he didn’t really want to be sitting here with me, answering these questions. “I’m sorry, Charlie,” I said, thinking I’d bothered him. “I just thought you’d want some company.” And I got up and left him alone. I didn’t want to be rude, even if I was still a little scared of Charlie and his sleepy hair. My mother told me to never be rude. Not even to Charlie. And it didn’t matter if everybody else in town called him “nigger” or “monkey.” I was never to say those words or do anything to bother Charlie. And that’s why I left. I hated getting in trouble. While I was walking home from sitting with Charlie at Walton’s Pharmacy and Ice Cream Shoppe, I started thinking. The heavy kind of thinking that makes you frown and sometimes scratch your chin because you’re just so confused that your hand starts getting bored from all the thinking and needs something to do.

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Charlie was always sitting out in front of that shop wearing a Sunday suit and a hat. When an adult walked over to him, he’d stand up quick and take off his hat. Even if the people were younger than him. Dad said he did it because he was respectful. He’d talk real quiet and nod his head a lot and then he’d follow them home and do whatever it was they needed doing. And, as soon as he finished there, he’d go back to Walton’s Pharmacy and Ice Cream Shoppe and sit at the table again until somebody else had a job for him. I was just walking inside the house when I heard a loud banging sound in the kitchen. Mother said something under her breath and then there was more banging. I ran to the kitchen to see what was going on. The beginnings of a pie were sitting on the stove and the oven door was open. Mother had shoved herself all the way in there up to her shoulders. “Mom?” She jumped when she heard me and banged her head against the top of the oven. She said some more stuff so low I couldn’t hear and then slid out or the oven. “Howie,” she said. “What are you doing home?” I shrugged. “Oven busted?” She smiled at me real sweet. “Looks like it.” She was wearing pants and a loose t-shirt, so I knew she’d have to run up the stairs and change pretty soon because Dad didn’t like it when she wore pants. And you didn’t want to make Dad mad sometimes. “Want me to go get Charlie?” I asked. I was real excited about getting a chance to get Charlie for my mom. She always had to walk all the way to the store by herself because Dad didn’t like her driving. And if Dad saw her in pants during the day, he’d be real mad. Mom looked nervous. I knew she was thinking the same thing that I was: Dad might not like Charlie coming over in the middle of the day. “I guess you’d better. I have to start supper in a few minutes.” I ran all the way to Walton’s Pharmacy and Ice Cream Shoppe. What if Charlie wasn’t there? What if somebody else had gotten to him first? Maybe Ms. Simmons had a problem with her sewing machine again. She always had something for Charlie to fix. I was starting to get real mad at Ms. Simmons so I ran faster. And then I saw Charlie. He wasn’t with Ms. Simmons. He was all alone under that pink umbrella just like I’d left him. When he saw me running like that his eyes got real big and he stood up fast. He didn’t even take his hat off he was so worried. “Howard. Whatcha runnin’ for, son?” he asked in that real gruff voice. “Charlie, our oven is busted. You gotta come help.” I’d never heard Charlie laugh before, so I was a little nervous when he started to. It was real loud and clean sounding. Not like his gruff voice. “That ain’t no emergency, boy,” he said. “Let’s go. But let’s walk this time. I’m too old to be runnin’ that way.” So me and Charlie walked back to my house. Every now and then Charlie said something to me, but we mostly stayed quiet. I had a lot of stuff I wanted to say to Charlie, but figured against it. I might be rude. And I hate getting in trouble. By the time we reached my house, Charlie was sweaty and breathing hard. I wondered how he’d manage fixing our oven if he was so worn out. But I guess he’d walked farther than this before. So he’d be fine. When we walked into the kitchen, Mom was buried in the oven again. “Miss Eileen?” Charlie said real quiet. Mom jumped again and hit her head on the top of the oven. She said the same words that I couldn’t understand and then slid out of the oven. “Hello, Charlie,” she said in her sweet voice. Then she smiled. “Thanks for coming.”

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“Not a word for it,” Charlie said. “You just let me look that thing over. I’m sure it ain’t nothing big.” I could hear a sound from the street. “Well,” my mom started saying, “it’s never happened before. I figure the pilot just blew. But I can’t get to it.” The sound got closer. “Mom?” “But maybe it’s something else.” She smiled at Charlie again. “I’m not much good with these things.” “Mom!” My mother frowned at me. Charlie bent and began looking into the oven just as she got a look out the window and saw my dad pulling in. By the time Charlie turned around to say he had it under control, my mom was upstairs. "Family of track stars." He laughed and then turned his attention back to the oven. The front door opened and I heard my dad putting his coat and hat on the rack. "Eileen!" he shouted, making his way to the kitchen. He walked in and looked around. When he saw Charlie in the oven, his eyes got real big. You know, like in cartoons when they see something exciting like a pretty lady in a red dress? That's what Dad looked like. I guess he wasn't sure what he was looking at, because he started frowning. "Hey, Dad." He looked at me and his eyes stopped popping out of his head. "Howie." That's all he said. Just "Howie". That's all he usually said when he got home from work and wasn't having a good day. He'd probably ask me to leave the room pretty soon. Right about then, Mom came back downstairs, this time wearing a green dress instead of her pants and shirt. "Hello, Mark." She smiled. The same way she'd been smiling at everyone. Real sweet. "Eileen." He nodded at her and then looked at me and then at Charlie. "The oven broke," my mom said, still smiling all nice at him. "So Howie went and got Charlie for me." "Yeah, Dad!" I said. I felt my face making a big, crinkly grin. "I ran all the way to Walton's Pharmacy and Ice Cream Shoppe." He nodded at me. "Eileen," he said. "can you come with me into the next room? Just for a minute or two?" Mom stopped smiling. "Sure, dear." Charlie slid out of the oven and looked around all nervous. He didn't look like he liked what was going on. I don't know what his problem was. It wasn't a big deal. My mom and dad went into the living room and Dad shut the door behind him so me and Charlie couldn't hear anything. I hate when he does that. It's not like I don't know what they're talking about. Dad is mad because Mom couldn't fix the stove. It didn't take a genius. But, for some reason, I was starting to get embarrassed. "Is your ma ok in there?" Charlie asked. He’d taken off his jacket, so I could see the sweat marks under his armpits. "Yeah. Dad's just mad 'bout somethin'. It'll be fine." But Charlie kept looking at the door like something bad was about to happen. We could hear little pieces of what Dad was saying. "That... my house....woman... tramp."

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Mom would say something back, but she was real quiet, so me and Charlie couldn't hear any of it. I wish she talked louder. "Nasty... do not... or I swear..." Charlie was standing now. He was still nervous. "What's wrong, Charlie? Can't you fix the oven?" "The oven is fixed, Howard." He started scratching his chin, so he must have been thinking real hard about something. "They do this a lot? Talk like that?" I shrugged. "Yeah. But only when Dad is mad. I don't pay any attention though. Dad said I shouldn't." Charlie looked down at the kitchen floor and then back at the door. Then, he started walking over to the door. But he walked slowly, like he wasn't really sure if he wanted to go there or something. When he got to the door, he started knocking on it. Not hard or anything, but he stopped pretty quick. Dad was getting really loud. "Just who do you think you are?" he was screaming. There was a loud popping sound. Kind of like when you blow air into a paper bag and then hit it with your fist at lunch to scare the girls at the next table. Well, this time it scared Charlie. He jumped up and then backed up from the door. "What did he just do, Howard?" Charlie asked me. I shrugged. "I dunno. I can't see 'em." Charlie was really scared. Way more scared than Hannah Barges gets when I hit a paper bag at lunch. "Gee, Charlie. What's wrong?" But Charlie wasn't listening. He was just looking at the door. And then, he walked in and shut the door behind him like Dad always does. Charlie was really starting to get on my nerves. I mean, Dad shuts doors too, but at least he calls me Howie before he does it. Dad was yelling at Charlie. But now he was too loud for me to understand. I snuck over to the door and opened it. Just a crack. I didn't want to get caught. I hate getting in trouble. “Mind your business,” Dad was saying. "Don't tell me how to treat my family in my house." "Sir," Charlie whispered. "I ain't a smart man. I ain't a rich man. I'm just a poor black man. But I know what's right and what's wrong. And, sir, what you're doing just ain't right." Mom grabbed Charlie by the arm. She had a red mark on her cheek. "You don't have to do this, Charlie." "Yes, ma'am. I do." I didn't see Dad wind up. I didn't even see him hit Charlie. But I did hear it. It wasn't the same as the popping sound from earlier. It was scarier. If I did that at the lunch table, Hannah would probably wet her pants. Charlie fell down. It was weird, such a tall guy falling so far. When he hit the floor, Mom started screaming. "Mark!" she yelled at Dad. "Are you out of your mind?" She got down on her knees and started shaking Charlie like she shakes me in the morning to get me up for school. I guess I moved or something, because Mom saw me. And that's when she started to cry. I hate when my mom cries. It's just about the saddest thing in the world to have to look at. "Howard!" she yelled. "Go, get out. Go upstairs." My dad was sitting in one of the living room chairs with his head in his hands. There was blood all around Charlie. "Mom, Charlie needs a doctor."

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"Go, Howard!" About ten minutes later, while I was sitting on my bed thinking about Charlie, I heard a loud screechy sound coming closer. I ran over to the window and saw a big, white ambulance coming to our house. That made me feel a little bit better. The doctor would make Charlie feel better. Like when I fell down the stairs when I was 8. I went to a doctor and he fixed me up. So Charlie should be fine now. Mom followed the ambulance in Dad's car. I guess Dad figured it was alright for her to drive just this once. I didn't go downstairs all night. Not even for dinner. But that was ok, I wasn't hungry anyway. Dad knocked on my door a few times, but I just told him I was tired. I didn't want to talk to him. I figured I'd have to stop talking to him for a week or two. "Howie," he said once. "You want to talk, buddy?" "Nah, Dad. I'm real tired. It's probably 'cause I ran all the way to Walton's Pharmacy and Ice Cream Shoppe." "Yeah. That's probably it." And then he stayed at the door for a while. I know because he was breathing real hard and I could hear. I fell asleep real late that night. Around 10:00. That was way past my bedtime, but I didn't care. Even though I hate getting in trouble. The next morning, nobody came to wake me up, so I slept in a lot later than I had wanted to. I got dressed as fast as I could and then ran all way to Walton's Pharmacy and Ice Cream Shoppe again. Charlie was sitting under the pink umbrella, but he wasn't wearing his suit and hat. He was sitting in a pair of worn out jeans and a white button up shirt. His hair looked even more tired than usual, too. I was about to run over and talk to him when I saw Ms. Simmons start talking to him. "Hello, Charlie. I have a little job for you." Charlie looked up at her and smiled a real little smile. "I'm sorry, Ms. Simmons. I'm not here to work today." She looked like she didn't believe him. "Aww, Charlie. C'mon. Just a little job." "No, ma'am," he said. "I'm sorry. I’m not working today.” She didn't say anything else to him, just walked away. When she was gone, Charlie started looking down at the ground and twittling his thumbs. So I walked over real slow. "Charlie?" He looked up at me the same way he'd looked at Ms. Simmons. Real tired, like he didn't want to go through the trouble of raising his head. "Hello, Howard." "You alright, Charlie?" "Just fine." I pulled out a chair and sat next to him. "Charlie, I'm real sorry about Dad. He doesn't mean it. Mom says he just gets mad sometimes. She says that some people just don't know how to hide their meanness, and Dad is one of them. So, in a way, we should feel bad for him, right?" Charlie just looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. "Yeah, Howard. I think you might be right about that." And we just kind of sat there for the rest of the afternoon. Charlie didn't say much and neither did I. I ordered a milkshake once and Charlie paid for it even though I asked him not to. He told me all about the stitches he'd gotten and how my mom had stayed with him and driven

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him home. He told me what a nice lady she was and I told him I already knew that. We didn't talk about my dad or about what had made him so mad. But I figure that's the way Charlie wanted it.

When Can The World Wait? By Kelly Pajares The teacher spoke the dreaded words, Not your mother who was sick with grief, Not your father who sat still at his easel, Waiting for inspiration that was gone. The Grim has shown itself, but we did not see.

But the world does not wait, It moves and it turns, Day turns to night, But the world does not wait. It was your mother who spoke, Quiet and calm, Relief filled her voice, All despair had vanished, For you were at peace.

But the world does not wait, It moves and it turns, Day turns to night, But the world does not wait.

Then the world waited It stood still and silent, Day stayed, not yet night Because the world waited.

There they came, Tears ran down your face, No sound, A gasp for air, The tears ran faster.

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Mother By Lauren Burton

I have no reason to feel secure, she says. Her voice is overwhelmed by the drip-dripping of the raindrops against the window. I want to hold her, tell her it will be okay. She always told me that I was her star, The sunshine that always brightened her day. Now she is missing the sun and stars in the dirt and clouds, She’s gotten lost in a storm of unfortunate events. I want to tell her to look up, to remember to hope. But she’s lost hope. Mother and I, we don’t talk much these days, She’s gone away now, locked herself in her room again. I can hear her weeping on the floor, telling God of her pains and fatigue. Her hands don’t work today, she says. Nothing works anymore. Thunder cracks loudly outside, God must be bowling with the angels again. I want to stop the rain, Dry her tears, And pick her up off of the floor. I want to fix my mother, Make her better than she has ever been. “Mom?” “GET OUT!” Her voice, tainted with sorrow, echoes in the empty room. Her tears hit the floor, tapping, tapping a steady rhythm. Just like the rain outside. I whisper a quick “I love you” before leaving And bite back a sob as I hear the thunder crash again. It bounces off of my eardrums and back into the sky, Hitting the tops of the clouds so hard That the lights go out. It’s too dark now. My mother, she’s crying again. I wish I was still her sunshine.

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One More Loss By Angelica Aros As I waited in line to order coffee, I began to think about whether this was the wisest thing for me to do. The book was important, sure, but could I really handle my emotions? What would she think of me? Would she anger me? Would I be able to handle the truth? Would she even tell me the truth? All of these questions were running through my mind, giving me second thoughts about the whole thing, but I knew I couldn’t throw it all away now. Not after everything that had happened. I heard the door open after sitting down with my coffee. I looked; it was a blonde-haired blue-eyed woman that matched the photograph. I stood up as she walked over to me. She came up to the table and we shook hands. “Hi, I really appreciate you agreeing to do this interview,” I said. She smiled and, then sat down across the table from me. “I got you coffee.” “Thanks,” she replied. I sat down. “Maybe I should start off explaining a little bit more about why I’ve asked you to come and do this interview.” I took a sip of coffee. “Well, the book—my book—is almost finished. I just have the ending left to write, but I can’t seem to write it without knowing the truth about everything… And only you would the answers to the unanswered questions I have.” She looked me in the eye. “Well, okay, what’s your first question?” she asked, fidgeting with her cup of coffee. “My first question is…” An image of Gertrude came to mind. “How was your relationship with your daughter?” She glanced at the table and then looked back up at me. “It was a typical mother-daughter relationship just as any other, I suppose.” She quickly took a sip of coffee. “Okay,” I said, writing down her answer in my notebook and trying to of what a ‘typical’ mother-daughter relationship was like. “So what kind of child was your daughter?” Her expression changed, hardened. “Gertrude was the kind of kid who was really quiet, well-mannered, but different. “Different?” I asked. “Well, she wasn’t very independent. Most of the children she grew up around could fend for themselves. She couldn’t. It bothered me.” “Bothered you?” I asked. “Why would it bother you? I mean…if you were around, why would she need to be independent? She was just a child; you couldn’t possibly expect her to be self-sufficient,” I said, trying to mask some of the anger I felt. Why had this woman even had Gertrude? “Are you angry? She asked. I pulled myself together. “I’m not angry. I apologize if I sounded rude. I’m just trying to understand everything.” I took a calming sip of coffee. “Maybe we should move on…” I looked over at my list of things to talk about. It was the accident. “The accident. Can you tell me about the accident?”

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

“The accident?” she asked. “Yes, could you tell me about it? Like what caused it to happen?” Tears began building up in her eyes. She stopped fidgeting with the cup of coffee and looked out the window. “It all happened too fast. I didn’t have any time to think. So… I went by what I knew.” “What you knew?” I asked. “Yes. And what I knew was to run from reality. When I found out about everything, I knew things were going to change, and it was all going to be too much for me. My mother raised me to run when things seemed too much to handle. She ran from things her whole life and thought I should do the same.” She began to cry. “It wasn’t my fault. He took her from me that night…” I handed her a tissue. “Thank you.” She wiped her eyes. “Gertrude’s father took her from me that night. He had been drinking. When I got the call and heard about her condition, I knew it would be way too much for me to handle, so I ran. I decided to run and never go back for her.” “Why would he take Gertrude form you?” I asked. “We divorced and he lost his visitation rights after the court found out he had a drinking problem. I told him that I wanted him to have nothing to do with him and that I was taking Gertrude to live in New York. He didn’t like that much, so he just took her from me.” I could feel the tears building up in my eyes. “May I ask you a question?” she asked. “Sure.” “Why are you writing a book based on my daughter?” she asked. “I, um…” A tear fell slowly down my face. “I, uh…” I wiped away my tear with a tissue. “I adopted Gertrude.” “You adopted her?” she asked, shocked. “How did you find her? When did you find her?” “My own daughter, June…” I began seeing images of Gertrude and June. Suddenly I felt like this whole interview was bringing up what my book was supposed to be helping me let go of. “My daughter June was sick in the hospital. She passed away two nights before Gertrude showed up in the hospital.” She looked me directly in the eye again. “I’m really sorry—sorry for your loss.” “It’s okay… I happened to go back to visit with some of the nurses that had become friends of mine. It was then that I met Gertrude.” My thoughts went back to that stormy night. “She doesn’t have many visitors,” Jennifer said. “Not even parents?” I asked, shocked. “Her mother took off after her first night. The father fled town. Social services are supposed to get her once she’s ready to be released. It’ll be a while before that happens.” “Why would someone leave their sick child alone?” “I have no idea, but I try to come and sit in here with her when I can,” Jennifer said as she moved the chair back. I picked up the little girl’s hand in mine while I studied her face. “She looks strong like my June. She’ll make it through.” “We’ll hope for the best.” “I’ll try and stop by everyday if I can. That way, she’ll have someone here when you’re not able to be here.”

[14]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

“That would be great,” Jennifer said, grateful. I looked at the sleeping girl, Gertrude, and gently stroked her hair. Then I placed June’s old teddy bear down by her head and exited softly. “Well, I’m glad she has someone there for her,” she said, breaking into my reverie. “I know you said you left Gertrude because it would be too much for you to handle, but I don’t get how you could look at her and just walk away, knowing that she would wake up sick and alone.” “It’s all over and done with. It doesn’t matter anymore.” I changed my mind about feeling sympathetic. I could never respect this woman. “Yes it does; it does matter! You have to come up with something better than just ‘I ran because it was too much.’ She was your daughter for God’s sake.” “Neither you nor anyone who reads your book will ever understand, so there really isn’t any point wasting time explaining it.” She picked up her purse and stood up from the table. “Where are you going?” I asked. “I think we’re done here.” “Look, please just sit back down for a minute or two.” She paused, indecisively, but finally sat back down again. “I adopted Gertrude because I lost my daughter and I blamed myself. I blamed myself for not being there. My daughter passed away while I was on my way home to pick up a book and a couple of movies…” I looked her in the eye. “I left her to die alone.” I began to cry. “I just couldn’t live with myself knowing that another child was dying without anyone around to be with her.” “Then we’re in similar boats.” She handed me a tissue. She said, “I didn’t want to be hurt again so I left her. I knew if I had stayed, I would’ve been devastated. I had already gone through way too much in the past. I just couldn’t bear to watch my child waste away before my eyes.” “The doctors said she could’ve come out of it. That was a possibility.” “I couldn’t deal with it if it wasn’t the case. And if she had come out, she wouldn’t have been the same. She would have been someone completely different.” “It was never about Gertrude, was it?” I asked. She looked up at me angrily. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She breathed deeply. “Look, I’m a horrible person. I can live with that. You just have to understand that I’ve been trying to put the pieces of my life together, but they never seem to fit. They never tell me why it happened the way it did. I haven’t forgiven myself for what I’ve done and I don’t think I ever will.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I regret abandoning the one person that ever really made sense to me.” I wrote down her exact words. “I think maybe if I could just find a way to tell her how I really feel, to tell her that I adore her, and…to tell her that I’m sorry, I’d be able to forgive myself and move on.” “It’s a little too late for that.” I said. “Too late?” she asked. “Gertrude passed away a month ago.” A great deal of silence came between the both of us, and remained there.

[15]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Rider in the Converse Shoes By Rachel Douglas Riding is natural for me. I’ve been riding for years now—it’s the only thing in my life that has stayed constant for that long. And for me, it’s not hard—you find a train going anywhere you want to go and then just hop on board. It’s as simple as that. And for me, it’s even simpler because I just want to get away. I still get strange looks from people, I won’t lie, but I guess that’s to be expected when you ride on the backs of trains. Some of the trains’ crews say I'm a phantom. “She’s got these mismatched converse shoes: blue and brown,” they tell the no-nonsense, normally white-haired conductor. “But she brings good luck! She just rides on the back, heading nowhere specific.” I'm surprised, amazed that they know that much about me. They’re right, though. I don't have a destination. I just can’t go home. In fact, I don’t have a home to go back to. It figures, I guess, when your stepbrother's an arsonist. My mom was always helping Greg, my stepfather, with Jason-the-arsonist’s therapy; it did nothing for him. Therapy was like a leech—it did nothing but suck us dry. We lived in a cheap one-story house that might have been cozy were it not for the angry atmosphere that swirled around everyone but me. Mom was mad at Jason, Greg was mad at Mom for being mad at Jason, and Jason was just mad at everyone for “not understanding him.” And as for me, I was the observer. I did fine in school, didn’t get in trouble and had a few friends. ‘Don't worry about Serena; she's just fine. She doesn't have problems’ seemed to be the mentality, and I felt isolated. But it didn’t, and doesn’t, matter. Moral of the story: Jason burned down the house we had been living in while Mom and I were inside. Once we’d gotten out and the firemen were taking care of the house, Greg kept trying to tell Mom it wasn’t Jason's fault; he just hadn’t seen his shrink that week, the poor dear. And I blew it. After living in silence for three years, I just blew it. I was tired of Mom and me sacrificing our lives for someone we barely even cared about anymore. Needless to say, Greg was pretty pissed at my opinions of him and my stepbrother. But there was no screaming, no pleading from Mom. Just… “Go.” That was all he said. That was the last thing I heard from my stepdad, or any of my family. I was twelve years old. All I had when I left was a black messenger bag with some granola bars, a Gatorade, my camera, and that one word: “go.” The train station seemed the logical place to go, and it was only ten minutes from my old home. I jumped on the back of the coal train headed for Detroit from Austin, Texas. And that was that. I’ve been all over the United States, from east coast to west coast, taking pictures with my little camera, eating when I can. I’ve ridden through blizzards, rain, shine, hail, fog, and dust devils. I've seen cities and small towns, but I rarely talk to anyone. Don’t need to, really—I’ve become self-sufficient and I’m not lonely. I’m fine by myself. No one's really ever wanted to talk to me anyway. But then there was this warm March day, not long ago. I was on the 10:20 train headed to El Paso, Texas from Sacramento, California. The day was dusty and hot, the kind in which you thought you saw cowboys chasing cows along the prairie, then realized you were looking at tumbleweeds and cacti. The wind whipped my ponytail around as I felt the familiar rumbling and rocking as the passenger train rolled along. It was rare for me to ride a passenger train—there are only a handful left nowadays—but I take what I can get. I watched the land we were leaving as towns vanished into the dusty air. I leaned back, my eyes closing in hopes of taking a nap.

[16]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

“Hi!” A high-pitched voice, like a little kid. I opened one eye. Must be imagining things. It wouldn’t be the first time. My eye closed again and I put a hand over my bag, just in case. “Hi there! Are you sleeping?” Not anymore, I thought lazily. Then my eyes sprung open. Next to me, riding on the bumper of the very last car, was a kid, a boy. Couldn't have been older than five. He smiled happily. “Yay, you’re awake!” What the hell? I looked through the door window into the caboose. No one was seated there; no tell-tale suitcases lay next to the seats. The train wasn’t very full today… So why was a kid all the way back here? “Why are you back here?” He asked me. Ironic, since I wanted to ask him the same thing. “I’m a rider.” I replied after a moment. He nodded like he understood, then caught me off-guard. “Where’s your mommy and daddy?” I was not going to explain that. But what could I say? I looked at the kid. He had freckles, poofy red hair, and a big smile. He’d had a great childhood, probably, and a happy life. Not like me. “They’re not here, kid. Where are yours? You shouldn’t just be going wherever. They're probably looking for you.” He got quiet for a second. “Why aren’t yours looking for you?” I shook my head and brushed him off. “You know, that's my business, ok? Just go back to your parents.” I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but that wasn't something I was going to be talking about with anyone. He didn’t seem scared or sad, but just got up and walked to the door. He could hardly reach the handle. I couldn’t help but smile at that. I couldn’t answer his questions, but he was a cute kid. When he reached the handle and opened the door, he looked back at me seriously. “I think they miss you. Go home, Miss Lady.” The door closed behind him, and I turned away. Home. What a foreign concept. Three years of having no home to go back to, and he tells me to go home. Go home, Serena. A single tear, a single thought. Go. The train trundled down the track, taking me along with it, into the dusty horizon. Home.

[17]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Of Dragons, Knights, and Princesses—Oh, My! By Jasmine Gulick Erosin was excited. This was to be expected. He was going to begin his rite of adulthood today. He had lived for a millennium, and therefore it was his time to claim his right as an adult dragon. Every dragon knew that this rite, or right, was very important. “Yo, ye ready fer this?” Chan, Erosin’s childhood friend, landed beside him. Erosin gave him a large-toothed grin. “Of course I am! Oh, this is so exciting, Chan!” Erosin flapped his black wings, causing dust clouds to form around his feet. “What is it like? Tell me, Chan!’ Chan had already completed his rite of adulthood, and so was much more knowledgeable than Erosin. “Well, it’s not scary, that’s fer sure.” Chan gave a chuckle. “En fact, it’s quite pleasurable.” Erosin cocked his head to the side, unsure what his friend was hinting at. “Right… anyways, I need to go talk to my father now. I’ll see you later, Chan!” Chan waved as Erosin took off from the ground. The black dragon soared across the sky, heading towards one of the cliff caves. His home, at least until the end of the rite. Once he officially became an adult, he and his mate would search for their own cave dwelling to live, and perhaps have nestlings. Not that he knew how you did that. No one would tell him! They just said it would happen. Erosin sighed and landed at the entrance of the cave. He ducked into the main cave room. His beautiful mother greeted him from the fire. “Welcome back, Erosin.” “Hello, Momma,” Erosin greeted back. “Do you know where Dad is?” “In the treasure room, I believe,” His mother answered, distracted by the cow she was cooking. Erosin nodded, though she couldn’t see, and headed towards the back part of the cavern. He hoped that he and his mate could find a cave dwelling this expansive. His father was powerful enough to kick out the smaller dragon pair that had lived here previously, but he wasn’t as strong as the red-eyed dragon. He had his father’s black coat, a dangerous color, but his mother’s slim form. “Dad,” Erosin called out as he neared the room. “In here, Son,” his father replied. Erosin approached his father. The massive dragon looked coldly down at his small son. “I am ready for my rite of adulthood, Dad.” “Are you?” His father murmured. “Your brother…” Erosin winced as his father trailed off. His older brother was his opposite in every way. White, like his mother, and large, like his father. Garrik had only taken a day to complete the rite; Chan had taken a month! “What do I do, Dad?” Erosin asked. “Where should I go?” As all dragons are told, the rite of adulthood was a very special event. Once a dragon reached a millennium, they were to find themselves a princess. See, it was impossible to find a natural born female dragon. All female dragons were once humans, princesses from lands far and wide. To become an adult dragon, one had to kidnap one of the princesses and get her to fall in love with her captor. Hopefully, the dragon would fall in love with the princess in return and they would become mates. If they became mates, the princess would turn into a female dragon. Then the young dragons would be welcomed back as adults.

[18]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Erosin’s mother had been one of the younger princesses of the Russian Empire. Anastasia was her name. Of course, he only knew her as mother. Garrik had taken Aurori, the oldest daughter of the now Queen Aurora, once called Sleeping Beauty. Chan had taken Shua, the daughter of Mulan and Shang. Well, technically, Shua wasn’t a princess, but she was close enough. “I heard the king of France has several beautiful daughters. One of them has just turned 16, I think she is called Rozabella. She will be engaged soon, this is your chance to steal her away before that happens,” His father was saying. Erosin nodded; it was an unspoken rule not to steal a princess that was already betrothed. It was just not honorable to do that. “I will try my best, Dad!” His father gave him an indescribable look. “I certainly hope so.” ********** Rozabella twirled her perfectly curled auburn hair between two fingers, sighing dramatically. One of her boys, Lennon, lay at her feet. Another, Philippe, was fetching a glass of water for her. “Your Highness, is there something wrong?” Cael asked, massaging her legs tenderly. Rozabella frowned at him for a minute. She was getting bored at the man’s dull eyes, but he was the first to ask her. Perhaps she would keep him for a little longer. “Would you like to go for a walk in the garden, my lady?” Jean asked, holding out a velvet clad arm. “To clear your head?” Rozabella thought about it for a short while, and nodded. She took his arm, feeling the muscle underneath. “Will you not come to my chambers tonight, Jean?” She fluttered her long eyelashes at him, lips curling coyly. Jean, like all the others, could not resist her charm. “As you wish, my lady.” Rozabella allowed Jean to lead her to her private gardens. The rest of her boys followed along behind like ducklings or maybe lost puppies. She sat on a bench underneath the shading orange tree, fanning herself slightly. “Do you hear that?” Lennon furrowed his eyebrows. “What is that sound?” Cael looked up towards the sky, dull eyes searching. “What are you idiots blabbering about?” Rozabella snapped, annoyed that their attention was not on her. “Your Highness! Get to safety!” Philippe was running towards her, his arms waving in the air. “Quickly, Your Highness!” He reached her, and started pulling on her arm. Rozabella yanked herself out of his grasp. “You dare?! Explain yourself, or I shall have you killed. My father will hear of this! And where is my water?” Philippe was gasping for breath. “No, no, Your Highness. Dragon. There is a dragon!” Rozabella’s mouth opened in surprise. A dragon? “What are you—” Just then, Rozabella heard the sound, too. A rushing noise, like huge wings flapping in the air. Then, a deep roar reverberated though the castle. Rozabella looked up, shocked, as a large black form came down upon her. Spiked claws reached, and snatched her up from the ground. She gasped, struggling against the talons. The dragon roared again, scaring her. Around her, the world went dark. When Rozabella awoke, she was on a hard surface. She looked around, gaping at her surroundings. She was in a cave, grey rock everywhere. In the corner was a makeshift fireplace, and what looked like bones.

[19]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Rozabella shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself in the perfect damsel-in-distress fashion. Not that anyone was there to see her. “You’re awake! Oh good!” A strange voice came from the cave entrance. Rozabella turned to stare at the black dragon that had kidnapped her. It was huge, taking up the whole entrance, and horribly scary looking. “You can speak?” Her voice was soft in fright. The dragon showed his fangs. “Of course I can!” Rozabella frowned. “Why am I here?” she asked. Would the dragon eat her? No, that didn’t seem right. The dragon seemed to hesitate. “Well, I was hoping we’d get to know each other.” Rozabella’s eyes widened. She gave an unladylike snort, and then corrected herself quickly. “You what?” She must have misheard him. “I said, we should talk. You know, get to know each other.” The dragon paused. “That’s what most mates do before they mate, in mating, right?” It was mumbling to himself. “Mate?” Rozabella’s mind raced. Despite what she showed to her father’s guests and even her boys, she wasn’t actually stupid. “You want to be my mate?” The dragon nodded his monstrous head. “Yep!” “What about knights?” Rozabella noted. The dragon’s jaws curved downward. A frown, Rozabella decided. “Well, one might come, but I’ll fight him off, don’t worry!” “I wasn’t…” Rozabella mumbled, just to seem agreeable. Still, if a knight came, then she could be rescued. The knight would take her back to her boys, and her kingdom! Maybe she would even let him become one of her boys as well, if he was cute enough. It would be a reward for rescuing her. Yes, that sounded good. Rozabella smiled to herself. Very well, she would bide her time with the dragon until a knight came. It didn’t seem that smart anyway. She might even be able to trick it into letting her go. She would have to see. ********** Mortalik, the knight, stood at the forest cave entrance. He had been called by the nearby village to investigate the mysterious disappearances of their farm animals. He had, of course, known immediately that it was a dragon. Probably one attempting to mate a princess. One of them had been reported to have been kidnapped recently. Mortalik glared into the gloom of the cave. Just great. He would kill the dragon, it was his life’s purpose after all, but rescuing foolish girls was not something he enjoyed. Most of the time, they tried to attach themselves to him. He couldn’t settle down with some damsel. He had to hunt dragons! No woman would tie him down; no dragon would beat him in a fight. That he was sure of. He was the best; he had always been, from the time he could walk! Mortalik walked into the cave, his large sword brandished. The dragon was curled up in the back. As expected, a frilly-dressed female was sitting next to him. They were talking. Mortalik paused. He had heard of the dragon’s rite of adulthood, their need to mate with a princess and turn her into a dragon. He’d just never seen one in person. Did the princess care about the dragon and not want the creature to die? That could bring annoying complications. Then the princess turned, her eyes meeting his, and he could see understanding and joy in them. She was happy to see him. Great.

[20]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

The dragon followed her gaze and stood with a roar. Mortalik scoffed. This dragon was puny. He’d faced much larger ones before. This one hadn’t even noticed him come in until the princess did. How pathetic. “Go away!” a somewhat childish voice emitted from the dragon’s snout. Mortalik raised an eyebrow. Sure, he’d heard dragons speak before, mostly to give death threats. None of them had sounded this… stupid. “Ah,” he shrugged, never being one for words. “Die.” He attacked, ignoring the princess as she squeaked and got out of the way. The dragon’s talons blocked his sword, but he dodged the swipe and rolled under its belly. The dragon thrashed around, roaring as Mortalik cut into his leg. Its wings flapped, and then its tail came and whipped out against him. Mortalik rolled out of its way, slashing and cutting with his sword. Despite the dragon’s small size, it wasn’t that bad a fighter. In fact, it was fast and surprisingly cunning. It nearly got a hit on him several times. Then the unthinkable happened. The princess screamed, distracting Mortalik, and before he knew it, his sword was flying out of his hands. Mortalik stared from his fallen sword, several horse-lengths away, to the dragon panting down at him. He’d never been beaten before! Without realizing it, he began to respect the dragon in front of him. “Your name?” he asked, gruffly. The dragon’s eyes gleamed with something indescribable. ********** Erosin looked at the knight below him. He had asked something. “Erosin, that’s what they call me,” he answered. The knight’s dark eyes were shining. His pale hair was plastered with sweat over his tanned skin. Erosin decided that this knight was a lot prettier than the princess. In fact, he enjoyed fighting with this knight far more than talking with the female. “I like you,” Erosin decided. ********** Rozabella watched with flabbergasted amazement as the dragon and the knight talked. It was like… like they were friends or something! “Ahem,” she coughed lightly. They turned to her. “You were rescuing me?” The knight glared at her. “I don’t care about you.” Rozabella gasped. What had he just said? Maybe he hadn’t seen her full beauty yet. She stepped closer to him, only to be blocked by the dragon’s tail. ********** Mortalik watched as the admirable dragon, Erosin, growled at the princess. He smirked. This was kind of… fun. “Just go back to your kingdom.” Erosin told the silly princess flatly. He turned to Mortalik. “Hey, you wanna be my mate?”

[21]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Mortalik was flattered but somewhat unsure. “Uh… I’m male as well,” Mortalik reminded him. Erosin gave a dragon’s grin. “Who cares? My brother can have nestlings, they’re probably annoying anyways.” Mortalik couldn’t help but agree. He made a decision. “Sure.” There were a lot of dragons in the world, surely slaying them all was an impossible goal. But how many knights could boast that they became a dragon? Mortalik smirked. ********** Erosin gave a yelp of joy and leaned his head down. Lightly, he touched his snout to the handsome knight’s forehead. In a flash, the man grew. Soon, there stood before him the most beautiful of all dragons. He was tall, strong, a powerful glacier blue. Perfect. ********** Rozabella could only stand there awestruck as the two dragons, one of which she was sure was a knight just moments ago, took off into the sky together. She walked to the cave entrance and looked around. How the hell would she get back to the castle? ********** Erosin flew with Mortalik until they reached the dragon cliff. Mortalik looked around in curiosity, though none showed on his face. “Ye got yerself a mate, eh Erosin?” Chan’s familiar voice called. Erosin turned, Mortalik right beside him. “I did, I did! This is Mortalik. Morty, this is Chan.” he introduced. Mortalik nodded his head, inwardly wincing at the nickname. “Don’t call me Morty,” he hissed so that only the black dragon could hear him. Chan cocked his horned head to the side. “What happened to the princess?” He could obviously tell that Mortalik, or Morty, wasn’t a female. Erosin shrugged. “She was annoying.” Mortalik scoffed. Annoying was an understatement. Chan shrugged as well. “I guess it don’t matter. You’ll jus’ haf to decide which one of yeh get to bear the kids.” Mortalik raised a nonexistent eyebrow. “It will not be me,” he said swiftly. Erosin whined. “But—” Mortalik turned a cool eye on him. Erosin closed his mouth. Chan chuckled. “Oh, this’ll be fun!” “We’re going now,” Erosin grumbled. “Hey Mort, jus’ so yeh know, Erosin don’t know…about nestlings, yeh know?” Chan called after them. Mortalik didn’t know. Then he looked at Erosin’s innocently confused look. Oh. Mortalik smirked.

[22]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Halo is Already More Popular Than God… I Guess It’s a Good Thing I’m Pagan By Jen Barras I don’t think of myself as a girly girl. Never have. I like video games in which you get to blow things up and kill things; I spent my time as a child playing with G.I. Joes instead of Barbies; and me and my brother would have contests, judged by our dad, as to who made the best Lego replica of that gun from Lazerblast or, some other equally bad decades-old Sci-Fi flick, and I would always win. With that said, I still can’t seem to tell when I've encountered a bad video game. Believe you me, there’s plenty of time to discover this when you are the only girl at a teenage male’s man cave, surrounded by future basement-dwelling game-lords and will be the only girl for a good two-and-a-half hours. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love military style games. I grew up on them, but nothing sent my “bad-game-meter” through the roof faster than the lovely space-marine-in-power-armor “classic” known as Halo. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1, 2, 3, Wars, or ODST: it’s just bad. I had the “pleasure” of watching as five of my closest guy friends became reduced to a pack of drooling seven—scratch that, three-year-olds after gazing at this “treasure” as if it was the freaking Holy Grail. That nice optometrist must have been right when she said I needed glasses, because we obviously weren’t looking at the same screen. I saw a mess of pixilated garbage that would have looked better if a toddler had scribbled it out on Microsoft Paint while looking at a work of art worthy of placement in the Louvre. “Oh this is just the first one,” one of them said, not taking the time to turn his head away from the screen. (Oh, yeah! THERE’S MORE THAN ONE!) Microsoft hit a gold mine when it puked out the wonderment of Halo 1, but obviously they didn’t strike deeply enough. There are at least four DLCs or Expansions as well as four other games. While the graphics improve astronomically from Halo 1 to Halo 2, that’s about the only improvement. The story line is generic and boooooring (not to mention pointless), the campaign is short, and the most fun seems to be had playing tag or escape-the-zombie or something like that. I was too busy getting pissed off at the noninverted friendly controls to even care a little. I think Ben Croshaw put it best in his review of Halo 3. He said, “Halo 3 is already more popular than God, and nothing I can say is going to stop Microsoft making enough money to buy Switzerland and enforce the notion that all gamers want is brightly colored dross with the depth of a spoon.” Now I'm not going to say I went into playing this game thinking it was going to be bad. I was excited to play after all the hype I had heard, but it took all of five seconds for my mile wide smile to become an “are you serious?” expression. It’s freaking Halo for Christ’s sake! This game has more followers than Jesus, and it’s crap. Granted, I'm not a critic hardened on years worth of experience with a plethora of games, but if my incredibly low standards still put this masterpiece at the bottom of even my “will play for money” list, then that’s bad.

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Most Shameful Moment By Naomi Hasegawa When I was little and I would go out shopping with my mom, I would always hide from her. If it was at the clothing store at Dillard’s, I would hide inside the racks of shiny clothes. If it was at Pottery Barn, I would hide behind the lumpy couches. I don’t exactly remember why I did it. But I do remember that it drove my mother insane. She would frantically search for me, during these “hide-and-seek” sessions, pulling out her hair and screeching out my name in panic, until I would pop out from behind the couch, five minutes later, smiling sweetly and displaying an air of innocence. But of course, one can take these things a bit too far. . . And that is exactly what happened one summer day when I was eight years old. My mother and I were at HEB, buying groceries. Well, actually, my mom was the one buying groceries, while I ran around HEB like a maniac, my black hair trailing behind me. We were in the vegetable section and while my mother was looking at the peaches, I searched around for a good hiding place. Usually, I would hide in a place that was less than 15 feet away from my mom and she would find me in about five minutes, before she got too panicky and told the store manager that her daughter has been kidnapped (well, usually before that anyways). But that day, I was feeling a rush of adrenaline. Yes sir, I was an eight-year old rebel rocking out in a Hello Kitty t-shirt and a matching hair bow. I had a hunger for risk. So, I sneaked over to a completely different aisle of HEB. The cereal aisle. As soon as I entered the aisle, I was greeted by my favorite characters: Captain Crunch and Tony the Tiger. The cereal aisle had a wonderful, sugary smell wafting through the air, and I decided that this was going to be my hiding place. Giggling, I went down on my knees and I crawled into one of the shelves. I squeezed myself between the boxes of Lucky Charms and Frosted Mini-Wheats, wrapped my arms around my knees and waited for my mother to find me. Minutes crawled by, as I waited between the cereal boxes. But still no sign of my mother. Being eight-years old, I soon started getting ants in my pants and I started impatiently drumming my fingers on the metal shelf. More minutes crawled by, and I couldn’t stand it any longer. I dragged myself out of my hiding place and I decided to go look for my mom back in the fruit section. I skipped back to the shelf stacked with peaches, the place where I had last seen my mother. However, when I got there, she was nowhere to be seen. The first waves of panic rushed over me as my eyes frantically scanned my surroundings for my mother. “Mommy?” I called out. But there was no answer. Suddenly, I felt utterly and helplessly alone. I was surrounded by strangers in a gigantic grocery store, and my mother was nowhere to be found. I decided to search through the grocery store, and I ran past the aisles. I passed by shelves piled with bread crusted with nuts and raisins, racks with high-calorie gummy worms, and freezers with Blue Bell ice cream. But my mom was nowhere to be seen. After five minutes of searching frantically, I started crying. I was faced with a terrible situation I had never encountered before in my whole eight years of life. My mother was gone. At this point, I believed that my mother had left me forever. Maybe she got tired of my [24]

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mischievous pranks. Maybe she got tired of making dinner for me every single night. My eyes welled with fresh tears when I remembered all the terrible things I had done to my mother, like accidentally breaking her favorite china or drawing all over her checkbook. I trudged back to the cereal aisle, my head down, face wet with tears. And this time, when I looked up at my favorite characters of Captain Crunch and Tony the Tiger with my tearridden, blurred vision, they didn’t look so friendly anymore. And the sugary smell of the aisle that had seemed so mouth-watering a moment ago was suddenly overly sticky and nauseating. I crawled my way back between the two boxes of Lucky Charms and Frosted MiniWheats, put my arms around my knees and cried some more. I thought I was going to be in the dark, tiny shelf forever. Suddenly, two hands grasped around my shoulders and pulled me out of the dark space into the open. I glanced up and saw my mother, standing there with the most relieved look on her face. She picked me up, and hugged me tight until I thought I was going to suffocate. “Mommy . . . I . . . can’t . . . breathe,” I managed to gasp out and she finally set me down on the floor. She looked down at me and said, “Let’s go home.” I took her hand and we quietly walked back to the car. I realize now that there was millions of things that I had wanted to say to my mom. How I was sorry, how I was happy she didn’t leave me, how I was scared to death. But I never did say any of those things. I guess I just didn’t need to. Well, needless to say, I never played hide-and-seek again. And Captain Crunch and Tony the Tiger still give me the creeps.

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

April Showers By Angela Lupher

It rained the day they buried her. At first, he didn’t mind; it hid his tears, even from himself. It silenced the restless movement of dutiful friends, those who hadn’t ever really known her. It blurred his vision, so it was harder to see her cold lifeless face. But the rain didn’t stop. Not that afternoon. Not that night. Not the next morning. He knew that, contrary to the evidence, the accident hadn’t happened because of the rain; the rain had happened because of the accident. Even the weather was mourning her. The rain didn’t stop, she didn’t come back, and after a while, nothing could hide the tears. Then, he wished the rain would go away. Would stop reminding him of what he once had. He tried to stay away from the place where she was imprisoned, where she had been left to be forgotten. He tried, but couldn’t. Three days, three lifetimes, three eternities after she left him, he went to her. He hadn’t meant to; it just happened. He’d just bought flowers and walked away before he realized what he was doing. They were carnations, not roses – she hated roses, he didn’t know why, he’d never bothered to ask. It hadn’t seemed all that important, and now he would never know. He made his pilgrimage through the rain to the little cemetery where they’d put her. It hadn’t stopped raining since they buried her; maybe it never would. The world would stand poised forever, balanced on the brink of chaos, in awe of what it had lost. A girl stood in the rain by the rusted black gate. She looked up at him, hair hanging limply down her face. She smiled. “Hello, Daniel.” The girl reminded him of another life. Her hands spoke of gentle brushes and quick squeezes: her eyes of intimate secrets. Her voice was so familiar… Yet there was something wrong about her. She was too beautiful and graceful to be real, too natural to be anything but alien. He frowned and wished she would go away. He was here to see Elizabeth, not some alien thing. Tears ran down his cheeks, but the rain hid them even from the girl’s all-knowing eyes. “Hello, Daniel.” Angrily, he pushed past her and knelt before Elizabeth’s grave. Gently he laid the flowers down before her; a sacrifice to her beauty, an acknowledgement of what had been, yet no longer was. The girl stood, watching him. “Aren’t you cold, Daniel?” He wondered why he should be. “It’s like thirty degrees out and you’re in a t-shirt. Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?” Annoyed, he turned away and began walking briskly down the carefully maintained path. “You really should be wearing one, Daniel,” she called after him. He broke into a run. “I’ll send you one.” He escaped the cemetery and her watchful gaze. A few blocks later he stopped running and sat. He watched the rain until his mother called and ordered him home for dinner. If she wondered where he’d been, she didn’t ask.

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He visited her again the next morning, before school. Thankfully, the cemetery was empty of the almost-girl. He stood for a while at the altar of his unfulfilled passion. In the distance a car honked. Startled, Daniel glanced at his watch and realized first period was already half over. Numbly he turned away and saw something out of the corner of his eye. There, hanging from the branch of a sickly looking tree, was a dark blue jacket, like the color of her eyes. Without really knowing why, he slipped it on. In spite of the rain, it was dry and warm. The next day was Saturday. He took his books with him so his mother would stop glancing nervously at him and muttering about a shrink. He sat by her headstone and watched the rain drizzle dully from the sky. “Your books are getting wet.” He glared at the almost-girl and sneezed moodily. She examined him, frowning. “You’re not wearing your jacket.” He sighed. “What do you want?” She smiled and rocked back on her heels. He glanced at her suspiciously; even her subtle movements were too right to be anything but wrong. “I want you to be happy, Daniel.” He snorted. “You want me to be happy?” She nodded gently. Like the last time, anger seeped in, filling the numb space. “Do you know who this is?” He gestured violently toward the headstone. “Do you know what I’ve lost!” As his voice rose, hers softened. “Yes, Daniel. I know who you lost. But you have to move on.” He fell to the ground and cradled his head in his hands, racked with silent, frustrated sobs. “Do you think she’d want this for you?” her voice rose slightly. “Do you really think sitting here in the rain freezing your butt off is going to bring her back?” The anger vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving sorrow and desperation in its wake. “I miss her.” “I know.” She sat down next to him and reached out to touch him, then seemed to think better of it. She withdrew her hand awkwardly and wrapped it around her knees instead. “I need her.” “No Daniel, you don’t.” Her eyes were the color of the sea and held within their depths a compassion both familiar and foreign. “You don’t,” she whispered. She watched him for a moment, her eyes searching his for something. Finally, she sighed. “Go home and put on something dry. Watch TV or something.” For some reason, he did what she said. Sunday it was still raining. He sat at home, watched TV, studied for algebra, and sneezed his brains out. Monday morning came and he left the house, books in hand, fully intending to go to school. Somehow, though, he ended up going in the opposite direction. There was time, he told himself, he didn’t need to go straight there, didn’t need to feel the stares of the others or hear their whispers before he stumbled into view. He turned a corner and found the girl leaning against a lamppost. She smiled when she saw him. A full, beautiful smile. For the first time since the funeral, the rain had drained away into a gentle mist.

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“You’re wearing the jacket.” He nodded. “It looks good on you.” She paused and examined him with a gentle efficiency. “Hey, you wanna go get something to eat?” He glanced back towards school. “Daniel, school started half an hour ago. Besides, something tells me you wouldn’t exactly be a model student today.” Placidly, he followed her to a little diner down the street. She stood back while he pushed the door open, somewhere inside a bell dinged. She slipped into a booth and he sat across from her. They were silent for a few minutes until she glanced pointedly at the paper placemat menu. “Order something.” Obediently he ordered a steaming mound of grease-covered eggs and bacon. She watched intently while he ate. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” She cocked her head and smiled at him. He stared at her blankly and continued to shovel food mechanically into his mouth. “Now, Daniel, you agree or disagree with me. This is what we call ‘making conversation.’” He rolled his eyes. “It’s miserable. It’s wet and depressed.” “April showers bring May flowers,” she recited in a sing-song voice. “It’s March.” “Honey,” she slipped into a deep Southern accent. “We in the South. Sugar, down here it’s been spring since February.” She giggled and he smiled a little. He couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled. They were silent for a moment and his wan grin vanished. “Where are they then?” She raised an eyebrow. “The flowers. If Spring started back in February they should be here by now.” She sighed and her own smile faltered a little. “They’re coming, Daniel. They really are.” “I don’t think I can believe you.” He sneezed and she frowned slightly, eyeing him carefully. “You should go home now, Daniel. Get some sleep.” He got up and followed her from the diner. She left him at the corner and he made his way home. It wasn’t until he was lying in bed staring at the ceiling that he realized that they had never paid for the food. Tuesday he went to school. He answered a few questions in Algebra and managed to stay awake through English. On the way home, he picked up flowers again. As he walked toward the cemetery, he realized he wasn’t sure who he had bought them for. Angry and guilty, he threw down the scarlet carnations and ran. Wednesday he dragged himself to school, then followed the familiar path to the cemetery, not allowing himself to think about why he was going. She was sitting there, waiting for him. The sodden flowers he’d bought the day before were lying in front of Elizabeth’s headstone. He stared at them, and she cocked her head knowingly. “Hey,” she smiled at him. “Come sit.” He sat down on the soaking grass next to her. “Tell me about her.” He glanced questioningly at her. “Elizabeth. Tell me about her. What made you love her?” He sighed and stared up at the threatening sky. “She was… She’s Elizabeth. I don’t know why I love her, but I do. I love her so much… I love the way her face lit up when she saw

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me. I love the way she laughed. I love her passionate defense of the things she cared about. I love—” he laughed. “I love how incredibly stubborn she could be. How narrow-minded. How pigheaded…” he trailed off, and realized tears were escaping down his cheeks. She waited patiently for a few minutes until he pulled himself together. “You know,” she began. “When I was little, I believed we were all here for a reason, to learn something, and once we’d learned it, we moved on. Everyone was here for as long as they needed to be and left when they were ready to.” “What do you think now?” “I’m not quite sure…” She sighed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, she’s where she needs to be.” She stood up. “Daniel, come with me. I want to show you something.” He got up and followed her. She hopped the little fence surrounding the cemetery and slipped into a nearby green belt. She led him into a clearing and knelt. “Look.” He crouched beside her. There, amongst the decaying leaves, were little flower buds poking out of the mud. She smiled. “Smell them.” They smelled of earth and green things. They smelled of life. “I keep my promises, Daniel.” She rocked back onto her feet and turned toward him. “She’s happy. Trust me.” He looked up into her eyes. “I do.” “And she loves you very much.” “I know.” “I have to go now, Daniel.” She turned. “I’ll miss you,” he called. “For a while,” she smiled knowingly. “Goodbye Daniel.” He waited. A little less than a week later, the mist faded. When it did, he made his way back to the little cemetery. He hopped the gate and walked slowly down the little path. She wasn’t there. He hadn’t expected her to be. He approached Elizabeth’s headstone and saw a fluttering out of the corner of his eye. There, in the tree where the jacket had once hung was a note. It was written in Elizabeth’s round, firm hand.

Thank you

For loving me He freed the note from the branches and looked up. The hill was full of flowers.

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A Dream By Aaron Davis While walking through a shadowed glen, A thick fog rolled in to block all sight, And thus I found a she-wolf’s den.

You must get out of this routine, And the gods give you such a chance, For when you wake up, choose between,

She bared her teeth in a fright, And let loose a dreadful growl, Which would keep me there for the night.

A life alone or true romance. Be not afraid of what may come, But throw yourself into the dance.”

Movement she would not allow; Midnight passed with a full moon To which she released a howl.

She ended her speech, left me numb, And so I was falling, but then I awoke, to choose what to become.

She then looked like she wished to commune, Much to my surprise, she did speak, And said to me, “You must attune That which you only think you seek. I speak of Love, ruler of all. It’s this you fear which makes you weak. You have put ’round your heart a wall, So dark and cold yet one not seen, And will lead you to your downfall.

Ella Fitzgerald

By YINGTHI PILING

May the last I hear, Within my ears, Be the voice of Ella Fitzgerald.

We live in a “Speak-Easy” And crime’s just as measly, But the alcohol is all the same!

And to my grave, Carry my sake, As the messenger of John Dillinger.

And when I die, The last I hear, Will be the voice of Ella Fitzgerald. And black smoke will rise, Out the surprise cannon: My Steyr-Mannlicher Model 1905.

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Riley’s Flowers By Evie Ladyman

Up ahead of him there was a large castle-like building, probably a church, full of turrets and stained-glass windows. Riley found himself strolling across the street to it and walking partway up the stone steps. For a while, he stood staring at the huge oak doors, open and inviting. After a few moments, a man in a robe walked down to him. “Are you coming inside?” Riley paused, not wanting to sound rude by saying no. But really, he almost felt like he should be in there. Hesitantly, he nodded. The priest smiled and led him the rest of the way to the double doors. “Have you ever been to a service before?” he asked Riley. “No, sir.” He had slept in a couple of churches before, but doubted that counted. “Just sit where you feel like. You don’t have to participate in any of it if it makes you feel uncomfortable, but you’re very welcome to.” The priest smiled at him, ushering him through the doors. Then he closed them with a muffled thump. The service had already started, though just barely, by the look of things. Riley headed towards one of the back pews and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. It had been painted with a beautiful mural of what looked like people with wings and halos surrounding a large figure in the clouds. Riley stared around at the paintings on the walls and the stained glass windows, fascinated. They were full of people, people who were obviously very important, who were doing things like holding lambs and children and healing people, and they were somehow familiar. Eventually, Riley realized that the man in front had stopped talking and he was mostly alone. There were only a few people scattered around praying, nowhere near as many as there had been. Feeling slightly self-conscious, Riley stood up and slowly started making his way back towards the entrance. Halfway there, the priest from before met him. He smiled kindly. “Did you enjoy it?” he asked. “Um. Yes,” Riley said. He shifted his weight, trying to make a decision. “Actually, can I stay a little longer?” He didn’t relish having to stay another night out in the park. “You can stay as long as you like.” Riley blinked. “Even tonight?” he blurted without thinking. He felt himself blush. The priest smiled again. “As long as it’s all right with your family.” Riley couldn’t help but smile a bit. “I don’t think they’ll have a problem with that.” The priest showed him to a side room, with cots set up for all the people who had the same idea he did. Most of them were dirty and unkempt, signifying homelessness. Riley picked a cot in the corner and set his pack down on it—he didn’t have to worry about theft; there was nothing of value in it, just a bit of food and some dirty clothes. Another priest popped his head around the doorframe. “Brother Andrew? Would you mind helping us to move some tables? The Ladies’ Charity Bazaar is tomorrow, and we need to set up.” “Sure, I’ll be right there. Will you be all right?” This last was directed to Riley. “Yeah, I’ll be fine, thanks.” Several hours later, unable to sleep, Riley wandered down the halls of the old church, looking at all the murals and crosses on the walls. His bare feet were cold against the stone of the floor, but somehow he felt more at home here than anywhere else he’d ever been.

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“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Startled, Riley spun around, nearly hitting the man behind him in the face. “Sorry,” he sputtered. “I didn’t hear you …” The man from before—Andrew—smiled. “That’s quite all right. It’s easy to get caught up in some of these paintings. This one’s of the stoning of Stephen.” “Why was he stoned?” Riley asked. The priest told the story to Riley, about the man who forgave the people murdering him with his last breath. He then went on to the next mural, of David among sheep, and the next, on down the hall, telling all of their stories. The words that went along with the paintings were even better than the pictures themselves. * * * The next day, Riley woke up to a clean change of clothes, a ratty pair of tennis shoes, and a bowl of oatmeal. He couldn’t remember the last time he had had shoes that fit. He hastily polished off the bowl and found a bathroom to change in. After a few moments of wandering he found the main room again, the one where the service was held. There wasn’t one today, it appeared, but there were still a few people kneeling or reading from what Riley assumed were Bibles. Riley noticed in particular one girl who looked about five or six and who was there with her mother. She had a flower in her hands, and it looked like she might’ve been crying. Andrew walked up to him. “Do the clothes fit fine?” he asked. Riley nodded. “They’re perfect. Do you know who that girl is? The one with the purple bow in her hair?” The priest glanced over to where Riley was looking. “Yes. I don’t know her name, but she and her mother come here every Sunday.” He watched the two with a sad look on his face. “She’s been here every day for the past three days. I think her father was in the military; he may have been hurt or killed.” Riley frowned. “Well, she looks lonely. I’m going to go talk to her.” As the girl walked up to the front to put her small flower by the altar, Riley stepped up to her. “Hello. My name is Riley.” The girl blinked up at him, surprised anyone was talking to her. “I’m Lizzy.” “Is that flower for your dad?” Internally, Riley winced at his choice of words. He had been meaning to save that for later in the conversation, once he’d gotten to know her better. Lizzy shook her head. “No, it’s for my kitty. His name was Paul.” All of a sudden, she looked like she was going to cry. As usual, Riley blurted the first thing that came to his mind. “Well, I’m sure he likes all the flowers you’re giving him. Is yellow his favorite color?” She sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Yeah, it is.” Riley nodded. “Then I’m sure he’s got a lovely garden right now, if you’ve been bringing him lots of flowers.” Lizzy gave him a watery smile, grabbed him in a quick hug around his middle, and ran back to her mother. Slightly stupefied, Riley returned to Andrew to thank him for the clothes. * * *

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“HEY!” Riley spun around, almost dropping his funnel cake. A small boy was running after him, waving an inflatable sword through the air. “Hey, I want your cake! I’m a pirate, and I’m pirating your cake!” Behind him, a woman in a navy blue business suit tottered after her son in two-inch heels. “KEVIN! Kevin, come back here now and stop harassing that young man! I told you to only use that sword on the birds in the park!” Kevin paid no attention. “GIMME CAKE!” Riley almost regretted leaving the Charity Bazaar and escaping to the park, even though he’d managed to snag a cake from one of the booths beforehand. The boy slammed into Riley’s legs and began hitting him. On instinct, Riley held the plate with the funnel cake on it high above the kid’s reach, showering both of them with powdered sugar. The mother finally caught up to her boy and managed to pull him off of Riley, apologizing in embarrassment. “LEGGO!” Kevin twisted wildly in his mother’s arms. Then, without warning, he went stone still and screamed, “LOOK! A plane!” Riley couldn’t help but glance at the sky. Sure enough, a jet was leaving a vapor trail across the sky. By the time he had looked back, Kevin had been staring slack-jawed at the plane for a few seconds, but as soon as Riley had time to register what was going on the boy wrenched himself from his mom and ran to the side of the path. “Mommy, look, a nickel!” As he squatted down to pick it up, his face lit up. “LOOK! A dead thing!” “EWWW, Kevin, get away from that!” His mother ran to his side and grabbed his arm, a horrified look on her face. Kevin, however, would have none of that. He reached out and snatched up a small ball of black fur, running over to Riley. “Here, I’ll trade you my dead thing for your cake!” “KEVIN!” “Uh, sure. Here, I’ll take care of that for you,” said Riley, more to the mother than to Kevin. He accepted the gift and handed Kevin his paper plate. “Kevin, put that down! Don’t eat that until you’ve washed your hands!” Kevin once more managed to pull away from his mom and ran off towards the swing set, forgetting about his cake now that he had released it into his mother’s custody. “Mommy, come play with me!” he cried. * * * Riley scanned the crowd in the pews, looking for one head in particular. Right there, that bow. Riley followed her with his eyes until she reached the doors. He walked over to her. “Hey, Lizzy,” he greeted. “Hi!” the girl brightened up considerably when she saw him, which was good. Riley hadn’t thought she’d remember him from Monday. Riley grinned. He reached deep down into his jacket pocket and pulled up the little ball of fur he had been keeping for her for the past two days. The kitten uncurled and yawned at Lizzy. She repeated her past performance, only more so. “Mommy, Mommy, Can we name him Peter? Can we mom?”

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Her mom came over, a confused look on her face. “Can we name who Peter?” As she spied the kitten, a look of surprise flitted over her face, followed quickly by joy. “Look, Mommy, he even looks just like Paul! He’s all black and everything! I bet Daddy’ll be so happy when we tell him we got another kitty!” The mother smiled down at her daughter. “Yes, he will, won’t he?” Riley handed her Peter. “I know you’ll take good care of him,” he said. As Riley watched them walk away, he felt a clear sense of the rightness of his actions. Maybe he really did have a purpose for being here, a place where he belonged. Lizzy, turning around to wave, smile, and admire his beautiful wings one last time, would have agreed.

Wings By Anne Urban

The

The girl stood on the stage knees shaking heart wings flittering ready to fall. The lights heated her skin her heart

beat of the earth pounded deep inside her, from where the bird had flown. And she was no longer on the mountain but lying flat on the jungle floor. Primal notes winding up her legs and binding around her wrists and she was filled with invigoration, power over her own self that made her smile. And her voice whirled on. It brought her flying into the sky and she hit the white sands of the deserted beach.

beat the life of a bird within it. The bird took off with a note and the girl was no longer there. She was far away, the exotic wind blowing through her hair, it felt like nothing else, and she had chills.

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Her heart suddenly snapped as if love had been snatched away. and she

The silent vibration in her throat even, almost inaudible.

beat

And she sang, quiet, heartfelt.

the ground with her fist and tears ran down her face . . . She no longer

And she was home. She could feel the sun in her eyes. The wind in her soul. The fire in her mind. The fantasy in her heart. And she was whole, because the notes brought her together.

beat the soft earth. As vibrato took her throat and caressed it with such care she kissed it. And her heart lifted into the sky for everyone to see, and emotions spilled from it. Every recognizable emotion and every feeling misunderstood. In colors, thousands of them, swirls that spilled onto the sand, tinting it bright colors, and they licked the tips of the horizon. Her heart

The bird above her drifted down, pressing itself against her. Melting into her chest, to her core. And her heart beat again. Ready to take on more than it ever had before. Her voice caught for the last triplet, and slowly slid away.

beat The walls rang with the beautiful tone. The ties to the world.

beat

And the girl stood on the stage knees shaking heart wings flittering.

beat and filled the crevasses in the soil.

Ready,

And with the dispersion of the chord, she sank to her knees completely calmed.

to fly . . .

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As Seasons Change By Sarah Panico Heat beating down on our skin The light around us filling in the spaces The acts of many unplanned sins The memories of times and places As seasons change

I reached out to hold you but hard as I try As the time changes the magic starts to die As seasons change The sensation in the air begins to feel broken The animals fidget as if they're afraid Needless regret of words left unspoken My concealed feeling I could have conveyed As seasons change

Raindrops fall fast to hit the ground Leaves fall from the trees to lie in piles I'm falling for you but what I've found My distance to fall keeps going for miles As seasons change

No longer do I feel scared and trapped My mind’s thoughts slowly rearrange In due time I will adapt For through the seasons We all change

The mornings grow colder and darker outside The birds sing their sad songs as they wish us good-bye

Changing By Taylor Covington Upon the waves of certain glee, And down the road of travesty, I found myself missing thee.

When light breaks open black Fall sky, My skin is rough, and the last memory will die. Morning kisses leave with an angry sigh.

The day broke, open and clean. I met you there, a golden dream. The night and day collapsed, too lean.

We have new heels and higher boots, Thicker skin and harder shoes.

We met again in evening gowns, And left again when the sun went down. Now time apart, the queen’s lost her crown.

Our hair was long, Then cut short and held back. Candle wax Burns for our day And crumbles out for the world’s one sun.

The time we spent, I’ve lost track. Too starry-eye my night and never looking back, Under burning sun and endless black.

We look again to that shimmering dream, And find that it scares us, that glimmering gleam.

With whirling winds and changing light, My pink fresh skin burns red, then bright. And now the summer day has turned to winter night.

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The Edge's Birth Bronte Bejarano The days begin with the screech of flashing red numbers, the fiery baptism of a blue room with ancient morning light, the song of placid birds and cars whizzing hurriedly past. Some mornings weary eyes, hugged by pale black, watch the world chase the cold moon's kiss. Others see eyes watching bright orphaned images acting out plays that will neither be remembered nor forgotten, ghosts of the internal chemical world. Whatever the mask peered through, the actions, the actors, the world remains unchanged. Black cracked pavement, rubber spinning, lights fading from green to yellow to red and back, until a monstrous structure severs the loop as it cuts the sky. School has begun. Bells clang, signaling the birth death of classes. Days and weeks bleed before me, differences indiscernible or simply ignored, the loyal black hands moving still. Forever stuck in a loop, weary eyes, my weary eyes, watch as around me people grow tall. Eyes shut for a moment, I just need rest, but fresh gaze reveals matured faces. Black hands spin fast, the ticks sounding to my heart, and they grow tall, eyes blinking into cold clouds as they reach towards the heat of golden stars. Their familiar faces grow foreign and distant, maturated mirages and shadows of people who were children moments ago. They begin suddenly to move, jumping for an object beyond my vision. My shrunken frame sleepily fights to escape the cold numbers that rain from their monstrous frames, but the numbers merge and walls of cold steel grow tall, swaying to the beat of black hands and bright light. Cold light reflected off endless metal faces fills weary eyes, escape seeming impossible. Then, amidst the interwoven metal, the sea of light, something dark shines through. Black pupils lock hard as light chases the dark tighter and tighter. Breath hitches and legs push off shaking earth, the dark drowning, being pushed farther down. My feet clear right as the dark lets out a last rattling breath, forever hidden by the pale light of reflecting metal. Location unknown, I breathe cautiously, warm air swirling deep into cold lungs, the smell of earth following swiftly after. Black meets black and time loses itself, its black hands blinded by absence. With no keeper my weak, blandly beating, plastic heart grows erratic, chaotic; it grows and shrinks in irrational spurts. The black burns on. Moments lost, meaning and black flow fast around my frame, jostling me until fear prickles my skin, settling heavy as the need for purpose is etched inside, ghosts from the chemical world painting the sensation a brilliant red. Suddenly the kernel of memory of mornings lived flashes from inside, spilling tiny red numbers into the black belly. Protected by the warmth seeping from hidden lives lived long years past, the red grows, growing stronger and more vivid as it does so. With a resounding crack, the red bursts from the skin of black and continues its growth upwards, to sights unseen by sight or sound. The black, once a comfort, seems dangerous in its simplicity, and with only a shaky breath, I climb the red. Light bounces sharply on my eyes, but my chaotic heart beats back stronger, and I continue upward, the clouds tickling my nose. Light and altered figures move around the red, their size pulling me left and right, yet I climb on. Finally, as the clouds end and the sun lies bare, the red abates. As I reach the edge, the heat of the sun dancing around me, I look below. Below, cold metal still reflects revealing faint traces of my journey; above lies much more.

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Dassik and His Queen By Ariela Schnyer

Dassik stared into the white expanse in front of him, the light blinding enough that he was tempted to pull his dimming lids over his eyes. But he had been here before, felt her touch, and he knew he didn’t want anything that would dim those sensations. Instead he waited, his long fingers hanging far down his thighs, the delicate extremities twitching slightly in the cool air. Meeting her always started like this: absolute nothingness. Some of the sages suggested it was to further emphasize the majesty that she was; that by being in nothingness, when she showed herself to you, somehow the experience would be all the more overwhelming. It just made Dassik impatient. He wanted to talk to her, have her liquid voice fill his ears as she linked an arm with his, leading him through whatever scenery she picked this time. A beach maybe, with the planets large on the horizon, or one of her favorite gardens filled with the red flowers that released such an incredible scent. He wanted to feel her body close to his, the intoxicating smell of her skin. He shuddered, the memories of how she had felt last time running through his body. Everything was more powerful, more potent here. Every thought felt like an experience, every scent was like being immersed in a bouquet of that fragrance. A warm presence seemed to billow over him and Dassik hurriedly straightened his shirt. He kept his eyes on the ground, but he could feel the body that had materialized beside him. “Dassik.” The voice was fluid pouring through his veins, drying his throat in expectation. “My Lady Queen.” Dassik kneeled hurriedly, his eyes still on the ground. He tipped his hand back behind his back and swept it forward to his forehead in salute. “Report.” She always started like this, as if their relationship was nothing more than master to servant, as it should be. Somehow it made the warmth and friendship she bestowed on him later all the more special. She stepped forward until he could just see the hem of her gown at the top of his vision. Ice blue today. “My lady, the first contact was relayed to Gerald Montaco and his team at 1240. Our intelligence tells us he reported it immediately and Earth’s Chancellor is currently being debriefed. If our observations of them are correct, we can expect them to attempt to make contact back to us by 1500.” “And the others?” “A new group of visiting Earth pilots will be flying out to meet our pilots today. We have made our pilots ready to receive them; today we will be making contact.” She sighed delightfully, letting her pleasure at how things were going be known. “You have done well, Dassik. I am pleased with your capabilities. You may look at me now.” Dassik raised his eyes slowly, his gaze travelling up to meet hers, not daring to linger on any part of her for longer than a few moments. There was little beauty left in their world. The land had been destroyed as their planet slowly killed itself. There were no more trees, no more

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beautiful crystal clear days. All the beauty had been replaced by a dark expanse of rocky soil that crumbled away to expose the flaming engorged core of their planet. But she had retained the beauty. She had led their broken, bleeding people away from their planet, had kept them travelling through the silent, cold expanse of space. And she had remained enchantingly beautiful. In her was every little bit of beauty that had ever existed in his world; every bit of beauty that had been so hauntingly snatched away from him. Her hair was long and black as night. Interwoven in to it were tiny ice blue crystals that matched the shimmer of her dress, and reminded him of the glaciers that used to grace his world. Her skin was creamy white and untouched by any blemish or spots. Her eyebrows rose high and elegant above striking indigo eyes that spun with depth. Her cheekbones were pronounced, her nose gracefully curving into a delicate rose mouth. Her dress today was high necked, the embroidered collar brushing the underside of her creamy white throat and stopping at more embroidering at the top of her shoulders, leaving them bare. It curved down over her body, tight at the bodice, then flowing out in ripples from her waist. The train was long, brushing over the floor in a gentle reminder of its existence. She smiled at him kindly, but somehow it did not transfer in to the rest of her body. “I believe you deserve a reward for your good work, do you agree Dassik?” Dassik’s breath hitched in his throat, excitement travelling through his entire kneeling body, sending the spikes along the ridge of his back quivering. “Only if it pleases you, my lady. I would not dare to presume.” “No, I should think you would not.” For a moment, her words were frighteningly cold and alone. But then she smiled at him again, and reached out with her lovely elegant fingers. She placed them on either side of his forehead and closed her eyes. “Where shall we visit today?” “Whatever you choose for us to see today, my lady.” He could not take his eyes off her face, excitement and anticipation growing in him. She nodded slightly and opened her eyes. Dassik was drawn in to the spinning sapphire depths, spinning down, down, down, until his entire consciousness was encased in a sea of blue. And then, she showed him.

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God(s) By Grey Martin-Buhrdorf A worn temple, Echoing of madness and calls for wine, Of celebrated incest, Of infanticide, Of the rare thunderous survivors, Of spoiled killers, And crippled artists, Of kidnapping husbands, Of delinquent fathers, Of sea foam with more beauty than depth, Of lying messengers, And celebrated bastards, But no pleading hymns. I like it here.

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Untitled By Jin Hyung Lee We, the citizens of the world, are confused. We pride ourselves on not being the psychopathic dysfunctional families in movies; But we are. We separate ourselves from our cousins. We alienate them, Valuing materialistic goods And dumb abstract ideals. We tell our children to grow up and be courageous, To fight for what they believe in, And to hope for the best. But we oppress them, We destroy their happiness at a young age by overpowering them, And treat them as vessels. We neglect our Mother’s plea to come over for dinner. Instead, we do our best to hurt her. We abuse her and take advantage of her. We run away and shoot up. Then we cry back to our Mother, When our lungs start to hurt, When our skin starts to burn. And when Mother Earth tries to help us, We once again hit her and spit in her face. We don’t see the compassion Mother shows us. We take it all for granted, The breath of life she gave us The food, the water, the community of family members. We waste food. We exploit our family members for power and money. We’re young and immature, Still infants, Not knowing what to do. Mother, help us grow, Grow into moral Beings like you. So that one day, When we invite our family members over for dinner, They come.

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Numbers, Neighbors, Nightmares, Nothing By Savannah Kumar When I was four, five used to be my favorite number. It used to be my favorite because it’s right in the middle of zero and ten, right in the middle of all the important numbers. The middle was my favorite place to be, sitting between my favorite friends so I could talk to them both, playing in the middle of the day when the sun was bright, and squished right into the center of a hug. Now I’m five, but five isn’t my favorite number anymore. Now I know that middles don’t even exist because I don’t remember what being wrapped inside a hug feels like, so that means it can’t exist. And if middles don’t exist, that means I don’t exist either. I think I do exist though, and that’s why Mommy is sad. This morning, when I woke up, Mommy was still asleep. Sometimes she stays in bed until I’m all ready for school because she doesn’t sleep much at night. Those days my hair looks silly at school because I’m not very good at doing my hair yet. Today’s morning, Mommy was still in bed even after I had brushed my teeth, pulled on my comfy pants and butterfly shirt and tied a ribbon into my messy hair. Then, it was time to go to school, but mommy still hadn’t come out of her room. I tiptoed over to her room and stood next to the door. “Mommy, I think it’s time to go to school now; I’m all ready!” I said, using my whispery indoor voice. “Alice. I’m not taking you today. Go ahead on your own,” Mommy replied in her stiff voice. I didn’t know what to do. All I could do was wait for a while because sometimes Mommy says things that she doesn’t really mean. So I waited. And I waited. And I thought about how tomorrow, my teacher would say “Alice, we missed you yesterday! Are you feeling better?” Just like she says to everyone when they come back from being sick. And I thought about how I wouldn’t know what to say because I’m not sick. And then I realized something terrible. I realized that what I was doing was playing hooky! Because I wasn’t sick, but I wasn’t at school either, so that meant that I was doing the thing that my teacher told us was against the law! I don’t know exactly what ‘against the law’ means. I think the law is something really fragile that grown-ups built and everyone has to be really careful not to break it. But I broke it already. I knew I needed to find a way to get to school, quick! There wasn’t a morning bus, so I would have to run there myself. Before I could think about it anymore, I sped quietly around the room, grabbing my flowered backpack and sticking together the velcro on my shoes, I squeaked the door open and squeezed myself outside of it. I started to run. Up the path, down the driveway, left on the sidewalk. Or should I go right? I couldn’t remember. I didn’t know which way my school was. I closed my eyes tight, trying to picture which way Mommy turned when she drove me to school every morning, but all I could see was the nothing that was inside my eyeball. When I opened my eyes again, I saw him. A man. He was the oldest man I had ever seen in my life. I knew he was old because of his face. His face was falling together in all different directions and on his forehead he had lots of thin upside down smiles. He had a smile on his lips too, so he was smiling both rightside-up and upside-down. He had lots of tick-tack-toe boards near his eyes, but beyond them, there were bright eyes that were the same color as the grass he was standing on. I realized that I had been staring, something that my teacher says is rude, so I looked away real quick, but I could still see him a little bit, and he was still smiling. “Sweetie, where are you runnin’ to? Don’t you need to be at school soon?” The man

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asked with a voice that seemed to come from deep inside of him. I tried to answer him. I tried to say that I was running to school, but then I remembered. I remembered Mommy not coming out of her room this morning and telling me to go away. I remembered that my hair looked silly. And I remembered that I had broken up the law. My voice started to get shaky before I even started to speak and instead of answering his questions, my eyes began to cry some tears. I wiped them away quick. Crying was not a good thing (Mommy had taught me that). I expected the man to yell at me, just like Mommy does whenever I accidentally cry, because crying is for babies, that’s what Mommy says. But the man didn’t yell at me. He kneeled down. It took him a little while because his knees weren’t very bendy, and he put his arms around me and pulled me right up close to him. My tears wetted his sweater, his sweater that smelled like soapy smoke. I felt stiff standing right next to him, but also I felt calm. I didn’t know what to do. I felt confused, too. I had known my Mommy my whole life, but she had never acted like this, she doesn’t touch me unless it is to push me away. This man reminded me of those Mommies from storybooks. He couldn’t be my Mommy though, that’s for sure. I have a Mommy already and I love her. So maybe he is someone else. Maybe he could be my grandpa. “Grandpa,” I whispered into his sleeve, testing out the new word. The man walked me to school. He told me a little about himself, like his name, Chester, but I think of him as “Grandpa” in my head. He told me that my hair looked very pretty; I guess he can’t see very well. I don’t remember much else that he said though. I was paying more attention to just his voice. It made me feel safe, like the whole world was being nice to me. At school, I drew a flower for Mommy. I gave it lots of little pink petals connected to a green handle with some big, green leaves coming off of it. I colored it with those markers, those markers that make colors flow out like the bathwater my mommy pours for me sometimes. The colors shoot out fast, even before I really know what I’m going to draw. But this time, I knew what to draw: a flower for Mommy. I knew to draw a flower because my teacher read a book today about a little girl who bought lots of flowers with her daddy for her mommy and in the picture, her mommy smiled. I think she might even have been happy. I don’t have a daddy though and I don’t have money to buy flowers, so I drew one. I asked my teacher whether my drawing was good enough to make my mommy smile, like the mommy in the picture. My teacher laughed at me and told me that my mommy would be happy no matter what I drew her. That my mommy loves me and she will be proud of me. Always. That’s why, when I got home from school and I saw that mommy was still sad, I smiled. I knew I had something for her that would make her happy right away. I rushed up to my room, two stairs at a time. I went up a little too fast and scraped my knee on one of the steps. A little red seeped out of my knee, onto the carpet. I rubbed the fibers of the carpet together so that the color might go away. Mommy doesn’t like messes. Once I got up to my room, I shut the door real quiet and pulled my drawing out of my backpack. I put it on the floor and smoothed it out with my hands. Then, I pulled the loose ribbon out of my hair and rolled up my drawing. I circled the ribbon around my drawing and tied it into a knot, just like I tie my shoes sometimes. The drawing got a little crumpled, but I didn’t think mommy would notice. I walked carefully back down the stairs because now that I had Mommy’s present all prepared I didn’t want to ruin it. Mommy was sitting on the couch; she was pounding her hands against her legs. Not hard or anything, just in a rhythm, like she didn’t know about the rest of the world. Just her mind, pound pound pounding. I stood in front of her with the tied up picture held behind my back. I tapped her shoulder lightly, snapping her out of the world she was in. Mommy slapped my hand away, and I nearly fell over, but I balanced myself. I handed her my drawing. I was so excited, I

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almost started to laugh. I couldn’t wait until my mom would smile. I closed my eyes real quick so that I could open them right when Mommy unwrapped my drawing. Before my eyes opened, I heard the sound. My eyes shot open and I saw the pieces of my picture on the living room floor. Mommy hadn’t even unwrapped my picture. The ribbon was still holding a piece of it together. “Alice, how can you even imagine that a scribble will make anything better? Get away from me,” Mommy said, turning around. Now, it’s later. There is a noise in the kitchen. I think maybe Mommy is making music, like we do sometimes in a circle at school. We all sit around with blocks and sticks and shakers and other musical instruments and bang them together to make a joyful noise. The noise in the kitchen doesn’t sound very joyful, but maybe Mommy just needs a little help to make the music sound better. I know I can help her make prettier sounds because I learned how to at school. I go into the kitchen and I find a huge mess. Mommy doesn’t like messes. There are pots and pans scattered all over the floor and everything is dumped out of the drawers. There are knives, too. Knives shouldn’t be out of drawers on the floor; that’s dangerous. I should pick them up because Mommy could get hurt, but I’m a little bit afraid of knives, they might cut me up. I don’t see Mommy, but I can hear noises again, different this time. I don’t know what the noises are, but they sound a little scary. I walk a little farther into the kitchen, opening up the pantry where the noises are coming from. Where there are little red sequins stuck to the ground. I see her. I see Mommy, and I run. Because that’s all I can do. I run, run, run outside, not being quiet. And he is there. “Grandpa! Grandpa! Mommy is sadder!” I shrieked, forgetting to call him Chester, like he told me to. He looked a little surprised to hear me call him that, but he didn’t show it too much. He peeled off his gardening gloves, laying them on the rock that looks like a turtle. I held his hand; it was warm, probably because he had been wearing those gloves. He came inside with me and he heard the noises and saw the sequins and he pulled out his phone and slowly typed in some numbers. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know why Mommy is always so sad, I don’t know why those pots and pans and knives and sequins were laying out. I don’t know how long “soon” is and how many numbers make up five and whether it’s a middle and whether I’m a middle and whether I exist. Because I don’t want to exist. I make my Mommy sad. Chester is still here with me. He keeps telling me everything will be okay, that the people who took my Mommy away were just helping, that she had to go to the doctor because she’s sick. But not the super bad kind of sick—she’ll be all better soon, I think. I want my Mommy. Chester is telling me that I’m strong and beautiful, but I don’t think that I’m those things either. There is something else that I want to be. “Chester, could I ask you something, please?” I ask softly, looking into his tick-tack-toe eyes. Chester smiled and nodded. “Could I… could I please be your granddaughter and you be my grandpa?” I whispered real fast, blurring my words together. I realized how silly I sounded. Chester looked back down at me and smiled again. It was a different kind of smile though; it looked kind of sad. I didn’t even know smiles had emotions and that they could be sad, but Chester’s smile had emotions. Then some crying started to come out of his eyes, too, and I stopped breathing. I had made Chester sad, too. But Chester smiled again and said, “Alice, I’d be honored to be your grandpa.” And then, he wrapped me up right into the middle of a hug. And that’s when I knew: middles do exist, and so does Mommy. And so do I.

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Last Christmas By Madeline Vuong Bright green bridge rails, like watermelon candy canes Grasped momentarily in slightly sticky, mittened hands, Before clattering to the shop floor, bounce on road. Oops. I’ll eat it anyway. Ten-second rule! I wonder what Crayola would call that color. Finger paint green? Something jolly. Who’d have thought metal could slide like that, Skittering like an errant Christmas tree (Dad, I meant to tie it tight!) Across the asphalt, Looking like some kid’s popsicle stick project from kindergarten, Rebounding off each of its gumdrop joints. Maybe Newton blinked? Missed the apple zinging back up, Like a bouncy ball, A tenacious ornament, Albeit dropped on carpet, (Sorry Mom, it slipped away from me.) Apparently Jesus isn’t the only one who can do it, ‘Cause I’m skimming, hurdling forward still; Everything flies by in the holiday rush. A silver wrapped chocolate coin, I’m hovering like the ladle of Aunt Les (who’s dieting), Surreptitiously waiting to get a glass of eggnog. Then I hit with a sploosh, The sound turns everything heavy again. I can’t think when I’m not floating, Going down, sinking in the iron waves, And so much slower, too. My thoughts are like sludge, Cold, viscous, and mixed with car exhaust; It’s the grey color of bags under my eyes. Overworked, I outgrew fun. I’m getting crushed, Steely ice water rushing in, Constricting my breath; Ice needles in my lungs, And all I can think Is that I hope the Christmas sweets don’t get wet. I’ve got them in grocery bags in the car. Winter is a bleak season, When you’re buying candies for no one in particular.

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The Rise and Fall of Chuck E. Cheese: From Pop Sensation to Infamous Bad Boy By Kendra Smith “Son-of-a-bitch thought he was the only thing keepin’ us goin’. We met up after we found out we were gonna go on without him,” informs Mr. Munch, former band mate. “He said to me, ‘Good luck. I look forward to watching the four of you crash and burn to the ground.’ And the bastard laughed in my face. But we showed him.” Contrary to Chuck E.’s beliefs, the band did not “crash and burn”; in fact, attendance at their local gigs doubled within the first month of Chuck E.’s departure. And if that wasn’t enough to make Chuck E. choke on his words, the band delivered the final blow just three short months later, when they went public with a new fifth member: Disney’s golden boy himself, Mickey Mouse.

Chuck E. Cheese: a name we all know and, until quite recently, loved. “I saw it coming,” says Helen Henny, former band mate. “He was bored. Bored of the band, the good boy image. He had enough.” So what caused the sudden change in Chuck E.? “Life,” answers Helen, “He was miserable. Being an adolescent pop icon isn’t exactly what you could call a ‘good’ time. He needed more.” So after 32 years, Chuck E. called it quits, and said goodbye to his band. Shortly after his decision to leave, Chuck E. was surprised when the band announced they were going to continue to perform without him.

“He took it hard,” says an anonymous inside source. “Poor thing barely had the heart to get out of bed in the morning.” Indeed, Chuck E. did take it hard. He walked away from the Chuck E. Cheese franchise entirely. Continued . . .

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As funds ran low, Chuck E. tried to use what was left of his fame to get into the advertising business, but sadly his attempts resulted in failure.

And at the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards, during an attempt to launch a solo career, the rumors were proven to be true. “I knew as soon as he walked on stage he was using. The old Chuck E. was dead and gone and in his place was nothing more than a shell of what he used to be. An empty, coked out shell,” Helen says tearfully before excusing herself from the room. While on stage performing his cult classic rendition of the birthday song, “Birthday Star,” Chuck E. collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.

Disturbing rumors of gang activities and hardcore drug use later arose, which Chuck E. denied. He told US Weekly in a 2006 interview that the rumors were the equivalent of schoolgirl gossip, “juvenile and untrue.”

He was pronounced dead at 8:42 pm from an accidental overdose of crack cocaine, but after 6 minutes of CPR, he was miraculously revived and shipped to a rehab facility just outside L.A. for treatment. Though he swears to his sobriety, Chuck E. declined to give a statement. However, his manager/publicist/long time friend, Nolan Bushnell, insists that Chuck E. is doing well and will make a full recovery.

Even so, pictures (like those above and below) continued to swarm the web.

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Cheater, Cheater By Katherine Stratton First and second grade were the worst years of my life. This statement might seem unusual to the people who knew me at the time because on the surface, I was a perfectly normal and happy little child. I was still intact despite numerous Zip-line accidents. I wasn’t beaten or locked in a closet by my gang member parents. And I wasn’t observably malnourished, even though I did have a tendency to eat things off the floor. I blame no one for the trauma I experienced in my early childhood except myself. It all began with a new seating chart. Mrs. Faust, my loving and enthusiastic first grade teacher, announced at the beginning of class that because we had behaved so well, we were going to change seats. Excitement buzzed in the air as she began to direct us to our new chairs. She had originally arranged the desks into pairs of two, and the current resident of my partner desk was constantly battling what seemed to be an eternal cold virus. I had endured his snot-crusted nose, used tissues, and infuriating sniffles for over half the year. To say that I was ready to change desks would have been a serious understatement. With her long blue jean skirt whooshing at her ankles, Mrs. Faust finally called my name, pointing to a seat near the window. To my utter delight, booger boy was on the other side of the room, but more importantly, my new desk-mate was the famous Sarah Bilby. Sarah Bilby, daughter of a rocket scientist, was the smartest girl in the class and, according to my first grade self, she was practically a genius. If there was anyone you wanted to be partners with, it was Sarah. After we were all settled, Mrs. Faust began to distribute Math Drills, a sheet of paper crammed with simple addition that made my brain feel like it was going to explode. Sure, things might have been easier if I had spent a little more time hitting the flash cards instead of spending hours cutting my Barbie’s hair and playing “Spy” underneath the dining room table with my sister, but I don’t think that ever really occurred to me. She handed me the last test, upside down like everyone else’s, and set her timer. We had ten minutes. “Ready…GO!” The papers swished like butterfly wings and pencils began to scratch furiously, racing against time. I turned mine over. 1. 6 + 9 = I didn’t know the answer; I didn’t have enough fingers to do that one! I looked over the rest of the test and to my horror, realized that I didn’t have enough fingers for any of them. Panic set in as I looked around at all the others concentrating on their tests and filling in answers. I glanced all around until my gaze settled on Sarah, Sarah the genius, whose test was already half way done. Mrs. Faust constantly told us to “keep your eyes on your own paper” but I couldn’t help myself. I peeked at Sarah’s math drill.

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1. 6 + 9 = 15 My stomach flipped and I quickly looked at Mrs. Faust to make sure she hadn’t seen me. It was the first time I had deliberately broken the rules and I got away with it. I had bypassed the system. Staring hard at my own paper, I concentrated on the first problem. I watched as my hand slowly wrote a 1 and a 5, almost like it had a mind of its own. Relief flooded me; I had an answer, I had answered a question and I knew it was right! And then it occurred to me, Why don’t I just copy all of her answers? So I did. My heart pounding, I transferred the answers from her paper to mine well before the time ran out. And it was fantastic. It was so…taboo…and I had gotten away with it. It was just like actually knowing the answers except I didn’t have to do any of the work! When I got my test back that week, there was a scratch and sniff sticker on my paper and Mrs. Faust had written ‘Good Job’ in her fancy curly cursive. Over the next several weeks, I got many more stickers and curly cursive writing on all my work. Copying always wasn’t easy though, Sarah’s 5s and 6s looked almost exactly the same which was quite irritating at times, but after much practice, I was able to discern between the two. Life was good. Thanks to Sarah Bilby, I was acing math, states, and science with ease. I had no problem basking in the praise of my parents, pleased at the change in grades, and I gratefully accepted the ten dollars they gave me for getting all A’s on my report card. It wasn’t until Chapel the following month that I realized there were strings attached to my newfound success. Mrs. Howell, our school principal, spoke on how cheating was just as bad as stealing, and that when you copy some else’s answers, you are stealing from them. “Stealing is a sin against God,” she said. During her talk, a lump of guilt permanently lodged itself in my throat, sliding back up every time I tried to swallow it. CHEAT. I hated that word. I hated the way that word sounded. This whole time I hadn’t been sharing answers with Sarah, I had been cheating. I had been stealing. Tears began to well in my eyes. My mind replayed clips of my elated parents, that stupid curly writing, and me cheating off of Sarah. Later that night, my mom tucked me in and asked if everything was ok. “I’m fine, Mommy,” I tried to say in my most convincing voice, but that stupid lump kept getting in the way. It was the first time I had ever hidden anything serious from my mom, but I had to because if she knew what I did, I thought she would stop loving me. If God was mad at me for sinning then it defied all my first grade logic that my mom could find it in her heart to forgive me. I couldn’t sleep. Haunted by memories and burdened by guilt, I curled up with my new beanie baby giraffe and sobbed until I was shaking. Then I realized the animal I was holding was the giraffe I had bought with the ten dollars my parents had given me for grades. The grades I had stolen. I had to let him go. “I’m sorry, Giraffetti,” I said as I looked deep into his dark bead eyes, stroking his soft orange head and trying to make him understand. After one last parting hug, I slid him under my bed onto the cold hard floor, hidden so that he wouldn’t remind me of the terrible thing I had done. The next day at school I walked up to the teacher’s desk in an attempt to tell her the truth, I had cheated. My heart pounding, I stood in front of her desk speechless and staring stupidly at her face.

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“Yes, Katherine,” she said with expectation. “I—umm…I,” I began to blubber. Swallowing the lump, I looked right in her eyes and tried again. It was now or never. The air felt still like space and my ears started buzzing. “I—” “—Mrs. Faust, can I use the restroom?” Snot boy piped up. My momentary courage shattered, I chickened out. “Never mind,” I said, my cheeks burning as I quickly retreated back to my desk. I began to realize how close I had come to ruining my life. Everyone would have known I was a cheater. I probably would have been kicked out of school! My mom and dad might not have let me be the flower girl in my uncle’s wedding. Maybe they wouldn’t have let me go on the family vacation to Colorado that summer. So I made up my mind then and there that I would never whisper my dark secret to anyone. I would hide it, deep inside so no one would ever know. But I knew. It killed me when Mrs. Faust gave me the “Integrity” award at the end of the year. And destroyed me when she passed away from a brain tumor the next year, because I never told her the truth and I would never get the chance to. Time passed but the guilt never left me. Like a parasite it clung to my conscience, sucking the joy from my life and replacing it with poison. It tainted every happy moment that I enjoyed, whispering in my ear that I didn’t deserve to be happy because I stole from Sarah Bilby, that if everyone knew what I really was they wouldn’t love me any more. For two years, I spent my nights overwhelmed with guilt and despair. Until one night in second grade, I broke. I just couldn’t take it anymore. My web of lies had enveloped me and I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was in a dream as I padded down the hallway to find my parents. The tears were streaming down my face as I entered the family room where they were sitting. “What’s wrong, Katherine!?” They exclaimed with obvious concern. The sobs were coming so close together now, I couldn’t breathe. “What’s wrong!?” After minutes of blubbering I finally choked out four coherent words, “I did something tt-t-errible!” “What did you do?” My mom exclaimed, beginning to panic and bracing herself for the worst. What had her sweet baby done?? “I did something t-t-ter-rible,” I whimpered again before falling into a whole new set of body shaking sobs. “Sweetheart,” she tried again, this time in a more soothing voice, “you know can tell us anything…What did you do?” I couldn’t look at them any longer, I was just too ashamed. So I closed my eyes. The images that haunted my dreams began to flash across my mind: “CHEATING IS A SIN AGAINST GOD!” Mrs. Howell screamed, her loose, doughy chin quivering and her old watery eyes shining with conviction. “Good Job on your Math Drill, Katherine” Mrs. Faust rasped, lying on her hospital bed. “We both got 100!” Sarah told me, an encouraging smile lighting her face.

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

“Here’s ten dollars…good job, Pumpkin,” my parents said as they handed me a crisp $10 bill. “I’m cold, Katherine,” Giraffetti moaned from under my bed, tears glistening on his innocent little face. “I don’t understand; why don’t you love me anymore?” The parasite throbbed inside my brain, destroying me. My black secret swirled deep inside me, bubbling up higher and higher until— “I…I…I CHEATED!!!” The truth. Opening one eye at a time, I looked hesitantly at my parent’s faces. And to my absolute surprise, they were smiling and laughing. “Is that all?” My Dad asked, unable to control his laughter. Flabbergasted at their pleasant reaction and utterly confused, I tested the waters. “So…you’re not mad?” “No!” My Dad exclaimed. “I am actually relieved. From the way you are acting, I thought you had done something awful!” “Me, too,” my Mom confessed. “Don’t get me wrong: cheating is still not ok, but I think you learned your lesson.” For the first time in two years, my burden was gone. I felt like I was walking on air as I hugged my parents goodnight, finally able to accept their embrace, knowing that even though they knew my secret, they still loved me. And as I snuggled under the covers late that night cradling Giraffetti, I promised myself that this was the last time I would ever let a secret control my life.

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

An Inevitable Love By Kliphton Joel Taylor

As I push deeper into the abyss of my emotions, I realize my love for you grows stronger than pride itself. I cannot seem to take my mind off of you for a single second. Maybe there is a reason for this incapability, A reason that is much too quiet to hear, And much too dim to see. My love for you is inevitable; I am being pulled by a string That is wrapped around your wrists. These continuous emotions alter each day I breathe your name. By and by, I try to commit Emotional suicide Just to rid myself of such unbearable feelings— Feelings that a high school student may not be able to control. I cannot seem to focus on the supposedly Important things in my life. You capture my thoughts. My imagination takes its toll on me, persistently. I imagine our selves as one, Happy and laughing. But you are another person, A person of higher status, On higher ground, And you do not notice me. You twist and turn my stomach when I pass you in the hall. Please notice me. Love isn't easy, and it sure isn’t fair. Sitting back, watching you go, Is like having my home robbed right before my eyes, Helpless to stop it. Living without you beside me is tough, But I'll get through it— I have been so far. Seems like I have no life without you; I'm totally out of my element. The air grows thinner as each day progresses. Is this suffocation just my imagination, Or an inevitable fact of love?

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Picture response By Cassandra Coriolan My feet are freshly covered in dirt, spit, spilled coffee, dry gum, and other peoples’ emotions and lives that they left behind from their footsteps. I wish I could find the train to 35th Street. I think when Mommy walked through here she left more than feelings and words; she left me. I just want to find home. Until then I’ll keep walking and figuring other people out, and hopefully someone will come across my footsteps to feel and hear my emotions. Just as I felt theirs.

Innocent Hope By Allyson Coldiron A little girl sat alone in a train station. She was seated on the ground very close to the tracks. A train passed by. She watched it pass. He’s coming. Mommy said he isn’t coming, but he is. Isn’t he? . . . He sure is taking a long time. I walked all this way and he’s making me wait. Home is a really, really long way from here. I had to walk past three shops between The Train Place and Home. Maybe he’s upset that I didn’t come with Mommy. But it’s not my fault that Mommy wouldn’t come. Maybe he’s mad that I pretended to be asleep during nap time. How does he know I was pretending? Another train passed by. That’s a train. I’ve known what a train is for a long time. Mommy used to hold up a card with a train on it. These trains don’t really look like the one on the card, though. She’d say ‘train, train, train.’ At first I didn’t know what she wanted. When I finally said ‘train,’ she got really excited and kissed my cheek. Another train passed by. I keep watching the trains, waiting for them to stop, waiting for him to come, but none of them stop. Last time I was here the first train stopped and he was on it. I was with Mommy. Mommy wouldn’t let me play on The Stairs in The Train Place that time, but I got to play on them today. Mommy wasn’t here today. I hope she’s happy now. She was really sad today when I left. I heard her crying when I pretended to be taking my nap. I think it was because I left my books out. I put them all up before I left so she should be happy now. She said he isn’t coming this time, but he wouldn’t do that. He always comes Home. He’s coming; I know he is. A train stopped at the station and people poured out. The little girl stood up and wandered closer to the train. Daddy?

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Life as I Never Knew It By Lucy Chibesa You know how parents lie to their kids about how a guy goes around climbing into people’s chimneys delivering gifts and bringing joy to children all over the world in one day? The way they try to hide it from them even if it means telling them that Santa didn’t have enough room on his sleigh for the box little Bob’s scooter came in. Well, I wasn’t given that luxury. No, I only knew about the tooth fairy, but that’s another story. (The Tooth fairy is real; she is just on hiatus because of the bad economy.) As a kid, I was never told about Santa. I was never given the opportunity to get disappointed by the realization that such a character didn’t exist. And that shaped me; my parent’s realist culture rubbed off on me. In school while everybody was excitedly chatting about their plans for Christmas, a few kids had the misfortune of asking me what I was looking forward to and our conversation went as follows: “So Lucia, did you write a list?” asked Cattie. “A list for what?” I replied, taken aback by the possibility of extra homework I wasn’t looking forward to doing. “Santa silly!” she exclaimed. “Who is that?” I inquired. Who is this Santa guy everybody is talking about? I thought. “OH MY GOSH!” she exclaimed. “You don’t know who Santa is?” Annoyed, I just stared, expecting a definition of sorts as to who Santa was. “He is only the most important thing about Christmas! He goes around giving kids who’ve been good all year gifts. The thing is, he does it in one day!” she blurted out in one breath. “Oh” was all I said. Why didn’t I know this? That night I asked my Mom why other kids got gifts from Santa and I didn’t. I felt bamboozled; I felt robbed and a little insignificant—until my parents sat me down and told me the guy didn’t exist. They said there is no such thing as magic and that it was illogical for a single human to travel around the world in one day. I could relate to how the Trojans felt. My supposed annual Christmas gift correlated to their gift from the Achaeans. Our gifts caused some kind of…damage. The next day I was itching to tell the other kids what’s what. I didn’t know it was important to keep the lie going, to let them believe the guy actually existed. So I walked up to Cattie and the other kids and smugly blurted out, “Santa isn’t real! It’s impossible to go around the world in one day and the gifts you supposedly get from him are from your parents.” “That’s not true!” retorted Robert. “Think about it,” I said. “Look at how big the earth is! How can one guy go around it in one day if you said it took your aunt 13 hours to get to China? Now if you add the time it would take for him to find the gifts, double check to make sure he has the right house, make sure everybody is sleeping, get on the roof, squeeze into a chimney… and that would take more than 24 hours, so it’s practically impossible.” Silence and blank stares fell upon my friends as they pondered on that. Future wrinkles surfaced as they tried to come up with a better argument. They all stayed quiet for a while. I thought I was bringing the truth, but I now realize that I took away the magic of Christmas from them. My realist views ruined not only my imagination, but theirs, too.

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Imperfect Players By Ana Hoffmann I want to move 2 spaces up, he says, No, you’ve only rolled a zero on the die. But I want to go. It doesn’t matter where, up, down, left, right, as long as the pieces of the puzzle won’t fit together, that way we’ll all stick. I’m fixed in the middle of a three way tug-of-war, deciding between who I am, who I am supposed to, and who I want to be. The ropes have slackened and I’m stuck pulling on the right side so I can be the hungry bear and gobble up the perfection that dropped the rope. But when you’re this close to the chalk-drawn border you tend to lose yourself and become the imperfection that you’ve been trying so hard to avoid.

A Short Walk By Jeremy Nicot It was dark, darker than it usually was at this time of day. The sidewalk was long and twisted, with no clear end or beginning. The concrete was cracked with fissures running in zigzag patterns all through it. Standing immobile in the walkway was the sad silhouette of a man broken in his years. The man started along this forlorn walkway of depression with no destination in mind. He walked wherever his feet carried him. He had never meant to start walking this walk, and all he had to wear were the clothes he left home with: a tattered blue jacket, a pair of ripped blue jeans, and a brand new baseball cap. He was an object of pity to the glances of people speeding by in colorful, bright, new cars. As he trudged along, he thought of everything that had led him here. He thought of everything that had gone wrong in his life, everything that had made him follow this path. Suddenly it began to rain, a strong rain—every drop bringing him a new memory. The rain picked up and the ground became slick. Cursing himself for getting into this predicament, he started running for the nearest bridge or shelter. Just as he was crossing a busy highway, a careless car careened into him. As the car hit him, he felt his heart and body give way until there was nothing. No more thoughts or emotions. Just nothing. [55]

The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

So Much They Never Knew By Camille Currey Noah was on the steps of St. Christopher’s Lutheran Intermediate. Every day he took one full moment to think of how odd it was that a Lutheran school should be named St. anything, considering that worship of the saints was one of the reasons Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church. Then he took another full moment to think that intermediate was such an odd word, and why couldn’t they just use ‘middle school’ like every other place in the world. Deciding that this was out of his control, he walked through the large oak doors— obviously meant to look older than they feasibly could have been—to his spring semester of sixth grade. So far, middle school wasn’t that bad. At the very least, none of the eighth graders had beaten him up. But he didn’t really have many people that he considered close friends; he’d left them in Minnesota back in July. Noah walked into his first period Literature class. Everything seemed to be in order, but Noah had that feeling. It was that feeling that you get right before something big happens, like saying your line as the squash in the Thanksgiving play, or right before you go down the big hill on a roller coaster; it was that feeling of cautious excitement. As Noah’s eyes landed on a mop of dirty blond hair, he realized why. There was a new boy. So Noah decided to be that kid, the kid that makes the first move. “Hi, I’m Noah. This is Michelle’s seat, there is an open one by me, though,” he said cautiously. “I’m Jack,” said the boy simply. Noah moved to where they would be sitting and Jack, after a moment of sizing Noah up, followed. “So where are you from?” Noah asked politely. “Nevada,” Jack replied throwing back some of the hair that had fallen into his face. “Cool! Like, Las Vegas?” “No.” “Oh.” Both boys fell into silence and kept to themselves as their ancient, nasal-voiced teacher, Mrs. Zilkey, called the class to order and began the morning’s lesson. They were reading something about Saturdays, and it seemed like nobody was paying any attention. Finally after forty-five excruciating minutes, the bell rang. “People just calm yourselves for a second. Stop packing up; I have papers to pass out to all of you. Now this is about swine flu. This is very serious, people. People, people, please. I need your attention here, swine flu is a very serious disease,” Mrs. Zilkey said hurriedly, spittle in the corners of her mouth. Jack mumbled something Noah didn’t catch. He turned from the decrepit woman to his new friend and asked, “What did you say?” “It’s all a conspiracy between the news channels, the doctors, and the Anti-Catholicism League,” Jack stated as if were something that everyone knew. “What?” Noah asked, stunned. “You know, the news channels’ ratings were plummeting, so they got together with the doctors and the Anti-Catholicism League and set up swine flu to improve the ratings,” Jack said conspiratorially. “But wait, aren’t the doctors the ones trying to stop swine flu? And what is the AntiCatholicism League?” Noah asked, eyebrows pulled tightly together.

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“No, man,” Jack shook his head slowly. “The doctors are used to making a ton of money, right?” Noah nodded. “Well,” Jack continued, “with the recession and everything they needed a way to save their BMWs and beach houses, so they made the disease then partnered up with the news channels so that they could use their press badges to get it into otherwise restricted areas. Plus the government totally picked up on this. That’s why it’s taking so long to make the vaccines.” At Noah’s blank look, Jack rolled his eyes and plundered on, “They’re using the vaccines for mind control. They thought that this was a great opportunity to legally insert the devices. They’re arguing that this is all perfectly okay because people are taking the vaccines of their ‘own volition.’” “But what about the Anti-Catholicism League?” “There’s this group of people that hate Catholics. They’ve been trying to eradicate them for years, but it’s hard because a lot of Catholics don’t believe in using birth control, so they multiply at a super rate! The ACL or ‘The League’ pretty much have most of them rounded up in Mexico now, and the swine flu was one of their attempts to get in, massacre, and get out. They get really bad indigestion from the salsa, see, so they couldn’t stay long enough to eat a meal,” Jack said pointedly. By this point in time, Noah wasn’t sure if Jack was being serious. He was going to point out that people did actually eat other things in Mexico beside chips and salsa, but it didn’t matter because now they had to run to P.E. “C’mon Jack! If we’re late, Coach Chambers will make us run suicides till we puke!” He took off running down the stairs toward the elementary and the gym. “You think I’m kidding,” Noah huffed, “but he made that foreign exchange student blow chunks everywhere last Tuesday.” At this, Jack paled slightly and began to run faster. After a grueling workout, the boys changed and headed off to World History. As they walked in, Jack was jarred by the sight a colossally pregnant woman at the front of the classroom. She had short brown hair straightened and flipped at the end with a multitude of highlights streaking through it. “Stop staring. She hates it when people do that,” Noah admonished. “Come on, we don’t have assigned seats in here.” Jack followed with glances back at the massive woman trying to confirm that someone could actually become that big. It was not like Jack had never seen a pregnant woman before; he did have two younger siblings. It just didn’t look right on this woman. She was barely five feet tall with very thin arms and legs. He imagined that the size of her midsection accounted for at least double the size of the rest of her. “I know, it’s weird, right?” Noah asked, privy to the thoughts of his new friend. “It’s just… just…” he trailed off. “Yeah I know, and believe it or not this is baby number five. I heard that she and her husband are trying for a boy. And I heard from Marty’s older brother—he’s in high school now—that she just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and he said that if she gets pregnant again then they are going to have to give her her own zip code!” “Shut up! She’s coming over here,” said Jack jerking his head toward the waddling woman.

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

“Hello, you must be Jack Lancaster. I’m Mrs. Hartjen and I teach all of the intermediate History courses here at St. Christopher’s. I am so looking forward to instructing you for the next two and a half years,” she cocked her head, a picket fence of teeth gleaming. Jack was mesmerized by the focus of her blue eyes as she cocked her head to the side like a bird watching a particularly defenseless, albeit juicy, worm. She was obviously part of some infamous THEM. The question was: which one? Jack’s question was quickly answered as Mrs. Hartjen waddled back to the front of the class and wrote:

The Middle Ages: Feudalism, Code of Chivalry, Religion, and The Crusades. in what Noah could only describe as girl writing, messy in a pretty kind of way, but legible to the extreme. Noah heard his father say once that women want you to know what they are saying but they also want you to have a little trouble figuring it out, and if it didn’t reflect in their handwriting then his name was Jahosaphat. (His father’s name was Keith.) “Class, can anyone tell me what you think of when I say ‘The Middle Ages’?” Mrs. Harjen asked, smiling demurely. Kaalah’s hand shot into the air and she didn’t wait to be called on before blurting out, “Knights in shining armor!” “I’ll be your knight in shining armor, Kay,” stage-whispered a handsome and intimidating boy in the back row. “Shut up, Colton,” snapped the attractive blonde. “ENOUGH!” shrieked Mrs. Hartjen, reclaiming the class’s attention. “Now,” she continued, “the most important thing to remember whilst studying the Middle Ages, Medieval Times, or ‘Dark Ages’ as they are often called is— ” “That they never existed,” supplied another male voice from the back of the class. “Mr. Lancaster, I am sure that I need not remind you that you NEVER get a second chance at first impressions,” crooned the very frustrated and slightly crazed teacher. “Well, I think that in school people should learn the facts, and the fact is that The Middle Ages never happened,” Jack shrugged. “Well. Mr. Lancaster, then how on earth do you explain all of the history that came out of this time period? If the Middle Ages did not exist then what year are we really living in? Hmm?” she tutted, the hormones rearing their ugly head as each question climbed octaves in leaps and bounds, with her head shaking, and streaked hair frazzled. “Well, ma’am, we are indeed living in the year 1712 AD.” At his proclamation, the class roared with laughter. Colton actually hit the ground and began to gasp clutching his sides. There were only three people in that room who managed to exercise some control over themselves: Mrs. Hartjen glared at Jack; Jack stood, solemn faced, staring right back; and Noah sat, mouth agape, completely shocked by the way in which his new friend had spoken to a teacher. “Jack. Sweetheart. I think that you must be confused. Here at St. Christopher’s we don’t really joke around in class. I will however let you off, this being your first day.” She had reverted to being sickeningly sweet. “Thank you, Mrs. Hartjen, I really appreciate that, but I hate to see a civil injustice. This is like trying to deny Troy.” Why? Why God? I finally get one friend. One stinking friend, and he is completely off his rocker. Why! thought Noah.

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Well Noah, you asked me for a friend, you never specified that you wanted one of the sane persuasion, Noah could hear God’s booming voice answer him. “I’ll be sure to clarify next time,” Noah audibly grumbled. During Noah’s divine exchange, Mrs. Hartjen had phoned the principal and was now gesturing wildly into the receiver. “I DON’T CARE HOW MUCH HIS PARENT DONATED TO PREVENT HIS EXPULSION! GET HIM THE heck OUT OF MY CLASS, GLEN! STRESS IS NOT GOOD FOR MY BABY, AND SO HELP ME IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG I WILL TAKE YOUR B-U-T-T TO THE CLEANERS!” Slamming the receiver back down on the hook, looking more worn than any of the students had ever seen her, Mrs. Hartjen rounded on the boy who was the source of her anxiety. “She does know that we know how to spell ‘butt’ right?” questioned Colton, who had somehow managed to worm his way into the seat next to Kaalah, who promptly rolled her eyes. Derrek, who lived for a classroom in uproar, shouted across the twelve different conversations in the room, “Hey! Jack, why don’t you explain your theory!” “Well,” Jack began, “I am sure that you have all heard of the Anti-Catholicism League.” Upon receiving blank stares, Jack heaved a sigh of exasperation. “The Anti-Catholicism League are, in part, responsible for the invention and spread of swine flu, but that is another facet to be explored later. Anyway, the Anti-Catholicism League started in protest to the Medieval Movement put into effect by Pope Otto III. “He basically wanted to be remembered as the first pope of the new millennium; his only problem was that he lived during the early 700’s. We all know that Rome invented our current calendar, so under the instruction of Pope Otto, the historians fudged the dates some 300 years. He also employed several writers to work closely with the historians to create fictional historical characters that over time were thought to have actually lived. By the reaction of our lovely teacher you can see that this propaganda has infected the minds of millions. “But don’t worry, not only do you now know the truth, but you don’t have to worry about dying in 2012. That’s not for another 300 years! Actually that is just another conspiracy set up by the FBI. They have all of your phones tapped so that they can tell whether the mass state of panic is at all ensuing. And…” but Jack never got to forewarn his new classmates about the horrors of the FBI, because at that moment the blustering, red-faced principal, Glen Kieshnick, stormed into the room. At some point during Jack’s dissertation on the Middle Ages, Mrs. Hartjen had sunk to the floor of the classroom, silent sobs wracking through her. Mr. Kieshnick took in the zoo before him, and settled on his frazzled employee. He sighed and called, “Jack Lancaster.” Jack jumped down from the desk and shot a winning grin over his shoulder, a very knowing glint in his eye. Jack never returned to school. Rumors flew like lightning from one end of the hall to the other and back again. Some claimed that the AntiCatholicism League had finally gotten him; some claimed that it was not the Anti-Catholics, but the Catholics who wanted him dead for slandering one of their Popes, while others (probably started by the teachers) said that he was only kicked out of school. It didn’t matter. None of the children could answer the phone for weeks without yelling obnoxiously, “FBI, I know you’re there!”

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The Writers’ Block Vol.1, Num.2

Idiot Letter from a Nut By Jason Craft Jason Farr, (the evil one) St. David’s Psychiatric Hospital 6917 Quaker Dr. Detroit, Michigan 70711 Jason Farr, Patient St. David’s Psychiatric Hospital 6917 Quaker Dr. Detroit Michigan 70711

Dear Myself, I’ve noticed recently that you have been very critical of me…you should stop complaining! What did I ever do to you to make you so critical of me…besides complaining so damn much? Every day you look at me and say I keep getting fatter and fatter, but you shouldn’t be talking! Stupid fatty! Maybe you should look in the mirror before you decide to criticize someone…never mind. That won’t work. Every time I look at you it makes me want to vomit. But I’d rather die than have your puke on my floor! They say the faults we see in others are merely reflections of ourselves. So next time you want to make a criticism of the way I look, why don’t I take a look at yourself. Our therapist says you are becoming the end of me! That is why at lunchtime I plan on poisoning your drink. Best wishes, Jason Farr P.S. I am aware that you are currently writing a complaint letter about me. As a matter of fact, you are writing it right in my face! If you do not stop, I will be forced to write one about you complaining about me. P.P.S. I love you. P.P.P.S. If I see you again, I will punch you in the face. OWW! That hurts! P.P.P.P.S. You must remember to take your pills on time or you will complain about me.

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Thanks for reading!

The Writers’ Block A Literar y Magazine of Creative Writing from Anderson High School Students Oops. Here’s one last-minute entry, A Demotivator by Hannah Bones

PROCRASTINATION I’ll find a picture for it later. [61]