Unit: Three Scale Ayla Boylen

The House Sierra Earle

We had already been texting when Carolyn invited me over to her boyfriend’s place. Life made us busy, had made us change, but there needn’t be an elaborate plan to unite us. The sun was still climbing when I pulled into the driveway, and it was quiet.

Suburbia was abandoned for now. Its people at their jobs they settled for and their children in school. Inside Carolyn was reheating leftover Chinese from the night before in the microwave while exchanging words with me about house chores and nights spent drinking. “Well what do you wanna do? We could go into that house I’ve been telling you about,” she said, and I sensed some premeditation in her voice. If there was an adequate time to do this, she supposed it was now.

It had taken twenty minutes to put rationality aside, to enter the derelict house that sat two doors down from Carolyn’s boyfriend’s place. We were now trotting through the sodden floor of the exposed garage; mud, paper, old tools, and a phone that belonged in another decade obscured the concrete underneath.

“I wonder what happened,” Carolyn said, looking up. Wires hung from the ceiling, forgotten, but not to the blue sky that broke in through the holes above our heads. She began shuffling through tools along the back wall. “I can’t believe they left all this stuff here.”

“How long has this place been abandoned?” I asked. It looked as if the floral arrangements printed on the phone’s

receiver had recently been ripped from the ground. There were buckets filled with water and mud, a table saw subject to the elements, lightbulbs, and other bits which suggested the work of a handyman. “We should take some of this stuff.” I turned to face the hole where the garage door belonged. We were exposed.

“Yeah, I bet some of it is worth a lot of money.” She investigated everything for a moment. “And I don’t know, it’s been this way for a while now.” After walking down the alley that ran beside the house and back, neurotically checking for people, we came upon the front lawn. What or who would greet us inside was what frightened us the most. I was reminded of what Carolyn mentioned earlier; she had seen men enter the house but did not see them leave. My steps lead us. My heart raced but my feet moved slowly, deliberately. Some of the living room windows had been covered and the screen door was tattered. I checked to ensure Carolyn had not abandoned me. As I pushed open the screen door latch, I heard rustling. My curiosity was overcome by my terror; I sought safety in distance.

“I think I hear someone in there.”

“Marie, no one’s here,” Carolyn said, adjusting her paper towel mask.

I was never the one to lead us into anything, but today was my chance. Chills cooled my bones, and I wished for the comfort of Carolyn’s shadow. I again approached the door and opened the screen. We were now breaking the law because of naïve curiosity. I wondered if I would have ever crossed the threshold of that ripped screen door if it weren’t for her. If I were to ever risk getting caught, losing my scholarships, or my job, if it weren’t for her.

Entering the house, I was struck by the sight of clothes covering the floor. Black bags filled with trash, piled at random,

were surrounded by food wrappers and paper, A television as wide as the living room couch framed the scene.

“Woah!” Carolyn exclaimed. “I can’t believe this thing is in here and in this condition.” Her gaze was fixed on the television. She found a piece of exposed carpet to put her bag down on and took out her gloves, then handed a pair to me.

“Why would they just leave all his stuff here?” I turned in place to take in all the trash.

“Maybe the roof caved in,” she said. “It looks like they started cleaning up.” She pointing to the city trash can which sat in front of the door. Confronting such a mess would have reduced me to infuriating tears. Everywhere we looked, there was more trash. It hid, it multiplied, it overtook our senses, and it seemed to take on its own life. Papers peeked through a briefcase in front of the couch. “Look at this.” Carolyn opened it and I crouched besides her to watch. She looked through each individual piece of paper as we took verbal inventory. They were mostly invoices and letters from the city. “Woah, a social security card. John Jameson?” She held it for a moment, contemplating the terrible things we could do to a man who was probably having his morning coffee with god, but she took mercy on him and returned it to the cracked leather briefcase.

“I don’t think they’re coming back,” I said looking at the back of her head.

She continued her search. “I wonder how many promises he never kept; how many deals fell through.”

We toured the rest of the house, using our phones as flashlights. We ducked by windows and held our breath whenever a car passed the house. The kitchen was full of moldy food, Coke two liters, plastic cups, but had surprisingly few insect occupants. Every room smelled of mold, and there

was a spare blue toilet in one of the bedrooms.

“Carolyn, all I smell is pee, all I smell is pee,” I joked when we reached the bathroom. My voice was muffled by a paper towel wrapped around my face. Carolyn suggested this out of fear of black mold, which broke out along the edges of the walls in most of the rooms. Years of neglect left a grey powdery filth along the sink, toilet, and bathtub. I thought about how I would tell my mother if I got sick.

A shadowy figure sat in the master suite. Though it gave into the prodding of its hairy shoulder and fell to the floor, its blank gaze affirmed its inanimate nature. Carolyn put her hand on the bed and almost fell as the mattress gave way to her weight.

“It’s a waterbed. What the heck, how is it still filled?” She turned and noticed a dirty antique dresser in the corner. I was still struggling over a mountain of clothes when Carolyn began opening the drawers. Multiple exclamations later, I saw a blank excitement pass her eyes. She found boxes of foreign currency.

It was all so interesting. We both had never traveled out of the country, so everything looked alien to us. I became jealous of the life experience that laid before me. I scrutinized every coin, imagining where they had been and how much farther they had traveled than I. We slipped them in our bags. It seemed victimless, taking the abandoned and robbing the dead while eluding the living. Then we found a news clipping with a story about a little boy earning his Boy Scout’s honors; the name underneath the attached photo said “Jameson.” He smiled at us with big open eyes, unaware of the crime we were making him a victim of. I had never done something so terrible to a child before. I put down the clipping and stood back to watch the rest of the crime unfold, the photo looking back at me.

After we had searched all the rooms, our bags were filled with another’s belongings. The discomfort weighed us down. I inched closer to the front door. Carolyn continued to grapple with the living room.

“Can we leave now?” I asked.

“Let’s go,” she said. She shifted the weight of the backpack on her shoulders.

Once I crossed the threshold of the screen door I couldn’t look back. We knew nothing of this man except what his son looked like, that he had a wife and business, and his social security number. We knew where he slept and how he kept his house, in squalor, with no one to pick up the pieces when we left. As cowardly observers, Carolyn and I took what we wanted and left the undesired with the rest of his personality, forgotten.

Weeks later, Carolyn saw a truck outside the house. From it emerged a man that looked like the boy in the photo we found in the bedroom; perhaps the house had been neglected, not abandoned.

My Boxes Rachel Shoop

A Nike shoebox that’s shoved underneath my bed, full of receipts and gum wrappers, from the year 2017.

At Michael’s annual Christmas sale there was a deal on photo boxes, two dollars each. I bought four. They are not filled with photos yet. They are just sitting on my bookshelf, momentarily abandoned, just like the stacks of pictures patiently waiting to be discovered in my closet.

A fruit box I’ve had since I was fifteen hidden away in a closet. It’s big and perfectly rectangular. The top of the box is separate from the bottom, so it opens and closes so nicely. It contains all the old junk I used to care about like my high school report cards, test results, and achievement awards.

A box I received when I ordered something from Amazon. It’s missing to flaps on the top and cannot close properly. I keep it next to my dresser and fill it with blankets and pillows. My cat Banana sometimes sleeps in it.

My “donate” box. It’s full of clothes I will donate someday. Located upstairs in our office, it has been sitting in that same corner for the past six months, ready to be taken to the local thrift store.

Another shoebox, not Nike, but perfectly blue Adidas, filled to the brim with important stuff. You know important stuff like my ticket to a One Direction concert from 2013, or a snippet of my high school senior interview from my local newspaper. Oh, and hospital wristbands.

52 Three gift boxes I ordered online for a project I had in Printmaking. Each box is painted on the inside. They sit in my art room, on my desk, not full of objects or really

anything but air. Oh, but a story about the past five years of my life and everything that was taken away from me is pasted on their inside walls.

One sad-looking moving box I stole from my sister’s house. It has a total of three holes in it. All of them are randomly located on the box. When I first saw it, I felt bad. It looked lonely and lost in my sister’s basement. Now, it’s a home for clothing hangers that I don’t use. My mom says I should just get rid of it, but I can’t seem to give it up. I keep it in the storage room in my basement.

A couple of empty tissue boxes lying on the floor next to my bed, they are more than likely the result of some nosebleeds I suffer from after treatment. Although bleeding while on chemo is always a possible side effect, I never had an issue with it . . . until recently.

When I was twenty my sister got me a necklace from Kate Spade, in the cutest,greatest box I have ever seen. It’s small, so small. Not like “fits in your hand small” but it’s more like the size of a piece of cheesecake. Also it’s round and not square. It is blue and green, not the sand color usual cardboard boxes are or yellow like a piece of cheesecake. The top and bottom are separate so every time I take the lid off, it’s like a figure skater gliding on ice. So smooth, so wonderful. It’s currently empty and is sitting on my dresser, where I open and close it every so often. My sister gave me the necklace box at “The Cheesecake Factory” after she announced she was planning to move away.

A couple red boxes I received from a monthly subscription snack company. The boxes no longer contain snacks, but they do smell like chocolate. I stack one another on top of each other and use it as DIY tablet stand.

53 A box full of pens that I still keep around even though they no longer work correctly. It’s okay though. Just because they do not work the same as other pens doesn’t mean they are broken. They are just a little different.

You Tricked Me Taylor Dearborn

You tricked me. You made me think I was loved. You made me think no one else could love me as much as you did. It was all a lie.

Someday someone will love me. They will love me more than you ever did. Love me better than you ever could because not only did you break me, but you were broken yourself.

Your heart was fractured. Your days were mournful, but that did not give you an excuse to treat me the way you did.

You tore me down every day. You made me hate everything about myself. I am fractured. I am lost but I am here.

You may have taken my happiness, but you did not take my life. I am here for my family, my friends, and I am here in spite of you wishing I wasn’t. Most importantly I am here for me.

Green Abbie Ring

I like this time of day when the sun stretches out the shadows long squirrels skitter away down each trunk searching for what I’ve already found here and possess within myself. Occasionally, a reminder is nice where the air is bug-filled and the leaves scream.

These places that people see as space between the useful buildings, spots to pass, not dwell by. Bustling through, never taking time to see the flowers even though you might get stung tramp over the opportunity.

Bask in its glory inherently good and full for this space in time, a little holy tinged with light that frames each blade of grass as if to give it a shining halo. Rays of gold bestow my heart the effort to get through each night each trial every conversation equipping my soul to guide others as You provide self-direction.

55 Introspection is coming to me use the beams as a highway for the clarity to race down I can feel it upon entrance the background, muted, now gains highlights. Foliage edges into yellow

keeping everyone beside the main point of discovery then, and re-definition; I am Yours. So remind me. Coat my throat with your honey with every leaf, every pinecone, every twig. You are the vine I am the branch together we will bear fruit.

No one seems to know how full this place can be if they’d just stop to take a look and see. This is good and it is good only because it is Yours.