THINK Global School Literary Laureate Submissions

THI NK GLOBAL SCHOOL

NOBEL LITERARY AWARDS OFFICIAL SUBMISSIONS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN TERM 1 2015-16

NOBEL LITERARY AWARDS FOREWORD BY BREANNA REYNOLDS

Dear friends of THINK Global School, When you read through this simple collection, it is my belief you would instantly touch the lives of our community, not only at TGS but around the world, as you’ll support those who explore life common to all humanity through the written word.

I am humbly honored to recognize all contributors who never cease to inspire me with the power of their personal stories. My deepest gratitude for all, writers and readers alike, as the sharing of our human capacity is really what moves us forward in an “ideal and profound direction.” Thank you.

Breanna Reynolds Humanities and Language & Literature Teacher

NOBEL LITERARY AWARDS JUDGING CRITERIA

Each of the anonymous submissions were assigned a score by our panel of judges on a scale of 1 to 3.

1: Highest Score - Work in an ideal and profound direction 2: Middle Score - Work in an ideal and proficient direction 3: Low Score - Work in progress After our judges read and ranked each piece, they were tasked with selecting their top three selections for the TGS Nobel Laureate Award and writing a comment for each. These comments were later read and shared at the TGS Nobel Award Ceremony.

Winners were chosen based on composite scores from our judges. Two total Nobel Literary Award were awarded; one to a Grade 10 student and one to a student enrolled in the IB Diploma Programme, which is comprised of Grades 11-12.

NOBEL LITERARY AWARDS 11TH-12TH GRADE TGS LITERARY LAUREATE AWARD

PYROMANIA

by River W.

I was born with pyromania in my veins.

At the height of their madness, my parents were tried and true Western adrenaline junkies. They were born with the souls of moths, and each found themselves searching for the smoke signal of those infamous Rocky Mountain wildfires. They held the title of firefighters, but fight they did not. To them, flames were not opponents and fires were not battles; they were star-crossed lovers, unable to coexist under one orange sky.

Ash, my parents always told me, is freedom in its most organic form.

My mother chose to walk into the flames. She always preferred to be on the ground; the earth had been her omnipresent savior since childhood, and to leave it was to leave a part of herself. My father had no such reservations, however. He thrived in transition, that no-mans-land where elements collide and time is a hollow concept. So he jumped. He fell from the sky and dove into flames, landing on the periphery of death.

Everyone said it was going to kill him. Of course, they never said it to my face. But I saw it in the way their eyes settled on the bridge of my nose rather than my pupils. Even then, I knew it was too easy to land on the wrong side of an edge.

They were all wrong. In the end, it was a motorcycle. An engine welded to two wheels and half a chair. A motorized bike on a too-icy road with a too-sharp turn sometime in late February.

—————————————————————— For five years of my life, my father was a pile of dust. He sat in a vase on top of the piano I never learned to play, wedged between a copy of Tales of the Yukon and a sun-bleached family photo.

It was never supposed to become normal, but it did.

You can get accustomed to anything with enough time. And accustomed I became. Accustomed to the curious glances of my classmates and the hollow sound of pity and the stench of neglected bouquets and a house that felt half empty. I became accustomed to the vase on my piano, distracted by its deep navy color and delicate gold overlay. All at once, the urn had stopped being my father and was instead a decorative object. We knew, then, that it was time to become unaccustomed again.

—————————————————————— I remember the way the ashes fell like snow. It seemed so paradoxical as it slipped through that promising springtime sunshine.

I wondered if this was what it meant to grow up.

—————————————————————— I always pause for a millisecond too long when people ask me where the ashes of my father are. That fraction of a second is enough; their eyes again shift from my pupils to the bridge of my nose, and I stumble over my words as I say they’re in a Rocky Mountain canyon, just outside a well-loved little village with

a population of 48. It’s not discomfort that causes the hesitation, but rather the acrid taste of a lie. Those ashes have been washed into the ocean and adopted by foreign soil and transformed into rocks and dirt and sand and glass. They are everywhere but that canyon.

Ash, my mother always tells me, is freedom in its most organic form.

—————————————————————— The deep navy and delicate gold overlay that once colored my father’s china cage now mark the front of my passport, a promise of my own freedom. For much of my life, travel was but an ink print on paper, an idea so gossamer thin I couldn’t tell if it lived in this reality or the next. But my world was now bigger than that canyon I grew up in. The ashes of my father had reached the far corners of the globe, and somehow I felt compelled to do the same.

So it was that I’ve found myself living abroad. India, Japan, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Greece- the ink splotches and scuff marks on my passport write the story that I will never quite manage to put into words. My home is no longer a house or a canyon or a worn-in bed. It’s a bonfire on a Florida beach, a wood fired stove in Kashmir, charred Yakiniku in Japan and incense on a balcony in Athens.

Ash, I always tell myself, is freedom in its most organic form.

COMMENTARY FROM OUR JUDGES “Ash, is freedom in its most organic form.” After reading this piece; this short phrase will stick in the back of my mind forever. This piece touches upon the death of a loved one and creates ties to the getting used to, embracing, remembering, and the inspiration that occurred because of such a tragic event. Made me think that we can learn from anything in this world and that we have to be thankful for everything we were given in life. Crisp and eloquent, this text is delicately written to transmit something of such significance in a very effective way.

This piece gives me chills every time I read it. The deft weaving of the author’s parents’ story into her own is so symbolic of the way our parents’ lives and choices impact our own stories. The repetition of the key aphorism her mother has told her about ash provides a spine to the piece. There are so many little motifs that tie everything together delicately, none of it is overt. It just feels so profound and strong in its acceptance of vulnerability’s place in life. It is a story that hints at so much more; maybe it’s the beginning to a novel.

Pyromania is strikingly moving. It addresses major matters such as identity, the coming of age and death in a way that is both enticing and honest. The motif of fire and ash is a thread that is woven effectively throughout Pyromania to create a foundation for a cohesive and thoughtful piece.

A truly well-written and heart-wrenching piece that evokes emotion in any reader.

Out of all of the pieces that I read, this one moved the most. The author did an exceptional job of painting a picture of her father and his exciting profession, and then I truly felt saddened when reading about his death. The piece kept me intrigued the entire way through, and the final line is truly poignant. Great job.

This piece is utterly moving. The author weaves a beautiful tale that gently leads the reader to a sad ending. The repetition throughout was handled masterfully, and the imagery (especially that of the recurring theme of ashes) was vivid and imaginative. Bravo.

These snippets create a broader fabric of a child growing up hearing stories to an adult telling one of their own making. I love the weaving through of the gold detail of the urn to the passport. The writer of “Pyromania” holds a strong voice, one of a reticent sadness and a commanding self-awareness. In writing about one’s self-awareness, it is easy to get trapped in cyclical thoughts and emotions. In fragmenting writing, one risks a disconnected story. “Pyromania” does not fall into such a trap but instead transcends these hurdles to create a cohesive narrative, woven together by a powerful voice that describes without flowery language but instead with a great thoughtfulness.

“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.” This spark of honest narrative is as eloquent as writing can be. I am delighted to know such maturity exists in literature and life itself. Everyone who has felt–or not– the emptiness after the death of a loved one should read this and learn how life will be life even if there is no body.

NOBEL LITERARY AWARDS 10TH GRADE TGS LITERARY LAUREATE AWARD

CHASING THE DRAGON

by Elliot W.

He lay calmly for what seemed like an eternity that went by in an instant, hyper aware but not knowing what was going on, his head feeling fuzzy, numb and carefree. He was in a state of pure perfect pleasure, and pulsating orgasms weaved their way through his head, his chest, his arms, his legs and reached his awaiting toes. The poppy started to wear off, his head became clearer, his thoughts started racing back to him and he regained the feeling in his feet. Then the pain of the last 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 years resettled, like a perfect marriage, the euphoria of love replaced by the suffering, problems and dissatisfaction, and he let his tired ears listen to the metallic crackling as he let his tired fingers reach out for the tinfoil, he ignored the coffee table of arranged mess, with it’s bottle of Est! Cola spilt on the pile of half written letters and postcards to family and friends of times past. He curved the foil and lit up his problem and solution with a lighter, half-empty and the lettering of red and yellow peeling off like layers of low self-esteem, inhaling slowly and exhaling even slower, he breathed out the smoke so that it traversed the dents and rises of the tin-foil lackadaisacally. Feeling his temples fill up with the smoke of dreamy beatitude, he recalled why Wan-Ung-Karn, the elderly Thai who had been so kind as to sell him some magic, called it Chasing The Dragon.

His name was Jaka Jakac. He had become addicted to opium seven months prior, convinced into trying a harmless amount by his fragmented heart, as a second-best to the kisses of his girlfriend which he missed so much, all because of one chaotic, turbulent night. He was one of seven Slovenians who had come to Thailand in their gap year, escaping the Slovenian Januaries of bitter, harsh cold finding its way through every window, door and rafter, to experience the postcard beaches, the spicy food, and the cheap, cheap beer. After one hot night mid-March, Jakac stumbled through the narrow streets of Bangkok, confronted bad luck in the form of the Chao Po, and woke up with mud up to his thighs and in his fine hair, surrounded by the thin blades of green that epitomise the agricultural industry of Southeast Asia.

He lacked his wallet, keys and phone, the three items that could bring him back home, and had gained three items in his shoulder, all of them knives, and so he turned to pickpocketing for money and turned to opium after giving up on any hopes that he would see Agata and Slovenia’s sweet, bittersweet cold ever again.

He was declared dead in August, although the streets of Bangkok know otherwise.

COMMENTARY FROM OUR JUDGES Powerful, if I had to describe this piece in one word. Captured my attention right away mixing love, harsh realities, and life into one incredible piece. Jaka Jakac’s story written in two paragraphs is perfectly introduced, developed, and concluded. Metaphors used to describe the fighting of agony and pain that Jaka Jakac undergoes is simply brilliant.

Chasing the Dragon has some of the most vivid imagery I have come across in its description of the hallucinogenic state. The passage of time and the structure of the piece lends to an engaging work of fiction.

The writer clearly employs elements of magical realism that gives Chasing the Dragon an other-worldly atmosphere.

Of all the pieces in this competition, this one stuck with me the longest. The nonlinear story has an incredible shock factor that kept me thinking far after my eyes had finished tracing the last lines. Jaka Jakac’s character is an interesting mixture of a person I can sympathize with and a loser that seems completely unrelatable. I love the suspense that the author has managed to create.

“Chasing the Dragon” struck me as an incredibly sophisticated piece of writing. It read easily, flowed and yet did not leave the reader wanting in terms of details, description, voice, intrigue. It is a difficult thing to navigate depicting death, struggle, addiction - all in a foreign setting - without over-embellishing or romanticizing. This writer has succeeded in combining grit and reality with illustrations, cultural references, myths. What emerges is a beautiful tragedy grounded in earth. I applaud the writer. To you I say, you should pursue fiction writing.

This toxic essay teaches sympathy in societies of supposed homogeneity. Luckily, in this story the underdogs and underrepresented suddenly capture the reader’s attention and inform all our privileged minds about the life of others. The author displays the already dystopian realities of many who normally go unnoticed.

NOBEL LITERARY AWARDS HONORARY MENTIONS

AN INSIGNIFICANT AUDIENCE

by Danielle R.

Cosmic insignificance, she says, is the proof of our irrelevance weaved between the constellations and embedded into the sparkling stars. These things, she says, have been here forever. They have seen the start of everything and they will see the end of it, too, when we’re nothing but dirt. And the sky lights up every night when no one is around to see it’s gleaming. And the planets and things of unfathomable distances, they appear too, when our cameras are not around to flash and sear them into albums of our memories. The sky stretches it’s canvas in much the same way as the tree falls in the forest- without need for human witness. Mother Nature continues to paint with no consideration for us. And this insignificance, this cosmic insignificance, it’s comforting. I revel in my irrelevance, I rejoice in the face of the great stage where the Aurora Borealis star in the nightly show where I am but a member of the audience.

I disagree. I hate to cut her off, but I do anyways. You don’t get it, I say. Seeing the Northern Lights stretch and curl across the sky doesn’t make me irrelevant, not in the slightest. Stirring the freezing phosphorescent algae of a nighttime in New Zealand with my body doesn’t make me disappear. I didn’t feel unimportant as my eyelids parted to make for a Kashmiri sunrise, I didn’t shrink away from the fire-sunsets in Costa Rica or Hawaii, didn’t pale in the face of lumpy, Seussical trees of snow that stood before an apocalyptically pink backdrop. You don’t get it, I say again. Yes, it has most certainly happened before, yes it will most certainly happen again but who the fuck cares? I am watching one of the most beautifully devastating sights perform before my very eyes and damn right I am going to applaud. Hell, I’ll give it a standing ovation because this, this right here, who’s not to say that this is the most significant moment I’ll get? Whose not to say that this next moment this one right here that’s getting ready to happen, whose not to say that it won’t sweep me off my feet?

And just as suddenly as I started, I’m done. In the screeching, ear shattering silence I’m scared that I’ve offended her. I’m scared that she’s getting ready to take off shouting profanities.” I’m scared. I am ready to apologize. And that’s when it starts. Her hands smack together. Slap Slap Slap leaving echoes in our way. She’s standing now, hands high above her head, palms rushing to meet each other. W-what are you doing? I stammer. Giving them their standing ovation. She laughs. And she’s pulling me to my feet, our feet leaving new imprints in the fresh snow. And my hands are over my head now too. We’re screaming “bravo, bravo” over and over again like posh gentleman back from a matinee. “Oh splendid! Positively splendid!” I screech over the echoes we’ve made. We’re getting more than just dirty looks now from our studious companions. Sit down, they hiss at us. But we don’t want to. So we take off instead, her pulling me down the hill. Affronted by a barren, scraggly-looking tree, we halt. And it’s there that she throws her next words at me. “I don’t agree with you,” she says. “This, my cosmic insignificance, isn’t something that you can ‘get.’ It’s not something you can have or not. Look up,” she says as a stream of green breaks through the sky. “You’re in awe. But this, whatever surrounds us, it’s not something we made. This,” she gestures again, “wasn’t made for human eyes. We can’t see most of it without the aid of our fancy cameras and bulky lenses. This wasn’t made for us. The universe let’s us cling to the tailpipe as it drives through town. We’re bumping along, clinging for dear life through the deadly silent snow and it’s only through this that we’re able to even catch a glimpse of our Aurora. So don’t give me your carpe diam shit. Don’t think for a minute that I don’t understand how split-second our presence is on this earth. But the Northern Lights, they didn’t put on this show for us. We’ve connived and flirted our way through the stage door and are now trying to catch a sight of the performance from the lighting fixture with a ridiculously tall sound guy in our way. I get it. I get it. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t warrant a standing ovation regardless.” “Ok” I say. And the rest of our words are swallowed by the silent night.

IF YOU’RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE ALIVE

by Rony T.

The TV said the world is falling apart & I said YES when you asked me to go on an adventure with you We still prayed on our knees for the world because the lord only listens when we are too close to the devil.

And there is so much I want to tell you.

I want to tell you how we live like water, touching, moving from place to place while falling in love with every minute we’re alive We stay and we fight.

Knowing that the passion might sometimes lack but just like the sea water would never stop kissing the shore we are each other’s safe places I want to tell you how travel makes you forget about time time then can move from the general to the particular one piece at a time Until you reach the infinitesimal Where everything is airborne.

How you can love the world until there is nothing left to love But yourself “Darling” I’ll tell you, You must first help yourself, And never blame the world for standing on your own cape, The world is your saviour, And no one can stop you from dreaming but yourself.

I’ll point out how people truly believe you are made of clouds Made of suitcases and planes You are everywhere and nowhere you and I know you are both.

You’re a myth. You’re a storyteller.

I want to advise you to grow up slowly Let the people and places shape who you are Let the world’s mellifluous sound narcotise you so that it seems like the whole planet is ethereal.

I want to urge you to listen, to really care, to travel like you walk on fire.

Hence let the flames get close enough to you so you’ll feel what living is like. you see, you’ve got to take those risks To use every second you are alive to say Amen.

To know you’re lucky enough to exist Lucky enough to feel and not only be.

I want to tell you to not be afraid, The world is indeed a scary place at times But I promise, the gunfire is only the sound of people trying to live a little bit longer Believe me, I spent my life glueing the broken pieces of a country where living or dying is simply a matter of time Where my lover’s hand will grab my long neck passionately, strongly, lovingly, warming my body with delicateness while kissing my red lips softly, slowly, And the other hand pointing my daddy’s revolver to the sky.

And then towards a person.

And we all know the end.

ONE. TWO. THREE. GONE. It’s too easy to disappear.

I’ll remind you you choose the way you see the worldNefarious or celestial.

So I’ll draw you a map on your hand with different shades.

196 countries, to be exact. to ensure you remember that the dark only depends on how far you’re standing from the light.

Oblivion, you must feel deep sonder Knowing you hold one small body made out of 100,000 billion cells In an enormous world consisting of 7,214,958,996 individuals With so many people, you might feel alone.

Allow the aurora warm you up until the hiraeth feeling disappears Let the euphoric sumptuous surroundings shine their way through your heavenly body And lastly, a secret, If something annoys you about the world Then you must go out there And change it.

It is never the right time, I know, But you are here, your curious mind

has landed on this mysterious place called life.

Go. Live. Change.

THE THINGS I CARRY

by Yuan Yuan K.

We carried the next three months in seventy-six by forty-eight by thirty by our sides, in ngultrums and pesos and baht in our pockets.

And jag talar inte svenska, I’m sorry, do you speak English? on the tips of our tongues. I carry books that I won’t get around to reading at the bottom of my backpack and fold-up camping chairs that will go unused. I carry socks that may as well be in someone else’s laundry two countries from now; I thought I was getting better at packing. I carry vague remnants of a memory from somewhere far away. It’s beautiful and bright and Better Together plays in the background of beaches, forests, balconies. That’s because things always seem perfect in retrospect.

And they are. Even things that are broken.

Like spirit, and facades and Macbook screens.

I carry five pairs of jeans, four pairs of shoes, three jackets… no, two jackets… one… two… I tend to temporarily displace permanently displace the things I carry. I carry birthday cards I didn’t get around to giving people and a ukulele case stuffed with dirty laundry. Clean laundry when there are only a few articles left and items worn is greater than or equal to unworn; sometimes a ukulele’s in there too. I carry coins and coins and questions and love and loss and someone else’s suitcase. The contemplation of whether this place will ever feel like home I never expected expectations to be so heavy. I never knew the weight of the world would come out to just 23kgs and that you wouldn’t just feel it on your shoulders. You’d feel it pressing against your spine and the joints of your fingers. It’s kept you up and you feel it weighing down your eyelids the morning after. I could have

done more, seen more, felt more, been more. You’ll figure out later that the only expectations that you’ll regret letting down are your own. I keep a feather and the number seventeen at the back of my phone and a shell in the front pocket of my school bag to remind myself of the person that I could be, should be, was, am; I’m trying to remind myself of who I am and what you are, and how we fit together.

Some think of time as light and airy, fleeting like the stuff you exhale on cold winter mornings but they’re wrong. Time is that under-calculated weight that puts you over. Like gravity that always seems to be working against you. Time, something we never have enough of with each other and spend too much of together. I carry time on my wrists and in my pockets and in my arteries.

I feel when it’s on me more often than not.

I wish we could carry each other’s responsibility. Fault spread out, dispersed and dissolved until it barely exists. You can no longer find it in one place or one person.

I carry my privilege like a pair of hiking boots I never let dangle from the outside of my backpack.

No one questions them but I always feel their weight. I carry guilt. Why am I so sad when I’m so lucky? I want to stop feeling like a culprit and start feeling like… a kid. Or an adult.

I don’t think of myself as either at this point.

So when you ask me what I carry, what we carry, I will tell you my truth. It will sound different depending on when you do, and maybe that’s important.

To remember things for what they were. An experience for its melancholy and misty mornings, a person for their overgrown arrogance.

Things always seem perfect in retrospect.

They are. Even those things that are broken.

COME TO BE

by Breanna Reynolds

Amalia lived next to a crack house in downtown Phoenix. She wore gold, zipper earrings and smelled of corn husks and Jovan musk. Her cushioned face held rice beads of sweat, her skin carried sun stained crevices. Two black olives survived her face, the kind with the hard pits planted inside, the same kind she would shove into her tamales, the same kind that would crack our teeth from their unwavering strength.

We loved her eyes. Her black olives. Her olive eyes. They were hers and she was ours. Our grandma Mia. Us-five. The five-of-us. She can be your grandma Mia too.

When I was a little girl, grandma Mia represented everything unfamiliar within my safe world of familiars. She was a harsh woman, purple veins pulsing up her forearms from strain. Despite her acknowledgement of the English language, she refused to speak it, fearing her broken words would invite judgment from other gringos. She hid herself from others, ashamed to be different, ashamed to be alone.

My dad would drag me to her house when he couldn’t find another babysitter, and, kicking and screaming, I’d struggle and sob and refuse to step inside without yet understanding my own defiance. Upon arrival, I was shoved into grandma Mia’s kitchen, flooded with smells of blood stained chili, boiled cumin, and overused rags. The draft would smack my nose in a delicious but dangerous rapture. I spent most of my summers watching her work in the kitchen, trailing along her side, and would often dream up curiosities about her life. I had imaginary conversations with her that would linger like the steam from her boiled rice, then squash and flatten in her tortilla press, strangled under a black stone weight. Anything could happen. I was in grandma Mia’s world now.

On a dry day one early summer, dad dropped me there and I entered the house with tired apprehension.

“Hola, Chiquita Breannita” her voice sang, wrinkled lips tickling into a small half moon. I came in close to her, wrapping my small arms around half her hip while breathing in her musky scent. My eyes trailed after dad’s truck as it retreated, slipping away from grandma Mia and I, then disappearing to dust. We stood there silently for a moment, foreshadowing a darkness that sat quiet on our skin. Disturbed by the shocking stare of the sun, I wandered in after my grandma and sat at her kitchen table, tugging on the plastic table mat. But grandma Mia didn’t approve of my sitting; she never approved of my sitting.

“Move tu nagras,” she hissed, shocking me up out of my seat. Anytime I wasn’t being productive, or wasn’t working a long side her in the kitchen like a woman should, she would berate me with her garlic stained finger, jabbing it in my cheek. I grabbed her finger and pushed it away from my face. My cheeks puffed into angry tomatillos as I muttered, “I hate you,” under my breath.

Grandma Mia’s olives popped alert, and with hands as raw and rough as ground corn, she forced me into the bathroom. She grabbed the bar of soap and crammed it far into my throat. “Boca sucia!“ grandma Mia screamed, along with some incomprehensible Spanish, chiding me for being a spoiled, lazy, little girl. Then she left me there, desperate for breath, gagging on my own sobs, counting the seconds until I could go home. My nose burned of vanilla rose, the same vanilla rose I had come to love when grandma Mia bathed me in the bathtub, scraping my skin with the suddy, lathered washcloth in a tough but tender way, the same way she scrubbed the dirt off her corn husks. I never felt cleaner than after grandma Mia bathed me, and loved the way her ‘r’s rolled off her tongue when humming, “Breannita, Breannita, Chiquita Breannita,” all while lathering up a tub of soap suds, vanilla rose penetrating my soft skin like a dream. Choking, the bar fell from my mouth, and a chemical trail of rotten rose slowly stung the flesh inside my nose.

I stood in the bathroom, silent. She stood in the kitchen, silent. I felt sorry for myself, and she felt sorry for herself. Bound together by migrant blood, we couldn’t be more different, and couldn’t feel more similar.

Machete in hand, grandma Mia would often disappear only to return from the backyard with a cardboard box of hacked, splintered cacti pads. She would rip out the needles then scrub the blemished, green skin relentlessly, all while cursing God in Spanish for her hard life. She treated those cacti pads the same way she had treated her own four children, with tough but tender affection. She would hack at them and rip them open. Then came the soaking and the stillness. Then the drying, the shaving, the chopping. Chopping into perfectly chopped cubes, grandma Mia would chop-chop-chop-chop-chop.

She would always pause here to admire her work, then with a sigh and a “Dios mio”, she would scrape it all into a spitting pan of oil-tomato-onion-garlic medley. Pinch of sugar. Pinch of salt. Cackling, sizzling, hissing.

The routine was a hard one, and despite the precision of the task, we never knew what to expect. She bruised them often. Sometimes the nopales tasted sticky. Sometimes sticky sweet. Sometimes the bitterness was barely bearable. But it wasn’t about the taste. It was never about the taste. It was about the routine, the precision. Grandma Mia, all alone, feeding four children. Holding a machete, wearing gold, zipper earrings. Dad could always count on Grandma Mia. The grunting, the cursing, the scrubbing, the frying. Olive eyes flickering back and fourth, scanning, scanning. She was always there, for better or for worse, she was always there. The hardness hung around long after the sticky, sun baked smell of the nopales had left. Long after the nopales had ever come-to-be.

SPERO

by Jenna R.

WE’VE ALL STRUGGLED THROUGH TIMES OF ANGUISH, despite any determination of citizens to persevere, there will always be trials for this world, as always in the future. As even underneath the seeming immortality of the fabled Hercules, beat a half mortal heart. The desperate chase for recognition and pride after refusal to Olympus, his constant susceptibility and fear to the naked flame, and his shameful demise as a result of his insecure spouse without the honour of perishing valiantly in battle. Referring, of course, that even the most indestructible of beings have a chink in the armour, another seedy angle of exploitation. Even civilisation as we knew it, wagered against words of war, and close minded influence was abandoned. War has raged for centuries now, this expansive solitary island mankind inhibits, divided into the two parties of combat. East saw the Rego, who fought for governance, operated under a strict dictatorial rule, all citizens are treated as cadets, subject to strict routines and limited freedom for the purpose of returning order and sovereignty to the land, regardless of the corresponding corruption and manipulation. The West was occupied mainly by the Anabasa, who valued their independency over all else. In stark contrast to the Rego, had no official regulations embellished the faction, making death and crime commonplace. Many of the Anabasa were driven mainly by defiance, to the constricts of their adversary. It was fairly simple, chaos and control, two sides of the same coin, neither existing without their natural counterpart. It made conflict inevitable, tearing inhabitants to choose the lesser of two evils. However, It is only reasonable that there would be populace of those who refused to bend to either party’s distorted ethics, those forming a third party, advocating their neutrality in the war. Alienated by both other alliances, the middle party was diminished to extinction in the earliest chapters of battle.

Many sought to fight with the dying cause, however were barricaded within their corners of the world, eventually compromising themselves to join either Rego or Anabasa, the legacy of the mysterious third party fading like a shadow. Unless, several decades into the war, in a primitive Rego village, a lanky dark skinned teenager slinked dangerously into the night.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The burden of his crammed backpack and heated mental contention weighed substantially on Tamar, as he cautiously scampered out of his district allotted sleeping quarters, and into the thick blanket of the darkness. It made it substantially simpler to abscond his hometown, when he, himself was assigned the midnight guard. He felt guilt dragging at the bottom of his gut as he navigated the maze of bleached houses that formulated the remote stronghold. The entire village was blanketed in white and gold tapestries, the Rego uniform, diluted under ghostly moon. Senseless propaganda was unavoidable in this district, evident by the constant announcements and subliminal posters. Tamar had at least been smart enough to realise that before he was eighteen. He had resolved, this night in panicked thought, that his most favourable option was to leave the Rego estates than live like a trapped animal any longer. And so in the spur of the moment, he’d abandoned his guard post, packed any sentimental items remaining from his primarily non-existent parents, who were probably dead on the battlefield for all he knew, and slipped into the darkness determined to not look back on his prison. Tamar quickly ducked from sweeping torchlight that emanated from his fellow guards, he massaged the beam of his favoured weapon, a small double sided scythe, given to him from his uncle. He hadn’t a clue how to handle such a robust beast, but it gave him greater confidence having it swaying harmlessly by his waist. He pulled his black cloak over his already dark skin slyly passing by the outside farms and into the surrounding forest cover. Tamar took a moment to breathe, to settle the unfamiliar burning in his throat and chest. Tears pricked from the corners of his eyes, as he refused to look back at his childhood home, he didn’t even have the courtesy to inform his best friend, a stupid rash decision, and yet he was committed to it. He didn’t allow the tears to fall wiping them away along with his past. He stalked forward in blatant determination before stumbling over his own feet, he had nowhere to go. He halted breathlessly, evaluating his alternate choices, turning back wasn’t an option, he’d just proven that to himself, no more oppression or manipulation stemming from the military. He definitely wasn’t going to convert to Anabasa, the savage moral code was no

superior to that of the Rego rule. Besides he was certain he’d be demolished within his first moments within a camp. He couldn’t even wander freely without eventually, stumbling upon a bloody battlefield of the distant world. That left nowhere to turn to. Tamar jerked at his dark hair in frustration, letting a reckless howl of torment into the silent night. Tamar felt infuriated, angry at the wrecked world he’d been born into, the deceit from his own leaders, grinding routines, disappearing parents and the rapacious old weasels who operated this war from behind the scenes. He couldn’t understand, why were they fighting in a war, they weren’t even alive to start. How had the media, corrupted itself find a way to brainwash away all common sense. Both sides were blatantly the wrong answer to living, so why they have to choose? Where were the people like himself, who didn’t resolve to violence at the pin drop but worked towards cooperation? Tamar’s face paled, returning to the days of his youth, when his uncle spewed fables of a hidden third grouping. His uncle had been knowledgeable, alerting him of surrounding propaganda, teaching him that not to believe everything he heard from a young age, and Tamar, had seen him publicly executed for treason. Tamar calmed his furious breathing, cautiously unlatching his uncles scythe.

He held it up to his face, staring at his own emerald eyes and the splotched stars reflected behind him.

A small inscription stared back at him, “Spero SW”, Tamar leered over the words in sudden wisdom. He initially thought the scripture indicated its creator, but now… Tamar sheathed the weapon and positioned himself under the stars. He swung determinedly in the South West direction. He was going to find and unearth this fallen society, return peace to his world and finally end this pointless war - the right way.

And so Tamar paced off into the night… never looking back.

WHERE I’M FROM

by Cameron S.

As I settle into my seat on an airplane headed to who-knows-where, my friendly seatmate introduces herself. “So, where are you from?” I ask, confused by her wide almond eyes, subtle nose bridge and coloring - her mix of ethnicity was baffling. My eyes, unable to pinpoint a race, resorted to the symbol on her passport for an answer.

I watched them study my face, inquiring about my background. Little did they understand the complexity of their question. I have to pause - too many answers racing behind my eyes. Where I am from does not conclude at the geography of my ancestors, the accent of my voice, or the symbol on my passport. I attend a traveling high school that moves to a different country every trimester. Therefore, I no longer can blurt out the coordinates of my home in Silicon Valley with the utmost of confidence in it being the place I have grown the most, learned the most, and experienced the most.

I am from Argentina, where I learned to keep my eyes wide open. If I didn’t, I would have missed the roaring rapids that fell from the desperate eyes of the Guarani tribe down a cliff called Iguazu and the cruel reality that people would rip a necklace, bag, and sense of security from an unsuspecting friend.

I am from Bhutan, where I learned governance can include a formula for happiness. The reality of Gross National Happiness was witnessed through the kindness of the Bhutanese - as genuine as the Tiger Nest Monastery is breathtaking.

I am from the East Coast of the USA, where I learned firsthand the impact of “terrorism”. I saw a new side of my country while working at the Boston Marathon. The bomb that detonated two blocks from my residence was a cold slap of reality.

I am from India, where I learned to be fluid in chaos. I learned to thrive in the vibrancy of saris, the taste of biryani, the art of bargaining in the Charminar Bazaar, and the crowded queue at the Golden Temple.

I am from Tanzania, where I realized how little ‘Africa’ needs ‘us’. After a day of building a school in the hot sun, my peers and I humbled ourselves in our incapability to execute the task. We realized the ignorance of our pre-conceived opinions as the locals took the shovels from our blistered hands.

I am from Hiroshima, Japan, where I felt the heart of a people who moved forward but are committed to never forgetting history. It is futile to try and catch the scent of nuclear waste in face of the flashing lights of Hondori street and the sweet smell of cherry blossoms in the Peace Park; however, the shaking voice of a Hiroshima survivor still rings in my ear as an echo of the ‘Little Boy’ did in hers.

I am from Rwanda, where I sat with a Mountain Gorilla. Her wise eyes stared purity into mine on that misty morning in a bamboo forest. As the silverback pounded his chest, my own heart did in mine - swelling with wisdom, love, and a lesson nearly inexplicable in words.

I am from New Zealand, where I learned to look up - a seeming simple change of perspective that made me breathe deeper, cleaner and longer. I resolved to never take for granted the spectacular of my surroundings; I slowed down to watch the surf, stars and bioluminescent beings under my fingertips and on the stone ceiling.

I am from Costa Rica, where I learned how to pick myself up from falling hard - both physically in the surf of Nosara beaches, and metaphorically when confidence was low but pressure was high in the mountains of Monteverde.

I am from Greece, where I learned of my own privilege. With feta in my mouth, I watched an economy fall apart around me. Just like the clothes worn by beggars on the subway and the buildings across the street from the National Library. I came away seeing so much promise postponed.

NOBEL LITERARY AWARDS 2015 SUBMISSIONS

LOVE LETTER FROM A PINEAPPLE TO A FIRE HYDRANT

by Yuan Yuan K.

You’ve said that people pass you by without so much as a second glance, But when I first saw you, you had on a fresh new coat, and every fibre within me yearned to tell you that no one pulls off the colour red better.

They told me that it wouldn’t work out.

That you’re a stationery kind of gal and I hardly ever return to the places I’ve been, But with you, You make me want to grow roots.

You make me want to shed my rough edges and leave myself vulnerable to your devices.

I want to collect every raindrop so I could be the one to fill you up when others strip you dry of everything you are able to give.

My love for you has a shelf-life of always.

They told me it wouldn’t work out.

That you’re always too busy putting out someone else’s fire.

That you’re a product of the concrete jungle that raised you and have built up an unyielding armour.

That my skin wasn’t quite thick enough, And this city would swallow me up.

But even if pieces of me go missing here, I will at least promise that they will leave you with an aftertaste of all of the sweet and none of the bitter.

And when parts of me aren’t quite as firm as they once were and other parts cannot retain their zest, When your facade loses its vibrancy but gains a rustic sort of charm, I will look at you and say I’ve never felt more refreshed.

ON THIN ICE

by Grace S.

The boots clicked into place. A matching set of poles were taken by the hand. At the edge of the dock, the students began their trek. The people who were shuffling across the ice left ski-prints in the snow, interlocking as one crossed over the next, there is nothing less like railroad tracks, however, that is what it is called. The skiers began to tire as their ankles strained under the pressure of the powdered snow, bending in, out, like playing cards at the hand of the dealer. One of the skiers contemplated returning to the cabin but continued through the snow while attempting to come to a conclusion, what she wasn’t aware of, was the fact that as she went, the distance between her and other skiers grew greater and greater.

Over the span of the next few minutes, the skier found herself so far behind the others in front of her that they had stopped for a rest to admire the scenery around them. This is it, she thought, I finally have a chance to make up for the lost distance. With newfound motivation, she pumped her legs stronger, and with a sigh of relief she was nearly an arm’s length away from the students she was trailing. Hey, you finally got the hang of it! Yeah, but now I just want to lay in the snow and make snow angels. The two girls laughed and the slower one snapped off her skis to lightly tip-toe through the snow and lay down as delicately as possible to make the most perfect print in the snow.

Her eyes fluttered shut and her breathing slowed to a steady pace. One of the girls, the one with the red hair, made a noise of indecision, and then kneeled into the snow to fiddle with her own skis. The snow crunched beneath her water-proof suit and she was muttering under her breath. Finally, with a sigh of relief, she freed herself of the skis and threw her poles away so she could walk over and make snow angels with the slower girl.

The snow continued to crunch from a place beyond the feet of the slower girl as the red head took careful steps towards the untouched bank of powdered snow. Soon another set of footsteps joined in, and both of the skiers settled themselves in the snow surrounding the slower girl. With long, graceful sweeps, the girls entertained themselves by imprinting the stamp of an angel in the snow beneath them. Once they were satisfied with their creations, the air was void of noise except for the winds that brushed over their arm and legs, leaving tingles in their wake. The frigid cold of the snow crawled through the snowsuits and into their backs, but none of the girls paid this any mind. They all simply lost themselves in their thoughts.

Thoughts of how lucky they were to be in Kiruna with almost all of their favorite people on this earth, thoughts about how little they were looking forwards to walking all the way back to the camp with their skis on, thoughts about how their best friend would have loved to see this smog-less sky, and thoughts about how they would never see a sunset at 3:30 in the afternoon anywhere else in the world. In this moment, all of their previous worries about school, their social lives, cravings for gluten-free toast, or to capture the perfect picture of the Northern Lights were crowded into the back of their mind as they began to think beyond the realm of self-absorbed issues. As the different ideas were turning around in each of the three girl’s heads, the last girl to sit down’s ringing phone shattered the tranquil silence of the atmosphere. Guys, you are wanted back at the camp. Apparently the ice is not so thick out there and it isn’t that safe. The girl with the short hair shoved her phone back into her pocket while relaying the message. Guess it is time to head back, the other fast girl responded. As the two fast girls returned to slide back into their skis, the slower girl gave herself one last second to enjoy the moment. How ironic, she thought to herself, the only reason these past few moments were possible was because the lack of human interference; I guess it is only natural that a human is the one to destroy it. This thought left her mind as soon as it came into it, and she delicately stepped around the snow angels to join her friends on their path back to the camp.

SUICIDE WATCH AT HEAVEN

by Ana S.

I pushed myself forward fell from a cloud, murdered my wings and let myself cry.

The wind was against me, we both knew why but I was not going to listen I think I heard her sigh.

Nothing could stop an angel when their precious golden blood, turns thick red.

And the light in their eyes becomes too dark.

An angel like I has no job for God. In bitterness, I turn to, just for a better lie.

The lie that lives underneath the clouds must be better than the holy might.

Since we were told, that mundane life was worth dying for.

HEY DUDE

by Kojo A.

“Hey dude” “Sha, What’s up?” Sam replied “Your place?” he continued “Nah, not this time.”

“She won’t be cool with it.” Jack relaxed his arms and sighed.

He squinched his eyes a little in response to the hot sun.

“Solid, I guess” Sam replied with a smirk as the turned his speakers up.

“Come on” “We can find a new place” Jack continued defensively while tapping his feet to Elvis.

“What?” Sam counter replied with a laugh. He balanced himself on his tailbone against a wall with a little wobble in his footing.

“Didn’t say anything but solid.” He continued while juggling his right foot to stay balanced.

“Forget it” Jack concluded with a probing forehead as he thought of alternatives.

“What about Johnny!” Jack quickly pointed out.

“Lo Siento” Johnny replied with a snarky All-American accent.

He walked with a cool swagger with books dangling between his left arm and left armpit. He was armed with an end-of-school grin that came with a semi-tucked in shirt and loose living shoe laces.

“Parents in town.” He continued “The ballpark outside!” Exclaimed Sam with a jump.

“Near Ben and Jerry’s” Five more guys interjected “Around Jack’s place” “Down the road man” “Mister Cap is sweet” “He always has the most funmomento music playing.”

“Funmomento to the maxplax!”

“Near Ben and Jerry’s!” softly interjected by Sally as she made her entrance to the conversation with a dance towards Jack and sang along to Elvis’ ‘Always on my mind’.

“Near Ben and Jerry’s!” repeated Sam with a sincere smile and another jump.

“Excellent!”

“Excellent!”

And a choir of laughs arose as every was on their feet with cheer. Each smirking and performing their best Wayne parody from that hit movie everyone ceremoniously knew. Sally swayed and held her ground as a storm of hi-fives and man to man embracing occurred in this small gathering.

“Lo Siento” Johnny replied with a snarky All-American accent.

He walked with a cool swagger with books dangling between his left arm and left armpit. He was armed with an end-of-school grin that came with a semi-tucked in shirt and loose living shoe laces.

“Parents in town.” He continued “The ballpark outside!” Exclaimed Sam with a jump.

“Near Ben and Jerry’s” Five more guys interjected “Around Jack’s place” “Down the road man” “Mister Cap is sweet” “He always has the most funmomento music playing.”

“Funmomento to the maxplax!”

“Near Ben and Jerry’s!” softly interjected by Sally as she made her entrance to the conversation with a dance towards Jack and sang along to Elvis’ ‘Always on my mind’.

“Near Ben and Jerry’s!” repeated Sam with a sincere smile and another jump.

“Excellent!”

“Excellent!”

And a choir of laughs arose as every was on their feet with cheer. Each smirking and performing their best Wayne parody from that hit movie everyone ceremoniously knew. Sally swayed and held her ground as a storm of hi-fives and man to man embracing occurred in this small gathering.

“How’s it going Mister Cap” Sizzle added and then a silence engulfed the group once more. Everyone but Karl peered their ears in awe of Mister Funmomento’s introduction.

“Well, what did number forty-seven say to number 3,” Mister Cap said with an electric slide towards Sally.

“You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see” Mister Cap concluded with the group uplifted. “woo hoo!”

“Yeah!”

“Aww, Let’s rock” Then crossed the white parking lines and accepted his father’s hand and danced the Achy Breaky Heart.

They group was raving till their number grew by about four more as the sun began to set and schools began to close. Legs flew, accompanied by revolving skirts and men twirled under the gentle arms of their partners.

“To B & J’s!”

“Ben and J’s!”

“Mister C’s playground!”

“Yeyeah!”

“Excellent!”

“Excellent!”

“Excellent!”

“Wait” Then there was a rush of silence. They radio even paid awe to this sudden interjection and ran out of battery life with a record disc scratching sound to add an extra effect.

“All you kids?” Mister C continued The kids became flat still and the sunset created a silhouette of teenage heads at attention. Spiky hair and all “Well, Yeah” “No” “No?” “Yeah” “Yeah?”

“No!” “Mister C” sighed a perfect orchestral of misery-stricken players “Well” “Gs Pops” Karl interjected Mister C stared at Karl, and then at the car, and then back at Karl hoping to buy his obediences.

“Are you going to play that card.” Karl sighed with verbally crossed arms.

“It’s a school night, and it’s getting dark” Mister C said in a more sincere voice “Miss and Mr. Rosemary wouldn’t want you guys up before a paper or something like that?”

“Well” replied Johnny stressing his ‘Ls’ as much as he would like to.

“Mister C” The orchestral began a new “Mister C” The stress on the ’C’ and height of the general note increase. “hmm” “Alright” “but I am closing shop at 23 sharp.”

“PARTYTIME” Sang the kids “EXCELLENT!”

JUST LOVERS

by Rachel Corso

just lovers in an alcove over FDR Drive at the edge of the city, he scooped a change out of her, and he felt the hesitation ripen over seconds.— the boy, standing bow-legged, nearly sideways, a finger-lick distance away, tasted her heat bead on his lips. closer. the wait pruning with the uncertainty in her answer – soothed by nothing but another milky silence. between that old lame drag of the yellow cabs and the soft whispers amongst the skyscrapers almost steepling above; she heard his eyes moisten. he wrestled with the echo of her tongue, pulled their closeness apart in the cove of his gut then twisted it back into the threads of his shirt by the knots in his knuckles. she felt the trust linger as the lint balled along her coat sleeve, and he watched as she whisked the connection to rest.

TRAVEL HAS BEEN MY CRUSH FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER

by Sally A. Travel has been my absolute biggest crush for as long as I can remember. I could daydream for hours and hours about cities, countries, and continents all around the world: how it would be like, about the people I’d meet, the person I’d be.

I dreamed of walking in a tropical rainforest, the canopy trees closing in on the sky above me, the mud under my boots splashing up with every step. I dreamed of butterflies - butterflies that didn’t tickle with love but with excitement - finally escaping from my stomach as I stepped foot on the other side of the planet. And all that I dreamt of, I wrote down. On notebooks, scattered scraps of paper word documents - if it was a writable surface, it housed my dreams. Together, they tell the story of my travel romance.

The first time I felt it was in an airplane seat. I was sitting alone on a plane to Copenhagen, the first of three flights taking me to New Zealand on the opposite side of the world. A place where autumn was spring, where the hills weren’t just hills but volcanoes, where the clouds ran across the sky. I get that feeling every single time I’m on the move now. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on a plane or bicycle, the sense of moving forward is enough to make my stomach flutter just the tiniest bit. Once travel has been injected into your blood, you never stop wanting the rush it can give you. It has the ability to make you feel alive in a way nothing else can. I fell in love with that feeling at first sight.

I got it that morning when I woke up in Costa Rica as I looked out the window and saw a volcano there, right in the middle of the city. I got it in Athens, Greece when I realized that every single day there, I was walking around on ancient history. I got it in the Arctic Circle, staring up at a sky that was no longer blue, a sky that someone had painted swirling green and purple.

But I’ll be honest. There were days when it didn’t feel like I’d imagined it to. Days where I was forced to dissect what I thought it would be like to make sure it didn’t clash with reality. For example, it turns out that jetlag is the worst state of mind. It turns out that homesickness isn’t a disease, and it isn’t a feeling: it’s a limb that I’d used for all of my life suddenly being torn away from me. It turns out that it isn’t always great. There are days when I’ll be so tired that I won’t get out of bed no matter what city I’m in. Days when I’ve coughed so much that not even Edinburgh could make it feel better. And at my lowest, I‘ve wondered if I would’ve been better off staying at home, ignoring the sense of restlessness in my bones.

When it comes to travel, there are some things they don’t always tell you. Like how many dirty stinky streets that accompany one piece of gorgeous architecture. Or how living in hostels for weeks and weeks on end isn’t quite optimal for an introvert. Big or small, all these flaws will sooner or later add up until I can no longer recall the reason I left, the reason I chose this. At those moments, I keep in mind that the bad times will soon be a lesson learnt, and hopefully they can shape me into someone even better, someone even more resilient and strong. That’s what a love for travel can do for us wandering souls. And one thing’s for sure - the lows will make the highs feel even more extraordinary, making me grow even more deeply in love.

And if I’m ever in doubt, I turn inwards. I remember that feeling I got when I took that very first leap, the flutter of the butterfly wings. I remember the hopes and dreams of a twelve-year-old girl spending all of her days writing poetry. If I can still find that feeling within me, I know that I’m on the right track, the right road. And I can only keep going from there.

To me, travel is no longer just a crush. It has become my best friend, my biggest fear, and my reason to never stop dreaming.

INSPIRATION

by Taran K.

William burst into the recording studio, and immediately grabbed ahold of his guitar before setting himself down and beginning shredding. He shredded like never before, the sick arpeggios and pick sweeps being created with his fingers, more so than his brain. As he was decimating the fretboard a question grew within his mind of whether he would be able to nail the transition into the chorus coming up soon.

But as his fingers continued playing, his mind eased and he listened to the gnarly shredding form until he had completed all 16 bars of the solo.

The solo was a complex array of bends and harmonics that were a long time in the making, a result of many varied influences: the beautiful autumn colours, the naïvety of children playing in the streets, assorted childhood memories, and the inspiration that put him in the studio in the first place: Steve Vai. How awed it made Will just thinking of Vai’s prowess on the Lydian mode-and how terrified it made him that he himself may never achieve such technical glory.

Later on, after completing creation of his masterpiece, Will sat down, a bead of sweat slowly dripping from his hairline; this sweat, he decided, was representative of his determination; the solo he had just created was symbolic of his progress in learning his art up to this point. It is unsure if-just as Will’s shredding came from a place unknown to even him-Will truly knew the driving force behind this determination, the very same that this written piece seeks to question.

During the last bar of his solo, Will’s concentration broke briefly, for a mere millisecond, and he looked towards the wall: an assorted collection of posters looked back. Will had the idea that by merely being within the presence of these posters he would gain the inspiration to end his solo, and thereforth he gave his complete attention back to the guitar in his hands, allowing his fingers work magic over the fretboard.

Will’s phone started ringing. As he picked it up, with his adrenaline pumping from his newfound soloing ability he looked forward to the future - little did he know, no such blitz of inspiration would ever come to him again.

WINTER

by Josh

The solid wood sled carved through the snow, a huge, unwavering wall scraping the snow off boughs, whipping the foreign passengers with branches, thrusting icy air onto their damp, already frozen faces, “Ahhhhhh”.

I witnessed the shrieks of someone who just underwent an entire forest’s snow down their exposed, vulnerable neck, soaking into their already white scarf. The snow piled up around her waist like an anaconda wrapping around it’s prey, completely defenseless besides the snow suit and overly large and clunky boots.

As we dismounted the sleigh, the snow drifts smiled, inviting me into their frozen expanse. Aren’t you hot? Don’t you feel the sweat drip down your covered face as you struggle between cold and warmth?

Don’t you want to join me?

I fell, entranced by the sparkly wonders of the snow, however as I fell I realised, I realised how the snow kissed the trees under the sky, I realised how the snow kissed the ground beneath my feet, I realised how the snow even kissed my face as I became enveloped by its overwhelming beauty like a mother embracing her child.

“I miss mine”, I thought as my mind was brought to the topic of mothers.

“I wonder what they’re doing in their snowy paradise.”

“I wonder if they’re out playing in the snow or maybe gathered around our warm fireplace sipping on some fresh coffee.”

“You coming?” Someone shouted from the doorway of the cozy hut, snapping me out of my daze.

I picked myself out of the encompassing blanket and made my way slowly towards the emanating heat billowing out of the door only to be smashed and overpowered by the relentless fists of the cool, crisp air.

As soon as I stepped indoors, I felt the drastic temperature change. Between the 10-odd nationalities and two large pots of boiling soup and one large pot of boiling water, I began to sweat. The layers fell of off me exposing my bright red, icy hands, my rosy, frost-tickled cheeks, and my ruffled, unkempt hair. As soon as I sat down, the soup began to fill the outstretched, hungry bowls of everyone in attendance as the cups very quickly being filled and drained, filled and drained, filled and drained with lingonberry juice just to feel that tendril of warmth tickle their growling tummies.

As the meal came to an end, the snowmobiles were fired up again and the adventure began for a second time, but I knew, that it would start for a third and fourth and hundredth time again before life was done with me.

AND ALREADY

by Oskar K.

And already, as their road began descending, it was less visible and the warm sunset showed vaguely through it. Enormous cliff-walls grew slowly on the horizon, like a ship sailing closer to the shore - a very colossal ship. The look of the sky and the warmth of the light were infinitesimally changed. But only a moment later they stood on the edge of such a cliff as by others’ standards would rather be called a masterpiece; down and down this slope, to where the end disappeared in a mist of altitude. David refused to follow Ringo down the route. Ringo, though he did not fully understand his argument decided to stop and give him a moment to think. It wasn’t long before Ringo persuaded David to follow him down the never ending slippery slope. Right below him lay an almost perfect cliff checkerboard - a maze 200m tall set below a sunset that covered the area with its warmth. Each cliff rose like an Eiffel tower over Paris, or like a tree over an empty square, a basketball player in a primary school. Their rocky columns all taller than any cathedral spire, with a flat rooftop of an old farmhouse, an acropolis1 hovering the area, filled the area, like a box of matches. Cliffs indeed they were, not towers, and far up on their top he saw a monastery one of it’s kind. He knew before Ringo told him that this was Meteora. He did not know what he had expected. Old memories and stories of the land of monasteries and cliffs protecting people and nature. Land of religion and evolution, peace temple under an open sky, monasteries open to lost, peace for mind and body. Old dreams meet their true source, aspirations, all gone in a second, one perspective, one feeling - relief - all he could ever imagine was right here, tall and rocky maze, monasteries on each flat top, sunset and warmth-preserving the nature, culture, religion, all in one place. His eyes blinked slowly to make sure that this is not a trick or a dream, his eyes opened smoothly still without realism, all of this seemed to be a postcard, a wallpaper edited many times, a professional photograph, a scene from a movie. Every step, every breath, all efforts worth this view, all dreams came true, with one landscape everything he ever dreamed of was here.

THE RUSH

by Isabel S.

I shake. Knees clanging together maybe from cold, more likely from fear. I stare downward, clench my fists, clench my jaw. And then I’m off balance. Twisting and falling I grab desperately for my assailant but I can’t take hold. Feel the rush, feel the air. I hear myself, a disconnected cry, a scream, for help, for anything. But it’s no use. I feel fear start to rise in my throat and panic creep it’s way into my mind. What should we do now? What can we do? Nothing. We are completely helpless. No longer is my fate in my hands but instead it has been controlled, been altered by the delinquent, no, the villain, that put their hand to my back.

Now I scream, scream for real.

Sorry for what you’ve done. You’re not forgiven.

Now I’m flooded with thoughts, all of them fragmented and sharp streaming past like the air around me.

A bird is flying above me with its wings outspread and a loud caw escaping from its beak. Could it be calling to me? Echoing the scream that slipped from my own lips in the same moment? I don’t know. I don’t pay attention. Instead I focus on the helplessness, the uselessness, the heartlessness of it all.

But wait. How can I just sit back. Sit back and leave my body vulnerable, more vulnerable than it already is. And as this thought takes root in my mind I begin to curl. My legs coming up to reach my chest. Toes pointed and knees together. Almost mindlessly my arms reach for each other. They enclose my legs in a tight embrace as if for dear life.

I think I heard it before I felt it -- maybe because of the shock . A loud splash followed by an eerie silence.

And then it hit. A stunning chill penetrates my bones and causes a gasp to bubble out of me. I quickly open my eyes and follow the bubbles to orient myself. With sweeps of my arms I reach the surface, gasping back the air that escaped me moments before. I quickly make my way to the shore, clawing at the ground, dragging my way up the rocks. Stumbling and slipping I work my way towards safety. Finally.

The warmth envelops and protects me from outside elements. The chill begins to dissipate and I breathe deeply, contemplating the thoughts that raced through my head just seconds before. The panic had taken hold of me, controlled my mind, made me lash out. It was just harmless fun and I know that now. With the towel draped on my shoulders I hear a voice call to me.

Sorry again, but you were taking forever.

It’s alright. I’ll get you back though, I laugh

LES LUMIÈRES

by Eden H.

And approaching the frozen lake, they look up into the sky, searching for a glimmer. The group of students huddle close together; striding along the wooden wharf, which extends out onto the lake a fair way. The lake is smooth and flat like a pancake - a white pancake - covered in icing sugar. The icing sugar crunches underfoot and upon inhalation, the arctic air freezes inside their lungs. Clouds move across the sky and internally, many students sigh. The almost-full-moon is out, it floats proudly, in a sea of stars. Tall pine trees, thick along the bank, heavy with snow, the branches weighed down like people carrying bags of groceries home.

The students rub their gloved hands together and stare out, into the sky. Nothing to be seen, there’s too many clouds, the moon is too bright, we can’t see anything. One staff member takes a photo; she’s shooting in the dark. But wait a minute, there, in the photo, you can just make it out. Les lumières! The students jump around, excitement is static in the air. Gradually, a few more appear. One on the left, high in the sky and another down over there, by the trees. They dance in the sky, light green, they swirl and curl. Ever changing, never the same, gone in a second, they never last for long. And more appear, stripes of green, rivers of light that flow across the sky. Mostly green, with a tint of pink here and a hint of red over there.

Like nothing of this world, words cannot describe; faces of awe look to the sky. The click of a camera, voices full of wonder. Some students lie on their backs, making angels in the snow. Look, not all of them are rivers, some have no defined shape, random blobs, rocks by the river. Rivers of light, rivers of diamonds and jewels, they sparkle and twinkle like stardust.

A group of fifteen students and a couple of teachers, no one else will ever see this just the same. They are so lucky, the people that look to the sky, so privileged. They have great potential, great power. And with great power comes great responsibility. A responsibility to the world and to the people of the world; to stand up for what they believe in, to voice their opinions and to search for the truth. Each person is a star, the strength of their light depends on their heart and the energy they give to others. The sky is made up of stars, without them, it would not be the same. Our world is made up of people, the people in our world make it what it is and they all have the choice to make a change.

EMPTY NIGHTS

by Andrew D.

Walking through the empty streets, wondering if he could have done anything differently, he realized that oftentimes, life is more complicated than it seems. With the countless amount of people he’d met in his lifetime, he couldn’t help but forget some: more importantly, he wished he had the strength to forget others. But with this thought, he couldn’t help but feel sorrow, a cold feeling growing within his chest. Because he had never before known what it was like to feel this way, in essence, it changed his very being.

That spark, that fire within him that fed his passion and determination, was dwindling -- and with that, so were his chances for happiness. And with this realization, he marched on into the night, looking up into the stars, wondering how he could live without the ones he cared about.

This manifestation of sheer desolation consumed his very being, left him without a shred of hope, alone in the vastness of life. The mistakes that used to only plague his dreams now haunted him in the waking hours: the mistakes he had made, “what ifs” that would forever remain unanswered, regrets on past choices made: Betrayal.

Later, what then was the early morning, staring up at his cracked, cement ceiling, he couldn’t help but envision the face of the person he had hurt most; those warm yet piercing eyes acted as a foil to her ever present melancholic smile; that very image provoked such emotions within him that every fibre of his being shuddered with nostalgia, leaving him with moist eyes and a hollow feeling in his chest, unable to rest with the fear of facing that gaze once more. He did not sleep that night, nor the following night for that matter.

As days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, the feeling of anguish that once resided in his heart had gone, but with its departure, a new feeling was left in its place. A feeling he had never truly experienced before. Serenity. This feeling came from the acceptance that he could never be able to change that past, he could only work towards amending the grievances he’d accumulated throughout his life. But -- seeing as there was no easy way of doing this, his only gambit with the hope for redemption was to confront the one he had hurt the most.

Soonthereafter, it became quite clear that this task he’d set forth upon himself would prove difficult to complete. Her gaze would leave him breathless, gasping for words that weren’t there, wishing for something to end his misery. No matter how much his mind told him that this endeavour would be fruitless, he knew in his heart that this was the only way he could be happy again. He did not yet know what she would say to him, nor did he really have the slightest of clues to what even he would say. Truth be told, it would have been impossible to say whether or not he wanted the answer to any of the questions he was asking himself; this doubt is what scared him the most.

The only thing that he truly wanted was to look up at the night sky, gaze at the stars as he once did, and no longer feel the weight of the pain he had caused.

CRYSTALLINE TRANSCENDENCE

by Pablo H.

Holding one suitcase in each hand and a backpack on his back he didn’t know what was about to come.

Trying not to go crazy with the rush of catching a 17 hour train going to a magic land, where everything was new, everything was apart from the normal parameters and everything was different from what he was going to see in his entire lifetime. The train started moving, nervous about how he was going to feel in the next minutes, hours, he didn’t know what type of adventure he was going to run into. All looked insane, huge, way more strange that he imagined that it was going to be.

He was given information that he didn’t believe, but he was curious about the possibility of this happening. For the next hours, Kyle couldn’t sleep at all, the train moved and there was not enough space for him to fit into this three square metre cabin that everyone was spending the night in. He never thought that this adventure was going to be like that, first of all, he saw smiles on people’s face’s that he never would have expected, then, he saw how fast the hours were spent in this little wagon, old fashioned but pretty enough to have something called “windows”.

After spending all night without sleeping, there he was, looking out of this window, watching one of the best, or maybe even the best sunrise he had ever seen in his life. He never knew how to describe what he was watching, the trees became skyscrapers of crystal, the railway a white road to infinity, and the blue sky a rose cream of clouds. All was a new feeling that he wouldn’t have imagined before. Trying to decide what to do, he started thinking about the past, it was magic, time to reflect about the world, climate change, his life, who he was and who he wanted to be. In two hours time everyone was awake looking at something white called “snow”, familiar to some, new and magic for others. As it looks like, Kyle was one of the second ones who had never seen so much whiteness in his life and was just glued to the window watching the landscape.

Somewhere else in the world there was someone else seeing another type of landscape that was not a road full of CO2 emissions, and depressed people, living routine lives, waiting desperately to get some fresh air, and he saw the difference, because he lived in a world in where what was popular was more important than what was right. Kyle was asking himself if this was the trip that he was expecting, but then he realised that he was always complaining of things that didn’t matter.

Sarah saw Kyle crying at the end of this tiny wagon in this train to travelling to what others would name ‘paradise’. “ What’s wrong Kyle? ” she asked confused. “Nothing Sarah, just looking at this incredible world and realising how lucky I am to be here.” said Kyle. Then, Sarah gave him a hug and started speaking with him for the rest of this journey to the North, in which they became friends, before this, they never spoke and they had been seeing themselves for months, just in meaningless and robotic conversations.

When Kyle got out of the train at their arrival, he exclaimed : “This is why we travel.”

BITTER STEEL

by Sophie W.

You had sat coolly listening to the breathing of your husband, a man you used to love, a man who threw away fourteen years of marriage and should pay for it, you sat and observed the motion of his chest in the enclosing darkness, steadily moving up and down, proof that there was a living being beside you, one who could so quickly have that breath taken from his lungs. All it would take was a pillow over his relaxed face, or maybe a steak knife thrust into his poisonous heart, an agonizing feeling that you knew all too well, give him a taste of his own medicine, whispered a voice in the back of your mind, he was so vulnerable, but something stopped you. This was a man you could not kill because you shared three beautiful children and a golden retriever, this was a man you could not kill because you had attended his annual family reunion countless times, you realized your hands were tied, had always been, you saw how inadequate you were, felt so small, insignificant. You thought about the mask he donned every day, pretending nothing was wrong, pretending that night, when he was “working late” he was not out screwing another woman. It was then that you left the room, biting your lip to keep the tears back, kneeling down on the unyielding wooden floor you had lovingly picked out with him years ago, you wrapped your arms around your fragile body, racking with sobs, surrounded by a rich mahogany that only reminded you of heartbreak and sorrow. It was then that you experienced the sudden pang of hatred, realized you had been exploited, you felt dirty, used and exposed, what kind of man would do this, you wondered, make you feel so humiliated and stripped of your dignity, it was then, between your desperate gasps for air, that you considered your options, you could continue with your miserable excuse for a marriage, keep up the optimistic illusion and pretend as though everything was alright, but you knew that was impossible, you knew you were better than this and that you had to take action. You attempted to compose yourself so as not to wake the children, you returned to the room and looked at this man, contentedly succumbed to a tranquil state of sleep, how was it fair that you were the one tossing and turning, burdened by this lingering problem that he brought so abruptly into your life. A sliver of moonlight glistened on one half of his face, highlighting the features you once found attractive, but now those cheekbones seemed so easy to punch, his deceptive mouth only angered you, and the thought of his pale blue eyes left you nauseated, slowly you turned and walked towards the kitchen, an eerie calm settling over you. You thought about how eventually death douses the fire of life, and absentmindedly began tracing the handles of the knife collection sitting on the left side of the white marble counter, you drew one out and stroked the refreshingly cool steel, it felt light in your hand but you knew that it was powerful enough. Then, you who usually has eyes comparable to that of a cat’s, wandered blindly down the hall toward your room again, stumbled over abandoned toys and hoped your children could somehow forgive you someday, you felt the smooth shape of the weapon in your right hand, you had made up your mind, This man must die, you say.

I walk inside the room and see him sprawled on his giant, velvet bed, dreaming about something that is certainly atrocious but he is savouring it, I can see him grin and my body, after a long time feels an emotion, that is definitely not love, but just as strong. Hate permeates every fibre of being as I watch this man is peacefully lying on his bed after destroying so many lives... The woman he met in Japan is now living alone with her parents,

A COLORFUL NIGHT SKY

by Erica M.

My eyes were drooping as I sat sorting through my pictures; I had been fighting dark skies for the past 7 hours. Cami was climbing into her onesie, and I closed my laptop. I wondered whether I should go too.

After all it was our last night. Yet I had little hope that we would be able to see any more than a smidge of green colored clouds floating, barely visible—unless captured on camera—not worth changing and going out into the frosty air for. My body was more than ready for sleep. But Cami nodded her head, agreeing that it was our last night and we should at least try to see them. Also it would be hard to say when we would ever be back in the Arctic, if ever, and my passport still had unseen pages, unseen countries to travel.

I was about to ride the lift with Cami and Danielle when I caught myself from making a foolish mistake. I rushed back to my room and retrieved the SD card, which I inserted into my camera, and shuffled out the revolving front door. I jogged up after the two. They were waiting for me on top of the slight slope, where the end of the hotel met a new road. I looked up at the sky. My eyes widened. There it was, nonchalant, gliding above the apartment buildings as if it were an everyday occurrence. I pulled out my camera from the belly of my onesie and started filming.

My heavy boots and warm get up didn’t help my heavy breathing as I attempted to catch up with Cami and Danielle yet again. Every breath sent needles down my throat as the piercing -4 degree air flowed in and out of my lungs.

Where the small city glow and LED Christmas lights ended there was the midnattssolstigen trail entrance. Endless, alpine trees embellishing snowy hills, waiting to be fully camouflaged. I walked up the trail. The Aurora—with no cement buildings to diminish its beauty—was in a more suitable and natural atmosphere. The patterns, the colors, the movements, ever-changing and unpredictable. Truly as definition reads, a natural electrical phenomenon.

For the first time, my lens could see clearer than my own two eyes. And the colors appeared much brighter. It even detected hints of magenta, which were impossible to see with a bare eye. My camera aided me to see beyond my own capability.

The adrenaline—possibly also the cool air on my face—had washed away all previous signs of drowsiness.

I no longer wanted to sleep. I was eager to stay out all night and just marvel at the sky. It was real. I was restless. I remembered another moment in my life when I had been struck with as much awe. It was in New Zealand around the same time just last year. I was on a boat trip and the surrounding ocean water contained fluorescent algae. The water had been just as cold as the arctic air. Nonetheless, I had swum for an exhilarating 10 minutes. The algae had reacted to every movement of my body. My fingertips created glittering light just as a fairy would. I was magical. It was real. There was nothing more satisfying in life, then experiencing these miracles in nature.

It was 12 O’clock, I wasn’t at home—sleeping in my room in California—no, I was in the arctic. How had I managed to find myself across the Atlantic Ocean, at the tip of Northern Sweden? Two and a half years ago I had wished on a star. I had wished to not live a boring life. As I walked along the trail, I saw a shooting star. I wished for more nights like these.

WE CARRY

by Madeline S.

I carry a folder stuffed thick with paper --­thick, thin, colored, glossy, matte, political, artistic, sentimental. I cover blank paint seen by thousands of eyes for usually only a night or two with a facsimile of home, easily removable. In the small pocket of my bag is a golden paint pen as thick as my wrist, dried out from bittersweet, smooth, orange­-blossom evenings running through the streets of Psirri, desperate to make it back in time for bed checks.

I carry a scarf in my bag, always prepared in the event we somehow end up at a blood­-red goat sacrifice for Eid al­-Adha, or walking on milk­-white ceramic floors through a Sikh celebration, or freezing to death on a small shikara floating in the pitch-­black Himalayan 4 am. I carry small drawings on the palms of my hands and between my fingers; I carry oceans of music in languages I only know how to ask for coffee in.

Every bridge I see rings a small bell for the river-filled city that gave me the small scar on my left calf from a rainy afternoon spent biking too quickly around paved corners. The call to prayer echoing from any mosque in early morning sends my awareness to the burn mark on the back of my leg from dancing too enthusiastically around a bonfire in Moshi. I carry with me these memories permanently etched.

I carry with me all seventeen Athenian blue­-line subway stops, each adorned with a delicate “epomeni stasi”. An unquenchable thirst for freddo cappuccino on hot days and a perpetual hunger for a perfectly fried egg on ripe green smashed lemon salt avocado on whole­-grain toast. Andean step melodies haunt my ears and seduce me back to la sierra of Ecuador; my stretched­out arms reach past the sides of my bed in search of the endless pillows of my room in Auckland. I carry with me a crazy, twisted up desire for something more spiritual than what I have.

I am constantly enamoured, torn, pushed and pulled, all by the things I carry.

DEAR AUGUST

by Sabrina D.

Dear August, You hypnotize me. the warmth in your breath is wind across my plains bending my leaves like a tingling down my back, you buzz like an entire beehive right through my skin into my arteries where you mingle with my blood and journey to my chest, untie the knots, make my heart dance in the rhythm of lazy summer days, create a humid summer haze in which we lay together by the river, watch the moments flow by like water they are lazy, fleeting, floating, free and we can’t stop them, there’s no need as squinted eyes of a drowsy head blink into the summer sun, our world’s so small, confined to this blanket underneath this tree you smell of sunscreen, ice cream, I’d scream of happiness, but that’d disturb the summer scene. you are balmy nights under the stars in good company, the sound of quiet engines, friends and loud music travelling to the sea where the sand tickles my feet and each wave washes off the thought of what was and what will be after you leave.

Dear August, you make me forget about the days after tomorrow.

But we both know we’ll have to leave eventually.

The happiness is temporary, As the nights get colder, our careless fling is nearly over shorter days are a bitter promise that time will matter yet again, each heartbeat precious, running out count down the seconds so I don’t miss a single one.

Ten, nine, eight, three, two, one, gone where now is the rhythm of lazy summer days? as the moments flow by like water down a rapid river slip through my fingers I tumble with them down the violent stream of time. count down the seconds so I don’t miss a single one.

Ten, nine, eight, three, two, one, gone where now is the rhythm of lazy summer days? as the moments flow by like water down a rapid river slip through my fingers I tumble with them down the violent stream of time.

you are the sound of my body aching to the chatter of my friends making plans for September they are moving on with life together while I’ll be moving out their lives alone, and the ticket on my desk is ticking, seconds seeking refuge in the past a reminder: It’ll all be over, soon you will be gone.

Dear August, cradle me in your arms, this one last night, in humid air that feels like thunderstorm arriving deeply grumbling in the distance let me float without worrying through the charged and saturated air feeling fleeting like a firefly, like you and I like all the moments, August.

The end is an icy breeze, autumn reaching after me I can feel it creeping into me Feel how you’re losing hold of me, seconds pouring out of me like sand down a bottomless hourglass faster and faster and faster falling faster and faster and faster August, August!

I know we’ll meet again, who knows in what form or shape -who knows when.

I knew it would happen, but who knew it’d be so soon.

As I watch you pack your warmth into a little box and tape it up for storage all I can do is stand still and watch you leave hit the bottom of reality while the scent of sunscreen and ice cream lingers only to fade to memory.

I FORGIVE YOU, ENGLISH SPEAKERS

by Sam Nelson

I forgive you. I forgive you if you’ve ever said this phrase. You may not want nor need my forgiveness, but you have it anyway.

Let me tell you why.

As a teacher of modern foreign languages, I am accustomed to understanding people when I travel. For instance, when I travelled around Latin America a couple of years ago, it was a breeze. Likewise, when I visit France or Belgium I have no problems understanding or communicating with people. Even my resurgent GCSE German has surprised me on trips to Hamburg and Berlin. But since I’ve been living in Greece this semester, I think I finally get it. I now understand what it feels like to only speak one language.

Now, this inevitably makes me sound like I’m some sort of all-powerful languages machine, blissfully chatting away to the locals while smirking at my less enlightened countrymen; this, however, is certainly not the case. But being a linguist does put you in a minority amongst native English speakers. I guess I’ve been in a little comprehension bubble, mainly travelling in countries in which I speak the lingo. All that changed when I moved to Greece.

I must confess that I knew very little Greek before I arrived in Athens. Aside from a well-known expletive beginning with ‘m’ and the mandatory ‘Opa!’ as your crockery smashes into smithereens, I pretty much didn’t have a clue how to speak it. “But I’m a linguist! How hard could it be?” I thought to myself, and set myself the target of being conversationally proficient by the time I left - in three months. No probs.

Three months later, I realise how wrong I was. There were several barriers to me learning Greek, and they are as follows: Greek is pretty dissimilar to most languages.

I was under the illusion that Greek couldn’t be that difficult. Well, it has a different alphabet for a start, which - thanks to the Roman alphabet transcriptions on the Metro - wasn’t too hard to work out. The main problem then is working out what they actually mean. The issue is that there are very few direct cognates, aside from some prefixes, suffixes and scientific terms. ‘Megalo’, for instance, means big, and you can work out for yourself what ‘micro’ means. Apart from phrases like these, there’s a lot of vocabulary to learn. This is because the Romance and Germanic languages to which I’m accustomed are on completely different branches of the ‘language family tree’.

Three months simply isn’t long enough.

Learning a language takes a long time. I should know - I first started learning French and German twenty-one years ago. I’ve been a Spanish speaker eighteen years, and I certainly wouldn’t say I’m perfect even after all those years. When I arrived in Greece, I assumed I’d just pick it up as I went along, but it really doesn’t work like that. I intended to get some lessons, but as is always the case, life gets in the way.

Practice makes perfect, and I clearly didn’t get enough of it. I have actually got to the point where I can order things in a restaurant and in a café, and often the waiter replies in Greek. This is very gratifying despite then having to concede that I didn’t have any more words to continue the conversation.

Everyone speaks English.

I hate this phrase. In my first year of teaching, I had a few very disaffected students who would delight in trotting out this worn-out excuse at every opportunity. “We go on holiday every year sir, and everyone speaks English. What’s the point in learning Spanish?” As much as I’ve grown to loathe this phrase, it is ridiculous to deny that English has become the lingua franca of the modern world. If a French person and a Japanese person meet in a hostel in Italy, which language do they speak? Clearly, English is the logical choice. And this is true of Greece as well. It may not be true to say that everyone speaks English here, but you can most certainly get by without ever uttering a work of Greek.

I guess this brings me to my point: I now get what it’s like to go abroad and not understand what’s going on around you, having to rely on strangers to communicate in your own language. I know what it’s like to try to speak to the locals in their language, only to be shot down in flames when they respond to you in English with an exasperated tone - although I must add that this does not happen very often in Greece.

But - and this is the real point - it doesn’t mean that there is no value to learning some basic phrases wherever you go. For every person that has given me a brusque reply in English, there have been twenty who have absolutely beamed when I’ve fooled them into thinking I can speak Greek. All of the phrases I’ve picked up have been through contact with friendly locals. I know zesti is ‘hot’ from the lovely couple that run the coffee shop next to the school. I know scietto is what I say to avoid my cappuccino freddo being unnecessarily sweetened. I know stripsi is ‘turn’ from my fabulous Athenian lindy hop teacher. Every encounter with a local is an opportunity to learn, and it’s one of the things I love about travel.

So yes, I forgive you native English speakers. It is difficult and I know how it feels. I get it. But I also know how it feels to make the effort to speak another language and have it pay off, and there’s nothing quite like it.

FEMINISM WAS INSPIRING BUT NOT ANYMORE

by Victor A.

FEMINISM has evolved exponentially since its advent. It has become one of the most diverse movements in the terms of the range ideologies that consider themselves as ‘feminists’.

The idea for equality has been noted to extend as far back as 24 centuries ago. Plato, according to Elaine Hoffman Baruch, “[argued] for the total political and sexual equality of women, advocating that they be members of his highest class, those who rule and fight”, and this is what feminism used to stand for.

It first started to appear publicly in the west during 19th and early 20th century, advocating for women’s legal rights specifically women’s suffrage; At this time, feminists were looked down upon by society, but due to women’s exemplary contribution to the war efforts, they were provided with their deserved rights.

This came to be known as first wave feminism.

This was followed by the second stream of feminism around 1960’s to 1980’s, which opened the debate on cultural inequalities, gender norms & women’s role in society. The goals of this wave were achieved to some degree, though not universally, as the women in the west enjoy a more liberal, humane, and equal social mindset.

Then in the 90’s, second stream feminism evolved into third tide of feminism, which did not & does not have a very directed or singular aim. There are various groups which call themselves feminist and advocate for something more than female equality, some fight for female superiority.

Though the original idea of feminism was inspiring and righteous, what feminism has diminished into today, makes it sexist in itself. Nowadays many a feminists believe that only by reversing the sexist social system which was prevalent in the past, can we achieve women’s rights Due to the increasing trend of sexist feminism, many men & women have had epiphanies that has led them to distance themselves from being referred to as ‘feminist’. This is because radical feminists have built their argument on a foundation of male guilt, blatant falsehoods and demonization of men.

Hardcore feminists have a penchant for making over-the-top statements like “male-female pay gap is exponential”, “chivalry is sexist”, “english is a sexist language”, “women have sex to have a relationship, men have a relationship to have sex” and “women don’t need men to reproduce #science”. ‘Misinformed generalization’ is how one could effectively describe these statements.

Though, it is true that the ‘pay-gap’ is visibly a whopping 23% according to statistics, but this number doesn’t account for account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week. While keeping these key factors in mind, the pay gap is nothing but a myth.

Feminism used to be about making real changes, not tokenistic gestures. Just because a guy holds the door for a girl does not mean that the guy assumes the girl to be incapable of opening the door, it’s nothing but a gesture of ubuntu and friendliness.

Freshmen, is a term used to address first year students in college. It contains the suffix ‘men’ due to the sad fact that in the past, the majority of college students were male. In the contemporary society, ‘freshmen’ is used only for the sake of conciseness instead of ‘first year students’.

Another aspect of modern feminism that I feel trepidation towards is how unreceptive it is of genuine observations. I remember doing ecological fieldwork in grange-over-sands field station which required us to collect worms in pitch-black. After we returned from the spooky wander-about, my biology teacher said,”You girls are really scared of those creepy crawlies, aren’t ya”. The response came in form of a wailing scream, “Whaaaatttt, That’s sexist”. In a calm manner the teacher responded “I did not see any boys screaming out there”. Here, the fact that girls at the field station were said to be scared of worms, not girls in general, so it does not make it sexist.

I understand that man-hating has become synonymous with feminism, but it is evident that a good portion of feminists do satisfy this ‘requirement’. I find it quite hypocritical how, many feminists call men “pigs” while fighting against generalisation of women. It is not hard to find their behaviour and ideals contradictory and duplicitous.

Let’s compare Emma Watson’s, a renowned women’s rights activist .and Bumble’s, a ‘feminist’ dating app, views on what they consider feminist. The definition of feminism according to Malala Yousafzai and Emma Watson is equality. Whereas, Bumble thinks that an app where ‘women call the shots’ is feminist and therefore equal? It’s clear that there are some major inconsistency here.

A big issue that contributes to the discrepancies in feminist ideals if the tendency to follow trends amongst youngsters. One person becomes vegan, all of them try to. One person gets a haircut, all of them do. One of them builds an extreme feminist ideology, all of them adopt it.

In hindsight the reality of the situation is that the women in western societies have a much more equal social structure than someone living under the constant ire of the taliban or ISIS. Girls like Malala are the true knights of true feminism, not western women arguing why they should not shave and should dye their armpit hair neon green.

A major content of feminist arguments are made up of stats and facts that were true five to seven decades ago. In the US for the first time in 2011 women held 51.4 percent of all jobs in the management/ professional positions, while claiming 46.6 percent of the jobs in the entire labor force. It is clear that time have changed, although there still sexist dimwits, we have a much better world, thanks to some extent to early feminism.

Feminism does not only lack a universal philosophy, but is barely a uniform ideology. So, by all means lets applaud the achievements of early feminism but also recognize the need for a new term to associate people who want EQUALITY not superiority of one sex.

IT’S DARK

by Utkarsha V.

It’s dark, the pure moonlight illuminates the grass we are sitting on, the grass stuck to my bare feet and to his sleek, black Louis Vuitton derbys. You’re beautiful, he says, caressing my hand with his thumb, How can you tell that, Who cannot... look at your eyes, shining with genuinity and softness just like the view outside my apartment hovering over the city of Paris, your blushing cheeks which remind of rosy cherry blossoms over my rooftop in Japan- you remind of many things, you remind me of happiness and good times. He leans forward to kiss me but I turn away, Do not, why, because your definition of love is still unclear to me, is love just my face? Is it just something that reminds you of your billion dollar houses all over the world? Or is it just something you say to every woman you meet while sitting on the grass wearing those obnoxious Louis Vuitton derbys? You’re the only woman I have ever truly loved, that’s too superficial, no it isn’t sweetheart, I feel love only for you, with you, I can’t imagine of a world without you.

I don’t utter a word and I keep listening to him prattling about all the words that have so much meaning to them yet don’t impact me in any way. Words are like that, a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, anything, they deceive their way into our hearts, and for a split second we feel warm and touched but over time they coagulate our blood vessels, they clog up our nerves, then our bronchi and then the windpipe until we can’t help but suffocate and choke under the pressure of these words and we ultimately push into oblivion all the words of love, trust, hope and joy that seem to have no meaning anymore- maybe the meaning got lost along the way, or maybe they did not mean anything in the first place, but at this point it doesn’t matter where the words came from and all you can do is leave behind the burden of false glorification and consolation and move on. One needs nerves of steel to overcome the debilitating effect of words. I suppose my nerves have comprehended the reality of these words, they won’t accept any, they won’t give any, the words will pass through my ears and as soon as they hit my eardrums they’ll evaporate then and there. That is why I’m sitting here feeling nothing towards him, feeling no love or sentiment as I listen to all these words- I face away from the deceiving words and face towards the harsh reality, face the veracity, and face towards what I call a genuine, unhindered existence.

I love you so much, here he goes again, another attempt to force meaning into words, he doesn’t realize how purposeless and insignificant his speech has become, but, I don’t expect him to realize anything anyway, I don’t have expectations from someone that worthless-his worth lies in the amount of money in his bank and the number women he can deceive with false declarations of love. How many women have you told this to, I laugh, I told you already you’re the only one, the reason why anything you might say doesn’t means nothing to me in the grand scheme of things is because you don’t say you lie, stop it, why, because I don’t want to hear it, now you know how I feel every time you speak. He grabs my shoulder so hard it hurts, I stare back at him with dead eyes, ask me about the others again and, and what?... and you’ll face the consequences, is this a warning, maybe it is, like you warned other women when they figured out the monster lurking behind your fake affection…? He harshly squeezes my shoulders and pushes me to the ground, my mouth fills with grass, and I see the last glimpse of those obnoxious Louis Vuitton derbys before he disappears into the darkness. You’re the only woman I love, he doesn’t know that I know about every woman he has ‘loved’ and told this to, I know the woman he loved on his trip to Japan the one with the long eyelashes, I know the woman he loved in Washington, the blonde one with the bold features, I know the woman he loved in Singapore, the one with impeccable style, I know the woman he loved in Toronto, the tall one with contact lenses, I know the woman he loved in Australia, the one who was muscular and fit yet very charming. I know every woman he has claimed to love and I won’t tell him how, when, or why because I have dug in deep, deeper than his darkest of lies, deeper than the meaning of what he calls ‘love’, I have dug into his entire life, I have dug into the lives of those women and I have witnessed the pain and torture they felt under his love and sexual assault, I have witnessed every sorrow he bestowed upon them, I have witnessed their shattered lives and their heartbreaking faces, I have witnessed the aftermath of his darkest crimes, I have witnessed what he called love was just blatant misuse of those women and their dignity, I have witnessed him not as a lover but as a rapist, and I won’t tell him how, when or why.

I walk inside the room and see him sprawled on his giant, velvet bed, dreaming about something that is certainly atrocious but he is savouring it, I can see him grin and my body, after a long time feels an emotion, that is definitely not love, but just as strong. Hate permeates every fibre of being as I watch this man is peacefully lying on his bed after destroying so many lives... The woman he met in Japan is now living alone with her parents, away from the world, ashamed to show her face because of something she isn’t even responsible for, the woman in Washington, she is trying to provide a decent life to her children who’ll never know the monster their father was, the woman in Singapore, all she would say was ‘he raped me’ ‘he forced me’ and she repeated those words until her throat was raw, the woman in Toronto, I never saw her grey contact lenses again because all she could do was cry, the woman in Australia, she told me she tried to report him but her attempts were in vain because he bribed her ‘close’ ones to refuse to be witnesses. So it definitely wasn’t love, it was just a series of deceiving words, fake affection and finally sex without love or consent. I know, I just know, he is imagining his next crime in his sleep, his next victim, another life to disintegrate to nothingness, and that life might be mine. My eyes desperately look around the room and I see a knife neatly piercing the skin of an apple as red as my fury. I soundlessly glide towards the knife and slide my fingers across the sparkling, sharp edge of the knife. I walk towards his bed, a sudden calm overcoming my senses, but at the same time I concentrate every broken memory and agony from every person he has hurt into the hand holding the knife, I slowly bend down until I’m inches away from the face of the man who claims to have loved me, like he claimed to every other person he assaulted. I realize that I need to end this now... I raise my hand and stab him into his throat, that emitted innumerable lies. A little cry escapes his mouth and his eyes jolt open before the blood stains the clean, white pillow. I stand there, tears trickling down my face, I feel like a murderer, I am a murderer, I’ve killed someone, and I’m guilty yet strangely satisfied, because this man did horrendous things that are more excruciating than death, He told those people he loved them, but then he raped them, prevented them from against him, ruined their future, misused lives and love and integrity and just like he always told me I took his breath away, and now I have, literally. If those people lost their souls and lives, if they lost a chance to live, I unfortunately could not take his soul away, but I could his life, and I had to so I did, as he did not deserve to live.

I walk away from the blood and his lies and pull out a photograph that I have always carried in my wallet, my eyes meet the kind blue ones, and my tears drip into his first victims happy face, and I can finally breathe easy knowing I have taken revenge for not only all those poor women, but for my brother who smiled for the last time when I took this picture.

‘Smile! Don’t laugh, the camera is losing it focus!, No! Stop it!, Good gracious, quit laughing so hard, let me take a picture before your new boyfriend get’s scared and runs away…..Click!’

IN MY ELEMENT: WHY I BOTH LOVE AND HATE THE SKY

by Danielle R. I could hear them breathing beside me in the same way that I could feel the wetness of the sand I laid on.

I could hear and feel them, but yet their existence did not impact me. For in that moment, all that resonated was the night. Gone was the brain chatter. Gone were the file cabinets of thoughts and ideas. The same cabinets that somehow manage to squeeze a ‘Friends’ reference into every file. They had been slammed shut at last, their bulky presence masked by a blanket of new snow. And my mind was empty.

And my head was clear. And in that moment, I was only thinking of the landscape that was stretched before me. Stretched like a cat doing yoga. Stretched like a piece of truth that cannot afford to be told in it’s entirety. Stretched across the horizon like a secret that does not know it can be seen. Amongst all that stretching a memory sprung up, moving at a million miles an hour when everything else was in slow-mo.

If you have ever met me, it will not surprise you that I was, and still am, an incredibly imaginative kid. In consequence, my childhood was bursting with games of make-believe in which my friends and I would star as supernatural beings of some sort or another. The games were always of our own making and always extremely obscure. The trigger for the creation of my favorite was the discovery of an Ancient Greek belief. Centuries and centuries ago, Greek Philosophers thought everything was composed of four elements; earth, water, air and fire. Promptly and predictably this became a personality test scrawled on cootie catchers and eventually made its way onto the playground where we would all choose an element to channel. The game developed into an incredibly intricate universe of our own creation wherein dramatic battles and blow-ups were far from seldom. The characters fluctuated regularly, their permanence more improbable than their transience. But where I was concerned, one thing was clear. I would rotate between the elements of fire and earth and sometimes even water, but air was one I always refused to adopt. The reason for such evasion was articulated by a reading of the Greek creation myth.

Even though the focus of the tale was on something much bigger, I couldn’t help but feel like this part, this segment illustrated everything I felt about the invisible element. I don’t remember it word for word or anything but it went something like this; ‘After the war against the Titans the three immortal brothers sat in a circle drawing lots for who would rule which parts of our young world. Zeus, being the oldest and the hero of the tale thus far, got to go first and, not without some pride, claimed the sky. Poseidon looked on with some amusement, not jealous in the slightest. He knew his brother had picked the sky because it’s insurmountable height and size made it seem important. Poseidon’s brother was the kind of man who liked power, and was good at wielding it.

The sky, with all of it’s void largess personified that desire. Rolling his eyes at Zeus’ need to rule over such an empty, vapid space void of any true inhabitants, Poseidon promptly picked the sea to preside over.

It was what he wanted anyhow; oceans were bristling with life where skies were empty, exciting where skies were banal.’

Thus, I’ve never been much of a sky person, preferring the lively flickering of a fire to the lifeless space.

The way I see it, skies are nothing but empty. Void of any true inhabitants, used solely as a temporary grounds of voyage. Like a highway really, only with less to look at. Flying too, has never caught my interest. It all seems mighty uncomfortable if you ask me. Suspending yourself with sheer will-power? Having the wind thump against your organs? And wouldn’t it be freezing as well? To me, teleportation always seemed like the more enjoyable choice.

I guess that’s why it’s so surprising I place such a value on what the sky looks like at all. But really, thinking back on the moments I classify to have been the most beautiful, a surprising number of them involve that empty space that rests on the horizon. Stars in particular have caught my interest over the years. I see them as one of the only remaining proofs of magic on this earth.

I don’t like counting them. No. Quite honestly I can never muster up enough enthusiasm for the activity.

From my eyes, a more frustrating break-down of something whole does not exist anywhere else, except perhaps in the over-analysis of an author’s word choice. However, I suppose I am biased, since I have never really been one for counting, always preferring to make rough estimates on life. My estimates have gotten more accurate over the years. In a few more decades of avoiding numerical ordering, I should be a pro at those guessing games at carnivals . I have a whole future of buttered popcorn jelly-bellies to look forward to, but I’ll get to that eventually. At the moment I am more interested in the pensive observation of the sky than in the facts and figures that shroud it.

And so it was that I ended up on that beach that night in New Zealand. The night when I could hear the breathing of the people next to me and feel the coolness of the sand I layed on without their existence impacting me. The night that the file cabinets got slammed shut and I simply stared at the horizon. And so it was that I sat staring into the near godly star-scape spread in front of my eyes, not counting, just inhaling. I stood entranced by the tapestry of sea and stars that nature had created seemingly for our sake alone. Prompted by the landscape, a myth from another time and people came floating to the surface of my mind; “The Ancient Egyptians believed that the sky and earth were two divine beings named Nut and Geb who, in spite of their intense love for one another were not allowed to embrace should the sky come crashing down upon the soil. Thus, they were kept at distance forever pining for one another, never meeting. The only consolation they had was after the sun would set and Nut in star-form could rest as close to earthly-Geb as she could get.”

Egyptian mythology has never been my favorite; I have never felt the same connection with it as I have with the Greek. Yet, as I looked at the stars and sky bound seamlessly to one another that night, I was suddenly sure there was some truth to the story of Nut and Geb. Suddenly sure they were bonded by something more than just proximity. The universe came together that night. We as people remained relatively unchanged, but nature was bonded in that moment. The sea and sky, forever held at bay, were united as one. The stars spilled onto the water in much the same way as an amateur watercolorist allows the paints to run into one another. Land was scattered across the middle of the scene identifiable only by a small break in the stars. One land-form in particular caught my eye and didn’t let go. It resembled a whale and, though not ground-shattering, it was enough to keep me from hitting reality like a brick wall.

And so it is that, in spite of my distaste for the sky during daylight, I cannot help but love the stars. Maybe it’s their similarity to fire, my favorite element, but I’m not going to over-analyze it. A brooding scientist would tell me that they are just burning balls of light somewhere far away, but I don’t buy it. I don’t buy the existence of space either, to be honest, but that is just a simple case of mind over matter. No, stars are more than that. Stars represent everything that is right in this world where so much is wrong. They are beacons and lifelines, wishes, dreams and nightmares. They remain mysterious even after all their mysteries have been solved. They are the rolling credits at the end of the movie and the lion’s roar at the beginning. They are constant, ever-shining but incredibly evasive. Pinpricks in the inky canvas, glitches in painted paper. They are everything and nothing. They are magic.