The Open Book

Scribblings of an aspiring author

[blotsonapage]

There Is No Peace

There is no peace in my silence. Words claw at my throat, up, up, up, from the field of carnage where words long dead lie broken, strangled at conception.

Yet to keep the peace with you I keep silent. And bury myself, down, down, down, into the abyss of an unmarked grave where a soul made of words lies smothered. Never to be found.

[blotsonapage]

Dear Someday Someone

Dear someday someone, How are you? How was your day? I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to ask you in person One day, someday. 

Last night I had a dream about you And though your face was blurred, I could still tell That it was was you By the softness of your touch And by the way my ever-lonely heart Ached to be close to yours And match its beating To the tempo of your life. 

When I close my eyes, I can almost see you, A pastel blur in the morning light. You hand me tea in my favorite mug, The one that’s chipped from years of use, And laugh at the way I gulp it down Because I hate the morning, But still want to be awake just to share it with you. And it doesn’t feel like a Someday. It feels like a Now. It feels like a Currently until I open my eyes And the dream returns to what it always was. A dream. 

In the silence of my apartment I can’t help but wonder if that’s all it will ever be. If you, my someday someone, Are nothing more than the smoke and mirrors The universe employs to trick me into believing in magic. A fairytale For a soul not ready to grow up And accept she’s alone. 

I am so afraid of being alone.

Where are you, my someday someone? Why won’t you appear at my side? Don’t you hear the way my heart cries Like the wind before a storm, Begging for you to come find me So this heart doesn’t shatter into a million pieces. Into fragments of a dream That can never be told again. 

I long for you, My someday someone. I long for your smile, Your laughter, your tears. Your days spent in bed, And those on the road. I long to just be near you, To share in your hopes, Your dreams, your fears. To stand at your side And defy the whole world To try and tear us apart. 

I long to share a pastel morning Bathed in soft sunlight, Hearing your warm laughter As I drink from a faded, chipped mug. 

But I will be patient, my someone, As I’ve been all along, And dream of the day I can finally ask, One day, someday, 

How are you, my someone? How was today?

[blotsonapage]

How To: Build an Interstellar Terrarium

Published in the 2017 VAST zine

1. So you want to make an interstellar terrarium. Awesome! Interstellar terrariums are great for so many different reasons! For pleasure, for profit, for that home-away-from-home feeling while out in deep space: each terrarium is unique in its conception. So then the first step to creating an interstellar terrarium is to figure out why you want to create a terrarium, and how much money and time you’re willing to put into it. This will help you determine what kind of interstellar terrarium you are able to create.

A. The letter is sitting on the counter when Joss comes home, right next to the small, green sticky note covered in her boyfriend’s cramped writing about him having a late night at work tonight and could Joss fix him up some dinner for when he gets home, please? She narrows her eyes at the note. There’s been a lot more of those lately, all asking her to make this or do that for Wyatt because he’ll be way too worn out from work to do it himself. Nevermind the fact that he never offers to do the same for her when he happens to come home first. Or that Joss’s work is just as demanding as his. That she comes home with exhaustion clinging to her very bones more often than not. An exhaustion that only gets heavier whenever she spies the green sticky notes in the kitchen instead of Wyatt. Today, however, was a slow, peaceful day for her, and she’s not nearly as tired as she normally would be. So she ignores the little sparks of discontent the sticky note conjures and sets some water to boil on their electric stove. She decides to read the letter as she waits.

B. The letter is a proposal, of sorts. A project. One that pays much more than her current stint mining ice from Saturn’s moons, at least. It’s from the Intergalactic Association for the Conservation of Endangered Organisms, which she knows is a pretty big deal. The political push for preservation and native purity in recent years has made the IACEO one of the most well-respected organizations in the entire galaxy. So why they would come to her for this project is beyond Joss. She might be known for her terrarium work, but it’s been years since her last attempt at something of this scale, and never anything with such a definite purpose. Grassland terrariums are difficult enough to create without adding actual animals to it, but that’s exactly what the IACEO wants, and they’re willing to pay a fortune to see it done. It makes Joss nervous and excited in all the right ways. She’d be a complete idiot to pass this chance up.

C. Eventually the pot on her stove boils over, but Joss doesn’t notice. She calls the HR department of the IACEO to discuss details and just lets the frothy water spill over the sides of the pot and drip into a large puddle on her kitchen floor.

2. Once you’ve decided on what kind of terrarium you’d like to create, it’s time to choose your asteroid! Knowing what kind of terrarium you’ll be building is especially important to this, as any terrarium dealing with animals will necessarily have to be bigger. The most common suggestion for wildlife terrariums is an asteroid measuring at least three hundred kilometers in diameter. If you are simply creating a biome terrarium, any size of asteroid will do. Consult with your local asteroid farming companies to choose an asteroid right for you!

A. Joss goes through an old company situated between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud that is reliable, but steeply priced. There are cheaper companies that farm from the inner asteroid belt that she might have contracted if this had been a personal project, but this terrarium is not and the shoddy quality of their asteroids just isn’t worth the lower price. Not when the IACEO plans to later refund whatever purchase she makes. Not when she can finally afford the best of the best. And when the Kuiper company shows her a suitably-sized asteroid with the perfect conditions for a grassland terrarium, she buys it without hesitation, even with its six-figure price tag.

B. “What is this?” Wyatt demands a week later, on one of those rare days they both have work off and can share their apartment space on Titan together. He’s holding his data pad, and when he crowds beside Joss at the kitchen table—when did this apartment suddenly become so small?—she can see it’s pulled up to their joint bank account, which currently reflects their balance after her recent asteroid purchase. It’s much, much lower than it used to be. “What is this?” he demands again. He’s angry. His eyes are narrowed and his mouth is stretched thin and there’s a little twitch in his cheek because of how tight his jaw’s clenched. It’s his fighting face. The face he wears when his patience is stretched so thin that a single word from her will shatter it. Joss knows better than to tell him about the IACEO contract when he’s in this state. Knows better than to tell him when he can’t see past his cold disdain for terrarium architects, even despite the large figure of money she’ll be getting in return for her work. She tells him anyways, and then winces when he slams his data pad against the table. “If you’re just going to play around, then do it without wasting my hard-earned money.”

3. Next you’ll need to prepare your asteroid for the terrarium process. You can do this either manually with your own set of power drills or by hiring a terrarium automaton. Most asteroid farming companies will have one available for rent, but while the process is made easier with an automaton many people dislike the lack of personal touch an automaton gives their terrarium. Either way, you should begin by drilling a small opening on one side of the asteroid. From there it’s just the process of carving out the asteroid’s inside and removing any ice from its surface. Make sure the outer crust maintains a thickness of at least ten feet all around. And save the ice you remove for later. It will come in handy.

A. Joss isn’t really sure how or why her romantic relationship with Wyatt started. It seems like an important thing she should know, but for the life of her she just can’t remember. She recalls how they met on an ice mining rig out on Europa a few years back, when she was distracting herself from her father’s slow decline in health by carving sculptures into the ice and he was just trying to earn enough to pay his bills, and she recalls when they started meeting up outside their shared work space to knock back a few drinks and bemoan the state of the ice industry, but she doesn’t remember when it became more. It simply did. One day she woke up next to him and realized that things were different. That Wyatt was now a foreman over several ice rigs, and that they were now a thing, and that now she had a place on Titan she called home, and somehow everything had changed. Everything except for her. She wonders now, as she chips away at her asteroid’s interior, if maybe that’s why she and Wyatt worked so well together for so long. If her falling into the static rhythm of Wyatt’s life allowed them to function, allowed her to ignore many of the things that now drive her crazy. She wonders too when her life somehow became Wyatt’s life instead, and where she as an individual fits into this puzzle that apparently has no room for her personal dips and curves.

B. Joss doesn’t come up with an answer, but it’s a thought to ponder.

4. Once you have finished carving out your asteroid and installed a hatchway to seal off your entrance, you’ll need to do some chemical blending around the interior to prepare the surface for your biome. Most asteroids are rich in iron, carbon, and nickel, but lack every other nutrient necessary for plants to survive. This can be fixed through a quick spritz of a store-bought chemical concoction, installing an atmospheric simulator, some solar simulators, and then letting it all simmer through a few days of uninterrupted heat.  

A. When the asteroid is carved out it curves several hundred miles over Joss’s head— so high up she can only see a canopy of black shadows that not even her industrial-grade spotlights can cut through. They illuminate her immediate surroundings, show the slight curvature of dark brown, barren rock beneath her feet and the web of tiny fissures left from carved out ice in every direction, but she can’t see the far-off lift of spherical walls or the rock ceiling she knows is overhead. She’ll have to install solar simulators throughout the sphere before that becomes visible. And she’ll need to calibrate the asteroid’s rotation and gravity before she can even get close to it. But those are later steps. For now, she focuses on what’s right in front of her and bends down to press a hand against the cracked surface. It’s not as smooth as she expected it to be, given the expensive drilling machinery she was working with, but maybe that’s better. It’s more natural this way. Perhaps it’ll help the land better absorb the chemicals she needs to cover it with. The more nutrients absorbed, the better the terrarium will be after all, and Joss needs this to be perfect. Absolutely flawless. The IACEO will accept nothing less. And neither will she.

B. Wyatt yells at her over the video call she just barely remembers to make before heading off to sleep. He’s not happy. He doesn’t like how this project is consuming her. Doesn’t like how long she’s been away. Doesn’t like how messy their apartment has become in her absence. “Well so what?” Joss snaps, because she’s tired and all he’s been doing lately is complaining and she just can’t take it anymore. “You’re a big boy. You have hands and feet. Clean up after yourself for once.” Wyatt glares at her for that comment, then hangs up on her without another word. When she tries calling him again the next day, he doesn’t answer. Or on the day after that. Or the day after that.

C. Joss eventually stops trying to call him at all.

5. It’s now time to bring in your biome! Most terrarium stores sell all the supplies you’ll need to get started. If you’re creating a water-based terrarium, however, you will need to acquire your water from a different source, such as ice mining. All other biomes should be able to find their seeds and saplings at any terrarium store. From there, you just need to evenly disperse the seeds across the asteroid surface and begin the weather process with the atmospheric simulator. The terrarium should take care of the rest!

A. After a month of no contact, Wyatt begins filling up her inbox with more and more messages, all of which Joss steadfastly ignores. It’s a little bit freeing to be able to focus on her work without having to listen to all of Wyatt’s complaints. She digs her hands into the ground as she plants wild grasses and savors the rich, moist feeling of dirt between her fingers. Savors the scent of fresh grass and marula fruit. Savors the burning ache in her back and arms from all the hours of just digging and planting, acre by acre across the entire asteroid. She’d forgotten how much she loved this. How had she forgotten? Getting her hands dirty, coaxing forth life, creating her own world in peaceful solitude. How could she forget this? But in the absence of Wyatt’s hovering and pointed comments, the feelings return ten-fold to Joss, and she’s reminded of why she started making terrariums in the first place. It feels like a rediscovery. Or perhaps the dusting off of a treasure kept in storage for far too long.

B. There are a few other things she remembers loving as well. Hot, strong tea in the early morning, and the weightless feel of space as she floats around her asteroid, and being able to spread out in her own bed without fear of disturbing another body. These she remembers later, as the weeks pass by. As she allows herself to experience all the things she left behind when she bent her way into Wyatt’s life. Puzzle pieces finally slotting together to create the picture they were always meant to show.

C. She also learns she doesn’t like being ordered around or tied to one place. Especially when it means sacrificing something she loves. Even more so when that sacrifice is being made for something she doesn’t love as much.

D. On a whim, she opens one of Wyatt’s messages. “Come home,” it says. Just that. Just a blunt demand without any sort of apology or explanation. Joss closes the message, and then she deletes it. She deletes all the rest of his messages along with it.

6. For simple biome terrariums, this is the end of your process. For terrariums intended to include wildlife, you’ll need to wait about one more month before introducing any animals into the environment. It is important that you make sure to only include animals meant for your chosen biome, and that you don’t introduce them all at once. Start slowly and work your way up the food chain. Balance is key to maintaining a healthy ecosystem. You don’t want it to collapse!

A. The IACEO wants the terrarium to be an incredibly diverse representation of savannas on Earth. They provide her with elephants and lions and zebras and rhinos, and all other types of animals that fill endangered species lists. Joss has her work cut out for her, really. Introducing them all to the terrarium will take several months and quite a bit of patience. So she starts small. She starts from the bottom of the food chain and brings a few mice into the terrarium. And then a few antelopes. And then a few hares. She releases them into this new home with all the food and space they could desire. Then she settles in to wait.

B. Joss remembers her first terrarium—a small, bumpy asteroid she’d gotten for her thirteenth birthday that, as far as she knows, is still in orbit around Mars, where she grew up. She remembers chipping away at its innards, and planting a garden full of rare, Earth-grown herbs for her mother to use, and the awe she’d felt at seeing the small, green sprouts shoot up from the curved ground like a lush carpet. It was that moment which made her fall in love with terrariums. That wonder and joy and fascination. The same mixture of emotions she sees in the antelopes and hares as they explore their new home, leaping across the grasslands in a rush of wild freedom.

C. She wants to feel that way again.

7. The final step in creating your interstellar terrarium is to decide on where it goes. Many people leave it in orbit around the planet they’re currently living on, but you can also launch it out to different star systems if you so desire. Simply install a small engine to the asteroid’s exterior and set a course. Then watch it rocket away into space!

A. She finishes the terrarium and presents it to the IACEO. They’re delighted with her work. It’s exactly what they were hoping for, and will be the perfect vessel to transport these animals to the Trappist-1 star system, where the Terran conservation efforts are currently located. Joss is a little sad to see it go. She’s become attached. But this is what the terrarium was created for, and she knows keeping it here will only waste its potential. The terrarium has its own journey to complete. It’s better to let it go.

B. She returns to the apartment on Titan, but only to get her things. Wyatt watches in silence as she loads box after cardboard box of possessions into the cargo ship she’s rented to take her god-knows-where. Maybe she’ll go back to Mars for a bit to see her family. Or maybe she’ll go to Earth for some inspiration. Maybe Venus, or Europa, or Ganymede. Maybe to another star system altogether. Just somewhere, anywhere, far away from here. Somewhere she can be on her own. Somewhere she can create.

C. Joss takes a final, silent look about the apartment—at the small bedroom and smaller kitchen and the stack of green sticky notes still sitting on the counter, blank for once without Wyatt’s spiked handwriting filling the space—then picks up her stuffed duffle bag.

D. She gives the key back to Wyatt as she leaves.

E. She doesn’t look back.

[blotsonapage]

About Me

Hi. My name is Allie. I’m 22 years old, 5’2,” and weigh about 105 pounds. So light a strong wind can knock me around Like I’m not even there. 

I am an Aquarius. Which I guess, From all the online descriptions, Means I am        Truthful        Original        Compassionate But also        Temperamental        Uncompromising        Indifferent        Aloof.

I’m still not sure if I agree. I don’t see a lot of myself In those lines.

I like cats, But dogs are ok too. As long as they are small And can be cared for With my small supply of energy. Not much left to spare After the struggle of simply living From day to day. 

I have one older sibling, A sister, Whom I’ve always wanted to be Because being myself Has never seemed enough. Not for my teachers. Not for my parents. Not for me. 

From the age of twelve, My mind has made sure to remind me You will never be enough, You will never be enough, I will never be enough.

No matter how hard I try, I will always fall short Of the expectations My sister has set That cover my open mouth Like a wet cloth. Smothering me. 

I didn’t even know what that felt like Until I tried it in the shower one night And decided There must be an easier way to die Than this. 

I’ve never dated. 4% of me thinks The guys I’ve met are just blind. The other 96% thinks I myself am the problem.

I’m weak to a guy with a kind smile And ink stains on his fingers But maybe I’m asking too much. Maybe I should Lower my standards. Maybe I’m just Not enough. Even in this.

I like to write. To cut open my heart And pour all the words I can never seem to say Across a blank page Because it’s the only way I can speak. The only way I can exist. When I don’t write, It feels like I can’t breathe. Like I’m smothering All over again But this time I can’t decide When it’s time To stop.

I write so that someone will be able to see me. That my words will have meaning Beyond my own mind. That I can finally have value. That I can Be Enough. 

And maybe One day I will be. 

Maybe one day This will be Enough.

My name is Allie. I’m 22 years old, 5’2,” and weigh about 105 pounds. So light a strong wind can knock me around Like I’m not even there. 

But thank God that words have weight. I’d hate to be blown away Before getting the chance To be alive.

[blotsonapage]

Carved in Ice

Sport /spôrt/ noun

an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. 

I’m fourteen when it first happens. There is no warning. No dramatic moment where time pauses and I come to a realization over what’s about to happen. I have no time to think, or even to catch myself on the way down. One second I’m practicing the footwork sequence of my competition routine, and the next I’m spread out flat across the ice, head stinging, vision blurring, unable to move or make sense of where I am.

My coaches have to carry me off the ice. My mom has to unlace and take off my skates. I can only sit on one of the benches in the lobby of the ice rink and hold a cold compress to the back of my head until the sun has risen and the doctor’s office opens.

I’m diagnosed with a mild concussion. No school for me today. But also no TV, computer, books, or anything that might exercise my mind. As if I could concentrate on any of that with the headache pounding against my temples. A single misplaced foot, a brief catch of my blade in the ice where it shouldn’t have been, has caused me a world of pain.

But that’s the price I must pay in order to compete.

“Speed, power, sharp blades, lifts, jumps, hard surfaces, the WALL, crowded sessions... I've seen stuff that makes me cringe. Problem is the misconception that figure skating is easy because figure skaters make it look so easy but the reality is hours of training, taking that fall over and over again to get it right, bumps bruises, and concussions.” -The Top Ten Most Dangerous Sports.

I’m shaking with nerves in my lace dress as I step onto the ice. The crowd is mostly made of other competitors and their parents, but at nine years old, that doesn’t really sink in. It feels like I’m competing at the Olympics with an entire stadium as my audience.

It’s my first competition, and the first time I experience the freedom of skating all alone on the ice, without anyone else in my way. The ice seems to expand in size with the lack of other skaters, which should intimidate me but actually fills me with excitement. It’s fun to race across the ice, and to jump and spin in time with the music, the black skirt of my dress rippling out from the movement. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to truly flying.

“I like competitions!” I tell my mom as I get off the ice. She laughs and agrees. But I learn over time that she likes competitions because of the music and “princess-like dresses.” I like them because of the thrill, and the feeling that all my hard work has paid off.

“This sort of frippery is part of the reason why non-fans dislike figure skating, too. Where some viewers swoon over the graceful twirling in ballerina-like costumes, haters see . . . the Ice Capades, a dressed-up entertainment spectacle that can’t possibly be about the things that sports are supposed to be about.” –The Washington Post, 2014

These are the essentials for a competitive figure skater:

1.     A pair of custom skates molded around the feet through use of heat, which bites uncomfortably at the skin for the entire hour the boots must be worn during fitting. Blades must be selected according to jumping level, and re-sharpened every six weeks.

2.     Two private coaches, one for technical skills like jumps and spins, and one for artistic skills like footwork sequences and the choreography of competition routines.

3.     At least four private lessons each week, most of them in the early hours of the morning, when the rink is open to only a few of the more serious skaters for intense training sessions.

4.     Power Class on Saturday morning to work on speed and stamina. And then off-ice training half an hour afterwards, with weight machines, sprints, ab work, cardio, jump exercises, and extensive stretching in order to build up muscle and perfect difficult jumps on the ground before attempting them on the ice. Ballet class later that afternoon to work on flexibility for spins and spirals.

5.     Sweat, blood, and tears, all frozen into the ice to match the bruises and ice burn skaters wear like a badge of honor.

6.     A thorough knowledge of common skating injuries. And also how to avoid them.

I learn the hard way, after twisting my wrist and having to wear a wrist brace during practice for the following week, not to reach towards the ice during a fall. My coach makes me hold my hands above my head to avoid temptation, until it becomes habit to let my butt and my back take the brunt of the fall so I don’t break my wrists.

I learn the hard way, after a collision in morning practice that left my thigh bleeding from where the other skater’s blade sliced through my skin, how to keep watch of everyone around me, like any team player on a field might.

I learn the hard way, after a second concussion caused by a faulty launch, how to jump properly. I stop throwing myself into the air, and start thinking about proper placement of my body, and how to save myself if I start to fall. I become a better skater because of it.

“The public doesn't see our worst falls. Yes, people fall in major competitions, but the majority of the time, the worst falls are during practice. This is usually where people break bones and sprain things.”—The Top Ten Most Dangerous Sports

The majority of injuries figure skaters receive come from overuse or improper technique. Stress fractures in the foot or spine, tendonitis, muscle strains of the hip, patellofemoral syndrome, jumpers knee, bursitis in the ankle, and lace bite are the most common of these. However, skaters can also suffer from more traumatic injuries, such as ankle sprains, ankle fractures, dislocation of the patella or shoulder, ACL and meniscal tears, head injury and concussions, labral tears of the hip, and lacerations.

Twenty-five percent of elite skaters have at least one significant skating injury. 1998 Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski suffered chronic back pain due to a torn labrum in her hip until getting the surgery that saved her career. 2014 Olympic gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu suffered a serious head injury after a collision with a Chinese skater during the competition’s warm-up. Two-time World Champion Javier Fernandez competed in the 2016 World Championships with a foot injury to defend his title despite the pain.

Even champions suffer from the brutality of the sport on the body. The strain of the acrobatics skaters regularly perform wears the body down, but even worse is the pain of falling. Because the ice is solid and unyielding, and skaters don’t wear any padding or helmets for protection the way many other athletes do. Just tights and a costume and a pair of skates with thin, sharp blades, capable of leaving small scars after accidental collisions, like constellations across the skin.

“I never ever wanted to change my sport... Figure skating was my outlet, it was my breath, it was how I could live and transmit everything I was feeling and everything I had worked for and given up and all these sacrifices I'd made throughout the years. It was how I could make them all worth it.” –Johnny Weir

Competition season brings out dresses. It brings out rhinestones that sparkle beneath the rink’s lights. Heavy makeup, and gallons of hairspray to cement that perfect bun in place.

I stand in the center of the ice, arms lifted over my head with grace learned from months of practice and years of supplemental ballet instruction, and I wait for my music to begin. The ice seems smaller now than it did when I was nine. The crowd does too. Both as familiar to me as the boots laced tightly about my feet and the slick surface beneath my blades.

It still feels like I’m performing at the Olympics though, with expectation sitting heavily across my shoulders. I have a difficult routine that I must perfect. It must be flawless. Effortless. My difficulties cannot show.

The music comes on. I perform.

[blotsonapage]

Genesis

By 5 a.m. I am awake and preparing for the job I’ve had to weave around my already busy schedule. I get dressed quickly, just jeans and a tshirt, and grab a granola bar on my way out the door at 5:30, because there isn’t time for anything more. My backpack and books go in the backseat of my car, my phone with that day’s schedule goes in the front. By 6 a.m. I’m hard at work, and won’t get to sit down again for three more hours.

I have classes at 9:05. I’m tired, but I pay attention despite my exhaustion. The clock on the wall behind me counts down my time. Tick. Tick. Tick.

At 10 a.m. I travel the world: through the streets of ancient Greece with Pericles and Plato, through Roman conquests and Tudor courts, through the palaces of Old Regime France and into the chaos of the Revolution. Onto Napoleon’s battlefield, where every rifle shot is another tick of the clock, time marching on and on without rest.

In the afternoon I create the universe. My hands form planets and storms from the cosmos of my mind, filling page after page with living words. I string stars across a spider web and paint oceans across empty wastelands and call it good. The sun rises. Tick. The sun sets. Tick. And God had six days to craft the universe, while I seem to have only 60 minutes.

Then the clock hits 4 p.m. and I must defend a thesis. Must lead meetings for the literary magazine. Must attend practice for Sing. Must write essay upon essay, and read book upon book while the world spins ceaselessly about me.

“I’m not sure you actually sleep,” my professor says to me. He’s wrong. I do sleep. But I only sleep 5 hours each night. Sometimes less, but never more. I don’t have time for more. I must follow the clock. Must use every minute before the ticking runs out.

A minute turns into an hour. An hour into a day. A day into a month. A month into a year. And I keep going, keep chasing time. It ticks onward until four years have passed in the time it takes to blink.

On May 14, at 9:30 a.m., I will enter the auditorium wearing my black cap and gown and the honors cords my pursuit of time has earned. I’ll sit among hundreds, I’ll listen to names being called, I’ll walk across the stage and receive my diploma. And for that moment, time will stop. The clock will rewind. The ticking will reset.

In four years, I studied the heavens and the Earth. Then on the fifth year, I rested.

The minute hand freezes.

And it was good.

[blotsonapage]

In Early Hours

(Written 2016 for my creative nonfiction class. All names have been changed, including the store name. Location has also been omitted)

Saturday afternoons at Fashion Faves are always busy, with the store constantly flooded by a never-ending rush of people. The crowd leaves the store a wreck. Shirts from all across the store can be found hanging far from their original placements, while tables covered in neatly folded stacks are left completely destroyed from where customers had dug, searching for their material treasure. It takes hours of work to return the displays to something presentable, but with the constant flow of people, that work turns into an endless loop of maintenance.

Emily, one of the twelve college students employed at this particular store, sits on the ground in front of the Fashion Faves jean wall in the women’s department, pulling out handfuls of jeans that have been stuffed into the shelves. They’ll all need to be refolded and resorted before the store can close for the night—a job which usually takes two hours. And that’s not to mention the jean walls in the men’s department on the left half of the store, or in the kids’ departments at the very back.

“All the things that customers do like putting one thing out of place doesn’t seem like much to them, but it really does add up and can create a huge mess,” she explains.

And refolding merchandise is just the start of it. It’s amazing to me how, on any given day of the week, customers will come up to employees and demand the impossible, such as bringing out a shirt our store doesn’t carry, or making our petite jeans even shorter somehow.

“I had a customer just now wanting this one shirt with pockets. And you know we don’t have any. So I told her, and she asked if I could take it to the back and add some,” Lee, our shipment manager, says with an incredulous laugh. “Like, do they understand what goes on in the back?”

The answer to that is obvious. Compared to the front of the store, where everything seems to be on display, the stock room is completely different world. What happens in the back is its own operation, manned by Lee and a team of five employees who all work the early morning shifts on top of working at the register or in the fitting room.

On average, the store receives anywhere between 250 and 600 boxes of merchandise every Tuesday and Thursday morning that employees have to unload, unpack, and place onto the sales floor before the store even opens. The only time this isn’t the case is during the holiday season between November 1 and December 31, in which time the average truck load of boxes nearly doubles in size.

The Tuesday and Thursday shipment shift begins promptly at six in the morning, long before the sun has risen. The sea of concrete that makes up Marketplace’s parking lot resembles something out of a ghost town more than the hustling mess of cars daylight turns it into. But, like most of the shops that fill Marketplace, this is when Fashion Faves comes alive, and the three hours leading up to the day’s opening are actually among some of the store’s busiest.

Under the fluorescent lighting, the shipment team rushes about, preparing the store for the arrival of the truck. They push all the fixtures that fill the small department of boy’s clothing, which connects directly to the stockroom at the back of the store through a short hallway, back to barricade the three walls of the section, with Emily and myself usually handling the display tables while Stephanie, Shelby, and Kim take care of the rolling racks of hanging clothes. Each has its specific place that fits perfectly with all the others, like the pieces of a life-sized jigsaw puzzle. Set any of them out of place, and the team loses valuable floor space on which to throw all the cardboard boxes as they come sliding down the metal conveyor that runs from the stockroom door, through the hallway, and all the way across the boy’s department.

Shipment is largely the art of speed and precision. Every second counts. As soon as the truck rolls up, it becomes a race against the clock to sort through every box before the store opens at nine.

This is a task easier said than done. Given the best case scenario with a truck of 250 boxes arriving at six-thirty and unpacking in about half an hour, that still leaves only five employees to open up and process every box within two hours. Essentially, each employee can only devote two minutes per box in order to get through them all, which is almost impossible considering how every piece of clothing must be individually unwrapped and then placed on the sales floor. But as one of the smaller outlets in our corporate’s collection of over 1,000 stores, our Fashion Faves only has about fifty hours it can allocate to the shipment team as a whole each week, so bringing anyone else in to help isn’t really possible.

Months of frantic work builds a sort of camaraderie among the team, however.

“The shipment team really gets to know one another since you always work the same shifts together week to week,” Shelby says, while Emily nods along beside her.

“It’s nice to have a group of people outside of school to talk to about anything. Sometimes we do silly things like I’ll go around and hug the male mannequins and hold their hands. One day we had a bouncy ball we just kept throwing at each other throughout the shift. Its just fun, easy things like that.”

Kim, who works retail on top of being a teacher’s assistant at one of the local middle schools, plays music on her phone so the rest of us can sing along while we work. Her music, consisting of everything from Frank Sinatra to Pentatonix, is a happy relief from the pop CD the store plays on loop during operating hours. In one of the mixed department boxes, Shelby, a recent high school graduate, finds a pair of women’s shoes hidden beneath the girl’s clothes she’s unpacking, and she throws them across the conveyor to Stephanie, a mother of two who mostly manages the merchandise for the women’s department. Stephanie doesn’t even need to look up to catch the shoes. It’s such a normal occurrence that she knows just where to place her hand.

“Someone should make a reality TV show of us. Like The Office or something,” Shelby comments with a laugh. It’s the third time this month she’s said that. And, as usual, I couldn’t agree more.

Working retail at Fashion Faves, especially when working shipment, is always lively, always crazy, always an adventure. There’s a lot that happens behind the scenes most people don’t know about. Customers shop all day, unaware of the process that brings merchandise from the corporate factories to the shelves in our store.

And every Tuesday and Thursday, at six in the morning, the store lights up, the truck arrives, and the employees delve through hundreds of boxes to make sure the store is ready to receive them.

[blotsonapage]

In Their Own Words: Amy

(Written 2016, for my creative non-fiction class. Thank you for the interview, @ii-romana !!!!)

I always wanted to go abroad just because the only other place I’ve ever been is Canada, which is basically the United States, but colder. I looked on my school’s website and they had a mini-mester program for history in Austria and it was like, “what a coincidence, I’m also taking German.” So that’s kind of how I picked it.

My professor did this like night hike through the Vienna Woods that he pitched as essential for experiencing the trip, but not required. I’ve taken quite a few field classes and that involves some pretty intense, but fairly slow and steady hiking, so I thought I could handle it because I’ve hiked five or six miles in a day before and that’s what this was. But I showed up and it turns out they were hiking at a mid-jog consistently for five hours, and I don’t have the physical stamina for that.

I have pretty good endurance actually, but my endurance is much slower than what most people deem physically fit. So in swim team, I could do all the laps, I physically got everything done, but as soon as I would catch up everyone else would get a break waiting for me and then it would be time for the next set and I would never get a break so I would get slower and slower and slower.

The same thing happened with this hike. Once I would catch up, they were like “oh, time to get moving,” and everyone else had a five minute water break and I didn’t get a five minute water break. So I just got farther and farther behind. They basically abandoned me in the woods, and the only way I found them was two of the guys I started hanging out with at the end of the trip made sure I didn’t get lost. We basically played Marco-Polo in the woods.

Once we reached a certain point, there was a bus stop and I literally got on the last rural bus back to Vienna. And the group went on the rest of the hike, and I went on the bus. I had to ask the bus driver what stop I needed to get out on, because I had to go from the bus to the subway back to my apartment, and it’s not always clear where the subway is in these little towns. But he didn’t speak any English, and I’m like sobbing because I feel humiliated, so I had to communicate to him while I’m emotionally distressed, in German. And he got it. But it was a little distressing. And then I cried on the way back to my apartment in the subway.

I’m sure everyone thought it was really strange, since I probably smelled terrible, because this happened in July, so it was like eighty, ninety degrees outside.

When I came back to the apartment, it was one girl’s birthday, so me and everyone else went out to get drinks and schnitzel for her birthday and they heard about what happened to me and we basically talked shit about my professor all night.

A university professor should not be managing it like this. I’m in a field lab this semester, and it confirmed to me that what he was expecting us to physically be capable of was ridiculous. Because I can keep up with my field lab professor for five hours going up and down small Texas hills no problem. Just can’t do long term mountain climbing at a fast jog.

I had major body issues for like two months after that, and they’re still not completely gone yet. For the three weeks I was home and I started going to the gym again, every time I’d get even somewhat out of breath I’d have, not full-on flashbacks, but the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to a flashback back to the hike. It messed me up.

Probably the most enlightening thing about it was I kind of learned that people in our age group tend to think about just themselves a lot more than I do, and some of that might be because I have a sister at college with me. So it’s like someone, not that we’re responsible for, but we are literally related to each other so I can’t just leave her in the dust because I have to see her again. While a lot of these people tended to view other people as disposable, so that was really enlightening.

I’d say I’m a lot less trusting of other people from the get-go now, like I’m a lot more cynical. But then I also try and be a lot nicer to other people upfront because I kind of realize that maybe no one else is bothering to be nice to them. So it’s made me more bitter towards other people, but I feel like internally it’s made me a better person.

[blotsonapage]

When I Was Young

Written 2016

When I was young, I was very young. A small child clutching her soft blanket, (a security blanket) Crying and crying and crying.

  “Alligator tears,” my mom called them. A conjured up temper tantrum, in her view. Just dramatics, Even if the emotions were real.

  When I was young, I feared the dark. Monsters roamed the hallways and hid behind doors, (out of sight) Waiting and waiting and waiting.

  “It’s your imagination,” my dad said. Too much TV before bed, is all. Nothing more, Even if the monsters never went away.

  When I was young, I lived in shadows. My sister thrived in sunlight, (the perfect child) Growing and growing and growing.

  “Just be like her,” my parents told me. So I tried as best I could, for their sake. To be her, Even when I felt like drowning.

  When I was young, I was not me. I kept myself in the dark with monsters, (or tried at least) Hiding and hiding and hiding.

  “This can’t go on,” I told myself. I can be different, can be better. Can remake myself, Even if some scars never quite heal.

  When I grew old, I grew very old. Still small but infinitely wiser, (infinitely stronger) Learning and learning and learning.

  “I’m more than I was,” I now declare. I know who I am, confident and assured. I’ve reached the sun, Even though I once thought I couldn’t.

[blotsonapage]

Would You Love Me?

Written 2015

If you saw my true self, would you love me? If you knew my true desires,            if I took off this mask,            if I revealed what’s in my heart, would you? Would you still love me?  

I am told you would not. “We are too flawed,” they say. A mess of passion, and fear, and desire, that cannot be shown. We are the gods mortals only hope to be.            We are Apollo.            We are Bragi.            Bes, Lada, Erzulie Freda Dahomey. We are what every human desires, so we must not be flawed. And I am given a mask, to cover these unseemly cracks and to hide every feeling, thought, desire, behind stone cold perfection.  

But still I wonder…  

Would you love me anyways? If I was not a god? Is it even love when you only know what I’m allowed to show?  

I am terrified. I am frozen within myself, wondering and wondering. Longing. Hoping.  

Would you still love me without my mask?  

Would you?

[blotsonapage]

The Butterfly Collector

Written 2015

-Extracts from Danaus plexippus and the protozoan parasite by John Moore-

The Danaus plexippus is one of the most recognized species of butterflies in all of North America. Noted for their beautiful, orange and black wings, these butterflies make annual migrations from regions as far north as Canada all the way down to regions as far south as Mexico, covering thousands of miles of inhabited land every year without fail.

More commonly, they are referred to as Monarch Butterflies.

John didn’t know what he’d been expecting when he accepted that ticket from his coworker, but it certainly hadn’t been seeing Valerie up on stage, shining under the spotlights in all her glory.

She looked good. Better even than when John had last seen her, at their Cornell graduation two years earlier. He’d heard soon after graduation that she moved to New York in order to try her luck with all the big Broadway productions, as had always been her dream, so to find her acting in some second rate play in Minnesota, whose name he hadn’t even heard of, came as a surprise to John. He’d been expecting her to be more successful.

Not that he wasn’t happy to see her, though.

No. John was absolutely thrilled. Her presence in the play was the highlight of his viewing experience, and he soon lost track of what was actually happening in the play, too captivated by her appearance to pay attention to anything else. It was almost as if he was back in Cornell’s student theater, watching her glide across the stage for the very first time, head held high and long hair rippling out behind her with every step, red as the wings of the Danaus plexippus.

She had been stunning. She was still stunning, even after these two years apart. And, just as when he’d first saw her performing, a single, powerful thought came unbidden to John’s mind.

Mine.

Like most creatures in nature, of course, the Danaus plexippus are prey to a variety of other living organisms, including birds, beetles, and even some mice who can withstand their toxin.

However, one of the largest threats that the Danaus plexippus face is not one of predators, but rather one of parasites. In particular, the protozoan parasite Ophryocystis elektroscirrha presents much risk to the butterflies, whom the parasite infects while still in the caterpillar stage.

Much research has been conducted in the area of this parasite and the response of the Danaus plexippus to a known infection. Researchers have looked into whether the butterflies may have adapted behaviors to help reduce infection, such as avoiding infected plants or, if infected, eating the leaves of particular plants as self-medication.

“John! John, is that you?” he heard someone call out over the noise of the backstage crowd. His heart leapt, recognizing the voice, and he turned around just in time to feel Valerie’s slim arms wrap around his neck in a tight embrace, her body almost colliding into his. He pressed a hand against her back, throat going dry at fluttering heartbeat he felt just below his palm, just as Valerie murmured, “It’s been so long.”

“I’ll say,” he replied, voice cracking. John cleared his throat, then added, “I wasn’t expecting to see you up there tonight,” which made Valerie laugh against his shoulder. He pulled back and looked her over, noting the stage makeup caked across her face and the sweat beading at her hairline. Her eyeliner had been smudged from the perspiration and streaked across her right cheekbone in thin, black lines, but John only thought this enhanced her attractiveness, adding character where her natural beauty had not. “You seem to be doing well for yourself.”

“I’m doing alright,” she answered with a shrug. “It pays the bills. And touring means I run into old friends. I think I saw Oliver earlier too.” She turned her head to the side, glancing briefly about the room, and a few strands of hair fell from the elaborate bun she’d been wearing for the play. John’s eyes followed those strands as they floated down to rest against the curve of her slender, white neck. “You remember him, right? From Cornell? I was just about to go find- oh! Ollie!”

Valerie lifted her arm, breaking John’s concentrated gaze, and waved at someone on the other side of the room. Following the direction of her attention, John recognized Oliver’s bulky frame from amongst the crowd, and he inwardly groaned.

“Val!” Oliver boomed, easily pushing his way through the people to reach where John and Valerie stood, much to John’s displeasure. “You were incredible!”

Valerie laughed. “You dog. Why didn’t you tell me you’d be coming? I nearly tripped over my lines when I saw you in the audience,” she said, slapping his arm, though John privately wished she had done so with some actual force. “They’re the only lines I have, you know.”

“Sorry. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Seems to be a theme tonight,” John chimed in at Oliver’s elbow, not liking how overshadowed he’d suddenly been by Oliver’s appearance, just as it’d been back when they were roommates and John attempted to bring his dates over.

Oliver had always been the more physically appealing of the two of them. Despite his best attempts, John’s dates always ended up more enamored with Oliver’s toned muscles and sun-kissed skin than John’s intellect and ambition.

He’d been the paramour of Valerie for a few months during their last year at Cornell, until she’d broken up with him in favor of focusing on her acting. John liked to think it was also because she wanted to get closer to him, whom had become her closest confidant after Oliver was out of the picture.

Still, their relationship had never become official they way hers and Oliver’s had, and so the animosity still remained. He didn’t want history to repeat itself here when he finally had a second chance.

Oliver, however, took no notice of the chill John snuck into his words, and greeted him just as sunnily as ever, thumping a large hand against John’s upper back. “John! It’s been ages! How are you?”

John cursed and stumbled forward under the force of Oliver’s hand. “Oh, I can’t complain,” he muttered as Valerie laughed beside him. He lifted his head to glare at his former roommate, but paused as he caught sight of an unfamiliar female standing just behind Oliver.

“My wife, Anne,” Oliver introduced, pulling her forward. “Annie, meet John. We went to school together a while back. He helped me a ton.”

Yeah, if by help Oliver meant did his work for him, John privately mused. But any actual hostility he had felt towards Oliver had all but vanished at Oliver’s use of the word ‘wife,’ clearly being shackled down by this waif of a creature before them and entirely unavailable for Valerie’s favor.

“Nice to meet you,” Anne said in a soft voice, stretching out a delicate hand, which John shook after a moment of consideration. A shiver passed through him at the touch, and he gave her a flat smile.

Upon closer inspection, John didn’t see what Oliver found so appealing about her. She was like an average moth in complexion; dull, and brown, and wrinkled. Marks of age already stretched from her eyes and the corners of her upturned lips, and her cheeks were mottled by the small bumps of clogged pores. Like the beginning growth of parasites, just starting to erupt all over her face.

John pulled his hand back quickly.

“What have you been up to? Are you back at school?” Oliver inquired once introductions had been made, not noticing as John wiped his hand against the back of his pants. “I remember you saying something about getting a masters.”

“I’m working on my PhD now, actually.”

“Wow. That’s awesome,” he exclaimed. He seemed impressed by John’s progress in the field, and, aware of Valerie’s awed gaze upon him, John puffed out his chest with pride as Oliver asked, “Are you still studying… birds, was it?”

“Butterflies.”

“Oh yeah. You had that giant board in your room with all those butterflies on it, didn’t you?” Oliver recalled, and John nodded. It was the same board that hung in his part of the laboratory now. “Didn’t you give them all names?”

Anne’s nose scrunched, adding more wrinkles to her growing collection. “That’s kind of creepy.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Valerie argued, expression soft. “That he cares so much about them.”

“I suppose.”

Hearing Oliver’s reluctant concession, Valerie shook her head, little wisps of red hair fluttering with the movement, and turned back to John. “It must be beautiful now with all those butterflies on it.”

“I don’t have that many. Just the ones I’ve researched,” he answered, stomach knotting under the warmth of Valerie’s gaze. He looked away from her face, focusing instead on her shining hair as he continued, “I’m working with monarch butterflies at the moment.”

“Oh, those are my favorite!”

At the excitement in her voice, John chanced a glance back at her face, and almost immediately regretted it when he saw how she beamed at him, white teeth peeking through the chrysalis of her pink lips.

He felt his heart swoop, and then flutter frantically within his ribcage, caught by the winds of desire.

“Mine too.”

This research has concluded that the Danaus plexippus will do neither of those actions, or in fact any true action to cure themselves, when confronted with infection.

Three hours, and several drinks, later found Valerie clad only in a tank top and pair of black panties in the bedroom of John’s small apartment.

“Thank god this was the last performance,” she said as she on the bed next to John, pulling pin after pin from her hair. John watched in fascination as locks of red tumbled from the bun down to Valerie’s slender shoulders, resting against her skin in uneven waves. “I’m so tired of having to do hair and makeup. It’s such a hassle.”

“It looks beautiful though.”

And it really did. Though John much preferred her hair loose, as it was now, he wouldn’t deny the beauty of her elaborate bun. It was graceful, elongating her creamy neck and slender limbs, especially with how vivid its hue stood against the paleness of her skin.

“You think so?” Valerie questioned, however. Seeming almost troubled, she took a lock of hair and rubbed it between her fingers. “You don’t think my hair is too orange?”

“Of course not.”

It was a beautiful color. Rich and full of life. To him, it brought out the very best of its possessors. Especially in moments like this, as Valerie sat on his bed, all stage makeup wiped clean and fiddling with the straps of her tight-fitting tank top.

He had to admire her figure. The curves of her full breasts and tight ass. The flat plane of her stomach beneath the bunching fabric of her shirt. The silken smoothness of her long, bare legs. Tall and lean, with just the right amount of softness on her muscles to make her appear dainty.

Nature had truly spared no expense on her. From head to toe, she was a work of art, crafted as exquisitely as any creature of this earth could hope to be.

“The directors think so,” she confided to John, who slipped a hand beneath her tank to curl around her slender waist. He shifted closer and placed his other hand on her warm thigh as he worshiped her legs, her breasts, her hair with greedy, possessive eyes. Preening under the attention, Valerie let the hair she’d been holding fall back against her shoulder and collapsed back against the pillows to pull John closer. “I’m thinking of dying it for my audition next week.”

John froze where he was, kneeling over Valerie’s lithe frame, panic starting to bubble in the pit of his stomach. “You’re what?” he questioned, hoping that he had simply heard Valerie wrong. “Why?”

“The director said it’ll clash with the costumes. And I need this part.” She ran her fingers up his spine and tilted her head to the side, considering. “What do you think of brown? Brown’s a pretty color.”

No. No it wasn’t, actually.

Brown was the color of dirt, of sticks, and empty cocoons. It was the color of moths, of parasites, of decay. Brown was anything except a pretty color, and was completely unacceptable for Valerie, even if John consented to her dying her hair. Which he certainly did not.

But to tell her that wouldn’t go over well. He needed to approach his objection carefully, to attempt to persuade her away from the destructive path she seemed so bent on taking.

“You shouldn’t have to change yourself just to get a part,” he said, his tone light. Almost conversational, so as not to incite the stubborn side that John knew she had. But Valerie just shook her head.

“John, dear,” she laughed, not noticing how John cringed as she continued, “that’s what acting is.” Wrapping her legs around his waist, she ran a hand through the messy tangle of his own brown locks. “Maybe a lighter brown. Dark would wash me out.”

So she really wasn’t kidding about it then.

John bit his bottom lip, teeth tugging at the soft flesh as he tried to imagine Valerie as a brunette. But all John could see was the butterfly he’d left on his lab’s counter that very morning. He saw the beautiful orange and black wings of the butterfly spread out and covered by hideous, brown spores. He saw the parasite corroding the butterfly from the inside out, until it was pushing its way out of the butterfly’s eyes in a brown, oozing mess.

John couldn’t let that happen here. Not to Valerie.

“Don’t dye your hair. You’re already perfect,” he begged, taking the hand she’d been running through his hair in his own and lacing their fingers together. Valerie looked at him, a half-smile across her lips as he brought her hand to his lips.

“That’s sweet of you,” she said, then sighed. “I seriously need this job though.”

“If the directors don’t like you, that’s their loss.”

“It’s my loss too. Food doesn’t pay for itself,” Valerie pointed out with a frown, and something snapped within John at the reasonable way with which she presented her unreasonable thoughts.

“Then stop acting. Find something else to do,” he commanded, squeezing Valerie’s hand in a vicelike grip. “You’re smart. You could be a secretary or something.”

“You’re fucking kidding, right?” She gave a little half laugh, as if John had told some sort of lame joke, but soon fell silent when he didn’t laugh along.

He didn’t see why he should laugh during such a serious matter, and all the suggestions he’d made were completely serious. If acting was going to cause her to dye her hair, then she needed to give up acting. Or else give up dying her hair. Those were the only solutions.

Frowning, Valerie pulled her hand free from John’s grasp and let her legs fall from their position around his waist. “John, acting is my life. I’m not going to give it up.”

“Fine. Then keep acting. Just don’t dye your hair.”

“I’m sorry,” she began, cutting into John’s panic with her incredulous tone, “are you really telling me what to do with my hair?”

“I’m just giving you advice.”

“You don’t understand. This is literally a part of my job,” she said, shaking her head. “Besides, I’ve always hated my hair.”

At this, John almost gasped. “How could you hate your hair? It’s perfect,” he explained breathlessly, reaching out to reverently stroke Valerie’s hair. His fingers caught a lock, and he lifted it to his lips, pressing a loving kiss to the red strands. Seeming perturbed by this for some reason, Valerie brushed his hand away and frowned.

“It’s just hair, John.”

“It’s not!” he exclaimed, leaning all the way forward, right into Valerie’s personal space, who, in turn, scrunched as far back against the pillows as possible, eyes wide with alarm as John demanded, “You’d better not change it. I won’t let you.”

Her nostrils flared at this. “Excuse me? You won’t let me?” she snapped, clearly upset. And this definitely wasn’t the way John wanted this to go.

“It was a figure of speech, Val,” he tried to appease. He kissed her neck, her cheek, her unresponsive lips. But, finding her unwilling to be swayed, he had to pull away with an exasperated sigh. “We can discuss this tomorrow, when you’re more reasonable.”

“No!” Roughly shoving John away, she slid off the bed. “I don’t even know what this has to do with you! This is the first time we’ve seen each other in years!”

John watched as she stomped about the room and collected her things from where they’d been thrown earlier. She pulled on her sweatpants, covering her beautiful legs, and hoisted her bag over her shoulder. “Val, you can’t…”

They’d only just met up again. She couldn’t leave him yet. She couldn’t leave him ever.

Valerie glared at him, all fire and scorching heat, and spat, “The hell I can’t.”

She turned on her heel, and then stormed from the room, leaving John to scramble off the bed and hurry after her. His heart was in his throat as he followed her down the hall, towards the door of his house.

“I’m just trying to help you!” he yelled, desperate to make her understand. To know the pain he felt at the desecration of her glorious hair.

“What if I want to cut it then, huh? What if I shaved it all off? Is that allowed?”

She grabbed her shoes from the kitchen, where she’d left them after they’d first arrived, and then turned toward the entry hall. But John was already there, his arms and legs outstretched to fill the small doorway. He couldn’t let her pass and disappear from his life. Not when he was so close to having her.

Blocked from the front door, Valerie backed further into the kitchen, further away from John and his soft pleading of, “Valerie, please.”

“No. You’re really freaking me out, John.” She held up a finger, a warning to John as he stood from his stool to follow after her. “I don’t know what kind of obsession you seem to have with my hair, but I really couldn’t give a shit.”

She took another step back, and John followed, backing her into the kitchen as he explained, “I just want you not to cut your hair. Is that really so hard to understand?”

“Don’t come any closer.”

“Please. You have such pretty hair. The most gorgeous hair I’ve ever seen.” Catching Valerie against the counters at the back of the kitchen, John grinned and walked over, caging her within his two arms.

Perhaps now she would listen to him. Perhaps now he could make her understand. He was only demanding this to preserve her perfection, why couldn’t she see that? Didn’t she want to perfect? Like the perfect monarch butterflies among their court of flowers and milkweed?

He lifted a hand, tracing Valerie’s hairline with the barest ghosting of fingers across the strands, his movements careful so as not to mar the beauty before him. “Please don’t cut it. For me?”

“For you?” she repeated weakly, and John nodded, delighted that she appeared to be considering what he asked. Delighted, that is, until she spat, “Fuck you,” and kicked John right in the shin.

Then, breaking from the cage John’s arms had created, she lunged across the kitchen to grab a knife from the rack on the counter and chopped off almost a foot of her perfect, red hair before John could stop her.

However, though the Danaus plexippus take no action to cure themselves or reduce their infection, research has also shown that they do not surrender to the protozoan parasite completely either.

John stood there in horror, watching as Valerie let her beautiful hair drop to the tile floor. The strands scattered before her feet and covered the floor in red, like blood.

“What have you done?” he cried, dropping to his knees in anguish, unable to comprehend what had just occurred. He crawled across the floor, paying no mind to Valerie as her feet shuffled backwards, further away from his arms as he swept the hair from the floor into a pile at his knees.

The hair was a thick, red knot on the floor, fallen like the feathers of a ruined specimen. He clasped it in his shaking hands, mute from shock and the agony of realizing his dreams had all turned to dust the second that knife had sliced through the first strand. And, separated from the original source, the hair no longer held any meaning or value, except that of perfection lost.

“You ruined it!” he sobbed, pressing his face into the hair on the floor. His hands clutched about wildly, searching for any more fragments of his soiled treasure.

There had to be some way to fix this. There had to be.

Maybe glue would do the trick? Or tape? No, tape wasn’t permanent enough. Could they sew it back together? Could one even sew with hair?

His butterfly would know. Yes, surely. She had to know what to do. She ruined it, so she should know how to make it better, surely.

Holding the hair to his chest, he looked up at Valerie, his gaze imploring. “Fix it.”

“What?”

“Fix it!” he screamed, which startled Valerie from her own shocked stupor. She looked between John and the hair in his hands, while John just glared up at her, mentally commanding her to put the hair back on her head. To make it all better again.

She shook her head. “I can’t fix it, John. It’s hair!”

No. No no no. She had to make it better. She had to. John would make her. He’d make her fix it.

“That’s not how it works, John, and you know that.”

Throwing the hair aside, John screamed and lunged, his hands closing around the slender neck beneath the uneven strands of Valerie’s red hair.

Unfortunately, this fight within the Danaus plexippus helps only the offspring of infected females, who lay their eggs on medicinal plant leaves to help reduce infection in the next generation. But as for the infected butterflies themselves, they have no natural adaptations to aid themselves in fighting off infection, and so they all eventually succumb to the parasites and die.

Though research has not shown any adaptations of infected Danaus plexippus against the protozoan parasite, it is interesting to note the role of the environment in both species’ evolutions as well as the parasite’s role as the instigator in the host-parasite life cycle.

Perhaps this research may be applied to other butterfly species as well?

John took care while positioning his specimen for display.

She was delicate, so fragile. He needed to be cautious as his chlorocresol-coated fingers moved her limbs into position, so as to avoid any other unnecessary damages. She had to be perfect for the display. Absolutely perfect.

“That one’s pretty,” he heard from behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he noticed one of the female lab assistants—Audrey, he seemed to recall her name being—watching him pin the large monarch butterfly to his corkboard with undisguised interest. “What’s her name?”

Audrey looked away from the board to John, and he was struck by just how large and blue her eyes were. Blue as a cloudless summer’s day, or a hydrangea in full bloom. As blue as the wings of the Morpho didius.

“Valerie,” John answered, lost in Audrey’s perfect blue eyes. “Her name is Valerie.”

-Extracts from Morpho butterflies and the threat of collectors by John Moore-

Found in both South and Central America, the butterflies of the genus Morpho are recognized by their distinctly metallic wing hues, usually in greens or blues. Due to their beautiful and unique wing colors, these butterflies are often prized by butterfly collectors.

But one has to wonder whether this collecting of the Morpho butterflies is a threat that should be contained before going too far, or merely just a harmless hobby.

[blotsonapage]

Playing With Dolls

Written 2015

  July 31

Today, Dad threw a potted cactus out of our apartment’s third story window.

The poor plant didn’t even know what was coming. One second it was sitting calmly on the kitchen counter, where Mom had left it after bringing it home from work yesterday. The next, Dad totally snapped and tossed it out the window, where it fell down and shattered into tiny pieces of pottery and cactus guts on the parking lot’s asphalt.

Thankfully, the cactus didn’t hit any people or cars on its way down. The potential law suits that’d result from that would be messy, and would just set Dad off yet again. He’d probably break another car or something, just to spite whoever was complaining. He’s got quite a temper on him, honestly.

Mom keeps telling Dad to get into some sort of anger management program, but he never listens to her. He refuses to admit there’s anything wrong with him. 

“It’s just the stress from work,” he tells her. “Those guys on our marketing (merchandising/engineering/teaching/whatever victim of the day) team don’t know a damned thing. When I get a promotion” blah blah blah.

Bullshit. He’s been saying that for years, even after getting promotions.

Whatever anger issues he has, they’re all his own. They have nothing to do with anyone else. Not his coworkers. Not Mom. Not that poor potted plant he tossed out of our window. He has no one to blame for his anger except himself, no matter how much he tries to point his finger at someone else.

I’m just glad he didn’t yell at Mom or me today. He’s been doing that a lot recently. Especially after Macy’s promoted Mom to store manager.

Mémé says he’s been full of bad loa since then. I think he just doesn’t like the fact that she’s basically higher in her company than he is in his. Which is totally stupid, since his pay is still much higher, but that’s Dad for you. He just sees titles, and “manager” is pretty impressive.

Actually, that cactus had been a promotion gift from my mom’s coworkers, now that I think about it…

Well, there’s no way of saving it now. I’ll just buy her a new one for her birthday or something. And I’ll make sure she keeps this one at her office from now on.

August 11

Mom and Dad were fighting again when I got home today.

They’ve been at this for a week, ever since Mom found out Dad threw her cactus out the window. Apparently she was more attached to the plant than I thought. Or maybe it was just the meaning behind it that got Mom all upset. I’m not really sure. All I know is that they’ve been at each other’s throats since then, though Dad’s usually the one that starts the yelling.

I’m trying to stay out of their way as much as possible. Mom wouldn’t care so much if I stuck around, but Dad’s a different story. His temper is getting worse this week. More irrational. I don’t want to test him when he’s like this, so I’ll just wait until it ebbs away, like it normally does. I seriously can’t wait for school to start again, just so I can get out of the apartment for most of the day. Until then, Mémé said I could hang out in her apartment across the hall.

I really love her apartment. There’s something comforting about it, even with all the strange knick-knacks that Mémé has strewn about. And Mémé has a lot. Technically, her apartment is almost exactly the same as my family’s, except with one less bedroom. But the kitchen and living area are the exact same size and have the exact same layout as ours, which really surprised me when I first realized that. Somehow it seems smaller, but not in like a cramped way. It’s cozier, I guess? Like it’s actually been lived in.

Mom likes to keep our apartment clean, with everything in its place. She makes it look like one of those homes in magazines, but even more sparse. There aren’t any throw pillows on the couches because they get moved out of place way too easily. No stray books or magazines left on the coffee table that could possibly make the room look disorganized. There’s never even a dirty dish in the sink unless I put it there. And even then, that dish gets washed and put away before it even has a chance to set. It’s almost clinical, the way Mom keeps the apartment.

Mémé’s apartment, in comparison, is the exact opposite. It’s not really messy, but it’s not really organized either, and I love it. There’s always something new to see on Mémé’s kitchen table, or on the table that holds her Virgin Mary shrine.

That shrine always confused me a little. I wondered for a while whether Mémé was Catholic or something, though I never remembered any of my other Catholic friends ever having a shrine in their homes. Also, a lot of the things that Mémé leaves on the shrine don’t really fit into what I thought Catholics did. But maybe I was just ignorant. I wasn’t really raised in a church, so I didn’t really know.

I asked her about the shrine a few months ago. Turns out that Mémé IS Catholic, but she says there’s more to it than that. Something about asking the saints for power and using good magic to bring about God’s plan.

“Sometimes the charms work, and sometimes they do not,” she told me once. “I do not know why, I only know the good Lord gives power to the spells that do His work. Whatever is done is in His plan.”

I’m not quite sure that I believe what she says, but there must be some sort of truth to it considering how many people come to her apartment for help. Old people, young people, those of all races and genders. They come knocking on her door, asking for some sort of charm or spell, and Mémé welcomes them in. There’s a man here right now that wants some sort of success charm. Apparently he has an important business trip coming up, and he needs to do well.

Across from me, Mémé is crafting the charm. Her hands are so sure as she fills a small, yellow bag with different herbs that I don’t even recognize. I think she may have put some sage leaves into the bag though. And there was some sort of powder she dumped into the bag first too, called “Crown of Success” or something. I didn’t really get a good look.

I wonder what sort of magical abilities the sage leaves have, and whether they’d be able to help me with my parents at all. Probably not. I don’t think there’s much that can help me with them now, even if I asked for Mémé’s help.

If only I could use magic to make them stop fighting one another. Wouldn’t that be nice?

 August 29

School begins at last!

I never thought I’d actually be thankful for school to start (especially with all the AP classes I’ll be taking this year), but with all the drama that’s been floating around our apartment for the past few weeks, it’s nice to finally get away and not have to worry about things suddenly being thrown across the room or out the window.

Mom still hasn’t forgiven Dad for what he did to her cactus. It’s a sensitive topic around our household these days. Utterly ridiculous really, since it was just a cactus. But, in spite of the cactus incident, there’s been a sort of uneasy peace between the two of them since maybe about two days ago.

Of course, it isn’t perfect. Even if they’re no longer yelling at each other (thank God), they still aren’t really on friendly terms at the moment either. Being civil is where their interactions stop, if they even get to that point at all. Mostly, they just ignore each other.

Like, just this morning, Mom made scrambled eggs for breakfast, but only enough for herself and me. She didn’t even bother to ask Dad if he wanted any, even though he was sitting right there at the table with us. He had to get up and make himself toast, which, of course, he burned. I finished eating as quickly as possible so I could leave before he snapped, but it was really difficult choking down those eggs with how anxious I was.

It’s so tense around the apartment, I’m not even sure what to do. I can escape from it when I go to school, and maybe even for a few hours after school if I go over to Mémé’s, but I still have to return home for dinner every night regardless. And then my parents expect me to interact with them when I do, but I have to speak to them separately because they still refuse to speak with each other.

It’s like living in a virtual Cold War, where I’m the neutral country that’s just sitting between the two nuclear-armed countries, waiting for the bomb to drop.

Hopefully, this will end the same way the Cold War did too: by just simmering out. I really don’t want to know what kind of explosion my parents have waiting inside of them, because I have a feeling that the explosion will be deadly. Peace is a far preferable option, even if it’s a shaky peace. I’d rather this tension than the yelling that’s been happening, and I’ll try to keep it by any means available to me.

In this case, I’m relying on Mémé’s magic just a bit. Not like an actual spell or anything, though I guess it could be thought of as a charm of sorts. If bottles hanging in my window could be considered an actual charm.

Mémé’s windows are all full of bottles. It’s my favorite part of her apartment. The large windows of her kitchen are always hung with blue, glass bottles and tiny, square mirrors that sparkle like crazy whenever the sun hits them at just the right angle. And when there’s a breeze, they all swing into each other with soft ringing, like that of a windchime.

“They are for the bad loa. To keep the bad spirits from creeping in at night,” she told me once when I asked her about them. Apparently, the bad spirits live in the darkness and try to sneak into houses at night to cause mischief. Mémé says that the bottles are there to catch the bad spirits before they can enter her house, and then when the sun rises the bad spirits are burned away.

If only it were that simple. But, just in case, I decided to hang some bottles in my own window today so the bad spirits won’t come into our house and make things worse. We have enough bad spirits to deal with already.

I don’t have any blue bottles on hand though, unfortunately. Do you think soda cans and my dad’s beer bottles will still work?

 September 10

The Cold War continues in the Burlatsky home.

It’s been almost two weeks since my parents stopped talking, and they’re still going strong. It’s almost to the point where they’ve gotten used to pretending the other doesn’t exist. I’m not yet sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but all I can say is that I’m glad they’re still not yelling at each other.

Dad’s hardly at home anymore. He’s taken to sleeping somewhere outside of our apartment. I’m assuming at his office, or on one of his friends’ couches. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d found another woman to lavish his attentions on either.

He really doesn’t like Mom. And Mom doesn’t like him very much either.

She’s been talking about joining the dating scene again these past few days. Which, I suppose, could really work out for her if she’s actually serious about it. She’s still really pretty, for being a mom with a teenage daughter. And the benefit of her working at Macy’s is that she’s always on top of the latest fashion trends, so she never looks frumpy like some of my friends’ moms. She looks ten years younger than all of them, much to their jealousy.

Dad, on the other hand, definitely looks his age. He’s the complete opposite of my mom, honestly. In both looks and personality. Where Mom’s dark, Dad’s fair. Where she laughs and sings, he’ll glower. They don’t mesh together at all. And they’re always fighting because of it.

It makes me wonder why the two of them ever got married in the first place.

But love is weird like that, I guess. A lot of people who don’t seem to work together actually have very happy marriages. While some people who are perfect for each other end up in heartbreak. For example: one of the couples that Mémé often works with.

A few months ago, they came to Mémé wanting a charm to make their love stronger. I was there when they came by, and I remember being struck by the thought that they looked as perfect together as all the princes and princesses in my favorite Disney movies. They were radiant in their joy as Mémé sewed together their doll and put the charms they wanted inside. I wanted my parents to be just like them, to be so happy together that it almost hurt being around them.

Then, yesterday, the woman came back to Mémé’s apartment, carrying the doll Mémé had made for her. She was alone this time, and there were tears in her eyes as she passed the doll over to Mémé and asked for a spell to attract a new love instead.

Mémé, of course, wasted no time in doing as the woman asked. Her hands, though wrinkled from age, were still deft in their craft and quickly produced a jar of honey mixed with lavender and coriander seed for the woman, who left the apartment in a far more positive mood than when she had come in. But I was baffled.

How could this woman, whom had been so in love just months before, be so very miserable now? What happened to break apart a young couple that had seemed so perfect together?

When I brought this up to Mémé, she just gave me a sad smile and told me, “Things change, chaton. It is not within our power to understand the mysteries of the heart. That is why it is governed by Mater Dolorosa, the Lady of Sorrow.”

I suppose she’s right. The heart is too fickle to make any sense of. Which might be why so many people ask for charms or voodoo dolls to help govern their feelings. And why I can’t understand my parents’ relationship at all.

Maybe, years ago, they really were in love with each other. Maybe they were as happy as that other couple seemed to be. I don’t know what caused that to change, but obviously something occurred that made my parents hate each other’s guts.

I don’t like thinking about it. Knowing that love can change so easily and become something akin to hate, it frightens me. It’s not like how it is in Disney movies or in books, with grand adventures and happily ever afters.

But I want it to be. I really, really do. And I wish it had been that way for my parents most of all.

 September 18

The bottles in my window didn’t work. Or, if they did, it was only for about a week, because they certainly aren’t working now.

Dad lost his job today.

He was raging all around the apartment, yelling at this and screaming at that. “Those assholes don’t know what they’re thinking! Budget cuts, my ass! I’m the most profitable member of their team, how dare they let me go!”

I’ve never seen him so angry. His face was literally red with anger. Like as red as a tomato. Or the red edging of a warning sign. I certainly took it as a warning sign and locked myself in my room while Mom attempted to calm him down. Not that she had much luck. Soon she was yelling too, and then I started hearing things breaking.

I didn’t know what broke until I ventured out of my room about an hour ago, when things had calmed down a bit, to make myself dinner and found we no longer had any plates. Dad had smashed them all, along with all the bowls and most of Mom’s vintage teacups. I was so glad I had thought to wear shoes when I left my room because the kitchen tile was just littered with broken shards. It probably still is, since I had to leave soon after when Mom and Dad emerged from their room, still yelling at each other.

Dad looked so mad. I swear he looked ready to murder someone. It was so terrifying, I didn’t even bother going back to my room. I just left the apartment all together and went to Mémé’s. I can still hear them screaming at each other from over here. Maybe I’ll just stay the night and sleep on Mémé’s couch. I’m way too scared to go back tonight.

I wish Mom would come over here with me. I don’t think she’s safe over there right now. But she’s way too stubborn to back down, I know, and then Dad would just chase after her if she tried to get away anyways. Especially right now, when he needs someone to yell at and blame.

I’m really afraid that he’s going to hurt her. He never has before, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen him so angry. I don’t know what he’ll do in this condition.

Mémé is less worried about it. She doesn’t think things will turn out for the worst tonight. Says my dad’s aura tonight isn’t that bad. Instead, she’s more concerned about me and making sure I have something to eat, and so she’s cooking up some dish she learned while she lived in New Orleans for me. I’ve never heard of it, but it smells delicious.

I really hope she’s right about my dad. I hope I don’t return to find my mom bruised, or worse. But, just as a precaution, I think I’m going to take one of Mémé’s voodoo dolls with me when I return home. They make me feel safe. Powerful. And I’ve watched Mémé cast enough spells on the doll that I’ll know how to use it if I need to. It just takes a few certain phrases and a box to keep the doll in, so I should be fine.

I hope it doesn’t come to that. I really don’t.

Note to self: buy new dishes from Target tomorrow. The plastic kind that Dad can’t break when he throws it at the wall.

 September 23

I HATE HIM.

I HATE HIM, I HATE HIM, I HATE HIM.

I should have known this was coming! I should have seen that it’d end up this way! It’s only been a week since Dad lost his job, but I should have seen him rolling downhill like a giant, rage-filled, snowball. I should have figured out how to stop it!

Dad hit Mom today. He beat her really badly.

I wasn’t home when it started, so I don’t know what triggered it, and I don’t want to ask Mom when she’s still recovering from what happened. All I know is that, when I came home from school, I could hear yelling coming from our apartment and a few loud crashes. But it wasn’t the same as all the other days, where both my parents were yelling at each other. It was just my dad, and he sounded furious.

Obviously, I was terrified, because this had never happened before. I didn’t know what to expect from my dad. And I considered going to Mémé’s and calling the cops from there, but when I heard Mom scream, I couldn’t just leave her there.

I barged into the apartment to find Mom on the floor, curled in the fetal position with her arms covering her head, and Dad standing over her, holding what looked to be a broken broom handle. He was hitting her with it. Over and over and over again. And Mom tried to crawl away from him, but he just grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back, beating her even harder.

I couldn’t think. I was so mad. There were beer bottles all over the floor, and I stepped on a few in my haste to get to Mom. By this point, her head had been cracked, and she was bleeding from where the wound was, red staining her black hair and tanned skin. I saw Dad lift the broom to take another swing, and I jumped in front of her to take the hit instead.

It hurt so badly. Dad was using his full strength. When the handle hit my back, I couldn’t take the strength, and I collapsed to the floor with breath knocked out of me.

I think it shocked Dad. At least enough to keep him from taking any more swings, because that was the last of it. And when I looked behind me, after catching my breath, he was already gone and the apartment door was left wide open.

How could this happen?! How could Dad be so heartless?

I already called the ambulance and the cops, but I really don’t know what to do! I just can’t believe that Dad would do something like this! Ever since he was fired, he’s been irritable and easily triggered, but not like this. Other than that one night last week, I was never afraid that he’d hurt either me or my mom.

Now… Now I don’t know what to think of him.

He had no right to do this to Mom! How dare he!!! I can’t even think about him without feeling rage fill my entire body!

He’s my dad. I should love him, right? I should be able to forgive him for losing his temper. Should want him to make amends maybe, but not want him to disappear completely. But I just can’t do that.

I want him gone. Completely. And I know just how to do that.

I still have that voodoo doll I took from Mémé’s apartment stashed under my bed in the little shoebox I set aside for its use. I’ve been saving it for the right moment, and I think this is it.

It’ll be a little tricky though. The only spells I know for sure are spells for casting love and creating protection. Good magic that could only bring help to someone, rather than harm. But I’m not aiming for any of that tonight.

What I want is for Dad to disappear. I don’t care how, or where he goes, I want him gone. I want him gone so badly that I’m actually trembling from the desire.

And Mémé always said that the most important part of casting any spell was how powerful your feelings are when casting it.

 September 24

Things are finally peaceful around here.

Mom’s still in the hospital, since they wanted to observe her for any sign of concussion or internal bleeding, but the doctors said there was no lasting damage and that she should be released by tomorrow. She’ll be physically alright in a few days, at least. Mentally, she might need a little more time.

I can’t say I’m surprised. No one expected Dad to lash out like that. Least of all Mom or me. And it doesn’t help that Dad still hasn’t been found by the police yet. I think that’s scaring Mom most of all.

I have every bit of confidence that he’ll be taken care of soon though.

Last night, after Mom was settled at the hospital and I was taken to stay with a friend, I used the voodoo doll I took from Mémé to curse my Dad. It was a perfect night with a waning moon, which Mémé once told me was the most powerful moon for casting curses, so it seemed to me that the spirits were on my side in this act. Even more so because my friend and her parents slept right through my curse. I’m still the only one who knows about it.

Actually casting the curse was pretty simple. I didn’t really know what do, but I at least knew that a voodoo doll only works for the person it’s intended for if you stuff it with something carrying that person’s essence, like a shirt or some hairs or something. So I took one of my dad’s dirty shirts before Mom and I left the apartment.

Then, after stuffing the doll and writing Dad’s name on it, I had to improvise. What I ended up doing was digging a deep hole in my friend’s back yard and, after stabbing it with a few needles, burying the doll with all the anger I still had from what he did earlier.

It wasn’t the normal way a spell should be cast, but I think the spirits will understand. They must know what Mom and I went through with

Someone just entered the house.

I should be all alone in this house, but I hear someone moving downstairs in the entry hallway. And I know it’s not my friend or her family because they never come in that way. They come in through the garage. Always.

I’m getting really freaked out here. I need to call the cops. But my cellphone is downstairs, and so is the house’s phone. I’d have to go through the entry hallway to get to either of them, which is probably a really bad idea.

Maybe it’s just a burglar who’ll take the TV or something and leave. Maybe if I stay really quiet, whoever it is won’t think to come upstairs and find me.

No. No I hear footsteps on the stairs.

Whoever is in this house with me is coming upstairs, and I have no place to hide. This is bad. This is really, really bad. What do I do?

I’m sorry, God, for casting a curse. I’m sorry, spirits. Whoever it is. Please just help me now, I’m so

 Girl Found Dead in Best Friend’s Home

By KYLE DAVIES   September 25

CONNECTICUT—Two people were pronounced dead yesterday afternoon in Bridgeport, Connecticut in what officials are ruling as a murder-suicide. The police were called to the home of 216 Lindley Street at 3:00 pm yesterday after the family came home to find their daughter’s best friend stabbed to death in the upstairs bedroom she had been staying in.

The young girl, Katie Burlatsky, aged 15, was staying with the family after an incident that left her mother hospitalized and her father, Charles Burlatsky, on the run. The father was the second of the two people pronounced dead yesterday, and investigators have determined that he died of a self-inflicted slash to the wrist.

There was no note or indication of why the murder took place, but investigators suspect it was partially due to the father’s recent loss of job and growing debts. Officials describe the crime scene as gruesome, with the young girl being found stabbed by several knives to her chest. “Almost like a voodoo doll,” one officer said.

Friends and family of Katie are devastated by this loss, and ask for prayers for her mother, whom is recovering from the shock at the Bridgeport Hospital. There will be a funeral service for the young girl in the coming week.

[blotsonapage]

Reunion

Written 2014

Anticipation hung heavy in the air that morning as the first group of South Koreans lingered in the designated areas of the Mount Kumgang resort, waiting for the North Korean officials to finally allow their relatives inside.

There were near a hundred of them crowded into the reception hall of the northern resort. Old men in their neatly pressed suits, and women in their traditional, colorful hanboks, all crowded as near to the door as the officials would let them, anxious to meet the brothers and sisters and children they had not seen, or even heard from, since the borders had been drawn and the armistice had been signed nearly sixty years ago.

Near the back of the group, Park Chin-Hae stood, watching the door with dark eyes that were set deep into his weathered face. His shaking hands, wrinkled and marked by the ravages of time, clutched at the gift bag of medicine and chocolate treats he brought along for the family he’d not seen in decades.  

Like so many around him, Chin-Hae was excited to be reunited with his family once more, to hear everything about their lives that he’d been forced to miss. However, he couldn’t help the vague sense of unease that settled in his stomach as the minutes passed. It churned uncomfortably within him, mingling and mixing with the guilt he’d carried since the end of the war.

After all, he wasn’t South Korean by birth.

Looking away from the door, he let his gaze wander over the familiar, older style of the resort, taking in the wooden beams and muted colors that weren’t often found in South Korean architecture. In the two corners nearest the doors, two North Korean officials stood, wearing their crisp military uniforms with obvious pride, which made Chin-Hae grimace.

He’d been like those soldiers once, when he’d first been conscripted as a young man. He’d worn that uniform and had shared that duty of serving his country and leader, up until he’d been taken prisoner by the forces in the South. And then he’d turned his back and chosen to stay, because, even as a prisoner, he’d been treated far better in the south than he’d been as a soldier in the north.

Now, however, he wondered if it had been worth it. He’d lost so many years with his family because of his choice, unable to see or contact them in any way under the government’s rule. The only memory he’d been granted was the one captured by the photo in his back pocket, showing his younger brother and his bride on the wedding day Chin-Hae had been forced to miss. A day he should have been a part of.

His attention was drawn back to the present, gaze snapping towards the front of the room, as the door to the reception area slowly creaked open and the men and women from North Korea filed in. There was a hush over the room at their appearance, an almost shocked disbelief that this all was actually happening. That, after sixty years, they would finally be able to speak with and hold their long lost family members once more. And then, when the door shut behind the last North Korean, there was chaos.

Relatives who recognized each other fell into each other’s arms, sobbing. Several were unable to remain standing from the shock of it all and sank to the floor with their family members, completely overwhelmed. And Chin-Hae, his own eyes watering at the sight of so many tearful reunions, eagerly scanned the room, searching for hints of the face he had never forgotten.

He spun around slowly as the many Koreans filled the room, looking for anything familiar, gift bag held protectively against his chest. Glancing briefly to the side, his eyes fell upon another man who was weaving through the reuniting families. The man turned his head towards Chin-Hae, and they both froze. Chin-Hae recognized those eyes, the shape of that face, remembering them from his childhood. Even with age, Chin-Hae knew the face of his brother, and it seemed that the other man saw the same in him.

“Chin-Hae?” he questioned, voice hesitant. He didn’t seem to believe his eyes. Tearfully, Chin-Hae nodded.

“Hello, Myung-Dae.”

“It’s you,” his brother breathed, walking over to Chin-Hae. His hands fluttered over his brother, as if unsure if Chin-Hae was actually there or not. But then, he embraced Chin-Hae, and held him with all the strength his now frail arms could muster, sobbing into Chin-Hae’s shoulder. “I thought you were dead all these years. That I’d never see you again. Praise our Great Leader for this day.”

Chin-Hae nodded and pulled Myung-Dae close, joy filling him as his arms wrapped around his brother for the first time in sixty years.

Thank God, Chin-Hae silently agreed. Thank God I could see you again.

[blotsonapage]

One Year: Chapter 1

Written 2012

Desi stepped out the porch door into the brisk, November air. Lifting his head into the wind, he took a deep breath and let the sharp chill rush through him, clearing his mind. Somewhere behind him, he could hear the sound of laughter, drunk and loud and full of cheer. Completely out of place for a funeral.

It probably hadn’t been his best idea to order alcohol for the reception. He had done so knowing that he would need some liquid courage to get through the day, but he had forgotten to take into account the reactions of everyone else he invited. Perhaps he had thought they would behave themselves that day, if not for the deceased then at least out of respect to him.

But who was he kidding? No one cared about the lower class. Especially not those who gave up on their own life.

He clenched his fists as another bubble of laughter swelled up behind him, annoyance rushing through him at their indifference. Did they even realize where they were? Did they know they were standing only meters away from a cemetery? They were at this funeral home to honor someone dear to him—someone whom had died right in front of his very eyes—and they were inside hanging around the bar and having the time of their lives. They cared more for a full glass of wine than they did for the fact that someone had just died.

God, there was something wrong with this world if those were the kind of people that made up their society. Just thinking about it made the anger within him surge.

Shaking his head, Desi stepped off the porch and into the cemetery before he could turn around and do something rash. This wasn’t a day for him to get angry; it was a day for him to mourn and find closure. He needed to walk around for a while and clear his head before returning to the reception. Perhaps he could find the calm he desired among the company of those resting in peace.

He ambled through the cemetery, lightly brushing the tips of his fingers across the snow-topped tombstones as he passed. His fingers slid over the bumps of a broken cross. He had heard that this cemetery had been put out of use a century ago, and it showed in the worn down stone. The very last person to be buried here had been lain to rest the very same year the national tests had begun.

Desi looked around the graveyard, wondering which of the tombstones belonged to the girl and how she had come to rest here. Had she been the first victim of the changing government, or had the suicides only come later, after the test had spread beyond the realm of academics and into their social structure? Had her parents mourned for her loss? Perhaps they had held her as she died, watching her blood spill out onto the floor and knowing there was nothing they could do to save her. The same way Desi had.

He froze as the memory slammed into him. Even after weeks of forcing himself to forget, he could still recall every moment of that night. The yelling, the fear, the blood. It was etched so clearly into his mind. He could feel it pushing against his defenses, trying to break through the mental barriers that held it in check, and he shivered.

No. Not now. God please, not now.

He squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to keep the memory at bay. He knew if he gave in to it now, it would pick him apart piece by piece, destroying any bit of sanity he had left. But it still persisted, seeping through every mental wall Desi built until the only thing he could see or recall was red.

Red clothes, a red knife, red staining the once white tiles. A red handprint on the cracked mirror, and two red, trembling hands searching for some sort of comfort. The two hands that Desi had taken, clutching long after their strength had faded until his own hands were gloved in deep, dark red. A red that stained far beneath the skin and would never disappear, no matter how much Desi scrubbed.

He glanced down at his shaking hands. Their olive tone stood out starkly against the snow beneath. Just weeks ago those hands had been covered in blood—his best friend’s blood. They had scrambled to staunch the flow from his wound, and they had ultimately failed. Desi could only watch as his friend had bled out in front of him. And for what? There was no reason for it that he could figure out. His friend had lost his life for something as fleeting as the snowflakes melting in his palms.

With a sigh, he sat beneath one of the cemetery’s oak trees, his back against the trunk and his head in his hands. A wave of nausea rolled through him, and he had to fight to keep from vomiting the meager breakfast he had choked down hours before. This wouldn’t do. He needed to get a hold of himself before he broke down in the middle of the cemetery.

Desi reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his lighter and the pack of cigarettes he had bought only the day before. There were only two sticks left in the box; enough to last him for a few hours more, but he would need to buy another pack before the day was over. He grabbed one of the cigs from the box and raised it to his lips, fumbling a bit with the lighter before the flame took. Inhaling deeply, he relished how the smoke filled his lungs and relaxed his frazzled nerves before exhaling in a stream of white clouds.

He leaned his head back against the tree, taking another slow drag on the cigarette. With each inhale, he felt himself growing more and more mellow, the memories vanishing back into the corners of his mind as the smoke swirled away into the winter sky. Finally in control again, Desi locked the visions of that night away. Dwelling on the past wasn’t good for him at the moment. He had to think of something else, anything else, than his own, miserable existence.

Tired of the skeletal branches above him, he dropped his gaze down to rest on the tombstone across from him. The marker was large, embellished around the edge with small scrolls, and it was close enough for Desi to make out some of the original writing, though it seemed that the occupant’s name had disappeared over time. The years, however, were still in tact, and it didn’t take long for him to calculate the difference between the two.

Whoever they had been, they had only reached the age of nine before leaving this earth forever. It was rare for anyone to die that young these days, and, when they did, no one acknowledged their loss. Only when they had taken the test did a child receive citizenship and become an actual person. And even then, no one was ever buried with as much care as this child had been. Not since the government banned the creation of anything artistic.

A deep sense of longing rushed through Desi as he stared at the child’s tombstone, drinking in every detail. A stone angel lay draped over the marker, her head buried in her folded arms. Though only a statue, it was clear that the angel was bereft, mourning the loss of someone so young. He could almost see the way her shoulders shook as she wept over the young child. From one of her hands dangled a small wreath, and around the wreath the words ‘Never forgotten.’

With such an ornate tombstone, Desi didn’t doubt that this child was remembered. He wouldn’t be surprised if their parents had come every week to lay flowers on her grave, and to ask God why such promising, young life had been ended. And then, when they had grown old and joined their child in death, there was always the angel to keep watch over the grave, eternally grieving for a life that never got lived.

It was more than what anyone these days would do for the deceased.

“You never used to smoke,” a voice called, breaking Desi’s reverie. It was a familiar voice, and he didn’t have to lift his head in order to know that his secretary was the one approaching him. Desi closed his eyes and lightly tapped the butt of his cigarette, listening to the crunch of snow beneath his secretary’s shoes until he was right beside Desi.

“I never went to funerals either,” he answered, his voice hollow. It didn’t take much effort to imagine the scowl that would be on Alexander’s face at his empty answer, and a quick glance upwards only confirmed that.

“It’ll be your funeral we attend next if you’re not careful.”

Desi didn’t answer him. The vision of a similar discussion danced through his head and he squashed it quickly before it grew out of control. He had gone through this conversation several times already, and, at the moment, it wasn’t something he was eager to repeat. For now, he would be unhealthy. He would listen to reason tomorrow.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, blowing smoke up at Alexander. He had expected him to be inside with the rest, getting drunk off of wine just like everyone else. But then, the secretary had always been more understanding than people gave him credit for.

“I figured you could use some moral support.”

“Moral support,” Desi repeated with a bitter laugh, tilting his head back towards the funeral home. “I have plenty of moral support back in there.”

“And yet you’re out here.”

That was true. Funny how that happened. Only a few months ago, Desi would have considered everyone inside the funeral home his close friends. He would have even joined them for a few drinks at some new, trendy bar somewhere in the city. Desi never would have dreamed of hosting a funeral in the first place. Just a few months ago, Desi had been one of them. Now he could only look at them with disgust.

“They don’t even care, do they? They only came because I asked them to. They don’t care that someone is dead.”

Sighing, Alexander braced a gloved hand against the tree trunk and took a seat beside him. Desi could feel the concerned gaze boring into his cheek, and he knew what Alexander would see. Wind-bitten cheeks, his shoulders and hair dusted with snow, and a half-burned cigarette held limply between his fingers. He obviously hadn’t been inside in a good amount of time.

“How long have you been here?”

“A while,” Desi answered with a shrug. “Strange that I feel more at ease out here than I do with the others, right?”

Strange that he felt like everything of worth had drained out of him long ago. He was no better than the corpses buried all around them.

“It’s not your fault, Desi.” As usual, Alexander saw right through Desi’s veiled comments, understanding what Desi was too afraid to verbalize.

Choosing not to answer his secretary, he turned and stared at the funeral home. The figures inside seemed to be dancing now, reveling in the company of each other regardless of where they were. Compared to the past, however, their happiness seemed flat, as lifeless as the skeletal trees and snow-covered graves around him.

Exhaling, Desi watched the smoke swirl away with the November wind before asking, “Do you ever wonder if our society is missing something?”

“Not really.” Desi nodded, not really expecting any differently. What other answer could the secretary give? He hadn’t been through what Desi had, hadn’t seen what society could really do. He stared blankly up at the sky, barely registering Alexander’s words when he asked, “Do you?”

“I didn’t use to.” But that was a long time ago, before Desi had seen the difference between what the world was and what it could be.

He took one last drag on his cigarette and dropped it to the ground, crushing it beneath his boot as he thought back to March, the month when everything had changed.

[blotsonapage]

Point of View Exercise

Written in 2012, Beginning Creative Writing Class

1.

           I stood, hands trembling at my sides, in the middle of our living room. My parents were sitting on the couch in front of me, watching me, and I could see the questions in their eyes. I never approached them this way. Not since I had been five and had broken my grandmother’s prized vase. My mom had always called me her “perfect child,” the one who never got into trouble, and now I was about to shatter that image. My stomach churned uneasily at the thought of what I was about to do, but I couldn’t just hide this situation from them, even if I didn’t want to see their disappointment. “Mom, Dad,” I began hesitantly. “I’m pregnant.”

 2.

           She stood in the middle of the room, shifting her weight uneasily from one foot to the other. She knew from the expressions on her parents’ faces that they were puzzled by her actions, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell them what had happened. She had always been the good kid, the one her mother had called the “perfect child.” She hated that she had to ruin that image. Her eyes darted nervously from her mom to her dad, and she took a deep breath to calm herself before speaking. “Mom, Dad,” she said, hesitating for just a moment before continuing. “I’m pregnant.”

 3.

           The girl stood in the middle of the room, shifting her weight uneasily from one foot to the other. Her mother frowned and wondered what had happened that had made her daughter approach them this way. Her daughter hadn’t done that since she had been five years old. The girl trembled and took a shaky breath, scared to ruin what she knew was the perfect image that her parents held of her. But she had to reveal it. There was no way she could hide it. “Mom, Dad,” she began, hesitating before continuing. “I’m pregnant.”

[blotsonapage]

Repeat and Coda

Written in 2011, Winner of a Scholastic Honorable Mention

There was a small village just off the highway; a collection of the oddball shops that couldn’t be found in malls or anywhere else. Hidden away in the far corner of this strange gathering, a red brick building sat contentedly, its cheerful windows smiling out upon the street and twinkling as the sun hit the many metal ornamentations that stood on their colorful pedestals. From the small crack in the window, a soft string of music could be heard that would only be covered when the wind made the chimes that hung from the violin-shaped sign ring out. It was a welcoming sight, and, up and down the street, everyone would agree that Mike’s Music Shop was the most pleasant place to be in the world.

As the afternoon sun beat relentlessly down on the village, a man with russet hair threw the curtains of the music shop open, letting the warmth stream in as little, square patches upon the wooden floor. Flipping the sign from “closed” to “open,” his cerulean eyes glanced up at the tiny ball above the door and, with a cheerful smile, reached up with a finger and brushed the bell, the consequent jingling sweetly filling the airy room.

The man, whom was also the very Mike that gave the shop its name, was in a jolly mood. He whistled as he strode around his shop, dusting a shelf here, polishing an instrument there. As usual, his shop remained almost empty, save for a few rare customers that would wander in out of curiosity; but he wasn’t concerned by the lack of business. Here, among the many instruments, he found the joy which no amount of money could ever give him.

The little golden bell sang as the door creaked open. The familiar clacking of heels against the floor told Mike who had entered long before he had turned to look. As he had expected, a young woman, about seventeen years old, stood leaning against the glass counter, playing with the tuning forks and little metronomes in the display case.

“About time,” he joked. The small peals of tinkling laughter floated across the room to where he was sorting sheet music.

“I was held up at school.” Mike had to grin, knowing that what held her up wasn’t school, but rather her parents. The girl’s name was Claire Benoit. The daughter of an acclaimed pianist and violinist, she had virtually grown up under the loving eye of music, and was now Mike’s only regular customer. She leaned forward and flicked one of the tuning forks, which resounded in a clear E.

“That’s a pretty pitch.” Claire nodded, tucking her long, golden hair behind her ears as if to hear better.

“It’s my favorite.” The two fell silent for a few moments as the tuning fork persistently played its one pitch until even that had faded into the quiet. Mike watched Claire out of the corner of his eye. He could remember the first time she had stepped into his shop, hesitant and a little lost, almost eight years before, when he had started his little shop. Looking at her now, he could see that, while the young woman before him was physically different from the nine year old girl he had once known, she was still emotionally trapped in the past, more so today than she had been in several months.

Feeling uncomfortable with the pressing silence, Claire coughed, clearing her throat. “Have you gotten any new CDs?”

“You’re in luck. A whole new batch came in just this morning.” Mike wandered into the back room. There were a few bangs and the sound of ripping tape as he searched for the CDs. Claire was riffling through a stack of piano scores when the crackling of the old speakers made her look up, and a beautiful piano masterpiece began to fill up the shop. “Let’s see if you can guess this!” Mike challenged, walking back into the front room with a grin.

She cocked her head to the side, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. There was something about the song that was tugging at her memory, but she couldn’t quite identify it. “This sounds familiar.”

“Yes, I suppose it would.” Claire shook her head. It wasn’t just the fact that it was a piano piece that made it so familiar. It sounded nostalgic and melancholy and hopeful, all at the same time, and Claire was sure that she had heard it before. What was it?

“No hints?”

Mike’s smirk grew. “None.”

“Dang it.” Leaning against the counter, she scratched her head, trying to recall the name of the piece, or even pinpoint the style of the composer. Suddenly, the piano escalated from a mezzo-forte into a fortissimo, tumbling down the keyboard in individually dissonant chords that, when put together, became something astonishing, and Claire knew. “Wait…”

Mike looked over at her quiet declaration. She was still leaning against the counter, but her eyes were wide in abject terror. This abnormal change alarmed Mike. “Claire?”

Hearing her name called, Claire started. She looked around her, as if suddenly realizing where she was, and took a deep breath. “It’s Chopin,” she proclaimed, her voice slightly trembling. Running a hand weakly through her hair, she continued. “His Etude No.3 in E Major, also called Tristesse.”

“Do you know it?” Despite whatever shock that had fallen upon her, Claire tilted her head and gave Mike a scathing look. Really? her eyes asked. Even without words, Mike could detect the sarcasm dripping off of her. “I mean, have you played it?”

Claire turned away, dropping into a world of memories, her chocolate eyes glazed over and looking at a scene not visible to the rest of the world. “Once…”

“Will you play it for me? I haven’t heard you play in a long time.”

“Uh-“

Mike continued on, not hearing or seeing the objections that Claire wanted to make. “And I have a brand new piano just waiting for you.” Finally allowing a chance for Claire to speak, she straightened up from the counter and stiffly answered, hesitation clear in her eyes.

“I don’t know Mike… You know that I stopped playing piano a long time ago.” A very long time ago.

“Just give it a shot. What could it hurt?” He smiled encouragingly at her, but Claire remained undeterred.

“A lot.” Her cynical reply fell on deaf ears. Mike strolled across the room, completely at ease, and came to a stop before a shiny, white and gold grand piano, pulling the matching bench out in an invitation to Claire.

“Here we are. Polished and tuned and everything.”

“It’s beautiful.” In awe of the breathtaking instrument, Claire slowly walked closer to inspect it. Not even the black grand in her own home could match up to this. She ran her fingers lightly over the polished wood and golden accents, brushing the ivory keys with the most delicate of touches, entirely wrapped up in the piano’s splendor. Wondering whether the tone matched the physical looks, Claire experimentally pressed down on the middle C key, and, oh! What a rich sound it made! How exquisite the reverberation! Such a sound could not be imitated by anything in this world. It was too stunning to even think of playing with such clumsy fingers. Claire backed away. “I shouldn’t.”

“Chopin’s Etude No.3. All ready for you.” She glanced imploringly at Mike, begging him to let her be. She had already given up piano- there was no turning back for her, no way out of the corner she had dragged herself into.

“I don’t even know if I can anymore.”

“Don’t think about it. It’s like riding a bike. Your fingers know what to do.” Sighing, and with no more excuses left, Claire sat down on the piano bench. It seemed that she would just have to show Mike what she had been trying to say. She couldn’t play anymore.

But why not? Surely she could still recall what the notes had been, how she was supposed to perform. The memories made permanent by months and months of drilling and practice at the tender age of nine were not gone. In fact, she could recall them perfectly now. Why shouldn’t she be able to play?

Fortified by these thoughts, she straightened her slumped shoulders into the perfect, ram-rod straight posture that had been engraved upon her mind so long ago. Claire took a steadying breath, recalling the masterpiece from behind her closed lids. As the song played within her mind, she placed her fingers in their places on the ivory keys.

Disaster.

Her eyes flew open, widening. Her fingers became unsure, shaking. The sound of her own heartbeat, frantic, panicked, grew louder and louder, and Claire was sure that, not only Mike, but all of the tiny village could hear it.

Disgrace.

Upon the lovely keys, her own fingers began to look large and inept. How could she let such unsightly limbs touch such an elegant piano? Her breathing became labored. Sweat was gathering on her clammy brow, leaking in small drops down her frozen face.

Devastation.

The spotlight that was thrown upon her was burning a hole into the back of her pretty, lace-covered dress- the one her mother had gotten especially for this day. The nine-year-old Claire felt tears gathering in her eyes. She had messed up. In front of so many people, she had messed up. And on the song that her parents had personally asked her to play too! Claire had practiced and practiced and practiced, until her fingers had become sore and covered in blisters, and she had still messed up. How could she face her parents, who were so famous for their music? How could she face the crowd that was beginning to twitter loudly in confusion of Claire’s unfortunate mishap? Their whispers were so loud, filling up the auditorium, filling up her ears.

Surrounding her even now.

“Not today, huh?” Mike commented as Claire bolted from the piano bench, falling in a heap a few feet from the instrument. Mike rushed forward with a small trash bin as Claire started coughing, arriving just in time for the bile to fall neatly into the plastic lining.

“I’m sorry.” Sweat and tears were running down her face. She looked so crushed.

“Don’t apologize. You’ll get it one day.” He rubbed her back soothingly until she had calmed down, murmuring uplifting words all the while.

It was a tragedy that what had happened eight years ago still haunted Claire whenever she attempted to play the piano, especially when Mike knew that the only true joy she found in her days anymore was when she was around music. He could see it whenever they listened to a CD together, or when she looked at a piece of sheet music. It was a downright shame.

The ringing of the store’s phone called Mike’s attention. With one last concerned look at Claire, he stood and walked into the back room to answer. Unsteadily, Claire got to her feet again, wiping away the sticky perspiration on her forehead. She looked at her fingers, slender and long, weary from years of disuse, and felt her eyes fill with moisture once more- tears formed, not from pain, but the tiredness of a soul that had lost sight of the joys in life. Sitting at the piano bench, with her fingers on the black and white keys, she had been reminded. For the briefest moment, Claire had recalled the reason she had started learning piano in the first place. She walked haltingly back to the piano, gently touching the keys again, not noticing when Mike wandered back into the room.

“That was the post office. Apparently I need to go pick up a few boxes. Will you be alright here?” Claire nodded slightly, still brushing the ivory keys. She sat down once more on the piano bench when she heard the lock click behind Mike and squared her shoulders, facing down her insecurities.

Come on, Claire. There’s no one around to hear if you mess up this time. It’s just you and this piano.

Could she really play it this time? Would she be able to? Already without Mike, dear as he was to her, watching her hopefully Claire felt lighter, less burdened. Perhaps without an audience she would be able to. After all, she hadn’t really tried after that horrific event. It was decided, she would attempt it once more. Tentatively, yet determinedly, she placed her fingers in their required position and deliberately pressed down, hammering out the beginning chord of the piece. The first hurdle was cleared; she had played an entire measure before she realized it.

You remember the notes, the fingering. Remember the rhythm, and how much fun you had?

Courageously she continued on, finding herself reaching the playful waterfall of notes and thirds. To Claire’s delight and surprise, she began to laugh, her face lighting up as she played. It was a clumsy, halting rendition of the piece, yes, but she was getting through it, which was much more than she could say for all her previous attempts. Her gaiety was challenged shortly by the upcoming portion of the song, the very portion that had jogged her memory earlier that day. For it was that portion, delightfully difficult and nightmarish to any who played, which had caused her to stumble eight years prior. Claire took a steadying breath as she reached the first chord and hammered out the torrent of notes the followed.

That’s right. This is easy. You can do this.

She coaxed out the complicated pattern with more ease than she had thought possible, passing through the section of the song with a concentrated persistence, finally being able to slow back down into the thoughtful and longing progressions which made the song such a brilliant and famous piece of art.

But it was not sad. Not with Claire playing it. Though some would attribute the song as being a farewell from Chopin to his beloved homeland, Claire looked upon it, not as an ending, but rather a beginning- a way to return to the pathway before her that she had turned away from so long ago, where she was not overshadowed by her parents, nor by her self-doubt. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, playing out, step by step, the road that was hers completely. And, while there would be trials to persevere through, each step would bring her closer to the person she wanted to be.

The final chord reverberated through the store in poignant clarity. Claire blinked a few times, not believing what had just happened, before a triumphant smile grew across her face. She beamed down at the piano, flooded with happiness. “I did it!”

Behind the door to the back room, which had stood slightly ajar the entire time, Mike let out the breath that he hadn’t known he was holding and grinned contentedly into the dark.

[blotsonapage]

Sunny

Written in 2011, Winner of a Scholastic Honorable Mention

Sonny sits on the balcony connected to the tiny apartment he shares with his cheerful, but busy, flat mate. He leans over the balcony’s steel railing and watches the people passing or cars driving or clouds floating. When the weather’s bad, or when it’s too cold out, he’ll move inside and sit at the table beside the window instead, soaking up whatever sunlight he can get, just like a lazy cat.

But always, always, he’ll be watching the bursts of life just outside; never joining in, just watching contentedly. He’ll watch as the clouds inch lazily through the sky, blocking the sun just as its heat is becoming too much to bear. He’ll see the city buses rolling to a halt at the bus stop just a few steps away from the apartment building’s front door before speeding off to wherever they were going. And he looks for a young woman with long, auburn hair who’ll show up every day at precisely 8:05, five minutes before her bus arrives, which just so happens to be the same bus that Sonny’s roommate takes each morning.

Suddenly, before he realizes it, he finds himself watching for the young woman, needing to see her sweet face and warm smile at the beginning of each day. He says good morning to her when she arrives at the bus stop, and whispers goodnight each evening as she passes him on the way home, though only in his head so she never hears. Day after day he observes her, laughing when she laughs, crying when she cries, and even dreams about her when he curls up to sleep in his warm bed. If only he could do more than watch from a distance, he thinks as he falls even deeper for the woman, wishing with all his soul to be able to talk to her.

He learns later that his flat mate has also noticed the auburn-haired woman. Sonny sees himself in his flat mate, sharing the same golden locks and cheerful demeanor that can brighten any room, and now a love for the same girl, though Sonny’s roommate doesn’t know that. He wonders sometimes whether that was the reason that his flat mate had chosen him out of all the options available to him. Though with all their similarities, they have their differences too. The main one being that Sonny’s roommate can talk to the young woman, and he can’t.

It is from his roommate that Sonny learns that the young woman’s name is Laura, and that she teaches ballet every day at a dance studio downtown. It is from him Sonny learns that Laura’s favorite flower is the sunflower, and that she looks up to see the sunflower on their balcony each day as she goes to work, which makes Sonny glow because that means she sees him smiling down at her when she looks up. And it is from him that Sonny hears, with some measure of dismay, that Laura has agreed to go out with his flat mate, though the dismay and jealousy gives way to contentment, and he vows to do all he can to help their relationship. Sonny can’t talk to Laura, but his flat mate can, so he becomes Sonny’s link.

The contentment lasts even as the relationship deepens into something much more serious. One day, his roommate comes home later than usual with a small black box in his hand. He sits down before Sonny and just stares at him, slight hesitation in his eyes. Sonny knows what his flat mate wants to do, and he urges him to do it. Nothing would make Sonny happier. After a long pause, his flat mate stands and walks into the kitchen. He opens a drawer and takes out a pair of scissors before returning to Sonny and cutting.

Sonny is given to Laura the next day, along with the small black box. She squeals and cries, but it’s the good kind of crying, and enthusiastically accepts both gifts. She promptly fills a vase with water and gently, lovingly, lowers Sonny into it, then turns her back and leaves with his flat mate. But she often wanders into the kitchen over the next two weeks, a bright new ring glittering on her left hand, to gaze warmly at Sonny as he slowly fades away. 

He doesn’t regret it, even as he disappears. In fact, if there is anything in his life that he is proud of, it’s that he gave his life to bring joy to the woman he loves. It’s the fact that he is Laura’s favorite flower.