Hossein Libre

 

The stars are made in the Cave. Every few months, on Flying Day, glowing cubes the size of refrigerators rise from the mouth of the Cave. They’re blinding white, electric blue, and tangerine orange. People from the Surface gather in picnics to watch the cubes rise until the boxes become little more than pinpoint lights in the night sky. Then they go home and forget about the stars until Flying Day comes again.

Gumby used to be one of the picnickers. Before illness swept them away, his parents took him to watch the birth of the stars every Flying Day. Now, a lady in a black-and-white suit is telling him that she will take him to the Cave. She explains that she called all of Gumby’s relatives, but nobody would take him. Gumby asks if he can gather his things. The lady says no because that’ll only make it harder from him to move on. Then, taking his hand, she leads him into a white car.

As she drives, she assures him, “Don’t worry. There’s always a place for you.”

***

The lady leads Gumby below the Surface, winding down stairs of black rock. The flashlight in the lady’s hand is the only light they have. After walking for an hour, the lady announces that they have arrived at Gumby’s room. She pushes open the metal door. Inside, there is a mattress rolled out on the floor with a blanket on top of it. A stack of new clothes sits in the corner along with a flickering oil lamp. Gumby is exhausted, but the lady has a broad smile on her face. She hands him a stack of pamphlets. A few of the titles read For a Brighter Day: Exercises for Forgetting the Past, The Wonders of the Sky, and Why the Stars are a Better Place than the Surface. Gumby promises that he will read them. The lady’s smile widens. She says that she hasn’t seen him cry yet; he’s such a strong boy. Then she walks out of Gumby’s room, heels clattering on the wet rock.

***

A different lady wakes Gumby up the next morning. She gives him his schedule and another stack of pamphlets. There are so many classes he needs to attend: astronomy classes, cosmology classes, getting-over-your-fear-of-heights classes, planetary science classes, universe appreciation classes, horrors-of-the-Surface classes, loving-father-sky classes and accepting-your-fate classes. He even has to attend a mandatory “Moving on from Tragedy” seminar, where he and the other children go through exercises to help them forget about the past. In one of the exercises, they are asked to imagine a time when they were upset and they ran to their parents. Except, instead of comforting them, their parents ignored them and continued going about their business.

A few days into his stay at the Cave, Gumby meets his counselor. She shakes his hand and asks him if he feels like he’s begun moving on. Gumby tells her that he thinks there’s something wrong with him. All the other new children he’d seen broke down in tears at least once a day, but he didn’t. Ever since the lady told him that his parents died, he felt a sort of numbness. It never occurred him that the classes he takes are supposed to be hard; some days, his parents feel like little more than a distant dream. The counselor assures him that this is normal. It can happen in cases of extreme shock. She advises him to grasp on to this detachment because that will help him move on faster. Not every child is lucky enough to have this chance.

***

Gumby begins making friends with the other children. He likes the children here better than the ones on the Surface. They are nice to him and interesting. One of the children, Lily, is nearly sixteen years old, far older than he is. She can see fairies in the Caves. They whisper in her ear, telling her all the dark secrets of the Surface. Gumby asks her how long she’s been here. She answers that she’s been here for ten years. Her parents sent her to the Cave when they found out that she could hear things that they couldn’t.

“No worries,” she says, “they never understood me, but the sky does.”

Every day, Gumby asks the other children to tell him their stories. What were their parents like? How do they like the Cave? What do they think the sky is like? Some are still too broken to speak. Others are like Lily, going on and on for hours about how they want to see the sky, how badly they want to leave the Surface. He is often asked if he didn’t like his parents because he hasn’t cried yet. When they find out that his parents loved him, they tell him that he is strong. They wish they were like him.

***

Two months later, Gumby experiences his first Flying Day in the Cave. All the children are gathered under the mouth of the Cave. In front of them, there is a towering stack of white, blue, and orange cubes. The children whisper and point at the height of the stack. A lot of them will be picked today. A man and two women stand in front of them. The man is holding a piece of paper in her hands. He clears his throat and informs the children that the names on the list are the ones that have been chosen.

He begins to read off the list. With each name he says, a child steps forward. The two women help them into a cube, and the cube begins to glow. Halfway through the list, Lily is called. As she walks through the crowd, Gumby tries to catch her eye, but her gaze is locked on the blue cube in front of her. She doesn’t look back as she disappears into the box. There are a few children who burst into tears when they hear their name. They beg that they aren’t ready; they still love the Surface. The man reading the list tells them that they were all picked for a reason. It was decided that they would move on better this way. When he is done, all the cubes are glowing. The women lift each cube up towards the Cave’s mouth. When they let go, the cubes float up. The remaining children watch as each cube shrinks into dots against the black fabric of the night sky. Then they are told to go back to their rooms and prepare for next day’s classes.

***

That night, the alarm bells ring. They ring when someone tries to run. Gumby sits up in his bed. At first, he thinks that the alarms will stop soon. Nobody ever makes it far. But it keeps going. He opens the door and peers into the hallway. People are shouting, wielding blinding flashlights and clutching leashes of barking dogs. As Gumby watches, he wonders why the child is running. What do they love about the Surface so much? On the Surface, it is cold. Children in the Cave don’t have a place on the Surface. Yet there are always children that try. They must be desperate. When the flashlights and dogs disappear down the hallway, deciding that the runaway isn’t here, Gumby finds himself rooting for the child. He imagines them finding a new home on the surface, with a mother and father that love them with all the heart of the world.

When the alarm quiets and the people turn off their flashlights, Gumby feels something squeezing his chest. He returns to his room and feels something inside him boil over. Before he reaches his bed, he is crying.

***

The next morning, Gumby finds out that his counselor is gone. His planetary science teacher tells him that the girl who tried to run away was under Gumby’s counselor, giving the counselor one too many runaways. Gumby asks what happened to the girl. The teacher says that she was immediately put into a cube and sent to the sky. Nobody noticed the lone star making its way to the sky. He insists that it was for the best; it was the only way to help the girl move on.

When he sees the fallen look on Gumby’s face, he says, “Don’t linger on this. She’s in a better place now. Now, let’s learn about the wonders of Jupiter!”

Later that day, Gumby is introduced to a young woman with strawberry blonde hair. Her name is Alice. He asks if she is his new counselor, but she isn’t. She’s a volunteer from the Surface, and she will be gone once a new counselor is found. Her smile is bright, like sunshine. She isn’t weighed down by things that trouble the children of the Cave. When Gumby tells her about the girl that tried to run and about how he wished that she made it, Alice doesn’t reprimand him or tell him to forget about it. Instead, she folds him into her arms and tells him that she knows it hurts. While his tears soak her shirt, she says that while she is in the Cave, she’ll always be there for him.

***

For the next few weeks, between his classes, Gumby visits Alice. She tells him stories about the Surface. Stories about sunlight and birds and spring grass. He knows that he’s supposed to forget, but he keeps coming back. She asks about his life on the Surface and listens when he talks about the arithmetic classes at school and the oak tree in front of his house. Sometimes he falls silent during his visits because he remembers how blue the sky is in the daylight and how gold the trees are during autumn. Each time Alice takes his hand into hers, letting him know that he is not alone.

One night, Gumby can’t sleep because he’s thinking about the Surface. He wants to see the sparkling blankets of snow again and listen to the whispers of the wind. So he writes a letter to Alice. In his letter, he tells her all the things he’s been thinking about, how the Cave air is always stale, the moonlight never reaches underground, and the oil lamps in the hallways look like ghosts. When he’s done, he folds the letter into his pocket so that Alice can see it tomorrow.

***

After breakfast, Gumby takes out his letter and heads to Alice’s room. When he enters, she isn’t there. Instead, there is a man with gray-streaked brown hair. He introduces himself as Gumby’s new counselor.

“What can I do for you?” he says. Gumby shakes his head and tries to back out of the doorway, but the counselor spots the paper in his hands and asks to see it. As the counselor reads it, his face is expressionless.

When he’s done, all he says is, “Read it yourself.”

Gumby reads the letter and wants to disappear into a corner. In the letter, he is begging. He is delusional. He pleads Alice to take him with her when she returns to the Surface. He says that he can’t go another day without seeing the sun. He wants to stay with her. He asks her to take care of him. He promises that he’ll be a good boy. He’ll do his homework first thing after school and clean the dishes for her. When he grows up, he’ll think of her every day. When she’s sick, he’ll be the one to bring her water and food. Despite anything the world might say about them, they’ll love each other. He’ll cook for her when she’s too old to take care of herself. For as long as she lives, they’ll never feel alone because they have each other, and that is more than enough.

When Gumby looks up, he’s sobbing. The counselor pats his shoulder and looks pityingly at him.

The letter, of course, isn’t for Alice. It’s for his parents.

***

For next two weeks, Gumby doesn’t leave his room. When the children bring his food to his door, he only eats enough to stay alive, letting his shirts become too big. He lies in his bed all day, staring at the flickering oil lamp. When his legs begin to wobble when he tries to stand, his counselor intervenes. He tells Gumby that he’s doing himself no favors by starving himself and pushes a plate of food in front of Gumby.

“You can grieve now,” the counselor says, “But at some point, life must go on.”

During the following weeks, the alarm sounds again. Every time, Gumby secretly hopes that the child made it. When he sleeps, he still dreams of the Surface. But they are only dreams. He knows that his parents are gone. The Surface that he wants is gone. His future is with the stars, cradled in the arms of the sky.

***

On the next Flying Day, Gumby is chosen. He knows he’s not ready, but he doesn’t try to hide when he hears his name. Only when the box is closed above him, and the cube is lit a fiery orange, does he let his hands tremble. Even though the other children can’t see him, he can see them. He tries to remember their faces, watches as children he knows and doesn’t know get called. Before he’s done trying to remember, the cubes are all filled, and they begin ascending.

Two men lift up Gumby’s cube, and he is floating. When he leaves the mouth, the Surface opens up before him. His breath catches. There are the picnickers that choose not to remember why their stars glow. Children are running around, laughing and pointing at the cubes. Gumby waves at them, knowing that they can’t see him. For a brief moment, he sees himself among them from what seems like a long time ago. In the distance, there are city lights. They form an ocean, dotting the black canvas of the buildings. They are the stars of the Surface.

In a few minutes this view of the Surface will be snatched away from him, and all he will be able to see is the stars and the sky. They are not the home he would’ve chosen for himself, but as his counselor tells him, it’s the only home he will have, and he will always have a place in this world.

 

 

Jieyan Wang is a high school junior in Moscow, Idaho. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Canvas Literary Journal, The Blue Nib, Lilun Magazine, and elsewhere. She is also a First Reader for Polyphony Lit.

The rejection notice feels cold and heavy in my hands.

I sit in a chair outside Ms. Bates’ office—Ms. Bates, the counselor and school newspaper editor. You wouldn’t find a single comma out of place in those sports articles. So, in a way, I already know why I’m here. You did this to yourself, didn’t you?

Once the tick of the analog clock has faded to white noise, the wooden door swings open, and Ms. Bates beckons me inside. I wipe my palms on my jeans as I sit in the plastic chair; Ms. Bates has a swivel chair, a testament to her superiority. The door clicks shut.

Ms. Bates is a short, brown-haired woman; it is easy to imagine her with two kids in college, maybe a boy and a girl, and their university stickers are definitely slapped on the bumper of her Subaru. Not that I’ve ever seen her car. She gives me one of those smiles so often found in educators who are convinced they can change kid’s lives, but there’s a bit of quinoa still stuck behind her incisor.

“Jess, how you’ve been? Thanks for coming in today,” she says with the same stale sweetness as the lollipops in the glass bowl beside her nameplate.

“Mhmm,” I say, because my heart’s already beating fast.

Ms. Bates must have sensed my anxiety or seen the way I fiddle with the paper in my hand, because she sits down gently as if the two of us were on a teeter-totter. “Don’t worry, honey, you’re not in trouble,” she tells me. “I just happened to see something I wanted to talk to you about. You know how I’m in charge of the school newspaper, right?”

“Yeah. It’s really good,” I say lamely. It’s actually pretty bad.

I feel that prickling sting behind the lids that renders it difficult to sustain eye contact. When Ms. Bates opens up her desk drawer, my will flies faster than the weird kids who sprint to the cafeteria, and I finally break. My gaze shifts to the lollipops and their vibrant cellophane wrappers.

“Well, honey,” Ms. Bates continues, “I read all the submissions the students send to the newspaper, and that includes the little writing contest we held last quarter. I read the entry you submitted. You like to write?”

Ms. Bates is not the baseball coach, so I truly wonder why she throws me curveballs instead of getting on with it. But I smile despite the little squirrel that’s squirming around in my stomach, and my fingers fold the corner of the rejection notice. “I guess,” I say. “Just for fun.”

“It’s always good to have a hobby. An outlet.” Ms. Bates sagely nods behind the rims of the glasses she bought at Costco. “But when I was looking at your writing, I saw some things that concerned me.”

“Oh.” I glance down at the rejection slip, at the note that asked me to come see Ms. Bates Thursday during lunch. I had expected this to happen before I had even received it—I had expected this to happen as soon as I turned in that stupid story. But the part of me with pencil shavings for a spine still wants to tell her that I really am a good kid, that there is nothing strange going on, and there is no need to worry. I keep my mouth shut with an effort.

At last, Ms. Bates withdraws the papers from her open desk drawer and sets them between us gingerly, like the ink is gunpowder. “I want to talk with you about this,” she said, “not to punish you, but just to understand.” She’s going for the motherly warmth of a cozy hearth, but it feels more like the frying circuits of an overheated computer.

I stare at the papers and the sloppy staple holding them together. I had wanted to get the staple at a perfect forty-five-degree angle, but, as usual, things hadn’t worked out the way I wanted.

Ms. Bates clears her throat and speaks to fill my silence. “Let’s see here.” She looks at the typing slathered across the pages but doesn’t actually read it. “Your story was about… pirates? In… space?”

“Mhmm. They go on an adventure.”

“An adventure.” I notice a slight raise of a penciled-in eyebrow. “With all kinds of action, I noticed. A swordfight. And the ending…”

“What is it?” I lean forward, eager to get this over with, but I can feel those pencil shavings at the same time, coalescing into a hard ball of lead. I am determined not to give in.

“Well, it’s happy.” Ms. Bates puts her thumb beneath her chin and an index finger over her lips, her features furrowed. “Your characters, they win the big battle. They end up friends, and all of them are alive. Do you see how a counselor like me would be worried about this?”

I shrug and shift lowered eyes to my name printed on the incriminating evidence. “I guess so. Doesn’t mean anything, though. It was just an idea I had.”

“I don’t think so, Jess. To me, this sounds like a cry for help.” She reaches out her hand as if to pat mine but stops just short for dramatic effect. “I’ve seen many teenagers call out to me through their writing like this. And as someone who cares about you, I don’t want to ignore the warning signs.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with me, really. Just what’s so off about it in the first place?” I demand, surprised at my own boldness. “What is so horrible about stories and fantasies?”

“It’s just not… It’s just not sad enough.” Ms. Bates sighs, but I think she’s excited to have a hard case to crack. I can tell she’s secretly impressed with how artfully she extends her sympathy. “The other kids, you know, didn’t write this kind of stuff,” she says. “Sarah Williams wrote about high school heartbreak. Casey Johnson wrote about his abusive father. That’s the kind of thing teens are supposed to write about. Those are the kinds of submissions the newspaper likes to receive.”

“And you aren’t concerned about them?”

“Of course not!” An impatient grin pulls at the woman’s thin lips. “Kids are always filling up their pages with angst and darkness. That’s what makes it art, isn’t it? That’s what makes it good!”

Ms. Bates waits expectantly for my enthusiastic reply, but I just cross my arms and stare at a stain in the floor carpeting. I was already familiar with this fact; I had read the newspaper countless times and marveled at how eloquently ninth-graders had described their depression in tear-smeared letters. Some pieces were even written entirely without capitalization—a real showstopper.

But I didn’t understand—still don’t understand—why suffering makes something more meaningful. Why despair makes something better written. The stubborn child inside of me, the one who appreciates a positive emotion every now and then, refuses to nod along with Ms. Bates. I can feel our teeter-totter rocking back and forth.

Still she is determined to convince me. “You are a good writer,” Ms. Bates tells me, fishing for all the best movie lines she could remember, “but you could be a great one. There’s just something missing, and it alarmed me, that’s all. Usually I’ll see at least one mention of a coffee shop to symbolize tortured artistry and loneliness or maybe some nostalgic flashbacks in italics. But I couldn’t find any second person in your piece, and that sent up a big red flag.”

“I was just trying to be unique,” I say, nearing exasperation. “Kayla Dawson has published a sob-inducing little memoir about her eating disorder in the past five issues. I thought maybe happy could be new or interesting or powerful or—”

“But happy isn’t deep.” Ms. Bates shakes her head. She leans back in her swivel chair and laces her fingers like a therapist closing in on the eureka moment. “People always like some good oppression. The stories of all the emotionally damaged and internally conflicted children are just so important. Their voices deserve to be heard—or do you disagree?”

I realize that Ms. Bates is on the offensive now, and I have leapt right into the sugar-sticky mousetrap of that deceptively welcoming lollipop bowl. “No, I—” I shake my head vehemently, because God forbid I find those such-important stories too dramatic, too flowery, or too unoriginal. Those kids have already been through enough as it is. Could I dare disagree with stricken lamentations?

“Jess, I know the advertisement asked for short stories,” Ms. Bates continues, eyes gleaming now that the kill is near, “but that doesn’t mean fun little adventures anymore. At your age, excitement is shallow, and innocence is privilege, and standard narrative structure is just so naïve. Can’t you think back on anything that made you cry or gave you trauma? Any racial or religious persecution? Not even a broken friendship? Because that’s what impresses people—it makes you sound so very intellectual.”

The fervor in her voice and the almost-wicked shine to her eyes warps Ms. Bates to resemble a rabid animal, if only for a second. In that moment, however, I feel a cold kind of dread that presses its clammy hand around me until I shrink into myself. Her words don’t make sense to me, but a persistent thought, a hopeless desperation, prods the back of my mind. You want to get published in the newspaper, don’t you?

“It’s just that everybody’s trying to make themselves seem different in the same exact way,” I protest meekly.

Ms. Bates gives me playful, narrowed eyes; she knows she’s already won. In the end, I am no match for her and her swivel chair. She might say this only goes to show that satisfying conclusions are the least interesting.

“I’ll tell you what,” she says, tapping a finger to my sorry excuse for prose. “I can see you’re coming around, and I know you have real potential. We’ll try an exercise to fix your mindset. I want you to give a second try at this submission, and maybe this time you’ll see things in a new light.”

I think about my name on the rejection notice, and then I mentally transfer it to the contributors’ segment of the school newspaper. My words printed on pages other people will read, even if the words are slathered so thick with emotion you can’t quite see the point underneath the shiny surface. I bounce my head lightly and offer a small smile without showing my teeth. I get off the teeter-totter and out of my chair, but I leave my story behind.

A day later, I sit with my notebook in my lap and chew on my pencil eraser, but instead of drawing doodles and constructing plot outlines, I close my eyes and pretend I’m a space pirate. Except I haven’t won the grand battle; the enemy’s cannons were just too loud, and their swords were just too sharp. I imagine that all my friends have been killed, all my treasure stolen, and all my hope extinguished—maybe that I even lost an eye, so I have to wear an eyepatch now.

Then I write about how sad and lonely I am, taking care to use second person when I’m actually referring to myself, and including one-word paragraphs to showcase true flashes of genius. I throw a skull in there for a real edgy metaphor. When I’m done, I think I feel better. Like a real writer.

Still, the acceptance notice feels cold and heavy in my hands.

 

Danielle Sherman is a sophomore in high school who wants to pursue a career in writing and editing. She is currently a First Reader for Polyphony Lit and has been published in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards’ past anthologies. Aside from writing, she loves soccer, art, and her local library.