Fiction

Once there was a fisherman who lived in a run-down apartment near the shore. He spent his time fishing and selling his catches, though they were always small. One day, as he was fishing, he caught a strange fish, the likes of which he had never seen. It was small and golden in the sunlight.

“Oh, please let me go,” said the fish. “I am not a fish, but a transformed prince, and I must go back into the sea.”

“I don’t know what I’d do with a talking fish anyway,” said the man, and released the fish.

That night, he recounted the strange experience to his daughter.

“Well,” she said, “if it really was a magical prince, surely it could have granted you a wish. You should have asked for somewhere better to live.”

***

Feeling guilty that he’d not thought of that himself, he went down to the docks early the next morning.

“Oh fish!” he called. “My family is suffering, and I believe you owe me a favor.”

The fish swam up next to the pier, bobbing in the tide. “What is your request?”

“I would like a nicer place to live, somewhere clean and not broken.”

“Consider it done.”

Sure enough, when he returned that evening, his daughter was sitting in the living room of a small house. There was a garden in the front, full of lettuce and carrots and beans. Inside, they each had their own bedroom, and not a single faucet leaked.

“Thank you,” said his daughter. “I am glad to see the fish was not lying.”

“As am I.”

“Perhaps, though, the fish can do another thing.”

“No,” he said. “This is plenty for us. We shouldn’t be greedy.”

“But wouldn’t you like a second floor? And a dog? I know you’ve always wanted one.”

***

The man couldn’t deny that. The next morning, as he set out his crab traps, the fish came to surface again.

“Is the house to your satisfaction?” it asked.

“It’s a very lovely house. But, you see, we’ve always wanted a dog, and I’m afraid it’s still too small to have one. If we had a second floor, we could have a dog.”

“Consider it done.”

When the man got home, he was greeted by a large black dog, wagging and begging for pets. His daughter laughed and hugged the dog.

“Do you think, Dad, that the fish has more tricks up his sleeve?”

“Even if it does, we shouldn’t ask for more.”

“If he can make a dog appear, though, he must be able to make me a boy.”

“I will not ask the fish for anything more.”

***

The man saw the fish again, but did not ask anything of it, and only threw it a scrap of his bait. When he returned home, everything was just the same as it’d been before. His daughter was sitting on the sofa with the dog, a book propped open in her lap.

“Dad, you didn’t ask the fish.”

“I told you, we’re not going to bother the fish anymore.”

“If I can’t ask the fish, then I can at least ask you. “ She closed the book. “Please, I just want to be a boy.”

“But you are not,” said the man, and he went and cooked them dinner.

As the weeks went on, she asked more and more. Every time he returned home, she stared at him in disappointment. Every time she asked, he refused. He remembered sitting in a doctor’s office and being told, it’s a girl! and he simply did not see how that could not be true.

***

The fish continued to pop up around the docks, seemingly nodding at the man. It didn’t speak to him again, or if it did, he didn’t hear over the crashing of the waves. One night, long after the other fishermen had gone, he stayed, hauling up shrimp traps and throwing back the occasional rockfish.

Once again, the golden fish appeared.

“Old man,” he called, “do you have any other requests of me? I am forever in your debt, and surely by now, you’ve found some flaw in the house and dog.”

“No,” the man said. “I do not.”

“Not you? Or your child? Not even a bone for the dog?”

“No, thank you.”

“Very well.”

It was nearly midnight when he made his way home, under a cloudy and starless sky. In the dark, he did not recognize the building. He’d gotten so used to the house that seeing once again the broken-down apartment did not register.

His key still worked though, and the apartment was exactly how he remembered it. The kitchen was small and one of the burners didn’t work. The bathroom sink always leaked, and the pull-out couch where he slept was creaky as ever.

The only difference was his daughter’s room. She was not there, and neither was the dog. The bed was made, only her baby blanket missing. A stack of books sat in the corner.

The man raced back to the docks.

“What did you do to my house?” he demanded of the sea.

“What house?” the fish answered. “The house your son wished for? The house in which you refused him his life? The house that I gave, not to you, but your son? It is still his house. But it was never yours.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your son spoke to me. He told me of the wishes he’d asked for. I gave you a chance, tonight, to be honest. To care for him. And you did not. If you cannot make one selfless wish, you do not receive any wish. It is your son’s choice whether or not he finds you. I’ve made sure you won’t be able to find him.”

***

True to the fish’s word, the man never saw his daughter again. It was as if she had disappeared, or, more accurately, never even existed. Across the bay, there was a small, two-story house. Inside it lived a young man, a daughter who was once someone else’s son, and the dog.

Many years later, when visiting an old friend, the fisherman thought he saw his daughter. He recognized the dog on the leash, but not the man holding it, laughing with a friend. He wondered, then, if the fish was right. If it really was true that he had a son. Or, maybe, he just missed the dog.

 

 

 

Khalila Soubeih (they/he) is a creative writing student at Western Washington University. He writes about queer magic, often set in their home of the Pacific Northwest. In their free time, they can be found exploring tide pools and on Instagram as @starful.khalila.

My mother was dead, and I had been driving in a cold dark night for what seemed like eternity.

The sign for a motel glowed neon in the dark as I drove into town. I pulled into the parking lot as the sky shrugged on the navy-blue night like a threadbare jacket. The motel parking lot was dark and deserted—it could have been abandoned, but for the lemon-yellow light glowing in one of the windows.

I parked, crossing the lot and stepping into the lobby. The door banged shut behind me. Standing on the threshold, I took off my earmuffs—it was a frigid night, and my car’s heating had broken two months ago.

The motel wasn’t a welcoming place. The carpet was faded and frayed, and the overhead lights were broken. This forced the clerk to resort to a sun-yellow desk lamp. Even she had something of the dead and discarded about her. Blue circles were smudged under her eyes and her thin hair was pulled into a fraying ponytail; I guessed she was fifty. I could see her skull beneath her skin, drawn in indigo shadows. A cigarette dangled from her lips.

I asked for a room. She stretched out a hand to hand me the key to Room 4 and asked, “What brings you to town?”

I fumbled the key as she handed it to me, and dropped it. I crouched  to retrieve it and rose to answer, “Funeral.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. My husband died two months ago.” Those bruises under her eyes must have come from the kind of sleepless nights I was familiar with. She frowned and sighed and said as if to herself, “Sometimes I wonder how people keep living.”

“My mother thought it was God.”

“I don’t know about that. My husband is dead.” The clerk stubbed out her cigarette. “Good luck, anyway.”

I followed her directions to a slightly derelict room. Turning the key in the lock, I dropped my suitcase on the floor. I did not bother to turn on the light before I fell into bed.

I checked out that morning with a different clerk. I left. I went to my mother’s funeral, and I never saw the bruised-eyed clerk again. But sometimes I still dream about that old motel. And occasionally when I wake up I will remember how the motel sign glowed in the dark like a lighthouse, and how it was I and a stranger in an unremembered town had at our core the same deep corrupting fear: that there was no point, that they had died for no reason. I still don’t know the answer to her question, but there is a strange comfort in knowing I am not the only one asking it.

 

Mary Russell is an avid writer (and reader) of fiction, mostly fantasy but occasionally realistic. She was published as a winner of the 2021 “It’s All Write” regional contest at aadl.org. When she isn’t writing or being a high schooler, she enjoys reading, painting, and playing the violin.

Someone told me the other day the world was ending, and I laughed because I was too drowsy for such a sweeping proposition. I supposed however there was no reason to disagree, and in that way it was a small question, obvious even. It all seems so small, newscasts coughing up phrases like “global boiling,” “permafrost collapse,” “atmospheric clogging.” A picture of a fishing boat caught in an oil current. A line to take a selfie with the last oak tree. Grandpa still says the term “global warming,” and I’m not sure if he’s stuck in the past or if he’s sugarcoating. I always decide it’s best to let it be.

When I come home I flick on only the stove light, too late for the sheerness of the ceiling fixture. I light the stove, crack an egg over a pan. Fill a cup of instant ramen with water, stir in chopped mushrooms, scallions, and into the microwave for three and a half minutes.

I flip to channel R-2 on the television and a newscast runs. On the screen is a little white speck flying with the stars and the deep black, something about scientists fleeing the planet.

Soft pops ease onto the pan and I cut off the heat. The yolk wobbles intact to a perfect orange as the microwave rings. I pour the ramen into a bowl, mix in oyster sauce and arrange the egg on top of the broth. Leaning against the counter watching the newscast, I mix the yolk and let it cool.

It is unknown where the scientists plan to go, some sources say they will attempt to reboot the colonization of Mars, a project untouched by any nation since the 2088 disappearance of the Athens 72, thirty years ago.

I used to walk outside with a respirator mask just to feel the sun, a dim glow through the pastel smog hanging in the sky. Sometimes I think the smog might disperse, but it only swells back, dust pebbles raining in its wake. I remember a speck puncturing a man’s windshield on the corner of 33rd. He got out, said, “somethin’ tells me it’s better a’ stay where the air’s thick, you know what ‘a mean?” We both laughed, and strung our masks a little tighter.

Other sources expect the scientists to land on Jupiter’s moon Europa, whose surface has still thawed just thirteen percent, is, as far as we know, uninhabitable.

Uninhabitable, I whisper back to myself.

Out my window my street’s fresh-air turbine lay dismantled on the ground, and pilfered bits; bolts, plating, shafts, are left behind and scattered between every intersection. Only 32nd Street is left clean, where a mural of Peter Pan is preserved in the center. Passerby pause; some to cry some to titter, but all frail and fixated on the gouache foliage of Neverland Jungle, the glass water of Mermaid Lagoon. I walk near them but not beside. Neighborhood moms complain they’re turning into ghosts, but I think they’re only considering it.

The International Department of Astrogeology believes they’ve discovered three impending earth fissures, or tears in the earth, only at about several hundreds times anything we’ve seen before. The first is set to open in one day’s time on Feb 24.

A map of the Western Hemisphere appears on the screen. The first fissure is expected to stretch from Ottawa, Canada, to Matanzas, Cuba. A red line crawls between the two cities, it passes right below my feet. The other two fissures will intersect at Ngari Prefecture, Tibet, and span an even larger area at -fzzt. I cut the newscast.

I open my door and DC is floating, half dead half living. Screams choke the air, out of dread, out of anguish, or maybe just to be heard. Broken glass on either side of storefronts, punctured windshields stained not with dust but blood, and shivering backs hunched in corners, praying. On the yellow lines dividing 33rd Street, a man screams with his eyes closed. “End of the world and we’re here prayin’ to different people, tellin’ one another he’s prayin’ wrong!” I look up and down the street and decide he must be right. It’s too dangerous to appear in a car, too distracted to care for another ghost floating before the mural. As I drift away from the chaos and down 32nd Street I notice the breeze ripping across my jeans. They’re decidedly too baggy and do nothing for the cold, but I cherish them for the grass stains around the knees.

By 35th Street the mania of the fissure is nearly inaudible, save for a few stray shrieks echoing overhead. Instead it’s replaced by droning newscasts left running in empty houses. They sound through broken windows and up and down streets. I need to know, but I wish I wouldn’t have to so soon.

Sources suggest -fzzt- fissure will come much faster than expected -fzzt- eight hours at most.

Researchers in Beijing believe the fissure will -fzzt- swallow much greater an area than -fzzt- expected.

In the last six hours communications went blank. I try to call my parents but nothing, only a beep and a message.

Sorry, Verizon internet services have been shut down for the foreseeable future. Stay safe!

Similar messages are posted on Google, Facebook, sad smiley faces and “stay safes” at the end of the world. I too drop to a corner, and feel my eyes burn and face melt against the wall, collapsed.

I spend the last few hours in the Natural History Museum. It’s silent but the lights are all on. It’s incomplete, turnstiles frozen in place and ‘did you know?’ plaques hanging unviewed. I feel the bustle of visitors in the museum walls, distant like the face of someone you used to recognize. In the surface of a gemstone, emerald jade, I study my reflection. It’s hazy and multiplied but if I squint hard enough, I can see my eyes hang. I laugh, trudging aimlessly through the city and exhausted like a fool. Beside a fossil of a Barosaurus lentus I choose a bench with a cushion. It’s meager and weathered, but I wipe my eyes and know it’s perfect. With my coat spread flat I turn to my side, smiling, too content to be pensive. I only close my eyes and wait to hear the fossils rattle. I’d bet they’re tired too, I’d bet they’re smiling.

 

 

Conner Wood is a junior at New Providence High School. When he’s not writing, he may be found singing, studying, or eating at his favorite bagel shop.

It’s a chilly night in the middle of autumn.  The wind howls outside and a dog barks in the distance. The town is silent except for the local bar at the edge of town. A warm light illuminates from the windows and the sound of music fills the air.

A man walks into the busy bar in a beige suit and bowler hat. He orders a whiskey and finds a table in the corner. He plops down, exhaustion filling his bones. Soon enough, another equally tired looking man slides in on the other side of the table with his own drink. He glances at the guy across the table, “Mind if I sit here?” he asks.

“No problem,” he responds with a wave of his hand as he takes off his bowler hat.

The other man nods before reaching into his coat pocket and conjuring a pipe. He fills it with tobacco before lighting it. Smoke floats up and the pungent scent of tobacco mixes with the smell of alcohol and sweat.

“So what brings you here?” The man lowers his pipe and puffs out smoke, addressing the man across from him.

“Not much, just here to shoot the mayor,” he lowers his glass, swirling the contents, “how ‘bout you?”

“Really?” Shock marred the feature of the man with the pipe, “Same here. I guess lots of people here come with the same plan.”

The other nods before reaching out his hand, “John, pleasure to meet you.” The scent of tobacco engulfed him as leaned over the table.

“Lawrence, pleasure to meet you too,” he responds with a firm handshake.

“Up for some cards, John?” Lawrence challenges once he pulls back.

“Why not? The night is young.” John replies, grinning.

The game starts quickly. With alcohol in their system, and a comfortable rhythm of cards, they start talking .

“So you’re shooting the mayor huh. How you reckon you take the perfect shot?” John starts.

“Well… for starters, I usually use a tripod.”

“I use a bipod sometimes too.”

“I never thought of that, but stability is definitely important.” Lawrence contemplates before setting his cards down.

“Oh definitely, and the angle has to be perfect. A little off and the shot is completely messed up.”

“Of course! Being higher is better though. A clear shot with no people in the way,” Lawrence describes passionately. “Also gives a better escape route,” he adds on as a last-minute thought.

“Nah, I’d rather be closer. Gotta be up and personal and catch the exact moment. Plus, it lets me see more details.” John creates a finger box, peering through it as he imagines his perfect shot.

“Yeah, yeah. You know what’s the worst, when you’ve got everything lined up and your subject moves!”

“Wildlife?”

“Sometimes, but mainly people.”

“That’s tough, but when you get the right shot, it’s like everything clicks. There’s something satisfying about getting the perfect shot.”

“Right! That feeling when you hit the bullseyes.”

“Bullsey-” John responds perplexed before brushing it off, “Not the way I would describe it, but everyone has their different styles I guess. It’s a tough job but one that pays well.”

Shrugging, Lawrence lets out a hearty laugh, “Of course, gotta pay the bills somehow. But one missed shot, the client gets mad, and all the work for nothing. It’s a demanding industry!”

“Sure is!” John agrees fervently as he offers his glass to Lawrence in cheers.

“To a perfect shot! Amen!” They cheer in unison, clinking glasses.

The men continue in conversation, cards long forgotten. A feeling of mutual connection between two strangers on a cold night.

The next morning as the mayor walks out of the back entrance of the town hall after the town meeting, two shots are made: one accompanied by the soft click of a camera, and the other by a sound of a body hitting the ground.

 

 

 

Ciana Tzuo is a freshman in high school who has always loved reading and now wants to further her passion in writing. Her international and bicoastal upbringing has given her a unique perspective on the world. Outside of writing, she plays golf competitively and does musical theatre.

You steadied my chubby hands as I wrote, carefully distinguishing each block letter. You guided my pencil to make sure that I could hold it with a perfect grip. You gave me stern reminders not to slouch while writing; that it was an age old practice that deserves respect. Week after week, I memorized the letters, just as I learned to sit up straight. I learned when to pick my pencil up and how not to smudge the graphite while writing quickly. I was so excited that I would know how to write before everyone in my class. I used a ruler in the beginning, without your knowledge, to make my lines look straight. The ruler met my hands with a smack soon after you found out.

After I could write without looking at the letter guide, you berated me for not knowing how to space out my letters evenly. After I learned spacing, you called my pencil grip an insult to evolution. When I got blisters from writing so much and begged you for a break, you told me that unless I made sacrifices, I would never get anything in life. So I wrote. It didn’t matter which teacher called my printing beautiful, it had to be up to your standards.

But it still wasn’t enough for you. After I learned printing, you made me learn how to join letters together in cursive. You made me practice drawing uniform circles and ovals every day so that every word looked even. You taught me how to make my letters slimmer and neater, how not to pick my pencil up at all. You made me work on making sure that all of my words were the same height. It was a disgrace that I had to use lined paper; I had to be able to write without looking at it all.

Day after day and page after page of practice, I thought that my handwriting had finally improved. But you didn’t think so. You pushed me, saying that I had the potential to write neater than type. I fought back, saying that my handwriting was neat, just not good enough for you.

After I moved away, every letter and card that I sent you was met with remarks of how my handwriting was deteriorating. I tried my best with every letter and punctuation mark, but you always had something to say. I admire the clarity of my handwriting and am thankful for your early intervention. But I am left wondering, did we take it too far? I received every award for my penmanship, and I always gave you credit, hopeful for appreciation which I never received.

Now, I try to steady your hand, guiding your pen as you sign. You cast me glances of hatred as my hand shakes, but we both know that this is best for you. I feel a salty tear well in my eye, the kind that you told me would smudge my ink into illegible hieroglyphics. How did we get here? I wish that it could be different. I wonder whether I could have done more, but I know that I tried my best.

You will have fun at the care center. You can meet people your own age. I sign my name at the bottom of the form, relinquishing my rights to be your caretaker. Your eyes meet mine once more, desperate to know why I’ve done this.

I whisper, “You’ll never have to look at my handwriting again.”

 

 

 

 

Ananya Mandrekar is from New Jersey and is a  freshman in high school. Her work has previously won at the Scholastic Arts & Writing Contest amongst others, and has been published in many different literary magazines, including the Milking Cat, Young Writers, and Teen Ink.

(after Ocean Vuong, Daniel Liu, and Patricia Lockwood)

,I tilt my head back against the sound. There’s a line I read in a poem that I often repeat to myself now: the most beautiful part of your body is where it is heading. I hold it like water, as if once I squeeze too hard, it will break. Back in rural Texas, behind a front porch in the middle of the Bible Belt, is a house; its rickety foundation with watered-down wood soft enough to bend, its daffodils perched by the windowsill withering in the sun’s stubborn cradle, curling into their bodies like rollie pollies; it is only early February, the month when the weather has an attitude that won’t go away, temper scaring away birdsong. I try to live largely, try to live like a wildly brilliant animal, yet so much for my efforts, because here we all are, stuck on an enormous flatland between two bodies of saltwater, trying out each day of the new year before deciding which one to die on. You are no better than me. I am no better than Claire from across the street. I entered this world with my sadness, I’ll take it with me when I leave. On our living days, we are realtors in our own homes, showing our bodies around space and time before picking some punctum to wallow in; I’ll never admit any of my flaws to my doctor, when he asks how much sleep do you average per night?, I tell him eight hours, which is excluding the time when I sit by my bedside, knees dangling from the edge, blue seeping into my joints, running lines from Ocean Vuong’s book over and over again in my mouth so my tongue can sandpaper the words into perfection and spit them out in syllables again when I need it. I’ll let you guess how long that takes. In Texas, I imagine nothing is happy. They call you fat or gawky or pretty and roll it up like a joint stuffed with insult, well, I figured I’d light it with burning eyes and smoke it, then leave at the first crack of eighteen. The future is parading itself in front of me, a red carpet, and now I am in my twenties, washing after a party I can barely remember just to feel clean. I scrubbed and scrubbed just to see how hollow I was inside, opening flesh to inspect my bones of sadness and calcium, reminding myself of my mother’s words, we are what we eat, thinking that I must have drank too much milk when I was younger. It is the first time I feel close to death, seen enough of a sliver of him to feel afraid; mother says anything can cause death if you are not careful; cover your drinks, cover your eyes, girls, live on to try out every day of the year before choosing your death date. The air here is so thin and sharp and keeps you in exquisite pain. There are flowers by the windowsill (old habits die hard) that open their red throats like tiger lilies ready to speak. Beneath the queer retreat of silken sound, the distant cacophony of doors slamming, liquor hangs in the air and my roommate has written up another list of boys she’d like to kiss, her downpour smile sharp, legs curled up against her body like an apologetica. She asked me why I was looking so blue, I told her I had written out an elegy for her. She doesn’t know what this is about (but finds it funny), and I don’t either: I can say confusion is the best quality we have, so hold on to it when you wake by the darker side of the pool shivering in the summer ode of petrichor and pondering the first time you realized you were alive, your knees giving out beneath your butterfly form when you walk because you don’t watch where you’re heading, tripping into the chlorine water before you’ve decided on a date to die, and all you hear is a murky vodka-soaked cry above from some nearby partygoer on land, you are still too young to try death on like a drug, body in the shape of a child falling off a first bike with rusting handlebars, so you pop your head above the water, the taste of hair plastered in your mouth. Remember all the kissing, all the young death flashing through your head like it’s your last day alive and the animators are frantically filling up the screentime of your life. I’ve taken you forward to where I ended up, let me take you back, back to biting off pieces of laughter like mint chewing gum, back to when we took the form of bodies that were none the wiser. I’m putting it all away: homecoming, the snuffing of a last cigarette, mourning. I think so greatly, so far ahead, beyond the starlings above, high and fevered, that nothing matters, not even the fact that I still don’t belong here—the rest is a dream.

 

 

Michelle Li has been recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, The Waltham Forest Poetry Contest, published or forthcoming in Blue Marble, Masque and Spectacle, and Lumina Journal among others. She is an alumnus of the 92Y Young Writer’s Workshop and will be attending the Kenyon Review Workshop; you can find her on the board of the Incandescent Review, Pen and Quill magazine, and the Malu Zine. She’ll read practically anything, the more absurd and emotional the work, the better, and plays both violin and piano. She has an unhealthy obsession with Rachmaninoff, morally grey characters, and Sylvia Plath.