Issue Four

I close my eyes and pray with every single fiber in my body, cold sheens of sweat running down my face, frantic gasps of air escaping raggedly from the corners of my mouth, the persistent drumming of a frantic heartbeat echoing its tormented cadence through my ears. Please, not this time. I pray to you, oh Lord Almighty, not this time! I desperately clutch my aching head with both hands, trying to numb the flaring bursts of terror pulsing their way through my body. My guilt-stricken soul refuses to find solace in the name of God. I swear I’ll do anything, please, not this time, PLEASE!

The desolate trees swayed menacingly in the harsh winter wind as a young woman sprinted her way through the barren forest. Her breathing was heavy, the stitch in the side of her chest burning every step she took. A little boy, no older than five, was in her arms. The pain was almost unendurable, but yet she ran, through the grizzly storm with flecks of snow stinging at her bare face and hands. She gritted her teeth and shook off her pain. She had to stay strong for her child. Safety and refuge was close. All she had to do was keep up her pace a little while longer. She smiled at her sleeping son.

A waning moon slowly emerges from behind the parting storm clouds. The omnipresent darkness that inhabits my room is gently cut apart by silvery tendrils of light, casting shadows upon the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the entire room. For a heart-stopping moment, everything is silent. I look up, my face shining with tears, my cheeks bearing the marks of desperate, clawing hands. My ragged breathing has all but ceased, my frantic heart, pounding so laboriously just a few moments back, has ceased to beat. Everything is still. Everything is eerily still. And then, he comes for me.

The young woman barely slowed her place as she eyed an icy bridge spanning a deep chasm several hundred yards ahead. But her pursuer was gaining on her, a cloaked giant of a man armed with a spear, his cruel eyes blazing. The woman slowed her pace and stepped on the bridge nervously. It held her weight, but swung dangerously. She made it halfway before she collapsed to her knees, the fatigue getting the better of her, her frostbitten limbs unable to carry on any longer. Her child was jolted awake by the fall, and desperately shook her, screaming for her to get up and unable to understand why she was kneeling so forlornly in the middle of a bridge. “Mama. Mama. Please Mama, get up!

The shadows are moving rapidly towards each other. The darkness writhes and contorts in unconcealed hatred, fusing into itself, giving birth to a monster that seeks vengeance for a crime long buried in the deepest chambers of mind, for a sin that has scarred my soul beyond repair. It will deliver my punishment every single night, night after night. It will never forgive. It will never let me forget. My eyes are wide open in terror, unable to take my eyes off the swirling apparition of darkness who staggers towards me, determined to possess. Its arm rises, towards my convulsing body. No. No. NOOOOO!

The young woman opened her eyes. “My son,” she whispered hoarsely. “Keep running away from here. Cross the bridge and you will see a steep hill that you have to climb. Reach the top and you will find people who will help you. Go now”. The boy refused to leave his mother. “No Mama. Come with me, please!” he cries. The mother’s eyes brimmed with tears at the sight of her child trying to tug her along. But there was no time to lose. The man was getting closer by the minute, the sneer on his face visible. The woman wrapped her arms around her son, holding in the flood of tears that threatened to break lose any moment. “No matter what happens, remember that I will always love you,” she said lovingly.  

I am immobilized in fear as the dark spectre takes a fluid form, swirling slowly around me, spinning faster by the second. A cold wind whips my hair. A long, drawn out scream issues from my mouth. A chorus of disembodied voices begin their hoarse chant, the words thrown by the gale. Coward. Weakling, whispers one. You can never escape your burden, sneers another. But perhaps the most chilling voice, that of a young boy’s. The voice I dread hearing every night, a voice of pain and misery I cannot comfort, for which I will never get a chance for redemption. Why didn’t you help? Why? WHY?

The mother pulled away gently and caressed the cheek of her young son. She smiled warmly, rose to her feet and turned to meet the man who had begun to stride purposefully across the bridge. The boy turned and ran as fast as he could, tears streaming down his face, his inner conscience screaming at him to stop, to go back, to help. He didn’t hear the screech of metal as his mother drew a short knife from a metal holster, nor did he hear the shatter of ice as she plunged the blade into the bridge. Cracks formed in the ice at an alarming speed, spreading outward from the point of impact. Any minute now, it would be over.  

The darkness slows its pace, solidifying once again into a dark apparition sitting at the edge of my bed. Gazing right at me. I know what is coming. The image that is eternally branded behind my eyes, an image that refuses to part from the dreaded chambers of my inner mind. Time slows as the monster slowly reaches up and grabs the hood covering its head, slowly drawing it back to throw the sunken visage of my deepest enemy into the silvery light. As always, my eyes refuse to close. All I can do is gape at the face of the being I sentenced to misery on that fateful day…that fateful day…

The cracks had spread throughout the entire icy walkway within seconds. The man, startled into inaction by the mother’s actions, halted several feet away from her, too scared to take a single step for fear of unbalancing the bridge further. The woman sighed contentedly and envisioned the warm glow of the short, blissful time she spent with her son. She closed her eyes for the last time. On the other side of the bridge, the boy had halted at the foot of the hill, panting heavily. He didn’t turn around as the bridge collapsed, sending shards of snow-white ice tumbling gracefully into the fathomless void below.

They say that one’s greatest opponent is the manifestation of all the negative qualities that he possesses. The evil within one’s soul that must be fought in a gruelling battle, day after day. You killed us that day, screeches the apparition in my mind. We lost everything we had, reduced us to the broken husk of a human being you are now! Tears fall down my face as I look at the tormented face of a young boy no older than five, burning with the grief of losing his mother, a manifestation of the good entombed deep within me, qualities that don’t have a chance of resurfacing. Qualities I lost after losing mother…

I suddenly bolt from my bed, running towards the window with the cries of the spectre fresh in my ears. You forgot what she told us! You neglected to remember how she lived, and chose solitude. Running away WON’T SOLVE YOUR PROBL – “The apparition never finished his sentence for I had yanked the curtains over the windows with all my might. The moonlight dissipated, and I was left standing by myself in a dark room, shaking with grief. I don’t know how long I stood there, but when I finally moved, I crawled into bed, determined to find refuge in a few hours of undisturbed sleep.

Outside the window, a waning moon twinkles innocently from behind the refuge of several misty storm clouds, making its eternal voyage across the heavens, night after night, for everyone to admire…or fear.

 

 

 

Vanit Shah is a student at Turner Fenton Secondary School in Ontario. He enjoys spending his free time writing creative fiction, performing as a lead trumpeter for his school jazz band, and arguing in general with his two younger siblings. His love for writing has earned him recognition with the Poetry Institute of Canada on several occasions, although his true ambitions rest in inspiring others to make the world a better place, one small action at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girl in yellow, she stood motionless on top of a hill. She pressed two phones so tightly over her ears that she could no longer hear the birds chirping above her.

She had climbed almost an hour through the woods to get to there. The sun flooded through the trees, the birds adeptly maneuvered themselves between the branches, and wildflowers sprouted in every nook and cranny that wasn’t taken up by other life. The forest was alive, awake unlike her town where the people drowned under the dark, oppressive air no matter what season. She could hear the River rushing downstream, hurrying towards some unknown destination.

The view of the village was quite peaceful, as if the turmoil across the sea of pine did not exist. The grass seemed greener and the sky seemed bluer today. Embracing the sun and the wind and the nature, the girl in yellow dialed two numbers. Both rang for what seemed like an eternity, but finally, a woman picked up one line and promptly a man picked up the other. In unison, both said, “Hello?”

“I’m going to do it today. I wanted to call to say goodbye,” the girl responded.

“Don’t forget what I told you,” the man replied.

The girl whispered, “Mom? Dad? I know -”

The woman interrupted her, “Stay safe.”

She couldn’t tell if they could hear each other, but the tone of their stern, tense voices told her that they could. She had heard this tone only once before. It was the day her father left to cross the River only a few months before. He was safe now.

The sudden crunching of boots against the fallen branches in the near distance caught her attention. She quickly muttered “goodbye” into the phone in her right hand and hurled it into a pile of leaves where the trees and the clearing met. The remaining phone, filled with the deep heavy breathing that only a mother understands, remained close.

“Mother, when you arrive, I will make us food-” just as she began speaking, she spotted a military man emerge from the woods. The medallions on his crisp, seaweed green uniform reflected in the sun, and his shiny black combat boots glistened despite the permanent scratches from long ago. The girl fell silent, just as she had rehearsed with her mother. She had prepared herself to answer the man coming towards her. She hoped her mother understood her silence.

“What are you doing there, Miss?” His forehead crinkled and his eyes squinted from the sun despite the brim of his military patrol cap. It was the military man’s job to watch them. This run-in was not uncommon. If they stepped beyond the surveillance spectrum, it was the military men’s duty to follow them.

She paused for a moment, remembering her answer. “I’m speaking to my mother who is coming home today from an overnight trip to buy spices. I cannot transmit calls from where I live, so I must hike up here to call her.”

“Why don’t you use your landline phone?”

“The landline phone we have only calls people in our town. This phone was lent to me by my neighbor to call my mother at my grandmother’s house.”

Grabbing her by the arm, he stated forcefully, “You are breaking-” but she continued to innocently stare into his eyes, never losing eye contact to ensure her authenticity.

He squinted his eyes once more, seeing honesty more than deception, before releasing her arm with a heavy sigh. He spoke in a hush to warn her, “Curfew cannot be missed.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t forget. It’s still late morning. I will have ample time.” She smiled to reassure him.

The man disappeared back into the woods with no other words. He did not ask for the phone. He did not ask anything more than what seemed apparent to him: a girl calling her worried mother who was away. He would never know that her “missing” father was on a phone hidden in the brush.

Once he was a hundred feet into the forest, she murmured to her mother.

“Do not worry. Dad will get you out too.” Her mother answered with silence. Closing the phone, she began to walk south, towards the River.

The sun broke through the layers of foliage as the girl cautiously trekked down the hill, looking over her shoulder every so often. In her arms she carried a handful of leaves, covering the traces of her footsteps as she went on. She could hear the River’s rumbling nearby. He roared, like an unfed lion, waiting for his next meal.

Within an hour, she arrived at his feet. He greeted her with a rapid flow that led to unknown places. In her yellow coat, she sorely stood out in the midst of the browns and juniper greens surrounding her. Slowly, she inched towards the mud where the River kissed the Earth. Once more, she swung her head back, squinted her eyes, and searched vigorously for any signs of the military man. But all she heard was the whistling of the wind.

Her eyes still lingering on the great height of the pines, the chilled water encompassed her. The icy springtime water crept up her legs as she marched into the River. As she moved deeper and deeper, the water stuck onto her body with the same strong force that she had used when she refused to let go of her father’s hand before he had crossed the River. Waist deep, eyes closed, the adrenaline pulsed through her body as her heart leapt through her chest and her forehead wrinkled, as the River grew stronger and angrier as it swirled around her. Her clothing became heavier, water filling her pockets as if the River was trying to drag her down into an endless pit of darkness. She grew tense; frightened that she may have to swim. It was a skill she knew she would need, but it was neglected in her childhood days when drills and marches consumed her adolescent afternoons.

By the time she was shoulder deep, she was only a third of the way across. Her tiptoes struggled to touch the ground and with her chin raised, she saw the blazing red and orange sky above her dissipate into pink. Panic flooded her mind as she realized she had no choice but to swim. His current constantly nudged her balance every few seconds. Lifting her feet, she began to kick and flail her arms. But they failed her. The deeper she sank, the faster the air began to leave her chest. The River rushed up through her nostrils, slowly filling her throat and her burning lungs with water. He pulled her harder and harder as she tried to get away. The River did not wait for her. He had no mercy. He kept pulling at her feet, refusing to let go. Eventually, she had no choice but to give in.

He engulfed her, pulling her to the bottom. She felt the muddy floor against her shoes and she bent her knees, pushing herself off of the bottom. She returned to the surface for a moment. Several more times, she bent her legs and propelled towards the surface, her body tensing and burning each push upward. She had only moved a few feet from where she had been completely submerged, but she was already tired. Again, she kicked off the bottom and she began to kick. This time, she arched her back and kicked at forward angle. She moved her hands apart and together, propelling her body forward.

Apart. Together. Apart. Together. He pushed her downstream with even more force, but she kept going. She could feel a pounding through her whole entire body as she kicked harder. Apart. Together. Apart. Together. She was almost there.

She could see the shore on the other side. Its singing birds and croaking frogs shattered her concentration and she lost control of her body. She was ready to sink again, but, to her surprise, her foot hit earth and she stood there. One last time, she looked back as the dusk quickly turned to night. One last time, she glanced at the forest, the village, the River that kept her hostage, even when she had done nothing wrong. She turned forward, staring straight at the land that supposedly promised her freedom.

As she left him, she felt the weight of the River across her shivering shoulders. He hung heavy in her pockets. But she kept walking straight into the forest.

Night soon fell and without light, without warmth, it was only a matter of time before she would become food for a bear or freeze. She kept going, remembering what her father had said about a nearby town. She kept walking until she spotted a pile of branches in the distance. It was small, just long enough to fit her whole body and just wide enough to fit for her small stature. The branches strategically met at the top, making a triangle with the ground. Someone who had escaped must have created the shelter not long before her.

On all fours, she crawled inside and laid atop the soft leaves as she saw the night sky reveal its flashing stars. She always thought that they were fairies in the night sky, looking after her when she was afraid. This seemed especially true as she shivered. She thought the sky would look different across the River, but it was still the same.

Her body could not stop shaking and the girl rose to look for branches to start a fire. Her father had taught her how to build one years ago, long before he had purchased a gas stove, and although she had not made one in two years, she still remembered fiercely rolling a piece of branch between her palms, its tip against a wooden plank and some tinder.

With the scavenging done, she sat down beside her shelter and began rolling. Faster and faster, the sticks twirled between her small hands and soon enough, sweat formed in her palms. Though she didn’t find tinder, some dry leaves did the trick. Testing for warmth, she put her hands against a flatter piece of wood. Sure enough, it was gaining heat. Soon, the girl was basking in the glimmering warmth. Although it was small, she tended to it with fierce attention and care, as if she was looking after a child. The fire turned to glowing embers and the night sky became darker. Lying down, she planned her morning, starting with finding the trail that her father had explained would be only an hour walk from the River. Maybe she would run towards the path. Maybe that would get her there faster.

At the bottom of the path there would be a town. Maybe there would be people walking by. Maybe her father would be waiting for her and she would run up to him and take comfort in his embrace. Then, as the embers died, she fell asleep despite the cold, hoping to wake up to the sunrise.

 

 

Yoon Soo (Suzy) Shin is a senior at The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, CT. She enjoys reading shorts stories and essays by David Sedaris, Nella Larsen, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Edwidge Danticat and likes exploring themes such as love, transnational identities, and the cross section where these two themes meet. In her spare time, she likes watching Parks and Recreation, going hiking with her dad, and playing Cards Against Humanity with her friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Times like this, I wish someone I knew shared my interests. I long for an ally during this impossible mission. If only my dog had opposable thumbs, I could teach him to do this for me. I must endeavor, all alone, to the terrifyingly difficult task of painting my nails with my non-dominant hand.

I’m right-handed, in a world designed for right-handed people. Yet, the world of nail painting doesn’t allow the same level of ease that cutting with a pair of scissors does. My left hand’s nails have been polished perfectly, with no flooded cuticles, and no stringy topcoat.

Now I must face my fears; now I must travel to new heights in my painting expertise. I must paint my right hand’s nails. That may not sound very scary, but when that nail polish bottle is staring directly into your eyes and the brush is taunting you with its ability to drip into your cuticles, you find out what kind of woman you are.

I lower the brush into the bottle, scrape off one side of the brush, leaving the perfect amount of polish on the bristles. Carefully I brush across the middle of my pointer finger’s nail. I go back in for a perfect second stroke across the left side. Then, just as I’m admiring my excellent control over the bright-red, cuticle-staining nail polish, my third and final stroke ends in tragedy.

The brush goes just a little too close to the cuticle, and that’s all it needs. The brush and cuticle make contact. The floodgates open up into the rest of the cuticle, promising to remain red until I whip out the evil, devilish, skin-drying acetone.

And that’s why only perfect people can use bright-red nail polish.

 

 

Emily Pineo is a high school sophomore. She enjoys painting her nails, studying law, and dancing. Emily is also eternally frustrated by her attempts to comprehend the Spanish language.

 

This is the story of Spe Ultima. You will only hear this once, before your music resumes. The choice to listen is up to you. Choose wisely.

 

“Warning: Battery low. Charge device as soon as possible. Repeat: Begin charging device.”

The announcement jolted me awake. I felt like I had been daydreaming, but the feeling was stronger than just that. I felt like I was waking up from a coma. But something was… different. Things seemed quieter than usual. Like something was missing….

“My music!” I looked down at my iPhone and realized that nothing was playing on it.

That was very unusual for this day and age, ever since the passing of the United Nation’s Jam Session Act of 2110. That was six years ago. Since that time, all iPhones were programmed to play music non-stop. It sounded like a weird law at the time, but nobody had argued with it, because everyone basically had their headphones in non-stop anyway. Their reasoning behind the law was that if everyone was always listening to encouraging music, everyone would always be in a good mood. This means no more wars, not even a bickering match. The thing is, it had worked. I hadn’t heard anyone yell in ages… in fact, I hadn’t heard anyone at all.

“Begin charging device as soon as possible. Begin charging device.”

I looked up from my phone. I was sitting in my living room. That’s funny; the last thing I remembered was putting my headphones in this morning as soon as I woke up. I looked at the clock. It now read 8:00 PM.

Where had the day gone? I literally remembered none of it. I couldn’t have told you if I had spent the day in school, or if it went by while I was pulling off a bank heist. Not that I would do something like that…

“Charge device now!”

I ripped out my headphones. A searing pain jolted through my head, like I was pulling my brain out through my ears. I looked down at my headphones just in time to see something like tentacles slither into them. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. The tentacles were gone. How strange a day this was turning out to be. Or, ending as. I still don’t know where the day went…

“FINAL WARNING: BEGIN CHARGING DEVICE NOW!”

The announcement blared through my phone’s speaker. With it, the soothing sounds of music. My brain became a little foggy, and I suddenly had the urge to charge my phone, so I could continue listening to my music. I reached for my phone…

“NO!” I grabbed my phone and hurled it out an open window. With a thud, I heard my phone hit the ground, and the music stopped. Almost immediately, my head cleared up, and I could think again.

“Honey? Are you okay down there?” My mom came down the stairs, headphones in and music playing. She saw me standing by the window, and quickly looked me up and down. Before I had a chance to say anything, she suddenly asked, “Where are your headphones?”

“Um, uh well… my phone… and charging… and something about a final warning…” I was stuttering hard.

“Ok, don’t worry honey, there’s an extra upstairs, I can just go grab it, so you can keep listening to your—”

“NO! I mean no, Mom. I don’t want to listen to music anymore.”

“Honey, you have to. The law says so. Go upstairs and put in your headphones, or I will have to call the cops on you. And we don’t want that, now do we sweetie?”

“Mom, you don’t understand. There’s something wrong with the music. It was fogging up my mind. I couldn’t think, and as soon as I threw my phone out the window, and the music stopped…”

“You threw your phone out the window? That’s it.” She put her phone up to her ear, and said “Hello? μsiCore? I’m calling to report my son for destroying his phone and refusing to listen to music… Yes, he is acting aggressive… Yes, I’ve tried to get him to the backup…”

She turned around for a second. I used the chance to sprint out the back door. As soon as I got outside, I screeched to a halt. Everything was… different. But there was no time for that now. I could hear the sirens of the μsiCore in the distance. I had to run. I took off, cutting through backyards, jumping over fences, avoiding dogs, complete with Mutt-Phones™ (Revision of the Jam Session Act in 2112 included designs for headphones that animals could use, so that they wouldn’t feel left out), and basically just running for my life.

Once I was out of earshot of the sirens, I stopped to catch my breath. I looked around some more, and realized what was wrong. Everything was grayish, and everything just looked uglier and polluted. It had never looked this way before, at least not that I had noticed. Everything had always looked beautiful, with blue skies, beautiful nature, with flowers, and bunnies and rainbows, like it was a kid’s coloring book or something. Now, I realized it was all fake. I had a suspicion that it had something to do with the headphones.

I looked around to try to figure out just where I was. I was in a suburb, probably somewhere near my house, but nothing looked familiar. I was behind someone’s house, but there was a fence keeping the people inside from seeing. For whatever reason, I highly doubted that it mattered whether there was a fence or not, because more than likely, the people living inside probably never looked outside. In fact, it was probably safe to sneak a peek through one of their windows, and see just what was going on.

I sneaked around the fence, and pulled myself up to one of their windows, but only enough that I could see through. What I saw made my stomach drop.

There was a family sitting on the couch, watching the TV. They all had their headphones in, which wasn’t unusual, but I noticed that they all acted completely brain dead. They just stared straight ahead at the TV screen. I adjusted myself so I could see what they were looking at, and it made my stomach drop even more.

The news was on, and on it was a reporter, with a big fat unflattering picture of me staring over his shoulder.

I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the words “Unentertained and Aggressive” were flashing across the screen. Great. That meant that everyone knew that I had smashed my phone, and they knew to look out for me. This made things a lot harder. But, I had an idea…

 

I waited until it was completely dark outside, then I retraced my steps until I reached my house.  I needed some supplies, but it was going to be difficult not to be caught. As long as my mom didn’t hear me, I would be okay.

My room was on the second floor, so I climbed up a gutter, and walked along the roof. When I got to where my room would be, I lowered myself down carefully to my window, and as quietly as I could, I climbed through my window. I had to move fast, or I would definitely get caught. I grabbed a book bag, stuffed some clothes in it, along with a hat, and my favorite watch. That’s all I needed from my room, and I was about to climb back out the window when I suddenly realized what I really needed was in the garage. I stealthily went down the stairs, and into our garage. I grabbed screwdrivers, pliers, and some other tools. I had an idea on how not to get caught.

I went back up to my room and out the window, across the roof, and down the gutter again. It would have been a lot easier if I could have used the back door, but that would have set off an alarm that would have woken my mother up in an instant, and it would be game over for me. I quietly searched my backyard until I found my phone, ear buds included. Luckily, it wouldn’t turn on, which is exactly what I wanted. I threw it in my bag, and took off.

I ran, once again escaping from being caught (or so I hoped), but in a different direction this time. I was headed for a nearby woods that I knew about. There, I had a hideout that I hadn’t been to in a long time. The treehouse.

I had built it back in elementary school, before the Jam Session Act was created, and people actually went outside. I used to go there to read, or think, or basically just escape from the world. Now I was headed back for the same reasons, except this time it was a little more serious.

Once I got there, I threw my stuff down on the floor. My bag broke the old boards and fell through until it hit the ground. I heard a sickening crunch, and I almost cried when I realized my watch was in there.

I climbed down and grabbed my bag again, then started to climb back up, but a lot more cautiously this time. I didn’t have time to make repairs yet, so I had to be careful not to break anything else. I set my bag down carefully this time, then opened it up to see what was still intact.

I pulled out my watch first, and was relieved to see that it had been spared. I reached for the phone next, and saw that the cracks were all the same as before, from when I’d thrown it out the window. That left the earbuds. Perfect.

I pulled them out to see that they had fallen apart, but what I found inside was sickening. It looked like a little balled up tentacle where the wires should be. That’s what I had seen earlier when I ripped my headphones out. That must be why I couldn’t remember anything past putting my earbuds in, because this thing somehow messes with my head. And that’s what caused the massive headache…this thing getting ripped out of my brain!

It all made so much sense now. That’s why the government would pass a law as stupid as the Jam Session Act! So they could control everyone through the power of music! How had nobody figured this out yet? I mean, everyone takes out their headphones each night so they can charge their phone (there’s no headphone jack anymore, so you can only charge your phone or listen to music; not both at once), so how could nobody notice?

Wait; when my phone started playing music through the speaker, I immediately wanted to do what it told me! That means that all music has some kind of mind control ability! Then why the headphones? Maybe to strengthen the bond?

All this was hurting my head, and it was getting hard to think. It didn’t help that I was exhausted from all this running. I needed to sleep.
I took some of the extra clothes out of my bag and used them as a pillow. I lay down and closed my eyes. A faint lullaby in the distance helped lure me into a sleep… I could figure this all out tomorrow. First, sleep…

 

I jolted awake to the sound of a car door closing. I shot up and saw red and blue everywhere. I jumped down from my treehouse and started to run. The μsiCore had found me.

I started running for my life, weaving through the trees, away from the sirens and the red and blue lights. I looked back for a second and ran straight into a tree. I fell to the ground, and with a foggy head, heard footsteps closing in on me. I felt two giant arms grab me and lift me to my feet. Two enormous μsiCore officers had caught me, and were taking me back to their police cars. As I was being dragged towards the police car, I saw a cameraman on the scene, and I had an idea. I kicked the officers as hard as I could, and they let go in their surprise. I sprinted towards the cameraman, but was grabbed before I got there. In a last desperate attempt, I screamed at the top of my lungs a final warning to all the world. Then one of the officers hit me in the head with his baton, and everything went black.

 

Your music will now resume.

 

Mrs. Ultima suddenly had the urge to go downstairs and watch the news. Never one to ignore an urge, she walked down the stairs with her earbuds in and turned on the TV. On the channel was live footage of the criminal kid she had heard about. It looked like they had caught him. She turned up the volume to hear what was being said. As it got to the clip of the teenager being dragged away, the voice of the reporter stopped, and the sound of the teenager’s voice cut through the music coming from her headphones and went straight to her heart.

“Beware the headphones! Beware the iPocalypse!”
            Mrs. Ultima was so startled that she dropped her phone. Her head cleared as the music stopped, and in total despair, she said “MY SON!!!”

 

Noah Darfus is a sophomore at Canal Winchester High School. Noah’s English teacher gave his class a writing assignment, then challenged them to make it good enough to be published. Noah took it literally.

 

I.

It’s sunset when dance class finally lets out, and the fingerprints and small children’s nose-smudges painting the strip mall doors catch the colors and create a network of pink and orange trails. The tangerine sun, round and bright as a stoplight, dips its bottom edge behind the silhouettes of pines beyond the highway. While the orange glow paves a warm new layer over the road, I feel the smooth brush of dusk on my skin. Just out of touch, but waiting.

I’m half-tempted to drop my purse in the studio so I don’t have to stand here with it awkwardly shifting my center of gravity. I could toss it in my backpack, of course, but what’s the point of bringing what I don’t need?  I’m standing here, bathed in the final light of summer, and I’d like to think I won’t need things like purses or high heels when fall’s first rays emerge on the other side of tonight. Because by tonight, I’ll be riding in a bus with streetlights flashing by my tired eyes, heading towards California and my sister.

Or maybe I won’t. I feel pinpricks across my arms and down my neck: the feel of half-tangible strings pulling me towards home, towards California, and everywhere in between. But the bus station is just across town, and Addie’s latest postcard and the seventy dollars she sent are jabbing corners through my jean pocket. (‘This should be half of the money you need to get a bus’, she wrote. ‘So you’re technically halfway here. Miss you, signed Addie.’) I want to hear her laugh infused in the words again, instead of having to siphon it from my memories and inject it myself. I want her to pull me into the store where she buys all of her postcards, and go through bulk crates of shaped erasers like we used to do at the general store when we were younger. I want to be able to stand solid at the fringe of the surf, eyes closed, knowing that Addie or her girlfriend, Kenna, will laugh and jerk me back if the water makes a rush for my shoes.

And yet…

Mom thinks I caught a ride home with some dance ‘friends’, although I don’t think she fully realizes that our relationship is more ‘taxi-driver-and-awkward-rider’ than anything else. Nor does she realize that the people I told her were driving me have been up at their cabin for the past week. I have an hour before the maybe-my-bus to California pulls into the dusty station though, so I can only hope she won’t notice I’m not home before I’m gone.

I’m not too worried. I shoulder my sister’s old backpack and watch the strong orange light emphasize the topography of my skin as I start down the street.

 

II.

I made up a story for my younger brother, Toby, when he asked me what happened to Addie. At that point, no one knew, but I kept imagining the last time I saw her at her desk, haloed slightly by the lamp. I kept layering meaning over the image — I still do —because maybe she was drafting letters to us that never got left behind, or scouring a bus route map to see which stop she should meet Kenna at, or digging her painted nails into the soft tabletop as she debated bringing Toby or me with. But until her first postcard came for me, she had vanished. So the story I created, technically, was just as true as any other at the time.

I told Toby how Addie slipped out the front door in the middle of the night, and how soft dawn grayness mingled with her frayed braid as she biked down the highway. I related how general-store-Kat said she stopped by at five in the morning, which was true, and that Kat told me Addie bought a handful of limp peach and fuchsia balloons, which was possibly not true.

Toby coiled his comforter around his arms. “And then what?”

I wasn’t sure if there really was a maze-like mass of water pipes crossing the back, outside wall of the convenience store, and I resolved to never look. But I said our sister clambered up them with the balloon skins wedged in her backpack straps, and when she reached the top, she filled them with the sky. They bulged, straining for the dawn — “Because they were the same color, the balloons thought they were part of it,” I explained — and Addie held on. She dashed across the flat rooftop and threw herself into the sky, her fingers tangling balloon ribbons and clouds. The balloons’ swollen stomachs lifted her up above the dimming streetlights, above the awakening town, above us.

And just like that, I pulled truth out of maybe-fact for my younger brother. I wonder who will do that again, when I’m gone.

 

III.

I know what Addie really did bring though, besides the list of things Kat said she’d bought. I name them in my head as I continue down the sidewalk. Her backpack, of course, the backpacking one she’d proudly purchased from a garage sale before Mom said she could definitely not go out into the wild by herself. She probably stuffed clothes inside in the way she always did, by shoving them so that they sprung out like patchwork flowers when the bag opened, and she took the stuffed animal pig I gave her when I was six. And for whatever reason, she swiped Dad’s half-pack of cigarettes from where they’d been stagnating on the washing machine for two years, as if she thought they’d seep nicotine courage into her skin. But what’s the use in muddling Toby’s truth with another?

 

IV.

I told Addie she should tell Mom. She scowled and muttered something under her breath, but I missed it over the roar of the school bus’s engine.

“She won’t get it,” she said, louder.

“At least try,” I urged, but I could tell Addie was already envisioning Mom shoving her towards the door, shouting. Or worse, turning away in passive-aggressive disappointment, where the situation was officially ‘okay’ but really wasn’t. I guess Addie would rather run than face the unknown.

But then again, how am I any different? How many times have I told Mom an altered truth about what I’m doing, because I can’t help but think of the possibilities of how she could react? My lack of friends, for instance. The hours of creeping through the reedy wetlands behind the elementary school, collecting duckweed on my sneakers as I pursued frogs, replaced with made-up gatherings at the dance seniors’ houses. I’ve created separate lives for every person around me, separate stories that, to everyone else, are pretty much truths.

Addie did the same thing, to an extent.

“It’s a brave idea, to leave,” she asserted in one of her postcards, after I wrote about the time I went to a party and spent the whole time sitting awkwardly in the corner, hidden in the glare of the color-changing lights. “You don’t have to tell anyone about not really having all those friends you said you did, and deal with Mom’s disappointment and whatnot. You can just appear somewhere else and be who you want to be.”

I wish she would send letters rather than postcards sometimes, so that she could slip a photograph in the envelope and show me who she really wanted to be, and who she claims she is now. My only clues are her words, assuming she’s not writing me more false truths, and the marks that appear on the postcards: smudges in the corners and coffee rings overlaying the shiny pictures. When I rub my fingers over the slightly-raised circles, a chill darts down my arms. My sister never drank coffee; the warm, bitter scent always calls to mind rushed commuter adults and makes me wonder what I will find in California, if anything.

 

V.

There’s a playground across the road from the bus station, a remnant of the now-defunct day care. The equipment is painted green, and the now-purplish light is tinting it a navy shade while the metal’s joints catch the last glints of sunlight. Addie, Mom, and I used to come here to pick up Toby.

Does Toby have a multi-truth life yet, or is he too young? He’s peering over the edge of childhood, ready to dip into middle school, and I know it will be too late when he finally enters. He’ll learn how to turn lies into truth, just like Addie and I did.

I watch a thin dribble of golden light slide down the swing set pole as the sun finally disappears behind the optometrist building. The clock on the corner, with its face protected behind yellowed plastic, shows eight-twenty. I have ten minutes before the bus comes, so I slowly start across the street. It’s quiet now, almost eerily so; the crickets have stopped chirping as summer seeps out of the air, the highway’s noise has quieted to a drone, and the usually-present families around the clump of restaurants have been replaced by a single cashier reclining on a bench outside the pizzeria. Somehow, I thought that my mind at least, would be crowded with emotions and jostling thoughts, but it too, is quiet. Everything seems to revolve around Addie, Toby, and me.

Will Toby make up truths? Will he know that I, too, climbed aboard a bus when I got tired of my life, or will he say that I chased after the sister with the balloons, inflating my own as I ran? I tell myself that I shouldn’t be thinking about him, that this is about me now, but I can’t help but wonder what this will lead to. Will sneaking across the country become almost a rite of passage, a tradition? Will my brother leave Mom behind, wondering what she did wrong?

What did she do wrong? I try to pinpoint a specific event, but all I can unearth is a writhing sense of discomfort. It wasn’t a single happening; it was dozens, hundreds of little ones that slowly, slowly stilled my chattering mouth when she was around. And then, after Addie left, it was as if my sister had left a ghostly hand behind. Every time a flock of thoughts lighted around me when Mom and I were together, I’d open my mouth to share them, and my Addie’s arm would shoo them back into the sky. Back into my own mind.

That’s why I need to go. I need to get back to Addie, so we can let them free again.

 

VI.

The man behind the ticket counter doesn’t say anything as I walk into the bus station. There’s a family with a little boy perusing pamphlets in the corner, luggage-less, but the handful of other people who look like they’re actually traveling are mostly scattered across the stiff-backed benches.

Why do I want to suddenly look up and see Toby, watching me over one of the armrests?

Addie’s postcards stick their corners through my pocket and prick my side. “Come on,” they urge, in my sister’s voice from three years ago. “Get that ticket already.”

I want to tell myself that I’m hesitating because of fear, but I can’t. I’m not scared; not while I have pictures of far-off cities and the Pacific Ocean stacked in my pocket like a pile of tiny windows. I’m more scared of staying here, sinking into false versions of myself, and yet I can’t move.

Toby. Mom.

No one looks at me as I merge my sneakers with the red-orange tiling. I imagine Mom realizing that I’m missing tonight. Will she panic, like she did with Addie? Or will she somehow know where I’ve gone, and why?

Not why, though. I don’t think she’ll ever know why.

I hear the purring of a bus in my ears, even though the station is quiet. It’s a phantom, really: a memory of Addie’s bus, a prediction of mine. Maybe a forethought of Toby’s when he decides that this is how to be brave, and tries to shed the non-truth layers of himself he’s built up. It’s rumbling past, but I can’t see if I’m among the faces behind the tinted glass.

Maybe that doesn’t need to happen, but what about Addie? Maybe she’ll send me her phone number one of these days. Or maybe she’ll disappear again. But either way, she has Kenna. She has me, and Mom, whether she thinks she does or not.

But I could still go…

The windows are near-perfect mirrors now, on account of the darkness outside. But when I study my reflection, which is as illusion-like as I feel, a spark winks from beyond. It’s the streetlamps flickering to life, but when I blink at the closest one, more emerge like stars at dusk. The lights outside Toby’s school glint through the trees. The purple strands outlining the ice cream shop, where our family used to go together, are barely visible from their spot far down the street. And far after, even though I can’t see them now, are the lamps on either side of my house’s doorway. A glow will be emanating through the windows from the kitchen, where Mom and Toby will be waiting for me over bowls of cooling spaghetti.

I can fold false truths so seamlessly around people. I can give people a lens through which to see me. But I can also push back through the bus station door, I can follow the sparks, I can feel dusk disintegrating around me…

I can pull back the worlds I’ve constructed for people, wipe away the falsities, and build everything back together again.

 

 

Lauren Otolski is a senior at Minnetonka High School. In addition to writing, she enjoys exploring parks, volunteering at a local farm, and playing clarinet in her school’s marching band.