July 2021

In our hometown there were places––Real places: like the Taco Bell Burger King McDonald’s trifecta, where if we went late enough we could sometimes see the employees lighting up and smoking underage under parking lot streetlights; and the beat-up other Walgreens, where a big can of Arnold Palmer and a family size bag of those pretzels bites with the peanut butter inside only cost two seventy-nine in exact change; and the church/daycare parking lot where we used to play four-square and had our own ass handed to us again and again by merciless middle school boys who found puberty early and used it to cherry bomb that motherfucker so hard we didn’t have a cold chance in hell; and that secret bike trail that wasn’t really secret and is now an apartment complex haunted by the souls of Baja Blast-drinking sixteen-year-old jackasses pulling wheelies on their ghostly 12-speeds; and the old basketball court that stood next to the high school until orcish men wielding hard-hats and jackhammers came and tore it up to build a brick building with no windows and no doors, that black asphalt and triple-rimmed hoop now long, long gone—the faded white three-point arc and games of twenty-one existing only in memory like the taste of a root beer float; and let’s not forget the football bleachers so stereotypical I don’t need to remind you they had a specified section solely for the hopeless souls of pep band kids with braces and baritones, ADHD and saxophone reeds, converse kicks and splintery drumsticks, lonely oboes and sheet music with penciled-in quotes from Seneca, etc., etc.––those bleachers underneath which the virginities of many were (supposedly) lost, along with something else we didn’t even know we had but now we miss it like those Scooby-Doo fruit snacks that turned out to be too good for reality; and of course that hill behind the Honeywell smokestack, where once on an October midnight before the end of the world we licked cheap McDonald’s ice cream cones in the backseat of a beater, and for the first time saw our lives as bildungsromans building up to this exact moment, saw the honey-colored spirit egress not just with the smoke of Marlboros or blunts or bonfires, but with each new and frosting exhalation.

And now when we find ourselves back in our hometown, it’s just a town that used to be home.

Christian Ash was born and raised in suburban Minnesota, and currently attends Gustavus Adolphus College. In 2020, his fiction and poetry received awards as part of the Lawrence Owen Prizes in Creative Writing. Additionally, his work has been published in Kaleidzine Magazine and Firethorne Literary and Graphic Magazine.

Maeve traipses home, sweat pouring down her back. March wasn’t this warm when Mommy was a girl. No,— soft, cold flakes of snow blanketed the ground. At least, that’s what Mommy said.

Past the playground, children who don’t get a future. Past the two saplings. They never last; why does the city bother anymore? People drive under solar panels, coming home from jobs that are supposed to save the environment. But everybody will die within twenty years. Those jobs came too late. At least, that’s what the scientists said.

She doesn’t have any ambitions. Nothing matters if the water is going to swallow her whole. Or maybe she’ll shrivel up like a sun-dried tomato. At least she has twenty years to find her final words. There, that’s an ambition.

Her battered house leans on a useless little hill. She swings the swollen door open, watermarks higher each year. It’s a growth chart just like the one Mommy keeps for her. The water grows faster.

Mommy drags in the groceries, wearing her Yale shirt as if a fancy degree will protect her. She wants Maeve to attend Yale, but how can she if Connecticut drowned years ago?

“Maeve, a little help.”

Into the garage, heave bags to the kitchen. 75% recycled material, one bag brags. Oh, that’s the minimum, retorts another. 84%, how’s that! Food is stocked, one more week to live in Dumpster World. Maybe Maeve can find a clean planet all for herself. Ambition number two.

The sun disappears, a breeze kicks up. Mommy frowns.

“That’s weird. Storms weren’t predicted today.”

Maeve shivers. The storms are more often these days, Maeve overheard Daddy say one night. What will we do when the house floods? Where will we go?

Now the rain patters on the windows. It’s almost pleasant, except for Daddy’s words creeping up behind Maeve, ready to pounce if she gets too comfortable.

The rain turns into a tantrum. Dying trees lash the house, people duck through doors, and the wind howls. It’s never this bad. Mommy and Daddy hold Maeve close when she crawls into their bed that night.

In the morning, there is no sun, only wind and rain. The next day, too, and the next. Maeve stays upstairs because downstairs is a swimming pool.

On day six, no power.

Day ten, nothing to eat.

Day thirteen, no Mommy. No Daddy. It wasn’t twenty years, scientists. It wasn’t twenty years. She’s alone, words half-said, lost in water before she could finish.

Lydia Hessel-Robinson is a high school freshman in the Philadelphia area. Her work has previously been published in Philadelphia Stories, Jr., and Cricket magazine. She also loves to read and competes in horseback riding.

Bryan’s foot floors the gas. We’re sailing through the desolate two a.m. Turnpike, his Corolla packed to the brim with friendship and feeling. The five of us know we’re going too fast, that the 90 miles per hour lightning freedom could be extinguished with a simple pothole. I say “slow down” but really, I mean “don’t let this ever end.”

It’s Valentine’s Day.

I was falling asleep on a twin size mattress in Natalie and Nicole’s dorm room, the space where I spent the majority of my freshman year. I lay at the foot of Natalie’s bed; we were crumpled together from the weight of the day. Alexa, my roommate, hunched over at a desk, typing her way through assignments. Nicole played music from her bed across the room. We were all close enough that if we stretched out our arms, we could probably interlock fingers. A pinky promise was always only a reach away.

My phone rings. It’s Bryan, another part of our dorm family. He’s breathless, his voice muffled by the connection or his despair. I’m half-awake but I make out words that sound like “boyfriend” and “cheater” and “break up.” I sit straight up when I hear “Gainesville, RIGHT NOW.”

I don’t remember what my first thought was, probably something along the lines of it’s MIDNIGHT, Gainesville is two hours away, and oh God I have class tomorrow. But those thoughts weren’t important, because one rose above the rest, tore its way from brain to throat to mouth to phone:

“You’re not doing this alone.”

That’s how we end up strapped into Bryan’s college Corolla’s crumb-filled seats leading us to the demise of a two-year relationship. Co-pilots navigating our friend through heartbreak.

I’m sitting in the front seat diligently skipping any song that mentions love or happiness or commitment or feelings or boyfriends that cheat using dating apps, which is to say that mostly we listened to our own voices offering advice and promises that things will get better. I watch the speedometer needle move higher and higher and I want to say what we’re all thinking:

This probably isn’t worth dying for.

Just six months ago, we were all strangers to each other. Random roommates at the mercy of a university’s algorithm. But now I know that Alexa throws up when she eats too much at Chili’s, and I know that Natalie can’t go outside without socks on, and I know that Nicole has always wanted to dye her hair red, and I know that right now Bryan needs us.

I look around at the broken, beautiful group of people hurling through the highway with me and I choose not to say anything at all because the windows are rolled down, the wind slaps our cheeks, and the laughter at how ridiculous this all is bruises our ribcages. And in this brief, gloriously electrifying coming-of-age moment, I think, maybe, just maybe– this is worth dying for.

We wait outside a Gainesville apartment for a while, feeling the energy of the night in our chests. To pass the time, we tell jokes, yawn, kick through the empty water bottles at our feet. And then Bryan comes back, silently crawls into the backseat of the car; his body collapsing into the safety of friendship. It’s quiet for a second, and then he begins sobbing into my friends’ laps. There’s nothing left for us here. Natalie takes the wheel, Alexa rubs his back in careful circles, Nicole runs her fingers through his hair. This time, I do say the thing we’re all thinking: “Let’s go home.”

Camila Cal (she/her) was born in Montevideo, Uruguay and lives in the U.S. She attends the University of Central Florida where she studies creative writing and journalism. Her experience as an immigrant and first-generation student inspires her to write creative nonfiction that others may relate to. Her work has been published in UCF’s literary magazine The Cypress Dome, and Ghost Heart Literary Journal’s Chambers issue. Find her on Instagram at @camivcal and at Twitter at @camivcal!

Beau Heese is a seventh-grade student from Saint Patrick Catholic School in Rolla, Missouri. He wrestles, does taekwondo, and also likes to play the drums. Beau also loves to read, which inspires him to write.

The bell at the top of the door rang as Henry strolled into the butcher shop, a white-walled, white-tiled establishment. Behind the glass display case, chunks of pig, cow, and chicken lay like fleshy fallen Dominos. Bridget stood behind the counter, scribbling an order on a ledger. A relatively short woman with brown hair tied into a ponytail, she wore glasses and her hazel eyes flitted between the display case and her ledger. With a deep breath, Henry gave himself a pep talk. You are Henry Bartholomew Williams, and you are going to tell this woman how you feel.

“Bridget,” Henry said.

Looking up from her ledger, Bridget adjusted her name tag and said, “Hello, can I help you?”

“Bridge, listen, I need to be quick. My name is Henry Bartholomew Williams. I’ve been coming here for some time now. I don’t even eat meat. I just came here to see you. I threw all that pork away. It was such a waste, but it was worth it.” Feeling his arm tingle, he knew he had to continue. “I’m a vegetarian. It was worth seeing you each day and getting look at you from a distance.”

Then what consisted of his bicep shriveled, and Henry glanced down and saw that his arm had transformed into a duck wing. The left side of his shirt tore open as the wing grew, sprouting pristine feathers with a beautiful blue stripe, only it was larger than a duck’s wing—it was a human-sized wing.

Bridget’s face slowly transformed into that of a woman witnessing a man’s arm change into a duck’s wing.

“Oh my god,” she said.

“Bridget, Bridget, eyes up here,” he said, pointing at his face. “I’ve got to get through this. I’ve been watching you and trying to get the courage to come talk to you, and I think I’ve finally gathered the courage. I like you. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever encountered in my entire life. I’ve watched you greet customers, and while you get a little annoyed with the little kids, overall, you are kind and funny and …”

His other arm morphed into an identical duck wing. Bridget dropped her ledger and it clanked on the floor.

“Wha … What is happening? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s the magical realism, Bridge. Google it later but not right now. What I’m trying to say is that I think I love you. No, I’m hopelessly in love with you. I want to spend every single moment of my life with you. I want to have children with you. I already bought the four-French door refrigerator in stainless steel, and you can have the whole bottom drawer for all your meats. I want to grow old with you and complain about our aching joints together.”

His tennis shoes sprang off his body, revealing two large orange webbed duck feet.

“Is this some sort of prank? Am I being recorded?” she asked. She took off her cap and hastily smoothed her hair down, her eyes glancing around for cameras. Then she glanced back at the man who was turning into a duck. At the sight of his feet and wings, she contemplated pinching herself. Despite the feathers and duck feet, he had a strong jawline and adorable wavy brown hair. She’d worked at this butcher shop for three years, and he was the first man to ever hit on her.

“Bridget,” he continued getting down on one knee. “I know this is fast, but would you do me the honor of becoming my girlfriend?” He clasped the tips of his wings together in supplication.

Bridget stared at him blankly as his mouth and nose transformed into a long, large duckbill, and his eyes shrank back into the sides of his head, which suddenly became covered with metallic green feathers.

She paused, staring at this seventy-percent duck, thirty-percent man creature, and weighed her alternatives. She could live alone for the rest of her life or consider what this man was offering her right now.

“I don’t even know you. How old are you? Are you employed? Do you live with your mother?”

“Bridge, I don’t have that much time, but I’m 32 years old. Yes, I’m employed, marketing, and no, I live in an apartment. I also spend my free time raising money for charities like St. Jude and Make-A-Wish. I cook a delicious mushroom cheese quiche. Make me happy by flying off into the sunset with me.”

Bridget eyed Henry with suspicion. Was he telling the truth? And even if he wasn’t, what was life anyways but a series of choices until eventual death? Wasn’t life too short to give up a man who would literally turn into a duck for you? She thought of Alfred Lord Tennyson “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Taking off her apron, she said, “Okay, Duck Man, let’s go.” And she slid over the counter and embraced her feathered lover, and they flew out the door together.

Abby Yuan is a rising senior at Dougherty Valley High School. She’s an animal lover who intends to one day become a veterinarian. In her free time, she likes to bake cakes, write stories, and argue with her brother and father over scientific theories.