September 2019

Dollar Store Stars

By Esme Kaplan-Kinsey

In retrospect, I think I loved her bed more than I loved her.

She was sweet, don’t get me wrong. With that long auburn hair and those freckled constellations on her arms and tiny little upturned nose…I spent an inordinate amount of time that semester, maybe forty minutes into history or halfway through study hall when I should have been finishing math homework, thinking about those freckles, thinking about pressing our bodies together so hard that maybe I could transfer those constellations onto myself.

If I’m being honest, I’m having trouble remembering her name now. Something classy, no doubt. An Anabelle or a Francesca, maybe. Some name I had no business with.

I know the way it ended was awful. But in my defense, I was young, and teenage morals often stretch at the whim of emotion, especially love.

She loved me, I don’t doubt that. I could see it in the way she walked toward me, the way her mouth looked like she couldn’t quite hold in the words or the kisses. I could see it when she walked away from me, the way her stride bounced a little more after exchanging a few words.

I may have loved her. I had no frame of reference, see. But I know without a doubt that I loved her bed.

The first time Francesca (Annabelle?) took me home, I felt like a stray puppy she’d pulled in off the streets. She had a maid, for God’s sake. She had a cut glass bowl of those nice candy almonds on the kitchen table, and she didn’t even eat one as she walked by. Her younger siblings were tiny and perfect, like dolls, but she waved off their piping questions and dragged me up a white carpeted staircase to her cavernous bedroom. And there it was: silken, pink-sheeted love at first sight. When we started making out on that gorgeous, pillow-covered vision, all I wanted to do was sit up, put my shirt back on and look around. Because man, she was pretty cool, but that room was like another dimension. If you land on a planet you’ve never been to, you’re gonna want to leave the spaceship at some point. Even if the spaceship wants you to touch her boobs.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. My blankets were scratchy and my pillow was lumpy and my bedframe squeaked when I moved. My little sister was snoring in the corner of the room. You’d think I’d have been used to that, seeing as she’d been sleeping there for eight years, but that night I couldn’t stop thinking about Annabelle’s (Francesca’s?) sister, who had a loft bed draped in lilac and glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling.

At three in the morning, my older brother came in, drunk off his ass, slurring angrily when he tripped over the coffee table. My sister sat up and watched with sleepy amusement. I told my brother to puke in the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to clean it up this time. Mom yelled at us to go to sleep.

Francescabelle wanted to come eat at my house. I told her no, partly because my brother was always more attractive than me and partly because the image of her scrubbed, vanilla-scented self sitting at my kitchen table made me vaguely nauseous. Plus, I hadn’t even told Mom I was seeing her. Plus, my little sister was sick a lot and I wouldn’t want Francesca to catch anything. I had a lot of good excuses.

So we went back to her house, up her staircase, to her bedroom, over and over and over. Once, after school, I fell asleep in her bed. When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was, but the fluffy pillows smelled like her and in my half-dreaming state, staring up at the folds of the canopy bed, I suddenly wondered if I was going to cry.

That pissed me off, so I rolled out of bed even though my body was screaming for another few minutes of bliss. I walked down the stairs looking for Annabellesca, and the maid told me she’d had to go to her piano lessons but said I could sleep for as long as I wanted.

The maid was this pretty Latina girl who looked familiar for some reason, and halfway through our conversation I realized she was one of the twelve hundred chicks my brother dated in high school. I asked if she remembered him, and she started laughing.

“The one who punched the principal at graduation?”
I said yes, that was my brother, and I laughed too even though he’d spent two weeks in juvie for that and came back bruised and smelling like piss. The maid was very nice and gave me a handful of the candied almonds that I’d been too scared to eat because they looked so pretty in the cut glass bowl.

Later, I told my brother that my girlfriend’s maid was one of the girls he’d dated in high school. He looked shocked.

“No way.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Isn’t that funny?”
“No way.”

“What?”

“You have a girlfriend?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Franabelle still wanted to come over for dinner, and now my brother started pestering me about it. “Why the hell would she date you, dude? What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing,” I’d say. “She’s hot.”

“Yeah, imaginary chicks usually are.”

Eventually my irritation overcame my weird dread, and I told her she could come over for a meal. I spent the days leading up to it with my stomach knotted. Because of my brother, I told myself. Because Mom cooks simple food that might not suit her refined palate. Because my sister has a cold again and Franabellesca’s perfect upturned nose should never be cursed with the sniffles.

We had spaghetti, I remember. Tangled up with red sauce and meatballs. Our table was square, made for four people. We gave Ancesca her own side. She sat up straight and thanked my mother profusely. She was the shiniest thing in the room. She glowed like her insides were full of molten metal. She reached for the loaf of bread at the same time as my brother, and though her hand was half the size of his it still got there first.

My sister’s mouth hung open. Snot was running out of her nose, but Mom was too fluttery to notice. When I told Mom I had a girlfriend, I knew who she was expecting to be over for dinner. The girl with the purple hair who sat in the back of my history class drawing dragons all over her textbooks. Maybe one of the girls who would dodge behind the school to smoke a joint between classes. Someone who my brother went out with, someone like the maid. Someone who wouldn’t make my mother feel like she needed to scrub the house from ceiling to floor.

My sister said, through a mouthful of meatball, “Your hair is so pretty.”

Franabelcesca looked startled, like she wasn’t used to hearing this every day of the week. “Thank you.”

“Your hair is beautiful too, honey,” said Mom, and my sister sneezed her acknowledgment.

We ate dessert in silence. Mom fidgeted with the napkins, folding and unfolding them. I could feel the spaghetti tangled up in my stomach.
I asked if she wanted to play cards or something. No prospect of hooking up, what with my sister sleeping in the same room (God, I missed her bed). She said her dad was already coming to pick her up. She hugged my mother, and I watched Mom breathe in her vanilla scent, and I watched Francescanabelle breathe in Mom’s smell of cooking oil and detergent. When Francesca put on her coat and opened the door, I saw Mom’s shoulders relax even as her mouth formed a good-bye.

As we waited there by the curb, my mind was lagging. I was still caught up in the smoothness of her fingers between mine, or the dying embers of her hair in the porch light, or some other physical perfection that made my hormone-riddled body feel airless.

“I had fun,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Your mom is so nice.”

“I’ll tell her you said that,” I said. “It’ll make her day.”

“Aw,” she said, and I looked at her sideways, but her face was blank and her thoughts had clearly moved on. I thought, she doesn’t get just how rare it is for my mother’s day to get made. She should have noticed my sister’s awe-filled snot-sticky stare, how my brother who broke his hand on his principal’s cheekbone drew back his fingers from hers like she was electrically charged. I thought, why do I expect her to understand?

It was about then that her dad pulled up in a Porsche, and it was about four seconds after this that I said, “I think we should break up.”

Her head jerked towards me. “What?”
“Bye,” I said, and I ran into my house. And then I started laughing hysterically because I knew that I was the worst person on the planet and I already missed her and especially her bed and I somehow didn’t regret any of it.

I bought a pack of the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars at the dollar store a few days after. Turns out, anyone can afford those things. I put them on the ceiling over my sister’s bed. Her nose bubbled excitedly, and at night sometimes I could hear her singing to her constellations, but pretending they were the ones singing, in a constant loop of comforting and comforted that was only meant for her but sometimes made the knots in my stomach loosen a little.

I’ve heard that it’s common for people to fantasize about their ex-lovers. I don’t remember ever doing that with her. Hell, I don’t remember much about her; her name was probably Jacquelyn or something. But I have to admit that many nights, when the glow-in-the-dark stars were the only source of light in the room, I could not keep myself from dreaming about her bed.

Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey is a eighteen-year-old writer from Petaluma, California. She is the founder of her school’s creative writing club and editor of the school literary magazine. She is a two-time finalist at the Youth Speaks Grand Slam Final for Slam Poetry in San Francisco, and her work has been published or is forthcoming in Teen Ink and Amaryllis. When not writing, Esmé enjoys acting and making music.

Our Town

By Katherine Xiong

We realize later that the day everyone in the township lost both hands — no clean cut, just a rude awakening to two drying, painless stumps at the end of our arms — should have been declared a state, if not national, emergency. This shit doesn’t happen often! The least we could get is some recognition. Instead we got Dr. Selwyn accepting bids for an experimental treatment that’s supposed to regrow limbs like lizard tails, and those Veterans Association guys, Ray and Eddie, volunteering to lead workshops and support groups for our new lives without hands. Also a lot of screaming and anarchy and this-is-an-outrage stuff on TV in the first few days, but none of us had time for that. Panic is for morons who can afford to miss work, as Samira likes to say.

So here’s how the day goes: us girls get up individually, clear our cauterized stumps of the nastiest clots, and drag our sorry asses in with five minutes to spare. We’re forgiven, obviously, for skipping makeup and leaving our bedhead in place, though Manager David draws the line at ditching those neon-pink fifties uniforms. That alone sets us back about an hour. By the time we do manage to get the doors open, we have a line of pissed-off, balding weirdos who must be from out of town, since they’ve still got fists to shake at us. David greets them all with a yellowing say-cheese smile and leaves us four, all handless, to fend for ourselves.

It takes a few minutes in the kitchen for Haruhi, our high schooler, to ask how the hell we’re supposed to get these orders out. It’s lucky our pancakes only take one trip to the microwave and the cooler’s right there. But these plates have a long way to go. We’d leave them on the counter, but expecting customers to come up to the counter for their food? Unthinkable.

“Well, let’s test it out, Haru,” Samira says. She wiggles her stump at the steaming heap of brown on the table. “Group effort, ladies. Wrists out.” Except Haru’s tiny, and our first attempt to balance a plate on her twiggy wrists ends with the pancakes sliding off onto the floor.

So we improvise. Have her hold the plate in her teeth? No, too heavy. Hold it between her elbows? Haru’s too weak. Piper suggests having her juggle it with her knees like a soccer ball, and really, Samira’s blank stare is what she deserves.

Finally, Samira throws her stumps up and stomps off to get the whipped cream. Piper and I look at each other, then at Haru, who’s holding herself ramrod straight like she’s afraid to let herself move.

“Put it on her head!” Piper’s a genius.

It takes both of us crammed onto one step stool to get the platter to balance, but we manage it. We’re just lucky we picked Haru, whose head is surprisingly flat.

We hop off the stool as Samira returns with the whipped cream tucked into the pockets of her apron. She glares for a moment, holding the canister by her wrists, and then she yanks the cap off the cream with her teeth and pushes down the nozzle with her tongue. She didn’t shake it enough, though, so it comes out gloppy, an oozy lump that splats in a pool of liquid.

“That’s, like, three health code violations right there,” Piper says.

“What, the tongue thing?”

“No, dumbass, that whipped cream job,” I say. “Atrocious.”

Haruhi’s eyes fly to her hairline, and before we can stop her, she whips her head back to look, sending the platter facedown to the floor. I’d wipe it up, but I can’t hold a mop at the moment and one look at that rancid fluff has me convinced that it’ll give me blood poisoning. Instead I strike a movie pose — wrist flared against swooning forehead, backside against the counter. Woe is us.

The three of us start giggling, Piper and me doubled over and Haru like she can’t believe she’s allowed to breathe, but then Samira laughs. She’s laughing so hard that she can’t keep hold of the canister, and it lands with a splat in the middle of the mess. Which makes us go even more nuts.

Anyway, that’s what we’re doing when David comes back in with a tray of muffins in his translucent, veiny hands—because (and I forgot to mention) he’s also an out-of-towner and none of this is his problem. We only pause to laugh harder and cover our mouths with stumpy wrists when he shakes his crooked finger at us, saying, cut the shit.

Katherine Xiong is a freshman in college who’s doing her best. Her most recent work has appeared in One Teen Story and Body Without Organs.

I Watched the Death of Titans

By Sophia H.

i. Seven

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? My loathing or his animosity?

He is a wolf, a creature carved from the bowels of the darkness that whispers my name when I’m dreaming. His head is cocked to the right as he leers at me from the stairway. I can see the beads of sweat which have formed from trying to chase me on his forehead, fall slowly onto his arm, and then onto the floor. Silence.

All of a sudden he springs at me and has my arms pinned against the yellow wall. Don’t give up your wings, I remember thinking. Fight! I try to kick him, but he yanks my hair so hard that the colors in the world blur together like fingerpaints. He pulls me towards him and rips my shirt clean through the middle, and then slaps my face. I fall to the ground, and he stands over me, grinning. I’m crying as I yell to my mom. “Stop it!” I beg. “Stop it please, Daddy!”

ii. Ten

We stand on the orange linoleum floor, our gaze upwards, watching her dip the cauliflower into the flour, egg, and breadcrumbs. Her hands move with practiced urgency as she lays each piece on a sheet of tinfoil and places the tray into the oven. From the room next door, we can hear the familiar sound of love. The shattering of glass, the smashing of china. The parallel voices of my grandfather and father going up, up, up as they shout bitter words with the strength of years of resentment. I clamp my hands over my ears and begin to cry as if some part of my being recognizes the chronic fear that this fiery abyss will summon.

“Babička, what’s wrong with the oven?” As the acrid smell of burning food begins to fill the air, my brother asks again. If she hears him, she doesn’t answer. Her eyes are closed, and she grips the silver cross hanging from her neck. From the fear of God’s judgement, or for reassurance?

I follow my brother as we tiptoe out of the room towards the basement, where we turn on the tv and watch hours of Slovak cartoons. It’s always the same. The same wolf running in the same circles to eat the same bunny. We understand nothing, yet we keep it on, for the crackling static of the television set drowns out the noise from upstairs.

Later, I find a dusty tin of sweets. We eat cookies for dinner.

iii. Twelve

The Royal Pine car-freshener is still slowly revolving around its hook by the time the car lurches to a halt at the cemetery. My grandfather’s knuckles are white as he lifts himself from the driver’s seat and walks through the rain to the tombstone.

My little sister asks, “Do you know that when it rains it’s actually God crying?”

“Shut up,” I say.

With my face pressed against the window, I can see his hands begin to shake as he places a fresh set of lilies by his own grave. He strikes a match, which goes out. He tries again, but covers it with his hand and quickly places it into the candle holder. Bowing his head, he places the candle on the grave where his family, my history, is buried side by side. He kneels on the earth and begins his prayers in the only way we know how to.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned.”

iv. Fourteen

The day I learn my father is mortal is the day the gods watch him fall as his wings finally melt after years spent trying to cradle the sun. When he hits the Earth, the impact breaks his back and his mind, and he spends days in the white room reciting a chant in a cipher only he can understand. As he breathes through tubes and machines, he transforms into a fragmentary echo of his past being. My mother’s shoulders curve inwards and shake.

v. Fifteen

Up here in this place between light and deepest shadow, the heavens seem to be just a fingertip out of reach. As we near the summit, I look down at the base and picture my grandfather there, leaning on his cane as he waits for us to come down. The mountains are my grandfather’s mistress; during his youth, they would steal him away for a couple of hours, enticing him with the sacred promise of the wild joy of adventure that only something as divine as the mountains could construct. The summit climb is my family’s tradition every time we spend the summer in Slovakia. This year, however, my grandfather said he was too old, so we left him behind to complete our climb.

At the peak, my dad and I stop at a clearing and look at the trees, the mountains, the lakes, the whole expanse of the world beneath our feet. “Look over there! That’s Liptovský Mikuláš! Do you think Babička can see us?” I point to a small group of houses off into the distance and wave.

As my dad shakes his head, he grabs my hands as if in need of assurance. “Wow, it’s so tiny. Were we always that small?”

I pat them gently and say, “Don’t worry, Dad. You were once big to me.”

Sophia H. is a sophomore at Phillips Academy aspiring to study political science. Her work has been featured and/or recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, The Apprentice Writer, and various school publications.

Rationalizing My Identity Crisis

By Min Ki Kim

I often imagine what life would be if it resembled TV shows like Friends. Chandler’s self-deprecating jokes, Monica’s extreme compulsion to be organized, Joey’s simple-mindedness, Phoebe’s flakiness, every character existing to serve a specific purpose, and always acting in accordance with their character. Perhaps the prevalence of media’s influence like this and its inability to reflect the complex characteristics of a real person makes me believe that I’m alone for struggling with my identity.

I think it stems from suppressing my feelings down for too long and doing what I think I should do instead of what I want to do. It’s been hidden away for so long that it’s hard to distinguish between the two. It wouldn’t be a problem if the two were consistent with each other, but most times, it’s the polar opposite and that’s when my sense of identity breaks down, and I’m thrown into an endless cycle of overthinking and overanalyzing.

I just want to have a concrete set of things that identify what I am, and that all the actions stem from. Up until ninth grade, I had that specific identity. I loved to play games and that’s who I was. I stayed home hours on end, on a Skype call with online friends, barely even leaving the house or physically interacting with my friends. All my conversations revolved around the game I played, whether it be DOTA 2 and all the different play styles I can take with a certain character, or The Binding of Isaac and the different play throughs I had. Looking back at it, it’s pretty depressing, the kind of lifestyle I led. I remember countless times I shouted at my mom saying, “No Mom, I can’t pause an online game!” when all she wanted was for me to eat dinner before the food got cold. I also shouted and threw my headphones at my monitor when I lost a game, screamed when the connection went bad, swore and shouted at my teammates for every mistake they made.

I’ve changed significantly since then. I got inspired by a Youtube persona I follow, developing a new interest in pumping iron. With that, everything started to change. I felt more confident, I went out more on social gatherings, and I made new friends that I now share precious memories with. Memories that are both good and bad, but nonetheless, memories that exist outside the virtual realm. Throughout this transformation, I eventually phased out gaming altogether, leaving behind everything related. You can say that I jumped from one extreme end of the spectrum to the other end. Although I may seem better off, I really am not.

I appreciate everything that happened. I really feel like I’m a better person than I was before. This transformation, I believe, has really turned my life around, but that’s the catch. The turnaround was so drastic that I’m not sure what I am. When I’m in the house for a while I’ll get lonely and sad, but when I’m outside with my friends I’ll get exhausted and sad. I feel comfort in having things in order, but I seek spontaneous activities outside of my control. I’m unable to boast about my achievements but I’m a narcissist, a loudmouth, and an egomaniac. On every situation, I’m two things polar opposite.

Inside my head, two demons constantly battle for dominance. I’ve found my way of dealing with it, by jamming the brake and taking the controls away from my emotions. All the decisions now come from my head. I still feel the polarizing personalities, they just no longer get to make decisions on what I do. Emotions now sit on the passenger seat of the ride that is my life. I’ve been hurt numerous times in the past, and on every occasion, my response was, What now? How does this affect my future? What is the next logical move? When my best friend betrayed me, all I could think was— it’ll suck to find someone else to hang out despite the fact that for the past year and a half, we’d shared our closest secrets and had supported each other. Sometimes at night, I’ll find myself thinking over those important moments of my life. I’ll begin to feel sad until a single tear forms from my eye and goes away and then I’m left feeling nothing once again.

I’ve written this essay thousands of times. Not on paper like this one, but in my mind as I overthink and overanalyze. It’s just what I do, no matter how hard I try to not think, to just enjoy the moment. I’ve gotten used to being this way. I doubt it’s something I’ll ever figure out. Despite all this, I’ll never stop wishing for a revelation amidst all the thinking. One that would make all the other pieces click, and rid me of this curse. I just hope it’ll be soon.

Min Ki Kim is a Korean student attending high school in Indonesia. After taking a long hiatus from writing since middle school, he is revisiting it with the push from his English teacher.

The St. Augustine Heist

By Sebastian Lopez

I had worked for GameStop for about two years, and the only thing I remembered from the first orientation was their absurd return policy. This I hated more than anything at the store, and it stated “Official GameStop policy requires every purchased item to be reduced by 50% or more if the customer chooses to sell it back to the original vendor.” This denigrated every valuable piece of gamer history there was to play, sit on, or admire from afar. As you can tell, I am a bit of a gamer myself and had been a GameStop regular before I started working there. Generally, I only remember the regulars that come in for their monthly newsletter, or the gamers who are first in line when the new Call of Duty comes out. However, there is one specific and, hmmm…. I feel like unique is an understatement to describe him, so I will just start with the infamous Tuesday morning that set the chain reaction in which the end was a federal crime.

I opened the store on what seemed like a regular day, and the first person to come in was a rather distinct fella. It was clear from his bedraggled appearance that he had just woken up and came with whatever he slept in. With a beard dirtier than the back counter, a short stature, and a fedora-trench coat outfit that looked like it was from the 40s, the man entered and grabbed miscellaneous items from every shelf. The items he placed on the counter were a red Gears of War Xbox Controller, a USB drive, small Bose speakers, a Fortnite wallet, a gamer table, and lastly, the GameStop monthly newsletter. “Will that be all sir?” I asked in my monotonous customer service voice. Trust me, if you have worked in customer service, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I could smell the Doritos and Mountain Dew from his grotesque beard. “That is all my good man, the people of Ilios thank you,” he responded in a strangely deep and low-key frightening voice. He tipped his fedora, bent down to the Overwatch poster as if he was venerating Genji Shimada, and walked out.

The “Fedora Man,” as I rightfully nicknamed him, was the only customer for hours, so my mind drifted to what could have been his intrinsic motivation towards the items he purchased. He probably bought the red controller because he broke his other one rage-quitting or from getting mad at his mom for not bringing him his pizza rolls. I own the same pair of Bose speakers and they are the only quality individual electronics at the store, so he probably needs them to enhance his gameplay. The table was small, he was built like an offensive lineman for the Miami Dolphins, so it was more than likely a decorative table.

The newsletter was always outdated and uninformative, so I had no clue why he spent six bucks on it. The USB was more than likely used to store more of his role playing fantasy games. And the Fortnite wallet? Why would a man his age get such a childish thing? I mean I understand everyone can game no matter the age, but in all honesty, Fortnite was meant for 8-13 year-olds, not 45 year-olds who buy strange merch.

I know no matter how low or high a person may be in status, they would never want to “covet thy neighbor’s goods.” Ever. Well, I guess I’ll never know, I told myself. More time passed, and I was scrolling through Facebook, when I saw the funniest headline. “Florida Man arrested for breaking into military base with gaming accessories.” These stories keep getting weirder and weirder. Then, I saw something that filled me with dread. The mug shot was none other than Fedora man! What did this man get himself into?

“Carl Frazier, age 43, used gaming devices to sneak into the Florida Army National guard base in St Augustine, FL for confidential archives. Read further to see how he did it.” So, I read further, because I just had to know! I’m glad it wasn’t one of those click bait articles, because I had actually seen the man himself. “An accomplice, Bryan Lindsey, age 28, was also identified to be a part of the scheme. This plot was written as such by Frazier in a small black notebook.

Frazier dressed as a postal worker, and would deliver a newsletter to a non-existent subscriber inside. Lindsey was set up on a small wooden table about half a mile away. Lindsey used an Xbox controller to control a drone with loud, distracting speakers to divert the guard’s attention. After that, Frazier would sneak through the metal detector with a USB drive in a small wallet, based off the popular video game Fortnite, that had a metal cloaking device to trick the detector. He was ultimately captured when the metal detector beeped loudly and several guards surrounded him and his partner. In an interview with the federal officers, Frazier stated that he was ‘making homage to Grand Theft Auto V’ and wanted to commit a ‘heist mission with his friend.’ Both will be charged soon, and more details will be available when they arise.”

Wow. My jaw dropped. He really came into my store to do a GTA heist. Small world isn’t it. I felt bad but at the same time, it was cool that I got to be a part of a heist too. I guess you could say I was an accomplice at heart. ; )

Sebastian Lopez is an eighteen-year-old student from Dallas, TX. He will attend the University of North Texas in Denton in the fall of 2019. He loves playing classic video games and enjoys jamming on his guitar. He also loves writing short stories. His piece is about a bored worker at a game store whose life is changed by a person he criticized greatly in the beginning. Like the Transformers, the customer the worker assisted was “more than meets the eye.” This short story was inspired by his love for video games like the classic Super Mario World, and Mario Party, along with newer shooter games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. He thanks you for taking the time to read his story, and hopes you enjoy it : ) This is his first time publishing.

The Required Writing Supplement Section

By Caleb Pan

—The Required Writing Supplement Section—

Every student has a unique life experience and a set of circumstances by which they are shaped and influenced. Your background may have been shaped by family history, cultural traditions, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, income, ideology, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Reflect on a time when you had to relate to someone whose life experience was very different from your own. How did you approach the difference? If put in a similar situation again today, would you respond differently? If so, how? (650 words limit)

When I was in third-grade, I was picked as part of a team to represent my school at a brain bowl. My team only placed second, which is why I did not include it on my application.

I befriended a participant from another school, who I will call Throckmorton to preserve racial and ethnic ambiguity. Throckmorton was a Muslim, indicated by a pinback button he wore that read “I am a Muslim.” At the time, I wore a handmade LEGO cross necklace (with a rare barbed-wire ring accessory as an attached piece to represent the crown of thorns which I was very proud of). He was certainly different, but he liked LEGOs too, so he was a cool kid.

The host school provided pre-made lunches with no exchangeable options. Unfortunately for Throckmorton, the main course was a ham sandwich. He felt bad for wasting food by throwing out the ham, but I intervened to absolve his conscience. In my theological opinion, a nice perk of Christianity over the other Abrahamic faiths is that we’re allowed to eat whatever we want. So to emulate the self-sacrifice and love of Christ, I offered to eat it for him.

“Wait! God lets me eat ham!”
Throckmorton perked up and exclaimed, “You’re a good friend!”
After the brain bowl, Throckmorton introduced me to his parents. Before I could introduce him to my parents, he had to go and I never saw him again.
If I were in a similar scenario today, I would also eat someone’s food in the Lord’s Name. Amen.

Please briefly explain and elaborate on an extracurricular activity or work experience that you were unable to include in your application. (200 word limit)

One of my most beloved memories is of waking one spring morning, fully refreshed and to the chirping of birds. It has been a while since either has happened.

I have noticed a cultural and byzantine leaderboard for sleep deprivation. I hypothesize contestants use hours of lost sleep to approximate their fortitude. The most prestigious claim I have heard came from a classmate who allegedly stayed awake for seventy-two consecutive hours by instilling his bloodstream with caffeine and Xanax. He eventually dropped the class – he’s probably dead.

For my entire life, I have been an activist opposing this disillusioned award system. I boast an average contribution of 8 hours/day, 7 days/week, 52 weeks/year for over fifteen years. Admittedly, it has been difficult in recent years with other lesser commitments conflicting with my participation, but I plan to continue my passionate work into higher education.

I am dedicated to sleep because it embodies the inevitability of imperfection. I accept the necessities of resting and revitalizing are quintessential to true satisfaction. To sleep is to take care of yourself and not to run a race to nowhere.

I wrote this at 2 A.M.

Describe a specific situation or activity in which you made a meaningful difference and contribution in the lives of others through your effectiveness as a leader in which the greater good was your focus. Discuss the challenges and rewards of making your contribution. (500 word limit)

In third-grade, I was educated in the Montessori model: a classroom designed to cultivate curiosity and open discovery, an organic approach to education.

The greatest mystery of our time was simple: where do babies come from?

The most common theory was that babies were spontaneously grown in mothers’ stomachs. I, however, was not satisfied. There was a large visual encyclopedia in the classroom; big books with lots of words were the ultimate and credible sources of truth. I consulted the tome, hoping it might elucidate the origins of life. I studied the anatomy section until I came across the reproductive system.

It took ten minutes of critical thinking and deducing to differentiate and understand the functionality of the organs depicted by artistic diagrams. I also educated myself in the concept of puberty, recognizing some key components in human conception were unavailable at my age. Finally, the description of copulation was bizarre, but I was able to cognitively assemble the act.

Eureka! The speculations and conjectures were over – knowledge such as this was power. I was the natural leader in the class (by default because I was abnormally large) and saw it as my duty to enlighten my classmates. Some were in shock, most likely traumatized; others nodded with interest, quick to accept the big book as evidence. The enigma was no more.

However, the encyclopedia described intercourse simply as an insertion followed by a deposit. We assumed an accurate analogy was like filling a car with gas. This left us with further questions. What was the duration of the deposit? Does it start upon insertion? How does the body know when to cease deposit? Or does the female have a responsive capacity limit? After many discussions with car analogy-based theories, we finally came to the teacher and asked if she could provide any insight. She responded by banning all discussion on the subject and removed the encyclopedia from the classroom. The suppression of knowledge! How tyrannical! I led a protest to bring back the encyclopedia, explaining our aims and progress.

Our teacher reconsidered, then relented on the condition we remain quiet on the newfound topic. Keeping our word, with the promise we’d eventually get our answers, the encyclopedia was returned with me as its gatekeeper.

With that, I launched an era of scientific fascination, our teacher happily facilitating and catering to the interests we found in the encyclopedia. The renaissance eventually deteriorated when I lost interest and started writing, the class losing its pioneer. I don’t know where my classmates are right now, but I can say with proud certainty that I left a lifelong impact on every single one of them.

Has there been a time when you’ve had a long-cherished or accepted belief challenged? How did you respond? How did the challenge affect your beliefs? (500 word limit)

Once, I was procrastinating by stumbling through an endless chain of linked Wikipedia articles. I started with the Indian caste system and eventually came across the International Flat Earth Conference. This event piqued my interest. I shared the event’s website with several peers for their valued opinions. My so-called friends, the intolerant rabble, mocked the astrophysics minority. I was heartbroken at how frivolously they rejected an opposing view.

Although I dismissed notions of a flat Earth in the past, I put my “globehead” principles aside to immerse myself in their society. Throughout my education, I was surrounded by globe representations and readily accepted them as the shape of the earth. Perhaps I did let myself be indoctrinated by mainstream media and NASA. It was uncomfortable to let a belief I held without question be challenged.

As I delved into the flat Earth community, I encountered a syndicate of conspiracy theorists, literalist zealots, and internet scum. It became apparent that comprehending this intellectual conglomerate, including their numerous ideological schisms, was near impossible.

My revelation? We are all people, people who have no idea what they’re doing with their lives: I squandered my time gaining trivial knowledge from Wikipedia; they filled the void in their lives with nonsensical paranoia. I was unable to accept their beliefs, but it was a valuable lesson of how we are more alike than we are unalike.

That, and there are enough dumbasses for tickets at $249 per person to sell out.

Why do you want to attend [school name], and how do you think [school name] will prepare you to pursue opportunities in that field after graduation? (250 word limit)

I should say I want to sate my thirst for knowledge at the caliber you offer, to hone my unique talent and natural leadership under your renowned programs, and to enrich myself in your vibrant community of creative and critical thinkers. Listen, I don’t want to do another four years. It’s not just you – I mean I don’t want to with anyone. I almost registered with the Peace Corps to avoid all the confrontation. You somehow found my email and address. I don’t know who sold me out, but the way you cluttered my inbox and mailbox was unappreciated. Just because my parents like you, doesn’t mean I do. You were the one insisting that I take my time and make “the right choice for me.” I’m not naïve, okay? I know you drip the exact same honeyed words to all us go-getter types: we’re talented, we’re unique, we’re what you’re looking for.

Am I that special? What am I really to you? You’ve said you want to know my interests, life stories, and plans to change the world. Be honest though – the first thing you see are my numbers, right? I’m not mad, I know you can’t help it, but you should know that I know.

I’m sorry. I’m still young and inexperienced. I’m really trying to figure out what’s best for me. I don’t know if this is meant to be, but I’m willing to give us a chance. I await your response.

You may upload one optional supplemental resume for further consideration:

Uploaded: AcceptanceLetterFromRivalSchool.pdf

Thank you for your application!

Caleb Pan is a stressed out teenager who enjoys hash browns and crying over his lost 4.0 GPA from his first B in Calculus II. He’s an avid reader, writer, coder, and martial artist in his free time.

**This essay originally appeared on the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards website, and is part of the author’s 2019 Gold Medal Portfolio Recalled to Life.**