First Writing Prize Winner - Winter (2005-2006)

The Golden City

Stories? Again! How you pester your old grandmother for stories. What shall I tell you

 about this time?

How you clamor, all at once! You must take turns talking. Ssssh, David, wait for your little sister to finish speaking. Really! You want to hear about when I was a little girl? Was I ever a little girl...... was I ever.....

          It comes gently drifting back now, through the mists of time. I was born in a golden city, where the long sunny afternoons were filled with laughter and the music of harps drifted through the streets. The sky there was the bright hard blue of lapis lazuli, obscured only by golden turrets with silk banners, and palm trees with gorgeous-feathered birds languidly preening themselves, and proud fountains, with statues of illustrious heroes standing amid the white whirling spray. The streets were rivers, paved over with glass, and beneath the glass you could see enormous fish swimming, rich rainbows of colors with jeweled scales and fins like plumes and ruffles on a great lady’s ball dress. The air was always heavy with the scents of food and fireworks, rare fruits and exotic incense and rich perfumes. Ladies in sky-blue dresses leaned out of windows and waved their fans and laughed at the joking things the young men on their way to sword practice called out from beneath. Children chased each other around corners, giggling like crazy, capturing robbers, killing pirates, crowning kings and queens, getting married, having sword fights, turning into tigers, and generally getting into all sorts of fantastic mischief that the grown-ups turned their noses up at and never bothered to understand. Occasionally they would run into a storyteller, and he would take them all prisoner and they would sit in a wide-eyed circle around him, transfixed by the winking of his wise eyes and the low music of his magical voice and the bobbing of his feathered turban. And around the ring of children was a ring of adults, pretending to be too busy to listen but straining to catch every word.

          Besides the storytellers, there were also minstrels, poets, artists, and dancers— entertainers of every description, plying their wares on the street-corners. A man with a glass eye juggled six different colors of flame, a magician made apparitions appear in colored smoke, a cobra with a diamond tiara extended her undulant body from a jug, to dance to the piper’s eerie music. A red-haired young man sang ballads of a love and a loss he had almost certainly never felt, while a bevy of maidens stood around him sighing and wondering if they could comfort this mightily picturesque and tragic figure. A haughty artist paced restlessly back and forth before his easel, examining his picture from every angle and applying one stroke of the brush every twenty minutes, meanwhile talking to anyone who would listen to him about the uses of perspective and chiaroscuro, and the terrible sacrifices an artist makes to pursue his sacred calling. A poet, a man the size of a bear with a huge

beard and hair that stuck out all around his head like the rays from the sun, sat on the side of a fountain, penning lines with earnest intensity, and occasionally arising to let forth screams, howls, and mighty roars, while tearing at his

 hair, ripping pages from his book, crumpling them up and throwing them like missiles while thundering that he would never be a poet and he might as well go back to blacksmithing. He attracted a larger group of onlookers than the magician, who assisted him in a friendly way with his self-abuse, and collected his crumpled pages and tried to publish them as their own (for the verses he threw away were, invariably, excellent.)

          Despite his numerous threats, he never went back to blacksmithing, and every evening at sunset hordes gathered to him read his day’s labors in his ringing voice, better suited for ordering armies into battle than for revealing the tender secrets of a poet’s heart. His verses were sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always left echoes in your mind that lingered far past their time and made you think odd things in odd places. Sometimes he wrote about events that happened around the city, sometimes he wrote bloody epic masterpieces of gore and adventure, sometimes he wrote odd things which sounded like jokes and turned out to be some of the very best philosophy. But best of all was when he wrote about love, for his unrequited passion for the daughter of the royal gardener was the best joke of the town. Though he never named her, everyone knew perfectly well what goddess his poems described. People laughed their heads off at his most fanciful, far-flung, airily gorgeous verses while he shot them smoldering glares from under his heavy, furry, brows. The more they snickered, the more angry he grew, until at last he stopped mid-word and shouted, “Reading this to you people is like casting pearls before swine!” and stalked off. Ten people would run after him and beg him to continue, and growling, he would allow himself to be cajoled into finishing, while everyone stood in the most respectful silence, stifling their smiles.

          I was one of the daughters of the great noble houses of the city, and I was as wild as a half-tamed tiger, always putting on the scullery maid’s clothes and sneaking out of back doors to run in the streets or the grand bazaar. Though my parents frowned on these expeditions, they were never too harsh with me, for they had a bit of the wanderlust themselves, and besides, it was hard to believe I could be hurt on the streets of the golden city. For it was not like most cities, swarming with thieves and pickpockets and with murderers in every dark alleyway. Crime was practically unheard of, and anyone who lacked a meal might knock on a golden door and be ushered into a cool courtyard full of blossoming trees, to be given a cup of mango juice and a plate of kiwis and strawberry jam and cassava bread and cold chicken. I passed for a beggar many times myself, knocking at a friendly door to find hidden gardens with cushioned chairs and silk canopies, swarthy men who bowed to the queer little beggar in jest, calling me “Lady” (if only they knew how correct the title was) as they served me queer pastries full of ground beef and spices, or eggs and mushrooms, or fruit and cream cheese.

           As for the market, if I told anyone who I was I could always help myself to any of the wares on credit, and have them send the bill to my father. But mostly I preferred to remain anonymous, listening to the outrageous tall tales of the merchants and the shouts of indignant customers and the jingle rang-a-tang of the dancers. All the merchants lied, but in the most droll and transparent way, so nobody was hurt or offended. It was a pleasure to hear Edwardo describe the half-starved kitten he had found nearly dead in the gutter as a, “ferocious beast, sure to defend your door in times of trouble,” or to hear Jonas describe a simple cotton dress as, “stitched from the finest of silks by nine imprisoned princesses,” or to hear Massar’s story about how his jars of cloves and cinnamon were brought by camels across ten thousand leagues, and nearly stolen twice by bandits (besides almost being smashed when a sandstorm blew away one of the bundles.) The rougher the merchandise, the more fantastic was the tale that came with it, and the customers, laughing, paid for the tale as well as the goods. However, if the merchants had something especially fine, something their customers especially wanted, they would shake their heads sadly and wag their long beards and say it was the poorest junk, the most dilapidated of rubbish, that they were ashamed to have it in their stalls and their good consciences would not allow them to hoist it off on people who had been such fine customers to them.

          The only way the customer could get it was by suggesting that they had rather underpaid the merchant in previous purchases, that they had taken advantage of his good nature and purchased his ferocious beasts and silks stitched by nine princesses and imported cloves for mere pittances. And that now, in all honor and honesty, they must give the merchant a gift of gold to make up for all the times he had been cheated out of his treasures. The merchant, delighted, would accept the gold, and “give” the customer as a token of gratitude the “sad piece of trash you seem to admire, goodness knows why.” It was a most delightful way of conducting business.

          Of course, this wasn’t the way it always happened— the merchants were careful not to wear out their jokes through constant use— but they had a dozen other gags and tricks they could use to enchant, vex, puzzle, bewilder, and crack up their customers. If someone was in a hurry, or simply not in the mood for jokes, the merchants could be quick and businesslike; but people did not often hurry in the golden city. The bazaar was a place it was practically a crime to hurry through, there was so much to look at. Every booth had a different gorgeous picture painted on its awnings, which explained in some way what the business was about. There were stalls where necklaces hung in great rainbow loops, stalls with tubs of rings and bracelets, heaps of precious stones and little notepads for sketching out the designs of jewelry you wanted the craftsman to make for you. There were stalls where strange furry creatures and miniature monkeys and brightly colored lizards hooted and squeaked and chattered and rasped and rattled in cages, while a basket of puppies lay sleeping in the sunshine. There was a store where a thousand kinds of birds lay hanging in cages from the ceiling, some of them silent and fretful, some chirping in impatient racket, and some singing fit to break your heart. I used to dream of slipping into that store one day and setting all the birds free, so they flew up in a great rainbow cloud towards the rising sun. I always hated to see anything caged, but I loved the things in the cages. And I suppose, if someone hadn’t gone to the trouble of capturing them, I would never had seen them. So a sort of hypocrisy came into my heart whenever I went into the pet stores, at once longing to see the animals free and longing to possess them.

          Then there was the pottery and the glassware: you could find anything from urns big enough to hide a grown man in, to tiny crystal boxes the right size for holding the smallest jewel. There were huge glass balls all striped with brilliant colors that they hung up as ornaments, and one stall had a border of wind chimes that always tinkled as your head brushed them on the way in. I liked the enormous vases, in twisted spiral shapes and blown out of glass of purple or emerald green or ruby red. But I could only go in when no one was looking, and then I would soon be sent out, for fear I would shatter the fragile wares. But it was wonderful to see the translucent stained-glass dishes shining like enormous jewels along the shelves.

          There were silk scarves dyed in thousands of colors and patterns, and bright swords with their gold hits gleaming, there were maps in colored ink showing the Lands Beyond, and one great tiled market square that had a map of our whole city in mosaics. There were stalls that sold paint in enormous jars that I always longed to dip my arms into and never quite dared to. There was a stall that sold fifty kinds of chess set, the pieces carved in the shape of animals and legendary creatures and heroes from the ancient stories.

            And, of course, there were the stalls that sold food: thousands of spices, fruits piled up in enormous pyramids, baths of millet and grain deep enough to swim in. There were cafes and restaurants by the dozens. One cafe was my especial favorite; as it could always be counted on to develop some explosive argument about politics. It was wonderful to sip your chocolate while watching a couple of college students shout incomprehensible insults at each other and stalk away, vowing never to be friends again. And it was still more wonderful to see that same pair of college students, staggering drunkenly down the road together, singing, with their arms around each-other’s necks.

           Sometimes a great wedding would take place in the palace square (which was also the busiest part of the bazaar) and the bride in her red gown with the gold tassels and her towering headdress would walk down the scarlet carpet that was laid down between the stalls. The merchants and the customers would stop their bickering for a moment and watch, with happy smiles and eyes brimming, and the great music of the palace organ and a hundred minstrels would overwhelm all other sounds. The bride would always stare straight ahead, not looking to either side, as she went slowly along, and her relatives tramped grimly behind and before and at either side of her. All the male relatives always escorted the bride, in full military gear, with polished helmets and swords and breastplates, and I always used to wonder if it was to prevent the bride from escaping. No such measures were taken for the groom, who always awaited the bride at the steps of the palace, looking very nervous indeed. In fact, the grooms always looked far more ready to bolt than the brides. And sometimes I thought he should be surrounded by all of his female relatives, ready to beat him with rolling pins in case he should try to escape.

          So many flowers were thrown at those times that the members of the wedding party were occasionally obscured by clouds of petals. There were of course the most beautiful dancing girls, and many dancing dragons (it took six men to dance the dragon, and required much precision, cooperation, and skill.) As the music reached its climax, the bride would join the groom up on the steps, and place her hand in his, smiling as if her teeth hurt. Six priests of the Everlasting Immanence would chant holy things and make speeches about everlasting fidelity, and it is interesting to note, that while the dancing was going on business stopped and everyone in the square watched the progress of the wedding most intently— but when the priests began talking, business resumed and occasional arguments about the quality of the wares drowned out the nobler sections of the speeches.

          But everyone fell silent again when it was time to make the vows, which were very simple: “I am yours, and you are mine: two beings made one.” And everyone, whether they knew the people being married or not, threw up their hats and cheered like crazy when the groom kissed the bride. Afterwards, there was always free food and drink for everyone. Although the more sophisticated members of the congregation withdrew from the palace square so as not to have to mingle with the common crowd. I never did— I was as often as not dressed as a commoner, and their bawdy jokes and belly-laugh-invoking stories were always far more interesting than genteel conversation among the water lilies. Considering my tastes, I suppose it was inevitable that I fell in love with the wrong man. Well, my parents and society at large thought he was the wrong man. I was fully convinced that he was the right one.

But that’s another story, for another time, my small ones. Right now, its time for you to go to bed.

                                                               By Charlotte Ashlock of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

I have enjoyed writing since I was a small child. My hobbies are drawing, swimming, writing poetry and Fantasy Fiction. I love nature, animals and books.

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 Second Prize Winner -Winter (2005-2006)

A Dead Man To Get Rid Of

          They have been carrying him for fifteen days. He has been put into Hold #4 because the temperature in there is the lowest -- minus 20 degrees C. An oblong black package shaking along with them, on their way to Lagos -- they have tucked him in a black sack and tied it up with a mooring line. Why didn’t they throw him in the ocean? They could have forgotten him by now -- tie him to an anchor, and to the bottom with him, farewell.

Although nobody can see him down there in the dark over the packages of fish, innocent, harmless and helpless, he has been torturing the souls of the crew all these fifteen days. The sailors on the deck have refrained from doing anything near Hold #4, but they imagine it: the tiny, fine bundle (he had been a small man) in the hold has disrupted the ship’s monotonous, unruffled rhythm.

In the beginning they had felt pity. Just a few days before, someone had drunk a cup of coffee with him. He was part of the working team, and they recalled all the finest details, retelling them to each other: how he had opened the door for somebody, how he had given another man a light... Suddenly someone remembers that it does no good to talk about him. But in a minute they start up again. They can’t keep from thinking about him. Too many men aboard have had their nerves wrecked by alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, the rapid changes of climate, the noise, the vibration. Everyone is jumpy, bundles of nerves…The dead man is like a red light warning of damage, of danger. You can’t ignore it or wish it away. He has stolen their peaceful dreams; they’ve stopped imagining the sumptuous villas in the virgin forests at the movies in their last port, stopped dreaming of making love to magnificent women right on the carpet.

The dead man -- the innocent, harmless and helpless dead man -- has, it seems, put an end to those moments of solitude when a man longs for his children, for the woman he had left on the shore; he has driven away the comforting round of thoughts that visit sailors from time to time and make their shipboard lives a little easier. Sailors dislike gloomy thoughts. It is hard enough just being here, over the deep. They often tell themselves they have been forgotten by everyone, and they are right. There probably are days when nobody remembers them. It’s a sore subject, one they prefer not thinking about at all. Day after day, nothing extraordinary happened on the ship, and they were satisfied with their monotonous existence. They felt good when nothing reminded them of the shore, the radiograms passing like quiet white birds over their heads, always pleasant and trite; these did not particularly set them thinking. Their dead man had died silently: heart attack. He was dead in a couple of minutes. They packed him, put him in the frozen dark, loaded the ship, started up the engines and sailed off. Nothing had changed. But bit-by-bit, without honestly admitting it, the sailors began hating this half-decayed body. “I’ll throw him overboard some night, tie him to two cramp-irons and get rid of him,” the boatswain is heard to say one day, he who was always able to dispel gloomy thoughts -- but now that is no longer possible.

-page 1-

Death is aboard, haunting the ship: in the cabins, on deck, hanging over the seamen who hammer out the rust, on the mechanics’ watches, on the captain’s bridge, everywhere. Not only the boatswain, but all are worked into a rage, unable to get rid of her. She is here, elusive, invisible, terrifying. They arrive in port Friday at noon. There is no place along the quay so they drop anchor in the roadstead. The captain informs the authorities that there is a dead man aboard. He is told they will come to ascertain the facts of the death and will do what is necessary for the funeral. The next morning a doctor and a major, a representative of the port authority, come aboard at about nine. Plunge into the hold and position lights to get a good look at the body. The doctor is smoking. The chief mate looks at him several times, but the doctor just stares at the frozen face of the dead man, blowing out smoke right over it. The chief mate stretches his arm out, takes the cigarette from the doctor’s mouth, casts it onto the deck and stomps on it. The doctor looks at him in amazement but says nothing.

All seems in order. They write out a death certificate and tell the captain that in the afternoon a coffin will be delivered. The captain gives them whisky and cigarettes; he too wants to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible. In the afternoon the officer who brings the coffin says there is no permission for the funeral but perhaps he can manage something tomorrow morning. The captain also gives him a bottle of whisky. In the morning, a military launch brings Mister B in dress uniform with epaulettes and a sabre and two military officers alongside. Until noon they negotiate, thinking whisky in the captain’s cabin. They say they are the only ones with the authority to arrange the funeral. Let the body be transported to shore:

they will see what can be done.

Monday morning they take him out of the hold, untie him and pull him out of the sack. His face, his clothes, are all covered in hoar frost. While preparing the boat to haul down, while convoying him (they had gone to breakfast and forgot him on deck for awhile), he begins to thaw out. They lift him, water streaming out of him, his face and hair wet. The clothes they had put on him are wrinkled and crumpled. They hurriedly put the body in the coffin, looking sideways, close the lid and load him into the boat. On the beach the same officer who delivered the coffin meets them. He tells them they should wait at least until noon.

Someone remembers that the “22”Club is open all day long.

They leave the boat there, with the dead man in it. Who would steal him? Someone might rob the coffin for the lumber, two or three chime in.

If he doesn’t pass out from fear, says the boatswain.

They set off together for “22,” where they drink beer, the big Star bottles. Some go hastily upstairs to the single rooms. One or two even do it twice. Most of them booze.

-page 2-

They return at about one o’clock. Still no one has arrived. The coffin is there, swaying heavily in the bottom of the boat, untouched. They sit on the quay’s warping bitts and begin smoking, waiting for someone to come and tell them what to do. They are on tenterhooks even more than they had been during the transfer. This wait is killing them. They wonder if they should go back to “22.” After all, no one has given them a baby to mind. The coffin...They are dying to be out of there. Finally at about five o’clock an official from the funeral agency comes and says the grave is ready, that they should transport the coffin to the graveyard. Most of them breathe a sigh of relief, which they don’t try to hide. They take the coffin in their arms and carry it to the main street. Put it down on the sidewalk and try to find a taxi to take it to the graveyard. The Negroes immediately clear the sidewalk and gather on the opposite side of the street, where they point -- terrified -- at the black coffin. The taxi drivers stop at first, but the moment they see the “passenger” they’re expected to drive, their frightened eyes begin to roll and they slam into gear, hit the gas and disappear.

So it is decided that they will carry the coffin in their arms. The sun is still shining fiercely. Every two or three hundred meters they trade off, groaning and cursing, seemingly not in the proper devoted spirit toward their departed comrade. But it has crossed everyone’s mind that they could simply leave the coffin somewhere, in a small garden, and disappear, just like that. Someone would surely haul it away. They are sick of it. A nuisance of a man could be sent to hell, could be killed to get rid of him. To a dead man you can do nothing; he is just dead.

The two gravediggers stand leaning on their spades in front of the shallow grave --at about the height of a man’s knees. This is all they can manage in the scorching heat. They are told to dig a little more; that is what they have been paid to do. They begin to dig, but soon they hit water and it is impossible to go any deeper. One of the gravediggers wants to say something, but nobody knows enough English.

--He is your friend...

This is comprehensible. Of course, he was our friend. They all nod together.

--So he should be buried properly. Sure.

The gravedigger makes a gesture, as if pouring a bottle into the grave. They guess his meaning, and curse. This one wants a bribe, too. They have nothing. They say: There is no need -- let’s just bury him and get it over with. No need for ceremony.

The gravedigger looks at them. Like a dog, eh?

-page 3-

The boatswain goes to the nearest store, comes back with a bottle of whisky and shoves it into the gravedigger’s hands.

It is already dark. The other gravedigger stirs himself, and brings candles. They click their cigarette lighters, lighting them, illuminating the coffin slightly as it lies on the newly dug earth, waiting. Against the candlelight the background becomes even darker. Finally they hold their breath. The gravedigger opens the bottle and asks for a glass.

Idiot! Someone spits. Have a drink out of the bottle! There is no glass.

Then the digger pours a little of the yellowish drink into the cap, empties it into the grave, says a few words, takes a sip and hands the bottle to the other digger. He also sips a bit and hands the bottle along. By the time the last man takes a swig, the bottle is empty. The gravedigger says that now they can bury the man fittingly, according to his native custom. Two of the seamen have brought a piece of paper, previously written. One reads from it as the others hold candles.

Nice words they are, and they would have sounded nicely being read for any dead man, but in the dark they are illegible and the reader skips some of them, omits two paragraphs and finishes.

Finally they lower the coffin and begin burying it. Then it occurs to them that they should somehow mark the grave. No cross, no headstone? But what fool had thought of this? Now there is no way around it: they must figure out something. The boatswain takes one of the shovels they have been using to bury the body and shoves the blade into the ground, leaving the handle sticking up. The shovel is T-­shaped, the handle ending in two crossed laths. It looks vaguely like a cross. They have just finished when one of the gravediggers comes running and begin to yank out the shovel. He and his partner need it. The boatswain brushes him roughly aside, sticks two banknotes in his hand. The man goes off, grinning. The next day the same grinning gravedigger, standing over the grave, with great effort pulls the shovel from the earth.

-page 4-

By Antanas Stoychev

of Varna, Bulgaria

  The Bulgarian author and playwright, Atanas Stoychev was born in 1949 in a picture town on the Black Sea coast. He has graduated a naval academy and has sailed as an electric engineer on board the ships of the merchant and the fishing fleet. His first book "Non Stop"/1988/ has won an award in the National Contest for Literary Works on a Marine Topic.  Then followed his books "Sand From The Bottom Of The Sea"/1993/, "Don't Believe Me, Darling"/1995/ and "Weak Angels"/1999/, all of which are a collection of short stories. His latest book, "The Dark Side Of The Woman", is a novel. Atanas Stoychev professes the maxim ascribed to Vincent van Gogh, that it is preferable to draw the human eye rather than a cathedral.  He is a stranger to the superficial plots and the seascape picturesqueness.  He scrutinizes the movements of the human soul, where real dramas are enacted, passions rage, the erotic scenes are followed by an unadulterated lyricism and purifying sadness. His short stories are impregnated with brilliant irony and sympathy for his characters.

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Third Prize Winner - Winter (2005-2006)

It was just after midnight, and he was sitting on a wide bench looking up at the stars. The new moon tilted on its side behind him, casting him half in light, half in shadow, as it bid its adieu to the old.

Turning at my approach, he gave me a quick look of appraisal, then gestured for me to sit down. I did so while appraising him in return.

He was tall and his shirt was silver, his pants black. A turquoise, Navaho pendant hung at his neck. His nose looked like it might have been broken once, but the moonlight made it hard to tell.                       “Thanks for coming,” he remarked. “I don’t get as many visitors as I used to.”

“Thanks for having me. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet you when you were alive. I kept telling myself I’d do that next year.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re meeting me now. Besides, I have the sense you wanted to talk to me.”

“True,” I said. “I always wondered what would have happened had we met. That’s what brought me to this place.”

 “Anything special you want to know?”

(page: 1)

 “Just the basics. How to spin yarns. Whether it’s worth it to lead a life as a teller of tales.”

He chuckled and withdrew a pipe. “This could be a long night. I don’t suppose you’ve any tobacco? It’s a bit hard to come by here.”

It had occurred to me there might be such a request. I reached into my jacket, took out a pouch, handed it to him. He opened it, filled the pipe and struck a match. The flame illumined his angular, cadaverous features. Then the match died and the shadows returned. He started to hand the pouch back. I motioned for him to keep it. We sat back, relaxing. Tobacco smoke and silence drifted on the air. At last he spoke.

“Spinning yarns is easy enough. All it takes is imagination. You’ve got that, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“What about the rest,” I asked, “is creating fantasies a worthwhile way to spend life?”

“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be? What kind of... You’re serious, aren’t you? Well,...

hmm... I don’t know. Yes, no, maybe, all of the above. It’s as worthwhile as anything else, I

suppose. In the end, it comes down to what you want to do and if you can make a living at it.

I could. That’s the difference between me and a lot of others, even those with talent. I got paid.”

“You were everyone’s favorite,” I said. “One of the all time best. I often thought that if I could be anyone other than myself, I’d liked to have been you.”

There was a snort beside me.

“That’s no good. You can’t be me—you have to be yourself. That’s all any of us can do, no matter where we are. Tell me, do you enjoy your work?”

“Yes,” I replied, “I do.”

(page: 2)

“More than anything else?”

“I believe so.”

“Believing won’t help. You’ve got to know. Put it like this, would you be happy as a butler or bottle washer?”

“Maybe for a time,” I answered, “but I’d always be looking for a way out.”

“Then you’ve answered your own question. It doesn’t matter if it’s a worthwhile life or not. You’ve got it and you’re stuck with it. Good luck.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“It’s not that bad. You’ll get to create your own realities instead of living other people’s. Once in awhile, you might make some money. What more do you want?”

“Got any pointers for success?”

“Write about kingdoms to be

won, a damsel or two to be saved, not too many, just enough to make things interesting. Stuff like that always sells. Have some sword fights, throw in some fencing terms and phrases in French. That’ll make your critics mad.” He chuckled again.

I laughed with him. In person, his ironic humor was even funnier than in his writings.

“Remember to have fun, though,” he went on. “A little wenching and carousing, a bottle of wine now and again, a good book of poetry, a fight or two, all those things would be good for most authors, some more so than others. Makes for interesting reading.” He looked at the sky once more, noting the positions of the constellations. “I should be going. There’s more work to being dead than you think.

“I’ll bet.”

(page: 3)

“Yes. I’m meeting Chaucer. He’s going to show me his ‘unedited’ tales. That should be worthwhile.”

He tamped the pipe against the bench and stood. So did I and extended my hand. He gave it a strong clasp.

“One other thing,” he remarked. “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not any good. None of my fans ever had to apologize. Whatever you can dream, you can live. So get out there and live.”

“I will,” I assured him, as he released my hand. “Before you go, though, could you autograph this?” Pulling a worn paperback from my jacket, I handed it to him. He looked slightly chagrined. I thought he was going to tell me I had enormous chutzpah, but his eyebrows quirked at the title.

“My, that was a long time ago,” was his comment. Opening the cover, he turned to the fly leaf, then took out a pen. “I haven’t signed anything in over 10 years. I may be rusty.” He scribbled a dedication and handed the book back. “There you go, kid.”

Suddenly, he was moving down a path that appeared as if just summoned into existence. It pulsed and sparkled in the moonlight and silver roses grew in soft luminescence along its edges like flowers stolen from the mind of Van Gogh. I’d wondered, sometimes, where they’d come from.

“Hey,” I called.

He looked back.

“Thanks for all the stories.”

He smiled and stepped away, into shadows, as it should be.

(page: 4)

I opened the book and read the dedication. The letters glowed with an amber fire. To a fan.

Good-bye and hello, as always. Closing the paperback, I returned it to my jacket. Starting on my own way, a demon wind propelled me west of the moon, towards the realms of light.

###

By Terry Weide

Kansas City, Missouri, USA

In memoriam, Roger Zelazny, 1937— 1995. My favorite author, whom I still miss. - Terry Weide

Terry Weide is the author of  a fantasy novel, Dream of Power, Dream of Glory,  which won the 2004 Preditors and Editors poll for best sci-fi/fantasy book. His writing has also appeared in Flash Me Magazine, Flashshot, The Verb, The Sword Review, Whispering Spirits, and Alien Skin e-zines, on the OnceWritten.com site, and in the print magazines Moon Reader, Midday Moon, and The Writers Post Journal. He is the author of a chapbook of poetry, Suburb of the Mind, and a digest book of poetry, stories, and essays, Skipping Across Creation, both from Snark Publishing. He thanks all those who take the time to read his work. 

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First Writing Prize Winner - Summer 2006

In the Eyes of the Beholder

Chelsea couldn’t believe her luck. That is bad luck. All her life she just plainly seemed unlucky. People always had kept assuring her that things would get better, but she could hear the doubt in their voices. She really couldn’t blame them though for these expectations as she had always been so unfortunately unlucky. Chelsea thought this awful fortune had been born with her. It was apart of her, without it she simply would be a completely different person. She first realized her misfortune at the early age of two. Her father, who had been quite the heavy drinker, had never been the type to say much good. He could always surely be found with a cigarette sticking out of his loud mouth, as he shouted between grunts. It had been well predicted that her father would leave their dysfunctional family; it was just a matter of time. That fateful day finally came on Chelsea’s 2^nd birthday. Everything had seemed normal; Chelsea was celebrating her birthday with her mom, as her father was out at the local bar. To make a long story short, the day ended with Chelsea’s birthday cake smashed brutally against the wall nearly missing her mom. Till this day she had never spoken or seen her father, who was no more than a stranger to her.

In Chelsea’s later teen years the worst thing imaginable happened to the poor soul. Her mother had just fallen terribly sick. Chelsea took this news hard at heart. Her mother had always been there for her and now there was a chance she would lose her. This possibility became a reality when doctors informed her dreadful news. One of the physicians took her hand and looked straight into her green-blue eyes. The sympathetic doctor had shaken her head with caring tears and embraced the still child. Their silence was enough. Everyone knew the time had come. Growing up had defiantly made her a strong person yet at this moment she felt so weak and to say the least vulnerable. Her mother had been her security blanket and now she felt empty except for the bad luck that mocked her.

“Why, why me?” was the single thought that went through her head. Here she was stuck in a place she knew nothing about, except this town would be her new home. She took in a deep breath and sighed as she was in the middle of nowhere. She held tight on to her tote bag, as though she was afraid to lose it too. It was one of the last possessions she had left of her mother.

“Have a nice day!” shouted the bus driver with his greasy hair and shabby beard. Before she could even respond he slammed shut the bus doors, almost as if to insure there would be no way to escape this new misfortune. She stepped away from the bus as it released a cloud of smoke that of course stained her clothes. She let the dust settled into their clothes as she had worst things to worry about. The wind seemed to be harassing her, as it demanded to blow her hair this way and that. She began to shiver and before long her face became a glowing pink. All she could do was laugh, but laughing soon lead to tears of misery. The tears rolled down her face, along with her eye make-up in a mess that covered her sunburned cheeks. She brushed back her dark hair and gave her face a good wipe. She could just imagine how pathetic she must look. She pulled her small sack-bag over her shoulder and took a thorough look around.

There didn’t seem to be much to look at, except a small, southern diner just outside of the town. She crossed the dirt road, kicking up dust here and there. She walked up to the side of the diner and through homemade door. Chiming bells rang as the door banged behind her. She picked out a rolling stool located at the bar table. She settled her bag in the closet seat next to her.

“So what will it be?” questioned the waiter in a welcoming voice.

“Umm, I’ll just have a soda,” Chelsea responded.

“That’s all? How about our famous chilly fries? You’re guaranteed to love them.”

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“Okay, I’ll take that too. Do you have a restroom?”

“Oh yes, once you pass the license plates on the wall, take a left, then past the collection of antique clocks and there you are,” the waiter said with a smile. Chelsea grabbed her bag and thanked the man. She glanced at all the license plates, amazed at how there were plates from all over the country, even one from Alaska. The clocks were a sight to see as neither two seemed similar at all. One even had the hands of the clock rotating the other way. She knocked on the bathroom door, but not a sound was returned. Gently the door opened with a long creaky noise. She laid down her sack on the sink surface and kept staring into the mirror at what was supposed to be her reflection. How did the once resilient girl turn into a weak susceptible being? Maybe she had always been that way, but always covered some side to her. She turned on the cold knob and then the hot one, till the water was warm to her satisfaction. Her hands splashed water all over her face, stripping away her weathered down face. She polished her face with a smooth powder, and a little bit of eye shadow. Next, she cleaned up her shoes and dressed in new sweater and jeans. Lastly, she brushed her hair into a fit ponytail. Now, she thought, she was better suited to meet her relatives. She quickly gathered her belongings and left the bathroom.

When she came back to the bar she was received with a delicious dish of fries over flown with chili and hot cheese. To the side was a large soda with a white straw with red, stripe designs spiraling down. She picked up her drink and took a large, refreshing sip. And then she gulped down chilly fries, realizing how hungry she really had been. For a moment all her worries were forgotten, as she was in her own little world of good food.

“Excuse me. Is any seating here?” a stranger in a long over coat asked, as he motioned towards her bag.

“Huh? Oh no, nobody is seating here. Go ahead.” she returned with her answer.

“Hi, I’m Jake Robertem,” he mentioned as he sat next to her.

“Oh, I’m Chelsea Sander,” she explained with an extended hand. Her greeting was returned with a firm grip.

“So are you going to order something?” the waiter interrupted.

“Oh yes, I’ll have what she’s having,” Jake ordered. The waiter tore the order off with yet another smile. “So what brings you here?” Jake inquired with curiosity.

“Well, I guess you could say my bad luck.” Chelsea implied gloomy.

“Bad luck? Are you superstitious or something?” he questioned.

“It’s kind of complicated, but if you were me, you would start believing.” Chelsea further explained, “But anyway what’s your story?”

“Me, well I’ve lived here all my life, always known the same people, its kind of refreshing seeing a new face.”

Chelsea responded with a huge smile. Jack suddenly realized how beautiful she really was. “You know,” Jack mentioned, “You really should smile more. It really brightens up your face. Perhaps smiling could bring you luck.”

When had been the last time she smiled. Before her mother had----?

“Are you okay Chelsea?”

“Yeah, just thinking.”

Jack turned to the waiter,” I’ll have those fries to go. This should cover it,” he directed as he pulled out a crisp $10, “I’m paying for hers too.” The waiter nodded his head and packed the delicious meal.

“You really don’t have to do that,” Chelsea stated. “It’s no problem, don’t worry about it. Where are you heading?” “I need to find Henry Starlet’s place, my uncle.”

“Oh you’re Mr. Starlet’s niece. I can show you where he lives.” “That would be great, as I have no clue where it is.”

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          Jack nodded in agreement and the two of them stood up and headed to door. As Jack held the door for both of them, the icy cold wind hit them with a sudden rush. It was as if the wind was upset at the new incomer.

“Man, its cold,” Jack said between shivers,” It’s never been this cold.”

“At least it’s not raining,” Chelsea said, but she had spoken too soon. Immediately the rain came pouring down dripping their faces.

“I think it’s because of my bad luck,” Chelsea explained as she put up her hood. “Don’t talk like that,” Jack scolded. Chelsea stared up at him like a puppy that had just been scolded. Jack realized her reaction and responded, “Because I don’t like you talking your self down, that’s all.” Chelsea tried to work up a smile and nodded at his advice. He continued on, “Personally, I think it’s all a matter of perspective. You know the way you look at things. Maybe you really aren’t so unlucky, just you think you are. Chelsea remained silent unable to come up with something to say. She studied his defined face. There was something about him that seemed so comforting. Perhaps it was his calm deep green eyes or his soothing voice.

“Hurry, we better run,” Jack whispered in her ear, “We wouldn’t want your uncle getting all worried over nothing.” He gripped her hand tightly and led her through the town. Everything looked so unwelcoming. The trees seemed to stare her down and the streets looked rough and shady.

“Just over here,” Jack navigated as he pointed to the right. They ran straight down a narrow road, splashing a mixture of rain and mud, which left them a mess. From their left they heard a snapping noise of a large oak tree falling right behind them. With a jump at the racket, the two of them hastened their pace. Finally, they approached a small farmhouse next to an old aged shack. “Here you are. Now hurry up inside,” Jack commanded.

Chelsea did as she was told and turned to ask if he would be alright. There was no response; already he had left into the storm of the night.

She banged down on the door gently. Immediately the door opened with a big greeting from her aunt-in-law. She was a plump lady of short height, who at this moment was giving a huge bear hug to Chelsea.

“Oh, I’m so sorry about your mother. I can only imagine what you’ve been through.” Her aunt consoled as they settled inside, “Your uncle hasn’t been quite himself lately, after finding out about the shocking news.” When the two of them entered the dining room, Chelsea’s cousins welcomed them. Her cousins had changed a lot from just the last time she had seen them which was over five years ago. The youngest one, Tina, had defiantly grown a few inches. She was now not just nine as she made sure to mention, but nine and a half. Next was Tommy who actual hadn’t changed much at all except for his new long hair that shagged over his eyes. Lastly, was of course Sandy, who was the same age as Chelsea. They at one time had been very close, practically sisters. Time had made them distant as so much had changed. At first there was an awkward silence, but soon it passed as Sandy popped a question.

“So what do you think of the town now, after all these years.”

At first Chelsea hesitated, but then began, “Well, it was pretty hard to see in the dark and all, but the diner in front of the town seemed real charming. The food was pretty good.” Everyone stared at her in confused.

Her aunt spoke softly, “What do you mean? There’s no diner in the front. I mean there use to be, but that was ages ago.”

“Sure there is. The real small one with the town’s famous chilly fries,” Chelsea responded. “Sandy, why don’t you show Chelsea her room. Get her acquainted with everything,” her aunt commanded and then turned to Chelsea, “You’re probably so tired,” her aunt ended the conversation quickly.

In that moment, Sandy grabbed Chelsea instantly and rushed her upstairs. Chelsea could feel the crowd of eyes watching her every move. She heard their whispers as she vanished upstairs. Tina said in a low voice, “These past weeks have been hard on her.”

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Tommy continued, “I think she’s gone a little crazy.”

“Now you two hush and get on upstairs. It’s getting late,” inquired their mother. Upstairs Sandy handed Chelsea a fresh, soft towel.

“Here’s the bathroom,” Sandy motioned towards, “and here you’ll be staying with me in my room,” she said matter-of-factly. Chelsea nodded her head gently and headed towards the bathroom. Chelsea prepared a warm bath, dipping her fingers to check if the water was to her liking. She hanged up her damp clothes on a drying rack and settled herself into the tub. She had barely been able to take in the warmth of the whole house. When she had entered it was as if a rush a memories returned to her, even the simplest details. Like the way the kitchen always smelled of hearty cooked foods. It was relaxing how the smell carried to wherever you where in the house. The whole house even had the same wallpaper she remembered. Little prints of flowers, but now here and there it was apparent how it was peeling and torn at the edges. There was nothing about the house that wasn’t homely. It was jus overwhelming comfortable.

The next morning Chelsea was awoken with yelling and shaking of her arms.

“Honey wake up! A horse got out last night in the storm. We have to find them now!” The voice was of Sandy, who was frantically putting on a pair of pants and with a grab of Chelsea’s hand leading her outside. Once outside, Sandy left her on the search. Chelsea hadn’t even the vaguest idea where she was suppose to look. She decided to start with the rows of corn stalk that seemed to lead deeper and deeper. To her “luck” she saw the horse in the distance. She ran up to the beautiful horse that was the color of snow and to her surprise realized it wasn’t a horse at all. This can’t be true she thought to herself. A unicorn? She had the strange desire to ride the extraordinary creature. It waited for her to be seated and then took off, almost as if it had been sent for her. It ran well off her uncle’s farm and deep into the forest. The unicorn stopped once they had reached a painting handing on a sturdy branch. This was defiantly something you didn’t just see everyday, she thought to herself, the picture itself didn’t much sense to her. It was fairly large with images of different paintings inside a room. One of them was of herself She found this strange, but intriguing. She touched her finger up to the painting. It was still wet, but also it seemed to consume her finger. Chelsea wanted to thrust her finger back, but her curiosity got the better of her. Soon her whole arm was in and then the rest of her body. She could hear from behind the unicorn coming in.

“Welcome. It’s about time, I thought you’d be here sooner,” spoke a familiar voice. Chelsea searched for a face as a lamp brightened up the room. “Jake, is that you? What is this? Why is there a unicorn? How did I go through?” Chelsea exclaimed with a whirlwind of questions. “I’ll explain. I’ll explain everything,” he answered, as he waited for her to have a seat, “On day I was cleaning out the attic, since no one had been there in years. I was gathering up stuff to donate when I came across a painting that was illustrated with other paintings. The odd thing about it though was it was still wet. I touched it and it almost seemed to be consuming my hand.”

“Oh, that was the painting in the woods? Why in the woods?” Chelsea remarked.

“I wanted it placed where no could find it. I put it so deep out in the woods I was sure no one would find it, besides not everyone can see it. Anyway,” he continued with his discovery of the painting, “once I was devoured into the painting I was in shock. I found the paintings that I had seen in the original painting. There was one of the whole the town, that’s the one over there,” he pointed to the left of them, “there were many oil paints and brushes as if they were new. I couldn’t help but paint something. The first thing I painted was a large tree next to my house and then I continued for hours. And to my surprise I later found out that these things I painted had really come to life in the town, but lasted for maybe only a couple hours. I kept returning to this place and kept painting. Every once in a while the town painting would change. If a new house had been built, it would appear in the painting as well. Other times, new paintings would appear. They were paintings of people who needed some help in some way. Follow me.” Jake commanded as Chelsea edged to know more. Jake led her to the town's picture, “You see here,”

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he pointed to the bottom edge of the painting, “This is you. I saw you had entered the picture and I became curious because not many new people come into our town. Also I have to show you another painting,” he motioned her to the other side of the room where stood a picture of Chelsea. It showed how lovely she was and yet how troubled, “This painting had shown up month before you came here. I knew the day you arrived because you showed up in the town picture. Getting your picture, I knew I had to meet you, to be able to help you. So I painted up the old diner, figuring you would go there. Then talking to you I knew what your problem was. You believed you had bad luck. I knew to you it wasn’t a joke, you where dead serious. Look into the picture, and tell me what do you see? “Jack questioned gently.

“I see someone who is unfortunate to have terrible things happening to her.” Chelsea stated. “I think otherwise. When I look at this painting, I see a girl who has gone through a lot and believes she is no longer worth anything. Yet there is a hint in her eye that seems to show that she will be okay. I see someone who is truly strong on the inside and only appears weak. She has dealt with problems and become stronger because of them. The stronger you are inside, the brighter your eyes in the picture seemed to get.”

Chelsea smiled with a boost of confidence,” You really see all that?”

“Sure look at the painting,” he smiled back at her. She studied the painting a second time and recognized how vivid the brightness had become. She had started to smile and. Jack was pleased to see her smile and continued saying, “You see it’s all a matter of perspective, the way you look at yourself See each obstacle that you must venture as something that will make you stronger.” Chelsea listened to his words and began to understand that she had never had bad luck; it was just all in her head. She felt so much better; she suddenly hugged Jack, who was left surprised, but delighted. She thanked him for sharing his secrets. The secrets had opened up her mind and made her believe in herself

“I better go. My relatives will be all worried about me.” Chelsea said. Jack nodded his head, “Looks like your horse is ready too.” Chelsea turned around and saw that the unicorn had turned back into a simple horse. She gave him one last smile and jumped on the horse. The horse galloped out of the original painting and as she was back in the woods, she looked behind her and saw no painting hanging. Chelsea thought about what had happened as the horse brought her back to her uncle’s farm. She was met with Sandy who was thrilled to see her. “Oh good, you found the horse, but where have you been? You’ve been gone for hours!” she said with a mix of excitement and worry in her voice.

“I guess you could say I was finding a new perspective,” Chelsea said with a sparkle in her eye.

By Sarah Fisher

of Duluth, Georgia -USA

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Second Writing Prize Winner - Summer 2006

A Penny's Worth:

1935 Wrote for Junior Lee Brown, my friend, by Lucas Matthew Turner, age: 8

Uncle Lloyd reads in his Bible to me every night. One night he read something about children of wrath and that just sort of jumped into my head and stayed there. I guess that’s what Junior Lee and me was. Folks didn’t like Junior Lee ‘cause he was black and they didn’t like me ‘cause I had a bad face. When I was born one side of my face fell down. Part of my mouth could smile but the other part just seemed to be sulky and mad looking. I wasn’t hardly never mad but part of my mouth looked like I was.

 The Fosters called Junior Lee Nigger and me freak and Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Nettie Nigger lovers. That didn’t bother me none cause I knew they sure wasn’t nothing special but they scared Junior Lee a lot. I loved Junior Lee and I reckon he loved me. I wished we was brothers.

 Ever time I went to his house I wondered how come that old cabin didn’t fall into the river. It just clung to the bank like a loose tooth that wouldn’t come out. Two old hound dogs was always laying in the shade of a Chinaberry tree in the front yard slapping their tails in the dirt. Junior Lee said they didn’t bark they bayed.

 Junior Lee’s grand pappy was named Moses Brown. Aunt Nettie said Moses was spry and thin as a wisp of smoke and his white hair looked like wool. All I knew was his skin glistened and was smooth as could be till he laughed then it crumpled up like wadded paper. His eyes was gentle and twinkled like stars. Till I met Junior Lee I was awful lonesome.

 My mama died and my daddy was in prison and I didn’t have no brothers or sisters, only Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Nettie. I couldn’t never have got a better family though.

 I remember one day Junior Lee took hold of my hand and looked at me with them big black eyes and asked me why white folks didn’t like black folks. I told him I didn’t know. I told him

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I liked him. There’s just mean folks around is all I told him. I don’t spect God likes them kind of folks no better than they like us. He said yeah and asked me what I thought God looked like. I told him I figured if God was black he must look like Junior Lee’s old grand pappy Moses Brown.

He laughed and asked me if I thought God was that old.

Junior Lee, I told him, God is older than the whole world. How could he have made the world if he wasn’t? His eyes got real big and he said yeah.

Seems like only yesterday Uncle Lloyd give me and Junior Lee some Double Bubble Gum and we went to sit under the old oak tree in the back yard. We’d been playing we was robbers robbing a stage and we was near bout run out. So we was resting. We got to blowing bubbles to see who could blow the biggest before they busted and plastered our faces. There wasn’t no use to lie about it Junior Lee was the winner.

I even remember the sun was low and leaves was blowing in the wind. It was a real lazy-like day and it felt good just being alive sitting there with my friend under that big old oak tree. I grinned at him and dropped my gum and it got all gritty. He said he’d give me some of his. He took his gum out of his mouth and broke it in two pieces and give me some. I popped it in my mouth and grinned at him again and told him now I was gonna blow a bigger bubble than him and with his own gum. Junior Lee bowed up and said naw you ain’t. I can still hear him saying that. And he was right. I didn’t.

Me and Junior Lee got up and waded out into the pond. After a while I got out of the water and ran to the shade of a big old pine tree at the edge of the pond and called him to come on. I said I was about cooked. I told him to look how red I was. He laughed and ran after me. He said he reckoned he’d be red too if we could see under his black skin.

We threw ourselves down on the pine straw. We didn’t say nothing for a few minutes. Then

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I pointed to the sky and asked him if he saw that big old white cloud up there. I said it looks like a face don’t it and he said it looked like a fat man with long ole whiskers and I said yeah. Junior Lee turned them soft eyes on me and said Lucas Matthew does you ever think about things and I asked him what things. He said you know like yore face and my skin. And he asked how come some folks gits borned ‘flickted like me and some gits horned with black skin like him. I told him I’d thought about it but I hadn’t figured it out yet. I told him Uncle Lloyd said we was twisted branches and he said huh.

 I pointed to a tree and told him to look at all the limbs. Now and again there’ll be a twisted one. Uncle Lloyd told me the twisted ones was just as good as the straight ones but different in how they look. He said the twisted ones was really even a little bit stronger. But folks don’t like twisted ones as much as they like the straight ones. And Junior Lee said it wasn’t easy being a twisted one was it? And he asked me if I ever wisht I wasn’t. And I said yeah. Then he said Lucas Matthew God made all them limbs didn’t he? The twisted ones too. And I said he sure did. I told him the twisted ones wasn’t bad, it was just that some people wanted to think they was so they good feel like they was better ‘cause they was straight limbs. Well he said he wondered why they couldn’t feel good about being straight limbs without having to go around hating twisted ones. I said I didn’t know. I asked him if he was rested now. And he said yeah. He jumped up and we raced to the pond and jumped in again splashing and laughing and we forgot all about that stuff.

 When Christmas come Junior Lee spent Christmas Eve with us. We went with Uncle Lloyd to cut the tree. It was snowing just like Junior Lee and I prayed it would. We chunked snowballs at each other.

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We put the tree up by the fireplace and made popcorn strings and decorated it and put our presents under it. We ate supper, then went in by the fire and opened our presents. That was my best Christmas cause Junior Lee spent it with me. I remember Uncle Lloyd hugged me. Junior Lee stood to one side his eyes big and round and kind of hopeful like and Uncle Lloyd pulled him into his other arm and hugged him too. I ain’t never seen a brighter grin.

I remember lots of good times we had and I think about ‘em a lot.

Then Junior Lee got sick. It was awful cold and wet. The river flooded and the doctor wouldn’t go down there to see about him. Uncle Lloyd went and took him some medicine. And I got to go with him once but he had to carry me cause I kept getting stuck in the mud and falling down.

I took Junior Lee his favorite comic book and some lemon drops. I opened the door to his room and his eyes got big when he saw me. I ran to him and hugged him and touched him with my cheek and his hot skin burned me. That was when I knew how sick he was and my heart near beat itself out of my chest. I was so scared my knees got weak.

Junior Lee’s voice was raspy and soft and whispery when he said I is awful sick Lucas Matthew. I wiped my eyes and said I know you are but you’ll get well real quick won’t you? He took a big deep breath and I begged him to promise me he’d get well and he nodded. He tried to smile but he couldn’t. I said promise and he took another loud breath and said I promise I’ll try Lucas Matthew.

I wiped my nose on my sleeve and took hold of his hand. The few words he said made him awful tired like. Mamie his mama got up out of her chair and sat me in it. She whispered to me to sit with him awhile said he’d like that but said don’t make him talk no more. She told me talking made him too tired and he needed his strength to fight the sickness. I couldn’t help it. I

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bawled like a baby. Mamie brushed my hair back with her fingers. Her smile lit up her whole face like the sun was shining on it. And when she spoke her voice was always so soft it was like she reached out and touched me. Lucas Matthew she said I spect you be just about the best medicine we can give him right now. And she went in with the grownups.

Junior Lee died. I knew he would. I didn’t hardly never get mad but I was awful mad at him for a while for dying when he promised me he’d get well. He didn’t really promise me that though. He promised he’d try and I reckon he did but I was lonesome and mad and hurting and I wanted to die too. Everybody knows kids ain’t supposed to die. Old folks die.

When Junior Lee died something got tore out of me and I thought I wouldn’t never be whole again. I cried so much and so long Aunt Nettie and Uncle Lloyd got to worrying a whole lot.

I’ll never forget ole Moses Brown coming across them woods to our house to tell me bye. They was taking Junior Lee to Tupelo to get buried. Moses hugged me and told me not to fret too much. He said when you love somebody you can keep ‘em with you always in a secret place in your heart. He said he reckoned the Good Lord let Junior Lee die while he didn’t have no sin so he could be with the other angels.

Moses gave me a little matchbox and told me Junior Lee wanted me to have it. Inside was his best treasure, a penny a train had run over. It was as bright as could be. Junior Lee was like that I reckon it was cause it made me know that treasure ain’t what some folks think it is. Treasure is a penny’s worth that can’t never be spent up. Bye Junior Lee. Save me a place by you.

Your friend Lucas Matthew Turner

By Margery Casares

of Bivins, Texas - USA

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Third Writing Prize Winner - Summer 2006

Distance Has No Barrier

By

Rebecca Burge

The majority of people don’t think twice about education, it’s just a matter of sending our kids off to school by 9.3Oam and picking them up at 3.3Opm. But for some of us it is all we think about. Those of us who are rural or isolated have no other option than to educate our children ourselves. This form of education is called Distance Education where “distance holds no barriers” as the Charters Towers School of Distance Education, pronounce in their motto.

Twice a year a number of these children, from the Charters Towers School will meet and camp at the Ewan country racetrack for three days of formal schooling with their real teachers. It is also a chance to renew their friendships with the students whose voices they only hear on their half hour daily phone lessons.

It is a very special and unique time for these students. Try and picture a single room, at home, with a desk and computer and maybe a couple of brothers or sisters, not necessarily school age, with Mum attempting to come across as a teacher and not a mother for six hours of the day. Here you have the form of schooling, which exists for these children.

Therefore to arrive at Ewan and meet up with all their friends and come face to face with their teachers is a very exciting experience for these bush kids. It’s a time when we revert back to mothers and can share our experiences together and learn we are not the only ones with certain problems or difficulties.

One special quality these bush children have is their ability, at all ages, both

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boys and girls, to mix and play well together. These kids hold no forms of discrimination and are very accepting of people for who they are.

The camping area is permanently set up for the once a year race meet with a few dongas (transportable rooms) and a large open shed for cooking and meal times. The school has permission to use this camp and the majority of us with the bigger families set up our tents. Swags are abundant.

The showers are open roofed and heated by a donkey. This donkey does not have four legs and a tail but is a worn out forty-four gallon fuel drum connected to pipes which the water flows through. Wood is burnt under this drum and warms the water. Imagine showering at night and being able to look up and see the night sky full of stars.

The thunder boxes are an experience in themselves. The drop bottom toilets, with no flush and a bottomless hole, hold great fascination for the younger ones with the bottomless hole and they may be a little daunting for the teachers from the city. It’s all part of the experience.

Meal times are special, with the excited chatter and stories to be told. We all supply a certain amount of home cooking and everyone lends a hand with the preparation. Concerts or games are usually organized for the evenings but really the kids just like being together.

The school day starts at 8.3Oam with a parade of teachers and students walking the half a kilometre across to the racetrack. The covered area at the racetrack is

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set up with long tables and bench seats. The teachers bring out computers and resources. It’s not something these kids are used to, sitting with a group of school children and listening to a teacher, but they adjust. The kids have a good relationship with their teachers due to their communication skills with phones and computers.

At the end of three full days at Ewan both children and adults are exhausted and sleep deprived, in a healthy way, and ready for a long drive home.

The Ewan Outreach Camp is a unique and valuable time for these families. It’s a time of coming together in friendship and common circumstances and provides a very special bonding that will endure.

When we talk about school with these rural and isolated families it takes on a whole new meaning, but what a way to learn!

By Rebecca Burge of Queensland, Australia

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First Prize Writing Contest Winner - Winter 2006-2007

Mind the Gap 

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Mind the gap. Mary stared at the words on the platform until they went blurry. Her wiry legs dangled over her bags, which were tucked away under the bench to keep from interfering with London’s busiest morning hour. She began to realize why her ticket back home was so cheap. (Jetting to Heathrow would be a nightmare! Morning commuters wrapped their anxiety around themselves as they shuffled on and off trains. Barely anyone looked up from magazines, palm pilots or novels. Mary always tried to see what people were reading. What people chose to spend their unassigned moments on could give her some small insight to the pair of eyes skidding across the pages. More than once, they would catch her staring, and she would always say hi, in hopes of starting a conversation. Rarely did it ever happen. Richard had been an exception. Many years ago, she traveled to Scotland, and found herself standing beside him, waiting for the public bus in front of the battlefield of Culloden. Richard had his nose buried in a book. He wore oversized khaki shorts, a button down pastel colored short sleeve shirt, and some very strange looking, but seemingly comfortable shoes. His brow was crinkled and his glasses were sliding down a very perfect nose. She leaned a bit closer, stretching her eyes as far as they would go without obviously interfering. “The Songs of Ossian.” Was he a musician? No, he didn’t look like a musician. Before she could form her next thought, his thick Scottish drawl interrupted.

“Can I help you with something?’ His eyebrow was cocked and loaded, but there was a smile on his lips. They had remained great friends since that day. Richard was not, she soon learned, a musician. He had been studying to become a barrister, at which he had been very successful. Two years ago, he moved to London, hoping to save the world, or make a great profit trying, whichever came first. So, she would visit once a year, and get away from the cultural void of America. Mary dug into her bag and found the Cadbury Flake bar she had been saving for later. Her cell phone rang. After emptying the entire contents of her carryon on the tube station floor, she finally found it

“Hi Richard,” she said almost dropping the phone. “Miss me already?” “As if I have a choice.” He teased. “You forgot your book here.” Mary rifled through the stuff on the floor.

“Which one?”

“Some ridiculous book with fear in the title.”

“Oh, yeah, Feel Fear and Do It Anyway. It’s a good book, you should read it.” Richard laughed on the other end.

“I don’t feel fear. Why the hell are you reading it?”

Mary put her stuff back in order, balancing the cell phone between her ear and shoulder.

“Hello? How quickly we forget! I am afraid of flying.”

“And that book is supposed to cure you? Brilliant.”

“No, the Ambien cures me, usually within five to ten minutes. The book is supposed to make me feel better about being afraid in the first place.”

“I don’t know what’s worse, this self help nonsense or that bible you carry around with you. What about God, don’t you think he’ll be offended that you don’t trust him a bit more?”

A train rolled off behind her, generating a breeze flavored with dank tunnel smells. Mary shivered.

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“God forgives me. That’s how it works Richard. I sin, go to confession, and God forgives me. If you weren’t so against anything Holy, you would know that.”

“Religious, I’m against anything religious,” Richard corrected. “Not the same thing at all...

Mary pulled on her sweatshirt, somehow managing to keep the cell phone in place. Her thin blond hair rose up seeking out the static in the air. She smoothed it down, and resettled herself. Another train grumbled through, and she ignored it

“Last chance to come back with me, sure you won’t take me up on it?”

“As tempting as the land of bikini contests and ‘Amish in the City’ is I think I’ll pass.”

Mary shook her head. She was smiling, though she didn’t know it

“I took you to ONE bikini contest. I thought you’d find it interesting in a National Geographic sort of way. And we saw Amish in the City here on your T.V. I’d never even heard of it until then.”

Richard had, in an unprecedented move, surprised her by stopping over in D.C. on his way back from India. Mary thought the comparison between Sterling, VA and the Taj Mahal was a rather unfair one. Had it not been for Maryam, the whole thing would have been a disaster. Her best friend was a beautiful, far too smart Persian girl who swept the un-captureable Richard away with her smile. She was Muslim he was not, so nothing serious would ever come of it. But Mary had secretly thanked God that she had something other than tourist traps and sports bars to offer! Who knows what might have happened between them if he had not been forced to leave early. His mother fell ill and he flew out on September 09, 2001. Richard had not been back since.

“Call me when you get there, and tell Maryam I said ‘hi’.”

“Tell her yourself,” Mary teased.

“Be nice. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Absolutely.”

Two trains had come and gone while she spoke to Richard. Mary wasn’t in a rush. The very thought of getting one step closer to an airport, where she would be forced to take the walk of doom down a flimsy extended corridor and onto a plane made her stomach lurch. She began biting her nails. Her bracelet stroked her cheek and she examined it with a smile.

“Take it,” Maryam he said. “And wear it all the time. It will keep you safe.”

Maryam’s grandmother was making them more food. And inevitably, Mary would eat it to the last bite. No human could resist Papi’s cooking. The spices gently reminded her of places she had never seen, hot summer nights amidst ripe pomegranate trees, fields of sunflowers. The rice was fluffy and soft, it’s own texture, and the Tadig, Mary’s favorite, was the crunchy hard burnt layer of rice at the bottom of the pan. Without fail, before she served it, Papi would apologize for the less than perfect meal, which was indeed always perfect, and wait for the expected contradictory compliments. Maryam’ s mother was burning rue for Mary, another act of protection. Apparently the smoky soily smell of dried rue as it burned kept the evil eye away. The evil eye was very big in Maryam’s culture. Maryam gave Mary the silver charm bracelet in a beautiful pouch of colored material. She had brought it back from Iran, and was saving it for just the right moment. It was a hand palm outward with an eye in the center of it. Maryam promised Mary that if she never took it off, she would make it home just fine. Her hair

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smelled of Jasmine, and Mary could remember dark, long, perfect curls pushing against her face as her best friend hugged her. It had been fifteen years since Mary had walked up to the new girl in school and introduced herself. They had been instantly inseparable.

“You are Muslim?”

The deep cadence of a stranger’s question snapped Mary out of her remembrances. He was a handsome African American, well, not American, his accent was clearly British.

“You are Muslim?” he repeated.

Mary followed his gaze to her wrist.

“Oh no, no. I am not Muslim. My good friend back home is. She gave this to me because I’m afraid of flying. It’s for protection.”

The man arched his brow and shifted his backpack to the other shoulder.

“Do you know what we call it?” he asked.

“She told me it was the Hand of Fatima,” Mary answered.

“Very good,” the man said and smiled. “Also known as the Khamsa”

His eyes met hers, and she shivered. They were deep and clear and for a moment, a flutter of recognition passed through them.

She showed him the gold crucifix around her neck.

“I’m Catholic,” she offered. Her crucifix was handed down, from grandmother to mother, to her. “Every Sunday, church.”

Mary immediately felt the space between them grow cold.

“Then you should trust in your God, and not be afraid for your life.”

It was a common argument. But somehow not comforting when Mary envisioned dangling thirty two thousand feet above ground.

“Of course you are right. But, I’m sure that is what all the people on all the planes crashes thought,” she answered half jokingly. The man smiled and Mary thought she saw a veil of a secret in it.

“And your god doesn’t mind that you wear a Muslim charm?’

Mary grew silent.

“There’s only one God,” she said. “And I think he sees The Hand of Fatima as I do, a beautiful gift to keep me safe.”

The man seemed surprised.

The train rattled down the track.

“You are American?” He asked, trying to hide an accusation.

“Yes,” she said defensively.

The man looked at the ground, mumbling something inaudible. There was a strange pulse in his voice. The hair on Mary’s arms prickled.

“Going to Heathrow?” he finally said.

“Yes,” she answered and without thinking started biting her nails again. There was a short pause, and the rumbling of their train sounded from deep inside a dark tunnel.

“I heard today, on my way here, that the train to Heathrow is not running. You’ll have to take a cab at some point anyway, better do it now and save yourself the time.”

Richard had not mentioned anything about the trains. He was a news addict, and never missed a hit in the morning. She didn’t want to be rude, and contradict the man. She actually didn’t want to be near him at all. So, with a sigh of relief that confused her,

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she thanked the stranger’s back, as he squeezed his way onto the train along with hundreds of strangers on their way to life and another day.

Mary didn’t want to wait for the next train. The thought of having to sit next to all those people as they intruded on her private fear festival exhausted her. And, having waited around too long at King’s Cross, she might miss the plane if the man had been right about trouble with the trains. Mary sighed, and grabbed her things, dreading the long haul back to the street. She hailed a black taxi and dragged her bags on behind her.

“Where to Luv?”

“Heathrow.”

“All the way?” the cabbie asked surprised.

“Since the trains aren’t working I don’t have much of choice do I?”

Mary hoped she had enough pounds left for the ride.

“I never heard anything about the trains, but all the way it is.”

She sat back and wondered if she packed her Ambien in an easy to find place.

They told her at Scotland Yard that the man that had spoken to her was a terrorist. That the backpack she had paid no attention to carried explosives. Twenty minutes after he boarded the train, he took his own life, along with 26 others. It would have been 27. It should have been. Mary went cold. They said he saved her because she must have reminded him of his wife. They showed Mary a picture and it was true, she did look like his wife, his pregnant wife. He was Jamaican born, but raised in England. His mother and he both converted to Islam. His wife was a Brit who did the same. They rambled on with facts and questions and she drifted further away. It didn’t matter to her where he was born, or who he was. After it was all done with, every stone unturned, every question neatly put away, Mary was left alone in a room to “compose herself” Mary didn’t know where to begin. She sat in silence biting her nails and crying. She remembered the strength in her mother’s arms as they nearly embraced the breath out of her.

“Thank God you are safe! I have gone to church and given alms. Thank God, thank God!”

It was Allah that Maryam gave her thanks to. She had attributed Mary’s safekeeping to the charm; after all, he wouldn’t have talked to her if not for the Hand of Fatima. It became a very important fact to Maryam, who had been put, in the last few years, in the repeated position of having to defend Islam, and explain that not all Muslim’s believed in terrorism. Not all Iranian’s hated America. She could manage being a good Muslim and loving America at the same time.

Mary felt a strange tug of war begin in her life. God, Allah, she was a prize both sides wanted credit for. She went to church, sat in the pew and thanked God. For the first time ever, it was an empty gesture, void of shape or form. She knew the truth. A man had decided. The priest had revered her as if she were some sacred thing he was afraid to touch.

“God has saved you,” he said with his best sermon voice. “You were in the presence of evil, and God kept you from it.”

“Where was God when that evil took the 26 people who did die?’ she asked.

“Child you must never question God’s will. He will always know what is best.”

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She looked around her at the gilded worship of Jesus, the pious silence of God’s place. That silence could not live in her anymore. She had lost weight she could not afford to be rid of, and her face had become a grey shadowy thing void of sleep. When she shut her eyes, she saw his. The crucifix around her neck felt heavy. Everyone was so relieved, so happy, but all she could hear was the question that plagued her.

“Why me?”

She thought of the wife, the one she must have reminded him of, the baby that was waiting to be born, the one that would never know its father, or might get to know him as a murderer, a monster, maybe even a hero.

“What was he like?” Her aunt had asked her wide- eyed.

“Excuse me?’ she whispered. It was the thing everyone wanted to talk about most. What was the terrorist like, what kind of man could do what he did? They wanted to hear about a monster. How could she answer? Pedophiles don’t have two heads, rapists don’t have horns, and terrorists don’t look any different than you or I. They don’t sound any different At least this one didn’t

“It all happened so fast. I only talked with him for two minutes. I don’t know what he was like.”

What was I like, she would wonder, that he kept me off that train. Had she been an inexplicable hiccup in his finite world of monotheistic manipulation? What could he have thought of a young woman who wore a Muslim charm and a Catholic one on the same body? But it was Richard that gave the explanation that fit most comfortably. Perhaps it was just a case of seeing in her the reflection of the woman that he loved as his wife. Perhaps, Mary was to him just a person, someone worth saving.

“If only,” Richard had whispered, “we could all always see everyone that way.”

His hug had been the most healing of all, he who didn’t have a side to pull her to. And maybe that is why she had come back here against the wishes of her family and friends. She hoped she could find her silence somewhere between Richard’s wisdom and the place where her life was spared. Standing at the same spot, she looked up at the arches, still there, still ignored, still beautiful. Around her, people moved on, and whether they forgot or paused in memory, whether they refused to fear, or felt hesitation, they showed nothing. Mary was no longer interested in what they read. As Mary stood there without any ceremony, she slowly understood. She could wonder all she wanted, she could thank God, or let it be Allah that took credit for her, it would make no difference, it would bring her no answers. God wasn’t speaking to her, Allah wasn’t watching. What happened that day was not borne of divine intervention? It was Maryam’s belief in the Hand of Fatima, it was her own faith in the crucifix, but more than just these things, it was her inability to see the man that spoke to her as a threat, her instinct to answer him, to interact with him. It’s how she met all the important people in her life, by talking to strangers, exactly as she was taught never to do. Richard had been right. They were, for one short while; just two people, and that had changed his mind about her. The world would see it differently. Its soul could not carry the belief that a man like him could have a moment like that. And so, it would continue to go on. Mary sat down on the bench and put her head in her hands. Through tears, her eyes caught the warning laid out before her. Mind the Gap. Mary stared at the white words on the platform until they went blurry.

By Atossa Shafaieof Sterling, Virginia -USA

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Second Prize Writing Contest Winner - Winter 2006-2007

Mrs. Coleman and the Map of the World

By CJ Mouser

I could have sworn I saw Mrs. Coleman the other day. Of course, that wouldn’t mean anything to anybody but thousands of other kids who attended Herrington Elementary School in central Texas and me, back in the 1960s. It started me thinking, though; about the impact some people have on our lives. It’s not like Mrs. Coleman was a celebrity or anything, but for a few fourth graders, she was a pivotal character in a turbulent time that was referred to as integration.

No matter how long ago you went to school, or how foggy the memories, everybody can remember at least one teacher who made a difference for them in one way or another. This teacher may not have had any impact on our studies, per se, or had any real sway on what we chose to do with our lives, but may have had a direct influence in what type of human being we turned out to be. Someone who helped us find our conscience, or our humanity. For me, that teacher was Mrs. Coleman.

Integration was a tough time for all concerned. Black children were bussed to white schools and white children were bussed to black schools. Both black and white teachers were encouraged to teach at schools of a predominantly different race to help with the integration process. I don’t think there was a single kid involved who went into this arrangement willingly. We were all scared, as tends to happen when you yank people out of their normal, ordered routine, and force them to try and fit into a new environment.

In my memory, the black kids who were forced to come to our school acted out with violence and intimidation. Back then such behavior scared the stuffing out of me. On reflection, I realize that those kids were just as scared as I was; they just portrayed it differently by being tough. Most white kids tended to try and blend in with the wallpaper, tiptoeing around and not making eye contact. The atmosphere was charged with electricity and fights broke out at random. It was war, plain, pure and simple, and as in any war, we -- the soldiers -- followed orders and tried to stay alive.

Mrs. Coleman was the first black teacher in my school and in my experience. Not only was she black, she had other things going for her that could set a white fourth grader’s mind awhirl with the obvious cultural differences. Her skin was the color of Hershey’s chocolate, and that is no exaggeration; she was the darkest person I had ever seen. The contrast of the whiteness of her teeth against her skin was startling. When she spoke, she had my undivided attention if for no other reason than that one.

She was an older woman, quite round, very short, and I suspect, most likely a happy person. But we didn’t see that part often. There were some little clues, like the way she giggled at appropriate times or smiled at the sometimes-bizarre answers that fourth graders could come up with to her questions, but Mrs. Coleman was a very careful person; smiles and giggles were few and far between.

From day one, Mrs. Coleman did not have the respect of her students. I was only about ten years old, but I was savvy enough to pick up on that even as young as I was. If she had been Mrs. Conley, for example, my third-grade, mean-as-a-stepped-on-snake, white teacher, one little rap on her desk with the yardstick would have hushed the classroom silent as a tomb.

For Mrs. Coleman it took a lot more work. Everybody knew that Mrs. Coleman would not dare lay a finger on us, unlike Mrs. Conley, who would happily smack us on any fleshy surface that was available with her trusty yardstick if we so much as gave her half a reason, but things were tense enough already, so Mrs. Coleman had to be much more creative than the average fourth grade teacher. As a result, she taught us that school could be exciting and fun. Her class was not only informative but also it was entertaining. Rather than appreciate her for it, we simply took advantage of it.

Basically, Mrs. Coleman was tolerated, both by the students and the other teachers, and most especially the parents. There was an obvious tension in Mrs. Coleman’s room on parent visiting night. Parents and children milled about the room looking at the displays of our work that she had carefully prepared, but the number of words that passed between teacher and parents was minimal at best. I remember her alternating between sitting at her desk, and wandering around the room, hopefully. Even though I’m sure she was brutally disappointed in the lack of enthusiasm both from parents and students, she always had that dazzling smile and used it freely.

Until the day before Christmas break.

Handling an excited fourth grade class the day before holiday vacation was the ultimate test of any teacher, and Mrs. Coleman was no exception. We put her through her paces, and then some. Looking back, I suspect that the Friday before we let out for the Christmas holiday was a day straight out of hell for Mrs. Coleman. To say that we were wild was an understatement of the highest order. We used every trick in the book, from throwing things, to popping in and out of our chairs, and in one dazzling display of recklessness, Johnny Richards actually snuck out of the classroom and had to be bullied back by Mr. Gomez, the school janitor.

The principal had to be called in twice to help maintain calm with threats of paddling and all other heinous retributions. Mr. Simsbury insisted that Mrs. Coleman take names so that he could “whoop butts,” but Mrs. Coleman never wrote down the first name. As it turns out, she didn’t need to.

If things weren’t bad enough already, mere hours before the bell rang a series of mechanical failures began to occur. It started when the overhead lights flickered off and stayed off for about fifteen minutes right after lunch. Then the back broke off of Mrs. Coleman’s rolling desk chair. That was funny to everyone, even her. She laughed until I started to get the feeling that she might be laughing more out of hysterics than actual humor.

There was a large map on a plywood display board that rested in the chalk tray behind Mrs. Coleman’s desk. At approximately two o’clock, Mrs. Coleman slid back her chair to stand up and ask for quiet, as she had done numerous times over the course of the day, and due to the fact that the back was missing from her chair, she went back further than normal. Her shoulders contacted the plywood map, and the class watched in horror as it wobbled and then fell forward, striking an unsuspecting Mrs. Coleman on top of the head. The display board was comprised of almost a full sheet of three quarter-inch plywood and had to be very heavy, and consequently, very painful. The room went as silent as a church during personal prayer time, and stayed that way until the most alarming thing happened.

Mrs. Coleman, at the end of her resources, taxed beyond the limit that any human should be expected to tolerate, and now in physical pain ... began to cry. What started out as a whimper, turned into sobs and ultimately into wails. For several minutes no one moved or spoke. We listened to the heartbreaking sobbing of this woman, knowing without a doubt that we were responsible. We were horrible, bad children, and we knew it. Then one by one, those of us with enough conscience to know that we were behind this sad display began to leave our chairs and migrate to the front of the room. Not knowing what to do when I got there, I located and offered her a Kleenex, which she took gratefully.

Then the apologies started coming, and coming ... and coming. Before it was over, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Almost as one, an entire classroom full of fourth graders came to the same realization. Mrs. Coleman was not just a teacher, or even a black teacher. She was a person ... a warm blooded, sensitive, pain feeling, usually happy person, and we had single-handedly changed all that, and we didn’t like the change. We wanted the happy, smiling Mrs. Coleman back, right now, because we knew we were the ones who sent her away.

The school nurse collected Mrs. Coleman and a scowling Mr. Simsbury took over a very subdued class until the final bell rang. The only thing worse than Mrs. Coleman’s crying, was Mr. Simsbury’s silent, steady, disappointed gaze. His eyes said, “Try me, go ahead, and just try me. I’m old, I can retire, but not before I beat the snot out of every one of you.”

Needless to say, when school resumed after the holidays, things had begun to change. Mrs. Coleman was back to her old smiling self, and as a group we were so enormously grateful that it was just days before summer vacation before we actually tested her again in any significant way. By then, it was no worse than we would have done any teacher, and it took a lot less effort on her part to calm us down.

If ever there was a doubt in any of our young minds that Mrs. Coleman deserved our respect and consideration, we only had to look at the plywood map behind her desk. Ironically enough, it was a map of the world that reminded us that she was a person just like us and that she deserved to be treated so, just like us. She taught us that color was only skin deep, but compassion, tolerance, and acceptance came from the soul, a lesson that I have carried with me all this time, and will never forget.

Sometimes it takes years before we have such a revelation and are reminded of those events and people who helped shape our lives. I will never be able to look at anyone and judge him or her on the basis of skin color again. Thanks to Mrs. Coleman, and an unfortunate incident with a map of the world.

By CJ Mouser

Of Wauchula, Florida -USA

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Third Prize Writing Contest Winner - Winter 2006-2007

Marcus The Great

“No, Hera. I’ll sleep with anyone I please! O.K?”

Fights like this were common within the ranks of the Greek gods. Zeus was known for being quite the player in Greece, and his lover, Hera, was not too fond of this one bit.

“Honey look, it didn’t mean anything. I really love you.” Zeus was trying to calm her down, but it wasn’t working. Hera marched into Zeus’s room and began to trash the room.

“No baby, that pottery is... was my favorite” Zeus said, as the pot shattered into the wall. Zeus tried to plead with her, but she trashed everything in the room until she arrived at his lightning bolts.

“Hera, no! Those are only for me to touch.” Hera paid no heed to this and threw one of the lightning bolts at him anyway. She aimed for his feet but missed. The bolt zoomed by his feet and flew through the clouds on which all the gods lived. Little did either of them know this little fit of rage would do them both more good than a much needed marriage counseling session.

Marcus was your typical Greek in every way. His parents were both blacksmiths who had made a decent amount of money with their work. His dad would craft the weapons for the soldiers, and his mom would add the art to really make them stand out. Sadly, Marcus did not possess the skills his parents did. Of course, he worked in the shop with his parents, but it was mostly just keeping the place tidy and calculating the incom they made -- typical job, typical pay, typical Greek. Marcus decided one day to take a walk that would make his life anything but typical.

 “Oh Zeus, I would give anything to be more than just your average Greek. I think that if I were given the chance I could really shock the people of your land with my skill.” At that very moment the lightning bolt (which was thrown by Hera) continued on its earth-bound course, and Marcus just happened to be in the way.

 They say you’ve never known pain until you’re dead, and Marcus knew full well the truth of that statement. When he awoke he felt peaceful, as if he were floating on a cloud. He looked around for a minute or two before realizing he really was on a cloud! He was floating on a cloud on his way up to see the gods. When his journey was finally over he saw Zeus looking around anxiously as if he were expecting someone. Zeus saw him and asked, “ You didn’t happen to run into a lightning bolt did you?” When Marcus told him in fact he had, Zeus was flustered.

 “Look I’m sorry Marcus. You weren’t really supposed to die. This whole thing was an

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accident, O.K.? Is there any way I can repay you?”

 Marcus thought about it and realized this would be his big chance to help Greece and become more than he ever thought possible.

 “You know what, I might have to go home and tell all my friends about your little slip up here Zeus old boy.”

 Zeus responded, “Look, there’s no need for that. I heard your prayer, and I know you want to help Greece. And that’s good, because there’s real trouble here that I could use your help with.” He continued on, “You know every year we hold the Olympics to show our strength and speed. Every year the winner of the most events becomes almost an icon to the Greek people. He gets adorned with adoration and gifts and most importantly, trust. Every person in Greece knows to listen to whatever the Olympic winner says, because someone that strong must surely be some kind of god.”

 Marcus cut Zeus off. “This is all great, but where do I come in?”

 Zeus told Marcus to just hold on, and he continued, “Well Hades has a plan for this year; using the souls of the finest dead athletes he will combine them together to form the perfect Olympian -- one who is sure to win every event and gain the trust of millions of Greeks. I cannot allow this because Hades will be controlling that person the whole time. If the Greeks trust the athlete then that means they also trust Hades. Can you imagine, millions of Greeks following orders from a puppet of Hades? That’s why Marcus, from this point on you will have all the strength and speed and skill of an Olympian, and you will win. This is more than a gold medal. It’s for the good of your country.”

 “To complete this task you’ll need help. That’s why when I send you back to earth you will have your own trainer named Taylor. Taylor will work you very hard in order to get you to use your powers to your full potential. Now go boy. Leave me here, and go for the gold.” With a simple flick of the wrist, Zeus sent Marcus back down to earth with all his newly bestowed powers.

 When Marcus arrived back on earth he quickly noticed a few new things about himself. Before he met Zeus he was an average guy of average build. With Zeus’s help he had been transformed. He was now taller than any man he had ever seen and had the muscles of Hercules. His clothes had changed also. Instead of a simple white robe, he was dressed in the finest silks and linens. He figured now that he had the look of a god he might as well get into the shape of a god. He knew he needed to find Taylor, his new personal trainer, but he had no idea where to look. Just the thought of Taylor and he somehow knew instinctively where to go.

 Marcus traveled over the tallest of mountains and into the deepest of canyons. He walked under the scorching sun and the drenching rain until he came upon a building in the middle of a wide-open field. The building was bigger than any he had ever seen. It was almost an exact replica of the Parthenon, only the inside was totally vacant.

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While Marcus stood to admire the building he felt a tap on shoulder. Somehow he knew it was Taylor and was anxious to see what kind of Adonis Zeus had sent to kick him into shape. Instead when he turned he saw a girl that would have made Aphrodite green with envy.

 “Hello there Marcus, my name is Taylor. Are you ready to begin your training?”

 Marcus was too stunned to do anything other than nod his head incoherently. Taylor was not some rippling mass of muscles. No, she was a very feminine woman, and Marcus was sure that she was the image of beauty in every way.

 The training set up for Marcus was intense. While Taylor did not look like a trainer, she definitely was. When Marcus ran a mile, Taylor ran it faster. When Marcus threw the discus, Taylor threw it farther. When Marcus lifted a boulder, Taylor lifted two. Zeus was a smart man indeed! If he had sent a muscle bound trainer to help, Marcus would not have been mad if the trainer was better than he was. The thought of being outclassed by a dainty, yet beautiful, young lady in every single way only made Marcus work harder and harder. While Marcus continued to train, he was falling more and more in love with Taylor. Their off time was always spent together just talking, getting lunch or just being together. Indeed they were falling deeply in love.

 When the time came for the Olympics, all of Greece was abuzz with the news of a new competitor. People heard through the grapevine he was stronger than a Chariot, faster than a speeding horse, and able to leap mountains in a single bound. This might have been a little over the top, but Greeks were sure to be in for a show.

 On the first day of the Olympics was the strength competition. Each competitor was to lift and carry a boulder for ten paces before picking up another one and repeating. They all had ten boulders to carry. When Marcus came to his starting position he looked around the field and saw him. He had not ever seen him, but he knew his name --Theo. He was Hades’ creation and he looked like a Marcus opposite. While Marcus was tan, had wavy blond hair and was dressed in golden robes, Theo was pasty, almost white, had very little black hair and was dressed in the shabbiest of black robes. They made eye contact with each other, and an instant a rivalry was born.

 The judge announced the start of the event, and Marcus took a quick lead. He had carried three boulders ten paces in the time it took everyone else to carry one. Theo had not even moved yet.

 When Theo began moving, he started with a vengeance! He picked up two boulders at once and ran like the wind to his spot. He continued doing this, and Marcus was having trouble keeping pace. In the end both had two boulders in each hand and sprinting to their spots. Marcus won, barely. Taylor was ecstatic for Marcus’s win and was hugging her lover like crazy after the match. Theo looked at them with disdain and thought of a plan that would destroy his rival without laying a finger on him.

Page 3

As Marcus hugged Taylor he could sense Theo was planning something and knew he had to keep his eyes open for any tricks he might try and pull. Would he attack his knees with a lead pipe or rig one of the events so that only Theo could win? There was no telling what the spawn of Hades had up his sleeve for Marcus.

 Theo was smart enough to see that Marcus had more important things in his life besides winning. He could see that Marcus was very much in love with Taylor — and that could be his downfall. Theo could break Marcus’s leg, and he would still go on. He could break his arm and he would still go on. Yet if he broke his heart, he knew Marcus would quit.

 The next day was the speed contest. Theo made sure every event was close but he was always just a step behind Marcus. He of course had this planned this so that Marcus would not think he was throwing the races. After each race Marcus could be seen spending every moment with the love of his life, Taylor, and Theo knew that his plan would go off without a hitch.

 That night Theo called down to Hades, “Oh my master, hear my plea. Marcus and I are equals in every way, but he has a weakness, “the girl sir, the girl.” Give me your 3-headed dog to kill her. He will quit the Olympics and I will have the people of Greece eating out of the palm of our hand.” Hades heard Theo’s plan and smiled. He now knew not only was his minion strong but also had the brains to go along with it. He agreed to his plan and sent his monstrosity of a dog to earth.

 The final day of the Olympics was the skill contest. Theo had a plan to make sure that Marcus didn’t even get the chance to compete in this. Before the event, when Marcus and Taylor were all alone talking about the upcoming event, Theo started his plan. He called up the three-headed dog. The earth shook, the sky turned black and the roar of the dog could be heard for miles. The dog burst out of the earth and went straight for its assigned target. It ran directly at Marcus before sidestepping him and killing Taylor with a single strike.

 When Theo saw the job his dog had done he was pleased. He sent the dog back to the underworld and went to see if Marcus was crushed. He walked over to the fallen champion, and indeed Marcus was a shell of his former self.

 “What kind of life is it that I want to live without Taylor by my side?” he asked to the heavens. “Hades, take me. Give Taylor’s body back her soul.”

 Marcus knew now that the most important thing in his life was not getting the gold. He turned to Theo and looked him in the eye. Instead of seeing sorrow on his face for the death of Taylor, Theo saw a smile.

 “You had Taylor killed, didn’t you. Forget the Olympics. I’m going to kill you!”

 With that proclamation Marcus surged towards Theo and began and struggle for life.

Page 4

They were both equally matched as Marcus had the strength of the heavens, and it was only countered by Theo’s strength of the underworld. They kept on fighting and fighting well past sundown. All of Greece shook with the power of their fight. Theo looked at Marcus and said, “Marcus you fool, we’ve fought for too long. We’ve missed the Olympics. You fool!

 While this should have been great news for Marcus, it fell on deaf ears. He might have done his job for Zeus, but he now realized something. Victory is nothing without someone special to share it with.

 With this thought he summoned all his strength and rushed at Theo. He tackled him to the ground and grabbed him by the neck. Theo tried and tried but could not get him to release. Within three minutes Theo stopped struggling. Marcus stepped away from him and walked out through the city to the Olympic Stadium. When he got there he was surprised to find the stadium still full of people. He nervously walked in, and when he set foot inside the stadium the crowd roared. In the middle of the stadium was Zeus himself, and the crowd looked shocked. None of them had seen a god before, and here Zeus was in the middle of all of them.

 Zeus said to Marcus, “Thank you, son, for preventing Theo from winning. Now I know you really want that goal, but since you didn’t compete in the last day I don’t think you can get it. I think I have a small consolation prize here for you though.”

 Zeus took a step to the side and there she was. Taylor! Marcus was too overwhelmed to speak and quickly embraced her in his arms. He thought again how victory is nothing without someone special to share it with.

The End.

By Ryan Parker

of  McKinney, Texas -USA

__________________________________________________________________________

First Writing Prize Winner -Summer 2007

“Second Chance”

The world around me began to disappear and reappear again as the single light in the store flickered randomly above the register. I felt uneasy and even the gentle hum of the electricity was as jarring to me as police sirens. I had never seen the store so late at night before. It was so dark and empty. During the day the shop was so full of energy, crowds of people would gather around to haggle over prices or just to hear the latest bit of gossip. But that was no longer the case. Surrounding me were not elderly women desperately trying to juggle a bag of groceries in one hand and their crying infant in the other. No, what were surrounding me now were nightmarish shadows that followed me down the aisles.

The shopkeeper lightly placed the jars of baby food and the loaf of bread into a brown paper bag. The light shined above him casting black shadows where his eyes should be. He was a much elderly fellow with a gentle smile. He emitted a warm presence that one can only feel around their grandfather, which I found to be very comforting.

“I hope I didn’t wake you. My wife hadn’t noticed we were low on baby food till a couple of minutes ago,” I said as he slid me the bag of groceries across the front counter.

“Oh no, it’s quite alright. I was still up reading my paper,” he told me. He was lying. I could tell by his uncombed hair, the bathrobe he was wearing, and the flakes of dried saliva on his chin. I forced a smile in his direction to convince him that his lie was successful. The shopkeeper lived just upstairs from the store along with his wife and teenage daughter.

“I really appreciate this. I mean, I can’t thank you enough,” I said as I lifted the groceries off the counter. The bag crackled as the result of the weight shift. I tightly pressed it against my chest and made my way towards the front entrance.

Page 1.

“You’d better go out the back door, son. I saw a few of those Nazis just outside shortly after you came in. I wouldn’t let them see you, it being so late and past curfew,” he cautioned. I paused and decided to heed his advice. I exited the store through the back, which lead me into a dark alley. It was cold. I could see my breath instantly turn into mist as I exhaled the carbon dioxide from my lungs. I threw my scarf around my neck, tightened my trench coat, and began my walk home. I decided to stick to the alleys, sure they were damp and unpleasant, but it was the only possible way for me to avoid any soldiers on patrol. I began to walk fast, puddles splashed beneath my feet, and even in the cold I began to sweat. The floor was blanketed with old newspapers. The ink was smeared across the pages making the headlines impossible to read.

Suddenly I thought I heard a noise from behind me. I stopped in my tracks. I turned around but failed to find the source of the noise. From what the darkness did not hide, the fog surely did. I stood for there a few seconds hoping to hear it again but all I could hear was the blood pumping into my ears. A wave of panic rushed up my spine and my walking pace increased. Just after a short while, the cold air filling my lungs began to burn. I leaned against the side of a building and decided to have a smoke as I tried to catch my breath. I set the paper bag on top of a garbage can that sat beside me. I pulled a cigarette from my pocket, licked my lips, and then placed it in my mouth. As I stuck my hands in my coat pockets to find a match a man leaped out from the shadows and tightly grabbed my forearm. I immediately gasped and my cigarette fell from my lips to the damp alley floor. At first I thought he was a mugger, but then I saw his eyes. Looking deep into his sunken eyes I could see a sense of fear and desperation. Not the kind of desperation one can see in a criminal.

“Please, help us. We hadn’t any shelter or food in days. I can’t even remember the taste of warm food,” he cried as he strengthened his grip. I tried to look away and in that attempt I accidentally glanced at the yellow star sowed onto his coat pocket. He was a Jew.

Page 2.

“No, no. I can’t!” I told him and tried to brake free from his hand.

“You don’t have to house me, but please give my daughter a warm bed to sleep in.” At that moment from behind the man came a six-year-old girl wrapped in rags. Her eyes were dark and still wet from recently crying. I tried to look away again.

“Look, I already told you. I can’t help you. Here you can take this.” I gave him the loaf of bread and pushed him out of my way. I could not bear to look at their reaction, so I just stared at the floor as I walked away.

Later that night as my son lay with his stomach full in his crib, I could not sleep. I lay awake next to my wife staring at the ceiling. Even though I was covered with layers upon layers of quilts, I still felt cold. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was that little girl in the alley. Her short brown hair, her tear-soaked eyes, her pale whit skin were all plaguing me. I could not stand the guilt a second more. I had to do something. I quietly slipped on my coat and boots and left the security of my home. I had plenty of room in my apartment for the both of them. How could have I been so selfish. How could have I been such a coward? That no longer mattered. What did matter was what I was doing that very second. That I was going to right my wrongs. I have a second chance to make things right this time around. I could not wait to see the look on their faces when I return with open arms. I began to sprint. The thoughts of my heroism breathed new life into my exhausted body. The cold night air ran through my lungs, but I no longer cared. The brief pain was all worth it. Closer and closer, but to my surprise there was no warm welcome to my arrival. There was no praise for my return. There was no pat on the back for my heroics. There were no smiles, no cheers, and no cold little girl and her father. All that was waiting for me in that alley was darkness, regret, and a half-eaten loaf of bread.

Page 3.

By David McMillin

of Port Richey, Florida -USA

______________________________________________________________________________

Second Writing Prize Winner - Summer 2007

 Barnyard Tales:

Thumbalina—A first Acquaintance Gone Bad

          I put an ad in the local paper searching for hens to take on horse poop patrol in my yard. Chickens are good about scratching through it, thus spreading it about. Only one person contacted me so we made a date for the chicken exchange of $12 for five hens. There's one hen I named Clarice, although I later renamed her Thumbalina, and she's wasn’t much to look at. She was light red, had a fairly ratty-looking little hen comb, and was the breed of chicken that is featherless on the neck and rump. She wasn’t the brightest chick in the bunch either. I went around and around with the new hens Clarice, Grace, Gal and Donna having quickly lost the fifth hen, Puff, to a raccoon. My guess was the new chickens were caged barnyard birds not accustomed to free ranging and roosting like the new lifestyle I was providing for them. They immediately took to my front porch railing and steps to overnight (and poop) and this was just not going to work out. I positioned a wooden ladder up against a tree where even the laziest or stupidest chicken should have been able to climb and roost, and the new girls needed to learn that.

After going several rounds with all four hens, which meant chasing and corralling them, battling their flapping wings and distressed vocalizations, catching them and setting them on the ladder, they would climb on up into the tree—except for Clarice. She would just sit wherever I put her. For several nights in a row I would get the chickens in the tree only to have them come down 20 minutes later. But finally, they got the hang of it and started roosting in the tree—except Clarice. No matter how hard she tried she could not muster enough balance to master the ladder wrung closest to the ground. She was a klutz. One night when they were all acting like idiots and freaking out about roosting, Clarice and Donna went on the lam. I found them attempting to roost on the back porch. Of course, I was dressed in my most elegant attire of a yellow terry cloth short robe and purple, sparkly flip-flops. I knew I had to nab them both at the same time or I would be running all around my house, dressed in my best, certainly amusing the neighbors. I reached down and grabbed both hens by the legs.

As I carried them around the house, upside-down, wings flapping and them fussing in really nasty tones, I realized I'd be in a pickle when I got to the tree. The lowest branch was well above my head. I had Donna in my right hand and knew I could fling her up and she'd catch herself and climb, which I did. However, Clarice would prove a tad trickier. I knew she'd practically have to be set in the high crook of the tree. I switched her to my right hand, being a very right-handed person, and braced myself for the extra flapping, squawking freak out that was sure to follow the flinging. I lowered my head and closed my eyes as I swung Clarice above my head. I knew I'd have to use my left hand to give her that extra boost and set her right. Blindly, I reached up to boost with my left hand with my right hand still wrapped around her legs.

Let me say this—as an animal lover, and understander of their simple minds, their flight over fight natural reactions and their need for human support—right then and there as my left thumb went where no thumb should ever go, all my love for barnyard birds flew out of my head. Clarice and I shriekingly squawked at the same time. She catapulted herself three branches up, pulling the plug, so to speak, as I ran hyperventilating, bounding over dogs and dodging horses with my thumb stuck stiffly straight up as far away from my body as I could get it. All I had on my mind was Clorox. I leapt two porch stairs at a time, opened the back door so hard it practically came off the hinges, came to a sliding stop at the kitchen sink and poured half a gallon of Clorox over my thumb. I scrubbed my thumb with a Brillo pad and dish washing detergent, and then squeezed lemon juice on it. My breathing finally returned to normal. I managed a peek out the front door where I saw Clarice, who was now roosted 15 feet up in the tree, and heard her telling her friends what had just happened. She didn't sound very happy.

The next morning I opened the back door to go out and feed. As usual all the critters were congregated there waiting on breakfast—except Clarice. I fed everyone and went in search of her. I found her still roosting in the tree even higher than she was the night before. "C'mon chick, chick, chick," I said. She one-eyed me, head cocked, ruffled out her feathers, and boldly leapt from the tree in the opposite direction of me—and she hit the ground, none to gracefully, running full out.

For about two weeks she avoided me like I was out to get her or something, and to this day she's wary of my presence. I decided Thumbalina suited her better than Clarice, so I renamed her. I hope we both learned something that day—that Thumbalina can roost wherever the heck she wants to, and that I will never give a chicken a boost ever, ever, again.

By Lyn Odom©2006

Kingsland, Texas -USA

___________________________________________________________________________

Third Writing Prize Winner -Summer 2007

Baby Steps

          Abuela, or grandmother, and Abuelo, or grandfather, are my “parents”. At least that’s what they want me to think of them as. They’re more like guardians. They just watch over me, my younger brother Carlos and our baby sister Maria.

Maria was born just before Mama and Papa disappeared. My mama and papa studied volcanoes. They were filming a video of an eruption in a helicopter, and the other scientists told us they just lost control of it and then they were gone. Me and Carlos were in our classes when they told us and Maria was at the babysitters. Of course, Maria couldn’t understand.

Then, before we could do anything, they shipped us off to Monterrey, Mexico, a city in the middle of the desert. Everything is so modest here. I hate it. There aren’t any other children or toys because we live in the “old folks” area of the city. There’s no toys because Abuelo refuses to spend money on us because he thinks we’re just a bunch of oro que cava an idiotas desamparados, or “gold digging helpless idiots”.

     Abuela is different. She’d buy us anything we wanted if she didn’t think she was inferior to Abuela. But that’s just how it is sometimes and my brother and I just have to get over it. It’s easy for me, because I’m twelve and I can live without toys and stuff like that, but he’s only six and envies all the other boys he knows. Abuela tells him to be better and stronger than them and Abuelo tells him to suck it up and be a man, like himself. But, of course, Carlos cannot do that.

“Rosie, watch your brother and sister. Me and your Abuelo are going to El Bloque Cuadrado. I left some quesadillas on the table. If you need anything call the club and I’ll have Tb Luis come over,” said Abuela, my grandmother.

“It’s nice to know how much you care Abuela,” I said sarcastically.

“Shut your little back talking mouth, young lady. Saying stuff like that will get you a one-way ticket to the sidewalk. Got it?” said my Abuelo.

“Yes, sir. I understand, sir,” I replied.

“Niflo estüpido,” Abuelo said.

“Jorge, don’t talk like that to her,” said Abuela.“I’ll call her whatever I want. Now come on you vieja fülica.” Then, I heard a door slam.

“Rosie, ya wanna play catch in the field with me?” Carlos asked with his pouty face.

“Sorry Carlos. I gotta watch Maria.”

“She can come to, can’t she?”

“No, Carlos. She’s too little to go out and play catch. She’ll hurt herself.”

“Please, please, please. Just leave her hear. Nothing’ll happen.”

“No. Go play with Archie or one of the other people.”

“Archie’s too old. All he does is play cards with himself and he tells me a bunch of stories about his wife before she died and about how nice Abuela is.”

“I’m sorry Carlos, but no! Con de usted, shoo. You’ll wake the baby.”

He left the room and I heard him start to whimper and eventually he started to cry. I considered apologizing but I forgot after I started to watch George Lopez on El Canal De la Comedia, The Comedy Channel.

When I woke up Abuela and Abuelo were home. Abuela was pacing around the room and Abuelo was on the phone cursing at the person on the other end. There were flashing ambulance lights outside.

“Abuela, what’s wrong?” I sleepily whispered to her.

“It’s the baby. She’s sick. Abuelo thinks it’s Carlos and your fault, so stay away from him,” she replied.

“How sick’s the baby?” I asked.

“She’s got a temperature of 109 degrees, but she’s shivering. We don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Wow,” I said.

Then Abuela sent me to bed and I barely slept. Carlos camein my room a little after midnight and I told him what happened. Then, he started to cry. I eventually got him to bed and then I fell asleep.

“Wake up you hIbrido! ~Despierte!” Abuelo screamed, “Take your idiota suave of a brother and get out of my house! Usted es el vago más perezoso que he visto siempre. Espero que le envien al corte para apenas dejar a su hermana morir como eso. Usted monstruo!”

Abuela was crying as Abuelo told me Maria was very, very sick and it was my fault because I wasn’t watching her. He took me and Carlos and kicked us out of the house. We were on the front walk and Carlos was wailing. People were looking out their windows to see if Carlos was bleeding to death or something. Thankfully, he wasn’t. I took Carlos by the hand and I took him to the alleyway between the Carvill’s store and Mrs. Rivera’s boutique. He’d stopped crying by the time we got there. Well, not completely, but almost. He looked like he had been swimming for hours.

“Tranquilidad abajo, Carlos. Todo correcto,” I said in a comforting voice, “It’ll be all right. Don’t cry.”

I took him to the Carvill’s store and bought him some candy and I bought us a blanket, just in case. He was a lot better by then. It looked like he had been crying about scraping his knee or not getting ice cream or something stupid like that and I was glad about that. I didn’t want to have to explain to someone what had happened. I knew that me and Carlos would have to leave because if somebody saw the two of us on the ground they’d question Abuela and Abuelo and that would make Abuelo much, much angrier. After we left the store I told Carlos my plans. Then he started to cry.

I told him to hush or else someone would hear him and we would have to go back to Abuelo. He shut his mouth after that. We walked to the edge of town, where all the bad people lived. The drunkees and the people who sold drugs. And a bunch of other people who did bad stuff like that.

“Carlos, whatever happens, don’t go anywhere with any of these people. They aren’t good,” I said.

“What do you mean, Rosie? Whatever happens?” he asked nervously.

“Nothing. You don’t have to worry. We’ll be outta here in no time. Then we’ll be on our own and nobody can tell us what to do. Okay.”

I heard him whimper okay and then he started to cry, as usual. Carlos wouldn’t stop crying even when I told him I’d buy him ice cream at the next shop. He started to stop, but then it started back up again.

After I couldn’t stand it anymore I screamed, “Be quiet, or I’ll send you back to Abuelo and I’ll let him tear out your guts, without me!”

He stopped after that and didn’t cry for a long time after that, a very, very long time. He didn’t make one peep until later that night, when we were getting ready for bed.

He asked me if he was gonna die.

“No, of course not, silly. Of course not.”

Then he smiled and he fell asleep. I didn’t sleep that night, though I should have. I didn’t sleep because I was pondering Carlos’ question all night. Was I going to die? Was Carlos going to die? I didn’t know and I thought of all the ways we could be killed. Some were peaceful. Others were very disturbing. I tried to stop thinking about it but I never did. His question would never leave my mind. Never.

After walking for hours, days, even weeks, me and Carlos went to live in an orphanage in Brownsville, Texas. It was just over the border between the U.S. and Mexico. I was happy to be back in the States.

In November of that year a couple from Corpus Christi, Texas started fostering me and my brother. After Abuelo found us he battled for custody, but in the end we stayed with the Harrisons. Through everything we had gone through together me and Carlos had grown extremely close. In August, two years after our journey we were adopted and step-by-step we started a new life as Rosie and Carlos Harrison.

By Rachel Clarey

Age: 10

of Clinton, New York, USA
_____________________________________________________________

The Writing Contest First Prize Winner

Winter 2007-2008

is

Sylvie Nickels of Banbury, England

 

BLOOD FEELINGS

The steep narrow lane was strewn with debris: bricks, shards of glass, a table with three legs, a tee shirt abandoned in the gutter. Mike Hennessey bent to retrieve it. There was a jagged tear across the front of it; severing the slogan I love Sarajevo in English across a blood-red heart. Dear God, there was even symbolism in the gutters of this benighted city. He dropped the tee-shirt thinking well, at least the children ‘s home is in the right area: the area least vulnerable to the barrage of death pounding out from the encircling Serb artillery.

As if anywhere could be invulnerable in this God-forsaken place.

“I heard you were here,” Mira had said a few hours earlier. A month in the besieged city had deadened most reactions, but the sound of her voice after so many years, amazingly recognizable over the ragged phone line, had come as a physical shock: Mira whom he had tried in vain to trace and finally accepted he would never see again. She was ringing from a children’s home. “Will you help me? To get some children out of this hell hole?”

It was quite beyond his powers of course. But “I’ll come tomorrow,” be said.

A shell exploded; not close but instinctively he drew into the relative shelter of a doorway, then saw it opened into the shell of a house. But the view was magnificent over the city, late autumn sun slanting on to minarets and spires and towers too distant to show their scars, the steep slopes beyond too densely forested to hint at what they concealed.

It’s unreal!” he had said quietly, those ten years ago when it had still been Yugoslavia and the world mostly knew Sarajevo as the venue for the forthcoming Winter Olympics. Though wasn't it also where that chap shot someone and started World War One?

Mike had been there masterminding an Olympics Preview special for his paper. It was autumn then, too, and the view similar but more immediate so that the sounds of the city drifted up to them, along with spicy smells from the scores of cevapéiéi and burek stalls in the bazaar.

“Not bazaar, bascarsija”, Mira had laughed. “Pronounced ‘bashcharshiya’. You can say it. Try.”

“Not until after at least a couple of slivovice, “he said firmly.

He still could hardly credit his luck that out of all the tourist guides that might have been allocated to him, Mira had been the one. She was waiting for him that morning at the appointed hour in the foyer of his hotel: grey trouser suit with a sunset burst of chiffon at her throat, her dark hair caught back accentuating smooth high cheekbones and eyes as green as a mountain torrent. She was stunning. In his ignorance he had imagined Balkan women to be dark and dumpy with one foot still in the soil.

Over thick Turkish coffee, he learned that when she wasn't guiding foreign journalists she was in the last year of English language studies. “But now we must plan your time here for this special feature. Not just the Olympic preparations but my beautiful city.” No mention of hell holes then.

Blood Feelings -2

In retrospect Mike was not sure how much of the beauty he saw in Sarajevo was through Mira ‘s eyes rather than his own. History had placed the city in a lush green bowl cupped by wooded mountains. The only approach was along the narrow head of a valley, now packed with a considerable and unbeautiful acreage of high-rise suburbs. Beyond these Habsburg rule had left its solid architectural mark in sturdy public buildings and residential areas.

But the Ottoman Turks had ruled here for over 400 years and Sarajevo ‘s true heart was the bazaar area of little shops threaded by narrow streets, each with its specialty — copper, silver, leather, pottery — converging on the main marketplace and punctuated by the slender minarets of a score or so of mosques. Nowadays there were almost as many discos and coffee bars as craft shops, and pop music occasionally clashed with the call of the Muslim faithful to prayer. But in this multi cultural city, there were Croat Catholic and Serb Orthodox towers too, and a synagogue and a Jewish museum testified to the city’s openness in earlier centuries.

“Sarajevo has always welcomed persecuted people, “Mira said “People with different blood feelings from ours.” She meant blood ties, but Mike thought her expression got it about right.

God help them!

He had been in Sarajevo a month now, sent to replace a colleague showing marked signs of siege fatigue. “You’ve been there before haven’t you?” the News Editor said. “Perhaps you’ll be able to explain the whole stinking mess.”

Mira had stopped answering his letters quite soon after his return to England. He had unexpectedly been offered a more lucrative job around then and never did get back to report on the Olympics. Perhaps he had stopped writing first? Well, they had been very young, he told himself, and it’s what happened when distance got in the way of love ... lust ... whatever; distance and new pre-occupations like ambition and being upwardly mobile, and, fairly soon, new more immediate relationships, and finally one in particular. He had also come to see that the whole episode had been too brief, too intense, too self-absorbed and absorbing, to survive the realities of their normal lives. Yet later affairs had never completely displaced that quiet corner of his subconscious where, from time to time, he revisited that magical week. He hoped she had found a good man: steadier than he was ever likely to be.

As soon as the conflict began to escalate, he had tried to get news of her. Nothing. Probably she had married, changed her name, and moved away. Or simply become one more statistic in the totality of Balkan bloodbath statistics. He slammed his mind shut against the thought. For despite the media coverage of devastation, of bewildered children and grieving women, of ever lengthening lines of new graves, he simply could not make the connection with the place that still lived in his head.

Now a month later, it was hard to believe that other place had ever existed.

“Get a story about how the kids are coping,” was the latest instruction from Canary Wharf. How the hell did they think they were coping Mike snarled, but only to himself. And then had come Mira’s call out of the crackling ether.

The city was out of sight now. The air smelt of pinewoods and wood smoke and the mountains were clean etched against the sky. You could almost forget the hate and the misery if it weren’t for the ruined farmhouse just ahead. Beyond it a short drive led to the children’s home, a solid lumpish relic of brief Habsburg rule. He pressed the doorbell, heard its persistent summons fade, and soon the sound of approaching footsteps.

They stood on a Street corner across from the Miljacka River looking down at the two footprints sunk into the pavement. It was said Gavrilo Princip had stood precisely there on June 28th, 1914, when he shot the heir to the Habsburg Empire, thus triggering a series of events that culminated five weeks later in the outbreak of the Great War.

Blood Feelings -3

“Did you know, “Mira said, “that if the chauffeur hadn‘t made a mistake and stopped just at this corner, so close that it was almost impossible to miss, those shots might never have been fired This Princip, he was only a boy, you know. Nineteen. And sick with tuberculosis.”

“He was an assassin, “Mike said “And indirectly started a war. And millions died. Horribly.”

“You English are so black and white. It is not a problem when you live on an island and no one can move your country about like a pawn in a big game of chess. And what about those huge armies looking for a war to fight? All those Big and Little Ententes promising each other bits of this or that part of the Balkans if they co-operated? Anyway if Princip hadn‘t killed him, someone else probably would. And whoever it was, Serbia would have got the blame.”

Mike suspected her history was probably rather less woolly than his own. “Presumably you’re a Serb?”

“I am a Bosnian, and a Serb. Like you are both British and English.”

Half Irish actually. Did that make him less or more ‘black and white? But Mike didn‘t pursue the argument, partly because he recognized some truth in what she said, and partly because he was already totally besotted. It was their second day. All he wanted was to watch her every movement and expression. Correction, he also wanted to sleep with her. But it was much more than a physical attraction. He was fascinated by her intelligence, her perception, and the swift changes of expression. Especially that: the way an eyebrow could curve into a whole silent shout of amused disbelief And beyond that, underlying all her moods, a gravitas that was the legacy of centuries. Mira, without even being aware of it, knew exactly who she was.

The footsteps stopped and the door opened. She had aged more than the ten-year interval warranted, but was still beautiful. She held out her hand and smiled. “So you did come? I could hear the shelling was bad last night.”

Her hand was cool and firm. “I’ve been trying for months to get news of you,” Mike said.

“The mail is a bit unreliable these days,” she quipped, but looked pleased.

She led him down a long corridor that was very cold and smelt Institution. “We have no heating,” she said. “Little food or water, and light for only two hours. Some evenings. Soon we will have no candles.” They were not complaints, but statements of fact. She led him into a small room with a desk strewn with papers, a table, a few plastic chairs.

Mike emptied the contents of his rucksack on the table. “I should have thought of candles. This is just some chocolate for the children, some coffee for you.

Mira’s said. “That’s worth about a year’s salary. Assuming you could find such things, and that you had a salary. Thank you Michael.”

“I’ll come back with the candles.”

“I will take you to meet the children in a moment. First I want to hear something about a world that I almost have forgotten exists. What are they saying about us in England?”

Yet another bloody Balkan mess.... Why should we be involved, our boys get killed? Why not leave ‘em to kill each other… Worse than the sodding Irish. No, that really would not cheer her day. Aloud he said, “Mostly people are totally baffled. They see terrible pictures of frightened children and weeping women and burning houses, and they can’t imagine this is the country where they came for their holidays and had such a good time.”

“But it’s not that country any more is it? That country was Yugoslavia, now it is divided into those little pieces that once belonged to other people and has brought back all the old hatreds and fears....” Mira suddenly put her head in her hands. “And most of us are so tired, so tired deep into our bones. And afraid.” She looked up and saw he had noted the thin gold band on her finger. “My Ismet was a Bosniak, a Muslim,” she said.

“Was?”

“He had gone to scold Nada, our daughter, for playing out in the sunshine. It is dangerous in Sarajevo to play out in the sunshine. He died at her feet. A Serb sniper.” She looked away. “And God help me, Michael, I was one of those who said it can’t happen here. Not in Sarajevo,

Blood Feelings -4

not here where we learned to survive nearly 500 years of the Ottomans, then the Habsburgs, then two Balkan and two World Wars. We could survive anything . . ..”

“Yes I remember,” he said.

“Ismet was a good man. In those days we didn’t think about Bosniaks or Serbs or Croats. We were people of Sarajevo, like all our generation, and one or two before that. We didn’t need the old people to tell us about the importance of blood feelings — they’d had their chance and look where it got us! Only we found we hadn’t stopped listening after all. We hadn’t guess how deep the blood feelings go...”

Hesitantly he asked “And your mother, how is she?”

Mira shook her head. “She died two years ago, and I thank God she did not live to see this.”

On his last day in Sarajevo she had taken him to meet her mother. They had made love for the first time, Mira and he, the previous night and he still felt quite drunk with the wonder of it. Mira had said, looking at him very seriously, that she did not offer her body lightly. She had actually used that funny old-fashioned expression that would have caused hysteria in his Canary Wharf world, and Mike was surprised at how angry that thought made him. “I’ll be back in a few weeks to cover the Olympics, “he said. “Then we ‘11 fix your visit to England” And he had truly meant every word.

She was the youngest of six; her mother then in her mid-sixties and it was immediately clear where Mira ‘s beauty came from. When he had said so, and it was translated to her, Mira ‘s mother gave a smile that spread to every corner of her face. She had prepared a tray of Bosnian specialties for them: light pastry layers of burek, filled with cheese or spinach or potato, and sarma, vine leaves stuffed with meat and rice. There was a pale golden wine from Mostar to go with it, and then the finest Turkish coffee Mike had tasted, served in tiny cups from a long handled copper pot, with a dish of sweet, sticky Turkish delight.

Mira ‘s mother lived in the old town in a small house with a tiny walled garden. It was in this that they ate and that Mike had a sudden heightened awareness of a deep peace. Matching his mood, the call to prayer from a nearby minaret was taken up from mosque to mosque across the old city. He glanced across at the older woman; she was watching him, her head on one side, with a small smile.

He said "It’s hard to realize all the changes your mother has lived through: wars and kingdoms, fascism and communism. And she can still smile.”

After this had been translated, Mira ‘s mother gave a small shrug that spoke volumes of how little she could have done to change any of it. Only survive.

“And now peace, “Mike added.

“Pray God, “Mira ‘s mother said

Mira said. “And what about you Michael? You have a wife, children?”

“No children.” He hesitated. “A partner.”

She smiled a little “Is it so hard to commit yourself?”

“I don’t think we’re any less committed because we are not married,” he said defensively. “We’re both journalists, traveling a lot. Not ideal for parenthood.” He changed the subject. “And your daughter? Where is she now”

“She is here. I will take you to meet her and the other children.” But Mira did not move immediately. “I pray every day I might find a way to get her away from this terrible place. Give her back some childhood.”

“I wish I could help, with all my heart Mira. But now the UN are increasing the pressure the siege must end soon.”

“And then? Do you think, dear Michael, we will all live happily ever after, following all that has happened, as though we can be tidied into nice ethnically pure parcels and forget the last 1000 years...?”

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Unexpectedly Mike felt a small twinge of impatience. “So what’s the alternative?”

“I have not the smallest idea for the future; only the experience from the past — that you should not take bricks from the structure of a house and be surprised when the house collapses. They didn’t think of that in the West when they gave their blessing to Slovenia, and then Croatia, and then — such a surprise to find so many ethnic groups lived outside their old borders as they have for hundreds of years who didn’t at all like to find themselves living in a new country. You will see, after Bosnia it will be Kosovo and alter Kosovo it will be Macedonia   “ She stopped abruptly. “I have lived with this too long Michael, and lost too much. I will give my soul that Nada should not live through more of it.”

There were about 30 children. They had been collected into two large rooms to make the most of whatever warmth and light were available, and most of them were in bed. It was the silence of so many children in one place that was unnerving: a kind of resignation that would have seemed less out of place in a home for the elderly.

Mira spoke sharply in Serbo-Croat to a small girl standing in the middle of the room, her head down and clutching a book. Mira sighed. “I tell them to stay in bed where it is warm because it is dangerous to play outside. That is one who likes to think she knows better. It is her way of dealing with fear, guilt, whatever it is in her head that I can’t reach. Nada, my daughter.”

Mike went over to the child and crouched down beside her. To his surprise he saw the book she clutched was Winnie the Pooh.

He glanced back at Mira who was standing very still watching them. She said, “It was in a parcel from England.”

Instinctively Mike fished a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the child’s runny nose. She flinched but did not move away until he tried to look at the book; then, clutching it harder to her chest, she lifted her head and glared at him ferociously.

And, with a thunderbolt of shock, Mike found he was gazing back at a small, almost mirror image of himself.

He stared back at Mira, mouthing incoherently.

She said “Unmarried girls in Sarajevo, not nice girls...well didn’t ... get themselves pregnant. It was a... a very big shock for me.”

He found his voice. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”

“Michael my dear. We were young. I thought I was in love or I would never have spent that night with you ... But your letters were already telling me how you had moved on ...moved away. And I come from a proud people. Then there was Ismet who said that he had loved me for a long time, which he wanted to look after the child and me. And he did. He looked on Nada as his own...”

At the mention of her name, Nada looked from one to the other suspiciously.

But she wasn‘t his; she was ... is mine: the thought was shouting in Mike’s head, still far too big to grasp. “Mine! ... MINE!!” He felt the stir of something he had never experienced before, something new slowly filtering through his veins.

Blood feelings?

In the distance the shelling began again.

# # #

Ends.

About Sylvie Nickels:

Most of my working life has been as a travel writer, but my first love is fiction. I have published many articles and short stories in newspapers, magazines & on the internet. Also, several travel books and, more recently, two novels with the theme of war and its effects.

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The Writing Contest Second Prize Winner

Winter 2007 - 2008

is

Angeli C. Fernandez of Wichita, Falls Texas

If I Dared To Dream

I am not much of one to dream, for dreaming to me is like prayer, and I never know if it is going to come to fruition or not, therefore having fifty-fifty odds, I choose to go a more practical road and take life as it comes. “If something is put in front of me that I can change or have an impact upon in some way, I will make an effort to do so, otherwise, I look upon this world around me and wonder, just wonder, and wish, but we all know “only fairies make wishes come true.”

If I dared to dream when you looked upon a star and made a wish from the deepest regions of your heart, it would come true, just like the old Disney song, “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, everything your heart desires will come to you.” And that would be the truth, be it young or old, rich or poor, no matter what country in which you lived, the star would hear your wish, your longing, and it would come true, and you would be blessed, no matter what the desire.

If I dared to dream, I would travel to third world countries to work with children with AIDS in orphanages, but when I arrived, there would be empty halls and dorm rooms filled with beds long ago abandoned, for there would be no more orphans and no more children with AIDS filled impoverished nations. There would be a cure for this disease and those it has afflicted would be cured and the children without homes would be provided with a loving family and roofs over their heads, food on their tables, teachers, and spiritual guides to help lead them in their lives so they can become happy, successful, safe individuals with families of their own.

If I dared to dream, there would be no genocide. There would be no battle between cultures, which would create the need to destroy a people. There would be peace between religions, sects, governmental denominations and all would be able to live freely and safely amongst one another. None would choose to attempt to annihilate the other by means of murder. There would be respect for the differences in people and the choices they make to believe what they choose, and also, the means into which they were born. There would be no machetes, no rifles, and no beatings. There would be peace among the people, and one would never have to live in fear for who they are and what they believe.

If I dared to dream, when I looked around me there would be no more animals without homes. There would be no more strays on the streets at the mercy of the elements or other animals or human beings. They would have families to take care of them, feed them, and give them a warm, safe place to sleep. They would be spayed or neutered, have all of their shots, and checked for diseases. They would live there until they died of natural causes instead of the alternatives of the risks of living out on the streets where there is so much danger. They would be loved, as they deserve to be loved as beautiful living creatures.

If I dared to dream, there would be one Great Spirit, though called by many names. There would be no perfect religion. No one which claims to have the absolute truth and denies any other as being wrong or one whose followers will be destroyed if they do not believe the same way. The leaders of these faiths would gather together and be able to commune peacefully and work together to bring peace to this world and share their beliefs and faiths with everyone without distinction or hesitation. If one does not believe in a certain way, they will not be shamed and will have the freedom to choose the faith, which suits them and their belief system. Each faith will understand their God, be it Buddha, Allah, Christ, Martin Luther, etc. are all great teachers and spiritual icons, but there is only one true God which can be reached freely by which ever faith one chooses to follow. There will be no fear of retribution for speaking of one’s faith, no matter what it is in what circumstances, and all will be respected.

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If I dared to dream, there would be no poverty. Impoverished nations and cultures would have means to earn money legally and fruitfully and would not be under the hammer of any of the governmental strongholds, which try to use their iron fist to keep them down. There would be no babies with swollen stomachs; flies swarming their eyes, and broken women with proud face holding them. There would be no over abundance of deaths due to starvation and disease. There would be no lack of energy, heat, housing, food, health care, or education. The people would flourish and create nations that would be strong and independent and proud, worthy of the people who live in them.

If I dared to dream, when I walked along the city streets, I would see no alcoholics or drug addicts. There would be no excessive gamblers or addicts of any kind. People would be free of these paralyzing and potentially deadly diseases. They would live lives of freedom and prosperity. They would be respectable, productive members of society and more importantly, they would feel as such, feel human, alive, not dying due to the nature of their addictions. They would learn they are equal to any other individual and no longer suffer at the hands of righteous indignation from those who do not understand the nature of the disease of addiction. They would understand the meaning of life without emotional, psychological, and physical bondage to their addiction of choice.

If I dared to dream there would be no crime. People all across the world would be safe, men, women, and children. There would be no fear in anyone’s eyes. There would be no need for law enforcement as there would be no need for laws. A hand would never be raised against any human being in this world. Doors would be unlocked and windows would be left open to allow fresh air to come into homes without fear. A person could walk the streets alone without fear of being assaulted, and a community would come together to be part of making sure their streets were safe. A neighbor would be a neighbor, and a friend would be a friend. A child could play in a playground, come home from school, meet a stranger, and never, ever be in jeopardy of being harmed. There would be no fear in anyone’s eyes when a someone unknown approached for one would feel safe no matter where they were or the time of day. When one would say, “I am not afraid of you.” It would be the greatest compliment, as it would mean absolute truth and friendship to have no fear of another person.

If I dared to dream, women would not live in fear for their lives and safety. They would be allowed to study and gain educations, marry outside of their social system and to the person, whom they choose, walk proudly with their beautiful faces and hair shining in the sunlight, and not fear genital mutilation. They would learn independence from a young age and be taught their bodies belong to them, and they have choices as to whom they share their bodies with. They would be given options, choices, and learn they are gifted, intelligent, talented, amazing, powerful, and not be taught how they look is the key factor to their future. Women would not be beaten and stoned for speaking their mind or “shaming their family”; they would be free and not bound by their social structures defining their every move.

If I dared to dream, there would be no unnecessary killing of animals. Animals would roam the lands freely and safely. They would have their domain in which to flourish, as it was when time began before the population of human beings began to overtake their country. They would populate, and their population would regulate by natural causes, not by the hands of man and his avarice, his greed, and desire to make trophies of such beautiful creatures. In my dream, I would walk to their faces and take them in my hand and look into their eyes and they would know I love them and would protect them with my life if need be. They would have no fear, nor would I, we would be one at that moment, brethren walking this earth together, surviving together, living together.

If I dared to dream, there would be no mental illness. There would be no suffering as a result of disease of the mind. People would be at peace within themselves and would no longer struggle at the

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hands of internal psychological pain. They would become one with themselves and the universe and experience a freedom they have never experienced before, no longer held hostage by the chains that bound them psychologically. They would no longer fear, no longer hate, no longer experience an imbalance that holds no explanation, for they would be able to rest peacefully and truly know the meaning of freedom from the pain of the battle raging within.

If I dared to dream, there would be no war. No battles between countries. No need for fighting. No hatred. Men, women, and children could walk the streets safely and sleep in their beds without the sound of machine guns and bombs going off, fearing for their lives. They will know their home would be there tomorrow, their neighbor’s home, and their city. There would be no governmental overthrows from nation to nation, no dictatorships, no need for one country to enter another country and create havoc and devastation so great it destroys people’s lives forever. Let the people be safe. Let them live in freedom and comfort. Let them live in safety, without fear. Let them life in cultures defined by the people and for the people. Let there be no greed. Let there be no hatred between nations. Let there be peace in this world.

If I dared to dream, there would be no prejudice. There would be singing amongst the people, and the song would be in a unison blended with many different voices from many different races. There would be hands held with no need for washing afterwards. Love would be allowed between the races without need for explanation or apology, and one would not fear for their safety as a result of the color of their skin or the status of their social system, choice of religion, gender, or choice of gender. Children would be taught to respect one another, not to fear the differences, for bigotry is based in fear not love. A growing people would come of this and a change to this world would come about that would leave eyes glowing with a hint that something beautiful is happening in this world that has never happened before.

If I dared to dream, I could hear the song of the Spirits in the wind. I could hear the Ancients speaking to me as I listened, and I could gain a better understanding of the meaning of being part of this world and the path that I am upon. I could pray and pray, wish upon that star that I see in the sky that my heart could be filled with a love for this life, a passion so great that I am left breathless and weak by the beauty that is this earth. For truly it is a gift to be given this thing called life and all that I am blessed with as a result of living. In my dream, I would speak to the Ancients and thank them for communicating with me. I would slumber with them, commune with them, and learn from them at every opportunity, trying to evolve as a human being walking this earth sometimes stumbling along the way as we all do.

If I dared to dream. If I dared to pray. If I dared to wish. 

Where is that fairy that may make them come true?

 # # #

A short story by A.C. Fernandez

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Writing Third Prize Winner Winter 2007 - 2008

"Elfamania"

                                                        
by Elizabeth Dang, Age: 7

Once there was a village called Elfamania. Elfs lived there. Elfamania was shaped like an elfs head. In Elfamania there was a castle. The castle was tall, big and wide. Inside the castle there was a dining room. Inside the dining room were six chairs. One was for the Princess. The princess’ name was Elfalisha. Her parent’s names were Queen Quela and King Kang. The queen, king and their helper Sinistro were the only people In Elfamania who have names with no “Elf’ in it. Elfalisha was 7 years old. Quela the queen was about 69 years old while Kang the king was 73 years old. People were sometimes welcomed to have dinner with the princess, the queen and the king. The queen and king had six guards. Two guards watched for strangers on the top of the castle. Two took care of the drawbridge. Then the other two guarded the king and queen’s jewels and gold.

King Kang and Queen Quela’s helper Sinistro was a very bad guy because he came from Midst Strolly Town (an evil city). He moved to Elfamania after his house was burn down by a humongous fire. King Kang and Queen Quela hired Sinistro because they did not know that he was evil. Everyone who came from Midst Strolly Town was evil. They stole each other’s things; they burned down houses and kill each other. Sinistro’s uncle was a bad wizard who taught him evil tricks and gave him a hypnotizing ring and a cloak. Sinistro had a pet dragon named Rascal. Rascal was 90,000 years old. Rascal loved to eat fish with ketchup and human eyeballs.

When Elfalisha was 6 years old she met an old lady who lived next to the castle. The old lady’s name was Rosa-Elf. She was 81 years old. All the old persons in Elfamania were poor because they can’t work anymore. Every morning Elfalisha would go to visit her friend the old lady. They would go to

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the candy store, fold stuff out of paper and go on a tour of each other’s gardens. They also like to trick Sinistro. Elfalisha and Rosa-Elf always loved to visit each other.

One day Sinistro put sleeping spells over the guards and then hypnotized the queen and king with his hypnotizing ring. He made them gather gold and put it into his truck. By the time all the gold was in the truck he unhypnotized them. King Kang, Queen Quela and the guards didn’t remember what happened. That night when Elfalisha came to check on the gold it was gone. “Where could it be?” She wondered. On the way back to tell the king and queen the gold was gone, she saw something sparkle in Sinistro’s truck. When she got there she peeked inside and saw hundreds million pieces of gold! Before she walked away from the truck, she spotted a strip of paper that said “Leaving on Sunday.” She also saw something with a round gray rock and a square shaped glass in the middle of the rock. It was Sinistro’s hypnotizing ring beside the stripe of paper. Then she thought he could have hypnotized the queen and king. Elfalisha had to stop Sinistro.

The next day, Elfalisha told old lady Rosa-Elf about the million pieces of gold, the strip of paper, and the hypnotizing ring and about Sinistro. They both went off to find Sinistro. When they asked him about the gold in the truck he said, “The queen and king did it.” The sentence gave Elfalisha and Rosa-Elf a big clue. Now they knew Sinistro had hypnotized the queen and king. Elfalisha and Rosa-Elf went to tell the queen and king about them being hypnotized and took all the gold to Sinistro’s truck. The queen and king thought they were joking and didn’t believe them.

That night Rosa-Elf took the ring from Sinistro’s truck and showed it to the king and queen. They finally believed it was true. King Kang, Queen Quela and two guards went to arrest Sinistro. They thought Sinistro was in the basement of the castle. He wasn’t. They looked in the attic and saw

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footsteps. They followed the strange footsteps. The strange footsteps ended at the guest room where Sinistro sleeps. They heard a strange noise and they saw the bed go up and down. It looked like someone was jumping on the bed! They couldn’t see anyone on it. Then they noticed a pair of shoes on the bed. They are Sinistro’s shoes and they are jumping on the bed!! How did Sinistro disappear?!

The next two days, Elfalisha and Rosa-Elf were looking everywhere for Sinistro and they saw a cloak in Sinistro’s closet, which they have never seen before. Elfalisha and Rosa-Elf were curious about the cloak. They carefully took the cloak and showed it to Queen Quela and King Kang. The king thought the cloak would make a perfect cape for himself. But when he tried it on everyone thought he disappeared. When he took the cloak off he was back where he was. Now they all knew the cloak was used to make people invisible. Sinistro used it to make himself invisible when they trying to arrest him. That very same night, King Kang and Queen Quela had a terrible nightmare. They dreamed that Sinistro had wrecked the palace, kill Elfalisha, Rosa-Elf and themselves and become king! When they woke up they were afraid. After breakfast, the queen and king ran out of the castle. They went to find the fortuneteller and the wise man in the village. They asked the fortuneteller and the wise man what their dream meant. They both said: “It means Sinistro would one day steal all the gold in Elfamania and be the richest person in the world and become king!” King Kang and Queen Quela thought this would be true. They didn’t want this to happen to them. They were determined to stop Sinistro but didn’t know how to find him. Sinistro got tired of hiding and went to ask the village fortuneteller if he would become king because he was so rich! The fortuneteller said, “Yes.” Sinistro was so excited he couldn’t wait! So he told his dragon Rascal and

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they ran to Sinistro’s truck. They were about to leave Elfamania when the guards saw them and started chasing after them. Rascal tried to warn Sinistro about the guards but Sinistro won’t listen. Then the guards caught up and one of them poked a hole in one of the wheels. The dragon Rascal then ate that guard’s spear and the guard ran away. The spear got stuck in the dragon’s throat. The dragon roared, he roared so loud that Elfalisha, Rosa-Elf and the Queen and King heard him. They came running after the guards. By the time they got there the guards had open the truck door and let all the gold fall out of the truck. Villagers came running to see what happened. They saw the dragon Rascal dead, Sinistro got arrested, and the ground covered with gold! The King and Queen gave a piece of gold to each poor villager and two pieces of gold to Rosa-Elf and Elfalisha. All the villagers cheered and went back to their houses. Rosa-Elf and Elfalisha went back to the castle and had dinner with Queen Quela and King Kang. Nobody is poor in Elfmania anymore and everyone is happy!

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