Gold Keys:
Annie Reyes, Gold Key, Flash Fiction, “nature’s last break”
Laurel Larrew - Gold Key, Short Story, "The Gallery"
Laurel Larrew - Gold Key, Poetry, “hourglass"
Lily Robbins, Gold Key, Poetry
Luke Buchanan - Gold Key - novel excerpt
Silver Keys:
Henry Borham - Silver Key, Flash Fiction
Luke Buchanan - Silver Key SF/fantasy
Nate Rankin - Silver Key, Journalism
William Tobleman - Silver Key, short story, “Wish You Were Here”
Zaf Garden, Silver Key, personal essay/memoir, “Family Stories to Believe In”
Zoe MD - Silver Key, Poetry “In My Dreams”
Honorable Mention:
Kai Gadd-Shefman - HM SciFi Fantasy, “Darkness Falls”
Keira Leal - HM, Critical Essay, “A Doll’s House”
Laurel Larrew - HM, Poetry, "runaways"
Maria Hernandez - HM poetry, “Method Acting”
Natalia Maurya - HM, short story, “Blurred Lines”
Zoe MD - HM Poetry, “New”
Gold Key Awards:
Annie Reyes
Gold Key, Flash Fiction
Nature’s Last Breath
The man stands on the subway, dressed in his finest attire. Leather loafers coat
his feet, so shiny you can see the reflection of the subway roof in the gleam of his shoes. His navy suit, so dark it’s almost black, doesn’t have a single wrinkle, steamed to perfection. A single wooden button holds the sides together, keeping his clean, white undershirt from falling out. The man’s crisp white pocket square is perfectly folded in his breast pocket, with a stripe of navy on the square of fabric to match his suit. His face is serious, darkened by the thoughts of his job, and the stress he is under to perform well. There wasn’t a wrinkle in his face, or a hair out of place on his head. He’s the embodiment of perfection.
Across the passenger car, an old lady sits. Her hair is gray and messy. Her face is full of wrinkles of age, each wrinkle holding a story. She wears tan skirts, dirty, as though it’s her one item of clothing. Her black flats are aged, the fake leather peeling. She is looking at him. Watching as he stands, cocky and brash. She watches as he pulls out his phone and holds it to his ear. Talking to an object in a way she will never understand. He speaks of money to the metal square. It’s always about money, or how to get more money; taking advantage of other people’s sadness, and profiting off of loss.
“Arriving at 86th Street.” The old lady watches as the man shoves his phone into his pant pocket, preparing to get off the subway. She slowly stands, getting ready to follow. As the subway slows, he doesn't move a muscle, holding himself in a way so he will not stumble, as the subway comes to a stop. The only sign of his struggle to not fall is the whitening of his knuckles on the reflective metal pole he’s holding onto. The doors slide open and the man steps off, heading towards the dirty gray stairs leading up to the street. The old lady follows from a distance, always keeping one eye on the man. She knows the way to his house and work by now and could easily get there by herself if needed, but she likes to watch. She enjoys watching the man and likes to imagine herself as a protective angel. She watches as he stalks forward with his hands in his pockets, up the stairs, through the turnstile, and out onto the busy 86th street. Immediately the sounds of traffic slam into her ears, and she winces, overwhelmed. She follows slowly behind him, as she’s been doing for years. Never once does the man turn around to notice her. He’s too enriched in his own world of self-gain to notice anyone besides himself.
He lights a cigarette as he walks, taking a few puffs then tosses it to the ground. He doesn’t notice the trashcan two steps away from him, or the way the cigarette falls onto the old woman’s skirts, burning a black hole through them. The hole matches the other 13 holes scattered around the bottoms of her skirts, caused by the man over the years. He has never once stopped to look around for a trashcan or think how throwing a cigarette directly on the ground, without stomping it out, could affect the people around him. He does whatever is easiest for himself, no matter the cost to the people around them. As the man walks, he takes no notice of the cars that barely miss him, driving down the street, nor does he notice the homeless, who he steps past, or sometimes on. If it’s in his way, he steps straight through.
The old woman watches, filing every bit of information into her brain, not angry, but sad. The woman is sad the man has turned out this way. When the man was younger he found joy in the everyday things. In the trees that grew from beneath his feet, and the stars that flew above his head. Now, it’s all just part of the ugly world he has created. She wishes the man would see the beauty that’s all around him, but she knows he’s too far gone. It’s too late for him. She knows the ending he will face and knows it is him who will have caused it, directly or not. The old woman is loyal, and even though the man doesn't acknowledge her, or appreciate her, she follows him, and will follow him anywhere. She knows it’s their last day together. She can feel the cold suffocating air lurking ahead and sadly, she accepts it, knowing it is he who has caused this. He, who has refused to acknowledge his surroundings. With acceptance, she watches as he crosses the street, and crosses it with him. Accepting the cars that are coming fastly toward them. Accepting the pain he is about to feel. And with acceptance, she takes her last breath and watches the last seconds of both their lives.
Laurel Larrew
Gold Key, Short Story
The Gallery
The gallery was a regal, beautiful place. The woman was quite excited to be able to visit, being an artist herself. The art world had been raving about the quality of this gallery’s paintings nonstop. The ticket line was long, twisting around the corners of the entrance room like a snake. The woman waited patiently, though. She knew her time would come. And she knew it would be worth it in the end.
Before the woman reached the front of the line, she re-applied some red lipstick. She hoped she would be beautiful enough to appear at home among the oil paintings. She gazed at her reflection in a small pocket mirror. She looked well put-together indeed, with combed back hair and crimson stained lips.
Snapping the mirror closed, the woman came upon the front of the line. She smiled at the man selling her ticket, cracking a little joke, and entered through shining wooden doors.
The gallery was as elegant as the woman expected it to be. It had an air of fanciness to it, but it wasn’t so grand it outshined the artwork itself. The floor beneath her was a polished off-white, and the walls were adorned with golden decor. Groups of people, most dressed in sharp, black suits, mingled around, examining the paintings with boldness in their eyes. If this was anywhere other than an art gallery, the woman might have felt out of place. But she felt confident in her artistic knowledge, and comfortable mingling with this upper crust circle.
The paintings themselves were exquisite. The majority of them depicted women and girls, in different poses and situations. The woman found herself drawn in by just how lifelike they were. She was actually especially knowledgeable about this artist’s work - she had studied her careful brush strokes and astute composition in art school. Yet she had always heard that the art was twice as breathtaking to experience in person.
And now, she found herself agreeing. As she walked through the gallery, the woman overheard bits and pieces of conversations. Most were inconsequential, but one caught her attention.
“This painting… it’s very rococo, isn’t it?”
It was an older man, wearing a stiff gray button up and dark trousers. At first, the woman assumed he was speaking to a companion, but after a moment she realized she was being directly addressed. The woman piped up to correct him.
“It’s more baroque inspired, really,” Her voice was soft and quiet. “With the sharp contrast in the composition, and all.”
The man swiveled to face her, his face contorted. A strange fury burned in his eyes but his countenance remained uncannily neutral. He laughed arrogantly.
“Oh, really? I think I know what I’m talking about. All that intricate detail, and bold layout… that’s rococo if I’ve ever seen it.”
The woman wanted to respond, but before she could, the man sharply turned his back to her, briskly walking away.
She swallowed her frustration like a dry pill and continued on. She stopped at a square painting of a young girl. The girl was dressed in Victorian clothing, and her face shone wet with tears. Upon closer inspection, it was clear that she was in mourning - her dress and bonnet were black, and she held a handkerchief in her left hand. Clasping onto the girl’s wrist was a shriveled hand. The girl appeared shocked and disgusted by the hand, heavily leaning away from it.
The woman’s analysis was interrupted by a man standing next to her.
“What do you think this painting’s about?”
It was a young man, barely out of his teens. The woman took a deep breath.
“I think the girl is being harassed. She’s in mourning, obviously, and she doesn't seem to be all that fond of the man offscreen.”
The young man pursed his lips. “Is she really in mourning? I mean she looks sad and all, but I think you made quite the leap in logic.”
The woman’s brow furrowed. “I’m certain, actually,” She motioned at the girl’s dress. “She’s in Victorian funeral wear, see?”
The man shrugged. “Eh, I don’t buy it. You can believe whatever you want, though.”
The woman was left alone again.
Annoyance bubbled up inside of her gut, but she shoved it down.
The longer the woman walked through the gallery, the stranger things seemed to get. It was as if no one else in the gallery had any knowledge whatsoever of this artist or her work. The woman tried to participate in the passing conversations between patrons, but found herself shut down each time. Every interpretation she voiced was ridiculous, and every fact she knew was deemed untrue. Still, the woman kept her hands folded in front of her, kept her smile easy, and kept her voice hushed. The people around her were intelligent, clearly. They threw around art terms like confetti, and spoke with a confidence that the woman barely knew. Maybe she needed to do more research. She felt embarrassed, her face reddening, when her remarks were brushed aside. She became quieter.
Yes, she needed to do more research. She would when she returned home.
As the woman approached the end of the gallery, she found herself frozen in her tracks. A large painting hung in front of her. It depicted an elderly woman sitting in a rocking chair, holding a cracked vase of flowers. This painting did not belong here. The woman knew it. It was created by a different artist of the time period. She had studied this painting in art school, as well. Its style was drastically different from every other painting in the gallery, and it was done with acrylics instead of oils.
The woman caught the eye of one of the gallery’s employees. She approached him carefully,
“Excuse me, sir? I think there’s been a mistake.”
“Oh? What sort of mistake?”
“The piece…” - she pointed at the painting - “It was done by a different artist, sir.”
The employee looked dumbfounded for a moment, before throwing his head back in laughter.
“W-What? It’s true! This painting is out of place-!”
The employee looked down at her. Condescension dripped from his voice like molasses. “I think the gallery knows more about art than you do, miss.”
And that was it. The woman was left sputtering as the employee vanished into the crowd. Her hands clenched into fists. She knew she was right about this. She knew it. She closed her eyes, trying to calm herself. She was not going to let this ruin her trip. She continued on.
The woman had thought she was close to the end of the gallery, but it seemed to keep going and going. She picked up her pace. The paintings around her faded into a colorful blur. The voices of the patrons sounded like sirens. Her hands shook.
The woman stopped to catch her breath. She tried to hide the heaving of her chest, sitting down on a velvet bench. She took a moment to examine her surroundings. People were still clustered around different paintings, but…
She squinted. She rubbed at her eyes. There were no paintings. Just empty frames. She blinked in confusion. No one else seemed fazed, though. They were just as enraptured by the picture frames as they were by the paintings. The woman tapped someone on the shoulder. He turned to her.
“Excuse me, but I think there’s something I’m missing here. Why is everyone looking at empty picture frames?”
The man looked at her with concern. “Maybe you should get your eyes checked, sweetheart.” He shuffled away from her.
The woman swiftly stood and marched towards a group of people.
“The brushstrokes are just beautiful…”
“The colors really do pop…”
“What a beautiful piece…”
She wanted to scream. Her fingers twitched. She needed to leave. This gallery was messing with her head, clearly.
The woman walked for what felt like hours, but there was no exit to be found. The patrons around her seemed less and less real. Was she even at the gallery anymore? Was she going insane? Well, clearly, she was going insane. That could be the only explanation for this. She was the only one who didn’t see the paintings, after all.
The muffled human voices gradually faded as the woman wandered. The golden light from overhead melted away into a cool darkness.
The woman was alone.
She finally broke from her daze. Was the gallery closed? She looked around for an employee, a security guard, someone, but found nothing. Nothing but the click clack of her heels on the marbled floor and her own face reflected at her through the shining gold of a railing. Her crimson lipstick remained intact.
She was unwell, that was all. She just needed to get home.
But her legs failed to carry her forward.
The polished pillars of the gallery swirled around her.
Was she dying? Is this what death was like?
She found herself smoothing out her hair.
If she was this foolish, and this insane, she at least wanted to look presentable.
Maybe it would make up for her stupidity.
She never belonged here.
They were all right, and she was wrong.
Of course she was.
She looked up to find a golden frame.
It looked just like home.
The next day, another line would form at the entrance of the gallery. Critics and art enthusiasts would enter, gasping at the beautiful paintings before them. They would speak about the meaning behind each one, though none of them had real knowledge to back up their claims. At the end of the gallery, they would find a portrait in a shining frame. The woman within looked quite proper, with her hair combed back and her lips painted red. They would admire her beautiful face. They would do nothing else.
Laurel Larrew
Gold Key, Poetry
hourglass
time to grow
to change
slips through my fingers—
bony and brittle—
as i crumble to dust.
the grackle calls,
and the fox burrows
i ebb away.
i’m not ready
for cold to come
for death
and hibernation.
i have not yet bloomed
and it’s already time
for my petals to wilt
i am demeter
mourning her daughter,
my daughter,
my little self.
bringing upon
eternal winter
i am her wind,
her frosty sky—
her self-fulfilled prophecy
of grief long-forgotten
the seasons change,
but i am left behind.
trapped in stasis,
in swelter.
one more month
one more week
one more day, hour,
minute, second,
is all i need.
please.
it’s all i need.
—------------------------------------------------------
Silver Keys:
Henry Borham
Silver Key, Flash Fiction
The Circumambulation of Dreams
Three dreams landed on her psyche. Like vultures, they alighted. Like lice, they nested. Like illnesses, they waited. They harbored no animosity for her, in the same way that a noose holds no grudge against a prisoner. The dreams stepped slowly across her mindscape, indifferently exploring, putting no effort into existence. Her untethered mind was slow to follow their footsteps. After a year without introspection, she found the first in Chicago.
The middling city blew her mind. Gone were the rolling hills of endless monotony. The newness invited wanderlust into her mindscape, which now had a skyline. She traveled to New York a step behind her mind, which was already in Tokyo. Five years was all it took for her to visit all the places she deemed important. The infinite vastness of the world shrank with each city, closing in around her, until she ended the demi-decade in Paris, leaving her with a world the size of a thimble. The first dream, travel, was cozy in her mind, which had shrunk to fit inside her perception of the world. It made itself comfortable, curled up, and became dormant, leaving behind debt and a feeling of vague aimlessness.
She found the second dream in that same city where she lost the first. A brief exchange with a strapping man swapped her desire to see the world with the need for a whole new one. She connected with her perceptions of their minds through their bodies, grasping fleeting joy before genuine connection. She walked the Parisian streets like the second dream walked her mind: intensely, immoderately, inconsiderately. She ran after love, and her love ran aground. Sinking, drowning, engulfed in the false inevitability of loneliness, the second dream thrived while she wallowed in despair. The dream bathed and soaked, then spread its wings and flew off into the distance of her mindscape.
The third dream was the most commonplace, the most ordinary. Everyone finds the fourth horseman eventually. At a table in a coffee shop. In a bag of flour. Under a penny. It is the most universal of all human experiences. It is the fangs of the ouroboros. It is the silence that greets the last forlorn notes of a swan song. Many simple people have said that it simply finds you. The truth is that it walks across your mind. It roosts where all other dreams have flown away. And then, for an infinitesimally small moment, it stays with you. It stayed with her, as she climbed the steps. It was the only thing in her small, drowning mind. Every step she climbed took her further from the grounded reality of persistence. Every step she climbed was the same, the means to an end, an end that came rapidly closer. The denouement of her experiences on Earth followed, as she stepped wordlessly off of the edge, accompanied fleetingly by her final dream, death.
William Tobleman
Silver Key, Short Story
wish u were here
I finally finish the last problem on my AP Calc homework, the pain-filled lyrics of “My Immortal” by Evanescence blasting through my earbuds. Sighing with relief, I drop my nub of a pencil onto my desk and stare out the frost-covered window. I hate logarithms.
I slide my homework packet back into my backpack and yank out my earbuds, leaving them draped over my desk chair as I head downstairs. I pass by the pictures of me and my dads lining the wall of the stairwell, arranged to evoke cheerful family memories. My favorite has always been the one of us at the National Zoo in DC when I was eleven, when a giraffe had licked my face right as the picture was taken. It was one of the few times back when we were all still in the same country, happy and together.
Now I’m seventeen. Five and a half months ago, one of my dads was deployed to Afghanistan. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been able to talk to him or see his face over FaceTime. We’ve tried to make up for it with dozens of “wish u were here” postcards. Most of them are from me, since he doesn’t have access to a lot of stationery or pens—or post offices, for that matter—over there.
I make it to the bottom of the stairs, the second one to the bottom letting out that earsplitting creak it always does when you step on it. I pause and look at the most recent picture, perfectly aligned with the first floor landing. My dads and I at the airport, all hugging in a group hug, Daddy in his Army uniform. It was right before he left. The last time I saw him in person.
I miss Daddy so much. I miss how he would sing me songs from The Sound of Music to help me fall asleep when I was little. I miss the summers where the three of us would binge all of the Star Wars movies in order. I miss when he would comb his fingers through my hair when I had panic attacks, making the world seem safer and more welcoming. But most of all, I miss his bright, joyful smile, and how his golden laugh could light up the room with its glow.
“Elise! Dinner’s here,” Dada calls.
“I’m right here,” I say, walking into the kitchen.
He jumps. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t hear you.” He puts a large brown paper bag on the counter and starts pulling out styrofoam to-go containers. “How’d your homework go?”
“It was fine. The AP test is gonna suck, though.”
I grab the container labeled “linguini” in messy Sharpie handwriting and open it , my stomach growling. We may get takeout several times a week—Daddy was always the chef of the family—but I will never stop loving linguini.
We sit at the kitchen table and eat in silence for a few minutes.
“How was work?” I ask.
Dada sighs. “It was okay. Steve broke the printer again.”
I snort. Dada works for an insurance company, so you would think that his colleagues would be at least somewhat competent, but Steve is truly another level of stupid when it comes to technology. He’s often the butt of our failing technology jokes at home.
I’m about to take the last bite of my linguini when the doorbell rings, echoing throughout the house ominously.
“I’ll get it,” Dada says. He wipes his mouth on a paper napkin and stands up. As he heads to the door, I clean up the remains of our takeout and dump them in the trash can, then go to wash my hands at the kitchen sink. From there, I can see a woman standing in the doorway.
She’s wearing a military uniform.
I feel my heart rise up into my throat, panic filling my lungs until I can't breathe. Someone from the military coming to your house when your dad is deployed is never a good sign. I turn off the sink, dry my hands, and creep a little closer.
“Is this the residence of Mr. David Ackland?” the woman asks.
“Yes, that’s me,” Dada says, his voice tense with apprehension.
“My name is Colonel Melissa Frost. I am here representing the United States Army.” Colonel Frost pauses, takes a deep breath, and continues. “We are deeply sorry to report to you that your husband, Robert Ackland, died yesterday, November 12th, 2016. On behalf of the United States Army, we are very sorry for your loss.”
My head spins, blood rushing into my head. I feel as though I might faint. Dada and Colonel Frost exchange a few more words, but I can’t hear what they say. I sink to the floor where I am, my back sliding along the cabinets below the stovetop.
I hear the door close.
The next thing I know, Dada is by my side, holding me, and we’re crying together, tears staining the shoulders of each other’s T-shirts.
The rest of the night is a blur. Not the quick kind, where everything seems to go by all at once, but the fuzzy, can’t quite tell what’s going on kind, where you struggle to remember all of the details by the time morning rolls around. At some point, Dada’s sister, Aunt Lydia, comes around. She comforts us, and helps us get to bed. Dada insists that he and I stay home from school and work tomorrow. I don’t object. I don’t feel like I can do anything functional or worthwhile ever again, even if I ever stop crying.
I cry in the shower, boiling hot water pouring over my skin.
I cry as I’m brushing my teeth, and I almost choke on my toothpaste because of the sobs.
I cry as I get into bed. I curl around my big Newfoundland puppy stuffed animal, Mr. Snuggles—given to me by Daddy on my sixth birthday—and cry myself to sleep.
Shouting, screams, loose dirt and dust flying all around, launched into the air from the tanks driving by and the bombs exploding all around, choking my lungs.
Daddy, in the middle of it all. A landmine goes off near him, throwing him backwards. He’s alive, but wounded. He was blown all the way to enemy lines, near a pack of Taliban soldiers. I let out an ear splitting scream as I helplessly watch them drag Daddy away, into the dust.
I bolt upright, screaming and crying. By the time the post-sleep fog clears from my brain, and I realize it was just a nightmare, Dada has come running into my room, breathing heavily.
“El? What’s wrong?” he gasps, his lungs desperately trying to refill his lungs.
“N-nothing,” I say, still shaking. “Just a bad dream. Sorry for waking you up.”
Dada comes to give me a hug. “It’s okay. Try to go back to sleep?”
I nod and slowly lay back down. Dada kisses my forehead, and leaves my room, gently closing the door behind him.
I try in vain to go back to sleep, but my mind is filled with images left over from my dream of Daddy being taken away after that explosion. It’s funny, how dreams can sometimes reflect your life and can show you what is truly going on.
What is truly going on?
Colonel Frost never gave us any proof of death. How do I know that she and the rest of the army aren’t just making assumptions? Daddy could be a Prisoner of War, or he could be missing in action and they just haven’t realized it yet.
I have to find him.
I sit up in bed, newfound energy and hope filling my veins. I check my alarm clock—it’s 7:15, around the time I usually get up for school anyways. I get up, throw on a pair of jeans and a hoodie—I genuinely could not care less about my appearance today, I spent most of the night crying anyways—and head downstairs. Dada is sitting on the couch, feet tucked under him, nursing a cup of coffee. Apparently, he hadn’t been able to fall back asleep, either. The TV is on, playing a rerun episode of Golden Girls.
“El? What are you doing?” he asks. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I register how hoarse his voice is. He’d probably been up all night crying, too.
“Going to school,” I say as casually as possible.
“I thought we said you would stay home.”
“I changed my mind. I remembered I have a test today that I don’t want to have to make up later,” I lie, my voice tense.
“Are you sure? It really is okay to skip a few days,” Dada says.
“I’m sure. I’ll be fine, I promise,” I say.
Dada sighs. “Okay. Call me if anything happens or if you need anything, okay?”
“Okay. Love you.”
“Love you more.”
I grab a protein bar for breakfast, and then head out the door, grabbing my car keys off the hook by the door as I leave.
I go through the motions of driving without thinking about it—foot on brake, key in ignition, gently turn out of the driveway, brake, car into drive, accelerate and exit the neighborhood. My mind is floating somewhere up in the stratosphere, trying to think up all of the ways I can figure out how to find Daddy.
I park in the student parking lot and head into the school building, shivering in the Massachusetts winter air. I probably should have brought a warmer coat than a hoodie, but oh well. I swipe my student ID to enter, and head to the history wing.
My first class is AP US History. We’re talking about the US’s participation in World War I, which is boring enough on its own, so it doesn’t help that Ms. Patterson literally could not make history more dry. My eyes glaze over, ears deaf to Ms Patterson’s droning as I twirl my pencil between my fingers and brainstorm ways to figure out where Daddy is and how to get him back. I could raise money, maybe? But what good would that do—it’s not like I can bribe the military. Or, maybe I could—
There’s a knock at the door, and I snap back to the present. The door opens, and the school counselor, Mr. Chatterjee, pokes his head in.
“Hey, Sarah,” he says, addressing Ms. Patterson. “Sorry to interrupt, but could I borrow Elise for a bit?”
“Sure,” Ms. Patterson says.
I gulp, wondering what this could be about. I stand up, grab my backpack off the back of my chair, and head out the door. Mr. Chatterjee leads me down the linoleum hall and into the main office, then turns a corner into his small office. It’s dimly lit, and smells faintly like lavender. There’s a flimsy-looking desk with a beat-up spinny chair in one corner, and a loveseat facing an armchair in the center of the room, all illuminated by a single lamp on the desk.
“Please, sit,” Mr. Chatterjee says.
I sit awkwardly on the edge of the couch, and he takes the armchair, crossing one leg over the other.
“Your father called this morning,” he says.
For a brief moment, I think he means Daddy called from Afghanistan, and my stomach rises into my throat. I was right! He is alive! But just as quickly I realize he must have meant Dada, and I immediately know why I’m here.
I groan internally.
Mr. Chatterjee leans forward in his chair. “Elise, I’m so sorry for your loss,” he says. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
I roll my eyes, resenting the question that I’ve already been asked several times by my family and my friends, and that I know I’ll be asked a thousand times more from now until infinity. I can see the honest worry, the sympathy in Mr. Chatterjee’s eyes; but I don’t want sympathy—I want someone to come to their goddamn senses and realize, like me, that Daddy isn’t dead, only missing.
“He’s not dead,” I say brusquely. “They only think he is. I’m going to find him, one way or another.”
Mr. Chatterjee looks at me sadly. “I know processing the grief that comes with death is difficult, especially the death of a parent, and grief can manifest itself in a variety of different ways. I—”
I snort, cutting him off. “I’m not ‘processing grief’” —I put “processing grief” in air quotes—“I’m just trying to find my dad. I know he’s still out there somewhere. He has to be—he’s too badass to get killed.”
Mr. Chatterjee closes his eyes and sighs. He seems to know he’s lost this battle. “If there is anything you ever want to talk about, or if you even just want to come sit in my office quietly to have some time alone, my door is always open.”
“Fine. Does that mean I can go now?”
“Alright. And again, I’m very sorry for what you and your family are going through.”
I clench my teeth to prevent myself from giving a snarky response. I stand up, swing my backpack over one shoulder, and exit Mr. Chatterjee’s office.
The rest of the day, everyone keeps giving me weird looks, whispering when they see me. I have no clue how, but they must have somehow heard about my dad. Maybe one of my friends told people—but I can’t bring myself to care enough. I sit alone at lunch, earbuds in and ignoring anyone who approaches me. I move through the rest of the day on autopilot, hardly registering anything in my classes and giving the bare minimum of a response whenever anyone talks to me.
When I get home, Dada is waiting for me, still in the same spot on the couch, still watching Golden Girls reruns, a green and brown crochet blanket across his legs. Daddy made that blanket for us. He mailed it to us from Afghanistan a few months ago, after one of his Army friends taught him how to crochet. It’s the last gift we ever got from him.
“How was your day, sweetheart?” he asks. His voice is still a little dry—I worry that he might be wearing down his vocal chords, or maybe coming down with a cold or something.
“It was fine,” I say blandly, returning my keys to the hook and dropping my backpack by the door. My head hurts from all the loud music I’ve been blasting directly into my ears all day.
I walk into the living room and sit on the opposite end of the couch from Dada. We sit in awkward silence for a minute.
“Mr. Chatterjee called me,” Dada says. “He told me about the meeting you had with him.”
I freeze. I never intended for Dada to know about my plan, at least not until it was a little more defined. “Isn’t that violating some sort of privacy thing?” I ask defensively.
“He’s just a school counselor, not a therapist, so… not really?”
“Still not cool,” I grumble.
“But El, what’s important is that you can’t delude yourself. Robert may have… he may have…” Dada chokes on a sob. “He may have died thousands of miles away from us, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dead.”
“That’s not true!” I snap. “And I’m not deluding myself!They never gave us any proof of death!”
“Yes, they did,” Dada says, his voice thick, yet he stays annoyingly quiet and calm, despite my rapidly rising anger. “Colonel Frost told me… the details. I didn’t want to disturb you with them.”
“Stop bullshitting me!” I screech, jumping up from the couch. “He’s alive and you know it! We’ve gotta find him!”
“I’m not bullshitting you!” Dada shouts, finally snapping. “There was a land mine…” he hesitates, still not wanting to tell me, but I give him a dagger-sharp look and he caves. “At least three other soldiers saw him… get hit. With shrapnel,” he continues softly. “They rushed him to the doctor, but they… they couldn’t save him. It was too late.” Dada breaks down into uncontrollable sobs, and I feel as though I’ve been slapped in the face. Dada is telling the truth—he can’t act or lie to save his life.
Daddy really is dead.
I start shaking uncontrollably. I collapse back onto the couch, and the screaming and crying from last night returns tenfold. Dada wraps his arms around me, holding me tight.
“Shh… It’s okay,” he whispers. “It’s all gonna be okay.”
How could anything ever be okay again?
Four or five days later—keeping track of anything for very long is almost impossible now, since I’ve been skipping school—Colonel Frost returns with Daddy’s belongings that he had with him in Afghanistan. I dig through his bags frantically, like a starving animal searching for food. All of the postcards I sent him are there, a cacophony of “wish u were here” spilling across the living room floor, along with all of his army equipment—honestly, I have no clue what most of it is. I wish I’d taken the time to learn about it all when he was still here, when I could have talked with him about something he’s passionate about.
God, I miss him so much.
Eventually, I find Daddy’s favorite baseball hat, the one with the Boston Red Sox logo on it. He is—was—an avid baseball fan, and the Red Sox are—were—his favorite. The hat still smells like him, like his minty aftershave and lemon shampoo. This is all I have left of him. This hat, and memories.
But it’s not enough. I long for him like how a flower longs for the tears of rain in the drought of summer.
Daddy, I wish you were here.
Zoe Mason-Darnell
Silver Key, Poetry
in my dreams i only know one thing: everything is the same except my father is dead. i never know how it happened. I never know exactly how long ago we burned him to a crisp and–when did we throw his ashes into the sea? all i know is that he is dead. he wasn’t always that way.
(I open my eyes and my toes are
curled up in the sand of a San Diego Beach.
He walked this beach as a child
He splashed in these waves he swam in this sea
One day his ashes will be here too–
I close my eyes and he is dead.)
in my dreams i feel what must be grief. i have never before grieved the way i do those nights it is pressed so deep within my soul that it becomes my entire being. i do not feel anything except for when I do– when my sorrow becomes so sharp white hot that it boils over, scalding my scratched arms and well meaning friends and all i know is that my father is dead. My name is no longer important and neither is my rage all i am is the loss of the man who makes up the very fiber of my soul, who has given me my brain, my breath, my life my lungs–
( I see him everywhere
in the city streets.
I see him Balboa Park
On the rocky seaside cliffs I feel
His hand gripping mine all those years ago
Seaside breeze spitting on our cheeks,
A decade old laugh caught in the back of my throat–
I see him.
I can not escape him.)
in my dreams i live. i have no space for my lingering love so i burn it into apathy and chew my pain between my teeth. i go to school. i see my friends. i choke down wails in a sketchy bathroom before joining the party. i whisper to myself in class in the car while dancing while laughing while scratching my arms to ribbons in the dead of night: He would want me to live. He would want me to live he would want me to live he would want–
(I watch the sunset on the rocky cliffs
And he is still alive but
I feel as if he is not.
Reason and logic have no place
In a broken heart but
He taught me how to think.)
in my dreams i know it is not real. i trap myself behind the waves of his cremation, flex my fingers and mumble under my breath a mimicry of the man who breathed the life into me and think in half-muddled dream-state thoughts: he’s alive. He’s alive alive alive he’s alive this is a dream he’s alive he’s alive he’s–
(My breaths do not settle
until we assemble the couch he got while I was gone.
I hold the flashlight.
He shows me how to attach the legs.
He is alive in my dreams that night.)
—----------------------------------------------------
Honorable Mention Awards:
Keira Leal
Honorable Mention, Critical Essay
A Doll’s House: Victorian Female Experience Still Relevant Today
A Doll’s House is a revolutionary play about the female experience and brings to light several previously unvocalized issues. The play focuses on our protagonist, Nora, a 19th-century housewife. Around Christmas time, she reconnects with her childhood friend whose husband recently died. Nora, who came close to becoming a widow herself, reveals to her friend her secret-- when her husband was sick, she illegally borrowed money to raise funds to pay for a trip to Italy to restore her husband’s health. Nora’s friend reveals she needs a job since her late husband did not leave her with any money. Nora convinces her husband, who works at a bank, to give her friend a job. Her husband agrees to fire someone to open a spot for Nora’s friend. The man who would be fired catches wind of the plan for his dismissal and decides to blackmail Nora by threatening to tell her husband he discovered Nora’s illegal debt. The remainder of the play consists of Nora’s attempts to prevent her husband from finding out her secret. The play culminates with her husband unearthing Nora’s crime and Nora leaving him after delivering a speech about how her husband mistreats her and how she must go to find herself. Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House holds significant literary merit because of its continually relevant themes and groundbreaking feminist presence in Victorian Norway.
Although A Doll’s House was written about 150 years ago, its revolutionary themes of women as scapegoats, the power of female friendships, and the idea of mask-wearing are still relevant today and are meant to elicit discussions and critical thinking among its audience members. One of Ibsen’s primary goals in writing A Doll’s House was to reveal how women have been treated as scapegoats. In Victorian Norway, it is illegal for a woman to borrow money without having a male family member sign with her. Nora does not want to worry her dying husband, so she forges her recently deceased father’s signature on a loan to raise money to take her husband to Italy for his health. This illegal act is done as an act of love and duty towards her husband, Torvald. However, she tells him that her father gave her the money for the trip to protect her husband’s ego: “[F]or Torvald, with his man’s self-reliance, to know that he owed anything to me would be painful and humiliating to the last degree” (Ibsen 49). Despite Nora’s sacrifices for her husband, when he eventually finds out, he insults his wife for potentially getting them into legal trouble. Torvald tells his wife, “Your father’s low principles-- be silent!-- your father’s low principles you have inherited, every one of them” (Ibsen 132). Nora has no way to win: if she had not borrowed money, her husband would have died, and she would have been on her own; now that she did, her husband blames Nora and does not consider the positives of her illegal act. Torvald’s one-dimensional blaming of Nora’s actions is a textbook definition of women being used as scapegoats. This relevant theme is a significant component of the literary merit of A Doll’s House. Women being blamed for things outside their control or that were the best decisions with the information they had are familiar things for women today. For example, women are often blamed for the violence they endure, accused of being provocative or wearing inappropriate clothing when it is, in fact, the men who carry out the violence.
A Doll’s House perfectly embodies the unique nature of female friendships and how they empower women by allowing an environment of mutual understanding and validation. For Nora, reconnecting with her childhood friend, Ms. Linden, allows her to confide in her and eventually gain the courage to leave her husband. The two women can confide in each other as they both navigate their financial troubles and how, against popular narrative, these issues cannot be fixed by the presence of a man. Ms. Linden had to abandon the love of her life to marry a rich man who could provide for her. However, upon his death, he did not leave his wife much money, leaving Ms. Linden in a worse situation than she started. Before, she had either money or love, but she is now left with neither. Ms. Linden’s friendship with Nora allows her to get a job at the bank, as Nora recommends her as a replacement to her husband for Krogstad, a worker who has committed a crime.
Similarly, Ms. Linden can offer validation for Nora’s illegal debt that she must repay by working in secret, which makes Nora feel more confident that she did the right thing. Both women can relate to each other’s troubles because they both know how it feels to be a woman and experience troubles that, by the nature of society and politics, men would not experience. Any woman today can attest that close female friendships allow women to sympathize with each other and advise each other on traditionally “female issues.” The importance of female friendships is the mutual validation of understanding each other’s situation and being able to provide support. Ibsen’s ability to showcase this capability in a relatable and true way attests to the play’s literary merit.
From the masked ball to Nora’s fake childish manner before her husband, masks repeatedly appear as both a symbol and a theme in A Doll’s House. Nora is an intelligent character, given that she can illegally borrow money and work in secret from her husband to raise money to repay her debt. Despite Nora’s ingenuity, in the presence of her husband, she must play dumb and act as his doll. For instance, Nora occasionally takes on copywork but hides it from her husband under the mask of “ornament making.” Nora’s masking climaxes as Nora dances the tarantella at the masked ball to distract her husband from reading Krogstad’s blackmail letter that would reveal her secret to her husband. Openly, she is a silly little girl who yields to her husband: “Torvald wants me to appear as a Neapolitan fisher-girl, and dance the tarantella” (Ibsen 80). However, Nora is a critical thinker who carefully considers her situation and possible ways to prevent her husband from discovering the truth: “Then the tarantella will be over. Twenty-four and seven. Still thirty-one hours to live” (Ibsen 112). The tarantella serves as a symbol of Nora being a “doll” for Torvald. Nora having thirty-one hours “to live” until the tarantella is over shows the thirty-one hours left of Nora’s deception towards her husband. Nora carefully calculates how long she can put off Torvald finding out that she illegally borrowed money. She attempts to buy time to form a plan to continue to hide the secret that saved her husband’s life. This idea of women having to mask themselves to appear more favorable to and to raise the ego of men is a relevant theme in the modern day. In traditional theater, most female characters are often perceived as less intelligent or more childlike, which can make it harder to appear as equals in the eyes of men. In the corporate world today, most bosses are men. Society has drilled into women that they must act as if their ideas are not as accurate or coherent (“...if that makes sense”) and must not cause too much trouble (“...if not, I’ll take care of it”, “...no worries either way”). Outside of a woman-centric lens, people, in general, have to wear different masks in front of different people in a society where it is challenging to get your way while remaining genuine.
In addition to the relevant themes, A Doll’s House holds artistic value because of its ability to vocalize feminist issues that had not been previously expressed in a mixed-gender setting. The play premiered in December of 1879 during the Victorian Age. A Doll’s House was the first widely viewed play that had a developed female character in which the audience members root for the freedom of the female protagonist, which differed from previous plays with a female protagonist where the end goal of the protagonist was connected to a male character (such as the goal of finding a husband). This groundbreaking play was created to convey a message to the women in the audience so they would not feel so alone and to show their husbands that they may be promoting the oppression of the women in their lives. A Doll’s House was accessible to a broad public to create critical thinking and discussions among men and women on these newly vocalized themes and experiences.
Furthermore, the play’s stark ending is a perfect explanation of the struggles of a Victorian woman, perfectly laying out all of the patriarchal oppressions to the audience. It explicitly tells the men in the audience what they might likely be doing to enforce gender roles. Before leaving her husband, Nora tells him, “I was much as ever your lark, your doll, whom you would take twice as much care of in the future because she was so weak and frail” (Ibsen 145). Nora explains that she was treated as a plaything that could not do things by herself, was always treated as a child, and was never taken seriously. Nora’s final speech is the vocalization of the overbearing treatment in the play, such as Torvald having his wife wear a costume of his choosing and dancing in the way of his choosing at the masked ball. Nora’s leaving around New Year’s serves as a symbol of the uncertainty and new beginnings for both Nora’s upcoming adventures and Torvald’s life without his “doll.” The last scene is arguably the most important one because it explicitly states exactly how Nora feels. Since plays were being increasingly attended by middle-class people in the late 19th century, many “average” audience members could witness something many of them or many of their wives could be experiencing.
Isben’s ability to show the reality of gender roles in a raw and pure way to which the audience can relate makes A Doll’s House impactful. A Doll’s House is wonderfully well written with symbols such as the masks and the tarantella that show the facade that has been forced on Nora and created by Nora. The play has a hopeful ending, using the idea of new beginnings coinciding with the new year, allowing audience members to fantasize about what might come of the characters. Most importantly, A Doll’s House showcased what it meant to be a woman in the Victorian age, with universal themes still relevant today. Its impactful nature comes from the nuance it offers on gender roles more genuinely and realistically than ever before. It can be confidently said that Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House has significant literary merit.
Works Cited
Ibsen, Henrik. “The Doll’s House.” Translated by Henrietta Frances Lord, Google Books, D. Appleton & Co., 1902, books.google.com/books/about/The_Doll_s_House.html?id=afgNAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ovdme=1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Laurel Larrew
Honorable Mention, Poetry
runaways
please, come with me
you can’t stay there
in that land across the sea
please, you have to leave
pack your sack, walk the tracks
i’ll meet you while they sleep
if you can’t swim,
i’ll come to get you myself
you’ll sneak out from the window,
running barefoot over shells
salt wind on your cheeks
you could be brought back to life
and as you board my ship
you could drop your disguise
we could sail the seven seas
singing sea shanties
callused hands holding steady
with knives between our teeth
and then we’d reach the motherland
you would be back home again
familiar places embrace us
and familiar faces would mend,
if only you’d take my hand.
caged bird, free your pride
let me play the hero this once
i’ll be the hearth to your fire
letting you burn away
the things that don’t matter
don’t leave me to sink down
in the blue depths of trenches
salt corroding my lungs
water overwhelming senses
the true victim would be you,
don’t you see?
you’ll be shipwrecked and hopeless
and clinging to debris
so listen when i tell you
please, take this reprieve
our coming of age is long gone—
it’s time to come back home.
Maria Hernandez
Honorable Mention, Poetry
Method acting
I can always create a smile for you
Even if the world is burning
And the sun is dying
It easy cause my whole life I have just been method acting
I can pretend that I feel like laughing
And I love like honey
When I feel like dying
And taste like nothing
I can be your mother or your lover I’m an actor baby just ask me
I have the script for when we feel like fighting
I don’t need no rehearsal
I know that quite controversial
I can pretend that being a lover doesn't feel like acting
We’re like the poets but without the romantics
Zoe Mason-Darnell
Honorable Mention, Poetry
New
i.
You are three years old.
You are alone.
Your parents are out, they are doing something but
you do not know what. You want to be held. You want to be loved.
So you walk down the gravel road, you walk farther
than you have ever gone before. Your father sees you,
he scoops you up and takes you home.
You are too young to walk that far.
You are too young to be that adventurous.
ii.
You are six, or
maybe you are seven or eight or nine,
truly your age does not matter, what matters is that you are young.
You are in an unfamiliar park on your bicycle and
your mother is scared. She is nervous about
the training wheels coming off, she is nervous about
you falling and breaking something, scraping a knee, crying crying crying.
You can not remember seeing your mother nervous before.
Obviously, you must be nervous too.
The training wheels never come off.
iii.
Your father walks in and out.
This is not new.
This has been happening since you could remember it.
He does not want to leave, but he must. He leaves
for three days, a week, two weeks at a time, but
he brings back trinkets, shirts, himself. He leaves
and leaves and leaves and you get used to the act of leaving yourself.
We are what we live through, we are what we are nurtured by.
Your father leaves and comes back long enough to wash his clothes and
then leaves again. Your mother is too afraid
to take off the training wheels.
You have not been adventurous since you were three.
This is not new.
iv.
Your mistakes latch on to you.
You look at everything,
you think about everything, you plan and plan and plan.
They call you nitpicky and analytic and forget that
you are not exempt from your own scrutiny.
You can always do better. You can always be better.
There is a mess in your room that mirrors your head. You have tried
to clean up both, reorder the books, fold the clothes and
stash away the loose pens into bins. It never stays.
You scream at yourself, you claw your head pull your hair pick your skin,
you poke and prod and leave no room for forgiveness.
You tell yourself to try try try just try goddamnit.
The room stays messy.
v.
The medals clank against your chest.
It grates on your already fried nerves,
there are cameras and congratulatory words and too many hands
on your skin in your hair loving, touching, suffocating.
In your mind’s eye you can see the medals stacked up in your shoe cabinet,
tossed like loose pens because you have nowhere else
to put them. Your mother stands next to you, nervous hands
fluttering about, your father squeezed the life out of you after the first round
and you have not seen him since. You know he has already left.
You can feel the training wheels slip off, the gravel beneath
your young feet, the scraped knees scarring themselves upon your skin.
You are small and raw and exposed. There is
chaos roaring through your mind, overwhelming your heart, your lungs, your life.
For once, you feel alive. This is new.