Short story for contest

                                       Wednesday

Dear diary,

    I don't understand why I feel this way. Why do I feel this way? None of my friends like boys and girls; then why do I? I try to hide this feeling. I can't. I don't feel normal. See my family is Christian, so my family believes not to love the same gender as you, I don't want to sin, I don't but I believe what I believe and I like who I like. I can't change that I am who I am. If they can't love me for who I am, they are not my true family. They would love me for no  matter what.

    Today at school; I sat alone at lunch. No one would want to sit by me. I lost all my friends. Please I don't understand why is being gay or lesbian or even bisexual bad? I had one friend who was lesbian, she moved away, to North Carolina because she got made fun of. I miss her so much, am I going to have to move away also? The lunch room was very loud and quiet by me; I decided to eat lunch in the girls bathroom today. I was in the lunchroom before and everybody looked at me all weird. Stares, no words; I just ran off. Started to cry in the bathroom, I did not want to eat, my stomach was hurting.

I went to the nurse's office and said “my stomach hurts.”

They called my mother, “Hi, is this Alana's mother?”

“This is.” My mother answered.

“We are just calling to tell you that Alana’s complaining about her stomach hurting, and she looks pale.-” They said.

My mom interrupted the nurse, “Can I come get her out of school?”

“ I was going to say that before I got rudely interrupted.”

“Oh, okay, I’m sorry ‘bout that.”

As my mom hangs up the phone she gets her coat and drives over to my school.

Three minutes went by, she is here.

I went to the car, she signed me out. We did not talk in the car, I was so silent.  We got home, I went to my room. And that's what lead me here. Well I got to go, give you an update tomorrow.

                Thursday

Dear diary,

    School went fine, but good news… Someone new was at school today, she went to the bathroom and saw me. I ran into a stall; she talked to me, she said “why are you in the bathroom during lunch, don't you eat with your friends?”

I said. “ I don't have friends anymore, and why are you in here?”

“Im new and have no friends, what's your name?”

“Alana, what about you?”

“Tiana.” she said.

We talked almost the whole lunch, then she asked why I don't have  friends anymore?

I said. “Because… i'm bi…”

She cut me off, saying “For real I am too, I did not want to say nothing because I did not know if there are any homophobes? But now I do, because you got no friends anymore.”

I said “You wanna be friends then, I mean you got no one else.”

She said yes.

And then the bell rang.

She said meet me here. (In the bathroom)  tomorrow.

I said ok. I was so excited to have a friend again it got lonely. I got home from school and went to basketball practice and the team would not talk to me so I quit right there I said. “If you have a problem with me, just say so.”

They said they did so I said I quit and left; they were shocked; they did not even know what to do. The worst part was coach Johnson said “where my star player going?” They said I quit.

Which I did, I left the team, I thought they were family. I guess not family does not judge by who they are; so yeah I am alone in the dark, I got no one except my mom and one friend I met today. Coach stopped me before going to the door to leave the building. “Where you going? Why you leaving?”

I said. “Family does not leave each other, but I am not family to these people, family does not judge, and I quit the team and trying to fit in. Im sorry. Make Madi your star player. I quit.”

I walked out of the building and ran home, crying.  And that leads to right now, to me writing in my diary again, where all the drama goes to. Well I gotta go, talk about my day tomorrow after school.

                    Friday

Dear diary,

    Well school sucked, why? Because Tiana was not at school and I sat in the bathroom alone and then on top of this day, three girls that were on my basketball team came in to the bathroom and laughed at me, Madi said “Sorry you quit the team, but you were not the best.”

Imani said. “You should've quit a long time ago.”

And I just sat there thinking “I am  better than you, smarter than you and prettier than all of y’all.”

But you know I'm not that mean, I keep my mouth shut, unlike these girls. But I had nothing happen at lunch today other than that, history was handful today I got kicked out for not working with this boy.

Well I got to go eat, I'll be back tomorrow.

                    Saturday

Dear diary,

    There is a knock on my door at 12:00 pm. I don't go to get it, I wanna leave it, but there is another knock.I answer, its Madi, Imani, and other basketball girls,

I shut the door on them, they knock again, I answer and say “What?”

then they ask  “Can we come in?”

“I guess. Why are you at my house?”

Then this surprised me what they say next, “We don't mind you're bi, we were trying to be cool, and then you quit the team and it just got out of hand im sorry.”

“Me to.” Imani says

“We are to.” The other basketball girls say.7

“Friends?” Madi says.

“Okay, friends.” I say.

“When is the next basketball game?” I ask.

“This Saturday, you wanna come play against Hortonville with us?” Madi asks.

“ I can't, I quit remember?”

“Oh yeah, its okay lets ask coach if you can join again?” Madi says

“To be honest we miss you.” Imani and the basketball team says.

“I was hurt and sad because I thought you guys were family.”

“We are all sorry.” the team says.

This was a stressful week and four days, I love my team so very much!

Even though they were acting like brats, there my sisters.:) this diary is full from 2018 lets  hit 2019 for next year, so goodbye diary!                    

~Alana        

When the world finally fell to pieces, I thought it was my time to go too. As the sun set on the human race and the population dwindled to thousands, then hundreds, I prepared to hang up my hood and scythe forever. After all, Death needs Life to sustain it.

But after collecting a child’s soul from his mother, ripping him from her arms like a plow upends earth, I knew that I must do something, anything, save their ghostly, damned hearts.

When I ascend into the Earthly realm, lively and jovial spirits from the Underworld troop back with me now, dancing invisibly and singing silently to and with their families. My life-giving ghosts can’t be seen, but as the presence of a candle in front of an unseeing person, their presence is warmly felt.

These humans may be doomed, but they seem content with the happiness of the spirits I bring to guide them. They aren’t as sad when they feel my heavy presence at their funerals and burials, knowing that happiness will come again.

The people have decided on a name for me, showing their gratitude for the small affections I give my protectees.

They call me Life.

Every so often, they rise from their graves and come back in ghost-form, on nights when it’s just the right balance between cold and too cold.

They’re coming tonight, but I’m only waiting for you.

Faint humming sounds wind their way through the streets, in the watery light of the streetlamps that spills through the open window. Something rushes past, becoming visible as it seeps through the screen door.

What can you give a ghost?

I take out bundles of blankets and make hot tea. It doesn't touch. It doesn’t drink. But it twines around the steam that rises from the cup to show its thanks.

When I wake bleary-eyed the next morning, it’s already slipped out, back through the crack in the window, leaving your touch lingering against my skin, your smile haunting my moves, a pile of blankets, and a cup of cold, untouched tea.

Without thinking, I pour the tea into the flowerbed on my windowsill. The next day, I notice that the blossoms have bloomed a little brighter.

Under this dim bathroom lighting /

a spectre looming / my face leers

bathed in ochre-tinted darkness /

My flaws can hide in these shadows /

While I am not coated in foul soot /

charcoal from the fireplace ashes /

I am still unclean / tainted by imperfection /

fire roaring against the mirror glass /

These blemishes are my cinders /

but at least I can paint some semblance

of a face / concoct normalcy

with my arsenal of cheap lipstick and eyeshadow /

I cake my face / in a desperate attempt /

to suffocate my lips eyes and nose /

smothered / stuck in a beautiful scream /

A cacophony of stepsisters jeers inside my head /

Staring into mirrors / I see them:

just slimmer, clearer, brighter versions of myself /

A siren song of temptations / of criticisms /

their beautiful smiles hypnotize my thoughts /

My godmother doesn’t sing to me /

doesn’t dry my tears / or smile

with her bluebird-colored eyes /

she, too, is only my stepmother in disguise /

Her finger jabs through swirling glass

of this mirror / and towards the corner /

where a pair of glass slippers wait /

heels rise like silver needles /

They glimmer like jagged ice /

like when the sun reflects

across the desert / to form a glittering mirage /

and I reach out to brush the glass

with eager fingertips /

“Ha! Your feet are too big

to be seen as beautiful.

You cannot fit in those shoes,”

croons my reflection.

And I smile / “Who said I ever intended to wear them?” /

I take one glass slipper / glittering like sweet starlight /

and lunge at my reflection /

glass breaks / showering like diamonds /

and I am caught in a swirl

of shooting stars /

I am Ella / cinder-free /

Ella / covered in magic /

in swirls of sapphire and brilliant silver /

Ella / crying because finally

my stepsisters are silent /

and I am beautiful /

Mama said the flowers in Seoul were beautiful.

I might have believed her, but then, doesn’t everything look beautiful to someone with terminal cancer? Especially something as frail as a flower from the homeland she’ll never return too.

Still, she insists.

“Sena, the flowers there, you wouldn’t believe it…they are the most beautiful in all the world.” The hand she has clasped around mine is shaky and thin, mostly bones and veins—but Mama’s smile is bright like the sunrise as she leans against the pillows propping her up. “I cannot wait until you see.”

“I know, Mama,” I say. I squeeze her hand. Her bedroom smells the same as always—like warm milk and medicine and a hint of something like lemongrass. In two days, I’ll miss this smell. I smile a little as I squeeze Mama’s hand again. “I’ll bring one back for you.”

It is, of course, only the least I can do, when Mama is letting me go from Maine to Seoul with my Aunt Yoshiko to take the trip that she will never be able to make again.

Mama closes her eyes, an angel trapped in a cocoon of white sheets and oxygen and cancer in her chest. “That’s my girl,” she says.

I lean down to kiss her forehead, and then I quietly leave the room to finish packing.

*   *   *

When I and Aunt Yoshiko board the plane to Seoul, Korea, there is no one to see us off.

I’m alright with that, as the only person I want to see me off is Mama and airports and late-stage cancer don’t get along. But I do think Aunt Yoshiko is a little sad.

It has been hard for her, slowly losing her sister, I can see it in her eyes. But this trip is in honor of Mama and her love for Seoul—her wish for me to see it, its flowers. I will not spend it sad.

Inside the plane, I let Aunt Yoshiko have the window seat. “So you can see the world fall away,” I say, as I settle in beside her.

When the plane lifts off with a roar like a dying lion, I don’t press it to try and look out the window, too. I’ve already seen the world fall away.

I know what it looks like.

I will bring it back a flower from Seoul.  

*   *   *

In all of Mama’s stories, it is Spring in Seoul—a perpetual fairytale of falling pink leaves and bustling markets, and street-side booths selling over-priced food that tastes so much more real than it does in America, because you eat it while smelling all of spicy, vibrant Seoul around you. And the flowers are beautiful there.

When Aunt Yoshiko and I land in Seoul, it is Fall, and I almost feel betrayed that Mama’s Spring-Seoul didn’t materialize straight into this Autumn-cloaked October just for us. But I suppose Autumn does need a turn with earth now and then.

The hotel we check into is clean, but not sterile, though in our room the bedsheets are so white I almost feel like they should smell like warm milk and medicine, with a touch of lemongrass. I take out my phone and snap a picture. Aunt Yoshiko glances at me with raised eyebrows.  

“Mama will want to see,” I say, though I know really she won’t. Mama says that cameras are unnecessary distractions to seeing and remembering things with our eyes, and thus, our souls. But I want pictorial evidence that this trip happened.

So I take one more picture of the room before turning off my phone and sliding it into the back pocket of my jeans. I’ll need it tomorrow, because we’re going to the market.

I’m determined to find food, and flowers.

*   *   *

While Autumn-Seoul is, in some ways, not like Mama’s Spring-Seoul, the market is very much the same as she had said. Overwhelming. Loud. Alive.

I cannot stop breathing it in.

Hawkers cry out from their booths, selling plastics tins of gimbop or freshly-baked hotteok. Scents of cinnamon and meat explode in air, making my mouth water as the cold cement of the street bleeds through the soles of my shoes. It feels like adventure, but it smells like home.

“Sena, I’m going to text your father that we’re doing alright and get some kimchi, do you want any?” Aunt Yoshiko asks, hers fingers already on her phone as she eyes a booth selling dishes of kimchi a few strides down the street.

I nod, but my eyes are already darting in a different direction. Trying to find flowers. “I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes,” I say, striking off deeper into the throng of market-goers.

The sea of shopping and haggling is easy to lose one’s self in if one’s self doesn’t know where they’re going. I am going no place in particular, but I am looking for something, which isn’t nothing. I peer around small clusters of Korean women with small purses hung over their shoulders, squeeze through a pack of loudly jabbering men who are fighting over the price of fried octopus, and “excuse me” my way past a few well-dressed shoppers inspecting various, thin scarves that won’t do anything to protect them against this bitter Autumn. I tug my own scarf—thick, grey—closer around my neck and keep walking. There are no flowers to be seen, I can’t find them.

But there is an old man.

He’s sitting in a booth that’s empty, nothing to sell, nothing to shout. He simply watches the droves of people hustling by with a smile on his face and a cigar stuck in his mouth. He sees me watching, and his smile spreads a little wider, deepening the wrinkles in his face.

“Annyeonghaseyo, young lady,” he says. Hello. 

The English falling on my ears is like sweet rain, and I duck around a portly shopper to walk to the old man’s booth. “Annyeonghaseyo,” I repeat to him, then look at his empty booth, sticking my hands into the pockets of my coat. “Nothing to sell today, sir?”

“Too many things being sold already,” the man says, gesturing with his small, wrinkled hands at the many other booths lining the street like an army of goods. “Not enough people just taking it in.” His cigar wiggles in the corner of his mouth, and he plucks it out as he scrutinizes me with his keen eyes. “You are looking for something in particular?”

I hesitate, wondering how strange my request will sound here in cold, cold Autumn. “Flowers,” I say. “My Mama told me that the flowers in Seoul are more beautiful than anything else.”

“Ah! Your eomma, she is from Seoul?”

“Yes.”

The old man grins—a very genuine smile that makes his whole face look like a portrait of happiness. He leans back in his chair and holds his arms out, gesturing to everything. “Young lady, you are already among Seoul’s flowers! The people, eolin-i, the people—so strong, yet so frail, so quickly gone, so rarely cherished as they should be. Seoul is made of flowers.” His smile is about to crack his wizened face. “Do you see?”

Mama, you sly old lady.

I turn around from the booth and imagine myself as a tiny rock in the midst of a sweeping sea, just taking in the tides. It isn’t hard to imagine, as it is almost true. I lean against the old man’s booth and look out at the bustle of my Mama’s Seoul.

“Do you see?”

“Yes,” I say, “I see.”

My Mama’s Seoul was made of flowers.

Slowly, I pull out my phone and snap a picture—quick, brief—of the people. I found your flowers, Mama. Then I put the phone away, because I want to see this scene with my eyes, and thus, my soul, so that I can bring it all home to her.

Five minutes until I have to find Aunt Yoshiko.

And so, for that five minutes, I lean against the old man’s booth, where he sells nothing but sees everything, and we are both silent as I watch my Mama’s Seoul go by.

Seoul is made of flowers.

They are indeed the most beautiful in the world.   

THE END

“Have you ever been scared?”

“Of course, who hasn’t?”

“But, not just scared

“Like so terrified that you freeze up. So terrified that you can’t even move your mouth.”

She looks down, her eyes stray from mine.

After too long of the uncomfortable silence, I tap her shoulder, wanting to make her the happy girl she was two seconds ago.

“Hey, sorry to be so intrusive.

“It’s just I need help with something and I don’t think I can handle it on my own.”

Her big brown eyes look back into my icy blue ones.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just-I don’t know what to do, I don’t know if I can figure it out!”

My tone becomes frantic.

She puts a calming hand on my shoulder and her touch soothes me.

My breathing starts to slow a little and I realize that I’m going to be okay, she’s not going anywhere.

It blizzards at the most inopportune times.

I hover by the glass patio door, hand up against its frosted surface. Transfixed, I watch the bushy clumps of snow settle on the ground. A millennium passes as I stand there, exhausted by the debilitating weight of loneliness. I realize I miss someone, or maybe something, although I’m unsure who or what.

Perhaps I miss everyone.

Perhaps I miss myself.

Suddenly, an inexplicable wave of clarity hits me. I want to make snow angels.

Bundled up like the Pillsbury Doughboy, I waddle outside, tongue out to catch the snowflakes.

A gentle thud hits the ground as I fall back against it. Waving my arms up and down repeatedly, I wish I was six again. Behind the dreary grey clouds above, there are pink tones, and I hope that somewhere, someone’s watching the sunset; revelling in the vibrant colours stretching across the expanse. For a second, even in the sub-zero temperature, I almost feel warm.

As I sit up, I realize my face is salty and wet, although not from the snow. Robotically, I walk back inside, glancing back at the snow one last time.

It’s no longer pristine.

The shot was fired

before I realized there was even a gun.

I was too late,

Everything had been said and done.

And I stood, frozen.

Watching the repercussions unfold

like crumbling sandcastles:

falling apart slowly, grain by grain.

Once strong, but broken by the unrelenting tide,

as vicious as the cruellest of dictators.  

Parasitic insects are gnawing at my insides,

the guilt and the remorse and the sadness

mixing together into one amorphous cloud

of regret.  

If I could turn back time,

make the seconds unwind and the hours come back,

un-say the words and undo the actions,

I’d welcome the time with open arms.

The salty breeze whistles quietly,

serenity before a storm.

A little girl builds a castle,

with towers of jagged rocks and seashells,

bridges of stringy seaweed.

I call out to her again and again and again, but

my voice is hoarse and lost in the gushing wind.

She cries as the wave hits, a haunting sound across the expanse.

Her castle crumbles, grain by grain.

For a moment, she crumbles too.

Then she rebuilds.  

The man stood facing her, knife in hand. But he was still, waiting for her to make a move. Racking her brain, the woman thought: “What am I supposed to do now? It’s not like I’ve done this before, and if you have, then you surely have issues.” But now, she knew what to do, as she had seen in countless movies and read about in numerous books. Almost happening in slow-motion, her hand raised to strike, and attacked.

The crowd cheered at the sight of them, despite the clump on cake that had been mashed against the lips of the groom, by the courtesy of the bride. The groom made a face. “Honey! I wasn’t ready!”  “You’re just mad I got you first.”

Waiting

I sat quietly in my room filled with anticipation, I checked my phone, sat for a little while longer. I needed to know, and I didn’t think I could wait any more. After what seemed like an eternity I checked the clock on the wall again. Five minutes had past. It was 2:15 am. I got out of my bed and took a walk. I went to the ice machine for the third time since my surgery. I felt fine, but I needed to know. I needed to know if the surgery worked. I needed to know if I was cancer free, or if all of this was for nothing. I sat down in the cold leather chair next to my bed, and looked at my mom. A tear rolled down my cheek. I wanted to be better so badly it hurt. I didn’t want to die. I couldn’t put my family through that. I checked my phone one more time and drifted off. I would know in the morning… or would I? This could be the last time I closed my eyes, or last time I dreamed a dream. I wish my dad was here. I miss him.