CLASSICAL LAUREATE
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I T E
O M M R . K
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Welcome to the December 2024 edition of the Classical Laureate. I am so proud of the work that is represented here for you to enjoy. In all my years of working on the Laureate, we have never produced anything that came close to 26 pages.
I envision the Laureate as a place where students can share their short stories and poetry, but also works of nonfiction and investigations of academic topics.
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A Study of Dorian Gray and Baudelaire
The writer addresses how Baudelaire’s life and philosophy impacted Oscar Wilde’s protagonist, Dorian Gray. In a intricately researched examination, the writer identifies and offers evidence of these similarities.
Introduction
“In the filthy menagerie of our vices, There is one more ugly, more wicked, more filthy!
Although he makes neither great gestures nor great cries, He would willingly make of the earth a shambles
And, in a yawn, swallow the world”- Au Lecteur (To the reader)
Victorian era England valued labor, temperance, and utility above all else. Society was dominated by puritan morality which endorsed self denial and work. The aesthetic movement in England began as a subversion of these Victorian ideals. By rejecting utilitarianism, “aesthetes considered life as something to be appreciated for its beauty”(Pettersson). Grouped together by their common belief in elevation of beauty, aesthetes differed in their views on art and life.
Oscar Wilde, who is seen by many as the father of the aesthetic movement, was influenced by the poet Baudelaire, a fore-runner of the French symbolists, particularly by his concept of the ennui. Baudelaire redefined ennui as something beyond ordinary weariness in his work Les Fleurs Du Mal. Wilde’s protagonist in the Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray, suffers with a remarkable likeness to Baudelaire.
Perfect Victim
“Bitter is the knowledge one gains from voyaging! The world, monotonous and small, today, Yesterday, tomorrow, always, shows us our image: An oasis of horror in a desert of ennui!” - Le Voyage
To Baudelaire, ennui was a malady of the modern age. Science, having “destroyed the illusions which made happiness possible,” (Rosenthal) revealed reality for what it actually is: “hopeless, vain, monotonous” (Rosenthal). Ennui was thus deeply connected to the “sentiment of the vanity of existence” (Rosenthal).
Subsequently, Baudelaire’s perfect victim would be sensitive, as such individuals “[consume] life voraciously, [exhaust] it quickly, and soon [find] that there is nothing of interest or worth to experience” (Rosenthal). This description is pertinent to both Baudelaire and Dorian Gray. Baudelaire, after inheriting a sizable fortune at 21, “[spent] freely on clothes, books, paintings, expensive food and wines, and, not least, hashish and opium” (PoetryFoundation). Dorian, similarly, inherits a fortune, and after the influence of Lord Henry and a French novel, he starts leading a life similar to the one Baudelaire led: “Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins he was to have all these things” ( 118). He starts by procuring from Paris “no less than nine large-paper copies of the first edition, and [has] them bound in different colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the changing fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have almost entirely lost control” (143). Later, “he … appear[s] at a costume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered with five hundred and sixty pearls” (151).
Ennui
“ And without drums or music, long hearses
Pass by slowly in my soul; Hope, vanquished, Weeps, and atrocious, despotic Anguish
On my bowed skull plants her black flag.” - Spleen
Baudelaire, having transformed the concept of ennui, gave it the name of spleen. In describing his anguish, he emphasized “his dejection, inaction, indifference to everything, and the almost complete paralysis of his will” (Rosenthal).
Dorian perfectly matches this description. Having consumed life voraciously and exhausted it, he was soon “tired of hearing his own name” (243) and was “indifferent to life itself” (221). He was dominated by the “high indifference of joy” (223) and seemed like a “boy who had been tired out with play” (180).
Imprisoned by ennui, they both fall into an inconsolate state. Having recognized ennui as an adversary more potent than any other, their efforts pivot to escaping it.
Escape
“Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and now and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said to him on the first day they had met, ‘To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.’” - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Lord Henry declares to Dorian, “The only horrible thing in the world is ennui” (225). Charles Baudelaire would wholeheartedly endorse this statement, but
make the adjustment that every other horror is preferable over ennui. In the poem “Le Jeu” he covets the life of a group of gamblers:
Envying the stubborn passion of those people, The dismal merriment of those old prostitutes, All blithely selling right before my eyes, One his ancient honor, another her beauty! - Le Jeu (Gambling)
Despite their blatant suffering and excruciating agitation, Baudelaire envies them because “at least they have a passion, albeit a horrid one” (Rosenthal). Baudelaire would much prefer to experience their agony rather than “the moral death … in which he finds himself” (Rosenthal). Similarly, “It was the living death of his own soul that troubled [Dorian]” (245).
Thus, fearing ennui above all else is the common trait between Baudelaire and Dorian Gray. Their attempts at thwarting this evil are also very similar. “In Baudelaire's poetry, opium or laudanum dreams were intimately connected with the effort to escape the agonizing passing of time into a world of nontime” (Hall).
In the Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian attempts to cure the soul by means of the senses through “opium-dens, where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new” (204). But this is only a slight reprieve: the “devastating silence is broken momentarily, but rebellion is short-lived. Deathly silence and gloom take over again” (Hall).
Ennui emerges victorious.
Obsession with Death
“Nothing is so long as those limping days, When under the heavy flakes of snowy years Ennui, the fruit of dismal apathy, Becomes as large as immortality.” - Spleen
Ennui loomed, dragging out days and hours and minutes, and in this hopeless situation Baudelaire “contemplated the final evasion in death” (Rosenthal). In the last section of the Flowers of Evil he explores this ultimate escape.
“And Time engulfs me minute by minute, As the immense snow a stiffening corpse; I survey from above the roundness of the globe And I no longer seek there the shelter of a hut.
Avalanche, will you sweep me along in your fall?” - Le Goût du néant (The Desire For Annihilation)
However, despite this yearning for escape, he still retained a “blind attachment to life” (Hall). This is shown in the poem Le Jeu, where he writes about the “ irrational love of life, of any kind of life, and the rational rejection of its value” (Hall):
“My heart took fright at its envy of so many Wretches running fiercely to the yawning chasm, Who, drunk with their own blood, would prefer, in a word, Suffering to death and hell to nothingness!” - Le Jeu (Gambling)
Wilde displays a similar desire for death. He writes, “there are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of death” (147). Dorian momentarily
escapes through new sensations and passions that keep up the illusions and his imagination, but ennui soon prevails and he succumbs to indifference.
Unlike Baudelaire, Dorian does kill himself. He stabs the portrait that holds his soul. With this act, he knew he would be “[killing] the past, and when that was dead he would be free. It would kill this monstrous soul-life.” (247). So although Baudelaire was troubled by his so-called moral death, he clung to life because he didn’t have a soul portrait to give him “hideous warnings” (247).
Parul Biju
Shining Boots
Someone I really love told me the other day that my boots need shining,
I didn't listen to them.
I once read a poem that said "my happiness depends so much on those boots",
My happiness depends so much on those boots.
It depends on their unchanging nature, The way the laces always fall apart, The way the little red stains stick to the toe, The way my soft and smooth fingers knowingly walk along their bumpy and curving surface.
The way the foamy lining has been worn in by my heavy foot print.
I like how they give me height.
They put me on a pedestal above the world, Above it's judgmental stares and stressful expectations.
It's as if, with my big, dirty, round boots, I can crush the Earth below the weight of my defiance, Watching its crust crack and crumble and coat my boots with the ashes of those who dare defy me.
My boots are not just my happiness, They are my war cry.
When I go running up that hill, Creating sound waves with my soles, I'm making a deal with God.
I'm staring the old, decrepit, scorn-filed man in the eye, and daring him to stop me from destroying his precious little kingdom.
And yet one day, after killing God’s children, I began to walk in silence. I did so in some sort of search for answers to the silence, to my loneliness, to my grievances.
As I stepped through the puddles of that mall, Umbrella shielding me from the world around me, As I walked passed dancers, and skaters, and singers, and people laughing, and doing drugs, and partying, The dirt, and rubble, and grass washed of my shoes, Even though I was so sure they were waterproof.
I didn't notice this at the time, But when I rose again to destroy Eden, I noticed my shoes were polished and black. They were round as ever, laces still tattered, But they had a new glint.
In them, I could see my reflection. It was the reflection, not of a giant, But of a small person, Just another one of God's children, Wanting to exist in the world,
Just someone wanting to bask in its rays of sun, Wanting to be caught in it's downpour, Wanting to be lost in it's dark, Wanting to feel its warmth, Wanting to hear it's laughs, Wanting to watch it age, Wanting to run away, Wanting to be embraced.
That day, I took my boots off, Not to be thrown away or to be set aflame, But to be set down by a door frame, So that I might be able to walk inside, So that I might meet love, Greeting it with my whole soul, And leaving behind the dirt.
Micah Faudree
Elma’s Tree
"Careful up there, Tony."
The boy's father looked up from his newspaper to the stooped trunk of the oak tree; he'd heard it creaking. Tony gripped the branch above him and launched himself further up, ignoring his father– he was being careful. The branch groaned as it felt his weight.
"Tony, do you hear me? Be careful!" Tony rolled his eyes. The man had evidently forgotten every other time Tony had climbed the tree without falling. Tony gazed at Grandmother, a heap of gray confined to a chair that was thoughtfully angled towards the oak tree. His mother and father must have repositioned her chair a dozen times, bickering about whether she was too hot in her sweater or if she needed water or whether the sun was in her eyes. Tony tried to make out where those eyes were pointed. Grandmother had lost all ability to move and speak nearly a decade ago, and the only signs that she was even conscious were her eyes, two pearls embedded in a statue. Her silent staring was far preferable to Tony's father's incessant pleas.
"Yes, Dad."
It was an ugly tree. Its trunk was knotted and deformed, suffocated by a dead vine that endlessly pulled it downward. Its twigs were bare and white. The tree was neither leafless nor properly leafed; instead of protruding out of the twigs at the end of branches, leaves latched directly to the bough of the tree, like giant green ticks. The trunk's base was thicker than the rest, for in its youth the oak tree had been cut down repeatedly, leaving violent scars. It must have been at least fifty years old, planted around the time poor Madeline Carter had gone missing.
No one was old enough to remember a time without it, save Tony's grandmother, Elma Jones. Long before her paralyzed state, at only twenty-four years old, Elma had bought the property herself. The land then was open and green, waiting for the right person to transform it. Elma planted a rose garden: a brilliant palette of red and pink that attracted the children of the neighborhood. The roses were long dead now. Elma had stopped caring for them when her hands began to fail her. Tony's parents suggested hiring someone to do the work, but Elma had never liked other people walking in the garden. By the time Tony was born, her legs were dysfunctional. She could not walk with Tony, but she could hold him. Then her arms lost their movement, and all she could do was speak to him. So she spoke. She told Tony stories she had told no one else. He had been too young to understand them, and now she was too old to repeat them. Still, she spoke to Tony with her eyes. Tony stole glimpses at them whenever he could, to see the only living part of someone who knew him but whom he did not know himself. The tree was not far from where the roses would have been. Elma wished he could see the roses, perhaps even more than she wished he could hear her voice.
The roses used to mark the border between her property and Mr. Carter's, before he moved. Mr. Carter had been there when Elma first moved in. He was never seen outside before noon, and when he came out he was always accompanied by an acrid smell. Some suspected it came from his unwashed charcoal-colored coat, or from the bed he slept in. Elma assumed it was a natural side effect of sheer laziness. It was not a thought she would say aloud, especially after what happened to Madeline. Whether or not they would admit it, though, no one was fond of Mr. Carter. Even his daughter Madeline seemed to be imprisoned in that sickly house of his, an eyesore beside Elma's. Mr. Carter and his daughter lived alone together, occupying a huge space for just two people. Elma hoped to buy Mr. Carter's property when he left. He had to leave. However large his bank account was he could not afford to maintain the place. Still, he would not budge. "Elma's trying to kick me out when I have a daughter to raise," he would complain. He called her Elma instead of Ms. Jones. That was one thing she never liked about him. Not to mention how he treated his daughter: he hardly
raised her. The nearest school was five miles away, and as far as anyone knew, Mr. Carter never drove her. She either walked to school and home every single day, or Mr. Carter homeschooled her, a possibility that seemed beyond his capabilities. Elma cared for the girl. She did not love Madeline, but she pitied her. So Elma allowed her to visit the rose garden. She was allowed to pick roses, too. Her favorites were the pink ones. For a long time Madeline was the only one allowed in Elma's rose garden besides Elma herself, because Mr. Carter did not know how to care for something beautiful. Then, when Madeline was nine years old, around Tony's age, things changed. "Elma, I'd like you to tell Madeline to stop visiting you," Mr. Carter had said, and Elma knew she had to listen. It was something in his voice, or in the way his lip curled to form an unnatural smile. Madeline cried when she found out.
That night Madeline wandered among the roses. It was past her bedtime for sure, and the moon was out, making it difficult to distinguish between the red roses and the pink ones. Madeline plucked a red rose that day, and Elma didn't say anything. A week later Elma received a letter at her door. She was being summoned to court in one month. Mr. Carter was suing her.
"Dad! Watch this!" Tony jumped off the branch. His father dropped the newspaper to see Tony scrambling to his feet.
"You missed it."
"No I didn't."
"Yeah, whatever. Grandma saw."
Tony ran to Grandmother and nearly knocked her chair over.
"Slow down there. Gentle." Father looked at Grandmother. "How are you doing, Mom? Are you hot?" Grandmother's eyes moved left –towards Tony – and then right – towards Father. No.
"What about water? Are you thirsty?" The eyes moved up and down. Yes.
"Laura's bringing water." The eyes returned to their neutral direction, that of the tree trunk. Tony stared into them, the pearls in the statue. Mother arrived with a pitcher, and Father carefully poured some water into Grandmother's mouth as Tony ran back to the tree. He stepped on a knot at the base and it bled a sticky sap he knew he would have to wash off his knee later. He climbed with a familiarity that comes with years of practice. It was not a pretty tree, but it was a very climbable tree. Every root served as a step, every knot a rung on a ladder. "Careful up there…" Tony ignored his father. He looked back into the eyes of Grandmother. She was looking at him, trying to tell him something. Then he felt a sharp sting. A vine leaf had pricked him.
Elma was thinking of Madeline. The girl snuck into the rose garden for six nights and Elma never said anything. Then on the seventh night her father followed her. Mr. Carter walked into the rose garden, infecting the soft pedals with the fumes from his charcoal coat. "Madeline!" he barked. As soon as the girl heard him she ran away from the garden, past him, and through the front door to Mr. Carter's house, her prison. Mr. Carter stood in the garden for a long time. His shadow was long and narrow, like a strip of dead soil that caused the roses to grow black. Elma stood perfectly still, watching through her bedroom window as the black strip glided out of the garden. The lawsuit came early the next morning, well before Mr. Carter should have been out of the house. Apparently he had been pricked by one of Elma's rose bushes, and he was allergic to roses. Even if such an allergy exists, Elma knew, he was entirely responsible for getting pricked, and he was not after medical compensation, but after her land, potentially her entire property. Elma also knew he had the money for good lawyers who could get him exactly what he wanted. The night Elma received the letter Madeline came into the garden again, and, watching her stumble aimlessly over the delicate stems, Elma neither loved nor pitied her. Mr. Carter was going to take everything Elma had worked on in the five years since she had bought the
property, yet that wasn't enough for Madeline. She wanted the roses.
A few nights later Elma visited the garden with a shovel. On entering the garden the shovel was a rusty red, and on leaving it was stained bright crimson, not from the roses… Creak.
The oak tree grumbled. Tony braced for his parents' complaints. Fortunately, his parents were occupied tending to Grandmother. Tony was at what he thought of as the back of the tree, the part infested with wasps and other tiny deliverers of pain. An ant crawled over Tony's thumb, and he shifted to another branch. Creak.
Mr. Carter never followed through with the lawsuit. Madeline went missing, only days after he left the letter. He called off his herd of lawyers until he could find her, which he never did. Mr. Carter was rarely seen as it was, but after a month without his daughter, his door was closed from dawn to dusk. Eventually he moved out. Elma bought the property, had the house demolished, and expanded her rose garden. What had been Mr. Carter's land became just as vibrant and charming as Elma's, lined with evergreen shrubs, dotted with clover patches and dandelions. Naturally, the police came to question the neighborhood about Madeline Carter. Elma only lied to them once, when she said she didn't know where Madeline was. Besides that, everything she said was true, though she made sure to exclude Madeline's final visit to the rose garden, those hours spent digging the hole, then filling it in…The hole. It was not long after Madeline's disappearance that the oak tree appeared, right on top of the hole. Elma didn't notice it at first – she avoided that area as much as she could – but when it rose to a foot tall she noticed. She tried to unroot it, but oak roots are strong. She let it be. When it was her height she cut it down. It grew back. She cut it down again. She tried for years. But each time it grew back stronger.
Elma's eyes were fixed to the tree now, as Tony climbed it. She hated the tree. She never understood why Tony's parents enjoyed it or claimed it was pretty. Now she was cruelly fated to stare at it every time they went to this corner of the yard. And this was Tony's favorite corner. Elma glared at the withered branches. The tree was dying. It should have died a long time ago. A sweet, rotten odor met Elma's nostrils. It was coming from the deep crevices in the trunk of the tree. She had never noticed it before. The tortured tree howled as Tony climbed higher. More sweet smell. Maybe it was really dead; it sounded hollow in some parts. But leaves grew every year. Tony climbed higher. Elma wished he would climb down, and run to where the rose garden would have been. He would have been allowed in it. But no, he climbed higher. He knew every foothold and handle. Tony was at the top branch now. He clung to it with both hands, then he hung. Creak.
The branch snapped.
Benjamin Giller
Wishing Well
The cold air pricked Helvia’s skin as she squeezed her way through bushes where bundles of tiny green needles brushed and scraped against her puffy winter jacket. She stopped at the shore of a lake and looked across the wind swept ice to the tall, barren trees of Roger Williams Park, swaying gently in the wind. The sun peeked through breaks in the clouds, remnants of a passing snowstorm, and shone brilliantly on the crystalized surface.
A small rabbit nearby was sniffing around and digging holes in the snow for little bits of food. Its fur was a beautiful blend of white and tan and brown in little spots and freckles about its body like splashes of paint on canvas. “Hi, bunny,” Helvia cooed. The rabbit cocked its head at the girl, watching her curiously as she approached. She knelt, being careful not to frighten the small creature, and held out her hand inviting it to come closer. “Don’t be scared,” she whispered. The rabbit seemed to consider it for a moment but stayed in place.
“Helvia!” her mother called from somewhere behind her, frustration showing in her voice. Helvia jumped up at the sound and the rabbit darted off. “No, wait!” she cried, trying to run after the rabbit before tripping on a root and falling into a small patch of mud. Her mother called her name again, this time closer and more furious. Helvia spun around and met the woman’s eyes, her face burning up with guilt. “I told you not to run off like that!” her mother scolded, “and now you’re all filthy!” she despaired. Helvia hung her head in shame. “Sorry,” she mumbled. Her mother pursed her lips and looked down at her daughter with discontent, but soon her face mellowed. “Helvia, when will you stop acting like a child?” she asked, her voice now softer and disappointed in them both. Helvia’s heart grew heavy in her chest as she peered up at her mother who now was looking over the lake, her grey eyes distant. “I’m sorry, Mom, I won’t do it again,” she tried, but her mother’s face remained unchanged.
Helvia’s mother squeezed her eyes shut and knit her brows tightly, composing herself before turning to her daughter again and putting on a light smile that
didn’t match her sullen eyes. “It’s alright,” she whispered, offering her hand to her daughter, who happily took it.
Her mother was silent as they walked off, only adding to Helvia’s discomfort. She searched her mother’s face for a sign that could put her at ease but couldn’t find a drop of any feeling, any hint of emotion from her mother. “Are you sad, Mom?” she croaked, her heart racing with newfound anxiety. Her mother quickly assured her that she was only tired, but Helvia was still worried. She recalled times when her mother would use the same excuse, but later Helvia would find her mother hiding tears.
Helvia gazed down at her mother's hand intertwined with her own. Her mother's fingers were long and thin, colored with a light green polish. Helvia imagined her mother's fingers morphing into little snakes wrapping around her hand until her blood stopped running and her skin turned purple. Helvia then observed her own fingers. They were stubby, more like little slugs than snakes. Her nails were short and chewed up with no pretty polish like her mother’s. How ugly, she thought. She slipped her hand out of her mother's grip and shoved it in her pocket, hiding it away.
With her baby hands out of the way, she felt a little bit better, a little bit lighter, and a little bit more adult. She strode confidently next to her mother, holding her chin high until the wind blew her hood off and her hair began flapping around wildly. She desperately tried to pull the hair out of her eyes and spit out the strands that were matted against her lips, but it was useless. She began to slow down as she fussed with her hair, causing her mother to become annoyed. “Helvia” her mother snapped, “there’s no reason to throw a fit.” She pulled Helvia closer to tie her hair back. Helvia’s hair was knotted and fluffy and took lots of painful tugging to get untangled and straight. Helvia grimaced, wishing her hair wasn’t so difficult to keep. “You need to learn how to brush your hair,” her mother groaned, finally finishing her task. Helvia nodded her head silently, pulling up her hood once more, shielding her head from the wind, or perhaps from the eyes of others.
If only I were older, my hair would be neat and pretty too, she thought, feeling the back of her neck begin to burn. She pulled herself further into her coat, curling herself up, her eyes glued to her feet as they walked along the concrete path concealed by snow and slush. Faintly, Helvia could hear the sounds of children playing and laughing and shouting from the playground. Her mother smiled down at her and asked if she wanted to join the other kids.
Helvia rushed forward excitedly, stopping dead in her tracks at the gates of the big playground. She hesitated for a moment, taking in the sights, suddenly feeling unsure of herself. She felt her palms begin to itch, her face burned, and her body wouldn’t move forward. She looked back at her mother, who was now distracted by her phone, and clenched her jaw.
It felt belittling to go play with all the children younger than her. She took a step back, removing herself from the jaws of the playground, and thought what to do next.
She wanted to tell her mother to take her home, that she was too old now to play on the playground, but that didn’t feel right either. She found herself in a state of confusion everything she wanted: to cry, to be a child, to just collapse because thinking was too hard she also looked at with disdain. She wanted to be above her childish nature and longed for a life in which she was mature, independent, and perfect a life in which she could please her mother, rather than just dreaming of it.
She heard the bushes rustle beside her and turned to see the same small rabbit from before jump out from the thicket towards her. It sat up to stare at her with its large, glossy eyes and twitched its tiny nose in her direction. Helvia this time did not try to approach it, only waited for it to hop away again. I won’t chase after you, rabbit. Helvia whispered, a sour look on her face.
The rabbit moved closer and closer as Helvia pretended not to care, until it was at her feet, shuffling around to get her attention. The rabbit became more and more furious with its movements the longer Helvia ignored it and finally, it was too much.
“What do you want?” Helvia snapped, crouching down to glare at the rabbit. Of course, the rabbit didn’t care if Helvia yelled at it, so it only stared back at her innocently and then began to wander off, stopping a few feet away, pacing around, as if beckoning her to follow. Helvia scowled but still walked after it.
When she caught up, the rabbit would run forward again, then wait and run forward again, leading Helvia to a trail she had never seen before, hidden behind a cluster of thin birches. The trail wound around patches of bramble and was heavily overgrown by weeds. Occasionally, Helvia would stumble across something peculiar, like a brilliant flower blooming from a lump of coal. Helvia explored the trail with fascination, noting all the bizarre things it contained but too mystified to question the impossibility of it all.
The trail began to thin, and up ahead Helvia could see a large field packed with snow and little rabbit burrows. In the center was a gaping well with a little wooden roof and a bell on a string that chimed sweetly. The rabbit stopped before a little mouse-sized hole in the side of the well and began to sniff at it. Helvia peeked inside the hole and saw a silver coin glowing amongst the shadows of its hiding place. Helvia was able to extract it and look closer.
On one side the coin was imprinted with an image of a rabbit, much like the one that had led her here, and on the other, a picture of a woman who looked almost like her mother. Helvia held it safely in her cupped palm as she began to circle the well, with the rabbit scampering after her. After a few loops, she leaned over the cold stonewall of the well and peered into the shallow water. At the bottom of the well there were coins, toys, and gems.
“Oh! A wishing well!” Helvia exclaimed. She bit her lip and held the coin above the rim of the well, eyeing the silvery object thoughtfully.
The rabbit leapt up in what Helvia interpreted as an act of encouragement, so she squeezed her eyes shut, made a hasty wish, and tossed the coin into the water. It landed with a silent splash and twinkled as it sank to the bottom.
She had wished for beautiful hands like her mother’s, with long fingers and pretty polish. She excitedly lifted her hands to examine them and gasped as her new hands floated before her face.
She paused for a moment, staring at the well again, then rummaged through her pockets for something more to throw in. Her pockets were both empty except for a tiny toy car, with gold details stretching across its doors. This car was Helvia’s favorite toy.
She ran her fingers through her unruly hair and sighed. Certainly, her wish was more important than a kid’s toy car, right? The world fell silent, as if every creature and every tree and every cloud were frozen, waiting and watching her make her decision. Helvia could feel her hands shaking as she lifted the toy over the mouth of the well.
“I wish... for my hair to be beautiful,” Helvia proclaimed, holding her breath as she dropped the car. She felt a lump forming in her throat as it reached the bottom, joining the rest of the treasure, where it would be abandoned.
But her regrets were soon forgotten as she ran her fingers through her hair and found it soft and silky. She twirled it between her fingers and giggled with pleasure. Her imagination was getting away from her as she thought of her next wish, but Helvia had nothing left to give the well. She stared playfully into the well’s water, down at the coins, trinkets, and gems, and had a most terrible idea.
In a swift movement, Helvia knelt, snatched the rabbit by the ears, and threw it over the edge of the well as it kicked and cried. The rabbit tried to scramble back up but it couldn't pull itself out and began thrashing in the water. It desperately swam in circles, trying to stay afloat, but the strain on its body began to wear it down.
Helvia watched, horror written across her face, but didn’t move to save the rabbit, although she most easily could have. Although the sight was unsettling, Helvia also felt amused as she watched it struggle. Her stomach churned with disgust, yet she couldn’t take her eyes off the panicked rabbit. Soon, the rabbit slowed down, and began bobbing on the water’s surface. It wouldn’t sink.
Helvia gagged. The rabbit was paralyzed, its eyes glossed over and its mouth agape. The rabbit looked as if it was in agonizing pain even in death, its last moments of fear forever frozen in place. Helvia gripped the edge of the well tightly to steady herself as nausea crashed over her, overwhelmed by the reality of what she had just done. She looked down at her reflection to discover it was not her staring back but a strange woman she had never seen before. The woman had the same eyes and the same hair, but she just didn’t look right. She was not the same girl Helvia knew herself to be. She was older and uglier.
Helvia stumbled back, hands flying up to feel her face. To her horror, she discovered that every one of her features was out of place, alien to her. Her actions had changed her. The reflection she had seen was hers.
She ran off frantically, speeding down the same trail that had led her to the well. It was now darker, colder, and less magical than she had first imagined it— dysphoric in a way that made Helvia shiver. She felt dread seeping to her core, running faster and faster as her skin itched with the awareness of something watching her. She threw herself between the tall birch trees, flying free from the wretched trail, and stopped to catch her breath in a nearby clearing, the cold stinging her throat as she took in lungfuls of air.
Helvia heard the sound of hurried footsteps crashing against the snow, getting closer and closer. Helvia whipped herself around to face the source of the noise. Helvia’s mother stood before her, worry etched into her face.
“Thank God! Helvia, where have you been? I was so worried!”
Her mother shouted. Helvia stared at her blankly; she didn’t know what to say. She hugged herself tightly, trying to recover from the shock of what she had seen in the woods, and to hide what she had become.
Her mother’s brows furrowed, and her eyes scanned Helvia with uncertainty. “Why weren’t you at the playground?” She questioned. Helvia looked shamefully at her feet.
“I’m too old,” she choked.
Her mother seemed speechless at first, stunned by Helvia’s words, then her eyes grew soft, and a prideful grin stretched across her face. She wrapped her arms around Helvia and held her close, but Helvia couldn’t feel her warmth. Helvia was too cold, too empty. As her mother joyfully squeezed her, she blinked away tears, wishing to claw away the skin on her body that didn’t feel like hers anymore.
She felt out of place, as if she didn’t know who she was anymore. As though something crucial had been taken away from her in those woods, or perhaps she had given it away. An innocence that she could never get back and would hardly remember, and a secret that she would die with, and never tell a soul.
“I’m so proud of you, my big girl,” her mother whispered in her ear, but Helvia felt no joy in her mother’s affection now. Instead, she only stressed about the horrors that awaited her, what terrible things she may do in the future that she would have to hold onto forever. Helvia wondered if she would ever feel her mother’s reassurance again or if her mother, too, would be repulsed. She was overcome, and wondered if being an adult meant suffering forever on one’s own, or if our age was but the sum of our sins, and our bodies wrinkle beneath the burden of it all.
Vika Dwyer
