Like, Literarily! - Issue 1

Issue 1 | February 2015

Like, Literarily!

CNG

Issue 1 | February 2015

Like,

Literarily!

The Bilingual, Student-run Literary Journal of CNG

Poetry Editor: Fiction Editors:

Sarita Khoudari Camila Silva Sergio Lozano Granados Art Editor: Juliana Cuellar

Like, Literarily!

Marketing Coordinators:

Luciana Cataldo Kelly Alejandra De Los Santos

Cover Art: Design and Layout:

Gabriela Franco Zamira Paez Cure

Poetry Editorial Committee: Luciana Cataldo

Sofia Cortes Juliana Cuellar Zohar Ziff Fiction Editorial Committee: Maria Camila Artunduaga Luciana Cataldo Nicolรกs Cruz Alfonso Cuellar

Max de la Espriella Kelly Beverly Habegger Alejandro Vargas Zohar Ziff Faculty Advisors: Alice Pettway Ernesto Carriazo Zamira Paez Cure Andrey Porras Special thanks to:

The CNG Publications Department To Principal Shaysann Kaun

Printed in: Bogotรก, Colombia 2015

By Panamericana Formas e Impresos S.A.

Table of Contents Poetry Oh, How They Seduce Macbeth Inside the Bramble Tomb by Zoe Ziff ….…

6

Lost in a Mindless Voyage by Camila Silva ………………………………....….

7

Tides of Truth by Adelaida Lopez …………………………………………….…

8

Fiction Just Like Humans by Gabriela Franco ………………………..……….………..

10

Enfermedad by Felipe Romero ………………………………………....………. 14 A Breathless Leap by Juanita Cure ……………………………….…...………..

15

Altus by Mateo C. Hunt …………………………………..……………..……….

22

La Canción Inesperada by Silvana Junguito ………………………….……….. 33 Broken by Gabriela Franco ……………………………………………..……….. 36 La Cruz by Abraham Roitman ………………………………………...…..…….. 39 Oxytocin by Manuel Croitoru ……………………………………………...……. 41 Un Soldado Caído by Juliana Montana………………………………...………. 49 Walls of the Brain by Rachel Spence ………………………………….………... 53 Untitled by Alfonso Cuellar ……………………………………………...…..….. 61 Lost in Ice by Alejandro Vargas …………………………………………...…….. 67

Dear Reader,

These are the first and last words you will read from the faculty sponsors of CNG’s new literary journal.

In this issue of Like, Literarily, and in all the many issues to come, you will read the work of talented young fiction writers and poets. You will read poems and stories that were chosen and edited by Like, Literarily’s student editors. This journal is in its entirety an authentic representation of the high school voices and editorial aesthetic at CNG.

We know you’ll find yourself as impressed as we are by the words within these pages.

—The Like, Literarily Faculty Sponsors

POETRY

Poesía

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Oh, How They Seduce Macbeth Inside the Bramble Tomb

Zoe Ziff

The murder of Duncan, the shrunken king, Is prophesized to be by the hand of Macbeth.

The usurper’s rivals scorned, Macbeth’s mind, controlled by demons, is destroyed.

Ambition flourishes from inside his soul.

Mercilessness takes power as witches draw savagery from within.

All sentiment gone, Macbeth is numb.

Cue river of blood.

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Lost in a Mindless Voyage

Camila Silva

Can we be truly lonely in the world?

Is it possible there is nothing more than just a tiny pale white dot unfurled in the vastness of universe’s door.

We float in a mindless bubble of air drifting, lost, and oblivious tonight and wonder if there’s anything out there that’s hiding in a darkness full of fright.

Why should we worry about little things, if in reality they don’t seem much and can’t be measured to what really brings trouble and madness with just a light touch.

Yet, if we don’t stop a moment to care then this will be a life full of despair.

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Tides of Truth

Adelaida LĂłpez

Acknowledging the realities Of the world, The malice of some and the indignity of a few, Survival of the weak seems to be an Arduous task.

The mind becomes captive of the Chaotic truth.

Reality becomes unbearable, As only a few will survive.

Others will be washed away by the Tides of truth.

Only a small portion of reverence remains intact, As humanity is touched by the constant fear Of negligence in one’s thoughts.

The strongest will survive.

While others will be washed away by the Tides of truth.

9

FICTION

Ficciรณn

10

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Just Like Humans

Gabriella Franco

It’s really just the wind. The wind is making me sad. It rolled in slowly through my window, and like a wave hitting shore, rippled through my papers. I felt the cold breeze front through and chill the hairs on my bare arms, icing my back with an uncomfortable tingling. The hinges on the windows voiced a throaty response to being opened. The faded curtains uttered a flutter. A wisp of hair was blown off my face.

The second gust was stronger.

Resulting in the flat, dry, raspy sound of papers flying. No matter. They were all torn. Once, works of art, now...

Trash.

The only sketch that remained untouched rested in front of me. I clamped it down while the whirlwind of pieces rampaged through my desk. I did not know what to do with it. For days now, I would caress it, fold it, put it away, crumble it up, and wake up in the middle of the night to blindly find it and with desperate fingers smooth it out again.

The unfinished had always rendered me uneasy, anxious.

Once again I had found my way back to the desk, placed it in front of me, pencil sharpened and in hand. I had been staring at her for hours, frustrated, because she was perfect, there was nothing to finish. Nothing to add, to perfect or to erase. The hair was flawlessly shaded in seven seasons of light, every curve on her face proportional, and shadowed the right amount in the right places so that it seemed at a quick glance that she was real and outside the paper.

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It was perfect, yet a feeling in my gut told me she was unfinished.

I raised the pencil, uncertain, and let my hand hover over the center of the paper. Why did it matter anyway? I was going to get rid of it eventually, like the others. Why did I care if it was unfinished? My hand trembled suddenly and let go of my utensil as if it was burning. Repulsed at my own cowardice I lashed at the pencil cup at the end of my desk and sent it crashing to the ground. The nerve I had. Get it over with.

Never again would I try to draw her, but there she was staring right at me and I didn’t have the heart to burn this one. She was just too pretty.

Sight.

There is a fly tainting the edge of my week-old coffee cup. The brown sepia stain wallows at the bottom of it. It looks melancholic. I stroke the sketch in front of me with the back of my hand. I look, and she looks back.

The curtains dance a little by the open window. It smells like Tuesday, ashes, and old fire. The remains of all my sketches litter the floor. Scorched, torn, burned, pieces of paper whose penciled content is too broken to see.

That was what I wanted, was it not? No reminders. I was at ease now with all of them.

Yet there she still was, the only one left.

I placed my hand lightly on her face and painfully found my way to the edge of the paper. It was worn out all around, the edges had lost their sharpness; they curled up like lifted skin.

12

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What was I to do with her? She wasn’t like all the others. Suddenly it dawned on me: the defect in her complexion. The mistake. The unthinkable. She was not like all the others. She was not human. The others were imperfect, asymmetrical, defectuous. I had burned them to pieces because humans always see the flaws, never satisfied with themselves, they destroy their image.

My creation, my beautiful creation, was missing the appeal of a human. What a pretty creature.

One I could never love, one nobody could ever love, not even herself. It is flaws that have that tinge of appeal. It is flaws that make us different.

And just like that, she was no longer a beauty. The fact that she was utterly finished, made me despise her.

Why had I been so blind during all those years? Locked up in an apartment, sketching incessantly, aiming for perfection, hating the unfinished, longing to accomplish a perfect human.

Now it was clear to me, I had it all wrong. A perfect human is a foolish contradiction.

I left the beautiful paper staring at me, but when I glanced at it, I thought it might as well be blank. I no longer cared for it. What I longed for were my destroyed sketches. How I regretted burning them, with their flaws, their beautiful flaws.

I wish I could have known back then, I wish I could have appreciated every freckle, every dimple, every thick nose and every small eye.

Leaning down, I gently pushed with my fingers the remains of the imperfect pieces that littered the floor.

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Flaw-full.

Unfinished works of art, destroyed, but with every flaw a possibility; beautiful in every detail that was or was not there. Incomplete, and yet still striving, and more beautiful than anything that was complete.

Just like humans.

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Enfermedad

Felipe Romero

La tarde era calurosa; la oficina, igual que siempre: Trabajo por montones después del almuerzo. Las ganas de dormir eran abundantes, y por eso mismo fue que Vicente sintió unas ganas irrefrenables de ir a tomar un café.

Se levantó de su silla, directo hacia la máquina de espresso. Se lo sirvió, tomó un primer sorbo y ahí fue cuando ocurrió algo muy extraño. El sabor del café era amargo y fuerte. Supo cómo a una medicina específica: La de su esposa exactamente… “¿Puedes ir a la droguería por un dolex?” decía la esposa. “Me siento mareada.” De inmediato, Vicente fue rápidamente en busca de la droga…

Volvía de regreso a su oficina cuando se topó con la enfermera de la oficina.

“Señor Vicente, lo veo pálido, se siente bien?” preguntó la enfermera. Por alguna extraña razón, la respuesta de Vicente fue un contundente “no” a pesar de sentirse bien. “Sígame y lo llevo a la enfermería” dijo la enfermera. Vicente ingresó a la enfermería y le entró ese ahogante olor a hospital… “Doctor, qué es, o qué le pasa a mi esposa?” preguntaba Vicente. “Señor, honestamente no sabe. Pero le aseguro que estamos buscando una rápida solución.” La espera estaba eterna, pero más que todo existía una enorme angustia…

“Ya puede sentirse mejor Señor Vicente” le informaba la enfermera. “El efecto de la droga le hará efecto en un momento.” Vicente volvió a su escritorio y, sentado, se encontró con su reloj. La hora marcaba las 3:25 de la tarde… “¡Vicente Fernández! Lo solicita el doctor urgentemente.” Con un salto sorpresivo y rápido, Vicente se acercó al doctor. “Le tengo que informar la triste noticia que su esposa ha fallecido a las 3:25.”

15

A Breathless Leap

Juanita Cure

A painful, rasping cough escapes from my mouth, forming weak little breath clouds before me. The cold of the September night numbs my senses. The cool wind bites at my face and ruffles my hair as I gaze out into the beautiful city before me. Perfect architecture, the low hum of music coming from the streets, laughing children in one of the bushy, green city parks. In the distance, I can see the green fields and orange forests of the agricultural and ecological sectors of Jaboski. However, the beautiful landscape does little to take my thoughts off the approaching Test, capital “T” intended. I turned eighteen a few days ago, which means I am attending this year’s Teenage Choosing Ceremony, coming up next week. For me, this will basically mark the end of life as I’ve known it. If I turn out to be a misfit, I’m out.

Jaboski, simply put, is a paradise. Everyone is well-intended, skilled, and the society lives in perfect harmony. You go to school for a few years, decide what you’re into, and at age eighteen you select your desired Interest and work there with others like you. The way I, along with all the other citizens of Jaboski, are taught since childhood that Jaboski is a safe haven from the evils of the Outside.

Although it’s not exactly off-limits, few of us have ever stepped outside the security of the Jaboskian border, marked by huge massive cement walls. All I know for sure is that life in the Outside is miserable and hard, a struggle for survival against wicked creatures, especially evil men, out there.

The secret to this heavenly harmony? You get rid of the damaged ones. That’s why the Test is done–if you show any signs of having dark intentions or an unstable personality, you’re simply kicked out. Get rid of the outcasts, and you have an exclusively well-behaved and cooperative society. Even the best of us stress about it: one wrong move, one suspicious action–and you’re done.

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It’s kind of selfish for me to worry so much about the Test. After all, my days on Jaboski are limited anyway. I was diagnosed with a severe form of emphysema a few years ago, which is pretty unfortunate because of how rare this disease is. Textbooks say it used to be and most probably is still very common Outside, because of some strange habit called smoking, which is nonexistent in Jaboski. All I know about it is that it shrinks the surface area of my lungs and keeps me from breathing fresh air properly. Unluckily for me, I seem to have developed it because of some internal condition (far too complex and boring for me to describe), and although my family tries to ignore it, we all know my lungs could collapse at any second now. It was strange at first, to think of myself as a walking corpse. However, you’d be surprised at how quickly you get used to the idea. My parents have made me go to a bunch of different doctors of the Medical Interest, all pretty ineffective but kindly promising their most devoted research to the investigation of my disease. It sounds pessimistic (as unusual as that may be in Jaboski), but I’m not sure they’ll come up with a cure on time. I wish the diagnostic of my emphysema would have inspired me to live what little days I have left to the fullest. If anything, my diagnosis has only made me feel hopeless.

For next week’s ceremony, every teenager is supposed to choose an Interest to specialize in and dedicate to, but I haven’t even looked into any of the possibilities. While many obsess and stress over finding the perfect Interest, I am actually afraid to find one I like. The way I see it, it would only make dying harder. Aside from the ceremony, there’s also the Test. With it, people are examined psychologically to ensure they are mentally fit to remain in Jaboski. I’m most nervous about the Test, because recently I don’t think I’m the happy and positive ideal citizen of Jaboski. The more I turn it over in my mind, the more my stomach knots itself within me. *** 17

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” the interviewer asks. She has a nice, warm smile, and she pretends to ignore both my cough and my nervousness.

“Evan Kincaid,” I answer. I manage to suppress most of my coughing, for now.

That’s a pretty nasty cold you’ve caught there, Evan! So, why don’t we get down to business? I’ll just be asking you a few easy questions and taking a few notes.

You just relax and answer to the best of your ability, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Alright! Have you ever gotten into a fight with anyone, Evan?”

“No.” “I see. How would you describe your relationship with your family?”

“Good. We’re pretty close.”

She asks me more questions of a similar nature. I respond in mostly one-word answers and occasional, rasping coughing fits.

“So, Evan. I actually see here in your file that you’ve been diagnosed with an unusually progressive case of emphysema. Could you tell me a little bit more about how that makes you feel?”

I hesitate for a moment.

“I guess I’m fine. It’s not like I can do anything about it. It’s tiring, but at least I won’t have to put up with it much longer”.

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I mentally slap myself. Talk about being positive and enthusiastic.

“You’re definitely a brave and strong boy. I’m sure the Medical Interest will cure your condition soon enough, Evan, so cheer up! On that note, we’re done for today. Have a lovely day, and I’ll see you at tomorrow’s ceremony!”

I give the lady my best smile and shakily walk out of the testing room. I try to convince myself that I did a good job, that my last answer was just a minor slip.

Deep in my gut, however, I am not so sure. *** Boys and girls my age are being called in alphabetical order to the set-up stage in the center of the city. Beautiful soundtracks are playing in the background, and there are posters, banners, and all kinds of lights hanging from every building and light post. The cool night breeze blows gently and makes the colored leaves swirl around us. So far, all teenagers have been granted acceptance into Jaboski, and all have declared their selected Interest and have been welcomed into their new homes. I nervously fidget in place as I wait for my name to be called, when suddenly, nervous murmuring around me causes me to snap back into reality and turn my attention towards a commotion on the stage.

A kid named Charles Irvin is fighting against the two men holding his arms and pulling him away from the crowd. The ceremony director looks at him sympathetically for a moment, but soon continues calling out names, as if nothing had happened. Irvin is forced into a large van with tinted windows. It is then that I wish I had been paying attention. I didn’t really ever know Irvin at a personal level, but the guy seemed pretty normal to me. Then again, all wicked people may seem nicer than they are. His eyes desperately search the crowd of remain19

ing teenagers, seeking understanding. Although I can’t tear my eyes off of him, his eyes—fortunately—never meet mine. He’s not even fully inside when my last name is called.

“Kincaid.”

I cough a few times and feel out of breath both from the emphysema and the nervousness as I approach the stage. For a terrifying, long moment, I can’t figure out the man’s expression. However, he soon breaks into a smile and unexpectedly says: “Congratulations, son. You are now a fully official citizen of Jaboski. The time has come for you to declare your selected Interest.”

I am taken by surprise. I don’t feel anything—not relief, not joy. I hesitate for a long time before I mindlessly say I’ve selected the Architectural Interest. I stumble over to its leaders and receive congratulations and strong, breath-taking pats in the back. The rest of the ceremony passes by in a blur, and I find myself simply staring at the dark, large van heading towards the borders of the city as everyone else begins to celebrate.

I slip away from the crowd and pathetically follow the van to the edge of Jaboski by foot. A ridiculous thing to do when you’re constantly short of breath, but fortunately it wasn’t a very long distance, and I was soon standing before an enormous, blank concrete wall. To the side, a metal door, surrounded with strong, wire fencing marked one of the exits. I watch as the two guards are drag a struggling Irvin towards the enclosed area. I silently slip into the fenced area through a surprisingly unguarded, alternative entrance to get a better view. As my nosy self tries to understand what is happening to Irvin, the guards successfully shove him into the fenced 20

Like, Literarily! area and slam the fence’s door shut. To my alarm, another set of guards close off the gate through which I entered, and the vaulted door to the Outside opens. I start to panic, as I realize that I’m trapped. Strangely enough, I also get a feeling of curiosity towards the dark opening, through which a cool, eerie breeze is flowing. At first, Irvin refuses to leave the fenced area. However, soon enough, he figures there isn’t any way he can get back in Jaboski, and he fearfully approaches the exit. He looks down as he stands by the opening, looks back, notices me, frowns, and then proceeds to step into the Outside. He vanishes. For a few seconds, I’m immobile and don’t know what to do. Then, in a moment of simple recklessness, I dart towards the opening and jump outside of Jaboski’s boundary wall into the night air, with the sound of surprised and startled guards in the background.

It all happens so quickly. I don’t even have time to reconsider my impulsive behavior before I find myself racing down a slide-like ramp towards the cold, rocky surface below. As I land on the hard flooring at the base of the slide like a pancake, the slide is pulled back into Jaboski’s immense concrete wall. I sit shivering and coughing by myself in the night, staring up at my former home. What had I done? Fear started to take over me, but before I could panic, a voice called out from the dark, “What are you doing, you idiot? Did you seriously just jump out of the freaking wall after me? Are you crazy?”

I turn to find Irvin staring at me in utter disbelief. I cough violently for a minute or two, and then simply nod back at him in a breathless response. At first, he seems confused, then angry, and then he sighs.

“You are one strange, messed up guy, Kincaid.”

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I shrug. He helps me to my feet, and we both look around us at the mysteriousness of the Outside. I feel excitement as my eyes scan the unknown: a bright, full moon shining upon a dark, silent forest ahead. Irvin and I stand side-by-side for a while in complete silence. I glance back at the outer shell of the perfect, harmonious society of Jaboski one last time. My mind flashes memories of that joyous and well-known home: the busy city center, the peaceful, green fields, and the kindly happy people. Then, I turn to the dark forest ahead and give Charles Irvin a reassuring nod.

“Let’s go.”

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Altus

Mateo C. Hunt Beyond the clouds, Beyond the moon; Up high is where I lie— My escape.

Dazed, but I can feel ever so subtly. The warmth of the sun hitting my skin, the breeze rustling through my hair. Sounds are muffled; sight too, but I can see more than anyone else. The picture in my head is hazy, I can see faint swaths of green, blue, and orange. I think it might be a sunset over the lake, outside the wall somewhere.

The wall. I cringe at the sound of those two words. The two words that are supposed to make us feel safe and protected. Imprisonment is all I get from those two words. Then again, I get a lot of things most people don’t.

Take me with you when you go, don’t leave me out here on my own.

Take me with when you go, far away, say goodbye to this place that we call “home.”

My mother died when I was young, too young. It was a family picnic trip, ruined, by the blaring sound of rifle fire and the death of my mother. I wish it had been me. Why wasn’t it me?

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I lost her due to gunshot wounds delivered by the Dome Patrol, a special military unit consisting of only white male troops guarding the city districts’ borders to the wall. My mother was looking out, from the inside of the hundred foot glass wall, when she got a little too close.

She was from the outside, brought into this society for her piercing intelligence, most especially in the area of Nano and Biotechnology, and genetics. She showed me the outside, not in real life of course; she brought in what she called ‘photographs,’ a moment captured in a small frame. She showed me pictures of landscapes, people from the outside, even other cities. She didn’t like it in here.

It drove her mad. So mad in fact that when I was about sixteen, we moved from the central district to the northern, scientific research district, which was set close to the wall.

My mother was the head of a research team trying to enhance the perfection of our society by using genetic engineering—which sounded like something straight out of an Aldous Huxley novel. But she didn’t believe in it. I don’t believe in it. Yet here I am, in her shoes.

Falling from a great height, Faster than a streak of light So lightly do I fall back down Into my cage of no delight.

“Damn it. Monday,” I exhale with a deep sigh. I roll over onto my side and take a look at the clock. 5:58AM. I’m late again. It’s like this every Monday, every week, every month, every year.

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I’ve been in my mother’s place at the lab for four years. I’m working under Dr. Panagiotopoulos, the same professor’s supervision. He was one of the founders of the Trinity Research Centre my lab is stationed in. Ironic name, I know.

The phone rang.

“Who the hell calls this early in the morning?” I muttered in an irritated tone. I shuffled over to the phone trying to pull up my pants from my ankles while trying to clip my bra with one hand. I grasped the phone firmly, grinding my teeth. ”What?” I snarled.

“Harris, my dear!” It was Dr. Panagiotopoulos, always calling me by my mother’s maiden name, just like everyone else does.

“Professor! Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to call. I’m running a bit late, I’m just heading out the door,” I lied. I barely had my pants up to my thighs.

“Well hurry up, my dear! Something is happening to your test subjects.” He sounded anxious and excited at the same time.

“On my way, Professor,” I replied curtly and then hung up.

I squeezed the rest of my legs and bum into my tight skinny jeans, clipped my bra, put my hair in a bun, and threw on the closest hoodie there was to me. Just a hoodie. I grabbed my faded blue hoodie, the one I had since high school. It’s still big on me like it was back then, still warm as ever. I don’t really care about public appearance. Hell, I’d go to work with no pants, right out of bed. But I can’t, I already look out of place.

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I don’t understand how people can be this happy. Day after day, I see the same faces walking by, staring back at me with giant grins, expanding from ear to ear.

These people have no clue that they themselves are incarcerated. Of course I can’t speak of this to anyone, I have to keep it behind my mask. The mask that makes me look like I’ve put fish hooks in the corners of my mouth every morning.

I arrive at the centre, walk in through the transparent, nearly invisible, revolving doors, and take the elevator up to the twelfth floor. The moment I step foot in the lab, Dr. Panagiotopoulos approaches me wide-eyed. “Harris, come quick, the test subject is responding,” there was a tremble in his voice. I walked toward the testing area where we kept the test subjects, an isolated separate room in which researchers can control the oxygen level, room brightness, temperature, and air pressure.

I had a gut feeling that something was wrong. My team was crowded around one of the pods containing one the subjects. I threw on my lab coat and rushed towards the pod. It was shaking violently, swaying back and forth. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another scientist, Dr. Young, the oldest on my team, putting on latex gloves.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked with a slight scowl.

“I’m going to contain it,” he replied looking back at me with his deep greenish-brown eyes. ”No, you’re not!” I grabbed him by the wrist and looked up at him.

“What if it’s working?” I whisper.

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“What if it doesn’t? This is a pending biohazard,” he said, pointing at the shaking pod.

“You’re right. Go warn the centre and evacuate the floor,” I demanded.

I rushed over to the storage room and grabbed a facial respirator and pulled down the ‘in-case-of-emergency’ lever. People weren’t moving fast enough.

They were looking at each other with confusion, wondering what the hell was going on. I pressured everyone on the floor to leave what they were doing because of the potential biohazard. I ran back to the testing room to check on the pods to see if any others were shaking as well. As I walked into the room, the air-lock doors shut behind me, trapping me inside.

I’m not the kind of person to panic. I sat up against the cold air-locked steel door, an intense shiver ran down my spine. I waited, underneath the flashing red light on the ceiling, staring at the rocking pod containing one of our research test subjects. The swaying motion was mesmerizing. Every totter left the egg shaped pod balancing precariously on the circular stand, giving the illusion that it was about to plummet. I couldn’t help it, I dozed off.

I awoke as the strong white fluorescent lights turned back on. I could feel my corneas burning and my eyes watering. As I rubbed my eyes, I noticed something peculiar. The pod wasn’t moving any more: it was on the edge of the stand, balancing. I wondered how long it had been in that position. There was an unfathomable beauty to it. But that beauty quickly vanished as the pod took a plummet. I cringed, my toes curled, and my fists clenched. The beige egg hit the ground, shattering into a multitude of fragments. Its viscous contents spread across the lab floor, exposing one lone fetus. It was seizing. It was alien-like. Its head was throbbing arhythmically and the pulsating increased exponentially until its cranium couldn’t withstand the force, and it ruptured sending bits of gray 27

matter flying. Chunks landed on my lab coat. I gagged in disgust and the longer I stared, the fiercer the urge to hurl was. I could barely keep myself together.

The air-locked door opened with a rush of wind blowing into the room, leaving no support for my back. I fell backwards and slammed my head against the hard linoleum floor. I saw three, maybe five personnel in hazmat suits above me.

“Is this her?” asked one.

“Yes, this is her,” responded the other. Their voices were distorted, like blown out speakers.

“Get her to the decontamination chamber A-S-A-P,” demanded the other, his voice closely resembled that of Dr. Young’s.

They grabbed me by the limbs and carried me across the hall to the decontamination chamber. Once in the chamber, they stripped me and threw my clothes into the toxic waste bin. They shoved me to the opposite side of the chamber and hosed me down with force. The spray was piercing like thousands of tiny needles puncturing my skin. Once they took me out they escorted me to the infirmary to get my vitals checked. I was in shock. My pupils were dilated, my heart was racing, and my skin was burning. I needed rest.

8:27 PM. I woke up in the infirmary. I got up off the bed and made my way back to the lab. I was halfway there when I realized I had no clothes on. I ran with my arms covering my chest and crotch back up to the decontamination chamber where my clothes had been thrown out. I scavenged through the bin, luckily they were the only things in it.

Once fully dressed, I sighed, “And it’s only Monday.”

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I walked back to my office. I sat and thought.

“I need to escape,” I said to myself.

I turned to the table behind my desk and unveiled the set of tubes, flasks, and bunsen burners. It was my little secret, my escape. My survival depended on this little secret, if anyone were to know, living wouldn’t be an option anymore.

When my mother first came in, she brought things she thought she would never be able to have once she was in--one of which was a dark green, grass-like narcotic. She never told me what exactly it was at the time, but I do remember receiving about a quarter pound of it for my sixteenth birthday. As I grew more intelligent, I learned how to extract the molecules that made up the narcotic.

One of these molecules, THC, in particular, was essential to my escape. The molecule containes psychoactive properties which increases brain activity and causes the user to be stimulated in psychedelic ways. My mother called the action being ‘high.’ I called it Altus. However, this wouldn’t be enough. Not for today at least. I needed something stronger than my own batch of condensed THC. I had recently read about a new study investigating a molecule that was naturally produced in the human brain. Scientists were calling it DMT. It was a strong hallucinogenic compound that dramatically affected human consciousness. The only problem was I didn’t have any, and asking for it wasn’t going to work.

“Dammit! Can this day get any worse?!” I fumed, stomping my feet. My hair fell from its bun and swung down directly above the bunsen burner. The putrid smell of the burnt hair wafted throughout my office.

29

“I guess I spoke too soon,” I said as I sat on my chair.

Thoughts were coming but none could fulfill the current task at hand: finding DMT. Unless- unless I could extract the compound from the grey matter released by the fetus when its head ruptured.

I quickly stood up and ran back the to the testing room. The mess was still there.

It looked as if the pod’s residue had fermented over the past few hours, leaving a greenish yellow hue. I grabbed a petri dish and proceeded to place brain fragments inside. I ran back to my office excited, and began to extract the DMT. 10:13 PM. The process lasted nearly two hours, but I finally had it: the ‘spirit molecule’. My body was trembling with excitement. I quickly ran the DMT through a condensing process.

“Altus Supernos,” I whispered.

I poured the narcotic into a test tube and proceeded to put it into a syringe.

There was no one in the centre. I was alone. I took advantage of the situation and walked over to one of the countless marble tables. I kicked my shoes off and crawled onto the cold table. I could see the thermal heat my hand was emitting.

The cold ran up my hand and arms, making my entire body chilled.

Now came the moment of truth. I laid down facing the ceiling. The bright fluorescent light made my eyes water again, but I didn’t care. I took my hair tie, put it around my wrist, and ran it up above my forearm. I slapped my wrist. My veins swelled. I could feel my heartbeat in my wrist.

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Beyond the clouds, Beyond the moon; Up high is where I lie— My escape.

“Sis? Sis!” I woke to the feeling of being shoved around. I turned my head and saw him.

“Sammy!?” I yelled in disbelief. My brother, he’d come back.

“Happy to see me?” He asked with a smug smile. I couldn’t resist, I swung my arm as hard I could and hit him, right in the kisser. I knocked his glasses off his face.

“Jesus Christ! What the hell, sis!?” he said, bending over trying to find his glasses. “What was that for?”

“For leaving me. What did you expect, a hug and a kiss?” I responded.

He stood up with a pause, “Yeah.”

I slapped him again, not too hard this time.

“Why did you came back?” I asked.

Sam put one hand on his shoulder and moved beside me, “You,” he said.

“Huh?” I exclaimed with complete and utter confusion.

“I came back for you,” he explained.

31

As I was about to ask another question, Sam cut me off and put his finger on my lips.

“No ‘buts’. I’m getting you out of here, tonight,” he said. “I have a ride waiting for us outside. Let’s go,” he said pulling me with him.

I followed him outside in front of the centre. There was no ‘ride’.

“Sis, I need you to do exactly as I say, okay?” he asked. He made me feel like a child.

“Okay,” I responded.

“Okay. Follow me,” he whispered.

I nodded and we began to walk down the road. The streets were empty. Desolate. None of the street lamps were on. We walked and walked, then we stopped.

We arrived at a park that was right next to the wall. It was the same park where my family and I had our last picnic. The same old dark wooden picnic tables. The same apple tree. The same view from the wall.

“There they are,” my brother whispered pointing to a large metallic door.

I didn’t really hear him. I wandered toward the wall. This was where my mother was shot. I could see the bullet holes. They still had a faint stain of her blood. I raised a finger to feel the bullet hole. As I put my finger against the glass wall I heard my brother yell, “LILY!” I felt a massive shiver run down my spine. I looked down. I’d been shot. My favorite blue hoodie slowly turned red as I started to bleed out. I dropped to my

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Like, Literarily! knees. I looked up at the sky. I could see the stars, lots of them. My vision started fading to black. I knew this was the end. “Finally. My escape,� I whispered with my last breath.

Falling from a great height, Faster than a streak of light, So lightly do I fall back down Into my cage of no delight.

33

La Canción Inesperada

Silvana Junguito

María Noguera es una mujer de veintidós años. Ella es pelimona y muy inteligente. La gente dice que su sonrisa es perfecta aunque casi nunca la ven. María llega a Australia después de completar sus estudios en la Universidad “Julliard” de Nueva York, una de las mejores en el mundo. Está muy emocionada de volver al país donde vivió su infancia. Dos minutos después del aterrizaje , María va a donde su familia para contarle sobre los últimos cuatro años de su vida.

Después se dirige al espacio más impactante y especial: la playa. Para ella, esa playa no es una cualquiera. María decide ponerse un vestido suelto color blanco y una corona de flores encima de su cabeza. Cuando finalmente llega, se para en la punta de una piedra gigante compuesta de muchas piedras chiquitas. María siente el viento empujando su pelo hacia la izquierda con mucha fuerza y, al instante, se acuerda de ella misma cantando cuando chiquita ( lo cual ha sido su pasión desde siempre). María se siente feliz disfrutando cada minuto, mientras que su voz parece ser iluminada por el sol, dándole el “spotlight”. Después los delfines se unen y saltan en círculos junto al ritmo de la canción.

El viento se calma, María sonríe y piensa “Buenos tiempos”. Luego se sienta lentamente y apoya sus manos atrás de sus hombros en la orilla de la piedra, suspira y se concentra en los sonidos del mar. Justo ahí oye un golpe de olas y se encuentra con un recuerdo de hace muchos años. Un día estaba admirando el azul del océano y, de repente pasó una canoa que se estrellaba con las fuertes olas del mar, haciendo un fuerte sonido. María había decidido observar al conductor un rato y mientras lo veía, le gritó al mar imaginándose a una audiencia.

“Hola yo soy Lucas y esta siguiente canción es para ustedes”. Apenas María oyó eso, se le puso la piel de gallina. Lucas empezó a cantar y María se enamoró de 34

Like, Literarily! él por tener la voz de un ángel y desde ese momento ha querido cantar junto a él. Toda su vida ha dependido de sí lo va a encontrar o no. María no ha parado de pensar en él y eso ha sido el misterio de su vida.

Ella siempre miraba el lado negativo de esa situación, diciéndole a Claudia y Ricardo (sus papás) que jamás lo encontraría en este continente tan grande , aunque no sea el más grande de todos. Mientras, los papás tratan de consolarla.

María no quiere nada más en el mundo. Ya después de estar acordándose de él y negando lograr encontrarlo, oye el canto de unas aves, se distrae y eso le recuerda que está en el presente. Después María siente ganas de llorar por Lucas, aceptando que la realidad es que va a morir sin haberlo visto.

Ya después de un largo tiempo, con lágrimas en sus cachetes, siente que el sol comienza a bajar y entonces se calma. Al minuto, cuando aumenta el frío, María suspira y empieza a imaginar el atardecer más lindo que ha visto en su vida, hace por ahí unos seis años, con los pájaros volando, el sol de color naranja, y las nubes alrededor con tonos de rosado y amarillo. El mar está suave y con un azul divino mientras que el sol añade un efecto impresionante, creando una bella combinación.

Ya cuando el sol baja por completo, María sonríe y se siente completamente inspirada con la imagen de la atardecer para cantar su canción favorita: “You Belong With Me” de Taylor Swift. Cuando llega al verso “Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find what you’re looking for...”, oye que una voz se le une y aunque al principio se encuentra un poco confundida, María sigue cantando. Unos segundos después se da cuenta de que está haciendo un dueto con alguien. Ese alguien se va acercando a ella cada vez más y de repente le coge la mano. Justo después de eso se vuelve a encontrar con la conexión del recuerdo de Lucas e inmediatamente se da cuenta de que está cantando con 35

él en ese mismo instante. ¡ES LUCAS! Luego siente una emoción que no puede describir con palabras. Está feliz, enamorada, ansiosa, y no lo puede creer.

Apenas se acaba la canción, Lucas le pregunta si ella es María y ella le responde diciendo: “Sí, ¿como sabes?” “Te he buscado toda mi vida y mucha gente me ha dicho que tienes una voz espectacular” dice él.

“Yo también, y a mí me encanta tu voz” María responde.

Después de tener esa conversación, comparten historias y sentimientos mientras están sentados al lado en la noche bajo millones de estrellas en el cielo. Ya cuando es la Media Noche, Lucas ayuda a María a levantarse, pone su brazo derecho sosteniendo su espalda y le guía el camino lentamente.

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Broken

Gabriela Franco I remember three things about that September the 24th.

1. The phone ringing.

I was alone, sprawled on the couch, lazily scrolling through a news feed, just “teenagering” like every other Friday afternoon. The air was heavy with dullness and I had been sitting still for such a long time that my arms were starting to tingle.

An obnoxious sound broke through the silence from across the room.

I observed the situation lazily. I was comfortable, but my limbs were asleep. I flinched with the thought of having to move. It probably wasn’t important anyway so I sighed and ignored the ringing until it wore out, sinking back into my hazy boredom cloud.

2. The phone ringing for the second time.

Slightly annoyed I strolled through the living room, “Hello?”

And that’s all I remember. I wish I could say that the voice on the other end was cool, but painfully rehearsed. I wish I could say I knew something was wrong as soon as I picked up the phone. Well, I can’t. Those things I can only imagine to fill in the blanks.

I suppose that’s what our brain does; I read about it in a book once. When we suffer a traumatic experience, the moments leading up to it and the actual thing 37

is replaced by white flashes. Cleaning out details to stop us from going crazy.

They probably asked for my mother first, on the phone.

Then the woman caught my name. A perturbed “oh” from the other line made my heart clamber up my throat.

I was told, with empty words, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I was told she was dead.

The phone slipped from my hands. My senses dimmed, everything around me seemed to lose its sound, its presence. I was falling through an empty space.

Her, with her sweet words.

The way that she laughed, even just for a second.

Her, with her pure polite heart that had failed to do its job.

Her. She. Was gone.

I was on the floor. A frozen body with the ghost of the, “Wait, she what?” still plastered on my lips. I refused to believe it, it couldn’t be. My best friend, the only person who had been with me all my life. I knew she had been sick, but it couldn’t be because she had a fever, just a stupid fever. She couldn’t be dead.

My hands began trembling and I buried my head in my knees, my skin suddenly cold.

There was a distant sound, the phone ringing again. I heard it as if from the other side of a white veil. I knew it was that nurse calling again because I had cut her off in the middle of her report.

I didn’t pick up.

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Suddenly I screamed with the full power of my lungs, taking pleasure in the ripping pain that surged from my throat. Tears of anger and frustration bathed my face as I screamed and threw the phone against the wall. I didnt want to answer and hear all of it; how her body had failed, how her heart had stopped. When I had let all the rage out, I sank to the ground in silence, feeling my heart hurt. I stayed there on the floor until the afternoon turned dark and let my body bleed out of tears.

The last thing I remember that day is my mom running in and wrapping her arms around me.

“Mom?” I croaked. “I...”

3. “I think I’m broken.”

39

La Cruz

Abraham Roitman Salomón, ya aburrido de haber vivido sus últimos días en el hospital, empieza a recordar los momentos más importantes de su vida. Sabiendo que pronto morirá, recuerda otro momento en su vida cuando pudo haber muerto.

Salomón estira su mano y alcanza la cruz dorada que está recostada sobre su mesa de noche. La empieza a mirar detalladamente y se encuentra dentro de sus recuerdos más antiguos. Recuerda el momento en que su mamá lo lleva a la casa de su vecino. Sabiendo que no tiene mucho tiempo, le ruega a Klaus, el vecino, que cuide a su hijo. Klaus ágilmente se quita el collar dorado que tiene puesto y se lo pone a Salomón.

Poco tiempo después, entran los soldados Nazis y se llevan a Sarah, la mamá de Salomón, a gritos y patadas. Salomón entiende que tiene que aguantar las ganas de llorar para que no se lo lleven a él también.

A Salomón se le sale una lágrima que cae en su bata de hospital. Recita un rezo en hebreo por su mamá y al instante vuelve al pasado, recordando el tiempo que duró sin decir ni una palabra en hebreo.

Todas las mañanas se despertaba, se lavaba los dientes, se vestía y, finalmente, se ponía la cruz para ir al colegio. En el colegio aprendía matemáticas, escritura, y religión. Volvía a casa donde estaba Klaus esperándolo. Duró casi 7 años con la misma rutina, hasta que finalmente se fue de la casa de Klaus para poder trabajar. Lo que le pareció interesante fue que nunca perdió su identidad judía, aunque vivía como un católico.

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Todavía acariciando la cruz entre sus manos, Salomón recita una oración católica que todavía recuerda, en memoria de Klaus. Las lágrimas caen más rápido que antes. Cierra los ojos para poder descansar un rato y se encuentra reviviendo la experiencia del funeral de Klaus. Eran pocos. Como Klaus vivía solo, apenas había cinco personas paradas en la lluvia mientras enterraban el ataúd.

Salomón se agita por los recuerdos tristes y el monitor del corazón empieza a pitar. Los pitos suben en volumen e intensidad, hasta que finalmente, paran por completo. La enfermera entra y encuentra a Salomón muerto con la cruz entre los dedos. Finalmente ha encontrado la paz.

41

Oxytocin

Manuel Croitoru The Scientist was a man of analytical thinking and straight words. He studied thermodynamics, gravity, and every branch of physics. Newton’s Laws were his daily philosophy and Einstein was his iconic idol of worship. Laureate of three Nobel prizes on sub-atomic particles, chemical discoveries, and on his three-volume treatise on human psychology, the Scientist lived a humble and rather lonely life. He had numerous admirers in the scientific community, for certain, and he was world-renowned.

He had traveled to the Himalayas to carry out an anthropological investigation of the people of Nepal and their ancestral history; he had also studied the volcanoes and mountains of Hawaii and knew the layers of the Earth by heart. He was very influential as well in the field of astronomy and was a grand aid to NASA. There was not one branch of science that the Scientist did not deeply know of, or wasn’t conspicuous in. He had several scientist friends and even students; he developed good relationships with them. Nevertheless, he remained very distant from his family and when the dreaded question of the “girlfriend” came up, he dismissed the notion as a physical waste of energy and time that could be devoted to knowledge, and that it was just an evolutionary trap. He was truly happy rearranging the universe’s endless puzzles; an office he did preferably on his own.

The Scientist was invited to a physics convention in Switzerland, about Hadron Colliders and dark matter and all other topics pertinent to the subject. The Scientist, standing among the distinguished mob, caught a glimpse of an old colleague from one of the countless universities to which he’d been, with whom he had been good friends. They greeted and followed the social code outright. The friend congratulated the Scientist on his numerous achievements, and the Scientist thanked 42

Like, Literarily! him and recited the essential “Oh please”. Their lips, constantly accelerating in different vectorial quantities, delightedly portrayed to one another interminable theories and hypotheses of physics, and spent what an average human would call a “good time”, although it was really they who passed through time.

After they’d left the convention and it had turned dark, the Scientist’s undistinguished colleague uttered in a resigned tone, “This conference was amazing, but I feel… something like a black hole in my life.”

“Perhaps it’s the lack of use of the metric system in England,” chuckled the Scientist, with a bit of anger toward ‘those barbarians!’

“I need to go now. My flight will depart soon but… no… I mean,” he stuttered and paused for what seemed as long as an hour in Neptune. Finally he took a deep breath, “I do despise those monsters that refuse to change their ways, but it’s not that… It’s more profound, you know?” In a long time nobody had ever asked him if ‘he knew’.

“Deeper you say? Then it must be the lack of use of the metric system in the core of the earth, perhaps?” The Scientist and his friend both laughed, but the latter chuckled half-heartedly. As the sun was setting in the Alps of Berne, the ozone layer slowly burning away, leading to the Sixth Great Extinction, the Scientist noticed that his pal was very pensive all the time, but not science-thought. No. He looked rather absorbed than intrigued. Absorbed in what? The great Scientist repeated this question to himself several times, but he just could not figure it out.

“Listen, I need to go now. What I meant is that I feel emptiness. Yes, an emotional emptiness, that’s it. Maybe that I am a bit lonely, that I need to spend more time with someone… someone close to me I mean,” his friend then said his goodbye and ran to catch a taxi for his flight to London.

43

The Scientist could not stop thinking about what his friend had said. “An emotional emptiness… it’s deeper than that… a bit lonely… time with someone close to me…” The Scientist just could not decipher what he meant. Perhaps he was ill and needed someone to take care of him? Did he miss his parents?

The Scientist decided he needed some fresh air and went to the park to take a walk, to reflect on yet another abysmal mystery the universe kept from him.

He kept analyzing the friend’s statements from all points of view: philosophical, anthropological, psychological, but he couldn’t find a close approach. Why had he looked so depressed, so blue, whereas what the scientist remembers about his existence in university, his friend was rather more jovial and awed by the marvels of the natural world? So deeply was he mangled in thoughts, that he did not notice that he was about to cross a street without waiting for the stoplight.

He tripped with the curb and a car almost smashed him if it hadn’t been for a resultant force that pulled him upright. The Scientist did not know what had happened; he was scared. Not of the fall, but ironically, of the strange being that had hoisted him upward. Had gravity stopped functioning? Was it an extraterrestrial being? Was he being abducted because of his intelligence? All these senseless questions passed through his mind, and then the Scientist fainted.

When he partially regained consciousness, he found himself lying against a tree and a woman sitting right beside him, serenely staring at him.

“Finally you wake up!” she said. “I have no idea how you even slept for so long… I think it’s been almost half an hour since I’ve been waiting for you.” The woman smiled at him for a few seconds, as he regained his composure and tried to understand what was going on.

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“What… what happened? Am I dead? Am I hallucinating?” The woman laughed at the jumpy interrogations but figured out that the Scientist was entirely serious with them.

“No silly, you are not dead, and if you were hallucinating, you might just try to pinch yourself and wake up.” The woman kept smiling and the Scientist picked up her odd accent; maybe she was British or Australian. He glared inquisitively at her, demanding the previously requested explanation. “I was on my way back from work, when I suddenly saw a man pass right in front of me and keep blindly walking into the intersection; you fell down and bumped your head and your left knee, and a car almost ran you over! Had I not lifted you up, you would be purée. It’s been already forty minutes that I have been waiting for you to wake up.”

“Wow, I-I, I thank you,” he could hardly speak, “but why did you wait so long for me?” The Scientist was blushing and the lady noticed it immediately; that made her blood rise to her face in a relatively short amount of time, too.

“Well, one does not simply save somebody’s life on the street and not get to meet them. Don’t you reason with me, Mister Scientist?” Reason. That was a word he liked.

“Of course I do!” he awkwardly agreed as he blankly watched her caramel face, caramel like the colour of sugar when it is burned to produce a chemical reaction that releases carbon… His heart suddenly skipped a beat when he realized she actually knew his name! “Excuse me, how do you know of my profession?”

“Ah! Uhmm… Well I, hmpff, your ID from the laboratory fell off when you tripped, and… you know, my name is Jane.” She was blushing even more now than she 45

had been before. “You know, it’s getting late, and maybe we should get going home… You want me to take you?” She blushed even more and looked away.

“One does not simply get saved by a random person in the park and not invite them to drink coffee, or chocolate! Do you reason with me, Jane?” The Scientist caught a stifled smile on her face. She giggled. He felt the imminent cliché he was somehow enjoying; it made him feel nauseous, but a happy nauseous.

“I don’t have much else to do at home, and I guess that this is the proper routine for life-saving, so yes, I would love to.” They stared at each other underneath the tree’s brown leaves for a long while, when the Scientist abruptly stood up, almost falling down again in the process.

“Don’t fall again! I don’t want to have to save your life twice!” More nausea.

On the way to the café, the Scientist told Jane all about his splendid job, and Jane informed him that she was a TV reporter.

“So wait, you are saying that you were actually awarded three Nobel prizes in just the area of pharmaceuticals?” asked Jane in astonishment.

“I also worked for NASA,” he said smugly, but with a hint of pain.

“Well, you’ve left this woman speechless. The pinnacle of my career was when I was assigned a special report on the Genocide in Darfur. Other than that, it’s all stupid weekend news and celebrity life.”

The lonely couple in the café chatted obliviously for hours in that cold autumn day. The Scientist was left dumbfounded by this common woman, merely by 46

Like, Literarily! hearing her stories of the hectic quotidian life of a news anchor. The only exterior things he noticed were the condensation of the vapor molecules outside the restaurant’s wide windows and the slow decline of people transiting the streets.

“I apologize, sir, ma’am,” said the waitress, “but we are about to close.”

“Oh no! I live on the other side of town, and it’s already 9:30! Could you lend me your phone so that I can call me a cab? I have to work tomorrow.” Jane hastily reached her hand to the Scientist’s shirt pocket, but he gently grabbed her hand.

He murmured, “I can drive you home; I live right across the block.” Jane noticed his palm was cold, very cold.

The walk took only seven minutes and fifty-three seconds, yet it seemed to them like an eternity; an eternity they didn’t want to end. When they reached the Scientist’s splendid, eco-mansion he had designed, patented, and sold to an architecture film for millions of dollars, they stood in silence for what felt like an even longer eternity, with Jane tensely clutching to his icy hand.

“Come on inside; I’ll get the car keys,” mumbled the Scientist. Jane quickly nodded.

They entered through the gigantic threshold that greeted them with a gust of warm air. The Scientist guided the shorter-than-average woman across the endless, narrow hallways lit by fluorescent white bulbs that appropriately gave the house a particularly sterile atmosphere. They reached his vast room, filled with microscopes, telescopes, pictures, awards, computers, and in the far corner by the window, a little, lonesome bed.

“Sit right here,” the Scientist pointed at the bed, “I’ll be back with the keys.”

Jane stood.

47

When the Scientist returned, he found Jane tucked into the blankets, breathing heavily. He lay down beside her, and she jumped, mumbling, “I should be going now… I have to work tomorrow.”

The Scientist held her tightly. He felt something in her right pocket fall off: a green ribbon. The man rushed and gently placed it on one of the microscopes.

He hung her coat on a chair and rushed back to bed. The Scientist lay thinking but he couldn’t think of anything. Their mouths awkwardly touched once. It never stopped drizzling. *** “Well, that’s all for today, Tom,” proudly said the man that was staring at the considerably obsolete monitor’s digits, rather pleasurably. “You undertook the testing quite well; your oxytocin levels were… abnormally high for the investigation.”

“Thanks, Dr. Apfelsaft.” Tom looked exhausted, but managed a vague smile.

“Volunteering for your laboratory certainly was a satisfying experience,” he declared complacently.

“No problem, Tom. Oh, and I forgot to tell you: the sedatives in your body will keep you drowsy for a while, I apologize about that, but you’ll feel superb in less than three hours if you keep yourself hydrated and rested. I’ll tell you about the results in October.”

“I will do my best to walk slowly, and drink plenty of water. Thanks again Doctor.” Tom left the test room as he sauntered homeward, trying simultaneously not to fall and to remember what he’d dreamt of during the testing session that had released so much oxytocin.

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When Tom arrived to his compact apartment on the second floor of a decrepit, post-war building, he noticed how much work had gathered up after a day of idleness. Before he set off to examine the yeast specimens, he found a solitary green ribbon sitting upon an outdated microscope’s glass. He frowned for a while, pushed it aside, and got back to work.

49

Un soldado caído

Juliana Montaña

Bruno es un joven escritor buscando publicar su primer libro para poder ser reconocido. Un día estaba yendo a la clínica a visitar a su abuela Gretel, quien acababa de sobrevivir un infarto. Cuando estaba en el bus, se le vino a la mente que podía entrevistar a su abuela ya que ella había estado en el Holocausto.

Al llegar, vio a su abuela en cama.

“Hola abuela, ¿cómo estás?”

En vez de responderle, sólo lo miró a los ojos y le dio una cálida sonrisa. “¿Te podría preguntar sobre 1939?” preguntó. “¿Qué quieres saber?” contestó la abuela.

“Me gustaría escribir tu historia,” abuela.

En ese momento, Gretel vio una foto de un vagón de tren e inmediatamente la llevó al siete de septiembre, de 1939, hace setenta y cinco años.

“Ahí empezó todo. Lo recuerdo muy bien; fue la tarde más fría del año. Yo estaba devolviéndome del colegio con mi hermana Rosa, cuando llegó una tropa de soldados alemanes que nos empezaron a pegar con unos palos y nos montaron a un camión con otros estudiantes de nuestro colegio.”

“Cuando vi mis rodillas, noté que mis medias habían sido rasgadas con el 50

Like, Literarily! pavimento fuerte, escondido por la nieve. Tenía frío pero mi mayor preocupación era mantener a Rosa caliente. Después de un viaje de media hora, llegamos a un lugar en donde parecía que estuvieran montando a la gente en vagones, como si fueran ganado. En esa situación no sabía de qué preocuparme más, si de mis padres, de Rosa, o de mí.”

“Debió haber sido horrible abuela.” Bruno lo podía ver por su cara. “¿Qué pasó después?”

“Cuando nos montaron a ese tren, el viaje me pareció eterno. La gente moría de hambre, de agotamiento o asfixiados. Duramos dos días en el tren cuando finalmente llegamos. ¿A dónde? No podía saber, nunca había visto algo igual.

Sólo sabía que habíamos llegado. Al llegar nos pusieron a hacer una fila y un soldado nos preguntaba nuestra edad; contesté que tenía diecinueve años y me mandaron hacia la izquierda, pero yo no entendía por qué. Al llegar al turno de Rosa volvieron a preguntar su edad y al responder diecisiete, fue dirigida hacia la derecha, dirección contraria a la mía. Vino uno de los soldados por ella y al llevársela, vi en la distancia cómo le pegaron hasta dejarla sin vida. ¿Qué clase de pesadilla era esta?”

Al oír, Bruno no podía evitar sentirse mal. Él sabía que este era un tema muy difícil para su abuela, pero él también sabía que ella estaba dispuesta a ayudarlo.

--Abuela, si esto es muy difícil para ti, no tienes que…-- Antes de terminar de hablar, los dos se voltearon al oír a un señor alemán gritarle a su asistente. Esto inmediatamente hizo que Gretel continuará su historia.

“Perder a mi hermana fue de las cosas más duras que me han pasado en la vida, pero después de unos meses en los campos de concentración de Auschwitz, ver 51

gente morir se volvió parte de mi día a día. Nos gritaban, nos pegaban y, generalmente, podían hacer lo que quisieran con nosotros, porque si nos tratábamos de defender, nos podían quemar.” “¿Como pudiste sobrevivir a esta tragedia sola?” pregunto Bruno.

“A eso llegaba. Después de unos dos meses, un soldado llamado Franz fue traído de otro campo de concentración. Franz era un soldado importante que sólo recibía órdenes del general Max, un señor grande con mirada fría. Yo no sabía cómo iba a sobrevivir todo esto y tampoco podía haber sabido lo que iba a pasar.”

“Una noche estaba con más hambre que lo normal. Ya me había tomado mi sopa pero no había comido en mucho tiempo. Al ver esto, Franz se acercó a mí y me dio más pan. Al principio, no sabía si aceptarlo porque se veía muy bueno para ser verdad. Finalmente, el hambre me ganó y al ver sus cálidos ojos cafés me sentí segura recibiéndolo.”

“Franz me seguía dando más pan y al hacerlo me mantenía viva. Con el paso del tiempo nos fuimos enamorando. Era un amor prohibido, secreto, peligroso, pero inevitable. Franz estaba cansado de ver cómo me pegaban al frente de él, entonces, un día vino a mí con la loca idea de escaparnos.” “¿Abuela cómo así que escaparse? ¿No los podían matar?” preguntó Bruno.

“Claro que nos podían matar, pero los dos sabíamos los riesgos y estábamos dispuestos a hacerlo. En ese momento, muy poca gente lograba escapar con vida, no era nada fácil.” “¿Qué pasó después abuela?”

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Gretel cerró los ojos y Bruno vio cómo le rodaba una gota por el cachete. Simultáneamente sonó un disparo en la película que estaban dando en el cuarto y eso la hizo continuar.

“Lo que pasó después nunca lo pudimos haber evitado. La noche que nos estábamos escapando justo antes de lograr la libertad, oí un disparo. Yo estaba bien, pero cuando me volteé, vi que fue Max quien había disparado y que le había dado en la cabeza a Franz. No sabía qué hacer, si quedarme a su lado para que me mataran, o irme. Terminé haciendo lo que dijimos que haríamos. Salí corriendo, corrí como nunca había corrido hasta toparme con una granja donde pasé la noche.”

“Tres meses después de que logré salir de ese infierno, me enteré que estaba embarazada. Tuve el hijo de Franz y vivimos juntos, aún después de que se acabara la guerra. Como mi único recuerdo de él, lo amé pero por desgracia se murió antes de cumplir los veinticinco años, dejándote conmigo.”

Ahora era Bruno el que no podía evitar que se le salieran las lágrimas, pero por fin, ya había terminado su libro. Tres semanas después, Gretel se murió de vieja edad, dejando a Bruno solo con una nota diciendo: “Ahora es tu turno de crear tu propia historia.”

53

Walls of the Brain

Rachel Spence

They all say your life doesn’t start until you stand there. You are tested, and given a task depending on your personality and strengths. My mom described the process to me as normal, but a bit intimidating. “You always wonder if you will be given a job you don’t like,” my mom explained to me at the dinner table one night. “But in the end, the O Beata reads you perfectly, and you are happy.”

You are happy.

People use that as a logical reason, as if they took two plus two and the answer was happy. Obviously. I guess I understand why it’s such a common phrase. Anyone who doesn’t smile is avoided. A myth about sadness is that it’s contagious, meaning ignoring them is the only logical thing to do. Acknowledge them from a distance. It sounds rude, but if your friend had a terrible flu, you would try your best to keep your distance because we all know that the flu is contagious. Sadness was just as bad as the flu. But it was also considered weird.

Anyway, that’s the kind of drama that happens in a high school, for girls at least.

I was hoping that college wouldn’t be so…. judgmental. Unfortunately, it’s the exact same as high school. So many freshmen and sophomores are grumpy and sad. I hate feeling unhappy. They say it’s the worst disease possible for kids. For adults, it’s very simple: they are never unhappy! Adults say they become so full of joy and energy when they take their test in junior year of college. Many adults have said it’s the best experience they have ever had. To be full of joy all the time, to never feel down or left out. It must be a great feeling.

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The test is known as the “O Beata” which is Latin for “forever happy”. The O Beata is what everyone looks forward to, especially me. I am the last of three children to go through the O Beata, so I have heard too much about it. Every time my sister or brother describe it, I get more and more excited to the point where I started counting down the days to November 27th of my junior year.

Today is November 26th, my final day of possible sadness.

My best friend, Ruthie, and I met at the front of our college at 7:45 A.M. sharp.

We had promised each other two years before that we would go into the O Beata together, or at least one right after the other.

“I can’t believe it,” Ruthie kept repeating. “We are doing this! Today is the day.”

“I can hardly believe it either,” I replied. “I thought this day would never come!”

“We will be happy,” Ruthie said breathlessly.

“I know,” I said.

We both took a deep breath, and walked together into the room of the O Beata.

It was amazing. The only thing you could see was a wide door, with neon lights all around it. Ruthie and I had to squint to see the instructor in the front of all of the students waiting in line.

“Alright then,” the instructor began in a very high pitched and perky voice. “I believe we will begin! The O Beata is the simplest device in the world. One at a time, each of you will step into it for about 10 seconds and then step out to find your new self!”

Ruthie and I turned to each other, each with enthralled looks on our faces.

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“Now then,” the instructor began, “I am going to do this by alphabetical order.

Jim Abeth!”

And so it began, the long wait for our names to be called. Ruthie’s last name was Tyler and mine was Tyme, so it worked out perfectly.

“Ruthie Tyler!”

Ruthie turned to me. She began to panic. “You’ll do fine. Go be happy,” I said with a smile.

She smiled back at me. “See you on the other side!”

She walked past the doors. The doors shut. Ten seconds later, “Abby Tyme!”

My mind began to go faster than my body. My brain was trying to get to the door, imagining myself walking through it to feel all types of new, while my body would not move. A boy behind me shoved me a little and I came back to the present.

I took a deep breath and began to walk. Here I go, I thought. I, Abby Tyme, am going to walk through the O Beata to be happy. I walked through the doors.

The machine stopped. It shut down. A loud siren began to sound. I heard yelps and screams. What’s going on? I wondered. The instructor opened the doors I had walked through and I could see everyone behind her panicking, rushing for the exit.

“What have you done?” she asked.

“I didn’t do anything!” I was beginning to panic myself.

“You did something,” the instructor replied. “Your brain broke the machine.”

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Run. Nobody can help you.

You are on your own.

They will catch you.

Run. Nobody can help you.

You are on your own.

They will catch you.

Run. It was as if a tape was playing in my head. It was a specific kind of self-confidence. Nothing else in the world mattered. Nothing else would matter if I did not stop; if I did not stop running. *** “What do you mean my brain broke the machine?! That is absolutely impossible.” I was assuming that the lady had done something wrong and needed someone to blame.

“Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened,” the woman replied.

She grabbed my wrist and yanked me out of the O Beata. She rushed me out of the room and down the hall. The sirens were still sounding and most of the building had evacuated. The lady took me to the end of the hall and pushed me into an elevator. The walls were windows and the door looked as if it was made of gold.

“Twenty-seventh floor,” the lady announced clearly once the doors closed. A light turned green next to the number 27 on the side of the elevator and we flew up. It was then when I began to panic. What is going to happen? What did I do wrong?

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The lady noticed that I was about to scream from fear, so she grabbed one of my wrists since she was still holding on to the other one.

“Listen to me girl,” she said aggressively, “you need to calm down. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s your brain. It isn’t your fault. Nothing bad will happen to you. Relax.” It was as if she had given this talk to several people before and was tired of seeing the same reaction.

“Where am I going?” I asked.

“You’ll see. Stop asking questions,” replied the woman.

I was in shock. I didn’t know what was happening, and the lady didn’t seem to know what empathy was.

Once we reached the 27th floor, a man in a dark suit came up to the two of us.

He was probably one of the biggest men I had ever seen. He was about 6 ft. 7in.

His bulging arms intimidated me, as well as his bald head. He wore black pants, black shoes, and a black t-shirt that was neatly tucked into his pants which were held up by a black, leather belt. His eyes were covered with dark sunglasses, and he looked as if he had never smiled in his life.

“Is this the girl?” he asked the woman. His voice was very scruffy and low.

“Yes, hurry up and take her. I have to check on the O Beata.”

“Yes ma’am,” replied the man. He took me by the arm, rather hard, and almost dragged me to a room to the left. Inside, a woman sat behind a desk, reading a book called How to Rid Your House of Pests. She looked up at me from behind her round glasses.

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“Well, well,” she whispered. “I was really hoping this incident would not take place again. But no worries, we are a city of helping, improving, and fixing,” she added with a smile.

The woman looked at my face and saw that I could not be more confused. “Oh my dear, let me explain what has happened to you,” she said with a small laugh.

“You see,” she began, “you have something called Thilmatris, which is a disease that used to be rare, but is somehow reaching more and more of our community.”

I could tell that she was very stressed about that subject.

“Nonetheless, it is when your brain has developed some kind of wall against the machine which is unhealthy for you and, as you experienced earlier, is damaging to the machine. The O Beata is unable to read what job would best suit you and it tries too hard to hit the ‘wall’. It fails each time so it ends up broken. Fortunately, we have found a cure to destroy this wall,” the woman’s eyes lit up when she gave me this information. “All you have to do is go to Dr. Razc and tell him I sent you.” She handed me a small business card. “Here is his information. I will tell him to expect a visitor at around 9 A.M. tomorrow. How does that sound?” the woman asked.

I was silent the whole time. “I guess I can do that,” I replied, not knowing if that was the correct answer or not.

“Excellent!” the woman proclaimed. “Now that we have that all settled, you may go back to your home for the rest of the day. After your visit to Dr. Razc tomorrow, you may come straight here to take the test again. Everything should be perfect by then.”

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I nodded my head. The big man came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. I understood the message and began to walk to the door when the woman asked me the one question in the whole conversation.

“What is your name again my dear?”

I turned to her. “Abby,” I replied. “Abby Tyme.”

The woman smiled. “It was nice to meet you Abby Tyme. Have a nice day.”

The way she answered gave me chills down my back. I walked faster to the door and then to the elevator. As the doors closed, I saw the big man in black staring at me from the woman’s office. Thankfully, I never saw either of them again.

That woman did not have my trust, and I assumed that this Dr.Razc wouldn’t either if he was with this crazy woman. I thought about what I wanted to do as I walked home. Should I go to the appointment? What exactly is wrong with my brain? How did that ‘wall’ get there? Too many questions were spinning in my head, but not too many for me not to notice something strange: I felt as if I was being followed.

I began to look around. I had walked this way for years from school to my house and I had seen the same people almost everyday. That day, I saw two black cars I had never seen before and I counted four men who seemed to be behind me every time I turned around. Am I being watched? I counted two more men I had never seen before. The cars would not go any other direction. If I turned right, so did they. If I stopped to buy food, the car would stop. It was the same for the men.

I saw them everywhere. I began to walk faster until that walk turned into a run. I ran to my house and saw the cars’ speed pick up a bit in the corner of my eye.

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As soon as I got to my house, I slammed our front door shut, then I ran up to the third floor to my room and slammed that door. Next, I shut all of the curtains and locked the door. I began to pace the room, wondering what I should do. I had no idea what was going on, which was something I was terrible at. I needed to know everything: the why, what, how, when, where… everything. I began to narrow down my choices. I knew I couldn’t trust that weird woman or her Dr. Razc, but I thought that maybe I could ask Ruthie for help. No, I thought. She would never help me duck the government, especially after taking the test. I paced some more. My parents worked for the government so that was an immediate no. I paced some more until I realized I didn’t know very many people. I wasn’t social. So what was I going to do?

I looked out my window. One of the black cars was parked outside of my house.

I felt like all the breath was just sucked out of my lungs. I was so scared. What is going on? I felt like I couldn’t trust a single soul; I wanted someone else to deal with this for me. I didn’t know what to do in a situation like this. I began to think what would happen if one of the men following me were to come inside my house. Would they take me away? Would they trash my house and then take me away? What would they do to me if I didn’t go to the appointment tomorrow? I realized that I was in more danger than I had expected. I need to run, I thought.

I need to run and never look back. If I run far away enough, they will never find me again. Ever.

Run. Nobody can help you.

You are on your own.

They will catch you.

Run.

61

Untitled

Alfonso Cuellar I looked out the window and all I could see were mountains. It had been a few hours since we’d left San Francisco--or what was left of it, in any case--and there were no signs of the catastrophes that we had lived through in the last twenty-four hours. Guess that’s what happens when you ride one of those high-speed trains.

“Jacob, come over,” I heard Tristan say from the next wagon. “You need to see this. NOW.” I made my way over through the boxes of supplies that we had “borrowed” from the Target in downtown San Francisco. From necessities like food and medicine to luxuries like a brand new PlayStation 4 and some thousand dollar shoes, it was all here. We had essentially ransacked the whole store, taking anything and everything that we could find a use for.

“Alright, what’s the problem?” I asked as I finally made it across.

“Look.” His finger was pointing towards what seemed like an empty seat. But then, I saw him. A young boy, surely no older than six, peaked his head from behind the seat. When he saw me looking at him, he immediately hid again.

I decided to approach him slowly. “Hey there,” I said as I got closer and closer to him. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.” I saw him look out again and slowly move away from his hiding place. He had blond hair on a snow pale head, as well as a blue Power Rangers t-shirt that was covered in dust. I squatted down to look him in the face and smiled. After a few seconds the boy smiled back, relief all over his face. “What’s your name?”

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“Christopher” “Well Christopher, my name is Jacob. You and I are going to be great friends, okay?” I offered him a high-five which he energetically took. I led Christopher to the seat where I had left my personal stuff, and after no more than ten minutes he was asleep.

“Quite a surprise, eh?” It was Tristan again, leaning against one of the walls.

“Well, it’s a pleasant one at that,” I responded. Of course having an extra mouth to feed (and one that wouldn’t be of much help collecting food in the wilderness) would make the supplies that we had gathered last less. But thinking back to the events of the previous day, to all the kids who were no more, made having found a survivor worth risking our long-term survival for. “But don’t worry man, I’ll take care of him myself.”

The train eventually stopped after eight hours, and off came the five survivors of the San Francisco disaster. We started taking everything we had obtained as we fled the city out and into the open grass where the train’s gas had run out.

Tristan was taking care of the bigger boxes, his dreadlocks moving behind him.

Maggie, a thirty-something year-old blonde woman, was telling him where to move everything. “The food goes there. NO, NOT ON THE HILL! On the smoother grass! Jeez!”

Then there was my life-long best friend, Jennifer. We had met back in elementary school when we were both in detention at the same time. I had “accidentally” stuck a piece of gum on a girl’s hair, and she had punched a boy straight in the nose. As destiny had it, that same day one of the teachers had an emergency meeting with the principal, Mr. Stevens. As we waited outside his office to be 63

reprimanded, we began to talk and talk. Since then we were essentially inseparable. Then, when all hell broke loose, she was with me as we made the decision to escape while we could. Her long black hair was in a ponytail, and she was looking through the boxes to find anything that could be used to make a shelter.

As it happens, Tristan had grabbed three tents from the Target, so she set out to build them. And then there was Christopher. After his nap, he had woken up and had found a stuffed animal, a lion, with which to play with and he was doing just that on the grass.

We were an odd gang, no doubt, but we would have to make it work. None of us (except for me and Jennifer) had known each other prior to the destruction of our city, and now we had to trust each other completely.

A few days passed by, and we were starting to create some sort of order. At least, we were decreasing the chaos, knowing that things would never go back to they way they were. Maggie had taken advantage of her experience as a manager at a bank in San Francisco, telling us all what to do. As far as I was concerned, that was fine, because I would have had no idea where to begin. Thankfully, she thought of the necessaries (food, water, shelter) first as we built the tents and made sure the water, among other drinks, and food were well protected and close to our makeshift tents.

Carrying things from this place to that place with Tristan, while Maggie and Jennifer organized the supplies, we had allowed young Christopher to explore the vicinity. I don’t know where he went or what he did during the day, but he was always close enough that if we called for him he would show up.

Until one day, when we were getting ready for dinner and called for him to come to the shelter. It had been a little over two weeks and still we had not found 64

Like, Literarily! any other people. We smelled, and badly, the lack of showers clearly having its effect on us. Yet, despite, and perhaps because we had not interacted with any more humans, we felt safe. So when Christopher didn’t come immediately, we just wondered what he could be doing. After some fifteen minutes of calling his name, we finally understood that this was serious. Christopher was really gone.

Jennifer and I decided to go look for him, while Maggie and Tristan stayed to make sure nothing happened to our supplies.

“So, which way do we go?” I asked Jennifer.

“We don’t really have anything to go by, so I dunno, maybe that way…” she said, pointing towards what we had discovered (thanks to a compass we found in the train) to be the east. That’s when I saw it. The lion. The one Christopher had been playing with ever since we had stopped at this spot. It was on a bush somewhat to the east, dirty and already slightly broken, but clearly the same one.

“Looks like we found a clue!” I exclaimed. “I’d be willing to bet tomorrow’s dinner that Christopher is that way!” So we went that way, calling his name, searching around to see if we could see any sign of his blond hair. We walked for hours and hours, always making sure we knew how to return. Dusk passed, and so did midnight, and as dawn started to approach, our hopes of finding Christopher started to dwindle.

CRACK! “What was that?!” Jennifer asked as we turned around to where the sound had come from. There we saw that a human being, a live one, was walking towards us. We saw the small log that he had thrown towards us broken into two pieces just a few meters from us.

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“Don’t worry, I never meant to hurt you. All I needed was to get your attention.”

“And throwing a log at us was the best way you could think of doing that?!”

Jennifer shouted back.

“Now, I understand that you have been under immense distress ever since… well… you know…” He didn’t have to say anything more. We understood. “In any case, are you Christopher’s friends?”

“Yeah, we are. Where is he? Is he safe?” Hearing his name had made by heart speed up as I got more and more nervous of what could have happened.

“Don’t you worry, he’s in our camp. But let’s talk.”

Josh, as the man was called, explained to us how they had survived the attacks on Las Vegas by luck, as he and a group of coworkers at his law firm had taken a field trip to see Nappa Valley just a day before. He explained how, after those events that nobody could speak of, they began to move east since they didn’t have too many provisions. Along the way they found another group of survivors, and they joined up to create shelters and find ways of surviving. Josh himself had been walking around when one of his coworkers, Mike, arrived with one kid to many.

Mike had been tasked that day with taking the kids on an exploration so as to entertain them while the adults decided what to do. It appears that Christopher saw the kids and joined up with the group, though Mike was unaware of that until later that night once they had returned to their camp site.

Josh then went on to invite us, and anybody else who might have been with us, to join his group, promising us that we would be safe and fed, though we would have to work. We had a better idea, telling them that they could come with us, 66

Like, Literarily! since we had a lot more resources and a train that could shelter hundreds of people. Josh agreed, and the next morning, after a necessary nap, we led Josh’s group (of some thirty people) to our campsite, where Maggie immediately started to shout at them to get “organized and QUICKLY!” Christopher, meanwhile, was making friends with the other boys and girls. They would play tag and hide and seek (which was a lot more fun inside the train than outside) among other games, simply enjoying the moment to try and forget about the past.

It took a few years before Christopher told us about that day. He explained how seeing other kids made him happy and how talking to them felt like the right thing to do.

Thank God he did so. It’s been a little over five years since the day the world turned nuts. Joysontown, which was founded by our little group, is now home to over three-hundred people. Thanks to our increased population, we are now capable of sustaining ourselves, and although we have so far failed to contact other parts of the country, with people like Christopher, the future of humanity is secure.

67

Lost in Ice

Alejandro Vargas The international headquarters for the World Explorers Association (WEA) was in Toronto. The WEA was a Canadian association whose purpose was to explore the most remote places on Earth in order to study and preserve them. The association also had minor headquarters separated into regions: America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

The American headquarters were located in New York City, with workers from all over the continent who aimed to preserve the Amazon, and other natural wonders. Serving all of Europe, Athens held the headquarters. Here they worked on trying to reforest and preserve different natural places in the smallest continent of all. Tel Aviv helped protect all the beautiful deserts and natural sights in the Middle East. The headquarters in Africa were probably the most hardworking of all. They helped preserve the different ecosystems and types of lands in the continent; the offices in Johannesburg were in charge of this job. Beijing was the Asian city that “controlled,� so to speak the Asian natural areas, such as Mt. Everest. Finally, Sydney was responsible for all the diversity unique to Oceania.

In December 2013, The WEA from Toronto sent a group of three explorers to the north of Baffin Island, in Canada, to explore a hole that was supposedly made by an incoming meteor three months before. The expedition was calculated to last approximately three weeks.

These explorers were all very skilled, each in a different area. They all had a common objective: conserving the natural world. The WEA had chosen them for such a hard mission because they had proven themselves to the association, and everyone knew about their exceptional talent.

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Joe Albertson was a 32-year-old man who had been working for the WEA for the past 12 years. He was born and raised in one of Toronto’s suburbs, Vaughan.

He then went to the University of Ottawa and studied Zoology. Joe lived alone in a little apartment close to downtown Toronto. His head stood at a height of 1.87 cm; his body was big and strong; after all, he had been climbing and going on challenging field missions for 12 years. He had eyes the colour of Niagara Falls and light brown hair. Joe was the second of four brothers, all of which were doctors or lawyers, and so he couldn’t help but feel like an outcast.

Béatrice Bouchard was a 30 year-old woman who was starting her seventh year in the WEA. She was born in Québec City and went to McGill University in Montréal to study Ecology. She lived with a beautiful retriever whom she loved and lived for, and with whom she now shared a tiny studio in northern Toronto.

Béatrice was an average height woman, with beautiful shining blonde hair and eyes as blue as the sea. Her parents had gone to Norway for a cruise along the Northern Islands, and perished in a rock slide. Béatrice still held a bit of hope but inside she knew they were long gone.

The third and last member of the team, Adam Axelrod, was a 33-year-old pilot who worked for six years as an Air Canada pilot, but then retired and now flew the planes owned by the WEA. He loved his job and felt a strange passion for planes. Adam was chosen for this mission because of his ability to land in short, dangerous runways like those in Baffin Island. He was born in Calgary and studied in an aviation school in Vancouver. At 190 centimeters, Adam was a very tall pilot, who often had to crouch to get into an airplane. He had dark brown hair and hazel coloured eyes, over which he wore a pair of small glasses. He had gotten married to a beautiful lady from Halifax, Nova Scotia only five weeks before.

They lived together and were hoping to move into a bigger house in order to prepare for the baby that was coming in nine months. For now they lived across the street from Pearson International Airport.

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On December 7th, all the explorers got together with luggage ready, and headed to the airport. When they got there, they hopped on a bus and went to Adam’s plane, a Canadian made Bombardier CRJ-700. They took off and headed north to Baffin Island. Canada was already buried in snow, and so the cold was miserable. The flight had a little bit of turbulence while they reached their cruising altitude, up at 30,000 feet. It was a 4 hour 15 minute flight all the way to a town beside Sirmilik National Park up at latitude 73° North. The town had one miscellaneous, a market, and a tiny gas station. The airport had a runway of only one and half kilometres. As soon as they got there, a 4x4 Chevrolet Suburban was waiting for them; this was the vehicle that would drive them for 6 more hours through rocky roads all the way to the search site. The trip was a dirty long one, and when they arrived, the car was filled with mud and snow.

They arrived to the designated cabin once it was already dark. Inside, it was warm and comfortable. They had a tub they all enjoyed, and three beds softer than clouds. That night they slept as deep as Earth’s core, and when they woke up, their SUV was also that deep, but in snow. They had to go outside in freezing -20°C to get the car back out.

The first day of their arrival, the team decided to get to know the area. The next morning, they woke up really early to start the three hour trip that was ahead of them. When they were arriving, the car broke down and they had to walk. The temperature was extremely low, and as time passed they began to slow down and freeze. In the late afternoon, they had to stop because they knew they wouldn’t make it. Joe built a little bunker for them to spend the night. The explorers tried starting a fire but it only worked after several hours and attempts. They were lucky enough to sleep a few hours, and when they woke up, the fire was out.

“Joe, Adam doesn’t look too good,” Béatrice said as she looked at the sleeping man.

“I know, what do we do?” Joe answered worried.

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“Lets give him our jackets, we have a bigger chance of surviving than he does,” she said.

“True, let’s do it,” Joe said and started to take his jacket off.

They were putting Adam’s arm on the jacket, when he woke up. “I don’t feel good at all,” Adam said in a very low voice.

“We can tell, but everything will be alright, we’re all here to make sure we get you out of this alive and healthy,” Joe said.

They were stuck in that place for weeks until Adam got enough energy, and they were able to move a bit, but they were still very far away from the investigation area.

Back in Toronto, people were starting to worry about the whereabouts of the explorers, so they decided to try to contact them by the satellite calling system installed in the SUV. However, the car was frozen and they system was damaged.

Then they tried calling Joe’s, Béatrice’s, and Adam’s mobile phones but the connection was so bad, the call wouldn’t go through. Later, as the last option, Catherine Peterson, president of the Canadian headquarters sent search helicopters to fly over the whole National Park. Unfortunately, the place that Joe had built to stay somewhat protected was hidden between trees, and the first helicopter did not see them. Then, the second time the helicopter passed, it was dark, and the explorers noticed the machine because of the lights. Joe and Béatrice went outside to call attention because Adam was very sick. He was pale, probably had pneumonia and he was slowly starting to freeze. Unfortunately, Joe and Béatrice had no way of making the helicopter see them, their flashlights were all out, and they had no way to signal their location.

“This is useless,” Joe said. “We will never get out of here this way.”

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“I know,” Béatrice said with a worried look.

They really didn’t know what to do. Adam was getting worse by the minute and they knew that they would have to spend another freezing night. The group would have to wait until the next day to see if more helicopters came.

The next morning, Adam looked more than half way dead, he felt pain everywhere in his body and couldn’t move anything except for his eyes and head. He couldn’t talk any more and he started to feel how his legs and arms were becoming numb. Adam started to think about his baby and how he couldn’t leave his family behind, but this thought became a dream. He was only getting worse.

After a while, he wasn’t even able to open his eyes. Then only until 10 A.M., according to Joe’s calculations, did the next helicopter come. So the two went out and started running, screaming, throwing branches, snowballs, and waving their backpacks at the pilots, as they desperately tried to call their attention.

Then finally, a pilot saw them and lowered the helicopter. They loaded Adam first, then the luggage, and they themselves got in. The helicopter was heated, so Adam slowly started to get a little bit better, and started to wake up from his sickly state. The helicopter took them to the airport where they had originally landed some weeks ago. The pilot that flew Adam’s plane wasn’t as experienced as Adam was, so he almost wasn’t able to takeoff in such a short runway.

When they arrived in Toronto, Adam was taken to the nearest hospital along with Béatrice and Joe. A week later, they were all healthy and ready to start working again. CBC News interviewed them to see how they felt. During their interview, they expressed how they had learned that life was very precious and that it could be in jeopardy in any minute. They became known worldwide as the explorers who came back from “freezing hell.”

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