In a Grove 2021

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In A Grove 2021

Integrated Arts Journal

Author Name—Place / Name (Medium)

A Celebration of Writing and Art LCS Writes!

LCS Writes! is a fixture in our consciousness; for years students have known that come springtime, they have the opportunity to flex their creative writing and communication skills and express themselves through writing. Thank you to the Grove Society who generously sponsors this contest every year. LCS Writes! would not be possible without your support.

LCS Explores This year, LCS held a new writing competition – LCS Explores. Mr. Rollwagen invited students to create a written piece and/or photo story about a time when they explored a new place, culture, or environment. He prompted them to share a fond memory of a trip they took, a special moment in their hometown or country, or even a memorable experience on campus.

Nicole Huang—Grade 9

LCS Writes!

Featuring the winners of LCS Writes! –– sponsored by the Grove Society

Poetry Grades 9/10 1st Teya Webster, “Find Your Something”............................................................. 6 2nd Clara Cosete, “I’m Drowning”...................................................................... 11 3rd Rida Shabaz, “Indecisive Mind”................................................................... 14 Grades 11/12 1st Eman Murshed, “The Cure of My Wound”..................................................... 9 2nd Rori Ash, “A Carbon Monoxide Movement” and “Empty”............................ 12 3rd Dylan Clement, “But look, you made it”...................................................... 16

Fiction

Grades 9/10 1st Teya Webster, “My Little Piece of Heaven”.................................................. 18 2nd Selina Li, “1% Prison Island”....................................................................... 29 3rd Sarah Bender, “Column for Ellis” ................................................................ 39 Grades 11/12 1st Michael Cheaito, “How to Have Your First Kiss”.......................................... 20 2nd Julianna Cook, “The Circle that Never Ends”................................................ 35 3rd Grace Bender, “It Was Through a Crack in the Blinds”................................. 43

Non-Fiction

Grades 9/10 1st Amelia Peng, “The Story of My Life”............................................................ 47 2nd Rida Shabaz, “The Ball Drop”...................................................................... 54 3rd Gabi Brown, “Minnows in the Shadows”..................................................... 61 Grades 11/12 1st Dylan Clement, “Into the Mountains, We Must Go”......................................... 51 2nd Michael Cheaito, “From My First Hit”.......................................................... 58 3rd Sunaina Vallamkonda, “The Injury”................................................................... 64

Spoken Word Grades 11/12 1st Dylan Clement, “Relapse”............................................................................. 68 2nd Michael Cheaito, “Command and Conquer”................................................ 71 3rd Ilana Mohamed, “My Truth”......................................................................... 73

LCS Explores Nicole Liu, “Good Morning, Cairo”................................................................... 74 Julianna Cook, “Nahanni Expedition 2018”....................................................... 78 Eman Murshed, “The Eerily Unfamiliar”............................................................. 80

Jason Huang—Grade 9 Cover: James Wu—Grade 12

James Wu—Grade 12

Find Your Something Sometimes people will tell you

and breaks you down

that it’s good to find a hobby,

into the wide eyes

but they’re wrong.

and unbridled enthusiasm of a child.

Don’t find a hobby,

Direction is in your something.

find a passion.

Inspiration is in your something.

A passion is not something

The missing piece in your personal

to utilize spare time - far from it.

puzzle of

It is a purpose, it is a lifestyle,

“I am… I love…”

it is something worthy of employing

is in your something.

all necessary means

So don’t find a hobby.

to forge that special time for it.

And don’t just find your something.

Find yourself a passion,

Live your passion.

something that when you look back on your life and muse,

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“what did I do all those years?” the answer makes your eyes light up like the stars, and your lips brim up and overflow into a smile of their own accord.

Find something that imparts euphoria, something that enkindles confidence, something that sets your soul on fire.

Do not while away your precious time with a hobby when there is something out there that ignites the flames of aspirations in your heart.

Find your passion your something that raises you up onto an untouchable pedestal of freedom,

Teya Webster—1st Place, 9/10 Poetry

Alana Kim—Grade 11

Nancy Lu—Grade 11

The Cure of My Wound “love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.” or so Plato described Aristophanes saying in his symposium. maybe he’s right. maybe humans had two heads, four arms, four legs. maybe we angered the Gods one luckless day and maybe zeus did hurtle a lightning bolt towards the earth to slice us in half, leaving us perpetually incomplete for the rest of eternity -searching helplessly for that one person who may just fill the gaping hole in our souls. i don’t know what’s true and what’s just another drunken, ancient comedian trying to make sense of such a complex emotion. but if it’s true, you are mine, the cure of my wound. my other half: my second head, my third and fourth arm, my third and fourth leg.

Eman Murshed—1st Place, 11/12 Poetry

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Minah Bae—Grade 12

I’m Drowning I’m drowning I’m trying to escape Reaching for something to pull me up Something to save me The cold water fills my lungs I watch the small bubbles drift up to the surface I want to go with them I want to be them Free Untethered Happy I envy them Give up, says a little voice So I do I stop fighting I’m tired I don’t want to fight

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I look down to the welcoming darkness I let it engulf me

Clara Cosete—2nd Place, 9/10 Poetry

A Carbon Monoxide Movement Sylvia Plath

How is it that the suicide rates for

Anne Sexton

males are higher?

Dan James White

Because from a young age, we

John Kennedy Toole

condition men to think that crying is a

William Inge

sign of weakness

John Porter East

Let’s stop that

Assia Wevill Amy Levy

Let’s normalize struggling with our

Kevin Carter

mental health

Brad Delp

Crying

Bill Robinzine

Asking for help

Libby Holman

Being angry

Henry Dreyfuss

Being afraid

Ron Luciano

But let’s not normalize suicide

Bob Grant

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Bernard Floud

We need to treat causes of suicide like

Ross Lockridge, Jr.

carbon monoxide

The list goes on…

We need to eliminate them But we also need to stand by others in

Carbon monoxide poisonings used to

moments of vulnerability

be one of the number one methods of

We need a little bit more kindness in

suicide in the 70s

this world

When it was replaced, suicide rates significantly decreased

If you or anyone you know is

It’s not about displacement, but about

struggling, reach out to a friend, adult

coupling

or to the kids help phone

When you eliminate one method, they

Text CONNECT to 686868

won’t turn to other options Because there aren’t any There is only one, the one best suited for them There are 17 names on that list, and 12 of those belong to men

Rori Ash— 2nd Place, 11/12 Poetry

Empty I look out into this world filled to the brim with desolation.

Empty people.

Empty houses.

Empty Cities.

Empty Continents.

Overflowing into the oceans and off the edge of the planet’s crust.

What stories are there to tell anymore.

Lost and confused I sit staring at this screen still effortlessly moving my fingers.

Hoping to put meaning on this page, to change someone’s life.

To fix problems that can no longer be fixed by words.

Sitting here I think.

What problems will I cause that someone else will try to fix?

I am lost in my mind, claustrophobic as I try and think.

As I try and make sense of these words.

I try and make decisions consciously that should be made subconsciously.

I don’t feel alone though, I see everyone is lost on their own path into the darkness.

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I am free in my mind.

But lost in this world.

Rori Ash—2nd Place, 11/12 Poetry

Jenis Kim—Grade 12

Indecisive Mind I have an indecisive mind One which can’t choose what it wants for breakfast One which can’t decide which seat to take One which can’t decide what will make me happy The thing about having an indecisive mind is that it will kill everything around you Before you realize that it did.

You’ll lose people But most of all, You’ll lose yourself Not having a sense of certainty will always leave room for uninvited thoughts Changing your mind constantly But only hurting yourself in the process.

I’ve realized, You can’t have everything at once Sometimes you have to make a choice

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And that is the problem With having an indecisive mind.

Rida Shabaz— 3rd Place, 9/10 Poetry

Alana Kim—Grade 11

But look, you made it “But look, you made it” Mama, I did not make it.

The little girl inside of me did not make it.

I left me in the dust for dead My shell, my body, my twisted smile and blind eyes made it.

Mama, The real smiles, soft sleep and the stomach-clenching laughter did not make it.

The faith in humanity, real dreams and the fairy tails did not make it You said stay alive and I heard keep your heart beating even if it means you have to kill your mind.

And I think you wanted me to do Something in between the two But I have never found a happy medium for both of us I am either all here or all gone

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I am either all happy or completely torn I am either too much or nothing at all And I have picked to worse option My heart is beating, But my brain gets no oxygen

Dylan Clement—3rd Place, 11/12 Poetry

Elias Cohen Romano—Grade 10

My Little Piece of Heaven Sometimes it feels like I’m spinning; like the months, the weeks, the days are swirling around in my head and blending into a single, everlasting, drawn-out dream. Sometimes I feel like I’m living out the same day over and over, like my life is just a set routine switched on repeat. It’s like my days are a playlist with only a single song. They loop and loop endlessly. The monotony is only broken by the occasional daydream of what used to be. Travel, adventure, vacation, a time when my life’s playlist had a new song each day. I surface from my little reveries and I have to remind myself that the answer is no. No new places, no new people, no new adventures. Every day I have to tame the emotions inside of me, they’re like rampant little cheetahs pacing at the gate, letting me know we’ve been caged too long and it’s time to go. The unequivocal predictability is mayhem to me and I am spinning, but I am comforted by the soft little voice that seems to reside in my soul which gently reminds me that I don’t need to travel to return my world to its axis. Soon I will be able to go to my haven, my happy place, my little piece of heaven that blooms for a few months each year.

I will walk in the acres upon acres of wide open fields, I will drink in and revere

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the sight of the sun-yellowed grass, the musky green ponds, and the clear blue sky overhead. The earth underneath me will cushion my foot falls, it will smell of strawberries baking in the sunshine, beads of dew, freshly-cut grass, the scents of summer. I will tilt my head back to look up at the weeping willows and their long, wiry fronds will brush my shoulders like the bony fingers of a wise old woman and they’ll tell me not to weep myself. I will tread those fields in the baking heat of summer and the sun will gently stroke my cheeks and my arms, and make a warm, shiny mirror of the golden locks of my hair. The tough, hoof-trodden blades of grass will poke at my bare calves below my shorts and above my boots as I walk by. They are resilient, burning sun, nor torrents of rain, nor the relentless grazing of the horses will hamper their growth. I will remember to thank the grass for its wisdom. I will drape my tired body over the dappled, shiny, sun-warmed back of my childhood pony and listen to her grazing, tearing and chewing rhythmically to the symphony that the crickets are blissfully performing for us. Her strong, curved back will support me, holding me like a cradle, and I will feel centered. It is only us, here, now, in this moment.

I will feel joy here, I will feel peace. It will not be long now.

Soon the world will stop spinning, the caged sense will subside, and I will add my favourite song to my life’s playlist. Soon I will walk in my haven, my happy place, I will be enveloped by my little piece of heaven.

Teya Webster—1st Place, 9/10 Fiction

Tierney Cater—Grade 10

How to Have Your First Kiss

“Let me get this completely straight: you don’t like The Simpsons

because they’re yellow?”

“Well, when you put it that way it sounds dumb.” Caroline had a way

of pressing her lips together when she paused. “It’s just not realistic.”

“I’d argue that most TV isn’t realistic, though. High school teachers

don’t just become mastermind meth dealers. Politicians don’t throw people off of rooftops.”

“Maybe they don’t do those things, but the characters do seem real.

Are you telling me you believe in squibbly, yellow dudes who can do a thousand things in, like, one calendar year?”

“You have a point. I guess I just like to suspend my disbelief.”

You could hear little chirps coming in from across the hill. A few old

trees seemed to swell above us at the wind’s command, and their grand, green appendages, brimming with lush wafers and scattered squirrels, were almost as pretty as the ringlets of fair hair that would brush off her shoulders when she laughed. Our hands were planted into thick patches of grass, and, though the

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sun made me squint, I couldn’t help but feel like those critical, emerald eyes were impossible not to see.

“You’re staring.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“...”

“So what shows do you like?”

“Documentaries. Have you seen Murder Mountain?”

“I have not.”

“It’s a wild story. There’s this place, in California, where people just

grow acres of weed, and there are no laws. Something like seventy percent of American weed comes from there. People go there in search of money, or fame, and they call it murder mountain because-”

“People get murdered?”

“Yeah, and the police can never do anything about it. And we just keep

buying their weed.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It is! But you’re telling me that when you go back home, you’re just

gonna throw out all your weed because people get killed to make it?”

“I don’t smoke, actually.”

“Oh. Well, a lot of boys do. And they wouldn’t throw out their weed.”

When Caroline made a point, she would nod her head down and then turn it back up to you, like she was revealing a surprise.

“You’re really cute, you know that?” I slid a little closer.

“Mhmm. Real slick there, Edgar.”

“Slick? How am I being slick?”

“Oh? I guess you’re not.”

There was another pause.

“Do you like guys who smoke weed?”

“Not particularly.”

“So what do you look for in a guy?”

“Huh… A lot of things, I guess. I like guys who are funny. Smart. Good

kissers. I like guys who are direct.”

“Direct?”

“Like, forward. They have to be forward with what they want.” Her

eyes had that discerning look in them again. She pursed her lips. I leaned in for a kiss.

“Oh, I-” She jerked back.

“I’m sorry-”

“No, it’s-”

“Really, no, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be.”

There was a pause.

***

“Let me get this straight: you don’t like The Simpsons because they’re

yellow?”

“Well, when you put it that way it sounds dumb… it’s just not

realistic.”

“That’s a good point.”

Chirps were coming in from across the hill, and a few old trees seemed

to swell at the wind’s command. The sun made me squint, but I couldn’t help but feel like those critical, emerald eyes were impossible not to see.

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“You know what I like?” I asked.

“What?”

“Documentaries. Have you seen Murder Mountain?”

“I love that show! Did you know 70% of American weed-”

“Comes right from that mountain. I know. It’s unbelievable.”

Caroline smiled. “You know, sometimes I think about throwing all my

weed away. I just don’t know where it comes from -- it’s like, who had to get hurt so that could get to me?”

“You care a lot, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, just that -- just that you seem like the type of person who

cares about things. It’s cool.”

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“Well, thank you, Edgar.”

“...”

“Are there things that you care about?” She asked.

“Yeah. Some things.”

“What do you care about?”

“See, I would tell you, but if I did, you’d think I was lame.”

“No I won’t!”

“You probably would.”

“I hate that. Do you think all pretty girls are that shallow?”

“No I -- I don’t think you’re shallow. I know you’re not shallow.”

“So then what do you care about?”

I held my breath. “I like graphic novels.”

“Like comics?”

“You can call them comics.”

“My little brother reads comics.”

“See? That’s what I mean. Your little brother reads comics.”

Caroline laughed. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. What comics do you

like?”

“Well, lots of different comics. Alan Moore’s my favorite author.

There’s this series he wrote called Saga of the Swamp Thing. It’s a superhero book, but it’s also about other things. Like, our responsibility to nature, or what it means to be human. All his comics are about bigger things.”

“Mhm, bigger things. It sounds interesting, but I could never get into

it.”

“It’s hard to believe, right? Like The Simpsons?”

“Yeah. But it’s cool that you like it.”

***

“I never talk to people about that.”

“No?”

“No. I think I’m scared to.”

Caroline sent me a smile. “But you can talk to me about it?”

“Yeah. I guess you’re easy to talk to.”

Caroline leaned in a little closer.

“I think I like you.” I said.

“You’re sweet.”

There was a pause.

“Do you…”

“What?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Oh… I’m sorry, Edgar.”

“Damn it!”

Caroline jerked back.

“Jeez, sorry. It’s just a little weird when you ask like that.”

***

Sometimes, I wish that I grew up in the 80s so that I could wear neon without feeling retro and catch new movies without knowing anything more about them than what the posters let on. There’s an arcade called Bixby’s about twenty minutes away from my house that I think understands that wish. The whole thing is brimming with rainbow lights on the ceiling and punch-o-meters and the sounds of “Take On Me” or some other one-hit wonder track humming from a tinny speaker. You can get a coke for a dollar at the concession stand.

The main attraction, the games, forgeo a credit-card scanner so that you still need quarters to play.

“Hey man, you done?” A kid behind me asked.

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I checked my pockets, but found nothing but lint. “Sure. Have at it.”

On my left, a looming obelisk of a game projected the letters “Dollhouse of Death” in violent red font. A couple of townies were jeering at their unconscious friend while a little screen showed him being eaten alive by a Barbie. I made my way outside and buzzed my mom on my earbuds.

“Hello?”

“Hey Mom.”

“Hey honey! You’re back from school already?”

“No, they let out early.”

“Oh. How was your day?”

“Good.”

“That’s good. There’s risotto left in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

“Actually, I’m at Bixby’s.”

“Of course. Are you having a good time?

“I was. But I kinda… ran out of quarters.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, honey. I’ll be off work in about a half hour. Can you

wait for me to come by? I can pick you up.”

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“I kind of wanted to play another round. Can you bring some change?”

I heard a phone ringing on the other end. “Oh, well honey, you’ve been

spending a lot of time playing games recently. We should get home.”

“I know. Just one more, mom. I can wait for you. It’ll only take five

minutes.”

“Well… alright then. I have to wrap up here. I’ll be there soon. I love

you.”

“Love you too.”

Inside, mega-sized boxes stood around, some painted with seductive images and obstructive 18+ holograms, others advertising photorealistic Martians and piss-your-pants space invasion. I know, it’s nerdy, but I always had my eyes set on something else: in big, blocky letters, a pink hologram read “How to Have Your First Kiss.” Caroline was smiling on the cover art. She had a dimple on her right cheek. I watched the kid in front of me glaze over and sulk into the armrests, and I waited for a few more quarters to slip-inside.

***

“I never talk to people about that.”

“No?”

“No. I think I’m scared to.”

“But you can talk to me about it?”

“Yeah. I guess you’re easy to talk to.”

Caroline leaned in a little closer. A bird camped on the swelling trees

above us let out a chirp.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” I asked.

“Well, that depends. What type of question?”

“It’s not personal, I guess -- just -- well, what’s your idea of a good

time?”

“A good time?”

“Yeah. Just something you like to do for fun.”

Caroline pointed those emerald eyes towards the sky and the scattered

clouds; I’m not sure if it was just me, but they seemed to shift ever so slightly when she did. “I like picnics.”

“Oh yeah? So I assume you’re having a good time now?”

“It’s a nice picnic.”

“What else, though? You know? Other than the things you do here?

“I don’t know, Edgar. Why don’t I ask you something about yourself?”

“I don’t really want to hear what I have to say. I’m just curious about

you.”

Those critical eyes seemed to settle. “Well that’s sweet. I like

gardening.”

“What do you like about gardening?

“Seeing a carrot grow from a seed to a full plant. It’s a magical thing to

watch.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I like swimming.”

“Really? I have a pool behind my house.”

“Oh, I can’t stand the taste of chlorine. Lakes. Lakes are just gorgeous

-- you know, when you’re swimming on the shallow end and you can just feel the algae tickling at your feet? And the rocks that you have to dodge so that you don’t cut yourself.”

“Shit.”

“And I love camping.”

“Really? God, I would, but it’s all the insects. I went camping once,

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but I couldn’t sleep because I kept seeing little ants and -- and spiders -- just thinking about how spiders could crawl into my mouth if I fell asleep.”

“That’s part of the attraction! My dad used to take me camping when I

was little. We’d spend the day hunting for small game -- you know, rabbits and the like -- and my dad would set up a fire at nighttime. You can always see stars in the forest, which never happens in a city, because all the lights drown them out. And when we’d go to sleep -- see, I’m just like you in that I couldn’t sleep -so I’d spend time counting all the bugs that would pass me by, and if I saw one twice, I would give it a name.”

“That’s adorable.”

“I remember this one black beetle called Candice. She kept passing by

my sleeping bag, so I pointed her out to my dad, who was already drifting off, but I think he listened. Candice just -- just kept coming around, and I would stick out my finger and she’d crawl on top. I eventually fell asleep, you know, and when I woke up, she wasn’t there.”

“...”

Every once in a while, you can feel your chest pump at a few hundred

beats a minute and your fingers start to get real sweaty. Your breath starts to

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pace, but not in that even, weighted way -- it’s like it’s just running out ahead of you. And you figure -- you figure, if you’re ever gonna feel better -- that you just gotta ask what’s on your mind.

“Do you wanna catch a movie next Saturday?”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know. Something believable.”

Caroline’s eyes always saw right through me, but this time, they didn’t

seem to try to. “I think so. Sure. We’ll watch something believable.” ***

I’d never kissed a girl before, and I still haven’t, but that night, I was

rubbing my cheek all the way until I went to bed. It wasn’t red anymore, but it was warm. I think I could still feel the kiss.

Michael Cheaito—1st Place, 11/12 Fiction

Fatima Shahbaz—Grade 12

Pia Holtappels—Grade 11

1% Prison Island “A virus has wiped out over 99% of the world population, now, the 1% of survivors globally are gathered together in the airport of NewYork and ready to fly into a secret city, and we are trying to save the last civilization of humans, this is Bob reporting, and it is also the last time of the news reporting, thanks for listening, good luck…….” (voice from TV) Unfortunately, people did not see the monster until it was inside of them.

Virus X PLUS is an extremely fatal and highly contagious disease, which is transmitted from the flying black bat. After being infected, humans will have fever, difficulty breathing and it can cause death easily after there is a shock or blood coagulation happens, people cannot do anything but wait until they lose their life if it becomes severe. At the beginning, it was not taken seriously.

It was a master of disguise; it pretended to be a common cold virus, and to hide cautiously: in closets, in kitchen sinks, on subway platforms, on everything…

In this year, 2041, it became energized and started killing people globally, continuing to spread, spread...The world map online turned scarlet, from one side all across to another side. More and more countries fell into this color, a color of blood and killing. The monster finally won, successfully making itself everyone’s worst fear.

It is a cloudy day. The grey clouds for today are not very high above the ground like they usually are, which gives people a feeling of oppressive tension like they are going to be squeezed into pieces. A faint sound of thunder can be heard and small raindrops start to appear. Emily, a 6 years old girl, is now holding the hands of her mom and dad, running quickly to a huge airplane sitting right in the center of the New York airport. She started to loosen her hand that held her father’s and put it on her right ear to cover the huge noise of the airplanes.

“Hold my hand tight, quickly we have no time!”

Her dad’s voice is stressed and worried, and that makes Emily nervous because dad never talked to her like this.

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“But where are we going to do and are we going to travel?

“There is no time to explain, just follow me!”

As they are running, Emily turns her head around. She sees many people running in the same direction like they are doing a running competition. It would appear that the airplane is their common destination.

They finally arrived, and those other people arrived too, they bumped and squeezed each other toward the entrance of the airplane, waving their hands and screaming. Emily almost cannot endure the big noise, but she is afraid to loosen her hands with her parents because “they could easily get separated by the waves of hysterical people” “Attention! Please! Be quiet, now there are not enough seats for you all! Only the people with permission can get in! Please line up! 50 seats left now” yelled by a person dressed in white protection suits.

“Me!! Me! I have permission!”

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People start to become more disorganized. Emily’s dad and mom are waving their hands too and using their body to squeeze the people in front of them trying to clear a way in. It was finally their turn, but an arm stopped their way, “Only 2 seats left!” One of you needs to take the next airplane and wait here. Go quickly!”

After only a few seconds, dad turns to mom and takes a deep breath, he puts one hand on Emily’s head.

“Hey, listen, you are going to take good care of Emily and I am going to take the next flight! We are going to meet in the city? OK?” said dad to mom in a strong and serious voice.

“But you are not coming daddy? No! Come with us!”

“Just go!”

Daddy’s hand loosens and Emily is pulled into the airplane by mommy, she turns her head back but the entrance door closes as soon as the people with

protection suits come in.

“But you said there’s only 2 seats left!” yelled Emily’s mom.

“Be quiet! listen, of course I am going to leave this terrible place, and I don’t care about anybody else! This is the last flight!”

“But what about daddy! Please! Open the door, let him in!”

“Shut up, we are going to city X now and never come back!There will be no time, a bomb from the government is going to explode 30 minutes from now, and all infectious people will be cleaned!”

“But my dad is not infected…”

The big sound of the engine starts, the plane is moving forward, Emily looks out the window and sees her father standing in a large group of people left on the ground, waving one hand to her and thumbs-up with a slight smile. Emily cries loudly as the plane runs faster and faster, and until the daddy’s shape becomes more and more blurry and finally just becomes a black spot before it disappears completely. This is the last time Emily will ever see her father, the plane is flying into the grey clouds with a lot of weeping sound from the seats, Mom is crying too, she lowers her head and wipe the tears continuously using her hands, but her shoulder goes up and down, her body is shaking uncontrollably.

The destination is a secret city located at the northernmost part of the world map, no one knows what it is called and no one knows what is going to happen.

All Emily knows is that they are flying away from the home she used to live in since she was 1, flying away from her dad, never coming back.

After they arrived at the city X..

A girl is sitting in front of the window. Her name is Emily. She is one of the survivors of this virus. No doubt, she is lucky, but her face is white and her eyes lack light. She is not a normal teenager. Smiles disappear quickly from her face since she and her mom were transported to this unfamiliar city days before by an airplane. She lost her father, forever, she hates the virus, the virus that broke her original happy, complete family.

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Now, Emily and her mom are in a city that has no place on the map. Food is transferred everyday to their room by people in white heavy protection suits and huge masks. There is no more school, no homework and resources are free everyday, but nothing was like before anymore. Emily feels no happiness, not even a little bit.

Suddenly, silence is broken by a piercing cry, which pulls Emily out from her sad memory. She sees a mother running with a baby in her arms. The mother is crying, and constantly screams:“Help! Help”. Her face is pale, her hair is disheveled, and her hands stretch forward in despair that is like trying to grasp someone tightly. No one responds because no one wants to take any risk of exposing themself to the virus, but the baby in her arms has no more crying, he is more like a stone, with his eyes closed, hard straight body and a pale little face. Emily remembered them from the airplane; this baby also had no father anymore.

The mother runs onto the street with no one. Emily started to feel extremely nervous and attracted, she stood up with eyes continuing to follow the running mother and the baby. Everyone knows that they are not allowed to leave their

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distributed house, any movement of exposing themselves outside is restricted, completely restricted. Surprisingly, Emily sees that the mother is running towards her house. She stands up immediately, runs to the door and puts her ear on to listen to what is happening.

“Can somebody help me! Please! My baby is going to stop breathing, what can I do! Please, let me in, please..” saids in a shivering and hopeless sound.

Emily starts to breathe quickly and puts her hand on the doorknob, just as she was about to open the door, mom’s nervous and sudden voice stopped her.

Emily quickly turned her head and saw her mother staring at the door, shaking her head vigorously to her.

“Stop, stay away from the door, come here!”

Emily ran quickly back to her mom and put an arm on her mom’s waist, they both staring at the door, while the continuously knocking sound from outside still can be heard.

“Keep quiet, pretend we are not here, we cannot help them and if they are infected, it is so difficult to contact them!” whispered by mom.

A few minutes later, the sound disappears, and Emily runs quickly back to the window. She saw two white monsters run forward to the mother with the noisy, enormous sound of the alarm starting to diffuse in the whole community; they are found by the investigators! Seconds after, the mother is caught by the two “monsters” dressed in white protection suits, and heavy masks. She is trying to run away, but they rob the baby in her arms. Emily is still watching everything, in front of the window, she feels extremely worried but curious about where the woman goes since she disappears from her view. After a few seconds, she closes her eyes slowly, but tears come down without any control. She hears two gunshots, which is so deafening to hear even though under the big noise of the alarm. But then, silence comes back quickly like nothing really happened.

Suddenly, several black birds are frightened and fly quickly into the grey sky with a bright but husky voice coming out from their mouth.

“Come quickly, Emily, go to sleep!” said Emily’s mom.

Emily dried the tears quickly with her hands. “OK, mom, emm, have a good night, I love you.”

“I love you too baby, don’t be afraid, everything will finally be fine, I am with you, always.”

The city is isolated like a lonely island, no more rescue, no resources, no family, no work, no school, no money, but however, life needs to continue, no one knows what the future will be like, all those survivor’s goal is to survive and be that only 1%……

Selina Li—2nd Place, 9/10 Poetry

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Maha Bukari—Grade 12

The Circle That Never Ends There was a flash of lightning in front of me. It had been raining for over an hour, and everybody had already left. Water was dripping into my face and eyes, causing the tears to look like rain droplets. The sky was dark and threatening, perfect weather for a horrible day. My sister is watching me from the church window, presumably waiting for me to come inside, but I don’t come in. Of course, I never owned a watch so it could be past 6:00 for all I know. I hear nothing, feel nothing, except the cold metal of our ring against my finger. No use for it anymore I guess. Looking down one last time, I study the headstone; In loving memory of Laura Brawence. Wife of Hunter Brawense. Died 1973. “In loving memory”... such a worthless phrase.

The sun was beating down on my face as the gravestone looms up at me. It is April 21st and spring had come already. Three years have passed since my wife died, and our ring has been on my finger ever since. The metal is worn, and the finger is red and swollen under it. I still never take it off, even if it reminds me of the day when she had passed.

The night before our wedding, we had two rings made. The rings were made especially for the two of us, and they pulsed with each other’s heartbeats. The ring was plain and simple, but elegant no less. It was silver, with a gold band running through the middle, a pale blue stone at the center with a tiny glow, holding the other’s heartbeat. It was a blessing, then a curse when one day it stopped beating. I was stuck in what seemed to be a never ending traffic light. It had been a terrible day at work, my boss laid me off with no chance of coming back, because there wasn’t enough money. Not only we were struggling with finances at home, but Laura was expecting. The light turned green and, immediately pulling away, noticed something felt off. Some crappy rap music was playing and I punched the radio off. Something was definitely wrong, there was something missing, it felt like a presence was suddenly gone. Moving my left hand up to the 10 o’clock position, I saw the ring. Not thinking straight, letting go of the steering wheel the car nearly crashes into a lampost. My mind went blank, all I remember was speeding down highway 48, running every light, just to get home.

The screen door slammed behind me, but my feet had already carried me

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through the main floor. “Laur?!” I yell frantically. Taking the stairs two at a time, I stumbled into our bedroom to see my wife lying on the bed, lifeless.

So much has happened since the day my wife and unborn child passed. I found another job, sold the house, and am now living in an apartment downtown. I like watching sports, and keep to myself most of the time. My general focus is on work, and food, and the rest of my time is spent in the apartment. I am 32 years old, and have nothing else to do. I unlock the door to my apartment and collapse onto my single bunk, trying to clear my head. I don’t bother eating because my stomach won’t let me, and there’s no food in this place anyway. My breath starts to slow and become more even, and soon, I fall into a deep sleep.

I bolt awake in the night, drenched in sweat, my heart beating most certainly too fast to be healthy, which is rare because I am a deep sleeper. Later, then realizing, there are two heartbeats in the room. My finger was pulsing, much slower than my own, but still there. My arm hits the water glass on the bedside table as I search for the light, and it crashes to the floor. My fingers brush against the knob and I grab it and turn in on. The lamp casts a warm glow around the room, and I see the ring, producing that tiny light that went out 3

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years ago. My body tenses as my mind comprehends what this could mean.

Shake my head, pinch my arm...Okay, not a dream. My heart fills, and a shiver runs through my body, but soon the feeling dissipates because of the image that returns to my mind of her body on the bed. This cannot be happening. I have to be imagining things, I tell myself, because I know it’s impossible. Maybe it is broken? No, the ring isn’t a machine. There’s only one possible solution, but I keep myself from getting excited. Although my mind understands this is wrong, my heart has a tiny flutter of hope. I sit up in bed for a long time, looking at the ring, focusing, on that small heartbeat.

After a long sleepless night, I drag myself out of bed and make a pot of coffee like I do every morning. I have now accepted that something has caused the ring to beat again, but what? I don’t know. There are a hundred different possibilities the night brought to my head and my heart’s still racing, trust me, but I still carry on as if nothing’s happened as I go about my morning routine.

Take a shower, brush my teeth and look in the mirror. This morning, my reflection startles me. I know that I have certain qualities that some people may see as handsome. Dark brown hair, strong features, and electric green eyes I’ve

had all my life, but today my face is extremely pale, seeming as if my skin is just hanging there with no life. My eyes look older, and my hair is stuck to the sides of my face. I shake my head, trying to forget the image, and rinse my face, I have more important things to worry about. Going into the kitchen, I pour my coffee, take the eggs out of the fridge and turn on the element. Grab the remote and flick on the T.V to CBC news. Just a normal day, but everything is different.

As soon as I reach the church I see that everything looks the same. The church is open, garden just starting to bud with colour, and the cemetery gate is closed.

I can faintly hear the sounds of voices coming from within the church, a hymn being played out on the organ. Everybody in that church is enjoying their day, when everything in my world has shifted. I move through the gate, and start down the columns. First row, Second row, Third row. Ninth headstone. Oh, no.

I look left; Amelia Johnston. Look right; John Buttle.

The headstone was missing.

Julianna Cook—2nd Place, 11/12 Poetry

Carter Chartier—Grade 11

Amy Shin—Grade 10

Column for Ellis At exactly 9:01 am, I charged out of my apartment like it was my job. Nothing could stop me. I was late for work, and my boss, Angela Graham was not going to give me any mercy this time. I hopped into my new red Mercedes, cranked up the radio, and zoomed off.

As I approached the intersection, I burst out in laughter. In her pink convertible, with sparkly princess-like eyelashes on the headlights, I saw my best friend, Jennette Krammer drumming on her steering wheel across the way.

“Jen!” I called, still giggling, “OMG!” Jennette yelled holding her head outside of the window, “What’s up?” “Ohhh, nothing just laughing…” I called out as my light turned green, “See ya!” I called. I slammed my foot on the gas and sped off.

When I finally arrived at my work, my regular spot was taken. I had to parallel park. (not a good scene) I nervously pulled in infront of a yellow Jeep Cherokee.

And of course, I scratched it. “Shoot!”. Good thing it was only Jim’s car. No one really knows him, he seems really nice, so I don’t think he will mind, let alone notice. I frantically jumped out of my car, ran inside, and up the elevator to the sixth floor.

“Chelsea!” my boss exclaimed, in a fake, excited tone, trying not to freak out about my being late. Why isn’t she acting mad? I questioned to myself.

“Good morning Ms. Graham,” I said, no different than I usually do. I’m not myself at work. Away from work, I’m very outgoing and make my own decisions. I’m independent. Sure with my friends at lunch I’m normal, but my boss and half of my coworkers don’t have an idea of who I really am.

“I am pleased to tell you that you have been given a column in The Bank Street Times.” I was so excited! But how? I don’t even work for the paper.

“Well,” she continued, “If you didn’t know already, my boss here,” she said motioning to Mr. Ellis, “owns a large portion of The Bank Street Times and he knows you are an aspiring journalist. He was hoping you could write a piece on employee satisfaction at Ellis Corp.”

“Oh my goodness!” I cheered, “That’s fantastic, thank you so much, Mr. Ellis!”

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Ms. Graham and Mr. Ellis both nodded and went back to work.

I was stuck at my desk trying to think about something wrong with this place.

It’s funny, I can see so many things wrong with my office, but the second I’m put on a task to write about one, my mind draws a blank. So, when in doubt, call Jennette! I picked up my phone and dialed in her number. Ring…! Ring…!

Ring…!

“Hey, girl, hey!” squealed Jennette.

“Hey,” I said, “So you know Mr. Ellis…?”

“Yeah,” she said curiously, wanting more on this topic, “Well,” I continued, “he gave me my own column in his newspaper to write about something wrong about the workplace. I think it’s for making things better around here, or something like that, I’m assuming it’s to make us feel ‘considered’.”

“Wow, that’s so great!” exclaimed Jennette. “You always complain about things at work! This should be easy for you!” She chuckled.

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“Dummy, that’s why I’m calling you, I can’t think of anything.”

“Well..” she went on, “The toilets are nasty, the coffee tastes like watered down pee, your lunch break is only a half-hour, you only have ten vacation days… you don’t ha-.”

“Jen, ten is a lot of vacation days,” I stated.

“Yeah, but hon this is your chance to get more, somebody needs to come to Bali with me! So, you don’t-” “Jen, maybe you should write this. You seem to have a lot of complaints!”

“Chelsea, I’m just giving you ideas” defended Jennette. We said bye and hung up.

That day when I got home and began to write, I came up with a great idea. I decided to write about the attitudes of people at work. I’m not going to lie, it’s mostly on Ms. Graham.

As a worker at Ellis Corp., I feel that there is an issue with attitudes at the office.

People aren’t happy, and to me, this isn’t the proper environment to be in.

When I get to work every day, I don’t feel welcome. This shouldn’t happen.

Don’t we want people to enjoy themselves? Their Lives? Our lives?

The article continued. I knew I had a great idea. I hoped something good will come out of it.

Later that week I sent in my column. I didn’t realize I would have to be finished so quickly. It’s a great thing I work fast. I woke up this morning at 6:40 am, got ready, left my apartment, and drove to Tim’s. I was in the Drive-Thru line waiting for my Iced-Cap and toasted coconut doughnut when I saw someone call in front of me, it was Mr. Ellis. “Morning Chelsea,” he called to me in a casual voice, turning his neck so he could look me in the eye. “I read your column last night,” I was scared to hear what he was going to say next. “It was the best one I have ever read! I appreciate the honesty.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, relieved. “That’s fantastic” “I hope you keep up the good work, a job at The Bank Street Times may be in your future!” He turned left out of the parking lot, into the busy street. After that, I could tell that people were changing their attitudes already. Even the birds seemed happier. Now, with the sight of the big bright sun and having my warm doughnut in hand, I finally felt like I was making a difference.

Sarah Bender—3rd Place, 9/10 Fiction

Alana Kim—Grade 11

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Alana Kim—Grade 11

It Was Through a Crack in the Blinds No one believes it will be them. No matter how many times it happens to others. That’s the problem with being human. Foresight does not exist. Perhaps I should have known. Perhaps I could’ve had a different fate. t was through a crack in the blinds that I saw her that night. She was standing under a flickering street lamp, completely still. I didn’t know what to think. She must have been freezing, it was a cold night. I could feel the bitterness through the glass pane. She was immune. She allowed the wind to whip her thin, white dress against her pale legs. It wasn’t uncommon, I thought. Many people came wandering down here, hoping to catch a hitchhike. I was scared. Scared for her.

Didn’t she know what happened to girls who got picked up at 2 am? Still, she stood unmoving. Unnaturally still. Her hollow eyes wandered down the road.

I looked away. A sharp breeze hit my neck. I turned back to the window. It had not been open. The girl was gone. It was like she had never been there.

I looked down. My heart skipped a beat. I took in a quick breath. I saw her raw feet on the edge of my porch. Again, she was unmoving. She needs help, I thought. A warm meal and a bed to sleep in for the night. I turned from my window and padded down the creaky wooden staircase. I walked down the hall with my blanket around me and slowly opened the front door. I started to say, “Can I help you, miss?” but I was talking to no one. She wasn’t there. I tightened my blanket around my shoulders. I shuffled back down the hall and up the stairs. My bed was welcoming. I could see John laying there, peaceful. I slipped off my slippers and crawled into bed, I pressed myself against his warm back.

I slipped my arm around his side. Something was wrong. He was warm, sickly warm. And sticky. Almost like… blood.

I whipped my hand back and sat up in bed. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I flicked on my bedside lamp and there she was. Standing in the corner.

I screamed. She smiled. Her eyes, no longer hollow, but deep. Too deep. They looked at me, unblinking. Her stringy black hair hung limp at her sides. She began to walk towards me. A sickening scraping sound began to claw its way into my ears. I looked down to see her overgrown toenails leaving large gashes in the old hardwood. I looked back up. My head was pounding. My heart was pulsing. My body was paralyzed. She was getting closer. She was whispering.

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“You saw me.” Her voice echoed cooly within my ears. I didn’t answer.

“Finally,” she said this louder.

She was inches from my nose in a flash. I felt her unnaturally cold breath wash over my face. I was breathing hard. My heart was bursting out of my chest. I willed myself to move. I couldn’t. She slowly raised her hands to my temples.

I felt her bony fingers grip tight around my skull. I tried to scream, to talk, to do anything. She gripped tighter, pressed harder against the sides of my head.

The pain was overwhelming. I felt a warm trickle slide from my eye. It was too heavy to be a tear. I began to utter a scream. I didn’t finish. I would never finish anything again.

Now I stand beside her. I stand beside her on the side of the road on the bitterest of nights. Waiting, watching, waiting. I want someone to look at me.

I want someone to give me permission to come closer. I want to fulfil my fate just as she had done. Then it happened. A woman looked down at me through a crack in the blinds. After all these years it was finally my turn.

No one believes that it will be them. But now it was me. Perhaps I could’ve had a different fate. But I didn’t want one.

Grace Bender—3rd Place, 11/12 Fiction

Amelie Fenton—Grade 10

Judy Yu—Grade 10

Abdul Khan—Grade 10

Tierney Cater—Grade 10

The Story of My Life If I looked back to where I am and who I’ve become as a person today, I would say I’m proud of myself and everything that I’ve overcome. I spend most of my life living with my dad, my sister, and my dad’s girlfriend Lauren in Prince Edward Island, it’s a very small island that’s famous for the red soil and good potatoes. It’s a place where if you go to Home Depot to pick up a hockey stick or Walmart for groceries, you’ll probably see your grade seven science teacher or that guy you had a crush on in grade six. If you’re into all that, living in a small town where everyone knows everyone, good for you. But it’s never something for me and where I wanted to be.

My relationship with my parents for my whole life has been good until my mom left my dad, we had a healthy relationship but just like other families, there were ups and downs, arguments, I mean who doesn’t? It could be about not turning off the lights outside the garage or just any small disagreement, but we also have big ones that don’t just “go away” in a couple of days, ones that stick with you for a long time. Don’t get me wrong though, I love my parents, I’m grateful for everything they’ve done for me and my sister since we were little girls, I think the main reason why sometimes we lash out at each other is that no one in our family wants to talk about their feelings because we don’t want others to think that we are vulnerable or soft, we put on this tuff face, and that’s how little things pile up more and more like a water balloon, eventually it will overflow and break, that’s when an argument explodes.

My sister and I have gone through quite a lot as a kid, from my parents leaving each other, my mom’s new boyfriend hitting up our phone because my mom wouldn’t pick up, and my dad’s girlfriend being rude to my dad. I’ve always wanted to leave home, just to get away from all this screaming and get all the toxicity in my life, and once I found out that I had the chance to move to Ontario and stay with my aunt for school, I grabbed that opportunity and didn’t let it go. I bond with my mom’s side of the family so much more than my dad’s.

If I can use two colours to describe each side of my family, my mom’s side will be red and yellow, and my dad’s side will be blue and grey. My decision of my leaving home was hard for my dad to swallow, before I left for Ontario, the vibes in my house were just off, there would just be constantly yelling and screaming of two sides, but eventually, my dad finally agreed to me leaving home and that

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was a new chapter of my life. One that I’ve never known I lacked until now.

After moving to Ontario to stay with my aunt and uncle, the house that I stayed in felt so fun and peaceful, nobody was screaming at each other, and everyone was happy, for a while I just thought, “Damn, I wish things were like this back home.” I never wanted to go back to PEI ever again, that’s what I’ve told myself, the food is so much better in Toronto, and you won’t run into anyone you know every time you went to the mall or the store, I’ve never felt this alive and happy in my life.

When school started and I moved to Lakefield, I met so many amazing people and made unbreakable bonds and ones that I’ll never forget. That was also soon I realized how much-unsolved trauma went hidden in my life and things that happened to me that someone my age should never go through. One day, the school called my dad about reapplying to school for grade 11, (the phone call was never intended for my dad to know, he didn’t even receive any emails from the school because we didn’t want to trigger him about me leaving home.)

My mom and dad had another huge argument about me coming to Ontario and going to Lakefield all over again. I remember sitting in our common room

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in Uplands at night crying to my aunt on the other side of the phone and her telling me that it was going to be okay and I shouldn’t need to worry about the argument between my mom and dad because it’s none of my business, I think they feel the need to always bring me into their problems because I’m the oldest child in the family and their eyes, they see me as their little girl but me maturing and leaving home also made them feel I’m responsible for many things. Then I remember Emma walking in on me and asking if there’s anything that she can do, I said I’ll go to her room after taking the phone call, and I did.

She talked to me and told me what she was going through too with her dad and her family, I felt so much better knowing there’s someone that I can relate and bond to, later she told me that I should talk to an adult about what I’m feeling and to seek guidance, so the next day she texted Ms.Brown, (which was my English teacher at the time,) and we talked. I told her everything about what I was going through and how things were back home, she gave me methods for dealing with my parents and made me feel so much better. I walked out of her office that afternoon with everything heavy gone on my chest. It felt like I finally dropped a heavy bag on my shoulder that I’ve been carrying my whole life.

I then decided that I can’t run away from my problems, and the best way of dealing with all this is to just face it and overcome it. I’m back in PEI right now for a while, and my goal this visit back is to finish what i “ran away” from last time to seek closure and leave with nothing to worry about behind, and with the support of my friends I have back in Ontario and the support from my teachers and family, I feel like I can finally put all the guilt and pressure that build up to me to this day to an end, Afterall, I feel like this is what I need to be a better and stronger person in the future too.

Amelia Peng—1st Place, 9/10 Non-Fiction

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Grace Devitt—Grade 12

Carlota Tommasi—Grade 12

Into the Mountains, We Must Go If you’ve ever driven out to the west coast of Canada from the east, I bet you can remember the 45-minute drive between Calgary and Canmore. For me, the memory is one I hope to never forget.

Growing up, the days of my childhood were spent in provincial parks or my backyard learning to memorize the bumps and curves of every trail.

Exploring rock faces, climbing trees, falling and scraping my knees defined my adventurous upbringing. Gripping onto branches, swimming across rivers and running through bushes are the moments that made me feel like the most complete version of myself as I aged. For my whole life, the 63 acres of land behind my house has felt like more of a home to me than anywhere else. Its rocky hills and blueberry bushes were enough to keep me hooked forever.

My explorations, however, were kept in the small circle of the province of Ontario for all of my life. The idea of travelling to critically acclaimed outdoor destinations like Alberta or British Columbia has always felt too far, too expensive and out of my comfort zone. But last June that all seemed to change.

A last-minute decision to accompany my cousin as he drove out west to his new home meant that I had found myself in a truck for 15 hours a day, chasing the setting sun. I’ll be honest, most of the drive is incredibly boring. The 18-hour slog just to get out of Ontario brings you to only being able to see farmlands and highways off in the distance. That is, until you get past Calgary, Alberta.

I’d heard my family talk about how amazing and jaw-drop worthy it was to watch the terrain change from the flat plains of Manitoba to the rocky mountains of western Alberta but I’d never understood what all the hype was about. I’d seen pictures and videos of the mountains before, but they all felt average and reminded me of the rock faces from home. I couldn’t wrap my head around how you could worship something that seemed so ordinary. But I would soon come to learn.

Right after you get off of the main freeway in Calgary, you can hop back onto the Trans Canada Highway. After driving for about 10 minutes, you notice that it starts to get foggy and you can feel your ears pop. Then seemingly out of nowhere, the earth erupts into the sky with grey snow-capped peaks. In a lot of

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ways, it starts to appear like you’re on a new planet. Everything feels new and the blue sky you used to know has disappeared somewhere behind ranges of rock. I have come to find out that there are not enough words in the English language to explain how beautiful the change is. My words do not do the sight justice.

In a wave of excitement, I rolled down the windows to stick my head out and try to get a glimpse of the mountain tops. Even though it was cloudy, lightly raining and windy as hell, that first breath of mountain air made me realize how someone could love these big hunks of stone.

I felt like a little kid again, darting my eyes back and forth through the windshield looking for the highest summit. I stared out the window as I watched a whole new world unfold around me, wondering how high the cliffs really are. In seconds, I was transported back to the first time I wandered into the woods back home alone. As I looked around me, I no longer felt fear or anxiety around being 3000 kilometres away from home. What I felt instead was the part of my soul that longed for adventure reawakening.

That was almost 8 months ago and I can honestly say that part of my heart will

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probably forever live somewhere in between Canmore and Kelowna. Some of the happiest moments of that summer were spent sitting in that truck staring at the skyline. I don’t know the next time I’ll see those Rockys or breathe in that sweet mountain air, but what I do know is that my taste for exploration is back within me to stay.

Dylan Clement—1st Place, 11/12 Non-Fiction

Suzanne Tian—Grade 10

The Ball Drop I peered my eyes open and there it was. The green sign with a white outline that said “Midtown Tun Manhattan.” The streets were overflowing with traffic, everyone rushing to see the ball drop on New Year’s Eve. We had already arrived much later than we planned to because I forgot my notso-stuffed animal (which I can’t sleep without even at the age of 15) in the hotel we were staying at in Boston. I only realized halfway through the drive which delayed us by a solid 2 hours. As we drove into “the city that never sleeps”, my eyes were glued to the tainted windows of my mother’s Cadillac. It looked just like how it was in the movies. Yellow cars speeding down Manhattan, traffic lights which seemed invisible to pedestrians, skyscraper buildings, and far in the distance you could spot the Statue of Liberty. Our car being the size of a school bus, it was difficult to get through the tight streets of New York City. We probably passed our hotel 7 times before actually finding it.

At this point it was around 6:00pm and people were everywhere making their way down to Times Square to stand for 6 hours with a shitty view of the

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corner of where the ball was supposed to drop. As we settled into our $1000 hotel room for ONE night, my dad grabbed his bag and we all made our way towards this “once in a lifetime experience.” Walking through New York City itself felt surreal. There was a little boy who looked about 8- or 9-years old breakdancing like a prodigy. Talent existed in every corner you looked and that was the most beautiful thing about the city. After asking 3 different officers for directions, we finally arrived with hundreds of people trying to get through the barricade. There were officers taking bags and slowly letting people through.

Shit. All of our things were in my dad’s bag along with the fact that this very bag was especially important because it was the bag my dad took with him when he passed his medical exams. A sacrifice had to be made and there was no guarantee that the bag would still be there 6 hours later. (Spoiler alert) It wasn’t.

Some homeless man is probably enjoying that bag thanks to my dad’s sacrifice for us to see the ball drop that midnight.

1 hour in it wasn’t too bad and we seemed to be moving forwards, casually conversing to one another. 2 hours in we were debating whether or not we should go back but it was too late. We were sandwiched between hundreds of

people in front and behind us. There was no way out now. We had a decent view but we were definitely on the farther end. 3 hours in, people began to get irritable. There were babies crying, couples arguing, men screaming at each other and a very overwhelming smell of marijuana. The smell was so strong I began to think It was affecting me too. People were constantly pushing up from behind and it was easy to cut since there was no clear line. By the fourth hour it started pouring and we all were trying to huddle underneath our jackets.

By the 5th hour it stopped raining and my feet were aching so much to the point where I just decided to drop down and sit on the ground. It was a different world down there. I could see hundreds of legs and some kid sitting down on their iPad. It was peaceful down there. I stayed down like that in intervals just to make sure I wouldn’t get ran over by the crowd behind me. As I was standing there, I thought to myself, “Everyone here has their own lives, their own problems, they came from all over the world, but we are all here today right now for the same reason.” It felt surreal to think about. I felt a strong sense of unity with these strangers whom I had no idea existed 5 hours ago.

There was only an hour left and by this point we were ready to go back to our hotel room but we stuck it through. The rapid conversations we were having during the first few hours, dialed down to silence and before we knew it there were just 30 seconds left on the countdown screen. Everyone was getting their phones and camera ready to capture the moment we’ve been waiting for. I anxiously looked up at the big screen and took my phone out. “3. 2. 1. HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Fireworks went off and we saw a sliver of the ball drop, couples kissed each other, people were hollering. Funny enough we had no idea what 2020 had in store for us. Although the fireworks were quite the view, I thought to myself, “so this was the big moment huh”.

As soon as the fireworks were over, everyone began to go their separate ways.

We checked for the bag knowing it wouldn’t have been there and to no surprise, it was not. We began walking back at around midnight, all clutched on to each other and you can imagine what walking around New York City at midnight would be like and it was exactly that. There were drunk women coming out of a bar with short dresses in the chilly December weather, crackheads claiming they could see the future, rappers trying to sell their CD’s, homeless in every corner you looked, really all kinds of people. Our feet were aching so much that

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we were running to get back and soon enough we were relieved to be back in our overpriced hotel room.

People say that seeing the ball drop in New York is a once in a lifetime experience, and I agree this was a once in a lifetime experience but not because I saw the ball drop, but because I stood for 6 hours to see barely the corner of it. This trip definitely taught me patience and not to idolize something because when it doesn’t meet your expectations, you’ll be disappointed. I don’t regret this experience at all, in fact the experience showed me pieces of the world which I only thought existed in the movies.

Rida Shahbaz—2nd Place, 9/10 Non-Fiction

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Grade 9 Students—Created on “Culture Day”

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Grade 10/11/12 Students—Created on “Culture Day”

From My First Hit The first drag I ever took, I was cramped up inside a bathroom stall, pointing my ears towards the sounds of footsteps and creaking doors and pressing a thin metal rod under my sleeve. My friend, who’d sold it to me, was waiting outside the stall, crafting a smirk as he watched my lungs combust and come back together again. It tasted like Excel gum and the vapour lit the back of my throat up like mouthwash. I was hooked.

As the week progressed, I made stumbling out of school bathrooms a ritual.

I’d let my head get light and catch glimpses of my feet shifting, side-stepping and strolling into classrooms. I’d get good at sliding my vape in and out of my sleeves, under and through t-shirts, and back to my mouth in front of bystanders and snitches; I learned how to zero a hit. I’d begun to practice all those classic, clinical moves that teenagers have made look pretty for years. In my juvenile way, I think I sometimes used the passive feeling of being hunted as an excuse for my behavior.

It was my eleventh-grade year and my first at boarding school. I’d adapted

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quickly enough to the change in environment, despite how sudden it was. I was anxious to move on with a lot of the emotional baggage -- the depression and anxiety I’d only later get help with -- that I had unwittingly brought with me.

I didn’t know how down bad I still was, but I also didn’t know how easy it was to access escapes that I shouldn’t have been able to. There’s something to be said about the gut-stopping feeling of wonder that comes about when someone offers you an express-route to altered consciousness in the disposable form of a vape pen, and then slides open a dorm room window, just for you, so you can blow the smoke out.

It didn’t take long for me to transition from just nicotine to other substances.

My first dab pen was a slick, cylinder-shaped dream with a purple bulb at the end that backlit a marijuana leaf. It was filled with cannabis concentrate, which is made by infusing butane with cannabis and evaporating it to create the concentrate, and was probably cut with vegetable glycerin or some unknown additive. Most people around me understood weed as a good time, but from the very second that it didn’t send me spinning out and terrified, I understood that I had discovered a new, irresistible way of being.

Some cannabis advocates will tell you that it isn’t addictive, but if you’ve ever struggled with substance abuse and depression, you’ll understand the impossible allure of sliding into worlds where no one can hurt you. I started smoking a few times a week, then throughout weekends, and sometimes, even a few days in a row. As 2020 opened up, I sent about 40 sprays of THC oil to the back of my throat and it would be over a year until the next day I’d find myself sober.

The more integrated cannabis was in my schedule, the easier it became to compartmentalize. Classes I didn’t like became waiting rooms for getting high; curfews transformed from the ends of the days into the starts of new ones; spare periods were ripe opportunities to take up a bathroom that nobody else wanted and kick the day forward a few hours. I’d mastered an art of avoidance where, even if only fleetingly, all of your problems could be sucked in and evaporated with the simple press of a button. I’d grow to love a lot of people at boarding school, but the entire time I was using, I really did find it difficult to appreciate any one person more than that golden get-away device I’d kept hidden in my pocket all day long.

The power of drugs, and cannabis is included, is that they cheat your brain into believing you’ve achieved something real when you haven’t. With the power to reliably manifest all the feel-good you could muster comes the responsibility of self-control. Unfortunately, self control is a quality that evades a sizable portion of Canadian teens, and I know that it’s one I’ve never quite been able to grasp.

The resulting tragedy is that one day, when you have to stop using, you find that the high was, in fact, entirely ephemeral, and all the logic and precedent of your drug habit is left to hang like the old lies of an abusive ex.

You might start to look back and find friendships that have slowly withered.

Skates you should’ve learned to use but chose to substitute with a reliable time.

Countless, precious moments that you spent asleep or just can’t remember.

You might find yourself recording your eighth attempt to tell your Arabic grandmother that you miss her because you don’t know the words anymore.

At the worst of my withdrawals, I was completely disoriented. With the simple absence of less than a gram of material, the purpose I had been chasing for a year had instantly disappeared and left me with nothing but unanswered texts from dad and the feeling of lost time.

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What worries me the most when thinking about the choices I made, day-in and day-out, is that no matter how obviously harmful they were -- how clear it was that I was hurting myself -- they always seemed mostly rational. I was making wrong decisions, but they were made measurably more feasible because of what started off as a struggle with depression and turned into an addiction.

Parents, teachers, and adults who care only have so much of an arsenal when it comes to how to help kids struggling with substance abuse. When we appreciate that drug abuse is a mental health problem, we edge closer to understanding and helping the kids who find themselves on the fringe, rather than reminding them why they hid there in the first place.

Michael Cheaito—2nd Place, 11/12 Non-Fiction

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Alana Kim—Grade 11

Minows in the Shallows Zinny music leaks out of my cracked iphone, starting and restarting with each swipe of my right thumb. So goes the woes of tik tok. One more swipe and my brain decided it’d had enough, so that same thumb double clicked and suddenly I had been transported to a world of forehead pics and TMZ reportsand even though I told myself I didn’t care what Kim Kardahsian had worn when she was seen exiting her mega mansion, I found myself clicking through and learning with even more taps of that damn right thumb.

Eventually, the cycle repeated; TMZ couldn’t keep one occupied for too long.

It was time for the stories. Through the cracked screen I saw Lucy and Claire laughing with each other, Rowan and Allie dancing, a random teenager I didn’t know I knew coughing out that monstrous cloud of vapour from a beaten up juul. And even though none of these excursions looked to be any sort of fun, there was a hole in my chest, and a voice in my head wondering why I wasn’t good enough to be invited.

My reverie is broken, the telltale dragging and squeaking sounds of the bedroom door stabbing through the fog as my roommate comes back in the room. Her head bent over at an unnatural angle, feet on autopilot propelling toward her bed- and her thumb, just mindlessly swiping. At this point, the logical thing would obviously be to turn off my phone, but I must be a glutton for punishment, because I was double clicking, swiping and doing all these gen z gymnastics on over to TikTok again, where the tinny music started up.

Sitting there, I felt suffocated, not the kind that happens when a grape lodges itself in your throat or an ocean wave takes you by surprise. Suffocation, the type where your hands wring themselves until it feels as if they are bruised, cuticles hurt with the picking of hangnails, heart beats out an irregular pattern and lungs aren’t being deprived of any oxygen yet can’t take that required inhale. The possibilities of what my life could, should, be according to everything I saw on the internet weighed heavily on me. The videos were like the little minnows I’d try to catch with my older brother in the summers between our elementary school years. Sometimes we were able to snag one or two, just to have to put them back a little while later. All those little

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minnows seemed so easy to reach out and grab, but as soon as I moved a muscle they would disappear into the murky water and out of my life.

Like the minnows- Tiktoks, Snapchats and TMZ stories would swim around myconsciousness darting out of reach as soon as I reached out. They left me drowning amongst my ikea covers desperately trying to grasp how my life could become as interesting as everyone else’s seemed. The possibilities were all there, so many of them stifling me until the best option appeared to be sinking under the ikea covers.

With so many paths becoming more and more readily available to us, why are we becoming less and less inclined to take any of them? When a fork in the road appears, and a clear left and right is presented, all there is to do is consider the two options and continue down the best one. With all the information constantly being offloaded onto our brains, the fork becomes more of an interlacing of spindly veins running up, down and all over, with more paths than one can even count. Instead of traipsing down a few for a quick peek, all curiosity is lost and we turn tail to head back the way we’ve come, staying as a stationary object with no chance of growth.

Gabi Brown—3rd Place, 9/10 Non-Fiction

Judy Yu—Grade 10

Emily Liang—Grade 10

Tierney Cater—Grade 10

The Injury Although you wouldn’t know it by looking at any pictures taken, there’s definitely one dance that’s the most prominent in my memory. To be completely honest, I don’t remember the dance itself. However, I can tell you in vivid detail about the moments that occurred right before the dance started and as soon as it ended.

I remember sitting in the third row of seats in the auditorium with the group of girls performing with me. Since we all started Bharatnatyam around the same time, and we were all around the same age, we always danced together. Because of this, we became a tight-knit group of friends, often joking around together.

That is what we were doing as we sat in those auditorium seats, waiting for our turn to perform. We were young; I was only eight. How could we be expected to sit through hours of classical performances? So instead, we took to whispering among ourselves quietly, our heads all huddled together as if we were plotting something sinister. We thought we were as cool as the older kids, with our hair done up, our makeup all fancy and those lavish costumes. The fans stretched out between our legs, opening as we went into something akin to a plie—the

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gold detailing on the bands wrapping up our legs over the shoulder. I remember our startled looks when one of the moms approached, only to be relieved when she was just telling us that we were to go backstage.

I looked over at my friends, wondering where they were putting their shoes, asking if they would leave their shoes under their seats or carry them backstage.

Now shoes may not seem like a significant detail but believe me, they were a major faux pas in the Bharatnatyam world.

If there’s one thing you should know about Bharatanatyam, it’s that you should never wear any sort of footwear. I’m not entirely sure of the reason why, but it is very offensive to wear your shoes into a Bharatnatyam studio, let alone dance in them. In fact, you aren’t even allowed to wear socks when you dance; the only acceptable footwear is your bare feet.

All of my friends decided to leave their shoes under their chairs, and honestly, looking back, I should have done the same. However, I was a prissy little girl who didn’t want to get her feet dirty in the unhygienic hallways of the

high school we were in. For this reason, I chose to wear my shoes backstage and remove them right before we started to perform. Yet, I sincerely had overestimated my ability to keep my mind on track.

See, these shoes weren’t chunky runners or uncomfortable dress shoes; these were sketcher slip-ons. The kind that almost makes you forget you’re wearing shoes at all. A fact that I thoroughly understood as I stepped on stage, my shoes still firmly attached to my feet.

I was quick to recognize my situation, but by then, it was too late. I was onstage with what felt like millions of eyes on me. For all I knew, no one had seen my shoes at all, and if I ran offstage to change them, I would just be calling attention to myself. Maybe I could just leave them behind me, I thought, discreetly step out of them before the music starts. Then the opening notes began to play, and the decision had been made for me. I was to dance the number with my shoes on.

Keep in mind that we were still young children and that this was a Bharatnatyam dance. This meant there were no ‘transitions’ where I would be offstage. Because if I could get offstage, even for just a moment, those shoes would’ve been thrown off my feet instantly. Once again, they were slip-ons; it wouldn’t take much effort. I wasn’t even wearing socks! As it was, however, I was stuck for the entire performance. Never before had ten minutes felt so long.

Though I must say, as soon as it ended, I wished it lasted an eternity. Because now I had to face my parents and dance teacher, who had no doubt caught my error. At first, I ignored the so-called elephant in the room, running towards my parents to hear my praises. However, as soon as it was brought up, I was pushed to tears. In my mind, only an idiot could forget something as simple as taking off their shoes. I think the adults had experience with this sort of mishap, though, because they were quick to come up with an excuse for me and reassure me that everything was okay.

If you were to ask anyone in the audience why I was wearing my shoes on that fateful day, they will no doubt all tell you the same thing: I had a foot injury, and the only way I could dance was if I kept my shoes on. In fact, even to this day, not one of them knows any better.

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As I said before, this dance is probably the most memorable, but it’s also the only one I remember if I’m being entirely honest. Over time all of these dances have blurred into one muddled memory, all but this one. So maybe me wearing my shoes wasn’t a lapse of judgement; perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. So I could have one distinct memory from all of those years of dance. Although, if we’re being honest, I think it’s just my curse to remember every single one of my mishaps.

Sunaina Vallamkonda—3rd Place, 11/12 Non-Fiction

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Avery Packman—Grade 9

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Bill Ting—Grade 10

Relapse At the beginning of senior year, I thought I had gotten rid of my distorted eating Felt like my body finally deserved food Told myself I could drink something other than sparkling water Didn’t feel the need to suppress my appetite with the taste of menthol cigarettes That the number of calories in a stick of gum didn’t matter anymore I call it distorted eating because it didn’t hurt the way you are supposed to when you have an eating disorder.

There was never any lurching over toilet seats, Measuring wrists with my fingers, No sunken in cheeks, My teeth did not yellow and my knuckles never callused From the food I couldn’t afford to digest.

But every day I feel the black cloud that is guilt climb into my stomach and make a home in my digestive tract

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Playing god in whether or not I will feed myself something other than water.

Tell me that vegetables are good and pasta is the bad I miss the feeling of drinking cold water on an empty stomach Feeling the icy cold liquid drain into my belly Finding its home in the satisfaction of making me feel full.

I did not miss the voice in my head that screams at me To be beautiful, be pretty, skinny be perfect I dont feel perfect in this body This body that calculates calories like a math test This body that feels like it will break with a strong gust of wind This body I do not like This body that I starve into submission I wonder if I am the only one who is starving Wonder if The voices of girls just like me

Who dont eat cake on their birthdays, Live off of coffee and sugar-free red bull Go to sleep with hunger as their bedtime story I wonder if they know they’re dying Training our bodies to photosynthesis, teaching them to live off of celery and sunlight we are broken a generation of girls on our hands and knees begging to be (Invisible) starting to like black coffee out of necessity Because cream is whole 35 calories and I have to fit into a bathing suit in 4 months If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it really even fall?

In the same way, If a 16-year old stops eating and no one sees it, does anyone even notice she is evaporating?

Notice she is disintegrating Ceasing to exist in front of our own eyes Perhaps we should just be happy that we have managed to keep something alive But you can’t sing with your fingers in your throat You can cant breathe when all of your time is devoted To counting and mirrors and the inability to fit into our favourite jeans I tell myself am I healing That my daily trips to the gym mean that I’m all back together That because I know that I need to eat even though I dont feel like I deserve it I am making progress.

Starving myself to the point where I’m intoxicated with my own pride Staring at the scale and feeling humiliated If any of my friends told me that these things have become the patterns of their lives I would scream.

I wonder if they would do the same

Dylan Clement—1st Place, 11/12 Spoken Word

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James Wu—Grade 12

Command and Conquer My dad and my big brother used to

And mommy learned a little, too

play command and conquer

Because when the tumour came back

On the kitchen counter

She’d say things like

And I could watch, steeped below

“I love you”, and “I’m doing well”

Catching big, violent men making

And she always had a smile

moves and invading

Dad must have forgotten what he

And my dad would talk strategy

taught,

And Ali would his nod head

Because sometimes he slipped out,

Mommy wore a du-rag

“Jad, I don’t know what to tell you”

And blew out the candles on

So I got floats and learned to swim

birthdays

I learned how to talk fast

She’d make it to 40

How to make friends

And 41

And how to sit politely in a waiting

And the tumour would go away

room

She always chose kisses

I got better at all the little things

And told you to love your brother

Like how to decode a smile

And she’d ask if I wanted to eat bacon

Or walk on the tips of your toes

or not

I’d ask questions like,

Because she believed I had a right to

“Is Santa real?”

choose faith

“And did the chicken come first?”

And big, violent men applauded

And Ali would say,

And sometimes they yelled

Without a flinch,

And I got good at watching

That it was the egg

I’d watch Lord of the Rings, and

That fat red men didn’t come down

video-games

chimneys

Swords and goblins and grand

And that God couldn’t be real

dragons

I got good at catching fists with my

Ali never flinched

face

But sometimes I got a little scared

And clawing out people’s ears

He passed down some strategy

I practiced the dirty tactics

Little notes

And I’d watch

Like when to pivot or make a noise

Because you learned things

When to strike

Like how dad always had a beer in his

Or when to hide

hand

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And how one night He drank whiskey And Ali never cried Even at the funeral He just would nod his head And practice the artful tricks Of deflection and espionage And when I passed by the casket I thought to give a kiss And I kept my eyes dry, And firm And talked smart and little Because it’s not keen to give things away My dad and my big brother used to play command and conquer If you knew how to watch, then there was a lot to learn.

Michael Cheaito—2nd Place, 11/12 Spoken Word

Chelsea Yue—Grade 12

My Truth Why are you so opposed to

won’t make a sound

completing the work that’s assigned

Words like anchors

Maybe it’s because I’m trapped in

Keeping me from the sky

mind

It’s even worse when it’s an authority

Constantly cycling over and over

figure

A voice whispering words into

I guess I figured that you of all people

my ears, has me looking over my

would try and help me rise

shoulder

However, adults like all humans feel

Why aren’t you successful

the need to characterize

You shouldn’t find this stressful

Rather than seeing me as a human

Why can’t you be better

with a name

An ambitious goal setter

You treated me as though I were a

Anything, anyone would be worth

mess of a person who was always to

more than you

blame

There’s nothing you can even do

I suppose I should thank you after all

Right

Because you along with the many

Well I suppose I can write

others are the reason I now stand tall

Your a coward

Able to utter the words that once

You pour your words onto paper

couldn’t escape my lips

Because you can’t speak the truth in

Now I feel powerful from my head to

real life you’re a faker

the tips

And what good are your words

Of my toes

haphazardly mixed together

Where hopelessness once filled

Anyone and everyone can write

my body there now only the fire of

better, than you

defiance

I try everyday to convince myself that

The joy that comes with self reliance

it’s not true

And the strength to battle on another

That I am worth something

day

But it’s not an easy thing to do

To fight the tide of darkness and to

Especially when the words I hear

speak about the struggles I’ve never

from the people near supposedly dear

known how to convey

Drag me down so low that I am

So that others too may find the hope

brought to the ground

And will be able to cope

Even now when I speak I’m afraid I

Until they feel free and are able fly

Ilana Mohamed—3rd Place, 11/12 Spoken Word

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My Truth I sit on the edge of the couch, watching the news of the Arab Spring filing in, images of chaos and struggle clouding up countries that were once great civilizations.

The fight in their eyes is oddly familiar to me; they bring me back to the streets of Cairo, where a simple family vacation made us bear witness to the start of the January revolution.

“Welcome to Cairo!” Our taxi driver said, a warm smile on his face.

My mom smiled back, the relief etching itself into the lines around her eyes.

Outside of the airport, in the cacophony of hagglers and honking cars, no taxis had been in sight. Until a man came up to us and introduced himself as Madu, a taxi driver. He had kind eyes and an inoffensive posture - I instantly liked him.

His car smelled of worn leather, people, and a touch of smoke, but my face was instantly glued to the window. I took in the vast expanse of Cairo, the sights, the smells, and the colours of a famed city in textbooks. It was beautiful, but I

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couldn’t help but notice the aura of poverty and hopelessness that settled into the streets.

My dad, in the front seat of the taxi, couldn’t help but ask, his voice revealing his curiosity. “Is Cairo always like this?”

He didn’t mean any harm. But we could all feel it. The lack of tourists and the chaos in the airport. It was a feeling, something we couldn’t quite place a finger on.

Madu shook his head. He met our eyes in the rearview mirror, a grim look set in his features. “No, not always. It’s the revolution,” he explained.

“Revolution?” The shock was clear in our voices. The news of a revolution had not yet carried over amid our packing and preparing for our twenty-day trip through Africa and the Middle East.

“The demonstrations started a few days ago,” Madu said. “Now there are marches, burnings, strikes every day. People are starving under the presidency

of Mubarak.”

The read was visible on my parents’ faces, their eyes flashing with identical looks of horror at bringing their ten-year-old to a country that was currently undergoing an uprising.

Years later in high school, I would learn about the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, the beginning of the four-year-long Egyptian crisis and the role Egypt played in the Arab Spring. It was only then I realized that I had experienced the very beginning - I had seen it with my very own eyes.

It was too late to turn back. We had flown over six hours to get here. For the next five days, Cairo would be our home.

Madu offered to drive us throughout our whole trip, saving us the hassle of finding transportation and a local to help us navigate the country.

We would eat all of our meals with him, and when we all sat down for lunch, Madu would tell us about his home and his life. He told us that he had not been able to find work in a month; after all, not many people needed a taxi amidst protests and rising levels of unemployment. He feared that he would soon join the ranks.

He was honest with us, even when I didn’t really understand the implications of what he was saving. Madu told us his concern of being unable to support his family, his dread of the day when he would no longer be able to put food on the table, and his worries for the future of Egypt. He was not a particularly avid protestor, despite not sharing any love for the president. Instead, he was someone that believed in survival above all else.

I did not see the extent of Egypt’s poverty. The few glimpses I caught were through the wide eyes of hungry children, the tin cans of beggars ringing their own melody, and the throngs of people that roamed the streets.

Madu shook his head, sympathy set into the line of his mouth. “It wasn’t always like this. People weren’t always on the streets. Mubarak and the government’s corruption have ruined Egypt,” he lamented.

He turned to us suddenly, urgency in his voice. “Make sure you have your

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windows closed.”

His warning fell short -- a pair of rough fingers already reaching out and grabbing at my face.

I jumped, startled to see the faces of women and children, their hands and arms snaking into the car window, prying for the strands of my hair and the fabric of my clothes.

My mom let out a cry of alarm and pulled me away from the window as Madu rolled them up, forcing the fingers out of the car.

“Are you okay?” my dad asked, making sure I was still in one piece.

“You have to be more careful,” my mom chided. “They could have grabbed you.”

Madu hummed in agreement but his eyes were alight with awareness and warning. “They do that to tourists sometimes, they’ll grab your hands, hair, or whatever they get their hands on unless you give them money.”

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“Don’t worry,” he reassured us. “We’re almost out of the area. You’ll be alright.”

After a while, when the experience had long been reduced to just a moment of excitement, my mom let me return to my seat by the window.

Looking through the glass, beyond my own reflection, I thought about the children in the market, their innocence and childhood robbed by the harsh realities of poverty, corruption, and rebellion.

Our last day in Cairo began at the crack of dawn. We had left early from our hotel, at a time when the roads were silent and the city was still sleeping.

Inside the little taxi, a stifling weight rested on us. Madu’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Despite only having known him for a few days, his name would stay with me in memory.

I pressed my nose against the window, letting my breath fog up the glass as the scenery morphed into a blur of colour. Underneath the morning sky, my parent’s faces settled into a calm expression for the first time in days, comforted by the fact that no shouts and cries tainted the air.

We slowed down at a street corner, where a group of men stood.

I squinted, curious at the sight of people. It was early to be outside.

To even an outsider, I felt the tension guarded in their stance. I could sense the severity trapped in the stiffness of their posture. There was an awareness alight in their eyes. Above all, it was the foreboding sense of a sea of black shirts - except for the red tang of blood dribbling down one lip and the brick another was clutching in his hand.

I would never be prepared for what he did next. Almost in slow motion, I saw him move. His body lurched forward, his arm swung up in the air, and so fast, fast enough that by the time my parents caught sight of what was happening, the brick had already collided with another man’s head.

He crumpled to the floor like he was made of jelly, the words on his lips left unsaid.

It happened in a matter of seconds, right as we drove by the corner. My parents tried to cover my eyes with their hands as if they could protect me from the world through the gaps of their fingers. But it was too late, the image was already replaying in my head.

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It was a beautiful sunrise. That, I remember. A rare one where the orange bled into the pink and blue. One where the ripples of clouds accompanied the first notes of daylight in a perfect symphony.

“Good morning, Cairo,” I whispered to the city. My words stilled in the air.

Resting there. As if that day, the world knew how much there was left unsaid.

Nicole Liu—1st Place, LCS Explores

Nahanni Expedition The second night of our two-week trip, we camped on a small gravel bar on the right river bank. Already I had been amazed by the scenery that the Nahanni River presented. The mountain range that the Nahanni winds through is breath taking, and I was in awe every day of that trip. We had just paddled six hours from Rabbitkettle Lake to our second campsite and on the water we went over paddling skills from simple strokes like a draw, to more complicated ones like pivots for those who were not seasoned paddlers. I remember our guide Joel told us we would stop for the night as we rounded a bend in the river. The gravel bar he pointed to was scattered with round stones that we had to drag our canoes up onto, and stepping out of the canoe, I finally got a chance to look around at where we had stopped.

Normally during an expedition, things start off mediocre and then grow to become amazing experiences as you settle in. This trip began incredibly and ended even better. The gravel bar, to our guide, was nothing special compared to the sites we were planning to stay at, but for me it was absolutely stunning.

The gravel bar extended for 15 feet and then it slowly turned into soft sand

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where we would set up our tents. Beyond the sand the tree line started. Tall green larch trees divided us from the mountains behind and created an ominous unknown where I was sure a bear would come out and attack me while I sat on the latrine.

I had been on mountains before while skiing in Alberta, but the mountains in the Northwest Territories were so different than any I had seen. They looked taller and because we were paddling in ravines and canyons, they towered above us. The mountains we could see from the gravel bar rose into a perfect point and created an amazing background for our campsite.

That night the 14 of us sat around on camp stools and ate dinner while taking in the world around us. We all took baths in the river after dinner which turned into more of a polar dip because the river was so incredibly cold. By that point the sun had started to descend behind the mountains, but stopped just before shadows appeared. In the Northwest Territories, the sun never sets, and as a result we stayed up way too late and lost a lot of sleep. The sun cast a warm glow on all the orange tents and set the calm mood for the rest of the night. One

of the teachers, Mr. Lewis, pulled out his guidelele (a guitar in ukulele size) and we spent the rest of the night singing and playing old country songs.

I felt so at home on that trip. It changed my perspective on myself and of how I want to live. I had never been so comfortable in a group of people and my surroundings. On a trip like that, you are completely separate from the outside world – you have no phones, no city exposure, and no way of communicating with friends or family outside the group. After spending two weeks deprived of everything in my normal life, I hated the idea of going back. You learn so much about yourself on those expeditions and even on the worst days, I never wanted to leave. I learned how to trust my instincts, how to get through difficult situations, what time I should get up at to use the toilet before anyone else, and generally about who I am as a person. You can’t get that anywhere else.

At the end of the trip we sat in the airport for two hours waiting for our flight. I sat staring out the window wishing I was still looking at mountains and water instead of a busy tarmac and artificial lights.

Julianna Cook—2nd Place, LCS Explores

The Eerily Unfamiliar And there was something eerily unfamiliar about it all: The only light spilling across the mountainside was the sun; slowly, certainly rising from it’s deep slumber — every hue from dull orange to burnt umber.

The only sound came from the quiet crunch of the ground under our feet; the lethargic cracks and clangs as we rid the desert of our existence.

Tents collapsed here (then there) — a blanket of dust settled around us.

Inhale, exhale. In and out it went, lingering in our lungs.

The buildings — well, there weren’t any.

Only the stretched ranges of earth, sand and rock unfolding across the horizon.

Dominos waiting to be toppled over with our conquering steps For an unassuming bunch of city kids — the kind that savoured everyday at the mall, at the beach, at a fancy restaurant with ingredients we couldn’t always pronounce

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— it was all a glaring reminder of the foreign land we had found ourselves in one February morning.

Crisp, morning air puffed from our lips, eyes watching the smoke rise until it disappeared between the stagnant purples and blues of the clouds.

We ached. We stumbled.

At one point, I’m certain I even wept.

Yet for whatever reason, the light, the sound, the buildings that weren’t there — They have been permanently tattooed to the flesh of my mind, the flame of my heart, the entirety of my soul.

I might be an unassuming city kid, but you’ll always find me hunting for the eerily unfamiliar.

Eman Murshed—3d Place, LCS Explores

Eman Murshed—Grade 11

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The Arts at

Author Name—Place / Name (Medium) 4391 County Rd 29, Lakefield, ON K0L 2H0 lcs.on.ca