In A Grove 2014

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In A Grove 2014

Arts Journal

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Lexie Krocker, Lino Print

In a Grove 2014 A Celebration of Writing and Art at Lakefield College School

Featuring the winners of LCS Writes!

Sponsored by the Grove Society

Monica Scrocchi, Graphite Self Portrait

LCS Writes! Winners Poetry Section Grades 11/12 1st Victoria Godsell, "Writing by Candlelight" 2nd Kalia Douglas-Micallef, "I was Born of Service" 3rd Kalia Douglas-Micallef, "You Built Me Strong and Resilient" Grades 9/10 1st Megan McShane, "The River" 2nd Geetanjali Narine, "Silence" 3rd Olivia Gao, "You"

Prose Section Grades 11/12 1st Juliet Gardner, "The Men of My Circus" 2nd Asic Chen, "Stars of My Father: On Being Raised a Communist" (Excerpt*) 3rd Jasmine Shenandoah, "Norma Jean" (Excerpt*) Grades 9/10 1st Sarah Williams, "Fire Escapes: I Will Forget" 2nd Hannah Forestell, "Medication" (Excerpt*) 3rd Ashley Gao, "The Other Me in this Universe" (Excerpt*) *Excerpt of prose selection published due to space restrictions.

Visit lcs.on.ca/arts to read prose pieces in full.

Cover by Edi Sun, Acrylic Painting Photography: Simon Spivey

Philip Carr-Harris, Lino Print

Writing by Candlelight

By Victoria Godsell Sparks ignite lifting the veil Of cursed darkness by the Wax figure’s dancing flame.

Twisted shadows form braille on walls.

Pen on paper, and I can’t see, My wicked emotions to blame.

Nib bleeds my heart so frail; Ink lost in churning sea.

Waves dyed black beating the frame Of a moon, so pure and pale.

While I, myself and me Plagued by visions the same No relief of pain inhaled 4 am, I’m at strike three Choked by melancholy so stale I collapse on now My blank white page and allow It to soak up the black.

1st place, Grades 11/12 poetry

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I was born of service

By Kalia Douglas-Micallef I was born of service ‘I am a series of small victories and large defeats And I am amazed as any other that I have gotten from there to here’ (Charles Bukowski) I let my guard down I opened my heart I learned to let go of the things that hurt me And let love grow‌

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I am learning to dance with grace on the constantly shifting carpet To uncloak my originality and manifest my pure potential To follow my inner guidance that is only truth, light, peace and love To continuously connect with the realm of The Higher Self To be patient and trust that the rest of the pieces will fall together That my life will form itself I have a bright light waiting to burst from the heart chakra And a never ending stream of love waiting to pour For pain creates strength For pain creates wisdom For emptiness creates fulfillment.

2nd place, Grades 11/12 poetry

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Paige Bonner, Lino Print

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Alisa Filatova, Colour Study

You Built me strong and resilient

By Kalia Douglas-Micallef You built me strong and resilient My bones are big and heavy Nothing but pure strength You gave me that extra push to look beyond me To look beyond my safe, coddled, closeted cocoon To see the world as nothing but greatness and opportunities I lost you My whole world stopped I heard nothing I felt nothing Numbness overwhelmed me My heart being ripped out of my chest I’m falling with nothing but the cold, hard concrete ground waiting for me Where are your arms?

I’m craving your love To feel your warmth To feel your wholesome, nurturing, motherly hands My heart feels weak and unpowerful Nothing can fill the hole you’ve left me with The emptiness, the burden, the heartache You built me strong and resilient My bones are big and heavy Nothing but pure strength My bones are snapping I am breaking I am strong.

3rd place, Grades 11/12 poetry

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the river

By Megan McShane How many days have I spent here?

How many hours have I sat with you?

Your presence washes over me like the river you are.

Refreshing.

Peaceful.

Serene.

You are my sister, my brother, my friend.

The sibling I never had.

You have raised me so well.

Where did I go wrong?

How could you let it happen?

Why did you not build a dam to stop me from going down the wrong fork of life’s river?

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How many days have I spent here?

How many hours have I sat with you?

Your presence washes over me like the river you are.

Loud.

Boisterous.

Disturbed.

You are my sister, my brother my friend.

The sibling I never had.

So many hours I have spent beside you.

Poisoning your atmosphere with my depression.

My struggles of growing up.

My choices of wrong along the river of live.

The smoke I have smoked.

The cigarettes I have tossed on your bank.

Poisoning it all.

The freshness.

The peace.

The serenity.

Yet I continued on staining you.

My sins ever flowing.

The drugs.

The alcohol.

The cigarettes.

Molesting your river banks with my evil.

My faults.

My wrongdoings.

How many lovers have I brought to you?

Asking for your help so they will fall for me.

My lust and my longing being put before you.

Corrupting your shores.

Killing your peace.

Destroying your tranquility.

How many days have I spent here?

How many hours have I sat with you?

Your presence washes over me like the river you are.

Such guilt.

Such regret.

Such sorrow.

You are my sister, my brother, my friend.

The sibling I never had.

I ask for your forgiveness.

Though I know our relationship will never be quite the same.

1st place, Grades 9/10 poetry

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silence

By Geetanjali Narine

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Sometimes the noise

This,

Is better

This plague

Than the silence

Brings no warning

When the silence falls

It moves

death looms over

As a shadow

Forever barring us

Chasing light away

From sanctuary

Back into the brittle battle

The voices scream

Silence may sound better

Like gun shots,

But,

But at least we know

Without the gun shots

Who's been hit

You'll never know

There may be blood shed And wounds That seem too deep to heal For our sanity These gashes tell us Who caused the agony When the silence drops It pierces through Spearing hope 2nd place, Grades 9/10 poetry

If the war is over

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Becca Garrison, Graphite Self Portrait

you

By Olivia Gao The book is running The fish is eating cats

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The waffles are flying in the sky The refrigerator is eating all my food The sun killed the moon and is being swallowed by a frog And you are saying that you love me 3rd place, Grades 9/10 poetry

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Kana Hashimoto, Graphite Self Portrait

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Adrian Barazon, Contour Drawing

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Josephine Boellhoff, Contour Drawing

the men of my circus

By Juliet Gardner I sit here, the fore of my head resting against the folding of my fingers. My eyes blur and crystallize the filaments of my world, I have so much power. I look right and left, I can see so clearly, I have so little power. My toes snuggle against one another beneath my layers of sock and boot and hurt. The music, unsuitable for the moment, streams through black buds and into my ears but stops there, never reaches my heart. A breath starts deep in my stomach and moves up through my neck as it contracts, and I sigh. I spot bits of my ever paling skin peeking out, a sliver of my wrist, my knuckles, none of my (never my) pain shows. My mouth stays closed and quietly pushed forward, a silent and never ending kiss to the air and nothing else, nothing else.

My fingers reach for the water and soon enough soft icicles melt into me and again, streams, forming patterns, rattling their dance through my insides. The slope in my cheeks is exaggerated as I gulp, gulp, gulp, and I feel like a swan, like a grace, like the smallest being.

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I can remember promises of breaking long before heartbreak. I leapt into your arms when you arrived home too late (it’s much too late now) and you caught me (how could you not…I was so young, so very tiny hearted and minded and started). But now I can see the profuseness of your apology for working was a guise … so many guises …. Did I ever see you without a disguise? My memory is not vivid enough that I can know if our beautiful matriarch should’ve been able to smell the infidelity on your suit and eyes and personality. But do not mistake my lack of sensory associations with the moment and so many others as disbelief.

I run my cleanly pink tongue along my calmly whiter than skin teeth and when you saw me last, these teeth of mine were few and far between. You knew me only as your gap toothed daughter with the dark brown bob and ever trusting eyes. Father, the changes are disparate.

The hint of my wrist I stare at once again. I shove my sleeve higher until the fore of my arm is completely exposed and I marvel at how anyone could cut it up. My deranged men, why do you do this to yourselves? You may make sad and great stories and lead sad and great lives but I am so far from great when you so sadly cry and die.

People ask about Death, wanting to know if it was a crash or a burn. Was it quick, a car accident, instantly dead, or long and drawn out, agonizingly slow, cancer. But suicide was a crash, and ever since, the rest of us have been burning. Sometimes after, I wondered if I was really the ghost, drifting from place to place but never really arriving anywhere. I would watch as people’s words floated up through the air, landed in front of me, just to disappear, never having reached me at all. Everything was inanimate, no one really moved much or said much or felt much. I worried that if I poked them, they would turn out to be as light as a feather, and float away in the ever changing wind until I couldn’t find them or myself again. The sun was cold and the moon, black.

Some people long to discover cures for complex diseases, others want to uncover and rediscover the mind and the Earth. It seems like the hardest task for all of us scientists and artists and dreamers and losers to understand is the complicated and painfully simple concept of death.

Memories of you take over again and again and again. So much darker than I was, your skin and eyes and mind. The day when you came to take my brothers and I out for ice cream and there was a pain in my chest; I could not identify the reason, but now I know. You were distancing yourself. My little eyes saw your too-big, too-much, and yet such a slow, inevitable suffocation. The next day in a park, where you should have been taking my hand and showing me how to play, you took your own life.

And still I sit here, the folding of my hands resting against the fore of my head.

Listening to my inner turmoil, hoping for the men still left to fight against themselves and win, and win for once. They are so covered in swords that stick into themselves and other people and I worry, always full of such consuming worry.

There are moments when I wonder why teapots don’t have two ends, and why it can’t be autumn all year round, and how emotions can be so present but still invisible to someone looking from the outside. So little is fair at times that it’s hard to separate the sense from the non. I have grown up in a circus; our first performance and most memorable act had all the elements of a tragedy. Now the Tragedy’s family lives on and I see the sons walk their tight ropes, listen to the audience gasp in concern for their physical safety. Only few of us know it is their minds we should be asking about. And I am in the middle of it all, only sometimes noticed, as I manipulate some things and have no power over others. Searching for my control and place but finding only anarchy with some

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beauty thrown in to make it all the more compelling. ‘Come one, come all’, an inviting, grim voice chants, ‘watch as the family of dangerous minds takes care of and searches for and loses one another and themselves, all the while jumping through hoops and leaping over obstacles that you daren’t dream of.’

You read to me during the dark nights. I huddled against the covers and words and endless mountain I thought of you as. Now I read my own words and crowd into the covers all by myself, and if it seems sad it’s because it is. My father, my brothers, so obsessed by the idea of protecting me from harshness and brutality, when you are the only ones who have shown it to me. The ‘sorrys’ are unending and the ‘what ifs’ list infinite, but reality is what you so rarely focus on, a giant and apologetic copout. How many times you have abandoned me for hospitals and pills and whispers of a better future. It is always so loud around you with your constant ideas and brilliance and cruelty.

Alone once again, it is so silent in comparison, and so I focus on how I sit.

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The fore of my head rests against my fingers. The fore of my head which holds a few promises of premature wrinkles, so close to my hair which I have found strands of gray in since before I hit the double digits. You are the hurt that I hide under, you are the breath that’s more like a gasp. You are the salty sadness that graces and slides down my skin and you are the antagonist. You, my father who is not here. You, my brothers who are only here in some ways. My men, I love you just as sincerely as you confuse yourselves, so you know it is vast and unending.

My ever paling skin you called ‘snow white’, like the princess. You have always treated me as one. Sheltering, pampering; under and over estimating. The princess of the house and your hearts. I may be the palest of them all but I am no longer the smallest and never was I the weakest. You can open your minds to insanity and manic states, surely you can stretch it enough to accommodate my strength, because that is real. That is real.

This world is a circus without a shelter, full of blankets and drugs and words to hide behind. This is sad and great. We are all sorry. My wrists, your wrists, his wrists: do keep them bare. Minds are crowded and hearts are emptied post and pre breaking. Feel this as strongly as I mean it, know this as harshly as it is, do not look away, do not think away from it and this and me. The fore of my head rests against my fingers. I remember not enough and too much, never the right amount. When everything is full of wrongness (and when is it not), I have grown so much so fast.

1st place, Grades 11/12 prose

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Nina Burger, Graphite Self Portrait

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"Generations By Generations" by Fiona Murray, Digital Photography

Stars of My Father: On Being Raised A Communist (excerpt)

By Asic Chen My friends, I have something serious to confess. I was raised a Communist.

There, I said it. Another hundred kilometers South and I might be crucified for it, but I have heard that Canadians are, if not more lenient, at least more polite than certain neighbouring species. “Then are you a Communist?”, you may ask.

Truthfully, I boast myself to be a free-enterprise-socialist. Communist? I don’t know if that is taking things too far. Some may challenge, “How can it be freeenterprise if it is Socialist, and how can you be Socialist if you believe in freeenterprise?” I do not know how to answer that, but have to find a way to justify my label. It’s just a label, afterall. Well, they use the label to refer to Norway, and Norway is a real country, so I will just have to assume that the label exists as well. I am a Socialist in heart and soul. All right, maybe I do not necessarily agree with the part on income equality. Or the part on rent ceilings. Nor do I find Canada’s long list of taxes especially agreeable. And sometimes I feel that good ol’ Adam Smith and his “invisible hand” make plenty of sense as well. But that is besides the point.

Budding Evil Back to what I was saying before; I was raised a Communist. And no Communist children can grow up without being “brainwashed” (Assuming that you, the Canadians, are like the people of one country that I can name, and categorize the teaching of patriotism in a Communist state brainwashing and similar education in a free market Capitalist nation the celebration of freedom.) and absorbed into the Young Pioneers of China. But that was primary school; my true patriotic education started much earlier, in my one Garden of Eden of a kindergarten.

In kindergarten, we learnt about the meaning of our “five-star red flag”. The big star on the top left corner symbolizes the Party, the leader of our 1.3 billion population. And the little stars around it? They are the people: the poor farmers and workers, who follow the Party for a brighter future. And you, my little friend, are a little star. We will follow our Party forever and forever. The Flag is red because it is stained by the blood of the martyrs who lay the foundation for our nation. And see the red scarfs the older children wear?

2nd place, Grades 11/12 prose Visit lcs.on.ca/arts to read "Stars of My Father: On Being Raised a Communist" in full.

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Norma Jean (excerpt)

By Jasmine Shenandoah It was quiet now that the laughing and crying had ceased. The room was dark, the plaster peeling, covered up by Clark Gable posters that reminded her of her absent father. The burn on her cheek, where her mother had struck her was slowly starting to soften, sinking deeper into her skin until it marked her soul.

She crawled from the place, which she had slumped to on the floor, to the window and poked her head through the curtains. The lights of Holly Wood glowed against her cherub face, reflecting the stars in her eyes. One day she thought, I’ll leave this all behind.

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Norma-Jean stood, and cautiously opened the door to stare down the barren hallway. Now that her mother’s fit had ended, the filthy halls echoed with her faded cries. The house, from the outside seemed friendly and innocent enough, but on the inside its core rotted like a month old apple, its decaying fuzz contaminating the joy of Norma-Jean’s soul. As she tiptoed down the hall, she stopped outside her mother’s door. Soft murmurs in her mother’s voice comforted someone who was not there, for she was alone. Norma-Jean sighed and continued down the hall, creaked down the stairs, grabbed her coat and left.

It was a long walk to the movie theatre, but she knew the way well. She fell into the trance of the happy routine, her footsteps retracing a path she had walked many times before. She passed familiar houses, lit from the inside by candle light and smiling faces. She tried not to dwell on these happy families, the dinners at long tables, birthdays and holidays celebrated with laughter and music. A childhood she would never have. She passed the police station, with its faded sign To Protect and To Serve, the white letters of a prouder era. The police doors opened, unleashing the laughter of the rowdy men who had been on the job for too long. They lit up their cigarettes, the ashen smoke blowing away the cares of the day. Through the fading light, a man, if he could be called that for he had scarcely graduated from boyhood, caught her eye. He was scrawny with uncombed maple colored hair, and kindly but sad face. He was less rowdy than the other men, who were busy pushing one another around and letting loose raunchy jokes. Feeling her eyes on him, he looked up, catching her gaze. Norma-Jean held his stare, causing them both to smile.

3rd place, Grades 11/12 prose Visit lcs.on.ca/arts to read "Norma Jean" in full.

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Amber Wilson, Acrylic Painting

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Liam Chen, Monoprint

Fire Escapes: I will forget

By Sarah Williams I’ve read about people who have been trapped in elevators. Everything is tolerable until the steel walls with ghastly decorative paneling start to shift closer and closer beside you; the floor of the car with the bedraggled carpeting and a questionable stain moves higher and higher towards the roof with the fluorescent lighting above plastic diffuser panels, which move lower and lower towards you until the floor and the roof are holding hands, and you’re stuck in between the two hoping that you do not become another questionable stain on the carpet. That’s how I felt before I arrived in the city. Thankfully, the elevator I am currently in holds no resemblance to the aforementioned one. It brings me the promise of a new beginning. I will try to forget the grimy white picket fences for the glimmer of the gutters that run down the walls of my new home.

Ding! The elevator tells me I have reached my floor, and my arms protest as I carry the one box that the movers aren’t allowed to bring into my new apartment.

I don’t need to switch on the lights to see my new home. The neon signs that litter the street below paint my furniture red, blue, and yellow. The colours swim over my box as I set it beside me on the couch. It groans with age and the weight of my memories. Suburban life was my broken elevator. There, the world is small and filled with trivial pursuits. Did your parents ever lecture you about having a personal space bubble? Mine did. You know, there is a certain area around your person that, if intruded without your permission, is not acceptable. Do not be afraid to tell him or her to move away. In the suburbs, your personal space may be respected physically, but there is no privacy.

There, everybody knows everything. Here, the city’s luster will hypnotise me, and I will forget.

After a time, an obnoxious honk followed by a “Hey! Watch where you’re going buddy, come on!” stirred me from my thoughts. I rise from my seat and close the window, then turn to face the couch. My box is still sitting quietly and comfortably, almost forgotten. Where am I to hide the items inside of it? I scan my apartment. The living room will not do, as it is a place where I will make new stories – ones that will be told when my family and friends gather around a table and feast on turkey, stuffing, rice, and pudding. Stories where the plot may be tweaked, worn, and torn, but the laughter passed down

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through generations. The kitchen will not do, as it is the heart of my home.

One day, my fridge – which stands solemnly in the corner – will be littered with to-do lists, magnets, and other sorts of art. My countertops will be dusted with flour, and my sinks littered with dishes. The bedroom will not do, as it is a place to rest with my thoughts. Nothing should prevent me from a peaceful slumber. Every night I will fashion a cocoon out of my covers, and wake up a butterfly.

My question is yet to be answered as I kneel in front of the box. The cardboard – after being stuffed, sealed, carried, and cushioned – is soft and losing its shape. I decide to unpack, as a location for its contents may come to me then.

The silver tape around my box is old and stale, so I do not find it hard to remove. The flaps are easy to maneuver as well; I simply push them back, and they listen to me. Next, I am greeted by a strip of bubble wrap that rests on top of my belongings. It is taken aside and saved for later, as one is never too old for bubble wrap. My most prized possessions wait for me inside. Their light casts a shadow on my face as I peer into the box. My dreams are neatly stacked and sturdy, like fire escapes that hug the sides of apartment buildings.

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I will store my dreams on the fire escape, so that I can flee if signs of peril begin to creep their way into my future. After all, an emergency exit is the best place to put the objects closest to your heart. I pick up the bubble wrap, and my dreams. They are cradled to my chest as I journey towards my chosen hiding place. With each footstep, I pop a bubble. Fire escapes were once a very important aspect of safety for all new urban establishments; more recently, however, they have fallen out of use. Now they serve as playgrounds for cats and locations for secret rendezvous. Pop! My last bubble bursts and I stand outside on my stairway to safety. I let go of the plastic, as it is not useful anymore - not after I squeezed all of the fun from it. It settles beside my feet, on the steel grating. The grating is painted black, and there is an empty flowerbox that sits on the rail in front of me. I rest my dreams in the dirt.

Hopefully, it will rain, and they will bloom when spring arrives.

Satisfied, I make my way back inside. My dreams will not be scrutinized here, as they were where I came from. Here is a place of new beginnings. But, just in case, I will be able to uproot myself from any inferno and find a new city to conquer. I will have the strength of the steel that climbs these buildings. I will keep my angles and my shadows. I will be littered with bits of rust and beauty.

I will forget again.

1st place, Grades 9/10 prose

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Sydnee Korculanic, Value Drawing

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Alisa Filatova, Gouache on Paper

medication (excerpt)

By Hannah Forstell The birds chirped as I looked around the plain, white walls. The sun shone brightly through the single window beside my bed. How did I get here? I looked over the door on my right. Where am I, really? I know where I am physically, but mentally I am unsure.

In my way of life, I use a medication to get by. Some people don’t believe in my medication, but others do and those others are my kind of people. We’re outsiders, we’re all the same, lost but mostly happy with our life; whereas the people who aren’t in my culture don’t understand and go with the flow of life.

To explain this medication to you would be quite difficult because it’s so complex, but think of it as Advil; it subsides the pain temporarily until you have to take it again. Some people don’t believe in Advil either, but others do and they believe it works.

I close my eyes and breathe a deep sigh of relaxation; I think about my personal treatment and how happy it makes me. I hear someone walk in through the door on my right, “Hi Mr. Oh, how was your sleep? You’re going to be released today, how does that sound?”

I opened my eyes briefly and glance at the nurse, and then I close my eyes again. I hear a sigh, the re-opening of the door and then, silence.

Although my medication calms me, it doesn’t give me as much peace as the silence I have here. When I think of this it makes me wonder if my medication is good or not, I think it is, but not everyone is perfect and we all make mistakes. I shiver at this thought. “No,” I firmly thought, “my medication is good, it makes me happy.” However, if it makes you happy does that make it right? The thought keeps occurring to me and I can’t take it anymore. Usually if I was alone and I had my treatment on me I would take some just to prove my conscious wrong. When the medication wore off, I felt guilty but happy. Like when a teenager would lie to their parents about where they were, they truly felt guilty, but they were happy they did it.

2nd place, Grades 9/10 prose Visit lcs.on.ca/arts to read "Medication" in full.

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the other me in this universe (excerpt)

By Ashley Gao Have you ever feel like you are sure about having done or seen something but everyone around you just said no? Or it is the opposite? If so, you must have forgotten someone. You forgot a Parallel Universe Traveler.

(Hansel) Now this is the end.

There aren’t really too many places we can hide here. Soon the door will be broken and they will come and get us. Now, it’s funny to think about how well they treated us before they know our secret, and how much they changed just because we knew their secrets.

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People are always afraid of uncontrollable things, aren’t they? For this time, it was the uncontrollable intelligence—the “Me” in this universe. I was an Omniscient. I don’t really blame them too much. It could be because I know I will be fine and I’m so happy about finally finding my sister, but I mean, it’s understandable. People have their secrets that just can’t be known, just like we can never tell the others that we are parallel universe travelers.

We. My sister and I. Even tracing back to my earliest memory I’ve been living all along with my little sister Gretel. As orphans we are never actually accepted or adopted, but people are at least kind enough to share food. That’s how we grew up anyway. I mean, relatives are different. It’s the feeling that somebody is so closely related to you, while the connection is carved in your blood and the similar eyes and mouths. I was expecting that we could live peacefully like this throughout our lives; a few more years after and I would be able to get a job and we can live even better.

Things changed when I first discovered my super power. I was so frightened at that time, I can’t really remember it clearly now. The only thing I know is that all of a sudden I was all alone in a brand new universe. People seemed to know me but I couldn’t recognize any of them. I got so frustrated by my new identity, I ended up traveling again.

3rd place, Grades 9/10 prose Visit lcs.on.ca/arts to read "The Other Me in this Universe" in full.

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Shelly Zhang, Acrylic Painting

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The Arts at 4391 County Rd 29, Lakefield, ON K0L 2H0 lcs.on.ca

In A Grove 2014

Arts Journal

Grade 11/12 prose 2nd prize: Asic Chen, “Stars of My Father: On Being Raised A Communist” My friends, I have something serious to confess. I was raised a Communist. There, I said it. Another hundred kilometers South and I might be crucified for it, but I have heard that Canadians are, if not more lenient, at least more polite than certain neighbouring species. “Then are you a Communist?”, you may ask. Truthfully, I boast myself to be a free-enterprise-socialist. Communist? I don’t know if that is taking things too far. Some may challenge, “How can it be free-enterprise if it is Socialist, and how can you be Socialist if you believe in freeenterprise?” I do not know how to answer that, but have to find a way to justify my label. It’s just a label, afterall.

Well, they use the label to refer to Norway, and Norway is a real country, so I will just have to assume that the label exists as well. I am a Socialist in heart and soul. All right, maybe I do not necessarily agree with the part on income equality. Or the part on rent ceilings. Nor do I find Canada’s long list of taxes especially agreeable. And sometimes I feel that good ol’ Adam Smith and his “invisible hand” make plenty of sense as well. But that is besides the point.

Budding Evil Back to what I was saying before; I was raised a Communist. And no Communist children can grow up without being “brainwashed” (Assuming that you, the Canadians, are like the people of one country that I can name, and categorize the teaching of patriotism in a Communist state brainwashing and similar education in a free market Capitalist nation the celebration of freedom.) and absorbed into the Young Pioneers of China. But that was primary school; my true patriotic education started much earlier, in my one Garden of Eden of a kindergarten.

In kindergarten, we learnt about the meaning of our “five-star red flag”. The big star on the top left corner symbolizes the Party, the leader of our 1.3 billion population. And the little stars around it? They are the people: the poor farmers and workers, who follow the Party for a brighter future. And you, my little friend, are a little star. We will follow our Party forever and forever. The Flag is red because it is stained by the blood of the martyrs who lay the foundation for our nation. And see the red scarfs the older children wear? They were cut off from one corner of the Flag. You will wear it when you get to primary school, and you will remember, little comrades, that the martyrs’ blood made it red, and you are the “heir of Communism”.

The day I got to wear the red scarf, or the red tie, whatever its real name is, I was as happy as I have ever been in my life. I had grown up and become a proud Young Pioneer! We shouted out, proudly, in squeaky voices, “I am a member of the Young Pioneers of China. Under the Flag of the Young Pioneers I promise that: I love the Communist Party of China, the motherland, and the people; I will study well and keep myself fit , and to prepare for: contributing my effort to the cause of communism.”

Then we saluted the Flag. The gesture looks stupid, doesn’t it? I raised my right forearm in front of my head, a perfect 45 degrees and an inch above my eyes, narrowed as I stared at the Flag while the Anthem played through the speakers. That soft fabric of red waved to me proudly in the golden sun, and I suddenly felt very, very warm. Yes, I was once a true believer.

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Youth League On June 1st, 2010, with my hand on the Constitution, I was sworn in as a proud member of the China Communist Youth League. Sounds badass, yeah? I was 13 and joined the League without much of an idea of what people did after joining. The only thing we knew was that it was a hard thing to get in. First and foremost, it was a popularity contest: he who gets the most votes from his classmates gets to be a candidate for the Youth League. After that, we had to prove ourselves before our teachers like eager puppies in a kennel yard. Then we were scrutinized by our class teacher (a similar role as the advisors we have now at Lakefield), who had veto power and was as shy about using it as the respectable Russian delegates to the UN Security Council. Another one month of training and “theory classes” followed; and finally, it was a matter of passing the test, which included memorizing half of the Constitution of the Youth League.

I always thought myself to be great at memorizing things, but I did not enjoy reciting the Constitution. The Constitution, by the way, was a cute little red book. It was a masterpiece; countless theorists must have spent years coming up with different ways to express a repeating theme, an unrealistic picture of a perfect Communist youth, just to torture students like us. But I passed nonetheless. On two occasions in my middle school life have I stayed up and studied in the bathroom (As a school rule, all dormitory lights except for those in the bathroom are cut off after 10:30). On the first occasion I memorized the whole Preamble of the UN Charter to get into Model United Nations, which was a big deal at our school. On the second one, as you can see, I had some very productive bonding experience with the Constitution.

One day, when I was struggling with the Constitution, I asked a good friend who had joined the League the year before, “Why are we doing this?” It was not like we really believed in anything. As thirteen-year-olds we were not usually expected to understand the exact workings behind a chemistry equation, let alone something as complex and abstract as Communism. It seemed to me that we joined any organization just for the sake of the various advantages a membership can bring. We would have more respect from the teachers, more working opportunities, and those all come down to a more dashing resume to show the universities. The way I saw it, all the adults might have joined the Party for the same reasons: more job opportunities and better pay. There is no place for beliefs anymore. And as for all the grand talks of in the Constitution, we would love to make the ideals come true, but how could we? How could some teenagers uphold the values that made our nation when everyone else in this society does not?

Now, let’s not think about things like that anymore. Let us instead do some math; the final exams are coming around in two weeks, my friend replied.

Doubt “I will bet you a box of milk that we will have a new government 50 years from now!” 12-year-old me yelled to my best friend #2. It was a bold bet. We did not have the luxury of free beverages from the dining hall, so if we wanted our protein we had to bring milk boxes from home. And even though my generation had never used a food stamp, milk boxes were hard to get by because it was physically demanding work hauling card boxes of milk to the school every week. Some may argue itbuilt character, though.

I have always found myself different from all the other kids, and realized that somehow my classmates from middle school were different from most other teens as well. Maybe there were perks to selecting an “Elite Class” of new grade sixes through the barbaric method of three rounds of ruthless exams. Maybe it was I who changed them, or they who changed me. Politics and history simply thrilled us, though we never got much time to pursue those studies due to the outrageous amount of time schoolwork ate up.

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Still, my friends and I would talk about our country and the world late into the night (after they cut our power lines), and get into these inexplicable fights based on some entangled, ambiguous ideas, or just some stupid things some government had done, again. First, it was always, always about the integrity of some historical dead people, for example, the epic debate on whether Chairman Mao was worth our idolization or not. As I have mentioned, Mao was my greatest childhood idol, and I often had to go to great length defending him.

“Chairman Mao was horrible! He started the Cultural Revolution and was responsible for the death of thousands!”

“But that was a mistake! Everybody makes them! He was also responsible for the founding of our nation and all the things we enjoy today! He led the Eighth Route Army and won the war! How can you disregard all the good of a man so great for one mistake he made in his old age?”

“Well, then, then... He was a fake poet! He copied ancient poets’ words!”

“Hey, Su Shi (a great poet and sloppy ancient politician, not a food) copied others’ lines too!” And there, I just offended another kid’s idol. See, the problem was really unsolvable. We therefore labelled the topic of Chairman Mao “touchy” and managed to avoid touching it for a total of four years.

The second was usually about the future prospects of our government and nation. That topic is even more sensitive because nobody wanted to be targeted as a traitor and be forced to disappear. The day I made that milk box bet, I was probably extremely upset about something the Party had done; I did not actually wish for the demise of our current government and a second civil bloodbath. How could I? Everybody just loved the Party, right?

Sometime later, when we were more mature, say, fourteen years old, we decided that maybe we should differentiate between Communism and our current Communist Party. We also had to account for the unspoken difference between the Party we have now and the Party that they founded in 1921, and the subtle difference of our government before 1979 and after 1979. Jeez, did that kill brain cells, trying to make sense of our extremely mixed feelings toward the Party and our government.

First of all, all of our gang agreed that Communism was good, because it was simply less bad than Capitalism, in which people work their whole life but still have nothing at all and, the Communism we believed in was not a violation to democracy; no, it was the defender of freedom, because if you sift through the real works of people like Karl Marx instead of those essays published by Rightest-influenced press, you will find that Communism never was the enemy of democracy. And throw away the saying “Socialism just does not work.”; that is a lame excuse.

However, maybe, just maybe, our Party right now no longer holds true to the Communist ideology, and therefore does not have the right to bear its title anymore. And so we can blame the Party without going back on our beliefs.

But, but how are we supposed to love the ideology but discard the Party, when the Party was “the introducer of the ideology and all great things”? How can China be communist without the Communist Party? Should we go about, in the name of Mao Tse Tung and his fellow Marxist-Leninist believers, devising a plan for the Communist Revolution 2.0 to overthrow the Communist government? Ridiculous. I am not a traitor, I thought.

Neither was I a true believer.

Looking around me, I saw no true believers. So many kids around me were either so Americanized and into the material world or they really had better things to do than dwell in political science. The adults, the Party members, usually did not talk about those things. Sure, why would you want to talk those big, empty talks when you could spend your time making money? What good would those grand ideas do you? Because all due respect, money is what makes the world turn around, not ideals, right? Belief is for children. And since in China, in the big cities at least, kids are not allowed to have jobs with pay, we wasted our time wrestling with ideas. You never have to be a

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true believer when you are an adult; you can just pretend to be one because apparently since you are all grown-up, you would be sly enough in nature to fool all those around you. A Party member will just have to pretend to believe in the Party in the same way that Machiavelli’s Prince has to pretend to be virtuous. Our middle school Politics teacher seemed to be an exception. That man was an enigma: he lectured so fervently in favour of the Party that he was either a true believer, or an actor worthy of a “little gold man” called Oscar. Back in grade six, we would get into all those heated discussions and see if we could get him to slip, and show his true nature. But honestly, how could we be expected to outsly an adult? He seemed to avoid us ever since.

But still, what is a True Believer? Is that someone who believes in the Party, or one who believes in the pure concept of Communism? Should a true believer follow Marx and Lenin and condemn people like Stalin and Kim Jong Un (No, don’t you touch on the Mao: dictator or Saint subject.)? If the time comes, should a true believer sacrifice himself for the greater good like all those martyrs did? And what is the greater good? Has there ever been a true believer in existence? Shhh, we should not talk about this; the teacher might be listening.

Stars of My Father Now, I am in a very western country, living in a small village a little north of the centre of 20th century Imperialism.

Kids here don’t seem to mind politics that much. Watching a PM-candidate drama teacher trying to best an oldschool conservative while a childish Tea Party shut down a government and take the whole nation hostage is all very amusing, but wait a minute, I have some more pressing existential problems to solve. Where am I heading now?

What do I believe in?

For one, I no longer believe in the absolute good of the Party and the grand idea of Communism like I used to, when I was very, very young, because our Party and our government are not all good and perhaps never were. What they once taught us is not completely true. There are terrible flaws in our system, and our leaders once did horrible things. But I too have to ask, which government ever is absolutely good? There never has been a State ruled by Plato’s Philosopher Kings, nor has there been a Utopia that works. And on the other hand, nor shall I follow certain people I know of, who crawl to some western states that look down on them; who scream for help, depicting their once sovereign state as nothing but a house of cards pumped up by corruption and oppression, because that isn’t true either. More often than not, good does come out of our society, and even though there is darkness and ignorance, most are willing to seek the light.

And now, my friends, I dare say that I despise those who seek asylum from their enemies in masks, and those who would rather be a clown and spit on their once motherland and her people, than stand up and light the fire of change within the border, on the land that bore them. They are cowards because they are afraid of what pain enlightenment may bring. They are not true fighters of freedom and true revolutionaries because they simply have too much to lose, while the Founding Fathers of our nation did not. Therefore, these fake revolutionaries are no better than those hypocrites who sit Up High.

But who am I to judge? Who am I to denounce the alleged fighters for democracy and freedom when everyone else would take me as one of them? Who am I to talk about the pain and troubles of my old countrymen as if they are not hard to bear, now that I am far, far away? Do I still have the ethos, or am I not as objective as I think myself to be? Have I gone into the light, or have just moved from one underground den to another, where the fire is a little brighter and the chains not so tight?

And, afterall, it all boils down to one question: who am I? Am I a new revolutionary or just one who thinks too much? Am I the child of the workers, or a kid who has a sky-high ambition to sneak into the ruling class? Am I Canadian, or Chinese still? How much does a Permanent Residence card or a new passport change one’s identity and beliefs? The answers to all those questions and many more, I have no idea. I guess right here, right now, I will

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just have to remember how I was raised a Communist. I cherish what I have experienced, good or bad, and wouldn’t trade it for any other upbringing in the world, for after all, there is something sparkly in my blood.

Once a very wise man said to me: “You don’t have to believe in something you don’t want to believe in even if you were born to do so.”

“But is it not harder to believe in something you want to believe in when everyone around you do not?” I asked.

Yes, but what do I believe in?

I am not sure. Not anymore.

And the stars of my father shine on.

Works Cited “Young Pioneers of China”. Wikipedia. 26 December 2013. Wikipedia. Web. 26 February 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneers_of_China

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In A Grove 2014

Arts Journal

Grade 11/12 prose 3rd prize: Jasmine Shenandoah, “Norma Jean” It was quite now that the laughing and crying had ceased. The room was dark, the plaster peeling, covered up by Clark Gable posters that reminded her of her absent father. The burn on her cheek, where her mother had struck her was slowly starting to soften, sinking deeper into her skin until it marked her soul. She crawled from the place, which she had slumped to on the floor, to the window and poked her head through the curtains. The lights of Holly Wood glowed against her cherub face, reflecting the stars in her eyes. One day she thought, I’ll leave this all behind.

Norma-Jean stood, and cautiously opened the door to stare down the barren hallway. Now that her mother’s fit had ended, the filthy halls echoed with her faded cries. The house, from the outside seemed friendly and innocent enough, but on the inside its core rotted like a month old apple, its decaying fuzz contaminating the joy of NormaJean’s soul. As she tiptoed down the hall, she stopped outside her mother’s door. Soft murmurs in her mother’s voice comforted someone who was not there, for she was alone. Norma-Jean sighed and continued down the hall, creaked down the stairs, grabbed her coat and left.

It was a long walk to the movie theatre, but she knew the way well. She fell into the trance of the happy routine, her footsteps retracing a path she had walked many times before. She passed familiar houses, lit from the inside by candle light and smiling faces. She tried not to dwell on these happy families, the dinners at long tables, birthdays and holidays celebrated with laughter and music. A childhood she would never have. She passed the police station, with its faded sign To Protect and To Serve, the white letters of a prouder era. The police doors opened, unleashing the laughter of the rowdy men who had been on the job for too long. They lit up their cigarettes, the ashen smoke blowing away the cares of the day. Through the fading light, a man, if he could be called that for he had scarcely graduated from boyhood, caught her eye. He was scrawny with uncombed maple colored hair, and kindly but sad face. He was less rowdy than the other men, who were busy pushing one another around and letting loose raunchy jokes. Feeling her eyes on him, he looked up, catching her gaze. Norma-Jean held his stare, causing them both to smile. One of his buddies punched him in the shoulder, bringing him back into the fish net of testosterone. When he had untangled himself from it, and returned his gaze to the girl, she was already gone.

From nearly a block away the lights of the movie theatre enchanted her. Posters boasting films starring Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly beckoned to her with the glamorous photos and the emboldened titles of movie studios. She paid the movie attendant; “1 ticket to see You Were Never Lovelier,” and handed over the precious change: 37 cents that she had worked all week to save. She entered the movie theatre, slipping deftly by the long line up at the concession stand, her red skirt swishing around her knees, and sank into one of the deep cushioned chairs of the theatre. As the lights came down, Norma-Jean was able to let out a sigh, releasing all the stress of the day. As the movie came on, credits rolling before the bright eyed actresses appeared on the screen, she was able slowly let her worries fall off of her like sweaty clothes to the floor after a long day. Her memory was erased by the music, romantic plot, and witty one-liners.

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She forgot it all. Her mother, her empty stomach, the way the girls at school made fun of her patched clothes, the foster homes she bounced around to when her mother grew tired of her, and the fact that she had never really felt wanted or loved by a single human being. All of that disappeared as she immersed her soul into the show on screen, so much that it became a part of her; a dream she would later replay over and over again in her mind. Eventually the dream ended, and the lights came up on the dark movie house like the dawn of a new day. People slowly filed out of the theatre, but she stayed in her seat, starring at the screen, silently willing the sun to set and for the dream to dance over the monitor once again. Soon, the theatre was empty, and it was almost closing. One of the movie attendants asked her to leave. And so she did, but unlike the others in the theatre who had left eagerly with thoughts of warm beds and home, she had no family to return to, so she made her way back to the house slowly.

The lights of the theatre faded into the distance, along with the smell of popcorn. She walked back the same way she had come, passing the antique police station, but the boy was no longer outside smoking with his friends. She sighed. She was lonely walking home by herself, but she knew she would be even lonelier once she finally made it there. Lost in the tangled mess of her thoughts, she turned the corner, unaware of her surroundings and bumped into something. When she got her bearings she realized it was a tall man, perhaps one of the officers she had witnessed earlier on their smoke break.

“What the! Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing,” recovered the stranger, taking a step back to look her over.

“Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention…” Norma-Jean suddenly realized how handsome this tall stranger was.

“Oh, I’m all shook up now,” she moaned, patting her hands to her face as if she was going to faint. The man quickly interjected, putting his arm around her to stead her.

“Would you like to sit down? We could go into the Old Mill,” he pointed to the bar across the street. Its windows were painted with light and the laughter of raucous drinking and merriment. In that moment she decided she would not be lonely anymore.

“Yes,” she nodded, batting her big blue eyes at the unassuming man. The two stumbled across the street and into the bar, where the man pulled out a chair for her.

“What’s your name, gorgeous?” She racked her mind, looking for a name to give him.

“Marilyn,” she decided, after the actress Marilyn Miller.

“Well, Marilyn, do girls as lovely as yourself drink nowadays?”

“Why, of course! It makes the world a rosier place!” she lied, having never before had a drink in her life. And so the night when on, with the young man pouring drinks into her, and her lying about who she was, feigning as if she was some glamorous young actress on the brink of stardom. When the bar was about to close, he walked her home.

She felt tingly and warm, and leaned on him as they made their way through the deserted streets. At the main intersection though, he turned right instead of left.

“Whhere are we going?” she slurred, “My house is that way!”

“I thought you might like to see my place first,” the man said, still burgeoning on. She suddenly realized through the drunken fog that consumed her, that in her attempt to banish her loneliness, she had made a terrible mistake.

“No,” she murmured, “No, I want to go home!”

“Shhh, we are. We’re going to my home.”

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“No!” she shook him off and made to leave, but he grabbed her arm smacking her body tight against his chest.

“Come on,” he cooed, “you’ve been flirting with me all night.”

“I want to go home!” she struggled against his chest, trying to break free. Suddenly a light blinded them both. It was the kind faced boy from the police station.

“Get on out of here, I’ll walk the lady home.” The man opened his mouth to protest, then took in the smart police uniform, shook his head and begrudgingly disappeared into the night.

“Are you alright, miss?” the young officer asked, staring sincerely into her face. She nodded, and he took her arm.

“Don’t worry I’ll get you home safe, miss….?”

“Norma. Norma-Jean.” He smiled.

“That’s a lovely name!”

“You think so?” she grimaced, “I’ve always hated it. I’d prefer something much more glamorous like Gene or Marilyn.”

“I think I like you fine just the way you are,” he said smiling at her shyly. She smiled back, feeling reassured by his gentle manner and presence. They had reached her house, but she wasn’t ready to go inside just yet.

“Do you ever feel lonely?” she asked, “Like you’re on this island all by yourself and you haven’t a paddle or a boat so you’ll never get out! Do you ever feel that way?” He cocked his head and studied her intently, realizing that she wasn’t just some girl who had had too much to drink, but perhaps someone who’s soul was searching for something beyond this small shamble of a neighborhood.

“Yes,” he said, “sometimes I dream of getting away from all of this, and really living. I don’t know how though.” At that she ran to him, and threw her arms around his neck.

“I’ve never met a man like you before….you’re so kind.” He blushed and looked away. “You can kiss me you, know… if you want.” She said, her lips inches away from his. He examined her with a startled look in his eyes, and then, as if he could see something of him reflected in her eyes, he leaned in and kissed her ever so slightly. Norma-Jean smiled.

“Will you come by tomorrow?” She asked.

“Yes.” He breathed without skipping a beat. She smiled, releasing him from her arms and made her way into the house, and as he turned to head back the way he had come she watched him through the window until he had faded into the night the way dreams do in the morning. She creaked up the stairs, and could hear her mother’s heavy breathing even from the landing. She climbed into bed, and gazed at the distant stars through her window and told them how she would never again be lonely.

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In A Grove 2014

Arts Journal

Grade 9/10 prose 2nd prize: Hannah Forestell, “Medication” The birds chirped as I looked around the plain, white walls. The sun shone brightly through the single window beside my bed. How did I get here? I looked over the door on my right. Where am I, really? I know where I am physically, but mentally I am unsure.

In my way of life, I use a medication to get by. Some people don’t believe in my medication, but others do and those others are my kind of people. We’re outsiders, we’re all the same, lost but mostly happy with our life; whereas the people who aren’t in my culture don’t understand and go with the flow of life. To explain this medication to you would be quite difficult because it’s so complex, but think of it as Advil; it subsides the pain temporarily until you have to take it again. Some people don’t believe in Advil either, but others do and they believe it works.

I close my eyes and breathe a deep sigh of relaxation; I think about my personal treatment and how happy it makes me. I hear someone walk in through the door on my right, “Hi Mr. Oh, how was your sleep? You’re going to be released today, how does that sound?”

I opened my eyes briefly and glance at the nurse, and then I close my eyes again. I hear a sigh, the re-opening of the door and then, silence.

Although my medication calms me, it doesn’t give me as much peace as the silence I have here. When I think of this it makes me wonder if my medication is good or not, I think it is, but not everyone is perfect and we all make mistakes. I shiver at this thought. “No,” I firmly thought, “my medication is good, it makes me happy.” However, if it makes you happy does that make it right? The thought keeps occurring to me and I can’t take it anymore. Usually if I was alone and I had my treatment on me I would take some just to prove my conscious wrong. When the medication wore off, I felt guilty but happy. Like when a teenager would lie to their parents about where they were, they truly felt guilty, but they were happy they did it.

When I took my medication, all my emotions disappear into an abyss of happiness and freedom. My mind threw away all important things and I lived in the moment. Taking that first breath in my dreamland was so nice and the best part of taking my treatment; it was the most critical thing to me because it meant I was free. From that point on, I would feel all the hurt wash out of me. You as the reader probably don’t know what this feeling is, but imagine it as being really cold then warming up slowly. Anyway, once all the pain was gone, I listened to blaring music and laughed. One of the side effects was it made me giddy. It felt like I was giddy for days however, it was only a few, short hours. In those hours, I was happy, free and knew who I was, but when it was over, I was only the original, lost person as before.

I felt a hand shaking me. I open my eyes suddenly. There, standing over me was my father looking both concerned and disappointed.

“I thought we agreed that you needed help, David,” he said between gritted teeth.

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I couldn’t tell if he was about to yell or about to cry. I didn’t want either.

I looked out the window and bit my lip. I had been a disappointment to my father since my mom died when I was 16. I used to be a smart kid. I had a social life, friends, I was athletic and was on the honour roll. All that changed on May 17th when one of the most important parts of my life disappeared. I stopped trying, I went mute and then a year later when I couldn’t find my own help, I discovered my own way out. My medication.

“David, look at me,” my father said firmly.

I rolled my head over to look at him in the eyes. I saw hurt, not anger. I couldn’t decide if that was a relief or not.

He sighed, “Get up and let’s go get something to eat.”

I didn’t protest. I got up right away and followed him out the door in my nightgown from the hospital.

On the way down to the cafeteria, I felt as though everyone was staring at me. Not because of the nightgown, but because it felt as though they knew about the reason I was here. I looked at the date on the large calendar outside the cafeteria. May 18th 2000. Just over 3 years since my mom died. I choked up but didn’t let a tear shed.

“I’ll go get us some food, go find a table,” said my dad.

I found a table and a few minutes later my dad had a tray of hamburgers.

We ate in silence, just like we have been for the past 3 years. I finished my hamburger and stared at the empty tray.

It’s almost like that’s what happened to me. I was the hamburger and life ate me up until there was nothing left and watched me to fail. I try to be optimistic though and not let it get to me, but sometimes that’s hard to do.

I am thankful for the burger though. I was starting to get really hungry. That was another side effect of my medication; it made me hungry. However, I had not taken my meds for over 24 hours. Last time I took my meds wasn’t actually as good as it usually was. I did it not because I wanted to, I felt as though I had to. It was the third year anniversary of my mom’s death and the pain was unreal. I told myself to not do my medication like all the other anniversaries because it was disrespectful. I had a constant internal conflict all day, my conscious said no, but my mind said yes. So like all the other days that I took my meds, my mind won over my conscious. However, I wasn’t happy this time, I thought I was but I was crying instead of laughing and I was listening to pained music instead of up-beat tunes.

When the medication started to wear off, I took more, and more and more until finally, I was gone. I was lost in my mind and everything was black. My first instinct was that I was dead, but then I thought it would be more peaceful instead of stressed. Everything was black and quiet for a while but then I woke up to a bright light with a doctor looking over me.

Later I was told that I had died for a few minutes then was revived by the doctor and his crew.

The rest of the day flew by and I was released from the hospital, my father took me home. My accident hadn’t fazed me. I went home and the cycle continued. My father tried to not notice because he didn’t think there was hope for me. He finally admitted to his knowing when it was too late. About 6 months later I had another accident but no one was there to find me this time. I passed on and met up with my mother in the peace.

Now you as the reader are thinking many things, how did my mother die? What happened to your father? Why didn’t you stop taking your meds? There are many questions to be answered. But I would rather answer the simple ones and let your imagination fly with the more complicated ones. Well here’s the thing, life is one big cycle. People are

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born, they create more people and then they die and it repeats over and over again. Well, that’s what happened in my case; a cycle. My mother died the same way I did however I think I was just too stupid to not learn from her mistakes. But that’s life. Some people learn and grow from their mistakes while other people, like me, struggle and crumple. In saying that, people like me, aka the outsiders (as mentioned before) are like the people who succeed, we just make bad choices and can’t live with the consequences. All in all, life’s a big cycle that you just need to put up with no matter who you are in this world.

Anyways, that completes my story; I hope that you have learned something. In case you haven’t caught on, my name is David Oh, I’m 19 years old, my medication is cocaine and I had a drug overdose.

(In this prose I write strongly about drugs, I do not support nor use drugs, I just wanted to write a powerful message to the audience about how your choices influence your life and your values. This was not a cry for help.)

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In A Grove 2014

Arts Journal

Grade 9/10 prose 3rd prize: Ashley Gao, “The other me in this universe” (Also known as “The Parallel Universe Traveler’s Sister”—just kidding) Have you ever feel like you are sure about having done or seen something but everyone around you just said no? Or it is the opposite? If so, you must have forgotten someone. You forgot a Parallel Universe Traveler.

(Hansel) Now this is the end.

There aren’t really too many places we can hide here. Soon the door will be broken and they will come and get us.

Now, it’s funny to think about how well they treated us before they know our secret, and how much they changed just because we knew their secrets.

People are always afraid of uncontrollable things, aren’t they? For this time, it was the uncontrollable intelligence— the “Me” in this universe. I was an Omniscient. I don’t really blame them too much. It could be because I know I will be fine and I’m so happy about finally finding my sister, but I mean, it’s understandable. People have their secrets that just can’t be known, just like we can never tell the others that we are parallel universe travelers.

We. My sister and I. Even tracing back to my earliest memory I’ve been living all along with my little sister Gretel.

As orphans we are never actually accepted or adopted, but people are at least kind enough to share food. That’s how we grew up anyway. I mean, relatives are different. It’s the feeling that somebody is so closely related to you, while the connection is carved in your blood and the similar eyes and mouths. I was expecting that we could live peacefully like this throughout our lives; a few more years after and I would be able to get a job and we can live even better.

Things changed when I first discovered my super power. I was so frightened at that time, I can’t really remember it clearly now. The only thing I know is that all of a sudden I was all alone in a brand new universe. People seemed to know me but I couldn’t recognize any of them. I got so frustrated by my new identity, I ended up traveling again.

And that’s how I started to travel to different parallel universes to try to find my little sister. Poor Gretel, she is such a small child she can’t even take care of herself. Thinking about her left all alone made my heart break. Gretel, my poor little sister, my only family. How can she survive without me?

(Gretel) I can still remember the day I lost my brother. It was a normal day; it supposed to be. There was nothing really special about it until my brother disappeared in front of me. I mean, “disappeared”. I don’t really want to recall my desperate feeling, but the horrible thing is that I asked around and it seems like nobody except for me remembered him. I can still remember their expressions, so cruelly doubtless, as if I was just having some crazy imagination. My

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only brother, my only family, who was singing lullabies and buying candies for me yesterday, suddenly disappeared from my life like he has never existed.

And that’s how I first found out my power of traveling to parallel universes.

I can’t really remember for how long I’ve been traveling. If you constantly changed into new identities you just hardly have any time to worry about the time, you know. That’s why the time always passes so fast when you are busy. Sometimes the new universe is almost the same as the last one and sometimes it’s just so much different. I’ But they’re NEVER completely the same. I mean, never. It could be as small as the color change in my only scarf, but I’m pretty sure I ‘ve never stepped into the same universe twice. Of course in some of the universes I have Hansel as my brother again. The interesting thing I found is that Hansel always has super powers. Sometimes he can fly; sometimes he can create fire from his thoughts. They are all as nice as Hansel, but still I left because they are not the same. They are not MY Hansel. I’m not looking for someone to take care of me; I just want my brother back. That’s not too greedy a wish, is it?

At least not until I met the Hansel of this universe.

(Hansel) Remember? “I” in this universe was an Omniscient. Hansel and Gretel have super powers. Before I replaced him, he had already told Gretel about our powers and how it works. Instead of calling it “superpower”, he called this ability a “curse”. A curse that whenever Hansel and Gretel were born together, they were born with a superpower as well as a tragic fate. Now this explains why every Gretel I see have different super powers. I tried not to think about their fate.

And then, there is the issue of the traveling to parallel universes. Gretel told me, the theory of this is that in order to fix the fact that I disappeared from one world, the Law of the World copies the memories from a universe that is very similar but never existed to replace the memories of people who know me. We can always remember each other, that’s because there isn’t any other “us” who have the same traveling power, so there aren’t any similar memories to be copied from.

This means that our so-called ability of “traveling” to different universes is actually cruel. We kill ourselves in the current universe, then “travel” and replace another of “us” in the other universe. . Why can we never go to a universe twice? Because there is no more “us” in that universe to replace.

“Isn’t that scary?” Gretel asked me, “Just think about it. How many “me’s” have I killed?”

(Hansel) “…… Those things that we can’t change, let’s not worry about them.” I heard my own voice. Have I ever said that I am not a selfish person? I am so god damn selfish. The reason why I love Gretel so much probably has nothing to do with blood relation, it’s just the time that we’ve been spending together. I don’t really care about all the other “me”s.

I don’t really know them anyway.

The door is shaking. I can hear their dirty words out there.

“Let’s leave here. You can hold my hands we can stay together. We can go to a place where both of us exist. It doesn’t matter if it’s not the same universe; I will always love you just the same…” My voice keeps going.

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“The thing is, brother. The world isn’t as endless as we once thought.” She smiles weakly, doesn’t answer the invitation. “The universes where both of us exist might have only a few… not to mention how much we have wasted. I tried to take the you in this universe away with me the first second I realized someone want to kill us. But I can’t, Hansel. Isn’t that so true that wasting is a sin? I can’t leave, Hansel. There is…. No more me in this world.”

The door was broken.

(Gretel) Shining knives, all facing us.

I hugged my brother tight. I know he will choose to leave this universe. If the same action is repeated too many times, it becomes a subconscious reaction. If only I didn’t lose this power totally, I would have left in the first minutes of our escape. Physical attachment can bring along people who don’t have this power, but the theory is basically the same. I can never leave anymore. Those who have no place to go but insisting on going will be destroyed by the Law of World like an unfixable bug.

But thinking about that, it might be a better choice than leaving my brother again. I will die very soon even if I stayed here, anyway.

But Hansel tears off my hands forcibly. “Sorry, Gretel… But this is the last you. I will NEVER let you die.”

Tens of shining knives stabbed into my dear brother. Then in the next second, everyone in front of me disappears.

Everyone. Forever. I just went through the very last travel in my life, being left over in a changed universe.

(Gretel) I lied.

Of course the Law of the World doesn’t have the time to worry about replacing people’s memory; all it does is to kind of combine the two similar universes a bit, and that’s why there are always some mistakes so people remember things when the others don’t. I lied to Hansel because it’s always better to think about “killing ourselves” rather than “killing everyone around us”.

And that’s why I shouldn’t be living. There are no more universes where I exist. That’s saying, there aren’t even any similar universes where people in them have the memories about “me”. The World can’t fix this bug anymore. It destroys it.

But I am still living, which I can’t really understand. And the feeling is exactly the same as the first time I was left over. Does it mean that there is another “me” in this world? This wouldn’t explain why I can’t travel on my own will, though.

Things get even crazier when I walked through the broken door. Outside the door, there is my hometown. Those familiar faces make me cry, and as I have expected, nobody remembers any of the disappeared people.

The sun is high and bright, and there are dandelions everywhere. It’s just like coming back to the summer when I first saw my brother disappear in the abandoned storage. There are no more bloodstains on the ground. – No, wait.

There are other things that are different. I remembered throwing away my teddy bear after feeling so frustrated about the disappearance of Hansel, but now it is back.

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I can’t explain this at all. But anyway, those things that we can’t change, let’s just not worry about them. The fear of being all alone has been haunting me for so long, but I guess I’m already used to it, and so is Hansel. This is actually a nice village and I will try to live happily in this universe since this is what Hansel wants. And he will live his life happily somewhere else in this World, I believe.

After all, there are no more Omniscient to explain this to me.

(Hansel) What will Gretel’s life be in the other universe?

I don’t really know what does that world looks like, so I can only imagine about our hometown.

In my imagery, the nice little village shall be in its best view. The sun is high and bright while there are dandelions everywhere. People all smile, as they always did. It’s sad that nobody will remember me, but my little sister has grown into a big girl now, she can take care of herself. Or at least her teddy bear will be her guardian.

(Gretel) I believe, it’s the gift from the God.

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