Writer’s Craft Edition
Writer’s Craft Edition
Editors Theodore Boyce Kai Smolin Mae Lai Rhys Backus Liz Cowan
With Illustrations From Mae Lai Liz Cowan Rhys Backus
Letter From the Editor
Page 1
A Letter From the Editor What follows this note is a collection of student work, some excerpted and some in full, that was written for Mr. Berube’s Grade 12 Writer’s Craft class this semester. The work is presented as it was written and submitted aside from minor corrections in grammar, spelling, and formatting. For the past few months our class has been studying and practicing a number of techniques in fiction and nonfiction like poetry, prose, and screenwriting. From these assignments everyone chose their choicest morsels of work to be compiled in this very special issue of The Horseshoe you’re holding. The Writer’s Craft issue was a thing back in the aughts when the paper was called The Hidden Agenda. As long as Writer’s Craft continues to be offered by the school, once a year we will turn from a newspaper into a student run and written literary journal. There’s some really great stuff here, and I hope you’ll give it a shot. There’s a smorgasbord of styles present, so there’s bound to be something you’ll like. Theodore Boyce Co-Editor in Chief
Liam Staig Kai Smolin Luc Cook Owen Hunt 001
Scan the QR code for the Horseshoe's website! Featuring exclusive articles, past issues, and submission information!
Content Warning: Unlike a typical issue of The Horseshoe, the publication that you hold in your hand is all creative writing. In the interest of free expression, we have supported students as they explore substantial and often challenging subject matter. Many of these pieces contain mature themes and language, so we advise you to read with care. If you are disturbed by the content of any of these pieces, please reach out to a caring adult. The staff of Western TechnicalCommercial School, including your teachers, guidance counselors, child and youth workers, social workers, and administrators are always available to help.
Writer’s Craft Edition
Flash Fiction
Page 2
After Dinner B. Adams
Thimble Theo Boyce
Twenty rounds in. Look at my money. Two full sets and three of the four railroads. I’ve got houses on Illinois. Houses on Boardwalk, a house on Park Place. Three rounds ago I gave up on keeping the money in neat little stacks and now it’s just in a big wealthy heap. I feel like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold. Look at it. I’m creaming these losers. I wonder what’s on now. Jeopardy finished at eight. VCR was on though. I think. My turn now, I’ll get up and check after. Can’t trust anybody to watch my money. I hope they forgive me for wiping the floor with them so hard. Another one on Kentucky. Seven hundred in rent. These clowns better pray they don’t land on it. Forty rounds in. Playing Monopoly is never as fun as anyone thinks it is. Some a****** dropped full hotels on the light blue spots while I wasn't paying attention and now I’m in the hole. I’m going to find whoever made this game and trip them. They’re probably dead by now. Faulty memory says Monopoly was a product of the second World War. Chocolate bars. Swimsuits. All the best stuff gets invented during war time. Except Monopoly. I wonder if I throw up they’ll all forget about the game. Don’t know if I’ve ever finished one. Must end somehow. Checked the VCR and it was off. Blaming the little b****** with the monocle/mustache/hat. Hope he goes bankrupt too. It’s rigged. Luck of the draw. Dice game. Why bother. Might as well waste away playing slot machines. Going back to the minimum level of personal injury required to cancel a board game. How small a cut? Is the money still valid if it’s soiled by a wound? Ugh. Nothing sharp nearby anyways. Not breaking a bottle. At least I still have Boardwalk.
Satisfied after dinner, the couple sits in harmony. The man finishes his newspaper from the morning. Usually he’d have it finished by now, but on this particular day, he had to rush out the door to pick up their new piano. The woman sits by the piano as she tries to learn the sheet music that she found under its cover. She’s discouraged; playing the piano is not as easy as she had thought it’d be. She thought it’d be like riding a bike, that she’d just be able to get back behind the piano and continue where she left off. But it's not coming back to her and she feels annoyed. And her husband isn’t even helping her. As the man finishes his newspaper, he listens to his wife relearning the piano. He listens with joy as she presses the keys, one by one with so much ignorance. She is struggling. Thinking he’s being supportive, he sits and listens quietly. Getting increasingly frustrated, she continues to tap the keys. One by one, the keys start playing themselves. The man, now working on his crossword, enjoys the sound of his wife’s soothing melody.
The Bride and Groom Sara Johnson
I looked at my husband of sixty years and said “Why don’t you stay longer today? I’ve missed you”. He kissed my cheek and walked away. I turned around from the mirror and began to cry.
The Untouched Teddy Bear Preeti Narewal
In a cold dark room laid a teddy bear. It was filled with large globs of white cotton but the inside felt hollow when picked up. On the outside, the teddy bear was brown with a white coloured hole in the middle representing a pouch. The teddy bear was surrounded by other stuffed animals, all of them in poorer condition. Raggedy bears with marks enclosed this bear in the middle, all of them heavily played with. However, this bear was different. It was shiny and didn't have the tiniest mark on it. The bear watched as the dark room lit up with joy as kids played with the different stuffed animals. The teddy bear watched in awe until on a cold, winter morning, a child finally picked it up. He left marks and tears all over the bear. The bear finally laid happily on the cold floor in the hospital, blending in with all the other stuffed animals.
Writer’s Craft Edition
Flash Fiction
Page 3
Exchange of Life Olivia King
She cried out. “Push!” She put forth all her effort to little avail, her body too weak to endure the challenge of labour. The baby came; a miracle. But she would not make it through the night.
The Rapture Glyndwyr
NO REALLY GUYS IT'S ACTUALLY COMING THIS TIME I PROMISE!! YEAH I KNOW I'VE TOLD YOU THIS FOURTEEN TIMES BEFORE BUT NO REALLY IT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING THIS TIME, LIKE, FOR REALS!! COME ON GUYS I ACTUALLY GOT A MESSAGE FROM GOD THIS TIME, LAST TIME IT WAS A MISTAKE BUT THIS TIME IS REAL I PROMISE!! THE END OF THE WORLD IS ACTUALLY COMING ON NOVEMBER 1ST 2023 I PROMISE!!
Never Too Little Too Late Pearson Bernstein
I look around at their faces, each saddened. I find a sort of satisfaction in watching them, the idea that there were people who cared. This was my final thought as I watched them lower the coffin into the ground.
The Blazing Town Hannah Lindsey
The distant noise of an owl and the slight rustle of leaves shattered the perfect silence of the night. The small town was illuminated by the moon as it hung low in the sky. It was a normal night. That was, until a fleck of fire appeared in the distance. It began as a little flame, barely larger than a speck. But it grew to be a monster, it crackled and popped, and as the minutes passed, it became more ravenous, eating greedily at the forest floor. Long dark shadows cut through the warm glow of the flames. Panic spread in town. A sharp smell of smoke slowly crept into the air. Residents ran from their homes, faces painted with fear. The distant inferno roared, growing closer ever so quickly. It was a relentless force, hungry, devouring everything in its path. Many tried to stop the glowing beast. But it was as if the very forest had come to life in this new smoldering form. Through the long night, the town's residents banded together, offering shelter and support. Serenaded by the crackling of burning trees and the howling wind, some stayed out to fight this fire. Then, finally, it was dawn. Townsfolk woke to a scorched landscape. They had been able to stop the fire, but not before it burned down all that was familiar to them. They walked amongst the ashes of their memories, mourning the forest that housed them. Yet somehow, amidst all this pain, the spirit of these townsfolk grew. From the ashes of this forest, they would rebuild, stronger and more resilient. Until even the largest earthquake couldn't shatter the foundation of their home.
Writer’s Craft Edition
Flash Fiction
Wouldn’t You Like To Get Away? Malcolm Pryde
He steps out into the night. The neo-nylon soles of his boots slosh the puddles that line Kagoshima street, his eyes scanning windows and doorframes for any signs of life. Hands shoved in his pockets and his hood hung over his eyes, you could mistake him for thousands of others in this city. He carries himself onwards, towards the dark at the back end of the street that seems to reach out and push you in the other direction. He doesn’t listen. As he approaches, the veil of shadow encompasses his figure more and more. Soon he was just a splotch to anyone that might’ve been looking from the street. Closer and closer to the end of the sidewalk, nearly anyone else would have turned back by now. But not him. He reaches out into the void, hand finding purchase on something familiar. As he turns his arm, a satisfying clunk. He pushes forward and is immediately showered in the dimgold glow of the low-power light bulbs clinging to the raggedy ceiling of The Sprawled Cat. He steps inside and closes the door behind him, greeted by friendly and familiar faces. Delinquents all, everyone here knows each other and trusts them the same. He saunters over to the bar, eliciting a giggle from a woman to his right. “What’ll it be man? You wanna try these new synth-lime coolers I just got in?” “The ushe’ please.” “Bartlett on the rocks!” As he sips his whiskey, a dark figure approaches him. It’s Romanov, the hardest drinker in the joint. And he gives him
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a huge bear hug with enough force to crush a tree. “Harley! Long time we not talk!” “It’s been two days Rov.” “For me, it feels like ages. How have you been?” “Kass broke things off, wasn’t really feeling like the walk over.” “Tonight, we drink!” The whole bar cheers. Lazarus discreetly hands Alexis a fifty, clearly having just lost a bet of some sort. “Shots on me guys. Who f***ing cares anymore?” Harley asks. An uproar of praise and excitement. As the barman, Moses, doles out rounds, the warm atmosphere of The Sprawled Cat envelopes Harley. His sadness is no longer palpable, his worry is unfounded. He finds solace in these friendships, and a sense that everything’ll work out in the end. He’ll sleep better tonight than he has in months, and he lets these feelings creep onto his face. “Why so giddy, my friend?” “I love you guys.”
Chrysanthemum Jemima Spencer
Her sapphire eyes opened, taking in the world. Her wails were sallow, weak. All at once she stopped. The silence was earth shattering. Her little eyes rolled back. She wilted away, I buried her in a garden, my Chrysanthemum.
Eek!
Owen Pond
The dismembered hand crept across the table. “Eek!” exclaimed the spider, who jumped below for safety.
Bear Paws Ethan Lyons
Chop, chop, chop. The conveyor belt ran, chopping off paws as fast as it could. The only question I have left: what do they do with the rest of the bears?
My Saturday Liam Staig
Sometimes the hill to your grandmother’s house is too steep. Sometimes you trip on a stone and tumble down till you lose gallons of blood. Sometimes grandma’s mad you never showed up on her birthday. C’est la Vie!
Writer’s Craft Edition
Flash Fiction
Page 5
The Widow
Untitled
Queen-size bed to herself and a donated two-piece. An empty bowl and vacant chair. Never again a walk in the rain. Faceless cheques in the mail, tears in her eyes when Mozart plays. Blank white cross over the ocean.
When I was younger, my brother and me we had this toy, a pair of plastic glasses, I suppose more like goggles really, that claimed on the package they’d let you see the world like how a fly would see it. And I guess I’d always wondered ‘bout flies too, like when they’d land on your arm or whatever and you’d look into their eyes, which don’t even look like normal eyes but rather they’re all multifaceted, I think would be the word, and hexagonal-like. And you’d put these glasses on and the world becomes all sorta purple and kaleidoscopic and it’s hard to see anything proper. But I thought then, when I would put those glasses on, how who was I to say that my world, the way I saw things, was anymore proper than how the fly would see it. And I learned a little later too, prolly at school or somethin’, that flies see things more slowly-like than how you and I do, sorta if they’d been living in a whole different kind of time. So I realised then, my world was but only one version of that world out there, the flies’ another and no more the worse for its being strange to me. And I remember, after I thought that, feeling sorta claustrophobic, like I was trapped kinda. And I remembered that line from Blake where he says ’bout that bird and your senses five.
Malcolm Pryde
Skydiving Olivia King
No Parachute. Ground came fast.
I’m so sorry 001
I’m so sorry. Since the time we’ve been apart, so much has changed. You changed at the core while I refined my details. You changed into light while I carved out shadows. Yet, shadows and light cannot co-exist. I can no longer stand with you. Move on.
Factory Life Felix Carillo
The stamping, endless, deafening, noise. A screech, a rumble, a cascading storm of bangs, cracks, buzzes. The ground, walls, everything around shakes, a symphony of broken metal, the bass, the vocals, all consumed, a void, a spiral unto death.
Eulogy for the Band Piss For Pumpkin Liam Staig
To be young is to see a field ahead of you. It’s to see a field full of unimaginable highs and lows. A field filled with the sheer expanse of possibility. It’s to know that you may very well become ruined and reckless but at the same time, you could end up like those you dream[/need/wish/intensely need] to be. Each reality lives as possible as the next and there is no way of knowing how one’s life will go. This is why we dream [as young people]. I dreamed to be like Piss For Pumpkin. I dreamed of waking up knowing I had made all the right decisions and my place here on this ground was justified. I dreamed of moving to Montreal, studying art by day and making art by night. I dreamed I could become the one in a million that makes some real good music. In a way no one else ever has or possibly ever will, they showed me that maybe I could.
Bruno Kaul
400 At Night Luc Cook
Once when I was young my father and I drove home from up north. We drove down the 400—normally crowded, but scant few drove this late. It was a quiet experience, one that I enjoyed.
Writer’s Craft Edition
Untitled Anonymous
he bumped into her at the bar she’d been going to for ages now he knew it well because he always wanted to play there she was quiet, and at the time he was quieter. they studied each other for a while, something like a week maybe she liked photography and music he mostly cared about the latter
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Poetry
Lightning Sophia Gaspar
Boom Light dances in the folds of clouds. Pop A crackling waltz glides through the skyline. Crash Electric jazz hands.
they took photos together and shared music and time and all the words that they both struggled with as the kinds of people who tried not to talk “hi” and “my name is” she went to school next to the bridge that he’d cross everyday they both loved that bridge they loved wondering what every person they saw walk across it was thinking, or feeling, or seeing because we all see different things with different lenses and it was nice to think that theirs weren't cracked they wandered through the vast blue-grey of downtown a lot peering up at all the glass that would someday shatter and muttering words that they probably thought were strong enough to bring it all down they were small, like the billions of droplets of water working together to form that murky river they watched for signs of life and wandered along, hoping to find flowers on the bank they traded so many words drunk texts, tired calls, 8 hours on the top of a bus, maybe they’ll never stop falling in love with the things around them with the words that litter the day to day from greetings to goodbyes and everything in between like her modelling commands and his ramblings that he always wrote in hopes of applying to something greater they shared it all and even with him here and her there and all of their words suspended in memory and three sheets of paper they would still both find flowers somewhere else
Thunder
Sophia Gaspar
The sound of banging cymbals. Booming roars that shake the ground. You feel the vibrations in your chest.
Witness Statement Bruno Kaul
The subway’s arrival was heralded by the screeching of metal. It was rush hour, there were maybe sixty other people on the platform. The train doors opened. No one got off. What I remember most vividly was the stench.
Writer’s Craft Edition
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Poetry
Ten Thousand Year Burial Mae Lai
the scarred sand will cry in a language they don't understand mournfully, through a jagged maze of thorns protruding into the sky; a monument. it will be beautiful to them. they will rip apart the grave, excavate the still-beating heart that drips with poison.
Hockey Haiku Ethan Lyons
Ice whispers beneath, Puck pirouettes, players dance, Goal's embrace awaits.
Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 Callachan McNulty
The sceptre lies abandoned across The carpet lavish crumpled and stained A tool of rule to crush rebellion
Blunt
Furnishings knocked over in a fit of That so quickly turned to And then
Rage Fear Regret
The two men are central Lit by a hearth that will not let This moment be
Denied
Lost in the cold light of this season of
Dying
Elder Ivan cradles Ivan young As if to stop time Stop the blood leak trickle from his
Mind
she said Kai Smolin
“I can give you the world,” she said And she did “I will give you the world,” she said But I already had the world And new horizons were brewing around me “I would have given you the world,” she said But I was already falling And I chose not to hear her over the wind in my ears And now With my feet soundly nestled in the watery sands of foreign beaches Who am I to wish for the world?
JEM
Oaklin Woods
Ivan Eyes bulging Mouths
What have I done?
For Ivan Called Terrible
Has murdered his son
Your actions eluding your words; your beliefs a vestige: yourself. I find you hard to believe.
Writer’s Craft Edition
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Poetry
Antheia’s Yard
Shared Dream
There was a treehouse in my yard, old wet wood, so overgrown with plants that it could have been abandoned, and taken by Antheia. I would fall, and scrape my knees, while on solo expeditions from my mind.
I We Are From Forms Fabled Freeing Your Mind Of thought. And imagine Worries with Doubts fading Past Darkening Not one Wakening Breathed Feeling Whispered singing All under conscious From the shared dream
Liz Cowan
I would feel my father's smile from the door, happy to see me young and excited and happy. He still talks about how much he loved being a father to a child. He smiled when I smiled, he laughed when I laughed. So I would smile when I couldn't sleep, and I would laugh when I wanted to cry. I would go into the yard of Antheia, explore the trimmed hedge So that I could feel older, stronger and smarter than I was, in my small body and mind And now I sit in Antheia's overgrown garden, pretending to be a child, to be small, to be ignorant, in my overgrown body and mind.
Anonymous
A House in the Middle of Nowhere Norzin Yultso
A house in the middle of nowhere, Surrounded by Oryza sativa. That sways together with the wind. And the outside shed, Where we keep our farming tools. The house covered in white paint With a hint of light blue windows. Makes it look cozy.
The Ghost of the Night Sara Johnson
The furniture cries, cries, cries, under the steps of the ghost. The doors opening on their own haunting you through the night. Creeping up behind you, behind you, behind you, until you feel the cold hands wrap around your neck. Icicles and frost, frightened by the touch. You freeze like a statue, so the last thing you remember, is the chill on that cool night.
Writer’s Craft Edition
Page 9
Poetry
SCREECH!
It is Illusion
My motorbike rounded the corner in a flash
It is illusion It says it is me It is my home Grass is on the sand I dig the sand I find a stream I uncover stones I swim in the stream There is mud at the bottom Splashes Pain It is a tree It thinks It walks It grumbles It cries It says it is me It is not me
Finnegan Woolrich
That was the only noise I heard That was the only noise I could hear Because that is who I am That is who I will forever be I feel the rubber burn as I burn with it It understands me In the distance I sensed the oncoming sirens WEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOO WEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOO WEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOO How many of them are there? 2? 7? 20? I don’t even care at this point, I just need to get away Get away from this mess I’ve created If you play with matches, You get burned I just have to get away Get away Get away POP! POP! POP! POP! My engine is making that noise again I can feel the fire trail behind me I’m going, Going, Gone.
Pawan Sharma
Poetry is Stupid N. A. B.
I can't write compelling poetry. Are you reading the words in front of you? What could it mean? Rambling, bunch of symbols... I don't know how to work these. Writing poetry is a scam; watch me string together words I've struck literary oil. Lines like poetic poems pain and stuff, society. Let me say words and do Completely pointless things with my random line, Breaks, leaving the Reader Thinking I'm going to give them a poem of significance when there might not be Any.
Writer’s Craft Edition
Poetry
The Boy Who Ate Apples Kai Gagnon
An Apple A day So they’ve Keeps Told me but I’m The Dr. Have Starting to doubt that since Away” Had billions I love apples so much that I must Of them over the years And I would hate to waste part of an apple so I started to eat The core of the apple. It tastes like the rest of the apple but it has A worse texture than the rest. Since I began eating the core people Have told me that there is cyanide in the seeds and that every day I Munch and crunch and gulp down the tasty little seeds of the apple is A day closer to my inevitable, apple seed-caused demise. Naturally I Was scared. I was petrified. I had eaten millions of apple seeds. The Same people who had told me apples would keep me healthy and Happy and strong were now telling me they would kill me. Apple Pie wasn’t healthy, nor were apple fritters, and the mere seeds Of an apple were lethal. So what about an apple a day stops A doctor from telling me I’m dying from cyanide poisoning? Who started this lie? Were they even a doctor? Had they Ever ate an apple? Did they not know of the cyanide? What qualified them to speak on any apple’s ability To keep doctors away? What if my entire life is A sick plot conceived by anti-apple lobbyists And the only reason I’ll be remembered by Anyone is as a cautionary tale. “Don’t go Eating too many apples Timmy! Those Have cyanide! You wouldn’t want to End up like Kai Gagnon!”
Youth
Rhys Backus
Do you have the time? They ask, voice a scream, The man replies. Not since I was nineteen. You, someday, will age accrue They say, with their youth, yeah right. Tomorrow’s tomorrow, maybe, You are invincible tonight
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