Underwater Exhibition

Art & Poem by Rebecca A. Dolin, Grade 11

Along the Isla Mujeres lies an underwater exhibition

Filled with every pathological omission

With every new repetition

Comes a new addition

A written definition

Of our latest mission

And once one is granted admission

Their soul begins to transition

Voiding all of their intuition

While the prophecy comes to fruition

Everything leading to our eventual decomposition

Next to Cozumel lies a great barrier reef

We stood there watching in great disbelief

The sharks circled and the fish came forth We won’t ever speak of this henceforth

Not the horrors of his death

Nor the secrets of the depth

As the evidence gets destroyed

The soothing sound of waves will never be enjoyed For the worst part of it all

Is that there was no one left to heed our fall

The memory of the man

Gone as was the plan

The only remnants remaining Are in the museum entertaining With its true origin lost to time

The display truly is the best crime

The police don’t suspect anything

All my lies pulling the string

We’re going to be fine

As long as we keep the main storyline

That we don’t know where he is

We will pass this quiz

Our fall is postponed

Decomposition on pause

We will get away with this

We will beat the laws

Scotophobia: Fear of the dark is a common fear or phobia among children and, to a varying degree, adults. A fear of the dark does not always concern darkness itself; it can also be a fear of possible or imagined dangers concealed by darkness.

At least once in every child's life they have feared the darkness, but it's never made clear why nor what caused this fear I'm about to tell you, the reader, a story of when I was 5 ½ years old to 6 years old of how I developed that fear I find it fitting to give this story a name so let's call it

The Dark

P

D, Grade 9

Year One

When I was five I got my first nightlight, it was a basic white tube fully enclosed, but it got the job done The year was 2011, and me, my mother, and father had just moved into an apartment located in uptown El Cajon. Every night I would lay awake on my bunk bed fantasizing about being a captain of a submarine or the leader of troops in a war, but like most good things, it had to come to an end. After a month of owning the nightlight, it began to project shapes onto the light blue walls even though there were no cut-outs on it. The shapes would move and dance about my bedroom walls. At first I enjoyed it… that is until the silhouette of a man started to appear on my wall. This was no ordinary man either, there was something about the way he moved throughout the bedroom walls and how he would stare soullessly at me, eyeless, yet ever present was the feeling of being watched. Even during the day I could see him on the wall, waiting until it was just me and him again in the night Eventually he began to come off the wall, every night he got closer and closer to my bed until he was right at the foot of it I told my mother and father, but they didn't believe it, or rather didn't want to believe it was happening to me, too Then, one night, the light went out, and when it came back on the shapes were gone, so was the man, but the feeling of his presence didn't As I looked up, I saw him, clear as day off the wall yet still a shadow just inches from me on the bedroom ceiling His face was indescribable, pitch black darkness, but I could tell he was smiling, his hand gripping the ceiling and the other reaching towards me I could not tell whether he had gloves on or his skin was that naturally dark All I could do was scream, as loud and as shrill as a five-year-old could, hoping, praying that my parents would get to me before he did. As I screamed, I saw my father and my mother turn on their bedroom light from down the hall, its rays like holy light descending upon me. Then, he was gone. As my father came into the room holding something followed closely by my mother I knew it wasn't just imagination that made the man. They asked me what was wrong. All I could do was point to the nightlight. The very next day, I begged them to throw out the nightlight and just let me sleep in the dark. After a lot of convincing and whining, they hesitantly threw it out for me, but every night I knew that he was still there in the shadows… watching me, waiting patiently for when I turned on the light. At least I couldn't see him That's good right?

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