“The first time was when I was eight. I’d been bouncing on the balls of my feet, waiting for my best friend outside in the scorching hot playground, but when she arrived, she told me she wanted a break from me and was going to go play with someone else today.”
“Penguins are better than people. They are the most loyal animals, staying with their friends forever. When penguins find a partner, they never leave; they are together for life.”
“They’d been together for six years now. Six years. It still didn’t feel like that long.”
“These were no ordinary pair of scissors. They were my mother’s sewing scissors. They were gold and delicately molded by some craftsman long ago into the shape of an elegant swan in flight.”
“Diving off a racing block into a swimming pool. The anxiety – would I mess up? Would my goggles fall down?”
“I remember arriving, and thinking everything looked picture perfect. /
I remember it was dark, but at the same time very bright. /
I remember demanding that my friends were called by their nicknames.”
“Dear Blue, /
I hope you’re doing well. /
But recently I heard you are doing quite bad.”
“The world had progressed to develop many great things in technology — the self-writing pen, light-weight bulletproof clothing now available in regular day fashion, food production from oxygen, and now this: your very own ‘fear in a box’ — an internet sensation so big, its producer, Mike Hentalburg, had overcome even Jeffrey Bezos. It was advertised only by influencers with the biggest follower counts. I heard they didn’t even get paid — it was all for the chance with the box.”
“’I find a pleasing humor in that fruit bowl. And the hanging lantern. And the — what is that vast… thing… over there?’
The juvenile servant rushed to the rich man’s side. ‘It is the ocean. Quite beautiful, if I may say?’
The rich man squinted his eyes, then clenched his fists, resisting the impending irritation. ‘Well, it was not there yesterday.’
‘It was, you just did not perceive its presence.'”
“Thousands of years ago, the earth developed and developed with human safety and entertainment as the main goal because people on earth wanted to make it a better place. In their minds, if people were safe and happy, then what could go wrong?”
The air was cool and the winds were strong. Below me, I could see hues of scarlet and shades of golden, with a handful of orange. Buildings were scattered around, some lights on and some lights off. The sun had barely risen.
It was so frigid outside, it might as well have been winter.
We stood there in silence for a long time, in thick scarves and puffy jackets.
Charles Smith was born in 1898 in Bath, England, and usually went by Charlie. Charlie’s father had died of Tuberculosis by the time Charlie was two. Charlie had very little memory of his father, and although it was an inconvenience to his mother, it never was a terrible inconvenience to Charlie other than his mother taking up whatever extra jobs she could find. Even though she had to work a lot, Mrs. Smith always found time to play with her son and was, overall, a very loving mother.
I woke up to find Otis staring at me. “Are you ready for your ‘check in’ today?” Otis’ simplistically announced reminder rendered me a little startled, for I had forgotten the events of the day. “Perhaps you will be granted your surgery today,” he pointed out. “Then you’ll be better once again.”
The only place where I felt truly safe was at the beach. If it was raining, it didn’t matter. There’s a blizzard, you say? Then we would still go to the beach. I know it’s odd, but my grandma and I, ever since I was a child, had always gone there when we needed to talk, I mean really talk. But today was different, I knew that after I told Grandma what I had done, she wouldn’t love me the same.
As I looked out the window, the 6 train was getting close to my stop, 77th street, with the usual EEEEE OOOOO sound. Getting off the train always made my heart race because I thought of it as the “critical moment.” In order to be ready to go to the main world, I looked at myself in the mosaic-built number: 77, and smoothened my hair down. Next, I gently tucked in my shirt, so that the coffee stain was not visible, and again flattened my messy, morning hair. “Decent,” I whispered under my breath, and walked up the subway stairs onto the sidewalk.
“The man had seen many different worlds in his time, and knew a song from all of them. He walked across the mountain peaks singing one of them. He plucked the banjo with the edges of his koi colored hand guard. His hands were weathered, strong, and had the agility of a wild rabbit. He had bright green eyes that looked a little bloodshot. Though he may have seemed a little tired, his smile shined brighter than the light overhead.”
“Two days after Georgie and his mother arrived was the day of the funeral. They had been the first ones there, and the bright sun and cloudless sky were starkly different to the midnight black suit that Georgie was wearing and the black lace that adorned his mother’s even darker dress. Guests had trickled in after he and his mother had arrived, their faces somber.
Then came the casket.”
“I was only 3 when the virus hit so I don’t remember much from before everything changed. I don’t remember the virus too well either. The human brain doesn’t start making memories until you’re almost four so I only remembered a few moments from the end. When the vaccine was accessible to most average people all over the world, I remember sitting on the cloud with my family watching the window monitor. The people were dancing and cheering outside embracing their long-awaited freedom. They celebrated all night in the streets, rejoicing over the thought of being free. They thought it was over. They thought that was the end.”
“Oh my gosh! I can’t believe we’re going here!” Danika squealed as she clutched her twin sister, Tamara’s arm. Tamara smiled and eased out of Danika’s strong grasp. “This is the place you said […]
“Ariel Phelan is a 13 year old writer and artist living in New York City. She loves to write historical fiction and realistic fiction short stories. When she is not writing, she loves drawing and reading. She goes to Rodeph Sholom school, and has been going to Writopia and Wricampia since she was little. “
“There’s a lot that you can buy with a stolen 20 bucks. Especially if your mission is to sneak to CVS from school and see how long it takes until your mom notices you’re missing. Then you get to walk down every aisle. When you have $20, anything is possible. Well, anything that you can do with 20 dollars.”
“When two sailors of the open seas / Come forth to a ruler of fortune and keys / Whence spews forth a prince who wears gold / Who has weak bones and a fragile mold”
“… out of nowhere, I grew a beak and feathers. I turned into a human-sized chicken, then I started to do evil mean tricks and pranks.”