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Kela_brown

Dear Self of Selfness Past

As I got home from another maddening day as an untrained, underpaid, sleep-deprived zookeeper (a.k.a, a ninth grade English teacher), I stopped to look at the itty-bitty mirror near my front door. Of course, being that it’s essentially a mirror fit for a Polly Pocket, I have to look super close to see more than just my poorly plucked eyebrow, close enough to see every single one of my cavernous pores. I decided to count them (I got tired after 37), and eventually, I let my mind wander to the question of how I found myself right here, in this moment, as a fully-grown adulty-adult counting her pores in a mirror that could pass as a frisbee for a rat. I thought of all my past selves and what I would tell them to let them know I eventually made it out of childhood discomfiture and teenage obscurity. After (finally) going to the bathroom for the first time since seven AM, I decided I would spend my afternoon doing something productive--negating my bathroom break by guzzling wine and drafting letters full of advice to my past selves to save them from (themselves? Myself? Self-adjacent? The--self of selfness past?).

Dear Kindergarten me,

When the nice boy sees that you're a friendless loser and asks if you want to play a game with him and his friends, do yourself a favor and say "yes" with your words, not "no" by kicking him in the shin. ​

If you can do that, but not man up when the teacher calls you out in front of the whole class, and instead blubber like a baby, then you are a woefully inconsistent six-year-old.

Also, please note that you're going to move school districts at least three more times, and across the state. I hate to be the one to tell you, but that means you and Brayden are never going to work out. Sorry, kid. Walk it off.​

And yes, I know that you're proud to be one of "Ms. Schneider's Spiders” (at least until you got on her shit list for assaulting a classmate); However, you will develop a crippling fear of spiders that spans well into adulthood. You become the drama when mega-spidey drops out of thin air onto your bathroom floor.​

AND YOU WILL BE ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED IN YOUR PHOBIA.

Dear middle-school me,

STOP. USING. THE WORD. “RENEGADE”. TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF. You’re on the honor roll and have never snuck out once. You know what renegade means. You’re not that.

Also, it’s super cool that you voted yourself out of your emo friend group “most likely to be the lead singer in a screamo band”. You’re now a bespeckled book loving English teacher with a collection of cardigans. Rock n’ roll!

Dear high-school-fishy me,

I know, I KNOW, you’re tired of brushing your hair. But I implore you, I beg of you- DO NOT GET THAT PIXIE CUT. I know it looks cute on female comic book characters, but please bear in mind they are cartoons intentionally drawn to be attractive, busty, powerful women--and you’re 14 and still only halfway through puberty. You will not look like a bad-ass superhero. You will just look like you’re “confused”.

Also, stay away from Jesse. I know he’s a hot Italian dude with a Spanish last name. I know he’s got pretty, shiny, swooshy hair and an inexplicable ability to grow a five o’clock shadow at the mere age of 15. I know you quite literally want to be “Jesse’s girl”. But, years later, he’ll date this really sweet girl (long after you’ve mostly accepted that he’s just not that into you) and he’ll turn into a total bum with no place or money of his own and mooch off of his girlfriend until she finally decides to dump him like the grubby little trash panda that he is. Do not try to date a moochy Italian trash-panda.

Finally--pay attention to the bathroom signs before you walk in. You’ll thank me later.

Dear junior me,

Yes, I know Veronica is annoying as hell. I know she reminds you of the pretty popular girl from every Netflix movie ever who actually doesn’t have a single thought in her head (I mean, Veronica definitely doesn’t). I know she’s a pick-me with a propensity to hog all of Cameron’s time and yet somehow still find the time to cheat on him anyway. However, it’s not worth it to be angry at him. You’ll regret it in May when he dies in a car accident in Rio Vista. You’ll go from wanting to strangle Veronica until she stops twitching to hugging her often, because she’s broken too.

Dear senior me,

No, Jesse is still not into you. On the bright side, your hair finally grew back out! Then you dyed it fire-truck red, but you looked great. Your parents had no trouble spotting you on the field at graduation. They just looked for the little mermaid after the bippity-boppity-boo and voila: your mom got a blurry, pixelated portrait of you waving at no one in particular like the princesses during the parade at Disney! Also, note that at 22 years old, you’ve still never seen those parades... because you’ve still never been to Disney.

*sigh*

Please, for the love of God- retake your SAT (and maybe crack open a book beforehand this time) so you can apply to A&M right away. Otherwise, you’re going to spend your semester off working 80-hour weeks slinging sandwiches at Chick Fil A just to go to a tiny university six months later in butt-fuck Egypt where the population is so small you’ll finish your first semester swearing you had a moderately attractive stalker. Then, you’ll transfer three times to finally get into A&M and have to pay again and again for official transcripts (which you didn’t save enough chicken slinging money to do). At the height of that absurdly complex process, you’ll have a--mostly respectful--bitch fight with the office lady at Tarleton because their SPEEDY e-transcript system as they call it is less like Speedy Gonzalez and more like Slow-Poke Paco.

Dear college me,

Stop working so damn much and enjoy the ride. Go to parties, make friends, join an organization (just not a cult), and be a real Aggie (even though it’s a cult). You’re gonna miss it one day when you’re that weird random old person at Northgate chasing every *single* vodka red bull with a *double* glass of water, or standing outside the Dixie Chicken hogging the Oxygen because your claustrophobia is *never* prepared for butt-to-back proximity.

Dear 21-year-old me,

Man up and stop worrying about throwing up. When you went to the lake for your birthday, your roommate got hammered, and you were still buzz-less and sunburnt. Pathetic.

When I finished drafting what seemed to be a sufficient number of wine-stained, amateur advice columns for an amateur(er) human being, I decided to call my high school best friend, who was still living in College Station because he was finishing his major in engineering. After informing me that time machines weren’t “actual science", he asked me how much wine I had. I lied.

I got up to look in the mirror again after tripping over an imaginary shoe. Everything that led me here kept running through my head. I may have been a shin-kicking, spider-fearing, pixie-cut wearing, chicken slinging, lightweight former Aggie- but I was proud of myself.

If you’re not familiar with the philosophical point of the “butterfly effect”, it’s the theory that the world is interconnected, so much so that one small occurrence can influence a much larger complex system. All of those little dorky (and sometimes cool) things I did when I was younger got me my career and the opportunity to shape other young lives. I may want to save them from the same goofy mistakes I made, but the truth? They’re going to make their own goofy mistakes. They’re gonna have their own Jesse’s. They’re going to get their own stupid impulse haircuts, put off school, accidentally walk into the wrong bathroom (we all have), and drunkenly call their friends asking about scientifically unsound machines. And it’s okay. They’ll end up exactly where they’re supposed to be. Just like I did.

I crumbled up the letters and threw them all away. Not because they were wine stained or because time travel is impossible. But because younger me didn’t need help.

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Kela_brown

Revelations of a Tuckered-Out Teacher

There was no plan.

As one of the many students being pushed through the public school system in 2017, there was only graduation. Our ticket to freedom. I didn’t take my SAT. I didn’t apply to colleges. I had nothing in my head except the burnout I was feeling. High school counselors didn’t bother me with my future plans; they only made sure I was on track to earn my endorsement (to this day, I still have no clue what that even means). Talk of my plans after high school were of no interest to them and of even less interest to me.

Senior year rolled around, and my counselors finally pulled me in to let me know that I really needed to take my SAT. They told me, “It’s likely going to be too late to apply to colleges for the Fall 2018 semester”. I would’ve had to have my scores by like October or something, and at this point, it was March. I didn’t really mind, but I knew the SAT was necessary because someone, somewhere, decided it’s necessary, even though high school does not- in any way- prepare you for it. I scheduled it, paid for it, didn't study… then took it. Bombed it. 1070. Who would be impressed by that? I didn’t know. I didn’t give a shit.

Despite the indifference I felt toward the SAT and college, a personal mission of mine was to always be agreeable, mostly responsible, and on top of my work when I was in school. I never got in trouble. Never talked back to a teacher. Never disrupted a class. Never skipped. Did everything in my power to get A’s and B’s. Kept my GPA up. I made sure I was someone that the principal never had to call home about, throughout my entire grade school career.

I finally got to senior season and did all the fun stuff: senior breakfast, senior parade, graduation practice (Texas heat actually makes that not fun); all the things you do to celebrate finishing the thing the state mandates of you. I listened to all the speeches by the smart kids who already knew where they were going to college and admitted it with such pride, because they had their lives figured out (or someone else had it figured out for them).

I walked the stage. I got my diploma. I’m out.

I will admit, there was a time during my senior year where I thought, “I like art. Teaching elementary school art could be fun”. With this realization, three problems came to mind; one, I stopped taking art classes after my freshman year to do other nerdy stuff; two, you don’t exactly need to be Picasso to teach elementary babies to glue pom-poms to construction paper or trace a hand turkey; three–and perhaps the most troublesome of all–I had extremely limited experience dealing with small children, and next to no interest in developing the skills necessary to handle them. Even at twenty-four, when my sister asks, “Can you watch your niece/nephew while I shower?”, my first question is, “For how long?”. Guessing games are not my forte, so I am woefully unqualified to watch kids that cry for a multitude of reasons, ranging from hunger to being tired to being bored.

Senior year, though, I had honed a passion that I had left untouched since middle school:

I liked to write.

In eighth grade, I would dabble in storytelling, and share my works with friends and even sometimes my teachers. Of course, at the time, I unknowingly sucked at it. But I didn’t mind. I liked doing it, talented or not.

When high school hit, I paused writing stories for a while and started documenting my feelings instead. No, I didn’t keep a diary; I wrote on scratch notebook paper that I kept all together. It was the only way a dorky kid with no friends could make sense of everything she was thinking and feeling. When you don’t have friends to talk to, write it down, I always thought.

I took English Four with a teacher I wish I remembered the name of, because I enjoyed her class like no other class before. We read classic literature, like Frankenstein and Beowulf (both a little graphic), Slaughterhouse Five (aliens, really?) and Julius Caesar (that one was pretty cool- who doesn’t like occasional anarchy?). We got to explore our identities as writers by writing about those texts, writing research papers about whatever topic we wanted, or doing little random creative assignments here and there. I had always been good at English classes, but that class was where my interest really piqued.

There was one assignment that we did: a character sketch. I don’t mean drawing because, as previously mentioned, I quit art like three years prior. We were challenged to write a short, one-paragraph essay with as many details as possible trying to help the reader see the character visually. I asked–and this was the defining point that told me that I was a writer–if I could make it up. And this poor, poor teacher said yes…

unknowingly agreeing to read a four-page story.

When she wanted one paragraph.

The story was about a person I had conjured up who was at least half real (someone I knew at the time). I took this assignment, and, well, ran just seems like an understatement. I turned this assignment into my own personal getaway car. I took off with it. Writing it was one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable things I had done at the time. Looking back on the story now, there were certainly a lot of cringey things I would change. That being said, I didn’t have as much practice as I do now. But I edited and edited and edited, and finally felt–mostly–happy with my work.

You can guess what happened. As I enjoyed this assignment more than anyone else and treated it like my own personal creative writing club rather than an assignment for a checkbox grade… she read it to the class. My class, while I was present, and to her fellow English Four teachers. I did feel honored (even though she read it in the most monotone voice ever, to the bereavement of myself and my classmates).

Despite the embarrassment, I knew from that assignment that writing was a passion that I had let lie dormant for much too long. I was so focused, from the end of middle school to that point, on finding out who I was by processing my emotions as they happened, that I never stopped to recognize that my identity was in my writing. So, with that in mind, I thought, maybe I should teach writing.

That didn’t start right away. I spent about six months post-senior-year not sure where I wanted to go or absolutely sure that teaching was what I wanted to do. Eventually, I got sick of working fast food, living at home at nineteen, and slinging chicken at 7.25 an hour for sixty-plus hours a week with no goals in mind. I decided then that was the last time I would let myself land at my next-step without another next-step in mind.

I finally went to school, got my bachelor’s in English and my master’s in Education- specifically, Curriculum and Instruction (both from A&M, because gig ’em forever).

This sounds, so far, as if it will be some big success story. After all, I am the perfect archetype. The directionless good kid who kept their head down, didn’t really have future plans, and eventually went on to get their education and their dream job.

One thing that you learn from a young age, and about the only thing that really sticks with you all that time, is that age-old adage: “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life”. We grow up with the unchallenged preconception that the only way to enjoy your life is by doing exactly what you dream of doing. You will only be happy if you publish that book, open your art gallery, make that professional sports team, sell out arenas with your singing voice or your comedy, become a rockstar or a five star chef, make millions of dollars, etc. “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life”, right?

We continue on with these beliefs like the work seriously, truly does stop once we’ve made it, because that’s how a dream works. But do you wanna know how else a dream works?

By waking you up eventually.

Popstars spend hours upon hours writing, rehearsing, perfecting what their label tells them will sell, running themselves into the ground with exhaustion. Athletes spend hours upon hours practicing, perfecting, eating mostly what is good for them, running their bodies into the ground with exhaustion at the risk of a career-ending injury. Artists spend hours upon hours painting, sculpting, perfecting, trying to sell their work or at least get it out there, only to risk losing the interest and money of the art world to that simple painting of a green dot in the middle of an otherwise blank canvas. Teachers spend hours upon hours grading, making lesson plans, planning intervention, only to receive unlivable wages, immense student apathy, the risk of a shooting, and the occasional “Popcorn Friday” from administration as a, we see you, we appreciate you- rather than a raise.

I am, in no way, saying that pursuing your dreams never turns out to be worth it. Of course that is not true. When the results of your passion yield, of course there’s room for celebration. You made a platinum song? Celebrate. You published that book? Celebrate. Your sports team won a championship? Celebrate. You got a troubled student to trust you and do what it took to graduate? For-freaking-sure, celebrate!

This does not mean, though, that the work stops, or that every labor will bear fruit. Not everything you dream of will happen because you got your dream job.

There is still pain.

There is still sacrifice.

There is still hardship.

There is still failure.

There is still work to be done.

And that is something I wish I would have known before finding myself doing what I thought was my dream.

I have watched, over the past two-and-a-half years of my career, a truly broken system let a lot of fruit wither and rot. I have watched students spend hours glued to their phones watching these random people on social media tell them that there’s no consequences for their actions. I have watched teachers work tirelessly by the soft light of their lamp at their desk grading papers well into the night for the grading period deadline. I’ve watched kids from broken homes bring their parent-taught behavior to school by causing mayhem in the halls. I have watched teachers with daily checklists that only grow longer with every 504 meeting, assignment to grade, district-wide training, teacher feedback form, and lesson plan that needs to be done. I have watched students put hands on each other at the slightest inconvenience or misspoken word. I have watched teachers get berated by their students, told that their jobs are meaningless and their career choice is a waste because the students have been taught that they’re far superior when they made a viral TikTok. I have watched desks being thrown across the room, classrooms trashed, and items stolen by students who have no respect for others. I have listened to countless speeches about being sure to track use of accommodations in case someone’s parent decides to sue the district because you forgot to provide a blank graphic organizer for your student to take notes on during a lesson. I have witnessed not one, but two professional educators–one new to the profession, one that has been teaching for a long time–cry their eyes out within 24 hours of each other because they felt uncared for and unsupported by administration. I have watched as parents have bullied teachers and administrators alike into submission when their kid didn’t receive a “fair” grade, even though they didn’t do the work that the other kids did. I have watched pregnant teachers lose their babies because that one kid got angry over doing work and punched her in the stomach. I watched a principal lose her eyeball because an irate student turned her face into target practice.

Worst of all, I have watched countless students who shouldn’t have made it past middle school get ushered across the stage at graduation, even though they’re completely unprepared for adulthood.

And the U.S. Does. Nothing. But blame the teachers, because, “It’s a skill issue”.

You’re absolutely right. It is a skill issue. A parenting skill issue. An administrative budgeting skill issue. An educational structuring skill issue. A, “How the hell do we fix the Sephora tween?” issue.

But what do us teachers know about children, their short-sighted tendencies, and their educational deficits? After all, we only spent thousands of dollars on our content/education degree(s), hundreds more on state exams and certifications, and have years of experience in the field. Of course, none of that is enough for us to have some semblance of an idea as to what we're talking about when we say, “Something’s very wrong.”

If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.

That phrase now leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth, and a hollow place in my heart. It also means nothing to the educators making a mass exodus. We all love the “aha” moment that lights up in a child’s eyes, and guiding struggling students toward success. There’s no question about that. But the damning effects of the abysmal salary, the gentle-parenters, the apathetic, undisciplined children, and the lack of support from administration have left us with an ultimatum: leave, or run our mental and physical well-being into the ground as we struggle to support ourselves and our families.

And if the situation gets any more volatile…

there won’t be much of a choice.

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bob_ross_fan

chapter 8

For five days, Rory and the others followed the royal road as it coursed through the southern edge of the Dil'Farans. For the most part, every day had been the same, rising at dawn to ride through the seemingly endless sprawl of trees, each one taller than the next, and their stumps thickened with age. At night, the group continued to camp on the forest floor, the chill of the nearing winter cast out by the strange magic of Bianca's fire.

At the conclusion of the fourth day, the telltale thinning of the ancient forest was a welcome sight to the entire group. In the past, Rory had enjoyed the shrouded serenity of traveling alone through the trees, but now she found herself grateful for the newfound company. Despite herself, the incident with the Harkscalen had unnerved her, and to travel with the others gave her a small sense of comfort. Not to mention that the act of quiet rebellion against her Arcodyte teachings lit a small fire within her. A feeling that she hadn't yet decided how to handle.

During their time together, Rory had learned a great deal about her companions. In just a few days, she learned how Bianca and Albert had navigated their way out of a plague-ridden village and joined a band of traveling merchants. How they'd refined their hunting skills and met Nicolas on one of their many adventures throughout Calydon.

As for Nicolas, Rory now understood that solemnity that she occasionally caught darkening his stark features. As a boy, he had never known his father, and was raised by his mother in Genog. Rory had never heard of the village before but according to Nicolas it was small; hardly more than a shanty town on the western coast of Calydon. When Nicolas was nine years old, an Arcodyte raid had burnt his village to the ground and many perished, including his own mother. Form there, Rory had learned, Nicolas swore to one day face King Hedryk himself and avenge his mother.

"Look at this", Albert exclaimed as he rode ahead of the others. His voice carried a lilt of excitement and dragged Rory from her thoughts.

"A day's ride to Agres", Bianca had observed, joining her brother's excitement.

Rory didn't have to ride closer to see what the others were talking about. In fact, when she caught up with the others, she wasn't surprised at all to see the wooden sign that signified that Agres was nearby. In truth, Rory had used the cover of the Dil'Farans to navigate northern Calydon many times.

"Looks like we'll survive the great forest another time", Bianca said, winking at Nicolas. In their short time together, Rory had already noticed a pull between Nicolas and Bianca. However, it was still unclear whether the others had noticed it between themselves.

Nicolas only fingered the bottom of the necklace that he wore, a subconscious motion that seemed to accompany his seemingly constant pondering. The necklace was his mother's, Nicolas had quietly explained beside the blaze of Bianca's fire one night. From the golden chain, a single charm hung, the outline of a violet etched into a piece of flattened gold, with a small moonstone at the center. According to Nicolas, it was the final trace that he had left of her.

"I wager that if we ride hard, we'll reach Agres just past nightfall", Albert said.

"Race you there?" Bianca asked, the excitement at the challenge rising in her eyes.

With dawn still softening the edges of the sky and dew clinging to the trees around them, the day was young and Rory supposed that such a goal was possible. But after several days on the road with a stiff body and belly rumbling from a waning supply of food, she rarely chose to ride so hard.

"We've been pushing ourselves and the horses hard the past few days. Perhaps we should be more careful", Nicolas said, voicing Rory's silent concern.

"True", Albert said, "but we know the route. I'm assuming that she does too", he said, nodding at Rory. "Besides, we must travel with haste. For all we know, the job has been taken already."

The mysterious summons that had united the group on this odd adventure had been a frequent subject of conversation. Still, the answers eluded them and their only choice was to forge on, ever enticed by the exorbitant pay that was being advertised.

Eventually, Albert had won the debate and it was decided that the group would ride hard into Agres, only planning to stop once during the day.

But as Rory rode past the sign for Agres, she noticed a strange mark on the sign for Agres that she hadn't seen before. In one of the corners, an upside down crown had been etched into the weathered wood and she quickly recalled the Earl of Kennet's warning.

Young Skepmadyr, beware of a place that bears this symbol. I've received word that it can be found on the royal road, and danger lurks there.

At the time, she had thought nothing of it but now the sight unnerved her and she decided to voice her concern.

"The symbol etched into the sign", she called out to the others as they rode ahead. "I've been warned to avoid it."

Shadowed by his dark hair, Nicolas' brows knitted, mirroring Rory's own apprehension.

Albert circled around to examine the strange mark himself, but only shrugged his shoulders.

"You two are too cautious", he laughed as he dug his heels into his horse's sides. "Last one to Agres pays for the ale", he said as his horse leapt into a gallop.

Bianca needed no further encouragement and bounded off after her brother, her red hair bouncing at her back in a long, thick braid.

"His lack of caution will be his demise one day", Nicolas sighed, the words hardly audible. But he, too, galloped off after Albert and Bianca.

Beneath her Jewel struck the ground with a front foot, expressing her eagerness to catch up to the others but still Rory restrained her, unsure what to do. In the past, she would have heeded her instincts and approached the outpost town with caution. But, she supposed, freeing herself from the Arcodytes would come with risks no matter what. Not to mention that traversing Agres was the only southbound route she knew. Slowly, she softened her grip on the reins, unsurprised when Jewel responded by speeding off after the others.

***

As the afternoon sun fell lower in the sky, the group still rode at a brisk pace. They had only stopped once at a small brook that Nicolas spotted along the way, taking the time to allow themselves and the horses a few small sips of water, but nothing more. Still, after several hours, Bianca and Albert continued to race around each other as they coursed through the winding road, which was little more than a walking trail in some spots. For Rory's part, she had to admire the tenacity of the redheaded siblings as they shouted and giggled, even as she grew weary.

With the days getting ever shorter in the final days of autumn, Albert was correct in his assumption that it wouldn't be until after dusk that the group rode into Agres. But still, the group forged on, guided by the final shadows of daylight as it waned beyond the horizon.

When the illuminated torchlight of Agres came into view at last, Rory felt her shoulders sag in relief. Every part of her ached from keeping up with the ardor of Albert and Bianca; her knees, thighs and back all radiating dull pain and her eyes bleary with exhaustion. Dried sweat from earlier in the day flaked her skin, and she shivered, drawing up the patched hood of her cloak.

Beneath her, Jewel's hide steamed with exertion and as she finally slowed the mare to a walk, she could feel every breath that the mare took, and the rapid beating of her heart. Running a gloved finger along the mare's neck, she stroked her in gratitude. It was rare for her to push the horse so hard in one ride, but Jewel had proven herself plenty capable keeping up with the others.

"You'll have a warm, dry stall to sleep in tonight. This I swear", Rory whispered to Jewel as she set her eyes on the town ahead, designed to accommodate travelers as they passed through. Around her, thick snowflakes had begun to flurry through the air, falling sloppily on the ground. The event marked the first snowfall of the year, and Rory scowled at the sky, anxious to embrace the warmth and shelter that was promised by the torchlight ahead.

"Looks like we made it just in the nick of time", Albert said as he drew his own cloak tighter and patted his horse on the rump. He didn't appear tired at all, but his south Calydonian accent was thicker than usual, giving his fatigue away. It was a feature that both he and his sister shared.

"Shall we put the horses up or fetch a pint?" Bianca asked as they grew ever closer to the town. After spending the past few days surrounded only by trees, the sight of a town and the prospect of a warm meal had become a coveted subject, even to Rory who was used to sleeping on the ground and surviving on stale food. But still, she pushed her own desires aside and spoke up for what she knew was right, fatigue souring her assertion more than she meant.

"I'm tending to my horse first. She will not stand in the snow, hitched at a tavern post while we eat."

"Nor will mine", Nicolas agreed. It had been the first time he'd spoken since morning.

"Stables it is then", Bianca said as they rode into the town at last.

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DianaHForst

The Beginning of the End

Prologue

I should have been more aware. My thoughts raced, trying to pinpoint the exact moment where I had made each compounding, fatal mistake these last two weeks. From the initial incident that set it all off, down to the moment that every step afterwards created our slow spiral out of control.

I could feel my heart squeezing, like something had gripped me, tugging and pulling inside my chest as it choked me. I tried not to let it sink in and drown me, because now wasn't the time to break down and throw in the towel. Right now, I had to catch up to them. Tilting my head back, I grunted as I nearly lost my footing in a hole, my head whipping back before it hit a tree branch that I’d narrowly missed, as several more sharp branches jammed into my chest and stomach. Gritting my teeth, I ducked under the next branch, grabbed the trunk of another tree and hefted myself up. Hefted myself up and threw myself over the oncoming ravine to clear it. I breathlessly ran in near leaps for the oncoming neighborhood fence at the end of the tiny expanse of woods.

My lungs heaved as I felt my chest burn with an intense ache that I could barely ignore. I was pushing past my limit. I could feel it in me as my heart pounded-throbbing horribly-in my chest and my blood roared in my ears between the breaking branches whipping me in the face, and crunching under my weight. Still, I ran, ran like time was already up because if I was being honest- She was out of time, and I was the only thing between her and death and it was all my fault.

“Fuck!” I screamed, but the words morphed into an angry bark. My hands slapped the pavement, and I lifted my head up. I barely gave myself time to recover as I shoved forward, at first unsteadily on two legs, pushing up from the concrete by my hands, then finally into a full-four legged sprint where my hands moved more like an extra pair of legs. In my inhuman state, it worked without a hitch due to my semi-quadrupedal body as the scent of freshly snapped pine trees and other obnoxious native plants filled my senses. The smell cleared as the wind whipped against my fur from my speed, trying to chill my heated body as it blinded me, making tears form in my eyes.

In this moment, I was grateful for the extra speed and my semi-wolfish body, because I was running down the hill as fast as my immortal body could take me.

I almost lost my footing as I slammed up into the fence finally. I had come crashing down over the edge of the hill that I barely noticed before I hit it. As I caught myself on the fence, I noticed to my right that I was looking towards the road below the ramp that curved back up into the stretch of interstate. This was the spot where I could have tried to cut the car off, but it was still too far. A groan worked its way up from my throat, before I tore away from the fence line, I became a blur against the edge of the woods, following down under the ramp. Branches and limbs snapped from the weight of my massive body, and I broke through them until I nearly hung myself up on the lower limbs, but I tore myself out of the tangle, feeling fur rip and skin tug.

Still, I didn’t stop.

Couldn't.

I reminded myself again that she was on borrowed time.

When I got out of the tiny expanse of forest, I caught sight of the black SUV driving onto the on ramp and entering the highway and I gaped at it, wondering if it was all for nothing, but the woman’s words rang out to me. Docks. Eleven. Pier Eleven’s Docks was what my mind immediately transcribed from that, which wasn’t far from the docks that I took home. It was just a few blocks down. I just had to get there in time.

I winced, hoping that I did, and that they didn't decide to detour off elsewhere with her. Because if she wasn't at the docks, I didn't know what I'd do with myself.

Pain laced through my body at the thought of being too late and all I could think of in that moment as I ran was the last tearful smile on her face when she was trying so hard to stick it through with the problem I caused.

Please. Please hold on!

My body trembled with the roar of adrenaline that was keeping me going, because everything else waiting to catch up was going to keep me frozen in my tracks. I just had to get there before they took off with her. I had to get her back, before they took her somewhere else that I didn't know. Where things could be so much worse. Where I couldn’t get her back, because they’d torture her or worse; kill her.

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Catthaera in Poetry & Free Verse

An Ode to Leaving

I make peace with death in waves. In a call missed, in the shaky rattled tone of another impermanent’s voice clothed in fear, in the leather-tightened and knotted hands of a mother greater than you and I.

These waves have crashed again, and again, and again since you’ve been gone.

A heightened heartbeat thumps loudly in my sweltered hot ears while a knot in my throat sits just above my heart, shallowing my breath, allowing scarce space for my own life to continue.

It’s heavy. Somehow the drumming rings so tall, yet the cavernous depths trench throughout my sternum, the pain so deep it’s disgusting. A sickeningly cruel joke to have been able to love someone so deeply at all.

I spend many moments remembering your voice as clear as a light blue summer sky. Your favorite color was blue and you always told me not to stare at the sun, it would burn my eyes and turn me blind. I can hear the smirk at the end of each word when you answered the phone, the tone of true love when you sang about the bunnies and you giggled, bumping us on the head.

Mamma, you haven’t answered that phone in a very long time.

I suppose you leaving prepared me for all the different ways they would leave, too. Nothing could ever feel the same.

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AndyBetz

Afternoon Air Smells Freer

Afternoon Air Smells Freer

July 08, 2025

He had lied to me again.

After I secured him to the chair with a variety of ropes and duct tape, he woke from his somewhat less than peaceful slumber. The blood dripping down his forehead had since dried, the wound since clotted. His face, on any other day, would heal, even if left unattended.

Such is the nature of human physiology.

But this wasn’t any other day.

I opted for a roll of Saran Wrap, both for the convenience of deployment and the clinginess of the plastic to itself. I might have informed him of my intentions. However, I remember watching old Batman TV shows where the Joker/Penguin/Riddler make that same mistake permitting the Caped Crusader to escape and foil their nefarious plans.

My captive would receive no opportunity for a respite, let alone a departure.

When he realized my intentions, he began negotiating. The plastic wrap made its first circumference of his head.

I permitted him his last full breath prior to continuing. He might have used it for begging. He might have thought to insult me. Instead, he began apologizing.

Ironically, his gunshot wound to my knee crippled my gait, but not my hearing. My surgeon confirmed this to be true.

Too bad I did not believe what he had to say either.

When I finished the second circumference, he began thrashing. I expected a struggle, so I watched all he could give. If viewed face to face, all one could see was spittle rapidly evaporating. All one could hear was crying.

By the fourth circumnavigation of his head, even the crying disappeared. The thrashing soon followed. An eerie silence filled the room. It was, for me at least, cathartic. No more unlawful orders. No more ignorance of civil rights. No more lame excuses of his safety trumping my rights. Silence. It answered all of my unanswered questions. It opened a penultimate door of opportunity. I dreamed of this day and it finally arrived, albeit 12 years too late, but arrive it did.

Even though I could leave, I chose to remain for a while longer. Part of me envisioned him with a deception in which he had not passed from the Earth. He was like this. Slippery, elusive, the modus operandi for his profession of fallen expectations.

Within thirty minutes, even I accepted the reality of my new life.

I gathered my belongings, what few he left me with, and opened the front door, never to return.

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beatricegomes

Remains

Above Lucy, a white-hot smudge of sun threatened to break through the haze. Below, the heat appeared to ripple off the asphalt and make the dead world dance. A flash of light in the cracked road caught her eye. She bent down to inspect her treasure: a lone paperclip, rusty but intact, having waited patiently for decades to be found. She pulled a chain of paperclips from her pocket and threaded her new discovery to the end. She closed the chain around her neck, pretending it was covered in colorful jewels instead of debris from years of exposure. Around her, the air shimmered as heat warped the landscape.

The UV sensor clipped to Lucy’s shirt beeped and flashed purple. She needed to find shelter soon until the haze swallowed the sun again. She looked around her, but all she saw was barren ridges stretching in every direction. She had wandered farther from camp than usual this time. The only shelter in sight was a heap of metal and glass in the distance. The UV sensor beeped faster now, blinking red. She had no choice. She ran toward the wrecked structure.

Most of the ceiling there had collapsed, but some of the glass walls still stood. Inside, she found rows of dusty clay pots propped up on tables, some small and plain, others large and painted with faded swirls of color. Lucy reached into a pot and scooped up a handful of cold dirt, letting it fall through her fingers. It smelled like rain. She wasn’t expecting to find anything. She wouldn’t have known what to look for anyway.

Lucy stopped in her tracks at the last pot. There was something purple in the dirt. She arched an eyebrow, turning the discovery over in her mind to figure out what it could be. Finally, she plucked it from the dirt and lifted it up to her nose. The scent rising from it was earthy with a hint of something sweet. She nibbled a petal and spit it out, deciding to stuff the purple thing into her pocket to show her mother.

She looked up and saw the sun had retreated into the haze above the glass structure. Lucy took the opportunity to run back to camp. She burst into the tent panting. “Ma, look at this!”

Lucy’s mother was crouched over a bowl mixing fortified grain. She looked up and smiled at the multicolored chain around her daughter’s neck. “Jewels fit for a princess!”

Lucy looked down and blushed. She had forgotten about her creation made from old things forgotten and found. “I mean this,” she said, pulling the crushed purple thing from her pocket. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

Her mother gasped and froze. “Is that—no, it can’t be… just like the ones my mother used to grow in the Old Era. Lucy, where did you find this?”

“In a weird glass building,” Lucy said. “What is it?”

Her mother reached out and gently took the petals into her hands. “It’s called a violet,” she said. “We had them where I grew up.” She saw the confusion painted on her daughter’s face and laughed. “It’s a type of flower. It’s alive. Back then, clean water flowed in pipes underground. We used to spray it all over the flowers just to keep them beautiful. Just to have something nice to look at. That was before the droughts and famines, of course.”

Lucy looked at the dry stalks of grain in the basket beside her mother, who had gathered them that morning. “So this is alive? Can’t we plant it again?” Her eyes glistened with hope.

Her mother shook her head. “I’m afraid all we can do is put it in a cup to appreciate it while we have it. We can’t dip into our water supply, though. Without its roots, it won’t have long.”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to… did I kill it?” Lucy’s eyes welled up with tears.

Her mother embraced her. “In this world… you gave it mercy.”

Challenge
Love your enemy, pray for those who curse you.
prose or poetry winner chosen by me not likes
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GerardDiLeo

Homunculus

The homunculus is a representation of the man behind the man, the woman behind the woman, the body behind the body: the graphic mapping of what parts of the body are put together in proportion to how they’re laid out and innervated as related to our brain tissue. Not all sensations and volitional movements are distributed evenly. Thus, the homunculus is a distorted—even a comical—little creature.

For example, the hands are very sensitive, so the hands of the homunculus are large. So are the sex organs. And the lips. For that is how the mapping, in a Mercator projection fashion, pans out. (Think of Greenland.)

Everyone has a homunculus of their own; everyone’s homunculus changes as they grow older, wiser, and mature. Some homunculi, unfortunately, change as people grow hateful, resentful, and cruel. If only everyone could see their own homunculus and that part of it by which the soul is represented.

I once had a stable homunculus. It had grown over the years via honesty, integrity, and love for my fellow man, adhering happily along the convolutions, the gyri and sulci, of my brain.

Then came one of those fellow men with whom I’d gone into business. His name was Dwayne. Dwayne was a bad man. I didn’t know this, of course, as such men disguise themselves as reasonable and conciliatory to your best interests—especially when they have nothing and come to you for everything. Their homunculi lie in wait for the opportunity to get in a cheap shot. Their very own homuncular digits twitch to finger your own brain’s concavities.

Good men know how to make what’s in their best interests jive with what are your own; bad men leave you as roadkill. Dwayne aimed for living, breathing sentient creatures to make them roadkill.

Now I lick my wounds and knead the tire tread marks on me, my homunculus prone in the pit of the sulci where my reptile lives, having fallen there like a sucker through a trap door.

My reptile.

Every human brain, including mine, has such a reptile deep in the pits. It is the flight-or-fight captain of an armed ship. There in the primaeval abyss it sails, looking up from the basal ganglia of emotion and memories, an ancient and oh-so-human region of the limbic system called the amygdala.

Maturity and the sense to choose my fights carefully saw my homunculus outgrow my reptile by age 7; but now, floundering helplessly in the abyss, it is a sitting duck for it.

Bad memories lock together in the hippocampus tightly. Hatred is a glue that is thick.

When bad things happen—when bad people do bad things—these memories get the highest priority in sticking together in patterns of synapses that radiate their poisonous dendrites into everything else. The hippocampus is named after the Greek words for “sea horse” because of its shape. Yet, it is not a sea horse, but the proverbial elephant that never forgets—the storage bin for the poison arrows of emotion from the amygdala.

Dwayne.

I had built Dwayne up, truly believing his success would be my success and that the sum of our produce would exceed the addition of the parts. It’s the essence of any true partnership. I referred him business that came from what I myself would have garnered. We were successful—together: me from my hard work and cleverness—and Dwayne…from me.

Then he became more successful than me, and I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t long before he insisted on renegotiating the distribution of our net income.

A former client reported Dwayne had called him to tell him I was too busy to handle his account and that he, instead, would be handling it. Dwayne had confided in my employees that I had a list of them I planned on firing. Then he gave me his notice and moved next door, along with the employees he had claimed were on my list.

This sort of thing happens every day. It’s called business as usual. It’s called capitalism for some.

It’s as if business as usual is a license to cheat and steal while denying any foundation of ethics. “I have to do what’s best for me,” is the mantra. Loyalty comes in a distant also-ran once someone feels their oats.

Next, I lost many lucrative contracts, later hearing that Dwayne was spreading vicious lies about me. Things about me and the IRS. Things about addictions, cruelty, and exploitation. Things about me and my daughter. My board memberships were dropped, and it wasn’t long before he sat in my spot on each. My wife got a letter from a woman Dwayne knew who claimed “it was over” between her and me.

The only way to fight such a man smartly is by doing nothing. Do not play his game. Surely people would know the man I had always been. But the reality is that the truth never catches up to the lies.

When bad things happen to good people, it’s enough that it’s because they’ve been targeted by genetics, acts of nature, or disease. Those are mindless things that cannot be blamed. But when the bad things happen by design, by designing-bad people, it’s hard to understand why the assaults continue until way past complete ruin, even when the perpetrator has already more than won.

His win was complete. I once had it all; now I had nothing. Now he had it all. Including all that was mine. I had lost my reputation, job, my vocation, my money, my wife, and my family.

And my mind. There is no cruelty worse than being at the mercy of someone who is cruel.

So my homunculus—who is me—languishes, interred below the foundations of my limbic system, simmering in hate and fantasizing revenge. They say you can’t fight a dirty fighter because it’s hard to know where you draw the line. At burning down their house? Murder?

At some point, even under the fog of the primitive mind living precariously at the behest of self-serving reptilian hormones, you have to declare you’re better than that.

That took me a long time. It was hard. Does it mean forgiveness? Forgetting? What would Jesus do?

What would the Godfather do? It was just business, the ol’ bottom line.

The road to progress is eliminating your obstacles, and your obstacles are your enemies. I hadn’t started this, but I set myself up for it by drinking the poison of good faith. But good faith, for some, is just a fuse that is lit, burning its way to a victim who is expected to explode. Someone who didn’t take cover.

Someone who never saw it coming.

I wanted to ruin him…right back. Hurt him. More than he had hurt me. This was my amygdala talking now, the seat of emotion in my limbic system, and the very reptile that swaggers along the path of restitution via revenge. That path creates neurotransmitters that feel good, yet they are the dirty humors that engender fighting dirty.

I realized I might not be better than that.

After all, isn’t self-defense a noble pursuit? An inherent right of life? Can’t homunculi fight it out when their very existence is threatened? How ugly can one’s homunculus become?

I lay in the stagnant muck of my limbic system, breathing in the ashes of discord. I hacked up the bile I was living on. I seethed in a perversion of body temperature, overheating the stew I treaded.

Dwayne had to pay.

The trap door to hate is locked from the inside, just like Hell. But there are cracks in that trap door. I saw a sliver of light, reflecting from a mirror my original homunculus held, pivoting it this way and that to offer the side-eyed glimmers of illumination that stung like hope. I braced myself from the glare, from this hope. But I owed my homunculus an open mind; I owed hope a revisit. When you’re so mired in venom and maladaptive thinking, hope may sting, which is can make it hard to withstand. It’s easier just to go with the stench of spite, anger, and vengeance.

There was something about my original homunculus, something persevering from the values I had been taught. The slivers of light began to sting less. I sat up.

I was better than this.

I stood up, which angered my reptile. The skirmish with it was ugly, but when it was over my righteous hands had gained purchase onto some higher convolutions—the higher, modern lobes we had evolved to keep our reptiles in check. I strained to lift myself upward. The light grew brighter, the hope grew more tangible, and the reptile began slipping away. Hope no longer stung but was warm and nurturing.

It felt good. Being “better than this” was an achievement, a noble deed done well, and then it felt worth the bruises, cuts, and concussions.

People like Dwayne do well…for a time. But they leave a trail of enemies as they go. The hippocampus of the one doing the slighting doesn’t have the memory glue as sticky as the one who is slighted. Before too long, Dwayne got hurt. Hurt bad. In fact, he was killed. By his wife, who got off on self-defense—the noble pursuit and inherent right of life.

Did I win?

It’s not a competition. Business-as-usual is a competition; capitalism is a competition. But good faith is not. Good faith is one’s definition. It is that part of one’s homunculus that overlies the soul that innervates it.

My climb from primitive rage to civilized appraisal was a metaphor for the rise of the survivalist troglodytes to modern man. There was a reason we had evolved higher convolutions to suppress the murderous, self-serving thoughts of our rudimentary reptiles.

It was because our destiny was to kick the mesomorphic cavemen and their reptiles aside—to be better than this.

Challenge
First Line
Continue the story after the first line: "Everyone in town agreed the lake was haunted, but only I knew what was actually buried beneath it." Feel free to change tense/pronoun as needed. I'll pick the winner!
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SharondaBriggs in Fiction

Secrets

Everyone in town agreed the lake was haunted, but only I knew what was actually buried beneath it. A million dreams, a ton of souls, a couple of hopeless drivers, and several unlucky fishermen. A secret held within every household in town but the quiet majority rules. No secrets there are good secrets. The word haunted says that there are stories untold and souls not cold enough to keep quiet.

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DianaHForst

Shapely

Gold written letters, encapsulated my time here, formed by a combination of my ink scratched memories scribbled delicately across thick parchment. These words would be my last, potentially, and anyone who came after might never know my horrors, but I wanted to get it out. I wanted to let my letters ooze vibrancy of my memories to where they felt so vivid and so real that my onlooker might become possessed by them, and when and if they walked free, I wanted to latch onto their soul so as to ferry me away. Conveying myself with dignity was long gone now, because conveying the ending me was of the utmost importance. I wanted to push into this corner of self, on capturing the smooth detailed gray lines of my growing mind; the one that I knew would meet its end because the professor had admitted he was intending to rip it from me. So I wrote, with efficiency of the supposed convolution of the workings of the human mind, society's anatomy, and how I wedged myself within it.

I, Winona Willoughby. A ghost in the pages.

It is the written word which I formulated my fragmented self. A playbook of how to play this game of identity played by all. Especially by those who weave their way in between the reality and non reality of others. And in that reality, I exist. If only for a blip, because you read me. I read me, and so clearly conveyed is my desperation that it grips you and carries away it's inadequacies until you question yourself and believe you too have gone mad.

And maybe we both might have... Might... Do.

But at some point, it is irrelevant because what I am about to do and say might hurt us both.

If you have come to read this now, Annette Thatcher is a witch.

She steels your face. Your mind and soul, and Gregory Trent intends on feeding me to her.

Now, Annette isn't aware of what she is. Hell, even I'm not entirely sure of what she is either, but she is a snatcher of faces, bodies and souls, for every person she's impersonated in this town is all collectively within her, and like some strange fever dream, they amass when she is not here, one by one, like cherry picked puppets to play as her marionettes, and as such, a twisted play of the people who raised her.

And yet... When she awakes to find them all gone again, she wonders alone, calling and crying out for them as I have heard her in the hotel room, alone.

I wished to help her at first. I really did, but there are... Rules with her. Rules you must pay down your own logic in order to let her such you in or she'll discard you outright immediately. Of course, all things have rules and times to pay in our world.

For there are those who operate in the upmost contempt of said "Rules of Fair Play" and those who choose to lift the line so as to walk under it-proverbially of course-so as to cheat without ever having "cheated" until such loopholes are amended. But Annette isn't trying to cheat life in a game of gain. She's trying to cheat the deaths she gives, in order to self sooth her guilt and building loneliness.

And you might think of me a pessimist for stating that humans operate in some sort of ragged game of intentionally and unintentionally destroying each other, but this... This is the ways of engagement, our natural way. Not "rules" per say but WAYS. Ways in which humans try to attach their active antics to chess boards of many facets to give themselves some sort of advantage over the many other opportunities afforded to their opponents. Opportunities that ought to be fair without giving away their own prospects. Humanities... Humanity in a sense and in all the beauty and breathtaking awe that can be had from understanding it's convolutions, can also be the utter hatred for its diversions, pollution and outright underhanded antics to ensure a subversion of any and all others in favor of the hoarders of its resources.

So farewell to the to the t, the letter of the law in which we must ask operate, for I am not any better than those next to me. Because as much as I am a victim to my half brother's whim and will, Annette is an unwitting victim to mine and then eventually... I shall be a victim to her very nature. The one consuming her at the back of her mind.

And so here are maybe my last words... Or the night before that. Or before that, but mark my words... Whatever strange thing that I become after... I shall not be me, but a mere puppeteer playing me, maybe with my skin, my face and even snippets of my soul should it be held hostage, but I am not Winona Willoughby anymore, but Winona played by Annette. A hollow shell of what was once a human.