Category / 2019 / Fall 2019 / Fall 2019 Fiction / Fiction
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Kirishitan – Sarah Prindle
Nagasaki, Japan, 1614 I grew up hearing the story of how faith brought my parents together. Father was born and raised in a distant land, Portugal, far from the familiar oceans and mountains of my Japanese homeland. From an early age, he was told he must become a…
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An Unknown Soldier – Ed Woodyard
The helmet was placed on an open Bible atop an altar of a small, rural American church. It was there to symbolize the universal soldier. The helmet was a German pickelhaube retrieved from a battlefield in eastern France, most probably on June 6, 1918. It was dingy now, its polished black-leather luster having faded over…
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Ice Cream – Holley Ziemba
“When are you going back to college?” Eat a spoonful of ice cream. “Early August. In a few weeks.” “Excited?” Another. “Yeah, I guess.” “Ah.” Two more. “You?” Put the spoon in the half-empty bowl of ice cream. Stare at it. See the flies from the corner of your eye. Swat them away from the…
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The Mug – Katherine Haley
The mug is everywhere. It comes in an endless amount of shapes and sizes, colors and patterns. You can own one, twenty, one hundred, and so on. The mug can contain coffee, or tea, or hot chocolate, or alcohol depending on your poison. The mug exists inside and outside of the home. It can be…
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Mary Jane Cobbler – Jaden Rose
Blood-red shots in glasses lined the wooden bar top. Outside dust swirled faintly, like ocean waves when they meet the sand, dying down and rising up again. Inside was mostly dust-free, except for cracks in the floorboards and little rims along the window sills. The glasses were always dust-free though. Al made sure of that.…
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Angel Splinters – Chris Cleary
Angel Splinters Daddy’s cigarette smoke snakes through the branches of the white plastic Xmas tree. The dust of Route 11 kicked up by his flight spatters the ornaments and chokes the cherub atop surveying the scene below. Confusion balls up little Angie’s face. She could have caught all the dust and kept…
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Kakku – Karen Frederick
Kakku “Get to Shore” We floated lifeless among pieces of our lives. Sky and sea were black. The wind had died down a bit, the current curled ‘round our waists and pushed us further and further into the unknown. By morning we found ourselves beached like great fish on a rocky black sand…
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Donna Swift – Charles O’Donnell
Donna Swift Carl felt like he’d dropped into a sixties sitcom. Fifteen minutes before the start of class, Carl sat alone, reciting a silent pep talk. He’d visited colleges many times during his career, often in his official capacity as CEO of a global company, twice to enroll daughters,…
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Imperfect Routine – Sean Tate
Imperfect Routine The house was filled with the sound of aged pipes rattling as fetid and fresh water flowed back and forth to its destination. The walls, still unsure of themselves, creaked and groaned as the house continued to set after countless years spent within the concrete foundation. Sunlight cut through the…
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When Life is Yaw by R.B. Frank
The weather is temperate by the coast. That makes for temperate days, temperate husbands, temperate friends. When her daughter calls and asks, how are things, she would say, “Life is yare.” She felt it only appropriate to speak in nautical terms. And she would be sure to say “Yare” like Katherine Hepburn from The Philadelphia…
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Yellow
Author: Natalie Rae Mueller Grade: Freshman at Greenville College 1st place Live Arts Contest Yellow They always paint nursing homes yellow. That yellow color of sunshine, or that new margerine that the world cannot believe is not butter. Everyone knows the color is a futile attempt to make the last place on earth any…
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Haunted
Author: Amy Solov Grade 11 at Oliver Ames High School 1st place Live Arts Contest Haunted The haggard man sat cautiously on the plastic seat of the train. He had a crumpled one-way ticket in his left hand, a small green trash bag in his right. The bag held what little belongings he still had—a…
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Secrets of Eugene Onegin
Name: Julia Fowler Year: Junior at Southwestern University 1st place Live Arts Contest Secrets of Eugene Onegin The air was full, and it was full incomparably, with light and clarity and wide open spaces of sound and color. Suddenly, all these things gathered together and burst apart, cut through by a single blank tone coming…
