The sky’s vibrant gray was an embodiment of metallic hues colliding. Smothering the arid landscape like a hazy hand. The shrill, choppy thrilling of the desert songbirds forewarned of night’s arrival. It would soon engulf the soothing ash-stricken contour in its obsidian abyss. A boy treaded through the sandy asphalt of the neighborhood, shoes clomping steadily in a monotonous rhythm. He wore an apparent trait, weariness. His cheeks were pinched in a nostalgist manner. His wiry silhouette was accompanied by a downcast shadow. Willow-worn and sallow, his facial complexion was pleasant and provided an atmosphere of easy-goingness not displayed in his current state. Even his rounded, melodious, Tuscan-brown eyes, were glassy and non-talkative. Taut palo verde trees shimmied their decumbent leaves in the brisk breeze, waving at the youth, clearly unaware of the flora. The boy’s fervent forehead glistened with beads of sweat, which threatened to cascade in a trickle of perspiration. The malicious heat was exhausting him. He trembled back home; the impulse of a phantom burden suddenly seized him. “Gabriel!” A gasp of distress from afar jarred him. His puffy, crusty eyes unfurled a minuscule sliver. The comfort that pulsated from his body relieved him like a tight fist blooming into a hand. He sighed. “Yes Mom?” Gabriel skimmed his bronze-skin hands across bedhead eyes. Wiping the discomfort away. “It’s time to go to school, son.” Gabriel groaned in displeasure. In a relieved-but-sleepy-and-grumpy manner. He was a forthwith Pennsylvania native, after living six years in a cramped, but comfortable apartment. He hailed from Phoenix, Arizona however, and his childhood was a bustle. He had lived in Caborca and Chiapas, Mexico. His lucid flashback as a flourishing five-year-old living in the Sonoran Desert seemed all too genuine. Real? Not real? Somewhere in between? Answers to questions lost in the dusty catacombs of time. * * * Hawkins Middle School of Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Gusty, frost-heaved riptides of a draft wavered across strikingly lofty oak trees. Crisp, autumn leaves crunched into multicolored ash under Gabriel’s feet. Steam-like figurines spatially billowed from his mouth. The suggestively glacial weather exposed the middle schoolers to a seductive quantity of indoor time. No recess. Gabriel felt enclosed and captive; his school’s vicinity was restricting to him. He was accustomed to swaying freely with the frisky undergrowth caressing his liberated feet in a tender embrace. Gabriel was heartfelt about nature and its conundrum. He was captivated preeminently by insects and akin. Abounding ubiquitously, he was obsessed with every nook and cranny of their existence and strived to unearth their every secluded perplexity. Winter was agonizing to him. A full six-month period without a trace of an insect. Eradicated. Vanished. Like a potent existence switch, winter blanked them. Mrs. Roseté, his superb science teacher, comprehended. She was a captivating reliance to him. Their prominent similarities encompassed them. His vision fazed and sputtered. Daydream. Gabriel gasped: A hollow sound that momentarily resonated against the dingy cut-rate aluminum lockers. He remarked grainy rubber gaits on the azure and cyan filamented tiles of hallway 300. He bolted to homeroom. He roughly gripped the doorknob in his right hand, gingerly turned, and winced as the bulky, birch-wood door chirred. “Take a seat, Gabriel. Glad you’re on time.” Gabriel’s mind churned as Mrs. Young, the mathematics teacher, coursed through algebra “…And so, the domain of a parabola…” Boredom beckoned with succulence. Its enticement held affiance. Gabriel endured, aggravation vexing to reign. Despite struggling to stay on task, he felt satisfied in school for the most part. But all this would corrode to an abrupt halt. * * * A pace from bus 40’s stationing was their corrivated home. A rusky apartment with crude clay-mound bricks as the structure. He clutched the hand-polished bronze handle on their door and jerked. His dad’s concern radiated as he talked to his mom from the meager living room, a formal silence of speech that barricaded any suggestive normality element. This altered him, although he blundered mentally to comprehend. He noisily trampled inside, hoping for his parents to perceive him. To no avail. “Hello Mom!” He was answered with a concerned smile. A phony, concealed grin. Dinner was eaten in the quietness of secludedness. Gabriel merely an eyewitness account of an unprovoked speech. He felt his parents’ selectivity of words. As though they strained their words. The exchange of words, or the lack of it, left him on edge. Stress overwhelmed him in a void of isolation. * * * A discussion took place that night. A finalizing, executive meet. They took in consideration their social position, their experiences, and especially Hawkins Middle. The stale bitterness of Lebanon’s wind rimmed the fleur-white stalks of their windows with coincidental gloominess. A crest-fallen Gabriel contemplated the memories he constructed. Snow, friends, school. Fuzzy brightness flooded him. Ghosts, reaching their tinge of liveliness in limbs of animation. Things. Gained, earned, made. Fairytales of whimsical aspects. Summarized as his memories. * * * “Son, it’s final. We’re moving to Florida.” Gabriel managed a faint nod. In time, the rhythm of tempo paved weeks beyond seeming. May brought a floral boutique of daisies, cherry blossoms, and cul-de-sac poppies. Gabriel felt equilibrated and integrated with the time he had left. He chased and tumbled around the foliaged hills he had come to know. The earthy soil a hearty perfume. Walnut trees loomed atop. Their ridged trunks a nutty brown. June fletched into view, the vastness of May dominated by its upheld viewpoint of expectations. An act of kindness was shared by Mrs. Roseté and her alumnus. A beautiful necklace of enlaced golden hoops and a hug were exchanged between the two. The last day of school curtailed. Gabriel and his parents snugly lodged their possessions into the truck and drove into the amber dusk. Farewell Lebanon. Alejandro Lugo Saavedra, 13Lithia,
Sense-of-Place
A Surfing Tradition
The sun raised its head over a cold California coast. This sun was a special sun. It was the first sun of the year. There was to be a special gathering at the beach. It is what is called a “paddle-out.” Cars slowly gathered at the beach. The people inside the cars exited and came to the shore. No one talked, all they did was look at the horizon, which was light red from the coming sun. The waves were so big it was hard to see the horizon at times. All of them were bundled up, trying to protect themselves from the piercing cold. Every part of their body that was not bundled up was already turning blue. Soon an old Ford pickup truck parked with the back facing the ocean. The paint on this vehicle was chipping and there were many marks of rust on it. It was filled with wood. Three people got out of the pickup and unhitched the back, exposing the wood. The wood was twisted and knotted so bad it was terrible. Two teenagers came forward and started unloading the wood. They brought it over to a stone fireplace. The three men came into the crowd. Thankful nods went their way but still no one talked, almost as if they were in a trance. Soon a car pulled up with surfboards on the rack. The driver emerged from the car and started untying the boards. Once he was done he set the three boards by the pickup truck. The three men came forward and changed into their trunks but nothing else. They started to wax their boards, and even though they shivered and were cold to the bone they never put on anything except for their trunks. The group stood motionless, just looking at the horizon. Once the three men were done waxing their boards they walked, with their boards on their shoulder, to the shore and started whispering to each other. Then they stood motionless until the shore break calmed for a little bit and then they sprang into the water and started paddling furiously. The crowd on the beach watched them, still not talking. When the men were outside they sat there, millions of good waves passing under them. Then one set came with three waves in it. These waves weren’t good, these waves were spectacular. The waves so clear and crisp. Each one of them chose their own wave. They glided over the waves, no cutbacks, no nose-riding, nothing but gliding. They all rode in and as the last one exited the water something happened. The crowd cheered, the first sound they made all morning. Soon the festivities began. People got coffee and hot cocoa. People were yelling “Hey John” and such. Later a spectator of the event asked one of the teenagers who started the fire, “What was the deal with that?” and the teenager said, “It’s a tradition.” James Wilson, 11Riverside, CA
Paradise?
As I look around me, surveying my surroundings, everything seems different. The sunlight that is spilling onto the ocean sparkles like a thousand gems, and I’m lead to wonder if there actually are a thousand gems floating on the clear surface. The palm trees sweep over me, like protectors, never tiring of providing me shade. A seagull whooshes over me, bringing freedom to my body, also. The sand softly crunches under my feet, a million grains smushed per footprint. Yet, the tide washes them away, so I’m here, but there is no proof that I ever came. My heart beats gently in my chest, like a friend. I root my feet deeper, deeper, into the sand. My eyes are closed, but the bejeweled ocean still swims in front of my focus. “Paradise”, I think slowly. I open my eyes, and it’s like the slow motion film has stopped. My best friend, Katy, grabs my arm and says loudly over the waves, “Melody, let’s go into the water!” I smile at her, and without saying anything else, we dash in. We spend the next few hours body surfing, boogie boarding, and everything else two city girls visiting California could want to do. It was only when we returned to our hotel, late that night, stuffed with fresh sushi and organic juice, that I remembered those three seconds, standing there with my eyes closed and the wind in my hair. “Paradise” I had thought. But then I looked around the darkening hotel room, where I could see the outlines of my family, could hear their breathing, as the soft sheets wrapped around me in a perfect way, I sort of felt like that was paradise, too. We left California a few days later, and at first, I worried that I would be losing my precious paradise. But, I had the window seat in our plane, and the clouds looked like bunnies. I also got an orange fizzy water, and some of my favorite chips, so that was pretty great, also. What I realized, sitting there on that plane, watching California fade away, is that paradise is something you carry with you. You just need to find it. And you know what? As I sit here, writing this on the window seat of our apartment, watching the sunset over New York City, I kind of feel like this is paradise, too. Kaya Simcoe, 11Cardiff, CA
