By a group of Syrian refugees in Reyhanli, Turkey with the support of Karam House—Afnan, 15; Ahmad, 16; Fatima, 18; Hayam, 16; Mohammed A., 16; Mohammed, 16; Mustafa, 16; Nour Al Huda, 16; Rasha, 16; and Sedra, 15 Translated from Arabic. Characters The King: A dictator; angry, cold, insensitive. Thaer: The revolutionary; a young, driven, impatient dreamer of freedom. Passionate with his people, tough with his enemies. Khaled: A young man; hesitant but quietly driven. Maria: A very strong young woman who impacts the people around her in a powerful way. Lara: Hesitant, always afraid. Rama: Adamant, insists on her way; strong and passionate. Lana: A young woman who loves modern conveniences and the advantages of modern life. She has drive and passion but is soft. Fatima: Always hides her feelings. The revolution engaged her after she realized its essence, then embraced its meaning. Introduction Welcome to all our guests. Revolutions, and especially the revolutions in the Arab lands today, aren’t simple events that can be conveyed in a play of less than half an hour. The reality is the blood of the people. It’s not easy to fully portray their pain and suffering. This play may not be one-hundred percent accurate or an exact mirror of reality, but it seeks to present the way in which the demonstrations the youth brought to the streets were driven by their passion for freedom. Thank you for attending. Scene One A procession through the kingdom as the KING and his entourage pass through. Sitting on his throne, he exudes power. Next to him are his courtiers. The poor people in tattered clothes walk by, cursing the procession. The Fall of Democracy THAER (quiet and afraid) Oh, people, we need to start the movement now. Enough of silence and fear. We’re fed up. We should no longer tolerate this oppression. Don’t you see our ruler’s transgressions? MARIA (in a very soft voice) What are you doing, Thaer? Do you want to get us all killed? The King has forbidden us to even think about democracy. Stop it. You don’t know what will happen to us. FATIMA You may tempt fate and survive, but what about the millions of people who will be implicated and caught up in what you do? And if you’re killed, what about all those who see you as their hero—what about them? Do you know what will happen? LANA (fearful) Stop it! This only creates fear, and if someone hears this talk, it will be the end of us. Scene Two An alley in the kingdom. From afar, someone speaks. A suspicious gathering. In a secret location, young people come together and then disperse. THAER Friends, enough of fear. Let’s prepare to claim our rights. LARA You’re going to get us killed! KHALED Let’s talk about something we can actually accomplish, something realistic. THAER My loved ones, my friends, my family— what’s wrong with you? You hear and see, and don’t speak out. Is it worth it for you to lose the dignity which you only claim to have? Or your honor and pride, which you are burying with your own hands? Your conscience is drugged while you sleep. Answer me, for the sake of the life you dream of. Do you want to applaud empty idols and worship gangsters and obey ignorant thugs? Don’t you believe in yourselves? I swear to God, who is generous of spirit and who makes all things right, that you will be shunned by His mercy. I want you as I knew you—free and with self-respect. Revolutionary. Don’t be like animals, without a sense of purpose and destiny. Silence. Scene Three The King’s minions are collecting taxes by force from the poor merchants. RAMA With all this oppression and aggression, I’m beginning to understand Thaer’s words. KHALED Me too. I can’t tolerate this stealing from the people while the rich are in their palaces, surrounded by flatterers and covered in gold. FATIMA We need to work together, hand in hand, and not let each other down. We need to regain balance in our country. This is our mission. LANA I completely agree with you. MARIA I’m with you too, and I will stay with you until my last breath. And this will be the pin of the grenade—we will rekindle the conscience of the people. THAER What about you, Lara? LARA (waiting for everyone, speaking hesitantly) I’ll be with you. RAMA (stepping forward and speaking) Tomorrow will be our first outcry against their arrogance. Scene Four In front of the King’s palace. Everyone is approaching the throne and glancing at each other. THAER Who are we and who are you? We are the hidden voice of justice, and you are the voice of oppression. We are the driving force, and you are steering us without knowing where you’re going. We are the light, and you are extinguishing us. Let’s all repeat: this kingdom is ours; it does not belong to the King’s minions. We are the owners of the kingdom, not you. More and more people pick up the chant. While the crowd is shouting, the throne begins to quake and the KING orders his minions to attack. LARA is killed, and everyone withdraws from the square where they were assembling. The curtain closes. Scene Five The curtain opens on the same hiding place. There are new members of the group, but all are downcast over LARA’s death. RAMA (standing in the center, cries out) What’s wrong with this ruler? Does he want to kill us simply for asking for our basic rights? What would he do if we went even further—to demand his removal? THAER (after thinking) I think this is our new mission. Everyone prepare to instruct the people to demand their rights. The curtain closes. The curtain opens on the square. RAMA starts by claiming power for the people and an end to the tyranny and oppression of the oppressor. Everyone begins to chant, and then spears start
Fire and Water
iPad Air 4 Cathy Jiang, 11Portland, OR
Editor’s Note
The stories in this issue (one of which is a play!) span a range of styles and subjects—from an old-fashioned gothic ghost story to a political allegory that helps us better understand our own politically divided times, a war veteran reminiscing on a lost friend , and the brave revolutionary uprisings of the Arab Spring. But what unites these pieces is their focus on friendship and connection. Friends lift us up personally and, on a broader level, social ties between people—our community—is what enables political movements and social change to happen. The pandemic has been so difficult in large part because it cut off those ties. Yes, many of us were FaceTiming and Zooming with friends and family, but we lost all those other moments for random connection—the stranger who smiles at us in a coffee shop, the shared joke, the pleasantries exchanged in the park. At first, everyone became suspect, making the idea of community seem like a memory. After reading this issue, I hope you’ll be motivated to pick up a brush or a pen and create something that captures the vital necessity of friendship, or community more broadly. Happy reading!
Antarctica
Oil pastel Leticia Cheng, 9San Jose, CA
The Fall of Democracy
Acrylic Alexa Zhang, 12Los Altos, CA
Stone Soup Honor Roll: December 2021
Welcome to the Stone Soup Honor Roll! We receive hundreds of submissions every month by kids from around the world. Unfortunately, we can’t publish all the great work we receive. So we created the Stone Soup Honor Roll. We commend all of these talented writers and artists and encourage them to keep creating. – The Editors Scroll down to see all the names (alphabetical by section), including book reviewers and artists. ART Cleo Friedman, 9 Paris Andreou Hadjipavlou, 7 Lucas Hinds, 13 Aditi Nair, 13 Sophia Torres, 13 Jiacheng Yu, 6 PERSONAL NARRATIVES Carlos Ahearn, 11 Mariana Del Rio, 12 Noa Mehler, 11 Taia Reitz, 11 Clara Shore-Coloni, 11 Matthew Wang, 7 POETRY Priscilla Chow, 7 Chloe Garcia, 13 Sonia Kamnitzer, 9 Brooks Pinney, 10 Clarke Rodney, 10 Maya Ruben, 10 STORIES Audrey Chang, 13 Dylan Ecimovic, 11 Sahara Muhammad, 12 Avery Parsons-Carswell, 10 Maayan Mardiks Rappaport, 10 Andrea Shi, 13 Hannah Slater, 9
Highlights from Stonesoup.com
From Flash Contest #34 Inca Acrobat, 11San Francisco, CA A River Flows in Me You fail to speak to me Even when the moon has risen Above the glittering Loire When my mind is awake But my body still Especially then You turn your back away My dreams fade away About the Stone Soup Flash Contests Stone Soup holds a flash contest during the first week of every month. The month’s first Weekly Creativity prompt provides the contest challenge, and submissions are due within a week. Up to five winners are chosen for publication on our blog. The winners, along with up to five honorable mentions, are announced in the following Saturday newsletter. Find all the details at Stonesoup. com/post/stone-soup-monthly-flash-contest-winners-roll/.
Signals
Panasonic ZS200, Procreate, Lightroom Sage Millen, 13Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
An excerpt from Born on the First of Two
Editor’s Choice in our 2020 book contest Born on the First of Two was released on December 1, 2021. You can order the book at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and at our store: amazon.com/stonesoup Prologue Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. The girl’s breathing was labored and fast, the way it always was when she had this dream, this memory. It was a strange dream; it seemed to linger in her mind, tickling its edges like light in her peripheral vision. She’d had it for as long as she could remember, but she never became quite used to it; every time it came to her in her sleep, she found herself unsettled. The sky was light blue, and the sun radiated its warmth down on the Earth. Birds chirped contentedly in verdant, leafy trees while bees hummed along as they flew from flower to flower, careful not to damage the soft, delicate petals. The girl—then just a baby—sat on the ground just beyond the shadow of a small cottage, running her hands through the cool, glossy grass. She laughed at its touch, the way it slid along her chubby palm, and gazed up at the sky in wonder at the occasional fluffy cloud that drifted through on the mercy of the breeze, sweet air pumping its way into her lungs. She wanted to go up there. She wanted to be in that dazzling blue and run her hands along the clouds. She giggled merrily at this gorgeous day. Here, the dream-memory became fragmented, shattered visions stabbing her mind. The sky became dark, dominated by threatening clouds that seemed to reach up into space and cast jagged shadows over the June day. The birds stopped singing, and the temperature dropped. She could feel the warm air leaving her lungs, cold, thick air forcing its way down her throat instead. It was searing, like a block of ice. She gasped for breath, rasping and wheezing, unable to cry as numbness spread through her, jamming into her arms and legs. Two blurred figures appeared. One—she realized it was her mother— ran toward her, unclasped a golden necklace from her neck, and fastened it around the baby’s neck. “You’ll know how to find us,” the woman whispered hoarsely. The girl/baby, for now she was not sure which one she was, held out her hand, but her mother was already racing toward the gate in the white picket fence, rejoining her father. “Stay back!” they called at the clouds. “Stop!” Their voices rang with fear and shook with weakness. Now, outside the fence, there were many dark figures cloaked in dark robes that matched the army of clouds above. Their voices were deep and rumbling, like thunder that was mad, thunder on a rampage. “No!” the girl’s parents shouted. “Stay away!” But the figures were advancing, opening the gate, and the coldness was tightening its grip and the wind was howling. Then her father turned to the sky, tears in his eyes. “Save her!” he yelled. His voice echoed into the sky. And suddenly the air twisted like vines wrapping around a tree, and the girl was falling up, sucked into a dark tunnel. The coldness vanished, replaced instead by a constricting feeling as the air and darkness seemed to tighten—for it was as if they were one thing—and the girl was left writhing, shouting into emptiness as she tried to fall back to Earth to see her parents one last time. She awoke. Her sheets were twisted and her chest tight, as if there were cords binding it. She sat up in bed, panting, and clutched her neck, grabbing the golden necklace that had been placed on her so many years ago. She wrapped her fist around it, feeling the cool metal soak into her sweaty hand, and tried to relax, staring into the rich darkness of her room, so different from that of the tunnel. She knew it would be a long time before she allowed the waves of sleep to crash over her once again. Chapter One: Stars Up and Down “Maya!” Auntie’s voice flowed like honey, rich and deep, through the little house. “What?” By contrast, Maya’s voice was sharp and clear, like water. “It’s suppertime.” Auntie stood at the foot of the stairs, shouting up to her niece’s room. “But I’m busy, Auntie,” Maya complained. Auntie could hear her sigh. “Maya, in the eleven years you have lived in this house, you have never once skipped supper, and I do not intend for you to start now.” Auntie’s tone should have told Maya that this was nonnegotiable. However, Maya either didn’t pick up on this, or ignored it. “But I have homework!” “You can do your homework after supper!” In her room, sitting on her bed, Maya jutted out her jaw. “Do I have to?” “Yes. Now I’ll be out on the porch. Get your supper and come out there.” Auntie’s receding footsteps told Maya she was going outside. Begrudgingly, Maya slid off her bed, lay on the floor for a good ten seconds just out of spite, then picked herself up and began storming down the hallway and downstairs. She wasn’t mad, per se, just highly annoyed. However, it is always more fun to storm downstairs than to walk. She picked up a plate of spaghetti in the kitchen and headed out onto the porch, sitting down with the air of someone who is being forced to do so. “Are you happy now?” She glared at Auntie. Auntie sighed placidly and swirled her spaghetti around with her fork. “Maya, I’m always happy when you’re with me.” Maya’s hard, emerald-green eyes, flecked with silver and gold, softened for a moment before she resumed her pretense of anger. “Hmph.” She stabbed a meatball on top of her spaghetti. Her thoughts blew around crazily as she tried to find a way to fuel the fire of her own annoyance. As she settled on the perfect method, her eyes lit up slightly, the
Enchanted
Canon SX600, Snapseed, Adobe Photoshop Sage Millen, 13Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Distinction
iPhone XS Max Aiyla Syed, 13Asbury, NJ
Serenity
On my porch Seeing white Falling from grey clouds I walk away From the It’s peaceful And serene The mountains Are beautiful Taking a deep breath I walk away From the snow Nora Cohen, 11South Jordan, UT
