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100% written and illustrated by kids ages 6-13


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Decisions

I look at the clock The red hand ticks, shifting its weight onto the next number Shifting its promise and memories on and on A clock tells time I believe it tells time from its perspective Every clock is different Every clock has a different view of things These numbers are what give us our limits They tell us when to stop and when to go on But this is different for clocks They don’t have limits They are endless This red hand visits every number, ticking until it finds eternity Ticking until it visits the right number But there is no right or wrong Don’t get tired of other numbers Don’t forget about what you said and what you promised Don’t leave behind the things you love just because of another number BE YOURSELF WHEN THE HAND COMES BY Sofia Dardzinski, 9Potomac, MD


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Rocks at Pohoiki Beach

iPhone X StoneSoupMagazine · Lila Raj, 11, talks about her photograph Rocks at Pohoiki Beach Lila Raj, 11San Francisco, CA


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The Time I Learned of Death

In my memory, my grandmother is the figure of kindness, the perfect role model. That’s how I will always remember her. That summer, when my grandmother died, she was different—the woman I met there didn’t fit my memory of her, though she was my grandmother nonetheless. My grandmother always had bright eyes and a cheerful smile ready in store to use whenever I was around. That summer, when I met her, it was as though the fire in her had extinguished, like an overused candle. The hot, humid breeze surrounded us, even though it was the middle of winter in India. It always confused me how the weather was all topsy-turvy. As a four-year-old, I didn’t know any complicated scientific or geological terms to explain why that was; however, even though I was four, I realized that like the weather, my memories didn’t match the grandmother I saw in front of me. Back then, she and I used to play Jenga together. We played our own way: instead of following the normal rules, we built structures using the hundred mini blocks. We built houses into towns. Buildings into cities. She also taught me how to draw different animals: trace a small plate to make a circle, then add two triangles as ears and three lines on either side of the face as whiskers. The perfect cat! That summer, that was all in the past. My family and I were walking the short journey to a nearby hospital. My grandmother was going there for her “check-up.” It was strange being in India in the first place; usually, my grandmother came to visit us in the U.S. I stared down at the organized patterns our shoes were making in the sand. I wondered why my grandmother was acting so strangely this summer. She was feeling a little sick; I knew that since my mother had told me earlier. But she couldn’t have been feeling “a little sick” to have to go to the hospital. My mother, aunt, and grandmother headed right, toward the hospital, while my dad, brother, and I continued to walk straight on our way to a restaurant for lunch. Once we got back to the house after lunch my mother, who had arrived slightly earlier, signaled for me to come into the bedroom with her. I followed her to the bedroom. We both sat facing one another on the mesmerizing blue blanket of the bed. I stared down at the blanket. Was I in trouble? What did I do? When my mother said, “Your grandmother is sick, she is sick with cancer. Uh, cancer is a disease . . .” I heard her stutter in the middle; my mother never stuttered. I thought confusedly about what she had said, then asked, “What’s cancer?” My mother thought for a while before answering. “It makes your grandmother tired and sick.” She seemed nervous and was pumping her leg up and down as she said, “Your grandmother might die.” I looked up from the blanket staring at her. I processed what she had told me. I saw her red-stained eyes and caught the quiet sniffle that I hadn’t noticed when she was talking. I started to cry. I finally was able to process what she had said; my grandmother might die, and that would mean she wouldn’t come back to visit anymore. *          *          * My grandmother had been admitted to the hospital. It had been a few weeks since she had been admitted, and the doctors were about to perform a surgery on her. My mother anxiously explained how my grandmother would either get better or she would die. “Why would she die? I thought doctors fixed sick people,” I said. My mother replied by saying, “Sometimes if you’re really sick, like your grandmother, you can’t fix them.” Why couldn’t they fix her? She was fine earlier. Besides, she was feeling a little better. I looked the hospital directly in the eyes and saw the reason everyone hates the hospital. I saw a cold, white, stone prison with bright lights flooding its windows and doors in the pitch-black night. I realized that even though it wasn’t the doctors’ fault, only some of the patients can ever leave the prison. It felt like an eternity when a doctor finally came out to signal my mother and aunt in. “Ms. Sinha? Yes, well, we have unfortunately come across a problem regarding your mother. Please, come inside.” Was she dead? She couldn’t be dead. My grandmother was alive earlier, so how could she be gone now? I felt as though I was swirling in circles into the dark shadow of the hospital’s glare; it wasn’t the same kind of mesmerizing as the blue blankets. This was dark voices that were drawing me in, so many bright lights and noises that were deafening but in the background. It was as though I was falling, I couldn’t think, I was drowning in noise that wasn’t even there. Then my dad grabbed my hand and gently led me to a taxi. I realized that I was crying. Finally the noise died down: peace after so much disruption. The thoughts were overwhelming, and I slowly drifted off to sleep. I dreamed of grandmothers jumping over a row of hospitals, like motorcycles running over a ramp and flying into the air. The next morning, I woke up and expected to see my grandmother sitting in the chair like she always was. Instead, I saw an empty hole where she was supposed to be. It was a busy morning; the house was filled with mourning relatives who lived nearby. We all went to her memorial for her ashes. It was enclosed in a box—black, smooth, and shiny. Prettily carved and painted. We had her memorial in her favorite place, the backyard of her childhood home. I walked toward the box containing her ashes; it smelled sweet yet solemn, like her. When


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A Window in the Evening

StoneSoupMagazine · Poetry by Julia Marcus, 13 I press my face against the glass, blowing circles of air onto its cool surface. I step back, looking at the filmy, blurred image that faintly appears on the other side of the window. I draw my name in the vapor. My finger squeaks on the glass as I drag it through what used to be my breath. I wipe it all away. The window is slippery. Through the night, I cast a shadow on my front lawn, illuminated by the room’s light. I see every sharp detail of my body, blurred by my breath. Julia Marcus, 13Culver City, CA


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Playing Snatch-It

StoneSoupMagazine · Poetry by Julia Marcus, 13 Let’s see. Is there any place for an R? Can it be inserted into FLAP or GUM or BENCH? But no—I watch as CHART is made, and I half-heartedly sigh. I watch HIS turn to FISH and then to SHIFT. That could be a sentence. But they’re just random words, somehow conjugated from tiny letter tiles spread out on the table. It’s amazing how many words can be made—WATERY, CUBICLE, QUIZ, WISPY. Right here, when it’s just a game, none of it seems to mean anything. Julia Marcus, 13Culver City, CA


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The Last Birthday Boy

It was the big day. After years of preparation, they were finally ready. The apocalypse had shattered, and would shatter, the lives of too many, and the government feared that Earth would soon become uninhabitable. It was too big of a risk to take chances and stay on the globally destructed planet. So, after many meetings and studies and conferences, they had decided on a solution that would change the lives and history of the human race forever: to ship the population to Mars. It was an enormous decision, a big leap of faith, a dangerous risk, but there were no other possible conclusions that the government of each country could unanimously agree on. So that was that. Once the public was informed, they began at once constructing tens of thousands of spaceships. It took many years, but it’d be worth it to flee the fatal consequences of the apocalypse. And now billions of people were crammed into numerous rockets like sardines in a tin, ready to leave their lonely planet behind. It was finally happening. The departure. Families held onto each other’s hands, and there was complete silence in each spaceship. The people were too flabbergasted, too nervous, too amazed, to speak. In rocket 310-LBZ, the crowd waited anxiously for the machine to blast off. Some people cried softly. Others were completely stiff. Everyone’s heart was pounding furiously as a loud voice on the speaker silenced the passengers by announcing the countdown to departure was about to begin. An old woman squeezed her eyes shut. A pair of twins held onto each other firmly. A worried-looking man comforted his sobbing wife. A teenage girl whispered to a frightened child that this was all for the best, but her voice quavered noticeably. “5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .” spoke the slow, rasping voice on the dirty loudspeaker. The passengers held their breath as, in one noisy, smoky lift, the spaceship blasted off into the sky, and up, up, up above. Somewhere in the bustling, anxious crowd, two panicked parents searched for their lost son. “Where is he?” cried the mother frantically. “He was right behind me the entire time!” cried the father as he looked around. A few long, worrisome minutes passed before the man exclaimed,“Oh! There he is now!” He pointed toward the very boy who had been a few steps behind him since boarding. The couple breathed a long sigh of relief and headed toward the young child, whose head was turned. The woman put a hand on his shoulder. “Son,” said the father sternly, “Do not run off like that again.” Slightly startled, the youth spun around, and his expression revealed obvious hints of confusion as he cocked his head to the side and stared at the man and woman. The couple gasped. This boy was not their son. *          *          * It’s a wonderful dream. I’m in a beautiful garden. Surrounding me are acres of colorful, exotic flowers in full bloom. Bees are buzzing around them, collecting nectar. I gaze to my left to observe a playful, bushy-tailed squirrel scampering down the neatly swept path I stand on, hungry for a snack. His soft tail brushes my bare feet, tickling them, as he dashes past me, headed toward an emerald-green bush to my right full of plump, juicy blackberries: a delicious snack. “Jayson!” A soft, familiar voice coming from behind me calls out my name. I turn around to see my mother smiling at me. “Jayson, Honey, I baked you some molasses cookies, your favorite!” In her hands, she holds a plate full of the delicious baked goods. Full of surprise and delight, I exclaim: “Oh, Mom, you shouldn’t have!” She smiles wider, her dark brown hair blowing softly in the light breeze. Her apron is stained with flour and in her hair, held back in a messy ponytail, there are bits of dough. She must have been working really hard. She chuckles as she watches me take first one cookie, then two, then three. I gobble them up greedily and reach for a fourth. “Be sure to save some for your friends,” she reminds me as she watches me begin nibbling the sweet treat. “They should be here any minute now.” “Of course,” I reply, then add: “I’m sorry for taking so many. But, really, what can I say? You’re an excellent baker.” She blushes at the compliment. I scarf down the fourth cookie but don’t take any more. “I’m sure my friends will love them.” I inhale the heavenly aroma of sugar and molasses. Of course my friends will love the biscuits: they are sweet, chewy, and still hot from the oven. Mmm. Standing here in a pulchritudinous garden with my mother, awaiting my friends’ arrival, eating homemade, freshly baked cookies, that’s paradise to me. And then it all ends. In one second, the entire scene is gone, disappeared. Poof. That’s just how it is with dreams, after all. You wake up, and the wonder and joy from your nighttime fantasy is over. Welcome to reality. Here it is in short: I’m the only person left on Earth. The last one. It’s just me. Everyone else left when I was about eight years old. I groan. The bags under my eyes are heavy, and I am still extremely tired. My eyelids are far from being fully open and are begging to be closed. I should go back to sleep, but I can tell it’s almost afternoon by now. I should probably get up. I try to sit up but don’t have the strength. And plus, my arms feel limp and weary. A strange, unpleasant feeling of emptiness and disappointment and of hollow, depressing sadness floods my mind. It’s all because of that dream I just had . . . I just wish I could grab it and pull it into reality.


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Editor’s Note

I have been thinking a lot about time in these past few months. Like all of you, I have been living in quarantine—the days blending into one another more than usual. But I also became a mother in April. And time changed. I would wake up before the baby and look at the clock (6:00 a.m.) then close my eyes for what felt like mere seconds and wake to her crying—suddenly it’s 7:30 a.m. I’d say to myself, “I’m going to bounce her for five more minutes.” I’d bounce and bounce and bounce and yet when I looked at the clock not even a full minute had passed! Which is to say that time seems so objective and yet our experience of it is entirely subjective. Or, as Sofia Dardzinski writes in her poem “Decisions,” A clock tells time I believe it tells time from its perspective Every clock is different Every clock has a different view of things The poems, stories, and personal narratives in this issue are all thinking, in their own way, around this idea of time, and often of loneliness, too—a condition that makes us even more attuned to the clock than usual. I hope reading this issue will allow you to experience a time distinct from the time of your daily life!