stream of consciousness

Our August Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #164 (provided by Anya Geist, Stone Soup ’20–21 Intern), which, combining art and writing, challenged participants to write a stream of consciousness piece based off of J.M.W. Turner’s painting The Banks of the Loire. The result was, unsurprisingly, breathtaking! In their own unique ways, each piece evoked Turner’s painting with stunning vividity. Reading the participants’ work, it was easy to envision the kneeling lady in red, the arching trees, and the backdrop of the seacliff, the tops of sails just visible through the mist. Participants also interpreted the qualification of stream of consciousness in a variety of ways, with their submissions ranging from meandering prose without punctuation to highly structured poetry to paragraph blocks written from the perspective of a tree! As always, thank you to all who submitted, and please submit again next month! In particular, we congratulate our Winners and our Honorable Mentions, whose work you can appreciate below. Winners “A River Flows in Me” by Inca Acrobat, 11 (San Francisco, CA) “The Melancholy Landscape” by Sophie Liu, 9 (Surrey, BC, Canada) “The Watcher” by Lui Lung, 12 (Danville, CA) “Scattering Beams” by Emily Tang, 12 (Winterville, NC) “The Banks of the Loire” by Alexis Zou, 13 (Lake Oswego, OR) Honorable Mentions “A Dream or the End?” by Phoenix Crucillo, 13 (Los Angeles, CA) “Thoughts Harbored” by Rex Huang, 11 (Lake Oswego, OR) “Perspectives Not Human” by Ivy Liu, 9 (San Jose, CA) “So Still” by Sophie Yu, 13 (Houston, TX) “The Magical River” by Natalie Yue, 9 (San Carlos, CA) Inca Acrobat, 11 (San Francisco, CA) A River Flows in Me Inca Acrobat, 11 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 Sophie Liu, 9 (Surrey, BC, Canada) The Melancholy Landscape Sophie Liu, 9 A Dreary, Undisturbed, Abandoned, Landscape.   As gloomy as a muddy, Dark, Overworked, Horse, In the rain. The trees wilting in the sky, No longer proud and sturdy, But miserable. The sky covered in menacing, Evil clouds, Hiding the jumpy, Comforting, Blue, Sky.   Peaceful, And calm. Not even a single shout, A single bird chirping, Or the wind howling. The place is as tranquil as a person sitting beside a campfire, With the stars glittering above them, Without a sound being uttered. Only one, Lonely, Human being in the whole, Vast greenery world. The place is a boring Blobfish, Without any beings, Except blobs of nature to make up the empty, Lonely, Land.    The unwelcoming, Still, Desolate, Landscape. Lui Lung, 12 (Danville, CA) The Watcher Lui Lung, 12 There was a stillness that hovered in the air. It wasn’t the peaceful kind, more of the silence before a storm struck and razed everything in its path. I dutifully remained unmoving, listening faithfully for the endless thrum of life already etched into my memory. It was constant and ever-changing all at once, the irresolute rhythm to an unfinished song. This had become my existence: eagerly awaiting nothing by the riverbanks, observing a world I could not make a difference in until I grew too old to stand. The crunch of a fallen leaf snatched my attention, a discordant note in the delicately balanced symphony. A woman knelt, the sleeve of her dress slipping from her shoulder. This sight was not new to me. There had been hundreds before her who had visited, and thousands before them. Those who came and went were far too many to be remembered, both old and young, some carrying joy, but most bearing misery. Whether it was happiness or grief that led them to my home, I knew they all sought something for themselves, and I could tell from their faces what it was that they looked for. The desperate found comfort in meaningless details that went unnoticed by another, so that even the babbling of water could be heard as a familiar voice, or a breeze could be the huff of a lost lover’s breath. Then the woman shifted, my gaze leaping to her again, and her face was turned from me. The gleam of her dark hair gilded by noon sun was all I could see. Her perch was motionless beside the river, enough so that she could have been a painted figure listening for what only she could hear. She was indecipherable this way, a statue carved to be admired but never touched, beautiful but unreachable. Who was this mystery? What brought her here, to sit by these banks as I did? Did she hear the music in the rush of the Loire? I wanted to… I simply wanted, I realized. I wanted, and I could not have. Frustration burst like a wave. The sky inevitably splotched to orange and red, and the woman left me. She rose, the hem of her skirt against the ground a whispered addition to my song. I remained rooted in my position. People wandered here to find their purpose, but what was my own? I was the Watcher, I supposed, and I always would be. My purpose was to see and not feel, to ask my questions and to know they would not be answered. It was a bitter truth. I watched until the crimson of her dress became a faint speck, until the spell she had cast was lifted. How much longer would I continue to watch? Was I to stand here for a lifetime? I’d crumble eventually, slower than those I saw passing by, but I was dying all the same. Perhaps everyone did have a place in this grand composition I could not yet make sense of, and this was my cruel fate, a punishment for a crime I did not know of. A cool gust of wind rustled my branches. I stood still once more. The river murmured on. Emily Tang, 12 (Winterville, NC) Scattering Beams Emily