Writing Camp Submissions?

[Rosetta]

So, I'm applying to writing camps this summer and I would really, really like to get in. I'm applying to two:

Camp #1: Requires 2 writing samples of four pages each. Can be part of larger works.

Camp #2: Fifteen pages of writing, double spaced, size 12, times new roman.

I need your help. I don't have all my samples yet, I'm working on them, but I'd LOVE feedback. Real nitty-gritty feedback. I really really want to get in and I haven't told anyone else I'm applying except for my boyfriend because I'm afraid I won't. Who is better to ask for feedback than you lovely people?

THESE STILL NEED TO BE EDITED BY THE WAY.

The following are POSSIBILITIES for camp # 1:

Submission #1

Title: Paper Cranes

I wrote this over a year ago, but less than a year ago submitted it to a writing contest and won second place, yay! I might not be submitting it because it's an older piece, but we'll see. Also, it's five pages, a bit too long and that would mean cutting down... but enjoy!

**Inspired partly by writings/characters by the lovely South and Chaos

The house was locked up by the time the girls got there. In a week's time, the house would likely be filled once more with a new family, new girls, new lives, but the ghosts would never fade. Tabby stared at the leering cold house-not a home, just a house. It was set on a backdrop of chilly gray sky. There weren’t even trees around. A shiver passed down Tabby’s straight spine as she glanced around anxiously.

“You sure about this, Charlotte?” she whispered.

Charlotte didn’t respond, and Tabby paused from peering down the row of houses to see the girl with a bobby pin, picking the lock of the house with ease, as if she’d done it many times before.

“Charlotte!” Tabby cried, rushing forward, her heart racing. “Don’t do that! Someone will see!”

Charlotte rolled her eyes as she yanked out the bobby pin. Turning the knob, she pushed the door open with one hand and cocked her head at Tabby with a maddeningly superior smirk.

“C’mon,” she said with another practiced eye roll, “don’t you want to see what’s inside?” Tabby fidgeted uncomfortably on the doorstep.

“Do you think Lucy would’ve minded?” she asked in a whisper, eyes wider than saucers.

“Doesn’t matter, she’s dead,” Charlotte replied, harshly, and without further ado, she disappeared into the dark house. After a moment, her disembodied voice cried out impatiently, “C’mon, Tabby!” Butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Tabby glanced around once more, but no one was around. Then, feeling slightly sick, she hurried after Charlotte into that dark house.

Tabby hadn’t known the older girl, Charlotte, as well as Lucy had. So, it had come as a great shock to find Charlotte at her door at four in the morning last week. The 17 year old had spoken quickly in short one-word sentence, “Lucy. Sick. Come. Now.” And Tabby had taken off after her into the deafeningly silent, inky night, as usual not bothering with shoes. If her mother woke up, Tabby hoped she’d assume she’d gone out running an hour earlier than usual. Being the faster runner, Tabitha arrived before Charlotte did and waited in front of the doctor's office, just where Charlotte said to go. Her heart was beating wildly, wondering what in the world could be wrong. Sick? Lucy? How?

Huffing, Charlotte had finally reached her and yanked Tabby ahead of her, hastily explaining that Lucy had been rushed here instead of the hospital for reasons Tabby was still unaware of. When they were finally able to get into Lucy’s room, Tabitha could smell the fresh, lingering death in the air. It crept over the room, on the floor, clouding the ceiling, darting in between their ankles, just waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Sensing it there, Tabitha paused, her heart turning to stone. The room was small, lit by only a little lamp. There was a cot and on the cot was-Tabby’s stomach lurched when she saw her, curled up under blankets that could not warm her thin, bruised body.

Lucy’s lips were dry, cracked and bloody, while great black tufts of hair fell to the floor with the slightest movements she made. That wasn't a human. That was a pile of bones, stretched out over yellowing skin. Tabby felt as though all the air had left the room and she slumped against the wall, chest heaving. Refusing the urge to ask what was going on, fearing what more she'd say in horror if she were to open her mouth, Tabby watched Charlotte approach Lucy and kneel down. Tabby was unable to move, frozen to the spot, much like the other woman in the room, who Tabby only saw now hunched over in a chair, her face tearless. She had to be Lucy’s mother and she, more than any of them, was bearing the brunt of the situation, bending underneath it, choked sobs escaping through her lips.

The world seemed to fall away around the 13 year old. How did this happen? She’d always assumed Lucy, who was four years older than her, was just thin and fragile. She convinced herself that the girl didn’t sleep enough resulting in her yellowing, waxy skin and bloodshot eyes. She’d hoped that the grotesque bruises were from an accident or something. Now, it was clear that rather than an outside force, some silent, internal enemy was inflicting Lucy. And Lucy was losing the battle.

Tabby had no idea what to do. She stared at Charlotte, who was pocketing something as she straightened up. Her heart was leaping in her throat, and her legs were weak. As Charlotte moved away, Tabby saw Lucy looking at her. And when she spoke, Tabby broke into a million pieces.

“Tabitha,” she said in a cracked, glass-like voice that was fading with each syllable. That’s when Tabitha Laise ran. Because that’s what she did best. She ran and ran. In the mornings, before school, after school, anytime she could. She ran from the piling unpaid bills on the table, from her mother’s dry coughs mingled with sobs, from the disapproving social worker. She ran and ran from the problems. But, even she knew that she could never outrun them. They rode piggyback, they lingered, they never left. They clung to your soul, sucking every last ounce of resistance you had, until you succumbed to them. A hollow mass. That's what she was becoming. A blind, hollow entity, eaten from the inside out by the problems that ran too fast for even Tabitha Laise.

Charlotte had found her curled up in an alley sometime later, bawling, the dam having broken. “You knew, didn’t you?” Tabby whispered, not bothering to wipe away the tears. Charlotte, who stood there awkwardly, never good with confrontations, shrugged.

“Yes.”

“And why didn’t she tell me?”

“She didn’t want to scare you,” Charlotte answered, bending down to examine Tabby’s bloody feet. She had stepped on a piece of glass, but she didn’t care. The pain in her foot was nothing compared to this. “It was terminal leukemia. She didn’t lose her hair completely or anything because she refused treatment. She collapsed and they brought her to the doctor's, the closest place, to, you know..." Tabby didn't want to hear the word anymore than Charlotte wanted put breath behind its sails, but it had to meet the air sooner or late. "They brought her there to die...she knew it was going to happen…”

“So, she’s…?”

“Yes,” Charlotte replied, shortly, helping Tabby to her feet. “Let’s get you home before your mother worries.” She walked the girl home, a tense silence between the two, while Tabby mused how in the world she hadn’t noticed. She had figured Lucy was just sickly from the day Tabby had literally run into her and they became friends…she’d convinced herself of it…she’d hoped…she’d prayed…still, the inevitable truth was that maybe she’d known all along, but she didn’t want to accept it yet...
Now, in Lucy’s house, sold just the day before by her mother, who wanted to move in with her sister, Tabby shuddered. She could feel Lucy’s optimistic aura dancing in the entry hall, but could only find coldness beyond. Lucy was leaving even the house. Charlotte was nowhere in sight, and Tabby moved slowly, nervously. Mrs. Thorton had left all the pictures on the wall, all of her and Lucy, smiling, laughing, so elated in memories that could never be repeated. Tabby tried to look away, but her eyes find one particular frame. It wasn’t a picture. It was Lucy Grace Thorton's birth certificate, born on the fifth of June.

“Lucy was the only one,” a voice said, and Tabby jumped, her heart skipping a beat, but it was only Charlotte. She stood in the shadow of the foyer like a ghost, her dark hair hanging around her, dressed in all black. “The rest of her siblings were miscarried, still-born, whatever. So, her birth certificate was hung up when she made it…better than a bunch of death certificates, huh?”

Tabby didn’t answer, the numbness that had previously set over her slowly thawing into the horrible, dreaded sorrow, pitting deep in her gut. Gingerly, she moved out of the room into a darker hallway, following Charlotte. She’d seen her own birth certificate, too. It still had the sticky note attached to it by the doctor, his untidy scrawl proclaiming the words: pre-mature, not expected to survive. But, she made it. She and her mother made it…and they were still trying, but they were doing it. Perhaps that was it. Death had been cheated out of taking an unsuspecting, frail new-born baby with watery blue eyes and a turned up nose, and so, thirteen years later, he'd made up for it by taking a beautiful seventeen girl, who, with wide, caramel eyes, had seen what was coming.
The girls slunk through the hallway, past the open door leafing into Mrs. Thorton’s room. As Tabby peeked inside, she could see that the bed was unmade, sheets on the floor in a heap. It was as if the woman had left in a hurry, which she probably had, unable to dwell in such an empty place. Sensing the distress left behind Tabby hurried off and bumped into Charlotte, pressing her into the door she was in front of. Charlotte responded by rounding on her, testily. “Watch where you’re going, will you?” she snapped, “I-” she stopped, realizing Tabby wasn’t even looking at her, rather gazing over her shoulder, mouth open. She slowly turned to see that the door she’d been pushing into was slightly open, revealing a sliver of teal wall. Teal was Lucy’s favorite color. Without turning, Charlotte said shortly, having never mastered the art of praise, “Right door, good work, Tabby.” The two entered the room, moving as slowly and carefully as possibly.

On contrary to the rest of the messy house, Lucy’s room was exceedingly tidy. The bed was made. Her perfumes were lined up neatly on her dress along with some stacked paper. Her bookshelf had every book in place, and they all seemed to be in alphabetical order. Everything was in place. A black garbage bag lay full next to the nightstand which had a closed book on it. While Tabby remained rooted to her spot, Charlotte slowly approached the bag as if it were a wounded animal and opened it.
“It’s clothes,” she said softly, after a moment. She gestured about the room. “I think she did all this she knew was going to…” Charlotte trailed off, and Tabby turned away, tears in her eyes. To busy herself, she went to the dresser, gingerly picked up a perfume bottle and sniffed it. The soft odor of honey and sugar found its way into her nose. She pursed her lips, remembering this scent. It had always lingered on Lucy’s pale skin and her oversized clothing. She was reaching for another bottle when Charlotte spoke behind her.

"She was quite the fan of poetry,” the older girl commented casually, flickering through the pages of the book that was on the nightstand. “She even highlighted some of the lines…” she turned a few more pages. “Every poem she’s highlighted, actually, well…except one…” Charlotte turned the book around to show the black and white page to Tabby, who, from her position, couldn’t make out specific words. “You know, rage against the dying of the light…something like that…Dylan Thomas…this one isn’t highlighted…” Charlotte rolled her eyes at Tabby’s blank face. “It’s about not dying,” Charlotte filled her in, “or at least trying not to. Funny, isn’t it?” Except there was no humor in Charlotte’s voice, only blind irritation, as she put the book down. Tabby watched in amazement as Charlotte began feeling under the mattress as if nothing had happened. It was astonishing how the easily the girl could hide herself away behind her ever-present annoyance. Tabby sometimes wondering what it was like to be her before deciding those waters were best left untouched.

Still feeling as though she were robbing a grave, Tabby turned her sights to the closet door. The bronze doorknob gleamed at her, begging her to open it. Curiosity overcame the bubbling doubt, and Tabby approached the closet door. Closer to it, however, it seemed larger, much more intimidating and less inviting, Still, she needed to open it. Glancing around to see that Charlotte was still busy (yanking the comforter off the bed), Tabby grasped the cool doorknob, turned it and pulled it open.
Instantly, she gasped as an avalanche of white descended on her in a flutter of wings. A second later, she realized what had fallen out of the closet and was now resting at her feet were paper cranes. A lot of paper cranes. Too many for her to even take in with her eyes. What had Lucy been-

"What's going on?” Charlotte’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “What’s that mess? Tabby-” Charlotte stopped short herself, and Tabby could feel her, just behind her, staring at the beautifully formed paper cranes, her irritation sapped away. Tabby was at loss for words. The cranes were pure white, gorgeous and just something Lucy would make with her delicate hands. “Oh…” Charlotte said, softly, but Tabby didn’t turn. She didn’t want Charlotte to see her cry. Because the sudden appearance of the cranes had made her realize something, something sad, awful, and heart-wrenching: That Lucy was cold and dead after all…

Tabby wasn’t sure how she found her way onto the ground. All she knew that she was sobbing and sobbing that, she was gone! She was gone! She was gone! And Charlotte was at her side, rubbing her back, awkwardly, trying to reassure her that it would, be alright! It'll be alright! But, Tabby knew better. It wouldn’t be alright and after a moment, Charlotte pulled back the lie that hung heavy in the air.

“Fine,” she said quietly, “it’s not going to be okay…but…” She couldn’t go on. But what? There was nothing. She was gone. Finally, sighing, Charlotte pulled something from her pocket, and passed it to Tabby. “She wanted me to show you this.” Tabby took it with trembling hands and saw it was a folded piece of paper. The paper wasn’t new. That was clear from the dirt on it and the rips. She slowly unfolded it and read the title on top: Things I want to do before I die.

Tabby’s heart skipped a beat as she scanned the list. Sentences popped out to her like, read my entire book shelf, sleep outside underneath the stars, learn how to ballroom dance…The butterflies in Tabby’s stomach multiplied with each thing she read. She remembered sleeping outside with Charlotte and Lucy that one night…and Lucy taking her arms and dancing with her all across the lawn…how she was always buried in a book…that’s why…so, she made this list…Tabby studied it and saw, with a pang in her stomach, that some of the things were crossed out, signifying that she’d done it, while others weren’t…the last one was circled. In Lucy's clear and careful script, it read: create one thousand paper cranes.
Tabby’s head snapped up the look at Charlotte. “I’ve read about paper cranes,” she told her quickly. “If you make one thousand, you are granted one wish! One wish…one wish…” Tabby suddenly slumped back, realizing…Lucy wasn’t making these for nothing. She was making these paper cranes for her one wish….the wish she never got…

The girls looked at each other, and for once, Tabby saw Charlotte’s mask fall away. But, she didn’t cry. She didn’t cry at all. Staring at her, Tabby wished she had; the helplessness scrawled heavily upon her face was even worse. Tabby felt like she was falling again. Because nothing was going to bring Lucy back. Silently, Tabby watched as Charlotte began to count the paper cranes, picking each up delicately and placing it in a separate pile. After a while, Tabby helped her. There was no need to talk. They had to keep focused on one task: counting the cranes. Finally, the floor around them was clear, the rest of the cranes in one pile. Tabby and Charlotte stared at each other again, almost anxiously.

“How many did you get?” Charlotte asked.

“Six hundred and forty four,” Tabby responded, quietly. Charlotte
nodded in agreement. They fell back into the deafening silence, eyes filled with images of swollen fingers, frustrated crumpling of paper and the desperate words: just one more, just one more… but, one more wasn't enough.

Finally, Charlotte felt obliged to speak again. “You know what this means, right?” Tabby looked at her, confused, as Charlotte got up and retrieved the pile of paper from the dresser. She placed a piece in Tabby’s limp hands and guided them through the motions of making a crane. Wearily, Tabby just let Charlotte do it, slowly realizing…Charlotte held up the perfect crane the two of them made together, her eyes shining. “We are just going to have to make more.”

And for the first time in days, Tabby smiled as she and Charlotte reached for another piece of paper to make another crane…and another...and another...

Tabby crafted each wing with ease and gentleness, not wanting to constrict them. Tonight, she'd take home a paper crane, clasped safely in her hands. She'd place it just out her window and let the wind catch it. Because she understood now. The paper crane was ready. Someday, they'd meet again.

But, until then, she just had to look for signs in each flutter of wings, each songbird's note, and remember the bright smile of a frail girl, who didn't walk into the light, but rather flew.

Submission #2
Title: Untitled so far

A recently written memoir sort of piece. My only problem with this one is that it's just a bunch of words and it lacks much of a point. Does anyone know how I can drive it and make a point?

The affair takes place on a Monday and you decide that it couldn’t have been a better day. Mondays will forever be associated with unpleasant events and why soil a perfectly good day with such unhappiness when you could just add this particular one to the ever-growing list of why Mondays are such taboo? It’s time to take out that black dress you don’t have and, Mom, I told you I needed one, but, I’m sorry dear, I forgot in the middle of all this, wear that purple and gray one, she wouldn’t have minded. She would’ve thought it was lovely. She would’ve. Past tense.

They took you on a series of stops before the final destination is reached and, in some way, it’s kind of like life…if you walked around your whole life with your eyes closed, against a hard wall that yields no answers. The first stop is the building that they call a funeral home and it’s ornate and gold with tissue boxes on every single surface that you’ve only used to blow your nose when you had an allergic reaction to the flowers that are everywhere. Flowers shaped like hearts, flowers that smell like death itself, and flowers that wilt and die at the slightest touch. Flowers, flowers, the kind of flowers that cloud your vision of the person that you’re really here for. Here is where your family congregates, taking seats on the worn sofas that have held more weight than a person could possibly bear in their body and listen to a large man who opens a large Bible and begins to read that “Rose” lived a long and healthy life and everyone’s cheek burns as your mother takes it upon herself to get up and whisper that her name wasn’t Rose and you almost feel sorry for him because you’re tired of feeling sorry for yourself and it’s pity for the man who’s seen more dead bodies than you have, far too many exhausted names to keep them all straight and maybe Rose is next door in the room where you hear the honking of noses on tissues and choked sobs in closed throats that send stabs of pain through your body and your twist your hands in your lap until your father pulls you to your feet and to the casket. And you kneel.

Instantly, you decide that whoever you’re staring at isn’t her, but rather some kind of wax version and it’s some kind of cruel trick and they’ve gone to such great lengths to replicate her soft, wrinkled face that just weeks ago, was it? was smiling at you, overshadowed by those great, round glasses. They even recreated the short blonde hair that just days ago when she lay asleep in the place they call Hospice, you commented that they, the nurses, must’ve cut it, but your mother shakes her head. It fell out. She’s wearing the blue dress that she always demanded right before they put her out for the surgeries and how you’d love to crawl into her lap and ran your fingers over the lace, to wiggle the beads and tug the threads and she’d grin and rub your feet, but now, you cringe away because her skin is leathery, but you mustn’t let it show because he’s standing at his usual post and how it would kill him.

Huddled in the crook of her arm, as if she could feel it anyway, is the little peacock book that you all wrote in last night with your final words. Your hand clutched the wobbling pen and scrawled superficial words, the only thing that’s broken through the ice that layered over everything in your body and believed it was common courtesy not to read what the others had written, but you did peek at his and it was signed simply. “Me.” And had the ice been thin, you might’ve shattered.

Finally, comes the closing and maybe you should’ve cried and tried to catch that last fleeting look at her like the others around you do, but your body is stiff and all you want is that wax figure to go away and at last, with a soft thud and click, it does and you can breathe again you get in the car again, but, of course, what do you know? The flowers are there and again, your nose is stuffed, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t feel it either way.

The next stop is the church where your parents were married and like Mondays being all bad, perhaps once they had seen this place as a lovely one, a happy memory of white and giggles, but today, it’s nothing more than black and tears and sorrow lasts longer than happiness ever will. With a skip or two that you never intended, you scale the steps and smooth the back of your purple dress to stand alongside the women who hold tissues to their eyes and they smile through their tears at you like you’re a child who shouldn’t join in and a year from now, your mother will cry in the car and tell you that she would’ve wanted you to be happy, you’re still young, but a year from now is when the meteor is set to hit the hard-packed earth of your heart. You’re not prepared for impact, so you simply swallow because this makes no sense, it’s not real and there’s your little brother trailing behind the men, his head barely visible over the casket as he tries to hold it too, but they’re taller than him and your lips twitch a little bit because he’s so young and it’s not fair and then, there’s a fluttering in your stomach as the smile drops and you remember how he cried when your mother told you of what’s to come just weeks ago and how you and your sister looked at each other, but not a word was said.

You’re supposed to read something that your cousin picked out for you and you realize once you take your seat after the painful wake down the aisle past friends and family who give you sad looks that that’s not what you want right now, not the sobbed sorrys, not the lipsticked kisses, not the bone-crushing hugs, but rather silence. But you still have to read. The paper in your pocketbook burns as you reach inside for it because the words aren’t real, just the leather interior of a pocketbook and not the fleshy interior of entity, of memory with its caramel odors and wrinkles. This paper feels stiff and crinkly and can be bent and you don’t like it.

A mother, you describe as you stand later before the congregation, a mother is everything she was. You describe her duties, her compassion, her everything that she was in life, but the writer of this never knew her, not like you did in sixth grade when you wrote your essay about heroes on her. But, this is about mothers. One day, your daughter will maybe read it for your mother and her daughter for you. It’s your uncle with the eulogy who captures what this writer missed, but your ears have suddenly begun to buzz and you lose your trickles of who she really was as he talks and it’s not then that you realize, but later when suddenly you can’t remember the color of her eyes or the name of that James Bond movie you watched once and your heart skips a beat in time. The service passes.

A time later, you’re sitting in the back of the car and the funeral procession is broken up by the highway that goes and goes. The girl in the car next to you is playing her DS and maybe your heart sinks a bit, recalling the times that Pokémon seemed more important than a proper conversation and you’d give those superficial responses, yeah, uh huh, of course, a giggle and then back to the superficial screen and the superficial beings called Pokémon that weren’t even real. When you lost a battle, you could go the Pokémon Center and revive your Pokémon and everything was all better.

Somehow, your destination arrives and you come to a screeching, screeching, screaming, we’re going to crash! we’re going to crash! prepare for impact! halt. And you float up from the crash and it won’t occur to you for at least six months that you’ve been ripped from your body, torn from your very skin and you’re some kind of vulnerable imprint of yourself for. And then, you’ll find yourself crumpled on the bathroom floor, stomach lurching terribly, tears rising in balls in the throat, in gasps and groans.

But, for now you float over the line of cars waiting in the cemetery for their turn to bury their loved one and think it’s good, clean and done. And they’ll wipe the dirt off of their hands and think it’s gone, but it’s actually just embedded in their skin. A parasite.

Somehow, you get through the service. You don’t see them lower her into her final resting place, finally sealed off, and as you slowly pick up the petals that had fallen to the ground from roses that were supposed to be alive, you feel your body just as open as her, not sealed under the weight of six feet and that’s how you escaped perhaps and you float up into the cold December sun and they’re all hugging each other again and someone is surely hugging what is you, but you don’t feel it. Partly because you don’t want to and partly because you just can’t.

The sun casts the long shadow of the man called “me” and despite the arms of family on his shoulders, he stands alone. There’s another hand on his shoulder, but it’s cold and heavy and your mother tells you that he needs all the support you can offer so that he doesn’t crumple, but up in the sun, you shiver and stare out at the long, endless lines of gravestones. Skin is prickling. If only you can keep him standing.

But, even the most stable structures can fall and you’re on that bathroom floor, cursing the system.

The funeral takes place on a Monday.

More to come! But, feel free to post anything here. ANY THOUGHTS/CRIT/IDEAS. Please, please, please. I really really would love to get in!

[/blockquote]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

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[Rosetta]

Kay<3 thank you! I'll definitely pay attention to those things and work on my above stuff.

Okay, I legit JUST wrote this and I'm posting it unedited because I want to go shower lol Rosetta be real everything you post is unedited I will edit it later, but first I want context. The ending. I followed a prompt here and it was nice. But, I feel like I dropped the ending and some bits are a bit rushed. But, here you go, please help:

My awakening was anything but sound. Actually, it was sound itself. The drowning, flailing and pushing towards the surface, the white light that seems only too good and finally, the thin surface and like ice, I break through it with a gasp into a room. It’s dark. It’s not morning. It’s not my room. My breath is short and quick from the swim as my mind flits back towards the dream I just escaped from, the one that fades away with each beat of my racing heart into deep shadows and sweaty anxiety. Something bad it was, but in the wake of this unfamiliar place, yet, I know it, I feel it, I just suppress it down into the hollow pit in my stomach and survey the scene.

Dark shadows around me, rising up high, to the gray ceiling that buzzes before my drowsy eyes. Square shadows. Boxes, boxes, my mind informs me wearily and the air is musty, like I’m pressing my nose to an old, dusty sweater and when I open my mouth to taste it, I instantly double over coughing onto the most familiar thing, the thing that I slept upon. It’s a bed, a white plain thing, with bars on each side for hands to grip, a pillow for the head to be thrown back on and a little remote to be pressed and adjusted. White sheets stained with sweat and blood are slumped all around me. Surprisingly, my skin doesn’t crawl, perhaps too weary to even move. It’s a familiar place and I’m at ease. It is only when I catch sight of it does my heart give a jolt.

I rise from the bed and press my bare feet to the cold, gray floor to walk towards it, slowly as if I’m still asleep. Sleep-walking. Past boxes labeled with words that make little sense to me at the time, but they’re all the sense in the world because they’re everyone’s. Birthdays. Easter. Kindergarten. Halloween. They whisper to me, but this particular object tugs harder and I lay my hands to its prickly green, piney surface. Fingers crawling across ornaments, porcelain, so smooth, bells that jingle, music to my ears, icicles that aren’t real, warm from the fire burning in the hearth. Somehow, my hands reach the top as gingerbread fills my nose and I’m nearly blinded by the white star shining before me.

Suddenly, I’m thrown onto the soft, green carpet and my bare legs are covered only by thin wrapping paper, my hands tossing that star in between them, slipping between my fingers, back around my wrist and into my palm. It’s so beautiful, but it doesn’t dazzle then. Instead, my heart sinks. There’s the crackle and pop of fire behind me and it’s not the one burning in the fireplace and my hands tighten around the star. White knuckles, clenched teeth, buzzing ears that can’t block the shouting. Stars in the shape of frilly dresses, hair accessories, shiny black shoes, porcelain dolls with blue eyes, but they’re all cold. No warm hands, no warm lips. Ice. The star’s points dig deep into my hand.

And then, I’m sixteen and the staircase curves as I walk and I nearly stumble with no arm to hold. The cake is white like I asked and there are flowers to match my flowery dress. Friends and family clap the girl before them into motherhood and I hear their claps, opposite sides of the room since the papers were filed and my stomach is squirming and with each movement towards the cake to cut, I’m sixteen, it’s my Sweet Sixteen and I’m sixteen, the knife I’m supposed to use digs deeper and deeper into me. He had liked my dress, but she hated it, but loved the tiara while he groaned. The cake is bitter. I can taste it from here. Paid for with cold money. It’s white and three tiered with those flowers, those silly flowers.
I walk like a corpse, trying to avoid it, but I reach my destination anyway. My feet hurt. These heels are killing me. He said they would, but she said I’d be fine. My halter top is holding up though which differs from what she said, with a shake of her head and he says I’m just fine, leave her alone, she’s just fine.

Just fine.

Standing before the cake, the knife in my hand now, burning me, I feel my tongue recoil deep within my mouth. I don’t want it bitter. I want it warm. I want both of their arms and not their cries. Mine. Mine. Mine. But, Mother, Father, do you want me or do you want the cake that you can claim is all yours? You lost, you loser, you lost, I won. The cake is all mine.

But, it’s bitter.

And suddenly, the knife jerks forward. I’m possessed. I stab downward, tearing the white in two and the inside is red just like I asked. I stab and stab and bleed and bleed. The guests cry out as the cake runs red and I grab chunks of it, throwing them on the ground. Rather than embarrassment, I feel myself rise up and up, a balloon and I’m laughing as I grab a piece and the youngest cousins run up laughing and smear each other’s faces and then my parents are closer than they have been in years, one grabbing the knife from my hand, the other laughing high and false. It’s a game. A joke. We planned it. I planned it. And the words burn me and I paint their mouths red in cake with sharp fingers. You want a piece of me? Here is your part of me. Vampires. You suck the blood from me.

I land back down to that gray floor. Back before the Christmas tree. Clean and naked, no cake to be found on my body. But, it’s needles are dropping to the ground as I run my quivering hands up it again. The glass ornaments dig into my fingers, forcing drip drops of red blood, and the bells don’t ring anymore. And the star is off, cracked and dark. My insides are crumbling as I stand away from this tree. Around the boxes that are me. A botched Christmas full of empty gifts. No love to be found. Only pride. I am a title. I am money. I am proof. Easter is full of chocolate and an invitation to the neighborhood kids for the extravagant egg hunt on our sprawling lawn. My birthdays are blank kisses, a heavy crown, a gift bigger than his, bigger than hers, oh, dear, don’t you like mine better? Don’t you like me better?

Don’t you love me, Mother, Father, don’t you love me the most?

Don’t you?

No. No. No. The word echoes louder than bells, loud, so loud, but I don’t cover my ears against it. It rises from deep within the sleeping room, buried down beneath all the boxes, but it’s there and it’s something I needed to hear for so long. I quivering from the sound. I’m standing in Hell and a higher force is calling down to me, putting a spear in my hand. This is mission. Rise up from this place. Rise up. Fly.

The boxes are empty. Cold puffs of air. No love found here. But, they’re flammable. They burn easily enough when I set my matches to them. The fire is warm around me. If you can’t give me your warmth, I’ll create my own. I go up in flames, but it’s the same feeling as when I smashed the cake. A balloon. Floating. Flying. You don’t deserve any part of me. If you can’t give me you, the real you, you can never have me. I am fire. I am burning. I am black ash. I am choking, suffocating smoke.

I am free.

[Rosetta]

Another thing. Enjoy.

Wife Wanted

“Well, there you go,” he said, slowing the car to glide alongside the house. “I found one.” Leaning over him as the car came to a complete stop, his fiancée gazed out the window for a few minutes at the house. It was a beautiful thing, a large, white colonial with a blue door and red shutters. The flower boxes were in full bloom, a lovely mix of red, yellows, blues, and whites and the short tree out in front was blooming in pink, sending the rosy, barky smell of flowers and foliage over into the car. The fiancée turned up the air conditioner to banish it as she squinted at the sign set right in front of the house.

“Good, honest wife wanted: inquire within,” she sounded out slowly and then, as the words sunk in, her creased forehead flattened and her mouth opened wide in laughter. “That’s a good one!”

“Let’s go in,” her soon-to-be husband urged with a smirk. He turned off the car, stemming the flow of cool air and his fiancée frowned as the suffocating summer air pressed into their limited space. “You can be my sister and we’re ‘inquiring.’” His fiancée let the words slide under her skin before giggling with a nod. They were on their way home from their visits to relatives across the country. To them, there was nothing worse than driving for long hours through the heat towards the rural towns their families lived in and pretending they enjoyed laughing with them and dining with them without much air conditioning and cell phone service to go around. Apparently an online picture of the engagement ring didn’t suffice and so, they had to go in person.

Stepping out of the car, the soon-to-be married man straightened his sunglasses with another grin towards the house. “I ought to get a picture of it.” The soon-to-be married woman who’d just gotten out of the car herself chuckled again.

“Later!” she hissed. “When we’re leaving.” Fishing a napkin out of her purse, she daintily dabbed the sweat from her forehead. The photograph would be added to the archive they’d already collected on their road trip. If they were to be forced from the comfort of their New York apartment and to no man’s land, why not make a game of it? And the game? To locate the craziest people in America. Photograph them, archive them and laugh over them at parties. So far, their archive of pictures in the husband-to-be’s camera consisted of a man they saw fishing with a dollar bill on the end of his line, a woman walking her cat on a leash and a red-headed family dressed all alike in plaid suits. But, as the engaged couple walked briskly up towards the house, they thought this one would just take the cake. Their friends back home would love it.

To their surprise, a young woman answered the door with a loud, white smile. “Good afternoon!” she said brightly, “Are you inquiring about the sign?”

“Yes,” the fiancé nodded eagerly, “I’m Daniel Smith and this is my sister…”

“Rachel,” his lover popped in. They just named their friend and his wife, rather than their own names. Nevertheless, the young woman before them beamed and extended a cool hand. Her nails were painted red and deciding that her own nail color, also red, was much better, “Rachel” shook her hand carefully, barely touching it.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” the woman told them, “please come in. I’m Mr. Barbiel’s secretary, Arielle.” Walking in, the couple found the interior of the house beautiful, but disorientated. Gorgeously crafted wooden tables, chairs and bookshelves occupied the living room they were led into, but they were all of different shades of wood. Cherry, mahogany, chestnut, some light, some dark, so old, some new. Some pieces stood in the center of the room and some were pushed up against the wall. The walls were adorned with old, dusty paintings that were crookedly hung up. Still, to the couple’s great delight, there was no taxidermy. Walking across the rumpled red carpet, they took seats on the royal blue couch as the cat sitting on the back of it, meowed reproachfully. Arielle smiled apologetically.

“You’re not allergic to cats, right?” she asked “Rachel” and the other woman shook her head. Arielle’s smile widened as she skirted around a bookshelf, disappearing. They could hear her rummaging for something and the engaged couple exchanged smirks. “Rachel” buried her nose in her perfumed wrist, trying to mask the thick, furry odor of cat and traces of an older, different perfume, the kind of musky thing an elderly woman would wear as “Daniel” rubbed his own nose and kept his mouth tightly closed for fear of inhaling the dry taste of the animal that stretched out on the couch behind them.

“Remind me not to invite your sister to the wedding,” he muttered softly to his fiancée. “Doesn’t she have, like, fifty cats?”

“Well, then, your grandmother isn’t invited either,” his wife-to-be hissed back. “She smells funny.” They’d been debating over their wedding guests since leaving their family behind for their home in the big city. They’d always dreamed of a large, extravagant ceremony, but that would be mean inviting all of their family members with their taxidermy, their cats, their funny smells and so on and so forth. All of their luggage, deposited in New York City and credited to “Rachel” and “Daniel.” What would their friends say? It would be a nightmare to say the least. Both fell silent as Arielle re-emerged, toting a pile of papers in her petite arms. “Rachel’s” eyes passed up her thin frame and she sucked in her own tummy.

“Would you mind filling these out?” Arielle asked, handing them to the couple. “Once you’re done, let me know and Mr. Barbiel will be happy to meet you!” Turning on her heel, Arielle departed the room and they could hear her through a thin wall, humming to herself in a high, clear voice.

“I hope this Mr. Barbiel isn’t some kind of freak,” “Rachel” muttered the second Arielle was gone and “Daniel” rolled his eyes.

“What sane person would put a sign like that out in front?” her soon-to-be husband murmured back, his eyes alive with mirth. They both chortled softly and dived into the papers handed to them. It looked like a regular application, including typical information such as her address, email, phone number. The couple had great fun making up fake material and when it came to personal questions including those on what “Rachel” liked to do in her free time as well as her special skills, they were even further amused.

“I like to grow cactuses and donate them to people,” the woman suggested, her lips turned upward in one direction.

“Your special skills include singing songs about plants and cooking homemade remedies for foot ailments,” her fiancé chimed in. When they were done, ribs sore from muffled laughter, they called Arielle back in and she took the application without question.

“Follow me,” she told them, her high cheekbones even more accented when she grinned, “Mr. Barbiel is right this way.” Leading them down a brightly lit hallway, Arielle spoke to them softly, “Good of you to answer his inquiry.” Her smile had dropped completely from her face now, replaced by a soft frown. “The poor man has been a wreck since his wife left him. Cheated, you know,” she added hastily. “But, now, it looks like he’s got someone else stepping up take her place! It’s so good of you.” As Arielle knocked on the door at the end, the couple smirked at each other. Good of them, yes, of course. “Sir,” Arielle called, “there’s a woman and her brother here to inquire.”

“Let them in,” a voice not-as-deep as expected, but distinctly male called back and the couple walked into the room. It was a study, handsome in red and without the smell of cats. Above the empty fireplace were several blank picture frames and empty, dust-less spaces and sitting in an armchair before it was a young man and when he stood, the couple found it hard not to betray their surprise by dropping their jaws. He didn’t look much older than thirty, dressed in a pinstripe suit. His black hair was greased back, revealing an innocent, blue-eyed, handsome face. However, their gazes weren’t drawn to his attractive visage, but to his back. Hunched over, a gentle hill, a gentle rise, a hump…he was a hunchback and as he extended his right hand to them to shake, they could see that his hands were spotted and gnarled. No wonder his wife left him, the couple’s exchanged look said clearly with its high eyebrows and slightly upturned lips. They both shook Mr. Barbiel’s hand daintily, trying not to touch him too much.

“Welcome to my home. Thank you for answering the sign out front,” he said formally, seeming neither cruel nor friendly. Simply business. It was a language that the couple before him could speak and they took seats in front of the empty fireplace to talk. “I’m Evan Barbiel.”

The couple introduced their fake names and listened as Evan Barbiel laid down the terms, making it sound more like a contract than a marriage. “As my wife, you’ll be expected to love and entertain me. We will share in the maintaining and caring of the house. If my wife,” he swallowed hard, “ever needs or wants anything, all she needs to do is ask and I’ll give it to her.” His eyes and shoulders seemed to droop a little now as he went on about his job (a lawyer), his house (inherited), his hobbies (reading and writing) and his great love for entertaining guests and how his wife would be his queen.

“I’ve always envisioned my future husband as my king,” “Rachel” told him in a bright voice and there was some truth to her words. Many a times did her fiancé-to-be whisper to her his love and she would respond, “I love you above all, you’re mine, my prince.” He only expected to be promoted to king when they wed. Though not knowing this, Evan Barbiel only nodded slowly at her words. He was a blank-faced man and that only amused the couple even more for they assumed he was simply dumb.

Their conversation went on as Mr. Barbiel described the wedding he hoped to him should she choose him. “A small intimate one,” he offered. “I do not want any distractions from my love.” And the honeymoon? “Anywhere she desired.”

“You sound like a slave to your wife,” the other man in the room finally burst out with a chuckle. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it up as his wife-to-be stared longingly. He had her quit before he proposed, unhappy with her yellowing teeth.

“Not a slave, no,” Mr. Barbiel dropped his head, his cheeks reddening. “I fear I didn’t give my previous wife the attention she deserved…and she sought other attention. And lied about it too.” An uncomfortable silence passed through the room, interrupted only by the puffs of smoke rising up into the air and the fiancée’s hands fidgeted against each other in her lap. Finally, “Daniel” stood, pulling “Rachel” to her feet.

“I’m afraid we must be on our way,” he said to Mr. Barbiel who hastily got to his feet too. “But, we left our contact information.”

“Of course,” Mr. Barbiel nodded in understanding, “I just have one more question for you if you would.” The couple exchanged a quick eye roll, but nodded anyway. The setting sun filtering through the window behind Mr. Barbiel illuminated his crooked figure in a dazzling yellow. He took a deep breath and asked, “Do you think I’m ugly?”

The couple was silent for a long moment. Despite living in New York, the sudden question caught them off-guard. In truth, they both found him a monstrosity. Bent over and gnarled, they hardly noticed the handsome face and the kind attitude. But, surely, they couldn’t tell him that! Hadn’t they been cruel enough, coming in here and all? And so, in harmony, they both forced smiles. “No, of course not! You look great!” Mr. Barbiel’s shoulders drooped further as he nodded slowly.

“Yes, thank you,” he muttered. “It was nice meeting you. Thank you.” And hastily, the couple said their goodbyes, turned on their heels and left the house. That was that. They’d had their fun. As they drove away, after snapping a quick photo of a sign, they resolved to have a small wedding. To elope in a way. Not an intimate one, but a quick one as to avoid any unsavory people making appearances. Yes, that is what they’ll do. Their friends would love it.

Meanwhile, back in the red colonial house, Mr. Barbiel heaved a great sigh. Of course, they said he looked good. What else could they have said? He pulled his tucked shirt out of his slacks and reached up it to unbuckle the strap across his chest. They would never admit that he was a monstrosity. Never. He swallowed hard and yanked the hump from his back with more force than necessary. People just weren’t honest anymore. That was all he wanted! Honesty! Unlike his former wife…that lying, little…Massaging his hands out of their gnarled position he’d forced them into, Evan Barbiel picked up the soft hill of a hump that he’d buckled across his chest and frowning, carried it over to the armoire in the corner of the room. Why couldn’t he find one woman, one wife who would tell him the truth, no matter how much it hurt? Out of love, she’d have to do it out of love!

With a deep sigh, Mr. Barbiel opened the locked armoire and placed the would-be hump in, alongside the convincing fake teeth, scars, tattoo, extensive make-up kits and even more. All to create any ugly blotch on his skin that he’d like. For the next woman to judge. And the next and the next until he got what he wanted out of her. Honesty, he heaved another great sigh as he closed the armoire tightly and locked it again, that’s all he ever wanted. Honesty.

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