Monday, June 6, 2011

Our Creed

Welcome to the Lambert High School inaugural literary magazine, The Crimson Creed! A creed is a statement of beliefs, and the poems and short stories included in this anthology were crafted to best fit what we believe as writers, students, and people. Enjoy!

Brooke Metz 

Monday, May 30, 2011

Just June by Meagan Traldi

The leaves crunch noisily underneath her feet as June runs deeper and deeper into the forest, tears pouring out of her eyes and cascading down her golden cheeks.  She wants to be as far away as possible from him, her broken future, the one responsible for practically ripping her heart in two.  The naïve girl had heard plenty of stories about this feeling, this misery beyond all other miseries.  It was nothing like the pain she had felt years before when she had fallen out of a tree and hit her head on the ground; nor was it like her mother scolding her for breaking all of the eggs.   This was much worse because without him, she was nothing.


June starts getting deeper and deeper amongst the trees for she has ceased to recognize her surroundings, there are no familiar landmarks to her, or any sounds either to help her figure out where she might be.  It’s getting harder to breathe and she has to stop and sit on a log.


Suddenly there is a sound of sobbing that exceeds her own.  June abruptly gets up and is alert, in case of any sign of danger emerges.  The noise begins to die down, and she thinks to herself, “They know I’m here too…” Her curiosity gets the better of her as she cautiously moves towards the incessant weeping.  Suddenly, she pushes through a thicket of leaves and steps into a clearing; the sun beats down on her face and she closes her eyes to escape the intensity of its light.  Once her eyes have adjusted she sees a woman sitting on a stump of a tree, her long blonde hair draping over the stump like curtains and her dress, a dull gray, appearing to be damp in some places from the humidity of the forest as well as the tears she has shed. 


“Who are you?” the lad is startled by June’s words and quickly moves her eyes up from the ground, her teal eyes gazing at June, as if to invite her to join in her misery.


“The better question little girl, is who are you?”


“And why should I tell you?”


“Then why should I tell you who I am, if you are the one who has intruded?”


            There is a silence that settles in comfortably as the two women simply looked at each other, not with malice or kindness, just with wonder and awe.  Somewhere else in the forest, a loud bird chirps and sings a mating call, and is answered by a female bird in the clearing, breaking the quiet tranquility.


“Why have you come here?”


“Why are you here?”


“Not by choice, I can promise you that, my dear.”


“Is someone forcing you to stay here?!”


            A sob springs up from the somber lady’s throat as she gasps for air.  She suddenly looks vulnerable rather than terrifying, and young rather than old.  June realizes that like herself, she is broken inside.  She collects herself and begins to rise from the stump, her golden tendrils falling gently around her.


“I am trapped here by my broken heart, by my tears and misery, and my stubbornness to move on.”


“How long have you been here?”  June is bewildered; it’s as if this is some sort of fairytale.  This can’t be happening, she has to be dreaming.  She is holding a conversation with a mentally unstable woman, who obviously has many more problems than June has ever had.  Part of her wants to stay and dig deeper into this woman’s past, but the other part warns her that this could result in something unfortunate.  But to go back there, where her heart had been practically ripped out of her chest; where he still existed.  But in this fantasy he isn’t here, she has left him behind with the rest of reality and what she would give for him to cease to exist entirely.  She’s in denial now that she has ever loved him and thinks that solitude in this forest is so tranquil and wonderful, so why must she go back into society where she would be forced to hide her sorrow and who courage in the face of adversity.  The lady, having recovered from her sobs, interrupts her train of thoughts, “I would tell you if I knew; some days I wonder if I’ve been here for years, while other days it simply feels like a few days.”


“Who has trapped you here?”


“So many questions-whom as brought you such sorrow as to lead you to me?”


“He…he…”


“He left you?  They all do, darling.  Time after time; it’s quite a puzzle how we fall for them yet again.”


“I thought he…”


“Was the one?  We always do.”


“But he was…”


“Different? Each and every one of us thinks that as well.  And look at you now-do you still think he was that different from the rest?  Why do you think I’m here?”


“So it happened to you…”


“No, it didn’t.  I don’t exist.”


“Wait…what?  What do you mean you don’t exist, I’m looking right at you.”


“I am only a figment of your imagination June.”


“What, no! I’m not crazy-I ran into the woods, I..I..I ran in here and saw you!”


“June, you’re fast asleep in the clearing.”


“But, I’m, I’m awake, I never fell asleep in the clearing!”


The mysterious lady smirked at her, ignoring her resistance, “I’m warning you now, sometimes letting go requires so much more strength than holding on.  Don’t hold on, June; he isn’t worth it.  It’s going to be hard at first, it always is, but eventually youll get on with the rset of your life and meet someone who was wirth the pain.”





            Leaves of all colors, being blown by the wind and scattered across the clearing; June sits up and looks around.  The warm colors surrounding her, and the damp area on the ground where she had shed her tears-so many tears wasted on the one who wasn’t the one.  She sits up and realizes there is a stump, but nowhere in sight is the lady with the teal eyes.  It doesn’t matter though.  No matter how hard its going to be, June is going to make it.  She smiles to herself as she realizes, life goes on, and so will she. 

Cracked by Lyddy O'Brien

           It started with a lie. Just a little lie, a little word-one syllable. No, she repeated fiercely. No, I don’t have a problem. She lied to herself and then to him. One lie turned into many. She met him one night and soon one night turned into three and three days turned into three months and two people turned into three. The lies didn’t stop there, even when her belly grew, swelling full of her secrets.

            Rachel sat one night in a cocoon of blankets, her feet propped up on an expensive satin pillow. Denny was out buying ice cream to satisfy her pregnancy cravings-another lie; she just wanted him out of the house-so she was now alone in their immaculate suburban home. Rachel lay on their bed, a crumpled plastic bag beside her, now empty. Her hand pulsed on the TV remote and her eyes fixed like glass on the ceiling. A silver spoon rested in her other hand. It was one o’clock, but she couldn’t sleep. The last thing she wanted was ice cream, but still, she couldn’t bear Denny’s sympathy, his care, and his clinginess. He wouldn’t sleep until she did. It was suffocating, and lately she worried he suspected. He’d be back soon. Not much time. Rachel raked in shallow breaths and lowered her eyes to their gold bedspread. Her breathing stopped when she caught sight of the dark stain pooling around her thighs. The phone was in her hand in a second; she bit her lip in pain as she dialed the three digits.

            Denny arrived at the hospital an hour later, melted vanilla dripping from the grocery bag he’d forgotten to let go of. Two burly male nurses held him back when he lunged towards a pale creature on a gurney that resembled his wife. His body shook as the doctor tried to explain to him that his wife was recovering from surgery; she was still in shock and faced severe uterine trauma. They managed to remove the baby, but she was only twenty-nine weeks and was having difficulty breathing, so they had rushed her to surgery.

            “So what are you saying? Our child isn’t going to make it?”

            “Sir, we are doing everything we can for your daughter. She’s stable for now, but-”

            “Wait. Did you say ‘daughter’? I-we-we have a girl?”

            “Yes, sir. Two pounds eleven ounces.”

            “And she’s okay for now? I mean…”

            “She is stable, but-”

            “She’s stable. That’s good, right? You can save her, you-”

            “Mr. Donovan, your wife had a placental abruption. We had to remove the child surgically. It was a rough surgery, and we were able to repair most of the damage to your wife, but…” the doctor’s eyebrows furrowed.

            “But?” Denny searched.

            “Your baby still isn’t breathing on her own. Preterm birth comes with a myriad of possible defects. We are monitoring your child and running her blood to test for any abnormalities, and I really think you should-”

            “Abnormalities.” Denny rubbed his cold, wet palms across his forehead. There was something they weren’t telling him.

            “Nothing is certain, yet. We’ll see where we are in the morning.”

            Denny sensed that was all he would get out of the doctor, and he resigned to the futility of his presence. The doctors smiled thinly and turned on their heels with a squeak, leaving Denny alone in the hallway. The nurses reappeared and, seeing he had calmed down, escorted him to Rachel’s private room. She looked so pale in the dark room, her skin like white ash. Denny lowered himself to the floor and kneeled beside her, glancing up at her bruise-colored eyelids. He took her hand beneath his as a pillow and fell asleep to the reassuring beeps of her heart monitor. It was the last night they would spend together.

*          *          *          *          *

“Mr. Donovan. Mr. Donovan? Mr. Donovan!”

            Denny woke to the sharp, tapping fingers of an orderly on his shoulder. He looked up at Rachel, who was still silently sleeping. His neck ached, and he wasn’t fully coherent, but he stood up quickly and faced the orderly, demanding to see his daughter. The woman shuffled her feet and looked away.

            “You need to talk to Dr. Swanson.”

            Denny allowed himself to be led down the hall and into the NICU. He dressed in a powder blue button-on gown, gloves, and a facemask, a clone of the doctors and parents already milling about in the unit.

            “Mr. Donovan,” the doctor from the night before smiled tightly in Denny’s direction. A cluster of other blue clones with clipboards shuffled their feet around the incubator at Dr. Swanson’s side.

            “Doctor…uh…Swanson? They said I should talk to-”

            “Yes, yes. Well, we…we received your daughter’s blood work this morning.”

Denny bridled. He hid his red eyes, eyeing branches of cracks in the tile floor.

            “The results show that your daughter has been exposed to substantial amounts of cocaine.”

            Cocaine. The word thundered within Denny’s sweating head.

            “To the best of your knowledge, had your wife ingested any cocaine during the term of her pregnancy?”

            “WHAT? No, no. It…it’s impossible. Your results are wrong. Not Rachel. Not my wife,” his voice cracked and fluctuated in anger and confusion.

            “We gave your wife a work-up as well, and she also showed traces of the substance. It appears that recent abuse of the substance was the cause of the abruption that induced the preterm labor.”

            Denny couldn’t think. Impossible.

“We’ve checked these results, Denny.”

            “It’s Mr. Donovan.”

            “Mr. Donovan. We take situations like this very seriously.”

            Denny couldn’t take it anymore; he shoved past the doctors to his daughter’s incubator and pressed his palms and nose to the plastic window. She was so small. He hadn’t expected it to be like this. So frail and tiny. Multicolored wires, like external veins, wrapped over her smooth, pink skin, her little chest. Her head, no bigger than an orange, and hardly even that large, was covered in a soft pink cap, several sizes too big. Her eyes were closed with folds of pale pink lids. She was beautiful.

            Denny rebelled against reality. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She was supposed to be perfect and healthy; she was supposed to be in his arms. She was supposed to make Rachel happy again, but...cocaine? She’s not even a day old. How could she deserve this? Denny wanted to take his little, struggling child and return her to Rachel’s womb, where she could finish developing safely. She had been protected in there. Or had she?

            “Denny,” Dr. Swanson spoke softly. Denny didn’t correct him this time.

            “There are some things we need to discuss.”

            Denny ripped himself away from his baby and focused his hard, grey eyes on the doctor. Then, his eyes fell to the floor. He tried for a moment to maintain his resolve and continue defending his wife. But he couldn’t. Even he had stopped believing his excuses long ago. He assumed that lump of his salary had gone to some new shoes or a bag or something, but then why was there never a receipt, or any records on the credit card bill? He knew Rachel had been acting differently, and he assumed it was just the pregnancy; no, it had always been there, even before the news of the baby. And he loved her. He loved her like no one else. Why wasn’t it enough? He’d felt her pull away, but the baby was supposed to fix that. The physical incarnation of their love in flesh and blood was supposed to bind them, forever. That was the plan. But this? No.  He had never expected this.

            The stone of his eyes melted and poured out heavy, wet tracks onto his cheeks. He thought of Rachel, pale and silent in the other room, and of their baby, so small and helpless, her breathing so shaky. Just like her mother. He forced himself to remember all of the little lies, all the little words, every syllable. Each one sliced his heart, severing him with painful necessity from the past love that threatened interference with his new duty, fatherhood. Was it possible? With grim certainty, he resigned to the answer.

            Denny’s eyes hardened to the core again and looked up from the cracks in the floor to the doctors.

            “I don’t want my wife anywhere near my daughter.”

           


The Yellow Balloon by Serena McCracken

I know every curve of this day like the steps that lead to my room. It means more to me than I could ever possibly explain. I cherish this memory like no other. It was the day I opened my eyes, for the first time.

It was a hot summer day, and I was wearing a yellow dress and dazzling earrings. My two friends and I were out to lunch at a restaurant I remember the food being delectable. On our way out a friendly waiter handed me a balloon the color of my dress. That balloon, it changed my world.

I looked over at my hand as it clutched a silvery string. My eyes walked up the glittery road and landed on a feast for my eyes. They hugged the image to their retinas. It floated there so peacefully, almost smiling. It danced, hand in hand, with the wind. I couldn’t remember the last time I had held a balloon. For a moment I forgot about upholding my teenager exterior. I thought about my childhood. The nostalgia ate me alive.

As children we see the world as something new. To a child everything is exciting; from the way the moon follows you when you walk, to the way you can see all the veins in a leaf. A child’s world is under a golden magnifying glass. The world around us simply bleeds into our fast paced lives. This balloon slowed me down an turned up the volume of the world.

We passed by a bronze statue of a young boy. His deep, innocent eyes evoked the sense of wisdom that I had been searching for all along. Maybe we were all born with all the wisdom we really need, we just choose to forget them simply for the sake of learning it all over again.

I felt as if this balloon had pulled me out from underwater submersion in a sea of stitched eyes. The blissful feeling that overwhelmed me cannot be described in words. It was as if I had found the key to the mysterious locked door that I never knew existed.

A wail interrupted my thoughts and redirected them. I caught the eyes of a small child; they were big, brown, and full tears. They trickled down his plump cheeks. His hair was the color of a cloud so full of water that it might burst. It sat in ringlets all over his head. His skin was the color of toffee and he was covered in small specs of the sun. I walked over to him kneeled and smiled like I was five again. The unfamiliar feeling on my face surprised me. 

“ Would you like this balloon? It wants you to smile.” I said with an unrecognizable confidence.

Instantly his face broke into a smile that showed me each and everyone of his small jumbled teeth, with tears still dripping off of his chin. It was that same twinkle that you see after a storm ends and the sun emerges from its hiding spot. I handed the balloon over and he sauntered off with his newly found disposition.

I became someone different that day. The world morphed into something pretentious and exciting. With my new outlook on life, I’ve discovered so many new things. I still carry that yellow balloon with me, for the perfect dose of innocence that governs my slowly growing maturity. I’m floating off into the horizon above this sea, sometimes my head dips under. Each time I break the surface, I realize how wonderful it is to be afloat, free and aware of the beautiful world that surrounds us, like that lovely little yellow balloon.

Memoir by Sarah Lamb


                    My mother leapt out of her lawn chair, long, tan arms outstretched towards me, bare feet slapping against the concrete, sputtering.


            I was riding in a wagon. We called it our “little red wagon”, although it was green. My mom's long legs were bronzing in the summer sun, as she and the neighbor-mom sat talking on the driveway, no doubt gossiping about last week's tennis match and the women who played it. The neighbor-daughter was pulling me around the driveway and we were singing our favorite Britney Spears song, screeching at the tops of our lungs. She stopped the steady motion of the wagon for long enough that I felt safe to stand up in the back, shouting, waving twiggy arms and shaking my little body to our raucous beat.


            I could hear the mumble of our mothers, light under our shouting. There was a vroom of a car on the street beside me and a slight breeze before the neighbor-girl gave the wagon a sharp tug—one that, if sitting, would have sent me into squealing peals of laughter, but as it was and I was standing, dancing, the tug sent me plummeting head-first into the same concrete my mom tapped her bare feet on across the drive from me.


            The outdoors was always safe to me. Whenever my mom got annoyed enough, she'd send me away outside to play. I never had any real injury or fear outside, which is why the neighbor-girl and I were allowed to play in the wagon. Mom was watching over us, anyway. It was summer, it was hot. The sun beat down, heating the concrete and tanning our bodies. It was safe, happy. It was a young girl, breathless with excitement, falling on the pavement. 


            Mom leapt up.


            She was on her feet the second before my head dropped against concrete.


            When I could see again, I first noticed two tan blurs of my mother's bare feet on our  tile floors, and long, decorated fingers brushing against my face and pressing ice against my skull. In our kitchen, the wallpaper was a blue paisley pattern—Mom always said that it reminded her of the sky and that it made her happy. This wallpaper spun around me, a mix of sensations all at once. I clung to her shirt with tiny, sweaty palms. As my surroundings became clearer, I could make out two worried eyes and a crinkled smile. We had barely made it into the house from the garage where she squatted next to me with long arms holding tight, whispering soothing words through the corners of her smile.


            Sitting there together, I buried my face into her shoulder. Comfortable, safe.




* * *


She's tall.  I've been looking up to her for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I remember more of     her bare feet on the tile floor of our kitchen and her long legs (everybody says that she's always      been “all legs”) than I do of her twinkling green eyes or tan arms. I've always told her that one          day I would surpass her in height, but I have since given up on that. The man who gave her the        diamond ring to wear on her left ring finger is even slightly shorter, but I don't think she would   be the same without her height. A short version of her would not have always been barefoot,             would have clacked around the house in heels instead of padding around, and she would not        have seemed so endlessly high above me.


She's loud.  I can always hear her in our house, talking to the dogs, my family, herself. She rattles             around the kitchen at dinnertime, opening and closing cabinets and doors with the silence of a            running of the bulls. Quick thuds up the stairs, a gentle double tap on my door—always            anticlimactic for how quickly she gets there. Even when she thinks I'm sleeping and slips into       my room to say goodnight, I hear her. When we're out together, she's the woman whose voice             carries, across the restaurant, the aisle in the grocery store, or on the street. I frequently remind       her that her whisper is not so much a whisper as a shout, but she never seems to get it.


The gold ring on her pinky finger is in respect of her grandmother.  The emerald one is her favorite, a       gift from her husband who hit it in the glovebox of his truck for a month before finally         presenting it to her. Her engagement ring has two tiny cutout hearts on either side of the stone,        which she looks down at, the corners of her mouth crinkling upwards like an upside down     rainbow—full of memories and happiness.


Every time she goes to the beach, which is less that she would like to, it's by car.  And every time, as        soon as she steers close enough to her destination, she rolls down the windows. Not just hers, but every one of the car, so the smell of the water wafts in from every direction, diluting the


            stresses from back home with warm ocean air. She slips her head out the window and breathes     in, letting the air seep through her lungs to every corner of her mind. That thick scent beings back memories from her childhood, and invites relaxation in.


She has a temper.  She can be moody and feisty, correlated to her curly almost-red hair—unpredictable,   wild, but pensive—encased, and deeply within herself, unsure. She always appears to make up        her mind quickly, without thinking of all aspects of the issue at hand, but she always sticks to             her decision. She has a sharp mind and a sharper tongue. She can create a facial expression that          lets whoever know that they've just done it, and won't get away with it, usually followed by            heated             words and a dramatic stomp of her foot.


She works hard.  As a single mother, she provided for herself and her two kids without losing her mind, while bringing in enough revenue to start buying a home and allow to have her young girls their             wants and needs. She instilled in them morals, taught them right from wrong, dressed them for         dances and woke up early on weekday mornings to make lunches. She was a one-woman show:   chauffeur, chef, peace maker, coach, decorator, laundromat, counselor, doctor...the list of her            assumed duties was endless, and she performed each of them with a facade of ease.


She is strong.  She is defined, she is passionate.  She my mother, and she is my hero.



* * *

She's tall.  Everybody says it's genetic, that with such tall parents there was no chance for her to be          shorter than five foot eight, making her tallest in her class throughout elementary and middle    schools. As she grew, fascination and appreciation of her height turned to annoyance and       embarrassment. She was taller than the boys, than the other girls, and couldn't wear high heels        without looking awkward. She is always barefoot; that's another thing that everybody says she          got from her mother. That part she likes, and refuses to wear shoes if it is at all possible, running         her feet through carpet and grass alike.


She's quiet.  For the most part. Sometimes when she can let go, her voice will raise, in joy or anger, but     as a shy girl, she usually keeps fairly quiet. Even her movements are long and fluid, from years       of martial arts training. She doesn't bang things around, she doesn't like too much noise      cluttering up her mind. Even as a teenager, rumbling her car or room with bass doesn't appeal to             her, as she would rather listen to her music quiet and calmly, disturbing no one, including   herself.


The silver ring on her right hand was a gift from her grandmother, in celebration of her fifteenth   birthday.  She wears it every day, the cross indented in it a reminder of whose she is, and what    she believes in. On top of that slides a silver ring of children holding hands, the symbol of the       summer camp that changed her life and her faith. Her thumb bears a ring from her best friend, left for her to find after her friend left one day. Her left ring finger is empty, for now. She looks      forward to the day that a diamond will sit there, a sign of her future husband's devotion. The ring isn't really important to her, it's the love and memories following it that excite her.


Every time she goes to camp, it is magical.  She waits the whole drive, speeding over the limits, to get      to that place. As soon as she turns onto Camp Mikell Road, the windows slip away, taking her     worries, cares, and stresses with them. She cuts the music off and drives in meditative silence, letting the warm air blow over her face and through her long hair, aware that the wind will turn it to a tangled mess, but not caring. With each turn, her mood lightens, forgetting the hours of         traffic, the people who cut her off, and her work back home. She experiences excitement laced         with absolute serenity. It is her favorite place in the world.


She doesn't like to speak in the mornings.  She'd rather spend it in silence, at least for a little under an      hour so she can get her bearings and fully wake up. She gets grumpy, if somebody says the      wrong thing or does something irritate her, but she likes to think that that's true for most      people. She's stubborn.  That's another genetic trait, according to her sister, who lets her know when she's being “stubborn as a mule, just like mom”. She has a kind heart and a soft temperament, but will stand          for what she believes is right and true and fair.


She tries hard.  She has a deep fear of disappointing the people around her, although it's difficult to get   her to admit it. She is driven, powerful. She knows her limits, and she knows her right from        wrong, traits instilled in her by her mother.


            Her mother is a woman that she looks up to, one who's standards have defined her life, one who she constantly strives to please.


            Her mother gets frustrated with her. Arguing matches and slamming doors scatter through her teen memories; long nights after heated words. 


            They all say it's because they are exactly alike, in attitude and temperament.


            That doesn't make her love her mother any less, but as she used to say, it didn't make her like the woman any more.


            Sometimes, it seems like the comfort of her mother's smile has been long lost, shuffled through the cracks of disagreements and changes. 


            But she knows that that love is constant.


            It is still there through her mistakes and through her triumphs. She knows that her mother is strong, sometimes too strong, and she knows that her mother is also weak.


            However, they experience it all together.


            Changes, growing up, moving on, happiness, disaster...there is an unmistakeable bond between                             mother and daughter.


            A bond of love. 

* * *


I am my mother's daughter.

Maria by Victoria French

“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land”

Deuteronomy 15:11

Her name is Maria Jose Suarez Garcia. She came into my life the summer of 2009. I was sitting on the lawn at Atlanta Fest while watching the local band play on stage but trying frantically to fan myself in the 97 degree weather. Looking behind me, I noticed a shady tent full of stands that people were casually browsing. I assumed that, like me, these browsers were just trying to escape the heat. At a steady pace, the “same old same old” was on display: T-shirts, CDs, college advertisements, and key chains. Everything looked pretty ordinary, until I saw her. Well first, I mean, I saw them. Hundreds of children’s faces on their information sheets begging for someone to pick them up and look at them. I questionably picked up a profile and glanced up at the banner. “Compassion: Sponsor A Child.” My heart was beating faster as it reached out to those children who lived in such terrible poverty around the world. What could I do? I had wanted to be a part of this new and intriguing thing so badly. A local volunteer came over in response to my puzzled look at explained to me that I could choose a child and pay $38 a month to help change their life. From that moment on, something was tugging on my heart.

I ended up sitting back down wanting to think and pray more about what was just presented to me. Before I knew it, the audiences focus was on a big screen set up on stage where a video about sponsoring children through Compassion was shown. I think it brought awareness to the whole crowd, because very soon a sea of people crowded around the Compassion table to ask questions and search around.  In America, we are very fortunate, and it wasn’t until I saw this video that I truly realized how blessed I am. These poor, helpless children live in homemade shacks where water is an adventure in itself each day. Diseases attack these children, and their parents are left with no job making it difficult to support a family. Even an apple was a feast to them. An apple..something so simple..something that I decorate my house with. I then understood that that tugging feeling in my heart was in reality an answer to my pray. It only took one video to understand that a 15-year old, like me, could simply respond to the cry of a hungry child somewhere in this world.

Round Two. I was making my second trip up the shady tent and back to that table with hundreds of children’s profiles waiting. In less than a minute of reading the profiles, a little 6-year old girl in a bright green dress captured my heart that day. In fact, the volunteer looked at me and said, “There should be more kids like you.” She was the most precious thing to me, and I knew that I could sponsor her until she was 18. So that’s what I did and still do. Every month, I pay $38 for Maria to attend school and church, eat healthy meals, drink clean water, and even go to a doctor if needed. In my closest, I have pictures of her as she grows up every year and pictures that she has colored me all the way from her home in Colombia. Even though I’ve never met her in person, I love her because she is a girl in this world just like me who deserves to have a life at peace. She is my sister in Christ, and I am thankful that I have the opportunity to give some of the money I make through tutoring kids to her.

Sponsoring a child is one of the biggest rewards I have ever gotten in life. I know that one day when she is old enough, I will get the opportunity to write more personal letters and meet her in person.  It taught me that in this life, we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. It all begins with that tugging feeling on your heart, and end with touching someone, just like you, in every remarkable way possible. Love is what brings everyone in this world together.

Bottled Up by Katie Cartwright

As a high-importance fashion magazine editor in chief, located in New York City, Adelle was no stranger to responsibility and control. Forty-six years old, the woman still looked to be in her early thirties due to thousands of dollars of cosmetic procedures, the highest end makeup on the market and a personal stylist for every event. She owned a custom built Maserati GranCabrio, though the company car and driver took her any place she needed to go. The press roasted her often for dating a male model half her age, calling her a “cougar” and “sugar mama,” but Adelle never acknowledged the critics. Everything about the woman was youthful and glamorous, except her spirit. She was forever bogged down with appointments, e-mails, deadlines and details. Though she had achieved everything she’d ever wanted, Adelle found her life to be unfulfilling. A change, however, could not be executed, planned or hoped for because of what Adelle had given up numerous years ago. Any chance for Adelle to lighten up enough for her to thoroughly enjoy her life was dormant in a bottle, buried within the roots of a decaying tree back home in Kentucky.

Daintily pulling on the edges of her eyes in exhaustion, Adelle sat back for a moment to examine the page of the mock-up magazine she had scribbled demanding red lines in, due for printing tomorrow afternoon. The editing needed to get done, and she was the only one around to do it- again. Late nights at the office were beginning to take a beating on her. Her responsibilities as head honcho had her returning home hours after the sun had gone down. Some evenings as she returned home, she found herself kicking off her Loubouiton heels and falling asleep, fully clothed, on top of her imported, hand-sewn silk bed spread. As Adelle began reviewing the mock-up, her head began to slump and her eye lids became heavy; her chair was so comfortable, and she was so sleepy. “I could just take a quick nap… I suppose…” Her blissful moment of siesta was interrupted before it had really even had a chance it began when Elise, a long time friend, knocked loudly on the already opened, glass door. “Adelle, you’re getting out of that chair for a few hours and coming to grab a drink with me! We’ve been so out of touch lately, it’s like your job stole you away from me,” Elise announced as she walked through the door, forcing a pathetic puppy-dog face. Adelle had completely forgotten about her “date” with her closest acquaintance.

“I’m sorry, I can’t, Elise. Not tonight. This issue has to be completely revised by the morning. The crazy writers at this place like to push off writing their articles until the deadline so I’m forced to sit around until--”

“You’ve got to be kidding me right now. This is the third time you’ve blown me off in the past two weeks! Lighten up, honestly.”

Adelle was shocked. Not only by forcefulness of Elise’s reaction, but by her demand for Adelle to choose play rather than work. It wasn’t that Adelle didn’t want to relax for a few hours, it was that she couldn’t. She had given up the option to forget about her job, her obligations, her commitments to her career, numerous years ago, thinking that she would never decide to make that choice again. “I would lighten up if I could,” Adelle spoke calmly “It’s just that I have rather important responsibilities here and—“

“And being a decent friend obviously doesn’t even make this list.” Elise snapped, and made her dramatic exit, heels clacking against the hardwood floors all the way down the hallway leading to the elevators.

An epiphany flashed in Adelle’s head that very second. Though she had not neglected her responsibilities at the office, she had pushed aside her relationships with her friends and family. It wasn’t possible to concentrate on anything other than work because that was her number one priority. Adelle had a one track mind, an eye for the details, and no desire to act irresponsibly. Her life lacked balance, and she realized in that moment the toll it was taking on her life. She had few friends, but rather many business acquaintances. She did not know her family anymore; she hadn’t spoken to them over a year. Panic struck Adelle, knocking the breath from her. She knew what she needed to do to fix everything she had ruined. Adelle hastily picked up the phone, dialing the familiar number of her family’s farm house. It rang twice before someone answered. “Hello?”

“Mom! Hi! It’s Adelle! I hope I’m not calling at a bad time. I just wanted to let you know, I’m coming to visit Kentucky!”

“Honey, that’s wonderful! We’ve missed you so much. When are you coming here?”

“Tomorrow.”

The flight from New York to Kentucky lasted two and a half hours, followed by an hour drive on gravel roads in a small rental sedan. As she pulled up to the sprawling farm and aged farmhouse, she noticed that very little had changed since she left twenty-eight years ago. The yellowed kitchen curtains could still be seen through the windows, and the siding of the house was still a weathered white color. Adelle ripped the keys from the ignition, threw the trunk open, grabbed her bags and stumbled inside. After giving her parents a quick hug, she excused herself to her bedroom. She dropped her bags on the floor and began her quest for the antique bottle, containing what she needed most but what she never thought she would need again.

The shovel was nowhere to be found. Not in the garage, not in the barn, not in her father’s old pickup truck. Adelle needed that shovel to make it’s grand entrance, otherwise her attempts to reinvent her life would fail. She thought about digging up the old root beer bottle with her thick, acrylic nails, but even they wouldn’t be able to penetrate the compact land of the abandoned field. Adelle looked out the window, and franticly continued searching for the shovel; a storm was forming, and she needed to retrieve that bottle before it hit.

Finally, the shovel made its appearance leaning against the side of the house. Adelle sprinted across her property, through the little patch of trees and into the abandoned field. The cool wind whipped through the dense, muggy air like a blade. The air was heavy and humid, pressing down on the flora and fauna in the deserted field.  Grass rustled as it was teased and probed by the wind, whispering in thousands of quiet voices. The only visible tree was half dead and slouching. Adelle quickly made her way to the tree and began digging. She shoveled one scoop after another, quickly and mechanically. The bottle was there, she knew it. After throwing aside 13 scoops of land, Adelle’s shovel clanked against something solid. 4 shovelfuls later, she uncovered the aged, scratched glass bottle. It was a dark, almost black bottle with a nametag on the side reading: “Hello, my name is… DO NOT OPEN. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.” The bottle had obviously not been touched in many, many years. Adelle twisted and pulled against the cap of the bottle, fastened so tightly on top that it wouldn’t budge. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Adelle shrieked angrily. In a quick fit of frantic behavior, breaking it into a hundred pieces, she smashed the bottle against the tree, releasing its contents.

Adelle became Adie again; the youthful, carefree spirit she had been in her younger years. After she graduated high school, she thought her future would only hold commitments and requirements, not fit for a girl of her nature. Vowing to herself that she would be successful, she buried her youth, her capacity to enjoy life and her desire to live spontaneously in that old bottle, thinking that she would never need those qualities in her life again. Little did she know, what she buried would actually save her from a life she could hardly bear.