Fiction

Norman walked briskly through the terminal, gripping his briefcase with white knuckles. The importance of oneself, Norman thought, was defined by the limitations of one’s vision of themselves.

Mrs. Levy was bored. She lay slouched on her armchair. She yawned. Someone rang the doorbell. Company? Mrs. Levy hadn't had company over for years. She got up, still in her nightgown, and sauntered over to the door. 

Fall had come, and close to its end, it approached. The air became brisk, with winter awaiting in the future, and as a girl wandered down the sidewalk, autumn's old skin shifted through the air above her maple hair.

The ocean is swallowing the sun. 

        Clocks tick on a steady rhythm, but the earth’s clock has an irregular heartbeat that fills the room with a sort of enigmatic song that everyone seems to know.

You know it's cold when your tears fall and you can hear them shatter on the concrete roof. You know it's cold when the wind whips by and you hold your sweater closer to stop the chill. 

"Y-You're really pretty for someone so e-evil," whispers the young sailor as I lay him down on the floor. "S-Such long hair..."

"Shhhhh," I whisper back, bringing a finger to his mouth to shush him. "Don't waste your energy."

No, no, you can't do this, they said. Pitiful cries before my feet, pleads barely reaching my ears as I fight any tears that threaten to spill over my eyes, the eyes that look down on the ashes beneath me.

As I stared at the intricate lines that snaked across the faded paper in my hands, only one thought was running through my head: “I’m going home”. I looked through the windshield, thinking of the path I had ahead of me.

"Do  you like watermelon?" The store owner asks. "Yes," I say. The store owner pushes a plate of watermelon slices and winks. "It's on the house." I grin, taking one. "Thanks!" I say.

“I can’t believe your phone is dead. Why can't you charge it overnight like everyone else?!” Julianna whined. “Overnight? We did not go to bed. We took a nap for three hours and now we're back on the road.

Freedom and solitude. The two best things summer has to offer. Done with the perpetual, looming stress that comes with school and ready for joyful, inconsequential time spent lolling around underneath the sun and in the breeze.