Apr 20 2010
Odyssey Short Story Contest Winners
From David Krocker:
On behalf of The Odyssey Club, I would like to thank all ISB students with the courage and creativity to enter this year’s annual short story contest. We had some fabulous submissions and finally decided on three finalists.
As in prior years, it is obvious the talent and creative passion many ISB students have as demonstrated by the short stories I was fortunate to read. For your convenience and enjoyment, here is our first, second and third place winners.
First Place:
Blurry Vision
By Amber K. Barnett
“Run, damn it! Run!”
Tears obscured the teenage girl’s vision, the saltwater that suffused her sight blurring everything into non-distinct blotches of color. Suddenly, there was a loud bang.
A bright scarlet streak splashed across the other blotches of color, and a silent scream split her brain.
It was time to run. She blinked away the tears, turned away before she could see the gruesome mess that would now be in horrifying clarity, and took off. There was nothing left to wait for, after all.
Her bare feet cracked twigs and leaves as she ran, the pops and snaps creating a symphony of sounds trapped in the prestissimo pace of her run. The trees seemed to be reaching out to her, like dead souls in Tartarus, their branches scraping against her limbs relentlessly. Her dress provided little protection against the bark whips that the branches had become. She could hear their rubber boots slamming against the forest floor, their dogs heralding the chase.
“She went that way! Don’t lose her!”
The men were closing in. She was out of forest. Up ahead, she saw the break in the trees that meant the end of her refuge. She burst out of the forest in an explosion of leaves and twigs, stumbling onto flat bedrock.
A river flowed nearby, quickening gradually until it became an almighty torrent that spewed down the rocky ledge. The roar of the waterfall slamming against the rocks was deafening.
The dreadful image of the scarlet splash of color flashed in her vision again. She tightened her eyelids, as if closing them further would blind her to such memories. When the bang of the gun had signaled the end of her father’s life, it had also signaled the end of any hope she had left.
“I’m sorry, Father. I couldn’t do anything.”
Suddenly, she heard the sound of a single pair of boots making contact with rock. The girl whipped her head around to come face to face with a boy with olive-toned skin and eyes that could have been her own. His eyes hardened when he saw her.
“You’re being stupid, you know,” he snapped in the familiar tongue of her people.
She glared at him.
“Why are you doing this? I can protect you. You can stop running, live a comfortable life, away from all this suffering!”
“And what, be a traitor like you, brother?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped.
“I’m not a traitor. I’m just trying to survive.”
“You joined the soldiers’ ranks! Betrayed us to them! Dying is better than betraying your own flesh and blood! But then again,” she spat bitterly, “I can barely call you my flesh and blood anymore.”
The girl could now see the shadows of the men, dancing in the darkness of a forest at dusk. The howling of the dogs announced their arrival.
She laughed. What else was there to do, anyway?
There was a flurry of movement from the edge of the forest. Men burst from the trees, waving rifles in the air and clenching the leashes of their savage pets. Before any of them could make a move, the boy raised his hand.
“STOP!” He shouted in the language of the men surrounding them.
They hesitated, tightening their holds on their rifles.
He then looked at the girl straight in the eye.
“We can start a new life, away from here. You know what they’ll do if you don’t say yes!”
The girl’s breath hitched slightly, and she clenched her lips together. But then, after a drawn-out pause, her lips softened. She looked up at the men with a solid decision in her eyes that were warm with relief.
A flash of confusion flickered in the boy’s own eyes.
She smiled at her brother. His eyes widened, suddenly full of clarity and understanding, and he began to run toward her.
She took one step back, two. He cried out.
On the third step, she was right on the ledge, and raised both her arms up. She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and breathed deeply.
She then took a fourth step, into oblivion.
Second Place:
Reminiscence
By Amy Elliott
Eliot Barton could see his feet as he ran over the shaking ground, smoke blurred his vision and the air was rank with the smell of burning flesh. He looked over as he saw his last colleague fall, and he could not help wondering when he would be next. He gripped his gun as though it would save him from the pursuing army, hoping that his life would end soon, that someone’s bullet would pierce his distraught heart. As he ran he felt himself being lifted through the air and he gazed down at his pitiful self as he continued running from his fate - could that green camouflage uniform really disguise him like his general had said- the same man who now lay in pieces, blown to bits by a grenade? Eliot rose through the clouds and his vision turned orange as the sun shone through his closed eyelids. The silence was deafening and, slowly, the sound of a grandfather clock could be heard growing louder and louder. He opened his eyes and awakened.
His bedroom appeared before him and he let his eyes rest on the birdfeeder outside as small finch was pecking at the caged grains. While the bird tapped away, his thoughts wandered back to his dream - how life had changed in the sixty-three years he had spent recovering from that one day! With a light chuckle, he grasped his wooden walking stick that lay close to his chair and managed to shuffle to the antique mirror that rested against the opposite wall. He stared at himself, wondering how time had passed by so quickly. Where his dark curls had once been, there were wispy strands of grey hair. His skin used to be taut- like a heavy quilt that was drawn up high over a made bed, but now it lay crumpled and had aged considerably with the years.
He returned to his armchair that now permanently had a rounded divot where he always rested. He noticed that the finch was still there, perched on the bird-feeder and desperately trying to clasp some of the grains with its beak. The tiny bird suddenly stopped as if startled and flew into the surrounding trees. All the while, Eliot stared at the place where the bird had disappeared and the trees blurred and again, he closed his eyes, the dull orange light of the setting sun seeping through his eyelids.
He was back, running for his life. It was then that the bullet hit him- his chest exploding in pain- it was unbearable! A silent scream split his brain. He staggered and tripped on a lifeless man, tumbling toward the ground. He landed face forward, making pain course through his body and intensify in his temples. He glanced up at the smoke-ridden sky and thought of what heaven would look like. But from then, his eyes only saw blackness.
As his memories faded to darkness, the present Mr. Barton clutched his chest in pain that was not at all part of his memories surged throughout his torso.
A week later, Mrs. Barton held the bullet they had found beneath her husband’s rib in her hand, climbing the stairs towards his room. It’s amazing he lived so long without discovering this. She reached his room. With a great effort, she threw the bullet out the window, watching it land on the lawn and stop as it hit the metal pole of the now-empty bird feeder. Mrs. Barton watched as a small finch came and grasped it in its claws, and then flew off with it into the trees. Mrs. Barton sighed and sat down in the feather armchair.
Third Place:
Unlocking the Doors of Fate
By Win Ma
I have always grown tired as a child for the obligations one has to endure for the benefit of the family; monotonous to the very end, each duty carves away a fragment of time from which frolicking and fun could have been substituted for instead.
If you are unlucky enough reprimanding from parents could as well be the equivalent, of eternal damnation. We are highschoolers after all! It seems sleep will only be the opportune moment for catching a getaway ride to the dormant paradise of dreams.
But today’s rest wasn’t entirely idle; it had something special to it.
And what were they?
Doors…
Take a look inside listener; among thousands of them envelop the realm of my subconscious persona. Each one has a story of its own, Look!
This one envisions me entranced, falling in young naive romance! So much the girl of my dreams. Yet what is there outside from where I stand, it is my family!
Now only shreds of torn memories from which I can never look up again! A silent scream splitting my brain!
Close it and open the next!
This one envisions me, clad in royal regalia with the entire world in the palm of my hand as I divulge into endless masses of riches. Jubilant as ever but now if I embrace this path how would it change me?
Would I turn into nothing but an arrogant slob only hidden from view because of these astronomical gains?
Now gaze to the door adjacent to that!
My face is now transformed! Aesthetically divine to the appeal of others, but tragedy will follow on this wish as well as crowds of men will wreathe in green envy, and gather in mobs to slaughter me!
Yes, these are the hopes and dreams we all have in our futures, what we crave for so most!
If you are so desperate I might as well let you see all of these doors for your amusement.
But the real question will forever remain, which path will you embrace?
