Calling all creative writers! This is a column run by Averie Black to inspire readers to become writers. The column includes writing prompts, pieces written by the coordinators, and occasional submissions from readers.
This month: A short story by Averie Black and a poem by Diego Cerros.
Attention, creative writers! Every month, Creative Corner hosts a contest for the highlighted writer of the month! Submit your writing to Creative Corner and you will be immediately entered to win a journal.
This month's winner: Diego Cerros!
Below is a set of prompts for different styles of writing beyond journalism. The idea is that you can create some kind of creative writing piece inspired by one of the prompts, but it doesn't have to be. You can submit any piece of writing you would like to share! All submissions should be school-appropriate. You can also suggest prompts to be featured in the next issue.
Each month, one submission to Creative Corner will win a prize! This month's prize goes to Gabrielle A. Hart. Conratulations, Gabrielle! We will be in touch!
Here are some prompts to get you started. You can follow a prompt or submit a unique piece of work. The prompts can be used for anything, though some specify poetry or short stories. This month, the prompts are:
Write a story that takes place in space.
Write a poem that describes a setting.
Write a story where the main character exhibits one of your personality traits.
Write about a funny personal story that you never get the chance to bring up in conversation.
Write a story that flashes between the past and present.
If you have any prompt ideas in mind that you haven't seen on here yet or would like to see someone else respond to, then drop them in the Google Form below and I'll try to get them in the next issue! I sometimes don't see the response until after the issue is published, so I'm sorry if it takes a couple of months.
By Averie Black
The sky was glowing like fire over the ocean-- dark waves tumbling over one another, crashing against the rocky shore as the sun rose slowly in the horizon. Cleo loved the early mornings. Everything about it was so serene. Her lookout was right around the corner; a little bench sat on the cliffside, looking over the prettiest part of the beach. It was usually crowded with tourists, but it was all hers at this time of day. Cleo hated thinking about work approaching in a couple of hours, sitting in her office typing away, answering emails, and entering data. As much as she tried to make everyone who stepped into her office linger for a moment longer, it was never quite enough. She asked her boss about his kid’s Christmas concert. The secretary about her fiance. When Cleo was desperate, she knocked over her coffee cup, knowing they were kind enough to help clean it up, though they were not kind enough to engage in more than pitiful small talk.
Even worse, after work. Going home and turning on all of the lights. Heating up a meal and putting on the TV. Not to watch– but to listen to the people talk. All while her coworkers were out getting drinks, going home to their spouses, and listening to their children talk about school. The sunrise was the best part of Cleo’s day-- the only part of the day where being in solitude felt acceptable. Cleo felt her heart stop as she got up the final step to her lookout. Her bench was already occupied. Cleo had never seen the woman before. Surely, she would have remembered her dark hair twisted up in a braid and her long skirts billowing softly in the salty breeze. It took everything in Cleo not to tap her to make sure she was real.
“What a lovely morning,” Cleo said, taking the seat next to the woman with all the care one would have trying not to spook a cat.
“It is,” the woman replied without a glance.
Cleo tried not to make it obvious as she took sneaking looks at the other. They were about the same age– too young to be paid well, too old to spend the money on anything that exciting anyway.
“I haven't seen you out here before. I'm here every morning, and I've never seen you once.”
“I needed something to fill my mornings.” The woman still didn’t look at her. Instead, she focused on the horizon, the golden light making her brown eyes glow.
What a strangely unsociable person.
“Well, I guess we will be seeing each other a lot then! I’m here every morning. My name is Cleo.”
Cleo half expected no response, but this time, the woman turned to look at her.
“I guess we will. I’m Sarah. It is nice to meet you.”
Something in Cleo’s chest reached out and shook the hand of that something in Sarah’s chest. The hunger for knowing grew insatiable. Cleo wanted to befriend this woman, hold her secrets, dance with her memories, and intertwine them with her own. Rambles slid off her tongue as easily as oil. Sarah didn’t say much, but she didn’t need to. She stayed. She listened. That was enough.
Sarah stood without a word and smoothed her black skirt. She blocked the rising sun, creating a halo of light around her figure.
“I have to go, but I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll see you then, Cleo.”
I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll be back tomorrow is all Cleo has ever wanted to hear. There will be a tomorrow, and in 24 hours, there will be the same woman on the same bench waiting for her. Sarah will expect her. If Cleo wasn’t there, then Sarah would be confused; she would wonder where she was. Cleo couldn’t do that to her new friend.
“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Cleo replied.
Day after day, the women met in the wee hours of the morning to watch the sunrise. Cleo tried her best to get to know Sarah but more often than not found herself talking again.
“Do you have a family?” Cleo asked, passing Sarah a thermos of hot coffee.
“Do you?” Sarah reflected.
Cleo shook her head. “I have parents, but who doesn’t? A younger sister, too, Shelby. I haven’t seen her in a couple of years. She moved across the country with her husband, settled down, and had a couple of kids. Haven’t seen them in years either.”
Steam rose out of the thermos into the cold air as Sarah took mouthfuls of coffee. At least there was something Cleo knew of Sarah– she liked her coffee sugary sweet.
“You never thought of calling them?” the woman asked.
“It’s complicated. Shelby never really wanted to be a part of our family. She was always gonna fly the nest as fast and far as she could go. I was the opposite. Everyone thought I was going to stay tucked in my childhood room and start taking care of my parents. I thought about it, got my degree from the local college so I didn’t have to leave home, but I thought I should go out on my own– even if my apartment is only a couple of miles from my parents.”
“So you're close with your parents.”
Cleo laid her head on the back of the bench. “Nope. I haven’t seen them in months. They were always fonder of my sister.”
Somehow, Sarah always got Cleo talking without revealing anything about herself, but the women had a connection; Cleo knew Sarah’s heart. Whenever she spoke about her boring job, her empty apartment, how Sarah was really her only friend– Sarah simply nodded along. The other woman’s eyes filled with grief. Cleo didn’t want to pry. Her life was probably even better than Sarah’s. Maybe she had lost a partner, lost a child. Sarah was content to listen to Cleo, and that was enough. A vein connected their hearts together, pumping blood through their bodies.
“Good morning!” Cleo chirped one hot Summer morning.
“Good morning,” Sarah replied. She wasn’t in her normal spot on the left side of the bench. Instead, she stood close to the cliffside, eyes locked on the horizon.
It was the same sunrise as always. After a couple of months of their routine, the awe of the Sun diminished. Cleo’s awe of Sarah, however, was always the same.
“I won’t be here tomorrow.”
Cleo’s heart sank. “Why not?”
"I’m moving.”
The Earth began moving under the women's feet, much like the waves below. Once solid and stable, the packed dirt cracked and crumbled apart. It rolled as if it rested on the back of a giant slithering serpent, and Cleo couldn’t find her footing.
Cleo trembled. “Why?” She asked.
“My husband found a new job, and my daughter is thinking about going to college up there as well– Wisconsin. It’s back in my hometown, and my parents are getting older. God knows my brother has too many kids to take them in once they need caretaking, so I will be there for that too. It is just the right decision for all of us.”
Husband. Daughter. Parents. Brother. Kids. People who need her. People that love her. People she goes home to every day. Cleo doesn’t go home to anybody, but she does go to bed early so time moves faster between meetings with Sarah. Nothing is what they were. Friendly strangers, maybe. Cleo thought their souls touched, but she was wrong. Cleo didn’t have a soul. She was leeching off of Sarah's like a parasite. Sensing the vibrations of her breath, the smell of her husband's cologne on her collar, Cleo sucked the aura from her energy as it dissipated on her tongue.
Sarah finally tore her eyes from the horizon and kissed Cleo on the cheek. The woman in the long skirt walked back home, holding her flip-flops between her fingers and the pavement heating under the soles of her feet while Cleo’s ashen figure was blown away by the wind.
By Diego Cerros
Cold was what I felt from the aged iron of Azrael’s scythe as swung, scooping those off their feet never again touching the blades of grass home rested in.
Too precious vessels that breathe, the scythe easily chops through life for being extravagantly thin.
Not destroyed, only transformed, the soul soars yet the vessel mounts the earth in symbiosis and the cycle flourishes as the sweetness of a child’s fantasy story.
Fear of the distance planted between us and many, Death simply performs his duty even if we don’t believe we’re ready, why leave a world without accomplishment, love, or glory.
Hold those without smothering, cherish the steps and breaths taken upon knowing even time isn’t patient, and give passage to the words of the Romans to settle within yours as well the minds of many…
Memento Mori.
