December 2018
"Hunt"
by Gabriel Mendez-Contreras, '19
I had walked alone in the woods for three days now, and still nothing. The sun was setting and I sat down by some trees and got myself a fire ready. For someone with no experience in the wild I was doing very good if I do say so myself.
Hangman
by Taigen Irigoyen, '20
Dust settled on the window sill of the farmhouse. Standing on the porch, gazing out into the vast arid plains, Janna turned her head to cast a stoney expression to her side. She took three steps towards the sill, ran her finger along its edge, and studied the gray and yellow hue on her slender finger.
"Dad?" She called.
"Sweetheart?" came the reply from within the house.
"When's the next rain coming?"
Her father lumbered out to the threshold. He was a short, stocky man of middle age, his hair was graying in several patches and his face was worn from years of labor.
"Well, usually we get a rainstorm in no time after the summer dusts," he assured her.
"But it's been five days already, do you really think you should still be planting to get ready? You could be wasting a lot of seed..."
"Jan, don't worry, nature won't break tradition come a little dust."
His voice was suddenly gravelly and wise, an anecdote he'd been told by his father, and his father before him.
"Then at least let me help you plant!" his daughter petitioned.
"No can do, that's another tradition we won't break," he said with a good-hearted chuckle. It was a cultural tradition of their people that women not to work so as to be able to devote all of their time to study, a practice which endlessly tortured Janna while she watched her father toil over the fields.
"Hey," he said with a sudden excitement, "you know what you can help me with?"
"Huh? What?" She sought, suddenly invigorated.