Impasto in the Park

By Ethel Rawn

Connotations has published student writing and photography since 1984 and is a member of both the National Scholastic Press Association and Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Printed editions featuring poetry, prose, illustrations, photography, and more are published annually. Our website aims to showcase creators throughout the year and features content which cannot be printed on paper.

Rot

Ghosts

Sorrow

Screams 

Phantoms

The manor

An unholy manor

A dreadfully corrupted hotel of horrors

A murmur and a vile curse made of ash and voids

The frosted night haunts and bewitches the deep twilight.

Wraithful                witches sitting in watery caldrons to boil alive

Eclipses                   shielding werewolves from another nightmare

Halloween            night can cause such a fright when you're alone

Nocturnal beasts haunt the shadows only to tremble continuously 

Horribly cryptic callers waiting to strike any of the most innocent

   Dreadful omens calling out for prey to come under the crystal moon

      Veils of gray floating like fog among thresholds unlocked after dark

            Obsidian teeth hiding under beds of children warned in tales 

      Infernal blazing of candles shielding the most gloomy souls

Bleakly withered skeletons creeping        in graves and stories 

Cackling gnomes growing the                   ability to run and spook

Echoing bats causing     children to go running home

Tormenting       snakes creeping below us

Sullen             mothers with sleepless nights

            Mourning fathers in loss

        Venomous shadows waiting

                    Unstable manors all but collapsing 

Blackened nights causing thick chills  

  Whispering voices floating grimly after dark

     Bullies showing their real skin all under skies of indigo 

A night of great fright is what will be seen by all

All decayed stories shared before screams grow

Then silence falls after a final cry goes quiet 

Scottie had a fog in him. It'd get thicker during the future hazy memories of a Friday, but he could cut through it with smoke. No matter what he was always lost, just a different flavor. He cut through the fog with the smoke and drowned out the smoke with the fog but no matter what he never survived. 

 Scottie hated it all, he never made it through the day without hate driving him forward to a tomorrow identical to today. He hated all of it. He especially hated clothes. Everyone thought he wanted to be a nudist but couldn’t muster up the courage, but he was just anti clothing. Hated pants, hated shirts, scarves, socks, jackets, shorts. If you put it on his body he hated it. 

He was a real quiet guy except for a few rare occasions. It was like someone would flip a switch in him, and all of a sudden he’s talking your head off about everything he’s ever read, seen, smelled, listened to, or tried to ignore. Just as fast as he got started he would shut right up at the earliest sign of disinterest.

 Scottie was missing 3 teeth and wore dentures for two of them but insisted his canine had a lucky gum and if they filled it he’d die. Not wanting to argue with the man the size of a rich man's pantry they let him keep one gone. 

 Scottie had one boyfriend. Ever. He’d been talking about him for years, one day he finally mustered up whatever he could and asked him out. They got together and within days he was MIA, no one heard from him except for his “pookie bear” for weeks. Apparently mama and papa bear weren’t exactly slaphappy about this and forbade the relationship from going any further.  After they stopped seeing each other he just picked up where he left off, apologies in tow. Scottie never really talked about it but when someone said the guy’s name you’d see something light up and fizzle out in his eyes.

 Scottie always had this look in his eye, I guess less of a look and more of a lack of a look. It was like those guys you hear about who were in the war, and they leave but their eyes don’t. Nobody asks because he never gives the opportunity. It’s like he can smell you thinking about asking him and he immediately says “let’s watch a movie” or “let’s watch another movie” Scottie likes movies. We never thought to ask, maybe the fog was what he was looking at. 

 We don’t really know where Scottie is, the cops think he’s dead but no one really knows, I like to think he’s right where he wants to be. He just left one day, we were all sitting together and he stood up and left. We didn’t really see where he drove off to, it was really foggy out that day. He was presumed dead a week later; they found his clothes on the beach.