Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2013 - (Page 44)

THIN KSTO CK creative minds imagine Fiction Contest Thank you to all who entered our sixth annual Creative Minds Imagine Fiction Contest! We are thrilled to announce the winners here, and we encourage you to read all of these stories in their entirety on our website at http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/contest/contestresults.html. Our Creative Minds Poetry Contest is now open through July 12, 2013. Read submission guidelines and enter online at http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/contest/creativeminds.html. First Place Paper Cranes for Japan In the fifteen minutes before homeroom ends, you and Liz sit cramped and cross legged on the carpet, folding paper cranes. Hundreds of the birds lie on their sides all around you. They remind you of flowers strewn across the pavement, after a wedding has passed through. Two days ago, everyone heard on the television about Japan—and you saw the pictures, of smoke pouring out of a power plant and clogging up the sky, of a home swallowed up and regurgitated onto the beach as a dollhouse in its pieces. You remembered the times when your parents used to drive out to the coast so you could see the ocean, and how you and your mother would scour sand because it was a graveyard, filled with glass and the corpses of jellyfish, with wood bleached so white you thought it was bones. “No Americans dead,” they said on TV. The next day at school, Mr. Anderson announced in homeroom that you were supposed to make paper cranes for the class to send in, and then an organization would donate two dollars to Japan for each bird. When first period starts, you fold one more crane and take it home, where you hang it on a white string above your bed. At night you watch it spin in circles, slowly turning to face you. ❃ You are cynical about the divorce. When Liz asks you if you are okay about it, you say something along the lines of, “Fifty percent of the marriages in this country get divorced, and your parents are still together, so I guess it makes sense.” You wish you could take it back. Hesitantly, Liz says: “Let me know if you need anything, okay?” “Okay,” you say. That evening, you lie on top of the covers on your bed and mouth the word you forgot to say. Thanks. ❃ What gets you most about the whole thing, about the divorce, was how, when your mom told you over breakfast one morning what was going on, she said they had actually waited to tell you. You looked to your dad. Your dad, sitting across 44 imagine by Hannah Knowles the table right next to your mom—like a team, you thought numbly—was nodding. And while your mom went on about how most things are going to stay the same, all you could do was wonder how long it had been since they decided. You watched your mom’s hands as they twisted back and forth and into each other. You wanted to reach out for the hands and grab them hard and hold them still—but it was like in that dream everyone has, the reoccurring one where you can’t seem to move. ❃ At three in the morning your dad pokes his head around your door. You look up at him and say what you always say: I couldn’t sleep. “It’s hot in here,” he says. “How about I turn on the fan?” And you say no thanks, but after he leaves and closes the door, you get up and flip it on. The fan beats overhead at a steady rhythm, churning shadows on the floor. Suddenly, you remember something. It comes to you as an epiphany, although you can’t place why: Physics class. Period 3. Your science teacher pointed to one of his posters, the cheesy one proclaiming that “Our Great Big Universe Came in with a Bang.” Striding up to the whiteboard with something like excitement, he told the class how some of the stars were so far away from Earth that it took millions, maybe billions of years for their light to even reach us. And he went on to explain in hushed tones what all this meant: the universe was so vast that by the time we actually watched the stars die, they had already fizzled out centuries ago. For years without our knowledge, they were really just lumps, frozen and dark and lonely and cold. ❃ Your grandmother’s funeral is tomorrow. It takes everyone by surprise—puts a halt to all the talk about the divorce. In the wake of your grandmother’s death, everything is strangely normal. How messed up is that, you think to yourself with a vicious sort of relish. Flowers and notes of condolence keep accumulating on your kitchen table. Most of them are for the whole family, but may/Jun 2013 http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/contest/contestresults.html http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/contest/creativeminds.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2013

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2013
Contents
Big Picture
In My Own Words
Code Me In
Getting Started With Computational Problem Solving
Coding for Gold
The Computer Science Connection
Magical & Practical
The Creative, Collaborative Universe of Minecraft
Going Mobile
Connecting Students and Cultures Through Technology
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Words With Friends
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
One Step Ahead
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Creative Minds Imagine
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2013