No. 1 : Endings With Beginnings
Almost four years ago now, Mike and Lyle spent a long summer weekend together, father and son, making a bamboo bike frame in Red Hook. Long hot days, cutting and measuring and gluing. Epoxy sealant and carbon fiber tape.
I was on my way back home from Samuel's birthday party and decided I was gonna take the train back...
I want nothing more than to sleep. My alarm app wakes me up, says I got 9 hours of sleep, says it’s 94% quality sleep but still I’m exhausted. My head is foggy with exhaustion. It seemed so reasonable last night -- wake up early, get things done, walk to work instead of wasting $2.50 on a three subway stop ride.
The decision to move to the back woods of northern Main seemed plausible, romantic, and original. We stocked the green and beige VW van with the Whole Earth Catalog, Five Acres and Independence, Peterson’s Birds of North America and Mushrooms of North America, some rubber boots, and a few blankets.
I want to be spared the wrecking ball, I want to stay in this place, the best place I've ever lived,
in the best city there is to live, forever. But my Brooklyn haven is a precarious nest because it's
slated for demolition.
My children, who I call the dwarfs, at the end of the day, after I've concocted them three meals, sometimes four, have a habit of asking for warm milk and a platlet of fruit or bowl of dried banana.
We shuffle in the grass. Andrea is close to me, much shorter in the dark. There is the smell of wood smoke among the bare trees, it is on the roof of my mouth. We search but there is no rope to see. We get our jeans muddy.
I definitely wasn’t expecting any of this and had no idea the night was going to take such a turn.
At 5 a.m. I heard the phone ring. It must have been the ring’s tail, because as soon as I heard it, it stopped. My first thought — a mistake. I returned to deep sleep snoring like a koala bear, hibernating. And as my body slowly sagged into to la-la land, I tried to revisit my dream, but alas, it was gone!
I live in Israel, Kate in New York. Since our parents died, my trips there have become less and less frequent. I hadn’t seen my sister in eight years. Suddenly she decided to attend my daughter’s wedding.
It hurts him so to see his love in pain that, to keep him from seeing her, he dream builds a very tall ice palace to keep her wandering spirit away from seeing him, from seeing that there is more to him than he lets his words convey.
How is it that you could make us laugh // even in the most dire of times?
Surely I knew, right? That I should be grateful. That I had something — someone — special sitting next to me? Didn’t I? Surely I appreciated the friend who put her life on hold for me.
“Did you ever imagine that Granny’s old oak table would serve this purpose,” I heard my daughter-in-law whisper to her father as she leaned over to him.
Sunrise at the sacred circle of stones. We have joined hands and now we separate with instructions to find the stone that calls to us. Some one else claims the one I was first attracted to.
I wondered about why our eyes change colors. Climbing up and down the wooden ladder of the ship throughout the night as if between the earth and sky.
You told me once,'
The heart has room for only one Lord'
I lean my face forward towards the tall glass of coffee, my nose fits inside the narrow opening with room to spare. The steam fills up my nostrils making my face feel warm a maybe slightly wet too.
I know my heart will never be strong as theirs and my senses never as clear. But for a moment my neurons get to mirror them, and for a moment I get to be much more than I actually am. I raise the mug to take a sip. It’s when I burn my tongue that I realize: I’m just sitting on a chair.
It was a Saturday afternoon. We were exhausted of and from each other. The room was full of anxiety. I guess it was a normal thing to feel if you were living in a new country, had secretly moved in with your also nineteen year old boyfriend and were supporting both financially with the money your parents sent you to pay for school and cover life expenses for one.
The light changes and off you fly, my body is still in yours. Knee touches knee, helmet cheek on helmet head. We’ve barely met. You pick me up from the station. We throw my weekend bag in the apartment. “Do you want to watch the recommended French movie?” you ask. I hesitate, “Yes!”
He came back to bed, bringing one glass of water for the both of them. She took it, quickly sipping a bit. She had no idea what she was supposed to say. She had no idea how she was supposed to feel. But the water was cold, and asked for nothing in return.
She wakes to the sound of sirens and calls out “Madelyn. Let’s go."
It was May. The garden was dressed in luscious greens and the water of the pool glistened outside. The outer porch had been contained with a screen structure. It kept the mosquitoes away and somehow gave the sensation of separating us from the heavy humidity of the air.
Share your story!
Popcorn is a bimonthly zine. We accept any and all submissions from current and former Sense Writing students. Story length should be 1000 words or less, and inspired through the Sense Writing practice. While every submission will not necessarily be featured in the upcoming edition, we are committed to featuring everyone's work eventually.
Edited by Hannah Sparks
Welcome to the refreshed edition of Popcorn! So glad you could stop by. First let me probably be the last person to tell you Happy New Year. My name is Hannah, and I’m new at this, so please humor me and while I employ a predictable if not cliché theme for this issue. This is a resurrected Popcorn with a first-time editor in a not-that-new year, and this newness refuses to be ignored in my mind.
Every story has three main parts: beginning, middle, and end. There’s a story in 2015 that lasted 365 days, culminating on New Year’s Eve. As a society we cherish the notion of starting fresh and second chances, so even the last day of the year is a day devoted to looking forward to the new one a few hours away.
On the other hand we tend to be annoyed by stories that end without clear endings. We don’t like stories to be so much like our lives: irresolute, ongoing, ever-changing. But most authors don’t aim to write stories that make us feel comfortable and safe. They are revealing truths and parallels in life, extrapolating on feelings we didn’t realize could be put into words.
It’s crucial for a story to have a gripping lead-in. If the first sentence doesn’t pique your imagination, there’s little hope the story will be read. But there’s something equally intriguing about stories that leave you feeling there’s more to unfold where the words stop. Many of our Sense Writers are working on larger projects, and what is submitted is only a fragment of a large piece, so it’s natural for some of these stories to leave you with questions. But that doesn’t make its occurrence any less interesting.
Donnaldson Brown’s “The Bamboo Bike” is a story about a father and son building a bike, but more so an reflection of the father Mike. Somewhere in there is a sense of acceptance, but also a feeling that the narrator has discovered a new understanding of the father and their relationship.
“Floor Man” by Megan Heise is an account of a morning invaded by a contractor doing work on her floors. The narrator must decide whether or not to open the door, or else be locked-in. While she knows her responsibilities are on the other side, there is an urge to resist it and stay trapped inside.
Along with Deborah Kaetz’s “Coming to Nova Scotia” and Mateo Lynch Gil's “October Third,” this issue is called Endings with Beginnings, featuring stories that end with an anticipation of a whole new story to come. Because everyone loves a redemption story.