Righteousness

I think we often underestimate the freedom Christ gives us. Can you imagine complete freedom? That is what we have. We have NOTHING to be ashamed of, not a thing. Did you read your Bible today? Did you get on your knees and pray before you went to bed last night? Have you lived sinlessly today? If the answer is no to any of these questions, the truth remains: it doesn't matter. God loves you anyway. There are no but's or if's.
Regardless, we still experience feelings of guilt and shame all the time. But here is where the unbelievable truth comes in and smacks your face like ice cold water: there is no reason for us to feel that way. If we have repented of our sins and chosen to walk with the Lord in righteousness.

Romans 8:1-2 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

I wish I believed this all the time. The implications of this are incomprehensible, maybe. I stand amazed, righteous, faultless, wholly accepted. How great is our God.

Weird dream

Just had a dream that I was seeing different doctors to try to figure out what was wrong with my knee (based on real life). One of the doctors did a bogus blood test in which he drew a tiny amount of blood from my arm with a pair of scissors, and then proceeded to tell me that I was succumbing to alcoholism, and that brain cancer was inevitable if I kept things up.

Really weird.

Wolves in the City

            On the 7^th of September, 1946, Kathryn watched as Lucy Delamar showed up at the girls’ orphanage on 22^nd Street to collect a child. She observed as Aunt Judy, the main caretaker at the girls’ orphanage in London, greeted Ms. Delamar with a steely handshake and the same solemn look she gave all strangers that could be mistaken for hardness, but which the girls understood to be motivated by a genuine concern for her orphans; to them, it was a dependable sign of her good character.

Aunt Judy glanced at Kathryn out of the corner of her eye as Lucy wandered into the orphanage and made petty attempts to converse playfully with the timid children. Kathryn, a quiet but observant seven year old, detected something like sympathy in Aunt Judy’s eyes. It was a look that assured Kathryn that this visitor, a thirty-something-year-old woman with graying dark hair and a worrisome countenance, did not mean any ill will toward the children. She simply had a certain way about her that was off-putting. So, while the other girls naturally avoided her, Kathryn paid her some attention, and responded to her nervous giggles and winks with a faraway smile.

            “I would be most grateful to take care of that adorable blond-headed girl,” said Lucy to the caretaker at the conclusion of her tour of the orphanage. “I have all my documents and accreditations here. Do you think she would like to go with me?”

            Aunt Judy, finding no fatal flaw in the fidgeting woman, confirmed the documents and asked Kathryn if she approved the adoption. Kathryn hesitated a minute, glancing around at the other girls who were cleaning the dishes from their breakfast or playing with each others’ hair. She never knew until that moment that she had always yearned for a home, nor the extent to which she cared for Aunt Judy and the other girls.

She looked at Aunt Judy and said, “Can I come back and visit sometimes?”

“You will be welcome here whenever you want,” Aunt Judy replied. “Do you want to live with Ms. Delamar?”

Kathryn nodded. She packed all her clothes and belongings into two large suitcases, hugged everyone, and followed Lucy out of the orphanage.

            Thus the two walked the streets of London all the way back to Lucy’s shadowy, foreboding flat on 61^st Street. The walk covered two miles, and required nearly an hour and a half of awkward conversation. Whenever Kathryn found a moment of calm among the endless waves of Lucy’s chatter, revealed her favorite foods, her favorite pastimes, and the friendships she would miss the most. Lucy talked about everything. More than anything, she talked about the war. She said it was a tough time, and that she was grateful to have made it through alive.

“Do you have a family?” Kathryn asked innocently.

“No. I never did have children, and I am painfully lonely now. I married Gerald just before the war, and it would have been hard to have children when he left for France. He was away most of the time for five years. We were so happy when the war was over; it was so awful living through that, especially toward the end. On the radio, in the streets, it was constant fear. Was it safe to be in the city in light of all the other German air raids in England? We never felt safe, and we never were safe. And then, the war ended and Gerald returned home. We were so happy…” Her voice trailed off. When she finished, she spoke quietly, trying to hold herself together. “But, of course, we were never safe.”

She then recounted the story of a mysterious group of officers or policemen who came in the night and invaded her flat shortly after Gerald’s return. She woke to the sound of them in the next room, yelling,“Where is it? Where are the documents?”. As she turned in a panic to confide in her husband, she found his side of the bed vacant. In a cold sweat, she rose from her bed and rushed into the living room. She found dishes broken on the wood floor, the sofa turned on its side, papers and every other object in the flat littering the floor everywhere. Standing in the darkness, which was more profound than it ever seemed before, were four unidentifiable officers holding securing her husband with his hands behind his back. One officer had a gun drawn at his back. Gerald replied, very calmly, that he didn’t know about any POW documents, that he was never involved in any POW camps, and that they were looking for a different man. “We know who we’re looking for, Mr. Delamar” one officer said. “You’re coming with us for some interrogation.” And with that, the four officers forced Gerald out of the flat. Lucy had run out into the street after him, begging the officers that there was surely some mistake, and that what they were doing certainly could not be allowed. They shoved her away like a bothersome dog and told her to go home and that she would get her husband back once they got some facts straightened out. But, more than a year had passed and she still hadn’t seen Gerald or heard anything about him.

“Who were the men that took your husband?” Kathryn asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Wolves. Filthy, despicable wolves. They said they’d bring him back, but they never have, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see my Gerald again. One thing I’ve learned, Kathryn, is it’s not safe to trust anyone anymore. The world is full of wolves.”

            Kathryn was thankful when they arrived at Lucy’s flat on 61^st Street. The façade was covered in sooty brick, disappointingly ordinary, and the inside was neat. Lucy used only lamps; all the furniture was a touch too dusty, and seemed to be, like Lucy, surviving the aftermath of the war. She took her to the bedroom in the back of the flat, opening the door to a pair of twin beds with oak frames and an oak work desk at the foot of the beds that looked like it predated the Victorian Era. A mess of papers decorated the top of the desk, and it was only then that Kathryn thought to ask the woman what she did for a living.

            “I work a few hours each morning at a quilting factory a few blocks down the street. I’m on an assembly line—it’s all women—and we make quilts and blankets to be sold to everyone else. It’s a good job. Calm. Everyone needs blankets, especially in the winter, as I’m sure you know.”

            “Are you going to teach me my lessons like Aunt Judy?”

            “No, dear, you will go to the Anglican school down the road.”

            “Will I have any friends to play with out in the street?” said Kathryn.

            “I’m sure the teachers will let you play outside, but I can’t tolerate it. As soon as your school finishes every afternoon, you are to return immediately home. Make no stops on the way back, and should anyone try to speak to you, you should reply with a curt nod or a slight grin. But never be too open or too closed off; never an inviting smile or a rude look, just simple acknowledgment. Nothing to draw attention to yourself. If any man acting suspiciously tries to say something to you, you should ignore him completely and continue toward the house. But never change the speed of your walk, and never do anything to acknowledge his presence—if a man should ever bother you during your walk to or from school. In the morning, you will walk with the neighbors to school. They leave at 7:15 every morning. In the afternoon, you will do as I just said, and I will be awaiting you just inside the window. You mustn’t be even five minutes late, or I will begin to fret.”

            “Is London very dangerous?” Kathryn asked.

            “Very dangerous,” Lucy said. “You can’t trust anyone strange. The neighbors and the schoolteachers I trust, but no one else.”

            Lucy paused as she noticed what morbid fear she was planting in the young girl’s mind. She tried to assuage the girl somewhat with a chuckle and a smile. She reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder with a stiff hand. “I don’t want you to feel like a prisoner here. Of course you can go out in the street to play, as long as I’m here to watch you. It’s just that everything that happened to me during the war has taught me to be careful. The intruders, I mean. You have to keep a tight grip on the things you love. The world is full of wolves.”

            “I’ve never seen a wolf,” Kathryn said. “Well, I have, in some of the lesson books Aunt Judy used with us, but never in real life.”

            “Oh, dear! They are beastly animals. But I confess, I have never seen one either. My dear, have you ever heard of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’?”

“I’ve heard Aunt Judy mention it before, but I don’t know what it’s about.”

“It’s about a young girl who is not careful enough, so she is fooled by a wolf that would have eaten her had she not called out for help just in time for the woodsman to save her. I will have to show you the picture book sometime. The pictures make it better.”

            And so Kathryn grew up under the anxious eye of Lucy Delamar. At first, the woman tried to entertain Kathryn with pleasant conversation, but this receded after a few months. More and more, Kathryn began to see that her new mother was a tedious bore, who complained if she tarried after school, never let her leave the flat, and never let her have friends over to play—not even the neighbors. She was a complete recluse. In the afternoons, she peeked through the thin lace curtains, waiting for Kathryn to come in after school. When the girl came inside, she drew the blinds and flipped on a solitary lamp on the kitchen counter. The house was in a perpetual state of gloomy dusk. On a normal day, Kathryn entered the house with small, morose footsteps, spoke a few words with her mother, and headed straight for her bedroom, where she would flip on a lamp on the desk Lucy had bought for her to attend to her studies. She passed the evening hours of boredom with homework and novel reading. She preferred whatever room her mother was not in: as Lucy spent most of the evening cooking, Kathryn spent most of her time reading at her desk. After dinner, when Lucy retired to her room to read the newspaper before going to sleep early, Kathryn wandered into the living room and turned on the radio just loud enough to hear it. She sometimes listened to the news, but more often preferred the popular music channels.

            Lucy’s restlessness extended to her sleeping hours, so that often she would wake up every couple hours, which disturbed Kathryn from her already uneasy sleep. Some nights, Kathryn got in the habit of sleeping on the couch in the living room. The couch, with its old, worn-down cushions and cotton fabric, was draped in numerous soft, warm blankets. It was easily the best feature of the flat, and Kathryn slept better on it than in her rigid bed.

            Kathryn had but one close friendship at her school, a girl named Azhine, who was a quiet, small girl with piercing brown eyes and thin eyebrows that stretched perfectly away from the bridge of her nose toward her temples. Kathryn didn’t know whether she was born in England, but from the brown tint of her skin and the look of her face, she had decided Azhine was Indian or Middle Eastern. Kathryn convinced Lucy to let her come see the flat a few times, but eventually Azhine began to find excuses to avoid the house. Maybe it was the incessant questions Lucy asked about the girl’s family, her upbringing, her schoolwork and extracurricular activities. What was her parents’ involvement in the war? Why had she moved to London? Kathryn noticed that her mother asked a lot of questions; in fact, that was just about the only way Lucy knew to communicate with people—particularly strangers. Before long, Kathryn stopped asking Azhine to come over, and the friendship dwindled into little more than an occasional word between class lessons or a quiet lunch in the cafeteria.

            During the first two years of Kathryn’s life on 61^st Street, she visited the orphanage on a few occasions, the frequency diminishing over time. During her final visit, Mrs. Judy asked her how was she doing at Lucy’s house, at school, with new friends?

            “I’m doing pretty well,” Kathryn replied with a small, but perceptible hesitation. “My classes are very entertaining, and I have one friend named Azhine, who moved here from Bristol and started school the same time I did.”

            “What about Lucy?”

            “She’s okay, I suppose. She’s nice enough, I think, although sometimes she vexes me so much I want to scream. I usually don’t speak to her much.”

            “Why does she vex you?”

            “She gets angry if I forget to lock the door. It’s hard to have a conversation with her because she talks all the time, and as soon as you say something, she’s talking again. And she asks so many questions. She is such a bore, and sometimes I wish I had not gone with her.”

            Aunt Judy firm jaw and tensed lips slackened just enough for Kathryn to notice. “I’m sorry to hear that, dear. Unfortunately, I have no control over you anymore; you belong to Ms. Delamar. I would advise you to pick up some activities or sports outside of school and to try to make some new friends. I’m glad you have Azhine; she sounds like a nice girl.”

            “Thanks, Aunt Judy. It wouldn’t be so bad if she didn’t keep me locked up in the house so much.”

            Aunt Judy stared at Kathryn until the young girl was positively unsure if the caretaker was going to say anything or not.

            “I’ll have a talk with her soon,” Aunt Judy said. “I’m glad you came back to see us today. Go along now; your mother is outside waiting for you.”

            Aunt Judy came to the flat a few days after the visit. Kathryn was planning on eavesdropping on the conversation between the two women from behind her bedroom door, but their voices suddenly disappeared. When Kathryn opened her bedroom door, she realized they had stepped just outside the door of the apartment so they could talk in privacy. She tried to hear what they were saying through the door, but couldn’t make out anything. Defeated, she went back to her room to read.

            So she passed eight years of her life in that dull house. Her eyes grew dim from both the darkness of the house and the gloomy presence of her mother Lucy, who watched over the house like a restless owl. Although only forty-three, Ms. Delamar had the appearance of a lady of sixty, the years of stress after the war reducing her to a creeping, sulking shadow. Kathryn was now fifteen. She carried herself with a slow, defeated air, although without any self-consciousness. She lived in misery, yet she was not without hope.

            At about six-o-clock one evening, a knock came at the door. From Lucy’s custom, Kathryn knew to ignore the visitor until he or she went away. But Ms. Delamar was in her room, door closed, and Kathryn had a desperate curiosity to interact with anyone; anything would be better than the tiredness she felt. But she couldn’t bring herself to stand from her position on the couch. She waited.

            “Milk delivery!” came a young man’s voice from outside the door, after waiting a minute with no response.

            Taking this unfamiliar voice as a fateful reason to break the monotonous habit of ignoring all visitors, Kathryn rushed to the door to greet the young man—a boy, maybe two years older than her.

            “Will you buy some milk?” he said. His face shone with a jovial enthusiasm so foreign to Kathryn, which she could only return with a weak grin and a frail voice.

            “I don’t know,” she said. “Wait, let me go ask my mo—”

            “Well, look here,” he interrupted. “This is a new job, and I’m a new boy at the job. Normally a quart of milk will cost you sixpence, but it’s a fine day, and you’re a fine young lady, and I can feel myself nearly bursting with good will. So, I’m going to give you this quart free of charge.”

            Kathryn had grown to be a lovely creature despite her imprisonment in Lucy’s melancholy apartment. Her blonde hair had turned golden, she had grown tall and slender, her cheekbones naturally high and friendly, and her skin, though pale, was exceedingly soft. Only her droopy eyes betrayed the gloom that had dragged her spirit along the past eight years. But this young man, apparently, found her blue eyes ever more inspiring, for he said, “My name is Marcus. Whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

            “Kathryn,” said the girl.

            He reached out a hand to give hers a kind squeeze. “A joy to meet you, Kathryn.” He handed her the quart of milk.

            Kathryn said, “Why, I don’t know how to thank you…”

            “Only with your jolly presence, dear,” he said. “I’ll have you know this is the new custom, this milk delivery, and I’ll be at your service every Monday and Thursday at the same time. Goodbye, now!”

            With that, he scurried off through the modest garden to the next door, and greeted them with equal enthusiasm. Before the girl had time to think about what a curious fellow she had just encountered, the foreboding voice of her mother travelled across the room. “What have I told you about opening the door to strangers?” She tried to keep the exasperation from her countenance, but those eyes, wide and strained from years of relentless agitation, could not betray her. She stood, hands on hips, facing the girl from the bedroom doorway. “Who was that?”

            “I know, mum, and I’m sorry. I heard his voice from outside after he knocked and I waited a minute without answering. He sounded like a nice enough fellow, so I opened the door. His name is Marcus; there’s nothing the matter with him. He’s a milk delivery boy.”

            “Milk delivery? That’s strange. We’ve never had a milk delivery boy before. You didn’t notice anything peculiar, did you?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “He wasn’t wearing anything funny, was he? Any radios, or suspicious equipment? Any foreign emblems on his clothing? Any concealed packages? He didn’t look German, do you think?”

            “German?” Kathryn said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a German. And I don’t remember seeing any of those other things either.”

            Lucy’s shoulders settled a bit. “Okay. Never answer the door again without consulting me first. We can’t make ourselves vulnerable like that. The world is full of wolves. When you open the door to someone, they find out who you are; they might be told who lives here, but until they match a face to the name, no one’s going to cause you harm. Leave him be from now on, and he’ll eventually lose patience for an answer.”

            Kathryn had heard this countless times before. Flustered, she said, “Mum, no one is out to get you. The war ended ten years ago. No one ever comes here, anyway. Who would want to? The curtains are always drawn. It’s like a crypt in this place. If anything, you should be happy for visitors, because maybe—just maybe—they would ease your loneliness and help you to forget what happened to your husband. Who knows but that he’s not still alive, hoping to return to you. All the harmless people you’re so afraid of could be the one link you have to him.”

            Kathryn knew she shouldn’t have said it. She knew from her Current Events classes in school that there was not a great chance that Gerald was still alive. But she needed to vent her frustration somehow. There was no talking sense into that woman.

            “Gerald is gone,” said Lucy Delamar. “I have come to accept it, and I don’t want to hear anymore about it. What I have to do now is protect the things I do have: you and myself.”

            Kathryn wanted to tell her mum that she was doing more harm than good, that she wasn’t protecting her from anyone; but she refrained. Instead, she muttered a tired agreement and withdrew into her bedroom.

            The next time Marcus came for delivery, Kathryn had the good fortune of being alone in the living room, her mother in the bedroom behind a closed door. To her added luck, she was able to hear the boy approaching from down the street, so that she rose to open the door for him before he could knock. As soon as she peaked her head out the door, he opened his mouth to greet her with a loud and cordial remark, but Kathryn silenced him with a sharp glance before he could speak. “We must converse very softly,” she said.  She continued to explain to him her mother’s wary condition, and together, they agreed that from that point on, Marcus would tap lightly on the window following a specific rhythm. That way, if Lucy was in the living room and heard the knock, he could be out of view of the front door within a second. If, however, it was safe for Kathryn to open the door, the rhythmic tap would be just enough for her to recognize.

            For a month, Kathryn and Marcus chatted just outside the front door of Lucy Delamar’s flat on 61^st street, every Monday and Thursday at 6:00 in the afternoon. There were three exceptions, owing either to Lucy’s presence in the living room or the door to the bedroom being left open, but Kathryn didn’t much fear her mum. Marcus’s spritely arrival became her central entertainment, the ten or fifteen minutes a week that she anticipated on the edge of the sofa, always darting glances from the bedroom door to the front door, to the window and back. Her short chats outside the doorway with Marcus became her one brake from the monotony of her otherwise boring life. When Marcus rapped on the window, she felt like the children in the primary school at the end of the street when they were allowed to leave the classrooms for playtime. She contented herself listening to his stories and basking in his talkative energy. The few words she spoke were met with profound interest and curiosity; for once, she felt like she was caught up in something good, something exciting.

            “Some of my friends and I put on amateur shows every few weeks at the Derbyshire Theatre,” he said after a month of his visits. “One girl in the group, Charlotte, has an uncle who is in charge for renting out the theater to different professionals. Well, he’s arranged a deal to let us perform free of charge. We’re doing a few short skits this coming Sunday at 8:00 at night. You’d be wise to please us with your shining face.”

            She nodded in a state of near rapture. Of course she would go.

            As Lucy was in the custom of going to bed early, Sunday nights were especially early nights. Lucy peeked her head into the living room to say good night to Kathryn at 8:30. Kathryn stared at the crack under the door until the light from within was extinguished; then, she stole silently out the front door into the cold night, locking the door at her back. She trotted the five blocks to the theatre, all the while praying she wouldn’t be too late to catch at least one or two skits. The door to the theatre was unlocked, but there was no one at the window to sell tickets, no one in the lobby to direct the spectators into the theatre. Kathryn found it easily enough; the stage was dimly lit, the cheap, gray kind of light you’d expect at a rehearsal. There were no more than thirty visitors seated in the theatre, and although the audience was caked in near blackness, Kathryn chose a solitary seat in the rear, too timid to risk drawing attention to herself by moving closer to stage. To her delight, the young performers played on till after 10, and seemed charged with a spirit of youth.

            When the acting ended, the band of amateurs disbursed. Some hopped offstage and struck up conversation with folks in the audience, some formed small cliques onstage, and others, like Marcus, disappeared somewhere backstage. Kathryn’s heart raced to see Marcus in this new and romantic setting, so she waited twenty minutes for him to reappear onstage. When the frightful idea seized her that maybe he had exited some unseen route, she raced out the front and waited ten minutes more in the cold, stale street, but he never appeared.

            She resolved to reenter the theater and try her luck once more, but before she pulled open the door, she heard a crash nearby, like the sound you would imagine if a dog knocked over a tin garbage can. The crash was accompanied by two arguing voices: a man and a woman. She followed the sound cautiously, her stomach fluttering within her. She stopped at the opening of a narrow alley behind the theater. The woman she had heard was a young brown-headed girl with exceptionally pale skin, and the male voice that had drawn her attention belonged to none other than her boy Marcus. Unsure what was happening, Kathryn offered him a wave, but he was too occupied in his conversation with the brunette to notice her. Kathryn parted her lips bravely to call out to him, but hesitated, wondering whether it might be bothersome for her to interrupt him. Maybe this was his girlfriend; in that case, it might be awkward for Kathryn to call his attention, especially from her position at the opposite end of the alley.

            She had just decided she would take a frigid, half-defeated walk back to her flat when she heard Marcus raise his voice to the girl, his words spitting with a biting malice, “So you thought I wouldn’t find out? You think it’s okay to betray my confidence like that; at the least, you could have come to me first. You have no idea how little I have to live on, let alone to spend on hobbies. You have quite the nerve, you worthless slut. You ought to show me your tongue right now, so I can crush it with a pair of bricks. That would shut you up.”

            The brunette got close up to Marcus’s face, her own face contorted with rage and fear. “You think you own the world, don’t you? Well, you don’t.. Stealing is always wrong, Marcus. You should be fired for this, you know. I should tell Josh you’ve been stealing other boys’ delivery money, and using it on whores all over the town! You are a brute and a pig.” Her tensed finger was cutting through the air dangerously close to his eyeball.

            Kathryn watched the scene, her eyes transfixed. Too shocked to move, she watched as Marcus’s face quivered almost imperceptibly, and in a swift motion, he tensed his arm and swung a flat hand into the brunette’s face.

            “I will not tolerate that kind of disrespect,” he said to the girl, who was bent over, nursing her bruised face in both hands. In another equally swift movement, he reached to the ground, picked up a brick, and struck her a vicious blow to the side of the head. Kathryn heard the crack of the brick on bone 30 meters down the alley, a horrific audible collision.  Kathryn watched in horror as the young girl fell to the ground unconscious from the force of the blow. She turned her head, overwhelmed and scared, before the brunette’s limp body sank onto the street, blood soaking through her hair the moment Marcus hit her.

Marcus left the brunette in the alley and fled from the scene in the opposite direction. When he was out of sight, Kathryn ran toward the scene of the altercation to find the girl semi-conscious near the doorway of what she guessed was the theater’s back door. Her eyes were flickering open and closed, never more than a wink, and her lips were quivering soundlessly, as if trying in vain to say something. The left side of her head was smeared with blood, some starting to dry and some still fresh, centered around a brown, black, and purple swelling starting at the ear and extending to the corner of her eye. Kathryn shook the girl softly on the shoulder and asked if she was okay. When the girl made no response other than the sporadic facial movements, Kathryn yelled for help, timidly at first, but with increasing volume. A tall man with a lot of facial hair, a long black coat and a large black hat rushed into the alley toward the two girls. He asked Kathryn what had happened and said he would call the police and take care of everything.

            Kathryn left the alley and walked quickly back to the flat on 61^st Street. All she could think of was Marcus standing in front of the brunette with the brick in his hand, telling her he should smash her tongue in that menacing voice, the same voice that had sounded so completely foreign when he used it to flatter her all those times outside her apartment. Her quiet sobs stirred the London night as her mind replayed images of Marcus. She was haunted by two different people: Marcus the milk delivery boy and Marcus the criminal.

When she made it back to the flat, she closed the door and dead-bolted it behind her. Lucy was standing in the middle of the living room.

            “Where on earth have you been?” she said.

            Kathryn could barely make out her face in the dim light—the kitchen lamp needed repairing. For the first time, she was not annoyed to see the concern on her mother’s face. She wanted to cry, to fall apart right there in front of Lucy, to tell her mother everything and embrace her and feel her warmth and drink her comfort. But she couldn’t. Instead, she said the only thing that really made sense to her in that moment, the only thing she could muster up. “Wolves,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “The world is full of them.”

            Lucy approached her daughter Kathryn and embraced her, a warm and tight embrace.

            “I’m so sorry,” Kathryn said, and she wept into her mother’s shoulder.

           

"Spanish Moss" by Ethan

            “Spanish Moss” by Ethan is about an irresponsible high school guy named Trig who goes to the creek with his friends Tommy and Blake to ditch school. We can assume that Trig is a very wealthy person, since both of his parents are doctors There is definitely an element of freedom Trig lives in: his parents leave for work in the mornings early enough for Trig to decide to skip school. In other words, Trig can do whatever he wants. This one particular day during the summer before high school, Trig and his friends go to the creek with some marijuana Tommy bought from a neighbor. While high, they find a bag with a dead child’s body in it, and it haunts them ever after.

            I really like the plot of this story. It’s not the ending I expected, but that adds to the creativity of the story. I think the characterization is solid, especially Blake, whose parents are more protective than Trig’s and Tommy’s, and who is more obsessive as a result. This is particularly evident in the way Blake is planning ahead, insisting on bringing the eye drops and beverages because he knows the weed will dry them up. This comes out too when they get high and Blake seems to become paranoid. Tommy’s character is also well done in his over-the-top behavior. The one character I don’t know well is the protagonist, Trig, who should be more accessible than the others, since he is narrating the story in first person.

            In a story like this, I think the setting is vital. Ethan has chosen to name the title after the Spanish moss that hangs over the creek beside which they discover this horrible dead body. Ultimately, I think this is a horror story, and the setting should be adapted to invoke the atmosphere of horror. This element does not have to be overpowering to be effective; it could be as simple as adding a few dark words to hint at the haunting that’s coming. As the story stands now, the Spanish moss doesn’t really do enough for the setting to warrant its position in the title.

"As big as light" by Robert

            “As Big as Light” by Robert is about an old house servant with dementia or some other condition that causes him to lose his memory. Taking the advice of a doctor, he writes down his memories so he won’t lose them completely. He recalls one memory from his time as a servant in which Adrian Huxley, the artistic son of the wealthy businessman James Huxley, talks to him about his dying mother and his stressed relationship with his father.

            Robert’s story is very nicely written. It reads smoothly, has great images, great language and a good sense of setting. Dean, the house servant, gives us some really good descriptions of the Huxley Manor, which are made even more precious by the great effort he exerts to furnish them.  I loved the description of Adrian’s domino portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, partly because of the point of view he tells it from and partly because of the rich detail. I think seeing this wealthy family and their interrelations from this aging servant’s point of view gives the story a really raw and powerful literary element. He gives us a view of the family’s most intimate reality, the story of the wealthy, seemingly perfect family that only someone like a servant could know.

            I think there are a lot of things Robert could do with this story, and if he does any of them with the same finesse in the existing story, it will be good. There’s nothing I would take out; I think everything works to reveal character, mood, and setting. I think it might be good to know what kind of person James Huxley really is: is he really hateful and not accepting of his son, or is this more a product of the emotional stress of the dying Mrs. Huxley? At the end, it appears Adrian has transformed from a boy to a man. I’m not sure there’s quite enough going on to understand how this came to be. Also, I’m not sure if the end is saying a boy’s tears are too sacred to lose or if certain tears are too sacred. All around, a really solid story.

"A Dream" by JJ

            I read “A Dream” by J.J. as a psychological narrative about a young man named Gabriel who is in a heavy depression. But of course, I am always looking for a psychological story, so maybe I am misreading it. The timeline of his life is a bit difficult to trace, but it sounds like he came out of a damaging relationship, then went to the United States Military Academy, then transferred to Columbia. He feels socially alienated, has low self-esteem, and persists in smoking weed, which seems to keep him trapped in a destructive cycle. He seems to associate hope with colors; whenever the fog lifts from his mind he immediately begins to see colors. At the end, he is inspired to write a story about a guy that is able to be there for a hallucinating girl who needs him as much as he needs her.

            This is a very well written story with some great dialogue and some unnecessary dialogue, and some very interesting internal thoughts from the protagonist, Gabriel. His friends, who are all stoners like him, seem to be pretty shallow. Gabriel, on the other hand, seems to be complex. On the one hand, he seems to really be grasping for the “colors” that he finds on certain special occasions, which inspires him to write; but on the other hand, he seems only interested in sleeping and smoking weed. I’d like to see some of these other characters somehow showing they are more than just stoners. Chances are, they are just as interesting as Gabriel, but I can see no hint of this. They all seemed confused, like they are in the “dream” that Gabriel finds himself in.

            The rainbow/colors motif is really beautiful, and even though it might be in the context of drug abuse, it is still a really tangible and relatable to explain the happiness and sanity the protagonist sometimes feels. There are a few characters that seem to be more important to Gabe than others: the blond girl near the beginning, the ex-girlfriend, and the girl at the end. These might even be one and the same person, but it’s impossible to tell. I’d like to know how all these characters are related. I also want to know why he went to military academy and what happened in his last relationship.

"Dreams and Reality" by Lauren B.

            “Dreams and Reality” by Lauren Barkley is a story about a high school senior Luke from Minnesota who wants to play college baseball in Mississippi. He takes the money he has saved up and flies to Mississippi against his parents’ will. Before he leaves, he tells his friend Eric that he will get in touch with him if something goes wrong. Sure enough, he gets to Mississippi, makes it through the first day of tryouts after a poor performance on the field, and tells Eric he is going to fly back home to Rochester because he has failed at his attempt to make it in college baseball. He goes into the tryout already unsteady and intimidated by what the coach says to him, such as the difficulty he will encounter coming from the high school world to the collegiate stage. When he comes home, he apologizes to his parents, telling them he did everything wrong and that he never should have left. To his pleasant surprise, his father got plane tickets to fly back to Mississippi, where I assume he will give it another shot, this time with his dad’s support.

            I think the story offers an interesting change that comes quickly over the character. This seems to be an impulsive character: his decision to fly to Mississippi alone was impulsive, as well as his frustrated return to his hometown.

            I think the story needs some work to make it more believable. Show us why he chose Mississippi, of all places, and what things influenced him to make this decision. Why couldn’t he have played baseball closer to home and still worked on his father’s farm? Also, does he have a scholarship or is he just wanting to get one? And if he does already have a scholarship secured, specify whether it is academic or athletic. If it’s a baseball scholarship, he probably will not be flying down just to try out for the team. He would already be on the team. Specify what exactly is going on here. Lastly, I think “tryout” is a more appropriate word than “audition” for something sports-related.

Response to "Aveux" by Taylor

            “Aveux” by Thomas Hardy is an emotionally charged story about a single father, Vince, and his struggle to raise his daughter Amelia to become a better person than he is. He considers himself a terrible person, yet he is unable or unwilling to break down and change, as he believes he must be strong to raise Amelia right. He is also inwardly torn apart by the guilt he feels over Amelia’s mother’s suicide. The story ends with his current romantic interest, Erica, shooting herself and framing the death on Vince. After the jury declares him not guilty, he promises to move with Amelia to Paris, and it is through her that he holds onto hope.

            Much like Taylor’s last story of the hotel manager, “Aveux” is driven by a selfish protagonist who realizes his own depravity yet continues to live in it. I fell for the protagonist; I thought he was complex and sincere and even hilarious, while at the same time being selfish and miserable. I think it’s remarkable how this characterizes human nature so exactly; and even if Vince is an exaggeration of this character, we can all sympathize with him. I laughed out loud when Erica asked Vince if he would leave her if not for the sex, and he replied, “You don’t even want to know the answer to that.” It’s always best to write about the stuff you know, and I think the legal aspect you have implemented in the story works really well and makes it even believable in addition to just heavy.

            There are some simple grammar errors that need fixing, particularly with capitalization (Shadow, the dog, should always be capitalized; church shouldn’t unless it’s the name of the church, etc.). A thorough read-through should fix those issues. I’d like to get a better idea about what was going on between Vince and Becca. It’s not clear whether she killed herself because of her religious hypocrisy or if she couldn’t stand being with Vince. Vince says he loved going home to his family after work, but clearly things were not well if Becca was so depressed and even having affairs to try to fill the void in her life. I think there are some very complex things going on in their relationship and would like to see those things explored.

Response to "Whatever Gods May Be" by Kody

            “Whatever Gods May Be” is a really powerful story about a small-town family and their religious journey. Thomas Abrams and his wife Bethany are deeply involved in the community church, and Thomas takes on the new role as the pastor. At first, it is a new profession that he enters with anxiety, but after awhile he gains confidence and falls in love with the pastoral duty. Complications start when Thomas finds out his wife is pregnant with a boy. He goes to Scripture for encouragement, but instead finds himself becoming increasingly doubtful and uncertain. The passage that particularly troubles him is the one in which Abraham is instructed by God to kill his son Isaac. His doubts only grow stronger, and the story ends with Thomas renouncing his position as minister, his wife remaining faithful by his side, and the birth of the son they name “Thomas” after both the father and the doubting Thomas of the New Testament.

            I loved this story, and I thought the atmosphere of it was very accurate to the small town it described. I could really see the shocked faces in the congregation and the elusive eyes after the service when Thomas told the ambiguous story of the apostle Thomas and later renounced his pastoral duty. I could also visualize the scene where Thomas comes home to a fried chicken dinner, before finding out the news that Bethany is pregnant; I also really like the description of their celebration at this news. I also thought the counseling meetings between Thomas and Russell and between Thomas and Bert Jenkins were also realistic and true to how such a pastoral meeting would actually transpire.

            There are a few characters that I would like to see more in the story. The Johnsons, for example seem vital to the story, as it is the grandmother Mrs. Johnson that gives Thomas the advice to follow his soul; I don’t feel like I know these people intimately enough. The same goes for Bert Jenkins and even Bethany. I think that realistically, Bethany would be a bit more hesitant at her husband’s decision to renounce his faith. I’d like to see this conflict fledged out more.

Response to "Casting Shadows" by Jeremy

            “Casting Shadows” is about a girl named Itami Aganie, who wakes up in a hospital bed. She is soon approached by a man named Kain, who instructs his apprentice Kage Hikari to train Itami. Kage tells her she’s now a Shinigami, meaning she is dead, and he soon takes her to Purgatory. She overhears a conversation between Kain and another man, in which she finds out that she is a Cultivated, meaning that Kain intentionally killed her because he knew she had a strong soul that he could use after death. Plagued by the idea that she has no choice, Itami decides she must run from everything, from Kain and even from Kage. As she watches Kage fall injured to her own sword, Itami makes the one decision that she thinks is truly her own: she stabs herself to a second death.

            This is an exciting, fast-paced, action-oriented story with fascinating locations. Itami seems to be quite a complex character, because on the one hand, she is scared and angry at the events that have transpired that are out of her control; yet, on the other hand, she is falling in love with Kage, a boy instructed to lord over her until she is a trained Shinigami. Surprisingly, Kage is loyal to his master Kain even when he finds out the detestable ways Kain has brought the Cultivated into Purgatory. I really loved the melodramatic ending, with Itami killing herself to gain control in a world that seems to give her no choice. I also liked the complicated relationship between Itami and Kage, and the suspense we are left with at the end, wondering if they will meet again and, if so, whether they’ll be free agents.

            The difficulty of this story is that a lot of action and characterization must be condensed into fifteen pages. All the events seem to flash by like bursts of light that quickly pass. It could be this factor or the Japanese names that make the story seem like genre fiction rather than literature.

Response to "Untitled" by Jessica

            “Untitled” by Jessica Mullino is about a girl named Andy who has to write a story for class, but her bad procrastinating habits coupled with A.D.D. render her unable to formulate a story. She puts off the story writing with different excuses, ranging from “nine more minutes of peace” to watching TV. In the end, she rushes to finish her story, waiting till the last minute (and probably turning it in late) to write a story about a girl who must write a story for a class but can’t think of an idea.

            It’s neat to see a this frame or mirror story, in which the Andy’s story in the story happens to be the same reality in the Fiction Writing class for which the story is to be written. Furthermore, Andy finally decides to write a story, and the story she writes mirrors her own situation with the school deadline approaching. The frames could continue endlessly.

            I found myself entertained by and very much believing the jumping descriptions of the things Andy sees, which mirror her mental distraction. Her musing is interrupted by trips to the kitchen, her trips to the kitchen bring her to thoughts of dinner, which remind her of the scene that occurs before the story when she spills spaghetti. The overall tone of the story reminds me of the cattiness that is stereotypical of girls living together: the way Andy and Baylor taunt each other. I definitely felt myself immersed in the life of this college girl living with other college girls and the distractions that keep them from completing their schoolwork in a timely manner. This was not accomplished in an immature, childish way either.

            There’s a lot of things that this story needs to make it work. First, it needs more character development; second, the character needs to change in some way. Does the character have any desire other than to brainstorm a story? If not, I don’t think that’s enough. Also, I would think about the verb choices in the story. “She wore a vacant stare” could be made stronger, and a better verb could be substituted in the sentence, “Andy’s boredom and A.D.D. helped her avoid the task,” etc.

Response to "Secret Park" by Cole

            “Secret Park” by Cole Eady is a story about three friends who return to a spot they where they hung out in high school, called the Secret Park. In high school, they went there to smoke cigarettes and drink, but now, they are going there to get the overweight, cigarette-addicted protagonist in decent physical condition. His old buddies, Sean and James, were both athletes in high school, and the protagonist wasn’t. The protagonist seems to compare himself to the other two, particularly James. He is a thirty-year-old chain smoker, while James is a “chiseled” doctor who drives a Mercedes. At the end, the protagonist witnesses a life-threatening scene and makes a discovery that not all is roses in James life, when James stops running, paralyzed by an anaphylactic shock.

            The story is refreshingly original. I like the idea of these old acquaintances returning to a place they used to do “tomfoolery” in high school. It shows us that, while James and Sean have grown up and moved on with their lives, the protagonist feels like he has not made much of himself. I think the story could use some more dialogue to bring out the things that define each character. This would make the characters deeper. I didn’t find much depth or roundness in any character in this story. I’m not even sure if any of the characters experience a change at the end. This is something that should be clarified, and the best and easiest way to do that might be through adding more meaningful dialogue.

            There are some really great word choices scattered throughout the story. The life of a doctor is “sublime,” the narrator “fiddles” with his wristwatch as he lies, the “grueling” final lap, the “drenched Beastie Boys T-shirt that was trickling sweat down onto his shorts.”

            There are also some things that need elaborating, mostly relating to the characters. For instance, at one point the protagonist observes a father and child in the park, and says the father was apathetic toward the child. This seems a little out of place, because we see nothing that shows why the father is apathetic. It seems to say something about the character, as well, to judge the father that way; there needs to be further development of the cynicism of the protagonist.

Response to "Meow" by Cary Bayless

“Meow” by Cary Bayless is a heartbreaking, yet heartwarming story about a young man named Cyril who is likely autistic, and his encounters with pretty girls and with some folks at Captain D’s he considers his friends. Although the character might not be changed at the end of the story, he has definitely arrived on the hopeful end of a realization, the realization that nothing was wrong with Jimmy-Cat, but that Jimmy-Cat is actually a she-cat, that she was pregnant, and had kittens. He views the world with a simplicity that many people are unable to comprehend—particularly the young women in the story, Annie and Kelly. Although he feels like he shouldn’t be sneaking into this girl’s bedroom and reading her diary, he is unable to comprehend why it is so unacceptable, and for this, the girls call him a “creep.”

            I love the first-person perspective Cary tells this story in because it gives us a really powerful view from the mind of the autistic narrator. The descriptions from his point of view are great, particularly the foul smells emanating from the dumpster, the counting sequences, ketchup and mayonnaise and “Jimmy-Cat eating monsters,” as well as Cyril’s detached descriptions of his own feelings about the things that are happening. The other characters, Earl and Annie, are developed through small segments of dialogue that is very effective in making the characters believable, even if the story isn’t about them.

            I’m not sure it’s enough for Cyril to simply go from fear for the cat to joy when he realizes it has had kittens. While everything in the story is believable and works in its place, I feel like something is missing from the story; I’m just not sure what. I think we need to see Cyril more frustrated when he is asked to leave Annie’s apartment, and maybe you could use this internal conflict to show the frustration he’s feeling about his inability to connect to these girls. You could carry that over to his encounter with Earl, maybe having a scene where Earl is trying to figure out why Cyril seems upset. I’d like to see Cyril really learn something, if that’s possible. Also, I think you should change the title: maybe “Fourteen steps” or even just “Cyril.”

"Perfect" by Laurel

            “Perfect” by Laurel is about a young girl who went off to college and intentionally changes her personality to the “perfect” person she idealizes. To complete this transformation, she takes up a rebellious attitude toward her parents, abandons her best friend from high school Darcy, and acts ridiculously coy around guys. She is also portrayed as extremely vain, and I found myself cringing at the awkwardness of the scenes where she is interacting with guys, thinking they’re interested in her when they are really just laughing at her. At the end, sitting alone to a dinner she made for her neighbors, she comes to the realization that she has become a monster. We see her change occurring as she invites her old friend Darcy over to hang out.

            Right off the bat, I would give this girl a name. I don’t think we’re gaining anything by not knowing her name, and things get really confusing, especially in the middle when she is interacting with Carly and her boyfriend in the restaurant. I really like the italicized thoughts of the protagonist; they help exteriorize the self-absorbed nature of this girl. Another thing I found problematic was something we’ve discussed in class before: the character is unlikeable through the entire story. Only at the end do we see her do anything commendable, anything at all that makes us want to route for her. There needs to be at least something that makes us want to see her change, and I didn’t pick up on anything but her vainness in all the content leading up to the realization on the final page.

            While the dialogue is good where it appears, it might be a little too sparse, and in between the dialogue there is too much telling of what the character thinks instead of showing it. The italics are good for showing her thoughts, but a lot of the other descriptions should be transformed into dialogue, or even the narrator talking aloud to herself. Overall, a really grabbing down-to-earth narrative with a character every girl can probably relate to, full of uncomfortable, awkward situations that make the reader long the happy ending that arrives just in time.

"Cats" by Rhamah

            “Cats” by Rhamah is a story about a girl who works at a cat shelter, the owner of the shelter, named Cat Lady, and the two prospective buyers that come to the shelter. The main cat Rhamah focuses on in the story is a little two year old cat named Lily that was abandoned just two weeks before. The first family that comes to the shelter is taken aback by the smell, and before leaving, they almost select Lily to take home, but decide not to when they discover she only has one eye. Rhamah does a good job of characterizing the protagonist and the Cat Lady in this incident: the cat lady is so excited by the idea that a family might be coming to retrieve a cat, but the protagonist wisely determines that they would not make a good home for the pet, because they aren’t willing to put up with the difficulties of owning a cat. The main difference in the two characters, it seems, is the Cat Lady is prone to wishful thinking and dreaminess, while the protagonist is down to earth.

            The boy that comes to the shelter seems to be a genuinely caring person, but Lily repays his kindness with a vicious bite. I see several possible themes working independently in the story: the heartlessness of some people; the cruelty the cats inflict because they have been mistreated; and the inability to know who or what to trust, as we see the trusting boy attacked by the hostile cat. I’d like an ending that shows how these themes might work together and play out, and what the overarching message might be according to the author, whether there is a profound takeaway for us or whether she is just saying you can’t trust cats.

            I loved the descriptions of the cats, the shelter, the people. It was very sensual in its appeal to the visual, the olfactory, and the tactile (I could almost feel allergies coming on). I’d also like to know why the narrator is working at the shelter. Is she a volunteer? Is she doing this as some kind of punishment, or does she actually want to be there? It’s not clear enough from her character as he or she is portrayed in the story.