Bun in the Oven: Flash-Prose Contest Honorable Mention

We are so excited to share our "500 for 500" Flash-Prose Contest honorable mention winner, Dinah Cox. This piece is moving and surprising; we know you'll enjoy it!

Bun in the Oven

Dinah Cox

My old friend Eleanor was getting a divorce. A long time ago, before they were married, I lived with Eleanor and Stan and a bunch of other people in a four-bedroom house owned by the college Eleanor and I attended. Stan was much older, old enough to be considered scandalous, and we kept it under wraps he was living there at all. But he was gentle, the kind of man who played the acoustic guitar and volunteered to cook. These days, they lived in the mountains with their two sons, in a cabin heated only by a wood burning stove. I was dying to know what had precipitated their divorce.

“What happened to Stan?” I said. We were in a bookstore, in the weirdo section, the two of us keeping company with healing aromas and and Dr. Weil and crystals and mushrooms and shit. Eleanor was always a big believer in this or that. I was a doubter. The clash between her made-up mysticism and my unwelcome mockery was, in my mind, one of the most enjoyable parts of our friendship.

“Stan suffers from multiple addictions,” she said. I thought multiple must have meant more than two. Probably he drank a lot and smoked pot and looked at pornography most of the time when he wasn’t at work. Gambling seemed out of character, not to mention strangely anachronistic as addictions went. Maybe he wanted to have too much sex or did something extra-weird like buy too many bongo drums or drink too much cough medicine or make out with strangers in bathroom stalls. Or maybe he took pills. But I’ll admit to disliking the language of addiction and 12-step programs; it seemed a bit pedestrian for someone as adventurous as Eleanor. I wanted to know what he’d done to her.

“When did you know?” I said. “Describe the exact moment.”

“We were working in the garden,” she said, “And he fell asleep under a tree.”

“Yeah,” I said. I could imagine the scene: a row of seedlings waiting to be planted, the boys off catching frogs in the creek, Eleanor up to her elbows in loose tree roots and dirt. His indifference, her loneliness, the boys being boys.

“You ought to buy this,” I said, pointing to a display copy of Stuff Your Pillows with Human Hair. “Just kidding.”

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said, and, in a flash, I remembered something that had happened years ago, when we all lived together in the college-owned house. One of our housemates, a six-foot-something woman from Buffalo, brought home a pizza and didn’t share it with the rest of us. “You’re a big eater,” Stan had said to her. “Bun in the oven?” And at that moment, I’d watched as Eleanor looked at him and said silently I do not love you I cannot love you I will not love you. She had the same look now, only brighter, and more full of ease.

_____________________________________________________________

Dinah Cox's first book, Remarkable: Stories won the fourth annual BOA Short Fiction Prize and is forthcoming from BOA Editions in 2016. Her stories appear in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Salt Hill, Zone 3, Beloit Fiction Journal, J Journal, and elsewhere. She teaches in the English Department at Oklahoma State University where she's also an associate editor at Cimarron Review. 

Contest Winners ANNOUNCED [500 for 500: Flash-Prose Contest]

We received over 200 submissions to the 500 for 500: Flash-Prose Contest this spring. We were overwhelmed by the level of quality and creativity in these small stories, prose-poems, and "others." Thank you so much to everyone who shared their work.

Unfortunately, we could only choose three.

Our judge Catherine Zobal Dent commented on the abundance of talent in the submissions. In the end, she chose these three winners... >drumroll<

Contest winner: 

Jeanne Wagner with "Self-Portrait as a Supermarket Bouquet" 

Honorable Mentions: 

Amy Rossi with "If You Need Me, I Will Be Over Here Listening to 'Slide It In' on Repeat"

Dinah Cox with "Bun in the Oven"

Congratulations to Jeanne, Amy, and Dinah. We were so impressed with these three writers, and we can't wait to share their work with you. 

You can read Jeanne Wagner's flash-prose piece in issue 55 of Hayden's Ferry Review, which will be released in December. Amy Rossi and Dinah Cox will be featured in The Dock later this fall.

Oyster Shells, Broken Bones, and Snow-Houses: A Conversation with Catherine Zobal Dent

In a week we'll be closing our "500 for 500" Flash-Prose contest. We're so excited to have Catherine Zobal Dent, author of Unfinished Stories of Girls, judging the contest.

I first met Catherine five years ago. I was an undergraduate writing major at Susuquehanna University, and Catherine and her partner, Silas, were applying for an Associate Professor position at the SU Writers Institute. To no one's surprise, they got the job. Over the following years, I was fortunate enough to know Catherine first as a professor, and then as an adviser, writing mentor, author, and friend.

Catherine lives a life full of small, daily joys: fresh milk from a nearby farm, a storied and maze-like house that sits next to a graveyard, water balloon fights with her children, a garden that comes to life every spring, and the list goes on.

The stories in Catherine's collection are dark, honest, and magical. Like Catherine, they are full of joys and small, but important, wonders. I am honored to share this conversation on Catherine's work with you.

Dana:   What does it mean to be unfinished?

Catherine:   One American myth that I believed in for way too long involves a finish line.  We race toward it, and the first person to get there is the winner, and the last person—well, good job, you, as long as you finish!  I was pretty competitive when I was a kid.  I played each sport until the end of the season; studied test questions until I knew I had the right answer; stayed in church up to the final note of the recessional; and read novels each night until the flashlight batteries died.  To leave something unfinished was anathema.  I graduated, and I graduated again, and in my early twenties, I happened to start a meditation practice called Vipassana.  The point was to observe the behavior of my breath, my thoughts, nothing more, in order to learn how to live in the moment.  I am embarrassed to admit that, even in this mindful context, I still thought the goal was to finish—to sit the full hours until the last seconds.  I meditated while headaches drilled into my skull like gravediggers hitting rock.  This pain was my ego, I thought.  If I could only sit it out…sit…shit…ouch…and so it was not until I set out long-distance hiking that I began to understand something deeper about being finished or unfinished.  When you’re walking every day and loving it, part of you wants to finish, to make camp that night, to reach the next town or the next mail drop, to have at last walked 2,181 miles from Georgia to reach Maine to summit Mount Katahdin.  Another equally strong part wants to stay on the trail, keeping up a newfound communion with wind and muscles and rain and trees.  Yet the end looms.  It’s inevitable if you keep walking.  When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, I was 24, and the luckiest thing possible happened to me when, five days from Mt. Katahdin, I fell and broke my arm.  I never “finished.”  Oh, this story wasn’t the one I wanted!  Living with it, I’ve learned how to tell it, reshape it, and tell it differently, and one realization I’ve gained from that experience is that stories are never finished.  There is a lot of energy inherent to being unfinished.  One of my projects in this book is to investigate the properties of unfinished-ness.

I started to read and write seriously after I got off the trail, which is when I discovered that a good many people had the same project.  I discovered John Barth, who grew up in the same town as my grandmother: Cambridge, Maryland.  His story, “Dunyazadiad” from Chimera, introduced me to a fiction writer, dressed as a genie, who says: “There’s a kind of snail in the Maryland marshes—perhaps I invented him—that makes his shell as he goes along out of whatever he comes across, cementing it with his own juices, and at the same time makes his path instinctively toward the best available material for his shell; he carries his history on his back, living in it, adding new and larger spirals to it from the present as he grows.”  The genie meets Scheherazade and her sister, Dunyazade, through a simultaneous realization that “the key to the treasure is the treasure.”  When I first read this book, I felt that these words would circle around in my brain forever.  And they have.  Now that I’m publishing these stories, I will give them over to others to circle through with the hopes that the stories never reach a finish line. 

So, to wrap up this longish answer: unfinished is a state of mind that I’ve been working toward for a long time.  Unfinished is also a trellis my partner and I plan to build in our backyard for yellow roses to climb on.  And it’s a series of stepping stones through the grass, and a honeybee hive, and a chicken coop.  Ironically, being unfinished is something we can’t avoid during our lives.  There’s the naming of it that seems important, and that’s what I’m writing my way through, this idea that our work is to reimagine and retell. 

Dana:     Setting plays a huge role in this collection. The stories are full of oyster shells and marshes and whorls of water. How have the settings of your life influenced this book? What is the importance of setting in story?

Catherine:    My decision to set all the stories on the Eastern Shore of Maryland had something to do with an idea that our childhood and young adult years occupy a near-mythical territory in our minds.  My first lessons about identity, and sexism, and racism, and class bias, and homophobia, and depression, and loneliness, and love, and death, all things I find myself writing stories about, were learned in Talbot, Dorchester, and Caroline counties.  I love Elizabeth Bowen’s curious observation: “Nothing can happen nowhere,” but I’m ambivalent about how she continues: “The locale of the happening always colours the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it.”  Unlike what I think Bowen is suggesting, I don’t believe that regional characteristics give rise to people’s specific problems.  Similar stories exist everywhere, in all locales.  Setting allows me and hopefully my readers to work out the imaginative significance, or meanings, of a story.  The texture of a place, and its language, supports its characters—like human beings, whose existential problems, I believe, are the same no matter where we live.  I grew up around oyster shells, and I know how they cut when you walk barefoot on them, and how they crunch under bicycle tires, and how they smell like salt and dying sea creatures when they are freshly dumped.  However, what I love to consider, just as much as how oyster shells shaped me or my characters or my happenings, is the line, “a long oystershell lane.”  The phrase provides me with a jumping-off point, a way to enter a story, as I think all good setting details do.  So, I believe that the setting gives us language on which and with which to build. 

Dana:      There is such magic in these stories – such childlike curiosity and wonder. It makes me wonder: Has being a mother affected the life of your stories, and if so, how?

Catherine:   Ah!  Ha!  Thank you!  I should say yes, for certainly, there is much magic in my life now that I am around two children all the time, from rediscovering Outside Over There to making shrinking potions to finding snow-houses traced out on the backyard by my son and daughter.  Yet I have always been a devotee of magic and wonder.  When I was a kid, I believed, or worked hard to believe, that fairies left presents for me to find out in the fields and woods.  Clumps of tiger lilies.  Honeysuckle and raspberries.  Arrowheads and Indian pottery.  Being raised Catholic, magic and immanence went hand in hand. 
Many of these stories were written pre-motherhood.  In “Flesh Ring,” the story within the story that is subtitled “Mother” was my attempt to imagine the interior life of a brand-new mother based on a sculpture by Ron Mueck.  I wrote this Mother long before I was anywhere near ready to be a parent, but like many of Ann Piper’s paintings that accompany the stories in Unfinished Stories of Girls, my stories are palimpsests resting atop earlier versions of themselves.  I’m a late bloomer, and a slow writer.  Your question is really interesting because the writing of my stories has been extended over a decade of learning how to write.  Pieces that emerged at the beginning of my writing career, such as “Lost Queens” and “The Hole in Backyard Park,” have undergone many revisions, even since they were first published.  I’m sure that some of these revisions were affected by the realization that one day, if I’m lucky, my children will be interested in reading them.  This thought put on some additional pressure to be honest, which I find, whether in art or in life, to be wondrous and compelling.

Dana:      How do you see art and text to be in conversation in this book?

Catherine:   When I first saw on Ann Piper’s work, I felt two things: awe and fear.  Ann was doing things visually that laid bare some deep emotions, often the darker emotions.  There is an exhilaration in her work that matches the way I sometimes feel drunk with language, and there’s absurdity, and the sublime.  When we started this project, Ann read my manuscript, and I pored over her canvases.  The conversations in the book emerged from hours of face-to-face conversation over BJ’s oysters and white wine in which we made connections that startled us.  For example, I selected the painting to be paired with the story “Lost Queens” with no idea that Ann’s title for the painting is “Queen of Maybe.”  Ghostly synchronicity!  Another example of this is how the painting that is now in conversation with the story “Half Life” is a detail from an enormous canvas featuring a woman with a blackened eye.  The detail reminded me of the brokenness of my character Amber’s life, and the way she misses mundane things from her life outside jail.  I knew the painting’s larger context, but I did not recognize until Ann told me that the arrangement of tea cups and saucers approximates a human face with a black eye, which is what the character Fran claims to see under the surface of Amber’s photographs.  Amber keeps her photographs under her bed.  In a good conversation, each participant comes away with a more complicated, more richly textured understanding of something.  Ann and I believe that the paintings reveal layers of meaning inside the stories, and the stories illuminate narratives within the paintings.  


Dana:      If you could travel back in time and give advice to yourself as a student-writer, what would you say?

Catherine:   If you love writing, young Catherine, take it more seriously.  Commit to it sooner.  Know that failing is part of the process, and have faith in your own hard work.  Listen to people who know more about writing than you do, but know that your goal is not to write like they do.  Your goal is to write the books that you wish to exist in the world.  Work your wishes into existence.  (Try saying that three times fast.)

Dana:      Another hypothetical: If you could take a year off from your responsibilities, what would you do? Where would you go?

Catherine:   Which responsibilities?  Teaching and working at the university?  Developing FUSE?  Learning how to rebuild the windows and porches on our old house?  Gardening?  Caring for our ancient cats and the chickens and bees we hope to get?  Would someone else help Silas to parent the kids?  I don’t know…this doesn’t seem like such a good idea.  But if we are talking only of responsibilities for which I get paid by the university, and finances are not an issue, I’d take Silas and Emerson and Lake to live in an apartment in a big, art-filled city.  Beijing, maybe.  Or let’s say Rome.  The children would go to school, learn Chinese.  Or Italian.  Silas and I would write four hours each day and spend the rest of our time walking, reading many books, listening to music.  This is one kind of dream I have.

Dana:      What’s next for you? Are there any projects you’re currently working on?

Catherine:   I’m in the middle of several long projects, including two collaborations.  First, with my friend Ann Lockhart, a family practice doctor in Martinez, California and also a mother of two, I’m writing a memoir about friendship and long distance hiking.  It’s composed in two voices and features multi-media texts, and our working title is Falling: A Book of the Appalachian Trail, Polyester, and the American Dream.  In 2016, Ann Lockhart and I plan to hike from the Hundred-Mile Wilderness of Maine up to Mount Katahdin.  Second, with my friend and Susquehanna colleague Lynn Palermo, I’m working on a translation of stories by the French writer Cyrille Fleischman.  My final project is the revision of my novel Jubilee, a contemporary retelling of the Biblical story of Dina that I’m wishing into existence.  There is another project I’m excited about, a second collaboration with Ann Piper, so new that we can’t talk about it yet!  It has to do with unfinishing the world.

**
Catherine Zobal Dent was born in Washington, D.C., and raised on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Unfinished Stories of Girls (Fomite, 2014) is her debut short story collection. She teaches creative writing at the Writers Institute of Susquehanna University.

Dana Diehl is a second year MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. She serves as editor of Hayden's Ferry Review.

Stories Inspired by HFR

I am sad to announce the very last story we will publish on the blog from students at Basis in Scottsdale. This assignment was a 500-word story inspired by a picture from Issue #47 of HFR. This final story is a special "extra" story from 10th grader Sonya S. who wanted in on the action. This is a fabulous story, rich with description and brilliantly contained within 300 words, inspired by "Coppersmith's Cat" by Rena Effendi. I hope you all have enjoyed reading these wonderful stories. We at HFR have had so much fun reading through all of these stories and getting them all published on the blog. These students are very talented emerging writers, and we are proud to have had even a very small hand in assisting them in the early days of their writing ventures.

To all of the students at Basis who contributed their work to the HFR blog: Thank-you so much for letting us share your work. We think you are all very talented, and we hope you continue writing!

Here's Sonya S.' story:

*

The graying tomcat limped into the deserted village hesitantly, as if fighting against a current that was trying to push him back. His short, mismatched fur was matted with dirt, missing in patches around his numerous scars; his head swiveled around methodically as he began his search. Finally, the old cat paused his arduous journey--looming silently in front of him was a dilapidated, beaten little shack. One cloudy yellow eye blinked in recognition.

A low grumble escaped his throat and he trudged in, stepping cautiously around the rusty, broken tools. He vaguely remembered a time when they were new and shining and propped up against the once-sturdy wall, a time when the tinkering of metal and the laughter of children filled the house with liveliness.

He cocked his head to the side and pricked up a torn ear, as if hoping to hear a lingering echo of the living. But now, after nearly twenty long years of isolation, the only sound to be heard was the soft crying of the wind whistling through broken window panes. With a sigh, he settled down on his side in the middle of the previously undisturbed dirt floor. Quietly at first, he began to purr--low and broken, like the sound of a car engine that hasn’t been used in a long, long time.

His mind on memories of the past, memories of a warm fire and a pair of soft loving hands and kind eyes filled with happiness, the exhausted, abused cat closed his eyes.

Stories Inspired by HFR

We are finishing off the 7th grade stories with a haunting and tense piece by Michelina C. that is inspired by Debbie Fleming Caffery's "Horse in Hall." This is an excellent finish to round off these very wonderful HFR-inspired stories by very talented rising writers. Enjoy.
*

I woke up with a scream. My eyes teary and my back soaked with sweat, I crawled out of my bed, barely awake. It became a customary routine for me to wake up in this fashion. Ever since I was twelve, the same eerie nightmare had haunted my sleep. My dream did not involve monsters or murderers; but a small, abandoned and hopeless house. The house, a quaint cottage planted in the Colorado countryside, has only three rooms and one interminable hall. The end of the hall reveals a small rocking horse that stares into the distance, rocking side to side and never stopping. In my dream, I start outside, gazing at the patches of flowers, the warming sun piercing my back, I finally make my way through the front door of the Colorado cottage. A strong dark silence swallows the house, not allowing the birds chirping to peek in at all. I cautiously shuffle through each of the three empty and lonely rooms. I make my way to the hall with the rocking horse. The wicked horse stares at me and starts to rock back and forth. Its wooden legs click against the wood, sending goose bumps all up my arms. Staring at the rocking horse, a random scream suddenly stings my ears like an angry wasp and forces me to wake up.

I lazily dragged myself to the kitchen table, where my breakfast, a soggy bowl of cereal, was waiting patiently for me. I reluctantly slurped down the lumpy goo, despite my urges to gag. Recently, my mom has been very busy working the night shifts at the hospital; so she sleeps for most of the day, and leaves me to the chores. Usually, I finish my chores in the early morning before school so I can attend band practice in the afternoon, except today I just ambled back to my room. Still in my pink fuzzy pajamas, I pushed open the door to my room, a mess filled with packed boxes (since I was moving out soon), only to witness a small rocking horse posing in the middle of my cluttered floor. Screaming, I grabbed the nearest book and flung it across the room at the rocking horse. Right as the book was about to hit the horse, the rocking horse mysteriously vanished like a ghost. The book landed flat on the ground with a loud echoing bang. My fists clenched and my eyes wide open, I quickly sprinted out of my room.

Throughout the whole day my mind raced with explanations of what happened that morning. When I finished my chores, I decided to play my guitar to ease my stress. Music poured into the room, intoxicating and beautiful. As I strummed a melodic tune of chords on my guitar, a hideous scream sounded from my bedroom. I dropped my guitar on the floor in astonishment. The blood-curdling scream I just heard was the same scream that had been haunting me for five years straight in my nightmares. Shaking, I cautiously walked toward my room. The house was suddenly dark and hopeless, like the one in my dream. Every step I took closer to my room smashed me with a brick load of fear, toppling on pound after pound. I began to get claustrophobic as the darkness ate me alive. The walls felt like they were closing in on me, suffocating me. Finally, I reached the door to my room. My mind told me not to open the door, but my hand told me otherwise. I slowly slid open the door and peeked my head inside. Relieved, I saw nothing but the cluttered room, the same way I had left it earlier. I climbed into my bed, and made a house of pillows that blocked me from the edges of my bed, almost as if it could save me from my vivid nightmares and hallucinations.

I woke up the next morning confused. Usually my dream ended when I heard the scream; except, that night it didn’t. In my dream, after I heard the horrible scream, the rocking horse stopped rocking and just disappeared, leaving me alone in the hall.

That morning I was moving into my new apartment. After cleaning up the rest of my room, I was ready to finally leave and begin my new life, hopefully abandoning the dream. As I pulled up to the driveway of my new home, I gasped at the sight of my apartment. It looked identical to the cottage in my dream; even the flower buds were exactly the same. I dragged myself to the front door and reluctantly unlocked it. Taking my first step through the door, the same grim feeling I had in my dream took over my body. My body trembling, the familiar darkness welcomed me. I swerved my body left in the direction of the hall with the rocking horse. There, alone in the dark, stood the rocking horse, staring me down. Its eyes flashed a flaming neon red, pure evil. I forced my eyes shut, avoiding the horse’s gaze. Then for a moment, I opened my eyes only to see nothing there but the empty hall. I was alone.

Stories Inspired by HFR

Here is a 500 word story by another very talented young writer from Basis Middle School. This story is written by Kathleen W. and is inspired by "Patience" by Claudia Doury from HFR Issue #47. Kathleen gives up an emotional story that follows a girl's relationship with her father through memories.

*

The girl kneels on the crimson blanket, gazing at the deck of playing cards before her. The flimsy red rectangles lay facedown in six cautious rows, aligned to form a small pyramid. Reverently, the girl extends her hand and picks up the card in the center of the base of the pyramid.

The water-warped Queen of Diamonds stares back at her.

A gale of memories whips through the dark recesses of the girl’s mind. And suddenly, she is back in their cramped apartment, surrounded by crooked white walls, with Absalom, her father. Balanced on a three-legged folding chair, the girl inspects his pale skin, sparse brown hair, and calloused hands from her precarious perch. Absalom is cross-legged on the faded blue carpet, hunched over his beloved red playing cards, glaring intensely the Queen of Diamonds pressed in his fingers. Suddenly, he lifts his head up, his grey eyes fixed upon his four-year old daughter. “It’s the Queen,” he mutters softly, “Things are gonna be hard for the next few weeks.” Without averting his gaze, he pulls another card from the jumbled deck and shows it to the girl. “But don’t worry. As long as he’s here, I’ll be here. With you.” The girl looks down at the card in his hands. King of Hearts.

The sound of tolling church bells brings reality back into focus. The pyramid of cards urges the girl to continue. Hand trembling with anticipation, she uncovers the rest of the pyramid’s base. Jack of Clubs. Nine of Hearts. Five of Spades. The girl carelessly casts them into a pile, and continues, with a hungry look in her navy blue eyes. The second row also yields nothing, and the girl begins to fear. She is too late. She will not reach Absalom in time.

Reality blurs at this devastating thought and again the girl is thrust into her memories. It is a miserably humid night; the palpable heat overwhelms her senses. Absalom is nowhere to be found. For three fruitless hours, the girl, now twelve, scours all of his usual night haunts: the local coffee shop, the bustling casino, the dilapidated café where he works. Then finally, she sees him. Slumped against a flickering lamppost in a pool of red. Clasping a kitchen knife slick with blood in his left hand.

The girl’s own screams resound in her ears, jolting her from the nightmare. The pyramid materializes once more. Hand quaking uncontrollably, she slips a card from the third row into her hands, not bearing to look. After an eternity of agonizing uncertainty, she unfurls her quivering fingers.

The King of Hearts. Absalom. The girl clutches the face of her dead father close to her heart.

Stories Inspired by HFR

Happy Friday! Welcome to the second half of stories by 7th grade students at Basis Middle School in Scottsdale. Remember, these are 500 word stories inspired by images from Issue #47 of HFR. Today's story - sweet, with a very sad twist and great character relationships - is inspired by Debbie Fleming Caffery's "Sleeping Lizards" and is written by Abijith K.



*

I stepped out of the rain into the old uninhabited mansion, its furniture covered with a blanket of soot, its walls echoing with cries of help. Nearby, I saw a chair rocking back and forth, creaking like a poor child in distress. I averted my attention to the window; two lizards were pelted with raindrops and tried to come inside for shelter. I opened the window and the two lizards leapt on my arm. Water covered the lizards like a jacket and I could hear them gasping for breath. I wrapped them in my handkerchief and carried them home in a way that not even a single drop would even skim the scales on their body.

Once I reached the shelter of my house, I placed the shivering lizards in an open shoe box and emptied some crickets I caught into the box. I glanced away for a second, and by the time I looked back, the lizards had already devoured the crickets. I placed my handkerchief inside and the lizards snuggled under it. After making sure that the pair was comfortable, I slid the box into the cage so Ergo our cat would not eat them.

The next day, I checked on the two lizards. They were still snoozing, but once I placed their breakfast inside the cage, they woke up and gobbled it in one bite. I decided to leave them in the house when I went to school, but I kept them far from the cat.

When I came back from school, I quickly fed the lizards lunch and opened the cage, so they could crawl on my arm. However, they were still exhausted after trying to escape from the rain. I left them alone and completed my homework. When I fed them dinner, they started to walk in their cage; nonetheless, they could not crawl onto my arm.

A couple of days passed. Once, I decided to visit the creek with the lizards. They began to swim swiftly in the flowing water, and could even swim against the current; not many people could do that. After playing in the water for some time, the lizards swam to the bank where I tucked them in my pocket.

One day, after I fed the lizards their dinner, I left, forgetting to close the cage. The lizards crawled out, restless and excited. They wandered around for a while on the floor, but they came too close to Ergo the cat. Ergo, hungry as usual, pounced on the lizards. I entered the room to see the wicked cat dangling the lizards above his mouth. I quickly seized the lizards from the cat’s claws, but it was too late, the lizards had been killed because of my forgetfulness. For days I wept; I sat in solitude, not with my friends, mourning the loss of my companions. And to this date, I remember my two innocent pals, who I rescued from the cold, who died at the hands of my own cat.

Stories Inspired by HFR

Remember those Basis students and their very excellent 500 word stories? Here is another one for you all. This is an exceptional story that uses red shoes as a spring board to deeper themes. Here's is Vaibhavi M's story inspired by "Les chaussons rouges" by Claudine Doury from Issue #47 of HFR.

*They all came at once, like a pack of angry wildebeests. Their thin blonde hair hid their faces as the wind blew from the South. Every boy on the block stopped, turning to catch a glimpse of the beauties walking down the street. I myself kept my face down, knowing that I could never join their group. My dark skin and black hair only sealed my fate. Well, I never stared at their faces, or their skimpy skirts and immodest shirts. I only noticed the beautiful red shoes, gleaming like rubies in the faint sunlight. I looked down at my own feet in despair. They still sported the same faded purple Vans I had received as a birthday present four years ago. Why could I not possess shoes like those?

And then comes the matter of their dress. They wear white everyday to school as well as crosses, though some of the girls practice Judaism. No boy every tries to asks them to prom or to the high school banquet. Why? Someone who fills their locker with pictures of saints and God kind of wards off any guys who come on fresh. Though they are openly religious and promote Christianity on campus, in the midst of hundreds of students of other religions, these girls still dress as if they just came back from going clubbing in Vegas. They are the ultimate paradox.

No one can penetrate their tight knit clique, even if they claimed to be the daughter of the king of the entire universe. As Shakespeare said “Give me your hands if we be friends, and let Robin restore amends.” They don’t believe that old friends are gold, and new ones are silver. Only old friends exist, no one else. I never took notice of them at all, until they started to accessorize their otherwise plain outfit with those wonderful red shoes.

Stories Inspired by HFR

I hope you are all enjoying these stories by young writers as much as we are! These students are 7th graders at BASIS in Scottsdale, and their assignment was to write a 500 word story or scene inspired by a photo from Issue #47 of HFR. This richly imaginative story is written by Alice Y. and is inspired by "Horse in Hall" by Debbie Fleming Caffery.


* To anyone who had wandered across this hallway in the museum, the rocking horse would just appear to be one of the many unsorted toys, just laying there, forgotten by all. However, this seemingly ordinary plaything is the cause of many premature deaths, its innocent eyes concealing the impending danger that lurks inside it; this rocking horse is one of the few portals that had not been destroyed in the old war. Any child who wanders along this hallway and is foolish enough to play on it is sucked into a portal to the Thirteenth Dimension. But I cannot explain any more of this until I have described the Other Worlds; the Other Worlds exist as the homes of fantastical creatures, those who roamed Earth eons ago until they were banished by wizards to different dimensions. There are thirteen Other dimensions, not including ours, the one known as the Original World, where life began. The creatures were separated by their nature, elves and faeries, the winged ones, shared the first, centaurs, satyrs, and others shared the second, and so on. As expected, not all of these creatures had good intentions, and the ones with the darkest natures were driven to the Thirteenth Dimension, the dimension of nightmares. Demons and Wraiths lurked in every shadow, stalking their next victim, and creatures not heard of since the beginning of time roamed the forests, with dark clouds looming ominously in the distance. Rotting carcasses formed bridges over the rivers of blood and tribes were constantly at war; food was scarce enough that corpses were gathered from battlefields and eaten. This was a world where the weak did not survive. But this would not be what the human lured into this dimension would see; they would find themselves in their ideal world, given whatever they want and accompanied by whoever they want. Their every wish and desire would be fulfilled and they could do whatever they want. They would live in this illusion until the demons grew tired of toying with them and killed them, tearing their still-beating hearts out of their chest, sucking their souls out of their bodies, and feasting on their flesh. Every month, a few children would be lured into the trap. In this world, they would be reported as missing and forgotten, any memories of them dying out with their lives. This inevitable tragedy befalls many hapless children, a tragedy that starts with a simple rock on a rocking horse.

Stories Inspired by HFR

The third story! These young writers from BASIS in Scottsdale certainly have a way with words. (The prompt: to write a 500 word story or scene inspired by a photo from HFR #47) This skilled piece by George Y. is inspired by "Sleeping Lizards" by Debbie Fleming Caffery.


* The young boy looked down into his palm, his dead lizard’s tail hanging from it. The lizard he had only caught a month ago, its two legs cut off by him when it was still wild and free, had attempted to free itself, and now, it would never see the boy again. He never knew what species it had been, or even bothered to search. All he did was enjoy watching it scampering around, and, after a while of amusement, catching it with one of his carefully crafted nets.

Somehow, the girls at Hereon Elementary School did not take pleasure in his anecdotes; one of which including how he preformed “surgery” on his lizard, catching it in a net and cutting off its legs. A schoolmate once said they would grow back, but after a while, to his dismay, he realized his lizard’s front legs would never come back. Nonetheless, even without its two front legs, the lizard had always managed to move around, and the boy constantly thought it peculiar for a lizard to stand on hind legs. But now, as he held up the severed tail, he thought that that would never happen again. He would have to buy a new animal from the store or catch one to play with, and so far he had no such luck; for the thousandth time, he gazed at the empty net that had once caught so many animals: his furry white mouse, his recently deceased lizard, and his “adorable” huge eyed bunny, as the girls called it before it was amputated.

The next day, a surprise awaited him in an expensive cage filled with green foliage. Looking into the cage, there seemed to be nothing striking or particular that was at first of interest. But after staring for a long, hard ten seconds, he perceived a chameleon, the lizard he had always wanted to catch, the same type his friend claimed to be able to turn invisible. He eagerly grabbed the cage and sprinted off to the garden.

His father murmured, “Happy birthday, son.”

“Geez, you’re always that boring, aren’t you? I mean, you’re not like even turning invisible and stuffs,” he said, yearning for the thrill brought by the previous animals. The boy then opened the cage, hoping the lizard would finally act as his predecessor. With miraculous agility for the once lazy and motionless lizard, the chameleon shot through the boy’s legs and darted into an adjacent bush, feet moving in a blur. “Wow, you’re like really fast!” The boy, enthralled by the sudden movement, hurried into his luxurious mountainside mansion, grabbed his net, and set up the trap on a Palo Verde tree. He kicked at the infinite desert brooms for a few minutes and heard a snapping sound: the distinct reverberation of his trap springing into action. He sprinted to the Palo Verde tree and saw a lizard; the two front legs and the tail missing confirmed it was the same lizard which he thought was dead, and upon closer inspection, the gecko was also there, remarkably camouflaged in a striped fashion.

Stories Inspired by HFR

We love these stories! This is the second of stories inspired by Hayden's Ferry Review. Just as a reminder, these talented writers are seventh graders at BASIS in Scottsdale, and the prompt was to write a 500 word story or scene based on a photo from the most recent issue of HFR. Today's story is written by Samantha N. and is inspired by Julie Blackmon's "Cherry." The ending is absolutely perfect.


*
When my parents walked out the door, I waited patiently with my book on my lap until I heard our garage door meet the concrete floor of our overcrowded garage with a bang. I leapt from my pose on the couch and stole to the window, where I peeked out of the drab curtains, and watched their car drive down the street. I lingered until they were out of sight to ensure they would not return unexpectedly. I possessed a full hour to do whatever I wanted, a full hour of parent-free time. Sprinting to the stereo, which I was forbidden to touch, I cranked the music to its highest available volume.

The house shook with musical vibrations. I pranced into the kitchen, pausing only to get the key to the baby lock connected to the fridge out of a drawer. I nearly ripped the refrigerator door off when I successfully unlocked the confounded device that denied us food. Browsing the different selections, I spotted my favorite treat: cherries. Since I was in such a hurry to shove those delicious cherries into my mouth, I accidentally spilled some of the juice on my shirt. Shoot, I thought, Mom can’t see this. I ripped off my shirt and threw it under the sink.

I reclined on the couch, moments away from plopping one of the cherries in my mouth, when I heard a familiar, high-pitched voice. Slowly I looked up and saw the major flaw in my plan. A devilish smile adorned my sister’s face. Blonde curls bouncing, she leaned her head back and dropped one of my cherries into her mouth. Walking around the couch to face me, she rocked back and forth on her black Mary-Jane’s and said to me in her most innocent of voice, “If you wanna stay out of trouble, you’re gonna do exactly what I say.”

Stories Inspired by HFR

Here's something that we at HFR think is really awesome...

A local middle school teacher tasked his 7th grade English students at BASIS in Scottsdale with an assignment based on the latest issue of HFR. The prompt is: to write a 500 word story or scene inspired by a photo in the most recent issue. I think HFR is developing a new fan following. The stories we have received so far are excellent, and we are thoroughly enjoying reading them. These blossoming writers are exceptionally creative, and really took the prompt and ran with it.

We will be publishing a student's story (and the image from which it was inspired) every couple of days on the blog. First is a heart-wrenching and powerful story by Amanda C. This story is inspired by Debbie Fleming Caffery's "A Horse in the Hall." Enjoy.

*
High above the dangers that lie below on the forest floor, a frail boy is staring off into the eye of the night sky as branches of the ancient trees protect him from the painful wind, but a wolf’s cry breaks the boy’s concentration as he snaps back to reality. Noticing how much time has passed by, the boy quickly slides down the tree trunk, running quickly as he can as leaves crack and crinkle under his feet. Blinding lights shine out from the living room window as his feet drag him closer and closer towards the back door. The boy pushes the handle down and nudges the door forward as he holds his breath. Warm air embraces his body, sending shivers down his spine; one of his sneaker covered feet takes a careful step forward. Suddenly a large calloused hand slaps the back of the boy's head. The blow sends him crashing into a cabinet.

The impact scrapes his forehead; warm liquid drips down into his eyes as he instinctively brings his arms up to protect his head. A single blow from his father’s leather shoe knocks him unconscious. A painful jerk from his hair brings him back to reality; the pain devours his body like a wildfire. As the boy slowly lets the darkness envelop him he sees a white blur.

A chirping noise awakes the sleeping boy; pain instantly hits his body hard as he slowly crawls on all fours. Noticing the blood on the floor the boy slowly creeps his way towards the storage room to grab a mop. The mops sucks in the blood, tinting its dreadlocks a pinkish color. Lifting the mop, the boy walks wearily back to the storage room making sure not to drop any water on the floor.

After the boy returns back to the hallway, he looks back to where he saw the white blur, a rocking white horse meeting his gaze. Overjoyed, the boy forgets his pain and hastily climbs onto the horse, resting his body upon it. The boy continues to rock back and forth upon the horse, his eyes slowly growing heavier with each flutter of his eyelids, and suddenly they shut close. A sudden slam from the boy’s father wakes him up. Frightened, the boy runs to the back door, escaping into his haven, the forest, as his father walks through the front doors. The boy’s father rushes to the sound of creaking in the hallway only to find a wooden horse rocking on the glossy floor.