Brooke Duran

Sunlight found its way into the room, making up a white frame around the short dark curtain that only just shaded the window. The glow cascading around the shaded window reminded him of Morita’s black square. He breathed. Ali would have giggled mercilessly at this comical thought. He sat on the edge of the bed, perturbed about his plans. The box was in the living room, and he craved to go, to open it, and have a magic familiarity. He said he would cover all the mirrors in the house. He did not want this to be an instant to face bleak reality, but a time to run out of it. Should he change his wardrobe? He had pardoned himself from work today and had put on his relaxation wardrobe out of common custom. But was this suitable? Maybe. After all, most of their time as one had taken place on weekends and holidays, as if it were something to celebrate. He began his job by covering each mirror with painstaking maintenance. When he was finished, he brushed the settee Ali had loved to sit on. He ...

Hey, my name is Bradley Steven Humperdink, I am sort of the prince charming character of this story without being a prince. Weird, right? I was born and raised in the middle of a broken land, a divided kingdom. My job was to be a cook at the bakery, even though I was horrible at baking foods. In school I had to study biographies of princesses like Cinderella and Snow White. When I was in the middle of my studies, I noticed something, the climax was always at midnight. Then a quick question came across my mind, “Why does it always have to be midnight?” but then, I graduated from school, got a job, so I forgot that when I was in school, I asked the simple question, As I grew older, I became the hero of everything, and it was just because I was quarterback of the football team. I was also a girl magnet, so I had a girlfriend. Her name was Cindy Samantha Jensen. She was way too clingy to me. She was with me all the time! She also talked to me about marriage all the time as if she wanted...

SeeCeeSea the CrazySafeway By: Virginia Allen It is going to happen anytime now. Any second. Is my clock right? Why hasn’t it occurred yet? Sure, waiting for it isn’t the same as the anticipation of waiting for a football game’s buzzer to go off, crinkling your nose in the chilly, but heated air, and the other team has the ball, the score is close, and the timer is taking forever. Last year, the team had a great defense, but this year, you aren’t so sure. One more second…no, two more seconds. Brrrring!!!! (What do you know? I guess is kind of, sort of similar!) The plain red and brown environment of the Northern Windsor Regional High School becomes an eruption of color and noise in a split second. Teenager. Am I right? Now take a deep inhale through your nose, I invite you, if you dare. I’m getting sweat, attempted disguises, a lot of attempted disguises, along with a lot of sweat (some with good reason, others just nerves finding an interesting wat to show themselves). See those tw...

On the third day of continuous rain, they had killed so many feisty crabs inside the house that Ezra had to cross his sopping courtyard and throw them back into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it might be due to the stench. It had been a sad world since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single hue of ash-gray and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a horribly common stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Ezra was coming back to the house following throwing the crabs an uncertain distance, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the back of the courtyard. He had to go awfully close to see that it was an old man, a horribly old man, lying with his face in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his large wings. Frightened by that nightmare brought to life, Ezra ran to get Scarlett, his wife...

Don’t get me wrong. I love it here. Who wouldn’t? It’s quaint. It’s cute. It’s redundant. It’s boring. Everyday, I feel like around a million people have only bright smiles to offer me, mustard instead of ketchup, and the seafoamy shade of green dirtied with the brown. Oh, sure if is perfect. Anyone would dream of living in America’s “good-neighbor city” of Middleton, Wisconsin just not me. I am suspicious of that sunshine of a grin that must be hiding something. I think it is nothing big or notable that we house a Mustard Museum. (Mustard, seriously?) I only notice the dirt when I look at the ground and am, I supposed to be happy about that? I’m no farmer. I’ve always been a runner through anything I could in the small Wisconsin town. Tell me how it’s the #1 small city to live in America. Make me want to run away from it even more. (It is actually the worst town in the universe.) That Middleton mug that you bought for your dad last time you were here, the yellow one lettered by thick,...

The day was the most beautiful spring day out of any that year. The sunflowers, daisies, and even the thorn-bushes looked more magnificent than the rest that day. The little baby bluebirds were learning how to fly. The small, childlike robins were learning their calling of singing a little tune. Everything was perfect from the smallest ant to the lonely moon. The people walked with more of a skip to their step, as if something fantastic were going to happen that day, although no one knew what. It was as if the most small of the fairy species sprinkled the town with stardust that night, to make everyone’s dreams come true. Everyone smiled bigger, laughed louder, and beamed brighter as if they knew what was destined for the town and the mystery of what it was to bring lasting peace. That day, May 13, 1679, Arlene Ellen McAllister was born. From her first cry to her last murmur, she was going to be loved, even when she didn’t know it. She knew she was loved almost the precise ...