Our young authors competed in a writing contest to test their creativity and writing skills. The only guidelines were that their stories must be fiction, between six and 1,000 words, and they could only submit one entry. The contest was managed by our school librarian, Ms. Katie Cooper, and English teacher, Mr. Brian Blaine. A panel of judges decided which stories stood out among the field and had a difficult time choosing only three, but our winners were Aidan Arsenault, Selorm Kalitsi,  and Cohen Lemcke! You can read their stories below.

1st Place – Aidan Arsenault – “What Came First?”

On that frozen night, Uladzimir Ivanov passed away as he closed his eyes for the last time. His cold, lifeless body lay there peacefully.

Although Uladzimir did wake up, but he had no recollection of anything. Everything that surrounded him was white. He says “wh- where am I? Heaven?” he looks down at himself “what, who am I?” He was nothing but a figure, too obscure to identify. Another figure began to approach him. “You’ve died” it said, Uladzimir pondered at the statement. The figure, who was much bigger than he was, said “There is no need to worry. Everybody dies.” Uladzimir stared blankly into the white abyss. He took a while to process everything.. He eventually asked the figure “Who are you? Are you God?” the figure replied with “If that is what you believe me to be, then yes I am God” Uladzimir thought that this is not what he imagined God to look like. He quickly brushed that to the side and replied to the figure, “Well if this is the afterlife, then when do I get to see my wife?” The figure smiled and said to Uladzimir, “Now that’s more like it. Thinking about the people you love. Do not worry, in your next life may you find love as you did in this one.” Uladzimir stood there puzzled. He then said, “So reincarnation? I will be reincarnated?” the figure replied “yes you will be.” Uladzimir then asked the figure “So, the buddhists and the hindu? They were right?” to which the figure laughed and said, “In a way all religions are correct.” Uladzimir became slightly frustrated. “So what’s the point then?” he exclaimed. “What is the point of believing if they can all be correct? And why reincarnation, won’t I just be reborn as a blank slate? And everything I
did in this life and all the ones before doesn’t matter?” He said, morosley.

The figure presumptuously asked Ulazimir to walk with it. To which he was confused why, they walked and walked until the figure said, “You have within you all the memories, experiences, and knowledge from all your previous lives. You just don’t remember them.” They finally came to a stop, and it seemed they had reached the edge of this abyss. The figure then waved his arm, and a breathtaking array of colors and light filled the entire blankness that surrounded them. As Uladzimir was soaking in this view, practically speechless, the figure said, “You know, your soul is much larger and more full than you could imagine. The human species can only comprehend a fraction of what you truly are. You were trapped in a human for 79 years, you can’t possibly have experienced the complexities of your ever growing conscience. If you were to stay here long enough, you would start to remember everything from your previous lives. But there is no point in doing that between each life.”

Uladzimir started to understand what the figure was telling him. “How many times have I been reincarnated then?” he asked. The figure smiled again. “You’ve been reincarnated a lot of times, and this time you will be sent back as an English girl in 167AD.” This puzzled Uladzimir, “So, you’re sending me back in time?” he said worryingly. The figure kept the grin on his face and said, “Time as you know it, only ceases to exist in YOUR universe. Unlike where I come from.” “Where do you come from?” Uladzimir asked. “Yes.” the figure reassured, “But you probably couldn’t comprehend it.” “So what is the point of it all?” Uladzimir asked. The figure looked him in the eye, “I made this universe for you, and only you. I made it for you to mature and grow.” They had now begun to float, and it was dark. Uladzimir looked down and saw the Earth. “So I am everybody in this universe?” he asked. “You are every human being who has ever lived, or that will ever live” the figure said. Uladzimir was now silent. “Every kind or crude action performed, you do to yourself. Any happy or sad experience has been or will be felt by you.” He sat there for a long time. “Why do all this then?” “Because you are just like me.” the spirit said. “That is what you are, you’re one of my kind. My child, You’re still a fetus, but one day you will be just like I. Once you have lived every human life possible in this universe, you will be born.”

“Now it is time for you to move on to your next life. Until next time!” as Uladzimir faded away to be reborn again.

2nd Place – Selorm Kalitsi

Anna had been feeling uneasy. It had been weeks, months, maybe years, since she last felt normal. She felt like nothing in her life had been important or meaningful. Not only that, but just being alive was painful for her. The state of mind she was in had strained her mentally and emotionally. The only thing she could do to take her mind off of her depression was to watch television. But even the joy from that had started to fade.

On a day like any other, she was watching one piece this time. Her phone rang, but she let it go to voicemail. That was 12 missed calls from Mom and 14 from Dad this week. She thought about responding this time, but what would be the point? She looked back up at the TV, but it had turned off. She tried to turn it back on, but it wouldn’t. She threw the remote on the ground in frustration.

“Let me help you with that.” Said a hooded figure. He was tall, had a calming voice, well built, and fairly handsome from what Anna could see of his face. The only thing off about him was that he was pale, extremely pale. To the point where she could actually see through him a bit.

“Who are you, and how did you get into my house?” Anna asked, confused.

“Let’s just say I’m here to help.”

“You are here to fix my TV?”

“Not that kind of help. I know how you have been feeling lately. I know the burden you have placed on your shoulders. I know about how depressed you have been feeling about your life.”

“So are you going to talk to me about how my life has value and that every life is worth living or some shit like that? I have heard enough of those speeches already.” Anna said, starting to lose her
temper.

“Not at all.” The man explained, “I could tell you about the value of life, or I could talk to you about what it means to be alive, but that would mean nothing. Those would all just be words forever lost to a mind that doesn’t want to hear it. Words don’t mean anything, it is time for action. And there is one thing you can do that will be meaningful. One thing you can do that will take away all your pain. And I think you have also thought about this.”

The man held out the knife that was on Anna’s counter. It was true, Anna had thought about ending it all before, but the idea never stuck until now. This could be it for her. It could be her salvation. She could finally be free from the emotional chains binding her to her own mental prison. And it was easy, so easy. All she would have to do is end it all right now.

Anna reached for the knife when she was stopped by a hand holding her back. She saw her grandmother, who killed herself when Anna was a teenager. Her grandmother was just as pale as the man, but she looked sad.

“I know what you’re about to do, but don’t do it.” The grandma said.

“She is doing a very brave thing, ma’am, and it is her decision to make, not ours.” Said the man.

“She is not being brave, she is being foolish.” She turned back to Anna. “Listen, Anna, it is living that takes courage and hard work. Believe me, I was in your situation, and this man here led me to make the wrong decision. But you don’t have to. I get you are at your lowest, but when you are at rock bottom, the only way to go is up. Keep going to those talks, pick up the calls from your parents, or find something that really makes you happy, just don’t take the knife.”

Those words cut deep, deeper than this knife would. It’s true that it would be so easy to end it here and now. But what if things could get better? What if just around the corner is her happiness? On the other hand, what if it wasn’t? What if she would have to live the rest of her life an empty, emotionless husk of a human being?

“If you end it right now, you would relieve your parents of the burden you put on them by being
alive.”

“Your parents love you Anna, and ending it all right now would only hurt them. Not only that, it would hurt all of the ones who love and depend on you. You live your life, not just for yourself, but for everyone you interact with.”

“Who loves you Anna, who depends on you? You don’t work, you don’t go to school, all you do is watch TV and eat cereal.”

He was right. Anna doesn’t do anything with her life. Being gone would not affect anyone but maybe a month of grief from her parents. A month of grief that would be followed up by years of
happiness and lack of worry for their daughter. Anna could not decide what she was going to do. Then, her grandmother held out her phone with all the missed calls and unread messages.

“At least take a look at these before you make the decision that you won’t be able to take back.”

Anna took her phone and opened up her messages. There were dozens from her parents asking about her and telling her that they love her. There were many from her old friends and co-workers that she thought didn’t care about her anymore. They were all messages of concern and support. She did not know she had this many people in her life that loved her.

On her left, the man was holding out the knife, with a gentle smile. On her right was her grandmother holding out her phone with her mother’s number dialed in.

She reached for the…

3rd Place – Cohen Lemcke

The steam drifted noiselessly off the vents. The unbreaking clouds continued to pass over the moon. In the distance, the faint sound of sirens could barely be heard over the screeching of cars as they passed down the adjacent street. Just another night in Queens. “Except it isn’t,” thought Officer Mintz to himself as he sat alone in his car on the corner of 9th and Bleeker. He glanced down at his watch. It was 11:39 p.m. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Just six more minutes,” he said aloud. Six more minutes until his shift was up. Six more minutes until he could leave all this behind.

As he sat in the dark, he stared out his window at the flickering street lights lining the sidewalk. His eyes darted back and forth, searching, hoping he wouldn’t find what he was looking for. His mind flashed to the day, not a week earlier, when he arrived at the police station. He had just stepped through the door, when suddenly, he was met by a fleet of officers hurriedly making their way out of the building. The one in the lead held a phone up to his ear and the panic was clearly audible in his voice. “I’m sending a team now. Call the state marshal to meet us there.” The commotion dissipated as they ran outside.

“What was that all about?” Mintz asked after the door had swung shut. Silence choked the air for several moments, then was broken by a veteran officer leaning on the corner of his desk.

“We just got a call from the 8th precinct,” he said gravely. “Someone from their office found one of our guys laying on the corner of 9th and Bleeker with his head cracked open and a blood-caked crowbar on the ground beside him.”

Mintz was dumbstruck. He knew this stuff wasn’t uncommon in NYC, but it still caught him off guard. It took a moment for him to recover before he finally regained his voice. “D-do they know who did it?” he managed to croak out.

The other officer sighed. “They can’t be sure, but they have an idea. Crime has been spiking in that area for months now, ever since that bust of the Mafia contingent downtown. We got all of ‘em except these two brothers. Must have gotten wind of us and squirmed out of there like the slimeballs they are. Anyway, we have reason to believe that they relocated to 9th and Bleeker and have been the cause of all that’s going on down there since. But nobody’s been able to find them. Haven’t been seen since before they got away. Well, at least until now.” Mintz shuddered at the memory. And here he was, on the corner of 9th and Bleeker, in the middle of the night, all alone. Nobody wanted the night shift for this location, but as a rookie he didn’t get a say. “Three minutes,” he whispered to himself. “Just three more minutes.”

Suddenly, Mintz felt a chill run through the air. He was aware of faint whistling in the distance. He clenched his teeth and strained his eyes to see down the dimly lit sidewalk. He could just make out a squat figure slowly sauntering down the path. Once in the light, Mintz could make him out clearly. He had a thick mustache and was clad in a worn denim jacket. He appeared to be Italian by his short, curly hair, but it was so matted that Mintz couldn’t be sure. Clenched in his mouth was a smoldering cigar, giving the illusion that his mustache was on fire. But most unsettling; in his hands he was swinging a long, metal crowbar.

Officer Mintz sat frozen in the seat of his car, hoping the man would walk peacefully by without acknowledging his presence. He glanced over at the clock on his dashboard. It read 11:43. Surely no one at the precinct would notice if he came back two minutes early. But before he could make up his mind to leave, he saw the man waving at the car, as if signaling for him to get out. Mintz had to think quickly. He could pull away now and pretend he didn’t see the man, but then he thought to himself, “What kind of a cop are you? This is your job. Are you really scared of a guy with no gun standing thirty feet in front of you?” Hesitantly, he swung open his door and slowly pulled himself out of the car. “Good evening, sir,” Mintz called out carefully.

“Good evening officer!” the man cried extravagantly. “What brings you to this part of the city?”

“Just a routine patrol, sir,” Mintz answered, trying to control his shaking voice. “I got the late shift tonight.”

The man laughed. “Quite a shame, isn’t it? Everybody gets to go home, and you’re stuck here all by yourself,” he said. That comment rang strangely ominous in Mintz’s ears. “Well, it’s all right,” the officer said quickly. “As a matter of fact, my shift just ended. If there’s no trouble here, I’ll leave you to your walk. Have a good night sir.”

“I will, officer, thank you. Have a safe drive back. All sorts of shady people out at this time of the night,” the man said.

Mintz quickly ducked back into his car, yanked on his seatbelt, and hastily pulled away. As he sped off into the distance, he glanced up at his rearview mirror and saw a second man walk out of the shadows. He was tall and lean, with a mustache similar to that of the first man and the same dark, curly hair. He stopped beside him, and the two stared at Mintz as he drove off into the night, the light glinting of the crowbar as it swung back and forth in the first man’s hands.