A Bowl of Soul

By Jamie Li, First Place Winner

Scanning through the usual list of suspects, I mull over how I want to fill my well today. English Breakfast is good for that boost. Chai dissipates all miserable afternoons. Then you have Earl Grey, a staple for those study sessions. Paris is always a strong contender on chilly days. Chamomile is for more mellow moments when reading the occasional cozy mystery novel, whereas Gunpowder Green is reserved for hard-boiled whodunnits. 

For such a simple drink made with hot soy milk, steeped with a tea bag, then finished with honey, it’s bewitching. It has the magical ability to transform one moment, my lips to the lip of the mug, into something more.

“Your usual?” Zoey asks from behind the counter.

“Let’s make it passionfruit today,” I say.

She rings me up and I hand over my wallet-worn point card for her to clip. She punches a hollow, tiny star for me, adding to my constellation collection.

I peer through the shop window. A golden retriever pads through the shopping plaza, sniffing a young girl’s outreached hand. The girl is hurried along by her father, both weaving and squeezing past other parents and children back to their cars.

The retriever’s owner goes over to the ATM past the preschool and withdraws some cash. Now, is it a good idea to have a bank so close to a preschool? What if a robber holds up the bank? If I were to switch up the shops around in the area, I’d switch out the preschool for the tutoring school across the plaza–it being with older kids and all. I figure I’d rather see the younger kids spared.

“Passionfruit, Bowl of Soul,” Zoey announces.

I take my mug and head toward my spot. But before I can make it, an older man with a grizzled beard stops me.

“I see you like passionfruit,” he says. He gestures towards my mug.

“Yes.” I plaster on a polite smile.

He continues, “If you’d like, I have some fresh ones in my van. I’ve got a few to spare.”

“Oh, that’s awfully kind of you,” I say, taking a few steps to follow the large man, “I’ll take you up on your offer.” Then a knot begins to develop in my stomach. My legs protest. 

I slow to a complete stop. This seems all too familiar, like a set up to an opening scene to one of those generic true crime episodes.

I’ve been told I look young for my age; people have mistaken me for an intern where I work. And here I am, alone, ready to hop into a stranger’s van because they offer me the adult equivalent of candy. I curse myself for being swayed by the offer of free, exotic fruit.

Despite my instincts kicking in, I’m overwhelmed by the need to be polite. Should I follow the man out of politeness or should I stay put?

“Actually,” I say, shifting my weight to one foot and clutching the ear of my mug harder, “I have this drink on me. Do you mind if I meet you over at the tables?”

The man sends me an easy smile and tells me not to go anywhere.

My rough fingertips tap against a smooth groove on the tabletop, my drink sits untouched. I fuss at how wobbly the table legs are. I open my book to reread a few lines on loop.

Finally, three plump passionfruits drop onto my table.  

“There’s a vine out back where I volunteer at. We get a whole bunch this time of the year.”

I blink. They’re reddish purple and fist-sized.

“You can eat the seeds too, pulp and all.”

I nod, my head heavy, and grin at the man, “I appreciate this.”

The corners of my mouth twitch. I thank him again. He turns to grab his to-go and saunters out of the coffee shop.

I take a sip from my mug and savor the unexpected encounter. A strange smile takes to the corners of my mouth. I let go a small but wet, inaudible laugh and press a hand into my cheek. The tangy but sweet flavor melts on my tongue.

When did I ever get so jaded? I press my chin to my chest. Do I never expect any unconditional kindness from people anymore?

I take a deep breath, relishing in the notes of honey and milk along with the bite of tartness. The preschool can stay by the bank, I decide. The taste rejuvenates my soul. 

Jamie Li is a writer, tea drinker, and self-proclaimed recovering book hoarder. Raised in Santa Cruz, California, she now lives with her husband in Vancouver, BC, with hopes of growing more than cherry tomatoes on her north-facing balcony.  

 

The Cartoonish-Red Buick

By Laura Vance, Second Place Winner

How did I get here?                                              

This thought is not a rare one as I find myself, once again, trapped beneath him in the backseat of his cartoonish-red Buick that reeks of oil and germaphobia. Every altercation begins differently but ends the same – my body immobile beneath his torso – making every moment I spend with him ripe with unsettling unpredictability. I don’t know why I keep seeing him. I don’t know if I will ever really know why.                                                     

Beneath the vague displeasure that festers in my chest, I wish he would touch my face, my arms, my hair. Anything that isn’t where his hands are right now, fumbling and squeezing like the jaws of a hyperactive puppy trapped on a squeaky toy. I know he’s probably not pleased with my hair after what I did to it, but that can’t be the reason he’s excitedly groping my breasts instead. I pretend it’s because he told me he loves me. Recently I have been a huge partitioner of make-believe.                                              

Somewhere in the depths of my garbage can at home are several eight- inch chunks of hair that I recently severed from my head. The result of my impulsivity is a choppy, yellow bob that slices my neck every time I move. It’s probably unattractive to him, but that doesn’t really stop him from kissing me.

So, I keep kissing him back, because at least he seems to be fond of my lips, and I’m fond of the illusion of being loved.

Unfortunately, the lie doesn’t fully mask the overwhelming urge to exfoliate every inch of my body, but I don’t really care enough – about myself or my dignity – to say the two-letter word I have been attempting to suppress for ages. Would he even give us enough breathing time to listen?                      

It won’t even matter.

Nothing matters.

How did I get here?                                  

Strobing scenes tease my eyes without ever fully forming. A flash of me in my little black Homecoming dress, lingering eyes in statistics class, two cups of hot chocolate, a face hidden in a bookshelf. None of them make much sense here. It makes me dizzy.                                               

So, here I am, somehow in the backseat of his cartoonish-red Buick that reeks of oil and germaphobia, suddenly snapping out of my self-induced coma of apathy as he begins to unbutton my shirt. For someone so concerned with cleanliness, a habitual hand-washer, a chronic clean freak, this man – this boy – makes me feel so unfathomably dirty. But my mind has a convenient habit of ignoring the filthiness until well after he’s done with me.

The second button is undone. My chest feels cold, my bra an insufficient shield between him and his goal. Slowly, like my eyes are fluttering open for the first time, it’s dawning on me that there’s no one around. Absolutely no one. An intense feeling of fear penetrates the self-built wall of numbness I had so carefully constructed. The bricks crumble to the ground and finally, finally, I feel something.                                             

Terror, cold and raw, ravages my chest.                                         

I’m disgusted with him, but above all, I’m utterly repulsed with myself. Anxiety rips all my nerves in half. Vomit and tears battle inside of me as they fight to escape first.                                           

What are you doing?                                          

She used to collect the weeds she liked to call flowers in her suburban backyard and arrange them on her windowsill until they wilted and withered away. Her curtains had butterflies on them. She dressed up her Barbies and took special care not to touch them in certain places because she didn’t want to make her dolls uncomfortable. Her parents told her to never let anyone touch her in those places, and she tried very hard to be obedient.                           All her life, she tried very hard to be obedient.

Wash your hands after using the bathroom.

Double knot your shoelaces.

Eat your broccoli.

Practice your violin.

Brush your teeth.

Talk to God every night.

Say no.

Never be afraid to say no.                                  

She’s a child, learning the rules all over again. Stumbling and tripping and learning to speak. She stutters to make a sound, confused by her new world and why it makes her so scared. Why the people who say they love her do bad things.                                                          

She doesn’t know the answer just then, and likely never will, but she breathes in anyway and braces the world.             Her first word will be a strong one.                               

Born and raised in Maryland, Laura Vance is an aspiring author. She is studying English as a freshman at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She hopes to esape soon in pursuit of a moderately successful writing career, or the possession of more than twelve dollars in her bank account.

A Dog With No Name

By Pamelyn Casto, Third Place Winner

We were poor people with dirt ways in a place where the fast or the fearful sometimes survived. Sookeys Creek was a tree-suffocated, asthma-choked tiny holler in eastern Kentucky, a place thick with humidity, poison ivy, fleas, ticks, and chiggers. The dusty one-lane mountain road crawled past haunted coal caves, lonesome cemeteries, and kept company with the crawdad-filled creek that ran alongside it.

One day a little tawny dog appeared from out of nowhere. Dogs ran wild back there so a dog showing up wasn’t unusual. But that was the happiest pup I’d ever seen. We spent hours together running up and down the holler road. I wanted to name him but couldn’t think of a fitting name. He was special, bigger in spirit than most dogs so the usual hound names wouldn’t do– names like Gyp, Bob, Red, or Jack didn’t suit him. I decided to wait until the right name came to me.

I looked forward to every new morning. I’d jump out of bed, grab a biscuit, and run outside. When I whistled, he’d come running, his tail wagging in pure delight. He’d gulp down the bits of biscuit I sneaked to him and then off we’d go.

He had that delicious puppy smell that delighted me. But one day I noticed a big red patch of angry skin forming on his belly. I didn’t think too much about it. We played as usual and I felt like that dog was my best friend.

Then one day old Press Hawkins’s keen whistle split the summer air and me and the pup ran to greet him. The pup yipped and danced on his hind legs in excitement at reaching Press.

Then without warning, Press patted the pup, and with his other arm smacked his monkey wrench hard into the back of the dog’s head.

The pup let out one loud yelp and my own yelp turned to a howl. In horror I looked at him there, just a common mutt lying in the yard that humid afternoon, his red mange stopped in its tracks, his splattered brains a puzzle in the mangled bluegrass.

Press mumbled, “He had to go. A mangy dog’ll infect the rest.” I ran off and hid in the smokehouse. Why didn’t I give that little dog a name? He needed a name and I couldn’t think of one. I couldn’t stop crying and said my own name over and over again, just to make sure it took. I should have given that pup a name. If he’d had a name, maybe I could have called him back.

Pamelyn Casto is the author of Flash Fiction: Alive in the Flicker, A Portable Workshop. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737774240/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1663873137&sr=1-1. She has articles on flash fiction in Writer’s Digest, Fiction Southeast, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letter, Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of New American Reading, and Critical Insights: Flash Fiction.

Can You Hear Me Now?

By Cassandra Hussey, Also Third Place Winner

 

“Cassie’s mother is deaf and dumb! Cassie’s mother is deaf and dumb!”

The chanting woke me up out of a sound sleep one early Saturday morning. Where was I? Oh, yes, our new home. Where was that noise coming from? It was right under my bedroom window. I climbed out of bed and went to see what was going on.

My parents had just had a mountain of peat moss delivered by truck the previous day. Excited about their newly purchased first home, they had big plans for landscaping the bare backyard. Looking out, I could see the new mound and several neighborhood children dancing on it.

“Cassie’s mother is deaf and dumb! Cassie’s mother is deaf and dumb!”

I did not understand what they meant but I did understand it was insulting. I rushed from my bedroom. My mother was sitting in the dining room, reading the daily paper. Her back was to me, and so she did not see me bolt out the door.

The children started laughing when they saw me rushing toward them, still in my pajamas and red with fury. They stopped when I charged up the mound screaming, “Get out of here!” When they did not move, I began shoving them. They rolled down the mound, jumped up, and ran away. I saw that two of them lived right next door to us.

Panting, shaking with fury, and with my heart pounding, I stamped back into the house.

The vibrations of the slamming door and my stamping feet caused Mom to look around. Her eyes widened with surprise, and then her brows formed a V with puzzled concerned. “What’s wrong?” she asked aloud.

At first the words tumbled from my mouth, and she shook her head. My parents used lipreading to communicate with me. I did not realize until I was older that the reason had to do with stigma attached to signing. That is another story. I had to slow down but first I needed to take some deep breaths to calm myself. I used some fingerspelling and pantomime to show her what had happened.

Mom’s eyes began to flash with anger, and she said she would write a note to her neighbor and complain. I hesitated and then confided, “they said you are deaf and dumb. It is a lie.”

Mom looked sad. She answered, “It is true that I am deaf. I cannot hear, but I am not dumb.”

A sudden awareness bloomed in my brain, scaring me. “But you can hear me, right?”

Mom shook her head, no.

I pitched my voice higher, louder. “You can hear me now, right?”

Again, Mom shook her head no.

I yelled, “NOW can you hear me?”

When Mom shook her head no again, I burst into tears. I had known that my parents were different from other parents, but it had never occurred to me they had not ever heard my voice. My heart broke for the first time at the age of six. Mom put her arms around me, hugging me and trying to comfort me.

That Saturday changed my world as I realized how different my family was and how unfairly my parents were marginalized because they could not hear. As I processed everything that happened that day, I became a small advocate. As the years passed, I became more and more aware of how poorly people with disabilities and people of color were treated. That Saturday set me on my life’s path.

Cassandra Hussey is a writer and hearing adult child of Deaf parents from Long Island. Storytelling has been my lifelong passion. I wear many hats: wife, mother, grandma, great-grandmother, cat mom, and online Book Nook tutor. I’m currently working on a memoir about growing up hearing in a Deaf family.

Honorable Mentions (in random order) go to  

Pamela Pan for “Not a Soft Persimmon”

Alexsandra Sierra for “Suds and Duds”

Hina Naela for “Room 416”