Expressing and Reflecting on a Prior Expression and Reflection (English 111, 11th Grade)

Written after “The Hootenanny” was not accepted by my professor

  I stare down at my phone, my thumbs twiddling in anxiety. I had an essay that was due yesterday, but I had thought it was due next week. Whoops. Now I had to scramble to finish it. What could I possibly write about, though? It had to be about a personal experience that left some sort of impact on me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have many of those, or at least nothing I wished to write an essay about. I opened up my mental “closet” and peered into it for some inspiration. No, no, no, absolutely not, I thought to myself as I swiftly slammed it shut. My thumbs twiddled on.

     I decided to put some music on, as it was getting to be a little too quiet in the house for my  liking. I opened up the Amazon Music app on my phone (we have the Unlimited subscription, it’s pretty sweet) and began browsing for something to listen to. Ween? Joanna Newsom? Lemon Demon? No, I know what I’m in the mood for. The Extraordinaires, an indie rock band* from Philadelphia are one of my favorites. Their 2006 album Short Stories would be my choice of listening for the evening.

     I glanced towards my window. Not much going on out there. We live in a hole, so there are no neighbors for us to spy on. Only trees. Perhaps I could write my essay about trees. Any particular tree-based memories? There was that time a tree caught on fire from a fallen power line outside our house… but that was only a mildly interesting, one page long occurrence. I needed something more exciting. I racked my mind further for such a memory, but to no avail. Minute after minute passed by. What big things have happened to me this year?, I thought as I tried to avoid looking at all of the tally marks scratched into the walls of my room. Sweat started dripping from my forehead as I feared that I may have to pull out “Ol’ Reliable” for this one. I closed my eyes tightly as I brainstormed. Then, I became aware of the song that was currently playing. These words then drifted inside my ear holes:

“He went roaming in Wyoming, horseback riding and cattle roping.

He roped that steer in record time, they saw him as an outcast ‘till he showed them how to ride.”

Bingo. There was my essay. It would be an epic tale. I would tell a story about how I, in a past life I suppose, competed in a grand tournament to decide who was the Best of the West. It would contain some fantastical elements, of course, as it would turn out to be a snoozefest if there weren’t any. It would be quite a story.

     The sun fell and the moon rose as I tapped away at my keyboard. My eyes began to burn as I started to doubt whether turning an essay in like this was actually a viable option. It’ll be fine, dude, just roll with it and you’ll be fine, said the abnormally reassuring voice inside my head. I typed on into the night.

     At some point, my essay was complete. I turned it in with my fingers crossed and tried to forget about it. Of course, I promptly remembered it when I was told by my professor that she couldn’t really accept it. I was hit with a feeling of disappointment yet little surprise. She liked the story, at least.

     Now I was faced with the predicament of writing a new essay, and it probably should be real this time. As I write this now, I am still working it out. Trust me though, when I finish it, it will be of above-average quality, questionably impactful, and probably have a self-aware tone. This is just another day in the life of a creative problem-solver such as I. I am staring into the mirror right now, trying to forge some kind of spiritual connection with myself. It is not working at the moment, but once I accomplish this feat, I shall be off to the races with my superbly told personal narrative. Until then, I’ll be seeing you next week- same time, same channel.

The Shack on Carter Street (American History, 11th Grade)

     Near where I live, on 307 Carter Street, there stands a shack. It is of no immediately-apparent significance, requiring one to take a closer look at it in order to discover any sort of deeper importance. I have laid my eyes upon this shack many times, and read the sign that stands in front of it. “LAW OFFICE OF ALFRED MOORE SCALES, BUILT AROUND 1854.” Who is this Mr. Scales, I ask myself? A lizard, perhaps? Can lizards become lawyers? If one is inclined to read the sign further, they will discover that the answer to this inquiry of reptillianism is a resounding no. Alfred Scales was the proud leader of a fulfilling life. His time serving in the Confederate Army, however, does damper that proudness from the perspective of a I-sure-am-glad-the-Union-won-that-war type of person (all jokes aside, though, I sure am glad the Union won that war.) This man served as a lawyer, state legislator, general, and governor of North Carolina in his sixty-four years of life on Earth, the absolute madman. That’s possibly more than you or I may ever accomplish! In this essay, I wish to explore this man’s assorted fruit cup of a life, and provide a harrowing account of my experience visiting the law office he left behind.

Part 1. The Child Who Was Not a Lizard

     The first thing that stood out to me in my reading of the sign outside the shack was the fact that Alfred Scales was born on November 26, 1827. I reached into my vast-yet-limited well of historical knowledge in order to discern what this could possibly mean.

     This attempt at discerning meaning from a birth date failed, utterly, so I decided to just go home and search online for it. Alfred Moore Scales was born to Robert and Jane Bethel Scales in Reidsville on Ingleside, their plantation. He went to school at the Caldwell Institute in Greensboro, before going to study law at the University of North Carolina. He never earned a degree, however. Instead, he continued his study of lawyering under a man named William H. Battle (nice foreshadowing) and in 1852, he was admitted to the bar, officially making him a lawyer. He set up shop in the town of Madison (not Wisconsin, unfortunately) and started building one of the finest resumes I’ve read this week.

Part 2. Lawyer up, Buttercup!

     Here we come to the interesting part. Upon finishing my research, I ventured back towards that hallowed ground where Mr. Scales once worked his lawyer magic. I gazed upon that succulent red door (it reminded me of a juicy apple) and thought about this man’s stint as a lawyer. There wasn’t all too much that immediately came to mind about his law career, and the same seemed to hold true for whoever wrote the paragraph of text on the sign that stood near me. I would have to dig deep for this…

     Perhaps this had to do with the fact that he was juggling a few different side gigs during his lawyer career. He served in North Carolina’s House of Commons (now called the House of Representatives) as well as the U.S. House of Representatives, and was an Elder of the Madison Presbyterian Church. How the man put time in to practice any law is beyond me. He also found time to marry Katherine Henderson, and raise his adopted daughter with her. There came a time, however, when he felt he had to hang up his…briefcase of legal matters, or whatever lawyers carry…and don a then-fashionable gray military uniform. The U.S. had been cracked apart like a fortune cookie, and it was time to put it back together (preferably in a manner that allowed for the ownership of slaves, in the case of the people in gray.)

Part 3. A Scaly Brigade

     Despite the obvious failure to fight for the victorious side of the war, it is undeniable that Scales did good on adding to his list of life accomplishments during his military service (making him a partial winner in my eyes.) Scales joined a group known as the Rockingham Guards, which was officially Company H of the 45th Regiment of the North Carolina Infantry (wow, military organization!) His military prowess was positively-viewed, and he continued fighting until he was wounded in his though at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia, in May of 1863. This was not enough to keep him out of the fight, however, because he returned to the battlefield just in time for the Battle of Gettysburg (lucky him.) He was now a brigadier general, which made him the leader of his own brigade. Scales’s brigade made some fine moves in the battle, advancing far while sustaining some larger-than-they’d-prefer casualties. Scales sustained a leg wound and had to depart in an ambulance. He would make yet another comeback in 1894, but this was brief, due to his already existing wounds causing issues. When the Confederacy surrendered, Scales was safe at home, and proceeded to grab his lawyer things and be a lawyer again.

Part 4. The Stuff that Happened After

     Scales, while having resumed his lawyerly duties, did not feel the need to pass up on being elected to the U.S. Congress, and be re-elected four whole times. You might think he would seek out a presidential run at this point, but alas, you are wrong. He just settled on being North Carolina governor. As governor, he supported improving the state’s education via government funding, and raising awareness of the poor condition of the state’s transportation networks (consisting of railroads and highways at this time.) After stepping down from the state governor position, he repositioned himself as president of the Piedmont Bank. Unfortunately, his end would come in the form of a type of kidney disease that caused his brain to swell up, making his final days only a series of short moments of consciousness. Alfred Moore Scales passed away at the ripe old age of sixty-four (insert cheeky Beatles reference.) He was buried at Green Hill Cemetery, in Greensboro.

     It was at the end of my visit, that I gave a moment of silence for this man and his colorful accomplishments (I’m being just a little dramatic here.) His memory, regardless of any political affiliations he may have held, deserves to live on.  His life story is an excellent example of the many lesser-known individuals that lead lives that were almost equally as admirable as the legends they lived  alongside. It definitely makes you a bit more aware of just how rich our nation’s history is. With this thought, I left the coldness of the air outside and rode away in my car to ponder these things while binge-watching The Simpsons in my nice, warm living room.

WORKS CITED

Downs, Alan C. “Scales, Alfred Moore.” NCpedia, University of North Carolina Press, 2019, https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/scales-alfred-moore.

Kellie Slappey. “Alfred Moore Scales (1827-1889).” North Carolina History Project, John Locke Foundation, 2016, https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/alfred-moore-scales-1827-1889/.

“Scales Law Office.” Town of Madison, North Carolina, Town of Madison, 2013, https://www.townofmadison.org/index.asp?SEC=54C8B15B-F7EC-4318-8483-CAF6A1643B8E&DE=1C29C2C1-912E-49B5-B39A-D317867805EB.

The Great Great Gatsby Essay (English III, 11th Grade)

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is, without a doubt, a popular book (I mean, would I be writing about it if it wasn’t? Likely not.) In this hyped-up 1920s time capsule of a novel, Fitzgerald explores themes such as disillusionment, family, and religion. These themes are all thrown together in a kind of big literary boiling pot, from which springs the novel’s tragic climax. The book, part of the literary period known as Modernism, shares thematic similarities to other works from around the same time such as Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants and Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (but only the sixth chapter, because reasons), which I’ll be comparing to Gatsby in an effort to highlight said similarities.Let us start off with that concept of disillusionment, which ties into one of the things that makes this novel considered so greatly American. Disillusionment, and pardon my Snicket-esque method of word definition, is what we call it when someone (or perhaps an entire generation of people) has become unpleasantly separated from some fantasy of theirs, which has potential side effects including but not limited to depression, death, and a desire to move back home. In the case of the book’s eponymous character, he becomes disillusioned with his dream of making off with his sweetheart Daisy Buchanan. As much as Gatsby believes he can steal Daisy away from her husband and become married as they had originally intended, it simply does not come to fruition. It is in this state of disillusionment that he dies at the hands of Daisy’s husband’s mistress’s husband (go make a chart), having sadly been blamed for Daisy’s own act of (wo)manslaughter. This dream of Gatsby’s is used in comparison to the greater American Dream that many have chased after since the country’s founding, visually represented in the form of a green light that emanates from Daisy’s dock. This experience of disillusionment was prevalent among the generation that served in the First World War, of which Gatsby is a part of. [d]Erich Remarque depicts this experience in his book All Quiet on the Western Front. Here, the main character reminisces on his life before entering the war, only to find that because of his combat experience, his memories have lost the aura of pleasantry that they once had. Through Gatsby’s disillusionment, and the disillusionment of Remarque’s band of soldiers, we are shown how dreams are like smoke or light, not solid and therefore one is able to easily slip through them without containing them. Daisy, like the light shining from her dock, eludes Gatsby with its non-solid eternalness.

Moving on to some of the book’s secondary themes, we come to the theme of family. One of the book’s prominent families is Tom Buchanan, Daisy, and their baby daughter. They are, without a doubt, the closest thing to a nuclear family you can find in the pre-atomic bomb era. They are also rather dysfunctional. By the end of the book, Daisy has chosen to stay with her cheating husband in spite of her obviously expressed feelings towards Gatsby. Tom’s cheating on Daisy, a central plot thread that ties into the climax, runs contrary to his outward support of traditional family ideals (oh, and he’s also a white supremacist, which may remind you of some people you see in the news these days.) In further discrepancies between Tom’s ideals and reality, it is noticed throughout the book that they are rather distant from their infant daughter, Pammy, whose name we do not learn until around her third or fourth appearance. This paints a picture of the Buchanan family as putting up an illusion on their surface, which we gradually become disillusioned with throughout the course of the book. This portrayal of flawed relationships and families is seen in Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, where a young couple debate over the girl having some unnamed medical operation performed on her, likely an abortion. Their flawed communication, particularly with the man specifically pushing the girl to have the operation done, shows that the generation of the 1920s, while living out lifestyles that seemed all rather splendid on the surface, often had very deep cracks that made them less than ideal. The illusive fronts they put up were like kids hiding their toys in closet instead of actually cleaning up their mess. Their lives would be far more legitimately appealing if they did.

Now, we have reached perhaps the murkiest of any theme that can be tackled – I’m talking about religion, of course. The character of George Wilson, the husband of Tom’s mistress (you still got that chart, right?) has religious motivations behind his misguided act of murder against Gatsby. Wilson, after the murder of his dearly-loved wife, becomes a bit fixated on a certain billboard outside of his auto shop. He is convinced that the eyes on the billboard are none other than the G-man himself (God.) He interprets this a call for divinely sponsored revenge, and shoots Gatsby, believing him to be responsible for dear Myrtle’s death. Wilson is something of a blend between Gatsby and Tom. Like Gatsby, he has quite a thing with Tom’s girl [g]and has dreams of his own, being the proletariat he is. Like Tom, he has strong ideals concerning morality, even if they don’t necessarily show themselves in practice (although, with him killing himself after Gatsby’s murder, I suppose he holds himself to a higher standard than Tom does.) The novel’s depiction of religion is similar to that of family, highlighting the hypocrisy of the character that claims to uphold it. It is but another fragile illusion that is left to be shattered.

So, The Great Gatsby, with its grand bevy of thematic elements (contributing to its PG-13 rating, a little MPAA humor for you), neatly ties it together under the umbrella of dreams and disillusionment. Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, and George have dreams, illusions, and episodes of disillusionment swirling about their character arcs. By the end of the book, Nick’s experiences lead him to succumb to his own disillusionment episode, leaving behind the lavish lifestyle he found in Long Island to head back to his home in the Midwest. In his eyes, this fellow characters were not fit for the life out East. The illusions that drove them towards this life, and the facades that masked the flawed undersides of their ways of living only served to be their downfall. Daisy and Tom fail to take responsibility for her actions, leading to Gatsby’s death, resulting from Gatsby’s own pursuit of Daisy in the first place. It’s not all surprising that on would be so put off by a messy situation such as this in the first place. The book’s title, describing Gatsby as “great”, is actually kind of ironic, considering how we find out how not-that-great he is upon further reading. Anyways, to cut it to the chase, Fitzgerald uses these very flawed characters to tell us how we should not judge people and dreams, like books, by their covers, as their allure can lead to grave, and potentially deadly, disappointment.

The Rock Life of Jack and Brody (Earth Science, 9th Grade)

    Jack and Brody began their journey around the rock cycle in the only way that made sense: with a volcanic eruption. It wasn’t just any volcanic eruption, though. It was the Absolute Sickest and Most Epic Volcanic Eruption You’ve Ever Seen in Your Whole Life. The volcano erupted with the ferocity of a thousand rabid tigers. Jack and Brody (who were still lava at the moment, they hadn’t cooled yet) came soaring out of the volcano with epic swag. Jack was playing some fiery air guitar and Brody was screaming at the top of his lungs “WHO’S READY TO ROOOOOOOCK?!?” They proceeded to fall from the hot, ashy sky and hit the ground with an unimpressive plop! “Whoa Brody,” said Jack, “This is pretty cool!” Brody gave a nod and said “I totally concur, dude! In fact, I think it’s so cool that we’re actually cooling down and turning into igneous rock!” Jack, who just noticed his sweet new rock bod, exclaimed “WOOOAAAAAHHH. MIND BLOWN!” Their bodies had a nice, coarse texture that made them look bodaciously fly.    They admired themselves for awhile before Jack noticed something. “Hey Brody, what’s this wet stuff that’s rushing past us really quickly?” Brody sniffed the air and replied “Well, it seems to be water, and it appears to be eroding us as well.” They saw the sediment being washed off of them and proceeded to scream for a thousand years, until they had finally been eroded completely, and their sediment was swept away by the water off to the lake that it led to. Jack and Brody were no longer Jack and Brody anymore. They were now just a cluster of sediments that was thrown into a mix with many other rocks, each with their own story (but not relevant to this one.) They fell to the bottom of the lake with all the others, and came together to form a new type of rock, which was called sedimentary rock. This new sedimentary rock was named Samberg. Samberg was a layered rock. He was far from the one dimensional characters the Jack and Brody were. Samberg had class. Samberg stayed this way long after the lake had dried up. One day, Samberg said to himself “Gee, it sure is getting hot in here, and I feel very pressured all of a sudden.” Samberg happened to be totally right. He was becoming a  metamorphic rock. The heat and pressure that he felt underground transformed him into something new, a type of rock known as metamorphic rock. He changed his name to Mike to reflect this awesome change. Mike had the sweet foliation and crystalline structure that all other rocks could only dream of. “This is pretty gneiss.” said Mike. He wasn’t like those other sedimentary and igneous rocks. He had been altered by the very inner workings of Mother Earth herself. Mike was feeling good, and he was excited to travel through the rock cycle again after he was melted down into magma.

The Glorious SPAM Museum (English, 9th Grade)

The summer before I went into 6th grade, me and my family went on a road trip to Minnesota to attend a quinceanera being held for my cousin (who I only ever remember meeting that one time). It was cool, I guess, but that wasn’t the best part. We also went to the Mall of America, the biggest mall in the country. It’s so big they put a whole theme park in there based on Nickelodeon shows. That was alright, but in the end it was just an oversized mall (with a theme park in it, though.) Impressive but still not the best part. I had gone to one of those places that was a McDonald’s and KFC in one building. While it tasted alright, it was FAR from the best part. My uncle, Fernando, is a proud employee at a Hormel meat processing plant (I prefer to call it “Santa’s Workshop”) My uncle, ever the wise man, suggested we take a visit to the Spam Museum in downtown Austin. Wait just a minute, I thought to myself, Such a place exists?

As it turned out, yes, such a place did indeed exist. This bewildered me, since how could I have not known about this? I’m such an avid fan of Spam that I SHOULD have known about this somehow. Yet I was just finding out it then. It was quite a pleasant surprise. I have loved Spam since the moment I found a can of it in our kitchen when I was just 3 years old. I developed an immediate emotional relationship with the product as soon as I made eye contact with the little knight on the can, Sir Spam-a-Lot. When I swallowed that first chunk of spam I had an immediate spiritual experience that was like finding out the true meaning of life. I have been a loyal follower of Hormel and their fine products ever since.

The next day, when we arrived at the museum, and stepped through the doors, it was like entering El Dorado, but instead of a City of Gold it was a museum of spam. A giant Wall of Spam stood behind the front desk. I walked beyond the wall, curious of what lied beyond that marvelous arrangement of cans. I was swept off my feet by the pure shock and amazement that hit like a golden brick to the head. There were a good many exhibits proclaiming the history and wonders of Spam that it locked up my brain trying to process all of it. There was an internet cafe where you could eat Spam, and browse the beautifully designed Hormel website while you ate. giving you a chance to take a look at their other products, such as chili and vienna sausages (my second favorite can of processed meat). Next we saw a replica of an aisle in a grocery store that looked like it was straight out of the 80’s, made to simulate the experience of seeking out a can of your favorite flavor of Spam on the shelf and purchasing it, with hopes of eating the savory meat within the can (perhaps using it in a variety of different recipes). I really liked this small theater where you could watch the Monty Python skit that centered around Spam, presented in crisp stereo sound that made my ears feel like they were within the skit itself, giving me goosebumps during the part where the waitress read off the menu. I particularly enjoyed the exhibit showing how Spam helped us win World War II, fueling soldiers as they powered through the Pacific theatre, defending their country with the power of canned meat. They even had a kids play area where parents could drop off their young offspring while they enjoyed the fine exhibits, allowing kids to play with assorted foam blocks that were shaped like cans of spam. The most amazing thing there, though, was a wax statue of George A. Hormel himself, the creator of Spam. I was so taken aback by how beautiful this statue was. The cheekbones were so elegantly carved, and the marbles that were held within his waxen eyeholes reminded you of the Great Lakes and gave him a nice twinkle in the eyes that you would expect from a man that created the greatest can of meat in the world. The last thing we stopped by was the gift shop. I excitedly navigated the rows of shelves, searching for the perfect souvenir to take home with me as proof to all my friends that I had been to the Holy Land. Then I noticed something. The prices on these products were very wrong. Thirty dollars for a small rubber stress ball shaped like a flying pig that had “SPAM” tattooed across its back? Sixty dollars for a blue hoodie with the Hormel logo on it? TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS for a small model of the museum itself? This wasn’t a museum… it was a tourist trap made to sell Spam! I clenched my fists in a furious rage. All of my admiration for Hormel and the SPAM brand had just been drained from my heart. I couldn’t take this anymore. So I got out of that horrible sham of a place. “You people have deceived me! You were my heroes, Hormel! How could you do this?!?” I yelled in heartbreak as I left the building.* The lesson I learned that day was a very important one. Sometimes your heroes aren’t what they seem. Keep your wits about you, kids.

*More like a whispering yell though

Note: No sarcasm was harmed in the writing of this narrative.

Filbert Is Ready (Earth Science, 9th Grade)

    They thought I was gone, and that my job here was done. That was about as far as you could get from the truth. I wasn’t dead, no, not one bit. I am alive and well, and now I’ve  come to seek the ultimate revenge. I was the protector of the world’s oceans, keeping the citizens of Earth from being eaten alive by the Seven Deadly Sea Monsters. I kept these mighty beasts at bay for eons before it finally seemed that they had given up on trying to eat people. Then what do those filthy-legged idiots do? They put a harpoon in my knee! A harpoon! I have been hiding in a cave these past few centuries, allowing my knee to heal… well, actually, it has definitely healed already, but I don’t want to leave this  cave until there are some sea monsters to fight. You know, so they don’t put another harpoon in me and tell me to go away again.

    That time is coming soon though, I can feel it. I can hear the Kraken becoming more restless, and the Phantom of Shamu beginning to moan again. I can make out the sound of the Zombie MegaShark’s mouth watering for brains. Cyborg Blackbeard is readying his ship, and the Siren, Thelxiope, is looking for a sailor to woo. Finally the twin Octopi, Phil and Jerry, are looking to finish their stamp collection (and the stamps happen to be made out of human flesh!)    The people of Earth have been too ignorant to realise what is going on. They fail to see that their lives are in danger,  and that I am the only one who can save them now. I, Filbert the Fabulous Fish-Man, do swear to protect the people of Earth with my life, no matter how many harpoons to the knee I must endure! I shall fight this battle until every last sea monster has been slain by me!

A Story About A Carp Who Dies and Gets Turned Into a Container of Fish Oil Supplements (Earth Science, 9th Grade)

The carp swam joyfully down the river in a sort of joyful glee, only vaguely aware of the fact that he would be dead by the end of this story, and turned into a container of fish oil supplements. Wait a minute, he thought,  what did the narrator just say?

I said you would be dead by the end of this story and turned into a container of fish oil supplements.

Er… okay, then, thought the fish.

The fish swam on, pretending not to hear my remark at first, but then stopped again to bother me about it.

Okay, so when you say I’ll be dead by the end of the story, do you mean it figuratively or literally?

Of course, you will FIGURATIVELY die at the end of this story and then be FIGURATIVELY turned into a container of FIGURATIVE fish oil supplements!

You aren’t being sarcastic, are you? inquired the tone deaf idiot of a fish.

Ahhh… I see…  so what do I do now?!?

You’ll just have to cope with the fact you’ll be dead by the end of this story.

BUT I CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO COPE WITH THIS!

I am terribly sorry about that.

NARRATOR! DON’T DO THIS… PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU!

The little fish swam around in circles frantically while all his silly little fish friends watched and laughed.

Now you’re just being a —

The fish died before he could finish the sentence, and was turned into a container of fish oil supplements.  

Lunch by the Lava Fountains (Earth Science, 9th Grade)

The man avoided the lava flows as he finished his ascent up the mountain. The large and heavy coat he wore did not stop him from nimbly dashing across the rocks as he came closer to the top. He stopped. This was it. He had reached the crater. He had come here at a good time as well. Lava was being spewed from the crater in a most graceful manner, its red glow contrasting beautifully with the blue sky. The fountains of lava did make the man a bit nervous, though. He wasn’t in the mood to be burned.

He fished through his stupidly large coat… and produced a goat.The goat bleated. It was pretty impressed by whatever all this red stuff was. The man let the goat enjoy this pleasant sight for a bit before tossing him into the lava. There, he thought, that ought to please the gods. Hopefully they’ll keep me safe while I eat my lunch. He pulled a picnic basket out of his coat and sat down on the comfiest rock in his vicinity. He opened the basket, found a sandwich and began to eat it.

The sandwich had peanut butter and bananas, squished between two slices of toast. Our nameless protagonist bit down and savored what was, for him at the moment, the pinnacle of modern cuisine. This was fine. Lava was being spewed into the air all around him, but not a single drop hit him. He had given the gods their goat, and they were keeping their end of the deal. The man would enjoy his sandwich.The goat would not have died in vain.

The Goose (Honors English 3, 11th Grade)

I.

I am the chosen one. The one chosen to carry out the Divine Errand that shall restore balance to this wretched world that has been drenched in chaos.

That is what they told me. The village elders, who I had looked up to to since I was a child, whose teachings I had earnestly absorbed into my heart and soul, and most importantly had chosen me. The others who had lived in the village allowed pessimism and doubt to fester in their minds and corrode their faith. I was the only one to remain loyal to the elders’ wisdom. For that, I was being rewarded.

Albeit in a very strange way.

    The night was cold. The goose slept soundly a few feet away from me. My hands were tucked in my armpits to try and keep them warm. I shivered, and I wished I had splurged on a nicer coat while we were in the last town. One might wonder why I couldn’t just take the goose with me somewhere to stay the night, the answer being that I was forbidden to touch it. It was considered a sacred creature.

    The elders had chosen me to be the “Watcher of the White Wings,” a mysterious yet important title given only to those of a “certain spirit” such as I.

“How many have held this title before me?” I asked of the elders.

“It is not known.” they replied in unison.

“How long must I watch this creature?”

“You will know when your task has been completed.”

And so we are here. The goose stirs, opening its eyes. It lets out a “Honk!” as it stands up. Onward we go.

I cannot afford to sleep, lest I allow my liege to wander away from me. A good thing, since I haven’t been able to sleep for several months now. Every so often my vision becomes blurred, and I must shut my eyes for a few moments to give them a break.

The goose wandered off as the sun began to rise. I drowsily trudged on after it.

II.

    The year is 2099. The forests burn, and the ice melts. Corrupt politicians have held this planet in a chokehold, greedily draining Mother Earth of her fruits and our pockets of every last penny. I was born in the city, but my mother and I fled when I was young after my father became swept up in the grimy criminal underworld that seemed to rule the town. Once he ticked off the wrong people, there was a sword dangling over our heads. We had to escape. I stay away from the cities now. They’re a living hell, especially for people like me.

    We wandered the country for a while, seeing little hope of having a safe place to live out however much of our lives we had left. At some point, we found ourselves in a massive forest, at the center of which lied a small religious commune. Finally, somewhere to call home.

    My mother had been very sick, though, and died shortly after we arrived. They placed her body in the ground, promising that her spirit would melt into the Earth’s heart and watch over me as a part of nature. The elders comforted me through my sorrow, and I soon became greatly invested in their teachings.

    That all lies behind me, still lingering in my mind. Ahead of me, nothing but a goose. I often feel that the world is coming to an end, and I wonder where I will be when it does.

III.

    A stream of sunlight poured in from the window of the bus as we bus as we travel through the desert. I paid the driver extra so the goose could ride. I had lured it onto the bus with breadcrumbs. We had been walking along in the same road for a while and my legs were getting tired, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to use a more relaxed mode of transportation.

           The world’s downward spiral was starting to turn into a violent tailspin at this point. I had no method of keeping track of the time outside of counting the times the sun rose and set, but I had a feeling that I’d been following this duck for a couple of years now, possibly. A very long time, at least.

           War was imminent. The flow of Earth’s juices were starting to slow to a trickle, and the leaders of the world were about ready to go for each other’s throats over it. Any day now.

            I shut my eyes for a bit. The sun was blinding me. I knew that when the world ended, I would likely be ending with it. I felt a pit in my stomach. I had spent the last bit of my life chasing a damn goose around instead of enjoying what little there was left to enjoy. I glanced over at the bird. It just wandered up and down the aisle of the bus, looking like nothing more than your regular goose. I was never told why it was so special, or any kind of prophecy or ritual PR any kind of information that involved a goose or explained why what I was doing was so important. I just did what the elders, the people that I had trusted since I was a child had told me to do. Now the apocalypse was fast approaching and my faith was wearing thin… perhaps too late.

The bus stopped abruptly. Some horrid noise wailed in the distance. I heard the bus driver gulp.

“It’s finally comin’ to pass.” he said solemnly.

The goose let out a panicked-sounding honk as it hopped out of it’s seat and frantically began moving to get off the bus. I jumped up and rushed after it.

It was moving faster than I’d ever seen it move before.  The sirens wailed as we ran off into the desert. It wasn’t too long before I began to become fatigued.

I collapsed on the ground. The goose paused.

I looked up at it, wondering if it would finally do something before we were annihilated by a nuclear warhead. It looked back at me. For once it seemed to genuinely acknowledge my existence. Its eyes strained themselves for a bit… right as it laid an egg.

The sirens continued to sound in the background like banshees as I stood there, frozen, staring at it. The goose plopped down in front of it and fell asleep. I couldn’t move.

Then came the flash. The horizon lit up as if the sun had just fallen from the sky and crashed into the Earth. I snapped out of my stupor and dove for the egg. I scooped it up and held it close to me, hoping for something to possibly emerge from it. A deus ex machina. A mushroom-shaped cloud began to form as the light began to lessen in its intensity. A cloudy wall began to grow in the distance, coming closer ever so aggressively.

The egg began to crack. A hole appeared in the shell.

I peered deeply into it.

The last thing me and the goose saw before we were vaporized by the wrath of man’s most cursed creation was unlike anything I had ever expected. As the fireball approached, I quickly forgot about it. I forgot about everything. My memories, fears, pleasures, aspirations, guilt, and my body seemed to melt in that moment. They seemed to fall away from my soul, and flow into the void that I now gazed upon in my final moments.

The fire rained upon me. I turned to ash, all of it blowing into the void. The ash circled around my soul, now an orb of light that oscillated between dimness and brightness steadily, like a heart beating. Branches of light began to extend into the void, spawning flowers and trees and shapeless creatures that scurried about in between them. The fire died out eons away.
I had taken root.

The Hootenanny (English 111, 11th Grade)

THE HIGH PLAINS OF AMERICA, 1903

     The air was hotter than usual that day. That meant the bulls would be extra irate. Perfect. This was one of the most important days of my life. The day that I would prove myself to all of those jerks back home.

     See, where I come from, stuff like bulldogging and cattle roping isn’t really considered an art form. I hailed from a little island just off the coast of Canada where most people I knew were obsessed with getting into fancy schools and being rich and whatnot. Not me. Maybe I should have been more like them, and aspired to be something more than just an unusually skilled ranch hand, but that just wasn’t me.

     Then along came a strange old man who promised he could take me to a place where my skills would be appreciated, a place that didn’t smell like fish and goose crap, but rather manure and freshly smoked barbeque. He said this to me while donning a rather extravagant and very weathered-looking outfit befitting of what I imagined to be a veteran cattle roper.  Now, to any children reading this, I would not recommend you take up a strange old man whose name you don’t even know (because he won’t tell you) on any wild offer he gives you. I just happened to be particularly desperate in this situation.

     The old man whisked me away, down into the High Plains of America, where there was a great big ranch that I assumed he owned. It was here that I would work, tending to the livestock and training with the real-deal cowboys that had been in a similar situation as I had. They told me their stories and taught me their ways, preparing me for a grand competition that was soon to occur. The finest herders, ropers, wranglers, and bulldoggers such as I would venture out from the farthest corners of the Earth to show their skills. The winner would receive eternal glory and unknown riches. This is what got me out of bed every morning.

     Now came the most important morning of them all. There was a kind of fire in my soles as I leapt out of bed and rushed down to where the party was. The entire week had been dedicated to this competition, in a massive carnival whose attendees simply referred to as “The Hootenanny”. It was the final day of the carnival, and I was in the last group to go up. I stood in a dugout outside the ring trying not to get too nervous. I had been at the ranch for almost a year and a half. I had learned what was necessary to win this competition, so there was little to worry about. I thought about this as I witnessed a very agitated steer ram one of the Hawaiian competitors, a paniolo named Ikua, into the side of the ring. A drop of sweat fell from my brow. I was up next.

     In the first round, one had to simply race around an arrangement of barrels as fast as possible, and in a specific pattern given to us before we started. I aced it with a time of nine and a half seconds, thankful for my photographic memory and knowledge of a proper exercise routine for horses. The second round was a rather large step up in its challenge, and many met their end here. Here, one had to lasso a calf while on horseback, dismount the horse, then run over to the cow and tie it’s legs together as fast as possible. The calf I had to deal with was particularly wiggly, but with a precise throw, fast hands, and a knack for calming young cattle down, I managed to subdue him in the span of merely fifty-one seconds.

     Cheers erupted from the crowd as I grinned nervously in anticipation of the third round. For the final round, I was faced with the challenge of wrestling a steer, or bulldogging, the art of which I had practiced extensively back home. Why would I be nervous now? That would be because the steer that was brought out before me was perhaps the largest, angriest looking creature I had ever laid my eyes upon. The time for this round wasn’t recorded, the challenge was actually to survive your encounter with this unholy beast.

     I mounted my steed and sauntered into the ring. The steer eyed me with a kind of incomprehensible malice. It was hot, it was tired, and it seemed to hate me purely because I existed. I spurred the horse into action. Time seemed to slow down as I rushed toward it at full speed, and it did the same. Right before impact, I veered sideways to avoid it and leapt off the back of the horse and onto the steer, grabbing it by the horns. It bucked violently, trying to throw me off, but I kept a tight grip as I attempted to control it. Unfortunately, it could not be controlled. I simply didn’t have the strength to do it. The world became a blur as I was jostled back and forth and up and down… before being bucked upwards into the great blue sky.

     My eyes were shut for several agonizing seconds before I opened them and realized I was still flying. That steer sure could buck. The ranch below quickly became a little speck, and soon enough I could see all of the High Plains. I wondered if I would ever come back down. Then, I heard a voice from the clouds around me:

“You did some fine work down there, pardner!”, said the voice, with an aura of proudness.

“Who are you?!?!”, I replied, still tumbling upwards.

“Why, I’m just keepin’ an eye on things from up here. Makin’ sure folks like yourself are stayin’ in line.”

“Did you see that steer buck me?”

“He sure was an angry feller, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. Am I ever going to come back down?”

“Oh I’m sure you will. It’s gonna hurt like hell though, but only for a bit.”

“Will I… die?”

“Seems like it, I’m afraid.”

“Does this mean I’m not gonna win the competition?”

“Oh, competition shmompetition! What matters is you did some darn fine ropin’ and ridin’, some chumps don’t ever get to accomplish anything nearly as great as what you just did. And when you splat onto that dirt down their never gonna forget what you did. So I’d say you’ve left your mark on this old earth.”

“Well… thank you!”

“Adios, amigos!”

     I finally stopped flying, and began my descent into the plains below. The sun shone brightly on me as the wind rushed across my face. I let out a roaring “YEEE-HAWWW!” and threw my cap out into the sky. I grinned as I hit the ground, splattering across the plains, literally leaving my mark on the world. Sure, I didn’t live to experience the glory of success, but I got what I wanted, and that was all I could have asked for.

     Now, many years later, my consciousness has managed to rearrange itself into something new, something fresh. Every now and then I have dreams of my past life as a legendary cowboy, and I find that spark that kept me going back then gets reignited, and I become thrilled thinking of the thousand possible futures that await me.