“There are mermaids in the water,” Pa always began. This was the preface to my brother’s favorite story. Pa would tell us how, if you were still and silent long enough at the edge of the dock, you could spy the shimmering green-gray of their fish tails as they flashed and disappeared. He said this mysterious disturbance…
The counselor’s room is never still. It is churning pipes and an hour-off ticking clock and Friends Care! posters flapping on paint-thick walls and a heat of stories pushing themselves forward, tangling around each other. The students wiggle, fidget, shake in the armchair, as if fighting off their own words. * * […]
I’ve been trying to hold onto that perfect moment when you first wake up. In that moment nothing has substance. There is no conscious thought, just the bright light of a new day and you don’t remember anything at all. I’ve found if I hold my breath and don’t blink I can make that moment […]
I’m dead. I know what you’re thinking: teenage drama. Now you’re expecting me to say that I missed curfew, or failed math class, and my parents are going to kill me. I wish. I’ve been gone for almost a year. I don’t know why they call it “gone.” I’m still here. We’re all still here. […]
The Crystal Rainbows Centre in Morvale is the local loony bin—home for the ill at ease, nut house, window-lickers playground, or as some chavskanks (who have the experience to know) say: “a bit better than prison, innit.” Almost every kid gets terrorized by some older twat at school with horror stories about the place, about […]
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