Here. the Whispered

Apprentice Writer Vo The Lempuyang Gates of Heaven Chantel Kardous Lincoln, RI l u 38 m e Apprentice Writer www.apprenticewriter.com PRIZES HIGH SCHOOL WRITERS ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT $200 THEIR POETRY, CHOREOPOETRY, SPOKEN WORD to Outstanding Writer POETRY, GRAPHIC FICTION AND NONFICTION, PROSE in fiction, nonfiction, FICTION AND NONFICTION, AND PHOTOGRAPHY and poetry SUBMISSIONS FOR PUBLICATION & PRIZES. CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: September 15 to March 15 In addition to being published in the 2021 edition, a published author $50 will award selected writers the prize of Outstanding Writer in fiction, to Runners-Up in nonfiction, and poetry as well as Runners-Up in each genre. fiction, nonfiction, and SUBMISSIONS: poetry HTTP://TINYURL.COM/APPRENTICEWRITER2021 Questions? Contact Ashley Houtz at The Writers Institute, Susquehanna University, at [email protected]. Spend a week immersed in writing with Susquehanna’s nationally recognized authors! JULY 18—24, 2021 Live the life of a practicing writer through intensive writing workshops and one-on-one conferences. Concentrate on fiction, poetry, or memoir. The $1025 fee (discount given for early applications submitted by April 15) covers all costs, including room and board. Scholarships are available. APPLY ONLINE AT: WWW.SUSQU.EDU/ WRITERSWORKSHOP The Gates of Heaven been taught better than that), but we didn’t play the be, but I liked the process anyway. game anymore. Instead, I stood on the stump alone, I carried a different name, different are White (Among sometimes with a notebook, sometimes just with the story—a different spoon-fed lie or Other Things) ants. I’d occasionally try to lean back on my own, partial truth, depending on how you Emily Bach but I wouldn’t get very far without falling. I needed look at it. Sometimes, I wonder if I carried parts of her, not in a loving way but a pragmatic one. We each of them—outgoing and quiet and traditional Oakton, VA balanced each other until we didn’t. and ordinary—or if I was always just one thing ❖ masquerading as another. “Which color do you want?” asks a man Every couple of seconds, the woman ❖ with a poorly-groomed beard. He gestures to a parrots a series of cautiously-optimistic chants, and, While the family waits, they share rainbow pile of beads resting a feet away from us, in her silence, the man does the same. Neither of memories of the woman they remembered, though accompanied by a thin, plastic coating meant to them seems to believe the other, but they say them none of them seem to match each other all that well. hold them together. I say nothing and search for an anyway. At any given moment, they both look far The young ones talk about getting ice cream for answer in the strangers around me, hopeful that they too close to collapse, one marginally more alive, the dinner, her cousins about her work ethic and perfect can fill my blank space, my mouth. other marginally less so, waiting for the other to fall report cards, her parents about her days working at Banners and bright purple signs drape but trusting that they won’t. the local post office. Many of their stories seem lost themselves over the trees, juxtaposed by the gloomy Purple: I lost a family member. in the others’ ears, as if they’re trying to construct a aura that feeds them. “March for Suicide A messy collage of teenage boys, middle- jigsaw puzzle of her, not realizing that the pieces Prevention,” they read, accompanied by a slew of aged women, and two older-looking adults don’t fit with one another because they belong to photo props and buckets begging for donations. congregate in front of me. Attached to their purple them, not to her. Walking towards the beads, a little girl whips past shirts are safety-pinned papers that read “I walk for White: I lost a friend. me, the wind chasing her and another young boy ___.” My aunt. My grandma. My cousin. All and A man stands inches away from the table following. Their bodies float by with a lightness, none of them say her name. but says nothing. He stares at the ground, tracing the not yet aware of the weight of the world. ❖ crevices of the pavement with his eyes. His feet “I walk because…” the sign behind them I’ve taken Spanish for four years, and, each carry moccasins, waist an overused fanny pack, and begins. year, class begins the same way. The teacher hands a pile of white beads and a walking stick. The Teal: My loved one struggles. introduces herself (usually in a string of words that I young couple beside him try to hold a conversation, The couple to my left grasps each other’s should be able to translate but can’t) and takes but he never replies. He seems to hear nothing, but I hands as they walk towards the starting line, as if attendance. My first year, I chose Adelina as my see him flinch each time a younger man opens his the strength of their grip is the only force holding “Spanish” name, solely because I was called on lips. them together. Both of them wear teal necklaces, unexpectedly, and it was the first word that came to ❖ though the woman’s appears more worn down than mind. My next year, I chose Rosalia, the one after the man’s. Hers is interrupted by random dots of Near the beginning of fifth grade, I that Berta, and the one after that Emilia. emerged as the unofficial soloist for my school grey, seemingly from where the paint chipped away, By the end of my Junior year, I’d revealing the metal beneath it. choir. I’d been awarded the makeshift title only developed a collection of identities that didn’t because the teacher liked me, not for anything ❖ belong to me but felt like they did. There were resembling real talent. There were many other girls During recess in third grade, my friend and certain connotations with each one, or at least I that practiced more and could hold a tune better, but I would stand at opposite ends of the playground wanted to believe there were. Adelina sounded like I was sweet and quiet and didn’t challenge the tree stump and lean back. Our grip was the only a name for a shy girl, one that wasn’t quite familiar teacher’s authority when she was wrong, traits she thing that kept us from falling, both of us holding with the sound of her own voice but was trying to appreciated. hopefully to one another, toothy smiles painting our be. Rosalia was the popular girl that spoke often in Each quarter, when the exhibition concert faces and gravity dragging us towards the dirt floor. class, Berta a traditionalist that would’ve preferred came around, we’d audition for solos. The process It became our tradition: teetering on the brink of to be watching cable news or reading, Emilia the was more a formality than a legitimate contest. For collapse. stereotypical sit-in-the-back-of-the-room student. the summer concert, I was chosen to sing the One Friday, she got bored and chose to let When I quit Spanish my Senior year, I lost second verse in “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” go, sending me hurtling backwards into a stout ant all of them at once. In many ways, they were fake I practiced religiously but quickly hill and a plentiful patch of dirt. I didn’t yell (I’d identities, composed only of what I wanted them to realized the piece didn’t fit snugly in my range. Nonetheless, on the day of Porch the two sweaters and thick coat. the show, I approached the solo I understood little of what was happening mic, prepared to sing it anyway. The Sonia Mehta then. All I knew was that my father had been music dimmed softly, my cue that I Dublin, OH offered something called “a medical residency.” He had approximately two seconds before I was to had brought us to the other side of the world to start start, and the school’s spotlight looked to me. I “What is she wearing? Look at that ugly a new life. But something had gone wrong. We froze. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the words, much scarf!” learned at the airport that the residency had “fallen less that I didn’t know how to sing them, but, all at “Why does she look like that?” my peers through.” A man called “the head” had sent a notice once, I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there. The whispered. “What country did she come from?” of the bad news, but we had already left our home. girls that had been passed over for the part were far “The one without mirrors.” A taxi drove us through the uncertain darkness to more talented than I was: hardworking, in-tune, I said nothing to these harsh jeers. My the “head’s” house to learn our fate. As I was lulled deserving of recognition. Somehow it was easier to friends did not know I, too, was an immigrant once. by the motion of the car, an image of a giant head, say nothing than to take up space in air that I stole. Why was I staying silent? Was I still trying to fit in? like that of Humpty Dumpty, kept appearing in my mind. ❖ “Tell him he cannot do this to you,” A volunteer offers the man a bottle of Mother urged in a trembling voice.

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