Writers’ Avenue Issue 2 December 2013 Writers’ Avenue Issue 2 Issue 2: “Winter” Like snow falling in winter, a writer's pen moves with such intricacy, carefully weaving the stories of life. Every character conceived like snowdrops from the sky, every moment unfolding like breeze of the cold winter solstice. Page 2 Writers’ Avenue Issue 2 Editors’ thoughts Leys It's been a whirlwind of a year, mostly not in a good way. To say that it's been an eventful year is an understatement. Politics, conflicts, typhoons and earthquakes and calamities...that's just here in the Philippines! Perhaps it was all due to the unluckiness of the number 13? In any case, with so many depressing events going on and, for some, so much trauma to live through, the holidays just seem so difficult to celebrate this year. But perhaps it's because of our terrible luck that we need to celebrate the holidays even more? It has been one hectic year and we all deserve to have fun after all we've been through. David Time flew by so fast! Last time I checked it was only August five minutes ago. Kidding aside! A lot of things have happened this year and there were some things that we didn’t expect coming along the way. But the good thing is that another chapter of our lives is yet to be unfolded and it would be an avenue for each of us to start all over again. The year 2013 though, has both been good and bad for me. I had some failures I wished I’d avoided, but I had some good moments too. And I think this year taught me that there are battles in life we’d rather settle with defeat, not because we can’t fight through it, but because it’s not worth it. After all, it’s best to consider what would give us peace of mind. What else. What else. Oh, thank you for yet another successful issue of our magazine and I wish you all the best of the holidays. Just keep the normal blood pressure at bay. Okay? Good times y’all and I hope 2014 would be great for each of us. Keep writing! Page 3 Writers’ Avenue Issue 2 Paul Christmas has evolved from a purely religious event to a cross-cultural occassion of thanksgiving charity and remembrance I might not be that of a religious guy but Christmas still makes me giddy, with all the food, friends and travels. This year’s occassion seems to be unusual to me. I walk to the streets at night seeing more houses having decorations than usual, and people seems to be more excited. It felt like everyone’s having a more comfortable shot at life. As I see the christmas lights outside of homes and streets, it felt like hope’s always there and I have nothing to worry after all. I could not wait for the year ahead. I hope that for the next set of holidays, I will celebrating it with a wider smile on my face and that more people will get to share it’s joy. About the magazine The Writers’ Avenue is a Philippine-based digital & print Contact Information magazine featuring literary works of various genre, providing a venue for budding writers to be heard. E-mail [email protected] Scribd Facebook scribd.com/writersavenueph facebook.com/writersavenueph Issuu Twitter issuu.com/writersavenueph twitter.com/writersavenueph Slideshare Tumblr slideshare.net/writersavenueph writersavenueph.tumblr.com Magcloud (print edition) magcloud.com/user/ Cover Photo by Wilhelmina Ramos writersavenueph Page 4 Writers’ Avenue Issue 2 Table of Contents Hannah Hunt 6 For the People 19 in the Gallery Catherine Flores Reviews Frida Jönsson Urban Love 9 Now You See Me 39 Saying Your Name 20 Eishein Fillon Doctolero Fan Girl 41 Charmaine Escalante Staleness 11 by Rainbow Rowell Snow 21 Lace Milan Jackson Weaver White Relic of the Snow 12 Columns Seasons 25 William So Cold Lonely Man 44 Hannah Tucker My Secret Wish Silence 12 December 25 P.S. Gear Kidnap My Baby 46 Indieccentricity Moving House 13 Metro Manila Nothing else will do 26 Jackson Weaver White Fillet-o-Fish: Dany Liu A Preview Book Fantasy 15 Pluviophile 30 Azalea de Guzman Anne Danielle Vergara One Night, Endless 16 20 Good Things in Life 32 Destructions Jake Habitan Leigh Dispo The Lighter 34 Angry Asian Girl 17 Fran Laniado Dani Liu Page 5 Writers’ Avenue Issue 2 Hannah Hunt Catherine Flores I. flowers bloom. We were two different beings but somehow, in the short 5th of December, 2012 amount of time spent, we fell somewhere in the middle. Cold and frosty outside, a knock occurred on my door. It was winter, But unlike the flowers and willows the snow coming chaotically. An old that grew, she made me crawl. She friend visited me today, wearing kept me grounded, like the vines. But something new for today’s little we never intertwine. occasion. It was the first death anniversary of my heart. And it was II. not every day that someone celebrates such event. Only the 5th of December, 2011 crazy ones. And I was that crazy one. “Ezra?” She called me. About a year ago, Hannah Hunt Snow was slowly and quietly declared that she was no longer in falling down. We were in this big, love with me. Sweet, sweet Hannah abandoned skating rink about ten Hunt who wore flowers in her hair blocks away from her home. Sitting and told me she was a weeping down on the iced ground, she willow. Her eyes were greener than hummed quietly. And I smiled to the grass and deeper than emerald myself. I flew an ocean away to be stones. And nothing, absolutely with her tonight, blew off all the nothing, can compare to her beauty. money I had in my bank account and But she was no longer in love even disobeyed my parents just so I with me. could witness all the beauty I had witnessed that night. There were She told me that time played the lights in her eyes that sparkled very crucial part of our relationship. brighter than the fireworks displayed Time was the culprit. And she blamed in the sky. Her lips were thin and dry the oceans, too. While I lived and spoke of poetic verses of Sylvia somewhere in the country, deep Plath and Virginia Woolf. I had to put within the country, Hannah Hunt lived my coat on her just to make sure she an ocean away, there in the middle of wouldn’t catch a cold. I didn’t want the busiest city in the world - tall her to be sick because of me. skyscrapers, grand, lavish lifestyle. But she hated the city so she would Of all the times we had seen always go out and travel alone, each other in flesh (as far as I can somewhere where trees grow and Page 6 Writers’ Avenue Issue 2 remember, it was five times), tonight she bent down to kiss me. I felt the was her most beautiful. transferring of soul to another soul happened because I’d like to think “Yeah?” I answered as I squeezed that I was dying and she was trying her hand. to bring me to life again. She looked straight to the But she didn’t. She didn’t even windows of my soul. To be lost in her tell me why she was no longer in love gaze and to be found in them was with me. Instead, she pulled away, one of the beautiful things that could smiled bitterly, and walked away ever happen to me. from me. She walked away from my life. Tears suddenly sprung out from her eyes, like pretty little jewels That was the last time I saw and rolling down her pale cheeks. I began heard of Hannah Hunt. to worry. I was always worried about something. A strange and unhappy habit I inherited from my Father, who was always worried about III. something that he shouldn’t be 5th of December, 2012 worrying about. “It’s been a year, Ezra. Why “I am not in love with you would you wait for something that anymore.” she quietly said, almost a you know will never happen?” whisper to the wind. I looked at my old friend and The lights in her eyes started to shook my head. Clearly, he didn’t lose its significance and time stood understand me. He didn’t understand still between the two us. We were the heartbreaking and sitting side by side but for some reason, I felt that we were oceans bone crushing situation that I away from each other. She was near was in. Nobody ever understands you and et so far away. She was at the when you’re going through like this. palm of my hands but she was also They all like to think they do but it’s slipping away. There she was beside so easy to tell someone it’s going to me and yet I was all alone in the cold. be okay when you’re not in their Everything around me began to melt. position. The snow, the scenery, the very existence of Hannah Hunt with me. When your heart is breaking, you feel as if your whole body is breaking I felt myself melting away as too. From your bones up to your well. brain. Then your soul follows and everything is dead on the spot. It’s She stood up, returned my coat like dying but you know deep within to me, and without saying a word, you, you’re still alive.