The Shawnster: Fifteen Minutes Of Fiction

The brief life of a snowflake.

As I morph from raindrop to snowflake, I am born.

How wonderful it feels to float through the air. I fall with my brethren, and slowly we clump together in the air. These will be my partners for life. Hopefully they don't snore.

Finally we reach the ground and many more join us in our group. Luckily I have landed on top where I can see everything. More fall near me, on the surface, but before any can land on me, something else passes by. A fur-covered organism. He doesn't crush me, fortunately, but others pass by soon. Not all are covered in fur, many are clothed. They shriek and giggle as they chase one another through the-

Oh my god! One has lifted me and my brothers up! I have been separate from many. The compaction of our group into a ball hurts, and soon, we are flying through the air once more. How I have missed the feeling of the air rushing past-

Ow! I have struck another being. Once more we separate and fall. I stick to whomever I have struck. Without my comrades, I start to lose structure. I start to...melt...and as I become water...I...die.

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The price of a victory.

The rebels had gathered on the ship, and all one hundred were prepared. Food, drinks, and other necessary supplies were all there, and the countdown for liftoff was indeed a joyous one.

Once in space, the cheering did not die down. Shouts of victory constantly echoed throughout the mile-long ship, and only one was somber.

She had sacrificed so much for this moment, and only now did she feel any sort of regret. This emotion had not been present throughout the years that they had all been preparing, so it even startled her that she felt it now.

When people saw her crying, they either assumed it was out of joy or shunned her for not celebrating. After a few more passings of the latter, she was sent to a small room by the leader of the entire ship.

That room held only two things: a small window and herself. This window faced the place that they were leaving: the planet Earth. She saw how black and dirty the planet looked, so different from the blues and greens of millennia ago. She watched the planet, tears cascading down her cheeks. She only stopped to listen at the door, when she heard the leader speak.

"May I have your attention, fellow comrades?" he said simply, and although the commotion had been overpowering and had controlled the room, it only took those few words of the leader to silence the entire room, where all one hundred - save for the girl - were.

"This is certainly a joyous day! Our dream has finally been achieved! We have overcome the opposition, and now there is only one thing left to do!" At those final words, the people cheered and rushed to the sides of the ship, where there was enough window space for all to see the rapidly distancing planet. Their thoughts were happy, full of excitement. However, hers were of sorrow, knowing what the final step was. She could not bear to think of all the loved ones - her friends, family, and her true love - still on that planet, yet she still kept her flooding eyes on that sphere in space.

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Fibonacci Poems

Wow.
What
A day.
I have never
heard such a beautiful word
before in my entire life. He said "yes."

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The Land of the Ninja

A vacation, you say? Do you mean to travel beyond a normal limit of a person's boundaries? Very well, then.

I've always wanted to go to Japan. It seems like an interesting place to be, and I would love to experience the insanity that is "the land of the rising sun." Some of my favorite shows and books were created there, and I've heard much about it not to be interested.

Unfortunately, I know little of the language. Though guests are treated with utmost respect, I know, with my personality, I would be treated differently in the quiet society where one's feelings are not shown much. Then again, that is the world of adults. Perhaps its teenagers will be different.

My financial situation would prevent me from going. But let's assume I had an unlimited supply in which to travel to and live there.

Still, even despite my lack of money and ignorance of the language, I want to go there. Maybe I could take a friend there; she knows Japanese and has been there. That would be a lovely solution. She could help me with many problems I could - and most likely would - encounter there.

The last problem lies in my mind, the source of indecision. Where would I go in that vast land? The bustling city of Tokyo? Perhaps a quieter city on a more distant island? Kyoto, maybe, for the hell of it?

No matter where I go, though, I need to do several things. They are of utmost importance: compete in Ninja Warrior, meet some manga-ka, and definitely, most definitely, meet Shigeru Miyamoto.

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Monsters

Monsters wake me in the middle of the night, calling my name in seductive whispers. These are not the monsters you normally think of. These are not the monsters told to you when you were a child.

These are real.

Only, they aren't. Well, they are, but only inside my head. To you they're not real. To the nice girl who gives me medication, they're not. The reason I like her is because she gives me the medicine that helps the monsters go away. The soft and squishy and bouncy walls don't help me fight the monsters. If I try to fight them, they tell me mean things. They tell me I should not live. They tell me I don't deserve life.

The monsters are the reason I'm in here. I was not always here, in this white padded cell. I used to be normal, living in a house and going to school everyday. Then the monsters came one night, telling me what I had been hiding from myself this whole time. I'm terrible and stupid and ugly and fat and mean and a horrible person.

Slowly their whispers turned to shouts. They screamed at me to end the life of the most terrible person in the whole world.

So I did.

That's why I'm in this cell, sleeping against the white floor, taking the colorful pills, and being bound by this straitjacket. The jacket and walls exist so I won't hurt myself. The pills make the monsters go away.

But not for long.

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