Hannah Jenkins
Bio
My sanctuary is the creek behind my house. My freedom is driving my truck down the highway. My obsession are my animals. My therapy is boating on the water. My passion is creating. My home is my husband. My fear is wasting this life.
Stories (2)
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A Girl and Her Palace
I never thought I’d see Naomi again. But here she stands before me, a shell of the vibrant young creature I knew decades ago. Age had been kind to her; that relentless, untamed spirit still flickering in her eyes. The young girl next to her looks just like Naomi did at that age: a soul of brilliant light with long, brown hair billowing around her petite face; and big hazel eyes that were too knowing to belong to a child. “This was your barn, Gram?” she asked with fascination. “Yes Evelyn, this is where your great-grandmother spent most of her time when she was your age. It was my palace, and it used to be beautiful; constantly bustling with life. I never thought I’d see it again.” Naomi explains, tears welling up in her eyes. Evelyn inspects my slanting frame, rusted walls, broken windows, and termite-infested stalls. “Tell me again what it used to be like, Gram. I want to imagine it like it’s happening now!” Evelyn exclaims excitedly. “If this barn could talk, it’d tell you every story in much greater detail than I can,” Naomi said with a nostalgic tone. She’s right, but I’m just an old, run-down barn. So as Naomi regales the girl with tales from our past together, I savor her words that breathe life into the only thing I’m still capable of sheltering: memories.
By Hannah Jenkins5 years ago in Fiction
A Trip Outside
I lie awake in the darkness of my pod, trying to interpret why I keep having these dreams. For months now, I go to sleep with expectations of meeting my father there. The dreams are so vivid and real, I can’t distinguish them from authentic memories I treasure. Dad started bringing me along with him to the GEM lab when I was 13. My mother hated the idea, but he could see my fascination every time he told me stories of his time spent with “The Pack”. First, he only let me interact with a young male GEM pup, which had a light grey coat with a large white patch along his breast and another along his left hip and thigh. “What should we teach him?” Dad asked amusingly. I thought for a minute then replied, “To find something important?” So Dad asked for the heart-shaped locket that hung around my neck. He and Mom had given it to me for my last birthday; it’s the only non-essential gift I’d ever received, and I was very protective of it. He said, “We’re going to teach this pup to find this locket. And if you always keep it on, then he’ll always find you, ok?” I was hesitant and asked, “Couldn’t we just train him to find me?” He shook his head. “That’d be too easy; other types of canines have already been trained to find a person, or a type of item. We want him to find this particular locket, no matter where it is, no matter how long it takes.” So we did. And Dad taught me all his training techniques, shared all his knowledge of GEMs with me, just like I was one of his colleagues. Eventually Dad let me help him with the whole pack, and they grew to trust me like they trusted Dad. Then one day, he and the entire pack disappeared during a training exercise on the Outside; the pup, who’d grown into a juvenile by then, along with them. That was 11 years ago, and the pain of how much I miss him is like a fresh open wound; made raw by the salt of these dreams; intensifying the sting ever-present in my mind.
By Hannah Jenkins5 years ago in Fiction
