Young Adult

A Girl Named Marigold
She was my Marigold. She was everyone’s Marigold, technically, as that was her name, but I was the only one allowed to point it out. From ages 6 to, apparently, 14, if you’re named after an object of any sort, the wordplay gets real old real fast. So she went by Mary… to everyone else.
By Erin McNulty4 years ago in Fiction
Ice Cream - The Nostalgic Kind
Author's Note: This is just a snippet of a novel I'm currently writing. (It's still in the rough draft process.) The first month was cold, but it was orange. There were slight breezes, but it never reached ice-white. There was a hope, but also a lost melody. A fading time, but I still looked at the grandfather clock when I could. Except, it was mother clock, instead of a grandfather. I didn’t know my grandfather well enough, but I remembered my mother. And father. And Elise. And Alec. And Chelsea. And Sarah. Maybe one day I could reach them again, maybe they’d be waiting beneath the waves, waiting to pull me under. I’d allow them to, they could touch me.
By Jordyn4 years ago in Fiction
Closer to the Sun
Growing up, Aurora’s mother had always taught her to be a lady and what that looks like. “Don’t speak too loudly,” she said. “Don’t be tempting these boys,” she said. “Don’t touch things in the store,” she said. Aurora, being an only child with a single mother, only had one mission: to ensure her mother was proud of her. Whatever Aurora’s mother asked of her, Aurora ensured she followed suit. Go to a highly established university, study a major where you won’t have to struggle for a living, apply yourself, chase your dreams. While Aurora went on a pursuit to fulfill the wishes of her mother, she never understood that last bit:
By Amanda Moore-Karim4 years ago in Fiction
Special Delivery
Marigold stared at the bouquet on her table, then the one on her counter and one more on the coffee table. She tried hard not to picture the two bouquets sitting on her desk at the elementary school, but of course there they were forcing their way into her mind. The rich yellows and oranges with hints of red all mixed with dark green foliage were beautiful and filled the room with color, but all she wanted to do when she saw them was scream. He was destroying her love of the flower she was named after just like he had destroyed their relationship.
By Viltinga Rasytoja4 years ago in Fiction
Conscious Sleep. Honorable Mention in The Shape of the Thing Challenge.
My body felt heavy. A deep, inconceivable heaviness I had never experienced. Not in sickness. Not in exhaustion. A weight with a pull so powerful that it had to be killing me. My limbs sank into my mattress with such significant pressure I thought they would bore straight through. It felt as though lead had bloomed over my skin like lichen, covering my body from head to toe in an immobilizing force. My organs too had grown impossibly dense, painful but preserved, coated in thick cement, pressing, and scraping against the thin line of delicate flesh left beneath the armor formed over my skin. I was in agony. All these sensations were felt with a new kind of awareness. Every cell of my body felt overstimulated and raw. Though I had never felt more conscious of my physical body I was not experiencing this turmoil from within it. Instead, I was looking down at myself from above.
By Mary Moody4 years ago in Fiction
Around the Marigold Round
Summer had almost ended, yet the suffocating heat lingered on. People started moving a little more, awoken from a long coma of days melting on the sand before taking a dip in the ocean. About halfway down a suburban cul-du-sac street, a post-war single-storey house blended in with all the other monotonous houses of the quiet Australian suburb. In approximately 8 minutes you would hear the slamming of front doors and the manic yelling of parents attempting to herd their kids into the family SUV. Just as the ubiquitous post war houses littered the suburbs of the Central Coast, so did the families who would all leave their homes at 8 am sharp for work or school until summer came rolling around again.
By Jasmine Wood4 years ago in Fiction
The Very End
Humanity could not live peacefully with each other anymore; most have died during the Nuclear Fallout or the small wars that lead up to World War 5. I wasn't alive during the other World Wars, but my Grandmother June told me stories, how millions of people died, the anarchy that unfolded, and the famine that followed each war. During the previous World Wars, the countries involved always threatened to nuke each other into abomination but only ever pressed the red button to launch once. A group of Christian terrorists hacked into every country’s nuclear weapon system, they called themselves the Raptures. They were ready for the end of the world and thought it was the only way for humanity's sins to be forgiven was for all of us to die.
By Devin McGurk-Nixon4 years ago in Fiction
Like Marigold Flowers
In fourteen hours chaos would begin. In fourteen hours blood would be drawn. In fourteen hours desperation would take hold.
By Moses Banford4 years ago in Fiction
A Man Named Summer
It's Summer, and my window is trying the best it can to shield me from the rain. I struggle to find comfort as my feet are freezing, and a draft is coming in from a loose door in the back of our cottage. My brother Jamie hurries to feed the starving flames as I sit and watch him, thankful that we finally have a home to rest in, thanks to momma. Summer is what I will call my future daughter, as I believe this chapter in my life to be the most important, and like a bookmark, I want never to lose this page.
By Aby Gravesend 4 years ago in Fiction
The Jewel Stone
Mary's shoes pounded against the inky black dirt. It was cold. With each exhale, her breath danced lightly before it died. She was kind. Even in this hell-hole, her hands were supple, skin sweet. She did not deserve this.
By Elayne Ray4 years ago in Fiction
Connections
I can’t help but stare. I know I’m being ridiculous but I have never seen eyes quite that piercing and in such a deep green shade. I’m supposed to be paying attention to his description of my new job and so he startles me with his question.
By Brooke Craig4 years ago in Fiction
Survival Without a Fight
Most people would give anything to cheat death, but they don’t know what they’re really wishing for. It sounds nice in theory, I’ll give them that. Even I once thought I was lucky to be spared so often – tripping in the uneven street as a badly thrown knife whizzed over my head; landing in a passing cart piled with hay when I fell from the top of a tree; accidentally jamming the lid shut on the pot of boiling water before it toppled onto me… I could go on. Yet in some instances, staying alive isn’t all that wonderful.
By Caitlin Swan4 years ago in Fiction