literature
Travel literature includes guide books, travel memoirs and the curious experiences that happen when you seek adventure.
SARAH NADER HEART’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK SNAFU
Hello my name is Nare Ator and I'm going to use my super deep lusciously soulful voice to guide you through this story of money, love, revenge, envy, and other clichés tropes. Throughout the story I’ll have moments of omniscience which I’ll put into () you can skip over those but they will contain little bits of information that add absolutely no depth to the amazing journey we’re going on. Buckle up and get ready for a story of a lifetime.
By Femi Orukotan5 years ago in Wander
Wayward
You’re in the jungle looking for your brother. At night, you sleep in a hammock hung between two trees. You use a machete to clear all the plants low enough so that they don’t poke into your back or tear the mosquito netting you pull around the hammock like a cocoon.
By Siegfried Huffnagle5 years ago in Wander
The Rest of Us
I started leaving Savannah paper cranes when she asked what hope was for the first time. That morning, on her sixth birthday, I placed a paper crane on her windowsill. From then on, every time she asked, I would leave her one, even when she did not know she was asking. I heard her when she failed her first middle school math exam, and again when her grandmother passed away. I heard her when she did not get into her first choice college, and when she graduated from her second choice. I heard her when she laughed in love and when she cried because she thought heartbreak was the worst pain. And, when she spent three days in a hospital bed, when she just needed to find the end, I heard her. Then, I heard her recover. Find a job, and for a while, she was quiet. But, still, I was there. Like a human choking, coughing is a sign they are alright, but silence. Her silence worried me, and love, my love for her captured me. And so, even when she is silent, I am there.
By Talia Zisman5 years ago in Wander
Win-Win Reincarnation
The notebook was black, very slim, and compact enough to fit into the tiny zippered section of her shoulder bag; safely concealed but close at hand. Per the rules, she opens the notebook at random and reads “Butch Slutsky” on page 19. Nothing else is written. Nothing else is necessary. Age, gender, race, religion are unimportant. The girl reads the two words again. What type of individual would answer to such a moniker? She pictures a beefy arm gesticulating toward an empty horizon as a liquid twang expounds the merits of raw land in a western or southern state. An election campaign poster involving mirrored, aviator sunglasses also comes to mind. Surely “Butch” is a nickname? The girl thinks about parents in general, shakes her head, and sighs. As if the world wasn’t cruel enough.
By Barbara Harrison5 years ago in Wander
My Yellow School Bus
So I bought a little school bus (it was yellow) and I started driving it around Yellowstone National Park. I spent the summer mostly thinking about getting a job and smoking weed, and eventually it was late September and I figured I ought to drive south. There was this girl I knew in Prescott who I knew would smoke me out, and I thought maybe if I was in town I would get a chance to grow on her, so I parked my school bus early one Saturday morning in the parking lot of Hastings Entertainment Superstore. I had a little hot plate and a stack of wheat bread and tofu salami, so I sat around and cooked sandwiches while I was waiting for the store to open where she worked.
By Trent Kinnucan5 years ago in Wander
The Little Black Book
My existence is a small one, I have a hard cover, and my body consists of endless pages. I am a little black book that has a request of my writers in the front cover. That request is that they ink my blank spaces with their story of how abundance presents itself in their life, and what they do with it. I am passed from person to person, travelling the world to weave a collective tale of human greed and generosity. I can describe the human experience through feeling stories written on my pages. I want to know how different people think, and I want to change the lives of people I know will change the world for the better. The people who have a spirit as expansive as the universe. They are the ones who change the course of time. I have felt the tales of an elderly man who lived out his dreams and built a mountain village, a young woman who was a single parent living in New York city who used every cent to send her child to university. I have felt words written by people who used abundance to build castles, save charities, cure blindness, save the endangered Jaguar in Panama, build islands off the coast of Madagasca, recreate the intricate jewellery made by ancient Egypt Empires, build ships that shadow the titanic, start movements to fight for Indigenous People’s rights…
By Isabel Corkill5 years ago in Wander
Little Black Book
Little Black Book I am a retired single woman who travels moderately to visit my children. Before all departures I check the front compartment for the nicely tucked barf bag. Funny, but you never know when turbulence is going to hit, again and again! It was a Sunny afternoon, and I anticipated a calm flight. However, I did check in the front seat compartment for my trusty bag. I looked in and saw a small Moleskin Black notebook tucked tightly in the bottom. I reached in and pulled it out. I looked around at everyone putting their bags in the overhead compartments and settling in for the flight. I looked to see if I was in the correct seat, thinking I sat in the wrong one. As everyone was settling in, I took it upon myself to open it. Inside was a cashier check for $20,000! It was a blank one at that! My heart started racing, I looked up to see if anyone was watching me. I moved the check aside and found a list of people’s names and addresses. Next to each person’s name was a little information about them. One said James Doran of St. Paul. The next Rebecca Anderson also of St. Paul. The list had 8 names and different locations.
By Kari Malewska5 years ago in Wander
Uncovered
I feel the cold down my spine as I enter. The chill, the tension, it all rests here to haunt me as I make my steps within. I keep telling myself that exploration is a good thing, uncovering whatever lies in your path. And yet, this strange, lonely bookshop took it to a whole other level.
By Davion Moore5 years ago in Wander
Silence
I was nine years old when the seven-seven bombings happened. I don’t really remember anything about that day. My family didn’t personally know anyone who died. There was one thing, though, that we all took from it, etched into our heads like an unspoken rule: An abandoned bag on a train is no longer just a mild inconvenience to its owner, it’s a genuine cause for widespread panic. Any other time I would have pulled the alarm immediately, but something about the circumstances made me hesitate…
By Ingrid Allan5 years ago in Wander
The Little Black Book
Penelope Rose was just like any other twenty-something. She had an average job at MedTekk, answering phone calls about insurance coverage. She had a few close friends that she would hang out with on the weekends. The oddest thing about her was her long-lost father, who disappeared one night to never return. She sat with her headset on at MedTekk, typing up a work-up of coverage from a patient who had just called. It was reaching 2pm. She flipped her long chestnut braid over her thin shoulder as she placed her hand on a picture of her father that was pinned to her wall. He was of average height with shaggy brown hair, a very trimmed beard and was always smiling his crooked smile, as if he was always up to something exciting. Penelope's heart seized at the thought of him. He had vanished when she was eight years old, and she never learned if he had actually run off or something more sinister happened to him. She still had all these questions racing through her head. Had he left her on purpose? Where was he now? Did he have another family? She sighed. All that was behind her now, and she should move on, but it's hard when you don't get closure. She grew up in the foster care system until she was eighteen, then moved into her own apartment. She sat in her cubicle, staring at a bright blue screen in a daze thinking back on the last time she had seen her father, when the phone rang. Now, this was typical for her job, but this particular phone call was not.
By Cassandra Andresky5 years ago in Wander
The little black book, a small window of opportunity
It seemed to be some kind of avant-garde art project that had captured the world's attention. Across every continent, people were reporting the mysterious appearance and disappearance of a little black book and how it changed their lives irrevocably.
By Asia Johnson5 years ago in Wander
