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Serendipity
when the world has gone crazy and the waltz playing in your head is too fast take my hand and lets dance sway with me like the roses in the garden touch my shoulder and smile like i am the warmth and comfort the umbrella that will shield you from the storm i feel your face because something tells me that everything will be alright if i just kiss you ___ This poem by A. February is posted in submission for the ESA’s 2022 Short Story Competition.
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Exotic Fish
It is a starved town. Bone-white houses pave the beach like conches and oysters, although these oysters are bereft of pearls. Towards the edge of the town most distant from the beach, a thin train track etches its way through the sand to a run-down station and a dosing ticket-taker. The metal rails of the track are faded and frail, like the ribs of cattle skeletons that warn of a desert’s heat. Trains pass by the town infrequently, billowing out waves of smoke and silt which mix with the sand and vanish in minutes. Boats lie, grounded, anywhere between the beach and the station, some boarded up and full of…
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i am pretty and i do not long for your approval
in front of the fruits there stands a girl of sixteen, maybe less. she’s in a pretty blue dress and shiny black boots and she feels like the loveliest thing in the world. powder and ruffles curled, soft sky, buttons shy on pale skin, hair of velvet cream and a pin brooch from grandmother’s glass jewelry bin. sleeves of dream’s crêpe, high collar above champagne silver locket, hung with frail chain. she wonders, standing in the supermarket city, if mother will let her borrow rose blossom blush again. she thinks perhaps she likes this feeling of looking pretty. – but she does not like how they stare, eyes of oil…
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A Balcony in Paris
The postcard was half a decade old and smelled of pomegranates. – A breathing scene, with every tilt and turn, pulsed in tandem with the curtains. – You could tip your head back to the ceiling of the sky. You could spell forgiveness in a dozen make-believe languages. – The mirror is adorned with thumbprints and they hold the paper edges for you, like a solemn kind of promise. – You said, “The neighbours are made of linen and charcoal,” and they laughed as if life was just a miniature in the absurd. – In the streets, the neighbours sing, “Salut,” while they are looking through the looking glass, looking…
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Short Story Competition
UPDATE: Submissions are now closed! Thank you to all participants. Calling all writers! Do you want to share your creative writing with UBC’s English community? Now is your chance! The ESA is hosting a short story competition where all UBC students can submit their creative work to be posted on the blog. The ESA’s members will then vote on their favourite submission to select a winner and two runner-ups. Prizes will be rewarded to all top three participants, with first-place featuring an opportunity to have their work included in the English department’s alumni newsletter. The prizes will be revealed in mid-January. This is an excellent opportunity to get your name…
