Fall 2024 Micro-Essay Contest Winners

Theme: Sense in Nonsense

First Place

Untitled

by Kaylee Renée

The basilica church was round and orange like a divine apricot. It sat above the city upon rolling Italian hills, chained to civilian life by an interminable stretch of sandy porticos, a sanctuary of the Madonna. In summer everything was warm shades of brick red tungsten straw stretched over temporal surfaces. Locals and tourists alike donned rust-tinged spectacles after crossing the Apennines, impossible to remove unless stepping beyond the border. 

He was Australian an’ we met in Florence whilst sampling wines. I favored a modicum of folks, he was within this favor, likely due to this sagace countenance which radiated from his soul through minute instances. We were both eager vagabonds who realized in youth the puerile nature of existence; this revelation permitted a careless freedom that we exploited as far as our wallets allowed. His and my paths were separate but occasionally intersected; of this time, of that place. Some nebulous location in July heat in Europe both simply wandering. We would have our last meeting in Venice. But now we sat against Madonna’s sanctuary as the carnation light decayed. We chose a side with a cascading view of the microseismic dwellings, no other presence save Madonna. Those wallets mentioned earlier carried significantly less as both conclusions loomed near; in a vacuous store, he and I purchased chocolate chip cookies, peaches, Aperol and lemonade for dinner. They lay at our feet. It was summer in Italy where sweat dripped down backs like waterfalls and Aperol spritzes were his favorite. But we were ancient kids traversing Europe and our wallets moaned so we thought to concoct our own version. The evening was pleasant as we took alternating swigs from the bottles and sucked syrup from peaches before our hands became drenched. The atmosphere lacked romance but supported a kindred comfort— I was reasonable until hapless affection stalked by like those cats in Greece. We met and I loved him for what it could be. A beautiful tragedy, when sensitive poets gaze upon the road not taken, roads which utterly define an’ dictate lives. 

Eventually, stars emerged, followed by the moon. She was voluptuous and orange as the church against our backs and peaches by our feet. It was late and he was leaving for another nameless city tomorrow— I read Walden and Thoreau alluded to the sameness of geography. Well, it mattered little where he was or I was or where we went or came from. But I temporarily lived within the hills, residing with an antiquated news reporter, where I exchanged my hands for shelter. The house had a vastness despite its split into multiple residences. On the third floor, my room sported low wooden beams, rough tiles, a desk, a chair, a bed, and a wardrobe. He crashed in some hostel with heat and city air.  

Both bottles were empty. It was dark and I slipped away into the woods with the wild pigs— he tripped down porticos. We would have our last meeting in Venice. 

Second Place

The Space In Between My Lungs

by Avery Luft

The air is different again. This kind of cold has a smell, one that burns my lungs and brings tears to my eyes. It’s November now, the temperature finally dropping in the southern part of Georgia. I wear a rainbow colored scarf I thrifted from Goodwill that whips around my head as the wind tangles my hair into knots that I won’t brush out when I get home. The cold burns, and I inhale deeper, trying to fill in that small part in there that won’t let the air touch it.  

I stand on the porch of my childhood home. It’s only been a few months but it feels like both eternity and yesterday that they told us through the intercom at school that my best friend had killed himself. He was only fourteen. The familiar smell of cold and burning oil makes me remember the train tracks that stay hidden behind the empty skeleton trees on the back of the property. A jungle of curling ferns and raised oak trees with spanish moss that dangled like whispering spiderwebs, the train tracks sat mostly idle on a pile of silver rocks I collected. 

Without thinking, I’m stepping off the porch and heading towards the forest. I’m following the trail down to the ice-water stream that is frosting on the sides but still rushing rampant due to the cloud of rain that permeates above my head. I let my head hang back and stare wide-eyed at the gray blanket above me. I blink away the tears forming at the edge of my eyelids, the sunlight burning me even though it’s dark outside. 

I listen for the train horn, the one that shakes my house and disturbs the flock of vultures that live in the towering pine trees that sit stagnate above my yard. I close my eyes and remember the sound as it pounded my room that day that I collapsed on the floor of my room, unable to make it to the bed before the wracking sobs hit me full-force. 

Quiet. I crept forward and left the coverage of the forest to the blinding white rocks that littered the hill the trains would race across. Abandoned nails as thick as my hand would be scattered across the hillside, hidden in between the glittering pebbles. The rust would paint my hands red that I would rinse in the creek before I went home so my parents wouldn’t know where I was.  

“There’s a shooting range out there,” My dad would tell me sternly, brown eyes cold and mouth pressed together. Dead serious. “You cannot go out there and get shot.” 

I dug the tip of a nail into my palm, unflinching as the sharpness of the tack broke skin and brought bubbling blood to the surface. I couldn’t help but think about where my friend had gotten the gun. I pressed harder, and inhaled the sour scent of cold, hoping it would reach that inhibited corner of my lungs. It didn’t. 

The sky was wide and open-ending. Angry clouds look down on me as I look up at them for an answer I know they don’t have. I’ve been begging for months, and yet they look at me silently. Resolute. Maybe apologetic. I lay down in between the tracks, on the splintering wood panels. My shoulders barely fit in-between the rusting metal strips. I feel the talons of pointed boulders cutting crease in my shoulder blades, grip the dew-covered  grass in between calloused fingertips, close my eyes and inhale the cutting cold scent of gasoline and honeysuckle, hoping it’ll reach that small space I haven’t filled in months. It doesn’t. I lay there, pressed against the wood tiling of the middle, and wonder if a train would hit me.