Winged Monster Continued

When I remembered seeing the gargantuan ray emerge from the small silver fish, it made me contemplate if we are all of a single consciousness. Not only that but suddenly, I was left questioning how it was possible that all animals are related and the circumstances of Steve Irwin’s death.

I contemplated single consciousness in how the fish in the bait ball although they were all separate entities could move as one. Their swimming to and fro looked as though they were all connected by strings and could not move without the others consent. I did not see any signs that they were communicating which made me wonder if it was possible that they were of a collective consciousness

In the moment that I saw the ray I felt so small and tiny compared to its awesome power. How could something with grey dragon hide skin, wings, and a barbed tale possible have come from the same thing that I did. It made me feel so out of place in the water; in just one glance it told me that I did not belong there in the same area as it.

Looking back I thought of how Steve Irwin died because he was impaled by the sting rays barb. Despite how much I feared that the sting ray would eat me when I was young I realize now that they are gentle creatures. I have now seen dozens of sting rays larger than that and they have not cared whatsoever that I was in the water near them. I the fear that I felt when I was 5 was just because I was young. Steve Irwin's death was still a reminder to me that while usually you need not be afraid of rays you should always be careful around wild animals.

A Winged Monster

It was the summer after 2^nd grade, and I was nine years old. Every other year my relatives from my dad’s side of the family would get together to go sailing. My dad is one of seven brothers and sisters, so we never are all together at the same time. This year on the boat was my Uncle John and his wife Michelle, their daughters Nicole and Allie, and my cousin Ian and his fiancé Alicia. Together we chartered a 50 ft catamaran out of Road Town, British Virgin Islands. The first night we anchored by West Dog a small boulder of an island; where after watching the earth spin into the dark, saw a neon green shooting star fly across the empty stretch of space, like a nymph from the forest lost in void.

I awoke early in the morning eager to see the sun reflected on the water, and plunge into it to see the alien world that is usually hidden from us. While I was eating a breakfast of pancakes I noticed that there was a torrent of pelicans diving into the water by the cliff face of the island.

“Hey dad. Why are all of those birds over there?”

“Because there is probably a bait ball underneath them.” He proceeded to explain that a bait ball was a group of small silver fish.

“Can we go over and see all of the tiny fish?” I asked hopefully.

“Sure” my dad replied. After licking the syrup clean form my plate I went into my cabin put on by favorite blue swimsuit, stood impatiently while my mom slathered sun screen on me, and pulled on my pink flippers and yellow snorkel.

After what seemed like hours my dad was ready and I slid into the inviting water, I was afraid to jump in because you can never know if there is a barracuda underneath you, or worse the monsters from under your bead and in your closet. The water buoyed me and I lay staring down into the blue, I couldn’t see the bottom, which frightened me because you never know what possible sea monsters live beyond the visible world. I reached for my dad/s hand and grabbed on tightly. But after swimming for a few minutes I could see the sandy bottom. I let go of my dad’s hand free of fear because I could see everything, or so I thought. I kicked vigorously down to the bottom and saw to my amazement a myriad of small fish hugging the sand.

Some had whiskers that licked the bottom, others had beautiful stripes but swam away when I tried to get a closer look. Out of air I swam to the surface and popped up luxuriating in the feeling of oxygen in my lungs. With the oxygen I was able to remember the real purpose of coming out here, the bait ball. I swam ahead of my dad until I saw a glimmering cloud in the water. I paused for a moment admiring the how the dancing dew droplets were all of one mind. Their every movement was coordinated and together yet effortless. Wanting to join their dance I swam amongst them and they parted in from of me as the Red sea did for Moses. I was surrounded by a down pour of silver fish unable to see anything else besides them.

Suddenly I noticed that the fish where parting for something other than my dad and I. From the one- minded dancers emerged a flying monster. Its grey wings gliding along the sandy bottom. They where the leathery grey of dragon hide. From its tip to the barb was twice my height and it was wider than our old suburban. With an eye the size of a dinner plate the ray stared at me. My small body froze and shrunk under its over powering gaze. Without even the time for thought I forced my legs out of my protective ball and kicked like jet turbine. Speeding through the water like a marlin, not looking back for fear that IT was following me. I did not even pause when I saw that I could not see my bottom for I knew that the sea monster was behind me. My hand reached out for the metal rung of the swim ladder and I scrambled on board breathing hard from my race against the ray. Shaking I recounted my tale to my mom while my dad came up to the boat behind me.

“What did you see Alex?”

“I saw the most enormous sting ray ever. It was bigger than me and it almost ate me alive,” I said.

“I didn’t see it.”

Questions for Tobias Wolff

Why do guns appear in so many of your stories?

Is there a particular reason why most of your stories end with the death of characters?

Where does your inspiration come from?

What is your favorite short story that you have written and why?

If you could be one of the characters in your short stories, who would you be and why?

Tatjana the Shark and I

I pulled Tatjana closer to the shark. A nurse shark, it was five feet long and laying on the bottom basking in the warm water of the Caribbean. At first she did not notice it, so I started frantically thrusting my hand at my head at a perpendicular angle, the sign for shark. Suddenly she saw the majestic creature, and a look of absolute horror washed over her face. She tried to wrench her hand out of mine, but I dragged her closer anyway. After a few minutes of staring anxiously at the peaceful nurse shark I was able to convince her to come closer to this magnificent creature.

Bubbles issued from my regulator more quickly than usual when I spotted a five foot long nurse shark lying on the other side of a rock surrounded by coral. Its gills moved slowly up and down to pump oxygen into its bloodstream. Nurse sharks are one of the few species of sharks that can oxygenate their blood without moving, most sharks need a constant flow of water over their gills to keep them breathing. I grabbed Tatjana’s hand clenching my fingers around hers. With my other free hand I slammed it into my mask miming a sharks fin. All the while my legs pumped furiously in the slow moving water moving us slowly closer to the object of my curiosity. As we rounded the rock and I pointed enthusiastically at the shark, she stared. Her pupils slowly widened in comprehension of what she was seeing. Tatjana's hand clenched mine as though we were in an arm wrestling match. Her flippers moving through the water as fast as humanly possible. I wouldn’t let her hand go and kicked just as furiously in the other direction, we were caught in a stale mate. Eventually the bubbles issuing from her regulator began to slow, and she slowly allowed me to pull her closer to beautiful and mysterious elasmobranch.

I created a slight vacuum in my diaphram causing the thin rubber piece in the demand valve regulator to move towards my mouth. Because of this air started to flow into my lungs were it traveled through my lungs oxygenating my blood so that I could swim in the water. My heart pumped the blood from the left ventricle throughout my body allowing to stay warm and move in the 80 degree water. How strange it is that we have found a way to breathe underwater. I exhale pushing the rubber piece back, stopping the flow of air, and creating round shaped bubbles struggling through the denser water to the surface. My eyes sent a series of synapses to my brain allowing me to see the coral around me. The zooxanthella algae living on the coral. It creates sugar in a process called photosynthesis with the sunlight that is able to penetrate the water. Through a symbiotic relationship this feeds the polyps allowing them to live, and the coral provides a home for the algae. The zooxanthella algae gives the coral its beautiful colors. Lying amongst the coral is a five foot long elasmobranch, a nurse shark. The grey skin was jagged yet not, for if I was to stroke it, one way would feel smooth an the other would feel as though I had ran my had over sand paper. I took another breath more quickly this time because of the dopamine released in my brain. I was overjoyed to see such a large shark out in the open instead of under a rock where nurse sharks usually hide.

Peter braked sharply and swung onto the shoulder.

It was a moonless night the only light being that of the glaring headlights of the car. The clouds swarmed the sky like an enemy descending down a hill, covering every inch of available space. The wind was high making it seem as though the soldiers were not on foot, but rather riding swift steeds who took them down the hill at the utmost speed. The light o the stars might have illuminated the way some, but the clouds blocked them out as though the car was trapped in its own personal world. The enemy blocked out all hope of finding points of light anywhere. The trees whizzed past, but only as shadows of ghosts. Even though it was not visible there was a constant noise of wind winding its way through the pine needles. The only real way to see the passing distance and the speed at which they traveled was in the blur of white lines like small white boats in the narrow river of asphalt. The trees that had been whizzing by as dark entities began to slow down. They seemed as though the enemy was closing in from all sides, but unable to penetrate the river of asphalt. Peter placed his foot on the brake and felt the resistence as the car slowed from eighty one miles an hour to zero. A car honked from behind flashing its high beams in indignation. Peter swerved to the side of the road just in time for the following blue sedan to crank the wheel hard to avoid a collision. He continued to turn the wheel to the wheel as though he was on a ship losing its course on the high seas of the Pacific ocean. The gravel crunched under the treds of the wheels scattering as though droplets of water. The small pebbles flew in all directions showing all of the possible ways that Peter’s and Donald’s life could go in this moment. The crackling noise of the grey stones sounded like a black and white speckled television set. The car came to a halt with a jerk and then there was silence. The trees descended on them with their swords drawn and howling in the wind. The enemy had descended from the hill and killed all in its path. Leaving nothing left to make noise, live, dream, or hope.

I reviewed the story about the average thirty year old woman, my favorite part was when it said that Helen was the author of mylifeisaverage.com. Some of the literary devices that I liked were how she described the president as "Different. Hopeful. New." Because each word is a sentence it makes them really sink in and have meaning. I also was impressed by the made up words that were used such as yelderlinchkapay. In some of the stories people did not use the made up words or ideas. In this story though there was a made up word that did not appear above Smoogliesaredelicious, and this confused me. I also thought that the winking smiley face as odd. Some of the dialog was confusing as well because sometimes there were no quotes and there should have been new lines to make it more clear who was talking. The last paragraph was also very confusing, I did not understand where the bald came from and why he was yelling by the river because he seemed to think that he was in the DMV.

I agree with opinion of the critic that Helen is a Bokononist because she believes the futileness and floccinaucinihilipilification (real word by the way, I hoped that I used it right) of life. This is most evident by how the man comes up yelling about his form. The tone of the piece also shows that people are hard to understand. Just like how you can't judge a book like its cover, humans are much deeper below the surface.

Lying

    Lying is definitely not my forte. Even when I try to tell a little white lie I start to blush and giggle uncontrollably. I suppose this is a good thing because lies are never good in the end. That was just a lie because some lies are worthwhile like Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny.  I never really fell into the trap of believing in them though.  Ever since I was five I was asking my mom if Santa Claus was real because he had the same handwriting as mom, all of our wrapping paper was gone in the morning, and Sant used the same wrapping paper that we had.  I was not able to get her to admit that Santa was not real till I was eight though because I would of have blabbed to my two younger brothers and that wouldn't have been fair to them.  My little little brother Atomic still believes in everything such as leprechauns, the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus.  Every year he sets an elaborate trap to catch one, and my mom and I come in the night and leave pennies, draw on his face in green ink, etc.  I keep on telling him that all of these things are real and he believes it.  It some how still keeps him innocent, which is the opposite thing you would expect if people lied to all the time.  Perhaps lying is sometimes the right thing to do.

Capsizing

      It is not like I have never capsized before, any true sailor has, but this time was different. All the times I have capsized before were in 420’s with twelve year olds sailing. Oh we did everything in that boat turtled it, half capsized it, T-boned it with another boat, had the bow go under water, or just ran it aground. This time was different because it was no small child at the tiller it was my dad. Our 18 foot hobie cat had just left the docks, and we were working our way up a skinny channel with a light wind coming from dead ahead. My dad called “Ready to tack” and I ducked. The boat began to turn, but not in the usual way. The windward pontoon was getting much to high, 60 degrees, 70 degrees, 80 degrees, 90 degrees. At 80 degrees I could not hold on any longer, my head hit the pontoon as I fell causing half and egg sized welt to grow on my forehead. This bump would cast a shadow on my head for the next twenty four hours. I swam to the other side of the boat, my dad was already on the dagger board with the bow line leaning back using all the leverage available. Slowly the boat began to tip back, until it hit the water right side up with a resounding thwack. We clambered on board and continued our sail although slightly shaken.
      After a few good runs threw the slew my courage was back, and the boat had forgiven us. She was singing again. I hooked myself in and hung off the side of the boat feeling free as the wind rushed passed and the water splashed in my face. The wind picked up and the most amazing thing happened, the pontoon lifted out of the water, not in a capsizing way but in a speedy way. We were truly flying now and the cat shared our joy by raising her song to the next octave, the most beautiful sound in the world.

MHS of Bokonon

    "Over these past four years we have all gotten to know each other becoming a family." our valedictorian began.  "We did not know each other in the beginning, but now we know each other like brothers and sisters....."  Yawn, yawn, yawn.  I couldn't listen to this karass  garbage much longer.  We are not one big karass, but rather a granfalloon.  We are not connected to each other at all accept for the fact that we are forced into the same vicinity for half the year.  I don't feel close to almost anyone here except to my friends Jessica and Charlotte. But I am not sure that even they are part of my karass.  The speaker switches subjects to what he believes is our wampeter, our diplomas.  "We have all worked hard to get to this moment of graduation.."  Well that part is true I guess I did work hard to get my diploma, but it was definitely not the center of my life as our valedictorian makes it out to be.  I hope this is over soon or else I might fall asleep, and how embarrassing would that be?

Call Me Xandy

  Call me Xandy.  This hasn't always been my name.  I was called, Alexandra in the first world, Alex in the second, Allie in the third, Alexa in the fourth, and Andy in the fifth.  But I am not Alexandra or Alex or Allie or Alexa or Andy anymore.  No, now I am Xandy.  Xandy, this final world, this Prototectid form, they all have freed me as no other world did.  My other shapes as a flower, human,  ape, cormorant, and lizard never seemed to fit my essence quite right.

        In the first world, in the shape of the flower was wonderful... in the beginning.  Connected to the entire natural world feeling the living of beat of the earth in your very essence.  But as time wore on the flower walls began to close in on me, like the end of a cave that continues getting smaller and darker till it feels like you can not breath.  The change of every season felt like a new death, and the sun ceased to bring a smile to my petals.  Every form started to feel as such, until I found my home in the final world as a Prototectid.

I suppose you are wondering why anyone would want to be Prototectid.  The truth is that I have never found true freedom in any of my other forms because they would not allow me to experience what the sea and land had to offer to the fullest.  As an amphibious whale, I can do just that.  I have the freedom to sing my songs in the open sea and move on land to see the sun, birds and trees.  Most of my kind stop looking after their second world for their true form, but not I.  I do not settle for second best.  I will only take the best and I must tell you reader that this is truly the only way to live.  

     Edited by Alex Welch and Nicole Kaack