NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN
by Daria Burak

“Here, it feels like nothing happened. Of course, I don’t think that it is wrong, but it feels so strange. People continue to live their lives that are just like mine. Or are they now? l used to be a part of this play and now I am just an observer. l was supposed to wear a huge frilly prom dress in June. We were supposed to celebrate near the river, and go swimming with our fancy suits and dresses on while the sunset was filling the city with warmth. With our shoes and makeup and everything. We were supposed to feel so free and young! Yes, back in January I was so stressed out because of the exams coming up and university applications. However, things that seemed so important became so small overnight. My to-do list for Thursday became forever untouched. Instead of a nagging alarm at 7am I got “Get up, the war has started” from my mom at 5 am. Safety, safety, safety. All we prayed for was safety. It turned out that the only thing that truly matters is having your loved ones near you. Holding their hand in yours is all you want to bring with you. This is how my mom and I ended up in southern France. My dad is still there because for men his age it is illegal to cross the border.

We are so lucky to be here now, but I don’t know what will happen next. I am scared. We live in a coastal town next to a beautiful beach. It’s so packed in the summer because people from all over the France come here. However, now it’s March and it’s surreal how empty and lonely it is. The line between the sea and the sky is almost non-existent: everything is so grey that even this strong wind feels grey. I never associated sea with the word “gloomy” before. It was always about getting up extremely early to get to the airport in time. It was about a hot cup of coffee in my hand while the sunrise was blinding me through the huge windows. It was laughing with my friends about a stupid joke we made on a plane. And as soon as we arrived, we left all our stuff in our rooms and ran to the beach because we couldn’t wait to experience the gentle touch of the cool water again. Nothing is how it is supposed to be. Surprisingly, I am starting to find some sort of comfort in this somber scenery. I think, I should go to the beach this aftern… ”

“Get up, darling, it is time to get ready for school.” My diary entry was interrupted by my mom opening the door to the bedroom. We had fresh baguette with salted butter for breakfast. I felt anxious and wasn’t very hungry but I noticed how delicious food was here. Everyone was very friendly and helpful at school yet it still was so scary. I struggled with my schoolwork even though I was pretty good at French. It was not a big deal because suddenly no one expected anything from me. There was no talk about good grades, passing my exams and getting into the best university anymore. My classes went by very fast. I talked to no one. I missed my dad.

When I got back to our apartment, a hot bowl of spaghetti was waiting for me. “How was school?” mom asked and hugged me. “I made dinner for us. Do you want some cheese with it? There are so many kinds of cheese in the supermarkets here…” I don’t know where she found the strength to remain so soft and supportive. Then, she suddenly said, “I want you to understand one thing: we will not come back home for a very long time. Even after we win, it will be still very dangerous on the streets. People will not be the same.” The realization hit me and I couldn’t eat anymore. Hot tears started rolling down my cheeks. It was time to go and talk to the sea.

Seagulls were flying around in their attempts to catch some fish. The beach was completely deserted. Fear that I never experienced before was hanging over me. All the sounds were distorted by an overwhelming sense of grief. I had to calm down. Inhale, expand my lungs. Exhale. I tried to notice the minutiae of a new life that surrounded me. There were so many seashells of different shapes, colors and sizes right underneath my feet. “I need a sign”, I thought while picking some of the1’lip. “What should I do now? l have no idea what I am supposed to do now.”

“I like seashells, too” someone said gently right when I bent down to take a better look at another seashell. I didn’t notice that anyone was here. I looked up and saw a girl approximately my age. “And I also like how it is so lonely in here,” she continued, “So peaceful. You can hear the sea whispering. Are you from here?” And we started talking. I never thought I would make a friend while having a panic attack on an empty and gloomy French beach. It was never supposed to happen. And yet that was exactly what happened. I received a sign.

OASIS
by Jessica Joyce

Darkness is liquid. It pools and trickles and bubbles into mouths and noses, fills ears and eyes, muffling all sounds and all thoughts.

Tashi wakes below its surface.
His shoulder grazes something hard and rough that snags his skin when he reaches out to push back against it and his heart stammers when he realizes that he can’t reach out, there isn’t room. On all sides, the rough hardness pushes against his arms and legs, hovers maybe an inch above his nose.

A box. He thinks. I’m in a box.
He scratches a fingernail into the stone over his head and a shower of grainy sand falls into his eyes. When he shakes his head, his cheeks grind into the sides of the casket. What else could it be? Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Tashi sucks in a breath, hot dry air that makes his tongue taste like bad soil, braces his palms against the lid and heaves up. More sand peppers his face but the stone doesn’t move, doesn’t even shift. Tashi tries to spit, to clear his throat, but with no moisture in his mouth all he does is crush the sand between his teeth.

Fine. He digs his bare elbows into the sandstone floor and draws his knees up until they scrape the lid but he doesn’t stop. At the same time, he rolls as far onto his side as the cramped space allows and braces his shoulders for momentum, tucking his head to his chest to keep his ears from being shredded as he shoves. He feels the lid scritching in protest and the sand trying to drown him but at the same time through his slitted eyes he sees the darkness leaking away like pulling the drain on a bathtub, like even as the sand tries to bury him the dark is swirling into an unseen pipe.

The sand covers his legs and climbs up his chest and reaches for his chin but the lid is still moving and Tashi curls his fingers around its lip, wriggles into the gap made by the shifting and slithers free.

He perches on his knees, feet still buried, on a broad shelf that’s easily twice the width of the space he’d been trapped in and gasps in lungs full of less-hot, less-dry breaths until the shaking that’s started in his bones works up into his chest and twines into something that makes his shallow breathing feel more like laughing.

Tashi sits on the ledge until he stops trembling, then looks around him, shifting on his knees to get a better look.

It’s a cave, no a treasure chamber, like he’s been buried in a pyramid. The ceiling, though high enough that its edges are lost in gloom is probably no more than twice his height.

This room could hold a dozen coffins. He thinks as he slides his legs down, one after the other to stand on the stone floor. But there are only two more besides his own and both have broken lids, cracked down the middle and filled with sand.

“Is anyone else here?” Tashi says to the coffins. He coughs on the last syllable and wipes the sand from his teeth. Light slips into the chamber from high slits in the angled walls. Dust motes flash gold then ash, gold then ash again and for a moment he’s so dizzy he has to sit back down on the casket’s edge.

He looks at his hands and counts the bloody grazes on each palm until the world stops jumping. “Okay.” He says and stands again. “Let’s try this again.”

Just in case, he sifts through the sand inside the other coffins. The one on the left is empty, but when he digs into the one on the right something squirms and shudders up to meet him, snorting and wheezing clouds of dust until a fuzzy gray snout shoves itself hard against his palm. It’s a dog.

“Hey!” Tashi jumps back as the little mutt swims out of the sand and shakes so hard it’s ears flap against its head slap, slap, slap. Its shaggy fur is the colour of lint and its body is maybe as long as Tashi’s forearm. It makes him think of the word ratter. “Who are you?” Tashi says, then hopes the dog won’t answer. It doesn’t, but it sneezes hard then leaps to the floor leaving sand in its wake like a glittering slug trail.

The dog runs yipping around the borders of the room, sniffing at each crevice and raising a hind leg against one of the broken coffins before it barrels back toward Tashi and snuffles at his shoelaces, tugging on them as if it wants to suck them up like spaghetti.

“Hey, stop!” Tashi says. He scoops the dog into his arms and tries to settle it in front of his chest. “Take it easy, Ratty, I’m a friend.”

The dog squirms and slaps its ears, then presses its snout against Tashi’s collarbone so he can feel it’s wet nose through his thin t-shirt.

“Great,” Tashi tells it, scratching its neck. “Just hold tight so I can find a way out.”

Tashi walks the perimeter of the room while Ratty sits in his arms yipping like he’s trying to offer suggestions. Nothing on the wall to the south, nothing on the wall to the north. When they near the coffin Ratty marked on, the dog yips even louder and nips Tashi’s wrist.
“Ow! Hey, what-?”
Ratty struggles out of Tashi’s grip and scrapes at the floor beside the coffin, tail wagging. He let’s out a long high-pitched whine.

Tashi, careful to avoid the still wet puddle, drops to his knees by the little dog’s side. “What did you find?”

Ratty growls and scratches again, harder. His nails make deep furrows in the stone.

“No way…” Tashi presses his fingers into the floor and it’s soft like fresh clay. He runs his hands along the base of the wall and slips his fingers into the crack where it stops being a wall and becomes the floor. He feels it distort and the stone gives way in a thick earthy clump that stains Tashi’s arms the colour of sandstone up to his elbows. The minutiae of how or why are lost on him but he can’t bring himself to care as he continues to dig by Ratty’s side until they’re both coated in what isn’t mud but also isn’t stone.

The last of the darkness seeps away.

Ratty’s the first through their new door. He skids in the sand of the desert outside and immediately starts chasing his stubby gray tail.

Tashi crawls through after him, wiping clay from his face with his bloody palm.

The world stretches before them, golden desert splashed red, pink and shadowy blue by the almost-setting sun.

Tashi gets slowly to his feet as a warm breeze rustles his dark hair. He stares and stares at the desert, trying to fit the horizonless dunes into a scale he can manage. He gives up and shakes his head but smiles.

He turns around to gaze up at the yellow-sided pyramid, somebody else’s tomb, and flattens his palm over the pitted stone. This part is solid enough. Looking down, the hole he and Ratty had dug was already disappearing beneath the sand curious to explore the new space. The remaining visible edge looks like real stone.

Ratty appears from around the pyramid’s corner, marks it like the coffin, then dances over the sand to hop and yip around Tashi’s feet, slipping and sliding on the uneven ground.

“You found something else, didn’t you?” Tashi says. He reaches down to free a shoelace from Ratty’s sharp little teeth. “Come on then. Show me.”

Following Ratty’s lead, Tashi hears his discovery before he sees it. Buzzing, roaring, musical notes. Too many sounds to name after the silence of the desert. A blast of cold air flushes the clinging sand from Tashi’s clothes and Ratty’s fur, chasing scraps of paper, maybe garbage or receipts to meet them as the city comes into view.

In Tashi’s mind’s eye, he sees the world expand. No longer just the coffin room or the desert, but this place too.

Cars scream along a road that seems to narrow. Pedestrians are a rainbow of colour and noise as they jump out of the way just in time, unbothered by close calls. Neon signs flash and flicker to life as the sun goes down, their reflections in thousands of coloured glass windows waving to the entrances of the shops down below.

The city is alive.

Tashi hesitates, up to his ankles in the sand. He looks back at the pyramid, just an outline in the fading light, then down at Ratty who worries at Tashi’s shoelace.

“What do you think?” Tashi asks.

Ratty flaps his ears. Slap, slap, slap.

“Right.”

A green neon sign curls in wide leafy shapes, bright and organic between the pinks and the yellows of its square neighbors. It pokes out like a living, growing thing nestled half behind buildings gone blue as the night sets in. That’s as good a place to start as any.

“Come on.” Tashi says.

With Ratty scampering at his heels, Tashi steps into the city and leaves the desert behind.