2nd Place YOUTH CATEGORY The day I graduated eighth grade was my fourth year living in Massachusetts. I had hoped I would feel like a girl stomping into big shoes and fighting for rights like everyone around me. The sun was warm on my green dress, stable ground beneath my Mary Janes. The school was […]
Archivos del Autor: I_A_Boston_100_Words
3rd Place YOUTH CATEGORY She hopes her Charlie Card has enough left to reach the train that’s arriving. The turnstile opens and she sighs in relief as she barrels down the steps of Ashmont T Station. She joins a pulsating crowd of humanity, languages and cultures passing through her ears like a game of catch. […]
Honorable Mentions / Mezon Onorab A hint of fall sent a chill through the air. The end of summer was ahead, but cricket was still on in Franklin Park. Pristine white uniforms that spoke in the language of gentility mixed with the varied & rough brogue of different Caribbean islands. Sometimes reggae music would float […]
Honorable Mentions I occasionally ring the church chimes at the Christian Science Center. I am not a professional musician, and I am an atheist. But, I grew up singing hymns and I love being able to contribute my own small part to the ambient soundtrack of the city on Sunday mornings. From where I sit […]
Honorable Mentions The Camberville Plant Lovers Facebook group saved my life. I am not exaggerating. A new neighborhood transplant mid-pandemic, I mapped the streets picking up plant cuttings in 93-degree heat. This is the only way I know how to navigate: Davis Square is a straight snake plant cutting, Rindge is a wilting swiss cheese […]
Honorable Mentions / 荣誉奖 / 榮譽獎 This time, the Chinatown vendor asks me how old I am. Nineteen, I say in hesitant Chinese, through a too-hot bite of a fresh pineapple bun I haven’t even paid for yet. She beams at me, kindness crinkling the corners of her eyes as she waves my money away. […]
Honorable Mentions The pigeons perch on a telephone pole like a string of dirty laundry. She hasn’t done her laundry in over a week because she ran out of quarters. She didn’t think city living would be like this: living in the cracks of the city, not quite on a bus line. She studies dead […]
Honorable Mentions creaming children run through the water fountain on the Greenway. A little girl hesitates, and she’s not sure what scares her more- getting wet, or missing the fun. «This used to be a highway.» My friend doesn’t hear me. She’s taking a picture of the sun shining off the clock tower. «I could […]
Honorable Mentions Not a morning person, I rise with the sun to get to the lottery on time. Three generations of a Chinese-speaking family fill out applications beside me. Across the table, a silver-haired empty-nester confesses she’s just moved back to the city. A young Black couple holds their breath with me while a gardener […]
1ST PLACE My grandmother makes steak and onions in the same cast iron frying pan four days a week for her husband of fifty years. He sits at the kitchen table, waiting to be served, reading the sports section of the Herald, sipping ginger ale that replaced his beer decades ago. His wife, fifteen years […]