THIRD PLACE The oldest subway station in the nation. Where the Green and Red Lines meet. Where I get confused and take the wrong train, wind up in Quincy only to turn around. Where the peanut man sold hot, oily, peanuts in brown bags. That salt tang memory still twists my tongue. Where my mother […]
Archivos de Categoría: Stories
SECOND PLACE The air smells like coconuts and tuna fish sandwiches. Our granny cart is full with a Styrofoam cooler, under a plaid blanket, under frayed and folded towels, under mom’s crossword puzzle. Her blue and white folding chair holds on with three bungee cords. We girls shuffle together, sun kissed noses and shoulders – […]
FIRST PLACE The apartment in my new country contained a scuffed dining table, a stained futon, and one standing lamp. “I’ll find things for you,” the Super said. Over days, an oak bookcase, floral rugs, and Chilean treats his wife baked. In the garden, he beckoned me to a woman walking her dog. “She needs […]
SECOND PLACE YOUTH CATEGORY In our house we have a small version of Boston Common At Twilight enclosed in tinted blue glass. I remember thinking at first that the colors didn’t match; the warm, dusty browns of the painting with the cold, clean blue of the frame. One winter, we walked past Frog Pond. I […]
FIRST PLACE YOUTH CATEGORY Home. I let my coat hang free. It waves in the brisk air like a tattered flag. Sweet Spanish music warms my bones, matching the drum of my heels against the concrete. The trees are dry, but they tower over me like giants. The pond is dying but it stretches farther […]
1st Place Yuli from Israel came to visit last summer. I went to work. She went to Fenway Park from Ashmont – on foot. Through Codman Square, past the Boys & Girls Club where the cop car spends summer nights camped on the corner. Up Blue Hill Avenue smelling barbecue by the golf course. She […]
2nd Place Garlic. Red chili peppers. Sesame seed oil. These are the smells from my childhood, the memories of being twelve and sitting at the kitchen table, watching my mom slice firm tofu, julienne carrots, and sauté beef using fermented soy bean paste. When I first moved to Boston, I would go into Chinatown for […]
3rd Place Shawn cried the day the Red Sox finally won the World Series. His tears were for his father and grandfather who missed that glorious moment. They prayed for it every Opening Day at Fenway Park. They would don their jerseys, tally their scorecards and say, «This is the year!» They cursed the Bambino […]
Honorable Mention Men slap their dominoes hard on the picnic table. But they’re friends, they go way back, they’re not really mad, so it’s fine. Black girls with ponytails dipped in their mama’s shea buttered-hands push themselves into a sway, sway, sway on the swings. Their ponytails were clipped with red, white, blue, and black […]
Honorable Mention It’s a hole-in-the-wall on Harrison Street where she used to buy her food before her class. Nothing has changed. The most expensive sandwich still costs $4.50, cold cuts on toasted baguette with pâté, a stick of cucumber, shredded carrots. She asks, no fish sauce, a sprinkle of chopped jalapeno, and please cut it […]