RAILROAD CROSSING

By Jill Dorsi

Our neighborhood was called Overlook Heights, and it was one of those cookie-cutter bright-and-shiny developments that appeared everywhere in the mid-1950’s. Amid the rural splendor of the Allegheny Mountains, it was a celebration of conformity and civilization, all newly-built houses, mostly brick, mostly ranch style or the more enviable “split-level,” and for all intents and purposes, mostly the same. Our parents were confident that they had created a haven that was safe, secure, and utterly American. The fathers went to work, the mothers cleaned the houses and cooked the meals, and we children were free to roam and explore. There were three streets than ran parallel to each other. On the south side, the roads offered steep inclines, that assured exhilarating sled rides in winter, challenging uphill bike rides in summer; and on the north side, all three streets converged with a quiet, winding country lane.

My younger brother, Sam, and I lived with our parents on Harris Street, the middle road, bordered by Lynn Street on one side and Curtain Street on the other. Although we often played with the neighborhood kids riding our bikes up and down the hill and drawing hopscotch squares in the middle of the street, we were also fascinated by the other end of Harris Street, where it met the country lane. Sometimes we would wander down that way to explore. The lane was paved with macadam and at first seemed like an ordinary road, but it soon entered an old and dark woods where it disintegrated into a rutted and rocky dirt road. The trees closed overhead, blocking the sun and creating a humid twilight.

Sugar

by Jacqueline Hanzl

Sugar. Pure, white, little innocent sugar. That’s what I used to think; that is until the day I found out it could kill me.

I‘d been feeling like crap for a while. I caught a cold that lasted for the month of September. It was only the beginning of my senior year in high school and I was totally exhausted. And really thirsty. Nothing could quench my thirst.

I think that was the symptom that made my mom suspicious, the thirst. She’s a nurse. And apparently being constantly thirsty is a huge symptom of diabetes, Type I to be exact, AKA Juvenile Diabetes.

I’d been working my ass off as tri-captain of the Varsity Cheerleading squad. Yes, I said TRI-captain. I am one of three captains for our squad. Not sure why we need three… maybe the thought is that cheerleader’s have a third of a normal person’s brainpower? Anyway, I was at a great time in my life. I’m at the top of my class (thank you very much), I was having a blast, totally getting used to the idea of being a senior and finally ditching this lame small town, then WHAM! I was hit with this.

Mom suspected my blood sugar levels were the culprit of my mysterious symptoms, so she brought home pee strips from her job at the hospital to test my blood sugar. In my house, this isn’t that odd. Mom was always bringing things home to try on us when we weren’t feeling well. We had a whole closet full of stuff like flavored tongue depressors (cherry is the fave in our house), blood pressure cuffs, colored non-latex gloves, and the latest and greatest thermometers (rectal is definitely NOT a fave, although mom claims it gives the most accurate reading).

Mom tells me what she thinks after the results confirm her fears. At first I don’t think I understand what she is saying. The words come out of her mouth, “You have diabetes.“ But I hear them as just words, with no meaning. She could have said, “You have doopateetees.“ It’s like she’s talking to someone else, about someone else. I don’t have diabetes. I’m a teenager for God’s sake and a senior in high school. This can’t be happening.

Diabetes doesn‘t mean anything to me. I thought it meant you couldn’t eat sugar ever again or you would die. I respond, “Okay. So I won’t eat sugar anymore, no biggie.” I look at her hand on my shoulder, feel the weight of it as she tells me that diabetes, Juvenile, is a lifelong disease. Words and phrases jump out at me and I can‘t get away from them as she firmly holds me there. “Insulin”…“for the rest of your life”…“needles”.

I think about the window in my bedroom in the attic. It’s small, stained glass, and opens out like a door on a hinge. I can’t get there fast enough. I picture opening the window, sticking my head out, and screaming at the top of my lungs until my body shakes. Instead, I open it to let some air in, curl up in a ball on my bed, and cry until my body shakes.

Winter

By Laila Brady Walzer

I am sitting outside in the gray day, one of those numerous and abbreviated winter days of almost equal length to each other. The pendulum of the Earth has been flung to its limit, and pauses in the cold, silent vacuum, quivering daily by a minute or two I know the Earth is poised to rush back, tilting headlong towards the sun, bringing light, warmth, life. As I sit in the frozen near-silence, though, bundled in a comfortable hodge-podge of clothes, this is just a theoretical concept, and I find strength and renewal in the raw stillness, the dull and unchanging snow.

A favorite moth-eaten hat and scarf and a voluminous, black synthetic-down vest top off my outfit. Under the hat I’ve jammed one of those festive, cheap, Indian-print cotton scarves with silver threads running through. I’ve found after a wash or two that the silver begins sticking up at odd angles, crimping, falling off. Then they’re reborn and re-found in delightful places – clinging to my dog’s whiskers, for example, or to the back of my husband’s jeans. When I glimpse myself in the mirror, silver threads circling my head, I amuse myself by imagining that my brain is fraying, that I am shedding bits of myself, continually re-birthing a clearer and cleaner me. The found threads serve as a playful and irreverent testimony to the surprise gifts that well from letting go.

Heart and Soul by Lynda Sales Engholm

I hadn't really wanted her in my class. When the principal told me that Darlene would be coming to my room, I was dismayed. She had been in two classes before mine, in our residential school for students with autism. I had observed her a few times, and what I saw was a child who needed a lot of attention. When I saw her in her first class, she spent most of her time that day under a blanket, head and all, on the floor, and then refused to leave at dismissal. She only stuck her head out once while I was there, displaying some unkempt braids, a brown face with dried milk around the mouth, and deep set dark eyes with long lashes. She was self-injurious; special ed teacher talk for someone who really hurts themselves. No one could pinpoint the cause. It seemed as though she heard voices and then banged her head on a sharp corner of something, usually a wall or a cabinet, or banged her forehead on a table, or scratched herself, or smacked herself, or bit herself. When her attempts were interfered with, she fought as if possessed, trying to get a few more slaps or bites in before she was stopped. Not your ideal student, not even in our school, that had the most difficult kids.