The Bluestone Review 2020

The Bluestone Review 2020

Prose

When the Sun Gave Up By Tessa Saiia

Once upon a time, there was a small run-down town in the middle of nowhere. The buildings looked their age, with graffiti on every building, as well as the train cars. It was so dark it looked like the sun had given up on the town. As you walked through the streets, it looked like a ghost town with all the doors shut, and all the shades were drawn. The townspeople all prayed for something to make the town come to life again. They wanted happiness and light, but they were so used to the boring dullness of the dark that they were afraid to let the light in. There was this little servant girl who every day would walk around town, skipping and singing to herself and whoever else would listen. She, like every- body else, had grown up with the same darkness, but something was unique and different about her. She had an unfamiliar glow to her that the townspeople had never seen before. It was something that has been missing in this town for a while. The townspeople could hear her singing, and they would look out the windows, but even the little glow that she emitted was too much for them. They would again draw the blinds. They saw her as an outcast. They were scared of her because she was different. They could see her, yet they were blind. They were blind to the fact that she was what they had been praying for. Even in all the darkness, her light showed. Even when all was dull and sad, she always had something to smile and sing about. Everyone had prayed for exactly her, and they treated her like she was a disease that they did not want to catch. Every day, she tried to make a difference, she tried to change this mel- ancholy town into something brighter. Every day spent with no success was draining. Her light slowly started to die, her skipping turned into a hopeless drag, and her song is now just a memory. She had no one to pass the light off to, so her flame had burnt out. She was the optimism in this unappreciative town of pessimism. She tried to make a difference, but without someone to receive, her giving meant nothing. She used to shine so bright, but then, like the sun, she had given up. A Child’s Salvation By Ivy Shelton My daughter was nervously dangling her legs off the edge of the hospital bed as I sat beside her silently praying this would soon be over. She had tried so hard to be brave, but now she couldn’t hide the tears that filled her eyes. I watched as they slowly trickled down her face and disappeared into her beautiful brown curls. A gray t-shirt probably wasn’t the best outfit choice because the tears had quickly soaked it, making her pain all the more obvious. We were both scared. At any moment, a doctor would walk through that door with a folder that con- tained her future. My darling girl had always been a fighter, but cancer? That’s a battle that someone her age had no business being in.

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