Nature Poem

 

                                                                          The Snow


                                                              When you see the snow,
                                                          Melting from the heat of sun,
                                                              You think "Life is short."

Insult Poem

                                                               The Fishing Haiku

                                                         
                                                               You suck at fishing.
                                                        You catch a tic tac and brag.
                                                            I hooked your eyeball.

A Miracle To Remember

January 5, 2016                                A Miracle To Remember                           Ashton L. Galyean   

           

“I think he’s pretty cool, I’ll ask him out on Monday”, Joana said as she grabbed a drink from her friend, Alice. She just had a vision of where she would be with the new school boy, Mike Allen, two years from now. As a high school sophomore, Joana Carls envisioned herself with her to-be boyfriend walking along the beach after graduation.

 She also envisioned her future too, such as going to college with Mike and graduating with honors, being in the Air Force, having kids who followed in their footsteps, and securing a good job and future for herself. She had things all planned out for herself.

At least until she came back to reality, where she remembered she told her parents she’d come back at 10:00 to study for her Biology test next Monday, which she was absolutely not looking forward to. It was nearing 9:45 and remembered her parent’s voices before she left.

“If you break one more promise to us, your phone will be taken away for three weeks”, she vividly recalled. She wasn’t having the best time in her relationships lately. She got angry with her parents and teachers a lot and she was often grounded. She wasn’t good at math and English and was failing both classes. She never studied and rarely ever got any exercise. She didn’t really need to. As long as she had her phone and a friend by her side, she was happy. She was never able to express herself and was influenced by everyone else.

Her friend Jules Gardner noticed she was spaced out and staring off into empty space.

“Are you okay”, asked Jules.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine” said Joana as she collected her thoughts and brought them back to Earth. Her friends Jules and Alice seemed to be the only good relationships she had. She seldom got mad at them and got along with them very well.

“I totally want to stay at this party but I really need to go home,” said Joana as she glanced at her watch. 9:50. Time to leave. She said goodbye to her friends and left.

As she strolled down the street, she began thinking again.

“Wow, my life really is not the best right now. My parents forced me to study for that stupid Biology test since I totally bombed the last one, I can’t seem to make my teachers or parents happy, I just know I will be late and have my phone taken away, and I was barely invited to that party. What could be worse?”

Soon, she approached the street on which she lived. She glanced at her watch again. 9:56. She was sure wasn’t happy that she walked home without glancing at her phone every five seconds. She practically lived on her phone. Her phone was always full of Facebook notifications, text messages from Jules and Alice, constant high scores on Candy Crush, and old text messages from her ex-boyfriend, Jeff Pascal.

Just as she reached the street corner, she began feeling disoriented and nauseous. She tried her best to not fall on her face.  

When she regained consciousness, she didn’t see her usual surroundings. She instead saw a house. A two story run-down house that looked one or two hundred years old. Being her usual curious self, she approached the house. She noticed that as soon as she walked in, she felt a strange feeling she had never felt before. It was both a butterfly sensation in her stomach and a feeling that something was not right about the house. There was something in this house that shouldn’t be.

She got more nervous as she walked through the old dusty cobwebby house. The previous owners must have been very rich based on the objects she saw. A large safe full of jewelry that must’ve cost thousands back in the 19^th century. Year-old photographs of places that looked like Europe, Hawaii, and other places she dreamed of. Another safe filled with fat stacks of dough, ready to spend. She thought about her future and reached for the money. But as her finger first touched it, she got a huge chill that she felt in even the lowest depths of her soul. She jumped almost to her own height across the room. As she looked around to see what happened, there was nothing. Just herself in the middle of that bone-chilling mansion. She now knew there was definitely something wrong and ran to the door.

But as she grabbed the knob, it wouldn’t turn. She was suddenly pulled back to where she was previously standing by an unknown, invisible force. She saw the figure of a man, who looked like he was dressed for a formal dinner. He had a blank look on his face. His eyes had no color, but a spiritual, eerie glow that seemed years old. Joana was terrified but tried to speak.

In a nervous, shaky voice, she asked who he was and what was happening.

The ghost stood there for a couple seconds, then opened his mouth.

In a low voice that seemed to come and go with the wind, he said:

“I am Thomas Burton. I was the former owner of this house. I had a well-earned life from my years of school and work. Good things like what I have don’t come easy. I paid the price.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here. I have to leave”, said Joana as she lunged for the door.

But as she tried to flee, she was grabbed on her jacket and pulled back. As she stumbled back in the room, she felt her jacket rip.

“Oh don’t be so quick to rush, child. I have something very important to tell you. You really need my help I just know it. I know your plans for your future but as I’ve seen, your attitude towards life has really been a foolish way of thinking, young one.”

“How do I know I can trust you”, asked a surprised Joana.

“I will promise you I am no demon. I will change your future. But you have to listen to me genuinely, child."

Joana was terrified about the ghost and she asked him if he knew her future.

“Ha! I see you will be flipping burgers and still living with your parents when you’re thirty years old…if you keep living your life like you are right now”, said the ghost.

“Ummm… okay”, said Joana.

“Do you trust me?”

“Uh sure.”

“Okay, but before I tell you how to avoid your future, I have a few favors for you to do.”

The ghost took a deep breath almost as if he couldn’t trust Joana either but then spoke.

“First, find the golden dollar and bring it to me. It is hidden in the safe full of cash and is very small. Then, go to that portrait of my wife over there and place this piece of paper on it. After that is done, take that shovel outside and bury my bones under the tree with orange flowers on it.”

Joana closed her eyes and convinced herself this was only a dream. But when she opened them, the house and the ghost were still there.

She then finally said okay and then the ghost vanished into thin air.

She went back in the safe and began poking around. She finally found the coin buried in a pile of hundred dollar bills, barely the size of her fingernail, after digging around for what seemed like hours.

Then, she went to a portrait of a well-dressed young lady with beautiful earrings. She slipped the piece of paper in the bottom slot underneath the painting, before she even bothered to look at what was written.

Right after she did that, the ghost appeared again. With a smile on his face, he spoke.

“Thank you, my young child. Now you will know my secrets to a happy life.”

“Please tell me. I need it now that your favors are completed.”

“First of all, don’t ever make the mistake of thinking good things come easy. Everything good in life comes with a price, young lady. You have to work for them. Don’t just expect to wake up one day and have the future you want, child.”

“Then you have to work hard at these goals. Just do it!! Don’t let unimportant, urgent things get in the way of more important things that help you get to your goals.”

“Finally, never give up!! I cannot stress that enough. If you hear whispers in the back of your mind saying, ‘You suck’, ‘You’ll fail’, ‘Don’t even try’, ignore them and keep going, child. Give everything your best shot, young one. Don’t let your fears make your decisions!”

“Well, the time has come for me to part from this world. Time for you to bury those bones over there under that tree I told you about. If you are ever struggling with getting to your goals, keep what I said in mind.”

With that, the ghost disappeared into a cloud of mist. Joana thought that this was rather old, fatherly advice, but to avoid her doomed future, she chose to believe it.

Once she piled the last shovelful of dirt onto the bones, she opened the creaky old gate and ran, never looking back. She tripped and landed on her head. The pain and dizziness was the last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness again.

She suddenly saw her familiar surroundings fade their way into her view. She was back on the street corner where she remembered she blacked out many hours ago. She glanced at her watch again. 9:56. Absolutely no time had passed since she left the real world. The other thing she noticed was that she felt different. She didn’t feel like the Joana she was just minutes ago. She felt this mysterious feeling she had never felt before, like she was a new Joana that will never be the same again.

She got up and walked home, not sure what to tell her parents.

Two years later, two weeks after graduating from high school with honors, she was where she wanted to be. Walking on the beach with the boy of her dreams, Mike Allen. She had gotten over her problems with her parents and teachers, and her grades improved. She studied for all her tests and exercised almost every day. Her relationships with her friends also improved. She was being herself instead of doing what everyone else was doing. The old Joana was gone. She never was like her old self again. She was ready to head off for Harvard University. Soon after that, the Air Force and the other things she planned for herself would follow.

This was all thanks to her unique experience she didn’t know what to call. Was it a hallucination, a dream?

Whatever it was, it was a serious wake-up call.

It was truly a miracle to remember.

As she walked on the beach, she felt the wind blow something over her feet. She picked up a small piece of paper and read it.

“This was a miracle of nothing known. You have grown with much to show. Now think back to that special day. When you made a change that never will fade.”

She suddenly recognized that piece of paper as the one she saw two years ago. In her pocket, she found that small gold coin jingling around. And attached to the back of that paper was a flower. An orange flower from the tree. And that rip in her jacket was never able to be repaired. And of course, that memory never left.

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