The Creators.

 

Saturday Morning Meditation by Michelle Blanchard (collaboration with Joe McKenna)/ mixed media on canvas

written by Allie Higgins

The Creators.

Perhaps we are sculpted.

Chipped away from angular masses,

until they reach the pulsing life inside.

Smoothing, the contours of hands and noses,

knees and elbows, lips and thighs.

But neither has seen

both sides of human life.

Creating only the gender they know,

unique.

“I AM AN ARTIST!” they scream,

as they create each man,

or woman,

as differently as they can.

“I AM AN ARTIST!” bounces back to them

off the walls

of their cubicle of gender isolation.

“I AM AN ARTIST! YOU SEE? THIS ONE HAS A LARGE NOSE! SKINNY LEGS! GREEN EYES!”

“Yes, yes.” sighed God, knowing the true differences that could be made. But no one stops, sculpting foot after foot, neck after neck, penis after penis, breast after breast.

Creating, confined not by rules, but by how little they know.

“A-HA! this one shall have brown hair! Freckles! Big feet! An artist I say, I AM AN ARTIST!”

They started screaming, loud enough so they can remind themselves that what they are sculpting, chiseling, creating is original. Too Loud. One creator had heard another, so instead of a woman, this time It created stairs. Without knowing, It created the only real original It has, or ever will create. It climbed the foreign masterpiece and peered over the walls it had never pondered or questioned.

“What are you making?”

“A person.” it replied simply.

“Well, where are the breasts?”

“The whats?”

“And what is that?”

and without even looking up, the other creator replied “what?”

“Never mind…”

The creator turned and walked back down It’s stairs. Without knowing, It had crossed the line of gender separation and confinement. It sculpted the stairs into a woman, shrunk her, and gave her to God, to place her where she fits, and to tell her to grow.

The Bluest Eyes

 

Illustration By Jeff Alward

 

Illustrated by Jeff Alward

Written By Allie Higgins

The Bluest Eyes

Vincent Timothy Allen Daniels would look like any other 12 year-old boy. He stands as tall as he can against the doorframe and measures 5 feet exactly. He stands on the scales every morning and looks down at exactly 95 pounds of Vincent. He looks in the mirror and sees the clothes his mother bought at the department store. He sees his brown hair that turns golden in the sunlight and his skin, slightly rosy and plump enough so is bones don’t stick out. But he never looks at his eyes. Everything else is pretty average, except for his eyes.  They are the brightest bluest eyes you will ever see. His eyes are so young and clear they’d pull you in like a whirlpool at the slightest glance. But behind the sparkling water eyes was the most wonder and curiosity possible. It was impossible not to love this 12 year-old boy, so everyone did. His family, friends and teachers all adored him. He was almost perfect. His one flaw was his mind. Vincent’s mind devoured information and everything else. Like a monster, his mind was so incredibly greedy for knowledge. Every little secret swept under the rug, pushed into corners to collect dust and cobwebs, he wanted it.

One night, there was a blue shadow cast over the whole town. All the stars began to poke their lazy little heads out from the wide black blanket of the night sky. Vincent lay in bed; math formulas and small facts were racing and whizzing around his greedy brain. Those curious bright blue eyes saw something shoot across the sky. He laughed and thought to himself, there’s no such thing as a shooting star, it’s only a meteor, silly superstition. But all the same, at the back of his mind he was still wishing he could know all there is to know, to know everything ever.

The next morning Vincent woke up, his head was pounding, his eyes were in such pain, scenes flashed before his brain, one thought led to one hundred, which led to one thousand, which led to one million. He could not stop thinking, thinking about everything, thinking and knowing every detail about something he had not even heard of the night before. Vincent was the boy who knows everything. Weddings, deaths, births of people he had never met all through time bounced around his brain. Ancient wars, civilizations, the beginning of time, but it were all too much. He could not stay at one thought for more than one fraction of a second. He could not grasp and remember a single thing. He could not speak or words would start tumbling out, rushing and pushing to the front and he’d never get out what he wanted to say. Instead he would spew out how the world would end and every terrible thing happening in the world in that second. Vincent did not want that for anyone else so he never spoke again. His parents asked what was wrong. They thought he was sick. Their eyes crinkled with concern. The line between their furrowed eyebrows getting deeper and deeper when Vincent could only reply with a blank stare from his no longer curious shiny blue eyes. Somehow the worst things are always the only ones remembered. Gruesome scenes remained etched on his eyelids, sadness, hatred, blood spilt, heartbreak.