Young Writers Society

Junie enjoyed singing to the trees. The rough concrete scratching beneath her thighs didn’t matter much to her when she had her guitar. Naturally, her fingers plucked the cordial strings. Song left her lips and the trees danced. She closed her eyes and breathed.

“Junie Lynn Evans!”

Her heart froze.

“Yes, mother?”

“Don’t be smart with me!”

Junie shifted her torso to face the mad-woman. She swallowed.

“Dinner is ready. Put that guitar away.”

Junie nodded. She stood and brushed off the tiny rocks. Suddenly, the concrete hurt. Her eyes fell lower as she walked in the house.

“Why do you always look so depressed all the time?”

Junie rolled her eyes and gently laid the guitar down on her twin-sized bed. With disdain trickling through her veins, she sat down at the dinner table. Her father, graying hair and deep wrinkles sat across from her. Her mother, dry ash blonde hair and defeated brown eyes to her left. Weird, they were all sitting together for dinner. It made Junie uncomfortable, sitting here with them like a normal family.

“Your grades are dropping again,” her mother stabbed a piece of lettuce and crammed it in her mouth. Her dusty rose colored lips smashed together like a cow when it eats.

“Yeah,” Junie said. What else was there to say? I’m sorry I haven’t met your expectations. Math is hard. You are even harder to deal with, but I can’t say anything or you’ll punish me.

“You need good grades for college,” her mom wiped the small dollop of dressing off the corner of her mouth.

“I know.”

“You are going to college,” her mother commanded.

“Not everyone wants to go to college,” her father joined.

“But Junie is.”

“Stop trying to control her, she can do what she wants!”

“It’s best for her!”

“How do you know what’s best for her?”

“Can you please just, stop,” Junie interrupted.

“This is not your conversation,” her mother snapped.

“Do you find satisfaction in controlling your daughter? Just like your mother,” her father accused.

“I am not controlling her, she is making her own decisions!” Mother said.

“Oh really? That’s what you call that?” Father retorted.

Junie half-finished her plate and sat it in the sink. She went to her room without the need of her mother’s reprimands. She sank into the bed, faced the window, and held the guitar in her lap. Her fingers pressed against the strings and she couldn’t bring herself to sing for a while.

When she worked up the courage, she began “Oh, somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly.”

A pair of wings eased out from beneath her shoulder blades. Junie fluttered her wings, getting used to the new feeling.

“And the dreams that you dream of, dreams really do come true.”

She stood from her bed and looked out the window. The blinding orange sun casted a glow on the pink lemonade clouds. She strummed the guitar.

“Where troubles melt like lemon drops, way up there, the chimney tops, that’s where you’ll find me.”

The trees did not sway. She sank to the floor and tuned into the melodies her fingers chose. She breathed and closed her eyes. Maybe if she wished herself away from this place, she would disappear and materialize in her auntie’s arms. She was afraid she would get those stress-lines in her face like her parents. She didn’t want to grow up to be them.

Neither of her parents enjoyed their jobs. Her father worked in a bank counting money and wearing old ties. His tired eyes hid behind the thin frames of his glasses. Adventure called to him when he was young, but he never ordered that plane ticket. A few years later he was completely discouraged. He stepped into his father’s shoes and joined the bank to experience the same monotony everyday. No one knew why he didn’t travel now; maybe it was the birth of Junie or maybe he thought he was too old. Her mother found work as a nurse. She’d been at it since she left college. When asked, the mother hardly revealed her failed passion. In a deep dark corner of her heart was the desire to direct a fashion business. But it was hard, and she didn't have the time. At least, that’s her excuse.

Junie decided she would be a musician. She couldn’t deny, it wasn’t the most reliable of jobs, but she couldn’t think of anything else that would make her happier. She remembered her little cousin, Trenton, and his shadowed face in the dim hallway. His thin lips curved into a half-smile as he listened to her soft melodies. They distracted themselves from the monsters voices who echoed down the stairs. Wine. Politics. Snotty strangers. Who cares.

Hot tears pulled Junie back to the present. She heard yelling from the kitchen. Anger crashed against her rocky shores, but she kept sailing, trying to keep her distance from the jagged edges. Why couldn’t she have a normal family? The cliffs destroyed her fragile boat plank by plank, string by string, and the water crashed over her. The waves tugged her deeper and deeper down. The moon was a blurry facade and the stars rippled as she sank. She didn’t need air. The navy-purple sky could entertain her for decades. But water filled her lungs, and consciousness slipped away into the night.

When she woke, her lips faced the warm sun. She squinted and took in her bright surroundings. Damp white fluff appeared everywhere before her. She spread her dry ocean blue wings and sat there pondering. She wished she didn’t have to return to the monsters that lived down the hall from her room.

Her guitar lied in the fluff elsewhere. Chipped wood and broken strings rested in peace like the rubble of a great city. She pushed herself up on her hands and knees and unsteadily crawled over to it. Her fingers grazed over the cold metal strings. An idea popped into her head, and she picked up the guitar and flipped it over so the salty water could spill out of the sound box. She brushed her fingers roughly over the six pitches. Junie played them all together to produce a song. Her left hand began to compliment the right, and she stood with a new spirit reigning over her body. Her bones shook as she tried to decipher this new emotion. It was exhilarating and she found herself leaping through the clouds. Her wings flittered, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to fly. The strumming grew more intense, and her fingers bled.

“Junie!” a voice called from far below, but she couldn’t care less.

“Junie!” It called again.

Specks of blood freckled the tawny guitar and her teeth revealed a wild smile. She began to laugh while she leaped.

“Junie Lynn Evans!” A strange thunder roared beneath her feet. She paused for a moment to understand the shaking tremors erupting from the soft ground.

A crack of lightning sounded in the distance. A threatening black cloud approached above the white. Her stomach dropped. As lightning flared, the inside of the cloud lightened like a flame in a mad clown house. She turned to run, but ripping winds pushed her back. She pulled at the fluff, but it disappeared in her hands. Her knees buckled and the guitar flew away from her hands. A flash of light and she couldn’t move. The black cloud swallowed her.

From the depths of the darkness, she heard a faint whisper, “You’re crazy. Why would you ever think you could be a musician? You’re not good enough for that. You will never make it. And what’s the point anyways? Money, fame, popularity? That’s pathetic.”

It imprisoned her soul and taunted it. When she awoke the next morning, the alarm next to her bed rang out. She grudgingly prepared for the school day. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t focus on the teachers or the schoolwork. All she wanted was to play the guitar, but she wasn’t even good at that.

“No one will listen to you. No one will care,” the whisper tickled her ear.

When she got home, she dropped her bag in her room and stared at the guitar leaning against the dark wall. Her eyes grazed over the strings and imagined the pitch of each one as she sat on her bed. Her mother’s voice replayed in her mind.

“I should focus on college,” she said.

She decided to set the music stuff behind her and pulled out a textbook from her backpack. But, still, there was that pesky desire that told her she could be somebody. Somebody with a guitar and a voice to sing. Junie pushed it away and tuned into the book. The black ink of the Times New Roman letters became too heavy for her eyes to carry. Her mind drifted off with closed eyes. When she woke, night had fallen, and she realized her mother hadn’t called her to dinner. She tiptoed out of her room and found her father laying on the couch watching the television. The enthusiastic voices of Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz travelled from it, and she realized her father had probably fallen asleep while watching American Pickers.

She crept to the kitchen and grabbed a cup from the cup drawer. It was pink and Barbie was posed fashionably on the front with a scratched out face. On her ninth birthday, Junie wanted Barbie everything. Her older sister, Vanessa, even came down to visit, and they celebrated with plastic Barbie cups and paper plates. She’s hardly talked to Vanessa since then, but it never bothered either of them all that much. Whenever Vanessa was around, their mother’s stress levels heightened horrifically.

Junie poured water into her cup from the sink. She gulped it down and made her way back to bed. As she slept, she saw herself playing outside in front of a huge audience with her guitar. Everyone was smiling and clapping, and she quite enjoyed herself. A roll of thunder snapped in the distance, and to her horror, a big black cloud headed their way.

“No,” she breathed as she recalled her previous encounter with the black cloud.

“You cannot be a musician! Why are you listening to them?” Lightning whipped around the sky. Her audience covered each other with their arms and hands.

“Leave us alone!” Junie raised her fist in the air.

“You think you’re so high and mighty?” The cloud roared.

A bolt of lightning raced from the sky and cut through her chest. Junie tried to stand, but she couldn’t; her limbs refused to move. 

“Junie!” her mom cried. She ran on the stage and held her daughters face in her hands. “Junie!”

Her father hovered over her, “It’s a shame, she was really doing something with that music stuff too.”

Junies eyes burst open and she sat up in her bed. She saw her mother staring at her in the doorway.

“School starts soon!” Her mother yelled.