Together Alone

37 stories and poems by today's young and emerging authors. Imaginative and inspiring, Together Alone, paints a picture of possibility. From dreamscape to fantasy, or as real as your next door neighbor, these are stories of struggle, hope, fear, and courage. These pages are filled with characters you will indentify with and those who will challenge

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pier House Books
• Release date: Aug 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087897400

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Together Alone

Together Alone

Together Alone

By A Handful of Teens

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Pier House Books

"To the creator of zombie skittles and the only reason this book exists.

Thank you for all you've done."

Copyright © 2020 by A Handful of Teens

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Printing, 2020

Contents

Blackberries

Windows

Cobblestones and Algorithms

Piano Key Thoughts

Smoke, Books, and Oversided Coats

Disappearance of Books

The Lake of Time

Underwater Wonderland

Butterflies, Lies, and Evening Skies

Growing

Broken Boots

Raindrops

The Woosh

The Writer's Mind

Secrets

The Railway

My Family

Half Shadow; Half Light

The Nook

Variables

Tea Shops and Inspiration

Crossroads

A Different Perspective

All Different Worlds and Maybe Some Color

Pretty Patterns

Garden Hoses and Tape

Letters to You

Memories

Wishes of Mine

Emotional Tangles

Butterflies in Winter

A Yellow Balloon

Miniature Sunflowers and Black Pens

Complete Opposites

Dutch Braids and Pigtails

Color

Not quite sensical

About the Authors

Blackberries

Ava Atwood

Incessant mumbles

Picking away at my flesh

Tearing out my faults and laying them to bask in the sun

Like blackberries

But blackberries are soft

And sweet

And unbroken

Windows

Selah Atwood

When someone glances at the passing brick house, with the mortar slightly crumbling at the edges, with the bright yellow stoop welcoming, with the window wide open, the curtains pushed aside to let the bright sun warm the faces of laughing families, what do they see? Do they see exactly that? Or maybe they see something else. Something more than just that. Maybe they see… life. In a way that only the brightly lit, sun filled window can emit.

I walked past the oak trees yesterday. The same way I always do. I walked past the numerous houses that line the streets like misshaped dollhouses strewn about the attic, forgotten in the midst of playing. I walked past the dogs throwing themselves at front doors, being pulled back into kitchens, being shushed, or let out. Past the cats meowing to be let in, or stalking a helpless bird thrusting it’s head into the dirt.

A voice interrupted my podcast, and I clicked in between the volume buttons, pulling my earbuds out and stringing them around my neck loosely. I looked around. This was the first time someone had ever spoken to me during my walks.

Did you notice…? The voice trailed off. It was scratchy, but pleasant to the ear. It reminded me of a storyteller, entertaining small children by manipulating his vocal cords to   create the animated voices of the characters.

Pardon? I said politely, crossing to the other side of the road. I could see the person now, and he rocked once in his chair. It squealed in protest, the wood against wood scraping gently.

Did you notice the change? He asked again, standing up slowly from the chair. He struggled to locate a walker perched beside his seat, and finding it, walked to the stairs and stopped.

I felt my eyebrows crinkling against my will.

No…? I responded quite hesitantly.

He smiled, and attempted to walk down the stairs. When that didn't work, he motioned me over. I quickly shoved my earbuds in my pocket, and jogged over. I gripped his elbow, and guided him down the stairs. We crossed to the  edge of the yard, dodging the daisies scattered around the grass.

Take a walk? The old man asked.

Sure, I shrugged. We were walking in the same direction anyway. We started off, slowly ambling down the street. We walked in silence for a few minutes, the sun smiling on our faces.

What changed? I finally asked.

Everything. He said simply. His eyes were so happy, just so content and peaceful. He was happy himself. He didn’t mind that it took us eight minutes to walk down a small street. He didn’t mind my squeaky shoes, and at one point was even humming along to my steps. His eyes had crinkles that spread out all along his face and forehead. Probably from smiling.

Is it…? I trailed off. He was smiling that wonderful mysterious smile. His eyes twinkled in the sun. He stopped walking.

Listen.

I stopped too. I did hear. It was different. He was right. And the change was amazing.

There weren't any grinding noises from trucks and vehicles. There wasn’t any whir of machines cutting away at grass and trees. There wasn’t any yelling, crying or yelping. There weren't any distractions from the real world.

Oh.

* * *

We took a long, silent walk, listening to the sounds of animals and rustling trees. Smelling the fresh scent of flowers and plants. And watching the world revolve around us. When we returned to his house, we stopped.

Thank you, I said.

The old man smiled once more, and nodded. I hope you continue to notice the changes. And… take care of my daisies.

I helped him up the steps, and to his door.

Goodbye, I said.

I had walked back home that day, and stopped for the first time, staring in the window of the house on my street. Staring at the happy family. You can choose what you see in the world. You can see the bright, sun filled window and laughter, or you can see the crumbling mortar and broken hinges on the door.

I stopped at his house the next day. The rocker was empty… Did I see it move? The walker was still leaning next to the chair, by the wall. A young woman answered my knock, her eyes sad and not yet open to the wonders of the world.

I’m sorry, she said.

I noticed a change when I walked back. It was my breath, my heartbeat, frantic. My footsteps on the pavement and soft dirt. It was my sorrow, filling the air around me.

I took care of his daisies. They lived long, I planted more, and took care of those too.

I walked past the oak trees today.

You can choose how you see the world, and how people see you. I never walked with earbuds in again. I watered his daisies every day.

I’ll walk past the oak trees tomorrow.

Cobblestones and Algorithms

Ava Atwood

The world is a terrible place. I know, because I walk down the same cobble streets everyday. There are 137 cobbles between the clothing boutique and the ice cream parlor. I counted. I count them as I walk everyday, and it never changes. I don’t expect it to, it’s a cobble street, but it’s always good to check things like that. The 35th stone has a dark stain on it in the shape of a bird in flight, and there’s always a cigarette or two rolling around between the 100th and the 129th stones. There’s an ashtray on the ground there too, but I guess the smokers prefer to pollute the earth. I don’t know.

To be honest, I don’t care that much. We, the human race, have dug ourselves into a huge, inescapable hole. I don’t expect things to change while I’m alive. Some people say I need to be more optimistic, or give things a chance, but how can I do that? I’m not going to expel time and energy trying to have faith in this giant rock that we all call home hurtling through space on an ever changing journey to rocket us into a great burning sphere. Plus, that rock is totally set on dragging me down the exact same dreadful path everyday.

Well, I can confidently say I’ve learned how to walk down a cobble street. Or any street in general, I guess. If you keep your eyes down and stay quiet, no one bothers you. Eyes down, on the cobbles, I see many different shoes on the cobbles. I’ve even seen no shoes. Sometimes I see wheels. Yet I never look up at the faces. When you look at the faces, you draw attention to yourself too easily. It’s simple.

The cobbles are constant just like the shoes are forever changing. Shoes always moving, always wrapped up in whatever they’re wrapped up in. Each living in its own small world, each world jumbled up together and overlapping a bit in the corners, that’s earth. Yet the flow of this calculated chaos has become seriously incorrect recently.

Everything was average. Rushing feet, shoving shoulders, me counting cobble stones. I passed the 35th with its birds, the 120s with their cigarettes; I was almost there. Eight stones and I would have reached the drab stack of apartments and offices that made up the tallest, ugliest building in town. It also happened to formulate home, ironically. I even had my key in my palm. 130, 131, 132-

Something was off. I checked everything. The jabbing elbows were there, the cobbles were fine, the feet were rushing- no. The cobbles nor the feet were in the correct shape to make up this stretch of town. The algorithm that made up my life had been gathered up, shook, and carelessly scattered across the floor. Those feet. I had been ever so carefully ignoring them all week. They had done something this time. It must have been them who marked up the cobbles, who removed the simple consistency and replaced it with careless chalk.

The feet, that pair of outrageously bright shoes, crossed at the ankles, still. The same pair of outrageous shoes that had rested between the 130th and the 132nd stone every day for the past six days. I was there now, five stones away from the drab safety I called home… Those shoes were not part of my working algorithm. They were part of the extra bits that gummed up the works.

And the cobbles, the one constant thing in my twisted life, were no longer remaining constant. There were marks- vivid green chalk marks. Lines, dots, someone had drawn out words on the cobbles. They started on the 128th cobble. Against everything inside me that said ignore it, go heat up your microwave dinner and watch meaningless television like you always do , I backed up to