First Place/High School:
The Turtle, by Galen Ellis

Lying cold beneath the sand. Seeming dead and long forgotten. Then, consciousness. Suddenly she needed air. She squirmed and crawled her way through. And out of the darkness, there came a light. The cool night air rushed into her tiny lungs as she took her first breath of the world. The reflection of the moon bathed the beach with a pale lumination. The sparkling water quietly lapping against the smooth shore. The glimmer of the waves beckoning her to come with an instinctual force. Her brothers and sisters, all ninety-seven of them, were making the journey as well. However, this barren stretch of land held many dangers, none of which these helpless youngsters could ever imagine.

The gulls were there in a matter of minutes. At first only a few came to peck, but then there were hundreds. The newborns scuttled as fast as their tiny fins could carry them but the gulls' wings carried them faster. Only a handful survived that first day of trauma upon which the rest of their lives depended. Of the few of these hardy survivors our turtle was one.

For the next six months she would be dodging death at every turn. Escaping from sharks, disease, other turtles and man. This last cunning predator was unknown to our turtle for she encountered them only rarely throughout her life.

She swam down from the Florida Keys through the Mediterranean towards the western side of Cuba. Here she had lived contentedly for many years around the Isle of Cuba. She found sanctuary at one beach in particular where the humans didn't try to hunt and kill her. She found this place to be satisfactory to nest and so laid her clutches there each year until the storm.

It wasn't a very large storm. At least not by human standards. But this storm was large enough to wash our turtle all the way to the Island of youth just off the Western tip of Cuba.

Our turtle was in her thirty-first year when this occurred. Once the turmoil of wind and waves subsided she found herself completely disoriented. The beach was strange and the water had an odd tinge. She didn't like this new place and decided to go exploring.

It was here that she was caught in a fishing net and hauled into a small boat by a local boy not half her age. This experience, as one might think, was quite exciting for her.

The boy took her home to his father who butchered her and sold her shell at the local market. As turtle shell is highly prized in some places of the world, he fetched a good price. The shell found its way out of Cuba, through Panama and into Japan where it was worked into a fine ladies' hair comb. It was then smuggled into America and sold to a jewelry shop.

After some time a man came and bought the comb for his daughter. After many years the girl grew into a fine young woman.

One night her boyfriend proposed to her as they walked along the beach in the moonlight. This was the same beach at which this story originates. After accepting the proposal she had a burst of joy so great that she flung her beloved hair comb into the surf.

And as the shell floated gently to the bottom, it returned to the darkness from whence it came.

---

Second Place/High School:
Out of the darkness there came a light, by Poppy Dalton

Out of the darkness there came a light. Finally, I thought, a car. I had been
walking for hours and this was the first car I had seen since the last car let me off at an
intersection a few miles back. I stuck out my thumb as the light came closer. The car came to a
screeching stop. When it was beside me I took a better look at it. It looked as if it were at least
100 years old, ancient. The paint was rusted off and the back windshield was busted in. I heard a
voice from inside the beater, "Where ya'll going to," the voice was high and shrill of a women, she
had a distinctive Alabama accent.

"Carson City," I replied.

"Well, I'll be damned, this is your lucky day, I'm going to Vegas, hop on in." As I got into the car I
was overwhelmed with the cigarette smoke. I immediately rolled down a window. I looked over
and saw the woman; she smiled back, a big toothy smile. She had bleached blonde hair, which
was growing in black at the roots. She was short and squat, wearing cowboy boots, a miniskirt,
and a big ski jacket. What most stood out to me was her face, she wore so much makeup it looked
as though I could carve my initials in it. She had bright red lips; the car seemed to be littered
with lipstick containers. All different colors, brown, maroon, bright red, dark red, orange you
name it she had it.

"Want a smoke?" she asked pulling out a pack of Camels.

"No, thanks," I said.

She put them back in her big ski jacket.

"So, why are ya'll going to Carson City?" Her voice was so high I was surprised the windows didn't break.

"Family. Just visiting. Haven't seen them for ten years, so I figure it's time to pay a visit."

She smiled and laughed. "I haven't see mine for 20, don't want to either."

"So why are you going to Vegas?" I asked.

"Why do you think, to win big of course. I've come all the way from Montgomery for this." She
smiled again; she picked up one of the many lipstick tubes and reapplied her lips with more bright
red.

"Anyways," she kept on talking, "with all my winning I'm gonna buy me a two story house in the
nicest neighborhood in Montgomery and everyone will look up to me with respect." She kept on
talking into the morning. Somewhere in between her talking about her fourth and fifth husband I
drifted off into a deep sleep. When I woke up I was just in time to see a big sign that read
"Welcome to Nevada," in big shiny letters.

"Mornin' sunshine," she smiled again. I realized that she had never told me her name.

"Morning," I said.

"Well, we're almost to Carson City and I figure I'll let you out there while I head to Vegas."

"Sounds good, by the way what's your name?" I asked.

"Oh excuse me I thought I introduced myself, I'm Zealia Thompson."

When we reached Carson City I thanked her, gave her gas money and she was off.

A few weeks later I read in the paper that there had been a robbery in one of the casinos in Vegas. Next to the article was a picture of Zealia Thompson, there was no name of course. But I figured she was probably back in Montgomery in a two-story house with all the neighbors' respect.

Out of the darkness there came a light, a dim but somehow comforting light. Through the hazy mists of pain she could see the faces of people she knew yet did not know, the faces of people who she believed loved her but why or how, or from where she did not know. The faces were round and blurry, not fully formed, as if she were looking through an ultrasound, at a newborn child. The faces she knew were supposed to hold some significance to her, but what, she couldn't grasp. Her body felt numb. The small pinprick of light encroached on her comforting darkness, and as it did, the earlier wisps of pain broadened until they grasped her whole body with convulsions that did not move her. But with the pain, and the ever-growing circle of light, no memory came.

She felt cold. Beneath her she could sense something supporting her, a feeling of comfort exuded from all around her, but was not comforting. It felt cold, and unfamiliar, though at this point what was familiar was oblivious to her. The suspended feeling reminded her vaguely of being suspended in air, no sense of where you really were. Flying out of a car around a tight curve; flying higher, and higher, losing sight of everything; everything that mattered anyway. It all blended together, that's how she remembered it. She passed out from fright before she hit the tree, and slid down, blood, and life flowing from her, onto the windshield of the totaled car. Her best friend was the first to reach the scene, the first to see the blonde head, slumped forward, at an odd angle, the first to see the broken right leg, that had once scored 17 goals for the varsity soccer team, and the first to see the potential fall away from the crumpled body. It was the first time she had ever had alcohol; her best friend had chased her to tell her she was too drunk to drive. But, it was too late.

The blurry circle of light continued to grow, and sounds began to make themselves evident: sounds of the past, sounds of the present, sounds of the future, of which she did not know. A blur of sound, that could not be understood, a blob of meaningless sound that made her ache for understanding. Was that a girl screaming, or the screech of tires on a wet and slippery road? Or was it the squeal of a child's potential disappearing off the track of ambitions so carefully planned by her, as the car careened off the road? Or was it the crunch of a lifetime of happiness, and prosperity turning to sorrow and despair, or was it just the crunch of vertebrae shattered from whiplash? The sounds she couldn't decipher, but the pain she could.

A source deep with in her willed her to give in to the pain. What was there to hold on to? She remembered nothing, but something deeper within her than the sound told her life was important, but she didn't know why. She couldn't remember the sense of pride she felt getting her 4.0 award at the High School awards ceremony, or being her soccer team's most valuable player. She couldn't remember her father's hugs or her mother's kisses; all she knew of life was the swelling pain within her.

Then a new sound came to her. A clear sound, and all the other sounds drifted away. It was a steady lulling beep, and the pinprick of light that came to her from the darkness faded, slowly at first, and the faces of the people she knew loved her grew smaller, more distant, and less meaningful. Then the circle of light began to get smaller faster, until she couldn't see faces at all, but just a prick of light, like a star giving her hope. Then there was no more hope to be had, and away ebbed her life. What a waste, she was only seventeen.

---

return to home page | return to the San Juan Update | photos of the Contest Awards Ceremony