Table Of Contents  
 

 

THE RADIO
BY ALI ANTON

  
 
   It is very seldom that I get the house all to myself to lounge on the black leather sofa. The coffee colored walls surround me, with a clock hanging on the wall to the north, the bright sun lurching in from the south, the painting of the girl with a big beauty mark and blond hair hanging on the west wall and the small table with the antique radio sitting in the east corner. The sun is shining bright on the radio making it glow as it sings a happy tune. Its light red, faded color brightens with the sun and the metal antenna gives off a horrible glare if you stare at it. I sit with my back to it so I am not blinded by the glare. Every time I am left alone I come in here and study the picture hanging on the west wall and turn the radio to music that my family might disapprove of if they were to ever hear it. My head starts to pound with the music, bump, bump, bump. My body starts to capture the rhythm the music taking control of it making me stand and look deep into the eyes of the radio causing the walls to enclose me. My body thrusts forward, jumping on the couch. The radio continues to stare at me and play the same tune…bump, bump, bump. My ears start to throb as the antenna starts dancing from left to right as if he is dancing to a slow song and I am the partner he is leading. No matter how badly I want to make a beeline to the door, the walls keep enclosing me pushing me closer to the radio.
 
     
 
THE CLOCK
BY ROB ROY DE RUTTE
  
 

   I opened the metal door to the shop and entered into a dimly li t windowless room full of old wooden desks, drawers and wardrobes and the like, each item looking older than the next. “ Hello” I projected into the room. There wasn’t anyone at the counter, but the sign outside says open, so I went in anyway. My wife had sent me to pick up an antique dresser that she could use in our new house. I looked around but none of the things looked any good to me. It was as if someone had picked these things up from the side of the road. I was looking at some old chairs that looked somewhat comfy when I heard the click of the door and what sounded like the fumbling of some keys. All of a sudden the lights were turned off and I could hear the front door close. “OW”, I had tripped over a bed frame on my way to the nearest wall to find a light switch. When the lights came back on I heard the front door close and lock. I looked around for another door,, a phone, anything but to no avail. I was trapped until the next day when the store would open again. I looked in the back of the store and found a fridge full of soda so I took about a dozen and looked for something to pass the time. I plopped down on a large comfy sofa and looked around to see a large working grandfather clock in surprisingly good condition. I stared at it perplexed about how it worked. The large pendulum beneath the face rocked back and forth, clicking as if it were dancing from side to side in perfect harmony with the hands on the face. I stared at it for hours and it began to bug me because I was jealous of its perfect rhythm. I didn’t understand it and it made me uneasy. As time passed the clock became more and more ominous, mocking me with each tick of the pendulum. It was as if it was bragging about itself saying,
"Look at me with my lovely rhythm and my beautiful wood finish.” I got to the point where I was angry at the clock. It spent its entire day tick-toking back and forth, never missing a beat. Why can I not do this? I could hardly stand sitting here for this long, I had to know it’s secrets, I had to. I pushed the clock onto the ground and started pulling wood off its face, ripping out internal parts until I heard a noise. It was the sound of the door. I looked down at the clock’s broken face and it read 7:00am, opening time for the antique store.

 
     
 
THE PLANT
BY PEYTON SMITH
  
 
   It is extremely rare for my sister and I to spend more than a couple days per year at my grandparent’s house. My grandfather has taken absurd care to turn his home into the most pristine one on the block with it’s picture perfect stucco walls and red paneled roof. What truly makes the house stand out among the sea of Southern California crisp green lawns though is its garden. The backyard consists of a round , clean-cut mass of grass and row upon row of flowers with bushes behind them. Leaves and branches are trimmed to show their finery with blotches of pink, red and blue scattered throughout the soil. I am sure a day has not gone by during which my grandpa has not spent unfathomable amounts of time tending to his garden. Perhaps this is why I was so utterly surprised the day I spotted it, a discrepancy, vines twining and creeping out from the backside of the shed in the corner of the yard. It was Easter sunday and I was diligently hunting for plastic, candy filled eggs when the sight stopped me dead in my tracks. A sudden feeling swept over me, a screaming sensation that those prickly-ended fingers that curled possessively over wooden walls didn’t belong. They lurked at the edge of the yard a constant draw for my eyes. That night sitting under the porch light with the rest of the family, the lanky arms of the plant seemed to stretch forward, reaching for us and hovering in the darkness. I could still sense it beckoning, almost able to hear the murmured chant of :” Come, come...” The breeze whistled through the evening air, causing the vines to whip against the back of the shed and grow even more demanding. Their endless ruckus was enough to make me shudder.