Grade 9-10 Winners
HONOURABLE MENTION (GRADE 9-10)
Alisa Miniovich, Riding of St. Paul's
Rose
My nightmares, I can’t escape them. They haunt me every night. I try to run, but my legs give up on me. I try to scream, but the sounds are hollow, disintegrating. These are horrors of my imagination, my deepest fears. When I open my eyes, my nightmares awaken.
My life; my darkest nightmare.
My name is Rose.
I didn’t choose this life, nobody did. It wasn’t always like this, Warsaw. Before the war, I had a home, I used to run into the little forest near my apartment, its peaceful presence filling me with awe and tranquility. The silence, the wind, they became parts of me, the soft whispering of the trees overhead was my lullaby. Every night, I gazed up at the sky. It was dark and quiet--I was alone, it was my place. At dawn, luminescent rays flowed through my window, the streams of light striking my silver Menorah. It glowed in the darkness, its profound radiance lighting up my whole room. It was always just my mother and I. Mama. Every night, we would curl up in my mother’s bed, her arms around my shoulders. She held me, told me everything was going to be fine, I was strong, we would survive whatever happened.
I wish you had been right.
I had a best friend, Faye. After school, we raced to the forest, and listened to the trees. We would lie on the freshly fallen leaves, our laughter drifting far through the bare, lonesome branches, into the sky, echoes falling. She used to look at me with her deep blue eyes, and I at her, with my hazel green, and we basked in a sense of belonging. We would look up at the sky, whisper how we wished we could rise up into it, our feet never touching the ground. We used to cry in each other’s arms, holding one another. Only the trees knew our secrets. She would take my hand into hers, and it was a promise to never leave. It was our place, forever.
Forever wasn’t long enough.
Faye. Faye.
I’ve lost you. It wasn’t your fault, it was the war’s. It was the night we got sent here, to the ghetto. They shot the ones who were too slow, afraid to move. You were protecting your parents, your father walking with a cane, your mother with gray hair, fear raining over them, over you. They killed the disabled first, knowing they wouldn’t survive. You watched the man shoot them. You couldn't let go of those seconds, the sound of the shots replayed in your mind, the stabbing in your body. Pain rushed through you, shattering your heart. Your scream, so powerful, that the world went silent. And then... you fell.
If only I held your hand longer, whispered it was all going to be fine, you could have taken one more step. If only I could look into your deep blue eyes one more time. I could have disappeared into them, lost myself inside.
My heart cracks, with every breath I take. I am sinking down into a dark despair. I wish you were here to hold me while I cry. My tears, drops of ice, though they feel like fire against my cheeks.
Now, my mother’s laughter, once unforgettable, seems to be slipping away. She doesn’t laugh anymore. The life in her is gone. The life in me, following the path of hers, is slowly vanishing.
Every night, I look up at the sky. I feel it closing in on me. With my every glance, the blue is draining.
I feel my mother’s heavy breath on my neck, I sit up. The dusty, grey air surrounds me. My eyes water, tears escape down my face. My feet touch the cold floor. Fear penetrates me. I am not alone. There are four of us in the room: my mother, me and the Krichevski’s on the other side. They are both old and kind, but weak. They have seen many nightmares in their day. Every night, we sit by the fire, the smoke soaring into the air, listening to their stories. The floors cry with every move we make, the peeling wallpaper, revealing the naked grey wall. The fire in the fireplace crackles; pages of the last book we own curl in agony. I sit, watching the golden and crimson flames rise, the warmth consuming me. I stand, trying not to wake the floors. I make my way to the door.
Outside, the sky is the reflection of our reality: dark, miserable, suffocating. A faint morning sunrise is snuffed by the darkness. As I walk out, the streets of the ghetto are still, soundless. I walk, just walk. Bodies of both the young, and the old, lie in the middle of the sidewalks, motionless. Disease, starvation, fear and loneliness have taken lives. Children pressed to the ground, with nothing but skin on their bodies, begging for food. They are alone. In this place, there is endless suffering, children with no childhood. War.
Tears roll down my face, dropping on the yellow thread of the star sewn onto my chest. There is hunger in my bones, a never-ending feeling. Hollow. Empty. It’s hard to think. The light-headedness takes over me. It has been two years, nine months, and four days. The silence is broken by the agonizing screams of terror. I still hear the painful cries of the terrified Jews, coming from the depths of their sorrows. The buildings around me are broken, torn apart, slowly falling, just like the lives of the people who live here. Hunger becomes the overpowering sensation, pushing us down.
My hands start shaking, then my legs. My body falls effortlessly. The ground, shaking with its own fear, holds me. Beside me, lie the bodies that couldn’t take it anymore. The ones who gave up. The ones who let themselves slip away; they knew they didn’t have a chance to survive. Loneliness drapes over me. Fear implodes inside my body. They couldn’t fight anymore. They couldn’t keep their eyes open, they couldn’t watch the world burn another day.
I am one of them.
My body, sinks down into the ground, becoming a part of it. I let myself be absorbed.
The howls of the wind send shivers through me.
Feathers from the pillows of ransacked houses dance in the sky. Some get caught in the puddles of blood drifting near. I lay still.
Faint screams, whirling in the distance grow closer. The SS are on our block. We are in peril. Thuds of Nazi boots crack the ground.
“Geh Raus! Geh Raus! Schneller! Schneller!”
The world is falling.
Mama. I pull myself up, trembling, my pale, ash-covered cheeks burning with tears. Sleeves of my ripped charcoal dress drenched in blood. Mama. People are running out of their homes, the Nazis beat them, in front of their children. People are pushing past me as if they can’t see me. Mama. My feet, frozen from the holes in my worn out shoes, start to move. Faster. Faster. I am running now, the wind forcing me forward. Mama. I hear a child’s scream. Its aching tone won’t leave. Mama.
It’s me.
I make my way home. Mama.
My arms, with nothing but skin on them, hold my mother. I am holding her close, as close as I can, never letting go. Never.
Soldiers kick our door open, yelling, “Lass Uns Gehen! Geh Raus!”
My mother grabs an old coat, a torn up blanket, a photograph of me, and my hand. Fear rushes through my body, makes me numb. I am terrified to open my eyes.
It is a blur.
We run out of our home. Before the door closes, my eyes catch a glimpse of the fire. The lonely scarlet flames, sparking in the distance.
Everyone on our block is out in the street. They tell us we are ‘relocating,’ boarding trains from Umschlagplatz. We start to walk. We walk over bodies, the young and the old, the bodies of Jews who didn’t have any more strength. Soldiers watch our every move. My cold face soaked in tears, I can feel my heart throbbing. Mama. She takes my hand into hers, and squeezes it as hard as she can. If only I could melt into the ground and weep, let all my anger out, scream from the bottom of my lungs. Make the world shatter.
If only.
I look ahead. The Krichevski’s are standing in the middle of the road.
The SS shout at them, “Schneller!”
They are too sick, too hungry, too old to keep walking. Tears run down their wrinkled cheeks. My hand slips out of my mother’s, I want to run to them, to tell them that their story doesn’t have to end here, but all I can do is watch. A gunshot. Then another.
I can’t keep it in any longer. I drop, the ground digging into my knees. I feel my mother’s arms wrap around me. My heart drops, sinks down, the light in it - gone.
My mother picks me up in her arms. She carries me to Umschlagplatz, but I know that the trains to Treblinka are waiting. I can faintly hear the wails of the train, like whispers of thunder rumbling, screeches of each freight car against the metal tracks as if they are resisting, though inside, they are weeping.
I hold on to my mother with all the strength I have left. I let myself seep into her; my whole body becomes a part of hers. Lifting my head from my mother’s neck, I gaze over her shoulder, looking at what used to be my home.
I know this is the end.
WINNER (GRADE 9-10)
Tudora Rada, Riding of Ottawa West-Nepean
Clouds (Translated from French - Nuages)
Trash litters the ground. A house stands next to a recently cut tree. A little town known as Blueville, Ontario was once a miracle, just like the towns of Redville, Yellowville, Greenville and Purpleville. Unfortunately, none of Blueville’s inhabitants thought about adding the colour back into this sad city.
Blueville was named after the coast, which had once been so blue and beautiful, but was now charcoal black. It was as if the ashes of all those executed there over the years had been scattered over the surface of the muddy water. How could residents take deep breaths of the factory-polluted air without suffocating? I guess they had grown used to it.
It was a morning just like any other. The sad grey sun woke the hearts of mothers, but one step outside of the house and they all saw the horror that stretched out before them. It was drizzling, as if the clouds, even darker and gloomier than usual, were crying slowly to show their pity. The unacceptable acts of Blueville’s citizens were a constant source of sadness for the clouds that watched over the town.
It could almost be seen as a cry for help from the clouds. But no, no one in Blueville seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation. And soon, it would be too late…
Suddenly, an incredibly violent tornado was set loose. The clouds were angry and wanted to punish the people of Blueville. Total chaos ensued. Trees fell, crushing everything and everyone that had the bad fortune of being underneath them. Electricity surged into the dirty air. It was right then that the people understood for the first time how sad, miserable and dirty their home had become.
As the sky’s fury spread across the city, it seemed that no one would get out unscathed. The end was near. A few hours later, the city had been destroyed. A pile of waste was all that was left.
Soon after the natural disaster, there came a surprise: a young boy arose from a heap of broken wood. A piece of metal had pierced his leg to the bone. Clearly in shock, he couldn’t even feel the pain and slowly stood up, a confused look on his face. “What’s going on? Where am I?”
After looking for other survivors on his own for a few hours, the child decided to abandon his mission. There was no one left but him—him and the rubble. Surrounded by thousands of rotting bodies, he had trouble getting a hold of himself. He decided to leave everything behind to go off and save the world.
He had been walking for a few hours when he thought he saw a girl his age.
– Hello! Yoo-hoo?
– Am I going crazy? Is there really someone there?
– Yes, my name is Philippe. I believe I’m the only survivor of a catastrophic tornado that hit Blueville.
– I am actually in the exact same situation.
Together, they continued hand in hand down the black path towards a new world. A world where the grass is green and the clouds aren’t mad. A world where everyone helps each other out in order to live in harmony.