View Match-
Unaccustomed Shape
University of Washington
The heat settles on me out here like grease, full of smells, full of distance, full of bodies. It has nothing of the heat my sister and I know—heat cracking brown, sapping long grass, drying the hair and skin. This heat belches up from metal grates I cross suspiciously and smells oddly—sickly—sweet.
“It’s almost pervy, you know,” Melinda says, describing it. She’s right. Ever since
we got here I’ve felt an inkling of defilement, or like someone being whittled down
into a smaller shape, still hidden beneath the curvature of accustomed skin. It’s
like that riding the subway, too: the kiss and hiss of doors, the change in pressure,
sucked into what feels like an even tighter craw than the cement station. Ka-
...The girls had taken their bags with them, so I knew they wouldn’t be back. I find myself flicking over the covers of the made beds, checking for long, golden hairs. But there’s nothing.
“What do you want to do tomorrow?” Melinda asks, thumbing through her guidebook.
“A museum again? A show maybe?”
“Yes! A show. It says here. It says we can wait in line at a place downtown to get tickets.”
“Of course,” I say. “I read about it. I hope it’s not just the crappy shows. For instance, I am not watching The Phantom again.”
Melinda laughs.
When her phone rings, I wrench it from her hand and answer it immediately, slightly breathless.
“Hello?”
The line crackles and then I hear a male voice. “Mel? You sound weird.” My lungs give way, just a little: a sudden loss of pressure.
“Oh, hey. It’s her sister.”
“She was all upset earlier. Is she there?”
I hand the phone to Mel and she takes it out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. I wonder when she even had time to call him out of my earshot. Perhaps when I stood across the street from the office building, watching the doors keep swinging, now bereft of people. It is an odd thing, to eavesdrop on Melinda; I press my ear to the wall.
“No, it’s okay now. She snapped out of it, I think. But it was weird. No, really, I said it’s okay.”
“No, don’t worry about it.”
“Mm hmm.”
“Don’t worry about it, everything’s fine.”
The sound of a siren drowns out the rest. These sirens—after awhile, they whittle you down.
Summertown
Syracuse University
I believed in Summertown from the very beginning. From the very first time I saw it out the window of Dad’s station wagon. We were zooming up route 81, the car full of my sisters and our pets and what furniture was left after the fire. Florida was nothing but a terrible memory, miles behind us. Summertown loomed to the north, its massive glass dome sparkling in brilliant sunlight, all jeweled over with ice crystals from a late June frost. “New home, dead ahead,” Dad announced. My sisters ooed and ahhed. My mother said it looked like a Christmas gift. In some kind of silly mom way she was right. From a distance, and satellite photos, Summertown resembled one of those snow globes you used to see people getting as presents in movies when you were a kid. Only it was different, because at Summertown all the flurries and forlorn pine trees were on the outside, and the warm cozy living room was on the inside. The massive glass dome stretched from the eastern shore of Onondaga Lake, all the way to Erie Boulevard, which used to be the Erie Canal. Wait, what am I saying—stretched? Stretches! Summertown still looks exactly as it used to. It’s still in one piece, thank God.
Dad used to have a friend at the corporate headquarters, and so he got a good job
for which he was under-
...Pacheco stops typing away at the computer. “Can’t do it, my friend.” He radios back in his throaty, charming way. “I’m busy.”
“Ha. Busy doing what?”
He perks up. “Where are you?”
“At home. I’m having a lie-
He turns to look back at the vault-
“What was that?” I push him.
“I’m in the Explanatory.” He’s totally cool. “A humming owl’s got loose from the Aviary, and it’s knocking into the display cases. My boys and I are trying to catch hold of it.”
“That sounds serious. I’ll be right there.”
“No, don’t worry about it.”
“Mm hmmm.” I very convincingly mimic the sound of tying my shoelaces. “All set. Be there in a minute.”
“Don’t worry about it, everything’s fine.”
I huff and puff, like I’m running down my condo steps.
“Hey,” he says. “Hey. No. All right, I’m not in the Explanatory.”
I stop huffing and puffing. “I don’t understand.”
“Listen,” he says. “I’ll be honest with you. I’m in women’s fashion.” He knows I hate women’s fashion...
Prompt Final | Overall Semifinal
Prompt One Final.
"Summertown" by Yates [56%]
"Unaccustomed Shape" by Rue [44%]