Charlie Burns

          The humid Georgia sun beat down on the back of Anna Jones’ neck. It was an afternoon in May of 1967, the kind of cloudless, windless day where you felt that if you reached high enough, you could reach right through the sky. Summer promised to be unmercifully hot, but Anna didn’t mind.

         “Marry me,” Charlie drawled in his thick Southern accent.
         She paused, glancing through the branches of the tree they sprawled under at the tranquil sky.
         “No.” She smiled.
         “What do you mean no?”
         “I’m only eighteen, you know. What will people think?”
         “Let them think.” He awkwardly held a modest gold ring out to her, and ran a hand through his unruly coffee-colored hair, a habit he’d had since childhood that showed only when he was horribly nervous. Suddenly she was reminded nostalgically of the little boy he had been when they met. She grinned again and slipped the ring on her finger.
         They strolled, hand-in-hand, from their spot under the oak tree to Charlie’s house, ready to tell his family the news. His mother met them at the door, a strained expression on her face.
         “Ma, we got somethin’ we-“
         “Charlie.” She cut him off, her voice cracking. She held up an unopened letter. Charlie eyed her suspiciously, and reached out to survey the official-looking envelope. It was addressed to a Charles Alexander Burns, with a return address from an army induction center a few towns away. It didn’t even need to be opened.
         “A draft letter?” his mother said in an uncharacteristically high-pitched voice. “You’re too young, you can’t just…” Her words trailed off, as she turned and sobbed her way back into the house, wringing her hands in anxiety.
         Charlie turned to face his new fiancée, who had stood, dismayed and silent, a step behind him. He felt his words leave him. There were a million things he wanted to say, but all he could find was,
         “I’ll write.” The words came out sounding more like a question.
         “Please,” she managed to reply.
         Charlie Burns gathered his things into a suitcase and kissed his mother and his fiancée goodbye. Anna stared, still reticent, as the man she was supposed to marry drove away.
         She tried, unsuccessfully, to carry on with the remains of her senior year, finishing school and bragging lovingly to her friends about the soldier she was so proud of. But agonizing thoughts plagued her mind. Summer came, and with it, the first letter. She hysterically tore open the envelope, barely noticing the paper cut.
June 7

How’s my Georgia peach?

         Anna breathed a sigh of relief. He was alright. He went on to describe boot camp, the soldiers in his outfit, and life in Vietnam. Folding the generally cheerful letter into a small square, Anna placed it under her pillow and smiled inwardly.
         As summer and the letters continued, she found herself suddenly absorbed in a war she had previously attempted to ignore. Hanging on every word of the nightly news, every article in the newspaper, every political debate; she realized she had somewhat of an obsession. Finally, another letter arrived.
July 20

Anna. Hope all of y’all are doin’ good.

         She frowned, noting that his letters had slowly been losing the nonchalant tone of the first.

The fighting has gotten pretty bad, he continued. But I don’t want you to worry. You know I’ll be alright. Love Charlie.

After a worried sigh, she placed the note with the rest.

Anna was returning home from a friend’s house on a particularly scorching day when she noticed a Western Union Telegram officer standing on her porch, knocking on the door of her empty house. Her heart leapt in anticipation.

“Sorry!” she exclaimed, hurdling herself up the steps and practically yanking the stack of mail from his hands.

“Ma’am,” he said curtly. He turned sharply on his heels to continue his route. Anna flipped through the various bills and letters until she found the now-familiar envelope. This letter had changed drastically from the last. Charlie talked, not of the fighting or the hardships, or even the war at all. He described to his fiancée the life they would have when he returned: a big white wedding, a house in the country.

Anna wiped a tear and glanced through the rest of the undoubtedly insignificant mail. Lastly, a small but deceptively heavy telegram.

FAMILY OF CHARLES BURNS, it read across the front. Cautiously she broke the seal, as if the ominous little paper would bite. Clinking of metal sounded, and into Anna’s hand fell Charlie’s dog tags. The weight was suddenly crushing as she realized the purpose of the telegram.

The paper slipped through her fingers, and she watched as it fluttered to the ground as if in slow motion.

Anna recollected herself with a slow, deep breath. She walked slowly to her parents’ bedroom, retrieved her father’s gun from its usual spot in the closet, and smiled a crooked, melancholy grin as the bullet blasted through her brain. She crumpled to the ground face-first as blood pooled like a bright crimson flower around her, Charlie’s dog tags still clutched tightly in her lifeless fist.

Myths of Different Cultures

    While studying folklore, I found that there are likenesses and also differences between stories from different locations around the world. Each country or ethnic group added their own identity and their own flavor to the stories that were part of their culture. The three myths that I chose originated in Hawaii, Mexico and the US.
    My first story was called “Pele’s Revenge” and was set in Hawaii. A sweet young couple is madly in love, and a self-absorbed goddess named Pele’s jealousy causes her to separate the couple by turning the husband into a tree. The gods see his wife Lehua’s pain and turn her into a beautiful flower so that she can always be with her lover. The theme in this tale is that the love of the couple was so strong that they could not be separated, even in death.
    In “The Wailing Woman,” a story from Mexico, the main character is the wife of a man who leaves her because his parents do not approve of her. She is so outraged and hurt that she retaliates by drowning their two young children and brutally taking her own life. However, her act is so evil that she is not allowed into heaven, but stays on Earth, forever searching for her children. The theme I found was that if you commit a crime so awful, you will be condemned to never enter heaven.

During the story “Bloody Mary,” which took place in Pennsylvania, here in the USA, Bloody Mary is killed by the people of her town after being discovered stealing young girls and murdering them to make herself young. As she is dying, she leaves an evil curse. The theme of the myth: Anyone who crosses Bloody Mary will be killed, mutilated, and trapped forever in a mirror.

    Obviously, these stories had a lot of differences. The first myth had a sort of bittersweet, but happier ending than the other two, which had gruesome or depressing endings. Another difference is that two of the stories deal with magic or the gods, which are things that most people don’t believe in. However, the story from Mexico is more of a religious tale, and a Christian would believe that it could definitely happen. The main similarity that I found between all three myths was the fact that they all had some element of revenge or payback.

Descriptive Paragraph First Snow

         After waking up to the vague, drifting scents of maple syrup and hot chocolate, I drag myself out of bed and shuffle my feet sleepily out of the room. Where is everyone? I hear distant jubilant shouting outside, and decide to investigate. However, opening a door is no easy feat for a three-year-old. I stretch up on my toes until my fingers reach the cold brass doorknob and I pull with the strength of a bodybuilder. The door cracks open. Immediately, my breath catches in my throat. A whip of icy air strikes my face and wraps its way around me, clutching me in its icicle fingers. The world has turned white. As far as I can see, a thick blanket of cotton has enveloped the ground. One step out the door, and I'm knee-deep, my bare toes burning. Bewildered, I reach down to scoop some into my mouth and taste the gritty frozen water. Shivering and and gasping for breath, I retreat thankfully into the house, where bacon sizzles welcomingly.