We Overcame!

by | Oct 3, 2023 | Creative Writing, Detention Center Writing Contests, Non-fiction, non-fiction

by Angel McNatt

Third Place winner, Nonfiction, Arlington County Detention Facility/Heard/OAR writing contest, October 2023

(handwritten story follows typed story)

Twenty-two years later I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was in the shower at the university and the skies were gray.  My friend drove from across town, barged in crying hysterically to ask if I was okay.  The questions in my eyes and the confusion in my disposition must have given it away.  We’ve been hit, the school is being evacuated as a precautionary measure as it continues to escalate.  My heart immediately sank.  My feelings began to overwhelm me, my mind was unable to process what was being said.  The feeling was just so surreal, an outer body experience of sorts.  It was like I was drunk in my thoughts, but sober in my spirit.  My heart could process what my mind couldn’t.  The loss was unimaginable, the grief was unbearable.  I’d never lost anyone close before, but, as the damage, the loss and the carnage unfolded, it wasn’t hard to empathize; to feel like that was my brother, my mother, my sister, my father that I had lost.  I thought to myself it couldn’t be, is it possible to be exposed to yet another catastrophe that I would see!

Twenty years later evidently lightning can strike twice.  If I was a betting woman, I definitely would have rolled the dice.  Unfortunately, snake eyes would have been staring back at me as cold as ice.  I remember the day that I caught it.  It was late November in Texas, and no one knew what it was.  I almost never got sick, but I fell violently sick with high fever, body aches and chills.  The diagnosis was some type of flu.  Four months later revealed the real truth.  The Covid Virus!  So much loss, more than some will ever live to see in a lifetime.  There is no blueprint, there was no cure.  Being healthy enough to wait it out, strong enough to recover was the antidote.  We started to band together as a nation.  When the towers fell—we fell.  When the plane hit the ground in Pennsylvania, we all fought.  When the Pentagon shook, we all shook!  When Covid took my grandmother’s life, it was everyone’s grandmother that went into the hospital alone and died on New Years Eve.  Who would make the banana pudding, who would bring the family together?

We overcame it, we persevered and although everyone physically didn’t make it, all of our spirits made it.  We survived!  The untold stories will continue to live on.  New memories will continue to be made and life will continue to reinvent itself.  The one thing that never changes, we did and will OVERCOME!

Rock Monster: A love Story

by | Oct 3, 2023 | Creative Writing, Detention Center Writing Contests, fiction, Fiction

by John Parker

Second Place winner, Fiction, Arlington County Detention Facility/Heard/OAR writing contest, October 2023

(handwritten story follows typed story)

“We’re rich, Sugarbutt”, Johnny said as he lit up a half-smoked Lucky Strike that was found laying on the windowsill along with the rest of the butts.  It was early on a Saturday morning and Johnny was wide awake with anticipation.  The thought of having sixty thousand dollars come Monday morning had the gears in his junkie mind grinding overtime.  Smoking crack pretty much consumed his life on a daily basis since about two weeks into his relationship with Melissa.  What began as a typical beach romance quickly turned into Bobby and Whitney reincarnated.

When it came to the drug life, Melissa was greener than Leprechaun piss.  A single mom living on an Army pension meets a strung-out ex-con.  The closest she had ever come to the world Johnny introduced her to was watching Boyz-in-the-hood.  But Johnny managed to fast track her education and in no time, she could have graduated with a masters in rock-o-lo-gy.  It was a toxic relationship.  But they didn’t just fight hard, they loved hard too.  Like a river that runs through the forest …  nice to look at but beneath the surface there was a hostile undercurrent that quickly pulled you under and drug you away.

And that’s exactly what happened.   There was no telling when or even if they would resurface.  “Two more days, Sugar, and we are going on a road trip that’s gonna make National Lampoon’s Vacation look like an episode of the Travel Channel.  I say we head down to Florida first and get some of that Pablo Escobar Grade A shit and then head up to see your Dad in Indiana.”  Johnny had a way with words and although this adventure wasn’t going to be anything other than a crack house on wheels, he could make it sound like it was all about his Babydoll and what was best for her.  “You haven’t seen him in a long time, Sugar, and he’s only gettin’ older.  Might be a good idea to pay him a visit just in case you don’t get another chance.”  That piece of advice would turn out to be the best advice Johnny would ever give her.  One month after their visit to see him, her dad passed away.

“Dammit, Johnny, what sense does it make if we’re leaving South Carolina and going to Indiana, that we drive all the way to Florida first?  All you care about is getting high, and I hope you don’t think we are just gonna smoke all that money up?  I need to fix our credit that you destroyed and find us a place to live.” said Melissa.

“I destroyed,” Johnny replied.  “You mean WE destroyed.  You been suckin’ that glass dick like the female version of Rick James.”

Melissa didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to that point of reason, but at this moment it didn’t matter who was right.  It was Melissa who was getting the money and Johnny made sure to remember that.

Melissa stepped out onto the front porch where Johnny was sitting.  She lit her cigarette from the short he was smoking and sat down on his lap.  The whole situation was bittersweet for her.  Though it ended up being a financially good move to sell the house, it was the reasons why she had to sell that hurt.  This chapter of their Rockstar Romance was over.  Hopefully the next chapter would be better.  They had no way of knowing what was in store, but they were ready and had sixty thousand dollars to get there.

Their first stop:  the dope man.