Alista Richardson: Short Story Collection
Words!! Influential and powerful tools that can make someone feel a certain way just by writing something silly or gross or happy. Words have power, and Alista Richardson, 17, loves to experiment with words. So without further adieu, here is her short story collection!
JABBERJABBERJABBERWOCK
This is called a Loop Poem, where each line starts with the end of the previous line
They said to take a left
But a left would take me right
Yet a right would take me left
A left would take me to where the Jabberwock slept
The Jabberwock sleeps at the end of the left, or was it the right?
the right or the left guaranteed a sure fright!
A sure fright might allow a scream
A scream may wake the Jabberwock
If the Jabberwock on the right or the left would surely bite my head off clean!
I surely do not what my head but off clean so I must take a left!
But a left would take me right!
But a right would take me left
A left would insure my death
Death does not sound well therefore a right must be taken
But the right takes me left
oh and the left takes me right where there is surely a fright
the fright of the Jabberwock’s might!
Therefore the only pace is straight
But what if straight is too late?
Tik Tok Before 2018
Every tok begins with tik
Every tik begins with a tok
Every tok is made by a clock
Every clock sometimes knocks
Every knock means there must be a lock
Every lock must be unlocked
But unlocking a lock can put you in quite a knot
Putting yourself in a knot is not fun, when all you want to do is run!
How can you run if you are not having fun?
How are you having fun when you run?
If you are having fun you’re a strange type of drum
The Mystery that Haunts
I don’t sleep much anymore. Nightmares drag their rancid nails down my mind and
draw me from my sleep every night at exactly 2:21 AM, right before I enter the
cave of the monster. I never get to see what’s inside those dark chambers, is it the
serial killer that haunts me? The pale toothy version of Mike Wisowsky? Or is it
just the claws of darkness itself dragging it’s way towards me? I suppose I won’t
know until the day I don’t wake up.
Arsen?
Any person passing through the hallway would ask why I was jamming the sharp
end of my pencil into the padlock to my room. But what they should be asking is
how long it will take for half a candle to burn down a building.
(read in a British accent)
The Dark is a Strange Place Indeed…
Everyone says not to take a leap in the dark… I say don’t take a bite in the dark
because you won’t know if it’s your furry dog or the moldy piece of cake you
dropped.
The Painting of a Landscape
Your skin is ragged and clumpy, but I run my fingers along your arm anyway. I
can’t ignore the tingles surging up my fingertips if it’s from delicious disgust or
desire I’m not sure. I love the unsmoothness, my fingers bumping up and down
until a wet patch catches my finger, the texture is of unwashed cloth, sticky and
oily. I hover in this chunky spot, caressing it softly. I wish to rub my whole body
against this lovely texture but I fear smudging the puke colored patch of your
protein shake texture skin. But I just continue to stroke the singular spot that has
drawn my attention, oh how I wish you could speak. I wish I could smell your rank
breath and breath in your musky body odor. I wish to trade insults and spiteful
comments. But for now, I shall settle for sleeping a few feet away, where I can still able to smell your sharp heady scent (it is rather yummily repulsive), my dear dear
landscape. (If you can’t tell, it’s a wet landscape painting).
Random Philosophy
“No matter how much you disagree, you cannot limit someone’s ink or where they
stroke pen to paper.” -Alista Richardson(ME)
The Gigglings of a Line-Rider
No one speaks of it. No one speaks of the people flirting with the twine between
sanity and insanity; I am one of those people, I giggle in morbid situations and cry
when I have writer’s block. Mayhaps that’s why I am not understood by most.
Mayhaps, that’s why the men dressed in white are beating down my door.
Audacious Snow Day
It isn’t necessarily such an audacious thing to imagine an atrociously long
sentence; the odd pairing of tediousness and inexplicit audacity are such a
harmonious match and can create things like this curiously long sentence which is
as similarly inclined to mischief as the melody of clangs and clatters in a sturdy
children filled country house covered in a thick blanket of snow.
Soul-Bar
Souls dipped in the gooey melted juice of popsicles and laughter, lake water and
chlorinated pools, bubble bath basins and the blood of childhood boo-boos.
Souls dipped in broken glass and the black rolling mud of death, the deepest purple
and black and blue, the terrifying knowledge adulthood should bring.
Souls dipped in unwanted attention, the quiet beg for loneliness, the loud quaking
need for solitude instead of fortitude.
Souls dipped like bananas in an ice cream bar, the combinations sometimes making
sense-- other times, things like chocolate and wasabi are mixed for a particularly
strange child. The looks of other people in line, the server and even their own
reluctant mother with her quiet protests unphased the young child from making her
choice of the peculiarly disgusting chocolate and wasabi mix. Why is wasabi even
on the table of a banana dessert bar?
The answer, though seemingly complex is the simplest of all time.
Because everything that happens to you shapes you, being dipped in glass and
wasabi or the burning lack of love makes you who you are; you are beautiful and
you are strong.
A Little About Me!
People assume I’m a smooth caramel, but really I’m a wacky taffy. I like wacky
rather than plain. Give me a writing prompt and I'll twist it up and make it
horrendously delicious, give me a minute to speak and you’ll be laughing in horror
and terrifying delight. Give me a thesaurus and I’ll find the tackiest, lackiest,
nackiest words there are! (No I have no idea what any of those words mean or if
they even exist!). Sarcasm, morbidity and satire are my mistresses and I, their
humble servant. They rule the kingdom of my wacky taffy mind and make the
whole world twist and spin and jump on it’s heels
Rich Little Stars
The wealthy bright stars spin around and around, overgorged and glowing from the
wine that runs like a river into their cups. Little glowless stars flitter between them,
filling their cups and plates, not able to rest long enough for their feet to stop
throbbing in thick and tingling beats. Flittering and fluttering like buzzy bees
without the delicate yellow to give them character, clad in the black of funerals,
hiding their glow so as to not anger the prideful stars
3 5 5
355, 355, 3:55. These magic numbers circle each Jenks highschooler’s mind like a
carousel of glee. These numbers promise freedom, new-life, well-being, and a
good long nap! These numbers signal the end of learning and the beginning of
brainial digestion or decay depending on the type of student. These numbers usher
in the time of peak inactivity, the time in which we can fry our brains with Tik Tok
and Gossip Girl. I, of course, don’t indulge in such activities; Blair and Serena can
wait! Yet, the fantastical worlds our minds create and relish in are created in the
sacred time before our freedom, when boredom gnaws at our aching brains and
pinched faces. We draw to mind the worlds of our childhood with flying cars and
gigantic robots, unicorns and dark enchanted forests, our brave heroine and the
cunning villain and for just a few minutes, right before the world stops at 3:55; we
are truly young
I Must Be an Amazing Student!
The wee hours of the morning, where the determined student thrives and the
mundane wilt. Are you truly a student if you haven’t stayed up till 11:59 finishing
an essay and editing it to perfection? Are you truly a student if you haven’t sat in
front of your chromebook studying till the Witching Hour*? Are you truly a
student if you haven’t sat at the kitchen table crying as your parents try to explain
basic multiplication? Are you truly a student if notifications on Canvas don’t make
you panic just a little bit? I know what you’re thinking; “wow, I must be an
amazing student!” *About 3 AM, is said to be when witches and demons would kidnap children.