Ground Zero

by F.A. Battle

I had an uncle who used to say that if the world ended while he was alive, he wanted to be at the heart of the destruction. When the asteroid slammed into the ocean or the nuclear bomb blew off half the continent, Uncle Esau wanted to be right at ground zero.

It wasn’t that my uncle had a death wish. It was more a desire to avoid the despair that comes after such a horrific event. Broken bodies and bloody aftermath. Naked orphans roaming the streets. Desperate, starving survivors, stabbing each other over the last honey bun in the bodega. “Who wants to deal with all that mess?” my uncle would say between bites of stew beef, rice, and collards. “Just take me out with the first wave.”

My mother always cooked for an army because, on top of feeding her own family, her older brother had a knack for showing up just as the food was ready. “What you got cooking up in these pots, girl?” Uncle Esau would ask, as he ambled toward the stove, plate and fork already in hand. She would yell at him for digging in her pots without washing up first. He would huff about it but always went to wash his hands. Then he’d fix his plate and the two of them would bicker, laugh, and gossip about their other siblings while he ate.

When the conversation turned to Armageddon, as it always did for some reason with Uncle Esau, my mother would mumble, “Here we go with this shit again.” Then, she would find something to do in another part of the house. But I loved it. I would sit at the kitchen table and drink in every bit of his dark wisdom about the world’s end.

Because he was my uncle, and I was a child, I was prone to agree with him on the whole post-apocalypse thing. There would be no military rule or refugee camps for me. I would be proud to get taken out on the front line, screaming like a bitch along with the rest of the moron army standing in the street, gaping up at the million-ton space rock careening toward our faces. Hypnotized by the scarlet hell boiling down on us instead of running our asses for cover. The few! The proud! The instantly fried! Sign me up, dammit! I’ll be the one melted right into my shoes.

Over the years, I’ve gleaned a great deal of strength from Uncle E’s philosophy and those endearing childhood chats about death and cataclysm. I’ve faced many trials with his voice echoing in my mind — Stand tall and take it head-on, girl! or If it don’t kill ya, it’ll make ya stronger, and who can forget the classic, If it kills ya … ah well.

But today, I am alone in this theater lobby, and all that big stand-strong-and-take-it-like-a-woman talk is barely a whisper in the distance. I’m locked on the pair of eyes just beyond the concession stand. They’re burning a hole through me. These mahogany pools, set ablaze with flecks of gold and emerald — are far more dangerous than any space rock. More deadly than any bomb or weapon of mass destruction. I’m hypnotized into paralysis. I’m a pathetic twitching mass with no will of my own. And contrary to my uncle’s wise teachings, every part of me wants nothing more than to run for cover.

If I could muster the will to move my legs that’s exactly what I would do. If I could suck enough air into my lungs to run out of this lobby and back into the street, then I would be so gone. But my legs are numb. My breath has rattled to a stop. And my heart is slamming against my chest, telling me to move forward or die right in this spot.

Twenty years. That’s how long I’ve known my husband. Married for 10 years. We have two beautiful children, a boy and a girl.

Am I happy?

Knowing that my kids are cherished and cared for by two loving parents makes me happy.

But am I happy?

I like my job. I make a decent living. We live a good life.

Girl! Are you happy?!

No. I am not happy. I want to be. I should be. I have tried to be for a very long time. I slip on the happy-wife mask and wear it for as long as I can tolerate. But then, my skin starts to itch, my head spins, and the mask slips away. Beneath, is a face I don’t fully recognize.

And now, here I stand at ground zero about to get pulverized by those eyes. Because I should not be here. But there’s no other place in the world I want to be. I am what? Gay? Bisexual? Lesbian? Queer? None of them feel right to my ears, so I use them all interchangeably, but only with myself. To everyone else, I am Mommy, Wife, Sister, Friend, Co-worker.

To everyone except her.

To her, I am simply Felicia. And this Felicia…this unmasked, wide-open Felicia is Beautiful. Passionate. Intense. Sexy … So deliciously different that I am unlike any other woman on the face of the planet. She tells me that in words, but she doesn’t have to. I can feel it in the caress that sends currents of electricity through my entire body before her fingertips even land on my skin. And in the way her lips claim my own for themselves. Both soft and delicate then deep and passionate, locked in kisses so sweet I can taste her for days after. The same lips that now smile at my approach, brush my cheek, and whisper my name, as I melt right into my shoes.

Let the bloody aftermath begin.

See the full list of winners here!

The post Ground Zero: Writer’s Digest 5th Annual Personal Essay Awards Winner appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Want an opportunity to win a WD award? Keep checking our competitions page for upcoming competitions.

1. “Ground Zero” by F.A. Battle

2. “They Say if You Name the Thing, it Helps” by Allie Dixon

3. “A Stroke, a Recovery, and a Marriage Revised” by Charlotte Troyanowski

4. “How to (not) get into an Ivy League School” by jlee

5. “Letters from Far Away” by Jean Palmer Heck

6. “The Verizon Guy” by J. Shepherd

7. “A Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Perspectives on Anorexia” by Deborah Svec-Carstens

8. “Ode to an Ugly Urn” by Katrina Gallegos

9. “Delivery Notes” by J. Mackenzie

10. “Didu” by M. Talu

11. “The Hunt” by Elinor Horner

12. “Cardinal Virtues” by Robin Clifford Wood

13. “Treasures from the Sea” by Renee Srch

14. “A Clash of Cultures Around the Dinner Table” by Genine Babakian

15. “AFTERTHOUGHT ON AN EPITAPH” by Melanie Verbout

16. “Because the Night belongs to Mothers” by Hope Loraine Cotter

17. “My Name Isn’t Michelle” by Nicholle Harrison 

18. “Historian of Silences” by Jonathan Odell

19. “In the End” by Mark V Sroufe

20. “Man Enough” by Christian Escalona

21. “Across the Gulf” by Annie Barker

22. “On Fathering (What You Didn’t Know)” by John Cheesebrow

23. “My Name is Not Sally” by Celia Ruiz

24. “An Abortion, a hysterectomy, and Black Sweatpants” by Lynne Schmidt

25. “Aging, Angst, & Anxiety” by Stephanie Baker

Check out the latest Writer’s Digest Competitions!

The post Announcing the 5th Annual Personal Essay Awards Winners appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Want an opportunity to win a WD award? Keep checking our competitions page for upcoming competitions.

1. “Killer Punchline: Comedy-Tragedy in the Dating World” by Katie Love

2. “Life According to the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale” by Wendy Hawkes

3. “My Secret Year” by Deb Lehman

4. “Your Rings and Your Wallet” by Mary Reed

5. “A Hand to Hate or Hold” by Nikki Campo

6. “Bar Mitzvah Boy” by Gerald Marsh

7. “Button and Blue” by Dorothy Wills-Raftery

8. “Counting to Four” by Anne Falkowski

9. “Heavy Like the Moon ” by Madeline Miles

10. “Partner in Progress” by Melanie Verbout

11. “What I Meant to Say” by Hannah He

12. “Dadae” by Victoria McGinley

13. “Tongue” by Raya Mahoney

14. “Personal Essay” by Susan Westlund

15. “How a Kind Cabdriver Brought Me Closer to My Late Husband” by Jan Tranen

16. “You Dead Husband’s Dead Wife’s Wedding Ring” by Anne Gudger

17. “Hollow Point” by Carol Fischbach

18. “Speak” by Annika Hudson-Laursen

19. “No Happy Hour at the Nectar Cafe” by Angelo Fernando

20. “Straightening Away My Culture” by Kira Lopez

21. “Amazing Grace” by Candida (Dida) Gazoli

22. “Beyond the Last Beat” by Tami Looney

23. “Solemn Vigil for Nino” by Tess Enterline

24. “30 Trillion Reasons” by Miera Rao

25. “LIC,11,NY” by Jeanne Favini

26. “Nip Decision” by Lyn Garson

27. “The Bear and The Bolt” by Nikki Mann

28. “An Ode to Phil Walker” by wayne welde

29. “Crossing the Country” by Pamela Cravez

30. “Valley of the Shadow” by Lisa Berryhill

The post Announcing the 4th Annual Personal Essay Awards Winners appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Toni Lepeska is a Memphis journalist, essayist, and contributing author of two books. She uses personal stories and hard-won perspectives to help “adult orphans” find their own path toward healing. Toni loves dazzlingly blue skies, big dogs suitable for tight hugs, and a man who married her at a chaotic time—around the beginning of life without her parents. She spent the next eight years sifting through the contents of her childhood home. Wrestling a tangle of emotions, she rediscovered the sense of safety she’d thought was lost forever. Find out more about Toni at ToniLepeska.com.

Here’s her winning essay, “Five Nights in Milford.”

Five Nights in Milford

By Toni Lepeska 

I am alone, more than fifteen hundred miles away from home, in an unfinished basement illuminated by a single shop light to save what’s left of my family. My grandfather built this Cape Cod-style house in Milford, Conn., 70 years ago. My daddy grew up in it, and my uncle brought his bride to this home. They are all dead now. Everyone who ever lived in this house is dead, but my uncle’s hoard is here. It is as tall as I am and as wide as an entire basement wall. The mound feels like a single, impenetrable, impossible mass. It’s the last of his accumulated possessions. I know it hides gold. Emotional gold. The essence of my family.

It’s all that is left of them.

With hands on my waist and elbows cocked out, I look like I’m in command, but I’m not sure where to begin.

How in the world am I going to do this?

Hoards seem to be a genetic component of my family, but I’ve never had to dismantle one this massive to find the stuff worth keeping. It puzzles me that despite his attachment to stuff, Uncle Karl did not sign a will for the distribution of his property. And my aunt, his wife, who survived him by six years, was not medically fit to make a will the courts would accept.

That means her family is inheriting everything. People I barely know.

I asked one thing of them. Allow me to go through my family’s things.

They gave me five nights.

Each night, I have slept in the room where my uncle died. I turn off the lights, navigate around bags of clothes, and plop into bed. I fix my eyes above me, on the light globes that feature little painted gold stars. And I feel as if my family is there, hovering just below the ceiling. They are all smiling at me, but there’s something more in their expressions. They like what I’m doing. They are proud of me. I see that, but there’s still something more. I cannot put my finger on it. But tonight, I’ve got to wrap my head around how to do this job in the basement because tomorrow, my aunt’s family arrives with workers in masks and gloves. They will take everything but whatever I’ve saved to ship home to Memphis.

To overcome the hoard, I must first break it down visually. National Geographic magazines stacked like a skyscraper, which I imagine would plummet to the concrete if jostled, don’t hold any interest for me. Derelict pieces of furniture and old-fashioned TV trays support half-empty boxes and don’t appear to hold any significance. And then there are slender sticks of wood in various sizes and types, apparently discarded from home-improvement projects. They are interspersed within the mound. I’ve got to be careful not to get stabbed.

You cannot judge a hoard by what you can see. You take it apart and examine everything. Only yesterday, I discovered a dainty tin box in my uncle’s cluttered study. I opened it and gasped. It was a lock of my grandmother’s hair.

Yup, I’m going to have to be like mythical Indian Jones on a hunt. I know somewhere in this mound are things that were a part of my family. Things that, in a way, will connect me with them. Things that tell our story. Things that will be lost to me if I do not save them.

I pick a spot closest to the shop light. It makes sense to start with what I can reach. I am going to go big. I grab a seatless, wooden chair, hoist it above my shoulders, and toss it atop the mound, out of the way. Next is a box of metal gutter parts and a trouble light with a school-bus-yellow cord. I hurl a shallow, open box of assorted plastic bags up and away. In quick succession, I fling yellowed newspapers and three-ring binders up to clear the peak of the mound. I grasp a water-stained textbook. It careens over the pile and into the bare, concrete wall, but clips one of the boxes on the way.

Please don’t. Don’t…

But it does. The box tips to its side. Plastic bags avalanche down to my feet.

I cannot be out-and-out angry with Uncle Karl, even as I stand here trying to avoid a domino effect by knocking over one of the dozens of cleansed mayonnaise and pickle jars at my heels. Perhaps of all my uncles, I was closest to him. He was a taller, older version of my daddy, yet distinctively different. In their younger years, they looked like professors. Hair the color of unspent charcoal. Goatees and glasses. People wondered if they were twins, though they were born eight years apart. It was in the internals that they diverged.

Dad cracked jokes that were so bad, they demanded a chuckle, but I don’t remember a single time Uncle Karl laughed with complete abandon or made silly faces like Daddy. And while Dad read the local newspaper from end-to-end each morning, Uncle Karl devoured works on philosophy and art history. He penned essays as heavy as a complete set of World Book encyclopedias. He wrote about Gothic cathedral architecture, the Nazi regime’s genocidal rampage, and naturalism versus religion. Uncle Karl was all adult.

I loved them both.

I visited their hometown for the first time at age 16. Though Uncle Karl didn’t have any children, he knew how to delight a young girl with untapped adventure in her soul. He took me to New York City to see the Empire State Building. Into his 80s, he persisted as a tour guide. One afternoon, reclined in a hospital bed after a devastating fall on an icy porch, he suggested I take in a local park near the sea in an adjoining city.

After he died, I did.

***

I will miss something valuable if I don’t make it through this pile.

I do not want another avalanche. Out with the manic approach. I shift to surgical mode. I shove the plastic bags into a big box and set it aside, making sure this time, the container is properly balanced on the hoard. I don’t want it coming down again.

What’s next?

I pick up a shirt cardboard insert – Why wasn’t this thrown away? – and whirl around to figure out where to put it. The only garbage can I have down here is tiny and full. I put the shirt thingy on top of an open box.

This is impossible. I’m not getting anywhere.

But I decide to give it one more shot and leverage a piece of plywood wedged into the hoard to lift the mass on top of it. I peer beneath. The technique works. I’ve hit gold.

“Daddy!”

In goes my free hand to retrieve a photograph of my father as a young man. I’m amazed the frame is not broken. I check the area for more photos, and finding none, turn to gaze at Dad’s image.

“Daddy! You’re here!”

His smile is seven inches from mine. We are connected again. It’s a glorious treasure. My grin fades, though. If he were here, I’d tell him all my woes.

“Daddy. Oh, Daddy.”

I am in Milford because of him. I am here in his stead. When Uncle Karl died, my aunt kept saying, “Karl’s brother is coming,” as if he was going to set everything in order. I turned from the sink of soapy dishes to face the kitchen table.

“Aunt Lore,” I said, “I’m sorry. Daddy died.”

“He did?” she said. “Oh.”

But she would forget again, and I’d tell her again and again. It was as if it was 10 years earlier. It was like Dad had just died.

***

I set Dad’s photo on the staircase to the kitchen and then make my way back to the hoard. I pull on a couple of boards, move a few boxes, and twist my neck to peer into crevices. Nothing. I feel beaten. I lace my way between dirty window screens, boxes of curtain rods, and a roll of burlap to get back to the staircase. I pick up Dad’s photo and take a last glance at the hoard.

What am I leaving behind?

The staircase groans with each step. I get closer and closer to the light coming through the open door of the kitchen. As I step through the threshold, it’s too bright. I squint. The tiny table in the center of the room is crowded with various mismatched sets of dinnerware. I shove a few pieces aside to make way for my treasure, but I do not take a seat. Instead, my eyes dart around the room. It’s hard to put into words what I feel. Warmth comes to mind. This is the space in the house where my family socialized the most. We ate meals here. We shared stories here. We planned outings here.

The memories roll through my mind like a film strip. I remember a phrase that recording artist Amy Grant put into song years ago.

“If these walls could speak.”

I am looking at this wall, and then the next wall, and then the third and fourth wall as I say these words. It’s as if I’m giving each side of the kitchen an opportunity to tell my family’s story. And, of course, there is nothing, nothing but my own memories. That’s when the first tears of my visit make their appearance.

I blubber out the lines of the song and end with open-mouthed sobbing.

Everything will be erased. Nothing of them will be left. Nothing.

I blubber some more. And then, an idea pops into my head. It’s like I was gifted it from above.

I wipe my tears, grab an indelible, black marker, and yank open the door to the basement. The stairs creak in rhythmic succession, as if part of a happy dance. I don’t want to be obnoxious so I look for a rafter close to a wall. I want hidden space. I pull a stool over, and with my back about a foot from the concrete wall, I lift myself to a support beam. I manage to reach it on tippytoes.

And I write.

“Built by the Lepeska Family, which resided in the Milford area from 1920 to 2022 after leaving Austria and Germany. Beloved grandfather, uncle, and father resided in these rooms. Memorialized this day, May 20, 2022, by T.L. Wansley.”

Not exactly my finest work. I ad-libbed. It’s hard to write above your head, vertically, in feeble light with swollen eyes. But I step down, crane my neck, and admire the job.

“There. Now we will always be here.”

I’m in awe. I don’t feel like crying anymore. I’m actually smiling. I don’t feel driven to save every potential thing with my family’s imprint on it. Their stories are safe within me. They are safe within me. I carry our family legacy. They’ve entrusted it to me. As I live and as I write, I create a sort of eternal footprint for all of us. My five nights in Milford conclude with renewed purpose and vigor. I am not alone. My family is with me wherever I go.

Get recognized for your writing. Find out more about the Writer’s Digest family of writing competitions.

The post Five Nights in Milford: Third Annual Writer’s Digest Personal Essay Awards Winner appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Want an opportunity to win a WD award? Keep checking our competitions page for upcoming competitions.

1. “Five Nights in Milford” by Toni Lepeska

2. “The Accidental Gardener” by Bichlien Hoang

3. “Fortune House” by Wally Suphap

4. “Another Reason for the Mona Lisa to Smile” by Carol Ikard

5. “Strange Beauty” by Jason Barthe

6. “Baby Don’t Go” by Lindsey LeBlanc

7. “The Best Teacher in the World” by Robert Granader

8. “Prey” by Nicole Bosserman

9. “Masterpieces in the Making” by Evan E. Campa

10. “My Mother’s Purse” by JS Picariello

11. “Sunflower” by Anna d’Archangelo

12. “Midway to the Tall Grass” by Lesli Christianson-Kellow

13. “Edges” by Jorie Kramer

14. “Grave Matters: Appreciating a Life in a Place of Death” by Kim Clarke

15. “The Dancer at Four” by Susan Tweedy

16. “Baking Lessons” by Ann Winegar

17. “A Memory of Oysters” by Keith G. McWalter

18. “On Fridays I Bake Challah” by Lori Gottlieb

19. “Pandemic Panacea” by Kay Dixon

20. “Jackson” by Patricia Rhodes

21. “The Mixer” by Lee Ann Farmer

22. “A Tangled Nest” by Jennifer Lynn

23. “Trauma Exhaustion in the Time of COVID – Written January 2021” by Amanda Kassner

24. “What Is Love?” by Charla Anderson

25. “Motherhood with Toddlers” by Ariel Thorp 

The post Announcing the Third Annual Personal Essay Awards Winners appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In-Between

by Alyssa Rickert

I lay my blanket down on the grass and slowly lower myself onto it. One knee down, then the other, then both hands until I flop over onto my side. And breathe. The autumn sky is so blue, with the wispiest of clouds stretching out from behind Castle Crags.

I might look alone but I’m not. Tiny hiccups bouncing around inside me remind me that there’s a boy, a very little boy, hopelessly close but invisible to me. And the gravestones around me are markers of bodies all around that lived full lives, bodies that carried hopes and dreams and love and anger. There’s one body, deep in the grass beneath me, that I know so well.

This body’s hands held me as a baby, this body’s voice sang to me the sweetest songs. This body charged into giant ocean waves alongside me and swam out to get me when the tides tried to rip me away. This body’s eyes are green. And those green eyes saw the world and put those hands to good use and found a way to put that voice to bring peace. This body had a heart so big and a heart so strong that it beat out the loudest song until one day, it stopped.

That body is close, it’s right there, just 6 feet underneath me. I can’t see the body, but through my memories, I can see the body’s life. I can’t see the life of this new little body inside me yet. I don’t know what his voice will sound like, what work his hands will do. What color will his eyes be? I hope he loves the ocean.

These two bodies are just 6 feet away, and these two bodies are worlds apart. One body leaving, one body coming, and then there’s my body in-between. My own green eyes can see the blue sky. My own hands are dry and cracked from the work I’ve found. My heart beats strong with longing, both for the tiny heart drumming inside me and for the bigger heart that lays quiet. I long to be held by one, and long to hold the other.

The blanket is wet now, from the dew seeped up from the Earth and the tears poured down from love. I put both hands on the ground, then one foot, and with a grunt, finally stand up. It’s hard to say if my spirit or my joints hurt more.

It’s time to leave now. I’ll carry one body with me, the other will stay stagnate under the grass. Soon the little body will become separate from me. For a while his fresh eyes will see what I see. His small hands will hold onto mine as we charge into the ocean. I’ll sing him songs and hold him close. I’ll cherish those times until they end.

Eventually, my son’s eyes will start to search for sites beyond me. His hands will reach out for work, and a new kind of love. His body will go away from me to find purpose. And my body will be left behind, without him close, separated from his body by miles just as it is separated from my father’s body by earth.

Once again I will appear to be alone. But even as I take steps away from my father’s grave and breathe through the tightening in my belly, I know I could never be truly alone. I am the memory keeper of all the life I lived with my dad. I am the hope harnesser for the future of my son. The invisible force of love beats stronger than a heart of any size. Three bodies, three people, three lives. One gone, one coming, and me. Just me, carrying the honor of being the in-between.

See the full list of winners here!

The post In-Between: Writer’s Digest 2nd Annual Personal Essay Awards Winner appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Want an opportunity to win a WD award? Keep checking our competitions page for upcoming competitions.

1. “The In-Between” by Alyssa Rickert

2. “Me, Her, Him, Them” by Eliot Wilde

3. “Slow Time House Dad” by Chris Field

4. “Thousands of Tiny Islands” by Rachel Mans McKenny

5. “I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE: WHEN LOVED ONES BECOME STRANGERS” by MAL KING

6. “Chalk Dust” by Allie Dixon

7. “Healing” by Sarah Hug

8. “A Fully Grown Bird” by Wanda Rhodes

9. “Scavenger of Memories” by Marielena Zuniga

10. “How Are You Doing? ” by Harry Huang

11. “The Midnight Touch” by Toni Lepeska

12. “Family China” by Karen Curran

13. “Migration” by Paula Zwicke

14. “My Blessing from Karen” by Suzanne Byrd

15. “The Long and Winding Road” by Kim Neudorf

16. “Tastin’ the Rainbow” by Chela Gutierrez

17. “The Reluctant American” by T.D. Akad Archibald

18. “A Single Heartbeat” by Dan Olawski

19. “The Wonder” by Michelle Redo

20. “The View From The Ashram’s Veranda” by Lesli Christianson-Kellow

21. “The Last Victim” by Mary Jeanne Connolly

22. “The Waiting Area” by David Abare

23. “The Fearful Snorkler” by Rebecca Deslauriers

24. “Grace House” by Donna Surgenor

25. “An Unexpected Lesson” by Sharon Sirkis 

The post Announcing the Second Annual Personal Essay Awards Winners appeared first on Writer's Digest.