Sophomore Lily Sternlieb recently completed the June Term course “One with the Force: Creative Writing with Mythology,” taught by Profe, Ms. James, and Ms. Sarmiento. In addition to learning how to juggle and solve a Rubik’s cube, Lily learned about archetypes, the hero’s journey, and myths from various world cultures. Finally, she wrote her own monomyth based on the twelve stages of the hero’s journey. You can read an excerpt of this piece below. Enjoy!
Paul’s skin told his story before he even opened his lips. Meandering lines covered his forehead like lost thoughts, worried wanderers chronically out of step and off path. Caramel-colored peaks and valleys speckled his temples, a landscape drawn by a frantic artist too confused by his own creation. His hands were the texture of water-logged leather, calloused from years of working in the salt flats of Southwest Oregon. In many ways, Paul’s skin was an extension of the marshes he was born beside: well-worn, cracked, and unending in expressions. When people saw Paul they saw the edges of the Earth, empty and endless, a blank space and a full page. But most telling of all were his scars. Grown-up paper cuts made with weapons far sharper than butter knives framed Paul’s jaw and neck. A mosaic of reminders. That was what his face had become, with ash for eyes and thin blood lips.
He was handsome, in a silent startling way. After all, everything that is broken is beautiful, imperfection mixing with pain to create something greater than god. And Paul was certainly broken, sewn back together with long green grasses, broken promises and double-sided sticky tape. He had been hurt and hardened, his body a textured record of every childhood mistake and adolescent error.
But even after all the years and all the scars, Paul had never had a job quite like this or a boss like June. On the salt flats, he had encountered many monsters, mules with strong bodies and wild mustangs with restless eyes, but none so wild as June and her hidden hungry eyes. She seemed to be chronically stuck in the early 2000s, with too-tight Juicy Couture and bootcut jeans. Her face was tight, pulled back like Massachusetts water in low tide. June had met Paul near the counter of a chrome-coated diner, her low rise pants sticking to the peeling linoleum stool. She was immediately interested in him, asking Paul questions that he didn’t want to answer.
“Do you ever get tired of eating?” June asked, her voice low, deep and seeped in darkness. Paul looked quickly at June and back down at the two eggs he had just ordered, noticing that they too stared at him. He decided not to respond, his mouth tightening into another white line cloaking his face. That didn’t seem to bother June, whose smile only grew wider.
“Well I do. After a while everything exhausts you,” June said, sighing and laughing at the same time. She did seem old, Paul thought, like a person who constantly lost touch of the present, her fingers slipping through time and leaving her penniless. They sat still for a moment, but Paul liked it better that way. Where Paul came from silence did all the talking and he was always more interested in what the quiet had to say anyways.
June still decided to ask two more questions, her highlighted hair crinkling and crimping after every pause and question mark. She smirked, flashing her diamond teeth, “Ironically my job is what keeps me young these days. How about you?”
He stared into his coffee cup, remembering odd jobs and early mornings and instead posed a question of his own, “Where do you work?”
June giggled and said, “I’ve got you hooked now huh? I work at a club at the end of the strip called Night Owls. It’s nice usually, although we’ve been having trouble with security lately.” The conversation turned, curdling into a new discussion entirely; she really had reeled Paul in.
“Security?”
“You’ve heard of it?” June said dryly.
Paul sighed. Unlike June, he would never think she was quite the comedian she thought she was.
“I dabbled in security back in the day.”
“Really?” June’s eyes twinkled behind big bejeweled sunglasses. “We’re actually in need of a bouncer. It might just be your lucky day.”
Paul shrugged. “I’m good, thanks. Black isn’t really my color.”
June raised her over plucked eyebrows. “Oh I doubt that, and aside from the wardrobe selections, I pay my people very well.”
“Sounds cultish,” Paul said, cutting into his second egg. The yolk bled into the thin white saucer, until both circles and colors were unrecognizable.
June winked. “It’s Miami. If our club wasn’t considered a cult then nobody would come.” He realized that Tommy Girl summer sales might not be the only thing that June specialized in. But, Paul also knew that she wasn’t the type of person you said no to, her lipstick opaque and sparkling like a broken beer bottle. So he agreed to take the job and to her last semi-stupid rule.
She took a bite out of Paul’s piece of toast, the only piece of food he had ever seen June eat, as she was starving from their exhausting one-way conversation and her triumph.
“One requirement of the job is that you just stay outside and do your job. No coming in and fraternizing with our guests or partying until two AM, you can’t come inside, ever.”
Paul’s lips parted upward; silly people always made him smile. “I’m not much of a clubber as it is.”