Creative Prose
A collection of all the creative prose in the sixth edition of “The Parlay” literary magazine.
Sean Boggs
Authors Bio:
Sean Boggs is an aspiring Psychopharmacologist who loves Avant Garde art and film. They don't quite know what they want to do while working towards their degree. They are currently building an ANTI-MLM job board website. When not doing homework or one of their three jobs they enjoy hanging out with their lovely girlfriend Izzy. They enjoy being a part of the visual media and layout teams within the Parlay.
If only I could see green
There’s a quiet kind of ache that doesn’t hurt, it hums… Quietly beneath my ribs, it is a silent reminder of what I am reaching for but cannot touch. Always too much, incredibly undesirable. The hum travels throughout my whole body, I feel it in my fingerprints, leaving a sickly residue on everything I touch. To share the deepest parts of me, to be attuned. I want to crawl under their skin and into their soul. The words were said, the ones that stop this longing, our lips touched for just a brief moment In time. I want to live in that moment forever, even without the lips, the body, the face. Their presence alone is more than adequate, laughter echoes in my ears and across my walls. Yet even after the echos fade, something inside me still drips…
Artemis Bottarini
Authors Bio:
Artemis Bottarini (she/her) is a novelist attending FLC for personal enrichment. She is currently querying for her first novel, City of Dragon's Teeth, and loves writing whatever comes into her head at the moment. She is permitted to live in her apartment by her cats, Char and Amuro, and enjoys building plastic models in her spare time. You can find more of her works at https://abottarini.com
Over Time
We were both seven.
It was the first day at a new school for me. My family had left the rolling hills of Brentwood for the forested mountains of Camino, and I, a “boy” at the time, was nervous. I had always been dropped off at school in my dad’s SUV, so riding a public bus would be a new experience for me. I was completely sure I would get questions about my odd voice and obvious hearing aids, and so had resigned myself to staring at the brown back of the seat ahead of me. I was just noticing some interesting patterns in the leaking stuffing when a voice broke my concentration.
Eren Bussard
Authors Bio:
Eren Bussard (they/them) is a student at Arizona State University. They are in the process of completing their coursework to earn a bachelor’s degree in English. Eren has a deep passion for writing and is currently working on their first novel. In their downtime, they are usually found watching anime, socializing with friends, or working on new stories. Eren’s delighted to be the embedded tutor of the sixth edition The Parlay and cannot wait for future editions.
cherries (2021)
It feels strange that people no longer in your life know so many things about you. They carry so much information about you from when they did know you.
Like your favorite color at the time (lilac).
Or how you would take your coffee (black), sometimes with two sugars if you had an intense morning.
And how you had to sit on the floor, double-knotted, facing the door, to lace up your shoes.
They may remember that loud voices will always trigger you.
Amsley Cailao
Authors Bio:
Amsley Cailao is a first year student at Folsom Lake College. She is currently working towards a university transfer for a future career in medicine. She loves the intersection of science and creativity, and makes it her mission to attempt to walk that line in her writing. Aside from writing, she enjoys exercise, who-dunnit mysteries, and cafe hopping.
Artist Statement:
“whale song” is inspired by the real life magic of the ocean, specifically: mussels on hydrothermal sea vents being able to tell time, time slowing down (slightly!) the deeper one goes underwater, and the contentious theory that water retains the memory of every substance that has passed through it.
whale song
Dust wakes up to being burned alive. He opens his mouth to scream, but his lungs are on fire and—and no, he realizes, as his shout is swallowed by the surrounding dark, he's not burning, but drowning. He beats his arms desperately, but he can't tell if he's even moving. Every nerve screams at him to save them, but there's water in his chest and maybe his brain, because all he can think about is how scared he is and—
Breathe.
He looks around, frantic.
Breathe, the voice insists. It comes from all around him.
He doesn't want to. He knows what drowning feels like—
Breathe! The voice pulses through his entire body, and the force of it compels him to give in. He breathes.
Water fills his lungs, and the volume of it pushes against his rib cage so hard he thinks it'll break... but it doesn't. The shadows fade, and his vision sharpens. The choking stops.
His relief lasts only a moment before his memory returns. The lunch. The lake. Keelan.
John Helmar
Authors Bio:
John Helmar is a simple soul who is often described as the "town character." He watches a lot of TV: Bugs Bunny cartoons, where he defiantly roots for Elmer Fudd; and news programs, where he annoys his wife by yelling at political commentators and meteorologists. Also, he thoughtlessly flies kites, swings on swings, eats gramma's cookies, and hikes to fanciful ponds filled with minnows and damselflies, just for the heck of it - and nothing else. Finally, he enjoys the soothing, soulful song-stylings of his favorite recording artist - Vitas.
Gulls and Crows
I first remembered this:
I was born in a delicatessen, not the great New York style kind, but more like the attached to a gas station between medium-sized towns kind. Surprisingly, these delis were often pretty good. I did not remember anything else when I awoke alone on the shoulder of the road: half on the blacktop, and half on the gravel that extended into the weeds. That was ten minutes ago. I gradually began to recall my true origin(s), and a vague story formed in my head, like the familiar song that suddenly emerged from the recesses of your memory and repeated itself ad-nauseum on an internal loop.
Addison Kipp
Authors Bio:
Addison Kipp is a multimedia artist who loves to dabble in a bit of everything. She is also a voracious reader in her spare time. When not doing either of those things, she’s either watching a rom com or studying to get into nursing school.
Artist Statement (My Hill):
“My Hill” is written about my experiences with escapism and creativity with my favorite spot: the top of a giant, green hill. It’s impossible to portray the grounded feeling that I gain from meditating there, but this short prose piece is my attempt to describe it as best as I can.
Artist Statement (Baby Teeth):
“Baby Teeth” is written about my two, lonely canine teeth. I have a mutation that caused the absence of two of my adult teeth, so I have been stuck with them. However, I have transitioned from disliking them to seeing them as a lucky bit of childhood that I get to keep around.
My Hill
[PLACEHOLDER]
Baby Teeth
I am nineteen. I have two baby teeth left.
More specifically, I have two canine teeth that were never evicted by adult teeth. Meaning that I was predestined, from the womb, to be left with two pathetic little baby teeth.
I do not like them, and I never have. When I run my tongue over my top row of teeth, they feel awkwardly out of place and small. When I smile, they create two little divots in the otherwise straight row. So I do not smile with my teeth.
Ashlyn Lim
Authors Bio:
Ashlyn Lim is an English major in her first year at FLC. She has held a deep love for writing for years, and a love for reading for even longer. She enjoys writing short stories, but has not shared much of her work before. She hopes to begin sharing more of her work with the world as she continues her education.
Artist Statement:
"The heart wants what it wants" is a phrase that inspired much of this piece. "Head versus heart" is another. I liked the idea of your head telling you to go one way, and your heart telling you to go another, but literally. I liked the image of an anatomically correct heart flopping across the floor. The heart is supposed to be reminiscent of Thing from The Addams Family. Parts of the dialogue were inspired by conversations between my girlfriend and me.
Be Still My Heart (No Seriously, Stop Moving)
Michelle woke to find her heart missing in her chest.
Contrary to popular belief, this was not an uncommon occurrence. In fact, it had happened so many times in the past that she was used to it by now.
Michelle had what she would call an eager heart; excitable and mercurial, maybe even easy, though she didn’t prefer that last one. If she didn’t know that her brain was locked up tight in her skull, she’d think it was somehow attached to her heart. As it was, more often than not she was led by that beating thing in her chest instead of her head. And if she didn’t follow its whims quickly enough, it would neatly separate from her body and seek out what it wanted by itself.
She wasn’t quite sure how the process worked. It always happened while she was asleep and she never felt a thing. She liked to imagine it was a simple operation: her heart would beat vigorously in between the slats of her ribcage, exhilarated as a puppy, even as her body settled around it in sleep. It would grow agitated as it realized she wasn’t going to listen to it, no matter how hard it pounded and tugged. It would finally take matters into its own hands (chambers? valves? Michelle didn’t know, she wasn’t a biology major) and begin its escape. Blood vessels would separate neatly, her ribs would fold open like a gate, her breastbone would crack in half just enough for her heart to squeeze through, and then it would be out like a thief in the night.
Simple operation. Easy enough, probably. Generally not even that messy, except for the giant bloody hole it left in her chest.
Natalie Stephens-Butler
Authors Bio:
This is Natalie Stephens-Butler’s second semester at FLC and first time on The Parlay. Her creative medium is scary stories, both in poetry and prose. She looks forward to publishing all of her ideas in the future. Natalie is going to college for neurological science, to become a pediatric neurologist. When she is not working on her art or school, she enjoys gaming, gardening and spending time with her girlfriend Gab.
A Solitary Place
With the last of the boxes packed, my hands reach for the peeling pink doorframe. As I lean against it for the last time.
I peer at the now empty house with a twinge of nostalgic pain. My eyes wander slightly ahead to the hallway with cracked floorboards and the corner of an archway with little colored marks, each higher than the last. The archway springs off to the kitchen, where its bright rusted colored cabinets have become home to the occasional spider. Beside the kitchen sits a small dining room, now without a table and a family. Taking a step forward to glance to my left, the living room opens up. It feels so large without its huge colorful vintage rugs and variety of unique furniture. Each piece curated from its own time, and world. I could not imagine anywhere else in the universe where they could coexist.
Jack Weber
Authors Bio:
Jack Weber grew up in El Dorado Hills and Cameron Park, graduating from Ponderosa High School in May of 2024. He currently studies geoscience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and is a published author.
Things Will Be Okay
[PLACEHOLDER]
Laura Willis
Authors Bio:
Laura Willis has been doing art forms and looked for a world that was kind and beautiful. Through their writing, painting and other art forms they hope to let you see that there is hope for a loving, compassionate, and caring world.
Laura has found safety at FLC and a strong art community with amazing students and professors. They are grateful for having the opportunity to experience life through a new lens.
Untitled
I experienced what I thought was a magical beginning to life. At the age of around 2 years old I remember a huge willow tree in the front yard. As I stood next to it on a windy day the branches swayed making a swishing sound. We spent that day together dancing in the wind without a care in the world. I believed that day my life was going to be more than ordinary, it would be mystical and full of adventures. The willow gave me a sense of protection in the midst of the branches and leaves that surrounded me. There was a surreal mist that someone on the outside wouldn’t be able to see me. We would spend many days loving each other until the awful moment came. I went outside to be in the midst of protection and sorrow filled my heart someone had cut her down. My first deep response was to weep and it became an all day ceremony. My tears covered the soil and went deep into the roots encapsulating my pain of loss of the willow who truly loved me.