Elderly Woman

Ellen Ghong

Kids have gone wild these days! Too much caffeine, I suppose. That’s why we shouldn’t be giving our kids all that junk! I’m just sitting on the bench drinking my morning tea and good Lord, a child floats up in the air. Nearly scared the living daylights out of me.”
“And New York, there you have it from a firsthand witness. A nine year old girl has floated up into the air. Scientists everywhere are trying to figure out this phenomenon and the Air Force has been alerted. This is Ben Warren from NBC News and please stay tuned for further information as we interview other witnesses and family members.”

As the broadcasting network rushed away from the old lady witness to a different location, she faltered while walking back to her bench. The ‘Do Not Enter’ tape was criss-crossed in every direction throughout the whole neighborhood. But who cares; the old lady payed no attention and adamantly plopped down on the bench. She placed her brown, worn out, purse next to her. The officers in important looking uniforms let her sit. In tattered, but bright clothing, she brushed her tangled hair back with her fingers, revealing a face lined with wrinkles and worry. Perhaps that’s why they decide to leave her alone, out of pity.
She looks around at the cacophonous commotion. All the testing of air pressure and temperature and gravitational pull wouldn’t help people understand what was happening.
“The new generation is so different. They expect to solve everything with science and technology,” she mumbles to herself. The old lady shuts her eyes tightly, as if she were trying to focus. Or maybe she was trying to gain all her strength back. Or perhaps she was trying to gain the courage to tell the people what was really going on.

“Ahhhh,” an ear-piercing, bloody scream tore through New York City. “The, the, the, there’s a, a, another girl floating up!”

The old lady quickly spun around in the direction of the noise to find a lady one block down, trying to desperately catch another little girl who was now a good 20 feet off the ground. The old woman tensed up. Everything was happening faster than she had predicted. The last little girl had only disappeared into the sky 10 minutes ago. The woman leaped up, but the old woman could see that the more effort she poured out into saving the girl, the faster the girl was ascending into the sky. The woman was now crying and yelling something that the old woman couldn’t comprehend. The woman’s whole body trembled as she collapsed to her knees. A man pushed past the gathering crowd to make his way over to the helpless woman. He got down and embraced her, comforted her, although worry was written all over his own face.

“Officer, I need more back-up,” the old woman overheard the startled police newbie scream into his walkie-talkie. “Please send-,”

He was cut off by another scream, followed by another cry for help, and then another. New York City was no longer the beautiful city of lights, cameras, and dreams in the eyes of the old woman. All around she saw children were slowly being gravitated from the ground. She saw parents, friends, jumping as high as they could, to save their precious kids. Police sirens could be heard from miles away, and the firefighters quickly learned that even their ladders weren’t tall enough to save the day. Authoritative figures screamed for the citizens to find shelter inside but New Yorkers wouldn’t be able to pull their eyes away. They view everything as a show. To the old lady, this was a show. She watched each scene unfold, her tense fingers picking at a hole in her skirt, awaiting the grand finale.

The old woman who had been captivated in the show since the first girl floated up into the sky, stood up and closed her eyes once more, as New York let up an S.O.S signal. In the sky, everyone could see the children becoming invisible dots.

She shook. “It’s happening. The end of the world.” And her eyes flew up to the sky

Homeless Woman

Yue Tan

I saw a lady jumping in the air crazily, trying to grab something from the sky. She was calling some one’s name, then screaming and crying loudly. The crowded people stopped walking and tried to figure out what the mad woman was looking at, but the sunlight was blinding and no one could see clearly what was in the air.  A warm-hearted man tried to ask if she need help but the lady totally ignored him, just screaming and crying. The man felt embarrassed and kept on walking. Gradually, people walked away, continued their life. I have plenty of time, so I walked towards her and stared at the sky.  Finally, I saw a figure of a girl. Something dropped near my mouth. I licked it.  It was vanilla cream and then I knew what had been in the girl’s hand. I felt starving, hoping I could eat that nice ice-cream.

The girl disappeared, without any chance to see her. The lady was still crying.  I grabbed her handbag and said,”Let’s try to call the police.” She seemed listening to me.  I found her phone in the handbag and pretended to call 911. I walked around then, feigning talking to the police. I walked a little farther, then farther and farther and immediately ran away with her handbag.

Poor lady, I’m sorry. But who lets you behave so mean when I begged you to give me some money before?

I ran to a dessert store and bought an vanilla ice-cream, then sat down and looked through what was in her bag. I found nothing but some coins inside.

“She had nothing now.” I thought, “Just like me.”

Business Man

Jack  吴晟宸

He looked at his watch. “Oh my GOD!” he said. Because he would be late. The business man started to run as fast as possible.When he was runing, he found a girl was flying in the sky. He couldn’t believe his eyes and tried to make his eyes as big as he could. But it was the truth; he was sure that the girl was flying. It was really amazing and unbelievable. The business man forgot to run and his face turned to white. He looked at this girl until she disappeared. At that time, he realized that he needed to take a taxi, because he spent a lot of time watching the girl. When he got a taxi, he realized that it was Saturday. He didn’t need to work!

Tourist

The Girl Floating in the Sky

Haey Ma 曦滢马

New York City is wonderful and it’s quite busy. Lots of people were walking in the street in hurry and lots of cars were passing by me in a high speed. I could hear many kinds of noises but I was not sure where they came from. The air is weird, but I was not sure why they are weird either. I couldn’t get used to this environment. That was really different between my village with fresh air, board meadow and a quiet ambience.

Suddenly, I saw a sweet picture in this noisy street. A cute little girl who dressed in pink and her mum were in this picture. The little girl was carrying a bunch of balloons with various colors. I could see some stains around her mouth but she didn’t notice since she just concentrated on her colorful balloons. She seemed very curious about them, looked up, and stared at them with her big bright eyes. I have a son in her age as well, but I really want a lovely daughter like her. Her mother was bending, helping her to clean up the stains. All of these make me fell peaceful in this noisy district with serious air pollution.

Then, I kept walking in the street with a pleased mood. In a sudden, I heard a big noise of people behind me. I turned around immediately and I found something in the sky above the crowed. I couldn’t believe my eyes! The little girl was flying to the sky slowly with her colorful balloons! I could see panic from her big radiant eyes and I felt extremely worried about her. Where will she go? What can I do if she suddenly falls down? Her pink dress with lace was expanding and her golden curly hair was in a mess because of the wind in the sky. Unexpectedly, her cute pink hat was falling down and it floated to me, so I picked it up and wiped out the dirt on the hat.

She was still going up but she neither shouted nor cried. She seemed calmer than the large amount of people that gathered below her. Her mother was so frightened that her face was pale like a piece of paper and she couldn’t do anything but sat on the ground. Many people shouted to her, ‘Drop your balloons! Drop your balloons right now!’ I found her hesitated for a few second, and then, she dropped some of her balloons. The balloons that she dropped were going up to the sky, and she was falling down slowly with the rest of the balloons. After she arriving the ground, her mother held the girl in her arms and start crying.

Afterwards, the people were leaving and I was going to give the girl back her hat. I couldn’t see any expression on her face. Her mother was still holding her, so I put the hat on her head gently. She turned around, smile to me and asked me to crouch down. I crouched down beside her and she whispered near my ears, ‘Do you know? It’s really excited to fly in the sky but I am going to miss my dear ballons!’

Mother

Mari Tanioka

Honk Honk. Beep. Hey, you, move it. Noises fill the city of New York under the blazing hot sun. Pushing. Shoving. Bustling. Everybody has their own mission through the city. Whether it’s getting to work or going on a date, it’s always a war zone out in the jungle of crowded, busy people, honking cars and monstrous buildings. Everything stands tall. The people with their noses in the air rush through the city to change the world. The buildings shoot up to the sky with no end. And what else stood high that day? My pride.

It reached 97 degrees that day in New York. I wore my blouse, which lay drenched with sweat, black slacks that fell from my bony waste in a frail manner and a pair of black pumps; a different look from my usual attire. And in my right hand lay my bulky black purse overflowing with paperwork and in the other was my daughters soft hand. We were on our way back from the divorce lawyer’s office. I was fuming. I took high strides across the New York streets as I yanked on my daughter’s hand. The shocks and aftershocks of a divorce had jolted my emotional strength. Tears and rage: that was all I felt at that moment. I was trying to not let the agony of the breakup change who I was as a person and more importantly, as a mother. At this point, she had realized the dramatic curve of my emotions. She looked at me with her big brown eyes and a melting ice cream cone in her hand and kept asking mommy, are you okay? Every time, I persuasively smiled back and told her everything was just fine.

I was grateful for this moment. Her angelic gaze released the stress and anger and I found myself smiling back. My daughter was smaller in size than other children her age. Her pigtails in pink bows bounced high in the air as the stray blonde hair framed her dimpling cheeks. Her eyelashes were long and luscious, unlike mine, which still remain stubby and short, requiring at least two layers of mascara for it to actually be visible to the human eye. Her toothless grin sought for my happiness. I was upset though. Frustrated from my appointment, a few tears escaped. She then, gently took her small delicate fingers and wiped the tears away, one by one. Her chocolate brown eyes examined my face and she gave me a smile. Her blushed cheeks shone under the sun in a rosy shade as she took her own fingers and took them to my face and raised my lips to create a smiley face. I smiled. She then giggled and twirled in her pink summer dress as the ice cream made its first landing on the beautiful crochet fabric. She licked the chocolate off her lips and gave me a kiss on my cheeks and whispered, mommy, I love you.

I didn’t find that day in New York to be at all peculiar.  It was the same taxis, the same people, the same buildings.  The air was muggy and filled with voices of people shrieking into their blackberries.  It was the usual.

My pumps clicked against the cement road as we crossed the street. Her ice cream was all over her hands at this point. Chocolate Syrup dripped from her cheek and now all over the dress as the New York heat started melting the vanilla ice cream out of her cone. She shoved her face into the ice cream with a smile. The perimeter around her mouth was slathered with brown and white substance. I needed paper napkins. Now. We got across to the other side and I told her to stand still. Her soft and pudgy fingers gripped on the ice cream cone as the chocolate and vanilla started to mix. She stood there with her eyes fixated on the ice cream.

Pushing up my glasses that had slid down as the heat had caused sweat to dribble down my face, I wrestled through my bag for a paper napkin. All I could find were divorce papers, divorce papers, and more divorce papers. As I got through all the paperwork, I found my checkbook, wallet, blackberry and mascaras. I dug deeper and found a now wrinkly faded Starbucks napkin from when I had my usual Starbucks coffee a few days ago; it was an ice mocha frappe chino. There was nothing else, so I had to work with what I had. I looked back up. But nothing was there. I mean, everything was still there: the road, the cars and the people. However, my daughter had disappeared. Still on my knees, I did a 360 around the area, with a sudden shock in my brain. Mommy, a voice from up above. Frantically, I shifted my head towards the violent summer sun and saw my daughter up in the air with ice cream dripping from her hand. I couldn’t move. Her feet were now in the air; my hands were out of reach. She giggled. She waved. Her limp pink dress that hung on her snugly, now covered with ice cream was plastered over chest as her legs wiggled. My mouth remained open as she floated up like a balloon. Jenna, JENNA, I screamed. She didn’t seem to hear me. She didn’t seem scared either. She just smiled and kept calling my name. At this point, I had stood up, jumping in the air in my black worn out pumps. And she gently disappeared into the scorching summer sky.

Woman at the Window

Genesis Peña

She was my neighbor. I still remember that day and how loud she was when she saw the little girl flying away. It was a Monday. New York was as chaotic as always with the cars beeping, the trains passing and the murmuring of the people on Times Square. While there were a lot of people on the streets, others were just looking out their windows. One of these was Angela.

It was an ordinary day, nothing new was happening on the streets of New York. Because
everything was being the same Angela decided it was time for her to go to her couch and watch TV. But all of a sudden something unusual happened. Right in the middle of Times Square there was a little girl that started flying…

That’s when Angela freaked out and started screaming. I could hear her praying and going crazy after seeing the little girl. She disturbed everyone in the building. I could hear people dropping their plates and the stuff they had on their hands when Angela started screaming. All that was being heard in the building was, “My Lord, What is going on?”

When I came out of my apartment to see what was happening, all the people from the building were already outside her door trying to figure out what was wrong with her. She told everyone the story but no one believed her. We started to think that she was going crazy because what she was saying did not make sense.

Time went by and Angela moved out her apartment after the incident. She became very anxious after what happened so her children decided to take her to their house. No one ever heard from her or what happened to her. However, I knew that she was telling the truth but I never said anything.