Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2016 - (Page 44)

creative minds imagine Fiction Contest Thank you to all who entered this year's Creative Minds Fiction Contest! We are thrilled to announce the winners here. Please visit our website at http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/contest/contestresults.html to read all winning essays as well as the judge's comments on them. Our Creative Minds Poetry Contest is now open through July 8, 2016. Read submission guidelines and enter online at www.cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/creativeminds.html. FIRST PLACE How Fireflies Were Invented by Emily Schussheim ISTOCK.COM/DEBRAMILLET I am unspeakably envious of fireflies. Darwin explains that their descent with modification led to the appearance of a trait with differential reproductive advantage, but both he and I can agree that lightning bugs, anglerfish, and bioluminescent bacteria know something we do not. They dipped their abdomens, appendages and pseudopods in some greasy grey oblivion, bubbling like oil in a fryer, only to come out as glowing embers heated by a star's exhale. Thus, my superpower would be to glow. While a large section of my back or entire head would be ideal, I wouldn't mind just my pinky, my belly button, or a few strands of hair. When a deity's secondhand smoke streaks the skies in dusk, I'd wriggle my fingers and be able to make shadows dance like flames. If the bulbs in a closet or corner dozed off to tepid gloom, I could make the mirror shards lining strands of hair shimmer warm and yellow. Even alone, holding a blessed thumbnail to my cheek would bathe my face in velvet, honey light. The class begins a math test feverishly, air a soupy scribble of sweat and pencil lead. Two minutes into the trigonometry, a boy, leaden circles chaining his eyes to impalpable prison balls and disheveled hair matted like squished spaghetti, notices a faint blinking glow from my stomach. It's not a cellphone, and its radiance's tambour is 44 imagine a hue cooler, anyway. Beneath my pale pink sweater, the muted luminosity is golden and organic, reminding him of the star-bugs he chased as a child. The lady at checkout takes my ten-dollar bill, beating open the register in a fell swish and pinning a piece of strained silver hair behind her ear. She wrings her hands, veins withered and pronounced like sinuous tributaries, and moves to return my change. The bronze of the coins fades to silhouette over a pinky finger shining as if coated in caramelized sun. Shocked and then at peace with the benign light, she lets the friendly fire kiss the backs of her eyes. A child sits dejected on a park bench, a tear rolling down her face while half of a decapitated ice cream cone oozes into pavement. I slip next to her and give her a glowing thumbs-up, and she can taste chocolate and feel the bug's clumsy flutter against her palms. A man dangles his feet off a bridge and over the highway, whose headlight red and white cells flow thin and artificial through clogged traffic capillaries. From behind, I tap his shoulder and a hissing wind blows giddily warm fragments of burning hair into his now alive eyes. International leaders ferment frozen in shadowed debate, the rectangular table now thick and cold as a coffin. My glowing left eyebrow could save the world. May/June 2016 http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/contest/contestresults.html http://www.cty.jhu.edu/imagine/guidelines/creativeminds.html http://www.ISTOCK.COM/DEBRAMILLET

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2016

Big Picture
In My Own Words Karl Deisseroth, Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry, Stanford University
Mind Brain Philosophy and neuroscience at CTY
A Meeting of the Minds at the National Brain Bee
Mind over Matter Overcoming communication barriers via technology
A Fish of a Different Color My neuroscience internship
Immersed in Brain Science Summer research at Rockefeller University
Brain Training Four graduate students share their research
Prime Time for Brain Science Exciting new findings, from brain maps to mindfulness
Making the Connection Teaching kids about mind, media, and health
Selected Opportunities and Resources
Pitch Perfect The lure of rugby
My Stress-Free Adventure Scuba, sailing, and discovery
Off the Shelf Review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options Interview with neuropsychologist

Lisa Jacobson

One Step Ahead Ten commandments for college success
Planning Ahead for College Can your dream school become a reality?
Students Review New York University
Creative Minds Imagine Fiction contest winners
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games
Mind + Brain Philosophy and neuroscience at CTY

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2016