My latest writing publication simmered in my head and has been whittled into several forms since the real-life occasion in my junior high classroom that inspired it a number of years ago. I have wanted to find it a place with readers. Sometimes writings that you love just need to wait for the right opportunity. The call for submissions on “What a Strange Question!” for the Autumn 2020 edition of Thema literary magazine seemed to be the perfect fit. I was thrilled when the editors agreed to give my strange question a home. I called it “Bridging the Gap.”
Sabina joined in progress
a congenial eighth grade class.
Together through all of seventh grade,
teasing trademarks established –
Josh’s overflowing binder,
Tara’s questions immediately after they had been answered,
Amanda’s non-tardy arrivals in sync with the buzzer.
They loved their distinguishing quirks
More than their distinctive abilities.
Shunning the role of outsider,
waiting instead for comments on
the novel picks in
her trademark doughnut –
a bun pulled sleekly back to the top of her head
revealing a perfectly formed face,
a flawless complexion,
skin the color of caramel cake icing,
Sabina bridged her way to insider.
Springtime brought
forms to fill out for high school.
“What do I put here?”
She pointed to “race” with its row of boxes.
“I’m African American,
Native American,
Irish,
and those are just the ones I know.”
The class stopped,
listened.
The teacher considered.
“Perhaps you belong to the human race.”
Drawing a box,
Sabina wrote “human” beside it,
marked it with an “x.”
Her classmates, too,
flipped their pencils,
used their erasers,
drew new boxes,
added a word,
marked their “x’s”
next to “human.”
Over the years, I have wondered about the receiving high school’s reaction when one whole class arrived belonging to the human race.
My copy of Thema came this week, and as always, writers found a variety of ways to treat the magazine prompt. The cover response made me laugh even before I looked inside to find the multitude of verbal and pictorial takes on the theme. If you would like some good reading or perhaps some prompts to try for future issues, purchasing information and previews are at www.themaliterarysociety.com.