The Story of Emma The Living Shadow

Written By: Emily Vernon, Age 10 CHAPTER  1 ABOUT THE SHADOW All my life I knew there was another part of me, something I couldn’t explain until now. It seams as if an alter ego, or even a shadow, MY SHADOW! Her name is Emma! She helps me make my decisions some are right some are wrong. No mater what she makes me… me. She’s EMMA My living shadow. CHAPTER  2 THE SHADOW ITSELF The shadow lives in a place called the UNDERWORLD... 

In the Beginning …

I don’t know which came first: the angels, the earthquakes, the times I used to fly. The times with my grandmother going through family photo albums, where she would make stories of each picture.  Time spent with my head snug on my aunt’s warm chest.  Time spent playing with Ali, my youngest uncle on my father’s side – when he would lift me into the air and throw me over his shoulders.  He always wore these thick... 

My Maman Bozorg’s Revolution

Image Courtesy of Atieh Noori As a child of five, my parents migrated our small family of four to America. We settled in a mid-size apartment in Tarzana, California–leaving in the ghost of the static past scores of uncles, aunts, and cousins. I remember my grandmother in particular–her beaded eyes as black as her heart at our departing–wailing incessantly. It was she who would get cancer soon after and live... 

The Boy Inside the Man

Our phone rang at exactly 3:55 AM. It rang with one of those Dad something bad has happened rings I hadn’t heard in the ten years since our youngest son said goodbye to teenage angst and hello to twenty-something aimlessness. Thankfully the aimlessness finally eased as he joined the Army , found a wife and fathered the most perfect grandchild in the world. The second ring snatched me from the world of dead sleep...