[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.
Check out the most recent issue of The Voice, Young Writers Project’s monthly digital magazine. Click here.
Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.
YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.
Imagining sentience in the objects and products of our everyday lives may seem like the stuff of children’s books – but perhaps that’s exactly why it can be so fun to ponder. This week, Wells River writer Em Schulze offers her own playful answer to the question, “What happens at your house when no one is home?”
House of Life
By Em Schulze, 15
[T]he house was quiet, devoid of human life. It had been an hour since the humans had left to go on a trip out. The house began to stir, quite literally. The books perched upon the bookshelf yawned and came to life. The dishes in the cupboard carefully climbed out and began to roam around. The small, unlit candles jumped from their tables and rolled into the living room. The reclining chairs and couch remained stagnant, but alive now nonetheless. Every small, mobile object made its way into the living room. They seemed to be hosting a meeting, only talking among themselves. The pet cats that were roaming about saw the previously inanimate objects now moving around and speaking, and they yowled in confusion, scrambling to hide downstairs, even dodging some small cat toys ironically hopping up the stairs.
Every small object formed into a circle in the living room, simply sharing fellowship and enjoying the time they were able to spend together before departing. Candles, tubes of lipstick, perfume bottles, books, and many other small objects began to move around the house, playing. The entire house was lively with the movement of the inanimate objects. The startled cats started to go up the stairs to observe. They watched all the objects roam around.
A few hours passed, and the humans returned. There was the sound of closing car doors. The objects instantly rolled and shuffled back to their original spaces. The door opened, and all was silent again as if nothing had ever happened. The humans entered the house, talking, and the smaller ones giggled. The small humans went into their rooms to get ready for bed. The larger humans sat on the couch.
Once the humans were all asleep, the objects began to move again – but quietly now, so they wouldn’t wake up the humans. Soon they went back to their own spaces and fell into a deep sleep themselves.
