“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”  

-Toni Morrison

Such was the case with E.S.Say. A big thank you to all those who participated in the first ever  ESA's creative writing website and book. Thank you for your rhymes, your words, your pains, your joys and of course your writing. It was a success. I am proud to say that the book is on it's way to being published. As for getting ahold of one, there will be an announcement when they arrive with details as to how to they can be purchased. 

Didn't get the chance to send anything in this year? Not a problem. E.S.Say will be starting up again next September. Two new Creative Directors, Rachel Campbell and Spencer Cetinic, have been chosen and will take over. I know that they will bring forth new ideas as well as maintain E.S.Say's current values.

Stay gold pony boys and gals,

Sauvanne Margaux

E.S.Say Creative Director

Until Proven Guilty by Spencer Cetinic

Until Proven Guilty

Ascending the courthouse steps, I was acutely aware but ignoring of the hundreds of lenses, bathing me in a sea of hot, white flashes. I wore a sporting blue suit, with an eldridge-knot done up tie. My sunken eyes, matted, greasy hair, and sullen features signified my lack of bail, and to the paparazzi, my undoubtable guilt. Not that it wasn’t a fair assessment; the amount of evidence against me was immense, and some of it went beyond even the circumstantial. I kept my head low as my path became barricaded with reporters, my vision slightly blurry from the intense flashing of cameras. Surrounded and barely pushing through the crowd, questions shot off towards me in rapid succession, the growing degradation with each one acting as the catalyst to the next, each becoming more bold and resolute in my guilt.

“Mr. Jameson, Stan Jameson, how does it feel to be convicted of the first degree murder of your wife-“

“Stan. Sandy Fletcher, Channel News. How does it feel to have an impending 20 year minimum as this trial begins to”-

As more comments, increasing in aggressiveness began to sound off, a fat slovenly man emerged to the front of the right of the crowd, and in a loud, mocking tone, screamed out:

“Stan. If you survive the chair, tell me about it, alright?”

A boorish remark, and yet one that elicited a hearty laughter from the crowd. I didn’t even look back; denying him the satisfaction of a reaction from me. The crowd of reporters was in hysterics. I kept my head down, as I had been instructed to not let them photograph my face. Security in dark blue suits pushed reporters out of my way and I was ushered inside the courthouse. 

Lifting my neck, I realized I was safe from the persecution of the flashing cameras, but was now subject to a much more aggressive persecution that began, presently, when my personal lawyer Mr. Tuff, approached me.

“What the fuck happened; you didn’t let them see your face, did you?” 

Mr. Tuff had quite the reputation as to the aforementioned statement; a dismissive, rhetorical question to break you down, followed sharply with another question to keep you in line. This tactic was used thoroughly throughout his career, from when I had seen him use it at the office on co-workers, to cross-checking witnesses, and finally, although I’d never thought I’d see the day, on his best friend in his time of need and pitiful desperation. I cast my eyes downward, dejectedly. I kept my face down as I spoke, my eyes cast away from his countenance of contempt. 

“We are friends, or at least we used to be,” I started, my voice emotionless and resolute, “and I know you. I don’t need you to be cold and calculating with me, Vance. I just don’t need it at all.” 

I looked up, matching his furious green eyes with my pair of emotionless, placating, big brown eyes, and yet he still flared his nostrils, his voice becoming angry quite quickly. “And what if I have to, Stan, to get through this? What would you say, huh?” Vance clutched onto my lapels and tugged at my shirt, pulling us in close so that no one could hear him speak. “You can’t even tell me you didn’t kill her. Tell me you didn’t fucking kill Sarah,” he said, his voice higher now, on the verge of tears that he would never cry, “and I’ll stop being cold and calculating. But of course you won’t, Stan. You won’t even give me a reason why.”

I said nothing, and I questioned again to myself whether even this comment had been rhetorical.

Mr. Tuff regained his composure slightly, letting go of my shirt and taking a step back. “You know where you have to be right now; I will talk with Jenna about cutting you some kind of deal here. Make sure not to speak to anyone.”

I looked him in the eyes this time. “I don’t want you to talk to the people trying to put me away and make a deal. I want you to win this case.”

“You would be the only one,” Mr. Tuff said as he turned around and walked away, muttering more obscene remarks as he disappeared around a bend. I was unfazed by this exchange; I would not let him undermine my innocence under the eyes of the law. Personal opinions aside, I turned to my right and ascended a staircase towards my trial room, security guards standing a respectful distance behind me and yet still tailing me all the way to the room. As I waited I noticed a tall attractive woman walking towards me, and placed her at once as my prior secretary, Ms. Baulder. Her shoulders stood tall, her arms crossed over her chest in a defensive, judging manner. 

“Ms. Baulder,” I chimed, attempting to inject into my voice some former familiarity and joy, “thank you for coming. You have no idea how much it means to me.” 

A peculiar thing happened presently as I finished what I had said. It was in her reaction to the very notion that she should support such a defamed and terrible man in his time of need, and yet wouldn’t talk to the effect, as to remain courteous in terms of her past business with me. This created a sort of rupture on her face, of flashes of anger that subsided, a furrow in the brow that passed, and her mouth opening and closing as if pulled time and time again from an invisible string. Her eyes became wide and her nostrils flared as she began to realize that she had stood next to me without speaking for a very long time, and yet couldn’t still be helped to utter a single word. I smiled again and nodded, releasing her from her obligation to speak, and allowing her to press on without a single word.

A part of me wished to be sad as a cause of this exchange, as I had been quite fond of Ms. Baulder and had wished her the best while working at the firm, but I still couldn’t find myself able to feel any sort of emotion to match her anger and resentment. I found myself straightening my posture, and walking on. 

As I arrived to my hall early, I decided to sit just outside of it, back straight and arched vertically, chin up and a resounding look of content on my face. A well-proportioned man sat next to me, wearing a cheap suit and with a long, unkempt beard. I ignored him for a period of time, but turned as he began talking, addressed at me and yet not facing me, as if he was telling a story to a group of young boys around a campfire and wanted to appear lost within his own words.

“Parole hearing today.” His voice was comfortingly interested in conversation and not dismissive, as had been the theme today. “Third one to date.”

“Nervous?” I asked him, genuinely interested and bored of waiting for Mr. Tuff to reconvene with me.

“I was, the first time,” he talked back. Slow words, and a careful tongue. I wondered if serving a sentence had made him more careful about the way he spoke. “I thought I had had a chance back then. For my type, these hearings are just semantics.”

“Your type?” 

“Murderers,” he said, and the way he articulated the word scared me more than anything else I had heard today. “I suppose it’s all the well. My life for his.”

I sat back a little and relaxed my posture, no longer clawing at the pretense of innocence with this man. 

“Do you regret it?” I asked him.

“If I had the chance, I would’ve done the same thing,” he said, and I smiled, knowing he was just like me. “I just wouldn’t have gotten caught.”

A guard in blue approached us and we fell silent. Motioning to the man next to me, this man akin to my thinking was taken away me, carried down a hall and to his hearing. I sat in silence a few moments, and then Mr. Tuff rounded the bend and walked towards me briskly. 

“I did it,” he said, proud of himself and yet still full of resentment, “I got you a deal. Second degree, ten years.”

I shook my head immediately. “No, that will not do. I won’t go away for this.”

“Alright, Stan,” Mr. Tuff said, “you tell me you didn’t do it, and I will fight for you. But I know that-“

“I didn’t do it, Vance,” I said, my voice pleading and filled with emotion.

“Fuck you, Stan,” he responded, “you piece of shit. You plead guilty and serve the time. Sarah, she-“

Vance’s tears filled his eyes, but he would never allow them to fall.

“We all loved her.”

I looked at him with no emotion. His gaze confirmed his state of mind; his total hate of every fiber of my being. No longer did he see the friend that stayed late most nights to help him with his cases; the friend that got too helped him the one time he got too drunk at The Following, and got him home safely; and the friend that helped him find a new job when the company they both worked at was liquidated. 

He now saw a client, and this was work. 

There was nothing to respond with, and so I strolled into the courtroom and took my seat appropriately. Mr. Tuff took the seat next to me, and the trial began, the judge listing out pleasantries that prefaced the case. Finally he asked the question I had been waiting on.

“How does the defendant plead?”

Mr. Tuff attempted to speak but I was quicker, standing up and asserting my position, a singular thought taking over my brain; a focus on one idea that had been spoken to me by that murderer, just a few moments before.

I just wouldn’t have gotten caught.

“Not guilty, your honor.”

New Eyes

Shanice Pereira

The eyes of a child, so innocent and bright,

Cannot fathom what comes out of the night.

The shadows are there even if they are unseen,

They cover the lively grass that once was green.

Yelling, screaming, hurtful words,

These visions of the past hurt.

Broken child, broken home,

This is how I was known.

Watching from the inside, looking out,

The separation left me in an emotional drought.

All I could see was a big, brick wall,

But to live my life; it would have to fall.

Fall

Fall

Fall

Then I saw the rays of golden light,

For once I knew everything would be alright.

The world opened up with endless possibilities,

And then they fell away, those harsh realities.

As waves crash upon the rocks,

It was time to begin the ticking of new clocks.

Love became my glasses to see,

And I could finally believe that a good world awaited me.

Light and love helped me see,

What I could do and who I could be.

The pain of the world could now be stopped,

Because I knew that my fear could be dropped.

The world still lacks people, who will do what is fair,

But the only way to change this is to care.

If you dare.

Dare

Dare

Dare

These are the musings of a love-struck girl,

Who’s got the courage to change the world.

The nightmares will fade into the night,

As we are overwhelmed with the need to do what is right.

As a new dawn breaks, I bid you adieu,

For it is time to say farewell to the world we knew.

Gene Mutation by Sara Davide

Gene Mutation 

Sara Davide

You know the drill

Or shall I remind you

The insulation in this white room is only as dense as the air that we breathe

The toxins that make up the atoms from this gene module is just scientific jargon I know nothing about

We know nothing about

The earth and sky or anything that really makes us who we are

Encompassing the maps that we falsely create with our eye lashes bent into shape

Contort the shape of your bones they become britte enough to 

guide you

''The function of writing is to explode one’s subject — transform it into something else. (Writing is a series of transformations.)''
Susan Sontag

Happy Friday!
Keep on scribbling:) Only two more weeks to go before we close up shop and send in the book to be published!

E.S.Say Creative Writing Team

Narrative Essay #1: Summer of a New Century

Elise Wang

In the summer of a new century, I cut my hair and turned in to a boy. 

Not literally, of course. But to the everyday passerby or curious eye that ever graced a photo of me taken during those special months, and to myself today squinting down at that midget me feeding pigeons on a blue plastic stool: I was a boy from my do to my shoes. And on the occasion that I did wear a dress, it was the lovely girl-turned-boy-dressed-like-girl situation. I don’t really remember, but I don’t think I ever minded though. To be Chinese, an only child raised by grandparents in a city under renovation, there weren’t many gender-specific kids’ toys or clothes to choose from, apart from dresses. Unlike up here in Toronto. So that totally avoidable phase came and went at the speed of hair growing, and I was okay.

My first favourite hat was an upside down Happy Meal box. Even at the tender age of three I was collecting things and finding new uses for them, and I guess a new home at that. I saw shining potential in the most disposable of everyday objects, and grabbed hold of bliss in every fleeting moment. I used a wash pail as a prayer nook, my stuffed toys as a barricade.

I had another hat, it was handmade by my lao lao (the way I address my grandmother from my mother’s side) with an indigo-yellow plaid fabric. It was a beautiful plaid pattern. The same fabric was used to make the pillowcase for my beloved tea pillow. A tea pillow is a small fabric pouch about the size and shape of an envelope, filled with dried tea leaves. Tea leaves are naturally cool to the touch, so playing with the pillow would have a kind of calming, therapeutic effect on me. At first it was just a new addition to my sleeping arrangements in the summer. Then somehow, quickly, it became the one possession I held on to most fiercely.

My first soup kitchen was a restaurant. My grandparents and aunt took me there one winter afternoon. It was the one at the corner of the street, the one that boasted huge barrels of tasty, steaming soup on every table taking up most of the space. These peculiar pots were heated constantly from underneath so that the soup was always hot and ready to eat. An attraction in itself, the soup barrels served also as centerpieces and heaters for the hungry guests seated around their respective round tables that winter afternoon. We started with soup. So warm, the perfect appetizer. I had donkey meat for the first time that day. I don’t remember which of my relatives it was that decided on this main course for me, but I can still recall exactly how it looked and tasted. Wrapped in flatbread, it was pink, moist and surprisingly delicious. I would have liked us to stay that way. Just us, laughing around the big soup barrel on that bright winter day.

I loved birthdays in China. Every third of January I would find a yellow paper crown on my head and a cake on the living table, smothered in whipped cream with chocolate sauce dripping down the sides. I would slice the cake once with a plastic knife and my family would jokingly allow me to attempt to eat the whole thing by myself--to my delight, of course. When my hair was long enough to tie up again, my aunt or grandma would give me little pigtails in red ribbon left over from the cake box, as many as the year I was turning. They started looking pretty funky by age four. It’s quite a shame I never got to see what five pigtails would look like on my head.

Still, I wouldn’t complain about that. My favourite haircut to this day would be when I met my parents again and turned five in Singapore. Strangely for me, it was a bob cut. (I’ve always had a slight fear of cutting my hair too short and have successfully kept it long since then.) On the day I arrived at the flat, they had a room complete with Lego, a spare bed, computer desk and plenty of floor space ready for me to move in to. Like a new tenet I immediately got to work, starting from my den, ooh-ing and ahh-ing my way through every inch of the little apartment. Peacefully, matter-of-factly, as if I’ve done this a thousand times.

I was a resilient one, my family would tell me in Chinese years later. It turned out that I had marched on ahead in to the passenger area with even a second glance at my elderly guardians, the ones who laboured day and night to raise me well, and with the same face I stepped in to the strange whitewashed apartment after hours of sickness on the plane. I never once shed a tear. Not for stomach pain, not for the family I left behind. Still, I wouldn’t consider myself a resilient one. I was just fast at getting used to things. Too fast, that being one of the few things I was quick at.

Mom and dad got me a little sleeping mat so I can take naps wherever I wanted, while they were working away on their PHD’s and things. The only place I ever wanted to nap, however, was halfway under the spare bed. Whether my head was positioned inward or out, I can’t remember. All that mattered was a safe, dark place I can count on to hide me.

I always looked forward to going to that one Kentucky Fried Chicken because of its little indoor playground. I would finish my food quickly, which I never do, just to run and claim the ship's wheel, the lookout post, and finally the jungle’s secrets all for myself. (It was a big, but pretty empty restaurant.) The air conditioning was always on full blast, but that was the one time I would happily endure the cold just to bask in the glory of steering my own magnificent ship a little longer, until mom got tired of waiting and beckoned me. Then I would reluctantly slide down the ship’s side and silently bid goodbye to my jungle friends, already anticipating my return. That little playground was as tiny as it was dear to me, but size didn’t matter when I was up there. Because up there, it felt like nothing could possibly get to me. I was free, free to go anywhere and be anything. The world was hushed and still and all was well in that glorious moment.

On the first day of kindergarten, I proudly donned my matching oversized Pikachu T-shirt and shorts, paired with my Winny the Pooh water bottle and backpack. The kindergarten I went to was a free-standing, faded blue building that had a centipede problem. The program was fun, and people were nice, and I got to be the master of ceremonies for our new year’s concert at a big venue. It was great. Looking back, I still have a hard time grasping the fact that the little girl opening the show on that massive stage was me. But still, the bathrooms in the kindergarten were—oh dear. School toilets were squatting toilets, and many of the times that I dared to venture in to one of the unlit stalls, there within and around the bowl would be—as I gravely imagined—one or two or three, crawling or twitching. Perhaps it was because of the constant humid weather. I didn’t always see it, but there seemed to be at least a few at any given time, like a terrible sign.

We had a sunny yellow half tent that we took to the beach every now and then. I always smile when I think about our funny yellow tent, the way it looked like the sun or a lemon that someone had clumsily sliced in half and had the insides hollowed out. I was self-appointed treasurer, always making sure that the mesh pockets were stuffed with SunMaid raisins and yogurt drinks. Even though the tent provided little in terms of coverage or shade in the daytime, to me it was a momentary haven. Separate from the chaos all around, it was like a secret that tasted like sweet yogurt, shared only by the three of us.

But that was just the beginning of our coastal adventures. There was Sentosa, the ultimate fun park by the beach, where the majestic Merlion (I never once thought a lion with a fish tail was anything out of the ordinary) stands guard to this day. My best friend Yi Fu and I, we got buried side by side once, like mummies in the sand. A photo of us is the only memory I have of that ever happening (maybe because I was trying too hard to be like an actual mummy). Both our eyes were closed, but he had a serene expression and I looked like I had died swallowing a lemon. One of the many things I didn’t know at the time was that it’ll one of the last. And that ten years later, there would be very little I wouldn’t give up to be buried with him in the sand again.

When I was told we were to leave by Christmas for a country called Canada, somewhere cold and far away, I carefully packed my things. If only I could hide a few of my friends in my suitcases, I thought, we’ll all come out on the other side laughing. Instead, I gave the baggage check personnel at the airport a pleasant surprise. What they discovered inside every suitcase was a sleeping stuffed animal—and if one looked closely enough, among the animals was a little plaid pillow, tucked neatly between the piles.