Whiting Award Winners
Since 1985, the Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, which are given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
Am I sitting here amid boxes of chicken and snow-peas, beef and broccoli, gooey rice and the remnants of an eggroll dabbled in mustard and duck sauce, scribbling the thoughts of a madman? Or am I merely depraved? Are these the thoughts of a neurotic? A psychopath? Or am I just more honest than most? Smarter? Am I daring greatly? Or have I been cursed for violating a sacred trust older than Yoruba legend and Nippon lore? Am I the victim of the gods’ own jealous wrath? Eat of any tree in the garden, but you are damned if you eat of the fruit of the One Tree. Double-damned if you enjoy it. Triple-damned if you can’t get enough.
Damn.
HOME IS WHERE
I peek from the slit
between my forearms.
Them. They come.
Eyes in all the heads glow.
The flow
melts my arm flesh
Burgundy vessels drip
from bone.
The graveyard this time of year is nice. Damp orange yellow red leaves pile at the headstones for pillows. Place my head in leaves. Soil moist and black like chocolate cake and taste like worms. Arms spread legs spread wind crawls up my pants leg to pocket soft backs of knees. Slightly arched back anchors shoulders to my throat, jaw, head. Eyes fixed to the blue grey. Meanwhile. An old deer limps over, sits like a dog, licks my shoes.
“It was a misunderstanding,” her daughter said. “It was a cultural thing, actually.” And when Alice expressed skepticism about the need for cross-cultural understanding with rapists, Mandy said, “He’s not a rapist.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but if he raped you, he is a rapist.”
And Mandy said, “Don’t call him that, Mom. He’s my boyfriend.”
THERESA
I’m worried she’ll be a fish out of water.
ROBERTA
When do we meet her? When’re they movin’?
THERESA
Not now. Soon. We’ll see. They’re waiting to see if Mingjing can transfer jobs.
ROBERTA puts down her cookie.
ROBERTA
What’s her name?
THERESA
Minjung.
ROBERTA
Theresa.
THERESA sips tea.
THERESA
She’s in architecture, works for a big firm out there
ROBERTA
(indicating the under-eye skin) Those dark circles, no wonder.
THERESA
But she might give it up and teach.
ROBERTA
You seen her only once?
THERESA
Tim never said any—why would I think
ROBERTA
Such a rush.
THERESA
My brain’s exploded.
ROBERTA
I knew it: how far gone is she?
Note: A male actor plays the roles of both THERESA and her son TIM. A second male actor plays the roles of both ROBERTA and her son ROBBIE.
WOMAN 2: The first time I saw the devil was in the desert thirty-five kilometers north of Shaarm, a multi-national army base. The devil first appeared to me in the form of a huge scorpion but it took on many forms during our brief encounter, some of them insect, some of them human, and once as a desert turkey, which I came to prefer. The roof of meaning, at any rate, was gone.
KEVIN
I don’t understand anything you’re saying
TERESA
I’m sorry this sucked. Sorry. Sorry. I’ve stopped being able to lie. Don’t tear yourself apart over this. There’s a war coming, dude.
KEVIN
What
TERESA
There’s a war coming. And I want you to be on the right side. I want you to be strong enough to fight. Remember your roots. You went to a school where you got wilderness training, where you spoke conversational Latin and locked your phone in a safe for four years and rode horses and built igloos and memorized poems while scaling mountains, and you were strong and you were one of us, and now look at you, you’re a pale American soy boy.
KEVIN
A pale what
TERESA
Just make a decision not to be weak anymore, and stick to it.
Am I sitting here amid boxes of chicken and snow-peas, beef and broccoli, gooey rice and the remnants of an eggroll dabbled in mustard and duck sauce, scribbling the thoughts of a madman? Or am I merely depraved? Are these the thoughts of a neurotic? A psychopath? Or am I just more honest than most? Smarter? Am I daring greatly? Or have I been cursed for violating a sacred trust older than Yoruba legend and Nippon lore? Am I the victim of the gods’ own jealous wrath? Eat of any tree in the garden, but you are damned if you eat of the fruit of the One Tree. Double-damned if you enjoy it. Triple-damned if you can’t get enough.
Damn.
HOME IS WHERE
I peek from the slit
between my forearms.
Them. They come.
Eyes in all the heads glow.
The flow
melts my arm flesh
Burgundy vessels drip
from bone.
The graveyard this time of year is nice. Damp orange yellow red leaves pile at the headstones for pillows. Place my head in leaves. Soil moist and black like chocolate cake and taste like worms. Arms spread legs spread wind crawls up my pants leg to pocket soft backs of knees. Slightly arched back anchors shoulders to my throat, jaw, head. Eyes fixed to the blue grey. Meanwhile. An old deer limps over, sits like a dog, licks my shoes.
“It was a misunderstanding,” her daughter said. “It was a cultural thing, actually.” And when Alice expressed skepticism about the need for cross-cultural understanding with rapists, Mandy said, “He’s not a rapist.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but if he raped you, he is a rapist.”
And Mandy said, “Don’t call him that, Mom. He’s my boyfriend.”
THERESA
I’m worried she’ll be a fish out of water.
ROBERTA
When do we meet her? When’re they movin’?
THERESA
Not now. Soon. We’ll see. They’re waiting to see if Mingjing can transfer jobs.
ROBERTA puts down her cookie.
ROBERTA
What’s her name?
THERESA
Minjung.
ROBERTA
Theresa.
THERESA sips tea.
THERESA
She’s in architecture, works for a big firm out there
ROBERTA
(indicating the under-eye skin) Those dark circles, no wonder.
THERESA
But she might give it up and teach.
ROBERTA
You seen her only once?
THERESA
Tim never said any—why would I think
ROBERTA
Such a rush.
THERESA
My brain’s exploded.
ROBERTA
I knew it: how far gone is she?
Note: A male actor plays the roles of both THERESA and her son TIM. A second male actor plays the roles of both ROBERTA and her son ROBBIE.
WOMAN 2: The first time I saw the devil was in the desert thirty-five kilometers north of Shaarm, a multi-national army base. The devil first appeared to me in the form of a huge scorpion but it took on many forms during our brief encounter, some of them insect, some of them human, and once as a desert turkey, which I came to prefer. The roof of meaning, at any rate, was gone.
KEVIN
I don’t understand anything you’re saying
TERESA
I’m sorry this sucked. Sorry. Sorry. I’ve stopped being able to lie. Don’t tear yourself apart over this. There’s a war coming, dude.
KEVIN
What
TERESA
There’s a war coming. And I want you to be on the right side. I want you to be strong enough to fight. Remember your roots. You went to a school where you got wilderness training, where you spoke conversational Latin and locked your phone in a safe for four years and rode horses and built igloos and memorized poems while scaling mountains, and you were strong and you were one of us, and now look at you, you’re a pale American soy boy.
KEVIN
A pale what
TERESA
Just make a decision not to be weak anymore, and stick to it.