20100202

Just Sixteen

by Katya Zhukova

Her quivering hand stretched out for the cigarette and gently grasped it, while the three sneering boys looked mischievously at one another. "You'll like it, I promise," said one. She deeply inhaled, coughing ferociously, tears swelling up in her clear, curious eyes. She coughs now too: she pants and fights for her last gulps of that all-too-clean, hospital air. Her hands still shake, not from the cold, but because of her fragile, aged body. All alone, weak and powerless, trying to remember: why had she ever done it in the first place?

6S

Katya Zhukova dreams of being an eminent artist, even though she has trouble drawing stick-figures.