Fear

by Samantha Mandell

She stopped teaching kindergarten because the sounds of children screaming reminded her of horror movies. She stopped eating in restaurants because she was afraid of contracting a bacteria-born disease from poorly washed dishes and silverware. She canceled the plan on her cell-phone because she heard a story about tumors from cell-phone radiation on the news. She stopped watching television because of stories like the one about cell-phone radiation. As she grew older, her world became scarier. In November, she stopped breathing because it was the only thing she had left, and she was afraid of the solitude.

6S

Samantha Mandell is an English major with a Creative Writing emphasis at the University of California, Davis. She tells people that she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, but really she wants to be a writer.