Below are the responses to the Sage Challenge for May 2025.
Previous Challenge results were published in individual issues of the SouthWest Sage. Links to those issues (February 2023 to the present) are on the Sage News page. SWW Members have full access to the Newsletter Archives that begin in 2004. Go to the Sage Challenge page for details about the current Challenge open to SWW members.
THE MAY SAGE WRITING CHALLENGE:
A Vacation to Remember!
We asked for stories up to 750 words about a vacation taken, would like to take, or can only imagine taking. It can be real or imaginary. It can be fiction, or non-fiction, and any genre.
Below are the stories and poetry submitted for this month’s Sage Challenge. The stories and poems below are by SWW members:
- The Graveyard Window by Dita Dow
- Un sogno d’Italia by Ed Johnson
- Summer in the Suburbs by Rose Marie Kern
The Graveyard Window
Scotland, Summer 1986
By Dita Dow
It was meant to be a farewell to childhood—
a last soft breath before the leap.
Two weeks with my parents,
drifting through the spine of Britain,
from London’s clamor
to Scotland’s quiet, waiting soul.
We followed narrow roads
past hedgerows and heather,
through towns that spoke in stone
and ruins that whispered stories
no one had the heart to finish.
But it was the manor that found me.
It rose from the hills like something left behind
by a century that forgot how to die—
all gray bones and ivy veins,
its silence thick, as if listening
for something that had not spoken in years.
We were the only ones staying that night.
The air felt still. Too still.
The innkeeper’s smile was gentle,
but her eyes…
they flicked to the attic staircase
as though remembering a sound.
My room sat just beneath the sky,
pressed close by timber and slate,
a place for dreaming—or for keeping secrets.
The floor groaned beneath me,
the glass of the window old and wavy,
like water frozen mid-sigh.
And beyond it—
the graveyard.
I hadn’t noticed it when we arrived.
But now it stretched wide and solemn
behind the garden wall,
etched in dusk and quiet dread.
Stones, crooked with age,
names nearly swallowed by lichen and time.
An arch stood broken,
framing the last blue of the evening sky
like the remains of a cathedral
that once tried to reach God
and never quite succeeded.
I stared until the dark took it,
and even then, I could not look away.
That night, the manor breathed.
Floorboards shifted with no weight.
A sigh curled through the hallway
where no one walked.
And in the silence between heartbeats,
I could feel it—
not fear exactly,
but a kind of reverent awe,
as if I were not alone,
as if something ancient had stirred
just to let me know
it was still here.
I lay awake,
my eyes drawn again and again
to the black pane of glass
where the graveyard slept.
Who were they, I wondered?
Beneath the stone, beneath the earth—
and had they truly gone?
Or were they simply waiting
for someone to see them again?
That was the night I fell in love
with the haunted places—
the spaces where silence grows deep roots,
where the past does not rest,
but hums gently through the walls
like an old song with no words.
And ever since, I’ve chased that hush—
that breath between this world and the next.
I walk where spirits linger,
drawn to the forgotten, the cold, the still.
Not for fright, but for wonder—
for the beauty in what lingers,
in the shadows that remember,
and the quiet promise
that nothing truly leaves us.
Un Sogno d’Italia
by Ed Johnson
In my dream I enter an empty plaza with a fountain in the middle and go to it.
A woman screams in Italian.
“Attenzione!”
Beware! I think she’s saying and I look back. She’s on a balcony, waving wildly.
“Terremoto!”
Earthquake? I don’t understand. The ground is still. I ignore her and head to the other end of the square where there is a small art gallery. I peak inside and find paintings on the walls, on chairs, on the floor. There’s a slim staircase and I climb its creaking steps. At the top is another room with paintings on the walls, on chairs, on the floor. But there’s no one there.
I head back to the plaza. The woman’s gone. I am alone.
I wake not knowing where I’ve been.
Years later, I leave my simple Albuquerque home to visit Italy, a place that’s intrigued me, perhaps because of my youth as an altar boy in the Roman Catholic Church, or perhaps because of my fascination with “The Godfather” — both the novel and the film.
In Rome, I venture from my hotel and get lost.
“Mi scusi,” I say to a man selling flowers from a cart, and I ask him if he knows of my hotel.
He grumbles a few words and points in various directions until I nod.
“Grazie.”
After a half hour and numerous turns down various streets, I’m back in front of the florist.
“I’m sorry. Scusa.”
Grudgingly, he repeats his directions and histrionics and I’m off. A half hour later, I freeze. I again come upon the man with the flowers and I sheepishly back away, hoping he has not seen me. Alas, he scolds me with voice and arms.
In Florence, I walk the streets Michaelangelo walked. In Assisi, I hike the forest St. Francis hiked. In Milan, I stand before a wall inside a convent where Da Vinci imagined the Last Supper. In Verona, I look up at the balcony that allegedly inspired Shakespeare’s Juliet. On a bus in Pisa, local kids identify me as an American tourist and ask me to converse with them in English to help them better their studies.
In Venice, I get lost.
I enter an empty plaza with a fountain in the middle and go to it. I sense something familiar, something odd. As I reach the fountain, I hear a woman’s voice — not a scream, not a warning. I look back and at the far end of the plaza a woman happily sings in Italian as she hangs laundry from her balcony.
I listen for a bit as my mind tries to make sense. It’s like the dream, but it’s not. It’s thrilling and a little scary.
Sure enough, at the other end of the piazza is a small art gallery. I peak inside and find paintings on the walls, on chairs, on the floor. And yes, there’s a slim staircase. But before I get three steps up, a hefty bearded man clomps down the stairs.
“Cosa vuoi?” he asks.
“What do I want?”
What I want is to tell him about my dream. I want him to explain it. Surely he would know, or else why would he be here.
But I have no words. Not in English. Certainly not in Italian.
“Scusa,” I say and hurry away.
That night, I try to fall sleep in the hotel where Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe and Gregory Peck had once stayed. Had I intruded on the vision, or had the vision intruded on me?
I close my eyes, not knowing what dreams would come.
Summer in the Suburbs
by Rose Marie Kern
I grew up in suburbia – Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Louisville – they were all pretty much the same. Paved streets shaded by overhanging branches, and illumined by yellowish streetlights that attracted clouds of moths and bugs each evening. Ranch style homes boasted big yards with no fences. Every Saturday, Dad and the neighbor took turns mowing a long strip along the mostly undefined boundaries.
A big metal barrel along the back of the property was where we burned our paper trash, and garbage was picked up from the stinky, smelly trash can set outside once a week. Luckily I had four sisters, so there were a lot of hands sharing the dishwashing duties. My brother, being a guy, was excused from kitchen work. (But he did have to take out the trash and feed the dog!).
Every morning Mom slathered peanut butter and jelly on Wonder Bread, folded each sandwich in a napkin, put them in paper bags and handed them to us as we ran out the door to the school bus stop. Breakfast was a bowl of cereal, drinks were kool-aid or ice tea. Dinner was usually something high in carbs like tuna and noodles, meatloaf and potatoes, or spaghetti. Once a week, if we were lucky, we got to go to Burger Chef for dinner – FRENCH FRIES and COLAS!
In the mid 60’s I was only 10 years old, so the whole sex, drugs, peace, rock n’roll thing pretty much bypassed me. Mom loved musicals, so my siblings and I could belt out Rogers and Hammerstein tunes in three part harmony while riding in the station wagon to a weekend camping vacation..
Mom made the most of her sewing machine by creating matching dresses for herself and all five daughters. We all had “pixie” haircuts – the short style was cute as well as practical.
Advances in technology that made life easier was wonderful. For years during the summer, my siblings and I would sleep on the floor of the living room or hallway – wherever we could find a cool spot. Air conditioning was installed about the time I got into high school – Wow!
One of the most welcome innovations was the plastic bag. Finally, a “clean” way of disposing of trash! Sandwich bags had foldover tops at first. When the Ziploc type closures were added, Mom would buy a box and wash them by hand until they could not be used any more.
Dad taught us basic math by playing cards. We learned cribbage, hearts and the very best – canasta! To this day one of the great pleasures I have when visiting my family are the crazy canasta games. There is a wild exhilaration as the discard pile grows, you toss your card on top – can your opponent snag it or will the pile survive until your next opportunity to seize enough cards to create a canasta and end the game while the other team is still struggling to open!
Though we moved a lot when I was younger, being one of six kids meant that you always had someone to play with. We were the core of the neighborhood football team. I was devastated when I turned thirteen and my parents told me that I was now confined to “touch” football just because I was a girl. Heck, I was the best halfback in the neighborhood!
After Dad got home from work we’d have dinner then we’d watch TV. There were only three or four channels, Dad’s favorites dominated our evening. First there were the westerns, Maverick, Branded, Bonanza, Rawhide – at 8 years old I could sing all the theme songs. Then came detective and legal shows – Perry Mason, Dragnet, Mannix, Hawaii 5-0, Car 54 Where Are You?. On Sundays Dad would settle on the couch to watch football. I learned how to make perfect popcorn – just the right amount of oil at the bottom of the pot with just the right temperature and a cup of kernels. I listened until the popping slowed to a pop every second and a half, then whisked it off the stove and into the big blue ceramic bowl. I would bet him a dime a game and Dad always let me pick the team.
We are all grown now, with families of our own, scattered across the country. But when summer interrupts our kids school schedules, we still gather together to enjoy a meal and talk, watch the kids play baseball and play canasta.