Over the next few weeks, we'll be posting the winning entries from the 2010 Darien Library Teen Writing Contest.  This entry is The Harur Sun by Shruthi Raghuraman , who earned an Honorable Mention for Fiction  Grades 7-9 . 

If you would like to share your stories, poems or essays, email them to hmartyn@darienlibrary.org

The Harur Sun by Shruthi Raghuraman

The weather never changed in Harur. The sun ruled every month, refusing to step down
from its throne even after its sovereignty, blocking all chances of rain. Since each year
resembled the one before, time had little significance to the Harurian lifestyle which held a
proclivity to whispered news. Gossip was fed and kept in good shape by the regular milieu at
the street market, often preying on the melancholy Seshadri House in the South End where
even the crickets' euphony couldn't be heard. Every day, my friends and I would scurry past the
daunting house on our way to school. There would be loud, trembling whispers of how
someone saw a pair of eyes or witnessed the window creek open or heard a pianoforte inside
play with a haunting howl.

That day the first graders went to the playground after lunch to extinguish some of the
childhood energy. Lieta Parsleys told a story of a red-eyed ghost that lived in Seshadri House
and how it used deception and chicanery to lure people in. She had us all trembling and Tony
Verma cried the entire time. We soon got bored and went to sit in the shade where someone
witnessed lines of small ants. In Harur, ant lines were common and cherished by the children
for all the entertainment they provided when one stepped on them. There was laughter as the
lines corrupted and collided with each other.

Click the attachment to read more!