Student Spotlight: May

A middle class suburb. Morning. Skeleton saplings skirt near identical two-story houses. May, 8-years-old, stands at her bedroom window and surveys her neighborhood through a pair of binoculars. Her mother hurries into her room. She is off to work and tells her daughter she won’t be home until late. Maybe they can watch a detective show together when she returns? May is dejected but used to being left on her own.
After her mother is gone, May packs her provisions, and her toy robot, her one companion, into her bag. She jumps down the stairs, locks the front door, and runs down the quiet street. She inspects an abandoned creamsicle, screams into a storm drain, and sorts through cigarette butts before she comes across something unexpected – caution tape strung across a back gate. She slips into the cordoned off backyard and into the mystery house. Upstairs she discovers the aftermath of a suicide in the master bedroom.
May hides in the closet and watches, terrified, when two crime-scene cleaners arrive to dismantle the scene. They collect bone fragments and carry the mattress out of the room. When May exits the closet, she is caught by one of the cleaners. May follows him out of the house and bolts when he begins to ask her questions. She runs as fast as she can until she can no longer run. As the sun begins to set, she walks home trying to process all that has just happened.
May is in bed when her mother returns home. “Did you solve any mysteries today?” she asks. May is quiet and her mother doesn’t pry, but lies down next to her. May finally relaxes, curls into her mother, and closes her eyes.