---

From Faust to Finish

by Shi Y, Arizona, USA, Age 16

The first thing I noticed was his eyebrow. In fact, it was the only thing in the photograph I saw for quite some time and I could scarcely take my eyes off that mangy white beast. At first, I didn’t understand what had captured me so, but as time progressed I gradually came to realize what it was. Of course, I knew it was something to do with that eyebrow; such a terrible sight as that could not be denied. But what made it so dreadful and yet so compelling was how it changed. One moment, I would glance at the black-and-white image of the corpulent man, and the expression of the eyebrow would be almost taunting, as if daring me on to a path too secret ever to be revealed. The very next instant, however, a genial country gentleman would be beaming back at me, the eyebrow raised in nostalgic recognition, and the second after that there would be nothing but malice in his flat gaze, which was only intensified by the unflinching scowl creeping along his brow.

I decided that the shutter of the camera had snapped at precisely the wrong time, catching the world in the single interval when orthodox was paradox and law was inconceivable, and in so doing, placed the moment forever above the unknowing eyes of Colonel Leonard Anderson, my elderly great-uncle. It was then that I understood my relative’s portrait and all that it represented was no longer an inconsistent mystery. It was a beginning.

I left all that I knew and loved, for I no longer desired the fare of normal man. I had glimpsed what I now sought; it was an intoxicating taste of the greatest freedom and the most evolutionary existence imaginable. I was on a quest; for what, I still do not know, but unfalteringly I continued my pursuit. Not even the news that a disastrous hurricane nearly decimated my hometown could deter my determination, nor the event of my own mother’s demise. I believe nothing save the Devil himself could have stopped me, for I believe, in truth, it was he whom I sought.

Unfortunately my story is not nearly as dreadful as all of that. Even the noblest of men must satisfy their most basic needs, and I was eventually forced to turn back at the persistent demands of my stomach.

I returned to find myself a fool. My childhood home and now-lost inheritance had been destroyed, in the hurricane I had once regarded as but a silly concern of mere man. And yet, here I now was, alone amidst the rubble of my once great family home. I was utterly dejected, and it was at the exact moment I lost all hope that I spied the edge of a much weathered but still recognizable photograph. I tore at it desperately, certain it was an omen for me to stumble across the picture at this exact moment. But when I looked to the familiar face, I cried out in horror, for there was nothing there. In my hands I held a disgusting portrait of an extremely ugly, elderly man with a disturbing tic above his right eye. It was Uncle Leo; only Uncle Leo.
And that was the end.