The Lambda Ampersand Award for LGBTQIA+ Writing is provided in partnership by Lambda Literary and the National English Honor Society (NEHS). The award recognizes outstanding creative writing by NEHS student members representing or celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community. We’d like to congratulate Sullivan Givens, author of “Beneath the Garden” as a winner of the 2025 award.
BENEATH THE GARDEN
by Sullivan Givens, Maryland
**This requires two people to read or a single person in two voices. The conversation in front of you is between a father and his son. They live in a time of great peril, and the two find themselves hidden from those who want them dead. The father is resourceful, taking his son down into the deeper levels of the city and, after finding a large underground garden full of carrots and herbs, they tuck themselves into a small bunker. It is here where the story begins, the son on the left and the father on the right:
Right here?
How long?
Will they come?
Them.
And if they do?
Run?
Run where?
Why are they chasing us?
What makes us different?
How is that different?
Yes, here.
Not long.
Who?
Them? Maybe.
We run.
Yes, run.
I don’t know.
Because we are different.
We are not them.
Because we are not them.
I hear them, still.
Big boots, big boots.
I hear their guns.
I feel the screams.
We need to help.
Yes, before the boots get them.
Stomping on the skulls.
Trekking through the mud.
Where is the justice?
Stomping around?
Clackity clack.
Fire away.
Of the innocent dying.
Help how? Help them?
Clackity clack.
Clackity clack.
Clackity clack.
Clackity clack.
Is it true?
That they took away our rights?
No one. It is only what I see.
But why? We are human.
How could this happen?
And they killed us for it?
But we are peaceful.
And we are good.
So how do we fix this?
And if we fail?
People like us…
And above we cannot…
There will be tests…
But we can never give in…
So be the difference…
Hold it in your hands…
They can never take away…
So long as you protect…
Is what true?
And who told you that?
Then yes, it’s true.
Not to them.
They didn’t want change.
And they killed us for it.
Not to them.
Not to them.
We fight.
Then we will fight harder.
While small, are strong…
Give our freedom away…
And sometimes tragedy…
To what they say…
Be the light people find…
And hold it up high…
What makes us different…
What’s inside.
To learn more about the Ampersand Awards, visit: nehs.us/awards-grants/student-opportunities/lambda-lgbt-award/
