Rose Leffler
Bio
i like my boyfriend and airplanes and that’s it.
Stories (29/0)
Enron’s Whistleblower Never Blew the Whistle
Enron lived and died like a titan, ruling the world while it was alive and crushing everything around it when it fell. Five thousand employees lost their jobs three weeks before Christmas when the end of Enron came (Miles, 2021), and thousands more were left jobless when the company’s accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, came down with it (Bondarenko, 2021).
By Rose Leffler 2 months ago in Journal
Retreat at Camel Cove Lodge Part 7
Read Part 6 by Paula Shablo here. Some things just happen. The avalanche just happened. Everybody on the retreat just happened to be a volatile chemical in a vial of other volatile chemicals, and it looked like one of them was a catalyst—because Harpreet didn’t just happen to die. Not from a gunshot wound to the thigh and a second to the head.
By Rose Leffler 5 months ago in Fiction
A Longass Flight in a Little Airplane
Last summer, I rescheduled the long cross country flight required for a commercial license for a job interview, thinking it would make me look good. Then the aviation management people told me, “You’re a pilot so why are you applying for an aviation management internship?”
By Rose Leffler 6 months ago in Journal
Make Everest Great Again
When Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary became the first people to summit Mount Everest, they were, with good reason, optimists. Sixty-eight years later, their impossible achievement is routine, and conditions on Everest are unacceptable. Sherpas are treated like commodities. Inexperienced climbers are trying their hand at the tallest mountain in the world with few restrictions in place to stop them from putting themselves and others in danger. Expeditions often show little concern over their environmental impact. Things can change, but everyone on the mountain has to be open to change.
By Rose Leffler 6 months ago in Wander
Papa Fox
It's 2013. I'm an anime-obsessed tween in my eighth-grade English class listening to my teacher talk about commas or something (I probably should have paid more attention given the way I use them now). A few miles away, my dad is taking off in an airplane about the size of the average kayak. Before 9:00 AM, he's dead.
By Rose Leffler 8 months ago in Families
My Mountains and the People Who Inspired Me to Climb Them
Mount Everest is dumb and fascinating and beautiful and ugly and everything in between. When I got a chance to write an essay about anything I wanted during one of my university English classes, I chose Mount Everest and spent 4.5 months researching. I still consume all content about what is easily the worst mountain in the world, but I don’t admire the typical mountaineers like Edmund Hillary and . . . I don’t know any others. Alex Honnold? Does he count? Seriously, I don’t know any other western names, and I don’t understand why western names are the most famous. They struggle to every summit, meanwhile these guys are literally jogging up Mount Everest.
By Rose Leffler 8 months ago in Wander
Happy Birthday, Uncle Larry
Something evil overcame Larry on Thursday. It went like this: Larry, an Eagle Scout, a churchgoer, a part-time trombonist, systems analyst and news-watcher, was also a watcher of the neighborhood. Elbows pressed against the silver star in the center of the steering wheel, hands at something like 12:00 and 12:30, he passed through the Cottonwood Cove gate at a crawl (the gate kept out all the unsavory characters who might try skateboarding, or listening to loud music that wasn’t jazz, or doing drugs, or otherwise ruining the neighborhood). In front of the McMaynerberry house, the grass was an inch too long. Giraffe topiaries at the Bernards’ place had overgrown ears and tails. The Prescotts were patronizing a lemonade stand surely established without a vendor permit, as the proprietors were children. And, worst of all, the brown paper box meant for the Northrops was still an eyesore on the kitchen island. He’d hoped it would do away with itself. Just disappear when he came home. But the package didn’t have legs and nobody else in the house was using theirs, so there it stayed, ugly, beckoning, a curiosity with no return address or shipping information. Larry wanted it open. The problem was putting it back together.
By Rose Leffler 10 months ago in Fiction
Friendly World: Iceland
Reykjavík, the world’s northernmost capital, was named “smokey bay” by the Vikings for the steam rising from its geothermal vents. Pinned between the North American and Eurasian plates, the island is a geological hotspot, constantly growing thanks to its volcanoes. Two-thirds of Iceland’s tiny population of 360,000 live in Reykjavík, and the whole country feels like an idyllic small town where everyone knows each other. Or, as our tour guide put it, “Knows someone who knows someone.”
By Rose Leffler 10 months ago in Wander
Don't Eat the Chocolate Cake
Breakfast is coffee and a chocolate donut with rainbow sprinkles, paid for today by the gentleman across the counter. Nothing tastes better on a grey autumn morning. In all his neck-bearded glory, Wayne waves at me, and I raise my mug to him. Still trying to make up for bullying me in high school, I guess. I would tell him the statute of limitations for whitewashing me in mushy Oregon snow is long past, but I like free food as much as the next guy—provided it’s actually free. He leaves a bunch of cash on the counter, shoulders on the teal letter jacket he can’t button all the way up anymore, and leaves in a gust of cold air. My knee stops bouncing.
By Rose Leffler 10 months ago in Fiction
Blessings
The ships always come after the bonfire—great, shining leviathans carrying people from the far reaches. Some speak with the cadence of trickling water. Some wobble when they step out of the sea and into the sand. Some have gold around their necks, hanging from their ears, wrapped around their wrists, and the people who go ashore hand-in-hand have gold on their fingers. Papa has gold of his own, but he doesn’t wear it.
By Rose Leffler 10 months ago in Fiction
Where It’s Always Green
Little hands grab at the half-empty box of orange juice, and I can’t catch it this time. Katie’s eyes meet mine. My hand goes to my temple. All my frustration slips out in a sigh I can’t hold back, and then come the tears. She lost a game I never play willingly, a game she’s never lost before. Looks like this is the end of normal.
By Rose Leffler 11 months ago in Fiction
