Yoooo, what’s thiiis??

Really, almost exactly as it sounds — this is a tag where you basically write a story (lol). This one’s TPAB’s idea of, not just a chain, but a celebration (if you will) of our existence as ani-bloggers (or really bloggers in general). You see, as content creators in this field, we constantly immerse ourselves in a myriad of narratives (in the form of anime, or whichever our preferred medium is) as a pretense to our writing. Very rarely is it the inverse; that we write in our preferred medium to envelop other people in our own narratives; our own stories.

Ours are a fleeting existence. People come and go on a whim (as is the nature of having individual spaces such as blogs). I myself have lapsed between in-existence for the better part of my stay here so I should know. TPAB’s vision is to capture as much of this continuum as we can. To encapsulate a community in stasis — by electing them, nay us, to showcase our individual creativity to the fullest for a time. And so we invite you to write a story. Your story – as we have here. (TPAB explains it a bit more /and better, on his end)

The specifics will be as follows (copied directly from TPAB’s post):

1. You pick your “word”, your setting and your story genre from the list below. As individuals, your brand of creativity is unique to yours, so we want to highlight that by letting you choose from a bunch of words and creating something beautiful out of it. Yes, some people will choose the same combination as others but I guarantee you each story will be unique as per the individual. The options are really just there to cater to you specifically. You can challenge yourself, you can work with your strengths or you can take creative risks. It’s all up to you and how you express your creativity.

Now, we do understand that some of the options are broad or vague, but Keiko explains that creative writing excels on vague stuff. Basically, how you interpret the choices is part of the creativity. After all, this is your unique brain spinning a unique story, so by all means, go f*cking nuts.

2. The short story will have a limit of 1000 words. You do not need to write a story with 1000 words exactly. It could be 300, or 500 as long as it doesn’t surpass a thousand. Easy enough, right? I do know writing a short story with a max of 1000 will be tough. I’ve already written my story, and I had to constantly edit this. So, why the word limit? To be frank, we want to avoid people overthinking this challenge. It’s not about how you stack up to other people. It’s not about your sentence construction or your grammar skills, and it’s not about wowing people with your talents. It’s none of that. It’s about a celebration of your uniqueness and your creativity. There is only one YOU, and this YOU will create a story that truly represents you.I work with a lot of people on a daily basis, and I know a lot of young people think like perfectionists. They want whatever they do to be perfect or majestic, and please set that thinking aside. Your flaws are part of your uniqueness, so just write a story that stays true to you. 1000 words is short enough for people to actually read it, trust me, so just make a story that represents you.

3. YOU HAVE TWO WEEKS TO ANSWER THE TAG. This is honestly just another way to ensure none of you overthink this. It’s not supposed to be your magnum opus. It’s just a fun short story to share to people. If you cannot answer within two weeks, the tagger can tag other people.

4. Lastly, you must tag three people to participate. Keiko will collect all the short stories and compile them into one giant hub featuring all the stories.

5. Don’t forget to link back to Keiko (use her latest post for now) so she can collect all the stories. You can’t just link back to her wordpress, since she won’t be alerted of the pingback. You need to link back to a post or a page, because wordpress works like this.

6. Use the Create-A-Story picture in the post. I don’t really know why, but a lot of tags do this so might as well, right? But seriously, it’ll mostly help people recognize all the Create-A-Story tag posts.

7. Copy and paste the rules in your tag post as well, so others can be clued in to the Create-A-Story rules.

OKAY. With that out of the way, do lend me some of your time as I present to you my story using the prompts Rain, Streets, and Tragedy, with the title —

---

Of Yesterday

It rained that day too.

“Em definitely set us up don’t you think? She said she invited everyone to go to the amusement park, but was that even true? Like, there’s no way we’re the only ones that were able to go right? Ah, I guess it’d been raining pretty bad the past week.. I wasn’t even gonna go.. “

The soft pitter-pattering sound of rainfall made its way inside the room. Raindrops had started to trace wayward streaks of water on the window pane. Outside the sky was grimly overcast. I moved a bit closer to the window. Close enough that without even trying my breath could fog up the glass. It felt cool to the touch as I wiped it down with the side of my hand.

“But.. I guess… I’m glad I did though. Go, I mean. You were there too so… Oh, it’s raining again? Yesterday was such bad timing… my parents had to pick me up too. Haha… Sorry about that…”

Not like there had been much to see anyway — save maybe for the cluster of people cramming themselves inside the only bus stop in the immediate vicinity; must be the unlucky lot who didn’t bother to bring umbrellas on what had otherwise been the sunniest week of this year thus far.

“..K? Are you alright?”

My consciousness snapped back to inside the room, as I’m reminded that I haven’t been entiely alone over the course of my reverie. I shut the curtains and went back to my seat by her bedside. Adi sat up from her covers and gave me a look.

“You’re acting weird.”

“Am I?”

“I dunno, you look like you have something on your mind.”

“I’m just tired is all. From yesterday, I mean.”

Her eyes, two shining pools of black, stared me down with inquiry. I met her gaze. Unwavering. She always did have a sharp intuition for these kinds of things. I wasn’t really lying though.

“Yeah, I get what you mean.”

Having deemed me to have been fully honest with her, Adi breathed sigh of relief.

“I didn’t realize it until I got into our car but I was spent. I passed out immediately. I don’t even remember getting up to my room. …..It was fun though right?”

“It was. It was the best day of my life.”

A pillow zoomed past my head. She missed this time.

“Sarcastic much?”

“No, I mean it.”

“Okay, what was your favorite part?”

“Let’s see… Probably when we rode the Ferris Wheel and the carriage stopped at the very top. We held hands, and then we-“

“Ah- ah- stop stop!”

She got up to her knees; her face now with a slight tinge of red as she groped around her bed looking for something else to throw. At a loss, she curled up on her side and turned her back to me. Ah, it was this pattern.

“Anyway, I should head out. The rain might get worse.”

I stood up, picked up her pillow and placed it on her bed. Adi rolled to face me. Her face was still red as she reached out a hand to tug at my sleeve. I held her hand. It was warm and soft to the touch.

“…Do you really mean it?”

“Yes. I do. It was the best day of my life.”

The purest of smiles wove across her face. I instinctively smiled back. I couldn’t help myself. She was so beautiful. My heart felt like it was about to burst.

“Mine too. Just -”

I tried my best to fight back the tears that had began to well up in my eyes. I knew what she was about to say.

“- I wish it hadn’t rained. We could’ve spent so much more time together. Now here I am with a fever because of it.”

I do too. But I don’t say it. Instead I gave her a nod, helped her rest her head on her pillow, and tucked her in.

“Get some rest. I’ll come see you again tomorrow.”

“Mm.”

ーー

Closing the door behind me, I was greeted by a familiar face.

“Done with your visit?”

The lady asked. She was nice. Nicer than the previous one at least.

“Yeah, she’s all yours Doc.”

I gave her a curt bow and made my way out of the facility.

Through the halls I could hear the TV from the guest lobby.

— after yesterday’s unprecedented heatwave to cap off the summer, it appears we’ve now finally come into a bit of a rainy season……

It was the weather report.

ーー

“She said she invited everyone to go to the amusement park, but was that even true?”

Em didn’t set anything up. It was all me. I wanted to get Adi all to myself. I confessed my feelings to her that day. A day that was cut short when it rained.

“Oh, it’s raining again?”

Their car veered off the road and crashed into a cement barrier. Police reports say the roads were just too slick at the time because of the rain. Both she and her parents survived, but –

“I passed out immediately”

Adi in particular had ended up suffering from severe head trauma resulting in permanent short-term memory loss. She can no longer retain memories past that day. Her last memories are of that day — of yesterday.

“I don’t even remember getting up to my room.”

I heard about the crash right away. I wasn’t able to see her until after a couple of weeks after the fact. Her parents were reluctant to let me at first. But they did eventually/ I knew though that if I told them that I was the one that called her out that day they would have kept her as far away from me as possible — as they did with Em.

I’ve been visiting Adi every day since at a facility specializing in cognitive rehabilitation in the outskirts of town, which she believes to be just a regular hospital.

ーー

“…Do you mean it?”

Today marks my 97th visit.

“Yes. I do. It was the best day of my life.”

No, I don’t. It was the worst day of my life.

“I wish it hadn’t rained. We could’ve spent so much more time together.”

I do too.

But I don’t say it.

---

So… what’d you think? Any good? 😀

I wanted to experiment a bit with some literary tricks that I haven’t really tried using before so apologies if it seems a bit loose — and of course, constructive criticism is very much welcome if you think I could’ve delivered the story better (like, I know exposition might be a bit weak for starters, since that has always been my weak suit in all my writing).

Ah, I don’t think I ever talked about it before on this blog but I was actually a check-box away from become a Creative Writing major, no joke (xD). So do tell me whether or not I made the right decision in not pursuing that course way back (lol) when in the comments section down below!

For this, I’ll be tagging Carriage (of ACarriageReturn), Al (from SliceOfAlfredo) and PhoenixTalksPopCultureJapan’s Rise.