“Do you have any idea what it feels like to suddenly realize that the reason you’ve have been so lost your whole life is because a piece of you was missing and you never even knew it—only to find that missing piece and know that you can’t have it and so you will never, ever be whole?” ― Olivia Fuller, Something Wicked
For our very first task, we would like you to write a self-para about something that your character has lost. Be it something like a stuffed bear from their childhood that they couldn’t use to sleep without, or a chance at telling their first love how they felt because of some unseen circumstance. Or, perhaps, a friend due to an argument that was never settled, or a parent who decided to leave. It can be anything they’ve lost, really! And there’s no minimum or maximum word count-- we urge you to write to your heart’s content!
Please tag all posts in relation to this task with #astortask, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send them our way!
Daniel is fourteen, and it has been three weeks since his mother was admitted for hospital care. She’s too sick to stay at home, they tell him, and even if he prefers coming home and seeing her in her own bedroom, rather than in the four stark white walls of the hospital room she was in, he doesn’t say anything. His grandmother is arriving tonight from Seoul, to help take care of his mother, she says, but for now, it’s just him and his eomma, and he’s giving her a recap of what happened at the English academy he usually went to after school.
“Dong-hee said they’ll be playing in Seoul in two months. I can watch, right, when we go for vacation?” He is showing his mother a picture of one of his favorite bands on his phone, and speaking as animatedly as he can in his mother tongue. He knows his mother reprimands him for speaking in dialect, constantly reminding Daniel that the best way to be comfortable with the English language is to always use it, and he always reasons that he’s got a good command of the language now anyhow, and it is exhausting having to speak it all the time. This time, however, his mother doesn’t say anything about it-- she simply smiles at her son, and nods her head in response to his question. “Do you think I could take Florian and Vera, too? I know they’ll want to watch the concert with me. They’ll ask permission from their parents, of course. Please?” He’s making plans for a vacation that he’s not even certai will happen. The trip had been postponed twice before, the doctor saying that his mother was too sick to travel, and Daniel knows that the possibility of it happening anytime soon was slim. Still, he makes plans.
“Do you have homework, Jong hyuk-a?” His mother finally says, and Daniel sighs good-naturedly. “I finished it at the academy, Eomma. So you’re not saying no to me taking Florian and Vera, right? I’m going to tell them now!” He takes his phone and begins typing a message, too excited to tell his friends of his news that he doesn’t see his mother shake her head in amusement at her son. The next two hours are spent with them watching television, and Daniel laughs way too hard at scenes that he doesn’t even find too funny, in the hopes that his mother would laugh beside him. She does, sometimes. But she falls asleep every now and then, and wakes up just after Daniel sees that she’s fallen into slumber. It isn’t until he feels her hand go limp around his that he realizes she’s fallen into a deep sleep this time, and Daniel turns the television off so his mother can sleep peacefully.
They fly to Korea two months later, but it isn’t the trip that Daniel was looking forward to taking. There was no Florian, or Vera, or Dong-hee, or a concert that he would go to. No, none of those. There’s just him and his father sitting next to each other in an airplane, both men not saying anything to the other. Daniel spends the entirety of the flight looking outside the window, absentmindedly fiddling with the hem of his coat. It’s hours before he finally stops feeling the urge to cry, and he realizes he’s pulled too much on his coat, that the stitching had come loose. He looked down at it in concern, and quickly hides it when he hears his father’s voice. For the first time in what felt like years. “Are you okay?” He nods, way too vigorously that he must seem suspicious. But whether or not his father catches on, he never finds out for they never speak to each other again on the flight.
It’s not too long until they’re at the hospital his maternal grandparents own in Seoul. He’s standing on one side of the room, his father at his side, sniffling as he bows in greeting when his paternal grandparents arrive. His father leaves him for a moment with a squeeze on the shoulder, telling him he’ll be back after helping his parents settle, and Daniel is left on his own for two minutes until his grandmother comes and takes him in her arms. Daniel cries again for the fifth time that evening, face buried in his grandmother’s arms as he weeps right next to a photograph of his mother, and the people around them watch in sympathy, whispering to themselves about the poor boy who had just lost his mother. Daniel doesn’t see them or hear their words. He just cries, his sobs shaking his entire body, and his grandmother holds him tightly as she, too, cries with him.
It is years since the funeral, and Daniel is coming home from school. There is no English academy that he has to go, and his phone rings constantly as his friends try to get him to hang out with them. He’s told them he’s tired, but really, he just wants to be alone. He is surprised, though, when he sees his father’s car in the driveway. He usually never came home this early, and Daniel still wonders why, but has never asked. He doesn’t go to see him, though. Daniel knows better than that; than to disturb his father whenever he was in his home office. And he rarely ever disturbs him, even when he isn’t. So he makes for the kitchen, wanting to make himself an afternoon snack before spending the rest of the time playing video games in his room. He’s half-way done with a sandwich when his father comes down and calls him, tells him that he needs to talk to him in his office. His brows furrowed, he takes the can of soda he had already opened and follows suit, knowing better than to ask questions until his father tells him what he’s called him for.
His father begins speaking about a college-- an Astor Academy?-- and how Daniel is to go there in the fall. He wants to say something, about how he’s planned to take a year off and spend some time in Seoul to see his grandparents, but his father continues to speak, leaving him no room to interrupt. He is handed an envelope, and Daniel wants to protest, but his father speaks again, and all the words disappear. He feels as if he doesn’t know to talk anymore as he listens to his father, and Daniel’s heart feels heavier in his chest at every word that comes out of his father’s mouth. “What? What?” He finally manages to say, but the second time he says the word comes out as a sob. His father repeats himself, and more tears run down Daniel’s cheeks at the lack of emotion in both his father’s face and tone. “I am not your father. It says so in the DNA test. I was going to tell you that your mother left that for us, but you were having such a hard time after she died.” His father clears his throat, and looks away. Daniel wants to scream at him to look him in the eye. But he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Why are you doing this? Do you hate me that much?” His father doesn’t respond, and Daniel tears the envelope up. “Why are you doing this?” he asks again, crying as he throws the ripped pieces of paper to the ground. He doesn’t even bother to read them, not wanting to believe what it says.
His father clears his throat again, and looks at Daniel levelly. His gaze is so stern, so somber that Daniel takes a step back. “It’s hard enough that your mother did this to me-- to us. Don’t make matters worse. Just go to the Academy. You’ll be provided with what you need, anyhow, just make sure you don’t tell anyone about this.” A scoff comes out of Daniel’s lips before he could even stop it, and he feels a sense of satisfaction that he was able to cause a slight show of emotion on his father’s face by that single scoff. But Daniel’s fighting a losing war, he knows this, and he kicks the nearby bookcase on his left before turning around to leave the room. He jumps at the sound of his father slamming his hand on the table and for a moment, Daniel hopes that his father tells him that this was all some sick joke, or that what the paper says doesn’t matter-- that he’s still his son, no matter what. And so he looks over his shoulder to him, cheeks tear-stained, but his mostly crying out of anger now, and he feels his rage rise when he sees his father fix his tie, and the last words he hear before finally leaving the room are, “Don’t embarrass me, Jong-hyuk.”
Another terrible nightmare. Andrew wakes up, sweaty and caught up in his sheets. His jaws and teeth hurt. His eyes are wet. His lungs are barely filled with air ( there’s a force on top of him that is compressing his chest ). Breathing is hard. He makes this guttural noise that he always do trying to catch his breath. Like a dying animal. In his head, it’s so loud. But in reality, it is not, and in the middle of the night, nobody hears him. Nobody knows.
Halloween party at Kelly’s house, said the text, as if Andrew wasn’t already at Kelly’s house. Kelly lived two blocks down the street. And she didn’t like being alone. She would often ask him to come to hers.
Today, he was helping her with the preparations of her party, along with two other of her friends. Though he was more interested in the alcohol than the decorations.
Drinking his beer while the three other girls were dressing him up for the Halloween costume party, after they’ve finished with the house. Andrew wasn’t very into dressing up, so Kelly choose for him his costume.
“You will be...” she said while going to the closet and getting a proper navy business costume. “Patrick Bateman ! right after he killed Paul Allen in American Psycho.”
Andrew froze. Then let a little fake laugh came out with his embarrassed grin. This was making him uncomfortable. Did she knew ?
Any idea of him being a cold blooded murderer, blood thirsty maniac, was hurtful and would start giving him anxiety. It would bring back memories of the day he lost his innocence, the day he became guilty. The one day that fucked all his life up.
His heart started to run faster, and his palms against his beer became sweaty. But he said nothing and let them dress him up. And do his hair. And put his make up on.
That was the worst part. Watching himself in the mirror was heartbreaking. Because he despited what he saw as much as he adored it.
They had put fake blood all over the right side of his face.
“Blood looks so nice on him.” commented Kelly.
“Fuck you. I don’t know how to live, I just know how to die.” was Andrew’s response to what he thought was an unnecessary comment. He was too concerned about having lost the weed he’d brought in for the party. He was asking every guest, pushing people to let him come through the humain wave. Searching under every fourniture, in every room. Fuck. It costed him a good amount of money, because he wanted to be nice and bring enough weed for his friends at the party, and for himself. He needed quite a few blunts at parties for him to have a good time. Before that, he would not be right. And that’s what Jamie told him. “Come on, mate! Have fun ! Try to live the moment !” But Andrew couldn’t. He needed the drug. And he couldn’t find it. And it felt like it was the end of the world. It felt like dying.
It felt like that day was coming back, was coming back to get him, right here, right now, on Halloween Day, when the world of the dead and the one of the living were merging. That day he ran between the trees, like he ran between the guests. But then, he was running away from something he did.
Was his father here ? Trying to punish him, to play with him, messing him up, for what he did years ago ? Andrew didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits. ( The only ghost he’s ever seen to this day was himself, and he only could see it as reflections in mirrors. )
Without thinking much, he went straight to the bathroom. He opened the door and slammed it after him. He went directly to the sink, his head, too heavy, looking down at his feet; his hands clutching the sides of the sink to prevent him from falling. He was shaking. Every time, right before he gazes at a mirror, he hopes to find the eyes of the boy he was before he lost everything.
He had to make a real effort to raise his head and confront what was looking right back at him in the mirror.
