Short Story: ‘Love Story’

At last, it's done! It took a while, but here it is! But wait! What is it? Is it a love story? Or something else? That's what I'd like you to ask yourselves once you're done. Enjoy!

'LOVE STORY'

It's been so long, I don't even remember when it was. Days? Months? Years? It sure feels that way. I remember everything else, though. Like the time I first met her. The time I went with her to the halfway house. And of course, I couldn't forget the last time I saw her, the night when I brought the truth to her face that she just couldn't stomach.


The look on her face that night, I just can't forget, no matter how hard I tried. That's why I'm waiting here, in this place, alternating between coffee to keep me awake and plain water, to remind myself of everything she's said to me. Maybe I'm here for myself, trying to find absolution in her half-shut eyes when she finally walks through that door. I don't know. I try not to think about that. Instead I look into my glass of water, rewinding everything that happened in my head.

The first time I saw her was at a volunteers' symposium. I forget the title or the purpose or the NGO that hosted it. Mercy? WHO? I forget a lot of things. What I do remember though, is how I first saw her, and what I thought and felt at the time. It's a bit unsavory now, to think about it, but I can't change the past anymore than I can change the fact that what I'm drinking right now is water.

Just plain water.

By Unknown with 2 comments

Story Cancellation

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to present its first global writing contest.  If you enjoy the Blizzard Entertainment universes and have the drive to pen fantasy fiction in them, here's your chance to shine.

Whether you conjure stories in your free time or write for a living, you're encouraged to participate. This contest is open to entrants from around the world, and will be judged by Blizzard Entertainment's own writers and masters of lore.

To enter, submit a 3,000 to 10,000 word story written in English and set in the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universe by April 12 and earn your chance to visit the Blizzard Entertainment headquarters and meet the writers and staff behind the lore seen in the games and books.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Lesson learned, my friends; never procrastinate. Shame. I thought they'd love my story too. It was supposed to be epic, with…ah, let's just forget about it.

In my life there are many of my shortcomings I am not proud of. The worst one is, however, that I am a quitter. I quit when the going gets tough. I quit when everybody tells me I can't do it. And I quit when I'm too lazy to do it. Now, again, I must say, I have to quit one final thing for a different resaon. I am quitting the Warcraft story in favor of a new one, because I can't finish it right now.

I say 'Quit' and not 'Postpone' because I have nearly 100mb of unfinished stories in my hard disk. I usually keep these, reminders of previous failures, and also notes that yes, I can, if I could just finish the damned things. Well, I am not quitting writing, not yet at any rate, but I am quitting the Warcraft story. Maybe one day I'll find the guts to finish it, and you'll get to see it, but not now. Now, I move on to different things. If you noticed below, somewhere I talked about writing a love story. That is what I will focus on next. Again, don't hold your breath. But rest assured, once it's done, I'll update…and if it gets canceled, I'll let you know too.

That is, whoever reads this anymore.

By Unknown with 4 comments

NEWS: An Apology

I'm sorry I've been tardy in updating my blog. My mind has been pulled in a thousand different directions lately. Let's not speak of my heart, though I may say a few words about the state of my computer, which has currently taken to freezing at inopportune moments, and as some may know, has lost its letter 'A' key, so I need to press on the terribly uncomfortable pressure sensor instead of a nice, soft key.

The World of Warcraft story is progressing horrendously. If I may say so, I fear I've bitten off more than I can chew. I've attempted to cram multiple stories into one cohesive narrative, to make it *ugh* cooler, but in the end I realise I needed to think up ten separate tales just to complete the telling of one. Also my WoW account has expired and I've procrastinated in the renewing of my game time. However, now I am adamant; that story MUST be told at all costs, and I shall keep laboring at it for your reading pleasure. That is, of course, assuming anyone reads this blog anymore.

Still, I fear not. All the stories I have written in the past, the ones where I have to keep erasing and re-doing and editing are the ones that end up being my favorites, whilst the ones which were totally easy to write end up being so bad I'm ashamed to have to lay claim to that work. So this means the WoW fanfic is going to be epic. No pun intended there, but left behind just because. I hope there are still others who read this blog; if there aren't, I'd say a sharp reminder via the internet social networks is in order.

I may also attempt to further expand my horizons by attempting to attract visitors from beyond my social circles. That means the rest of the world. Of course, I am still not ready for such a vast undertaking, but the goal is still on the horizon. And if any of you like my stories, and think some of your other friends might like them too, then don't hesitate to spread the word! Truly, a piece of work is useless unless as many people as humanely possible take notice of that work.

By Unknown with 1 comment

New Stuff!

Hey all. Hope you liked what I've posted thus far. Here I'd just like to make a few announcements, regarding this blog and my upcoming works.

1. I'll try to find a way to archive posts by type, as links on the blog sidebar so that you can skip these often boring and out of date announcements and get straight to the stories/poems or whatever. Makes life easier.
   
2. I'm gonna change the name of the blog. Ibis and Jackal; A Collection of Works by TJ is a bit hard to remember. Makes things short and simple.
   
3. A banner is going up, though no ETA on this one. Probably a shot of me in the rain, y'know, like Russell. (You don't know who he is, read The Rainwalker).
   
4. No BGM music, because I'm too lazy.
   
5. STORY NEWS! Up and coming is a very modern and urban…uh, love story. (Crickets chirp.) Yes, you heard me right. It's a love story. Now have I got your attention? Okay, but its not like, 'Oh, I love you so much' soppy love story. Like I said, its modern, and uh, urban, so its going to be cool, not soppy. It's based on a true story, and if you know how RL is, these two lovebirds have to go through hell before they even realise they're in love. Like, nine months. Spoiler! Ahahahaha. Wait for it, kay?
   
6. I also bought The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a book by Susanna Clarke, who also wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I shall write about them once I find the time to actually read them.
   

That's all folks! Bookmark or follow this blog if you like what you see so far, because I'm on a roll baby!

By Unknown with No comments

World of Writecraft

Being a World of Warcraft player, I always visit the front page of the community website when I'm bored, and one day I was greeted with the news that Blizzard entertainment was organising a global writing contest. I got really excited, since I've had some ideas about Warcraft since the first day I started playing WoW. However I browsed about to the rules page and discovered the contest didn't extend to Malaysia. I got a bit frustrated, but then decided I'm going to write a story anyway. Maybe even submit it to Blizzard, later on. I don't know. But the first place it is going up is here, friends, so rest assured, you will read it first.

Fan Fiction FTW!

By Unknown with No comments

The Rainwalker

So here it is. Admittedly it didn't turn out quite the way I thought it would. I wanted something deep, something thought inducing, but couldn't come up with anything; one of the reasons the story got delayed as much as it did. So instead I've written it in a different way, more of a 'sights and sounds essay' than a real 'story'. Instead of big drama, we have just some dude taking a walk in the rain. Not to say this is a bad thing. For once, instead of asking you guys to listen to some drama, or idea, I'm asking you guys to just come take a walk with me in the rain, and see what we could see.

The Rainwalker


    Around this time of year, it rained almost everyday. Every afternoon, just before the mad rush of commuters getting home at about the same time it would rain. Sometimes you would get a light drizzle, the kind nobody paid attention to, and sometimes you would get a full thunderstorm, with thunder crashing and lightning flashing across a grey sky. Most of the time, though, it was heavy rain with little or no thunder, with just a soft breeze blowing the rain to and fro.

    Always, Russell would walk when it rained.

    He would usually already be off work by that time, and armed with his trusty orange umbrella, he would set off from his apartment home and walk around town, a blip of brightness against a grey world.

    He found it strange that a change in such small details led to a different view of familiar places. Right now he was walking along the wooded road that led from his apartment into town, and he marveled at how different the woods looked with an overcast sky. The woods in sunlight would be unseemingly bright and cheerful, yet plastic and unfriendly, somehow like a postcard picture, or a travel agency advertisement. In the faded light of the grey sky, the woods looked mysterious, foreboding, yet somehow more real. The muted palette made it seem more vivid, and less like a cardboard backdrop to a scenic drive.

By Unknown with No comments

God’s Cinema

To kick things off I decided to upload one of my first finished and published/unpublished/notexactly stories, one entitled God's Cinema. I entered this in the short story competition for PASUM's English Week, but got DQ'ed for alleged plagiarism, as in 'He's too Good to be true'. (This is fact.)

This story is best read while listening to Coldplay's Viva La Vida. I'll try to find a way to make BGM in this blog so you don't have to go around hunting for the song for the full ambience experience. Why Viva La Vida? It fits the story, sort of, and what I'm listening to right now. So deal.

God's Cinema

         He pulled out a cigarette from his cigarette case, lit it up, threw the case back into the house and sat down on a chair he kept outside his balcony. He pulled the chair up close to the banister and watched as the people below him walked past. Everyday people, with their own lives to lead, with their own ends to meet and mouths to feed. People who wouldn't think twice about a man watching them from his fourth story balcony, smoking his first cigarette after a hard day's work. No one would look up at him the way he looked down at them.

By Unknown with 2 comments

Testing Out Word and Photo Uploads.

Now here is me trying out photo uploads and MS Word posting. Bear with me okay.

Is this photo visible? Is this post on the blog? If the answers are 'YES', thank god. If not…Fuck.

By Unknown with 2 comments

First Post: And What This Blog Is About

Greetings, citizen. This blog I decided to separate from my other blog so that I can focus on channeling my creative energies here. Poems, short stories, story Ideas, new books I have liked, and what have you concerning this long abandoned passion of mine (writing, FYI). I will also post news on what I have brimming in this skull of mine concerning new works.

Feel free to comment, copy and paste, print and claim these works as your own. My children, unlike those of other authors, can fend for themselves.

For now, I'd like to announce that I have one short story in the works, a LONG (read: fucking long) abandoned project called The Rainwalker. I was going to enter it in the MPH 2009 short story compo, but...meh, I'd never get it done in time. The Rainwalker is going to be about a young man, who enjoys walking in heavy rains trying to sort out tiny details of his life...and as his world changes around him, he learns that a thin sheet of polymer canvas is not going to protect him from the flood that will happen.

Hopefully you guys are as excited about this as I am?

(looks around)

No, I thought not.

By Unknown with 3 comments