Tag: 10-min fiction

Teacher – (10 min)

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prompt: a mentor or a teacher during a tumultuous adolescent years

I stared him straight in the eye and asked him: how do you get by when you have so much challenge? He didn’t say anything for a while. And then he said: “just ask for help.”

Mr. T was my homeroom teacher when I was in high school. Having moved from a different country, I was still unfamiliar with how the American school worked. I pretended to fit in, but probably most kids already knew that I did not fit in.

At that time, I think I was tormented by some thoughts. In retrospect, I suspect it was loneliness. It is not surprising that loneliness had such a strong grip on me at the time. I was isolated at home from the world outside that seemed too different from me. The language they spoke, the way they looked, and their culture were all different from what I was used to. The difference hurt. Just being exposed in the air at sight was a threat. A few seconds in exposure, and then you are followed with curious eyes catching every little move that you make. At an age where relationships with fellow students matter the most, it was a challenging place to be.

Besides a few things, I mostly stayed indoors, often watching tv shows or movies. I wasn’t the friendliest person to hang out with at school. I often felt inappropriate, awkward, and ashamed. I recall many instances of awkward interactions with my peers. I agonized over what others had said, worried about what others might think of me while trying to control myself, which seemed to be overstimulated by the internal chemical influx.

So it is surprising to remember this vivid interaction I had with Mr. T. It was an earnest question: “what do you do when you are in such a tragic situation?” I don’t remember what drove me to ask Mr. T such a question. I remember standing in the middle of the vast green grass of the soccer field (“football,” as Mr. C called it) that leads to the parking lot on the opposite side of the school. I remember tears welling up in my eyes as I asked the question. I remember feeling that somehow the world has done an injustice to a person, who has done nothing wrong, but there is nothing much to do. Although I recall being told by my mom that he was a Vietnam veteran and that he had to leave school for a cancer treatment that won’t be covered by his insurance because he had taken a pause for a bit, I don’t know if that had to do with my question then. It might have been something else.

I remember the calm in his voice and in his expression as he replied to me, who, at the time, was emotionally disturbed. I remember his peaceful facial expression as he simply listened to my question. He paused a little and said: “just ask: ‘help.'”

He silently stared at me with a thin smile, patted my shoulder, and started to walk across a wide, empty green field toward the garage. I believe it was the last time I saw him. To this day, I remember his calm, stoic, and peaceful blue sky on that day.

Cigarettes – (10 min)

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Prompt: two brothers on the last day in the country before flying abroad back home.

As teenagers, the most rebellious thing they could do in the country was to venture away from the securely fenced boundaries of home and school towards the beach. Two brothers, one year apart, walked towards an ice cream shop next to a beach. It was a night out.

Living in a foreign country, both spoke a very limited native language. Still, the oldest one managed to order two ice creams. He got a lemon sherbet, his brother, and mint chocolate.

They were on a roll. They had taken a yellow taxi to the beach by giving directions for each turn to the taxi driver with a broken French. Somehow, they managed to make it to the beach. Luck was on their side. Before sunset, they found the ice cream shop and decided to get some.

While the older one was adventurous and the younger one less so, both were feeling an adrenaline rush. It was their last night in the country before they moved away for good. The agonizing pain of isolation within home or school had been too much to bear for teenagers, who are beginning to learn about the world, and in turn, themselves. Books, internet videos, and photos did not offer a remedy but further stoked the pain of loneliness.

Now that all was over, they did not care whether it was dangerous to be outside among local natives who looked different from them. They were an easy target for any residents in the low-income neighborhood; people came to beg, to feed curiosity, or to steal.

Regardless, the brothers laughed out loud as hard as they could. Each with an ice cream in their hands, they walked in big strides towards the beach. The wind blew gently. It was May, and the air was warm, moist, and breezy. Staring at the sunset, it felt like good riddance.

The brothers continued to walk along the sand dune by the beach as the sunset, the sky, and the world started to cool into dusk.

As the older brother lit a cigarette, it brightened a little, and his face emerged from the dark shadow. Then the lighter fire went out, only leaving behind the red ember light of the cigarette butt. The younger one joined in, and they laughed and took a drag. So long! Goodbye! It’s over!

It was the last cigarette they puffed before heading back home. Their father and mother were busy making sure all the adult stuff was done before leaving the house. It was finally over. The long wait. The isolation. The boredom. They were finally over. Only freedom waited ahead.

Airport – (10 min)

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Prompt: an airport is a place of physical transportation but also memories

Tall palm trees were the first thing that could be seen through a wide rectangular window in the international airport in Hawaii. Seeing the palm tree makes you realize you are on a tropical island. Suddenly, you feel as though you can smell the sweetness of the dates in the palm trees, the saltiness of the ocean beach, and the gentle breeze sweeping over a green pasture.

The sensation was triggered by a memory of 15 years ago when the man left the island as a teenage boy. As if time had not passed, the man in his late 20s felt he had traveled back to his childhood. With it, a sense of loneliness leaked in.

Holding it back, the man gripped his two large travel carriages, dragging them along with him to a bus station. The bus refused to carry his large luggage. Flabbergasted, he called an Uber. A younger Filipino Uber driver explained to him rather depressingly that Hawaii had recently been plagued with homelessness and drug additions. He was attending a college, studying criminology. The man asked him what he wanted to become. The driver replied it was hard to get a job on this island.

Getting off the Uber, he arrived in front of a university building where he was about to stay for the next two days. It looked much smaller than he had remembered. The humidity, the breeze, and the blazing sun reminded him that this was where he had spent his childhood.

Yet, the people he had lived it with were not there anymore. His friends, his mother, and his brother were not there. He was alone, a stranger to a place he once called home, a place he had dreamed of returning to. To the locals there, he was just another tourist from the mainland with a head filled with inflated utopian fantasy. They were used to people like this. They treated these people like chewed gums; they had tried them before and had seen what came out of them.

The man checked into the building and nervously walked through the hallways. It was much more cramped than he remembered. Everything was much older and worn than he had remembered. Not even basic amenities were there; no soap, toilet paper, or drinking water.

The man left the building, leaving his luggage behind, searching for water and soap. The street he had walked was still there. He wondered if the concrete were the same as he had walked on as a child. Fifteen years have passed. He doubted they remained the same.

Loneliness crept in further and further. The more he found childhood remnants, the more he remembered the warmth that he had felt then, and the more distinctly, he realized how alone he was now. He wanted to talk to the ghosts of his memories, but there was no response. No one spoke to him. It was only him and the road.

He continued to walk. He arrived at a beach. The sun was setting in a pink-purple hue. Occasional waves were gently crashing onto the shore. The man sat on the sand dune and stared at the sky. Tiny airplanes were making their way in and out of the island.

It’s those tiny airplanes that transported him magically to this place dwelling in his memory. Fifteen years have passed. Sweet things had happened, bitter things had happened, and nonetheless, the memory had remained the same.

Leaving the airport, he felt a closure. Witnessing what he remembered was still there gave him the courage to get out there again. Perhaps he could return to this place after another 15 years. He wondered what it would feel like then. Would it be happiness and gratitude instead of loneliness and bitterness he felt this time? He turned away from the window and walked through the gates.

10-min fiction 1-1-2023

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10-min fiction is a new project. Each post is a fiction written in about 10 minutes.

Prompt: middle school students who are yearning to become fiction writers

It started as jealousy. she was a better writer than he was; she claimed she had attended an academy for philosophy. He thought that was why she had an air of amorphous aura around her.

As the wind blew through the window, the afternoon sunset glimmered corner of the classroom as the large window curtain flapped melodiously. It was an early fall, and the air had a pleasant sweetness.

The classroom was empty. Students were outside at the school field, playing games in groups of four to five. Only he and the girl were sitting next to each other by their desks. They were sitting next to each other because that was their assigned seats. But he was more curious about her than just a coincidence.

She recalled a trip to the west ocean side with her mom when she was little. She told him a story about how her original name was “west ocean.” He forgot the story but remembered it was with a hint of melancholy that she told this story to him.

Such a hint of trauma intrigued him further. At this point, it wasn’t clear if it was a mysterious appeal of hers or jealousy that led him to say “yes” when he was asked if he would like to revise her manuscript.

Her manuscript described two characters in the middle of the plain in autumn. They were swordsmen, one male and the other female, talking of fate. The female swordsman stabbed the other swordsman in the chest, and the blood spilled on dry yellow grass. The female swordsman shed a tear and spoke to the wounded swordsman.

There the manuscript ended. It was incomplete, but it embodied an inevitable sadness that must come between the woman and the men. It was clearly well-written, with wisely chosen words to carry the feelings of the story.

Yet, out of jealousy, he said this manuscript was rubbish. The girl replied, “oh, that’s unfortunate,” and threw the manuscript into the trash can.

Perhaps it was a pang of guilt he had then that pushed him to decide to write fiction one day.