The awesome TheWebWeavers have tagged me for this super creative tag. Make sure to check out TWW take, its wonderfully whimsical. Although, I had a plan all set and ready, I am mostly going to freestyle this so get ready for some helter-skelter storytelling. I actually ended up changing what I was going to write about but, again, major, major thanks to TheWebWeavers because I became fully absorbed when I wrote this. This has been ridiculously stimulating and great fun, so thank you for this.
RULES
- You pick your first 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.
- 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.
- YOU HAVE TWO WEEKS TO ANSWER THE TAG.You must tag three people to participate.
- Don’t forget to link back to Keiko 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.
- Use the Create-A-Story picture in the post.
- Copy and paste the rules in your tag post as well so others can be clued into the Create-A-Story rules.
***Content Warning: Profanity and Violence***
My Combination: Fire, School and Drama (From Slice of Life)
Fire raged in my heart.
For the past month or so, Sharmin and I had become very close. This was especially interesting and surprising to everyone and very much considered to be an unlikely pairing. Sharmin wasn’t the most popular student at Poplar School for Girls. In fact, many disapproved of her rebellious nature and sudden bursts of violence.
Last year, during break, she had a tumultuous row with Seema. Nobody in our form class had any clue as to how it even started. I’m not sure even Seema and Sharmin remembered what caused it either. The very few, including myself, who were subjected to the viewing of this row watched in horror as the row got heated and voices were raised. Personally, I wish I had something to snack on because I was quite enjoying this drama unravel as I am apt to do. I remember seeing Sharmin throw a chair at Seema and Nazmin, Seema’s friend, yelling “the Russians are coming!” right before she set off the fire alarm. I suppose this was her way of alerting the proper authorities. I want to clarify that Seema was not hurt as the chair narrowly missed her. I didn’t know whether to be terrified or impressed that Sharmin could lift the swivel chair. At that point in time, I wasn’t a fan of either of them and had no moral scruples about whether I should intervene or not. To put it quite simply, I didn’t care.
I, on the other hand, was quite popular thus the “unlikely pairing.” Sharmin and I grew close because of Drama classes. As Drama students from my form class had formed a clique, it also extended to the inclusion of Sharmin. She was prone to whingeing which annoyed me at first being quite an optimistic person myself but despite this, I had found that she was quite fun and open.
In the course of getting close, I had divulged information about my family much of it were clear and distressing problems and also very clearly private and confidential information. My best friend Anisa, who was another Drama student, informed me that Sharmin had shared my familial worries and her disgust of my problems to Anisa. I was fuming. I was not going to take this lightly.
Sharmin and I were in the same class for Religious Studies and since the blossoming of our now deteriorated friendship we had always sat next to each other. I knew before I even entered the classroom that all hell would break loose.
I eyed Sharmin carefully and contemptuously waiting to pounce on her. Her round, watery eyes, pitted cheeks and down-turned mouth gave her a perpetually sour appearance and in turn, resulted in my smug expression. She had opened her textbook and held her pen at the ready. I hadn’t opened mine yet, it was not my present concern. I continued to stare at her and ignored the ramblings of my teacher, Ms Bird.
As the class got noisier, I found the perfect in to begin this confrontation.
“Sharmin, I hear you’ve been gossiping about me to my friends,” I began, getting right to the point. She glanced up then down immediately, her mouth already forming a hard line.
“What do you mean?” She answered calmly. Barely any hesitation. I noticed that. I did not like that.
“You told my best friend about my family problems, didn’t you?” I said, my voice both caressing and seething. She looked directly at me, her eyes bulging. A fire had begun blazing in her eyes too.
“Well, it’s not my fault that your family problems are disgusting,” she roared. Everyone turned their heads, and all was quiet on the western front. I knew she had done this to embarrass me and get me to stop. It would not. I had not done anything wrong. “Your parents are disgusting. How sick must it be to have parents like that? Like, who has parents like that?”
“Shut the fuck up, you fucking bitch,” I stood suddenly and yelled at her, my face scrunching hard. I had nothing to be embarrassed about, I repeated to myself.
Her face lifted in defiance. Squeezing her pen as if it was a lightning bolt, she threw it at my face and the lead struck my chin. Now it was my turn to lift my face in defiance. I took a deep breath and my hand went to my chin already feeling the effects on my sensitive skin. Barely thinking, I lifted my Religious Studies textbook, a heavy hardcover, tome of a book, and threw it directly at her face and finished with a gleeful grin so she could savour in its glory.
“Self-defence, bitch,” I said, curtseying.
She held her face, her watery eyes had formed droplets of tears, but I felt no remorse. Everybody watched with bated breath and my deeply religious teacher stood agape, one hand gripping her desk and the other clutching her chest. Before Ms Bird could even do anything, anything to intervene, Sharmin swiftly grabbed my bag and exited the classroom.
I loved my bag. It was made of faux silver leather and had a matching silver, checked glitter bow. It was outlandish and bold just like me which prompted me to head forward like a raging bull and storm after Sharmin. I saw her enter our empty form class two doors across from Religious Studies. She stood across the room when I entered. With one eyebrow raised, a dirty, malicious smirk plastered on her face she opened the mouth of my bag which was full to the brim with textbooks, random junk, my purse, and pencil case.
Sharmin stealthily walked around the class, her eyes pierced on me and began emptying the contents of my bag around the classroom. I tried to pick them up like a crazed animal all the while knowing I wouldn’t be able to.
“You’re fucking insane,” I shouted at her through gritted teeth. “No wonder nobody fucking likes you, you fucking piece of shit.”
A few students from Religious Studies had trickled into the classroom alongside Ms Bird. I knew Ms Bird wasn’t capable of dealing with this maniac, she would be too tame. Sharmin required someone stern.
I stormed off to my form tutor frustrated that I would have to resort to snitching.
I TAG:
Denny, Em, Emily because I know you guys enjoy writing flash fiction and will spin something incredible from this challenge.
I hope you guys enjoyed this. This is based on a true story and happened during my school years (High School for non-UK bloggers) and I guess everyone will be shocked because for some odd reason, I’ve garnered a “Oh, isn’t she sweet?” rep. That was not the tale back during my school years, I was the total opposite.
Let me know what you guys think!
Sopshki out.
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Interesting story. “Self-defense”. I thought that was solely an American thing.
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Nah, girl. It’s a western legal thing (I’m not sure about the East).
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I really loved the story and the fact that it was real life just makes people see that we all have things in the past that you may not know of!
As a matter of fact I have a friend who also shares the same name as one of the people you mentioned! I won’t say who as she may not want me to mention her name but all together I loved this post! 🙂
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Yeah, we all have a past, and thankfully I no longer participate in that kind of nonsense. That therapy session helped me to understand her a lot better and we both apologised to each other and learnt our lessons. Thank God!
Aha, don’t worry about the names, I changed them because it wouldn’t be fair to include real names. But otherwise, I’m glad to hear that we both know Bengali names, it’s a rare thing in the blogosphere. 🙂
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It is quite rare to know these names. 🙂 I’m glad you were able to apologise to each other but nonetheless the fact that you stood up for yourself was pretty brave! 🙂
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We should make Asian names a norm. 🙂
Thank you, that’s so kind of you to say, I really appreciate your words. We have to stand up for ourselves otherwise we just end up silencing our voice. ❤️
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Eaxactly and once your silenced you find it really hard to get your voice back!
We should make Asian names a norm although were I come from you probably couldn’t walk down the street without hearing an Asian name being called out or something lol!
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That is so true, very well put and so insightful. It’s an upwards hill after but… I like to believe that we will climb back on our feet eventually. 🙂
I know, and here’s a thing, if they can’t pronounce it… get ready… they could ask us?!!?! *SHOCK* lol. Apparently this blogger on twitter gained more followers after she removed her surname (she’s POC), really tells you something…
No, girl, same here, East End of London you know is basically mostly POC’s pahaha. I’m guessing you’re from a major UK city then?
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Of course! Major UK city! I had a good time making fun of my cousins in america for they way they speak (No offence to any Americans). I really think people should stop think about who the person is from the outside and start focusing on the inside!
I have soooooooo many friends who have to correct people 24/7 because they can’t seem to get their names right! 😂😂😂 I guess that’s the price you pay for a unique name!
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Great story! Sharmin is kind of crazy 🙂
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I did feel that way at the time, but I understood her a lot better after the therapy sessions. She didn’t pull stunts like that after that (that I know of). 🙂
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Craaaaazy times! That sounds like a crappy situation.
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It really was, I really shouldn’t have physically retaliated to that extent though. A pen and hardcover book are two different things. 🤕
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Great job, Soph. I have one or two similar stories from my own school days I could share. Of course, 30 years on, I’m sure the selective glossing of memory will have given the ‘me’ character a much more heroic and righteous cast than the actual me presented back then! I’ll definitely take you up on this challenge & see what I can do with it. Thank you for thinking of me!
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Nice to know I’m not alone in this! Paha, I tried to write as realistically as possible without any embellishments as to my motivations and thought process. Perhaps you could add a righteous and heroic afterward at the end as a lesson learnt tribute. 😉
I’m excited to see what you come up with! 🙂
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Great story and somewhat relatable to my rebellious school days haha :’) I really enjoyed that, thank you! 🙂
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Thank you, I really appreciate your kind words. ☺️ And it’s amazing to know you’ve had a similar past (and hopefully we’ve grown out of the not so wonderful aspects), bold ones unite. 🤣👯♀️
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Very well written Sophia.
In the old days when we had a fight the two fighters could shake hands and become friends afterwards. In fact one of my most trusted friends and I met as a result of fighting each other. It makes me wonder how things turned out for you and this person?
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I’m loving the idea of shaking hands, there’s something so sophisticated about it.
After the school-mandated therapy, we worked it out, apologised to each other and were fine afterwards. I’m especially grateful towards my school for this, it really taught me the importance of mediation and intervening when you see something wrong.
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This is such an awesome story, and a great tag, too! Thanks for tagging me :).
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Thank you and no worries. 🙂
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