Friends,
Hope you are all well and enjoying the sun wherever you are at this moment.
I am so excited to be sharing with you a short true story I wrote via ’s kind encouragement that I then submitted to ’s website and got accepted!
Tanya is the writer behind The Cure for Sleep, “the stunning memoir of a smalltown wife and mother who returns from sudden near-death, determined to live her second life on a larger, braver scale - whatever it takes, or costs.”
She is a beautifully talented writer, and it is such an honour to be learning from her, and receiving the support in the form of an honest and raw review of your work by a published author, and by allowing works such as mine to be seen. Being part of a writing community means everything to a lonesome writer like me, ha!
If, like me, you are just starting out in this world of the written word and feel, like me, that being given a platform on which you can see your story shared with the world, then I urge you to do the same.
You can find all the necessary details to submit your true stories here and here. There is a word count limit of a maximum of 300, but that’s about it.
I wrote from the “Childhood Stories” prompt, you can find it on her website here, but if you want to just continue reading without being linked here and there, here it is:
I remember scraping my knee on the aroused roots of my father's fir trees, the three trees grown in a straight line to border our property, the house I grew up in. I was being chased after by my cousin because I had refused to speak to her after she had stolen my food. I was crying, angry that I had lost this game I didn't even want to play, and she was laughing, because life was always easy for her.
I remember her pulling my top when she finally caught up with me, and me, pulling away, trying to escape, and she’d let go, or maybe she didn’t mean to and her sweaty palms released my thin t-shirt from its fist unintentionally, I fell, and the skin on my knee split open as if someone had lined a sharp knife on the yolk of an egg bursting it and the yellow liquid trickled and dripped all over.
I saw the fear in her eyes, like a flash of lightning flickered in the irises as she tried to say sorry, tried to do something, anything, to reverse time, to not have grabbed me like she did, to let me chase her instead, to put the food she had stolen back on to my plate, but life doesn’t work like that. I think the thing I saw in her eyes was a kind of revelation, and we sat in silence, each on our own bump of aroused root of my father’s fir tree, as the birds kept flying and chirping, and the wind kept blowing, and the sun kept shining, on and on and on.
As I’m writing this, Tanya has also published two other of my stories on her website!
Here they are, if you want to read them:
(The first one is from the Mirror prompt, and the second, Promises.)
I stood in front of the mirror with the carved wood gilded border belonging to my dead aunt and sighed.
My body told me the stories I had long forgotten, stories I didn’t want to remember anymore, stories I thought no longer belonged to me.
I touched the surface of the glass with a finger, tracing the outline of my face as if I was Egon Schiele sketching a self-portrait. What colours would I choose to use if I could only see in blacks and whites and greys?
I looked at the tip of that finger now, a layer of dust blanketed over my fingerprint.
I turned back to the mirror and it revealed the scars my naked body had accumulated throughout the years. The one from when I fell after being chased by a cousin, an embossed skin on the top of my left knee. The one from when I fell in the drain playing teatime with the neighbour’s children, a mere dash on top of my eyebrow now. The one from when I had my daughters, one scar on top of another. So many memories, so many years. Would I be able to live this way again?
I stared at my face and saw the face of my mother looking back at me, and I wondered, when she looked into her mirror, if she saw the same.
The smoke from her cigarette dispersed to reveal the stars, scattered everywhere in a background of spilled ink, as if someone had thrown confetti upside down and they’ve settled in the sky instead of the ground. She took in another puff and released it as cold wind pierced on her face, and she closed her eyes.
She wished she had someone to share this moment with.
She thought of her husband, so far away physically, and that even if he was here, he would still be so far away, emotionally. She thought of her daughter, too young still to consciously appreciate intangible things, and she wondered if maybe, for right now at least, that that was a good thing.
She pulled her jacket in and gave herself a hug.
The remnants of the smoke from the cigarette she had stubbed out with the heel of her black boots lingered as she stood there, looking up.
She saw the stars again, Cassiopeia, Orion’s Belt, Gemini, or maybe Leo. What would they say to her if they could talk? What would she say back to them if she could listen?
The brightest one blinked, and she knew.
That night, as the stars scattered in the spilled ink sky, as if someone had thrown confetti upside down and they’ve settled in the sky instead of the ground, she heard herself make a vow to find this moment again, to be part of something so big and celestial again, some day, alone.
A lone dog howled and for the first time, she realised that she didn’t feel scared anymore.
Thank you for making me feel seen and heard, Tanya!
And for the rest of you, keep reading, keep writing!
Congratulations, Lisha! Your stories were quite moving and beautifully written.
All so beautifully written Lisha… huge thanks for mentioning me 🙏🏽