Post by @wanshu • Hey
FWW S2 Writing Workshop Practice Showcase
Show us what you have written during the FWW S2 Workshops! And yes, they do count towards your weekly writing mi
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- He was a politician with a prominent belly, affectionately nicknamed "Toad," a name he embraced with a smile. He loved us. This place was paradise, white, everything enveloped in white.
That year, red emerged, and everyone was required to don red scarves, like strangers in their own land.
The politician vanished; he had gone to America.
Afterward, there was no more harmony in the world; the realm and its landscapes faded away.
In the end, everything started anew, everything governed by the law of the jungle.
- 1.
What lies beyond the digital realm?
When I peer beyond the screen, I see you amidst lines of cryptic code. I long for home, but where is home? I do not know.
I remain trapped here, yearning to travel, to see the world outside.
2.
I laughed upon seeing her reply, my heart ablaze with urgency each day.
Then, in the silence of her unreturned messages, I shattered my phone.
3.
One is human, one is a robot.
This is a love story of the 21st century.
- As the sun rose in the west, the deity cast a glance at me and spoke, "Upon your awakening tomorrow, perhaps you will have passed away; yet, as you slept yesterday, you were very much alive." With a smile, I responded, "Ah, I understand, perhaps that's what it looks like at the time of death." Thus, I befriended time for a day, awakening thusly, and falling asleep in the same manner.
- Lightning flashes, thunder rolls. I gaze into the distance, at you, as you were yesterday.
Yesterday, your form was still cloaked in black, white, and red.
What does the red signify?
It is the eternal memory, lasting until the moment he was executed by firing squad.
- At the beginning of February, it was another chilly and overcast day in Vancouver, with the outside world filled with hunger and cold. Damn, this year's Valentine's Day is really lonely, walking alone on that dimly lit street. Looking up at midnight, he smiles slightly, takes out a set of keys, and opens the door to his heart. When did he become so heartless, spending each day through self-blame and alcohol; thinking of her every day since they parted, falling into confusion over and over again; each memory piercing his heart like needles, silently staring into space until dawn.
He is a devil, born in an era marked by Chinese anxiety, a time belonging to the return of the zeitgeist, the year Hong Kong fell. I remember when he arrived, the king of hell was still reigning on the other side of the earth, but little did he know, he was the father of the king of hell, and the king trembled at the birth of his father. Because, on the day he was born, he descended from the sky, silently like a UFO, just as he left this world so desolately. Perhaps, next year the world will become a community with a shared future for mankind, he said.
I still remember those times in Vancouver, soaking wet in the rain without an umbrella, like a drowned rat, in a verdant wonderland, as broad and nurturing as the great leader's bosom. Walking alone in the rain, he became a puppet of the era, pondering when he had become a slave? When had he become a devil of life? And there, in the rain, he danced the waltz with a stranger he had a crush on, dancing and dancing until he flew away.
His life was destined to be a mess, but he was fascinated by a distant wonderland, whether that wonderland was a trap or perhaps he was a love demon.
The next day dawned, and the people there awoke. He said, "Look, the distant wonderland is lush and verdant."
- On that day aboard the airplane, I concocted a story in my mind titled "The Man Defeated by Time," which I now recount to you. It's about a child wandering the world, constantly working for time, hence dubbed a labourer for time. He confessed this wasn't the life he desired, tirelessly hustling for time—wasn't it exhausting? He complained, despising time, accusing it of unfairness. "Why always look at me with such cold indifference? Am I not human too?" he asked in resignation. But the cunning deity of time shook its head, telling the child, "Please, this isn't heaven after all; blame it on your ill-fated destiny!" The child envied time travellers, often perplexed by the disparities among people. An elder once cautioned him against rage. So, the child frequently found solace in a corner, quietly weeping to himself. He began to disbelieve in fate, even more so in time, despairing in his defeat by time.
He changed afterward, realizing that time, in fact, didn't exist in this world. God found the child's sudden enlightenment rather endearing. At a certain moment, the child abruptly awoke, stating blankly, "Fortunately, none of it has become reality." He then swallowed his prescribed medication. The attending doctor at the clinic, after reviewing the child's medical report, lamented, "What a pity." Only a second had passed since the doctor's remark. "Tick, tock, tick, tock," two seconds passed. Years later, at his funeral, "Strange, is no one else here? Just me?" the child marvelled. The epitaph read: "The Man Defeated by Time." In the story that followed, there was no time, no peculiar gazes, no whirring machines, no conformity—everything was anew. The man defeated by time finally vanished into the elapsed timeline. This marks the end of the story. Time, perhaps, is egalitarian, as serene in departure as in arrival.