STORY STARTER
Inspired by Kail Cleo
Create a story by writing multiple diary entries from your character (or multiple characters intertwined).
Try to make each entry build from the last to add to the storyline. If you switch perspective, make it clear that it's someone else's journal.
What’s My Name Again?
October 1st
That is the date my therapist tells me. I can tell the weather is changing, getting colder. The wind hurts my lungs and the cold makes my finger change colour.
What did I do in summer? Aren’t you supposed to go visit friends, spend time in the sun, eat food that drips and sticks to your hands then laugh about it. I stare at my pale hands, they’re the hands of a ghost. There is no indicater I ever left my room, in a sense that is true. My life now exists only in these few walls.
He says I should start this journal. Clear my thoughts and maybe get better. That line confuses me. I don’t feel like my life is wrong, that I need to be fixed.
I understand when people say I am mad, that I live in a mad house. When I hear that I picture yelling and screaming, people running past and flashy lights, sobs and nurses in nurse uniforms racing around with needles. That doesn’t sound like my life. It’s quiet, I don’t hear anyone else speak maybe they do but I never listen.
I know my schedule it never changes. I walk it every day. Not a step out of place.
9:00AM: wake up, and do what?
10:00AM: walk to breakfast what is it I always eat?
12:00PM: lunch. I am always given small white cup. They say it makes me feel better and they check if it’s empty.
3:00PM: they take us all outside. I sit by the door and no one talks to me. I forget why.
5:30PM: Dinner. I don’t remember what it tastes like.
8:00PM: they come and let me know it’s time for bed. By then I am already sitting on the end. Completely ready. I can’t remember when I got dressed but I must have. I always must have.
I watch all the lights in my small room shut off.
I lie awake in bed, hearing the air-conditioner shake and rattle. It’s a soothing sound. Like it’s trapped in this endless cycle with me.
October 8th, what was the year?
I am told to write once a week. They check my pages before every entry.
My therapist brings it up; asks if I want to talk about it. I don’t respond. I can’t remember if I’ve ever responded.
He then brings up the same question again, I don’t hear the words but I feel my body tense. I hate this question.
Every day they ask me, every day I never answer. Not out loud I don’t think. Do I? How do I know what’s in my head and what’s real?
“Why did you do it?” I didn’t.
“Do you remember her name?” Remember who’s? I feel her. She feels small, fragile but there’s no word attached to her.
“Did you hate her?” I don’t hate anyone.
“Why did you kill her?” I don’t remember.
“Why did you run your car into that wall?” I couldn’t have.
I must have responded a few time because when I look up I can see the lines on his face. He never likes my answer. He thinks it’s a bluff.
I don’t think he likes me. I think he hates me, he’s forced to be my therapist.
He told me once about his daughter. He calls her his second true love. I watch his fingers clench as he reads the accident.
He wants closer more than I do.
December 4th
I don’t remember that day. I don’t remember putting her in the backseat. I don’t remember the alcohol I drank. I don’t remember her sobs. I don’t remember my foot pushing down on the pedal. I don’t remember the impact.
Maybe I do but refuse to believe it.
I don’t remember her name.
No, that might have been the only lie I’ve ever truly told.
Her name was Lily. My favourite flower.
She was my Lily.
The truth is I don’t remember my own name.
What’s my name again?
When I ask myself that question the only answer I get is through her voice; calling to me through laughter. Calling to me through passion and joy. Calling to me through fear and pleads.
“Mom!”