Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
About
"Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time."
"How inconvenient to be made of desire."
"It's me, hi, I'm the problem its me."
Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. For this round, every prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, do whatever. Steal from a literary classic, or copy WeVerse drama.
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if this was meant for me, why does it hurt so much
Major Tags: MCD??
Additional Tags: the sea, the betrayal of being someone's closest friend and finding out after their death that they were keeping secrets from even you, grieving and remembering and rage at being left behind
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
- Fear of the Water, SYML
[FILL] left behind
Major Tags: MCD
Additional Tags: freeform, grief, being left behind, slight existentialism
Permission to remix: Yes
***
The funniest part of all this is that Chan can’t swim.
He never learned how to swim. Maybe that’s why Wonwoo never told him about this. It would be a stupid reason, but at least it’d be a reason; at least there’d be a reason. Right now there isn’t one.
Chan is standing on a beach, and he’s looking up at a little house on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, and the keys are in his left hand, and the right one is holding the box with Wonwoo’s ashes. And it’s his house, and the ashes– well, they don’t really belong to anyone, and soon he won’t even have those to hold onto. He’ll just have a set of keys and a stupid house.
He walks down the beach until he gets to a path that winds up along the cliff side, tufts of grass sticking out and making it wobbly and uncertain, and Chan has to spend a long time trying to find a way to get to the house without falling to his death, which is sort of funny too. It would be pretty funny if he died trying to complete Wonwoo’s last wish, wouldn’t it?
Was Wonwoo trying to be funny? Was that the reason? Chan doesn’t think so. Wonwoo had made some bad jokes in their time together, but he didn’t make a lot of jokes about death.
No, there must be something else.
Chan is at the house now. It’s small, and painted blue, and the roof tiles are covered in moss, and it’s… it’s nice. Chan can tell why Wonwoo would like this. Quiet, far away from everything, and small enough that it’s cozy but not cramped.
There’s only two rooms; a combined bedroom, living room, kitchen, and study, and a bathroom. The furniture is unassuming, but it’s all so… Wonwoo. Wonwoo is everywhere. The pillows on the bed are the same ones Wonwoo had at his flat, and the throw blanket is the same brand, and the kitchen is full of food Wonwoo used to eat.
Okay, maybe it is a joke. A cruel joke, but a joke nonetheless.
Chan sits down on the edge of the bed and places the box next to him, and he pulls out the letter Wonwoo had left him again. It’s wrinkled and worn and in some places the ink is already starting to fade from how many times Chan has run his fingers over the words.
He skips over the first part– he’s memorized it long ago anyway. He goes to the part about the house on the cliff and the ocean. Wonwoo’s voice is in his head as he reads, rattling around like a corpse in a casket.
‘I never told you, but I bought a little house. I would’ve liked to have taken you there, I think, but it’s too late for that sort of thing now. I’ve kept it from you for too long, and now I don’t know how to say it. So I’m writing it instead.
You might be wondering why I didn’t tell you in the first place, and the truth is that I wanted something that was my own. I hope that makes sense to you. I wanted something that was mine, a place I could go to escape– yes, even you. Sometimes I needed to escape from you too. Or maybe I was just trying to escape myself; who knows. Sometimes I think you’re more myself than I am.’
Chan crumples the paper up again and throws it across the room. It bounces harmlessly off the wall and falls onto the floor. There’s tears stinging at the backs of Chan’s eyes, and he glares at the box angrily, like if he looks at it hard enough Wonwoo is going to come out of it and make all of this okay.
Maybe Wonwoo would even give him a reason. Chan is still having a hard time deciding on one.
He picks up the box and slides the lid off, and he takes the urn out, and he goes outside again– the wind has picked up significantly. He walks right up to the edge, and he’s hugging the urn to his chest, and he wants something to make sense, anything would do.
And Chan screams. It’s not horror movie screaming, not high pitched and loud, but guttural and so loud it’s quiet, so loud that no noise comes out other than choked syllables, and the wind carries all of it away, out over the ocean. It doesn’t help.
Wonwoo is still dead and Chan still has to pour what’s left of him into the ocean.
He removes the lid with shaky hands, and he holds out the urn in front of him, and he tries– he really tries to flip it over and let the contents out, but he can’t do it. He stands there with his arms stretched out in front of him until his muscles start screaming at him, and so instead he pulls the urn back and he sits down on the grass, cradling it in his arms.
If there were any tears left in him this is where he’d cry, but he’s cried so much that there’s nothing left. He chokes out dry sobs, and he screams again, and the wind takes all of it, and the ocean keeps crashing against the foot of the cliff, and nothing changes. Or it changes so slowly that Chan will never get to see it. Everything changes. Someone always leaves first.
Chan wishes he’d been the one to leave first. He doesn’t know how to do this. There isn’t even a reason. He wishes there was a reason.
He sits there for a long time before he finally gets back up and stretches his arms out again, and this time– this time he tips out the contents before he can think better of it. The ashes dump unceremoniously and ungraciously into the air and are carried off by the wind, out over the ocean, and it’s anti-climatic, and why is death so quiet? Why is being left behind so loud?
Chan storms back into the house and slams the door, and he puts the urn down carefully, and then he kicks the brick fireplace and possibly stubs his toe. He hobbles backwards until he stumbles into the bed, and he kicks his shoes off because he remembers how Wonwoo hated when he’d keep his shoes on inside, and he takes off his jacket because he remembers Wonwoo saying that he didn’t want outside clothes on his bed.
And Chan lies down in Wonwoo’s bed, and the sheets still smell like him, and he lies there alone until eventually he falls asleep. When he wakes up he’s still alone, and he’s not sure what time it is. It’s fine. No one’s expecting him to be at work anyway.
There’s not one bone or muscle in his body that isn’t aching. Why is death painless and being left behind so painful?
Why isn’t there a reason?
Re: [FILL] left behind
Re: [FILL] left behind
this was a very therapeutic write for me so im glad u liked it and it resonated with u❤️
Re: [FILL] left behind
Re: [FILL] left behind
Re: [FILL] left behind
(Anonymous) 2023-01-13 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)