XCII.Fictional Escapism -

Way back when, in fall of 2012, I had volunteered to write a short children’s story.

All I knew was that I had the opportunity to write for a conducive and tangible project. The whole idea of the story being for a child or even fictional, had skipped my mind.

I have never been a fiction writer.

The closest I ever got to writing fiction was for my philosophy of bioethics course that I had taken the summer before my senior year of college. For the course, I had to write using thought-experiments. If you have ever taken a philosophy class you would know that thought-experiments frequently use aliens as their subjects. Clearly, aliens are fictional.

Every time I went to the library growing up, I would make my way to the new nonfiction shelves, completely walking past the fiction novels. 

As a child I would pick up nonfiction books in the children’s section; mostly books on world cultures and religions because dinosaurs and plant-life were not particularly interesting topics, in my opinion.

In fact, I somewhat involuntarily, still make a conscience effort to walk briskly past the new fiction shelves. It was as if the newly excited air currents would upset the fiction novels, which would be to my liking.

This Christmas I received 5 blank notebooks; Leather bound notebooks, a reporter’s pad, a lined notebook with a nifty string-closure mechanism too.

I was a solid paper-and-pen writer until my junior year of high school when I came to realize the pages and words were far too many and the transition from what I wrote on paper to the word processor on my computer would cause me to lose sleep unnecessarily.

I am still that writer who would take a walk around the block, or when I got to college, take a walk to the Starbucks on campus, and formulate a blueprint for what I wanted to write.

I think those Christmas presents I received put things back into perspective. If I want to be a professional journalist, I may not have my heavy laptop, charger, and flash drive with me at all times. I need to take note of what happens as I observe it.

I need to stop making the excuse that I am a perfectionist who can never keep a diary because I will re-read what I have wrote and  will inevitably rip out the entries until I am left with the front and back covers of a notebook filled with vestiges of ripped pages.

The above was the primary reason for why I have chosen to utilize this platform to post and access my writing. However, if this truly were the reason, could I not have just re-read what I wrote, disliked it, and easily click on the trash bin icon to delete my post. Deleting a post on tumblr is easier than ripping out a page in a book, is it not?

There has to be other reasons for why I post on tumblr, or on the internet in general, and I still have not yet formulated the full list.

I think one of the reasons is that my writings, published as a manuscript sitting in my room, will not reach anyone. What I post online can reach more people. As a result more conversations can occur on any given topic that was written about and therefore our minds can expand, together.

This reason goes hand-in-hand with the idea that my writing published on tumblr is anything but fictional; it becomes more real when I can talk to others about what I had relayed from my head to written prose.

The written word on paper, when not read by anyone but myself, suddenly seemed too intangible. That is to say, what I wrote seemed too intangible to be read by anyone but myself and dare I say it, fictional.

No matter what, I will never favor fiction over non-fiction, whether it is reading, writing, or otherwise. I even prefer documentaries save for my separate love for fanciful Hindi films.

I needed to write that children’s story. I was rethinking the whole prospect and said it out loud.

“You have to have integrity. You gave your word; that you would write that story. Get it done.” - Said by someone who shall remain unnamed.

In an attempt to sit down and get this story done, logically, I went out for a walk.

It was not unusually cold since it is winter.

The sun is in hiding and the air is brisk. My new preference for leaving my hair out and about without any hair-tie is wreaking havoc on my vision. Clearly, it’s windy outside.

I take about an hour-long walk and am motivated to write the story.

My muse was not the weather.

My muse was the beginning and end of my walk.

At the start of my walk, I dropped my new iPhone 5, my first smart phone ever, on my sneaker. Yes, on my sneaker. When I picked up my phone, the entire screen was cracked. As I walked, every time I looked at the veins of a leaf, or the sidewalk, I saw the cracks on my phone screen.

If only I could turn back time to 1 second go. If only my phone didn’t fall. I don’t care for the iPhone, honestly. I felt horrible because this was from my parents.

I saw the cracked screen everywhere.

You know how you if you stare at the sun too long and then look away and close your eyes in an attempt to gain some relief, you end up seeing lines whenever you blink? Well, that was how I felt. I ended up seeing the cracked lines of the phone screen every time I blinked.

If this were a fiction story, I could just re-write the events.

This fiction story isn’t looking like such a daunting task right now.

I made my way back home. When I walk home I have to pass a particularly green and lush area. Growing up, me and all the other children on the block called this area “the jungle.”

Remember, it is winter, so “the jungle” should technically be non-existent, and it was, save for the picture included with this post.

Those spherical blue-purple things growing on the backdrop of those green leaves are not fruits. They’re actually budding botany.

Imagine if this were a fiction story and the picture was actually of grapes. Yes, these are grapes growing during the summer and it is not cold and dreary but sunny and light.

This fiction story wasn’t looking like such a daunting task right now.

No, it was not a daunting task at all.