Story #361

Tomten satsar allt han har
Rudolf, fickludd och en kaviar
Nisse brister ut i skratt
tror att tomte har fått fnatt
grubblar, surrar och stirrar stint
tomten har gått på hans fint!

Knutsson, Karlstad, Sweden

Story #363

One dark autumn evening an orange fox with white spots around his eyes and a long orange tail with a white spot on his tail tip was on his way from a friend and he had to go through the dark dark forest. He went to the forest and looked in the dark dark woods. He was so scared that his knees were shaking. He slowly walked in the forest with his tears running down his cheek. It had started to rain and soon it started to thunder and lightning. He was now running, he had to come home now. He ran so fast that he tripped a few times. He fell and fell but he got up again, he got abrasions, but he didn’t care. He had run for what felt like an eternity. He looked up and at last he saw the end of the forest. He took all the power he had and ran out of the forest. At last he was out of the woods, now he’s going home to his fox family.

Tindra, Sweden

Story #362

As I grow older, I realise that I’ve become more forgetful on the little details of life that I used to hold onto dearly. It’s as if I’ve come to care less about things. To care less about the people around me. Thinking deeper into it, I don’t think it’s because that I care less. But because I’ve just learn to protect myself. And honestly speaking, that’s not exactly a bad thing. However, I miss a certain part of me. That part of me that is raw and creative and able to write deep down from the heart. So, I’ll try. To find that part of me. Again.

Ann Yeo, Selangor, Malaysia

Story #360

the rabbit always ate lunch alone in fear of the fox. the fox the next day saw him eating alone.the fox joined him, and then the rabbit started to realise just because he had the tough look didnt mean he never had a hear in the first place.

anonymous

Story #359

When I was a kid in first grade my teacher had a system for when the class would get unruly.  She would scream out “Everybody Freeze!” in which the entire class had to freeze in place until she said it was OK to move again.  One day I went up tot he teacher to asked to be excused to go to the bathroom, on the way she said “Everybody Freeze!”.  I stood there wiggling and begged her if I could talk to her and she said no.  There in my tracks I pied in my pants, with it running down onto the floor.  I was supremely embarrassed.  In my later years I wonder how the teacher felt.

– Steve, Oakland, CA

Story #358

once upon a time there was a red fox coming to school for the first day. There was no place left to sit but the one next to the angry goat. She went to the goat and ask, frustrated, can I sit next to you? The goat was looking at her angrily and said yeah.

It is now more than 15 years, They still remain friends.

The goat wants to say that, happy birthday my dear friend. Wish you always have strawberry ice creams and chocolate, to enjoy every second of your days.

– Par, Edmonton, Alberta

Story #357

It was a cold night in January 1982.. We had been waiting and waiting for the train, soon we understod the train was never coming. We sat down on a cold bench at the station, I picked up my book and started reeading.. My friend look over and asked me

– Do you always read? She said.

– I always do, it keeps my mind of reality.. I said back.

– Reality? Just live life. Soon enough it’s all gone and then you have waisted your life at just wainting and wondering. She said with a straight face.

Far away we could hear a train, it sounded like it was about to breake soon. My friend looked at the direction we heard the broken train, she picked up her bag and walked to the end of the platform. I put down my book in my bag and just looked into blank space.

– Let’s go, the train is here! My friend said and shaked me.

– Oh yes of course I said and was putting my book in my bag while walking.

I went into the train and followed my friend, we sat down on a 2-seat bench and I was just about to pull out my book when my friend hold my hand and said:

– Don’t.. Please, you don’t need your book. You have me! Be social, I know what has happend, you don’t need to run away from it.
I put down my book slowy into my bag again and looked tat her..

– Did I ever do something wrong? I said while looking at the ground.

– You never did.. It’s okay, I’m here for you. That was her last sentence before the train crashed. We live in heaven now, and it’s so much better here..

– Tilde Molén, Nordmaling

Story #356

I am 16 years old. Go to a high school full of people who judge me for everything. Yet I have a talent and that talent is sketching anything by looking at it. People noticed it in the beginning of the year but I shown too much. At one point, I made a few friends. They were not the best, but one stood out more.  Whenever she wasn’t there, I just draw and stay silent or read Manga for a little. Sometimes people say I’m creepy or I look scary. I’ve gotten this from too many people for so long, it’s almost a compliment. This compliment shows that some people rely too much on the surface and become cowards to even meet you first hand with a simple hello.

– Kaylena, Philadelphia

Story #355

Hi I’m Sam. I wish I was dead but I don’t want to die, and here’s why.

One time, my roommates jumped down my throat about the apartment not being clean. I was in such a depressed state of mind, I thought about taking the kitchen knife I was holding and slashing down my forearm, spraying blood everywhere. In my mind I used my last breath to laugh and ask how about you clean us this.

Gross right? These thoughts often run threw my head, yet all they do is just stay there. I don’t want to die, I just want this pain, these thoughts to stop. Here let me rewind a little.

I’ve always had lived with my mother. The psychopathic bitch who gave birth to me. I didnt get meet my father till I was 18. The man who took his place in my childhood (at 8 years old) was wonderful until the day he snapped. I spent the next 11 years being verbally, physically and emotionally abused. I was told on a daily bases it would have been better if I was never born, that I was a whore and stupid and never would amount to nothing, watching my mother hold a knife to her chest saying she was going to kill me and her. My “dad” turned my mother and my little sister against me, i wasn’t “part of the family” anymore. I had nobody. I cooked my own meals. I was left out of Christmas family photos. When I went in the living room to watch TV with them, he turned it off. He told me that I made his life hell by being alive so he was going to make every second of mine hell. I spent my entire childhood being told I was nothing, worthless, by my own family, by everyone I was ever around. I seeked “god” and found nothing. I was udder alone.

At 15 I rebelled. I lost my virginity, I smoked pot, I drank, anything I could do to pissed my parents off. Though I myself defeated my own purpose. I did it all in secret. I kept up my perfect grades and sports, everything. I just wanted them to be proud of me, notice me, love me like they did my little sister. But I was never good enough. I started giving myself to any and everyone. I let myself be raped and hurt. Anything to feel something right? Pain is better than nothing at all.

I started self harming. It made me feel actual physical pain and let me focus on getting myself out of my head. I did it more and more. Over and over again. But unlike most, I cut on my thigh. I didn’t want them to be seen. I didn’t want anyone to know the pain I was going threw. I didn’t want to be noticed. All the while my brain was screaming for help… No one noticed a thing.

My senior year and the year that followed is what changed me, for both the better and the worse. That year I found out my “dad” had been molesting my little sister. She got taken away and given to the custody of my aunt. And I chose to stay. I guess part of me thought with her gone, maybe now they would love me. I was wrong. They blamed her being taken on me. It was my fault. I did it. Christmas that year we didn’t even put up a tree. My “dad” spent all of Christmas trying to take different shelters to take me. He tried everything to get rid of me but nothing worked.

I fell in love with a guy my senior year. We all know how it goes. I was crazy in love with him and he just wanted my body. Yet I was continuously stupid enough to believe he loved me. He fucked with my head, kept telling me it was to complicated, that we couldn’t be together. I graduated thinking it was my freedom from him, I wouldn’t have to see him anymore. I was finally free from his web.

A week after I graduated, I finally decided to leave. I knew my “dad” wasn’t going to let go to college because he didn’t believe women deserved an education. He believed that all women should be doing “wifely duties” like cooking, cleaning and having children. I had had enough. I asked my mom to borrow her phone and I called a friend asking them to come and get me. I packed 3 tshirts and a pair of underwear and walked out the backdoor. The only thing my mother was worried about was where her phone was.

I spent the next 2 months moving between friends houses. The 4th of July came around and guess what? I saw the guy I was in love with senior year. I kept telling myself I was over him, but when I saw him again… there was not doubt that my feelings had never changed. I took down his new phone number and started talking to him again. A few days later I was moved in with him and his parents and was beyond happy. He was finally mine and I had a family who loved me. I soon found I was pregnant and we were all beyond excited. My life was beyond perfect.

Soon it was my birthday, I was able to go a state away and visit my biological father and his family for the first time. I remember being so nervous I hid in the bathtub with a bucket on my head. My life just getting better and better. While with my father I had no way to message my boyfriend, so when the nleeding and the excruciating pain started I had no way of letting him know. I didn’t want my family to know I was pregnant so I hid it from them knowing they would shame me for it, talking it off as just super bad cramps. I knew something wasn’t right, and I had no other option than to suffer alone. I knew I had misscarried.

When I got back to my boyfriends place I explained everything that was happened and he cried. An hour after me getting there his father pulled me aside and told me that I had to leave. It was either me leave or they all got kicked out. Apparently the landlord were friends of my “dads” and heard from them I was nothing my a “lying, stealing whore” and they didn’t want me there. I begged to stay just that night, but I was told I had one hour to get what I could and leave. My perfect life… gone.

I spent the next 3 weeks curled up in a ball in my best friends bed. I didn’t eat, I didn’t drink anything. I kept text and calling my boyfriend, yet he never answered me. It was obvious. I’m damaged goods. I miscarried. Who wants someone who can’t even give them children. Who would want someone fucked up like me?

Have you ever felt you’re soul shatter? It’s deeper than just you’re heart breaking. I can’t really explain it, but promise me it hurt like fucking hell. I laid there, basically a zombie, and all I did was stare at walls and stay constantly stoned. It’s the only thing that kept me “sane”. At the end of those 3 weeks was my first day of college. I picked my self up, showered, and gathered my shit. I’m a fighter. I may be a fuck up but I’ll be damned if I’m a quitter. I HAD to prove my “dad” and everyone else wrong. I WILL make make it….somehow.

Those three weeks changed me. My depression got worse. I “taught” myself how to completely shut off all emotions. My depression controls me. I’m drowning in myself. These thoughts, their vines twisting and tying themselves around me. They control me. This time I didn’t sit back quietly and let everyone believe I was okay. This time I screamed out, literally begging someone, anyone to help me. Some people tried to helped, I tried dating again. And still nothing.

Over a year has passed. I should be holding my 6 month old baby in my arms, sitting beside the person I loved more than any other, but I’m not. I’m alone, it’s 4am and I’m bawling so badly I can barely type. Why does my body hate me so much it killed my own child. Why am I this way. Why are these thoughts still here? These thoughts telling me to just go outside and walk until I pass out and pray I freeze to death. These thoughts telling me to “go take a shower” and slide that shiny steel across my skin, just to see if I can feel it, and if not keep cutting deeper until I do.

This is only part of my story. Part of what goes on up inside this crazy mind of mine. This, this is not me. I am not my depression, but my depression is me. Someday I will find my purpose for being alive, I don’t know how, or when or anything. But this is not my end.

Hi, I’m Sam. I wish I was dead, but don’t want to die.

Now do you see why?

– Samantha, Lawton

Story #354

A steaming teacup perched on the arm of her pillow laden chair, filled to the brim with oolong tea. She reached over, taking a sip. The tea immediately fogged up her glasses, momentarily blinding her. She took them off and peered around her, the living room now a blur of bright colours, and for once, she was happy.

– Demetrius Shackbolt, Leichenstien