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This is post 18 in Hive account@dragosroua's January 30 day writing challenge.

A Trip Down Memory Lane - My First 'Internet' Published Story

I did have a plan to publish the next Ramble On instalment today, and keep it to each Thursday. I will have to skip this week, and finish today's story for next week though. For the last 24 hours I have been a bit under the weather, and today even more so. I had a little bit left on the post I intended to share, but it wont be getting finished today.

So instead, I have decided to share a story which I wrote almost ten years ago and entered into an online competition run by the website 365 tomorrows. It did get runner up status, which surprised me, and for a time I even forgot it existed out there in the internet wilderness. Having found it again, as an example of where I was at writing-wise at that time, I thought I would fill in today's gap, and share my first internet writing experience.

I offer this not as an example of good writing (because it isn't all that good, but is okay), but as an example of progress made, as well as showing a a continuing theme in my writing.

Reality Fading

It ended as it always was. Just me with my thoughts bidding farewell to the only friend I really knew. At least he was the only one who really knew me.

There was no grave site. No urn to hold his burnt remains. No, there was just my memories of my friend, which will fade in time I guess. He told me they would. He told me they always do. How do you let go of something you have held onto for so long?

My shrink said it was just a faze. It will pass, it had to.
“These drugs are designed for your condition” he told me. He never told me what that condition was.
“But I don’t want to lose my friend.”

My shrink didn’t understand. It was his job to not understand. My family, they just wished I would grow up and be normal.

Sometimes I feel I was born into the wrong body. Or perhaps the wrong time. Or perhaps the wrong place. But I once found the place for me. My friend took me there.

“Did I tell you about the time he took me to his home?” My shrink gave me that look. The look that says ‘what am I to do with you’. What he did was up the dosage. He always did. It cost me my friend.

It’s not my shrinks fault. I was just born into the wrong body. Or perhaps the wrong time. Or was it the wrong place? Ah yes, there was that other place. His place. He took me there once. I tried to tell others about it. No one would listen. No one listens when they think you’re crazy. My friend, well he listened. He took me home, to his place.

To his world. A world of lights and movement. And buildings. I’ve never seen so many buildings. And they pierced the sky. It was just so beautiful. I know, I was there. I didn’t dream it.

The drugs tell me I did. My shrink tells me I did. My family tell me I did. But I didn’t. And now it’s starting to fade.

He told me it would.

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