You approach an article on the Internet. It’s large, intimidating, and static-y. You smell a whiff of memes wafting from inside. What do you do?
- To read the article, click “Continue reading” below.
- To run away, click BACK on your browser.
- To embrace the poison grasp of the infinite void, do nothing.
During the last stream, we tried a new kind of writing prompt: “chat your own adventure.”
Similar to a “choose your own adventure” book, chat got to choose from three options to decide what would happen next at four different parts of the story. Abbey and I went back and forth writing the short sections, and it just got crazier and crazier as we went along.
You can watch a quick recap of all the fun here,
or scroll down to read what we came up with.
Here’s what we came up with (chat’s choices in bold):
(I wrote this section)
It was a beautiful Thursday morning, but not for one young woman living in Japan. For Abbey, she woke up with a terrible stomachache. As her eyes creaked open, it felt like there was a submarine floating around in the pit of her stomach doing horrific experiments on her insides. The weight of the feeling kept her pinned down to the bed, making waking up nearly impossible.
She groaned and gripped her stomach as the burning morning sun spread across her eyes like boiling butter in a frying pan. More than anything, she just wanted to lie in bed for another hour. But she knew she couldn’t. There were hundreds of small Japanese children depending on her to come in and teach them English today! What would they do if she wasn’t there to teach them the names of fruits, animals, and how to say, “What country are you from? I’m from Japan. Thank you!”
And yet, at the same time, she wouldn’t be much use to the kids if she had to hold onto the desk at the front of the class just to stay upright. What if she had to run out of the room to throw up in the bathroom? What would THAT say about American culture to all the kids? Imagine if the only thing those kids remembered from English class in elementary school was their teacher throwing up during class?
Abbey had to decide what to do.
2. Should she woman-up and go in anyway and give it her best? #OvariesOfSteel
(Abbey wrote this section)
She knew that she had to pull up her big girl panties and go on into work. Sure, she’d need to take five tons of stomach medications, but that was the easy part. The hard part was the children.
She dressed herself in a lovely, blue kimono to give the impression that she felt just fine. Her stomach was gargling like a boiling pot of clam chowder in a witch’s cauldron. She kissed Scott goodbye for the day, and waddled her way to the train station for her commute to work.
Once she arrived at Frypan Elementary School, she was immediately engulfed in a screaming and giggling sea of Japanese schoolchildren.
“ABBEY-SENSEI! GOOD MORNING!”, rang out from the mouths of the many tiny kids canvassed all over the schoolyard.
Abbey surfed her way through the sea of children to the teacher’s room, and just barely made it when her stomach lurched. It was going to be a long and perilous (but fun!) day. Her first lesson was with class 6-A, the most well-behaved group of children that Frypan Elementray School had ever seen.
But today, this was not the case.
Little Kotaro-kun, usually situated at the back of the class, had his seat moved closer to the front of the classroom. As Abbey prepared her materials for the day’s lesson, he crouched down behind her and did some preparation of his own: he pressed his index fingers together, ready for the right moment to strike.
2. Abbey doesn’t notice, and gets a full-on kancho.
(I wrote this section)
Abbey was so busy trying to teach the class how to say “February,” not to mention keeping down the rumbling acid in the pit of her stomach, that she didn’t notice mischievous Kotaro-kun behind her, index fingers together in kancho position.
Kancho, the bane of every English-teacher-in-Japan’s existence. It was like a horrific rite of passage, a hazing to enter the world of being a teacher in Japan. And now it was Abbey’s turn to finally get her pointy-finger ticket to becoming a real sensei.
Kotaro-kun reeled back his fingers, charged up his hands, and then thrust them forward with the speed of a hawk, right into the butt bullseye.
Fblthp!
Abbey shot right up straight, stars sparkling in her vision. A terrible pain erupted in her backside, as if the submarine that had been floating inside of her suddenly shot right out her rear end. But this was not something coming out, this was something coming in.
Half of the class turned pale and shocked, the other half burst out laughing. Abbey slowly turned around to face Kotaro-kun, his hands still stuck in the incriminating position. For a sixth grader, he hand incredible finger strength. They were pushing the kimono fabric and rear-padding much farther than they had ever been pushed before. Abbey grit her teeth as sweat started pouring down her forehead and the acid began burning up her throat.
She needed to do something drastic.
3. Should she break out the secret plan that she’s kept stowed
away just for this emergency situation? #WhatCouldThatBe(Abbey wrote this section)
She had to finally use her plan B.
“I didn’t wanna have to use this”, she said, reaching into the right side of her obi. “You’re very lucky.”
The class sat in silence, as Kotaro-kun was still frozen in kancho-position. The homeroom teacher had already fled to the hallway to summon the principal.
“Kotaro-kun… today, you will feel my wrath! You have crossed a line that no student should pass, and you shall be punished!”
Abbey turned to face Kotaro, and the blood drained from his face. She wielded a massive, white folding fan, with the word “wrath” painted on in in big enough letters for the kids in the back of the class to read. She raised it in the air valiantly, and prepared for vengeance. Kotaro-kun braced himself for his punishment, and wished he didn’t try to prank the teacher. He wished he’d never been born.
Suddenly, Abbey’s stomach churned, and could no longer hold back the waves of approaching nausea that her adrenaline rush had previously suppressed.
What does Abbey do?
3) The Principal bursts in before anything happens,
and dispenses his own brand of #wrath.(I wrote this section)
But just as Abbey felt the burning liquid rushing up her esophagus, the door of the classroom burst open. Standing in the doorway was the homeroom teacher, and standing in front of her was the principal.
He was a majestic warrior beast. His immaculate suit shimmered in the sunlight from the windows, and his red tie was wrapped around his head, blowing in the gentle breeze. Rumor had it it used to be a slightly-less red tie, but it was stained dark with the blood of his enemies. Either that or spilled milk.
The principal stuck out a thick, hairy finger at Kotaro-kun and bellowed in his deep voice that bellowed through the entire school.
“Kotaro-kun!” Spit flew from his mouth all over the classroom. Luckily the children had their umbrellas out and ready, prepared just for this occasion. The gooey drops splattered all over their protective shields.
“Y-y-yes, principal-sensei?” Kotaro-kun stuttered.
The principal narrowed his eyes and the lights dimmed around him. “Omae wa mou shindeiru.”
Kotaro-kun looked confused, but then he went stiff as a board. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground with a thud that shook the classroom. All of the other children put away their umbrellas and politely clapped. The principal turned to Abbey and his fierce expression melted away into a soft smile.
“I am apologize, Abbey-sensei,” he said. “Kotaro-kun will not … how you say? Problem you anymore.”
The principal stomped into the room, his mere imposing presence heating and bending the airwaves around him. He bent down to Kotaro-kun, slung him over his shoulder, and walked out of the room to take him to the nurse’s office. As soon as he left, all the hands in the class went into the air.
“Abbey-sensei!” Natsuko-chan asked. “How do you say ‘Omae wa mou shindeiru’ in English?”
Abbey brightened up, all thoughts of sickness, kancho, and Kotaro-kun gone from her mind. She beamed to the class, picked up a piece of chalk, and started writing on the board.
“Of course!” she said. “It’s ‘You are already dead.’ Let’s start at the beginning. “You are.’ You know what that means, right? Next is….”
***
Hours later, Abbey took the train home, feeling better than she had in weeks. She opened the door to her apartment and sat down in the kitchen across from her very hardworking and extremely handsome and quite loving husband Scott.
“So how was your day at school?” Scott asked.
Abbey shrugged. “Oh you know, the usual.”
This prompt was a lot of fun! It kind of went off the rails after the second choice, but hey, that’s how most choose your own adventure stories go. You’re not going to choose the boring decisions (“go to school” or “listen to your parents”) you’re going to pick the fun ones (“poke the alien” or “eat the forbidden eyeball”).
After that, chat voted that we write this prompt created by -Thomas_Jefferson-: What would happen if a significant historical figure had access to one piece of modern technology?
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-11:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming March 2019.