Writing 101, Day Twelve: (Virtual) Dark Clouds on the Horizon

Writing 101, Day Twelve: (Virtual) Dark Clouds on the Horizon
Today, write a post with roots in a real-world conversation. For a twist, include foreshadowing.

Wait out the storm at Costco

An Incident

We were freshman in high school. One day my friend W invited me to her home after school. On our way to her house, W told me she was mad at Lin. I asked her why. She told me she heard Lin say something bad about her. W was angry; she used several words that I was not allowed to say at my home.

Lin was a quiet and confident girl. Even though we were not close friends, I liked her a lot. “I am sure it’s misunderstanding. I don’t think Lin would say bad things about anyone,” I said.

W didn’t listen to me. She told me I was a fool if I trusted Lin. “If you are my friend, don’t talk to Lin anymore,” she said. Again, I insisted that there must be some misunderstanding. W gave me a look, which made me feel uneasy, but she finally dropped the subject.

Several weeks later, celebrating our school’s founding anniversary, teachers decided to exhibit our work for a week, including our calligraphy homework and our journal. I didn’t care to see anyone’s calligraphy homework and didn’t feel right to read other people’s journal so I didn’t go to the exhibition.

On the second day of the exhibition, my good friend Ding came and told me go read W’s journal. I told Ding I didn’t want to. When someone else made the same suggestion, I decided to take a quick look.

My jaw dropped. The conversation, which occurred on our way to W’s house, was recoded on W’s journal word by word, except that she had switched our roles around: I became the one who said terrible things about Lin and W was the one who was trying to comfort me and saying “It’s misunderstanding.”

Later, I confronted W. She gave me a sheepish smile and said, “It’s been written on the paper already. Nothing I can do now.”

There were things happened in my life that I couldn’t comprehend no matter how hard I tried. This is one of them.