2nd-Person Experiment

By Lauren and Georgia

We were given 25 minutes to try to write a short story in second person ("you" as opposed to first person "I" and third person "he/she/they"). These are what we came up with. They're both very different to what we'd normally write.

Nightmarish

By Georgia

You wake from a cold sweat, shaking off some nightmare that you can’t quite remember. Pushing off the covers you make your way through your messy bedroom, careful not to knock into anything on your way out. The house seems colder than usual; your breath visible in the early morning light. Something seems off. Making your way to the bathroom, you pass the living room and stop dead. Now you understand why the house is so cold.

The living room windows are smashed in, furniture is overturned, your great grandmother's china tea set is smashed into a million little pieces littered on the floor. Turning around you race to your bedroom, desperate to call the police. Slipping on the stairs you see them slick with blood. In fact, your entire bottom half is covered in blood.

Screaming you continue to race up the stairs. As you reach your room you see why you are covered in blood. There in your bed where you were not just 5 minutes ago was your dog, who usually sleeps at your feet, with a clean slice from its chest to its stomach.

The Thing

By Lauren

Nobody’s perfect. You know that. But do you know just how imperfect everyone is? Can you accept exactly how imperfect you are?

Are you strong enough to come face to face with whatever twisted, ugly thing is inside of you? The place where all those intrusive thoughts come from. Like the elephant’s foot* in the depths of Chernobyl, you know it’s there. You might forget sometimes, but you know it’s there. What is it? You don’t know, do you? But nothing good comes from it.

That impulse to jerk the steering wheel when you’re in the car. That gentle, probing “what if” that floats from the depths of your mind to the ends of your toes as you stand on the edge of the cliff. That whisper telling you that you could, despite the fact that you shouldn’t.

“That’s not me” you think, “they aren’t my thoughts”. Well they’re in your head so whose are they?

Shake your head. Clear your mind of it. Pretend like it never happened. But you know it did. Live your life acting like you’re perfect. Like no part of you is hideous. Go ahead. Pretend. Pretend like everyone else pretends. But you can’t deny it’s there. An unscratchable itch hovered just beneath your consciousness. That’s right. The smallest, tiniest, undeniable itch. An uncomfortable sandpaper layer hidden just beneath the surface of your skin.

The disgusting, greasy monster in the corner of your soul.

*The elephant's foot is a toxic, radioactive blob accidentally created after the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986. For more information see here.