[[ rudeneja - (verb) - definition: the way the nature and/or the weather begins to feel like autumn ]]
These are my entries for the Flumptober challenge hosted by @LuckyBugBooks! I'll be doing my best to complete the prompt for each day, and all of...
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flumptober day one : fall food
well- what started as a two-word prompt ended up being this monstrosity of a short story, all 10k words of it. :0 even now, after writing it, i'm still not exactly sure how this came to be such a long or detailed thing, but nevertheless i'm super proud of it! (for reference, the longest chapter of anything i've written prior to this is like 7.7k words!)
for this entry i wanted to do something with the idea of people bonding over food as a family and/or with their friends, so that's sort of how it started out and slowly began to take shape. plus, soup and bread are one of my very favorite foods that my family and i enjoy throughout the fall- which is why i've decided to use them for the prompt!
this story also turned into a way for me to process some things in my own life that have been happening as of late- which was unexpected, but a really good thing. i lost my grandfather only three months ago, and to be honest- like the characters here i struggle at times with learning how to work through his death.
writing this entry turned out to be incredibly healing, gave words to some of the things that i have been feeling, as well as a way to write things out and process through them in a healthy way, while hopefully still portraying them in a way that is authentic and not stereotypical.
as sad and as hard as it was to lose my grandfather, it's given me a new perspective of what it's like to grieve and to lose someone, and on how i can better understand how to help others going through something similar, and i'm super grateful that this story gave me an outlet through which to process some of those things.
with all of that being said, thank you all for reading. i hope that you enjoy the story! (and rest assured: the other entries should be nowhere near as long as this one!)
trigger warnings : brief mentions of cancer, implied main character death, loss and grief, brief mentions of a neglectful/absent parent, multiple people dealing with the death of a loved one, some feelings of hopelessness and/or despair, brief instance of mature language, and just the overall theme of loosing family members throughout the story.
(while these things are a big part of the story, and i have tried to showcase grief and the healing process in an authentic way, a lot of the themes above are implied, or not written about in great detail, and most of the story is fluff and hurt/comfort that outweighs the angst. it does have a bittersweet ending.)
(still- if any of this could be potentially triggering for you, i would advise that you either proceed with caution or find something else to read. your health is more important than a short story!)
