I'm just blowing off some creative steam until I can start writing again.
In this collection of short stories, I find/get prompts and will write a one-shot in response to the prompt.
One-shots may be in genre from SciFi to Horror to AU fanfics to yo...
Due to a rare brain condition, you've spent your entire life hallucinating the presence of a six-foot-tall penguin. You're on a date one day when you're asked: "So what's up with the penguin?"
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Ever since I was small, I could see a penguin. As strange as that sounds, it all started when I was a toddler. I had gotten some horrible illness from some unvaccinated kid at daycare and since I had an impaired immune system until age 5 and could not be vaccinated, I caught said nasty illness. Vaccinate your kids, people. That horrible illness caused me to have seizures and one seizure cut off blood flow to my primary visual cortex, and as a result, my brain overcompensates the reduced capacity of my visual cortex by constantly creating hallucinations. They used to change when I was just out of my coma, I used to see glitter all over the place, flying animals, trees, nature scenes instead of the hospital room until the hallucinations stopped changing and settled to being a six-foot-tall penguin.
This penguin was sort of like my imaginary friend. It was always there. In my highs, in my lows, when I was scared, when I was drunk out of my mind the first time I ever snuck out of the house to go clubbing with my friends, and all the times in between. It never made any noise, apart from the one time it honked really loudly when I was 7 and tried crossing the street just as a car was speeding by. I always talked to the penguin, it became an emotional outlet, and even if it was my own imaginary friend, I never named the penguin.
I'm now 23 and the penguin is still very much part of my life. We, the penguin and I, moved into a one-bedroom apartment in London, and the penguin often had fun bathing in the bathtub that the apartment had but often left water all over the place. I didn't think too much of it but the penguin was a hallucination my brain created so I don't know where the water came from or if my brain was simply tricking.
I was getting ready one evening for a date I had with a work colleague of mine. He was also an intern and we immediately clicked as soon as we met. We had long talks about our childhoods, aspirations and dreams at the copy machine, picked up coffee for each other whenever our superiors asked us to do a coffee run, and stayed up late texting each other. I didn't realise that I had gotten stuck in a fantasy daydream before I noticed the time.
"Shit! Come on, you penguin! I know you hate being alone without me!" As soon as I yelled that, the penguin waddled its self over, making a strange noise that was almost like humming. I had never heard it do that noise before. I quickly checked my makeup in the mirror, and quickly decided to throw my hair up into a high ponytail, but left a couple of strands loose to frame my face.
Even though spring was starting to show its face, Lonon was still chilly in the evening, and a light drizzle was starting to come down. I shivered almost as soon as I stepped outside, but the penguin pressed itself firmly against my back and started to share its body heat. Thankfully, the bar we were meeting at wasn't too far away from my apartment and the penguin was acting as my personal radiator.
