Stories We Tell

stories we tell A

ZINE

BY

HANNAH

CAO

&

FRIENDS

contents 5

intro.

6

first names.

23

from the notes app.

30

songs.

intro.

STORIES OF YOU AND ME. FOR EVERYONE.

This is to the people who we thought of when we wrote these stories and the ones who breathed these into life with the ease of a pen and the weight of a lingering emotion.

05

first names.

SECRET.

I can only stay hidden for so long. Mocking you and you don’t even know it.

I can make your pain go away, but of course it will always return.

Trust me when I say you will always want me more than you could handle the truth.

She only bring you sorry and grief, but me, I can tell you exactly what you want to hear.

My name is secret. How are you? Deceiving your mind is just what I do.

You think that you can figure out all my tricks?

Hahahaha, darling, you must be feeling sick!

I have been around for thousands of years, bringing glorious sad filled tears.

If I happen to come knocking on your door, remember you may want me to leave, but in the end you’ll be begging for more.

07

DANIELLE.

The people I hate drive me insane and the people I love make me hate them when I don’t want to. At the end of the day I sit on my windowsill and the question writes itself on the dirty glass in the form of raindrops: Nobody cares what you want or what you don’t want ‘cause everybody is busy looking out for themselves.

Not you, Danielle.

Shit keeps happening, really.

And we just keep rolling with it, just moving along.

I tried to stop moving. Like when a bee comes near you and you stay completely still so it wouldn’t sting you. Only the bee eventually flies away; life isn’t like that.

Life hits you hard. No matter whether you deserved it or not.

One day I wanted to challenge the bee. My life. And instead of coming to a halt, I triedTrying means you gotta keep moving. I stopped standing there, holding my breath, expecting my problems to go away.

Waiting for them to fade away into the void that seems to be your life.

Well.

They won’t fade away until you work your way through them.

Not around them – I really mean through them.

I wish, I could, I should. I wish, I could’ve, I should’ve.

What if, what if, what if.

There’s a another task. To take responsibility for what happens and what I’ll do and what I’ll feel. Looking forward because I learn something all the time.

Nothing is just unlucky, everything turns out to be a valuable lesson in the end.

Deal. With. Shit.

And then?

Then you just run. It depends on you how fast you will be running.

It doesn’t really matter how fast.

Or where you’re running to.

Just make sure there’s nothing you’re running from. You’re just leaping forward.

Always leaping towards strength.

09

MAGGIE.

The snow fell elegantly onto the grey pavement outside.

People were walking from place to place, each with somebody to see, or somewhere to go.

The café was buzzing with life. Everybody was laughing, talking, or reading.

The comfort of the smell of tasty pastries filled the room.

I was not apart of that. I sat in the corner of the café, by myself. I was intent with myself, as I sipped on my cup of tea.

I never thought you would change me that day, but then again most people never do.

You walked up to me with your hipster red scarf, buttoned down blue shirt, and denim jeans.

“You look a little lonely over here. I had to come and join you.” Your voice was soft and sincere.

At first I intended to ignore you until you walked away but you were just being nice, and I didn’t mind. “Sure.”

You stayed seated across from me, and we sat together in silence. I peeked to see what colour your eyes had but ended up noticing how lonely you looked yourself. For a

while we sat there and looked out on the street together.

Each of us reminiscing about something.

Or possibly, someone. At some point you’d speak up again.

“You know I never got your name.”

“Margret, but I like Maggie more.”

You nodded. “Eric. Eric and Maggie. Does have a nice ring to it,” you said, winking at me jokingly.

“Don’t tell me you have our wedding planned out as well,” I reply sarcastically and luckily, your face lit up with a grin.

“Oh, you look so sad. I like that about you.” The way you said it was so... light. Just as if my tears on my pillow only weighed as much as a feather.

“Why would you like that in a person?” I said, confused.

The things slipping from your lips didn’t make much sense to me.

“Don’t you know?

Sadness is only the beginning of happiness. You don’t know it yet but, there’s always potential to find that smile again. Now I don’t know how

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it looks like on you yet but I believe it’s deadly.”

“Is this how you pick up sad girls?”

“I have a thing for sad girls, I suppose.”

I thought of something immediately. I put on the biggest smile I could fake.

And I flaunted it, resulting in you grinning back.

“Will this put you–” “No. Not at all.” You looked at me and your eyes shifted between mine, not willing to focus on anything else.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked Eric.

“We all have somewhere to be.”

“I suppose.”

“For now I think I’m supposed to be here.”

“My tea is cold so I think I am supposed to be leaving.”

When I left you and the shop that day without turning back, I secretly hoped that you were going to change me. Whether it was from that one encounter or from all the cheeky little things you said to me.

me back to that little place of comfort in my head. The spot in the corner was free.

No one really liked to sit there because of the lack of lightning. I sat in the same spot as before, sipping another cup of tea. That day I met you was immediately replaying in my head. Thinking of your grin, I felt my cheeks heat up and I doomed myself stupid.

“There’s the sad girl with the smile.” I looked up at you then.

As if I’d known you, I emitted, “You’re here.”

“Yeah, that’s funny. I mean, we never had the chance to say goodbye.”

I said the only thing I could.

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” I watched as you sat down across from me just as you had all those days ago.

“Hello.”

I smiled knowing exactly where we were headed. “Hello.”

And just like that it was as if history was repeating itself, and I didn’t mind.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / It was months later before I visited the café again. I had moved to another part of town.

All the laughs and chatter gave the room life just as it had before and it brought

11

SUG

I had never felt the way I did that day when everything crumbled in my fingers, one might say it even melted like the snow in March.

Bitterness upon my tongue, caressing my every taste bud in a way that only provoked me more. Thinking it would go away, I would later attempt to wash it down with toothpaste, dental floss, and Listerine.

But it wouldn’t dissapate.

No, it couldn’t. For the rest of my life, it’s traces would still remain my mouth, sweetly reminding me of that day.

I had fallen apart. Pieces of me floating in the atmosphere, begging to be put back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Only this time, there were no corner pieces to reference where to start. I had figured someone would try – anyone, really but no one would. Especially the one I had leaned on in my worst of moments, the hardest of times - he would let me down time and time again. I would later see him walking by the harbour, surrounded by artificial friends with plastic smiles; he would pretend not to know me. I would be heartbroken. But I’d be okay.

Eventually.

Because, on that day, before he forgot my name, I would

break his heart. He wouldn’t listen to me beg, plead, ask for forgiveness. No, he wouldn’t. I would later ask myself why I bothered asking for him to believe me, if he had loved me as much as he claimed to, he would have trusted me from the moment I told him.

Instead, I was left with the shards of my innocence, attempting to convince myself that I would recover. I would get better, wouldn’t I? But with no support from him, there was no possible way anyone would ever believe me.

I had given them no reason to.

You see, I was just that kid.

Yeah, the one no one gave a damn about because she had never proven her worth. I had vandalized, destroyed, manipulated, and betrayed every good thing that had ever come my way in an attempt to separate myself from what I thought was positively the one thing I did not want. Who would have known I had needed it all along?

But that night, the night it all went wrong - oh, I should have known. It was all too coincidental. Booze, ecstacy, lingerie, bass, smoke, hash, haze - these components do

AR.

not come together easily.

Some think they attract like magnets. I can tell you they do not, unless something changes the force. Breaks the mold.

Ink freshly plastered across blistered skin, he did. I had known from the moment his name was mentioned that I needed to avoid him, to look the other way, ignore his persistent calls. He would beckon for me, beg for me, pray for me in a fever dream. His words spoke only my name, crawling through his veins, seeping from his pores; it would be me and me alone that would consume him.

His desire overcame reality,

persistent every waking hour of the day, so much so that he would go above and beyond to have me.

The fabric would ruffle between his thighs, his fingers interlacing the tendrils of my hair, drawing my air into him. In the wake of sweat in an arctic dispassion, colliding husk upon husk, the days of sweetness would be gone.

But he would forever refer to me as his Sugar.

13

ANGEL.

She giggled as the tall bearded man pushed her higher into the clouds.

“Daddy, stop it! You’re going to make me fly off!” The girl spoke. The man chuckled at this, but continued to push her higher into the air. He knows that she won’t fall.

“Daddy, stop!” She yelled again, giggling as she said so. Again, the man chuckled, but said nothing, continuing to push her higher and higher above the horizon.

“Daddy!” The brown-eyed girl yelled as she lost her grip on the link metal chains.

She closed her eyes, though it wasn’t out of fear. Fear isn’t common for a girl such as her. She may be eight, but she knew by now what she was.

“Oh Heaven,” the bearded man cooed. Said girl still had her eyes closed shut, though she wasn’t moving.

“Heaven, open your eyes,” the man spoke softly. Heaven did as she was told and opened her eyes. She grinned down at the man that just stood there, staring at her from below.

“I don’t think I can ever get over this,” Heaven stated in an excited, childish voice.

The man bowed his head down to chortle, before motioning with his hand for Heaven to

come down. She did as she was told; she let her wings flap gently to let her ease down onto the ground softly.

Yeah, that girl named Heaven is an angel. And that man? He’s her second father. It’s not that her first father didn’t want her, it was just that her injuries were to severe for her to be his anymore.

Heaven walked beside her Dad who was humming lightly to a tune that she wasn’t familiar with. With her hands held behind her back, her pink and white polka-dotted dress was more prominent.

“Daddy,” Heaven said, stopping in her tracks. The man paused and turned around to look at the little African American girl before him. Her small brown eyes weren’t brimmed with any tears, but she couldn’t help but feel sad sometimes.

“Do they miss me?” The tall, long-bearded man walked to where the girl was standing and squatted to be at her level. This made her look up, her eyes slightly glazed from her forming tears.

“Of course they do; they all do. They miss you with all of their very being,” he responded, smiling at the girl whose face was streaked with tears. Cupping her face with

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his hands, he wiped away her tears as she smiled softly.

Abruptly, the Angel asked, “Who?” The man laughed at this, before bopping her little button nose lightly and saying, “I’ll show you.” Standing, the man picked up the little girl who was done crying.

She clutched him as if her life depended on it before appearing in the room of one of her cousins. Heaven glimpsed at the room before noticing a picture on her cousin’s window sill.

“Is that...?” She trailed off, confused. The man that has been with her from day one picked up the frame and looked at while nodding his head. Handing it to the girl, he knew that she realized that it was her. He also realized that her cousin wasn’t completely unaware of their presence.

“Heaven, come over here.”

Looking at the photo one last time, she put the frame back in its original spot.

“Look at your cousin, Angel.”

So she did. Heaven saw that her cousin was typing furiously at the keyboard.

“What she’s writing must be important,” she stated in a naive tone. This made her Dad chuckle before whispering in her ear,

“It’s about you.” Heaven’s eyes widened before going over to look at what her cousin, Angel, was writing.

The short African American child backed away when her cousin stretched out her arms.

When she stopped stretching, she continued to type before stopping completely to read the words she’s written aloud.

“Heaven, I know that you’re up there in a better place now.

It’s been four years since your death, but I still think about you often. I imagine what you’d look like at the age you would be now which is age eight. I figured you’d be cute as you usually are. I just wanted to write to you and let you know that-that you aren’t forgotten. Never are you ever forgotten because you-” she stopped. Heaven saw that Angel was choking up, but she continued reading her words.

“Because you, my dear, were one of the most blessed things to ever be placed on this Earth. Though it was felt it was too soon for you to be taken away from us, we know that God, your father who’s taking amazing care of you, will always be there for you when you cry. I hope you hear this, because I don’t want you to ever feel that you’re

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forgotten. You’re my little angel in the sky, alright? I love you.�

Then Heaven was back where she was before.

Among the clouds. With God her dad.

She smiled as she looked down from the highest point in the heavens, happy that no one has forgotten her.

Especially her cousin, Angel.

16

MIA. This morning I woke up from the buzz of my phone lying beside me. Staring at the ceiling, eyes in a daze, I remained on my back, resisting a slight itch on my leg.

I didn’t want to know who the message was from. In fact, I already knew. I didn’t want to read what he had to say.

I could’ve deleted the message right away. Last night I should have blocked his number.

Only I came back to my place at seven in the morning and I took a long shower and I fell asleep in an instant.

The shower lasted an hour and more before I felt clean enough to get into my covers.

I felt a slight burn around my hips from rubbing too hard, still.

In the end, my alarm rang and that was when I had to pick up my phone.

I turned off the alarm before the ringtone could set me off as it does. Then I saw the message.

“Hey, Mia. Can I take you out to dinner?”

I hadn’t even saved his number.

I clicked on the message, then I read over the compliments he’d written beforehand, before I’d come over.

It wasn’t my fault. That’s what I tried to tell myself.

It wasn’t my fault I came over and he decided that that was enough of a sign to do what he did. The voice inside my head wasn’t very convincing.

But she had pity. I wished she would’ve been stronger, ringing louder.

“No.” I replied.

My phone buzzed almost immediately.

“Why not? I enjoyed the time we spent together.”

“Of course you did.”

“Didn’t you?”

“What do you think?”

“Well, you seemed to like it a lot, too. Am I wrong?”

“I cannot fathom what would make you think I enjoyed any bit of what happened last night.”

“What do you mean? What’s up with you?”

“Don’t do that shit to anyone ever again.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t you want it?”

“No. I did not.”

“But you seemed like you wanted it? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I said something all night.

I could’ve been clearer with you, I admit. You manipulated me into this. I should’ve been bold so even you would understand that I was feeling uncomfortable. You preyed on

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my sad sob story I happened to tell you because I thought I could trust you. I don’t want to hear from you ever again.”

“Wtf?” Reading that, I blocked him.

I felt exhausted. I put the phone back down, turned onto my stomach and pulled my pillow over my head. That way it couldn’t get any tear stenches on it.

CASSANDRA. I was stuck, alone in a huge city. I knew nobody, had little money and was staying in a crappy flat which I had rented, online, without even seeing it first hand. thankfully, I had a job, it’s what got me there. had I not got a job, I wouldn’t have been able to live in the city.

I had nobody to guide me and I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do first. you see, having lived in a tiny village in england and then gone to a tiny university, I had never really experienced the booming, towering buildings which surrounded me no matter where I went and I certainly had never come face to face with the huge numbers of people. don’t get me wrong, I’d travelled but it was all so new. I’d never moved across an ocean, where I knew nobody and certainly didn’t have to stay there for two years.

I did now; my job contract stated it. that was more than a little terrifying. the first night was the strangest night, not the worst

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and definitely not the best, just strange. the flight had taken 7 hours, I had travelled in the middle of the night; saving myself a lot of money.

I had a little money, enough to rent my flat for a month or so and to buy some essentials but not enough to go first class on a 7 hour journey, half way across the world.

I was planning on being able to do that when I was high up in my profession, or so I humoured myself with thinking.

I was a journalist, you see. there wasn’t a large industry for journalism in my village and no where seemed to want to hire a newly out of university graduate with not a whole of experience. so, I stayed in my small village and decided to post articles online; that’s how they noticed me, posting articles about the “scandals” going on in my village. they were useless, satirical articles but they got me noticed.

I got an email first, then a phone call, several in fact, and then finally a skype call; sealing the deal. and that

was that, I had been offered a job thousands of miles away with a reasonable pay. so I took it, in a split decision I called the company up and I took the job. it’s strange, when I think about it, how fast my decision was. perhaps I should have thought about it for a few seconds longer, then again I was never going to get another opportunity, was I? I called a taxi to my crappy flat and headed up the four flights of stairs, four times due to my luggage. inside there were very few items of furniture, a shower, sink, toilet. an oven, cupboards, fridge-freezer and second sink, a bed, a sofa and a few cupboards. not a lot, but just what I needed, I could always buy more, of course when I had the money. two years would be too long to just live with the essentials, would it not be?

I spent the rest of the day unpacking, trying to not mess up my sleeping pattern.

I slept well that night, I was jet lagged and I was relaxed. it was nice being in a new environment, knowing no one and having to start again, I’d never experienced

anything like it. I missed my family, I missed my friends. but I could talk to them, I could see them, it was an opportunity of a lifetime. the second day, I adventured outside of my flat. I had a meeting with the company in the afternoon and I had to find the building. the buildings all looked the same; huge and overwhelming. I didn’t panic though, not yet. that came a little later. two o’clock came and went and I was lost, in the city, the meeting was at two thirty. so I called them: “hello, how can I be of assistance today?”, a perky man’s voice said at the end of the line. “oh, hello, I’m due for a meeting with, err, mr linda at two thirty and I am new to the city and a little lost, I was wondering if I could either get some directions or have the meeting changed.” I could hear him laughing slightly at the end of the line, a little unprofessionally.

“I can give you directions, what’s your name?”

I hesitated. “cassandra jackson.” “ms jackson, where are you at the moment?” and so I told him.

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I got to the meeting in time and I met mr linda, it went well; at least, that’s what the perky assistant told me. he was probably just reassuring me.

I started my job on the fourth day of being in the city. on the twentieth day, I felt relieved. relieved to be out of the bloody tiny village and into a huge city, I’d made a mistake going to a small university. I’d made a mistake not experiencing life more before I left. life is so precious and everything seems so overwhelming but when you really get out there, it’s not that bad. my flat didn’t get a whole lot better by the time I had been there for a month. I had added

a crappy tv, bookshelf and a rug, still it was mine. the job was good, people didn’t blink at my british accent, the city was too accepting. a month was when I realised that, although I didn’t have a lot of money, I didn’t know a whole lot of people in the city, my flat wasn’t the best thing in the world, I missed my family and friends, I was glad. I was glad I had made the leap, I had been so overwhelmed, so confused at what to do and I had taken a split decision. best split decision of my life. suddenly, two years in new york city didn’t seem so lonely.

22

from the notes app.

24

27

29

songs.

wild world / cat stevens

dog days are over / flo + the machine

lost stars / keira knightley

orence

wild world / cat stevens