Story
You had been given a gift. Your entire life, you refrained from
saying two words in passing—fearing that it may come true.
This gift is an heirloom. And these two words hold stories
that extend far into the past, and if you will it so, far beyond
you too. You held these words so tightly to yourself that it may
have been real, that it could be granted, that it had meant that
someone loved you enough to give what was most precious to
them: “I wish…”
There was a world waiting for him and he had to see it.
​
Chapter 1, Beginning
Although I cursed the world and my tenets, I was delivered to a green place.
​
Chapter 2, Kingdom
They say when your fortune comes, you will be ready.
​
Chapter 3, Saeculum
Outside, in the midst of camera flashes, a familiar thought comes to her: where was the promise of adventure?
​
Chapter 4, Limerence
Farthest is not a descriptor, but a place you’re about to reach.
​
Chapter 5, Millennial
Path
In the beginning of 2012, I was 24, a few years out of college with an engineering degree, and was generally aimless. Throughout my life, I was only passionate about movies, and stories, but I never tried creating either.
I’ve always had personal projects that I abandoned and story ideas which were never written. There are these stories of creators who had the same sort of trajectory: that for some urgency of disappearing youth or for the promise of the idea, they committed themselves to finish making their one thing.
Inspired by these creators’ stories, I told myself at 24 I was going to see this project through no matter what. I finished writing the story seven years later, in mid-2019. I spent the following year self-editing, teaching myself InDesign and rudimentary typography. Now I think the story is finally finished, and ready to be shared.
Skip the next paragraph if you mind slight spoilers!
The seed for this story were two ideas that came one after the other. On my bed, I imagined a story about a woman who passes away and gets reincarnated with the same genes and the same mind. Then I woke up later that same night with another idea. I got up from bed and wrote it down. The second idea was the idea of four boys who could transfer wishes to each other. After one boy has his wish granted, he gives it to the next one. This idea of wish transmission was a breakthrough for me. I’ve always had so many story ideas that were never written or left unfinished. With wishes and desires as things that can be transmitted, wishes became a story engine. Wishes was that something that can tie together any wild story idea I had. Wishes could weave together different story ideas (themes, settings, characters) into a larger narrative. So I got to work.
I feel like other people can share this sentiment that as you go deeper into the work, it reveals its true form to you. Although the story premise was initially about wish fulfilment, it has become about all those things that are passed down in time: heritage, heirlooms, traditions, sacrifice, family. It’s also about dreams, identity, duty, friendship, joy. The story is about those deep seated wishes that cannot be verbalized, but only felt. It asks me what it means to have a path in life.
With One Wish and One Wish To Give, I like to think that I’ve made my own path word by word.
And I hope that you may read this story under a warm sun; during some better time.
