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Autumn Rain_by A.Nabeel
This is a story written by A.Nabeel.
@Aasim389 #story

So,
Let's Begin
Trigger warning: Talk of self-harm and suicide

Have you ever had this feeling? Like you’re a helium balloon with your string cut. A rotting piece of wood adrift in the vast ocean.

Does saying it like that make me sound too pretentious? Thinking I’m some kind of literary youth. Of course I’m not. I’m just sad. Sad people tend to be under the impression that they’ve been possessed by Li Bai and suddenly know the gruesome secrets of the universe through a few lines of poetry.

Second year of university; my life is great. All the sad things from the past can be thrown to the back of the mind.

So, my life isn’t sad.

*

I’m sitting in the library after hours because it’s raining outside and the librarian feels sorry for me.

Lin Yu. My name.

In Chinese, it’s written like 林雨. The first character is my surname – it means woods. The second character means rain. Don’t know whether my parents did this intentionally, but if you add three dots to the first character, make it 淋雨, and it means getting rained on.

The pronunciation is the same.

My brother’s name is Lin Qiu, written like 林秋 – the second character means autumn. Our names put together are autumn rain. Quite poetic, isn’t it? But it still makes me wonder why my parents couldn’t have just had one son named Lin Qiu Yu, rather than fracturing the name over two children.

Because what happens when one is left without the other?

Autumn rain paints an image of people walking with colourful umbrellas across a scenery of red, orange and yellow leaves.

Rain on its own is only grey.

*

The library was my brother’s favourite place. The librarian also let him stay after hours. It was because she liked him in the way of a favoured son. Not because she pitied him. Well, maybe she did when she learned that he had to give up dancing to take care of our mum.
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