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Week 9 Story: Paradise City

 

Photo by Dennis Buchner on Unsplash

The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to DieJapanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki, with illustrations by Japanese artists (1905).


Santana was nervous, she was departing on her first ever plane trip alone! Her father had recently moved to Hawaii and she was away at college and could not visit him. She had always been afraid of heights and so when she found out her dad was moving away, she knew it was going to be hard for her to see him. He knew she was iffy about coming, he probably thought she would not. It was his 50th birthday this weekend, and she knew she had to be there. 

"Sorry if I seem so nervous, I grew up in California and we just drove everywhere. Never a need to fly haha. Just don't think I am freaking out.... I am totally fine." Santana giggled nervously to the man sitting next to her on the flight. He looked over at her and noticed she was talking.

Taking out an AirPod he said, "Is this going to be one of those chatty flights? Am I going to have to entertain you or can I just continue to listen to my podcast?" 

Santana realized that she wouldn't have a life-changing conversation with a mysterious stranger on the plane today like she thought she might. "Oh, sorry. Don't worry about it." Santana shrunk down in her seat and looked down at her feet, just hoping they would take off soon. Hopefully she could just get it over with.

"Hello passengers, this is your captain speaking. It's going to be a turbulent ride, so make sure to stay seated during the majority of the flight unless otherwise stated. Welcome to Jofuku airlines, where you'll feel like a tiny paper crane sailing upon a sea of clouds. Th...that's how uh... that's how smooth the ride is. I guess. Okay, whatever. Buckle up!"

Santana closed her eyes and hoped she might be able to fall asleep and miss the feeling of leaving the ground. As she drifted off she heard wind and the subtle humming of the plane before takeoff. 

When she awoke the plane was in disarray. "Hi everyone, this is your captain again, um.... We seem to be getting pulled into some kind of weird current. So if you feel like the plane is fighting the atmosphere... it is. I would HIGHLY suggest grabbing those little oxygen bags and breathing them in haha okay."

"What kind of pilot TALKS like that," Santana said starting to panic. "What do we do?" The man sitting next to her just rolled his eyes and said, "Calm down kid, this is normal." 

Of course this is NOT normal, Santana started to freak out. She realized that everyone on this plane was super chill about the situation and was not panicking at all. Why weren't they scared to die? The plane was descending fast, what if they crashed. She didn't want her dad to think she wasn't coming and that's the last thing he remembered about her. Her being scared. 

When the plane finally landed, it wasn't really a soft landing. The plane kind of completely crashed into an island in the Pacific Ocean. "What just...happened. Where are we?" Santana struggled to try and get service so she could call her dad. 

"Welcome to Paradise!" The captain said, suddenly all of the people put on Hawaiian shirts and started heading toward the beach. 

"Wait this isn't where I wanted to go? Where is Hawaii?" Santana was realizing that this place was nice, but she could not stay here.

"This is the island of Perpetual Life. Anyone who stays here will be young forever and never have to face their fear of inevitable death... we just took a pit stop" The angry man who had sat next to her was very happy now and walking along the sand without a care in the world. 

While everyone seemed so pleasant and happy here, it wasn't real happiness. Santana realized people were trying to escape from their lives, and run away from their problems. Rather than face them head on, like she needed to do. "Help me get out of here, please." Santana asked the captain, begging him to get her to her dad in Hawaii.

He laughed and walked away, "once you're here for a bit you'll never want to leave."

"This place is magical, but why isn't it working on me?" Santana said to herself, she realized that all of these people were seeking a solution to their lives, a quick fix. She needed to get out of there before she also became complacent. So she hatched a plan. At night when everyone was off sleeping, she grabbed one of the inflatable preservers that the plane had in case of a crash and blew it up herself. 

"If I use this as a boat and get myself in the right direction, maybe I can get to Hawaii." She got an oar and compass and her phone and somehow was able to use google maps to direct herself to a civilized island. 
She called her dad, and he came rushing to pick her up. She was so proud of herself that she was able to overcome the power of the island's pull to stay there. 

Suddenly she woke up and realized she had fallen asleep on the plane, the man next at her was staring at her with a weird look on his face. "You gonna get off, or are you just gonna keep sitting there crying?" She realized they had landed in Hawaii and got her things to run to her dad. He was waiting for her with open arms. 

Santana knew now that fear should not rule your life, and sometimes you have to face some necessary fears in order to be with people you love. 




____________


Author's note:

I liked this fairytale a lot because I felt like I could apply it to a modern experience of escapism. I wanted to keep the basis of the story similar, but I wanted the main character to feel sort of wrong about going to this island. In the main story Sentaro was scared of death and he wanted to find the elixir of life and stay alive forever. The people on the island he ended up flying to wanted to die, they hated their incredibly long lives and wished they could escape it. This was my attempt of modernizing it and also changing the idea to fears in general rather than one person escaping death. 
I titled it paradise city because of the song by Guns 'N Roses which has the lines, "take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Oh won't you please take me home" I wanted that energy from the characters. Most of them wanted to be there, but our main character wished she could go home instead. 

Comments

  1. Hi Savannah!
    I really liked your story! You kind of flipped everything from the original story around. It works really well! Bits of your story were choppy, but other than that it was great! Why did you switch the genders of the characters? Was it just because you were essentially switching everything else? Great story!

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    Replies
    1. Partly because I wanted to change most of the story to be opposite, but also because I struggle writing for male characters since I feel like my voice in writing is somewhat feminine and I don't relate to male characters as much! I just tend to gravitate toward writing dialogue for female protagonists!

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  2. Hi Savannah, really enjoyed reading your story! There were some jarring moments, like the part where her getting off the island back to civilized land happening so quickly, and her father picking her up. Her reuniting with her father felt like it didn't stick the landing as well as it could have, but the overall plot was a good idea!

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