When you survive this – and you will survive this – it will be for yourself. It will be because the difference between how far you’ve come, and surviving this, is one more step.
Global (14 February 2022) – A short story of hope, written by Peter Chiykowski titled “When You Survive This”, is being shared rapidly online.
Chiykowski is the creator of the award-winning webcomic Rock Paper Cynic and the designer of The Story Engine Deck of writing prompts. His new book of microfiction, The House of Untold Stories, is forthcoming from Andrews-McMeel Publishing on August 31, 2021.
He has twice won the Aurora Award for “Best Graphic Novel” from the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, and his writing, art, and memes have appeared in or been covered in books, newspaper articles, blogs, tabletop games, video games, and magazines coast to coast.
Most recently, a post he wrote for “The Shortest Story” is being shared by many social media users, exactly as he wanted. The website’s main objective is to share short stories of hope with the world.
When you Survive This
When you survive this, it will not be because someone said you could – although it’s good to be reminded from time to time. And when you survive this, it will not be because you had money in the bank or a roof over your head – because there may come a time when you have neither, and still, you will survive this.
And when you survive this, it will not be for family, nor friends-Although at times, their kindness will be the only candle you carry. And when you survive this, it will not be because of your enemies, nor because you held onto spite so hard that the world was deafened by the crack of your knuckles-Although a little anger now and then is good for the circulation.
No, when you survive this – and you will survive this – it will be for yourself. It will be because the difference between how far you’ve come, and surviving this, is one more step. And one more, and one more, until one day you look back to where you stand right now, make eye contact and nod, because you deserve to know that there is a world where you have already survived this.
On the far shore of this calamity, there is a place where your greatest trial is washing the garden soil from under your fingernails, or choosing a book to take to bed. On the far shore of this calamity, there are others who will need you to be their only candle, their roof, their reminder that they will survive this, even though they can’t believe you because the hope is too terrible to bear.
On the far shore of this calamity, you are looking back in admiration at yourself right now, muddling through with grace and grit and grim determination, and you are smiling because you know the secret of how you survive this, and one day, you will have the chance to share it.
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