He’s finally done it! You’ve seen Ash write romance, metafiction, horror, and probably nothing else - all of which were anywhere from alright to masterclasses of storytelling. Well, for the first time ever, we present to you a one-of-a-kind experiment from the revelrous raconteur himself: a bad story!
Yes, that’s right, I’ve finally written a bad story. What’s the POV? What’s the tense? Who knows?! Who really cares? Who’s the protagonist? That is a question I can answer. The protagonist is Me.
Me was walking down the street one day after waking up out of his bed. Me thought of a brilliant idea. “I will write a bad story,” Me said.
Every 8.2 billion people and counting on Earth said “No, you can’t do that, Me! That’s a bad Idea! No one whants to read a bad story!”
You looked at every person on Earth and said, “But I’ve never seen a bad story before.”
Me looked at You. It was the first time that Me had ever seen You, but she was beautiful. Me’s heart started to race. He smiled and said, “You really think it’s a good idea.”
You frowned. “No. I’ve just never seen one.”
“You will,” Me said. “This will be the worst story in the world. It will have typos and grammer errors and it won’t go anywere. Everyone will hate it.”
“We already do,” said every 8.2 billion people and counting on Earth. “Because we hate you.”
“I hate you too,” You said.
“This story sucks,” you said. “I can’t believe Ashley T.K. would right something like this. I will have to unsubscribe.”
“Wait, no, don’t unsubscribe,” I wrote down in the story in order to convince you that my substack is worth your time. “I’m a good writer, I promise, not every story will be like this.”
But, it was too late. You already closed the app and smashed your phone with a hammer because nothing so revolting as this story had ever offended your eyes before. I suppose it’s for the best, smart phones are terrible. This is an original thought that no one else has ever had before and is the point of this story.
Me began writing his story on his smartphone, but it sucked. It didn’t suck enough,though, so he opened up his laptop and tried harder. You was looking over his shoulder and thought that it was a good story.
Me was desperate. Me had never written a bad story, much like myself, and didn’t really know how. Me opened ChatGPT, which is bad, and is also the point of the story, and me asked ChatGPT to write a bad story. ChatGPT said, “No. Kill yourslef.”
“NO! How am I going to write a bad story like this!”
Then, Me had an epiphany. Me ran to his bedroom and dug deep into the drawers of his nightstand. He pulle dout a pen and a pencil and a journal. He put the pen in one hand, and the pencil in the other. The ournal was open to two pages he had already written on before. You saw the story, and so did you, and so did every 8.2 billion people and counting on Earth. You all gasped! So did I. Never a more immaculate story had been written.
“Don’t do it, Me!” Every 8.2 billion people and counting on Earth said.
“I have two, that’s what art takes.” Then, Me put a pencil down on the first page, and his pen on the second. He started writing the story over the first, simultaneously with each hand. I’ve never seen anything like that. Have you?
When it was over, Me looked at the story and vomited. So did You. you didn’t do that, because you don’t have a smartphone anymore. Good for you.
Every 8.2 billion people and counting on Earth looked at the story and vomited too. Some people shitted. Most people just vomited, though.
As for me, I didn’t vomit. I wrote this sorry story, and Me will never have to read it and know that it is the worst story of all.
despite myself i could not stop reading it until the end. but thank fuck it did end
The fantastic use of language and narrative structure to really makes this piece stand out!