Bridge 3 Final

Group Short Story: Grand Central Terminal

(5) Rising Action 3:
L writes a letter to M saying that her lover completed his last summer school at Cornell University and went back to his hometown in Hawaii. She talks more about him as she misses him more than before. In Hawaii, he joined the navy as he always respected and admired the military. When he was young, his father was a fleet admiral who directed the navy at the highest level. He always wondered and dreamed what it would be like to be the head of the military. Thus, even after studying psychology and animal science at Cornell University, he decided to follow his father’s path. L was unsure about his decision and felt uneasy about their future. L often mentioned in the letters that she wants to marry her lover after his college graduation, but now as he decided to join the military, she wasn’t sure when they will get together and plan for their future. She was anxious and afraid about his safety as a navy man, and was also upset and disappointed that he made his dream of being a navy man take priority to his future life with her. L continues to share her lover’s news with M.

L also talks about her dream. As she was born and raised in New York, she has always admired students who go to New York University as it was known to be a “good” school among her friends. So she applied to NYU for business and was accepted. As she encountered her third year at NYU, she added a minor study of art history. She thought business is useful and essential to join a company or to establish her own company, however she wasn’t interested enough to continue studying business. As she learned art history as her minor and explored the world of art during her last two years at the university, she decided to become a curator instead of a normal office worker. She additionally explained in the letter that she liked and enjoyed looking at the artworks in the museums when she went to the museum field trips during her high school days. M thinks a person’s interest during his/her young age will eventually affect his/her career because M had a similar experience to L. When M was young, her parents always wanted her to become an elementary school teacher as she liked reading and writing. But, M didn’t want to teach students. She just wanted to write her own stories and share her thoughts with other people. Even though she was influenced by her parents to major in elementary education in her college, after graduation, she decided to write her own stories and assemble them to make a book. A couple years later, she buried herself in the writing and was able to publish her first book series. She claims in the letter that she is still passionate about her job and is writing stories to publish a new book series soon.

(6) Climax:
The air got cold and the leaves turned red. It was already November. M remembers that there was the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. She realizes that there is only one month left until the attack in L’s time period. She had a dilemma, whether or not to warn L because L doesn’t know that M is from the future. She worries about it for a few days, and decides to warn L. She doesn’t want to make L mad or anything. She is just worried and afraid about the consequences of not knowing the attack that L and her lover will face. Even after M decided to warn L, she wasn’t sure where to start this whole story. Eventually, she writes a letter warning about the imminent war and the fate of L’s lover without mentioning that she is from the future. She doesn’t tell L that she is from the future because if she says so, L will definitely think M is crazy and wouldn’t consider her warning at all.

A few days later, L writes back angrily. She thinks M is playing a bad prank. She doesn’t believe her warning, but on the other side, she is worried about her lover because he is actually in Hawaii and it is only a month before the war that M warned about. L chooses not to reply M’s further letters because she thinks by doing so will harm and bring bad luck to her and her lover. Although she doesn’t believe the warning, she still contacts her lover to be careful with everything, just in case. M is saddened and worried that L doesn’t reply to her letters anymore. She feels like she lost her best friend as L was a person who she told a lot about her life and shared her recent news. Everyday, she goes back to the platform and checks the place where the letters were shared between them. For about a month, only her letters remained there, not being taken by anyone. It was December 7th. M went to their secret platform and found that more than 20 letters still remained at the place. It seemed like not even a small ant passed by. Even after December 7th, she goes to the platform one or two times per week to check if L took her letters by any chance. However, as she notices that L isn’t coming to the place nor writing letters to her anymore, she gradually stops going to the secret platform.