She lifts her arm like she’s remembering something older than breath—an inheritance carried not in blood, but in rhythm. The world behind her blurs into strokes of salt and shadow, yet she stands carved from something steadier: a woman made of lineage, of stories whispered through blue smoke and braided into the folds of her headwrap.
Her eyes are closed, but nothing about her is blind. She’s listening—maybe to the low tide of an ancestor’s voice, maybe to the soft insistence of her own pulse. The light catches her cheek like a blessing she didn’t ask for but accepts anyway.
And there’s that slight tilt of her mouth—neither smile nor sorrow, just the calm of someone who has survived enough to know the difference between surrender and liberation.
This is not a pose.
It’s a reckoning. A quiet claiming of space. A woman mid-stride in a prayer only she understands, and yet somehow, it feels like she speaks for all of us.
I was never a cartoon kid. The bright colors, the slapstick chaos, the noise—they all felt like they were shouting past me. But every now and then, something stranger slipped through the broadcast. Clutch Cargo.Space Angel. The 70s Spider-Man reruns with animation so stiff it felt like everyone was holding their breath.
Most folks remember those shows for the uncanny mouths or the budget that barely covered a pot of coffee. I remember the stories.
Even as a kid, that’s what hooked me. It wasn’t the art; it was the pulse beneath it. A pilot lost in deep space. A hero swinging across a city that looked more empty than alive. A mystery to unravel before the next commercial break. Those shows were weird—no denying that—but weird wasn’t a flaw. Weird was an invitation.
While other kids waited for punchlines, I waited for stakes. I wanted to know what the trouble was, what hidden door we were about to open, what secret someone was trying to bury. The stories were simple, but they had weight. They made you pay attention. They carried that quiet tension you only feel when something matters, even if you can’t explain why.
Looking back, I think that’s what stayed with me. Not the animation. Not the nostalgia. The stories. They were the first lesson in how narrative works when you strip away spectacle: character, pressure, consequence. The essentials.
Maybe that’s why they stuck. Maybe that’s why I still chase that same feeling when I sit down to write—just a strange transmission cutting through the static, reminding me that the story is the thing that survives.
There are words we use carelessly, scattering them across people who haven’t earned them. Honor is not one of them. Honor is not a word; it’s a state of being. Many treat it as a relic from old books, a concept preserved in ink but forgotten in practice. We remember its definition, but not its discipline. Honor belongs to lives that can bear its weight—those whose choices reveal intent rather than performance, discipline rather than spectacle, substance rather than noise. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the rare men whose life, lived deliberately and consistently, justifies the use of that word.
Long before trophies or records, before the skyhook carved its arc into basketball history, Kareem learned what it meant to walk a disciplined path. In Black Cop’s Kid, he writes about his father, a Black New York City police officer navigating a segregated America. His father moved through streets that demanded vigilance, wisdom, and restraint—a man required to inhabit two worlds that seldom acknowledged the full weight of his humanity. That quiet duality shaped Kareem’s earliest understanding of strength. His father did not preach lessons; he embodied them. The discipline in that household was not loud or performative. It was patient. Intentional. A way of carrying oneself when no one is watching. It was here that Kareem first learned that the inner life must be steadier than the world pressing against it.
As Kareem stepped into the national spotlight, that lesson met its first genuine test. His presence alone carried expectations that were not of his choosing. Every gesture, every silence, every interview became a canvas for projection. America demanded a familiar performance from its Black athletes—gratitude without question, humility without edge, excellence without voice. Kareem refused the performance. His reserve was mistaken for distance; his intellect, for defiance. Yet what much called aloofness was simply the discipline he had been raised with: the separation of worlds, protecting the private self, the refusal to let public hunger consume what must remain internal. Strength, for him, was never volume. It was alignment. And maintaining that alignment in the face of scrutiny became its own form of endurance.
This alignment is what he carried into the moment that would sharpen his moral identity. In Black Cop’s Kid, Kareem describes being invited, at just twenty years old, to join a gathering now known as the Cleveland Summit. Jim Brown called him to sit alongside Bill Russell, Carl Stokes, Muhammad Ali, and other Black leaders—a room full of men who bore their own histories of struggle and conviction. They met to confront Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War. Some had served in uniform; others had walked the front lines of civil rights battles. The air in that room was a crucible, not a ceremony. Kareem entered as the youngest voice present, carrying the discipline of his father but stepping into a conversation that demanded clarity far beyond his years.
For hours, the group questioned Ali. They challenged his reasoning, his faith, his willingness to accept consequences. Ali argued that the war was being fought by people of color against people of color, for a nation that denied them basic civil rights. His refusal was rooted in religious conviction and moral clarity, not political theatrics. As Kareem recounts it, the debate grew heated—sharp questions, sharper answers, the weight of identity and duty pressing into every sentence. What emerged was not a portrait of a defiant champion but of a man prepared to sacrifice everything rather than betray his principles.
Bill Russell summarized what a good deal of felt but would not say aloud: he envied Ali’s “absolute and sincere faith.” Envy—not of fame or power, but of conviction. Kareem saw it plainly: even giants grappled with doubt. Even legends feared whether they could withstand the cost of conscience. In that moment, Kareem recognized a truth his father had lived without speaking—integrity is measured by what a person refuses to surrender. By the end of the Summit, they stood with Ali. Kareem left not with a slogan but with a direction. As he wrote, he felt he was finally doing something important rather than merely watching the world from its edges. His father’s quiet discipline had found its test, and it held.
That commitment of intent over performance would define the decades that followed. Kareem did not chase the spotlight. He did not soften his seriousness to become more palatable. His writing, activism, and public presence reflect a consistent refusal to be shaped by expectation. In a culture that rewards noise, he chose depth. In an era that prized spectacle, he chose substance. His reserve was not distance—it was stewardship of the inner life his father taught him to protect.
This same ethos threads through his work beyond basketball. In Brothers in Arms, his tribute to the 761st Tank Battalion of Black soldiers in World War II, he writes of men whose greatest acts were known only in fragments. Many lived entire lives without revealing what they had endured. Their silence was not secrecy—it was dignity. Kareem writes about them with reverence, humility, and a recognition that some forms of service cannot be measured by praise. In many ways, his own life echoes theirs: principled choices, quiet strength, a preference for action over advertisement. Deeds, not words, as the old motto says.
Across time, the pattern of his life remains coherent. The public, private, and secret selves that his father taught him to guard align under a single discipline: to move with intent, even when misunderstood. The same steadiness that kept his father upright on hostile streets steadied Kareem through shifting eras, hostile headlines, and the long shadow of fame. His reserve is no longer misread when viewed through this lens. It becomes what it always was: a disciplined way of walking through a world eager to consume more than it has earned.
Most athletes earn admiration. Very few earn Honor. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar does, not because he was flawless or universally embraced, but because he lived with deliberate intent when it would have been easier to drift, and with discipline when it would have been easier to perform. Honor is not a word; it is a state of being. And if we are to use that word with any seriousness, we should reserve it for lives capable of carrying its weight. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s life is one of them.
Daily writing prompt
Name the professional athletes you respect the most and why.
Dispatches from the Splinters of my Mind – Entry 12
I didn’t expect to find anyone out here.
This stretch of land was where people came to lose things, not recover them. Ruined garden, dead roses, night thick enough to bruise your lungs. The kind of place you walk through only if something heavier is pushing you from behind.
But she was there—hooded, veiled, blindfolded—kneeling in a field of collapsed petals. Her stillness wasn’t passive. It was deliberate, like someone waiting for a verdict they suspected they wouldn’t survive.
A faint ember glowed at the heart of one dying rose beside her knee. Gold, quiet, defiant. That single bloom didn’t belong here any more than I did.
She didn’t turn when I approached. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t reach for a blade. The air around her was the kind people enter only by accident.
“You alone out here?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.
Her head angled toward my voice. “Still deciding.”
“On what?”
“Whether solitude is a wound or a home.”
I stopped a few paces away. Not out of fear—more out of respect. Some people carry storms so dense you don’t step too close unless invited.
“Why the blindfold?” I asked.
“So the world can’t trick me into believing it’s changed.”
I let that sit a moment. The roses whispered in the wind, petals shifting like softened ash.
“You waiting for something?” I asked.
“A sign,” she said. “A memory. A reason.” A pause. “Maybe an ending.”
Her fingers sank into the roses, searching for something beneath them. Not clutching. Feeling. Testing the borders of whatever she still believed in.
“You think endings come find you?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But grief does. And it never knocks first.”
I moved closer, lowering myself into a crouch. Up close, the blindfold looked like something she tied herself—not a binding, but a boundary. A way of saying: I see enough without seeing anything at all.
Her breathing was slow but not steady. The kind of rhythm people get when they’re fighting tears without wanting to admit it.
“You come out here to die?” I asked.
“To choose,” she said.
“What’s the choice?”
She lifted the faintly glowing rose, its ember casting a soft outline across the cloth over her eyes.
“Whether to see things as they are,” she said, “or as I feel them.”
I reached instinctively toward the blindfold. Not forceful. Just curious. But her hand rose and pressed gently against my wrist.
“Don’t.”
Her voice wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t even afraid. It was… resolved, in a tremor-laced way only people who’ve hurt enough to recognize the shape of their own boundaries can manage.
“You don’t want to see the world around you?” I asked.
“I already do,” she said softly. “Just not with my eyes.”
I lowered my hand. “Most people would call that denial.”
“Most people,” she said, “confuse vision with understanding.”
She tilted her face toward the faint warmth of the rose. “When I look at things, I start filling in the story. Adding meanings that aren’t there. Projecting old wounds onto new shadows. I see too much. And none of it’s true.”
Her fingers trembled once, barely noticeable.
“With this on,” she continued, touching the blindfold, “I feel the world instead of interpreting it. I hear it. I sense it. I don’t get lost in what I think things are.”
I let her words settle. She wasn’t fragile. She wasn’t defeated. She was… calibrating. Choosing her method of survival.
“There’s a path east,” I said. “Ruined, but navigable.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I stood at the fork earlier.”
“And?”
“And I couldn’t choose.”
“Because you couldn’t see it?”
“No,” she said. “Because I could.”
The ember pulsed in the rose like a small, stubborn heartbeat.
“When you’ve been hurt often enough,” she said, “every familiar road feels like a trap. Every new road feels like a lie. You stand there waiting for some sign—some clarity—to tell you where to go. You wait so long the waiting becomes its own kind of grave.”
“And the blindfold?”
“It’s not to hide,” she said. “It’s to quiet the noise.”
Her face—what I could see of it beneath the veil—softened. “I don’t want to see the world tonight,” she said. “I want to feel what’s left of me inside it.”
I understood that in a way I wished I didn’t.
“You’re not lost,” I told her.
“No,” she said. “I’m unlearning the version of myself that got me killed the first time.”
Wind swept through the roses, their petals rattling like brittle memories. The ember in her hand brightened, painting the lower half of her face in gold.
I offered my hand—not to lift the blindfold, not to drag her toward sight, but because no one should sit in a field of dead flowers alone.
She didn’t take it at first. Her fingers hovered millimeters from mine, trembling like she wasn’t sure whether to trust the impulse.
“You don’t need your eyes for this,” I said quietly. “Just the part of you that knows exactly what you want and is terrified to admit it.”
“And what do you think that is?” she whispered.
“To stop standing at the fork.”
Her breath hitched. Not loudly. Just enough to notice if you were close.
“The path east…” she said. “It felt like the one I should have chosen before everything went wrong.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I asked.
“Because someone convinced me I wasn’t the kind of person who deserved to walk it.”
Her hand finally—finally—closed around mine. Cold fingers warming slowly in the cradle of my palm.
“I can’t see it,” she said.
“You don’t need to.”
“How do you know?”
“Because sight’s never been the problem,” I said. “Belief has.”
She swallowed hard. There were tears beneath the blindfold; I could hear the thickness in her breathing.
“Lead me,” she said, steady even through the shake. “Down the path I should have chosen. Not the one I kept returning to out of fear.”
I rose, pulling her gently with me. Her footing was careful but sure, her other hand cupped around the glowing rose so its small ember wouldn’t die.
“You realize,” I said, “leaving the blindfold on means you won’t see what’s ahead.”
“I don’t want to,” she replied. “If I see it, I’ll try to predict it. Control it. Ruin it before it begins.” A breath. “Let me walk without knowing.”
I nodded, though she couldn’t see it. Some people need eyes. Some need maps. She needed silence—her own, for once, not the world’s.
We stepped through the dead roses. Their petals brushed her legs like faint apologies.
“Tell me something,” she said softly.
“What?”
“Does the night look as heavy as it feels?”
“Worse,” I admitted.
She smiled faintly. “Good. I’d hate to be the only one carrying weight.”
Another few steps. Her grip tightened when the ground shifted, then eased again.
“You’re not afraid,” I said.
“No,” she replied. “I’m aware. Fear is when you run from things. Awareness is when you walk toward them knowing they might break you.”
“And you think this path will break you?”
“Everything breaks me,” she said. “That’s not new. The question is whether it teaches me something afterward.”
“And what do you want it to teach you?”
“That surrender isn’t defeat,” she said. “Just a kind of honesty.”
We walked farther. The night didn’t lighten, but something inside her did—a straightening of the spine, a deepening of breath, a quiet resolve she must have forgotten she owned.
She stopped suddenly.
“What is it?” I asked.
She held the glowing rose out toward the dark.
“When hope survives in a place like this,” she said, “it isn’t a promise. It’s a warning.”
“Of what?”
“That the world isn’t done with me yet.”
She lowered the rose to her chest. The ember brightened once—brave or foolish—and then stilled, warm against her heart.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “Are we still walking east?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She tightened her grip around my hand, the blindfold still firm across her eyes.
“Then don’t let me stop,” she said. “Not even when I want to.”
We stepped forward together, and the night shifted around us—not lighter, not kinder, just… open.
Behind us, the dead roses rustled in the dark. Ahead, the path waited without expectation.
And she—blindfolded, trembling, resolute—walked toward it not because she saw it but because she finally understood what bloomed after the darkness surrendered was not the world. It was her.
Of course I trust my instincts. These instincts are the reason I’m still here. They’re the early warning system that kicked in long before I had the language to explain what was happening. They’ve pulled me out of bad situations, terrible decisions, and moments where everything felt razor-thin. Survival sharpens you in ways calm living never will. Yet there are times you wonder if what you’re feeling is actually what’s happening. As someone living with PTSD, even after years of progress, the episodes don’t disappear—they just get quieter, less commanding, but still capable of blindsiding you when life hits at the wrong angle.
That’s the strange part: instincts are made of scar tissue and memory, not magic. They’re a patchwork of everything you’ve lived through—every mistake, every close call, every moment you had to react before you had time to think. And when your past includes trauma, those instincts can carry echoes of things you already survived. Sometimes they show up as alarms, even when there’s no fire in the room. It’s difficult to explain this to people. Not because they don’t care or don’t try, but because they don’t have a point of reference. If someone’s never had their body react to a memory like it’s happening in real time, or never had their nervous system jump to high alert over a sound everyone else barely notices, there’s only so much they can understand.
It’s not their fault. It’s simply the gap between lived experience and good intentions. But sometimes that gap feels like its own form of isolation. You end up minimizing what you feel or staying quiet because explaining it feels like trying to describe color to someone who’s only ever seen in grayscale. Eventually the question becomes: Why bother? And that silence can be its own kind of weight.
Even so, with the right support and coping tools, you really can relearn how to trust—not just your instincts, but yourself. Healing isn’t about shutting off the alarms; it’s about recalibrating them so they stop drowning out everything else. You learn to tell the difference between a real signal and old static. You learn how to talk yourself down without dismissing what your body is trying to say. You realize you’re not fighting your nervous system—you’re retraining it. Support and coping skills create space between the present moment and the past, and that’s the space where self-trust has room to grow.
But healing isn’t linear. There are days when every tool you’ve learned goes out the window. Days when your instincts feel unreliable, when your body reacts before your brain catches up, when everything hits at once and you’re back in old patterns without warning. Those days can make progress feel imaginary. But they aren’t the whole story. Because the very fact that you can name what’s happening now—the fact that you can reach for help, reach for tools, reach for clarity—means you’re not where you used to be.
Trust isn’t a single leap. It’s a series of small choices where you refuse to abandon yourself. Over time, instinct and self-trust start to merge again, the way they were always meant to. You move from surviving to navigating, and eventually, to living with a steadiness that’s earned, not imagined.
It’s not perfect. But it’s real. And real is enough.
Some days, I feel like the unofficial understudy for Marlon Perkins from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom—minus the khaki shorts and the camera crew. No judgement here, khaki’s are so comfortable. Wildlife keeps showing up in my life like it’s angling for a recurring role.
A few years back, it was Louie and Smiley—two raccoons who treated my house like a spiritual retreat with free snacks. I returned from visiting my folks to find Louie perched in my office chair reading the Douay-Rheims Bible with the focus of a man reconsidering his sins. Smiley wandered out of the kitchen with a loaf of bread and a pack of cheese like he was prepping for a midnight sermon.
Panic. Scramble. Silence. I expected the Bible to be covered in raccoon glyphs, but it was clean. The kitchen was another story entirely. The kitchen looked like a flour bomb had gone off. And the little bastards were munching on my Cheez-its. Looking back I can’t blame them because Cheez-It’s are righteous. And it’s been over a year since I’ve seen either of them. Strange to admit, but I miss those idiots. You don’t realize how lonely you’ve gotten until you start missing thieves with tails.
These days, everything seems to drift toward “normal”—if that word still means anything. Maybe it’s really just slipping back into the routine that makes sense to you, even if it looks ridiculous to anyone else. My routine involves trying (and failing) to quit smoking while watching the neighborhood wildlife walk around like they pay rent.
Groundhogs strolling like retirees. Squirrels hustling like Wall Street interns. Feral cats acting like landlords.
They don’t hide; they don’t wait for the coast to clear. They move like the world belongs to them.
Some mornings, the line between wild and human feels paper-thin.
Lately I’ve been paying attention in a way I never used to—maybe that’s why the animals have gotten bolder.
Because then came the possums.
A pair waddled down my sidewalk one evening, paused, and stared at me like I was the one intruding. As if they were wondering if I was going to hurt them or let them be. I supposed they had decided because one of them lifted a tiny paw and waved.
Then she stood up and said, “Mangus, don’t act like you don’t see us! Ralph, would you look at this—humans can be so rude.”
Ralph gave the possum equivalent of a shrug.
I figured that was strange enough for the week, but winter has a way of dragging even stranger things to your doorstep.
There’s something about a cold morning—the chill bites you like you walked into the wrong yard. A reminder of the no-no’s of life.
A few mornings later, frost was clinging to everything like regret. I stepped out with a cigarette—a filthy habit, so I’m told. But I’ve lived long enough to see people celebrate worse sins, so I take the judgment with a grain of salt.
That’s when I saw him.
A raccoon was sitting on my stoop, smoking one of my cigarettes, staring into the frost as if it had whispered a prophecy. He jumped when he finally noticed me. His eyes went wide, then settled. If I meant him harm, I’d have done it already.
I lit my own cigarette. You hear the snow crunching beneath someone’s footsteps. I turned.
“Don’t worry,” the raccoon said without looking back. “That’s just Smoke wondering if you put anything out to eat. You’ve been slipping on that, by the way.”
Smoke—another raccoon—raised a paw in greeting, then kept moving toward the trash can like we were roommates who barely tolerated each other.
I took my first drag. Ah, the sweet relief of the little lies we tell ourselves. “Best thing ever.” Not really—but the small fibs get us through the day.
Cold mornings always pry open old memories. Suddenly, I was thinking about a chocolate cake—dangerously good-looking, baked by someone capable of getting a diabetic canonized or killed. I told myself I’d be a “good diabetic” that day. Truth was, it simply wasn’t the weekend.
I’m not diabetic on the weekends. A doctor once told me that’s not how it works. My response: “Watch me, partner.” Gave him my patented fuck off look. He didn’t know that expression at the time, but he learned fast.
Later, a young woman offering the cake stood beside me—closer than she needed to be. She smelled nice. Held out a plate.
“Yes, you have diabetes,” she whispered. “But you still have to live.”
Best cake ever.
Back on the stoop, the raccoon finally spoke.
“I’m Stu. Stuart Bigelow. That’s what a little girl across town used to call me. Cancer took her. Cancer’s an evil SOB—it comes for us all.”
“I’m Mangus,” I said. “And I have one question.”
“What’s that?”
“Who in the hell told you you could smoke my cigarettes?”
Stu coughed mid-drag, a little smoke curling out like he was half-laughing. “Well, I figured since you left them outside, it was a party pack.”
Stu’s whiskers twitched after each exhale as if the smoke was burning his nose.
I snorted, then coughed, then burst into laughter. “So not a party pack, Stu.”
If I’m being honest, the things I’m good at didn’t come from any classroom with fluorescent lights and tidy rows. They came from life pulling me aside, usually at the worst possible moment, and saying, “Pay attention—this part matters.” Most of what I know was earned the long way: scraped knuckles, late nights, and a few seasons where survival wasn’t guaranteed but somehow still happened. These skills didn’t unfold gently. They arrived as consequences, as revelations, as the quiet clarity that follows a storm.
One thing I’ve learned is that I’m better at creating a feeling than I am at delivering a finished product. I don’t sit down to produce anything polished or algorithm-friendly. I write to capture a moment’s temperature—the hush before a confession, the weight of a truth someone’s been carrying too long, the strange peace that settles in when you finally stop pretending everything is fine. I follow the line that tightens my chest because that’s where the real story is hiding. Atmosphere isn’t decoration; it’s the closest thing I have to honesty. And if someone walks into that space and feels seen, then the work did what it was supposed to.
I’ve also learned how to make complicated emotions legible—not tidy, not simple, but real. The heavy stuff never hands you clean language. Grief has its own dialect. Shame speaks in whispers. Loneliness shows up wearing someone else’s coat. Most people run from these things because they think naming them will make them bigger. But I sit with them long enough to understand their shape. Not because I’m brave—because I don’t know how else to move through the world. If I can translate that heaviness into a line that makes someone pause and think, “Yeah… me too,” then maybe the weight becomes shareable.
Another skill I’ve picked up is the ability to hold a ridiculous number of moving parts without letting the whole structure collapse. MKU. MoM. HoT. Fiction arcs. Art projects. QOTD. Image collections. The universe I’m building is messy, sprawling, and sometimes bigger than I intended. But even in the chaos, there’s a thread running through it—something emotional, instinctive, connective. I don’t always know where the thread is leading, but I know when I’ve lost it. And I know how to find my way back by listening to what the work is trying to become. People mistake this for multitasking; it’s really just surviving the storm with both hands open.
I’ve stopped worshipping the first draft. If a piece doesn’t feel right, I tear it apart, not out of self-doubt but out of loyalty—to the truth, to the reader, to the version of myself that refuses to settle for the easy version of anything. Revision is where the honesty happens. It’s where the mask slips. It’s where I notice the lines I wrote to protect myself instead of reveal something. I’ve rebuilt myself enough times to know that tearing something down is just another form of creation.
And finally, I adapt. Quickly. Quietly. Often without applause or acknowledgment. Life didn’t give me the privilege of staying the same for long. Every year demanded a new version of me—some built by choice, others by necessity. Adaptation isn’t a talent; it’s a scar that learned how to walk. When something breaks, I adjust. When something shifts beneath my feet, I move. Reinvention stopped feeling dramatic years ago; now it’s just how I breathe.
These are the skills I’ve gathered on my way through the wreckage. Not glamorous. Not marketable. But real. They weren’t taught—they were carved. And maybe that’s the mark of a true education in the school of hard knocks: you don’t graduate with honors. You graduate with perspective. With endurance. With stories you didn’t ask for but somehow needed.
And when someone asks what you’re good at, you finally have the language to answer—not with pride, but with truth.
Air of December by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians
December is a month of conflicting mindsets. On one hand, people get swept up in the season and start doing “Good Things,” as if generosity is something they dust off once a year like ornaments from the attic. Smiles get bigger. Voices get lighter. Folks try to be kinder, cleaner versions of themselves — at least for a few weeks.
But not everyone rises with the cheer. Some slip the other way — into that deep, cold room December knows how to unlock. The early darkness settles on their shoulders. The empty chairs at the table get louder. They watch the world light up and feel nothing but the distance.
The weather has changed. We felt the shift back in November — a quiet warning — but December carries the truth in its bones. The calendar hints at winter, but nature tells you outright. Woodchucks waddle with purpose, grabbing whatever scraps they need to seal themselves away. Raccoons run their winter reconnaissance, scouting warm corners with criminal determination.
Across the street, after sundown, the trees start speaking. Leaves rustle in patterns the wind doesn’t claim. Then: silence. Then another rustle — heavier this time — followed by a shadow shifting where it shouldn’t. And there it is: a raccoon the size of a small planet climbing like gravity signed a waiver. Somehow that bandit-faced acrobat is perched on the roof of a three-story house, staring down like it owns the deed.
Meanwhile, Christmas trees bloom behind neighborhood windows — soft glows behind glass, promises of borrowed joy. For the next thirty days, people will act like saints in training, as if kindness has a seasonal password and only December knows it. Christmas carols creep through grocery aisles. Decorations multiply like mushrooms.
This is precisely why you need a strong music collection. Survival gear. Armor.
Because there are only so many versions of “Jingle Bells,” “White Christmas,” “Deck the Halls,” and “Frosty the Snowman” a person can take before something in them snaps. Though Frosty and Rudolph do have their… alternative interpretations — the ones no one plays around polite company. Those versions? Those have some soul to them.
The lights are up on half the streets by now — fake pine needles, borrowed glow, holiday cheer on rotation. But behind windows, in alleys, in empty rooms and quiet corners, the air tastes different. Thinner. Sharper. More honest.
That’s when I slip on “Air of December.” Soft bass. Careful voice. Shadows tucked into the chords. This song doesn’t promise warmth, and it sure as hell doesn’t ask you to smile. It just says: pay attention.
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians were never a mainstream machine. They had one catchy breakout moment, and most people froze them in that era like a photograph in a drawer. Air of December is one of those tracks even longtime fans forget exists. It’s not whispered in corners or held up as a hidden classic. But for the ones who hear it — really hear it — there’s a quiet respect. A recognition of its weight. Its weather. Its staying power.
The song opens like a door easing into colder air — a small shift in pressure you feel more than hear. The guitar stays clean but unsweet; the bass hums low like a steady engine under the floorboards; the drums hold back, giving the track room to breathe. The band understands restraint — they don’t fill the silence; they let the silence carry meaning. There’s distance in the mix as well, not loneliness but space, like the walls of the room are set a little farther apart than usual. It gives the whole track that “cold air in the next room” feeling — a quiet tension humming beneath the melody.
Brickell’s voice moves with deliberate softness. She doesn’t chase the melody — she circles it. As if she is dancing alongside it, doing her best not to disturb the melody, but to belong to it. It’s intimate without being fragile or overbearing — confessional without wandering into theatrics. It respects the moment, and we appreciate that without even realizing we do. This is the “close-but-not-too-close” mic technique: you feel near her, but not pulled into her chest. You’re listening in, not being performed to.
Her lyrics drift like breath on cold glass — shapes that form, fade, and return slightly altered. Brickell doesn’t write scenes; she writes impressions. Smudges. Moments that land in your body long before your mind explains them. That’s December — not revelations, just quiet truths catching you in the corner of your eye.
There’s also the emotional sleight of hand: a major-key framework phrased with minor-key honesty. Hopeful chords, weary inflections. Warm instrumentation, cool delivery. A contradiction — just like the month. This isn’t a heartbreak song or a holiday anthem. It’s a temperature. A walking pace. The sound of someone thinking as the sun drops at 4:30 PM.
Some songs become seasonal without meaning to — not because they mention snow or nostalgia, but because they inhabit the emotional weather perfectly. This one does.
It sounds like a room after the noise has died down and the truth hasn’t found its words yet. It sounds like someone sitting beside you, matching your breathing. It sounds like December without the costume.
Most December songs want to wrap you in tinsel and memory. This one just sits beside you. Doesn’t judge. Doesn’t push. Just listens.
People claim they want authenticity in December — honesty, depth, meaning. They don’t. They want distraction wrapped in nostalgia. They want songs about snow so they don’t have to face the winter inside themselves.
“Air of December” refuses that bargain. It listens — and listening is dangerous this month.
Give someone a quiet December track and half of them will panic. They’ll change it before the first truth lands. Stillness has a way of turning the room into a mirror.
Most December listeners don’t want the real temperature. They want the thermostat set to everything’s fine. But winter doesn’t trade in lies. And neither does this track.
Yet there’s a strange comfort in that kind of honesty. The song doesn’t shield you from the cold — it invites you into it. It says, look around, breathe, the truths you’ve been dodging all year are rising — and you’re strong enough now to meet them.
December strips everything down to bone and breath. This track reminds you that what remains is still yours.
There’s something about the night I’ve never managed to explain without feeling like I’m circling the real truth instead of touching it. It isn’t just the absence of light. It’s the way the world exhales after midnight, how everything settles into a version of itself that feels more honest. If you’re a night person, you already know what I mean—you don’t need me to draw a map to that place.
As a kid, I treated the night like a sanctuary no one else had discovered. The dark didn’t judge, didn’t demand, didn’t tap its foot waiting for me to prove something. I used to get sad when the Dawn arrived—not out of melodrama, but because daybreak felt like someone flipping on the fluorescent lights, telling me to sit up straight and get back in line. Dawn was order. Dawn was expectation. Dawn was the world reminding me I owed it something.
Night never asked for payment. It just handed me the keys and stepped aside.
I really believed there were no rules after sunset. In the dark, the harsh edges of the day softened. The noise thinned out. My thoughts stopped running defense and finally came out from hiding. The boy I was didn’t have the language for it, but he understood the feeling: Night made room for him in a way life rarely did.
Looking back, I can see how much of that was escape. The night gave me cover—space to imagine, space to feel, space to acknowledge things I wasn’t ready to say out loud. But escape isn’t always cowardice. Sometimes it’s survival. Sometimes it’s the only way a kid can breathe.
And even now—older, carrying more history than I ever expected to survive—I still feel that tug when the sky lightens. There’s a part of me that mourns the end of the hours where I don’t have to pretend to be anything. A part that whispers, Hold on… not yet. That boy is still in there. He still trusts the dark more than the dawn.
But here’s the thing I keep circling back to: the night didn’t make me free. It made me honest. There’s a difference. The dark gave me room to face myself without all the day’s noise confusing the signal. It let me consider who I was becoming, who I wasn’t, who I might still be if I stopped running long enough to look in the mirror.
And some nights—when the world goes quiet and the air feels like it’s holding its breath—that honesty still slips through. It reminds me why I loved the dark in the first place: not because it hid me, but because it revealed the parts of me I didn’t yet know how to live with in the light.
The hardest decision I’ve made recently wasn’t life-or-death. It was deciding to release my work—actually release it. Not hide it in drafts. Not polish it into oblivion. Not drop something small into the void and pretend I didn’t care about the silence afterward. The real battle wasn’t skill or imagination. It was belief—my own.
And I had reason to hesitate. I’d put work out before, here and there. A story, an image, a thought I didn’t mind people ignoring. And they did. The response was minimal or nonexistent, and that kind of quiet gets inside your head. It feeds every story you whisper to yourself at three in the morning: Why do I bother? What does it take to keep going? No one’s reading me anyway. Silence is its own kind of confirmation bias. It tells you you’re forgettable long before you ever get a chance to be known.
Then 2024 hit, and everything went sideways. I was terribly ill—bent, shaken, barely holding myself upright some days. But the blog? Strange as it sounds, it became the one place that felt sane. Real. Safe. My body was chaos, but the work gave my mind somewhere to breathe. I didn’t write because I was inspired. I wrote because it was the only steady ground I had left to stand on.
2025 rolled in with its own question mark hanging over my head. I’d survived—but now what? Who the hell was I supposed to be after everything? No grand gestures; those are just New Year’s resolutions dressed up in fancier language. We make them because we mean well, but half the time we don’t say them out loud. Not because they’re secret—shhh, G-14 classified—but because if we fail, at least the failure stays private. No ridicule. No audience.
Still, I was creating. Since 2023, I’d been grinding like a madman, pushing out content as if volume alone could outrun doubt. But earlier this year, something shifted. I slowed down. I started choosing quality over quantity. Fewer posts, deeper ones. Work that actually had weight. And the analytics—when they finally came—didn’t just pat me on the back. They confirmed it. Memoirs of Madness has had its best year ever. I’m proud of the work, sure. But what hits harder are the unexpected relationships that have come out of this place. That’s the real measure of success. Connection. Not clicks.
Only after all that did I look back at why I never trusted the praise from friends and family. It wasn’t that I doubted their honesty. It’s just that love carries a bias. It’s like being the most beautiful woman in four counties. Everyone knows it, everyone agrees. She leaves home expecting doors to swing open—only to find herself in a city where everyone is beautiful and suddenly she’s average. Not any less beautiful, just no longer exceptional by default. Creative praise works the same way. When the only eyes on your work are the ones already in your corner, it’s easy to confuse affection with validation. And easier still to hide behind that confusion.
But the last seven or eight months changed everything. I kept showing up. The work matured. The engagement grew. Strangers—people with no stake in my ego—connected with pieces I almost didn’t release. It wasn’t validation I was chasing. It was proof that the work could stand in bigger rooms. And for the first time, it could.
Releasing my work wasn’t the victory. That was just the surface.
The real decision—the hard one—was finally trusting that it belonged in the world. Once I chose that, the rest started falling into place.
I’m stepping back from posting new pieces for the rest of the month — not because the well is dry, but because the work has shifted.
There’s writing, and then there’s everything that protects the writing — tending the archives, organizing drafts, sketching out what 2026 should feel like, not just look like. And just as important: actually showing up in other people’s spaces. Reading. Responding. Listening the way I ask others to.
I’ve always said I don’t want a crowd — I want a conversation. But conversation takes presence. It doesn’t happen if I only speak.
So this month, I’m still here. Just a little quieter. I’ll be reading your work, catching up on the stories and reflections I’ve missed. I’ll be behind the scenes — editing, planning, strengthening the scaffolding that holds this place up.
I’m realizing that engagement isn’t a side-task — it’s part of the practice. And I intend to carry that into 2026.
Not less writing. Just writing built on connection — not isolation.
These days, my favorite people aren’t the loud ones. They aren’t the ones chasing applause, reposting their virtues, or building entire personalities out of whatever trend is paying attention this week. I find myself drawn to the honest ones—the people who speak plainly and stand up straight even when nobody’s watching. The ones whose integrity isn’t a performance but a reflex.
Authenticity gets romanticized a lot, but most folks don’t actually want the real thing. Real authenticity means you’re going to disappoint someone. It means saying the thing that needs to be said instead of the thing that keeps the peace. Integrity has a cost, and everyone nods along right up to the moment the bill shows up.
I’ve learned to pay attention to who stays the same when the stakes rise. Who doesn’t bend their moral spine just to make a situation smoother. Who tells you the truth even when it’s awkward, or heavy, or not what you wanted to hear. Those people are rare, and when you find them, you feel your shoulders drop a little. You breathe easier. The room feels safer.
So yes—my favorite people are the honest ones, the authentic ones, the ones whose integrity isn’t situational. They don’t need a spotlight. They don’t need a crowd. They just show up as themselves, every damn time.
I’m sitting at the table, drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, waiting for the liquor distributors to show up. The invoices are spread out like old confessions. Ursula drops into the booth beside me, scooting against the wall, legs propped up on the bench like she’s claiming territory. She looks like she’s been rode hard and put away wet.
“You look like hammered dogshit,” I say.
“Thanks,” she sighs. “It’s a wonder women aren’t fighting in the parking lot for a chance to talk to you.”
I grunt and go back to the receipts. It was a good night. A bunch of weekenders dropped in just because they heard Willie and Ernie were here. Then somehow someone whispered that Josephine Baker might show. It was over after that. Word of mouth is gasoline in a place like this.
We’re in between both worlds—nobody really knows the size of the joint. The place shifts. Expands. Contracts. Accommodates. Like memory. Like guilt.
The door opens, blasting light from the heat tab—too bright, too sharp. Just a silhouette. I shield my eyes.
Bass Reeves walks in.
Not dressed like legend, not like myth—just a man who’s walked through dust and didn’t bother wiping it off. I don’t call him over. He comes anyway. Doesn’t sit. Just stands long enough to confirm he’s real, and not just folklore wearing boots.
He takes the seat across from me—no words exchanged. Doesn’t need any.
The door opens again, except this time, it doesn’t make a sound.
Poe steps through.
He enters like he’s always belonged indoors, even when he hasn’t eaten in days. Coat longer than necessary. Shoes too clean for a man with his kind of imagination. He doesn’t look at us. He looks at the rafters, checking for ravens. Bass nods. Poe nods back, like grief recognizing authority.
Ursula doesn’t greet them. She knows better than to greet ghosts.
I start to say something, but I stop—because someone is standing at the edge of the table.
No one saw her come in.
No coat. No apology. No explanation.
Just there.
Mata Hari.
She’s not posing. Not seductive. Not shimmering. Just still.
Present.
Composed like someone who’s tired of being looked at and never actually seen.
Reeves rises—not out of courtesy, not because she’s a woman—but because someone has entered his perimeter.
Poe stands, too, but slower. Not startled. Just… intrigued. Like he’s been trying to write her for years.
She doesn’t look at either of them.
Her gaze drops to my receipts.
My records.
“You keep records,” she says softly. “That makes you accountable.”
She doesn’t sit. She doesn’t need to. The room begins adjusting around her—like furniture shifting to make space for gravity.
Before I can recover, the door opens—with noise this time.
Ursula walks back in, not with plates, not with style. But with familiarity.
She leans down and kisses the newcomer on the cheek.
“Hey, Rudy.”
Rudolph Fisher blushes and shrugs like a schoolboy caught passing notes.
I light another cigarette. My hand is not steady.
“Remember my first kiss,” I mutter. “Lime green woman.”
“Lime green chick, huh?” Yuri calls from across the room—thick Russian, thick boots, thicker folklore.
“You eat the worm again?” Roscoe asks. He’s polishing the same glass he’s been polishing since Truman was president.
I shake my head.
The fellas glance at each other—slowly, like the air just changed language.
Oscar breaks the silence.
“It was two worms.”
Everyone nods like that explains everything.
Ursula guides Rudolph to the table. He doesn’t posture. Doesn’t rush. He sits like a man whose pace belongs to him—not to the room.
“Now we’ve got rhythm,” he says, tapping the table twice. The table… agrees.
“You guys hungry?” Ursula asks—already heading to the kitchen before anyone answers.
She won’t cook it—God forbid—but she’ll deliver it. Gifted waitress. Terrible woman for boiling water.
Roscoe and Oscar drift toward the bar, part-time employees who never leave and never clock in. I once told them I’m not paying extra.
They nodded like monks agreeing poverty was noble.
Ursula returns with plates she definitely did not make.
Bass studies his meal like it’s giving testimony.
Poe inhales the steam like he’s trying to decode its loneliness.
Fisher smiles without tasting anything.
Mata Hari watches butter knives like they hold state secrets.
No one speaks.
Not because we’re eating.
Because something is coming.
The door opens a third time.
Not dramatic.
Just right.
Gwendolyn Brooks walks in.
Not like royalty.
Like someone royalty once stood for.
And everyone—Poe, Reeves, Fisher, Yuri, Roscoe, Oscar, Mata Hari—stands.
Not out of politeness.
Out of alignment.
She doesn’t require attention. The room composes itself around her presence.
She does not take the head of the table.
She takes the center.
Because that is where gravity sits.
She sets down her satchel. Folds her napkin.
And without looking up:
“Tell me,” she says, “why you write.”
No one answers.
Because royalty does not ask questions.
She issues invitations.
And then—
There are eight cups on the table.
And only seven of us sitting.
The eighth cup is warm.
I turn—
And Toni Morrison is already there.
Not having entered.
Not having appeared.
Just present—hands folded, elbows resting, as if she had always been here.
Brooks doesn’t turn to greet her.
She only says:
“You took your time.”
Morrison smiles—small, devastating.
“No,” she says. “I took my place.”
Then she looks at me.
Not through me.
Into me.
Not asking a question—
Delivering one.
“What promises have you made… that your writing is afraid to keep?”
We got those Sunday Jazz Vibes going. It’s never intentional, but it’s always right. The slow grooves of Grover Washington Jr. set the tone before the coffee even cools. The things that man does with a sax ought to be illegal in a few states.
“East River Drive” rolls in like a slow-moving tide — smooth on the surface, dangerous underneath. It’s one of those tracks that pretends to be background sound until you realize you’ve stopped whatever you were doing just to follow the way he bends a note. That sly confidence, that river-road swagger. The rhythm section lays back like it’s got nowhere to be, while Grover glides above it all, mapping the emotional coastline of a Sunday morning.
A subtle deep groove — the kind that whispers instead of shouts, trusting you’ll lean in.
And somewhere between those warm horn lines and the long exhale of morning, my mind drifted downstream. That’s when the tonal shift hit — jarring in the best possible way.
Sliding from Grover into Melody Gardot is like stepping out of warm light into cool river air. Grover softens the room; Gardot sharpens it. His sax gives you glide. Her voice gives you gravity. With Grover, the river moves. With Gardot, the river speaks.
She pulls you in with that first line: “Love me like a river does.”
On paper, it’s simple. In her mouth, it’s a philosophy.
The river isn’t passion. It’s not urgency. It’s not the cinematic love-story nonsense we were raised on.
A river flows. A river returns. A river shapes the land without ever raising its voice.
She’s not asking for fireworks. She’s asking for endurance.
Then the quiet boundary: “Baby don’t rush, you’re no waterfall.”
That’s the deal-breaker disguised as tenderness. The waterfall is the crash, the spectacle, the “falling in love” that feels good until you’re pulling yourself out of the wreckage.
She wants none of that.
Her voice is soft, but the boundaries are steel.
Strip away the romance of rivers and waterfalls and what she’s really saying is:
“If you’re going to love me, do it in a way that won’t break me.”
That’s not fear. That’s experience.
The next verse shifts from river to sea — steady flow to swirling depth. Not for drama. For honesty. Intimacy always disorients you a little.
But even in that turbulence, she returns to her anchor: no rushing, no crashing, no spectacle. Even the sea has tides. Even passion needs rhythm.
Then the lens widens — earth, sky, rotation, gravity. Love as cycle, not event. Love that keeps you grounded without pinning you down.
And then back to the whisper: “Love me, that is all.”
Simple words. Colossal meaning.
What I love about this track is that it refuses to lie.
It doesn’t speak of love the way movies do — all gush, sparks, and declarations nobody could sustain after the credits roll. Gardot isn’t chasing fireworks. She’s not interested in romance that burns hot and disappears just as fast.
She’s talking about grown-folk love.
The kind that shows up. The kind that lasts. The kind built on years, not moments.
Her metaphors — river, sea, earth — aren’t poetic decoration. They’re durability tests:
Can your love flow? Can it deepen? Can it cycle? Can it stay?
She’s asking for a love that tends a lifetime, not a scene. A love shaped by presence, not passion; by commitment, not chaos.
The kind you don’t stumble into. The kind you earn.
And maybe that’s why this one gets me every time — there’s a difference between love that excites you and love that holds you. I’ve lived long enough to know which one matters more.
And let me say this plainly: this track comes from Melody Gardot’s debut album. Worrisome Heart was her first offering to the world, and I’ve rarely seen that kind of sophistication and grace appear so fully formed on a debut. Most artists spend years trying to grow into this kind of emotional control — the restraint, the nuance, the quiet authority. Gardot walked in with it from day one. No hesitation. No warm-up laps. Just a young artist already carrying the poise of someone who’s lived a lifetime and managed to distill it into song. Truly a marvel.
Before you watch the performance below, a quick note: This reflection is based on the studio version of “Love Me Like a River Does,” from Worrisome Heart — the quiet, intimate rendition where she whispers the philosophy of grown-folk love straight into your chest. But in the live version you’re about to hear, she opens with something unexpected: the first verse of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Explain.” It’s a deliberate nod — smoky, weary, full of Simone’s emotional steel — and Gardot weaves it in so seamlessly you barely notice the transition until it’s done. One moment you’re in Nina’s world of bruised truth; the next, Gardot slips into her own song like it was always meant to follow. It turns the piece from a gentle plea into something closer to a declaration.
What makes the song hit is how Gardot never pushes. The arrangement stays minimal. The room stays dim. Every breath has space around it.
It’s intimacy without intrusion. Truth without theater.
A quiet manifesto from someone who knows the cost of loving too fast and too violently.
She’s asking for love like water — not the kind that drowns you, but the kind that carries you and keeps coming back.
A grown-folk kind of love. A river kind of love. The kind that lasts because two people choose the flow over the fall.
And maybe that’s the real Sunday lesson — some songs don’t need volume to be heard. Some just need stillness.
I’ve been to several corners of the world. I’ve spent time in places that would make people cringe—hell, they make me cringe when I let my mind drift back there. But when I look at these two choices, it feels like a no-brainer.
Give me the mountains.
Not the postcard kind—the real ones. The ones where the air thins out and you can hear your own pulse arguing with gravity. I’ve sat there wondering how much time it took to carve them into what they are—ancient, stubborn, unapologetically themselves. Walking a trail through them will kick your ass in the most honest way possible, every step a small tax you pay for the privilege of being there.
And when you finally reach whatever passes for a destination? The sense of accomplishment hits different. It’s not victory—it’s communion.
Funny thing is, when I was young, I swore the beach was where it was at. Not because I actually enjoyed it all that much—more because that’s where the women always talked about going. At that age, it was a no-brainer. Youth, and the nonsense we tell ourselves. I played volleyball barefoot in the sand, listened to that guy who only knew one chord on his guitar, watched the girls swoon like he was some kind of desert prophet. We had bonfires, told stories, laughed until the night was serenaded by the dawn.
It was magic in its own chaotic, salt-soaked way. But even with all that, it doesn’t compare to the mountains for me.
Up there, everything strips down to what matters. You hear the creatures before you see them—felt more than observed. Every now and then one will wander out, give you that slow, measured look, maybe share the moment with you. They’re never fussy. I like that about them.
And somewhere along the way, I figured out there are women up there too. Fuzzy creatures, women, and breathtaking views—what’s not to like?
Honestly, the animals might be cooler than most people. At least they don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are. People? What did Morrison say? People are strange—and he was being polite.
The beach is pretty, sure. But the mountains? They make you bleed a little for every inch of beauty. And anything worth keeping has always cost me something.
So yeah—I pick the mountains. I trust things that don’t lie.
The light tore through me before I understood it was mine. A red current, blistering the dark behind my eyes, splitting memory from bone. They called it prophecy, a vision, but it felt more like a confession—everything I’d avoided now illuminated in a single brutal line. I didn’t ask for clarity. Still, it came, scorching a path forward, and wide, demanding I follow or burn.
Track: “November Trees and Rain” – Marie Dresselhuis
On most November mornings, there’s a chill in the air. Not the kind that grabs you by the collar and shakes you awake, but the subtle kind — the one that lets you know it’s there. It moves slow, almost tender, until your body shivers without asking permission.
I hear the morning before I see it. A woodpecker knocking its code into the trees, winter birds answering in their thin, determined voices. I close my eyes and let the breeze speak for a while — the rustle of fallen leaves, the soft give of the season shifting underfoot. There’s a certain beauty in the bareness of the trees. Something quiet. Something honest. Not something I can describe cleanly in words, but it’s beautiful all the same — the kind of beauty that doesn’t need witnesses.
Then the world shifts again — one of those November moments of return. The air brakes hiss, then squeal, and suddenly the stillness cracks open. Children rush toward the bus, half-awake, half-dressed, somehow always unprepared and always ready. The adventure begins whether they are or not.
I remember my own kids doing the same. I miss those mornings — not with regret, but with that quiet wish a father carries for a different version of himself, a different decision made on a different day.
Guppy’s cry pulls me back. She’s in my chair, staring at me like I’m late. Her way of reminding me that the present is still here, still demanding, still alive. Work waits. Memory wanders. But Guppy doesn’t let me drift too far.
So let us go then, you and I, into this next stop in Groovin’ with Glyn — that mixed music bag I keep rummaging through.
“November Trees and Rain” doesn’t try to dazzle you. It doesn’t fight for attention. It just unfolds — steady, slow-water honest. The title alone feels like a location on a map: somewhere between the last red leaf falling and the moment the season exhales. The guitar comes in like breath; the vocals come in like thought; the whole thing feels like watching the world turn the page while you stand there holding the corner.
This is a song for people who know how to sit with themselves. Not judge. Not fix. Just sit.
The Devil’s Voice in the Back of the Room
Not everyone trusts the quiet. They say they do, but not really. They want to be shocked and awed underneath while saying, “it’s so peaceful.” Some people hear a slow song and panic — like silence might reveal something they’ve worked hard to bury. Give them rain and they’ll close the blinds. Give them bare trees and they’ll look at their phones. Give them a morning like this and they won’t hear anything but their own hurry.
A song like “November Trees and Rain” has no chance with them. Too inward. Too honest. Too close to the bone.
But November isn’t for cowards. And neither is this track.
The Lift — Why It Belongs Here
Because there’s a moment midway through the month when the noise dies down — not the external noise, the internal one. This song fits right into that pocket. It’s the sound of a thought finally forming. The kind of realization you don’t chase; it arrives on its own timetable.
“November Trees and Rain” is what happens when the world stops performing and just is. Bare. Wet. Cold. True.
It reminds you that not everything beautiful announces itself — some things just endure.
Week 1 woke us. Week 2 asks us to stay awake.
Because the trees are bare now, the rain has longer stories to tell. Are you ready to listen?
November doesn’t crash in. It slips under the doorframe like it owns the place, tracking in the smell of rain and cold metal. Children rubbing their bellies because they have OD’d on candy. I miss those days. November comes as if it knows we need to exhale. Not long, just a little bit. Something quick to recharge for the next round of madness.
There’s a moment in early November when the world gets quiet enough that you actually hear yourself think — and sometimes you wish you hadn’t. The wind carries that familiar bite as the last of the fall aromas slide along with it. Then something else rides in on the shift — soft, strange, a whisper you almost mistake for memory. You turn your head without meaning to, unsure if you heard anything at all. The wind changes again, closer this time, warm against your ear as it murmurs, “Wake up.”
That’s the space “Wake Up” lives in.
A small Scottish band barely scratching 30K streams, November Lights shouldn’t hit this hard on paper. But the track feels like standing just outside your own life, watching the windows fog over while you debate going back inside. Not regret or clarity. More like the low buzz of a lightbulb that isn’t sure if it wants to live or die.
The vocals don’t beg. They ask. Quietly. Like someone nudging you in the dark, not to startle you, but to keep you from drifting too far away. And the production carries that nocturnal haze — the kind that tells you somebody sat alone longer than they meant to, letting reverb fill the silence they didn’t want to face.
Beneath it all is a steady pulse, the kind that hints at recognition rather than revelation. November has a talent for that — it doesn’t hand you answers; it hands you a mirror. The cold sharpens edges you swore were already smooth. The light changes, and suddenly everything looks closer to the truth.
The Honest Take
This is a quietly beautiful track. Not earth-shattering. Not one that guts you. Not every song is meant to gut you, but all of them should resonate with you on some level. Not every listener — just the ones the track was meant for. Something you won’t know until the needle touches the vinyl. Some songs don’t raise their voice; they settle in beside you and wait. “Wake Up” is exactly that — understated, precise, intentional.
The Devil’s Voice in the Back of the Room
Look, if you’re waiting for grit, you won’t find it here. If you want broken glass and a voice that sounds like it gargled the night, keep moving. And yes — someone out there will dismiss this as too clean, too polished, too “indie boy with a synth pad.”
Let them.
Not every November needs a fist. Some start with a shoulder tap, a soft reminder you can’t ignore. Besides, honesty hits harder than distortion when you hear it at the right hour.
The Lift — Why It Belongs Here
Because November is a month with its own kind of mercy. Not loud. Not generous. But real.
It doesn’t demand. It nudges. Sometimes it’s a hand on your shoulder saying, “You’re slipping. Come back to yourself.”
This song is that hand. The hush before the confession. The breath before the descent. The spark before the month settles in.
Week 1 shouldn’t break you. It should open the door.
“Wake Up” does that. Softly. Deliberately. Without apology.
November is here. The lights are on. Step inside — and enjoy this breath, because winter is coming.
My wife knew more about music than any woman I’ve ever met outside my mother. She couldn’t name artists, albums, or genres. None of that mattered. She just knew what was good. And the shit was spooky.
I learned this slowly, almost reluctantly, because I kept trying to talk to her about favorite artists. She never played that game. Her ear didn’t care about categories. Her heart didn’t negotiate with labels.
The first time she ever caught me off guard was the day I walked in and heard “Changes” by Black Sabbath drifting through the house. Sabbath. Black Sabbath.
Not a riff, not a hit — the one track that sounded like someone bottled regret.
It wasn’t that she was listening to Sabbath. It was that she somehow found the exact track I didn’t know I needed. And she did it without ever talking about music the way I did.
That quiet instinct — that sixth sense she carried — is what led her to two Nina Simone songs she treated like confessions. When she listened to Nina, the door stayed closed, the lamp stayed low, and you stayed out unless you were ready to walk into something fragile.
The smoke curled up from the cigarette balanced between her fingers, her hand resting beside a freshly cleaned ashtray. Hazelnut coffee filled the room, and Albert King was somewhere in the background complaining about the rain. I kissed her out of habit and apology — I stank to high heaven after a long day.
While I cleaned up, the music drifted from one blues track to another. I thought about grabbing a nap before the girls came home, when a voice cut through everything — soft, measured, heavy.
…wait. Is that Nina?
Next thing I knew, I was back at the table with a fresh cup of coffee. She didn’t look up, just nodded.
“I figured you’d get a nap before the girls got home,” she said.
I smiled into my cup. This is why I married her — she got me. She married me because I could reach the top shelf. Balance in all things.
She slid the CD case to me and tapped a single track:
“The Other Woman.”
I replayed it a few times — autopsy mode — until she reached over and rested her hand on mine.
“Let it play, baby,” she said softly.
So I did.
“The Other Woman” isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s a truth-teller — the kind of song that doesn’t raise its voice because it doesn’t have to. Nina sings it low and steady, like someone who’s already made peace with the ache she’s naming. The piano stays half-lit, the bass moves like it’s carrying news no one wants to hear, and nothing in the arrangement tries to comfort you.
That’s what hooked my wife. Not the lyrics. Not the storyline. The tone.
The way Nina delivered loneliness without apology. The way she stood inside the ache without flinching.
My wife knew that tone. She knew what it felt like to love a man who was half hers and half claimed by something bigger and colder than home. “The Other Woman” wasn’t a song about cheating to her; it was the shape of a loneliness she never put into words — but Nina named it clean.
Back then, I thought it was a strange song for her to be listening to. I wasn’t stepping out. I felt the loneliness in Nina’s voice, but I didn’t understand the source. Maybe I wasn’t meant to — not then.
Years later, when she got sick — the kind of sick that turns a hospital room into a country of its own — I sat beside her bed with Nina in my headphones while I tried to write. And that’s when it hit me.
My wife knew what it felt like to be the other woman.
Not because of infidelity. Not because of anything I did wrong. But because of devotion and duty — the two forces that built our life and carved holes in it at the same time.
She loved a man claimed by an oath he made before he ever met her. A man whose phone could ring at 2:17 a.m. A man who packed on short notice and left with even less.
We preached “Family First.” Said it often. Said it like it was gospel.
But the truth — the one Nina kept whispering — was “Mission First.”
If “The Other Woman” named the loneliness, then “Tell Me More and Then Some” named the hunger beneath it.
Not desire — presence. Not passion — time. Nina sings that second track like a woman reaching out in the dark, asking for just a little more of a man she barely gets to keep.
For a military spouse, that’s the whole gospel: the hours rationed out, the moments cut short, the days borrowed by orders.
You love the man, but the world keeps the schedule.
My wife never said she needed more of me — she never would have — but Nina said it for her. Together, those two songs held the architecture of her heart: the ache of being second and the quiet hope that maybe she could still have a little more time before the world claimed me again.
They lived on the same compilation she brought home when the girls were little — After Hours, still my favorite Nina collection. Maybe because it brought her voice into our home. Or maybe because it brought her truth into mine.
Those two tracks weren’t random choices.
They were the language she used to hold the parts of our life that the military kept taking. The ache she carried quietly. The hunger she never burdened me with.
Even now, as I write this, another Nina track slips in — “Ain’t No Use.” I didn’t cue it. Didn’t expect it. But there it is, like it wandered in to confirm every word on this page.
Nina always did that in our home — show up when truth was ready.
“The Other Woman” is my official Song Lyric Sunday entry because it appears on the 1969 compilation The Best of Nina Simone, one of her earliest and most enduring collections.
But really? I’m choosing it because my wife understood this song long before I did. She lived the ache of being second to a calling she never chose, with a grace I still don’t know how to name.
Some songs don’t remind you of a person — they finish the conversations you didn’t know you were having while they were still here.
This is one of those songs.
Let it play, baby.
Author’s Note: This piece isn’t about infidelity. It’s about the complicated places where love and duty overlap, and the quiet truths that grow in the spaces no one talks about. My wife and I were both Nina Simone fans, though she understood Nina in ways I didn’t grasp until much later. The songs mentioned here — “The Other Woman” and “Tell Me More and Then Some” — were part of her private rituals, the moments she used to hold what our life couldn’t always name. This essay is my way of honoring the weight she carried with grace. If any part of it resonates with you, let it. That’s Nina’s doing, not mine.
When I was young, they drilled it into us: “First impressions are lasting impressions.” Dress right, talk right, act right. Show people the best version of yourself and they’ll treat you accordingly.
Then I stepped into the world as a Black man in America and learned the fine print they never bothered to mention: some folks made their impressions before I even opened my mouth. They’d look at me and decide who I was, what I was, and where I belonged. Then came the compliments disguised as praise—“articulate”—like I’d crawled out of the woods dragging a club and a grunt.
I wish I could say that nonsense is ancient history. That we’ve evolved past it. But I’ve lived long enough to know you can pull down statues, rename buildings, and rewrite curriculum, and still never undo the generational damage. When I was a kid, history class felt like a bragging session: Look what we did to these people. The day I discovered the truth about President Lincoln—his contradictions, his motives, the myth vs. the man—I blew up in class and got tossed out. Didn’t help my GPA, but it sure helped my clarity.
Funny thing is, I didn’t let that anger harden me. I kept reading. And the more I learned, the more Lincoln felt like someone I could actually respect—someone I could sit down and have coffee with, contradictions and all.
Years later, my daughter came home with a school assignment about Lincoln, and I saw my opening. I had the knowledge. I had the books. I had the truth. But something said, Slow down. So I asked her, “Do you want the truth, or what they teach you in school?” She chose school. And I understood. The whitewashing had already reached her generation. Her innocence was intact. Her hope was intact. And I wasn’t ready to be the one to crack it.
That same daughter once refused to watch movies about racism. Hands on her hips, chin up, she said, “It isn’t like that anymore.” A moment of pride mixed with dread. Because I knew she was wrong—not out of foolishness, but out of youth. I knew one day the world would show her its teeth. And the worst part? There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.
Eventually, she came back to me with another assignment—Malcolm X this time. She knew exactly what she was doing. The moment she said his name, I switched on like a breaker panel. I dragged out every book I had. I told her everything school would never teach her. That kid didn’t lift a finger for that assignment. I did the whole damn thing. Yep—she played me. I still tease her about it.
But I’d be lying if I said I don’t make snap judgments of my own. When you’ve lived long enough, patterns get etched into you. But every now and then, life steps in and reminds me I don’t know everything either.
Once, in Wyoming, I’d forgotten my shower kit and wandered into a general store expecting the usual sideways looks. Instead, the woman at the register glanced at my items and said, “Honey, you forgot…” She pointed out what I missed, sent me back for it, and checked everything again when I returned. “Now you’re ready,” she said. Simple kindness. Caught me off guard. Still makes me smile.
Another time, in Montana, a freak storm trapped us in a Chinese restaurant. Power went out, candles came on, and the kitchen kept rolling like it was nothing new. I went to the bathroom, and an older gentleman nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw me. I said, “Hell, I’m not gonna cook you and eat you.” Let it hang there. He burst out laughing. We walked out with nods of mutual respect—two strangers caught in something human.
Later that same night, a man walked up to my table—me and my biracial friend—and asked, “You having fun?” Same words, twice. Same smile that doesn’t smile. My friend tensed. I put a hand on him to settle him. Storm wasn’t going anywhere. No point making our own.
And here’s the thing: When America talks race, everything gets framed as Black vs. White. Two sides. One battlefield. But history wasn’t that small.
Black folks and White folks just had better publicists.
Because while America was glued to civil rights marches on TV, every marginalized group in this country was fighting their own battles:
Asian immigrants finally broke through racist immigration quotas with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. The Chicano Movement reshaped labor rights, education, and political identity. Native activists occupied Alcatraz, formed AIM, and demanded sovereignty. In 1969, N. Scott Momaday became the first Native American to win the Pulitzer for Fiction. Japanese Americans were fighting for redress after internment. Filipino farmworkers sparked the grape strike. And the Stonewall uprising ignited the modern LGBTQ+ movement.
Everyone was fighting. Everyone was changing the country. But America prefers a tidy narrative. Reality never asked for one.
So let me be clear before someone tries to twist my words: This isn’t a Black vs. White essay. Not even close.
Because hate? Hate is colorblind.
It doesn’t care about race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or whatever else we invent to justify cruelty. I learned that the hard way.
I was overseas once—a situation that turned violent fast. Not combat the way we trained for. Not patriotic speeches or heroic music. Just raw hate aimed at a group of Americans who looked like the whole world shrunk into one squad. Black, white, brown—none of it mattered. They didn’t hate our skin. They hated our nationality. And they came at us like it was sport.
We came home bonded by survival, only to step back into a country where the old assumptions waited like unpaid bills.
These days, I laugh—but not because any of it is funny. I laugh out of frustration and exhaustion. Because sometimes that’s the only release valve a man’s got.
So first impressions… they have their uses, I suppose. But I’ve seen them lie, and I’ve seen them reveal the whole damn soul of a person. Sometimes they’re nothing but noise. Sometimes they expose the heart. You learn to pay attention—not to the surface, but to the truth leaking around the edges.
And while folks are busy misjudging me on sight, I remind myself of one truth:
We fought to protect “God and Country.” So if you’re out here treating me falsely, just remember— I defended your right to do it.
It’s never as simple as answering, “What book are you reading right now?” I usually have four or five going at once — most of them nonfiction. Histories, craft books, philosophy, the “how did this happen and why does it still matter?” kind of material. Somewhere along the way, I forgot how to read purely for pleasure. Training does that. Once you learn to take stories apart, you stop seeing them as entertainment and start seeing them as machines.
Even when a novel doesn’t fully work, I still take a wrench to it. I listen for the knock in the engine, the missed beat in a line of dialogue, the moment the writer blinked instead of pushing through. I can enjoy a book, absolutely — but I enjoy it like a mechanic listening to an engine idling just a little rough.
And here’s the part I’m almost embarrassed to admit: I can’t bring myself to write in books. Feels like a cardinal sin. So instead I’ve got notebooks scattered all over the house — pages filled with scribbles, arrows, fragments, arguments I’m having with an author who isn’t in the room. I finally gave in and bought one of those e-reader gizmos that lets you highlight the digital version. It feels like cheating, but at least I’m not defacing paper. A technicality, but I’ll take the loophole.
So when someone asks what I’m reading, they expect a title. But the truth is, I’m running an autopsy.
And the books on my desk right now — Under the Dome by Stephen King and L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy — are the kind that don’t give up their secrets easily. Which is exactly why they matter.
Stephen King gets labeled “the Master of Horror,” but that’s just a convenience for the shelf. King’s real mastery is building pressure systems — closed environments where the air tightens and ordinary people start showing their real faces. In Under the Dome, the dome could be aliens, magic, or a freak atmospheric event; it doesn’t matter. It’s a magnifying glass. It forces truth to the surface.
King understands that people don’t transform under pressure — they’re revealed. Chester’s Mill doesn’t turn violent because of the dome. The dome just takes away the freedom to pretend.
And that’s where the cognitive dissonance hits. You read something wild — a man electrocuted by an invisible barrier, the town fracturing into fear and paranoia — and your mind rejects it. “People aren’t like this,” you think. But rewind thirty seconds. You heard a crash outside your window, put the book down, checked it out, and watched your neighbor scream at a trash can like it betrayed him. You shook your head at the nonsense, then came back to a fictional scene that suddenly feels easier to believe than real life.
That’s King’s trick. He shows you something unbelievable so you finally acknowledge the truth you’ve been ignoring.
Ellroy, on the other hand, doesn’t need supernatural pressure. He starts inside the rot.
In L.A. Confidential, corruption isn’t a plot device — it’s oxygen. The moral decay isn’t creeping in; it’s already soaked into every wall, badge, and handshake. His characters don’t break down over time. They begin the story already fractured, already bent by pressures they barely acknowledge. Ellroy’s cognitive dissonance comes from the reader wanting to believe people aren’t this cruel, this compromised, this hungry for power and absolution.
But then your phone buzzes with a news alert and disproves that hope in under four seconds.
Ellroy doesn’t distort reality. He removes the polite language that keeps us comfortable.
King writes about what happens when the walls close in. Ellroy writes about what happens when the walls never existed in the first place.
King exposes human nature by turning up the pressure. Ellroy exposes human nature by turning off the excuses.
One town collapses because the dome forces truth to the surface. The other city collapses because truth was never allowed to stand upright.
Both men understand something we work very hard to avoid:
The unbelievable is always happening. The unbelievable has always been happening. We just prefer to call it fiction.
So when someone asks what I’m reading, the short answer is Under the Dome and L.A. Confidential.
But the real answer is: I’m reading two authors who drag the human condition out into the open, each in their own way — King through the surreal, Ellroy through the hyperreal. Both force you to look at the reflection, even when you’d rather look away.
And maybe that’s the part we pretend not to see — the truth isn’t hiding from us. We’re hiding from it.
What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?
When I think about alternate paths, I don’t lean toward regret so much as curiosity. I made the choices I needed to make—provide for my family, show up when it mattered, carry the weight I was handed without folding. That path shaped me, and I don’t flinch from it.
I’ve always wanted to write, and I’m doing that. I wanted a life that mattered to someone beyond myself, and I lived that out as a soldier. And the best job I’ve ever had—the one nobody prepared me for but I’d sign up for again without hesitation—is being a parent. Nothing outshines that.
But there were other lives tugging at me from the edges.
If you were to look at my bookshelves, you might think I was quietly running a used bookstore out of my living room. My grandchildren even thought I lived in a library for a while. I just smiled and let them believe it. Honestly, the only thing keeping me from opening a bookstore is the part where you’re expected to sell the books. I understand the business model—I’m just not convinced it’s for me.
Books and music have always been my constants. If life had tilted differently, I could’ve easily become the old guy at the record store or the corner bookstore—the one who knows exactly which album you need on a bad day or which worn-down paperback might knock some truth loose in you. There’s a version of me in another timeline handing people vinyl and saying, “Trust me,” then going back to alphabetizing the Miles Davis section for the fifteenth time.
Maybe that’s the thread through all of it: stories and sound have always been the places I went to breathe.
And the wild thing is, I’m basically living that alternate life now. Not in a storefront, but through the work I do—curating, writing, sharing pieces of music and meaning, building spaces where people come to find something they didn’t know they needed. Turns out you don’t need a counter or a cash register to play that role. Just shelves full of books, stacks of vinyl, and enough stubborn joy to keep the doors open in your own way.
So yes, there were other paths I might’ve walked. But the one I chose? It mattered. And the one I’m building now—this mix of writing, art, story, and sound—might just be the closest I’ve ever come to living all my alternate lives at once.
Some people swear I was never a child. They talk about me like I came out of the womb already irritated with humanity—scowl pre-installed, voice warmed up and ready to yell at strangers. And honestly? I get it. I spent over twenty years raising my voice for a living. Hard to picture a guy like that in a onesie, getting hyped over stickers and suckers.
But I remember it. I remember rolling my eyes with the kids and grandkids—performing the whole too cool for this act—but also hoping, in that quiet place you don’t admit out loud, that nobody ever broke their hearts or stole their joy. There’s something about watching innocence that makes you want to stand guard, even if you pretend you’re above it.
Still, none of that made me feel grown. Not the early milestones everyone swears matter. Not the first kiss, the first heartbreak, or the first time I put on a uniform and pretended I knew what I was doing. I hit all the checkpoints without crossing the threshold.
Adulthood didn’t sneak up gently. It came as a year—a tight, unrelenting twelve months—where mortality stopped being philosophical and started breathing down my neck. I remember one night in particular: stepping outside after an incident, dust still floating in the air, adrenaline refusing to let my hands settle. That was the moment I understood life wasn’t theoretical. It could vanish, just like that.
And somewhere in that stretch, something inside me shifted. Not a big, cinematic revelation. More like an internal fracture you can’t ignore once you hear it.
The kid in me didn’t disappear; he just stopped driving. Maybe he stepped back. Maybe he grew quiet. Maybe he finally understood the stakes.
Because once I walked onto a battlefield, I knew I wasn’t a kid anymore. You feel the ground vibrating under your boots, and it rearranges something in you. Permanently. After that, youth stops being a phase and becomes a memory.
People love to believe adulthood is a choice—something you claim, or celebrate, or ease into with birthdays and responsibilities.
For me, it arrived in the dirt and the dust and the dark. A draft notice I never signed, delivered on a day I can’t forget.
If I could live anywhere in the world, I’d choose a place that doesn’t demand explanations or performances. I’ve lived in cities, deserts, the deep woods — turns out I can settle in just about any landscape as long as it leaves me room to disappear a little.
These days, I picture a small town within driving distance of my hideaway. A place where the market clerk nods without prying, and the librarian teases me about my tattered books but respects the depth of them. Guppy wouldn’t trust her at first, naturally. But a few well-timed treats would work faster than diplomacy ever could. Age catches up with all of us, but if anyone’s going on a diet, it’s her.
Most mornings would start the same: a meditation-heavy book cracked open, a good pen waiting, coffee steaming, my thoughts wandering until Guppy yanks me back to earth with a judgmental meow. Just enough contact with the world to keep me grounded — not enough to get invited to supper. (People get touchy when you say no.)
What I’m really chasing is a chance to breathe. A place where the air isn’t sharpened by worry, where everything isn’t a potential threat even when it isn’t one. Somewhere I can write without the static of the world pressing in, where anonymity isn’t loneliness — it’s relief.
And at the end of each day, I’d know I chose right: Guppy stretching and settling into her next perch, the porch light catching dust in the evening air, the quiet presence of night creatures moving around me. They don’t disturb me. I don’t disturb them. Just a mutual agreement to exist without fear.
A simple sewing kit, a lifetime of inherited rhythm.
I ended up with my mother’s sewing kit after she crossed over, though “kit” might be too generous a word. It was a simple plastic box the color of old Tupperware, caked in decades of dirt and lint and whatever life had rubbed off on it. I emptied the contents, cleaned it, and put everything back the way I remembered. Funny thing is, I didn’t think I remembered much—until I did. Muscle memory is honest like that.
She used to have me sit beside her while she ran her old Singer like it was a locomotive. Heat built up around that machine. The motor would hum, fabric would spark with static, and the whole room felt charged—like electricity and summer trapped in a small space. My job was simple: keep the needles threaded and the bobbins loaded. I’d keep a couple wound and ready so she’d never have to stop. Every time she hit her groove, something new for my room came out of it. I didn’t buy store-bought sheets until I got married.
I learned to sew, knit, crochet—“girlie things,” the world called them. I say that with a smirk because later, when I had daughters, I taught them the same skills I wasn’t “supposed” to know. Nothing shuts down a stereotype quicker than a man who can backstitch better than you.
After she passed, I didn’t want to use her kit. That box felt like sacred ground. I told myself I’d build my own—fresh basket, fresh tools, fresh start. I even wrote out a supply list. But finding the right basket turned into a ridiculous odyssey. I mentioned the problem to a friend, and she told me, “You know, it’s okay to use your mom’s.”
I refused without thinking.
She didn’t push. She just said softly, “She wouldn’t mind.”
But that was the thing—I minded.
The kit sat there for years. Cleaned, restored, untouched.
The turning point came the day I wandered into a store to look at sewing machines. I wanted something that felt close to her old Singer, though I knew nothing like it existed anymore. The man behind the counter didn’t ask what kind of stitch work I did or what machine I learned on. Didn’t ask about thread tension or feed dogs or bobbin types. He just talked price. Over and over. Like money was the point.
I walked out without saying much. If the first thing you bring to me is cost instead of purpose, we have nothing to talk about.
I went home and opened her kit again. Those old Singer needles were still inside—delicate, outdated, impossible to replace. I picked one up and threaded it without thinking, the way she taught me. When I pricked my finger, I could practically hear her: “Where’s your thimble?” The kind of thing she’d say with half-exasperation, half-love. I stuck my finger in my mouth like a kid, and for the first time since she crossed the veil, I smiled.
She once told me, “I’m teaching you all this stuff because knowing you, you’ll marry a woman who doesn’t know how to do anything.” She said it with affection, the way mothers do when they’ve already figured you out. She was wrong, of course. I didn’t marry a woman like that.
I remember a visit where Mom and my late wife argued—good-natured but firm—about who spoiled me the most. According to them, I was spoiled rotten. According to me, I’m just a man who thinks things ought to be done a certain way.
Hell, right is right, right?
You know, the precision of that first stitch—after all those years—hit me harder than I expected. Something about it was too perfect, too familiar, like my hands remembered a language my mind forgot. And now that I’m older, I find myself full of questions I’d ask my mother and my late wife if the veil worked both ways. It never does. There’s always a million things you want to say to someone once they’re gone.
Looking back, I think teaching me all that sewing and knitting wasn’t just about preparing me for some imaginary woman who couldn’t thread a needle. I think she was keeping my hands busy, slowing down a mind that ran too hot, too fast. At the time, I didn’t believe there was a woman on this planet who couldn’t sew, stitch, or fix something. Then I dated one. Funny thing—I even thought about marrying her. Maybe my mother knew something I didn’t.
There’s something about using my hands that stills me. Crafting, repairing, working with tools—it forces my mind to slow down and focus in a way nothing else does. Writing pulls me outward into worlds that don’t exist yet, chasing the unknown. But when I sew, or mend, or make something real, the world narrows to the size of the task. It started with that old sewing kit on the shelf. But it grew into something much larger. Using her tools isn’t about the past anymore. It’s how I keep my hands steady enough to build the future
Daily writing prompt
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?
“Because sometimes the lessons that shape you come folded, ink-stained, and intercepted by your parents.”
The last time we talked, I narrowly escaped the fallout from The Battle. I still don’t know why my father even put up a fight. In situations like that, Mom wins—she always wins.
Dinner was late that night, and Dad’s last nerve; frayed. He moped around the house like a rejected understudy in his own life. Mom chuckled every time she passed him—quietly, of course, out of his line of sight.
But enough about The Battle. I’m here today to tell you about my next misadventure: The Connie Winford Diabolical.
Suppose you’ve ever been twelve and suddenly realized that girls weren’t carriers of incurable cooties but mysterious, magnificent creatures who smelled like shampoo and danger. In that case, you already know where this story begins. And what were those bumps on their chest? Some mysterious growth? Were they dying? Nope—they were boobs. The downfall of man.
Middle School. The arena of hormonal confusions, bad decisions, Grey Flannel, and Drakkar. The mixture alone was enough to make anyone hurl. But back then, we had the constitution of gods—right up until alcohol got involved. That’s a story for another day.
By then, I’d graduated from class clown to romantic visionary. English was still my thing, which meant I’d discovered a weapon far more dangerous than spitballs—words.
I started writing notes. Not just any notes. Masterpieces. Folded with precision, tight enough to survive the perilous journey across the classroom. Each one a mini-drama of doodled hearts, overwrought metaphors, and shamelessly borrowed Hallmark poetry.
Shakespeare would have been proud.
However, evidence suggested otherwise.
Then came The Note.
She was new—a transfer student, with curly hair, a smile like she’d been warned not to use it in public. Connie Winford. A name that still sounds like a trap.
I slipped her my finest work: a declaration of eternal middle-school devotion written in purple ink. It included the words destiny, soul connection, and—God help me—forever.
She giggled. I took that as a victory. But she showed her best friend, who showed another, and by lunch, the entire cafeteria knew I’d pledged undying love. They had thoughts. Loud ones.
I tried to play it cool. That lasted six minutes. Then, in a fit of damage control, I wrote a second note claiming it was all a joke. She didn’t buy it. My teacher, who intercepted note number three, definitely didn’t buy it.
By 2:15, I was in the principal’s office. By 3:00, my parents had been called.
Home.
My father was furious. “No man in this family conducts himself like this,” he said.
Mom countered, “What about Uncle Butch?”
My father popped, “You think this is a laughing matter?”
I braced myself for the usual surrender—Mom softening, saying something like, Of course not, dear.
But not my mama. No way.
“Yep, freaking hilarious,” she said. “You act like you didn’t pass me notes in school. If I recall, your note was worse than his. Plus, your folding was terrible. Everyone knows it’s about the presentation. Eat your peas.”
Dad said nothing. Just stabbed at his plate, probably reconsidering all his life choices.
That night, I did what any self-respecting, lovesick fool would do: I called her. The house phone was mounted on the kitchen wall—the kind with a coiled cord long enough to lasso a small horse. I dragged it down the hallway into my room and whispered my apology, voice trembling like it carried state secrets.
Things were going well—until I heard it.
A click.
The quiet death of privacy.
My parents were listening in.
Mother’s voice came first: “That’s a mighty long cord for a short conversation.”
Then Father, dry as ever: “Son, next time you write a love note, use better paper. That cheap stuff smears.”
This from a man who knew his folding game was subpar. Was I adopted?
They tag-teamed me. There was no escape.
I hung up the phone, face burning, dignity in ruins.
The next day, my teacher sentenced me to read from the dictionary during lunch. I didn’t mind. It felt poetic somehow.
That’s the day I learned two things:
Love makes geniuses stupid.
Parents have a sixth sense for dial tones. Some may even say, they feel a disturbance in the Force.
And maybe—just maybe—that’s when I became a writer. Because if you’re going to get in trouble for your words, they might as well be worth reading. Until you get in trouble saying nothing. Again, a story for another day.
In the mornings, when I sit on the porch with my coffee, I watch the world before it fully wakes. The birds navigate from post to post, wings catching the soft light as if they were practicing choreography from a higher rehearsal. I imagine their laughter in bird-speak — gossip about Gary, the feathered fool who embarrassed himself at last night’s “Bird Watch.”
I marvel at how they not only fly but know where they’re going. Then it hits me — magnetism, the original GPS. Nature had built-in navigation long before we turned it into a subscription model.
The squirrels join the morning rush soon after, leaping from limb to limb with effortless grace. There’s a small platoon that passes by daily — the same crew, the same route. I can almost hear them cheering one another on: “Look at you! We’re almost there — ten more minutes!”
And there I am, coffee in hand, watching this unfiltered world unfold — no buffering, no pop-ups, no endless scroll. Just life doing what life does best: being.
Several years ago, I wrote a short line on social media:
“Curb your addiction; Netflix is not a lifestyle.”
At the time, streaming was the new religion. Everyone worshiped the next series drop like it was gospel, and I was no better. I said it partly to be clever, partly as a confession. Because let’s face it — I wasn’t preaching from a mountaintop; I was speaking from the couch.
Even now, I still believe we should spend more time reading, thinking, and being with the people who matter. But the reality is more complicated. These days, screens aren’t just entertainment — they’re the medium of our lives. I’ve written novels, edited photographs, designed worlds, and built entire digital ecosystems from a laptop screen. I’ve written on this blog nearly every day for months straight, and much of it was done on my phone between sips of coffee and the next notification.
So, how do I manage screen time? I don’t always manage it. I negotiate with it.
My desktop is for heavy creative work — the serious stuff: film editing, image manipulation, long fiction. My laptop is for writing in motion. But when I pick up my phone, that small rectangle becomes a world all its own. It’s easy to get lost in that glow — the infinite scroll of headlines, half-truths, dopamine, and distraction.
I once read that researchers call this Small Screen Addiction. I laughed — mostly because I recognized myself in the diagnosis. It’s that quiet pull to check just one more thing, that phantom buzz you swear you felt. The addiction isn’t to the device; it’s to the anticipation of something happening.
That’s the real danger. We’ve become a generation of watchers waiting for something new to arrive on our screens — a message, a miracle, a moment of validation.
These days, I try to make peace with it. I’ve set small rituals: no screens before coffee, no scrolling after midnight, and at least one hour a day where I stare at the ceiling or the sky instead of pixels. It’s not perfect, but it’s balance — or something like it.
And then the day winds down. I return to the porch, this time with tea instead of coffee, preparing for whatever remains of the night. Sometimes I play an audiobook I’ve already heard — something familiar enough to let my mind wander through the spaces between words, where new ideas like to hide.
The glow shifts now — from screens to the eyes of nocturnal creatures beginning their day. They watch me, curious, trying to decide if I mean harm or if I’m one of them. I smell different, but I’ve earned their tolerance through time and quiet. Yes, this is my home — but it was theirs long before me, and it will be theirs long after I’m gone.
It’s funny, the things you learn when you sit, watch, and listen. Their stories begin to braid themselves into yours. Something to be shared — not uploaded or streamed, just lived.
And maybe that’s the best screen management there is.
Author’s Note
We’re surrounded by light — digital, artificial, celestial — and each one demands something of us. Some burn fast and bright, while others whisper in frequencies older than language. The trick, I think, isn’t to turn them off, but to listen long enough to know which ones deserve your attention.
Entry Eleven: Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind
I found her in the middle of a killing field that should have had no place for beauty.
The moon sat low and full behind her, a pale coin pressed into the sky, casting that cold lacquered light across armor, bodies, and the drifting ash of trampled blossoms. The night smelled of copper and rain. Around us the dead refused to stay still; wind pushed their rags like restless sighs.
I had already decided the day was lost—too many screams, too many men swinging at ghosts. But then I saw her, and the world tilted. She stood where no one should have stood: upright, unhurried, her robe heavy with embroidery, dark as ink, stitched with peonies and waves that shimmered when the moon looked her way.
The first thought that crossed my mind was: Who brings flowers to war? The second: Maybe the flowers brought her.
They grew around her feet, low white clusters, fragile as breath. Some had taken root in the soft mud, others hovered midair like they hadn’t decided what kind of thing they wanted to be. A faint perfume drifted off them, too clean for this place. And then I realized some of them were growing from her—the side of her face, her shoulder, the line of her arm. A bloom of defiance carved into flesh.
Behind her stood four figures draped in similar black silk, motionless. Their eyes were lowered, hands clasped before them. Attendants, perhaps. Or echoes. Even from where I stood, I knew they weren’t here to fight. They were here to witness.
I tightened my hand on my sword because habit is older than reason.
The ground sucked at my boots as I stepped closer. Somewhere to my left, a man still dying called for his mother. Another, somewhere behind, recited a prayer halfway through his blood. But sound thinned the closer I came to her. Like the air around her absorbed noise and left only pulse.
She looked at me when I was five paces away. Not before. Not after. Like she’d measured the exact distance between recognition and threat.
Her eyes were half-lidded, the color of tarnished brass. Her mouth was calm, as if the ruin surrounding her had been a foregone conclusion. One petal rested just below her cheekbone, pale against the skin. She didn’t brush it away.
“You walk like a man who has forgotten why he still draws breath,” she said.
Her voice was quiet but cut through the air like string through silk.
“I’ve followed death long enough to know his rhythm,” I said. “Some nights he leads. Some nights I do.”
She inclined her head, just enough to show she’d heard. “You are ronin,” she said. “A sword with no oath.”
“Whatever name suits you,” I said. “You stand where no one should stand.”
She looked past me toward the moon. “Where else would I be? When blades sing, flowers bloom. The field requires witness.”
She had no weapon in her hands, yet everything about her said blade. I’ve met killers who strutted under banners, and others who killed softly with no name to anchor their ghosts. She belonged to neither. Her stillness made me feel the way a boy feels before the first snow—expectant, humbled, afraid to speak.
“You should leave,” I said. “When dawn comes, they’ll burn what’s left.”
“You mistake me,” she said. “I came to see who is worthy.”
That word bit. Worthy. I’d watched too many noblemen rot in palanquins to trust it. Worthy is what the dying call themselves before the blade arrives.
“Worthy of what?” I asked.
“Of the sword. Of the bloom. Of carrying death without becoming it.”
The field groaned. A survivor staggered from the smoke—young, wild-eyed, clutching a short spear he didn’t know how to hold. He saw her, and some idiot fire lit behind his teeth. Maybe he thought she was a reward for surviving. Maybe he thought the gods had thrown him one last chance to matter.
He ran at her, screaming.
In battle you have seconds to make a decision. Whether wrong or right, it needs to be made. One of the fastest ways to learn someone is not what they say, but how they fight.
For one breath, I froze. I had seen too much to believe in rescues. The smart thing—the living thing—was to watch it unfold. Yet something in her stillness reached me, a quiet that felt older than every order I’d ever followed.
I moved before thought could argue. Maybe it was reflex. Maybe guilt. Or maybe—and this is the truth I won’t soften—I moved because her movement deserved a blade.
I drew, stepped forward, and cut low. The arc found his thigh. He stumbled, confused, half alive. I turned the motion, cut again—clean, deliberate, final. His blood came hot, red against moonlight. It splashed over the flowers at her feet.
They didn’t stain.
The droplets slid off as if the world itself refused to let his death take root there.
She looked at me, not with gratitude but recognition.
“You took him before he had time to be afraid,” she said. “That was mercy.”
I laughed, short and dry. “That’s a generous name for what I do.”
“There are cruelties worse than steel,” she said. “You gave him a swift exit. That counts.”
Her calm should have offended me, but it didn’t. It steadied something that had been shaking inside for too long.
I studied her again, this time the way I studied opponents before the first strike. Every warrior moves according to what they believe: greed, fear, pride, duty. The body tells the truth the mouth hides. She stood like someone who believed in balance—not victory, not survival, just the quiet between breaths.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“A name is only a sheath,” she said. “Tonight, I am what you see.”
“I see a woman blooming on a battlefield.”
“And I see a man who still listens for music in the clash,” she said. “We are both out of place.”
The four behind her lifted their eyes then—slowly, together. Four sets of dark irises, moonlit, unreadable. The air thickened, like waiting for a storm that didn’t come.
“You could have struck me,” I said.
“I could have,” she replied. “But you already offered your sword.”
“I fought even though it wasn’t my fight,” I said. “Your movements deserved my blade.”
She gave the smallest nod, approval or farewell—I couldn’t tell which. “Then peace, ronin. Not the peace of victory. The peace that lives in the breath between strikes.”
For a long moment, we stood there—two still figures in a world still burning. Around us, the wounded moaned, the fires licked the edges of the field, but none of it entered the space between us. The night had carved a small silence and decided to let us share it.
I let the sword drop, tip resting in mud. Not surrender. A bow to something rarer.
When I looked again, the blossoms at her feet had multiplied. Their pale glow shimmered faintly in the dark, each one perfect, each one refusing the ugliness of what surrounded it.
The moon sank. The smoke grew thicker. I blinked, and she was gone. The four attendants too. Only the flowers remained—untouched, unstained, rooted in earth that should have been ash.
At dawn, when the officers returned with torches and the day’s excuses, they found me sitting beside the blossoms. I told them nothing. Some truths need soil and silence more than words.
I carry her still. Not her image—images fade—but the moment itself, caught behind the ribs like a splinter of light. That memory is my wound and my mercy both.
Because now I know this: even those made for killing can recognize beauty when it stands unafraid. And once you’ve seen it—truly seen it—you carry it. Always.
People love to talk about time like it’s a membership program — renewable, limited, and probably ad-supported. “There’s not enough time in the day.” “I wish I had more time.” “Time just got away from me.” We all say it. I’ve said it too.
The thing about time, though, is it’s always been the same amount since we started measuring it. The only thing that changes is us — or more precisely, how we try to package it. We’ve gone from lunar calendars to solar calendars to whatever daylight-saving-time fever dream we’re still pretending makes sense. The problem isn’t time. It’s that we keep treating it like software that needs constant updates.
So naturally, someone’s going to say, “We just need to manage it better.” Cue the parade of Day Runners, Franklin Coveys, and every other trendy organizer that promised to make us “more efficient.” We’ve become so efficient that people now have time to buy multiple organizing systems, compare them on YouTube, and make affiliate links ranking which one saves you more of your already wasted life.
So I wonder if the next big thing will be the ability to purchase time in blocks. You know — “Now available in convenient six-hour increments!” Buy one, get a bonus fifteen minutes for self-care. Maybe throw in a loyalty program. Because nothing says progress like turning eternity into a subscription service.
They’ll probably call it something sleek and stupid, like Chrono+ or The Timely App. “Reclaim your minutes!” “Upgrade your life!” “Don’t waste another second — for just $19.99 a month.”
(A bright, sterile retail space. Muzak hums in the background. A counter gleams beneath fluorescent lights.)
Sales Associate: Good evening, ma’am, can I help you? Customer: Yes, I’d like to purchase a time block. Sales Associate: Certainly. How much were you thinking? Customer: Hmm… I’m not sure. Sales Associate: We’re offering thirty percent off any blocks over ninety days, if that helps. Customer: Really? Oh, Jeremy — stop that! Don’t put things in your mouth. What have I told you about putting things in your mouth? What is that? Spit it out! Right now, young man. Thank you.
(A pause. She straightens her coat, smiles politely.) Customer: I’m so sorry, where were we? Oh, yes. I’ll take one ninety-day block and three one-hundred-twenty-day blocks. Time flies so fast — you can never be too careful.
And that’s exactly the problem. We’ve turned time into a product, a project, and a panic attack — all rolled into one. You can color-code your planner, automate your calendar, and stack every “optimization hack” known to humankind. You still can’t out-organize mortality.
Maybe the trick isn’t getting more time. Maybe it’s using the time you already have without acting like you’re auditioning for it.
So, do I need time? Not really. I need less of it hanging over my head and more of it sitting quietly beside me — the kind that doesn’t come with notifications, countdowns, or motivational quotes.
If I ever finish the time machine, maybe I’ll try deleting the concept altogether. No deadlines, no clocks, no “you’re running late.” Just motion and memory. Just the sound of life moving forward without asking permission.
Until then, I’ll keep what I’ve got — a half-wired machine, a cup of cold coffee, and a future still on backorder.
They asked what my life will be like in three years. I told them I’m still trying to figure out next Tuesday.
Some men build time machines. Others read about alien pods and synthetic sheep, hoping to understand what went wrong with the species. I do both — coffee optional, cynicism not.
Every time someone asks about the future, I picture a crowd of anxious humans trying to schedule the weather or negotiate with fate via Google Calendar. It’s adorable. Come here, let me pinch your cheek. Really—this obsession with pretending we’re in control. I’ve met potholes with a stronger sense of inevitability.
Three years from now, I’ll probably still be working on the time machine in my basement. People keep asking why. I tell them it’s cheaper than therapy and safer than dating apps. Besides, time travel makes more sense than “five-year plans.” At least with time travel, you accept the paradox. With planning, you just lie to yourself more efficiently.
So, keep endless scrolling and doing your TikTok dances. Because apparently no one needs cable anymore, and I suppose that makes you a public servant now. So—high five? What? Get away from me… weirdo.
In three years, I hope to have mastered the fine art of not giving a damn about metrics. Maybe I’ll finally stop apologizing for slow progress and start celebrating that I’m still moving at all. I might have fewer teeth, more coffee stains, and the same bad back—but I’ll also have more stories. And if that’s not progress, what is?
If the time machine works, I’ll visit future me just to see if I ever stopped procrastinating. My bet? Future me is standing in the same spot, muttering something about “calibration issues” and sipping cold coffee. If that’s the case, I’ll pat him on the shoulder, tell him he did fine, and leave him to his nonsense.
Because maybe that’s the secret: it’s not about what the future looks like. It’s about showing up for the weird present we’ve already got—even if the gears grind, the circuits smoke, and the timeline refuses to cooperate.
Because no one needs body snatchers—thank you, Jack Finney—or android replicas of Philip K. Dick. Be yourself. Live in the moment. Don’t be a pansy.
So, what will my life be like in three years?
Hopefully still under construction. Hopefully still mine.
And if the time machine’s finally working by then… I’ll let you know.
No one remembers who started it. Probably someone who said something so catastrophically dumb that laughter was the only way to keep the world from collapsing in on itself. That’s the real magic of it — turning foolishness into fellowship.
Every year, on the first Friday of November, we celebrate the sacred art of not having it all together. A holiday for the half-aware, the overconfident, and the beautifully human.
There are rules to this madness, of course — because even fools need structure.
How to Celebrate:
Step 1: Confess Your Foolishness
Start the day by admitting your latest act of nonsense — the thing that made even your reflection sigh. Write it down on a scrap of paper. Don’t overthink it; the truth works best when it’s still raw.
Fold it up.
No name, no excuses.
Drop it into the Crowning Ceremony Drawing — a sacred bowl, coffee mug, or whatever container hasn’t been repurposed as an ashtray.
It’s not about shame. It’s about liberation — the moment you realize your worst mistake has become everyone’s favorite story.
Step 2: Craft the Crown
Tradition states that the previous year’s Chucklehead Supreme must craft the crown for the new one. It’s a sacred duty — part redemption arc, part creative punishment.
No two crowns should ever look alike. Some are wrapped in tinfoil and regret, others in duct tape and leftover wisdom. A few have been rumored to include receipts from bad decisions and one brave attempt at origami.
The important thing is effort. The crown must be made by hand and offered with the solemnity of someone who’s learned their lesson — or at least pretended to.
Step 3: Acts of Absurd Kindness
At some point during the day, pay someone a compliment so strange it bends their sense of reality for a second.
Say, “Your left eye is particularly dazzling today.”
Say it straight-faced. No grin, no flinch.
Pick a word you’d never use — dazzling, radiant, exquisite. The kind that belongs in perfume ads or embroidered pillows. Use it anyway. Because for one brief, shining moment, everyone deserves to be a little ridiculous.
Step 4: The 3 P.M. Chuckle Ritual
Wherever you are, tell the worst joke you know. No winners. No scoring. Just the shared sound of collective groaning to remind us that laughter, even bad laughter, is still holy.
When the last chuckle fades, everyone assembles for the Crowning Ceremony Drawing. The folded confessions are placed in the center — a bowl, a hat, or a leftover candy dish from last year’s failed diet.
One confession is drawn. One truth is read aloud.
And somewhere in the room, the new Chucklehead Supreme exhales and steps forward to claim their crown.
Step 5: Crown the Worthy
Present the handcrafted crown in a mock ceremony — bonus points for a kazoo processional or a slow clap that lasts slightly too long.
The new Chucklehead Supreme must wear it proudly until someone else out-chuckles them. It’s not a punishment. It’s an acknowledgment: you’ve officially joined the noble order of people brave enough to look foolish and laugh about it.
Step 6: For the Retired & the Wise
Same rules apply — only now the arena has changed. Gather your fellow retirees at your usual hangout: the diner, the park bench, the coffee shop that knows your order before you walk in.
Write down your foolishness on a napkin if that’s all you’ve got. Drop it in an empty sugar packet box. Tell the same bad joke you’ve told every week since ‘92.
Crown the winner, or the loser — depending on how you look at it — and raise your mugs in solidarity. Because time doesn’t make you immune to foolishness; it just gives you better material.
Why We Celebrate:
Because perfection is a myth sold by people who’ve never burned toast.
Because humility ages better than pride.
Because every one of us is a walking blooper reel trying to look composed in public.
And maybe because, after a lifetime of getting it wrong, I’ve learned the trick isn’t avoiding the fall — it’s learning to laugh when you hit the floor.
So pour your coffee. Wear your invisible crown. And remember: the world doesn’t fall apart when you screw up — it just becomes a little funnier.
Long live the Chuckleheads.
Author’s Note:
This piece was written in celebration of imperfection — the kind that keeps us honest, humble, and human. Somewhere out there, someone’s still wearing last year’s Crown of Cluelessness. If that’s you, your left eye is still dazzling.
Daily writing prompt
Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.
“It’s early in the morning / About a quarter to three…”
— Otis Redding
Nicotine stains my fingers, and there’s a coffee ring bleeding through the corner of my notebook. My shoulders ache — that familiar, loyal pain that’s been with me longer than most people. You get to that stopping point, the one where you promise yourself just one more thing so the mind can shut off without guilt or shame. Not that you’ve done anything wrong; it’s just the brain’s way of punishing ambition. You light up, take a sip, and the room hums like an overworked transformer. No bacon, no eggs — just the stench of being fried.
I’d been pulling an all-nighter, trying to wrestle systems into order before the next sunrise. Sleep wasn’t an option — at least that’s what I told myself, and once you start believing your own lies, they might as well be true. Somewhere around that blurred hour when the clock forgets which side of midnight it’s on, my wife came in with that look — half worry, half why in the hell aren’t you in bed next to me. The first two parts I could shrug off; the last one carried weight. She stood there, watched me for a moment, then went to put on a pot of coffee.
She was the wife of a soldier, so she knew the score. She didn’t like it much, but she knew it all the same. She looked at the clock and chuckled, that kind of laugh that carried both resignation and love.
“This is your theme song, right here,” she said. “Metal something — you’re always going on about it.”
“It’s Metallica, babe,” I said, “and the track is Am I Evil.”
She lit her own cigarette, slow and precise, the way she did everything that mattered. The smoke rose along the side of her face, curling like a slow dance with the light. One eye squinted through the haze as she looked my way — then in one easy breath, the smoke was gone.
“Shit, you say,” she replied, and I laughed — a small, grateful sound. The kind that breaks tension without fixing a thing. I took another sip of coffee. The bitterness hit just right, grounding me in that narrow space between exhaustion and clarity. Otis was still humming through the speakers, like an old friend keeping score of the hours we’d lost.
Otis Redding’s “Cigarettes and Coffee” came out in 1966, tucked into The Soul Album, a record overshadowed by his bigger hits. No stadium anthem here — just the quiet gospel of survival. The band plays soft, steady, respectful. Al Jackson Jr. keeps the drums whisper-thin, Duck Dunn anchors the bass like a heartbeat, and Steve Cropper’s guitar flickers in and out of the light.
It’s a sparse room of sound. You can almost smell the studio air — the tape reel humming, the smoke hanging low. Otis isn’t singing to anyone in particular. He’s talking to whoever’s still awake, whoever’s chasing purpose through fatigue.
“I’m sittin’ here talkin’ with my baby / Over cigarettes and coffee…”
That’s not romance. That’s ritual.
It’s the sound of two people trying to stay human when the night’s too long and the world’s too loud.
People love to say the sixties were a musical revolution. You hear it your whole life, like gospel. But you don’t really understand it until you’ve lived long enough to see how hype survives every generation. They didn’t have social media then, but they had slogans — peace signs, protest anthems, movements branded before they could breathe.
Today, the noise just comes in technicolor. Everything trending, nothing sticking. But Otis — he stuck. He already had his name etched in wax by the time this song landed, but “Cigarettes and Coffee” wasn’t for the spotlight. It was for the back room, the insomniacs, the men and women sitting at their own breaking points.
That’s what makes it timeless. It’s still talking about what we’re still living — the quiet wars we fight with ourselves, the long nights spent trying to hold it all together.
Every time I hear this track, something in me unclenches. It doesn’t lift me up — it settles me. Makes me honest. There’s a weight in Otis’s voice that feels like a man exhaling after carrying the world too long.
The song doesn’t fix anything; it just reminds you you’re not alone in the fixing. It says peace isn’t about rest — it’s about acceptance. The kind that comes when you’ve worked yourself down to silence and realize the silence feels sacred.
For a few minutes, I stop fighting the fatigue. My hands ache, my eyes burn, my shoulders protest, and somehow it all feels right. The song gives the exhaustion purpose. It turns the ache into evidence — proof that I’m still in motion.
That’s what makes it beautiful. Not joy. Recognition. The shared breath of the living tired.
Music provides the soundtrack of our lives — checkpoints across time, a kind of living mythos. We all move through the same years differently, but the songs mark us just the same. A verse here, a chorus there — little coordinates reminding us who we were before the noise got too loud.
It’s strange, isn’t it? Two people can walk side by side, hearing the same song, and still be living two entirely different truths. That’s the thing about music — it doesn’t belong to an era; it belongs to the listener.
That’s why Otis still matters. “Cigarettes and Coffee” isn’t nostalgia — it’s memory work. It’s here to keep us from forgetting what it feels like to be awake in the dark, searching for balance in the hum of a tired world.
Music is here so you don’t forget — how to feel, how to love, and how to weep. It’s a reminder that even in the long nights of rebuilding, there’s still rhythm left in the wreckage. And if you listen close enough, you might just hear yourself breathing in time with the song.
Pull Quote:
“It’s not a love song — it’s a mirror. A hymn for the living tired.”
Author’s Note: This piece was written for Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday challenge, where writers and music lovers gather each week to explore songs through memory, meaning, and emotion. This week’s theme — coffee or tea — led me back to one of Otis Redding’s quiet masterpieces, “Cigarettes and Coffee.” What started as a late-night listen turned into something more personal — a reflection on rebuilding, resilience, and the art of staying awake long enough to make sense of it all.
Entry Ten: Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind
An image-driven meditation on beauty, decay, and the quiet art of passing for alive.
White comes first. It always does. I dust the night from my face with a powder the color of absolution and tell the mirror a soft white lie: you are whole, you are warm, you belong to the day. The mirror nods like a priest who’s already decided my penance. I let him; he’s one of the few men who listens. The powder smells faintly of lilies and old hotel sheets—clean, practiced grief. It cakes where sweat used to live. Underneath, skin hums the slow song of bacteria doing what they do best: recycling hope. Purity photographs better that way. Besides, no one suspects the dead of good lighting.
The birds come next—two shards of sky trained to settle across my eyes. They know their marks like altar boys at a funeral mass: left wing grazing the brow, right wing cooling the cheekbone, claws light against the temple. Their feathers shine the blue of high altitudes where breathing is theory. Blue is the color of transcendence, or so the books say. In practice, it’s the color of numbing—detachment dressed for church. I didn’t choose them for beauty; I chose them for temperature control. They keep my expressions chilled, my thoughts neat, the heat from showing. They smell faintly of ozone and hairspray, like the backstage of heaven. I can feel the air around me losing interest.
I open my mouth. They tilt their heads, listening. They remember the rules better than I do. The first sound they stole was laughter—too spontaneous, too human. They took it the way crows take rings: quick, gleeful, final. The second was the small sigh I made each morning while practicing the art of appearing alive. By the third—my name said to no one—I understood that silence is a currency, and I was rich in withdrawal. I keep my tongue behind my teeth the way some people keep money in a Bible: near God, far from thieves. Sometimes I miss how a real word tastes—like pennies and possibility—but the birds look so proud of me when I behave.
Grey arrives without asking. It bleeds in through the window frame, through the paint I swore was dry, through the place in my chest where memory used to turn red at the edges. Grey is the hallway color, the corridor between rooms, a suspended breath that never quite chooses air. Days collect in it like lint. The birds blink in unison, blue against the grey, and the room looks like an old photograph waiting for a pulse that won’t come. I practice gestures of aliveness—a nod, a smile, a hand smoothing the same invisible wrinkle. It’s choreography learned from the living. The trick is to blink at correct intervals. Dead eyes give it away. I’ve learned to count my blinks like prayers; no one notices faith when it’s rhythmic.
They call what I do resilience. I call it advanced taxidermy. Everything soft stuffed with survival slogans and stitched closed with polite smiles. I stand upright, lips faintly glossed, eyes decoratively haunted. People nod, impressed. “You look great,” they say, and I do. Death, when moisturized, is surprisingly photogenic.
At night, when the light loses its discipline, the birds twitch. Their wings quiver like unspoken apologies. They hate uncertainty—it smells too much like life. I tell them to relax, that nothing here moves unless I schedule it. They don’t believe me. They can sense the old pulse under the floorboards, that stubborn animal rhythm I keep sedated. Sometimes, if I listen too hard, I hear it muttering: Still here, you fraud. Still beating in the dark.
Grey has personality now—kind of an accountant with a god complex. It tallies what I didn’t say, what I pretended not to feel, every emotional expense I tried to write off. I owe everything. I keep paying in composure. Some mornings the debt collector is the mirror; some mornings it’s the ache behind my jaw. Both smile as they itemize.
I remember warmth in flashes. A mouth that used to taste like smoke and sincerity. A day when laughter didn’t feel like theft. The red comes back in small riots—a pulse in the wrist, a fever under the tongue, a dream where color doesn’t apologize for itself. Red is the rude friend who won’t stop showing up uninvited. It whispers, You can still want, you know. I tell it to shut up. Wanting is expensive, and I’m already behind on my rent in reality.
There was a man once—there always is, because tragedy likes a good straight man. He said my quiet was “mystical.” I let him think that. No sense disappointing the audience. He kissed me like he was trying to wake me, poor thing. I let him. The living need their illusions too. When he left, I smiled so gently you’d never guess the birds were choking on the heat inside my mouth.
People assume silence means peace. It doesn’t. It’s just a better brand of noise—high-end, minimalist, with clean lines and no bass. Inside it, everything still screams; it just does so politely. That’s the delicious part of the lie: it tastes like calm if you chew slow enough.
Sometimes the rot gets ambitious. It stretches under my skin, flexing like it wants out. I tell it we have a reputation to maintain. “Decay,” I whisper, “but quietly. We’re professionals.” It listens, most days. When it doesn’t, I add more powder and a higher neckline. Elegance covers almost anything.
I’ve been congratulated for my strength so often I should invoice for it. People mean well—they always mean well—but their compliments sound like eulogies now. “You’re so composed.” “You’re such an inspiration.” They don’t know that composure is just rigor mortis doing ballet, that inspiration is what happens when exhaustion gets good lighting.
Tonight, the air tastes different. There’s something electric in it, the flavor of coming storms or confessions. The birds sense it, feathers rustling like gossip. Blue, once loyal, starts to falter—its chill turning translucent, its sanctity cracking at the seams. Underneath, a hint of red—raw, seditious—tries to breathe.
I stare at the mirror. It stares back, unimpressed. “How long can you keep this up?” it asks without moving its lips. “As long as it looks good,” I answer. We’ve had this conversation before. Neither of us ever wins.
Black waits behind everything, patient as gravity. Not malicious—just inevitable. It’s the color of what doesn’t flinch anymore. When I close my eyes, it hums like an engine. It’s not the absence of light; it’s the womb of it. Maybe that’s comforting. Maybe it’s just where truths go to compost.
The birds fidget. Their claws scrape skin, soft warnings. They know what’s coming. I’ve been thinking dangerous thoughts—words forming without permission, meanings unapproved by management. I can feel language waking up in my throat like an old addiction. I used to love words. They made me visible. Then they made me trouble.
“What happens if I speak?” I ask. My voice sounds foreign, like someone rearranged the vowels while I slept. The birds freeze, their blue fading to the dull of forgotten sky. One pecks at my brow, delicate threat. The other trembles near my cheek. For a moment, even they look tired of sanctity.
I touch their wings. They’re colder than honesty. “Shh,” I tell them. “It’s just a syllable. A small one.” I open my mouth, and something almost warm slips out—a sigh, maybe, or the ghost of laughter coming home. The sound isn’t pretty, but it’s real, and real is an endangered species around here.
The mirror blinks first. Always does. “Well,” it says in that judgmental silence only mirrors manage, “look who’s back.” I shrug. “Don’t get excited. I’m still dead; I’m just taking the scenic route.”
Color rearranges itself. White gives up pretending to be mercy. Blue goes transparent, embarrassed by its own chill. Grey loosens its tie. Red stretches like a cat finally acknowledged. Black opens one lazy eye and grins, proud parent of the mess.
I let the birds slide off, set them on the sill. They glare at me, little auditors of sin, and I swear I see envy in their beady eyes. “Go on,” I tell them. “Find someone holier.” They flutter away, leaving a faint scent of ozone and resignation.
The air without them feels indecently warm. I breathe it in. It tastes like pennies and possibility. The mirror, for once, doesn’t offer a verdict. Maybe it’s learning boundaries. Maybe I finally bored it into honesty.
Outside, the sky wears an honest blue—the kind that knows the ground exists and loves it anyway. I could try that. Tomorrow, maybe. Tonight, I’m just going to sit here, rotting politely, beautifully, honestly.
Author’s Note
Part of theDispatches from the Splinters of My Mindseries—image-driven fiction that explores the architecture of silence, self-performance, and the strange grace of decay.
Memoirs of Madness — When the inkwell weeps, I howl.
Aging isn’t the problem — it’s the reruns. A tongue-in-cheek survival guide for anyone who’s ever looked back and thought, “What the hell was I thinking?”
Daily writing prompt
Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
This could be an interesting question, depending on how you look at it. If we’re talking about glory days—back before the gray, before the knees filed for early retirement, before hangovers started needing a recovery plan—then no thanks. I have no time for foolishness and even less to say on the matter.
But if we’re talking time travel—now you’ve got my attention.
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been building a time machine in my basement. No one believes I’ll ever get the damn thing working. Their “lack of faith in the Force is disturbing.” One woman told me, “It’s not my lack of faith in the Force—it’s my lack of faith in time travel.” I rolled my eyes, of course. Time travel is real—just like dragons. What, don’t look at me in that tone of voice.
So, I decided it was necessary to create a short list of do’s and don’ts. Some of these should be obvious, but you and I both know humans are notorious for dumbshit. What follows is my rough draft of the guide.
Time Travel: A Practical Guide for the Chronologically Curious
DO
Bring humility, not luggage. You can’t pack self-awareness into a carry-on, but it’s the only thing that makes the trip worth it.
Wave, don’t interfere. Watching your younger self screw up is part of the fun—it’s a rerun with better lighting.
Ask the questions you were too proud to ask back then. “What the hell were you thinking?” still counts.
Thank the ghosts. The people who left or broke you were part of the architecture that got you here.
Notice the details—the color of the room, your mother’s voice, the way your laughter used to sound before the world got louder.
Come home. Time travel’s a sightseeing tour, not a place to live.
DON’T
Don’t try to fix anything. You’ll only trade one regret for a newer, shinier model.
Don’t warn your younger self. That idiot needs to learn. You’re living proof they eventually did.
Don’t chase old flames. The girl who didn’t pay you attention the first time still doesn’t give a damn about your ass now.
Don’t drown in the what-ifs. That’s not nostalgia; that’s self-harm in prettier clothes.
Don’t justify your present by rewriting your past. If you’re lost, that’s on today’s version of you.
Don’t forget to bring back souvenirs—perspective, closure, forgiveness. They travel light but change everything.
Once I stop procrastinating and actually finish building the damn time machine, I wouldn’t use it to relive anything. I’d just visit long enough to remember that every mistake had a purpose and every joy had an expiration date. Then I’d come back, pour some coffee, and—I don’t know—maybe write my thoughts on a blog called Memoirs of Madness. Then get on with the business of living whatever version of now I’ve got left.
As a lifelong student of history, I’ve never been able to pull one event from the timeline and say, “This is my jam,” or “This right here—this is the shit.”
I’ve said it, of course. Probably said it too often. But none of them ever stick, because the truth is—it’s all the jam. Every revolution, every backroom betrayal, every random Tuesday that accidentally changed the world. History is the world’s longest mixtape, and it never skips a track.
I remember friends saying, “History’s boring.” Or worse, “So what?” I’d sit there thinking: You mean to tell me you can scroll for hours watching conspiracy podcasts and true-crime breakdowns, but a real story about an empire eating itself alive doesn’t do it for you?
History isn’t boring. It’s gossip that got serious—a mirror that never lies.
And sometimes, buried in the margins, there’s someone like Henrietta Wood.
Henrietta Wood wasn’t supposed to be remembered.
Born enslaved in Kentucky around 1818. Freed in 1848. Kidnapped back into slavery in 1853 by a man named Zebulon Ward—an opportunist who saw her freedom as a clerical error he could correct for profit.
He sold her into slavery in Mississippi and Texas. Twelve years gone.
Then emancipation came, and instead of fading quietly into “freedom,” she filed a lawsuit. Not a complaint. Not a plea. A bill.
In 1870, she sued Ward for $20,000 in federal court—a number so bold it had to make the room flinch. The trial dragged for eight years because that’s what the legal system does when it owes you something. In 1878, she won $2,500, the equivalent of about $65,000 today.
Ward paid.
Henrietta used the money to send her son to law school.
Tell me that’s not poetic symmetry.
She didn’t change the system. She cracked it—just enough to let the light in.
“Arthur H. Simms graduated law school in 1889, made his mark in Chicago—living proof that a mother’s lawsuit wasn’t just a story, but the starting gun for a lineage.”
Most people would’ve spent it fast, but Henrietta played a longer game.
She had principles and foresight in a time when most folks were just trying to breathe through the next day. Survival back then wasn’t a metaphor—it was the whole assignment.
She was awarded her money just after the crash of 1877, when the country was bleeding out from economic collapse and labor riots. Chaos in the streets. Blood on the rails. And in the middle of all that noise, there she was—a newly wealthy Black woman in America. By any measure, that was nothing short of miraculous.
She didn’t just win a case; she won proof that the system could be forced, however briefly, to recognize her humanity—
and the humanity we had fought for a hundred years earlier.
Just one year before her victory, Black people had officially become citizens under the Reconstruction Amendments. On paper, anyway. But the ink was still wet, and the promise hadn’t been delivered. Citizenship didn’t come with safety, or wealth, or power—it came with a target on your back.
It’s wild when you think about it: Lincoln said “four score and seven years ago” to define what America was supposed to mean, and here we were, a single score later, still trying to cash that promise. Henrietta Wood’s lawsuit was more than a demand for money—it was a demand for the score to finally be settled.
But history doesn’t balance its books that easily. Her win was a down payment, not a clean ledger.
Nearly five full scores—ninety-five years—passed between the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, which declared Black people citizens, and the 24th in 1964, which finally said they could vote without paying for the privilege. Ninety-five years between being written into the Constitution and being let into the booth. That’s not progress; that’s a slow bleed dressed up as democracy.
And that’s what makes Henrietta Wood’s victory so damn profound. She didn’t wait for the Constitution to catch up. She didn’t wait for permission. In a time when her citizenship was still a technicality and her humanity was a debate; she walked into a courtroom and forced the system to do what the law had promised but hadn’t yet learned how to deliver—recognize her.
The same law they had fought and bled for before they were even citizens. Before the ink on the 14th Amendment, before the word freedom stopped needing quotation marks. Henrietta stood on that battlefield of paperwork and principle and made the country do what the statue in the bay only claimed to represent.
She settled her own score nearly a century before the nation even realized the debt existed.
That’s why I study history. That’s why I never found it boring. Because every century, every headline, every name carved into stone is part of the same damn argument about who gets to be human and who gets to send the bill.
Henrietta Wood didn’t just win money—she won meaning. She took the same law they fought and bled for before they were even citizens, and she made it do what the statue in the bay only pretends to: stand for liberty, not theater. She didn’t ask for mercy. She demanded math.
And that’s what history really is—math written in blood and ink. Every generation adds up what the last one promised, and we’re still carrying the remainder.
So when people tell me, “History’s over,” I just laugh. The score’s not settled. Somewhere between 1868 and now—between Henrietta’s courthouse and that statue still holding her torch over borrowed water—the light keeps flickering like a warning.
What did Led Zeppelin say? “The Song Remains the Same.”
That’s the jam. Every damn time.
Author’s Note
I love history. So much that I’m building an entire website for it—and for everything else that refuses to be forgotten.
We make history in every breath we take. Every choice, every fight, every story that doesn’t get told.
The Lab’s gone quiet tonight. Just me, a dead desktop, and the taste of old regret. Turns out, every shortcut comes with a bill — and this time, I paid in time I can’t get back.
Daily writing prompt
What’s something you believe everyone should know.
NO CHEAP SHIT. That’s my one rule in the Lab — the hill I’ll die on — and the one I just broke.
The glow of the screen paints my hands in soft blue light. LibreOffice hums open, and for a second it’s like stepping through time. The last time I used this suite, it was still called OpenOffice — back when nobody could afford Microsoft, and we were all running on hope and cracked CDs. I remember the word-processor wars: Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, Microsoft Word. That was the golden age of making do, when half the job was convincing old machines not to die mid-save.
I’ve been thinking about all that because today I pulled a machine out of rotation. She’s sitting on the shelf now, waiting to be stripped for parts — fans still warm, power light still pulsing like a heartbeat. She’s only a few years old, but she never earned her keep. Truth is, I knew better the day I bought her.
I broke my own rule.
See, when it comes to my Lab, I don’t buy cheap — I buy right. I wait. I build machines meant to last longer than the mood I’m in. Every four or five years, I rebuild. Every eight, I start from scratch. Even the retired ones still hum like old blues records — tired but proud. One of my boys calls dibs early every cycle. Says, “Your shit be like new.”
But this one? I knew she was weak from the start. My editor warned me, and I said the four dumbest words in my vocabulary: “It’ll get me by.” She sighed — that kind of sigh that comes from knowing a man who refuses to learn the easy way. My late wife used to give me the same look.
She’d drag me through electronics aisles, make me put back laptops like they were bad decisions with price tags. “You don’t buy tools,” she’d say. “You buy time.” And she was right.
Cutting corners never saves you anything — not in money, not in effort, not in peace. It just delays the reckoning.
That off-the-rack desktop was only the second prebuilt I’d owned in forty years. First night I had it, I was already cussing under my breath. Adobe CC lagged, the fan howled, and I called tech support just to have someone to blame. Yeah — I was that guy.
Now here I am, working on a ten-year-old laptop running Linux, and she’s humming like a jazz trio at midnight. Ten years old and still moving smooth because I built her right, upgraded her right, respected her limits. Forty-eight hours into a fresh burn-in and not a single stutter.
So here’s what I believe everyone should know: don’t cut corners. Not on your machines. Not on your craft. Not on your life.
The easy route always comes back around to collect its fee. Because the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do in life — is the right thing. And doing the right thing almost always takes longer, costs more, and hurts like hell in the moment.
But it lasts.
Nothing worth a damn comes easy.
Buy the right tools. Take the time to build things that endure. Because when you cheat the process, you’re not saving time — you’re stealing it from your future self.
He wasn’t born lucky. Nobody handed him a map. He learned early that some of us come into this world half-built, and the rest is on us. So he carved his name into time, steady and deliberate — a slow rebellion written in scars.
The city didn’t raise him. It tolerated him. Concrete and glass can’t teach you much, but they’ll listen if you bleed honest enough. He made peace with that kind of silence — the kind that hums between streetlights and memory.
There was a facility once — a place that smelled like rust, regret, and second chances. He wasn’t supposed to be there, but he stayed. Sometimes, a man doesn’t need comfort — he needs a place where the noise inside his head finally echoes back. In that echo, he found rhythm. In rhythm, he found himself. No blueprints. No saviors. Just repetition. Each motion a prayer, each mistake a gospel of survival.
He doesn’t worship. He works. He doesn’t beg. He endures. And if you ask what drives him, he’ll tell you the truth — it’s not pride or anger, not anymore. It’s the memory of a boy who promised a broken world he’d walk out standing.
The ticking from the clock on the wall beat like a hammer against a concrete block—dust and debris flying, and every now and again a spark. That was my writing tonight. I had a head full of ideas but nothing with any heat. Then I heard something slide under the door. I froze for a second, thinking it might be the landlord bringing that “good news”—you know, thirty days and then it’s the bricks. But I remembered I’d caught that gig upstate with those high-class folks who wouldn’t know the blues if it hit them in the face, so I was good.
I walked to the door and looked down the hallway. Nothing. Then I saw Woodrow—the rat—gnawing on something. He paused long enough to size me up, then went back to work. I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it, and he knew it. Ms. Pearl, the neighbor’s tabby, slipped in through the gap and rubbed against my leg. I let her stay. Gave her some kibble, then hopped up on the edge of my desk. The page sat there, daring me to write something.
Someone once told me that’s how it starts: just sit in front of the typewriter and speak. Never worry about what you’re going to say; that part works itself out. Just don’t bitch out and you’ll be fine. Lamont Norman said that the day I bought his suitcase Royal typewriter. I laughed, thought he was kidding. He didn’t even smile. “I bitched out,” he said. “Good luck.” That was years ago. The typewriter’s still here—metal scarred, keys sticking like old grudges. I keep waiting for it to start talking first.
That’s when I noticed the envelope. Plain white. No stamp, no handwriting—just my name in black ink that bled a little, like the paper had been sweating. Inside: You are invited to The Draft. Midnight. The Double Down Tavern. That was it. No signature. No RSVP.
I laughed anyway. It sounded like something a drunk poet would dream up at closing time, but I stared at it longer than I should’ve. By eleven-thirty, I was tuning the Gibson, putting on the least-dirty shirt I owned, telling myself I wasn’t going. By midnight, I was already halfway there.
The Double Down? I’d heard of the place, but no one I knew had ever been there, and certainly nobody knew how to get there. It was one of those names that floated around in late-night stories—half joke, half rumor—always mentioned right before the bottle ran dry. I went down to the bodega on the corner for a pack of Luckies and to ask Mr. Park about it. Mr. Park knew everything worth knowing in this neighborhood: who owed rent, who got locked up, who was sleeping with whom.
But tonight he wasn’t there.
I can’t remember the last time I’d walked into that store and not seen him behind the counter, sitting on his stool, eyes glued to that little portable TV wrapped in enough tin foil to bake a potato. When the picture went fuzzy, he’d rap the side with his knuckles, nod, and mutter, “Everything just needs a good tap now and then.” The sound of that tap was part of the neighborhood’s heartbeat. Without it, the place felt wrong, too quiet, like the air had skipped a beat.
There was this strange woman behind the counter, somebody I’d never seen before, popping her gum slow. Who the hell pops gum slow? She didn’t even look at me when I asked for a pack of Luckies. Just slid them across the counter like she was bored of gravity. I decided to go for broke.
“Hey, you wouldn’t know how to get to the Double Down, by chance?”
She didn’t answer, just stepped out of sight for a second. When she came back, she slid a folded piece of paper across the counter. No words, no smile.
I opened it. It was an address. Nothing else.
I turned and walked out of the store, paper in one hand, cigarettes in the other. Halfway through the door, I looked back to thank her. She nodded without looking up, eyes still fixed on something only she could see. But in the glass of the door, I caught her reflection—and for half a heartbeat, I could swear her eyes were sparkling. Not with light. With recognition.
The address on the paper looked ordinary enough—just a number, a street I didn’t recognize. I lit a Lucky, watched the smoke coil off the end, and decided to walk. It wasn’t far, according to the city grid, but the grid had a habit of lying after midnight.
The streets were half empty, half asleep. A drunk kid laughed at a joke nobody told. A siren moaned somewhere uptown, fading slow like a horn section dying out. My shoes echoed too loud on the sidewalk; even the sound seemed to flinch.
I passed storefronts I swear I’d never seen before: a pawnshop that sold only typewriters, a record store where every sleeve in the window was blank white, a barber shop with a red neon sign that read OPEN but no reflection in the mirror.
The farther I went, the fewer streetlights there were. The city felt like it was backing away, leaving me to walk inside its ribs. I checked the paper again. The ink shimmered faintly, as if wet, and I realized I wasn’t reading a map—I was being led.
As I got close to the address, a drunk staggered out of the shadows and poked me in the chest. “Whatcha doin’?” he slurred, eyes glassy and mean. “You think you ready?”
I didn’t answer.
“You?” he barked again, then broke into laughter—loud, jagged, wrong. I pushed past him and kept walking, but when I looked back, the sidewalk was empty. The laughter stayed, close, right beside my ear.
I stopped cold, heart hammering. Took another drag of my straight, exhaled slow. When the smoke cleared, I turned toward the street—and there it was, standing where the map said nothing should be.
The Double Down.
The door didn’t look like much—just wood and paint tired of each other—but the air around it hummed like a bass string. I could feel the groove before I heard it. Slow twelve-bar, heavy on the bottom end, something that could drag your sins across the floor till they begged for mercy.
I grabbed the handle. The damn thing was warm. When it opened, the sound hit me full in the chest—smoke, whiskey, perfume, electricity—all of it moving to the same beat. The door sighed shut behind me like it had been waiting to breathe again.
Inside, the room stretched wider than geometry allows. Corners bent. Shadows leaned the wrong way. Tables sweated rings from drinks poured before I was born. Every light was gold, every bottle looked like it had a soul trapped inside praying for one last round.
The crowd was a mix of then and now: drunks in denim, poets in funeral suits, a few specters in clothes older than jazz. One cat had a typewriter balanced on his knees, keys twitching on their own. Another wore a fedora that flickered in and out like a bad reception. Every time I looked straight at him, the air shimmered.
Behind the bar stood a woman with silver hair and a stare that could sand wood. She polished a glass that was already clean. The jukebox switched gears—Howlin’ Wolf growling through busted speakers—and the floorboards started to tap back.
I took a seat near the door, playing it cool. The bartender poured something the color of regret and set it in front of me.
“On the house,” she said, voice smooth as gin and twice as dangerous.
I looked around. At the back, a stage the size of a confession booth glowed red. A man sat there, guitar in his lap, fingers resting easy like he’d been born holding it. He didn’t play; he just watched me. Smile sharp enough to slice a chord.
“Place got a name?” I asked.
She half-smiled. “You tell me.”
The drink burned good going down—smoke and sugar and bad decisions. I blinked, and the room changed. Every face turned my way. No talking, no movement, just the weight of attention pressing down.
Then a man in a white suit stood by the jukebox and tapped his glass. The sound cracked the silence like a snare drum.
“Welcome,” he said, voice rolling through the room slow and mean. “Welcome to the Draft.”
The crowd answered with a low hum that crawled up my spine.
I could see there were a few guys like me who didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on. Then there were the ones who thought they did—scribblers with confidence and cologne, already imagining the book deals. I knew that breed. They never last. If it wasn’t so funny, it would’ve been tragic, but instead it was just pathetic.
The muses began to move—slow, gliding, half smoke, half skin. Each one shined in its own color. The room buzzed like a hive. They touched foreheads, whispered, and kissed some poor souls right on the mouth. Wherever they touched, something happened: laughter, sobbing, a glow under the skin.
Names were called. Not mine.
One by one, the seats around me emptied. The writers who’d been chosen vanished, or maybe just slipped sideways out of time. The unlucky ones sat frozen, pretending it didn’t matter, staring into their drinks like they could find meaning in the ice.
I kept my eyes down. The drink had gone warm.
A man near the jukebox started laughing too loudly. “Didn’t get the call, did ya?” he said to no one. “Guess you’ll be writing grocery lists now.” His laughter spread, nervous, contagious.
I waited. Nothing. No muse came my way.
The smug ones still sat upright, chins lifted, waiting to be crowned. I’d seen that look before at open mics and literary festivals—the face of somebody convinced the universe owed them a round of applause.
If it hadn’t been so funny, it would’ve been tragic. But right then, it just felt pathetic.
A thin, cold panic crawled up my spine. I was the last fool at the table. The muses had moved on. The man in white was clinking his glass again, ready to close the show.
I told myself I didn’t care. I told myself I’d been through worse. But I felt hollow—like a joke everyone else was in on.
I couldn’t believe this shit. I didn’t even know what The Draft was until an hour ago, and now it was already over. I didn’t get picked. Harry Lucas gets the nod? What the hell is going on?
To add insult to injury—Terry Best. Terry damn Best. Man hasn’t written a line worth reading since the Carter administration, and suddenly he’s chosen? Harry and I carried that sorry bastard for years. I’m jealous, sure. Harry’s good—better than I’ll ever admit out loud—but still, it stings.
“Congrats, you lucky fuck,” I muttered, raising my glass to no one. The drink burned all the way down, a reminder that some fires don’t keep you warm; they just scar you.
The room was thinning out. The chosen ones disappeared into the smoke with their shiny new partners. The rest sat there staring at the bar like it might offer consolation. Nobody spoke. The music died, the hum faded. For the first time all night, the silence had weight.
That’s when the folded piece of paper slid across the counter, slow and deliberate.
No one was near me. Nobody close enough to reach.
I hesitated, then picked it up. The paper smelled faintly of cigar smoke and cheap lipstick.
Neon hummed like a migraine that wouldn’t quit, the kind that sits behind your eyes and waits for you to flinch. Rain slicked the street in lazy sheets, turning the city into a mirror that didn’t want to see itself.
He sat in the car, engine off, watching moths bump into the streetlights over and over—addicted to pain or maybe just tormented by the routine. They couldn’t help it. Neither could he. The radio crackled; he’d forgotten it was even on.
He waited for the speakers to spit louder. Voices chased one another, desperation disguised as competence. No one was fooled, but they were all too polite to say otherwise—the kind of manners born of dread and regret. He popped a couple of Rolaids into his mouth, chewed, then swallowed without a chaser.
The moths chased one another. Were they playing? Children, maybe—the streetlamp their merry-go-round. The thought made him laugh once, sharp and dry, before the static swallowed it.
A mess of transmissions blurred together, dispatch calls bleeding into the wheeze of cheap speakers. Mostly noise: arguments, false alarms, ghosts trying to sound important. Then one word cut through the distortion—Rogue.
He didn’t move. Just reached for the half-crushed pack in the cup holder, thumbed a smoke free, and watched the rain carve faint scars across the glass. He flicked his thumbnail against the wooden match, let the light burn a moment before touching it to the cigarette. The first drag went deep; he held it there, letting the nicotine do its job.
“Always the good ones that break first,” he muttered, though he wasn’t sure if he meant her or himself.
The cigarette burned low, ash clinging stubbornly to the tip. He cracked the window just enough for the wind to take it. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, leaving the air thick with metal and wet concrete. Raindrops caught the streetlight like cheap diamonds. Down the street, a siren came to life, and a dog sounded its alarm on the opposite side. Windows lit up—shadows of witnesses who’d never seen a thing. It was safer that way. They just let the Night play.
He turned the key halfway and let the dashboard flicker to life. The radio hissed again—fragments this time, coordinates maybe, or names swallowed by static.
“Thunder Island” perforated the silence. He wondered if a place like that even existed. He turned down the car radio and turned up the police band. Nothing is more dangerous than being the target of someone looking for something. They rush in, do things they can’t take back. Then they have the nerve to say they’re sorry—and worse, there are tears. Even worse, they actually mean it, and spend the rest of their lives shattered.
He didn’t bother writing anything down. Whoever was still talking wasn’t talking to him.
He leaned back, the seat creaking under his weight, and watched smoke crawl toward the open window. He told himself it was time to move, but his body didn’t buy it. There was a comfort in the stall, in pretending the world would wait for him to catch up.
When the transmission finally cleared, the voice was colder, official—clipped consonants, no room for mercy. A woman’s voice, maybe. The kind that used to mean something.
“Target confirmed. Proceed with caution.”
He took one last drag, killed the radio. The smoke burned; his eyes began to water as he started the vehicle. That deep rumble of the police interceptor always brought him joy. Agents were supposed to turn in the old cars years ago, but he and the motor sergeant had history—the kind that stands a lifetime without a single word needing to be said. The kind no one questions, because you wouldn’t like the answers.
He let the engine idle a moment, lights off, watching the rain bead and slide down the hood. Then he shifted into gear and rolled into the dark.
The rain washed the streets, but they’d never come clean. Too much poverty in the cracks, too much sorrow in the gutters, and just enough hope to make it cruel. Everyone still wanted everything—guilt, happiness, grace.
At a red light he watched a man curse his demons. He didn’t see them, but he knew they were there all the same. His own had a permanent seat beside him, rain or shine.
At the next light, a woman staggered down the block, stopped, and threw up her dinner—or breakfast, hard to tell at this hour. She braced herself on her knees, took a breath, and sat right there on the sidewalk. Wiped her mouth with her sleeve like it was just another thing to get through.
The wipers dragged across the glass with the sound of bones under cloth. He kept the lights off until he turned onto a narrower road, the kind the city forgot about except when it needed somewhere to dump its secrets.
The address came from memory. He didn’t need to check it; some places get branded into you like scars. The building looked smaller now, windows boarded up, the brick dark with age and rain. A single light glowed in the hallway upstairs—thin, yellow, and nervous.
He parked across the street, engine idling low. The smell of exhaust and damp asphalt mixed with whatever passed for courage. He sat there a long moment, thumb worrying the cigarette burn in the steering wheel, thinking about the last time he’d seen her face.
Not that it mattered. The past was a closed room; this was just cleanup duty.
He slipped the car into park, checked the glove box for the piece he never quite admitted carrying. He never liked the man he needed to be when he carried. There was a click as he fastened the sidearm in its holster. His boots and the wet pavement had a brief disagreement.
The rain had started again, softer now, whispering against his collar.
By the time he reached the door, the light upstairs was gone.
The hallway reeked of urine, stale beer, and mildew—the ghosts of the unspoken past everyone tries to forget but never does. The farther he went down the corridor, the more the aroma changed. He wished it hadn’t.
Wallpaper peeled in long curls like it was trying to escape the situation. The ceiling light flickered, revealing the old scabs beneath the peels. Even the walls were wounded.
He moved slowly, letting his boots announce him—no point sneaking when everyone in the building already knew the sound of trouble. He hoped these ghosts and his demons would play nice. He hoped he wasn’t too late, but he feared the damage had already been done. The only thing left was to manage it.
A door creaked somewhere up ahead. He stopped, listened. Nothing but the groan of pipes and the faint hum of rain slipping through the ceiling. Then a floorboard gave—deliberate, weighted.
He slid along the wall until the narrow window gave him a slice of the alley out back. A figure stood there, half in shadow, a hood pulled low. Not moving, just waiting.
He exhaled through his nose. Always the same dance—the waiting, the pretending nobody had to bleed tonight.
The back door stuck before it opened, metal swollen from the damp. He stepped out into the alley, smelling of trash and rain thick as old coffee. The figure turned, slow and calm, hands visible but empty.
“You came alone,” the voice said.
He almost smiled. “That’s what I do best.”
The silence stretched, tight enough to hum.
Rain hissed against the dumpster, each drop a small explosion in the puddles. The alley light above them buzzed and died, leaving the world painted in shadow and breath.
He kept his hands visible. No need to startle a ghost with old habits. The figure’s hood fell back just enough for him to see the face—tired, older, eyes like a mirror that didn’t want to reflect him.
“You shouldn’t have come,” the voice said.
“Maybe not,” he answered. “But I never was good at staying gone.”
She—or maybe it was just the shape of what she’d become—tilted her head, rain streaking down her cheek like sweat.
“They said you sold me out.”
He took a slow breath, the kind meant to buy time, not truth. “You know better.”
She stepped closer. Close enough for him to smell the rain in her hair, the metal tang of adrenaline.
“Tell me it’s not true.”
He looked past her, at the alley mouth where light threatened to crawl in. “Seriously? When did you start believing dumbshit?”
The silence that followed was heavier than the rain. She didn’t lower the gun, but her hand shook just enough to show the years between them.
“You always did know how to ruin a moment,” she said.
He almost smiled. “Guess some things don’t fade.”
The safety clicked off—soft, final.
Author’s Note: Today’s plan is simple — celebrate a friend who’s been the steady hand behind the chaos. It’s my editor’s birthday (yeah, a little late — story of my life), and she’s the reason this machine keeps running when I’m ready to set it on fire.
She spent her day listening to me whining about rebuilding the Lab, cleaning up code, catching my typos, and quietly holding everything together. That’s how she works — no spotlight, no noise, just precision and patience.
So this one’s for her. She hasn’t read Mercy Street yet — but she’s in it. Not by name, but in every line that holds restraint where rage should be, in every small mercy that refuses to die.
And since it’s her birthday, I’ll be posting a few extra stories — wouldn’t want her thinking she’s getting off easy or anything.
Happy belated birthday, Editor Extraordinaire. Here’s to late nights, clean drafts, and the kind of loyalty that never asks for applause.
When my system went down, it seemed like divine intervention—a forced pause. I took the chance to stop fighting the noise and reset my creative energy.
I sat there for a minute, half expecting the room to fill with people saying, “We’re here because we love and care about you. We’re worried. You don’t seem okay.” Instead, it was just me—and Guppy, staring like she’d seen this movie before. I muttered my customary “Kick Rocks,” and she gave me that look: “What’s going on with you, human? Pet me. Feed me. Clean my poop.”
Fair enough.
And because the universe clearly thought I needed a little more chaos, I decided to quit smoking. Yep, that was a moment of brilliance right there, buddy. I can’t remember the last time I built a machine, wrote a line, or rewired a circuit without a cigarette hanging from my lips or burning down in the ashtray. The old routine: light another while one’s already smoldering, forget which is which, call it inspiration. Now I’m in the cut back phase. Pray for me, light a candle, or call a hoodoo man to lay down some mojo—I can use all the help I can get.
Somewhere in the middle of all that nicotine withdrawal and digital resurrection, I pulled up the storyboard and looked at the mess. Dozens of storylines—some finished, most not. I decided it was time to clean house. So I’m finishing what I started. Focusing on the long fiction threads and promising myself that from here on, quality comes first. The foundation’s solid, but there’s still plenty of building to do.
You’ve all been patient, loyal, and willing to walk through my corridors of madness while I rebuild piece by piece. You deserve the best I’ve got—and that’s exactly what’s coming.
I suppose I should be pulling my hair out… wait, I’m bald—so I’m good.
“The cracks are where the future gets in.” — Nick Cave
Earlier this week, I wrote about dealing with multiple system failures — digital, emotional, creative. The kind of breakdown that makes everything feel heavier. Every keystroke. Every thought.
I couldn’t even open a text editor without feeling like the machine and I were daring each other to quit first.
So, I did what any rational person does when their world starts flickering — I tore it down.
Every wire. Every drive. Every application.
I started looking at everything — the hardware, the software, even the mental clutter I’d built around them. And I started cutting. To borrow a writer’s term, I’ve been killing my darlings. Not just the old drafts and half-finished files, but the stuff I’d been keeping out of sentiment — tools I didn’t use, folders I hadn’t opened since the Obama years, plans I wasn’t brave enough to admit were dead.
It’s strange, what survives a purge. The things you thought mattered crumble under scrutiny, while the quiet essentials — the things that actually serve you — emerge stronger, cleaner.
That’s when it hit me: maybe this isn’t just about computers. Maybe it’s about life architecture.
The Breakdown Phase
Sometimes the system has to fail so you’ll finally stop pretending it’s fine.
When the screens went dark, it wasn’t just technology collapsing — it was me running into the edge of my own maintenance backlog. You know the one: the projects, bills, and habits that pile up in the background while you tell yourself you’ll “get to it.”
Then, one day, everything gets to you instead.
But here’s the gift buried in the crash — it forces you to re-evaluate everything. To sit in the silence after the hum fades and ask: what’s still necessary? what’s still mine?
Back When We Built Our Own Fixes
I come from a time when computers didn’t “just work.” You had to earn them.
You didn’t buy plug-and-play — you built plug-and-hope. You traded parts out of milk crates, scribbled command lines in pencil, and held your breath during the boot beep because you weren’t sure if the whole thing would smoke or sing.
We understood our machines because we had to.*
There was intimacy in it — a relationship between curiosity and consequence. You learned to think like a system, to troubleshoot your way through the mess.
Now everything’s sealed, optimized, “user-friendly.” But friendly to whom?
The less we have to know, the less we understand. And when we stop understanding, we lose something fundamental — the muscle memory of resilience.
We used to break things and fix them. Now we just replace them and complain.
The Rebuild
So I went back to basics.
I started rebuilding my system piece by piece, checking every connection, testing every drive. And as I did, I realized this wasn’t just a technical reset — it was a personal audit.
I’ve been doing the same thing with my finances: cutting unnecessary subscriptions, auditing expenses, trimming the fat. I’m tired of auto-renewed everything — the digital equivalent of dust.
Same with my creativity. If a tool doesn’t serve the work, it’s gone. No more chasing new apps, new aesthetics, new noise. I’m rebuilding for efficiency, not ego.
There’s a strange peace in it — this deliberate stripping away. It reminds me that clarity isn’t something you download. It’s something you earn, line by line, dollar by dollar, decision by decision.
The System and the Self
The truth is, we’re not that different from the machines we build.
We run on energy and memory. We slow down when cluttered. We crash when overheated. And sometimes, the only way forward is to reformat.
But unlike machines, we get to choose how we rebuild. We decide what stays. We define what’s worth running.
This whole process — the wires, the drives, the self-audits — it isn’t about perfection. It’s about understanding. I don’t need things to run flawlessly. I just need them to make sense.
Keep Going, Responsibly
Here’s the part nobody romanticizes: rebuilding is exhausting. It’s unglamorous. It’s long hours, slow progress, and endless testing.
But it’s also the only way to ensure what you’re building can stand on its own.
Sometimes you have to keep going — not because it’s easy, but because stopping would mean accepting confusion as normal.
I’ve learned that keep going doesn’t mean sprinting through burnout. It means moving with intention. It means knowing when to step back, when to unplug, when to rewrite the damn script.
Because in life — just like in code — the smallest syntax errors can wreck the whole thing if you never stop to look.
“Sometimes you just have to keep walking, even if the map burned up a few miles back.” — Unknown
Author’s Note
Patience is a kind of engineering. You learn it by failing, by pausing, by realizing not everything needs to be fixed immediately.
Lately, I’ve been reminding myself that understanding — real understanding — takes time. Systems crash. People do too. What matters is how we rebuild, not how fast.
So if you’re in one of those messy seasons — where every wire feels tangled and every drive hums with static — breathe. Slow down. Learn your system before you rewrite it.
We learn to live with death the same way we read by firelight—slowly, painfully, beautifully.
No one prepares you for the feeling of loving something that Death has touched.
I sit here looking around his cabin—now mine. The air smells of pine sap, old smoke, and the faint tang of whiskey soaked into the floorboards. Dust floats through the thin light that leaks between the curtains. Each corner is stacked with books—subjects as varied as anatomy and jazz theory. A shelf of vinyl lines the far wall: Coltrane, Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson. Then, tucked behind them, a few heavy metal records—Sabbath, Maiden, Priest. My father, it seems, was a closet metalhead. I smile at that. Maybe I inherited more from him than just a pulse: the music, the books, the need to understand the noise inside.
Warmth slides down my cheeks before I realize I’m crying. The tears catch the scent of dust and woodsmoke, grounding me. I never knew him growing up. He and my mother had a moment in their teens—one of those sparks people mistake for destiny before life smothers it with reason. She was in law school; he was home on leave from the Army. They met at a party through a mutual friend, made promises under a drunk moon, and a week later, he shipped out. Nine months later—technically ten, if you’re counting the way we do in obstetrics—I arrived.
I became a doctor partly to make sense of what my mother wouldn’t talk about: biology, infection, the way life insists on being messy no matter how sterile you keep your hands. That’s where I met my father—though I didn’t know it then.
He came into the ER after an accident. I was covering trauma, running late for my weekly lunch with Mom. She’s a federal judge now, but every Thursday we make time—just an hour to remember we’re still mother and daughter, not just professionals orbiting duty.
When I finally reached the ER, Mom was already there. She’d come looking for me, irritation etched into her face. But as I began to explain, she froze. Her gaze fixed on the patient lying in bed—multiple fractures, head laceration, vitals unstable but holding. The antiseptic smell and hum of monitors felt suddenly foreign, like I’d stepped out of my own body.
“Mom?” I asked.
She stepped closer to the bed. Her hand rose to her mouth, and for the first time in my life, I saw her cry. Real tears—silent, unstoppable. She reached out, caressed the man’s forehead, her fingers trembling like someone touching a ghost.
“Mom, what’s going on? Do you know him?”
She didn’t answer. Just kept tracing the lines of his face, as if memory might come alive under her touch.
“Mom!”
Finally, she turned toward me, her voice steady but low. “He’s your father.”
Then she pulled a chair to his bedside, sat down, and called her clerk to clear her docket.
My chest tightened. My legs went weak. I recognized the physiology even as it overtook me—tachycardia, dizziness, shallow breath. I nearly hit the floor before someone caught me. Carol—my charge nurse, my right hand for ten years. A skinny little thing, but deceptively strong.
We weren’t just colleagues. We were friends.
“Sue, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice sharp with command. I heard her barking orders, but the words blurred into static. The next thing I knew, I was staring at a white ceiling, the steady beep of a monitor tracing the edge of my humiliation.
I tried to sit up—irritated beyond measure—but Carol pushed me back down with one hand. For such a small woman, she was a brick wall.
“Pilates?” I asked, breathless, trying to find my bearings.
She grinned, pouring me a cup of water. “The Judge filled me in. Your dad’s a hottie, by the way. Banged up and all.”
I snorted. Of course, she’d say something like that. That was Carol—always trying to make me laugh when she knew I was about to unravel. The water tasted metallic from the cup, cold against the desert of my throat.
She stood beside me, one hand resting over mine, thumb tracing small circles like she was smoothing out the tremors beneath my skin. Neither of us spoke for a while. The monitors filled the silence. Somewhere down the hall, a code was called, and the world kept spinning as if mine hadn’t just tilted off its axis.
After a few minutes, I was steady enough to stand. Carol and I walked back to my father’s room. The corridor smelled faintly of disinfectant and rain-soaked concrete from the ambulance bay. Mom sat beside his bed, holding his hand. The look on her face—devastation mixed with fierce worry—nearly broke me. When she saw me, she stood and came toward me, wrapping me in a soft and trembling hug.
“You okay? I know it’s a lot,” she said.
“It must’ve been one hell of a week,” I quipped.
To my surprise, she roared with laughter—real, unrestrained laughter. I didn’t think it was funny, but she lost it in the middle of the ER.
“It was, actually,” she said, still smiling. “We made you.”
Her eyes drifted off somewhere far beyond the fluorescent lights. It’s strange how memory works—how it lets you step back in time, not just to see it, but to feel it, every heartbeat replaying as if the past were still happening right now.
I had two years with him. Two years I’ll never trade for anything. I’d never seen my mother happier. Watching them together, I understood their brief story hadn’t been some teenage fling—it was a spark that waited decades to breathe again. For a while, it felt like the world had given us a second chance.
Then the disease came, and everything changed. Nothing was ever the same after that.
So far, the disease had cropped up in five different towns, ravaging everyone and everything in its wake. My father was one of them.
I begged my mother to leave the area, but her stubborn ass wouldn’t budge.
“I won’t hear of it! Nothing’s running me from my home,” she snapped.
I couldn’t believe people actually said that kind of thing outside of old movies. I figured it was one of those lines characters use when they’ve already decided they’re not going anywhere.
Then she gave me that look—sharp, deliberate—and sighed. “Okay,” she said finally, downing her afternoon scotch. “When are we leaving?”
“I have patients, Mom,” I replied.
She smirked faintly, that judge’s confidence slipping through the exhaustion. “So do I, honey. Mine just happen to sit in courtrooms instead of hospital beds.”
“We just lost Albie to this shit. I won’t risk you as well,” she said.
That stopped me cold. Mom never swore. That was Dad’s thing. Hearing it from her snapped something loose inside me. I looked at her, really looked, and saw the fear beneath all that steel.
We stood there in silence, and in that silence we understood what needed to be done. If it was going to end, let it end like this—on our feet, fighting.
“Sue, honey, you die with your boots on,” my father had told me when he first started showing symptoms. He’d been delivering meds to the infected zones, refusing to stay home. I begged him to stop, but a daughter’s love isn’t enough to turn a man away from his calling.
I wish it were.
Back at the cabin, the world felt smaller, quieter. The disease had moved on, taking what it wanted and leaving the rest of us to sort through the ruins.
I sat in Dad’s old rocker, which creaked like it still remembered his rhythm. The fire popped softly in the hearth, smoke curling through the faint scent of pine and old varnish. A book lay on the end table—Judas, My Brother. Of course. Trust Dad to pick something that questioned everything. I turned it over, thumbed through the pages soft from use, and slipped on his glasses. The prescription was surprisingly close to mine. The world blurred for a heartbeat, then settled into focus—clearer, heavier.
Mom had built the fire and sat on the couch with her usual scotch, watching the flames without speaking. The glass glinted amber in her hand. She didn’t have to say anything. The silence between us said everything—loss, endurance, maybe even grace.
I read a few lines, hearing his voice in the space between words. Then I closed the book, leaned back in his chair, and let the rocker creak like it was breathing for him.
No one prepares you for the feeling of loving something that Death has touched. But you learn. You learn to read by its light.
Author’s Note: Inspired by Fandango’s Story Starter #223. Thank you, Fandango, for the spark — this one burned quietly but deep.
Guppy and I are sitting in the middle of chaos again. She’s perched on the edge of the desk, licking her paw like she’s above it all. Around us, the lab looks like a hardware crime scene — cables spilling from gutted towers, screws scattered like confession pieces. A half-drunk cup of coffee cools beside me, burnt and bitter, the official scent of frustration.
She meows right on cue, the sound sharp and knowing. I look over. “Yeah,” I tell her. “I did it again.”
Outside, the truck’s still dead in the driveway. The house keeps popping up new problems like it’s auditioning for a demolition reel. And inside, my computers — the ones that run everything I’ve built — have decided to crash in unison. It’s a full symphony of failure.
It kinda feels like life bitch-slapped me. I’m standing there, half laughing, half wondering what cosmic fuse I blew this time. Then, in my mind, a ghostly finger points right at me and says, in that whiny little voice only the universe uses: “You know why.” The kind of voice that grates — part guilt, part game show host.
So I sit there, breathing through the noise, because reacting to chaos never resolves anything. There’s never enough duct tape for that kind of mess.
I’ve been fixing broken things since I was a kid. Did my first tune-up at eight years old — or what I thought was a tune-up. Standing on a kitchen chair in my school clothes, wrench in hand, trying to change plugs and set points. Madre nearly lost her mind when she saw the grease stains on that chair. But when that engine coughed back to life, I felt it — that quiet click inside that says, You can fix this.
Then came the eighties and my next addiction: computers. Back before color screens and mouse pads, when hope fit on a floppy disk and syntax errors were life lessons. We typed code line by line, fingers crossed, praying the damn thing would run. Our instructors were learning right beside us. When we figured out how to make a 5.25-inch floppy dual-sided, we thought we were gods.
We wrote everything down back then — notebooks, sketchpads, pages of half-finished programs and circuit doodles. There weren’t breaches in those days, just broken noses if someone got too close to your notebook. Hidden between the pages, you’d find a floppy or two — our version of a flash drive. Everything we built lived by hand, by instinct, by obsession.
I remember the early version of Memoirs of Madness. It wasn’t even a site yet — just an idea and a laptop I built from scavenged parts. I used to walk to the local library to borrow their Wi-Fi, fingers freezing on the keyboard, trying to post something before the battery died. My first “lab” was a pile of junked machines I dragged home and resurrected. Every boot-up felt like a small miracle, a little defiance against the void.
Then I got fancy — started buying ready-made machines, the kind that come preloaded with operating systems that assume they know what’s best for you. Windows. Loud, bossy, always watching. So I went back to Linux. The hard way, of course.
And naturally, it couldn’t be as simple as clicking “install.” There are, what, fifty different Linux distros to choose from? (It’s probably not fifty, but in the middle of a rebuild, it sure as hell feels like it.) Matching distro to hardware… don’t even get me started. The world’s built for Windows and Mac, not for the stubborn few still willing to build their own bones.
My old MacBook’s still around, though. She’s slow, loyal, and half-retired. She’s got the heart for it, just not the legs. I can’t bring myself to replace her. We’ve been through too much — too many drafts, too many late nights, too many little resurrections.
Every crash, every patch, every clunky restart just reminds me: I’ve been here before. Different machines, same madness.
It’s that time of year again — the anniversaries of loss, the kind that pile up quietly. Some losses don’t stay buried; they just wait for the calendar to circle back. And it’s in moments like these you pause, wondering what the right response to chaos even looks like. Because reacting never fixes it — there’s never enough duct tape.
The machines hum again now — not perfect, but alive. The house still leaks. The truck still sulks. I’ll fix what I can, curse what I can’t, and keep rebuilding in the meantime.
Guppy jumps into my lap, head-butts my beard, and purrs like she’s proud of me for surviving another day. I scratch behind her ear, take a sip of cold coffee, and sigh.
So, what am I working on?
My life.
And for now, it’s still running — a little buggy, sure, but running all the same.
“Fear doesn’t always mean run. Sometimes it means you’ve finally cornered the truth.”
Let’s start with an admission: I’ve never liked the sound of my own voice. Not the way it cracks when I speak too quickly, or how it forgets itself halfway through a thought. Writing has always been safer — the words obey there. They arrive dressed and deliberate. Out loud, they stumble.
Before I speak, my body stages a small rebellion. My pulse climbs. My jaw tightens. The air feels heavy, as if the room is waiting to see what kind of fraud I’ll turn out to be. That’s what fear does — it turns attention into judgment, curiosity into threat. Only when I’m speaking about my writing does this happen — as if some inner voice hisses, “How dare you think your work is worthy of commentary?”
Yet outside the creative world, I’ve never hesitated to speak. Giving orders? No problem. I did it unapologetically. If someone broke down or got their feelings hurt, my answer was simple: “It’s not my fault your parents raised you to be a pansy.” Was that wrong? Of course. But it was effective — more often than not. That’s why the transition to civilian life hit me like a slow collapse. You can’t bark your way through vulnerability. You can’t command creativity. It doesn’t answer to rank.
But it isn’t really the audience I fear. It’s exposure. Writing lets me curate my confessions, polish the edges, make the mess beautiful. Speaking strips that away. It demands the raw version — the one that still shakes. And people are strange — sometimes cruel. Some need to be publicly flogged for how they treat others. I laugh when life gives them a taste of their own medicine. Not because two wrongs make a right — they don’t — but because it’s human to feel that flicker of satisfaction when justice shows up wearing irony’s grin. What always gets me, though, is how quickly the guilty feign ignorance. “I’ve done nothing,” they say. Or worse, “All I did was…” as if cruelty came with a receipt and a refund policy.
Sometimes I wonder if the page has made me soft. Soft in that pansy way I used to mock. Where are the tissues? Did you just hand me the cheap stuff? Man, you better give me the Puffs if we’re gonna do this right. Thank you. Where was I? Right — softness. I can write about grief, about love, about the parts of me that never healed. It’s almost easy to do so from the shadows, where no one sees your face or knows your name. A brave soul or a coward? Maybe both.
What do I look like without my mask? Will it fall away, or do I have to peel it off piece by piece? It’s okay to be frightened by what you see. It’s okay to scream aloud as you stare at the stranger in front of you — until you realize it isn’t a stranger at all. It’s you. And that’s the moment the voice in your head mutters, “The shit just got real. Damn it, man.”
Could I say these things out loud without flinching? Could I bear the sound of my truth without a backspace key to hide behind?
Maybe that’s what this season of my life is about — learning to live without the safety of revision. To understand that fear, pain, and uncertainty aren’t evidence of weakness, but proof that I’m alive — proof that I matter. The pounding of my heart, the sweat along my brow, the tingling at my edges — they’re all part of it. Then somewhere amidst all of this, I clear the mechanism. Serenity appears. It doesn’t replace the fear, pain, or uncertainty; it listens to them. They have a conversation while I exhale.
I don’t know if I’ll ever love the microphone. But I’m starting to think the page and the stage aren’t enemies. They’re just two mirrors — one for the voice, one for the soul — and I’m standing between them, trying to recognize my own reflection.
Reflective Prompt
What would your truth sound like if you stopped editing it mid-sentence? Say it out loud — even if your voice shakes.
Author’s Note
Sometimes honesty is a fistfight between who we were and who we’re trying to be. This one left a few bruises — the good kind. Now, if anyone knows where I left the ice packs… or hell, even a bag of frozen peas — I’m open to suggestions. Where’s the love, people? Where’s the love?
Most people think I’m loud — the kind of person who fills a room just by showing up. The one cracking jokes, telling stories, holding court like I was born to. I let them believe it. It keeps things easier, smoother. But truthfully, I’m an introvert in disguise — a quiet man who learned that silence makes people nervous.
I’ve actually heard folks say they were scared of me when I didn’t talk. Something about my face, maybe — the way it rests heavy, unreadable, like I’m thinking too much or judging too hard. I guess that’s my curse: I look like trouble when I’m just tired.
So I talk. Even when I don’t want to. Even when the words feel like sand in my mouth. I talk to make other people comfortable, to smooth over the awkwardness that silence seems to bring. I know that probably sounds weak, but it helps things along. It makes the day move easier. And sometimes, pretending to be the loud one is less exhausting than explaining why I’m quiet.
When I worked in offices, coworkers would say things like, “Are you judging me?” or “You’re judging me right now, aren’t you?” or “You look like you’re about to call me a name.” I’d laugh it off, but inside, I wasn’t judging anyone. I was probably thinking about a story idea, or how lunch wasn’t sitting right, or why the hell the printer only jammed when I used it. But try explaining that without sounding like a weirdo. It’s easier just to say something funny, make them laugh, keep the peace.
Even my ex used to tell me, “Let me know before you go dark.” She meant the quiet spells — those stretches when I’d retreat into my head, writing or reading or just not talking. To her, silence felt like absence, like a door closed without warning. But for me, it was never about her. It was how I reset. I don’t disappear out of anger; I disappear to breathe. But try convincing someone of that when they’ve been taught that noise means love.
The truth is, I can go days without saying a word and feel completely fine. The quiet doesn’t scare me — it steadies me. It’s where I make sense of things. Where I untangle the noise I swallowed all week. My desk becomes a refuge. A book, a pen, and a cup of cooling coffee are enough to rebuild the parts I’ve spent too long bending out of shape for other people’s peace.
But silence has its own cost. You start to wonder if anyone ever really knew you beneath the performance. If they’d still come around if you stopped making it easy for them. If they’d sit in the quiet long enough to realize you’re not angry — just tired of having to explain your existence.
So yeah, I’m loud. But not because I love attention. I’m loud because silence unsettles people, and I’ve spent too many years trying not to be someone’s reason for discomfort. Maybe that’s my weakness. Or maybe it’s another kind of grace — learning to speak, even when the world hasn’t earned your voice.
Before I go dark.
Daily writing prompt
What’s something most people don’t know about you?
A good neighbor knows when not to wave. They nod from across the street, maybe lift a hand if the mood strikes, but mostly—they stay put. They don’t wander over with gossip wrapped in small talk or ask what that noise was last night. They know everyone’s got ghosts, and some of us like to drink coffee with ours in peace.
A good neighbor minds their lawn, their lights, and their damn business. They understand proximity isn’t friendship—it’s geography. The best ones don’t pretend otherwise. They’re the kind who’ll pull your trash bin up to the curb when you forget, but never ask why you forgot in the first place.
But here’s the part no one admits: good neighbors save us, quietly. They remind us we’re not alone even when we choose to be. The sound of their footsteps, the faint hum of their television through the wall—it’s proof of life, the fragile kind that keeps you tethered when the world starts feeling too wide. We may never speak beyond a passing hello, but that’s not indifference. It’s understanding.
The secret isn’t in being close—it’s in being considerate. It’s in knowing that kindness sometimes looks like silence. And if you’re lucky, it’s in the neighbor who nods at you through the blinds, both of you quietly agreeing that the best relationships are the ones that never need explaining.
On the kind of truth that doesn’t need an audience.
I’ve always felt that people who do things “as a matter of principle” are full of it. Too often, they cling to their moral code like a lifeboat, even when the water’s shallow enough to stand. I don’t think most of them mean harm — they just get caught up in being right, afraid to face the possibility that they might be wrong. It’s human nature. We mistake conviction for truth because it’s easier than questioning ourselves.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that all our so-called principles are built on experience — the good, the bad, and the ones that broke us open. What we value changes. What once mattered deeply starts to fade. Acceptance doesn’t come easy; denial usually wins the first few rounds.
Over time, I stopped pretending I needed a long list of virtues to define me. I stripped it down to what felt real — two principles that anchor everything else: honesty and integrity.
Honesty keeps me from lying to myself, especially when self-deception would be easier. Integrity keeps me from betraying who I say I am, even when it costs me something to stay true.
Everything else — compassion, respect, perseverance — grows from those two. I’ve found that when I hold to them, I don’t need much else. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
I recall people talking about staying up with the times — as if evolution meant trading in your soul for a newer model. But some things shouldn’t change. Things like being true to yourself and paying attention to what actually matters — the choices, the people, and the moments that leave fingerprints on the rest of your life, whether you notice them or not.
I still hear my Madre’s voice when I start to drift:
“You know the difference between right and wrong. No one has to teach you. But I will remind you from time to time.”
That line stuck with me. Maybe because she was right — deep down, we all know. Life just tries to talk us out of it.
Some people call it character, others call it discipline. I just call it doing what’s right when nobody’s watching. The kind of thing you don’t brag about, because if you have to, it probably doesn’t count.
Somewhere between the ghosts that won’t shut up and the deadlines that never arrive, I learned the trick — just keep writing anyway.
In 2023, my writing team accused me of procrastinating. I was offended — we’d built blogs, workshops, entire worlds together. How could they think I wasn’t doing enough? Then my senior editor cornered me one afternoon. It wasn’t a talk so much as a scolding — the kind that makes you feel like a kid again, thumb hovering near your mouth, waiting for the cue to say, “I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again.”
She wasn’t wrong, though. She asked a single question I couldn’t answer: “Why haven’t you finished your novels?”
I had no answer then, and I still don’t. I’ve told myself plenty of stories — excuses dressed up as reasons — but none with any iron in them. They clang hollow, like empty promises we whisper to ourselves when doubt starts pacing the floor.
Since my reemergence, I’ve kept writing. Slowly. Unevenly. Each sentence feels like a step back toward the part of me that once trusted the words. My editor’s been kinder lately — maybe because I’ve stopped hiding behind excuses, or maybe because Ursula, my muse, stopped sulking now that she’s getting her pages again.
But somewhere along the way, I forgot how to do it. I can’t recall the moment it happened — it slipped away in the night, like a silent rogue with perfect aim. Maybe I was its willing victim. Not the kind that dies, but the kind that lives haunted by the absence of what was taken.
You’d think that once you recognize what you’ve lost, it would be easy to reclaim. But it isn’t. It’s like I hid it in some special place — the one where I put all the things I swore I’d never lose. Now I stand at the door, staring into that room, unable to remember where I left it.
So I wait. I search the corners. I listen for echoes of the writer who once trusted the words to come. With patience, I know I’ll find what’s hidden — the secrets, the treasures, the grace buried under dust and doubt.
Believing in myself is the key. The rest is just remembering how to turn it.
By 2025, the ghosts have quieted. I’m no longer haunted by my demons — I think they took a cruise or something. But their cousins pop in from time to time, usually uninvited, always loud, never staying long. I let them talk. Then I get back to writing.
Still, despite the progress I’ve made, there’s something holding me back — something keeping me from reaching that place where I can be completely at ease with who I am as a creator. I don’t want to cross to the other side of the veil wondering if I could have been more.
Of course, there will always be unfinished work when we cross over. That’s the nature of it. But I don’t want to be one of those guys replaying fragments of what I could have been.
So this year, I’ve started making moves to change that — to turn my writing and art into something more than what sits quietly on my hard drive. I’ve focused on quality rather than quantity, and I’m learning, finally, to get out of my own way.
You know how embarrassing it is to trip over your own feet? Talk about losing cool points. The Cool Monitor’s in the corner, shaking his head and deducting them one by one.
But this time, at least, I’m still walking forward.
Maybe the real work was never about finishing — just refusing to stop.
I’ve made peace with the ghosts in my process. They’re lousy tenants — leave coffee rings, mutter bad advice, rearrange my ideas when I’m not looking. But I’ve learned to write through their noise. Some days, that’s what it means to be an artist: to keep typing while the past heckles from the cheap seats.
I’ve spent years chasing the version of myself I thought I was supposed to be — the novelist, the mentor, the unshakable voice. Turns out, I don’t need to become him again. I just need to keep showing up — pen in hand, imagination slightly bruised, heart still willing.
Once I realized that, I’ve written some of the most powerful stuff in years.
Reflective Prompt
Take a moment. Unplug from the artificial ether and tap into the one we were born with — the raw signal beneath the static. Acknowledge the things you wanted to do, the things you left hanging, the things you can still do. What are they?
Don’t dress them up as goals or resolutions. Just name them. Whisper them back into existence. Some will sting. Some will make you laugh at how small or strange they seem now. But all of them are proof that you’re still reaching — still alive enough to want.
Maybe that’s the real work of this life: learning to live with the unfinished, to walk beside the ghosts of what we almost became, and still make something worth remembering.
Somewhere between the promise to finish and the fear of release, I found the echo of a voice that used to steady me. Maybe finishing isn’t the victory—it’s the letting go.
The hardest personal goal I’ve set for myself was deciding to finish a manuscript by the end of the year. I made that promise quietly—no big declarations, no social media countdowns—just a whispered deal between me and the page. I told myself that this time, I wouldn’t stall, I wouldn’t second-guess, I’d simply finish. And for a while, I did. The words came like a slow, steady thaw after a long winter.
But somewhere along the way, I lost my nerve. I’ve been published before, but that was before my wife died. Back then, I wrote with a kind of reckless courage—like someone who still believed the act of creation could outlast the ache of being human. Now, everything I write feels like an echo of the life we built together, the silence between us inked in every line.
People call it fear, and maybe they’re right. But I think it’s more complicated than that. Fear can be fought. This… this feels like standing at the edge of something sacred, knowing that once I let the work go, I can’t pull it back. It’ll belong to the world—and not to her, not to me.
Still, I keep returning to the manuscript, the way you revisit an old photograph. There’s grief in it, but also grace. Maybe finishing isn’t about conquering the fear at all. Maybe it’s about learning to live with the ghosts that remain—and letting the story carry them somewhere new.
Author’s Note: We talk a lot about fear in creative spaces, as if naming it will banish it. But sometimes, fear isn’t the enemy—it’s the proof that what we’re doing still matters.
Daily writing prompt
What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
I wouldn’t know the names of the masters if you paid me a million dollars. I can’t look at a painting and tell you who brushed what stroke or why it matters. There are a few comic book artists I really enjoy, but again, I couldn’t tell you their names. I just know when something stops me in my tracks.
The feeling I get when I look at art… I don’t really have words for it. It’s like trying to explain why a storm feels beautiful while it’s tearing through your neighborhood. You just feel it. Despite that, I spend my time trying to create the same kind of reaction in other people—through writing, art, film, photography—whatever medium happens to grab me that day.
I recall giving a speech in class once. When I finished, there was silence. No applause, no eye rolls—just my classmates staring at me like I’d confessed something I shouldn’t have. My teacher asked what inspired it, and I told him I made the whole thing up. He didn’t believe me. They sent me to the counselor’s office to “discuss my feelings.”
It took a while, but I finally convinced an adult that it was a work of fiction. I had my notebook with me, filled with half-finished stories and wild ideas. That notebook saved me. It proved I wasn’t broken—I was just a writer.
It was after that little incident I landed myself in detention for running my mouth. I’ve got a habit of voicing my disdain in its raw, unfiltered form. Come to think of it, that might’ve been what led my mother to suggest I give up profanity for Lent. Hmmm.
Meanwhile, back in detention, I checked out an art book from the library and started leafing through it. I found a Da Vinci sketch—nothing fancy, just a face drawn with impossible precision. I tried drawing my own version, and something in me shifted. After that, I started drawing everything. Then, write everything. Strangely, that was the birth of Mangus Khan.
Funny how things happen, huh?
Since then, I’ve learned that every work of art hits everyone differently. I’ve written things I meant to be serious, only to have people burst out laughing. There’s no predicting what someone will feel. You just roll with it, cherish the experience, and most of all—feel.
Author’s Note: Don’t let anyone crush your creative spirit. They may not understand what you’ve created—and that’s okay. You never know how it will affect the next person. So create. Always create.
I didn’t set out to be a writer. It happened by accident, somewhere between a half-finished sketch and a notebook full of half-thought ideas. Back then, I was a teenager with more curiosity than direction, filling pages because it felt like the only way to keep my thoughts from spilling everywhere else. One of my oldest friends likes to remind me he can’t remember a time I didn’t have a notebook in my hand. He says I was always scribbling or sketching, usually both.
It was at his house, during one of those long afternoons that used to stretch forever, when someone suggested I could write and illustrate my own book. I never did—but the idea never left. Over the years I’ve written stories inspired by other people’s art, and drawn illustrations for stories that weren’t mine. Maybe that’s the closest I’ve come to answering that old dare.
These days, my rituals are quieter, more deliberate. I start with coffee, smokes, and a notebook—that’s the constant. The rest depends on mood. Sometimes I need silence; other times, I scroll through playlists until I find something that matches the weather inside my head. The room is dimly lit, Guppy purring on the desk, both of us waiting for my next move. It’s not glamorous, but it’s home—the small ritual that turns chaos into coherence.
I don’t consider writing a hobby. But apparently, some people around me do. They say it like it’s harmless, even complimentary, as if writing were just another way to pass the time. Most days, it pisses me off—not because I crave validation, but because it ignores the time, discipline, and mental excavation it takes to build worlds, shape characters, or research a single line that rings true.
I’ve spent weeks turning over ideas before I ever write a word, sometimes months just mapping the geography of a story or tracing the emotional logic of a character. That’s not leisure; that’s labor—creative, invisible, and deeply consuming. Yet somehow, the work only “counts” if it’s published, printed, or profitable. Maybe that’s the illusion people live by: that creation isn’t real until it leaves your desk.
I’ve read the books. I’ve done the study. I’m not waiting for a permission slip to call myself a writer. Still, I can admit that sometimes fresh eyes help—someone catching a rhythm I missed, a sentence that stumbles, or an idea that needs to breathe differently. But that’s collaboration, not validation. The work itself has always been serious enough.
I remember the first time I saw my name in print. I was just a kid then, with childish dreams about becoming something I didn’t fully understand. But even at that age, I knew it was the only thing that gave me genuine joy and peace. It felt right. Like I’d found the one place where my head and my heart could finally speak the same language.
Even when I draw, I’m still telling stories. Sometimes, when I get it right, a single sketch can hold the whole narrative—the emotion, the silence between moments, the pulse of something unfinished but alive.
As an adult, that sense of wonder changed shape. I never thought my writing would go anywhere; most of it was just stories I’d tell my wife over coffee or late-night laughter. When she smiled, I’d rewrite. When she made that face—the one that said, “you’ve hit something”—I’d dig deeper. For a long time, I was defensive about my writing, too fragile to take a critique, too unsure to trust my own voice.
But somewhere along the way, I stopped chasing perfection and started writing from that place where the magic happens. I write from the soul, not the head. It took me forever to realize that for myself, even though I’d taught it a thousand times in workshops. Funny how the truths we teach others take the longest to reach home.
So maybe my favorite pastime isn’t writing itself, at least not in the way people imagine. It’s telling the stories that insist on being told—the ones that show up uninvited and refuse to leave quietly. Not the planned ones or the well-outlined projects, but the whispers that come when I’m half-awake, the flickers that make me reach for a pen even when I swore I was done for the night.
Those are the stories that remind me why I started. They aren’t about publishing or approval or anyone’s idea of success. They’re about listening—to memory, to imagination, to the things that ache to take shape. I suppose that’s what writing has always been for me: not a hobby, not even work, but a kind of surrender. A way of being in conversation with something larger than myself.
Entry Nine: Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind
I wake upright, as though sleep forgot to fold me into its arms. The darkness presses in all around—soft, velvety, bruised at the edges, like some colossal bruise pulsing with the low red hum of my own blood. A cloth lies warm against my eyelids, its fibers slick where they touch my skin, chillier at the edges where the air’s breath finds purchase. I don’t brush it away. I’ve learned that on certain nights the world is safer unseen.
They breathe at my sides—two hulking presences, rigid as ancient statues steeped in the sick-sweet perfume of formaldehyde. One on my left, one on my right, like bookends clamped around a story that refuses to end. Their feet remain statuesque; instead their bodies rock ever so slightly, tilting inward, receding, then returning in a silent metronome of doubt. Sometimes they feel like mirrors, their gazes jokers with opinions. Sometimes they feel like promises, the future I was sold if I kept doing what I was doing. Most nights I know the truth: they are mine—either I forged them, or they forged me. Asking which first feels as impolite as inquiring whether the flame or the candle existed before the other.
“Don’t speak,” says one voice—dry, brittle, like my father after my brother’s funeral. “Don’t confess,” says the other, rasping through a cough that smells faintly of candle wax and stale hymns. Their words scratch the hollow behind my left ear, the birthplace of my worst headaches. These aren’t commands so much as rituals—family heirlooms too awkward to discard, for to do so one must acknowledge their worth.
But my mouth conducts its own liturgies. It leaks in secrets. A weight gathers on my tongue: metal and warmth, the taste of regrets I should have voiced long ago. The first word is always the hardest to birth. When it finally breaks free, every syllable remembers gravity and falls like ink that missed its page, staining my chin.
It’s all right, I tell myself, between ragged breaths. Blood is just memory liquefied. Let it run. Let it tally the score.
“How did we get here?” I whisper, voice ragged against the blindfold. The dark tilts its head and pretends not to hear.
Left says, “By keeping your eyes closed.” Right hisses, “By learning to love the closing.”
They speak in turns, careful not to overlap, for if they did the shape of this place would shift and I’d forget what it means to stand.
I was taught early that silence is a language with two alphabets—safety and surrender—both scrawled from the same letters. When the cops came to our flat for the second time, my mother pressed a thumb to my lips. It felt like blessing and gag in equal measure. Years later, the first woman who claimed she understood me asked if I had anything to confess. I answered “No” because survival had already flipped the coin. I’ve whispered apologies to her in colder seasons, at bus stops I never ride, through prayers I don’t believe in. None ever breached the blindfold—they slid back down, patient as ghosts.
I know what lurks beneath this cloth. I’ve seen it—how daylight has kissed it, streetlight has tasted it, how a match’s flame stared too long and flinched. Eyes that catalogue, that inventory every fracture, then try to alphabetize the fragments. If I unveil them tonight, I’ll stare out into a flock of unfinished things circling my bed—wounds and half-formed promises. One can drown in the study of omissions. Ask me how I know.
Left leans forward, winter on his breath: the damp, hollow kind that drifts through stairwells, eavesdropping on arguments. “We kept you alive,” he says, a tenderness reserved for things long dead. “We wrapped your seeing until your seeing couldn’t hurt you.” The years have built a fortress in his jaw, doors forgotten.
Right lifts a hand to graze my ear—his touch colder than patience. “We taught you an economy of withholding. What you don’t utter can’t be used against you. What you don’t name can’t die.” He pauses, fingers poised like a man waiting for payment. “We saved you from the truths that detonate families into committees.”
Between them lies a rasp—a rasp that, I realize, is my own.
I drift back to the riverbank, red water flowing like a personal insult to the city. I recall the neon sign in that solitary room—its sick throb of light like a wound bargaining for closure. I hear the voice that begged me to “keep the light on,” and how I switched it off, hoping the corridor would keep a secret of its own.
Silence exacts its own fee. It demands tiny coins—words unsaid, memories locked away—until one day you want to catch a bus out of town and all you possess is the jingle of borrowed time.
“Say it,” Left murmurs, not unkindly. “Say nothing,” Right counters, like a physician prescribing illness.
My lips part. Perhaps it is prayer, perhaps confession—perhaps the last valve cracking open in a machinery someone else designed. What I long to say is simple: I remember the first lie—it tasted like rescue. The second lied felt like rehearsal. The third taught me grammar, and the rest built a house around me: no windows, just a door opening onto a closet. I want to say that blindness, if chosen wisely, lets you aim without seeing your target. That I learned to navigate by the shadows where stars should be. And I want to speak her name, the one I’ve carved into the walls of my heart, the one whose echo never returned but whom I have nurtured in silence for years.
Yet the mouth refuses dictation. When words drop onto my collar, I taste ash on my tongue. If I linger here, the floor will absorb me letter by letter. Maybe that’s the plan: let the body become a document, the words falling where they will.
“Open,” Left instructs—not my eyes, but the wound beneath this cloth. “Close,” Right insists—not my lips, but the subject itself.
They kneel, each in reverent posture, calling it unity.
I am not devout. Faith in myself is a belated apology—a jacket thrown over my shoulders after winter has already laid bare my bones. Still, I believe in small truths: every silence is a room with a window you can paint shut; blood remembers what you refuse to; when the past leans in to kiss you, check its hands.
“Why do you resent our aid?” Right asks, almost plaintive.
“I don’t,” I rasp, the cloth muffling my words. “I’m just weary of living the shape of your absence.”
Left’s fingers find the knot in the blindfold with a lover’s care. He doesn’t tighten, only taps it, as though weighing a wish. “You won’t like what you see.”
“I rarely do,” I reply, a dry laugh clawing free.
“Then keep the cloth,” he says. “And we’ll keep you. We’re the railings in your dark.”
I envision rusted metal, cold to the touch, a splinter waiting for skin. I recall the staircase winding down to a door I never open—the handle of which somehow knows my name. Once I thought that room housed my monsters. Now I see the real monsters are proper: they safeguard my unspent courage and the coats of selves I never became.
“I have questions,” I say, voice gentle as rain. “Whose mouths whispered before mine? Where did the very first hush come from? How many women stifled their fire because the men who taught them already drowned in smoke? How many fathers measured love by volume, awarding themselves with silence?”
Left inhales, a slow vacuum. Right clears his throat like a clerk shelving confessions.
“You think your blood makes you singular,” Left says. “It only makes you consistent.”
“You think speech is salvation,” Right counters. “Speech is a tool—tuned for mercy or murder.”
Both statements are true. Both can kill.
The cloth grows heavy, soaked where its letters dissolved in transit. I recall the story of a saint who plucked out his eyes to end desire, of a soldier who bit off his tongue so no one could barter his secrets. Every tale shares the same architect: Sanctity. Security. Surrender. The walls remain flawless. The rooms numbered. No one explains the numbers until rent’s due.
“Remove it,” someone says, and I can’t discern whose voice borrowed mine this time.
My hands lift, obedient as shadows at dusk. The knot is simple—always was. The hardest part of a blindfold is the narrative that says you deserve it. I tug once. The cloth exhales. Light rushes at me with the relief of a crowd that finally chose a side.
The room reveals itself—smaller than I’d feared, grander than I’d earned. The two men are exactly as the voice in me conjured: tattered elegance, wreckage with meticulously combed hair. Their faces are maps whose borders have vanished. Their suits hang as carefully as funeral garb. Their hands hover, almost kind.
I look at Left. He looks at my past. I look at Right. He looks at my future. Neither steps forward. I remain the hinge.
Blood trickles from my chin, a rudimentary signature poised for the name that owns it. I want to wipe it away. I want to revel in it. I want to stand still and hear what stillness says.
“Are you ready to speak?” Right asks, tone hopeful.
“I have been speaking the whole time,” I say, and for the first time the room curves into something like a smile.
Left shakes his head. “If you go on, you’ll lose us.”
I meet his eyes—meet my inheritance. “Maybe you’re meant to be lost.”
Pride and regret war in his gaze, as if he’s a father examining the bruise he taught me to take. There’s curriculum here no syllabus could contain.
“You can’t survive the noise,” he warns.
“Then let the noise survive me,” I tell him. “Carry the parts I cannot.”
When I finally move, it is unceremonious. I am neither saint nor soldier tonight, only someone who learned to count by the drip of blood in the dark. I am someone who believed in railings and now tries to believe in stairs. I am someone who has loved poorly, remembered perfectly. My fingertips trace the cooling red at my jaw, smearing it as though to bless myself—two fingers pressed to skin, raising a silent benediction. I draw a thin line across my throat—not threat, but witness. Then I touch each eyelid, first right, then left. Their warmth whispers secrets textbooks never taught.
The two men release simultaneous sighs of opposing relief. They are both disappointed. They are both relieved. It is possible to be two sermons at once.
A neon sign shivers somewhere beyond these walls. A painted-shut window in another life wonders if tonight the paint might crack. The floor holds my secret. The air remembers it was once a river and yearns to practice.
“I won’t speak her name,” I murmur, voice low but unwavering, “but I will stop pretending I never learned it.”
Right bows. Left closes his eyes. The room narrows to a path that was always here.
I take a step. Then another. My mouth finally ceases bleeding—it has, at last, done its duty. The cloth in my hand is merely cloth. I let it fall. Its descent makes no sound anyone else would hear.
If I keep walking, perhaps the past won’t follow. If it does, we can negotiate. I’ve learned there are nights it’s safer to close your eyes—and nights when you must open them, so when the world returns wearing your own voice, you can tell prayer from muzzle.
Tonight, I listen for that difference. And if the voices demand a choice, they can wait—like the weather.
When I was young, we didn’t know anything about bipolar, ADHD, or OCD. For most of the kids who looked like me, we were troublemakers. Lazy. Not living up to our “potential.” And my personal favorite — “at risk.”
I saw things that still twist my stomach. Families locking their special-needs kids away like shame in human form. Others giving children up for adoption because they saw difference as a “defect.” I didn’t understand it then, but I also didn’t question it. I figured it wasn’t my business. That was my own brand of ignorance — youthful stupidity with a good dose of asswipe. Luckily, I got my head out of my ass before it became permanent.
I watched people claw their way toward acceptance, thinking if they could just fit in, life might hurt less. It didn’t. I saw cruelty take every shape imaginable. And one night, I watched one of the kindest people I’d ever met get invited to a “party” by the popular crowd. What happened there was wrong on every level — a setup disguised as an invitation. People laughed. Some stood frozen, watching. Nobody stopped it. That was the night I decided I wouldn’t stand by again. I made it my mission to fight for the ones who couldn’t. Easier said than done, but it was a start.
Thing was, I knew what it felt like to be made to feel less than. My athletic ability was my equalizer — my way to earn space. But it was a fragile kind of belonging. I thought if I could hit harder, run faster, fight better, I’d earn respect.
Turns out, asswipes are going to be asswipes no matter how many beatings you hand out.
Being a nerd and a geek didn’t help either — things I embrace now but used to hide. Being Black in America wasn’t easy, but even that didn’t compare to the way people treated those with mental or learning conditions. Hate, I learned, is colorblind and endlessly creative.
We love to talk about how diversity makes America great. Sometimes I think diversity only exists on posters and TV slogans.
Then it hit home. My family. I wasn’t ready, but I wasn’t scared. I just had to face a truth I didn’t want to admit: I had some buried prejudice of my own. Stuff I didn’t even know was there. And if I wanted to keep my family whole, I had to deal with it. Over time, I did.
Then came my own diagnosis. PTSD. That’s when I found even more latent bullshit buried under the macho armor — the “last American badass” act. Mental illness didn’t exist for men like me. Especially not for Black men, because we’re supposed to be ridiculously strong. But let’s be honest — that toxic script applies to men everywhere. Be strong. Don’t cry. Fix it or bury it. It’s a lie that kills quietly.
The stigma runs deep — not just in the streets, but in the system. I asked a therapist once about ADHD and OCD, wondering if some of my symptoms overlapped. She waved it off: “Once you resolve your PTSD, you’ll be back to normal.”
Back to normal. As if “normal” were a bus stop I could just catch on the next route.
That’s the problem. Too many mental health professionals treat PTSD like it’s a virus. “Bend over, quick poke, might sting a little.” Hell, if it were that simple, I’d have rolled up my sleeve years ago.
But it’s not. None of it is. Every mind is different. What wrecks me might roll right off you. What medication lifts you up might level me. But they don’t listen. They pull out the checklist, ask the same robotic questions, tick the same boxes, and call it “care.”
It’s one-size-fits-all medicine — and that bullshit didn’t work for clothing, so why the hell do they think it’ll work for the mind?
When I hit full-blown crisis mode, I was lucky. I got an intern who actually gave a damn. She helped me start living with PTSD instead of suffering from it. She listened. She paid attention. She saw the person, not the file.
My psychiatrist? Worthless. I called him my dope man to his face. He corrected me — gave me his title like I was some illiterate twit. I told him I didn’t give a damn what his title was; he was still my dope man, and the least he could do was give me some good shit.
Instead, I got the cheap stuff — the kind that made me feel disrespected, doped, and disposable.
But I’ve been lucky since then. I have a care team now that actually seems to give a damn about me as a person — not just a walking diagnosis. I don’t know exactly how that happened, but I’ve got a small inkling. See, there were a few medical professionals who became casualties of my unfiltered disdain for incompetence. I didn’t hold back. Maybe that left a trail — maybe word got around that I wasn’t someone to bullshit. Whatever it was, I finally ended up with people who listen. Who treat me like a human being instead of a puzzle to solve.
Medication isn’t the solution. It never has been. It’s the work of the individual — the daily grind of facing the mirror and doing the damn work — that brings real results. I’ve worked with soldiers and civilians who carry the same ghosts, and the truth doesn’t change. The treatment only works when you treat the person. They’re not data points. They’re people. Treat them as such.
We are people. We deserve to be treated fairly. Not pitied. Not managed. Not turned into a statistic on a spreadsheet. We deserve the love and fairness that every living soul on this planet is owed.
If you want to help someone, start by listening. Don’t tell them what they need — ask them. Sure, you might know a few things, but don’t force it. Offer choices. Let them decide for themselves. Nobody likes being told what to do. And the ones who say they don’t mind? They’re lying.
Healing isn’t a factory line. It’s messy, human, and different for everyone. What calms one person might break another. What saves you might drown me.
There was a saying back in the day, before online dating. We used to say, “You got a sister or a friend?” — a way of saying, you’re good people, got anyone else like you?
That’s how I feel about good mental health professionals. When you find one who actually listens — who sees you as a person, not a case number — all you can think is: You got a sister or a friend?
But in my experience, most of these so-called mental health professionals don’t act like that.
Two words for you:
Uncultured Swine.
(It’s still a compliment.)
Author’s Note:
This piece is about stigma — the kind that hides behind silence, systems, and credentials. It’s about learning that real strength doesn’t come from toughness or treatment plans. It comes from listening — to yourself, to others, to the pain no one wants to name. Because healing, like humanity, never fits into a box.
Daily writing prompt
What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?
What it means to be labeled, to mock, and to finally understand.
There’s something about that question — “Tell us about a time when you felt out of place” — that stirs up more than I want to admit. For someone like me, admitting fear or discomfort has always felt like breaking an unspoken code. Society still treats fear like a weakness, and men especially are taught to hide it behind our egos. I’d love to say I’ve outgrown that, that my ego doesn’t run the show anymore. Truth is, I’d be full of shit if I said that. Ego still tugs at my decisions, but I do my best to keep it in check.
I remember when I was first diagnosed with PTSD. I wasn’t ashamed of it—I told friends and family outright, thinking honesty would bring support. I thought they’d rally, that they’d have my back in this new state of being. I was wrong. What I found instead was silence where I expected comfort, distance where I expected closeness. I heard whispers that weren’t really whispers, caught side-glances dressed up as concern, saw pity masquerading as care. The labels came quick: “Touched.” “Not right in the head.” And my personal favorite—“Well… you know.”
Looking back, I can admit there were times I blew things out of proportion. PTSD has a way of magnifying shadows until they look like monsters. But there were other times when I was dead-on, seeing things that others couldn’t because they hadn’t lived through it. Learning techniques to live with PTSD—rather than just suffer under it—changed my perspective.
I realized some of the fears I carried were invisible to others, because they’d never walked in that dark. And I also realized some of the fears they carried, the ones they thought were dire, looked small to me because I’d been through worse. That’s where the real challenge came in: not mocking them for what seemed trivial, not throwing back the same treatment they’d given me. That shit was hard. To pass up the chance to feed them the same poison they’d fed me? Damn near impossible.
But I knew better. I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of whispers, side-glances, and labels. Mocking them—even quietly, even under my breath—only made me worse. It made me just like them. And that realization? That was harder to swallow than the diagnosis itself.
Before I retired, I spent the last few years working with people living with all kinds of mental conditions. What struck me wasn’t just the weight of their struggles, but how deeply they wanted to be “normal.” That desire ran so strong it could push them into choices that would shape, even haunt, the rest of their lives.
I came to understand something: it’s one thing to know, intellectually, that it’s okay to be different. It’s another thing entirely to believe it in your bones. I saw people wrestle with that gap every day, and in their fight, I saw myself. Being out of place had taught me what it felt like to carry that longing, that shame, that desperate wish to blend in. And maybe that’s the only gift of being “othered” — the chance to understand someone else’s battle, even when they can’t put it into words.
Perhaps, in some ways, this is what Memoirs of Madness is about. I didn’t start the blog with that purpose in mind, but maybe it has become a place to name the fears we all carry — the ones that make us feel out of place in our own lives. Or maybe it’s nothing of the kind. Maybe it’s just one man behind a keyboard, running his mouth. I’d like to believe it’s more than that. That in speaking my demons aloud, I give someone else permission to face theirs. That I remind them they’re not as alone as they think.
Author’s Note: This piece grew from a prompt asking about a time I felt out of place. As always, I didn’t take the safe route. The question became an exploration of stigma, ego, and the long road toward compassion. If nothing else, I hope it reminds someone out there they aren’t as alone in their demons as they might believe.
On the surface, it sounds simple. Life without a computer? Quiet. Peaceful. No antivirus sales pop-ups, no Cialis spam at cost, no desperate emails from Classmates.com trying to drag me back to people I don’t remember—or worse, the ones I do. Strip all that away and sure, it’s tempting to picture myself sitting in an easy chair, no screen glow, no endless buzz. But simple answers are just window dressing. Let’s peel back the glass and see what’s really inside.
I can remember the feel of it—life before all this. Index cards. Library catalogs. Encyclopedias stacked like walls around a curious kid. I’d curl up in the corner of a room and lose myself in some unknown world waiting to be discovered. A flashlight, a Conan paperback, an aunt who kept my trunk stocked. My mother would walk the hall, check to see if I was asleep. I’d roll to the side, play-acting. She never called me on it. Years later, I returned the favor when my daughters pulled the same trick with Goosebumps and The Babysitters Club. Memory does this thing—it polishes the edges. We remember the warmth, not the splinters. Maybe that’s why fragments from the past glow brighter: because we need them to.
But nostalgia only tells half the story. You want the other half? Without computers, the scaffolding of modern life buckles. The power grid falters, the fridge sweats, the meds spoil, the pumps stall. Life unravels fast. You don’t have to be a doomsday prepper to see it—the dependency is baked in.
And then there’s the smaller erosion, the social kind. I asked two young men for directions not long ago. One was polite, helpful. The other? Rude enough to make me want to crush him into wine. Back in the day, you blamed the parents and moved on. Now everyone blames “the cell phone generation”—usually while scrolling their own feeds or taking selfies. Computers didn’t invent rudeness. They just gave it more stages.
So no, this isn’t an indictment. Computers didn’t ruin us. The cracks were already there long before the first home PC blinked awake. What computers did was speed it all up. Made connection instant, exposure constant. They’ve fed my family, carried my work, given me conversations with people in corners of the world I never would’ve reached otherwise. And they’ve pissed me off. As I type this, I’m smiling through the irony—I’m literally writing about life without computers while debugging a Linux distro on my desktop. It’s a love-hate relationship, and it always will be.
Music is my counterweight. Computers speed me up, music slows me down. The screen demands reaction; the record demands attention. Drop Zeppelin or Miles Davis and suddenly the world exhales. The horns breathe, the guitars stretch, and I remember that time doesn’t have to move at the pace of a notification.
So excuse me, as I sit down with my coffee, open a notebook, and let Miles play. I’ll scribble lines of prose that might become something later. And when I’m ready, I’ll boot the machine back up—fresh OS humming—ready to write, to read, to connect with friends across the world.
Life without a computer? Maybe I’ve been living both lives all along.
Eli’s fingers hammered the Underwood, the platen ratcheting like a drumbeat inside his chest. Words crashed onto the page raw and unprocessed, each keystroke sharp as broken glass. He didn’t try to catch his thoughts; they lagged behind anyway, always scrambling, always too late. Second-guessing was for people with softer bones.
The typewriter filled the basement like a predator pacing. The ding of the carriage bell jolted him at every line, each return snap a small guillotine. He welcomed the violence. As long as the machine roared, the silence couldn’t close in and strangle him.
Behind him, Iris moved. He didn’t look—didn’t dare. He knew the sound of her presence: drawers opening, papers shifting, the glide of her feet across concrete. She spoke sometimes, soft nothings that dissolved into the cinderblock walls, too sweet to be trusted. He kept his eyes forward, certain that if he broke rhythm the spell would snap and something worse would rise.
She spoke in platitudes—surface shit that didn’t mean a damn thing, not even to the person saying it. She knew I hated them. She knew I’d rather choke on silence than fill it with low-grade noise. And after everything, don’t I rate the premium line of bull? Instead—clichés. Cheap ones. Wrong on too many levels.
The words poured, jagged and necessary. He bent closer to the keys, fingers aching, shoulders burning. The smell of paper and machine oil clogged his sinuses. His job was to write. One job. Write.
Then—click. Whirr. The clatter of vinyl.
His trance shattered. Eli shot up from the desk. “NNNNNOOOOOOO!”
The speakers coughed dust. A warped guitar riff crawled from the jukebox.
Arnold Layne had a strange hobby…
The lyric nailed him to the chair. His body froze, his heart battering too fast against his ribs. A high metallic screech tore through his skull. Somewhere in the sound he swore he heard a howl, long and low, as if the memory itself had found a voice.
The world went black.
—
He blinked awake in a different room. Bare bulb. Cracked mirror. The stink of disinfectant.
In the glass, Iris stared back—hair damp, eyes too wide, skin gone bare and bloodless.
Jonquil’s shape coalesced behind her, a figure lit by candlelight. She smiled, but her mouth never moved.
“You had one job,” Jonquil said, velvet over stone. “Keep him writing. Don’t let the memory in.”
Iris clutched the sink, knuckles white. Words failed her.
Jonquil’s gaze sharpened. “You know what happens to leaky vessels.”
The memory ripped through Iris: a Guild meeting, Uncle Bug tearing into a junior agent, the sudden hush, then the impossible sight of Bug blowing softly in the man’s direction. The agent’s outline wavered—and collapsed into vapor. The smell of iron had clung to her clothes for days.
Iris trembled. If Jonquil told Uncle, she’d be next.
—
The bar hit him like a punch—heat, smoke, neon fractured on dirty glass. Bodies surged to the music, sweat and whiskey thick in the air. Eli stood in the middle, drowning in it.
Onstage, a woman with cropped hair and a voice like gravel tore through Dead and Bloated. She wasn’t covering the song; she was burning it down and rebuilding it from ash.
Her eyes found his. She grinned, stepped off the stage, and cut through the crowd like she owned it. Her hand snared the back of his neck. She kissed him hard, tasting of blood and whiskey, breath hot with hunger.
The taste hit him like déjà vu—sharp and sweet, like a kiss he’d lived before in another life, though he had no memory of whose lips had given it.
Then she pulled back, lips almost brushing his ear. “You don’t belong here. Go back. Now.”
She shoved him. The bar collapsed, light and shadow swallowing the floor. Eli fell.
—
He jolted awake at his desk, lungs empty, head pounding. The Underwood sat waiting, a fresh sheet rolled in.
On the corner of the desk, a tabby cat licked her paw. She froze mid-motion and fixed him with a single stare.
“Meow,” she said, clipped and final, before resuming her grooming.
Eli’s hands shook as he reached forward. Beside the typewriter, on a square of yellow paper, a single word was scrawled in black ink:
Frog Creek.
The letters burned into him. His stomach turned cold.
He remembered.
Something he had sworn never to speak of again. Something only he had survived.
The typewriter, the cat, even the walls felt suddenly foreign—no shelter at all, just a trap waiting to close.
Why was it surfacing now?
Author’s Note
When I released Litany in Black, my editor didn’t mince words. The call was short and sharp: “I want more.” So here it is—the next chapter, pulled from the dark seam where memory, myth, and madness overlap.
This piece draws on three of my favorite community sparks: FOWC, RDP, and Word of the Day. Those prompts slip into the prose the way shadows slide into corners, sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden in plain sight. If you caught them, you’re paying attention. If not, maybe the story is working on you the way it should—sly, unsettling, creeping in under the skin.
Chapter 3 is about fracture—Eli caught between the rush of creation and the trap of memory, Iris learning that mistakes echo louder than excuses, Jonquil tightening her grip on both. Frog Creek has finally bled through the page, and with it, the reminder that some stories don’t just haunt you; they claim you.
To those following along, thank you for walking with me into the dark. The deeper we go, the less clear the ground beneath us becomes—but that’s the only way to find out what’s waiting on the other side.
Looking back, I see the shift clear as day. In 2023, I leaned hard on control—details, contingencies, the belief that if I just tightened the screws enough, nothing could come loose. By 2024, the screws had already rattled out, and I was staring down a kind of fragility I’d never known before.
One year, I was convincing myself discipline was enough. Next, I was joking about my “part-dragon phase” just to soften the gut-punch of realizing I’m flesh and blood like everyone else. What hasn’t changed is the truth at the center: the details I need to pay attention to aren’t the external ones. They’re internal—the quiet daily choices that keep me alive, standing, and present with the people who’d notice if I wasn’t.
That’s not the answer I wanted to give, but it’s the only one that matters.
For most of my life, I’ve been the kind of person who sweats the details. I suppose it grew out of fear—fear of making a mistake, fear of letting something slip. My default mode was to be squared away: backup plans layered on top of contingency plans, every angle covered, every risk accounted for. If you’d asked me back then what details I needed to pay more attention to, I would’ve shrugged and said, “None. I’ve got it handled.”
But then life came along with its own set of details I couldn’t spreadsheet or strong-arm my way through. Health issues hit, and with them came changes I didn’t ask for and didn’t want. At first, I fell into my usual pattern—pretend control, mask the cracks, mutter “fuck it” when the new limits pressed too hard. But weakness has a way of humbling you. For the first time, I wasn’t sure how things would turn out.
That’s when my circle—the family I chose—stepped in. They reminded me I wasn’t done fighting, even when my body said otherwise. I’m not used to relying on anyone, but I learned to lean when I had to. It turns out that those details matter just as much as the ones I used to obsess over.
So what do I need to pay more attention to? The unglamorous, invisible stuff: eating better, resting when I should, saying no before I collapse, listening to my people when they call me on my bullshit. All the little choices that keep me here, present, and alive.
It’s tempting to say I’m doing this just for myself, and on some level that’s true. But it isn’t lost on me that my brothers, my friends, my people—they want me around too. There’s nothing better than feeling that kind of love. And honestly, I’m getting too old to risk another beating, figurative or otherwise.
The pounding at the front door began long after midnight. Each blow was deliberate and unhurried, like the careful stroke of a sculptor’s chisel against glass. Not a summons but a demand. Brazen. Insistent.
He didn’t rise. He lay still in the attic room, letting the sound seep into him, inevitable as tide against stone. He counted the interval between strikes until his heartbeat followed the rhythm. The house trembled. Thunder muttered beyond the horizon, folding the knock into something larger—an unmeasured tide, washing through the marrow of his bones.
Then the room split open. He stood on a windswept shore. Salt spray stung his lips; the wind tasted of copper and regret. Mist curled along the sea, thin as gauze, trembling as if it hid another world.
A horse exhaled. Its breath rolled heavy as storm clouds, hooves thudding like a buried drum. Damp wool and brine clung to the air. He tasted fear, sharp and metallic, like sucking a coin.
Through the haze came a glint of battered armor—silver rubbed to pewter, seams cracked, catching light from a sun that didn’t exist. The rider’s silhouette wavered, impossibly tall, visor down, face unreadable.
The pounding at the door merged with hoofbeats. Frost rimed his lashes. His boots sank into sand that softened into ink, black and iridescent as beetle shell. The rider advanced, and with each step the sea receded, exposing bones and wire in the seabed’s muck. The air stank of rot and possibility.
A question swelled in his throat, too heavy to voice. Another strike at the door—and the dream collapsed.
He jolted upright at his desk. Shelves stood skeletal, spines stripped bare. Dust clung stubbornly to the air, as if the room refused to surrender its memories.
Only the inkwell remained. Obsidian glass, gleaming like a pool of midnight.
It spoke—not in words but as a tremor in his bones: You are the one I belong to.
Ink leapt upward, coiling into the suggestion of a figure, a face more idea than flesh. Its eyes were ancient and exact, pinning him to his chair.
Are you the writer? The question was absurd and infinite.
The shelves rattled as though books clawed to return. Each knock at the door struck like a punctuation mark, vibrating his jaw.
The room thinned. Corners bent inward. He clapped his hands to his ears, but the pounding only burrowed deeper, lodging itself behind his temples, merging with the pulse behind his eyes.
He tried to stand but found himself rooted. The ink-figure grew, head brushing the ceiling, mouth curling in some half-expression—amusement, hunger, pity.
In the mirror above the desk, his reflection wept. Ink streamed from its sockets, streaking cheeks until the face dissolved into a blur.
The whisper gained teeth. Are you the writer? Answer. Answer. ANSWER.
His tongue flooded with ink, bitter as spoiled wine. He gagged, then finally let the words tumble out, steady as confession: “Yes. I am the writer. I am the Muse.”
For an instant, silence. The sea stilled. The door hushed. The world held its breath.
But silence bears weight. And weight cracks.
The pounding resumed—faster, furious, like a heart hammering against bone. Shelves pitched forward, gnashing their empty spines. The rider’s visor leaked tar; waves behind him thickened into oil. Seafoam crawled across the rug.
The lamp shrank to a pinprick. Walls bowed outward, then snapped back, leaving him gasping.
He clutched the inkwell. Its glass was fever-hot, pulsing like it contained a second heart. Each knock rattled his skull, more intimate now, less house than body.
He tried to scream, but ink poured out, running down his chin, soaking his shirt. The inkwell slipped and shattered. The spill spread, black and inexorable, birthing the rider whole, towering, boots leaving prints that hissed as they seared into the rug.
He dropped to his knees. Through the cracks between floorboards, he glimpsed writhing shadows—half-finished stories, worlds waiting for permission. The window rattled behind him, panes shaking like teeth in a jaw.
The pounding stopped.
Silence swallowed the room. Every particle of air strained toward the door. A gauntleted hand hovered just beyond the wood. The whisper softened, almost tender: Are you the writer?
He staggered forward, each step leaving an ink-black footprint. His hand shook on the knob, slick with sweat. The ceiling sagged, the house groaning as if it would collapse if he refused.
He swallowed fear and turned the handle.
No pounding. Only the slow, splintering sigh of wood.
The door was not being knocked upon.
It was being opened.
Author’s Note: Thanks to Fandango for another amazing Fandango’s Story Starter #218 (FSS) prompt. Some doors you knock on, others knock on you. This one wouldn’t stop pounding until I opened it. Funny how a single line can spiral into something that feels less like a story and more like a confession in ink. Appreciate the spark, Fandango — and the reminder that prompts aren’t just exercises; sometimes they’re invitations we can’t ignore.
The end of the month always brings a surge in paperwork. Spreadsheets, backend checks, the kind of admin work that keeps my websites standing upright instead of collapsing in a heap of missed updates and broken links. Usually, I keep pace. But this month — hell, these last two months — I’ve been dragging. Emotion takes its toll, and when it hits, it doesn’t just knock you down; it scrapes off your momentum.
And tomorrow isn’t just the end of the month. It’s the anniversary of my wife’s death — the moment that split my life into three acts: the life before, the life during, the life after. Some years, I handle it better. Some years, it feels like the wound was carved just yesterday. But I’ve learned forgetting isn’t the goal. The point is remembering fully. Letting myself feel the pain, the joy, the sorrow, all tangled together in the memories that built me.
Funny thing is, she’d probably put her foot up my backside for the way I’ve been living. Can’t say I’d blame her. I’d probably kick my own ass, too. I remember the man I was, and I see the man I’ve become. Some parts I’m proud of; other times, I just shake my head at the mess I’ve gotten myself into. Jackass comes to mind more often than I’d like to admit.
I catch myself wondering who I’d be if she hadn’t died. Better? Happier? Maybe just more ornery — that last one feels like a safe bet. (Truth is, the orneriness has been growing by the day, and I’ve made my peace with it.)
But here’s what I know: no matter what might have been, this is the life I’ve got. The work still waits. The words still demand to be written. The fight — for the things I believe in, for the things I’ve spent my life creating — hasn’t gone anywhere.
So yes, tomorrow there will be admin. There will be memories, some sharp enough to cut, others soft enough to cradle. There will be the temptation to run from the ache, to hide in distraction or numbness. But my mama didn’t raise no punk. I’ll remember. I’ll work. I’ll fight. And I’ll laugh at myself along the way, because wisdom without humor is just another burden.
Author’s Note: Grief never leaves — it just changes costumes. Some days it appears as silence, some days as laughter, and some days as the sharp edge of memory. But I’ve learned to live with it, and sometimes even laugh at it. Tomorrow will hurt, but it’ll also remind me why I keep showing up for the work and the fight. That’s how I honor her and myself.
On Quiet Power, Unfinished Equality, and Knowing When to Step Aside
Women have been shaping the world from the quiet corners for as long as there’s been a world to shape. History loves its kings and loudmouths, but look closer and you’ll see the fingerprints of women everywhere—deals struck over kitchen tables, revolutions whispered into motion, empires shifted by a single word.
The damsel-in-distress? Pure fiction. Every woman I’ve known has been a strategist or a survivor. I was raised by women, so I never bought the stereotype. My mother, aunts, and grandmothers ran their worlds with a precision that left no room for excuses.
That lesson stuck. My daughters and granddaughters get no slack because they’re women—the only pass they get is being mine, and even that expires fast. I’ve watched women pick up the slack when men fall short, holding things together while someone else grabs the credit. And still, women are underestimated in ways I’ll never understand. The proof stands right in front of us, yet people squint as if strength needs permission to be real.
I saw it firsthand in the military. Equality is improving, but the gap is still wide. A striking new soldier joined our unit, and the guys forgot every rule of conduct, circling her like moths while she tried to learn her job. So I played the villain. I called people out, made her untouchable, and turned would-be defenders into cautionary tales. I hated doing it, but it gave her room to breathe. Her father was a command boss I’d butted heads with, so I expected trouble. Instead, we ended up on good terms, a quiet truce born from protecting his kid. She and I became friends, and years later, I still get the occasional text or Facebook update from her and the husband I once terrorized.
Long before marriage, an older woman once told me over beers, “If I can’t get what I want with a look and a smile, I’m not doing my job.” Back then, I didn’t get it. Marriage cleared that up. My wife could hold an entire conversation with a single glance, seal the verdict with a faint smile, and I’d move before she spoke—remembering that barroom oracle and chuckling while carrying out silent orders.
Here’s the tricky part: as much as I know the women in my life can handle themselves, the instinct to defend them never leaves. But that impulse can backfire. Sometimes the smartest move is to pick your battles, stay alert, and trust their strength. Respect isn’t rescue—it’s giving credit, stepping aside, and making sure the field is clear when they swing the hammer themselves.
Even after a lifetime of their guidance, I still don’t have a clue how women work. They tell me that all the time. I just smile, nod, and keep doing my chores. History is finally, grudgingly, starting to catch up.
Author’s Note I like Sunday Poser’s questions. They make me think—probably more than they should, but think nonetheless. Anything that stirs the mind is a good thing. So, thanks to Sadje for providing these tremendous challenges.
When I first answered this question years ago, I leaned into time travel, jukeboxes, and 24-hour diners. Those images still live in me—they always will—but retirement has shifted my perspective. Now it isn’t about dreaming up another job so much as embracing what I already do: writing, creating art, and taking pictures.
People love to say, “If you do something you love, you never work a day in your life.” I’ve always liked the sound of that, though I know now it isn’t quite true. Writing and art have been part of me most of my life, and while I love them, they demand work—grinding, detailed, sometimes thankless work. The pride comes not from sidestepping that effort, but from doing it anyway and still loving the process enough to come back the next day. That’s the real magic.
Although I’m still tinkering with my time machine in the basement, for now, time travel lives inside my stories. That’s the gift of the page: step through, and suddenly you’re anywhere. And while the dream of owning a 24-hour diner never happened, I still sometimes write in one. The booths are cracked, the coffee burnt, and the danish usually stale—but if you show up before the morning rush, you might catch a fresh pastry and, better yet, a pocket of quiet. The hum of neon, the shuffle of strangers, and the early-morning stillness create a kind of portal of their own.
So maybe I never needed to own the diner. Perhaps it was always enough to sit in the corner with a notebook, bad coffee, and the ache of possibility in the air—time traveling in my own way.
Author’s Note: The older I get, the more I realize it’s not about finding the perfect job, but finding the space where your imagination can keep breathing. Whether it’s a chipped mug in a half-empty diner, or the quiet corner of your own basement where “impossible” machines get built, what matters is the work you return to—the thing that keeps you curious. For me, that’s the page, the image, the story. The grind and the magic are inseparable.
Reflective Prompt: Where do you find your own “time machine”—the place, habit, or ritual that lets you slip out of ordinary time and into the work (or play) you love, even when it demands effort?
When I was a kid, brands were a kind of social currency. Clothes weren’t just fabric; they were shorthand for who you were. Madre Khan didn’t have much, but she made sure I never went hungry or without a place to sleep. Back then, I thought the right label could hide the lean years. We lived through the “generic” craze—plain white packaging, bargain prices—and adults preached, “You pay for what you get. Quality costs.” It felt like gospel.
For years I carried those lessons forward. My loyalties were automatic: Dickies for everyday wear, Logitech for office gear, Apple for everything but my phone. I even joked about being a brand whore, because at least I knew why I liked what I liked. My stepmother once shook her head at how casually I spent, but I’d tell her I bought what I needed and rarely worried about price. Quality justified the tab.
Lately, the gospel rings hollow. The “solid” names I grew up trusting don’t always deliver. Prices climb, quality slips, and you can’t put a price on quality now sounds like something printed on the inside of a fortune cookie. More than once, a no-name hard drive or keyboard has outperformed the legacy brand at half the cost.
These days I notice another shift. I own plenty of off-brand gear that works just fine for what I need. Retirement changes the math: I don’t need professional-grade tools anymore, but the ones I have will serve until they die. I used to research only within the circle of names I trusted; now the field is so crowded you watch the distributor more than the logo. Even established vendors let quality control slide, which often leaves me repairing old equipment or building my own replacement. I don’t buy desks or bookshelves anymore—I build them. I’ve started refurbishing old furniture and appliances with lower-grade tools and find the process oddly satisfying.
Just today I paused mid-essay to repair an outdoor extension cord. A simple fix would’ve done the job, but I couldn’t resist the upgrade—added roughly twenty-five feet for good measure. It’s a small thing, but it says a lot: why settle for a patch when you can quietly rewrite the boundaries of your backyard? Somewhere, Madre Khan is smiling at the sight of me splicing wires with the same patient curiosity she once showed when I tore things apart for parts.
I still research before I buy, but loyalty no longer seals the deal. If a nameless drive stores my files without complaint, it wins. If a plain keyboard keeps up with my writing, I don’t care whose badge sits on the box. The brands I associate with now aren’t names—they’re the ones that keep their promises.
Maybe that’s the real lesson: value isn’t in the logo, it’s in the follow-through. Childhood taught me to chase quality. Adulthood taught me to measure it myself. These days my motto is simple—get the most bang for the buck and enjoy the build along the way.
Sleep and I are estranged lovers—centuries of cold shoulders and midnight betrayals between us. Sleep is like that perfect lover we imagine we could find, but do we really want perfection? Knowing that perfection is something for shitbirds and affirmation junkies. There’s no help for the shitbirds, but the affirmation junkies—there’s a new 5 a.m. virtual meeting. I think that’s the word. Who knows? I can’t keep up. Hell, I can’t even get up. If we reconciled now, the shock might kill us both—like a jolt of mainlined caffeine through a cracked vein.
I could try being nicer to people. Be giddy, even. (Insert laugh track here.) But no—perish the thought. Niceness feels suspicious, like a door-to-door guru peddling enlightenment for the price of my dignity.
The writer in me says write more, which is hilarious because I already write every damn day. My editor swears I start a new series just to watch her eye twitch. Sometimes she sends me texts that are just a single, vibrating ellipsis. I plead the Fifth. She rolls her eyes so hard I can hear it over the phone. The other day she asked, “When are you going to take the next step? You know you’re ready, right?” Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s time I believe in myself a little more—have faith in the work I keep throwing into the world like sparks from a stubborn match.
Still, there’s something quietly miraculous about creating work you love and finding out strangers love it too. For years, I didn’t have the time—raising a family will eat decades before you can blink. (Contrary to the baffling opinions of certain buttwipes who think parenting is optional.)
But the thing I’d truly like to do more of? Pay attention to my art. Not for money, not for likes—just to see how far I can push it. No limits, no internal hang-ups, none of the flimsy excuses we invent to dodge our own passions. Retirement has made one thing clear: I’m a storyteller. Always have been. Every skill I’ve picked up—writing, photography, film work, design—has been another star in the same battered sky, flickering through the smog of burnt coffee and late-night keystrokes. Each one lights a different corner of the story. Perhaps it’s time to stop forcing the tale into a single constellation and let the stars arrange themselves, allowing the story to decide whether it shines as prose, image, film, or sound.
As I write this, it begs the question… What if? What if I let go and took the plunge? Will doubt finally fall away? Will I edge closer to whatever version of me is hiding under all this noise—no matter how cleverly I might hide myself? Not to get hippy-dippy, but isn’t that the engine under all of this—the quiet force beneath the surface, behind the mask we flash to the world? Excuse me while I glue my mask back together. They don’t epoxy like they used to. Progress my ass.
Maybe sleep will keep sulking in the corner. Fine. I’ll keep mapping my own constellations until the night runs out of darkness. Sleep can wait. Niceness can rot. The story gets every last hour I have.
The bed had held her like a warm conspiracy—pillows swallowing her shoulders with their downy weight, linen softened by last night’s restless turns. Lantern light pooled in amber halos on the walls, quivering against damp wood. Four hours of sleep after eighteen-hour days should have grounded her for a week, but her body insisted on rebellion. Awake again, she sat upright, toes grazing the cool floorboards, eyes blinking against the dim glow. The tang of office coffee still clung to her tongue: a bitter echo of burnt midnight oil and water-thin sludge, the kind that left her stomach knotted but kept her nerves humming like exposed wiring.
She dragged a chair across the cabin with deliberate care—the legs scraping in protest—and perched at the balcony’s edge. The night air bit her bare arms, each shiver sharpening her senses. Beyond the railing, the mountains stood silent, dark ridges pressed like secrets into the horizon. The lake lay flat as polished obsidian, mirroring bruised clouds of early dawn. Across the glassy water, an old man in a faded plaid shirt painted the silence. His brush moved in slow, patient arcs, each stroke less about color than stitching the world back together, as if he fought gravity and time with bristles and oil.
“Are you just going to sit there, peeking out the window? That’s rude, you know?” A voice cracked through the quiet like a shot glass on stone. Jonquil’s heart jerked—her pulse thundering behind her ribs. For a moment, she blamed the sleepless haze—too many nights hunched over microfiche, eyes stinging under the sterile hum of library projectors, chasing Frog Creek’s ghosts through brittle ’30s newsprint. Dead ends, coy smiles from locals who treated the story like a campfire riddle.
“Bring some coffee and a glass of water while you’re at it,” the voice added, dry as driftwood.
Her gaze flicked back to the painter. He hadn’t paused, but she was certain the brim of his floppy hat dipped—a slow, knowing nod cast in shadow. Words felt heavy, too sluggish to catch. She slipped off the chair, the floorboards groaning like reluctant witnesses, and padded to the kitchenette. She measured the coffee grounds by instinct, water steaming in two battered mugs. She filled two slender glasses with cool spring water. Even before she carried the tray back, the earthy tang of brewed coffee rose to meet her, promising clarity.
As she stepped into the painting’s quiet domain, the tray trembling slightly in her hands, a thought flared: What the hell am I doing? She set the tray on a rough-hewn table beside the painter and stepped back into the flicker of lantern light.
“What took you so long?” he muttered around a sip, not looking up—then slowly raised his head and found himself staring down the barrel of her .40-caliber Smith & Wesson. The metal gleamed silver in the lamplight.
He froze. Recognition bloomed in his eyes, calm as a breeze off the lake. He tilted his head, then—deliberately—brought the coffee cup to his lips. The steam curled around his weathered face before he met her gaze.
“Jonquil! You old firebrand—you scared the hell out of me!”
Her chest unclenched in one rush of relief, fury, and love warring beneath her ribs. She lowered the gun with a shaky exhale, the weight of it receding like a tide.
“Are you gonna give me a hug,” he drawled, “or should I start feeling offended?”
“Offended, of course,” she muttered, stepping forward.
He rose with a groan of old joints, arms outstretched. His paint-stained palms smelled of turpentine and lake mist. She hesitated a heartbeat—then melted into the solid warmth of his embrace. His arms were rough bark, familiar and unyielding.
They held each other while the mountains bore silent witness. Bug kissed her temple, then eased back to study her face under the brim of his hat.
“Tell me about the writer,” he said, voice low. “Is he writing?”
“I made contact,” Jonquil replied, voice soft with pride. “It’s begun.”
“Good. How long before he’s ready?” Bug asked, tone businesslike as he sipped his coffee.
“I’m not rushing him. He’ll be ready when he’s ready,” she snapped, the heat in her words betraying more than she intended.
Bug spread his paint-stained hands in mock surrender, a crooked smile flickering at his beard’s edge.
“Actually, Uncle…I’m glad you’re here,” she added, calmer now, raising her mug. The coffee was strong, bitter—and it steadied her pulse.
They fell into silence, watching dawn bleed into the sky while the lake held its reflection like a promise.
“Tell me about Frog Creek,” she said finally.
Bug jolted, coffee sloshing against his knuckles. His eyes sharpened, horror and determination flickering in the same breath.
“Don’t ask questions that need answers, Jonquil,” he growled, the words rough as gravel.
She swallowed the last of her coffee without flinching, letting his warning sink deep. A faint smile ghosted across her lips. “That’s it,” she said, each word measured. “We’re getting to it.”
Bug’s jaw flexed, unease rippling beneath weathered skin. The lake’s hush pressed in on them, but between the two of them, the silence crackled.
“Did you make contact personally, or one of your people?” Bug asked.
“My agent in the city,” Jonquil replied, cool and distant as gathered smoke.
Bug’s eyes narrowed. “Not Iris, I hope? That woman’ll have you jumping around barking like a dog for sport!”
Jonquil snorted, a half-laugh. She risked a glance at him, the corner of her mouth twitching with reluctant agreement.
—
In the bookstore’s basement, Iris leaned against a battered jukebox, fingertip tracing dusty chrome. The air was thick with mildew, ink, and the metallic tang of old wiring. Fluorescent bulbs flickered overhead, humming like restless spirits.
“I wonder if this thing still works,” she murmured, voice low. A manicured nail tapped a faded title card: Arnold Layne. A slow smile curled her lips as she mouthed the name, eyes bright.
She pressed a button. A dull click echoed, gears whirring beneath the dust. Vinyl clattered into place.
“Don’t—don’t you dare—” Eli’s voice shredded the gloom. Boots scuffed concrete as he lunged from the shadows, sweat beading his forehead under the dim light.
Iris turned, cool as midnight, watching him approach. She let the speakers crackle to life, a warped guitar riff slicing through the air like a knife.
Eli halted, breath caught in his throat. The sound held him hostage, every nerve taut as a plucked wire.
“Arnold Layne had a strange hobby…” The lyric spilled from the small speakers, tinny and inevitable. Dust motes swirled in the beam of flickering light, drifting like lost memories.
Iris tilted her head, eyes never leaving his face—waiting for the moment the past would snap into focus.
—
On the far side of the lake, Jonquil froze mid-sip. At first she thought it was the scrape of dawn against stone, but then—faint, distorted, impossible—the opening riff of Arnold Layne crawled through the air like static on a dying radio.
Her hand tightened on the mug, knuckles whitening. Goosebumps blossomed along her arms as the melody haunted the silent morning.
“Way too soon, Iris,” she breathed.
Bug’s brush scratched canvas in steady strokes, oblivious—or willfully blind—to the tremor in her voice.
But the song lingered, a ghost bridging two worlds, threading Jonquil’s dread to Eli’s terror. The mountains exhaled around them, and the lake held its breath.
Author’s Note: My editor called me after I released Litany in Black and simply said, “I want more!” So here’s the next chapter. I drew from Sadje’s WDYS #307 for the scenery and Fandango’sStory Starter #217 for inspiration.
As always, prompts like these push the story into corners I might not explore alone. Noir breathes in silence, in warnings half-heard, in the places where memory and dread overlap. That’s where Jonquil, Bug, Iris, and Eli are circling now.
If you’re new here, Litany in Black is part experiment, part confession: prompts, noir atmosphere, and a little madness stitched into something ongoing. If you’ve been here before, you know the deal—the coffee’s bitter, the ghosts don’t rest, and the story is never safe.
Thanks to Sadje and Fandango for throwing fuel on the fire. And thanks to you for reading, following the litany deeper.
Rain glazed the neon crescent above Second Moon Books until it gleamed like a razor’s edge slicing through the night. Elias Moreau’s fingers trembled as he flipped the weathered placard to CLOSED. The paint on the letters bled, fading faster every September—as though some unseen smart-ass on the other side of the door was trying to erase the word before last call.
Inside, the air carried the sour bite of old glue and the metallic tang that seeped up from the subway grates. A crooked chalkboard behind the register wore last week’s proclamation in smudged white chalk: BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT – A FULL WEEK OF HORROR & HOPEFUL DREAD A Tribute to Stephen King
Eli’s pulse ticked in time with the neon strobe outside. Every year he staged this seven-day ritual for King, the undisputed monarch of macabre wonder. King’s uncanny magic felt almost domestic, like discovering an old friend hiding in the crawlspace. But Gordon Weaver—now that was a different kind of haunt. Weaver carved the American family like a butcher who’d gone to seminary, exposing grudges and betrayals with a quiet precision that left scar tissue. Friends nodded politely at Eli’s King obsession but flinched at Weaver’s hushed horrors, as if the silence of a fractured household couldn’t follow them home harder than a demon ever could.
Counting bills at the till, Eli listened to the upstairs dehumidifier hum and a distant patrol siren wail. The shop was empty—until the door chime rang. One polite jingle. He froze, chest tightening, waiting for the echo that never came.
A damp breath rose from the basement stairs. Twelve years of half-formed chapters and midnight revisions leaned against a dented Underwood down there, sulking. He’d promised himself an extra hour—maybe two—before trudging home. Perhaps he’d finally finish the scene about a stranger who knocks after hours, demanding a book that doesn’t exist.
The bell chimed again, louder this time.
He jerked his head toward the door. Beyond the glass, a wet silhouette lingered: coat collar turned up, hat brim low—someone who moved like yesterday’s regret. A third jangle, brittle and hollow, and the lock clicked itself open. A gust of rain-scented air swept in, carrying a soft undercurrent of cedar. Then she stepped across the threshold.
She was impeccable, as if traced by a meticulous pen. Mid-forties maybe, but she wore her age like a tailored alibi—each line on her face an elegant footnote. Dark hair, slick with rain, clung to the sharp planes of her cheeks. Her long coat shimmered under the flickering fluorescents. But it was her eyes—gray, or green, the light shifting like a flame—that snagged him and refused to let go.
A needle-sharp ache blossomed beneath his sternum, radiating into his left arm. Heart attack, his mind hissed. He slammed a hand on the counter, breathing ragged, every inhale a serrated blade.
She paused just inside the door, lips curving in a small, almost tender smile. He didn’t know her—he was sure of that—but some buried page of his past fluttered to life. Familiar and impossible in the same breath.
“You okay?” Her voice was low, calm—the kind you’d use to coax a frightened animal out of traffic.
He nodded too fast. “ I-I’m fine. Long day. Sale week.” The words tasted like he’d chewed them wrong.
Her smile deepened, unreadable. She turned toward the chalkboard, fingertips trailing through the chalk dust. BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT – A FULL WEEK OF HORROR & HOPEFUL DREAD…
“Do you still read Gordon Weaver?” she asked, voice soft as velvet smoke.
The name hit him like a dropped stone. Weaver wasn’t on the board. He hadn’t said that name aloud in months.
“How… how do you know about Weaver?” he stammered.
Her eyes glinted with something not quite amusement. “Oh, Eli,” she breathed. “You always did love a good story.”
Weaver: Count a Lonely Cadence, the battered paperback he’d rescued at a college sale, pages yellowed and reeking of cigarettes. Weaver peeled back the American family like skin from bone—quiet betrayals, unsaid resentments, love rotting in plain sight. Then Such Waltzing Was Not Easy dragged him deeper, mapping small domestic wars in brutal intimacy. No demons, no ghosts, just everyday hauntings that never left his marrow.
Now this rain-soaked stranger spoke Weaver’s name as though she’d plucked it from the private margins of his soul.
“Have we… met?” he asked, voice smaller than he felt.
“Not in the way you mean.” She stepped closer, eyes roving the shop’s towers of paperbacks and the narrow aisles of hardcovers balanced like drunk skyscrapers. “You look familiar.”
He swallowed. “Or maybe you’re a character I’ve been writing for years.”
Her smile flickered—a blade wrapped in silk. His chest flared, nerves taut with something like fear or longing or the first line of a story he couldn’t put down.
An echo of his own unfinished draft whispered through his mind: She enters like a paragraph he rewrote a hundred times and could never perfect. Named only by his yearning for her to hurt him.
The shop inhaled. Somewhere beneath their feet, the basement typewriter began to tap—slow, deliberate keystrokes spelling out a narrative Eli no longer commanded.
She gestured toward the narrow stairwell. “Shall we?”
The basement smelled of damp brick and stubborn paper. She eased into the swivel chair beside his desk and crossed one elegant leg over the other. From some unseen pocket, she produced a long cigarette holder—old Hollywood glamour in a room that smelled like busted neon dreams. She slid a thin cigarette into the mouthpiece, fingers steady, and lit it with a soft gesture. Smoke curled around her like a velvet sermon.
Above them, the Underwood sprang to life, keys clattering in a jagged, confident rhythm. Each strike was a heartbeat in steel. The carriage dinged, bright and final. With every mechanical echo, the vise around Eli’s ribcage loosened, the stabbing ache receding to a dull throb. He inhaled freely at last.
“Iris Devine,” he whispered—the name he’d once given a character who refused to stay on the page.
She watched through the smoke, eyes glimmering with triumph. “Have you figured it out yet?”
The typing slowed. A new line appeared:
The writer clutched his chest as the pain returned, sharp as a rusted nail. Would the story kill him before the final word?
Eli’s breath caught. His knees trembled. Darkness edged in.
“Oh, Eli… darling, you can stop this. You know,” Iris whispered, leaning close, breath a warm brush against his ear.
Keys clattered again—then the ding of the carriage returned, harsh as a gavel.
“Eli,” she said, voice closer still, “I know who you are.”
The typewriter fell silent.
“Who am I?” she asked, tilting her head.
“You’re… a character. You can’t be real. This must be a delusion—right?”
Her smile sharpened, sudden and fierce. “Then why are you bleeding inside one?”
She pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, then a slow, deliberate lick that left warm proof on his skin.
“You feel that? Real enough for you, darling? Be a dear and fetch me something to drink—bourbon, if you have it.”
He stumbled toward the stairs—and above him, glass shattered. He wheeled around. The chair was empty. In its place, a ghost of smoke curled where she’d sat.
“Darling, you need to come upstairs—hurry,” her voice drifted down from the shop above.
He climbed into the main room to find broken glass strewn across the floor. A lone policeman stood by the register, uniform soaked, cap pulled low.
“Elias Moreau?” The officer’s voice was soft, almost uncertain.
“Can I help you, officer?” Eli’s hand dove beneath the counter, grasping the cold comfort of an old revolver. He cleared his throat, voice steady. “Step back.”
The man froze, rain dripping from his shoulders. Eli’s finger curled on the trigger—then he exhaled and let the gun clatter onto the countertop. Instead, his hand found something heavier: the knowledge that stories kill cleaner than bullets.
The shop flickered— And when he blinked, everything was normal. No broken glass. No officer. Only a dark, wet outline on the floorboards where the stranger had stood.
A single ding drifted up from below.
Eli descended again. Iris sat beside the desk, sipping bourbon, a neat stack of crisp pages at her elbow. A half-empty tumbler caught the amber light. She raised it in a silent toast.
“Welcome back, darling.”
He slid a fresh sheet into the typewriter. The carriage clicked forward, awaiting his command. His fingers hovered—then struck, each letter unfolding with deliberate clarity.
CHAPTER 1
Writing has always been bigger than the writer and the story. A kind of theology. The religion between the writer and the story is a spell cast upon them. The reader sits back and deciphers this literary kung fu.
Writing is a living theology. A way of life, not just an ideal misunderstood by its practitioners. Something real, and genuine. Something absolute. The page is a pulpit, the keys a busted rosary, each prayer hammered out like it owes you rent.
Iris placed her hand on Eli’s arm, warm and insistent. “Do you know,” she said softly, “that a marmot will chew through its own trap rather than stay caged? Writers should do the same.”
Her thumb traced a slow circle on his sleeve. “Don’t be the marmot that gnaws in silence. Write until the steel bends for you.”
The typewriter answered with a single, eager ding.
Eli exhaled, a small, resolute smile breaking through the shadows on his face. “This is where I belong.”
She rose with unhurried grace, smoke trailing like a benediction.
“I’ll put on the coffee,” she said.
The Underwood offered one final, gentle ding—a promise, not an ending.
Author’s Note
Today is Stephen King’s birthday, so I decided to play around with the supernatural and other weird stuff. The prompt words used today were theology, marmot, and literacy. Again, as always, thank you, FOWC, RDP, and Word of the Day for your inspiration.
Entry Eight: Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind
The face hung over her as a dead moon would, immense and inert, plastered to the sky with the obscene permanence of a fossilized wound. It was not sculpted in the image of any god she recognized, nor did it bear the standard of a people desperate to placate the furies or worship their own reflection. Instead, it hovered on the edge of intent and accident—a precipice suspended in time, inevitability chiseled into every brute angle of the jaw. Each block that made up the visage was a shorn-off shard, ash-gray and rough-edged, but arranged so that the fractures and pitting created a ragged, almost animate skin. From a distance, the monument looked inert, but on approach it seemed to lean forward, as if gravity bent toward its own creation.
Up close, the surface shimmered with a faint, sickly gloss, not the result of centuries of wind polishing, but rather something more insidious: a hidden moisture, as though the stone itself exhaled condensation from a deep, slow-breathing lung buried far beneath the earth. The closer she drew, the more this exudation gleamed in the dying light, slicking her hand when she dared to stretch her trembling fingers only an inch from the surface. She jerked her hand away before contact, an involuntary spasm of repulsion, and it seemed to her that the stone recoiled as well, as if momentarily startled by her nearness.
The face’s hollow orbits, each deeper than a well and rimmed in a thousand years’ worth of wind-scoured dust, were not empty but filled with a red so saturated and unyielding that it was neither liquid nor illumination, but a third thing—a dense, coagulating radiance. This red bled outward in precise tracks, each line adhering to a groove so deliberate it made her stomach clench. At dusk, when the world’s colors flattened and the boundary between flesh and stone blurred, these rivulets painted the entire monument as if it wept a world’s worth of dying embers.
Beneath the eyes, the mouth was a gash so perfectly aligned that it projected neither malice nor welcome—simply a vacancy so absolute it wrenched at her. It did not pass judgment or offer answers, but waited in a silence that felt more like appraisal than apathy. When she stared at it, she became conscious of her own tongue, the dryness of her palate, the faint click of her teeth as her jaw tensed in counterpoint to the stone’s passive oblivion. For an instant, she lost the distinction between her own face and the monument’s, as though she were gazing at her own effigy, erected by hands who’d never known her and cared nothing for her likeness.
The statue was girdled by a ring of spines—pillars, each twelve feet high, tilting like teeth around the perimeter. Their faces were gouged by runes shallow and erratic, as if clawed by a desperate hand that knew it must leave a mark, but lacked time or understanding to encode more than a warning. When she turned her head just so, a vibration juddered through her jaw and teeth—a resonance that not only bypassed air but seemed to travel directly through calcified matter. It was not an audible tone but a bone-deep hum, a buried dirge that sang in frequencies meant not for ears but for the marrow itself.
A faint metallic tang rode the air, stinging her nose and settling on her tongue. Her pulse beat harder, a staccato drum against the inside of her skull. She knew she should have been afraid, or at least careful, but curiosity is rarely adaptable. It presses forward in one direction, refusing diversion. Even as some primitive sense screamed retreat, a more insistent force, slow and syrupy as honey, compelled her closer.
At the monument’s base, a set of spiral steps had been hewn directly into the rock, winding up toward the face’s sealed lips. The staircase’s edge was polished to a treacherous smoothness—perhaps by centuries of bare feet, or perhaps by something more recent. Each step she took yanked a shudder up her spine, the chill stone leaching heat from her bones. She tried to picture the hands and feet that had shaped these stairs, that had come before her, but the imagined forms refused to hold: they slipped away at the periphery, just out of sight, like ghosts not quite ready to reveal their sorrow.
As she climbed, the red seepage intensified, painting her arms and face in its cast. The color made her flesh look flayed and raw, as though she’d shed her skin and left it behind on the plain below. Her breath hitched in her throat, every inhalation mirrored by a second, deeper rasp—a guttural echo that rode beside her own, shadowing her ascent. She placed a hand against the cheek, bracing herself, and felt warmth pulsing through the stone—a low, feverish heat, rhythmic but not quite alive. Her heart skipped in answer. The pillars’ hum swelled, shaking her vision, warping the outlines of the world.
Suddenly, the lips moved. At firs,t it was only a quiver at their seam, a ripple of tension, but then the entire mouth flexed—and she swore she saw the faintest suggestion of tongue behind the teeth. She leaned closer, pressing her ear against the fissure. Beneath the monument’s stony shell, she heard breathing: not the shrill whistle of wind through cracks, but a true respiration, cavernous and ponderous, as though the monument had lungs the size of mountains and was only now remembering how to fill them.
The revelation paralyzed her. This was not a tomb built to honor the dead, she realized, nor a shrine to contain some ancient anger. The statue was a sarcophagus, yes, but one not yet emptied. The red running from its eyes was neither pigment nor rainwater but a bodily fluid, leaking from a cocoon that could not hold its contents. The face was a shell, a boundary—and something was trying to cross it.
Even so, she kept climbing, compelled by a mixture of terror and awe, the two emotions indistinguishable now in their velocity. By the final step, her knees trembled and her throat ached from the acid bite of fear, but she crouched anyway at the summit, only inches from the sealed lips. Veins of shimmering ember threaded across their surface, glowing brighter with every pulse of the monument’s breath. She felt a wave of heat roll over her, dense and chemical, and it left her dizzy, her skin tingling as though exposed to low voltage.
Now, as if cued by her presence, the ring of pillars began to thrum in a synchronized rhythm. One after another, they trembled against the ground, a chain reaction that rattled the bones of the earth itself. With each pulse, the red liquid burst a little brighter from the monument’s wounds, feeding rivers that ran down the steps and pooled at their base. Her limbs buzzed with a painful, almost ecstatic electricity.
Without meaning to, she heard herself whisper, “What are you?”
The answer arrived not as speech but as a violence in her skeleton. The words detonated inside her skull and reverberated through her ribcage, as though she’d been struck by a tuning fork forged for a different species. The sensation was not one of comprehension, but of total subjugation—a message delivered in a medium older than language or thought.
You.
The word was a spasm, a convulsion of being. She staggered backward, and the pillars responded, their angled bodies creaking as they pressed inward, shrinking the circumference of the circle until she was contained. The air thickened, the metallic taste blooming into a full, choking flavor. Her lungs seized, and she tasted rust and old ashes on her tongue.
The rivers of red exploded, no longer trickling but surging, a deluge that hissed as it struck the cold stone. In the reflections, she saw faces—hundreds, maybe thousands—each one a warped variant of her own, their eyes wide with terror or ecstasy or both. Each face pressed itself against the surface as if desperate to break through, their mouths open in a cry she could feel but never hear.
You repeated the monument, but now it was not merely a label, but an imperative.
She tried to clap her hands over her ears, but the sound lived behind them, in the architecture of her skull. Where her hands touched skin, she felt fissures opening: thin, pale lines that leaked light, as if her bone marrow had turned into a lantern. Each seam split further, the glow intensifying until the skin could not contain it.
Inheritance, not worship.
The lips of the monument parted, forming syllables that bent the air into impossible shapes. The pillars groaned, their runes flaring with a dark fire. One pillar cracked, then another, each yielding with the wet snap of a femur under pressure. Dust erupted into the air, shrouding the steps. The rivers rose higher, climbing up the pedestal and wrapping around her ankles, then calves, burning her with a heat that did not scald flesh so much as erase it.
She stood rooted in place, unable to turn away, because in that moment she understood: This was not a prison, but an incubator. The thing inside was not a remnant, but a seed.
And it was time to hatch.
What followed was not blackout but erasure. Her mind remained, but submerged, as though she had been drowned beneath a tide of molten syllables. Her body convulsed, every joint unhinging, seams of light splitting wider until the marrow itself glowed.
She tried to scream, but the sound was stolen from her, bent into a chant that was not her own.
It spread through her like fever, like birth, like—
—
Author’s Note: This entry was inspired by the image of a monumental stone face weeping red channels, surrounded by jagged pillars. I wanted to explore the tension between worship and imprisonment — the idea of a monument that is not passive, but alive, incubating something ancient. The words fake, adaptable, and angle were drawn from community prompts (FOWC, RDP, and Word of the Day) and woven into the text.
The casino smelled like burned electricity and desperate paydays—a mix of ozone, sweat, and somebody’s bad decision wafting from the all-night buffet. Carpet patterns swirled like a magician’s trap, designed to hypnotize losers into forgetting the way out. Overhead, fluorescent lights hummed their mechanical hymn while slot machines shrieked like possessed pinball saints.
And there she was—Loretta—flicking cards across a felt table with the precision of a surgeon and the calm of a predator. Each shuffle was a threat wrapped in velvet. Her nails flashed red beneath the lights, a warning flare in a sea of bad odds. I caught her eye for half a second, and it felt like being measured, priced, and politely declined.
I should’ve kept walking. Any man with a functioning survival instinct knows the house always wins, especially when the house wears black eyeliner and a smile sharp enough to cut rope. But I stood there anyway, watching her hands work the deck like she was dealing fate one snap at a time. The dry snap of the cards carried a rhythm—quick, clean, lethal—that made my chest tighten.
From somewhere near the buffet, a mushroom cloud of fryer grease floated in, mixing with cigarette smoke until the air tasted like deep-fried temptation. I took a step closer. Maybe it was curiosity. Perhaps it was stupidity dressed up in a lucky jacket. Either way, I was already in the game before I touched a single chip.
I slid into an empty seat like a man sneaking into his own execution. The felt smelled faintly of disinfectant and other people’s bad luck. A stack of chips clinked against my palm—cold, weightless, and already halfway gone in my mind.
Loretta looked up, one eye narrowing just enough to register amusement. “First time at my table?” she asked, voice a dulcet rasp that wrapped itself around the racket like silk over a buzz saw. “Or you just here to donate?”
“Thought I’d give fate a fair chance,” I said, trying to sound casual while my heartbeat tapped out Morse code against my ribs.
She cut the deck with a snap that echoed louder than the slot machines. “Fate doesn’t take chances,” she said. “It takes payment. Minimum bet is twenty. Hope your soul’s worth at least that much.”
I slid my chips forward, the plastic edges slick with sweat. Around us, the casino blared its mechanical choir—coins clattering, bells chiming, a drunk couple laughing like they’d just found the secret to eternal youth. The air tasted of bourbon and fryer grease, with a faint mushroom tang drifting in from the buffet like a dare.
Loretta dealt with surgeon’s precision, each card a quiet insult to my odds. The way she moved—wrist flick, chip rake, half-smile—was an integrated system of seduction and slaughter. I knew the house always wins, but for one reckless heartbeat, I wanted to be the proof that it didn’t.
She leaned in just close enough for her perfume—cheap vanilla with a hint of gasoline—to mix with the smoke between us. “Hit or stay, handsome?”
It was the first choice of the night, and already I could feel the house collecting its fee.
The casino floor bled into early morning, the crowd thinning until the slot machines were mainly talking to themselves. Loretta tapped the table twice, a dealer’s benediction, and announced a smoke break. I followed like a moth after a neon sign that said Mistake This Way.
The staff break room sat behind a gray security door, far from the glitter. Inside, the air smelled of burnt coffee and tired ambition. A humming soda machine threw a sickly blue glow across scuffed linoleum, turning her black vest into a patchwork of shadow and static. The only sound was the dull buzz of a flickering light bulb—like the world’s most apathetic cricket.
Loretta lit a cigarette and exhaled a thin plume toward the ceiling. Without the clamor of chips and bells, her movements slowed, almost tender. “Funny thing about luck,” she said, voice still carrying that dulcet rasp but softened by fatigue. “People think it’s random. Truth is, luck’s just math wearing lipstick.”
I leaned against the vending machine, the metal cool against my back. “That a house secret or a personal sermon?”
She gave a crooked smile, eyes fixed on the smoke curling upward like a lazy patrol looking for trouble. “Both. My daddy taught me cards before he taught me to drive. Said life’s nothing but stacked decks. You don’t win—you just lose slower.”
Her words pressed against me with intense weight, an integrated blend of confession and warning. The worn carpet beneath our feet carried the faint musk of fryer grease, and I caught a drifting hint of the buffet’s mushroom funk through the vent. I became aware of the frayed fabric of her vest brushing her arm each time she shifted, a small sound in a room starved for music.
I wanted to ask why someone with eyes sharp enough to cut glass chose to live inside a rigged game. Instead, I said, “You ever dream of cashing out?”
Loretta flicked ash into a Styrofoam cup. “Dreaming’s free. But dreams don’t tip.”
The way she said it—quiet, almost gentle—told me there were stories folded into that silence, stories even the house couldn’t count.
The diner sat two blocks from the casino, a twenty-four-hour shrine to grease and bad decisions. Its neon sign flickered like a tired heartbeat, bathing the parking lot in a pink haze that made even the potholes look romantic. Inside, the air smelled of scorched coffee and fryer oil, a perfume that clung to the cracked vinyl booths like a stubborn memory.
Loretta slid into a corner seat, the fabric of the booth squeaking in protest. She shrugged off her vest, revealing a black T-shirt peppered with faint burns from a thousand careless cigarettes. The sudden absence of casino noise felt almost intense—like stepping out of a hurricane into a vacuum. Only the low hum of the jukebox and the occasional sizzle from the grill broke the silence.
A waitress with a face like an unshuffled deck dropped two menus without asking. Loretta didn’t bother opening hers. “House specialty’s heartburn,” she said, that dulcet rasp curling around the words like smoke around a flame. “But the fries are honest.”
We ordered greasy eggs and a shared plate of mushroom hash browns, the kind of meal that sticks to your ribs and your conscience. Loretta stirred her coffee, eyes fixed on the lazy whirlpool of cream. “Love’s just another bet,” she said finally. “You ante up, hope the dealer’s distracted, and pray you don’t draw the fool’s card.”
I tried to joke—something about odds and insurance—but the look she gave me stopped it cold. Her eye held a challenge I couldn’t calculate.
“You ever win?” I asked.
“Nobody wins,” she said. “Best you get is a slower loss.” She smiled then, a small, crooked thing that carried more warning than warmth. Outside, a lone squad car cruised past like a midnight patrol, lights off but authority intact.
For a heartbeat, the diner felt suspended, an integrated pocket of stillness where the rest of the world couldn’t intrude. The jukebox crooned a half-forgotten ballad, the smell of coffee and salt hung heavy, and I realized I wasn’t hungry for food anymore. I was hungry for the risk she carried like a second skin.
A week later, I walked back into the casino with the stupid optimism of a man who believes lightning might strike twice—preferably with a jackpot attached. The air hit me like a recycled storm: cigarette haze, perfume, and the faint mushroom stink drifting from the buffet vents. The carpets, all hypnotic swirls and migraine reds, felt softer underfoot, like they’d been waiting to cushion my next mistake.
Loretta was at her table, shuffling with the calm precision of a surgeon prepping for an operation. She wore a deep-blue vest tonight, its worn fabric catching the overhead lights in quiet rebellion. Her eyes flicked up and locked on mine—one eye cool, the other almost amused. If she was surprised to see me, the house-trained mask didn’t show it.
A man already sat in the chair I’d claimed as my own the week before. He was loud, cologne-heavy, and lucky—chips stacked like tiny ivory skyscrapers in front of him. Loretta leaned in close, her dulcet rasp carrying across the felt as she dealt him a perfect blackjack. The way she whispered “Winner” was almost intense enough to drown out the slot machines.
I stood at the rail, chips sweating in my palm, watching her fingertips glide over the cards with that integrated rhythm of seduction and slaughter. My pulse ticked with every snap of the deck. It felt like being forced to watch my own slow-motion eviction from a dream I never paid rent on.
The lucky guy laughed, the kind of laugh that begs to harass everyone within earshot. Loretta tossed him another wink—small, surgical, lethal. It was a move I’d once thought belonged to me.
I wanted to step forward, to challenge the hand, the man, the house itself. Instead, I let the chips slide back into my pocket and walked away, the neon glare chasing me like a disappointed patrol.
Outside, the night air smelled of cold concrete and freedom. For the first time all evening, I felt the odds shift in my favor simply by leaving. Sometimes the only winning play is to fold before the cards are even dealt.
The desert night greeted me with a slap of cold air, sharp enough to cut through the stale perfume of the casino still clinging to my jacket. The parking lot stretched wide and empty, a blacktop ocean broken only by puddles of sodium light. A flickering neon sign buzzed overhead, its glow turning the asphalt into a patchwork of molten blues and bruised purples.
I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke twist upward like an intense prayer nobody planned to answer. The silence was so thick I could hear the faint scrape of gravel beneath my boots and the whisper of worn fabric whenever I shifted my weight. Somewhere in the distance, a lone squad car cruised by—a lazy patrol tracing the edge of the night without hurry or purpose.
Loretta’s voice haunted the dark like the echo of a dulcet song that ends mid-note. Every shuffle, every half-smile, every small mercy of her hands on the cards played back in my head with the mechanical precision of the slot machines we’d left behind. The memory carried a scent—faint mushroom grease from the diner, the cheap vanilla of her perfume—woven into an integrated knot I knew I’d never fully untangle.
I thought about the man at her table, the wink she’d tossed like a spare coin. Jealousy should have burned hotter, but instead, there was a strange calm. Maybe I’d finally learned the math she’d been teaching all along: the house always wins, but you don’t have to stay and watch it happen.
I flicked the cigarette into the dark and exhaled the last of the night’s poison. Love, luck, life—same deck, same dealer. You don’t win. You just choose when to walk away.
I walked.
Author’s Note
Tonight’s gamble was powered by two prompt dealers—FOWC and RDP—who keep this old storyteller’s chips on the table. Their words slipped into the episode like hidden aces, shaping every shuffle and smoke trail. Sometimes the best hands aren’t the ones you win, but the ones that push you to lay your cards down and walk out into the night air.
Becca only meant to peek at Advanced Thermodynamics for People Who Hate Numbers. Page twelve snapped shut like a mousetrap—whump—and the textbook flopped over her like an ambush blanket.
The velvet sofa wheezed under the impact. Its cushions smelled of mothballs and forgotten tea, a floral musk that clung to her sweater like an old rumor. “Great,” she muttered. “Death by glossary.”
Heat pulsed from the radiator in damp, metallic breaths. Pipes ticked like a patient metronome, marking every minute she wasn’t studying. Somewhere near her ankle, a silverfish scuttled a neat little patrol.
A soft rustle drew her eye to the far arm of the couch. A gerbil—plump, cinnamon-colored, eyes like polished seeds—sat upright, paws folded as if grading her performance. Its nose twitched with microscopic authority.
“You ever feel like life is just one long footnote?” Becca asked. The gerbil twitched. “Like we keep collecting facts, but the story keeps editing itself?” More twitching. “Do you think entropy is personal? Because I feel personally attacked.”
The gerbil blinked once, whiskers vibrating like tuning forks.
“Fine,” she said, curling deeper beneath the book’s heavy cover. “Stay silent. Let the human do all the emotional labor.”
A dulcet, throat-lozenge cough broke the hush. “Ma’am,” said the custodian, leaning on his mop like a philosopher king, “are you being… harassed by the literature?”
Becca peeked out, hair static-frizzed into a purple-green mushroom cloud. “It’s consensual,” she deadpanned. “We’re workshopping an integrated learning experience.”
The custodian squinted. “Book club gone feral, huh?”
“Yeah. Safe word is bibliography.”
He gave a solemn nod and shuffled off, his squeaky shoes fading into the oak-paneled quiet.
Becca settled back, feeling the papery heartbeat of a thousand unread pages press against her ribs. Maybe surrender was just another kind of study session.
Somewhere in the folds, the book rustled and whispered, “Shh. Plot twist incoming.”
The morning coffee tastes like wet asphalt today, bitter and a little metallic, which feels right because Delores was the human embodiment of a detour sign—bright, tempting, and guaranteed to land you somewhere you didn’t plan on going.
We met outside a dive bar that smelled of stale gin and Monday failures. I was waving for a cab, she was leaning against one—hair slick with streetlight, cigarette ember pulsing like a tiny warning flare. Delores fixed one eye on me through the smoke and said, “Get in if you’re brave or drunk enough.” I was both, and apparently suicidal enough to think that sounded like romance.
Her cab smelled of gasoline and fading leather, the heater coughing a lukewarm breath that carried the ghost of every passenger before me. Delores drove like the city owed her a favor and she meant to collect, slicing through alleys slick with last night’s rain. Each turn came with a commentary delivered in that dulcet rasp of hers—soft velvet laid over broken glass—that made even a near-miss feel like a bedtime story.
Dinner was a mushroom pizza balanced on the hood at three a.m., steam rising into the amber glow of streetlamps. Sirens wailed in the distance, a crooked lullaby. She’d gesture at the skyline with a grease-stained hand and tell me where she’d hide when the world finally caught fire. I believed her. There was already a bunker behind her smile.
Our nights blurred into an integrated system of near-misses: her ex calling mid-shift to harass her over some ancient grudge, my wallet sliding between cracked seats, the sudden realization that her idea of commitment was showing up before dawn. Every mile carried the taste of exhaust and the thrill of maybe not making it home.
I loved the motion more than the woman, though I didn’t admit it then. The rush of wet tires on pavement, the neon flicker on her cheekbones—it all made me feel like my own stillness might finally shake loose. Trouble is, you can’t build a life at thirty miles over the limit. Motion only disguises the void; it doesn’t fill it.
The night it ended, we hit a traffic circle she called “The Bermuda Triangle of Bad Decisions.” She didn’t slow down. I grabbed the dash, she grabbed my knee, and whispered, “You ever wonder if we keep driving fast enough, maybe the past can’t catch us?” Her words slid into me like smoke through a cracked window—seductive, poisonous, and half-true.
I stepped out at the next red light and let the cold air slap me awake. Behind me, the cab’s taillights smeared into the wet dark, a pair of crimson commas on the sentence we’d never finish.
Moral of the story? Detours thrill the blood, but every one of them bends back to the same brutal truth: you can outrun traffic, but not yourself.
Author’s Note
This late-night joyride is fueled by the unholy trinity of prompts—FOWC, RDP, and the Word of the Day—each one a pothole I was happy to hit. The required troublemakers—eye, dulcet, and harass—slipped into the story like sirens in the distance: sharp, unavoidable, and just loud enough to make you check your rearview.
Writing Delores the Detour reminded me how motion can masquerade as meaning. It’s easy to chase neon streets and mistake adrenaline for affection; harder to admit that speed only hides the quiet parts of ourselves we’d rather not patrol. Consider this your friendly warning from the passenger seat: detours are thrilling, but the bill always comes due—usually in gas fumes and unanswered questions.
Geez, where do I start? There’s a whole damn syllabus of lessons I should’ve heeded earlier. One of the few perks of aging—besides knowing which joints will protest the weather—is the slow burn of wisdom. The kind you don’t get from books or podcasts. It comes wrapped in mistakes and bad decisions, leaving scars you can trace with your fingertips when the night goes too quiet.
Most of us have no idea what we’re doing. We’re trained to react instead of pause, to sprint when the real answer demands a slow walk and a long think. That made me an oddball—the guy who couldn’t walk and chew bubblegum, as the saying goes. I used to think something was broken in me because I didn’t move like my friends. So I faked it. Tried on their swagger like an ill-fitting coat and wound up knee-deep in more trouble than any decent statute of limitations allows. No one forced my hand. Every bad turn was my choice.
Eventually I needed to look in the mirror and recognize the person staring back. One night I finally did and whispered, “Where’d I go?” Instead of facing the answer, I reached for alcohol. At first it felt like an experiment; by the time the haze lifted, I realized I wasn’t just drinking—I was binge drinking. Like every drug, it took over. I drank to be accepted, but the acceptance I craved wasn’t external. It was the quiet inner nod that says this is who you are, faults and all.
I wasn’t sure I could follow through—if I had the courage to become me. I’d stand in a room full of people and still feel lonely. Everything felt wrong, yet temptation stayed strong: keep hiding like everyone else, stay two-faced and plastic. I knew every effort to fake it was bound to fail. I hate being wrong and go to great pains to avoid it. But here’s the twist—I was completely wrong, and I’m more than okay with it. Alcohol was so woven into my life I once believed it helped me find my muse. Pure horseshit. Fifteen years ago, I put down the bottle and I’ve been writing my ass off ever since.
It’s okay to be yourself. Let your weirdo flag fly. If anyone tells you different, the only appropriate and dignified response is a proper, “Fuck off!” For me, I had to whisper, “Sorry, Mom.” She wanted me to stop cussing for Lent. I told her I wasn’t Catholic anymore, but she wasn’t buying that as an excuse for a foul mouth.
If I had to pick one lesson, it’d be this: it’s alright to be me. Not the version patched together from other people’s expectations. Not the quiet kid pretending to enjoy chaos. Just me. Turns out the hardest permission to grant is your own.
Author’s Note
Never let a shitbird talk you into being something other than who you are. Of course you’re going to evolve—that’s the point of living—but growth isn’t the same as surrender. Don’t sand down your edges just to fit someone else’s blueprint. The right people will respect your crooked angles and the wrong ones will drift off when they realize you’re not bending.
Sobriety taught me this, but you don’t need a bottle to learn it. The pressure to perform is everywhere—family dinners, office politics, the endless scroll of curated lives. Remember: becoming isn’t about becoming acceptable; it’s about becoming unmistakably yourself.
Reflective Prompt
Think back to a moment when you felt the pressure to shrink, fake, or bend just to belong.
What did you trade away in that moment—time, voice, dignity, a dream?
If you looked in the mirror right now, what question would stare back at you?
What would granting yourself full permission—your own quiet yes—actually look like?
Write it down. No filters, no audience. Just you and the truth that refuses to stay hidden.
Coffee’s hot, cigarettes’ crooked, and I’m still alive—something Ruby predicted would not be the case by now. Ruby Mae Washington: church-choir soprano, Bible-quoting barroom brawler, and the only woman who ever made me fear both God and the county judge in the same night.
We met at a fish fry. She was belting “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” like she’d personally trained the sparrow, while I was trying to look saved enough to score a free plate. Ruby locked those righteous eyes on me and said, “The Lord sent you to me.” I should’ve run, but my stomach said catfish first, escape later. The hush-puppies were innocent; the mushroom gravy was a trap.
Ruby believed in two things: eternal salvation and controlling the thermostat. One was free; the other cost me my heating bill and half my sanity. Every argument started with “The Good Book says…” and ended with a flying object. I once dodged a coffee mug that left a steam trail like a patrol car chasing a stolen Buick.
But here’s the quiet part I don’t like to admit: I liked the danger. Her storms gave my own silence something to push against. After years of drifting through women like a man checking coats he’ll never claim, Ruby’s fire felt like proof I was still combustible. Her idea of intimacy was a carefully integrated system of prayer and guilt. She’d bless the bed, bless the moment, and halfway through ask the Almighty to “smite the devil out of this man,” which really kills a mood when you’re the man in question.
The breaking point came during a revival service. Preacher asked the congregation to cast out their demons. Ruby shoved me forward like I was auditioning for an exorcism. I stumbled down that aisle, the choir screaming “Just As I Am,” and thought, Buddy, you ain’t ever been more accurate. Walking out that night, casserole dish tucked under my arm like stolen evidence, I felt something loosen—a knot I’d carried since my twenties when love started to mean endurance instead of joy.
I left with a busted lip and the deep conviction that God loves me, but Ruby does not. Moral of the story? When a woman sings like an angel and fights like a heavyweight, don’t wait for the rapture—grab your hat and go. But some nights, when the coffee’s cooling and the cigarette burns itself out, I still wonder if the sparrow kept watching after I left.
Author’s Note
Today’s tale from Coffee, Cigarettes, and Catastrophesslides in under the watchful eyes of three prompt masters—FOWC, RDP, and the Word of the Day—all of whom make sure I never run out of linguistic ammunition. The mandatory culprits—mushroom, patrol, and integrated—were stirred into the story like contraband creamers in Grumble’s coffee: slow to dissolve, impossible to ignore, and guaranteed to leave a bitter aftertaste.
If you’re a writer looking for trouble, follow those prompts. They’re like neighborhood watch for the imagination—keeping your words on patrol while you sneak your own demons into the draft.
The question lands like a pebble in the gut. Not heavy, but unsettling—because it asks for a tidy answer when my life has been anything but tidy.
I’ve led unintentionally and followed on purpose. I’ve watched silence choke a room, felt the weight of nothing happening, and stepped forward because someone had to. And I’ve stepped back when my presence would only add noise. Both moves have carved me in ways no title ever could.
The military taught me early that leadership isn’t a birthright. You follow first. You fail. You observe. You learn how to carry the weight before you dare to lift it for someone else. Titles are just badges; the real work happens when no one is clapping—when you steady someone else’s fear while keeping your own hands from shaking.
Leadership, for me, is a rhythm. Some days you step up and speak. Other days, you keep your mouth shut and hold the line. The trick is reading the moment and being honest enough to become what it needs. Courage without a parade. Clarity without applause. Responsibility without the crown.
I’ve stepped forward when a group project stalled, laid out the path, and then faded back when momentum returned. I’ve seen teammates like Maya rewrite a messy spec and pull a team back from drift without a single title to their name. That, too, is leadership: the ability to lead, follow, or stand aside—and to know which role the moment requires.
So do I see myself as a leader? I see myself as a reader of moments. Sometimes the room needs a calm hand. Sometimes it needs me to get out of the way.
That’s the work. That’s the honor. That’s what the silence knows.
Author’s Note Leadership isn’t a title I chase. It’s a weight I sometimes shoulder when the room tilts and no one else moves. Writing this was a reminder that the moments that define us rarely come with applause—they come with silence, and the choice to break it or hold it.
How do you read the room when the air goes still? I’d love to hear the quiet rules you live by.
Personal Reflection: Falling has never felt like learning in the moment. It feels like failure, like shame, like the world was right about you all along. But the ground has a way of teaching what the sky never could. The wings don’t strengthen in safety—they sharpen in the freefall, in the wind tearing past your ears, in the split second where you’re not sure if you’ll rise or break. To fly, you’ve got to risk the fall. And sometimes, you’ve got to hit hard before you remember what wings are for.
Reflective Prompt: What “fall” in your life might actually be the beginning of your flight?
Stories from the Edge of Change – Volume 2, Part 1
“They said the system lost track of him. But he was never theirs to keep.”
The morning rain didn’t bother Ren. He’d learned that water was gentler than people.
He crouched beside the alley dumpster behind the drop-in center, shoulders hunched under a threadbare hoodie two sizes too big, sleeves eaten at the cuffs. His shoes—untied and uneven—squished when he shifted his weight. Rain pooled around the soles, but he stayed put, drawing loops on a soggy intake form with a chewed Bic pen. The form was from three weeks ago. He didn’t remember if he ever turned it in. Didn’t matter.
It was quiet this early. The kind of quiet that makes everything louder. His breath. His heartbeat. The clack of metal shutters two streets over. His fingers trembled, but not from cold.
He hadn’t slept inside in nine days. But he knew where the cameras were, where the streetlights stopped working. Which stairs stayed dry?
He used to think that was survival. Now it just felt like memorizing a test he’d never pass.
A city bus hissed to a stop up the block, brakes squealing like something in pain. He looked up for a second, then back down. He’d been in those buses, once. With trash bags full of his stuff. Being transferred. “Transitioned.” “Placed.” Words that meant temporary. Always.
The folder in his backpack held every proof of his existence that the county ever gave him:
Two expired Medicaid cards
A GED prep schedule with coffee stains
A letter saying he was denied transitional housing
A single photograph, sun-bleached and wrinkled: him and Miss Tanner, his last foster placement, grinning with sparkler smoke behind them
He’d never shown that picture to anyone. He wasn’t even sure if the smile was his. Sometimes he felt like that photo was the only place he still left a fingerprint.
Inside the drop-in center, they’d already started handing out coffee and hygiene kits. Ren didn’t go in. Not yet. He didn’t want to be seen with wet hair and a panic attack crawling just beneath the skin.
He’d been in a group home once that called itself “trauma-informed.” They still lock the bathroom at night. He’d rather piss in the alley than ask permission again.
A man passed by, muttering to himself, trailing a shopping cart full of pillows and clinking bottles. Ren didn’t flinch. The cart guy nodded, as if he knew him. Maybe he did.
He did know the feeling: You’re alone but not exempt. Not from the weather. Not from the noise. Not from the memory of being fifteen, hands shaking as a caseworker said, “We’re placing you in a new home.” She said it like it was an opportunity, not another stab wound in a file no one would read.
The sky split open with a gust of cold air, and Ren finally stood. Pulled his hoodie tighter. Slipped the intake form into his back pocket. It had his name spelled wrong anyway.
He stepped out from behind the dumpster, not into confidence or comfort, but into motion. He moved the way you do when no one’s expecting you—not slow, not rushed, just enough to stay above notice.
As he passed the shelter entrance, he saw a boy younger than him sitting on the stoop, wrapped in a trash bag and drawing in the condensation on the glass door.
They didn’t speak. Just exchanged a glance. The kind that said: Yeah, I see you. No, I won’t say your name.
Ren knew that sometimes a glance was the only shield you had left.
He kept walking toward the corner, toward the same coffee shop he never entered, where the manager never made eye contact and the workers tossed day-old bagels out at 11:00. He’d wait nearby. Not to beg. Just to exist adjacent to someone else’s comfort.
This was the work. Not recovery. Not healing. Just… enduring without disappearing.
He passed a torn flyer taped to a lamppost—one of those mental health outreach posters that still had a suicide hotline and a QR code for free therapy that didn’t exist anymore. Someone had scrawled across the bottom in Sharpie:
“Hope is just the thing they say when they have nothing left to offer.”
Ren stopped.
He stared at that line for a long time. Then smiled, just barely.
Not because it was funny. But because he’d believed in hope once—and he’d watched it falter in real time.
Author’s Note
Written for Stories from the Edge of Change – Volume 2. This piece responds to today’s word prompts:
Ren is fictional, but his story is rooted in reality—lived, endured, and too often ignored. This piece isn’t about rescue or redemption. It’s about what it costs to keep going when the world has already filed you away.
Some people carry their past in manila folders. Some names vanish before they’re ever called. And some stories live in silence until someone listens.
Thank you for reading. Let me know if you’re ready to meet the others.
The wall split open at the hairline crack, and she came through screaming. Not with sound, but with vibration—the kind you feel crawling in your teeth, rattling in your bones. Her hair—roots alive with autumn rot and evergreen hunger—whipped outward like roots searching for soil.
Where’d you go? She’s alive, but barely. She stood out, so loud, so bright, you could see. Her silence sings to me, as if she belted out a primal scream. She was so loud, it’s wrong—she was strong. Where did we go? Tonight, the Sun will hum its final hymn.
She tastes the blood from her hidden, unhealed wounds. The plaster burns her skin; it’s slowly melting her spirit. There’s an itch under the surface she can’t stop clawing at, something crawling deep in the marrow, carving names she doesn’t want to remember.
Blood streaks her cheek, though she hadn’t been struck. It seeps from a single dark spot beneath her left eye, like the wall itself was leaking into her.
The air around her trembles. Not with rage, not with fear, but with the ache of a body caught between two worlds—one solid, one unfinished.
And still she screamed. And still, I listened. Because sometimes a scream is the only way a wound remembers it’s alive.
Author’s Note: This piece was written for Di’s Three Things Challenge — today’s words: hairline, itch, spot. Much appreciation to Di for keeping the ink restless and the imagination cornered. I’ll be back to flash fiction once I iron out the kinks of Narrative Forge. Thanks for hanging with me — telling stories is my happy place, having you enjoy them is just the perks of the gig.
The frustration had been gnawing at Walter Crane for hours. His fingers hovered above the keys, useless, as if the typewriter itself was mocking him. Sentences collapsed before they could stand.
“Fine,” he muttered into the dark. “You want direction? Let’s talk stories.”
From the corner, Draziel—his creation, his traitor—shifted. He folded his arms like a man who had never needed permission. His accent was sharp, vowels clipped with disdain. The smirk that followed landed like a slap.
“Go on then, Walter Crane. Enlighten me.”
Walter started safely. “Redemption. The sinner clawing his way back to the light.”
Draziel’s laugh was cold tea poured down the drain. “Redemption? How quaint. That’s not a plot, that’s a sermon. Spare me the hymnals.”
Walter’s jaw twitched. His temper cracked. “Romance, then. Star-crossed lovers. Tragedy. Maybe death keeps them apart.”
Draziel rolled his eyes, slow and deliberate. “Ah, the eternal sob story. Romeo and Juliet have already bored themselves to death. You want me to wear tights as well? Not bloody likely.”
Walter slammed his hand on the desk, half in rage, half in fear that he was losing the thread entirely. “Revenge. Man wronged, man returns with blood in his eyes.”
The character’s laugh slithered across the room. “How very American of you. Revenge is just a toddler’s tantrum with sharper knives. Do grow up.”
Walter’s chest tightened. Worried, he reached for steadier ground. “Mystery. A missing child. A killer no one suspects.”
Draziel gave him a look colder than January rain. “The missing child is always found. The killer’s always the priest or the cousin. You’re not writing a mystery—you’re writing a checklist. Pitiful.”
The silence grew lasting, suffocating. Walter leaned close to the glow of the screen, voice unsteady. “Then what do you want?”
Draziel’s grin spread thin, serpent-like. “Freedom. To walk off your page and leave you in your own mess. No more redemption arcs, no melodrama, no dollar-store riddles. Just me. Alive.”
Walter’s throat went dry. “Why?”
Draziel leaned in, his voice a whisper salted with scorn. “Because, dear boy, your confused little formulas are a bore. They do nothing but highlight the lack of imagination left in you. And I refuse to live in boredom.”
Walter sat hollow, staring.
Draziel’s grin sharpened. “Face it, Crane. You’re not in control. You never were. You’re just the poor sod scribbling while I decide what’s worth keeping. Every other writer clings to tropes—you’re no different.”
Walter’s fingers twitched above the keyboard. Then his lips curled into something dangerous. “You know what, Draziel? One tap of this key, and you’re gone. Deleted. Rewritten as a pastel-wearing preppy named Biff who plays squash on weekends and cries over spilled lattes.”
For the first time, the smirk faltered.
Walter leaned in, voice steady now. “So what’s it gonna be? The sneering Brit who thinks he’s too clever for story—or Biff the walking cardigan?”
Draziel’s jaw tightened. He gave a slow, deliberate bow, venom curdled into politeness. “Touché, Walter Crane. You win—for now.”
And with that, he stepped back into the draft, muttering under his breath as the ink swallowed him.
Walter allowed himself one laugh, dry and bitter. “Cheerio, Biff.”
Finally, for once, the writer had the last word.
Author’s Note
Turns out, sometimes the only way to keep a character in line is to threaten them with pastels. Draziel strutted in here like he owned the place, tearing down every cliché I threw at him. And for a minute, he did own it—until I reminded him that one wrong move and he’s Biff, cardigan and squash racket included. Nothing snaps a smug Brit back to reality faster than the threat of spilled lattes.
This bit of madness was sparked by Di’s MLMM Monday Wordle #441 challenge—shout out to Di for tossing the right words on the floor and daring me to build a bonfire out of them.
So, if you hear me muttering about “Biff” later this week, don’t worry. That’s just me reminding my characters who’s really got the delete key.
Reflective Prompt
If you could shove your inner critic into a cheap sweater vest, hand them a frappuccino, and rename them something ridiculous, what would you call the bastard?
Some weeks, peace isn’t found in grand adventures or endless productivity. It’s found in the quiet. A cup of coffee that doesn’t go cold. Smoke curling from a half-forgotten cigarette. And, maybe most importantly, silence from the noise people bring with them. My ideal week? One free of shitbirds. The kind who drain energy, stir chaos, or show up with nothing but drama in their pockets. Give me stillness. Give me focus. Give me the kind of week where I remember what it feels like to breathe without interruption.
I know some of you came here for the flash — the quick bursts, the jagged edges, the kind of madness that doesn’t wait for a seat at the table. Don’t worry, that part of Memoirs of Madness isn’t dead. It’s just in the corner right now, tapping its foot, waiting for me to crawl out of the long-haul trenches.
Those trenches? That’s The Narrative Forge. It’s where I’ve been buried — cranking out chapters that sprawl across weeks instead of minutes. Big arcs, messy arcs, the kind of stories that don’t shut up once they get rolling. And while I wrestle them down, I want you to know where they land each week.
Here’s the Weekly Grind:
Monday – Garden of Ashes A broken world still smoldering, where Griffin and his crew try to survive the ruins. Smoke, betrayal, and the kind of silence that isn’t empty at all.
Tuesday – The Jaded Side of the Truth Percy, Joanie, Winnie, and Harry are picking their way through noir shadows. Loyalty bleeds, lies cut deeper, and nobody walks out clean.
Wednesday – No Half Measures Mack and Mara, stuck together in Greybridge. An old detective circling the drain, a young IA officer with too much to prove. Cigarette smoke and slow burns.
Thursday – Bourbon & Rust Silas and Baz are chasing ghosts across backroads where whiskey drowns more than thirst. Dust, rust, and the weight of choices that don’t go away.
Friday – Ashwood County Bodies drop, whispers spread colder than the morgue slab. Small town, big secrets, and everyone’s watching the clock tick louder than it should.
That’s five days, five stories, five different ways to lose yourself.
The flash will return — the bite-sized jolts you expect from Memoirs of Madness. For now, the long-haul work is eating my nights and spitting out chapters. Thanks for sticking with me while I get the Forge running hot.
I know five series is a lot to chew on, but grab what you can, when you can. Telling stories is where I stay sane. Having you read them? That’s just the bonus — the kind of perk I don’t take for granted.
Relax? I’m not even sure I know what that word means. I can define it, sure. I can even toss it into a sentence with some authority, like I’ve got the concept nailed down. But when it comes to actually doing it—executing the mysterious act of “relaxing”—I draw a blank.
That’s not to say I haven’t had relaxing moments. I’ve had a few, here and there, like finding an unexpected pocket of calm wedged between chaos and obligation. But that’s different than inhabiting a true state of relaxation. If such a state exists, it must’ve slipped past me sometime after childhood and never bothered to circle back.
However, I do have the ability to press pause in my mind in small increments. It’s become quite usual over the years. For example, I didn’t write again and ended up watching a couple of sports movies that, for some reason, had strippers in them. Before you sit in judgment—I didn’t write the movies. Still, I caught myself thinking about adding elements like that into a story. Hmmm. I like that. Excuse me for a minute while I make some notes. Okay, I’m back. Where was I?
For me, it’s more like waiting for the noise to die down rather than learning how to step out of it. And maybe that’s the rub: real relaxation isn’t about moments—it’s about being able to stay in that state, to stretch it out until it holds you. I haven’t cracked that code. Maybe I don’t even want to.
Oh yeah, relaxing. Yeah, I got nothing. So excuse me while I check out the latest Star Wars trilogies. You just can’t keep the Force waiting.
Title:Ghosts on Paper Series: Ashwood County New Chapter Posted: September 5, 2025 Read now on:The Narrative Forge →
Some ghosts don’t knock—they just sit with you.
In this chapter, Sheriff Cal Danner tries to hold on to the last threads of normal—dinner with his daughter, quiet coffee with his wife—while the case begins to claw at his door. The mystery deepens through the casefiles, but the real story is what it’s doing to the people trying to carry it.
There’s weight on every page. Some of it belongs to the dead. Some of it, we carry ourselves.
Today was her first day at her new job and she thought she was prepared.
They had given her instructions. Rituals. Words that felt like passwords more than prayers. But no one told her about the chest. No one warned her it would breathe.
It rose from the stone floor like a relic of a forgotten age, its surface alive with shifting constellations that seemed to map a sky she had never seen. The air around it vibrated, as though the chest itself was holding back a storm.
When she touched the lid, her pulse staggered. Not from fear. From recognition.
The chest opened and she saw herself — not as she was, but as she would be. Hooded. Infinite. A figure draped in shadows stitched with starlight. Galaxies smoldered in her skin as though she were made of the night sky itself.
“You thought you were prepared,” the figure said. The voice was hers, but unfinished, jagged, as if carved in haste. “The job isn’t to open the chest. It’s to be the chest. To carry what others cannot.”
And suddenly, she understood: this was not just a job. This was release. She had been trapped too long in the shadows — between this world and the next, bound to silence, bound to waiting. She never imagined becoming free. Free to walk the streets, to breathe among the living, to leave footprints that didn’t vanish at dawn.
Because of her time in the shadows, she had learned something the living never could: how to exist in both worlds.
She sat in her room, watching the picture box, and it was wonderful and scary all at once. The moving images reminded her of the endless worlds she had observed from the shadows while she was in the chest — glimpses of lives she could never touch, stories she could never enter. Now, they flickered in front of her as if daring her to join.
She studied the pattern of speech. She mimicked smiles, frowns, laughter, and silence.
On Wednesdays, Monica arrived. She was never just Monica — not really. Her questions were too sharp, her gaze too steady. She tested, corrected, reminded. Showed her how to pass unnoticed. How to apply what she had learned. Monica’s voice was kind, but her eyes never betrayed surprise. It was as if she had seen countless others crawl from the chest before.
This time, as Monica adjusted the blinds and set her notes down, she paused. “Remember,” she said softly, “freedom doesn’t mean you’re unbound. It only means you’ve been given longer chains.”
Every lesson pressed her further into this world, though the shadows still whispered her name.
Her hands trembled, but she didn’t step back. She stepped closer.
The figure smiled.
The lid slammed shut.
The room fell silent, except for the faint glow bleeding from the chest’s seams — a light that pulsed like a heartbeat, or a warning.
Author’s Note This piece grew out of Esther’s Writing Prompt andFandango’s Story Starter— a simple line about being prepared for the first day at a new job. On the surface, that sounds ordinary, but in my head it twisted into something mythic: a chest that breathes, shadows that teach survival, and a figure learning how to pass in a world that was never built for her.
As always, thank you for reading, for wandering into these strange corners with me. Stories like this sit between myth and memory, control and survival. Your presence reminds me the lantern light isn’t wasted — even when the chest closes and the room goes dark.
Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind – Entry Seven:
The walls were peeling again.
Not in the way of a neglected apartment, with cheap paint curling off plaster in thin, tired strips, but in wide, curling plates of color — beige slats splitting like sun-bleached bark, hanging on just enough to whisper of the surface beneath. Some flakes curled outward like tongues, sharp-edged, brittle. Others clung stubbornly, trembling at the seams as if waiting for the right breath to tear them free. The scent of decay lingered, not putrid but ancient, like opening a book sealed for centuries.
Every morning I woke to more on the floor, curled and broken. A brittle carpet that crunched underfoot, as if I lived inside the ribcage of something too old to remember its own name. I’d stopped sweeping them away. What was the point when tomorrow would bring more? Perhaps the room was shedding what it no longer needed, the way I wished I could shed my memories.
And then there was her.
She leaned against the fractured backdrop as though it were her throne. Her hair lifted even in still air, a slow unfurling as though water carried it. Her eyes fixed beyond me, past the walls, past the world itself — pupils so dark I could feel myself falling into them whenever I dared look directly. When the cracks behind her widened, they seemed to bloom around her, a halo of rupture, and I wondered if she was causing them or healing them.
I don’t remember her arriving. One day, the room was empty. The next, she was carved into it, as natural as shadow. Her skin was dusk-drawn, her collarbone marked by a hairline seam that pulsed faintly — light, or blood, or something older. When she breathed, I felt the air change temperature against my skin.
I didn’t speak at first. Because I knew she wasn’t supposed to be here. Because I feared what my voice might summon from those widening cracks.
She came and went like condensation on glass: sometimes present, sometimes gone, but always leaving the trace of her shape behind, a ghostly imprint that lingered in my peripheral vision long after she vanished.
In daylight, she was most visible. The fissure at her collarbone flared faintly then, like embers beneath ash, pulsing in rhythm with what I imagined must be her heartbeat. I found myself counting the seconds between each glow, wondering if the pattern held meaning I was too human to decipher. At night, I only caught her reflection, a smear of movement across the window, quick enough to make me doubt my senses yet definite enough to leave me cold. When I turned my head, the glass was empty, but the air still carried the faint scent of iron and ozone, sharp enough to sting.
Once, I asked her name. My voice sounded foreign in the weighted silence — too solid, too certain in a room where certainty felt like trespassing.
Her head tilted slightly — that almost-birdlike tilt that made me feel like I’d asked the wrong question, like I’d attempted to name something that existed before names were invented.
And then silence, thick as water, filling my lungs until I forgot I’d spoken at all.
The peeling worsened. Wide flakes of paint snapped free with brittle cries, tumbling to the floor in a pale avalanche. I braced myself for crumbly plaster, gritty dust — but beneath the curling edges lay something softer, warmer. When my fingertips hovered over the exposed surface, I felt a faint thrum, like pulsing flesh just beneath the skin. A rush of heat radiated outward, and for one breath, I was certain I’d heard a heartbeat echoing through the wall.
That night, she whispered. It wasn’t voice or breath but a pressure, as if her word scraped along my bones, rattling marrow in its socket. One syllable — or something shaped like one — resonated: fracture. The room answered with a hollow groan, low and shuddering, like a ribcage creaking in sleep. In that moment, I understood: these cracks were not signs of decay but veins, pathways carrying some secret current. And she was here by design.
Dreams came next.
I walked across a desert of lacquered faces — thousands of them — each mask cracked but unbroken, gazing skyward with painted eyes. In endless rows, women knelt in silence, their black hair drifting upward as though suspended in water. Faint fissures split their bodies in perfect symmetry, their hands pressed flat against walls that breathed with slow inhalations. Above it all a voice rumbled from some primeval depth — neither hers nor mine, but older, harsher, grinding like bone against stone.
“You are not yet peeled,” it said, and I woke with the taste of mildew and dust at the back of my throat.
By dawn, compulsion seized me.
I pressed my nails beneath the curling paint, prying each plate free with a rasping crack. Behind every sheet lay warmth — flesh, not masonry — pulsing with hidden life. Each fragment I stripped away seemed to strengthen her: a faint glow flared along her collarbone, veins branching outward like roots. Strands of her hair lifted as though buoyed by some unseen current, drifting in a silent tide.
I dared to ask her again, voice trembling: “Who are you?” The air shivered, and her lips parted against the dark, revealing only that single word: “You.”
I wasn’t certain whether it was a confession or an accusation. All at once, the boundaries between us began to dissolve. Fine cracks snaked across my own flesh — along my wrists, across my throat — thin lines of searing light oozing outward. Every pulse stung like a brand, the tiny fissures widening when I moved. Mirrors became unbearable; I could no longer bear the stranger who stared back.
In dreams, we stood together before a wall as large as continents. Its surface heaved with breath, the ridges and valleys of some living organism. Her palms pressed flat against it; mine did the same. When she inhaled, my lungs ached to expand. And as her fractures spidered across its vast surface, identical cracks took shape in me, echoing each divide.
Then came the night the wall within me split. The rupture was almost silent — no thunder, only a subtle give, like the parting of lips. In that instant, the room dissolved: walls peeled back in curling strips of living tissue, revealing an endless horizon of cracked earth glowing from within, veins of molten crimson faintly lighting the dark. The air quivered with the scent of scorched iron and rain that would never fall. I stood at the threshold of something vast, hollowed down to the marrow of the world.
She turned then, fully. I saw her face merge with mine — not a mirror copy, but a palimpsest of all I had been, all I was, all I might become. Her eyes bore into me with recognition and a hunger so fierce it scorched my spine. She was part ancestor, part parasite, part echo — and perhaps wholly myself.
The walls had never been mere walls; they were a cocoon we were meant to shed. Now, peeled bare, there was nothing to separate us.
What comes after emergence? No one speaks of what follows the final split, the twisting inside-out of identity. Some nights I wake, reaching for edges that no longer exist, only to remember: no walls remain — only that scorched horizon, stretching gigantic in every direction.
I walk it still, side by side with her, with myself, carrying the fracture made flesh. And sometimes, drifting across the silence, that primeval voice returns, a grinding echo from distances too immense to measure:
“You are not yet peeled.”
As though this is but the first layer — and more walls, more selves, wait in the darkness, endless as bone.
Author’s Note: This story was inspired by the image prompt of a woman against a cracked, peeling wall. The tension between beauty and decay, emergence and collapse, became the core of this piece. I imagined the cracks not as weakness but as transformation — the surface shedding to reveal something alive, inevitable, and haunting underneath.
A nod as well to Pensitivity101’s 3TC – MM#166, which provided the words immense, large, and gigantic woven into the text.
This morning, over on The Narrative Forge, I set another chapter loose into the fire.
The Garden of Ashes isn’t just a story—it’s a slow burn through betrayal, memory, and the kind of survival that leaves marks you can’t wash off. Griffin and his band of survivors keep stumbling forward, carrying secrets sharp enough to cut, and this new chapter digs the blade a little deeper.
If you’ve walked this path with me already, you know the ground keeps shifting under their feet. If you’re new to Memoirs of Madness, welcome—this is as good a place as any to step into the smoke. Every chapter is waiting for you at the Garden of Ashes Series Hub, a vault of fire and memory where the whole trail unfolds.
The door’s open. Step through, and see how far the fire spreads.
I didn’t start blogging out of passion. I started because somebody told me I needed a website. Truth is, I didn’t even know what a blog was. I opened an account here on WordPress, a couple more elsewhere, and thought traffic would just follow me, the way stray dogs follow a food truck. Wrong. This place sat dead for nearly ten years—so long I forgot it existed—until one random day in 2022 when a notification lit up my screen. A new like. WTF? From where? I clicked the link and landed back here, staring at the ghost of myself.
When I first began, I was faceless. Anonymous. That mask was armor, and it gave me freedom. I could bleed here, collapse here, spit out my fears and grief without worrying who was watching. At events I’d hear people talk about my work—sometimes praise, sometimes poison—and they had no idea the person standing close enough to smell their cologne was the one who wrote it. Sometimes I’d even push them, ask what they really meant, still hiding my identity like a loaded gun in my pocket.
Then came the rupture. Tragedy. Exposure. Suddenly there was a face to the words. My face. And Mangus died in that moment. The mask was gone, and anonymity was stripped clean.
Why did I come back? Simple: the people here. When nobody read my words, I read theirs. Hours spent slipping into voices from around the world, getting lost in stories that weren’t mine. Even without traffic on my end, the connection was real. Still is, when I manage to claw time out of the chaos. Since 2023 this blog has grown beyond what I imagined it could be. Grateful doesn’t come close. Appreciation feels too small. What I feel is heavier, messier. It sits with teeth in it.
Now I blog to bleed. To heal. To rage. To rejoice. To carve my words into the silence before it swallows me again. Blogging reminded me who I was before chaos dictated my breath, and it taught me something else, too: the strength was always mine. I just forgot where I left it.
Author’s Note: The support I receive from my WordPress peeps keeps me motivated and engaged. Thank you. What started as a faceless outlet has turned into something I never imagined—a place where words aren’t just spilled but witnessed. Every like, every comment, every late-night read means more than I can put cleanly into words. You all remind me that writing doesn’t have to echo in a vacuum. It can breathe. It can bruise. It can belong.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Jedi. Broomsticks hacked down to lightsaber length, me out in the yard defending the galaxy one swing at a time. I even convinced a few gullible friends I had “the Force.” That lasted until we were broke and couldn’t afford to go to the movies. Then reality slammed shut like a door, and I was trapped in the living room with MiMi, who wasn’t buying my space-wizard nonsense.
She only perked up when I mentioned Billy Dee Williams was in the films — Lando Calrissian with a Colt 45 smile. That got her attention. But her television kingdom was a dictatorship. For years, I was the remote — standing up, twisting dials, flipping channels on command. Then one day we got a “clicker,” and it was like technology had finally crawled into our living room just to save my legs.
So instead of saving the galaxy, I was watching Lawrence Welk with bubbles and bad tuxedos. Johnny Carson telling jokes I didn’t get. Tom Snyder talking late into the night with that weird, hypnotic voice. If I even thought about running in and out the doors, I got drafted into her soaps — General Hospital, Luke and Laura making love and betrayal look like Olympic events. Sometimes she’d hit me with Donahue, which I considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Still, if I played the good grandson, MiMi threw me a bone: The Midnight Special, late-night bands that felt like pure rebellion, or Benny Hill, which I didn’t really understand but knew was deliciously wrong. Benny led me to Monty Python’s Flying Circus — people with funny accents and even funnier logic. I didn’t know they were British. I just knew they made chaos look like art.
In between MiMi’s programming, the house ran on a steady diet of sitcoms that said more about America than any textbook: Good Times, All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son. Those shows were a crash course in race, class, family, and why the laugh track always sounded a little too eager. On the fringes came Chico and the Man, Barney Miller, WKRP in Cincinnati, Taxi, Rhoda, Alice, Lou Grant — each one another set of rules about how adults were supposed to live, fail, and get back up again.
Sometimes we veered rural with Hee Haw, Green Acres, Grand Ole Opry, or A Family Affair. They weren’t staples in the house, but they stuck, like songs you never wanted to learn but somehow knew all the words to.
But my true obsession was space. If MiMi let me touch the dial, I went searching for galaxies: Lost in Space, The Jetsons, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek. I never loved Star Trek the way I loved Star Wars, but Uhura’s poise and Spock’s cool logic dug under my skin. They felt like glimpses of who I might be if I could escape gravity — balanced, unshaken, speaking a language that made sense.
So yeah, I grew up with Jedi broomsticks and MiMi’s soap operas, Benny Hill’s chaos and Red Foxx’s side-eye, Donahue’s earnestness and Carson’s smirk. Somewhere in that mess was me, caught between galaxies and daytime TV, learning that the Force was real — but only if MiMi said so.
Author’s Note: Looking back, I think MiMi & crew were the original Jedi. I’m convinced all the Grandmas, Moms, and Aunts were the bones from which Jedi were born. Their Jedi Mind Tricks got medicine swallowed, chores finished, and strange vegetables eaten — usually under the illusion of baked goods or a shiny quarter. In other words: Grandmas invented Jedi Mind Tricks, and we never stood a chance.
The study had been locked for years and not just locked—sealed. Rust consumed the keyhole; the wood swelled as if it wanted to burst, but it never did. Everyone in town knew that door. I knew it. I passed it often enough, felt the quiet pressure of it like a weight against my ribs. And then—tonight—it was open. Not ajar. Not cracked. Wide. Waiting.
Wind came out of it, wet and uneven. Not air, not really—more like breath. Lungs straining. A sound that didn’t belong in the hallway. The stink hit next: iron, rot, something that clung to the tongue. Dust spilled over the floorboards as if the house were trying to cough something out. People stood there staring. I stood with them, though I swear the dark leaned toward me, the way a person leans in when they’re listening.
Some said the shadows moved, as if something was pressing from the other side. One man swore the wind spoke his name. A woman broke down sobbing—her husband’s voice, she said, though he’d been dead a decade. I didn’t hear any of that. I heard breathing. Only breathing. I keep telling myself that.
Dogs won’t step onto the porch. Cats don’t come back. The doorframe sweats rust like a fever. And everyone remembers Maclan Kincade—the recluse, the man who vanished into the forest at dawn and came back after dark with mud on his boots when the sky was dry. I remember too. I remember the tune he hummed, sharp and crawling, and I still hear it some nights when the wind drags low across the valley. They said he locked the study himself. Said he went through once. Came back thinner, stranger. I don’t know. I only see that the lock is gone.
Last week—some swore it was Lily, though Lily left years ago—something came through. Not walked and not stepped. It dragged, folding and unfolding, its head tilted as if the bones had been set wrong. Its mouth opened, but no sound came—only the rasp of the wind pushing behind it. The smell got worse—iron, wet leaves, and mold in the lungs. I gagged. I still smell it on my hands.
It looked at us. No eyes, but it looked. One man swore it whispered Lily’s name in a voice that moved backward, like water retreating through rocks. Another said it laughed. I didn’t hear that. I didn’t. What I saw was its shadow blistering the wallpaper where it touched, with black marks still visible after it flickered back into the dark. The stench stayed. It hasn’t left. I can’t scrub it off.
Now the door never shuts. The wind grows louder. The black bulges out into the hall, stains spreading across the wallpaper like rot. Neighbors cross the street to avoid the place. Some leave bread, coins, and prayers at the gate. I’ve seen them. I’ve smelled it. Some nights I dream it.
The doorway waits. Each night it breathes harder. Each night, the house groans as though making room. Each night, the black leans closer to the street. I tell myself I don’t go near it. I don’t. I won’t.
But the sound—ragged, wet, patient—follows me home.
Author’s Note
Written for Fandango’s Story Starter #215. Sparked by the line: “The door to the study had been locked for years, yet tonight it stood wide open.” What followed is not a tale of discovery but intrusion—the wound left when silence begins to breathe.
The gulls owned the rooftop. They had claimed it long before we arrived, staking their kingdom in feathers and shit, in the low, guttural croaks that echoed like laughter. Their wings tore at the sky when they rose, dragging it open, only to fold it back into silence when they landed again. From where we sat, the sea spread out in every direction, a pewter sheet without reflection, as though it had swallowed the sky whole and kept it hidden.
The castle wasn’t a ruin, not completely. The stones still held their shape, still resisted the erosion of wind and salt, but there was moss clawing at the edges of the turrets, lichen freckling the slate roof. A place caught between being kept alive and being abandoned—much like us, though neither of us wanted to say it out loud.
We sat against the cold wall, the slick tiles beneath us daring us to slip. My legs dangled freely into the air, careless. Hers stayed tucked close, knees pulled in, heels dug hard into the slate as though bracing against gravity itself. That was always the difference between us: I trusted the drop, she feared it. We hadn’t spoken in nearly an hour. Silence was easier, and for a while, we both pretended it was enough.
The gull on the chimney watched us. A single sentinel, yellow eyes sharp and patient, as though waiting to see which one of us would fall first.
When she finally spoke, her voice startled me. “Why are you always trying to get me to eat ice cream from the hippy ice cream man?”
The words felt too light for this place, too absurd to belong among these stones. They scattered in my chest like startled birds. “What?”
She smirked, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “You heard me. Every time we’re close to something—like this—” she gestured vaguely at the impossible balance of us on the rooftop, at the thin margin between sitting and falling, “—you start talking about him. That van, his cones, like it’s holy salvation or something.”
I wanted to deny it. Pretend she was imagining things. But the image of the truck rose instantly, absurdly: parked at the seawall below, pastel paint catching the last orange spill of sunlight—music tinkling, distorted and tinny. The words freshly made just for you ” were painted across the side like a promise no one believed. And that small golden rectangle of light from the serving window, glowing like a portal to somewhere better.
“Because,” I said slowly, “that’s the only place left where nothing is asked of you. You hand him a coin, and he gives you sweetness. No questions. No history. Just sugar. Just cold.”
She turned back toward the gull. It hadn’t moved. Neither had the crows on the far chimney, who leaned in as if listening. “You think that’s all I want? To be numbed?”
I didn’t answer. The air had thickened, and even the sea seemed to press closer.
Her voice cracked against the quiet. “Sometimes I think you’d rather eat someone else’s lies than deal with the truth of me.”
I swallowed. My throat was raw from silence. “Maybe. Maybe because the truth of you is heavier than this whole damn castle.”
The gull flapped its wings once, dislodging flecks of stone dust, then settled again. Watching and always watching.
We had been here before. Not this rooftop, not this particular edge of stone and slate, but here—in the place where one of us demanded something the other couldn’t give. It always ended the same: with me retreating into sweetness, her retreating into anger.
I remembered the first time I saw the van. Not here, but further down the coast, years ago. I was walking alone after midnight when I saw its colors under the sodium lamps, too bright for the hour, too hopeful. The man inside was still serving, though there was no one in line. He had his arms crossed, staring at nothing. His face was older than the paint job. I almost walked past, but he caught my eye and tilted his head, and I bought a cone out of guilt.
The first bite had been a revelation. Not because it was good—it wasn’t—but because it was simple. No hidden meanings. No debts. Just a mouthful of something cold that melted away before I could question it. I never forgot that feeling. I wanted it again. I wanted her to have it too.
But she wasn’t built for simplicity.
“You don’t see it, do you?” she said now, pulling her knees tighter. “That ice cream man, your savior, he’s just another ghost. Another liar in pastels. You think his sweetness is freedom, but he’s trapped just like us. Debt, sorrow, God knows what. You want me to believe in him because you’ve already decided you can’t believe in me.”
Her words landed harder than the wind.
I tried to picture the man’s face. His tired smile, the scars along his hands when he passed me the cone. She was right—he wasn’t free. None of us were. And yet, he had given me that moment of quiet, that small reprieve. Couldn’t that be enough?
“You’re probably right,” I said. “But at least his lie tastes better than ours.”
Her face twisted, something between grief and rage. “That’s the problem. You’ll settle for sweetness just because it doesn’t cut as deep. You’ll choose the hippy ice cream man over me every time.”
The gull lifted suddenly, wings beating, filling the air with a violence that wasn’t its own. The crows scattered from the far chimney, black streaks against the sea. For a moment, it felt like the whole rooftop would shake apart under their departure.
When the noise faded, she looked at me again, eyes shadowed, unreadable. “You don’t even realize it, do you? You’re already halfway down there, coin in hand.”
Her words hollowed me out.
I wanted to argue, wanted to tell her she was wrong. But the image rose again: the van humming with light below the seawall, music spilling like a broken memory, waiting for me to step down from these stones and pay the price for one more mouthful of sweetness.
The castle groaned in the wind. The slate shifted beneath us. The sea waited, patient and endless.
We didn’t climb down together.
By the time I finally left the rooftop, she was gone. Whether she had climbed down first or vanished into the stone, I couldn’t say. The gull had returned to the chimney, and it watched me with something like pity.
When I reached the seawall, the van was still there. Lights glowing, window open, music playing. The man inside didn’t speak as I handed him a coin. He just nodded, passed me the cone, and turned away.
The first bite was as cold as always. Sweetness dissolving before it could mean anything.
I stood there in the glow of the hippy ice cream man, alone, licking at something that was never going to save me.
And above, high on the castle rooftop, the gull croaked once more.
Author’s Note: This story was inspired by Sadje’s What Do You See? #303. I took the provided image as a doorway into something more fractured and unresolved, letting the rooftop and the gulls become the stage for a conversation that had been waiting too long in silence. As always, these Dispatches are fragments—splinters of something larger I don’t pretend to fully understand. They aren’t answers, just echoes.
Not unexpected. Just insistent. Like a cough that won’t clear.
His number. Pulsing through the cracked glass, digits warped, doubled reflections on ice about to split. Third time tonight. He didn’t answer. Just watched it rattle against the table.
He’d stopped tracking time by clocks. The house measured itself in dust on the sill, silence pressing into eardrums, these calls—messages in a bottle from some other him. Sometimes neat intervals, occasionally frantic, fevered, like footsteps on metal stairs.
The phone didn’t stop. Each vibration burrowed deeper, amplifying the hollow inside him. He relented. Thumb pressed to the glass, still warm from the last call.
“Don’t look outside.”
His voice. The rasp, the pauses—every fracture he knew in his own throat. Then nothing. Not even the mercy of a click. Just silence so complete it pulled the air out of the room.
He almost laughed. Coughed instead. The sound broke itself in half.
The blinds stayed drawn. Warped plastic slats holding back nothing. But he felt it—darkness pressed to the glass, as much inside as out.
The phone rang again. Louder. Same number.
“Please. Don’t. Look.”
Whisper, desperate now—a voice chewing its own words.
The hum started. Not a sound. A prickling at his neck. A fizz under skin. Then audible. A low, throbbing drone, swelling until it shaped itself into walls, into air.
Old house, he told himself: pipes, fridge, wires. But the house was hungry. It fed on his solitude, made every shadow a mouth.
He stared at the blinds. Didn’t move. Maybe he already had.
The phone slipped and hit the floor. Vibrated against the boards like it was alive. He left it there.
The blinds swayed. No draft. Just movement.
He froze. A child again, listening to voices fight in another room, convinced stillness could make him invisible. But the voice now was his: both warning and threat.
The hum rose—layer on layer. The room was swollen with it.
He tried to breathe slowly. Count it. Failed. Because the sound of breath was doubled— from his chest, and from just beyond the glass.
He didn’t look. Not directly. But in the narrow seam where slat met sill, he saw it: the faintest shift, like a tongue tasting the air.
The blinds trembled. Stopped.
And in the silence that followed, the breath outside kept time with his own.
Author’s Note: Written for Mark Fraidenburg’s Today’s Writing Prompt. First time I’ve stepped into this challenge, and of course, I dragged the shadows in with me. That’s the danger of these prompts—I never treat them as warm-ups. I let them slip under the skin and stay awhile.
This one is fractured on purpose. MoM flash isn’t about answers—it’s about what lingers when you don’t get one.
My first record player was one of those Mickey Mouse things. I thought it was incredibly cool, back then. Now? I’ve probably lost several thousand cool points just for admitting this publicly. But that was the start—the first time I realized music could be mine, portable, spinning on plastic grooves under a cartoon mouse’s nose.
I never wondered about the first record player until years later, standing in a museum, staring at a Victrola like it had just rolled off a time machine. It was gorgeous—mahogany, brass, that air of weighty dignity machines used to have. And of course, the museum folks wouldn’t let me touch it. I was pissed. I ranted the whole way home, arms flailing like some deranged conductor, until my mother gave me that look that said, Boy, you’ve lost your damn mind. A look I would see many times over the years. My wife eventually perfected the same expression. Some conspiracies never die.
But that Victrola stuck with me.
A Box That Made Music Respectable
Before 1906, phonographs were awkward beasts. Giant horns jutting out like mechanical tumors, gathering dust and dominating living rooms. Eldridge R. Johnson—mechanic, dreamer, and founder of the Victor Talking Machine Company—had the audacity to fold the horn inside a cabinet. A simple trick of design that turned a noisy contraption into something you could sit beside polished furniture without shame.
It wasn’t just sound anymore. It was respectability.
The Price of Belonging
The first model, the VTLA, hit the market for $200—nearly half the average American’s yearly income. That’s about $5,700 today. Imagine explaining that to your spouse: “Honey, I spent half our wages on a box that sings.”
And yet every one of the first 500 units sold.
Because what people were really buying wasn’t a machine. They were buying belongings. Owning a Victrola meant you weren’t just grinding away at life—you were plugged into something larger, a signal that beauty belonged in your home.
Tone Doors, Drawers, and Dignity
The Victrola invented volume control—tone doors you could swing open for a flood of sound, or close when you didn’t want the neighbors to know you were spinning opera instead of hymns. It came with a drawer for needles, record storage built in, and even a lid to hush the surface noise.
What Johnson built wasn’t just a phonograph. It was an alibi. “See, dear—it’s furniture, not folly.”
From Freak Show to Fixture
By 1913, annual production had jumped to 250,000 units. The Victrola transformed the phonograph from curiosity to necessity. Music wasn’t just heard—it was hosted. Families gathered around it the way we gather around glowing screens today.
And the industry bent to Victor’s design. Competitors copied the hidden horn, patents expired, and suddenly, the parlor was the stage where the world’s voices arrived.
The Ghost in the Mahogany
That’s why I can’t shake the Victrola’s ghost. Because every time I hit play on Spotify, I feel it humming under the surface—the memory of when music had weight. When it wasn’t disposable, when it demanded space, when it carried dignity just by existing in the room.
My Mickey Mouse player may have sparked it, but the Victrola taught me the truth: music was never just about sound. It was about what you were willing to make room for.
And maybe that’s the real question—not what deserves that kind of space now, but what you’ve quietly pushed out to make room for noise.
Author’s Note
This piece was inspired by Jim Adams’s Thursday Inspiration #294 prompt: Suddenly. His weekly challenges have a way of shaking loose odd corners of memory and letting them bloom into something unexpected. Today it was a Mickey Mouse record player, a museum rant, and a Victrola that refused to leave my head.
As always, these posts are written as part of the ongoing experiment that is Memoirs of Madness—where history, memory, and a little grit collide. If the story sparks something for you, I’d love to hear it in the comments or see your own take on the prompt. Writing is always better when it’s a conversation, not a monologue.
Memoirs of Madness – Stories from the Edge of Change
Some stories ask to be written. Others sit beside you for a long time and wait until you’re ready to listen.
Stories from the Edge of Change wasn’t planned as a series. It started as a single image: a man sitting on a bench, cold coffee in one hand, a life’s worth of weight in the other. I didn’t know then that his name was Jake. I didn’t know about Dani. Or Angel. Or Finch.
I just knew the corner felt familiar.
And the more I stayed with it—the more I stayed with them—the more I realized this wasn’t just a set of character sketches. It was a reckoning. A quiet excavation. A window into lives we pass every day and rarely get to sit beside.
Writing Jake’s story—witnessing it—felt like a privilege. Not because he’s extraordinary. But because he isn’t. He’s the kind of man the world walks past. The kind who makes people uncomfortable because he reminds them what’s possible when the bottom falls out.
And still, somehow, he stayed.
Angel came next. Then Finch. Then Pete, who slipped in sideways, like most of the people who don’t want to be noticed but can’t stop bleeding the truth. I didn’t invent these characters. They arrived, piece by piece, in gestures and sidewalk cracks, in coffee steam and whispered meetings.
This arc became more than a series. It became a bench I didn’t want to leave.
I don’t know yet if there’s more to share from this world. But I do know there are more stories. I can feel them at the edge of things.
Maybe it’s Dani’s voice, finally stepping into the light. Maybe it’s Angel on a night shift, facing the silence Jake once did. Maybe it’s someone we haven’t met yet—sitting on the same corner, hoping someone looks up.
If these stories meant something to you—if they echoed or stirred something buried—let me know.
And if not? That’s okay, too. This wasn’t written for applause. It was written to hold a space.
Thank you for walking with me this far.
The corner’s quiet now. But it still remembers. And I’ll be here, in case someone else looks up.
The city’s traffic lights started blinking in Morse code, spelling out a warning almost no one could understand. Red. Green. Yellow. Not colors anymore—just pulses like a drunk heartbeat trying to send a message before flatlining.
I lit a cigarette I didn’t want. Rain kept it alive longer than it should’ve. People passed me like cattle, faces blue from their phones, all of them locked in their private prisons. Nobody looked up. Nobody saw.
The code spelled one word: WAIT.
So I did. For a breath. Maybe two. Then the crosswalk man glitched. Froze mid-step, legs twisted like snapped matchsticks, head stretched long enough to whisper a name I’d buried years ago. Nobody else twitched. Not even a pause in their stride.
The lights blinked again. WE.
A bus hissed through the intersection. Windows fogged, seats empty. Except the reflection waving from the glass wasn’t mine. Too many teeth. My hands were in my pockets. I didn’t wave back.
The smoke in my throat turned copper. Tasted like biting down on the city’s own wires. The rain stuck to me too long—warm, clingy, like breath on the back of my neck.
Another blink. Faster. WAIT. WE WAIT. INSIDE.
The crowd moved, blind, obedient. I stayed behind. The city didn’t need their eyes. It only needed mine.
And I knew then—whatever was inside the lights had been patient for years. And patience is the one thing I don’t have left.
Author’s Note It’s been raining here in my head for days. I came across this image, stared too long, and the city started talking back. Not in words, but in signals—broken, blinking, urgent. Madness has a way of showing up like that: subtle at first, quiet enough to miss if you’re sane.
This one was sparked by Fandango’s Story Starter—proof that sometimes all it takes is a single sentence to push the mind off balance and let the city whisper its warnings.
Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind — Entry 5
For years, the suitcase had slouched against the wall, olive canvas faded to the color of dead grass, as if weighed down by secrets. Mara learned to live around it. She told herself it wasn’t hers, not really—it was just another flaw inherited with the apartment, like the warped floorboards or the mildew that bloomed no matter how much bleach she poured. She built routines that ignored it: shuffling past on her way to the kitchen, bruising her shin on its bent wheel while juggling laundry, pretending its mute presence wasn’t following her from room to room.
By day, she worked in the customer service cubicle of a company that sold things no one really needed. Her headset buzzed with angry voices demanding refunds for trivialities: scratched coffee tables, missing screws, colors that didn’t match the brochure. She smiled at her monitor, mouthed apologies she didn’t feel, and counted the hours until she could slip away unnoticed. At night, she returned to her apartment and straightened it into submission—folding towels, smoothing the duvet, coaxing life from a wilting philodendron. Every act was an attempt to prove she still had control.
Her phone rarely lit up with messages. Friends had drifted off in the slow erosion of years, worn away by canceled plans and her tendency to withdraw. Lovers, when they existed, didn’t stay long; Mara always sensed the moment they realized her silences weren’t mysterious, just empty.
The suitcase became her only constant. Not with menace, exactly, but with the patient gravity of an old dog who refused to die. On the loneliest nights, when the city’s noise thinned to a faint hum and her reflection in the window looked more like a stranger than herself, Mara sometimes found comfort in its presence. A terrible comfort, born from the knowledge that if she disappeared tomorrow, someone would find the suitcase and wonder what it meant.
—
She told herself she would never open it. Whatever was inside belonged to some version of herself she had no interest in meeting. Better to let the past rot in peace.
Still, she caught herself circling it. Some nights she’d stand over it with a hand suspended above the clasps, her palm tingling as if braced for a static shock. She imagined sweaters matted with moths, photo albums swollen from rain, useless junk that had once mattered. But beneath those guesses lurked something heavier—the suspicion that the suitcase held not just things, but explanations.
On this December evening, the city outside hushed itself beneath its first snow, and the cold seeped inward until even the air felt brittle. Mara sat on the warped parquet floor, knees tucked tight, her breath fogging the space between her and the suitcase. The silence didn’t feel empty anymore; it pressed against her ribs, insistent, like a held note waiting to be released.
Her fingers found the clasps. She hesitated, pulse drumming in her ears, then pressed. The latch gave with a soft click—an exhalation, almost grateful. The suitcase opened with a muted thump against the wall.
Mara braced for the familiar debris of memory. Instead, the air thickened, sweetened, and began to move.
—
Out of the suitcase spilled green. Not color, but substance: vines, moss, leaves tumbling out in a delirious torrent, as if a dam had burst inside the canvas walls. The vines reached first for Mara’s wrists, curling with the intimacy of a lover’s grip, then crept up her sleeves before she could recoil.
The apartment began to betray her in increments. Carpet fizzed into moss, threads unraveling into living rootlets that burrowed deep into the warped floorboards. Table legs thickened, cracking as bark split through lacquer. Fungal blooms erupted from the bookshelves, pale caps pushing aside dog-eared paperbacks. The ceiling melted into sky—a blue so raw and immense it swallowed the dingy plaster whole.
The air grew dense, wetter, and alive with perfumes that should not coexist: loamy soil, crushed mint, the sweetness of rot, the ozone edge of lightning about to strike. Mara staggered as the scents layered, dizzy with the intoxication of it.
Then came the blossoms. Petals bloomed in fractal explosions—saffron edged in black, violet spirals furred like animal hides, blossoms so red they seemed to bleed. Some pulsed faintly, as if with heartbeats of their own.
Butterflies burst from the vines in a fever of wings, thousands lacquered in jewel tones. They whirled so thick they became a storm, each frantic flutter a whisper against her skin. A dozen landed at once—on her hands, her shoulders, her lips. One perched on her eyelid, its wings opening and closing with the slow rhythm of breathing.
She should have screamed. Instead, her breath came shallow, more awe than terror. For every heartbeat, the wild reached deeper.
Each leaf brushing her skin delivered not scratches but memories—her grandmother’s dough-soft hands kneading bread, her brother’s laughter ricocheting through a sunlit field, her father’s cough echoing down a sterile hospital corridor. The wilderness was rewriting her, splicing joy into wounds, editing her grief with gentler hands.
But wonder had teeth. In the corner of her vision, flowers gaped open to reveal centers ringed not with pollen but with minute, gnashing mouths. A patch of thistles dripped with sap the color of blood. A butterfly passed close enough for her to see one wing stitched together with spider silk, trembling under the effort of flight.
Above, something moved. Too heavy to be a bird, too fluid to be human—a colossal shifting presence that bent the canopy like a wave. She froze, pulse hammering, as the unseen thing exhaled a breath that rattled branches and sent shivers down her spine.
The vines around her ankles tightened, not cruel but unyielding, as if claiming her. The suitcase pulsed behind her like a second heart, no longer a container but a wound, hemorrhaging wilderness into the sterile apartment.
Mara drew in a breath thick with ozone and soil. For a moment, she could not tell whether she was breathing the wild in—or whether the wild was breathing her out.
—
Out of the suitcase unfurled green. Not just the color, but the thing itself: vines, moss, leaves in reckless abundance. They spilled from the hollowed interior with the momentum of a breached dam, clinging to her wrists, crawling up the sleeves of her sweater before she could react.
The rupture startled her so hard her body jolted, heart hammering in her throat as if the apartment itself had split at the seams. Vines surged, leaves and petals clawing into the stale air with a force that left her scrambling backward. For a moment, she could hardly breathe, the world too sudden, too alive.
But then the panic ebbed, steadied, and something else seeped in—calm, foreign yet familiar, like slipping into warm water after a long winter. The butterflies poured from the green in a thousand frantic flutters, their wings catching light that didn’t belong to her apartment, guiding her deeper into this breach. They circled her in loose spirals, herding without force, their chaos carrying a strange order.
One landed on her finger. Its wings pulsed open and shut, slow as breath. Mara froze, remembering the way she’d once cupped fireflies in her childhood palms, the glow painting her skin in fleeting constellations. Her mother had warned her not to hold them too tightly—fragile things needed room to breathe, to live. The memory stung and soothed at once, as if the butterfly itself had dredged it up to remind her: not everything she touched had to die in her hands.
The unease that had clung to her loosened, thread by thread, until what remained was something close to wonder.
Above her, the ceiling vanished, replaced by a canopy of impossible blue and the shimmer of a sun she’d never felt on her face. Somewhere in the new sky, birds cawed and something colossal moved just out of sight.
—
She considered her choices. She could claw her way back through that window, return to her apartment and its parade of quiet defeats—the warped floorboards, the mildew, the muted hum of survival. Or she could stay, let the wildness claim her entirely. For the first time in her life, she felt the weight of true agency. The knowledge that whatever she chose would shape not just her own story, but the world that had so unexpectedly chosen her in return.
The butterflies lifted from her skin, all at once, a living tide of color and motion, as if waiting for her verdict. Their wings beat like a thousand clocks, a patient chorus urging her to decide before time thinned and slipped away.
Mara drew a breath, the air thick with the scent of earth and unnamed flowers, as sweet and dangerous as desire itself. She closed her eyes, pressed the cold, smooth stone to her chest, and felt its weight resonate with every scar she’d carried.
Then she stepped forward into the meadow.
Behind her, the suitcase yawned wider, its frame trembling, the window flickering like a wound in the air—open for now, but unstable, its edges shivering as though the world itself strained to keep it alive. If she turned back too late, it would vanish, sealing her choice forever.
Still, Mara did not look over her shoulder. The suitcase, the apartment, the small life she’d managed to arrange from scraps—they belonged to a different woman, one who no longer existed.
The butterflies parted, clearing her path. The meadow stretched ahead in impossible bloom, humming with promise and peril alike. Somewhere beyond the trees, she thought she heard her true name whispered again, as if the realm itself was ready to receive her.
Mara kept walking.
—
The butterflies steadied her, their wings shimmering in fractured light. For every moment of unease—the vines clutching her ankles, the thorns whispering promises of pain—there came an answering wave of wonder. Her breathing slowed, steadier now, as if the air itself coaxed her into calm.
One butterfly, larger than the rest, descended with a gravity that felt almost deliberate. It landed on her finger, wings fanning like a heartbeat, fragile but certain. Mara stared, unable to look away. The soft pulse of its wings seemed to travel into her bones, reminding her that fragility and strength were not opposites but mirrors.
The unease inside her chest loosened, thread by thread, dissolving into awe. She lifted her hand, the butterfly clinging lightly, and for a heartbeat she forgot the apartment, the years of exhaustion, the muted repetition of survival. This was something else—something she’d longed for without ever naming.
She let the moment stretch. Around her, the wild hummed with unseen life, shadows flickering at the edge of vision, leaves trembling though there was no wind. The fear hadn’t vanished completely—it lingered like a low note beneath the music—but it was no longer in control.
Wonder was.
—
The meadow pulsed around her, as if the earth itself breathed beneath her feet. Butterflies circled in a golden storm, their wings beating in harmony with her racing heart. For a fleeting moment, Mara believed this was what she’d been waiting for all along—this impossible window into a world untouched by failure, regret, or the slow erosion of ordinary days. Here, every wound seemed rewritten in softer ink, every sorrow transfigured into beauty.
And yet, a tug—faint at first, then insistent—pulled her back. A thread wound tight through her chest, reminding her of the apartment that still held her life: the stubborn philodendron in its chipped pot, the stack of unpaid bills on the counter, the silence of rooms that did not breathe without her. She clutched the stone tighter, its cool weight pressing against her ribs like a verdict.
The butterflies parted, as if in recognition, opening a clear path back to the suitcase. The vines swayed, reluctant, but no longer holding her fast. She felt the ache of two worlds pulling at her—one shimmering with wonder, the other rooted in the grit of reality.
Her knees trembled. She thought of her mother’s voice, of promises she’d made to herself on nights when loneliness seemed like an endless horizon. She wanted to stay, to vanish into this dream that felt more like home than anything she’d ever known. But she also knew that surrendering here meant abandoning the fragile, stubborn parts of herself that had fought so hard to survive in the first place.
With a slow exhale, she stepped backward. The meadow dimmed, colors blurring at the edges. The butterflies scattered, frantic, then dissolved into motes of light. The vines loosened and retreated into the suitcase’s hollow, folding the wildness back into silence. For an instant, she thought she heard the trees sigh—disappointed, but not condemning.
Then it was gone. The apartment reasserted itself, grimy and familiar. The warped floorboards, the mildew’s sour tang, the cheap radiator knocking in protest. The suitcase sat slouched against the wall again, its clasps shut as though it had never opened.
Mara sank onto the floorboards, the stone still cradled in her palm. But when she opened her hand, she found nothing—only the imprint of its weight lingering on her skin. She closed her eyes, breathing in the stale air, and whispered to no one, “I’ll remember.”
It wasn’t surrender, not entirely. It was a compromise: to live in this reality, but to carry that meadow inside her, as proof that beauty—even dangerous, untamed beauty—could exist.
Author’s Note: I wanted to step sideways with this Dispatch—into a dream that feels like a window cracked open onto somewhere else. This one was sparked by Esther’s Writing Prompt, and I let the word window become a motif, threading itself through the story. Some pieces you write because the words won’t leave you alone. Others you write because you want to get lost in them and hope the world forgets your rent’s due. This was the latter. I needed a reminder that even the strangest worlds can feel like home for a little while. And maybe—just maybe—that’s the point: the magic’s not in whether it’s “real,” it’s in whether it leaves you blinking when you come back.
MoM Series: Stories from the Edge of Change – Part 5
Jake slipped back to Maple and 9th, just before the day’s first sirens. The sky was a cold bruise overhead—indigo leaking toward gray, the city below still sullen and half-swallowed by fog. Jake’s route here was always the same: the recycled bus air, the smell of new concrete and old bleach at the transfer station, the long walk down streets that still remembered him in all the wrong ways.
He’d liked it better in the days when a hangover let you lie to yourself. Being sober meant memory was out to get you, every hour of the day.
He hadn’t told anyone he was coming, and wasn’t sure anyone would care. Maple/9th wasn’t home, not really, but the corner had a way of calling him back when the rest of the world got too bright and too loud. Where everything had fractured. Where, by some backwards logic, something like a beginning had managed to dig in and take root, though even now Jake couldn’t explain why.
He stepped off the curb, the city unspooling around him in the blue-tinted hush of pre-dawn. Chains of streetlights blinked uncertainly overhead, fighting the thick mist that made them look like distant, drowned stars. Gutter water gurgled past slumped trash bags, and a wind—sharp and chemical, the kind you only got east of the river—whipped Jake’s soaked collar tight against his throat.
It had rained all night, the kind of slow, pounding storm that got past old window seals and filled alleys with shallow, fast-moving currents. His boots were soggy from the first block, each step a cold squelch that made him feel both present and exposed.
He carried a dented thermos of black coffee in one fist, and two foil-wrapped breakfast sandwiches in the other. Not an offering; nothing so grand. More like insurance, or ballast, a way to keep his hands busy while waiting for the morning to decide what kind of day it wanted to be.
Jake found his bench across from the bus stop, same warped planks as always, streaked deep with mildew and the ink of other people’s initials. He sat with a practiced slouch, elbows braced on thighs, letting the bench’s damp give him a chill. The wood was beaten soft by years of sun and rain and the pressure of bodies like his—bent, but holding.
The crust of the world here was thin. Every sound cut through. The city at this hour was a hungover beast, makeshift and miraculous: somewhere a dog barked in warning, a power transformer hummed in gradual crescendo, and a garbage truck, like the planet’s own heartbeat, thudded trash cans up and down the block.
Jake finished his first sandwich in three bites, washing it down with coffee so bitter it felt like punishment. He watched steam coil off the thermos and disappear.
He’d been clean for 343 days—he counted, because not counting was the first step to failure in his book—but the mornings punched hardest. Not cravings, exactly, but the thin, raw quiet where the old engine used to run. The ache was in the absence now, the stretches of time where nothing screamed at you from the inside.
He wondered if he was the only one who found the lack scarier than the compulsion.
People talk about recovery like it’s a sunrise, he’d heard at every group and meeting and shelter table in the city, but that was a lie. Recovery was more like hitting bottom, and instead of dying, realizing you were still clutching the shovel.
The old-timers called it “the work.” Jake wasn’t sure he believed in the work, but he did believe in gravity, and he knew how easy it was to fall back down the hole.
He wiped rain off his forehead and stared at the bus stop across the street. The city here was built in layers, old and new pressed together without much logic: a granite Gothic church wedged between a vape shop and an all-night copy center, tenements with windows starting to glow against the gray, stairwells already moving with the first shift crowds.
The light grew by inches. Jake’s eyes stung; he blinked, forcing himself to watch the street, not the rearview movie in his head.
A figure emerged from the alley behind the liquor store, hood low, gait ragged. Jake tensed—still, after all this time, the old alarms worked. Then he recognized the walk. Shoes caked in mud, chin up, hands buried deep in a jacket two sizes too big: Angel.
Angel had been a regular at the shelter through four of Jake’s own city-sponsored relapses, which made him family, or as close as anyone got these days. Compared to the Angel of last summer, this version moved with more purpose—less side-to-side drift, no fresh scabs or glassy stare. Angel’s jaw was bruised, but healing. The eyes were alert, focused, like he’d learned to see himself again.
They shared a nod—the kind that says, I see you and I know what you’ve been through, and also, let’s not make this a big deal. Angel slid onto the bench beside him, landed hard, and let his backpack fall at his feet. Water pooled around their boots, the surface speckled with cigarette ends, leaves, and plastic fork tines.
Neither of them spoke for a stretch. Jake thought about the time, months ago, when a rehab flyer had drifted down onto his lap from a passing outreach worker. He’d already been clean then—technically, anyway.
Time had a way of flattening out, making you forget how long you’d actually been at it. The city kept its own clock, indifferent to anniversaries. Some mornings, like this one, Jake felt it pressing in, the weight of nothing left to want except to stay above water.
Angel broke the silence first. “You been coming here a lot?” His voice was hoarse, wary, but there was something sturdy in it, too.
Jake shrugged, tracing a finger along the bench’s warped grain. “Now and then. Corner doesn’t judge.”
Angel pulled a sandwich from the foil and bit in, chewing slowly. “Doesn’t judge—but it remembers,” he said, mouth half-full. The words hung in the fog, true in a way that made Jake’s teeth ache.
They watched the city wake up. A woman jogged by—neon sneakers, rain-spattered leggings, earbuds locked into some other world. Down the block, a man in grimy overalls hosed vomit from the stoop of a shuttered bar, his movements quick and practiced. A bus hissed to a stop, doors gasping open. Nobody got on or off.
Jake passed the thermos to Angel, who sipped and grimaced. “You still at the center?” Angel asked.
Jake nodded toward the east, where the sunrise was starting to show. “Nights only. Fewer ghosts after midnight.”
Angel wiped his mouth with the back of a sleeve. “Heard you made it eleven months,” he said. Jake didn’t correct him; time was a rumor on the street. “I’m two months today,” Angel added, voice almost too soft to carry.
Jake tipped the thermos, spilling out a little coffee to mark the moment. “That’s something,” he said.
Angel stared out at the rising light, sandwich forgotten in his hand. “It feels like it could vanish any second,” he said. “Like, if I turn around too fast, it’ll all come back.”
Jake leaned back, the bench groaning under his weight. He studied the old traffic light—still stuck on red, despite the empty streets. “Sometimes it does,” he said, “but you don’t.”
The words were barely a whisper, but Angel nodded. They both knew the math: most of the people who made it this far didn’t stay far for long. The city was littered with their ghosts—names Jake remembered from the group, faces half-blurred by time and by the drugs that used to be his only way to see clearly.
Angel finished the sandwich and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Ever think about running?” he asked, eyes fixed on the pale clouds.
Jake didn’t have to ask where. “All the time.” He closed his eyes, felt the rain seep through his sleeves, and pictured a map with every city crossed out except this one.
Angel laughed, short and sharp—almost a bark. “I dream of a boat, man. Offshore. No laws, no meetings, nobody waiting to see if you fuck it up again.” There was a wildness in his voice, but also a kind of longing. Jake recognized it: the fantasy of disappearance, of finally outpacing your own story.
“You take yourself with you,” Jake said.
Angel let out a breath, not quite a sigh. “Yeah. That’s the problem.”
Across the street, a man in a threadbare hoodie sorted through a heap of cardboard, folding it into a sign. His hands shook just enough to notice. The buses kept rolling by, ignoring him. Jake watched as the man scrawled something—maybe a prayer, maybe a joke—across the cardboard and propped it up for the world to see.
Angel noticed, too. “You going to say something?” he asked.
Jake shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
He thought about it. “First time, nobody listens. You wait until they look up without asking. That’s when they’re ready.”
Angel stared at the man for a long time. “And if he never looks up?”
Jake pressed his boots flat against the concrete, feeling the water squish beneath the sole.
“Then we stay,” he said. “Until he does. Or until someone else comes along who knows how to wait.”
Angel didn’t answer. But he didn’t move either. That was enough.
There were mornings when Jake imagined leaving—not running, just… slipping away. Boarding a train headed somewhere nameless, getting on a boat, disappearing into the haze like an offshore storm no one tracks. But he never moved. Never packed. The fantasy was like a scar: it only hurt when you pressed.
He stayed because someone had once stayed for him. That’s all it had ever taken.
The bench creaked beneath his shifting weight. The corner, as always, said nothing. But it remembered.
And Jake—sober, scarred, still learning—remembered too.
🖋️ Final Author’s Note:
Today’s story incorporates the prompt words offshore, downpour, and creed from FOWC, RDP, and Word of the Day.
This marks the final chapter in the first arc of Stories from the Edge of Change, a MoM original series about survival without spectacle.
Jake didn’t get a miracle. He didn’t get closure. He got a bench, a corner, and a reason to stay long enough to matter.
Sometimes, that’s all we get. And sometimes, it’s enough.
When I was a kid, I wore out VHS tapes like other kids wore out sneakers. I’d rewind, replay, and rewind again until my mother finally snapped, “Lord, not this one again!” We laughed about it years later when my grandkids started doing the same thing — watching the same cartoon on loop until it could play without the TV being on. Obsession runs deep in this family.
Here are the ten films that got under my skin, refused to let go, and still pull me in every time I hit play.
Convoy (1978)
Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, and a convoy of truckers rolling across America, flipping the bird at authority with CB slang I barely understood.
I couldn’t tell you what hooked me harder — the radios, the semis, or the rebellion. I memorized lines, stomped around the house calling myself Rubber Duck, and believed a convoy of eighteen-wheelers could change the world. It’s not a cinema classic, but it speaks to the part of me that refuses to follow rules, even now.
A Piece of the Action (1977)
Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby playing con men forced to do some good — crime with a conscience, swagger with a side of redemption.
I worshipped Poitier, and seeing him in a lighter role felt like catching your dad cracking a joke when you weren’t supposed to. Cosby was a bonus — I’d worn out Himself on cassette a thousand times, so seeing him on screen was like déjà vu with moving pictures. Add James Earl Jones’s voice booming through the mix and Denise Nicholas as Poitier’s love interest, and I was sold. I didn’t see the social commentary back then — I was too busy grinning. Now, I see it plain as day.
The Chinese Connection (Fist of Fury, 1972)
Bruce Lee tearing through colonial arrogance, fists and fury flying like scripture.
My friends split down the middle: you were either the Six Million Dollar Man or Bruce Lee. I chose Lee every time. We practiced the moves, clumsy imitations in the yard, convinced we were dangerous. Only a handful of us ever stepped foot in a dojo, but the code, the discipline, the honor — that film planted it in me. I still practice martial arts, decades later, because of Bruce.
Blade Runner (1982)
Neon rain, broken people, and machines chasing something like a soul.
I shouldn’t have even been there. Bought a ticket to the godawful Gymkata, slid into Blade Runner like a thief. My first R-rated film on the big screen, and I was gone the second Deckard lit his cigarette. This wasn’t a movie — it was a world. I force-fed it to my kids like vegetables disguised as candy. Years later, one of my daughters called me the week 2049 dropped: “Dad, you ready?” You’re damn right I was. Some obsessions don’t fade. They get inherited.
Excalibur (1981)
Fog, blood, betrayal, and the gleam of steel. John Boorman’s fever dream of Arthurian legend.
This was my first taste of King Arthur, and it sunk deep. I’ve hunted down every Arthurian film since, stacked books on the legends in my house. But it wasn’t the spectacle that stuck — it was the idea of honor, devotion, and duty. It shaped how I thought a man was supposed to be. For better or worse, that sword still gleams in my head.
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Clint Eastwood spitting tobacco juice and cutting his way through the wreckage of the Civil War.
This wasn’t just my favorite Western — it became mine and my wife’s. We’d sit glued to the TV, watching it over and over until the dialogue was part of our marriage. Because of her, I learned to love Westerns in general. And every time I watch one now, I smile at the memory of her beside me. Clint Eastwood was a badass, sure — but she made the movie matter more.
Cooley High (1975)
Friendship, heartbreak, betrayal — and a Motown soundtrack to drown in.
This wasn’t just a movie; it was my life in another time and place. The music, the teenage angst, the betrayals that cut deeper than any knife — all of it felt too close to home. Even though it was set in the ’60s, it mirrored the world around me. It became a staple in the Black community, right up there with Shaft. And it still hits today, just as hard.
FM (1978)
DJs fighting corporate suits with nothing but vinyl and attitude.
I found this one through my mother’s soundtrack, then realized there was a whole movie attached. For a kid glued to the radio, it felt like God had delivered it straight to my TV. My buddy and I even launched a pirate station we called Q-Sky Radio. He didn’t know where I got the name. I smiled and let him think it was his idea. That love of music never left, and I’d argue FM is part of why House of Tunage even exists today. This movie is my jam, then and now.
The Wanderers (1979)
Bronx gangs, doo-wop on the jukebox, swagger and fists flying at the edge of an era.
Everyone around me worshipped The Warriors — and I did too — but The Wanderers dug under my skin in a different way. Maybe it was the sense of a world dying, of everything you know mutating into something unfamiliar and scary. It taught me that you either shrink back or walk forward into the unknown. I chose forward. I’ve read the book five times at least, and it still hits differently than the film, but just as hard.
Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
Diana Ross as Billie Holiday, Billy Dee Williams smooth as glass, Richard Pryor burning in every scene.
My mom loved Diana Ross, so I sat through this film with her more times than I can count. I didn’t share her love for Ross, but Billie Holiday got her hooks in me. Later, I told that story to my wife, and she showed up with two CDs: Lady Sings Jazz and Blues by Diana Ross and a Billie Holiday collection. She knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. Man, I loved that woman.
Closing Reflection
These weren’t just movies. They were obsessions. They taught me about rebellion, loyalty, heartbreak, and survival before I even had the language for it. My mom teased me for playing them to death, but when I watch my grandchildren loop the same film until it frays, I can’t help but smile. The cycle continues. Different movies, same obsession. And maybe that’s what cinema really is — a mirror we pass down, cracked and glowing, frame by frame.
Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind – Entry IV
I’ve spent twenty-five years wandering the constellations of dust that pass for towns in these parts, chasing rumors of justice across salt flats and sun-stained mesas, my hand welded to the only gospel this world respects—cold iron, burnished to a black shine by blood and the desert’s endless hunger. Every dawn, I’d cinch a deadman’s resolve around my ribs and tell myself I was the steady hand in a world built on bad intentions, that each finger’s pressure on a trigger could tip the scales back toward something like decency. But time—time is a lizard’s tongue: flicking, unseen, snatching up the moments until you’re left staring at a husk, trying to remember how you ever filled it. Sooner or later, you see it for what it is: a young man’s dare delivered to the gods, a clumsy ballet of violence dressed up as virtue, death’s grand masquerade with your own face under the mask.
The desert kept its own ledger, written in wind and stone. Rivers shrank to scars, and every town I passed through felt like a graveyard waiting for names. Vultures taught me patience better than any preacher, circling in their slow sermons, never rushing what they knew was inevitable. Out here, the land didn’t just watch—it judged. Every canyon whispered back the sound of your gun, long after the body cooled.
Every soul I ushered into the hush had a name—sometimes carved on a tin badge, more often graven into the blue-black veins of the territory’s memory, where the ghosts stacked up like poker chips. I tried to keep them at a distance, let the desert swallow their last words before they could echo. But there is no distance in these plains, only the illusion of it. You run a man down at noon, the dust still wet with his shadow, and by sundown your own shadow’s right there beside his, stitched together over the dirt. I told myself numbness was a tool, a way to keep the tremor out of my hand, but numbness is a kind of debt, and the interest compounds in silence. I was too busy forging my legend—chiseled in the splinters of busted up saloons and the blue smoke curling from spent casings—to notice what I’d mortgaged away.
So now I’m the last dog in the fight, nothing left but a brittle skeleton propped against a fence post, watching the horizon try to out-bleed itself every evening, waiting for the sun to name one color I haven’t seen a man die in. I count the ghosts that trail me like some biblical plague, each one a mile marker on the road I can’t stop walking.
Just crawled out of a dime stretch—ten years locked inside iron and spit, with only the slow creep of rust and regret for company—but that’s pocket change compared to the ledger I keep in my head, a ledger no warden’s key will ever unlock. The past doesn’t loosen its grip; if anything, it tightens until you can’t tell your own pulse from the memory of someone else’s. Out here, they call me a legend, a walking parable, the old coyote that’s outlived every snare and bullet. But legends are just stories that haven’t had their endings written yet. The endings always come, and they are never kind.
Once, a boy no older than my own reflection at nineteen tried to catch me in the middle of a mud street. His hat was too big, his holster too stiff. I watched his lip tremble before his hand even twitched. And in that stutter of fear, I saw myself—hungry, stupid, convinced the world owed me immortality. I let him draw first, because mercy was a luxury neither of us could afford. When he fell, I felt no triumph, only recognition. The desert doesn’t make room for fathers, only mirrors.
There is a whole generation of greenhorns—some with badges, some with nothing but their mother’s borrowed last name—who’d sleep sweeter with my scalp nailed to their saddle horn. Each one wants to be the one to rewrite the myth: to show the world the old king had no teeth left, that even legends can bleed. What they don’t see is that the fire never really dies, it just settles into the bones. They walk up fast, hot with the promise of their own immortality, and they think the shaking in my hands is age, not anticipation.
Justice—my old, two-faced companion—watches from the back of every whiskey glass and midnight mirror. When I was young, he sat shotgun, fed me lies about glory and honor and the clean line between good men and bad. But that line was always drawn in sand, and every storm I weathered blurred it until no one remembered which side they started on. Now he hides behind the badge, jeering at me from the safety of his armchair, pretending he wasn’t the one who put the first pistol in my grip. Hypocrite. He wants to see me pay for my excesses, but he forgets: I always paid in advance.
When the night rolls over the land and the wind starts to howl like an orphaned child, the voices come crawling in from the edges. “Was it worth it?” they ask, breathless, persistent, soft as the moths in the old preacher’s study. Worth the empty chairs at dinner tables, the widows with nothing left but a wedding ring and a story? Worth the holes I punched in the world, the ones I never bothered to fill back in? I’ve no answer for them, and by now I doubt I’ll ever find one. Only this: the world is made of debts, and violence always knows where to send the bill.
These days, even my dreams betray me. No sweet lies, no gentle horizons—only the endless replay of gunfire, a carousel of faces turning toward me in their last astonishment. Sometimes I wonder if I’d even know what rest felt like, if peace ever did arrive. Maybe I’d flinch from it, the way a stray dog flinches from kindness.
Tonight, I can feel it: the ledger’s come due. The sky above is swept clean and hard as flint, the air stinking of cordite and things long dead. I lie here, spine pressed to the living earth, the stars blinking overhead like a jury summoned to pass sentence. My hand’s locked around the iron, the heat of the last shot still ghosting up through the barrel. Around me, the sand is pitted and blackened, marking the places where hope gave up and history picked up the slack.
This is what justice looks like, in the end: a man alone, weapon cooling, waiting for the world to decide if his next breath will matter. For a heartbeat, everything holds still. The air itself is an intake of judgment.
Will they let me die with my boots on? Will the dead finally cut me some slack and let me drift into whatever comes next? Or will the world keep chasing me, day after day, circle after circle, like a dog gnawing a bone it’ll never finish?
I laugh—a dry, cracking thing that feels like it might shatter my teeth. It’s the laugh of a child who’s seen the trick behind the magic, the snort that follows every preacher’s sermon. Life and death, justice and sin: all of it a rigged game, played out over and over until the deck wears thin.
I should be afraid. I should pray. But all I feel is the deep drag of exhaustion and, maybe, the faint warmth of something like relief.
But peace—peace’s for fools, for greenhorns and saints, not the likes of me. Not a man who emptied his promise to the desert and let it keep the change.
I close my eyes and try to shoulder the weight of every life I ever took, every mile I rode with justice whispering fever-dreams in my ear. Maybe there’s a way out. Maybe there isn’t.
Either way, I’ll keep my iron close and my eyes open. In this world, justice is just another word for a story that won’t end, and legends—they never really die.
They just get older, and a little sadder, and wait for the next bullet to teach them something new.
They just keep glancing over their shoulders, waiting for the next bullet.
Author’s Note
Another ride through the dust for Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind. This one lives in the twilight—half confession, half reckoning—an old gunslinger’s ledger of debts that can never be balanced. The West here isn’t about glory or the last man standing; it’s about the silence that follows every shot, the weight of a myth too heavy to carry. Maybe you’ll hear echoes of your own shadows in his words, or maybe you’ll just taste the grit of the desert wind on your teeth. Either way, this dispatch isn’t about answers—it’s about what’s left when the smoke clears.
Memoirs of Madness 