i am drenched
it’s too much
i am drowning.
i am outside in the grass, surrounded by green, but caged in a vase that i didn’t know was there till i tried to leave.
i thought i was free when he put me here.
i saw the green. i saw the sun. i saw him.
now he watches me through the glass.
he watches me drown in the rain until i begin to die.
he picks up and kisses my fallen petals and brings them back to me.
he drinks the water from my vase and tells me he’s sorry.
i begin to see the sun come out, i start to breathe.
the sun stays,
my petals curl
my stem dries.

where is the rain?

he drank my water and cleared my sky.
i am dying of the very thing that was saving me.
i must create my own rain or dry up completely.
so i drench myself,
for a moment, the water feels like relief.
then he sees me drowning,
but i think that he brought this rain back.
still, i wait for him to take the water.
still, i believe he can save me from what’s killing me.
i am drowning
he leaves me in my vase
outside, the grass is still green, the sun is still shining.
and i am still here.
alone in my vase.

Why did they have to stink like that?

The Bradford pears were in full bloom. Equal parts beauty and stink. They were usually the first thing to flower, and the white blossoms reminded me of a wedding. The smell was another matter entirely. Rotten fish, mostly.

I was hanging back in the school pickup line, which meant the whole place had the fragrance of regret and bad decisions. Breathing through my mouth, I tried to pretend it wasn’t bothering me; pretend it wasn’t a little on the nose for where my life was at.

I waited to pick up Harper from school. This would be the last time for a week; she was heading to her mother’s tonight for her week of custody. This meant a long, quiet stretch ahead of me. I sort of dreaded these Fridays. I had plans for the night, which helped, but after that, it was all work, sleep, repeat until she was back.

Technically, the school wanted us in cars, not milling around under the Bradford pears, but every parent here ignored that rule the second spring arrived.

At least I wouldn’t be out here with this smell for a week. Thank God for small miracles.

Also, a week without Harper. I’d rather deal with the smell.

It also meant not getting to see Anna Whitford, the woman who somehow volunteered for everything and still looked unruffled. She was the mother of my daughter’s best friend, so we often ended up sharing space.

Anna was why I stood by those awful, fragrant trees instead of closer to the school doors. She always stood up front, close enough that half the school seemed to orbit around her without her noticing. She made the whole school thing look effortless, cool and collected, whether she was in the chaotic stew of parents or wrangling kids and backpacks.

She hadn’t seen me yet. Good.

I needed a second to pull myself together, shake off the Bradford funk, and remember how to talk like a normal human being.

Harper burst out of the doors into the spring air, and I felt my day improve, at least for a few more hours.

She came running out hand-in-hand with Maddie, Anna’s daughter. The girls stopped, Maddie breaking for her mom and already starting whatever story she needed to unload, while Harper spotted me in the back and signaled me over like she was guiding a plane to the gate. Anna noticed and turned toward me with that easy smile that made everyone feel better than they really were.

This was probably my second favorite part of the after-school ritual. “Hey, Ethan,” she called. “Perfect timing. The girls were plotting.”

Harper crashed into my side, arms thrown around me, eyes beaming with the question she wasn’t asking out loud. I smiled down at her, then up at Anna, because that part was automatic.

“That sounds... ominous.”

“They want a sleepover,” she said, cocking her head the way she did when she already knew the answer. “And apparently they’ve both agreed we’re going to say yes.”

Harper tightened her grip around my waist. For a short moment, I didn’t notice the smell.

“Well,” I said, “we have stuff for pizza. Megan usually swings by to pick up Harper right after work, but if she’s good with it, I can feed everyone beforehand.”

Anna’s smile shifted slightly into something that read as knowing.

“Sounds perfect,” she said. “Maddie will be thrilled. She says your dough is better than mine. I’m trying not to be hurt.”

I laughed, too loud, too fast. I immediately wished I could take it back.

“It’s just Trader Joe’s in disguise,” I said. “I let the girls roll it out, and they think it’s magic.”

“That’s the trick.” She winked, giving me the win.

There was a stillness. Not silence; the girls were already negotiating their toppings, but something shared between us that I was reluctant to disturb.

Then it lasted a little too long.

I panicked and rushed to fill it.

“I’ll shoot Megan a text,” I said, pulling out my phone like it made me look competent. “Make sure it’s okay.”

Anna had already moved on to reorganizing Maddie’s backpack, but she paused and glanced over her shoulder.

“Let me know when she texts back,” she said. Like it was routine. Like it was just logistics. But her voice changed around it, and I caught the shift. I hoped I did.

We'd done this before. The kids threw out the idea, we handled the details. It had a groove to it by now. Sometimes I took the girls home after school. Other times, it was Anna dropping Maddie off after I’d picked up Harper.

I liked it when the night landed that way.

I didn’t mind showing up a little late to the DDC.

And I hated that I was already thinking of excuses not to go.

“If it works out, you can come too,” I heard myself say. “If you want. We’ll have dough for a small army.”

I tried to not make it sound like an obligation. I tried not to sound hopeful.

I failed at both.

She smiled, simple and unforced. “Appreciate it, you don’t have to trouble yourself. I can pick Maddie up if Megan says no.”

She was giving me an out. I didn’t want an out.

Not from this.

The girls were still arguing over which toppings to veto. Harper yelled, “No mushrooms,” like it was personal.

I thumbed out a short message to Megan, not even full sentences; she didn’t need them, and she replied before I put the phone away:

Megan: Of course. Six-thirty still good?

No fuss, just trust. It still surprised me sometimes how well we did that part, even if we couldn’t do the rest.

I looked up. Anna was already shifting bags and folders, but she must have heard the notification, because she gave me a small nod.

“Sounds like a go on my end,” I said. “Girls get what they want.”

“Then I’ll let you take them,” she said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “And I’ll escape before anyone realizes I forgot to sign up for snack duty next week.”

I wanted to ask, “You sure?” I didn’t.

I just grinned.

“I’ll send them to Megan well-fed, and flour-dusted.”

“Perfect.” She smiled at me; the last one I’d get for a week. “Thanks, Ethan.” And that was it.

She walked toward her car, and I waited there a second longer than I should have. Long enough to feel the moment shift from “could have” to “not quite.” She drove off and waved. I waved back, realizing a moment too late that it was probably meant for Maddie.

“Dad, you better not forget the goat cheese this time.” Right. Goat cheese.

I climbed in and joined the slow river of minivans and exhausted parents. Pizza night was on.

I told myself this was enough. I wasn’t sure I believed me.

I still had a few hours with Harper. And I still had the DDC.

***

The house always felt different on handoff days.

Even before we arrived, I was able to sense the quiet building in the empty passenger seat like an extra person. Harper talked a mile a minute about toppings, sleepover plans, and what movie they were going to watch, but beneath her excitement, my mind kept tugging on the coming quiet. She was looking forward to the night. I was already feeling what came after.

She tapped the back of my seat with her foot.

“Dad, you’re thinking too loud.”

She said it like a joke. I gave her something close to a laugh.

“Just trying to remember if we have mozzarella,” I said. “I don’t want Maddie telling her mom we starved her.”

Harper snorted in that preteen way that was half dismissal and half affection. I took it as a win.

When we reached the house, the girls scrambled past me to get to the door first. I wedged myself between them to get the key in the lock.

“What’s the rush?” I asked, already knowing there wasn’t an answer. They didn’t bother giving one.

Inside, I hung my keys on their hook and glanced around the entryway. We used to come home to “our” house. Now, it was just “my” house. The place smelled less like home and more like a hotel room. The furniture was all IKEA and recent enough to still feel temporary. Everything looked fine. Nothing felt like mine. Nothing had a story. I kept telling myself I’d grow into it. Until then, the whole place stayed tidy, organized, and hollow.

Harper didn’t register any of that. She stormed through the house with a purpose, talking about which movies she and Maddie would watch and which side of the couch each would claim at Megan’s that night. Her voice filled the house like humidity fills the air: subtle, bringing with it a warmth I realized I’d soon miss.

She kicked her shoes off and tossed her backpack onto the couch. I let it go. It was her last hour there for a week. I would’ve let her commit minor vandalism if it made her smile.

“Can we start the dough?” she shouted from the kitchen. “Maddie wants to do the spiral crust again.”

She had a brightness I envied. The day had gone her way, and I wanted to be close enough to borrow some of it.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’ve got time.”

And we did. Megan wouldn’t be there until six thirty. This little window of time was ours.

Maddie dragged a stool across the tile, metal legs screeching. I winced as I prepared the counter while Harper explained, in detail, the entire sleepover schedule.

She paused only once, mid-sentence, to squint up at me. “You’re doing the sad eyebrows again.”

I blinked, then made a show of moving my hands around my face, doing an inventory. “I’m not,” I maintained, which was exactly what someone with sad eyebrows would do.

Harper sighed with theatrical self-assurance. “It’s one week. We’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”

She nudged my arm, a small gesture meant to reassure without looking like reassurance. It worked. I smiled. A real one, I thought.

We pulled out the “magic” dough. I let the girls go at it. The kitchen filled with the clean, warm smell of yeast and flour, about as far from Bradford pear blossoms as you could get. Harper narrated her thoughts. Maddie critiqued her technique. I turned on the oven.

For the moment, everything was simply… okay. Then, at 5:40, my phone buzzed.

It cut through the room too sharply.

Megan: Leaving work early. Be there in 25.

I sighed as I read the message.

“Mom’s early, she’ll be here in twenty-five,” I said. “Show me your spiral crust.”

Harper’s grin snapped back instantly. I let myself share in her pride for a moment.

The girls leaned over the dough, shaping the spiral crust with complete seriousness. It was already a tradition, even though it had only existed for two sleepovers.

I hovered nearby, trying to be helpful without intruding. Harper said I ruined the “magic” by micromanaging. Maddie agreed with her. Together, they formed a united front against me.

They were arguing then about pepperoni density per quadrant. Maddie believed in aesthetic restraint. Harper called her a coward. I pretended to officiate but mostly just absorbed the noise.

Flour was everywhere. Tomorrow morning, the kitchen would look like a crime scene.

I’d clean it then. Right then, I let it be.

I leaned against the doorway for just a second and watched them. Harper caught me.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“The look. When you’re happy and sad at the same time. The one where you look like you’re about to cry.”

Harper. She had a way.

I shook my head, but she was already sculpting dough again. Maddie mentioned proper basil distribution. I caught myself thinking, again, that I wished we’d made a life that looked like that on purpose. A life where noise didn’t feel borrowed. Where warmth wasn’t temporary. Where home wasn’t something we visited in shifts.

The oven beeped when it was preheated. The girls finished crafting the pizza, two distinct halves. I placed their pizza on a pan and slid it onto the rack, setting the timer.

I wiped the counter. I pretended I wasn’t watching the time.

The door opened. Megan never knocked. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I replied. “You’re early.”

“Traffic wasn’t bad.” She surveyed the kitchen, the flour on the floor, the girls, the crust. “Spiral again?”

“They’re committed,” I said. “Should be done in fifteen, if you’re hungry.” I always offered. I always meant it.

She gave me the practiced smile. Warm. Familiar. Not unkind. Not the smile of someone coming home, either.

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

I can’t say I was surprised.

Harper turned, saw her, and sprinted across the room.

“Mom! We added garlic powder this time, and Dad didn’t forget the goat cheese!”

“Of course he didn’t, Pumpkin,” Megan said, crouching to hug her. “You’re my little overachiever.”

Maddie hung back, but Megan gave her a quick wave too. “Hey, Maddie. Glad you could spend the night.”

“It’s going to be epic,” Maddie said, perfectly serious.

They all laughed. I smiled. And for a moment, I could almost believe that was what healthy looked like. Equal footing. Easy rhythm. Clean lines between homes.

But something in me still tightened.

Megan stood near the boundary of the kitchen, arms loose, taking in the room.

She had loved me once. I knew that. She might still have.

But she couldn’t live there with me then. Not in a house where the walls would echo every time she asked how I felt, and I replied, “Fine.” Not in a house where we had been roommates for years before we admitted it.

The timer beeped. Harper cheered like we’d won something. “Pizza’s done,” I announced to the room.

Good. I needed the interruption.

After we ate, I went to collect the girls’ plates as they finished. The girls drifted back into planning mode, already halfway out the door in their minds.

Megan’s house was just as new as mine, a life rebuilt, but somehow it didn’t echo like mine. Her house still felt like home, just not my home anymore.

When the girls ran off to gather Harper’s things, Megan stayed put, hovering near the table.

“What’s up?” I asked. I heard the fear in my voice. I hoped she didn’t.

Megan didn’t answer right away. Her eyes flicked toward the hallway where the girls disappeared, then back to the table where grease-streaked paper towels marked the end of dinner. She rested one hand on the chair back and the other lightly on her hip, almost looking relaxed.

“You seem tired,” she said. A check-in. The kind she used to do without asking.

“No, not tired,” I said. Too quickly. “Just pollen season. Everything’s good. I’m meeting Marcus and the boys tonight. Should be fun.”

I could hear myself trying too hard.

I placed the plates in the sink for later and rested one hand on the counter, shifting my weight, aiming for “relaxed” myself.

Megan watched me for a second too long. She read me like she was still fluent in a language I kept forgetting how to speak.

“That’s good,” she said. “It’s good you’re getting out.” She meant it, I thought.

Then, “You don’t have to prove anything, Ethan. Not to me.” It took me by surprise. It stung, and I didn’t quite know why.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “It’s just quiet when Harper’s gone. Everything’s fine.”

I heard the lie. She heard it too.

I let that hang for a moment before I added, because it still stung, “You know, you can always eat with us. You don’t have to wait until you get home. I’m happy to have you.”

She exhaled softly. A practiced breath. A familiar boundary. “I know. And thank you. You always offer.”

There was warmth in it. There was also an ending.

She shifted her weight, mirrored me almost, hand grazing the opposite side of the counter like she might have leaned there once, in another version of that night.

“But if I stayed…” she trailed off, “…you’d ask how work was, and I’d ask about your place, and we’d talk like we’re still trying.”

There it was. Simple. Clean. True.

“I was trying, you know,” I said. “I was always trying.” My voice felt smaller than I wanted it to be.

“I didn’t want this.”

She didn’t flinch. She just met my eyes like she’d been waiting years for me to say that out loud.

“I know you didn’t.” Her voice came quietly.

She crossed her arms, landing somewhere between guarding and supporting herself.

“But trying isn’t the same as showing up. Not where I could see it.” She wasn’t trying to be cruel.

“You were good with Harper. Always. And I think part of me hoped that would be enough. That maybe you just needed time.”

She swallowed, and for a second, I thought maybe she was still hurt.

“But I was so alone, Ethan. For so long. Even when you were right there.” She said it gently. It still landed hard.

I didn’t know what to say. I never did.

“Yeah,” I managed. “Well… you’re always welcome here. I do have a project at work I’m behind on. Is six okay for next week?”

Maybe she heard the deflection, the hope, the wound. She nodded either way.

“Six is fine.”

Not “yes,” not “no”, just “fine.” The story of us.

The girls came barreling back, a whirlwind of backpacks and stuffed animals. “We’re ready!” Harper said.

Megan brightened instantly. “Okay, Pumpkin. Let’s roll.”

I handed Harper her water bottle and touched her shoulder like it mattered. It did.

“Bye, Dad! Love you!”

“Love you too, Harp.”

They filed out like it was routine. And it was. Somehow, that made it worse. Megan turned around and gave me one last look.

“Take care of yourself, Ethan.”

“You too,” I answered automatically.

Then the door shut behind them, and the house exhaled. The oven clicked as it cooled.

Paper towels sat crumpled on the table. Pizza smell hung in the air.

I was still standing by the sink when the quiet finally settled in.

For several years now, all fee-paying members have had direct access to a reserved section of the club's website. It is used for complaints, suggestions, proposing new members and, every other March, electing a new committee. This leap into the modern era caused a good deal of debate and confusion at first, especially among the more senior members, who regarded the internet rather as they regarded the wearing of a baseball cap back to front: a new fad from the United States, aimed squarely at the youth market and best not encouraged.

Keith Dawson, who administers the website, gives an excellent after-dinner speech on the subject, recounting the difficulties several senior members had in coming to grips with this modern method of communication, memorably described by one member as "like something out of Doctor Who." Passwords were a particular source of struggle — 12345 proved almost inevitably the most popular, followed closely by unique, inspired by the on-screen instruction that a password ought to be exactly that, then golfclub, and, rather more surprisingly, Deirdre — the name of Willie Bateman's wife, adopted by an entire table of senior members after Bateman used it, without much forethought, as his example while explaining account setup over lunch.

Every other year the club elects a new committee to oversee its running as a business. Votes are cast on the website in the last week of March and counted on the 31st. Barring a committee member moving away, being imprisoned, or having the misfortune to die, the old committee is invariably re-elected, and becomes, with very little fanfare, "the new committee" — for about a month, at which point it reverts to being simply "the committee." The election of 2023 went as smoothly as every election before it, but will nonetheless be remembered for years to come. The existing committee was duly reappointed in full, and, in addition, Keith Dawson was elected unanimously as an auxiliary member — a suggestion from the committee itself, in recognition of his work on the website and the club's promotional brochure, and his expected involvement in preparations for the club's centenary celebrations.

It is customary for the new committee to publish a letter of thanks the day after the election, and, inevitably, Dawson was the one asked to "take care of that." Until 2023, it does not appear to have occurred to anyone that the day after the 31st of March is, by the ordinary operation of the calendar, the 1st of April. It occurred to Dawson. Wishing to add a little levity to an otherwise dull piece of club correspondence, he closed the letter with the following paragraph: In celebration of the LGBTQ community's enormous contribution to this club, and to golf in general, the new committee has decided to replace the existing yellow flags on the greens with the rainbow Gay Pride flag. Sixty-six million years ago, the Chicxulub meteor struck the earth in Mexico, wiping out the dinosaurs, and plunging the planet into darkness for the better part of two decades. It had, by any fair comparison, considerably less impact than the indignant fury Dawson unleashed on his committee that day.

By nine the following morning, the club secretary's inbox held eleven emails, four of them in capital letters throughout, one of them from a member who had resigned from the club twice before over lesser matters, and clearly regarded this as an opportunity to make it three. By half past nine, the club's answering machine — a device most members still distrusted rather more than the website — had recorded seven messages, three of which simply repeated the word "outrageous" at varying volumes before hanging up without further comment. Willie Bateman, as captain, took the brunt of it. He fielded a call before breakfast from Kenneth Instone, a man who had not set foot in the clubhouse in over a year owing to a long-running dispute about the positioning of the ball-washer on the ninth, and who now wished it clearly understood that he would sooner resign his membership than "sink a putt under a rainbow flag." He fielded a second call, rather more perplexing, from Marjorie Fenwick, who wanted to know whether the new flags would be "the ordinary kind of rainbow, or the other kind," a distinction Willie found himself entirely unable to explain to her satisfaction. By mid-morning, a rumour had begun circulating — nobody could later say with whom it started — that the change had already been implemented on the seventh green. No fewer than six members drove to the club specifically to inspect it, found the flag exactly as yellow as it had always been, and left without any evident reduction in their sense of grievance, several of them muttering that this was, if anything, worse: proof that the club was capable of backing down the moment anybody complained, which was almost as troubling as the original announcement.

It was Deirdre Bateman — invoked so freely as a password, and rather less often consulted in person — who, having reread the letter over lunch, pointed out that it was dated the 1st of April. Willie rang Dawson at once. "It's an April Fool," Dawson said, sounding, for the first time since the crisis began, genuinely bewildered rather than merely under siege. "I thought that was rather obvious." "Nobody's noticed the date, Keith." "Nobody's noticed the date? It's printed at the top of the letter. I even put it in bold type." "Nobody reads the top of the letter," Willie said, with the weary authority of a man who had spent a dozen years chairing committees. "They read the bit that upsets them."

By two o'clock a second letter had gone out — considerably shorter, entirely without levity, confirming that the flags would remain yellow, that no change to the club’s dress code had ever been proposed, and that the previous day's communication had been intended, in the spirit of the date on which it was sent, as a small joke. This letter generated four further complaints, two of them objecting to the club's use of the phrase "small joke" as trivialising, and one, rather touchingly, from a member who wished to record his disappointment that the rainbow flags weren't happening after all, as he'd rather taken to the idea over his morning coffee, and had already mentioned it approvingly to his daughter.

Dawson's auxiliary committee seat, awarded with such warmth not forty-eight hours earlier, was not formally revoked. Nobody, in the end, quite had the appetite to hold a second vote so soon after the first. But it was gently agreed, at the next full meeting, that, should any future club correspondence require levity, it would be handled by someone other than Keith Dawson.

Thank you for reading, I look forward to your comments.

**********

A quick note from the author:

This piece is from my prose memoir, The Small Print, which focuses on the sharper, ironic, and distinctly unglamorous side of everyday life back in England.
While I currently write from an island in French Polynesia, my roots (and my cynicism) remain firmly British. I've started putting more of these crisp, short reflections on life, memory, and the occasional Windsor rainstorm over on my Substack: https://substack.com/@julianevanfoster
If you enjoyed the dry perspective, do wander over and subscribe. It costs nothing, and it saves me from shouting these stories into the lagoon.

Please check out this chapter from my novel. Honest feedback on the prose, readability, and POV would be greatly appreciated. Also, do you think the following passage would flow better in first-person POV?

Scene: Dawn and other dark mages who awakened their power in the coming of age ceremony are now guided to the last part of the ceremony, to the council chambers where elders will judge based on their powers.

Thirty of them marched past the dark stone wall, guided only by the flickering flames of rusty iron chandeliers. Without warning, the group came to an abrupt halt. Lost in thought, Dawn bumped right into the back of the young mage ahead of him.

“Sorry...“ Dawn muttered, staggering back to catch his balance on the cold stone floor.

The young mage didn’t even turn around, barely registering the collision. Up at the front of the procession, an attendant’s hands came together with a sharp, echoing clap.

“Nobles first, then commoners! Split into two lines,“ the attendant shouted. “Quick now!“

Swiftly the students started to form a line. Dawn scanned the divide, silk dark cloak and polished boots lined right, dark faded tunic and tattered sandals lined left. Commoners or high folks? The system had ripped him from his world and dumped him directly into this sequence, leaving only his appearance unchanged. He knew nothing about his origins or lineage. How could he know where he belonged if he had not been told?

As Dawn was about to step into a queue, a massive hairy hand slammed him against his chest, shoving him back. “Where are you pulling into mutt” a guttural voice barked. “Hide your ugly mug alongside the commoners.”

Before Dawn could regain his footing, a second hand reached out, catching the brute’s wrist and wrenching it away.

“Now, now, Darwin,“ a smoother voice intervened, cool and condescending. “Even if he is a half breed, noble blood still lingers in him.“ The brute muttered something under his breath but fell in line like a well trained hound. It only took one word for him to keep the mutt under control. He eyed Dawn for a beat, then stepped back. “Malrick, give him some space.“ With a low grunt, the purple haired young mage backed up, clearing a gap in the queue. With a practised smile the savior gestured to the open spot, his voice smooth as silk. “Get in line, Dawn.“ Defeated, Dawn took refuge beside him among the noble ranks.

From the line he peeked another look at his saviour, Slicked back hair, calculative dead pan eyes, pale skin with a noble house crest knitted into his clock. Everything about the man screamed authoritative nobility. He flashed another smile, rotten and hollow, the fakest among fake.

“Now, the first five from the noble line, follow me“ the attendee called out.

Pulled into the line, Dawn was standing fifth. First was the brute, his massive frame hovering over everyone in the line. Second was the dark savior of Dawn, other two slots were filled with a purple dyed student with piercing, and a normal looking one. No code were followed in this school except the attire needed to be black.

The group followed the attendant toward a pair of massive oak doors. Pulling them open, he gestured for the young students to step inside.

A towering, crowded arena greeted them. Dozens of senior students looked down from the lower stands, while armored guards lined the dirt floor below. High above, in the upper wooden balconies, a few hooded elders stood watching. Their sharp eyes judged the new arrivals from beneath deep cowls, quiet fingers stroking long white beards.

Right in the center of the dirt floor, a single wide circle was drawn. A few feet back from the circle, a line of examiners sat behind wooden desks. Quill pens scratched fiercely across parchment as they scribbled notes.

“Welcome! The first batch is right on time!“

The speaker stepped forward to greet them, a teacher wearing round spectacles, a pointed witch’s hat, and a bushy white beard that billowed out like a pine tree.

“My name is Tharos,“ he continued, gesturing around the corner “And the one over there is Crowfeet.“

A few feet away, a second instructor hunched against the walls under the balcony shadows, his tall frame half-swallowed.

“As time is of the essence, we will begin the welcoming ceremony! No time for pep talks.“ Tharos turned toward the rear doors and ordered the guards, “Bring in the prisoners!“

Two hooded guards dragged forward five prisoners chained in a line. Heavy iron cuffs bound their wrists and ankles, clanking loudly as the captives struggled to walk. Sacks covered their heads completely.

Dawn’s chest tightened, a spike of cold panic piercing his gut. What were their crimes? What was about to happen? Around him, the other recruits stood impassive, as though expecting this all along. Everyone knew the rules of this ritual, except him.

As Dawn stood frozen in contemplation, a heavy hand patted against his shoulder.

It was his savior. The noble had effortlessly slipped out of his spot in line and stepped up beside him. According to whatever twisted logic of the system, they were supposed to know each other, yet Dawn’s mind remained a total blank, unable to retrieve a single memory of the man.

“Are you ready, Dawn?“ the noble asked.

Dawn wanted to mouth no, to scream it, but his instincts took over. “Yes,“ he muttered anyway, the word escaping his throat before he could stop it.

“No time to waste! First up, Corin from the House of Iron march!“ Tharos called out.

The brute stepped forward out of the line, his massive frame looming over the dirt circle. A guard stepped up, unlocked the lead chain from the line of captives, and guided a single prisoner with wrists and ankles still bound and forced him onto his knees directly before Corin.

“Start the timer on my mark! Corin, show us your power. The elders will judge!“

Tharos gave him a brief moment to prepare, but the brute looked more than ready, standing unnaturally tall and broad for a mage. As the signal was given, a guard flipped a heavy hourglass upside down, and grains of dark sand began to trickle down through the glass.

Corin activated his skill. From his broad shoulders, two massive arms made of solid shadow erupted into the air. With a brutal burst of violence, the giant hands of shadow slammed down, pummeling the helpless prisoner into the dirt.

After the fist’s first heavy impact, Dawn instinctively dropped his gaze toward the floor. Before he could look away, a firm hand clamped around his jaw and yanked his face back up.

“Don’t look down,“ a smooth voice whispered near his ear. “Look around us, Dawn. None of them are staring at the dirt. They are all looking death straight in the eye.“

The slick haired noble tilted Dawn’s head upward toward the balcony. “The elders are watching.“ He turned Dawn’s face back down toward the desk of instructors. “We are being judged. Act according to our noble name.“

He released his grip, leaving Dawn forced to witness the brutal onslaught as shadow hands mangled the lifeless body. Dawn was no stranger to butchering livestock or the stench of rotting animal carcasses but now he would have to get used to the sight and smell of human blood too.

“And time!“ The guard flipped the hourglass flat and checked the remaining sand. “Ten seconds!“ he announced to the arena.

Tharos shook his head slightly. “If you had stopped your meaningless rampage early, that could have been a record.“

Across the arena wall, the grand slate board shuddered. The name holding tenth place dropped lower, triggering a domino effect down the line. The fiftieth name vanished from the bottom entirely as the forty ninth slipped into its place.

“You are currently tenth on the leaderboard,“ Tharos announced.

Corin threw his arms wide, flexing his massive muscles in triumph as a handful of senior students scattered throughout the crowd offered lazy applause. High above in the balcony, the elders remained silence, unimpressed. At the long wooden bench, the examiners jotted down their notes.

After allowing Corin a brief moment to bathe in his glory, the guards escorted him out of the ring. A cleanup crew rushed in immediately, dragging the mangled remains away and leaving behind only a slick, pool of blood staine in the center of the dirt.

“Now for our second recruit, Matthew of the Vlodrath family! Come forward,“ Tharos called out.

The savior with the polished black hair stepped smoothly into the spotlight. A wave of murmurs rippled through the arena. A few senior students cheered, while others looked on with sharp, astonished eyes.

Dawn watched him walk forward, his lingering suspicions confirmed. Matthew was clearly from a high ranking house and dawn belong to the same house as him.

“Now once I give the signal, you can show your powers to the elders“. Dawn frowned, by showing powers now has a darker meaning then anything else.

As Tharos signaled, Matthew took out the dagger from his belt and lunged at the prisoner, slitting his throat without a shred of remorse. Not a single second was wasted.

He glanced over at the guard operating the hourglass and shrugged. “Turn the hourglass upside down again!“

“The trial only ends when you show us your powers. It’s not about how fast you can kill,“ Tharos snapped, giving him a scornful look.

High above, a few elders gasped in disappointment, while the examiners at the desk didn’t even look fazed, they had seen this arrogant rookie mistake a thousand times before.

“Fine,“ Matthew declared.

He opened his palm and twitched his fingers, weaving invisible dark threads from his finger tips that slid directly into the fresh wound on the prisoner’s neck. He held the stance for a moment before commanding in an cold voice, “Arise!“

The dead body mechanically jerked upward to its feet.

“A Puppeteer,“ one elder murmured from the balcony, sounding quiet impressed. Beside him, another wore a proud smile, as if to say, That’s my boy.

“And that’s time!“ Tharos shouted, glaring toward the guard.

“Twenty seconds!“ the guard called out.

The reanimated corpse stumbled forward a few feet before collapsing back into the dirt like a broken rag doll. As the cleanup crew dragged the body away, Matthew walked past Dawn, silently lipping the words good luck before stepping out of the arena.

As the lineup moved faster and faster, Dawn fidgeted nervously with his hands. He checked his status screen several times, but the truth remained unyielding. Neither the class bestowed upon him nor his skills had changed.

Up ahead, the queue dissolved quickly. The purple-haired boy summoned a small brigade of skeletons to tear into his target, while the quiet silence student calmly coated his blade in poison before finishing off his prisoner. They logged times of thirty and thirty five seconds, respectively.

Finally, the floor was cleared and his Dawn’s turn.

“Velkar from-” his voice suddenly cutting out with a strange, unnatural static. Tharos entire frame glitched for a fraction of a second. As if the system is fixing a mistake, “...Dawn from the Vlodrath family!“

Dawn didn’t bother worrying about the system glitch. He had far bigger problems to survive right now. He swallowed hard and stepped into the center of the circle.

“Wait for my signal. Then, you may use your power,“ Tharos said.

Dawn could feel the weight of every eye in the arena preying upon him. Tharos gave the signal, and the guard flipped the hourglass.

Dawn activated his skill: Summon Orb.

A tiny black sphere materialized in the air in front of him, hovered for a split second, and then dropped straight into the dirt with a pathetic plop.

A wave of muffled chuckles rippled through the stands. Tharos quickly silenced the crowd with a sharp glare before gesturing for Dawn to proceed. Over at the instructors’ bench, however, the examiners leaned into one another, exchanging urgent whispers.

“What is your class?“ one of the examiners called out, breaking protocol.

“It’s called Void Caller... ah, sir,“ Dawn replied, his voice barely holding steady.

The examiner slid his spectacles down the bridge of his nose, squinting at his parchment. “And what is the rank of your class and skill?“

“SSS-rank, sir. Both of them.“

“Continue,“ the examiner ordered flatly, turning back to his colleagues as they frantically began scribbling notes and debating among themselves.

Dawn took the sphere into his hands, looking out at the crowd. Up close, it resembled a heavy iron cannonball, polished slick like a black bowling ball without finger holes. When he lifted it with both hands, the weight sank heavily into his arms, around twenty pounds of solid black metal.

“What is your power again?“ the examiner pressed, leaning over his notes as the sand inside the hourglass slowly dripped away.

“Ah... it’s this,“ Dawn stammered. He lifted the iron sphere, balancing it in both hands to show the entire gallery. “I can summon this ball.“

A sudden wave of roaring laughter erupted from the senior students.

“Silence! Silence!“ Tharos barked, glaring sharply at the laughing crowd. “Let Dawn from House Vlodrath finish his-”

“That insolent brat is not from the Vlodrath family!“

A roar interrupted and shattered the mood as an old bastard in the balcony jumped from his seat, leaning over the wooden railing with a face twisted in rage. “I have controlled enough tolerance, One member’s failure to control his sexual urge will not leave a black mark to the entire clan! Never utter our house name again alongside that brat’s name.“

With that single outburst, the entire chamber went dead silent.

What did I do to piss that old fellow off again?

Dawn stared down at the heavy black sphere resting in his hands. Holding it tight, he took a hesitant step toward the kneeling prisoner. Beneath the rough sack, the captive let out muffled, frantic whimpers, his mouth bound tight beneath the cloth.

Dawn glanced back over his shoulder at Tharos and the examiners, his wide, desperate eyes silently pleading for someone to intervene.

The pressure unlocked a core memory, where he had stood frozen on a stage during a speech competition, paralyzed under the glare of a hundred staring faces. But this wasn’t a speech. He didn’t want his first act in this world to be murdering a helpless man with a twenty pound bowling ball.

A tongue clicked sharply from the darkness.

It was Crowfeet. The instructor hidden beneath the shadow glided forward, his tall frame cutting through the dim light as he clenched his fists. Without a word of warning, Crowfeet grabbed the prisoner by the head, slammed him face first into the dirt, and pushed his knee into the man’s chest, pinning him to the ground.

“The timer won’t stop until you kill him,“ He pointed a long, bony finger at the sphere in Dawn’s hands. “You hold a weapon. Use it.“

Dawn’s hands trembled as he adjusted his grip on the heavy sphere. He closed the distance, raising the ball up near his chin to gain momentum.

“H-huh...“ Dawn gasped, losing his balance for a fraction of a second.

“If you drop that on my leg, I will kill you myself,“ Crowfeet growled without looking up.

A few muffled snickers snuck out from the senior students in the stands, though Dawn took a small, twisted comfort in knowing the other particpants had already been escorted out and couldn’t witness this embarrassment. Still, Crowfeet’s threat worked. Panic surged through Dawn’s veins. He quickly lowered the heavy ball back down to his waist, bent his knees, and released his grip, the sphere went down toward the captive’s head.

Crack.

The heavy iron smashed into the prisoner’s nose with a sickening crunch. The ball rebounded off the face and rolled away into the dirt. blood instantly soaked through the sack.

Dawn spun around, gulping his bile back to his stomach.

Crowfeet let out a long, disappointed sigh. Raising his hand, he activated a telekinesis skill, the iron orb lifted off the ground and floated directly into his palm. Wrapping his fingers around the ball, the instructor brought the sphere down onto the prisoner’s head again and again, raining relentless blows until the captive stopped breathing and the skull caved in completely.

Crowfeet tossed the bloody sphere carelessly into the dirt.

“Stop the timer!“ Tharos shook his head. “It doesn’t even count!“

Before Dawn could even catch his breath or wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, two guards stepped up, grabbed him by the arms, and forcefully escorted him out of the arena.

This is chapter 1 of a fantasy book I'm been imagining since I was a child. The writing is pretty rough but I'd love to know if anyone sees potential in it. There's also alot of place holders still. Please be kind but honest.

Navarii's eyes followed the tamri monkeys, leaping between the branches of their enclosure, a series of nets held up between purposely planted trees. Their orange fur almost looked as golden as her eyes in this light as they catapulted themselves from one end of their cage to another, like acrobats performing for an audience. Navarii picked a slice of a peach out of her breakfast, and offered it to one of them, the oldest one. He bared his teeth at her, showing his broken canine, before accepting her offering through the net. Hopefully she didn't ruin his appetite enough for his caretaker to notice. She ate the last of her fruit, and gulped the last bit of lassi from the fine ceramic bowl.

“See you later old man,” she said to the small monkey before walking back towards the [building for housing the small animals collection]. She passed a wheel barrow full of various animal refuse and considered throwing the bowl in it. She caught herself, remembering it wasn't a disposable gourd.

Teams of animal keepers made their way past her, nodding with a “princess” or “your grace”. She crossed a living bridge from one artificial island to another, while the wind blew through the branches growing out of it. Everything here was man-made she thought, even if it looked like it grew out of the ground on its own. She walked through the arch of the [small animal hall], two tree trunks bending towards each other, fused at the apex, then continued as one tree.

She walked down a hall of glass jars hanging from the ceiling at eye level, some of them as big as her. She looked at their inhabitants, each one home to a different kind of frog or lizard hiding. [The jars have soil and plants. A comparison of these living ecosystems is made with the larger city outside. People also live in plants essentially.] Navarii looked up at the dust dancing between beams of light, directed by reflective pipes from the light outside, shining down on the rooms residents.

Navarii entered a domed room, filled with larger enclosures. Cages and jars too large to hang from the ceiling lined the walls, in the center, an enormous wire cage, multicolored finches flitting between branches of a full grown tree, covered in pink flowers. Navarii's attention came to a large jar by the wall, sitting on a table of tree roots coming out of the floor between a similar jar of little red fish and a brass cage with a large green bird sitting on a perch.

“You replaced it!” she called to [animal keepers name].

She walked up to the clear vessel, where one cracked by tree roots growing into it sat days ago.

“It wasn't cheap either… princess,” he said. “The glass blowers were able to salvage the original jar luckily.”

Navarii peered into the large orb, looking past bubbles trapped in the glass at the most unremarkable lizards.

“The plants are pretty at least,” she remarked.

“Yes, but the geckos are the star,” [keeper] said a little defensively.

“But they're so… brown. Do they glow at night or something?” she wondered.

“Umm… no… your grace. But!” He brightened up. “They were found by [explorer] on [islands on southern coast] a couple of years back. And, they seem to reproduce without males. Anyone of them will lay fertile eggs, even separated from the group.”

Navarii's curiosity piqued.

“Well that's kind of weird.”

“Yes! [Explorer] named them the Queens geckos, after you and her majesty's ancestry..”

Navarii looked from one gecko to a the next, something was… wrong? off? strange about them.

“But.. the queens all have father's, just like anyone else,” she corrected him, her eyes fixed on the tiny reptiles.

“Well… I guess [explorer] fancies himself a poet,” [keeper] answered.

“Yeah… I suppose…” Navarii trailed off.

“Are these all siblings?” she questioned. “Like twins.”

He looked at her curiously.

“Some of them… maybe. There's several generations in there. They reproduce quickly.”

[he asks if she wants to feed them, she keeps asking about their genetics basically.]

“I have to go, I'm sitting for my portrait in a few hours,” Navarii groaned. “Can one of you make sure this gets back to the kitchen,” she said, handing him the iridescent bowl.

“Of course, princess, [girl in kitchen] has some ducks for the big cats.”

Navarii headed towards the palace, covering her ears as she walked down a hall of screaming birds before exiting the [small animal hall] through another arch of shaped trees. She followed the paths, every root bridge and island getting older as she got closer to the palace, until she reached a smaller side entrance and passed between two guards. She trekked through the dimly lit labyrinth of trees and stones, the oldest building in the city, probably the world. Navarii inhaled, the smell of cypress resin from the trees that made up the walls and pillars of the structure and smoke from oil lamps and incense filled the corridor. An improvement from monkey shit she thought.

As she reached the more used areas, fresh bouquets of flowers lined the walls. Windows of mosaic colored glass let in kaleidoscopic light. She walked through a room where every surface was covered in spider silk tapestries, alabaster reliefs, and portraits of long dead people.

She finally reached her room and shut the door behind her. I'm going to have to start accepting rides from the palanquin she thought as she kicked off her shoes.

Another Friday at school was done and now I just have to complete my first single tennis match. Then off to home to get ready for what I really love to do. On our bus ride to are tennis match which was just in the next town over. Julia, my best friend, tapped my shoulder while I had my headphones on. As I paused my CD player with a stern look on my face. She goes, oh sorry to bother you, I was just going to ask you were you nervous about your first match without me? She chuckled due to me and her always being double partners. No I said with a straight face I'm more nervous for tonight. Oh she says, for your church singing competition? As my body tense up a little I take a big breathe in and say no.. It's not a singing competition, my church youth choir got invited to sing at another church for the first time. She simply gives me a blank stare then says okay cool. Then goes back talking to the other kids. Finally we get back to our school and I see Sis. Jones and my little sisters waiting for me to pick me up. Right when I get in the car they ask me how did I do? I told them I lost but I really didn't care because, I was more worried about tonight. Once we got back to the house I took my usual role as the "family manger" and made sure everyone was ready to go. Me and my sister had made everyone in the choir T-shirts the night before. So I made sure Sis. Jones had them already packed and ready in the van. From our house to the church was a good 30/35 minutes so it was really important to me that all 7 of us was dressed and ready out the door. So we had extra time in case of Friday night traffic. Once we got to the church we started loading up the church bus. Also me being the church co youth department leader I made sure I had the right head count for everyone. While I was counting for everyone I had everyone on my list but the main person we needed the choir director! We had to drive 45 minutes out so we had to leave the church by a certain time. I immediately called Sis. Pam asking what's her ETA, she told me she would meet us there at the church. So we were then on our way, everybody knows how serious I take singing in the youth choir. So on our way there I put it on myself to take the lead to make sure everyone knew the songs, the lyrics, and their parts. Once we got to the church Sis. Pam still hasn't gotten there and now I just got a phone text notification saying, she wasn't going to be able to make it. I knew everyone here would be sad and their hopes would be down if we came all this way just not to sing. So a few of the head church members came to me at offering and we came to a conducive conclusion. They said it should be me to direct the youth choir. I was so surprised and felt so exhilarated. Something inside of me could not say no even though, I was only 15 and I never directed a choir before in my life! After offering I told everyone in the youth choir to get up. All there faces were a look of worried and confused. I put everyone in all their places, I told the musician's our first song 99 1/2 by Hezekiah Walker. Once my hands went up I just immediately felt embodied with God's spirit, a felling I will never ever forget. Before I knew it by the time the song was done everyone was up on their feet clapping.

Currently I’m happy with it, and that’s the issue. I’m not aware of any glaring flaws. I am aware that the narration is not as archaic as the dialogue, and that’s by design. Inspirations were the vvitch (obv) and a short snippet I read of The Croning.

Intro excerpt:
She never sleeps well, Penelope. Nightmares and the unending pulsation of a restless leg send her into a hell all too intimate every night. No real pain, more so a frustration so intense that agony would be a preferable alternative. On occasion, she has used pain to alleviate the frustration. A knife, or red hot sewing needle; small burns or cuts here and there on her arms and legs. Sometimes it helps her sleep, most of the time it doesn’t. 

Her husband sleeps too well, the unwashed piece of shit. In bed early and up late, and all too physical when his dear old wife attempts any sort of relief for herself; not that he’d understand anything about that. Hair everywhere, a walking tumor stuck to the earth. Yellowed teeth in a foxes smile and breath that smells like vinegar. Jaundiced eyes and no matter how much the bastard drinks he doesn’t die, no sir he doesn’t. 

A son, Marcus. Once a monstrous boy, born with fair skin, silk hair, and a woman’s complexion. Blessed with his mother’s face and cursed with his father’s brain. Nineteen years of age this harvest, and already he will foster six bastards into the world without so much as laying an eye on them. To young townswomen, Marcus is more than eye candy. Come in my abode, handsome young man, and fuck me til my eyes roll out, and he does. 

Did. 

Despite his father having the hygiene of dried semen and the complexion of boar shit, he still engaged in many the affair. One girl, twenty two years of age, caught his eye on a cold fall night. Into town he marched, head held high and seething for defilement. 

Drunk, she was, and lonely. Took what she could get. Hell for her—heaven for him and thank Jesus Mary and Joseph for a good bottle of wine. Blackened tobacco in his jaw, leaky bleeding gums, his teeth wedged into them like maggots biting into her neck and he was oh so happy. Cried herself to sleep that night. Debated suicide. 

Marcus caught eyes for her, unbeknownst to her previous endeavors. But, as fate—humorous cocksucker he is—would have it, he did not gaze upon her with his father’s eyes, but with his own. He saw not the pleasure between her legs, but the heart beneath her breasts, and her soul even deeper. On sight alone he knew things had to change. And if they didn’t need to change they would anyways. Consumed and transformed not by a blind love but a miraculous understanding that yes, good exists. Genuine good, capable of binding two souls together in an unbreakable link–damn the church and damn marriage. Good exists. 

It does, always has. I’m sure Marcus would have turned into a fine young man. Penelope never hated Marcus. Even when he brought the third whore home for the day, even when he berated her and whore this and cunt that, even when he beat her; a ruthless backhand and oh… thou art his son after all, but I could never hate you, my dear boy. 

And she couldn’t. Penelope couldn’t hate her son, it simply wasn’t possible. 

Marcus and the young girl spent more time conversing than making love—not fucking, but sewing the cloth of a real and intimate connection, as whatever quiescent god intended. 

Link to full story: https://www.reddit.com/r/scarystories/s/6PKLT85xFB

https://youtu.be/elItEy27dDg?si=6ywOP88UmRCBP32n
i made this little song and i would like your opinions on it

Are the dialogue voices distinctive enough to identify who's speaking? I’ve removed some dialogue tags deliberately after few sentences to test clarity. Is the exchange coherent, and can you tell who’s saying what even without the dialog tags? Advice on how to make the voice more distinct are welcomed.

Scene: Five characters trapped inside a room in another dimension planning an escape.

“What is the plan then?” Luna asked.

“The plan is to venture outside, like severing the connection as the hunter blubbered before he went limp,” Dawn suggested.

“No, the plan is to stay inside where it is safe and sound.“

“Yeah, dude! Outside is super packed with those damn flying octopuses.“ Derek hopped in.

“Shutup Derek! Dawn is right. If we all babble here, doing nothing, we all are monster toast one way or another!“ Ayla butted in.

Luna closes the distance with Ayla.“Excuse me! If you and your hunter brother want to go in for a suicide mission, by all means do so; leave us out of this.”

“Ahahaahaa…“ The hunter moaned in pain and turned to the other side of the couch.

“It looks like he is useless. How are we three going to face the monstrosity outside? We need to wait. A missing D-rank hunter is a huge problem, right? More people will come to rescue us.“

“How, Luna, how? We are in deep shit! Our unconscious body is now being slowly devoured by those tentacle shits. We need to move fast!, we don’t know what is happening to our physical bodies outside“

“Ok!, if you also want to die, then go ahead and leave me out of this. At least one person needs to be there to pass the death message to the family.“

“Add one more to that because I will be cooked if I even step one inch outside. “

“Is your sister always a bitch, Dawn!“

“Excuse me!“

“We all will be seasoned, well dressed, and cooked beyond recognition if we keep going back and forth like this.“

1000 word limit is difficult for me, but this is the 1006 words of chapter 1. Thanks for reading let me know if you wanna read more - I wrote a lot of it already, but it's a work in progress. Love to hear what you think of it.

Chapter One ~ Red Tape:

A day like any other, Gail sat at her desk in school, waiting for the bell to ring. ‘One year left then I can do whatever I want,’ she thought as she held her head propped on one hand off the table. Her elbow started to ache, and she sighed as the teacher droned on. Slapping her desk, Mr. Sanders spoke up.

“Are you listening, Gail?”

Blinking, she shook her head a little as she looked up at the teacher and answered, “Sorry, I was thinking. What’s going on?”

“You’re a junior in high school now, how about taking your education seriously?”

Flashing him a weak smile, she replied, “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, go and answer the question on the dry erase board.”

“Fine,” she groaned as she stood to walk to the board.

Picking up the marker, she pulled a loose strand of blonde hair from her green eyes as she examined the math question on the board with several coefficients. Slouching as she raised a brow, she pulled the cap from the marker. She started moving everything systematically to the other side of the equation to solve for ‘y’, but something happened as she was about to finish. Red light shined up from her feet, and she heard murmuring from her classmates.

Looking down, the teenager was aghast as she took in the strange sight - drawn on the floor in glowing red lines were symbols she had never seen and a circle. Her feet left the ground, and her hair floated upwards beside her head as she dropped the marker. Feeling weightless, she pushed off the dry erase board but only spun around in place. Smiling as she faced her awestruck class, she spoke.

“Intens-”

In a flash, she was gone before she could finish the thought. Suddenly, she plummeted face first onto a cloudlike floor but bounced off the soft surface and eerily onto her feet in front of a desk with an old bald and bearded man sitting on the other side. The man was absorbed, typing at an ancient desktop computer, and completely ignored her presence as he worked. 

Gail waited, for what seemed like fifteen minutes, before she asked him, “So, where am I and why am I here?”

The man did not stop typing, nor did he look up to acknowledge her as he replied, “You’re in the space between. You’ve been misplaced, so I’m supposed to send you to the right place.”

Her eyebrows raised as more questions came to mind, and she voiced them, “The space between what, and what do you mean I’ve been misplaced?”

The old man, who appeared far too overworked with bags under his eyes and stress wrinkles all over his face, looked up at her with blue-gray eyes for the first time and answered, “The space between everything, and I mean you were misplaced in the wrong world. I’m in the process of sending you to the right one. Can you wait a moment, please? These forms are tragically long, and I’ve got a lot to fill out to get you on your way.”

Puckering her lips, she replied, “Yeah, I can wait - as long as you talk to me before you zap me off to God knows where.”

Squinting at her, he grumbled, “That’s interesting…”

Giving him a bewildered look, she asked, “What’s interesting?”

Looking back at the screen, he continued typing manically as he angrily shook his head and mumbled, “Of course, I’ll talk to you before I zap you off. I’m not a barbarian.”

Scanning her surroundings as she waited, she saw only stars in the far-off distance as she thought, ‘Great, he’s just going to ignore me.’ Noticing a chair beside her, she sighed and sat down. She waited… and waited… before she finally fell asleep to the manic tapping of the keyboard. Waking to a loud slamming noise, she nearly fell off the chair as her eyes shot open to his voice.

“Hey, you with me?”

Sniffing, she stretched as she sat up and nodded in response, “Yeah, yeah. I’m awake - I’m with ya.”

“Okay - I repeat. According to special code forty-two point six two four nine, you’re entitled to a few… concessions, since you were sent to the wrong world and forcibly relocated,” he picked up a book from a pile beside his desk and handed it to her as he continued, “The world you’re going to has a new system in place - it’s a little rough around the edges, so it might be difficult for you to understand. Did you play video games?”

“I played a few MMOs with my ex-boyfriend,” she laughed as she opened the book and scanned the pages as she continued, “He was such a nerd.”

Appearing amused, the old man chuckled before he replied, “Oh… brilliant. That’s going to make this a whole lot easier. We have lots of simple worlds with classes and skills, but this one is a little different.”

Looking up from the book a little worried, she replied, “Okay, well. That sounds a little daunting. How is it different?”

“Well… This world doesn’t have classes. Instead, you get three talents which are kind of like classes, but less intensive. You also get up to three special skills. Since you’re getting transferred, we’re going to let you pick instead of everything being randomly assigned. Once you’re there, you’ll be able to use status to check everything out by thinking ‘open status’.”

Returning her attention to the book and continuing to flip through the pages, she read the small descriptions of the talents and skills for several hours before she looked up and said, “So, for talents, I want Alchemist, Augmenter, and Guardian. For skills, give me Pocket Dimension, Magic Span, and Wellspring Regeneration. If you can let me have one more skill, I’d love to have Magic Potency too.”

Stroking his beard, he considered her before he replied, “Three years. I’ll give you the extra skill if you sacrifice three years. You’ll be fourteen instead of seventeen.”

Sharing my writings on a whim cuz ppl in my life tell me my writings are good but I want some outside perspective. Feel free to provide advice/ tiny improvements!!!

The perfect suicide

Being perfect, no matter in what way,shape, form, object or person is almost impossible to imagine, so the title poses a question in itself; what would constitute a perfect suicide?

The perfect suicide is intangible, unbelievable, it is one where the person is rid of all their problems with one slash of their wrist; it’s one where there isn’t a way out except for death…

The perfect suicide only happens when you have nothing to say to anyone, when you’ve drowned so far the sea floor is easier to reach than the surface, even if you want to take a breath. The perfect suicide, it’s only when you have no letters to write, no loved ones to think about, when you look out into the night sky and you can’t seem to appreciate the beauty of the view…

The truth is, the perfect suicide doesn’t exist at all, not even after all conditions are met, not even when you’d rather take your last breath, not ever, not when there’s always a way out if you breathe and take a backwards glance at the wide open door behind you..

So I'm using Gemini to give me writing promos so I can practice constantly.

This prompt was: "Write a scene about a character who finds a mysterious, heavy iron key left on their kitchen counter with a simple note attached: Do not unlock the basement."

Honest and constructive critiques please. I wrote this in about 2 days (between work and kids).

Thank you in advance! (Sorry for any typos I missed)

******

Tim walked in the house, exhausted after a long shift. After dropping his bag and removing his boots he headed for the fridge for a much needed beer.

He took a long swig and noticed something on the counter out of the corner of his eye. A key. A thick, heavy-looking, iron key lay atop a sticky note. Lifting the metal, he read the note:

"Do NOT Unlock The Basement."

His wife's handwriting seemed hurried and frantic.

Tim glanced at the basement door - a heavy oak door - and thought, "Why would she leave a note? I never go down there."

He knew of his wife's hobby of taxidermy and wanted no part of it. He'd went down there once, years ago, and couldn't hold back the vomit when he saw two stuffed squirrels perched on a shelf. At first it disturbed him but in the end he didn't care. He loved her; "till death due us part."

He took another sip then proceeded to his favorite seat in the living room.

Not 2 minutes into his relaxation he heard a thud coming from the kitchen. "No," he realized internally. "The basement."

Another thud, then 3 in a row, and then a voice. "Hello!? HELP! Let me outta here!" The voice shouted, muffled by the thick iron.

"What the hell!" Tim thought out loud -- beer now on the table and him now on his feet. His mind began to race as he stepped toward the kitchen.

"Do NOT Unlock The Basement," he remembered the note. He stood frozen in the hallway unsure of what to do.

Another sequence of bangs hit the metal door as the voice cried out, "PLEASE SOMEBODY, HELP!" The desperation it carried pushed Tim into motion. Quickly he stepped into the kitchen and grabbed the iron key. The cold of the metal combined with his racing mind sent chills up his arm and down his spine.

He turned toward the basement door and then remembered the note again. "Do NOT Unlock The Basement Door."

Tim's palms began to sweat. He looked at the door, then back to the key. He thought about the years he'd spent with his amazing wife. Then he thought about how you never really know someone, no matter how long you've known them.

Another stream of thuds came from the door.

Tim took a step toward the basement, key in hand, violently shaking and drenched in sweat.

"It's not what it looks like," he told himself unfaithfully. Slowly, trying to avoid making noise, he slid the key into its place underneath the doorknob.

"Tim. Are you okay?" His wife said as she enter the back door. He was too focused on the key and the door and the thuds to have noticed.

Startled, Tim fumbled and dropped the key causing a loud clang against the linoleum kitchen floor. "I-I umm..." he began but was cut off by more thudding and desperate pleas for freedom. "...that," Tim continued. "What... or Who the hell do you have in our basement?"

His wife sat a bag of groceries on the counter. Out of one came a smaller bag. A pharmacy bag. Out of the pharmacy bag she revealed a bottle of pills. "Darling, look at me... what basement?"

"What? What do you mean!?" Tim said incredulously. "The basement behind this big oak door? The basement that this metal key unlocks? You don't hear the pounding and yelling?" He gestured toward to door and was shocked to find it not there anymore. He heard nothing. No yelling. He looked down toward the key and, nothing.

His wife took his hands, "you're having an episode, honey. Here. This is your medication." She placed a pill in his hand then went for a bottle of water.

Tim stood still facing where the door should have been; considering what she'd said. "That's... that's not possible." He whispered to himself. He looked up and the door and the yelling had returned. He blinked and they vanished again.

His wife returned with water and motioned for him to take the medication.

Tim hesitated but took the bottle. "Me? Crazy?" He questioned himself.

The door reappeared, along with the yelling and thudding. "HELP ME TIM! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME THE FUCK OUT, TIM!" The yells were shrill. Distorted. Haunting. Demonic even.

Tim wanted to cover his ears but the pill and water occupied his hands. Without thinking about it any further he closed his eyes, tossed the pill into his mouth and washed it down.

Almost immediately, the yelling ceased. He opened his eyes to a smooth kitchen wall. No door, no key, no thudding. He hadn't even realized he'd began to sweat buckets.

"Are... are you okay?" His wife asked, concern coating her words.

"Um. Yeah. I-I think so," Tim replied. "I'm sorry hon. I don't know..." he trailed off but his wife jumped in to comfort him.

"It's okay, Tim. You just go relax, I'm sure you've had a long day." The sweetness in her voice put his mind at ease.

Still confused but now docile, Tim turned and went back to his seat and beer.

"Wait, what was i so worked up about? Something about a key that doesn't unlock a doors?" He shrugged and let his mind be soothed into passivity with another sip of his beer. He turned the TV on and began, again, to relax.

Consumed by sports highlights, Tim didn't see his wife bend down and pick up the iron key. He didn't hear the yelling continue as the door squeaked open -- and he didn't notice his wife entered the basement with a knife in her hand.

This is a story I intended to make about martial artists this is chapter 1
Think about my story so far honest feedback only ( please keep it respectful)

Chapter 1: The Gathering at Midnight
The sharp, rhythmic hum of drone propellers cut through the damp sea air. High above the jagged black cliffs of the isolated island, spotlights sliced through the dark ocean mist, converging on a stone amphitheater submerged in knee-deep, murky water.
In the center of the stadium stood a sleek, raised glass platform outfitted with high-definition broadcast equipment, leather armchairs, and a polished silver tea cart.
Alistair Crowthorne stood at the glass railing, adjusting the cuffs of his bespoke three-piece charcoal suit. He lifted a porcelain teacup to his lips, took a slow sip of Earl Grey, and smiled into the primary camera hovering three feet from his face.
"Good evening, world," Alistair’s voice echoed across the international live feed, smooth, articulate, and carrying a terrifying undertone of aristocratic amusement. "Welcome to performance art in its purest, rawest, and most uncensored form. Millions of you are tuned in across seven continents to watch twenty-two formidable combatants vie for a one-million-dollar purse. They believe they are here for glory, athletic achievement, or a payout. How blissfully naive."
Alistair gestured lazily toward the beach docks where two military-grade hovercraft were currently disgorging twenty-two bewildered, heavily armed, or traditional-clad fighters onto the wet sand.
"They are here for my amusement," Alistair purred. "Let The Midnight Culling begin."
Down on the shores, the atmosphere was a mix of intense martial discipline, confusion, and raw tension.
"Look, I'm just saying, the lighting on this beach is terrible for a vlog intro!" Kelechi complained loudly, wiping sea spray off his portable camera lens. He wore a bright track jacket over loose street gear. "If I'm gonna be in a death tournament, my followers need 4K quality! Hey, guy with the big legs, move to the left, you're blocking my rim light!"
Kwame didn't even turn around. The Ghanaian Muay Thai practitioner stood tall, his iron shins scarred from thousands of hours on the heavy bag, his arms crossed over his chest. "Keep talking, entertainer. When the bell rings, your camera won't block a head kick."
"A bit hostile for a orientation meeting, mate," Marcus chimed in, leaning back against a rusted pier post with his hands behind his head. The Jamaican-American capoeirista stretched his legs with effortless fluid grace. "Ride the wave, man. Stress ruins your flow state."
A few paces away, a furious argument was already erupting near the gear depot.
"I don't care what your personal philosophy is, Mina!" Aaliyah snapped, her voice piercing through the ambient roar of the surf. The Arab-American Krav Maga expert stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes sharp and demanding. "We have been split into stables by production! As the designated tactician of the Obsidian Vanguard, you will follow my entry formation. Systematized efficiency is the only way to control the variables!"
Mina slowly adjusted the straps on his heavy combat sambo jacket. He didn't raise his voice, but his Egyptian-American eyes were cold as ice. "Your 'system' treats human beings like rigid chess pieces, Aaliyah. Real combat is unpredictable. I don't take tactical commands from someone who views martial arts as a board game."
"It's not a game, it's combat logic!" Aaliyah barked. "Your stubborn refusal to cooperate is going to compromise the team!"
"Then don't rely on me," Mina replied dryly, turning his back on her to inspect the wet terrain.
Watching the exchange from the edge of the rocks, Kenji folded his arms inside the sleeves of his traditional white Kyokushin gi. "Discipline without harmony breeds defeat," the Japanese karate master observed softly.
"Too right, brother," Bodhi nodded, sitting cross-legged on a damp rock while practicing slow Tai Chi breathing. "We need to align our ch'i before we cross the threshold."
"Or just hit them really, really hard," suggested Carlos, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a hyperactive boxer, rubbing his knuckles together with a wild grin. "Who cares about ch'i when you can throw a flying knee?"
The sudden, deafening blare of an air horn shattered the conversation. Overhead, Alistair’s voice thundered through the amphitheater’s speaker array.
"Fighters of The Midnight Culling! As you can see on the broadcast screens behind you, you have been divided into two initial stables: The Nightshade Syndicate and The Obsidian Vanguard."
A colossal LED board flickered to life against the cliff wall:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ STABLE DIVISIONS │
├───────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┤
│ NIGHTSHADE SYNDICATE │ OBSIDIAN VANGUARD │
├───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ • Kwame (Captain) │ • Aaliyah (Captain) │
│ • Kelechi │ • Mina │
│ • Marcus │ • Kenji │
│ • Mei-Ling │ • Tane │
│ • Mateo │ • Inés │
│ • Soraya │ • Fatima │
│ • Dev │ • Bodhi │
│ • Zayd │ • Sun-Hee │
│ • Chloe │ • Carlos │
│ • Kiera │ • Nila │
│ • Liam │ • Toby │
└───────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

"Your immediate task is simple," Alistair continued, taking another slow sip of tea on his screen feed. "At the bottom of the flooded amphitheater lie six heavy iron keys. These keys unlock the warm, fully stocked living quarters on the upper cliff. The losing team will spend the night in the wet, rat-infested sea caves below. Oh, and to make things interesting... the water level in the amphitheater is rising, and the perimeter is rigged with flame jets. Begin!"
The massive steel gates of the amphitheater slammed open.
"Move! Nightshade, tactical sprint! Form a perimeter!" Kwame shouted, instantly charging into the murky water.
"Wait, wait, wait! Is this real fire?!" Kelechi yelled as a 10-foot column of flame burst from a brass wall sconce behind him. "Bro! Vance said this was a stunt show! He said the fire was CGI!"
Before Kelechi could process his panic, Carlos came roaring out of the mist for the Obsidian Vanguard, launching himself into a reckless, mid-air flying knee aimed directly at Kelechi’s head!
"Whoa!" Operating purely on instinct developed from years of dodging angry prank targets and performing cheap Nollywood stunt falls, Kelechi ducked down, threw his hands up in a theatrical martial arts stance, and slipped sideways. Carlos flew straight over his head and splashed face-first into two feet of muddy sea water.
"Did you guys see that?!" Kelechi screamed, pointing his camera at the splash. "Frame one dodge! Pure skill!"
In the center of the flooded pit, chaos exploded.
Mei-Ling darted between fighters like a phantom. The Chinese-Canadian JKD practitioner didn't waste a single calorie; her eyes tracked body telegraphs and weight distribution. When a heavy-hitting opponent swung wildly, she simply tapped their lead knee joint, causing them to slip into the water while she calmly snatched a submerged iron key. "Sub-optimal footwork," she muttered deadpan.
Nearby, Toby scrambled through the mud, utterly terrified. "I'm sorry! Excuse me! Just trying to survive!" he whimpered, slipping on an algae-covered rock. As he fell backward, his flailing heel accidentally clipped a rival fighter right on the chin, knocking them cold. Toby landed harmlessly on a pile of soft foam padding near the barrier, accidentally grabbing a second key that had been kicked to his feet. "I... I meant to do that!"
Meanwhile, Aaliyah was trying to direct traffic for Obsidian. "Tane, hold the left flank! Mina, secure the third key on the right!"
Mina ignored her, diving into a swell to pull Fatima out of a dangerous surge near an active flame jet. Fatima used her Silat footwork to plant her feet and assist Mina in pulling a third key from the mud.
"Mina! You abandoned the right flank!" Aaliyah yelled, stepping through the water to face him. "That key was our priority!"
"People are the priority," Mina said coldly, tossing the key to Kenji. "Your obsession with winning is blinding you to basic survival."
"This is a competition!" Aaliyah snapped back, her eyes flashing. "If you won't follow orders, you are a liability to this team!"
Up on the viewing deck, Alistair watched the monitor with absolute delight. "Ah, delicious. Look at them fracture before the first hour has even elapsed." He pressed a button on his control panel. "Let us cap off our premiere broadcast with our very first official 1-on-1 bout. Let's see how our viral brawler handles a real daredevil."
The arena speakers chimed loudly, locking the spotlights onto two fighters still dripping in the arena pit.
> ALISTAIR: "Attention, viewers worldwide! To end tonight's broadcast, we have our first featured duel! From the Nightshade Syndicate: the internet sensation, Kelechi! And from the Obsidian Vanguard: the fearless stuntman, Carlos! Fight!"
>
Carlos emerged from the water, wiping mud from his face with a manic laugh. "Round two, video guy! Let's see if you can dodge a real brawl!"
Kelechi backed up, holding his hands out. "Hey man, look, can we talk about this? How about we fake a quick sequence? I do a back handspring, you do a sweep—"
Carlos charged like a enraged bull, swinging a wild, heavy-impact right hook.
Kelechi’s survival instincts flared. He snapped his head back, feeling the wind of the punch graze his nose. Honed by years of low-budget action skits where getting hit meant a real trip to the ER, Kelechi reacted with surprising speed. He dropped his shoulder, slipped under Carlos's guard, and drove a double-palm strike straight into Carlos’s sternum.
The strike hit with surprising force, knocking the breath out of the daredevil. Carlos stumbled back, thrilled by the impact. "Now that's what I'm talking about!" Carlos yelled, launching a wild spin-kick.
Kelechi sidestepped clumsily, tripped over an underwater cable, and threw his arms out for balance. His flailing arm caught Carlos squarely across the jaw. Carlos spun around from the momentum and crashed hard into the wooden barrier, going limp as the referee called the stoppage.
"Winner by knockout... Kelechi of the Nightshade Syndicate!"
The Nightshade Syndicate erupted in cheers, with Liam dramatic-clapping like he was at an awards show and Marcus offering a lazy thumb-up.
Kelechi stood frozen in the knee-deep water, staring at his hands in utter disbelief, before slowly turning to look at the nearest floating broadcast drone camera.
He wiped a mix of sweat and seawater from his forehead, pointed a bruised finger at the lens, and panted into the mic:
"Bro... Master Vance lied to me. These people are actually crazy. If I make it to Tuesday... please hit that subscribe button."
Up on his glass balcony, Alistair Crowthorne raised his teacup to the screen, taking a slow, satisfied sip as the global livestream faded to black.

Hello all. I have been in a poet's block for a good while and just now got some inspiration to write this. If anyone knows Arabic and Arabic poetry I'd greatly appreciated your feedback. Thank y'all for reading and have a great day.
TW: Possible use of derogatory language regarding queerness (I am a target of said derogatory language though and I'm using it for effect. Hopefully this doesn't break any rules, but if it does, my apologies for breaking them)

طَرِيقَتَيْنَ عِينَاني يَرَيَانِ
طَرِيقَةٌ يَسْمُو عَلَى اليَمِينِ
طَرِيقَةٌ يَهْبَطُ بِالشِّمَالِ
هَذَا مَا قَالُولِي

أَجِدُ سَكِينَةً لَمَّا أَعْبُدُ
رَاضٍ عَلَيَّا النَّاسُ
لَو رَحْمَةً عَلَيْنَا أَتْبَعُ
وَ بِيَ مَحَبَّةُ اللَّهِ يَحُوطُ

أَجِدُ فَرْحَةً إِذَا أَكُونُ
بَيْنَ المَرْأَةِ وَالرِّجُلِ أَتَلَبَّسُ
بَيْنَ الذَّكَرِ وَالأُنْثَى أَتَصَوَّرُ
إِلَى أَحَدٍ مَا أَنَا بِمُسَافِرٍ

أَجِدُ حَسْرَةً أَيْنَمَا أَمْشِي
لَو أُسَارِعُ إِلَى هَوَيَيْنِ حُبَّيْنِي
وَ أَبْحَثُ سَكِينَةً بالتَّغَيَّرِ جَسَدِي
وَأَنَا أَشْهَدُ الإِسْلَامَ دِينِي
أَخَافُ جَهَنَّمَ مَقَامِي

فَبَيْنَ هَذَان أَنَا قَائِم
بَيْنَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي لَهُ أَنَا خَادِم
بَيْنَ حَسْرَتِي وَبِهَا أنَا عَالِم
لَو أَحْكِي عَنْ قَلْبِي وَ عَقْلِي شَقَّيْن يُخَرِّجُونِي
لِأَنَّ أَشُذُّ عَنْهُم ذَلِكَ قَرَارِي
لَكِن مَا قَرَارٌ هَذَا؟

Translation:
My eyes see 2 paths
1 path rises upon the right
1 path sinks upon the left
This is what they told me

I find peace when I worship
People are pleased with me
If I obey a mercy upon us
And Allah's love surrounds me

I find happiness when I exist
Between the woman and the man I clothe myself
Between the male and female I fashion myself
Towards one I cannot travel

I find despair wherever I go
If I race towards my 2 loves
And I search for serenity through changing my body
While bearing witness that Al-Islam is my religion
I fear Hell as my resting place

So between these 2 I stand
Between Allah, to whom I am a slave
Between my despair that I know of
If I speak of my split heart and mind they'll expel me
Because I deviate from them, that is my choice
But what choice is this?

Content includes self harm* The plot starts with a high school girl named sophie, she is a very introspective character suffering from major depression regarding her academics. She faces a break up from a relationship and her Friends shut her down one by one due to her declining social life. Her father dies due to cardiac arrest and her mother mentally affected still is to be recovering from the instances. Here at this point she develops a nihilistic or cynical viewpoint over life about how relationships and the society works. Sophie sees herself as a role to be played in society, Sophie decides to kill herself to flee from the torture, she is affected by a wave of mental trauma and is put into a state of coma or stupor when she runs into a woman with a mask and extensively covered peculiar clothing by accident in a secluded part of a park. Then she spawns in a mysterious place named the 'framed society' where people live to act on films with each of their role as a normal person in daily life, only Sophie realizes that each person playing their roles in the films are people from her own life. there are also different personas as the playwrights who run the framed society. There's a master director behind the screens who is controlling everything. she says that there are five arcs or acts to be rolled and each roles has to be played perfect or the respective characters will be killed or tortured. Sophie but with no choice acts on the arcs only to realize she has to decide and play through difficult circumstances of sacrifice of the characters to film all acts wearing various masks called sense of soul or SOS (I cant come up with a name). Each masks denote their specific roles to be played in that specific arc and takes control of the character itself. Sophie learns that she still loves the people around her and realizes that life isn't the way of how she's looking at it. She blends in to complicate things by taking in the masks of other characters to play their roles and understanding them. Finally what happens to her and how she escapes the framed society, her confrontation with the enigmatic director makes the rest of the story.  Ideas and critique welcome.

I borrowed The Return of the Native from the library on a Wednesday, mostly because it was thick enough to justify the walk, and found on getting it home, that someone before me had used the book rather generously as a filing cabinet. Strips of paper — not bookmarks exactly, more like offcuts, the width of a till receipt, the kind of paper that seems to exist only to fall out of things — drifted from between the pages as I opened it. First one, then three more in quick succession, then a small flurry of them, coming to rest on the desk like moths that had given up mid-flight.

Each one had a single word written on it, in a small, careful, slightly old-fashioned hand — the hand of someone who wrote using a pencil wetted with the tongue. I laid them out in a row, the way a tarot reader lays out a hand of cards, hoping they will do the thinking for her. SAILING. POSTAL. BEFORE. NATIVE. COLD. THEREAFTER. GREEN. THUNDER. BREATHING. WHENEVER. SICKNESS. Eleven words, sitting on my desk like eleven small hatchlings waiting to be fed a meaning.

I tried them in alphabetical order, which proved nothing at all, the words looking faintly embarrassed at having been asked to stand in a line for no reason. I tried them in an order that I imagined made more sense, which gave me something worse — a sentence that sounded like a telegram sent by someone short of cash.

By the third arrangement I had convinced myself I was getting somewhere — a note passed inside a book between two people who couldn't otherwise be seen speaking, a confession, or a plan of some kind, abandoned mid-sentence, the way a bird abandons half a nest when the weather turns. NATIVE, I thought. Something about travel. Someone going overseas, or returning from it. Had they lost their nerve, or lost the book, or both. Was SICKNESS to blame? Or perhaps THUNDER.

I spent the whole of that evening on it, moving eleven small strips of paper around a desk as though they were the last unmapped territory of somebody's private life, and I was the only cartographer left alive who cared. But to no avail. I tried anagrams, acrostics, even a brief and ill-advised experiment with alphanumeric substitution, which only left me more confused than the words had managed on their own, like trying to translate punctuation into a language that didn’t need it.

I could not let them go. I copied them onto a slip of paper and carried them in my wallet, the way other men carry a photograph or a rabbit's foot or a very small, folded piece of luck. I began saying them to myself, almost like a mantra, every morning while brushing my teeth and at night, lying in the darkness that arrives just before sleep when the day has stopped pretending to be necessary. They were now inscribed on paper and in my mind, in a totally random order that made sense only to me. But that no longer had the same importance. The words in their new order had a meaning of their own — a small, rhythmic prayer I offered up before leaving the house, before starting the car, before eating a meal alone — and reciting them settled something in me, the way a superstition settles a person who no longer quite believes in it but has grown fond of the shadow it makes.

A few days later I borrowed another book from the same library; a slim volume of poetry, the kind that looks unread out of principle. A strip of paper fell out as I opened it. Three words, in the same careful hand, or a hand so similar I chose not to examine the difference too closely, having already thrown the originals away: FIRE AND ICE.

I added them to the end of my sequence, where they seemed to fit with the treacherous perfection of a jigsaw piece that belongs to an entirely different puzzle but has, by pure luck, the right shape.

SAILING. POSTAL. BEFORE. NATIVE. COLD. THEREAFTER. GREEN. THUNDER. BREATHING. WHENEVER. SICKNESS. FIRE AND ICE.

The following afternoon, reading the poetry book over afternoon tea, I came across a poem by Robert Frost and sat up so quickly I nearly choked on a chocolate digestive. Fire and Ice. There it was, on the page, doing nothing more mysterious than being the title of a poem I had simply not yet reached.

I sat with that for a while and mulled over the significance of my latest discovery. And the more I mulled, the more obvious the solution to the mystery became. Someone before me had simply devised a small, sensible, entirely unmysterious system for finding their place again — jotting down the next word before closing the book, the way a person ties a bit of string around a finger, trusting the finger to explain itself later.

I felt, for a moment, exactly as foolish as I deserved to. And then, a moment after that, something closer to grief — a faintly ridiculous grief for a lost companion who had never existed, a fellow-traveller I'd invented out of eleven scraps of paper and my own willingness to find intrigue hiding between the covers of a book. I took the slip out of my wallet that evening and looked at it for a long time under the kitchen light, the way you might look at a key to a door that, it turns out, was never locked.

I did not throw it away. But before returning the poetry book to the library the following week, I tore a fresh strip from a notepad and wrote on it, THE END. I then slid it into a completely random page in the book.

The Bookmark is taken from my collection of short stories, The Small Print, that follow Douglas Fitzgerald through the absurd embarrassments of English life.
I'd love to now what you think.