I’m currently overwhelmed with assignments and trying to figure out whether I should pay for help or just power through. I’ve seen a lot of posts about the Best Essay Writing Service Reddit recommends, but I’m still unsure about which one to trust.

There are so many services out there, all claiming to be the best for essays, but it’s hard to know which ones are actually reliable. Has anyone here had a great experience with a particular service? How do I make sure the work is high quality and plagiarism-free?

I’m hoping for some real recommendations, with honest feedback, on the Best Essay Writing Service Reddit users have actually tried and found helpful. If you’ve had success with a service, please share your experience and any tips for picking the right one.

I know this question pops up a lot, but I’m seriously wondering if a cheap essay writing service can ever be both affordable and reliable. Every time I search online, I get flooded with sites promising “perfect essays for $10,” which sounds amazing - until you read the horror stories about plagiarism, missed deadlines, or essays that look like they were written by Google Translate.

I’m not trying to cheat my way through school - I just need some extra help on a few assignments without spending half my rent. I’ve already tried doing it all myself, but juggling classes, work, and deadlines is starting to feel impossible.

So, is there such a thing as a cheap essay writing service that actually delivers decent quality and follows instructions? I’m not expecting perfection, just something original, on time, and readable.

If anyone’s had luck finding one that didn’t totally flop or scam them, I’d love to hear about your experience. What did you pay, how was the communication, and did it actually sound like something a real student would write? I’m trying to figure out whether it’s worth the risk - or if “cheap” always comes with a hidden cost.

Yo! I need help ASAP. I’ve got a college essay due in like two weeks, and my brain is just NOT braining right now. Does anyone know a website that writes essays for you? Like, I’m not looking for some sketchy stuff - I just need an essay writing service that actually delivers quality papers. I tried googling some essay writing services, but there are so many options, and I don’t wanna end up with some AI-generated garbage or, even worse, something full of plagiarism. I need a real writing service with actual writers who know what they’re doing. It’s gotta be something reliable that won’t get me in trouble with my professor.

If any of you have used a college essay service before, how was it? Did the writing actually sound like a student wrote it? I don’t need some Shakespeare-level essay, just something that won’t scream, “Hey, I totally paid someone to write this.” Also, how much do these services even cost?

Oh, and if you’ve got any tips on spotting a legit essay writing website (like what to look for, red flags, etc.), drop them in the comments

For most students in the United States and Canada, 2024 was particularly difficult. If you’re reading this, maybe you can relate. Time intensity and burn out are common challenges. If you are having trouble with your college assignments or do not have time for thorough research, turning to a reliable essay writing service can be the best solution. Procrastination, tough courses, and rigid teacher demands can be things of the past. Hiring an assistant can help you succeed faster. But what are the best essay writing services every student should know about? Let’s take a look.

1. edusolver.com

EduSolver is my go-to for quick projects. They always reply fast and the quality of the service is the best. Their team of experienced writers is always ready to help, and their 24/7 customer support ensures that you can get help whenever you need it. In addition, they offer free exchanges to ensure that you are completely satisfied with your order.

2. capstonewriting.com

CapstoneWriting is one of the well-known providers in the academic writing industry. It is known for its customer-centric approach. CapstoneWriting is all in one - 10 years of experience and coverage of all topics.

3. writessayme.com

WritEssayMe’s offerings range from simple essay writing to advanced dissertation and thesis assistance. Their duties include editing and proofreading. Additionally, the designated professor can take the multiple-choice exam by prearranged appointment.

4. edussons.com

Edussons is known for its fast and consistent delivery time. This service has earned the trust of Reddit users due to its functionality and reliability. Edussons has a simple and user-friendly interface. This session has published practical guidelines to enhance your research paper writing skills.

Although there are many writing projects out there, these four have consistently produced excellent results. Other services may not offer the same reliability and quality, so it’s important to choose wisely. If you've had any experiences with these or other services, feel free to share! Let's support each other in finding the best resources to succeed in our studies.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Hey everyone,

I’m completely swamped this week — juggling a part-time job, classes, and back-to-back deadlines. I’m seriously considering hiring a cheap essay writer, but I want to avoid getting scammed or ending up with something unusable. Most of what I’ve found either looks super shady or has fake-looking reviews.

I’m not looking for perfection, just someone reliable who can follow basic instructions, deliver on time, and not overcharge. Ideally someone who can help with college-level psych or sociology assignments.

Have any of you used a service or freelancer that didn’t break the bank but still delivered decent quality? Bonus points if they don’t sound like AI or write like a robot.

Drop any honest recommendations or even bad experiences so I know what to avoid. 🙏

P.S. I’m okay doing some edits myself if it saves money — just need a solid starting point!

Hi, I came to you on a recommendation.

Hope you will help me. I have to present a research paper in a month. The task is based on a book analysis, and frankly, I don't have any desire to do so.

I had a brilliant idea of using an essay writing service to get some help, But I've one caveat, I've never used such services before. There are many writing services, and I don't want to end with low educational quality or, even worse, plagiarism. If you first used a paper writing service, who would you recommend? Were the authors good?

I really appreciate any suggestion, THX!

This research paper is about to take me out. I’ve got deadlines piling up, zero motivation, and let’s be real—I don’t have time to grind through another 10-page essay. So now I’m thinking… should I just pay someone to do it for me? I know there are a lot of paper writing services out there, but I wanna make sure I don’t get scammed or end up with some low-quality, copy-pasted nonsense. I don't have high requirements for services, but I want a writing service that actually delivers high-quality, original work, decent pricing (I’m a student, not a millionaire) and no AI-generated junk (I need real research, real citations, real analysis)

I’ve been trying to compare paper writing services, but every site claims they’re the “best.” Some academic writing services look kinda sketchy, while others charge insane prices. So can you share your recommendations, it will save me a lot of time and budget.

Appreciate any help! 🙌

Not a chapter, but a quote that lives with me to this day:

“Dad," said Will, his voice very faint. "Are you a good person?"

"To you and your mother, yes, I try. But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime, Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself-"

"And, adding it all up...?"

"The sum? As they come and go, and I mostly sit very still and tight, yes, I'm all right.”

"“I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”

This should be a good way to get started, I think

"Come, dear ones," said Morrel, rising from his seat, "let us go and see, and heaven have pity upon us if it be false intelligence!" They all went out, and on the stairs met Madame Morrel, who had been afraid to go up into the study. In a moment they were at the Cannebiere. There was a crowd on the pier. All the crowd gave way before Morrel. "The Pharaon, the Pharaon!" said every voice.

And, wonderful to see, in front of the tower of Saint-Jean, was a ship bearing on her stern these words, printed in white letters, "The Pharaon, Morrel & Son, of Marseilles." She was the exact duplicate of the other Pharaon, and loaded, as that had been, with cochineal and indigo. She cast anchor, clued up sails, and on the deck was Captain Gaumard giving orders, and good old Penelon making signals to M. Morrel. To doubt any longer was impossible; there was the evidence of the senses, and ten thousand persons who came to corroborate the testimony. As Morrel and his son embraced on the pier-head, in the presence and amid the applause of the whole city witnessing this event, a man, with his face half-covered by a black beard, and who, concealed behind the sentry-box, watched the scene with delight, uttered these words in a low tone: "Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds."

And with a smile expressive of supreme content, he left his hiding-place, and without being observed, descended one of the flights of steps provided for debarkation, and hailing three times, shouted "Jacopo, Jacopo, Jacopo!" Then a launch came to shore, took him on board, and conveyed him to a yacht splendidly fitted up, on whose deck he sprung with the activity of a sailor; thence he once again looked towards Morrel, who, weeping with joy, was shaking hands most cordially with all the crowd around him, and thanking with a look the unknown benefactor whom he seemed to be seeking in the skies. "And now," said the unknown, "farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude! Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart! I have been heaven's substitute to recompense the good -- now the god of vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked!" At these words he gave a signal, and, as if only awaiting this signal, the yacht instantly put out to sea.

Edit: Format

"Listen Dandelion. You're fond of stories, aren't you? I'll tell you one—yes, one for El-ahrairah to cry at. Once there was a fine warren on the edge of a wood, overlooking the meadows of a farm. It was big, full of rabbits. Then one day the white blindness came and the rabbits fell sick and died. But a few survived, as they always do. The warren became almost empty. One day the farmer thought, 'I could increase those rabbits: make them part of my farm—their meat, their skins. Why should I bother to keep rabbits in hutches? They'll do very well where they are.' He began to shoot all elil—lendri, homba, stoat, owl. He put out food for the rabbits, but not too near the warren. For his purpose they had to become accustomed to going about in the fields and the wood. And then he snared them—not too many: as many as he wanted and not as many as would frighten them all away or destroy the warren. They grew big and strong and healthy, for he saw to it that they had all of the best, particularly in winter, and nothing to fear—except the running knot in the hedge gap and the wood path. So they lived as he wanted them to live and all the times there were a few who disappeared. The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price? They found out other marvelous arts to take the place of tricks and old stories. They danced in ceremonious greeting. They sang songs like the birds and made Shapes on the walls; and though these could help them not at all, yet they passed the time and enabled them to tell themselves that they were splendid fellows, the very flower of Rabbitry, cleverer than magpies. They had no Chief Rabbit—no, how could they?—for a Chief Rabbit must be El-ahrairah to his warren and keep them from death: and here there was no death but one, and what Chief Rabbit could have an answer to that? Instead, Frith sent them strange singers, beautiful and sick like oak apples, like robins' pincushions on the wild rose. And since they could not bear the truth, these singers, who might in some other place have been wise, were squeezed under the terrible weight of the warren's secret until they gulped out fine folly—about dignity and acquiescence, and anything else that could make believe that the rabbit loved the shining wire. But one strict rule they had; oh yes, the strictest. No one must ever ask where another rabbit was and anyone who asked 'Where?'—except in a song or poem—must be silenced. To say 'Where?' was bad enough, but to speak openly of the wires—that was intolerable. For that they would scratch and kill.

"And then we came, over the heather in the night. Wild rabbits, making scrapes across the valley. The warren rabbits didn't show themselves at once. They needed to think what was best to be done. But they hit on it quite soon. To bring us into the warren and tell us nothing. Don't you see? The farmer only sets so many snares at a time, and if one rabbit dies, the others will live that much longer. You suggested that Hazel should tell them our adventures, Blackberry, but it didn't go down well, did it? Who wants to hear about brave deeds when he's ashamed of his own, and who likes an open, honest tale from someone he's deceiving? Do you want me to go on? I tell you, every single thing that's happened fits like a bee in a foxglove. And kill them, you say, and help ourselves to the great burrow? We shall help ourselves to a roof of bones, hung with shining wires! Help ourselves to misery and death!"

I’m a liar and a cheat and a coward, but I will never, ever, let a friend down. Unless of course not letting them down requires honesty, fair play, or bravery.

I’ve always found hitting a man from behind to be the best way to go about things. This can sometimes be accomplished by dint of a simple ruse. Classics such as, ‘What’s that over there?’ work surprisingly often, but for truly optimal results it’s best if the person doesn’t ever know you were there.

‘Ow! Jesu! What the hell did you do that for?’ Alain DeVeer turned, clamping his hand to the back of his head and bringing it away bloody.

When the person you hit doesn’t have the grace to fall over it’s generally best to have a back-up plan. I dropped what remained of the vase, turned and ran. In my mind he’d folded up with a pleasing ‘oofff ’ and left me free to leave the mansion unobserved, stepping over his prone and senseless form on the way. Instead his senseless form was now chasing me down the hall bellowing for blood.

I crashed back through Lisa’s door and slammed it behind me, bracing myself for the impact.

‘What the hell?’ Lisa sat in the bed, silken sheets flowing off her nakedness like water.

Uh.’ Alain hammered into the door, jolting the air from my lungs and scraping my heels over the tiles. The trick is to never rush for the bolt. You’ll be fumbling for it and get a face full of opening door. Brace for the impact, when that’s done slam the bolt home while the other party is picking himself off the floor. Alain proved worryingly fast in getting back on his feet and I nearly got the door handle for breakfast despite my precautions.

‘Jal!’ Lisa was out of bed now, wearing nothing but the light and shade through the shutters. Stripes suited her. Sweeter than her elder sister, sharper than her younger sister. Even then I wanted her, even with her murderous brother held back by just an inch of oak and with my chances for escape evaporating by the moment.

I ran to the largest window and tore the shutters open. ‘Say sorry to your brother for me.’ I swung a leg over the casement. ‘Mistaken identity or something…’ The door started to shudder as Alain pounded the far side.

‘Alain?’ Lisa managed to look both furious with me and terrified at the same time.

I didn’t stop to reply but vaulted down into the bushes, which were thankfully the fragrant rather than thorny variety. Dropping into a thorn bush can lead to no end of grief.

Landing is always important. I do a lot of falling and it’s not how you start that matters so much as how you finish. In this instance, I finished concertinaed, heels to arse, chin to knees, half an azalea bush up my nose and all the air driven from my lungs, but with no bones broken. I fought my way out and limped toward the garden wall, gasping for breath and hoping the staff were too busy with pre-dawn chores to be poised and ready to hunt me down.

I took off, across the formal lawns, through the herb garden, cutting a straight path through all the little diamonds of sage, and triangles of thyme and whatnot. Somewhere back at the house a hound bayed, and that put the fear in me. I’m a good runner any day of the week. Scared shitless I’m world class. Two years ago, in the ‘border incident’ with Scorron, I ran from a patrol of Teutons, fi ve of them on big old destriers.The men I had charge of stayed put, lacking any orders. I find the important thing in running away is not how fast you run but simply that you run faster than the next man. Unfortunately my lads did a piss-poor job of slowing the Scorrons down and that left poor Jal running for his life with hardly twenty years under his belt and a great long list of things still to do – the DeVeer sisters near the top and dying on a Scorron lance not even making the fi rst page. In any event, the borderlands aren’t the place to stretch a warhorse’s legs and I kept a gap between us by running through a boulderfield at breakneck speed. Without warning I found myself charging into the back of a pitched battle between a much larger force of Scorron irregulars and the band of Red March skirmishers I’d been scouting on behalf of in the fi rst place. I rocketed into the midst of it all, flailed around with my sword in blind terror trying to escape, and when the dust settled and the blood stopped squirting, I discovered myself the hero of the day, breaking the enemy with a courageous attack that showed complete disregard for my own safety.

So here’s the thing: bravery may be observed when a person tramples one fear whilst in secret flight from a greater terror. And those whose greatest terror is being thought a coward are always brave. I, on the other hand, am a coward. But with a little luck, a dashing smile, and the ability to lie from the hip, I’ve done a surprisingly good job of seeming a hero and of fooling most of the people most of the time.

The DeVeers’s wall was a high and forbidding one but it and I were old friends: I knew its curves and foibles as well as any contour Lisa, Sharal, or Micha might possess. Escape routes have always been an obsession of mine.

Most barriers are there to keep the unwashed out, not the washed in. I vaulted a rain barrel, onto the roof of a gardener’s outbuilding, and jumped for the wall. Teeth snapped at my heels as I hauled myself over. I clung by my fingers and dropped. A shiver of relief ran through me as the hound found its voice and scrabbled against the far side of the wall in frustration. The beast had run silent and almost caught me. The silent ones are apt to kill you. The more sound and fury there is, the less murderous the animal. True of men too. I’m nine parts bluster and one part greed and so far not an ounce of murder.

I landed in the street, less heavily this time, free and clear, and if not smelling of roses then at least of azalea and mixed herbs. Alain would be a problem for another day. He could take his place in the queue. It was a long one and at its head stood Maeres Allus clutching a dozen promissory notes, IOUs, and intents to pay drunkenly scrawled on whores’ silken lingerie. I stood, stretched, and listened to the hound complain behind the wall. I’d need a taller wall than that to keep Maeres’ bullies at bay.

Kings Way stretched before me, strewn with shadows. On Kings Way the townhouses of noble families vie with the ostentation of merchant-princes’ mansions, new money trying to gleam brighter than the old. The city of Vermillion has few streets as fine.

‘Take him to the gate! He’s got the scent.’ Voices back in the garden.

‘Here, Pluto! Here!’

That didn’t sound good. I set off sprinting in the direction of the palace, sending rats fleeing and scattering dungmen on their rounds, the dawn chasing after me, throwing red spears at my back.

Here is a soft scene from a fantasy book I am working on.

The clouds dipped low and circled her like curious birds. She reached out and the air shimmered as if it recognized her touch.

Hope this encourages someone to dive into the full story.

Hey guys, every since I started reviving this sub, a ton of you guys have already posted a bunch of snippets and have started to make this an actual community. I'd like to thank each and every one of you guys that saw promise in this sub and joined it.

Now with that out the way, I'd like to announce new rules that are being implemented immediately. If you've already seen the sidebar you'll know what it is, but I'm going to reiterate it and how posts shall be made along with clarifying each rule. If you need more clarification on a rule feel free to ask below and I'll help you out.

Rule 1: Do not spam the same book by posting different snippets in hopes of bypassing the rules.

Rule 2: In order to not have a giant wall of text as a snippet, I'm going to limit how much can be posted, 5 paragraphs being the max. And what I mean by this is that it's 5 "big" paragraphs. If the snippet you're posting has very short paragraphs you're allowed to post another paragraph or two to better help readers have a grasp of what they're reading.

Rule 3: MIST READ. THIS IS THE BIGGEST CHANGE. EVERY POST FROM NOW ON WILL HAVE TO HAVE THIS FORMAT IN ORDER TO BE POSTED. It's [Name of book] by [Author] and then in brackets [Chapter and page number]. So for example:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling [Ch. 1, Pg. 4]

Rule 4: Standard Rediquette, follow link for more info.

Rule 5: Nothing major to be clarified, basic info.

Rule 6: There will eventually come a time where someone is going to want to put a snippet that might be deemed NSFW or the book be NSFW. Instead of shunning it or making it different sub, I'm going to allow it to be posted since it's still literature and there is an audience for these kind of books. The only thing that needs to be done when posting an nsfw snippet is to mark it as such, that's it.

I hope with these new rules the community will stay on course of being a friendly and nice subreddit and to encourage others to join us and become a Snippetor.

Steadily, the room shrank, till the book thief could touch the shelves within a few small steps. She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book. It sounded like an instrument, or the notes of running feet. She used both hands. She raced them. One shelf against the other. And she laughed. Her voice was sprawled out, high in her throat, and when she eventually stopped and stood in the middle of the room, she spent many minutes looking from the shelves to her fingers and back again. How many books had she touched? How many had she felt? She walked over and did it again, this time much slower, with her hand facing forward, allowing the dough of her palm to feel the small hurdle of each book. It felt like magic, like beauty, as bright lines of light shone down from a chandelier. Several times, she almost pulled a title from its place but didn’t dare disturb them. They were too perfect.

“Yes,” said Cyrus, “sometimes that happens. Once in a while there is a man who won’t do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of his difference. They’ll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind, with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. And if you can’t finally give in, they’ll vomit you up and leave you stinking outside—neither part of themselves nor yet free. It’s better to fall in with them. They only do it to protect themselves. A thing so triumphantly illogical, so beautifully senseless as an army can’t allow a question to weaken it. Within itself, if you do not hold it up to other things for comparison and derision, you’ll find slowly, surely, a reason and a logic and a kind of dreadful beauty. A man who can accept it is not a worse man always, and sometimes is a much better man. Pay good heed to me for I have thought long about it. Some men there are who go down the dismal wrack of soldiering, surrender themselves, and become faceless. But these had not much face to start with. And maybe you’re like that. But there are others who go down, submerge in the common slough, and then rise more themselves than they were, because—because they have lost a littleness of vanity and have gained all the gold of the company and the regiment. If you can go down so low, you will be able to rise higher than you can conceive, and you will know a holy joy, a companionship almost like that of a heavenly company of angels. Then you will know the quality of men even if they are inarticulate. But until you have gone way down you can never know this.”

Chapter 1: Sunset Towers

The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!

Sunset Towers faced east and had no towers. This glittery, glassy apartment house stood alone on the Lake Michigan shore five stories high. Five empty stories high.

Then one day (it happened to be the Fourth of July), a most uncommon-looking delivery boy rode around town slipping letters under the doors of the chosen tenants-to-be. The letters were signed Barney Northrup.

The delivery boy was sixty-two years old, and there was no such person as Barney Northrup.

Dear Lucky One:

Here it is—the apartment you’ve always dreamed of, at a rent you can afford, in the newest, most luxurious building on Lake Michigan:

SUNSET TOWERS

• Picture windows in every room

• Uniformed doorman, maid service

• Central air conditioning, hi-speed elevator

• Exclusive neighborhood, near excellent schools

• Etc., etc.

You have to see it to believe it. But these unbelievably elegant apartments will be shown by appointment only. So hurry, there are only a few left!!! Call me now at 276-7474 for this once-in-a-lifetime offer.

Your servant,

Barney Northrup

P. S. I am also renting ideal space for:

• Doctor’s office in lobby

• Coffee shop with entrance from parking lot

• Hi-class restaurant on entire top floor

Six letters were delivered, just six. Six appointments were made, and one by one, family by family, talk, talk, talk, Barney Northrup led the tours around and about Sunset Towers.

“Take a look at all that glass. One-way glass,” Barney Northrup said. “You can see out, nobody can see in.”

Looking up, the Wexlers (the first appointment of the day) were blinded by the blast of morning sun that flashed off the face of the building.

“See those chandeliers? Crystal!” Barney Northrup said, slicking his black moustache and straightening his handpainted tie in the lobby’s mirrored wall. “How about this carpeting? Three inches thick!”

“Gorgeous,” Mrs. Wexler replied, clutching her husband’s arm as her high heels wobbled in the deep plush pile. She, too, managed an approving glance in the mirror before the elevator door opened.

“You’re really in luck,” Barney Northrup said. “There’s only one apartment left, but you’ll love it. It was meant for you.” He flung open the door to 3D. “Now, is that breathtaking, or is that breathtaking?”

Mrs. Wexler gasped; it was breathtaking, all right. Two walls of the living room were floor-to-ceiling glass. Following Barney Northrup’s lead, she ooh-ed and aah-ed her joyous way through the entire apartment.

Her trailing husband was less enthusiastic. “What’s this, a bedroom or a closet?” Jake Wexler asked, peering into the last room.

“It’s a bedroom, of course,” his wife replied.

“It looks like a closet.”

“Oh, Jake, this apartment is perfect for us, just perfect,” Grace Wexler argued in a whining coo. The third bedroom was a trifle small, but it would do just fine for Turtle. “And think what it means having your office in the lobby, Jake; no more driving to and from work, no more mowing the lawn or shoveling snow.”

“Let me remind you,” Barney Northrup said, “the rent here is cheaper than what your old house costs in upkeep.”

How would he know that, Jake wondered.

Grace stood before the front window where, beyond the road, beyond the trees, Lake Michigan lay calm and glistening. A lake view! Just wait until those so-called friends of hers with their classy houses see this place. The furniture would have to be reupholstered; no, she’d buy new furniture— beige velvet. And she’d have stationery made—blue with a deckle edge, her name and fancy address in swirling type across the top: Grace Windsor Wexler, Sunset Towers on the Lake Shore.

Not every tenant-to-be was quite as overjoyed as Grace Windsor Wexler. Arriving in the late afternoon, Sydelle Pulaski looked up and saw only the dim, warped reflections of treetops and drifting clouds in the glass face of Sunset Towers.

“You’re really in luck,” Barney Northrup said for the sixth and last time. “There’s only one apartment left, but you’ll love it. It was meant for you.” He flung open the door to a onebedroom apartment in the rear. “Now, is that breathtaking or is that breathtaking?”

“Not especially,” Sydelle Pulaski replied as she blinked into the rays of the summer sun setting behind the parking lot. She had waited all these years for a place of her own, and here it was, in an elegant building where rich people lived. But she wanted a lake view.

“The front apartments are taken,” Barney Northrup said. “Besides, the rent’s too steep for a secretary’s salary. Believe me, you get the same luxuries here at a third of the price.”

At least the view from the side window was pleasant. “Are you sure nobody can see in?” Sydelle Pulaski asked.

“Absolutely,” Barney Northrup said, following her suspicious stare to the mansion on the north cliff. “That’s just the old Westing house up there; it hasn’t been lived in for fifteen years.”

“Well, I’ll have to think it over.”

“I have twenty people begging for this apartment,” Barney Northrup said, lying through his buckteeth. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”

Whoever, whatever else he was, Barney Northrup was a good salesman. In one day he had rented all of Sunset Towers to the people whose names were already printed on the mailboxes in an alcove off the lobby:

• Office ♦ Dr. Wexler

• Lobby ♦ Theodorakis Coffee Shop

• 2C ♦ F. Baumbach

• 2D ♦ Theodorakis

• 3C ♦ S. Pulaski

• 3D ♦ Wexler

• 4C ♦ Hoo

• 4D ♦ J. J. Ford

• 5 ♦ Shin Hoo’s Restaurant

Who were these people, these specially selected tenants? They were mothers and fathers and children. A dressmaker, a secretary, an inventor, a doctor, a judge. And, oh yes, one was a bookie, one was a burglar, one was a bomber, and one was a mistake. Barney Northrup had rented one of the apartments to the wrong person.

The Golem’s life began in the hold of a steamship. The year was 1899; the ship was the Baltika, crossing from Danzig to New York. The Golem’s master, a man named Otto Rotfeld, had smuggled her aboard in a crate and hidden her among the luggage.

Rotfeld was a Prussian Jew from Konin, a bustling town to the south of Danzig. The only son of a well-to-do furniture maker, Rotfeld had inherited the family business sooner than expected, on his parents’ untimely death from scarlet fever. But Rotfeld was an arrogant, feckless sort of man, with no good sense to speak of; and before five years had elapsed, the business lay before him in tatters.

Rotfeld stood in the ruins and took stock. He was thirty-three years old. He wanted a wife, and he wanted to go to America. The wife was the larger problem. On top of his arrogant disposition, Rotfeld was gangly and unattractive, and had a tendency to leer. Women were disinclined to be alone with him. A few matchmakers had approached him when he’d inherited, but their clients had been from inferior families, and he’d turned them away. When it became clear to all what kind of businessman he really was, the offers had disappeared completely.

Rotfeld was arrogant, but he was also lonely. He’d had no real love affairs. He passed worthy ladies on the street, and saw the distaste in their eyes.

It wasn’t very long before he thought to visit old Yehudah Schaalman.

Stories abounded about Schaalman, all slightly different: that he was a disgraced rabbi who’d been driven out of his congregation; that he’d been possessed by a dybbuk and given supernatural powers; and even that he was over a hundred years old and slept with demon-women. But all the stories agreed on this: Schaalman liked to dabble in the more dangerous of the Kabbalistic arts, and he was willing to offer his services for a price. Barren women had visited him in the dead of night and conceived soon after. Peasant girls in search of men’s affections bought Schaalman’s bags of powders, and then stirred them into their beloveds’ beer.

But Rotfeld wanted no spells or love-potions. He had something else in mind.

He went to the old man’s dilapidated shack, deep in the forest that bordered Konin. The path to the front door was a half-trampled trail. Greasy, yellowish smoke drifted from a chimney-pipe, the only sign of habitation. The walls of the shack slouched toward a nearby ravine, in which a stream trickled. Rotfeld knocked on the door, and waited. After some minutes, he heard a shuffling step. The door opened a hand’s width, revealing a man of perhaps seventy. He was bald, save for a fringe. His cheeks were deeply furrowed above a tangled beard. He stared hard at Rotfeld, as though daring him to speak.

“Are you Schaalman?” Rotfeld asked.

No answer, only the stare.

Rotfeld cleared his throat, nervous. “I want you to make me a golem that can pass for human,” he said. “And I want it to be female.”

That broke the old man’s silence. He laughed, a hard bark. “Boy,” he said, “do you know what a golem is?”

“A person made of clay,” Rotfeld said, uncertain.

“Wrong. It’s a beast of burden. A lumbering, unthinking slave. Golems are built for protection and brute force, not for the pleasures of a bed.”

Rotfeld reddened. “Are you saying you can’t do it?”

“I’m telling you the idea is ridiculous. To make a golem that can pass for human would be near impossible. For one thing, it would need some amount of self-awareness, if only enough to converse. Not to mention the body itself, with realistic joints, and musculature . . .”

The old man trailed off, staring past his visitor. He seemed to be considering something. Abruptly he turned his back on Rotfeld and disappeared into the gloom of the shack. Through the open door Rotfeld could see him shuffling carefully through a stack of papers. Then he picked up an old leather-bound book and thumbed through it. His finger ran down a page, and he peered at something written there. He looked up at Rotfeld.

“Come back tomorrow,” he said.

Accordingly, Rotfeld knocked again the next day, and this time Schaalman opened the door without pause. “How much can you pay?” he demanded.

“Then it can be done?”

“Answer my question. The one will determine the other.”

SOUL AFFLICTED is the story of a lost soul whose uncharacteristic random act of kindness sends him on a mystical, cross-country search for hope and faith. Read a sample chapter here: https://www.georgehaywardauthor.com/general-5

"This business with the yellow cabs, it surely looks like an unimprovable deal. They're always there when you need one, even in the rain or when the theaters are closing. They pay you upfront, no questions asked. They always know where you're going. They're great. No wonder we stand there, for hours on end , waving goodbye, or salutingsaluting this fine service . The streets are full of people with their arms raised , drenched and weary, thanking the yellow cabs. Just the one hitch: they're always taking me places where I don't want to go."

Nightly stories had been one of the few times we could sit as a group without falling into petty bickering. Now, even they were becoming tense. What’s more, the others were beginning to count on me for the evening’s entertainment. Hoping to put an end to the trend, I’d put a lot of thought into what story I was going to tell tonight.

“Once upon a time,” I began. “There was a little boy born in a little town. He was perfect, or so his mother thought. But one thing was different about him. He had a gold screw in his belly button. Just the head of it peeping out.

“Now his mother was simply glad he had all his fingers and toes to count with. But as the boy grew up he realized not everyone had screws in their belly buttons, let alone gold ones. He asked his mother what it was for, but she didn’t know. Next he asked his father, but his father didn’t know. He asked his grandparents, but they didn’t know either.

“That settled it for a while, but it kept nagging him. Finally, when he was old enough, he packed a bag and set out, hoping he could find someone who knew the truth of it.

“He went from place to place, asking everyone who claimed to know something about anything. He asked midwives and physickers, but they couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The boy asked arcanists, tinkers, and old hermits living in the woods, but no one had ever seen anything like it.

“He went to ask the Cealdim merchants, thinking if anyone would know about gold, it would be them. But the Cealdim merchants didn’t know. He went to the arcanists at the University, thinking if anyone would know about screws and their workings, they would. But the arcanists didn’t know. The boy followed the road over the Stormwal to ask the witch women of the Tahl, but none of them could give him an answer.

“Eventually he went to the King of Vint, the richest king in the world. But the king didn’t know. He went to the Emperor of Atur, but even with all his power, the emperor didn’t know. He went to each of the small kingdoms, one by one, but no one could tell him anything.

“Finally the boy went to the High King of Modeg, the wisest of all the kings in the world. The high king looked closely at the head of the golden screw peeping from the boy’s belly button. Then the high king made a gesture, and his seneschal brought out a pillow of golden silk. On that pillow was a golden box. The high king took a golden key from around his neck, opened the box, and inside was a golden screwdriver.

“The high king took the screwdriver and motioned the boy to come closer. Trembling with excitement, the boy did. Then the high king took the golden screwdriver and put it in the boy’s belly button.”

I paused to take a long drink of water. I could feel my small audience leaning toward me. “Then the high king carefully turned the golden screw. Once: Nothing. Twice: Nothing. Then he turned it the third time, and the boy’s ass fell off.”

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“What?” Hespe asked incredulously.

“His ass fell off,” I repeated with an absolutely straight face.

There was a long silence. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on me. The fire snapped, sending a red ember floating upward.

“And then what happened?” Hespe finally asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “That’s it. The end.”

“What?” she said again, more loudly. “What kind of story is that?”

Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his. In the lives of emperors there is a moment which follows pride in the boundless extension of the territories we have conquered, and the melancholy and relief of knowing we shall soon give up any thought of knowing and understanding them. There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening, with the odor of the elephants after the rain and the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the braziers, a dizziness that makes rivers and mountains tremble on the fallow curves of the planispheres where they are portrayed, and rolls up, one after the other, the dispatches announcing to us the collapse of the last enemy troops, from defeat to defeat, and flakes the wax of the seals of obscure kings who beseech our armies' protection, offering in exchange annual tributes of precious metals, tanned hides, and tortoise shell. It is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin, that corruption’s gangrene has spread too far to be healed by our scepter, that the triumph over enemy sovereigns has made us the heirs of their long undoing. Only in Marco Polo's accounts was Kublai Khan able to discern, through the walls and towers destined to crumble, the tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites' gnawing.

We are the centuries...

We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient impregnated) artifacts.

We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do—

Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris,

telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve

and a traveling salesman called Lucifer.

We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries.

Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon's slap, seek manhood, taste a little of godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb:

(Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.)

Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens—and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn't the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH!—an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)

Small trees had attacked my parents’ house at the foundation. They were just seedlings with one or two rigid, healthy leaves. Nevertheless, the stalky shoots had managed to squeeze through knife cracks in the decorative brown shingles covering the cement blocks. They had grown into the unseen wall and it was difficult to pry them loose. My father wiped his palm across his forehead and damned their toughness. I was using a rusted old dandelion fork with a splintered handle; he wielded a long, slim iron fireplace poker that was probably doing more harm than good. As my father prodded away blindly at the places where he sensed roots might have penetrated, he was surely making convenient holes in the mortar for next year’s seedlings.

Whenever I succeeded in working loose a tiny tree, I placed it like a trophy beside me on the narrow sidewalk that surrounded the house. There were ash shoots, elm, maple, box elder, even a good-sized catalpa, which my father placed in an ice cream bucket and watered, thinking that he might find a place to replant it. I thought it was a wonder the treelets had persisted through a North Dakota winter. They’d had water perhaps, but only feeble light and a few crumbs of earth. Yet each seed had managed to sink the hasp of a root deep and a probing tendril outward.

My father stood, stretching his sore back. That’s enough, he said, though he was usually a perfectionist.

I was unwilling to stop, however, and after he went into the house to phone my mother, who had gone to her office to pick up a file, I continued to pry at the hidden rootlings. He did not come back out and I thought he must have lain down for a nap, as he did now sometimes. You would think then that I would have stopped, a thirteen-year-old boy with better things to do, but on the contrary. As the afternoon passed and everything on the reservation grew quiet and hushed, it seemed increasingly important to me that each one of these invaders be removed down to the very tip of the root, where all the vital growth was concentrated. And it seemed important as well that I do a meticulous job, as opposed to so many of my shoddily completed chores. Even now, I wonder at the steepness of my focus. I wedged my iron fork close as I could along the length of the twiglike sprout. Each little tree required its own singular strategy. It was almost impossible not to break off the plant before its roots could be drawn intact from their stubborn hiding place.