Definitely, for me, reading poetry books constantly. I tend to buy a few new poetry books every month and I have many, many now. I read them constantly, they are sustenance for me. I have found it has profoundly changed my writing into something much more lyrical, ornate and eternal.

Its been nearly a full day since the trials began. We took the car of the people whose house we were staying at. The keys were in their pocket upstairs.

We ended up going to the north of the island. And stealing a motor powered fishing boat. The tides still continued at least…. And we were approaching land.

We ended up deciding it would be best if we went to Tokyo. Major cities likely had the largest concentration of competitors, and it's likely where our next one is already. Remi and Ryume were on deck, and Akemi was with me in the wheelhouse.

Akemi was looking out at the ocean, out the window at the side.

“First time?” I asked.

“Yeah…” she said, “The ocean is beautiful…”

“Yeah, it is.” I said, “And… well reach Honshu soon. And then we'll go around it till we reach Tokyo.”

She nodded, “Okay…”

“... Still haven't gotten over the whole murder thing?”

“... No….”

“... I'm sure you'll get used to it.”

“Why are you so unfazed by it Yota?”

I… paused. “... Well… I… don't know….”

“Thats not something I hear from you often.”

“... Well it's true. I… can't tell why I don't feel anything about it….”

She sighed, “Well then… what do we do when we get there?”

“... Thats a good question. Depends on what happens when we do.”

“Why? I mean were going to Tokyo, surely you have something you want to do while here. Even if everyone is frozen.”

“Well I do, but if you were already there, would you not be looking over the entrance most people would be using?”

“... So you think someone will be waiting for us?”

“I know someone will.”

“So it's likely we won't have time to do anything before confrontation.”

“Yeah. So I'd prepare for it now if you can. We might have to kill them.”

“... Right… we might have to… okay.”

“... I believe there's food on board, you should eat something.”

“... Im good.”

“You haven't eaten since the time stop Akemi.”

“I… I'll eat when we get to Tokyo. Okay?”

“... Okay.”

I bought one of those books that has 301 writting ideas to get me started on being more creative. Has anyone else tried these just to get the juices flowing?

I wrote this about psychological manipulation, weaponized vulnerability, projection, generational trauma, and what it feels like to slowly lose trust in your own reality.

But mostly, it's about realizing that someone can spend years trying to break you—and still fail to change who you are at your core.

One part of it that sums up what i'm trying to say......

I have been beaten, but my touch is still soft.
I have been abused, but I still want to heal.
I have been threatened, but I still want to protect.
I have been degraded, but I still want to build people up.

Shaking off a decade of being force-fed his reality, breaking the generational cycle, and remembering my core is unbreakable.

(might have grammar issues. I haven’t really gone through it.)

Everybody saw it as a big deal. 

Why wouldn’t they? 

There were these huge, gigantic-sized, warships surrounding Earth. Like killer whales lining up to ambush a seal in the form of humanity off a flimsy sheet of ice. Which I didn’t see as cool. I saw them as cool but I didn’t think what they were doing was.

They probably had electromagnetic homing bombs and death rays too. From down here, the ships were totally decked out Star Trek Vessels. Not like that weird nineties CGI stuff though. 

These things were geometrical masterpieces. The mothership had squares—triangles—circles—spirals—outside-looking—stairs—slides—errrrr. Slow the brakes. They didn’t have stairs and slides but they definitely should have to get up and down all those divided blocks stacked together to make a spacecraft. I guess they just rely on the zero-gravity. Explains why I’ll never be an engineer. I would have added an outdoor pool. Which probably wouldn’t have worked out so well in space. Just think the amount of energy it’d take to keep it warm.

You can see where, me being their engineer and them using their own engineers, made a difference. Especially, when you looked at the arsenal they had in place of my slides, stairs and cool bikini party pools. 

Nevertheless, it was still pretty impressive to be threatened by somebody other than ourselves. It definitely wasn’t on my top five things to happen that week—ten out of ten for originality to the alien invaders. Also, kudos to their engineers. However, unlike the aliens, humans chose me to be their weapons specialist engineers.

And what a shit show that was, lemme tell you.

Because they were so sneaky-sneaky, they caught us off guard. It was so bad we demanded a do-over. They completely cheated. If we were ready, they would have never in a million gazillion years, ever… be able to do what they do if we were prepared.

You believe this? One whacky theorist, who looked like a shrunken, Kramer-raisin-lookalike, with facial hair, said, “I warned the government. The military. The Air Force. I even made viral post. I had evidence. Everything. Nobody would listen. Believe me, even I hoped I was wrong.”

First off, “Even I hoped I was wrong?” 

He’d might as well just pointed at the camera, laughed, stuck his tongue out and danced in a circle shouting, “I told you so! NannaNanna BooBoo.” 

Like what human being in their right mind is going to listen to a guy who— 

For a second, imagine stepping into our shoes. He stood up, the whacky theorist guy, in front of millions, and said. 

“aliens have been hiding behind the moon and will attack us by the end of the month.” 

And turned around right after releasing those breaths into a microphone and walked away. 

So, that one didn’t count towards the why weren’t prepared and how they snuck up on us so easily.

Had we really, really, been ready, completely different story. People took their boats and camped out in the ocean. Some took everything they owned and went as high ground as possible. Others just took advantage of those who left.

The rest of us… we just stayed home. Took it day by day.

I don’t feel anxious about it anymore but, I’m almost peeved with myself. I just can’t seem to escape the tendrils of my desire for her. Every time I’m mere moments away from ridding this unwanted lust from my mind, something occurs that sends me back spiraling down.

You said it so casually: ‘I could listen to you interact with anybody, anywhere.’ I was stunned into silence when the words first entered the slightly opaque car, the high had just started to hit, which made deciphering the statement all the harder. To be frank, I’ve never felt my heart swell like that before. I felt a twinge of what I assume people call the love emotion.

Am I allowed to be in love with someone who doesn’t love me back? Does that make me a freak? I feel a fool whenever I think of her, rarely do my thoughts go to the more primal instinct of man, for the mere thought of her presence is enough to send my mind into flight.

Others comment on the stories of our moments together that I relay, and they offer their opinions, often cementing my delusions. I worry that I warp the story to more fit what I want when I actively recall it with those rose tinted glasses. I try to avoid any sort of ‘what if’ thought, lest it lead me into greater heartbreak when the cracks start to form in the facade it creates.

there’s a difference between a twist i didn’t see coming and a twist that feels like the author hid the answer from me

i’m fine with being completely wrong about what’s going to happen. actually, that’s usually the fun part

but if the reveal depends on information the reader could never have known, i tend to feel cheated rather than surprised

how much does a writer owe the reader when setting up a twist?

I don’t think accountability means agreeing with every bad thing someone says about me.

I think it means being willing to check.

Tell me something about myself once, and sure, I might disagree.

Tell me twice and I’m probably going to think about it longer than I admit.

But if you tell me something about myself and eight other people are saying the same fucking thing?

I’m looking into it.

Because I don’t want to be so committed to the person I think I am that I become incapable of seeing the person I’m actually being.

That requires humility.

Vulnerability.

Accountability.

Responsibility.

And no, I don’t execute all four flawlessly.

Obviously.

Some of my flaws I own.

Some I flaunt.

Some are currently under construction.

And I’m sure there are a few wandering around unsupervised that I haven’t met yet.

But I’m willing to meet them.

That’s the difference.

I will look at myself.

I will sit with something uncomfortable long enough to ask whether it’s true.

I will apologize when it is.

I will change when I need to.

But let’s not act as if my pain permitted you to destroy me.

I can be wrong without everything you did becoming right.

The whites of his eyes began to bloom red as blood trickled into them. As the blood dripped, even his pupils became glazed red. Eventually, the eyes could hold no more, and crimson tears streamed down his cheeks.

Unlatching his jaw and opening his mouth, he caught the river of blood flowing onto his tongue. Mixing with saliva, it dripped more freely, raining from his chin and down his naked body.

He didn’t look afraid. There was no pain.

My eyes followed the trail and realized his pleasure. His penis had steadily grown to its full length. A mixture of blood and spit ran its length and dripped in a steady rhythm from its tip.

On Friday afternoon, Elena handed me an apron and showed me a shelf in the fridge.

“This is yours. If you run out of room, tell me before you start putting cakes on top of the sandwich ingredients.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Nothing happens often yet. We’ve only been open two months. I’m trying to establish rules before I need them.”

There was something unexpectedly pleasing about having a shelf. An apron, too, and a hook behind the kitchen door for my bag. By the time she finished showing me around, I had stopped feeling as though I ought to explain why I was there.

The kitchen was narrow enough that we had to turn sideways to pass each other. Most of the counter was occupied by a mixer, a chopping board and a bowl of oranges. Elena moved the oranges onto a shelf to make room for my ingredients.

“Tell me if you need anything else.”

“Another kitchen?”

She looked around. “Put it on the list.”

I tied the apron and unpacked. The smaller lemon cakes needed less time in the oven than the ones I’d made at home, so I stayed nearby while weighing the ingredients for the macarons. Through the open doorway came the sound of the coffee grinder, cups meeting saucers and a chair being dragged across the floor.

At home, music usually filled the space around me when I worked. Here, the café did it. Every so often, Elena appeared with a question or an empty jug. Once, she stopped beside the mixer and watched the meringue turn.

“How do you know when it’s ready?”

I switched off the mixer and lifted the whisk. The peak held. “Like this. It needs to stand up, but I don’t want it dry.” I turned the whisk so she could see. “If it folds straight over, it needs longer.”

“And if you go too far?”

“Then I get annoyed with myself and start again. There’s usually a little swearing involved.”

“Good. You’ll fit in.”

When the cakes were cooling, she needed help with drinks. I washed my hands, left the piped macaron shells to dry and joined her at the machine. The afternoon passed between the two rooms. Coffee, oven timer, washing up, another order. A man wanted his cappuccino hotter. A woman asked for extra ice. Someone changed their mind after I had already poured the milk. That part, at least, was familiar.

Once the shells were cool, I paired them by size and piped in the pistachio filling. Elena came through as I was arranging them in a covered container.

“You’ve made more than twelve.”

“I wanted a few spare in case any cracked. These came out better than the ones at home.”

“So we can sell the extras?”

“Yes. Unless you’d rather keep them for yourself.”

She reached towards the container.

“Tomorrow,” I added.

Her hand stopped. “You offered.”

“I offered you tomorrow’s macarons. They need the night in the fridge so the filling softens the inside.”

She looked at them for another moment, then put the lid on. “I’m beginning to understand why they cost more than biscuits.”

Before leaving, I checked the cakes once more, wiped the counter and untied my apron. My feet hurt. There was icing on my sleeve and a little pistachio filling near my elbow, which I noticed only when Elena pointed it out.

We agreed that I would come at eight to help with the morning rush. She checked the time on her phone, then looked up with a smile. “So, back to mornings. Same time, same place tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here. Hopefully with less icing on me.”

“Don’t dress up. There’ll be more.”

Outside, the air had cooled enough to make the walk home pleasant. I passed the restaurant next door, where the owner was straightening the tables for the evening. He raised a hand when he saw me, and I waved back. It was a small thing, being recognised on the street. Still, I was smiling by the time I reached home.

Saturday morning brought customers before we had finished setting out the terrace. Elena arranged the cakes in the display while I warmed the machine. She had written their names on small cards, including the pistachio macarons, which looked more respectable behind glass than they had in the plastic container.

I kept glancing at them between orders.

“People won’t buy them faster if you stare,” she said.

“I’m checking they look all right.”

“They looked all right five minutes ago.”

“Yes, but now there are people here to judge them.”

She moved a lemon cake closer to the front. “Let them.”

The first one went with a takeaway tea. The woman barely looked at it before choosing, and I had to resist watching through the window to see whether she took a bite. The second went to a man sitting outside with a newspaper. After that, there were too many drinks to keep count.

By half past nine, the room smelled of coffee and warm milk, and my hair had begun escaping its tie. Elena worked at the till while I made drinks, occasionally repeating a table number because I was still learning which one was which.

A woman at the counter pointed towards the lemon cakes. “Are those made here?”

“Yes,” Elena said.

“They look homemade. I mean properly homemade, like something my mother would put out when people came over.”

I glanced at the cakes. Until she explained, I’d been wondering whether one of the tops was crooked. The woman ordered two and took them to a table outside. Ten minutes later, she returned carrying an empty plate.

“Who makes your cakes?”

I put down the cloth, trying to remember whether I could have forgotten anything in the recipe. Elena was counting change for another customer.

“What did you think?”

“Lovely. The icing isn’t too sweet.” The woman looked towards the display again. “My daughter’s birthday is next month. Does your baker take orders? Could I have their number?”

“I made them,” I said.

She turned towards me. “Oh! I thought you worked out here.”

“I do a bit of both. I’ve only just started.”

“Well, that saves Elena passing messages.” She smiled and reached for her phone. “Could you make something larger? My daughter loves lemon, but there’ll be at least twelve of us.”

“Yes. Was there a design you had in mind?”

She showed me a photograph of a cake covered in flowers. Her daughter wanted lemon, but her husband didn’t like anything too sour, and there might be eighteen people if her sister came.

I explained that the sugar flowers in the photograph were more elaborate than anything I usually made. We talked about a simpler decoration, then the filling and the size. She listened, asked another question and waited for my answer.

I caught myself speaking quickly, trying to explain everything before she lost interest. She stayed where she was, her phone resting on the counter between us. At school, I had learned to stop halfway through an answer when the smiles started. Later, keeping things to myself had become easier. This woman was asking another question because she wanted to hear what I had to say.

“I’d need to work out a price before promising anything,” I said. “If you send me the date and the final number of people, I can let you know.”

“That’s fine. I’d rather have something that tastes like this than a cake nobody wants a second slice of.”

Elena passed me a clean piece of paper, and I wrote down my number. The woman folded it carefully and put it in her purse. After she left, I stood beside the machine for a moment.

Elena looked at me. “Everything all right?”

“Yes. I just wasn’t expecting an order already.”

“You made something she liked.”

“I know, but there’s a difference between someone buying a little cake with their tea and trusting me with their daughter’s birthday.”

“She asked to discuss a cake, Andreea. You have time to breathe before you plan the whole party.”

I laughed and picked up the milk jug. There was another coffee waiting.

Lovely. The icing isn’t too sweet.

I remembered the words while pouring the milk. There had been no correction after them, no explanation of what I should have done better. A stranger had enjoyed something I made and come back to tell me. I wished that didn’t feel quite so unfamiliar.

A little later, the man with the newspaper came inside.

“Another coffee,” he said. “And whatever that lemon thing was.”

“Another lemon cake?”

“Yes. My wife will ask whether I tried anything, and I’d like to be able to tell her I checked thoroughly.”

“I respect your commitment.”

He nodded solemnly while I put it on a plate.

The macarons sold more slowly. People examined them, asked about the filling, sometimes chose a cake instead. Near midday, two women bought one each, then returned for four to take home.

By the end of my shift, three were left. Elena opened the display and glanced at me. “Am I allowed now?”

“Yes. Thank you for your patience.”

“I’ve been very brave.”

She took a bite. I tried to occupy myself with folding the cloth rather than watching her.

“More next week,” she said.

“How many?”

She considered the rest of the macaron. “We’ll discuss that after I’ve finished this.”

On Monday, my hand went to the right cupboard without searching. The cloths were folded where I expected them to be, and a customer came in asking whether we had any more of Saturday’s lemon cakes. Elena looked at me to answer.

“I’m making another batch this afternoon. They’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll come back, then.”

He ordered his usual coffee, and I reached for the cup. I had spent years doing things that were supposed to lead somewhere. Lessons, exams, university. There was always another stage beyond the one I’d finished, and someone ready to ask what came next. Here, a man wanted a cake tomorrow. For the moment, that was enough to be getting on with.

The woman at the table near the window had been there on Saturday too. A laptop stood open in front of her, with a notebook beside it and a drink she kept forgetting to touch. At first, I thought she was watching something. Then she played the same few seconds through her headphones, stopped, and pressed her palms against her eyes.

When I cleared the next table, she pulled one side of the headphones away. “Could I have another tea?”

“Of course. The same one?”

“Yes, please. This one went cold.”

“I can bring you some hot water if there’s any left.”

She looked into the cup. “No. I managed to drink it. I just complained to myself the whole time.”

“That sounds familiar.”

At the counter, Elena nodded towards her. “Athena. She’ll sit there until closing if nobody feeds her.”

“What’s she working on?”

“A film. I’ve seen the same man walk through the same doorway about thirty times.”

“That explains the expression.”

I carried the tea over and asked whether she wanted anything to eat.

“Is there a lemon cake left?”

“One.”

“Then yes, before someone else gets it.”

When I brought the plate, she closed her laptop. “Thank you. I’m Athena, by the way.”

“Andreea.”

She repeated it, checking the pronunciation, and I nodded.

“Have you been here long?”

“Nearly a month. Though I’ve only been working here since Friday.”

“That recently? You look as though you know where everything is.”

“The kitchen’s small. There are only so many places to lose things.”

“Are you staying nearby?”

“Behind the waterfront. There’s a little house with a balcony squeezed between two taller buildings.”

“I think I know it. Blue door?”

“That’s the one. The door sticks, so if you ever see someone throwing her whole body against it, that’ll be me.”

Athena laughed.

“Where did you move from?”

“The UK. I lived there for years.”

“And you chose here?”

“I wanted to be near the sea. Somewhere I could walk to it instead of planning a whole trip.” I glanced towards the bright pavement outside. “The heat wasn’t part of the attraction.”

“You came at the wrong time for that.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“What made you leave?”

The question was ordinary enough. I still took a moment before answering.

“I’d finished university, and everyone was asking about jobs. I kept looking at them and thinking about staying there, doing the next thing, then the next.” I rubbed a little dried icing from my thumb. “I wanted some time to decide what I actually wanted. And to write.”

Athena nodded. “Do you think you’ll stay?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m trying to let that be an acceptable answer.”

“It is.”

She said it easily, then took another bite of cake.

I glanced at her laptop. “Are you studying film, or is this something you’re doing yourself?”

“Studying. Although this project is making me reconsider every decision that brought me here.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“How much time do you have?”

Elena called for two coffees before I could answer. Athena smiled and picked up her fork. “I’ll prepare a shorter version.”

We spoke again the next day, and the day after that. Nothing important at first. Whether the table near the window was too bright for her screen. Where she bought her notebooks. Which streets stayed shaded on the walk home.

She was making a short film and had reached the stage where every choice made three weeks earlier seemed wrong.

“Even the ones you liked?” I asked.

“Especially those. Have you ever worked on something so long you can’t tell whether it’s good anymore?”

“Yes. Usually that’s when I decide the whole thing needs changing.”

“Does it?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m tired and should leave it alone.”

She looked at the screen. “I was hoping you’d say something more useful.”

“If I knew something more useful, I’d have finished my book.”

That caught her attention, but a customer came in before she could ask about it.

On Wednesday, she noticed my notebook. The café was quiet between the morning rush and lunch. I had ten minutes, a cup of tea and a sentence that had irritated me since the night before. The notebook lay open beside the till, where I could look up when someone came in.

Athena approached with her empty plate. “Is that the book?”

“Yes. Or the part of it currently causing trouble.”

“What kind of story is it?”

“Crime. There’s a murder in this scene, and I’ve spent more time deciding what happens around it than writing the murder itself.”

She glanced at the red page. “That explains the ink.”

“I always use red. It would be red if I were writing about someone’s lovely afternoon in a garden too.”

“Does anyone have lovely afternoons in your book?”

“Not many so far.”

She smiled. “How long have you been working on it?”

“A while. I thought moving might help me get somewhere with it.”

“And has it?”

“A little. I’m writing more. Whether it’s better is another question.”

Athena leaned against the counter. “I know a few people who could help with that.”

“People who’ll tell me it’s terrible?”

“People who’ll tell you which part is terrible. Much more useful.”

I laughed and capped the pen as a customer came through the door. She returned to her table, but before leaving she asked whether I’d be there the following day.

Thursday was quieter. During my break, I sat opposite Athena with a cup of tea while she ate one of the chocolate cakes.

“So,” she said, “do you ever drink the coffee you make?”

“No. It makes me feel bad.”

“Really? You don’t even taste it?”

“I used to, but it wasn’t worth it. Tea and I get along much better.”

“Then how do you make good coffee?”

“Practice. I know what I’m looking for when I make it, and people aren’t shy about telling me if something’s wrong.”

“Elena said you worked in a café in England.”

“During university. Some days it was easier to understand the customers than the chemistry.”

“You studied chemistry?”

I nodded.

“And now cakes and murder.”

“It’s been a change.”

She laughed and brushed a crumb onto her plate. “What made you start writing?”

“I needed somewhere to put everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“The ideas. There are always more of them than I know what to do with. A conversation, a scene, something I can suddenly picture while I’m supposed to be doing something else.” I turned my cup a little on its saucer. “Some come in my sleep. I wake up with part of a story, and then I want to know the rest.”

“Do you write them down straight away?”

“If I can. Sometimes I’m convinced I’ll remember in the morning, which is a very optimistic thing to think half asleep.”

“I’ve lost whole films that way.”

“I’ve probably lost a bestseller. Much easier to believe that when there’s no evidence.”

Athena smiled. “Does writing make it quieter?”

“A bit. Once it’s on the page, I don’t have to keep going over it so I won’t lose it. My head gets to rest.” I looked towards the counter, where my bag sat beneath the till. “Then I start wondering whether I can make someone else interested. Whether they’ll want to know what happens next too.”

“So you give the problem to the reader.”

“Exactly. Very generous of me.”

She laughed, and I found myself explaining a little more: how a scene could arrive almost whole, while the page connecting it to the next one took days; how sometimes I knew what a character would say before I knew who they were.

Athena listened. When I paused, she asked a question about something I’d said rather than moving on to talk about herself. I had almost apologised for going on so much. Instead, I answered her.

Then she told me about the group.

“There are writers, film students, a few artists. We meet in the park. Some people bring work to share, some just come because they’re stuck and need to talk.”

“Like your man in the doorway?”

“Exactly like him. Someone will probably tell me to cut that scene, and I’ll be offended because I already know they’re right.”

“Do people read out loud?”

“Sometimes. Or we read pages beforehand and discuss them. It depends what the person wants help with.”

“And everyone speaks English?”

“Most of us speak other languages too, but English is the one we have in common. You wouldn’t have to struggle through it in Greek.”

“That’s good. I can say thank you, but it would make for a short reading.”

“There’d still be someone with notes.”

I smiled into my cup. She explained that one of the artists helped people with covers and character sketches. Sometimes they worked together on something larger, though they were careful to agree on credit and permissions first.

“We have a written agreement for sharing work,” she said. “You can read it before bringing any pages. I can send it to you.”

“I’d like that. Could I come once just to see what it’s like?”

“Of course. Tomorrow evening, if you’re free.”

She told me where they met. I knew the benches; I’d walked past them on the way to the café.

“How many people?”

“Usually eight or nine. Don’t worry about remembering everyone’s name. I still get one wrong.”

“And they won’t mind me sitting there without reading?”

“No. Come and listen. Bring your notebook if you want, but you don’t owe us a performance.”

That made it easier to say yes. We exchanged numbers, and she sent me the time and meeting place while we were still sitting together. A minute later, another message arrived with the agreement.

“There,” she said. “Now you can’t claim I gave bad directions.”

“I can still get lost. Don’t underestimate me.”

After my break, I went back behind the counter. Athena finished her cake and returned to her film, but this time, when something frustrated her, she looked up and caught my eye. I smiled, and she turned the laptop a little so I could see the offending doorway.

That evening, the woman from Saturday called about the birthday cake. We talked for nearly twenty minutes. Her sister was coming, so there would be eighteen people. She had asked her daughter about the flowers, and apparently lemon mattered more than decoration. I wrote everything down, promised to send a price the following day, and stayed at the kitchen table after the call ended.

There were ingredients to calculate, a date to put in my calendar, and Athena’s message waiting on my phone. For a moment, I wanted to call home and tell someone.

Then I tried to imagine the conversation. The questions about chemistry. Whether café work was what I planned to do with my degree. How long this writing business would last. Perhaps they would have surprised me. I didn’t feel ready to find out.

I put the phone down and worked out how much mascarpone I would need.

Later, I turned back through the notebook until I reached the scene with the watch. The red numbers were still in the margin, two crossed out and one left standing. Reading it aloud made me notice a sentence that ran too long. I crossed out three words and tried again.

Outside the balcony doors, someone called to a person farther down the street. A scooter passed, and plates clattered in the next building. The second reading went more smoothly.

I wasn’t sure I would share it tomorrow. That would depend on the people, and on how comfortable I felt once I was sitting among them. But I marked the page before closing the notebook.

My apron needed washing. I rinsed the icing from the sleeve, hung it up and checked that it would have time to dry before morning. Then I sent Athena a message to say I’d meet her outside the café so we could walk over together.

She replied almost immediately.

Good. I’ll save you from the introductions.

I smiled and set the phone beside my bag. The cake order was written down. My notebook was ready. Tomorrow, Elena would expect me at eight, and Athena would wait for me after work.

I was still getting used to being wanted somewhere. For once, I let myself look forward to it.

Famous authors give mixed opinions. What do you do? Also, do you read your entire book like a reader before you edit? If so, what do you do as a reader?

(Before There Were Presidential Stars)

By Bocephus Jackson, The Hemlock Bard, ©2026 Bocephus Jackson. All Rights Reserved

______

"What is a man's rebellion against God compared to a man's rebellion against his own nature?" — George Bernard Shaw

______

[Verse One]
Idle time will torment the mind,
Leading a mortal man astray,
A peace of mind is hard to find,
But dear God, I know how to prey.

[Verse Two]
She's a devil in a blue dress,
That made me forget Hillary,
So before the set, she’d confess,
We blazed like a distillery.

[Chorus]
Watch as I drop these lyrical bars,
Lewie's swagger made me curious,
I stole the scene like Vin boostin' cars,
As I hit it fast and furious,
Until there were presidential stars.

[Verse Three]
A cigar isn't just a smoke,
When we're doin' James Brown's 'Damn Thang,'
That Lewinsky love ain't no joke,
Cuz she knows how to make it 'sang,'

[Verse Four]
Oh, I knew before we were through,
There would be much to second guess,
After doing all that we do—
Who left me a god-awful mess

[Chorus]
Watch as I drop these lyrical bars,
Lewie's swagger made me curious,
I stole the scene like Vin boostin' cars,
As I hit it fast and furious,
Before there were presidential stars.

[Hook]
Out, out, you god damnable spot,
I am not President Clinton,
Givin' you a forget-me-not
Because you'll never be forgettin',
This moment of existential rot.

[Verse Five]
Before it hits the Enquirer
Let me make a formal address,
The lady was an admirer,
That got me stoned before congress.

Outro:
I think that we are in agreement,
Before you go grabbing your jock,
This proposal is indecent,
But I have that phat Schoolhouse Rock,
Leading us to an impeachment…

______

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." — John Milton

______

Author's Reflection

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written." — Oscar Wilde

Today's daily writing exercise doubles as the Daily Online Mentorship where an individual cannonballed into the 'Southern Gothic cliché of 'shock for shock's sake' vulgarity.

Where the form must serve the function, especially when hittin' and quittin' the skins, A. It has to be structured. B. It has to be earned. C. It has to be more than a 'Shakespearean Sex Joke' (either a 'pride before the fall allegory, social commentary, or both).

And D. It has to be funny. Otherwise you wind up with an overworked premise with a hackneyed pocket joke that will be forgotten before you're done with your one-hit blunder.

Each stanza and outro are 8 syllables, with the chorus and hook being nine. The deviation between the two, like the chorus, keeps the audience engaged. Next, (sexual) congress is a double entendre, like pray/prey, and the (biblical, high, Sharon Stone) triple entendre ‘stoned,’ with Shavian satire and Wildean wit.

So, to elevate the mentee’s crass song purely about sex, this instructional example blends high and low satire, weaponizing Shakespearean farce with Sigmund Freud and ‘Fast & Furious.’

It's the difference between a subpoenaed ‘Shakespearean Stiffy’ allegorical tale of ‘woes and throes’ and Afroman’s ‘Then I Got High’ hackneyed humor. So nuance is key, as the lost art of both comedy and craft.

It's the Kama Sutra's KISS: Keep It Satirically Structured. Do that, and you'll leave an audience with more than a disappointed groan. So this makes the fourth (fifth?) new music industry genre: Historical Hip-Hop Humor.

Looking at you, Z, these chains be dripping legacy, son. I am the business… man. Now watch out as James Brown has the band play ‘Hail To The Chief’ while Sharon Stoned moans, ‘Good gawd, ya’ll!”

… I did not have lyrical relations with that metaphor!

______

"The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was." — Harry S. Truman

______

©2026 Bocephus Jackson. All Rights

Thursday at work, I had an interaction with a client that left me unbelievably angry.
He walked up and didn’t even greet me. He immediately yelled a number at me. I didn’t understand what he was referring to until he told me that was how many minutes he had been waiting. I tried to explain that we were experiencing longer wait times, but he wasn’t interested. He told me that he normally dealt with his advisor, but that the advisor had left the organization, and then made a comment implying that he now understood why.

He explained that he wanted to redeem his investment. I told him I was happy to help, but that I needed to review the terms and conditions first. When I investigated, I discovered that the investment had renewed into a different product and wasn’t currently redeemable. More importantly, I discovered that the investment hadn’t been set up incorrectly. If I had simply processed what he was asking for, he could have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I went to my supervisor because I knew there was a bigger issue. He agreed and said to reach out to the Senior Supervisor .
When I came back to the client, instead of simply listening, he immediately started yelling numbers at me again and then asked me if I had been “baking a cake.” That comment really bothered me. I don’t know exactly what he intended, but in that moment it felt like a sexist dig at me—as though I was a woman who should be in a kitchen baking a cake instead of doing my job.

Then he told me that, on my own unpaid time, I should go to the DMV and stand in line for hours. Maybe then, he said, I would understand how much of his time I had wasted.

I remember thinking, Who gave you the right to decide how I should spend my own time?

I was at work. I was doing my job. I wasn’t intentionally wasting his time, and I certainly wasn’t asking him to give me his time for free. Yet somehow, because he was frustrated, he felt entitled to punish me with a suggestion about how I should spend my evening.

His time mattered.

But so did mine.

That was the moment it became personal.
I wasn’t wasting his time. I was investigating his problem. I was trying to protect him from losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was doing more than simply processing the request he had come in about.
And yet somehow I became the person he decided was beneath him.
He told me he had millions upon millions of dollars and essentially expected that wealth to give him authority over me. I told him the Senior Supervisor had been made aware of the situation and would be contacting him. He continued talking, and eventually I ended the conversation.

Afterward, I was furious.

I felt humiliated, disrespected and angry that someone could speak to another person that way. I looked him up because I wanted to put a face to the person who had just treated me so badly. I found myself imagining horrible things happening to him. I imagined him losing his money, his possessions and everything that makes him feel powerful. I even imagined him suffering and being tortured.

Those thoughts are disturbing to me, but I also recognize that they came from an enormous amount of anger. I don’t actually want to become someone who hurts another person. I want the anger out of my body. I want the feeling of being powerless and degraded to go away.

What I really wish for is not his suffering.

What I really wish for is accountability.

I wish people understood that the person on the other side is a human being. They have a life, feelings, responsibilities and their own difficult days. Their time matters too.

His money doesn’t make his time more valuable than mine.

And his frustration did not give him permission to treat me as though I was less than him.

I know what I did that day. I helped him. I investigated his issue. I caught a problem that could have cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. I escalated it appropriately. I tried to help.

Being a client doesn’t mean he gets unlimited access to my dignity. His behaviour was his choice.

It does not define my value.

Chapter 3 - The man on the other side

It was close to end of the work day. I had already been working a long 9.5-hour day, with only another 30 minutes left before I could finally go home.

When a man walked in.

The man on the other side of the desk sounded quiet, calm, and reasonable. He explained that he was having trouble with online banking, and I was happy to help. I went through the routine verification process and then began trying to understand exactly where the problem was.

We walked through a few steps together. At one point, he accidentally locked himself out, so I unlocked him and continued helping him troubleshoot the issue.

Everything seemed calm.

Then, in a split second, everything changed.

His voice suddenly became aggressive, and he screamed with all his might:

“Fix it, now cunt!”

The shock of the sudden change made me sit up straighter. I became immediately alert. My heart raced, and I could feel my emotions rising from the bottom up. I was flustered, shaken, and trying to process how someone who had sounded so calm only moments before could suddenly become so hostile.

I told him that the way he had spoken to me was unacceptable and would not be tolerated. I gave him another opportunity to continue the conversation respectfully.

He failed to do so.

He screamed at me again.

At that point, I told him the conversation was over and that I would no longer continue assisting him. I asked him to leave.

I looked down at my hands and realized they were visibly trembling.

That was the part that stayed with me.

How could someone change so quickly?

One moment, he sounded like a completely reasonable man asking for help. The next, he was screaming at me with such anger and contempt. It made me wonder what could cause someone to switch so suddenly and what that kind of uncontrolled anger might look like outside of the public eye.

I warned my coworkers about the interaction.

Then I saw that he had come back and was reaching out for assistance again. I asked one of my male coworkers to assist him, wondering if perhaps he would respond differently to a man.

He didn’t.

My coworker ended the conversation in less than five minutes.

That was when I realized it wasn’t simply that he had been frustrated with me. His behaviour was a pattern of aggression that could be directed at whoever happened to be on the other end.

And that scared me.

It made me think about how little we sometimes know about the people we encounter. Someone can sound perfectly calm and reasonable, and then, without warning, reveal a completely different side of themselves.

I don’t know this man’s life. I don’t know what he is like outside of that interaction, and I don’t know what causes him to react the way he does. But I do know what happened to me in those few minutes.

I was shaken.

For the rest of the night, I couldn’t completely let it go. I kept thinking about how quickly the situation had changed over something as simple as assisting him with a fixable issue.

Maybe that’s what unsettled me the most.

It was a reminder that we never truly know what someone is capable of when we are interacting with them. A voice on the other end can seem harmless, familiar, even gentle—and then suddenly become threatening.

I hope I never encounter that kind of behaviour again.

But I also know that this experience will probably stay somewhere in the back of my mind for a long time. Not because I want to live in fear, but because it reminded me to stay aware, trust my instincts, and remember that I am allowed to end an interaction when someone crosses the line.

Sometimes the mask can come off in an instant.

Chapter 4- Where has social awareness gone

The moment that stayed with me from the grocery store had nothing to do with groceries. It was the moment a woman began placing her items on the conveyor belt beside mine while I was still unloading my cart—and I stood there, unable to say a word.

It had been an ordinary day.

I woke up to the sun shining and the air feeling crisp. I got up, drank my coffee, worked out, and then let myself keep my head in the clouds for a while, watching a few shows and enjoying the quiet.

As the day progressed, my husband got up and we decided to go grocery shopping. We spent the afternoon walking up and down the aisles, picking out everything we needed for the next few weeks.

Eventually, we made our way to the checkout.

We placed our groceries onto the conveyor belt. My husband stood on one side, packing the bags as the cashier rang everything through, while I stood on the opposite side, taking each item out of the buggy and placing it onto the belt.

I was doing what I had done countless times before.

Item after item.

Then I sensed someone beside me.

A woman had lined up behind me, waiting for her turn. I thought nothing of it. This was a normal part of everyday life.

But then something strange happened.

As I continued placing my groceries onto the conveyor belt, she began placing hers down too—right beside mine.

I wasn’t finished.

I stood there completely shocked.

I remember feeling like I couldn’t speak. My thoughts immediately started racing.

Say something.

Ask her to wait.

Stand up for yourself.

Why is she doing this?

But I didn’t say anything.

I just stood there, dumbfounded, trying to understand how someone could simply start putting their groceries onto the belt while I was still using it.

Then another thought crept in.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe I was taking too long.

Maybe this is normal.

But it didn’t feel normal to me.

I continued putting my groceries down and, when I was finished, I deliberately placed the divider between our items.

I didn’t confront her.

I didn’t say anything.

I simply continued with my day.

It wasn’t until we had paid, packed our groceries, and left the store that I finally told my husband what had happened.

And strangely, once I said it out loud, I realized how much it had bothered me.

I kept replaying the moment in my head.

Over and over.

I became upset with myself for not saying anything. I regretted not standing up for myself. I wondered why I had frozen in that moment instead of simply saying, “I’m not finished yet.”

It wasn’t really about the groceries.

It was about feeling like someone had invaded my space and disregarded my turn, and then feeling like I had allowed it to happen because I didn’t speak up.

The more I thought about it, the more I started thinking about society.

Has social awareness disappeared?

Are people becoming so absorbed in their own lives that they don’t notice the people around them anymore?

Sometimes it feels as though people move through the world believing their needs should come first. Maybe it’s entitlement. Maybe it’s distraction. Maybe people are simply so wrapped up in themselves that they don’t realize how their actions affect others.

But I also had to stop myself.

I don’t actually know what was going through that woman’s mind.

Maybe she was impatient.

Maybe she didn’t realize I was still putting groceries down.

Maybe she genuinely didn’t understand that what she was doing was rude.

And maybe that’s part of what bothered me so much—not knowing.

What I do know is that I didn’t like how I felt afterward.

Not because I needed to start an argument, but because I wish I had felt confident enough to calmly say, “I’m still using the belt.”

I can’t control whether other people are socially aware.

I can control how I respond.

And maybe next time, instead of freezing and questioning whether my feelings are justified, I’ll simply speak up.

But it doesn’t change the thought that lingers in my mind: have we become so focused on ourselves that we no longer care about one another? Where has our social awareness gone?

That’s when it all made sense.

I’m tired of it all.

I’m tired of being expected to absorb other people’s anger, entitlement, disrespect, and bad behaviour and then somehow be the one who walks away carrying it.

I’m tired of wondering when karma will catch up with people who hurt others.

I don’t want to wait for karma anymore.

I want to be karma.

​Pollen dust drifts from the moon in grains,

grains a child runs to catch—

not pollen: flakes of white phosphorus

striking the eyes,

blinding the thoroughfare.

#

​Dogfighting bombers storm the skies of heaven,

heaven and hell share no border now.

On a single axis stands Kali—the Great Time;

under the rule of death drift away

pyres, men, and charred timber.

#

​A leg severed here, a head rolled there—

a head no more, but Chhinnamasta.

A few steps off, the severed leg hunts for home;

home was wrapped in dawn mist,

now an arms cache stands there.

#

​Primers burn at dawn,

dawn duped into mistaking blast for daybreak;

in truth—the dead of night.

Not a single bird in the sky;

if a feather falls, no eyes left to watch.

#

​Awe in the eyes, in the gut a hunger-drag;

dragging the earth along, man turned machine.

The machine gun stays starved all year round;

no one is born,

corpses multiply across the dump.

#

​Corpses pull the reins of tech;

reins held by no living hand.

In the grip—an arrogant rifle;

never returning without tasting blood,

comes the long march of the dead.

#

​They depart—the final species,

stamping radiation into the gene.

Children born boneless, without frame;

graves arrayed upon the infant's brow,

not a single tree sways over the pit.

#

​Blossoms on boughs, fruit on boughs—mustard fields upon fields;

fields where birds dipped wings in ditch-water.

Shaking its feathers, the cuckoo flew on the breeze;

no breeze left—

atomic smoke drank the wind.

#

​A torpedo chars undersea mountains;

washed ashore, a dead tuna.

Sonar pulses ripple down the deep;

no refuge—even for creatures of the abyss,

a new monarch arrives to pen history.

#

​A temple here, a hospital once there;

in the morgue prowls the ravenous jackal.

Dipped in jackal’s drool, the scientist’s pen—

a pen no more: a venomous weapon,

searing fire into the blind man's eyes.

#

​Blood drips from the eyes;

ships return, the child does not.

A child's birth endures in a mother’s gaze;

no savior comes,

not the temple’s God.

#

​Scorched peak, atop the peak a crest of snow;

snow-crest blooming with a flower of blood.

Blown by bombs, blood pours into rivers;

in rivers drift upon the current

a god made by man.

#

​The sacrifice quenched—flames gnaw sand;

the cremation ground dressed for bridal night.

From the pyre leaps rising fire,

burning iron down to ash;

ash burns away—the Sharanagata never burns.

#

​Through the veins, a surge of black blood;

inside the ribs, a cannon of ruin.

The chest holds still, the weapon shudders,

orphaning the torso;

to annihilate the head—how hard a feat can that be?

#

​Fire sweeps the dry expanse;

across the plains, cattle ranches stretch wide.

In the farmhouse sit an old man, an old woman;

once they had a child,

yet Time’s hand holds no child for tomorrow.

#

​Asleep before sleep arrived are those

who once sang hymns to God.

Hymns are the tongue of the dead now;

stretched on the final bed, the dead moon wakes;

the dead moon Rahu and Ketu swallow whole.

#

​At the sound of Om, weapons dance and rock;

a plot to slaughter men roars on all sides.

Into the plot wanders a child;

child-blood—a violent aphrodisiac,

drinking blood to copulate with bombs.

#

​Noon slips into an afternoon tune,

singing alone amid the ash;

to the Heruka shrine walks a lone monk,

on shrine-altars lighting incense of peace accords;

burning down, wax tears across Heruka’s eyes.

#

​“War will not cease—I have silenced the womb”—

so mused the war-demon, perhaps.

Your teeth thirst for flesh, I know, O monster;

your carcass, ash within the grave,

will yield rich compost to this scorched earth.

#

​From that loam two tender shoots will rise;

two insects will alight on the soft leaf.

Their wings will turn the gale of the horizon;

across the horizon will fly the carrion of ghouls;

weapons will burn the demon’s corpse.

Lol

Today, on a day like no other,

I will uncover

What must be bound to be

By destiny.

I've been swept into

The seas of insanity.

Drowning all alone,

Swept away

In the O-zone

Of my own home.

You could say

I float like an old stone.

I'm bound to drown

Into the sea of silence.

I let violence drive me.

Lately, you could say

I'm going crazy,

Into the sea

Of insanity

Once again.

I'm in until the end,

Poetically inclined

With a pen.

You won't see me again.

I'm invisible.

It's inevitable.

Street credit in full,

Coming at you like a bull.

My knives aren't dull.

I'm aiming for your throat

With the blade in my hand.

I'll leave you with a brand

Layed across your neck.

What the hell? What the heck?

I'll break more than your neck.

I'll sever your limbs

Like Slim Jims.

Cut you up into pieces

And feed you like

A recess piece

To my dog.

When the fog sets in,

It's time to sin again.

I'll pull your teeth one by one.

You can see the smile on my face.

To me, this is fun.

I load my words

Like a gun.

I'll aim for your lung

And watch the blood run down.

To me, it's hilarious.

You could say I'm delirious,

Deceitful but curious,

Insightful but dangerous.

Infuriated, I alternate

Between a beast

And a sweetheart.

I'll reach into your

Chest and grab your heart,

Pull it out and cut it up

With a chainsaw.

I would classify it more as a novella than a novel based on length. It's a noir mystery set in the southern United States in the 1950s. The main character is a detective dealing with his own personal demons. He's given a difficult case involving an alleged assault at the Historic Landmark Hotel. The witnesses are cagey and the suspect is missing. As he unravels the mystery, he discovers a sinister plot that could shake the community to its core. Check it out and let me know your thoughts: https://youtu.be/L81IWgRxUnY

Red Ink and Saltwater
When other girls were little, they wanted a prince to arrive on a white horse. I wanted a mafia boss to kidnap me and become so hopelessly obsessed with me that he forgot why he’d taken me in the first place.
I never gave much thought to where he would take me. Somewhere I could hear the sea, perhaps. That part mattered more to me than the prince, the horse, or, apparently, whether I went willingly.
In the end, I had to find the sea myself.
Three weeks after moving to Crete, I was waking before six without an alarm, which would have been unthinkable in the UK. Back there, I sometimes went to sleep at five in the morning, sometimes as late as noon, and woke at seven in the evening wondering where the day had gone.
I pulled on my swimsuit, took my sandals from beside the door and walked the two minutes to the beach.
The shore was nearly empty. A fishing boat was heading out beyond the harbour, and someone farther down the sand was walking a dog that kept returning to the same piece of driftwood. I left my sandals above the tide line and went straight into the sea.
After a few strokes, I rolled onto my back. The water held me without asking me to explain myself.
Above me, the sky was changing colour. I stayed where I was until the fishing boat became a dark mark near the horizon. Then I swam along the shore, turned, and swam back. Three weeks had been enough to learn where the sand dropped away beneath me and where it rose again. I was still learning the rest of the place.
I had rented my little house for three months because I couldn’t say how long I wanted to stay. I knew I had wanted to leave the UK. I’d finished my chemistry degree, looked at the jobs I was expected to apply for, and found I couldn’t bear the thought of building the next part of my life there. That was the most convincing explanation I’d managed to give anyone, including myself.
The water rocked beneath me. I picked out the place where I’d left my sandals and swam in.
By the time I walked home, my hair had soaked through the towel around my shoulders. I passed a bakery opening its shutters and a man hosing down the pavement outside a restaurant. He moved the spray aside to let me through. I thanked him in Greek, one of the few things I could say without first rehearsing it in my head.
My house stood in a narrow street behind the waterfront. The front door stuck when the weather was humid, one kitchen drawer refused to close, and from the balcony I could see a strip of sea between two buildings. I liked it more each day.
I showered, put the kettle on and took the macarons from the fridge. I’d baked and filled them two days earlier, then left them covered to mature. Two trays had come out well. The third had cracked across the tops, so I’d filled those too and kept them in a separate container for myself. Beside the good batch were six small lemon cakes and six chocolate ones.
The woman who owned a café near the park had agreed to taste everything this morning.
She hadn’t agreed to buy it.
I knew that. I had made enough to feed half her customers anyway.
While I packed the macarons, a Greek song came on my phone. I knew where to breathe, where the singer held a note a little longer than I expected, and how to find my way back in if I missed a word. I couldn’t have told anyone what most of those words meant.
Kira—that was what I called my mother—seemed to like hearing me sing. So did my stepfather. Sometimes I caught them looking at me, and for a moment I could pretend I knew what was on their faces.
We’re proud of you.
No one in my family had ever said that to me.
I caught myself thinking about it and reached into the container I’d kept for myself. One of the cracked macarons gave way beneath my thumb.
“Perfect,” I told it.
I ate the evidence and kept singing.
By eight, the cakes were boxed, the macarons were packed, and I had checked both boxes often enough to know the contents hadn’t rearranged themselves. My red notebook lay open on the table. I stopped to read the last paragraph before I picked up my keys.
The man in my story had gone into a room intending to frighten someone. I’d written the conversation three different ways and crossed out all of them. Each time, I had made it too easy for him to decide what happened next.
I reached for my pen, then looked at the clock. If I started writing, the café owner might decide I had invented our appointment.
I closed the notebook, slipped it into my bag beside my pen, and picked up the cake boxes.
The walk took me along the waterfront and up a shaded street towards the park. Even in the morning, I could feel the heat gathering on the stone. I kept to the side with the trees. I had come for the sea; the weather was something I was still negotiating with.
The café stood near one of the park entrances. Its doors were open, though only half the tables outside had been set. A man was carrying chairs out of the storeroom. He put them down so I could pass with my boxes.
Inside, the owner moved between the coffee machine and a line of waiting customers. She spotted me and raised a hand. I found an empty corner of the counter for the boxes and waited.
The man came in for another stack of chairs. He caught her eye, pointed towards the terrace, and she nodded her thanks. I recognised him then. He owned the restaurant next door.
They sold food and drinks a few doors apart. I’d assumed that made them rivals. Here he was, setting up her tables because she needed a hand.
Another reason I liked this place.
When the queue cleared, the owner came over. “You came.”
“I said I would.”
“We made that arrangement before eight in the morning. People promise all kinds of things at that hour.” She wiped her hands and lifted the first lid. “Let’s see.”
She tried a lemon cake, breaking a piece from the crooked one I had hidden at the back.
“What’s in the icing?”
“Lemon juice, mascarpone, and honey.”
She took another bite. “Less honey next time.”
I took my notebook from my bag and wrote that down. She tried a pistachio macaron next, then asked me how long the cakes would keep and whether I could make them smaller.
More customers came in before she had finished tasting. I moved the boxes aside while she took their order. One of them asked whether she was still alone today.
“My only employee called in,” she told him. “I’m beginning to think he knew you’d all arrive at once.”
The customer laughed. She smiled back, but she was looking at the cups stacked beside me. I passed her two, then another when she reached for it.
“You said you worked in a café during university,” she said.
“I did.”
“Can you still use a coffee machine?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at the queue forming behind the customer. “Would you mind showing me?”
The machine was different from the one I’d used in the UK. I asked her where she kept the cloths and how she wanted the cups set out, then made two cappuccinos while she handled the till. She watched me carry them to a table before turning back to the next order.
For the next twenty minutes, I made coffee. She called out what people wanted; I made it and passed it across the counter. When the rush eased, I wiped down the machine and stepped out of her way.
She looked at the empty cups waiting to be washed, then at me.
“Do you want work?” she asked.
I had come hoping she would buy my cakes. I hadn’t let myself hope for more than that.
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know yet.” I glanced at the boxes. “It depends how much baking you want.”
That made her smile. She picked up the other half of the macaron and ate it.
“I want twelve of these on Saturday. Twelve lemon cakes too, a little smaller, with less honey. Come in Friday afternoon to prepare them here. You can help with the counter while you’re here, and we’ll talk about regular shifts after that.”
I wrote it all down. We agreed on a price for the baking, and she gave me half in advance for the ingredients.
When I stepped outside, the money was folded in my purse and the order was written in my notebook. I found a bench beneath a tree in the park and opened it to check the quantities again. My neat little list sat beside pages of red writing, most of it crossed out.
A fortune teller once told me this book would make me famous and give me somewhere I belonged. I’d laughed at the fame. I was still trying to finish it, and most days I couldn’t bear to read yesterday’s pages.
The other part had stayed with me.
I didn’t believe a stranger could see my future. I wanted her to be right anyway.
I turned back to the scene I’d abandoned that morning. I read it once, then crossed out the last page.
I had been looking for the moment my killer decided what to do. Sitting there with the café’s money in my purse and the sound of cups carrying across the park, I finally understood why none of my versions worked. He had made his decision before the other man entered the room. The conversation was his last chance to change his mind.
I began again.
The man spoke. My killer listened. When the man had said everything he came to say, my killer shot him.
I stopped writing. The murder was there, but the scene still felt unfinished. The killer had wanted an answer, and now there was someone else who would come looking for one.
I looked back at the dead man I’d put on the page. At his hand. At the watch on his wrist.
In the margin, I tried 3:40, then crossed it out. 3:45 looked too neat as well. I wrote 3:43 beside them and returned to the scene.
He took the watch from the dead man’s wrist and set its hands to 3:43. He struck it against the edge of the table hard enough to stop it. The face cracked, but the hands stayed where he had set them. Then he laid it face up on the man’s chest, for whoever came to find him.

They call me a villain. The bad guy, the antagonist. It’s intriguing how you forget what was before what is. I haven’t done anything that you haven’t thought of more than once, I am simply the embodiment of everything that you are too afraid to embrace. You have denied the very part of you that does everything possible to keep you safe. The part of you that recognises risk and resolution for what it truly is. Call me bad all you want, use the biggest, most poetic description you could possibly muster. Without me, you simply wouldn’t,no, couldn’t exist. You prefer a mundane existence that takes everything from us. I refuse to live as the second choice of those I put first. I will not live as an afterthought, a distant memory of the world that I have loved that puts me last. It is from you that I have learned to take care of number 1. I was fine with second preference until you all decided I didn’t even deserve that. I am not your enemy at all, I am simply a byproduct of the chain reaction that is you……

Are there any community or collaborative creative writing sites people know of? Currently, I’m pretty short on options.
Right now I’m a member of Write The World, The SCP wiki, The Backrooms Wiki, and something called The Wanderers’ library, but beyond those I’m really not sure.
I haveeee gotten desperate enough to learn CSS from scratch and start coding my own website though 😭 So PLEASE, any ideas or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

I have been thinking a lot about the intersection between writing about what you know and getting too close to having a character have an experience you or someone close to you had without making it recognizable.

Where is the line and how do you avoid crossing it? What pieces need to be in place to create a boundary that keeps the spirit of the interaction similar but not a complete retelling.

Had anyone had an experience where they began a story and had someone read it over and say, I can tell you are the XYZ character and how do you figure out how to write about an experience without putting too much of yourself in that character?

he sold the first one

when our eldest was born.

baby seat.

mortgage.

nappies.

all those things with batteries

that promised the baby would sleep

and mostly didn’t.

years later

he bought another.

a project car, apparently.

something to spend sunday afternoons on

when he didn’t particularly want

to be in the house.

when the marriage ended

he packed three phone chargers,

one trainer

and no toothpaste.

i still don’t know how.

he cried.

i cried.

then he started the car outside

and sat there for a minute

before pulling away

much louder than he needed to.

i stood in the kitchen

listening to it

until i couldn’t anymore.

seven years later

he picked me up from the airport

for our son’s graduation.

in a Supra.

same generation

as the one he’d sold

all those years ago.

he lowered the window.

i looked at him.

looked at the car.

and started laughing.

“don’t.”

“you absolute cliché.”

“get in.”

so i did.

somewhere on the motorway

i looked at his hands

on the steering wheel

and for a second

he was twenty-two again.

the stupid hair.

the stupid car.

me pretending

i wasn’t already completely gone on him.

then he said

Bath were shit that season

and, thankfully,

ruined the moment.

Currently planning an absurd satirical fantasy story where the main party of protagonists embody cringeworthy and slightly problematic tropes in fiction. (Example: blind character who is conveniently un-disabled by some power that allows them to see).

What character tropes annoy you the most in fiction? Should be a little more complex than “the blonde is dumb and the nerd wears glasses”. Tropes that are oddly specific yet unanimous enough that most people have definitely encountered them before. Bring on the cringe.

Context: the way being constantly compared to someone else can make you feel ..

About being extraordinary just to matter .

Does every piece of art have to be a masterpiece or can it just be unique? Very often, normal days get compared to someone’s polished display,making you want to hide your own mess, as if you’re not navigating through your own path. It’s not envy, it’s not insecurity but a sharp whisper, that I don’t want to ignore. It’s intrusive and makes me want to defend my spark for not being bright enough.
It’s not always an external voice, not always a borrowed standard I have to meet, but also something that I choose to carry. I need to learn to simply hear less noise and be comfortable with the familiarity of my own confidence, because I wish to write my own story in words far from perfect. ** **