I’m writing a novel about a man who wakes up… and realizes he’s already dead. 🖤

Alex Banks is 26 when he wakes up in a place called Oblivion

He doesn’t know where he is.

He doesn’t remember dying.

And eventually, he discovers that everyone around him is dead too.

But Oblivion isn't exactly what Alex expected an afterlife to be.

It’s a place for souls who still have something unfinished.

A mother searching endlessly for her child.

A boy who is terrified of the dark.

A man waiting for a lover who may never come back.

People who died carrying one final wish, one regret, or one person they couldn't let go of.

Then Alex discovers something strange.

There may be a way for a soul to return to the living world.

The catch?

They need an object that is deeply connected to their life.

For Alex, that object is his mother's \*\*lost wedding ring\*\*.

So with the help of Max and Maddy — a mysterious girl who seems to know far more about Oblivion than she should — Alex begins searching for it.

But the deeper he goes, the stranger things become.

There are places in Oblivion that even the dead refuse to enter.

There are rules.

And there are consequences for breaking them.

Eventually, Alex starts hearing whispers about something called \*\*the Gates Below.\*\*

Hell.

And then he meets Daniel.

A man who looks at Alex with genuine fear.

Because Daniel knows something about the night Alex died.

Something Alex himself can't remember.

And suddenly the entire story changes.

Why does Alex's mother's ring matter so much?

What actually happened on the night he died?

Why is Maddy hiding the truth about herself?

And if Alex really does get a chance to return to the living world…

\*\*what if the life he's trying to return to isn't the life he remembers?\*\*

I'm calling the novel \*\*The Last Regret\*\*.

It's basically a story about death, guilt, love, unfinished wishes, and the people we leave behind.

I'm curious about something:

\*\*Which mystery would make you want to keep reading?\*\*

1. What happened the night Alex died?
2. What is Maddy hiding?
3. Why does the wedding ring matter?
4. What are the Gates Below?
5. Something else?

And honestly — \*\*would you read this?\*\* 🖤

Hi, my name is Haley. I'm 31 and I've been writing for my friends for years. The problem with writing for friends is they always say the nicest things, which isn't actually that helpful. I'm looking for something more serious a small group where we can actually dig into what's working and what's not, plot-wise.

I'm currently juggling several stories at once and flip between them regularly, but I'd be open to sharing one or two with the group on a rotating basis.

• Genre/s: Romance, Dark Romance, Supernatural Romance
• Goals/expectations/commitment: Looking for a small group for regular and plot discussion — not just cheerleading. Ideally people who can commit to reading and giving real feedback maybe a couple times a month.
• Writing/experience level: Amateur, but serious about improving
• Meeting place: Discord
• Max size: 5

If this sounds like your kind of group, drop a comment or DM me. I would like to chat a little and get to know the people who want to join, before moving over to discord. I want it to feel like an honest friend group of writers all working towards better books!

Im a new writer, and Ive wanted to write a story that is special in my heart. I wrote a couple paragraphs and then pasted it into AI to edit and check then I continued writing into this process. All my words are original, Ive also wrote to AI when it suggests something I don’t like or something I do like. ChatGPT tells me it’s okay that I use AI because I don’t use it for everything. But I always take that with a grain of salt. Because that robot wants me to text it more, ask for advice etc etc. I love writing. But Ive realised that Ive stained and tainted my own work with clanker bullshit and I am heavily disgusted with myself and this. This story means a lot to me and I am completely against AI in creative workspaces. I want to know if I am right for being guilty about this when all my ideas and sentences are original and not from AI and I utilise some suggestions from it. Please help me reddit for I have been struggling and tormented by this.

For context, I've had this fast-paced gothic horror story idea brewing in my head for many years now and I was just beginning to outline the how the prologue would play out for each character to get them all in the location where the story plays out (Not the actual writing of a chapter) and I couldn't help but feel that everything I wrote felt a little... clunky?

• Louisa wakes up in the middle of a cornfield surrounded by iron gates with nowhere to go but a single house standing alone, as Louisa carefully examines the house's exterior, long inky like tendril appendages break one of the windows and pull Louisa in by her head.
• Edward is running from an unknown entity as he sees a house in the distance standing in the middle of a cornfield surrounded by iron gates, as he approaches the entrance, he busts the door open, quickly shutting behind him as he heard loud wailing followed by violent knocking before everything went quiet.
• Enjoying the calm scenery of the shore, Joe notices a strange movement at the lake's surface before an inky tendril-like arm yanks him by the ankle and into the water, constricting itself around him, Joe struggles to breathe as it disappears abruptly, he instantly rises up, gasping for air and about to escape before he finds himself marinating inside a bathtub.

Constructive harsh criticism would be really appreciated because my writing skills feel rough and I also just wanted to say thank you in advance.

The subtle desire to not be anything at all

I sat on a park bench on a dying summer afternoon. Darkening leaves colored the ground, and some small birds were still chirping the day away. A cigarette glimmered somberly between my fingertips. I never really liked the taste of smoke, but I always asked myself: if I had ever truly lived, hadn't I seen a sunset with a cigarette between my lips?

I believe I started smoking because of a Bob Dylan biopic I had seen with my mother when I had just turned 17, and Bobby seemed like the coolest guy in history. Kind of like my fascination with Che Guevara, I have always been caught up in an infatuation with dead or grunged-out warrior poets. They had seemed to have a reason to be.

When I read Che's letter to the peoples of the world, it gripped me deep inside that this man had been put on this earth to give hope to the downtrodden, even though he had died stinking and dirty in the Bolivian woods, his hands cut off by CIA agents and fascist militias. Had Jesus been reincarnated, I always believed it had been Che.

God, how I wanted to be Che. I even got his famous photograph tattooed on my underarm. Proudly, I showed it off in public even when it still hurt, for no reason but that I felt like a glimmer of the holy had anointed my skin, of a reason to be in this place, at this time.

However, soon I knew that I was not Che Guevara and I also was not Bobby. I was someone, but at times like this afternoon I felt like a spirit among the living, a mere sketch of what a human being was supposed to be like.

I tried being sociable; I tried dating; I tried every godforsaken avenue of life. I laid bare and naked my soul on everyone's doorstep who cared to listen. But never have I gotten anything from it, never have I gotten away from drunken nights with friends or flings with people I tried hard to love with all my chest.

Always again, I was spirited away and looking again at the ground, the cigarette, Che's disinterested yet passionately revolutionary visage on my underarm.

I did not want to go home yet. I had read all kinds of books about these supposed loners and schizoids who, just like me, couldn't lie down when the fear of being on their own gripped them in their sleep and ran away for hours, only to then meet the love of their life or a mentor or something. Hesse wrote a lot of these stories.

But somehow this never happened to me, and because of this I slowly started believing Hesse and Kafka and all of them maybe hadn't found that special someone either on a gloomy afternoon.

Maybe these romantics just wrote about what they wished had happened, because this is what they are, I think. Deep down, every writer is a romantic, reminiscing about things they never have had.

Because if you were loved, if you knew yourself, you hadn't had to write about it and show it off to the world.

I don't know how to feel about that.

I had always liked reading those stories, but when I tried to make something of them, I felt like a liar, because when I went out like a crazy devil in the middle of the night, the best I could expect was a lonesome beggar or junkie asking for "stuff" to come to me.

I haven't ever felt entitled to some white knight to come and drive my sorrow away. It's not like that. More so, I felt more and more disillusioned the more nights and afternoons I spent alone, waiting for nothing in particular to happen.

I think I waited for this something to happen since I have been about 14 years old.

I didn't know if it was foreboding of me to think that life had chosen me to be on my own at 18, but I had, in a sense, made peace with the fact that faceless people would enter and leave my life every now and again. Never was I too sad or happy to see them come or go, although in some small period between, I always felt like now it was my time to make it count, to make them stick with me to the end.

I guess when that happens to people, they don't have to fight for it.

My legs had fallen asleep as the slight yellowy tone of the sky had moved to a deep blue and dark night that had swept away all the leaves and rolled up the sidewalks.

At this time, I sometimes felt it was all too much. Not that it was much in particular, but the human condition, this all waiting for the shining sprinkle of good and holiness to enter our lives, felt all too depressing.

And when everything felt like it was too much to bear, I wanted to roll up and lie down.

I didn't want to die, really, I feel like, but the burden of living felt all too heavy on my chest then.

To be honest with you, I still sit on this park bench right now. I have written this right here in the past tense, because I feel like that is what I would have to say were I to die here.

I am not dead and I most likely will not be for a long time, but that part of me that cannot write stories about beautiful girls and knights in shining armor just subtly desires nothing more than to fall asleep about now.

I don't know if I would want to wake up again.

There still is a lot of life to see, I know that, I think, but just now I feel: is it worth the while?

I don't know if Che or Bobby have ever thought stuff like that. Bob's songs sometimes give me that vibe, but he's still alive and as well as you can be at that age, I think.

I would like to ask him if it was worth his while.

There's that story about a lot of Bob Dylan concerts, that often he turns away from the audience and doesn't even look at them while performing. My mom actually saw him do that live. She told me after we saw that film about him.

I always thought that he, in some way, hated his fans, and I thought I understood him well for that, that true art was this personal thing that you do for yourself, not to actually share, but to stare into as a steep reflection of your deepest, darkest self.

Now I wonder if that over-80-year-old man maybe, in those moments when the noisy crowds beg of him, feels what I feel. That maybe he asks himself if this is worth his while.

If maybe those romantics at these times also feel just the subtle desire to not be anything at all.

PS: English is only my second language, please excuse clunky idioms :|

I've read lots of these short stories and things on this group and I just can't help feeling that all amateur writing sounds very similar. Its like people are writing how you are meant to write to achieve a good grade in school. Kind of cliché but good enough to warrant an above average grade from the teacher. It sounds very much like people are trying too hard and that is what makes the writing a bit over extended and shallow. I've definitely fallen foul of this myself and write exactly as I have just mentioned but I thought I should bring it up because I've noticed it.

It's like nobody has a voice. Now I don't know if that is because school has pushed a certain descriptive writing voice onto the majority of people or if mediocre writing all just sounds the same. You know what I mean. When you start reading a short story and the first line is just a little bit too clever or descriptive. I think maybe this is an issue more in short stories as people feel they need to write a lot in a little. It's sentences like - 'The house was cold in winter, as it always was. Mum never turned on the heating for fear the bill would get too high... 'insert more short sentences that sound punchy but lack weight''. Or - 'The black iron gate felt cold against my hand as I pushed it, gently at first but then with a heave as I realised it wouldn't budge.'.

I could go on honestly but I'm just thinking about if there is a way to get out of this trap of mediocrity.

Any thoughts would be appreciated for the sake of my writing and others.

Thanks

The whole piece is about history that neither of them will name. No confrontation, no resolution. I want the reader to feel the weight of what is unspoken through the small physical details and the silences rather than through anything said directly. My worry is that I have been so restrained that there is nothing for the reader to actually feel.

Daniel got there first.

He hadn't planned it that way but the drive was shorter from his side and he sat in the car for a few minutes before going in, looking at the house the way you look at something you've been trying not to think about.

The key still worked. He didn't know why this surprised him.

He went through the rooms without turning on the lights. The shapes were all where he remembered them. The chair their father had refused to replace, the window in the kitchen that had never closed properly, the particular smell of the place that he'd forgotten he knew until it was there again.

He was standing in the kitchen when he heard Marcus's car.

He didn't go to the door. He waited, listening to his brother getting out, coming up the path, trying the door. I've been drafting this in something called Skrib Writing that lets me keep a note about what each scene is not allowed to say directly right next to the pages, and that one constraint has kept me from over-explaining moments like this one more than anything else I've tried.

Then Marcus was in the hallway and Daniel said hey in a voice that came out quieter than he intended and Marcus said hey back and they stood there for a moment with the length of the hallway between them.

You got here fast, Marcus said.

Drive was clear, Daniel said.

Marcus nodded and looked past him into the kitchen. Daniel stepped to one side without quite knowing why.

A few specific things I'd love feedback on. Does the moment where Daniel doesn't go to the door land or does it need more grounding. Is the step aside at the end doing enough work without being explained. And does the key detail at the beginning earn its place or feel like it's reaching for something it hasn't set up properly.

Hey everyone!

My name is David. I’m an author from Cleveland, OH. Over the last couple months, I've been building an app called Storylife and I'd love to get some feedback from fellow writers, readers, and creative people.

The idea is simple:

Write a story and upload it/upload one you've already written (..or have ChatGPT write one for you).

Storylife uses AI to transform your scenes into amazing visuals while preserving your narrative. Whether you're writing Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Romance, Superhero stories, Children's books, Anime-inspired adventures or more...Storylife helps you actually see your imagination come to life.

One feature I'm especially excited about is being able to share your stories and visuals with others through Storylife Connect, an in-app library of user stories. You can also share directly to social media platforms like Instagram and X.

I'm still improving the app every day, so I'd genuinely appreciate any feedback on the experience or ideas for features you'd like to see.

Ask me for the URL link and I'll kindly send it here.

I'd love to hear:

• Would you use something like this?
• What features would make it even better?
• What kind of stories would you create first?

Thanks for taking a look!

I'm trying to express that the early morning light made the birds kind of glow golden....

"The early morning light turned the white belly of a Crested Tern golden, and glowed on an Albatross"

Does the light glow "on" the albatross or "off" the albatross?

I don‘t have a handle on the prose yet, and I’ve mixed past and present tense in first-person narrative. I am honestly not sure which way to go with it. And I write from my hip. I’ve not done an outline or much more. I’m probably doing this all wrong.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1--TGeUypElKMyx2pWQpn3_hvLlC3pvgNBlP1_tNAJkQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

I Killed Myself
That phrase has some beauty to it for me.
I’m not dead, neither do I wish to be.
When I’ve spent time wishing I died,
It was never that I didn’t want to live.
I want to live.
It’s more that I wanted a restart, a do-over.
Something to give me more meaning, less hurt, and a different perspective.
Being between dead and alive feels cold yet warm.
Grey but colourful.
New but familiar.
Now that I’m on the alive side, I realise I’m only here because I sacrificed something to change.
I sacrificed myself.
Part of me died through this suffering.
It had to.
I needed it to so I could progress.
People don’t realise when I say
“I want to die”
I don’t mean it maliciously towards myself.
Neither do I not.
It means I want to be different.
I want to kill this version of me and reset.
So when I say
“I want to die”
I mean
“I want to live better”
There’s a beauty to dying.
The suffering ends.
The pain doesn’t last forever.
It’s freedom at the ultimate price of life.
Sacrifice.
So I’ve killed myself tonight.
I’m free to decide what my new life will be like.
I’m done with the phrase
“I want to die”
It’s time to be alive, no matter how much suffering comes with that.
It’s worth it.
I thank my past self for killing himself for me.
I will live for you.
I killed myself tonight,
I am now reborn better.

coucou j’ai décidé d’écrire une petite histoire fictif façon plot twist donner moi une petite note sur 10 si ça vous dérange pas ce que vous en pensez et comment je pourrai m’améliorer en écriture s’il vous plait je suis ouverte toute critique constructif ! 💕

« Noelie pensait que sa mélancolie était son refuge se sentant si bien dans son mélange de nostalgie et de tristesse si elle devait en parler un jour elle dirait que c’est son sauveur comme elle si elle parlait d’un être humain petit à petit chaque jour elle se perd dans ce sentiment de mal être comme une pierre dans un ouragan perdant jusqu’à toute vie sociale évidemment ça ne s’arrêtait pas là elle s’y attachait tellement fort qu’elle confondait monde réel et celui qu’elle inventait chaque soir dans sa tête son détachement n’était pas si compliqué que ça vu que c’était le genre de fille parfaite bien élevée,droite dans son travail,souriante enfin personne ne pouvait se douter de quoi que ce soit jusqu’au jour où ce sentiment m’emmena à un point de non retour. Au faite, Noelie c’est moi et ceci est mon histoire avant mon overdose »

Andy Warhol used technology to create art that according to my brief research, was regarded as an original. Writers who use AI are still viewed quite differently, even those who use it for editing and research purposes. Jerry Falade, a Nigerian writer on the brink of a $2 million contract, was accused of having AI assist his work. Not accused of using it to write it—just assisting in the process. There are two other writers of color who were on the brink of contracts, accused of the same. When a group of people are targeted, it spreads to those who aren't. So, this may start out as an issue targeting a specific type of person. But it won't end that way. It never does. Biases are like the flu. The "ism" spreads and becomes "isms."

Here is my story link https://www.reddit.com/u/No-While8965/s/vyuhQej6nF

I want help about how to move forward with character growth and story at a same time as for now i think they are two different things in my series atleast

I've been writing screenplays for years, and I'm trying something different: posting an original thriller one episode at a time.

Each episode will be around 2–3 pages, and I'll continue the story based on where the mystery takes us.

Here's Episode 1&2.

THE VOICE NOTE

EPISODE 1 — "11 Seconds"

INT. AARAV'S BEDROOM — NIGHT

2:17 A.M.

Darkness, broken only by the pale glow of a phone screen resting face-down on the nightstand.

AARAV (28) lies on top of the covers, still in yesterday's clothes. He hasn't changed them. He hasn't really slept either , just long stretches of staring at the ceiling, broken by shorter stretches of nothing at all.

Beside the phone: a framed photograph of his MOTHER, mid-laugh, caught off guard by whoever was holding the camera.

Aarav isn't looking at his phone. He's looking at her.

A soft BUZZ. The screen lights up, casting a rectangle of white across the ceiling.

He doesn't move at first. Then, slowly, his head turns.

One word on the screen.

MOM.

Aarav sits up so fast the bed frame creaks. He stares at the notification like it might vanish if he blinks. It doesn't. He picks up the phone with both hands, the way you'd hold something that could break , or something that could burn you.

The chat opens.

MOM — Last seen 3 days ago.

Three days ago. The day before the funeral.

Below it, a single voice message. Eleven seconds long.

His thumb hovers over the play button and stops. He glances at the photograph, half-expecting her to answer for him.

AARAV (barely audible) Maa?

Nothing answers. Of course nothing answers.

He presses play.

A beat of static , the particular static of an old recording, or a bad signal, or something in between. Then, underneath it, a voice.

Hers.

Thinner than he remembers. Tired in a way she never let herself sound when he was in the room.

MOTHER (V.O.) Aarav...

His breath catches audibly. It's her voice. Not a memory of it , the actual sound, the actual weight of it in his ears for the first time in three days.

MOTHER (V.O.) (CONT'D) If you're hearing this...

A pause just long enough to hurt.

MOTHER (V.O.) (CONT'D) ...I'm already dead.

The recording ends.

Aarav doesn't move. Doesn't breathe, it seems. Then, almost against his will, his thumb finds the play button again. He listens to it a second time. A third. Each time searching for something he might have missed , a clue, a joke, proof that this is some kind of mistake.

His hands have started shaking. He sets the phone down like it's suddenly too heavy, then picks it back up before it even settles.

He taps her contact. Presses call.

Ringing. Once. Twice. A third time, cutting off mid-tone.

CALL FAILED.

He stares at those two words longer than they deserve.

Then another buzz. The screen updates.

MOM — 0:07

Aarav doesn't reach for it. Not yet. His eyes drift, instead, to the photograph on the nightstand , and something about it unsettles him, though he couldn't say what. He picks it up, turns it over in his hands, checks the back like the answer might be taped there.

Nothing. Just cardboard and a date written in his mother's handwriting.

He sets it down. Looks back at the phone. The message is still waiting.

He presses play.

MOTHER (V.O.) Don't trust your father.

Her voice is different this time , quieter, quicker, like she's speaking with someone listening at the door.

Aarav's expression shifts. He turns toward his bedroom door.

Beneath it: the faint outline of a shadow. Still. Unmoving. As if someone on the other side is standing just as frozen as he is.

Neither of them breathes.

Then the shadow is gone.

Silence returns to the room , the kind of silence that feels louder than noise.

His phone buzzes a third time.

MOM — 0:03

Aarav looks down at it. His thumb hovers over play.

CUT TO BLACK.

END OF EPISODE 1

EPISODE 2 — "Something Outside the Door"

INT. AARAV'S BEDROOM — CONTINUOUS

The three-second message still sits unopened. Aarav hasn't moved from the edge of the bed. His eyes stay fixed on the door, on the strip of hallway light beneath it, waiting for the shadow to return.

It doesn't.

He counts to ten in his head. Then twenty. Somewhere around thirty, his heartbeat starts to slow, and the part of his brain that still believes in ordinary explanations starts making its case: a draft. A trick of the light. Grief doing what grief does at 2 A.M.

He almost believes it.

Then, faintly, from the hallway , a FLOORBOARD CREAKS.

Aarav freezes.

Not the house settling. A footstep. Weight, then release. The sound of someone trying very hard to be quiet and not quite managing it.

He sets the phone down without looking at it and gets to his feet. His legs don't feel entirely like his own.

INT. HALLWAY — CONTINUOUS

He opens the door slowly, wincing at the small creak it gives. The hallway stretches out in front of him, lit only by the amber glow of the streetlight through the far window.

Empty.

He exhales — and stops halfway through it.

At the end of the hallway, his mother's bedroom door, which has stayed shut since the day of the funeral, hangs open by a few inches.

Aarav stares at it the way you'd stare at a door you already knew you had no choice but to walk through.

AARAV (quiet, to no one) Dad?

No answer. The house holds its silence the way it's held it for three days carefully, like it's trying not to wake something.

He moves toward the room, each step slower than the last. His hand finds the door frame. He pushes it open the rest of the way.

INT. MOTHER'S BEDROOM — CONTINUOUS

The room is exactly as it was left , bed made, curtains drawn, her reading glasses still folded on the nightstand as if she might walk back in and put them on. It smells faintly of the sandalwood soap she always used, which somehow no one has thought — or dared — to move.

Aarav steps inside. His eyes move slowly across the room, cataloguing what's changed and what hasn't, though nothing seems to have.

Except one thing.

The bottom drawer of her writing desk sits open an inch. Just an inch. Not forced , opened by someone who meant to close it properly and didn't quite manage it in the dark.

Aarav crouches beside it. Hesitates. Then pulls it open the rest of the way.

Inside: old letters, a stack of medical reports rubber-banded together, and , tucked beneath them, half-hidden , a second phone. Cheap. Unfamiliar. Not the one that was buried with her.

He picks it up. The screen is cracked in one corner. He presses the power button, and against all reasonable expectation, it flickers to life.

One app open on the screen. WhatsApp.

The chat is empty except for a single contact he doesn't recognize — saved only as a string of numbers, no name.

His thumb hovers over it.

Behind him, from the hallway, a FLOORBOARD CREAKS again — closer this time.

Aarav turns, phone still in hand, heart slamming against his ribs.

AARAV Who's there?

Silence. Then, from his pocket, his own phone buzzes — the third message, the one he never played, suddenly impossible to ignore.

MOM — 0:03

He looks down at the cracked phone in one hand, his own phone in the other, and understands, in a way he can't yet explain, that he is holding two halves of something he was never supposed to find.

The bedroom door, behind him, creaks slowly shut on its own.

CUT TO BLACK.

END OF EPISODE 1 & 2

Okay, I’m curious what you think.

Aarav now has two phones — one belonging to his dead mother, and one he was never supposed to find.

And someone is clearly inside the house.

Who do you think is behind all this?

1. His father
2. Someone connected to his mother's past
3. His mother planned this before she died
4. Someone else entirely

And most importantly...

Would you play that 3-second voice note?

After the thing slaughtered my family, I spent twenty years earning its trust until it asked me to deliver its first child.

When it thanked me for saving its bloodline, I reached for the same knife I'd hidden since the night it destroyed mine.

(The hardest part is leaving the reader with a different stories in their heads because it's so ambiguous.)

hi so i usually write poems but i tried something different and my friends and family aren’t really into writing so i wanted to ask everyone here for their honest opinions/advice! should i stick to poems??

—

the sun shines on a setting planet, and i glance over the window panels facing me. daylight finding my cheek quickly turning it blush pink. my eyes squint. adjusting.

everything looks tiny from up here. the beeping cars now small enough to blot out with a thumb. the people crossing roads, so alert for vehicles but still so unaware to my watching. it’s all so silent from here. like someone muted the world just for me.

a sound finally lands. and this time it’s from here. from my room. the door lets in a familiar face. she silences the beeping machine, unhooking the empty drip. the bruise blooming under the tape is turning purplish blue. i like this colour. i like purple. and blue. it’s the only part of me still doing something interesting.

she mutters something under her breath. probably something about me. she never makes small talk. maybe she’s shy. or maybe she’s sick too. in a different way.

i notice the lines on her forehead, pressed close together like some proof of experience. i can see the pity swimming in her eyes but also how her hands know exactly where to go. like she knows my body better than hers.

it’s probably because i see her too often. she always wears her hair in the same tight bun with those glasses that are fairly too big for her face. today, she also wears a woollen bracelet threaded with yellow and orange in crooked ways only a child’s hand could manage. i wonder if she has one or two. girl or boy?

the thin plastic leaves my veins. she presses cotton onto the bloodless puncture, gives me a polite smile and exits the room. i watch her back to the door before i face the sun again. it’s going into hiding now. maybe she’s shy too. or maybe she’s sick too.

i don’t ask. i don’t like being asked either.

—

I want to start writing. Please do tell me how to start and what is should do.