Stream of Consciousness
Craftation in the Garden of Literary Delights
In the garden of earthly delights where beauty meets debauchery. That’s where we sit and discuss it all. Craft without catharsis. Our protagonist thought long and hard about the prospect. I imagine them — or us, if you envision yourself as one of them — waiting like those in that play of waiting and existentialism. We’re always waiting, and even when waiting doesn’t explicitly carry emotion, it’s there. How do you remove the release necessary to create something others will connect with?
By Paul Stewart8 months ago in Fiction
Marshall's Observations. Runner-Up in Craft Over Catharsis Challenge.
Marshall watched seagulls and crows playing in the wind among pink-tinted cloud beds that slowly turned gray as the sun hung at the sea's horizon. He used his iPhone to focus on the reflections in the water and snapped a photo. He liked the result; it showed a butterscotch sun sitting on the water below a pink cloud, with the ferry in the foreground.
By Andrea Corwin 8 months ago in Fiction
Born To Run
He watched the embers waltz skyward with the campfire tendrils, mixing and twisting until they all faded to black. Despite the warmth of the evening, he felt a shiver run through his shoulders that felt so much older than the candles at last weekend's birthday party indicated. While he appreciated everyone’s attendance, he stole every glance at the clock, counting down the moments until they left and he could depart.
By Matthew J. Fromm8 months ago in Fiction
The Inverse Calculus of Us
"The clock has struck three, the coffee is cold, and the shadows are beginning to speak. Welcome back to the desk of The Night Writer, where the stories are brewed in the dark." Accumulation The initial state was one of additive growth. It followed a linear progression: x + y = z, where z represented a totalizing preoccupation. In the first year, the focus was granular. I memorized the exact frequency of your laughter, a steady 440 Hz that resonated in the center of my chest. I cataloged the three distinct ways you held a pen—based on the urgency of the task—and the precise distance of 2.4 centimeters between your brow and your hairline when you were confused. This was the period of Saturation. The love was not a feeling so much as a structural takeover. It behaved like a vine in a greenhouse. Every cognitive resource was diverted to the maintenance of your image. I stopped reading the news because the geopolitical landscape did not contain your name. I stopped sleeping in cycles, preferring instead the intermittent naps that allowed me to watch the REM state manifest in the twitching of your eyelids. The distractive obsession was absolute. My career, once a sturdy architecture of ambition, began to sag under the weight of my redirected gaze. Deadlines were missed not because of sloth, but because I was too busy calculating the exact volume of water you displaced in the bath. I was a scientist, you were my subject, and the lab was always open. Equilibrium At the midpoint, the system achieved a state of perfect, terrifying stasis. This was the moment of 1:1 ratio, where the observer and the observed became indistinguishable. We sat in a restaurant in the fifth year. I did not look at the menu. I did not need to. I knew the caloric intake you required and the flavor profile your palate currently craved based on the humidity in the air and the time of your last meal. "You're staring again," you said. The statement was a factual observation of a technical fault. My staring was no longer an act of affection; it was a byproduct of a system that had no other output. I had optimized my entire internal world to serve a single variable: You. The obsession had reached its logical conclusion. I no longer existed as an independent agent. I was a satellite locked in a geosynchronous orbit, tethered by a gravity so strong it had begun to warp my own frame. The love had become a form of sensory deprivation. I could hear nothing but your breath; I could see nothing but your shadow. Subtraction The shift occurred not through an event, but through a mathematical necessity. A system that only adds must eventually collapse or invert. The vine had run out of greenhouse room. The focus remained, but the polarity reversed. The data points were the same, but the value assigned to them flipped from positive to negative. The 440 Hz frequency of your laughter did not change. But where it once produced resonance, it now produced Friction. I began to count the number of times you laughed in an hour, not to cherish them, but to measure the rising level of my own irritation. The 2.4 centimeters of your brow? It became a measurement of your predictable inadequacy. I watched the skin knit together and felt a cold, precise pulse of loathing. The distraction remained total. I was still obsessed with your every move, but now the obsession was fueled by the desire for your disappearance. I hated you with the same rigor I had used to love you. I sat across from you and calculated the exact amount of oxygen you consumed in a room, begrudging you every liter. I watched the way you chewed—the same three-beat rhythm I had once found rhythmic—and I mapped the physiological path of my disgust as it traveled from my stomach to my throat. Entropy The final stage was the heat death of the system. The obsession had not lessened; it had simply become a cage of infinite, sharp detail. I knew the precise moment you would speak before you opened your mouth. I knew the sound your keys would make against the wood of the table. I knew the smell of your skin as it aged, a slow oxidation that I documented with the cold eye of a coroner. There was no emotional release there. There was no shouting, no breaking of plates, no cathartic sobbing in the rain. Those things require a loss of control. Instead, there was only the Persistence of the Pattern. I stayed because the distractive obsession was too complete to allow for an exit. To leave you would have been to delete the entire database of my life, and the system fears a vacuum more than it fears the hate. Now, we exist in a state of perfect, mutual revulsion, held together by the very expertise we developed when we were trying to be one. The calculus is finished. The result is a null set. We are two points on a graph that have been plotted so closely together that we have erased the space where a life used to be. "Daylight is coming to claim the quiet, but these words stay with you. If you enjoyed this journey into the midnight hours, leave a heart or a tip to keep the candles burning. Sleep well—if you can. — The Night Writer."
By The Night Writer 🌙 8 months ago in Fiction
Craft Over Catharsis. Honorable Mention in Craft Over Catharsis Challenge.
Okayyy, craft over catharsis, craft over catharsis.... What do they mean by that? Why don't I get it? Is it a language thing... is that why I have such a hard time understanding this challenge? Or am I just stupid? A fraudster? A swindler? What word am I looking for?
By Cristal S.8 months ago in Fiction
Past Lives. Content Warning.
War made for odd couples. To Private Jim Mclellan, Sepp seemed a good man; better at least than some of the monsters he heard stories of deeper into the Reich. Real monsters. This Sepp almost reminded Jim of his uncle; the one from Wisconsin he met a few times at Weddings.
By Matthew J. Fromm8 months ago in Fiction
The Ghost on the Map: My 2,000-Mile Journey to a Paris That Isn’t There
If you type "Paris" into Google Maps, the algorithm will dutifully drop a pin on the City of Light. It will show you the winding Seine, the star-shaped sprawl of the Place de l’Étoile, and enough crêperies to feed a small army.
By George Evan8 months ago in Fiction
Beyond Twilight.
Twilight arrived before I realized the day was ending. The light didn’t vanish all at once; it thinned, softened, and shifted into something quieter. I stood there watching the sky change, and it struck me how familiar the moment felt. Not because of the colors, but because of the slowing. The steadiness. The sense that something was closing without drama or regret.
By Novel Allen8 months ago in Fiction
Perfectly Preserved Envy.. Honorable Mention in Rituals of Affection Challenge.
My youth is perfectly preserved in a special wallet within the mind palace of my existence. Every so often, I open the wallet - frown and grimace at her lovely soft chocolate exterior - my once richly layered lovely young self. Oh, how I have become so envious, when I compare her to my convoluted and annoying mature self.
By Novel Allen8 months ago in Fiction
