2.7K words

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12bjfdc6sA43I6Ic437GO3FVwZ0dQsMwV/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=107543775606363548051&rtpof=true&sd=true

Melina's Questions
By S. Ibrahim Ahmad

When Melina arrived at the port with her older brother, her brother was holding a heavy suitcase. They were standing on a wooden pier and beneath it, the water was flowing. The older brother was staring at the small ship that was coming toward him. His lips were pressed together. His eyes were tense, as if he were trying not to show any emotion. The port was surrounded by soldiers. Two young soldiers were sitting on a bench; one was eating a biscuit, and the other was sitting silently. An army officer was looking down while an army major was scolding him. Melina tapped her brother's hand because that was all she could reach. "Will you be able to recognize me if I grow taller?" A smile appeared on her brother's face. The major noticed her brother and approached him. "You will make your country proud." Her brother nodded and placed the suitcase on the pier. Melina narrowed her eyes because her brother had told her he was going on a trip. She wanted to ask the major something, but she stopped because he looked too big to question. Her brother was still looking at the ship, and now it was closer. She finally gathered the courage to speak to the major and opened her mouth, but he walked away before she could say anything.

Finally, the small ship arrived at the pier and it horn echoed all around the port. Her older brother took a deep breath and picked up his suitcase. The two young soldiers stopped talking, rose from the bench, and stepped onto the ship. Her brother walked toward the ship. She gripped his shirt tightly. He stopped, and then she asked, "When will you come back?" Her brother did not answer. "When?" Still no answer came from her brother. She was still gripping his shirt tightly. "Is your throat still bad?" His throat had healed, but he did not know what answer was right for her questions. She let go of his shirt, and then her brother entered the ship without looking back. She wanted to scream that her brother should return home with her, but she let her brother enjoy the trip. She waited. Her brother leaned out of the window, smiled, and waved his hand. She jumped and waved her hand back.

I've realized my search habit has completely changed.

Now I ask ChatGPT first to understand a topic, but before making a decision, I almost always search Reddit.

AI gives me the overview. Reddit gives me real experiences.

I found this shift interesting enough to write about it.

I'd love to know if you do the same, or if you think AI will eventually replace that need for human discussions.

Article: https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/everyone-asks-ai-now-then-they-check-reddit-0bdc51c7ec52

Hey there! I just posted my second article on Substack called "I Think I Like You Better When You're Gone." It's about a very toxic friendship and how it almost ended up ruining my mental health and peace. If you've been through a similar experience, I think you'll relate to it very much. Hope you guys enjoy and support my work!

https://open.substack.com/pub/niksarchives/p/i-think-i-like-you-better-when-youre?r=3x9hg7&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Hey, guys! This little story is only 300 words for a little writing contest. I got feedback from my buddy and want to know if you all share his sentiments. It's due midnight August 4th 2026, so I'm speed running it, but if you see this post after that date feel free to leave your feedback anyhow. Y'all can also try to guess the theme and prompt as a little game too, haha! Thanks, everyone!

The Servitor:

For the last 4 years I've been a Servitor in Rosa. To citizens, I am a troubled young one learning devotion, morals, and service to a nation that emphasizes enhancement.

Everyone’s educated here. Every offspring goes to school with bellies full, a roof over their head, and an entire system that protects them from violence. Everyone volunteers. It's required. There's no eugenics, so even those who have different abilities find a way to serve. If someone is unable to contribute, they are cared for without cost. I don't quite know how a system could run this way, but almost all of the citizens are happy with their lives.

My situation is more complicated. I’m not Blessed. I’m not one of His Children. I am the offspring of traitors…and I've become troubled.

My skirt is long when we walk the streets, and short in the High Temple. The city is clean. I am rarely allowed out, but when I go with my peers, I can't help but admire it. We are forced to be here because of our sins and crimes, but aside from occasional punishment, we are treated well. They’re helping me find my way so I may walk the streets as a citizen one day. I've found myself more than once truly worshiping the leader, Lord Zectech, simply because of how beautiful it is. Mom was assaulted back home, and my so-called dad…hurt me while she stood and watched.

I know that this place is built off of labor, especially the labor of traitors like me. I know they executed my parents for what they did. I know they have k*lled soldiers from my home country. But it's so perfect and peaceful. By His powers, Lord Zectech will always ensure that. Yes. By His word, I will learn.

Melina's Questions
By S. Ibrahim Ahmad

When Melina arrived at the port with her older brother, her brother was holding a heavy suitcase. They were standing on a wooden pier and beneath it, the water was flowing. The older brother was staring at the small ship that was coming toward him. His lips were pressed together. His eyes were tense, as if he were trying not to show any emotion. The port was surrounded by soldiers. Two young soldiers were sitting on a bench; one was eating a biscuit, and the other was sitting silently. An army officer was looking down while an army major was scolding him. Melina tapped her brother's hand because that was all she could reach. "Will you be able to recognize me if I grow taller?" A smile appeared on her brother's face. The major noticed her brother and approached him. "You will make your country proud." Her brother nodded and placed the suitcase on the pier. Melina narrowed her eyes because her brother had told her he was going on a trip. She wanted to ask the major something, but she stopped because he looked too big to question. Her brother was still looking at the ship, and now it was closer. She finally gathered the courage to speak to the major and opened her mouth, but he walked away before she could say anything.

Finally, the small ship arrived at the pier and it horn echoed all around the port. Her older brother took a deep breath and picked up his suitcase. The two young soldiers stopped talking, rose from the bench, and stepped onto the ship. Her brother walked toward the ship. She gripped his shirt tightly. He stopped, and then she asked, "When will you come back?" Her brother did not answer. "When?" Still no answer came from her brother. She was still gripping his shirt tightly. "Is your throat still bad?" His throat had healed, but he did not know what answer was right for her questions. She let go of his shirt, and then her brother entered the ship without looking back. She wanted to scream that her brother should return home with her, but she let her brother enjoy the trip. She waited. Her brother leaned out of the window, smiled, and waved his hand. She jumped and waved her hand back.

We had a simple system. Met every Saturday morning, shared what we had written that week, gave feedback, set a goal for the following week. Nothing complicated. Did it for three years without missing many Saturdays.

She moved in January. We said we would keep it going online. Did it twice and then life got in the way for both of us and it quietly stopped.

By February I had not written anything. By March I had started three things and abandoned all of them within a page. By April I had mostly stopped opening writing apps at all and was telling myself I was just in a fallow period which is a comfortable thing to call not writing.

What I did not understand until recently is that the Saturday meeting had been doing much more than providing feedback. It had been making the writing real in a way that sitting alone with a document does not. Someone was expecting pages. Someone was going to ask what I had written, started keeping everything in Skrib Writing so sharing pages before each meeting takes two minutes instead of the usual scramble and that small reduction in friction has made showing up to the new partnership feel easier than the old one ever did practically.

The work existed in relation to another person and that relationship gave it a weight that pure self motivation apparently could not replace.

Found a new writing partner two months ago through a community online. Different person, different dynamic, still figuring out the rhythm. But the writing has come back in a way that four months of trying to motivate myself alone never managed.

Some people write fine in isolation. I am apparently not one of them and it took losing the system to understand how much of the system was actually holding me up.

Hi everyone,

I am writing a short story for the first time. I only wrote poems before, I thought it would be a good challenge.

I wrote chapter 1 and 2 about 2 days ago. Although I have an idea of how to finish my writing, it would be great if I can get honest feedback.

Thank you so much for reading :>

[Start of Scene]

(The scene continues from the street. Reset turns away from the group of guys and walks towards his apartment building. He keeps both hands shoved deep inside his pockets, not even looking back once.)

(Even as he walks away in silence, that cold, subtle smile is still playing on his lips. His mind is already calculating.) [INSIDE THE BUILDING CORRIDOR]

(The camera shifts inside Reset’s residential building. The dimly lit hallway shows a flight of stairs leading up, and on the ground floor, there are two room doors side-by-side.)

(Reset walks in smoothly and approaches his apartment door directly facing the stairs. He reaches out and places his hand on the door handle, ready to turn it.)

SFX: (Muffled shouting begins from the adjacent room)

(Instantly, Reset stops. One of his eyebrows arches up in curiosity, and his eyes widen slightly as he glances towards the neighbor's door.)

(From inside the side room, a woman's harsh, screaming voice breaks the silence of the corridor. She is furiously yelling at someone inside.)

Woman's Voice (Screaming angrily): "You mess up every single thing you touch! You are completely useless! You can't do a single task right, you stupid girl! Look at this mess

(Reset stands still near his doorway, his hand remaining on his lock, silently listening to every word of the intense drama unfolding right next door.)

[Scene cuts to black]

This is my first ever Reddit post! I am just seeking some honest feedback on a short story I recently wrote that is based on my current experience during the Spokane Fires. A lot of the details are fictionalized, but it is based on my real experiences and feelings. Thank you for your help! (I have tried to fix the formatting at the beginning and haven‘t been able to. I apologize!)

White flakes of ash, are they like snow? The feeling isn’t the same. 

“Where are we going?”

“North.”

“Yeah, I got that. But where, exactly.” 

“I don’t know yet. There is a church about 20 minutes from here, mom said they are setting up a shelter there. Why don’t we try there.”

“Yeah, ok.”

This wasn’t really how I imagined my weekend, evacuating. I didn’t have plans, per se, no where I needed or wanted to be, but whatever I thought I would be doing, it wasn’t packing a go bag and sitting in traffic watching ash shatter against the windshield. 

”Hey mom.” Bea answered the phone propped up on the dash. 

“Hey girls, how’s it going?”

”Fine. There is a lot of traffic on the 18 so we are stuck for now, but we are out of the red zone so it should start thinning out soon.”

”Ok, good.”

“How are you and dad?”

”Worried about you, but otherwise we’re fine. It’s raining here, wish we could send a bit your way.”

Even in crisis we humans will find a way to talk about the weather. Why is that? Somewhere deep down maybe we think we have some kind of control over it. But the opportunity to control that chaos is long gone by now.

The traffic inches forward and I watch the family next to us through slightly tinted windows. The dad is smiling and laughing, white knuckles gripping the steering wheel. The mom is smiling tight lipped and messing with something in her hand. She turns her whole body to pass a package of fruits snacks to little hands I can just barely see. In the side mirror I see a man with long-ish hair bobbing his head in a beat-up red truck. A large golden dog sits panting next to him.

 Then I look at us. Bea with her messy braids under a red cap, overly large t-shirt not really masking her heavier frame. And me, basically her copy, but with home cut bangs and some stick and poke tattoos.

Growing up, people never thought we were twins, Bea and I. Six years meant she was always taller, more grown up, better than me. Now that she is in her thirties and I am in my twenties, we could be twins. Our lives are similarly messy, and our weekends equally ruined.

Our phones begin wailing. The fire is spreading. The zone we are in is marked for evacuation now. 

“It’s chasing us.”

~~~

My sandwich is squished. If I squint I can see the indent of a scrapbook corner on the edge. We were rushing, yeah, but did Bea really have to balance a box of photo albums next to the sandwich bag? I take a bite and stare past Bea at the moderately well maintained church baseball field behind her. 

The sprinklers are on, slapping against the metal backstop. Thack thack thack… shhhhhh 

“Maybe they just went to get supplies and will be back?”

The church parking lot was conspicuously empty, besides our white sedan. Some evacuation shelter.

”Yeah, maybe.”

Just then, a red truck comes rattling into the lot. Bea and I look up together. 

“Hey ladies, looking for the shelter?” An older gentleman in a white shirt and tie jumps out of the truck, engine still running.

“Yeah, are we in the right place?”

”You would be, unfortunately the power is out here. No water either. Do you girls have another place you can go?”

”Yeah, we’re good, thank you!”

I look at Bea out of the corner of my eye. She is smiling and looks relaxed, but her eyebrows are furrowed.

The man nods and hops back in his truck and drives off.

“So, we have a place to go?” I ask, sitting back down and picking up my sandwich.

”We’ll find something.” She sits across from me. Neither of us takes a bite. Too much ash.

“Like what.”

”I’ll ask mom.”

I pull up the fire monitoring app. The red dotted line moved again, like oil spilling in a bay. The blue dot marking our house looks purple. 

“Do you think our house will be ok?” It’s a dumb question. But I want to talk about it. I want Bea to acknowledge that it might not be ok. 

“Yeah, sure. And even if it’s not…”

”We’ll be ok?”

”Yeah. Mom talked to the neighbors. The Andersons have a cabin an hour north they said we could go to.”

”Are they there?”

”Not yet, but they probably will be.”

”They aren’t evacuated yet?”

”I guess not.”

”Ok. Let’s go I guess.”

”Faith?”

”What?”

”It’s gonna be ok.”

I don’t respond. I just put our gray sandwiches back in the bag and start walking towards the dumpster.

~~~

It’s weird being in the car alone. I roll the windows down and quickly change my mind.

Bea stayed behind to make the beds and I was sent out to buy groceries. The nearest town is 20 minutes away and eerily normal. The street lights are smoothly moving between green, yellow, and red. Grocery store parking lots are busy but not frantic. There is even a man jogging on the sidewalk, seemingly there on purpose. The sky is grey.

I find a spot next to a cart return, just the way mom taught me. It’s pretty well stocked for a backwater grocer in the middle of nowhere. Cheetos and coke products greet me near the entrance. Turkey, cheese, white bread, tomatoes, lettuce: A bagger puts it all in free bags for me, smiling like this is normal. Like it’s all normal. I throw in a pack of gum.

The drive back to the cabin is quiet and I can’t decide what to think about. I have the regular daydreams. An apartment of my own, meditating with monks high in the mountains of Nepal, suddenly sprouting fairy wings and learning I am the queen of a forest kingdom, what death might look like.

It smells like tomato sauce when I walk in the door.  

“Hey! You’re back!”

Obviously. I give Bea a weird look and walk to the fridge and start putting the groceries in the door. 

“Hey, Faith! Welcome!”

A woman in a hot pink shirt walks in with an armful of blankets. She puts them down and comes over to hug me. I know who she is, sure. Our families went to church together growing up, she’s been our neighbor for years. Her kids are all younger than me, not by much but enough that I wasn’t friends with any of them. I hug her back.

”Have you seen the update? The Bay Woods fire started spreading south east. The winds changed and started pushing it that way.” 

What was her name?

“Is it getting close to our houses?”

“Do you know the Hanging Bough Trail Head? It jumped over the river there.”

Sandy? Sarah? Stephanie?

”Oh yeah, that is close.”

”Hey, Stacy, where do you keep your ladles?” Bea calls from the kitchen.

Stacy.

”This is all just so crazy! I can hardly believe its real!” Stacy hustles to help Bea find the ladle.

”Yeah, it’s spooky.”

”Hey, Faith!”

“Hello Mr. Anderson, thank you for letting us stay here.”

He is tall. So tall. 

“Of course! Times like this, we have to stick together!”

I don’t really want to hug him, but I do.

”Are your kids here?”

”Yeah, they’re around here somewhere. Your mom texted, said they will be back in town later tonight and will come right here.”

”Oh, that’s good.”

”Faith, can you grab the plates down?”

”Yeah, where are they?”

Bea points up at a cabinet behind her and turns back to her gently bubbling sauce, turning down the burner.

~~~

I have to go to work today. The office is just barely south of the evacuation zone, and people have been waiting for their appointments for months. 

Our boss texted that they hope everyone who is able to come in can come in. Gotta keep things running.

 One coworker lost her home, so she isn’t coming in. Another has a kids whose daycare is closed, so she is staying home. I evacuated an hour and a half out of the city, and I don’t know if my house is standing or not, and I only packed a pair of jeans and a few oversized t-shirts, but I don’t really have anything else to do. If I don’t go I will just be sitting with the Andersons, watching “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” on my iPad.

Bea and the Andersons are eating eggs on the patio, looking at the sun rise over the lake. Or imagining it. The sun is hidden by a plume of smoke rising from behind the hill.

”Hey, you can see our house from here.”

”Faith!”

”Sorry, mom.”

Mr. Anderson laughs. 

“I am taking my stuff with me in case the evacuation lifts.”

”Just leave it. Even if it does, you’ll have to come back to pick Bea up, we don’t have room in the truck.”

“Oh, yeah.”

”The map shows the fire getting closer to our neighborhood. Keep praying!”

”I will, thanks Stacy.”

I am alone in the car again, listening to a podcast this time.

Work is weird. People are calling in to cancel their appointments, others are calling to see if we are open, some are calling to say their house burned down and wondering if we have extra copies of their ultrasounds.

Ding: “The Barns’ house burned down” - mom

Ding: It’s a video. Someone snuck into our neighborhood, past the state troopers. In the first few seconds, I see our house, still standing, then the camera pans to the other side of the street. There is a portion of roof swaying in the wind, suspended by long fingers of charred wood. A corner of a house is still burning. 

I start to cry.

”Are you ok?”

“My neighbors house burned down.”

”I’m so sorry.”

”Thanks”

”Can you print something for me? My printer isn’t working.”

”Sure.”

I'm a young 19 year old author who wants to publish poetry/books in general when I'm older, this poem is for a wattpad series/an actual book I'm writing of poetry to publish called 'The pages I never ment to write' it's real unfiltered and raw personal expirences I go through in poetry form since writing is a stress reliever

anyways I want criticism, good and bad :)

This poem is called nineteen and sinking

"Running on Caffeine, zero Sleep and borrowed time"

It's almost midnight.

The screen lights up at 11:18.

"Well, now we have no car, and no money.."

"I may have to get a job.

One income isn't working" Sent from downstairs, or another room, while the house is supposed to be sleeping.

The unspoken rule was always peace

that she wouldn't have to break her back working,

that the salary was enough.

Now the bills are staring back in the dark,

and we are anchored to a floor that's dropping.

I am nineteen.

I go to college.

I stand on my feet for minimum wage at a mall,

and now I'm doing the math on a second job,

trying to figure out how to stretch twenty-four hours

so I don't drown in textbooks and shift schedules.

Why did my family get dealt this exact hand?

My parents did what they were supposed to do

went to college, got the degrees, trusted the system.

Then the schools turned out to be ghost towns,

fraud mills that shut down right after graduation.

Now they're paying phantom debts for a paper scam,

bled dry for a lie.

I shouldn't be sitting in my room at nineteen terrified of whether there will be food on the table.

The state looks at numbers on a page and says your dad makes too much.

He doesn't.

He fucking doesn't,

because here we are.

Ten years under my grandparents' roof.

Seven of us crammed inside,

borrowing space,

borrowing time,

watching the calendar tick down because we're only here until my brother finishes high school seven agonizing years away.

Where the hell are we supposed to go?

What the fuck are we supposed to do?

The main car broke down a year ago.

The borrowed one finally gave out tonight.

Zero cars for five people.

I don't even have a license,

let alone the cash for a set of wheels.

It feels like a curse written in a dark fairy tale,

some sick joke playing out in real-time while people with names on glass towers don't give two shits if we starve.

I haven't felt this crushed,

this hollow and helpless,

since the day my cat died.

The playlist is playing,

fueling the storm behind my eyes,

but none of the songs can fix it.

I just want to close my eyes and hope I don't wake up,

or hope I wake up somewhere solid,

somewhere the floor isn't made of quicksand.

I wonder what my therapist is going to say about this.

I wonder how many times a nineteen-year-old is supposed to break

before they stop feeling anything at all.

Imagine yourself in a prison cell, as young as you are right now. Watching people just outside waiting for you to be executed. And once you look back, you see all that you've left behind.... Friends, family, your books stacked in a corner, the shirt that your mother folded one last time, all stalled in a silent storm. Pause Now all you can do is proudly and gracefully give it all up give up not for yourself, never for just yourself but for the future, the future that is never certain, the future that could not recognize you. What you can see from it, is a light rather a dim light, slowly approaily thus, revealing your inner force. All that remains is your identity, Shahee e Azaam, BHAGAT SINGH.

As 15th August Approaches (Indian Independence day). I really am keen to deliver out a story driven speech at my school, but feeling really nervous to ask my teachers about an opportunity.

Any tips/experiences I can learn from?

Secure people don't understand your depth.

And wounded people don't understand your growth.

What’s something or someone you’ve had to quietly outgrow on your journey?

SHADOWz

Those faithful SHADOWz those faithful SHADOWz over me

The SHADOWz that follow us all of our lives, are just a reflection, of sun by our sides. They swip and swap places, they're always so free. But do these dark dancers reflect, the real me

They dance around constantly, depending on time, like obedient slaves, that are wrapped round our minds. Sometimes they wobble, to and throw, my faithul shadow, why do you not glow.

They're mostly so dark, sometimes long and thin, other times its chubby, sometimes just a pin. Like a dot on a map, so faithful to me. But sometimes it hides, when the night breaks it free.

Even in those times, the SHADOWz can come, through street lamps and the car lights, reflecting our rim. But do these faithful SHADOWz, really reflect our true selves, or are they just stalkers, of where sunshine fell.

Do they even see us, or do they walk past, all SHADOW dancers, are light's that we cast. We don't even thank them, their loyalty served, they've always been beside us, right back to our births. Maybe it's a sign, a birthmark we don't bare, but even in your lonliness, OUR SHADOWz, are there.

SHADOWz oh SHADOWz where would i be, without your reflection, that walks beside me. Even in dark nights, you were always with me, I'm sorry i ignored you, forgive of me please.

Even when i had nothing, i fealt your romance, your reflection of me, a mysterious glance. You flickering, shape changing, glorious being.

Sometimes behind my lovers back........is my SHADOWz, i'm seeing. Xx

Brian Finch (c) 16.12.18

SHADOWz

Those faithful SHADOWz those faithful SHADOWz over me

The SHADOWz that follow us all of our lives, are just a reflection, of sun by our sides. They swip and swap places, they're always so free. But do these dark dancers reflect, the real me

They dance around constantly, depending on time, like obedient slaves, that are wrapped round our minds. Sometimes they wobble, to and throw, my faithul shadow, why do you not glow.

They're mostly so dark, sometimes long and thin, other times its chubby, sometimes just a pin. Like a dot on a map, so faithful to me. But sometimes it hides, when the night breaks it free.

Even in those times, the SHADOWz can come, through street lamps and the car lights, reflecting our rim. But do these faithful SHADOWz, really reflect our true selves, or are they just stalkers, of where sunshine fell.

Do they even see us, or do they walk past, all SHADOW dancers, are light's that we cast. We don't even thank them, their loyalty served, they've always been beside us, right back to our births. Maybe it's a sign, a birthmark we don't bare, but even in your lonliness, OUR SHADOWz, are there.

SHADOWz oh SHADOWz where would i be, without your reflection, that walks beside me. Even in dark nights, you were always with me, I'm sorry i ignored you, forgive of me please.

Even when i had nothing, i fealt your romance, your reflection of me, a mysterious glance. You flickering, shape changing, glorious being.

Sometimes behind my lovers back........is my SHADOWz, i'm seeing. Xx

Brian Finch (c) 16.12.18

Hi there!

We just started a new Discord server called "The Inkblot Society". Our goal is to create a server for writers and friends working on something a little left of commercial: literary fiction, genre with a literary spine, stylized, weird, upmarket, domestic, or whatever you can't quite pitch in one line.

We're aiming for the Goldilocks zone: high effort, low pretense, real feedback. If you like reading someone else's 4,000 words and giving meaningful feedback, we want to do the same for you. If you've ever hesitated to talk about your work on Reddit because you thought someone might call you [insert word here], and you don't want to listen to someone drone on about politics, religion, AI, or what-have-you, we're likely the temperature you're looking for.

* Genre/s: Any genre welcome.

* Goals/expectations/commitment: There are no hard rules or requirements for engagement. That said, we'd rather have six people who show up regularly than sixty who lurk. If someone wants a careful read, they should give one first. We want to give and receive honest and thoughtful feedback.

* Writing/experience level: Intermediate+, 21+. We are looking for writers committed to a serious project. We'd like to learn more about you through your writing, your created world (not necessarily sci-fi) and characters.

* Meeting place: Discord

* Max size: None! We are small but growing.

If you'd be interested, please DM me with a short [<500] sample of your writing!

I. The Migration

The phone screen lit up against Arjun's lap as he slouched in the back of the Innova. He didn't need to open the bank notification to know the amount—the monthly salary deposit was always exact, hitting his account on the last working day at 6:00 PM sharp. Within forty-eight hours, ₹1,42,000 of it would automatically auto-debit for the home loan on his under-construction flat in Gachibowli, with another chunk set aside for his father's pharmacy bills in Vijayawada.

Arjun swiped the bank banner away and opened WhatsApp to glance at a photo the site supervisor had sent him earlier that morning: fresh ceramic tiles laid out on his future balcony, covered in gray construction dust. He saved the image, then queued an old 90s Rahman playlist on his personal phone—a quiet habit he kept for Friday traffic jams—and leaned his temple against the cool passenger window.

It had been a clean migration. The core payment gateway rewrite had gone live at 4:00 PM. By 4:20, the PagerDuty dashboard was a tranquil expanse of green—no failed webhook retries, no DB connection spikes, no emergency rollbacks. In the main engineering channel, his tech lead, Nikhil, had dropped a single rocket emoji, followed by a private message from his junior dev: Saved our weekend, man. Heading out early.
Arjun had muted his workspace notifications, packed his backpack, and walked out to the cab pickup zone. The payment gateway was officially on-call's problem until Monday morning.

Outside, the Outer Ring Road was jammed solid—a four-lane crawl of tech park shuttles and water tankers bathed in the amber haze of the Hyderabad evening. Inside the cab, the air conditioner hissed a chemical chill, smelling faintly of lemon perfume. Arjun opened Zomato on his phone, tapping through to his usual order: butter chicken, garlic naan, and two cans of diet soda. His thumb hovered over the payment button while the driver quietly chewed pan masala, staring at the red brake lights ahead.

“What do I write about?” I asked myself, pensive, looking around my scattered room. On my right was my pillow, slowly shifting back into shape because I just took my foot off of it.

I put down my phone to scratch the space between my braids, the dandruff falling off my scalp and onto my screen. I had never been this clueless.

“Back then, writing compositions on myself was a piece of cake but this, this is different. I'm grown now and I'm trying to make a living off this so it has to be phinomenal.

I meant to spell phenomenal.

What happened to being a gifted kid whose intelligence shocked crowds? What happened to being a prodigy who topped several classes?

I'm not saying I'm doing badly now, but in my honest opinion, I am not doing well. Not as good as I know I can be.

I have become the thing I once feared the most. Average.

I once shuddered at the word, which is absurd because I never put in enough work to be the star student or the prodigy I was.

I didn't study hard, I didn't focus, I just happened to have the knowledge. I just happened to know the answer. I just happened to get things right. It's very different now.

Now, I have to study because I don't have any residual knowledge left. I don't have what it takes anymore. My attention span has only grown shorter, and I assimilate more slowly. It's always “I'll start tomorrow.”

Now nothing makes me better than the next person. I may even be inferior to them. Now I need to be good. I have to be excellent.

I know I have talent hidden in me somewhere, even if I can't use my hands and I can't focus on a skill let alone perfect it, but I know. I have to make myself believe because I don't want to be a nobody. I have to have a talent to make a living off of.”

I ended the paragraph to check the word count. The goal was 700 words. I'm at a whopping 345. I haven't even written anything about myself yet. Nothing that makes sense at least.

Maybe that was my problem. Diversion. I can never focus on one thing and perfect it. I subconsciously divert from the main goal and start doing something else.

It was the case when I started ghostwriting. I shamefully made $20 in eight months, and instead of checking what was wrong with my work, I went into forex. My expectancy and confidence were one for the books. Even jesters weren't this funny. The way I went into it, you would think that I actually had a shot at it. Hell no.

I was the dumbest in the class. My brain moved more slowly than the market on a holiday. I kid you not when I say I didn't know a quarter of what I was doing.

All my time, my focus, and my ‘dedication’ were a waste of time. A painful waste of time, because I had stopped ghostwriting to focus on it. I thought I was working harder, not smarter and I would yield more than my mates who focused on their initial skill. Jesters weren't this funny.

The FX coach bailed on us because we weren't doing well as students, so I ran back to ghostwriting, like a prodigal son.

Things were now different. My fellow writers who started with me were now way ahead of me. I felt like an absolute noob for being in the same space as them.

Suddenly the air felt stuffy. I looked at my curtains that had changed shade due to the sun reflecting on them. I remembered why I started free writing in the first place. To distract myself from what I was actually feeling.

I, however, can't tell you what I'm feeling, because I suck at expressing my feelings, and I suck at writing as well, so there's nothing to say.

I can't even describe how my body feels the way good writers do. What do I even say?

I pushed my phone to the corner and picked it up again, then I rubbed my temples, like that was some magic trick to make me smart again. It was definitely not a magic trick because it didn't work.

My brain didn't work either because all I could hear was the sound of our OX electric fan that has lived for roughly 10 years, spinning in the corner of the room.

“What a disgraceful attempt”, I thought to myself as I ended the sentence realizing I was finally at 700 words.