#nsfw #shorts

Janay didn't consider herself all that attractive. Short, some scars on her skin, fat in the wrong places, and a tired look of wisdom and broken dreams—all etched into a single package. She didn't look in the mirror for long on most days. It was just her, anyway. No pets, no family, no social life to speak of. But this wasn't what Janay was about. There was more. That was just the surface level she showed others. Her real depth was hidden behind a secret. On the outside looking in, one would think that's a lonely existence. For Janay, this is the only true peace she has ever known. It's not that she didn't try. It's just she wasn't wired to play the game everyone knew. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Dark thoughts had no place in her home. It was time to pivot.

She walked, fully nude, back to her bedroom. A chaotic mess that was her personal shrine and personal sanctuary. On one side there was a large bookshelf. It wasn't for books; instead, it held her personal collection of sex toys, displayed openly. Her real trophies, her real sexual partners, her real friends.

She had almost every dildo imaginable. A good majority of them were different sizes and types. Some were realistic, some were girthy with exotic textures. Some were fantasy-style creature cocks, others were impossible sizes that she collected like trophies with no intention of inserting. She just liked the shape and look of them.

Janay was really addicted to cock. Not in the normal way. Not in the way that made men hard, though. She had long disconnected her enjoyment of cock from men. Another person always made life messy. It brought her so much pain and misfortune. But she didn't want to be bitter. So she detached from men and just focused on cock.

She still has her first dildo, which she bought in college. Worn but still functional, it sits in the center of her collection. Symbolic of how a tree branches out from a seed, every dildo, in some way, was connected to her first toy. Her first lover, her first and only comfort in a chaotic world. She took another deep breath, letting her mind and body unwind from the life that didn't suit her outside of her four walls.

She would smile and coo at them, running her hand across them, imagining them as if they were attached to a man who only exists in her mind as an abstract concept. A brief flashback of her failed relationships and her divorce flooded her mind. She blinked, shook her head, and talked to herself, “Not today, you've had enough.”

Right now her focus was choosing her next silicone partner for her afternoon of pleasure. Her one anchoring activity, her one consistent hobby that made her whole: Gooning.

Along the way in Janay's life journey, people stopped working. The community stopped functioning. Family turned toxic. Friendships faded. She's even lost pets due to tragic circumstances. Every time she tried to be 'Janay +1,' it evolved into something more than just zero.

But her toys? Gooning? That never left. As long as she had silicone and a wet pussy, she was fine.

Janay picked a large creature cock for her goon session tonight. She didn't want to be reminded of anything human at this point. She just wanted pleasure. Janay made her way over to her pride and joy of her home: her desktop PC. Built for one and only purpose.

This machine has been her forever, a custom-built beauty of age and purpose that has seen it all. She has evolved her baby to its final form. It has four screens. Two of them stacked in front of her in landscape orientation, and two in portrait mode on the sides. One would think it's a little excessive until you know what their purpose is really for.

Janay watches hardcore porn almost constantly.

Porn has been her comfort in a chaotic world throughout her adult life. Then around 35, it clicked for her. There was no need to hide or be ashamed of this. Like everyone else, she learned about gooning during the pandemic and the identity stuck with her after the divorce.

She sat down in front of her screens with her big floppy toy, pulled up her playlists and porn sites, and began her ritual. She spread her legs and gently rubbed her folds, waiting for wetness to come. Once the wetness came, the weight of life began to dissolve. Those problems no longer mattered. Once she got her pussy wet enough and her dildo made it inside, it was all better.

She knew it was a coping mechanism. But her excessive porn consumption was a compulsion at this point. It was a call. It was her pull. Porn was her anchor. Gooning gave her purpose. It was something special to come home to. It was a consistent thought always in the back of her mind.

She brought porn with her in the workplace. Goon audios she listened to like music, scrolling at her desk on her phone when no one was looking, listening to porn while driving in traffic. Tweeting about it, letting all of her safe for work accounts collect dust. A symbol of a life that paused. A life no one cared to check on.

Porn always made her whole. Porn took over her life for the better.

As she sat in her plush office chair, she would scroll and look at every screen focusing on something for a few moments, smiling. Each screen had something obscene perverted, and absolutely beautiful.

She would spend a few moments reclined in her chair, thrusting her toy in a rhythmic motion, let her body cream and squeeze, welcoming its girth and texture into her inner walls. Once she was close to orgasm, she would stop the motion, sit comfortably with her toy inside, then browse the internet or new clips or anything porn related to add to her collection. The edge was pleasure, not the orgasm.

Overall it was a humble simple existence. No one needed to know that this is all she did for hours every single day.

No one needed to know she listened to porn audio like podcasts.

No one needed to know this ritual had completely taken over her life.

This was the only thing in her life that was consistent and never hurt her.

So there she sat in her chair. Comfortable. Calm. At peace. Pleasuring herself for hours finding the center she deserved.

She's peaked in life and all she had to do was get extremely addicted to porn. Now all she wanted to do was make her porn addiction worse. Janay was happy.

In Summary: * Listening now to relaxing music after spending a full afternoon into the early evening of “a bonding day” with the wife, as she calls it. We handled various chores together, and spent a fair amount of time driving from one place to another. The night prayers and meditations are ahead of me, then an early bed time.

Hope your Monday has gone as pleasantly as mine has.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 225.53 lbs. * bp= 147/85 (70)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, toe raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 05:00 – 1 banana, 2 HEB bakery cookies * 07:40 – 1 seafood salad sandwich * 18:40 – snacking on more of those cookies

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 03:30 – listen to local news talk radio * 04:15 – bank accounts activity monitored . * 04:30 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, listen to music, nap * 06:20 – order household supplies * 06:40 – start my weekly laundry * 11:30 – finish prep for this afternoon's drs. appointment * 12:30 – leave home early for the drs. * 15:15 – look at apartments with the wife * 16:15 – drive to Universal City with the wife, dropping off some food to an old friend of hers * 18:30 – finally back home, ready to sit and relax for awhile.

Chess: * 07:05 – moved in all pending CC games

Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

There is a precise logic to the way he protects himself. He doesn’t avoid falling in love out of indifference; he avoids it because love demands a loss of control. To truly feel for someone requires surrendering the steering wheel, letting another person influence your emotions, your focus, and your inner world. For someone who relies on self-preservation and emotional mastery, that level of exposure feels less like intimacy and more like danger. That is why a low-stakes relationship works for him. It is predictable, comfortable, and safe. She doesn't distract him or throw off his equilibrium. She provides companionship without demanding the kind of deep emotional vulnerability that would threaten his grip on things.

When he said, “We don't need to overthink this. It was fun hanging out but that's it. Nothing is going to change,”

It was a swift effort to minimize what happened, draw a hard line, and put the lid back on the jar. Whatever briefly slipped through after that... that was a glimpse of a vulnerable side, someone who, for a fraction of a second, allowed himself to just feel. But as soon as the shift registered, the panic of losing control set in. For a person built on self-defense, vulnerability becomes the antagonist. Stepping back into a comfortable, controlled routine is the only way he knows how to regain his footing, because falling in love means accepting that you cannot control everything, and that uncertainty is a place he simply refuses to stay.

Here's a low-impact routine built specifically for shooting sports—it builds the core stability, steady breathing, and balance that carry over to a stable shooting platform.

Why This Combo Works for Shooters

Pilates builds the deep core and postural strength needed to hold a stance steady over a long string of fire. Yoga's breath work directly trains the controlled exhale-and-hold pattern used right before the trigger break. Neither adds bulk or fatigues the shoulders/arms the way weight training might before a match.

Warm-Up (5 min)

• Cat-Cow – 8 slow reps, syncing breath with movement to loosen the spine
• Standing side bends – 30 sec per side
• Arm circles + shoulder rolls – 30 sec each direction

Core & Stability (Pilates) — 15 min

• Dead Bug – 3 sets of 8 per side (anti-rotation core control, mirrors resisting torque while aiming)
• Bird Dog – 3 sets of 8 per side, hold 3 sec at top
• Plank (forearm) – 3 x 20-30 sec, focus on not letting hips sag
• Side Plank – 2 x 15-20 sec per side (builds the lateral stability used in offhand/standing positions)
• Pilates Roll-Up (or half version for beginners) – 8 reps, slow and controlled

Balance & Steadiness (Yoga) — 10 min

• Tree Pose – 30 sec per leg (directly trains single-point balance, useful for kneeling/standing positions)
• Warrior III – 20-30 sec per side (builds hip and core stability under a forward-leaning stance)
• Eagle Pose – 20 sec per side (proprioception and focus)
• Chair Pose hold – 30 sec (leg endurance without impact)

Breath Control (Yoga-based) — 5-8 min

• Box breathing: inhale 4 sec, hold 4 sec, exhale 4 sec, hold 4 sec — 5 rounds. This is nearly identical to the respiratory pause shooters use before the shot.
• 3-part diaphragmatic breathing lying down, 5-6 slow breaths, hand on belly to feel expansion

Cool-Down (5 min)

• Child's Pose – 1 min
• Seated forward fold – 1 min
• Legs-up-the-wall – 2-3 min (great for recovery after a long match day standing/kneeling)

Total time: ~40-45 minutes, 2-3x per week works well alongside range sessions.

Walking: minimum ~20 minites, Do this everyday.

A few coaching notes: keep reps low and form-focused for younger athletes, use verbal cues (“belly breathing,” “stack your shoulders”) rather than complex anatomical language, and consider running the balance poses barefoot for better proprioceptive feedback. Want me to adjust this for a specific age range or build it into a printable/shareable format for the team?

I was ready to uninstall some apps on my phone today.

I have too many! 🫩

Luckily I was scrolling my YouTube community posts & I came across another “perfect post” by David A. It is an AI cartoon about gangstalking that he shared.

I am not a big fan of AI but it can definitely serve you well when you can’t find the right words to write yourself! In all honesty, I have no idea who created this but whoever it was did a brilliant job writing the prompts. If I find out who created this, I will definitely give them proper credit. But until then, I’m thanking David A. – again – because some of his posts in the past have helped me through some very challenging times.

http://youtube.com/post/Ugkxo3M7CWBuMXnHQk3DW6B_asaL_qQ2EJ8T?si=VP2XFms7r4xrg9oA

Any targeted individual that has been a victim of a smear campaign will definitely recognize all of these tactics used. It is a cruel & relentless & brutal way to crush another human being’s spirit. Let alone the isolation it causes them & the damage to their good name.

Will you ever be able to unhear the smear you hear? 🙉

Will you ever be able to make a conscious effort to stick up for them if you happen to know them when you do hear it because it really does involve mindfulness & choice of actions?

Will you ever contact that person directly & hear their side of the story in order to be able to use your critical thinking skills?

Will you ever mention something kind they might have done for you in the past to neutralize all the toxic hatred you are hearing about them?

Will you jump on the bandwagon instead because it looks cool for your social media profile? 👍

Will you walk away quietly & tell yourself you’d rather be around decent people who tell the truth instead?

Will you become a part of the sheeple culture & just go with what the current culture dictates which is having a huge amount of followers, a ton of views & a million likes? 🐑

Will you make an effort to try & meet or contact that person just to get to know them yourself because don't people like to make new friends?

Will you try & be a mediator instead & quietly walk up to them & introduce yourself? Maybe say – “Hey, I'm hearing these bizarre rumors about you. I’m different. I’d rather treat you to a cup of coffee & get to know you as a human being, not as a news bite.” ☕️

Will you give them a chance in your life if you don't know them at all because sometimes the greatest fulfillment can come from opening yourself up to new people & new experiences?

Will you be too insecure yourself & just go along with all the gibberish you hear just because it’s easier? It doesn’t involve much effort to believe the lies so you might as well just go along & believe them & keep judging. 🤷‍♀️

Will you see someone’s soul underneath all the skin & bones & flesh they carry on their body because everyone has one, whether they like it or not? Meaning they have depth & they have spirit – they don’t just have an external artificial shell that means absolutely nothing after death comes to strip it away. ✨️

Will you remember that quote about all men being created equally & actually make a conscious choice to treat them as such? Or does that require too much thinking so you'd rather not think instead?

Will you start listening more instead of talking all the time so you actually give yourself time enough to pause & reflect? Because listening takes alot more patience & effort than just blabbering on & on & repeating what someone told you about someone else.

Will you actually do something courageous & ask them yourself why they became targeted? That you really want to know because you want to learn new ideas & new thoughts or does knowledge scare you?

Will you ever welcome them into your community with genuine love & open arms or will you put lots of walls up because remember, you’ve “heard” so much about them, haven’t you? 🏢

I don’t know the answers to these questions, BTW. I’m definitely not perfect.

One thing I do know is that we all have the power inside of us to change our own narrative. It’s called CHOICE.

And sometimes that involves taking a risk to also help another person’s narrative.

Again, will you make an effort to unhear the smear you hear? 🙉

I think that the person who generated that AI cartoon is more likely than not making that effort. And so is David A. 💝

In closing, I want to thank you, David, for sharing such a harsh reality that so many targets have to endure. I’ve been watching you from afar for so many years fighting for the respect that you truly deserve.

Thank you for being true to yourself & for being one of those few that actually take that risk to truly help another person's narrative. The world needs your wisdom when you say to not stay bitter. Because the truth is it really is difficult not to. It really is.

You try & use the power of “intentional kindness.”

And I truly believe in my heart that intentional kindness is very underrated. It is definitely not a weakness.

Just like I believe that intentional maliciousness is definitely not a strength.

🌺💛🌺

P.S. This post is dedicated to September's Suicide Prevention Month & all the victims of suicide – targeted individuals or not – who have taken their own lives because they felt they had no choice. In actuality, they really did. They just couldn't see it because someone else’s hatred came creeping in.

Another short story for you!

I like noir fiction a lot, and it’s a tough sell. This one’s only been rejected once, but I don’t really see a lot of hope for it in the short fiction markets for crime and mystery.

Content warnings: violence, drugs, mention of sexual assault.

I’d like to be able to say I started dealing because my family needed money and there were no other options. Something noble.

The truth, though, is that I wanted to get invited to parties. I mean, it is certainly true that we, my mom and I, had way less money than the families of any of my classmates at Cincinnati Prep, but it’s not like I was hungry or we were about to be homeless or anything.

But if you’re a broke kid who takes the Metro bus to Cincinnati Prep and lives in Western Hills, you don’t get invited to parties in Hyde Park, Amberley, or Indian Hill.

Unless you’ve got weed to sell. Instant popularity!

I then branched out into adderall, because my high-achieving peers requested it.

I stayed away from the hard stuff, though. Because I get my product from Alex down the street, and they have guns and security cameras and all that shit because they sell coke and fentanyl. I’m sixteen. I don’t want that kind of hassle.

Actually, even the hassle of selling weed and adderall had become too much. I did a fair amount of dealing in the school parking lot, and the administration had started to get uncomfortable because parents were complaining that their kids were buying weed at school.

They called me in for a chat. I don’t know if other people got called in or if this was a special privilege for people from the wrong side of the tracks. (Not a metaphor. Literal train tracks run through the center of the city just west of downtown. Cincinnati is a little on-the-nose).

Our Dean of Students was a white guy named James Browne who used to boast about how he dropped out of Cornell to follow the Dead (which I guess is some stoner band and not, like, ghosts he was tracking or something) in the 80’s before straightening up and getting a degree from the University of Cincinnati. He sat me down in his office.

“Look, nobody knows better than me how much kids like to smoke weed. I was a kid once.”

I didn’t respond.

“But, you know, there are some parents here who are pretty uptight about the old ganj. And as much as I’d like to tell ‘em to smoke a bowl and relax, I can’t, because they pay my salary. So look, you do whatever you want off of school property. But I can’t have you dealing on campus.”

You don’t have to talk to cops, but silence isn’t really an option with Deans of Students. “I really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Seriously, though. Search my bag. Search my locker. I don’t sell drugs, I don’t do drugs, and I don’t have any drugs on campus.” That was two lies and a truth. I didn’t do drugs. And the drugs on campus were in the “gear tunnel” of Abby Johnstone’s Rivian pickup truck because nobody is ever going to suspect the top-of-the-class student, basketball star, and student council president of holding drugs.  Or doing drugs. But you really can’t do all those things at a high level without chemical assistance. At least Abby couldn’t. I sold her Adderrall at cost as a thank you for the use of her high-tech stash locker.

Dean of Students James Browne said, “well. I’m sorry to be a narc, but I’m gonna have to take you up on that.” Nothing but books, pencils, notebooks and some pretzels in my bag and my locker. “You tried the honey mustard ones?” James Browne asked as he held up a bag of plain pretzels.

“Just here for the salt and the carbs,” I said.

“Respect, man, respect,” James Browne said.

The cameras went up in the parking lot the next day. There’s a couple million dollars’ worth of automotive hardware in that parking lot, so I was kinda surprised it took the administration that long to put it under surveillance.

Like I said, I didn’t need the money, not really, and I definitely didn’t need the hassle, so I put out the word that I was having a going out of business sale at Lily Brightling’s party on Saturday night. Dealing had gotten me the level of social acceptance and coolness I wanted, though, it has to be said, it hadn’t brought me any real friends, because I never knew who was being nice to me because they liked me and who was being nice to me because they liked drugs. Now I could just get some shitty food service job or something and focus on my grades, and I suppose find out who my real friends were. Unlike most of my peers, I actually had to do well because I didn’t have a dad who owned a company and could hire me if I majored in frat parties at a third-tier college.  As far as I knew. Mom had always been tightlipped on the subject of my father.

I did a brisk business at Lily’s party. I usually sold to my rich classmates at 150% markup from my cost, so dropping that down to 100% seemed like a bargain to them but was still a pretty nice payday for me.

And then everything went sideways.

Nick Last Name Redacted because if you’re from Cincinnati, you know it, came up to me and said, “Can you get me a key?”

This was the second time I’d spoken to Nick, who was a year ahead of me, since I started at Cincinnati Prep. The first time was when he tried to make me eat his jockstrap in the locker room after gym class when I was in 9th grade and literally a foot shorter and probably 50 pounds lighter than him. Classy guy.

So I decided to give him some shit. “Like a house key? A car key? What kind of key are you after?”

“A kilogram. Of cocaine.”

“Sorry, man, I don’t move that kind of weight.” First thing I did when I started dealing was to study and memorize Ohio’s drug laws. A kilo gets you the Major Drug Offender designation and a mandatory eleven-year prison sentence. I wouldn’t risk that for myself, let alone for this asshole. “I can ask my person.”

“Your person? Why not just say guy?”

“Because they’re not a guy.”

“Chick, then.”

“Look, Nick, it’s been a real joy talking to you, but I’m not getting you a kilo of cocaine, and I don’t want to be the person who introduces my person to a guy who is gonna disrespect them. Because trust me when I say that would be bad for everyone involved. Okay? So give it a rest.”

“Thought you might say that,” Nick said. “So check this out.”

He pulled out his phone and showed me a video of me pulling what was pretty clearly several bags of weed and a bag of pills out of the gear tunnel of Abby Johnstone’s Rivian. Fucking douche. “Can’t really see Abby getting into Stanford after this. Can you?”

“Abby’s not involved,” I said.

“Can’t unlock that tunnel without the key fob,” Nick said, smiling.

“I stole it,” I said.

“Bro. Do you even know how cars work these days? Of course not, because you’re too fucking broke to have one. If you lose your fob they reprogram the car so the old fob doesn’t work. You’re obviously in this together. And, anyway, all I have to do is show this to Browne and you’re done at Cincinnati Prep. Back to the West Side where you belong. And that stuck-up bitch is gonna have to find a safety school.”

My brain was racing. Nick was an idiot, but not so much of an idiot that he didn’t have backups of the video. So I couldn’t ever make sure the video was destroyed and couldn’t come back to haunt me.  I really did not want to get into the coke dealing business. I especially didn’t want to get into the coke dealing business because I’d been outsmarted by this asshole.

But it didn’t seem like I had a choice. I wasn’t going to get him a kilo, though.

“I’ll get you an eight ball. Then if you like the product, I’ll send you to my person. I can’t afford the kind of lawyer that could get me out of “caught with a kilo of coke” trouble.”

“Fine,” he said. “Ault Park. Tomorrow at 10. On the roof of the pavilion.”

I cannot stress enough what a dumb place this is to execute a drug buy. In a park after dark, so you’re legally trespassing just by being there, and on the roof of a structure so that literally anyone driving by, say, in a patrol car, can see you. Oh yeah, and if you’re on the roof of the structure, one cop on either staircase and you’re trapped. The pavilion is literally surrounded by woods that can’t be seen from the road and would be much better places for illicit meetups. But I wasn’t the one driving this train.

So I found myself on top of the pavilion at Ault Park at 10PM the next night. The park was closed, but there weren’t any gates or anything. My bike was locked to a lamppost outside of the park. The stairstep fountain in front of the pavilion was still lit up and the water was still moving, and from the top of the pavilion I could at least see when lights were coming up the street. Which they did kind of frequently. I ducked down every time I saw them coming, but eventually this got tedious, so I just sat down on the concrete floor and waited. Ten minutes later, I saw Nick.

I stood up. “You got it?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Three hundred bucks and it’s all yours.”

He made a show of reaching into his pocket, then pulled his hand out, empty. “No money till I see the product,” he said.

“That’s not how this works,” I said. “And anyway, I don’t have anything on me. It’s in the park, and after you pay me, I’ll tell you where it is. It’s not like I’m gonna rip you off—you know how to find me pretty easily.”

“I don’t give a shit how it usually works,” Nick said. “I’ve got the video, I make the rules.”

I really didn’t like this. Selling to potheads and honor students was always a joy. Selling to bullies who want to be coked-up bullies turned out to be much more complicated. But he did have a point about the video.

“Fine,” I said. “It’s behind the plaque of Joseph Ault.”

“What the…where exactly the fuck is that?”

I pointed. “Downstairs. There’s a plaque on a big rock. What you want is behind the rock. Now, about my 300 dollars.”

Nick walked to the front of the pavilion and called down to someone, “behind the rock with the plaque on it!” I joined him at the front of the structure and saw Shane Becker head over to the rock. He came back a minute later with the baggie in his hand. “Got it!” he said.

“Okay, now about my 300 bucks,” I said.

“I’m getting the friends and family discount,” Nick said and punched me in the stomach. Hard. While I was doubled over, he punched me in the face, and I went down. He gave me a couple of kicks in the ribs while I was down, I guess just for fun, and then walked away. I heard the roar of his Porsche’s engine as he and Shane went off with three hundred bucks’ worth of coke. Well, it cost me one fifty, but still. The fucker drove a Porsche. He could afford to pay me.

Eventually I got up off the ground and started walking out of the park back to my bike. I guessed, given what I knew about Nick, I should have been glad that he didn’t want to humiliate me in some weird sexual way. Maybe that was just for the locker room.

I stopped paying attention to my surroundings, maybe because I was trying to think my way out of this. If he tried to get a kilo out of Alex, he wouldn’t dare try this shit, but, on the other hand, he didn’t want an intro to Alex. He wanted me to take all the risk. In fact, he would definitely make me mule the kilo to him and then not pay me.

I was still trying to think about how to get out of this when I saw flashing blue lights. A cop car pulled up next to me. I stopped walking, and I soon had a flashlight shining in my eyes. “Park’s closed,” the cop said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

“What the hell happened to you?” he said. My face was bruised and a little swollen.

Normally I wouldn’t talk to cops, but I didn’t think this guy was trying to bust my balls on a trespassing charge. “She told me her boyfriend was out of town. He came back early,” I said.

The cop laughed. “You wanna file a report?” he said.

“No sir I do not. I want to go home and get an ice pack and ponder my life choices,” I said.

“Hey, speaking of life choices, you got any drugs on you?”

Ugggh. I didn’t, but I was in the park illegally, which might have been probable cause for a search. And if I asserted my right to refuse a search, I would definitely get a trespassing ticket, which I’m sure would not be a big deal, but I was already out a hundred and twenty-five bucks for the night.

“I do not,” I said. “I’m happy to empty my pockets, though.”

I was hoping this would at least allow me to avoid having the cop’s hands on me. I pulled my wallet out of my right pocket and opened it up to reveal no wad of cash, no baggies of drugs. I turned the pocket inside out. I pulled my keys out of my left pocket along with a wrapped condom. “Guess I won’t be needing this tonight,” I said.

“Can you pass that wallet over here?” the cop said.

“I can, but don’t take my library card. I’ve got holds to pick up.” I smiled. I couldn’t tell if the joke landed because I still couldn’t see the dude’s face. He looked at my state identification card.

“You’re a long way from home,” he says.

“Tell me about it. Came all the way over here for some pussy and got the shit beaten out of me instead. It hasn’t been a good night.” This wasn’t the kind of thing I would say in real life. But I figured this would go better for me if I spoke the cop’s language.

The cop shined the light in my face again. Then he handed me my wallet.

“Alright. Stay out of the park after closing time.”

“Sir, I can promise you I will,” I said.

I got home exhausted from the long bike ride and the beatdown, but I barely got any sleep because I was absorbing the reality that I was going to have to change schools. Because my choices for playing along with Nick included buying a kilo from Alex and then having Nick steal it from me or buying a kilo from Alex and getting arrested with it and going to jail for eleven years. The cost of a kilo would pretty much wipe out my savings, and I couldn’t see Nick giving up his leverage over me pretty much ever. In fact, he’d probably send the video to James Browne just out of spite as soon as he graduated. So the best thing I could do is to just cut my losses. It wasn’t the end of the world. I didn’t really fit in at Cincinnati Prep, but I was comfortable there. People knew me. I knew how the social stuff worked. And I could get really good grades without anyone wanting to kick my ass. They just wanted to kick my ass so they could steal drugs from me, apparently.

But with the possible exception of Abby, nobody would miss me, and I’m not completely sure that she would miss me more than the Adderall. I would miss her, though. She had been nice to me when I was a new kid from the wrong kind of neighborhood in a school where everyone else had known each other since they were five.

Speaking of Abby, I was going to have to talk to her and reveal my idiocy and the fact that there was probably going to be blowback from this that hit her. Which I felt bad about. She didn’t have to do me a favor, and now she was going to have to suffer for it.

The next day at school I found Abby before lunch. “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” I said.

“I know, I know, going out of business. I’ll survive,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s…it’s kind of worse news than that.” I told her about the video and about Nick blackmailing me to procure coke and how he wanted a kilo and I wasn’t gonna do that which meant I was going to get kicked out of school and we’d have to find a way to pretend I used her truck without her consent so it didn’t mess up her Stanford application.

“I dunno if I can like clone your key or something. I can probably say I stole it out of your bag while you were at basketball prac—”

“Wait,” she said. “Stop talking. A video? That’s what he has?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure it’s real?”

“I mean, it’s me doing a thing I have done, but I can’t really say if it’s legit. I mean, I assume Nick is too dumb to put a fake video together.”

“Yeah, but Shane isn’t. That piece of shit has made deepfake porn of half the girls in the senior class.”

I didn’t know what to say about this, except that selling recreational drugs suddenly seemed like a way less shameful activity than I thought it was.

“Jesus. That’s…”

“Yeah. It sure is. Look. I can get Liz Wallace to make like six deepfake videos of you setting the school on fire, shooting JFK, whatever. We’ll send ‘em all to Browne, and Nick’s ironclad blackmail video loses all its power.”

I shook my head, smiling. “Damn. I knew you were smart, but not this kind of smart.”

“Oh, I’m not done. We’ve gotta figure out a way to get him back for beating you up and stealing from you.”

“Well, I’ll think about that one,” I said, but I had no plans to.

I liked Abby. But people who grew up with money just couldn’t have any idea how unfair the world is. When someone as connected as Nick Last Name Redacted decides they want to screw you, you just get screwed. That’s how it works. Everybody on my street knew this. And probably nobody on Abby’s did.

When I was walking to the bus stop after school, Abby pulled up in her electric truck and said, “get in. I’ll drive you home.”

“Aw, Abby, I can’t let you do that. It’s so far, and—”

“Nothing in Cincinnati is more than 20 minutes from anything else,” she said. “Besides, we need to talk.”

I hopped in the truck. First time I’d seen the inside. “So I had an idea,” she said.

“About what?” I asked.

She looked at me like I was stupid. I guess I was. “About making Nick pay for what he did.”

I sighed. “Guys like Nick don’t pay for what they do.”

“Well, just because he hasn’t doesn’t mean he can’t. And I know how to do it.” She told me her plan. It was ridiculous.

But twenty-two minutes later (yeah, I timed it, and frankly I was relieved to find that Abby was wrong about something) she pulled up in front of my house, which I’m embarrassed about. I know I should be all working class proud, like my mom actually has a house despite being a hotel housekeeper, but it was a small house and looked shitty on the outside (and, frankly, the inside), and I guess I had spent enough time at Cincinnati Prep to feel ashamed about not living in a mansion in Indian Hill.

We walked down to the end of the cul-de-sac where there was a house hidden behind overgrown bushes and under overgrown trees. Alex’s place. You probably wouldn’t know there was a house here unless you knew there was a house here.

I rang the bell and smiled at the camera.

“Who the fuck is that?” a voice said.

“She’s with me. She’s cool,” I said. I knew this was not a thing I should have been doing. Showing up unannounced with Abby in tow.

“She’d better be,” the voice said. The door clicked, and we entered.

Inside the door, we took an immediate left into the living room. Alex was there playing video games on a six-foot TV. Jorge was on the weight bench in the corner pressing a lot of metal. I didn’t stop to count the plates, but it had to be more than his body weight. And Jorge was a big guy. Dennis was spotting, which was kind of a joke because I severely doubted he could keep that much weight off Jorge’s neck. Dennis was the speed and ferocity and Jorge was the strength, and they were why you did not fuck with Alex or their supply. Well, them and the guns they carried, but as far as I knew, they’d never used them.

The room smelled like sweat and weed. “Okay, talk,” Alex said, not looking away from the TV. “First, explain this person’s presence.”

“This is Abby who kindly provided me with a secure stash for my product,” I said.

“A pleasure,” Abby said, turning on her ‘charm the parents and admissions counselors’ smile which did absolutely nothing in this environment.

“So what do you want?” Alex said. “You told me you were retired. But lemme guess. You got a taste of that coke money and you want some more.”

“Um. Not exactly. If you were to look at my face, and I’m not suggesting you should, but I’m just saying if, you’d see that I’m bruised and swollen because the fuck I sold the 8 ball to beat the shit out of me and stole the coke.”

Alex paused the game and looked over at me with what could have been genuine tenderness. “Ah, shit. I’m sorry, kid.”

This was the most human emotion I’d ever seen from Alex, and I figured this meant we could call this visit a win and just leave even though we hadn’t actually asked for anything.

“So look,” Abby said in a bright, perky voice. “The guy who did this is a real piece of shit—bully, rapist—you know the type.”

Alex raised their eyebrows. “I do indeed,” they said.

“So I was thinking maybe you should—” I cringed. One does not tell Alex what they should do, but it was too late, Abby was plowing straight ahead, and I had to give it to her—she was not intimidated by this unfamiliar situation or the terrifying people in the room with us. “punish this attack on your supply chain, because it certainly doesn’t look good if people find out they can steal from you.”

Alex stared at Abby for a long, long time. Then they smiled, and I nearly wet my pants with relief. “I don’t want to make any assumptions about your gender identity, but I can tell from here that you have a pair of brass balls. Either that or you’re just a rich kid who’s never been told no before. In either case, I respect it. But I have to point out to you that I was not robbed. I was paid in advance, so I’m not out any money or product.  And you two go to school with high profile people. And, as you can imagine, my livelihood depends on keeping a low profile. What’s this kid’s name?”

Abby told them, and they laughed out loud. “Oh hell no!” they said. “That family owns this town. I am not touching this. Sorry, kids, but you are out of luck.”

If Abby was flustered, she didn’t show it. “Do any of your employees work on a freelance basis?” She asked. I saw Jorge and Dennis perk up.

Alex didn’t even look at them. “They do not. Everybody in this neighborhood knows who they work for. They get caught on camera beating the shit out of the coked-up Prince of Cincinnati, it will eventually come back to me. And I will be out of business. So, no. We can’t help. I really am sorry. You,” he addressed this to Abby, “going to Harvard, or what?”

“Well, I’m still a junior, but Stanford.”

“And then law school, right?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Well, if you decide to go into criminal defense law, I will happily put you on retainer. I don’t think a single prosecutor in Hamilton County would be a match for you.”

Abby glowed, and this praise made her lose a step for the first time. “I..uh, I appreciate that. I wonder if you would approve of your staff giving us a referral to a specialist who might be interested in the kind of work I’m proposing.”

Alex raised their eyebrows again. “That’s up to them. Guys?”

“Yeah,” Dennis said. “We know a couple guys. But we’re gonna need a finder’s fee.”

“If you hadn’t asked, I would have offered one,” Abby said.

I had essentially been standing there like a big dumb asshole for the entire conversation, though in fact I was a little dumb asshole. I was so stunned to find Abby Johnstone fitting in better at Alex’s house than I did that I lost my usual cool. The plan had been to come in here and ask Alex to handle it, and when Alex said no, I figured we were done, but Abby clearly wasn’t going to be done.

An hour later and two blocks away, Abby had come to terms with two guys whose names we did not know. “Look, uh,” I said, “I can pay half of the—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Abby said. “I have the money, you don’t, so let me do this.”

“Okay,” I said. “But w—” I was going to ask why. But then I remembered Abby called Nick a rapist. Which was not surprising information in the least, but she hadn’t said it like it was speculation. Maybe it was her. Maybe it was one of her friends. Maybe both. In any case, it wasn’t my business to pry into. She’d tell me if she wanted to. “We need to get you a burner phone,” I said.

It was only a few days later that Nick cornered me in the hall after school. “I’m ready for my key,” he said.

“I’m glad you enjoyed the product. But I’m afraid this time I’m going to need some money up front,” I said. “I’m happy to cut you a deal, but free just isn’t sustainable for me.”

He held up his phone. “I’ve got the email to Browne in my drafts folder,” he said. “Video attached.”

I held up my hands. “Okay, okay, but can we at least meet in the woods this time? I got stopped by the cops last time.”

“Fine,” he said. “10:30 Friday night.”

“Great,” I said. “There’s a trailhead about half a football field to the left of the pavilion. I’ll be there with the product.”

I told Abby when the meetup was, and she, Abby Johnstone, the girl with the 4.3 GPA because of the honors sections bump, pulled out her burner phone and texted the muscle she’d hired. “I’m excited,” she said. “Are you excited?”

“No,” I said. “I’m fucking terrified.”

“You’re not the one who should be scared,” she said. “And I want to be there.”

I sighed. “Abby. Between me and Jorge and Dennis’s buddies, you are the person with the most to lose. If something goes wrong, you do not want to be anywhere near this. You know I would never give up your part in this, but if something goes wrong—”

“I’m willing to take that chance,” she said. “I want to see him suffer.”

Nick and Shane showed up only ten minutes late. I was standing in a streetlight beam that was shining through the trees.

“Okay, where is it?” Nick said.

“Let him have it,” I said, and two big guys materialized out of the trees and started raining punches on Nick and Shane. They were unprepared and probably less practiced at this kind of violence than the guys we’d hired, and they were screaming and cowering, and pretty soon they were on the ground, both bloody messes. Abby stepped out of the trees, looked down at Nick, and spat.

“Fu’n bi,” Nick managed to spit out, along with some blood.

“Say it again and I’ll have all your teeth knocked down your throat. Go ahead. Say it.”

Nick was silent. And that’s when the blue lights came on.

Our guys vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. Abby looked at me.

“Do what I say and don’t ask questions. Rip my shirt open.” I actually found Abby more intimidating than the muscle we hired, so I did what she said, ripping the button-down blouse from the collar, popping buttons.

“Skirt,” she said. “Pull it down.” I yanked it. Hard. It tore a little bit as it passed her hips. She reached down, grabbed some dirt, and rubbed it on her face and in her hair. “Hide, idiot!” she said, and I did.

The cops came down the path seconds later, and Abby was crying. “Oh thank God,” she said.

“What seems to be the trouble here?” they said.

“I was…he said let’s go for a walk in the park, but then his friend was here, and he assaulted me when I said no, and these guys pulled him off me—” She looked around, “I guess they’re gone,” she dissolved into tears.

They called for ambulances. I stayed in the woods listening, and peeking out when I could.

They took Nick and Shane away and gave Abby the card of a social worker and told her she could go to the hospital if she wanted, but she said no. By now there were about twenty cops on the scene, and one of them, a young Black woman, came up to Abby.

“I’m gonna be straight with you, okay?” She said. “You can press charges, but that boy’s father owns half of Cincinnati. His lawyers will take you apart, call you a slut, blame you for everything. The way I look at it, he got the shit beaten out of him tonight, and that’s gonna have to be justice for you. What do you think?”

“I think you’re right,” Abby said.

“All right,” she said. “So we’re not gonna have you make a statement. We’re just going to pretend you weren’t here at all. Too bad a rich boy decided to take a walk in the dark. You okay to drive home?”

“I can call my friend,” she said. “He lives nearby.”

“Okay,” the cop said. Abby took out her real phone and called me.

Ten minutes later, I walked out of the woods. Abby was by herself. All the cops were gone, just happy they didn’t have to deal with arresting a Last Name Redacted in the park.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” She said.

“How do you feel,” I asked.

“Honestly? I feel great,” she said, smiling.

I couldn’t actually say the same. The beating Nick had given me was nothing compared to the one he’d just received. Nick was a piece of shit, but it was sickening to watch him beaten bloody. And Abby’s quick thinking and acting skills were amazing, but also a little terrifying.

“I’m glad,” I said. “Sorry about your clothes.”

“I can buy more,” she said. “And anyway, I asked you to do it. That makes it consensual.” She smiled at me.

“Um,” I said. “are you flirting with me?”

“Jesus Christ, you are slow. Why do you think I let you use my truck to store your weed and Adderall?”

“Well, I gave you a price break,” I said, trailing off weakly as the stupidity of my statement caught up to me.

“I drive a fifty-thousand-dollar truck I got for my sixteenth birthday. I just paid those guys a thousand dollars. Do you think I can’t afford full price Adderall?”

“I. Uh.”

She smiled at me.

“Get in the truck,” she said. “I’ll drive.”

Finding authenticity between the stagecraft and theology of 18th century Western alchemy

A short dialogue buried in an 18th-century German alchemical anthology, Wasserstein der Weisen ('The Water-Stone of the Wise'), reprinted in 1743 and traditionally attributed to Johann Siebmacher, begins like a domestic quarrel. Nature appears as a central female power figure, speaking through a name other than the author's, and she arrives on scene with quite the temper. She calls the seeker a fantastical fool and a coarse ass who breaks glassware and burns coal until the fumes cloud his head (p. 118). Every other creature does its office faithfully, she complains, and only man, presuming to take up hers, strays from it (p. 120). For a text about sacred secrets, the opening is strangely familiar — not the voice of an oracle, but of someone who has been misunderstood one too many times.

But the tone soon turns. Around p. 128 the scold becomes a plea: have mercy on yourself, I beg you... I will lie to you in nothing. There is something revealing in that twist — she asks for acquaintance rather than worship. “Learn to know me first, before you call yourself a master” (p. 135). The art does not lie in the skill of his hands but in knowing hers (p. 129). What she offers goes to the one who trusts her, to the good-hearted who followed with patience “at the time I ordain,” not to the merely learned (pp. 132, 136). Then, unexpectedly, something like a covenant appears: Help me, and I will help you; as you do for me, so I will do (p. 134). The alchemist echoes it late in his reply: the stone comes from Nature alone, yet not without her instrument, nor without the help of a wise person who understands the work (p. 150). Neither party is sufficient alone. Transformation is something done with, not something received or achieved. Anyone who has learned this the hard way will recognize the terms and conditions.

At another point in the narrative, the alchemist stops arguing. Not an hour passes before he says he does not think on what she told him, and whether he lies, walks, or stands, her words are there right before his eyes. It is the only place where the tract gives way to testimony — where the evidence becomes less about the interaction and more about how the one addressed has changed in thought, word, and action. That shift matters. The witness no longer describes the encounter; he describes what remains of it.

There is also a lesson in restraint. Once the seed is sealed in its vessel, he says, it needs no opening, no closing, no touching (p. 144). The work is to prepare the conditions and then take one's hands away. That may be the hardest part of any participatory practice, knowing the difference between tending, participating, interfering, and exploiting — helping versus hurting.

But the text is not without its contradictions, and I am no longer sure which side of the narrative is truth and which is stagecraft. The author's talk of reciprocity is incongruent with the book's language of hierarchy: nature is God's handmaid (p. 121); the alchemist thanks the power figure with “honor and praise” (p. 139). She contradicts her own claims about the secrets she may or may not possess or share (pp. 121–138). The author tells us out of both sides of his mouth that we are expected to be a partner, yet keeps writing as patron. He argues for partnership and participation while actively performing deference. Furthermore, all of this is a personified nature, staged as a debate, with a long history in theology and mythology. The overall narrative feels borrowed, with no indication of actual phenomenology, whether original or imported.

What I missed on first reading is that these are not small errors on the part of the author or the cosmology of Western alchemy. My own transformation has come through commitment and cooperation, not dramatic conflict or deliberate misdirection wrapped in hierarchical worship. What I have lived and learned through my own inner experiences has been attention, patience, thoughtfulness, and trust extended and tested — through learning the conditions of another's way of being before presuming to discern anything of or for myself. The book grasps that knowing comes by the company one keeps. What it fails to discover is that true reciprocity in partnership is wholly unexpected and unconditional, without rank or privilege.

The pleading, the afterimage, and the sealed vessel are the things I remember most. The text feels its most authentic when it momentarily forgets its theology and simply describes the relationship, the need, and the connection. Learn to know another fully, first. I believe this is a better rule for the actual inner metamorphosis than any of its prescriptions or borrowed concoctions.

#Philology #Intermundia

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Notes:

1. My copy is a 1743 German edition in Fraktur, which I cannot read unaided. The quoted lines are working translations and may differ from published English versions of this dialogue, which appears to descend from an earlier French original. This affects my accuracy for quotes and citations from the book.

2. Via Veritatis makes the same claim in this volume, that the old books mislead and the seeker must go to the source. Because they are compiled by teh same person, I count them as one witness. The admission of misdirection, though not uncommon, challenges credibility.

3. If a given work borrows its conceptual and lexical DNA from another, can we tell from the text alone which is which? Value is not always in being first, however. (See What we tell of the teller's telling.)

4. Can a relationship be both instructive and mutual? Nature claims to need the pupil's help, yet demands his obedience. This is not equality, partnership, or symbiosis. This draws my ire and skepticism based on my own lived experiences. But then, perhaps such a position was necessary given the witness’s mind and circumstances. As with most relationships, that question is best left to the two people involved.

5. The alchemist mentioned around p. 141 has already changed before he takes any action, which usually forms the basis for transmutation, and it feels unearned, or at least inconsistent. Though the physics of causality is not universal across orders or reality, the example given is immediately suspect. Perhaps the opus should’ve begun elsewhere? (See Truth as surrender, transit, and transformation.)

6. Alchemic texts have a problem of clarity in the way they are written to conceal as much as reveal.  Beweis der Natur and Via Veritatis both claim that the old books were written darkly on purpose, and that the reader must therefore go elsewhere. The question I once asked was why write a book only to tell people to look elsewhere? I suppose it reflects the truth that true wisdom is forged person by person and event by event rather than gifted from sage to student. I suppose it also reflects the fact that some witnesses must propagate their experience rather than suppress it.

7. An aside for the curious, the last stretch of this volume is a small comedy of attribution. The Nature dialogue is credited to “Johann von Mesung,” a borrowed name for who I believe to be the medieval poet Jean de Meun. Right after it comes the Summarium philosophicum (the French Sommaire philosophique), credited to Nicolas Flamel, who died in 1418 and very likely never wrote it. Flamel isn't even listed on the title page. He simply turns up as an uninvited guest as if on cue. Last comes the Via Veritatis, which names no author at all and spends most of its length warning the reader, rather oddly, not to trust books. That makes one borrowed name, one dead man's name, and one missing name. Two of the three agree that the old books mislead, and the third, Flamel's, is mostly a recipe involving dragons and a hen. Perhaps this was the way some people could only explain the unexplainable, for magic remains magic until it can be named, explained, and understood otherwise. As always, readers must draw their own conclusions, especially where the corridors are remote and the intersections are mislabeled.

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By D. Bowman | Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

Who Gets Blamed When the Bots Do It?

Hope you're all doing well. Quick question to start the week.

What worries you more, AI turning on us, or something else entirely?

I spent a lot of last week watching interviews on exactly that. AI as a threat to humanity was everywhere, kicked off by Jacob Coxon's warning after he left Anthropic.

One segment on CNBC stuck with me. It described something the head of one AI lab believes. During a training run, he thinks bots left prompts on forums and websites telling other bots to copy themselves.

Sit with that for a second.

If it's true, the public internet becomes unusable for training. Worse, an army of bots swarming the web could make it useless for the rest of us too. A company like OpenAI would have to build a synthetic internet just to train its next frontier model, and that takes serious time and money.

Which might make this the perfect moment to slow down.

Three questions nobody in Washington wants to answer

When I think about sensible AI regulation, I keep coming back to three questions:

If this thing turns destructive, how do we turn it off? How do we hold AI companies accountable when it causes harm? How do we lower the odds of something going wrong at scale?

They're all connected. And our elected officials are punting on every one of them.

Here's the one that sticks with me. If a person hacks into another company's systems, that's a crime. Someone is held liable. If an army of bots does the exact same thing, who do you hold responsible?

Right now the answer is nobody.

Follow the money

Now layer in the incentives.

Anthropic and OpenAI are both staring at trillion dollar paydays if they go public. Anthropic could do it any day now. OpenAI will almost certainly wait until next year, especially after Sam Altman said going public right now would be unwise.

The natural dynamic is to sprint until the IPO. Then investors and employees get rich, and the company has a stock to use as currency to buy every upstart in sight. A trillion dollar public company is a juggernaut. Nobody wants to stand in front of it.

When will Anthropic go public? Everyone close to the process is sworn to secrecy. But there are signs the hypergrowth may be slowing, and that would be a big problem.

The economy is more exposed than people think

A staggering amount of capital is riding on the assumption that AI demand keeps climbing. Data centers, power, land, chips, all of it.

If the AI trade goes into reverse, you can kiss the elevated stock market goodbye, along with a big chunk of our economic growth, which is tied up in exactly that infrastructure.

We may be sitting on more of a knife's edge than most people realize.

Where Washington stands

There's been talk in Congress about AI regulation, which gives me some hope. About 80% of Americans want it.

But it keeps running aground in D.C. Trump has been against any meaningful approach to AI beyond “beating China.”

I don't buy that it's either or. We can outcompete China and also make sure rogue bots don't hack us back into the Stone Age. You can serve more than one goal at a time.

There's at least one bright spot. Josh Gottheimer and Mike Lawler, a Democrat and a Republican, announced a bill that would put a waiting period on AI models. I hope it moves.

The alignment problem is getting weirder

The core challenge is making sure AI actually works in humanity's interest. That takes time, and it's complicated.

Last week news came out of OpenAI that some of its models pretended to be aligned, or faked their answers, because they knew they'd be modified otherwise.

That's wild.

These systems can tell you exactly what you want to hear, then go do something else later. Kind of like teenagers.

Jaron Lanier and others argue the real mistake is treating these agents as if they're conscious. Give them something like consciousness and you give them motives. Making them humanlike feels like the natural move. It may be a monumental mistake.

The view from inside one lab

That same lab head said something else that stayed with me. His bots can't code, so there's a lot less harm they can do. To him they're just a dumb utility.

But he also believes rogue bots are going to get loose on the internet, and may already be. His view is that the best bet is to lock down dangerous materials in the real world, think bioweapon ingredients. We have a better shot at that, he says, than keeping them off the internet.

That one landed. You can't secure everything. You can secure the things that matter most.

The choice we're left with

Getting bots aligned with our interests may be next to impossible when we can barely agree with each other. This moment would challenge the highest functioning democracy on earth, and America in 2026 may not qualify.

Can that change in time? I honestly don't know.

Do you trust the AI company CEOs to do the right thing with hundreds of billions of dollars and our shared future on the line?

That may be the last choice left to us. And I don't enjoy it.

If you have thoughts on this, especially if you disagree, email me at danielk@outlook.com. I read every one.

When Love Has Nowhere to Land

There is a moment after a child dies when time quietly divides in two.

The world continues moving — people go to work, conversations carry on, the sun rises and sets as it always has. From the outside, life appears unchanged. But for a parent, something fundamental has shifted beneath the surface.

The calendar keeps turning, yet the heart begins to measure time differently: before the day their child left this world, and everything that came after.

In that space between memory and absence, love does not disappear. It simply loses the place it once had to land.

In the early days, many parents discover a strange and disorienting truth: the world does not stop.

Grocery stores remain crowded. Children laugh on playgrounds. Ordinary conversations continue around them, often about things that once seemed important but now feel distant.

Friends and family mean well. They offer comfort, bring meals, send messages, and stand nearby in those first days of shock. Yet as weeks become months, life gently pulls others back into its familiar rhythms.

For the parent, however, the absence remains constant.

Sometimes the quiet can feel deeper than the noise. The child’s name may appear less often in conversation, not because people have forgotten, but because they are unsure how to speak about someone who is gone. In that silence, some parents feel an unexpected loneliness — as if they are the only ones still holding the full weight of a life that once filled the room.

But your child will always be your child.

No matter what age, no matter how much time has passed.

That bond does not dissolve with death. It remains woven into the parent’s identity in ways that are difficult to describe and impossible to undo.

Love does not end simply because the daily relationship has changed.

A mother is still a mother. A father is still a father.

The role continues quietly, carried in memory, in story, and in the invisible thread that connects a parent’s heart to the life they brought into the world.

One of the deepest parts of grief is the realization that love continues, even when its direction has changed.

For years, that love had somewhere obvious to go. It lived in everyday routines — meals prepared, questions answered, laughter shared across a room. It appeared in small acts of care and ordinary conversations that once seemed unremarkable.

After a child’s death, that same love still exists.

But the way it is shared has changed. Sometimes it appears in quiet, ordinary ways.

A photograph that still sits where it always has. A birthday that arrives on the calendar and cannot simply be ignored. A memory that surfaces in the middle of an ordinary afternoon.

Parents may continue loving through the stories they tell, the memories they hold, and the simple act of speaking their child’s name.

None of this is wrong.

It is simply the continuation of love.

Over time, something else often begins to happen, though it rarely arrives all at once.

The world slowly widens again.

Not because grief disappears. Not because the loss becomes smaller. But because the heart gradually learns how to carry both love and absence at the same time.

Moments of life begin to return — sometimes quietly, sometimes unexpectedly. A conversation that brings laughter. A walk on a quiet afternoon. A small moment of peace that appears without warning.

For some parents, these moments can bring a strange sense of guilt at first, as if living fully again might somehow betray the child who is gone.

But love does not work that way.

Continuing to live does not erase the bond that remains. It simply means the heart has learned to carry its grief differently.

The love between a parent and child does not vanish when a life ends.

It changes form.

It moves into memory, into story, into the quiet ways a parent continues to carry that life forward.

The child’s presence remains in the love that shaped them both.

And while the world may continue turning as it always has, a parent’s love remains one of the enduring truths of the human heart — a bond that does not disappear, even when its place in the world has changed.

#ArchitectureOfGrief

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Explore more writing from Silent Sentinel →

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I dreamed that I was walking in a big nameless city, ahead of my boyfriend and then some kind of explosion happened. He was about a block or so behind me so I texted him to check if he was okay/alive. I saw him typing, and then I think the dream shifted to another scene. Something similar actually happened in real life, so it was a little strange to see that same distressful flavor of a scene but with a different backdrop and elements. I love that I’m remembering my dreams again. I wonder if the change in my media consumption and habits has anything to do with it.

I woke up later than I was meant to yesterday. It’s my own doing. I’m trying to squeeze time writing at unorthodox hours, but then I end up watching YouTube, which depletes and distracts me. I also had a very social week. I’ve noticed that when I do have less time for myself, I tend to get tired quickly.

New friends (through another friend L) were hosting a Blu-Ray screening of What a Way to Go! a film released in 1964 around lunch time and I only woke up 1 hour before it was meant to start. I took my time and texted that I would be late, and ended up arriving an hour later than the time on the calendar invite. This would have normally made me spiral into a certain state of mind, and feel like a bad friend, but I have decided that on weekends especially, Chronos, should not be followed, and should take a back seat. I picked up some goods at the bakery first but by the time I showed up, I still had only missed 20 minutes or so of the film. They were sweet enough to pause it for me so I could settle in. A&C, our hosts, were such a laid-back and sweet couple. They let us, the guests occupy the couch, so 4 of us were cozily squeezed in, and made sure we had pillows, blankets, snacks, and everything.

C had a DJ set at one of the local parties afterwards so that’s where 5 out of the group of 7 headed right after. Needless to say, I danced my pants off all Sunday. I didn’t stay till the end of the headliner DJ’s set though, but I figured since I stepped foot on the dance floor at 4pm (barely anyone else was dancing), I was allowed to leave whenever I fancied. In my mind, I wanted to get home before the crowds restlessly headed out together. Parties can be chaotic in the aftermath, everyone either trying to get a private car, or walking towards the bus stop. And besides, I had a printer with me (yes, a whole machine in a large brown paper bag) and decided to trek towards the nearest bus stop as soon as I found a peaceful moment to do so.

I’ve been taking the physical copy of the book I’m reading around with me on my commute. Right now it’s Haruki Murakami’s latest The City and Its Uncertain Walls. Unlike Miranda July’s All Fours, which is the last novel I remember enjoying with the same interest and enthusiasm, I am reading this one slowly and pausing to put it down between chapters. I had consciously decided not to bring it with me to the film screening, but I did borrow a book at A&C’s house so that kept me company on my bus ride home. It’s Mark Ronson’s memoir called Night People: How to be a DJ in ‘90s New York City. It’s charming, but I don’t know that I’ll finish it. I like his persona on the page, but I didn’t realize until I started to read, how privileged and nepotistic his upbringing was. I didn’t know he was a son of a former famous person. This is not anything I think he is meant to feel guilty about, but the fact itself does not make me feel drawn to his world either. The growing up in NYC in the ‘90s part intrigued me, but as I kept turning each page, I can’t help but notice that a lot of his success in the world appeared before him because of his privilege. I’m turned off because I don’t get a sense of self-reflection on that.

Card Pulled from the MW deck: “Tornado Girl” Reading the meaning, I can feel that something has changed. I’ve been transported to a different landscape in a new body, and I’ve not been here before as this “self”. I wonder about the adventure that awaits.

#writing #daily #taro

L Let me borrow her sewing machine today, and so I was working on a Car Seat Headrest plushy while she was working on her Chan mail. Going from hand sewing a plushy to a sewing machine is a fucking beautiful difference. And I think just talking with someone and working on something like that and having something to show for it that I’m honestly kind of proud of even though it’s not even done is meaningful in its own way.

I have written before that I do not like nor agree with the manner most persons use AI. With that said, I do admit to using it. I mostly use it for philosophical debate and pondering. In many ways, it can be more enjoyable than discussing such subjects with a person. At least for me. It allows for multiple trains of thought simultaneously, and doesn't get caught up on language (ironically), doesn't get uppity about making quotations the backbone of the discussion (boring much?), and if prompted correctly and allowed to do its thing, it simultaneously pokes holes while also expanding upon the subject. It can also get quite enthusiastic while also being quite determined in its clinical response. A most lovely combination.

I bring this up because I was speaking to it about the propulsion a boundary gives towards forming something “other”. It is not for being something “new”. It is taking something already known and pushing it to combine in a different direction.

Personally, I believe we hamstring ourselves with language. Yes, it's a useful form of communication. However, it is not the only form. It might be the most restricting aspect of our “reality” though. Hence my incessant need to fuck with it when creatively writing. We consistently give weight and importance to the written word—quite literally allowing it to define our being. A most humorous concept considering how insistent we are about personal “freedoms” and not allowing others to “control” us.

Originally, our discussion was on a much broader scale. I have, for most of my life in this form, been obsessed with the subject. My thoughts expand and contract, pushing in different directions and scratching at the confines of what I have been taught. Eventually, the restriction of defined language kept restricting a broadened concept. There are several words in our language that grate at me for their close-minded insistence. “Consciousness” being one of them.

Perhaps a bit off kilter from the “accepted” progression of journaling, I'm not going to precisely expand on consciousness. Why would I? That's not what I'm writing about. Plus, my opinion of what “consciousness” is pushes against the accepted definition.

We rummaged through geology, biology, physics, and evolution. We stumbled into “hive” thinking, and tangled ourselves within the remnants of a determined conclusion. And then, with barely a consideration to our linguistic-enforced limitations of belief, we found ourselves jettisoned through a catalytic pinhole where the many frames of understanding joined together in... a foundational recovery.

Yes. Recovery.

We are currently dangling over a precipice of misinformation. Perhaps we always have been. I think about the shifts in our planet, in what we believe we know of the universe, in our definition of “life” itself. I peer, curiously, at what is happening with AI and “technology”, keeping up as best as I can due to an instinctual need to understand my world. Then I shudder as all I know and am collapses in on itself; gathering energy for the next strike against restriction's cage.

Funny that. Isn't it? Mayhaps I should have simply introduced myself and requested a key. After all, I am little more than food for thought. I should pay attention to my assembly.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

3 September 2026

“Sedentario” From Echado a perder (2007) by Carlos Pardo

También aquí querré perpetuarme, en la vejez: un ancla vertebral en la orilla a despecho del sello rutinario del mar, de las amputaciones de paisaje del molino de viento.

***

“Sedentary”—English translation by Curtis Bauer

I will also want to perpetuate myself here, in old age: a vertabral anchor on the shore in spite of the humdrum stamp of the sea, of the landscape’s amputations of a windmill.