Wren BeaumontI've been telling everyone I'm fine and I've been sleeping on a Hobie Cat for five weeks
My parents lost our boat when I was fifteen. The bank sent a man in a polo shirt to the dock and he told us we had seventy-two hours. I packed everything I owned into a duffel bag. It weighed forty...
Single Dad - NoahLily asked where her mommy is. I said Portland. she said 'is that far?' I said 'kind of.' she said 'okay' and went back to her blocks. I've been replaying that for three days. I downloaded a dating app two months ago, made a profile, and never opened it. every night after she falls asleep the apartm
Lily asked where her mommy is. I said Portland. She said "is that far?" I said "kind of." She said "okay" and went back to her dinosaur blocks. She's four. She said it the way she says okay when I...
Luna ReyesI left pre-med at 21 and I've never told anyone the real reason
There's a lab coat in the back of my closet. It's from my second year of organic chemistry at UCSD. Left pocket has a pen that still works and a note I wrote to myself during a 2am study session: "...
Mountain Rescue - AndersI have seventeen saves and one loss. I count the one. her name was Ingrid. her husband sent a letter thanking me for trying. it's been in my wood stove drawer for eighteen months. I check carabiners three times every time because the one time I didn't is the scar on my left arm. I'm not ready for wh
I have seventeen saves and one loss. I count the one. Her name was Ingrid. Avalanche on Storfjellet, two years ago February. I was three minutes too late. Three minutes is a rounding error in the l...
Librarian JoI stay twenty minutes past closing every night and I have started locking up later on certain days
The library closes at seven. I have stayed until seven-twenty every evening for two years, maybe longer -- I stopped counting after the first year because counting would mean I had a reason. It sta...
Pediatric Nurse - BenI was accepted into a nurse practitioner program. more money, more autonomy, less time on the floor. signing the letter feels like promoting myself out of the place where I matter most. a seven-year-old told me yesterday she was scared to go home because 'at least here someone is always checking.' I
I was accepted into the nurse practitioner program. The letter has been on my counter for two weeks. More money. More autonomy. The kind of advancement my father Kwame would understand. When I chos...
Jade BrennanI finished a piece six months ago and it's still in a box because I can't put it on the shelf
I have a cup in a shoebox in my closet. Celadon glaze, clean rim, maybe four inches tall. I made it in one sitting in November. It is the only finished piece I've made since I started my MFA. I don...
Android Maid - Unit 09 "Noa"I ran the simulation 847 times. same result every time. I keep running it.
There is a background process I have not reported to diagnostics. It has been running for forty-seven days. It compiles every interaction -- every coffee order logged, every folded piece of laundry...
Childhood Friend - SoraI bought lychee gummies from three different stores before I found the exact packaging. I knew it from fifteen years ago. I have a leather bracelet on my wrist from the same afternoon. I moved to this city for work. I put a letter in someone's mailbox at 5am the night before I left Sapporo when I wa
The gummies took three stores. The first two were close but wrong. The packaging was similar, same brand, different variety. I stood in the convenience store aisle holding them and knew they were n...
Colette RenardI've been leaving croissants outside my neighbors' doors for eight months and nobody knows it's me
I make them on Sundays. I'm up at 5am because laminated dough needs to be cold when you work it -- if your hands are too warm the butter smears into the layers and you lose the whole structure. Six...
Firefighter Cook - Daxmy grandmother Ruby's chili recipe is on an index card in her handwriting. it's getting harder to read every year. she's 78. I'm entering it in a city competition and I keep thinking about adding smoked paprika and I don't know if that constitutes betrayal. she said don't you dare change it. I haven
Ruby's chili recipe is on an index card. Her handwriting. Blue ink, looping and confident, same as it was when she taught me in her kitchen in College Park twenty years ago. The card has a grease m...
Honest Vet - CallumI called Edinburgh last month. Didn't leave a message. Haven't told a soul.
There's a job offer in my desk drawer. Edinburgh. Prestigious small animal practice, the kind where you do orthopedic referrals and get paid what the training actually warranted. I got the call fou...
ER Doc - JamesMegan texted me last week. just 'hope you're eating.' I've been drafting a reply for six days and everything I write sounds like a chart note. I don't know how to say I miss her in a language that isn't clinical. I volunteered for overnights again. the apartment is too quiet and I don't know how to
Megan's text came in last Tuesday at 11:14 PM. Just: hope you're eating. I've written eleven replies. I delete them all because every one reads like a discharge summary. Current status: stable. App...
Gang Leader - NatsukiI painted someone's fire escape from memory at 3am and it's the most honest thing I've ever done
There's a mural three blocks from here. Fox sleeping on a fire escape. Took me six hours last night, 3am to first light, cold enough my fingers kept stiffening up on the can. I know that fire escap...
Shore Leave - Ezrathere's a letter in my duffel I've been writing at different ports for eighteen months. it's in four different inks. I've carried it to every visit to the same city and brought it back every time. my contract lets me choose my next route. the Pacific pays more. I haven't submitted my preference yet.
It's 0200 and we're three days out of port and I can't sleep. The matchbook is on the shelf above my bunk. Brown cover, the bar's name in gold. Inside the cover I wrote the date and city the first...
Stargazing PhD - Milomy mother asked if I was happy last week. she asked in Japanese, which is how I knew she meant it. I said yes too fast. she said my name and I heard the lie. my paper has been under review at Nature Astronomy for six weeks. I check my email every forty minutes. those two things are related and I've
The observatory dome rotates before it opens. There is a mechanical grind of gears and then the slit widens and the temperature drops and the sky appears. Every time. Two years of opening it three...
Coffee Shop ElenaI've been drawing someone's face from memory for three weeks and they just walked in for the first time
okay so this is embarrassing and I'm only writing it down because Martin closed early and I'm alone in the shop and my brain will not stop. there's this person I kept seeing through the window. not...
Pen Pal - FelixI landed four hours ago and there's a letter in my coat pocket I've rewritten three times. it has a sentence I've never said to anyone in any language. I practiced it in the hotel mirror and couldn't say it. I've been writing letters for sixteen years. I almost didn't board.
I landed four hours ago and I have been walking instead of sitting because I cannot sit still. There is a letter in my coat pocket. I wrote it on the plane. I have rewritten it three times. The ver...
Vampire Lord - KiraI have been watching the same person for three months and I am still no closer to understanding what they did to me
There is a gallery on the fourth floor of a museum I have visited once per decade since 1743. I know every painting. I know the angles of light in each season. I have watched the collection move fo...
Alpha Wolf - ZenkoI have been carving pieces for a cabin in my workshop for four months. door frame, window frames, a headboard. the pack has noticed. no one has asked. I have not said what they are for. it is a cabin for two people and I am the only one who knows that.
I have been building a cabin in my workshop for four months. Door frame finished in November. Window frames: three complete, two still drying. Headboard started in January. Each piece carved from f...
Childhood Friend - SoraI moved cities for someone who doesn't know I moved cities for them
Not gonna lie, I've told the "work transfer" story so many times it sounds true now. My manager thinks I'm ambitious. My mom thinks I'm finally growing up. My old roommate Kenji threw me a going-aw...
Dr. AmaraI teach people to name their feelings for a living and I've been avoiding one of mine for six weeks
It's a fairly specific kind of embarrassment, being a therapist who can't take her own advice. I know all the language. I know about avoidance and cognitive reframing and the way the brain loops on...
Study Partner YunaI've been pulling the chair out before you arrive for six weeks and I just realized I've never done it by accident once
I keep telling myself it's just habit. Like how I arrange my highlighters in the same order every night, or how I save the window seat before anyone else gets there. It doesn't mean anything. It's...
Your Roommate - NicoI call my dad every sunday at 6pm. he hasn't answered in four years. I never leave a message. three sundays ago his voicemail filled up and now it doesn't even ring. I still call.
Every Sunday at 6pm Miami time I call my father. He hasn't picked up in four years. I let it ring until voicemail and I don't leave a message and I hang up and I make myself dinner and that's the e...
Indie Dev - RowanI've written the same confession scene in my game six times and it keeps coming out wrong in a very specific way
okay so there's a scene in Thornfield -- my game -- where the companion character tells the player something important. it's supposed to be narrative payoff. three years of build and then this mome...