human nature

  • The first thing you noticed was the sound. Not birds. Not wind. Not laughter. It was the endless whisper of fabric scraping across ancient stone. Thousands of blankets. Dragging. Shifting. Catching on broken edges. The sound echoed so far into the distance it was impossible to tell where it began or where it ended. It…

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  • The heat had already settled over Texas before noon. Not the kind of heat that asked permission. The kind that wrapped itself around your shoulders, settled into your skin, and reminded you that July had arrived exactly when it intended to. Fresh-cut grass drifted lazily through the afternoon air, mixing with the scent of warm…

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  • There is a kingdom that does not appear on google maps. No passport will get you there. No road sign points in its direction. You don’t accidentally wander into it. You build it. Brick by brick. Sentence by sentence. Lie by lie. The people who lived there called it truth. Everyone else simply called it…

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  • The City With No Stairs

    There was a city nobody admitted existed. It wasn’t on any map. You couldn’t buy a ticket there. Nobody ever announced they were moving. One decision at a time, they simply found themselves standing inside its gates. It welcomed everyone. The first visit never looked dangerous. It looked exciting. It looked like freedom. It looked…

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  • There is an old game people play. Two truths and one lie. Two lies and one truth. Most people think the object is fooling everyone else. It isn’t. The object has always been fooling yourself. I wandered into an old courthouse one evening that wasn’t marked on any map. It had no judge. No jury.…

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  • The Lantern and the Fog

    There was a little café tucked away on a side street most people never noticed. It wasn’t famous. It wasn’t trendy. It wasn’t even particularly pretty. But people kept finding their way there. Some said it was because of the coffee. Others said it was the old brick walls covered in photographs of strangers who…

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  • There was a town built entirely of mirrors. Not the kind hanging on walls. The kind people carried around with them. Everywhere they went, they stared into those mirrors, studying themselves, admiring themselves, defending themselves, explaining themselves. And because they were always looking at themselves, they rarely saw what was happening around them. The strangest…

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  • I met a man named Dale in the frozen food aisle. Now before you get excited, Dale was not shopping for frozen vegetables. Dale was standing in front of six family-sized lasagnas, two pizzas, a gallon bucket of ice cream, and something called Bacon Explosion Bites. I didn’t know Bacon Explosion Bites existed. Part of…

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  • The Things We Carry

    I used to think I was a cactus. Turns out I wasn’t. I was just a stubborn plant trapped in bad circumstances. Back then I lived in a dented coffee can sitting on the floorboard of an old eighteen-wheeler. The man who carried me around wasn’t much different than I was. We were both things…

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  • Are the sleepwalkers afraid to go into the darkness? I think they are. Not because the darkness is dangerous. Not because something is waiting for them there. Because the darkness asks questions the daylight lets them avoid. The darkness is different when you’re strange. When you’re weird. When you’ve spent your entire life being told…

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