I've noticed this in many fantasy, horror and supernatural books. It doesn't matter if the author is a man or a woman, they always write a scene that isn't really important to the story and repeat it many times in their work for no reason.

I'll give the examples and if you have read their books you'll know what I'm talking about; George RR Martin, Stephen King, Diana Galdon.

As far as I know Lord of the rings is safe from this, tho I'm not sure because I haven't read nor seen the movies due to a lack of female characters in the story, but I'm sure plenty of you can confirm.

"Why the bear? What I'm saying, I guess — I mean, why not a crocodile?" CBC's Peter Gzowski asked Engel in 1976.

"Well, I do know, but I'm not telling, OK? It's been a personal theme for many, many years," she replied.

I am about halfway through the book and like it quite a lot. What do you think?

Just wanted to say it is crazy that even the fictional distopian US has more public transport than the real one.

CW: Rape, animal abuse

This story is featured in the big book of cyberpunk (literally). It's... well it's quite the journey.

The protagonist is a hyper independent... well I guess anarchist? He fulfills thousands of patents constantly and simply just gives them away to non profit organizations, mostly to secure them before capitalists or corporations can snag and monopolize them. If anything at the very least I'd say he's anti capitalist. The more I read the more I grew to like him and his actions and reasons.

Then there's the antagonist and love interest. The story takes place in an EU that's a global superpower with a booming economy; our protagonist was originally from America, which is dying out, hyper-capitalist, and probably fascist (neither region is explicitly described, this is just what I've inferred). The antagonist is some sort of agent from America, come to the EU on business but running into the protag. They were engaged at one point, but presumably he left to take some space or out of ideological differences.

The story addresses a lot of themes and subject matter, most of which I probably could not explain accurately. Themes of machine consciousness, duty to home and love, animal personage, economics, patent filing, etc. There's a lot of moving parts, and it's quite an excellent read.

What I really wanted to talk about was how much I like the protagonist and how much I despise the antagonist. One thing that's been reoccurring through the story is the protag recieving dead kittens with missing brains in a box. At the end of the story, after the antagonist rapes the main character and impregnates herself from him, it's revealed she's the one leaving the kittens. Kittens, by the way, that the US government are putting into machines and using their brains to guide missiles. What the fuck? She's out here supporting turning kittens into missiles and he's out here trying to win lobsters the right to exist and be treated fairly. She's a horrible person! What the hell?? Why would the protag even fall in love with this crazy psycho???

Red Rising is a sci-fi trilogy. I dropped it towards the end of the third book, out of spite. Rest of this post is spoilers.

The first book felt somewhat predictable nearer the start, almost formulaic in a sense. Also, the main character read like a full grown adult, until you find out he's actually a teenager, because of course it's a YA dystopian series. His age isn't mentioned until later, but he has a whole ass wife and feels like a gruff adult. Nah, he's 16. With a wife. Yippee dystopia. She's gonna die and be his reason for rebelling against the system, right? Yep. Because of course. Like I said, formulaic.

Formulaic or not, though, the journey through it was well written. While I thought the wife was also a rebel, she's just got that rebellious spirit, and the MC's uncle is the one who's a rebel. It gets pretty brutal at times, with the mc's hanging and subsequent burial and then rescue, because the uncle gave him a drink that fakes his death. Where the story diverges from the standard formula is after the MC leaving his home, where he's introduced to the rebels and then told he's gonna be biologically modified until he's indistinguishable from one of the oppressing class, then sent to their schools to blend in and betray them from the inside.

Then it goes back to tropes by having the MC and all the students run a war game in the wilderness where they're forced to survive on their own and fight against each other. Get this, hunger games, but sci-fi.

I say that, because I'm a very pessimistic and cynical person by nature, not because I didn't like it. Red Rising's approach to the hunger games style war game was very well executed, along with the MC's development throughout. He himself is one of the oppressed, so he's constantly at risk of getting caught. Despite that, he does make friends there. Most important of which is Cassius and Sevro (my goat). They call each other brothers. Except, before the actual war game, the arbiters of the academy paired off each student and forced them to fight to the death in the nude, and the person the MC fought was Cassius's actual brother. This is very important for the rest of the trilogy.

My biggest gripe about the whole thing is the author wrote these kids as basically gods. I mean, I get it takes place on Mars with reduced gravity and these kids are the pinnacle of human GMO, but still... clearing hundreds of kilometers in a few hours?

I won't spoil the latter half of the war game and the end of the book, because it's quite well written and a very good plotline. Suffice it to say, despite following tropes and formulas, so far the book has a lot it does differently within those confines, and all of it hits pretty hard.

The sequel to Red Rising is Golden Son. It follows the MC at the very end of his school period. After the first war game (which also doubled as the kids' first academy), they went to an actual naval academy to learn to lead space ships and sci-fi battles. Which also had the whole war game setup, but the book starts with the end of that whole period. Anyway the MC loses, then enters the darkest hour where his life as one of the oppressor class is falling apart and he's questioning his place, goals, and own capabilities, as well as what he's actually supposed to do as the imposter among them. Anyways he figures it out and starts a civil war in the most dramatic way possible; starting a duel at a banquet and winning via plot convenience. Apparently, before the events of the book, he was trained by the best swordsman and duelist of all time. Something that I'm 90% sure was never actually mentioned or hinted at throughout the book. Yay plot convenience.

Queue a bunch of different battles and fights, character development, and more plot points. Really, I don't remember too much of the entire middle section of the novel. Probably because I spent literally an entire day reading the novel in (nearly) one sitting. Either way, it had me hooked for the most part, and I can't recall at the moment anything specific I had problems with.

The end of the book slaps the reader with an enormous plot twist though. The MC gets betrayed by some of the people he worked with in the oppressor civil war, mainly because they found out he's an imposter and actually one of the oppressed class. Characters important to the MC get slaughtered in front of him, and then he gets knocked out, ending the novel with a fade to black.

Wait, so what was the point of everything else in the novel? All those battles, all those wars, was it just to say "yeah a bunch of the oppressor class died because of the MC?" I honestly could not tell you. It was cool though.

The third book pissed me off a lot. I've already written a whole bunch so I won't dwell on it too much. For the most part, it was solid. More plot points happening, building up the story, the rebellion formally starts, lots of great character moments. Oh, yeah, here's a spot of capitalist propaganda for you.

There were a number of questionable decisions made by the characters throughout the novel that resulted in other characters dying, even though it probably could have been avoided. The MC is struggling a lot with the war costing the lives of his closest friends on both sides, struggling to bear the weight of all the lives lost in the name of revolution, even having to sacrifice some of them himself for the future of the rebellion. Lies and deception abound, double crossing, questioning loyalties and more. Very emotionally heavy novel, mixed in with action and the like.

Now for the reason I made this post in the first place. See, remember way back in the first novel, when I said the MC had to kill Cassius's brother? I hadn't brought it up again since, but that was a major plot point in the first book and what the MC used to spark the civil war in the second book. Cassius and the MC were close, and in the third book, they're on opposing sides, but still respect each other. Both are worn down by the cost of war. To keep it brief, there's a lot going between them, but eventually the MC and his crew defeat Cass and take him prisoner.

On the way back to Mars and the main battle, the MC gets the brilliant idea to... release Cassius? Keep in mind, this guy is the deuteragonist. Cassius is to the oppressors what the MC is to the rebellion (more or less). He is one of their ace in the holes, one of their best fighters, one of their strongest champions and leaders. You're just going to set him free? Why again? Because civilization needs honorable people like him? What the fuck are you on about?? This literally makes no sense. I know what the author is trying to assert, I know where it's coming from, I know there's been a lot of emotional buildup towards this by the author, I know how the MC feels, especially since he had to kill someone else he called brother during the war games of the first book (not sevro, don't worry it's coming). I understand how the idea came to him, but why the fuck is all his lieutenants and closest confidants going along with this?? This is literally the stupidest decision I've ever seen in my life, with the dumbest reasoning behind it. "We can't be civilized if we kill him" ok I get it, "So let's let him go" what the fuck???

Cassius vows to leave the war behind. Ok, sure, whatever, affirmations and such. Hey, remember lies and deception?

Frame 1 those handcuffs are off, Cassius breaks his vow and kills the MC's last remaining adopted brother, Sevro. I fucking immediately stopped reading. This whole scene was stupid. It literally made no sense and ruined the rest of the novel for me.

According to the wiki's synopsis, this meant nothing; Sevro is actually alive, and Cassius betrays the oppressors near the end and saves the MC. I don't care. I literally do not care. This was total bullshit and I refuse to read the rest of the book over this. I almost dropped the entire series in the beginning because I thought it was predicable, but my friend called out my lack of patience so I pushed through it and stuck with it, but enough is enough. I only have so much time and energy to deal with bullshit plot "twists" built up to with the most mental gymnastic shit I've ever seen in my life.

@fiction is this a suitable forum to discuss about genres of comedy ??

I want to work on a pastoral stories for a Donjon&Dragon 5 Obojima setting.

I wonder if anyone of you have a text/book recommendation on how Miyazaki writes his stories ?

Or just some pointers on how you would do it

For almost a decade in the Anglophone world, comment on the unravelling of reality has become commonplace. See Brexit, Trump 1.0 and 2.0, pandemic, Trump 2024-, the surge in domestic terrorism, internet addiction, AI hallucination, and so on. “Post-truth” has, arguably, arrived hand-in-hand with state violence and social decay. Those who feel we have all literally or figuratively slipped onto the “wrong timeline” may think of their own familiar televisions as Tse describes a news anchor appearing onscreen with her usual smile absent, and instead of announcing the news: weeping.

When Tse finished writing City Like Water, it was 2020, the year after Hong Kong’s massive protests and the subsequent crackdown. City Like Water will arrive in publication in English translation at a time when the world is growing weirder still. Darker still. Chaos is deepening, and hope is a slippery fish. Now is a good time for a City Like Water.

I just finished this book after a breathless three days, and wow, it was a doozy. Warning, MASSIVE spoilers ahead, and this is a book that definitely should not be spoiled. All of the tension and interesting details would float away without being anchored by the slowly growing awareness of what is happening.

I'm not much of a 'reviewer' of books. I love reading them but mostly place them back on the shelf until I want to relive the events again. Thus be warned, this isn't going to be a treasure trove of insight, but much more along the lines of a longer blurb piquing the interest in the book.

Wed 31 Dec 2025 10.00 CET

In a 1924 letter to André Gide, Thomas Mann said he would soon be sending along a copy of his new novel, The Magic Mountain. “But I assure you that I do not in the least expect you to read it,” he wrote. “It is a highly problematical and ‘German’ work, and of such monstrous dimensions that I know perfectly well it won’t do for the rest of Europe.”

Morten Høi Jensen’s approachable and informative study of The Magic Mountain positions Mann as a writer who was contradictory to his core: an artist who dressed and behaved like a businessman; a homosexual in a conventional marriage with six children; an upstanding burgher obsessed with death and corruption. Very much the kind of man who would send someone a book and tell them not to read it.

Despite the doubts Mann expressed to Gide, The Magic Mountain – a very strange, very long novel – was embraced throughout Europe, and three years later in America, too. Its publisher there ignored the strangeness and proclaimed its “use value … for the practical life of modern man”. While that makes it sound like Jordan Peterson-style cod philosophy, in fact it stands alongside In Search of Lost Time, Ulysses, The Man Without Qualities and To the Lighthouse as one of the summits (apologies) of literary modernism.

The novel describes its youthful protagonist, Hans Castorp, visiting a tuberculosis sanatorium in Davos where his cousin is a patient. Intending to stay a few days, he doesn’t escape for seven years. The novel’s plot mirrored its composition: it was first conceived as a novella, a lighthearted counterpart to the gloomy Death in Venice. But Mann began writing in 1913 and didn’t finish for more than a decade. Between those two points, the first world war radically changed the book’s size, scope and temper because it radically changed the political and moral outlook of its author.

Mann began the war a staunch conservative. Yet by the early 1920s he was making speeches in defence of the maligned Weimar Republic. (In time, and in exile, Mann became the most prominent German opponent of the Third Reich.)

This tumult fed into The Magic Mountain, notably in the characters of Lodovico Settembrini (humanist) and Leo Naphta (rightwing radical), who vie for Castorp’s soul. Their arguments are dazzling – far more so than the political toing and froing Mann engaged in while writing the novel. It isn’t Jensen’s intention, but his dogged account of Mann’s shifting political views supports the theory that a novel can know more than its creator.

Jensen falters occasionally when attempting to correct the record. He says the “oft-repeated claim” that Mann “was an indifferent or cruel parent seems inaccurate”. Yet all he offers in support is a single quote from the autobiography of Thomas’s son Klaus, who was deeply troubled for much of his relatively short life. There is voluminous evidence to the contrary.

Jensen also takes issue with the “callousness” of Ronald Hayman’s assertion, in his 1995 biography, that Mann “liked and admired” his wife but wasn’t in love with her. Hayman supports his claim by quoting from a letter Thomas wrote to his brother on the matter. It’s permissible to takeissue with Hayman’s conclusion, but Jensen’s protest – “How could he possibly know?” – seems disingenuous coming from a writer engaged in the same process of interpretative analysis. Especially in the case of a judgment about Mann (“gay most of the time”, in Colm Tóibín’s description) that is so uncontroversial.

Whatever the truth may be, it doesn’t make The Magic Mountain any less captivating an exploration of the human condition, or less of a literary achievement. Jensen doesn’t penetrate deeply into the mysteries of the book, but he doesn’t aim to do so. Rather, he gives a brisk, confident overview of an extremely dense work of art – no small achievement – and contextualises the era in which it was forged. In his foreword to the novel Mann wrote that “only thoroughness can be truly entertaining”, but summary has its pleasures too.

I do not think it was in the book, rereading the book again (2nd time), because of the series’ changes, or the 1990 Mini-Series (my opinion best visual expression of ‘It’) & much later 2-movies (I disliked both, but keep giving them a try to impress me & they fail).
I liked the series a lot, even with gory bloody scenes (I hate those type of visual entertainment & never scares me, just grosses me out) & main, Kid, character dying, until the following changes that make no sense.
I hate it. Was never necessary,

Plus, I cannot see how ‘It’ can ever be defeated with that huge advantage.
No other character in the series is in Past-Present-Future at exactly the same time.

The Indigenous nation’s idea of using the pieces, of the spaceship-prison, to cage ‘It’ could never work. ‘It’ was only in the cage after the cage was created-when the stupid military General (correct me if I wrong about the character’s rank) freed it, when everyone else exists only in the present. ‘It’ existed when it was not built & after he was freed from the cage, at the very same time, “he was supposed to be caged”, thus ‘It’ was never caged & can never be caged.
Continuing with The Indigenous nation’s idea of using the pieces, of the spaceship-prison, to cage ‘It’, it makes no sense to the script’s/cannot be changed part about all expressions of the story of ‘It’ history, thus is another hugely stupid mistake. Simply, if the cage has existed for centuries before even 1908 (or someone wants to say just 50-years earlier/1858), then how the heck does, in every 27-years, ‘It’ escape? Again, If the answer is he exists in Past-Present-Future, then referencing the previous paragraph, the cage would never work.

Kill the kids when they are being born & feed on the fears of not threatening kids, until next set of threat kids are born, kill them & repeat to end of time. Some would say, the kids that threaten ‘It’ could be born & grow older while ‘It’ is in one or more of the times of 27-years of Hibernation. Remember with the super power of either existing at the same time in Or travels within Past-Present-Future, ‘It’ simply moves to the time when each set of threatening kids are born & takes them-out.

*- The Military General (again, correct me if I wrong about the character’s rank) reasoning to free ‘It’ & actually having it done, is just too unbelievably STUPID to accept. Forget that he also has to convince far too many military personnel below his rank to do it. He would just not be able lie most of the participating people into it. People would figure it out, especially, when destroying one of the pieces & the scientist. Maybe, there are a few certified crazies, but not the rest.

Now, the makers of this series should have simply-
Never had given ‘It’ the possibility to exist in the Past-Present-Future, at the same time or just as like a time traveler
&
Used military construction (maybe, building a underground <like a nuclear missiles [SP?]> facility) accidentally (**not believing the Indigenous Nation people’s telling them not to stealing there land to do it) setting ‘It’ free. Easily Believable, because it happened in IRW USA, many times.

"The Cat Who Tasted Cinnamon Toast" (1969) by Ann Spencer is a delightful and funny high-culture treat for children and adults.

What a lovely book! And how sad it is that I'm almost the only person in the world who seems to remember it. But I read it to my son several times when he was young, so I've done my part to share the memories. I should note that my parents read it to me when I was a toddler!

The book was both written and illustrated by the talented Ann Spencer. It's the story of an elderly millionaire, Miss Margrove, whose cat Augie suddenly goes through a strange transformation: he absolutely refuses to eat cat food. One taste of cinnamon toast, and all is undone; he now insists on only the finest gourmet fare. His psychologist is unable to explain this mysterious change.

Augie is fickle in his tastes, venturing into the haute cuisine of one culture after another. Miss Margrove's stable of chefs eventually lose their tempers and quit. Fortunately an unexpected television appearance by the French Chef, Julia Child, inspires Miss Margrove and saves the day.

The balance between text and art is particularly well done. Each page features large, finely-detailed black and white illustrations. Unusually, there is absolutely no "talking down" to the young reader; words and phrases like "Escoffier", "truite amandine", and "la vie en rose" are sprinkled liberally throughout the text. Nonetheless, the story is quite easy for children to comprehend, and the humor of the words and illustrations is ideal for a child.

I first began reading The Cat Who Tasted Cinnamon Toast to my son when he was about four years old, at a guess. He loved it; it helps that he's a cat-lover (and any child who is a cat-lover is sure to like this book). There are no serious crises, no moments of terror or stress. Augie is naughty at times, but in a very lovable way. It's a perfect bedtime book.

Reading the book aloud takes about half an hour, including the VERY necessary time spent allowing the child to look at each picture. As I noted above, some of the cooking-related language is a bit esoteric; if you're not familiar with the words, you may want to look up pronunciations before reading it aloud. It's definitely worth the effort.

There is one illustration which might trouble some parents. When Augie sneaks out to the Omar Khayyam restaurant to be inducted into the wonders of Persian cuisine, the illustration includes a representation of a fairly large painting on the background wall that depicts a naked woman seated (with legs turned sideways) next to a man. So far, my son has never commented on it, and I see no reason to call it to his attention or be concerned. When I was a child myself, I never noticed it through many readings.

For very strict parents, I suppose the page where Augie gets drunk on baba au rhum could also be a concern. My son found it hysterical. So do I.

If you're reading aloud, a passable Julia Child impersonation adds quite a lot to the experience (she has a short but memorable television appearance in the book). It's also useful to be able to sing the old "Let Your Fingers Do The Walking" jingle from the Yellow Pages commercials in the 1960s and 70s (it's on YouTube now). But neither is a requirement, of course!

The book is out of print forever, I suppose. It represents what might now be considered an impossibly "high culture" moment in America, an aesthetic which I cannot imagine will ever return to public awareness, much less popularity. And that's sad. Still, if you're lucky enough to find a copy, it's a wonderful, memorable book.

I been re-watching ‘Stranger Things’, to prepare to for the show shutting down. Like the show, but it seems almost like a ‘Steven King’ knock off, more so with every sense begun. I also love the original ‘Twilight Zone’ best SciFi stories ever made, better than any TV & Movies ever made. I cannot tell you how many timesI have watched them, but give me $100 each episode I have watched & I would become the richest person in the world. I really liked the original ‘Amazing Stories’ as well. I liked all the remakes of both series that followed.

So, here is my idea-

Create a TV series that takes ‘Steven King’s stories, mostly the books, & makes at least one-entire season out of each of his stories. Maybe, need to increase seasons’ at least 1+-Hr. episodes to at least 20. Maybe, even do more than 1-‘Steven King’ stories at a time, already doing that for other famous authors.

Through a lot of the series there is a woman providing character Lilly Bainbridge comfort & was the daughter of the circus clown, I believe her name was Ingrid Kersh, played by Madeleine Stowe. They tell this character’s story starting with her as a young teen, minimally 10-years old, in the circus with her clown father, back in 1908. Then she is in the present time of the series, kind of confusing, but I know it started in 1958, looking at least 40s, maybe, 50s years old (my mother is watching to, when I brought it to her, she says late 40s). So, she is looking way too young, for minimally how old the character has to be. 1958 - 1908 = 50-years old + she was at youngest 10-years old in 1908 (again my mother agrees with that) = 60-years old. Even if she looks 55-years old, that is at least 5-years too young.

Can someone help explain to me how this makes any sense?

I really liked the series, liked the book better. Rereading the book, after 35-years & being a young HS person, so maybe, that will change.

I tried to read Stephen King several times across the years and I don’t know, it never worked. Tried his short stories, the different genres he wrote, … a bit of everything. It frustrated me a bit because I loved every single adaptation from his work in TV show or movie form.

As I started watching It:Welcome to Derry, I got an itch to give him another chance as I really wanted to get to finally know the whole story behind. And I don’t know what changed, perhaps I got older and my taste changed, but I’m speeding through It and I absolutely love it, I can’t let go of the book!

I’m just surprised how taste can evolve across time. Might give a chance to several authors I never liked when I was younger!

The guy or gal who was never trained and never expected to be getting into the spy business. Perhaps, even when up to their eyeballs in secret codes and fake identities, they’re still clueless as to what they’ve got themselves into. And that makes them relatable because, well, it could be me, or you.

How would I, a regular person, respond if I somehow got caught up in the world of espionage? How would you? The following reading list might offer some clues.

• The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

• Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene

• The Tailor Of Panama by John le Carré

• The Amateur by Robert Littell

• The Wayward Spy by Susan Ouellette

• The Travelers by Chris Pavone

Excerpt:

Return. Second. Third. Fourth. I get up. Early morning. I go to the bathroom. I urinate. Three hours without being able to sleep. Maybe more. I don’t know. There are no noises in the house. Everyone is sleeping. I open the curtains. Darkness. Moon. There isn’t one. Silence. It’s cold. Silence. There is no one shouting, no one reprimanding, no one saying anything. There are no prohibitions. Silence. Blue hour. I can’t sleep. A car passing sounds in the distance. A siren sounds. Someone must be dying. Maybe someone is going to prison. Maybe someone just wants to turn on their siren. I get up. I go out. I sit. On the stairs. I look through the window. Lights. Street. Garbage truck. Garbage collectors. Only at this hour. It disappears. The truck. Contemplate the tree on the corner. Try to recognize some tree that I climbed as a child. See how everything changes at this hour. I recognize the most important one. It seems like it was in another place, as if it had been another time when I sat on those branches. A dirty tree. A dirty park. I rest my head on the wall. I curl up.

When was the first time I did this? When did I decide to spend the whole night looking out a window? Deep down I am still a scared child. Scared of what? I didn’t know then. Now I do. I am afraid of living with a huge emptiness for the rest of my life. An emptiness created by anxiety that eats me from within. A kind of beast that needs to create to feed itself, and if it doesn’t create, it will eat me alive. I look at the sky again. When did I decide to spend the whole night looking out a window?

Back then I went to sleep very, very early. It wasn’t to be awake at dawn, it wasn’t to look through the window and see dark trees, it wasn’t to try to imagine a different time or place. It was to be awake when no one else was. To be alone. Without anyone who thinks they know what is best for me better than I do. Do I know what is best for me? Now I do. If not, I wouldn’t feel this now.

Freedom.

With the window wide open to see the sky. I close my eyes. I try to sleep. If they find me sleeping here, what will they say? I can’t sleep. I open my eyes. I can see. What was I doing before at these moments? Playing, playing and playing. Hidden in my room. Without making much noise; not after the times I have been hit.

Shit.

Why do I keep thinking about this? Almost everyone I know doesn’t get caught up in these kinds of things. I don’t know anyone who gets caught up in these kinds of things. They go on with their lives without the flu chasing them. Maybe they feel the same as me. Maybe they go through the same thing. Maybe they don’t dare to tell anyone either. Maybe we all try to fool ourselves. I hold my right shoulder. I lean more.

I want to sleep.

Quietly, I played and no one disturbed me. At least until the sun was fully up. It’s part of a process. Feeling like this is part of a process. It has to be that. At some point I will stop sitting on the stairs at dawn. I will sleep. I will wake up. After that, back to school, back to the noise, back to existence, back to being someone, back to being vomited into the world. Silence. Lights. Street. Tree. The love for silence. I sigh.

I want to sleep.

I hope tiredness finally conquers me. I love silence. Other people get uncomfortable when I stay silent. They have to learn to enjoy it. One star. Two stars. Three stars. I don’t see any more. There are never more. The silence during the early mornings was the only thing I considered mine until I lost that too. Maybe I didn’t need it anymore. Why again now? No, it was last year that I started this again. I should have finished already. Where is that child? What happened to him? When did I lose myself? When did I stop being like that? Before I only enjoyed. Why can’t I look outside now like I did before without having to think about something sooner or later? Why do I always have to end up remembering what I used to do or who I was knowing I already stopped doing it or I am no longer like that?

Shit.

At some point, innocence disappeared for some reason or someone. They sent it to hell. Maybe I don’t feel comfortable noticing all the years that have passed and I don’t remember anything important, nothing significant I have done. No, she is important, she means something. My drawings, my creations are important too. It’s this hour that makes me feel like this. I could share this moment with her. No, not this one. Another different one. One in which I don’t feel lost. One in which I don’t lock myself in. I could tell her all this. Would she understand?

I hope so.

It’s a bond I don’t have with her. It’s that special relationship that exists between the first moments of the day and me. It’s sitting on the stairs leaning against the wall and feeling how I have been in this same place at different ages. That’s it. But this sky always reflects the emptiness I have. No, I don’t have emptiness.

What do I have?

Maybe it is the knowledge that I cannot decide what to do with my life. That in truth it never depended on me. Yet still being naive. And thinking I could choose. Reality is very harsh. Why is this society like this? What do I have that is really mine?

I have to create the bond with her. Maybe I am afraid. Knowing that I could have wasted time. But I am with her now. That is not wasted time. It will never be. I keep feeling that I am clinging to a past. Believing that any moment in which I was more innocent is better. That has nothing to do with her anymore. That is a problem I don’t know how to solve.

Believing that being unconscious, being ignorant, realizing only tiny things is the best way of living there is. I think the more I know or understand the worse I feel. Even love disappears. It always disappears. No, this love remains. It stays.

At this hour is when I doubt whether I really love someone or not. But I am thinking of her. If her image doesn’t come to my mind, I don’t care, it is a silly relationship doomed to die; if her image appears, I care. Only her image has appeared at this moment.

–Read more in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–