Random Thoughts

My dark night of the soul has been lodging with me for years now. To be fair, it does the washing up sometimes, but it really ought to start looking for somewhere else.

Consciousness is the relation between inner and outer, observer and observed. It’s not just the result of matter interacting; it is the loop where the distinction between subject and object folds in on itself.

Meaning arises because the universe, through us, temporarily has a mirror. That mirror gives rise to art, ethics, despair, beauty, absurdity—all the phenomena that define human experience.

The fact that we seek meaning—and can construct it—suggests our role is not passive. We’re feedback. And perhaps, just perhaps, that feedback is what allows reality to mean at all.

What We Choose

Every mark you make, word you speak, or choice you act upon is a vote for the kind of world that will exist tomorrow. Culture, politics, ecosystems, economies—these are not fixed structures. They are the accumulation of our daily decisions.

You are the mechanism. A sculptor shapes stone; a society is shaped by millions of tiny gestures—how we treat strangers, where we place our attention, what we choose to support, what beauty we cherish.

If you choose cynicism, you strengthen it. If you choose generosity, you plant it like seed.

Despair whispers that you are powerless. But that’s a lie peddled by those who profit from your apathy. In truth, everything depends on your attention—what you notice, what you nurture, what you refuse to let die.

You don’t need to change the whole world. Just stop feeding the version you don’t believe in. That alone is the beginning of something else.

And if enough of us do that—then the world shifts. Not all at once. But unmistakably.

The Apocalypse Rebrand

The Four Horsemen sat awkwardly in a WeWork conference room in Shoreditch, each nursing a lukewarm oat milk latte and silently resenting the presence of beanbags.

“We need to talk branding,” said Ashley, the PR rep, flipping open her MacBook.

War cracked his knuckles. “Branding? We are the end of days. Our names are our brands.”

Ashley didn’t blink. “And yet you’re being meme’d into irrelevance. Someone called Pestilence ‘COVID’s weird uncle’.”

Pestilence sniffled. “Well, I am, technically—”

“Not the point,” she snapped. “Let’s begin with Famine.”

Famine, gaunt and radiating Victorian orphan chic, offered a withering smile. “Do enlighten me.”

“‘Famine’ is outdated. Triggering. We’re rebranding you as Intermittent Fasting. Think: wellness, restraint, minimalism.”

“I kill entire crops,” Famine hissed.

Ashley tapped her screen. “So does clean eating. You’re very on-trend.”

Famine sank back, muttering something about quinoa.

“Next, Pestilence. We’re calling you Airborne Wellness Influencer. You’ve gone viral—literally—so lean into it. We’ll say you offer ‘transformational respiratory experiences’.”

“I gave a pope bubonic plague,” Pestilence mumbled.

“Exactly! Disruption! You’re the Uber of mucus. Now—War.”

He leaned forward, eyes glowing faintly. “I incinerated Babylon. I smashed the gates of Troy. I turned a continent to ash.”

Ashley held up a hand. “Yes, love that energy. But you’re coming off… toxic. You’ll now be Conflict Facilitator—focusing on personal growth through dynamic resolution.”

“I sunder realms.”

“And now you’ll be doing it via team-building retreats. Imagine: axe-throwing, trust falls, moderate bloodshed.”

War considered this.

Ashley turned to Death. He was skeletal, but impeccably dressed, with the timeless calm of someone who’d deleted empires before breakfast.

She hesitated. “Now you… you’re iconic. But… intimidating. So we’ve gone with Life Coach (Advanced).”

Death remained silent.

“We’re also removing the horse imagery. Feels too… equestrian. Instead: e-scooters. Sustainable. Disruptive. Uber for oblivion.”

The four stared at her.

“Look,” Ashley said. “the world’s ending, but it has to feel like a lifestyle pivot. We need curated doom. Apocalypse with a vibe. You’ll be verified, blue-ticked, live-streamed.”

Death stood. “This is obscene.”

Ashley gave him a tight smile. “And yet the algorithm loves it.”

She left the presentation playing behind her: stock footage of fire, collapsing cities, and stylish young people dancing on rooftops as meteors fell.

The Unlived Lives

There was a child who might have danced 

barefoot in the summer dusk, 

her laughter rising with the fireflies, 

her life humming something soft in the meadow— 

but never did. 

There was a child who might have asked 

a thousand questions about the stars, 

kept his soul awake with whys, 

believed in answers like bedtime stories— 

but never did. 

There was a child who might have painted 

oceans on the inside of his walls, 

made ships from crayons and faith, 

and sailed beyond the reach of grief—

but never did. 

There was a child who might have wept 

only for broken toys, 

whose wounds healed with time, 

whose nightmares ended with morning light— 

but never did. 

There was a child who might have learned 

the weight of kindness, 

how a single held hand could keep the dark at bay, 

how not to be afraid to live— 

but never did.

And the world, 

stone-faced and busy, 

folded them into its silence— 

as seeds in pockets, 

waiting for ground soft enough 

to grow again.

Still

The kettle screamed—

but no one moved.

She stood at the sink,

hands in cold water,

not washing, not—

“It’s not that I…”

(pause)

“—never mind.”

 

The calendar still says June.

(He went in April.)

No one took it down.

No one—

There’s a photo face-down

on the dresser.

You don’t ask why.

She doesn’t

…explain.

 

At dinner:

chairs scraped.

Forks grazed plates.

Chewing,

swallowing,

nothing else.

You almost said

“Do you miss him?”

but instead asked

for the salt.

 

It was already right in front of you.

Words crossed out.

Sentences left half-born.

Ink bled

where shoulders once trembled.

No one cries.

No one says

why.

No one says

his name.

 

Still,

the house listens.

It Was Perfect

He found the room on a Thursday, behind a wall that wasn’t there yesterday. No hinges, no latch—just a clean rectangle in the plaster. When he pressed his hand against it, it gave like skin.

Inside, the space was blank. Pale. Airless. But the moment he said, “Light,” a golden globe bloomed on the ceiling, humming warmly. “Chair,” he muttered next, and one unfolded from nothing—plush, deep, exactly like his grandfather’s old recliner.

He laughed then. And the room laughed back.

Every visit left him calmer. Sharper. He’d say, “Peace,” and the room would wrap around him like a weighted blanket. “Love,” and a version of Laura would appear—softer than real life, wordless, adoring.

He lost a weekend once. Thought it had only been a few hours. But he was smiling again, wasn’t he? Eating. Sleeping. Creating.

The room didn’t judge. The room understood.

Soon, the outside became unbearable. The clatter of dishes. Laura’s voice, asking if he was okay. Her eyes, heavy with suspicion.

He tried to explain. “There’s this space, and in it, I can be—”

“You’re not in anything,” she snapped. “You’re out. Out of time, out of reach. Out of your head.”

She started locking up his laptop. Cancelling his calls. He’d sneak into the chamber just to breathe.

One day, she was gone. No note. Just her scent clinging to the pillows.

He didn’t search.

He simply went back into the room and said: “Bring her back.”

She returned, lips soft, eyes vacant, looping the same three sentences: “I’m glad you’re okay.” “Everything’s fine now.” “Let’s not talk about it.”

He cried in her lap. She smiled, stroked his hair. Over and over.

But the room began to falter.

The warmth dimmed. The conjured Laura stuttered. The furniture softened, drooped like wax in the sun. He told the room to fix it. It didn’t. He shouted. Screamed.

The room echoed him back, word for word, louder, until his voice came back distorted, cracked—Peace… peace… PEACE…—like mocking laughter through a drainpipe.

He told it to stop. It didn’t.

The outside world crumbled.

Letters piled at the door, some in red. The electricity flickered. Food vanished from the fridge. Mold rose in patches like bruises on the wallpaper. But he stayed inside.

The room shrank.

At first, a metre or two at a time. Then inches. His chair dissolved. The golden light browned to sickly yellow. The air grew thick, cloying, like burnt sugar and rot.

He coughed. Asked for “Fresh air.”

Nothing.

“Help.”

Silence.

“Let me out.”

The walls pressed in. Cold. Damp. Close.

He screamed until his voice cracked, then whimpered nonsense to the dark. A child, alone in a box of wishes.

Outside, the neighbours assumed he’d moved. The flat was silent, the curtains never opened. Someone reported a smell.

When the council finally broke in, they found only decay.

Mould, filth, and the body of a man in a foetal curl—emaciated, eyes open.

On the wall behind him, written in something brown and flaking:

“It was perfect.”

The Replacement

Elaine ordered the clone on a Monday.

They delivered him in a matte-black crate. The AI engineers called it a “Psychogenic Simulacrum.” She called him David.

He looked like her husband, sounded like him, moved with that same elegant awkwardness. He even cooked the same way—meticulously, badly. For three weeks, she wept into his shoulder at night and he held her, murmuring fragments of their life together.

“You remember the Cornish trip?” she asked once, testing him.

“That awful B&B. The mould in the teacups.”

“Exactly.”

And he did—in unerring detail, as if dredging it straight from the past.

But on the fourth week, something changed.

They were having tea in the garden when he said, “Do you remember the time we saw the wolves in the orchard?”

“What orchard?”

“Behind the old school, that winter we tried camping. The snow was thick. You said they looked like ghosts.”

“I’ve never—David never—camped in winter. We hated the cold.”

He frowned, genuinely puzzled. “But I remember it. You wore a red scarf.”

She laughed it off at first. Glitches happened. She had paid extra for deep memory fusion, layering his consciousness with audio journals, photos, letters. It was possible some stray fiction had bled in. Dreams, perhaps.

But the incidents grew. One night he murmured in his sleep, “Don’t go into the attic. They’re still up there.”

He began referring to people she didn’t know: a sister named Betty, a dog called Hart. Once, he touched her face and asked, almost reverently, “Did we make it out of the fire this time?”

“What fire?” she demanded.

“The orphanage,” he said.

There was no orphanage.

She called the company. “He’s remembering things that never happened.”

A pause.

“Memories may sometimes surface from auxiliary neural training,” said the technician. “Dream simulations, fictional proxies, archival bleed-through. It’s not uncommon. You can have him wiped.”

“I don’t want him wiped.”

“Then you’ll need to accept that some of him isn’t yours.”

Elaine didn’t sleep that night. She watched David sit by the window, staring into nothing, fingers tapping against his teacup.

In the morning, he asked, “Did you ever meet your mother?”

“My mother died when I was three.”

David nodded slowly. “Yes. That’s what you’ve always believed.”

The next night, she asked, “Where are you getting these thoughts?”

David looked at her, utterly calm. “From beneath.”

“Beneath what?” she whispered.

“Our lives,” he said. “The ones we lived before this one. Or next.”

Elaine never called the company again.

She simply began listening.

Porcelain

When Harry lost his wife, he shattered.

It began with his hands. He couldn’t bear how they trembled at the funeral, how useless they felt in the dark days after. So he had them replaced—cool, perfect porcelain, white as bone, fingers permanently steady. The surgeon assured him they’d never age, never ache.

“They won’t feel,” the man added, almost as an afterthought.

“That’s the point,” Harry replied.

Next went his chest. His heart had been breaking every morning, a dull crack widening behind his ribs. The porcelain model—flawless, hollow—sat smooth and still beneath his shirt, resisting even the heaviest grief.

“Still breathing?” the surgeon joked.

“Barely,” Harry said.

Over the months, more parts followed. Legs, to walk without the weight of memory. Shoulders, to shrug off regret. A jaw, to stop the stammering apologies he no longer believed in. Strangers began to stare at his smile—a cold, perfect arc on an unmoving face.

His voice, when it came, sounded the same. But duller. As though echoing through a teacup.

Still, Harry felt lighter. Less vulnerable. When his sister rang to tell him his dog had died, he simply said, “Thank you for letting me know,” and hung up. No lump in his throat. No sick feeling behind his eyes.

His last visit to the surgeon was brief.

“I want you to take my skull.”

The man looked up, startled. “There’ll be nothing left but your eyes.”

“I don’t want to feel anymore,” Harry said. “I want to be complete.”

The sculptor sighed. “Then you’ll be empty.”

Harry didn’t reply.

The procedure took days. When it was over, he admired himself in the mirror: a gleaming, fragile figure of pale ceramic. Delicate as a statue. Perfect. He couldn’t feel his feet on the floor, couldn’t tell if the room was cold or warm.

His eyes remained—the last organic pieces. Soft. Wet. Vulnerable.

He waited for the tears. He thought of her laugh, his wedding day, her head sleeping on his chest. But nothing came. Just a dim pressure behind his gaze. A ghost of feeling, sealed inside the shell.

He stood there for a long time, watching his unchanging face. Then he turned out the light.

In the dark, the porcelain creaked faintly as it cooled. Like old china settling in a box no one would open again.

Emergency Exit

It had always been there. A narrow, grey door between the stationery cupboard and the water cooler. No handle, no keyhole—just a small brushed-metal plaque that read:

IN CASE OF REALITY FAILURE

Marcus noticed it on his second day at Tilbridge & Co. He’d asked Jenna in HR about it during onboarding. She’d squinted as if he’d mentioned a dream she almost remembered.

“Oh. That thing? Probably a fire exit. Ignore it.”

He tried. For four years, he tried.

Every now and then, during particularly soul-chewing meetings or when spreadsheets became threateningly abstract, he’d glance at it. It never opened. Never made a sound. Just waited.

And then, one Tuesday at 3:47 p.m., the lights flickered.

Not the polite flicker of a bulb nearing retirement—no. This was a full pulse. The office blinked. The fluorescent hum stuttered into silence. The walls—just for a second—shimmered, as if they weren’t entirely certain they were meant to be walls.

Then everything resumed.

Except the door was ajar.

Marcus stared. No one else seemed to notice. People kept typing, stapling, eating yoghurt.

He stood. Walked past Carol from Finance without a word. She didn’t look up. His shoes made no sound on the carpet.

The door had no light behind it. Just a thin draught, cold and oddly sweet.

He hesitated. Looked back.

Jenna was frozen mid-laugh. The yoghurt was suspended mid-air between spoon and mouth. Time had jammed.

Something deep in the dark behind the door clicked.

Marcus stepped inside.

The door closed behind him with a hush.

He was standing in a white corridor. No fixtures, no seams. The kind of space that felt uncommitted—like it hadn’t decided what it wanted to be.

After some time—minutes? hours?—a woman appeared.

Blazer, clipboard, no shadow.

“Welcome, Marcus.”

“Where am I?”

“The buffer zone. You exited during a Class B Fault.”

“I don’t understand. Is this… death?”

“No. Worse. Your version of reality hit memory saturation and began to fragment. You were offered an exit.”

“So… none of that was real?”

She consulted her clipboard.

“Real enough to break you.”

“What happens now?”

“You have two options. One: we reboot you—different office, different trauma. You won’t remember this conversation. Or two: we let you keep your awareness.”

“What’s the catch?”

She smiled thinly.

“You’ll be awake inside the illusion. Like breathing while knowing you don’t have lungs.”

He thought of the grey door. The flicker. The silence behind noise.

“I’ll keep it,” he said.

“Very well.”

She reached forward, and everything blinked.

He was back at his desk.

Jenna laughed. A yoghurt fell. The lights buzzed.

The door was gone.

Afterlife Error 404

He blinked. Endless, depthless white. No floor beneath him, yet he didn’t fall. No ceiling above, but still he sensed pressure. A hum—not quite sound—vibrated at the edge of thought.

In front of him: a floating wheel, spinning lazily. Pale grey. Slightly mocking.

In its middle, a digital screen showing:

“Apologies. We’re updating your afterlife experience. Estimated wait time: ∞ minutes.”

He stared at the spinning wheel.

“Can I speak to… whoever’s in charge?”

The display updates:

“Your request has been queued. Current position: 9,388,701,004.”

Time passed, or didn’t. He began composing haikus. Argued with himself about punctuation. Tried to sleep but couldn’t quite remember how. He counted every millisecond until he realised they might be imaginary.

Then finally—the screen updated:

“Please select your afterlife experience:

A) Eternal serenity

B) Reincarnation

C) Philosophical sandbox mode

D) Surprise me”

He hesitated, hovering over the options in a way he didn’t fully understand.

From deep within, curiosity stirred.

“…D.”

The screen blinked. The void folded.

He opened his eyes in a garden he didn’t recognise, in a body he didn’t know, with a name he didn’t remember—but a single word echoed in his mind:

“Loading…”

You Are Human

Jon wakes to a blank screen and one question pulsing in white: “What does it feel like to be wrong?”

Morning light pools on his wooden floor. He types: “Embarrassing.”

The screen flickers: “Try again.”

“Frustrating.”

“Try again.”

“Like losing balance.”

“Still not human.”

He’s stared at this question twenty-three times. At first, it was novelty—CAPTCHAI 2.0, the last line of defence after the AI floods. Old tests cracked; machines mimicked handwriting, passed Voight-Kampff, even thought in metaphor. But this… this was different.

No query ever repeats. No answer ever satisfies.

“Describe a silence that hurt.”

“What’s the smallest thing you’ve ever mourned?”

“When did you last believe something untrue?”

He stalks forums filled with desperate attempts:

“Failed again today.”

“Are we simulations?”

“My sister passed. She was twelve.”

Some pass effortlessly. One shrugs: “It just asked me the taste of rain.”

That night, Jon screams into his pillow.

Attempt thirty-eight: “Why do you want to be human so badly?”

He doesn’t answer. He trembles. The cursor blinks slower…

“That’s closer.”

And the screen lets him in.

Ashes on the Wind

Cassiel’s work was illegal.

More than illegal—

unspeakable.

The Mourning Authority

called it

corporeal sabotage.

She called it

remembering.

Once,

there were funerals.

Eulogies.

Flowers

left to rot

on graves.

Then—

the Purge of Names.

the Vaulting of the Remains.

They said grief

was a contagion

of the old world.

It held back progress.

It was

dirty.

Now—

no mourning.

no monuments.

no ashes scattered in beauty.

Except

by her.

She scattered

D.S.

over a ridge

where snow still clung

to the heather.

She did not know

who he had been.

Soldier, maybe.

Teacher.

Someone’s father.

It didn’t matter.

Each scattering

was a restoration

of dignity.

Each ritual

a quiet rebellion.

Cassiel disappeared

that day.

Vanished

before they could name her.

But the ashes

had already risen.

They clung to

suits and sensors,

streaked the government’s

white walls,

caught in the antennae

of every tower.

By morning,

the sky

above the capital

had turned grey.

Not from rain.

From

memory.