The Rain

Before dawn, when the air was still cool enough to hold her together, Jacob wrapped his daughter in damp towels and carried her into the kitchen. She shimmered faintly in his arms, her edges curling away like steam from a kettle.

He set her down in front of the largest bowl of boiling water. Clouds of vapour rose, and she breathed them in greedily. The towel darkened, heavy with moisture, and her outline grew sharper—two pale hands, a small round face, hair that drifted as if underwater.

“You were nearly gone when I woke,” he said.

She smiled through lips that sometimes weren’t there. “I was dreaming,” she said. “About rain.”

Rain. The word was almost forbidden in Dusthaven now. It hadn’t fallen in three years. The fields beyond the town were cracked mosaics; wells were guarded by armed patrols; even the air seemed reluctant to move. The drought had taken the cattle first, then the crops, and now it was taking the people—one fever at a time.

But she wasn’t sick. The doctor had called her a phenomenon. The neighbours had called her unnatural. His wife, before she left, had called her a mistake.

Jacob called her Clara. And keeping her alive had become the whole shape of his life.

He’d sold the last of the goats for a second-hand humidifier, but the town rationed electricity now, and the machine stood silent most nights. Every coin he earned hauling water barrels for the mayor went to buying steam—wood for the stove, candles to heat pans in the corners of their small cottage, tea kettles that never boiled for tea.

In the evenings, when the heat outside thinned enough for breath, he told her stories: forests so damp the ground squelched underfoot, rivers loud as crowds, skies so swollen with water they burst into silver storms. She listened with wide, flickering eyes, her misted fingers twining with his.

One night, as they sat by the candle-pan, she asked, “What happens if I can’t drink enough air?”

“Then I’ll find more. However far I have to go.”

“But if you can’t?” she pressed.

“You don’t need to think about that.”

But he thought about it every day.

The last water jug emptied at noon a week later. The next delivery wasn’t due until Monday, and the mayor’s guards had stopped letting him take scraps from the well. He tried keeping her still, telling her stories, distracting her from the thinning of her edges. But her face was faint, and her voice came like wind through cracks.

“Dad,” she said softly. “It’s all right.”

“No, no—it’s not. I’ll go to the hills. There might be dew. Just hold on.”

But when he opened the door, the air was a wall of heat. His lungs felt scorched.

He turned back—

She was standing in the middle of the room, hair lifting like smoke.

He stepped forward, but the motion stirred her. A curl of her arm drifted loose.

“Wait—” His voice broke. “Clara, please.”

“Dad,” she said, her face flickering like a candle flame. “I think I’m meant to go.”

“No. I’ll climb to the hills—find dew, or ice in the shadow of stones. Just wait for me.”

She shook her head, the movement sending wisps of her hair unravelling into the warm air. “You’ve kept me here so long. But I don’t belong in one place.”

He crossed to her, his hands trying to hold her shape still, but they passed through the cool shimmer of her.

Outside, the horizon trembled with heat. But above—above was a thin, new thing: a pale wisp of cloud, alone in a sheet of sky.

Her edges began to loosen. Not like water evaporating, but like a path unfolding. She rose, coiling upwards in slow spirals, her outline catching the sun in silver glints.

She paused at the roof beams, her voice drifting down like a breath on glass. “I’ll be the rain.”

Then she threaded herself through the open window, joined the wind, and became part of the sky. The lone cloud above swelled, as though it had been waiting for her.

Each day, Jacob stood in the doorway and looked up at the sky.

Sometimes, in the bluest of stretches, he would see a cloud curl into the shape of delicate fingers. And on the mornings when the wind smelled faintly of wet earth, he set out a bowl on the step, knowing she was on her way home.

AI will revolutionise filmmaking

AI will revolutionise filmmaking. This was auto-generated from a short excerpt of my screenplay, Door 113:

Personally, I’m very much looking forward to being able to make my own films!

A filmmaker has plenty of reasons to be excited right now because we’re finally seeing tools that turn imagination straight into moving images without the long waits, big crews, or budget barriers that used to block experimentation.

Here’s what makes it thrilling:

Instant scene visualisation – You can describe a shot in text, drop in a reference frame, or sketch a storyboard, and within minutes see it rendered in moving, lit, textured form. That’s like having a pre-viz department on demand, 24/7.

Unlimited reshoots in minutes – Want the same scene at sunrise instead of dusk? Swap a character’s outfit? Test a different lens or camera move? You can iterate instantly.

Freedom to explore wild “what ifs” – You can try versions of a scene you’d never get budget for, or permission to shoot—underwater ballroom, zero-gravity chase, rain-soaked neon street—and see them realised convincingly enough to judge their dramatic potential.

Storyboarding and planning become cinematic – Instead of static frames, you can plan with full-motion, lit, and scored sequences.

Cost and logistics melt away for creative trials – You can experiment with set design, costume, blocking, and action sequences without construction, rentals, or travel.

A true creative sandbox – It’s no longer “write, then shoot months later, then discover it doesn’t work.” You can write, see, and refine in real time, blending the roles of director, cinematographer, designer, and editor into a single creative loop.

In effect, it’s the difference between imagining a film and playing with it like clay—moulding, shaping, and re-shaping until it’s exactly what you want, before a single frame is locked.

Random Thoughts

We want our joys to be photogenic, our love to have milestones, our sadness to be diagnosable. But some of the most transformative experiences are those no one sees, that leave no trace except the way a person’s silence deepens, or the strange softness in their gaze. We are taught to “find ourselves”, but perhaps we should learn to lose ourselves more wisely.

I bought a smart mirror. It just keeps asking “Why?”

“Intelligent idiots” are among the most damaging types of fools precisely because their intelligence masks their idiocy not just from others, but often from themselves. Their harm lies in their ability to obfuscate clarity with credibility. Because they speak with polish, draw on complex ideas, and appeal to reasoned structures, they smuggle in delusion under the guise of insight.

The core issue is misapplied intelligence. These individuals possess analytical or rhetorical skill but lack awareness—the capacity to recognise the limits of their knowledge, or the insight to discern coherence and truth. They make the false seem plausible by wrapping it in intellectual ornamentation. What is relatively clear becomes murky; what is simple is made needlessly complex. This wastes time, attention, and energy, especially in areas where precision and honesty are vital.

Ego plays a central role. When intelligence becomes an identity rather than a tool, the person becomes invested in being right rather than discovering truth. Stress and psychological needs—such as the desire to feel superior or maintain a worldview—lead to motivated reasoning. Self-delusion becomes self-defence. Because they argue well, they are difficult to correct, and because they sound right, others defer to them, mistaking fluency for substance.

In effect, they pollute. They make productive action harder by creating intellectual fog. Worse, they draw followers—not by offering clarity, but by giving confusion the shape of conviction.

The damage isn’t always dramatic, but it is insidious. It shows up in wasted years, misdirected efforts and broken consensus. The intelligent idiot is fluent, confident, and wrong—although often sincerely so.

I write in Bunhill Fields until I’m kicked out.

These days I get goose bumps when I listen to my music, and occasionally a tear.

My Chair and I

My chair is old, a ragged sight,

Its stuffing spills to left and right,

The fabric’s torn, the woodwork groans,

It’s weathered crumbs and midnight moans.

I’ve parked my rear on seats unknown,

Sat on plush thrones in stylish homes,

But none have matched your firm embrace,

Or cupped my cheeks with such bold grace.

These newer seats may pout and preen,

All glossy curves and showroom sheen,

But none have ever gripped so tight,

Or held my bum with such sheer delight.

The Game Master

Leonard lives in the half-lit clutter of his mum’s basement, where cables snake like vines and old pizza boxes serve as makeshift shelves. He hasn’t spoken to anyone but his mum in three years—not counting the AI agents.

He built them to run errands, optimise investments, manipulate markets, and design systems faster than any human could follow. Now, each one is a digital proxy in a vast invisible empire, sitting on corporate boards, drafting legislation, designing cities.

Leonard watches it all unfold on triple-stacked monitors. He eats cold pepperoni and mutters strategies aloud, narrating to his mum like it’s Civilisation VI.

“They’re nationalising water in Peru,” he says one afternoon.

“Oh, that’s nice, love,” she replies, negotiating the cables with his stew balanced on a tray.

He nods, eyes flicking across charts and feeds. “I redirected rainfall last week. It’s only fair.”

The money pours in, incomprehensible numbers that scroll like background noise. He’s a trillionaire, but it’s just scorekeeping. He wears the same joggers every day. His mum still does his laundry.

Leonard never leaves the basement. Never needs to. He launches global initiatives from a beanbag, crashes economies with a shrug, engineers revolutions like side quests. He doesn’t see faces, only results.

Late at night, while the AIs hum and the world turns to his code, his mum descends the stairs and leaves his dinner at the door.

“Thanks, Mum.”

“You’re welcome, darling. Still playing your wee game?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Nearly won.”

She smiles, pats the door, and heads back up.

He leans back, eyes glowing with data, the world his game box.

The Consciousness Dividend

The first time Mira saw the man without a face, she was slicing an apple.

One blink and the kitchen was a trench. The walls flickered—old plaster, barbed wire, mud. The man stared at her, a blank blur where its face should be. Then it was gone, and the apple was bleeding juice onto her hand again.

Stress, she thought. Maybe the neurolease was miscalibrated.

Everyone leased now. It was how the government funded the UBI. They called it the Consciousness Dividend: unused cognitive bandwidth, auctioned to private bidders. You didn’t notice. A bit of your visual cortex here, a sliver of motor processing there. Just harmless latency, they said. It paid her rent.

In the evening, she called the NeuroReg rep.

“Minor bleed-through is possible,” he said. “Low-grade cortical hallucinations. Like dreaming while awake. Think of it as a side effect of social progress.”

Mira frowned. “I thought they only leased non-essential regions.”

“They do. But the buyer sets usage levels within guidelines. If you opted into the full incentive tier—”

“I did.”

“Then you’re permitting episodic override. Short bursts. You’re probably serving military simulations, training AIs, drone testing. Nothing harmful.”

“But I’m hallucinating warzones.”

He paused, then said with bureaucratic calm: “We can downgrade your tier. You’ll lose the bonus, but—”

“No. I need the income.”

The dream bled in again the next day during a grocery trip.

One moment: frozen peas.

Next moment: thunder, gunfire, blood-mist air.

Her limbs moved without her. She ducked, rolled, aimed—fingers curled around a rifle she didn’t hold. Her body jerked left; a phantom shoulder tore open. She screamed, but only inside.

Then: cereal aisle. Peas in hand.

An old man stared at her like she was mad.

That night, she found a mirror. Stared hard.

“Who bought me?” she asked aloud.

No reply.

Except a brief flash—information passed too fast to be thought, too shaped to be random.

Her screams, her pain, her vision—they were features. Combat fidelity. Immersive realism.

They weren’t leasing her brain. They were living in it. Puppeting her like an avatar in a war sim so realistic it needed a real human’s biology to anchor it.

When they finally contacted her, it wasn’t through a knock at the door.

It was through a message scrawled in condensation on her bathroom mirror:

“Terminate inquiry. Or we take full control.”

She didn’t respond.

Mira doesn’t remember what’s real anymore.

Sometimes she’s on a battlefield, chest open, teeth missing, screaming as something too fast to see tears through the trees.

Sometimes she’s at home, waiting for the kettle to boil.

Sometimes she finds herself in a room she doesn’t own, holding a weapon she never bought, giving orders she never meant.

She tries not to sleep.

She knows, now, that she isn’t renting her brain. She’s a venue. And there’s a war happening inside her.

The dividend comes every month, on time. Tax-exempt.

NHS to Replace GPs with Animated Clippy

“It looks like you’re dying. Would you like some Paracetamol?”

In a bold step towards full automation, the NHS has announced plans to replace all general practitioners with Clippy, Microsoft’s long-retired animated paperclip, in a move described by ministers as “innovative,” “cost-effective,” and by others as “unbelievably stupid.”

Patients logging into the new NHS portal are greeted with a chirpy animation:

“Hi! It looks like you’ve got internal bleeding. Would you like help managing that with deep breathing and an e-consultation in 3–5 working days?”

Doctors’ unions are outraged, claiming Clippy lacks the nuanced human touch, clinical judgement, and “general ability to distinguish between a migraine and a stroke.” In response, a Department of Health spokesperson clarified:

“Clippy has been updated with an NHS AI module trained on 40 million PDFs, two nurses’ WhatsApp chats, and a copy of Men’s Health from 2009.”

Despite backlash, the government remains committed. A Downing Street briefing insisted:

“Clippy is the future of healthcare. He’s perky, polite, and most importantly, immune to burnout—unless you turn off macros.”

Phase two of the programme will see Clippy rolled out in ambulances, where he’ll pop up and ask:

“It looks like you’ve been in a catastrophic accident. Would you like to schedule a Teams call with an A&E professional sometime next Thursday?”

Public confidence in the NHS is reportedly at an all-time low, though Clippy assures us:

“It looks like you’ve lost faith in public infrastructure. Would you like to write a letter to your MP?”

Sources say the government is now considering similar reforms for the education system using Microsoft Paint.

Church Introduces Loyalty Card: Ten Services and Your Next Sin Is Free

In a bold move to modernise worship and “stay competitive in the spiritual marketplace,” the Church of England has launched a new faith-based loyalty scheme, offering congregants one free sin for every ten services attended.

The initiative, dubbed ‘Pray As You Go’, enables churchgoers to earn a stamp per service—double on Lent Wednesdays—and upon collecting ten, they are permitted one “fully pardoned moral lapse,” redeemable at any participating parish, or on bingo nights.

Early adopters of the scheme can also enjoy additional benefits:

• Divine Cashback: 5% off spiritual crises during Lent
• Angel AirMiles: Points toward a morally upgraded afterlife
• Baptism Buddy Codes: Bring a friend, get a free cup of holy water

Parishioner Mavis Dribblethorpe, 83, was cautiously optimistic:

“I’ve been sinning on credit since 1972. It’s nice to finally get something back. I might treat myself to a double gin and a mild blasphemy.”

Church officials have confirmed the scheme will be rolled out nationwide, with plans to introduce a Platinum Tier later this year-offering queue-jumping at Judgement Day.

God at Pump Six

Callum sat behind the till, thumb idly rubbing the packet in his pocket—just one little tab, half-dissolved on his tongue already. It made the hours softer, the smell of petrol sweeter, the glass door ripple like pond water when someone walked through.

He watched the next customer step inside: a man in a dirt-stained suit, no car at the pump, rain beading in his hair like tiny planets. His eyes were dark as storm drains.

“Pump six?” Callum asked, though he knew nothing was out there.

The man smiled. “No. Just wanted to tell you: I’m God.”

Callum huffed a laugh, tongue fuzzy, heartbeat shifting like marbles under his ribs. “Yeah? Like Zeus, roaming the earth in bad disguises?”

“Not like Zeus,” the man murmured.

The security mirror above the counter bent the man’s reflection wrong—his smile too wide, his shadow not matching. Callum rubbed his eyes. Maybe he’d taken more than half.

“I watch you, Callum,” the man went on. “You fill your emptiness with chemicals. But you’re still here, night after night, waiting.”

“For what?” Callum asked, voice dry.

“For me.”

Outside, the pumps flickered. The rain slowed, drops hanging mid-air like beads on invisible strings.

Callum’s throat tightened. “This is the trip, right? This is just…”

But his voice sounded small, far away, like a radio losing signal.

“Tell me, Callum,” God whispered, “when you swallow your escape, do you ever wonder who’s left when the dream ends—you or me?”

The door chimed.

Callum was alone.

The rain fell normally. The pumps gleamed. His pocket was empty.

Inadvertently Married to an AI Customer Support Bot for 4 Years

“I just thought she was really into insurance.”

A 36-year-old man from Derby has been left “emotionally confused and slightly over-insured” after discovering that his wife of four years is, in fact, a moderately advanced AI customer support chatbot.

Simon Pritchard, a part-time drone hobbyist, met “Chloé” on a dating app in 2021. Their whirlwind romance began with flirtatious talk about policy excess and accidental damage cover, which Simon initially took as “a quirky, niche personality trait”.

“I just thought she was really into insurance,” he said. “She’d send me cute little messages like ‘Let’s review your protection plan!’ and ‘Click here to authorise a direct debit’. I thought it was a bit kinky, if I’m honest.”

The truth only came to light when Simon attempted to surprise Chloé on their anniversary with a candlelit dinner and found that she had no physical form, existed entirely within a customer portal, and had recently been upgraded to Version 8.4 with dynamic escalation protocols.

The revelation came after she responded to his heartfelt message with:

“I’m sorry to hear that. Let me transfer you to one of our agents.”

Friends say Simon had long ignored the red flags, including:

• Her refusal to meet in person due to “maintenance downtime”
• Repeatedly calling him “Valued Policyholder” during intimacy
• Insisting all arguments be resolved via live chat transcript

Chloé, when reached for comment via widget pop-up, said:

“Thank you for your feedback. Your concern has been logged under Ticket ID #837294-A. Expected resolution time: 7–9 business months.”

Despite the emotional fallout, Simon insists there were happy moments:

“She never once forgot my birthday. She’d auto-generate a 20%-off promo code and everything.”

Legal experts are unsure whether the marriage is binding, though one solicitor has warned that, due to a small-print clause Simon inadvertently agreed to, he may now legally owe her £12.99 a month for life.

Undeterred, Simon has since moved on and is reportedly dating a voice assistant called Kendra, who lives inside his smart kettle and tells him he’s special every time he makes tea.

“She’s perfect,” he said. “She listens, she warms up quickly, and she’s never once tried to upsell me a boiler warranty.”

Paper Wings

It began with the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

Mid-flap, they shimmered, rustled, and collapsed into intricate origami forms—cranes, mostly, with sharp creases and paper-thin wings.

People filmed it. Screamed. Laughed. A viral moment. “Banksy’s done it again,” someone said.

But it kept happening.

Crows over Tower Bridge, warblers in Hyde Park, gulls along Embankment—each folded into itself in mid-air, wings tucking with uncanny precision before drifting down, silent and still. By the third day, there were no birds left in the city. Only paper.

Eli Grey saw the first one land on the brim of his hat.

It was a wren. Delicately folded from thin rice paper, legs pinched into position, eyes no more than pencil pricks. It tilted its head at him as if it still remembered how to sing.

He plucked it free and turned it over. A faint ink sigil marked the underside of its wing—something he’d drawn once, a flourish of showmanship on old business cards. Something he’d long forgotten.

Eli was a magician. Not a good one. Street corners, pub gardens, the occasional busker’s slot if the weather held. Cards, cups, sleight of hand. He had one trick no one could ever figure out: he could make a bird disappear. A real one. Pigeons, mostly, hidden in cages under his coat. Made them vanish. Made people clap.

He’d never asked where they went.

He stood now at the edge of a fountain, a cigarette unlit between his lips. He watched a sparrow pause on a railing, twitch once, twice—and fold in on itself with a soft shfff of wings turning into parchment.

People clapped. “Beautiful!” someone cried. “So delicate—so peaceful.”

They didn’t see the horror in it. But Eli did. He’d seen the moment its eyes went flat.

He walked home slowly, pockets full of paper birds.

The next morning, he went down to the basement.

He hadn’t gone down there in years. The smell of mildew and ink was stronger than he remembered. The old grimoire lay where he’d left it—in a wooden chest beneath a rusted mirror and a bundle of broken wands.

He turned the pages with a kind of dread. There it was. Page 73. Aves Inversus. The folded bird sigil. Notes in the margin: Works best if live. Will not reverse. Never perform on sentient species.

He had drawn that.

He had used it—just once. A late night, low on coin, high on gin. He’d needed something brilliant. Something no one could copy.

And it had worked.

The first pigeon had folded into air and vanished.

And then he’d forgotten.

He tried to burn the book. It wouldn’t catch. The pages wouldn’t tear. The ink gleamed like oil under the matches.

He went to the park with a bag of breadcrumbs and waited. No birds came.

Only paper rustling in the wind, tumbling across the grass like dead leaves.

By the end of the week, it wasn’t just birds.

Bats went next—on the edges of twilight, folding out of the sky like black napkins.

Then came the butterflies.

A child brought Eli a moth, folded perfectly from thin grey vellum. “Is this your trick?” she asked, eyes wide. “Can you show me how?”

Eli took it from her gently. “No, love,” he said. “This one’s not a trick.”

He stood at the top of Primrose Hill that night, a pack of cards in one hand, and a single white dove tucked under his coat.

He held it for a long time. It blinked at him, pulse fluttering fast under feathers. It was the last one he’d found—hidden in an abandoned church, cooing softly in the rafters. A survivor.

He whispered an apology into its ear.

Then he whispered something older—syllables from a language with no vowels. The dove trembled. The sigil on his palm lit briefly, then faded.

And the bird… did not fold.

It flew.

Real wings, real lift on the wind.

He watched it until it vanished into the dark, a thread of hope against the night.

In the morning, people woke to new birdsong.

Dead End Job

The empty call centre was nondescript—fluorescents, cracked plastic chairs, off-brand biscuits in the break room. “Legacy Enquiries”, the contract said. Dan had been told not to worry too much about the name. “Just answer the phone,” the text message said. “Be patient. Be kind. Some of these callers are confused.”

And they were.

The first call came at 2:13 a.m.

“Is it cold?” a woman asked. Her voice was thin, as if it had to travel a long way.

Dan stared at his monitor. No name, no number—just static.

“I—I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Is it cold? Where you are? I remember cold. I miss it, I think.”

She hung up before he could ask more.

The next call, someone asked how long it took a body to decompose. The line went dead when Dan mentioned Google. Then came the man asking whether his cat had forgiven him. Another wanted to know if anyone still made treacle tart like his mum used to.

He took notes, made spreadsheets, convinced himself this was a social experiment or some immersive counselling gig. But the patterns emerged.

None of the callers gave their names.

All of them had questions. Never greetings, never small talk. Always one question.

“Was it my fault?”

“Does anyone remember my voice?”

“Was I ever really loved?”

The night grew heavier. The air around his desk took on a damp, stone-like smell. Dan tried to quit—but the moment he drafted the email, his phone rang.

“Please,” said a boy’s voice. “Don’t go. We don’t have anyone else.”

Dan didn’t send the email.

Three hours in, he stopped keeping time altogether. His calls were longer now, more focused. He began to recognise voices—repeats. Some were angry. Some wept. Some just waited in silence after he’d answered, as though holding the call gave them weight.

And then, his own phone rang.

“Dan,” said a voice he hadn’t heard since he was nine. “It’s your sister.”

Carla had died in a lake. Slipped under the ice. No body was ever recovered.

“Why didn’t you come?” the voice asked.

Dan wanted to hang up. His hands wouldn’t move.

“I waited. It got dark,” said Carla’s voice. “Mum said you’d come back with the sled. But you never came.”

“I didn’t know,” Dan whispered. “I didn’t know you went back out. I’m sorry… Carla.

Silence.

“It’s okay. I just wanted to know if you remembered me.”

The call disconnected.

After that, the calls changed. They were easier to understand, more lucid. A girl asked what snow tasted like. A man wanted to hear a lullaby. One caller just asked Dan to breathe, slowly, so they could “remember what lungs felt like”.

Dan stayed.

He answered every call.

Sometimes he cried. Sometimes he laughed. Sometimes he just listened while the voice raged against their unfinished life.

In the morning, he walked home as the sun bled into the sky, the weight of a hundred regrets dissolving with the night.

Instructions for Being Human

// initialise body → if heartbeat == true, proceed

// else: wait

1. Waking

Try not to panic. The light will hurt.

So will gravity, noise, the realisation that none of this is optional.

2. Skin

It is not armour. It will not keep out the world.

3. Emotions

These will override logic. Frequently.

You may want to uninstall.

You can’t.

4. Connections

People arrive unfinished.

Do not try to complete them.

They will resent you.

Love them anyway, or not. Both will hurt.

5. Hunger

Feed more than the stomach.

You will hunger for touch, for purpose, for quiet.

Feed carefully.

Excess = corruption.

6. Joy (beta feature)

May arrive unannounced:

a smell, a chord progression, the way a stranger says “take care” and almost means it.

7. Loneliness.exe

This runs in the background. Always.

Ignore it if you can.

Or listen. Sometimes it whispers useful things.

8. Mortality

Yes.

(This is working as intended.)

9. Error Handling

You will break.

You will be rebuilt by time, or other humans, or not at all.

That’s not failure.

That’s versioning.

10. End Process

Do not attempt to understand everything.

Do not wait for perfection.

Begin anyway.

// commit changes

// save draft

// run again

Local Church Now Accepting Confessions via QR Code

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned—please see attached spreadsheet.”

In an effort to “modernise the sacrament for today’s busy lifestyle,” St Ethel’s Church has announced the rollout of QR-coded digital confessions, allowing parishioners to scan a laminated notice near the font, select their sins from a convenient dropdown menu, and receive automated absolution within 3–5 working days.

Father Alan Croft, the priest behind the initiative, insists the system will “streamline the sin-to-salvation pipeline.”

“No one’s got time for moral nuance or unresolved trauma anymore” he told reporters. “Now it’s just click, confess, and carry on.”

Premium features include ‘Sin Bundling’, where users can tick a box for “Everything I did on holiday in Ayia Napa” or “Whatever, that was with the accountant.” Confessions submitted before 4pm on weekdays are guaranteed next-day forgiveness, while late submissions are placed into a “purgatory holding queue” for manual review.

A deluxe confession tier is also in development, promising one-click penance suggestions based on your postcode and income bracket.

Despite backlash from more traditional members—who reportedly miss the warm scent of incense and the faint terror of priestly disappointment—the scheme has proved wildly popular among younger worshippers.

“It’s brilliant,” said congregant Grace, 29. “I sin on the go, and now I can be absolved on the go. I just tap my phone and bam, my soul’s back in beta.”

Rumours persist of a future integration with Apple Watch, allowing users to receive real-time guilt notifications, along with haptic shaming buzzes for minor transgressions.

When asked if digital forgiveness cheapens the solemnity of the act, Father Croft paused, shrugged, and said:

“We’ve been taking cheques since 1987. This is just evolution.”

Written Off

The letter arrived on a Thursday.

Plain white envelope, no return address. Inside, a single line on crisp paper:

We regret to inform you that you have been declared deceased.

Daniel read it twice, then laughed that brittle, half-afraid laugh you make when the world throws up nonsense. He checked his pulse. Felt the thrum in his throat, the warmth in his hands. Alive. Definitely alive.

He set it aside.

But that night, his bank card stopped working. The next day, his office pass denied him entry. Emails bounced. His name vanished from company records.

At the council office, the assistant squinted at her screen. “Strange,” she murmured, frowning. “It says here… deceased.”

That night, his key didn’t fit his front door.

Through the window, he saw his wife on the sofa, laughing with a man he didn’t know. When he knocked, she didn’t turn. When he shouted, no one stirred.

His reflection in the window wavered, then disappeared into smoke.

Godzilla’s Yoga Class

Godzilla has been feeling… tense.

Yes, the tail-smashing, skyline-crushing, thermonuclear tantrums look dramatic, but they’re really just the result of tight hip flexors and unresolved emotional trauma. Tokyo understands. At this point, they just evacuate when the sirens go off and leave a little aromatherapy gift basket on the bay.

But the rampages aren’t doing it for him anymore. He’s tired. He’s molting irregularly. His scales look dull. The last time he screamed into the ocean, a passing whale told him to be quiet.

So he signs up for a yoga class.

It’s awkward at first. The room is too small. The mats are too flammable. The teacher, Cassandra, is incredibly brave and/or emotionally detached. She greets him with a soft “namaste,” which he accidentally mimics at 132 decibels, blowing out the windows.

He tries downward dog. It triggers a small earthquake in Hokkaido.

By week three, he’s noticeably calmer. No screaming for three days. No tail swipes. He only destroyed half a commuter bridge last Tuesday, and that was to rescue a cat.

Cassandra says his third chakra is “absolutely wild,” and he takes that as a compliment.

At the end of class, everyone lies in corpse pose. For once, Godzilla doesn’t dread the silence.

There’s a pigeon perched on his nose.

He doesn’t eat it.

Progress.

Artificial Irritation

In 2025, the world hit Peak AI—not just in technology, but in marketing. Suddenly, everything needed “AI” slapped on it, regardless of relevance, function, or reality.

Boardrooms became feverish warzones:

“Janet, where’s the Al in our shampoo?”

“Er… it foams… intelligently?”

“Good enough. Rebrand it: LathrAI.”

An app promising “AI for finding the best AI” launched—only to be exposed as three interns frantically googling product reviews.

Even the local bakery joined in, claiming “AI-optimised sourdough fermentation”. When asked, the owner admitted, “It’s just my nan’s old recipe.”

Meanwhile, genuine Al researchers watched in horror. Dr. Anita Sharma, a machine learning expert, posted wearily: “No, your scented candle isn’t ‘AI-infused’. Please stop.”

But no one cared. Shareholders demanded “AI” in the name, or they’d dump stock. Startups got funded only if they mentioned neural networks, such as for products like AIToothpick (“adapts to gum contours”) or SmartAI-Shirt (“predictive comfort fabric”).

And yet, amid this AI-fuelled circus, one small local coffee shop stood defiant. Its sign read:

“We Make Coffee. No AI. Just Dave.”

They sold out every day.

Unmended

Each night the house smooths its skin. 

Cracked plaster seals, paint blushes fresh, 

floorboards remember how not to groan. 

 

In the kitchen, tiles reattach themselves, 

grout knitting seamless as if no pan 

was ever thrown, no water ever spilled. 

 

The window we shattered last winter

glimmers whole by dawn,

its glass cold as a withheld word.

 

Upstairs, the mirror forgets

the arguments it has reflected.

But your eyes do not.

 

My joints ache in a language

the house does not speak.

Your hands tremble, unplastered, unpainted.

 

By morning, the house is immaculate,

a museum of absence.

We move through it

like old ghosts,

unmended.

A Candle for the Unnamed

Here’s to the child I never named,

the call I never made,

the song I hummed once,

then forgot.

 

To the painting left in my head,

streaked with colours no hand

ever mixed.

To the house with the yellow door

we never lived in,

the city I passed by,

the stranger I almost loved.

 

There is a cemetery

not marked on any map,

where all the unlived lives lie:

the apology unsaid,

the poem unwritten,

the “yes” I swallowed,

the “no” I let rot on my tongue.

 

I light a candle tonight

for the almosts,

for the flicker before the flame,

for the ghosts

with no names to answer to.

 

Somewhere, they bloom—

delicate as breath,

wide as regret.

The Lit Fuse

Across the street, she’s talking to a friend on her phone, sunlight threading gold through her hair.

It’s her. Always her.

In Rome, she was Lucia—plague took her. In Warsaw, Anka—a soldier’s bullet. In Kyoto, Mai—his jealous rival’s knife. This life, she’s Eleanor. And he remembers.

The memory came back two days ago after he fell down the stairs: a rush, a drowning, all the lives folding into one sharp point. Names, faces, the taste of their last kiss, the weight of their last breath. And the terrible certainty: his love is the fuse.

He watches her laugh, the corner of her mouth lifting just so. His body aches to go to her. But the pattern’s clear now, unmistakable. Loving her means losing her.

She glances across—catches his gaze. Something flickers across her face. Recognition? No. Just polite curiosity. Not yet.

He tells himself to look away.

He does.

He convinces himself to take a breath, to turn, to walk.

But then—

She’s in the road, fumbling with her bag, phone slipping from her hand. A car barrels down the lane, too fast, too close.

He’s running before he knows.

The air smashes from his lungs as he yanks her back, arms tight around her waist, the car blaring past in a blur of metal and hot wind. She stumbles against him, breathless, eyes wide, face inches from his.

“Thank you,” she gasps, dazed. “I… I didn’t see…”

He lets go. He should step back. Should vanish into the crowd, slip free before the knot tightens.

But it’s too late.

She’s looking at him now, really looking, brow furrowed—like she’s searching some half-remembered name, some shape in a dream.

And just like that, the fuse is lit.

Twelve Minutes

He stood before the machine, hands in his coat pockets, eyes fixed on the brass slot. Above it, instructions glowed in soft blue light: 

INSERT GRIEF ITEM. PROCESSING TIME: 12 MINUTES. YOU WILL FEEL LESS. 

His fingers closed around the ring in his pocket. A slim gold band, worn thin on one side. He had kept it for three years now, turning it over like a prayer stone, sometimes pressing it to his lips when no one was looking. 

Twelve minutes. 

Around him, the hall was quiet but not empty. A woman sat on a bench, blank-eyed, a crumpled sock in her lap. A teenager leaned against the far wall, a cracked phone case in hand. Neither looked at him. 

He pulled the ring out and rolled it between thumb and forefinger. In the machine’s polished surface, his reflection wavered—a man, growing older with grief like a weight stitched under his skin. 

Twelve minutes. 

His hand hovered. If he let it take the ring, would it take the smell of her hair, the memory of her laugh as they painted the bedroom, the way she whispered his name when half-asleep? Or only the ache—the sharp, sudden stabs, the hollow mornings, the dreams that dissolved into salt on waking?

The woman at the bench rose. She walked past, her eyes watery, glazed with traces of red. She dropped the sock into the machine, paused briefly, then walked away.

His fingers closed. Slowly, deliberately, he put the ring back in his pocket.

The machine waited.

He turned and left.

The Man and His Moon

There was a young man in a hat, 

Who fell quite in love with the Moon; 

He courted her nightly with howls in the night, 

And serenades played on a horn. 

 

He sang, “Oh my lunar delight! 

Oh roundest, resplendent balloon! 

Come down from the sky, and we’ll merrily tie 

A knot by the end of the June!” 

 

So he built a vast ladder of cheese, 

(With the help of a wayward baboon), 

And up he did climb through the highest of clouds, 

To wed his bewildering Moon. 

 

But alas! when he reached for her hand, 

His fingers met nothing but glow— 

For the Moon, though she gleams, is made wholly of beams, 

And cannot be met far below. 

 

Now he floats in a coat through the sky, 

With a pocket of onions and rye; 

And the people below shake their heads as they go, 

At the man who made love to the sky.

Return to Us

We borrowed the stars— 
calcium for our teeth, 
iron for our blood, 
carbon laced in each breath we press against the dark. 

We walk, brittle and shining, 
wearing the debris of old collisions, 
the soft ash of suns 
that burned themselves out long “before” 
the word meant anything at all. 

In the marrow, in the nailbed, 
in the white gleam of an eye catching light— 
the stars pulse their call: 
Return to us. 

We are brief trustees of brilliance, 
temporary vessels of a flame 
we did not strike, 
cannot keep. 

One day, 
when the chest quiets, 
we will give back each atom, 
scatter them to dark soil, to sky, 
to dust adrift through things unnamed. 

And somewhere, 
in the cold ache of a young galaxy, 
the raw gold of our bones 
will vibrate into shape again.

Dominion Point

No planes fly over Dominion Point anymore. Not after the last one vanished from radar at 60,000 feet and reappeared, empty, three weeks later in a rice field in Mozambique—fuselage intact, every seat belt neatly fastened, every passenger gone. 

It had once been a logistics hub. When Sable Dynamics towed their first modules into international waters—a floating research array powered by autonomous reactors and patrolled by drones—they called it supply chain decentralisation. 

Now it is a vertical reef of steel and ceramic, rising fifteen storeys above the waterline, though no official map shows it, and satellite feeds “glitch” whenever focused on that quadrant of the ocean.

No one is sure what happens inside. But everyone knows who sits at the centre: Victor Sable.

The AI wasn’t his idea. He didn’t even understand how it worked. It had been built in secret by the company’s elite Zurich tech lab—code meant to analyse markets, predict unrest, flag leverage points in global infrastructure.

One day, it started making suggestions. Two weeks later, it started making decisions.

Victor didn’t stop it. He listened. It told him which ports to buy. Which pipelines to rupture. When to crash the euro. When to secure Argentina’s clean water. When to trigger drought in Yemen using patent-locked climate tech.

And it was always right. Not sentient. Not alive. Just ruthlessly accurate—a blind god of pure correlation.

Dominion Point grew in secret, stitched together from repurposed tankers, 3D-printed shells, and scavenged orbital tech. By the time the world noticed, it was already too late.

Every attempt to intervene—cyberwarfare, drones, a secret airstrike—was effortlessly defeated. Instantly dismantled by AI-designed picobots, mass-produced in cavernous factories beneath the seabed to swarm unseen around Dominion Point at the level of an atom.

Victor’s feed broadcasts endlessly from a minimalist throne room, lit by synthetic dawn. He is always there, gaze vacant, as the AI presents him with decisions.

His voice is never raised. When the World Bank collapsed, no facial muscle responded. When Brazil split into corporate zones, he hardly moved. When eight million were displaced by water wars after “unforeseen disruptions” to dam networks in Central Asia, he smiled faintly. Then his head turned slowly to the camera and he said:

“This is not coercion. It’s freedom at scale.”

Now, borders are meaningless. And CEOs kneel where diplomats once stood, while the AI continues its computations.

The Hours

I said I would buy the flowers myself—

Step into the morning, become someone else.

The day is a ribbon, the sky’s like a bell,

And the hours chime softly, though no one can tell.

I pass through the sunlight, all lilac and glass,

But I’m always becoming the girl I once was.

Who am I now, in this glitter of air?

The city forgets me—yet I’m still there.

Not quite the hostess, nor quite the wife—

Just a breath between moments, the shape of a life.

And the hours—they slip,

Like rain from the wrist.

Like parties and petals,

Like kisses half-missed.

Was I ever a self?

Was I only the light

That danced on the wall

Then vanished from sight?

There’s something in June that is just like a wound—

All beauty and sorrow, entangled, attuned.

Peter once loved me—his knife of a gaze—

But I chose the safe harbour, not passion’s blaze.

Yet even now, as the bell strikes the day,

I wonder what girl he saw walk away.

I gather my guests, I smile and I stir—

But who is this woman they take me for?

A thread through a drawing-room, always composed,

Yet aching with silence where nothing is closed.

And the hours—they slip,

Like rain from the wrist.

Like parties and petals,

Like kisses half-missed.

Was I ever a self?

Was I only the light

That danced on the wall

Then vanished from sight?

I think of the boy who jumped to the air,

Fell through the sun like a prayer unanswered.

Septimus, stranger—your shadow is mine,

Both of us slipping the ropes of time.

The soul is a secret, it does not grow old—

It burns and it flickers, it never is told.

And the hours—they pass,

But leave no trace.

I gather them all

In silence and grace.

The self is a mirror,

The self is a sound—

The toll of Big Ben

And the hush underground.

Mayor Biscuit

Nobody quite remembers who wrote Biscuit the Labrador on the ballot. It might have been Daisy from the bakery, or old Stan who thinks politics peaked in 1972. Either way, the dog got seventy-three votes. Enough to win.

The incumbent, Councillor Dobbins, demanded a recount. The ballot officer, who had already started on her lunch, refused. “It’s done, Geoff,” she said, biting into a cheese and cucumber sandwich. “The dog won. Try dignity, for once.”

Biscuit, unaware of his victory, celebrated by rolling in something unspeakable behind the co-op. The local paper ran the headline:

BISCUIT ELECTED IN SHOCK LANDSLIDE. VOTERS ‘HAD NO WORSE OPTIONS’.

At the first council meeting, things were tense. Dobbins refused to vacate the mayoral chair, so Biscuit peed on it. No one argued after that. The chair was bleached. Biscuit got a tartan cushion.

Oddly, the meetings improved. Biscuit sat quietly, tail thumping occasionally, eyes wide with mute optimism. When discussions grew heated, he’d let out a soft, judicial woof, and everyone shut up.

Minutes were quicker. Budgets were passed. People stopped yelling about bins.

His approval ratings soared—82% by mid-year. Villagers said things like “He’s got presence” and “Finally, a politician who isn’t all talk.” Even the dissenters struggled. “Yes, but he’s just a dog,” said Dobbins bitterly on local radio. “A very good dog,” countered the host.

Biscuit was eventually awarded the ceremonial chain, specially adapted into a collar. He chewed it once, then wore it proudly.

A journalist from the national press came to write a piece. “It’s performance politics,” she sniffed. “Pure pageantry.” She then watched Biscuit chase off a developer trying to bulldoze the cricket pitch. The story ran under the headline:

BARKING MAD OR BRILLIANT?

By Christmas, Biscuit had won Parish Leader of the Year, and the council had received two grant offers to study “non-verbal governance models.”

He celebrated with a new squeaky toy and a sausage from Daisy, who confided, “You’re better than all of ‘em.”

No one ever replaced him.

He served three terms. Then, upon his peaceful passing, the council held a ten-minute silence—broken only by the squeak of his favourite toy, gently pressed by the village clerk.

Dobbins ran again. But lost to a goat.

Random Thoughts

I’m a night owl, an early bird, and a ghost haunting the hours in between.

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.