Silicon Investor - Muffy's Story: A Short Story Game for Would Be Authors

[Sun Tzu] Here's the final version: The Original FaceTransmitted in fragments from the Hi...

Sun Tzu — 5/8/2025 3:39:57 PM

Here's the final version:

The Original Face Transmitted in fragments from the Hidden Cypress Archive

Preamble

There is no story to tell.
Only something that once occurred in a garden.

A master asked a question.
A student did not answer.
Something passed between them.

It is said the master never raked the sand again.
It is said the student became the koan.

And though no one speaks of what was truly exchanged,
the pine needle still lies where it fell.

The Garden A pine needle turned in the wind and fell—askew—across the raked arc of the garden.

Kensho did not move.

He stood at the edge of the veranda, robes unmoved, gaze still.

Across the sand, Archer sat.

Spine unbroken. Palms upward. Eyes half-lowered.

A crow called once. Then silence.

The wind passed through the sleeves of both men.
Kensho’s right thumb shifted under his robe.

He spoke, as he had many times before:

“Show me your original face… before your parents were born.”

The words fell lightly.

No answer followed.

Archer’s breath deepened.
Mist gathered in the cold air—
rising like heat pressed through stone.

Behind his closed eyes: Salt sprayed on sunlit stone.
Scorched cedar smoke escaped from lintels.
Jasmine crushed beneath boots in retreat.
Ash clung to soles.
The scent of iron. A doorframe still warm.

The bridge inside him had held for years.
Memory after memory had set itself—
stone on stone,
tight without mortar.

Each memory pressed its place,
like keystones in a bridge.

His samue no longer lifted with breath.
No mist followed.
No motion.

A single tear gathered at the corner of his left eye—
not fallen, not yet.
Like a man standing too long at the edge of a bridge.
Then, it caught the morning light.

He opened his eyes.
And then, his fist.

In the sand: Kensho saw the imprint—
a hollow where the hand had pressed,
its shape already softening.

The sand that had been gathered gave way.
Loosened from center to edge,
it surrendered form—
grain by grain—
until nothing held.

The wind moved.
It passed across Archer’s open palm,
and took the sand
gently.

Only then did Archer speak:

“Is this what you say,”
“when you stand by Alcántara bridge?”

Kensho did not speak.

His fingers, once still, curled slightly against his sleeve—
without intention,
as if something new had been placed there.

The pine needle still crossed the broken line.
The hand that had opened now rested empty again.
No one moved.

Archer bowed once.

And left.

The Garden After

The pine needle still rested across the raked line.

Kensho stepped into the garden.
The air held its breath.

A basin trickled beyond the wall—steady, distant.
The sound did not call him.
It had always been part of the garden’s silence.

The sand did not resist his weight.

He knelt where the hand had opened.
The grains shimmered faintly,
gathered in a shallow curve.
They had not scattered—only settled.

He placed his palm beside them.
Felt their coolness.
Not absence.
Only the echo of something once held.

He looked at the rake.
Then at the line the pine needle broke.
It bent around the intruder
as if still trying to keep its arc.

He had crossed the bridge many times.
Solid stones.
He had taught others to cross.

But now—
he sensed the grains of sand
slipping between the stones.

His gaze returned to the sand.

He wanted to move it.
To restore order.
To fold the moment into meaning.

But his hand did not rise.

The silence had thickened into shape.

And there,
kneeling beside what had fallen,
the master who had once taught form through emptiness
now listened to the shape of a thing breaking
softly
without asking
to be repaired.

The pine needle stayed.

The lines around it faded.

And in a corner of Kensho’s mind,
as breath gathered,
a single image formed:

a verse half-written
before the reed broke.
and the ink ran.

Scroll of Silent Waters

Entry 147.3 – The Alcántara Gesture
Recorded by Unmon Sosei, third abbot of the Hidden Cypress Hall

It is said that the master Kensho once posed the koan of the original face to a man who was not born into the monastery, but who came to it from fire and salt.

When asked, the man said nothing.

He gathered a handful of sand. Let it fall.
And before it struck the wood, he asked:

“Is this what you say when you stand by Alcántara bridge?”

The master did not reply.

In later years, no student saw him rake the broken pine line again.

Some say this was transmission.
Others say the student became the mirror.
Still others say that nothing happened at all.

But I have seen the place where the grains fell.
And I have seen the pine needle.
And it has not moved.

And once—when no one else was in the garden—
I saw Kensho pass his sleeve over his hand,
then pause,
as if checking whether something was still there.

And one monk, who would not give his name, said only this:

The line broke.
The tear rose.
And no one moved to mend either.

[Carolyn] It does. Trust me. Exploring a different way (and history) of thinking is always...

Carolyn — 5/7/2025 9:20:01 AM

It does. Trust me. Exploring a different way (and history) of thinking is always beneficial.

My Western mind

[Sun Tzu] Zen masters cut through identify and the "self" until there is no cutter and not...

Sun Tzu — 5/7/2025 8:24:05 AM

Zen masters cut through identify and the "self" until there is no cutter and nothing to be cut. That Koan is a famous one designed to show the student how illusory and transient his notion of Self/Ego is. It forces the student to take a long view of their reality.

In Zen, the answer from another master is either an action or another Koan. It's never a philosophical discussion as you have in the west. Archer delivers both. Perhaps he is on the verge of enlightenment.

Archer gets it. He goes through the 7 stages of grief in seconds, and gets it. His actions, stillness in the face extreme inner turmoil and expressed with a handful of sand proves this.

But Archer also presents a different Koan, one that is rooted in Taoism and is wrapped in a Koan.

Alcantara bridge has stood for thousands of years without support. It is a compaction structure held together on by its own stress.

Archer is fundamentally questioning what the Zen master is doing. Does he really think that the bridge is better off as fluid sand and would he "free" the bridge and turn it into sand.

This is not conversation that anyone unfamiliar with eastern philosophy would get. But I hope that the story still leaves a mark and is appreciated by most people.

[Carolyn] They each ask the other a question. The questions evoke introspection. The bridg...

Carolyn — 5/7/2025 7:33:08 AM

They each ask the other a question. The questions evoke introspection. The bridge is Kensho's albatross.

[Sun Tzu] I don't think I should quit my day job yet. I haven't met anyone yet who's under...

Sun Tzu — 5/7/2025 12:27:46 AM

I don't think I should quit my day job yet.
I haven't met anyone yet who's understood the conversation between Kensho and Archer.

[Sun Tzu] The Original Face(transmission and return) A pine needle turned once in the ai...

Sun Tzu — 5/7/2025 12:26:37 AM

The Original Face (transmission and return)

A pine needle turned once in the air before landing—askew—across the raked arc of the garden.

Master Kensho did not move.

He stood at the edge of the veranda, robes still, hands at rest within their folds.

Across the sand, Archer sat.

Spine tall. Palms open. Eyes half-lowered.

The wind passed through them both, but neither stirred.

Kensho spoke without breath behind it:

“Show me your original face… before your parents were born.”

The words fell lightly.

No answer followed.

Archer did not flinch. Did not blink.

But his breath caught, once.

His posture held—but within it, a change:
the faint contraction at the jaw, the rise of the chest, the heat behind the skin.

In the hidden garden of his mind,
the perfume of ash and seawater rose.
Old memories cracked like oil on flame.
A name. A body. A promise broken.
A silence kept too long.

His blood rose.

Mist gathered in his breath.
His skin flushed with the effort of stillness.

A storm burned behind his composure—
the rage of understanding too late,
the grief of finding the truth costs everything,
and the resignation of knowing
even the answer is not enough.

Then stillness returned.

The fire cooled—not extinguished, but gathered.

One tear formed.

It did not fall.

He reached down, slowly.
Fingers in the sand.
Not to write. Not to draw.
To feel.

A small mound gathered in his palm.
His hand rested open—halfway between offering and memory.

Then, softly:

“Is this what you say,” he asked,
“when you stand by Alcántara bridge?”

He opened his hand.

The sand fell.

No rush. No sound. Just the quiet release of structure.

Grains slipped between fingers.
Some caught the breeze.
Others dropped straight to wood.
No pattern. No loss.

Something shifted.

The pine needle still lay where it had fallen, disrupting the line.

Kensho watched the last of the sand fall from Archer’s hand.

And said nothing.

Coda: The Return

Archer was gone.
The pine needle still rested across the raked line.

Kensho stepped into the garden.

The air held its breath.
The sand did not resist his weight.

He knelt where the hand had opened.

The scattered grains glinted under morning light.
No wind touched them now.

He placed his palm beside them.
Felt their coolness.

Something in him—a weight long buried under posture and breath—shifted.

Not upward.
Not outward.
Just—unfastened.

The rake leaned against the post, untouched.

He looked at it.
Then at the line the pine needle broke.

A memory rose:
A bridge arcing in the sun,
each stone bound not by mortar, but by pressure,
by trust in tension.

And now—
he could not recall
whether he had ever walked it
without fear.

His gaze returned to the sand.

He wanted to move it.
To restore order.
To fold the moment into meaning.

But his hand did not rise.

The silence had thickened into shape.

And there, kneeling beside what had fallen,
the master who had once taught form through emptiness
now listened to the shape of a thing breaking
quietly
without need for noise.

The pine needle stayed.

The lines around it faded.

And in a corner of Kensho's mind,
as breath gathered,
a single shape formed:

bridge in winter light—
no one left to cross it now.
stone forgetting stone.

[Sun Tzu] Shadow Chaser The hallway was longer at night. Sometimes it narrowed near th...

Sun Tzu — 3/21/2025 2:15:19 PM

Shadow Chaser

The hallway was longer at night.

Sometimes it narrowed near the nurses' station, other times it stretched beyond what he remembered. The ceiling lights flickered once—not broken, just slow to catch up, as though the space itself was uncertain of how far it extended. There was a rhythm to it now, something like the old lines from a poem he'd once memorized in college but hadn't thought about in years:

> "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

Not a declaration, but a reminder—of what he once wanted to believe.

Elias walked it slowly, past patient rooms, closed doors, soft machines humming through the walls. At one door, he paused—then moved on without knocking. The overhead lights were dimmed, the linoleum cool through his shoes. Once, he started to remove his watch, as he often did at night, but slipped his sleeve back down instead. Shadows pooled gently in corners, sloping downward like the end of a breath. Some corners gave off warmth; others felt as though they'd been left behind by someone who never returned. He’d walked this path for years, but it felt different now—elongated, echoing in a way he hadn’t noticed before. On some nights, he thought the lights ahead receded as he walked, as if space was folding itself inward. Once, he turned a corner and faced a janitor’s cart that hadn’t been there the moment before. Like something was following. Or waiting.

He paused outside his office and turned slowly, eyes scanning the corridor as though expecting to see someone—Amara, Robert, or perhaps just himself from a different time. The air carried the faintest trace of antiseptic and winter. Somewhere, far off, someone was frying plantains—sweet, oily, familiar. He hadn’t eaten them that way since his mother made them pressed in a cast-iron pan, humming a tune he could no longer name. The same smell once followed him down a market street, days after the funeral. He didn’t remember what he was buying—just the sense of walking too slowly. He stood there a moment longer, then pushed the office door open.

---

Earlier that day—or perhaps the day before, the difference no longer felt precise—Elias had woken certain that he’d accepted things. That he was beyond fear. But over coffee, the tremor in his hand returned. And with it, a sharp irritation he hadn't expected. He knocked the cup against the edge of the sink and snapped at the nurse who passed by.

Back in his office, he sat with the letter beside him, unopened. After a while, he reached for the phone, stared at the keypad, then set it down again. Later, he picked it up, dialed three digits, and pressed cancel. He rubbed his palms together. Picked up the letter again. Thought about starting a reply instead. Thought about beginning a prayer—but couldn’t remember how the first line began. Eventually, he slid the letter back into the drawer.

Later that evening, he picked it up again and held it against the window to read in silhouette. The hesitation wasn’t about the words inside—it was about what they might confirm.

---

That night, he wrote his daughter another letter. It was longer. He didn’t plan it. The pen moved like it had been waiting. He wrote about a summer when they’d eaten roasted yam wrapped in newspaper, sitting on the bumper of someone else’s car. How the salt had stung a small cut on her finger and she hadn’t cried. How the foil stuck to the skin, and the heat from the roadside grill had made them both sweat without speaking. He stopped mid-sentence. Folded the paper twice. Then burned it.

---
The hallway in the hospice changed when he wasn't looking. Once, he passed a room he was certain had been sealed for months—its door now open just a crack, light blinking from inside. Another time, he reached the end and turned left instinctively, only to find himself back near the kitchen, unsure how. Some evenings it bent. Others, it pressed in—walls closer than he remembered. But he walked it anyway. Not to go anywhere. Just to keep from standing still.

In the corridor near the hospice kitchen, Elias once found Robert at the vending machine, staring through the glass. When he turned, he looked both present and somewhere far away.

They walked together in silence.

Robert didn’t sit right away. He reached into his coat and removed a folded page—creased deeply, like it had been carried too long. He placed it on the desk but said nothing about it. Elias watched his hands carefully—how they hesitated, how the paper barely made a sound.

After a moment, Elias opened his drawer and pulled out an old envelope. He started to fold it—once lengthwise, once again—then paused. Left it unfolded on the desk. Elias folded it again, slower this time. He didn’t know yet what he’d say.

The room was quiet. The chair across from him sat in its place. Nothing had changed. And yet—he looked at the window.

Light shifted on the surface, just enough to blur the reflection.

Robert turned toward the window but didn’t look out. Finally, he sank into the chair across from Elias. The fabric groaned softly beneath him.

“You know what gets me?” he said, not looking up. “I used to say I'd have more time. But I stopped believing that a while ago. Still—still I say it.”

He paused, fingers twitching lightly against the chair. “My brother. Maya. That shop. I thought I’d get to it all eventually. But I didn’t. And now I watch myself fading out of the story like I was barely here.”

Elias didn’t answer. He reached for the envelope again. Pressed it flat. Then just let his hand rest there.

Later, when he tried to recall the conversation, he couldn’t remember Robert’s exact words—only the angle of his shoulders and the sound of his own pulse. The hallway that night felt wider, then narrower, as though undecided about what it wanted him to feel.

---

Later that week, Elias avoided Amara. Skipped the time they usually met. When they did cross paths, he smiled too quickly and looked away. It wasn’t until he forgot himself and walked into the lounge where she sat reading that she looked up and said, “Back to walking in circles, are we?”

“I thought I was past this,” Elias said, lowering himself into a chair. “But I’m not.”

“Maybe we don’t move past. Maybe we circle until we stop pushing against it.”

He closed his eyes. “Or until it stops pushing back.”

Amara gave a faint nod. Then, after a pause, she said, “I wasn’t always like this, you know. I used to think if I just held tighter, I could bend the ending toward me. That if I stayed loud enough, grief would turn into something else.”

Elias looked over, surprised. “Did it happen all at once?” Elias asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. “Or did it sneak in?”

“I stopped thinking it was supposed to feel heroic. Started thinking it was enough just to keep walking.”

---

The diagnosis had come a week before that. The doctor’s voice was soft, practiced. The kind of voice you use when no one’s asking you to be brave.

Elias nodded. Then walked home without his coat, the wind pushing gently at his back. There was a neighborhood bakery still open, its windows steamed. He remembered his mother sending him there with exact change, and how he always spent a little of it on a second roll for the walk home.

He cleared out a drawer—one filled with visitor tags, expired prescriptions, a ring of forgotten keys. He held the envelope loosely and sat in Robert’s old chair. For a moment, he lifted the letter to the light the same way Robert had once done with his own note. Then he folded it differently—once lengthwise, once slanted—and placed it between two books. Not long. No explanation. A gesture.

Later, a reply arrived. Four lines. A place. A time. No punctuation.

He dressed carefully that morning. Pressed the cuffs of his shirt flat with the side of his hand. He took the bus. Walked the last two blocks. Waited. He sat on the bench Amara used to favor, though it was too low for his knees. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. Pressed his palms flat to the seat. Tried stillness the way she had, but felt restless in it.

She arrived before the hour. No hug. No confrontation. Just a nod, as if they were picking up the middle of a conversation they’d been having all along.

Neither apologized.

They sat on a bench. Talked about small things. The way the rain in Lagos fell sideways, sliding under umbrellas. How the power had gone out mid-journey, and they had eaten puff-puff by flashlight in the back of a trotro. Her dog. A book she'd left behind when she was sixteen.

Neither apologized.

When she stood to go, she said, "You write shorter now."

He smiled. “I use fewer words when I mean them.”

She hesitated. Then touched his shoulder lightly—the same way Amara had once touched the edge of his chair before leaving the room. Not ownership. Not forgiveness. Something in between.

Elias wept. Not because it was enough. But because it was something.

---

The note Robert left remained unopened until a week later. Inside was a single sentence: “If you read this, say something I never could.”

Elias folded it again, slower this time. He didn’t know yet what he’d say. But when he caught his reflection in the glass—creased shirt, quiet eyes—he realized the chair across from him was no longer empty.

---

He thought of Amara less as a person now, more as a tone of voice he carried into silence. He thought of Robert like an unfinished sentence—still echoing, still moving.

The hallway in the hospice shifted depending on his breath. Once, he passed a room that had been locked for years, now slightly ajar. Another time, he reached the end only to find it curved back toward the beginning. Some evenings it curved to the left, other times it felt like a straight path he hadn’t yet walked. But Elias walked it anyway. Once, he stopped in front of the vending machine, like Robert had, stared at it without knowing why, and walked away empty-handed.

Each room he passed whispered something soft. The scent of orange blossoms from someone’s hand lotion reminded him of an old clinic; the hush of monitors fell in and out of rhythm with his steps. One door released a gust of heat that reminded him of roasting yams. Another let out the crackle of a radio sermon in a language he only half-remembered. The echoes weren’t nostalgic—they were unsettled, incomplete. Each shadow paused, then stepped away.

---

When he saw Amara again, they didn’t speak at first. There was no reason to rush.

Finally, Elias said, “I think I kept moving because I didn’t want the shadow to catch up.”

Amara's eyes met his but didn’t soften immediately. She waited a breath. “You’ve always been moving,” she said. “Just not always forward.”

Elias looked at the floor. “I thought running was just the act of avoiding. But maybe it’s more subtle than that—maybe it’s how I framed silence, how I managed distance.”

Amara exhaled—not a sigh, something quieter. She looked at the floor between them and said, “Sometimes we talk like we’re outside it all,” she said. Then stopped.

“But I think it…”

She didn’t finish.

Elias didn’t ask her to.

“I think I’ve stopped running,” he said. Then paused. “Or maybe I’ve just stopped trying to outrun it.”

Amara didn’t answer. Her gaze lingered on the window. He followed it—watched the curtain move just slightly, like breath.

He didn’t say anything more. Neither did she.

---

That night, Elias sat in the office with the door slightly open. The shadows didn’t press in. They stayed in their corners. Present, but easy.

He placed the scarf—creased, half-folded—on the desk. The fabric unfurled slightly when he let go.

He opened the window. The air moved through slowly, brushing past his wrist.

Down the hall, a door clicked shut. Another one didn’t.

He sat.

And the hallway didn’t end.

He stood.

The air changed as he moved—nothing dramatic, just a shift in weight.

He walked. Not to arrive. Not to return.

Just to feel something stir.

.

[Sun Tzu] Shadow Chaser Elias sat at his desk beneath the dim lamp, acutely aware of the...

Sun Tzu — 3/21/2025 11:46:23 AM

Shadow Chaser

Elias sat at his desk beneath the dim lamp, acutely aware of the subtle shifting of shadows around him. The walls held the weight of things unspoken. His fingertips sometimes traced the grain of the desk during pauses in conversation, moments when patients would stare past him, toward the sliver of sky framed by the narrow window. Shoes creaked on the linoleum; breath caught, released. Every object had listened more closely than he ever could. Yet something about the shadows tonight felt new—less like shapes cast by light, more like thoughts edging closer to words. He stared at the quiet corner he had long avoided, as though it waited, patiently, for him to stop pretending he hadn’t noticed.

Slowly, deliberately, he rose, each step a quiet negotiation within himself. It felt peculiar yet somehow essential to approach the darkness he had always sidestepped. As he moved forward, the shadows seemed to shift with him—receding softly, as if to make space.

Weeks earlier, Elias had found himself attuned to the hospice clock's steady ticking. The sound had always comforted him, anchoring the room with its certainty. Sunlight filtered through the blinds in pale, broken strips. The walls bore the usual shadows, but that day they seemed to move with a more personal rhythm. Across from him sat Amara, hands resting in her lap, expression calm. There was a stillness about her—not the stillness of resignation, but of balance.

“You never seem worried,” Elias had observed, a question hidden in the remark.

She met his eyes. “Should I be?”

He hesitated. “Most people worry. About time running out. About what they didn’t do.”

Amara tilted her head. “I tried to make peace with things while they were still happening. Not everything, of course. But enough. I don’t think we’re meant to tie every thread.”

Her words unsettled him more than he let on. That night, while locking his office door, Elias noticed the tremor in his fingers. It wasn't new. It was simply harder to ignore now.

He’d lie awake listening to the hush of the heater fan, the wind brushing the siding. His thoughts came in flashes—his daughter’s silhouette at a younger age, the smell of oranges in winter, the feeling of being late for something unnamed. He recalled the patients who had spoken of children they hadn’t called, places they never went, words withheld. It wasn’t the dying that troubled them—it was the unfinishedness of their lives.

He began drafting a letter to his daughter that night but left it unfinished.

In the corridor near the kitchen, Elias spotted Robert staring into a vending machine as if it owed him an answer. When Robert turned, he had the look of someone still living in a world that had already let go of him. They walked back to Elias’s office without speaking.

Robert didn’t sit right away. He wandered the room in slow, half-curious circles, finally settling into the chair across from Elias like someone claiming a familiar seat at a table no longer theirs.

“You know what gets me?” he said, then paused. “I always figured there’d be more time. Not for anything dramatic—just… to become who I was supposed to be.”

He didn’t speak with bitterness. Just weariness. “There’s no crescendo. No grand reconciliation. Just a slow fading. And now I think about my brother, and Maya, and that shop I never opened... and I wonder what was so important I kept choosing not to call.”

Elias wanted to say that regret was a kind of fidelity. That remembering meant something. But he said nothing. Robert wasn’t asking for wisdom. He was asking to be heard.

After Robert left, Elias sat in the quiet and felt the weight of what hadn’t been said.

The diagnosis came in a late afternoon stillness. The doctor’s voice was slow and soft, like pages being turned in a book he’d forgotten he’d written. Elias didn’t flinch. He only nodded. That night, he walked home without his coat, though the wind had begun to rise.

The following days unfolded without urgency. Elias returned to his routines. He cleared out a drawer. He lifted a scarf from the drawer. It still held the faint smell of woodsmoke and cold mornings. His fingers moved slowly over the wool, folding, then unfolding, then folding again. He watched the shadows move slowly across the floor of his office, the way he sometimes watched his patients leave—gently, without comment.

He sent the letter to his daughter. Two lines. No explanation.

Conversations with Amara continued, though fewer. The silences grew longer, but not heavier.

“You’re still running,” she said one evening.

“I’m not sure I know how to walk.”

She smiled faintly. “Then maybe start by standing still.”

That night, Elias stood by the window, the streetlamp casting long, delicate shadows into the room. A sudden wind rattled the frame, then passed.

The next morning, he found an envelope slid beneath his door. Four lines. No blame. Just a time. A place.

He read it twice. Folded it slowly. And for the first time in weeks, Elias wept.

In the days that followed, Elias thought of them often. Robert, with his restlessness and fractured reverence. Amara, with her silences that didn’t hide but offered. Two separate compasses pointing in different directions. And yet, somehow, he had followed both.

One afternoon, the sun drifted across the room, lighting a corner that had always been in shadow. Elias watched as the darkness receded without protest. Not vanished—just softened. As if making peace with the light.

He sat with the silence. With the things he hadn’t said. With the choices he hadn’t made. With the regret that no longer bit sharply, but hummed at a lower, more bearable frequency.

Death, he thought, wasn’t a gate or a wall. It was more like a hallway—long, carpeted in silence, familiar in a way you never noticed until you were far down its length. And the shadow that followed you? It didn’t lunge. It paced. The more you hurried, the closer it came. But when you turned, it stepped back.

When he saw Amara next, they said nothing for a long while. Then, as if responding to an unfinished thought he hadn’t voiced, she said, “Maybe once you stop running,” she said, “it doesn’t feel the need to follow so closely.”

He gave a quiet laugh, almost surprised. “Maybe then you realize… the hallway was never closing in. You just hadn’t turned around.”

That evening, Elias walked the hospice halls alone, slow and steady. The lights were low. The shadows long but quiet. As he returned to his office, the corner no longer waited—it welcomed.

He closed the door gently behind him, and sat down.

The ticking of the clock continued.

And the shadows stayed just where they were.

[TEDennis] So, what now, she asked herself? As we all know, Lucy had kept up with the late...

TEDennis — 2/18/2025 8:45:40 PM

So, what now, she asked herself?

As we all know, Lucy had kept up with the latest technological advances. Especially the latest fad. AI.

She used it in every way imaginable to keep abreast of all the latest thinking on all topics meaningful to her.

She was especially reliant on, and owned, chatGPT, as well as Grok-3.

She was also one of the very few of the brightest people who were given access to the Beta test version of "SwiftAnswers".

She sat there in her car, wondering how to phrase a question to each of those AI tools, to perhaps determine what her next course of action should be.

chatGPT and Grok-3 didn't provide any meaningful responses. Just a bunch of vague info that she could have dug up from her own Google-like web searches.

On the other hand, "SwiftAnswers" was in stage-3 of Beta testing their latest whiz-bang feature ... foretelling the future. Lucy thought this would be a good test, so she meticulously documented each step of the process so she could feed back the success (or failure) of the challenge she was facing.

"SwiftAnswers" had proven to be quite accurate in her prior accesses to the future feature. It even knew how long it would be before her all-electric car would run out of juice during California's recent fires and flooding, which was quite a feat when there were so many weather reporting services. All of them had been wrong (as usual).

So, she gathered her thoughts together and asked "SwiftAnswers" what would happen under each scenario for which she dreamed up queries. She wanted to rectify the decades old issues between Lucy and good-ol-mom. Mom didn't have many days left, she surmised.

[Sun Tzu] The Reconciliation That Never Happens [NOTE: This is the kind of story that you...

Sun Tzu — 2/15/2025 11:57:34 AM

The Reconciliation That Never Happens

[NOTE: This is the kind of story that you have to read between the lines...every line]
.
Lucy parked two blocks away. She told herself it was just easier, but she knew better. Jane’s house was the same, more or less—paint a little duller, the front steps sagging. The kind of decay that happens when people stop keeping up appearances.

She didn’t knock right away. She had been here before. Not here, in front of the house, but in this moment: deciding whether or not to step forward. Every past conversation with her mother had felt like a test—one she never quite passed.

She knocked.

Footsteps. Too quick. Anticipation. Jane had been waiting for this.

The door opened, and there she was. Smaller than Lucy remembered. Frail, but not pathetic. Jane had never been pathetic.

"Well. You actually came."

Not hello. Not anything else. A small war already waged in just those words.

Lucy folded her arms. "Yeah. I did."

Jane stepped aside, leaving space. Not too much. Just enough to make it clear that Lucy was the one who had to cross the threshold.

.
Cuts Without Wounds
The tea was already set on the kitchen table. Jane sat, motioning for Lucy to do the same.

"You still drink it with too much sugar?" Jane asked. Neutral words. Loaded words.

Lucy didn’t answer immediately. She could say, ‘Yes, I still do.’ Or she could say, ‘Why does that matter?’

Instead, she just reached for the cup and took a sip. Too hot. A distraction.

"It’s nice of you to come. You’re busy these days."

"I had time."

Had time. Not made time.

Jane tapped her fingers against the table, a soft rhythmic sound. She was calculating.

"You always had a stubborn streak."

Lucy put the cup down. "I guess that’s one way to say it."

Jane exhaled, almost a laugh, but not quite. "Your father used to say the same."

Lucy’s fingers tensed against the table. She wasn’t going to talk about him.

"I wouldn’t know."

"No, you wouldn’t."

Subtext crackled between them.
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The Fragility of Guilt
Jane reached for her own cup, cradling it, her hands thinner than Lucy remembered.

"Doctor says I don’t have long. But I’m sure you heard."

Lucy didn’t move. She could see the chess move for what it was—an attempt at leverage.

"I heard."

Jane sighed, her gaze flicking to the window. "But that’s not your concern, I suppose."

There it was. The guilt trigger. Well-placed. Calculated.

Lucy sat back. "You always knew how to phrase things."

Jane’s mouth twitched. "I don’t know what you mean."

"Yeah. You do."
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Memory is a Weapon
The past was leaking in.

Lucy could still hear echoes of a different conversation, years ago. She was twelve, sitting at this very table.

"Don’t make me the villain."

Jane’s voice had been sharper then. Less brittle, more steel.

Now? Now it was the same argument, repackaged.

"I didn’t call you here to fight," Jane said. As if peace had ever been an option.

Lucy let that settle. Then: "Then why did you call me here?"
.

The Reconciliation That Almost Comes
For a moment—just a moment—it seemed like Jane might say something real. Apologize. Admit something.
Her lips parted. She started, "I—"

And then she stopped.

Lucy waited.

Waited.

But the words never came.

Instead, Jane reached for her tea, her hands shaking just a little.

Lucy exhaled. That was it. That was all she was going to get.

"It’s getting late," she said, standing.

Jane didn’t argue. Didn’t ask her to stay. Just nodded.

At the door, Lucy hesitated. Just for a second.

She could say something. Anything.

Jane could say something, too.

But neither of them did.

Lucy walked back to her car, feeling the weight of something unfinished settle into her bones.

The house stood behind her, silent. Still waiting

[Carolyn] "Oh, sh*t!" the captain yelled. Then, silence. Muffy knew what she had to to - a...

Carolyn — 12/3/2023 12:52:53 PM

"Oh, sh*t!" the captain yelled. Then, silence. Muffy knew what she had to to - and do it quickly. Knowing they had missed 10 ports in 10 days, this cheesy cruise must be near its home port. Running to a lower deck, she spied a Sea Doo, all ready to go. Grabbing an extra gas can (filled of course), a life jacket, and her lunch in a sealed, waterproof container, she grabbed the lanyard, opened the door, and lowered the craft. Then she took off, and looked at the reliable compass also affixed to her life jacket. East! Not West! Away she roared, not looking back, and saw a few treetops in the distance.

[SI Ron (Crazy Music Man)] The funniest post on SI ever. I sent it to Brad.

SI Ron (Crazy Music Man) — 4/3/2020 9:36:51 PM

[Jeffrey S. Mitchell] Just then a voice comes over the loudspeaker: "This is your captain speaking. A...

Jeffrey S. Mitchell — 4/2/2020 11:21:27 PM

Just then a voice comes over the loudspeaker:

"This is your captain speaking. A few of you are wondering why we've missed ten ports of call in the last ten days. A few of you are wondering why the TV sets and cell phones are not working. A few of you are wondering why there are an ever increasing number of people vomiting over the railings each day. There's a perfectly good explanation for that..."

Muffy was all ears. Finally some clues, maybe even some answers. The captain continued...

- Jeff

[TEDennis] As we have learned to expect over the decade+ of Muffy's escapades, her well-tho...

TEDennis — 4/2/2020 1:51:53 PM

As we have learned to expect over the decade+ of Muffy's escapades, her well-thought out plans were interrupted by events over which she had no control.

The cruise ship she had chosen for her 137 day around-the-world cruise was re-routed when the next country on the itinerary refused to let them dock. Why?

Will she get a refund? What about the excursions she had reserved?

The ship had blacked-out all outside news for about 10 days, without informing the passengers of the reason.

What gives?

Some passengers were looking sickly.

Perhaps an outbreak of the flu? Probably not. It's not flu season.

The cabin attendants had all started wearing masks. It's not Halloween, is it?

Muffy began to worry that the Captain's mandate to black-out all news was intended to cover something up.

Fortunately, Muffy had brought along her Radio Shack budget two-way radio. If only they would get close enough to shore, she might be able to get a signal so she could catch up on world news. Surely there was somebody from the global short-wave radio club in this area somewhere.

But, wait.

The ship changed course several days ago, so Muffy doesn't even know where she is, or which country is close by.

[Carolyn] Thus Muffy embarked on a world tour in order to find background for her epic nov...

Carolyn — 7/21/2019 12:06:36 PM

Thus Muffy embarked on a world tour in order to find background for her epic novel, now that she was done with short stories. Her first stop was a yurt in Ulan Bator in order to capture the life of a Mongolian nomad. Not too far from town, though. With a Louis Vuitton store she had a way to replenish the necessities incase of loss.