Lime and the writers circle
He came in near closing. Said howdy like he meant it. The word lingered above us, caught in the low light and the smoke, like it didn’t know where else to go.
It was writing circle night at the saloon. A handful of regulars with notebooks and bad posture sat in a loose half-moon around the bar, each waiting for their turn to read something they’d probably regret later.
He took a stool near the front. Smiled like a man who’d just been appointed town sheriff of grammar. Said he had notes. Said he’d been posting them as he went. Folks at the tables glanced up from their pints, some out of pity, some out of fear.
I poured him something brown and unremarkable. Watched the glass sweat under his palm. He said my story felt stilted. Said I used the same word twice. Said maybe I ought to keep it simple.
I told him we only serve complexity here. Simplicity’s on tap down the street.
He laughed, too loud for the size of the room. The regulars went still. Someone coughed into their sleeve. He talked about tone, said I didn’t sound natural. I said neither did he.
When his laughter finally dried up, I leaned across the bar, low enough so only he could hear. “Friend,” I said, “this ain’t a saloon for cowboys. It’s a saloon for ghosts.”
He didnt have any more notes after that.
Verdant hates the British
Verdant Voidling spoke like a man performing for a vanished crowd. The subway vibrated beneath him, its vacant seats varnished with the weak yellow of the tunnel lights. He was voicing his latest opinion into the void, telling a friend that British people all sounded villainous, velvety, vaguely Victorian. His voice carried through the carriage like a violin with one string too tight.
Across from him sat a visitor he hadn’t noticed. The man’s coat was pale, his umbrella vertical between his knees. He smiled with visible restraint. Verdant’s laughter filled the space, and the smile never moved.
The vibration of the train slowed as it reached the next station. Verdant rose, vertebrae stiff, voice faltering as he stepped toward the doors. The man did not move. The carriage sighed and the doors closed. Verdant let out a breath, victorious. Then, after a brief silence, the train reversed its verdict. The doors opened again. The man stepped out.
Verdant’s walk home was varnished in vapor and vanishing light. The pavement gleamed like river stone, and his reflection followed beside him. Behind that, faint and deliberate, came another rhythm. A velvet scrape of soles. A vow of footsteps.
He varied his path, veering down side streets and vacant lots. The sound remained. Each turn verified the same distance between them, as if space itself was loyal to the follower.
When Verdant reached his building, his hands vibrated around the key. The lock resisted him, its metal voice whining softly. He slipped inside and leaned against the door, victorious again. The air was very still.
The kitchen light revealed an umbrella resting against the counter. Water pooled beneath it, viscous and dark. The smell of violets hung in the air.
From the shadowed corner came a voice, velvet and venomous.
“Careful with your tongue, Mr. Voidling. Verbal vanity is a violent vice.”
Mills and Boon
Mills Boon hated romance. Said it was a virus of the heart. Said the covers all looked like perfume ads for people who couldn’t afford perfume.
His roommate, Victor, collected the things. Velvet spines, pink pages, names like Crimson Desire, The Baron’s Secret Bride, Midnight with the Mechanic. He stacked them in towers by the couch, their titles glowing faintly under the lamplight.
Each night, Victor tried to convert him. He’d lean against the doorway, voice soft and victorious.
“Just one chapter, Mills. There’s an action scene in this one. A duel. You like duels.”
Mills would grunt, eyes fixed on his screen. “Not if they kiss after.”
Weeks went by. The apartment began to smell faintly of musk and perfume. Mills found paperbacks multiplying like mould. One in his dresser drawer. Two under the bed. A whole stack in the closet, pressed together like lovers hiding from a storm. Victor just smiled when asked. Said they were nesting. (Yes this is an omegaverse reference)
One night, Victor came home carrying another paperback, smiling too wide. “This one’s about redemption,” he said. “Enemies to lovers. It’s you, Mills. It’s us.”
Something in the way he said us cracked the silence in half. Mills reached for the nearest book. A hard covered spine of a heavy thing.
The first hit made a sound like applause. The second, like punctuation. By the third, the book had split, pages spilling out like confetti at a wedding nobody wanted.
When it was done, Mills sat in the quiet, bloodied paper dust rising around him. He looked at the mess, then at the broken spine in his hand.
It read, A Novel of Passion and Consequence.