Also, this prompt was inspired by this thing.

Yessss

Oh how I so love a delightful tragedy

Daily Reminder: If you want to see more prompts that I made, click here.

Also, in writing a story, have 100 words above the word count to make it stay. Anything less than that will be automatically deleted and I won't be able to see it...

Replies like this stay. Even if they're below 100.

Bravo, very well written. I applaud your talent.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

you mind If I make this into a TikTok with subway surfers in the background? (I'll take ur name out if u want)

Can we really them villains? They all had very reasonable motive,

Patrick wants to spend a nice evening with his SO, after not seeing her for so long.

John is trying to help take off he stress of his SO after suddenly having to run her family business.

Tim didn’t want to live in a place with no job prospects or opportunity for him.

Jeff, doesn’t want to upend his entire life and throw away 20 years of hard work for something his SO became interested in in less than week.

Paul, is working so hard to not just support both them but also pay for a home.

I hope they all become good friends, cause they all honestly seem like genuine solid guys. All screwed over by romantic parters who didn’t appreciate them.

Probably start a club or something

Thanks, Restser! Very helpful!

[removed]

Was I too nice to them?

When that crew first rolled into the town, I could see their hearts of gold, and I admired that. You'd think that weird coming from a villain, but I was of the classical villain archetype, nothing like these modern villains who seem to only want destruction. I just see it as good fun, a good outlet for the chaotic energies within me. Who doesn't love playing the bad guy sometimes. My crimes were never harmful, and I never killed anyone. Heck, sometimes I'd shut down my own operations if they put lives in danger. I'm a supervillain, not a psychopath, we have standards. Just cause a bit of chaos, have the heroes show up, they'll do their usual spiels, we'll have a fun "fight", they'd foil my plans which were already shaky, and then I'd make my escape and swear I'll get them next time. Good times.

Maybe I should've seen this coming.

Incrediboy was the first one to show signs that those hearts of gold might not be pure. He had the ability of super strength, and normally he'd just use it to break up the flimsy bots I sent after them. During one battle, he did something else. As I was making a daring escape, he picked up a car and threw it at me. It wouldn't have hit me, but I could see it would end up hitting a bystander. The car did end up hitting me, but that was because I took the blow to save the bystander. Thanks to that, I spent a few weeks in the prison's ICU due to the car throwing my back out, but I was willing to let it slide, only it kept happening.

Where did it all go wrong?

It may have been that which lead them to taking increasingly riskier and more bold moves to capture me. I'd try to calm them down, to make it easier to foil my plans so they wouldn't resort to these drastic measures, yet they persisted. Burnout had pyrokinesis, and he used it with reckless abandon after this shift. I practically had to invent a new bot just to stop the wanton destruction that he could cause. Almost all of them would use their abilities without any regard for bystanders in order to stop me. It was ridiculous, I ended up spending more of my time figuring out how to protect the civilians from the heroes than I did fighting the heroes.

Now look what they've done.

I run a small coffee shop on the side. Well, ran. It was a quaint shop, served coffee and very nice little cakes. I enjoyed it, my reprieve from the chaos, and my employees were lovely. I think one day they figured out that this coffee shop might hold the key to my secret identity, but I hoped I would be able to divert their attention in time.

I was wrong.

When I saw the smoke, I already assumed the worse, but that didn't make it any easier. My shop was in flames, and my employees were gravely wounded, but as I watched, I noticed a girl, covered in soot, drag an employee out of the burning building, before going back in. A regular customer, and one of the heroes under my watch, Angel. Her abilities were different, as was she. She really seemed to care, and was vocal with the others about their carelessness, but his got her no respect. Wanting to help her, I dashed in, and found her trying to lift a burning beam off of my pastry chef's arm. With my help, we got him out, just before the building collapsed.

At least someone cared.

I then noticed something in her face, the red eyes and the smeared soot beneath betrayed that she'd been crying. I dreaded to think what had happened, but I asked her anyway. She'd been kicked out of the group after trying to stop them from raiding my coffee shop to find information about me. Her ability was one that was hard to abuse, the ability to heal, so she would normally help civilians whilst me and the other heroes had our "fight". Her constant complaints got her removed, and with no group, she was no longer a hero.

She may not be a hero, but I still see something in her.

Looking to my injured employees, then to the girl trying to heal them, then the remnants of my once cute coffee shop, I felt a rage burning inside of me. These heroes abuse my kindness, make me take so many precautions just to keep civilians safe, and then they go and attack innocents just to get to me. That was it, the line crossed. In my time as a supervillain, I mostly worked to prevent other supervillains appearing who may pose a threat to society, and now I had a group of heroes who might as well be supervillains, and a real hero who had been tossed aside.

That does it.

I placed my hand on Angel's shoulder, giving her a simple offer. Her friends had clearly gone over the line, but she was different, she could be more. I could teach her to be a better hero, and to lead the next group of heroes that come to this town, however there was the matter of her friends, who she agreed needed to be dealt with. With Angel by my side, I returned with her to my base. I would soon train her to be a great hero, one who values life and protects civilians, someone this city needs. First, however, there was the issue of her friends to deal with, and this time there could be no holding back. I was done playing nice with them, and with Angel by my side and with the full extent of my abilities...

We're going to make those motherfuckers pay.

=============================================================================

Just something I put together after a bit of thought. Not the best, but it is a bit late. Might give it a part 2, might not, depends really.

I opened the door and promptly shut it behind me. One fluid motion. A cold waft of air pillowed my entry, just as I liked it. The room was messy and in a state of disrepair. Abandonded buildings look cleaner than this.

I sighed to myself, and haphazardly kicked away some items on the floor. Just to make a path. Charger brick, a single shoe which will forever lack it's mate, and... Whatever that is...

I laid down on the bed, small, but big enough.

I pulled out my phone and clicked onto Spotify. Something about it's little green icon always hung in my thoughts, not sure why. Then I scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled. Finally I found something good, a real classic from the edgelord days.

I swipped off the app. Stared at my wallpaper. Just let the emotions and nostalgia consume me.

I sighed and opened Docs, figure I'll write a bit tonight.

I mouthed along the lyrics as I typed mindlessly, unaware and isolated from my surroundings. I took on my protagonists struggles, and forgot my own. Wasn't worried about keeping up with the homework I'd procrastinated on, just keeping my fictional kid alive. Wasn't thinking about tomorrow, just a fake today.

The song changed in the background, flipping genres and tempo. Breakcore into Industrial. J-pop into droning ambient tracks. Game OST's into classical music. It was comforting.

Maybe people don't know me, but this amalgamation of songs and tracks does. It's my confidant.

Then a song came on, the music tense and oppressive, lyrics indecipherable. I'd know that song anywhere! A small well of happiness appeared inside me, but I quickly smothered it.

Keep the real world out of the story.

I felt inspired by the oppressive track, so I wrote a new scene idea. It's gotta be a demon summoning, with latin chanting this intense? Hmm, make the location... tough choice... A mall? Group of highschool delinquents? Nah, over done...

Hm... Airplane? Nah, sounds stupid...

The song reached a crescendo, the singer belting their entire life in a rage fueled voice. I assume. I was touched by it enough to actually attempt to follow along.

"Daemoniorum convocatio! Lingua antiqua!"

A bright flash of light, followed by a flash of heat. It writhed my nerves and ripped my mind to shreds. I nearly forgot who I was in that instant. Then it left, quick as it had came.

I stared at the ceiling quietly. The music had shut off. I glanced at my phone, the now playing track simply listed "????". It betrayed me! My music went and betrayed me! How is that even possible?!

I exhaled in the still darkness of the room.

Something exhaled along with me.

I shot up, my hand already firmly holding the knife I keep beside my bed. A thing was standing at my footrest. Quiet. Immobile. I couldn't make out it's form, but something in my gut told me I didn't want to.

I was scared. I haven't been that for who knows how long, but I was now.

"Why have you summoned me?" It's tone was... something... I couldn't understand it's emotion, or if it was even trying to convey one. Two tiny dots of blue fire endlessly turned on themselves, glaring at me.

I forced my voice to speak. But it faltered. Only a quiet noise escaped my lips.

"The Old Tongue..." It croaked out, sounding like it was on the verge of death, "...es wird vermieden."

"W-Who are you?" I managed to force out.

"Incomprehensibilis... Frustra..." It titled it's head, and several cracks echoed from it's neck.

"What are you!?" I yelled at it, fear turning to rage. Fight or Flight response finally kicking in.

"Mors... ይልቁንም, ተመሳሳይ የሆነ ነገር"

It glanced around the room, the unsettling cracking forcing me to not blink.

Then it turned it's gaze to me, "ይቅርታ፣ የነቃህው ፍጥረት እየመጣ ነው።"

It looked around again. Another bright flash, this one infinitely more bearable than the first.

It was gone.

Some random song from my playlist was blaring now.

It did nothing to comfort me.

You are the best! Thank you so much!!

Here you go!

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/8aec6t/wp_its_3_am_an_official_phone_alert_wakes_you_up/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/8h0e7k/wp_you_are_death_but_in_a_postapocaliptic_world/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/r2xznm/wp_a_new_designer_drug_aptly_named_skip_allows/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I FOUND THEM

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/8aec6t/wp_its_3_am_an_official_phone_alert_wakes_you_up/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/8h0e7k/wp_you_are_death_but_in_a_postapocaliptic_world/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/r2xznm/wp_a_new_designer_drug_aptly_named_skip_allows/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

But happening concurrently, Johnathon's world was whirling, spiraling out of control. He felt sick to the stomach, partially tuned-in to what was going on. Could it be just coincidence that every single confusing word that came out of everyone's mouth was also a word that he had played at least once in his motley of championships? Paired with the fact that he was unaware of any of the words' definitions, Johnathon's logical attempts to explain away the peculiar situation he found himself in were overall quelled by an inexplicable onset of paranoia and some gut-wrenching feeling. His kidneys twisted into a knot, his toes curled up at the thought, his stomach was queasy- was that even a word?

"Excuse me for a moment, would you?" Johnathon breezily got up from his seat, pushing it back just as quickly as he had the last time, though notably less ferociously. He rushed to the door, having somehow located the exit without even knowing where it was. But before he could rush out of the restaurant and into the streets, he was stopped by a security guard.

"Sir, I can't knowingly rosterize your exit of the restaurant if you do not phear for your food."

Johnathon, having weaved the definitions of the unintelligible bumbling together decently enough through context clues, wittily snapped back, "Oh yeah? Well where were you when I had my foot up all your waiters' asses?"

Johnathon then shoved past the now astounded bouncer, whose exclamation "My, oh my!" was audible even throughout the external sidewalks parked next to the restaurant. Johnathon ran through the crowds of people and passersby, as they all blended together in wicked blurs of smeared paint. He felt his head rotating three-sixty degrees around his neck as he struggled to keep his balance in the world of unknown.

Though most of his senses were thrown off by his state of disorientation, his hearing seemed acute in eavesdropping on the comments of pedestrians and strangers in regards to himself. As expected, it was all jargonic, messy mixtures of mutilated sounds and words, if they could even be recognized as words. It was now to the point of no return- no longer sounding like a foreign language, seemingly lacking in any form of organization at all!

Some instances of comments Johnathon picked up on in public were, best put into writing:

"Does he gyin alrin? I gix he should wase a hoxilogist."

"Xcizqui me? Do you dize heese?"

"Hoal, someone should bage tazet to the correst potch."

And as Johnathon tried fruitlessly to tune out the noise from his ears, the final straw was when he heard someone say, "Xaqfe hoxly quouat nohat." Not a single word in that sentence was a real, certified English word! It was all nonsense that the Scrabble champion had, once upon a time, spewed so violently onto a Scrabble board that he was deemed worthy of a trophy! Johnathon began even to question his own self-proclaimed expertise in his field. Was he even as good as he claimed to be? Or was he merely a fraud, cursed with the blessing of always being right?

Johnathon hastily pulled out his pocket Scrabble dictionary, leafing through it, page by page, sorting by alphabetical letter- and, to his horror, he was able to affirm the existence of every single word that had vomited out of their mouths.

He began to back up in horror. His hand, losing all feeling, dropped the Scrabble booklet on the ground as the world around him began to spin. Smeared blurs of strangers became large, clumped up mega-clusters of human activity that was vaguely happening around him. Everything became dimmer, dimmer, dimmer... until no color but black was to be seen in Johnathon's visual palette.

---

He awoke in a hospital, drenched in cold-pressed sweat. His head jumped off of his pillow at the sight of the doctor, and he found the energy to muster up a question.

"Where- where am I?"

"You, sir, are in the Berkeley Hospital of Psychological Treatment. Please don't worry yourself- you are fine with us, I assure you."

"You... you talk normal."

"Indeed, sir, indeed."

Johnathon plopped his head back into the pillow, exhaling out a long sigh of relief. Perhaps it was all a dream, or, more aptly, a nightmare. None of it had never happened! Johnathon could resume life normally, albeit, never even laying eyes upon another Scrabble board again.

And as the nurse pierced his numb arm with a needle, drawing blood, she hastily told the admitting doctor:

"His blood seems to be a bit exhenic."

Sitting at the dining table now, Johnathon bestowed the tension from his shoulders over to the chair he was resting in. He had worked up quite an appetite- after all, the brainpower that is used up in frantically scrambling a limited set of letters around needs to be replenished somehow. Fiddling with his dinner fork, the world-renown Scrabble champion grew increasingly impatient as he was barraged with the delicious-smelling aromas of the dishes passing around him; dishes going to the diners two tables down, the diners behind him, the diners in front of him, even the diners sitting at the same table- lord, was every single waiter and waitress throughout that entire restaurant just so religiously devoted to denying him of his food for as long as possible?

And the very moment the diner just to his side received his entree and lifted the cloche, a scalding, wispy, aromatic cloud of steam leapt at Johnathon's face, disintegrating in an instant. Johnathon had just about had it up to that point. Forcing his chair back with such ferocity that it left skid-marks on the hardwood floor, Johnathon stood up quickly, placing his foot on the tabletop. He yelled out stridently, "Are any of you accomplished chefs ready to come out with my food??"

Conversations stopped abruptly, heads turned his way, and everyone's gaze was set upon him at this moment. He could feel their shaming eyes branding themselves into the back of his ignominious skull. And, with an audience suddenly emerging from as far as the eye could see, Johnathon began to reconsider his actions. Should he sit back down and act as if nothing was out of the ordinary? Should he excuse himself and find the exit? Logic and convention stormed his mind, stating that clearly, the former two were superior to any other action Johnathon could muster. But the mind of a hungry man is not dictated by logic and convention, no; Johnathon's outburst was purely emotional, and, at that point, so was his entire train of thought. Perhaps he was acting a bit irrational, sure- but, being the top Scrabble champion in a far-off, little-known place referred to as the entire world, Johnathon felt he deserved a bit more respect. Or, at the very least, he certainly deserved to get his food on time.

And as more emotions welled up in the bottom of his bosom, Johnathon found that the words were bubbling out of his mouth quicker than he could even attempt to control it. "I mean, it's only the top-rated, number one, globally recognized and esteemed Scrabble champion talking here, in an emporium full of other Scrabble players? Do you all have no respect? I'm certain you all know how difficult a game Scrabble is to play, let alone to master!"

In his last statement, however, Johnathon was a bit disingenuous. In all truth, he found Scrabble quite easy and simple. He simply had what seemed to be the entire backlog of all known words in the English dictionary stashed away, just resting on a drawer in his brain somewhere, as well as every single blend of consonants and vowels that could just barely be recognized to even be a word. Simply put, Johnathon made it look so easy that it appeared no matter what configuration of vaguely organized letters he willed onto that board, it would always be considered legal. Some even jokingly speculated that he was just willing words into newfound existence entirely every time he eagerly took his turn.

And in being so professional, it seemed Johnathon had now convinced himself that it was his right to act like a babbling moron in the middle of a relatively small cafe. And, as it became ever more clear that he was not going to sit back down until his food was there on a silver platter, the waiters reluctantly pestered the cooks in the back, who, in turn, hastily whipped together a noticeably more lacking-in-quality, blander, more lackluster dish than the other patrons had received. And, when five minutes had transpired, the unenthusiastic waitresses paraded his table, his entree carried along with them.

Johnathon finally sat back down, courteously scooting his chair back under the table before instinctively reaching out his hands to receive his meal. The waitress who wielded his mighty dish, while hesitant in truth, acted as if she were honored to hand him his bounty. Johnathon's mouth was already watering, and he began to smack his lips. But, just as he began to consolidate his clasp around the metallic tray that supported his sustenance, the waitress suddenly recalled a step of the food-giving ritual she had forgotten to enact. And so, to Johnathon's starving dismay, she reflexively pulled it backward, and opened her mouth in query.

"I'm sorry, sir, but before I give you your food, I must ask: would you like salt with that?"

Johnathon couldn't even be bothered to articulate a verbal response, only shaking his head no at the question. He would have forgone that step too, if he were telepathic. He was too hungry to bother putting more effort into declining her offer.

"Are you sure, sir? It's quite exhenic."

Johnathon was prepared to affirm his stance yet again through means of no more than a simple head movement, but he was caught off-guard by that last word she used. Exhenic?

Johnathon remembered playing this word in one of his many tournaments (of which he won, of course). He had played it off of his opponent's last word, combining the letters X, H, E, N, I, C with a preexisting E for a total of 19 points. He wasn't sure of its definition, but he knew it was an English word- at least, it had to be, or the scorekeeper wouldn't have counted it, right?

"Come again?" Johnathon asked rather politely, a surprise to all the diners gathered around and staring at him.

"Exhenic? Lacking salt?"

This cleared up things in Johnathon's mind for a while, and he finally found the energy to answer to her previous question verbally. "Oh, then, no thank you dear. I don't need salt."

With that, the waitress departed, the head-on collisions between her steep high-heels and the cold hardwood floor echoing all around the room. No matter how many times he ran the word through his head, something still felt wrong in his gut. There should have been no reason for this feeling to arise, with the waitress having explained it and everything- yet, it was still there. Johnathon sat in silence, pondering, not even bothering to touch the same food he had once been vociferously pleading for.

And, with Johnathon silent, and no other out-of-touch diner willing to stir up a scene, chatter naturally resumed as diners' gazes returned to those around them. Fifteen minutes pass, and with all of the diners passionately chatting, eating, and overall having a good time, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary- except for the fact that Johnathon's visage had turned a shade of sickly pale.

Noticing Johnathon's clear unwellness, the diner next to him, who also happened to be in the top #5 for best Scrabble players in Australia, tried to poke fun at this in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Well, Johnathon? Won't you enhulse in the meal you so passionately argued for?"

"Huh?" A disoriented Johnathon answered, his voice hoarser than an uncleaned stable.

"Your xazhin? Won't you eat it?"

Johnathon stared at him with wide eyes, unblinking.

"Well, I wasn't quanoned we were having a staring contest!" And the patrons around him erupted in hearty laughter.

Atop a rolling hill overlooking the town of Westfordshire, resided a residence of great renown: Mrs. Kensington’s Home for Children of Uncertain Parentage.

The manor home surrounded by wrought iron fencing was perhaps the most politely named orphanage in the whole of Britain.

Inside, ten-year-old Ollie Alsworth sat at the edge of his bed, fidgeting nervously. Though it was past midnight, he was fully dressed in pants, a tweed jacket and flat cap, waiting to spring into action.

The gentle knock at his door didn’t rouse his slumbering roomates, but Ollie hurried out into the hallway.

There, his best friend Maggie awaited him. At twelve, she stood half a head taller than Ollie, and was similarly dressed for their serious task.

“Ready to go?” she whispered.

“Um. Yes…?”

Sensing his unease, she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Courage, Ollie.”

With a shared nod, they were off, tiptoeing through the winding hallways.

They were an unlikely pair of escapists. Ollie and Maggie had always been rule followers, but fate forced their hand. They’d overheard they were to be separated, Maggie moved to the new all girl’s orphanage several towns over. And that, they’d decided, simply would not do.

Quiet as mice, they moved past Mrs. Kensington, slumbering in a chair in the front lounge, and out into the front yard.

There, in the circular driveway, sat their target. A pristine 1933 Bentley, only a few years old.

Door flung open, they were inside in a flash. Maggie pulled a pair of wooden blocks from her bag and began tying them beneath Ollie’s feet.

“Can’t you drive?” Ollie asked. “You might see over the dash.”

“You’re our wheelman. You’ve got the expertise!”

Ollie frowned. He’d ‘driven’ a car once as a boy, on his uncle's lap before his passing. That hardly made little Oliver feel an expert.

“Besides the driving, though… What’ll we do for food? Or money? Or—”

“We’ll figure it out,” Maggie replied as she finished the last knot. “Together.”

“But…”

“I promise you it’ll be alright, little brother.”

Ollie nodded, stiffening his upper lip. A promise from Maggie was not a trifling thing. She was his sister in all but name and shared DNA. She’d never lead him astray.

With a turn of the key, the engine roared to life.

Awoken by the racket, lights turned on all over the manor, and Mrs. Kensington burst out the front door.

“Go!” Maggie shouted.

Ollie began rolling forward, but quickly spotted a problem. “The gate’s shut!”

“Oh, sod it. Give it the beans, Ollie!”

Closing his eyes, Ollie stomped hard on the gas and they burst through the gate with a tremendous, clattering crash of metal on metal.

Maggie glanced back. Finding no pursuers on their tail, she stuck her head out the passenger and let loose a Whooooooooop! of joyful freedom. Ollie mirrored her.

The car sped down the narrow country lane, a head poking out of each window, shouting and laughing all the way.

Oh it didn't happen that way lol, we got a familiar exchange criss crossed.

[removed]

"Regret is the bitchy older sibling of reflection."

Those words screeched from Gary's television as he lounged on his couch; cherry-flavored ice cream rested on his lap as he devoured his favorite television program, Cheaters. He sat in darkness to enhance the glare of the show, scooping greedy spoonfuls of cherries and scheming his dark secrets. The scene was so tranquil until it wasn't.

He heard it before his eyes witnessed it, the thunderous footsteps of his wife storming down the stair to disturb him. She wasted no time kicking his door open, posturing a wide grin with a thick stack of papers in her hand. He cocked his head back and held back a groan.

"Babe, guess what? Your brilliant, gorgeous, and creative wife just got published." She said. Her arms flew like an inflatable tube woman at a car dealership as she flicked on the lights.

The light's glare attacked Gary as he clapped and refocused on the television. "Great job Pani! I'm sorry, I was kind of in the middle of some-"

"I want you to read it." Pani thrust the manuscript at him, stalking him down like a predator. Then, she burst into a sprint as her prey began his escape.

"Never been much of a reader, you know that," Gary said. He jumped over the couch's ledge and paced around her, hoping to slip past her into the staircase.

Nothing doing. Pani nipped his escape attempt in the bud, cutting off his route and closing in on her prey.

"I want you to be the first to read it!" She cupped his hands together and plopped the manuscript into them. "Most men would be honored if their wife held them in such high regard."

"Most men don't hate their wives making them read as much as I."

"Me." She said.

"Exactly. You want to make me feel stupid with your fanciful words and speech."

"Prose."

"See? This is just your way of punishing me for no reason." He paused. "Wait. I'm not even the first to read it. Didn't the publisher have to read it to approve it?"

Pani darted her eyes to the side; she courted with several cheeky remarks before saying, "you're the first who matters to me." She rubbed his slumped shoulders and said, "don't worry, the message in my novel is so clear I know you'll get it.

"You sure? You know how everyone whispers jokes about me? If you ever want to keep a secret from him, just put it in a book. You know the man can't read."

"Yes, but if you ever had a secret for me, I'm sure it'd be on a tv show somewhere."

They both laughed, and Gary caved in, flipping to the first page of the manuscript and reading:

The green-eyes man was in a band. Stand the green-eyes man said. Cand. Is what the green-eyed man land. Hand is needed for the man to befriend. Wuh-wuh-wuh-sand.

Gary couldn't believe it. His eyes glossed over, his arms went limp, and his jaw slacked as he processed. That sounds like some shit I'd write. Oh, dear. He looked everywhere he could beside his wife's unguarded eyes as he gathered the right words, the right words to avoid an argument.

"Good." He said.

She stared at him as if he was the god of ignorance. "You've read one page."

He flipped to the end and smacked his fingers. "Mmmmm, mmm, finger-licking good story right here."

"That's cheating! You don't just go to the back of the story!"

"You know I don't like reading."

"You could be great at it if you exercised a little commitment!"

Argument unavoided.

The following two weeks were rough for poor Gary. Pani refused to speak, look at him, or even nag him. The tension in the air was ripe as a Georgia Peach. How a woman of her miniature stature could emit such animosity was the next great wonder of the world, or a great question, something like that. It was a secret she knew, and Gary had his own secret.

He adored his wife with all his heart, yet she wasn't the finest apple in the orchard. She could satisfy hunger pains from time to time, but she lacked that lushness, that utter fulfillment factor you got from biting into a juicy morsel of forbidden fruit. The peaches are always sweeter in someone else's yard, as some would say, or maybe that was just him.

Gary isn't his novelist wife, so let's be straightforward. He was cheating on her.

Almost every month, like clockwork, he'd meet his Mistress - Emma - at a hotel on the third Saturday of the month. Today was that Saturday. When his wife approached him, he was fully prepared to go on another 'purposeless drive' around town. But her words cut through that plan.

"Baby, the Galleria Mall has a 90% off sale on lotion and hand soaps. Do you think you can get some?" She asked.

The Galleria Mall was in Houston. Four hours from their home in San Antonio. A ridiculous distance for lotion, regardless of price, but a chance to get out of the dog house.

"Sure, I wouldn't mind at all! You know I love my Saturday drives anyway."

She wrinkled her nose and kissed him. "Sure do. Thanks, babe."

He hopped in his purple-coated Chevrolet Corvette and marched to the Houston mall, wishing he'd picked a better lie for his Saturday excursions. He'd always hated driving.

Shoppers crammed into the mall, making it nearly impossible to move. The lotion store's line overflew, extending past the Gamestop several stores over. Awkward conversations between image-sensitive women and men who didn't own mirrors occurred.

I'll just tell her they ran out. It wasn't much of a lie; surely they'd run out when he made it through the line. He pocketed his hands and whistled the Cheaters tune, eyes scanning the scene.

A lot of beautiful women out were in the mall. Everywhere he looked, he saw nines, tens, elevens out of ten. Everywhere except one location, a cardboard cutout of his wife enshrined with novels.

He walked towards the bookstore - Novels-A-Million- and felt his jaw drop. Young girls were practically fighting to pick up a copy of his wife's novel. All for a copy of that trash? There must have been something good in the middle section he skipped.

He wrestled with a Zoomer for one of the last copies, licked his fingers - he's seen it on tv, and turned to page one.

A few things shook him.

Most pressing, his wife's name was in the story. That was different from when he had read the story before. His reading skills weren't that bad.

Pani was a superhero in this story. A magical woman adored by men and women alike. In the story, she fought the forces of evil, all demons of sin.

She fought a demon of pride, lust, and so on. His wife was crazy for sure, so many enem-

He fingered the words on the page, the demon of adultery, Gary. Surely a coincidence, he continued to read the story:

Emma, Gary's dumbass assistant, aided his demonic endeavors. Emma was a bimbo with a robust body, able to bring a grown man to tears. Not from their eyes but from where the sun doesn't shine.

Gary felt his blood freeze over. Emma? Did she know about her? Flustered, he flipped to the back of the book.

...and when Gary returned to his little lair, he found it empty with divorce papers on the counter.

The book escaped his fingers and crashed as he rushed back to his car. He raced home, unlocked the door, and ran to the kitchen. He stopped at the sight of an emptied room. A stack of papers lay on the kitchen counter.

Halfway through the manuscript his wife shared with him, lay divorce papers.

Everyone else when they encounter fractions: Lets solve them to a decimal form so that we can actually use the number.

Americans: lets leave it at that, you don't need to learn more math do you? No just leave it as it is, no need to complicate it more...

​

Yeah I'm annoyed with the american's use of fractions, worse they use them right along side imperial measurement units... ugh every time I see something like "15/18 inches" I feel the need to scream.

Omg, the line "He's a 10, but he doesn't know he's married to his own arch nemisis." I adore it, thank you for this.

Oh god 😭 they're on this sub, I'll try to find them... if I do I'll reply to ur comment again.

No sweat! Thanks for putting this out into the world, it was fun to read and honestly pretty inspiring for someone like me who really eats sleeps and breaths writing but never actually does it, BUT WANTS TO. But a good story like this in such a short space? Makes me feel like I can start small and still amount to something ^^

It was an emotional write but damn it felt good to do, thanks for the prompt.