Sunday, September 14, 2025
Chapter Nineteen The weeds grew quietly. It started with chalk flowers. Then whispers. Then, friends of friends drew the flowers as well. The boy from the ration line brought his older sister, a wiry girl with sharp eyes who worked maintenance shifts in the drone yard. She had grease on her hands... Sign in to see full entry.
Saturday, September 13, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen It started with a look. The boy in the ration line — only twelve, hair shaggy, eyes darting. He hummed sometimes, softly, a tune that wasn’t in the Overseer’s hymns. Johnny noticed. One day, as the boy passed him a scrap of paper at the counter, their fingers brushed. Later, alone,... Sign in to see full entry.
Friday, September 12, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen The wilted flower did not stay alone. By next week, Johnny and the sweeper had scratched three more. One near the ration line, one by the maintenance yard, one on the stairwell where workers passed at shift-change. Each was tiny, crude, gone within hours—scrubbed clean, erased by... Sign in to see full entry.
Thursday, September 11, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen The plan was simple. Too simple, Johnny thought. But simplicity was survival. It began with words. Not shouted in the square, not whispered in the ration line. Written. Small. Quick. Slipped where eyes might find them. The sweeper carried chalk in his pocket — a tool for marking his... Sign in to see full entry.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen The next lesson came at dusk, and the loudspeakers summoned the entire block to the square—no excuses, no delays. The summons always meant one thing: the Overseer wanted a performance. This time, it wasn’t Robert Q. Public. It was a girl—barely sixteen. Two masked officers dragged... Sign in to see full entry.
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen The square felt hollow after Robert vanished. Neighbors moved quickly, smiles too wide, voices too eager with the chant, as if sheer noise could drown the silence he left behind, but Johnny saw the way their eyes flickered toward the fountain, toward the place Robert had stood,... Sign in to see full entry.
Monday, September 8, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen It began with a voice in the square. Morning Affirmation was in its second cycle, the crowd chanting in dull rhythm, when one man shouted above them all. “Enough! I have a right to speak!” The chant fractured. Heads snapped toward the sound. A man near the fountain, face red, fists... Sign in to see full entry.
Sunday, September 7, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Twelve
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Twelve Chapter Twelve The sweeper came to Johnny again, this time in the ration line. He didn’t look at him directly. Didn’t smile. Just stood a pace behind him, basket dangling loosely from his hands, and whispered too low for the drones to catch. “Do you still dream?”... Sign in to see full entry.
Saturday, September 6, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Eleven
Chapter Eleven Johnny had nearly convinced himself he’d imagined it—the glance in the square, the brush of recognition in the sweeper’s eyes. Days passed, and nothing happened. The sweeper went about his work, quiet, steady, head bowed. Johnny told himself to forget it. To keep his mouth shut. To... Sign in to see full entry.
Friday, September 5, 2025
The Overseer’s Garden - Part Ten
Chapter Ten Morning Affirmation began like any other—gray light, scripted words, the Overseer’s emblem blooming across the screens. The crowd moved in unison, lips forming the chant, voices blending into one flat note of obedience, but on the third repetition, something broke. A man near the front... Sign in to see full entry.