This is your story. I have no idea who "you" are, but your story is here. On the internet. At least the part of your story I have been given. You probably won't get a chance to read it, but it will be here anyway. It might be read by others who are not you, or it might not. It's hard to tell.

The part of my piece starts:


There is a feeling of oncoming dread that you cannot identify and cannot explain. There is a sense of things closing inward, of darkness slowly gathering like thunderclouds before a storm, and a dim but unwavering certainty of things about to end.

"We have been recording you," the man at the desk says, his quill pen flying across the page.

"Why?"

"We record everything." He reaches the end of the page and, with a flick of his wrist, he tosses the sheet into the air. It vanishes.

"What did you do?"

"I sent it out," he says, already writing down what appears to be your current conversation.

"Where does it go?"

"Oh, here and there. Sometimes it'll be an extra page in a book. Extra text in an ingredients list. The fine print on the back of DVD cases. The terms and conditions, shampoo bottles, old coupons under the sofa." He smiles. "It'll turn up somewhere. As will the other pages. Just not together. They rarely end up together."

"Why?" you ask. You're not surprised. You're never surprised, these days.

"Because


That is where my piece ends. I don't know what happens after that; I only know what they show me. It isn't satisfying, but most people's stories rarely are. Maybe you'll find the other pieces.

295

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.