Month: September 2026

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Careful Language

I heard a word today that I haven’t heard since this all began. I heard someone use the word ‘bite.’…
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Perimeter Fatigue

I took a drive toward the perimeter today, just to see. The people manning the edge—the ones in the uniforms—look…
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Standing In

Something happened today that I can’t shake off. A colleague called me Charlie. They corrected themselves almost instantly, but they…
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Archival Drift

Ernie again. I’ve noticed a trend in the older historical archives I’ve been digitizing. They always start out very factual—dates,…
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Silent Agreement

Management circulated a new policy document today, but the strange thing was that nobody acknowledged receiving it. Usually, there’s a…
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Unusual Compliance

The wards are eerily quiet today. The patients have become unusually compliant. They don’t argue about their medication, they don’t…
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Edges Hold

The morning briefing mentioned that there were ‘no breaches’ overnight. That’s the first time I’ve heard that word used out…
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Unshared Details

I’ve noticed a new habit among my colleagues: people will be talking, and they’ll suddenly stop mid-sentence when I walk…
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Pattern Recognition

Ernie here. In library school, they teach you to notice patterns long before you actually understand what they mean. You…
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Internal Consistency

Whatever is happening to this town, it is internally consistent. That’s the thing that keeps me awake. Every system failure…