24 likes
50 comments
He waits until the remaining movement in her begins to recede. Not surrender. Not yet. Just the moment her shape seems to feel there is nowhere left to continue toward.
She stands at the counter with her hands against the granite: fingers spread, trying to leave a small trace of existence.
He doesn’t come closer. He gives her space.
“Try again,” he says.
The object still rests where she abandoned it. Dark surface. No invitation left in it.
She doesn’t recognize it and looks away.
Good.
That’s where it begins.
A minute passes. Or five. Even time knows it is redundant now.
She lifts her hand from the granite. Pale skin that fades fast.
Nothing keeps for long anymore.
She turns slightly, enough to catch him in the reflection of the window. Not his face. Only the remaining outline. Stillness held together by shape alone.
He is always still.
“I remember—”
The rest fails to remain.
The words feel unstable now, like stepping onto something already beginning to thin beneath her weight.
He tilts his head.
“Go on.”
She tries to reach for the remainder of the thought. A trace of warmth. A familiar drift. Something connected to scent, perhaps. Or sunlight. Or another version of staying.
It loosens before she can hold it.
Gone by the mind before it fully arrives.
“I…”
What follows never forms.
His expression shifts slightly. Not kindness. Not cruelty either. Just recognition.
“Exactly.”
She turns from the reflection.
The ambience around them appears unchanged. Same surfaces. Same dimness. Same faint fracture near the sink, though it seems less fixed than before.
It wasn’t there yesterday.
Or perhaps yesterday no longer holds its shape either.
She lowers herself toward it, touching the fracture with the edge of her nail. The surface still answers solidity. Still answers contact.
Good.
Something still remains where it should.
She presses harder. The nail folds slightly backward. A thin discomfort travels through her.
Something still answers.
She lets out a slow breath.
Not everything has gone quiet yet.
A subtle shift reaches her from behind him. The sound alone is enough to draw her back upward.
“You’re searching for proof,” he says. “That something exists outside the outline you still call yourself.”
No answer comes.
“Careful,” he says softly. “This is usually where things begin resisting.”
Usually.
The word lingers without settling anywhere fully.
She moves past him.
Not quickly. Not slowly either. Measured, as though some hidden part of her is still attempting to count what cannot be held onto anymore.
The passageway seems shorter now.
Or her sense of distance has begun loosening too.
Threshold. Shape. Turn.
It opens.
That’s different.
Something close to relief flickers through her. Small enough to disappear almost immediately.
She crosses through.
The next atrium waits in the same arrangement.
Same granite. Same reflection. Same quiet figure already resting against the frame ahead of her.
He doesn’t move.
Her hand still lingers behind her.
She turns.
The doorway has already withdrawn from the room.
Not hidden.
Not closed.
Simply no longer remaining.
Her fingers tighten around absence.
She inhales sharply. The air enters unevenly, like something resisting form.
“Where—”
What leaves her no longer sounds like her.
He watches carefully now. Focused not on her, but on the places where she seems least able to remain assembled.
“Try not to rush it,” he says.
Rush.
She tries to remember, the word doesn’t linger.
She moves back into the room she just entered. The enclosure she never fully left.
Her attention drifts quickly now. Granite. Reflection. Surface. His outline. Her own remaining shape.
Something has shifted.
Not dramatically.
Not enough to name.
Just enough.
She raises her left hand.
For a moment, recognition fails to reach it.
The outline remains correct. The movement still follows. But not immediately.
A slight delay.
Enough to begin loosening the last certainty from her.
She lowers it again. Faster this time.
It follows in slow motion.
“Better,” he says softly.
She looks at him fully now.
There is nothing remarkable in his face. That is what leaves so little to resist. Nothing fixed enough to oppose. Nothing solid enough to blame.
“Who are you?” she asks.
The question feels heavier than the remaining air between them.
He considers the question itself more carefully than the answer.
“Does it matter?” he asks.
“Yes.”
The word leaves quickly, as though some instinct still believes naming can preserve shape.
He nods slightly.
“Then not all of you is ready to thin out yet.”
She moves closer.
Not bravely.
Not unwillingly.
As if some quiet current between them has already begun deciding for her.
“If I know what you are—”
“You’ll place me,” he says gently. “And if you place me, you reduce me. And if you reduce me—”
The rest drifts away unfinished.
She waits.
Nothing settles into completion.
“Say it,” she whispers.
A slight shift crosses his expression again.
“No.”
The silence between them expands. Thickening into pressure rather than absence.
She feels it gathering inside her ears.
The instinct to fill it rises immediately. To press language against the growing weight before it closes entirely.
Instead, she keeps her mouth closed.
Holds.
One second.
Two.
Three—
Something in the space loosens.
Not visibly.
Not violently.
Just enough for the array of things to begin softening at the edges.
His attention flickers toward her mouth.
There.
A response.
Small.
But undeniable.
She holds her breath.
Remains still.
Let's nothing leave her.
The silence changes texture.
At last, it no longer belongs entirely to him.
A small correction passes through his posture.
Barely noticeable.
Still, she sees it.
“Careful,” he says quietly.
No answer follows.
The remaining tightness inside her grows sharper now. The urge to cough, gasp, interrupt the pressure gathering around her—
Overwhelming.
Instead she counts.
Not numbers.
Something softer than numbers.
A rhythm already beginning to drift beyond recognition.
Hold.
Hold.
Hold—
The faint pulse near her wrist flickers once.
Twice.
Then steadier.
He steps nearer.
Not enough to touch.
Only enough to become more present than the room around him.
“You think this is control,” he says softly. “It isn’t.”
She keeps her attention resting on him.
Not resisting.
Not surrendering.
Simply remaining.
“If you continue speaking,” he says, “you keep returning to yourself.”
A pause.
“And that becomes heavier each time.”
Something inside her shifts at the words.
Not fear.
Something closer to recognition without memory attached to it.
She almost answers.
Almost.
The forming word reaches her mouth—
Then recedes again before becoming sound.
Silence returns.
He watches.
Waits.
Strangely, she cannot tell whether he is waiting for her to remain or finally allowing her to go.
The enclosure hums faintly. Or perhaps the sound belongs to whatever still moves inside her.
Her thoughts begin thinning at the edges. Names loosen first. Then places. Then the small details once responsible for holding everything together.
Something about laughter.
A table near a window.
A hand resting over hers.
Gone by the wind before she can reach it fully.
She sways slightly.
Corrects.
Still here.
Still—
“I’m sorry,” he says softly.
The words arrive strangely. Too clean to belong entirely to this place. Too human to remain untouched by it.
Even gravity seemed ready to let go.
She reaches once more toward the granite, fingertips pressing against the cold surface as though solidity itself might still ask her to remain a little longer.
Her hand answers first.
Not violently.
Not completely.
Its outline begins loosening at the edges, tiny fragments of something softer than matter drifting soundlessly into the faintest movement in the air while he watches her with the quiet tenderness reserved for things already halfway beyond returning.
She looks at it without fear now.
As though some exhausted part of her finally senses that nothing is being taken from her.
Only released.
“It’s alright,” he says softly. “Matter doesn’t matter anymore.”
Outside, the darkness remains perfectly still while her shape effloresces into light-struck dust, drifting into the void.
Thank you for having read this story. If it resonated, a 👍 helps it travel a bit further.
You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.
The story seems to be about the transition from life to death, with the man acting as a guide and the woman experiencing the transition. She slowly starts to lose her connection to the world, and then finally she loses her connection to her identity.
The process is slow, but it also seems to signal a returning of sorts. The ending says nothing was taken, so I imagined that either literally means her being is not taken but returned to whatever it came from, or metaphorically means she has left an imprint on the world that will be carried on.
My only critique is that some sentences were a little fragmented, which occasionally made the piece harder to follow. But I imagine that was intentional because you wanted a disembodied feeling, and in that sense it does work for the piece.
Reply
Hi Marjolein,
Life got in the way of reading and writing for me last week and I only had time to record a like for this story at the time; but I have thought about it several times over the weekend.
You have written this so beautifully. I like that you have not over explained the who, what, where, when, why but have concentrated on the sensations of the dissolution. A masterful and haunting telling. Thank you.
Reply
This has a very controlled, dreamlike pressure to it. I like how much you’re willing to leave unexplained, and how the piece keeps narrowing around shape, silence, memory, and dissolution. It feels like a consciousness thinning out while we watch. Very eerie, very compressed. I’d love to know what inspired the atmosphere you developed here.
Reply
This felt incredibly dreamlike and haunting. I really loved the atmosphere and the gradual sense of identity dissolving throughout the piece. The imagery of memory and selfhood thinning away was beautiful and unsettling.
Reply
This feels like one of those stories that has written itself, line following line following line ... it comes from you, of course, but without effort - in a good way. I often complain to my grown children that 'my protagonist has turned down a different path while I was sleeping, leaving me no choice but to follow ...' And they laugh as if this could happen. I just smile. It does happen that way sometimes.
Reply
Hi Carolina,
Thank you so much for reading and commenting. If you got a minute could you please also like it?
I agree with you. Some stories write themselves. Others disagree almost everything
My story came in three faces. Would you wanna know why: I told it to Akiti in his comment .
Thank you again.
Reply
Such beautifully esoteric prose. You've done a wonderful job of making something of a spiritual release a tactile experience. Nice work!
Reply
Such perfectly crafted prose, each word necessary, without a single "extra word." Your writing feels ever lighter as the story moves on, toward her letting go. In the end it sounds lighter than air. Beautiful work.
Reply
Hi Scott,
Thanks for your generous words. Especially the line that it sounded lighter than air. It means a lot to me.
---MG
Reply
There's something so quiet and inevitable about the whole thing-nothing is forced, nothing is dramatic, it just unfolds. And this line stopped me completely- 'as though some exhausted part of her finally senses that nothing is being taken from her.' The ending is beautiful. I'm curious, what inspired you to write this story?
Reply
Thank you so much Aditi,
You're very generous
What inspired me?
You want the long or the short version? 🙃
Reply
Hehe, lets start with the short version? :)
Reply
The short version? 🙂
I already had an earlier draft about someone losing her identity completely by stripping away everything that makes us feel human.
Then the contest title instantly became “There Is Nobody In There” in my head.
I wanted to write about almost nothing: no clear who, where, when, motive, or plot twist. Just the gradual transition from something human and physical into something undefined.
Near the end, I even wanted the language itself to become diffuse without losing the reader entirely. That was probably the hardest part.
Reply
Hi Marjolein, I checked out your story after you read, and wrote such lovely comments on mine. You said that you would be interested in what I had to say about ‘DIFFUSE’.
I was blown away reading this. At the beginning, I could feel a chill creeping up my spine and a third of the way through I could feel tears pricking my eyes. Three quarters of the way down I had tears running down my cheeks. I am not sure if that was the reaction you were hoping for but that is my truth. It is a beautiful piece of prose. Skill-fully written and thought provoking. I sat with my dad for a week watching him slowly pass away, the longest week of my life. The two sentences below are the ones that have resonated, reminding me of that final week we had together. He did not want to go and held on as long as he could. Thank you for this though, it is beautiful and reflective.
If you continue speaking,” he says, “you keep returning to yourself.”
‘Strangely, she cannot tell whether he is waiting for her to remain or finally allowing her to go.’
Reply
Thank you so much for sharing this with me. Truly.
What you described was actually very close to the emotional space I was trying to approach while writing it, though your real experience obviously carries a weight far beyond fiction.
I think many people imagine death as one clear moment, but sitting beside someone during that gradual transition can feel strangely diffuse in itself. Like someone is already moving between presence and absence.
The fact those particular lines resonated with you means a lot to me. Thank you for reading so carefully — and for trusting me with something so personal.
Reply
This was beautifully atmospheric and incredibly controlled on a sentence level. The prose creates a hypnotic effect almost immediately, and I thought the themes of erosion, identity, silence, and dissolution were handled with restraint and confidence. The repetition throughout (“still,” “hold,” “shape,” “remaining,” etc.) worked well to create the sense that reality itself was thinning as she went.
Some of the imagery really lingered with me, especially lines like “Her fingers tighten around absence.” That felt like the emotional core of the piece condensed into a single image.
I also appreciated that you resisted over-explaining the figure or the environment. The ambiguity felt intentional rather than vague, and the story trusted the reader enough to sit inside uncertainty.
My biggest piece of feedback is that the abstraction stays at nearly the same emotional and linguistic frequency for most of the story.
For example, moments like the nail bending backward against the fracture stood out because suddenly the body felt real again.
Overall, though, this felt polished, literary, and very intentional.
Great work!
Reply
Thank you for such a thoughtful read. This is exactly the kind of feedback I genuinely value.
You picked up very accurately on the repetition patterns and the gradual thinning of language/reality. I wanted the text to feel as though it was slowly losing structural certainty while still remaining emotionally readable.
And you’re absolutely right about the physical moments. I deliberately kept only a few concrete bodily anchors in the story because I was afraid that too much abstraction without resistance would flatten the emotional rhythm entirely. The nail/fracture moment was one of those “gravity points” to briefly pull the reader back into the body again.
Really appreciate the care and precision of your observations.
Comments like this make posting experimental work feel worthwhile.
Reply
It wasn't obvious to me what this story is about. Maybe a bit too diffuse for a simple reader like me 😇
However after having read some of the comments and after re-reading it, I can't get it out of my head.
It's an intriguing piece!
Reply
It’s nice to hear that rereading the story gave you a deeper understanding of it.
Thank you for taking the time to read it twice. That rarely happens nowadays.
Reply
This is a Painting of a story. The fast moving almost stream of consciousness style, poetic movement. A story that even if you didn’t know what was going on it would still be beautiful. Like all great art, it’s sits there as whatever you need it to be when you read it.
Reply
What a beautiful compliment. Thank you.
And interestingly, that’s very close to what I tried to explore in my story DIFFUSE too — the idea that emotion and atmosphere can remain recognizable even when meaning itself starts to dissolve. Should you read my story I a curious if you feel the same.
Reply
This is Diffuse, did you mean to refer to another story?
Reply
I was very busy yesterday and wasn’t paying attention. You’re already the second person this happened to. A slip of the digital pen. 🤫
Reply
No worries, the website structure does make it a little difficult to tell where you are from time to time
Reply
I appreciate your soft touch on this topic. "Letting go" to me had a much more "cat hanging from a rope" poster in the break-room feel. Your words are ethereal, and I had the memory of reading an article about sculptors who work with granite. (Not truly said by Michelangelo, perhaps, but: "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free" or "It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David."
I believe that is what you did with this story. You chipped away the words that you didn't need and left us with a masterpiece. It is haunting. And you allow the reader to bring what they need, while giving us everything we require. (As when a person goes to a museum. In my opinion—you get out of a gallery what you bring to the gallery.)
The line that resonated for me (and there were a lot) was: "Even time knows it is redundant now."
Reply
Hi Annalisa,
Thank you again for this thoughtful reading. What you describe about sculpting actually became part of my process while revising this piece. In the final stage, I consciously started removing or replacing more concrete, tactile language to strengthen that diffuse feeling — the gradual transition from the material world into something less fixed, less graspable.
So I especially loved that you mentioned lines like “Even time knows it is redundant now.” Those moments were very intentional: reality itself slowly losing solidity, language included. I hoped the atmosphere would feel experienced rather than explained.
Reply
Marjolein, this is such a controlled and haunting piece.
It is not an easy story, but I mean that as a compliment. It asks the reader to enter a space where names, objects, rooms, memory, and even the body begin to lose their edges. What impressed me most is how patiently the story commits to that process of thinning.
Two moments, in particular, feel like the whole piece held between them:
“He watches carefully now. Focused not on her, but on the places where she seems least able to remain assembled.”
For me, that is where the story becomes especially unsettling and precise.
And then the final image, where the tension releases visually, but not comfortably. There is beauty in it, yes, but also something very dark: a letting go that may be peace, or may simply be the last form of erasure.
Everything between those two moments feels like process in the best sense: the gradual loosening of language, body, memory, and resistance until dissolution becomes almost physically imaginable.
A quiet, beautifully sustained meditation on identity, form, and the unsettling edge between release and disappearance.
Reply
This is such a generous and perceptive reading — thank you.
You really pinpointed the core tension I was trying to hold onto: whether what’s happening is release, transcendence, erasure, mercy… or something much darker wearing the shape of peace. I never wanted the story to fully answer that question.
And I’m especially glad you noticed the “thinning” process itself. Much of the revision process became about gradually stripping solidity away from everything: memory, language, objects, orientation, even time and bodily certainty. I wanted the reader to feel that slow destabilization almost physically by the end.
Your observation about the story committing patiently to that process means a lot to me.
Reply
I really like how you explored the themes of identity and letting go in such a poetic, subtle way. It's a great way to handle the prompt. I also enjoyed the protagonist’s struggle and the emotional depth in this story. Great work!
Reply
Thank you so much. I really wanted the “letting go” aspect to feel gradual and almost seductive rather than dramatic or frightening.
I’m very happy the emotional struggle still came through beneath all the abstraction and atmosphere. Truly appreciate you taking the time to read and comment!
Reply
If you'd like to support this story, please also hit the like button ;-)
Reply
You're welcome. You did it well.
I hit the like button before I commented. Or at least I have the story marked as "liked," and it's visible in my Library, so it should be okay.
Reply
You're right. I didn't give it a good enough look. 🤔
Reply
It’s okay. No worries.
Reply
Your prose thins the world so gently I didn’t notice myself holding my breath. Thank you!
Reply
Your oneliner (meant in the best possible way) always makes me think: How does he come up with it ;-))
Reply
Interesting perspective on having the choice to let go. For this MC, the choice is hard at first, until she forgets why. For some people the harder choice would be to stay.
Reply
Thanks Marty,
And yes, for some people the choice to stay could be the harder part.
Reply
A place of shapelessness and isolation, but ultimately it gradually allows her to move towards acceptance.
Somehow, an emotional piece without being overly emotional - if that makes sense. It brought me close to tears in its rendition of what loss actually involves. If felt like the symbolic and actual dissolving of matter. Quietly devastating because at the end of the day, humans tend not want to let go of the rhythm of life, until they absolutely have to. Depending on a person’s point of view, loss feels like the tragedy of life. A fading heartbreak which nevertheless must be faced. Literally letting go of gravity.
Beautifully done. Made even stronger by not being overwritten.
Reply
This is such a thoughtful reading of it — thank you.
You captured exactly the tension I hoped for: the quiet resistance between wanting release and wanting to remain assembled a little longer. “Humans tend not to want to let go of the rhythm of life until they absolutely have to” is beautifully phrased. And I’m especially glad the restraint worked for you, because overwriting this piece would have broken the atmosphere instantly.
Reply
Another story that meant something big.
"Matter doesn't matter anymore" That really stuck with me.
Thanks for telling this story, I now see how you meant when you advised me not to overexplain and repeat. I love the way I get to learn from you story after story.
Thanks for the great prompt!!
Reply
That genuinely means a lot to me — thank you.
And yes, exactly that: once readers already *feel* the atmosphere or emotion, repeating it usually weakens it instead of strengthening it. I’m really glad that line stayed with you.
Also love hearing that the stories themselves are becoming part of the conversation about craft. That’s probably the nicest compliment a writer can get.
Reply
Am glad you feel honored.
I'm not sure if I'll write this week but for the next prompt I'll be sure to do my best and imply what I've learnt from it
Thanks so much by the way.
Reply
If you'd like to support this story, please also hit the like button ;-)
Reply
Epic, Marjolein! It was as if an intricate contemporary dance was about moments before crossing over. He comes, not holding an intimidating Scythe, but allowing her to 'let go' at her own pace. I also loved how each singular word and sentence is sequenced in slowing heartbeat-like rhythm. It's hauntingly beautiful. Thank you for sharing!
Reply
What a beautiful interpretation — thank you so much.
I really love that you experienced it almost as a dance, because rhythm and gradual surrender were very intentional in this piece. I never wanted him to feel cruel or threatening, more like a quiet presence waiting for her to stop fighting the inevitable.
And I’m especially happy the heartbeat-like pacing came through for you. That means a lot.
Reply
You truly are an inspirational writer, Marjolein! Each story is so vastly different; they're short stories, and yet you paint/create incredible worlds that seem to continue way after the final sentence. Looking forward to more of your creations!
Reply
That honestly means so much coming from you, Akihiro. Your stories always carry such humanity and emotional sincerity that praise from you feels incredibly genuine.
And I think one of the greatest compliments a writer can receive is exactly what you described: that the world continues a little beyond the final sentence.
Thank you, truly. Your kindness and openness are deeply appreciated.
Reply