Confidance on a Coin Toss

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Coming of Age Contemporary Creative Nonfiction

Written in response to: "Write a story in the form of a letter, or multiple letters sent back and forth." as part of Echoes of the Past with Lauren Kay.

Author:

Dear Reason,

Why did I ever imagine returning to my home post-disillusionment, deprogrammed of utopia, was the right thing?

You said this would be great for me, for us.

But is there really us when you're sure you won't get in the way this time, as you have in previous days.

Let's go our separate ways, amicably, I offered.

You told me I could come back to school.

But after our desperately redundant and repugnant chancellor, of whom I pleaded to be unbearably rather than dearly departed, after laughing behind their cowardly phone camera at protestors becoming temporary detainees by their horse-trained piggies, after seeing the madness and resentment further normalized by glorified babysitters, from unfit professors to misguiding housing coordinators, or even misguided advisors, is all of this really worth it?

What's the point of the outcome when the journey isn't even reminiscent? Admittedly, the thought of burning degrees and decimating skulls with imagination sinew, is rather tempting a sense of relief anew.

What are your thoughts on this?

Sincerely,

Passion

Recipient:

Hello my dear,

I know this hurts;

I know all the noise, so deafening that it's beckoning you toward fatalism, may seem like they know it all.

They really know very little.

I know the rage and fury and anguish are thinking that the smiting shit-holes and spiteful power struggles set by arch-devils incarnate are winning, getting away with seemingly impervious antics once more.

But I assure you, they're already long gone, have been and long since lost.

This isn't to assuage the thirst and doubts of victory, but rather to ensure that they're need to pay and be sensationally vindicated does not have to be the only rendition where justice is served.

Acknowledging this, putting this on paper for ourselves, between us; and continuing to trust and hope and dream, for our own dreams to be lived, which shall be lived, is a victory.

It is driven by anything but the obsession with competition, the conditioning of one-upping, the comeuppance and false surrenders of superiority and contempt.

This supreme court and the prison-military industrial complex may make inferior look gentle, and world peace seem impossible.

That's because the infinity of peace, agency, connectivity, and overall being whole, would only keep going and thriving without this institutions obnoxious, obtrusive, invasive, assimilating presence.

Hatred has no soul, revenge has no essence, as yummy as it tastes in theory.

I sense the fire brewing, wanting to express with a passion & change with a purpose as always.

Food not Bombs.

Just because we are relationship, gender, and overall anarchist does not mean we need or ought to become oligarchical syndicalists with explosives, even though we feel a sense of urgency and desperation attempting to convince us with a mapped strategy that we have to.

Cathartic thinking, and the unexpected conductor of ruminating, are completely separate entities.

I hope you can appreciate me in my unplanned meandering into mystery.

May discerning ourselves from other minds, and coming back home continue to remind us that we're not alone anymore.

Completely,

Clear

Author:

Dear Reason,

It feels wonderful to remember who's is who's. And it also feels important, if not necessary, to take action when it feel right.

I cannot and will not sit behind and do nothing. I will not put myself in a situation I know I cannot handle. And I won't sit back letting internalized jargon and additional expendable mental riff raff convince me that it's pointless.

The point is to do something, regardless of the consequences, at least the consequences we can expect.

I need to do something, to feel better, lifted, lighter.

What is the difference between catharsis and and unburdening?

At what point do we acknowledge enough and go, this show can no longer continue?

I suppose you have your answers, but I have mine.

And quite frankly, maybe I needed to send this to show that there are no more right answers, other than the ones that feel right for myself.

Maybe my answers just happen to coincide with a lot of right answers that center on a more agreed right answer.

And perhaps my right answer feels unique within a collection of clouds of vastly different original right answers.

Reason, I have never felt such peril from something so trivial as academia; the stratification of grading criteria, not the enrichment of transformative knowledge exchange and potential.

This is no way for a human being to live, I say so lucky. I can still go to school. I can and will keep going to school, even with graduation so little a ways away.

Meanwhile, there are people trying to get it together as we speak, surviving drug addiction and mental health. There are people experiencing starvation and militaristic silencing, and yet we are here.

This is about perspective, not nullifying my experiences, but to remind myself that mine are differently surmountable, with a relatively smaller obstacle to hurdle.

Reason, I think I found my advice. And as per to pointing out, it came not from the vengeance of vice.

Again, how can I thank you,

As always,

Passion

Recipient:

Hello there my dear,

As always, it's a pleasure.

Thank you for trusting me.

Mutual applause on our reckoning. We shall always find a way to come back home and live our truth, our dreams.

And we just did, once again.

Per our point, we just need to sit and think, and remember how we move forward. when we know what we want and why.

Pardon the bleeding over of our conversations of style.

It appears we trust each other that strongly to breathe our own words, together through each other.

Oh will I enjoy,

Today

Author:

Oh reason, thank you for reminding me that our connection is a gift, and that infrastructurally socializing you as universally necessary defies why you're here

Like me, you are clear, with or without verbose elaboration.

Till next time,

Together yet untethered

Recipient:

Took the words right out of my, our, lips.

I remember why I've come back to trust because of you.

Forward and on,

Here we come

Posted Feb 09, 2026
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3 likes 1 comment

Clarissa Creates
17:33 Feb 24, 2026

Hi, I recently came across your story and really enjoyed how smoothly the scenes flow. The atmosphere feels very visual and easy to imagine.
I’m a commission-based comic/webtoon artist and I sometimes collaborate with authors whose work translates well visually. If you’d ever like to explore that idea, I’d love to connect.
Discord: Clarissadoesitall

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