2020. Covid spread around the world. I returned from Tashkent. Ancient Bukhara. What a beautiful city - but now a cage. Living with grandma. She is alone. It could be cruel to leave her in such a situation alone. But I missed my mother; her voice was weird last time. I feel worried, should visit her. But how? We are locked in our own homes. *** I came, ma! Father did not allow me to enter the home. Why? Strange. I insist. Mother came, did not go out of the home, just said at the door, “Bye", without greeting. She is ill. I swear she is ill, but she did not admit it. Father says, " She is just tired, but I am sure she is ill. 100%. I am sure. Father says, “Go, your grandma alone, just go”. *** The taxi is waiting. I went, couldn't get into the car, and I looked back. Dad says, “Go, bye”. I looked back, looked at ma, she is pale, looks exhausted. I looked at the car, looked back at ma, could not get into the car, ran back, hugged her, she hugged back. I felt like she waited for this hug so long, father got angry: “Why did u hug?” shouted. I felt comfort. If that is the case, let's die together! *** When my mother got pregnant with me, she was not in good health, everyone was against my birth, and she had doubts too, but could not abort, took a risk, and now we are alive in 2020 with Covid. My whole body, each inch, is aching. I feel like I am dying today. 2026. We are both alive. We survived, like before when she gave birth in 2001, like in Covid 2020 after a little hug, and now in 2026. I am relieved we are even. We went through all these together, like in the past, like in Covid, like now.

I used to think growing up meant becoming louder. More certain. More articulate. More present in every room I entered. But I did not grow up that way. I grew up collecting unfinished sentences. There were things I wanted to say at school but didn't. Questions I wanted to ask but swallowed before they reached my tongue. Not because I was afraid of people, but because I slowly learned that certainty belonged to others—and hesitation belonged to me. So I adapted. I became good at editing myself in real time. I would think a sentence, shape it, refine it—then erase it before it ever became sound. Over time, I stopped noticing where my thoughts ended and where silence began. The boundary disappeared. So did I, in small ways no one could see. It felt normal. Until it didn't. One afternoon in class, everything looked ordinary. The teacher asked a simple question—something I knew instantly. The answer formed clearly in my mind before the sentence even finished. I raised my hand slightly. For a second, I believed I would finally speak without hesitation. But when my name wasn't called immediately, my hand slowly lowered back to the desk. And when the teacher repeated the question, choosing someone else, I stayed silent—not because I didn't know the answer, but because something inside me had already stepped back. No one noticed. The lesson continued. The room moved on as if nothing had happened. But inside me, something shifted. It was not dramatic. It was not loud. It was the quiet realization that I had become someone who stops herself before the world ever has to. That night, I sat in front of a blank page and tried to write what I had been thinking all day. It should have been easy. My mind had been full for hours. But thoughts do not always arrive as sentences. That night, they arrived as fragments—half-formed ideas, emotions without language, truths that refused to settle into structure. I realized something uncomfortable: Silence is not always peace. Sometimes it is self-erasure disguised as comfort. After that, I began to observe my own absence more carefully. Not dramatic silences. Not life-changing secrets. Small moments: “I don't agree.” “I don't understand this.” “I want to try differently.” Simple sentences that somehow felt heavier than they should have. I understood then that I was not silent because I had nothing to say. I was silent because I had learned to make myself smaller inside conversation. Unlearning that was not immediate. It was awkward, slow, almost humiliating at times. The first time I spoke without rehearsing my voice in my head, it trembled. The second time, less so. The third time, I realized something unexpected: Nothing collapsed. No one rejected me. No one punished my existence. People simply listened. And I understood how much of my fear had been built from silence itself—not from reality. Months passed without a single defining moment. No dramatic turning point. No sudden transformation. Only repetition. Speaking. Staying. Trying again. And gradually, I stopped living entirely inside my own thoughts. I became someone who existed outwardly as well. Not loudly. Not perfectly. Just honestly. And maybe that was what I had been missing all along—not confidence, not certainty, not control. Just permission. To exist without rehearsing my existence first.

This is how we talk about food: Literally—We whine during fourth period that lunch is so far away, even when it is only next period. We comment on not having had breakfast that morning because we were running late (a.k.a. we were still trying to finish last night's homework), and then we scrap together our friends' leftover snacks for a makeshift breakfast. Today, 36% of teens skip breakfast. Comically—We call food “BAE” (Before Anything Else) because it will always be there for us at 3 in the morning while our friends are sound asleep. And it makes us feel better about ourselves even if it simultaneously making us feel like bloated pigs. Sometimes we almost break our noses when we fail to throw grapes into each other's mouths – or, more like, our friends fail to catch them. Casually—We call each other up late Saturday night to make plans for Sunday brunch. We put a survey up on Instagram and groan internally when Burger King is once again chosen as the restaurant for this week. When we are bored at home, we steal an apple off the counter, but place it back when we realize we're in no mood to be eating healthy. It's Thanksgiving Break anyways, so we might as well get a head start on the weight-gaining. Figuratively—In class, we read Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor, which tells us that the act of eating together is like a secular form of communion. Taking food into the body is such a personal and intimate act that we only do it with people we feel comfortable with. It's a shared moment, one that builds trust and comradeship. It says, “Hey, I like you. You like me. Let's share this experience together.” Then we move on to dissect a dinner scene in Wuthering Heights that goes terribly wrong. Charitably—At our club meeting, we discuss spending our Thanksgiving Day packaging food at a local soup kitchen. We do it partially because we want to, and partially because we need hours, but we'll never understand what it's like to live without a constant food supply. We try to sympathize, and we try to help out, but until we've had first hand experience in living without food, we will never be able to truly empathize. The only thing we can do is to be grateful for the privilege that we do have. So that day, I go home and make my family say grace before we have our dinner. They give me a weird look, for we have never been strictly religious, but inside, I hope that this is the start to a tradition of communion.

Everything is grey… My home, the trees, people, even my own reflection. I can't remember when it started or if it was always like this. But one thing I know for sure: everything is grey. No colors. My days pass in the same steady, lifeless rhythm. I wake up, wash my face, have breakfast, go to work, come back home, eat dinner, stare at the ceiling, listen to the ticking clock, and fall asleep. And still… everything is grey. I see huge numbers of people every day. They always rush somewhere, eyes glued to their phones barely noticing anyone else. I guess it's normal. All of them are grey. And I think they see me the same way. I don't know. I never asked. I thought I would die in this grey world, without ever seeing real colors again. But one day changed my life completely — the moment I met her eyes. I don't know the season (everything is grey anyway). But that day, I suddenly wanted to go to a café. I sat on a chair and started reading an ordinary grey newspaper. The doorbell rang, and as the café door opened, I turned my head toward the sound. And then… I saw blue. Her eyes were blue. For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating. I shut my eyes tightly, then opened them slowly. She was still there. Her eyes were undeniably blue — like… I couldn't even find a comparison, because everything else around her was still grey. I looked at her again and again and then our eyes met. I felt she had looked at me before too, but this time her look was different. She looked at me with interest. I blinked, and she smiled. I closed my eyes again — I don't know for how long — and when I opened them, she was gone. God… maybe I really was hallucinating. But when I looked toward the window, I saw her again. Her blue eyes. That night, I couldn't sleep. I didn't know what was happening to me. There was a strange feeling in my chest, a tension in my stomach . I couldn't handle it — I had never felt anything like this before. That night, for the first time in my entire life, I truly thought about someone. I thought about her eyes. The next day, instead of going to work, I automatically walked to the café. I didn't know why or what force was pulling me there. But I found her. I sat next to her without even realizing it. She smiled at me and said, “Hi.” We started talking. Her name is Azure. A rare name. When I asked about its meaning, she said, “It comes from Persian and means bright blue sky. My parents named me because of my—” “Because of your eyes,” I said. “Yes,” she answered, her smile radiant. “Yours are amazing too — green, like hazel.” “You can see the color of my eyes?” I asked. “Of course,” she said, surprised. I hesitated, because until now I thought everyone see me like the same way I see myself and others. But she was exception. I liked her smile. I liked her humor. I liked her eyes. For the first time in my life, I started to like something — I mean, someone. The sun was setting, and people were leaving the café. Azure said she needed to go as well. As soon as she walked out, something inside me cracked open — like a piece of me was missing. I realized which piece. I ran through the streets like someone insane, but none of that mattered. I had to find her. I needed to find my missing piece. Running among countless people, I finally spotted her — her blue eyes guiding me like a beacon. Without a second thought, I hugged her and kissed her. And then I felt a drop of rain. The rain poured down, but we didn't care. I had found the missing part of my soul. When I looked around, I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw colors — the whole world was washed clean, as if the rain had erased all the grey. How beautiful the world was! Green trees, red and pink flowers… I saw millions of colors. I even saw a rainbow with seven colors. And her eyes… Now I can say without doubt: her eyes are like the sky above us — cerulean, vibrant, and calm. Her blue eyes weren't just beautiful — they were a revolution, a spark that brought my life back from the shadow.

In a quiet neighborhood where winter mornings arrived wrapped in fog, a small light used to turn on before sunrise. It wasn't bright. It didn't shine far. But every day, it appeared in the same window — steady, patient, almost stubborn. Inside that room sat a young man with tired eyes and a hopeful heart. The world outside felt heavy. News headlines spoke of conflict, rising prices, uncertainty. Friends moved away chasing better opportunities. Some dreams felt postponed, others quietly abandoned. There were days when the silence in the room felt louder than any noise. But the light still turned on. Every morning, he would open his laptop — not because everything was going well, but because he believed something could go well. Some days he learned a new concept. Other days he fixed a tiny bug that no one else would ever notice. Sometimes, he just stared at the screen, wondering if any of this effort would matter. It didn't look like progress. It looked like repetition. Like slow steps in thick mud. Yet something was changing. One evening, after a particularly difficult day, the electricity went out. The room fell into darkness. No laptop, no internet, no quiet tapping of keys. Just stillness. For the first time in months, he leaned back and looked out the window. The neighborhood was dim, but not empty. He noticed lights in other windows. A mother reading to her child. Someone cooking. A student studying by phone light. He realized something then. Everyone was fighting their own silent battles. The next morning, when electricity returned, he didn't just turn on the light — he opened the window. Fresh air rushed in. The fog was thinner than usual. For the first time, sunlight reached the corner of his desk. That day, he wrote something different. Not code. Not notes. Just a few lines: "I don't need the world to change overnight. I just need to keep showing up." Days passed. Weeks passed. Small opportunities appeared. A freelance project. A message from someone who read his blog. A thank-you note from a beginner he had helped. Nothing dramatic. Nothing viral. Just small confirmations that his quiet persistence mattered. One evening, he walked outside. The air smelled like rain. He looked back at his building and saw his own window glowing — not lonely anymore, but part of many lights across the neighborhood. He understood then that inspiration isn't always loud. It doesn't always come with applause. Sometimes, it's just a small light in a small room, turning on every morning despite uncertainty. And somewhere, maybe across the street, someone else looked at that light and felt less alone. Because hope is contagious in the gentlest way. You don't have to change the world in one moment. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to keep your light on.

Every night at exactly 11:47 p.m., Liana became someone else. Not louder. Not braver, not in the ways people could see. But behind the soft glow of her phone screen, in the quiet that wrapped around her room, she became real. By day, Liana was forgettable. She sat in the third row by the window, where sunlight touched her desk but never quite reached her. Teachers described her as “good” — the kind of word that meant quiet, obedient, invisible. At home, it was no different. Her parents spoke in expectations, not conversations. “Study more.” “Your cousin got a higher score.” “You can do better.” Liana nodded, always nodded. Her voice had long learned to stay where it was safest — inside. But at night, she wrote. Under the name Midnight Truths, she told stories people were too afraid to say out loud. Secrets about pressure. About loneliness. About pretending to be someone acceptable just to survive. She never used real names. Never details that could trace back to anyone. Except feelings. Those were always real. And people noticed. What started as a quiet page turned into something bigger. Messages flooded in from strangers. “It feels like you're writing about me.” “How do you understand this so well?” “Thank you for saying what I can't.” Liana read every message in silence, her chest tightening in a way she didn't understand. It felt like being seen… without being exposed. For the first time, her words had a place in the world. Then one night, everything shifted. A new message appeared. “You shouldn't have written that.” Liana stared at the screen, her fingers hovering but unmoving. Another message followed. “I know who this is about.” Her breath caught. That night's post had been different. Too close. Too honest. She had written about a girl whose life was measured in grades and comparisons. About a home that sounded full but felt empty. About love that came only with conditions. She hadn't meant to write about her own life. Not directly. But truth had a way of slipping through. Her heart pounded as more messages came in. “Take it down.” “This isn't just a story, is it?” For the first time, Liana felt something unfamiliar. Fear. Not the quiet, familiar fear of disappointing someone. But the sharp, rising fear of being known. The next day at school, everything felt louder. Glances lingered longer. Whispers seemed heavier. Did they know? Or was it just her? By the time she got home, her hands were shaking. She opened her laptop. The post was still there. Thousands had read it. Hundreds had shared it. Her truth was no longer hers alone. Liana sat there, staring at the blinking cursor. Delete it. Pretend it never happened. Go back to being invisible. Safe. Her fingers moved. But not to delete. Instead, she opened a new post. For a long moment, she couldn't breathe. The silence in her room felt heavier than ever before. Then, slowly, she began to type. “I never meant for anyone to recognize themselves so clearly. I thought if I hid behind a screen, I could tell the truth without consequences.” She paused. Her heart was racing now. “But the truth is… these stories come from somewhere real.” Her hands trembled, but she didn't stop. “They come from me.” She stared at the words. There it was. No hiding. No distance. No second life. Just her. She hit publish before she could change her mind. The silence that followed was unbearable. And then— notifications. Dozens. Then hundreds. But this time, they were different. “Thank you for being honest.” “You're not alone.” “This made me feel less invisible.” Liana blinked, her vision blurring. She wasn't exposed. She was understood. For the first time in her life, being seen didn't feel like something to fear. It felt like something she had been missing all along. Outside, the night stretched on as it always did. Quiet. Endless. But inside, something had shifted. Liana set her phone down and leaned back, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. She wasn't two people anymore. She didn't have to be. For the first time, one life was enough.

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For years, I had been incorporating facts into my fiction. They were the benchmark for me to build my stories on. The factual information in the fiction also helped me categorise my books correctly, e.g. in ancient and classical literature categories, which helped reach the Amazon best-seller ranking. Recently, The Children of the Sun, which I categorised as Indigenous, Historical and Fantasy, was another of my books ranked as a best-seller. I knew that it was mostly due to the facts I incorporated into the stories, making it a knowledge-based fiction. I knew my strength in telling stories was due to the facts I incorporated into them, and as I researched a topic, the story unfolded seamlessly. I realised that I was learning, educating, and entertaining all at the same time. Most of my stories are inspired by a 'higher hand. When I begin a story, words flow like a river. I then capitalised on the fact+fiction method of storytelling and came up with The Faction Revolution Module 1-3. I was fascinated by what I learned while researching and writing the faction way. There were so many key takeaways in the storytelling method that I realised how valuable they were to readers and writers alike. I am excited to announce that I have now published the module, and it is available to buy from The Faction Bookstore: https://shobanagomesbookstore.blogspot.com for USD0.99. I hope you get a copy. I'd love some feedback on the 15-page module. Thank you, and have a great weekend. Shobana

She woke up earlier than the rest and prepared to be torn apart by circumstances. Bound by the hope of getting the best, she would spare no chances. That wealth was the only light was what she believed. The lack of pride and might never made her heart feel relieved. So she weaved unreal dreams with an imaginary thread of light. Luxury came with ease, she thought in her fictitious world. During one such sunset trudging as she was to home, A sudden splash of water made her wet. From a carriage, which had caused this, stepped out a young man handsome. Discomfort and apologies followed then. He offered a ride back home. Time? He didn't know it flew when. Admiring her beauty, his eyes simply shone. Unabashedly, to her he proposed, leaving her awestruck. How could she then remain calm or composed? Was it really beauty or sheer luck? A grand festival in the name of love, attended by the whole town. Where perfection existed in every line and curve. Immaculate were her jewellery and wedding gown. For someone who had slept on splintered floors, and a hut where dawn slipped in without asking twice, she was suddenly met with Ivory doors, chandeliers, perfumes and everything nice. But now the huge walls intimidated her. They swallowed her laughter every now and then. Her smiles were measured and movements choreographed. Luxury had become a merciless cage. Where the size of a morsel held more value than someone's hunger. Disappearing while being in the room was seemingly the norm. An invisible crown weighed her down. The diamond necklace was beginning to tighten around her neck. Now the gold and glitter made her frown. Was she losing it? No one would ever check. One dawn, she woke up earlier than the rest, and left the mansion forever. She had finally set out to meet the best. On cracked roads she ran, and breathed in open air. Where days and nights asked nothing of her. The Sun burned her body, but judged anyone never, is where she found her solace. Where pain and sweat felt like hers. A once despised lifestyle, she accepted once again. No longer was she attached to riches. She would remain scarred but awake. In that tiny house, she found heavenly joy, where it didn't matter if she was extroverted or coy.

If I had realized that a frayed rope and a rainy afternoon would eventually shatter my world, I never would have looked up from my sketchbook on that first day of school. But I did look up, and when I saw the girl with blue eyes standing in the class, I didn't perceive the end of a story—only its beginning. My name is Jeck Aarons; I live with my parents and three siblings in a remote home outside the city. Each day repeated like the last—until the new school year began. Vinnie and Avery mocked me in class, my older sisters ignored me at home, and teachers barely noticed my voice. When voices around me tried to silence who I was, I found refuge in my sketches.” My sketch was the sun that spilled golden light over my life. Even this hobby, my father mocked me, saying, “Your drawings are pointless.” The first school day promised nothing until a gorgeous girl called Leslie appeared, introduced by the principal. Leslie's gaze pierced me; I felt strange emotions when I looked at her blue eyes. I tried to ignore her energy. At recess, I saw Avery, the class bully, annoying the new girl. “This race is just for boys.” Without thinking, I went forward, asking, “Why?” “Are you afraid of losing against a girl?” Lina (my little sister) cheered me on, saying, “Go Jeck!” I was the forerunner. I was going to win. Or so I thought. Abruptly, a blur shot past me. It wasn't a boy. It was Leslie. She didn't just beat me; she woke me up. On the bus ride home, Leslie came to sit next to me, and I wondered, “Are you following me?” I asked. Then, we got off the bus, and I found her grinning, “Yes, I am your neighbor, and I think you need to learn how to have fun.” I wanted to say no. But something about it pulled me in. We got caught up in conversation, walking until the manicured lawns gave way to forest, and we reached a deep stream. Dangling above the water was an old, frayed rope; It looked dangerous, but Leslie didn't hesitate. She swung to the other bank. Leslie screamed, saying, “The Dark Master was here—let's define our kingdom.” Just then, I saw mystical shadows that possessed abilities like those of superheroes. This energy sensed me as well. We loitered until we found an arboreal shelter; thus, Leslie said, “It would be the headquarters for the Lunavara kingdom.” Little by little, we repaired the arboreal shelter while continuing to go daily after school. Once, while we were in Lunavara, the dark master sent his soldiers. We felt a unique power descend on us, such as invisibility. By morning, in school, “help Mrs. Zoya,” Leslie said. But I refused, and after that, I found Leslie pushing me toward Mrs. Zoya. As she looked at me, I asked her Can I help you? Mrs. Zoya said, “Are you speaking?” She perceived Leslie had an inspirational effect on me. She even looked at drawings, saying, “You are really talented.” I want to show Leslie how much she meant to me. I knew she wanted a pet, so when I found a puppy adoption flyer on my way home, I brought Leslie to Lunavara—I gave her a puppy—then she hugged me tightly, her eyes glistening, saying, “I will keep it forever.” On this rainy night, while we returned home, Leslie waved me off as if the world wouldn't allow another meeting. That weekend, Mrs. Zoya came to accompany me to the Museum of Art. For the first time, I stood in front of those paintings and felt truly seen; she explained the history behind each one, as if I were her son. I returned home, and the air was heavy. My family looked bitterly at me. “What?” I asked. My older sisters sarcastically said, “They thought you were dead.” My dad said, “Jeck…” His voice trembled. The words struck like lightning in my ears. My pulse sprinted, pounding against my ribs, each beat louder than the last. The room tilted, the floor slipping away beneath me. It's Leslie, he whispered. “Your friend Leslie is gone, as the old rope over the stream… it snapped, son.” I screamed, “No… no… You are a liar!” I ran to my room, gazing at Leslie's drawer until sleep came. The next morning, I began my day with breakfast as usual, pretending that yesterday was only a bad dream. But my mum breathed, “Get dressed, we have to go to the memorial.” Leslie's father hugged me, saying, “Leslie was so lonely in her old school; she really loved you.” While I was looking at Leslie's photo, Mrs. Zoya stood beside me; I said, “Next time we should take Leslie with us.” The days blurred together. I went to Lunavara. I was calling Leslie, and I thought I heard her reply. I ran crazily to look for her, but I found my sister. I shouted at her, forcing her to return home. Then, I felt the Dark master following me. Instinctively, I thought he would attack me, so I ran in fear—I stumbled. I found my dad hugging me. I broke down. “This was my fault,” I sobbed. If I were here, she would not have died. Now, Leslie may be gone, but our cherished memories are in every sketch, heartbeat, and breath I hold.

"You can make it in the field, I'm sure you will be one of the best if you work hard as you did so far," the lecturer told Matchim. These words echo in her so vividly, rendering them virtually impossible to forget, even if she wanted to. It had been three months since Matchim Celia entered college, three months during which she hadn't made up her mind on the field to study. Amidst the crowd of universitarians, she felt lonelier than ever. Her life had become monotonous — the same cold faces, with the same cold expressions. Though having broken the ice with some mates, she wasn't comfortable enough to lay bare what haunted her thoughts – choosing the right field after the preparatory semester. Entangled in her family's ideals and her own desires, she felt like a mere extra in her own story. She searched for meaning in chaos through the walls of the labs, wandering between each. All over were rows of equipment and myriads of students skillfully navigating between them. She watched with starry eyes and a hint of bitterness in her heart. Despite their differences, they had something she definitely didn't — passion. "Will I ever be that good at something?" she sighed deeply. December was fast approaching, marking not only the end of the year, but that of the preparatory semester too — the moment Matchim had so much feared. Her mates were firm about their fields, despite numerous dissuasions from the lecturers for most. She, on the contrary, was just as lost as before. To crown it all, she didn't make it home with her parents for the end-of-year holidays and had to make do with video calls. They encouraged her to pursue a Computer Science degree, but then, there was a catch — she did not believe that she could make it in the field, given her limited grounding in the subject. While her fellows opted for formal sciences in high school, she made a choice she believed portrayed her better and was “safer” — natural sciences; but then, things did not work according to plan and she ended up in an engineering school. She viewed this as a twist of fate for not choosing what was “right” earlier. They believed in her ability to do it more than she did in fact, but that was not sufficient; she needed an external opinion which wouldn't look “sentimental.” The following morning, she showed up at one of her lecturer's offices. This latter welcomed and listened to her, unveiling all that was troubling her — something she wouldn't have done before. That day, she walked out of the office different. She knew her fears were still there, but she could glimpse the silver lining — concealed yet visible. In January, she opted for Computer Science. During the first courses, she was astonished by her own performance. Notions she thought were long buried flowed seamlessly — she raised her hand, answered questions, and turned out to be right. In the past, she would just watch her dreams slide by without at any moment daring to graze them. Now, a new world bloomed, unfolding possibilities she had never thought about. Today, she says, "Cheers!" to her dreams, and looks forward to accomplishing them.

If you moved around for so long like me, you'd know that people start to blur. New city, new school, new introductions. Same questions that accompanied the same careful curiosity that never quite crossed into knowing. After a while, I stopped storing faces properly. They layered over each other like tracing paper -- eyes borrowed from one person, laughs from another, intentions copied and pasted. Adults called this weird outlook of mine “adaptability”, but I called it efficiency. If everyone was basically the same, then losing them didn't feel like a loss -- just continuity. Nostalgia was never a thing for me. I didn't get it when people would mourn the past, reminiscing of younger days in strawberry fields or dim-lit sleepover nights. I'd sit around at lunch and ignore any conversation until it became familiar again. I didn't want to create new memories when I knew I'd inevitably move again. Every event was just the remake of a previous one but with different-looking people and maybe with an extra quirk or two. An example of a quirk that younger me would have given you would be my cousin. I tutored him after school, mostly because no one else wanted to. He was younger, awkward in the way kids are when they haven't figured out where to put their hands yet. At first, he fit neatly into a category: bad at maths, easily distracted, and temporarily arrogant. We sat at the same table every afternoon. Same workbook, same mistakes, and the same sigh when I erased his answers and made him try again. He had a habit of rubbing the eraser flat against the page until the paper thinned, as if he could wear the wrong answer away completely. I used to stop him and take it from his hand. His consistency was what made him so easy. But after a few weeks, his mistakes changed. Not disappeared, just shifted. He stopped guessing randomly and started overthinking. He asked why formulas worked instead of just memorising them. He corrected me once, quietly, like he wasn't sure he was allowed to. That annoyed me more than it should have. I kept expecting him to stay the same version of himself I'd already filed away. Instead, he kept arriving slightly altered. More confident one day. Quieter the next. Frustrated in ways that didn't match his age. I realised something uncomfortable: he was developing in real time, and I was still treating him like a fixed draft. The moment that stuck wasn't dramatic. He solved a problem on his own -- not perfectly, but honestly -- and looked up at me like he was waiting to see if I'd notice. My hand had already reached for the eraser. I stopped when I saw the paper; it was intact, no smudges, and his numbers were written carefully this time. And I almost didn't. Not because he needed my approval, but because I'd been acting like people stayed still long enough to be summarised. Like growth was optional background noise. I would have corrected him back into the version of himself I already knew. He wasn't a “quirk.” He was a process. After that, I started paying attention -- not just to him, but to how often I decided too early who someone was. How quickly I closed the file and moved on. I still move. I still leave. That part hasn't changed. But I don't pretend people are finished anymore. I often wonder had I had a slow childhood, allowing myself to watch people grow along with me instead of leaving them before the breeze could even shift, maybe I wouldn't have wasted so many potential connections with my cynical views. But now, I stop myself from sorting people too quickly, from labeling them before they've had the chance to shift. The last time I packed my things, I thought of my cousin's page -- his numbers precise, uncorrected -- and I left it just as it was, letting him, letting everyone, be more than the file I once made of them. Some people aren't meant to be remembered as snapshots, they're meant to be noticed mid-change. I've learned to wait a little longer before reaching for the eraser.