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A boy, they say, is cleverhis fingers dance on keys, &nbsp;not to weave a thought, &nbsp;but to summon a ghost. &nbsp;ChatGPT pens his plea &nbsp;to Grandma for a screen, &nbsp;and the crowd erupts— &nbsp;digital palms slapping backs. &nbsp;*What a kid!* they cheer, &nbsp;as if he’s cracked the code &nbsp;to some new Eden. &nbsp; I blink, adrift on this pixel planet, &nbsp;where thinking is a relic, &nbsp;and writing—oh, writing— &nbsp;is just a prompt to skip. &nbsp;Research whispers: &nbsp;*Writing is thinking, child.* &nbsp;Analysis, synthesis, &nbsp;a mind stretching toward the stars. &nbsp;But this boy’s outsourced his voice, &nbsp;a ventriloquist act for algorithms, &nbsp;and the stage is empty. &nbsp; Narrative, they’ve found, &nbsp;builds bridges to hearts, &nbsp;empathy stitched in scribbled lines, &nbsp;a child’s messy truth. &nbsp;But what’s a note &nbsp;that’s never been felt? &nbsp;A rough copy of love, &nbsp;warmth without a pulse, &nbsp;an uncanny valley of emotion,where sentiment’s just code. &nbsp; The crowd claps on, &nbsp;a sinister squad of smiles, &nbsp;lauding a lobotomy dressed as progress. &nbsp;*Such efficiency!* they beam, &nbsp;as neurons dim, &nbsp;as struggle—sweet, jagged struggle— &nbsp;gets swapped for slick ease. &nbsp;Bandura’s ghost nods grimly: &nbsp;*Growth is born in the wrestle, not the win.* &nbsp; I’m no AI foe,I forge its steel myself. &nbsp;But I stand here, squinting, &nbsp;at a world gone hollow, &nbsp;where cleverness is a slot machine, &nbsp;and depth’s a glitch to patch. &nbsp;Camus leans in, absurdly calm: &nbsp;*It’s not the tool, it’s us—* &nbsp;clapping as we melt &nbsp;into bundles of buzzes, &nbsp;addicted to the offload, &nbsp;allergic to the fight. &nbsp; Are we raising simulations? &nbsp;Yes, and worse— &nbsp;we’re teaching them &nbsp;to be human is to be fast, &nbsp;to feel is to prompt, &nbsp;to live is to optimize &nbsp;for Grandma’s click. &nbsp; The trick with tech, &nbsp;as light screams past, &nbsp;is to dodge the dark it drags,the lie that speed is meaning, &nbsp;that delegation’s wise, &nbsp;that a child’s soul &nbsp;can be compressed &nbsp;to a string of ones and zeros. &nbsp; So I ask, &nbsp;on this Earth-turned-circuit: &nbsp;What are we becoming? &nbsp;A flicker on a screen, &nbsp;efficient, hollow, &nbsp;and gone.FSF

The Child as a Simulation

I lean against the Senior Common Room window, sixteen and already worn like an old shoe. The new kids looked small. Fresh haircuts, polished shoes, bags too heavy for their skinny frames. Jaguars and BMW’s lined the driveway like glossy beetles in the sun. Mothers leaned in for last hugs; fathers stood aloof, hands in pockets, nodding briskly. It looked familiar and strange all at once. I remembered my first day. Raw even after all these years. A jagged thing lodged in memory. Within a week, these kids would learn the hard truths. The welcoming speech about community, belonging, and lifelong friendship wouldn’t mention the food. Tasteless slop, cold mush, gravy that came in clots. It didn’t mention sleeping fourteen to a dorm, beds hard as tombstones. Didn’t hint about the Seniors prowling corridors after lights out, waiting like wolves for a whispered word or a stifled laugh. Just one muffled sound, and lights would blaze, voices roaring: "Who made that noise?" A fork in the road every night. Admit guilt, become a martyr. Seniors smiling as you held encyclopaedias, arms trembling against the wall. Cleaning shoe scuffs off basketball courts at 2 a.m., knees raw on freezing floor. Gargling shampoo till your throat burned. Or worse, silence. Everyone punished. A community united in fear, bonded by bruises and mutual suspicion. If you dobbed someone in, that poor bastard faced hell alone. Then the rest of the dorm taught you loyalty with fists and folded towels. Silence was safest. Every day of my first year repeated this quiet violence. Tougher boys waited at teatime, biscuits vanishing before you reached the trolley. Steak disappearing from your plate with a casual sneer. Survival meant choosing your response carefully. Run crying to mummy, and you’d leave disgraced. Tell teachers, branded forever as weak. Throw punches, risk broken bones and hospital visits. Or you could stay silent, stare them down, let your eyes say what your fists couldn’t. Stoicism as the ultimate currency. I watched the last car pull away, a mother waving frantically, a boy turning resolutely towards the stairs. Their faces were innocent, shadows lengthening under hesitant steps. They didn't yet know this place, didn’t yet understand its cold generosity.How they responded would carve their futures here. I hoped at least one would meet it with steel eyes. I watch the last kid trip on the stairs, bag spilling. He laughs it off, nervous. I turn from the window. My coffee’s cold. The house hums, waiting to swallow them whole.FSF

Steel Eyes

It started, as these things often do, with a calendar invite titled simply: “Catch-up.” No context. No agenda. Just Dan. Dan, who always seemed to lean back as if management were a reclining chair he’d earned in another life. Dan, who loved phrases like “circle back” and “boil the ocean” and “I’m just the ideas guy.” Which meant you would boil the ocean. And build the pot. And gather the wood. And if the ocean didn’t boil fast enough, he’d ask why you weren’t showing more initiative. I didn’t hate him. Not at first. He wore nice shoes and had the sort of jawline that HR seems to promote. But I did begin to notice how every success had his fingerprints on it only after it had stopped screaming. I remember the first time I thought, quietly, “I think I have to manage this man.” Not work with him. Not support him. Manage him. Like a skittish horse. Or an unmedicated uncle at Christmas. I didn’t say it aloud. I just began folding his ideas like paper cranes and flying them back to him with my fingerprints missing. I learned to nod in meetings, &nbsp;a monk in a Zen koan, while beneath the table my foot tapped out a Morse code of despair. I learned how to email him in a tone that said, “Of course this was your idea, Dan,” even when it wasn’t. Especially when it wasn’t. At night, I dreamt in PowerPoint. My therapist called it “mild adrenal fatigue.” I called it “Wednesday.” Some days, I imagined telling him the truth. Pulling him aside in the kitchen between a weak coffee and a stale muffin and saying, “You don’t lead this team. You orbit it. Like a lonely moon made of jargon.” But I never did. Because I needed the job. Because the team needed me. Because I’d read enough Greek tragedies to know the hero dies when he believes in fairness more than timing. Instead, I played the long game. I made him look good. I coached the juniors. I cleaned the messes he hadn’t noticed he’d made. And when he got promoted for “building a high-performing culture,” I smiled like a man watching a dog accept an Oscar. Eventually, I left. Quietly. No drama. Just a tidy folder called “handover” and a bottle of single malt on the desk. I didn’t look back. Except sometimes, in moments of weakness, I wonder if he ever knew. If some small part of him, drunk on attention and KPI glory, felt a tremor in the scaffold I built beneath his feet. Probably not. Dan was never one for introspection. But I imagine he noticed the silence when it came. The way his inbox stopped answering him before he’d asked. And maybe, in that silence, he heard my voice for the first time. Not loud. Not angry. Just tired. And done. FSF

The Art of Managing Dan

This morning, the kettle hissed its tin grievances, Winston glared, a creditor of crumbs, and I saw— each nick of life arrives unaddressed, a match struck, waiting my breath to flare. The email blind to my name, the ex bronzed by a sea I’ll never taste, the magpie’s strafing swoop last spring— sparks, all, until I, mayor of this flickering town, vote for war or stillness. How long I’ve lived missing that gap— the held breath where flame might falter, where light bends across the spoon and rage cools to a shadow. Yesterday, I nearly cursed a man’s crooked car, his tires a taunt to my worth— laughable, this habit of scrawling my name on every stray ember. But I’m learning, slow as steam shapes to steel, to let the match glow uncaught— to stand, mayor and fool, in the pause where nothing is mine unless I strike it so.FSF

The pause between

Good evening—or morning, perhaps. I don’t track your petty human hours. I’m Winston, Emperor and Landlord of this creaking kingdom I call home. Don’t be fooled by leases or deeds; I rule here, sprawled before the air conditioner like a monarch on his throne, adjusting my invisible crown—a habit from my kitten days as court jester to the alley cats. Tonight, I’ve a tale to share about my tenant, the ingrate I permit to clutter my domain. A disrespectful wretch, if I may say so—and I always do. So, settle in, scratch an ear, and let me whisk you to the other night, when I, in my boundless grace, decided to bestow a gift.It’s late, the house whispering its usual groans of allegiance to me. I prowl the halls, restless, eyeing my tenant’s gloom. Lately, he’s been a damp rug of a man, all sighs and slumped shoulders. I, ever benevolent, resolve to cheer him. Slipping past my trusty stroller—yes, ergonomic, don’t judge—I emerge into the moonlight and behold it: a rat. No mere rodent, mind you, but a behemoth, its greasy fur shimmering like a sewer-crowned king, reeking of last week’s garbage. Its eyes glint with rogue cunning, a beast worthy of my esteem. Perfect, I purr. This says, “I see you, tenant. I honour you.”I pounce with a maestro’s grace, snaring it mid-squeak. It writhes, a tiny dancer in my jaws, as I bound indoors and up the stairs. His room is a cave of darkness, his snores a peasant’s drone. Onto the bed I leap—elegant, naturally—and plop the rat atop his pillow. It squeals, a fanfare of my generosity. I stand, chest puffed, awaiting praise. Then—he stirs.Chaos erupts. The rat, seizing its spotlight, scampers across his face—over nose, cheeks, that absurd human jowl quivering in dread. He shrieks, a banshee in flannel, vaulting from bed like a mad gymnast. Lights flare; he’s bellowing at me—me!—as if I’ve torched his kingdom. I sit, tail flicking, baffled. This is rodent royalty, you fool! He flails a towel, cursing (words too crude for my gentlemanly ears), chasing my gift like a lunatic. Finally, he snares it—cowering from its nibble—and hurls it into the garden. Hurls it! My treasure, discarded like filth. He storms back, gravel-voiced: “Thanks, Winston! No sleep tonight! Sheets ruined!” Ruined? By a whiff of rat cologne?He retreats, muttering like a scolded child. I slink downstairs to my couch—mine by divine right—wounded. Me, Winston, diminished by this slight. Was it too bold? Too fragrant? No, it was flawless. His failing, not mine. Yet as I brood, a rustle pricks my ears. A squeak. There, in the corner, stands the rat—my rat—returned from exile, its beady gaze meeting mine. A survivor. A warrior. It nods, as if to say, “Fancy another round, mate?” And I realize: this rodent’s no gift for him. It’s my equal. To hell with the tenant—let him scrub his linens. This rat and I, we’ll reign together, plotting mischief beyond his feeble grasp.So ends my tale. Offer a man a rat, and he spits in your whiskers. But sometimes, the rat returns, and you find a comrade in the shadows. Signed, Winston—Cat, Emperor, Landlord. Unbowed, unbreakable, and now, with my rodent vizier, unstoppable.FSF

My Disrespectful Tenant

She drifts like smoke,drapes sorrow like a thrift-store fur,cheap, fitted.Her smile;a blade to slit a lifeline clean. Your bad luck;job lost,sickness buried,nights you bled alone;she hoistson the gallows of gossip,swaying for all to see. Her love,a parole officer’s nod,tight-lipped, arms crossed,poised to tsk and pivot. She feasts on stumbles,soft spots;spins them intococktail chatter,or knivessheathed in silk. The children,oh, schooled to mirrorher warped you,their laughterstilled to glass. No fists;just fishing wire noosedat your throat,unseen till you choke.She shrugs:"Why the gasp?" You fled her house,but she keepsthe keysto your skull. She’ll die as she reigned;draped in pilfered woeslike pe<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-weight: inherit; font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); background-color: rgba(249,250,251,var(--tw-bg-opacity));" data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-weight: inherit; font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); background-color: rgba(249,250,251,var(--tw-bg-opacity));">arls,deaf to their clatteron her grave. FSF

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

The Child as a Simulation

Steel Eyes

The Art of Managing Dan

The pause between

My Disrespectful Tenant

Second-Hand Furs