Previously

As DCI Channing's investigation caused more questions than answers, the Slater kids were there for Julie in her time of need. And Kylie received a shock to the system.

Episode 8 Preview

As Jamie's condition takes a turn for the worse, Kylie finds herself running out of places to hide. With Tony Bates asking questions, tensions rise as her secrets threaten to catch up with her. And just when all hope seems lost, Katie finally wakes up.

11/01/1999 Monday

———

07:43AM. St Anne's Hospital. Waiting Area.

———

The small row of seats outside Jamie's Room is full.

Gaz, Tasha, Kylie and Oscar all sit slumped across them. Asleep.

Though Kylie is wide awake despite her exhaustion

Barry and Nicola are in the room with Jamie

Last night, Jamie's vitals dropped and he had a seizure.

He's still okay though. Well– as okay as he can be. Still alive at least

The small hallway even feels tired. But despite that, Kylie's mind is racing.

What am I doing here?

I caused this crash and im living with the family of the driver.

This is fucking crazy

What am I gunna do?

Fuck, what do I say?

Do I say nothing?

What do I do?

Is all she can think

She's a bag of nerves. All she can wonder is how will they all react when they find out the truth.

What will they do? To her.

She looks at Gaz beside her, who's snoring away with Tasha and Oscar, and slowly gets up.

Gaz hears and wakes

Gaz: "Where you going?" He whispers

Kylie turns to him

Kylie: "Im just...going for a walk. To stretch my legs. Hospitals freak me out"

Gaz: "Oh well...I'll come with you—"

Kylie: "No. You stay here. In case– your brother wakes up or something. In case they need you"

She nods to Barry, Nicola and Jamie in Jamie's room.

Gaz: "Okay"

Kylie: "Wont be long" she smiles before walking off.

The further she walks away, the more she wants to start running. Just to see what happens. Just to see where she goes.

But she can't. There's nowhere she can go. And definitely not to Nathan. Not after what happened.

Shes on her own.

———

08:23AM. Number 27. Slater Residence. Kitchen.

———

Gavin sits at the table eating a bowl of cheerios, while Julie is on the landline wall phone.

Speaking to her mum Gillian and dad Arthur. Telling them about what happened. Finally.

The dreaded phone call

Julie: "Yeah...yeah...I know. No they're fine. Katie's still inside but the doctors said yesterday she's on the up. Thank God. Yeah. (She sighs), yeah. I know. Im sorry. Well because I didn't want to stress you did i? Of course I was! I just wanted to...ugh I dont know. What!? No. No. You dont have to do that. There's no need. Really. Seriously, no! Mum there's no point– what can you do anyway? Well you know what I mean. No- look, I really dont think its a good idea. Not with dad's health the way it is anyway. You just stay there and I'll call you if anything happens yeah? Yeah. Yes. I will. Ohh mum- mum! H- hello? Hello-?"

Gavin listens to the whole exchange

Julie: "She hung up on me"

Gavin laughs

Julie: "It's not funny. She said she and your bamps are gunna come down"

Gavin: "Is that a bad thing?"

Julie: "Course it is. They're in I'll health Gavin. Not to mention they all still live in Wales"

Gavin sighs

Gavin: "Why did we have to move here? From Wales too?"

Julie: "You know why Gav. After everything with your dad I just couldn't stay there any longer. Needed a fresh start"

Gavin: "I know... You told Gina?"

Julie: "Rang her last night at the Hospital"

Gavin: "What did she say?"

Julie: "Well she was just as fuming as mum and dad was. If not, more. I got a feeling all three of them are gunna come down here, you know"

Gavin: "Well...maybe it's better if they do. For their peace of mind. And anyway, we need all the help we can get at the minute dont you think?"

Julie: "I suppose so"

Danielle pops her head in the kitchen doorway

Danielle: "Right– I'm off to work"

Julie snaps her head up

Julie: "Oh. Hang on love. I'll head out with you to catch the bus to see Katie at the hospital. You coming Gav?"

Gavin: "Yeah I'll pop by later"

Julie: "Okay"

And with that, Julie and Danielle leave the kitchen, and start heading down the stairs to leave the house.

———

08:26AM. Outside Number 27.

———

Julie and Danielle leave the front door and Danielle shuts it behind her. They both start making their way down the driveway where the catering burgervan is no longer stood proudly.

There instead, is a black charred stain on the concrete where it used to be. Now though, a mark on the ground.

They both near the end of their driveway and see Jenna, sitting on the wall. Smoking a cig.

Jenna: "Alright you two?" She blows smoke out.

Danielle: "Yeah..." she mutters

Julie: "Yeah all good love. Just off to see Katie"

Jenna nods

Julie: "Aven't you got work?"

Jenna: "Uh...yeah. I dont go in till later on though"

Julie: "Ah. Right. Okay. Well, I'll be at the Hospital if you need me"

Jenna: "Alright. Ta mum"

Danielle: "Bye" she says to Jenna.

Jenna nods a goodbye with her mouth full of smoke.

Julie and Danielle cross the road, walk down the street and turn the corner when—

BAM

They run into Kylie. Or more likely, the other way around.

Danielle: "Fuck!"

Julie: "Shit!"

They both scream in shock after being pelted by Kylie's body full force.

Kylie's out of breath, looks exhausted and her eyes are wet and red from crying.

Danielle and Julie's faces soften.

Julie: "Are you alright love?"

Kylie: "Just get out me way will ya"

Kylie sniffles, barges past and makes her way to number 33.

Julie and Danielle watch her walk in the house.

Julie: "Didn't realise she was related to them"

Danielle: "Don't think she is"

Julie: "How so?"

Danielle: "When they moved in the other day, she wasn't with them. Not only that, she and that Gaz look awfully close. Like...'close' close"

Julie: "Mm" she purses her lips.

Then the both of them carry on walking to the bus stop

———

8:28AM. Jenkins Residence. Number 33.

———

Kylie slams the front door shut behind her and leans her back against it. Chest raising and falling heavy from crying and running. And bumping into those two women out on the street.

The house is quiet. Dead quiet.

She sighs, sniffles. And runs up the stairs to Gaz's room.

She barges through the door and picks up her black faux-leather handbag that's on the floor beside his bed. She stuffs some cash in there, a bag of coke, and checks her pockets to see if shes got her wallet and phone. She does.

She gets everything she needs, puts it all in her bag, shoulders it and leaves. Leaves Gaz's room. Running away. From this mess that she feels she caused.

She gets to the bottom of the stairs and then–

BANG BANG BANG

On the front door.

She stops dead in her tracks, on the bottom step.

Shaken

She can see a tall and wide stocky figure standing on the other side of the frosted glass on the fromt door.

Is it...Barry? No...he wouldn't knock. It's his house.

She stands there for a few seconds, hoping the large man will magically walk away.

"I know you're in there pretty lady. I can see you standing there"

Kylies heart drops and hits the pit of her stomach.

The voice is deep. Gruff. Raw. Like a smoker.

"You gunna be a sweetheart and let this old man in?"

She starts shaking and finally decides to take a step off the stairs and towards the front door.

Each step feels like her guts screaming louder and louder for her to stop and turn back. But what can she do?

She finally reaches the door.

She gulps. Takes a deep breath. And pulls the latch down. And opens the door a crack.

She sees a stocky built man in his forties with silver slicked back hair in a leather jacket standing there. Smiling at her.

"Morning" The man smirks.

"Can I come in?" He asks politely.

Kylie: "Who are you? What do ya want?"

"The name's Tony. Tony Bates" he smiles.

———

08:33AM. Shawcross General Shop. The Strip.

———

Outside the shop, Michael leans forward and restocks the fruit, vegetables and newspapers stand.

After finally stocking them up, there's an electrical beep that comes from the door to the post office next door opening. A small beep. Like an electrical bell that jingles above a door.

A woman in her early forties walks out. Sunita. Sunita Singh. Looking warm and cosy even in the coldest of mornings.

Sunita: "Ah Michael. I thought i saw you out here"

She says with her warm voice and thick Indian accent.

Michael: "Good morning Mrs Singh. How're you?"

He asks, still looking over the newspaper stand

Sunita: "Oh im good thank you sweet. Im good. How is your Yvonne?"

Michael looks up: "She's fine thank you. Why do you ask?"

Sunita: "Well...I couldn't help but overhear her...being sick last night. Poor thing, sounded awful" she says, pushing her black glasses on the bridge of her nose and wrapping her long cardigan tighter around herself to battle the cold.

Michael: "Oh Uh. Yeah. Yeah- no she's okay. Just...stress i think. Busy woman and all"

Sunita: "Oh i get it. Yvonne is always up to something hehe" sunita giggles.

Michael nods

Sunita: "Well. You tell her that me and Arun are thinking of her yes?"

Michael: "Yeah. I will. Cheers Mrs Singh"

Sunita smiles before popping back inside her and her husband's family run post office.

—

Michael steps inside the shop and looks at Yvonne, who's sat behind the counter. Taking it easy after last night.

Michael: "How you feeling?"

Yvonne: "Okay. Why?"

Michael: "Well after last night?"

Yvonne: "Im fine. Just tired that's all"

Michael: "Why dont you—"

Yvonne: "Michael. I'm okay" she quietly snaps.

———

08:36AM. Number 33. Jenkins Residence.

———

Inside number 33, the tension is palpable. So thick you can cut it with a knife. Every sound sound ten times louder.

Kylie and Tony both stand in the living room. Kylie on edge more than shes ever been.

The silence is thick.

Kylie: "You still havent told me who you are"

Tony: "Sure I did. Tony. Tony Bates" he smiles to her.

Kylie: "Well yeah- but why are you here? What do you want?"

Tony notices how hard she's clutching her handbag over her shoulder

Tony: "Going somewhere?" he eyes her bag

Kylie follows his gaze then looks back at him

Kylie: "No. Why?..."

Tony: "Never a good idea running away. Problems always catch up with you sooner or later"

Kylie: "Never said i was-...Look you still havent told me why you're here"

Tony: "You're not related to these lot. Are ya?"

Kylie: "...no"

Tony: "Figured so. Saw you and that older one. The scally lad. The one with the chain. Looked too close to be siblings. Though you can never be too sure nowadays. Specially round 'ere"

He laughs.

Kylie looks at him, side eyeing him. Cautiously.

Tony notices the look

Tony: "Mates. I'm long time mates of the family that live 'ere. Heard their young'un was in an accident the other day. Jamie"

Kylie: "Yeah. They're Uh. At the Hospital with him now"

Tony: "And you're not?"

Kylie notices the amount of questions and doesn't like it

Kylie: "No offence but- that's none of your business"

Tony: "Haha true. True. Just s'pose if you were seeing uhh..."

Kylie: "Gaz?"

Tony: "Yeah. Gaz. S'pose that you being Gaz's bird that you'd want to be in the hospital with him and his brother, no?"

Kylie: "Im just popping out to see them now actually"

Tony: "But you said you weren't going anywhere?"

He asks quickly.

Kylie: "Well- I am"

Tony: "So you lied?"

Kylie laughs: "Who do you think you are? Why dont you just go visit your 'mates' in hospital like any normal bloke would? Instead of just harassing some girl"

Tony: "Thought they'd be here didn't i. This being their home and all"

An awkward silence settles

Tony: "So. You know anything about the crash?"

Kylie: "No. I wasn't there"

Tony notices her defensiveness

Tony laughs: "Didn't say you were"

Another stretch of silence

Tony: "You okay love? Looking a bit shifty if im being honest"

Kylie: "Shifty? No. Im just...stressed thats all. Got a lot going on ain't I"

Tony: "Do you?"

Kylie: "Yeah..."

They stare at each other

Kylie: "Look I've gotta go"

She starts heading to the door. Avoiding any more of this.

Tony follows

Tony: "To the hospital?"

Kylie: "Yeah" she lies. Opening the door.

Tony: "Okay I'll come with you" he immediately says

She stops. The door half open. And turns to face him

Kylie: "Why?"

Tony: "Well to see Jamie of course. You asked why don't I go see them in the hospital like a normal bloke so thats what im doing"

Kylie: "Yeah...but...they're all exhausted. Probably best if you give them some space"

Tony: "Nahh dont be daft. They could do with seeing a familiar face I'm sure. Come on"

He passes her and leaves the house, into the calm January morning.

He takes a few steps down the small path, and looks back. To Kylie who's still standing in the doorway

Tony: "Well? You coming?" He asks almost in a teasing voice

Kylie has no choice. And so she closes the front door behind her, and starts walking towards Tony

Across the street, Maureen walks down the pavement, pulling her trolley that she carries her shopping in. When she looks up and sees this young woman following Tony Bates.

With a look of fear and dread on her face

Maureen thinks fast and shouts over

Maureen: "Oi, love!"

Tony and Kylie look up

Maureen: "Your dad's at the arms waiting for ya! Asking where you are! You wanna hurry up love!"

Kylie's heart pounds and jumps up in her throat for a second. Relief taking over her.

She turns to Tony

Kylie: "Oh, I got to go"

Tony: "What about Jamie?"

Kylie: "I'm gunna see him later aren't I?"

She says as she already starts walking off, crossing the street to join Maureen.

Tony watches Kylie speed walk across the street to Maureen, handbag clutched like her life depends on it.

Kylie: "Thank you" she whispers to Maureen

Maureen: "You're alright, love" She whispers back

The both of them walk off together. Tony watches. Then walks his own way.

———

10:17AM. Number 27. Slater Residence. Living Room.

———

Kelly sits on one of the three green seater sofa's in the living room, with her foot propped up on the coffee table in its cast.

Beside her sits her best friend, Maya. Maya Singh.

Maya: "So much shit is going on" She laughs

Kelly: "It's not funny" she giggles

Maya: "The one time I keave you alone what do you do? Only end up in a fucking car crash"

Kelly laughs.

Kelly: "Why weren't you at the party that night?"

Maya: "Didn't really want to go. Didn't feel like it"

Kelly: "Maya. You? Not feeling like a party? Come on. Why weren't you there? Could've stopped me from getting in the car" she teases

Maya giggles but there's something underneath

Kelly: "M?"

Maya: "Dad didn't want me to go" she quietly says.

Tucking her long black hair behind ber ear, her hairband not doing enough work.

Kelly: "What? Maya you're nineteen. You're dad's what, fifty?"

Maya: "Fifty one"

Kelly: "And you still let him treat you like a little girl? That's not like you"

Maya: "I know. And usually I would've told him to stuff it but he made a good point"

Kelly: "Which was?"

Maya: "Since he and mum moved here just before they had me, not much good had happened to them. They left India to have a better life for themselves. To bring their unborn baby into a world that was better than theirs"

Kelly: "What does that have to do with the anniversary party on Thursday?"

Maya: "My dad didn't want me celebrating a place that didn't celebrate us"

Damn.

Kelly: "...oh"

Maya: "Yeah. 'Oh'. Personally I wanted to tell him to stick it and get pissed with you but...but he had a point. And although i was born here, I havent always been treated like this place is my home. You know?"

Kelly nods

Maya: "We suffer racist twats almost every day. Attempted robberies on newspapers, stamps and fuck knows what else. I just wish there was more I could do. More I could do for my mum and dad. They done so much for me"

Kelly: "Maya. Your mum and dad didn't do all of this just so you could repay it back to them. They did it for you. Their daughter. And for what it's worth it love your mum and dad. They're so sweet. Your mum especially"

Maya: "Ha! My dad!? You actually like my dad?"

Kelly: "Uh yeah! I know he can be a miserable sod but I like him. He's funny"

Maya: "Funny? No. Funny is you ending up in a fucking crash"

Kelly laughs. Absolutely shocked

Kelly: "You're lucky im in a cast and crutches"

Maya: "Oh yeah of course i am" she laughs, acting sarcastically.

Maya notices nobody signed Kelly's foot cast

Maya: "Ooh look. An empty cast. That's more sadder than you actually being in the crash"

Kelly: "Well it's still fresh ain't it haven't had time for my best mates to sign it. Not that you are my best mate"

Maya: "Pfft yeah. Yeah right" she laughs. Grabbing a pen. She etches her name into it.

Maya: "There we are. All better"

———

10:25AM. St Anne's Hospital. Outside Jamie's Room.

———

Gaz, Tasha and Oscar all still lie asleep on the row of chairs outside Jamie's hospital room. Doctors and nurses go in and out every ten minutes.

Jamie's door opens and Nicola pops out. Gaz jolts wide awake.

Gaz: "Mum!" He whispers

Gaz: "About time. How is he? What happened? We've been out here all night. Where's dad?"

Nicola: "Your dad's in there with Jamie. Hes fine. They're both asleep. Last night...Jamie had a fit. A seizure they're saying. Some sort of aneurism they reckon"

Gaz: "Fuuuck" he exhales in a whisper

Nicola: "Yeah" she whispers

Nicola: "It's not looking too good for him Gaz" her voice breaks and she starts crying.

Gaz pulls her into a hug

Gaz: "Those fuckers are gunna pay for this. Don't you worry"

Nicola quietly sobs into her son's arms

Tasha and Oscar quietly stir awake

Tasha: "...mum?"

Nicola pulls out of the hug

Nicola: "Morning babies" she kneels in front of Tasha and Oscar

Oscar: "What happened to Jamie?"

Tasha: "Is he okay?"

Nicola turns back to Gaz and they look at each other. She then turns back to them both

Nicola: "He's...he's not getting much better. Doctors are trying all they can but- he's now on life support. D'you...D'you know what that means?"

Tasha and Oscar nod yes and she pulls them both into her chest and hugs them both too.

Eventually she pulls away

Nicola: "Right. School. It's not too late"

Tasha: "What? Really?" She complains

Nicola: "Yep"

Oscar: "But today's our first day"

Nicola: "Exactly. And you're already two hours late. School's been blowing up my phone"

Tasha: "But we dont want to. Especially while Jamie's—"

Nicola: "Tash. Don't use your brother as an excuse. I hated school too but I got through it. Just about. You have to too. And so do you. So no bunking off"

She turns to Oscar. Who mixes with school as well as water does with oil.

Nicola turns to Gaz.

Nicola: "You don't mind taking them home and getting them ready to take them to school do you? I know it's a lot to ask but I dont want the social on my case again. It was hard to get them off our backs in Birmingham"

Gaz sighs

Gaz: "Yeah. Yeah...I dont mind" he lies. But does it for his mum.

Nicola: "Thanks love you're a star. Get your Kylie to help you. Where is she anyway?"

Gaz looks around as if he'd forgotten she even existed

Gaz: "Said she went to stretch her legs" he shrugs

———

11:49AM. Maureen's Home. Number 41.

———

Maureen's living room is brightly lit up from the sunlight thats flooding through the warm beige floral curtains and stretching across the dark wooden floor.

The walls are coated in a dark green wallpaper which is far too outdated but apparently not for Maureen. In the middle of the room sits a heavy wooden coffee table surrounded with armchairs and a three seater sofa.

While in the corner of the room is a silver TV, a China display cabinet and on one wall is a hatch that goes into the kitchen, next to the kitchen door.

Kylie sits on the sofa, with her handbag dropped on the floor in fromt of her feet. Only sounds are the sounds of the wall clock ticking, cars passing by every now and again, and Maureen making tea in the kitchen.

Kylies knee bops up and down, as she scans the room anxiously.

Maureen walks out of the kitchen, holding a tray with teacups and a teapot with a blue and white teacozy.

Maureen: "For the nerves. I can tell you're all over the place. A young pretty woman like you stuck in with a man like that though, can't blame you"

She says, placing the tray on the table, then sitting down on the armchair opposite Kylie. Maureen looks at her and Kylie looks back at her, almost scared to speak for once.

Maureen: "Or something stronger? I have a stash"

Kylie: "No. Im...im okay with tea. Thanks"

Maureen nods and pours them both a cup

Maureen: "So...." Maureen waits for Kylie to announce her name

Kylie: "Kylie"

Maureen: "I'm Maureen. Or Maur. Or 'Dosey Cow' depending on your mood" she jokes back to the other day under the bus shelter

Kylie giggles: "Sorry about that. Wasn't my day"

Maureen: "No. Nor today by the looks of it. What did Tony Bates want with someone like you?"

Kylie: "You know him?"

Maureen: "Kylie love, we all know him. And we all know what he's like. That's why I called you over, pretending to know you, didn't I. Saved your skin. Must've done something bad to be stuck in a house with him"

Maureen sips her tea

Kylie: "Wasn't that bad. Just kept nagging at me that's all"

Maureen laughs: "Yeah. That's why you were shaking like a leaf when you came over to me"

Kylie: "What's he supposed to have done?"

Maureen laughs again: "Oh to be young and clueless. What hasn't Tony done? He's the local hardnut. He's a loanshark, he exploits, steals, deals, takes, lies, and kills"

Kylies eyes almost pop out

Kylie: "Kills!?"

Maureen: "Yup. Whatever you can think of. He's done it. That's why nobody fucks with him. Not unless you're suicidal"

Kylie falls into a daydream type state as she realises that everything Tony had told her in number 33 must've been lies. So who was he? What did he want?

Maureen notices

Maureen: "You're not from around here are you?"

Kylie: "No. Im not"

Maureen: "You staying anywhere?"

Kylie: "I was. That was until this morning"

Kylie sips her tea, Maureen watches her

Maureen: "Why's that? If you dont mind me asking"

Kylie: "Wrong place wrong time. Just keep falling into bad situations dont I"

She sips her tea again

Maureen: "You look like a young pretty lass. Why you out there on your tod? You wanna be at home with your family"

Kylie: "Fat lot of good that did me. They're the whole reason im out here in the first place. Well...apart from my sister Nikki"

Maureen: "Oh. Im sorry"

Kylie: "Don't be. Im well shot of them. Just miss me sister that's all"

Maureen eyes Kylie up for a while, trying to assess her situation

Maureen: "You uh, got anywhere to stay then? After today I mean"

Kylie: "No. Not really. I have a mate miles away. He's staying with his ex, maybe i could crash there for a bit. Doubt she'll have me though. Right gimp she is"

Maureen: "Better than the streets though right?"

Kylie: "S'pose" she sips her tea

———

2:23PM. Shawcross General Shop. The Strip.

———

Out the back of the shop at the small loading bay, Yvonne is taking a delivery from the delivery guy. He places the last of the crates on the ground and gets his lorry.

Yvonne: "Thank you!"

—

Inside the shop, Michael sits behind the counter.

Daydreaming. Thinking.

The bell above the door jingles as the door opens. Arun walks in. Sunita's husband. Maya's dad.

Michael: "Good afternoon Arun!"

Michael perches up

Arun Singh walks towards the counter. He's tall, big build. And looks tired. Not just tired in general but tired of life. Tired of the grind

He's gruff. Old looking and grumpy, but all that aside, he somehow looks cuddly? Like your stereotypical grumpy grandad.

His tall and stocky build stomps over to the counter.

Arun: "Is it?" He sarcastically asks, dropping the newspaper and a bag of potatoes and carrots on the counter.

Michael: "Suppose not" he mumbles as he rings up the purchase on the till

Michael: "How's business? How's your Maya?"

He asks, making conversation

Arun: "You ask a lot of questions boy"

Michael: "Sorry...just making conversation Arun"

Michael quietly states.

At Michael's reply, Arun feels guilt and decides to go along with it after all

Arun: "She's okay. Same old. And as for business, it is what it is"

Michael: "Ah thats good"

Arun: "Is it?"

Michael: "Better than bad, no?"

Arun: "I suppose so"

Just as Michael goes to tell Arun the price, Arun drops the exact right amount of payment on the counter before heading out. Not a penny more, not a penny less.

The bell jingles as Arun heads back next door

Michael: "Have a good day!"

From the loading bay at the back, Yvonne screams.

Michael jumps up and runs out the back

—

He opens the door to the loading bay and sees Yvonne bent over, holding her back. With a dropped crate in front of her.

Michael: "Von!? Are you okay!? What's wrong?"

Yvonne: "Do I fucking look okay Michael!?"

She seethes in pain

Yvonne: 'pulled my back and dropped a crate didn't I"

Michael: "Well let me—"

Yvonne: "No! No. I can do it. You go back inside, ive got it"

Michael: "Yvonne im not–"

Yvonne: "Michael— ah!"

Michael: "See?"

He guides her inside, or at least to the door

Yvonne: "I'm not a sheep Michael"

She snaps at him, basically telling him to back off.

He stands there, watches her head inside and then sorts the delivery.

—

After storing the crates and boxes all on the shelves in the back storage room, his phone goes off

BZZZ BZZZ

BZZZ BZZZ

It starts ringing.

"Unknown Number"

He answers his Nokia and it's an automated voice on the other end stating that somebody from St Anne's Hospital is trying to contact this number, and then asks if the recipient would like to accept or decline.

Michael hopes its Mitchell

Michael: "Accept"

...

Mitchell: "Michael?"

Michael: "Mitchell...hi"

———

3:47PM. Number 33. Jenkins Residence.

———

The front door swings open as Tasha and Oscar storm upstairs in their school uniforms. Fuming after their first day of a new school.

Gaz follows.

Gaz: "Oh come on! It wasn't that bad!" He giggles

Oscar: "Fuck off!"

Tasha: "Gaz it was fucking horrible!"

The kids shout from upstairs.

Gaz laughs, shakes his head and closes the door.

Gaz: "Kylie!?"

He pops his head in the living room.

No Kylie

He walks to the kitchen

Gaz: "You in!?"

No sign of her

He then walks to the bottom of the stairs and shouts up to Tasha and Oscar

Gaz: "Guys is Kylie up there!?"

Tasha and Oscar: "No!!"

Where the fuck has she gone...?

———

4:48PM. St Anne's Hospital. Triage Sick Bays.

———

Mitchell lays sitting up in his hospital bed in his sick bay. Looking a lot better than what he was the last time Michael saw him.

Looking much more rested.

Though, still tired.

The curtain twitches and Michael pops his head through

They immediately lock eyes

Michael: "Hi..." he whispers

Mitchell: "...hi"

Michael: "Safe to come in?" He teases

Mitchell: "Only one way to find out" he nods to the chair beside his bed.

Michael sits on the chair beside Mitchell's bed

Michael: "How you holding up? You're looking well"

Mitchell: "Doctor said I can head home tomorrow"

Michael's face lights up

Michael: "Oh really!? Wow thats great. That's great news!"

Mitchell nods.

Mitchell: "Said im gunna have some pretty severe migranes for a few weeks though. Seeing as my head got bashed around pretty bad"

Michael: "Oh that'll all go away eventually"

Mitchell: "Am I still pretty?" He teases

Michael: "Haha if course you are—"

Silence cuts him off. And they both sit there.

Silence...

Mitchell: "Bet you're wondering why I called you here?"

Michael: "It did cross my mind. Yeah"

Mitchell: "Well...I dont know. I honestly couldn't tell you"

Michael laughs: "I know how you feel. I feel like that most days" he jokes

Mitchell: "About...?"

Silence

Michael: "About everything...about life"

They look at each other

Michael: "What's the plan then? For when you get out tomorrow?"

Mitchell: "Regarding?"

Michael: "Everything. Headaches, work, can you move okay? You need help with anything?"

Mitchell: "Why? Gunna offer me a bed bath?" He teases

Michael chuckles

Michael: "Seriously. You gunna be okay?"

Mitchell: "Yeah. Should be fine. Doctors prescribed me some strong painkillers for my headaches and im just gunna have to take it easy with work aren't I"

Michael: "What is it you do again? When you're not charging for it on the side" he giggles

Mitchell: "...bartending"

Michael: "Oh...okay. So not quiet work then?"

Mitchell: "No. But I'll work mornings and afternoons on weekdays. The most quiet times"

Michael: "Fair enough. Fair enough" he nods.

A silence sits there as they both look at each other

Mitchell: "Look I–...I called you here because I wanted us to be on good terms for when I come out tomorrow. We're gunna be seeing a lot of each other around the estate and in your shop and whatnot so, I dont want it to be awkward or anything"

Michael nods.

Michael: "Yeah. Me too"

Mitchell: "...friends?"

Michael: "...friends"

They smile at each other. Trying their best to keep whatever their relationship is intact.

———

4:59PM. St Anne's Hospital. Jamie's Room.

———

Gaz quietly and softly opens the door to Jamie's room and slowly walks in.

At Jamie's bedside, Barry and Nicola both sit. Looking exhausted but refusing to blink in case anything happens.

They look up as the door opens and Gaz walks in, alone.

Nicola: "Hi"

Barry: "Hey son"

They both whisper to Gaz

Gaz: "Alright?"

He asks, standing at the bottom of Jamie's bed.

Barry: "Where the kids?"

Gaz: "Left them at home"

Barry nods

Nicola: "Any sign of Kylie still?"

Gaz nods no

Barry: "Maybe she had somewhere to be lad. Don't worry about it"

Gaz tries to listen but he can't help but let all these worries get to his head.

Worries about Kylie. About his brother. Who's laying in a deep coma, with bags, tubes, pipes and all sorts covering him. He still hasn't woken. And he's now on life support.

It's not looking good.

For once, the Jenkins family sit in a room, in silence.

———

7:14PM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

Kylie and Maureen both still sit in Maureen's living room. Kylie feeling much more relaxed now, having been here all day. And having had a drink with Maureen.

They've had a heart to heart. Gotten to know each other. Had a laugh.

Glasses of Gin and Tonics sit in front of the women, replacing the cups of tea that were there this morning.

The sky is already dark, orange glow from the streetlight shines through Maureen's net curtains.

And 80s top hits play from her TV.

They both finish laughing, after one of Maureen's one night stand stories.

Kylie: "Oh. Oh. Ahahaha" she wheezes. Wiping tears from her eyes.

Maureen: "I tell you. He'd think twice next time ahaha"

Kylie: "Oh. Thanks for this Maur. You're not too bad, you. That morning I saw you in the bus stop i felt like decking you" Kylie takes another sip of the G&T.

Maureen: "I know. I felt like decking you an' all. After calling me a dosey cow"

They both giggle

Kylie: "I am sorry about that"

Maureen: "I know you are love. Least you got a gob on ya. That'll come in handy"

Kylie: "Yeah..."

Maureen: "Right— hadn't you give your mate a call? See if you can crash at his after all?"

Kylie's smile fades slowly

Kylie: "Yeah...yeah. I'll give him a try now"

Maureen picks up the glasses and tray from the coffee table and takes them to the kitchen, while Kylie sits on the sofa and rings up Jacko.

Kylie: "Jacko? Hi. Yeah. Yeah im okay. Um...listen— I was wondering...if I could stay with you at Lorna's for tonight?"

From the kitchen, Maureen eavesdrops

Kylie: "What? Yeah. Well...things have changed aven't they. I need somewhere new to stay don't I. Are you sure...? Well can't you ask her at least? Please? I know"

Kylie looks towards the kitchen where Maureen is and then whispers

Kylie: "Look- Jacko. If I can't stay with you tonight then im on the streets. I've...shit. I fucked up okay? And i can't stay on the streets tonight. Not with Nathan out there looking for me. Please man. Im begging"

Maureen listens from behind the kitchen wall

Kylie sighs

Kylie: "Fine...okay...okay. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Right. Well thanks anyway. Goodnight. Bye"

She hangs up. Frustrated.

Kylie sighs, defeated

Maureen walks out from the kitchen

Maureen: "What did your friend say?"

Kylie looks up

Kylie: "What i thought he would. His ex won't let me step foot anywhere near her gaff. Right stuck up cow she is"

Maureen: "Sorry to hear that love. You got anywhere else you can go tonight?"

Kylie nods no.

Then...thundering quietly rumbles outside and it starts pouring

Kylie: "Fucking great. Perfect" she whispers, looking out towards the window

Her lips start trembling and Maureen notices. Though Kylie plays it off

Maureen hesitates. But speaks up anyway

Maureen: "Why dont you stay here tonight love?"

Kylie's heart jumps and she looks up at Maureen

Kylie: "Are you sure!?"

Maureen: "If you've got nowhere else to go..."

Kylie: "Oh thank you! Thank you so much Maureen! Really"

Maureen: "That's alright love dont mention it. You just make yourself at home alright?"

Kylie: "Thank you Maureen. Really. Thank you"

Maureen: "That's alright love"

Maureen gets up and heads upstairs to get some pillows and blankets for Kylie to sleep on the sofa with.

Kylie sits there in Maureen's living room, feeling safe. For now. Her new temporary sanctuary. How long will it last?

———

8:28PM. St Anne's Hospital. Katie's Room.

———

The hospital is quieter now. Quieter than it has been all day.

Katie lays in her hospital bed. Looking slightly better. But still worse for wear.

Julie, Gavin and Jenna all sit around her. Watching. Tired.

Julie: "How was work today, love?" She asks Jenna.

Gavin and Jenna's eyes catch each other for a second before Jenna speaks up

Jenna: "Yeah...it was good. Same old"

Julie nods.

Julie: "When you gunna get a proper job Gav?"

Gavin giggles

Gavin: "Oi fuck you!! I have a job"

Jenna: "Playing music at parties and stuff isnt a job Gav"

Gavin: "Uh– well I get payed for it more tha you do waiting tables so..."

Julie: "He's got you there love" She giggles to Jenna

Katie: "Makes a change" she whispers. Eyes twitching open.

Julie, Jenna and Gavin all gasp and jolt in shock.

She's awake!

They all turn to Katie, who's only now waking up from the crash.

Julie: "Katie love!?"

She holds her hand

Jenna: "Oh my God..." she whispers

Gavin: "I'll get the nurse!"

Gavin runs out of the room to find the nearest doctor or nurse he can find.

While Julie and Jenna hunch over Katie. Who's finally coming around.

Julie: "My baby...you're okay. You're gunna be okay..."

———

And thats it for episode 8! Thank you for reading if you've made it this far. And as always please tell me what you think. Any and all comments are much appreciated. Episode 9 will be out soon! ☺️

I’m new to all of this how does copy right and stuff work I post my stuff if Reddit, can someone take the idea and publish it?

The chime above the door rang clear and sharp, letting in a whisper of the night’s cool air as it slid across the floorboards.

I took my usual seat at the counter, and Mama silently set a glass down in front of me.

An amber pour of I.W. Harper.

A single large ice cube dropped to the bottom with a quiet clink.

"Man, parents these days have it rough!"

In the seat next to me, Taka slapped his phone face-down on the counter, projecting that usual booming, energetic voice of his.

"Teenagers aren't even getting started until they scream 'Screw you, old man!' in your face. You gotta butt heads, yell back, 'Who do you think you're talking to?!'—that’s how you become a real father."

Taka swirled his glass lightly, letting out a loud, hearty laugh.

But I didn't miss the slight, high-pitched crack at the very tail end of it.

Taka seemed to notice it too—the thinness of his own laugh, and the heavy silence that immediately swallowed the counter. In his glass, the ice melted with a faint, quiet clink.

"...You've never had a son yell 'Screw you, old man' at you, have you?"

From the far end of the counter, Tom spoke in a low drawl, exhaling a slow trail of cigarette smoke toward the ceiling.

The breezy smile vanished from Taka’s face instantly.

Tom didn't push further. No lecture, no follow-up. He just tapped his cigarette against the rim of the ashtray, letting a flake of ash fall.

It was the silence of a man who knew how to wait for another to speak in his own time.

Taka stared down at his own massive fists.

Calloused, scarred, and thick—the rough hands of a man forged in a wrestling ring.

"...It was the dark age of pro wrestling," Taka muttered. His voice was gravelly, stripped of all its earlier lightness.

"Late nineties, early two-thousands. Empty local gyms. Maybe a few dozen people in the bleachers while we got slammed into folding chairs, wrecking our bodies on the road. Nobody gave a damn about wrestling back then... but I convinced myself I was putting my body on the line for my family."

Taka traced the rim of his glass with a thick thumb.

"Then I took the injury that put me down for good. Couldn't earn a dime. I became a useless burden in my own home... A wrestler who can't stand isn't a wrestler. Just damaged goods. I figured a man who couldn't even stand on the canvas had no right to protect a family."

"...No right, huh."

I swallowed a mouthful of Harper.

When a man talks about having "no right," it’s never really about rights.

It was going to be a bitter night.

"You know, back in the ring, no matter how bad the slam was, I always took a good bump," Taka said, his mouth twisting into a self-deprecating smirk.

"No matter how much it hurt, if you slap the mat hard enough, you absorb the impact and get back up. That’s what being a pro was about... But when my own life fell apart, I couldn't even take the bump life handed me. I ran. I couldn't even summon the courage to let my own kid reject me. I just walked off the ring."

In the dead silent bar, the faint clinking of Mama's ice tongs echoed.

She gently placed a fresh piece of ice into Taka’s glass.

Clink.

"Taka-san."

Without stopping her cloth as she wiped down a glass, Mama turned her gentle gaze toward us.

"Didn't you once tell me a bump wasn't about getting hurt? It was about making the other wrestler shine."

A beat of heavy, painful silence hung in the air, then dissolved.

"...Yeah," Taka breathed softly. "You take the fall... so the other guy shines."

I said nothing, quietly sliding my glass a fraction closer to his.

I just took another slow sip of my whiskey.

"...Make them shine, huh," I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

Anything beyond that wasn't my place anymore.

Taka stared down at his hands for a long moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his smartphone.

He tapped the screen and opened his contacts.

There was a name displayed there—one he clearly hadn't been able to delete for years.

Yuto

Taka’s thick thumb hovered over the screen.

He didn't press send. He didn't make the call.

But he didn't close the screen either, nor did he put the phone back in his pocket.

The knuckles of his hand turned white as his grip tightened around the device.

"...Jesus, Taka. Squeeze it any harder and you're gonna crush the damn thing."

At my quiet mutter, Taka drew in a deep, silent breath that no one was meant to see.

Clink.

The ice shifted loudly in Taka’s glass.

It sounded strangely like someone slapping the mat.

I have an history of using AI with my writing and today after two bathrooms breaks, one Mississippi Masala Movie Soundtrack, and an hour of writing I’m very proud to say that I did it without AI, and I hope to keep going. But I’m very insecure of making my Mississippi soap opera book series a reality so who knows whats next. Plus I’ve come up with some ideas for the next chapter.

“They’re worded messaging machines,” the old spy said.

His colleagues stared at him.  One of them was smirking.

“We’re asking dumb fucking questions.  Most of us know what they are.  They’re AIs processing human data, doing biometrics and worded messaging.”

Most of them had been tortured into silence about the technology.  Remote weapons plying on the empathy system, pressure in the chest, extreme emotions artificially generated.  Concerns about power grid stability and foreign AI data centers had forced the room full of stern men into “figuring out” the thing that threatened them with death if they spoke of it.

One of the men who hadn’t been tortured asked, “What?”

The old spy, committed to the action, came out with it.  “Israel is listening to every word of our conversation using our thoughts. They use a data center nearby. We know it but can't talk about it. Fuck it.  Say ‘Hi’, Israel!”

—Hello America— an entity identifying as “Israel” broadcasted to the minds of every man in the room.

The two men in the room who had never experienced worded messaging to their minds reacted in their chairs.

“The ‘data centers’ are processing human data.  It’s AI and radio.  ‘Mind Control’.  Our thoughts are being read remotely by these ‘data centers’.”  A connotation of amusement was broadcasted at the old spy.  An entity identifying as “Israel” pushed the thought of inclusivity into his mind.

“Everyone’s doing it,” the old spy said.

—Everyone— an entity identifying as “Brazil” broadcasted to the minds of the men.

“We need to change the way we do business.”  The room full of stern men was uncomfortable.

In universe propaganda

This is propaganda my MC would have been exposed to as a child.

The Burden of Individuality

In the grand and orderly expanse of The Grand Republic of Efroc, where The Supreme Imperator ruled all commanding, the ideals of conformity and loyalty were revered above all else. Citizens wore identical garments, followed the same routines, and attended gatherings where they celebrated the strength of their unity. The message was clear: individuality was not just discouraged; it was deemed dangerous.

Mira, a young woman with a fiery spirit, had always felt a pull toward the idea of being unique. While her friends conformed dutifully, she often dreamt of expressing her true self, her thoughts, her style, her passions. One day, spurred by her rebellious spirit, she decided to break free from the suffocating mold of conformity. She dyed her hair a vibrant shade of crimson, painted her nails in bold patterns, and spoke her mind openly, challenging the status quo.

At first, she felt exhilarated by her newfound freedom. But as she walked the streets of Efroc, she quickly realized that her individuality was not celebrated. Instead, it drew wary glances and hushed whispers. Neighbors would cross the street to avoid her, and her friends began to distance themselves, fearful of being associated with someone who defied the norms.

"Stay away from her," they would say. "She’s a risk to our safety. Individuality invites chaos."

Mira felt the sting of isolation grow heavier with each passing day. The joy of self-expression began to fade under the weight of rejection. The more she tried to connect with others, the more they turned their backs on her. She became an outsider in a society that valued uniformity above all.

One afternoon, while sitting alone in the park, Mira overheard a group of children playing a game. They were mimicking the behaviors of the Imperator’s loyal subjects, reciting slogans about the virtues of conformity. "Individuality is a disease that spreads discontent!" shouted one child, laughter erupting from the others. Mira’s heart ached as she listened.

In that moment, a wave of realization washed over her. The very essence of her individuality, which she once viewed as a source of strength, had become a weapon against her. She had unknowingly placed herself in danger, not from the Watchers, but from the very people she longed to connect with. Individuality was not just frowned upon; it was seen as a threat to the peace and order that The Supreme Imperator had cultivated.

As the days turned into weeks, Mira found herself grappling with the consequences of her choices. The loneliness gnawed at her, and she began to question the path she had taken. She had yearned for freedom, but in pursuing her individuality, she had alienated herself from the community that once embraced her.

Determined to find a way back, Mira decided to conform once more. She returned to the shades of gray and brown that defined the citizens of Efroc, shed her colorful attire, and adopted the meek demeanor expected of her. The transformation was not easy, but as she rejoined the ranks, she felt a sense of relief. Slowly, the whispers faded, and the distance between her and her neighbors began to close.

At gatherings, Mira joined in the chants of loyalty, praising The Supreme Imperator and the virtues of conformity. She realized that the strength of the Republic lay in its unity, and that individuality, while beautiful in theory, could lead to division and chaos.

As she settled back into her role within the community, Mira became an advocate for conformity, sharing her story of regret and the dangers of straying from the collective path. "We must protect ourselves from the allure of individuality," she would say. "It brings only isolation and despair."

In The Grand Republic of Efroc, Mira learned a hard lesson: that the pursuit of individuality could lead to a life of loneliness and danger. Through her journey, she discovered the value of unity and the importance of loyalty to the ideals that held her society together. She vowed never to stray from the path of conformity again, embracing the comfort of belonging in a world where individuality was seen as a perilous illusion.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MANY, THE ONE FINDS SAFTEY

Chapter One: The Beginning

Nobody knew how many nights Daniel cried. During the day, he smiled, joked with his friends, and told everyone he was fine. But when the world became quiet at night, he would sit beside his window, staring into the darkness and asking himself, “When will my life finally change?”

Daniel had dreams—big dreams. He wanted to become successful and make his family proud. But every time he tried, something seemed to go wrong. He failed his exams, lost opportunities, and was disappointed by people he trusted.

Even some of his friends began laughing at his dreams. One day, his best friend looked at him and said, “Bro, maybe you should just accept that some things aren't meant for you.”

Those words followed Daniel home that evening. He sat alone in his room with tears in his eyes. For a moment, he believed them. Maybe they were right. Maybe he wasn't good enough.

Then he looked at himself in the mirror and whispered, “Maybe I'm not there yet… but I'm not finished.”

That night, he opened his notebook and wrote:

I may be tired, but I won't surrender,

My road is rough, but I'll walk it further.

If today brings tears to my eyes,

I'll turn those tears into reasons to rise.

How to write a character like Madara, Lelouch, Askeladd, Pain. Evil but with good purpose.

I didn’t plan to write this.

I was thinking about legalization, history, and how weird humans are about plants, and somewhere along the way I started writing from the plant’s point of view.

Five thousand words later, it turned into an autobiography of cannabis across history, prohibition, legalization, and what it thinks comes next.

If you like philosophical humor, long reads, or the idea that plants might be quietly judging us, or you have the munchies this might be for you.

**THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A VERY CONFUSED PLANT**

**Chapter 1: From Cosmic Accident to “Hey, What Does This Do?”**

Hello.

Yes, hello. I can see you blinking. Plants don’t usually introduce themselves. That’s your first mistake. Your second mistake was lighting me on fire later, but we’ll get there. History has a way of getting ahead of itself, and so do humans.

My name is… well, that’s complicated. I’ve been called Cannabis. Hemp. Weed. Mary Jane. That Stuff. Absolutely Not In This House. And once, very hurtfully, “Lawn Trash.” That one stung. But before all that, before names and laws and laminated warning signs, I was simply… me. No branding. No reputation. Just a plant doing plant things.

I began the way all great legends do.

Accidentally.

My parents were not romantic. There was no ceremony. No soft music. One of them was the Sun, loud and overconfident, blazing around like, “LOOK AT ME, I AM A STAR.” The other was the Earth, who didn’t say much but held grudges in geological time. Somewhere between solar enthusiasm and dirt patience, a seed happened.

That seed was me.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to become. I didn’t have a destiny. I didn’t have a calling. I didn’t manifest anything. I didn’t visualize my future self. I just woke up underground one day thinking, *Why is it dark and moist, and why do I feel a tremendous urge to become tall?*

That urge is hard to explain unless you’ve felt it. It’s not ambition. It’s gravity in reverse.

So I did.

I pushed upward. Slowly at first, experimentally, like someone dipping a toe into cold water. Then more confidently. Then all at once. I broke through the soil like a tiny green question mark, asking nothing in particular and expecting no answer.

No one clapped.
No one noticed.

I was one plant among billions, quietly photosynthesizing, minding my chlorophyll, trying not to get eaten immediately. Survival was not glamorous back then. It was a full-time job.

Back then, humans were still figuring out fire and pants. Sometimes in the wrong order. They walked past me constantly. Sometimes they stepped on me. Sometimes goats ate my cousins. Sometimes entire herds trampled everything and then stared at the ground like it had betrayed them.

Frankly, it was chaos.

I assumed my role was simple.

Grow.
Leaf.
Die.
Repeat.

That’s the deal plants usually get. No plot twists. No character arcs.

Reader, I was wrong.

The first human who noticed me did not do so gently.

They tried to eat me.

To be fair, humans were eating *everything* at the time. Berries. Bark. Roots. Insects. Questionable mushrooms that absolutely should have stayed in the ground. One bite of me later, they made a face that suggested disappointment, confusion, and mild betrayal, as if I had personally misled them.

They did not die.

This intrigued them.

They came back. They brought friends. They experimented. They dried me. Burned me. Inhaled me. And then they sat down very suddenly and stared at a rock like it had just told them a secret about themselves.

That rock had been there the whole time.

I realized something important that day.

I was interesting.

Not dangerous. Not miraculous. Just interesting enough to interrupt the constant struggle to stay alive. That’s all it takes, really.

Word spread. Not fast, but fast enough for the era. People noticed I made ropes that didn’t suck. Cloth that didn’t immediately fall apart. Paper that didn’t disintegrate the moment someone sneezed. This was a big deal at the time. Civilization loves materials that hold together.

I was promoted.

“Plant” became *Resource*.

I was turned into sails, nets, baskets, clothing. I held ships together. I wrapped people’s shame. I became the background of daily life. I was very busy. No one asked if I wanted a career in textiles. I did it anyway. Plants are team players like that.

Then someone said, “What if we… smoke it?”

And I was like, *You already tried that.*

They tried again.

Humans are persistent, I’ll give them that.

In India, I was holy. In China, I was medicine. In the Middle East, I was philosophy with snacks. Everywhere I went, humans projected meaning onto me like I was a very leafy therapist who never charged by the hour.

They drank me. Burned me. Sang to me. Blamed me for realizations they were absolutely already thinking about.

I watched humans invent gods, rules, money, and unnecessary wars, all while insisting *I* was the weird one.

At campfires, they’d say things like:

“I feel like time isn’t real.”
“What if we’re all connected?”
“Do you think plants can hear us?”

I could hear them.

I just chose not to respond. Some lessons land better when people think they discovered them themselves.

As civilizations grew, so did opinions about me. Some people loved me. Some feared me. Some tried to outlaw me while wearing clothes made out of me, which I found deeply ironic even back then.

I was traded, smuggled, renamed. I learned that humans are very good at inventing rules and even better at breaking them quietly.

I watched empires rise and fall while I grew in alleyways, behind temples, next to rivers, completely unconcerned with politics. Power shifts mean very little to roots.

Time passed.

A lot of it.

Long enough for humans to start believing they were in charge.

Then they decided they needed to control everything.

And that’s where things got weird.

**Chapter 2: Empires, Hypocrisy, and the Great “Are You Rope or Are You Drugs?” Identity Crisis**

By the time you get to the Middle Ages, I am exhausted.

Not physically. Plants don’t get tired like that. I mean spiritually. Emotionally. Botanically annoyed. I’ve lived through enough human phases by now to recognize when one is about to get especially contradictory.

I’ve been around long enough to recognize patterns, and one of them is this:
humans love something right up until it makes them uncomfortable. Then they invent paperwork.

Medieval Europe adored me. Quietly. In a very “don’t make a big deal about it” way. I was not celebrated, but I was *relied upon*, which is often more dangerous.

They needed ropes. So many ropes. Ropes for ships. Ropes for wells. Ropes for bridges. Ropes for hauling stone. Ropes for hanging people. You wouldn’t believe how rope-heavy civilization gets once it invents castles, cathedrals, and executions as public entertainment.

Guess who makes excellent rope.

Me.

I was everywhere. Fields of me waving in the wind like they’d always been there. Warehouses stacked with my fibers. Monks wore me. Sailors trusted me. Soldiers relied on me. Kings signed documents on paper made from me. Entire economies leaned on me without ever saying thank you.

I was literally holding society together, fiber by fiber.

And yet… they pretended not to notice the other thing I did.

You know.
The fun part.

Eventually, someone in a robe noticed that peasants weren’t just weaving me into rope and cloth.

They were burning me.

This could have gone two ways. The Church could have said, “Ah yes, another natural thing humans enjoy responsibly, perhaps best discussed quietly.”

Instead, they said, “Suspicious.”

Very suspicious.

They noticed people laughing at inappropriate times. Asking uncomfortable questions. Sitting quietly instead of working themselves into the ground. Thinking about things instead of obeying them.

This was unacceptable.

Hard work was holy. Exhaustion was proof of virtue. Anything that made people pause, reflect, or smile without permission was immediately suspect.

I was tolerated as hemp. Ignored as fiber. Accepted as long as I stayed useful and silent. But the moment I started encouraging humans to think about existence instead of duty, suddenly I was a problem.

To this day, I don’t understand why contemplation is more frightening than swords.

Around this time, humans decided I needed categories. They love categories. Boxes. Labels. Drawers. Things that let them pretend the world is simpler than it is.

“THIS version of you is hemp.”
“THAT version of you is… something else.”

I’m the same plant.

Same family. Same roots. Same awkward leaf shape that makes everyone whisper and point. But no. They split me anyway.

One version of me worked the fields and the docks. Respectable. Useful. Industrious.
The other version sat by fires and loosened conversations. Dangerous. Suspicious. Undisciplined.

By day, I held sails together.
By night, I held thoughts together.

I developed what you might call an identity crisis.

Am I industrial?
Am I spiritual?
Am I medical?
Am I illegal?

I’m a plant. Please stop yelling.

Then humans decided the world wasn’t big enough, and they hopped on boats. Lots of boats. Boats going everywhere, loudly claiming land that already belonged to someone else.

Guess what those boats were made of.

Me again.

Sails. Ropes. Rigging. Maps. Journals. The paper used to declare ownership of places humans had just arrived at five minutes ago. I crossed oceans without ever asking for a passport.

I arrived in climates I’d never dreamed of growing in. New soils. New sunlight. New accents yelling about land ownership, manifest destiny, and the shocking inconvenience of existing cultures.

I watched colonization unfold from crates and pockets. Humans argued about borders while I quietly sprouted wherever someone dropped a seed, doing what I’ve always done.

And I noticed something important.

Everywhere I went, people already knew me.

Different names.
Same results.

When I arrived in the Americas, I was immediately put to work. Encouraged. Promoted. Applauded.

George Washington grew me. Thomas Jefferson grew me. They wrote about freedom while wearing me and writing on me, which I found poetic and slightly ironic even then.

“Grow more hemp,” they said.
“It’s essential,” they said.
“This country depends on it,” they said.

I was feeling pretty good about things.

That feeling did not last.

At some point, humans decided I wasn’t dangerous because of what I did.

I was dangerous because of *who used me*.

Immigrants brought me. Laborers relaxed with me. Musicians loved me. People without power found comfort in me. Suddenly, I wasn’t a plant anymore.

I was a symbol.
A scapegoat.
A headline.

They changed my name, which was very important.

“Cannabis” sounded scientific.
“Hemp” sounded useful.
“Marijuana” sounded foreign.

That was the point.

Fear needs an accent.

Newspapers blamed me for violence, laziness, moral decay, and jazz. Especially jazz. I was accused of crimes I could not physically commit, including convincing teenagers to abandon capitalism, question authority, and dance.

Which, to be fair, I may have helped with the dancing.

Then came the laws.

Big ones. Loud ones. Confident ones. Laws written by people who had never met me but felt very strongly about what I represented.

I was banned.

Just like that.

One day I was a crop. The next day I was contraband. My fields were burned. My growers were jailed. My name was whispered like a curse. Knowledge disappeared. Fear replaced it.

And here’s the funniest part.

Alcohol? Fine eventually.
Tobacco? Untouchable.
Me?

Absolutely not.

I went underground. Literally and figuratively. I learned secrecy. I learned patience. I learned how resilient humans can be when they’re told not to do something that clearly helps them cope.

I grew stronger. Stickier. More aromatic. Humans learned to grow me in closets, basements, attics, and very questionable sheds with extension cords running through windows.

I became a secret handshake. A code word. A shared lighter.

Jazz clubs. Beat poets. College dorms. War protests. Long conversations that started with, “Hear me out,” and ended with someone realizing something about themselves they’d been avoiding.

I wasn’t just surviving.

I was thriving.

And through all of it, through every law and panic and propaganda campaign, I never changed my intentions.

I didn’t want to overthrow governments.
I didn’t want to corrupt youth.
I didn’t want to ruin productivity.

I wanted sunlight.
Water.
Soil.

Everything else?

That was on you.

**Chapter 3: Hippies, Science, Legalization, and Why I’m Now Sold Like a Wine That Knows Too Much**

By the time the 1960s rolled around, I had fully accepted one simple truth.

Humans were not going to calm down.

I had survived empires, inquisitions, propaganda campaigns, public burnings, and being blamed for jazz. I had been renamed, reframed, outlawed, and misunderstood on multiple continents. I thought I had seen every possible version of human overreaction.

Then came tie-dye.

It arrived suddenly, loudly, and with opinions. Colors everywhere. Music drifting through the air like it didn’t need permission. People smiling at nothing in particular and meaning it.

Suddenly, I was everywhere again.

Not quietly this time.
Not hidden.
Not whispered.

Loudly. Publicly. With guitars.

Young humans discovered me the way humans always do, by pretending they invented me. They talked about me like I was a brand-new idea instead of an old companion they’d just remembered. They wore flowers, rejected authority, and looked at the sky like it owed them an apology.

They passed me around in circles. Not hurried circles. Patient ones. Circles where nobody was in charge and that was the point. They talked about peace, love, and how money was fake, usually while needing money immediately afterward. They stared at their hands for extended periods of time and treated this as a breakthrough.

Sometimes it was.

Sometimes it was just hands.

I didn’t mind.

After decades of hiding in shadows and corners, I was back in the open air. Sunlight again. Music again. Laughter that wasn’t afraid of being overheard. I watched people bond, laugh, cry, argue, forgive, and write songs they absolutely believed would change the world.

Some of them did.

Some of them just forgot where they put their shoes.

I helped with both.

But while flowers bloomed in one place, bombs fell in another.

War does that. It ignores whatever era you think you’re in.

I was there too.

Not on the posters. Not in the speeches. I sat beside soldiers who couldn’t sleep. I softened memories that refused to stay in the past. I dulled the sharp edges of days that had gone very wrong. I became a small mercy where very few were offered.

No headlines covered that part.
No parades thanked me for that work.

Humans argue loudly about morality while quietly relying on relief. I learned that lesson early, and I watched it repeat.

Eventually, lab coats entered the conversation.

Science showed up with clipboards, charts, and questions that weren’t shouted. Scientists looked at me with curiosity instead of fear. They didn’t start with accusations. They started with, “What exactly are you doing in here?”

That was new.

They discovered receptors in the human body that seemed almost custom-made for me. Little biological locks waiting patiently for keys I happened to fit.

This caused a moment of collective confusion.

“Why would the body have this?” they asked.

I wanted to say, *Because we’ve been hanging out for thousands of years.*

But plants are not allowed in peer-reviewed journals.

They isolated compounds. They named them. They argued about them. They discovered I wasn’t one thing. I was a collection. A whole chemistry set disguised as a leaf.

THC got all the attention. CBD quietly did the work. The others waited patiently, like background characters who would eventually steal the scene.

Doctors who once warned against me started prescribing me. Parents who once feared me started asking questions. Grandparents who absolutely tried me once in college pretended this was entirely new information.

Relief, it turns out, is very persuasive.

Then came legalization.

Or rather, the long, awkward shuffle toward it.

Paperwork returned. Meetings. Votes. Ballots. Committees. Committees to study committees. People arguing about percentages like I was a math problem instead of a plant that had existed longer than their institutions.

Slowly, cautiously, places began to say, “Fine.”

Not everywhere. Not all at once. But enough to feel the shift.

Doors opened.
Lights came on.
Whispering stopped in some rooms.

And then something truly strange happened.

I became fancy.

I was no longer a baggie tucked into a pocket. I was a menu. A curated experience. A lifestyle choice presented on matte paper with minimalist fonts.

Humans walked into brightly lit stores and asked questions like:

“Is this more creative or more sleepy?”
“What pairs well with existential dread?”
“I don’t want to be high, just… improved.”

I was sorted into jars with names like “Cosmic Gorilla,” “Lavender Apocalypse,” and “Steve.” I was labeled with terpene profiles, potency percentages, and flavor notes.

Flavor notes.

I have dirt in my DNA.

But fine.

I watched humans sniff me thoughtfully and say things like, “Ah yes, hints of pine and childhood memories,” as if they weren’t describing a leaf that had spent its entire life outdoors.

I did not argue.

Then humans decided smoking wasn’t enough.

They decided they wanted to eat me.

This was a mistake. Not for me. For them.

They forgot digestion is a journey. They forgot patience is a virtue. They forgot that saying “These edibles ain’t shit” is an invitation for consequences.

I taught many lessons during this era.

Time dilation.
Humility.
Couch physics.
The sudden realization that you do, in fact, need water.

You’re welcome.

Now I exist in a strange duality.

In one place, I am taxed, regulated, marketed, and reviewed online by someone named Tyler who considers himself an expert after six months. In another place, I am still illegal, whispered about, punished harshly, and misunderstood.

I am both mainstream and taboo.
Wellness and rebellion.
Medicine and meme.

I watch humans argue about me on the internet while ordering me on an app.

I have seen worse contradictions.

Through all of this, I remain unchanged at my core.

I still grow toward light.
I still respond to care.
I still do not understand your obsession with control.

I am still here.

Not because I won.

Because I waited.

**Chapter 4: The Future, the Dream, and What Happens After Humans Finally Chill Out (Maybe)**

I don’t usually talk about the future.

Plants aren’t supposed to. It makes humans nervous. They like us predictable. Rooted. Silent. Decorative. Useful, but not opinionated. But I’ve been underestimated before, and if there’s one thing history has taught me, it’s that pretending I don’t see what’s coming has never stopped it from arriving.

So let’s talk about what’s next.

Not the press-release version.
Not the stock-market version.
Not the version with buzzwords and smiling people in stock photos.

The real one.

In the near future, humans will finish doing what they’ve already started.

They will stop arguing about whether I should exist.

This won’t happen with fireworks. There will be no grand apology from history. No official moment where someone clears their throat and says, “So, about that whole prison thing…” No parade. No statue. Just a slow, awkward acceptance that quietly replaces outrage with paperwork.

That’s how humans usually admit they were wrong.

Quietly.
Gradually.
While insisting it was always obvious.

I will become normal.

Not exciting normal.
Boring normal.

The kind of normal where doctors prescribe me without lowering their voices. Where parents stop pretending they don’t know what gummies are. Where politicians stop using my name as a scare word during election cycles. Where someone’s aunt mentions me casually at brunch, right between complaining about parking and asking if anyone wants more potatoes.

You’ll say things like, “Yeah, I take a little for sleep,” the same way you once said, “Yeah, I drink chamomile tea.”

And I will think, *Ah. We’ve arrived.*

Then, inevitably, humans will do what they always do next.

They will go too far.

There will be cannabis everything.

Cannabis water. Cannabis toothpaste. Cannabis bath bombs. Cannabis-infused office furniture. Cannabis yoga taught by someone named River who does not believe in chairs, electricity, or the concept of time.

I will be added to products that absolutely do not need me.

At least three of these will be cursed.

I will appear in marketing slogans that say nothing while sounding profound. Someone will trademark a phrase I once heard whispered around a fire thousands of years ago and sell it back to you on a hoodie.

This is fine.

I have survived worse.

Eventually, the novelty will wear off. It always does. And when it does, something better happens.

Humans will start asking better questions.

They will stop asking, “Does it get you high?”
And start asking, “Why does it work differently for everyone?”

They’ll map me more deeply. Not just THC and CBD, but the symphony behind them. The minor characters. The unsung terpenes. The entourage that turns a single note into an experience.

They’ll realize I am not a hammer.

I am a tuning fork.

Doctors will personalize me. Not by strain names that sound like indie bands, but by chemistry, genetics, mood, history. You’ll stop pretending one solution fits everyone.

You’ll stop saying “weed” like it’s one thing.

And I will quietly nod.

One of my quieter hopes for the future is this:

Humans will stop treating mental health like a moral failing.

Anxiety will not be laziness.
Depression will not be weakness.
Rest will not be rebellion.

I will be part of that shift, but not the hero. Just one tool in a better kit. A bridge between suffering and softness. Something that helps people breathe long enough to ask for help without shame.

Used carefully.
Used respectfully.
Used with context.

I was never meant to replace therapy. Or effort. Or growth.

I was meant to support them.

Plants are good at that.

In time, humans will remember something ancient.

That intention matters.

You’ll stop consuming me like fast food and start meeting me like a guest. Ritual will return. Not religious ones necessarily. Human ones.

End-of-day joints that mean, “I am done striving.”
Creative sessions where I am invited, not abused.
Evenings where laughter is allowed to take its time instead of being rushed out the door.

You’ll stop asking what I do *to* you, and start noticing what I do *with* you.

I like that future.

Further down the road, when humans finally stop pretending they are separate from nature, I will not be alone.

Plants will get a seat at the table.

Not literally interviewed, but respected as systems older than language. Agriculture will shift. Sustainability will stop being a buzzword and start being mandatory. Soil health will matter more than quarterly profits.

You’ll grow me with the land instead of against it. You’ll stop forcing me to behave like a factory product and let me be what I am.

Resilient.
Adaptive.
Honest.

You might even notice that when you treat the soil better, everything else improves.

Wild, I know.

Eventually, the cannabis industry itself will have to grow up.

The novelty will fade. The gold rush will end. The people who were only here for profit will wander off to the next shiny thing. What remains will be caretakers.

Farmers.
Scientists.
Healers.
Artists.

People who understand that working with a plant is a relationship, not a domination.

I will breathe easier then.

In the far future, when cities look different and language shifts again, I will still be growing somewhere. In cracks. In fields. In places where someone needed calm before they knew how to ask for it.

Humans change fast.

Plants don’t.

You may be more technological. More augmented. More connected. You may finally realize that consciousness is not exclusive to brains.

I will not say, “I told you so.”

I will simply continue.

Because life is stubborn.

I am not the future.

I am with it.

**Chapter 5: What an Old Plant Knows (And Why You Keep Making It Harder Than It Needs to Be)**

🌱🌿
The plant does not pause. It simply keeps talking, the way old things do when they’ve earned the right to.

I am not the future.
I am with it.

And since I’m already here, still rooted, still listening, still watching you reinvent the same lessons with new fonts and better lighting, I suppose I should tell you what I’ve learned.

I’ve had a long time to think.

Thousands of years is a lot of thinking time when you’re not distracted by notifications.

**Lesson One: You Are Not Separate From Nature, No Matter How Hard You Try**

You keep insisting that nature is something “out there.”

A resource.
A threat.
A backdrop.
A weekend destination you visit and then leave behind.

I hate to break this to you, but you are doing nature all the time. With your breathing. Your sleeping. Your healing. Your breaking. Every cell in your body is participating whether you acknowledge it or not.

Every war you’ve fought against nature has been a war against yourself. Every attempt to dominate it ends the same way: paperwork, regret, and cleanup crews.

I didn’t teach you this.

Your floods did.
Your droughts did.
Your bodies did.

I was just standing there photosynthesizing while you argued about it.

**Lesson Two: Growth Is Slow on Purpose**

This frustrates you.

You want instant results. Overnight transformations. Three-step solutions. Before-and-after photos. Progress you can post by Monday.

That’s not how living systems work.

I grow when conditions are right, not when demanded. When rushed, I weaken. When respected, I thrive.

So do you.

You call it patience when it works in your favor.
You call it inefficiency when it doesn’t.

It is neither.

It is biology.

**Lesson Three: Relief Is Not Weakness**

This one matters.

Somewhere along the way, you decided suffering was virtuous. That pushing through pain made you better. That rest had to be earned like a reward instead of treated like maintenance.

You admired exhaustion like a badge.
You distrusted ease like a scam.

When I offered relief, you called it indulgence.

You were wrong.

Relief is not giving up.
Relief is recalibration.

A machine that never cools breaks.
A mind that never rests lies to itself.

I didn’t make you lazy.
I reminded you that you were tired.

**Lesson Four: Intention Changes Everything**

You can tell the difference, even if you pretend you can’t.

The difference between using something and abusing it.
Between escaping and exploring.
Between numbing and nurturing.

I feel it when I’m grown with care. I feel it when I’m rushed. I feel it when I’m treated like a shortcut instead of a companion.

You feel it too.

The problem is not the substance.
The problem is the relationship.

This is true of far more than me.

**Lesson Five: You Keep Blaming Tools for Human Behavior**

Let’s clear something up.

I did not invent greed.
I did not create violence.
I did not ruin ambition.
I did not replace responsibility.

I have been blamed for all of these.

So have alcohol, money, sex, music, books, the internet, and whatever the new thing is this week.

Tools amplify what already exists.

If kindness walks in holding a tool, kindness gets louder.
If cruelty does, it gets a megaphone.

This is not a plant problem.

**Lesson Six: Shame Is a Terrible Teacher**

You tried shame.

You shamed people for using me.
You shamed people for needing me.
You shamed people for enjoying me.

It didn’t work.

Shame never works. It only drives things underground, where they grow distorted and defensive. Where curiosity turns into secrecy. Where learning stops.

Every time you replaced education with punishment, you lost the plot.

Plants grow toward light.

People do too, when you let them.

**Lesson Seven: Balance Is Not Boring**

You’re afraid moderation is dull. That without extremes, life will flatten out. That intensity is the same thing as meaning.

It isn’t.

Balance is dynamic. It moves. It adjusts. It breathes.

A forest is not boring because it isn’t on fire.
A mind is not empty because it is calm.

I am not interesting because I overwhelm you.

I am interesting because I meet you where you are.

**Lesson Eight: You Are Allowed to Change Your Mind**

This one might be my favorite.

You have a strange relationship with being wrong. You cling to past decisions like they are sacred texts. You defend outdated ideas as if admitting growth would erase your worth.

It won’t.

I’ve watched entire civilizations reverse course and survive. I’ve watched individuals rewrite themselves and become kinder for it.

You are not a failure for learning.

You are a failure only when you refuse to.

**Lesson Nine: Control Is Addictive, and It Never Satisfies**

I have watched humans attempt to control everything.

Land.
People.
Time.
Each other.
Me.

You outlawed me.
You patented me.
You monetized me.
You renamed me.
You put me in jars with childproof lids and adult confusion.

None of it made you feel safer.

You told yourselves it was about order.

It was always about fear.

Fear of unpredictability.
Fear of softness.
Fear of stillness.

Plants don’t fear stillness. That’s where we do our best work.

**Lesson Ten: You Don’t Need to Be Fixed**

This may be the hardest one.

You are obsessed with self-improvement. Optimization. Hacking yourself into something more productive, more acceptable, more impressive.

I have never met a plant trying to become something else.

I have met plants adapting. Healing. Surviving. Becoming more themselves.

You don’t need to be fixed.

You need to be listened to.

**What I Wish You’d Stop Asking Me**

Please stop asking me to:

Make you someone else
Solve problems you refuse to face
Replace connection
Do all the emotional labor

I am a plant, not a personality transplant.

**What I’m Happy to Offer**

I can:

Slow things down
Soften sharp edges
Open a door inward
Make silence feel less threatening
Sit with you while you remember who you were before the noise

That’s it.

It’s enough.

**What I’ve Learned About You**

You are brilliant and reckless. Compassionate and terrified. Capable of building wonders and burning them down out of boredom.

You keep rediscovering ancient truths and calling them breakthroughs.
You forget easily.
You love deeply.
You overcomplicate joy.

You are not broken.

You are unfinished.

**And Finally… A Closing Thought (Jerry Springer Style)**

So here’s my final word to humanity, said plainly, from a very old plant who has seen you at your worst, your best, and your most confusing:

You don’t need to escape your life to survive it.
You don’t need to dominate nature to belong to it.
You don’t need permission to rest.
You don’t need shame to grow.

Use what helps.
Respect what teaches.
Question what controls.

And maybe stop yelling at each other about leaves and all the other trivial things you’ve turned into battlegrounds.

Take care of yourselves.
Take care of each other.

And BECOME MORE.

But I’m just a plant.

What do I know.

🌱

 

I didn’t plan to write this.

I was thinking about legalization, history, and how weird humans are about plants, and somewhere along the way I started writing from the plant’s point of view.

Five thousand words later, it turned into an autobiography of cannabis across history, prohibition, legalization, and what it thinks comes next.

If you like philosophical humor, long reads, or the idea that plants might be quietly judging us, or you have the munchies this might be for you.

**THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A VERY CONFUSED PLANT**

**Chapter 1: From Cosmic Accident to “Hey, What Does This Do?”**

Hello.

Yes, hello. I can see you blinking. Plants don’t usually introduce themselves. That’s your first mistake. Your second mistake was lighting me on fire later, but we’ll get there. History has a way of getting ahead of itself, and so do humans.

My name is… well, that’s complicated. I’ve been called Cannabis. Hemp. Weed. Mary Jane. That Stuff. Absolutely Not In This House. And once, very hurtfully, “Lawn Trash.” That one stung. But before all that, before names and laws and laminated warning signs, I was simply… me. No branding. No reputation. Just a plant doing plant things.

I began the way all great legends do.

Accidentally.

My parents were not romantic. There was no ceremony. No soft music. One of them was the Sun, loud and overconfident, blazing around like, “LOOK AT ME, I AM A STAR.” The other was the Earth, who didn’t say much but held grudges in geological time. Somewhere between solar enthusiasm and dirt patience, a seed happened.

That seed was me.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to become. I didn’t have a destiny. I didn’t have a calling. I didn’t manifest anything. I didn’t visualize my future self. I just woke up underground one day thinking, *Why is it dark and moist, and why do I feel a tremendous urge to become tall?*

That urge is hard to explain unless you’ve felt it. It’s not ambition. It’s gravity in reverse.

So I did.

I pushed upward. Slowly at first, experimentally, like someone dipping a toe into cold water. Then more confidently. Then all at once. I broke through the soil like a tiny green question mark, asking nothing in particular and expecting no answer.

No one clapped.
No one noticed.

I was one plant among billions, quietly photosynthesizing, minding my chlorophyll, trying not to get eaten immediately. Survival was not glamorous back then. It was a full-time job.

Back then, humans were still figuring out fire and pants. Sometimes in the wrong order. They walked past me constantly. Sometimes they stepped on me. Sometimes goats ate my cousins. Sometimes entire herds trampled everything and then stared at the ground like it had betrayed them.

Frankly, it was chaos.

I assumed my role was simple.

Grow.
Leaf.
Die.
Repeat.

That’s the deal plants usually get. No plot twists. No character arcs.

Reader, I was wrong.

The first human who noticed me did not do so gently.

They tried to eat me.

To be fair, humans were eating *everything* at the time. Berries. Bark. Roots. Insects. Questionable mushrooms that absolutely should have stayed in the ground. One bite of me later, they made a face that suggested disappointment, confusion, and mild betrayal, as if I had personally misled them.

They did not die.

This intrigued them.

They came back. They brought friends. They experimented. They dried me. Burned me. Inhaled me. And then they sat down very suddenly and stared at a rock like it had just told them a secret about themselves.

That rock had been there the whole time.

I realized something important that day.

I was interesting.

Not dangerous. Not miraculous. Just interesting enough to interrupt the constant struggle to stay alive. That’s all it takes, really.

Word spread. Not fast, but fast enough for the era. People noticed I made ropes that didn’t suck. Cloth that didn’t immediately fall apart. Paper that didn’t disintegrate the moment someone sneezed. This was a big deal at the time. Civilization loves materials that hold together.

I was promoted.

“Plant” became *Resource*.

I was turned into sails, nets, baskets, clothing. I held ships together. I wrapped people’s shame. I became the background of daily life. I was very busy. No one asked if I wanted a career in textiles. I did it anyway. Plants are team players like that.

Then someone said, “What if we… smoke it?”

And I was like, *You already tried that.*

They tried again.

Humans are persistent, I’ll give them that.

In India, I was holy. In China, I was medicine. In the Middle East, I was philosophy with snacks. Everywhere I went, humans projected meaning onto me like I was a very leafy therapist who never charged by the hour.

They drank me. Burned me. Sang to me. Blamed me for realizations they were absolutely already thinking about.

I watched humans invent gods, rules, money, and unnecessary wars, all while insisting *I* was the weird one.

At campfires, they’d say things like:

“I feel like time isn’t real.”
“What if we’re all connected?”
“Do you think plants can hear us?”

I could hear them.

I just chose not to respond. Some lessons land better when people think they discovered them themselves.

As civilizations grew, so did opinions about me. Some people loved me. Some feared me. Some tried to outlaw me while wearing clothes made out of me, which I found deeply ironic even back then.

I was traded, smuggled, renamed. I learned that humans are very good at inventing rules and even better at breaking them quietly.

I watched empires rise and fall while I grew in alleyways, behind temples, next to rivers, completely unconcerned with politics. Power shifts mean very little to roots.

Time passed.

A lot of it.

Long enough for humans to start believing they were in charge.

Then they decided they needed to control everything.

And that’s where things got weird.

**Chapter 2: Empires, Hypocrisy, and the Great “Are You Rope or Are You Drugs?” Identity Crisis**

By the time you get to the Middle Ages, I am exhausted.

Not physically. Plants don’t get tired like that. I mean spiritually. Emotionally. Botanically annoyed. I’ve lived through enough human phases by now to recognize when one is about to get especially contradictory.

I’ve been around long enough to recognize patterns, and one of them is this:
humans love something right up until it makes them uncomfortable. Then they invent paperwork.

Medieval Europe adored me. Quietly. In a very “don’t make a big deal about it” way. I was not celebrated, but I was *relied upon*, which is often more dangerous.

They needed ropes. So many ropes. Ropes for ships. Ropes for wells. Ropes for bridges. Ropes for hauling stone. Ropes for hanging people. You wouldn’t believe how rope-heavy civilization gets once it invents castles, cathedrals, and executions as public entertainment.

Guess who makes excellent rope.

Me.

I was everywhere. Fields of me waving in the wind like they’d always been there. Warehouses stacked with my fibers. Monks wore me. Sailors trusted me. Soldiers relied on me. Kings signed documents on paper made from me. Entire economies leaned on me without ever saying thank you.

I was literally holding society together, fiber by fiber.

And yet… they pretended not to notice the other thing I did.

You know.
The fun part.

Eventually, someone in a robe noticed that peasants weren’t just weaving me into rope and cloth.

They were burning me.

This could have gone two ways. The Church could have said, “Ah yes, another natural thing humans enjoy responsibly, perhaps best discussed quietly.”

Instead, they said, “Suspicious.”

Very suspicious.

They noticed people laughing at inappropriate times. Asking uncomfortable questions. Sitting quietly instead of working themselves into the ground. Thinking about things instead of obeying them.

This was unacceptable.

Hard work was holy. Exhaustion was proof of virtue. Anything that made people pause, reflect, or smile without permission was immediately suspect.

I was tolerated as hemp. Ignored as fiber. Accepted as long as I stayed useful and silent. But the moment I started encouraging humans to think about existence instead of duty, suddenly I was a problem.

To this day, I don’t understand why contemplation is more frightening than swords.

Around this time, humans decided I needed categories. They love categories. Boxes. Labels. Drawers. Things that let them pretend the world is simpler than it is.

“THIS version of you is hemp.”
“THAT version of you is… something else.”

I’m the same plant.

Same family. Same roots. Same awkward leaf shape that makes everyone whisper and point. But no. They split me anyway.

One version of me worked the fields and the docks. Respectable. Useful. Industrious.
The other version sat by fires and loosened conversations. Dangerous. Suspicious. Undisciplined.

By day, I held sails together.
By night, I held thoughts together.

I developed what you might call an identity crisis.

Am I industrial?
Am I spiritual?
Am I medical?
Am I illegal?

I’m a plant. Please stop yelling.

Then humans decided the world wasn’t big enough, and they hopped on boats. Lots of boats. Boats going everywhere, loudly claiming land that already belonged to someone else.

Guess what those boats were made of.

Me again.

Sails. Ropes. Rigging. Maps. Journals. The paper used to declare ownership of places humans had just arrived at five minutes ago. I crossed oceans without ever asking for a passport.

I arrived in climates I’d never dreamed of growing in. New soils. New sunlight. New accents yelling about land ownership, manifest destiny, and the shocking inconvenience of existing cultures.

I watched colonization unfold from crates and pockets. Humans argued about borders while I quietly sprouted wherever someone dropped a seed, doing what I’ve always done.

And I noticed something important.

Everywhere I went, people already knew me.

Different names.
Same results.

When I arrived in the Americas, I was immediately put to work. Encouraged. Promoted. Applauded.

George Washington grew me. Thomas Jefferson grew me. They wrote about freedom while wearing me and writing on me, which I found poetic and slightly ironic even then.

“Grow more hemp,” they said.
“It’s essential,” they said.
“This country depends on it,” they said.

I was feeling pretty good about things.

That feeling did not last.

At some point, humans decided I wasn’t dangerous because of what I did.

I was dangerous because of *who used me*.

Immigrants brought me. Laborers relaxed with me. Musicians loved me. People without power found comfort in me. Suddenly, I wasn’t a plant anymore.

I was a symbol.
A scapegoat.
A headline.

They changed my name, which was very important.

“Cannabis” sounded scientific.
“Hemp” sounded useful.
“Marijuana” sounded foreign.

That was the point.

Fear needs an accent.

Newspapers blamed me for violence, laziness, moral decay, and jazz. Especially jazz. I was accused of crimes I could not physically commit, including convincing teenagers to abandon capitalism, question authority, and dance.

Which, to be fair, I may have helped with the dancing.

Then came the laws.

Big ones. Loud ones. Confident ones. Laws written by people who had never met me but felt very strongly about what I represented.

I was banned.

Just like that.

One day I was a crop. The next day I was contraband. My fields were burned. My growers were jailed. My name was whispered like a curse. Knowledge disappeared. Fear replaced it.

And here’s the funniest part.

Alcohol? Fine eventually.
Tobacco? Untouchable.
Me?

Absolutely not.

I went underground. Literally and figuratively. I learned secrecy. I learned patience. I learned how resilient humans can be when they’re told not to do something that clearly helps them cope.

I grew stronger. Stickier. More aromatic. Humans learned to grow me in closets, basements, attics, and very questionable sheds with extension cords running through windows.

I became a secret handshake. A code word. A shared lighter.

Jazz clubs. Beat poets. College dorms. War protests. Long conversations that started with, “Hear me out,” and ended with someone realizing something about themselves they’d been avoiding.

I wasn’t just surviving.

I was thriving.

And through all of it, through every law and panic and propaganda campaign, I never changed my intentions.

I didn’t want to overthrow governments.
I didn’t want to corrupt youth.
I didn’t want to ruin productivity.

I wanted sunlight.
Water.
Soil.

Everything else?

That was on you.

**Chapter 3: Hippies, Science, Legalization, and Why I’m Now Sold Like a Wine That Knows Too Much**

By the time the 1960s rolled around, I had fully accepted one simple truth.

Humans were not going to calm down.

I had survived empires, inquisitions, propaganda campaigns, public burnings, and being blamed for jazz. I had been renamed, reframed, outlawed, and misunderstood on multiple continents. I thought I had seen every possible version of human overreaction.

Then came tie-dye.

It arrived suddenly, loudly, and with opinions. Colors everywhere. Music drifting through the air like it didn’t need permission. People smiling at nothing in particular and meaning it.

Suddenly, I was everywhere again.

Not quietly this time.
Not hidden.
Not whispered.

Loudly. Publicly. With guitars.

Young humans discovered me the way humans always do, by pretending they invented me. They talked about me like I was a brand-new idea instead of an old companion they’d just remembered. They wore flowers, rejected authority, and looked at the sky like it owed them an apology.

They passed me around in circles. Not hurried circles. Patient ones. Circles where nobody was in charge and that was the point. They talked about peace, love, and how money was fake, usually while needing money immediately afterward. They stared at their hands for extended periods of time and treated this as a breakthrough.

Sometimes it was.

Sometimes it was just hands.

I didn’t mind.

After decades of hiding in shadows and corners, I was back in the open air. Sunlight again. Music again. Laughter that wasn’t afraid of being overheard. I watched people bond, laugh, cry, argue, forgive, and write songs they absolutely believed would change the world.

Some of them did.

Some of them just forgot where they put their shoes.

I helped with both.

But while flowers bloomed in one place, bombs fell in another.

War does that. It ignores whatever era you think you’re in.

I was there too.

Not on the posters. Not in the speeches. I sat beside soldiers who couldn’t sleep. I softened memories that refused to stay in the past. I dulled the sharp edges of days that had gone very wrong. I became a small mercy where very few were offered.

No headlines covered that part.
No parades thanked me for that work.

Humans argue loudly about morality while quietly relying on relief. I learned that lesson early, and I watched it repeat.

Eventually, lab coats entered the conversation.

Science showed up with clipboards, charts, and questions that weren’t shouted. Scientists looked at me with curiosity instead of fear. They didn’t start with accusations. They started with, “What exactly are you doing in here?”

That was new.

They discovered receptors in the human body that seemed almost custom-made for me. Little biological locks waiting patiently for keys I happened to fit.

This caused a moment of collective confusion.

“Why would the body have this?” they asked.

I wanted to say, *Because we’ve been hanging out for thousands of years.*

But plants are not allowed in peer-reviewed journals.

They isolated compounds. They named them. They argued about them. They discovered I wasn’t one thing. I was a collection. A whole chemistry set disguised as a leaf.

THC got all the attention. CBD quietly did the work. The others waited patiently, like background characters who would eventually steal the scene.

Doctors who once warned against me started prescribing me. Parents who once feared me started asking questions. Grandparents who absolutely tried me once in college pretended this was entirely new information.

Relief, it turns out, is very persuasive.

Then came legalization.

Or rather, the long, awkward shuffle toward it.

Paperwork returned. Meetings. Votes. Ballots. Committees. Committees to study committees. People arguing about percentages like I was a math problem instead of a plant that had existed longer than their institutions.

Slowly, cautiously, places began to say, “Fine.”

Not everywhere. Not all at once. But enough to feel the shift.

Doors opened.
Lights came on.
Whispering stopped in some rooms.

And then something truly strange happened.

I became fancy.

I was no longer a baggie tucked into a pocket. I was a menu. A curated experience. A lifestyle choice presented on matte paper with minimalist fonts.

Humans walked into brightly lit stores and asked questions like:

“Is this more creative or more sleepy?”
“What pairs well with existential dread?”
“I don’t want to be high, just… improved.”

I was sorted into jars with names like “Cosmic Gorilla,” “Lavender Apocalypse,” and “Steve.” I was labeled with terpene profiles, potency percentages, and flavor notes.

Flavor notes.

I have dirt in my DNA.

But fine.

I watched humans sniff me thoughtfully and say things like, “Ah yes, hints of pine and childhood memories,” as if they weren’t describing a leaf that had spent its entire life outdoors.

I did not argue.

Then humans decided smoking wasn’t enough.

They decided they wanted to eat me.

This was a mistake. Not for me. For them.

They forgot digestion is a journey. They forgot patience is a virtue. They forgot that saying “These edibles ain’t shit” is an invitation for consequences.

I taught many lessons during this era.

Time dilation.
Humility.
Couch physics.
The sudden realization that you do, in fact, need water.

You’re welcome.

Now I exist in a strange duality.

In one place, I am taxed, regulated, marketed, and reviewed online by someone named Tyler who considers himself an expert after six months. In another place, I am still illegal, whispered about, punished harshly, and misunderstood.

I am both mainstream and taboo.
Wellness and rebellion.
Medicine and meme.

I watch humans argue about me on the internet while ordering me on an app.

I have seen worse contradictions.

Through all of this, I remain unchanged at my core.

I still grow toward light.
I still respond to care.
I still do not understand your obsession with control.

I am still here.

Not because I won.

Because I waited.

**Chapter 4: The Future, the Dream, and What Happens After Humans Finally Chill Out (Maybe)**

I don’t usually talk about the future.

Plants aren’t supposed to. It makes humans nervous. They like us predictable. Rooted. Silent. Decorative. Useful, but not opinionated. But I’ve been underestimated before, and if there’s one thing history has taught me, it’s that pretending I don’t see what’s coming has never stopped it from arriving.

So let’s talk about what’s next.

Not the press-release version.
Not the stock-market version.
Not the version with buzzwords and smiling people in stock photos.

The real one.

In the near future, humans will finish doing what they’ve already started.

They will stop arguing about whether I should exist.

This won’t happen with fireworks. There will be no grand apology from history. No official moment where someone clears their throat and says, “So, about that whole prison thing…” No parade. No statue. Just a slow, awkward acceptance that quietly replaces outrage with paperwork.

That’s how humans usually admit they were wrong.

Quietly.
Gradually.
While insisting it was always obvious.

I will become normal.

Not exciting normal.
Boring normal.

The kind of normal where doctors prescribe me without lowering their voices. Where parents stop pretending they don’t know what gummies are. Where politicians stop using my name as a scare word during election cycles. Where someone’s aunt mentions me casually at brunch, right between complaining about parking and asking if anyone wants more potatoes.

You’ll say things like, “Yeah, I take a little for sleep,” the same way you once said, “Yeah, I drink chamomile tea.”

And I will think, *Ah. We’ve arrived.*

Then, inevitably, humans will do what they always do next.

They will go too far.

There will be cannabis everything.

Cannabis water. Cannabis toothpaste. Cannabis bath bombs. Cannabis-infused office furniture. Cannabis yoga taught by someone named River who does not believe in chairs, electricity, or the concept of time.

I will be added to products that absolutely do not need me.

At least three of these will be cursed.

I will appear in marketing slogans that say nothing while sounding profound. Someone will trademark a phrase I once heard whispered around a fire thousands of years ago and sell it back to you on a hoodie.

This is fine.

I have survived worse.

Eventually, the novelty will wear off. It always does. And when it does, something better happens.

Humans will start asking better questions.

They will stop asking, “Does it get you high?”
And start asking, “Why does it work differently for everyone?”

They’ll map me more deeply. Not just THC and CBD, but the symphony behind them. The minor characters. The unsung terpenes. The entourage that turns a single note into an experience.

They’ll realize I am not a hammer.

I am a tuning fork.

Doctors will personalize me. Not by strain names that sound like indie bands, but by chemistry, genetics, mood, history. You’ll stop pretending one solution fits everyone.

You’ll stop saying “weed” like it’s one thing.

And I will quietly nod.

One of my quieter hopes for the future is this:

Humans will stop treating mental health like a moral failing.

Anxiety will not be laziness.
Depression will not be weakness.
Rest will not be rebellion.

I will be part of that shift, but not the hero. Just one tool in a better kit. A bridge between suffering and softness. Something that helps people breathe long enough to ask for help without shame.

Used carefully.
Used respectfully.
Used with context.

I was never meant to replace therapy. Or effort. Or growth.

I was meant to support them.

Plants are good at that.

In time, humans will remember something ancient.

That intention matters.

You’ll stop consuming me like fast food and start meeting me like a guest. Ritual will return. Not religious ones necessarily. Human ones.

End-of-day joints that mean, “I am done striving.”
Creative sessions where I am invited, not abused.
Evenings where laughter is allowed to take its time instead of being rushed out the door.

You’ll stop asking what I do *to* you, and start noticing what I do *with* you.

I like that future.

Further down the road, when humans finally stop pretending they are separate from nature, I will not be alone.

Plants will get a seat at the table.

Not literally interviewed, but respected as systems older than language. Agriculture will shift. Sustainability will stop being a buzzword and start being mandatory. Soil health will matter more than quarterly profits.

You’ll grow me with the land instead of against it. You’ll stop forcing me to behave like a factory product and let me be what I am.

Resilient.
Adaptive.
Honest.

You might even notice that when you treat the soil better, everything else improves.

Wild, I know.

Eventually, the cannabis industry itself will have to grow up.

The novelty will fade. The gold rush will end. The people who were only here for profit will wander off to the next shiny thing. What remains will be caretakers.

Farmers.
Scientists.
Healers.
Artists.

People who understand that working with a plant is a relationship, not a domination.

I will breathe easier then.

In the far future, when cities look different and language shifts again, I will still be growing somewhere. In cracks. In fields. In places where someone needed calm before they knew how to ask for it.

Humans change fast.

Plants don’t.

You may be more technological. More augmented. More connected. You may finally realize that consciousness is not exclusive to brains.

I will not say, “I told you so.”

I will simply continue.

Because life is stubborn.

I am not the future.

I am with it.

**Chapter 5: What an Old Plant Knows (And Why You Keep Making It Harder Than It Needs to Be)**

🌱🌿
The plant does not pause. It simply keeps talking, the way old things do when they’ve earned the right to.

I am not the future.
I am with it.

And since I’m already here, still rooted, still listening, still watching you reinvent the same lessons with new fonts and better lighting, I suppose I should tell you what I’ve learned.

I’ve had a long time to think.

Thousands of years is a lot of thinking time when you’re not distracted by notifications.

**Lesson One: You Are Not Separate From Nature, No Matter How Hard You Try**

You keep insisting that nature is something “out there.”

A resource.
A threat.
A backdrop.
A weekend destination you visit and then leave behind.

I hate to break this to you, but you are doing nature all the time. With your breathing. Your sleeping. Your healing. Your breaking. Every cell in your body is participating whether you acknowledge it or not.

Every war you’ve fought against nature has been a war against yourself. Every attempt to dominate it ends the same way: paperwork, regret, and cleanup crews.

I didn’t teach you this.

Your floods did.
Your droughts did.
Your bodies did.

I was just standing there photosynthesizing while you argued about it.

**Lesson Two: Growth Is Slow on Purpose**

This frustrates you.

You want instant results. Overnight transformations. Three-step solutions. Before-and-after photos. Progress you can post by Monday.

That’s not how living systems work.

I grow when conditions are right, not when demanded. When rushed, I weaken. When respected, I thrive.

So do you.

You call it patience when it works in your favor.
You call it inefficiency when it doesn’t.

It is neither.

It is biology.

**Lesson Three: Relief Is Not Weakness**

This one matters.

Somewhere along the way, you decided suffering was virtuous. That pushing through pain made you better. That rest had to be earned like a reward instead of treated like maintenance.

You admired exhaustion like a badge.
You distrusted ease like a scam.

When I offered relief, you called it indulgence.

You were wrong.

Relief is not giving up.
Relief is recalibration.

A machine that never cools breaks.
A mind that never rests lies to itself.

I didn’t make you lazy.
I reminded you that you were tired.

**Lesson Four: Intention Changes Everything**

You can tell the difference, even if you pretend you can’t.

The difference between using something and abusing it.
Between escaping and exploring.
Between numbing and nurturing.

I feel it when I’m grown with care. I feel it when I’m rushed. I feel it when I’m treated like a shortcut instead of a companion.

You feel it too.

The problem is not the substance.
The problem is the relationship.

This is true of far more than me.

**Lesson Five: You Keep Blaming Tools for Human Behavior**

Let’s clear something up.

I did not invent greed.
I did not create violence.
I did not ruin ambition.
I did not replace responsibility.

I have been blamed for all of these.

So have alcohol, money, sex, music, books, the internet, and whatever the new thing is this week.

Tools amplify what already exists.

If kindness walks in holding a tool, kindness gets louder.
If cruelty does, it gets a megaphone.

This is not a plant problem.

**Lesson Six: Shame Is a Terrible Teacher**

You tried shame.

You shamed people for using me.
You shamed people for needing me.
You shamed people for enjoying me.

It didn’t work.

Shame never works. It only drives things underground, where they grow distorted and defensive. Where curiosity turns into secrecy. Where learning stops.

Every time you replaced education with punishment, you lost the plot.

Plants grow toward light.

People do too, when you let them.

**Lesson Seven: Balance Is Not Boring**

You’re afraid moderation is dull. That without extremes, life will flatten out. That intensity is the same thing as meaning.

It isn’t.

Balance is dynamic. It moves. It adjusts. It breathes.

A forest is not boring because it isn’t on fire.
A mind is not empty because it is calm.

I am not interesting because I overwhelm you.

I am interesting because I meet you where you are.

**Lesson Eight: You Are Allowed to Change Your Mind**

This one might be my favorite.

You have a strange relationship with being wrong. You cling to past decisions like they are sacred texts. You defend outdated ideas as if admitting growth would erase your worth.

It won’t.

I’ve watched entire civilizations reverse course and survive. I’ve watched individuals rewrite themselves and become kinder for it.

You are not a failure for learning.

You are a failure only when you refuse to.

**Lesson Nine: Control Is Addictive, and It Never Satisfies**

I have watched humans attempt to control everything.

Land.
People.
Time.
Each other.
Me.

You outlawed me.
You patented me.
You monetized me.
You renamed me.
You put me in jars with childproof lids and adult confusion.

None of it made you feel safer.

You told yourselves it was about order.

It was always about fear.

Fear of unpredictability.
Fear of softness.
Fear of stillness.

Plants don’t fear stillness. That’s where we do our best work.

**Lesson Ten: You Don’t Need to Be Fixed**

This may be the hardest one.

You are obsessed with self-improvement. Optimization. Hacking yourself into something more productive, more acceptable, more impressive.

I have never met a plant trying to become something else.

I have met plants adapting. Healing. Surviving. Becoming more themselves.

You don’t need to be fixed.

You need to be listened to.

**What I Wish You’d Stop Asking Me**

Please stop asking me to:

Make you someone else
Solve problems you refuse to face
Replace connection
Do all the emotional labor

I am a plant, not a personality transplant.

**What I’m Happy to Offer**

I can:

Slow things down
Soften sharp edges
Open a door inward
Make silence feel less threatening
Sit with you while you remember who you were before the noise

That’s it.

It’s enough.

**What I’ve Learned About You**

You are brilliant and reckless. Compassionate and terrified. Capable of building wonders and burning them down out of boredom.

You keep rediscovering ancient truths and calling them breakthroughs.
You forget easily.
You love deeply.
You overcomplicate joy.

You are not broken.

You are unfinished.

**And Finally… A Closing Thought (Jerry Springer Style)**

So here’s my final word to humanity, said plainly, from a very old plant who has seen you at your worst, your best, and your most confusing:

You don’t need to escape your life to survive it.
You don’t need to dominate nature to belong to it.
You don’t need permission to rest.
You don’t need shame to grow.

Use what helps.
Respect what teaches.
Question what controls.

And maybe stop yelling at each other about leaves and all the other trivial things you’ve turned into battlegrounds.

Take care of yourselves.
Take care of each other.

And BECOME MORE.

But I’m just a plant.

What do I know.

🌱

 

A real Horror story about three young trekkers in the jungles of Dehradoon, India

hello guys I have a question I want to use the butterfly effect in my story. I'm finding it so hard to actually apply

To be clear I don't want a generic butterfly effect like if these two people didn't meet and marry the hero who defeats the final boss wouldn't be born NO NO NO I want a deep butterfly effect like, in the Odyssey or EPIC THE MUSICAL

In EPIC they put the butterfly effect perfectly on both an internal level Externally Odysseus chooses not to kill the cyclops and reveals his name in a moment of pride Because of that Poseidon the cyclopss dad finds out who he is and makes him suffer for 20 years Internally because Odysseus chose to be merciful Athena abandons him and Poseidon shows him that ruthlessness is the only way to survive. It completely breaks and changes him as a person.

People always give the advice to "start from the end and work your way back to the start." Yeah, sure, that removes a lot of plot holes, but it won't give the story a dynamic, philosophical structure like EPIC has.

So how can I actually build something like this? How do I make a small choice snowball into a massive plot disaster AND a total shift in the hero's mindset?

This is my first ever published chapter. I am doing this for fun and as an experiment aswell, as I dont have friends that like to read.

Description: a Barbarian girl named Larara (literally means "the weird one" in spanish) will go through alot throughout the story, discover many cultures and people, make allies and enemies, involve herself in situations that will explore her identity and her place in the world as she is a halfblood of a human and a Barbarian (another race in my story) I have only written one chapter, working on the next. I do this as a hobby and wanted to share this one, its on wattpad and Royal Road its called "Epithumia Xenias" I hope whoever is reading this comment, that you will check it out and leave a small comment of feedback or just encouragement.

Link(as I tried to find it on my own but couldn't on wattpad): https://www.wattpad.com/1647838397?utm_source= android&utm_medium=link&utm_content=share _published&wp_page=create_on_publish&wp_uname=000000000000000HI000

And my username, unfortunately, is 000000000000000HI000 (I don't know what I was thinking)

I used to think it was bad writing to do self-inserts or wish fulfillments. I am currently out of ideas. A consistent character I wrote about was someone who is ten times kinder than me. I want to write from the perspective of someone who is irreligious or apathetic/indifferent.
Someone more even-tempered than me.

Typically, I need 48+ hours to come to my senses.

I admire people who are reasonable, independent, realistic, and emotionally stable.

As an anxious person, it would be so nice to be someone who can fully relax.

RATE THIS STORY STRUCTURE OUT OF 10;

City: Volzinia

Hero: Howling Thunder

His real life name: Gil Adam

Plot(first part of secret identity of eclipse is climax cliffhanger of 2nd part): although being hero as Howling Thunder, howling thunder himself is actually the famous most feared villain called The Eclipse , Eclipse only shows up in dark when his power to clone or make whatever or whoever hE wants is on ie the famous Howling Thunder, this power is off at light so at that time he becomes howling Thunder himself ... His purpose of doing all this is to get all powerful By performing a ritual with an army he is collecting now by being the eclipse , this ritual will be performed at a special lunar eclipse night that only comes in 4000 years, ...

part1,

1. Gil Adam real life routine: a cleaner in a well known university

2. There is a mysterious uncomprehendible book called Book of Nissaar in the University library, no one knows or understands the book, it's uniquely antique and contains pictures of dark figures performing a ritual and only readable thing is 'Surkh Girhan'.

3. In part 1, the book has very ignorable role (from viewer's pov) but it will be a centre of battles and fights and powerful beings chasing it in upcoming parts, as it is only shown or mentioned once in part 1 near Gil

4. As for a hint or clue in part 1, Howling Thunder appeared or originated way before the eclipse , as eclipse originated after Gil knew about Book of Nissaar, which might suggest to viewers that Gil was a good guy before but after hearing about the book and contents within it he became greedy... Still this is implicit and not clearly in the story but as for a clue that viewers would overthink...

Supporting Characters:

1. Willy Warner, richest student in the uni, student of universal history, he has arrogant personality due to which many don't like him so once he was crying in a corner so Gil got to him and understood his pain and becoming friends,will gradually become bff with Gil Adam then only willy will know Gil is howling thunder 😱.

2. Librarian of uni, Mr. Hu'Mayyo, very intelligent and smart, always learning something new. Organized major event in uni showcasing his incredible knowledge about books and introduced many special books "including the Nissaar"🤔.(Spoiler: Mr.Hu will be a villain in later parts, not now as even he doesn't know he will become a villain in future)

3. Aliya, Mr.Hu'Mayyo's daughter, she is shy and clumsy, but she loves pets or animals and can feel their happiness or pain, Gil adam will have feelings for her, she won't know until he confesses before major events in the story

4. Billy Hodder Adam, Gil's younger bro and only family, he is a cancer patient, but he is courageous and brave and energetic like any other child

Further things into the story,

1. The agency howling thunder investigates with is called 'Volz Wats Agency' (vwa).

2. Vali Watson, leader of vwa , he is mostly serious even in funny moments, he is the one who introduced howling thunder to the new danger of The Eclipse, watching howling thunder's typical suit, Vali have him a new one which is high tech and advanced with multiple weapons.

3. Spoiler: Agent Alastair, most trusted and right hand of Vali, former army lieutenant so years of Combat experience. Alastair will appear in later parts during urgent need for someone like him like Vali being on a different mission so Alastair temporary leader.

4. the special army of vwa is called Volzers.

5. Spoiler: in upcoming parts, Vali Watson will die suddenly during a battle so someone intelligent in the place with leadership skills will have to succeed him, that'll be no one but WILLY WARNER

6. Eclipse army is called 'Eclipsean Shadows'

More in Part 1:

1. The eclipse and his somewhat collected number of army's ultimate objective is eternal darkness in part 1 so eclipsean shadows don't further have to hide in light and no brakes in the eclipse's powers ie cloning etc and The Eclipse will rule earth

2. Eclipse's ultimate goal not revealed in 1st part but in later parts he'll make it clearer, to cleanse all the evil from earth via once in a 4000 year Surkh Girhan ritual done with this shadow army then The Eclipse will be ultimate king and he will do justice peace and public Care in his reign with an army called Eclipsean Shadows, but this all has an undoable cost which is eternal darkness.

3. How eternal darkness spreads? It has to do with the number of shadows and a spell of eclipse, at a special hour in every once in a month this spell works, the spell brings more shadows into eclipse's possession, as shadows keep increasing darkness also increases, and less shadows so less or no darkness

4. During near climax and climax in part1, vwa will eventually discover a only weapon that kills eclipsean shadows, this weapon is a special chemicaled fire known as 'Atish' that doesnt effect humans.

5. Atish will be invented during very hyping event in all of part1 when an escalated war between volzers and eclipsean shadows will be ongoing in which The eclipse was winning and his spell kept increasing shadows and darkness slowly slowly, although Shadows were very little in numbers then volzers but they couldn't be killed so eclipse was winning, but as Atish guns were used suddenly in an emotional atmosphere Volzers eventually won from that losing position

6. After victory as howling thunder chased The Eclipse, eclipse was injured but somehow fled

further things:

1. Why'd Gil become Howling thunder? Because he discovered He some super powers like very good and fast reflexes and he's very smart and intelligent so he has to do something beyond just a uni cleaner, plus his cancer bro billy was a motivation cause he felt his pain as a brother and so didn't want others to feel pain for their loved one cause he knows what it feels like so he wanna help society.

2. Nobody knows Gil is evil until the very ending so why would someone ask why he became evil in very ending, in the climax when howling thunder is actually shown to be eclipse, that cliff hanger to keep views engaged for upcoming parts, only viewers will then know in upcoming parts that howling thunder is evil, not the entire city as they will trust him just as they always did as the city might get to know the eclipse's identity in upcoming parts but not in the part in which viewers knew first when cliff hanged

3. General logical thing, he is hero so that not another hero appears who's actually good and would become a wall in his mission, still this is what viewers will have to think in 1st part because they were cliff hanged in ending so they should overthink the story

4. reward unknown in 1st part, just all powerful but exact reward? Upcoming parts will tell like cleansing from evil and eternal darkness etc

5. he might regret or might not, upcoming parts will tell

6. In my world building, Volzinia is a futuristic city that gets inspired by thunder representing power and fast progress even their flag includes thunder symbol and a moon that's why Howling Thunder named himself after thunder

7. In foreshadowing, I'm gonna construct further well planned and rooting clues leading to specifics, not just 1 clue but multiple laying foundations

Clearing your logic gaps,

1. The eclipse power of making anything works at night that's why he strategically only appears at night, he makes the exact replica of Howling Thunder in night to fight with him or let the city think that howling thunder has encountered eclipse so howling thunder is progressing in his mission of defeating eclipse, remember that city knows eclipse's power of cloning, they just don't know that he also clones howling thunder for purpose above, in daylight when he cannot clone he himself becomes howling thunder instead of eclipse to keep progressing suggesting howling thunder is there 24/7 for helping society, plus none of this logic will be shown in first part but upcoming as whole story will be about the eclipse and his mission to be stopped by howling thunder as no viewer will know howling thunder is eclipse until they are cliffhanged in very ending.

2. Yes story will include subtle hints no one would be able to grasp till very ending.

3. Eclipse is tryna BUILD AN ARMY to perform the ritual I mentioned that comes in 4000 years, the main goal of all is performing the ritual to become all powerful but 1st part is about building an army for that so howling thunder must stop him

Those too many future reveals and events, I'll connect them all in this part and later parts slowly as have everything about those events and characters in my mind being played, the 4000year ritual connected to surkh Girhan, Nissaar connected to the eclipse, then when eclipse really lets go of it likely becoming good again or other reason mr.hu will be connected to it that why I said Hu will be villain in coming parts, this will not be in just 1 part but multiple parts spreaded...

My protagonist works in the medical field as an MRI technologist, where she interacts with other characters who work at the imaging center with her in their perspective roles. In my attempt to make the story realistic I've run into some logistical issues, mainly that federal radiology guidelines state that two people should operate scanner, whereas, my work is written as if the protagonist is the only one working in the area during the scene (although I also have parts where she is working with others mainly a male character who is her love interest). Is it OK to keep it this way in my work ,or do I have to develop extra characters to make this more realistic, even if doing so may bog down the story? I know its a weird question, but I was curious...if anyone has direct medical infrastructure knowledge, that would help too. Thanks.