September 19th, 2026
Some days are fine and dandy.
But some days are days like this.
Get Charlie’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
A small pit is stuck in your esophagus. You can’t seem to swallow it. No matter how much you try to push it down, it remains.
This small pit, like a plant seed, begins to grow and blossom, its roots digging deeper and deeper within you, feeding not from the sun it sees nor the air it breathes, but the quietness it feels and the thoughts within you. Its roots grasp onto every fibre of your body, squeezing it dry and fracturing it into the broken pieces that you’ve tried to mend with gold. It punctures you so deep it paralyses you. Every breath of air feels shallow.
Like a drunkard, your field of vision suddenly retracts. You question if you’re having an out-of-body experience. Every movement feels meaningless, every thought crushed by the weight of this pit that has now grown to cast a gloom over you.
A few short days ago you had a realisation. A realisation that this pit that has for so long burrowed inside you has been spat out. Now, you find it odd that it suddenly reappeared, like a stranger who feels like an old friend.
But like all previous times, this pit will pass. Your body was created to handle it. Perhaps physiologically and naturally through the processes of mechanical and chemical digestion in your gastrointestinal tract. But perhaps you also realise that if you’ve done it once, you’ll be able to do it again.
So you move on, with this lingering pit that has exponentially grown within the past hour. Not because you want to ignore it and pretend it does not exist. In fact, it does. But its existence itself proves that you are human; its very existence proves that you’ve loved and you’ve lost. This very pit, as expansive as a void it may sometimes feel, is the very thing that makes you you.



