‎We knew our mother's fecundity. The dark loam where she birthed us and spiraled nut that burst open, the rushing streams that fed us, and the bastions of granite where she kept us safe until we ourselves became #fertile. We have broken the cycle and abused her patience. Now she burns. #vss365

"There Will Come Soft Rains" is a sci-fi short story by Ray Bradbury. The last sentence: "Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today..." 👀 users.wpi.edu/~zrbutzke/Do...

‎So much #chaos can be called that while  being something else: inevitability. Granted no pattern, the mind made system sees bewilderment, wild noise without purpose. To the one who straddles the world's contradictions, it offers the refuge of endless intervention, potentiality and power. #vss365

Paul finds a wounded woman on the way to a safe house. Bring her? Leave her there? The group has already left. A story about hard decisions and one man's sense of humanity.🌟 Live now!

The Code

Short Fiction

camilahamel.substack.com

The fragrant tree flourishes wherever it goes. The seeds of the calabiere cross plains and rivers in the bowels of birds and bears. They've crossed oceans with the affairs of men enamoured of the sweetly soft yellow #fruit, but the conjurers revere it. The calabiere is the life of their art. #vss365

‎The list is long of things to #tend to. My head, which aches and hums, is unable, like eyes laden with stones, to lift up to meet more tasks to liquidate. No brother, rest. The work will keep. All well and good, my friend, but this repose you advocate will last but a midday's sunshower. #vss365 ‎

‎With the #creation of so many new animals, people forgot those that had gone extinct. Not the scientists, of course, who possessed the genome banks. The new species would survive, bioengineering's pride, the inspired collaboration between art and science. The cries of Abomination! faded. #vss365 ‎

‎With a furtive sideways glance and a flush of excitement, the sensation of exhilaration seized him hard. He squirmed, already anticipating the second-tier emotions that were a taint on his pure love of adventure. It annoyed him that someone would come between him and his #temptation. #vss365

Listen to this! www.instagram.com/reel/DbSqy_Y...

How will we #arrive, if we can't know we're there? Nothing but our fervent dreams and intrepidness have put us on this path to even wonder. All is unfamiliar and at the same time sensually appealing, gorgeous and promising. We go slow to savor it, and fast to see where it all leads. #vss365 ‎

‎I didn't #brake soon enough. The thought splintered my mind as I heard a car screech and glass break and my ribs crack and my breath retract so far inside, I didn't know how I'd find the next. Alive, but many days passed before I knew it. Grateful for the sun that woke me—even the pain. #vss365 ‎

The vss year comes to a close. Here's a thematic selection from 2025 -26. First of three. ✨ open.substack.com/pub/camilaha...

Brilliant essay. ✨🎯

Is Being Good a Matter of Taste?

Ethics and Aesthetics in The House of Mirth and Legally Blonde

substack.com

On the #coast where the land quits dusting us with its parched, murmuring winds, where the breeze is a sweet salty spray that mists our tired faces, there shall we meet, when no more roads or time or patience are left to be undone. All that will remain is a wild and exquisite fury. #vss365 ‎

‎Where the others sank, simply fell or even plummeted thirty-two seconds per second, we would not float but #descend, with the grace of a winged dreamer, never seen nor touched by mortal beings. This was the promise made when the summit was young and we needed no help to ascend once more #vss365 ‎

Here we stand at the #summit of something we desired into being. This is a miracle of concurrence, something rarer than a sun eclipsed, and I pray more durable. Do not say the transit will not stop. Tell me you will stay to eclipse the heat and light of my skin. Tell me you will not move. #vss365

He worked with erudition and vigorous insight, giving his life to intellectual wonders that delighted him. When the second decade passed, he felt ready to present his achievements, but his work was unintelligible to most folk. Despondent, he threw himself off the #summit of his expectations. #vss365

‎It is the #cadence of voices that taught me the language of my beating pulse and the world's burgeoning possibility. Fire the staccato beating of the drum, and it will conjugate desire. For sparks already light up the room where the faces turn to meet the rhythm of this ancient song. #vss365

‎In my mind, you #ascend. Higher than a kite, sober as a judge, I see you barely, but you're there. You answer me always, sharing a certain affection, though time will take you from me—or me from you. In the grand spiralling of homecomings just missed, we travel linked only by our axis. #vss365 ‎

With the strength of her bare arms, she pulled and kneaded the dough, wiping her hands on the folds of her simple #shift. She bakes the town's morning bread before the rooster crows, and I bring her chopped wood for the oven. Lovely, she waves, and I touch the tip of her flour nose. #vss365

Had you been born in the time of the caravans, your #road would have been silk. A merchant, dissatisfied with the rough cloth and grubby wool of your people, bold in your dream of rarer goods, at great peril over inconceivable distances you'd buy myrrh, spices or mysterious devices. #vss365

LIVE💣 💥 💣 💥 💣 💥

Outside Predictive Closure

Short Fiction

open.substack.com

I sit in the studio where everything wants to fall down. What is this dialogue with the floor, I wonder. My thoughts move in a #tailwind of inspiration. I write them down. The paintings gather dust, but the words fly, unburdening my drawing hand. It is not a civil war, just a coup d'etat. #vss365

With the #turn of a phrase, I remember. There, an eye illuminated, an ankle framed by the sheet, the hair in rivulets across this round cheek. I see myself, spotted and stained, for the mirror is an antique. This house is older than God. In the mirror I see you returning like a ghost. #vss365 ‎

Short Fiction - What happened when two incompatible philosophies of preservation emerged inside the very system that governed the world. ⚡🔥 Tomorrow.

The dagger doesn't feel your pain. You #balance the right words on the tip of a blade of grass and withdraw. This is not a retreat to lick your wounds; the aim went wide. Instead, you add the information to the rest, which tells you more about your opponent than a simple confession would. #vss365

España!! ⚽✨👏👏👏💯 The horns are blowing, fireworks lighting up the sky, pots banging, kids yelling, dogs barking, people singing... 😍😂

The #sprint comes because it must. Here you drop caution and go for all. Yet, the finish is not the end. It's a link in a longer chain. Your sweat consecrates an enduring effort, the opposite of the unmeasured burst. To master one, you need the other. Your path is a daily set of promises. #vss365

‎There was pressure in his words and #momentum in his thoughts. Their vehemence came like a knife turning in the air before burying itself in the chest of his opponent. But this one knew to step aside, and so it went into dumb white wall. The opponent would win with a kick he hadn't planned. #vss365

‎He knew what to do in a slipstream, for he saw advantage as well as anyone. Contracting himself, away from resistance, he pulled less weight. But when the #headwind buffeted and his mates surged ahead anyway, he learned something: without solid preparation, even tricks are of little use. #vss365