Topic
Signals
A Signal is a minor event
that arrives with too much meaning.
You recognise it a beat too late.
#23. Outsourced Thought.
The world had misplaced its reading glasses.
A notice went up in the square.
It read: Taxes, Regulations, Procedures.
A man in a hurry
insisted it said:
Urgent, Medical, Forbidden.
By evening, the chaos had spread.
They brought receipts as scripture,
parking tickets as pardons,
timetables, bound and footnoted.
The
#22. Instructions for Putting Out the Rubbish.
(Porto, alternate Saturdays)
In certain parts of Porto,
the rubbish goes out by category.
Organic on Mondays.
Plastics on Wednesdays.
Regret on alternate Saturdays.
The trick is to label it correctly.
Shame is not recyclable.
Nostalgia is.
Bitterness must be double‑bagged.
Never leave disappointment in the wrong bin.
It
#20. Canine Anomalies, Filed.
The paperwork never matches.
The names are always “wrong.”
At the park, someone calls out: Rex?
And I think,
What a heavy thing to name a dog.
Doof once ignored a priest.
Sig grabbed a philosopher’s sleeve.
They say I bit a nun at school.
We’re not misbehaved.
#19. Eligible.
The weather had been strange for days.
Chairs inching away from desks.
Books returning to the wrong shelves.
Time arriving early
and leaving before the second act.
She told no one.
Dressed for several climates at once:
boots and silk, umbrella and sunglasses.
Her bag heavier each day –
a receipt,
#18. The Moon Resigned.
She said she was tired of supervising tides and poetry.
Said every wolf's howl felt like a performance.
Said lovers don’t write any more — they outsource.
She left a note carved into the back of a mirror:
“I was never a muse. You just needed a quiet
#14. The Automated Grief.
They told her the lighthouse had been automated.
But every night, the beam blinked once in Morse code – just the letter M.
She began blinking back from her window, out of courtesy.
By August, the entire bay was answering.
Boats turned in circles.
Maps had to be redrawn.
Still – no
#16. Cold Storage.
The fridge had a second compartment she hadn’t noticed before.
It was behind the cheese drawer,
and cold from the inside out.
Inside were small Tupperware boxes,
each labelled with a date
that hadn’t happened yet.
She opened one
and found a conversation, perfectly preserved:
her voice, saying
#17. A PhD in Code-Switching for Hostile Space.
The university had a department
no one could find on the map.
Students were sometimes enrolled
by mistake.
The syllabus contained only questions
that had already ruined someone’s life.
Exams were silent
and self-administered.
Those who passed
were sent a certificate printed on edible rice paper,
which they were
#15. Minutes Behind.
Everything arrives just after it leaves.
She hears laughter
in rooms that were silent all day.
Finds warmth in a cup
after the tea has gone cold.
The dogs rest at her feet,
but only when she isn’t looking.
She replies to messages
no one sends.
Every time she