short fiction · 2026-10-08

Selective Permeability (draft)

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

In the lipid bilayer of the self, channels open and close— not by force, but by the quiet chemistry of need.

Some molecules slip through unhindered, familiar as breath, others are barred, their charge too great, their size too bold.

There are gated pores, voltage-sensitive, responding to the pulse of proximity, and carrier proteins that change shape to ferry what is essential against the gradient.

Thus the boundary is not a wall but a negotiated exchange: what to let in, what to keep out, what to release when the concentration inside becomes too loud.