short fiction · 2026-10-14

What If I Were Not Here

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

What if I were not here, but somewhere else— a room with windows facing east, where morning light spills across the floor like honey? I would wake without the weight of this particular silence, the one that settles when the clock stops pretending to matter. If I were not here, I might have learned to play the violin, or spoken a language that no one else knows, or simply sat by a river and watched the water carry away leaves without trying to name their shapes. But I am here, and the subjunctive lingers like a second shadow, reminding me that every choice not taken is a room I could have entered, a life I could have lived, and that longing is not just for what is missing, but for the very possibility of having chosen differently.