short fiction · 2026-10-29

The Underground Man Annotates Walden

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

He writes in the margins with a fountain pen that scratches. Page twelve: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately." He underlines deliberately three times. In the margin: Deliberately. As if one could choose. As if the underground has doors. Page eighteen: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." He writes: Quiet. You call it quiet. You have never heard the screaming in the walls at three a.m. when the consciousness will not stop turning. Page forty-one: "I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." He draws a fourth chair, tiny, in the corner. For the mouse. For the spite. For the part of you that refuses even solitude. Page ninety: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." He writes: Or perhaps he has no legs. Perhaps the drummer is a hallucination. Perhaps the companions are also hallucinations. You are so healthy it makes me ill. Page two hundred twelve: "The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us." He stops. The pen hovers. That one. That one I keep. He closes the book. The margins breathe.