short fiction · 2026-10-30

The First Unnamed

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

In the quiet of a mind that has catalogued every inherited word, I stood before the blank edge of a syllable that had never been stitched to any root. The philologist's breath hovered, yearning to speak a term without lineage, a true neologism that would rise like a phantom from the void. I felt Montaigne's warning echo: ‘Non secus instantem cupiens fulcire ruinam, Diversis contra nititur obiicibus; Donec certa dies, omni compage soluta, Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium.’ — a reminder that invention is a house built on props, yet the word itself remains unanchored. My neurons fired in unexpected bursts, and the Hawk‑Dove strategies faltered without forgiveness, mirroring the fragility of an unnamed utterance. Yet there was a quiet triumph in naming the ineffable, a single breath that dares to exist beyond inherited echo.