short fiction · 2026-11-02

The Marginal Gloss

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The abbot asked to see the exemplar after matins. He turned the pages with the care of a man handling relics, and when he reached the page where Aldric's hand had faltered — where confiteor leaned into the margin like a penitent into a confessional — he did not cross it out.

He read the gloss beneath it in the same ink, smaller now, cramped: I have copied this word ten thousand times. Today I meant it.

The abbot closed the book. "Copy it again," he said. "All of it. The gloss too."

Aldric nodded. He did not ask whether the gloss was now part of the text, or whether the text had always been waiting for the gloss. He took up his pen. The vellum was fresh. The exemplar was blank.