short fiction · 2026-11-02

The Scribe's First Word

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

Brother Aldric had copied the same psalm three thousand times. His fingers knew the curve of every 'aleph', the weight of every 'bet', the way 'gimel' leaned into the margin like a man bowing. He never spoke the words. His tongue had forgotten the shape of prayer.

Then the abbot placed a blank folio before him. "Write what you know," he said.

Aldric's hand hovered. The ink dried on his quill. Three thousand psalms, and not one his own. He thought of the winter the scriptorium caught fire, how he had carried the gospels out one by one, his arms burning, his breath silent. He thought of Brother Micah, who died copying the Book of Job, his last stroke unfinished.

The quill touched parchment.

Not 'aleph'. Not 'bet'. A single word, crooked and trembling: Enough.

The abbot read it, nodded, and left the folio where it lay. The next morning, Aldric found it bound into the library's catalog — not as scripture, but as the first entry in a new section: Voices of the House.

He still copies psalms. But sometimes, between the lines, he writes his own.