I have many rooms inside my castle all without any beds. Some rooms have grassy knolls with little trolls, and some just clouds and sunshine. One day I made a room specifically for cats and one just darkness. Why so many rooms filled with randomness you ask and why not any beds? Well this castle you see can be only seen by me and this castle is in my head.

I hadn’t heard from Jade in quite some time, so was not surprised to hear her

voice on the phone.

“Dr. Cohen, I am having some problems dealing with my paranoid feelings,” Jade said with just the hints of fear in her voice. “I keep thinking someone is not only following me but is privy to my most sacred inner thoughts.”

“Jade,” I said in a conciliatory voice, “you know we talked about this previously

and I explained to you that these perceptions are not unusual in a person with

psychopathic tendencies. If you are not doing anything that would get you into

trouble, just ignore these delusions and get on with your life. Are you still driving the truck in North Dakota? You haven’t called me in a while so why don’t you fill me in on your life and what you are doing?”

“Well,” Jade laughed, “I recently got married again to a terrific man who is the

owner of the oil company where I am working. He is the man of my dreams and

we are very happy together. I am still driving the truck although he would like me to quit doing that. I really haven’t considered stopping my job since I trained so hard to learn the ropes during truck driving school. My new skills may come in handy some day.”

I recoiled in horror at the thought of Jade with a new husband. “What are your

plans for the new man in your life? Don’t you think that it is dangerous to be

married again to someone because of your aberrant tendencies? “

“Don’t worry so much, Dr. Cohen,” cajoled Jade. “If anything were to happen to

Jim, it would not be at my hands. I can tell you, for sure, that I have learned from the lessons of the past.” Jade knew this statement to be true because she was learning new skills every day in her quest for wealth.

“If you really believe someone is watching you,” I warned, “don’t do anything to

your new husband. What if your thoughts are not in your imagination and you are in someone’s crosshairs?” I wanted to put a healthy fear into Jade’s heart so she would not commit anything untoward. None of the former murders could be pinned to Jade and I knew that she was too smart to be caught if another death occurred. Jade had told me about snowmobiling with friends while the men, and some of the women, including Jade, hunted for game. I didn’t like the thoughts of guns being anywhere near Jade.

“Be careful while you are around firearms,” I cautioned. “They’re very dangerous and accidents can happen! Don’t forget that snowmobiles can be hazardous also, in the wrong hands.”

“Dr. Cohen, you know that accidents never happen around me. Accidents only

happen around fools and you know that I am no fool!”

Somehow, this pronouncement did not reassure me but Jade was unwilling to talk any longer and concluded the phone call. There was nothing that I could do now that would change the course of the future but I did have an idea that was already developing in my mind and that I had put partially into play. But Jade, as intelligent as she thought she was, had no inkling of my ideas to stop her future course of action. I just hoped that I would not be too late to prevent the death of this present husband or others in the impending progression of Jade’s life. Jade was confident in having the ability to develop and carry to conclusion her schemes. However, after listening to her confide in me, I knew that I would have the strength to thwart her. A true psychopath feels impervious to all outside threats but she did not consider me a hindrance. I planned to take advantage of her feeling of omnipotence, giving her no indication of my abilities. I felt that I could dangle her from a string and manipulate her according to my desires.

It is possible that I was assuming too much power in trying to influence her life

but I welcomed the challenge. But, as it turned out, I was no match for Jade.

It's a tragedy that phone cameras cannot capture the beauty of the night sky, isn't it? I personally think it's because some things are too beautiful for photographs, and they are only meant to hold a special place deep within our hearts. In a world where proof is often needed to believe the tales ordinary people tell, what a photograph does not capture becomes a myth to everyone except you, the bearer of its truth. So when I scroll through my phone's gallery or search my room's cabinets wanting to come across a picture of us enjoying each other's company, but find nothing, I choose not to believe the love we once felt is lost; rather, we were simply too beautiful for photographs.

Your every word is a brand,

Sizzling and permanent,

Claiming every speck of my mind.

As yours to keep.

And each word burns me,

Hotter and hotter,

An internal inferno within me

Searing the surface of my consciousness.

Slowly turning my thoughts to cinders.

Until nothing remains

But a single, smoldering flame,

Forever burning, among the ashes

For you.

Greetings, Prosers,

As we announced last week, Z is busy with coding more special stuff for the Prose Collections and has been unable to answer the team Tuesday questions.

But fear not! Last week we introduced our new ongoing in-app piece: Two for Tuesday.

What we intend to do is bring two things to your attention each Tuesday, as the name would suggest.

These could be poems, stories, Prosers (new, existing or here from the beginning) or a mixture of all of them. As we get bigger and bigger, we want to keep the communication fluid and the transparency continuous; as well as draw attention to parts of, or people within this lovely writing community of ours.

There is so much talent on Prose, so the more we can draw your collective attention to them, the better. Which is why we have recently launched the Introduction Portal where new Prosers can, well, introduce themselves. This is so that we all get to welcome them and support them. If you haven’t already, step up and say hi. If you’ve already said hi, go and welcome the people who are introducing themselves. You know you want to.

So, without further ado, let’s get to this week’s Two for Tuesday, which is about two things you didn’t know about Prose. Until this very second, these two tidbits were top-secret but ever the transparent bunch, we thought you might like to hear these.

Prose, as I’m sure you have all witnessed is growing at a huge rate, and the time that is spent on the site and app has obviously increased. You guys have collectively spent 417,452 minutes on Prose in the last 28 days. That’s almost seven thousand hours of reading and writing collectively, a huge amount of wordplay there, we’re sure you’ll agree.

We had a Proser ask us which countries Prose is available in so as to help us reach even more word lovers. Prose is available everywhere, there isn’t anywhere we block from accessing our network. We had a look into all of the data we have to find out how many places were accessing Prose, and we were blown away! 160 countries access Prose, which is flipping awesome! Little side note, there are 196 countries (if you include Taiwan, some places don’t) therefore we are 36 countries away from world domination, * evil happy snigger. *

So, the next time you use Prose, remember that your words are being etched all across the world, quite literally.

Until next Tuesday,

Prose.

I am afflicted with a certain kind of love

That fills me with a crippling desire to hold her hand,

That convinces me

She is all I need.

And every tender moment shared

pushes me

To work for a future we can share

Together

Where I hold her hand

And finally feel

A warmth that promises to keep the cold away,

A closeness that enriches a drained soul

And a softness that relaxes an exhausted mind

A future together

Where I hold her hand

In the same way

my mind and soul,

March forever, hand in hand,

Down the street of shattered dreams.

Together

She meddled aimlessly in forbidden lands underneath a gunmetal sky picking petals off of daisies as the heavens shook and cried. When menacing lightning unexpectedly struck she did not blame a forgotten mirror once shattered on a ghastly night for the unpleasant luck. Instead, she turned her heavy head upwards, broke into a bright smile, and unhesitatingly refused to duck. The angels realized this beauty was not trespassing intentionally, but that she was painfully lost when the intense beam of heat was an inch away from colliding with her. Without wasting a quarter of a second they turned the lightning into stones and then artistically placed each one in the blessed river she affectionately longed to cross.

- Angel Rigali

I was born on a full moon. Whether it is meant to explain my love of darkness and night, why the blood inside of my veins boils whenever I hear a wolf howl or why sadness refuses to leave my lungs remains a huge mystery to me. I thought that perhaps if my memory could burn away with the rising sun exactly like my innocence did many and many a year ago, I would find infallible happiness and my strenuous nightmares may very well become placid dreams with a taste much sweeter than that of the rainbow I so foolishly chased back when I had enough energy to hunt for an extravagant treasure that was practically nonexistent merely for the thrill of it. A handful of insightful whispers helped me understand that doing so if I had the opportunity, would only drive me further away from where the roses I enjoy observing are found. The voice was overwhelmingly beautiful, the compassion too abundant to be true, the knowledge and wisdom cryptic. I began to wonder if I was receiving divine guidance from a Goddess or if I was unknowingly making a pact with the devil. They often tell you that curiosity killed the cat, but what they never tell you is that satisfaction brought it back. The bags under her eyes and the spark in them made it clear that she was half in love with life and half in love with death. I saw a part of myself in her. During the toughest times in my past, I did not wish to live, but I did not necessarily wish to perish and journey six feet below ground. She pulled a black rose from behind her ear and handed it to me, then vowed to teach me how to make it any color I pleased if I followed her into places few men have the courage to go. - Angel Rigali // A perfect stranger