can you recommend any good case file fic with established msr relationship???? your archive is a gift to this fandom btw THANK YOU
Eyyyyyy, here you go, anon!
@debbierhea/theexfilesbabe/iamalittleonedge’s october - full series
He’s shivering as she approaches, the blanket curled around his snoozing fox form, hair sticking out like a tail. She pushes his hair back and whispers his name, tells him to go get in her bed where it’s warm. She watches him, sleepy-eyed and vulnerable, as he makes his way to where her bed is an oasis of warmed goose feathers.
Post S5 Mulder and Scully spend an October, week-by-week, on the road and in each other's company. (While not strictly RST, it's a gentle, autumnal slow burn that, I think, counts.)
sarah_segretti/Sarah Segretti's The Current Temperature in Downtown Washington (Ao3, Xanadu)
The informant, a slightly paunchy middle-aged man with a rich Blue Ridge accent, a true local, droned on. Scully appeared to be listening raptly, but Mulder knew the look - he'd been on the receiving end more than once, and with him, it usually meant she was about to shred another one of his theories.
He knew what was wrong. They were too close to FEMA headquarters, and that made him think of Dallas, and Antarctica - and he hadn't expected to feel this way. His nightmares on that particular topic had stopped weeks ago.
Post Fight the Future Scully is determined to pick up Mulder's mood... although the "case", its unpleasant associations, and their meal afterward underscores the wounds both of them are still licking clean. (Though not strictly RST, the underlying understanding between them is undeniably bent in that direction.)
@lotsoforangesoutside/@lotzzoforangezoutside‘s (Ao3) Detoured: Arcadia (Tumblr)
Scully looks at him expectantly, and he kind of likes it a little. She never looks at him like that, like he’ll MacGyver them out of this sticky mess.
It is a sticky mess. A very sticky mess.
Arcadia Mulder is torn over the fake (and real) relationship he must project with Scully.
@aloysiavirgata's (Ao3, WBM, Gossamer, LJ, Alt. LJ) The Waters of Babylon, Petrichor, and Singing of Mount Abora
Beside him comes a rustle of paper. Scully’s printed out directions from MapQuest, checking off turns like a shopping list. “Still another three miles before the access road,” she says, not looking up from her trim navy-blue lap. She takes a sip of coffee.
Mulder coughs, says nothing. Things aren’t strained exactly, it’s not that. It’s more a liminal space. Everything’s fine, he tells himself. Everything’s fine.
He checks his hair again.
Mulder and Scully's relationship slowly melds together, from reflective, post-Arcadia memories to tentative, post-Amor Fati consummation to stinging, miraculous post-IVF hope.
Obfusc8er's Deus ex Machina
The black, writhing shade shot out fingers of darkness, exploding into thousands of swirling entities. The light from the window was doused by the mass of evil in the room. Scully gasped, nearly dropping the phone from her hand. She stood transfixed, paralyzed by shock and fear. The volume of the chorus in her ear grew louder, and the obscure shapes grew more frantic, circling with tremendous speed.
Scully is awash with horror while on a routine Kersh detail.
Jo-Ann Lassiter's The Death of Me Yet
It was a bull moose, and it was big. And it was standing about ten feet away, smack in the middle of the trail. Even if Scully hadn't read the literature on vehicle/moose collisions and the ensuing human fatalities, she would have chosen to avoid something twice her height and weight--jeep and Mulder included.
She slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel sharply to the right, in the only direction that wouldn't get them killed outright. The change in terrain was drastic.
Kersh forces Mulder on a case, despite his ill health. With Scully as her partner's shadow, the two try to escape the woods, their safety and the approaching dark (and its monster) driving them further and further down a mountain.
TessMooreXF's Armadillo Season
She mused that it must be armadillo season, for all the hardened little corpses that had dotted the sides of the highway on her journey from Dallas.
Post The Rain King Kersh assigns the duo to an unexpectedly twisted case.
Wylfcynne's Imagine
"You aren't getting free until we have a clear MRI," she said calmly.
Mulder exploded in rage, screaming, cursing, struggling violently. On the status monitor, everything began to escalate. Three Project doctors came running in, alerted by the system alarms, and stopped, awed at the violence they were witnessing.
Post S.R. 819 Mulder and Scully are intercepted, kidnapped, and tortured while on a cult assignment. She helps to rescue her partner, but not before he is infected with black oil.
@danascullysjournal/Paper_hearts_and_homemade_arts's If You Will Let Me (Tumblr)
Padgett’s face faded to the pale, chilled skin of the corpse she had inspected three days ago. He grinned at her with lifeless eyes. His fingers pressed deeper inside her chest, and red spattered his sunken face.
“I am… in you…” The lips of the cadaver did not move. She sensed his voice ringing inside her head.
Post Milagro Mulder and Scully slowly begin to recover... but are then thrust into more disastrous supernatural circumstances. (While not strictly post-RST, this fits along those lines.)
cropcircle's Secrets in Seattle
“This must be terrible for you just laying here, Mulder,” Scully said.
“I can’t wait until this is over. If only to get this wretched cast off my arm.” ‘And to pick up where we left off when Skinner interrupted us,’ Mulder thought to himself. “I wish I could help you more.”
Post Millennium Mulder is kidnapped while Scully investigates a hospital case. (While this isn't strictly post-RST, it does end along those lines.)
Beshter's Seasons: Seventh
"Fear doesn't have to be complicated." Mulder was already into the bag of cashews, clearly pleased with what he found.
"I know that, but it did make me think about the things we fear. What sort of fears do the average people have? Would it be enough to terrify me to death?"
"Would they?" Mulder asked around a mouthful of nuts.
Post Millennium Mulder and Scully spend the rest of Season 7 figuring out the new parameters of their new relationship.
@slippinmickeys/SlippinMickeys/Slippin' Mickeys's The Unseelie Court
It hadn’t been fair of her to seduce him, though it had been a glacial, intellectual courtship, inevitable, really, in every sense of the word. Mulder was tender-hearted and obsessive and after their second time together, she should have known that no amount of her stoicism or sense of workplace propriety would keep them from wanting to be together all the time. Last night, she’d had a foot out the door and was pushing him away with one hand and pulling him back with the other, his fingers tangled in her hair in rapacious bliss.
They still weren’t sure how to be with each other, and that morning they’d walked down to Mulder’s car in a loaded, restless silence.
In this on-going chapter fic, Mulder and Scully investigate a fae x-file, the first after their under-the-table consummation.
subtlealchemy/weetown's a trick of the light
She had been avoidant, too, of facing the reality of Mulder’s condition being her fault. Even though she knows deep down that it isn’t, that she had not meant for any of it to happen, it somehow still is her fault.
She had been the one holding the gun, after all. And her unchecked and lonesome guilt had only expanded and nourished itself in the dark, sated in the span of two nights.
Two nights spent drifting in and out of sleep on rough, sun-dried dirt with her fistful of Mulder’s bloodied sleeve that said, Stay here, even though he had been mostly unconscious and all but about to get up and go somewhere.
Mulder and Scully investigate claims of woodland magic.
Analise's (Alt. Tumblr, Colonization HQ) Haunted House
Then a rattle. Pipes groaned and protested in rusty appeals and then a thin trickle of water burbled out of the faucet. She cupped her hands under the stream and splashed it onto her cheeks, washing the remains of her makeup off. Her hair was starting to dry in long scraggly strands around her oval face and since a shower was not an option, she ran her hairbrush through the red strands until they gleamed in the candlelight. Pulling her toothbrush out she leaned back over the sink to wet the bristles and froze.
Blood was coming out of the faucet.
Mulder and Scully find themselves in a right-from-the-movies spooky mansion, with events ramping up, not slowing down, the longer the night goes on.
@piecesofscully/PiecesOfScully's Ravenous
The scratching against the wall behind them started low, as if it was coming from under the cot they sat on, like thick nails desperately attempting to burrow through the wooden barrier. Scully’s heart beat faster, through the wood she felt the scratching gradually work its way up to her lower back, clawing up behind her spine to just above her head, then stopped. A chill ran the same path up her spine as a whisper came from just above their heads.
“Skuhhhh.”
It was only a matter of time before Mulder and Scully stumbled on another creature in the woods... but is there only one?
@syntax6's (Gossamer, FFN, omniscribe) The Man Without a Trace (omniscribe)
Mulder slackened his hold on Scully and looked at the crumpled comic book again. Sure enough, at the bottom it read, "Starring Rocky Miller and McKenzie Sally."
Post First Person Shooter Mulder and Scully find out that TLG turned them into profitable comic book characters... and stumbled on a case at Comic Con.
doctorhelena's Something In Between
Scully bit her lip and willed herself not to imagine again what would have happened if Skinner hadn't taken a leap of faith. Mulder was insistent. "What would I have mutated into if you hadn't stopped it - how many of those people are out there? People who already have identities, but who won't be reported missing by their family and friends, because they’re already dead. People who can infiltrate themselves easily into society and nobody will ever know the difference. This is huge, Scully. And I don't -" he cut off, watching her face. His eyes were alive.
"How can you-" she asked. "Mulder, how can you just - you were almost -" She couldn't talk. Her throat had closed up again.
Post Deadalive Mulder, Scully, and Doggett begin investigating other "dead" and buried abductees.
aka Jake/aka_Jake/aka 'Jake''s Reprise
"...I’m done with all that. I no longer chase aliens.”
“This isn’t about aliens.”
“Does it matter?”
“It’s a mutant.”
She returned to sorting clothes, plucking matching socks from the pile, glad that Katie was asleep in bed and not listening in on this all-too-familiar conversation.
“A liver-eating mutant,” he added.
Post My Struggle IV Mulder and Scully tackle an old foe they thought was long dead.
AUs
aRcaDIaNFall$'s (Alt. Tumblr) Meeting This Way, These Ungodly Hours, Something Challenging, Full Circle
"So, what's the procedure for this sort of thing?"
"Procedure?" "
You know... Interviewing somebody. Getting Kayleen to agree to an examination."
"Depends on the person. Sometimes you need to tread carefully, sometimes you need to push."
She smiled. "Which category did I fall into?"
"Both. I had to make a whole new category, just for you."
AU-- Mulder becomes a reoccurring patient to ER doctor Scully. Their friendship blossoms, their relationship blooms, and she agrees to consult on a case.
CaptainLyssa's To FBI or Not To FBI
Rolling her eyes, Scully had seen the female agent leaving Mulder’s room as she exited the elevator this morning. Patrice, Mulder’s nurse assured Scully the visit had been brief and she’d gained little information about Mulder’s condition from the staff. It seemed the rumours worked in Scully’s favour in this instance.
AU-- Scully is a worn-down ER nurse that strikes up a random, fast-paced relationship with enigmatic but deeply-committed Special Agent Mulder. His sudden hospitalization, her secret pregnancy, and Diana Fowley's unwanted appearance (almost) shakes her faith in her new partner.
theramblinrose's MSR Collection
“You’re supposed to be at the hospital, Scully. I was coming as soon as…”
He broke off like he’d simply run out of words. He was coming as soon as—as soon as he could, as soon as they found Samantha, as soon as he knew what was happening.
AU-- Post One Breath Mulder and Scully begin a relationship; and very soon after discover (during the events of Aubrey) that she is expecting a little "alien."
LuvTheBeez's (mulderscreek) Snow (mulderscreek)
"Mulder, it never really occurred to me before, and I certainly admire the skill with which you construct that masterpiece you've got going there, but I seem to recall a bit of a phobia you used to have about fire." She placed his mug down on the mantle. "How have you gone from fear to Master Fire Builder?"
"It's all about control, Scully." Mulder paused for a moment as he twisted the life out of another geometrically perfect square of newspaper. "This is our house. This fireplace is a perfect little contained area, inside our house, where one can have a controlled fire that *stays* in control. If I build the fire, I have control over it. I am its master. I *am* Fire Boy."
"You've thought about this before."
AU-- Season 5 Mulder and Scully are married and expecting a very large baby. ...And are forced into a hostage situation.
@virtie333/Virtie333's The Letter, Eyes In the Night, Someday, Wambli
"I didn't want to believe her," Scully smiled tightly. "But she did know where the body was, and she's very convincing. It took a long time before she finally told me HOW she 'saw' him." She looked up at him, confusion in her eyes. "Mulder, she says she can see through the eyes of any living animal. That she can transport her consciousness into another living thing and to see what it sees and feel what it feels!"
"Can she control the mind of the animal she inhabits?" Mulder had heard of people who could transfer like this.
"No," Scully shook her head. "She says she's just 'along for the ride'. Sometimes she can tweak its curiosity a bit, but that's all."
AU-- Post Orison Scully leaves for an ASAC position when Mulder doesn't ask her to stay. But not to worry: they are reunited a year later for a case, then another, then the explosion of the mytharc.
Khyber's Reach + Sokol (Reach, Sokol 1/2, Sokol 2/2, Sokol - Dancing Skeleton Day, Sokol - Terminus Post Quem)
"Light plane crash, Washington. Less than an hour ago. Apparently we should be there. He said to do an autopsy."
"Did you recognize the voice?" "
Whoever it was knew I was here."
AU-- Mulder and Scully take the next step after a rough, disturbing case involving a fifteen-year-old. From there, their lives only get more complicated as the Consortium closes in.
@writingwell/RocketMan/Darkstryder's (Xanadu)
It's Been . . . 01, It's Been . . . 02, It's Been . . . 03
Mulder blinked and looked at her, then shook his head.
"I have a headache."
She glanced quickly into the basment, then stopped still, shocked as she watched Nick Hazel sway before an enormous fire, sweat and dirt dripping from him in a sensuous, serpentine motion. She felt herself being pulled into the hypnotic dance of the fire and closed her eyes, tight.
Then backed away, grabbing for Mulder.
AU-- A ditch-and-dash injury changes the course of Mulder's life: recovery, marriage, a Floridian honeymoon, and an arsonist case upon their return.
WrappedInTheWind, WrappedInTheWindWhirl, WrappedInTheWindIII, WrappedInTheWindIV, WrappedInTheWind_CryingStone (Xanadu)
That was the good day. The only good day. I should have paid better attention to that day because it was a long time before that day would come again, a better day, a day with hope.
AU-- Post En Ami CSM hands over a baby of mysterious origins to Mulder. Scully resists her partner's domestic inclinations at first, but caves-- although adoption and subsequent marriage don't stop on-the-job injuries and heart-wrenching biological connections.
@rationalcashew/RationalCashew's Dark is the Way; Light is the Place (Tumblr)
Scully could feel Mulder watching her from the other side of the desk. He’d been doing it for the last week. At first, she thought it was sweet. Now, it was just annoying.
“Mulder…” she warned, cocking an eyebrow at him from over the file in her hand.
“What?” He asked innocently.
“You’re staring.”
“We’re having a baby,” he replied simply.
“Yes, we are. But, that doesn’t mean I can work with you staring at me constantly."
AU-- Although Requiem Mulder rushes back to Scully, their combined joy over an unexpected miracle becomes intertwined with frustration over a challenging, and pointedly dangerous, serial killer case.
Lapsed_Scholar's Season 9 Rewrites and Musings
Dana sighed. “I suppose this is one of those cases in which not everything is fully, satisfactorily explained. We can only make an educated guess that matches a preponderance of the evidence. Which is a foundational principle I have to somehow instill in my intro to forensic pathology students in...about five minutes, actually.” She carefully passed William (who had apparently tired of her hair and fallen asleep) to Mulder and stood up.
His eyes were shining when he smirked up at her. “How do you plan on doing that? You just gonna write ‘Uncertainty’ on the board, Scully?”
She shot him a look that had too much underlying affection to be truly quelling.
AU-- Season 9 Mulder never leaves; and he and Scully (and William) are pulled into the Doggett-Reyes cases, despite his reluctance.
@dreamingofscully's Surely, to the sea
When Mulder switched off the ignition, oppressive silence weighed down upon them - no birds, no chirping insects. She hadn’t noticed under the roar of the engine and the trepidation that she fought to control. Staring ahead and swallowing thickly, she forced herself to analyze the evidence they’d acquired so far. Perhaps the same thing that interfered with their radio drove away wildlife.
AU-- Married paranormal investigators Mulder and Scully lodge with a suspiciously odd man who is always licking his fingers.
Thanks for reading¬
Enjoy!
Up feels like down when one day you get back home with a bottle of Merlot and a bouquet of her favorite pale pink peonies, excited and all to celebrate a well-deserved promotion, only to find the house devoid of your loved one. Somehow you know she's not just out to the supermarket. You feel sweat start trickling down your neck under the collar of your freshly starched shirt. Your knees feel wobbly and you have to lean on the wall still jangling the keys in one hand and trying to balance the bottle and the weighty bouquet in another. All of a sudden, it is too much. The smell of flowers assaults your nose like they’re poisonous. It’s perfume. Eau de betrayal.
Of their own volition, your legs drag you into the bedroom where you stand frozen in front of the closet. Fear, gut-clenching and heart-pounding, holds you tightly in its grasp. The door is slightly ajar, and you are scared out of your mind to grab the handle and pull it all the way open. You know it will be empty.
You are glad she’s not here, coz you are not sure whether you want to hug her or slug her. She never was a gal who had airs about her. Or that’s what you thought.
“Au contraire, my dear Katherine!”
You scream into the empty room and the walls vibrate in unison with your anger.
“You are one hell of an arrogant bitch! Fuck you!”
You stride into the hall, grab the seemingly forgotten bottle and throw it to the wall with all your might.
Much-much later, you’ll start recognizing the signs of the looming storm you have been oblivious to. You just let it slide. As you were working your ass off up the career ladder, your wife was working her way down under another man. The moment you least expected it, she stabbed you in the back and filed the divorce papers. Being a trained analyst and observer, never missing a single detail, you were surprisingly slow on the uptake.
You slip your hand under the shirt, to the place where your heart seemed to beat. Past tense. Because you can’t feel it beating anymore. It actually feels like she’s just ripped it out. Or maybe she punctured your lung and you can't breathe. Or shot you point blank and the bullet hit an artery and you’re just bleeding to death on your pristine white kitchen tiles. You press the hand against the wound and groan in pain. You let the sobs overtake you.
At that moment your world has narrowed down to nothing more than a little ball made of bits and shards of pain and broken dreams. She would have said that you were reaching, and you are ever so covetous of that thought. You’d spring for that hell of a stretch.
You can think all you want but here you are, trapped in your inner turmoil, with your barely-moving chest, rasping incredulously “It doesn’t have to end that way. It wasn’t supposed to end that way.”
Longer stories (5000 words and over)
Fierce Midsummer All Ablaze (12793 words) on AO3 : Mulder & Scully develop a standing agreement to attend events as each other's 'plus one' over the years.
Certain Obscure Things (13087) just completed on AO3 : An alternate ending to/extension of 'Fierce Midsummer', in which Mulder takes Scully as his guest on a trip to Oxford, to visit his old university mentor.
The Light of a Clear Blue Morning (12392 words) on AO3 : Mulder and Scully are back in the field after Redux II; what would have happened if they continued the closeness of the Cancer Arc through season 5 and beyond?
The Congruence of Triangles (5373 words) on AO3 :The final scene of Triangle, told five ways.
Shorter stories
The Work of an Instant (2463 words) on AO3: Scully and Mulder attend a game night at the Gunmen’s lair, and change is in the air (s7).
I Need My Girl (747 words) on AO3
Testament (1599 words) on AO3 : This story imagines the circumstances of Scully asking Mulder to be the witness to her living will.
Even in Another Time (3740 words) on AO3 : A post-Redux story, written in 2009.
You see the irony here, huh?
So where do I begin? This is the video I recorded for the #TheReservoirTimelapse contest run by #davidduchovny and #akashicbooks.
I had a bunch of ideas for the video but the point is that I gave up the idea of a sunset/sunrise right off the bat since it was an obvious choice. You just google the “time-lapse vid” and tell me what you see. Anyway, it had that being-like-everyone-doing-like-everyone ring to it.
I wanted to claim all the credit for my creation. But how can I claim credit for something that has always been there? I mean, I needed it to be the thing that’d not just be there, but be there because of me. I wanted to do something that would require effort. And somehow I was certain, it’d stand out in the flow of sunsets and sunrises. Like it would be waving at you — come here, look at me, here I am⠀- refreshing and original. Well, I believed t was entertaining, easy on the eyes, and unique. But maybe in the eyes of a stranger, it was nothing short of dull, mediocre, and unoriginal.
I lost. It took me about twenty minutes to wallow in my own misery, but then I thought “what the hell”? I can’t really blame the guy for wanting to see another record of the sun painting the sky with every color of the rainbow, can I? So what if the man has a penchant for looking at the sunrise-sunset-sun-sky-etc.-thing? It’s up to him. On a related note, I could use that as an opportunity to turn my loss into a win. So here I am - turning it into a story, for the sake of mastering my writing skills.
And this is what I have to say. It’s no big deal. It wasn’t the first time when I failed, and most likely not gonna be the last one. As DD so much likes to recall himself - try again, fail again, and for crying out loud - fail better.
P.s. Please, be gentle, I did that shit for the first time ever 😉 (painting by numbers, I mean).
P.p.s. I know I might sound a tad envious but this is benign envy! Chill out, I’m 100% happy for those who won.
These two were quite intensive, but after my second lesson, I seem to catch the flow and start enjoying the process.
Week 5.
✅Teaching practice started. Two 4-hour long sessions. Not the real practice though. Just a tiny part of it, where we designed a short “getting to know you” activity, observed our tutor and under her careful guidance planned our first lesson.
✅Another live session about phonology and pronunciation. One cool insight I took from that session: phonology is actually FUNology!
✅Assignment 2 was submitted.
✅Assignment 3 returned and resubmitted and now it's a pass.
✅3 more modules on the platform.
Week 6
Teaching for real.
✅ my first lesson was reading. No big deal (ha-ha), 16 students(😱), and your typical lead-in-prediction-pre-teach vocabulary-reading for gist-reading for details-follow-up productive skills task type of reading.
It was a blast. Seriously. The tutor gave me a few suggestions, but, all in all, she said it had been a success for the first lesson.
✅ my second lesson was grammar. The Present perfect vs the Past simple. I struggled with my timing, as the MFPA analysis took longer than I planned, and I felt like I had to give them all and everything in terms of Meaning, Form, Pronunciation, and Appropriacy. It wasn’t a failure, I got “to standard” for it, but looking back at it, I’d have changed a number of things. The most valuable advice from my Tutor was - prioritize.
✅ 3 more units on the platform
✅ started planning my assignment 1, which includes an interview with one of the students👌should be interesting!
Tomorrow I have a listening lesson. I’m well-prepared and pretty confident.
✅2/8 done. 6 more to go. 2 more with my pre-intermediate group, and then 4 more with Upper-Intermediate students.
Wish me luck ✌️🍾
In the photo, things I'm going to do right after I give my last lesson 😂
All good things happen on the couch, as well as bad ones.
Read it on AO3
Read it on AO3
And that was… a piece of cake. Let’s see what I’m gonna say when they ask us to write those long-ass lesson plans😂
Anyway, what did we do that first week:
🦋 Cambridge platform online tasks 1. Orientation module; 2. Unit 1: learner’s first; 3. Unit 2: designing tasks (reading).
🦋 Design a lead-in activity for a reading lesson (in a group of three); 🦋 Design an initial reading task and then a detailed reading task (the text was provided, work individually).
🦋 A compulsory live session with a tutor (2 hrs long);
🦋Observation practice of 2 different lessons taught by two different teachers.
There’s an interesting detail I noticed about one of the lessons I observed. The teacher chose to talk about the British Royal family (sans Kate and Megan, and in a moment you will understand why). While showing the photo of the Queen, he asked the students if they knew how old she was. And she was…. Tada!
79!
❓So here is the puzzle for you to solve.
If the Queen was 79 then, and in 2022 she died at the age of 96, what year was the lesson recorded in?
This story is my translation of the poem "The Key" by Boris Slutsky. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did while working on the translation and the video for it. Big thanks to all the people who helped make it happen.
"The Key" by Boris Slutsky
I had a room with a separate entry,
I lived all alone, single, no help.
At moments of lust, no double entendre,
I held that door open for ladies to step.
My married buddies lived with mothers-in-law,
And wives that were looking like mothers-in-law
Some overly fat, some overly skinny
But comfy like rain, though they looked pretty weary
Watching them turning another year older
Bearing more daughters and sons to behold
Wives turned into muses of travails and scolding
Symbols of sufferings kept untold
My married buddies cherished their wives,
More and more often they wanted to know
If I get married, saying ‘Idiot, jeez!
Marriage is bliss, can’t you see it, my bro?’
My married buddies resented their wives,
They yearned for ladies with unwrinkled hands,
Ladies, with eyes like wells deep enough
To fall into the abyss and never get back.
I felt repulsed by the thought (well, you know me),
But opted to mind my own business instead.
They needed a room with a separate entry
And I gave them the key from the room with a bed.
The original text:
"Ключ" Борис Слуцкий
У меня была комната с отдельным ходом,
Я был холост и жил один.
Всякий раз, как была охота,
В эту комнату знакомых водил.
Мои товарищи жили с тещами
И с женами, похожими на этих тещ, -
Слишком толстыми, слишком тощими,
Усталыми, привычными, как дождь.
Каждый год старея на год,
Рожая детей (сыновей, дочерей),
Жены становились символами тягот,
Статуями нехваток и очередей.
Мои товарищи любили жен.
Они вопрошали все чаще и чаще:
- Чего ты не женишься? Эх ты, пижон!
Что ты понимаешь в семейном счастье?
Мои товарищи не любили жен.
Им нравились девушки с молодыми руками,
С глазами, в которые, раз погружен,
Падаешь, падаешь, словно камень.
А я был брезглив (вы, конечно, помните),
Но глупых вопросов не задавал.
Я просто давал им ключ от комнаты.
Они просили, а я - давал.
“Look, we gotta go there,” said my travel buddy Katya showing me the first photo that came out as she googled Austria. The photo showed the tiny alpine village of Hallstatt, nestled between a mountain and a lake with a mouthful of a name.
The vista rendered me speechless and was enough of a reason to say yes to a holiday, yes to Austria, yes to Hallstatt.
Between us, Katya and I have five kids and the power to move mountains when it comes to traveling without them. Ironically enough, our choice fell on that postcard-perfect Instagram-worthy place at the heart of the Alps.
Three train journeys, two soaked-through backpacks, and one ferry cruise across the lake later, we finally arrived in Hallstatt. The place, included in the top ten places to visit while in Austria, miraculously wasn’t swamped with tourists. We took a leisurely funicular ride to the skywalk observation deck, enjoyed a cup of Viennese coffee with a piece of the Sachertorte, walked up the path for another hour, and then set off on a hike back, all the way snapping away left, right and center.
Snap and we were 900 meters above sea level.
Snap and we were inside an old salt mine.
Snap and we stood in front of the stained glass windows of the old Protestant Church on the main square.
Snap and we were back home, locking away new precious moments in a memory box along with a few hundreds of photos capturing those unforgettable instants.
That's the story behind the fiction article about the local hero.
Prompt⤵️
A literary magazine has invited readers to submit reviews of classical books that seem to have been undeservedly forgotten. You decide to submit a review of a forgotten classic you liked. Your review should briefly describe the book, explain why it deserves to be remembered, and assess the importance of classical literature.
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"Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven." There's hardly a person who'd never heard these words from the monologue delivered by Satan in John Milton's work "Paradise Lost." In his quintessential poem, epic both in scale and ambition, Milton wrote in a state of total blindness, claiming to have divine inspirations that approached him nightly.
A tragic and powerful piece whose legacy didn’t endure as firmly as one of its remarkable quotes. Beautifully and somewhat encyclopaedically, Milton explores the ideas of salvation and redemption and tells a tale of a war that rages across Hell. Outlining the portions of the Bible, he puts the story of the Fall of Man in the center of his immense drama. A fallen angel, vain and full of pride, Satan is the projection of all too human temptations that compel readers subconsciously to sympathize with him.
“Paradise Lost" is a book of questions, daunting and intense, that deserves to be remembered. As you submerge deep into philosophical matters of the nature of a human being and its purpose on Earth, you are compelled to re-conceptualize entirely your ideas of Hell, Heaven, God, and Devil. What makes it even more valuable is a chance Milton hands over to readers to analyze the evolution of the English language through his poem's lines. "Paradise Lost" allegedly gave us more than five hundred English words, such as "satanic" or "terrific," and negative forms of already existing words like "irresponsible" or "unprincipled." It also provides us with a new angle to look at the overall poetic genre. The poem doesn't rhyme; instead, Milton uses blank-verse: ten-syllable metrical lines.
The book is a classic once it withstands the test of time. Classical literature encompasses different periods of history; therefore, it enhances our comprehension of human nature and sets the basis for broader vocabulary and a profound understanding of the language, its origins, and functions. Even though most classical characters we see in the canon books might not be applicable today, the message they carry is timeless, and their merits cannot be undermined.
Eugenia. An avid reader. An amateur writer. Stories. Fanfiction (The X-Files). C2 (Proficiency) exam prompts. Personal essays. Writing anything that comes to mind for the sake of writing. Mastering my English. The name of the blog is the ultimate goal of the blog. One day I hope to have posted 642 stories here.
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