Jhon smith
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Stories (97)
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I’ll Explain This Later
I’ll explain this later—why I kept my coat on inside the house, why the room felt colder after you left than it ever did in winter. There was a reason, I tell myself, something orderly and sensible, but all I can remember now is the sound of the door closing and how the air seemed to rearrange itself afterward.
By Jhon smithabout a month ago in Fiction
This Story Has No Lesson
I should warn you upfront: nothing in this story is meant to improve you. There will be no quiet epiphany at the end. No line you can underline and carry like a talisman into Monday morning. No transformation arc, no wisdom harvested from pain like a crop. If you keep reading, it won’t be because you’re being guided somewhere useful. It will be because you chose to stay.
By Jhon smithabout a month ago in Lifehack
Home Is Not a Place—It’s a Nervous System
I carry home in my shoulders. In the way they tighten when voices rise. In how my breath shortens before my mind can name the danger. Home, for me, has never been a place you could pin on a map. It has never been an address that stayed long enough to memorize the cracks in the walls. Home learned to move when I did. It adapted. It folded itself into muscle and memory, into reflexes I didn’t choose but inherited from moments that taught me how to survive. As a child, I thought home was where you returned at night. A door. A bed. A familiar ceiling. But even then, my body knew better. It knew that walls don’t promise safety. Silence doesn’t always mean peace. And love, when inconsistent, teaches vigilance faster than trust. So my nervous system became the house. It learned the language of footsteps. It memorized tone shifts. It developed an instinct for reading rooms before my eyes fully entered them. While others were taught to relax at home, my body learned to stay alert everywhere. This wasn’t anxiety at first. It was intelligence. It was adaptation. It was the quiet brilliance of a system that decided, without consulting me, that it would never be caught unprepared again. Modern identity doesn’t begin with who we are. It begins with what our nervous systems learned when no one was explaining things. Long before we chose values or careers or aesthetics, our bodies made decisions. About closeness. About conflict. About rest. Some people carry home in their chests — expansive, warm, forgiving. Others, like me, carry it in our shoulders, lifted slightly as if bracing for impact. Not dramatic enough to be noticed. Not relaxed enough to forget. This is what psychologists call regulation. Or dysregulation. Or trauma, depending on who is speaking and how clinical the room feels. But in lived reality, it’s simpler and more intimate than terminology allows. It’s the difference between entering a space and feeling your breath drop into your belly — or hovering somewhere near your throat, unsure. I used to think I was bad at settling down. Bad at belonging. Bad at staying. But the truth is more precise: my body never learned that staying was safe. So it learned movement instead. It learned how to pack quickly, emotionally. How not to leave fingerprints on relationships. How to be present without being exposed. It learned to treat even good moments as temporary — not out of pessimism, but out of habit. This is where modern psychology meets identity. Not in labels, but in patterns. In the way we mistake survival strategies for personality traits. We say we are “independent,” when really, we learned early that asking for help did not always end well. We say we are “low-maintenance,” when in truth, we learned not to need too much out loud. And somewhere along the way, we start believing these adaptations are who we are — not what happened to us. Home, then, becomes something we try to build externally. A relationship. A city. A routine. We move apartments hoping the next set of windows will finally teach our bodies to exhale. We curate spaces with plants and soft lighting, hoping comfort will arrive through design. Sometimes it does. Briefly. But the body remembers faster than the mind forgets. It remembers raised voices, even when none are present. It remembers abandonment, even in crowded rooms. It remembers inconsistency like a native language. And until it is taught something new — gently, repeatedly — it will continue to act as if danger is just around the corner. Healing, I’ve learned, is not about finding the right place to live. It’s about retraining the nervous system to believe that safety can exist without conditions. This is slow work. It looks like learning to unclench your jaw without being prompted. Like noticing when your shoulders rise — and choosing to lower them, even if nothing obvious is wrong. Like letting good moments stay good, instead of scanning them for exit signs. It is the quiet revolution of teaching your body that rest does not require permission. I am still learning this language. Still negotiating with a system that kept me alive when it had to, and doesn’t yet trust that it can stand down. I thank it now, instead of resenting it. I tell it we are no longer where we once were. I tell it, sometimes out loud, that this moment is safe. Home, I am discovering, is not a destination. It is a sensation. It is the moment your breath deepens without effort. The moment your shoulders drop without instruction. The moment your body stops asking, “What’s about to happen?” and starts saying, “I am here.” And maybe one day, I won’t have to carry home in my shoulders anymore. But until then, I hold them gently. Because they’ve been holding me for a very long time.
By Jhon smithabout a month ago in Psyche
The Last Snowfall of Prague
Prague, winter 2023. Snow blanketed the Charles Bridge, dusting Gothic spires like powdered sugar. For Lena, a Czech artist, the Vltava River whispered secrets – of old kings, of revolutions, of love lost in cobblestone alleys. She’d grown up chasing shadows in the city’s veins – her grandfather Ondřej’s stories of musicians who’d played for emperors, poets who’d died for words.
By Jhon smithabout a month ago in Photography
Three Knocks Beneath the Sea
Silence has a texture under the sea. It isn’t empty—it breathes. It hums against the steel, curls into the corners, whispers in your skull until you start to hear your own blood. We were two miles beneath the surface when I heard it. Three knocks. Measured. Solid. Familiar. It reminded me of the way my grandpa used to knock on my door after making the long drive to see me. I sat up in my bunk, heart pounding so hard I felt it in my teeth. No one should have been awake except Reyes on night watch. The rest of the crew slept in their metal coffins, their breath feeding the recycled air system. The clock read 02:46. Three more knocks. Louder now. On my door. I stared at it—the trembling hinge, the echo traveling through the walls—and said, “Who’s there?” Nothing. Of course it was nothing. The embarrassment came fast, hot. Calling out to nothing. Just the deep, eternal hum of the Odyssey and the distant groan of the hull flexing against pressure that could crush us in a heartbeat. I stood, bare feet against cold metal, and opened the door. The corridor glowed dull red under the night lights. The air tasted of oil and salt. No one. Only three small wet circles on the door—like fingertips. I touched one. It was freezing. Reyes jumped when I entered the control room. “Jesus, Harper,” he said, clutching his chest. “What are you doing up?” “Someone knocked on my door.” He frowned. “No one’s moving around. Everyone’s accounted for.” “Then what did I hear?” He hesitated, then tapped the sonar display. “I’ve been getting something weird. A return echo—small. Moving along the hull.” The pulse slid across the screen. It wasn’t static. It shifted. “Could be current,” he said. “At two miles down?” He didn’t answer. A flicker. Then nothing. “I’m checking the observation chamber,” I said. “Harper—” But I was already walking. The chamber buzzed softly. The external camera showed nothing but blackness—endless, patient black. I leaned closer. My reflection hovered over the void, pale and unreal. Then something moved. A distortion. Like heat shimmering in air. I flicked on the floodlights. The hull burst into view, silver-gray and sweating condensation. Near the edge of the frame—there. A handprint. Pressed into the metal. I froze. And through the steel, unmistakable, I heard it. Knock. Knock. Knock. “Reyes!” He arrived breathless. “Listen,” I whispered. Three soft blows echoed through the ship, settling deep in my bones. “That’s impossible,” he said. “We’re two miles under.” The Captain woke everyone. Ten of us gathered in the mess, whispering theories—pressure shifts, hull expansion, sonar ghosts. No one mentioned the fact that we had all heard it. Porter squinted at the monitor. “Zoom in.” The feed magnified. Something shimmered against the hull, pulsing faintly. “It’s moving,” he said. The Captain ordered more light. The shimmer vanished. Then a dragging sound scraped across the steel. Knock. Knock. Knock. I had never seen fear spread so fast. These were people who had faced death without flinching. That night, none of us slept. At 6:00 a.m., I found Porter shivering in the mess. “You look like hell,” I said. He raised his hand. Three red circles marked his palm. “It knocked back,” he whispered. “From inside the pipes.” My stomach twisted. “Inside?” He nodded. “It’s in the sub.” I laughed. I don’t know why. A stupid, brittle sound—like this was all a prank. The look on his face snapped me back. “Maybe it was your echo,” I said. “Maybe.” Neither of us believed it. Two men disappeared the next night. No alarms. No breach. Just gone. Bunks empty. Boots still by the door. Reyes found a puddle of saltwater near the aft chamber. No leak above it. Three shallow finger dents pressed into the floor. “We’re surfacing,” the Captain said. The engines failed. Lights dimmed. Emergency red flooded the halls. Knock. Knock. Knock. Porter’s scanner pinged. “Something’s in the wall.” The steel bulged outward, slow as a breath. Then it split. No water came. Black vapor spilled out—alive, veined with faint light. A face pressed through it. Almost human. It raised a hand. Three knocks. Then laughter. My laughter. The bulkhead sealed. Silence returned. Later, the intercom crackled. “Harper,” Porter whispered. “It says you shouldn’t have turned on the lights.” The line went dead. We found him floating, eyes open, a shadow behind him shaped like a man. By morning, half the crew was gone. As we ascended, Reyes stared at the sonar. “It’s following us.” Two blips. Perfectly aligned. The knocks grew louder. Closer. Then the whisper came through every vent, every thought: Don’t open the door. I did. Blue light flooded in. Beautiful. Warm. Familiar. Like home. Like my grandpa’s knock. I laughed as the water filled my lungs. I laughed as the light faded. I laughed as I knocked three times on the outside of the submarine.
By Jhon smithabout a month ago in Horror
When Snow Teaches Time to Slow Down
The first true snowfall arrives without asking permission. Large white flakes drift downward in an unhurried rhythm, as if the sky itself has learned patience. I sit safely inside my home, wrapped in warmth, watching the world soften beyond the wide front window. The edges blur. The noise fades. Time loosens its grip and slows to match the gentle descent of snow.
By Jhon smithabout a month ago in Motivation
The Falcon Who Left the Cliffs
There was once a young peregrine falcon who believed the elders spoke too often and listened too little. They told her stories of the cliffs where they nested—how those gray stone walls had stood for thousands of years, shaped by wind and sea, yet strong enough to carry generation after generation of falcons. They spoke with reverence, as if the cliffs themselves were living elders. But the young falcon felt only discomfort.
By Jhon smithabout a month ago in Fiction
