Homo Ignoramus

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  • The Final Grace for Broken Heart

    The Final Grace for Broken Heart

    The wind picks up the bunch of roses and scatters it among the clumps of heather like white stars against purple skies.

    Willa comes here every day for thirty years.

    She comes here when the heather sweeps to the horizon and then fades into stark russet. When dense mist suffocates the cliffs and later the buzzard pair rebuild their nest.

    She climbs the cliffs where no human has put a foot before, and asks, Have you seen my little boy? She faces the rain and wind and asks them, Do you remember Kevin?

    The cliffs, rain and wind live here for millennia. Deaf and dumb, and proud, they would not break their peaceful life.

    Back home, Willa does not lock the door. She has not locked it since that day, thirty years ago, when Kevin left home to see his grandmother.

    Come back for lunch, Kevin! Willa stands on the threshold and watch after him. Kevin blows her a kiss just before turning the corner.

    Willa lays the table for lunch. One hour passes. After two hours, she goes to her mother’s.

    Where is Kevin?

    Kevin never came here, her mother says with troubled eyes.

    Willa runs all around the village and asks every one, Have you seen Kevin? Have you seen my little boy?

    The police launch a rescue operation for him. Most villagers join in. Round the clock they search along the roads and through the moorlands.

    Where is Kevin? Willa asks the Chief Constable.

    The risk of hypothermia and exposure shortens Kevin chances. But we’re not giving up.

    When the heather turns hard and russet, and the northern winds blow harsh, the police announce they shift the rescue to recovery operation.

    Every day Willa lays the table for lunch, steps over the threshold and gazes at the corner where Kevin blew her a kiss. She walks around the village and out to the moorlands.

    On Sundays, Willa sits on the first pew and swallows every single word. Reverend Smith never forgets to ask the Heavenly Father to surround Kevin with angels and guard him in all his ways.

    On Ascension day the service concludes and congregation go home. The hubbub and footsteps die away and the peace beneath the cold stoned arch restores.

    Willa faces the wooden statue with dead eyes under the thorn crown, and still asks her question.

    Where is Kevin?

    The wooden eyes come to life and a tear rolls down the face, and another one. The lips stretch in a soothing smile and the words come to her.

    Jesus loves Kevin more than you. Come!

    The arms stretch out. The touch of their hands, delicate and warm, send ripples of solace through Willa’s body. Their blood coarse and hearts beat in natural synchrony. They embrace under the mantle and with a gentle push stream upwards. The arched ceiling above opens and the infinity stretches ahead.

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All rights reserved.

  • Man is a Wolf to a Man

    Man is a Wolf to a Man

    The snowflakes turn red, amber, green against the traffic lights. The people walk out in careful small steps. The cars snail on the boulevards. The pure virgin snow melts to muddy slush.

    The night club lights turn dim and music flattens to an inaudible track. Your high heels shake whether from the tequila or out of habit.

    Com’on you, the taxi stand is just there! Holly’s cheeks have turned deep red and her breath steams out.

    I’m ok. Steading your ancles, you look down at your feet and take a step at a time.

    Oh, look at that one, a new outfit! Aimee smiles at a mannequin behind a shop window.

    Three of you laugh and the peals of laughter cut through the drowsy city.

    The laughter cuts short. Holly’s eyes jump from you to Aimee and back to you.

    I better go, I’ll see you tomorrow, Holly says and her quick steps leave wide distorted hollows in the snow.

    Yeh, see you tomorrow, whispers Aimee and runs after Holly.

    A man’s head and silhouette loom on the shop window. Cropped hair, tattoos, wide shoulders. He breathes in your back. A deep heavy breath, like a predator’s after a long chaise. He bares teeth in a sneer. His eyes cross yours. The alpha male, you think.

    Cute, aren’t you? You girl or boy? Then comes the wolf whistle.

    Two younger men, maybe in their teens, approach. They each cast a look at you, a look of curiosity tinged with insolence, and stand behind him.

    ***
    Grey silhouettes emerge against the arch of the rising sun. The rays struggle to penetrate the thick forest canopy and the relentless curtains of snow. It has not stopped all night. Once down the snowflakes pile in pristine drifts against rocks and tree trunks.

    The wolves have roamed the forest for days. The alpha male gives a growl at the sight of the herd of elks in the distance. The wind blows the scent away. The snow muffles the steps. The twilight and trees hide the pack from the herd’s sight. Now the wolves will wait in quiet, patient, lethal ambush.

    The elks scrap the snow with hooves for food. The bull’s call of alarm comes an instant too late. The youngest elk rises his head only to see the herd darting away. He runs at the tail of the herd with the wolves closing the distance.

    The alpha male howls and leads the line. Two young males flank the elk and one of them jumps at him. The elk lowers his antlers and aims but fails to reach him. The alpha male bares his teeth and digs them into the elk’s throat. Blood trickle down his neck. The pool stains the virgin snow. The elk’s calls cut through the forest.

    Soon silence falls back.

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All rights reserved.

  • Love Beyond Dimensions and Time

    Love Beyond Dimensions and Time

    In my next life I will be a mermaid. I will sit on a rock at sunset and sing a love song. For I have never met you in this life.
    I have never known your face nor name
    but I am still waiting for you. I’ll create you with words, not with human words but a language of love
    some humans find hard to understand.
    I will keep my voice. I will not sell my soul. I will enchant the ship and crew.
    And you, be it a prince or a sailor, you have to sell the pair of human legs for a tail.
    I will take you down. Hold your hand tight swim away from the white crests down to the turquoise depths where the coral reefs shine in green and purple.
    Through the schools of fish, where the shipwrecks rest in peace,
    to the abyss unknown. There I will be head over tail for you.

    In my next life I will be an eagle. From ridges capped in snow and darkness I will soar to heights beyond human sight and mind.
    With eerie calls I will claim sovereignty over the heights.
    I will build a nest for you and me on the top of the world,
    where the stars are freer and brighter,
    in the sky of freedom, freedom a human can never have. I will call for you every spring, year after year.
    If you don’t come, I will circle above the mountain ridges and river valleys and sea shores.
    And I will wait for you in our nest gripped in white darkness and silence.
    There I will wait for your love, love that does not burn out nor hurts.

    In my next life I will be a sunflower. At day I will follow the sun. From dawn to zenith to dusk with one wide-open eye fringed by lashes of gold.
    At night, before I bend my head to sleep, I will reach out in the darkness to touch you in care and love.
    If you are not there,
    if you have died from drought or withered in blight,
    my petals will fall and heart will break.
    But I will not break my promise.
    For sunflowers’ smiles are not made for frost, nor our hearts are made of stone.
    I will ask the birds and winds to spread the seeds across the breadth of all land. There I will meet you, golden and radiant and loyal.

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All rights reserved.

  • Out of the Box, Jack Jumps up

    Out of the Box, Jack Jumps up

    The laughter comes from a box in the farthest corner of the attic. Starts as a wail cutting through cob webs, dust and fug, and breaks in sharp low-pitched cackles. The floor creaks with each step Brian makes. A plank snaps and his foot sinks down to the ancle. He slumps to the floor and waits for it to stop. Crawling around the clutter, he reaches the box.

    The rusty crank squeaks and turns empty. On the second try, the box opens and Jack jumps out. The spring pops up and stretches sideways, almost touching the floor. The paint on one eye has peeled off. The other eye looks alive, sinister and arrogant, yet full of pain.


    Jack is a present for Brian’s seventh birth day. Grandmother gives him the box, the hugest present he has had.

    Come on, Brian, open it.

    What is it, Grandma? He tears the wrapping paper.

    With a smooth turn of the crank, the box opens and Jack jumps out. He says Hello! and laughs. Brian starts crying and throws the box at Mother’s lap.

    Oh Brian, I thought you’ll like him. Look at his bright eyes, and what a smile he has! Grandmother says and her smile dissolves in a sigh.

    Of course, he’ll…he just needs more time, says Mother.

    Jack lives lonely and forgotten on the top book shelf. In the years, even Mother gives up on dusting the box. She finds it when she is clearing Brian’s old books, and packing his belongings to go to university.

    Take Jack with you…from your grandmother, remember? Mother holds the box and looks at it with warm eyes.

    Don’t be silly, Mum.


    Now he thinks of Mother waiting for his calls and texts, shorter in time, occasional and unpredictable, with his books and cloths, her only companion. The roof leaks or the garden fence falls. Ok, Mum, I’ll come next weekend. He never does. With the land attached to the house, one day he will renovate and sell it, and pay off his debts.

    Brian blows off the dust and puts the box on the back seat. The city lights criss-cross the horizon when his phone starts ringing. He takes it out of his breast pocket and drops it. The car veers off the road and hits a tree. The windscreen shatters into a myriad of splinters.

    Jack jumps out of the box and whispers, babbles and cackles in Brian’s back. The voice rises, falls and dies, only to comes back louder and more malevolent any time.

    Once back home, Brian does what Mother did – puts Jack on the highest book shelf. Honestly, he will repair him one day. That one day never comes and Jack goes to a charity shop. Nor Brian renovates the house. The price for it has fallen short of paying off his debts.

    The 9th of September 2024. Brian sits in front of the telly with a can of beer. He does not know what is the date but will remembers it better than his birthday.

    They cut off the sport news. A jack-in-the-box pops on the screen.

    That is my Jack, no…it can’t be him, Brian whispers.

    Good evening,

    We interrupt the scheduled programme with a breaking news that sends shockwaves through the whole world tonight. A diamond has been found in a jack-in-the-box that has been donated to a charity shop. A claim is made that this is the Eye of the World, the purest and biggest diamond ever found and lost more than a century ago.

    Now, back to the sports.

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All rights reserved.

  • If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking. On Emily Dickinson.

    If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking. On Emily Dickinson.

    The raven appears from the fields, a dark silhouette against the dawn, and circles above the village. The first day no one sees or hears him. On the second day he wakes the village with an eerie call and people follow him with troubled eyes. On the third day he lights on the hill house’s chimney and calls again, pronouncing he will not leave.

    The house does not stir. No one lights up the hearth nor opens the curtains. No one sits at the desk in the corner and writes.

    This corner is Emily’s writing space. The desk with the ink pot and quill still in it, and the yesterday notebook open on the top. I’ll keep it open, I’m busy writing, she said. The shelf with her books, with their sight and smell, and treasure in them. My books keep me sane in this insane world, she wrote. The mahogany locker, with the floral hand-carved doors, where she keeps all her notebooks

    In the opposite corner, Emily lies in bed, pale and frail. Her right hand protrudes out of the quilt with fingers half-folded as if ready to hold her pen, the other hand rests on her chest.

    Lavinia and Susan have spent the night beside her, keeping vigil.

    Are you wake, Emily? Lavinia leans over and adjust the pillows under Emily’s head.

    Emily’s eyelids quiver but she does not open her eyes. She speaks and Lavinia leans over to hear her.

    I’m nobody. Who are you? says Emily.

    I’m Lavinia, your sister. Emily, don’t you recognise me, I’m your sister.

    Lavinia adjust the pillow under Emily’s head and sits on her chair. She wipes her eyes and whispers to herself, She doesn’t recognise me.

    Look at her hand, says Susan, I think she wants us to open the window. Yes, she hardly leaves the house but loves keeping it open to listen to the bird song.

    Lavinia opens the window and takes a long look across the fields.

    Bird song is the sweetest sound in springtime, she says, but the saddest noise on a morning like this. It can break a human heart as quick as a spear.

    open the window for some birds are not made to live in a cage to collect crump and struggle for worldly living some birds were born for freedom open the window let me fly away do not to shut me up in this world some birds sing the tune of hope sing the tune without words hope is the thing I take with me where ever I go in the open house with everlasting windows

    The fresh air turns the leaves of the open notebook. Lavinia takes and touches it.

    That’s what Emily has written lately. She has touched those pages and the pen, her hand has moved along those lines. Do you want me to read it, Susan?

    If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool the pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

She breaks down at the end of the first line. After a minute, she takes a breath and reads the poem in a quiet but firm voice.

Do you think people have to read her poems?

I don't know, Susan, Emily asked me to burn all her letters. I know where Emily keeps the key, says Lavinia looking at the locker.


because I could not stop for Death he kindly stopped for me he comes through the window quietly gently we sit in the carriage we ride over the school with my childhood memories over the fields with the whisper of grain over the church with the silence of eternity I leave behind the vain and idle the storm-troubled sphere sun and moon the unknown is my new world with no room for fear for no coward soul is mine I see Heaven shines where Thy spirit animates eternal years hold infinity exist in Immortality

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All right reserved

  • The Treaty of the Great Feline War

    The Treaty of the Great Feline War

    Lucy, darling, what’s the matter?

    Even Ginger senses the storm. Hissing, she arches her back and prepares to jump on Lucy’s lap. Maybe on her face. I stroke Ginger’s back a few times, gently and slowly. She taps my hand with her tail, telling me she will keep an eye on me, and disappears in her corner.

    I couldn’t help myself smirking at the mental picture of Lucy’s morning. Her face bears traces of the yesterday make-up. Not a piece of jewellery. The buttons of her blouse are done askew so one corner dangles.

    Lucy sinks in the soft chair across the coffee table with a deep sigh. Even seated, her shoulders tower a foot above mine. She crosses her legs with quite power and whams a book on the table.

    I‘ll tell you what! This thing! Not even a hundred pages. Why the rainbow on the cover anyway? Not a single story about rainbows…

    Now, before I proceed with the melodrama, I should describe the book. Not even a hundred pages, that’s right, but I’ve a short story published in it. Some readers choose the book by its cover and I had to argue long and hard over that rainbow. The publisher said it dazzles the readers. Absurd. More important are the names.

    You listening to me? Lucy’s fingers run through the pages. She wets her right pointer with the tip of her tongue, and finally, finds the page where she has scribbled a star with a red pen. Her left hand beats in the air with every word.

    Her husband is strong and handsome. His life-changing eyes, and the blue behind those long lashes could be compared only to god’s. He is strong and handsome like the statue of David by Jonathan Swift.

    Now Lucy stops reading, wipes her eyes with a theatrical jest and say, I’ve heard about a writer with that name who lived long time ago, surely that was the name, but a sculptor… Lucy rolls her eyes and shakes a head. Her hair, black and wavy, springs up and down as her shoulders shake with laughter.

    Good she can’t read my mind. Now I know Jonathan Swift wasn’t a sculptor but didn’t know it then. Has a talented writer got time for triviality? Editors and proof readers! It’s just a silly typo that will be corrected in the second edition.

    Don’t deny it! That’s my husband you meant? I’m your best friend! Oh, my god, how it hurts! Lucy repeats the last phrase a couple more times. Her hand, with wide open fingers, drums on her chest.

    Lucy, of course it’s not David, darling…I wouldn’t do that to you.

    The yesterday mascara is running down her cheeks. I stretch my hand across the coffee table with a box of tissues. Lucy closes the book with a thud. She hides her face in her cupped hands, and a long wail makes its way through the sobs.

    I have never thought of her as my best friend. Anyone who share the village gossips, which I use as writing prompts and ideas, qualifies as my best friend.

    Lucy, darling, do you want a cuppa?

    No, don’t want a cuppa, and I don’t want to live in this village anymore…

    Lucy and David have moved in the village five years ago. He is some property developer or other, preoccupied with affairs, business and ladies. Tales of old wives, I don’t believe it.

    She popped to mine the very next day and had a cuppa. In the years, I have improved with her family tree. Honestly, I’m more interested in David’s. Names, events, even some photos, it all helps and inspires. I have had my hand in sketching him. Just close my eyes and he is all there. I have asked him to mine for a cuppa, and he pops in whenever Lucy hits the shops, of course.

    Some people don’t understand that stories have nothing to do with real names or events. They can’t tell fact from fiction. A while ago I’ve written a story about a cat. I have tried to explain to the neighbours it is not about their cat. Has there only one black cat on the world with a gingery spot between eyes? But no, they could not understand that and left the village.

    Ginger’s too old for such a long journey, they said, would you mind taking care after her. You must love cats, with that story of yours.’

    And so, I have Ginger.

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All rights reserved.

  • The Wonderful Journey Back Home

    The Wonderful Journey Back Home

    Her childhood home is an ordinary brick-and-mortar house, one of the many boxes of matches scattered on the outskirts of town. The white walls have turned dirty-grey and the corners weathered in time. The smallest house in town, but the most famous one, for the few lime trees that grow in front of it.

    The street has waited for tarmac almost a decade and fresh potholes have claimed their place after the first snow.

    The childhood passed chasing butterflies in the garden instead of doing her homework, and gazing at the stars well past her bed time.

    Home is where your heart is, they say. She has left the house and followed her heart to find a home and been looking for the right place ever since.

    She has lived in a megapolis with the widest of boulevards and the most blazing neon lights. A place of wealth and indulgence, of an endless feast. She has moved to a sleepy village. It turns out that the neighbours’ walls have ears. Silence entombs her like an open prison.

    She has lived in a wooden cabin on the finest of golden beaches with sunbathed palms but the sun scorched her. Like a mermaid, she wishes to hide under the turquoise waves but the expanse would drowned her.

    She has lived on the highest of snow cupped peaks where neither a snow leopard can climb nor a vulture can fly over. The best place to gaze at the stars it is, and to leave behind the dark world. But the beauty blinds her and the frost bites her flesh.

    Like a bird on the wing, she soar in the sky across borders to bridge the separate parts of her life.

    Now, she has grown old. She goes back to the small house with the lime trees. One life to realise where her heart has always been.

    They have knocked it down to make room for a modern block of flats. A cafe, made of glass and steel, sits on the corner. The huge TV screen on the wall hums as an artificial heart. She has dinner and stare at the piles of rubble. Most of the lime trees are cut off. The trunks, hollow and rotten, jut up. With the car engines revving and horn honking, the evening feels ultramodern.

    She leaves the cafe at sun set. Could she see any stars here with all the light pollution? she wonders and gazes up. A car hits her. The driver runs. A crowd gathers at the scene for about half an hour. The face keeps the wonder in the eyes.

    As the driver turns to be a young lad, a son of a very important person, and nobody claims the body, the event is deemed an act of God.

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All rights reserved.

  • Let There be Dark: the Apocrypha of the Ultimate Chaos.

    Let There be Dark: the Apocrypha of the Ultimate Chaos.

    God created the earth from chaos, for five days created them all: light and dark, sun and planets, plants and animals. On the sixth day God performed their supreme act. They created the human by their own image.

    God followed the celestial pattern and built the Garden of Eden, and appointed Adam and Eve as workers in the Garden and protectors of nature and all living creatures. Above all, as spiritual pastors to the humankind.

    Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden and had it all. Rivers of milk and honey run through the garden. Every tree good to look and eat grew there. The air brimmed with eternal life and bliss.

    And God said it plain to them. Don’t eat the fruit from the tree in the middle of the Garden!

    For God held the autonomous power over the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

    But Eve listened to the Serpent’s evil words and ate the Forbidden Fruit, and tempted Adam into committing the sin too. By eating it, they profane the divine decree, corrupt the natural world and human nature. In other words, they rebelled against God and grasped the opportunity to make their own rules of what is good or evil.

    Now the humankind had the power of choice. But the choice went together with responsibility.

    Why did humans (and still do) choose the sin and evil over the virtue and good?

    Did they not know what things God detests?

    Murder, yet Cain killed his brother, Abel, out of anger and jealousy.

    An adultery, yet David lust for Bathsheba and killed her husband.

    Violence, yet Salome asked for John the Baptist’s head for revenge.

    Greed, yet Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

    Deceit, yet Jacob deceived his dying father, Isaac, into giving him the first-born blessing.

    Let us make a short digression. Nowadays, humans covet not only the neighbours’ land, but also the space inhabited by aliens. Still wage wars, for reasons known to the autocrat and their coterie, and shed innocent blood. It sounds like comparing apples to oranges, but certain people have more money than some nations in the world. It is legal. What is wrong with that then? And we claim to be wise but glorify and follow them. Now, go back to those times.

    God saw it was not good.

    Signs came to the humankind of the earth’s end times. Love grew cold, human stood against human, and nation against nation.

    The Lamb of God opened the Seals.

    The angels blew the trumpets.

    God poured out the bowls of their wrath.

    And all the people, kings with worldly treasures and shepherds with their cattle, all proud and greedy, run to mountains for peace and safety and pray, Hide us from the divine wrath!

    But human breath turned cold and the body crumbled like a weathered statue. It turned back to its beginning.

    Birds fly too high in the sky, and fish swim too deep in the sea, never to appear again.

    The sun becomes as dark as black cloth, and the moon as red as blood. Stars of heaven fell to the earth like figs shaken by a mighty wind.

    The earth shook and trembled, and every mountain and island moved out of its place.

    Firmament and all the visible expanse receded to a rolled-up scroll.

    Light and dark blend in the primordial nonbeing. Day and night grew timeless. All sank into chaos.

    God said, Let there be dark.

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All rights reserved.

  • The Sylvan Lady of the Old House

    The Sylvan Lady of the Old House

    Good morning! Lonnie says and peeps through the open window to the back garden. The oak tree’s breath, soft and green, blends with birds’ song. The morning zephyr nips her face and strokes her hair.

    A pair of wood warblers circles above the oak. One perches on the fence and calls in vigorous sounds. The second one lights next to it, and a second later they sing in a harmonious duo.

    Lonnie listens and gazes at them hop and gather straws, grass and moss, and disappear among the oak’s branches.

    It’s a lovely morning, isn’t? she says to the open window.

    The oak tree lives in the neighbour’s garden. Since Lonnie has moved here with her family, she has been watching him grow tall, stalwart and proud. He has become the patron of the birds in the village. In spring, if a pair of birds wants to nest and lay eggs, they will come to him. In winter, if they need a shelter, they will come to him.

    This oak tree of yours is the best thing in the village, Lonnie says any time she talks to John.

    They both look up. Lonnie with a mouth open in reverence and John with a chest puffed out. He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his eyes.

    Lonnie is tiny lady in her early seventies. She has shrunk and hunched like a dead twig with age. But once she faces the oak through the window, and breathes in the vim and vigour of the morning, her thirst is quenched and appetite is satiated. Lonnie grows younger and is ready for her day.

    Until that one fine day when a harsh and loud noise grates on her ear and drowns the birds chirps. Wher-wher-wher shrills over the village. Lonnie stares through the window. In John’s garden, a man in bright lime jacket and protective helmet holds a circular saw. He pulls the string. The saw coughs and stops. He pulls the string again and it resumes with a fresh power.

    She rushes out in the garden and on seeing her head over the fence, John smiles.

    Beautiful day! Perfect for gardening.

    John, what are you doing!?

    Grown very big and too close to the house. Gonna cut it down.

    Trim him! think of the birds… the pride of your family…you can’t cut him down!

    The roar of the saw hits her in the fore head. Splinters fly over and reach her face. Lonnie tries to protect her eyes with a hand, and chokes in dust and tears.

    Back in her kitchen Lonnie shuts the window. Her heart beats like a bird in a snare. Ripples of pain creep over her and swell to sharp and frantic waves.

    The sound stops. The two men move back and watch the oak fall. John lifts his thumb up, Good work! she reads on his lips.

    The oak heaves, leans and hits the ground. The branches swish and crack. The earth shakes. The sun hides behind dreary clouds and a storm lashes the land. The fallen oak tree’s branches and leaves riot against the storm but eventually give in and drown in mud and dirt.

    Lonnie leans on the window’s frame and gapes ahead. She doesn’t know for how long. A minute or an hour or the whole day. The window distorts the view of the garden, the whole world. No one to gaze at or talk to. No birds to listen to. All she hears is the damn road traffic.

    Lonnie’s mind drifts decades back.

    Mummy, look! Rosie, her daughter, points at a bird. She screams and giggles so loud that the whole flock of birds flee the oak tree in panic.

    Rosie, be quite please! and Lonnie put a hand around her ear like a funnel.

    Bryan whispers, Hush! and put a finger to his lips.

    Where is the bird, Mummy, where? Rosie’s eyes grow wide in wonder. Where? she chirps, and looks up and searches for it. Her eyes jump from the sky to the oak tree to the fence. The birds fly back and hide deep in the oak tree crown and resume their song as if in respond to Rosie’s chirps.

    Seasons and years pass. Rosie has left for her university and Bryan for another woman.

    Lonnie lives in front of the window. Keeps it open all year round. Sun, rain, frost. From the good morning to the good night. From the first sun rays breaking through the oak branches to the last ones setting for the night.

    The first warm rays of the next spring bring the pair of the wood warbles back to the garden. They wander for a few days and fly away. Only if the oak was here! An idea strikes her. How hasn’t she thought about it before, Lonnie thinks.

    What’s this sapling here, never seen such a thing before? Lonnie asks the girl in the garden centre.

    I don’t know but I like it.

    Back home Lonnie chooses the sunniest spot in the garden. She digs a whole and places the sapling in. Every morning she touches its slender stalk and water it.

    Good morning! You’re growing, aren’t you? I know you are.

    The branches grow strong and tall, spread over the house roof and arch to the ground. They enter it and become roots and branch up and out again. In a few years the house nestles in a wooden lattice, a dome of verdure and serenity. The roof covers in moss and ivy creeps up the walls.

    John has tried one day to find a way to the front door but turned back. The roots and branches tie and wave in such a thick mass that even the sun cannot penetrate.

    The wood warbles come and find the way and build a nest.

    Good morning! says Lonnie through the open window. Roots and branches and leaves whisper in answer.

    © 2026 Homo Ignoramus. All rights reserved.

  • The Hell Road is Paved with Good Intentions

    The Hell Road is Paved with Good Intentions

    You set off before dawn, in the hour of deep velvet and blue,
    before the sun declares just another day. The childhood house in the midst of oak trees passes out of sight and
    the beauty of April dies in smoke and speed.
    The road bends and turns.
    You are a stranger here, on that faraway road.

    The sun goes beyond its zenith and the rays slant in crimson.
    No signs for your destination. The road comes to a dead end.
    A gate tall and black, an intricate lattice like a spider web, looms.

    A tall creature in black attire stands behind you and whispers in sickly-sweet voice.
    You can open this gate, you are the Chosen One.

    You stretch a hand but jerk it away in pain. The handle burns your fingers.

    He giggles and opens the gate.

    In the darkest of nights, He came and sat across the table from you on the empty chair. The empty chair you kept for her only.

    He faced you with his all-knowing eye, not bothered with your good intentions. He pointed a bony finger at you and
    spoke in words straight and simple.

    You are the Chosen One, chosen to pave the Road to Hell.

    You lowered your eyes and hunched your shoulders.
    It is a mortal sin for a human to pave that road, you said.

    Blend the mixture and mould it, he said,
    smooth the pavers over with your art and skill, and kind word,
    put them down, one next to another, and wash your hands.
    I promise you the road will pave itself.

    He left in an instant, in silence, with a candid smile.

    He struck a memory, a memory you ache to throw away.
    You destined to make her happy. Since childhood, she spent long summers at the house in the midst of oak trees.
    You gave her a ring. You looked at each other with smitten eyes.
    Till death do us part, so you two pledged.

    Yet, you sold her love and trust. You sold her soul for one cold night.

    You talked. That’s what you made me do, your voice rang in the heat of the moment. You bought roses but they withered in waiting for the perfect moment.

    Now you have that gate to face.
    He comes from behind you and opens the gate.
    With a snap of a finger, He sets the horizon on fire.
    Welcome to my home, he says, just follow the road and you will reach your destination.

    You walk downwards on the pavers covered in earth and dust and ashes. The road you have paved turns coarse and ruthless to your bare feet.

    Tell her that I…please, tell her…

    Smoke sticks to the tongue. The body fights the heat.

    He closes the gate.

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