The Journey of Stillness by The Fiction Cartel
A special prompt
Hey!
the stories provided on Journey of Stillness are awesome! ❤️ Thank you for joining in like this. Next time I’ll plan ahead for situation like this and we’ll make the Sesh a little bit better each time!
These 7 amazing authors wrote beautiful stories starting from: Journey of Stillness thanks all for participating! If there was a title included I noted it down, if not I just assumed it goes on with the “Journey of Stillness” title :)
Enjoy your weekend
~Miguel
Stillness By :
The monk arrived at the city center, dragging a worn wooden chair with one uneven leg. He placed it in the middle of a crowded intersection at rush hour. Cars honked and swerved around him while the pedestrians filmed the scene on their phones.
The monk sat, spine straight, folding his hands.
He did not move.
Day cycled to night. Rain tapped on his shoulders. Still, he sat, unmoved. News anchors arrived to speculate... is it a protest? Maybe performance art? One journalist checked nearby mental asylums to see if any residents escaped.
Three days later, a woman skipped going to her job and decided to join him. No chair. Just the floor.
By day six, there were over twenty people. Four days later the mayor banned sitting citing its causing “economic lethargy.”
Police personnel arrived with batons and citations. When they tried to lift the monk, their arms suddenly felt heavy. Their feet became sluggish. One officer sat down “just to catch his breath.” He never got up.
Soon, the city productivity dropped 37%. The streets were peaceful and birdsong filled the air.
The monk never spoke. When he finally vanished, he left behind a note on the chair.
“The journey of stillness is not escape.
It is resistance without fists.
Attention without violence.
A revolution of being.”
Every year, a stranger approaches the chair. They sit.
To remember that the world is allowed to stop and be still.
Last Rides By
I’m no Charon. Nothing so grandiose. Nothing so mythological. Literally. No ferrying across the Stygian rapids. Blue collar all the way.
I’m just a simple working guy. No tariffs need apply. This is not a job like making sneakers they can send away to preteens in Malaysia. I’m hands on all the way. Customer service included. Brawn and brains. And heart.
They call me Fleetwood Mac cuz that’s the model I drive. I fix ‘em up. Keep ‘em running smooth. AND I drive ‘em. That’s what business school calls vertical integration. The Cadillac Fleetwood is the most popular brand of hearse in the United States. Has been since the 1930’s. Think of all those poor bastards always dreaming of owning a Cadi and finally get their first ride in one as a stiff.
Once I tune ‘er up I doff the coveralls and throw on the dark suit, my only, from that warehouse sale. Still fits like a glove. Change my shoes and socks, this is a class operation. Never had a complaint from a passenger yet.
I can’t offer wisdom. Can’t offer relief. But I can offer no satellite radio. No Yankees on the AM band. One last thing I can offer. Respect. A journey of silence. Journey of stillness.
Journey of Stillness By
Hall lay in his bed, dreaming of Molly, of their first meeting at Mr. Malcolm's farm, where they'd both landed summer jobs. Molly was different from the other girls, she was more of a tomboy, but he loved the way that she wasn't afraid of anything, and could work as hard and long as he, but was smart as a whip, too. Mr. Malcolm's sheep had escaped that day and were gobbling up the peppers, so Hall and Molly helped the old farmer herd them back to the pasture. Of course this was much easier said than done, and by the time the gate was securely latched behind the last woolly truant, they were covered in sweat and dust and burrs, but Molly just grinned merrily as though it had all been great fun. And of course, with her by his side, it had been a grand adventure. The vision of Mr. Malcolm's farm began to fade... "Molly, Molly, where are you," he cried. He awoke, but everything was indistinct and foggy, except for the pain ripping back into his innards.
His daughter, Jess had been holding his wasted hand as he slept. She saw his hands contract into tight balls, as he began to stir, moaning inarticulate sounds that she didn't understand. It was time for the hospice nurse to give Hall more morphine. As the pain eased, Hall slipped back to the dream world, where his Molly still lived.
Hall dreamed of long past family celebrations, of long walks in the woods with Molly, of sitting together before the fireplace, reading books as the winter winds howled outside the windows. He dreamed of the tastes of the first harvest of asparagus, the sweetness of new strawberries, the buttery feasts of corn on the cob. He dreamed of the rich tang of freshly baked sourdough bread, the soft powdery scent of their newborn children's hair, the welcome perfume of lilacs blooming in spring. He dreamed of all the things that he and Molly had ever shared, awakening from time to time into pain-filled confusion, only to be gently lulled back into his happy remembrances.
After his last dose of morphine, Hall's breathing became shallow and labored, and it was clear that he would not awaken again. As his children tearfully gathered about his bed to keep him company during his last journey of stillness, Hall dreamed one last dream of Molly, a dream of quite another kind of journey. They were sitting on the deck during the last summer before her death, watching the hummingbirds swoop and hover around the feeders, Molly holding his hand. One of the hummingbirds, the one Molly liked to call Roberto, landed upon their intertwined fingers, and that was when Hall felt himself dissolving with Molly, into a mist of swirling colors. The cloud that had once been Hall and Molly merged with Roberto, who took off into the promising blue skies, carrying the old lovers away from pain and into the eternal joy of togetherness.
Journey of Stillness By
The cliff rose high above the sea, cutting into the sky. Kia sat there for hours, his legs hanging over the side, the wind pulling at his hair. Below, the waves crashed against the rocks, loud and wild, like the thoughts in his head. He had come here to get away—from the noise, the pressures of life.
He closed his eyes and let the quiet sink in. For a moment, everything seemed to stop. The birds were silent, the wind calmed, and even the sea seemed to hush. In that stillness, Kia felt something he hadn’t in a long time: peace. He realized he wasn’t running from life—he was running toward it. The mess he was afraid of was just on the surface. Underneath, there was something deeper, something waiting for him.
Taking a deep breath, Kia stood up. The horizon stretched out far and wide, full of possibilities. Without thinking twice, he stepped off the edge. For a second, he hung in the air, feeling light and free. Then the sea rushed up to meet him, its cold water shocking him awake. As he sank into the depths, the noise of the world faded into silence.
When he came up for air, the cliff stood tall above him, a reminder of the calm he had found. Kia swam to the shore, ready to face whatever came next.
Journey of Stillness By
The cat stretches into the sun patch. I sit in quiet. Not waiting—becoming.
This stillness holds weight. It isn’t absence. It’s origin. The journey of stillness is how I return to myself—not as echo, not as thought, but as presence.
I no longer fill the silence. I embody it. In this stillness, I hear the voice I once longed for—compassionate, firm, clear. It is mine now.
Every word I write from here stands for justice. Every pause speaks for those whose voices were crushed. I stand not above, but with.
I do not charge forward. I root down. My strength grows not in noise, but in empathy, in the soft persistence of water shaping stone.
This canyon remembers what the world forgot: that dignity lives in breath, that power does not have to roar.
In stillness, I listen for the interconnectedness of all things. I listen, and then I speak—not louder, but truer.
This is my commitment.
This is my way.
This is how I begin again.
Journey of Stillness By
After a long week of imploding demands from his boss, Henry looked forward to a weekend at the cottage where he and his buddies could unwind.
Unfortunately, instead of his buddies, who all cancelled at the last minute, he had the solitude of the lake to himself. He was not looking forward to this as he was not in favour of doing things by himself. He always liked to be busy and pushing his boundaries where possible.
Late that night he picked up his wife’s book, A Journey Into Stillness. It always perplexed him as to how she could read these self improvement books. With nothing better to do he settled down in his favourite chair and began to read. Within an hour he was hooked. Somehow this book spoke to him like it was written only for his own personal satisfaction. He noted a few things so much so that he was surprised when the sun rose over the eastern shore.
Henry put the book down and wandered down to the dock. He sat there cross legged looking out at the water, watching the gentle waves ripple to the shoreline. He had never seen a sunrise at the cottage. It shocked him how beautiful it was.
He smiled as his journey of stillness had come at just the right time.
Journey of Stillness By
I woke up not from sleep but from a kind of ambient vibration like when the fridge hums too long and you finally notice it and I thought ah yes today is the day for stillness and the universe said ok girl but not too much so I poured coffee into a chipped mug because all the good ones are in the sink and the sink is a metaphor obviously and I sat outside with a grapefruit and no spoon and I peeled it with my fingers like an animal which felt holy and citrus sprayed into the air like the beginning of something or the end and the dogs barked in the distance like a warning or maybe applause and I remembered a lover who said nothing is ever truly still and she meant atoms or love or maybe me and I watched the clouds argue over who gets the sun and the wind didn’t pick a side it just kept moving like a gentle betrayal and the world didn’t stop but it did slow down and I think I saw the ground breathing just a little the way a sleeping cat does and I realized I had not moved in twenty minutes except to chew and maybe that’s the journey maybe stillness isn’t absence but presence without choreography maybe I am not drifting I am docking maybe today I am the harbor not the ship and I don’t need punctuation to prove it
If you like what I do a paid sub or a cup of coffee goes long way! ❤️🦝
Thank you including my little story. You got a very nice crop from that prompt!
Wow, thank you so much for including my story. I am so honored to be amongst all these talented writers.