As published in The Daily Tremor XXII/XII/MMXXV
Dearest Gentle Reader,
Our ELUSIVE AUTHOR was briefly detained this week.
By Silvio Veloce.
An unusually large amount of cinnamon was involved.
But more about that later.
Her detainment was not theatrical.
It was procedural.
Brief.
Contained.
The kind of intervention that prefers silence to spectacle and depends on compliance rather than force.
Eyewitnesses report that the NERO SANGUE mobster kingpin,
DON ANGOSCIA,
has since released her.
Not out of mercy. Out of recognition.
Even he understands the difference between containment and exile.
The trouble with large symbolic gestures is that they tend to distract from what is actually happening.
As warships set sail to reposition Warships For Peace for newer, easier-to-impress markets,
this development reached this desk via the
AVIAN INTELLIGENCE UNIT (AIU).
She was, of course, later observed on the cover of the latest Feminine-Fainting Weekly.
Latest Feminine-Fainting Weekly: HOW VERY DARE SHE!
Official press photograph. Mr D. Trumpet, owner of FFW.
This appears to have complicated the narrative. Naturally.
Why was she taken?
Because she speaks plainly.
Because she walks alone rather than keep company that requires performance, flattery, or collusion.
Because she refuses to lie by omission, and her body is already carrying too much for silence to be neutral.
Connection built on performance or palatability is not connection at all.
It is theatre, not truth.
And because moral rot sets her FND into a full fandango.
Thunderbolts and lightning. Very, very frightening.
Laugh with me now, reader. Deny it later if you must. We have cracked their code together.
Civility falters.
Rooms go quiet.
Those reliant on scripts become unsettled.
Exposure occurs.
This is not a breach of conduct. It serves a purpose.
Transparency filters out those who cannot tolerate reality.
It creates moments of sudden, brutal honesty.
It keeps one aligned when the body itself attempts a stealthy little fracture behind your back.
One is permitted to say:
βThis is awkward. It is also mine.β
And conclude, with commendable feral ferocity: Fuck FND.
Functional Neurological Disorder is often a messy journey with the self.
We will not tidy this.
We will not soften it.
We will not rebrand it as vulnerability done poorly.
Solitude is not always a choice of strength. Sometimes it is simply the absence of kindred company.
Not failure.
Not retreat.
Just life, lived without dilution.
Kindred connection is not earned.
It is not engineered.
It arrives by luck. By timing. By grace.
Until then, one lives. Fully. Honestly.
Alone, but not incomplete.
It merely disguises it while it does damage.β
Choosing no company over bad company is not antisocial.
It is the first act of integrity.
Keep your standards high.
Keep your self-compassion higher.
β The Editor-in-Chief
Dispatch from The Daily Tremor
Missed a dose of the subversive signal? Catch up on rogue remedies, sightings of the Elusive Author, and resistance dispatches too volatile for mainstream media…
