Magus West

A Short Story

A tale about the maybe that never had to end, and the man who chose it over the truth. —————

I don't know when I started coming here.

That's not really true.

I know when.

I just don't remember how it became every week.

The same day. The same hour. The same spot.

I suppose the body finds its way and I stopped asking.

The lake looks different today.

The water is a flat, pale grey, like the colour of something left out too long.

Small waves push toward the bank and lose their shape before they arrive.

The trees lean into the water at the edge, half in, half standing, like they tried to leave once and stopped.

I watch them for a while.

Maybe it's always been this way.

Maybe I only noticed today.

I don’t know.

—

The photograph is in my hand.

I don’t remember taking it out.

A picture of a painting.

A lake.

This lake.

Its edges are worn, colours fading, but the light is still there.

Blue pressing into green, the white opening in the sky, and the water so still it doesn't look like water.

It looks like the world has been turned over and placed beneath itself.

Sky below sky. Trees beneath trees. Clouds floating in both directions.

It doesn't look like somewhere a person found.

More like a promise someone carried so long they forgot who it was for.

I lean back and wait.

Because soon, the light will change.

The air will go still. Then the trees. Then the water.

And for ten minutes, just ten minutes in this entire week, the world will finally look the way it should.

Like the painting. Like the photograph.

But it will pass like a breath that nobody caught.

—

She took this picture at a gallery once.

I remember that day. Not the whole of it.

Just fragments.

The way she fixed my hair when it was out of place. The way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. The way she leaned against me when she laughed.

Small things.

Nothing anyone else would notice.

We were just walking through. Talking about something.

I’m not sure about what.

But I remember how she stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes looking past me, and something in her went quiet.

She rarely reacted that way.

I followed where she was looking.

A small canvas on the wall, tucked between two pillars, like it wasn't asking to be noticed.

This painting. This lake.

We just stood there. Neither of us spoke. I don't think either of us remembered to breathe.

Like we recognised a place before it had a name.

I don't remember who moved closer.

Maybe we both did.

The warmth of her arm against mine. The brush of her sleeve. And I thought…

I don't know what I thought.

I just didn't want to move.

Then she turned.

Close enough now I could feel her breath. The scent of her shampoo.

I thought she would step back.

She always does.

But she didn't.

She stayed.

And she smiled.

—

I still feel it sometimes.

That moment.

That smile.

I don't know why it stayed with me.

It was so long ago.

I can't remember what she looked like anymore.

—

I turn the photograph over.

Her handwriting sits lightly now, softer than it was.

“I don't know where this place is, or if it exists, but we will find it someday.”

Someday.

I press my fingers against the words without deciding to, as if pressure might hold them where they are.

It never does.

—

Keep reading "Until The Lake Changes" on the blog. Link below:

New short fiction or poem, twice a month. Follow for the next one.

O Lord who cursed this broken soul with crowns of iron, thorns of gold, I wrote in blood, I bore the wine, yet nothing in this wound was mine.

—

Excerpt from my poem, The Ember Light A lament for the little light that stayed, and all it could not save.

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"As long as it stands, I will keep coming back. Because as long as it exists, hope exists. Hope says maybe. Hope says not yet. Hope says come back once more. But none of it ever comes true. It only teaches the wound how to keep waiting." — Excerpt from my short story, The Quiet After. A tale of the selves we abandon, and the silence that waits beneath them. Read the full story here:

"And now I understand why I’ve been listening to Megadeth for over thirty years. Why metal became my sanctuary.

Not because of the speed. Or the aggression. Or the skill.

And not rebellion.

But because this was the one place where music that didn’t belong anywhere, music judged, demonised, dismissed, could exist without apology.

A place where not belonging didn’t need to be explained.

It just was.

And so was I."

—

Excerpt from my personal story, An Anthem For Unbelonging An ode to unbelonging, and the music that made no apologies.

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Come back, my stranger, from the broken bread, From beds of silk for the living dead. I bound my heart in a forsaken scroll, Come back, my love, come back, my soul.

Come back, my saint, from the iron dusk, From borrowed crowns and holy rust. I lived too long in a phantom’s mould, Come back, my love, come back, my soul.

—

Excerpt from my poem, Come Back, My Soul A hymn for the ember that wandered and still burned.

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—

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I don’t move.

At first I wait for anger. Or grief. Or something with a shape.

But nothing arrives.

Just this.

The silence after it goes dark. A room that won’t respond. My name with nowhere left to go.

And then the thought comes in, quiet. Like it’s been here longer than I have.

If everyone I knew has forgotten me, it’s the same as if I never existed.

—

Excerpt from my short story, The Last Time I Heard My Name. A tale about the second death, and what remains when memory lets go.

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This is a small thank you to the photographers whose work I borrowed. People I will never meet, who saw something worth keeping and pressed the shutter.

I don’t know what they were feeling in that moment. I don’t need to. Whatever it was found its way to me.

Thank you for letting me use your eyes when mine were tired. For giving me images that held something true when I needed it most.

—

Excerpt from my year end reflection, ‘Nothing Was Real, But Everything Felt True’.

A quiet reflection on art, ache, and the strange ways truth finds us.

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—

That’s how it works now. I wake up somewhere new. Same day. Every day. A different reality. A different fate. And I never know which version of her I’m about to grieve.

Every morning, a new sky. Same ache. Same question. What will it be tomorrow? Another silence? Another almost? Or… just once, the version where she is mine. And I remember how to breathe.

—

This is an excerpt from my short story, “The Universe When She Was Mine” A tale of fleeting universes, and the echoes that keep us searching.

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Lost were the arches that breathed in the light, Lost was the garden that blessed the morning’s white, Lost was the river that held his mortal flame, Lost was the music still trembling with his name.

—

Excerpt from my poem, Home. A poem from the echo of a light the heart can no longer return to.

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I drop to my knees. My heart jolts. I cup the candle with both hands. I breathe slowly. The flame stutters. But it lives.

And for a second, I feel something real: fear. Not for myself. For this little fire. For its weight. Its meaning.

It’s the only thing I carry that doesn’t feel borrowed.

Why do I believe something waits at the end?

—

Excerpt from my short story, The Weight Of Light. A tale about carrying a fragile light through the ruins of memory, hoping it still leads somewhere called home.

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She will walk into my life in a couple of years. And I will love her like a memory I had before I was born. Like a line from a song I’ll one day forget I knew. She’ll feel familiar somehow… like a shape I’ve always carried inside me. One that fits the bruises I haven’t spoken of yet.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve been writing toward her all this time. And when I finally meet her, it will feel like arriving at a page I bookmarked long ago without knowing why. And when she leaves, years after, I will lose a part of me that only lived in her eyes. —

Excerpt from my short story, "Before I Knew Her Name." A tale about fractured timelines, forgotten intimacy, and the grief of being haunted by a love that never began.

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He gave them words they never kept. He kissed her brow while others slept. He watched them climb what he forgave, then carve new gods from softer graves. And in the hush they left behind, he learned the shape of humankind.

He held the torch beyond the door, and shattered stones the pilgrims wore. He rose in fire, in ash and rain, and burned the house that bore his name. And when the last red ember shone, he whispered low, “Your god is gone.” —

Excerpt from my poem, Only Gods Forget. A poem about being needed, but never wanted.

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This isn’t a eulogy. This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever written.

Because you’re not supposed to be gone. And I’m not supposed to be here still trying to make sense of it with a few trembling sentences.

I’m sorry if none of this makes sense. It’s scattered. It’s been six years since we spoke. And I don’t know how to do this.

—

Excerpt from my personal essay, Dear Papa. The words I should have said to him when he was still around.

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The sheets recall a vanished creed, the body bends to what we need. Her hand was grace, her breath a place, where faith knelt down and begged to bleed. He spoke her name, and she was gone. The night went on, The night went long, No word could save, No flesh behave, And mercy wept through morning’s song The night went still, his eyes confessed, “Forgive me, love, I did my best.” they burned so slow, they didn’t know that every kiss becomes a ghost. And that was faith, La Vie En Rose.

—

Excerpt from my poem, La Vie En Rose. A poem about love, loss, and letting go.

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the fruit he held began to scar, she held him close, her heart afar. i gave his wings, but not my skin, and called it love… she named it sin. the roots grew thick around the fears, they drink from guilt, they breathe from tears. the wind recites the vow once sworn to fallen saints and lovers worn. he held her weight, but not a name. the garden speaks in tongues of shame, and silence dressed in sacred hands to lead the rhythm for the damned.

—

Excerpt from my poem, Where Light Forgets To Die a poem about grief, guilt, and the gods we loved too much. Click the image to read the full poem:

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I glance around at this sterilised replica of my life. The stupid manuscripts. The scrubbed desk. The hollow furniture of a man who never lived.

I don’t exist anymore. I’m an outline where something used to be. The world kept Kingcain instead. The paper messiah. The punishment I invented for myself.

—

Excerpt from my short story, The Pulp Messiah. A tale about self-loathing, salvation, and what’s left when a lie becomes god.

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Each time I visit the scenes from her stories, I feel her nearer. As if at any moment she’ll step through the door, sit across from me, and say hello.

But I would not recognize her. I don’t know her face. I never knew her name.

—

Excerpt from my short story, The Things We Never Touched. A tale about intimacy, invisible love, and the ache of being seen without ever being known. Click on the image below for the full story:

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