Latest Stories

Most recently published stories on Vocal.

The Debt That Can Never Be Paid: Why Justice Demands More Than Punishment. AI-Generated.
There is a debt that can never be paid. Not with time served, not with remorse expressed, not with any sentence a court can impose. When one person takes from another—a life, a sense of safety, a future—the scales can never be fully balanced. Something is gone forever. Someone is missing forever. And the person who caused that loss carries a weight that no amount of punishment can lift. This is the terrible truth at the heart of criminal justice: we are trying to measure the immeasurable, to repair the irreparable, to balance scales that will always tip.
By HAADI2 days ago in Criminal
The Warehouse of Young Minds: Why We Store Children Instead of Growing Them. AI-Generated.
We have built schools that look like warehouses because we think of children as products to be stored. Row after row of desks, identical and interchangeable. Bells that signal when to move, when to stop, when to eat, when to think. Curriculum delivered in standardized units, measured by standardized tests, sorted into standardized categories. The message is subtle but absolute: you are one of many, your individuality is inconvenient, your curiosity is irrelevant. The goal is not to grow you but to process you, to move you through the system efficiently, to deliver you to the next stage of storage with the minimum of disruption.
By HAADI2 days ago in Education
The Chapter That Never Ends: Living with the Story That Has No Resolution . AI-Generated.
We speak of chapters as though they always end. We imagine our lives as books with clear divisions—childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age—each section neatly concluded before the next begins. We take comfort in this structure. It suggests that pain is temporary, that difficult passages will eventually give way to something new, that resolution is the natural order of things. The chapter ends. We turn the page. The story moves on.
By HAADI2 days ago in Chapters
Who Says You Can’t Go Back?
Looking back isn’t bad… You can feel the time again. Help you feel good now 🤔
By Gabriel Shames2 days ago in Poets
Prodigal
David woke up on this partly cloudy Sunday morning intent to sleep in before the notifications on his phone started going off. “Bonus Pay on all orders” was the notifications he received from his DoorDash app. “Eh, I really don’t feel like dashing today, but why not? Maybe I’ll make a lot very quickly being that bonus pay is booming.” David thought to himself.
By Joe Patterson2 days ago in Fiction
Maybe if I could write poetry
Might be an idea here However, nothing is ever clear Will have to let go of my fear Hopefully it will be a cause for cheer
By Christopher Beard2 days ago in Poets
UFO Files The Secrets in the Sky
UFO Files The Secrets in the Sky He wanted the papers, the hidden truth, the folders stacked with lights that hum and vanish.
By Marie381Uk 2 days ago in Poets
The Ballad of Greenwich Village.
"The Ballad of Greenwich Village" Documentary. If you ever want to know about Greenwich Village, its history, then watch the 2005 documentary that was directed and written by Karen Kramer: "The Ballad of Greenwich Village".
By Robert M Massimi. ( Broadway Bob).2 days ago in Critique
How I Write When I Only Have 30 Minutes
Most days, I don't have two hours to write. I don't have an hour, and some days I barely have 30 minutes. Between everything else I need to do in my writing business, life, obligations, and being human, pure writing time gets compressed.
By Ellen Frances2 days ago in Writers
A Hidden World Beneath the Salt: The Remarkable Discovery of a New Roundworm in Utah’s Great Salt Lake
Utah’s Great Salt Lake is one of the harshest environments on Earth. Its waters are several times saltier than the ocean, creating conditions that would kill most living creatures almost instantly. For years, scientists believed only a handful of hardy species—like brine shrimp and brine flies—could survive in its open waters. But in a groundbreaking find announced in early 2026, researchers uncovered something extraordinary: a tiny roundworm, a species entirely new to science, thriving in this extreme saltwater world.
By Mohammad Hamid2 days ago in Futurism
The 10,000-Year Memory: Why Microsoft’s New Glass Storage Changes Everything
We are currently witnessing an unprecedented paradox: a civilization that produces more data than any before it, yet relies on the most ephemeral storage media in history. Our collective wisdom is currently etched onto magnetic tapes and spinning disks with lifespans measured in mere years, threatening a "digital dark age" where our history simply evaporates. We are essentially building our digital cathedral on shifting sands, constantly fighting the relentless tide of digital entropy.
By Mohammad Hamid2 days ago in Futurism
The Myth of the Rising Garden
Chapter Four: When Connection Was Tested I. Drift Learns to Imitate Light Drift had thinned. But it had not retreated. It observed.
By Flower InBloom2 days ago in Humans