Pentober 2026 - Day 4: Crowd

Ok so, what is Pentober? Promptober? It's a writing tradition that's been around the web for a while where you write up a short story every day in October based on prompts. Some go for pen and paper, some digital; everyone has their own style. I'll be posting here, and I'll be using the prompts from https://www.topinfiction.com/p/pentober-2026 

House rules are that I vomit-write the story; no planning, just taka taka taka on the keys. I get ONE edit at the end of the draft, then we post it. House rules also say that I get to play catch up and do multiple days separately on one day or combined if work gets wild and I can't write. Get it? Got it? Good! I am catching up today after a very long weekend celebrating a friends marriage.

You could feel it in the air. In fact, you were halfway certain you could almost see it. There was a miasma, a general malaise even, amongst the otherwise mirthful group. It sat just below the bar's noise floor, adding a rumbling din to the background even in those awkward moments when suddenly the wedding festivities got quiet. Visually, it looked like a thin green smoke that clung around some of the attendees more than others. It reminded you of visual snow, another optical issue you suffered, albeit not one that caused any real problems.

You were fairly sure this was a side effect of the new drug your doctor had you on; it helped cope with the depression and stress of work, and you were losing weight, but it did have a lot of strange side effects: random stomach issues and vomiting, auditory and visual hallucinations, occasional mood swings, chills, and sluggishness in the evenings. Still, it was better than facing the state of the world off of it. It was either that or hard drugs.

The drinks are flowing and so is the conversation; the crowd was in excellent spirits. You make the rounds. People are happy to see you. You never come out. You're always out of town, or working late, or have other weekend plans. It's true. But there's nothing you can really do about it. Your time is limited. Eventually, you start talking to one of the wives. She's a friend. Her and her husband are in a similar boat to you and your wife, who isn't in attendance because she is working and even if she wasn't knew this wouldn't be her scene. Your wife is smarter than you by far.

This wife, your friend's wife, who is also your friend, is also smarter than you. Especially when it comes to social skills. She has that midwestern suburban WASPy washwoman way of knowing what's going on with everyone, how to build community and parties and such. It would be easy to paint it as negative but that's because everything is easy for you to paint as negative; you've only ever seen her skill here help people or, at best, be neutral. It's more or less your entire job in corporate America: paint in a bad light what won't help you, paint in a good light what will help you.

You ask about how one friend who is up at the bar is doing. They are particularly shrouded in that green mist. When you look their way, you can barely see then; you can barely hear the conversation when you look that way because the rumbling gets louder. It gets so loud it sounds more like the gurgling of a stomach in the middle of digesting something.

The wife responds do you, "Oh, him? The last layoffs got him. He's been unemployed for a year now. Maybe two? I'd have to count."

"Jesus christ, really? Is there anything to do to help him? We don't really work in the same fields."

"Not that I can think of, no."

Maybe it's the mixture of prescribed drugs and unprescribed alcohol. Your wife doesn't drink at all. She is smarter than you. Maybe it's the jetlag from having just flown in from halfway across the world; you thought you were going to miss this, but you get a wild idea. What if the green mist is telling me something?

You swivel your head around to identify someone similarly obscured by the green mist, someone else who sounds like their getting digested by whatever it is lurking in the background. You notice it on someone you don't know. It's the partner of a tertiary friend you knew once way back when but really it's your friend-whose-getting-married-wife's-friend.

'Whose that? I feel like I recognize them but I don't know the story."

"Oh, Amy," she grimaces a bit, "She had a break at her job, she was in insurance claim denials, and had to quit. She's trying to do the content creation thing but...it's not going well."

"Like YouTube?"

"No...not that kind."

That confirms it. The green mist is showing you something about people's financial lives. You notice the wife and her husband aren't covered in it. The hosts the party aren't that covered. You know you're totally free of it.

You wonder to yourself what it means that every day you've seen more and more mist clinging around people, around storefronts and streets, around peoples houses.

You keep on partying and, eventually, it winds down. It's late. You know your wife is already asleep. You know you should go home but you just can't. You need to keep exploring this new edge between hallucination and reality, this seam that's split between a clear head and an addled mind. You walk. You hit up a few late hours places. Eventually, wandering home past a few offices you notice the green mist wafting out of a window. You knew this place. It had a bunch of investment firms based out of it; they were the types that were buying up, streamlining, and hyperscaling stuff like mom and pop local chains, renting out houses to people, and the like.

You make your way home. The next morning you look up some of the residents in that building; one catches your eye, it's the company that makes the new drug you're on. You don't have time to ruminate about that; you have to get to work.