Pentober 2026 - Day 8: Wheel

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! Here we go.

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"Evidence shows that, at the quantum level, time can flow in both directions under certain given circumstances. That means that time folds in on itself. Its conditions, causes, and effects can loop; time isn't a line, it's closer to a circle. Graphically represented, time is a wheel. That means your actions and reactions to your actions are cyclical while moving forward. Your past actions impact your present and your future can impact your present and future..." the TV droned on while Katie slept on the couch. It had been another late, late night at work.

Strange stress dreams danced in front of her eyelids. She saw Kukeri parade around with wolfmen and women in feather head-dresses. She saw balls of energy striding beside them. She saw strangely smooth and perfect, bald, androgenous people join hands and cook meals with them. There was a drummer at the front of the parade. He wore a black mask and was sat atop a cart pulled by oxen. His voice boomed and reverberated in her skull, made her eardrums tremble and vibrate as she slept.

The black masked man barked:

"Time is a wheel.

Your time is a wheel.

Other peoples time is a wheel.

The people you spend time with joins your time to theirs.

Friendship is an axle.

Community is a vehicle.

Community is coordinated loops of time.

Society grows great when people plant trees whose shade they know they will not sit in the shade of. Or is it also the case that society grows great when people sit in the shade of trees to speak with the ghosts of those who planted them not knowing if they would be remembered?

Libation. Grave offerings. These are cyclical with the dead. These are cyclical with the unborn. Your neighborhood is haunted. Are the ghosts friendly? Is your community friendly? Are you friendly?"

Katie startled awake. Light was streaming through the windows. She was in a cold sweat. She checked her watch and realized it was the weekend. She had been working so much she forgot that the week ended. She knew she should go get her laptop and work more but...something sat on her chest gnawing at and emptying her stomach. She got up to shower and get ready to go out instead.

An hour later, cleaner and tidied up, she left for a local coffee shop. She left her phone at home. No electronics, just a credit card.

She ordered coffee, hot and black, and a cardamom bun. She sat and sipped for a while, watching neighbors she vaguely recognized coming in and out of the space. She hadn't realized some of them had children. On her second cup of coffee, she overheard a table talking about cleaning up one of the local parks, maybe getting a group together to make it a regular thing. She walked over to say hi, to join the conversation.

Somewhere, in the back of Katie's head, she heard a part of the dream she had forgotten: "The wheels turned again, spun by the hand, spoken by the mouth, karma is a prayer"