Monthly Archives: January 2026

Out of the Trash Bin: The Orange Man (LOST GAME FILE: ORANGEMAN.EXE)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Author’s Note: In order to keep this blog active, I scribble a lot of stuff and toss it up here to see what works. Sometimes, I trash things that don’t quite work for me, which explains this post. The only reason you’re seeing it is because I forgot to create something for this week (yes, I went digging through the trash to bring you content…and some of you might think I should have left it there). This was meant to be the continuation of a writing experiment (explanation below) and proved to be the reason that the experiment ended. Dem’s da breaks.

By way of explanation: I am easily bored. This usually leads to me getting into trouble in real life. In my writing, however, I can explore avenues of storytelling and the only fallout from that is the eye-rolling exhaustion experienced by my readership (there’s so few of you that I’m not overly bothered by that). This current experiment is based on a simple story: a man on a breadline makes a daily habit of handing one particular woman his orange. The goal is to see how weird I can make the retelling of the story each week. Simple, right?

Dial back the resolution, max out the weirdness, and boot up a lost DOS-era text adventure called ORANGEMAN.EXE. Rumor has it, it shipped bundled on a handful of shareware disks in the early ’90s under a fake publisher. No one ever beat it. Every copy ends differently.

And yet, every version begins the same way…

Booting ORANGEMAN.EXE…
[C:\GLITCHCITY\LINE]> _

WELCOME TO THE GLITCH CITY SIMULATOR
TEXT DRIVER VERSION 1.7
ALL EVENTS FINAL. ALL INPUT LOGGED.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO UNINSTALL THE ORCHARD.

YOU ARE STANDING IN A BREADLINE.

The sky is grey static. The people around you twitch in low framerate. You are hungry, but not for food. Something is wrong with your memory buffer.

A volunteer approaches. They hand you:

  • 1x Cold Bread [INVENTORY: EDIBLE, SORROWFUL]
  • 1x Paste Cup [INVENTORY: UNKNOWN TEXTURE]
  • 1x ORANGE [DESCRIPTION: Real? Fake? Pulsing slightly.]

But it is not yours.

_GIVE ORANGE TO WOMAN

[ACTION SUCCESSFUL]

You walk ten steps to the east. Time shimmers. A woman waits, staring at the sidewalk as if decoding a dead god’s last riddle.

You hand her the orange.

She says nothing.

You say nothing.

[EMPATHY +1]
[SELF -1]

DAY 12:

You wake with rind under your fingernails.

The line is shorter. The sky is more aggressive.

Every orange is warmer than the last.
They hum.
They remember things you do not.

_EAT ORANGE

[ERROR: THE FRUIT IS NOT FOR YOU]
[HP -34]
[TONGUE: CITRUS BURNED]

DAY 73:

You hand over the orange.

The woman’s hand now resembles your own.
The transfer is seamless.

DAY 74:

_WHERE IS THE ORANGE

[YOU ARE THE ORANGE]

You check your inventory. Your body is marked:

  • Skin [PROPERTY: DIMPLING]
  • Eyes [PROPERTY: PEELING]
  • Voice [REPLACED WITH WHISPERS]
  • Hunger [REPLACED WITH NEED]

There is a boy at the end of the line.

He is not rendered fully.

You feel a pressure behind your sternum.

_PEEL YOURSELF

[ACTION SUCCESSFUL]
[NEW ITEM ACQUIRED: ORANGE 2.0]

You walk to the boy.

_GIVE ORANGE TO BOY

He looks at you.

He does not say thank you.

You do not wait for one.

[PROPAGATION: INITIATED]
[LINE LENGTH: INFINITE]
[YOU HAVE BECOME: SEED]

ORANGEMAN.EXE HAS ENCOUNTERED A FATAL ERROR.

RESTARTING THE ORCHARD…

[C:\GLITCHCITY\LINE]> _

To. Be. Transmogrified.

2025, You Were Not A Gentle Year…

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

You didn’t arrive with fireworks and tidy promises. You came like a stairwell with one bulb blown out—enough light to keep moving, not enough to feel brave about it. You asked for endurance more than celebration. You asked for “again” and “still” and “one more day,” and then you asked for it twice.

You were heavy with ordinary losses. The kind nobody writes headlines about. The slow leaks of energy. The mornings where the body clock felt like a threat. The conversations I rehearsed in my head because my heart couldn’t afford surprises. The small betrayals of plans, routines, and momentum. The quiet work of holding myself together in public and falling apart in increments where no one could see.

But here’s what I won’t let you take, 2025: the proof.

Because even in your worst stretches, I kept returning to the world. I kept making something out of nothing. I kept showing up in the ways I could. I found humor when it would’ve been easier to go numb. I reached for people. I let myself be reached for. I made room for the small mercies—an unexpected laugh, a song that hit at the right time, a message that reminded me I’m not invisible.

You taught me a mean lesson: that survival isn’t glamorous. It’s not a montage. It’s water and rest and boundaries. It’s saying “no” without a speech. It’s doing the next right thing with a tired hand. It’s learning to count progress by the fact that I’m still here to count it.

So this is my ode, not to what you broke, but to what refused to break.

To the version of me that kept walking with knees that wanted to quit. To the nights I made it through. To the mornings I didn’t believe in and lived anyway. To the stubborn little spark that stayed lit even when I tried to talk myself out of hope.

2025, you were rough. You were a grindstone. You were a long hallway.

And I am still here at the door at the end of it.

I’m not pretending everything is fine. I’m not romanticizing the struggle. I’m just telling the truth: I made it to the last page.

And now I get to turn it.

Goodbye, 2025.
You didn’t beat me.

Happy New Year! 🎉

Wishing you a calmer, kinder 2026—more steady ground, more good surprises, and the kind of momentum that actually sticks. May the hard parts ease up, and may you get real wins you can feel in your body, not just on a checklist.