Micah McClarty

Here lies just nine of the hundreds of drafts, rotting in the site history.

Past the 13,000 stories posted on this very website, through the password-protected barrier of the writing realm, and into the expansive “Stories” dashboard, one can find a category of stories hidden from the average viewer’s eyes: Drafts. 542 of them, to be exact. While that number fluctuates from time to time, it doesn’t stray too far from the 542 mark.

542 unfinished stories. 542 thoughts that trail off into nothingness and crash into the abyss of forgotten.

“Drafts” is where forgotten poems go to die.

Not all of them are poetry. Some are completely finished but too controversial to go on the site. Some are done but too irrelevant to post at the point of completion.

It dates back years, the earliest being October of 2018. The memories of the fifth online TCT staff, encased in the site beyond the naked eye, forever.

I wonder where they are right now. Are they in college? Are they in adult jobs in 20-story buildings with wives or husbands or children? Do they find themselves lost in a maze of cubicles all the same shade of beige, looking for their cookie-cutter office to churn out another sales report or whatever they’re assigned to do?

Do they miss The Central Trend? Do they miss writing for fun rather than for an assignment?

I know I do.

I miss the old mystique that writing had. I miss the atmosphere of Mr. George’s old room, the content I held when entering room 139.

Do the graduates know that Mr. George’s idolized home of couches and armchairs has been replaced with two rooms of grayscale tables and chairs? Have they seen that the many ceiling tiles painted by Honors English 10 students have been moved outside the room and that the bricks, personalized by the graduating TCT seniors, have been washed over with a new coat of white?

I visited his old room a couple of weeks ago. It felt odd, standing in a room that I used to venerate. A room that used to have a dozen amber lamps that filled the room with a warm, inviting ambiance. Now, the stark white lighting matches the colorless decorations.

I looked closer at the northernmost wall, where all the painted bricks used to be. They’re still there, obviously, but just painted over—almost.

In one spot, one can see the faint outline of a whitewashed brick. The ghost of a person still lingers behind that thin veil. 

Although those bricks can be layered with coats upon coats of white paint, and Mr. George’s chairs can be donated to one charity shop or the next, the memories will reside there forever. They will reside past the 13,000 stories posted on The Central Trend, through the password-protected user wall, and into the realm of 542 drafts.

Veiled from the average viewer’s eyes, but still there. Still encased in history forever.