Latest Stories

Most recently published stories on Vocal.

Cartography of Quiet
I. I trace the outline of my mornings on the fogged windowpane, fingerpaths that never reach the glass but remember the shape of light.
By LUNA EDITHabout 19 hours ago in Poets
What Would Your Life Look Like If You Played to Win?
Stop playing not to lose. Most people don’t live their lives playing to win. They live playing not to lose. They avoid embarrassment.
By Stacy Valentineabout 19 hours ago in Motivation
The Long Conversation: Why Marriage Is Less About Love and More About Staying in the Room . AI-Generated.
The wedding industrial complex would have you believe that marriage is about the moment. The dress, the cake, the vows, the first dance, the perfect photographs that will document a day of flawless joy. We spend fortunes on this moment, plan it for months, obsess over every detail as though the quality of the marriage that follows will somehow reflect the perfection of the day that began it. And then the guests go home, the flowers wilt, the dress goes into storage, and what remains is something no one prepared us for: the long conversation.
By HAADIabout 19 hours ago in Marriage
The Face Behind the Number: What We Lose When We Reduce People to Their Worst Moment . AI-Generated.
The number stays with you. Once you have been processed, counted, filed, you are no longer quite a person. You become a case file, a statistic, a category. You become the crime you committed, reduced to a single moment that will define you forever in the eyes of the world. The humanity you carried before—the child you were, the person you loved, the dreams you had—all of it becomes invisible, irrelevant, erased by the thing you did.
By HAADIabout 19 hours ago in Criminal
The Spaces Between the Words: What Families Never Say and Why Silence Speaks Loudest. AI-Generated.
The things families never say are louder than anything they do. The apology that hangs in the air for decades, unspoken. The declaration of love that gets stuck somewhere between the heart and the mouth. The question too dangerous to ask. The truth too painful to tell. These silences are not empty. They are filled with everything that could not be spoken, everything that was swallowed, everything that got passed down like an heirloom no one wanted but no one could discard.
By HAADIabout 19 hours ago in Families
The Chapters We Skip: Why We Rush Through the Ordinary Pages and Miss the Whole Point. AI-Generated.
We are always rushing toward the next chapter. The child wants to be a teenager. The teenager wants to be an adult. The young adult wants to be established. The established adult wants to retire. The retired person looks back and wonders where the time went. We live our lives leaning forward, straining toward the future, convinced that the good part is just ahead—the next milestone, the next achievement, the next stage when everything will finally feel right.
By HAADIabout 19 hours ago in Chapters
Inventory of What Remains
I. Three winters ago, I labeled my grief and stacked it in the hallway closet— winter coats, unmailed letters, a jar of buttons without their shirts.
By luna hartabout 19 hours ago in Poets
The Forgotten Half: Why We Teach Everything Except How to Be Human. AI-Generated.
There is a curriculum we teach, and there is a curriculum we ignore. The first is written in standards and textbooks, measured by tests and grades, celebrated in awards and acceptances. It includes mathematics and literature, science and history, the accumulated knowledge of centuries passed from one generation to the next. This curriculum is important. It opens doors, builds skills, creates the foundation for careers and contributions. We have become very good at teaching it.
By HAADIabout 19 hours ago in Education
Iran-US War Scenario: Can Tehran Rely on China and Russia for Military Support?
With every new wave of tension between Tehran and Washington, the same question resurfaces: if the conflict escalates into war, what would China and Russia do? Can Iran truly rely on the support of these two powers, or are the relationships largely temporary and strategic rather than a firm alliance?
By Real contentabout 19 hours ago in Chapters
Starving Artist
Knew I had to start this Lots of things on the list Hopefully you will get the gist Needed to insist Couldn't take the risk
By Christopher Beardabout 19 hours ago in Poets
One Mile: A Quiet Journey Through Grief, Growth, and the Long Road to Healing
There is something universally symbolic about running. It is motion, effort, endurance, and sometimes escape. In the Japanese coming-of-age drama One Mile, that symbolism becomes the emotional backbone of a deeply human story about loss, responsibility, and the fragile resilience of youth. Directed by Asoka Wakabayashi, this understated film explores how a single mile can represent the long and often painful journey toward healing.
By Alex Bloomfieldabout 19 hours ago in Geeks
State of Fear: Memory, Terror, and the Politics of Truth
In a world where political violence often becomes reduced to statistics and headlines, State of Fear stands as a sobering reminder that behind every number is a human life fractured by trauma. This powerful documentary explores the legacy of internal conflict in Peru, examining the devastating effects of terrorism, government retaliation, and systemic injustice on ordinary citizens. More than a historical recounting, the film is an intimate meditation on fear—how it spreads, how it controls, and how it lingers long after the guns fall silent.
By Alex Bloomfieldabout 19 hours ago in Geeks