Author’s note from a thoroughly embarrassed Present Aaron on March 30th, 2026:
On July 15th, 2023, I lost my dang mind in a mess of prose.
I’d just finished the first draft of my first novel. I did The Thing™. I wrote a book.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know it was every bit as bad as a first novel is supposed to be.
Unhindered by the restrictive self-awareness of my own suck, I sat down to craft my next work of genius. Behold, the result: the terrible, confusing, madcap 1000-word sludgepile that can only come from an author who is 100% convinced he can puke greatness with nothing but an hour’s time and a steady keyboard.
Outside of a few formatting tweaks and a couple line additions I made to enter it into a short story contest, this is pretty much the unfiltered ridiculousness that it was two-and-a-half years ago.
I’ll give Past Aaron a couple things: one, he had a distinct voice in mind, two, he was onto something with the handwaving narrator bit, and three, there is a Mel Brooks-level of silly radiation that I still love.
Just about everything else is a steaming pile of idea tartare, though.
There were some things lodged in this outhouse reservoir of a short story that I kept in Pilfer! or placed in other works:
1. The upside-down protagonist opening scene
2. The Queen’s Spindles became a title for elite royal guards
3. Minotaurs
4. The horizon-dwelling god Ed moved to a different project, but I haven’t ruled out him showing up in future Pilfer! books
5. This proto-version of the Grapple became a handheld version of the Grapple, sadly without the bucked teeth
It’s also worth noting that while most of my previous writing aped either Brian Jacques or Brandon Sanderson, this was where my loud and unpolished voice showed up, where Aaron Waite began writing proper.
All this to say: take heart! We all start somewhere, but if you stick with it, you’ll learn to edit.
The process of making art (even in the ridiculous tell-a-joke-and-cast-thunderbolt genre I write in) pushes you to change and adapt. Even the barest hint of a decent idea can turn into a passage or poem or story or book or picture or painting or song or sculpture or shrubbery you’re proud of, but only if you’re willing to first fight with it, then fight for it.
Nonfictionally yours,
Aaron Waite
Terrible Short Story Writer
Minotaurs Are Not Good At Whispering
Rason Walk stood upside-down, suspended over a lake of living teeth.
By that, I don’t mean there was a very large beast below him and this was actually its mouth. No, I mean there was a literal lake of living teeth. Fangs, to be precise. Rason could tell they were living were the arguments they were having.
“Why do we even live here, all piled together and whatnot?”
“Now’s not the time for existential quandaries, we have a guest!”
“Well then, I guess we can ask our guest what he thinks!”
Rason shuffled his feet, wondering when the spell they’d set on him was going to break.
By “they”, I don’t mean the teeth. They were actually super nice. They loved having guests.
Unfortunately, they inevitably ended up impaling the ones that were hurled from thirty feet above them. It made the whole execution process that much sadder, as the Inciscorians were devastated to have their company impaled on one of their heads, and not having hands, the corpse would sit up there for several weeks until it sloughed off.
It could only have been planned out in the most twisted and fiendish of minds, one of which Rason had been attempting to steal spell materials from.
They’re the “they” I was referring to, if you’re following along.
Thankfully, though, the Insciscorians had a short memory. Their zeal for hospitality would once again overtake them when another poor sod was placed on this platform and dangled face-first over the teeth. They complimented the current sod as he felt the conflict between the real and magical gravities somewhere in his small intestine.
“By Ed, you have such lovely hair.”
Ed was their deity, by the by. I suppose he still is.
Rason smiled. They were so very earnest.
The magical energies swirling around his feet made whining sounds like a puppy desperate to go outside, but their owner is struggling to get out of their easy chair. Muscles tensed, Rason waited for the moment the pitch would reach younger brother levels of whine.
A collective sigh ran through the teeth. It was happening again.
“Aww, he’s gonna fall too, isn’t he?”
“Yep, looks like it. Ed damn it, why do all of the guests have to be impaled?”
“I think we bring it on ourselves.”
“Do you think you could all take a few steps- ” Rason started, then pondered the thought.
Could they actually take steps? Rason looked down at the bottoms of the Inscisorians. Not those bottoms. They technically didn’t have those. Their feet equivalent. He couldn’t make out any sort of way of pod-esque movement. “If you all just gave me a bit of room, I might not fall on your heads.”
A murmur went through the gathered crowd. They’d never thought of it that way before.
“I…suppose?”
“That’s change. I don’t like it. Feels like we’re abandoning the guest.”
Rason felt the magic unlacing around his feet, one strand at a time. He kept his voice level. “Have you ever thought that you might have a few more guests if you didn’t accidentally kill them? A bit of change is good for the soul- “ Rason said.
“But then again, the minotaurs are nice enough to hold us up, and we’d have to ask them to move.”
The upside-down Espionurge’s mouth opened, then closed, like a fish unable to make up his mind at the drive-thru speaker. “The…minotaurs?”
“Oh, did no one tell you? We live on top of the minotaurs that were in this pit before us.”
“PLEASED TO MEET YOU!” came a rumbling voice from below the teeth.
A sigh dribbled out of Rason’s lips as the magic continued breaking down like a macaroni card craft. “Well, then. I’ll have to figure something else out, then.”
He tapped his heels together. An unspooling sound came from his left foot just as the gravity magic wore out on that side. Snatching the falling tool by the very fine strand of rope, he half-dangled, half-balanced as the upside-down started becoming the right-side up very quickly. The tiny grappling hook had two enormous bucked teeth and a limited amount of flight time. Rason tied the line around his waist just as his stomach somersaulted with his center of gravity, and he flung the hook upward.
He started falling just as the two teeth of the hook sunk into the platform above him. A jolt ran through him as it absorbed the tension of his fall, and he swayed a few feet above the Inscisorians.
Rason exhaled, the thin line creaking but not snapping under the strain. “Thank the Queen’s Spindles.”
“That was a close one!” remarked the closest tooth.
“MMMPHHHH!” said the grappling hook, biting into the magical floating stone for all he was worth.
“So what now?” asked an Inscisorian, scratching a long-ignored itch.
Did I mention they have arms? They have arms. I know, I know, I said they didn’t and now they do. I’m a, whatchacallit, incontinent narrator. In summary: there’s a bunch of giant fangs attached to minotaur horns and they all have arms. The minotaurs, too. They are not armless.
“Well,” Rason said slowly, “have any of you ever thought of leaving?”
A gasp went up from both layers of sharp things.
“Leave? Good Ed on the horizon, why would we ever?” They supposed Ed lived not above or below them, but on the horizon. Ed was allegedly a pretty level god. I’m honestly not sure, I didn’t get to meet him at any point.
“I BEG YOUR PARDON?” came the polite thunder underneath Rason.
“You’re all standing in a giant pit for reasons unknown.” Rason said, trying to squint to make eye contact with the minotaurs. There was an entire lower jaw’s worth of teeth in the way, however. “Have you ever thought of, you know, breaking out?”
Silence, then Rason heard a whisper.
“HAVE TRUK-POINT CHECK THE PERIMETER. I CAN’T BELIEVE WE NEVER THOUGHT OF THIS.”
Minotaurs are not good at whispering.