We step back from the crowd, finding our own sliver of sidewalk. I light the cigarette; it’s twisted at the end, faintly illicit: herbal, mossy. Andrew raises an eyebrow but says nothing. He never joins the smoke breaks, but he always shows up for them, watching like he’s collecting dialogue or something.
“So, what’s the story this week?” he asks. His voice is low and warm. The city hums around us—cars, alarms, the low chatter of annoyed writers. Somewhere behind us, the fire still burns, though we’ve stopped caring if it’s a real thing or not.
I take a long drag and blow a smoke ring. Like magic. It frame his face like a halo. “It’s about making the best of a bad situation,” I say. “Fire drill in a fictional campus. Writers stuck outside, caught between deadlines and existential dread.”
Andrew laughs, soft and genuine. “Art imitating life? That’s your story?”
“Or the other way around.” I smirk. “You know what it is.”
The smoke lingers between us, curling upward, caught in the breeze. For a moment, it feels like the world’s slowed down, like the fire drill was the only way we’d ever get to pause. He watches the grey tendrils dance and nods, as if to say he gets it.
The fluorescent lights hummed faintly, casting a sterile glow over the tiled walls of the third-floor bathroom. @PeterSchull entered with the air of someone who knew precisely how to occupy space without apology. He approached the sink where Brock Eldon was already stationed, fiddling with the knot of his tie.
“Nice tie,” Peter Shull said, leaning casually against the counter. His smirk was as inevitable: “Though you still smell like an ashtray.”
Brock’s eyes flicked up briefly in the mirror but offered no immediate retort. He picked his battles carefully, especially in this newly “precarious” chapter of office life, as he saw things. The recent management reshuffle at Substack High—an office more than fond of grandiose self-parody, even in its name—was entering a new era. Andrew Robert Colom had taken the reigns.
Good for Andrew, everyone thought.
It was true.
Everyone thought this was a nice change of pace.
Suddenly the door blasted open and Andrew entered the bathroom. “Three dudes in this bathroom? I know you guys. You can’t be talkin’ about all that M.A. shit in the bathroom where people walking around and shit. They’re just tryin’ to get through the day.”
Brock and Andrew looked to one another nervously.
“I’m not taking no for an answer!” he had declared, sleeves rolled up as he paced the floor like a self-styled startup prophet. “You two—Kafka Room!”
The Kafka Room, as it was colloquially called, was the lowest level of the building, a featureless, windowless expanse designed to incubate existential dread Brock and Peter thrived on. Andrew’s enthusiasm for the space, despite—or perhaps because of—its oppressive atmosphere, was yet another layer of absurdity in a workplace already teetering on the edge of satire.
Peter, for his part, seemed keen to adapt to the new arrangement rather seamlessly:
“Synergies,” he repeated now, as Andrew left, as if testing the word’s elasticity. “Really makes you feel like part of something bigger. A well-oiled machine, grinding away toward . . . whatever it is we’re supposed to be grinding toward, right?” A real professional. He liked Jeff. He thought Jeff liked him back as well.
The Kafka Writer’s Room’s inhabitants were frequently just a tad bit more pissed off than those on the other floors. Mostly Brock preferred the Borges Room; Andrew liked the Camus room. There were a lot of Social Media Rooms. They were going Waystar Royco on that shit.
Brock said nothing, adjusting his collar with deliberate precision. Whatever. The Kafka Room. At least a few other smokers in there, so at least you could smoke in your little cubicle without the shaming that came with the likes of the Amanda Gorman Room’s folk.
“Well, let’s get it done! New sheriff in town. Let’s go get it for Andy!”
“Yeah! . . . Oh! By the way,” Peter said, starting, seeming a tad nervous to say it: “Emily Sundberg’s back! Saw her on the floor earlier. Still that terrifying kind of cool, you know? I can’t get up the nerve to ask her out. I saw her in the Starbucks the other day.”
Emily Sundberg was a name that carried weight in their circles—a writer whose effortless blend of sharp critique and viral sensibility was making her something of a legend. Everyone around the office wanted to ask her out, Brock too. He adjusted his colour in the mirror one last time. He wondered what floor Emily worked on these days.
“You’re adjusting your collar for The Kafka Room?”
“Of course. It’s the KafkaRoom. I need to be prepared to look death in the face—”
Peter laughed, the sound echoing in the bathroom as they made their way out, their voices disappearing into the hum of the building: “‘Emily, Emily, where are thou, Emily’?”
Brock’s voice was calm, detached—pure Draper. “You’ll never get a girl by panicking in front of a mirror.”
“You’ll never get a girl by panicking in front of a mirror,” Brock Eldon said, and as the door swung shut behind him, Peter Shull looked back up into the mirror and let out a breath, watching himself deflate a little. Brock was right, of course. And Brock was probably much more Emily Sundberg’s speed, anyway. They both had bigger followings and seemed to have come from the right places, the right backgrounds. Peter, originally from Kansas, wasn’t even really sure who Emily was, and only knew her, vaguely, by reputation—had only been interested in her, perhaps, because everyone else seemed to be.
Did anyone here really know anyone else?
Not for the first time, he wondered if this place of obscene, performative intellectualism was right for him. Sure, it was an honor to have gotten in. Andrew Robert Colom had seen something in him, and seemed smart and savvy and to wield some weird kinds of influence. It would, in the long run, pay off, Peter hoped, in the increased visibility it garnered for him and his writing… But he was starting to feel like he wasn’t really in charge of himself anymore, that other people were starting to tell his story—that these other people didn’t even really get him, despite the fact he had been trying to show them, through his fiction, for the last several months. Some of them couldn’t even spell his name right. “Everyone says they’re here for fiction, but no one is reading any fiction,” he muttered.
He did like Kafka, though. They had intuited that correctly. Would Kafka accept an invitation to a school like this one? If he did, would he stay? Peter wasn’t so sure. It seemed more likely he would recognize it as some new, self-imposed, self-diminishing absurdity, another of the innocuous-seeming darkling forces that beguile and erase us. For now, though, Peter was committed. He took a breath to puff himself up again and spun on his heel. Even if the irony seemed almost too great, he was off… to the Kafka room.
Yeah, that was the difficulty with the prompt, but what Andrew Robert Colom says . . . Basically I'm taking the one paragraph dedicated to us three and arbitrarily throwing picking a frame that works.
I'm glad we share the same cubicle.
“Pssssst. Hey,” Brock says in the Kafka room, moving over to Peter: “Why do we have to sit in front of the giant bug today?”
Peter: “His name is Gregory.”
“Ah, shit. Sorry Greg . . . Well, what room do you think they give Emily Sundberg?
Brock Eldon and I are hitting the bars later, starting a study group, and thinking about launching an underground lit mag. Might call it “metamorpho-something.” Bringing the bug with us. Looking for collaborators and trying to keep it on the DL. Nobody tell Andrew Robert Colom. #Substack High.
Brock Episode 6: On his way to the cafeteria, Brock, feeling alone that day without Peter in the Kafka room. Peter was working remotely and of course, today was the day.
He shakes for a moment. He can't tell whether the fellow with her is a writer or not until he sees the cameraman, steady cam following. Emily's heels clack omehow, still, even on carpet. She snaps and whips back her hair.
“Wow, quite the campus star! Hey Emily!” Brock waves before the camera operator clips him with his shoulder, slamming his back against the wall. “Did I ruin your shot?”
Emily just keeps walking. Brock realizes he's probably the twelfth duffis this has happened to today.
“No, it's perfect,” the cameraman says, still moving, unphased. “We can just mute the sound later.”
What, the sounds of him crippling against a wall and sliding down? Brock stops for a moment but before Emily Sundberg turns the corner.
“Emily,” he races into frame. He actually gets down on one knee: “I'm tryin’ to dodge Gregory S. In The Kafka Room. Starbucks over break?”
Brock Episode 7: Brock shifted his weight on one knee, his expression somewhere between pleading and desparate calculation. Had Andrew Robert Colom sent them both her, at this same moment, as a test? Andrew knew about him, Pete, and Emily Sundberg. Was THIS his escape? From The Kafka Room?
“Whatever you want," he said, his voice laced with faux reverence, as though addressing royalty. "For a week if you want! Every seasonal special, every unicorn frappé, every oat-milk-infused concoction on that godforsaken secret menu."
He straightened slightly, a hand theatrically sweeping the air. "We’re talking pumpkin-spiced whatevers, matcha this, nitro that. I'll even order those cold brews that make you question your life choices."
Emily's lips curled into a barely-there smile, her cool exterior uncracked. "I don't do oat milk," she replied, deadpan.
"Good," Brock fired back, standing now, brushing off his knee with exaggerated flair. "Because I was ready to dedicate my life to finding the world's only oat milk-free Starbucks for you."
Emily tilted her head, letting the silence linger just long enough. "If you show me your phone," she said, "I'll show you mine."
Brock's eyes narrowed, the glint of a challenge accepted. "Deal. But if your lock screen is a fucking cat meme, I’m walking straight out of that Starbucks."
Emily didn't miss a beat. "Relax, Brock," she said, cool as ever. "It’s not a cat meme. It’s a picture of you on one knee. Captions are extra, though."
The camera operator winks at Andrew Robert Colom, who’s just turned the corner—there the whole time, just as Brock had expected.
this is legendary!! i dropped out of actual high school and it appears i’m flunking substack high too so that’s worrying, but as long as i have my ALUKAH and my sandolore, i’m good.
Response stories are welcome in Substack High Universe as it belongs to all of us. Just please name the story Substack High and you can please use the subheading for your story title and please tag me.
LMAO THIS IS AMAZING
my alukah. thats what im calling white people who act like the right type of n words.
Brock Eldon with the first response story!
Response to “Substack High”:
EXT. DAY - 10:00 A.M. SAN FRAN:
We step back from the crowd, finding our own sliver of sidewalk. I light the cigarette; it’s twisted at the end, faintly illicit: herbal, mossy. Andrew raises an eyebrow but says nothing. He never joins the smoke breaks, but he always shows up for them, watching like he’s collecting dialogue or something.
“So, what’s the story this week?” he asks. His voice is low and warm. The city hums around us—cars, alarms, the low chatter of annoyed writers. Somewhere behind us, the fire still burns, though we’ve stopped caring if it’s a real thing or not.
I take a long drag and blow a smoke ring. Like magic. It frame his face like a halo. “It’s about making the best of a bad situation,” I say. “Fire drill in a fictional campus. Writers stuck outside, caught between deadlines and existential dread.”
Andrew laughs, soft and genuine. “Art imitating life? That’s your story?”
“Or the other way around.” I smirk. “You know what it is.”
The smoke lingers between us, curling upward, caught in the breeze. For a moment, it feels like the world’s slowed down, like the fire drill was the only way we’d ever get to pause. He watches the grey tendrils dance and nods, as if to say he gets it.
“We make it work,” he says simply.
And we do.
RESPONSE TO “SUBSTACK HIGH”:
Episode #2 - “The Kafka Room”
The fluorescent lights hummed faintly, casting a sterile glow over the tiled walls of the third-floor bathroom. @PeterSchull entered with the air of someone who knew precisely how to occupy space without apology. He approached the sink where Brock Eldon was already stationed, fiddling with the knot of his tie.
“Nice tie,” Peter Shull said, leaning casually against the counter. His smirk was as inevitable: “Though you still smell like an ashtray.”
Brock’s eyes flicked up briefly in the mirror but offered no immediate retort. He picked his battles carefully, especially in this newly “precarious” chapter of office life, as he saw things. The recent management reshuffle at Substack High—an office more than fond of grandiose self-parody, even in its name—was entering a new era. Andrew Robert Colom had taken the reigns.
Good for Andrew, everyone thought.
It was true.
Everyone thought this was a nice change of pace.
Suddenly the door blasted open and Andrew entered the bathroom. “Three dudes in this bathroom? I know you guys. You can’t be talkin’ about all that M.A. shit in the bathroom where people walking around and shit. They’re just tryin’ to get through the day.”
Brock and Andrew looked to one another nervously.
“I’m not taking no for an answer!” he had declared, sleeves rolled up as he paced the floor like a self-styled startup prophet. “You two—Kafka Room!”
The Kafka Room, as it was colloquially called, was the lowest level of the building, a featureless, windowless expanse designed to incubate existential dread Brock and Peter thrived on. Andrew’s enthusiasm for the space, despite—or perhaps because of—its oppressive atmosphere, was yet another layer of absurdity in a workplace already teetering on the edge of satire.
Peter, for his part, seemed keen to adapt to the new arrangement rather seamlessly:
“Synergies,” he repeated now, as Andrew left, as if testing the word’s elasticity. “Really makes you feel like part of something bigger. A well-oiled machine, grinding away toward . . . whatever it is we’re supposed to be grinding toward, right?” A real professional. He liked Jeff. He thought Jeff liked him back as well.
The Kafka Writer’s Room’s inhabitants were frequently just a tad bit more pissed off than those on the other floors. Mostly Brock preferred the Borges Room; Andrew liked the Camus room. There were a lot of Social Media Rooms. They were going Waystar Royco on that shit.
Brock said nothing, adjusting his collar with deliberate precision. Whatever. The Kafka Room. At least a few other smokers in there, so at least you could smoke in your little cubicle without the shaming that came with the likes of the Amanda Gorman Room’s folk.
“Well, let’s get it done! New sheriff in town. Let’s go get it for Andy!”
“Yeah! . . . Oh! By the way,” Peter said, starting, seeming a tad nervous to say it: “Emily Sundberg’s back! Saw her on the floor earlier. Still that terrifying kind of cool, you know? I can’t get up the nerve to ask her out. I saw her in the Starbucks the other day.”
Emily Sundberg was a name that carried weight in their circles—a writer whose effortless blend of sharp critique and viral sensibility was making her something of a legend. Everyone around the office wanted to ask her out, Brock too. He adjusted his colour in the mirror one last time. He wondered what floor Emily worked on these days.
“You’re adjusting your collar for The Kafka Room?”
“Of course. It’s the KafkaRoom. I need to be prepared to look death in the face—”
Peter laughed, the sound echoing in the bathroom as they made their way out, their voices disappearing into the hum of the building: “‘Emily, Emily, where are thou, Emily’?”
Brock’s voice was calm, detached—pure Draper. “You’ll never get a girl by panicking in front of a mirror.”
Peter's Episode 3:
“You’ll never get a girl by panicking in front of a mirror,” Brock Eldon said, and as the door swung shut behind him, Peter Shull looked back up into the mirror and let out a breath, watching himself deflate a little. Brock was right, of course. And Brock was probably much more Emily Sundberg’s speed, anyway. They both had bigger followings and seemed to have come from the right places, the right backgrounds. Peter, originally from Kansas, wasn’t even really sure who Emily was, and only knew her, vaguely, by reputation—had only been interested in her, perhaps, because everyone else seemed to be.
Did anyone here really know anyone else?
Not for the first time, he wondered if this place of obscene, performative intellectualism was right for him. Sure, it was an honor to have gotten in. Andrew Robert Colom had seen something in him, and seemed smart and savvy and to wield some weird kinds of influence. It would, in the long run, pay off, Peter hoped, in the increased visibility it garnered for him and his writing… But he was starting to feel like he wasn’t really in charge of himself anymore, that other people were starting to tell his story—that these other people didn’t even really get him, despite the fact he had been trying to show them, through his fiction, for the last several months. Some of them couldn’t even spell his name right. “Everyone says they’re here for fiction, but no one is reading any fiction,” he muttered.
He did like Kafka, though. They had intuited that correctly. Would Kafka accept an invitation to a school like this one? If he did, would he stay? Peter wasn’t so sure. It seemed more likely he would recognize it as some new, self-imposed, self-diminishing absurdity, another of the innocuous-seeming darkling forces that beguile and erase us. For now, though, Peter was committed. He took a breath to puff himself up again and spun on his heel. Even if the irony seemed almost too great, he was off… to the Kafka room.
Brock Episode 4:
“Does anyone really know anyone?”
Yeah, that was the difficulty with the prompt, but what Andrew Robert Colom says . . . Basically I'm taking the one paragraph dedicated to us three and arbitrarily throwing picking a frame that works.
I'm glad we share the same cubicle.
“Pssssst. Hey,” Brock says in the Kafka room, moving over to Peter: “Why do we have to sit in front of the giant bug today?”
Peter: “His name is Gregory.”
“Ah, shit. Sorry Greg . . . Well, what room do you think they give Emily Sundberg?
Andrew Robert Colom
Peter Episode 5:
Brock Eldon and I are hitting the bars later, starting a study group, and thinking about launching an underground lit mag. Might call it “metamorpho-something.” Bringing the bug with us. Looking for collaborators and trying to keep it on the DL. Nobody tell Andrew Robert Colom. #Substack High.
Brock Episode 6: On his way to the cafeteria, Brock, feeling alone that day without Peter in the Kafka room. Peter was working remotely and of course, today was the day.
He shakes for a moment. He can't tell whether the fellow with her is a writer or not until he sees the cameraman, steady cam following. Emily's heels clack omehow, still, even on carpet. She snaps and whips back her hair.
“Wow, quite the campus star! Hey Emily!” Brock waves before the camera operator clips him with his shoulder, slamming his back against the wall. “Did I ruin your shot?”
Emily just keeps walking. Brock realizes he's probably the twelfth duffis this has happened to today.
“No, it's perfect,” the cameraman says, still moving, unphased. “We can just mute the sound later.”
What, the sounds of him crippling against a wall and sliding down? Brock stops for a moment but before Emily Sundberg turns the corner.
“Emily,” he races into frame. He actually gets down on one knee: “I'm tryin’ to dodge Gregory S. In The Kafka Room. Starbucks over break?”
And he holds his breath and waits.
Brock Episode 7: Brock shifted his weight on one knee, his expression somewhere between pleading and desparate calculation. Had Andrew Robert Colom sent them both her, at this same moment, as a test? Andrew knew about him, Pete, and Emily Sundberg. Was THIS his escape? From The Kafka Room?
“Whatever you want," he said, his voice laced with faux reverence, as though addressing royalty. "For a week if you want! Every seasonal special, every unicorn frappé, every oat-milk-infused concoction on that godforsaken secret menu."
He straightened slightly, a hand theatrically sweeping the air. "We’re talking pumpkin-spiced whatevers, matcha this, nitro that. I'll even order those cold brews that make you question your life choices."
Emily's lips curled into a barely-there smile, her cool exterior uncracked. "I don't do oat milk," she replied, deadpan.
"Good," Brock fired back, standing now, brushing off his knee with exaggerated flair. "Because I was ready to dedicate my life to finding the world's only oat milk-free Starbucks for you."
Emily tilted her head, letting the silence linger just long enough. "If you show me your phone," she said, "I'll show you mine."
Brock's eyes narrowed, the glint of a challenge accepted. "Deal. But if your lock screen is a fucking cat meme, I’m walking straight out of that Starbucks."
Emily didn't miss a beat. "Relax, Brock," she said, cool as ever. "It’s not a cat meme. It’s a picture of you on one knee. Captions are extra, though."
The camera operator winks at Andrew Robert Colom, who’s just turned the corner—there the whole time, just as Brock had expected.
SWELLING OF DRAMATIC MUSIC
this is legendary!! i dropped out of actual high school and it appears i’m flunking substack high too so that’s worrying, but as long as i have my ALUKAH and my sandolore, i’m good.
but u write good poetry at least.
I might have to respond in kind, sir. This is epic!
Response stories are welcome in Substack High Universe as it belongs to all of us. Just please name the story Substack High and you can please use the subheading for your story title and please tag me.
Fuckin brilliant
Thank you so much brother!
yes^100th degree. such a fun read.
Thanks so much, Will. Im excited to dig into way more of your work early this 2025. You a real one. I really appreciate the eyeballs.
absolutely :) my eyeballs are pleased to read
what a clever piece. Loved it! Love the idea of "Substack High School!"
Thank you so much, Krista!
Made my morning
you've made many mornings for me.
Round of applause 👏🏾 this is fucking genius!
thank you so much again for everything you do.
Epic poetry is alive and strutting around the locker room looking for action!
I hope to get Epic Poetry back in the Flash-Style this year for another win!
Fire.
Thank you, Maya. Appreciate every time i get a reading from you and any positivity in regards to my work.
I love it all! There’s so much substance here
Slow clap. I love 💕 it. You’re a formal innovator.
Brother, you are so appreciated.
Fantastic work. Enjoyed reading. Your work is so creative!
Your such a dope fan, i appreciate your judgement.
Andrew this is so fucking good! 🔥🔥
Thank you Alex B. See you again soon!
THIS IS SO GOOD!!!!!
not as good as you on a Sunday morning next to me.
lol
I do miss the days of going out in a suit. Man my wardrobe would look good.
Still writing in my pajamas with Dorito crumbs falling into my lap though . . . Oh well.
This is so great, so creative . . .