The ultimate food cycle

“The bridge was dark and unusual, but I still crossed it. My stomach was burning and the apples looked so fresh on the other side. Although that wasn’t the case when I reached it; they were too red to be real but I ate one anyway.”

“And that’s how you came here?”

“I guess so. You?”

“It was the chocolate.”

“It’s so easy to trap us, like a rat, we both are hungry monsters.”

“So, what are they gonna do with us?”

“Eat?”

“The ultimate food cycle.”

“Aren’t we too chill as captives?”

“No, that’s the third one. He is in here because of ice cream.”

“Chocolate?”

“Vanilla.”

“Ew.”

“I know, right. Even if it was butterscotch, I would have understood.”

“Or dark chocolate.”

“Enough with chocolate.”

“Can’t help it. The walls are brown.”

“I wish we could eat them.”

“It even smells like chocolate.”

“It tastes like chocolate!”

“It is chocolate!”

“Wait, the walls are disappearing!”

“Mmm, this chocolate apple pie with vanilla ice cream is delicious.”

Thanks R. Klemek for this amazing prompt: Punchline.

Do you know what happened to Mr. Hammer?

Morning Duty

The Suspicious Dessert was originally published in Short & Weird on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Starting and halting in the year 2026

I started writing on Medium a few months back, June to be precise. I had a few stories up my sleeve, written and polished, which I was initially submitting to paying literary magazines, and after some attempts I decided to look at their acceptance rate seriously, i.e., less than my fingers. So, I tried my luck elsewhere, and Medium came into the picture.

I first published on Medium in 2020, my first-ever blog, and since then, I casually thought about writing on Medium and finally took it seriously in June, 2026. Along with publishing the stories I’d already written, I started writing more; mostly fiction, some non-fiction, and a few pieces of poetry are what I have managed to publish on this platform so far.

I have met some incredible people on Medium in my writing and, of course, reading journey. And became a part of multiple amazing publications such as Microcosm, Tantalizing Tales, Know Thyself, Heal Thyself, E³ — Entertain Enlighten Empower, Fiction Shorts, The Challenged, Teaser Tales, and Short & Weird, to name a few. They gave me a sense of an online writing community, and I’d always cherish that.

But I didn’t come here just to write or read; I came here to earn as well, as they offer to aspiring writers on this platform. And so far, it isn’t going well.

Firstly, Medium doesn’t value fiction. This conclusion isn’t based on my five months' experience; it’s based on the conversations I had with multiple fiction writers on this platform, the ones who have been writing here for years. And they say it wasn’t always like that; a few years back, fiction had an audience, but now it’s just vanished into thin air, along with the money they used to earn.

Today, writers earn only a percentage of what they used to earn a few years back. And that isn’t just for fiction writers.

Secondly, I’ve received an e-mail that said I can no longer paywall my stories on Medium until I become a paid member. To become a member, I’d have to pay $5/month or $50/year ($35 for the first year), which may sound reasonable until I do the math.

In these five months, I have published 88 paid stories, which got 803 reads so far. And the total amount comes up to $21.88 ($6.45 alone by my top-performing story and $0.81 by my second-best). I’ve received my first payout in September: $11.19 after tax withholding, and the rest, $8.72, is waiting to cross $10 (the minimum amount needed to receive a payout).

The ROI doesn’t look great for me to invest in a membership.

But I’ll continue investing my time and energy here, sharpening my writing skills while building another home on Substack. So far, I’ve been treating Substack as the middle child; it’s time to give it a newborn baby treatment.

And maybe I’ll become a biological mother and give birth to my long-awaited personal website.

PS: If I am not fired from Apple, how will I build Pixar?

Find me on Substack

Creationknowsnobound | Monika Gupta | Substack

My Writing Journey on Medium was originally published in The Pub on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.