After everyone has gone back upstairs

Church Basement Fellowship Hall

Coffee, folding chairs, and powdered creamer — a smell that exists in exactly one kind of room, and you can find it again in half a second. This is where the kids were sent while the adults stood upstairs saying the same six sentences to each other. The tables are set for more people than came, and the chairs are still in the ring somebody dragged them into. You were bored down here in a way that felt enormous, and now you would give something to be bored down here again.

Reality Is Optimal · created by Julian Cape, 2026