by Aloysius, the Panda The strange thing was never that the Panda was different. The strange thing was that everybody else became so busy explaining the Panda that nobody stopped to ask whether they were looking into a mirror. By now the files were thick. Assessments. Reports. Meetings. Concerns. Observations. Opinions. Narratives. A thousand fragments of paper describing a creature that appeared nowhere except within the paperwork itself. The Panda remained stubbornly present in reality. The...

by The Panda The news did not arrive all at once. It came in fragments. A message. A headline. A voice note was forwarded three times before it reached him. Another incident. Another “isolated” attack. Another reassurance that everything was “under control.” But it wasn’t. Not outside.And not inside. He had learned, over time, how to separate things. Public and private. Community and self.Noise and signal. It was a skill. A survival one. But now the lines were blurring. Because what he was...

by The Panda The file did not begin as a file. It began as a note. A small one—almost careful. Written, it seemed, out of concern. The Panda Boy had not seen it written. But he felt, somehow, that something had been placed somewhere that would remain. It did. And then something else was added. Not immediately. But not long after. A second paper does not feel like an addition. It feels like a continuation. By the third, it begins to resemble something that has always been there. He was asked...