Unable to think of a topic for my first English Composition II essay, due tomorrow, I began digging through old papers on my computer.

Omnibus has a special sort of “reputation”: it makes you consider questions no one else your age would ever think about, yet which an American citizen apparently needs to consider. It is an American textbook, after all. At the same time, if you replace “Country A” with “Country C” in each essay’s cultural analysis, the difficulty of publishing that essay immediately rises by an entire level. Unfortunately, that is what we did for most prompts involving Country A. Consequently, most people who can see this post on WeChat cannot see those pieces of my “dark history.” On reflection, perhaps that is not so unfortunate after all.

This time, I use the words “dark history” with complete sincerity. I was once a student who refused to be constrained by convention. In plain language, I loved doing weird bits. Instead of writing a perfectly normal argumentative essay, I would experiment with fiction, fairy tales, fables, dialogue, roleplay, enormous blocks of environmental description, incomprehensible flights into profundity, and every possible combination of the above. I fully honored the instruction “any genre except poetry.”

What fascinates me now is how I managed to write every one of them with a straight face, then read it aloud in class or to my group, still with a straight face, without immediately searching for a hole to crawl into. (And there is today’s run-on sentence.)

These essays all share another trait: they do not survive close inspection. Some still carry comments from my teachers and classmates. I finish rereading the essay, look at a comment, and think, “That is exactly what I want to say now.” The eyes of the people are bright indeed. Good Puzzle Hunts take playtesting seriously, and they are absolutely right to do so. (

Fine, I can forgive the fundamentally broken sentences. But why are there so many deus ex machina endings? These tiny narrative essays already make it difficult to bring out the theme. I was also too lazy to write enough material, so the final result became neither fish nor fowl: the story failed as a story, and the question received no serious examination.

I vaguely remember finishing one earth-shattering piece of microfiction in a blaze of passion. Its subject was something like, “What if Jesus were only a man rather than God?” I was ecstatic when I completed it. In so few words, I had somehow packed in setup and payoff, unsettling implications, intellectual depth, brain growth, and every other ingredient. Then I finished reading it aloud. Everyone remained silent for ten seconds. Then we moved to the next paper.

I still believe nobody else was simply on my wavelength. (

Then again, are puzzles that require everyone to “get on the author’s wavelength” usually bad puzzles? Ah, I am probably talking about puzzles so much today because MIT Mystery Hunt 2026 is about to begin. Your humble servant brings my lord one sorrow and one congratulation. The sorrow: I cannot cross several states to attend in person. The congratulation: this year I finally slipped into a proper team, although I do not know whether my contribution will be zero or negative.

For that, I require an MLK holiday with no homework…

Wait. Have I forgotten why I started doing this?