Options and Derivatives

Posted on by Reena Saxena

He finds himself split between his options and longing to explode.

An attractive woman who used to be a man, another one who is the poster girl for the plastic surgeon – both unbelievably rich and vying for his attention. He couldn’t have imagined a better future for himself.

He scrolls through medical and legal sites to check the pros and cons of his final decision, and many business ideas pop up from the pages – a clinic offering rebirth without scars, a contract promising anonymity, a retreat offering the pagan ritual of erasure.

He faces a door demanding the premium of patience, a destination that will echo his choice – not a person but a void.

He stares at it, trembling at the thought of authenticity, contemplating freedom or disappearance, both derivatives of all that he used to be.

Six Sentence Stories

22 thoughts on “Options and Derivatives”

  1. all i know is the photo of the open door is everything… and the freedom of one’s own choices is their own… what more could one ask for to have the ability to make your own way… the answer is in the mirror…. i thought your 6S story was a challenge as if traveling through a mine field when there was no other way to get to your destination…

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  3. He stands between two glittering possibilities, both tempting, both unreal in their perfection. One promises transformation, the other escape, and neither feels entirely like truth. The screens before him whisper options dressed as futures, each one polished enough to disguise its cost. Behind every choice is a quieter question he cannot ignore: what remains of him once the decision is made. The door waits without urgency, as if it already knows what he will choose. And in that stillness, he realises the real weight is not the decision but the version of himself that will no longer exist after it.

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  4. I wonder what is authentic, being as you were born or being who you want to be. In first sense one should not dye her hair and get nails done or a correction on a birth defect… Hmm. Now I have to go into a dark corner to ponder. Loved the six!

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  5. Unfortunately once the concept of authenticity arises, every answer is under suspicion.

    tough one

    right action is probably not a rational decision, but fortunately for us, emotion is non-rational. to follow one’s heart is often ridiculed as old-fashioned, however, the reason our protagonist might offer to criticize this approach tells us everything (about him)

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  7. The very fact that a man who trebles at the thought of authenticity is trying to choose between a transgender woman and one that has been rebuilt to specification via plastic surgery made me laugh….

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