The Leaf With One Side
a gamebook by Bryce Benton
This book is being written; sections appear as they are finished.
200 sections written so far.
Begin the book
How it works
Read a page and pick a line at the bottom. Some pages tell you to write a word down; keep the list, because later pages speak only to those who have it. Some choices end the book. Start again whenever you like.
Ways in
Ice The ice house closes at two. Bat There is a bridge, and at dusk a lot of people stand on it holding paper cups and not talking. Cabinet The green door opens on a long room of drawers. Central The library keeps its news on a cork board by the stairs. Greenspeed At the foot of the hill on Congress a bike has stopped for a man with a pencil. Lantern creek You wade in to the ankle and lift one out. Light The first light the new government finished went up on this headland in 1791, and it has been turning since. Maze The hedge is yaupon, twice your height, hung with the red berries it gets in November. Shoal Creek, both directions Your palm in the water finds three temperatures. Song and Ink The graveyard has a theremin in it, and the theremin is you. The canopy Up the block the light goes green. The commons Past the tracks the street gives out into a slope of dead electronics: monitors face up, server cases on their sides, phones in drifts. The crossroads It is a short walk. The cube A silver cube sits on the sill of a window, an inch on a side, its edges rubbed bright. The garden The drip line does not stop where you found it. The house The gate is open, and the hinges have rusted that way. The loop It goes over, and for a second there is nothing on either side of it. The measure of hollow things The cave lets you out on two feet, onto the gravel shoulder of the highway. The morning The stove clock says 5:01. The radio Past where the needle went heavy under your fingers there is a voice. Trail There is a sign, and the sign is a hiker. Trash Magic It is Friday, just past midnight. Vintage The laundromat is long and narrow, with the machines down one side and a counter at the back where two taps stand under a card that says... W.A.S.T.E. Under the bridge, past where the bats come out, one seam in the concrete has a brass lip worn bright by something that is not weather. Elsewhere in the world
The words · The cast · The threads
Colophon and credits · The Workshop journal
Spot a word that sounds off, or a fact that is wrong? Write to studio@releaf.site and we will fix it, and thank you by name if you like.
