on the street · in the kitchen · the window behind you, lying down the door
One word each, and never two in a row
The Fridge of Sighs
What we say when we say it together
This is the door of the fridge in the kitchen, and it is covered in word magnets. Anybody signed on to the CB can put up one word, and then somebody else puts up the next, because nobody puts up two in a row. A word ending in a full stop, a question mark, an exclamation mark or an ellipsis finishes the sentence, and it stays on the door with the others. None of the words say whose they were. It is after the sentence builder in our Discord’s Collaborative Nonsense channels.
On the door now
Reading the door needs scripts.
Putting up a word takes a CB handle and the community password: sign on at the Community Center, then come back. Reading the door takes nothing.
Stuck on the door
Finished sentences, newest first. When the door is full the oldest go into the drawer, and nothing goes in the bin.
The door needs scripts to read it.
In the drawer
Everything that came off the door, a month to a pile. Open one to read it.
The drawer needs scripts to open it.
How the door works
- One word at a time, and never two in a row. Once you have put up a word, the next one is somebody else’s. After theirs you can go again. A word is letters and numbers, in any language, with an apostrophe or a hyphen inside it if it needs one, a quotation mark or bracket before it, and a mark or two after it, up to twenty-four characters. No spaces, because that would be two magnets.
- A full stop, a question mark, an exclamation mark or an ellipsis finishes the sentence, and so does the fortieth word, because the door is only so wide. A finished sentence stays on the door, and the door holds the newest forty; older ones go into the drawer, by the month they were finished. They are kept for good.
- No word says who put it up. The only thing the fridge keeps about anybody is a scrambled mark saying the last word was theirs, so that they cannot put up the next one, and it is replaced by the very next word. It is never shown, it cannot be turned back into a handle without the community password, and a finished sentence holds none of it. A sentence is everybody’s.
- Nothing is counted. Not the words, not the sentences, and not how many anybody put up, because nobody knows which were whose.
- The base station can take a word or a sentence down, and so can we if you ask: what the fridge keeps. Search engines are asked not to keep the door.
- Nothing on the door moves, at any setting. The magnets sit where they were put, a little uneven, the way a hand leaves them.
The name, and the magnets
The name is a joke on the Bridge of Sighs, in Venice, and on the noise a fridge makes when its door seals. Word magnets on a fridge were Dave Kapell’s idea: he invented them in 1993, while he was a songwriter with writer’s block, and the kits are sold as Magnetic Poetry. None of his kits’ words are here; every word on this door came from somebody in our community. From Wikipedia’s article on Magnetic Poetry, read on 30 September 2026.
The game is our community’s own, from the Collaborative Nonsense channels in our Discord, where a sentence grows one message at a time. The room is set in Noticia Text, by JM Solé, and credited in the liner notes.
Job marker — a word magnet that has slid to the foot of the fridge door, with nothing on it yet
You have found a job marker. The Adventurer’s Guild is a shopfront on the street, and it posts jobs that send you round these rooms. Take the code below to its board and that job is done. Nothing here is scored, nothing expires, and one is a perfectly good number of jobs to do.
The job: How many words in a row can one person put up?
Before the code: Once you have put up a word, how many more can you put up before somebody else puts up one?
Hint 1
It is the first rule about how the door works.
Hint 2
The next word is always somebody else's.
Last hint
Not a single one.
Give me the answer
The answer is None. Nobody puts up two words in a row, so after your word the next one is somebody else's. After theirs you can go again.
Taking the answer is a real way through this, not a lesser one. Nothing is watching and nothing is written down.
Quest code: MAGNET
That is the one.
Nobody puts up two words in a row, so after your word the next one is somebody else's. After theirs you can go again.
Quest code: MAGNET
HOW LOUD DO YOU WANT IT?
Starts wherever your device says. Nothing moves, flashes, or plays until you say so.