About the Book
Fed Time follows Malik Reynolds, a dedicated federal employee who has built his life around routine, balance, and quiet competence. For decades, the system he works within feels stable, consistent, and secure. Then, without warning, that stability begins to fracture.
As new leadership reshapes the direction of the institution, Malik finds himself navigating sudden disruption in real time. Long-standing norms shift. Certainty erodes. The work remains, but the ground beneath it changes. What unfolds is not a dramatic collapse, but something more unsettling. A slow unraveling of trust, identity, and purpose.
Through Malik’s experience, Fed Time explores what happens when people are forced to adapt while still inside the pressure that caused the disruption. The story captures the strain carried by those doing the work when decisions are made far from the reality of their day-to-day lives. Paths are disrupted. Futures grow uncertain. Balance turns into something that must be actively fought for rather than assumed.
While rooted in the federal workforce, Fed Time reaches beyond any single institution. Malik’s story reflects a moment many are living through across industries and organizations, where systems change abruptly and individuals are left to recalibrate without preparation. This is a story about endurance, self-definition, and the quiet reckoning that follows when the path you trusted no longer holds.
Why This Story
Fed Time grew out of observing and experiencing firsthand what happens when systems shift suddenly and the people inside them are left to carry the weight of that change alone. It began as a response to events unfolding in real time, without warning, and without space for those affected to process what was happening as it occurred.
The story was shaped by the strain that emerged when leadership became disconnected from the work and from the people doing the work, when decisions were made at a distance and their impact was felt most deeply by those who kept the system moving. Within the federal workforce, that reality arrived abruptly and remains present. Careers have been interrupted, routines dismantled, and long-held assumptions about stability continue to be tested.
What makes the moment so disorienting is not only the loss, but the realization that something once believed to be dependable can change so completely. That awareness does not fade when the initial disruption passes. It lingers and reshapes how people move forward.
That experience is not confined to one profession or institution. It exists anywhere power shifts quickly and people are forced to adapt without preparation. Fed Time speaks to that shared human moment. It is a story about recalibration, resilience, and the fight to regain balance while the ground beneath you is still changing.
This story was written for anyone who has faced, or will face, an abrupt turning point and must decide how to move forward when the path they trusted no longer holds.
About the Author
Staff Van Gogh is a self-published, first-time author and lifelong creative. As a child, he was an avid reader who gravitated toward drawing, writing stories, and composing poems. Identifying as an artist first and a writer second, he believes that every gift we are blessed with is meant to be released and shared with the world.
Writing under a pen name inspired by the pen and brush of Vincent Van Gogh, he approaches storytelling with intention, emotion, and lived experience. Becoming an author was not a sudden decision, but a goal he carried with him from a young age.
Fed Time represents the first literary expression of that long-held ambition, emerging after years of creative exploration across other forms of artistic expression.