He played a lot of the Sims 2 as a child. He enjoyed building incredible homes for himself, or in most cases, downloading others’ incredible homes off the Internet, since the ones he built were generally as ugly as they were incredible, and he lacked the attention span for detailed projects anyway. He always wanted to own one such house in real life—to have his own “new game” moment—to step out of the taxi, luggage bags in hand, in front of a place he could call his own. A place he could begin a...

The time had very nearly arrived, so he strolled out of the house, trembling fingers fumbling slightly as he attempted to slip the key into its lock, a key he soon buried in the stipulated location with the same fingers that again fumbled a thin layer of soil over the steel, to be covered up by the flower pot, all as neatly written, all according to plan, and once he was finished, the time had already approached far closer than expected, as if it had snuck up on him from behind, and he wondered ...

Many thanks to the writers at the Bandcamp Daily, Heavy Blog is Heavy, and Can This Even Be Called Music? for their recommendations. This list would not be possible without them. Don’t worry, there’s a TL;DR at the bottom. 10. Sadness – Rain chamber (Blackgaze, Tumblr girl bait) Bandcamp | Deezer | iTunes | Spotify He slammed the door shut behind him. Down fell a drop of water right onto his eyelid, dislodged by the disruption. Just his luck. It drizzled, still, but that was the least of h...

Where's that child you once saw in the mirror The one with the dreams of a future so vibrant Where are his fantasies when you desperately need him I suppose gods do retire when they're no longer believed in Oh that poor child, what's happened to his faith? The hope and the longing for colours and embrace What do you see when you look in the mirror? I hope, for your sake, that it's something worth keeping You see a man looking up to the sky expectantly. What do you think he's doing? He tells y...

Stanley is the protagonist of this story. But Stanley is not simply a character in our fictional universe, whose life we have manipulated to fit the proceedings of this tale, and whose name, the same one our protagonist originally wore and so proudly embodied for all of his life, we have simply replaced with one that more adequately represents the author's artistic intentions for the tale in question, conveys the carefully premeditated tone of voice and mood to perfection, and is accurate, or i...

Steve awoke from his slumber, which had been by all accounts uncomfortable, and it wasn’t until he opened his eyes that he was able to pinpoint why. The roof of his house had vanished, a most peculiar happening indeed. He proceeded to react as any fellow human in such a strange scenario would: collapse. He rose shortly after, bringing a brief but terrifying nightmare of him running for his life from a gigantic, sentient roof tile to a premature end, and hoped that, like the evil he had barely ...

Last night, we went to watch the end of the world.It was a nine o’clock screening. I got us front row seats; they were expensive, But it was worth it, To see the end of the world, I think. Wasn’t it? We went out for dinner. I imagine prisoners and their last meals, Drawn-out, disconsolate, silently desperate, Savouring the last of their moments on Earth, Savouring the end of the world.But this was quick, dispassionate, Much like the life we had been living: If love was on our schedule, then lo...

The new drugstore was finally open. Chad had been furtively observing it ever since the “For Rent” signs were taken down. He often stood on the pavement just in front, observing in silence the renovation progress during the many walks he undertook daily—his town being a small one and his workplace not distant—for it wasn’t white and clean and pure, as most pharmacies and clinics are, deceiving you from first glance at its walls with perceptions of health, hygiene and sterility. This drugstore ha...