sleepy drafts
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a sleepy writer named em :)
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New Year, New Projects, Neverchangeable. Honorable Mention in New Year, New Projects Challenge.
The first three characters of this story were introduced to me while working a late-night shift alone, at my job at the local dispensary. These characters came in the form of a short, off-handed comment from a customer: "People never change."
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in Motivation
Neverchangeable | Chapter 3
<< Click to read from the beginning (Chapter 0) < Click to read Chapter 2 On the security camera app installed on my cell phone, I watch the nothingness on the screen. In front of me, Farley walks across the bridge. It’s the same easy walk he’s had from since when we were kids. He doesn’t look back which makes it easy to take a moment and dip into my pixelated reverie. The cabin is black and grey except for the clump of dim white glow near the bottom corner of the screen. No sound comes from the room, no footsteps or crackling of a wood-burning fire from when Farley and I were kids. Even in the middle of the day, the room on the screen is midnight dark.
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in Chapters
Neverchangeable | Chapter 2
<< Click to read from the beginning (Chapter 0) < Click to read Chapter 1 I look to you, slumped in the corner, as if awaiting your approval. My one remaining eye has adjusted more now. I can see more than just your rubbery skin, neon with death in front of me, and the single, shiny eye of the camera. I can make out the moose head I know is there, the overstuffed loveseat, the long, leather sofa under Auntie Rachel’s watercolour paintings. The ones she made when she got brain cancer. I can see the radiation on those paintings, green and luminescent, sparkling like the snowy landscapes they depict. The radiation poured from her pupils as she transferred the images from her mind to the coarse paper. Snowy hills, like clean, fresh starts, the radiation underneath only visible to me. Like two weeks from now, when the tourism season will officially be over, when winter will come, and here you and I will be. The two of us, alone, at last. Like it should have always been.
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in Chapters
Neverchangeable | Chapter 1
< Click to read Chapter 0 Farley won't stop fucking around with his hunting knife. The sound sets my teeth on edge. The bridge has transformed over the two years since I sold it, most of the change happening within the last one. The limestone has been reinforced, no longer crumbling at random intervals, and signs have been put up at both ends with detailed directions on how to get through the forest safely and with ease. Different trails are marked with either green, orange, or red lines to allow tourists to select their difficulty. None of the trails are truly difficult anymore, though. None, except the unmarked ones. Farley’s face twists in disdain when he sees the sign, wide and dummy-proof.
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in Chapters
Neverchangeable | Chapter 0
I smile up at the camera. A past version of me, a ghost version, sits hunched over a laptop in a dark room and watches the grainy, bluelight images move across his screen. I picture being that other version of me right now, the one that doesn’t exist, staring blankly, hungrily at the scene. Finally, I hear him think, something different. He hasn’t realized it’s us yet – me, him – and so he laps up the image. Two slumped over figures, one barely human anymore, the other a black-and-white night vision phantom of a man, smiling at the camera. His one eye glows, a white ring of two-dimensional fire that burns into the lens. The other eye is a wet slit, open, gooey, dripping, the membrane now a soft, stretched sock drooping over the eyelid, the kind of sock Farley and I used to hit each other with, with tennis balls dropped down in to the toes, the kind you used to hate. I shudder, look sideways with my one eye at the barely human figure slumped beside me, at once the man in the night vision scene again. You would not have approved of this. Not one bit. I look back at the camera, attached to the nose of the moose Farley had killed when we were fourteen, the camera I put up after Dad died. You would have been mortified. Would have called me indecent. I would have told you, it’s called being smart. You and I both know, you would have seen through that.
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in Chapters
Stream, Money, Tears, Blood, Lullaby: A Review of "Ru" by Kim Thuy
Two letters, one word, and so many tumbling meanings, Ru by Kim Thúy, is a story as concise and layered as its titular word. Stream, flow of money, tears, blood...these are the translations of the word ru in French; cradle or lullaby are the word's meanings in Vietnamese. It's from this word, ru's, perspective, Kim Thúy takes us on a kaleidoscope journey through her protagonist, An Tinh Nguyen's life. An's recounting of her life story flows between different points in both her childhood and adulthood, beautiful, traumatic, and everything in between. All the while, Thúy's prose is unflinching and hypnotic, like the bloody lullaby in her story's name.
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in BookClub
Questions of The Apocalypse in "Moon of the Crusted Snow" a Novel by Waubgeshig Rice. Top Story - January 2025.
How would you react if the world went dark? In the novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice, he asks his readers to consider this question while he unfolds the chilling story of a small northern Anishinaabe community who loses power at the start of a stark winter. With community members being at different levels of preparedness for winter, some having hunted and fished over the warmer seasons, some having not, tensions begin to rise. As news of the city losing power makes its way to the northern community, visitors begin to make their way to the community too. Not all of the visitors have the best intentions, though, which becomes clear as resources begin dwindle. Adjustments are made within the community as families try to re-organize themselves and learn how to live in the fallout of society's upheaval.
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in BookClub
Babygirl
It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what we grew up with. That’s what Mama says. When she tells me about her childhood, it doesn’t sound so bad. That’s always when Daddy comes in shaking his head. He tells me, “That’s just because you’re not old enough to hear the rest yet, babygirl.”
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in Fiction
"The Dangers of Smoking in Bed" A Review of Mariana Enriquez's Collection of Short Horrors
Disturbing, disgusting, and somehow... cozy? If you were to ask me what three words I would use to describe, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez, those would be them. Maybe 'cozy' isn't the right word, though. The more appropriate term might be more along the lines of 'sublime,' although not in the traditional sense. That being said, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed are not traditional horror stories.
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in BookClub
10 Things You Should Know About Brain Rot
Snuggled up in bed, lights off, a long day behind you and a long day ahead of you, very little sounds better than turning your brain off and zoning out until your eyes start to droop and your thumbs start to slip and twitch, accidentally hitting questionable "likes" while you fall asleep. It's almost like coming home from a hard day's work just to kill a couple of hours in front of the TV before bed...right?
By sleepy draftsabout a year ago in 01
