A Second Under the Open Sky
Ever happened to you? Someone throws a harsh line your way and you instantly counterattack with logic and facts, desperate to prove you’re right.…
Reflections
Perfection Is the End
Perfection is a synonym for the end. It is the point after which growth is no longer possible.
Every story is born from the ashes of its drafts
Every story is born from the ashes of its drafts
Freedom of the Cage
A man built the perfect cage for his canary. Every bar was measured. Every perch polished. He calculated the ideal distance to the feeder and the water cup. Everything was done so the bird would be comfortable, her life entirely predictable, safe, and known. He loved his canary. He only wanted to…
The Decorator
At first, we are architects. We are born a wild, unmapped landscape. Somewhere lies a swamp of secret wants, somewhere cliffs of irrational fear, somewhere clearings of pure, causeless joy. Very early on, though, an inner perfectionist wakes up with a master plan for the build-out.
Ctrl+Alt+Del
You don't exist. What you call "I" is a pirated assembly of other people's ideas about success, installed on your factory hardware back in childhood. Clumsy, with broken drivers, but with a full suite of office programs: "Be convenient," "Don't stand out," "What will people say?"
Rust
Arthur was not a person. He was a function housed in a flawless exoskeleton. His title — “Senior Partner” — was a cuirass. His measured, emotionless speech — a sealed visor. His daily commute from sterile suburb to glass tower — greaves that kept him marching in line. Deep inside that armor sat not…
Clay
Old potter Kenji didn’t produce bowls — he carried on a conversation with clay. His workshop, smelling of dust and rain, was lined with shelves. They displayed not triumphs but scars: hundreds of cracked, lopsided, imperfect vessels. One day a young student, Ryo, arrived with a shining ideal in his…
The Collector
He lived in a departure lounge of his own making. Real life, he thought, hadn’t started yet — it was only a stretched-out prologue where his takeoff kept getting delayed. Through a foggy pane he watched other people’s planes — bright, swift, blazing — lift into the sky one after another.
Very Important Business
Ignat didn’t work. He performed a rite. His temple was the city square, his flock the ashy little bundles of life, ordinary city pigeons. Officially, for the odd curious passer-by, he introduced himself as a “municipal ornithologist-statistician.” It sounded dignified, like a verdict. In reality he…
Impenetrability is just a mask hiding a soul starved for warmth.
Impenetrability is just a mask hiding a soul starved for warmth.
Gods of the Cardboard Universe
This is our inner, pocket tyrant. A tiny mad director we ourselves granted an unlimited budget and total creative freedom. He sits in your head, legs crossed, sketching storyboards of the future. Here’s where they will say exactly this. And I will answer just like that. Perfect lighting, calibrated…
The Blot
Victor wasn’t living. He was sterilising reality. His apartment was an operating room, and he, its chief surgeon, carved out any tumor of chaos. His balcony, tiled in flawless white, was his personal annex of sterility on the seventh floor. Deep in the basement of his skull, in a dark, reeking…