6. cleveland He dreamed of being a rockstar. Ever since his parents put a guitar in his hands on his seventh birthday, he wanted to know all there was to know about how to compose music. In middle school he was shunned by his teachers for being too "out there," too focused on his passions. Later, he would hate himself for more complex reasons that still stemmed from that flaw embedded in him. He studied, only because he was told he had to. High school came around and he kept playing, except now, he was stupid enough to write his own lyrics. They were middling anthems about sex (he wasn't get any), drugs (a toke on a joint at a party once gave him the authority to write about high times), and rock 'n roll (he preferred alternative, technically). He kept these in a journal his father bought him when his mother ran away with a younger man named Tim. This was grade nine. His father told him she was dead. When he found out the truth years later as an adult he decided he

                       Tonight’s just another night filled with misery and defeat, along with the ongoing attempt with trying to drown myself in whiskey.   Ever since I got back, I haven’t been able to find a job.   It might be the hardest struggle I’ve ever faced, and now I was on the brink of becoming homeless.   They told us that we would be heroes when we got back and life would be better.   They told us that we were fighting for a better life for the common man and we would be set when we got back.   I think they were a bunch of fucking liars.                     We risked our lives countless times, and we got nothing in return.   I’m not delusional enough to think that we were going to get parades or anything of the sorts, not that I would want one after everything that happened.   But I thought there would be jobs for us when we got back; but the market is just as tough as it was before I left.   I have been to more interviews in the last month than I can count, and they all t

  5. chicago Everyone remembers the day The Bean hatched. The photo is dated 2016, roughly thirty years before the Hatching took place. Many millions of photos had been taken before this one, and many millions more had been taken after. But this one is special. This one harbors the secret of why the Hatching took place at all. Scientists have pored over this photo for years; government officials had kept it redacted until the Carson Case blew everything wide open. This was in 2035. Since then, internet warriors have dissected every single pixel of that frame to the enth degree. Theories couldn't stop popping up fast enough. Every person who took it upon themselves to figure out the secret of The Hatching thought they had the answer—thought they could win their chance at notoriety, at political sway. None prevailed. Instead, theories were debunked almost as quickly as that first round of ideas mounted. "The clouds in the sky reveal this.." some theories suggested. Others p

                  Where do I start?   Where does anyone start when talking about something completely insane?   As much as I have no idea what is happening to me, I know what happened to bring me to this point.   I suppose it was my hobby that got me in this situation; how could something I enjoy so much leave me in such a desperate state?                Food is my number one interest and has been for a large part of my life.   The combination of flavours and textures are endless; just when you think you’ve tried everything, something new starts to trend and your world is opened up even further.   One bite can take you on an exotic journey filled with unfamiliar spices and aromas, while another can send you back in time to a comforting moment from your childhood. I love to cook and experiment with flavour, I have ever since I took a cooking class at my old high school.   All those years ago I thought that having basic cooking skills would simply be a useful skill to have, plus, the

  4. mississauga Something strange happened to me today. It happened when I was walking home from work. I say "work" but what I really mean is one of my side-gigs, a contract job sketching little girls at a birthday party. Her name was Hilary—or was it, Haley? Doesn't matter. What matters is I was in a foul mood. A culmination of weeks, no, months, feeling unfulfilled. I had been supplementing work for nearly sixteen months now that my contract at The Tribune was terminated. I was their resident cartoonist (a word I've come to hate these past few years), pumping out silly five-strip comics for what remained of the paper's readership. Like the major outlets, the Mississauga Tribune migrated to an online platform that utilized all the latest social media outlets. Work came and went depending on the amount of clicks they garnered in a year. I was lucky to nab my position after graduating from the animation program at Sheridan College, with a solid portfolio that &qu

There are some moments in your life that make you question everything that has brought you to a specific moment, and I believe I just experienced one. I’m not sure what I would describe my experience as; like I know what I saw, but I don’t know what would have caused that. What I do know is that I experienced a deep, chilling, primal fear that gripped my spine harder than anything else. What I know is that for the last four hours, ever since it happened, I haven’t been able to stop shaking. I’m more scared than I ever have been in my life; much more terrified than I ever was as a child. The darkness that I once welcomed as a calming reprise at the end of my day now initiated a fight-or-flight response that wouldn’t leave me. I wanted to crawl into a hole and bury myself to hide from the world, but instead I find myself in front of my laptop typing this out while I take pull off of a previously full bottle of tequila. My head is getting a little heavy and numb, so I’ll have to typ