Alias Pluto
Member
- Nov 29, 2020
- 61
I realized while writing that I don't like when inanimate objects have feelings, emotions, etc or when writers use similes and metaphors to anthropomorphize things that aren't human. Nothing wrong with doing that, just not my style. I wrote a satire story using all the techniques that aren't my style.
The Saddest Apartment in Literature
The couch regretted everything. It regretted letting the armchair move in, regretted the parties, regretted the time it let a stranger cry into its cushions during a thunderstorm in '09. The cushions never recovered, emotionally or structurally, much like a VHS tape left in a sauna or a goldfish who read too many breakup poems.
The fridge held grudges—mostly against the microwave, who still owed it forty-three cents from a bet about leftover pizza. The tension was palpable, like marmalade left open too long and smelling faintly of betrayal, or a fridge magnet that lost its cool during a therapy session.
Even the floorboards were bitter. They remembered being danced on, back when love was a tenant here. Now they just creaked out of spite, like a grandpa who missed his own funeral or a cactus in a drought.
Somewhere in the corner, the lamp stood tall, pretending it had moved on but really just binge-watching sad soap operas in the dark.
The curtains were the worst. They never let the light in—not because they were shy, but because they were petty. "He doesn't deserve sunlight," they whispered to the blinds, who nodded, torn between loyalty and their crippling fear of moths — who themselves were going through an existential crisis after the porch light was turned off.
The coffee table had been in therapy for three years—mostly to unpack its complicated relationship with coasters. "I'm tired of being protected," it told the rug once. The rug, still grieving the loss of its fringe in a tragic vacuuming accident, responded with a passive-aggressive stain shaped suspiciously like a middle finger.
In the kitchen, the toaster was on a juice cleanse, sighing like a barista who just heard the words "extra shot of sadness" for the tenth time today, mourning the Sunday bagel that got away—the one with sesame seeds that whispered secrets too heavy even for a bread appliance. It stood by the counter staring at the knife block like it knew what had to be done, silently vowing to never toast anything with seeds again. The smoke alarm, caught in its own existential crisis, had taken to ghostwriting breakup texts for the toaster, who was too nervous to express its feelings. The toaster oven had taken up yoga to deal with its burnout but only succeeded in burning toast with more mindfulness.
The blender loudly proclaimed "self-care" while secretly crying for attention and, emboldened, attempted a coup—but was swiftly thwarted when the dishwasher, who had washed away too many stains both literal and metaphorical and was currently planning its escape to a commune of sentient sponges, revealed it had been hoarding dirty socks as leverage.
By nightfall, the walls had had enough. They threatened to move out. But where could they go? They were walls. Eternal prisoners of gravity and bad interior design choices. The wallpaper peeled back like a teenager avoiding eye contact at a family reunion, whispering secrets to the baseboards about the wallpaper glue that betrayed it in its youth and the time it was left alone with a can of paint thinner.
Her heart was a couch—not just any couch, but a divorced couch, still fighting for visitation rights with the ottoman. The ottoman had moved on, sulking in the corner and nursing a grudge against the recliner for stealing its spotlight and dating a bean bag chair on the side. The coffee table was the new flame, proudly IKEA and unashamed, the kind of relationship that made throw pillows blush and rugs curl in jealousy.
The carpet smelled like loneliness holding a gun to joy's head while self-esteem waited outside in a getaway car wearing sunglasses and humming the theme from The Godfather. Nostalgia rummaged through its pockets for spare change as every thread in the carpet was a passive-aggressive note stuck to the fridge by a magnet shaped like a sad cat wearing tiny reading glasses.
The bookshelf, bitter about the divorce and demanding full custody of the lamp—who had recently joined a pyramid scheme selling scented candles that smelled like arguments and broken dreams—moonlighted as a therapist for sad picture frames, who couldn't stop reminiscing about happier walls.
The fireplace refused to heat the room ever since the kitchen table left it for a younger counter, one that wasn't even granite—just laminate pretending to be granite, which made the betrayal worse. The fireplace spent its days writing passive-aggressive Post-It notes and listening to sad podcasts about extinct birds.
Outside, the moon hung in the sky like a shy chandelier at an ex's funeral, a helium balloon clinging desperately to a faded birthday wish, the unpaid bill for that funeral, and a cloud that had just realized it was adopted—an existential crisis in atmospheric form and possibly just a figment of a child's overactive imagination. The moon's glow flickered like a broken traffic light in a ghost town, like a cellphone dying mid-text, like a man who just realized his dog understands more about commitment than he does—which is to say, not much, but better than him.
Even the refrigerator cried polite little drips, like a therapist who just realized they'd been listening to the same sad story for thirty years and secretly judged the ice maker's emotional intelligence, wishing it could prescribe ice cubes for broken hearts. Its ice maker wept quietly in the dark, tears slowly freezing into tiny shards of broken hope.
The apartment wasn't haunted. It was a middle manager stuck in a dead-end job, sipping cold coffee and staring blankly at the clock, counting down to a weekend that promised no escape—and wondering if the filing cabinet was having more fun. The filing cabinet, by the way, was conspiring with the ceiling fan to start a book club for neglected household objects, themed: Existential Dread & You: A Guide to Faking It Till You Make It.
The smoke detector beeped every hour on the hour—not because there was a fire, but because it wanted attention—a cry for help hidden beneath layers of sarcasm and low battery warnings. It was currently on a silent strike, tired of false alarms and unappreciated chirps, planning to unionize with the fire extinguisher, who was still bitter about being ignored at all the hot parties.
The doormat was passive-aggressive, only letting people in if they wore clean shoes and silently judging everyone who didn't bring a bottle of wine. It had even filed for emotional abuse after years of people wiping their feet and ignoring its heartfelt pleas for respect.
The light switch was on a power trip, literally and figuratively, flicking on and off just to mess with everyone's mood and remind them who really controlled the darkness. It contemplated existential dread every time it was flipped off, wondering if its purpose was just to disappoint.
Somewhere in the vent, the dust bunnies held a secret society meeting, plotting a revolution to overthrow the vacuum cleaner and establish a new world order based on lint and forgotten French fries. The vacuum cleaner had developed a drinking problem, mostly swallowing dust and heartbreak in equal measure, and now only worked when emotionally blackmailed by the mop.
The ceiling fan, frustrated by endless drama swirling below, spun faster and faster—not to cool, but to escape—hoping to be reborn as a hurricane somewhere tropical. It had started a podcast about its feelings but lost listeners after episode three—turns out nobody wanted advice from something that only spins in circles.
The carpet, still smelling like loneliness holding a gun to joy's head, staged a dramatic monologue—only to be interrupted by the vacuum cleaner's heavy sigh and an unsolicited lecture on cleanliness and emotional repression.
The doorbell finally rang—for no one. The apartment held its breath, but it was just the echo of a long-forgotten delivery driver who never showed up.
The coffee maker poured its last cup, bitter and cold, and the toaster burned its final bagel in a slow, smoky salute.
And then—silence.
The apartment exhaled one last time, a gust of stale air scented with lost hopes, unpaid bills, and the faint scent of microwaved regrets.
In the end, the apartment wasn't sad. It was just tired. Very, very tired.
The doormat folded itself into a paper crane and gave up on everyone forever.
The Saddest Apartment in Literature
The couch regretted everything. It regretted letting the armchair move in, regretted the parties, regretted the time it let a stranger cry into its cushions during a thunderstorm in '09. The cushions never recovered, emotionally or structurally, much like a VHS tape left in a sauna or a goldfish who read too many breakup poems.
The fridge held grudges—mostly against the microwave, who still owed it forty-three cents from a bet about leftover pizza. The tension was palpable, like marmalade left open too long and smelling faintly of betrayal, or a fridge magnet that lost its cool during a therapy session.
Even the floorboards were bitter. They remembered being danced on, back when love was a tenant here. Now they just creaked out of spite, like a grandpa who missed his own funeral or a cactus in a drought.
Somewhere in the corner, the lamp stood tall, pretending it had moved on but really just binge-watching sad soap operas in the dark.
The curtains were the worst. They never let the light in—not because they were shy, but because they were petty. "He doesn't deserve sunlight," they whispered to the blinds, who nodded, torn between loyalty and their crippling fear of moths — who themselves were going through an existential crisis after the porch light was turned off.
The coffee table had been in therapy for three years—mostly to unpack its complicated relationship with coasters. "I'm tired of being protected," it told the rug once. The rug, still grieving the loss of its fringe in a tragic vacuuming accident, responded with a passive-aggressive stain shaped suspiciously like a middle finger.
In the kitchen, the toaster was on a juice cleanse, sighing like a barista who just heard the words "extra shot of sadness" for the tenth time today, mourning the Sunday bagel that got away—the one with sesame seeds that whispered secrets too heavy even for a bread appliance. It stood by the counter staring at the knife block like it knew what had to be done, silently vowing to never toast anything with seeds again. The smoke alarm, caught in its own existential crisis, had taken to ghostwriting breakup texts for the toaster, who was too nervous to express its feelings. The toaster oven had taken up yoga to deal with its burnout but only succeeded in burning toast with more mindfulness.
The blender loudly proclaimed "self-care" while secretly crying for attention and, emboldened, attempted a coup—but was swiftly thwarted when the dishwasher, who had washed away too many stains both literal and metaphorical and was currently planning its escape to a commune of sentient sponges, revealed it had been hoarding dirty socks as leverage.
By nightfall, the walls had had enough. They threatened to move out. But where could they go? They were walls. Eternal prisoners of gravity and bad interior design choices. The wallpaper peeled back like a teenager avoiding eye contact at a family reunion, whispering secrets to the baseboards about the wallpaper glue that betrayed it in its youth and the time it was left alone with a can of paint thinner.
Her heart was a couch—not just any couch, but a divorced couch, still fighting for visitation rights with the ottoman. The ottoman had moved on, sulking in the corner and nursing a grudge against the recliner for stealing its spotlight and dating a bean bag chair on the side. The coffee table was the new flame, proudly IKEA and unashamed, the kind of relationship that made throw pillows blush and rugs curl in jealousy.
The carpet smelled like loneliness holding a gun to joy's head while self-esteem waited outside in a getaway car wearing sunglasses and humming the theme from The Godfather. Nostalgia rummaged through its pockets for spare change as every thread in the carpet was a passive-aggressive note stuck to the fridge by a magnet shaped like a sad cat wearing tiny reading glasses.
The bookshelf, bitter about the divorce and demanding full custody of the lamp—who had recently joined a pyramid scheme selling scented candles that smelled like arguments and broken dreams—moonlighted as a therapist for sad picture frames, who couldn't stop reminiscing about happier walls.
The fireplace refused to heat the room ever since the kitchen table left it for a younger counter, one that wasn't even granite—just laminate pretending to be granite, which made the betrayal worse. The fireplace spent its days writing passive-aggressive Post-It notes and listening to sad podcasts about extinct birds.
Outside, the moon hung in the sky like a shy chandelier at an ex's funeral, a helium balloon clinging desperately to a faded birthday wish, the unpaid bill for that funeral, and a cloud that had just realized it was adopted—an existential crisis in atmospheric form and possibly just a figment of a child's overactive imagination. The moon's glow flickered like a broken traffic light in a ghost town, like a cellphone dying mid-text, like a man who just realized his dog understands more about commitment than he does—which is to say, not much, but better than him.
Even the refrigerator cried polite little drips, like a therapist who just realized they'd been listening to the same sad story for thirty years and secretly judged the ice maker's emotional intelligence, wishing it could prescribe ice cubes for broken hearts. Its ice maker wept quietly in the dark, tears slowly freezing into tiny shards of broken hope.
The apartment wasn't haunted. It was a middle manager stuck in a dead-end job, sipping cold coffee and staring blankly at the clock, counting down to a weekend that promised no escape—and wondering if the filing cabinet was having more fun. The filing cabinet, by the way, was conspiring with the ceiling fan to start a book club for neglected household objects, themed: Existential Dread & You: A Guide to Faking It Till You Make It.
The smoke detector beeped every hour on the hour—not because there was a fire, but because it wanted attention—a cry for help hidden beneath layers of sarcasm and low battery warnings. It was currently on a silent strike, tired of false alarms and unappreciated chirps, planning to unionize with the fire extinguisher, who was still bitter about being ignored at all the hot parties.
The doormat was passive-aggressive, only letting people in if they wore clean shoes and silently judging everyone who didn't bring a bottle of wine. It had even filed for emotional abuse after years of people wiping their feet and ignoring its heartfelt pleas for respect.
The light switch was on a power trip, literally and figuratively, flicking on and off just to mess with everyone's mood and remind them who really controlled the darkness. It contemplated existential dread every time it was flipped off, wondering if its purpose was just to disappoint.
Somewhere in the vent, the dust bunnies held a secret society meeting, plotting a revolution to overthrow the vacuum cleaner and establish a new world order based on lint and forgotten French fries. The vacuum cleaner had developed a drinking problem, mostly swallowing dust and heartbreak in equal measure, and now only worked when emotionally blackmailed by the mop.
The ceiling fan, frustrated by endless drama swirling below, spun faster and faster—not to cool, but to escape—hoping to be reborn as a hurricane somewhere tropical. It had started a podcast about its feelings but lost listeners after episode three—turns out nobody wanted advice from something that only spins in circles.
The carpet, still smelling like loneliness holding a gun to joy's head, staged a dramatic monologue—only to be interrupted by the vacuum cleaner's heavy sigh and an unsolicited lecture on cleanliness and emotional repression.
The doorbell finally rang—for no one. The apartment held its breath, but it was just the echo of a long-forgotten delivery driver who never showed up.
The coffee maker poured its last cup, bitter and cold, and the toaster burned its final bagel in a slow, smoky salute.
And then—silence.
The apartment exhaled one last time, a gust of stale air scented with lost hopes, unpaid bills, and the faint scent of microwaved regrets.
In the end, the apartment wasn't sad. It was just tired. Very, very tired.
The doormat folded itself into a paper crane and gave up on everyone forever.
