Smug bastard cycles to work

Employees at a firm in London express their outrage as their smug bastard colleague cycles to work for the third time this week.

Fifty-two-year-old Chris Davis favours arriving at the office sinewy, weather-beaten and lycra-clad for the sole purpose of making everyone feel bad about themselves, the employees speculate. Sheeted in sweat, Chris appears at the office entrance doing high-knees to stop his heart rate from falling, before clapping his hands together and yelling "Who’s pumped!" at his sluggish subordinates.

'He walks around with the bravado and flush of someone who’s just got laid,' data analyst John comments. 'He does his lunges in the office kitchen, still out of breath, with the sated, self-satisfied look of a uni student swaggering to the communal fridge in his underwear. I’m almost expecting a woman in a bathrobe to follow behind and urge him to come back to bed.'

'He asks me how my morning has been, but it’s just a ploy so he can talk about his,' Kate explains. ' "What were you doing at 5:30 this morning?" he asks, knowing full well that I was asleep with last night’s makeup forming a flaky crust on my face. He then goes on to tell me how he was up doing his tantric breathing exercises and welcoming the sunrise. He uses a different adjective to describe the sunrise everyday. This morning it was "transcendent."'

Chris’s irritating lifestyle choices have also extended to his eating habits. 'How has this somehow become my problem?' secretary Ella laments, describing how Chris joylessly raises his blood sugar with a banana at 9am, before conspicuously eating nothing until a protein bar at 12. Ella describes being held verbally hostage as he regurgitates an article he read on metabolism last night, urging her to take up Pilates to "become her best self".'

'He's handling the divorce about as well as you would expect.'

Image: Gonzalo Facello (@gonchifacello) | Unsplash Photo Community

Smiffys to Release Existential Halloween Costumes for Those Suffering Quarter-Life Crises

Witches, skeletons, and ghosts may have been the stuff of nightmares when we were children, but for those entering young adulthood, the folk villains of yore seem to have lost their menacing edge.

That’s why this Halloween, Smiffys fancy dress has announced a new line of Halloween costumes aimed to embody the darkest fears of those aged 18-30.

‘Externalising all my abstract fears into a succinct, material expression of festivity is way better than putting on a stripy shirt and saying I’m Where’s Wally again,’ says Ray, aged 20, holding a beaker of vodka cranberry and donned in his new costume, “Intrusive Thoughts About Your Parents Dying”.

‘I was originally going to go as part of a group,’ Lacy tells us. ‘We were also going to go as slutty cats. Then after some introspection I learned that the thing that truly keeps me up at night is that one Margaret Atwood quote about how, under patriarchy, women will always be objectified, no matter what we do or wear. So I decided to go dressed as the “Inescapable Panopticon of the Male Gaze.” – it’s actually not so different to my slutty cat costume.’

Other costumes include: “Accidentally Committing Tax Fraud,” “Losing Your Deposit Because You Used Blu-Tac,” “Diagnosing Yourself With Severe Personality Disorders at 2am,” “Childhood Friend Getting Married,” and “Not Having a Savings Account.”

Photo by Sabina Music Rich on Unsplash

Woman convinced that just getting one more little treat will sort her life out

23-year-old Olivia Adams remains convinced that continuing to treat herself to “a little something” will radically transform her life and make everything fall into place.

‘I see something I like, and I build my identity from there up,’ Olivia tells us. ‘Every new top from Zara ushers in a new era of my life, a new paradigm for living.’

‘Hats were a thing for a while,’ Olivia’s best friend Emma recalls. ‘Hats reinvigorated her will to live for a few days, then she moved on to the next thing. She is a restless teenager, trying on different identities, hoping that it will lead to self-actualisation. Needless to say, she’s in major debt.’

Olivia’s bedroom is a graveyard of aborted microtrends. She was into tarot cards for a while, but they are gathering dust beside her crochet hooks and her dying house-plants. She’s redownloaded Duolingo, and now learning Hebrew will be her “thing".

‘I truly don’t believe there is a single problem in my life that can’t be sorted by buying a cute outfit, a £6 latte, and just walking around.’

As Olivia's bank account dwindles, her collection of "life-changing" items grows exponentially. Each new acquisition is hailed as the missing piece of her existential puzzle, the catalyst that will usher her into a life of fulfilment and accomplishment. "Just one more treat," she whispers to herself, with an almost religious fervour, as she hands over her hard-earned money.