Cullaways

a lone sand castle on a beach at low tide

Cullaways

n.
the scattering of memories that your brain is actively forgetting at any given moment, erasing them one by one with no input from you and no knowledge that it’s happening at all—which means that when you wake up in the morning, your past will feel imperceptibly altered, with no trace of what you ate last week, a party you attended ten years ago, or the first real conversation you had with your grandfather.

From cull, to control the size of a herd by selectively killing some animals + away. Pronounced “kuhl-uh-weys.”

Epistrix

several doors standing in a dark room

Aftersome

rows of opaque and clear marbles

Daguerreologue

Daguer-reologue

a man sitting in blurred silhouette at a desk

Archimony

a person looking at broken furniture

Austice

a leaf imprint in the mud

Vellichor

shelves with many books stacked and organized

Halfwise

a train coming towards the camera shot from the tracks

Inerrata

a hand holding a broken cup

Tirosy

a close-up of a young child's face

Pithered

stacks of papers and folders piled high on a table

O’Erpine

a person looking at a grave

Harke

a dreamlike image of a person's face over water

Keyframe

a large rock in the water with emanating ripples

Backmasking

a woman's face with a double exposure

Ecury

a close-up of cave drawings and symbols

Blinkback

a wall full of pictures and objects

Zysia

a kite soaring above an empty landscape

Present-Tense

a close-up of a stopwatch

The Kinder Surprise

Cover image for the The Kinder Surprise word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Altschmerz

Cover image for the Altschmerz word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Leidenfreude

Cover image for the Leidenfreude word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Wytai

Cover image for the Wytai word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Zielschmerz

Cover image for the Zielschmerz word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Hemeisis

Cover image for the Hemeisis word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Ledsome

Cover image for the Ledsome word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Scrough

a person working on the sidewalk

Nementia

Cover image for the Nementia word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows