By Dennis Hartley

I’ve never experienced the trauma of war firsthand, but I have lived with upstairs neighbors for 8 years now, which has to be the next worst thing (they’re thundering back and forth as I write this!). In fact, I’ve been suffering from what could only be described as P.T.S.D. ever since the new owners of my apartment building did a gut renovation of the unit directly above me 2 years ago. It was 5 months of a non-stop, cacophonous din; it’s the closest I’ve come in my life to feeling like I was truly going to lose my goddam mind.

I think that’s why this animated short had me rolling for six minutes straight…it was so close to home that I felt like I was looking at something projected directly from my id (“fuck are they doing up there, dropping bowling balls at midnight?!”). Writer-director Connie Qin He takes a simple premise (a sleep-deprived young woman’s imagination runs wild as she tries to visualize what fresh hell her upstairs neighbors have cooked up to keep her tossing and turning) and turns it into comedy gold.