AThe Bakery Where Time Is Sold
A girl in a yellow raincoat buys a loaf of time from an owl baker and takes one bite. Time runs for everything in the world except her.
Claymation stop-motion miniature
17 keys · 18 ghosts1:46
Harness test · imgapi
Dream storyboards
Dreams and short stories, storyboarded end to end by an autonomous harness on a local image model: character and set sheets first, keyframes built by editing with those sheets as references, and ghost frames wherever one frame needs more than a single change to become the next.
Series 1 A to Z: short dreams, one style each · 26 stories
A
BThe Whale Who Delivers the Mail
An old postman waiting on a fire-watch tower is swallowed by a whale that is a post office — and one letter inside is for him, from the boy he used to be.
Ukiyo-e woodblock print
16 keys · 7 ghosts1:30
C
DMy Teeth Are Moving Out
One night a young man's teeth pack tiny suitcases, ride the toothbrush cup — now a bus — down the plughole, and move into a town made of sugar cubes. He follows them. In the morning they are all back. One of them has a door.
Two-colour risograph (fluorescent pink and teal)
15 keys · 7 ghosts1:08
EThe Night Nani Knits
Every night, Nani knits the night for Asha's window. One night she dozes off with a thread left loose, the cat pulls it, and morning comes at midnight — so Asha carries the whole night up a ladder and throws it back into the sky.
Gouache picture-book illustration (mid-century)
16 keys · 4 ghosts1:38
FThe Moon Is a Lightbulb
When the moon — a giant lightbulb — burns out, an old lamplighter rides his rubber lamppost into the sky and screws in the only spare he has: his own lantern.
1930s black-and-white rubber-hose cartoon
16 keys · 4 ghosts1:34
GDadi's Monsoon Jar
Every summer Dadi sets her jars out on the terrace — not pickles, seasons. She tells Kabir not to open them. He opens the monsoon, and the whole town gets rain in May, until Dadi sings the cloud back home.
Pahari miniature painting (Kangra) · narrated in Hindi
14 keys · 4 ghosts1:14
HMy Shadow Went to Work Without Me
For twenty-two years Ravi has never missed a day of work. One morning he oversleeps, and his shadow goes without him — and does his whole job by lunch. Then it takes him to the sea.
Andhra leather shadow puppets (Tholu Bommalata)
11 keys · 2 ghosts1:11
IThe Sun Broke in Two
In a city made of glass, the sun breaks in half. A boy in the west and a girl in the east each find a half, follow the other's glow across the dark city, and meet under the empty frame.
Stained glass
20 keys · 2 ghosts1:24
JThe Night the River Went for a Walk
One full-moon night the village river gets up on a hundred little legs and walks away. Sai follows its trail of fish across the fields, dances with it under the moon, and carries it home in her pot.
Warli painting (white rice paste on mud)
12 keys · 0 ghosts1:20
KThe Poster Holiday
Waiting for a late train, a woman steps into the travel poster on the platform wall — and nearly stays there.
1950s travel-poster screenprint
16 keys · 0 ghosts1:22
LThe Heron in the Ink
An old calligrapher's brushstroke becomes a heron and flies away; he follows it through hills of wet ink to the edge of the paper.
Sumi-e ink wash
13 keys · 1 ghosts1:05
MThe Mountain Came to Tea
Every winter morning, Hana looks at the mountain through her round window. One morning the window is empty — the mountain is at her door.
Sumi-e ink wash
9 keys · 2 ghosts1:02
NDada's Moustache Grew a Garden
Dada naps on his charpai every afternoon. One afternoon his enormous moustache sprouts, then grows into a flowering garden — and Tara waters it.
Madhubani (Mithila) folk painting
7 keys · 1 ghosts0:44
OThe Tiger Whose Stripes Ran Away
A tiger sleeps so deeply that his stripes get bored and wander off into the night. Raju finds them tangled above the trees — and puts them back.
Gond painting (Pardhan Gond)
8 keys · 2 ghosts0:49
PThe Missing Stitch
In a village stitched on cloth, a sparrow pulls a loose thread and the sky begins to unravel — until an old embroiderer climbs the church spire with the only thread she has, which is red.
Cross-stitch embroidery
11 keys · 3 ghosts0:53
QThe Barber's Reflection
At closing time, a tired barber stops sweeping — and his reflection doesn't. It steps out of the mirror and finishes the job for him.
Ligne claire comic
7 keys · 0 ghosts0:32
RThe Paper Sea
A paper girl rows across the sea of a pop-up book — until the house cat reaches in.
Papercut (kirigami) inside a photograph
8 keys · 0 ghosts0:44
SThe Cat Who Stole the Moon
Every night the fat cat by the pond stares at the moon in the water. One night it pounces — and comes up with the real one.
Kalighat pat painting
10 keys · 1 ghosts0:57
TThe Walk to Grandma's
A girl in a yellow raincoat walks to her grandmother's house at the end of the street — and on the way the year turns, and so does her whole life.
16-bit pixel art (side-scroller)
8 keys · 0 ghosts0:53
UThe Rooster Who Woke the Sun Too Early
A rooster who can't wait for morning crows at midnight — and the sun, still in its nightcap, gets up.
Persian miniature (Safavid)
8 keys · 3 ghosts0:54
VThe Wall Between
An old man and a young woman live on either side of one wall, each alone — until one night he knocks, and the wall knocks back.
Azulejo (Portuguese blue-and-white painted tiles)
8 keys · 0 ghosts0:42
WThe Umbrella That Rained Upward
In a town where it always rains, a girl's red umbrella makes the rain fall up — and the storm shrinks to a small cloud that follows her home.
Two-colour linocut
5 keys · 0 ghosts0:38
XThe Cat Who Wouldn't Stay in Profile
For three thousand years everyone in the tomb painting has faced sideways. Then the cat turns round to look at us.
Ancient Egyptian tomb painting
7 keys · 2 ghosts0:41
YThe House for Rosa
An architect promised his wife a house by the sea. They never built it — so on her birthdays, he kept revising the drawing.
Architectural blueprint (white linework on Prussian blue)
7 keys · 0 ghosts0:40
ZThe Firebird's Feather
In a village with no oil for its lamps, a boy asks the Firebird for a single feather — and lights every window, one by one.
Palekh lacquer miniature
6 keys · 2 ghosts0:45
Series 2 Longer stories: three acts, a planted payoff, 16–27 frames · 6 stories
ACThe Broken Drum
An old temple drummer will not let his granddaughter play her own beat, until his drum splits on festival day and the temple elephant refuses to move for anyone else's rhythm.
Kerala mural painting
16 keys · 7 ghosts1:54
ADThe Bridge That Didn't Meet
Two proud foremen race to build the higher half of a bridge, and the halves miss by a storey, until a storm and a child's red skipping rope make them build the one thing that joins them.
Soviet constructivist poster
16 keys · 11 ghosts1:35
AEWinter's Garden
Spring will not let the garden rest, so Winter waits outside the gate — and Jan's bulb, the one his mother left him, never flowers.
Art Nouveau poster (Alphonse Mucha)
18 keys · 5 ghosts1:30
AFFloor Thirteen
On his last night, a strict hotel lift operator meets a small girl with a red balloon who wants floor thirteen, the floor that isn't there.
1950s UPA limited animation
18 keys · 8 ghosts2:00
AGThe Raven and the Lamp
In the long night, a girl lets her grandmother's lamp burn too high, a raven steals the flame, and the fire he cannot hold becomes the northern lights.
Inuit stonecut print (Cape Dorset)
14 keys · 9 ghosts1:36
AHThe New Year Carp
Every New Year, Grandma cooks a carp. This year her grandson makes friends with it, and when she comes with the pot he looks exactly like the lucky picture on the wall.
Chinese New Year woodblock print (Yangliuqing nianhua)
14 keys · 2 ghosts1:06