As mentioned, I desperately miss the creative outlets my past employment provided, and creating Original Memes a few times a month has not been enough. After creating my latest meme, I found myself writing this personal essay about the meme’s topic, medical cannabis use, and “short-form” narratives.

First, I am a fan of the short-form narrative, especially for entertainment purposes. I’ve studied narrative form and theory, edited six anthologies, and published more than 200 short-form narratives in numerous national literary magazines. I respect the efficiencies it takes to shorten a written narrative without losing meaning. I also respect tight and efficient writing, especially in short stories. That also translates into cinema. For decades, most entertainment narratives have been shifting to shorter and shorter forms, but I’d lost hope for a renaissance for short-form cinema, until I finished watching the third volume of Love Death + Robots on Netflix.

Love Death + Robots, a sci-fi animated short-film anthology series created by Tim Miller (director of Deadpool), spawned from a failed attempt from Miller and famous director David Fincher to remake of the film Heavy Metal, a movie I absolutely loved when it came out in 1981. Instead of a movie, Netflix agreed to adapt the project into independent, creative, and diverse animated short films. The run time for each episode ranged from a few minutes to 22 minutes. The production was top-notch animation and story telling, and I was not surprise to find out many of the narratives had been based off short stories. I desperately hope this format becomes more and more popular, until it’s just another option for viewers.

I am not a huge sci-fi fan, but quality story telling is quality story telling, and if done well, I would love to watch this short-format for not just sci-fi but for all genres of filmmaking. Please, give us a well-done drama, thriller, mystery, historical-fiction, and other genres, and make them connected, unconnected, or tangentially connected. I would watch it all, because these short-form narratives were perfect vehicles for me to mentally decompress after late-night work, a very crucial part of my routine. Without a complete mental shift away from the Illinois cannabis industry and a few bowls of knock-me-out indica, I can’t sleep.

The length of the Love Death + Robots short films allowed for my medication to kick in without committing to a 3-hour movie or even a 1-hour show. Because the three volumes of episodes do not connect (except for Three Robots), I was able to pick and choose the length of the next episode to watch. When my mental and physical decompression became complete, whether ten or 80 minutes later, I finished the current episode instead of stopping in the middle of a full-length movie and breaking the suspension of disbelief with no closure, or worse, staying up too late to watch the end. If several of these short film anthology series were available, I would instantly incorporate them into a nightly decompression ritual of medical cannabis and short-form narratives, my new perfect pair.

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