The Surreal World

An overzealous experiment with communal living descends into a madhouse of shouting matches, bedbugs and aspiring artists gone wild.

Illustrations by Keny Widjaja

It was the voices. I heard the voices first. Some random, some familiar, all of them angry. On my second night at Surreal Estate, there was an emergency house meeting taking place outside my bedroom door. A woman who was staying with one of the residents accused him of raping her. I could hear her frantic voice: “He raped me! I want him gone! This cannot be a safe community with him here.”

I sat up, wiped the sleep out of my eyes, reached for my phone and auto dialed my best friend. “Tim,” I whispered, “ I think someone just got raped at this collective I’m staying in.” Tim paused, “Are you serious? Are they, like, calling the police or something?” I shook my head. “No, they don’t want to get the police involved because they’re bad or something. So instead they’re having some sort of mock rape trial in the living room.”

I was barely unpacked and there was already major drama. The next morning I would find out that it was Kyle’s guest Raven who'd accused him …