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Bad Kerning

Lucille

By Rosy C. HowardPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 4 min read
2
Bad Kerning
Photo by David McCumskay on Unsplash

Lucille sat and sunk into the couch tired after a hard day of work, all while clutching her long knotted pearl necklace with matching 10mm faux pearl earrings under her warm, espresso colored hair, chopped at the earlobe a la Chanel. Her stomach growled loudly which reminded her of an unwanted walk to the deli, corner store to buy fixings for her favorite sandwich. She took a deep breath and ejected herself off of the couch toward the door where she put on her black, flat Mary Jane shoes matching her black dress.

“Half pound of smoked gruyère, a tub of sour cream, spicy brown mustard and a pack of pitta bread.” Said Lucille to the attendant at the counter.

As she walked out of the door, Kutzi, a beat poet she knew from the neighborhood was parking his bicycle and greeted her enthusiastically. “Hey Lucille, nice to see you. I left something for you at your doorstep. I hope it can help”

“What is it?” Inquired Lucille surprised.

“Aww, I can’t tell you now, but has something to do with our talk last week about creativity remember?” Kutzi accidentally gave a quick toot and quickly left. “I got to get a drink, see ya later gator” he said sneaking in through the deli door.

Lucille walked back home and sure enough there it was a paper box wrapped in brown paper with a note typed by typewriter: “Sweet Lucille, here is some handpicked stuff for you and sorry about the misty pings, there are many of them”. Lucille grabbed the box, got some goose bumps on her spine and gave the box a quick shake. She was very curious about its contents, but first things first, she had to make her sandwich.

She cut one pitta bread in half and stuffed its pocket with about one table spoon of sour cream, half a table spoon of spicy, brown mustard, two slices of smoked gruyère cheese and gave it a generous, first, long awaited bite. She tossed a blanket and the box under her arm and walked through the back door to the apartment’s common courtyard. She spread the blanket on the grass under the pear tree while taking the last bite of the sandwich, sat down, dusted off her hands against each other and tossed the box on her lap.

By Tomas Tuma on Unsplash

Finally she got to open that box. Lucille undid the twine, ripped the brown paper and opened the box. Inside were twelve pages of what seemed to be unfinished works of Kutzi’s writings; some were just a phrase, some only one or two paragraphs, incoherent thoughts, a broken necklace, mismatched beads, two plastic straws (one yellow, one red), familiar and strange words and obscenities. It also contained a freshly cut marigold flower with a twisted note around the stem “I hope this gives you butterflies” and nothing else. Lucille was embarrassed to admit to herself that she had scoured the ins and outs of the box looking for the misty pings. Kutzi had said “there were many of them”, but no, nothing else was in the box besides the already seen items.

That was quite a warm summer evening and Lucille was feeling more and more tired while thinking about how to spice up her creativity and writing work.

Important events for humanity happened under fruit trees. Take for instance Adam and Eve under an apple tree where paradise was lost, or Newton under another apple tree where gravity was better understood, or Lucille under the pear tree trying to invoke her creativity. Her predicament was different than Adam and Eve’s loss of innocence or the Newton’s gravity. Lucille’s gravity was of another type.

Lucille laid down on the blanket and fell asleep thinking… “A box of misty pings…what could they be…?” As her thoughts melted down to surreal nonsense she found herself in a room with a simple wooden table and three chairs. Seated across from her at the table was a creature, a gnome like figure, scrunched up like a taupe ear, eating chocolate pudding out of a plastic cup. He was eating it slowly with smiley eyes since his mouth was mostly occupied by the pudding. Suddenly he misted out of existence morphing into a wildebeest the size of a medium dog, seconds later the wildebeest misted into a bull of the same size. It stretched its spindly front leg like an arm reaching for the pudding’s lid and started licking it.

That was it! Lucille took off running through a dark hallway illuminated only by a faint green light.

The creature ran after Lucille, switching between the taupe ear, scrunched up looking gnome and the wildebeest and then into a raging bull. Lucille was in so much fear she slipped and fell into an abyss feeling butterflies in her stomach. She landed inside a large fishnet full of dead sardines. The large net was moving from side to side hanging like a pendulum dripping fish juice over a frozen pond. Lucille noted “Look at all these dead sardines…!” “What did you say Lucille?” Asked the bull misting into the taupe ear, scrunched up looking gnome. Lucille could see herself and her faux pearls covered in smelly fish juice illuminated by the faint, green light. The full fishnet pendulum continued going from side to side and a loud bell noise penetrated from the darkness. Suddenly Lucille woke up and the night had taken over with the hourly church bell.

Lucille walked through the sound of leaves rustling against each other after a sudden wind. Still groggy, she entered her apartment engulfed by the darkness of the night. She lit up all the lamps grabbed a pen and a yellow legal pad to take notes of her dream and wondered where that bastard Kutzi was on that warm summer night.

Surely there were lots of mistypings, perhaps it was just bad kerning.

Short Story
2

About the Creator

Rosy C. Howard

Art │Design │Illustration

Rosy Design Studio

RosyDesignStudio.com

https://www.ebay.com/str/rosydesignstudio

Poetry + Visual Arts

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