By S.T. Cartledge
One went to a man who worked as a fruit-and-vegetable whisperer.
The other went to a man who worked as a fruit-and-vegetable whisperer.
Nothing happened.
Then, a car walked in on a performance of Rhapsody in Blue by the Tatooine Philharmonic Orchestra, effectively bringing the show to a halt. The audience broke out into riot and ripped the car's doors from its body and stuffed its gas tank with pig's ears, effectively bringing its motor to a halt and filling the air with the smell of bacon and gas fumes.
The auditorium decided it didn't want to be a part of this and it got up and tumbled away, somersaulting through the city and leaping into the harbour, where it slowly drifted out into the ocean.
Upon the realisation that her auditorium had abandoned her, the city opened her mouth and plucked an aeroplane out of the sky with her hand-shaped tongue. It tasted like toejam. It comforted her a little.
Her sports stadium eyes blinked and flooded with tears. That auditorium was her favourite part of the city. It was special, unique, and it just got up and left her without so much as a parting goodbye. She loved that auditorium, and after all these years she felt that the auditorium had no idea she even existed. It sat on her face, oblivious to the fact that it made her life bearable. Without it, she felt like a lost cause, like she were swimming in a sea of hopelessness.
The harbour rose, the water spilled and gushed into the streets, flooding her wrinkles and rising higher, and it leaked through the streets and toward her gaping mouth, as it quivered and wailed, yearning for her lost love to return.
She had thought of the sea of hopelessness as a metaphor for her suffering, but as the water pours in on her face from the harbour, she felt this was exactly what she imagined. She hoped that perhaps this strange tidal occurrence would bring the auditorium back to her, but it only drifted further away.
“Come back!” she wailed and her heart ached and the roads cracked as her face failed to hold up.
Trucks capsized and sunk and the city wiped her eyes with a section of highway. She opened her eyes and saw the moon had come down to console her.
“Hey,” he said. “You were too good for the auditorium anyway.”
She looked up at him and sniffed.
“I loved him...”
“Yes, I know. It hurts, and I'm sorry. But it wouldn't have worked out.”
“But why?”
“The auditorium was never happy here. It didn't like all the other buildings bearing down around it. Even if the auditorium reciprocated your feelings, it wouldn't have worked out. You just belong in different places.”
The city sniffled again and forced a smile.
“There are plenty more fish in the sea.”
“You... you really think so?”
“Yes, I'm sure of it. In fact, I've been somewhat of a long-distance admirer of you for some time now.”
The city blushed. The moon blushed. And the ocean was never the same again.
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BIO: S.T. Cartledge is a literary elitist who has PhD's in Procrastination, Procrasturbation, Procrastiology and Procrastinomics. He loves surrealism, absurdism, irrealism, bizarro, and basically anything that is far-removed from reality. His fiction has been published at Bizarro Central and The New Flesh. You can read more at his blog, http://themanifold.wordpress.com/, I'm sure he'd love that.
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