Circus Act II: The Security Checkpoint

The day to attend the circus finally arrived, after I had done a little research online during one of the rare moments when my internet signal wasn’t being siphoned off to subsidize nearby rural towns.

I discovered this was the first time in recorded history the circus train had ever stopped in our town.

Usually, the train just barrels through at full speed, leaving behind nothing but environmental toxicity, shattered excitement, and the occasional hit-and-run accident everyone agrees was probably caused by the barista putting two espresso shots instead of three in the conductor’s coffee order.

Or, as the official report later clarified, “an unauthorized sleeping-position adjustment by a fully grown elephant, resulting in temporary weight instability and subsequent cart desynchronization.”

The security checkpoint was being operated by elves, which created certain logistical difficulties.

For one thing, I had to crouch during the search so the elf could reach my upper body. This seemed humiliating for both of us, but mostly for me.

Then I looked around and realized the tall people had become the main entrance attraction. There was more territory to cover, so each tall person had been assigned four elves. One elf was mounted on a small ladder while two others held it for safety reasons, each using one hand to hold the ladder and the other to scroll their phones. The fourth elf was assigned to the lower region, mirroring the search from below with such perfect synchronization that, for a moment, it looked less like security and more like a very underfunded circus act.

My assigned elf began with the standard questions.

“Any weapons?”

“Just my sharp tongue.”

“Any outside food?”

“Yes, but it’s inside me now, so it no longer qualifies as outside food. I binged everything in the parking lot to avoid taking out a loan to cover the historically overpriced food inside.”

That was when he pulled a long silk scarf from my bra.

Then another.

Then another.

Soon he was standing ankle-deep in colorful scarves, still pulling, his expression becoming more serious with every yard of fabric.

He reached behind my ear and produced a coin.

We stared at each other.

“I’m an undercover magician,” I said.

He nodded slowly, as if this confirmed several suspicions.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going to have to confiscate all of this.”

“The scarves?”

“The scarves, the coin, and the bra, if it contains additional compartments.”

I told him that seemed excessive.

“Ma’am,” he said, “we can’t run the risk of anyone performing tricks inside. I already got in trouble this morning for letting a woman through the checkpoint with tamales hidden in a stroller.”

“She had a baby?”

“No. She was building an unauthorized food empire. The baby bottles were full of red and green salsa.”

I asked how I could get my things back.

He said, “eBay.”

“Excuse me?”

“We put all confiscated items on eBay. That way, guests have a fair opportunity to recover their belongings.”

“That sounds like theft.”

“No,” he said. “Theft is when you don’t give people a chance to bid.”

He handed me a small card with the circus logo on it.

“Search: ‘used magician scarves, suspicious origin.’ If you’re lucky, no one else will want them.”

Then he looked me up and down and added, “Although the coin may go fast. Collectors love ear money.”

“Where’s the rabbit?” he asked.

“He went down the first pothole he saw on the street.”

You know a small town is growing too fast when the roads start looking like honeycombs.

“That’s unfortunate,” the elf said. “At least you’re saving an extra admission fee by not bringing him.”

“Charge me extra? I was just going to carry him on my back.”

“Still counts.”

“The rabbit wasn’t even going to touch the ground.”

“Ma’am, we don’t price by foot contact. That’s what they do at local beaches. We price by head count. Like drive-in movie theaters. Even if someone falls asleep or spends the entire movie facing the wrong direction, they still count as a viewer.”

“So you go by head count here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Even for rabbits?”

“Does your rabbit have a head?”

“Yes,” I said. “My rabbit has a head.”

He nodded and marked something on the clipboard.

“But he wasn’t going to touch the ground. I was going to carry him on my back, and if he got tired, I was going to hold him around my waist and let him ride on my lap.”

“We don’t go by lap arrangements. We go by head count.”

“So what you’re saying is, if I brought a headless chicken and it walked beside me, you wouldn’t charge me extra, even if he took a solo seat on the rides?”

“Correct.”

“That seems like a ridiculously dangerous policy.”

“Only for chickens.”

“That is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard at a circus entrance.”

“We hear that a lot.”

“No wonder PETA was protesting you people.”

At this point, I was too dehydrated to continue arguing. My eyelashes had abandoned my face and were now lying on the ground like centipedes.

After I took a selfie with the elf, with each of us giving the other bunny ears with our fingers, I approached the ticket booth.

“I’d like to buy a ticket for the show,” I said, “but I would also like to make a few suggestions.”

The woman at the ticket booth stared at me.

“I’m the suggestion box,” she said. “If any of what you say makes sense, or is interesting enough, I’ll make sure to share it during the water-jug break.”

I mentioned that the use of elves for security seemed inefficient given the volume of people entering.

“There are thousands of attendees,” I said. “And because your security staff has to inspect every adult in vertical installments, this process appears to be taking twice as long.”

The attendant nodded.

“We don’t discriminate against new hires based on height,” she said. “We do, however, evaluate accents.”

I accepted this as policy.

She continued.

“You would be surprised at how qualified they are. Employment at Santa’s workshop is seasonal, so they pursue additional work during the off-cycle. Many of them have formed independent search parties.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Recovery,” she said. “They are exceptionally skilled at locating items that are not meant to be found.”

She gestured toward the security line.

“This is not for the guests,” she added. “This is for our staff. Some of our sad clowns are in recovery. We cannot allow certain substances that can bring them temporary happiness past the gate. Those happy drugs keep them from performing their miserable acts.”

I nodded.

“This level of precision is necessary.”

She leaned in slightly.

“One of their most recent accomplishments,” she said, “was locating the needle in the haystack.”

I paused.

“That’s not supposed to be possible,” I said.

“It was,” she said. “Someone took them to the haystack, and they found the needle in a haystack without any leads, witness statements, or anyone telling them whether they were getting warmer or colder.

“That’s an amazing accomplishment,” I said. “Kudos to them. But now that they’ve solved that, what am I supposed to say when a task seems impossible?”

She thought about it.

“Try harder.”

To be continued in Act III.

Circus Act I: The Protest Department

I first heard the circus was coming to town from PETA.

This was unfortunate for PETA, because I had not previously known there was a circus.

The announcement arrived through the street in the form of a public disturbance. There were whistles, flutes, pots, pans, and at least one woman brandishing a pitchfork.

Unfortunately, she accidentally stabbed a deer that was trying to cross into oncoming traffic, which briefly undermined the animal-rights portion of the demonstration.

“It wouldn’t have survived traffic anyway,” she said, reframing the stabbing as roadside intervention.

One sign featured a baby elephant wearing decorative ear-stretching weights, accompanied by the warning:

DO NOT BE FOOLED.
THIS IS NOT CIRCUS FASHION.
THIS IS HOW DUMBO STARTED.

At that point, the protest shifted from moral warning to investigative documentary.

“DO NOT GO TO THE CIRCUS,” they shouted. “DO NOT SUPPORT ANIMAL MISTREATMENT.”

This would have been a stronger deterrent if they had not immediately followed it with the full event schedule.

“The circus will be in town tomorrow. First performance: 6:15. Second performance: 9:15. Do not attend.”

Several neighbors opened their doors.

One man stepped onto his porch with a cup of coffee and asked, “Do children get in free?”

PETA ignored him, which was a mistake, because by then everyone had begun listening very carefully. Several people had already pulled out their phones, not to report the circus, but to coordinate attendance.

“Do not give your money to these horrible people,” they continued. “Do not participate in the abuse of innocent animals. Do not buy tickets at the red tent near the old feed store. Do not arrive early for parking. Do not bring cash, because the ticket booth has been known to have trouble with card readers.”

At this point, I realized PETA had accidentally become the circus’s promotional team.

By the time they reached the end of the block, half the neighborhood knew there was a circus in town, and I had already begun wondering what kind of operation required this much discouragement.

That was how they got me.

Not the circus.

PETA.

I would never have known about the circus otherwise. I keep all notifications off and treat them as spam, including tornado alerts, which is less a lifestyle choice than a long-term commitment to being surprised by emergencies.

But now the circus had been announced, condemned, scheduled, located, and morally forbidden.

Naturally, I felt compelled to investigate.

What I found was not magical.

Further findings will be documented in Act II.

The Age Verification Tribunal

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 100

We arrived at the bar entirely unprepared for inspection.

This was because we were in a college town, where the established method of entry appeared to be walking confidently toward the door and being absorbed into the building. It did not occur to either of us that we would be singled out for age verification, largely because everyone around us looked significantly younger.

I had even handed my ID to my friend ahead of time so she could hold onto it, which in hindsight was an administrative error.

We were immediately pulled aside.

“ID,” the gatekeeper said.

This request triggered a full internal audit of my friend’s purse.

What followed was less a search and more an archaeological dig. She began checking every pocket, slot, zipper, and hidden chamber known to modern handbag engineering. Cards emerged one by one, each offering a brief moment of hope before being dismissed.

Costco card. Not it.
AAA and A.A. membership. No wonder she’s never available on Thursday nights. Also not it.
Kidney donor card. Admirable, but not it.
O’Reilly’s coupon card. Also not it.

Meanwhile, the line continued moving at a speed not previously thought possible. At some point the entrance process lost all visible structure and became, essentially, open borders. People poured in freely, one after the other, waved through with the confidence of those who had never once been asked to explain themselves.

And they were young.

Not abstractly young. Not “you can never tell these days” young. I mean visibly, undeniably, aggressively young. The kind of young that makes you feel ancient simply by standing near it. At this point, we could have plausibly been mistaken for their parents.

I finally said, “Sir, this is absurd. Look at all those kids. They are perfectly formed in a line carrying lunch boxes and you’re just waving them in like this is a broken traffic light.”

He looked offended.

“Miss,” he said, “you shouldn’t be judging others by their looks. And don’t tell me how to do my job. I decide who is young or not young at this point of entrance.”

This was a surprising statement from a man who had detained us exclusively on visual intuition.

I informed him that some of these individuals appeared to be disembarking directly from a school bus.

He remained unmoved.

At one point, I am almost certain I saw McLovin walk straight into the establishment without inspection.

“That’s McLovin,” I said. “He has already confessed on national television to being underage and using a fake ID. This has been thoroughly documented.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you watch on TV,” the gatekeeper replied. “Or read on the weather report.”

Still, the investigation continued.

Matters became more complicated when an obviously pregnant woman approached the entrance and was denied admission.

“Why are you turning her away?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “she’s pregnant, so the baby is clearly underage, and I don’t want to lose my job for violating protocol.”

He then shouted, “Okay, have a good night,” at the woman, as though this resolved the matter.

My friend returned to the archaeology of her purse. More compartments were searched. More false leads emerged. Entire identity systems were reviewed. Time passed. The venue filled. Somewhere inside, songs began and ended. New surface level friendships formed. Degrees may have been completed.

Finally, both IDs were located.

They were handed over.

The gatekeeper examined them carefully. Then he looked at us. Then back at the IDs. Then back at us again, as though attempting to reconcile two incompatible timelines.

At last, he delivered his ruling.

“You look so young,” he said, “but you are so old.”

And with that, we were admitted.

No apology was issued. We had been measured, misjudged, and admitted all the same.

The Gattaca Testing Center Incident: Friday the 13th

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 00.2

It was Friday the 13th, and I had decided, on principle, to prove that it was not an unlucky day by scheduling one of the most important exams of my life. Because it was proctored, I had to drive to Austin. I woke up so early that morning I woke the rooster. I tapped him on the shoulder and removed him from active duty. In hindsight, this was irresponsible. I now believe I interfered with the town’s natural alarm infrastructure, because after that, everyone was late to work. Friday the 13th began badly, and I fear I may have personally initiated the decline.

I had no choice. He was under my care. Ever since he guided me toward the exit at the cornfield maze, he had become my faithful traveling companion. In towns like ours, GPS systems do not work reliably, largely because the town itself does not appear to exist on Google. And if you are not on Google, you do not exist. He was therefore not only the town’s primary alarm system, but also my personal navigation unit. Under those circumstances, taking him with me was less a choice than a guardianship obligation. I do accept responsibility for the consequences.

I finally arrived at the testing facility. I left my car running and the chicken inside, but not before filtering out anything the TV Guide might classify as an escape show, including Houdini, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and Prison Break. I did not want to come back to a chicken on the run.

The testing center operated under the assumption that every candidate was a highly motivated criminal. The entire examination process seemed to have been inspired by Gattaca. They took our DNA samples, mugshot-style photos, and confiscated our valuables, including our phones, car keys, and any Pokémon we might have caught in the field. Because they couldn’t pat us down, they had us do what was essentially the Hokey Pokey in case any contraband or cheat notes fell out of our clothes. After we were done shaking it all around, we were moved further into the facility for individual processing.

I had apparently made the proctor extremely nervous because I was the only one in the room wearing long sleeves. He looked at me with the dead seriousness of a man who believed fabric itself was suspicious.

‘You don’t happen to be a certified part-time magician, do you?’ he asked.

After all, only a magician would choose to wear sleeves.

I said no, but not with the authority the situation required.

‘Nothing up this one,’ I added, lifting one arm slightly. ‘Nothing up the other.’

This did not restore confidence.

He did not believe me, so he sent me to the next room to take a lie detector test. After I passed that with distinction and was even issued a certificate of excellence, I was escorted to my assigned room, which appeared to have previously served as an escape room.

Halfway through the exam, approximately three hours in, the internet went down.

This was not a small inconvenience. Our phones had already been confiscated and locked away with the rest of our possessions. We had been explicitly instructed not to speak to one another, not to look around, not to make tapping sounds that could be interpreted as Morse code, and not to behave like members of a human community. So there we were, seated in a loose circle of shared distress, staring at one another in silence while two employees ran around trying to restore order.

They called IT and put the man on speakerphone.

He asked whether they had tried turning the light switch on.

He said this in a foreign accent, which somehow made it feel even more official.

All of us looked at one another with the same expression: we are absolutely finished.

These were high-stakes exams. Hundreds of questions. Hours of concentration. We had all arrived at different times and were frozen at different points in our suffering. No one knew whether our sessions had been saved or whether we would be forced to begin again from the start, now more tired and less innocent than before.

One man whispered, “Oh fuck, I forgot everything.”

That did not improve morale.

Then an older woman entered with a younger male relative, possibly her grandson, possibly her son. It was difficult to tell. She was in an extraordinarily good mood, which, under the circumstances, felt almost suspicious. While the rest of us sat there looking like hostages awaiting procedural updates, she radiated the energy of someone arriving early to a church potluck.

She asked, brightly, whether anyone had tried turning it off and on again.

I informed her that that only works in movies.

She seemed mildly embarrassed, then recovered with admirable speed.

“Well,” she said, “you learn something new every day.”

Because she was not taking an exam, she was free to speak in ways the rest of us could not. She looked around at us and said, with sincere encouragement, “Maybe this is the real test. Maybe it’s a test of patience.”

We all laughed a little.

I told her I would strongly prefer for the test to be about patience and not the opening scene of Squid Game. Or worse, the beginning of Saw, where, in the next few moments, we would hear the small, oiled tricycle of a puppet entering the room to announce that he wanted to play a game.

That improved the atmosphere immediately.

One guy said he wouldn’t mind if Billy the Puppet paid us a visit and signed some autographs.

But I reminded him we didn’t have pens. How, exactly, was he expecting the puppet to sign autographs △ △ △ with blood? Don’t encourage him.

Now everyone was imagining how a group of strangers had ended up seated almost in a circle, stripped of their possessions, under surveillance, waiting for instructions while authority figures failed to restore the system. It was, admittedly, not a reassuring setup.

Negative Nancy, however, remained committed to despair. He kept muttering that this was ridiculous, that of course this would happen to him, that of course he had chosen the earliest slot in the morning, and why he had even come at all.

At that point, I looked around the room and asked, “Do you all realize what day it is?”

They stared at me.

We did not have our phones. We had no clocks. We had been removed from time itself.

“It’s Friday the 13th,” I said. “You all knew what you were getting yourselves into.”

That broke something open in the room. Everyone started laughing at the absurdity of it, at the fact that we had all independently chosen to gamble our luck on one of the most cursed calendar dates available. We had come willingly. We had scheduled this. We had all, in our own administrative way, signed the waiver.

And then, at the exact moment our laughter peaked, the internet came back.

It returned with such precision that it almost seemed as though we had unclogged the system through vibration alone. We all looked around at one another, smiling, stunned by the timing, united briefly by the tragic absurdity of what we had collectively walked into.

Then we were sent back to our respective rooms to continue our exams.

Oddly enough, I felt lighter after that. The interruption had broken the tension, and the laughter seemed to reset something in my brain. I was able to recall information more easily afterward, as though shared despair had briefly reorganized the nervous system into cooperation.

I did pass.

The Paperboy Hat Addendum

A Continuation of “Residual Consequences of Friday the 13th”
Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 00.1

I was finally issued my refund and released back into society after the failure of several ambitious rural engineering efforts involving my Italian art piece on wheels.

At that point, the man in the paperboy hat offered to walk me to my car, like any decent man would.

I accepted.

As we started toward my car, I set the chicken down on the asphalt and gave him the last of the caviar I had packed for him. He accepted it immediately. As he pecked, the eggs made soft popping sounds that settled beneath the moment like ambient ASMR, as though the entire conversation had been given a luxury sound design. It was an unexpectedly refined soundtrack for an O’Reilly Auto Parts parking lot.

The man in the paperboy hat watched this calmly.

Then he asked whether I would permit him to help me with my posture.

“But you’re seeing me clinically, correct?” I asked.

I felt this was an important distinction.

“Of course,” he said.

Only then did I allow him to proceed.

He lifted one of my arms slightly, extended my hand outward, and with the back of his hand tilted my hip to the left with the confidence of a man who had spent years correcting forms not meant to move.

“Are you a chiropractor?” I asked.

He seemed almost offended.

“No,” he said. “I’m the owner of an elite mannequin school.”

This was not the answer I had anticipated, though by then anticipation had ceased to be a serious method of navigating reality.

He explained that before entering the mannequin industry, he had owned a school for mimes. According to him, the mimes did outstanding work. Several had even gone on to assist underfunded police departments with cases that psychics had been unable to solve due to missing audio and compromised body-language analysis. Unfortunately, they became so good at what they did that the word never got out. The business, for that reason, did not expand in the way he had hoped.

He said this without bitterness. Just the quiet administrative sadness of a man who had once invested heavily in silence.

The mannequin school, however, had flourished.

The elite, he explained, paid astonishing sums for the companionship of mannequins, provided the mannequins had been properly trained. His school specialized in pose refinement, stillness, and distinction. No two mannequins were ever allowed to hold the exact same pose. Each one had to project a unique internal life despite having no rights, no speech, and no meaningful capacity for intervention. They were also trained never to speak, react, interrupt, or interfere, regardless of how awkward, tense, or morally unstable the situation became.

One of his biggest clients, he told me, was the owner of the Bates Motel chain.

I told him I believed I had encountered some of his work before.

Once, I said, I had spent time with the Watcher who lived in what could only be described as a bat cave. We had a contract. I was to be there for forty-five minutes while he sketched me. He described himself as a collector of experiences and had apparently decided I should be his next subject of study.

The terms were clear. For forty-five minutes, I would grant him temporary access to my trust. In return, he was required to make me feel safe, secure, and cared for during every minute of the appointment. This, in my understanding, was binding.

Everything remained within acceptable limits until I asked to use the bathroom.

He agreed and walked me toward it. Just before I entered, he told me to look around.

At first, I saw nothing. The house was so dark it seemed to have been arranged against human perception. Then he flashed a light toward the walls, and I realized the bathroom was lined with mannequins.

Not one or two mannequins. Not even a troubling cluster.

The mannequins covered nearly every edge of the room shoulder to shoulder, with the density and quiet force of a private terracotta army assembled by a man with no internal brakes. They lined the walls, occupied the corners, and extended around the bathroom in a way that suggested both intention and a complete collapse of judgment.

That, I told him, was a line I could not cross.

I reminded him that our contract required him to make me feel safe, secure, and cared for throughout the duration of my visit. Since the mannequins were interfering with all three, he would need to remove them.

He had no choice. To refuse would have placed him in breach of contract.
So he began taking the mannequins out of the bathroom one by one.
It took approximately thirty-five minutes.
When he finished, he remarked that at least he would not need to go to the gym that day.
Only after the final mannequin had been extracted was I able to use the toilet. By the time I came out, exactly two minutes later, the session had been critically reduced. He had only eight minutes left to sketch me, which meant he only had time to sketch my torso.

The man in the paperboy hat listened to this with the solemn recognition of a professional hearing about familiar workmanship.

Then he nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “That does sound like one of ours.”

I remember thinking then that some men offer flowers, some offer compliments, and some, under the residual consequences of Friday the 13th, reveal that they once operated a mime academy before moving into elite mannequin education.

Residual Consequences of Friday the 13th

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 00

Friday the 13th wasn’t over yet, and at 11:59:30, an emissary of Themis pulled over my chariot.

As the officer approached my window, I began replaying the sins of the day like slides in a View-Master. First, I looked at the chicken △ △ △ my GPS rooster. I live in a town so small it barely deserves cartographic recognition; it doesn’t even show up on Google. Since moving there, I have relied on this bird in ways I would prefer not to explain in court. He was in the car because we had gone to Austin earlier.

For one terrible moment, I thought: was it because the chicken didn’t have a seatbelt on?

Then I remembered the exotic fruit I had bought across the county line. I suddenly wondered whether it might be illegal here.

By the time the cop reached my window, his steps were so slow I could only read them as a Mississippi word delay.

Then he asked the classic question:

“Do you know why I pulled you over?”

I did not.

“You have a broken light bulb over your license plate,” he said.

I told him it was intentional because I am environmentally conscious and trying to conserve energy.

“Nice try,” he said.

Then he took my ID, went back to his car, and returned with what I first assumed was a ticket. It was not a ticket. It was, somehow, a 13% coupon to O’Reilly Auto Parts so I could replace the bulb. He also gave me his badge number, which, he explained, worked as a referral code.

This felt less like law enforcement and more like sponsorship.

The next day, Friday the 13th was over, but the consequences remained active. I went to O’Reilly’s. The clerk called me over to the computer and asked what kind of car I drove so they could find the part.

“It’s a Ferrari,” I said.

Silence.

The whole place stopped. Heads turned. The country town itself seemed to pause and reconsider its identity.

The clerk looked at me and said, “You’re in the wrong town. You’ll never find that part here. It might take a decade before we could even get a compatible pre-owned light bulb.”

Eventually they MacGyvered a replacement, which felt appropriate given that I live out in the country. The employee was very confident he would be able to install it for me. But when we walked outside and he looked at my license plate setup, his whole expression changed.

“Oh my God,” he said. “There’s no way.”

He stared at it like he had just discovered an ancient locking mechanism.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “We can’t help you with this. You’re going to have to take it to a mechanic. They’ll probably need to remove this whole panel from the back to get to it. You might even have to leave the car overnight.”

There was a pause.

“I’m not doing that,” I said. “At this point, I’ll just buy a new car.”

The man stared into my eyes, speechless, with the vacant solemnity only a mannequin could give you.

They asked me to go sit down and wait for a refund, since after three hours, several YouTube tutorials, and what felt like at least two episodes of MacGyver, they still had not managed to create a viable bulb situation.

That was when I ended up sitting next to a man in a paperboy hat.

“I’ve seen you around,” he said. “Always with that chicken.”

“Rooster,” I corrected him. “I call him a chicken because people ask fewer questions.”

He ignored this. “You think that bird is magical. You think he guides you because of that incident in the cornfield maze. But the magic is within you. And if that chicken could talk, do you know what he’d say? He’d tell you to get out of this town.”

“Then he’d point his beak west.”

He said this with the calm certainty of a man who had already filed the paperwork.

“So the chicken is just moral support?”

“Moral support,” he said, “with delusions of grandeur.”

“That tracks,” I said. “He’s allergic to everything except caviar and medium-rare steak.”

“But tonight, that ends. His luxury era is over. The finest thing he’ll be eating is Fancy Feast from a can.”

At this, the chicken became visibly agitated.

“That’s not all I know about you.”

“I know who you are,” he said. “You’re the woman songs and movies warn people about. You are △ △ △”

“Please don’t say it,” I interrupted. “I already have to live with the consequences. I’m saving the official revelation for when I appear on The Masked Singer.”

Then he noticed my biohazard tattoo.

“That’s why you got that tattoo, right?” he asked. “To warn them.”

Unfortunately, to be continued.

The Woman from Every Country

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 56

My brother took me out for ice cream at Handel’s, which should have been a simple event. We were standing there trying to compromise on flavors while still pretending to care about our figures when a woman interrupted us in visible distress.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I just have to ask. Are you part East Asian?”

My brother said no and told her where we were from.

This did not resolve the matter.

She had been studying his hands, which, she informed us, were exactly like her son’s hands. Her son, she explained, was half East Asian. Not similar hands. Not vaguely familiar hands. Exact hands. She kept staring at them with the kind of fascination usually reserved for religious relics or forensic evidence. At one point I almost wanted to ask if she happened to have a photo of her son’s hands for comparison.

Then she looked at me and announced, with equal certainty, that we were definitely mixed.

In fairness, she was not entirely wrong. We are mixed. We come from a long, complicated recipe. But I still did not expect my brother’s hands to become the central issue while ordering ice cream.

By the time we walked out, my brother had reached his usual conclusion.

“Every time I go out with you,” he said, “something weird happens.”

This is unfair. I do not attract weirdos. I merely seem to trigger unresolved recognition episodes in the general public.

But it did not start at Handel’s.

It started much earlier, back in the homeland, when I went to the mall with my cousin, my grandmother, and my little brother. At some point I began to notice a disturbance nearby. A group of people had formed at a cautious distance and appeared to be debating my identity.

“Is it her?” someone asked.

“She looks younger,” another replied.

“No,” a third voice insisted. “I think it’s her.”

They had apparently decided I was a famous actress from a telenovela. No one approached with enough confidence to fully commit, but no one was willing to let it go either. They followed me around the mall in a state of anxious consensus. That was the first time I realized my face did not always belong exclusively to me.

The pattern continued.

An elderly Armenian couple once approached me and began speaking Armenian with such conviction that I briefly wondered whether I had somehow forgotten an entire branch of my ancestry. When I apologized and explained that I did not speak Armenian, they did not react with surprise. They reacted with disappointment.

Then suspicion.

Then offense.

I explained again that I was not Armenian. This only made things worse. They looked at me as if I were not ignorant, but disloyal. I was then given what I can only describe as the Armenian evil eye, followed by a sentence in Armenian that may have been a curse, a reprimand, or a genealogical correction. I could not tell. What I understood very clearly was that they were not happy with me.

Then there were the two older men at a bar who approached me with the excitement of people who believed they had just witnessed a minor resurrection. One of them insisted I looked exactly like a rock star’s ex-wife. His friend confirmed it immediately. They were both so thrilled that I briefly felt I owed them an autograph. I did not know the woman at all, so I could not defend myself. so I simply accepted that, for a few minutes, I had apparently become someone’s nostalgic return to youth.

This sort of thing happens more often than it should.

A Pakistani man once told me I looked exactly like the women from a certain village in his country, specifically the light-skinned ones from a particular area. He said this with such certainty that I did not even bother resisting. I just told him I had heard versions of that before, because I had. Different people from different countries have confidently informed me that I look exactly like women from places I have never been.

In California, people have approached me out of nowhere to ask whether I am Russian, Armenian, or from some place they have already decided I belong to. One Russian person told me I actually looked like I was from Kazakhstan.

Years later, my DNA results informed me that the elderly Armenians had not been entirely improvising. Armenian ancestry appeared on the screen, and I briefly felt as though I owed two strangers an apology and Maury an envelope reveal.

Apparently, my face changes jurisdiction depending on sleep, lighting, and how much sun I’ve had.

At this point, I have been recognized by people from multiple countries, several generations, at least one telenovela panic event, and a woman conducting ethnographic analysis on my brother’s hands in an ice cream shop. I’ve concluded that I’m a geographic shapeshifter.

I only hope I never end up in a lineup, because I am fairly certain someone will point at me with absolute confidence and say it was me.

What Happened to Santa?

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 55

When I was five, my older brother was standing by the window wishing out loud for some specific toy. I told him to stop asking Santa for things because Santa didn’t exist.

My mother overheard us and corrected me immediately.

“Santa does exist,” she said. “He’s just as poor as we are.”

At the time, this explanation made perfect sense to me. It accounted for the discrepancy between demand and fulfillment without requiring a total collapse of belief. For years, I accepted it as fact. But as I got older, the statement began to raise additional questions. Was Santa actually poor, or merely under-resourced? Had he retired? Had the elves unionized and brought the whole operation to a halt with impossible demands? Or had Santa simply been priced out of the North Pole altogether, forced to relocate to the South Pole after rent became unsustainable, only to forget to file a proper address-forwarding request?

I decided to investigate.

What I found was not magical.

The workshop is still operating under its original production model. Nothing has been updated. There are no Mac computers, no scanners, no automated systems, and no meaningful accommodation for changes in market demand. Each December, the letters arrive by the thousands, and the elves receive them with a level of optimism that, at this point, can only be described as negligent.

Each elf is assigned a child’s request and sent to the warehouse to fulfill it.

This is where the collapse begins.

A modern letter contains items such as PS5, Nike shoes, iPhone, Labubu, and other terms that, to the average workshop elf, appear to be either gibberish or the names of unfamiliar demons. The elves run the orders anyway. They check the shelves. They search the bins. They climb the ladders. But nothing in inventory corresponds to anything the children are asking for.

The warehouse remains heavily stocked in wooden clogs, rag dolls, carved ducks, spinning tops, whistles, and other products from a bygone era when a child could still be devastated in a simpler way.

It is not that the elves are unwilling to adapt. It is that they were trained as carpenters, doll-makers, and woodworkers. They are artisans. You cannot take a fourth-generation wooden-horse craftsman and expect him to begin manufacturing gaming consoles in the fourth quarter.

Even if retraining were possible, it would require years, enormous capital investment, and a complete restructuring of the workshop’s capabilities. The North Pole would need engineers, microchips, plastics manufacturing, software development, international shipping agreements, and a legal team.

There is also the matter of intellectual property.

Santa cannot simply begin producing unauthorized versions of branded electronics, designer shoes, and copyrighted toys based on handwritten requests from minors. The legal exposure alone would be catastrophic. It is entirely possible the workshop has remained deliberately obsolete in order to avoid litigation.

Children experience this as neglect.

What they do not see is an aging seasonal operation, frozen in time, attempting to meet contemporary desire with carved ducks.

This is why so many letters go unanswered.

This is also why, from time to time, a child still receives an orange.

The Cuckoo Clan and the Geometry of the Burning Cross

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 4

Before the incident with the parents, there was the surgery.
She handed me her password book and, with the seriousness of someone preparing to die, explained that if she did not make it through the operation, I was to transfer the money from her bank account into mine, gather the important documents, and remove anything that might taint her legacy. It was one of the more intimate administrative duties anyone has ever assigned me. I told her not to worry. I would make sure to burn all of her Nazi memorabilia and clear her browser history of any weird porn searches.

She laughed extremely hard.

Notably, she did not deny any of it.

Later, I told her I wanted to meet her parents. She kept giving me excuses until finally admitting that they were racist.
I told her I had met plenty of racist people before and that they usually ended up liking me once they got to know me, which, I admit, is an awkward outcome for committed bigots, but not my concern.

Eventually, she agreed to let me meet them.
Then she canceled and said they had back pain.
I asked if it was from carrying the cross home from their KKK meeting.

Some people are too racist to meet.
Others are simply too fragile from the lifting.

The Collapse of the Wishing Industry

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 11

I met a homeless man who used to be rich. He was in fountain extraction. He used to make a killing collecting coins from water fountains, but the industry collapsed once humanity stopped believing in wishes.

He continued.

“Back in the day, a wish cost you something. You had to physically part with a coin △ △ △ a small sacrifice to the universe. Now that nobody carries change, we’ve essentially stopped paying our wish tax.”

He seemed really let down by the whole thing, but said he wasn’t the only one affected.

“Look at shooting stars,” he told me. “They went out of business too. When was the last time anyone actually looked up at the sky? Everyone’s too busy staring down at their phones.”

Saints, Scammers, and Area Codes

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 5

It started with a WhatsApp message from my uncle…

the uncle who never texts me unless he’s getting married.

He’s been married three times, so statistically, the odds weren’t terrible.

I actually missed the last wedding and told my mom over the phone,

“It’s fine. There will be other weddings.”

She told me not to ever say that in front of his wife.

But this time, instead of a fourth wedding invitation,

my uncle (or so I thought) was asking for $1,500.

The message started with:

“Dear my beloved.”

And instantly I knew...

that wasn’t my uncle.

That was the Nigerian Prince.

So I called one of my brothers to find out what was going on...

yes, the same one the sewer clown once praised

for achieving perfect balloon symmetry

when he volunteered to help inflate them.

A man with that kind of precision tends to know things.

The scammer had gone entrepreneurial,

sending different amounts to everyone in my uncle’s contacts:

some people got asked for $200, others for $500.

But me?

He went straight for $1,500.

Maybe it was the Beverly Hills area code still attached to my number…

a relic from the old days that apparently signals “try the higher tier.”

Or maybe he saw that video of me and my nephew

stuffing a piñata with 100 Grand bars and gold-foil chocolate coins

and assumed it was our secret stash.

In the video, my mom had my nephew supervising me

because I can’t be trusted with candy.

He wasn’t guarding the treats... he was guarding me from myself.

Sugar is my drug of choice.

Anyway,

just because one Nigerian Prince has lied to me before

doesn’t mean all Nigerian Princes are the same.

So I needed clarity.

Why was my uncle using a Nigerian Prince to contact me?

But I don’t send four-figure donations without confirmation.

Turns out, his account had been hacked.

Still, I didn’t reply.

I wanted to verify it the old-fashioned way...

through a phone call, like a 1990s goddess with trust issues.

By the time my uncle realized what had happened, it was too late.

The scammer had already hit “send"

Only one person fell for it.

A church lady from my uncle’s friend circle...

the kind who bakes cookies for fundraisers

and still writes checks in cursive.

She didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t call.

Didn’t second-guess.

She just sent $200 to help someone she believed was in need.

Everyone else laughed and called her gullible.

But I kept thinking:

What if she was the only one who passed the test?

She didn’t need proof or backstory.

She didn’t ask for verification or screenshots.

She just gave.

That’s sainthood in its purest, unbranded form...

compassion without calculation.

It wasn’t logic; it was love.

The type of person we all wished we had as our emergency contact.

And if there’s an afterlife rewards program,

she’s probably been upgraded to the VIP Heaven Suite;

complimentary halo, early check-in, no waitlist.

Meanwhile, the rest of us sat there congratulating ourselves

for being too smart to fall for it.

But maybe that’s the real geometry of faith:

our cynicism keeps us safe,

but our kindness makes us holy.

Intermittent Clown Reinforcement

CASE SUMMARY

That morning, my sister-in-law was already in a bad mood, and honestly, I don’t blame her. My brother was about to put IT on TV again… because he has been obsessed with that sewer clown since forever… and she just looked at him and said:

“I’m so tired. I’m so tired of your brother always playing that evil clown.”

UNRELIABLE WITNESS STATEMENT (Morning, Kitchen)

Then she told me she had an awful nightmare.

She said she dreamed she got a call from my nephew’s school telling her that my brother had been kidnapped by IT.

She was really upset telling me this.

She doesn’t remember how the rest of the dream went…. just that it felt horrible.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NARRATOR ADDENDUM (Possibly the Most Unreliable Person Here)

So of course, I did what any annoying sister would do: I filled in the missing parts myself.

And in my version, this was not a kidnapping.

This was Intermittent Clown Reinforcement.

I know this because I was there when the obsession started. We watched the original IT as kids, and it scared him so badly he couldn’t sleep for weeks, so he watched it again… kind of like when drunk people drink again because they think it’ll sober them up.

He seemed to think it would cancel the fear out.

It did not.

It made it worse.

And then he obsessed over it.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

POLICE OFFICE RECONSTRUCTION

The police called my sister-in-law in after they reviewed the security footage from my nephew’s school.

She came in panicking, expecting the worst.

The officer sat her down, opened a folder, and said, very seriously:

“Ma’am, we reviewed the footage.”

He paused, like he was about to deliver devastating news.

Then he added:

“We also encountered a communication issue.”

Apparently, the clown was talking, but the audio was unusable, and no one in the department was sober enough to interpret clown speech under pressure.

So they hired a mime to read the clown’s lips.

That, according to the officer, is when the case changed.

The mime reviewed the footage, pointed to the screen, and confirmed that my brother was not kidnapped.

He had approached the clown on his own. Enthusiastically.

And based on the mime’s interpretation, he may have also volunteered.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Transcript Excerpt

Sister-in-Law: “Can you arrest the clown at least? He was trespassing.”

Officer (very serious): “No, ma’am.”

Sister-in-Law (confused): “Why not?”

Officer (very serious): “He was an approved guest speaker.”

Sister-in-Law (confused): “Guest speaker for what?”

Officer (very serious): “Clown awareness and prevention.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SUPPLEMENTAL INVESTIGATION

Because officers wanted to rule out a possible case of Intermittent Clown Reinforcement (or Stockholm syndrome), they brought in a private investigator who was completing court-ordered community service.

The department was not required to pay him, as his investigative work counted toward his hours.

His placement was reportedly connected to an unrelated case in Sydney, Australia involving drunk koalas and unauthorized zoo credit card charges at a local bar.

This is what he found.

Additional footage allegedly shows the subject:

assisting with balloon inflation

polishing part of the clown’s suit

standing near a folding table awaiting instructions

reacting positively to verbal praise

At one point, according to the report, he appeared to wait several hours for a single “good job.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

EXPERT COMMENTARY (Volunteer Psychology Student, credentials unclear)

He cleared his throat and said:

“Well, according to a book I read once… I think it was Psychology for Dummies. Or something like that. Anyway, this looks like a classic case of Intermittent Clown Reinforcement.

When a child grows up without any paranormal activity… none whatsoever… the psyche may latch onto the first encounter with fear and keep it as a substitute supernatural relationship. In this case, the movie IT.

Your brother never had a haunting. No unexplained noises. No shadow people. No sleep paralysis figure. Not even socks going missing.

So he remained open. Hopeful, even.

Children in this state may begin to fantasize that one day, if they see a red balloon in the wild, it means they have finally been chosen… special, even.

Which is why, in this case, he did not appear to flee the clown.

He appears to have gone willingly.

The subject remains because the clown occasionally says, ‘Nice balloon symmetry,’ or ‘Excellent blood stain removal.’

These micro-affirmations activate the inner child, creating long-term loyalty to the circus environment.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

POLICE INTERVIEW CUTAWAY

“He’s not being held hostage. He clocks in at 8 a.m., inflates balloons, and waits all day for a single ‘good job.’”

Sister-in-Law (confused): “So… he’s basically an unpaid intern?”

Officer (very serious): “Yes, ma’am. But emotionally… a fulfilled one.”

He checked the file again.

Officer (very serious): “Although in some cases, the intermittent reinforcement may include arcade tokens.”

Absurd Geometry Case File #13

Failed Exorcism Starter Pack

When You Meet an Aging Dracula 🦇🧛‍♂️

You try garlic?

“I’m on allergy meds now. That doesn’t do anything.”

You flash the cross?

“I mean… I think that’s a cross. Hard to tell. I’m like 80% blind. All thanks to vitamin D deficiency.”

You scream, “In the name of Jesus Christ!”

“Oh, we made up. We’re cool now.”

Goth Church on Friday Nights

I think this photo ended up in a book about alternative scenes. We posed for the writer, but I can’t remember the title.

Last updated 06/30/2026

He didn’t know.
But now we do.

Turns out, we both used to show up every Friday night to the same ritual… our little goth church.
Barely 18, dressed in our sharpest black, paying our $10 tithe to the industrial goth gods, the ones who lived behind the smoke machine and screamed through the speakers.

Maybe we met.
Maybe we didn’t.

Maybe I cut him off in line.
Maybe I stole his parking spot.
Maybe I elbowed past him when the club let out and everyone spilled into the street like we’d just gotten a pardon from Hades.

Back then, the club was a kung-fu movie audition in disguise… limbs flying, boots stomping, bodies moving in angles that would give Euclid a headache. And yet, some of them didn’t dance. Some stood still, half-lit under the fog machines, watching. Maybe, just maybe, he was one of those… the kind who didn’t need to move to be present. A Watcher. One who observed enough movement to carry it home and sketch it later in silence.

Goth guys were shy back then.
It was like walking into a baby bat rescue shelter.
If you wanted one, you had to point and say,
‘I want that one.’
And maybe… just maybe… he was one of the ones who stood still,
clutching a plastic cup and silently praying to be summoned for a dance.

And the funny part is… after all those Friday nights at goth church, I ended up in one of their bat caves.
Not as a disciple.
More like a modern‑day goddess from another realm… the kind where we don’t follow north stars, we follow chickens through a cornfield maze until they point toward the exit.
I hugged him… maybe too tight. I might've cut off his circulation, but it’s hard to say when someone’s already pale.
What do you even tell the paramedics? “Uh, he’s pale?” How pale? “Goth pale?”
So yeah… maybe I squeezed a little too hard.
But it had been a long time coming. I called it a Reverse “Disney hug”. He broke the spell first, so the ritual ended.

So in the end, I did pose for him.
Yes… like Rose from Titanic... just not as glamorous.
I think I looked like I was about to be embalmed.
Still, he complimented me and said I held so still.
He had no idea I was in full zombie-brain mode… nerves disintegrating, thoughts scrambled.
I told him I had taken a horse tranquilizer and, while he looked away to sharpen his graphite pencil, quietly glued myself to the chair. To this day, he’s probably still trying to scrape the glue off that chair.
Either way, I made it through.

But that was the easy part.

It didn’t even cross my mind I had to take the sketch with me. And just like in the military: I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell. Maybe deep down I thought he was just gonna sketch me like one of those 90s toy sketch pads… you know, the kind where the drawing disappears if you shake it too hard. Temporary. Erasable. No evidence.

The hard part was figuring out how to keep my parents from finding the artwork. I hadn’t realized I’d be taking it home with me… and I happened to be staying with my religious mother, who I was pretty sure would have to go to church twice that week just to pray away whatever sin she thought I’d committed. When I told her the truth, she slammed the brakes so hard I was glad I had my seatbelt on. In that moment, I was a teenager again. And I think she’s still lighting candles.

Bartering Dozens for Drama

I can’t sleep… and of course, I’ve got something absurd stuck in my head again.

I was really sad earlier, and sometimes when I’m sad, my brain just… spirals into ridiculousness.

So this is me… turning grief into eggs.

(Just roll with it.)

_______________________________________________________________________

I keep thinking about the egg shortage.

Remember that? “Eggflation.” When eggs were like $9… or your firstborn?

Well, actually, people don’t take firstborns anymore.

Too expensive to raise one. These days they just want them working age. And that age varies by country.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anyways, I didn’t really feel it. I live in a small town surrounded by farms, so eggs here stayed affordable… sometimes even free.

Well… "free."

There was this woman who used to bring me boxes of fresh eggs,,, like, cartons at a time … in exchange for something far more expensive:

Listening.

Not just nodding politely. I’m talking about full-on therapist mode.

One-woman trauma dump hotline. Small-town edition.

There was one day I’ll never forget… she told me her toxic boyfriend finally gave her a ring. I got genuinely excited for her.

Then she said:

“It’s a promise ring.”

And I blinked.

Because this man was nearly 60 years old.

And I was like… ma’am.

I mean, I always heard men don’t reach full maturity until about 65, so maybe there’s still hope. Maybe by the time he hits retirement, he’ll propose for real.

Scientific studies confirm this.

Actually… don’t look it up. You’ll just confirm that I’m lying.

But yeah. That was just one of the many emotional egg transactions I endured.

It’s rural bartering at its finest:

Psychological labor in exchange for protein.

A little therapy for a little cholesterol.

Anyway, I was in Austin once during the height of eggflation and people were losing their minds at HEB, full egg crisis, collective panic.

I just stood there and said,

“Well… at least the cholesterol went down.”

Silence.

They weren’t ready.

The Neighborhood Animal Crisis Hotline (and the Law of Finders Keepers)

The little monks who came to test my spiritual readiness.

It started innocently △ △ △ a few Ring notifications here and there. Somewhere between the lost dog on Canary Lane and the Chicken Snake Incident, my Ring app has evolved into a full-blown animal-rescue soap opera.

Every few minutes, a new headline appears:

“Wandering dog seen at Arlan’s parking lot.”
“Is anyone missing a Chihuahua? He’s sitting politely at my door.”
“White shit zu under a truck. Possibly meditating.”

Meanwhile, the Chicken Snake slithered past a “No Soliciting” sign and became a local celebrity△ △ △ proof that enlightenment comes in many forms (and sometimes, scales).

And then there are the essays △ △ △ neighbors writing heartfelt memoirs about refugee cats they’ve been feeding for three days.
They post tear-jerking photos and ask, “Should I find them a home?”

No, Karen. You found the cats. They found you.
That’s destiny △ △ △ Finders Keepers Law, Article I, Section Me.
That’s how the geometry works in this neighborhood.

If they’ve been sleeping on your porch for three days, congratulations: you’ve been chosen.
That’s the sacred geometry of suburbia.

But the universe likes to remind me that it, too, has a sense of humor.
One afternoon, two tiny kittens appeared near my back door △ △ △ trembling, angelic, clearly homeless. I called my friend at animal rescue, who said maybe the mother was out looking for food… but might not return.

So I did what any responsible adult goddess of home decor would do:
I went on a full rescue mission to Walmart.
I spent an hour curating the cutest little cages, reading cat food labels like I was adopting royalty. I chose toys, water bowls, blankets that color matched △ △ △ the feline equivalent of a welcome basket from the Four Seasons.

And when I finally got home △ △ △ radiant, benevolent, ready to open my heart and my wallet △ △ △ while meanwhile, the cats have already Houdini’d back to the cosmos. Reminding me that even the strays have free will.

Just gone.
Like tiny monks who came only to test my spiritual readiness.

Now I understand the real geometry of it all:
Sometimes the strays find you.
Sometimes they just pass through to remind you that love, like cats, cannot be contained.

The feed has become a holy scroll of suburban compassion and chaos.
Everyone’s searching △ △ △ for pets, for purpose, for closure.
And me? I’ve muted notifications, enlightened by the truth:
The animals have already chosen their people.

Apollo B, the Weekday Serial Killer

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 3
(Because even gods show up at the gym.)

_______________________________________________________________________

I was lying in my hammock, taking a sunbath △ △ △ the kind that makes neighbors wonder if I’m photosynthesizing.
The sunlight was coming through the trees in slow geometric shapes, and I was laughing to myself about Apollo B △ △ △ the time I’d asked him to leave his axe at home. Divine encounters are complicated enough without weapons.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yes, that Apollo △ △ △ the one with supernova eyes.
The kind of eyes that burn bright enough to light a universe, and then disappear just as fast.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He had that cerebral wit that made you feel seen and studied at the same time.
He was a dissector of design, fluent in irony, allergic to sincerity.
I called him my second Apollo △ △ △ the man who could make even darkness look conceptual.

He had curls like a bird’s nest.
I once told him if I were a bird, I’d live in his hair.
He chuckled △ △ △ politely, I think △ △ △ but at the time, politeness and amusement looked exactly the same to me.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Back when I still used dating apps (an arena I’ve long since left behind), I swiped right on him while trying to clean a smudge off my phone screen.
Which, in hindsight, was foreshadowing △ △ △ a metaphor disguised as a mistake.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Before we met, I performed what I considered a responsible safety check.
You know that urban myth that if you ask an undercover cop, “Are you a cop?” they’re legally required to tell the truth? (Completely ridiculous.)
Well, I’ve always assumed serial killers have a similar Code of Conduct:
if you suspect someone’s a serial killer, you can simply ask, and they must answer honestly.

Danger never really goes away, but at least it has manners.

So I asked him if he was a serial killer.
He said yes, but only on weekdays.
We were meeting on the weekend.

That was the moment I thought: finally, someone who speaks fluent absurdity.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Turns out we weren’t speaking the same dialect △ △ △ I was writing poetry, he was proofreading the margins △ △ △ ever the designer, searching for symmetry where I saw feeling.
We met for a brief chapter, and when it ended, it ended silently.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He started appearing everywhere △ △ △ at Olympias (the gym where mortals train like gladiators),
in The Temple of Provisions (where divine beings select their weekly offerings),
even in the parking lot, where his white chariot always ended up beside mine.

One day at the Temple of Provisions, we locked eyes △ △ △ my famous gaze.
We stared at each other as if fate were pressing pause.
But honestly? I was only staring because I was evaluating a creature that needed to be sent back to its habitat.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was getting suspiciously mythological, so I finally texted him to confirm whether he was the man himself or his doppelgänger.
He replied that he was “the real one △ △ △ the real copy,” which somehow made perfect nonsense.
So I ordered him, as any goddess would, to alter his sacred training hours at Olympias.
The mortal realm was clearly glitching △ △ △ two divine beings should never share a treadmill.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The last time I saw him, I was in a yellow dress with my new bionic glasses on △ △ △ the prescription kind, not the superhero kind.
I walked right past him like sunlight moving past a shadow △ △ △ no eye contact, no hesitation.
That was my release.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, when I think of him, I laugh.
Maybe he really was a weekday serial killer △ △ △
the kind that kills the mood, the moment, the illusion △ △ △
but always clocks out before Sunday.

The Glued-Back Watermelon Conspiracy

BREAKING NEWS: Discount Demanded on “Pre-Tasted” Watermelon

Shoppers were left stunned today after evidence surfaced that certain watermelons on store shelves had been previously opened, taste-tested, and then carefully patched back together like a bad science experiment before resale.

Experts say the faint fault lines on the rind are clear proof: these are not fresh fruits but refurbished units.

Industry insiders confirm that consumers are entitled to demand at least 50% off any melon showing signs of prior consumption.

“This is standard return protocol,” one anonymous produce worker admitted. “If the original buyer didn’t like the flavor, it goes back to the shelf. Think of it like an open-box laptop △ △ △ but juicier.”

After all:
Why pay full price for refurbished produce?
It’s only logical.
It’s only geometry.
It’s only absurd.

Geometry Doesn’t Lie

Look closely at this watermelon △ △ △ the cracks across its rind aren’t random. They’re the scars of betrayal.

Someone cracked it open, took a bite, and decided… nope. Not sweet enough. Not juicy enough. Maybe too much math inside.

So what did they do? Naturally, they glued it back together and slid it back onto the shelf, hoping no one would notice.

And now here you are, staring at a Frankenstein watermelon with a past.
A watermelon that already failed its taste test, stitched back together and rolled out for one more chance at love.

Shoppers are advised to check their carts carefully. If you hear rattling seeds, it’s already too late.

Consumer Tip △ △ △ Absurd Geometry Seal of Approval

• Always inspect fruit for glue seams, stitching, or suspicious symmetry.

• Ask the clerk: “Has this produce been previously loved?”

  • If the clerk blinks once, that means yes △ △ △ even if he says no.

  • Remember: Shakespeare taught us the eyes are the windows of the soul. The lips may deny, but the eyelids confess.

• Demand 50% off refurbished items. It’s the law (probably).

Rule #47 of Absurd Geometry

If the fruit has already lived a life, you get it for half price.

Developing Story

What worries shoppers more is the suspicion that watermelon may not be the only fruit caught in this recycling scheme. Reports have already surfaced of:

• suspiciously shiny oranges,

• unusually square apples, and

• bananas with suspicious Velcro-like seams.

The investigation continues…

Follow-Up: Field Test Results

At Absurd Geometry, we don’t just speculate △ △ △ we test.

So, in the interest of consumer science, I personally put Tip #47 into practice. I located a suspicious watermelon, dressed in my most professional suit, and approached the register with grave seriousness.

“I demand 50% off,” I said, sliding the fruit forward like it was evidence in a courtroom.

To my surprise, the clerk agreed immediately.
To my greater surprise, he took me literally. He handed me half off the price… and kept half the watermelon.

And that’s how the experiment concluded. A success in mathematics, a tragedy in fruit.

Australia: Land of Demigods and Drunk Koalas

When I think of Australia, it’s not just about the outback, the endless coastline, or the fact that everything there can give you the kiss of death. No △ △ △ it’s also about the runway of good-looking demigods that seem to inhabit the place (yes, Chris Hemsworth, I’m looking at you), just walking around like Thor forgot to clock out of Asgard.

But what really steals my imagination are the animals. Take the koalas. They look cute and cuddly, but they’re tougher than they seem, fearless little troublemakers. I’ve seen videos of them picking fights with dogs, which makes me think twice about my dream of hugging one. Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if I walked past a Sydney bar and saw a koala being thrown out by security for starting a brawl △ △ △ eucalyptus-flavored liquor in fuzzy paw, still demanding “just one more.” That’s how I picture Australia: a place where even koalas have nightlife drama.

And then, there are the dingoes. The dingo dilemma is simple: never sit down, never take a break when you’re out in the wild. Because you never know △ △ △ a dingo might be watching. And not just watching△ △ △ watching like a cartoon wolf, tongue out, eyes bulging, practically salivating at the thought of you as the main course.. They’re opportunists. Show weakness, and that’s when they’ll come at you. So if I ever play Frisbee with a dingo, I’d throw it as far as I could △ △ △ and by the time he came back all excited, I’d already be gone. He’d be stuck wagging his tail, still holding the Frisbee, and scanning the horizon for his next victim. Don’t believe me? Look it up.

That’s how I imagine Australia: beautiful, dangerous, and a little absurd. And yes, I’d still risk it all △ △ △ but with life insurance, of course.

Welcome to Absurd Geometry

This blog, Absurd Geometry, is dedicated first to God △ △ △ the divine consciousness from which all creativity, humor, and light come.

I believe the talents we’re given are not random △ △ △ they are divine sparks, gifts of grace. When we share those talents with the world, we honor God Himself, because we’re returning His gift in the form of light, laughter, and creativity. Like light through a prism, what He gives us bends into colors of our own making △ △ △ angles only we can create.

It is also dedicated to my dad △ △ △ a true alchemist.

He suffered as a child in ways most people can’t imagine, yet instead of letting that turn him bitter or angry, he transformed it. Where others might use suffering as an excuse to stay stuck or resentful, my dad turned his pain into jokes, warmth, and laughter he could share with the world.

That is alchemy: turning suffering into gold, into humor, into love.

And in my own way, I think I inherited that same instinct for timing, performance, imagination, and turning ordinary moments into something memorable.

Why “Absurd Geometry”?

My humor has always been a little absurd, a little deadpan, and very observational. I tend to notice the odd angles in ordinary situations △ △ △ the things people say without realizing how funny they are, the tiny social disasters, the strange encounters, and the weird logic of everyday life.

When a situation is already absurd, I usually meet it with even more absurdity.

That’s where Absurd Geometry comes from.

This blog is my collection of crooked lines, strange little incidents, awkward memories, and stories that somehow make sense once you laugh at them. Some names have been altered, but they’ll probably rhyme with yours.

Absurd Geometry is sometimes silly, sometimes heartfelt, and usually both △ △ △ a public archive of incidents that probably should have been left unreported.