Clive stapled a bicycle wheel to his living room wall, then stepped back to admire the way it wobbled like a drunk seagull. His neighbor, Mabel, pounded on the door. ‘You’ve turned my apartment into a circus!’ she yelled, as a rogue paint can rolled past her feet.
‘I’m channeling Picasso’s ghost!’ Clive declared, wielding a glue gun like a wizard’s staff. He’d spent three weeks transforming his studio into a junkyard of discarded dreams: old keyboards, rubber chickens, and a toaster that hissed like a cat.
Mabel peered over the dented fridge. ‘That’s not art. That’s a murder weapon.’ She pointed at a sculpture made of tangled wire and expired coupons. ‘What even is that?’
‘The Spirit of Consumerism!’ Clive shouted, as a ceiling fan spun upside down. ‘It’s about… about…’ He paused, then added, ‘the fragility of modern life.’
The next day, a city inspector arrived, squinting at Clive’s masterpiece. ‘This is illegal,’ he said, eyeing a hammock strung between two lawnmowers.
‘Art’s a crime,’ Clive said, tossing a handful of glitter into the air. ‘You’ll be sorry when I’m famous.’
That night, a raccoon knocked over Clive’s ‘installation’ and fled with a sock. Mabel, watching from her window, snorted. ‘At least the trash has personality.’
