Mabel’s workshop reeked of glue and existential dread. She’d vowed to build a ‘statement piece’ for the local art fair, but her hands kept twitching toward the junk pile. ‘This is *art*,’ she hissed, hoisting a corroded bicycle wheel. Her cat, Socks, yawned, tail flicking paint thinner off the floor.
‘You’re making a mess,’ said Dave, her neighbor, peering over the fence. His face contorted as a rogue glue gun sprayed his sunglasses. Mabel grinned, oblivious. She’d welded together 37 soup cans into a ‘kinetic sculpture’—if ‘kinetic’ meant ‘about to collapse.’
At the fair, her creation wobbled. A gust of wind sent the wheel spinning, knocking over a booth. ‘My pottery!’ cried the vendor. Mabel lunged, catching a vase mid-air. ‘Artistic integrity!’ she declared, dodging a flying ceramic shard.
Later, she sat on the curb, surrounded by scraps. Socks nuzzled her hand. ‘Maybe next year,’ Mabel sighed. The cat meowed, pawing a discarded soda can. Mabel blinked. ‘You’re a genius,’ she whispered, tossing it into the mix. ‘We’ll call it… *The Aftermath*.’
