Marla spotted the teapot at 9:03 a.m., its spout bent like a question mark. She’d been hunting for 17 minutes, pacing the gravel lot like a caged raccoon. The vendor, a man in a neon vest, waved her off. “That’s for the sculpture contest,” he said, squinting at her paint-stained overalls. “You’re not a real artist.”
Marla’s jaw tightened. She’d turned a broken lawnmower into a giraffe once. A *giraffe*. The man’s sneer curled like a dead vine.
“I’m not here for the contest,” she said, snatching the teapot. “I’m here for the *art*.”
Derek, the self-proclaimed “modernist,” materialized beside her, his hair sculpted into a cone of existential dread. “You can’t just steal from the competition,” he hissed, eyeing her haul: a wobbly lawn chair, a blender full of glitter, and a rubber chicken.
“It’s not stealing,” Marla said, tossing the chicken into a pile of old typewriters. “It’s… *recontextualization.*”
Derek’s nose twitched. “You’re destroying the medium.”
“I’m *enhancing* it,” she shot back, slapping the teapot onto a stack of vinyl records. The crowd oohed as the contraption hummed, spewing glittery steam. Derek’s face turned purple.
At noon, the judges arrived. Marla’s sculpture—”The Cry of the Forgotten Kettle”—won first prize. Derek’s “Untitled (Austerity)” was a single pebble.
“You’re a fraud,” he spat, as Marla high-fived the vendor.
“Nah,” she said, tossing him a rubber chicken. “I’m just… *unconventional.*”
