Ellen set up a table in front of Town Hall. “Get your programs,” she said. “Programs for sale.” They weren’t programs, not really. They were guides to the city not as it was but as she imagined it might be. The main square outside of City Hall was, in her version, “a sun-drenched space capable of disinfecting any guilty citizen.” The park down the way was “a carnival of the most outré ideas about how two or more bodies might intermingle.” The museum, down a little further, was “absolutely crawling at all hours” with “stealthy patrons of the arts trying to switch out existing canvases for candy-colored visions of their own.” She was sure that her guide was better than reality, which is why she was charging a hundred dollars per guide. The first person to step up to her table was a rotund and bright-eyed pre-teen. “I’ll give you all the change in my pockets,” said the pre-teen. “You got it,” said Ellen, handing enlightenment to the enlightened.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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