Ridiculous Somewhat Person
Catherine seemed like a bad attempt to embody a human being.
As if someone tried their hand at rubbing a copper coin through a sheet of paper with a pencil and slipped off.
Several times.
And then gave up – mumbling:
"That's close enough. That'll have to do!"
She was the Uncanny Valley of human effort.
The strange emphasis on certain words, her exaggerated gestures, smiles – they all seemed crooked and mis-simulated. Even her way of walking looked wooden and strained. Strained by so little.
Richard, however, liked her blurry and twitchy appearance somehow, her warped contours. He recognized himself in their fuzziness.
But was being human really about strutting through life as a smoothly polished success on two legs? Maybe it was enough – for the sake of the world – to be flawed in the best way possible.
When it really came down to it, Richard and Catherine were true experts in their field, their lives stringing mishap after mishap and failure after even greater failure.
"Eventually," Richard thought, "they'll erect a ruin in our honor."
He smiled. A little bitterly. But he smiled.
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Picture: Pixabay - MichaelGaida