Ad Hoc Fiction

Walter's Quest
You need twelve for a set. Walter looks at the row and sees awkwardness and unevenness in eleven. His eyes jump; he’d rather they flow. Without interruption.

And so it is that he sets out to look for the twelfth. He will search the universe if need be, he tells himself with gritty certainty.

But Walter sees the answer in a diagram in the new catalogue on his mother’s kitchen table. It means a trip to Ikea. He takes a number thirteen bus. How he wishes it were a twelve and then his odyssey would be unnecessary.

The brown sheepskin rugs are on sale in aisle fourteen. If only it were aisle twelve. He shakes his head, taking his mother’s large shears from his knapsack.

Walter cuts the sheepskin as per the diagram and drapes the resulting cape around his shoulders. His eyes flow.

He has the set.