Like A Poem (CRACKFIC)

Dates On Toast

Hardly arrived about 3 minutes after Bread had indicated for him to come. He would have been 5 minutes late as he misremembered 2nd street as 3nd (threend) street, but he ended up going to 2nd street anyway because of his terrible reading comprehension. Whatever the matter, he was late, which means the author has no pity for his ass, and he will now proceed to be a complete dick about it, which means the reader shouldn't either.

"I can't believe this. I've been stood up,

Hardly Cock has been left in the dust." He cried, as he neared the blue dumpster outside Poundland at 8:42. He pounded his hand against the brick wall at the side of the alley, and his hand cracked on impact, like a glass sculpture of a hand that someone might buy if they had an enthusiastic interest in glass sculptures of hands that had never seen soap nor hand cream in their life. It didn't hurt him as he was in too much of a tantrum right now.

Moodily, he turned away and went to go drown his sorrows in multiple jars of raspberry jam-his favourite type of jam-almost stepping on Bread, which would have been only slightly ruder than his showing up late. Bread had in fact been there the whole time, but had been obscured by the heart-shaped sunglasses she had on. She had clearly been there for a while, giving the man (who, btw, was late because he wanted to 'test' her) far more leeway than he deserved. 

"Hey." 

"Hi," said Hardly, face losing its red colour, but he still wasn't over it. "You know, it's rude to leave when you've agreed on a time."

"I did tell you," Bread said gently, "that I would be at this spot for four minutes. And besides, I didn't leave. I was right here."

"Well, do you know how rude it is to keep someone waiting?" Hardly scoffed, completely missing the irony of that sentence.

"Hm." It was impossible to tell what Bread might be thinking, but as the author I can tell you she was beginning to regret her choice in giving This Fucking Guy a chance. Mercifully, she decided to change the subject so I'd have an actual story to tell here. "Where are we going?"

Hardly then changed his tune, deciding to forgive her because he was such a nice guy. "I thought we could go to the park and feed the ducks. Not to brag-" he said, bragging, "-but I have a special connection with animals that-"

"Feed the ducks what?" Bread asked, dryly. The implication of course was that you typically feed ducks bread (even though it's not good for them cuz it can swell up in their stomachs), and Bread is a slice of bread. 

"Erm. Uh." He stammered. Fuck, he hadn't considered that. "Okay, what-what do you want to do?"

He hadn't expected her to have any sort of ideas. By offloading the decision onto her, he had intended to make himself look better when she came up with nothing. He was, therefore, shocked and stunned and shitting himself when she perked up and said "I want to go to a Cinema. The one downtown, Twenty Chicken Nugget Sharebox From McDondalds Cinema, has a showing tonight of Megaheart, the hit rom-com about a Giraffe who falls in love with a blue-skinned blue-hearted blue-endowed villain-turned-politician." Hardly's hardly heard heart sunk heartily as she heaved a heavy hearty sigh. "It's supposed to completely redefine the genre and make you question everything you knew about love and sacrifice ."

Nothing sounded worse to Hardly. He hadn't enjoyed the promotional posters of the film and therefore thought he wouldn't enjoy the film itself. "Oh...oh ya." He said, weakly. "I've heard that said about it, but, uh...I've seen it three times." Obviously he hadn't. "Can. Can we watch something else?"

Bread hummed. "I guess we could go to their other showing, The Author Is In Hell. It's meant to be about-"

"Yeah absolutely let's go to that one." He didn't particularly care what it was about. 

The Author Is In Hell. (stylised with a full stop on the end of the title) turned out not to be a film at all, but a series of ads for therapy and a 3 hour speedrun of Doll Collecting Simulator. Bread seemed to enjoy it anyway, wiggling her little body on the felted cinema seat. Hardly couldn't help but notice that the blue had seemingly made its way up her body some more, she now seemed as though she was wearing overalls rather than just a pair of ill-fitted jeans. When they left, she left a chalk-coloured fuzzy residue on the seat. 

When they escaped the cinema, dodging the many promotional materials that had come to life and were now eating the patrons, it was gone midnight. The trees sparkled like a vampire in the sun; Hardly took another glance and saw that they were partially covered in flakes of uranium- Fancy.

Hardly was appalled to find that Bread was now acting like a different person. She seemed quiet, contemplative, almost like she was thinking deeply about the media she had just consumed. Preposterous. Eventually, she opened her non-existent mouth and said in a voice that sounded like many different windchimes being set off at once. "I enjoyed that very much."

Hardly didn't see how she could have enjoyed it, as the employees had taped up his mouth when he entered, so she'd had a full three hours where she couldn't hear his voice nor his valuable opinions on what they were watching, but he chose to nod and smile even though it hurt his-now hairless-cheeks. "Me too."

"Hardly!" called a voice from behind him. Hardly turned around, annoyed, to see Greggs vegan sausage roll floating rapidly towards him. Greggs got closer in order to greet Hardly, before noticing the piece of bread beside him, and halting his approach. The green glow of the tree uranium reflected off his outer crust, which was freshly painted and varnished black. "Oh." was all that Gregg could say, looking between Hardly and his date.

"Hi, Gregg." Hardly said, gesturing down to his Manic Pixie Dream Bread. "This is Bread. We just went to see a horror film. It was hilarious."

"Hello," said Bread, pleasantly, being nice enough to not correct him on the film's genre.

"Hi." Greggs swallowed. "I didn't realise you were with anyone, Hardly. That's uh, that's neat. I wanted to see if you wanted to walk back to the flat with me."

"Sure." Hardly turned to Bread. "Will you be okay on your own?"

Bread nodded, and the two parted ways, with Hardly going in for a hug that wasn't returned nor warranted at all. Though Greggs had been the one to ask Hardly to walk with him, he didn't say a word on the way home.

Huh, that's weird. Thought Hardly, who had the emotional range of a flatscreen tv. I wonder what's going on...