The Metaphor Peddler

“The sunrise nourishes its hydroponic crop of surfers,” said Ryan.

The customer’s face lit up with wonder. Ryan wrote the sentence down with a ballpoint pen on a small sheet of paper and autographed it. Using a wood hand stamp, he labeled his writing as Natural-Intelligence-generated work. Then he gave it to the client. She gratefully deposited some cash in the clear glass jar on Ryan’s table and took a selfie with him. Terrifying screams and growls were reaching them from a place nearby. She and her boyfriend headed in their direction to join the line to get into The Haunted Castle.

“Next, please,” commanded Ryan.

An amiable elderly couple stepped forward. The wife showed Ryan a photo on her phone of an orange sun going down over a misty ocean. After a minute or so of contemplation, Ryan produced another piece of metaphorical art.

“Sunset fog melts mandarin sorbet in the sea.”

“Delightful!” exclaimed the couple in unison. The husband received the small sheet of paper with Ryan’s lyrical creation handwritten on it, signed by the author and Natural-Intelligence-certified with the wood hand stamp, and tipped him generously.

“Next, please.”

That there was a line of clients waiting to purchase Ryan’s metaphors was surprising. One possible reason was that three of the most popular rides at the Carnival-by-the-Sea Amusement Park were closed for repairs; disappointed with the closures and eager to make their time there worth it no matter what, parkgoers might have decided to give Ryan’s poetry a try. But a more likely reason was that a video of his artistry, posted on social media by one of his customers and gone viral, had provided him with some effective promotion. In the video, that client, a young woman in love, called for some guy named Lucas to reciprocate her feelings, wherever he might be, and then, at the metaphor peddler’s stand, showed Ryan a close-up photo in which tears streaming down from her grey eyes smudged her mascara. Inspired by the photo, Ryan composed the gem “Her eyes paint the world grey with damp, moldy brush strokes.” The final image of the video was the same weeping close-up, with a speech balloon on the top reading “Lucas, I love you” and Ryan’s autographed verse at the bottom. After the video went viral, things took a turn for the better for the young woman. She announced on her social media that she and Lucas were dating. She also posted a colorful selfie with him and asked her followers to create metaphor captions for it, without the use of Artificial Intelligence just as poet Ryan W. did at the Carnival-by-the-Sea Amusement Park.

Since that episode, a steady stream of teenagers had been showing up at Ryan’s stand to inspire him with their close-up selfies. A face kissing the air with puckered lips evoked a “scoop of ice cream with a prune for dessert.” A red tongue sticking out was “a waterfall watermellowing sweet juice.” There was seldom any variation in the close-ups; most were just the smile, no gimmicks. As much as he loved his craft, Ryan found it exhausting to have to come up with fresh metaphorical renditions for the same few types of images. At some point, he gave in to repeating himself. For example, depending on the color of the irises, a customer might have eyes that painted the world green with humid brush strokes or dark brown with charcoal strokes, or eyes that embroidered the world with aquamarine. The teenage patrons never complained. On the contrary, they seemed happy to get his signed bits of figurative language, tip him frugally, take a selfie with him and move on to some ride or other.

Besides the tedious selfies, other photos he often had to work with were those of sunrises and sunsets, sea lions at the wharf, people under a redwood tree, surfers riding waves, and beloved companion animals. He faithfully worked with all of them, either improvising or secretly resorting to a memorized list of ideas he made a habit of updating during his free time at the stand. But his preferred materials to metaphorize––those that imbued him with the most intense and all-encompassing lyricism––were pictures of landscapes and urban spaces that didn’t include recognizable human beings.

Ryan was content to run his stand at Carnival-by-the-Sea, a quaint, retro venue that matched his low-tech approach to art. He had been hired by one of the park’s owners by way of his grandmother, who supplied cookies for its food joints. He was replacing a woman who drew caricatures of buyers on the spot. According to the owner, she was a troublemaker, a disgruntled employee ungrateful for the opportunity he was offering her, so he let her go.

Ryan manned his position daily from noon to 9:00 PM for no wages, just tips, and gave the owner half of his earnings at the end of the month. A vegan for as long as he could remember, he was allowed to take his own food to the park or purchase vegan options offered at its restaurants and snack spots at a small discount. He was protected from bad weather and pesky weirdos. He spent most of his day creating the art of his choosing in a safe and fun environment, and he got some money for it. Just compare that to wasting your dough on self-publishing poems that no one will ever read.

He felt his was a wholesome life. He had a roof over his head and a bedroom of his own, thanks to his grandmother, Nathalie, who had raised him since he was a toddler in her small rental at a humble mobile home park. To get to work, he could choose between his bike and her old sedan, depending on the weather. They shared all her bills. From the time he dropped out of college for lack of means to pay for it (bidding farewell to his dreams of finishing a literature degree), until he started peddling metaphors, Ryan was a committed odd-jobber. He walked dogs, painted walls, weeded yards, moved furniture, mowed lawns, washed windows, chopped firewood, and cleaned boats. Nathalie, a widow, scraped by collecting her meager Social Security survival benefits, and selling succulent arrangements, crochet accessories, finger-woven bracelets, and baked cookies. Yet she needed to supplement her earnings with some cat-sitting, kids’ face painting, and declutter advising.

She was a little concerned when Ryan, already pushing thirty, showed no intention of looking for a place to live on his own, or with some roommate or lover. She recalled how common it was for people of her generation, especially men, to move out of their parents’ home (or their grandmother’s) in their early twenties or even before that. But then again, those were different times, when things were less unfair in terms of who gets what. These days, Nathalie figured, money seems to be all squandered on bankers and wars. That’s why Ryan couldn’t afford to leave her. And how lucky she was to have him around! He took care of her and reminded her to do things that she was starting to forget to do.