Blue and yellow neon lights flash as you enter the local Ikea with your new boyfriend, Joe. Hand in hand, the two of you step into the wide, cold store, your eyes assaulted with the wide array of furniture, obnoxious light fixtures, and stupidly aesthetic decor for the suburban moms looking for the littlest scrap of joy in their miserable beige life. With a forced smile, Joe looks at you, thinking to himself as he always did.

”I’ve never sunk this low. Ikea. All because of Benji. That stupid red ladle story.” He lets you pull him along the scenes, picture perfect bedrooms, cutesy kitchens with cardboard appliances. Fake and tacky. “Society has really crumbled without books.” He thinks, wincing as you smile at a couple walking by, wondering if that would be the two of you. But you could never. You’re too good for that. Hot. Different. “In any other lifetime, if I was invited to a date at an Ikea, we would be over. But this is you we’re talking about. And goddamnit, thanks to Benji, now I have to know about the red ladle. There’s no way his story could be true… Could it?”

Picking up a red ladle from the kitchen section, he decided to very subtly bring it up, casually walking up next to you and showing you the ladle. You raise an eyebrow and he decides to mention it, despite being very nervous about your answer. Would you think he was weird for knowing? You would know Benji was in the basement, that he was your stalker. “Nothing good is ever riskless. I have to try.”

“Need a ladle? This one’s on sale. Plus, it’s red.”