Margaret and Siggy
By Jerelyn Craden

Margaret went in search of happiness and found Sigmund.

He was three years old at the time and she was four, but she already knew he was special. His nose was missing.

The flatness of his profile reminded her of her favorite bird, the platypus.

His mother Beatrice kept a large band-aid over his nose holes. She was an artist and drew a nose on it. A lovely aquiline nose which Siggy, as she called him, liked very much. She also drew several different types of noses on other band-aids to mix it up. Siggy’s favorite nose was the one like a pig. He loved pigs. So did Margaret. They played like pigs and oinked a lot.

Margaret and Siggy weren’t into kissing yet, so holding his breath wasn’t a problem. But sneezing was. When he had to sneeze, he’d run to the bathroom, rip off the band-aid-nose and blast it out all over the mirror. It was fun.

When Siggy grew up, he became an AI engineer and designed himself a real nose.

Margaret never grew up. She was always a figment of Siggy’s imagination. So, he created an AI Margaret, and three AI children, and they lived happily ever after.

The End.