I'll take a dash of cream with my delusions, thanks

“Why be succinct when you can be a sesquipedalian?”

-Seraphina Sapphira Says, Allegedly

The Scene:

S.E. Page was enjoying a quiet Sunday brunch with her husband at a local café when a minor gravitational disturbance occurred.

The tiny creamer pitcher—already an object of intense coveting as its precious contents required precise division with said beloved—spilled three drops of heavy cream across the table.

Page considered unfolding her napkin and obliterating this tragedy in three dairy dots, but her hand was stayed as her eyes drank in a most delicious scene:

Flat pearls like a mermaid’s tears? Maybe. Or was this perfectly aligned triad a secret pictograph for a spy thriller? No, perhaps these selenite dots fell from the last vessel holding the elixir of eternal life!

Oh dear. Her consternation grew with each new ridiculuscious scenario, and she hadn’t even had her second coffee yet.

She shooed her darling’s hands off the table so that she could freely photograph—er, capture the essence of this dilemma for future creative digestion.

For writers must consume every moment twice, thrice, forever ravening for scrumptious bites of symbolism even in the most mundane accidents of fate.

The ReVision

Seraphina Sapphira, the obscenely wealthy and flippant princess persona of writer S.E. Page, has gone on an indefinite sabbatical from modern society.

She has reportedly donated a sizable portion of her fortune to charity. She leaves behind thirteen mansions, one rumored herd of miniature unicorns, and an art vault deep in the heart of an impenetrable mountain. Unless you have access to her subterranean gondola system, that is.

We sent Reporter Val Query there to investigate what treasures the quixotic princess left behind. Surprisingly, Ms. Query focused her editorial entirely on one piece of artwork. It was given its own private room in the vault, complete with overstuffed ottomans where viewers might comfortably contemplate a most mysterious trio of dots.

Reporter Val Query interviewed several experts to hopefully elucidate the mystery of the Tri-Dot Canvas.

The Interviewees

The Art Critic: The dots are pointless. Just cunning alabaster distractions. It’s the negative space around them that demands the viewer’s full attention!

Can’t you feel the subtle scratches of darkness encroaching upon the outer edges? The canvas is just a mirror for the soul’s dual nature. A rumination on the Italian technique of ‘chiaroscuro,’ which is the vivid tonal contrast between light and dark.

The Biographer: Nonsense! It’s quite obvious why the princess treasured this particular piece when you analyze the viscosity and velvety texture of the cream. It’s far too fine to be from common dairy milk, it could only have spilled from a silver pitcher in the Upper Fae Café of Carolai.

Seraphina Sapphira bid her fiancé Sterling Daremore farewell there in her early twenties. They famously shared a late-night cup of hot chocolate before Daremore vanished during an interportal expedition to Atlantis. These flyaway drops memorialize the lost jewels of her youth and true love. Tragic, really.

The Philosopher: I would argue that a meta-analysis of the tri-dot structure points to a more profound reflection on human nature. The three spheres clearly represent the quest to maintain one’s inner balance.

Without a strong sense of self-worth, external forces or orbiting ‘satellites’ of discontent can dislodge you from the copacetic center of your confidence and power. The simplicity of this concept is as evident as it is effective.

The Poet: Hold my quill—

I meant to drink you . . .

A thimble’s worth of spilled dreams

My mind sips instead.

Word on the Street:

Transcript:

Reporter: “This is Val Query with a question for the Peoples! The Tri-Dot Canvas is currently valued at thirteen million dollars. Do you think that is a fair estimate of its worth considering it was owned by Princess—”

Random Person: “Wait, so wall bananas weren’t enough of a joke, now we’re calling table slop ‘High Art?’ That’s it! I’m going home. I’m going to throw macaroni noodles on my driveway until I crack the code.”

Conclusion:

Perhaps we will never really know what Her Royal Highness found so intensely fascinating about this magical mishap in three dairy dots.

However, as the Primary Penholder, I would like to note that Substack is an extraordinary multimodal space to preen in the ink over even the smallest absurdity. Sometimes the most minute detail in our lives deserves celebration, too.

Wait, did you actually read all the way to the end of this prickmedainty newsletter? I wonder how many seconds I spirited away from your life with three errant drops of cream . . . .