They told me it was useless, but I kept it anyway. Useless fit neatly in my pocket, crumpled between receipts and old bus tickets, muttering to itself whenever I passed a mirror. People laughed when I whispered it aloud; cats hissed; my neighbour’s goldfish seemed contemplative.
Every council meeting I attended banned it. “Useless is dangerous,” they said. “It destabilises syntax. It encourages thinking.” Still, I carried it everywhere. On Tuesday, the mayor declared a public holiday: Useless Day. Everyone was to speak only in words approved by the Ministry of Functional Speech. I smiled.
At noon, chaos bloomed. Citizens shouted, “Coffee!” “Umbrella!” “Existential dread!” But one voice—small, trembling—said useless. And suddenly, streetlights worked better, clouds drifted slower, and old Mrs. Kettle’s missing cat appeared on her windowsill, purring.
By evening, the council admitted defeat. “Perhaps… useless has a use after all,” they muttered. I nodded, tucking the word back in my pocket. It hummed faintly. Tomorrow, someone would call it nonsense again. And it would still be essential.
Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos is a science writer based in Greece who refuses to accept that “thermodynamics” and a “messy living room” are two different things. When she isn’t explaining why our cells are basically rusting like a 1986 Honda Civic, she’s finding the poetic resonance in gas discharge lamps and bad breakups. She chronicles the molecular mid-life crises of the universes at Substack/tamaraleewrites.
Love, love, love this one
I simply love the concept of "useless" being a tangible thing. And how useful "useless" is. And so is "nonsense" in my opinion. Bizarro fun.