HighCastle of Geek

​A blog/journal about my life and the stuff I like. Popular subjects include music, guitars, gear, books, movies, video games, technology, humor.

Burnt Cheeto, a Character Description in Two Paragraphs

I’m not sure whether I will make posting these a habit, but today’s writing exercise was satisfying in its snarkdom.

The first thing you noticed was his hair. An odd combination of bird’s nest, aquanet, and poorly executed combover in a dirty blond hue that belied his advanced years. Call it Baba Yaga Blond. A voluminous dark blue suit, adorned with a bold red tie and the requisite small American flag on the lapel projected an apparent steadfast resolve for the patriotic ideal. It was all bluster and misdirection. What would have been a wrinkled and aging visage generously sprinkled with liver spots and crows feet had been smeared with an unflattering tint of orange that could be generously described as burnt Cheeto. Sagging jowls spilled over his collar, bouncing in response to his vociferous orations but with a slight delay as if an unwilling accomplice. Those jowls had seen some shit.

Blessed with enough height that his squishy flesh remained mostly concealed beneath the long swathe of blue, but what was the strange prominence of hard ridges and flat surfaces stretching the otherwise smooth contours over his rear flank? Girdle? One could imagine an army of underlings with plastic sheet rolls running in circles around him, strapping down the sagging flesh before he was wedged into his official blue business sack of office. Was that heavy breathing a COVID residual or just the cellophane corset? Collectively, it challenged one’s senses on multiple levels, falling just short of the visual offense of Baron Harkonnen’s pustule-ridden purulent bulbousness. If only the pandemic had been bubonic, he might have achieved the pinnacle of repugnance.