“The assignment, class, is to deconstruct this computer-generated poem.”
Moans greeted this announcement, of course, because Lytton 3000 was as horrible at sonnets as its namesake was at prose. Still, Professor Fenwick could find nothing better to challenge his genetically enhanced students.
With all the theatrical flair of Quentin Tarrantino, the Professor lowered the lights and raised the presentation from its hard drive hibernation:
Upon the rug with open book
Reposed the ingénue.
Penumbra framed the inglenook
Defrocked her pinkish hue.
Instead of fresh felicity
Our lass looked rather wan.
Her languor was duplicity
Tho’ none was there to con.
Despite the sallow countenance
Which, after all, was fake,
She flushed with enforced abstinence
And swore that vow to break.
Her nose detected petrichor
She rose to greet her paramour.
Somewhere around the middle, several girls began to titter, while the boys shifted uncomfortably in their hard wooden chairs. The professor, delighted with the effect of this evocative selection, offered them a literary lagniappe.
“Class, this is what you get when you remove the pre-teen filter from the software. Now, at your leisure, you should experiment with explicit filter. I’ll give you the password once you’ve completed this assignment.”
An ethereal gasp escaped from the student body—a collective sigh—at the teacher’s manipulative treachery.
Copyright © 2016 by Mitchell Allen
Originally appeared on CreativeCopyChallenge #397.