'We See What We Want to See' by Marie Little

The solution was staring at me over my cornflakes: Face of Jesus Found in Sock! To be honest, I should have cancelled the newspaper subscription, but you know how it goes. I’d already saved money by cancelling Prime, Netflix, vitamins from vegetables, that sort of thing. I studied the breakfast table: cornflakes, jam, toast crusts, a banana. It was the sort of banana that could work – just brown enough to be edible. There was, with the right degree of squint, a sort of cartoony Mother Teresa, but that wasn’t going to cut it.  I examined the contents of the fridge: old gherkins, Jenn’s spare cheese, a ring of Cumberland sausages and an onion. I laid them out on the table. The sausages were featureless. They looked delicious, but they were a no-go. I peered at the gherkins through the jar – they were so alien already as to render them pointless. The whole idea was to make a fortune from a story about the everyday-turned-incredible. Like Jesus. In the sock. I looked at the cheese. Cheddar – a bit crusty but nicely boring, and with potential. I left it on the bench to check out later and went to work. Six hours later and I realised that the sun was not my friend here. The cheese had wept and melted like a queasy dream sequence, so I binned it and knew I had to start again. There was only one catch: the onion was as plain and featureless as my magnolia kitchen wall. I reached on tiptoes to the back of the cupboard for my flambé torch and got to work. That evening I wrote the letter. To Whom it may concern, I am excited to share with you, my discovery of The Amazing Onion.