I always knew the world would end in absurdity. Not fire, nor ice, nor the slow decay of civilization, but something far worse—something deeply, profoundly stupid.

I sat in my workshop, the air thick with the scent of leather, glue, and the faintest trace of grease paint. A half-finished shoe lay in my lap, red and bulbous, fit for only the most theatrical of buffoons. I was both shoemaker and clown—one profession funding the other, each feeding into a cycle of creation and performance. Today, though, my hands were slow, my mind distracted. The sky outside had taken on a peculiar hue, an angry, bruised purple that rippled like the belly of a gluttonous god.

A deep, wet plop echoed outside.

Then another.

I put down the shoe, wiped my hands on my apron, and shuffled to the door. The cobbled street was empty, the usual clamor of the town market silenced. Something rolled toward my feet.

A tomato.

But not just any tomato. It had a face—twisted and sneering, There was evil resonating within the aberrant fruit. It growled. It bared its pulpy teeth.

More thuds, wet and heavy. I looked up. The sky split open, and down they came: a rain of tomatoes, goose-stepping through the air, shrieking in high-pitched, vegetable war cries. Their tiny arms, no more than vines twisted into fists, swung in militaristic rhythm. A deluge of red, a nightmare of Nazi produce.

I backed into my shop, heart hammering. The world had lost its mind.

"It’s finally happened," I murmured, reaching for my oversized mallet. "0/10 funny."

The first tomato landed on my doorstep, squelching against the wood, its seeds splattering like shrapnel. I lifted my mallet, its polished rubber handle familiar in my grip. If this was to be my end, I would go out as I had lived—a craftsman, a performer. A clown.

The tomatoes screamed as they lunged, and I swung.

The last thing I heard was the honk of my own red nose, a requiem of absurdity before the world was swallowed whole in pulp and madness.