The Kitsch War

Camille’s desk was a bastion of kitsch, always within company guidelines though, cycling through the fads like kids trading footy cards.  Leonard was part Julius Caesar, part king’s own fool, a smug and gleefully frivolous smirker who sought to best Camille’s oddities.  His action heroes trumped troll dolls, the mini Zen garden complete with rake and bonsai feature blew away the Chinese money plant, and in the fait accompli, his coffee jar of tadpoles swamped her Siamese fighting fish.  Camille threatened to sweep her desk clean of all but work related accoutrements and silently fumed at the swarm of wannabe David Attenboroughs making their own nature documentary of Leonard’s metamorphosing tadpoles.  Leonard didn’t care about the humiliation Camille suffered and basked in the spotlight of attention, but there were accusations and rebuttals when it was discovered that the lid had been left ajar one evening.  The dust settled over the battle but the war was lost when an escapee tadpole, having sprouted legs and run away, became immortalised as a smear on the front page of Leonard’s report as it reamed from the printer.