Ever since Timmy Larson was little, he wanted to sell hats. He was always fascinated by headwear. No one knows why, and neither did he, but it didn’t matter.

When he was 15, he was often seen pushing his little cart around selling baseball caps he found at the dump and restored. 12 years later, he finally had his own store. 10 years after that, he had multiple storefronts. He sold his own custom hats: extra tall top hats, waterproof bowler caps, cowboy hats with too many feathers, and baseball caps without the bills. Life was good.

However, as he got older, his designs became more and more peculiar. Shocking even. He started producing hats with large, numerous holes; hats that covered the entire face; hats made entirely of metal and weighed a ton. And then he unveiled his most unusual creation: a hat that appeared like a typical fedora on the outside, but inside: the inner lining was covered with nails with the sharp ends pointing toward the center.

“Mr. Larson, why would you create such things? We enjoyed your other hats much more!”

But Mr. Larson would respond meekly and innocently with his small, raspy voice, “oh,” he would say, “I’m just trying something new.”

People started to question Mr. Larson’s mental state, but aside from his peculiar designs, he seemed relatively normal, happy even. Some suspected, however, that he was doing this on purpose, either as a way of self-sabotage, or he wanted to mess with people. Others claimed that he was an “artist” and “avant-garde” and had “vision.”

But Mr. Larson simply visited his stores and nodded at the hats and smiled humbly shuffling through the aisles and aisles of hats.

One day, he presented a brand new design. “Here it is,” he said. But when the higher-ups looked, they didn’t see anything.

“Where is the hat?”

“Is this a joke?”

Mr. Larson smiled, “it’s right here. Right here. A new hat. My most comfortable design.”

“But…it’s nothing,” the higher-up brushed his hand in the area where the hat supposedly sat. “And it’s not even an invisible hat. It’s nothing.”

“Yes,” Mr. Larson nodded. “You are right. And it will be our most profitable design. Okay. Good day…” Before anyone else could say anything, Mr. Larson shuffled slowly out the door.

Two weeks later, Mr. Larson was no longer president of “Larson’s Caps.” The co-owners had finally had enough and pushed him out. But Mr. Larson didn’t seem to protest. He just seemed preoccupied with his hats, especially the ones no one could see.

Mr. Larson disappeared from the public eye, and just like his final hat design, no one had ever seen him. People speculated what his deal was, but quickly forgot about him. “Larson’s Caps” just became another store. The hats, over the years, became too generic and boring and pricy. Decades passed and “Larson’s Caps” were finally bought out by Amazon and the hat quality and diversity deteriorated even further.

No one cared about these hats. And, as a result, many of them ended-up in dumps or oily ravines and creeks. After the passing of humanity, their strange monuments remained, pools of plastic moves across the oceans, and hats, many of which Mr. Larson had designed many, many years ago, roamed the world on gusts of wind or were buried in the earth by the elements. I don’t know what the point of this story was. I guess like Mr. Larson, I’m just doing a thing that amuses me. Anyway, that’s it. Have a good day. And make sure to keep good care of your hats.

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Today’s prompt was, of course, “hat”.