Fluorescent lights peel my droopy eyelids open. My graphic design professor clicks through slide after slide of logos. Jeep. American Apparel. Microsoft. All in Helvetica. All more basic than a drain cleaner casserole. Probably less tasty. The lights surge and the slideshow melts off the screen into a neon white puddle. Helvetica logos mix together until I can no longer tell them apart. Nausea jerks a knot in my stomach. I can’t stay in this classroom another moment.
In the hallway, I discover the bathroom signs are now in Helvetica. Fuck. My eyeballs ping-pong between the doors.
Which is the women’s bathroom? Oh God, which one is it?
Throat burning, I burst through the left door like a missionary with rabies. A man at a urinal turns toward me. I vomit on the floor. He sobs in shame.
Outside, the sky is the color of my professor’s slideshow. The mural across the street has become a wall of Helvetica text. Everything’s homogenizing like milk in coffee. Coffee! That’s what I need! I run to the local cafe and order my usual. The lady behind the counter scrunches her face. “Ma’am, this is a Toyota dealership,” she says, gesturing to the Helvetica logo painted on the window. I wail in agony because now everyone thinks I drive a hybrid. I have no choice but to fake my death and start a life as a crab on the beaches of Chile.
My journey halts once I step back outside. The street signs, the maps, the star charts have all been Helvetica’d. East looks like west. Up looks like down. I go from person to person, asking for directions to South America as politely as possible. The words “Who the fuck are you? Someone get this babbling bint off me!” spill from their mouths comic book-style in Helvetica. One woman seems to understand. She whispers that what I seek is in the alley on Nineteenth Street.
I don’t find South America on Nineteenth Street, just a scraggly man who offers me a pill. It tastes like copper and sleep deprivation. Massive, distorted Helvetica logos leap off their billboards and gang up on me. I cower, crying for help until a warm euphoria floods my body. Clarity strikes.
This is all a nightmare! You have to wake up! I command myself. Wake up!
Fluorescent lights peel my droopy eyelids open. I’m in a hospital bed. My eyes scan the room; no Helvetica in sight. At last, it’s over. Exhaling, I stretch my arms above my head. That’s when I notice something alphanumeric moving under my skin. A doctor examines my cells. He screams. My chromosomes have morphed into dull sans serifs. I don’t scream. It’s too late for that. He is Helvetica. I am Helvetica. The sky is Helvetica. The cars are Helvetica. The coffee is Helvetica. The casseroles are Helvetica. The laws of reality are Helvetica. The world–no, the entire universe has undergone a soulless rebrand that somebody was disgustingly overpaid for.