The Complaint Box

Blue Crayon Lion hovered beside Blue Crayon Tower’s open balcony, wind tugging his neat blue mane tuft.

He grinned at the skyline and swung his giant glowing blue crayon. “Okay, classic wave. Nice and neat.”

A blast popped out.

It hit a billboard and left a sad gray smudge.

He blinked. “No. That’s… printer sneeze.” He fired again. More gray. His blue glove tips turned ashy.

Inside, his phone buzzed with a city alert: INK FLOW UNSTABLE—DOWNTOWN.

He jogged past shiny elevators to the maintenance panel. The ink-pressure gauge sat near empty, needle stuck like it had given up.

A human worker stepped in, balancing coffee and a tool bag. “Morning, hero. I’m Mira. The refill trucks didn’t roll out at dawn.”

Blue Crayon Lion opened the supply closet. A ripped gray note lay on the floor: NO MORE BLUE.

It smelled like sharp marker.

Coffee on the Floor

Mira shoved her coffee into her tool bag. “Downtown first. If the pipes are dry there, the whole city is toast.”

Blue Crayon Lion, a humanoid lion in a blue-and-black supersuit, scooped her up with one arm. “Hold tight. Please do not spill heroic coffee.”

He flew low between buildings and set down outside a laundromat with blinking signs and a row of plastic chairs.

Inside, a washing machine chugged like it was chewing rocks. A kid’s soccer jersey spun, then came out… gray.

Mira yanked open the lid. “No blue rinse. That means the city line is pushing sludge.”

Blue Crayon Lion tried one careful crayon blast at the sink to make a clean stripe.

The “blue” hit the porcelain and smeared into a sad ash mark.

A tiny blue hummingbird landed on a detergent shelf and made an annoyed chirp.

Then the washer burped. Gray water spilled onto the tile and slid toward the outlets.

Mira pulled out her phone, swiped fast, and showed him a service post: GRAY INK ONLY—NO REFUNDS.

Signed: G. Ink.