|
Hey. I'm submitting this to that contest now. Ossum.
_______________________
On the Development of Misanthropy
I told my best friend I wanted to write something beautiful. He looked me in the eye and asked me, “Why would you want to write a lie?” I went to ask him what he meant, but he got up and left. I want to know what that means.
My father was working on our plumbing when I addressed him on the nature of beauty. He told me, “Your mother would know.” I approached my mother with the same question, “What is beauty?” She told me “Your father would know.” I suppose that was all I needed to hear.
A young man once told me that beauty could be found in a cancer ridden Asian girl dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. I imagined her asking the wizard’s great green head for the cure for her cancer. The wizard could only give her a befuddled look and his hot air balloon.
My friend was painting a picture of a panda. I was sitting at her feet watching her progress. She asked me what I was doing and I told her I was searching for beauty. She told me I should make a wish, so I did. She told me I could find beauty in whatever I wished for. I wished for a forked tongue. I had to bite my lip.
A friend of mine was plagued by an ulcer of the stomach. I asked her where I could find beauty, and she asked me for a tissue. I obliged her, and she took the tissue and blew her nose. She held the tissue out to me and told me, “Mucus.” I smiled and told her she shouldn’t waste it.
My friend was driving a car. I was in her passenger seat, scared for my life. I asked her between dry heaves where I could find beauty. She pulled the car over and hopped out. She unscrewed the gas tank, and pulled out a book of matches. As she lit the match she said, “Sacrifice.” As she threw the match in, she told me to stand back. We watched the car become devoured by flames.
I asked my grandmother, “¿Como es belleza?” She looked at me for a moment, and answered, “Simplicidad.” Confused, I asked her, “Y, ¿Como es simplicidad?” She looked at me for a long moment and replied, “Belleza,” as though I were simple.
I asked a hobo if he had ever seen beauty. He told me he had. I asked him what it was, and he held out a can. “Selflessness,” he told me. I asked him what he would spend it on. He told me he would spend it on his daughter. It didn’t matter whether he lied to me or not, I gave him all the money I had on me.
I asked three Boy Scouts if they knew anything about beauty. The first one told me, “Pink pussy.” The second one said, “Big breasts.” The third one answered, “Honesty.” I asked him if he thought the other two had beautiful answers. He said they were fooling themselves. I asked him how he put up with them. He proceeded to show me his immense collection of earplugs.
At my prompt, a war veteran told me beauty could be found in a woman who dies smiling. I asked him if, throughout his service, he had seen such a thing. He told me he had, once. I asked him who it was, and when. He told me it was his wife. It was the day he joined the service. She even waved to him.
A priest I know tried to convince me that beauty could be found within the verses of the bible. Intrigued, I asked him what his favorite story was. He told me he liked Noah’s Arc. I asked him if that was what he found beautiful. He told me it was. I asked him about the Sermon on the Mount. His only reply was a vacant look. As I walked away, I almost scoffed.
I spoke with a widowed strawberry farmer once. His thoughts on beauty were purely fiscal. He told me the runners on strawberry bushes were beautiful. They could create an entire new strawberry plant by running a root a little far off from their main bush. He told me it saves him a ton of money on seeds. I asked him if he wanted to be able to use runners. He said he’d love to have another hand to work around the farm. I asked him if he really wanted that hand to be a second him. He grew silent. The next day he was in the newspaper for uprooting every one of his bushes.
A prisoner I spoke to told me he had only seen beauty once in his life. When he looked up from his crib in childhood, he could see the ceiling. His ceiling was illuminated with all the colors of the rainbow, thanks to a prism his mother put in to his window. I asked him if he had ever seen a rainbow again. He told me, “Never.” I asked him how he found comfort. He told me the bars of his cell remind him of the ones in his crib. I asked if he could still see his mother through them. He cried, and told me she died. His criminal record told me how.
A man in a New York City elevator asked me if I was looking for a good time. I told him no, I was looking for beauty. He told me he knew where I could find it, for five dollars an hour. At a loss for any other leads, I took him up on his offer. He showed me to a room, where a skinny young woman waited for me. He closed the door behind him as he left. The girl began to strip. I asked her to stop. I asked her why she was here. She told me she had 3 illegitimate children to feed. I asked where they were. She told me, “In the closet.” I took the 4 of them to a social worker. The man from the elevator came back to ask for his money. I told him I had paid my dues.
A boy of about 8 told me once about his baby brother. As a premature birth, this baby was about the size of his brother’s foot. The boy told me that when this child cried, he always used to look up, just in case Jesus had descended from heaven to meet the source of this beautiful wail. I asked him if his brother still cried that way. He told me he died three weeks after birth.
I asked a very skinny girl about beauty. She used her rotten teeth and blackened tongue to tell me, “Reverse peristalsis.” I asked her if she wished her pancreas was connected to her throat and she cried.
My grandfather was in the hospital when I approached him on the subject of beauty. When I asked, he quickly yanked his respirator tube out of his nose. He pulled me close to him and whispered, “This is beautiful.” He was dead before I could ask him what.
I have a beautiful girlfriend, and I assumed she would know at least something about beauty. When I asked her what it was, she asked me why I needed to know. I told her I was going to write about it. She told me my writing was where I would find it.
A close friend of mine and I were having a few drinks. That’s a lie, she had all the drinks. I asked her what beauty was. She stood up and started to remove her pants. I caught them on the way down, and pulled them back up. I told her I really couldn’t. She asked me why. I kicked one of the bottles she left on the floor. She looked at me through bleary drunken tears and thanked me. Her smile told me I had found it.
In my best friend’s room I found a tearstained photograph. It was a Polaroid. I had taken it when I was eight. It depicted him, also eight years old. He was smiling. No joke was told. No face was made. He just smiled. He found me in his room looking at it. “That was before,” he said. I asked him what it was before. He told me, “Before misanthropy.” I asked him if he knew beauty. He told me he didn’t. I said to him, “I can show you.”
_________________
Sister, now that we're grieving
Our fingers will falter
Our lungs will be leaking
All over each other and without even speaking
We'll know that it's over and smile and go greeting
Whatever comes next
Last edited by No Toppings on Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
|
Log in
Wiki
FAQ
Search
