Creative Non-Fiction Short Story

Our New Idiot
By Melissa Delbridge

Our old village idiot worked at the City Café.  Hardy bussed tables and swept up, and if you left a quarter and a nickel with your tip, he’d cut his eyes back over his shoulder with stealth enough for any respectable jewel thief, pop the quarter into the ashtray for the waitress, and slip that nickel into his pocket. Never failed. We’d elbow one another at the register. Watch this fool. Did it for years.

Finally I just had to ask. He was slinging his leg over his bike after the lunch shift, his pocket bulging and jingling. “C’mon, Hardy,” I said. “You know that quarter is worth five times the nickel and you know we all watch.  Why do you just take the nickel?”

Hardy shrugged and patted his pocket. “If I ever take the quarter, even just one time, you’ll all quit doing it.” He pedaled off and left me standing.

So now we have to find a new idiot. Shouldn’t be much of a problem. Plenty of qualified candidates.



I found this non-fiction short story amusing because of its use of irony. The fool is the only one who is not a fool. Time to find a new fool. lol

Short story baised on artwork.

My short story is inspired by three things.  One is the picture above which is a work of art by Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz called A Gathering, a permanent installation of 181 bronze birds at
Canal Street Station on the A, C and E lines, New York, NY.  The second was my niece who I was watching while creating the story, so I decided to make it a children's story with a meaning.  The third was an experience I had in Las Vegas at a restaurant that is known for the staff being rude and scolding people for asking for anything called Dick's last resort. 


Here's the story. 

The Scolding Little Bird

It was early in the morning.  The Little bird woke up with the sudden increase in the volume of her mother’s voice.  The little bird came out of the nest and heard her mother scolding her sister for not dusting her nest.  The words of scolding appealed this little bird like a sweet music on that day.  The entire day it had used these words – you stupid, dirty fellow, rascal, useless fellow, lazy creature, filthy animal, etc.

The way it uses these words to scold amuses others rather than hurting them.

Like a wild fire the news about the amusing way of scolding by this little bird has spread in the forest.    The animals big and small, the big birds, even the big insects have planned to visit this bird and get scolded by it.

On the second day came the elephant – the first animal to get the scolding from this little bird.  The little bird scolded the elephant continuously for three minutes.  Seeing this little bird scolding, the elephant rolled on the floor with peels of laughter.  Seeing the elephant in that condition the little bird further added some unknown words to add to the abuses.  This made the elephant gasp for its breath.

The elephant spread the news of the amusing way of scolding by the little bird further by adding its own experience.  The entire forest has been buzzing with this news and the several animals including the lions have started journeying towards this little bird’s place.

Several animals waiting to see the process of scolding keenly surrounded the neem tree on which this little bird lives.   Since the Lion was the king there, it has decided to get the scolding first.  The mother of the little bird, brought the little bird and made it sit on a small stone. The lion approached the little bird and greeted by waving its head front and back.  The little bird got annoyed and started scolding it as usual.

The lion was not able to control its laughter.  Seeing the struggle of the lion all the animals watching this unique scolding event started laughing.  The lion’s laughter increased and ended with a big roar.  That made the little bird to stop scolding and it hugged its mother saying, “I shall never scold any one from now on”

All the animals scolded the lion for this and disbursed to their places

I read Why Don't You Dance? by Raymond Carver.  It was a very awkward short story.  It was funny to have a whole houses contents set outside other than that it was a lame short story.  It did do a good job using visual imagery to describe everything.

The Voyage of the Ghost Ship

The link has the photo for The Voyage of the Ghost Ship

Song as poetry. Depeche Mode Only when I loose myself.

This song has alot of visual and tactial imagary, synaesthesia, symbol, metaphor, synecdoche, allusion, apostrophe,and, ambiguity.



Video

It's Only When I Lose Myself in someone else
Then I find myself
I find myself
It's Only When I Lose Myself in someone else
Then I find myself
I find myself
Something beautiful is happening inside for me
Something sensual, it's full of fire and mystery
I feel hypnotized, I feel paralized
I have found heaven
There's a thousand reasons
Why I should not spent my time with you
For every reason not to be here I can think of two
Keep me hanging on
Feeling nothing's wrong
Inside your heaven
It's Only When I Lose Myself in someone else
Then I find myself
I find myself
It's Only When I Lose Myself in someone else
Then I find myself
I find myself
I can feel the emptiness inside me fade & disappear
There's a feeling of content that now you are here
I feel satisfied
I belong inside
Your velvet heaven
Did I need to sell my soul
For pleasure like this
Did I have to lose control
To treasure your kiss
Did I need to place my heart
In the palm of your hand
Before I could even start
To understand
It's Only When I Lose Myself in someone else
Then I find myself
I find myself
It's Only When I Lose Myself in someone else
That I find my life
I find myself
It's Only When I Lose Myself in someone else
Then I find myself
I find myself

I like this one pome about spring because it speaks of pain, love, and time. In the second stanza, I see alergies and in the third, fourth and fifth it talks about love, and time. Ode to Spring   by Frederick Seidel I can only find words for. And sometimes I can't. Here are these flowers that stand for. I stand here on the sidewalk. I can't stand it, but yes of course I understand it. Everything has to have meaning. Things have to stand for something. I can't take the time. Even skin-deep is too deep. I say to the flower stand man: Beautiful flowers at your flower stand, man. I'll take a dozen of the lilies. I'm standing as it were on my knees Before a little man up on a raised Runway altar where his flowers are arrayed Along the outside of the shop. I take my flames and pay inside. I go off and have sexual intercourse. The woman is the woman I love. The room displays thirteen lilies. I stand on the surface.

Ode to things by Pablo Neruda I have a crazy, crazy love of things. I like pliers, and scissors. I love cups, rings, and bowls – not to speak, of course, of hats. I love all things, not just the grandest, also the infinite- ly small – thimbles, spurs, plates, and flower vases. Oh yes, the planet is sublime! It’s full of pipes weaving hand-held through tobacco smoke, and keys and salt shakers – everything, I mean, that is made by the hand of man, every little thing: shapely shoes, and fabric, and each new bloodless birth of gold, eyeglasses, carpenter’s nails, brushes, clocks, compasses, coins, and the so-soft softness of chairs. Mankind has built oh so many perfect things! Built them of wool and of wood, of glass and of rope: remarkable tables, ships, and stairways. I love all things, not because they are passionate or sweet-smelling but because, I don’t know, because this ocean is yours, and mine: these buttons and wheels and little forgotten treasures, fans upon whose feathers love has scattered its blossoms, glasses, knives and scissors – all bear the trace of someone’s fingers on their handle or surface, the trace of a distant hand lost in the depths of forgetfulness. I pause in houses, streets and elevators, touching things, identifying objects that I secretly covet: this one because it rings, that one because it’s as soft as the softness of a woman’s hip, that one there for its deep-sea color, and that one for its velvet feel. O irrevocable river of things: no one can say that I loved only fish, or the plants of the jungle and the field, that I loved only those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive. It’s not true: many things conspired to tell me the whole story. Not only did they touch me, or my hand touched them: they were so close that they were a part of my being, they were so alive with me that they lived half my life and will die half my death.   I like this pome because it talks about so many different things.