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.