Sunset Over the Esso Station
I’m always amazed at how our world can be both ugly and beautiful all at once. In this spirit, I’d like you to write a 100 word story in which a character observes a sight that is both mundane and magical, or ugly yet beautiful. Give your character a secret worry or preoccupation, yet don’t tell the reader what it is.
Prompt words: tangerine, limp, boyfriend, ragged, clump, ripe, slick, thump
Ripe Words Under a Tangerine Moon
The house is strung up with clumps of holiday lights and when she says garish her mother says beautiful when she says bad taste her mother says unique when she says tacky her mother says unpretentious when she says look at that drunk Santa her mother says just like your father when she says real love her mother says he was very affectionate when she says grief her mother says freedom when she says independence her mother says abandonment when she says you can always live with me her mother says I’m moving in with my boyfriend.
Ugly Beauty
Deb introduces me to Lenny as her boyfriend. Lenny limps over to the ragged upright in the piano bar, thumps down on the stool.
Someone asks if he’ll play Thelonious Monk’s “Ugly Beauty”, hands him a slick clump of 1’s.
Deb never misses a show, except three months ago; he had a stroke. He can only play with one hand, and keeps a tangerine-sized squeeze ball for exercise.
Lenny’s one hand stretches over the keys, discord fills the room.
Deb looks like Mom listening to Rachmaninoff, while Dad sat in the corner, warming his fingers, waiting until she was ripe.