The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Ever Seen

most_beautifulI remember the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t remember when. I don’t remember why. I do remember where; Minneapolis, Minnesota.

There was a girl. We met in Maine. We met again two years later in Massachusetts. She moved to Minnesota in that phase after a first kiss when colors vibrate and whistle tunes.

I worked two jobs for two months. I bought a flight to Minneapolis. I told her I loved her. She took me to a rave with her friends. It was a Friday. The music was loud, so loud it made my bones ache. I sat in a corner drawing cartoons on coasters. She danced. I left for a cigarette. It was cold; late fall, maybe. The lights were on in a bar across the street.

I don’t remember crossing the road. I remember sitting at the bar. It was light there. The bartender made me a gin and tonic; fast, cheap and watered down, with a dry lime.

A musician with a rag of hair in green sunglasses played cover-tunes on a corner-platform.

A man made of cut-off sleeves of old T-shirts and unwashed beer cans stumbled around on the floor. He cried out the words to “Sweet Caroline.” He sounded like a lost child in the grocery store. All of him danced. His fingers played two guitars, his feet stepped on two different sets of phantom toes and his eyes did the waltz. He was the happiest man in the world.

Then a sound broke through the music. A sound that would make you run, alone in the woods. A woman, made entirely of week old bread and wet ash-trays leapt onto the floor. She had a mole on her left temple. She stumbled into the man. Her wild hair met his camouflage hat and fell in love. They regained their composure and fell into a bestial jig. She fell left, him right. They complimented each other like yin and yang in a blender.

I watched as they both howled out “Bap-Bap-Bah!” into the air. The man in green sunglasses upped his game. He played louder, sang harder. People in the bar began to clap. I did too, forgetting my gin and tonic. The pair on the floor swung each other around. The man dipped the woman and dropped her on her ass. She wriggled around on the ground. The man stood above her shaking his butt, lower, and lower. She spanked it. He howled. He turned and pulled her up off the ground. They both came in close, singing into each other’s invisible microphones. Then, they spread their arms wide as the last verse died, their pot bellies kissing for the first and last time.

The song ended. The bar cheered. The man and woman high-fived. The woman went back to her table of friends. The man slumped into a nearby booth.

Someone touched my arm. The girl I was there to see looked at the scene, then at me.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked.

I opened my mouth. I closed it. She grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out of the bar. I stared across the street at the concert hall. A hoard of high-heels and hair-gel are smoking outside of it.

“You go ahead. I’ll be in soon,” I told her. She shrugged and dashed off. I sat down on the curb and lit a cigarette. I took a breath and began to cry.

164 replies to “The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Ever Seen”

    1. Thank you! That’s lovely to hear. Thanks for taking the time. It was a memory I discovered in the lost and found in of my mind. Buried under an old shirt and some lunch boxes.

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  10. Enjoyed reading this story. I liked it best when the girl comes back and takes him out. I was almost looking forward to it. I mean I wished the girl to come back into the tale. And then he simply sat on the curb, smoking. That was fun.

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  11. I enjoyed reading this. It honestly felt genuine; I could hear the guitar and the raucous applause. The nostalgic smell of lager in the air.

    “A musician with a rag of hair”

    “A man made of cut-off sleeves of old T-shirts and unwashed beer cans”

    I love descriptions like these. It blends with the environment’s vibe.

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  14. It’s beautiful! I reblogged it and I said along with it that I don’t get the last part. I’m sure it’s just my poor understanding for literature.

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    1. Thank you very much. Different people have different interpretations of the ending. If you look in the comments you’ll see what I mean. I’d rather you make the decision than take my word for it. Thank you for reading.

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      1. I did. I love the way you write. If you ever get the time, will you please review my blog and give me a feedback? I’m only starting out with writing and I’d appreciate it a lot. Thank you 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Thank you! This means a lot. Yes, I think I’ll just post some links in the next comment so that you don’t have to hunt for them.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank you very much. I am very happy that you enjoyed it. And thank you for the re-blog. This piece took a while for me to figure out how to write and the response is encouraging.

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  26. What a great telling of his event! I love the picture…the figures with the dark noses…It looks always, kind of sad. On the other hand it irritates me a little bit…if you read the title and look at the picture, you think, she is the most beautiful thing, but then reading you realize that she is not meant……, furthermore, he would follow her at the end.

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      1. uhhh, this sounds very bad Flash. He told her, he loves her, but he didn´t. He left her because the most beautiful thing fpr him is watching some exciting things….

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      3. hahaha..this is calming, so no bleeding wounds anymore…yes stories are stories…but they wouldn´t be good stories, if you cannot find some true inside…and your stories are good! : )

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  27. I can’t get over your character descriptions, pretty surreal. Unforgettable, especially the woman made of old bread and wet ash trays.. I can’t stop thinking about her haha. Good job! You’ve definitely inspired me to think of characters differently.

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