It was a perfectly ordinary corner,
nothing exceptional about it at all. There was no carpet, but then,
most floors had no carpet. There were stains, but these were
ordinary, run of the mill stains and nothing to write home about. The
paint was uninspiring, the edgework decent, but not breath-taking. As
such, when the photo of this particular corner began to circulate at
the Thousand Words Society, a collection of writers who firmly
believed that a thousand quality words could be written about any
picture, the gathering of authors could not stop talking about it.
The picture was bland, lacking any fuel for the imagination. Only the
greatest writers could create a thousand compelling words about this
image, if anyone could at all.
The conclave gathered in the main
hall, and a great table was placed on the stage. Overhead, someone
projected the image on a large screen, glowing twenty feet across.
The group put it to a vote and selected the ten most worthy, creative
writers among them, called them to the stage and gave them sheafs of
paper and handfuls of pens and pencils. Nine of them struggled, sweat
beading on their brow, more from strain than the bright lights. They
wrote and rewrote, scribbled and crumbled, and scribbled again. One,
however, wrote with ease, pausing only occasionally to look around.
His story seemed to be writing itself. When he finished, he read it
aloud for all to hear.
“The photo was of the most mundane
corner ever beheld,” he began.
- Originally mailed to C. Donnell from Stafford, Texas
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