Speccie genesis by 4th September
 

Grinding of teeth. More prose. Humph!

No. 2814: genesis

We all occasionally have good ideas in unlikely circumstances. You are invited to describe those in which a great writer might have stumbled upon an idea that he or she would later put to good use (150 words maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 4 September.

John, Lucy often accepts verse as well as prose. After all, look at Frank MacDonald's winner this week. (I certainly hope she does - I suggested this one some months ago, and had assumed it could be verse or prose!)

In that case, Brian...

“A neighbourhood boy, Abner, used to tease the goldfish in their garden pond… especially a big white one. One summer day, when he’d been sitting cooling his feet in the water, it had unexpectedly nibbled his toe, startling him; he hated it thereafter. He’d ‘hunt it’ around the pond, dabbling with a stick, stretching, while peering wrathfully. His best mate Buck said, “Don’t! You know you’ll get into trouble,” but Ab laughed and continued determinedly, even inciting other boys to join in. One day, truly seeing ‘that white fiend’, he over-reached with his poking stick and fell in, yelling. Lifted out, drenched, he got one hell of a row from his pa; his mom said, “You’ll be lucky not to catch your death! You might’ve drowned.” But Ab blamed the White Goldfish, claiming it had pulled him in.
If ever I should believe that, you can call me ‘Imbecile’.”

(Herman Melville - inspiration for ‘Moby-Dick, or, The Whale’)

Genesis

If you're a little four-eyed git,
You find you have to pay for it.
The nasty bigger boys will come.
To smash your specs and kick your bum,
They'll take your guinea-pig and boil it
And push your head right down the toilet.
But then, when you are feeling bad,
They tuck you up, your mum and dad.

Your life's a miserable place.
You're fat. You've got an ugly face.
Your spots are bad.Your breath is rank
And everybody knows you wank.
You've got no friends. Your future's bleak.
You haven't shat for half a week.
But then, when you are feeling sad,
They buck you up, your mum and dad.

No, don't tell me – let me guess.

I hope you don't think it's subtle, Bazza. I don't do subtle. The big bow-wow style, that's me.

The boy simply refused to eat. For a long time, disgusted by all the food he was offered, he went to bed early. Confronted with a dish of ragout de mouton, he would turn pale, clasp a hand to his brow, and retire for the night. His parents had tried tempting him with a succulent pied de porc, some tripes a la mode de Caen, or even a filet de boeuf en croûte, but to no avail. As for eating up his greens before he was allowed dessert, he disdained both. Even when his parents relaxed this rule and offered him a Gateau St-Honoré or a Tarte Tatin, he would burst into tears and run trembling to his room. He was on the verge of anorexia when, finally, his aunt found the solution. “Marcel”, she said one day, while making tea, “Would you care to try a madeleine?”

I rarely venture out of my basement apartment, but today I had to go to the grocery and when I came back the football game had ended and hordes of people were coming the wrong way and why should I get out of their way? They can jolly well stick to their half of the sidewalk, and so I just kept going bump bump bump as if they didn't exist.

I've just noticed that the rubric specifies a 'great writer'. Usually 'well-known' or 'famous' is is enough. 'Great' would apply more readily to Melville or Proust than to Larkin (by consensus), but probably 'great' is a slip & well-known will do.