This is another story I submitted to Faber’s QuickFic challenge – where each Friday at 9.50am a prompt was posted online so that foolhardy people could try writing a story of 250 words or less, inspired by it. The results of this labour had to be submitted by 2.50pm the same day, not a minute after…

Hope this shot of microfiction, prompted by the photograph above, makes you smile 🙂

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The Aesthetically Beautiful Life Enterprise: Table for short. It didn’t really make sense but we were pleased with the acronym.

Our aim was to keep our lives simple but beautiful. To do away with the mediocre, that which does not edify. Our manifesto included the following:

– We will engage only in conversations that challenge or enlighten us. We will no longer engage in ‘small talk’. By this we mean pointless drivel about the weather and so forth.

– We forsake all frivolous material items. By this we mean items that are neither functional nor outstanding, such as seaside souvenirs and bad cheese. We would rather go without wine than drink that which is inferior.

– We will engage only with art that moves our inner being. We are firmly against so-called ‘MOR’ and ‘muzak’ and ‘chintz’.

The ultimate goal was to set up our own commune, where we would produce the finest food and wine and art, read the most electrifying literature and enjoy the most stimulating conversation. We pinned our manifesto to the Student Union noticeboard and invited all who shared our views to join us. We left a box for people to place postcards with their names, contact details and favourite philosophical concepts.

The response was disappointing. After two weeks just five cards: one from the Communist Society calling us ‘pretentious bourgeois idiots’, another with a vulgar drawing.

‘Perhaps we need to be more flexible,’ Antonia suggested. ‘Less fussy about the wine.’

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