THE
MOST BEAUTIFUL
THING


A Short Fiction
By
David A. Archer
02/15/1968



09/21/2006

There is a most beautiful thing. It also happens to be the funniest thing I can recount in my life as well.

It is the most beautiful for obvious reasons, as beauty truly bespeaks itself.
It is the funniest thing for reasons just as obvious though less known to the most. Most definitely, less spoken.

It is said that should a person be able to adorn themselves with this thing, that none other would ever match the beauty perceived of those bearing.. more so wearing this thing of beauty.

It…. and the funniest thing consequently - being that they are obviously related though in a way more related to co-existence - resides at the bottom of a bottle. The bottle itself is similar to no other in make or strength. It can’t be broken.
The beautiful thing itself, is most definitely at the bottom of this bottle and is so small that the naked eye could never see it. Not even with the most advanced of modern assistance.

It is said that the only way even to see it, is to be made to the size of it precisely and then only if that person managed to find it within the bottle… now being there, themselves.

I have heard that this can be rather formidable as per challenge, being that once a person is as small as it is.. and further then finding themselves within the bottle to find it… they then will see that even the bottom of a bottle becomes immense, proving that size is relative to any endeavor.

Sure, it would be easy enough for a person of the average or normal build… to simply retrieve the beautiful object in smashing the bottle and sifting through the remains. But as I stated, the bottle itself cannot be broken, least the beautiful thing be destroyed itself…. Mayhaps even get away, and that would just not do.

The danger in pursuing this beauty for ones own is the evident pitfall of becoming trapped in the bottle as well…. And presumably never to escape.

It is a great risk as anyone can surmise… but as they say; “nothing ventured, nothing gained….” That is of course in regard to those prone to such endeavors as procuring such beauty to claim as their own.

I personally have no want of it which I believe is part of what has allowed my observation of the invisible clamber about, around and pertaining to that hidden and so simply guarded prize.

I don’t think it is meant to be seen as “prize” at all… but if you try telling that to anyone with designs on possessing it, you will surely find other reasoning presented, most times in an impatient manner which connotes the focus and intention pertaining to the “problem” at hand. That “problem” of course being the task of first locating, and then successfully obtaining the object of desire.

This of course through of and after having completed the various (and in most cases innumerable) tasks which such a success does demand.

There are several tactics which I have seen in a rather remote form. Many of which transcending and further commanding the proofs and fact that there must be “something new under the sun” within the endeavor itself. Contradicting even the most proven of ideas pertaining to a finite realm, where in all has been attempted and explored.

The concept of it, itself presents the idea of an apex that humans can hardly imagine to begin with. “It” being the presence of such beauty and further then the tasks and actions which even the notion of it seems always to put into motion.

Maybe that is why it ended up invisible to the human eye, and placed securely at the bottom of an indestructible bottle?

Perhaps such an apex never really existed and is only yet another elaborate creation of the human psyche? Something even to rival the idea of cognitive thought, itself.. though I would contend that cognitive thought rests even beyond the idea of such a beauty in the realm of paradox and eternal concepts.

To think that somehow, within the tendencies toward fiction regarding the idea of cognitive thought, we as a creature have managed to insist that something so elaborate as is our idea of beauty within that fact itself (further being of our own design), could somehow be manifest in one point of focus.. is a rather interesting thought, even if I do think it myself.

That all perceivable beauty is somehow smote, and subsequently then gained into the fold of one point of said perception – being beauty, is a considerable feat. Even for something as incredible as cognitive thought… and even if it does reside imperceptibly, at the bottom of a bottle.

A person might then consider that within all of the efforts throughout the centuries to attain that elusive goal, that such efforts have then mutated into other actions and designs, with a similar facsimile… an emulation as it were, in mind as the prize.

How frightening it would be if, through the centuries of effort, that someone somewhere began the notion of destroying all other perceived beauties which were obtainable… only in the effort to remove all other references other than those which they could possess? This in the attempt to place that which they could, and probably did possess in contention to rival that which none could possess. And within that concerted design, effectively then laying claim to a less than provable assertion… making the said results there-in perceivably as desirable as having gained the impossible prize.

“Less than provable,” that is – if it is you don’t realize that presenting such an assertion is in effect discounting the validity of itself. If for nothing more than knowing that perceived beauty is, as they say, in the eyes of the beholder.

The beholder then, must be pretty small when you think about it in regard to the most beautiful residing in the bottom of a bottle.

Could it be though, that as we exist with such directions… we in effect have created an emulation of paradox itself?

It stands more to reason within the workings of my fiction generator, that such would have to be counted as merely an extension of the existing idea of “paradox.”

I have to say that I am somewhat relieved though in realizing where the most beautiful thing ever, resides.

It isn’t as though I would ever be fool enough to pursue it…especially knowing of the dangers and difficulty presented with even only the bottle problem…but it is a relief all the same to know that there is one less unsolvable problem in existence, that I will have to personally deal with in my own existence.

It’s kind of like knowing that all of the holiday shopping is already done, and it isn’t even Thanksgiving. I simply do not ever have to worry about contending with it.

Kind of nice when you think about it… from my perspective, anyhow.

So there it sits, in the bottom of the bottle somewhere. Presumably moving about of its own will and volition to anywhere it wants to inside that bottle… making it all the more illusive.

Is it enough then, to possess the bottle in which it resides?

Could it be that such would present a validity in some form of success? To possess the container in which it has been said such a wonder does reside without ever having seen it or proof of such an assertion as to the inhabitant?

Could it be that through the very same line of thought which dictates the presence of such beauty in the world somewhere, that it could be in every bottle simultaneously… as a matter of course in fictive transfer and relation? Being that a bottle is a bottle, right? And who is to say that they aren’t really all the same bottle, right?

Perhaps then it is that beauty itself resides within the bottle only as per our perception… but in hard reality, actually resides in a suspended state of existence which then allows for the presence of it in one and all forms of bottles simultaneously and without concern or connection.

Perhaps beauty itself simply wants nothing to do with the human species? Perhaps it is only our narcissism which tells us that it does?

Perhaps it is really only using us through those tendencies to get to something it may see as valuable about or of our existence?

Something as arbitrary as wearing dress socks with holes in them, for instance.

Having found such an affinity through some mix up of information transfer and interpretation between the whining and displeasure a person may show in the discovery of such a hole in their sock, and when it is that beauty itself actually receives the information. Maybe, just because of some reflective consistency between perceived realities, where it is that beauty truly resides in that suspended state then interprets such trivial annoyance as some form of grand pleasure.

As if the subtle discomfort in such a discovery as a hole in your sock, only serves to please even the very idea of beauty itself within its own understanding…thus tempting it further into the use of our sad existences for the pleasure in experiencing what it must surely think is a wonderful sensation. All the while we exist within our simple ignorance of such goals and pleasure… lost in our own quest to find said beauty and claim it as our own in which ever form.

Strange though, to digress just a bit… that anyone would hope to compete with existing beauty in all of its forms. It just doesn’t seem possible to eradicate it.. if such were the ploy. If only through the consideration that a person can hardly ever find a mother’s ugly child…. Let alone do what ever ghastly things would need be done to run them all from existence.

I’ve seen a few. Ugly children, that is. But mostly in my own family photo albums and of course, no where near any bottle where-in I may have suspected beauty to reside.

In fact, when I recall looking at those photo albums, it is evident that a few of us even got left in the ugly puddle a bit too long. But what can be said, it was an inexpensive place for us to play during hot summer days.

I guess there is a price for everything.