Archie McLeod was speechless. He could see now why his granddaughter loved her job. When they got back to Spokane, Archie went to his room and quickly called his old friend, Dick Morehouse…
“I’d seen some big ones in my time, but this one…this one was huge!”
“Come on, Archie. Nothing’s as big as old Herb.”
“You’ve gotta see this. I already put pictures on-line. Go check it out. Hell, Dick, you really have to see for yourself. Wish you could come here. Don’t you owe your son a visit? He lives in Seattle, doesn’t he?”
“You’re an idiot, Arch. I can’t just drop everything and go there just to see this thing.”
“Drop what, you miserable old fart? You’re retired. Drop your dog off at Missy’s. After all the years you and I spent with old Herb, you have to see this one.”
“Have you lost your frontal lobe there? I have your cat here, too. Missy’s allergic to cats…”
“Just take Stinker to that pet country club place on River. Simple as that.”
“I’ll call you back. Don’t hold your breath, but I’ll see.”
Archie talked with his granddaughter. Dick never did call his son so when Deb called and asked him to come for a visit he didn’t hesitate to accept. When his plane landed in Spokane the next day, Archie and Deb were there to meet him. They went straight to the place Deb visited a few times each week as part of her job. Deb found it hard to believe that Dick hadn’t been there after all the times he came to Washington to visit his son. She knew darn well that Dick and her grandfather knew all the facts and figures about it. After all, that’s what each did for a living. She was influenced by her grandfather into going into the same thing.
They were just coming over the rise where you could see it in the distance. Dick stuck his head between the front seats, mumbled, then let out a whoop and whistled–the kind of whistle you make when you’re standing on the sidewalk looking up at the Empire State Building. Except this deserved its own whistle. It was Brobdingnagian. It was the largest in the United States. The shame of it was that many Americans never even heard of it. Everyone heard of the one on the border between Nevada and Arizona. Her grandfather and Dick called it “old Herb”, Hoover Dam. But the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River out-shined Hoover.
When they finally arrived and stood staring at the massive structure, Dick had to agree it was humongous. Before the Three Gorges River Dam was built recently, the Grand Coulee was the largest concrete structure ever built–in the world. The two retired civil engineers and the young civil engineer, Deb, looked at each other and smiled. Deb took them on a tour of the dam. You would’ve thought they died and went to heaven.
Flash Fiction Challenge #24 at Thain in Vain
Prompt: “I’d seen some big ones in my time, but this one…this one was huge.”:
Word Count: 500
Many thanks to Ms Thain at Thain in Vain for hosting Flash Fiction Challenge!!!!!
FYI: Brobdingnagian means gigantic, giant. This is taken from the imaginary land of giants, Brobdingnag, from the book Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
Associated photos are located on the menu bar under the blog’s header . Click on menu option Compendium and select the item.
the EXCESSIVE GARDENER 
Okay, here’s a really stupid question for you. In my WordPress reader, for this post I see an image of a large cup and saucer with a small person of indeterminate gender perched atop it and a large blue tail fly in front of it. But when I link to the post on your actual blog, no such picture there. Do I need some sort of special glasses to see the image? A secret decoder ring?
It’s a featured image. Only shows on the home page but reader links to post. Lucy has a decoder ring don’t you know?
Did you go to the home page, sir? You can see the photos of the tea cup and midget or on the menu bar under compendium are photos of the Dam. So, what did you think ?
Ah, the home page. I don’t have a home page, so when I linked from the reader, it went right to the post, bypassing the home page. Now I get it. Thanks.
At the top of the post should be the b&W header of palm trees–on the bar to the right is the home button –hit it.
Yup. I did get to your home page and saw all the pics that don’t show up in your actual posts, like that weird spidey thing from Mars. I imbed all of my pictures in the body of my posts so that’s where they show up. And my home page just shows the last post I !published. Nothing fancy like your home page.
I can actually put the photo in the post instead of as a featured image. Sometimes I do that if I want you to see the photo for some reason. In this case, I didn’t want you to know it was about a Dam. That’s why the photos of the dam are on the bar under compendium as per the note at the bottom of the post. This theme was actually for photographers. I had to adapt it to my needs. I had to go back and put in the cut off for “continue reading”. I keep forgetting to do it.. It doesn’t matter on the reader but if you were perusing the blog it’s needed.
Oh man, I didn’t even notice the “compendium” and missed the pictures of the dam. Damn.
Oh, my. What a horror. You poor thing. I am so sorry but I had to put them somewhere that the reader couldn’t see them outright–trying a bit of a mystery with the huge aspect of the post. No murder or mayhem, no deadly bugs, just a senior momentous occasion. I am sure you noticed what I called Archie’s friend.
Originally I was going to do the post on the tallest Buddha in the world. But it’s in China and I just did not want to deal with Chinese names. Then I was going to do the largest ship in the world. Well, they break them down to cruise ships, ocean liner, sailing vessel, Yacht, etc. So then I was going to do aircraft carriers.I changed my mind on that one because I didn’t feel up to going “Navy” but the largest “aircraft” carrier not bulk carrier, is the Roosevelt. maybe.
I liked it! Good story.
Will there be a continuation? The premise is already enjoyable to read. Lively dialogues! 😀
Sure, I could do a sequel. Thank you for your compliments. And I’ll see what I can do about a sequel. Thanks again. Lucy
Great! I will waiting for it. 🙂
I loved the flow of it, really nice story.
Thanks. I love doing dialog with grumpy old men. Lucy
Haha, that is why you like my style, apparently according to… well pretty much everyone I know, I am a grumpy old man.
You don’t come across as one in your writing.Okay, you know, you caught me. Well, grumpy old men have the best dialog.. Lucy
Haha, it’s cool, They make for interesting dialogue
you ought to read Thaininvain.com . She’s recently on the reader for “the visitor”. Talk about creepy! It’s excellent. Lucy
yeah I had a brief look last night when you sent me the link, Ill add it to my reader.
Good. She’s a sweetie. She and I started blogging around the same time and sort of found each other. She started me on challenges. Lucy
I am currently reading some of the stories people have listed, I think ill read but probably wont participate, way above my level for me I think.
Seriously? It’s no way above your level. We just write to have fun. It’s okay if you don’t want to join but the challenges certainly are not above your level. You’re a word weaver. Lucy
Those entries on there are exceptional I thought. the tangents that everyone went off on were so good, When I saw the prompt, my mind hit the gutter lol.
We all hit the gutter, too. Thain agreed it was a difficult prompt. When I first started, I did not know what to do with the weird prompts. I’ve gotten better at them and I’ve learned a lot. I’m not a word weaver. Lucy
Yeah you are, you’re way way better than you think you are.
Thanks. But I want to weave words like you. Break out in spontaneous prose like Jack Kerouac. I suppose we each have our own style. Lucy
Everyone has their own style, their own voice, even if it is the one in their head, You read my stuff with your imagination and I read yours with mine. So what we see in eachothers writings may not be as originally intended (although of course it maybe e the same )
Oh. Now the light comes on. I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’ve experienced that with some of the people who have commented on my stories. They have a totally different interpretation and sometimes I’m amazed by their different takes on the story. Lucy
It’s always going to be like that. A number of my posts are heavy on the emotional aspect of it… in fact this is what I find frustrating by my writing in that I cannot (to me) get the emotional level across that I want to get across, but thinking about it, people are going to read that differently anyway, they have not had THAT exact experience, they may have had other experiences similar but it wasn’t that one.
For example (this is in one of my stories) you’re standing in a bus shelter, late at night, it is really raining heavily… what are you feeling?
For me it is a number of things, in real life if it is late at night I am probably tired, but I love a good thunderstorm so part of me doesn’t want to go anyway, I want to stay and watch and there is that little bit of excitement and adrenaline that flows in that situation.
But if you have been in that situation your feelings you get from it are totally from your perspective, they may be the polar opposite of mine.
I am all about the feelings from it which is why under the suggestions of my prompts it says “write what feelings you get from the image”.
I can tell you I try to get a feeling of the photo. Like this current one. I see the glare of the sun. Everything is far too bright so I’ll go on from that. You’re with someone, it’s a gorgeous day,she’s gorgeous…I’m hot and thirsty and the glare from the sun is pissing me off. I’m being bitten by mosquitoes and a snake slithers over my feet. I run screaming but the glare is so intense that I can’t see where I’m going and I run into a parked car and knock myself out. Lucy
lmao, see what I mean, same picture, very different feelings. You’re hot and bothered, feeling dirty under the hot sun for most of the day you literally just want to get away out of the sun a cool down and have a shower, everything goes wrong.
That’s the kind of day I have sometimes.But only when Brad Pitt and I can’t get together. Lucy
😀 a worthy choice… hmm whom would I share my side of that story with. Hmm not sure, anyone that I find sexy/beautiful (2 different things I think) that isnt fake or has a plethora of fake about them.
I really liked this, Lucy! And nice reference to Jonathan Swift. Great take on the prompt! TiV
Thanks. I read yours. Wow. How creepy. You certainly have been leaning towards mayhem, lately. Good. Love that stuff. You could put that bug on Kate’s planet and all hell breaks loose. Lucy
Thanks! I have to admit that I found this particular prompt quite difficult!
That’s both of us. I was going to do the tallest Buddha in the world, the biggest ship etc. It was tough. Lucy
This was great, I’ve been noodling about blogs today and this is certainly one of the best things I’ve read. You can see the writing is confident straight away, with plenty of personality. I must remember to ask someone if they have lost their frontal lobe sometime, that’s a cracking line. Nice one, look forward to reading more of your stuff. 🙂
Thanks a lot. Glad you like that line about the frontal lobe. And I appreciate your comments. Very kind of you. I’m glad you stopped by, Please, come again. Thanks again. Lucy
Lucy, you never disappoint. I very much liked your take on this prompt. It was a challenge, and my first thought was to do a humorous take on some guy named Herb who was a herpetologist, and had this huge black mamba he lets loose in the bedroom where his slutty girlfriend and a lab assistant were having a go… boy, I then went in a totally different direction! (grin)
Anyway, good stuff as usual, Lucy. It’s always such fun to read what you come up with.
Thanks sweetie. I was going to have the two old men go to China and seek out the tallest Buddha in the world. Just didn’t want to deal with Chinese names. You know everyone really liked your story. I’m already behind on this week’s challenges.. Ah, well. You should get some sleep for a change. Go to sleep. I’ll be up for a while longer if you need a laugh. Lucy.
i am about to go to sleep now, but I had to check out your story on The Sapient Chronicles – that had a clever ending! Okay, goodnight!
Oh yeah, I am very much into Geek Love! A very unusual story, just the sort that appeals.
Glad you like Geek Love. Lucy
Another excellent response to a TiV prompt, Lucy!
Everyone has come up with such wonderful responses this week that I feel slightly childish and immature for going down the obvious naughty route when you’ve all posted such stellar stories.
Well done, I really enjoyed this 🙂
Thanks. Yes everyone did very well this week and that’s because of your prompt so don’t feel like you did something naughty. Really liked yours, though. You challenged us and it worked.
Thanks again. Don’t work too hard. Lucy