Beauty Killer
Every day I go destroy the most beautiful things in the world.
I’ve seen murals that made me cry from sheer awe, moments before my flamethrower melted them out of existence.
“Eighteen buildings cleansed,” I say. My boss nods, impassive. “How many new occurences?”
“48 yesterday, just in your area,” she says.
We’re doomed. Nobody says it, everyone knows it.
It was over when the nanofungus learned that humans love beauty. There are people like me, but mostly, people let it grow. They know this thing will kill us all, they just want a bit more beauty in their lives.
The Green-Walled Treehouse 
Sounds like they need more flamethrowers. Sneaky fungus to hide itself in such beauty.
You have such a wonderful imagination, David!
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Yes he does. And your photos always inspire Dale.
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Thank you, Susannah.
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Brilliant. An intelligent fungus that appears to adapt and understand a weakness of humans. I am not sure if the fungus will consume life or is just playing with its food.
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This may be your best work. I loved the story and the symbolic resonances in the idea
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Tricky stuff, that fungus… Good write.
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I love when you do these since flash fiction is truly your thing. It made me think of how New York presently is being knocked down right and left, no respect for the old. It makes me so sad since one’s past gets razed with it.
Love the line…humans love beauty. Yes, many of us still do. 🙂
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Oh, wonderful. People can only survive when they find some other beauty in their lives. How deprived of beauty they must be to rather die than kill the deadly fungus.
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A bit more beauty, but a shorter life. Guess that’s a trade off we might have to make.
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That’s one clever fungus. We are 100% terrible at saving ourselves from things we enjoy in the moment. Very creative story, I like how this person is trying to beat the odds.
The irony, of course, is that most of what’s killing us in the long term IRL is also destroying beauty in the short-term. We just can’t pull ourselves up out of our lives to see it.
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So many layers to this story, and in only 100 words. Well done.
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Ooh, pretty colors. Yep, the fungus will win. Great take. Very creative.
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Interesting how we humans might allow something that will harm us just for a bit of beauty.
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darn, sneaky fungus indeed.
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Fungus is ingenious so it will outwit them all – good story 🙌
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Interesting take. So the beauty is somehow alien and will kill us? Neat.
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Dear David,
Now that’s a twist that gave me whiplash. Interesting that there is so much beauty in this evil. No one can compete with your imagination. 😉
Shalom,
Rochelle
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The quandary of a beautiful enemy. Love the twist of this story. Top notch writing!
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A troubling dystopia, and I’m not so sure we’re not already there. Nanofungus, a very interesting concept, David.
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