17 march 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2678: a new material

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

“OK, no. You can't build fiber optics with Legos. You need cereal for that, because you can see the fiber – optics is what you see.”

Nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth had followed through on what he thought would be awesome, talking with master-engineer-in-the-bud-next-door Grayson Ludlow about Lofton County's internet infrastructure needing upgrades and maybe Grayson, who was 6, building it with Legos.

But Grayson, at 6, knew better … sort of.

“Legos are plastic, so they can't do everything when you need to see the fiber. But fiber will work, because fiber is how Papa's infrastructure stays regular!”

Whereupon Papa, Grayson's grandfather and adoptive grandfather Capt. R.E. Ludlow, that proud Virginian of 58, having served 33 years in the Army, having buried the two children and their partners who were the parents of all of his grandchildren, having known that two of his children were somewhere alive and well after surviving his first wife's murder-suicide attempt of them and withholding himself from disturbing their life with that story – this mighty man at last met his limit … not knowing whether to laugh, cry, or strangle the life out of his grandson, and missing a breath trying to mentally figure it out, he staggered backward and passed out on his bed for a moment!

But because Capt. Ludlow landed on the bed, only the second Mrs. Ludlow had any hint that anything was going on, which left Grayson and Vertran to continue their conversation in perfect peace.

“Well, yeah, a lot of people take fiber, so yeah, that stuff works,” Vertran said. “We just need to find industrial-grade fiber.”

“Fiber Crunch, the cheap version of that cereal they make out of grapes and nuts,” Grayson said. “You can't even eat that stuff without putting as much sugar and milk in it as you put cereal, because it is so hard and heavy – I mean, you could probably eat diamonds after a few years of that.”

“Or maybe that's why people get grills for their teeth with gold and jewels in them – to protect their teeth from the industrial-grade fiber there,” Vertran said. “Use the diamonds to grind down the industrial-grade fiber.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Grayson said, “but I'm six and don't have money like that, so I used to just leave them in the milk until my baby teeth could handle them in foster care. That's why I'm so strong now.”

“Yeah, dealing with the industrial-grade fiber does a body good, I guess,” Vertran said.

“Robert?” Mrs. Ludlow said as she came into the bedroom and saw her husband groggily sitting up on the bed.

“I'm all right, Thalia … I'm not sure what happened … I had some kind of flash but I've blacked it out again … .”

“Well, they said that might happen after therapy as your mind is still resolving a few things,” she said and wrapped her arms around him. “I'm here and you're here, Robert … just stay with me. Grayson was talking about people giving him Fiber Crunch in foster care ... ."

"Oh, that's why I probably blacked out -- who does that?" Capt. Ludlow said. "I won't eat Fiber Crunch with good adult teeth -- who does that to toddlers and please don't tell me, because I will kill again!"

“The thing is,” Grayson said, “anything electric and water don't mix, so we're going to have to put that fiber in some peanut butter and get a lot of it in there to basically make a new material.”

“A new material?” Vertran said.

“Basically, that's going to be a half-spreadable brick,” Grayson said, “like what happens a few hours after somebody gives you a big, thick peanut butter sandwich because they love you but they don't know how, so they don't give you water, milk, or any kind of fruit with it, and even after you get it in, you still have to get it out.”

“Yep,” Vertran said. “I do know what you are talking about because I have this one cousin who makes that kind of sandwich on white bread, and Mama always packs me extra raisins when I go over there because, yeah. You do that with some industrial-grade fiber and spread it out underground where it is cold, and that will probably be there forever, because our pipes have some muscles, but the underground ones don't.”

“Guaranteed to be both stable, and regular,” Grayson said. “We just gotta get blueprints of where Lofton County wants to build, and find enough people who have lost enough teeth or diamonds to be done with Fiber Crunch, couple hundred jars of that real cheap peanut butter at Big Discounts for Your Loft, and a couple dozen real good mixers, and boom – done!”

“Yeah!” Vertran said, and went to go knock out his grandfather …

“Hey, Pop-Pop, Grayson and I have just come up with a revolutionary new building material, and you're gonna wanna invest early before the masses catch on!”