Sometimes, life delivers a message in the most unexpected way. At Salt Lake City’s Hogle Zoo, a father watches an elephant struggle, learn, and ultimately share a revelation that changes everything. But did he really hear what he thinks he heard? This surreal short story explores the weight of unexpected wisdom—and the moment it demands action.
A simple act of generosity spirals into doubt, frustration, and an unsettling confrontation. As one man wrestles with his own sense of morality, he begins to question whether his kindness was ever kindness at all.
A bus stop somewhere in Northern Utah. It’s nearly eight o’clock in the evening and the summer sun is just now realizing that it has overstayed its welcome. A woman, about fifty years old, sits on the bench, scratching her newly styled hair. It’s short, curly, and dyed the color of old blood. A man, who can’t be younger than seventy, shuffles breathlessly to the bench and lowers himself beside...
Think fast, Destiny. He can’t be more than a hundred feet away. I could keep the rifle and try to force him to take me to a hospital. But I don’t know how to use a gun; I don’t even know how to hold a gun. Even if I managed to shoot him before he came into the tent, I’d be killing my ticket off this mountain. I push the rifle back into its clips on the bottom of the chest. Still, I need to...
When my bedroom door is securely locked, I rush to my desk, push my MacBook Air aside, and lift the heavy Olympia onto the desktop. It was considered a “portable” typewriter in 1957, but hulking next to my laptop, it looks about as portable as my desk. That’s okay. I don’t need it to be portable; I just need it to work. Just outside my bedroom door, I hear the joyful shrieks of three children as...
This can’t, like, really be happening to me. What have I done to deserve this? It’s been hard enough just trying to get through middle-school with nobody liking me, but at least there was always the hope that high school and college might help people forget how much they enjoyed looking down on me and calling me names. If they find out about this, about me, they’ll have an actual reason for...
The following is my response to today’s Daily Writing Prompt: “A bobblehead collector is talked out of suicide by a member of his collection.” Saul burst into his home office and slammed the door so hard that all of the bobbleheads, occupying the nine shelves of the three bookcases lining the wall opposite of his desk, began wagging their heads. Although he was no longer crying, his labored...
In a previous investigation I talked about what a story is and I defined thirteen potentially essential elements of a story; that is, thirteen things that every story must have. But there was something missing, a driving force that may not exist in the most mundane story, but should be present in any good story. That force is conflict. Conflicts drive a narrative forward; they are the challenges...
I’ve been toying around with my character development web, or character chart, a sort of visual character sheet to help me quickly identify the key attributes of a fictional character. This is a work in progress and I will continue to add, remove, and rearrange items as time goes on. You are free to use this character chart in your own storytelling process. Please leave comments below or on...
The following is my response to a writing prompt from the book 642 Things to Write About: “Describe something you wanted badly and, once you got it, never used.” I’m not promoting this book at all. I got it for Christmas from my wife, so I figured I would put it to some use. I hope you enjoy! When I was fifteen years old, all I wanted was a smartphone. I had these grand ideas...