Story #3: The Short Story

The Short Story

He had no idea what to do. He was left with a crisp blank sheet of paper set in front of him. His last pump pencil, on it's last piece of lead, was firmly gripped within his hand. He was plagued with a terribly disease that many people had experienced before. Countless souls had suffered and become distressed over it. It's something that is inevitable, something an army could never take down no matter how many guns were fired and shot. It couldn't be shot, because it has no physical form. It only clouds, fogs you into a confusing haze that stops your imagination. Your river of creativity abruptly stopped by an unbreakable dam that you can never get around. He had what many called "writer's block", but what he called a "monster".

He could hear pencils scribbling throughout the room. Everyone already

had an idea of what they were going to write, weather it was about aliens or animals, they all had something to keep them writing during class. The only person left with nothing, was him. How could someone so easily come up with an idea? How is it that everyone had come up with something before him when he felt the most passionate about reading? At least, that's what he assumed after hearing the groans of the class after the teacher told us we had to get out some sort of book on free reading day. Of course, the same groans proceeded when she had mentioned they had to write a short story.

Originally, he was excited to write a story. He had always dabbled in writing, so it puzzled him that he was on the struggle bus this time around. He thought he had the upper hand, the advantage out of everyone. On the contrary, the unexpected had hit him in the face with a ton of bricks. Now he was left with a blank mind that had no trace of imagination.

"Excuse me class, but there is only ten minutes left in class to get your story done," she said quietly, but still loud enough for the class to hear clearly. "so if you're still on your first paragraph, you better speed it along!"

He began to panic. Only ten minutes left?! How was he suppose to pull that off? He couldn't think straight. All his thoughts were jumbled, like those bingo spinners, mixing up all the marbles within the cage. Maybe he would write about bingo. Who hates bingo? Probably a lot of people actually. I mean, who would want to read about some lame bingo game? However, it was a start. He just had to think more, come up with random ideas. He was determined.

He looked around the room for inspiration and spotted some poster with an elephant plastered on it with the words 'anything that is unrelated to elephants is IRRELEPHANT'. He cringed at the pun, but then began to ponder a story about elephants. He had remembered that they were the largest land animals on the planet, but not on the planet. Whales by far top the size of an elephant, but at least the elephant has the privilege of being largest on land. However, what if that privilege was stripped away? What if a lab experiment went terribly wrong and resulted in a whale with legs?! Then all the animals would respect the whales over elephants. In a fit of jealousy, the elephants would then attack to fight for their rights. They would do anything, even use machinery stolen from the humans to take down the mighty beasts! A war would break out, lasting for years. Countless lives would be lost, beautiful grassy planes would be trampled into a dessert nightmare, and it would all be over something as trivial as size.

But that would probably be too tragic to throw into a short story. He was once again hurdled into a fit of panic. He looked up at the clock to find that he only had two minutes left. Students were beginning to grow restless waiting for the bell to ring while he hadn't even written down a single word.

"I mustn't give up" he thought to himself. He knew he was capable he had the mindset, the determination, the intellect to write the best darn paper this class has ever seen. Then suddenly, it hit him. He knew what he was going to write about. It was completely under his nose the whole time! Why hasn't he thought of that before? Ideas started piling in, one after another. The dam that had once blocked his creative flow was now overcome by a heavy stream of knowledge and imagination that overflowed from it. He drifted his pencil closer and closer to the paper until it began pouring out the story from his mind. These words were projected onto that piece of paper:

He had no idea what to do.

And then the bell rang.