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DreamShaper

This essay by the late Brian Doyle is exceptionally short, but loaded with somber undertones. “Joyas Voladoras” (which translates to flying jewels in English) is a bit different from the other short stories in this list because it doesn’t exactly read like a story, but rather a man’s contemplations. short stories Although Doyle passed away last year, his stories live on as a testament to his incredibly creative writing style. (Image via UPBeacon) Doyle ponders the size of the heart and the connection between all living things. He draws rich comparisons between the capacity of anatomical hearts of different organisms as it relates to their lifespans. The heart of a hummingbird, for example, beats much more rapidly than the heart of a whale, and the whale lives longer. “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime,” Doyle writes. “You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.” The essay opens in a somewhat scientific tone, especially when considering the fragility of the heart, but the last couple of paragraphs should leave you wondering about the true purpose for these considerations. Ultimately, his detailed examination appears to be much more emotional than physical.

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Losing a loved one to cancer is heartbreaking, but it can be equally as painful to imagine how you will leave your loved ones behind if you yourself were terminally ill. Author Robin Black takes on this hypothetical in her unique narrative “If I Loved You,” the title story in a collection of short stories titled “If I Loved You, I would Tell You This.” Unlike most tales, this one addresses a second-person audience. The “you” that appears throughout the short story is the narrator’s new neighbor, an inconsiderate man who builds a wooden fence directly through the narrator’s driveway because, technically, it’s on his property. The narrator’s family wants to fight this so that they can reasonably park their car in the driveway next to the house. At first, the story comes off as a largely hypothetical situation — one in which the narrator appears to write to the neighbor arguing that perhaps she wants the ability to park the car next to the house because she is a cancer patient who feels weaker each day. However, as her story continues and the details grow more vivid and specific, the more real it sounds, and the more Robin Black seems to be writing a story about a woman getting ready to leave her husband and son forever. In light of this, “If I Loved You” is a heartbreakingly beautiful short story that contains invaluable lessons on respect and compassion.

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Alexie is a Spokane-Coeur d’Alene American who writes some of the most compelling short stories concerning Native American identity and issues of assimilating to a white America. “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” is no exception. short stories “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” is just one of popular author Sherman Alexie’s short stories. Students may also recognize him from his longer novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” (Image via Goodreads) The story follows the journey of a Spokane man named Victor, whose father dies in Phoenix of a heart attack. Victor struggles to come up with the funds to travel all the way from Washington to Arizona in order to complete the odious task of collecting his father’s belongings in the house in which he had lain dead for days. After receiving a paltry sum of money from the tribal council, Victor comes across an old friend named Thomas Builds-the-Fire at the Trading Post, who tells Victor that he would be willing to provide the money for the trip if he is allowed to come along. Thanks to uneasy childhood relations with Thomas, Victor initially hesitates in the face of the offer; however, he eventually figures he has no other choice, and accepts Thomas’ company on his drive down to Arizona. Throughout the story, Alexie utilizes narrative techniques similar to those found in O’Brian’s “The Lives of the Dead.” He often jumps the narrative back to a time to when Victor and Thomas were friends, providing a contextual backstory that helps the reader tune into the emotions throughout the journey and gives insight into Victor’s loss of tradition and his eventual path to forgiveness.

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Although technically fiction, “The Lives of the Dead” is a story that touches on Tim O’Brian’s true experience in the Vietnam War as well as the loss of his childhood love, Linda. The narrator (some version of O’Brian) begins by describing the aftermath of the brutal airstrike on a small Vietnam village, called in by his platoon after taking sniper fire from the area. Probably the most disturbing and engaging moments in O’Brian’s storytelling come from his appalling and matter-of-fact descriptions of the horror the narrator witnesses, including his platoon’s mockery of a dead corpse. Throughout the story, O’Brian’s narrative jumps back in time from Vietnam to when he was a child and suffered the loss of who he calls his “first love.” The novelist tells the story of an awkward 9-year-old version of himself falling in love with Linda, a girl the same age as him who wears a distinctive bright red cap, and learning what it truly means to both love and lose someone at such a young age. Reading these segments of the story and discovering the reason behind the Linda’s red cap should certainly leave you heartbroken — that is, if O’Brian’s Vietnam narrative didn’t already do the trick.

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Today, I was traveling in Kenya and I met a refugee from Zimbabwe. He said he hadn’t eaten anything in over 3 days and looked extremely skinny and unhealthy. Then my friend offered him the rest of the sandwich he was eating. The first thing the man said was, “We can share it.”

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Today, a boy in a wheelchair saw me desperately struggling on crutches with my broken leg and offered to carry my backpack and books for me. He helped me all the way across campus to my class and as he was leaving he said, “I hope you feel better soon.”.

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Today, when I witnessed a 27-year-old breast cancer patient laughing hysterically at her 2-year-old daughter’s antics, I suddenly realized that I need to stop complaining about my life and start celebrating it again.

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Today, in the cutest voice, my 8-year-old daughter asked me to start recycling. I chuckled and asked, “Why?” She replied, “So you can help me save the planet.” I chuckled again and asked, “And why do you want to save the planet?” “Because that’s where I keep all my stuff,” she said.

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Today, I kissed my dad on the forehead as he passed away in a small hospital bed. About 5 seconds after he passed, I realized it was the first time I had given him a kiss since I was a little boy.

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Today, as my father, three brothers, and two sisters stood around my mother’s hospital bed, my mother uttered her last coherent words before she died. She simply said, “I feel so loved right now. We should have gotten together like this more often.”

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Today at 7AM, I woke up feeling ill, but decided I needed the money, so I went into work. At 3PM I got laid off. On my drive home I got a flat tire. When I went into the trunk for the spare, it was flat too. A man in a BMW pulled over, gave me a ride, we chatted, and then he offered me a job. I start tomorrow.

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Today, after I watched my dog get run over by a car, I sat on the side of the road holding him and crying. And just before he died, he licked the tears off my face.

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Today, after a 72 hour shift at the fire station, a woman ran up to me at the grocery store and gave me a hug. When I tensed up, she realized I didn’t recognize her. She let go with tears of joy in her eyes and the most sincere smile and said, “On 9–11–2001, you carried me out of the World Trade Center.”

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I am blind by birth. When I was 8 years old, I wanted to play baseball. I asked my father- “Dad, can I play baseball?” He said “You’ll never know until you try.” When I was a teenager, I asked him, — “Dad Can I become a surgeon?”. He replied “Son, you’ll never know until you try.” Today I am a Surgeon, just because I tried!

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Today, I interviewed my grandmother for part of a research paper I’m working on for my Psychology class. When I asked her to define success in her own words, she said, “Success is when you look back at your life and the memories make you smile.

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Today, I asked my mentor — a very successful business man in his 70’s — what his top 3 tips are for success. He smiled and said, “Read something no one else is reading, think something no one else is thinking, and do something no one else is doing.

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Today, my father told me, “Just go for it and give it a try! You don’t have to be a professional to build a successful product. Amateurs started Google and Apple. Professionals built the Titanic

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Today, when I slipped on the wet tile floor a boy in a wheelchair caught me before I slammed my head on the ground. He said, “Believe it or not, that’s almost exactly how I injured my back 3 years ago .

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She notices the people sitting in a small sports bar across the street. They’re cheering and chatting. They look so alive. She wants to cross the street and join these people just to connect with them—to be a part of something. But a subtle voice that comes from within, that whispers from the open wounds in her heart, holds her back from doing so. So she keeps walking. Alone. She walks to the end of the city center where she sees a dirt path that leads up a grassy hill. The hill, she knows, overlooks a spiritual sanctuary. But it isn’t the sanctuary she wants to visit tonight—not yet anyway. It’s a warm, breezy Saturday night and she wants to find a place outdoors with sufficient light so she can sit and read the book she’s grasping in her right hand. But reading isn’t what she really wants. Not deep down. What she really wants is for someone—anyone at all—to tap her on the shoulder and invite her into their world. To ask her questions and tell her stories. To be interested. To understand her. To laugh with her. To want her to be a part of their life. But it isn’t even this connection with someone new that she wants most. At least not at the deepest level. At the deepest level, in the core of her soul, even fleeting connections with others seem to interfere with what she desires most. Which is to know that she’s not alone in the world. That she truly belongs. And that whatever she was put here to do, in time, will be done and shared with others who deeply care. ***** This young woman left a substantial segment of her life behind to be in this small city tonight. A few months ago, she was engaged to a strapping young businessman, managing a fast-growing start-up company, working long, hard days and enjoying the fruits of her labor together with a deepening community of friendships in Manhattan. In a period of just a few months, her fiancé and her split and decided that it was easiest to shutdown the company and divide the monetary remains rather than attempt co-ownership. As they began the process of shutting down the company, she learned that most of the seemingly deep friendships she had made in Manhattan were tied directly to her old business affairs or her business-socialite of an ex-fiancé. While this young woman didn’t consciously expect such a rapid, tragic series of events, it also wasn’t totally unexpected. Subconsciously she knew that she had created a life for herself that was unsustainable. It was a life revolving around her social status in which all of her relationships brought with them a mounting and revolving set of expectations. This life left no time for spiritual growth or deep connection or love. Yet, this young woman is drawn to spirituality, connection and love. She has been drawn to all three all her life. And the only thing that steered her off course into this unsustainable lifestyle was the careless belief that if she did certain things and acted in certain ways she would be worthy in the eyes of others. That her social status would procure lasting admiration from these people. And that she would never feel alone. She realizes, now, how wrong she was. ***** The young woman walks up a steep paved road on the outskirts of the city center. She feels the burn in her calf muscles as she marches higher and higher. The road is, at first, filled with quaint boutique shops and young couples and friends, but as it advances uphill they give way to small cottage homes and kids playing with flashlights in the street. She keeps marching higher and higher until she reaches a clearing where there is a small public park. In this park, a group of teenagers are huddled around two guitarists who are strumming and singing an acoustic melody. “Is it a popular song?” she thinks to herself. She isn’t sure because she hasn’t had time lately to listen to music. She wants to join the group. She wants to tell the guitarists that their music is incredible. But she hesitates. She just can’t find the nerve to walk over to them. Instead, she sits on a park bench a few hundred feet away. The bench overlooks the cityscape below. She stares off into the distance and up into the night sky for several minutes, thinking and breathing. And she begins to smile, because she can see the spiritual sanctuary. It’s dark outside, but the sanctuary shines bright. She can see it clearly. She can feel its warmth surrounding her. And although she knows the sanctuary has existed for an eternity, her heart tells her something that stretches a smile across her cheeks: “This sanctuary is all yours tonight.” Not in the sense that she owns it. Nor in the sense that it isn’t also a sanctuary for millions of other people around the world. But rather in the sense that it belongs to all of us as part of our heritage, exclusively tailored for every human being and our unique needs and beliefs. It’s a quiet refuge that, when we choose to pay attention, exists all around us and within us. We can escape to it at any time. It’s a place where we can dwell with the good spirits and guardian angels that love us unconditionally and guide us even when we feel lost and alone. Especially when we feel lost and alone.

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Once upon a time there was a woman who had been lost in the desert for three whole days without water. Just as she was about to collapse, she saw what appeared to be a lake just a few hundred yards in front of her. “Could it be? Or is it just a mirage?” she thought to herself. With the last bit of strength she could muster, she staggered toward the lake and quickly learned that her prayers had been answered: it was no mirage—it was indeed a large, spring-fed lake full of fresh water—more fresh water than she could ever drink in her lifetime. Yet while she was literally dying of thirst, she couldn’t bring herself to drink the water. She simply stood by the water’s edge and stared down at it. There was a passerby riding on a camel from a nearby desert town who was watching the woman’s bizarre behavior. He got off his camel, walked up to the thirsty woman and asked, “Why don’t you have a drink, ma’am?” She looked up at the man with an exhausted, distraught expression across her face and tears welling up in her eyes. “I am dying of thirst,” she said, “But there is way too much water here in this lake to drink. No matter what I do, I can’t possibly finish it all.” The passerby smiled, bent down, scooped some water up with his hands, lifted it to the woman’s mouth and said, “Ma’am, your opportunity right now, and as you move forward throughout the rest of your life, is to understand that you don’t have to drink the whole lake to quench your thirst. You can simply take one sip. Just one small sip… and then another if you choose. Focus only on the mouthful in front of you, and all your anxiety, fear and overwhelm about the rest will gradually fade.” ***** Challenge yourself throughout the day to focus solely on the sip (task, step, etc.) you’re actually taking. Honestly, that’s all life is—small, positive actions that you take moment by moment, and then one day when you look back it all adds up to something worthwhile—something that’s often far better, and different, than what you had imagined when you started.

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Twenty years ago, when Angel and I were just undergrads in college, our psychology professor taught us a lesson we’ve never forgotten. On the last day of class before graduation, she walked up on stage to teach one final lesson, which she called “a vital lesson on the power of perspective and mindset.” As she raised a glass of water over her head, everyone expected her to mention the typical “glass half empty or glass half full” metaphor. Instead, with a smile on her face, our professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?” Students shouted out answers ranging from a couple of ounces to a couple of pounds. After a few moments of fielding answers and nodding her head, she replied, “From my perspective, the absolute weight of this glass is irrelevant. It all depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly light. If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight might make my arm ache. If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will likely cramp up and feel completely numb and paralyzed, forcing me to drop the glass to the floor. In each case, the absolute weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me.” As most of us students nodded our heads in agreement, she continued. “Your worries, frustrations, disappointments, and stressful thoughts are very much like this glass of water. Think about them for a little while and nothing drastic happens. Think about them a bit longer and you begin to feel noticeable pain. Think about them all day long, and you will feel completely numb and paralyzed, incapable of doing anything else until you drop them.”

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She rarely makes eye contact. Instead, she looks down at the ground. Because the ground is safer. Because unlike people, it expects nothing in return. She doesn’t have to feel ashamed about her past. The ground just accepts her for who she is right now. As she sits at the bar next to me, she stares down at her vodka tonic, and then the ground, and then her vodka tonic. “Most people don’t get me,” she says. “They ask me questions like, ‘What’s your problem?’ or ‘Were you beaten as a child?’ But I never respond. Because I don’t feel like explaining myself. And I don’t think they really care anyway.” Just then, a young man sits down at the bar on the opposite side of her. He’s a little drunk, and says, “You’re pretty. May I buy you a drink?” She stays silent and looks back down at the ground. After an awkward moment, he accepts the rejection, gets up, and walks away. “Would you prefer that I leave too?” I ask. “No,” she says without glancing upward. “But I could use some fresh air. You don’t have to come, but you can if you want to.” I follow her outside and we sit on a street curb in front of the bar. “Brrr… it’s a really chilly night!” “Tell me about it,” she says while maintaining her usual downward gaze. The warm vapor from her breath cuts through the cold air and bounces off of the ground in front of her. “So why are you out here with me? I mean, wouldn’t you rather be inside in the warmth, talking to normal people about normal things?” “I’m out here because I want to be. Because I’m not normal. And look, I can see my breath, and we’re in San Diego. That’s not normal either. Oh, and you’re wearing Airwalk sneakers, and so am I—which may have been normal in 1994, but not anymore.” She glances up at me and smirks, this time exhaling her breath upward into the moonlight. “I see you’re wearing a ring. You’re married, right?” “Yeah,” I reply. “My wife, Angel, is just getting off work now and heading here to meet me for dinner.” She nods her head and then looks back at the ground. “Well, you’re off the market… and safe, I guess. So can I tell you a story?” “I’m listening.” As she speaks, her emotional gaze shifts from the ground, to my eyes, to the moonlit sky, to the ground, and back to my eyes again. This rotation continues in a loop for the duration of her story. And every time her eyes meet mine she holds them there for a few seconds longer than she did on the previous rotation. I don’t interject once. I listen to every word. And I assimilate the raw emotion present in the tone of her voice and in the depth of her eyes. When she finishes, she says, “Well, now you know my story. You think I’m a freak, don’t you?” “Place your right hand on your chest,” I tell her. She does. “Do you feel something?” I ask. “Yeah, I feel my heartbeat.” “Now close your eyes, place both your hands on your face, and move them around slowly.” She does. “What do you feel now?” I ask. “Well, I feel my eyes, my nose, my mouth… I feel my face.” “That’s right,” I reply. “But unlike you, stories don’t have heartbeats, and they don’t have faces. Because stories are not alive—they’re not people. They’re just stories.” She stares into my eyes for a prolonged moment, smiles sincerely and says, “Just stories we live through.” “Yeah… And stories we learn from.”

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Once upon a time, there was a girl who could do anything in the world she wanted. All she had to do was choose something and focus. So, one day she sat down in front of a blank canvas and began to paint. Every stroke was more perfect than the next, slowly and gracefully converging to build a flawless masterpiece. And when she eventually finished painting, she stared proudly at her work and smiled. It was obvious to the clouds and the stars, who were always watching over her, that she had a gift. She was an artist. And she knew it too. She felt it in every fiber of her being. But a few moments after she finished painting, she got anxious and quickly stood up. Because she realized that while she had the ability to do anything in the world she wanted to do, she was simply spending her time moving paint around on a piece of canvas. She felt like there was so much more in the world to see and do—so many options. And if she ultimately decided to do something else with her life, then all the time she spent painting would be a waste. So she glanced at her masterpiece one last time, and walked out the door into the moonlight. And as she walked, she thought, and then she walked some more. While she was walking, she didn’t notice the clouds and the stars in the sky who were trying to signal her, because she was preoccupied with an important decision she had to make. She had to choose one thing to do out of all the possibilities in the world. Should she practice medicine? Or design buildings? Or teach children? She was utterly stumped. Twenty-five years later, the girl began to cry. Because she realized she had been walking for so long, and that over the years she had become so enamored by everything that she could do—the endless array of possibilities—that she hadn’t done anything meaningful at all. And she learned, at last, that life isn’t about possibility—anything is possible. Life is about making a decision—deciding to do something that moves you. So the girl, who was no longer a girl, purchased some canvas and paint from a local craft store, drove to a nearby park, and began to paint. One stroke gracefully led into the next just as it had so many moons ago. And as she smiled, she continued painting through the day and into the night. Because she had finally made a decision. And there was still some time left to revel in the magic

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An astronomer wakes up to the sound of barking. He realizes it was in a dream. His dog, Laika, is long gone. He recounts their history—finding her as a puppy by the roadside, teaching her to behave, and their growing attachment to each other. Once, she even saved his life.

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