He had always liked reading shorts stories.
On this particular evening he was sitting at his screen searching for something to read, when he came across this simple little blog that consisted mainly of very short stories. The one that he began to read was told in three hundred and ninety five words. He was intrigued by the opening words that said the author, being the main character in the story, had been getting off a bus when he saw a man in a chicken suit standing outside a supermarket holding a placard for free-range eggs. He was excited by what he saw. He was so struck by the spectacle that he immediately found a quiet spot in the street, and using the voice recorder on his phone, made a note that he had seen a man in a chicken suit standing outside a supermarket holding a placard for free-range eggs.
When he got home he went straight to his laptop, and after listening to his note about seeing a man in a chicken suit standing outside a supermarket holding a placard for free-range eggs, set about writing a short story about a man in a chicken suit standing outside a supermarket holding a placard for free-range eggs. However, although seeing a man in a chicken suit standing outside a supermarket holding a placard for free-range eggs, was a strange sight to come across while getting off a bus, he struggled hard to put the event into a story. He thought about writing the shortest of stories, going something like: ‘Today, while getting off a bus I saw a man in a chicken suit standing outside a supermarket holding a placard for free-range eggs’. He did a word count. He saw that this was only twenty-four words. No, that wouldn’t do.
After a lot of deliberation, he decided to write a story that contained the incident of a man in a chicken suit standing outside a supermarket holding a placard for free-range eggs, and how he as a writer couldn’t find a way to make a story of it.
At this point, the reader thought about it. If he had been getting off a bus and seen a man in a chicken suit standing outside a supermarket holding a placard for free-range eggs, would he be able to write a story about it?
Probably not.