My first assignment for Collective Storytelling was to write a story using a very rigid form. I chose the drabble, a form popularized in the UK in the 1980s where the only requirement is that the story is precisely 100 words. Not 99 words. Not 101 words. Here’s what I came up with:

LITTLE DESIRE

BY MATT LONDON

Written for Collective Storytelling, NYU-ITP © 2012

My friend lived in a bubble. Not a metaphor.

She never ate, never slept. She worked. Dance. Macramé. Taxes. Whatever.

Everyone walking past her bubble fell in love with her.

Be my wife, my whore. Do my taxes. They dragged her out. She stayed inside, but a double appeared, followed her savior to the chapel, hotel, H&R Block.

I pulled a double out. Go! Be free! The double gave me a quizzical look and vanished.

Bubbleward, I shouted, You just need a little desire. Your own.

She looked at me, appreciative, understanding.

She stepped out of the bubble.

And vanished.