The stories of Bryan Young

I will present this without comment. Let me know what you think. I used to think it was clichéd in books and stories when I would read about that sinking feeling of love at first sight when you, at long last, catch a glimpse of the person you know you’re meant to spend your life with. But I don’t anymore. After I saw Katie for the first time I felt as though I was going to explode with joy and burst into forlorn tears all at the same time. It was on campus where I first laid eyes on her, beneath the shadow of “Y” mountain, before the sun crested over, spilling the rays of morning over Utah Valley and the rest of Brigham Young University. I’m not sure where she was going, but I assumed she must have been heading somewhere to study; the library perhaps. It didn’t matter. As though I were written into the pages of a dime-store novel, my heart truly skipped a beat. She had long dark hair knotted into two neat pigtails with blue ribbons. She wore a BYU t-shirt and a skirt far ...

This is but a sample of this story.  The complete version is available in my print collection  Man Against the Future.   From there, you can order signed copies, or buy it for the Kindle or the Nook. My name is Phillip Quillan and I used to be a police officer in my day and, as they say, every dog has one. Before we continue further, a few things should be noted. First, for the fact that you are reading this means that I have passed on for reasons that will most likely forever remain my own. I have requested that this be published posthumously. Secondly, no matter how ludicrous or completely untrue any of this sounds, take heart that it is the absolute truth. Finally, whenever possible, I’ve corroborated the facts and incidents with the diaries and the enumerating parties involved in this eerie situation. We begin on August 1st, 1949 in the diary of Elizabeth Shumway: I saw “it” today. I don’t know what “it” was, but it was absolutely horrid. I’m not sure how...

Here's a short exercise I wrote. I've been working on this other short story that's proving to be a bear and this sort of came out of me on the side. I dreamed of you last night. It was the type of dream where things don’t seem to happen, you seem to just know that they have. I arrived at a party that we’d both planned on attending, the location of the party seemed to be a kind of industrial building with the back wall decorated as a cave. I came out onto a balcony looking over the party to see you sitting there, wearing that short black dress you bought that night we drank too much wine and went shopping at the mall. But you weren’t happy. You were on the phone. I never knew for sure, but it seemed to be your boyfriend whom I not-so-affectionately always referred to as Ringo. It seemed as though we’d been planning on getting together for this party for a long time, but once you got there Ringo harassed you by phone… I came over to you and offered you my hand, you took...

My boarding pass said to arrive three hours early, you know, to check my bags and get through security. And so, three hours early I arrived to an empty airport and no lines for baggage checking or security. Apparently, I was on the last flight out that night. I’m not from Philadelphia and was trying to get home, so my only option was to wait it out. The Philadelphia airport is shaped like a massive “H”, with the hundred-yard crossbeam serving as a giant stretch of mall. If nothing else, I’d have plenty to do while I waited to board. The newsstand was my first stop. Perhaps, I thought, I can find something to read, you know, get my mind off of things. I’d already read the news of the day, so I walked by the newspapers. The magazines were mostly cologne and fashion ads, so I didn’t linger long in front of them, either. A bookshelf spanned the back wall. Popular fiction trash lined the shelves from one side to the other, top to bottom. Dozens of copies of Dan Brown, John Sandfo...

So, Derek asked me for a four page Pirate Club short on really short notice to try to have ready soon. Truth be told, four pages is a really tough nut to crack. This is what I came up with.... PAGE 1: Panel 1: John, standing like a captain, arms folded behind his back, is in front of an old-school wheeled cannon, aimed up at a tree. Bear and Bat are to the other side of the cannon, faces frothing with blood lust. Mike is behind the cannon, holding the rope to pull to set it off. JOHN: Members of the Bird Watchers club! The Pirate Club is prepared to board but we’re willing to grant you a most generous offer! (beat) Surrender to us and we’ll only steal your booty, but you’ll leave with your lives! (beat) Or, we can do this the hard way! Panel 2: The bird watchers tree house. Telescopes sprout from every window... A small head is peeking from the bottom of a window. BIRD WATCHER : (in a small, timid font) Never! Panel 3: Close on John, with Mike in the background. JOHN : Fire the warn...

A friend of mine is putting together a play and asked me to write a segment of it. The idea for the play is quite an interesting one, one that uses various mixed media. But it tells stories from Greek drama in short contemporary situations adapted by writers like myself. The story I was adapting was that of a roadside charlatan, offering people the perfect nights sleep in a magical bed that fit whoever laid in it. What he didn't tell people was that if they were too tall, he'd cut their legs off and those that were too short were stretched on a rack. It was an interesting moral that I had some fun adapting to the here and now, and the closest thing I could come up with for a contemporary setting were the used-car-salesmen and check cash emporium sorts of bastards that we see on every street corner now. INT. A LIVING ROOM A couch is in the middle of the stage, and a YOUNG MARRIED COUPLE cuddles on it, watching the audience as though they were a TV. Faint audio can be heard o...

I thought this would be an interesting thing to show all both of you who read this. This is the beginnings of a novel that came to me suddenly. It's plotted out completely, but I haven't the time to work on beyond this point. In truth, I feel bad working on this when I have screenplays to work on and my first novel still needs to be transcribed and revised as well. Obviously, as you read this, you should be able to pick out the preposterous amount of influence Graham Greene has had on me I thought I'd offer this to see if anybody is interested in seeing me finish it. I'll keep a quick recap of the rest of the hook at the bottom of the story. I’m writing this in retrospect, knowing full well that if I don’t write down my thoughts of what has happened I’ll certainly go mad. This is mainly a tale of jealousy and, in hindsight, how it brought me to the brink of insanity, that stony precipice I currently teeter on. It’s funny that they say hindsight is always 20/20...