Agoraphobia, Mysophobia, Necrophobia: An Introspective Look at Fear in less than 30 Words

Kyle dreams of traveling the world.

The first step is to make it outside of his apartment.

Artist's Statement: 

In the process of writing these tiny stories, I generally tried to stick with the characters that had already been created, and throw in twists to the existing plot. It was only in the last story that I wrote that I realized that there were greater themes to be expounded upon which were more important than the existing characters. I was surprised that this was also the case when I received my stories back from the other members of my group. I wrote my original story expecting that Kyle, my character, would end up getting over his agoraphobia, and would have a happy ending. I was also expecting him to go on a wild, around-the-world adventure. Instead, he never does overcome his fear. The stories instead took turns expounding upon the central theme of fear. Each of the stories showed this theme in a new way, which is something that I was actually not expecting, and certainly was not my original intention. Getting my stories back, and being surprised by the results definitely reminded me of the Very Short Stories on Twitter. Each of these stories was incredibly short, but had a surprising twist. This project has really been a testament to the power that few words can have, and has shown the potential of using as few words as possible. In less than thirty words, my classmates and I were able to say some pretty profound things about fear, our subjection to it, the ways that we try, and sometimes fail, to conquer it, and the ways that we second-guess ourselves when we are faced with fear. I was not expecting something this profound to come from this assignment. I was also very pleased that all of these stories had plots and characters that had the potential to be trite, overdone, silly, and of no worth or real importance. However, each author took these plots and made the most of their potential. Additionally, the characters that were portrayed are generally reserved for the cutesy or the fantastical. Instead, each of these characters dealt with real life issues that are universally applicable to all people. These stories reminded me of the Haunted Mansion ride in the Disney Parks. In the stretching room, there are several portraits that seem to be benign and sweet depictions of content people. However, as the room stretches, it is revealed that each character is the victim of a sinister and unfortunate situation. There was much more to each portrait than was initially shown to the audience. This idea is also very applicable in real life. There is always more going on in a person’s life than we are able to see. We see very few aspects of other people’s lives, and we never truly understand each other. Even when the people around us seem like they are happy and contented, there is great possibility that there is more than meets the eye. We are all complex beings that are rarely transparent with one another. I think that this concept was illustrated beautifully through this assignment.