John put down the phone, frustrated. How would he get through the next few days? Looking for answers, or distraction, John picked up the phone and started watching video’s. One video caught John’s eye. A remarkable individual, talking about something religious or spiritual. John couldn’t quite make it out, but he was interested and found something impressive, maybe admirable, about the person.
So John continued watching and eagerly lapped up what the man on the screen was saying- he spoke of a project for young people to take in in which they could discuss their spiritual and religious beliefs and those of their generation as a whole. He eagerly clicked onto the profile and through the subsequent university-affiliated links in their bio, which took him to the sign-up website.
Upon entering his details, John saw that part of the sign-up process was completing a short story. This piqued his excitement, for John had long loved reading and writing. However, his excitement turned to disappointment when he saw that the short story was a heavily formatted one encouraging him to fill in his blanks and then continue along a straitjacketed path, with obvious points that were supposed to be hit. Not that John thought of himself as some kind of great intellect being unfairly restrained- he was sure that any story he wrote free of restraint probably wouldn’t be that good and saw why the event organisers had put in place some a framework to help structure people’s work- but it struck him as a little bit of a missed opportunity.
He then wrote a short, meta piece that was rather self-satisfied and probably not that clever but on this hot sunny day struck him as at least somewhat amusing (he wasn’t that vain but he wasn’t that humble either). “Oh well” he thought. “Only 800 characters needed and I’ve done them now, I’ll end it here”.
This story was submitted as part of the King’s Study Phase of the Gen Z Role Models Project. Added October 2026.
“eagerly lapped up what the man on the screen was saying” (S202) © 2026 by The Gen Z Role Models Project is licensed under CC BY 4.0
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