The stories of Bryan Young

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...