The Donkey and The Merchant

A merchant was struggling to get his donkey to walk across the highway. He tried tugging at the

side, and even kicking the poor at times but to no avail, as the donkey remained still as a statue beside

the highway in the middle of desert. “This is probably the dumbest creature I’ve ever to travel with”

The Merchant muttered crossly to himself “this highway is perfectly devoid of any cars and he simply

stands there as if something bad is going to happen.”

As The Merchant made a last effort to get his donkey to move, which revolved pushing the poor beast

unto the highway. However, The donkey wouldn’t budge. At last The Merchant gave up and took the

goods on the donkey’s back and hoisted them on his own “you donkeys are such stupid lazy bums” he

said “Good luck dying in the desert as I do actual hard work. He struggled with the heavy load as he

stepped on the highway, and as he got to the middle of the road, a speeding car hit him, scattering all

his worldly goods.

Respect the intuition of your beast of burden, they might be smarter than you.

Author's Note

Feel free to give feedback on this story, whether it be criticism and some strengths that I can build up on.

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask…

First, it doesn’t work. Your point was that the donkey somehow knew that if he walked onto the road a car would come roaring up, too fast to avoid, and hit him, but the man didn’t? The donkey could alsoforetell the future? Merchants use donkeys these days? Cars come out of nowhere, traveling so fast that they can’t avoid a man or donkey walking, and, the man is too stupid to look both ways? What, neither of them have ever crossed a highway before?

In short, you’ve contrived the situation, and forced everyone to act as you want them to, to make the gimmick work—even though no one would in life.

Bottom line: There’s a LOT to writing fiction that’s not obvious, and we’re not taught any of its techniques in school. There’s no reason you can’t learn that, though, so hit the library’s fiction-writing section.