Story Challenge of the Week

Okay, it’s Monday again, and I’m sure we’re all very busy (at least I know I am). So, I have another story challenge for you, and this one is going to take a little bit of explaining. I was listening to Philosophy Talk on NPR today, and there was a debate over who owns our bodies. The context of this debate was the extent to which government has the right to control our physical beings (i.e. military draft, banning or controlling of drugs, right to privacy, harvesting of organs, etc), with one side arguing that since our bodies do not belong to us in the first place (after all we do nothing to bring ourselves into the world) and our ability to survive depends largely upon the existence of the state, then the state has the right to exercise a large amount of control over our bodies. The other side took the view that our bodies intrinsically belong to us, because they are an extension of ourselves, and thus the state has no right to exercise any amount of control over our bodies. There were also a large number of in-between views expressed. Anyway, that’s the background, and here are the rules: You must write a story of at least a hundred words, and not more than five hundred (if you want to post it as a comment – if it’s just for yourself, then it can be as long as you want). The story must be about the theme given in this post. So, if the theme I give you is Life, don’t write a story about the lord of the underworld. If the theme is War, don’t write a story about a farmer planting his crops. Themes are very broad, so it really shouldn’t be hard to stay within a given theme, but I teach, so I know that some people have trouble with this.