It’s like Socrates so famously said: the unexamined life is not worth living.

Well, not as worth living as the examined life, at least! As the life where you discover what you’re made of and unleash your ability to enjoy it even more thoroughly!

The 10 layers of identity simply divide your experience of self into outer and progressively more inner layers, allowing you to explore and design enough one to your liking.

The book is coming along great, this site is brand new, so be sure to bookmark it and visit again soon!

In the meantime, visit UofLIFE.com/books for more empowering resources already available to the public!

The post Find YOUR Depth appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

Chapter 17: Connection vs. Attachment (I’ll find a better title for this chapter soon)

With less than a week to research and write the article, Jane decided she’d better get busy experimenting, trying out a few of the connection techniques she had researched, putting them to the test, and observing how well they worked.
It’ll be fun! she told herself, though it didn’t all turn out that way.

She began by saying hello to various strangers she passed in the street on her way home and observing their reactions.

“Hi,” she said as she passed a man in his 30’s, maybe ten years older than her. “Nice jacket.”
The man stopped in his tracks, looked her up and down, then said hello back and asked for her number.
“Sorry,” Jane replied apologetically, feeling flustered but thinking fast on her feet. “It’s just that my boyfriend has the same jacket, and I couldn’t help but admire it.”
The man looked slightly deflated, but nodded and turned away.

Oops, she thought to herself. Some of these techniques work a little too well! I’d better dial back the research a notch.

She reached the portal of her apartment building with no further misadventures, and stopped at the mailboxes to see if anything interesting had arrived.

“Hi,” she said absentmindedly to another resident who was extracting a few envelopes and a stack of junk mail from his own box.

“Hello,” he replied cheerfully. He shuffled his stack of mail into his left hand, then held out his right toward her. “I’m Chase, by the way. I just moved in.”

Jane shook his hand and looked up at his friendly face. Their eyes locked, and suddenly…she couldn’t look away. It felt like he had turned on a tractor beam and would not release her. It took her a moment to gather her wits and make her mouth function again. “I’m Jane,” she sputtered. “I’m up in 3C.”

“2D,” Chase replied, still clutching her hand lightly.

Jane had taken self defense classes, and the moves to twist Chase’s arm behind his back and utterly disable him flashed through her mind, but she had never learned a defense against his tractor beam gaze.

Then, out of nowhere, it struck her. It hit her hard, right in the chest, somewhere near her heart. A sharp inner pain there made her gasp slightly, and she withdrew her hand abruptly and finally managed to look away from his piercing gaze.

“Gotta go,” she said lamely, slamming her mailbox shut and heading for the stairs. Usually, she took the elevator, but she couldn’t stand the thought of waiting for it to arrive. She only wanted to get away from Chase and figure out what just happened to her!

Had he slipped her some diabolical toxin through their handshake? Was she about to pass out, or curl up and die, or transform into some disgusting alien creature designed to join him on his quest to take over the world, starting with some random Chicago apartment building?

No, probably not, Jane reasoned, but the pain persisted and she made her graceless exit as fast as she could go.

The post 1-2-3 Connect appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

Beth: “Get me a job.”
Employment specialist: “Okay. Please fill out this form listing your skills and interests.”
Beth: “Look, buddy, your job is to get me a job. Don’t make me do your work for you.”
Employment specialist: “Okay. Burger Bar is hiring.”
Beth: “Not that job, get me something better.”
Employment specialist: “Okay. How about president of the United States?”
Beth: “Oh, please. Be realistic.”
Employment specialist: “Now we’re back to Burger Bar.”

“Getting a job sucks,” Beth realized, so she tried out another strategy.
She considered standing at a street corner and asking people for money, but that would take too long.
Instead, she decided to hang out near the 7-eleven and bum instant-win lottery tickets. It seemed promising! Every time she spotted someone with a ticket, she explained how much she needed a break and asked if she could have it, and almost every time, they gave it to her!
But after several weeks without a single jackpot, she gave up and went back to the drawing board.

——————————————-

Okay, I admit, I don’t know where to take this story, I’ll add to it later if I think of something, but in the meantime, let’s do this: Take the first line and WRITE YOUR OWN STORY that follows, in the comments below.

That’s the first line I thought of, and I liked it so much that I couldn’t help trying to turn it into something. Maybe you’ll have more success than me.

The post Tall as a Tree appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

I bought an ice cream sandwich from a vending machine during a break between classes on campus. After sitting down at a nearby table, I pulled a book from my backpack and opened it to finish up some homework before my next class.

“Mind if I sit?” a girl asked. The room was crowded, but I was the only one occupying this table.

“Help yourself,” I said, glancing up from my book.

That was my first look at Julie. She was beautiful, blonde, and had bright green eyes that danced with friendliness and life.

We chatted for a bit and somehow I mustered up the courage to ask for her number, then called her a few days later and took her on a motorcycle ride and a picnic up the canyon.

We stopped at a secluded picnic area near the river and sat down on a blanket in the shade. As we began getting acquainted, everything about her made her seem more and more like the perfect girl. She was intelligent, fun, charming, confident, thoughtful, and easily in the top 1% of beautiful girls I had ever seen, whether in the movies or real life.

But just as I began getting ideas about pursuing her romantically and seeing if it turned into something permanent, she began to hum a pleasant little tune under her breath, and birds in the nearby trees began to sing along. A pair of butterflies flitted by, hovering briefly over her head like a halo, suspended in a stray shaft of afternoon sunlight. I felt quite certain that a young deer raised its head to listen, hidden somewhere in the nearby undergrowth.

“Oh, great,” I thought dejectedly. “I should have known.”

Julie was a Disney princess. If only I had been a handsome prince, I might have stood a chance. Then we could have lived happily ever after.

But no, I had learned all too well many years ago that I was the ugly duckling, and I had no place with such a perfect princess.

In hindsight, I ought to have recalled the end of the ugly duckling story. The part where it turns into a beautiful swan. Maybe I was a handsome prince after all, but whether I was or not, in the end, made no difference. Instead of reality, my deep-down, unconscious beliefs and expectations dictated my behavior and destiny, and despite staying friends for a while longer, I never even held Julie’s hand.

Discussion Quotes & Questions

1. What do you believe about yourself? What do you feel perfectly capable of accomplishing and what could simply never work out? What do you deserve to enjoy, and what is “out of your league”?
2. How have such beliefs steered you through the billion opportunities that stand there waiting for you to recognize them every single day and hour of your life? Do they encourage you to dream big and go for it, or to know your place and play it safe by staying small?
3. When was the last time you wanted something but didn’t try to get it?
4. List at least three things you’ve wanted for a long time but have not pursued.
5. Pretend you’re finally going to “go for” those things and get them! What feelings does such a decision stir inside you? Do you feel excited or uncomfortable and afraid?
   
   “You act based on what you expect, not what you want.” – Jennice Vilhauer
   
6. Why haven’t you pursued those things?
7. Does it have to do with expectations? Do you think it would be too difficult or that you would fail in the end?
8. Do you believe that such deep-down expectations can change?
9. If so, how?

…

The post Expectations appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

I open my eyes in the darkness,
and with so few details yet visible
in my pre-dawn bedroom,
it feels no more real
than the still-fading dream.
It’s difficult,
tricky
to drag myself away from the imaginary loneliness
with its physical, grinding heartache
when the only real place I have to stand
is also all
alone.

I close my eyes again
and hope to find myself
fallen into a rerun
of yesterday’s dream,
escaping European cities and intermingled jungles
with the princess.
That would be something,
at least.
Actually,
it would be nothing,
but still better than nothing,
and I would be happy with that,
though not actually happy,
but better than nothing.

Instead,
there’s Katie,
a sweet girlfriend from three eons ago,
now a nurse,
at least in the dream,
and I realize what’s going on
when she begins telling me a story
I know I’ve heard before from someone else.
“What would you do
if you knew
you were only a dream?” I ask her.
Her face and head
entirely vanish,
leaving only
a light-blue Oxford
to wrap its arms around me
for 2.5 seconds
before the dream can no longer
hold itself together
and I find myself again alone
in the dark,
but with the grinding heartache
somewhat soothed.

So that’s something.
It’s better than nothing.

The post Nothing, Something appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

Of course cheering for opponents and underdogs came to an abrupt halt the instant anyone was beating his team. Not only in a game, but in the polls. If a team was ranked better than his team, he wanted them to slip just a little so that he could move back up to the top, back into his comfort zone, where nothing could threaten his standing and he could afford to be magnanimous once again.

He was a good friend in the same way, cheerful and affable, always reliable to be there for you when you needed a hand, generous almost to a fault. You could easily count on him 98% of the time. And because anything above 93% earns an A, who could complain about that?

And that other 2%? He was never a bad friend, exactly, at least not in any way you could clearly point out and make him look bad. It’s just that he could feel a bit insecure at times, and if you happened to be a little better looking or more interesting or successful, well, that left him with two options.

The first option was to compete and catch up. He worked hard, which won him many successes and accolades. He found various ways to become more interesting and set himself apart from the crowd.

He took up hunting, and decorated his high-ceilinged living room with trophies of “the big five.” One plaque remained empty, however, and when anyone commented on it, it gave him the opportunity to humbly and magnanimously repeat the story of the one that got away, proving how comfortable he felt in being a regular mortal like the rest of us.

Truth be told, he probably had that mild insecurity to thank for the majority of his drive and half the successes in his life, so how bad could it be? In fact, could you accurately judge it as bad at all? Nobody’s perfect, after all, and maybe insecurity, which in his case so often played out like humility and other admirable virtues, is one of the best imperfections to have.

The second option was much easier than hard work, and it came even more naturally to Beckett. When you analyze it logically, it even makes more sense. If you wanted a house with a better view, would you be wiser to go to all the trouble of moving, or set hydraulic jacks under your house and raise it up a few feet, or simply chop down the trees blocking the vista?

So whenever Beckett found himself near anyone who triggered his sense of insecurity, who was perhaps a bit taller or better looking, or more interesting or successful, whether friend or opponent, why not jokingly point out that one minor flaw, or cheerfully relive that one time they did something stupid, or draw attention to some other area where Beckett excelled, as long as that made him feel a bit better, and no one was ever really injured.

You may be thinking that Beckett had a third option for comportment in such circumstances, but you would be wrong. You may argue that he would have been wise to choose to address his true enemy instead, to face and vanquish his insecurity once and for all. But choice requires awareness, and because it never occurred to Beckett to do so, he was never free to make such a choice.

Beckett’s life may have continued thus indefinitely, and perhaps he would eventually have grown aware of the third option and chosen to exercise it, had not his best friend and top competitor (secret competitor, that is – he would never admit it, even to himself) won a large promotion at work.

In order to reset the scales in his favor, Beckett requested two weeks of leave and flew to Africa to complete his trophy room.

He awoke on the third morning of his safari and sat up in bed, yawned, then turned and set his feet on the dirt floor of the tent, which happened to be where a king snake had slithered in overnight to rest in the relative warmth.

He hadn’t yet fully woken up or recovered from the shock of the snake bite when he found himself standing, rather dazed, at the Pearly Gates.
“You suck,” said St. Peter with a disapproving shake of his head, “but come on in.”

The post Grade-A Frienemy appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

On the very first day of trying out her new self, her new plan paid big dividends. She quickly discovered that being positive allowed her to share her private thoughts that she had never spoken aloud before, albeit with a positive twist that she would attempt to talk herself into believing. It wasn’t easy, but if she could do this, she could do anything, and she would become the most cheerful person in town in no time!

“I love your musk,” she told him that evening.

“I’m not wearing any musk,” Tom said with a sneer. “You know I detest cologne. Leave that for the girly men.”

“I know,” Melissa agreed. “I mean your natural musk after working at the garage all day and when you don’t take a shower before you come over. It reminds me of buck scent, or goats who pee all over themselves to attract hot goat babes.”

Melissa knew all about buck scent because Tom sometimes wore that during hunting season. “Why wash it off,” he asked, “when I’d just have to reapply it tomorrow?” It was the most pungent aroma she had ever smelled, and she gagged whenever Tom got too close with it, so she would hold her breath as long as she could, then find an excuse to step away for a moment, long enough to take a few deep gulps of air from a distance.

Tom’s second most common complaint was about Melissa’s cooking. “These alligator tacos could use more avocado,” he mused over dinner, “and the ice in the grape juice is a little too cold.”

“I love your attention to detail,” Melissa replied, “and the fact that you’re willing to eat avocados, that you don’t say they’re only for girly men anymore.”

Tom found so much love and affirmation and cheerful positivity disorienting. Every time he turned around, there was more love just waiting to knock him off his feet, putting him in unfamiliar territory, which made him feel like he wasn’t in control anymore, and that made him grumpy.

“Will you please stop saying you love everything?!” Tom shouted.

“You certainly know when enough is enough!” Melissa replied, skillfully avoiding the word ‘love’.”

“You certainly don’t!” Tom accused, pointing a finger in her face.

Melissa drew in a sharp breath. An astonished look crossed her face. An epiphany lit up her brain. “You’re right!” she whispered as she abruptly realized the truth. The truth that had been kicking her in the shins for three years, trying desperately to get her attention. “I don’t!” The past three years of dating Tom flashed through her mind. All the crap she had endured, and for what???

Brand new possibilities began to flat through her mind – or rather, one new possibility flashed through her mind over and over, in full color, like a string of Christmas lights. She could leave Tom. She could be with someone else, or be alone! Any other option would be better than this!

“Okay, I learned. Now I do.”

“Do what? I hate how you always have full-blown conversations in your head and then expect me to read your mind when you bring me in to the tail end.”

“Now I know when enough is enough,” she explained. “And I just realized what I like best about you.”

Ever ready to hear a compliment, ever eager to reinforce his arrogant belief that he was great and everyone else was the problem, ever hungry to punch the much deeper belief that he wasn’t good enough in the face, Tom paused and put his next complaint on hold. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I love…,” Melissa began, “when you leave.”

“Because you miss me?” Tom asked with a charismatic smile. “Because you realize how much you love me and how great I am, and absence makes the heart grow fonder?” he prompted.

“The opposite, actually. Now please make yourself lovable and vamoos.”

“Ha ha,” Tom replied, unsure of what else to say. “Very funny.”

“I’m serious,” Melissa said, standing up from the table and waiting for him to do the same.

“What’s gotten into you?” Tom asked, lifting his fourth alligator taco to his mouth.

“Would you like more avocado on that?” Melissa asked.

“Yes, please!” he replied, putting it back on his plate and handing it to her.

Melissa took the plate, stepped into the kitchen, and dumped to the whole thing into the garbage can.

“Looks like we’re all out of avocados,” she said flatly, setting the plate back on the table. Tom looked down at the empty plate, then up at Melissa with a confused look plastered across his face.

“Go,” Melissa ordered, nodding her head toward the door impatiently.

“You’re crazy,” Tom said slowly, still trying to figure out what was going on.

“I certainly was!” Melissa agreed. “Whew! I’m glad I got over that!”

“Go!” Melissa ordered more loudly when Tom still hadn’t budged.

Tom stood slowly, the confused look lingering in his eyes, and took one furtive step toward the front door.

“Ew!” Melissa exclaimed, taking an abrupt step back when he leaned forward for a goodnight kiss.

“You’re weird,” he merely observed then.

“Okay.”

And then Tom stepped out the front door and out of her life and I’ll update this story with a better ending line when I think of one.

The post Love, Love, Love appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

A delivery truck turned the corner, then drove past his house, and it somehow reminded Logan that his father would come driving down the street in a few hours. He’d better get everything tidied up before dad got home if he wanted to avoid another scolding about being responsible.

The garage door stood open, with his latest woodworking project still cluttering the floor. That, too, would need to get put away, or perhaps he should finish the project. The design was simple, but elegant – half a dozen 2x4s hammered to a plywood sheet would soon become the perfect jump for his bike, unlike the boards lain across bricks that tended to topple the second his front tire hit it. That didn’t seem safe, and that, as his father had pointed out, was not responsible.

The thought of finishing the jump felt exciting, and suddenly a brand new idea popped into Logan’s brain – maybe he should become a carpenter! If the jump turned out good, he could mass produce them for other kids in the neighborhood, then other neighborhoods, then he could invent new projects, pay his way through college or trade school with the proceeds, which would mean he wouldn’t have to study quite so hard now, because he wouldn’t need to earn a scholarship! “Don’t worry,” he could tell his mother next time she asked whether he had finished his homework, “I’ve made my own scholarship.”

With school and career all worked out, his thoughts proceeded to the next tasks, which included raising a family, he supposed. What else was there? Step one: find someone to marry. Janet, who lived across the street, was pretty cute, and she would probably become even cuter as they grew older. Not that he would admit this to anyone. The topic of girls still made him feel a bit squeamish. Anyway, once he finished the jump, she would surely see him fly off it over and over, and probably feel impressed, whether she was ready to admit it or not. She would probably peek outside from behind the curtains just to watch his daredevil exploits. Maybe he would build an even bigger jump to jump over cars and stuff. How could she possibly not be impressed by that?

And then…then what? He guessed they’d have kids and take them on vacation to Disneyland. He’d teach them to be responsible, too, so everything would turn out right for the rest of their lives.

And then, he would retire. He would sit in his recliner and read the paper. He would take slow walks around the block and chat with neighbors about the good old days. He would complain about politics and prices, about his goiter (what’s a goiter?) and his aching back. He would tell and retell stories from his glory days – his youthful victories and heart-wrenching defeats. He would dwell most of all on his regrets, on wasted opportunities never to return, and wistfully wish he could do it all over again.

He would look back at this very afternoon, the day when his entire future began. He would look longingly at the sprinkler sitting peacefully in the middle of the lawn and wish he’d have turned it on, then run back and forth through the airborne water with abandon, setting responsibility aside for just a few minutes, or a few hours, and soaking in all of life’s beauty that he possibly could before it withered and vanished from before his eyes.

Logan stepped off the porch, turned on the water, kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head, then took an eager step onto the lawn, his skinny torso giving a small shudder as the first cold drops splashed against his bare chest.

Across the street, Janet pulled back the curtains just enough to peer out the window and watch.

The post Down the Road a Ways appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

“Use your words,” her mother often chided to help Jesse through frustration and impatience of childhood, and once she mastered those infinite combinations of letters, those endless compilations of phonemes, her childhood seemed to fall behind her, and everyone around her began to treat her, more or less, as an adult.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” she often replied to children who teased her about her advanced vocabulary, “but words will never hurt me.” She stopped saying that after one child picked up a small rock and hurled it at her, striking her in the neck and bruising her sternocleidomastoid.

Even her father, a school psychologist at the local junior high school (who secretly wished to be a motivational speaker, Jesse felt certain), reinforced her powerful conviction that words shape reality each time he reminded her that, “Your reality is nothing more than the story you tell yourself.”

The teachers she most admired further entrenched her faith in nouns, verbs and prepositions, showing real-life, world-changing applications throughout history, including the Civil Rights Movement and famous quips like “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

As her knowledge and understanding of the wider world expanded, so did her confidence and her willingness to step into new roles and try out new experiences. “What’s the worst that could happen?” she asked herself simply. “If anything goes awry, words will always be there to rescue me and set everything aright.”

During freshman year of college, in a creative writing course, Jesse met her soulmate, Jimmy. They were kindred spirits, sharing an equal fascination with all things lexical. Together, they attended plays, sat in the shade on campus and read, and argued about their favorite punctuation. Jesse loved the interrobang above all others, for obvious reasons, while Jimmy revered the pilcrow more than it deserved. Sure, it was cute, but utterly useless. Somehow, though, she found it in her heart to forgive his lack of practicality and taste.

Incrementally, inevitably, they fell irreversibly in love.

They married after spring semester, and by winter, a bouncing baby boy entered their home. The child was adorable, much of the time, but less so when he cried, when he filled his diapers with the most offensive-smelling goo several times each day, when he peed in the bath, which often hit her in the face, and when he laughed and laughed at that like it was the funniest thing he had ever seen in his entire, short life.

Jesse longed for her past when she had plenty of time to read, but now, even when the infant fell asleep, she felt too tired to crack open a book, and even when she did, she was too exhausted to sink into its plot like a warm bath, to absorb its comforting illusions, and to escape this unruly and unkind reality.

The evening after the toddler’s first birthday party, when a weary Jesse realized that she had only made it HALF WAY through diapers, and that the “terrible twos” would then begin by the time potty training stopped, that she might need to wait until the child turned five and spent half the day at school before she could hope to properly balance her life again, sank to her knees in despair and wept. How could everything have come to this?!

The desperate interrobang at the end of her question comforted her just enough to regain the slightest grip on her senses. On her inner strength. On her determination, and above all, on her savior – words! Words had never let her down before, and they would not desert her now in her hour of need! “Use my words!” she reminded herself, a desperate hope suddenly welling up inside.

Two words, that is. Two words that would fix everything! A sentence, sort of, despite the lack of predicate. An exclamation, actually, which she had learned from her creative writing professor the year before.

Jesse slowly rose from the floor. She stood, tentatively at first, then firm and determined. Yes, she would utter the words. She would make all the bad go away. She would set everything into its proper place.

She took half a dozen steps to the front door, opened it, then turned her face back toward the home’s interior and its two occupants, and shouted the words:

“Plot twist!”

With that, she stepped outside and strode away into the gathering dusk.

She didn’t know where she would go, or where her new plot would carry her, but she would work everything out in good time. She would revise as needed and create happy endings to each and every day. Reality was nothing more than the story she told herself, she told herself, and she would tell herself the best story she possibly could.

The post Plot Twist! appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

The series begins with Courage, Love and the Meaning of Christmas. Follow Spencer and friends as he searches for the meaning of life, strives to learn audacity and change the course of his life, follows his inner knowing, faces life-threatening emergencies, and rolls with plot twist after plot twist from chapter one all the way to the final sentence.

Order from Amazon at bit.ly/artheart1
Now also available in audiobook! at adbl.co/3oSUG4c

Book 2, The Perfect Gift, happens one year later a week or two before Christmas. A lot has changed since book 1, but not nearly as much as is about to! This year, it’s Spencer’s roommate Ski’s turn for a miracle, and boy does he ever need one! As the plot once again twists the characters around in circles, keeping readers guessing about exactly how everything will turn out, you’ll learn about following your heart, healing, hope, and more.

Order from Amzon at bit.ly/artheart2
and very soon to be available in audiobook!

Book 3, The Art of Heart, is the grand finale, and it truly is grand, in so many ways! A lot more is about to change before all loose ends finally get wrapped up satisfactorily – and then some! You will love the characters, the character arcs, and all the insights about living with heart, forgiveness, and taking another chance. Oh, plus more life-threatening disaster to spice things up.

Order from Amazon at bit.ly/artheart

The post The Art of Heart Christmas trilogy appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

I found this book years ago and LOVE it, and wanted to pass it along to all other aspiring writers.

It’s MORE than just a thesaurus of positive traits, it ALSO includes a REALLY INTERESTING forward section explaining character arcs to help design your whole plot. Very helpful. Very concise and readable.

Get yours from Amazon at bit.ly/ptraitthes

Even if you don’t want to buy the whole thing, download the free sample and get a lot of the value!

While you’re at it, also check out the Negative Trait Thesaurus: bit.ly/ntraitthes

And the Emotion Thesaurus: bit.ly/emotiont

Okay, fine, you don’t want to read a post on UtahFF.com without a short story. Here’s a super-super-super-quick one for you:

Once upon a time, a hard-working, diligent, industrious, tireless, indefatigable, unrelenting writer ordered The Positive Trait Thesaurus, which saved her so much time and energy that she also took up water skiing, basket weaving, and even earned a degree in Russian.

The End.

Yeah, I know, that was the worst short story ever. Aren’t ya glad it was so short?!

The post Awesome writer’s thesauri appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

Okay, so they’re not entirely fiction. They’re MOSTLY not fiction. But I did expand on the backstories of our patients, details I couldn’t possibly know, in order to set the scene and make the stories seem all the more real. So I don’t feel bad about advertising them on this site :).

Get your copy from Amazon at bit.ly/rescuestories , and here’s a chapter for your enjoyment while you wait for your book to arrive:

Chapter 48: The Body

I was working from home when the pager went off at 11:30 on a Thursday morning in April. 02-02-69 – code for River-Provo-Missing Person. I changed quickly and jumped in the car.

A motorized wheelchair had been found tipped over near the river’s edge. We didn’t know if someone had fallen – either accidentally or intentionally – into the river. While Provo PD and Tom followed up on clues and leads, we began a thorough search of the river.

Lookouts were stationed on bridges to peer through the turbid water. Fishermen lining the shore were told about the search and asked to let us know if they saw anything. One of them had just been rescued from Utah Lake the weekend before and voiced his strong support for our efforts.

My team started at the lake and searched the shoreline for a body caught up in branches. Once we finished our area, we jumped into the river and floated down in case a different view would reveal something we missed.

The Provo ran as high and fast as I had ever seen it. A long, wet winter piled some stations above the Provo River drainage with over 150% of normal precipitation and climbing. Water managers emptied mountain dams as quickly as possible to make room for the anticipated spring run off.

Boats and watercraft passed us as they made their way up river on their search.

After completing our assignment and checking the jetty protruding a hundred yards into the lake, Darin drove us a mile up river and had just dropped us off for another floating search when a request came over the radio.

“We need more people in dry suits up here,” Tom said. “We may have something.”

Our ride turned around and we climbed back into the pickup for a quick lift up the river trail. We grabbed ropes, webbing and ‘biners from deputies to build a rope system across the river if needed.

The current upstream ran much faster than what we had searched near the river mouth. The lake began to dam up the river there and it ran deeper and slower. Here, it swept by dramatically, and floating down it would very likely wrap anything or anyone around a strainer – a log or stick in the current – that would prove next to impossible to escape.

Lucky for us, the white object – about the size of a t-shirt – that glowed eerily two or three feet below the water’s cloudy surface had caught against a log that divided the swift current from a shallow eddy. Four of us waded carefully to the protected side of the log and peered down.

“What do you think?” asked Swiftwater Sergeant David Lynton.

“It feels like a body,” assured Chris, one of the two team members who had already investigated, poking the body with a stick like an avalanche probe. Curiosity then got the best of him and he leaned over the log and down into the water. His eyes widened and he exclaimed, “I think I’ve got a hand!”

With a grip on the body, Chris didn’t want to let go and risk losing it. At the same time, we knew better than to simply pull. We stood no chance of winning a tug of war with the river once the body was dislodged from whatever hung it up. The river would rip it from our grip and we’d have to begin the search all over again.

Having already searched for three hours, there was no urgency to extract the body. This would not be a rescue but a recovery, and caution and safety was the name of the game.

Someone on shore tossed us the end of a throw bag rope and David reached down to attach it to the body. As soon as he bent into the river, however, the water pressure against his arms threatened to knock him over.

“Hurry,” Chris admonished, “my hand’s going numb.”

“Steady me,” David requested. “The current keeps shoving me too close to Chris’ whining.”

We grabbed onto his PFD and held him in place while he wrapped the rope several times around the body – what must have been the wrist – to hold it fast. At last we were ready to pull it free. Even if the current caught it now, we had fifteen feet to pull it into the eddy before the current swept around the next set of strainers.

Chris and David tugged on the rope and up came not a body, but half a body.

By the look of it, it had spent several months in the river. Its skin was bleached white, and large eyeballs protruded from their sockets.

Also, it was a goat.

The hand Chris thought he felt turned out to be the roof of its mouth. We joked about notifying next of kin and dragged it from the river.

We soon got word that the wheelchair’s serial number had led to the owner, who informed us that it was stolen the previous weekend. The thief had probably gotten tired of it (or the batteries wore down) and abandoned it near the river. The entire search had been a wild goat chase.

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