Contradictions Are Compelling

Us human beings are pretty rational folk. We like things that make sense and the things that don't make sense bother us. Us writers, we thrive on stuff that doesn't make sense.

Contradictions are compelling. For one thing, they exist in real life, so we know they can be possible. For another, they make no sense at a glance, which makes us want to know how it can be possible.

For example, I had the idea of a vegetarian butcher. This is a person who is a butcher, and a fantastic one at that. She can cut the best slice of meat you'll ever find, but she refuses to eat any herself. On its face, a total contradiction. Why would somebody be a vegetarian, but work as a butcher?

There are a ton of possibilities. Maybe she is a vegetarian for health reasons, avoiding meat because of risks for salmonella and mad cow disease. But if that was true, why would she be ok with selling it to others? Maybe instead, she is a vegetarian for religious reasons, but somehow her religion only forbids consuming animals, but not butchering them. Maybe, she is a butcher because she is the best damned butcher around and she makes a good living doing so, even though it sickens her and twists her stomach every day she goes in.

Whatever the reasoning ends up being, the presentation of a vegetarian butcher is something so strange that a morbid curiosity will have people want to find out how and why.

Try coming up with your own rationale for a vegetarian butcher. If not, come up with your own contradiction. Then write a page showing this person's life, the contradiction they have to deal with, and how it is that they deal with it.