As
part of my participation in My
500 words, I am posting what I write each day.
I rarely rely on dreams to
inspire me for stories to write, at least not my own. I have created a few
stories from Prajna’s dreams, hers are awesome and she tells them in a way that
inspires me. But earlier this year I woke up with an idea. It actually may not
have been a dream. Rather, the idea was with me like a leg cramp first thing in
the morning. But I was finally prepared and I wrote down what I had. It went
something like this:
Two figures are struggling
to make their way up a mountain during a ferocious blizzard. One of them
finally stops, unable to go on any further. The second one tries to stay, but
is implored to go on, and finally he does. After more perilous traveling, he
finally arrives at his destination. It’s really there. He goes to the door of
the mountain fortress and someone comes out to him. They try to bring him in,
but he refuses. Instead, he hands over what he has, and they take the child
from him. Further urging to come in to the fortress, get warm, rest, are
ignored. He must go back for who he left. He turns and disappears back into the
storm and is never seen again.
After I wrote that down, I
was intrigued and grateful. Here was the start of a story. Here, perhaps could
be my next November novel. So I did what I usually do, I went to work. I mean I
literally went to work. My job is custodial and maintenance. I work alone most
of the time setting and breaking down rooms and cleaning buildings. I listen to
music, podcasts and audiobooks all the time while working and I turn ideas over
in my head. I thought about the idea I had written down. Who the people were
didn’t seem as important as where they arrived. What was it?
I don’t know where I came up
with the idea for holograms. I don’t usually like technology playing a big role
in my stories. I think I actually had the idea of this child, a little girl,
being dropped off at a fortress that had once been populated with people. Whenever
someone died, and left their personality programmed in the databanks of a great
computer. Eventually everyone died. There was nothing there but holograms. And this
is where the child was dropped off.
I don’t know the order that things happened
after that. But I was speculating about what would happen if people had the
technology to build a prison that had no guards, only holograms. Holograms
couldn’t be overpowered or bribed. It would be a humane alternative to solitary
confinement. What if the powers that be remembered a fortress populated by what
they thought were only holograms, and they decided to turn it into a prison for
enemies of the state?
The ideas started to bounce around in my head
like moths on a porch light. But there was still a lot of thinking and planning
to do, much of it I haven’t done yet.
Then, last night, another idea came to me.
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