Story Ideas

Two people meet in a very old and stone part of the library, and find it impossible to talk to each other, plus also you are supposed to be quiet in libraries after all. So they find passages in books, and mark them for each other with bright day glo post-its, so that they can spot them while going through the stacks. And once you did finally talk to them, would it be disappointing, after all that time expressing yourself through masters? Or would each simplistic little cliched sentence sound like a diamond being hit, just because it was out loud? Would the very sound of their voice be enough to make you shake a little?

What if every person you slept with infected you with their attitude about life? So like, you sleep with the angry confrontational drunk guy, you become angry and confrontational. You sleep with the lonely emotionally addicted completely passive boy, and you become unable to go anywhere by yourself. What if you knew this, and slept with different boys to prepare you for doing different things in your life? Like, you have a big test or evaluation coming up, so you sleep with the very focused and practical career professional. Or you know you have to comfort and be there for a friend, so you sleep with the supportive and eager to please divorcee.

What if there was absolutely no way to vaccinate yourself against this? How differently you would choose.

The states become countries, and require passports. This completely redefines illegal aliens, and each state becomes selective in unusual ways, only allowing the type of person they want to settle there. As a side effect, an entire segment of the population becomes unwanted, welcome no where. They live like gypsies, hiding from state troopers in rural hills, or living in communal houses hidden among the poorest neighborhoods. They are known as tricksters and hustlers and thieves, but their ranks grow every year as high school kids dream of avoiding cubicles and piercing their tongue. Eventually the government gives them New Mexico, after the entire original population dies of rampant albinoism caused by an unknown fungus.

The eclipse of the full moon happens, at 2pm in the afternoon on a Wednesday, and every single woman on earth feels it happen, feels the moon literally pulling every emotion out of their chest that could possibly exist (and in a woman, this is ten million plus forever the amount of hairs on their arm or colors in their irises). For 2 hours, every female member of the human race exists in a state of panic, and stress, and like the proverbial little ripples of society's pond, the evolution of the race is irrevocably altered. Just like it's been altered every time there is an eclipse. And this wave of feminine unrest, this global chemical change, is the reason behind the moon myths of apocalypse and evil and doom.

And what if comets are the male equivalent of this?

A man is neither Irish or Polish or German or Thai or Ecuadorean. He is unknown. He plays a game where people try to guess where he's from, and from their guesses he learns how to find out what religion they were raised, if they are liberal or conservative, if they make good money, if they are slutty, if they are lonely, and what ethnicity they are themselves. He then sells this information to the state police, who use him as a spy to track down illegal aliens and round them up for the state work farms. One day he falls in love, and runs away with the girl. She is also unknown. Nobody can ever remember who they are, or what exactly they look like. They live on the lamb for years.

They have a child who is the most unique looking child in the world, and are forced to go even further into hiding.


A small boy performs science experiments by himself in the yard. He uses a car battery to turn the swarm of midges on the side of the garage into an angel, which curls up and disintegrates as soon as the current runs out. He spends a week teaching a cat to sing Red River Valley. He breaks a glass, and uses the broken pieces to build a robot, which he then animates unwittingly with blood from his cut fingertip.