Nobody likes trees anymore. We still remember that they're necessary to clean the air and provide wood and food and shelter and all that, but nobody likes living near the trees and nobody likes going in the trees. Same thing goes for cities with skyscrapers or other tall buildings that block out the lights and leave only shadows. I think we've reverted back to the Medieval Age, when women and children were warned to stay away from the edge of the forest and where the men treaded cautiously, where half the stories around the campfire were of the bad things that could happen to people who wandered into the forest when they shouldn't. And of course, nobody would go into the woods at dawn or dusk or nighttime. Nobody goes anywhere at nighttime. We huddle inside our safe, warm, bright houses, with all the curtains pulled. Less because we don't want them to see us--what good would that do--than because we don't want to glance out on our yard and see a dark shadow scudding across it, only to look up and see a bright moonlit sky with not a cloud in sight. In addition to snow days, we now have cloud days. The weather forecast predicts how dense the shade will be, and whether it will be safe to go out and see. They're a lot more careful with their predictions these days, too, ever since that poor man in Boston walked into the studio and shot the weatherman he blamed for getting his family snatched.


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/josepha46/9369874988/
Story potential: Medium
Notes: I like the idea of this kind of adaptation, but it's more of a setting than a story idea--the whole story would need to be something else.

They did the deadwork, and sometimes he thought he really was dead. The dwarves did all the important mining work; they said that others couldn't be trusted with it--they might steal or ruin a vein or, worst of all, pass right by a motherlode and not feel it calling to them on the other side of a foot of clay. The dwarves trusted only themselves with the mining, but they needed others for the unimportant grunt work. They didn't consider it slavery. They thought it was a high honor to allow another being so close to the mines. They spoke pityingly of those who could never actually mine, giving this as a consolation prize. Did not the deadworkers get to handle the gold and gems? Did they not get to go into the dark tunnels to be reborn when they returned--

Inspiration: "deadwork" - all the mining-related work that isn't actually mining.
Story Potential: High? Maybe?
Notes: I like the idea that of course the dwarves wouldn't let others handle the mining. And there'd be a whole culture about it that would just--grind down on others.