The front of the temple was plastered with holy icons and images from people whose prayers had been answered. Discarded crutches, little baby layette outfits, money that had been laminated flat and affixed. He regarded it cynically. Might as well have a big sign out front saying, "Prayers answered--sometimes." He knew well that more than half the time, the prayers would not be answered. It didn’t seem to make a difference how worthy the prayer or the pray-er was, the god chose randomly who to answer and who not to. He'd even gone through and found a comparison report that put together the offerings by the people making the requests and the success of the outcome. Happily, there was a slight negative correlation. A big donation would not be necessary. Neither would a pure heart, or good intentions. This was good, since he had neither of them and at the moment, no money either. Steps had been put into play that might fix that, and praying to the god of maybe was one of those steps. If his prayer was answered, it would make things that much simpler, and although he did not believe in the god, not in the sense of worshiping it or even necessarily believing that it was what other people would call a real "god", it would be foolish not to hedge his bets. Hedging his bets, of course, was what got him into this mess in the first place, you might say.


Inspiration: Had a dream about L. Newman and I attending some odd meeting thing called Cooking Without God, which was half philosophy and half cooking and entirely boring...but while I was there I had an idea for a story where the premise is that one person gets a prayer answered, which affects a second person negatively, but the second person's prayer is not answered. So this was a story idea within a dream.
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Eh. Kinda trite, actually, as many dream ideas end up being.

Earth angel, they call her. She's not of heaven, and so she is allowed to descend to hell. She's not human, and so she cannot be trapped there. She is immortal, and so they cannot kill her. At least not permanently. Sometimes they try, they tear her apart in anger and sorrow at what she reminds them of. Some say that's why the devil allows her entry. She brings with her the whisper of the grace of God, the reminder of all that the damned do not see. Beauty, love--all these things flow from God, and true hell is their absence. She brings back the memories, she hints at the good. She is beautiful. She smiles in a way that might almost be love--.

Inspiration: Earth Angel by Karin.
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: Eh.

They gathered in the ruin of the old temple, pulling along folding seats and card tables, carting coolers of food and beverages, hauling blankets and wind-up radios. They didn't know why. They didn't know how it would help. But they believed that choice they'd heard in their heads, the quiet one that just said, "Go to the old holy sites and you will be spared." They'd seen the news reports of the horrible things happening in other parts of the world. Maybe they'd even seen the map predicting where it would all spread. They weren't going to pretend that if they did nothing, they'd be safe. So they'd grabbed their kids and their pets, those essentials that they could actually haul up the narrow winding path to the old stone ruin, and they'd--

Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fellow-traveller/2631755730/
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Mostly I like the old/new juxtaposition, and it's a slightly different take on the whole "holy ground is safe" notion.

"All I want is the truth," he whispered as he brought the rifle stock up to rest against his shoulder. He prayed that he was about to shoot an innocent man. If he fired his shot, and the Pope died, then all was well with the world. He himself, of course, would burn in hell--he could not ask forgiveness for this act, because he knew that he would not truly repent and therefore true forgiveness could not be granted him. If he shot the Pope and the Pope survived, he would know another answer, and it was one that shook him down to his core, the answer that made him wake up bolt upright in the middle of the night, breathing hard and with his sheets soaked with sweat. If he shot the Pope and the Pope survived, the president was next on his list. The president would be even more closely guarded--too many--


Inspiration: "Gimme Some Truth" - Generation X, and my survival day calendar describing how Pope John Paul II was shot in 1981.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Yeah, I think it is high potential, but this sort of conspiracy-theory, anti-establishment, paranoid thing is a style that I usually avoid writing. We'll see.

He found that he would lead his people in a dream. It came as a surprise to him; he'd always expected to follow his uncle's trade in the smithy. He certainly hadn't expected to be spoken to by gods and to teach the people the best way to live through the changes that were coming. At first, he didn't believe the nightmare of fire and war that had raged across his sleeping mind, though it was more vivid than any dream he'd ever had before and when he woke, he could recall every single detail, down to the bloodshot eye of the horse that had reared in front of his dreaming self and then been speared through the chest. It was not a dream that he wanted to come true, though there had been a few hints that he himself could do rather well from--

Inspiration: The name of the Baha'i leader, though this is not actually about the Baha'i.
Story Potential: Medium-high.
Notes: In and of itself, this whole "religious leader" thing is not unusual enough to be a good hook. Great building block for a wider story, though.