I was returning from my alibi, feeling rather smug and a bit nervous at the same time, when some kid darted up from behind me, bumped into my hip, and bolted off down the alley in front of me. My hand went reflexively to my pocket. I felt the familiar bump of my wallet--but there was something else there, too. Something long and heavy that didn't really fit in my coat. It was an oddly familiar feeling. I pulled out the foreign item and gaped at it. It was my knife, my bloodstained knife. Except it wasn't my knife. My knife (now safely sunk to the bottom of the river) had a little notch high up on the handle, where my uncle had tossed it too hard against the tools in his workroom. This one didn't. But the handle type, the blade, everything was the same. And it was covered in blood, and now, so were my hands. And my coat. I'd be conspicuous without a coat in the cool November air, but better that than a coat covered in who-knows-whose blood (although I began to have a suspicion). I shoved the knife back in my pocket and put my hand over it to hold it there as best I could, and I ran after the kid. It had taken me too long. By the time I entered the alleyway, he was long gone, leaving no sign as to which way he'd gone. Probably for the best. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have hurt a kid, even one trying to set me up, but I had a knife in my pocket and anger was heating up the back of my neck and blurring my vision. I'd had a good plan, damn it. I'd been in the clear. Now I most definitely wasn't, and there was probably more that I didn't even anticipate. Then I saw the folded note laying in the center of the alley.


Inspiration: Evan's post: "Please never use 'framed for a crime (pronoun) didn't commit.' That's what being framed is. 'Framed for a murder...' works; it adds information." Plus a Writer's Digest prompt about a kid disappearing in an alley and leaving a note behind.
Story potential: High.
Notes: Could be fun. Could also play it as straight mystery or toss in some spec-fic elements.

If you've found this, I just want to tell you that this isn't what you think it is. It isn't a private confessional, or a recording of triumphs, some weird brag book. It isn't a collection of memories, either. No. This is a plan for you to act on, going forward. And if you're reading this, it means that I'm dead. So hopefully, you will see where I screwed up (when you know why I died), and use that to improve the plan. Keep a copy for our younger siblings, too, with notes on where you may have messed up and where you think I did. That's what I did with our older brother's notbook, except I think he messed everything up so badly that in the end I hid it so you wouldn't be influenced by it. I lived longer than he did, out there. But I guess if you're reading this, maybe I didn't do so much better after all.


Inspiration: Thinking of notes and lists and such.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: This could be a really neat framework for a story.

It was drinking the juice of the jub-jub tree that did him in, he would confide years later to anyone who would listen--and by that point, of course, it was everyone. It hadn't been like that way back when. Nobody had listened to him, not ever. After all, he was only a scrawny kid. What did he know? He was too dumb to tie down a proper line, too small to lift a decent weighter, and too agreeable to use as a scapegoat when things went wrong. He wasn't even cute enough to be a mascot. He was just the kid you were always tripping over when you were trying to do something else. That all changed the night that he drank the fruit of the jub-jub tree, though of course he wouldn't--

Inspiration: Mmm, juice. I'm really quite fond of it.
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Eh. Mildly intriguing, but it would all depend on how it went from here. Like all other story ideas, then.

Sorry is where the story ends, or so I always heard growing up. You say you're sorry, and they forgive you, and the haunting unease that has made it difficult to sleep, that rears its head and comes back to bother you in any still moment, is banished. I didn't know what to expect when I found her and said, "I'm sorry." I knew that I had committed a great crime against her people, and a sin against her personally. I think I more than half expected her to pull out that big shotgun she kept under the bar and kill me right then and there. I would have deserved it; there's no doubt of that. Instead, she looked at me long and hard, with all the pain that I'd known I'd see in her eyes. Sorry wasn't the end of this story. She didn't forgive me, and she didn't kill me. She sat down and told me a story, instead.

Inspiration: "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" - Ray Charles
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Interesting. It's one of those repentance and redemption stories. Those are interesting. I like it. Not much meat on this idea, more just that bit, but yeah, I like it.

The twist of her hips told a story of long-forgotten passion bent to a deadly whim--there were the faint echoes of romance of all the beauty that the game of courtly love may have offered. But on top of it were layered hard levels of pain and old scars, not figurative, but literal. She had turned from the game of courtly love to the game of common war, and she had proved most excellent at it. He sighed, watching her twist to the side to dodge a sword thrust that would have spitted her like a game hen. If only she had stayed with the game of courtly love, amusing herself in dreams of dalliance never to be fulfilled, like most of the court ladies. She could--

Inspiration: Rasputina singing, making me think about songs and dance, but quick wanting to not do another fragment based in music...so, since I'd just gotten back from Tae Soo Do class....
Story Potential: High for the way the character's expressed, medium for the setting behind it, and low for everything else.
Notes: I *should* write a story including some exploration of the culture of courtly love. It's such an odd bit in society, and I do find the way it was expressed to be interesting.

The unreason plague has spread beyond the boundaries of our watch, he thought, chilled to the bone, when he saw his lead commander suddenly drop his rifle and begin spinning in place, his arms upstretched to the night sky and a ragged howl tearing its way from his throat. We have failed. He ran forward and lowered his rifle to kill his lead commander. He would have done it, too, though he had known the man for three years and knew his family, if he hadn't heard the commander moaning words. "Why, why, why?" the commander demanded. "She was the age of my daughter--"

Inspiration: 'unreason'
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Nifty. I like the idea of an unreason plague. Could be zombies in disguise, could be something entirely else, but it is a nice setting for a world in collapse, holding actions, etc. Would need more by way of actual plot, of course, but could go either sci-fi or fantasy. Or horror.

I live for drugs. Quite literally, I live on drugs. Without drugs, there would be no me. Without drugs, I would not even freaking exist. I should be more specific, I suppose. You are probably thinking of me as a junkie of some sort, the kind who insists that he can't even live without the drugs, that rehab isn't a possibility, that he would kill himself if he couldn't get his fix. That's not what I'm talking about. I live on drugs. One drug. They take this lovely drug, and I seep in to live in their minds for a little time. I don't know what would happen to me if ever nobody were taking my drug. I don't know if I would still exist. I think I would die.

Inspiration: "A Daisy Chain 4 Satan" by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Although I have the niggling fear that Alan Moore already wrote this...this could be really cool. States of consciousness, drugs, sentient states of consciousness, the collective unconsciousness, drug czars, many of the same concerns as are spawned by AI.

A sax wailed in the alley like a lost tomcat crying for his one-night mate. As she was about to walk on by on the sidewalk outside, Latisha paused, listening. She'd heard only one man ever make the instrument sound like that. He'd been dead for twenty years, but against her will, her lips softened into a reminiscent smile and her shoulders rounded. She didn't notice that her body had turned towards the alley. She didn't notice that she took a step inside. She was remembering Steven, a young musician that she'd dated in college. She was remembering the way he played his instrument, and the way he'd played her nerves like an instrument.


Inspiration: "What the Blues is All About" by Albert King
Story Potential: High.
Finished Length: Short story.
Notes: This could be horror, but not purely. It could be a fairytale, but not innocent. Dark Fantasy, maybe? Something tasty and supernatural. Oh, and yes, something bad happens to Latisha. Permanently bad. She isn't the protagonist. And others hear different things.

Lukewarm, frothy beer was one of the worst things in the world, Sam figured, but it was better than facing ruby's glare just then so he tilted the bottle up to his lips, closed his eyes, and took a long swallow. He'd hoped that he'd have an answer to her question when he was done with the swallow, but his mind was still blank, though his stomach now grumbled at the quality of the froth he'd just fed it. "Well, now, Ruby," he said, "I don't reckon as it's quite as bad as you figure. I mean, sure, that suit did say that we couldn't do no more fishin' down in the Hole, but most people come here for you burgers anyhow. That fish was just kinda a bonus, so to speak. Don't fret about it none. You've got plenty else that's good on the menu." She huffed, put her hands on her hips, and inhaled, showing some of the other mighty fine assets that were on the menu for her select clientele. "Ya don't understand what I'm sayin', Sam," she told him. "It ain't just that I can't go fishin' there no more. The suit wanted a list--a list, mind ya--of all the people who'd eaten the gol-durn fish for the last three months." Sam frowned. "Ruby, that's damn near the whole town."


Inspiration: An empty beer bottle.
Story Potential: Medium-high. I wanna say high, but there's nothing unique enough about this on its own to make it really stand out, though I do have a decent idea of the characters already.
Finished Length: Short story.
Notes: Well, that fish did something mighty interesting to everybody who ate it. This is not a superfund site story. Question is, what?