He fumbled his confidence right before the big interview, dropping it down the gutter outside the office building. Horrified, he watched the little pill capsule on its fob chain roll down the drain and disappear into the gutter below. "Should have gotten it on a chain around my neck like everyone else, should have--" his mind repeated the numb refrain as he watched a thousand dollars worth of medication and his best chance of succeeding at the interview vanish. He'd heard rumors that Harpsichord was not a company where people who needed meds to get by were very welcome, though, and so he'd gone with the subtler pocket fob instead of the chain around the neck that was the first thing everyone looked for.

As an odd side effect, he'd found women smiling and responding to--


Inspiration: "Meant to Live" - Switchfoot
Story Potential: Medium
Notes: Some weird hybrid of sympathetic magic and "our over-medicated society," plus whatever it is he's going to find when he goes into the sewers, and--I dunno. This is kind of a mishmash of a story start. There are things that could go somewhere if they were untangled, but I'm not sure it's worth it. Or maybe it ends up giving him supreme confidence whenever he's in sewers, like a bizarre hero origin story?

He passed his hand over the cup after the customer had had one drink. The alcohol hit his system in a rush, and he swayed a bit on his feet. He put his hand over the glass of water he kept on the counter, and sent it back out. He didn't know what "it" was, just that he could pull a reverse Jesus trick. Well, and the other way around, too, but in his job it was a lot more useful being able to cut people off without them getting aggravated. His boss didn't know the details, but the man had figured out that when Jesse was behind the bar, the fight rate went way down--and without the unpleasantness of having to get the bouncer to remove unruly clients.

Inspiration: CNN headline, "Bartender Turns Wine to Water" (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/heroes.doc.hendley/index.html)
Potential: Medium. It's not a story on its own, but it is an interesting character idea. One of those "it's a small superpower, but it has its uses" ideas.
Notes: Could go either way with the religious mirroring.

She was starving. That was her excuse. That was what she told everyone, when they wondered how she could possibly have done it. Sometimes she even found herself believing it, she'd said it so often, with such conviction, from her trial onward. It was a lie, of course. She'd been very, very hungry, yes--but not starving. She would have survived long enough to be rescued even if she hadn't eaten S-tha. She'd even expected that rescue would arrive in time. Really, she'd just been curious how S-tha would taste. She hadn't liked S-tha particularly much, but she never would have hurt it. It had died in the accident that trapped her, though, and the first thought that had flickered through her mind when she'd seen the big, feathery aliens was how they'd taste.

Inspiration: Somebody saying they were starving.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: And...some sort of alien rapport/abilities/symbiosis is gained from the eating, but there's all kinds of complications, too. The center lie is what holds it all together. So--unravel it and what kind of story is there?