The cry in the night, the sad sound that makes you think a woman or a child is weeping in the snow--that might be your fortune or it might be your death. There's a reason they say that the people who bond with a snowkiller are crazy, and that's it, right there. Sure, you bond with one, your future's assured. But you can only bond with one that's looking for a bond, or maybe--possibly--a young cub that has lost its parents. I don't advise that you try hunting a snowkiller parent in hopes of bonding with its cub. We make sure the stories of what happen to those people when they succeed are spread around the port and anywhere else that dumbass tourists with dreams of the bond go. We want to protect our snowkillers, after all. They are invaluable to us. And it's not like they kill anybody who knows better. Thing is, there may be some difference in the sound between their lure-prey and their lure-bond call, but we can't hear it. Me, I'm not convinced there is. I think sometimes they just like the taste of their prey enough to bond instead of eat. Or maybe it's how their prey responds to them and the nearness of death. That's another good explanation of why they're all crazy. And they tend to choose the fittest physically and mentally (that certain specific craziness aside). Darwin would have loved them. Biologists do call them evolution's claws. So when I heard the snowkiller cry outside in the middle of the blizzard, I stayed snug inside the ranger cabin, even if it did sound like a little girl screaming. There were no groups out, no missing travelers, no missing kids. Maybe you have to be a bit crazy to be a ranger, too, because if there had been, I would have gone out in that snowstorm even knowing that it was likely a snowkiller. But there weren't, and I didn't. You could have knocked me over with a 2-by-4 when the door to the ranger cabin swung open and I saw a little bit of a girl standing there, with the snow swirling around her. "Honey," I said, jumping to my feet and sweeping the blanket off the couch, "come in here!" Then the huge shadow moved behind her.


Inspiration: The baby fussing a bit in his crib.
Story Potential: High, because the story appeared to want to write itself.
Notes: This doesn't have any standout unique bits, but it evidently has enough pull to keep me writing significantly past my usual 2-minute cutoff.

I think the spread of telepathy was a kind of Darwinism. When people are being taken away and locked up because their every word is monitored, their every expression, their every internet search, their every telephone call, their every menu choice on their television--well, what's left are the really boring people (who wants to have children with them?), the really stupid people who just sit on the couch and watch sitcoms (Flee, gametes!), and the really smart people who know not to say or do certain things but who still have something going on upstairs (but how do you tell who they are?). The smart people had to evolve certain ways of communicating their reproductive superiority, through very slight intonations, tiny shifts in body language, meaningful eye contact, and a kind of prescience that depends on the ability to read the other person.


Inspiration: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/19/swedish-telcoms-giant-teliason.html
Story Potential: Medium?
Notes: I like this idea a lot but I'm not sure what kind of story it would make.

She tensed when she heard voices coming down the trail. He laughed. "What, you think they're coming here looking for you? You've been missing two months. Everybody's given up on finding you until Spring thaw. No, this is a school group that comes down every winter to study hibernation patterns. Buncha college kids. You--" he patted her thigh familiarly, "you aren't going anywhere. They'll find you when the snow thaws. What's left. In the meantime, you make good company and help keep cabin fever at bay." She slumped--


Inspiration: Voices in my head.
Story Potential: High? Medium-high?
Notes: I think it's my weakness for serial killers that's making me give this a higher ranking. And then...one of the students has some sort of psychic ability, precog, sensitive, or telepath. And how does that change the dynamic, and what are his limitations? Could be fun. Especially if it's all from the viewpoint of the girl in the box, so to speak. Or if it's her taking cues that might all be in her mind, leading to actions that let her escape. That could be fun.

She apologized first, because he was the first guy who'd been interested in a really long time and she was out-of-practice but eager but afraid she'd mess it up but--. She inhaled. she'd done it with dozens of guys before, yes, and girls too, but that was when she was young and strong and believed she was invincible. It only took one really bad experience to set her straight about that. So she made sure he understood, and he said he did and no, he didn't want anyone else, just her, so she strapped him into the little chair and adjusted the crown for him and then lay back on her own cot, which used to be for clients but had become just for sleeping for the last--

Inspiration: Oh, a dream I had.
Story Potential: Low. Not too original, kinda 60s.
Notes: And no, this isn't about sex. It's some kind of mental sharing thing. I guess the question here is why her in specific?

She played with their marbles, ratcheting them up in little lines and then shooting them off to bounce around edges and off each other straight to insanity. It was a fun game. She was pretty upset when her mother noticed and confiscated all their marbles and gave them back, but that was what mom's did, she guessed: they spoiled the fun. Then there were endless long lectures about why playing with other people's marbles was bad and would she like it if somebody played with her marbles? She said that nobody could, and her dad muttered, "I wouldn't be so sure about that," with a really uneasy look on his face that made her pay a little bit more attention and be a little bit more worried, but her mom just scowled at him and made him be quiet. That was the last time she was ever lectured by her parents, but she really wished--

Inspiration: A marble mixed in with pebbles in the bottom of the vase of origami flowers I keep on my desk.
Story Potential: High, actually.
Notes: And why does she never get lectured again? Oh, that's because her parents commit murder-suicide later that week, and she's sent into the foster-care system with the really uneasy feeling that somebody messed with her parents' marbles.

The seeds were scattered beneath the sacred plant as he approached. He knelt, touched his forehead in reverence, and removed the soft cloth from around his waist. "This is no desecration, no crass commercial act," he murmured quietly as he scooped up the seeds. He hoped that the sacred plant would read his intentions--he was projecting his sincerity and desire to help with all his strength. "This is merely the first step to preserving your great legacy. The winters warm, and the summers burn. The water goes, and the human tenders abandon their posts because oit quickly becomes intolerable. Your smaller offspring are already dying, beyond hope, beyond even spreading their seeds to provide--"

Inspiration: A little tissue paper holding seeds from a plant at Job #2
Story Potential: High
Notes: A planet dying, a holy plant interdicted from export, a devoted follower of the true faith--mayhem ensues. More of a novel than a short story, I think, but it could be good--maybe something along the lines of the relationship held in the Lee & Miller Korval books.