I'd like to pretend that my story and poem ideas arise from ecstatic moments of divine afflatus, but for me inspiration usually isn't that glorious--premises/scenes/images often come to mind in the midst of carrying out mundane tasks. And sometimes, the Muse is nothing more than a sadist. Case in point: the story behind my piece of flash fiction, "Beside Himself," which debuts today over at 52 Stitches. I had just arrived at ShopRite to do some afternoon food shopping (talk about mundane); while getting out of my car, I noticed an old woman in an adjacent spot loading her groceries and preparing to leave. She pushed her carriage over towards the gap between the parked cars, and I looked over to make sure she wasn't going to hit my fender. That's when I somehow managed to slam my driver's side door on my right index finger. Yelping and cursing my own stupidity, I extracted my trapped digit, the tip of which had instantly empurpled. The throbbing pain and conspicuous bruising caused me to fixate on the finger, and by the end of that day, the idea for "Beside Himself" had formed.
Curious about what that idea was? Just use your (presumably healthy) right index finger to click on over to 52 Stitches. Also, if you'd like to check out another recently published work of flash fiction, you can find my piece "Flash Flood" (which was inspired by disaster footage glimpsed on the evening news) in the third issue of Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.
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