Pillow talk

[captainsblog]

Eleanor got us some new pillows, doubtless from a back-to-school sale at the store. I don't give mine up easily, because it takes months for my big-ass head to squish them sufficiently down to get them really old-shoe comfortable. Whether from the slight elevation of the brain or divine inspiration, I awoke to a fully-formed piece of fic in my head, and unlike most of my weird-dream ideas that die within seconds of my feet hitting the floor, I kept this one in mind, enough to write down at least this much of it.



Picture a divine Hand holding an hourglass. The granules in it are ours, or rather, they are us- the people, the institutions, the memories that make us who and where we are. When the last of those grains flows from top to bottom, the Hand does what one does to an hourglass, and flips it over. Not to a parallel universe, but an alternate one. Alternating, from one to the other, day in, day out. Every day is completely different than the day before, but entirely consistent with the day before that. You're no more aware of it than you are of the earth rotating on its axis or revolving around the sun.

That is, unless against the most mind-boggling of odds, you are the last of those granules.  It's amazing luck enough for that last granule to even be a "you"- it could just as easily be a cat, or a tree, or a DNA-strand helping to encode our collective memory. But if it IS you, in that blinding second of transition, you see both sides, and you understand. For the last six years since that cataclysm nobody remembers, you haven't lived one life, but two- and so has everybody else.

Two weeks ago, I was the last grain to fall- and it all made sense. I know there are others who have experienced this, but I have no idea who they are, and they, if moved to tell this story, would be branded as "crazy" just as I would. We need to find each other, figure out what happened, and set it right.



Thoughts?  Here are some of mine:

Wow. I could make something out of this. But what? Drabble, short fic, whole novel?

Very Life on Mars, Ray. You've been spending way too much time in 1973.

When is M. Night Shyamalan gonna call to option it so he can cast it with totally inappropriate actors?

Dear God, did I just write slush?

That's enough thinking from me for one morning. I'd love to hear some from you, though.

Comments

[nentikobe.livejournal.com]

Seems very Doctor Who/Steam Punk/Burtonesque with a splash of Ang Lee.

Obviously should be starring Kevin Spacey as the Hand and Zac Ephron in his I can be a real actor breakout role.

With guests Alan Alda and Michael Caine as "T.H.E.Y."

[firynze.livejournal.com]

That could be a novel, or at least a novella. I like the premise; I'd encourage you to run with it!

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

REALLY great idea. I am very intrigued. I think you should definitely run with it, do some brainstorming, do some preliminary outlining, and see what you come up with. I'm all for novels (and cohorts in the pain of producing one, frankly), but this might end up being better as a short story or novella. You don't know til you sit with it for a while. But what a COOL COOL concept.