I get a lot of my short story ideas–when they start out as an idea, rather than the more usual opening lines–while driving. I had two great ones this morning. One is forgotten, because I forgot to write it down when I pulled into the parking lot. It was a goodie, but if it deserved to be saved I suppose I would have remembered it.
Here’s the other: There is life after death, but it’s not at all what we’d like to believe it would be. It’s the next level, the next playing level, as in a video game. The stakes are higher, the meanies meaner, the leaps longer, and it all happens at a higher rate of speed.
Maybe there are ten playing levels; maybe there are sixty. But you keep moving onward and upward.
Unless, of course, you really die.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology