Story ideas

[Xist]

From time to time I have ideas for stories. Sometimes I really like them, but I never feel that I have enough ideas to start the story. I guess that, like much of my life, I could sit down and try to figure it out instead of waiting for inspiration.

Maybe.

99% perspiration?

[Xist]

"Hey Bob, remember that thug that was almost run over by a forklift?" "Yeah," I responded, "Didn't some random bystander save him, and didn't it turn out that his injuries shouldn't have been that bad?"
"Yup, but get this, he was just run over by a garbage truck!"
"Wait, what a--"
"It didn't kill him, though, but it dragged him for seven blocks before the guy was able to get loose."
"He survived being hit by a garbage truck and dragged seven blocks?!"
"Well, for a little over a day. They couldn't give him pain meds because--"

Wait a second! What happened to that ex-Marine! I searched my computer and found the file. He was dishonorably discharged after running over his Commander's POV with a 6-ton and a host of other infractions. He tried to mug someone and a random bystander kept him from getting stabbed.

I skimmed the file and found the important part: Six weeks later he fell off a subway platform. He climbed up and limped away, but he sprained his ankle, a blood clot formed, and he died when the clot traveled to his heart.

What are the odds of two random bad guys being saved from injury only to die painfully a short time later? Wasn't there a vague description of the man that prevented the stabbing?

Brown hair and glasses. That isn’t much. What about the guy who saved the thug?

Dark hair and glasses.

It is still a crazy coincidence.

In a country of hundreds of millions, people get saved from injuries all the time, often by complete strangers. Surely millions of men have brown hair and glasses, but there did seem to be an increase in Good Samaritans, and of random fatal accidents.

***

Jeremy invited his neighbors over for a barbecue every month. He just loved grilling and socializing and he was happiest when he could do both. In the dead of winter his guests mingled inside. In the middle of summer, he made the best breakfast his friends had all season.

Ron always showed up, but he was often late or left early. He didn’t say much, but tried to be friendly, and his neighbors appreciated seeing him. Today he made smalltalk with a five-year-old, nervously cleaning his glasses and patting his coffee-colored hair as he always did. He abruptly looked up and stopped polishing his glasses right as Jeremy’s youngest daughter Beth fell out of the tree right in front of him, breaking her arm. Jeremy slammed the lid on the barbecue and ran over to his daughter. “Honey! Honey, are you okay?! Are you okay?!”

Ron had put his glasses back on and leaned over Beth. When her father ran up, Ron turned to Jeremy and calmly said “I think it is broken, but it doesn’t—”

Jeremy didn’t allow him to finish. He grabbed Ron’s shirt and pulled him to his feet. “You just stood there! You saw her fall and you didn’t try to catch her! Who knows what could have happened?!”

Ron evenly responded: “I am sorry, but I will drive her to the hospital, and pay for an X-ray and a cast. I will call you once she has seen a doctor. She will be fine. Please meet me there once you finish up here and please enjoy the rest of your party. You always throw a great barbecue.”

Then he crouched, told Beth “Come on, let’s get you fixed up,” and carried her to his car.

Ron wasn’t late this time. In fact, he was the first one there, parked right in front of Jeremy’s house, and when Ron opened the back door, Beth asked “Where are all of your file boxes? You always have boxes in your back seat!”

“They will be back, but it was past time for me to clean out my car.” He buckled her in, closed the door, and got in the driver’s seat. As he started driving to the hospital, he said “I’m really sorry about all of the pain right now, but the doctors will take care of you, and we will get you the coolest cast ever.”

“Why didn’t you try to catch me? I fell right in front of you!”

“Sorry, I just couldn’t.” Then, quietly, with a trembling breath, and a glance at the picture on his dash of his grandparent’s anniversary, he said: “I can’t help the good ones.”

***

Five years. I covered all kinds of stories, but I kept finding ones of people being saved from painful, but definitely survivable accidents, and of people painfully dying from random accidents.

I found over fifty people on both lists, with the accidents varying between one and eight weeks apart, and virtually all of them had violent and often criminal histories—going back five years.

Another story came up a couple of times just over sixty months ago, the infamous Disney Disaster. An elderly couple had a family reunion to celebrate their anniversary and a drunk and speeding semi driver rear-ended their tour bus right outside the parking lot. Nobody was able to get out. Nobody survived, except for the grandson, who missed the bus because he had been pulled over for running a red light.

Strangely, his ticket was dismissed without going to court, the court said the traffic cameras showed the light was green.

Stranger still, the grandson had figured out that part of their catered breakfast had been contaminated, and bought out his grandmother’s favorite place to get breakfast. He only left his family to return the containers to the restaurant.

There are lots of brunettes in that family.

Many of them wore glasses, too.