Impenetrable Safe Unknowable Heart

I like to think, to ponder, before I write.

In some ways, that is good because it gives time for ideas to stew and gestate somewhere in my head. However, it can often be a recipe for delay and obfuscation, while I second guess and debate a collection of half-baked story starts.

And that’s why this short story challenge is proving to be invaluable in helping to shift me into a creativity mode where I write as I jump, and grow story wings on the way down.

And whether I land safely or with a thud and a splat is besides the point. Nobody cares if my story is a dud or a gem, except serious old me.

The joy of learning this art form is that I can just get back on my feet, flick off the dust from my dented ego, and start another story.

And all the while, approach each writing session with the intention of doing the best I can with what I have at the time.

(I’m not sure if readers catch my drift here. But it’s all about the routine and the habit and the joys and sorrows and yes, occasional boredom, of regular practice. Kind of like what I experienced more than thirty years ago as a young athlete, training with a group and working under a coach.)

Anyhow, this story took a prompt as its starting point to be a piercing shriek, and then I added some topics of current interest from last week.

For example:

• A New Scientist article about discrepancies in the behaviour of neutrons (subatomic particle) that might be explainable by what some physicists are calling a mirror universe.

• The endless flood of junk mail we get in the form of mail-order shopping catalogs.

• Japanese fax machines and analog telephone lines.

These topics ignited oodles of neurons in my noggin. and over eleven Pomodoro writing blocks (each 25 minutes with a 10 minutes break between), I wrote this story.

I’m classing it as some weird form of alternate universe (hence, mirror world) tale that might work well as a Black Mirror episode.

Alas, it will require a Japanese actor to play a long suffering wife not best-pleased to learn of her (foreign) husband’s secret philandering. Miley Cyrus need not apply haha.

Onward!

(A summary listing of all short stories in this challenge can be found by clicking 52-in-52.)