This will probably be the last story cupboard post of the year unless I run across something truly delicious to tickle the imagination. Brian Lindenmuth sent me this "weird" link and suggested that there might be some story ideas in the article. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/19/saddam-legacy-quran-iraqi-government
The article is about a document written in Saddam's blood. But can you imagine being the man commissioned to do the actual calligraphy? Two years of watching the blood flow from the man to the page. And knowing that the writing of such a document in blood is forbidden? What must have been going through his mind? Did he wonder if he'd be cursed or even killed?
Or being the one who has to hide the document, scattering pages across the country so it can be preserved from both sides of the war and now the document is housed in a vault with three keys that are in the safe-keeping of three different people. Of course, I wonder if the person telling the story knows that in telling who two of those people are that they've probably put the third person in danger. All the basic ingredients for a great fantasy quest story!
Then again the blood from the pages could be used to bring the dead back to life! Mummies and Zombies, oh my!
Of course, if you're writing a crime story, the DNA on the pages could be used to identify a family member or the actual person who may have disappeared after the document was written. Or was it a note from the killer, written in the victim's blood?
The possibilities are endless if you let your mind wander.
4 comments:
Not just any document but a Koran
For some reason quran just didn't register properly on my brain, Brian. I was thinking holy documents, but not the holiest of their religious documents. Yikes!
If you want another story idea, back when the Ayatollah Khomeini died and was being rushed to his burial, the crowds were so great that his coffin overturned, and the old bastar-- the old guy spilled out, and his shroud unwrapped. Now any story titled "The Shroud of Khomeini ..." Yes, I give the idea away. Nope, never got around to writing it. Yep, it's yours. Along with the blood-written Koran. Maybe when you bring those two items together ... Monsters appear!! Ot is that too obvious? Too predictable?
I'd forgotten about that, Fred! I always find it great fun when I can combine two or three ideas together, they tend to put a new spin on a story.
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