Curiosity
Western Short StoryThis making-of contains spoilers
This is a story inspired by the picture of a vulture in the desert. Yeah, that simple.
Vultures to me are something from Western movies, perching on dead trees or circling in the air in search of one of the many corpses the harsh desert environment produces for them. That is, of course, all very much a cliché, though a very iconic one.
The situation I imagined for the tone of this piece is equally based on clichés of the West. An old man telling an old tale from the town's history to some visitors in a saloon. I am going to have so much fun recording this one for the audiobook edition of this collection.
As I was writing it, the aspect of a constant battle of the wits between humans and vultures in the Old West came up. I just extended the “smart/dumb like that” parts to the vultures on a whim. I decided to keep that, it made for a nice flavor.
I should note I have never seen a single Western movie that was not a parody or comedy of some sort. No, really, not even the great classics of the genre. I should probably fix that at some point.
The concept is as straightforward as the tale: Man about to die in the desert lures a vulture to make it a meal. Though the idea seemed to come spontaneously from thinking about a twist in a man-meets-vultures tale, I cannot help but notice in hindsight how similar that idea is to Dougal Dixon's springe from The New Dinosaurs, a wonderfully weird book of his I own.
The subconscious: Subverting the idea of total originality since the dawn of literary theory.
This collection marks the first ever publication of Curiosity.
May 2016
Available in:
How to Sing Butterflies
