INTO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE: FINAL REPORT

I went into the "middle of nowhere" to find a story.

Nothing uncommon about that. (For me, that is; I go for a trek and come back with a bag of Steinbeck-rabbits, aka plot bunnies, all the time.)

However, this time, although I was taking a lot of photos and getting ideas for poems and short fiction, “the story” I had been hoping for (something granite-heavy yet surrealistic) kept eluding me.

Until, on the very last night I spent in the "middle of nowhere," Melpomene woke me up way before sunrise and delivered one of the wildest stories I’ve ever jotted down on my phone (while trying very hard not to wake up the nonfiction writer sleeping next to me😬).

There’s not much I can say about this work in progress (WIP) without going into major spoilers, but I can share four things about it:

1. It’s a rural noir cinematic novella.

2. The title is LIE NOW HERE.

3. One of the characters is called Hypnos.

4. The story ends with a (different) character dancing to this song: 

The funny thing is, of course, I had been sort of signaling to Hypnos on X for a few nights before this. I guess Melpomene moves in mysterious ways?  

(Photo used in cover art: Hypnos, British Museum.)