The entrance to my office is blocked by a small table and about 50 boxes of paper. On this nefarious table, is a small children’s cup. It’s old, yellowed, and dirtied by pencil and pen marks.
It contains paper clip.
I walk by it several times a day nearly every day. I scuttle sideways through the small space between the boxes and the table. We’re cramped in this building. Utterly.
Hitting the table isn’t new either. I do it several times a week. Last week though, some one left that cup on the corner of the table. Sparkling, metal paper clips rained down across the floor. I cursed and wedged myself between the boxes and the table to pick them up.
Damnit, I said.
Some one, I’m not sure who, happened to be at copier. I really didn’t know them but they quickly replied to my expletive: Don’t take g-d’s name in vain. Then walked off in a huff.
At first, I was a little mystified. Then a little angry. I mean really, when does a god, whose name I didn’t take in vain, give one minute’s thought to me cursing over split paper clips?
A crazy, nitpicking god with not enough to do. And just like that I had a story idea. Back a my desk I made some notes for later and went on with my day. That’s where ideas come from. They happen out of any circumstance. I once wrote and published a short based off of seeing an advert on a coffee cup. Anything can be your muse.
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