--Where do you get your ideas?

I dislike that question, because I can never respond intelligently. It's right up there with --Why are there so many good writers coming out of Newfoundland? To that one I can at least throw a saucy and sincere answer: --Why are you so surprised?

But this morning, I got an idea the old-fashioned way. I looked around. Saw a guy on the bus. Felt afraid of him as he stared right through me with glazed blue eyes, as his jaw twitched and his hands flopped on his open notebook, but no way would he drop his pen. Demons, I thought. Something gnaws at him, and gnaws violently this morning. Rips flesh from his back, spits it out, digs for more. Sudden pleading - blink - agitation, fear, and that hot, hot glaze, almost a glisten now: no, not tears. I look out the window at dried-up trees, leaves brittle from desperate sucking wasps. Count to twenty-mississippi before glancing his way again; he's still staring, like he knows something terrible about me, like he's desperate not to tell me. Another woman gets off the bus -- she's much younger than me, a kholed sylph in size two jeans; he stares at her bust and butt, starved, stares back at me, writes something down.

I miss my stop.

Story title, theme, protag and antag arcs spark. Yay for me, woohoo, ain't that grand.

But something gnaws at him.