As is the case with most of my writing, a tiny bit of mundane stimulus is all it takes to push me into a creative mood.  Hell, Darkness Comes to Kingswell was inspired by watching the approach of a thunderstorm.  I don’t need cataclysmic events to spawn a creative streak.  This is proof.

I began writing this on March 12, 2005.  It seemed important at the time.  It seemed to grow from a simple observation into something more, but I rapidly lost interest once the original thought was out of me.

What I felt when I started this was quite real, quite tangible.  Unfortunately, that feeling died the moment I stepped away from what I was writing.  I can’t tell you how often that happens.  I’m better with fiction than reality in that sense.

I was standing outside on my patio around 6:00 PM CST drinking a Negra Modelo.  The sun was fully above the horizon, but just barely.  It was already feeling cooler outside as the sun was setting.  As I took a sip from my ale and looked up into the sky, I saw the contrail of a plane.  As I continued to pan my eyes across the sky I saw another contrail, then another, then another and another and another.  Within the limited field of view I had panned my eyes across, there were five planes at high altitudes.

It occurred to me the contrails were short, relatively speaking that is.  I wondered to myself what weather conditions were necessary to limit the length of airplane sketches in such a manner as they streaked across the sky.

Then it struck me.

I suddenly remembered standing outside on September 12, 2001, as Derek mentioned to me that there were no planes overhead, that it was more than the shattering silence, more than the absence of visual cues in the atmosphere, more than the knowledge that all planes had been grounded since the events the day before.  He made me realize for the first time in my life that the sky was empty.  I’d never known such a thing.  I hoped never again to know such a thing as long as it was the result of similar events.