A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 16

This is the seventh year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today: Living and Dying on Airbnb.

The rope swing looked inviting. Photos of it on Airbnb brought my family to the cottage in Texas. Hanging from a tree as casually as baggy jeans, the swing was the essence of leisure, of Southern hospitality, of escape. When my father decided to give it a try on Thanksgiving morning, the trunk it was tied to broke in half and fell on his head, immediately ending most of his brain activity.

I was in bed when my mom found him. Her screams brought me down to the yard where I saw the tree snapped in two and his body on the ground. I knelt down and pulled him up by the shoulders. Blood sprayed my blue sweatshirt and a few crumpled autumn leaves. We were face-to-face, but his head hung limply, his right eye dislodged, his mouth full of blood, his tongue swirling around with each raspy breath.

What do you do in this situation? I grabbed a washcloth and started mopping up his leaking face. I told my sister not to come outside. She faints when there’s blood.

“Tell me each time he takes a breath,” the 911 dispatcher said in my ear.

“He’s breathing in; he’s breathing out. He’s breathing in; he’s breathing out.” Saying it aloud like a mantra calmed me down slightly, but was it doing anything for him? I decided to go in for mouth-to-mouth; I ended up with a mouthful of blood.

The EMTs arrived and suctioned the blood away from his face to see the damage. “He’s breathing. His heart is beating,” one of them said, “but it’s very serious.” They called for a helicopter and told us to start driving to Austin.

I scrubbed the blood off my lips and took off my soaking sweatshirt. Everything was blurry — adrenaline makes things that way. So does not putting on your contacts. I popped mine into my eyes and got into the car.

It’s only a matter of time until something terrible happens,” The New York Times’s Ron Lieber wrote in a 2012 piece examining Airbnb’s liability issues. My family’s story — a private matter until now — is that terrible something.

This is a tragic story and obviously I am sorry for the author and her family. Setting aside the specifics of the incident in question, I’m reminded that cultural phenomena, trends and technologies that emerge in the here and now have always been the fodder for movies and television.

This week, for example, we’ve seen two instances of Hollywood deals. The writing team of Alisha Brophy and Scott Miles, whose interview with me you can read here, sold a pitch to CBS Films called “Swiped”. The premise is a “comedic takedown of modern dating… The project plays off of the craziness that comes from swiping right and left on our phones looking for that right connection.”

Just yesterday, a second deal, this time an action comedy spec script called “Stuber”. The story’s plot is described as taking “place over one harrowing night in the life of an Uber driver named Stu.”

So you’ve got Tinder and Uber, both the subject of movie projects Hollywood acquired this week. What about Airbnb?

As it so happens, my wife and I nearly had a fatal intersection with an Airbnb cottage we rented in Santa Barbara. Lovely and romantic except for the gas fumes. We opened windows. Still there. Brought the owner in. He didn’t smell anything. We bugged out of there and went to a hotel. Good thing we did. The owners motorcycle had tipped over in the garage next door, spilling gasoline all over the floor, the fumes seeping into the cottage.

The easy route for a story would be the Airbnb Renter From Hell. Or Visitor From Hell. I’d probably go with that. A young couple who have spent all their savings on a down payment for a home decide they could rent out the cottage in the back to help with their finances. Set the house and cottage in the mountains, set back a few miles from the main winding road, butting up against a mountain. Only one way to the small town which is a good half-hour drive away.

Here comes the Visitor. She says she’s a writer in her 50s. She’s never tried this type of rental before, so no record or rating. But she seems nice enough and all she wants is peace and quiet, so she can finish the nonfiction book she’s been working on, its finishing touches. Besides she’s renting the cottage for 10 days, a pretty penny for the young couple.

Slowly over time, the weirdness begins. Was that her peeking through the bedroom window? Is that her wailing and crying in the middle of the night? Who is she talking to as she paces back and forth past the cottage window. Oh, she’s probably working on dialogue for her book. Is she making a pass at my husband? Did you unlock the window access to the wine cellar and where is that special bottle of champagne we were going to have on our anniversary? So you sneak into the cottage when the Visitor is off for a walk in the woods, snooping around, then discover the title of the book: “Death: The Ultimate Journey”.

There’s a setup. If the novel thing is too much The Shining, maybe she’s a painter. Make it a desert location if you like. Or the back woods of the Deep South.

This is a story which speaks to one of our deepest and oldest fears: The Stranger. Ally… or Enemy.

There you go, my 16th story idea this month.

What would you do with it?

Each day this month, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Gender bend, genre bend, what if. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are all valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in comments (hit Reply to join the conversation). And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.