A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 18

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

Today’s story: 5 People Who Were in the Wrong Place, at the Wrong Time — Multiple Times.

1. Tsutomu Yamaguchi

At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi (above) — who was in Hiroshima on a business trip for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — was stepping off a streetcar when a plane passed overhead. He looked to the sky and saw two parachutes descending — and, the next instant, the atomic bomb Little Boy exploded. The blast site was less than two miles away from where Yamaguchi stood. The flash of heat left him with burns across his torso, and the blast ruptured his eardrums and temporarily blinded him. He found his way to a bomb shelter, and the next day was healthy enough to make the journey back home — to Nagasaki.

On August 9, Mr. Yamaguchi was well enough to make it in to work. At the exact moment that he was explaining to his boss how Little Boy had destroyed the city of Hiroshima, he saw the same white flash in the office window. Fat Man, the second atomic bomb, had just detonated over the city.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi is the only officially recognized survivor of the two bombings (there are about 165 double survivors of the bombs, called nijyuu hibakusha, who have not been recognized by the Japanese government). He lived to be 93 years old.

This is just one of five extraordinarily unlucky people detailed in the article… which got me thinking. Remember this guy?

Forrest had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. What if we told an anti-Forrest Gump story? A Protagonist who lives under a perpetual dark cloud. With thunder. And lightning. Tectonic plates shifting under his/her feet. Bad things happen to good people? That’s this character.

Take blights on human history from the last few decades and put this Protagonist right there to suffer the slings and arrows of cruel fate.

Dark comedy. Mockumentary. It’s Forrest Gump meets A Serious Man.

There you go: My eighteenth story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!

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.

Comment Archive