A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 28

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

Today’s story: They Built a Commune. No One Came.

PITMAN, Pa. — They slept in the barn their first winter, on a straw mattress with antique linen sheets and a feather tick. There was no electricity, heat or plumbing, so they made their own candles, used a chamber pot and drew water from a spring.

They were born Michael Colby and Donald Graves, but once there, on 63 acres in the Mahantongo Valley, a bowl of land in central Pennsylvania, they changed their names to Christian and Johannes Zinzendorf and called themselves the Harmonists, inspired by a splinter group of 18th-century Moravian brothers who believed in the spiritual values of an agrarian life.

Their ideals were lofty but simple: They would live off the land, farming with Colonial-era tools, along with a band of like-minded men dressed in homespun robes wielding scythes and pickaxes. They would sleep in atmospheric log cabins and other 18th-century structures that they had rescued from the area and that they began to reconstruct, painstakingly, brick by crumbling brick and log by log.

But what if you built a commune, and no one came?

Christian and Johannes Zinzendorf at their Pennsylvania commune… for two

Johannes and Zephram met in the 1970s at a gay-consciousness-raising group in Salt Lake City, where both were attending college. They were each dabbling in various spiritual practices: Zephram was circling around the Wiccans, attracted by their earth-centered rituals, and Johannes was sampling Hinduism.

When you’re gay, Zephram pointed out, it is not always the case that traditional religions will welcome you. So alternatives beckon.

Salt Lake City was changing, they said; they could see their future mapped out there, and it was not an appealing one. “Successful urban gays, buying property, having cultural weekends in San Francisco,” Johannes said. “Save us.”

Inspired in part by the Mormons, they began to turn over the idea of starting an intentional community in a rural setting. But how to organize? What would be the guiding principle?

This has quirky indie comedy written all over it. A gay couple decide to start a commune. There is the FOOW (Fish Out Of Water) element a la the old “Green Acres” TV series, city slickers in the country. The rather absurd central conceit: Starting a commune. Tension with locals who cast a wary eye toward these outsiders purposefully dressing in 19th century garb, plowing with oxen, and living without any modern amenities.

And then how to market the commune? Ride their oxen to the nearest town with a gay bar, stride in with their muddy attire, and say, “Who wants to join our gay commune?”

Where I might take the story: Just about when things are looking really down, a knock at the door. It’s a young man. He wants to join the commune. A lost soul who is desperate to find himself.

Oh, yeah, he’s drop dead gorgeous. Like Chris Hemsworthy gorgeous.

Here our couple had retreated to a commune to find peace and live in harmony. Now with this new member of the group, there’s trouble on the home… er, commune front as jealousies arise as both make a play for the dude. And how about this: Chris the Hunk? One of the reasons he’s trying to find himself is he’s not exactly sure if he’s all the way gay. Adds a bit more comedic spice to the mix.

My twenty eighth 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.