A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 29
This is the sixth year in a row I’ve run this series in April.
Today’s story: Man Wakes Up from Coma Convinced That He’s Matthew McConaughey.
After six days in a coma, a 25-year-old from Birmingham, England woke up speaking fluent French and thinking that he was Matthew McConaughey.
You know what I like about horrific traffic accidents, man? You almost stop getting older (because you could die) and you wake up as a famous American actor during peak McConaissance.
Rory Curtis, a barber, was severely injured when he hit the back of a truck while on his bike and then, according to Metro, was struck by six additional cars in a subsequent pile up. It took nearly 40 minutes for rescue workers to extract him from the wreckage that left him with a brain injury and in a coma.
Thankfully, Curtis woke up just less than a week later — and he woke up with special skills.
“I don’t remember coming round but my family said one of the nurses was from Africa and spoke French and I was having conversations with her,” Curtis told the UK journal. “I was just casually chatting away about how I was feeling in this perfect French accent.”
He continued:
“My mum and dad were stunned when they got to hospital and the nurse asked them what side of the family was French…And then I was sitting there spouting a foreign language from my hospital bed acting all French in their sort of arrogant yet sophisticated way. It wasn’t me at all.”
Even more out of character was Curtis’ assumption that he was Matthew McConaughey.
“When I went to the toilet I went to look in the mirror and I was shocked because I didn’t look like him, I didn’t know what I was looking at,” he claims. “Then slowly over time it eventually clicked and I thought ‘he is an actor, what am I on about?’, but at times I was in hospital thinking I can’t wait to get out of here and back to filming movies.”
At first, I was going to go mainstream comedy with this one, but then another take emerged. Imagine a small community just like this one from Local Hero:
Three, four generations of families have grown up here and through the decades, not much has happened in this remote corner of the world. Then one day, perhaps the least memorable member of the village has an accident. Taken to the local doctor’s office. And when he wakes up, he believes himself to be Matthew McConaughey.
[Note: It doesn’t have to be McConaughey, in fact due to Mr. Curtis’ experiences, it might be advisable to change the actor anyhow. But whoever it is, s/he would have to be as memorable a character as McConaughey — recognizable voice, big personality, a live-wire.]
Now, of course, the gentleman in question, let’s call him Quincy, is not McConaughey, but he’s convinced of it. And damn if he doesn’t walk, talk and act just like the actor. In fact, he seems to know an awful lot about McConaughey’s personal life. Is it true? It can’t be, right?
But here’s the thing: What if Quincy as McConaughey starts to have an interesting impact on the village. Woos women. Inspires guys to take up bungee-jumping or some such craziness. Teaches everyone how to dance McConaughey-style, complete with pelvic thrusts.
And after awhile, a portion of the community does not want Quincy to change back to… you know… Quincy. They like having McConaughey around, even if they know it’s not the actor. He’s made life in the village more enjoyable and fun.
Of course, there is a faction — parish priest, mayor, stick-in-the-mud elders — that absolutely wants this nonsense to stop, perceiving that Quincy is having a degrading influence on the citizenry.
And you know where this whole thing is headed, don’t you? Who shows up to prove to Quincy that he [Quincy] is not McConaughey, but this guy!
Look, if Charlie Kaufman can write Being John Malkovich, why not do this story? The beauty is McConaughey, or whoever you pick, only has to do a 1 or 2 day shoot.
There you go: My twenty ninhth 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.