Alma Got Me Back

I was standing on a corner, minding my own business, when some dude...

No, I wasn't. But it's a good story opener, told thousands of times to cops, paramedics, and ER staff, along with the variant of "when two dudes..." and "Some b-tch." to cover misdemeanors, felonies, and general stupidities. It's probably been used at this point more than "It was a dark and stormy night..."

So, really there I was, sitting at my computer with a karmic debt owed because I had infected Alma Boykin with a story. She puts up a post about Roads, Home, and Wanderers. Complete with the music that inspired several scenes. I listened, and went "Ah! I actually prefer a different arrangement, because I can hear the words more clearly."

So I dug it up to listen to it again, while maundering off in the comments section about the difficulties of going home again. 

And something started niggling at my mind, but I had a road trip I was on that I was paying more attention to. 

And then Old NFO and I got to talking about the sacrifices the military makes on the home front, and how home changes on you when you're away. 

And two days later, I got ambushed by a story. In which a career spacer finally returns to the farm, and finds that the past is another country that we cannot see again, even when we tread the same ground.  

I thought it'd be a short story, but it's looking more and more like a novella. We'll see.