Touch the Sky, Embrace the Dark: Why I Wrote… (Part 2)

Every story has a story behind it. So to give you a small glimpse into the stories in Touch the Sky, Embrace the Dark here are the influences, the ideas or the inspirations for each of these stories. I hope by learning a little more about them you’ll appreciate them even more.

Yesterday I wrote about the inspirations of the first five stories in Touch the Sky, Embrace the Dark. Here are the stories behind the last five stories in the collection.

In the Shadow of Scythe

What if Al Gore or David Suzuki were the Anti-Christ? What if a man like them used radical environmentalism to attract devoted, unquestioning followers? With the planet’s biosphere at stake, the ends justifying the means would be a simple justification for totalitarianism.

This idea led very quickly to a near-future story heavy on thriller and espionage elements.

The Wall of Gloves

I ride the bus. During the winter, it’s quite common to find a single glove on a seat. This led me to think about someone who collects these gloves, which led to an image of them hammered to the wall of a barn.

The imagery after that became pretty gruesome.

While Gabriel Slept

I do not have children and do not believe in God as defined by religion. Wanting a challenge, I put myself in the role of a religious man with a new baby. Then made things go wrong.

Since I love contrasts, I wanted to make this character do (or, perhaps, merely contemplate) horrific things for the most loving, selfless of reasons. Or to put it another way, when even God has turned His back on you, can any of your actions be considered moral or immoral?

The Weak Son

I wanted to tell an original ghost story. I started thinking: what if a ghost can’t act unless it has some connection to the people nearby?

This all spilled into the idea that a ghost can only remember its life through others’ memories. But in remembering, the ghost can influence those others’ memories in turn. Without those people it knew in life nearby, a ghost is no longer self-aware.

Quickly, this became a mystery where a ghost has to determine the circumstances of its own death.

Touch the Sky, They Say

The original idea was a literal glass ceiling above the offices of women who could advance no further, but could see what was happening above them.

One bus ride later, the glass ceiling became a grey sky that had fallen, cutting us off from the sky, the stars, the sun. Between getting off my bus and walking home, this grey, new world was one where hope, passion and determination were dying.

This was the first story I had written since my mother had died and the emotions I was feeling gave it its emotional weight—the feelings of giving up, hopelessness, loss. But also the need to keep moving ahead and get on with life.

I talk about this story in detail in a post titled (appropriately enough) “Why I wrote ‘Touch the Sky, They Say‘”