Two of my favorite subjects are time travel and pie. So, it’s little wonder that this week’s story features both of them.
This story started out with the idea of a magic box from which you could extract anything you wanted. In the mood for a cheeseburger, or a glass of lemonade, or a slice of pie? Just reach in and pull it out. My initial thoughts were that it was somehow connected to a parallel dimension. That our magic was robbing a neighboring universe and they found out about it and retaliated.
However, I just couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs without self doubt blocking me. There was something that just wasn’t right. It needed something, but I didn’t know what, so, I set it aside hoping that inspiration would strike me at some later date.
I do that a lot. I come up with the seed of an idea, in this case a variation on the truism, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”—or TAANSTAAFL, for all you Robert Heinlein fans out there (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress)—and write it down in my list of titles, hoping that by the time I need a new episode the story will just show up on the page. The premise of “The Cost of Magic,” was what would happen if everyone had access to magic and could conjur up anything they needed.
But my parallel universe notion didn’t quite cut it. The characters refused to go any further than retrieving a pie and wondering where it came from. And the story languished, getting pushed further and further down my list until recently, a different thought on where the pie was coming from struck me.
The future.
I realized I had stumbled into an allegory about the national debt, and how we borrow from future generations to fund our present day political wish list. So, the magical device became an technological wonder called the Anything Box, and my main character, a curious woman who was determined to discover the cost of magic, uncovers its secrets.
But I’ll leave her complete journey for you to discover when you listen to, “The Cost of Magic.” I hope you enjoy it, and will take a moment to tell me what you think here on SubStack. I’m really looking forward to having some great conversations.
As always, dont’ forget to subscribe, share, rate and review this podcast and my books whereever you might find them. I’m on all the podcast platforms as well as Audible, and you can review my books at Amazon and Goodreads.
Thanks again, and all the very best.
Such a cool story, Rich! Thank you.