The dream dogged my every step today, slunk around like a second shadow, always there, invisible unless I looked directly at it, and even when I did, the question remained: What is this? But writing is not a process without its little quirks. I have no idea what it is, but what else might there be because of this thing?

The thing is a device, old, metal rusting away, tiny window, and it looks like an odometer. Standing at the edge of one of Valdosta’s side streets of a side street, Jenette Street used to be open to the public, but the University absorbed it. I dreamed a device stood at the edge of the street, had a button to push, and the numbers would spin for a few seconds, and like a slot machine, they would slow down and finally read, “1.4.” No such device exists. I looked. But why have something that tells you how far away the edge of the road is from that point? (Don’t ask me how I know what it does and why I know what it does, but I don’t understand why it does it, I just know, okay?)

You got a point to this, Cowboy, or are you just burning off some excess caffeine here?

And here we go. Buckle up, Kittens. Dreams can get away with this sort of thing. The device is either meaningless, or the meaning is lost somewhere in the imagery. Or I didn’t retain something I should have. This bothers me because that sort of thing in fiction is a distraction.

But suppose I write a story where the meaningless distraction is part of the plot.

First Swing: A cop is tracking down a serial killer. The man or woman who has been killing delivery drivers has killed four people, all in the same area of New York, and all were delivering food. The detective walks out of a restaurant, following a driver, when a woman in a blue hat approaches. She tells the detective a man in a white truck asked her if she was a driver and if she would deliver to his apartment. She gives the detective a description and hurries away.

The detective finds the man in the truck, but he speeds away at the flash of the badge.

It takes a while, but the detective catches the man, arrests him, and finds enough evidence for a conviction.

The detective seeks the woman in the blue hat. She saw the killer, spoke with him, and he asked about delivery. He doesn’t need her, but he wants to find her. But no camera captured her. No one else saw the woman, and it seemed she had vanished. Even after his conviction, where he confesses to other murders, the killer does not seem to remember this woman.

Is the woman in the blue hat an intriguing part of the story or a distraction?

Take Care,

Mike