Tooty the Prophet?

I was walking about the countryside recently, as I often do, when my eye chanced to fall upon a small object in the act of being blown across a field by a powerful north-easterly wind. When it came to rest – snagged on a small bramble – I paused to consider it, and take it’s picture…

It seemed so apt in the Time of Covid.  Then I recalled a scene from one of my better works…

…in which the two central characters find an empty potato crisp packet  doing the exact same thing. And, for a moment, I considered the possibilty that the book, written so long ago (first draft 2004), might be horribly prescient. The book, if you haven’t read it or any of the extracts featured in this blog from time to time (i.e the sample chapter beneath header picture), tells the story of an Earth upon which all adult life has been extinguished by a viral pandemic.  In that moment I suddenly felt very vulnerable: after all, how many science-fiction ideas have become everyday occurences. Maybe climate change isn’t our worst enemy after all: maybe it’s writers like me – tempting fate with our silly stories.