It looks like our good man Ryan North has taken a great idea and gathered a few friends and decided to put together a short story anthology. The concept sounds wonderfully simple:

The machine had been invented a few years ago: a machine that could tell, from just a sample of your blood, how you were going to die. It didn’t give you the date and it didn’t give you specifics. It just spat out a sliver of paper upon which were printed, in careful block letters, the words “DROWNED” or “CANCER” or “OLD AGE” or “CHOKED ON A HANDFUL OF POPCORN”. It let people know how they were going to die.

The concept is deceptively complex, because North makes it very clear that they are looking for a particular type of fiction (potentially a dark comedy of errors of some sort, more than likely containing an hilarious and/or thought-provoking ironic twist).

So, I’m taking up the gauntlet. Since this project has a deadline of March 31st, I’ll be temporarily shelving the historical zombie fiction (which has a May 25th deadline) and working with this writing project for the next couple of months. I brainstormed with my wife, and we came up with a couple of great ideas, and I’m going to see where I can take them. You’re welcome to try it out, too! I’m interested to see what kind of entries something like this might receive.

Good luck!