That Contains Petroleum?! Guest post with Tamara Narayan

For me, a story idea can come from anywhere. Once, inspiration hit while driving down the highway, looking at the bits of plastic grocery bags stuck in trees too high for anyone to pull down without a cherry picker.

Image: Greg Goebel

Wouldn't it be nice if they all disappeared? But if they did, wouldn't that be kind of spooky? 

Image: Jonathan Kos-Read

Then again, who would miss them? No one. The bags are ugly, introduce toxins to the environment, and kill animals who ingest them. What if plastic bags were the first of several things to disappear? I knew the bags contains petroleum. What if other things containing petroleum also disappeared? What kind of havoc would that render?

Off to Wikipedia! Well, actually I found this list from Ranken Energy. And what an eye opener it was. Some things weren't a surprise, such as tires, shoes, footballs, and paint. But others were unexpected, to say the least.

Image: Omegan

Things you rub on your body: cold cream, lipstick, perfume, soap, nail polish, and rubbing alcohol (not to mention petroleum jelly, like duh!)

Things you play with: guitar strings, roller skates, tennis rackets, skis, boats, and dice

Things you wear: sweaters, football cleats and helmets

Things in your bathroom: toilet seats, toothpaste, shaving cream, dentures, shampoo, hair coloring, and shower curtains

Things in your medicine cabinet: vitamin capsules, antihistamines, cortisone, aspirin, soft contacts, and deodorant

Image: EnergyTomorrow.org

So many things! From so many parts of life! What would we do without petroleum? What would be the impact if these things disappeared? In most cases, we would live, somewhat irritated and inconvenienced, but we would live.

But then one item in particular caught my attention. Something, that if it were to vanish, would cause a body a big problem. What was it? Well, you can skim the list yourself and see if you can guess, or go ahead and read Heart Stopper (big hint), the title story in my anthology. Yeah, I'm terrible, aren't I?

Heart Stopper and Other Stories is a collection of four suspenseful tales, available now at Amazon.com.

In the words of fellow blogger Diana Wilder at ...about myself, by myself...: This is not sledgehammer blood or gore, but the sort of tantalizing, slowly building tension that will send you groping for another pillow and eyeing your alarm clock to see if you might be able to read to the end and not be too impaired in the morning at work.

About the author: From doling out movie popcorn to flinging smelt to penguins, Tamara Narayan’s career took the “road less traveled”. It veered off into a land of integrals and other strange things while she taught college level math, but these days she’s cruising the fiction highway. In addition to the Heart Stopper collection, her short story Scrying The Plane is in the IWSG anthology, Parallels: Felix Was Here. Find her at www.tamaranarayan.com.

What surprised you about the list of items containing petroleum? Which one would you miss the most?