This week, Futures is pleased to welcome back Bo Balder with her latest story I die a little. Based in Utrecht in the Netherlands, Bo has written numerous short stories — including Skin hunger for Futures — and her novel The Wan came out last year. You can find out more about her work at her website or by following her on Twitter. Here, Bo reveals what inspired her latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing I die a little

I wrote the story of I die a little in a flash-fiction contest on a writer’s website. One of the prompts was to write about a character who is imprisoned — this could be a literal or metaphorical prison. Immediately, I flashed to a woman locked up in a plastic globe watching her kid.

That’s where the story started. I had decided in that first impression that they couldn’t speak together, so they had to use sign language. What would a mother and a child speak of when they find themselves on the other side of a barrier? Children leave home, mothers don’t want them to but they do, longing for time for themselves. But this was science fiction, obviously, they were on an alien planet. The son had chosen to stay, the mother to go. Drama on tap.

I will add that I have children in university myself, so maybe I was speaking from experience in a completely metaphorical way …