The story behind the story: When the Cold comes

This week, Futures is pleased to welcome back Deborah Walker with her story When the Cold comes. Deborah first appeared in Futures back in 2010 telling us about Auntie Merkel. She has since explored a range of topics from collecting to precognition (there’s a full list of her stories at the end of this post). This week the not-so-humble cold virus takes centre stage, and here Deborah very kindly reveals the origins of the tale for us — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing: When the Cold Comes

This story’s title, When the Cold comes, is a small homage to Game of Thrones. Rest in peace, Hodor. Hold the Door. What great skill George R. R. Martin has, to create such emotion-wrenching story arcs spanning so many books. He’s also a great short-story writer, of course. I’d love to see a Nature’s Futures story from him.

But back to my story! I’d written a longer story, which featured my invented recreational drug, Scrag. Scrag is in the form of a virus. My writing friend Alex Collier wanted to know more about Scrag, and said: “Viruses are so fascinating, aren’t they?”‘

“Yes,” thinks I. “They are. I want to write a story all about them.”

I was intrigued by the idea of twisting the common cold virus into a bioweapon. I spent a long time thinking about the colony’s people. I considered making them a little non-human with social and biological eusocial traits like bees and ants. I wanted to explore what extremes an individual might go to for the greatest good for the hive. The research led me to the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper, which I felt just clicked into place within the story.

It was a fun story to write, exploring the limits of human behaviour in extremis. Consider the Commander Pathologist a saviour or monster: but whatever you do, do not pity her.