You may have noticed Nate Wilson appearing here and there in the comments section. He’s a good bean. He’s a bean you’d use in your award-winning chili. He has his own blog. If you have not read it, you should. The footnotes alone make it worthwhile. Recently, he posted an explanation of why the blog is named Sometimes, the Wheel is on Fire. This origin is wicked awesome. I immediately declared I would steal this from him and use it for a story. I pondered and I pondered and I pondered some more. But no matter how much I pondered, I could not come up with a story better than the original mythology. It’s just cool. But it’s not cool to just use the mythology as if it was something you came up with. If you can’t play a tune and make it dance like a monkey, there’s no reason to include it.

But today that monkey danced! The mistake I made was to look at new stories where the wheel could be used. Oh no, my friends, I should have been looking in stories I’ve already written. Or more precisely, the one I’m writing right now.

In JEHOVAH’S HITLIST, you don’t get a lot of the resources you see today. No wood, no plastic. Most everything is fabric, recycled paper, or metal (mostly metal–aluminum or tin and the like). Each avenue is named for the 53 states and has three or four parks named for the larger cities in that state, the largest always being the capital city. These parks, lacking trees or vegetation of any kind, are a lot like your modern day skate parks and playgrounds. The problem is, the tinkers have already looted all the movable metal. Swing sets are barren, teater totters have nothing with which to teeter or totter. So you get these great big cement ramps and these concave bowls where if you run fast enough, it’s like you’re going sideways.

But what about the larger pieces of metal too heavy for the tinkers to haul away? What about those wheels where you run in a circle and then grab hold and go round and round?

So far, the punishment I’ve found for almost anything is death, and that’s a bit extreme. There would have to be some method of punishment for minor infractions. The gangs aren’t going to shoot you over every little thing. The deputies aren’t going to string you up. You’d get beaten up or left out in the elements. But how? Circling a pursing and beating them is blah. No curb stomping or anything that extreme.

The wheel!

When Jehovah finally goes up above and to Ademi Dayo, the young woman he has to kill, the two talk about the differences of their worlds. Jehovah talks about how much trouble he got into when he was younger, always acting out. When you get in trouble, they tie you to the wheel and throw rocks at you.

How horrible!

Nah, not really. It could be a lot worse.

How could anything be worse than that?

Sometimes, the wheel is on fire.

BAM!

Idea stolen and assimilated. Boo. Yah.