Imitating Art

It was a true story that he heard when traveling in the Caribbean. A story of a crime, of a murderer who had escaped prison. Now, repeating it casually in a bar in SE Asia it triggers a strange and unexpected response. He’s a writer backpacking in Asia and finds himself a quiet place to work. Settling into a guest house in the off-season, he wants to work on a crime story. The setting is congenial, and he finds a bar girl who wants to be his muse. Once he tells the story, spinning it out just because the bar girl wants to hear it, fiction and reality blur together in a curious combination. And the outcome changes everything.