Once every few years you read a book which completely captures you and never lets go. It’s not just the book that you can’t put down; it’s the one that haunts you when you’re away from it. It’s the one which creates a world that you somehow travel into, while you’re reading, as if the real world around you has melted away. It’s the one that you keep forever and re-read every few years. It’s the one that you never, ever forget.

For me, in recent years, that book was Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. If you have never read it, please go acquire a copy and let it capture you like it did me. The story, the plotline, the characters, the prose, and yes, the timing utterly drowned me.

The television adaptation, which not only did not ruin the book but even somehow managed to enhance it, was just as brilliant. I wouldn’t recommend watching it if you haven’t read the novel, but if you have, just let it wash over you.

I mean, what I wouldn’t give to be able to write like this. And maybe I could, if I didn’t have 27 separate Ofcom tabs open.

Like all ghosts, Station Eleven came back to me unexpectedly last week as I was reading the news out of the US. Those two things, combined, got me thinking of a story prompt. That prompt was informed by many of the legislative debates I’ve been a party to in recent years.

That prompt could become a short story; it could become a novel of its own; or, as is more likely, it could become a plotline for a real-life planning exercise. I would rather read a novel than the learnings from the planning exercise, but that is well out of my hands.

Regardless, here is your story prompt. Make something from it. These are rich times for making.

I’ve put it in a spoiler for those who have yet to read Station Eleven, so tap on it if you are one of the lucky chosen few.