The Hidden Dangers of Throwing Darts at Maps

Today’s prompt: “Find a world map or globe, close your eyes, pick a spot. Write about a person arriving there for the first time.”

Cave Lake, Kootenai County, Idaho. It’s about a 1,600-acre lake, one of a handful of small lakes spreading out east from Coeur d’Alene Lake. Bordered to the north by the Coeur d’Alene River and the south by Highway 3. Home to bluegills, largemouth bass, northern pikes, catfish and crappies.

The sack you’ve been chained up in falls from the sky to the center of the lake without warning, without reason, without any obvious means for it being there. There was no crane lifting you above the lake’s surface, no plane dropping you out its cargo bay doors. You just appeared in the sky, as random as a roll of the dice, and gravity took you. You arrived there, instantly, as if hurled by an unseen hand. And you plummetted. And you drowned.

The odds were never that good. The Earth’s surface is 71 percent water, and you can drown in an inch of it. It’s not the sort of thing you want to leave to random chance.