I lock my favourite writers in a room, each one stolen away from whatever they are working on, abducted in my unmarked black van. The room is furnished with simple benches bolted to the floor. A two way mirror like those in cop shows takes up most of one wall through which I can watch.

The dead white males huddle in a corner, muttering and stinking up the place. The poets groom each other, stroking and styling hair, pocketing stray strands that fall from their closest rivals like stolen similes. Novelists talk all at once, upping their bombast each time they are unlucky enough to hear something good coming from someone else. Flash fiction authors begin to speak but trail off just as things get interesting. Everyone regards the lyricists with scorn.

My voice breaks God-like over the tannoy. I tell them the last great idea sits unwritten in the cage just beyond the door. Half a heartbeat, maybe two and I press the release. The door embarks on its ponderous automated swing outward from the room and they surge forward.