My short story titled "The Malaise Trap" has recently been published as a standalone chapbook from the Brazillian-based Raphus Press, and as has become usual I'm writing a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.
Like most of my fiction, the idea sprang from the title. I'm fairly certain I became aware of a Malaise trap whilst my partner was writing a themed series of insect poems. I often read facts about insects to her whilst she writes, which lubricates the creative process, and so it's highly likely I heard of a Malaise trap that way. Why? Because it's a large, tent-like structure used for trapping, killing, and preserving flying insects, particularly Hymenoptera and Diptera. It's called a Malaise Trap because it was invented by René Malaise, but - of course - with malaise also meaning a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or unease whose exact cause is difficult to identify, it just begged for a story to be written.
My story centres around an artist using insect photography as part of her work, and her increasingly difficult relationship with her partner, a fledgling novelist, eventually leading to a photograph that might just make her career; but it's more about an outward manifestation of the malaise that dogs that relationship, and how we project thoughts and fears onto others.
Here's a bit of it:
If Veronika were to collate sufficient exhibits for her show then she needed to eradicate the darkness which occurred in the photographs. The episode with the posterior vitreous detachment had projected her into photography, something she had only been dallying with up to that point. Whilst part of her wondered if she might centre her show with pieces that indicated a veil was being drawn across a field of vision, she decided that anomalies were not true representations of her skills. In fact, it would be the absence of skill that dictated such a show. And that was anathema to her.
