Where the inspiration for the migrating dust bunny scene came from

Inspiration's a funny thing.

When it arrives unbidden the ideas roll and tumble freely. Try and summon inspiration though and your muse is more than likely to be a stubborn no-show.

I got lucky when I once saw a video of a herd of tumbleweed on the move. I tucked the scene away in the junkyard of my mind and here's how it came in handy later.

A bit of background first  - the arrival of Rayon, the bright blue dust bunny has caused ructions in the house. His intrusive blueness has galvanised The Mum to declare a rigourous tidy-up all around the house starting upstairs.

Now the upstairs dust bunnies have to flee because the ever-inhaling vacuum cleaner is heading their way in the morning.

When the house has gone dark and the silvery moon's come out, the tribes of dust bunnies set off on their exodus from The Wind That Blows Backwards...

A room-scale dust bunny migration is a majestic event.

The sheer number and volume of dust bunnies on the move would present an irresistible and deeply gratifying target for an enthusiastic tidy-upper, a slow-motion avalanche of soft focus and fluff, many a bellyful for a busy central vac. So migrations only ever happen at night when no-one’s watching. Dust bunnies clump together loosely in long rolls, or in rough attempts at spheres, because they roll faster and further across a wooden floor like that. In between the densest clumps of rolling, bobbing dust bunnies lay a drifting soft, grey fog; misty fuzzballs mostly, still unfettered by the threads of experience.

Clutching on tight to each other in a mix of nervousness and excitement, the fuzzballs rolled in rippling soft, silvery grey waves, away from the spare room, borne forward by a breeze not much more than a sigh.

Progress was stately and steady. Elder dust bunnies remained at the rear, keeping the lighter accumulations from getting too distracted by the novelty of being out so late at night and rolling off on their own. The larger tribes from under the bed, wardrobe or desk clumped more densely and rolled more sedately. With a tendency to clump with their own, clutches, drifts and wispy clans of dust bunnies of denim, cotton, pyjama, underwear and sock as yet unaffiliated to a tribe, rolled, bounced and tumbled across the floor at slightly varying speeds – especially the lightbulb bunnies, who almost danced along in the moonlight as the sleeping house breathed slow and deep.

With the moon peeking in through the spare room window to see what all the activity was about, she shone a cool, silver light over the last great waves of those dust bunnies from far, far under the bed making their slow, majestic exit from the spare bedroom. Past The Andrew’s room they went and across the floor towards the stairs, tumbling between the railings and flowing down the stairs in a cataract of hope.

Read the beginning of Rayon's story here as well as a few of the early chapters of Rayon the dust bunny and a vacuum abhorred.