gathering around the pool table over Margaritas to 'ooh' and 'aah' over the injury.

It seemed to me that this was an excellent premise for a novel. So I set to it: I elaborated upon a few things and had the man - along with a few others (a freelance torturer, an aid worker) - kidnapped.

Yesterday I opened the newspaper to see that the Legend with the shrapnel in his thumb had just been released after three months of kidnap by the Taliban.

Art, life; life, art. What's the point of going to the trouble of making something up if it's just going to happen anyway?