Earlier this year I wrote a short play called “About the Deep Woods Killer.” If you think it was about the Deep Woods Killer, you would be wrong — it was more about his now-grown son and the emotional wreckage he’s inherited, and it was perhaps even more about a young woman he meets who is strangely drawn to troubled men. (And, indeed, the full-length version I’m now working on is called “Troubled Men.”) The story is very loosely based upon the Green River Killer, whose story I came across on MSNBC in my hotel room in April. The Green River Killer lured women down by the river and killed them. This went on for 20 years. Estimates of his rampage vary.

I changed the setting from river to woods because while I know something about rivers, I grew up in the woods. To me, the river is metaphoric for journey (think “Huckleberry Finn”), while the woods are metaphoric for the subconscious, and how deep you can go. (Here’s an old logic puzzle:  “How far can a dog run into the woods?” “Halfway. After that, he’s running out.”) In my play, nobody’s getting out — but they do go deeper. Hence the woods.

A minute ago I was Stumbling around the internet and found the image below. Stumble promises to find things on the Web that you’re interested in but which you didn’t know about. In this case, I experienced a frisson when I saw the image. I know someone did it for a lark — it’s posted on some “humor” page — but given my play, I read it differently.

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