moment

As writers we collect moments and images - particularly ones that puzzle or which can't easily be explained; moments from our lives, memories of parents or relatives - but most often incidents which seem peripheral or irrelevant at the time. We store these away somewhere in our subconscious. Then sometimes during writing, an image, plucked from some faraway recess, re-emerges in an eureka moment of understanding within a story. The narrative enables the understanding.

I was once in a small group of art students travelling out of Paris on the metro. The train stopped at a station. The carriage doors opened. No one got in and no one got out. Then, just as the doors were about to shut - a man standing on the platform darted into the carriage, picked up a minuscule piece of 'nothing' from the carriage floor and sped out again just as the doors slid shut. The train moved off. All of a sudden, passengers looked round at one another, baffled. Someone quipped; 'Aha le microdot!' and everyone laughed.

I'm throwing this one open. Any clues?