Openings

Opening 1: Romance  You would have mentioned it on a Tuesday too, except you didn’t because on Tuesdays you mostly squatted in her back yard and smoked cigarettes together and discussed fancy term from the 80s. It lasted a week, you noticed, until one time when you’d finished chuckling over “bitchen” she told you mildly “I hate it when you don’t tell me things.”  You look at her blankly and wonder if it had really been that obvious. “It showed up a while ago.” you admit, your words like chalk. “Come look.”

Opening 2: Romance  “Get. Over here.”  If it wasn’t for the little half-moons digging into the soft underneath of her palm, she would have thought he was merely insisting. The grittiness of his voice, the grip of his on hers, the heat of his hand on her other, the tangle of straw-coloured hair brushing figure-eights over chapped lips was—  “Get over here right now.”

Opening 3: Romance  I was outstretched and she was outstretched and the sun played contentedly on the height of our cheekbones. Hers were tall and mine were shallow and our palms tickled palms like the grass tickled either side of our necks.  “He’ll be here soon,” she cooed, a wafting hum. There was the zip of a car not far in the distance. “Let’s wait like this a while longer.”

Opening 4: Mystery (/Science-Fiction)  Possibly.  //Quite// possibly, it was the sound that made her vomit. Pink streams of garbled words and continental breakfast dripped from her mouth in sticky strings. Purple light hung in the air, dribbled down the sky. Rainbow sound droned thickly like a hundred hornets.  “Are you alright? Are you okay? God, //Jesus//, are you going to—”  Possibly, it was the blood that made her worry. The fret lines appeared quietly, creeping across her forehead, etching horror permanently into her cheekbones. Speckles of it pricked the eerie glowing surface.  “Woah! Hey, is that really—oh my God, you need an ambulance, oh God, I need to call an—” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> Possibly, it was her death that was so controversial. According to public records, despite frantic, insistent testimony, Jane Doe had never existed in the first place.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Opening 5: Mystery <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “Six-fifteen.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “Six-fifteen?” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “I’m sure of it.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “And how are you sure of it sir?” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “I just told you.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “I’m sorry sir, but no. You told officer Rangen. Please, just once more.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> An eyebrow. Raised. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “You were saying—six-fifteen?” the young officer prompted, her heavy metal pen tapping a bent note-pad. She watched the man’s mouth wobble, then move into a straight line. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “Right. Six-fifteen. I checked my watch at six-fifteen.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “And that’s when it happened?” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “Yep. Bingo. Yesiree. Just rolled right over top of him. Flattened him like a bloody steam roller, like that, uh, like—” the man squinted, searching the sketchy horizon for his lost words. “Like what’s that cartoon again?” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “Mickey. Mickey Mouse.” the officer supplied. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “Yeah. Like Mickey Mouse.”

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Opening 6: Mystery <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">There weren't even rocks to trip on, nor gopher-holes nor gray logs nor bits of barbed-wire fences. He fell anyways, even though his laces were Velcro. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"//Jesus,// Maurice, get a hold of yourself." <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"Maybe if I took the flashlight?" he suggested meekly, brushing off his slacks and tip-toeing over suspiciously shady areas. "B?" <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"No!" A strained bark. B glanced back at the loping figure irritably. "Quiet down, will you? And hurry up." He coughed hoarsely in the dry prairie air, fiddling with soft plastic buttons. "Whether you like it or not, Maurice..." he muttered, glancing at the shadowy peak ahead of him, and trailed off as hints of wild neon and echoes of brass circus-melodies pulsed impatiently before him. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"But //B."// The other argued softly, wheedling and high. "It's just a flashlight." <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Ignoring him, the other cleared his throat as he fumbled with the torch head, rotating it erratically until it began to dim. "I'm sorry." he said sternly, obviously anything but. "But Maurice by God, if you mess this up..."

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Opening 7: Science-Fiction <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “A comet. Definitely a comet.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “Are you an idiot? It’s obviously a spacecraft.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> “Do I look like an idiot? If you had better judgment you would see, Lester, that it’s composed mainly of ice, dust, and small rocky particles. Like a snowman. See?” She drew a finger lazily across a crooked marking. “There’s even a face in it.”

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Opening 8: Science-Fiction <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The yellowing grass swung listlessly at our ankles and I think, perhaps, there were also burrs. Their Velcro stung them. I plucked at my pant-leg and plucked at her pant-leg and from the corner of my eye saw--but ignored--the pale swishy landscape. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"It's around here somewhere." she said quietly when we stopped to breathe heavily, leaning like the hillside leaned. "I //know// it. I //feel// it in the wind." She hooked an arm loosely underneath another, tucked some hair loosely behind an ear. "This is where it landed." <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">For her sake I said nothing, concerning myself with her distasteful melodrama and, despite myself--though I ignored it too--the nettles and prickles that had settled themselves under my skin.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Openings: Ranking (follow link here)