Sunday, September 30, 2007

Great First Lines

This is another common writing prompt I do, this time with Leslee, coming up with fantastic first story lines. These are mine (we did separate one), but don't expect any stories from them!

The boat bucked in the maw of the seamonster.

The murder of Phineaus Spalding took two minutes to complete.

Maude disrobed in the middle of the venetian plaza to great cheers and applause.

Fink the dog had several unusual hobbies, including the collecting of small fossils.

Steam rose from the tiny body.

The ants skittered over and under the particles of sawdust as they slowly deconstructed James Sealworth, formerly the mayor of Portland.

A five-foot long eel died slowly, writhing in distress as it tried to find it's way out of the rotting corpse.

It was a dark and stormy night when Jesus finally decided to descend from heaven; unfortunately there was no one left on Earth to greet him with adulation.

The woman in the tiled square ululated just before Yosef was forced to behead her in an ancient ceremony that marked his ascension to the group of Fifteen.

Hermano rubbed his side against the grate in an attempt to wrest his skin from his body.

Once upon a time a priest, a rabbi, and a dog walked into an Irish pub, never to be seen again.

After I wrote these (and Leslee suggested that the duck make it out of the pub alive, I realize these are awfully Gorey-esque. Hmmmm. I'm really twisted!

Monday, September 24, 2007

The Encounter Group

Note: This was a piece of flash fiction I wrote from a prompt I did with my friend Leslee. We chose entries randomly from a dictionary - this one was "encounter group". My resulting story didn't have much to do with that phrase!

-K. O.

---

The ground was moist, my feet blistered and bleeding -- the water stung. I don't know when I stopped running. I don't know how far the ship was behind me. The memory is slipping away.

In the inky darkness I could here the rhythmic song of frogs. I must have been near a marsh. I stumbled towards the low chirping sounds. It was a sign of something alive, natural.

My hands began to shake. I was back on Earth, but how could I have been away? Where were the others? Had they escaped? Did I escape?

My foot dropped into the marsh, I fell face forward into the stagnate weedy water. Acrid bitter water filled my parched mouth, my tongue finally lubricated. I felt the urge to scream, but the cool night water wrpped around me -- was I naked but for the water? I couldn't remember. The urge to breathe welled up -- but I was too tired. Somehow it felt that the water below was endless, and I began falling.

Something grazed my back -- a frog? It spread out, touched my spine. It spider walked to the base of my skull. The water, I realized it held me in paralysis.

The thing on my back twiched. It was no frog. Fear welled up again. Then it struck. I felt the thing push its way inside my skull. I felt pain press against the inside of my head. The thing actually grunted a low chirp in its effort. By then I was completely numb to any pain there was, my brain detached from the event.

The thing thrust again and again and again, trying to deposit the egg. I thought briefly of my childhood. It was a lifetime ago, so far away. Then I wondered why I didn't need to breathe. The water no longer tasted acrid. There was a sweetness and within it was laced a hint of a pleasant, unidentifiable flavor.

Finally the thing retracted itself, the egg safely in place. It hopped off my back. I floated there face down for several minutes, unable to see or move -- just taste and hear.

The egg hatched and my mind split in a thousand pieces. I was everywhere and nowhere. I began my life here as well as many other planets.

I feel privileged to be back.