Fun fact: The person who thought of the last contest we had (Be an Agent for a Day), is now a client of mine: hello Jim Duncan! Also, the person who won the contest before that (The 2nd Semi-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge), is also now a client: hello Natalie Whipple!
We’ve also had three finalists, Stuart Neville, Terry DeHart, and Victoria Schwab go on to be published/soon-to-be-published authors respectively.
In other words: NO PRESSURE.
(Bonus fun fact: I didn’t actually call the inaugural first paragraph challenge “stupendously ultimate,” it was actually “largely indispensable,” which throws into doubt whether this could properly be called the “third sort-of-annual.” We’ll just agree to forget that part, hmm?)
Now then!
It is time. Time to test your paragraph against… other first paragraphs. Time to see if your sentences can wage successful word combat in order to defeat other sentences and emerge victorious on a field of battle.
Oh, and there are prizes. Let’s start there.
The GRAND PRIZE STUPENDOUSLY ULTIMATE WINNER will receive….
1) Their choice of a partial critique, query critique, or phone consultation
2) A very-sought-after galley of THE SECRET YEAR by Jennifer Hubbard, which will be published by Viking in January:
3) A signed THE SECRET YEAR bookmark
4) The envy of their rivals
5) The pride of a job well done
6) I think you get the picture
The STUPENDOUSLY ULTIMATE FINALISTS will receive….
a) Query critiques
b) A signed THE SECRET YEAR bookmark (assuming you live in a place that is reached in a reasonably affordable fashion by the postal service no offense forraners)
c) Pride. Lots of pride.
On to the rules!!
I) This is a for-fun contest that I conduct in the free time. Rules may be adjusted without notice, as I see fit, in ways in which you might find capricious, arbitrary, and in a possibly not fully comprehensible fashion. Complainants will be sent to the Magister, and trust me, you don’t want to get sent to the Magister (who’s been watching True Blood? This guy)
II) Ya hear? Angst = prohibited.
III) Please post the first paragraph of any work-in-progress in the comments section of THIS POST. Do not e-mail me your submission. The deadline for entry is THURSDAY 4pm Pacific time, at which point entries will be closed. Finalists will be announced on Friday, at which time you will exercise your democratic rights to choose a stupendously ultimate winner.
IV) You may enter once, once you may enter, and enter once you may.
V) Spreading word about the contest is strongly encouraged.
VI) I will be sole judge. Unless I chicken out.
VII) I am not imposing a word count on the paragraphs. However, a paragraph that is overly long may lose points in the judge’s eyes. Use your own discretion.
VIII) Please remember that the paragraph needs to be a paragraph, not multiple paragraphs masquerading as one paragraph.
That is all.
And now I shall retreat to my stupendously ultimate bunker.
UPDATE: CONTEST IS CLOSED!! Thank you so much to everyone who entered.
poeticdesires says
She smoked instead of breathing. Her clothes were torn, dingy. Her hair was unkempt. This was a woman with priorities elsewhere. “When you’re running for your life, your appearance is the last thing you think about.” Oh, and she can read minds.
T.S.C. says
Dinah’s post-menopausal body and plastic surgery free face should have made her stick out among the super hip, super thin, super young crowd that filled Cromwell Place. Instead she and her crimson wig faded into the red brick wall behind the table for two where she sat alone. Fading into the background didn’t come naturally to Dinah. She was proud of mastering the skill so necessary to her job. Tonight it appeared to be working too well as it had been ten minutes since Green Eyes took her drink order. Normally when Dinah entered a room her presence didn’t just light it up, it exploded like fireworks shooting over the Manhattan skyline on July Fourth. Some people are thrilled by fireworks; others fear them. People’s reactions to Dinah Sabatino were similar and she worked tirelessly to keep it that way.
kedavranox says
Jared came to me again when I was twenty-two and sitting alone in my apartment. I could hear the faint wheezing sounds of the breaths he took and I could feel his body heat radiating off his skin. I could feel where my sofa sagged under his weight and I could smell him. It was the same mixture of deodorant, marijuana and breath mints that I’d grown accustomed to. He’d made some inane comment about the show I’d been watching. I don’t really remember it now, but I remember exactly what he looked like. He’d been wearing the same clothes he wore on the day he died. His hands were the same, large and heavily veined, with rings on every other finger. He’d had the same quiet, intense, baritone voice and he said the same stupid things, like the thing he said about my television show. I remember thinking that he was quite dead, and in everyone else’s world, the world of the normal that I knew little about, he shouldn’t be here, causing a dent in my sofa, and talking to me about television shows in that voice that I’d never forgotten.
folksinmt says
Katrina Hayes was going to die. Any second now. Right in front of Jackson’s locker. He deserved to find her here, face-down on the polished concrete. She needed him to know that he did this to her. That she suffered a heart attack at the age of sixteen. Because of him.
Lisa Palin says
I met Noah on the first day of the last year of my life. I knew this at the time, knew it with the rock-solid certainty that you know the sound of your own voice. I couldn’t have been happier.
allen says
One million dollars, here I come. Greg Sadler moved the camcorder tripod into position clicked it on. As he took his position, a brief fantasy about becoming a superstar flickered in his mind like an old movie. This was huge. This would actually change the world—-if it worked. No. It had to work. He breathed deep and announced: “My invention is the Electro Wave Transmitter. Greg Sadler, Pasadena, California. Entry number 1245.” He let out his breath. God, please let it work. He wanted to win. Badly.
June says
I'm desperate for it to be different this time. Maybe if I wait long enough, it will be. Heathrow airport in London, the world's busiest, is a virtual sea of people. I could say I am one of the many that are waiting, but that wouldn't be accurate. Oh, I'm among the throng of people, but I'm one of a few. My eyes are lowered and focused on the ground as usual. I take a chance, look up and look around.
worldofhiglet says
The day started innocently enough. After the coffee, news update and bathroom break, Jason was reading his inbox by 9.00. The usual collection of spam, ‘jokes’ and actual business emails were quickly deleted, grimaced over and actioned. Jason yawned and stretched back in his chair. His eye fell on the pile of papers in his intray and with a sigh he reached over and picked them up. Time to start the grind.
Jammer says
“Vietnamese?” they always repeat, squinting, "But you don't look Asian." Yeah, yeah, I don't look like a killer either. So there you go.
Crimogenic says
When hordes of birds dropped from the sky, I refused to believe what was happening– even when all the children missed school and city workers were commissioned to dig mass graves while the smell of charred flesh lingered in the air. But by the time the infection was full-blown, Chicago had been plucked down to the bone, and the people, well, not much was left of us. Then reality hit me as I stood on the balcony, hugging myself, watching the West Loop burn into the night.
Buschi says
Drab, stupid, dorky, blah – there were so many words that described this town. There was nothing, absolutely nothing that Jeanette found appealing about living here. It’d been so much nicer up at the cabin. She missed the smell of the pine needles after a rain. She missed the secret skinny-dipping trips to the lake. She missed the birds singing from the trees. Okay, maybe she didn’t miss their thunderous chirping at four in the morning, but even that was better than all these stupid cars. The birds smelled better, too.
Jill@barclaysquare says
Annie shut the cover of the scrap book she’d been shrugging over. The heirloom lace clung to the hangnail on her left hand. She sucked the blood off before it could stain the page. Salty. Then like a young child, re-wrapping an unwanted Christmas gift, she gathered the cabernet-stained cover and draped it around the caressed velvet. “Mothballs!” she sneezed. “Mothballs served with a side of Robitussin.” The perfect home for this sullen prison of memories, mostly of strangers, whose hands, feet and faces had all turned a urine-stained yellow.
G.Hen.Jo says
“Kris, it’s Desi again. You have to come get me! I’ve managed to make your friend Brent Cooper think I’m dumb as well as blind.” Desiree Mason leaned back against the locked door, squeezing her eyes tight to stanch incipient tears. She swallowed with difficulty past the knot in her dry throat. “Things were going pretty OK until he placed a box in my hands. Valentine chocolates, he says. So, I say—you know, trying to be smart and witty like you said I used to be—I said: a blind date is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get. I thought it was a clever spin on that line from that movie we listened to yesterday.” Desi sniffled. “God help me. I tried to be smart by quoting an idiot from a movie. But seriously. My memory’s still all messed up from the accident. How was I to know that a box of chocolate has pictures and descriptions of what’s inside? Anyway, Brent pointed that out and now I feel stupid. I was so embarrassed. I’m glad I couldn’t see his face. Goddamn it Kris. It’s been three years. I just want my memory to come back already, never mind my eyesight. I wish you hadn’t insisted on setting this up. I’m not ready to date yet. It’s still too soon. Please. You have to come get me. I’m in the Ladies Room. In the third stall after the entrance door. And yes, I’m through ranting now, so please just be my enabler and my crutch one last time. Call me back so I know you’re coming.”
Rebecca says
MaryJo Windland's first mistake was letting her friend Mollie talk her into a "lovely Sunday morning spelunking trip." Waiting around in the dank, slimy Ozark cave, cringing at each crack of thunder overhead, was her second. Mollie was almost certainly hiding down one of the side tunnels, stifling laughter at her friend's panic. If she were lucky, she'd choke on her own tongue before MJ got a hold of her scrawny neck. Her compulsively late friend had some serious explaining to do.
Joel Hoekstra says
What could possibly posses a low profile Romanian mobster to declare war on Islam? And why would he start his crusade by trying to wipe out the sex trade in the backwaters of Moldova and the Ukraine? If there was a method to the madness of Victor “Mad Man” Leone, Randy Harriman had yet to determine what it might be, and his tenure as Chief Analyst on the Leone case might come to an abrupt, inglorious end if he didn’t have answers for the White House within a month. A month! How the hell was he supposed brief the President without looking like a complete idiot with only 30 days lead time? Leone had eluded Romanian and Turkish authorities for years and the trail was at least two decades cold. If the Turkish government was so hot to nab Leone “The Crusader,” sharing intelligence with the CIA smacked of desperation or incompetence. Or both.
Tod Hardin says
Young Celie Berryhill walked onto the ledge sixteen stories high. She looked up to the sky, into a blue so bright she had to squint to see across the city. The ten-year old took a deep breath of cool morning air then smiled at the smell of baking bread, wafting up from far below. She turned toward the morning sun, spread her arms wide, and walked off the building.
Kevin says
The most boring chore is driving your clogged up hack of a vacuum to the repair shop. The vacuum has lint for lungs. The limp hose hangs awkwardly down the back seat like thrown-off-pants after a bad day. Its motor somehow whirs and slogs at the same time. The cavity within your sucking sucker is blue-black with goop. There is no pleasure in such a chore, though this is all my opinion. Kristy, on the other opinion, does not believe this. She is an optimist. Getting your vacuum fixed isn’t so bad because of: the car radio, free vacuum store coffee, the odd ticklishness of just vacuumed carpet, the goateed vacuum repairman and his soul patched apprentice (Kristy has an odd fascination with facial hair that is never to be explained,) the possibility of severed human heads in the workroom underneath boxes of spare filters, the fact that the repairman’s last name is Hoover. She wondered if the goateed man’s of a life dustbins and nozzles was handed down to him from his father and his father’s father as seen in the tradition of cobblers and watchmakers and mimes. I wondered how a yellow receipt for a revived vacuum could fit in so many zeroes.
Mary Malcolm says
Okay readers, I have to admit I felt somewhat reluctant to go on a date with a man named Chaz. You all know what I’m thinking: shirt unbuttoned halfway down his hairy chest, too-tight pants, some strange scarf from the seventies, the snapped finger acknowledgement followed shortly by some “Hey baby, did you fall from heaven,” cheesy pickup line. All the same, I put on my big girl panties, sprayed myself down with “anti-sleaze” repellant and headed to Water Bar, where we’d agreed to meet. Halfway through my Mojito a gorgeous hunk-a-dunk of a man walked in, looked around the room a bit then his eyes settled on me. Indigo shirt and blue jeans, had to be Chaz. I looked toward the ceiling, said a silent prayer of thanks to the first date gods and tripped over my heels in my hurry to greet him. He caught me, never once uttering that dreaded cheesy line.
Amalia T. says
It was the man’s misfortune that he chose this night to loot in the desert, and stumbled across the gathering of all gods. Thor could only imagine the man’s dismay when he stepped into this golden chamber, expecting treasure, and instead finding himself in the midst of Aesir, Olympians, Egyptians, Aethiopians, and Hindus, all waiting for the Council to begin. Anubis dangled the mortal by the back of his cloak, lifting him up for inspection by Ra and the two goddesses beside him.
Jessica Callahan says
The man at my window wasn’t human, as I later discovered. He was good, and kind, and made excellent use of his tongue, but he was also flawed, in the most damning kind of way.
Helen says
Since its debut in 1953, Mimi wore Youth Dew, her signature scent. The name had spurred my sister and me into a titter of furtive sniggers because we knew, as evidenced by grandmother’s pleated jowls and corrugated brow, that Miss Estée Lauder was a liar – the perfume didn’t work worth a darn.
sbstephen says
All afternoon the corridor outside her room bustled with visitors. She couldn't help but hear the bright voices and laughter, the oohs and aahs. But there were no balloons bumping against the ceiling of her room, no sweet pink daisy bouquets on the window sill, no florid cards, no well-wishers for her. No smiles. Her mother sat grimly staring out the windpw, obviously craving a cigarette but resolutely resisting, while her father handled the arrangements somewhere far from the medical miracle section of the hospital, in some fluorescent lit office where bills were paid and grievous errors were discretely plastered over. Sydney slept, or pretended to, until visiting hours were over. She roused only when her parents took their leave and repeated their parting instructions.
matt says
Rachel’s hand hovered over the mouse, her finger poised and ready to drop. On her computer screen, Alana was holding onto a rocky outcrop, her eyes wide with panic. Behind her the beautiful Waiohine Gorge stretched out, rich green hills dipping sharply to the river, warmly lit by early morning sun. Beneath her, a perilous drop onto sharp rocks and jagged, broken trees. The preview window of Rachel’s editing software was paused. She reached down and used the mouse to drag a thin marker across the project’s timeline. In the preview window the footage of Alana rewound silently. The spark of panic in her eyes dimmed, her knuckles grew less white. She lifted into the air, her expression unfolding from horror to surprise. She flew up slowly, frame by frame, tumbling in reverse back up the cliff face, her blonde hair swirling around her face. A few more frames, and she was back up on the path, standing in front of her boyfriend, Hakota.
Kevin Porter says
The thought had plagued him like a migraine. Constant. No way of escape. The only remedy…
To give in. To do it. And he had.
That day was perfect. She was running barefoot through the fields, wading in the creek. Skin as gold as sunshine, a spirit clean as country air. A good girl. These days probably called herself a victim. A survivor. Wasn’t everybody? He certainly had been. It was the way things were. A law of nature. Predator vs. Prey.
Vipul says
The assault on Hell had begun.
A dark figure moved quickly through the desolate plain on the borders of Hell. Flitting between the shadows of the huge boulders that lay strewn across the barren ground, he stayed well-hidden from the nearby road that he followed. Pausing for a moment, he crouched in the darkness, watching a pair of guards march past as they continued their endless patrol.
Julia says
The dull grey of the autumn's sky changes into the blinding blue of winter's radiance. Puffy blanket of snow covers the town and like gingerbread cookies the houses in Brösvin stand sugar-coated with shimmering white. Alexa walks through the soft cold heaps down the half hidden trail in the Central Park and memories like snowflakes dance down onto the earth around her in crazy circles, emerging from nowhere up in the sky. They pile up, melting together, fusing past and present and then spill down from the corner of the eye salty and warm, so unlike the cold snow they once were. When finally she reaches her destination Alexa opens her backpack and pulls out a book. It looks old, even ancient. Soft leather cover with the subtle oak-leaves etching running along the spine, the edges braced by a silver filigree, this book once seemed mysterious and inviting. Alexa's fingers touch it carefully, caressing the velvety surface. However little effort it would take to open it, Alexa finds herself unable to do that. She hesitates, for a moment giving in to the fear that pools heavily in her stomach. Tell me how this ends.
Joel G. says
I came into my grandmother’s life when she died. She gifted me her adventures, her lover, and the secret she had never shared with anyone. I came into my grandmother’s life, and I barely came out alive.
Jeff Faville says
I tried to hide my horrible secret but all it got me was trouble.
jbl says
Open your eyes. Look around the room. This is the scenery of your life, the future of your soul. Books abound, smells linger, and the pillow next to yours has remained free of any lover's hair, for years. As you struggle to your feet, dislodging a last piece of broccoli stuck between those same two damn back teeth, you stare at your timid erection and declare, enough.
Dorraine says
My name is Ruby Hiller Wiffledust. I'm thirty-years-old and I've never had sex. I work inside a Beltway Eight toll booth north of Houston, and men fly by so fast I never catch names. Sometimes that really pisses me off. Sorry, I'm rather cranky.
A. F. Stewart says
The smallest light flitted on the sea, as eyes peered out a tiny window in rapture, a little nose pressed against glass. The rain was falling lightly, the gentle tears of summer, after the teal and blue of the fierce storm. The salt tang of the sea lingered, awash in the air, the pearl foam swirling in the waves; the wind puffed the beach sand, carrying it to kiss the mild sea.
Debbie Cowens says
Everyone thinks there’s one person in their family is who certifiably crazy. But I bet most people don’t have their aunt show up two months late for their sixteenth birthday, telling them that they’re a fairy godmother.
Susan says
The mouse squeaked when Adam put it in the machine. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and concentrated on not puking. Calm down, I thought. Take a deep breath. But sucking air past the lump in my throat felt enough like swallowing crushed glass to make me forget the whole breathing thing, at least for a while.
K and A says
Adelaide walked swiftly along the street, past the pirate who didn’t own a ship, and the Scot who’d never been to Scotland, and the librarian whose home didn’t hold a single book. Contemplating her own strange circumstances, Adelaide realized she was absently twisting the ring on her finger. As she gazed thoughtfully at it, a bright flash of light reflected off the largest diamond. Turning to the source of the illumination, Adelaide watched warily as the light began to fade, and finally blink out, leaving in its place a New Arrival. The young woman, not distant in age from Adelaide, wore a tight body suit of unearthly hues, and clutched a sign that read, "Peace Not Plasma!" But it was the woman’s eyes that captured Adelaide's full attention, for they were bewildered, confused… and fearful. Adelaide understood; she had worn the same expression herself—the day she'd Arrived.
Anonymous says
Ben Gay ointment doesn’t taste nearly as minty fresh as it smells. Pearl Bryzinski knows that for a fact, because she accidentally squirted a big blob of it onto her toothbrush this morning. Then she accidentally elbowed her “Daddy’s Little Girl” coffee mug off the counter, and broke it to smithereens. It had a glued-on handle and chipped lip, but doggone it, she’d been using that mug every day, all day, for the past twenty years. She was a pathological optimist by nature, but it was enough to raise prickly doubts about the veracity of that rosy five star horoscope in today’s newspaper.
Thornhill says
Everybody should daydream. They say it's healthy for us adults. I like to imagine myself as a dictator, a kind and benevolent dictator for the most part, but arbitrary and unpredictable. For example, I hate the sound of harmonicas. When I come to power they won't be allowed outside of a prison. Nor will people who shout at me during their stupid TV commercials or that guy on CNN. They will have to learn to use their inside voices when they're on my TV or they'll spend their days breaking rocks on one of my chain gangs.
Anonymous says
Ben Gay ointment doesn’t taste nearly as minty fresh as it smells. Pearl Bryzinski knows that for a fact, because she accidentally squirted a big blob of it onto her toothbrush this morning. Then she accidentally elbowed her “Daddy’s Little Girl” coffee mug off the counter, and broke it to smithereens. It had a glued-on handle and chipped lip, but doggone it, she’d been using that mug every day, all day, for the past twenty years. She was a pathological optimist by nature, but it was enough to raise prickly doubts about the veracity of that rosy five star horoscope in today’s newspaper.
Sarah Heacox says
Marten had been twelve years alive on Oceanica, he had spent
nine years learning to be a Navigator, and it was time for his test. After dinner, that is. In the dining room of the family ship, picking at his fry bread and skipjack, he tried to keep everything in his memory. His head was a huge bowl of navigation soup: if he moved too quickly in any direction, some of his knowledge would slosh over the
side and vanish.
T.C. Graham says
Melvin Swain's life had clicked along effortlessly until the Great Funk hit him. Melvin had been one of the fortunate ones, touched by an uneventful existence. There was a job that easily paid for a home-sweet-home (with a reasonable mortgage and a yard relatively free of crabgrass), a pantry filled with groceries (organic when possible), unbounded summer vacations (in an almost-paid-for timeshare), automobile leases (his and hers), and there was always a wallet filled with credit cards that made every dream within reach with barely a stretch. Populating Melvin's world was a wife (still fairly attractive), two kids (one of each), and a lap dog (mixed breed) that paid more attention to Melvin than the rest of the world ever did. Suffice to say, Melvin might have been classified a happy man. Except for one fact: He never stopped to consider happiness or if he possessed it. Instead, he simply clicked along, on schedule and never veering off-track, just like the miniature train at the zoo; the one he used to love taking his children to visit; the one they no longer go to see. Not since the Great Funk came along and crapped on Melvin's head.
(originally posted under anonymous)
K.C. Shaw says
I left for work early because I wanted to see the unicorn again. I'd been security guard at a building site for a month now, watching to make sure no one walked off with tools or lumber overnight. I started work at nine, but if I left home a little bit early and waited at the corner of Frog and White Pine, I knew I'd see the mounted cop on his unicorn. Of course Whitefall was full of people riding or driving unicorns–while I waited now, pretending to look at the broadsheet headlines at a newsagent's, half a dozen carriages and wagons rumbled by. But this unicorn was special.
robinglasser says
Eyes averted, Amada holds the sheet in front of her Jabba-the-Hutt-sized body. She had placed Stikit! on both corners and, with arms widespread, attempts to hang the cherub-printed cloth over her bedroom mirror. But there is a problem. Chick-a-chica-licious she ain’t. Her belly, Amada could have been carrying quadruplets (fat chance as she hadn’t had sex since the Ice Age!), gets in the way, making it impossible to press the edges against the mirrored surface.
Cupcakegrrl says
He was a little man, not a pygmy or a dwarf, just a little man bent over a mechanical thing- metal and wires- that he said I should see for myself. Using a pencil as a pointer, he began to explain. His words, peculiarly certain, swung over me as if on a trapeze. My thoughts began to crowd me, muttering, and one of them, right in front, with elbows pushing, suggested (not unkindly) that the guy was too short to be a cop and maybe I shouldn't believe him. Despite his uniform, despite the station we were standing in, despite the other cops around us – maybe he really didn't know what he was talking about. Maybe it wasn't a bomb, and, really, nobody had tried to kill me at all.
Christina Davis says
(memoir)
Things are not going as planned. I am in labor and just a few hours from delivery. My obstetrician left the room seconds ago and I’ve decided I won’t be seeing her again today or ever. I turn to face the wall and Mom knows immediately something isn’t right. She approaches the bed, “What is it?” Andy looks at her and then to me. I didn’t know what would come of my decision but I knew exactly what I had to do. “She will not deliver this baby,” I whisper. Andy leaves the room in search of a nurse.
Kristi says
A woman’s call for help was lost in the polyphonic rhythms bouncing off curved walls. In full swing, the large laboratory pulsed like a light show, its glow radiating from dozens of nestled workstations. Knowing full well her fellow researchers were too busy to break focus and help, the woman shot to a standing position. One gloved fist plunged into the viscous orb bobbing inches over her desk, puncturing its fragile membrane. Textbook. Her orb’s image distorted momentarily, like waves rippling across a funhouse mirror. After the standard adjustments, she watched. Her subject’s face, inside the orb, contorted into swollen, clown-like features, per routine, before returning to— Wait. This wasn’t normal.
Susan Flett Swiderski says
Ben Gay ointment doesn’t taste nearly as minty fresh as it smells. Pearl Bryzinski knows that for a fact, because she accidentally squirted a big blob of it onto her toothbrush this morning. Then she accidentally elbowed her “Daddy’s Little Girl” coffee mug off the counter, and broke it to smithereens. It had a glued-on handle and chipped lip, but doggone it, she’d been using that mug every day, all day, for the past twenty years. She was a pathological optimist by nature, but it was enough to raise prickly doubts about the veracity of that rosy five star horoscope in today’s newspaper.
abra says
We stayed up past bedtime, high on toasted marshmallows, concealed from the road beneath the shadow of a rotting tree. Sat on a blanket too small for the both of us and told stories as dusk settled into fading fireflies and finally blackness. Sometimes the moon glowed, lit us up like angels, my father said. This wasn’t one of those nights. Most nights we couldn’t see the moon. Most nights a sickly yellow hallow traced the circumference of our town, blocking the night sky. This was one of those nights.
Serenissima says
Last summer, the arsonist struck every home on the block but ours. The neighbors peppered my family with remarks about how lucky we were. Then came the roundabout inquiries concerning my brother, Gavin.
Tara says
Alex shoved the rest of the papers in the folder, and stood to stretch. For a whole bunch of reasons, he absolutely detested day shift. What it did to his biological system – if you could still call it that – was insane. He was also tired of the inactivity. He preferred being in the field to being tied to the desk, another non-perk, courtesy of day shift. Dave, the agent who normally had this time slot, needed to be off and had called Alex for the favor. He hadn’t come in before noon, but Dave was okay with it. At three o’clock, the sun was already on the wane and it was getting darker. One of the good things about late fall.
Christina Davis says
(memoir)
Things are not going as planned. I am in labor and just a few hours from delivery. My obstetrician left the room seconds ago and I’ve decided I won’t be seeing her again today or ever. I turn to face the wall and Mom knows immediately something isn’t right. She approaches the bed, “What is it?” Andy looks at her and then to me. I didn’t know what would come of my decision but I knew exactly what I had to do. “She will not deliver this baby,” I whisper. Andy leaves the room in search of a nurse.
ErynnNewman says
The sun was beginning to set as Elisabeth pulled her car off the road. It had been a long time since she’d driven these mountainous Virginia back roads. It was something that she did a lot just after Drew’s death, when she needed to think. And she definitely had some thinking to do tonight. She’d driven around with the windows rolled down for a couple of hours until habit and necessity brought her back here. She stepped out into the unseasonably warm evening and carefully made her way down the familiar path in the waning light.