Mandy’s Story Starters

1. She knew she would never be the same…

2. I once met a man at an airport lounge…

3. It was the sticky month of August…

4. I picked up the newspaper from the front porch and screamed…

5. I’ve learned many lessons from my dog…

6. He was 15 when he found out…

7. It’s amazing how much a life can change in an instant…

8. Age does funny things to people…

9. Laura watched as the elevator doors opened…

10. A trickle of sweat dripped down my nose as I…

11. The neighbor kids were chasing down the street after the ice cream truck and I…

story starters

The wind blustered and whipped the leaves around in a rising circle with an ominous scratching sound.   I listened mournfully as his bootsteps diminished on the cold sidewalk.

I knew it was a pattern repeating itself when….

The woman I once knew opened her mouth but no discernable sound came out.  I didn’t know how to ask her to repeat or how to ask her what was wrong.  I felt I should have known.  She had been a vivacious woman.  The muscle degeneration had forced her into a wise grandmother overnight.  Only speaking when absolutely necessary and having a sister beside her read out her thoughts at other times.  My deciphering of her sounds improved within a day.

The man beside me filled his airline seat completely.  Solid, he was, with a black baseball cap.  A working man wearing a red shirt which fit tightly around his ample but solid round belly.  Laying flatly and as loud as a broadcast was the gold cross jauntily slanted on his upper chest.  I knew I would ask him of his profession, but not yet.  Hands thick like a butchers rested on his stout knees.  I watched Angels and Demons on my air seat console.

Something prompted me to ask his name.  The body creates it’s own entanglements before reason can engage.

Diana’s Story Starters

The rain had always been her favorite sound, ever since…

The foghorn blast scared the bejeezus out of them, and they froze right in the middle of…

The worm tasted like…

The day of the big race was here and the racers were in place, poised and tense, but when Karen screamed…

Mandy peered through the tiny slit, hoping against hope to find…

Holly had wished for this very thing when she blew out the candles on her eighth birthday, but now that it was here…

The nursery rhyme bounced off the inner walls of his skull…

“Git your gun, Annie,” the Sheriff called, reaching behind him to grab…

If she had known that day that her mother never wore underwear, she never would have…

Story Starters from Karen

I knew the moment I heard the back door deadbolt slide…

There were Bob and Martha, just as usual, only this time…

I found myself in totally unfamiliar emotional territory when …

I had known it was coming, but not so soon – please, God, not so soon! –

See, here’s the thing.  The thing is, …

The tension between my two images of myself was so unbearable that I knew …

The desert, finally.  As he scanned the flat, rocky landscape he noticed…

The mist rising up from the stream bed carried with it …

The phone – ringing again, damn it.  If only it was…

Take me, she thought, please, just take me, take me to…