Return of the First Line meme

Mood index: yeah. still in the 90’s.

matociquala has so decreed it. The idea here is that we post the first lines of unfinished stories, on the theory that we might then be inspired to finish a few.

(If this works, yay. If not… no harm no foul. If nothing else, it shakes some dust off.)

Snarky Water (working title): Sometimes, the gods give you gifts.

A World of Unfortunate Place Names: There were no safe places in Portside.

Praise the Devil: The horse was an old one, and piebald to boot, warning he’d go lame sooner rather than not, but Jack would be damned if he’d give up and walk.

Location, Location: Did you ever wonder why do some locations just kill any business that locates there?

BabyGirl (working title): “Loving someone, letting yourself love them, means giving them part of yourself. And you don’t get that back when it ends.”

The Cost: “My lady, I dislike this place.”

The Devil’s House: The way the story’d been told her, a preacherman came into town before there was much of a town at all, just the saloon and a couple-three homesteads, looked around, and pronounced that they’d be the first to be washed away, come the Flood.

——–

Strong Earth: Elizabeth sat very still and sipped her tea.

Reason To Believe: “Pepper-pepper solo, plain solo, two cokes.”

Beyond the Real: Snow rested on the windowsill, frosting the empty street beyond, a white-blue shadow in the dawn light.

Frontiers: The message arrived with the morning post, the waxed envelope sealed with the official mark of the New Settlements, the stylized iris rising over the watercat dormant, the logos almost unreadable at that size.

Water of Life: “Fuck on a stick, I hate this place.”

Speakeasy: “Joan. Must you?”

——–

in other news, Still Unbearably Hot. And I have been reminded – rather forcibly – why I do not go out and about in Very Hot Weather, as despite hydration and frequent shade/SC, I was still felled by a massive headsqueeze. A thunderstorm would be most welcome now, O Weather Forces.