In Ethiopia, a woman was humming a lullaby to calm her crying son. The sun hung high in the sky, but the child was hungry. Without food, it was the best she could offer. 1
Somewhere in south China, an old man was having an evening in an opium den. He was stuck somewhere between dreams and wakefulness, having fanciful hallucinations of his youth. 2
And somewhere on Manhattan island, a young woman was counting sheep with earnest, simply trying to drift off to sleep.3
He was aware of all of it. 4
A coal black cat sat perched on the rusty fire escape outside her apartment. He had been there for half an hour, unmoving. Never even so much as blinking. His eyes were dark, black marbles with an almost red sheen to them. His long tail flicked once as he continued to sit.5
Just waiting.
A contest entry
- Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record Baby) with some novel openers!) by MirrorIrorriM.
175 points, ended July 22, 10 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Intrigued?
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
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Nice, reminds me of "Sleep Of The Just" a little bit
Are u going to carry on? -
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Indeed, I thought I put that in the note.. But I was considering on making a brief Sandman comic with it... But then I start freaking out, because no one messes with Sandman.
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This was a interesting start and difinitely would like to see more
when you decide to post it , and well it keeped my attention and though it was short it gave me enough information to make me want to read more. So well done and will look for the posting and very good write. thanks
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Opening Sentence Breakdown:
+1 setting
+1 begs a question
+1 pronouns
-1 passive construction
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2
Yay! A 2! That's the mode score, so you're solid with this sentence. And it would have been a four if you just rework it to be non-passive.
Ooh, dark, interesting. I can see that you grasp parallel structure too, which deadens the fact that your sentence lost a point for being passively constructed. Still, I can only look at the very first sentence for the rubric, but know that the parallelism did not go unnoticed.
Due to the length it's hard for me to give you anything too constructive, but you piqued my interest, so good job with that!
Thanks for playing the game
-Mirror -
Intrigued
Wow, I liked how this was written, and I'm definately going to read when you post the rest. Can't wait to see how that's going to go. Good story from what I can tell so far though. Very descriptive.
It has a somber feel to it, but makes you wonder what's happening exactly. -
Oh, well this is interesting. I'm not sure where your going with this, like what is the message?
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It's just a starting little snippet to something far more... fantastic. In the 'oh fantasy ' sense, not so much the 'the author thinks she's great' sense.
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