False Starts

A collection of imagined first lines from potential novels as if written by that new storywriting computer...

Never tell a vegetarian that they are insane. I can't impart to you the import of this simple courtesy.

Some time ago, not too far from here, when the heathens balked at the brandishing of leaden swords in favor of the talisman herbs that were so en vogue, a young boy dreamed of swatting angels with a giant kilbassa.

"Don't be tellin' me to don't go breakin' your heart!"

Billy Burrito stuffed himself into a FedEx package and was next-business-day delivered straight to hell.

"Forgive me Father for I have smoked turnips from my neighbor's garden."

The Polycedites were a peaceful bunch. A collection of smooth, unfurrowed brows of beatific beauty and uncompromised petulance. Only starvation saved their scrotum from infamy.

"Screw the patois. I will talk my own talk and walk my own dog!" Phil barked proudly at the well-spoken bean-counter.

A heated exchange ensued after which Donny swore never to bathe in the lime rickey pool without first designating a diver.

Some people can't imagine their way out of an imagineering department.

If there is a bright shining center of the universe, and we're on the planet that is farthest from, then I grew up on that planet's toilet seat.

Fred Osterizer never cared much for pastrami. Which is why there can be no doubt his suicide sent ripples throughout the delicatessen universe.

Yes. I blame it all on the French.

So there I was, not a fortnight's ride from the fort, when I was taken upon by a herd of angry and boisterous carpenters' apprentices, chirping and wailing a banshee's song of death.

The benevolent Mr. Titrocker never expected the rush of unholy lust that overcame him in the wee hours of the morn while watching a rerun of Mr. Wizard's World.

Mr. Fancipants always expected to get noticed in a crowd, but when the Slurpee machine decided to propose marriage, he knew, from experience, he was in for a long afternoon at the mall.

Lord Chamberbot and his brother Stymie set out to discover what, if anything, Prime Minister Churchill had meant by the phrase "total conviction of raspberries."

The frigid earth beneath their feet numbed their toes as well as their souls, but Harely, Cuz, and Beaner knew that the night ahead would only last as long as their remaining cube of Bublicious.