The first paragraph

[Rob_Royale]

to a story you have never written.

I'm fairly certain there isn't a cruel bone in my body. I don't feel its in my nature. I think that perhaps if I was pushed into performing a cruel act, by rage or fear, it would be something I would regret always. So when I tell you that I would happily and without reservation put a bullet into a particular persons head, I want you to fully grasp my level of commitment.

 

[bi_cathy]

Then there was silence. The echo of the closing door had taken more than a minute to subside, but at least it was there, a sign of life. When it finally faded away, it left a hole of pure nothingness. No, it wasn't the sheer darkness that scared her the most, it was that heavy stillness as if life itself had ceased to exist. She could close her eyes to avoid facing the dark, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not bring herself to ignore the silence. She was alone, that truth crept up on her like the persistence and inevitability of a 5:00 PM shadow. The only sound she could hear was her inner voice bouncing off the walls of her head and it felt painfully solitary.

 

[Soixenta]

“Hi everyone! I’m Angel, and thank you for tuning in to watch my show. Today I have a very special treat for all my fans. This is Hella, and she’ll be guiding me through my very first girl-girl experience. Say hello, Hella!”

 

[Rambling_Chantrix]

My name is Jezefer Plot. I am a fourth year student in the history department at the University of Stewardland, Angels (go Bruins!), where I am working to complete my senior thesis on medieval chronicles. On a lark—and definitely not for reasons relating to my penchant for procrastination—I am endeavoring to craft my own "chronicle," one of national and local events as I perceive them. I will backfill a few years from my diaries, as the monks would compile the old annals, and then I will embark on a more detailed account of events going forward.

 

[Comshaw]

"Death, it comes to us all, but it comes quickly and in many forms in a war: bullets, bombs, mines, rockets, bayonets, knives, garrote, grenades, mortars, artillery shells, sickness, even by the bare hands of another human; there are many ways to die in a war. Some are worse than others..."


Comshaw

 

[BeechLeaf]

Again, I'm waiting here on our anniversary. I can't argue with my subconscious about it, because there's always the fear. I can't go out, just in case. At seven o'clock I cracked out the port, needing courage to see the evening through. If she arrives at ten she'll find me in a sorry state. I tell myself even if she found my address she wouldn't arrive so late at night. I can go to bed with a clear conscience at eleven and tell my subconscious to go to hell, learn it was wrong. But I will stay up till midnight, I know, as every year, and it will verge on one and by then I'll be as I have been every year. I look down at the letter I always start, 'Dearest C', and then nothing. What can I beg her this time that might have her coming through that door?

 

[SyleusSnow]

"The last time I saw her I punched her in the face. It was only fair: she had punched me first and I'm a firm believer in equal rights. Though I felt bad our quarrel ruined her sister's funeral.

 

[Actingup]

"Death, it comes to us all, but it comes quickly and in many forms in a war: bullets, bombs, mines, rockets, bayonets, knives, garrote, grenades, mortars, artillery shells, sickness, even by the bare hands of another human; there are many ways to die in a war. Some are worse than others..."


Comshaw

it can also come very, very slowly.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I blinked hard when I saw her step out of the jetway. How long had it been? Thirty-four years? Since my wedding, that she had been late for? Gloria looked as she always had, just ... older. Her style hadn't changed, her tacky little penchant for paisley. She was the one I had given up on, a lifetime ago, and found someone new. And now here she was again.

 

[Comshaw]

"Did you ever see a woman and just couldn't keep your eyes off her? You know, the one who, each time you lay eyes on her your mouth waters at the fantasized taste of her, your cock grows extremely hard and aches to know what it would feel like to slide into her; you can almost feel
the soft skin of her full breasts under your hands and the feel of her soft lips on yours. Yeah, that's the one. For me, that was Shannon."


Comshaw

 

[StillStunned]

I told her before she went out that it was a bad idea. The weather was going to turn. But the sandals were new, and they matched her outfit, and once a redhead has made up her mind she doesn’t change it.

 

[Rob_Royale]

When Mitch asked me just how far we were going to let this escapade go, I didn't really have an answer for him. My wife Diane and his wife Gail were walking ahead of us, nearly naked on Duval Street in Key West. They walked hand-in-hand, wearing just a bikini bottom and a sheer beach wrap. We watched the single men begin to circle them like sharks, and the way our wives were giggling, they certainly knew it.

 

[Statius]

The inn was in the middle of nowhere three leagues south of the northern forest, ten west from what remained of the nearest village. Burned to the ground, it had been the home of cattle ranchers and a small farming community outside the rule of any kingdom, but under the protection of the northern elf, the center of which was hundreds of leagues away. Those who burned the village left no inhabitants except the wandering cattle.
*********

I go back to this story now and then, but really nothing coming of it; so as the thread says, 1st paragraph.

 

[StillStunned]

From a story called Flower Fairies that I never finished because it wasn't really going anywhere except punning on dirty-sounding plant names:

Daisy was in a naughty mood. The spring sun was shining, the air was warm beneath her wings, and it had been an age since she’d fucked.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

Today was supposed to be different. Just a few more hours of boredom until an eventual breath of fresh air, both literal and figurative, as I could finally get out of this place. I paced back and forth nervously, restlessly, as the hour drew near. During the excruciating wait, my mind raced with what-ifs. What if they didn't let me out after all? Or even worse, what if I did get out, only to later find myself yearning to be back?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

You need *me*? To be your plus-one to a wedding? What happened to that bloke? The one Laura found for you?"

"Dan? He's fine. It's his sister's wedding though; she wants him up on the top table, with the family. So she asked if I could supply a *lovely* chap to even out the numbers on my table. Who would look good in a suit."

"Uh-huh. And I was the nearest you could think of?" There's going to be a gay best friend, who's single, isn't there? There always is.


Spoiler: there is, indeed, a gay best friend, who is single, who the first speaker eventually gets together with.

 

[WCSGarland]

The cards weaved one by one in a rhythmic snicking sound forming a perfect, albeit well used deck. They were perfect in the sense that Akros knew where every card was, and which player would get what hand. He had picked the scrawny nervous fellow in the black duster to win this hand. It would be the last hand that particular chap would win, guaranteed to make him furious. It was the sweaty jovial slightly rotund tinker that would be the object of his ire. Akros had wormed his way into being the dealer for this game of poker by feigning a lack of knowledge. He didn't have to play a single hand, and he'd carefully built the pot up to well over 200 woohoos. The tinker was the last of the players that had originally started the game. Scrawny had taken the place of an earlier fellow that had lost all his stake. He was the kind Akros liked to have join the game later. The scam always worked better that way.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

The music that filled the dimly-lit dance hall was a slower sort this time. Pressed against my partner's large, plush form, I could hear the light scrapes of his talons against the sprung hardwood floors as we turned in leisurely circles. He was far better at this than I was, maintaining the type of expert control one might expect from a creature resembling an apex predator, and I found myself tightly clutching his rough, scaled hands for support. The sharpness of his claws and his curved, hooked beak was matched by the teasing jabs he enjoyed leveling at me, but the latter of which by now I recognized belied a certain affection I was finding myself reciprocating.

 

[BladeSeanchai]

I live near an average American town, just outside your everyday, run-of-the-mill, average American city. Carol, my mother, called it “the big city.” The city isn’t too far from our suburban community. Our city hosts, and frequently boasts, several very successful major league sports teams, several prominent colleges, groundbreaking and innovative medical research centers, and a number of information technology hubs offering countless opportunities for individual and family success.

 

[MajorRewrite]

I farted three times on the way to the bathroom, crop dusting the party with noxious gas. God damned burrito!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

More than one paragraph, but it's all one opening.

CONFIDENTIAL

POSSIBLE INCIDENT DOMESTIC

SUN, 23 JUL 1243 HRS

1(C). DOM BORDER SURV OPS RQ-1B UAV EN RTE GRAND FORKS AFB OVERFLEW TOWN PENDRAGON 1228 HRS. SENSOR SUITE ACTIVATED PER SOPS FOR ROUTINE INSTRUMENT CALIBRATION.

2(C). IMAGERY SHOWED HIGHLY UNUSUAL CIVILIAN ACTIVITY, INCL BLDG FIRES AND APPARENT MASS NUDITY.

3(U). LACKING MSN MANDATE, NO FURTHER INFO AVAL.

ENDS

 

[TarnishedPenny]

And a second, more conventional:

OK, I'm not very pretty anymore. An IED will do that to a man. I'd come back with too much of me essentially MIA. I’ve got two arms, one leg, one eye and half a face still present for duty. And both balls. That matters, at least in an academic sense.

 

[redgarters]

My Dad was a bad man. But he was my Dad, and he loved me. And because of who he was, and what he did for a living, he taught me some things. When a regular girl might have learned to play the piano, I learned how to evade someone who might be following me and how to defend against multiple attackers with just a knife. I don't regret that. Für Elise never got anyone out of a tight spot.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The phone rattled on the counter. I'd forgotten to turn the sound up, but at least had it on vibrate.

"Hello, Adam speaking." Old habits die hard. I've always announced myself on the phone. It cuts to the chase if someone's called me by mistake, or pocket-dialled. These days, there's often a pause while the scam bot or call centre registers someone's actually answered.

 

[anthrodisiac]

A ravager rampages twixt worlds and souls; twas it naught but a memory, old chap? One with tendrils ink'd and wrothed, a devotee to one as dark as I; perhaps, though, and I know this thought of yours as prayer, were that it only a dream. This, I cannot speak to, for I have never woken from slumber; instead, perchance, you are the dream, and the incohate madness that despairs your world be but a figment, same as the rest, whose screams and pleas matter not, as ephemera feels nothing, and their cries are as false as the gods.