Let’s pick sentences at random from books, use the best ones as the beginning/ending lines , and then fill in the story between them!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we write some stories with random beginning and ending sentences.
We’ve done this exercise before and it was a lot of fun. We got a bunch of sentences at random from books, then chat voted on their favorites.
For round one, the winners were:
- Anton Chekov 52 Stories: She found the ladies and the young people in the raspberry patch by the kitchen garden.
- Pachinko: She didn’t even like taking free samples at the bakery.
Here’s what we came up with:
She found the ladies and the young people in the raspberry patch by the kitchen garden. Beatrice could practically smell the pheromones reeking off each of them, particularly the fresh ones. It was time to give the talk.
“Everyone!” she rang out in her singy voice. “Gather round. There’s an important discussion we need to have.”
The older ladies snickered knowingly as they came forward, their hands clean, holding buckets bursting full of berries, while the younger ones — their fingers painted with purples and reds — only a few berries survived the trip into their cups.
Beatrice knew that though. She’d expected it. Today was their last day as children.
“Take a seat, everyone,” she said, patting the air with her hand. The younger ones plopped right down on the grass, and the older ones slowly sat after adjusting their dresses. Beatrice looked over them all, then presented the item she’d brought with her for the demonstration. A glass of milk.
“How much does this glass of milk cost?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
“One dollar!” screeched out a younger girl, raising her pink-smeared hand in the air. Beatrice shook her head.
“Wrong,” she said. “That’s what we charge our customers here at the bakery. But how much does the cow get? What does the cow charge for her milk?”
The younger girls rocked their heads in confusion, and the older ones behind them rolled their eyes, the answer so obvious to them from their experience.
“Nothing,” Beatrice said. “The cow gets nothing. She charges nothing for her milk, and what does she get in return? Squeezed dry by the same greedy farmer man every single day of her life. Until she dies and is discarded for the next one.”
The younger girls stared up at Beatrice in shock. Obviously that was not the answer they’d expected. Not nearly as warm and comforting as a bedtime fairytale. But the true, harsh reality of the world was never warm nor comforting.
“Instead,” Beatrice said, shaking the glass of milk, “what should the cow do to prevent such a disaster? Any ideas?”
“Charge the farmer for milking!” one of the younger girls said.
“Marry the farmer,” snorted an older lady. Beatrice gave her a quick, sharp glare.
“Or, there is an easier and even more effective option,” Beatrice said. “Withhold the milk. Make the farmer go crazy with desire for the milk. So that he’ll do anything for it. The cow shouldn’t settle for pennies a squeeze, she should hold out until the farmer is so desperate he’s willing to crown her with gold and jewels in exchange for even the whiff of the smallest, milky dribble.”
Beatrice saw the change in the eyes of the younger girls. Harder, shaper, seeing things they’d been blind too before. Understanding powers they didn’t know they’d had.
They’d sat down as children, but they would stand again as women.
“The farmer is a fickle, selfish creature,” Beatrice said. “He is a hoarder by nature. It is up to the cows to ensure that his greed is kept in check.”
A bell rang from inside the bakery. And there were the farmers now, just in time for opening.
Beatrice lowered her glass of milk and ushered all of the girls back inside. The older ones quickly changed into their aprons and gloves, and Beatrice helped the younger ones get dressed for the first time too. Their outfits covered their girlish berry stains, but hid none of their womanly charms.
The group of men nearly filled the bakery floor, each of them eagerly awaiting to be served a tiny treat from the girls, especially the fresh ones. The girls carried out small platters of cake slivers, doughnut pebbles, cheese cubes, croissant flakes.
The whiffs of the smallest, milky dribbles — scraps that would be free samples at other bakeries, here, the man had paid handsomely for just the opportunity to be served.
The girls spread out to the floor, giggling with the men, hearing their offers for “sweeter things.” The older ones denied as always, and the younger ones — Beatrice’s talk still warm in their minds — guided them to do the same.
Beatrice watched them proudly. She was tempted to take a little bakery prize as her own. A little crumb for herself, something to amuse the tongue for a moment.
But nothing was free. That lesson has been burned into Beatrice like charred bread again and again. She didn’t like giving free samples at the bakery. She didn’t even like taking free samples at the bakery.
For round two, the winners were:
- The God Delusion: We get a shortcut to understanding the heart if we assume that it is ‘designed’ to pump blood.
- The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Vol 1: I can be really slow.
Here’s what we came up with:
We get a shortcut to understanding the heart if we assume that it is “designed” to pump blood. Crime isn’t random. Muggings. Theft. Abuse. It all flows through the veins of the city like sh*t flows through the sewer lines, pumped by money and desire and the lowlifes with ambitions bigger than their heads.
When you put your hand to the pulse of the city, you can feel it quicken in certain places. East side is the left atrium, quivering with car theft. Docksway is the pulmonary valve, wheezing open and closed with unwelcome, drunken whistles that turn to growls in darkened alleys.
And Cogsville is the aorta. The heart of the heart. The concrete cholesterol at its thickest. It clenches the city so hard, only a trickle of life can squeeze through it, the atriums and arteries screaming for oxygen as they swell bigger and more purple than balls in a vice grip.
Once I saw it, felt it, following the flow was easy. Glad I did. It led me to you.
The kingpin himself, Tim Ripper, caught not in one of his front businesses, or one of his whore houses, or one of his mansions filled with beefy guards. Right here, in the parking lot of a McRibby’s, a greasy BBQ Supreme slathered in sauce in his hand, and a gun in mine, pointed right at his head.
Ripper raised his eyebrows at me. “You gonna shoot that thing or can I finish this first?”
“I knew I’d find you here,” I say to him, cocking my weapon. “The brachiocephalic trunk. Supplies oxygen to the arm, head, and neck. Can’t live without it.”
Ripper peels back the wrapper on his burger and takes a slow, juicy bite.
“Don’t know what any of that bullsh*t means,” he says, chunks of meat smacking between his lips as he chews with his mouth wide open. “But I’ve got places to be, so shoot your shot or get lost.”
I shake my head. “Sorry, Ripper. But I’m just getting started.”
He looks at me confused, and I wave the barrel of the gun back to the McRibby’s.
“Unless you want your brains on the sidewalk, you go back in there and you buy ten BBQ Supremes for each of your underlings.”
Ripper swallowed down his chunks, and stared at me like I was a walking and talking BBQ Supreme myself.
“The hell kinda crazy pills you taking, chief?” he asked.
“And not just today,” I said. “Every day. Ten Supremes. I’ll be watching. Don’t think you can hide from me. I can follow your pulse as easily as a horny teen in gym class.”
Ripper finished his burger, shrugged, and went back into the joint. I finally lowered my gun, and watched him through the window, ordering enough Supremes to give a pig a heart attack.
That was the goal. I could spend my time tracking down every cholesterol criminal in this heart, scraping them off one at a time, just for another pocket to sprout up right away.
Or I could slowly take them all down at the same time, one clogged heart at a time.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about hearts, it’s that going too fast is dangerous. I can go slow. I can be really slow.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Top images: Unsplash