Start the Story: Where Do We Begin? [08.27.2009]
What’s going on? Give your 1-2 sentence start to this story!
I’ll be DAMNED if they don’t pay taxes on that payphone income.
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I hope they pay taxes too. If not, I’ll run after them with my digits skill!
Billy was so engrossed in his work, that he completely missed the crazy stampede for the payphones!
They wanted front page coverage so they promised us everything: comfortable space to work in, the latest in office machines, a phone bank to log our stories. What did we get? Two typewriters, a few butt breaking folding chairs and four lousy pay phones. Wait, make that three phones; someone ripped one off the wall in their anger over “deposit 10 cents more, please”.
Hours after the Zombie Attacks were verified, the stock brokers STILL did not get it. “Buy, buy, buy!” ,”NO! SELL, SELL, SELL!!!”
“I think we can stop now”, says the man in the dirty yellow shirt, “there’s no one left to buy or sell to!”
“NEVER!” spat the man in the suit, foam beginning to form in the corner of his mouth…”i’m 1 sale away from paying off my mortga- eh, eh… ::gargle::”
Although both political parties promised them permits at this upcoming national convention, the family basement-living, Cheetohs-munching bloggers were, once again, relegated to adjacent space. But when their laptops and Blackberries were confiscated by Security, they were forced to take action. Anyone got change for a dollar and some White Out?
The hurricane took absolutely everything. Our homes. Our money. Our dignity. Everything except work.
For David, office morale (as low as it could be) wasn’t the biggest problem he faced. It was even the lack of an actual office, so to speak. (At least they had desks; last place they’d balanced their typewriters on their knees while the phones had lain flat on the ground, forcing people to sit next to them cross-legged like school kids as they tried desperately to sound professional to the donor on the other end of the line.)
No, none of this was David’s problem. Not really.
The real problem was filing.
The wind whipped though with brute force, But didn’t stop the die hards from continuing their work.
The thickly wooded forest stood silent. The air was still cool from the early morning dew. Yet all they wished to do was work. Sadly they wouldn’t be around much longer to enjoy the fruit of their labor.
The Forced Hippie Registration Act of 1975 had been an abject failure. Gerald’s thought of setting up the registrar’s tables in the same location that Woodstock had taken place, not only proved uninspired, but also had incited a small flurry or riotous hippies to pass through, leaving in their wake a stream of strewn about official paperwork from his station. Gerald hung his head surreptitiously filling in names of hippies he knew from college. He would have his day of revenge…
“Mom, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
Open-air, live novel writing – boy, that could have turned out better.
With most of the first six chapters on their own special journey down the Chenney River, and random pages stuck to the leather souls of critic’s shoes, David Tyler-Harvey began the long, painful process of damage limitation.
Chapter 1……In the beginning….
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men. Same tired old faces – Panama Hat, Gloria and Army Steve manning the phones – The Aviator twins, seated – Che Guevara on the typewriter – oh and Ed, as always, in the standard issue Fed suit.
Now I’m not telling how I got the bag – you’ll figure that out soon enough.
One heartbeat was all the time it took to turn a 178 ton piece of aerospace engineering into a billion fragments of paper, plastic, metal and fabric – and a jarring stench of things that have no place together, something similar to butterscotch and kerosene.
The few reporters who had returned (at least in part) to reality jostled for the payphones to be the first to file an account. 478 on board – all passengers and crew dead – except one.
Didn’t feel real, but I still have the photo to prove it. The tornado ripped off the entire structure but pay phone wall survived miraculously because it was fitted into the ground as an after thought. Karl mangaed to get a few tables and chairs from the under ground cellar. a jounalist type promptly set down to type his report. most of them made abeeline for the phone because cell phone wouldn’t work. Even on a day like this, Uncle Brunswick wouldn’t listen to my plea to get home in time. That’s the moment, I fell in love with the blind man from Florida. He had lost everything but he seemed so calm, almost serene in the surreal atmosphere.