First Lines, 06/12/18
[Photo by James Garcia on Unsplash]
First lines of the novel that debilitating pain left me unable to write today:
"He watched her, both of them sitting together on that wraparound porch in the sticky heat of an Alabama summer. Slowly, she sipped her lemonade, legs crossed on that wooden porch swing, expressing her innocence.
Like a character in a Faulkner novel, she batted her eyelashes in the shade of a 100-year-old front-yard oak, speaking only pleasantries — at first.
It was nearly like she was playing a role — reciting a script, ripped from the pages of some antebellum romance.
'It's gettin' dark,' he said. Soon, centuries' worth of ghosts would fill the woods behind her house. Crickets had already begun to chirp, sirening their arrival.
She nodded. And fluttered her eyelashes some more.
'You ever read 'Absalom, Absalom?' she asked, trying to appear more sophisticated than she actually felt.
He nodded, but said nothing.
'D'ya know it's got the longest sentence ever written in it? 1,288 words,' she said.
Amid all of the small talk, they didn't know they weren't alone. From the woods, as night fell, they were being watched."
— Damien Willis
June 12, 2018
