Could you write a one-sentence story to break the day's tedium?

“Clarissa said she would buy the flowers herself.”

(Okay – I cheated.)

The best opening sentence of any book was the first sentence if “1984”.

“It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen”

That tells a whole story in itself.

It wasn’t the reason he left the seminary, but it was one of the reasons he left the Church.

For reasons completely obscure to my human senses, my formerly fearless pit bull now adamantly refuses to traverse a particular 20 yard stretch of sidewalk near our house, as if he sees Hell’s legions barring the way.

It seemed unfair that a jar of marmite should be the cause of such enduring human misery but since childhood he had found its flavour irresistable especially when spread on warm toast.

We fucked, my balls slapped on her arse, she became pregnant & life was never quite the same again

He believed that joining the Navy to explore the world would be liberating, and never suspected that the impact of his travels would reduce his world to a solitary life long journey consumed with introspection and reflection as he sits in a cave on the side of a mountain.

@flutherother I’m intrigued – I want to hear more.

She cautiously and carefully crawled out of the cage which had been opened by her keeper and began to discover the world anew.

The last thing she ever saw was her tiny fist, curled around a bright green pacifier.

^^^ Too sad. :(

From the observation station he could see the rocket’s disassembly was progressing much faster than expected.

@Dutchess_III I know. I was thinking of the six-word-story… “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” I heard that about ten years ago, and it still grips me.

Grips me too… :(

A week or so ago my lifetime friend began driving for Uber, and it’s the perfect job for him because he’s the sort of person that if you stand with him talking on the sidewalk, a crowd will gather.

The dawn was dark and overcast as they stood on the hill, watching the dragon ships emerging slowly from the fog over the sea, coming for them…

…Are they bringing the baby home?

The instant he doffed his cap he answered the burning question: “What’s beneath a Smurf’s hat?”

Nearly two decades had gone now; 20 years in which humanity was torn from the closed circuit of wandering individuality and thrust forth to an era where each mind is the sum of all others.

I hope the baby is under the Smurf’s hat.

He used the hankerchief his grandfather gave him to wipe the blood off of his face, the flow from gashes on his arm now silent with the aide of his shirt tied in a knot for a makeshift tourniquet, still and lifless lay the creature that had just killed his dog and tried to kill him

@LuckyGuy Heh heh, I believe you know what is beneath a smurf’s hat. :)

For @Dutchess_III, so she can sleep tonight:

The garden was a feast of flowers, music, smiles, puppies, and tame unicorns…they had brought the baby home – healthy, chubby, and giggling.

HUGE sigh! Thank you @longgone. (But there is no such thing as tame unicorns.)

@Dutchess_III That’s how much you know.

I know nofink.

From dawn until dusk, the mountains went topless and the clouds tied rainbows in their hair.

The ship winked into real space and sighed to itself as the various systems with all of their personalities began rattling off their reports.

The last thing he saw was the knife on his chest.

Once again that I had to quickly dodge the bitch as she frantically leapt across the sofa to bounce onto my husbands lap and wag her softly curled tail.

On Thursday, I will return to my birth country where, once I have finished my work, I will visit old friends and family before embarking on a holiday with my husband.

As she opened the door, a horrifying sight of a messy kitchen lay before her as her husband urged her to sit down and taste his cooking!

After the latest false accusations she didn’t know if she could take it any more.

Not my own, but it’s a great story nonetheless

“Hear the whisper of the raindrops blowing soft against the window, and make believe you love me one more time, for the good times.”

Since we’re quoting:

“It’s very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who’s learning to play the violin,” she said to the policeman as she handed him the smoking revolver.

-Richard Brautigan, ‘The Scarlatti Tilt’, from Revenge of the Lawn, 1974, Picador

One needed it, the other didn’t, so they sorrowfully parted ways.

He woke up to find a fresh tattoo on his arm, a bra on the floor, and a bunch of bananas on the night stand, again.

”“I don’t know of anything worse after an all night binge than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember her name, how she got there, and why she’s dead.”
OK, so I totally plagiarized AstroChuck.

^^^Sounds like you guys have been reading Raymond Chandler and watching old noir films. I’ll front for the popcorn.

Germany had pulled their bull-in-a-china-shop act three times in seventy-five years: First Bismarck tore away the rich provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from the French, held their Emperor hostage, put Paris under bombardment and siege for a year until the French went crazy and started shooting each other and then, ironically, made the French the pay crippling war reparations for years; the second time their Little Kaiser with a bad hand and a severe microdick complex threw a tantrum which took troops from all over the world stop incurring more catastrophic debt which Germany was eventually forgiven; the third time a crazy Corporal with a toothbrush mustache completely destroyed Germany and almost all of Europe in a fit of megalomania which brought Europe to her knees for more than a generation economically (the Brits were still rationing certain items in the 1980’s) for which Germany was once again forgiven—to say nothing of the Marshall Plan—and now they, as the strongest economic power in Europe, complain about Greece’s irresponsible fiscal policies and her moral responsibility to pay her own debts.

(Takes long breath) Thank goodness for the semicolon!

^^Edit: ...the world to stop , incurring…

Evan came to slowly with his mind a formless grey mist, his thought a jumble of half completed words and phrases, his eyes blinded by a glorious, blazing radiance from above as if Jehovah himself were preparing to once again vent his wrath upon the unwashed and unworthy masses of the Earth and to make matters worse the disembodied voice behind the brilliance was asserting, in no uncertain terms, that he could not be there; a matter that was causing him great consternation and leading him to question his very existence.

^^^ He’s been on Fluther too long.

Then there’s the miraculous story of the carpenter who could not see, until he picked up his hammer and saw.

I see.

“It was a dark and stormy night.”

She got home from a long day at work, pulled up and parked in the driveway behind her husband’s Jeep Wrangler, unlocked the front door..and was immediately hit with that stillness, that quietness, that total lack of vibration, subliminal or otherwise, that told her there wasn’t another living being in the house.

It happened quickly and violently, as it often does, and the fires illuminating the skies afterward promised that two centuries of pillaging would follow this carnage.

Even at the age of eight Barry knew his was not a normal childhood: his mother was a child who had never really grown up and thought of him as her very own personal life-size Barbie Doll always insisting on dressing him in frilly outfits and changing his clothing several times a day; while his father had only ever wanted a blow-up doll; but that is a story, for another time, and the proper authorities.

Terry was in a funk wondering where his next meal was coming from until the guard opened the slot and pushed it through.

She had thought that the pain would go away but it didn’t, it got worse as the day went on: the tightness in her chest, the shortness of breath and the numbness and tingling in her arms caused a rising panic that finally led to a frantic 911 call only intensified as she waited for what seemed like, and she was afraid might actually be, a lifetime but finally help had arrived and as she lay in the ambulance, strapped to a gurney, surrounded by all the polished, gleaming equipment with its refulgent lights and resonating beeps and clicks and tended to by professionals skilled in the medical arts her fear subsided as they loosened her clothing to perform their healing magic and she realized that during this mornings frenetic rush she had inadvertently put on her daughters bra.

The barber’s hand was shaky as he lathered his customer’s face and picked up the straight razor, causing Bill great consternation; however, the shakiness seemed to subside, allowing an expert stropping, and a smooth shave, with no tremors evident as the blade glided over Bill’s jugular veins.

July 16th, 1945 would be a perilous risk and the longest stretch yet, thought the physicist as he punched the time coordinates into the dashboard of his new, tricked-out Infinity.

As I sat in darkness near the rim of the mesa, I heard the day creatures beginning their morning chorus, and as the morning sun crested the horizon, my awareness was slowly drawn to the blanket-wrapped lone figure, sitting on the rim of the far mesa, also listening to the day creatures beginning their morning chorus, and watching the morning sun crest the horizon.

“It’s very hard to live in a flat on Baker Street with a man who’s learning to play the violin,” a gelid Dr. Watson said to Inspector Lestrade as he handed him the empty revolver.

After Tim had retreived June from the icy lake, he could not help but notice her wool sweater, shrinking over her buxom figure, and he almost started singing, “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over!”

“My but you have a big cock!” said the poultry judge as she awarded the grand prize ribbon and Jim Bob’s wan smile belied the fact that he had heard this same jest at least three dozen times this morning; but still, he thought to himself, it does make a handy perch for my prize winning hen.

“Say Hello to my little friend,” said Fred Rogers, his hand deep inside King Friday’s undergarments.

The lost must remain lost; humanity has other business to attend to.

“Finding the lost is not humanity’s primary business?” he asked, searchingly.

He walked into some weird ass hospital which sported the ’‘really empty for some reason’’ syndrome and felt lonely, but then sirens blared somewhere in the distance as corpses slowly got up and rust tuned to blood and everything else to metal, then loneliness was the last thing that came into what was left of his mind.

Having seen what happened to those who questioned she thought it best to just sit quietly in the back row and daydream.

Jeremy knew he was being somewhat rude, staring as he was with his mouth agape, but he could not help himself for she had the most beautiful little schnauzer her had seen in many a month; well clipped and groomed, shorn smooth, for the summer he assumed, with only the cutest little tuft of curls left on top.

He looked in the kitchen; the blood was thick on the floor like red syrup so he tiptoed down the hall and slipped out the front door.

He thought to himself, well this is nuts, I’m in some insnane place that can’t exist, fist fighting shambling atrocities as if in a common barroom brawl, why is this town making me duke it out against moving cow carcasses and zombie nurses, why, because I’m a fucking trucker?!

When Wilson (who was transitioning to male) told Libby (a bisexual female) that he had secretly been married for two years to Josh (who was gender-fluid, but mostly identified himself male), it made Libby feel like she had been taken advantage of by Wilson, and she felt guilty for having judged Josh to be a jilted lover who would not let go.

Not unexpectedly she ceased speaking and he had nothing more to add. He had known the futility of a conversation with no destination from the beginning. In the silence he stared at her, seeing a woman with a history but no past and, in all likelihood, no future. There was a flash of recognition and understanding in her eyes but she knew, as did he, the damage was done.

It’s two a.m., the fear has gone and I’m sitting here waiting, the gun still warm; maybe my connection is tired of taking chances.

Blood and puss came out of the faucet when I turned it on, and the patient has wounds that won’t heal, so I told the doctor that I won’t work here anymore, but then he threatened to cut off my drug supply.

I didn’t mind the unusual flavor of the complimentary self serve tiramisu in the waiting room until I overhead the physician’s assistant exhort: “Hey! This faucet is leaking puss!”