Openers

The night was hunch-backed. It just was.

Four score and seven years ago I had a dream, not of what my country could do for me, but that this day would go down in my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is a respectable Republican cloth coat.

Fianlity is neither a word, nor the opening of this tale.

"There are thre erors in this sentence."

He sang, softer and softer. Soon the tune was a barely audible whisper. She succumbed, and cursed him with her last breath.

"Succumbed? Subcame?" He worried himself incessantly with the probability of grammatical faux pas.

Disregarding her devilish temptations she had, in all due fairness, wanted to see him die for reasons humane, pure, and just.

Had he gone half a foot to the left his placement in the room would have been different.

Had circumstances been different the outcomes would not be the same.

Had the Chinese sailed around the Cape of Good Hope the course of history would be completely altered.

Historical hypotheticals are meaningless. Not in the traditional sense of not having any meaning, for they do. Rather in the colloquial sense that equates 'meaning' with 'worth', so as to not sound pretentious in our criticisms.

Historical hypotheticals are worthless.

Voyages need not have a beginning any more than they need have an ending.

We nicknamed him 'Astro'. He thought it was a favorable comparison to Astro Boy. It was, in fact, a comparison to Astroglide.

From the Antichrist's Revisionist Bible: In the beginning it was the End, and Satan did not say 'Let there be dark.' He said 'Let there be Man.'

I tried my best to cheer him up with 'Reservoir Dogs'.

She threatened her life with a railway share, she charmed her with smiles and soap.

In retaliation she read long passages from Carrol's "Hunting of the Snark".

I now begin my tractatus on Three Hundred and Fifty-Three Ways to Silence a Baby with a common misconception: that in silencing the child you must also preserve its life.

Nobody knew of her existence but the barber, whose mute conditioned ensured her obscurity.

Nine of them lived, the tenth was reborn.

All in all, a most erratic narrative.