If you are inspired to write a sequel paragraph to an entry, feel free. We could end up with a multi-hypertexted novel from hell! Until I can figure out how to make the forms do this, specify which author's paragraph you are continuing.
"Life's tough in this town", Marley thought, wincing as he labored to
extract the bullet fragment from his thigh.
It was the third one he'd pulled this morning, and
he was desperate for a cup of coffee -
steaming hot, to cauterize the wounds before
he added the non-dairy creamer. "Maybe," he thought for the thousandth time
since the case had begun, "maybe it's time for me to
find a safer line of work - like doing test runs for Evel Knievel."
But another slug of rye from the bottle in the top drawer of his
filing cabinet soon suppressed all such musings and,
tying the hatband from his Borsalino above the
wounds to keep the pain to a dull thud,
he headed down the five back flights to
the alley that ran behind his building.
If only he had a clue - something besides the name
"Harve" carved in the dead prostitute's back -
he'd feel a little more optimistic about the rest of the day.
It was too bad about Michelle. She'd been kind of cute in a lopsided
kind of way until someone had pumped her full of lead
and used her for calligraphy practice.
"Life's tough in this town", Marley thought, wincing as he labored to
extract the bullet fragment from his thigh. Finally, extracting the metal
with his nicotine-stained teeth, Marley spit
the copper-tasting shard into the moonlighted, hulking alley. It hit the
wet street and bounced like Marley's eyes. He moaned darkly, and sputtered
out. His head hit the brick street with a dull wallop. The echo was of no
interest to a sleeping rat.
'Damn!' Sachelle cried, cursing her bruised thumb and the world in general.
Yes! It was the world that was to blame. Impassively she gazed at the
blue-black blood which pooled below her tender, teenaged thumb. Her maligned
joint throbbed and ached...much like her heart. Tears formed in her eyes
as she thought of her lost love, Frederick. The world blurred before her and
she gasped, reaching blindly out for support; however, she was not growing
faint, she was simply crying. Angrily she dashed away the treacherous tears,
and her solitare-diamond ring flashed before her eyes. The ring...the world
heaved and throbbed as she remembered her mother pressing the ring into her
hand as she drew her dying breath. "Remember, Sachelle," her mother had gasped,
"...don't die a virgin..." From then on out it had been Sachelle's fervernt dream
to find a man which which she could deflower her budding sex.
She had found him. And now he was gone. Holding her bruised thumb in front of her, she screamed her anger unto the world, and collasped upon the ground, cradling both her thumb and her maligned heart.
Flicking her cigarette contemptuously and tossing her thick mane of
hair, Thyla adjusted the straps of her halter top and barked with her
trademark raucous, sneering laughter - laughter known to have unmanned many
a suitor. One minute later she was dead.
To Fabia, the list of suspects read like a "Who's Who" of the fashion industry. Fabia, the golden-tressed executive from the American Cancer Association, was also an amateur sleuth and Thyla's constant companion for the past 4 years. Fabia, whose whips and chains in the wee morning hours were the perfect antidote to a day teaming with hemline deadlines. Both of them knew that it was control that made Thyla's inner child weep with delight each morning before the manacles were released. Reflecting on this, Fabia wiped away a final tear that had formed next to a barely visible cigarette burn on Thyla's tight leather miniskirt, and proceeded to solve the crime.
Flicking her cigarette contemptuously and tossing her thick mane of hair,
Thyla adjusted the straps of her halter top and barked with her trademark
raucous, sneering laughter - laughter known to have unmanned many a suitor.
"What care I if he never returns?" she inquired of her Krazy Kat
kitchen wall clock. "What care I if I never sample his salty, hungry
kisses again? What care I if I never feel his lingering gaze upon my auburn
tresses when I step naked from my Calgon bath, his smoldering stares drying
me better than any towel of the finest Egyptian cotton?" Krazy Kat did not answer.
Its eyes bounced back and forth, metronomically mocking her questions.
At last Thyla could not stomach the clock's reminders - reminders of the
seconds that passed without him, seconds in which she found her life
increasingly, achingly, empty. It was time to get a Cockapoo.
With one swift dive, Joel cut the water like a knife through
butter, or a
spoon through jello. In fact...in fact, it was jello!
The whole swimming pool had been drained, and filled with blue-green jello!
Gagging, he fought his way to the surface, knowing in his heart that
there was only one creature in the world with the cunning and
wickedness to perform such a feat, and that was his older sister,
Blumelda. She who was forever taunting him, mocking his
physical beauty and intellectual gifts by finding ever more
inventive ways to humiliate him, and prove that she was superior
despite the hideous name that daddy's first wife had insisted on for her.
As he broke the glorpid surface, a single thought dwelled in his mind:
"Someday...someday!!!"
With one swift dive, Joelfynna cut the water like a knife through butter, or a
spoon through jello. His feline body, proudly striped, staffisi
warrior tattoos proudly etched into the insides of his all-hearing ears, his fur
bearing the markings of all the Clan Kings, leapt to shore. Aware that his tawny
mate, Heefynnach, watched his every graceful move from beneath the palaa
tree, he shook his body lazily,
enjoying the sensation as the crystalline droplets flew in gleaming golden arches
across the miikasi plants so common in the Fynnari Clan Pridedom.
But a troubling thought itched its way into his mind--would one day his son,
Hymiefynna, rule the Clan Fynnari as proudly as he himself had done? The
lad had already discredited his Fynn bloodlines by consorting with the
outworlder colony, the self-called hyumans--they who walked upon but two legs
and were bald in comparison to the proud race of the Tigriis! Something
had to be done . . . and soon, before Moonfull Night and the Dance of the Dreaming.
With one swift dive, Joel cut the water like a knife through
butter, or a spoon through jello. "Yes," he thought with a life-affirming yowl.
"Yes, YES." The moment was right. The air was right. The time was right to tell
Her, to tell HER of his feelings. As he stretched his whippet-thin body from
the water in a single thrusting motion of manhood, droplets of chlorine
slalomed from his brow like Olympic skiers who hadn't passed their drug tests.
She stood there at the edge of the pool, oozing her artificially flavored grape
Bubble Yum from her painted and swollen lips like molten sex and wrapping it
about her Lee Press-On Nailed fingertip. He surveyed her lithesome and bonny
form, the curves and twists and forbidden snaps and laces all cuddled up in
one Womanhood. With invisible unmoving urges he worshipped her, longed for
her, yearned, yearned, yearned for a single word that would let him know her
own desire, her own passion, her own love. Noticing him dripping upon her
Spaninis, imported, of course, she regarded him through her lush and long
lashes. "Why dontcha take a pictcha?" she taunted in her coquettish Jersey
accent. "It'll last ya longa."
With one swift dive, Joel cut the water like a knife through
butter, or a spoon through jello. Either of those allusions was more
pleasant than the actual slimy feel of the filthy water. Seaweed was already
entwining itself around his toes and fingers. He held his breath in and dove
deeper. He was going to find Kathy's class ring. It had slipped from her
finger and dropped overboard, and she was devastated. Joel figured he would
impress her with his bravery in diving after it. Maybe she wouldn't constantly
look at Kevin then. Kevin laughed when she asked HIM to dive for the ring. But
still, he was above the water, on board the boat, well-dressed and tanned, with
Kathy by his side as Joel dove ever deeper, his lungs running out of air. But
there! There was the ring!
As Emily strolled through the market, she was like an unopened bud, whose scent was beginning to peek through.
The villagers seemed unaware of it, familiarity breeding this sort of thing, but to the dark haired stranger who lounged aganst the fruit-seller's rickety awning, it wafted a challenge to him, and made him nearly forget the buckshot he had had to pick out of his rump as he left the last town he'd visited.