Old Beginnings 16

Historical Fiction

A new twist; mixed in with five published openings is an opening submitted by a minion. Choose the opening you think is unpublished and tell us why.
Sources below.


1. 1919

There’s likely some polished way of starting a story like this, a clever bit of gaming that’d sucker people in surer than the best banco feeler in town. But the truth is that I haven’t got the quick tongue or the slick wit for that kind of game. Words haven’t figured much in my life, and though over the years I’ve met many of what the world counts to be the big thinkers and talkers of our times, I’ve stayed what most would call a plain man. And so a plain way of starting will suit me well.

The first thing to do, along these plain lines, is to say why I’ve closed the shop up and come into the back office on a night when there’s plenty of business that might be done. It’s a fine evening, the kind what I used to live for: a night when you can take in all the affairs of the avenue with nothing more than your shirtsleeves for cover, blowing the smoke of a dozen good cigarettes up to the stars above the city and feeling, on balance, like maybe there’s some point to living in this madhouse after all.


2. 1586

The bells of St. James Cathedral had rung 8 o'clock by the time I got to the little churchyard in Southwark, and already the sun was sinking below Our Queen's great city. Soon the people would go to bed and the rats would come out, scurrying down dark city streets and feeding in the open sewers.

I limped among the graves, relishing the quiet after the loud, throbbing bustle of the city. Every year that I came to the graveyard I was the sole visitor; no one mourned who was buried here. Headstones crumbled from neglect and the grass grew tall over them, as if to hide the shameful names of the dead. It was here that my Mother, a great lady, was buried with the prostitutes of Southwark.


3. 1918

The road to Commonwealth was long and forbidding, stretching for miles beyond Timber Falls and leading deep into the evergreen woods, where the trees grew taller still as if trying to reach the sun that teased them with the paucity of its rays. Douglas fir loomed over the rock-strewn road like two warring armies perched on opposing cliffs. Even those travelers who all their lives had been reminded of their insignificance felt particularly humbled by that stretch of road and the preternatural darkness that shadowed it.

Some number of miles into the woods, the road curved to the right and the trees backed off a bit, the brown dirt and occasional stumps evidence that the woods had been cleared out only recently, and only with extreme tenacity. The clearing rose along a gradual incline; at the base of the hill, a tree that had recently been chopped down blocked the road. Into its thick bark a sign was nailed: a warning to travelers who didn't exist, a silent cry into deaf woods.


4. 1814

Judy Rhines decided to take the footpath through the pasture. It was half the distance of walking all the way down the Commons Road and back up Dogtown Road and she wanted to get there early enough to be of help. But the going was slow. The winter of 1814 had buckled the field with frost and there was black ice in every hollow. If she didn't consider every step, she might end up as bad off as Abraham Wharf, who certainly had no need of her hurry.

The cold seemed to add hours and miles to even the shortest journey through Dogtown. Gloucester, which was barely an hour's walk for a healthy man in good weather, could seem as remote as Salem in February. It was a gloomy landscape even on a fine day, with its rutted thoroughfares and ruined houses and the odd collection of souls who had washed up into the rocky hills of Cape Ann. At least it isn't windy, Judy consoled herself.


5. 1666

I used to love this season. The wood stacked by the door, the tang of its sap still speaking of forest. The hay made, all golden in the low afternoon light. The rumble of the apples tumbling into the cellar bins. Smells and sights and sounds that said this year it would be all right: there'd be food and warmth for the babies by the time the snows came. I used to love to walk in the apple orchard at this time of the year, to feel the soft give underfoot when I trod on a fallen fruit. Thick, sweet scents of rotting apple and wet wood. This year, the hay stooks are few and the woodpile scant, and neither matters much to me.

They brought the apples yesterday, a cartload for the rectory cellar. Late pickings, of course: I saw brown spots on more than a few. I had words with the carter over it, but he told me we were lucky to get as good as we got, and I suppose it's true enough. There are so few people to do the picking. So few people to do anything. And those of us who are left walk around as if we're half asleep. We are all so tired.


6. 1776

He had sat out the raw misery of the storm through most of the night, keeping his boat tight against the shore. She was pulled up on soft ground between two large rocks, his private mooring, a hiding place he had known since he was a boy. The boat would be safe there, from weather or the occasional vandal, but this time the storm was different, the rain driven by a howling wind that might push the waves hard beneath the boat, damaging her against the rocks.

His wife would not worry, would keep the fireplace lit, would not protest even though he would stay out all night. She had heard him speak of it too often, his love of the water, the pursuit of the fish that seemed to call to him in a way few wives understand. This time she did not expect him to return home for at least two days, and so as he huddled under a ledge of rock, soaked by the amazing violence of the storm, he did not worry for her, thought only of tomorrow, the new dawn, hoping that the storm would be gone.




Old Beginnings 16

1. The Angel of Darkness....Caleb Carr
2. Winchester's Goose....A Minion seeking comments
3. The Last Town on Earth....Thomas Mullen
4. The Last Days of Dogtown....Anita Diamant
5. Year of Wonders....Geraldine Brooks
6. The Glorious Cause....Jeff Shaara