noose

writing contest over the weekend. hardcore and I'm spent. had to write the opening paragraph of a novel and while I had many of those. I decided to polish one up and ended up crafting it into a different opening for something in my head still.

I sent this one:

Truck stop off I-35 between Dallas and the Oklahoma border:
Amos leans against the tailgate smoking his lucky cigarette. The smoke curls south towards hell like a bird with a broken wing. Beautiful, but damned to die he found that sexually stimulating. He licks his lips, savoring the flavor of nicotine on them. Then flicking the cigarette into the middle of the road, he climbs into the truck bed, closing the camper window behind him. He lays himself next to the sleeping child. Sleeping, he liked that. It didn't sound as vile as dead. And he didn't feel wrong about pressing his body against hers while stroking her innocent hair.

but almost sent this:

The sky amnion bleeds onto the Dallas cityscape. Highways wrap the horizon with the exhausted grasp of a doctor holding a newborn. Plasma and blood matted in the babe's hair like he woke up from his own abortion with a coat hanger in hand. Grown up, he'll use the same coat hanger to pull the eyes of a thug-for-hire through the nasal cavity in order to obtain information regarding a girl. He flicks the cigarette out the window, a ghost on the highway. I must find her.