A Novel Beginning

I’m a sap for a good first line or a good beginning to a story. As a reader, if I’m not captured in the first two pages, I usually don’t finish the book.

Just for fun, I’m going to occasionally write a story’s beginning. Not that it’s a story I’m working on, or a story that will ever go further than a few paragraphs. Just a new beginning—for the fun of it. Here’s my first just-for-the-fun-of-it novel beginning:

Love’s meant to be tested, right?

The rising sun squatted beneath the car’s visor, piercing her eyes with painful brilliance. Judith sipped tepid coffee from a paper cup and punched down on the accelerator. The late model sedan roared with power, turning the prairie landscape outside her window to a blur of warm gold and soft green. No matter how fast she drove, it wasn't fast enough. The tires ate up the miles of pavement separating them, carrying her back to him—back to a life she had never wanted to leave.

She’d thought of Ken often and of their last day together—the way the sun emphasized the gentle planes of his face, the way the breeze lifted his hair, the fire in his eyes when she told him she must leave.

“Return to me, next week, next year, next decade, in 30 years, just return.” He'd said.

She’d nodded her agreement, too emotional to trust her voice to speak what was really on her heart—the desire to stay—in his arms, in his life.

She braked the car, avoiding an antelope sprinting across the highway. A sigh seeped from her lungs. She adjusted her sunglasses and prayed it wasn’t too late. After all, a lot can happen in seventeen years.

***

Well, any thoughts on where this story may be heading? Would you read on? You can be truthful, I've got thick skin.

Photo credit: johngard from morguefile.com