I have not done one of these in over a year so I thought I should get back at it.
Basically, I took the opening sentence in Bold, and wrote for ten minutes and this is the story I got.
Feel free to give me any opening sentence suggestions you might have!
The night before the wedding, a friendly ex-convict gets trapped in a parallel universe.
“Arr! And what brand o’ grog will ye be having, matey?” The man behind the bar glared at Mark with his one good eye, the other being hidden behind a patch.
“Uh,” Mark stared at the man, distracted by the way the room was spinning. “I’m lost! Could you tell me how to get back to the Holiday Inn Express?”
“Arr! There be no holidays here in Barnacle Town. Now if ye don’t be wanting no grog, it’ll be best if ye leave!”
“Huh?”
Something sharp ran along Mark’s inner thigh. A woman purred, “Hello sweet oyster!” Mark turned and came face to face with an olive skinned woman, her hair pulled back in a Jolly Roger bandanna. She was stroking his leg with her hook hand. Mark jumped, stabbing himself.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “Excuse me!” Mark limped to the far end of the bar, cursing himself for being a lover. It was the first time a woman had touched him in any way since he’d been arrested for tax evasion, and he had almost castrated himself.
That evening had also been the first time he had drunk liquor since going to jail. Relatives kept buying him shots at the hotel bar because he was his brother’s best man, not that any of them would have looked him in the eye when he had been arrested. Mark had finally insisted that he had to leave. He had staggered out of the bar to go to his room but had somehow found himself on the street. There had been a shimmering mist and he had wondered through it and somehow found his way in this weird bar where everyone either had an eye patch or a parrot on their shoulder.
That was when the truth crashed down on him like a cannonball to the face. “AW SHIT!” He shouted. “I’m in the pirate dimension!”
Mark sprinted out of the bar and to his relief saw that the shimmering mist still covered the sidewalk.
He was about to run through it when he stopped himself. What exactly was he running toward? Probation, an ex-wife who hated him, and relatives who thought he was a joke.
Mark took several steps back and considered the situation. He couldgo home to all his miseries….or he could stay here in the pirate dimension.
The mist drifted away, and Mark turned around to walk back into the bar. Five minutes later he ran out hand in hook with the olive skinned woman. They danced down the street under gas lamps and a marquee promoting the new play, Accountants of the Carribean: Curse of the Out of Order Fax Machine.
