The Tumblr of Opening Paragraphs

Around one (1) to three (3) opening paragraphs of original fictional works that may or may not exist. -Thalia Harris

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Derail’d

In the sixth circle of Hell lived a young demon named Derail.  His job was to punish those who had committed the sin of heresy against the Church.  Each day, the fallen heretics would be brought to Derail, cowering before his brutish frame, wide shoulders and piercing amber eyes.  He would take delight in their demise, and then bring them over to the flaming tombs where their bodies would be set ablaze, along with their wayward beliefs.  The last thing the victims would see was the light from the flames flickering against Derail’s sallow skin, and a twinkle of satisfaction in his eyes.  

 This ritual would be repeated with new souls, sometimes even the same souls, until the overseer sounded the ram’s horn, signaling the end of Derail’s shift. As he let out a sigh of exhaustion, his proud chest deflated and another worker demon would relieve Derail, picking up where he left off.  He then left the flaming tombs of the sixth circle, and flew back to his housing complex on the other side of the Phlegethon River, ignoring the pungent smell of blood as he approached the door to his room, opened it, and threw his bag of tools on the floor.  Derail would enter the shower to wash his dark and dingy hair, but when bathed in the sulfuric waters, Derail’s hair was revealed to be a light golden brown. After becoming relatively clean, Derail plopped on his cot and rested, before heading to the mess hall for Third Meal.

 This was Derail’s routine, day in and day out, ever since he was old enough to work.

-Thalia Harris

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Blood Addicts (Prologue)

Frigid gun steel rested on the cowardly tongue of Carl Shabazz as he struggled for air.  He attempted to scream for help, but the barrel had imposed itself so deeply on his trembling throat that he became a forced mute.

He was a portly thing of a man, with a bruised face, his hands tied behind his back kneeling on the broken tiled floor, with baby blue tiles scattered around him.  Through his tear-filled eyes, he could see his attacker–a tall, slender sepia young woman with short, curly Afro hair.  She did not smile, but her index finger was trigger-happy. A bloody laceration was under her right eye from scuffling with him earlier, but she apparently emerged as the victor, unfazed, with the red fluid dripping down her cheek.

 Carl gazed at his gorgeous attacker though he was exhausted, with his hearing going in and out.  As he tried to hold on to his consciousness, he heard these words whispered to him:

“Do you remember El Trinidad?”    

-Thalia Harris

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Venus Moon (Senior)

“C’mon, Savannah, get up,” a gentle male voice said.

“Nooo.”

“Your parents are gonna be here soon.”

“Mm-hmm.” Savannah placed her pillow over her face.

“C’mon,” he teased.  “Time to be an adult.”

The source of the voice yanked the memory foam mattress from Savannah’s face.  It was Michael, her cherished second love.  He had changed in the past four years.  His blonde dreads were gone—only a black top fade remained.  A small barbell pierced his right nipple, and an inexpensive yet endearing tattoo of a white-ribboned heart was inked on his undefined left pec.  A fleur-de-lis was tattooed on his right arm.  Yet, his skin was still golden.  Mouth small, lips full.  Eyes still earthy, curious and playful.

This was not a wishful dream in Savannah’s subconscious.  Michael was real, in her bed.  His golden fingers intertwined with her mahogany ones.  He had come to her shared apartment in the middle of the night via Greyhound, thanks to his friends’ kindness. Savannah, knowing this, waited with bated breath, her figure shrouded by the large red light lamp in the corner of her bedroom.  She listened to “Bibo no Aozora”, a moderate, radiant piano piece to calm her amorous nerves. Yet her body quivered at the thought of him being close to her.

 When Michael finally arrived, no words were said. Savannah opened the door.  He stood there, with a half-full 40 oz in one hand.  His ran his other hand through her hair.  They greeted each other with a kiss.  He closed and locked the door behind him.  Savannah wrapped her arms around his neck, her pink moscato-laced tongue swirling around his.

-Thalia Harris

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Anonymous Pink (Junior)

Somewhere between sophomore and junior year, Savannah threw out all desires for a stable relationship and threw herself into schoolwork, hard partying and sex. Bitterness had not taken over her, but apathy was the keyword of her life.  Michael, her boyfriend from freshman year had flunked out, and was struggling to make it in a world full of busted bubbles.  Armando, from her sophomore year, had long moved on and was talking to other women.  These days, they exchanged nothing but harmless jokes about an anime they had seen, or goings-on in their scholastic lives.  Savannah’s teenage dreams of finding the love of her life by senior year, married by 26, and with child by 28 had faded.  At this rate, she didn’t even know she’d be able to afford grad school, let alone find her life partner.

The only upside to her life was her position as a Residential Assistant, in addition to her math tutoring job. Instead of making only $75 every other week, she now made a whopping $173.  Now she could afford burgers with cheese and Absolut vodka instead of whatever was in the plastic handle.  Yet, she did appreciate her double room for half the price, which she decorated her walls with cutouts from her favorite music magazines, and draped her cashmere scarves on the covered heat pipes.  Though her room was large and inviting, her friends barely visited her.  She made many trips back to East Campus for them, but no one cared to see her on the West side.

The sex she’d been having was of mixed experiences. Julie, for example, was lovely. She was short, with porcelain skin and perky B-cups.  A tapered brunette bob framed her round, coquettish face, and her hips swelled generously.

-Thalia Harris

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The Azabu-Juban Museum of Commoners History

“Tsugi wa Azabu-Juban.  Heimin-butsukanmae desu.”

This announcement rang in my ear as I rode the Namboku Line preparing for an exclusive tour of this Commoners’ History Museum.  It was the middle of the day, so the trains were relatively empty—everyone was too tired or engrossed in their literary tablets to notice me.  But soon, my foreignness would be the least spectacular thing, once I walked through the doors of the museum.

After exiting the station, it was a mere five-minute walk to the place in question.  However, it was cut short by my running smack into a waiting patron. She was a short stocky woman with a silver mink fur across her shoulders—who after the impact, turned to scowl at me.  I quickly apologized in Japanese, for I knew that she was not truly mad at me, but at her first taste in commoner culture: Waiting in line without a VIP pass.  The who’s who of Tokyo stood in a frustrated line outside of the two-story colonial building of mahogany brick, dressed awfully formal for a Tuesday afternoon.

But I must remind myself, and you, dear reader, that these were not rich people who occasionally rode the subway, or went on scandalous vacations in Bangkok.  No, these were people who never stepped outside their diamond-encrusted circle of friends, nor knew of synthetic fabrics, clearance sales or vending machines. Everything I (and a select few who dared not make themselves known) would see here today, would be a harsh reminder of what we managed to climb away from, but to the aforementioned elite, it would be an alien concept altogether, far beyond their reaches of imagination.

-Thalia Harris

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The Bleached Brownstones

Harlem--well all of New York really--had become a neighborhood of thin lines.  Boundaries that separated those who had everything and those who had nothing. The brownstones used to match the brown-skinned occupants, whether they had warm or cool undertones.  Now most occupants, who were also the owners, match the ivory necklaces and before-Labor-Day-clothes they wore.

Behind these quaint buildings that housed a community and birthed an artistic renaissance, were the towering projects.  Herds of Harlemites who’d been pushed out of their native neighborhoods stayed there. One young boy was always armed with a can of Raid for even the smallest of cockroaches.  The walls were thin, and a dissonant symphony of snippy arguments, rambunctious house parties and crescendoed lovemaking echoed through them in a scattered fashion.  His headphones were sometimes his sole refuge. The only time he’d take them off was when he’d sit at his grandmother’s feet, as she told stories of Harlem’s glory.

“You see that spot, right on the corner of Adam Clayton Powell?” she’d say, pointing out the window.

 “Yeah?”

 “Your Great-Uncle Luke owned the best rib place in the city over there.”

  And where his uncle’s rib place once stood, was a Bikram Yoga studio.

-Thalia Harris

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2169345 (Intro)

Every time I looked to the sky, it just reinforced the fact that I'd never get there. I would succumb to the shadows of my soul, and bathe in my despair. That essence of despair was the only one I knew of during my 16 years of existence. When I think of that, my eyes tear and glisten. Many times I would leave the borders of my sector after curfew, trying to exercise my freedom muscle...but it was pointless because there wasn't much to see on the other side. Just the same steel wall surrounding the neighborhood and the same dilapidated buildings. The only difference was that people were of a lower rank than I was, but because the Academy did not monitor them as much as they did the people in my sector, they had less to worry about. Therefore, they were livelier. I envied them. 

-Thalia Harris

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Pangaea

The Beginning

Before the Earth consisted of seven continents, it was one super-continent known as Pangaea. A massive island in the middle of the ocean, Pangaea was shaped like one-half of a broken heart.

The warmest areas of the super-continent were in the South, with red sand paved under towering palm trees, and temperature water rushing up on its shores.  The East had a mountainous terrain and heavy rainfall for weeks, even months at a time.  Yet, because of this rainy season, various herbs and medicinal flowers flourished; the East was valuable to the rest of Pangaea, despite its small area. The North was tundra, with jagged rocks on its cold shores.  Not many trees and plants did not bless this region, but their ocean was abundant with fish, providing nourishment for the black bears who roamed the barren beaches.   The West was a dank, humid environment, overgrown with mangrove trees and slathered in swampy marshes.  No one alive ever ventured there—the West was uncharted and avoided.

Pangaea had endured many natural disasters.  Tornadoes destroyed the plains.  Volcano eruptions covered the South in ashes, its lava coating all life in a scalding death.  Therefore, the spirit of the Earth gave rise to three goddesses—to protect and rule over the land.

-Thalia Harris

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Sky/Blue

A one-year-old baby girl named Ava lived in the West Hills of Los Angeles.  It was a luminous day outside—Ava could feel the pleasant heat from the sun radiate through the big French windows in the kitchen. There was such an energetic presence in this house—her father was in the living room, watching Return of the Dragon, cheering Bruce Lee on as he proceeded to dominate his enemies on-screen.

Ava went to go see what her mother was doing.

She slowly walked to the kitchen, expecting to see her mother cooking something.

Sure enough, there was something in the oven, but Mommy wasn’t there.

Ava then saw a lone hand stick out from behind the kitchen nook.  She inched closer to it and placed her small hand on the palm.  It was cold. Ava then peeked her head around the nook to get a better view.

It was Mommy.  She was lying down, motionless.  Ava poked her shoulder to see if she would look at her and smile.  That’s what usually happened when she poked Mommy. But nothing happened.

-Thalia Harris

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Obfirmo

David Lee was the fifth student in the semester to be diagnosed with mononucleosis.  A common acute disease among college students, but all the commonness in the world couldn’t take away the fact that it sucked.

He knew even before Dr. Hopkins at Student Health told him that his symptoms were not normal.  On the plane ride back to school, his eardrums didn’t pop back, the Airborne he took a couple days before he left home hadn’t relieved his sore throat—matter of fact, when he woke up on the night he returned to Oberlin, it felt like he had swallowed fire.

“Here’s a pamphlet,” said Dr. Hopkins, handing David a brochure titled So You Have Mono.  It reminded him of the one he got in fifth grade titled, So You’re Going Through Puberty (Male). He wanted to laugh, but it hurt too much.

-Thalia Harris

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#Runit2050

The sun rises over the Marshall Islands, casting a light over the azure waters.  People in the capital bustle to their appointments and obligations; women wear dresses adorned with flower prints, portraying the paradise pillaged by Western tourists every summer season.  Marshallese hands exchange goods for United States dollars, even though they had been out from under their rule since the 1980s.  Yet their original currency was of such low value that they suffered the same fate as Ecuador and had no choice but to take the U.S. Dollar.

In the city hospital, a woman gives birth to a newborn baby. The woman’s name is Hoku.  This was Hoku’s third child, second son. Hopefully this one will live. The obstetrician, seeing the baby boy, shook her head.  She cut the umbilical cord, cleaned him off, wrapped him in a blue towel and put her in an incubator.  Hoku, the hopeful mother looked at the incubator and saw the source of the doctor’s disappointment, soon to be her own.

Her son’s body could fit in her hand, limp and listless.  His head was the size of a large cantaloupe, highly disproportionate to the rest of his frame.  Skin transparent, blood coursing through veins, highly visible.  Her son’s breathing was shallow.  Another “jellyfish baby”.  He won’t make it past this week.

-Thalia Harris

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Uncomfort (short story version)

Leather and lace embraced Belle’s waist in the form of a corselette she had won in an eBay bidding.  She examined herself in the mirrored wall of her bedroom, running her fingers on the buttery black Roman leather.  The lace was made from red Thai silk, with Japanese pearls dripping from the entire bodice.  Belle surveyed her high-end purchase with admiration, then looked lower to see her naked mahogany legs, without the quintessential fishnets. A look of determination crossed her face as she promised herself she would buy a slew of fishnets with her next paycheck.  Rent was due now.

-Thalia Harris

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Nine Steps Down

9.

Every single time, he’d tremble in fear when I reached out to touch him.  The third-degree burn on his right arm had faded long ago.  But whenever I reached for it, he flinched as if the skin was still a raw, fleshy pink, begging to be bandaged.

“Does it still hurt?” I ask.

“No.”  He shakes his head and answers in a gentle baritone. Yet he still bites his lip.

After this pensive pause, he says, “It happened too long ago to still hurt.”

The humid, sticky air clings to the surface of my skin.  Moonlight makes the green leaves in the trees seem like thin sheets of emerald.  Seeing this almost soothes me.  Then I remember it’s the end of August and 91 degrees. The heat of embarrassment that radiates from my friend doesn’t help either.

“It’s the pity, I guess,” he says.

“I’m sorry?”

“The pitiful look people give me when they see the scar.  It hurts more than getting burned itself.”

-Thalia Harris

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The Lovely Mushroom

Stephen was an unknown chef who lived in Dubai.  Though he was skilled, no one came to his restaurant.  One night, while alone in the kitchen, he went to a large safe, entered the combination, and opened it to reveal a golden spoon encrusted with sapphires.

He held the spoon up to the ceiling and said, “I wish for the most delicious mushroom in the world!”  Immediately, a large blue mushroom appeared before him.  Surprised and pleased, he took a bite.  It was the lightest and sweetest thing he had ever tasted!  Then a choking sensation grabbed a hold of his throat. He only had six hours to live.

-Thalia Harris

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Trip and the Koi

Beside a sparkling crystal pond, flopped the most unfortunate koi in all the park.  Wide glassy eyes agape, its ruby scales gleamed in the moonlight as it continued to thrash mercilessly, gasping for air.

Just when it was about to give up the fruitless act of respiration, a young boy named Trip picked him up.  Having just run away from home, Trip longed for a friend.  He threw the koi back into the pond, and it slowly began to swim again.

“There you go little buddy,” said Trip. And one could imagine the shock on little Trip’s face when the koi answered, “Thank you.”

-Thalia Harris

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Without resistance, you can do nothing.

“There is salvation in the struggle!”   “You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette!” “The meek shall inherit the earth...” ...And all the motivational niceties, we’ve heard throughout the years.  Some may interpret it as a pick-me-up to get us through difficult days, while others view it as propaganda for the content proletariat.  But to young Chip, a boy of eight years old, it simply means his cherry-red balloon is stuck in a tree. He knows nothing of semantics and proverbs and existentialism.  All he knows is that if he returns to his mother without the balloon she spent her last dollar for the week on, she’ll have question.  Questions that may be punctuated with a frightening frown, a damning curse, or even a soft, yet profound wish that Chip’s father would pick him up soon. However, if he showed that he tried to get the balloon back, she might reward him with the phrase “little man”, before asking a grown man to retrieve it for him.  And maybe she’d relay it to his father, who might get him another balloon.  Maybe even ice cream to boot.

-Thalia Harris