Opening Roulette!

mood: breathing
pandora/ipod: "alive" by the beastie boys

So I've got some new book ideas floating around - one that's brand new, one that's been kicking around for awhile, one that's written and could use some work. Which to choose? Which to choose?

How about you help me? I'll post the openings of each and you tell me which one grabs you the most. Ready.....GO!


CONTESTANT #1

The morning alarm crackled through the loud speaker a half second before blinding white light flooded the darkness, piercing the nebulous haze of his dream. His eyes flew open. Above, the rippled, rusting folds of the corrugated metal roof morphed in and out of focus just inches from his face as his eyes adjusted to the stark, fluorescent light. He looked down to the threadbare blanket--rough and frayed like burlap--that covered him.

Something wasn't right.

His heart pounded in his chest. Where am I? Where…Who am I?

A murmur rippled through the room. He couldn't understand their words, but he could sense the fear in their voices. They don't know either.

With a screech and a pop, the loud speaker sparked to life once more. "Attention Detainees," it said, the voice scratchy with too much treble. "Please check your headboards for your name and location. Roll call in ten minutes."

His bed shook. He gripped the wood frame with both hands. Earthquake? He glanced over the side of bed and realized the floor was five feet below. Bunk bed. No wonder the ceiling was so close.

What was he supposed to do? Headboard. Right. He flipped over and found a metal placard screwed into the wood.

BUNK 22
CAMP 18
CHECK WRIST FOR
DETAINEE NUMBER

Wrist? He flipped over both hands, exposing the pale, soft skin threaded with blue-purple veins. The number was tattooed on his left wrist just below the crease of his palm.

84117

Detainee 84117. Yes, that was familiar. That's what they called him. Memories bubbled to the surface, coming up for air. 84117. He was supposed to get up. He was supposed to get dressed. His belongings would be in a trunk at the foot of the bunk. Roll call. Medicine hut. Breakfast. Familiar and yet something was…off.

"Five minutes, boys," a gravelly voice bellowed. "Five minutes." Square shoulders below a pock-marked face and a nose that looked like it lost a fight with a vegetable peeler strode down the aisle between the bunks. He wore military fatigues and shiny club dangled from his belt, slapping against his thigh as he walked.

His name is Garrity. I remember that.

Garrity caught him staring. He whipped the club off his belt and clacked it against the wooden frame of the bunk as he sauntered by. "Hurry up, 84117. Don't know how they did it in Bunk 4, but in 22 my boys are ready on time for roll call."

That's why it all felt wrong. He'd switched bunks.

CONTESTANT #2

A spicy odor tickled Maggie's nose, wafting upwards from the kohl stick she held over the candle. It was a comforting smell, soothing despite the inky stench. It reminded her of her mother.

With a shake of her head she removed the stick from the flame, dismissing the memory. She blew on the kohl lightly then bent her face close to the chipped and tarnished mirror. Despite the fragmented reflection, her hand was steady, experienced as she drew a heavy line of black around the inner rim of her right eye, then with swift, calm strokes she coated her light eyelashes with the black paste.

Maggie swirled a puff in a tin of chalk dust and blotted the whitening powder liberally cross her cheeks, erasing all traces of her freckles. Then she scrunched up her face and wiggled her nose, working the powder into lines and crevices that didn't naturally exist on her young skin. A swipe of red-tinted beeswax across cheeks and lips, and her face was transformed. She looked ten years older, a Covent Garden tart on the wrong side of five and twenty, the very image of an aging barmaid using every trick in the book to hang onto her youth.

Mama would have been so proud.

Maggie removed the tattered black wig from its holder and pulled it over her skullcap. Voilá! The transformation was complete. Well, almost complete. She recalled her father's favorite lecture.

"Remember the eyes, Pet," he would say again and again whether she was playing dress up in her mother's old costumes or sitting through one of her father's lessons.

"They're the key. Used well, they can deceive the Devil himself, but they can also betray the depths of your soul to the worst of your enemies. Guard them, hide them, control them."

Maggie took a deep breath, closing her eyes with the exhale. Who are you tonight? What is your name? Where did you come from? What do you love and what do you hate?

"Dolores!" a heavy voice called from downstairs. "Cust'mers!"

Maggie returned to the mirror. Staring back at her were the vapid, overtly flirtatious hazel eyes of her latest creation.

Exit Maggie Flynn, enter Dolores Crampton.

CONTESTANT #3

Xochi pressed her forearms against the mat and with an ease that never ceased to amaze me, curled her legs and torso up so her butt hovered just above her head. Then with one flick of her toe, she turned the page of the magazine before her.

"You can't just use your hand like a normal person, can you?" I said.

Xochi's eyes never left the magazine, but her long lashes fluttered as she twisted her midsection ninety degrees and pointed both of her skinny legs at me in defiance. "Nope."

"It's creepy."

"You're jealous."

I snorted and picked up the discarded gold sequined vest I was supposed to be mending for the bazillionth time. "You wish."

Xochi uncorked her body and languidly rolled onto her side. She contorted so easily, like it took no effort at all. Only I knew better. I'd been watching her train since we were kids and knew the elegance of her performances for which she had become to renowned was the result of countless chest stands and headseats over the last ten years.

"Hm." Xochi smiled, a wicked gleam in her eye brown eyes. "Maybe if you could do this – " she lifted her leg, grabbed it with her hand and pulled it behind her head in an oversplit – "Fig would pay more attention to you."

"Xochi, what the hell?" I flushed and quickly glanced around the tent to make sure no one was within ear shot. I let out a sigh. Eight Ball was sweeping up near the ticket booth outside, but other than that we were alone.

"Calm down, Beanie. He's rigging up the aerial wench with your dad."

"He'd better be."

Xochi laughed, light and airy, and let her leg swing back into place. "Oh, come on! Maybe you should just tell him you think he's hot and want to jump his bones."

"Oh my God, I'm so going to kill you."

"What? I'm just trying to help." Xochi sat up and adopted that let-me-tell-you-something attitude she felt privy to by being two years older than me and having briefly dated a horrid illusionist who camped with us for a few months last summer.

It took a metric crap ton of effort for me not to roll my eyes. The last thing I needed was dating advice from Xochi. "I'm good. Thanks."

"But guys like Fig – "

"Guys like me what?"

I practically swallowed my tongue as the bleached-blond mohawked head of our new rigger poked through the door flap of the dressing room tent. He was smiling, exposing a row of crooked teeth that gave his face an impish air, and I desperately tried to gauge how much of the conversation he'd overheard.