Tuesday Flash Focus: Recent First Lines to Inspire Your Own

Michelle Reale's "What Passes for Normal" at SmokeLong Quarterly

My mother hones in on the neighbors and doesn't waste any time offering to babysit their daughter.

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Douglas Campbell's "The Destiny of Archer Deft" in Everyday Fiction

Deep in the Forest of Awe, Archer Deft walked alone, seeking the Exalted Destiny his mother had predicted for him.

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Lydia Copeland's "Exoskeleton" from elimae

It is difficult to tell when I am sleeping and when my mother's arms move above her head to tie something or when the wind blows against the living room side of the house.

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Sean Lovelace's "To Be Happy" from juked

Throw things. For example apples. I must have thrown at least 400 apples into the side of my house last spring.

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Eric Burke's "Son, Litterateur" from Pank

My mother built a concrete block wall to hold up half our yard.

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Kuzhali Manickavel's "Notes Made in Connnection with the Disappearance of a Boy Outside the Tropicool Icy-Land Urban Indian Slum as Investigated by the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" from FRiGG

Key Items Found at the Scene of Abduction

Penny frogs--115
Fanny pack--1
Condoms--0
Snail shells--8 empty, 3 cracked with snail still inside, 2 snails dead, 1 in surgery

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Kirsten Rue's "Spelling" at Quick Fiction

The words never come simply to her, never just arrive the way milk bottles shiver down the shoots in old factory footage, each lid smacked on with a popping sound.