So it's five, now, is it? Some of them are from extant projects, some for this prompt. # One After her third successful suicide, Abigail began to despair. Too No moon should have been that colour, nor made that sound. Free Omar and I met whilst working as dustbin men. He explained that he was a latter day Platonic philosopher-king, travelling the world incognito to expand his character, and working in refuse to understand the biological process of waste. Myself, I needed the money. For? When Ern woke, face down at the surf-line, washed up like a bit of driftwood, the sun was high in the sky and already he felt the beginnings of a vicious burn around his neck and along the backs of his legs. Long ago, before his hangover, there had been a ship. 5 I was and still am. # I remember a great article about writing opening lines for short SF stories which treated of grabbing the reader's attention with an seemingly impossible or incongruent assertion which would, particularly for science fiction fans, inspire curiosity and keep them reading. Amongst others, it cited Orwell's great opening to 1984 (cited in the linked top 100). There seemed to develop at a point in the 80's/90's a selective pressure on SF short stories to grab an editor immediately and to stand out from the other submissions which led to a lot of them having a particularly cryptic opening line that provoked questions requiring the reader to continue. A few of those lines included in the 'Top 100' seem truly great. Many feel like they should be titled 'First Lines From Great Novels' rather than 'Great First Lines'. Edit: on rereading it, rather than 'great' the list is titled 100 'Best' First Lines which is sufficiently vague an adjective to both invalidate and justify my last paragraph. I stand unmoved.It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.