Introductions

I'm currently taking a creative writing class at Penn State. One of the first assignments was to write five different introduction paragraphs for any particular story. I decided on a scene from an unwritten film of mine, a film far down on my list so it probably won't be written any time soon. I'm posting the first three introductions, mainly just for the sake of posting something. I wasn't a fan of the final two introductions, so I don't intend on posting them. Enjoy.

Intro 1:

            “I know it’s late, sweetie, but we’ll be home soon.” My mother, comforting me as usual. But I don’t need comfort right now; I need sleep. It’s been five hours since my father’s insanely boring invite-only science conference began. The final two of those hours were spent watching my father trying to evade a torrent of nonsensical conversations, courtesy of all the lower level associates desperately seeking attention from the scientific community’s most powerful man. And so here we are: a deserted residential street in South Philadelphia, one hour past my bedtime. I’m three years old, by the way. You don’t want to know how three-year-olds respond to lack of sleep. It’s not an event worth witnessing, much like the event that will begin in three seconds. An event that begins with a careless driver running a red light and slamming into my mother’s old Jeep Grand Cherokee. An event that ends with the death of my mother. Despite my mother’s well-intentioned, comforting words, she was wrong. We would not be home soon.

Intro 2:

            If my mother’s old Jeep Grand Cherokee was a front-loading clothes washer, then the glass from its broken windows would be the clothes, and our blood the detergent. The vehicle rolled more times than I could count – but I was only three years old, not much of a counter. Invading light from the waning gibbous moon informed me that this mini tumble would most likely not end well. When the vehicle finally came to rest I didn’t care to know how many times it had rolled, only why my mother sat motionless with a look of death flooding into her eyes, blood pouring out of an extensive gap in her forehead. I felt numb, not because I was severely hurt, but because I was scared.

Intro 3:

            Two hours spent involuntarily measuring my father’s ability to evade nonsensical conversations only to further be held back by a red light, perhaps the longest red light I’ve ever encountered. Traffic lights in Philadelphia can be frustrating; green to red in a manner of seconds, red to green in a manner of generations. I could sense that my mother was as frustrated as I was. She stared at the bright red circle as if she was conversing with it telepathically; convincing it to end its ever-recurring life so she could get home and enjoy at least one glass of wine before bed. It listened and instantly vanished, allowing its green friend another brief moment of purpose. My mother pulled into the intersection without any hesitation, free at last, only to be blindsided by a careless driver. Our vehicle rolled more times than I could count.