Last Line-First Line

[glen]

This exercise calls for those involved to start their story with the last sentence from the story posted by the previous writer.

Here goes...

[glen]

A GOOD SUMMER

It had been A Good Summer after all.
Ira and Sidney had argued over linguini for hours, the red and white checkered tablecloth between them flapping in the breeze that blew off the Hudson River, down 35th Street and beneath the small table they shared outside Luigi's Fine Italian Eatery.
Ira insisted that Mario Lanza's last record was entitled, "A Good Summer," and featured a special accompaniment by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vespici Angosula. Sidney swore that Ira had pasta for brains, and that Lanza
never recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra.
"His last recording was also his most famous--Vesta de Jubal--and the album was entitled in his own mother tongue--Italian," Ira insisted.
They argued over the music for hours, as the sun dipped below the New York Skyline and streetlights came to life automatically. Finally Ira and Sidney looked around themselves at an empty restaurant and an aproned waiter patiently watching
them from the corner.
"Graci," Ira muttered to the waiter. He stood slowly, his joints stiffly and slowly surrendering to the will of the old man. Sidney reached behind him and pulled his wheelchair closer. The waiter started toward the twosome as Sidney pulled himself out of his wooden chair and into the wheeled one. But Ira held up a hand to ward him off, and the waiter kept his distance.
"Where to tomorrow?" Ira muttered to his companion, as he threw a wad of bills on the table.
Sidney shrugged. "Heard there was a new hotshot down in Central Park claiming he could take on any two others in chess at the same time."
Ira shook his head and pushed Sidney's wheelchair out the iron railings and onto the sidewalk.
"Kids," Ira muttered. "I guess we will have to show him a thing or two."
Sidney nodded. "They just don't make 'em like they used to."

[Sarah]

They just don't make 'em like they used to. Lilliana stared at her father.

"What are you talking about father?"

"I'm talking about these shoes. They are all worn now and I've only had them three years. Shoes used to last so much longer than that."

"I'm sorry father."

"Well darlin it's ain't your fault."

Liliana's father continued to mutter to himself as she returned to staring out the window. The light sparkled on the lake as the blue sky seemed to brighten with time. How she loved sunny days. The wind rippled across the water.

"Liliana Henriette Kirche, come here this instant!"

Her mothers voice echoed in the large house.

"Coming mother."

"I need you to take these things to the Jamisons."

"Yes mother."

Liliana was so happy to be outside. The breeze rustled her hair as it moved across the path. She reveled in the comforting warmth.

Suddenly a space ship landed in front of her.

[scott]

Suddenly a space ship landed in front of her. The hot breeze of the roaring engines warmed her blood and made her heart race. The slick streamlined ship rocked uneasily above the cliff of Raderos, the floating citadel of the United Confederation.

In the year 2032, the United states had dissolved due to the economic depression of the past thirty years. France had given back the 72 million francs it had sold Louisiana for and due to the need for money, French territory now split the nation.

She, Adella Tine, had just purloined this new ship from the Confederation, Planning to run supplies back and forth over New France. The Borders had been closed and Canada no longer had the friendly foreign policy it once had. Years of border immigration problems from the US had forced them to build the Ice Wall, a length of concrete fence that kept US citizens from reaching their prospering economy.

She smiled sardonically back at the ground, now she could fly.

[Edward Cheever]

She smiled sardonically back at the ground, now she could fly. The ground gave an amused grin in return.

“How’re the airflows today, Cecelia?” It asked in its deep voice, sounding like the flowing rumble of a lava spill. “I think I’m surprised every day that contraption f yours manages to get up so high at all.”

Cecelia laughed. “You’re just not used to anybody getting away from you.”

The great face’s brows drew down slightly, meaning that small hills and tumbles of earth rolled down to rest atop the two large boulder’s that were the Earth Spirit’s eyes. “You make me sound oppressive, my dear.” It boomed.

“Well, you are clingy,” She said lightly. “Not that I mind, really. I would like to get down from here sometime.”

The spirit pursed its craggy lips. “Well I can hardly help my nature, dear. I adore company, you know.”

“I said I didn’t mind, didn’t I?” Cecilia said. “I’m no Moon.” She wished she hadn’t said that as soon as she said it. The great face turned slightly, hills turning over and the great stone eyes rolling to see the Moon near the horizon. It was rare to see her up during the daytime, and she was pale and wane. The great face sighed.

The Moon had been it’s lover once, but forces drove them apart, and now she hovered in the distance. Far enough to be independent of the Earth, and close enough to remind the Earth what it had lost.

Cecilia always thought of her as being weak willed. No strong enough to admit her love for the Earth and return to it, and not strong enough to let go of its past and travel to newer orbits. There wasn’t exactly a shortage of interested planets either. Mars had long had a ridiculous crush on her.

But still she stayed, always within sight. Always out of reach.

“Tease.” Cecelia whispered under her breath.

She titled the control of her light wood-framed plane to the left and the Earth and it’s big face turned beneath her. A sharp crack came from behind her and the sound of a wounded motor’s pathetic whine shattered the lovely puttering of just a few moments passed.

Cecelia looked back in alarm to see that the small engine and propeller had gone out. Wisps of smoke and steam curled out from around the complicated bit of machinery and quickly disappeared into the rushing wind currents.

She gave a loud curse and yelled down to the Earth Spirit, “My motor’s burnt out! I’m going to have to come in for a landing!”

The great face turned back from the moon in alarm. “Are you sure you’ll be all-right, my dear?”

“Not really!” She called back, “This thing wasn’t meant for gliding.” The plane suited her words and started loosing altitude, despite her deft touch with the controls. The Earth’s natural pull made her slide forward slightly on her belly and she found herself not only wrestling with the controls, but also with not falling out of the plane head-first.

The face’s eyes rolled upwards, “Try to land over there.” His eyes pointed at a growing pile of sand and soft, overturned earth.

Cecelia nodded. “Thanks!” She banked the plane back and forth, growing closer to the ground each time she turned. “Could you make a bit of a ramp of it?” She asked.

The Earth helpfully lifted one side of the pile, making a nice smooth and shallow ramp, and even rounded it up at the far side to make sure she stopped on the soft bits and didn’t go sprawling onto the harder packed dirt.

The plane neared the ground and Cecelia just managed to clear the lip of the ramp. The belly of the plane struck with a jolt that clacked her teeth together and seemed to travel up the wood, through her belly and out her spine. Bits of the wings snapped off and she could hear the sound of tearing as the fabric covering the body tore off. The plane slid from the ramp all the way to the other side and stopped short just before skidding out of the soft circle the Earth Spirit had provided.

Cecelia unbuckled herself from the plane and shakily crawled out of the wreckage.

“Cecilia, my dear, are you all right?”

She felt herself over and decided that the pain in her right arm was just a large bruise. She’d also bit the inside of her cheek in the landing. She decided she wasn’t going to call it a crash. A crash was what happened when a plane came down before the pilot decided so. She decided that she had decided to come down of her own accord. Tragic, that her plane could not survive her intentions.

“That is very good to hear.” The Earth boomed. "I've always told you that gallivanting around like a bird is bad business, haven't I?"

Cecelia looked at the shifting hills and rocks that didn’t at all look like a face when you were actually on the ground. “You know, it’s hard to talk to you like this,” She said.

“Well, I would use my Walker, but I left it back where you launched.”

Cecelia looked around. “Isn’t there something else you could do? Make another one, maybe?”

“I am not so easily acquainted with the human form, my dear. Making one takes time.”

“Isn’t there anything like a statue you could inhabit, or something? There’s that village just about a mile south of your bottom lip.”

“That’s a grand idea, Cecelia.” The Earth said, sounding pleased. “Give me a moment to check.”
Silence filled the landscape as the spirit concentrated.

Suddenly the land shifted again into what Cecilia imagined might have been the world’s largest grin. “I found one! You will like this one, I believe, my dear.” As the Earth Spirit flowed southward to the statue in the village, the earth that had made up its face suddenly seemed to drop and settle, all of the animated life draining out of it.

With a sigh and a groan at her still creaking bones, she trudged southward. “I wonder what it meant by ‘You’ll like this one.’”

[michaelangelo]

“I wonder what it meant by ‘You’ll like this one.’” With question in her voice, Stephanie was not sure what to think about the gift her boyfriend Earl got her. “Actually, I don’t fancy it at all.”
Stephanie hastily went to her best friend Tiffany, who had a different response. “Why did he get you this? Doesn’t he know that you absolutely love Vera Bradley?” asked Tiffany. “Well from this present, I take it that he has no clue who I am!” Exclaimed Stephanie, “I DON’T EVEN HAVE A CLUE WHY I’M WITH HIM RIGHT NOW!”