- Take four books off your bookshelf.
- Write the first sentence
- Write the last sentence on page fifty
- Write the second sentence on page one hundred
- Write the next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
- Write the final sentence of the book
- Let your friends guess what book it is.
BOOK ONE:
- It was sunny in San Francisco; a fabulous condition.
- If he could feel no guilt he could not fall into the trap of betraying fear or being caught.
- As he entered his second term he was forty-one years old; Raymond's mother was thirty-eight.
- Zilkov was proud of the power he represented.
- "No electric chair for a medal of honor man," Marco said, and he began to pick his way painfully down the iron ladder listening intently for a memory of Raymond, for the faintest rustle of his ever having lived, but there was none.
BOOK TWO:
-
GOOD EVENING- If this is not your natural milieu as a writer, however, there are still a few respectable magazines out there devoted to publishing short stories in the classic genres.
- In Kansas City, a hobo declared himself Duke of All the West and began demanding tithes.
- The next night, the mark and the pajama man will meet in front of the mark's office, or the mark's own home, or that of his aunts.
- The politics of ancient Rome shall only serve as a backdrop for what is ultimately a personal story about a nervous, lame, antisocial man who escapes assassination to become the unlikely author of a book of fake trivia.
BOOK THREE:
- Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming you do not go utterly mad in the attempt.
- "I was asleep by two."
- "I keep stuff down there."
- I shook one out into my palm and stepped up to the door.
- "Your ball."
BOOK FOUR:
- I still get nightmares.
- Parallel surfaces will create a flutter echo, though frequently a splay of as little as 16mm (5/8 inch) can prevent the multiple repetitions.
- FUCK.
- I'm sorry Hailey.
- "Whoever has no house now, will never have one."