Okay, let's try something weird. I'll include the first few paragraphs of a story I've written. They are, in fact, ALL that I have written to this point. Read them. If you'd like to see more, tell me. Tell me WHAT you think should happen next. If I get enough feedback and interest, I'll settle on a suggestion (maybe) and write some more. We can keep this going for awhile, see where it goes. Interested? Read on!

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You can tell a lot about a man by the smell of his farts, and Jim's told me that he'd been somewhere on the east side, where they serve burritos and enchiladas but not much else.

“Crack the window,” I said as he reached to the glove box for some Skittles.

“Man, you noticed?” he asked.

“Of course I noticed. It smells like shit.”

He growled but rolled the window down maybe an inch as I turned on the defroster. We sat there for a few minutes while the windows warmed and the spot I could see through grew into something bigger than a quarter. He was munching on Skittles and I was wishing I were anywhere, anywhere but here.

“The Knicks lost again,” Jim said momentarily, like he thought I'd care. “They lost and I'm not sure they'll ever win again. I don't know why they try three-pointers anymore, not even sometimes. They miss them all the time. That coach should be fired.”

“You're a fair-weather fan,” I told him, then laughed as I looked outside at the needles of frost blanketing the curb, the fire hydrant and the sign about one-hour parking.

“Yeah? And you're an ass.”

“Put your seatbelt on.”

I reached for mine, slid it over my chest and clicked it into place, then turned the key in the lock and winced as the car wined. This was not the morning for engine troubles. I pumped the gas a few times, gave the car a minute to rest, then tried again and it sputtered to life. I pressed in a few more times and the engine roared before settling into an uneven idle.

“So between feeding your face,” I said, “you got the stuff?”

“Yeah. It's here in my pocket.”

“You checked it, right? It's good?”

“Yeah, it's good.”

The back window hadn't cleared as much as the front one, but it looked good enough that I decided to risk backing out. We were in a mostly empty parking lot and I figured odds were pretty good we'd get out of our space without incident. I was wrong, though, and so began the worst day of my life.

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So, what happens next? I have no clue. Tell me! Oh, and tell me how you like things so far...