My current writing assignment:  Write 50 unrelated “first sentences”.
How I’m taking it further:  Tell me which of them you’d like to see made into a short story in the comments on this post.

01. Apocalypse is the word people use to describe the end of the world, but what do you call it when the only world destroyed is your own?

02. What if the lie we were told was that the lie about the world was the lie.

03. Heroes are defined by their villains, just like great men are defined by the challenges they overcome.

04. I walked with death awhile, he was kinder than I’d anticipated.

05. Darkness approached, and when it was fully come I would leave to feast.

06. I should have done better.

07. “You walk in dreams.”

08. No matter how otherwise charmed your life or how objectively small your pain, the worst day of your life is still the worst day of your life.

09. “Green grass and blue skies,” the man spat like it was a curse.

10. We all think that death is the ending and that may be, but what if that’s a blessing compared with the alternative.

11. Most people, when confronted with the option of changing their beliefs or having been wrong will cling to their beliefs at great cost to themselves and those around them.

12. My dad was right when he told me not to be a hero, why the hell didn’t I listen?

13. The problem isn’t biting off more than you can chew, it’s swallowing before you’ve chewed enough to swallow.

14. The coyote can’t be trusted, which is fine, you can always trust an untrustworthy man to be untrustworthy. It’s the others you have to worry about.

15. Most rebellions- not all, but most, are just an excuse for some new bastard to gain power rather than let the old SOBs keep power.

16. Always be suspicious of someone who claims some action is for the greater good. They’re inevitably about to ask you to do something that’s evil.

17. It isn’t loneliness that’s hell, it’s being lonely after you’ve known a life with your perfect love that’ll rip the heart from your chest.

18. Love? Shit no, love can’t be unrequited. That’s obsession. It’s only love if they love you back.

19. The modern message seems to be for a man not to prove his worth to a lover- but in practice if he don’t, he’ll never stand out from the other hopefuls that surround any woman who’s worth giving a damn about.

20. Only the guilty beg for mercy, the innocent seek justice.

21. “Eat up Sara, you’re pale as chalk.”

22. I don’t know if I see women as being rational, nor men either. That’s a quality far too rare in this world.

23. How original, a novel about a writer who is writing a novel.

24. Who gives a shit about dying anyway, you can’t choose if- but if you’re very lucky, you might choose how and when.

25. The wizards tower was on a bracken-strewn hill surrounded by moor.

26. Heartbroken, he sought solitude, or possibly death.

27. Life cannot be sustained except by the death of another, we all choose to kill by living.

28. When I was young- I sought fame and wealth. When I had a family I sought their happiness. Now I am old- I seek wisdom. I wonder if I’ll ever find what I seek.

29. The woman handed him a donut, perfectly imperfect and with just the right covering of peanuts to make his mouth water even as he took it.

30. “Nothing to report sir,” he said, “Which is notable in itself.”

31. Be careful what you wish for, or some bastard will get it and flaunt it in front of you because fate and luck are motherfuckers that way.

32. Best not to wish for what you want, but to work for it- knowing it’s a long shot.

33. Who the hell said you deserve a job that’s fulfilling?

34. That thing you thought of already exists as porn.

35. Bill, I swear your son is the dumbest damned smart kid I’ve ever met.

36. Have you ever realized that person who sees you as an asshole might have good reason?

37. Sorry bout the cussin’ ma’am, probably just means I’ll have a migraine coming on soon.

38. Once upon a time there was a fallen hollow log, and in that log lived a toad.

39. A single feather floated to the ground below the place where the hawk caught the pigeon mid-flight.

40. When I said send them a message, this is not what I had in mind you idiot!

41. The warm aroma of freshly roasted coffee hit me full in the face as I came in from the cold.

42. The bloodshot areas around the iris just made his eyes seem bluer.

43. Alex felt the uncomfortable prickles that preceeded sweat as he ran from his pursuers.

44. Fox ran round bear excitedly as he emerged from his long winter nap.

45. “Coffee?” she offered.

46. I’m sure if that wolf was trying so hard to get into the houses of those pigs he must’ve had a good reason. The question is what did the pigs do to attract that kind of attention from the wolf?

47. You wanna know how to tell if your idea is bigoted? Replace the noun of the person or group with “black people” or “Jews” and see if it still sounds okay to say.

48. The problem with trying to outthink someone you know to be cleverer then you is the fact that they are, in fact, cleverer than you. It’s not impossible of course, but it does take time.

49. Last time Harold was in this mess, he’d been stronger and in better shape- it had barely been enough then, and he could only hope his experience would make up the difference now.

50. “At last, some quiet.” It was the last thing he thought before the bombs fell.