A Bit of Unpublished

Well, I never got around to entering the August firstlinefiction contest. With school starting, I've been so busy that I've hardly had time to think about writing anything. But here's the beginning of my story, including the Hunter S. Thompson first line.
I won't tell you where exactly I was going with this, in case I decide to use it for something else, but here's a snippet:



We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.
Warn felt it first, of course; he hit the ground hard and fast, clutching his head with both hands and yelling for higher powers who surely couldn’t hear him. Only the dust heard him, and only the heavy black sky saw me fall down next to him, my palms pressed against my ears in a similar fashion.
It wasn’t that we were trying to keep something out. We were trying to keep ourselves in.

Warn was dropped on his head at birth. I mean, literally dropped. How do I know this?
Because I was the one who dropped him, of course.
Now come on; what would you have done if you were three years old and a sticky, butterball of a baby was thrust into your lap? I ask you.
Warn must have told that story a thousand times, using just enough voice inflection and facial expression to make it funny and touching and sarcastic and accusing all at the same time. When I was in the room, he also made sure to shoot me his goofy grin afterwards so I would know he didn’t really blame me.
Storytelling was the only thing Warn was ever really good at, and once the drugs kicked in, he wasn’t good at anything.



I was brushing my teeth when Warn stumbled in, out of breath and clutching a lady’s purse. All of the sudden his toothy grin was reflected next to my face in the mirror, and I think I knew, just from that smirk of his, that we were in some deep shit.
Tossing the purse, which looked to be made from the skin of a foreign reptile, on one of the beds, Warn flopped down on the other. Still showing his stupid buckteeth, he folded his hands behind his head and looked up at me expectantly.
I didn’t bother to spit out the toothpaste before I let him have it: “You stole that didn’t you? Warn! You just got out! You know what…you know what they do to repeat offenders now, don’t you? This is some deep shit you’ve gotten us into!
Warn sat up slowly. The grin was gone now. “You don’t understand, Cassie. You don’t know who I took it from. She could afford to lose it, I swear. She doesn’t need it as much as we do. “
He took a quiet breath. “Anyways, I won’t get caught this time. I was really careful. Gloves, mask, everything.“
I leaned my back against the wall and folded my arms across my chest. I wasn’t melting yet, but I sure as hell wanted to know what had happened. “Well?” I asked him, “who’d you snag it from?”
Just as Warn was about to open his mouth and tell me, just as I was about to hear one of his stories, the police burst in.

As it turned out, I didn’t hear Warn tell it until a month later, in court. Even then he couldn’t help embellishing it a little, describing the way the rich woman’s nose was turned up just so, the way his feet had sounded pounding on the pavement towards her, the way the purse swung against his fingertips with the weight of a stuffed wallet. I heard a few snickers in the back, but the judge was completely solemn.
He delivered the sentence like a pro, waiting until the room was quiet again before saying the words in an echoing voice: “Forced animorphism. Trial period of ninety days. Beginning tomorrow.”