“It was a dark and stormy night,” he penned, knowing that it was a monstrous cliché and a guaranteed way to stop any potential readers from continuing; but he had to start somewhere, and the night before had indeed been stormy – and dark, for that matter. His two cats, Bo and Boo (named more for alliterative purposes than anything else) had been restless all of the previous day. When the storm actually hit, threatening to down trees and tear off shingles, they’d gone berzerk, tearing around the house like banshees of old and creating for him a sort of moving obstacle course when the power invariably failed and he was forced to navigate his way to bed by the glow off the screen of his PDA. Ever-prepared (he’d been a Boy Scout, after all), he’d spent nearly $200 on groceries and supplies earlier in the week, but had neglected to pick up a couple of flashlight batteries.
It seemed, therefore, pre-ordained that he’d trip over one of the animals (it turned out to be Boo) while making his ascent to the second-floor bedroom. The last thing he remembered before waking up at the base of the stairs the next morning was the eerie arch of light that his PDA made as it flew over the bannister and crashed on the hall floor, some eight feet below.
When he regained consciousness, however, he felt better than he had in months. He was ready to do something with his life. Something that would make him famous and rich, but something that (at least he believed this at the time) would require very little effort on his part.
He was going to write the next great novel.