Head & Shoulders used to tell us that, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” That’s true for wearing dark shirts, and it’s especially true for books. Sometimes the characters will hook the reader, sometimes the premise, sometimes it’s just knowing the author—but nothing beats a great opening for getting a reader to commit.
I handle the bodies.
That’s what I say when people ask me what I do for a living. I find that gets one of two responses. They drift away to the other side of the room and give me a sideways glance the rest of the night or they let out a nervous laugh and move the conversation in another, less macabre direction. I could always say I work at a funeral home, but where’s the fun in that?
Every once in a while, when I was in the Corps, someone would see me at Starbucks or that modern mecca Walmart in my utility uniform. Sometimes they’d catch me in my dress blues after a military ball just trying to grab something before heading back to the base. ‘They would walk up to me and say, “Thank you for your service.” I’d mumble something like “No, thank you for your support,” or some other pithy rejoinder, and they would wander away with a nice, satisfied look on their faces. Sometimes what I wanted to say was “I took care of the bodies, The bodies with the legs blown off or the hands shredded, The bodies full of ball bearings and nails and whatever tome kid could find to build his IED. I loaded the bodies up and dragged them back to the base, then went back out on another patrol and prayed to a God that seemed to be only half listening that today wasn’t the day that someone would have to take care of my body”
But I don’t think that would have given them the same warm and fuzzy feeling.
from My Darkest Prayer by S.A. Cosby
(if you’re feeling pedantic, those are the first paragraphs of Chapter One, not the Prologue)
