Well I Did It
Here is the brand new opening to The Face of A Lion (if I decide to keep it this way. Still not happy about cutting out the bazaar entirely. This version was created for Nathan Bransford's Suprisingly Essential First Page contest): Austin met the cat on his first afternoon in Turkey. Bored with helping his parents clean their villa, he set out to explore the neighbourhood. Every couple of minutes he climbed onto the stone wall edging the road, as a car or bus full of tourists whizzed past, a stench of diesel fuel wafting behind. Once the roar of each vehicle faded, the seaside sounds rushed back into his ears: children’s shouts, the drone of motorboats slicing the water, cicadas buzzing in the distant tops of fir trees. And below everything, the rhythmic crash of waves breaking one after another on the sand, carrying through all other sounds, like a low note in an extended piece of music. He waited on the wall as another car zoomed by, then peered through the exhaust and added up t...