Lufli
Member
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2026
- Messages
- 38
- Points
- 18
Hello everyone.
I would really appreciate it if you took a moment to assess how captivating this excerpt is and if it could work as an opening. To simplify the process somewhat, please rate the excerpt 1 through 5, one being 'I'm not interested at all' and five being 'I would continue reading for sure'. A detailed breakdown as to why is optional (and appreciated).
It's only about 600 words.
I would really appreciate it if you took a moment to assess how captivating this excerpt is and if it could work as an opening. To simplify the process somewhat, please rate the excerpt 1 through 5, one being 'I'm not interested at all' and five being 'I would continue reading for sure'. A detailed breakdown as to why is optional (and appreciated).
It's only about 600 words.
On September 25, 1781, I died for the first time.
I met him, the Wise Man, almost by chance. His white hair refused the sunlight that spared not even the trees. And yet he was surely younger than I was.
I could not have spoken to him. I could not ask what I had meant to ask all my life. How could I have? How could I!
His very stance alone—his hair in the wind, that youthful and yet cunning face—was enough to rob me of speech. He noticed me before bending down with a knowing smile to pluck a white growth. Beside him stood half a tree, from which that pale growth hung down.
I should have asked him then. Precisely then, when my mouth refused to work. And even if I had? And even if I had known? Could I then have been any different from what I am?
“Do you know it? The lion’s mane mushroom?” the Wise Man began. He brushed the partly blackened tree he was crouching by. The white growth hung limply from it, short and spiny.
With all my strength, I managed only to shake my head, though I knew it well—that mushroom.
“A true impostor.” The Wise Man tilted his head. “It looks like an animal, but tastes like lobster. As though it doesn’t know what to do with itself.”
I know I will never forget that. By the holiness of this world and of the one who created it. Even as he passed me by, there where I could not bring myself to reveal what rests within me. Though I did not speak, I found in myself a full question instead of half of one.
With every step that carried him farther from me, his back seemed to grow larger.
“Hey! Stop daydreaming.”
“Leave me alone, leave me alone,” I answered the stranger.
“So doing nothing and still getting paid for it? The overseer won’t like that.”
“I am doing something. I’m dreaming, so leave me be.”
Offended, the young man turned away from me and muttered under his breath. At the same time, he dug his shovel into the brown earth.
“If I find it, it’ll be mine alone,” he said.
Meanwhile, I sat on the ground with one knee drawn up, my shovel resting beside me. In my daydream, I had unconsciously been counting the holes we had dug. “Two hundred and eighty-three, two hundred and eighty-four...”
Three days had already passed since my meeting with the Wise Man. My caretaker always used to say: Do not regret what you do. But now it has become clear to me that one far more often regrets what one does not do.
If only the sun had not been so hot that day, and the sky not so piercingly blue. My face wore no broad grin, and yet my brows sat higher than usual. Perhaps I might have found the courage to ask, to seek an answer, if only the sun had not been so arrestingly bright.
Behind all the dug holes stood a building. It was a half-timbered house with a thatched roof, and at its left end, a small tower rose upward. Along the path we too had taken to get here, a person was approaching us.
I truly did not want to work. So I lay down on my back and counted the clouds instead of the pits. What must it be like to be a cloud? Do they have goals, or names?
I still remember my last thought before I closed my eyes. Do I have a name?
When I opened them again, a childlike face was looking down at me. Its eyes were wide and searching, and in them I saw a pitiful reflection.
“Father is calling,” it said without blinking.
“Already?” I asked, turning my head away because of how close it was, then pushing myself up onto my backside.
“‘You are to rest today,’ Father said. His face was swollen.”
“That’s probably because he doesn’t work properly,” I said, gesturing toward the stranger resting beside me. He was drinking from his little glass bottle. In truth, I knew him; we had spent the last eighteen years under one roof.
“Funny. The overseer doesn’t miss things like that,” said my partner.
I met him, the Wise Man, almost by chance. His white hair refused the sunlight that spared not even the trees. And yet he was surely younger than I was.
I could not have spoken to him. I could not ask what I had meant to ask all my life. How could I have? How could I!
His very stance alone—his hair in the wind, that youthful and yet cunning face—was enough to rob me of speech. He noticed me before bending down with a knowing smile to pluck a white growth. Beside him stood half a tree, from which that pale growth hung down.
I should have asked him then. Precisely then, when my mouth refused to work. And even if I had? And even if I had known? Could I then have been any different from what I am?
“Do you know it? The lion’s mane mushroom?” the Wise Man began. He brushed the partly blackened tree he was crouching by. The white growth hung limply from it, short and spiny.
With all my strength, I managed only to shake my head, though I knew it well—that mushroom.
“A true impostor.” The Wise Man tilted his head. “It looks like an animal, but tastes like lobster. As though it doesn’t know what to do with itself.”
I know I will never forget that. By the holiness of this world and of the one who created it. Even as he passed me by, there where I could not bring myself to reveal what rests within me. Though I did not speak, I found in myself a full question instead of half of one.
With every step that carried him farther from me, his back seemed to grow larger.
“Hey! Stop daydreaming.”
“Leave me alone, leave me alone,” I answered the stranger.
“So doing nothing and still getting paid for it? The overseer won’t like that.”
“I am doing something. I’m dreaming, so leave me be.”
Offended, the young man turned away from me and muttered under his breath. At the same time, he dug his shovel into the brown earth.
“If I find it, it’ll be mine alone,” he said.
Meanwhile, I sat on the ground with one knee drawn up, my shovel resting beside me. In my daydream, I had unconsciously been counting the holes we had dug. “Two hundred and eighty-three, two hundred and eighty-four...”
Three days had already passed since my meeting with the Wise Man. My caretaker always used to say: Do not regret what you do. But now it has become clear to me that one far more often regrets what one does not do.
If only the sun had not been so hot that day, and the sky not so piercingly blue. My face wore no broad grin, and yet my brows sat higher than usual. Perhaps I might have found the courage to ask, to seek an answer, if only the sun had not been so arrestingly bright.
Behind all the dug holes stood a building. It was a half-timbered house with a thatched roof, and at its left end, a small tower rose upward. Along the path we too had taken to get here, a person was approaching us.
I truly did not want to work. So I lay down on my back and counted the clouds instead of the pits. What must it be like to be a cloud? Do they have goals, or names?
I still remember my last thought before I closed my eyes. Do I have a name?
When I opened them again, a childlike face was looking down at me. Its eyes were wide and searching, and in them I saw a pitiful reflection.
“Father is calling,” it said without blinking.
“Already?” I asked, turning my head away because of how close it was, then pushing myself up onto my backside.
“‘You are to rest today,’ Father said. His face was swollen.”
“That’s probably because he doesn’t work properly,” I said, gesturing toward the stranger resting beside me. He was drinking from his little glass bottle. In truth, I knew him; we had spent the last eighteen years under one roof.
“Funny. The overseer doesn’t miss things like that,” said my partner.
