-Switch the music off- said my literary one of best friends Paolo O. Martin interrupting consuming his daily portion of cereals.- It reminds of a time passing.
After this statement he wiped his mouth with a napkin and put his spoon inside of the bowl, letting me know that he is no longer hungry.
- The passing time is the most depressive thing in the world- continued my friend, who diagnosed himself with depression long ago.- If you think about it coming from the right point of view, it's actually the only depressive thing in the world. Because everything is all about time. Without it, we would just enjoy a moment.
My friend maybe has not discovered an another America with this statement, but certainly he had a point. And although it might sound like that now, this point is never completely obvious. I looked back at my friend, standing up and wearing his cardigan, and taking the last sip of his tea (Paolo never liked coffee much), and my mind roamed in much farther direction. I projected the beginning of my new post, thinking what kind of beginning would be the best for this kind of story. Let's see: there is a guy name Paolo, who is finishing his breakfast with a reflection of a sad meaning of time. Above, I chose an option with a dialogue. But what if I treated it in totally opposed way? What if the statement about the passing time was not a cause, but a conclusion?
Imagine it this way: then the story has to begin with description. And description is something some of the readers are allergic to.
To make it funnier, most of beginning writers perceive starting with a dialogue as much more risky than starting with description, because of a fear of being misunderstood. At this time, if you take short stories written by unknown, but published and quite well-prospective authors, eight out of ten start with a dialogue, or a thought, or a single reflection of a character. So how would my friend Paolo looked like written in a 'description form'?
Paolo O. Martin was a young man, of Italian origin and undeniable charm shining out of his a bit cheeky smile. Despite the positive vibe he was famous with as well as his rather entertained attitude, when he was alone he was getting surprisingly melancholic. One day, on some seemed to be usual Tuesday, we ate a breakfast together. Suddenly, Paolo asked me to switch the music off. I wanted to protest, as it was Tchaikovsky, but my friend soon explained me his point. For him music was a sad symbol of a passing time, time, which for Paolo O. Martin, seemed to be so short and evanescent. I looked back at him and I realized, that it was time, what made him so melancholic and sometimes alienated. The time, which was slowly taking away every moment he enjoyed.
Of course, it sounds much more dramatic and fatal, and might appeared a bit sharp, as I didn't want to extend the actual text (beginning with description are usually longer as they are meant to give a larger picture to the reader. So, to keep the rest of my decency, I leave conclusions to readers, at the meantime trying to prove, that none of these ways is actually the worse one.
Here is a quick beginning of my story, starting undeniably with description:
Hilda was ugly in other way than just every woman. She was an opposition. Like every single element of her presence was meant to make reality look silly and push it away to the margin of a true. She was quite tall, but even with her height her legs were imperfectly long and thin, and according to new trends of look she should never show them. She always wore a hat, giving a shadow on her face with hard angles and long, sharp nose. Sometimes this nose suddenly started to give me new thoughts. Putting aside the fact, that I practically didn't know anything about Hilda, it seemed to express something beyond. And if I should point anything, what really ever seemed bizarre about my friend, I would recall this nose. Because for me it had my own private meaning, sad and finale, like a creature from a frightening, childish dream, who appears to get me after years.
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