#opening line

I remember the first time I got a letter that said “After Five Days Return To” on the envelope, and I thought that after I had kept the letter for five days I was supposed to return it to the sender.

- I Remember (1970), J. Brainard

None of the merry-go-rounds seem to work anymore.

- True Confessions (1977), J.G. Dunne

Up from the skeleton stone walls, up from the rotting floor boards and the solid hand-hewn beams of oak of the pre-war cotton factory, dusk came.

- “Blood-Burning Moon,” from Cane (1923), J. Toomer

An ordinary young man was on his way from his hometown of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the Canton of Graubünden.

-The Magic Mountain, (1927) T. Mann 

Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost foglike, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy, yellow lights off in the distance.

- One Lonely Night (1951), M. Spillane

It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.

- The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (1936), E. Hemingway

This is being written in another seaside cottage on another coast. Gin and whiskey have bitten rings in the table where I sit.

-A Vision of the World (short story, The Stories of John Cheever 1978), J. Cheever

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed.

- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (2003), Mark Haddon 

The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us

- The Time Machine (1895), HGW