Monday Morning Mock Draft: Put A Bow On It

3. Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett. Apologies for so very much context, but it’s necessary for the final line to impact (hah!) properly:

The man who was apparently the leader of the group advanced on Rincewind with the kind of grin reserved for imbeciles and people holding guns, and held out a stick.

It was flat, and had a bend in the middle. Someone had spent a long time making rather nice designs on it in little coloured dots. Somehow, Rincewind wasn’t at all surprised to see a butterfly among them.

The hunters watched him expectantly.

‘Er, yes,’ he said. ‘Very good. Very good workmanship, yes. Interesting pointillistic effect. Shame you couldn’t find a straighter bit of wood.’

One of the men laid down his spear, and squatted down and picked up a
long wooden tube, covered with the same designs. He blew into it. The effect
was not unpleasant. It sounded like bees would sound if they’d invented full
orchestration.

‘Um,’ said Rincewind. ‘Yes.’

It was a test, obviously. They’d given him this bent piece of wood. He had to do something with it. It was clearly very important. He’d—

Oh, no. He’d say something or do something, wouldn’t he, and then they’d say, yes, you are the Great Bloke or something, and they’d drag him off and it’d be the start of another Adventure, i.e., a period of horror and unpleasantness. Life was full of tricks like that.

Well, this time Rincewind wasn’t going to fall for it.

‘I want to go home,’ he said. ‘I want to go back home to the Library where it was nice and quiet. And I don’t know where I am. And I don’t care what you do to me, right? I’m not going to have any kind of adventure or start saving the world again and you can’t trick me into it with mysterious bits of wood.’

He gripped the stick and flung it away from him with all the force he could still muster.

They stared at him as he folded his arms.

‘I’m not playing,’ he said. ‘I’m stopping right here.’

They were still staring. And now they were grinning, too, at something behind him.

He felt himself getting quite annoyed.

‘Do you understand? Are you listening?’ he said. ‘That’s the last time the universe is going to trick Rincewi—’

2. Blood Meridian:

He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling all at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.