Incipit: in manuscripts and early printed works, the initial word of the formula that usually appeared at the beginning of a work, or part of it, with the title and author’s name.

In philological and bibliographical usage, the term refers to the quotation of the opening words of a text, which, alone or together with the closing words, the explicit, serves to clearly identify it.

Massimo Legnani of the blog Orearovescio  shared and also won the Scripta Ludus prize curated by Luz of the blog Io, la letteratura e Chaplin. 

Scripta Ludus is the game of incipits. 

Participants must choose one of the three photos provided and submit their opening line, i.e., “the beginning of a narrative work,” which must therefore have the characteristic of “opening a story” with the intent of capturing the reader’s attention and cannot be limited to a description of what is seen.

Nice, isn’t it?

What does the opening represent for you?

If an opening fails to arouse your interest:

– you keep going on reading anyway in the hopeful expectation that you will become passionate about the story being told.

– you start to get distracted and suddenly the book seems longer than it did when you chose it.

Or perhaps you are one of those who read the opening first.

There are some opening lines that have become very famous. Would you like to mention any?

My opening line for Scripta Ludus:

Dismissal due to position elimination.
A sequence of vowels and consonants that should not make up these words.
Not after all the hard work, after all the missed breaks, after all the unpaid overtime.
Position eliminated.
But there hasn’t been a moment’s respite for months!
Position eliminated.
Just like that, without warning?
Position eliminated.
What if I refuse to sign?
Marcello arrived at his appointment with the human resources manager seven minutes ago.
Seven minutes ago, he thought he was finally going to get a raise.
Seven minutes ago, he was fantasizing about taking his car to the mechanic.
Now, however, the dents he has to deal with are suddenly much more serious than a broken bumper.
Suddenly, everything becomes confusing, impossible to concentrate on.
Metabolize, react, act, process—all verbs that fade away, shrouded in the smoke of anger, hidden by despair, thwarted by fear.
Seven minutes become seventy, and the keyboard with the broken foot, the wobbly chair, the watered-down coffee from the vending machine already seem like stolen pieces of life.
And when seventy hours have passed, the refusal to turn on the laptop to write a resume is still total.
How many submissions will it take before receiving the first response?
How many submissions will it take before we have to stop selecting ads, because after all, we need a job?
Marcello is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, which is perhaps even colder. From that position, he looks at the shelves above the small table he uses as a desk.
Time has deposited layers of dust on those shelves, which hold books, envelopes, the manual alarm clock from his school days, three different Batman action figures, and the blue ball.
Instinctively, Marcello feels the need to pick it up. He gets up, reaches out his hand, but the simple touch triggers a memory in his mind of when he needed both his little hands to throw the ball.
And suddenly he remembers everything.
The lake, his mother, his little feet standing still, the thuds of his bottom on the ground.
He only agrees to walk if his mother holds his hand, otherwise he throws a tantrum, and for quite some time now, every invitation to try to take a few steps on his own has been met with stubbornness: nothing doing, without his mother’s support, his feet remain firmly planted on the ground.
Until that day, after yet another exhortation, he throws the ball at the flowers in protest, but it bounces off the edge of the pot and rolls beyond the garden, down the slope and into the water.
“The ball!”
Gone, lost.
After that, Marcello doesn’t know if he cried, how long his mother spent in the water, how many times his grandmother called her, repeating “NO!”
But he clearly remembers the moment when his grandmother’s arms set him down on the pier, with his tired but smiling mother waiting at the end.
And he remembers well the moment when his feet decided to carry him into his mother’s arms, ready to welcome him.
He puts the ball on the table, opens his laptop, and starts typing: Cover Letter.

If you are curious about the selected images, you can find them here.