Introduction

Here's an opening I've been working on for a few days now. I don't have a title or even a complete plot, just a rough path to follow, although I'm sure it won't take me where I expect it to.

***

Night fell suddenly. Like some creature in space had tossed a sheet over earth, willing mankind to their cages and sleep.
Tom looked out across his garden and saw the world with new eyes. At this hour, things were inexplicably different. His retina’s picked up on light he used to neglect, his optical nerve processed with a new diligence.
A fern billowed in the slight autumn breeze, it’s branches waving suggestively at the innocent cherry tree, who’s fruit seemed to blush.
In the dry humidity of the midday heat, the expansive lawn had begun to mimic the sun’s canary colour. Now it was grey, flat and compressed, as if it alone was shouldering the sky’s weight.
The box hedge ran the perimeter of the garden and looked like a 12 block of moldy cheese, left by yesterday’s giants. In the furthest north corner of the garden, someone had sliced a wedge of foliage and replaced it with a sturdy wooden gate which allowed access to the bordering cemetery.
The gate always remained padlocked, not because Tom was scared of a zombie invasion but simply because he didn’t like sharing his air with the dead. They didn’t need his clean, perfumed air and he didn’t need their stale, remorseful stuff.
Whenever he inserted the key to open the lock, he was sure it warmed right there in the center of his palm, as if he were opening the gates of Hell. He knew the problem was entirely psychological, but still avoided any unnecessary trips to the gate, just encase one day he accidentally started some kind of rapture. Celebrity culture is bad at the best of times, but imagine being that guy, he thought on more than three occasions.
It would be unfair to call him a recluse, if he was to die suddenly his body would be found before it decomposed, but not before his eyes turned milky and glazed over like pearl buttons.
An early winter wind barged past the subtle autumn breeze and hit the branches of a weeping willow causing it to mimic a mushroom cloud. Tom resented this tree and it’s unruly manner. His first gardener had told him the only course of action was to cut it down. Three gardeners later, Tom agreed.
Despite his contempt for the creature, he could not bear to fell it as his father had planted it when they first moved. The current gardener, Paul, simply trimmed the leaves around the base allowing the foxtrots to bask in the sun. To him, this action was a little like cutting a lion’s mane with plastic scissors just to tan it’s ears, but he never voiced this opinion. The pay was far too good.
The smell of charred cake mix sucked Tom’s mind back into the kitchen where his body was waiting. Standing, he charged for the plain black oven gloves on the side of his plain black countertop.
His house was like his garden, organised and proper. While the artist who painted garden worked with a flurry of greens, golds and colours in between, the artist tasked with the house had a much more reserved pallet. Black, brown and off-white seemed to be his favored colours, because they were the only ones used.
Tom guided his hands into the gloves as he made his way to the back wall of the kitchen where the oven sat, short and squat. A nail on his left hand caught fabric and made an innocent whine. The sound scrambled Tom’s brain and made him want to stick a finger in his ear and manually remove the noise from his head. He didn’t.
Instead he crouched, pulled the oven door open and watched a plume of smoke rise from it’s belly. It felt dirty and hot as it poured around his face before vanishing through the extractor fan.