Beginnings to stories about the tallgrass prairie

by Dennis Etzel Jr.

The tallgrass prairie begins where we stopped. I did not want

to start with a beginning phrase, which seems clichéd. People

want to save the tallgrass prairie but do not visit there. Is it

clichéd to want to start in the middle of the story, when the

tallgrass prairie was everywhere? Writers say in medias res to

show off their Latin skills ... The tallgrass prairie was

everywhere I looked when I was in the middle of it. This

story takes a turn now, and becomes smaller as the reading

eye frames the words inside a boundary. Think of a box,

someone living inside it on the prairie. On the prairie that

person is at home.