The Mysterious 123

After saying in my last post that I'd just been tagged for the first time, I almost immediately found myself tagged a second time. This one came from Sherry Chandler. The rules are as follows:

• look up page 123 in the nearest book
• look for the fifth sentence
• then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123

That didn't strike my fancy as it seemed to be just copying down somebody else's words. But I was given permission to cheat. Okay, that's more appealing now. After finding dull sentences in several books, I grabbed Janet Fitch's Paint It Black, a book so tedious and annoying I hadn't been able to finish it, but I liked my three sentences on page 123:

Clean little sounds came through the open window. A sprinkler, Rain Bird-style, shhhttt sht sht sht sht sht shhhttttt, the beeping of a backing truck. But what time was it?

Now I'm going to try to turn those sentences into a found poem:

Clean little sounds,
the open window,
a sprinkler,
rain bird—shh, shh—
the beeping of a truck.
What time was it?
Shh, shh, shh.

Okay, it stinks. At least I played. I'm going to leave this one open to anyone who wants to play. And everyone is granted permission to cheat.