silveradept | Shadow Idol, Prompt 2: Three Little Words

"Three Little Words"

Three little words. With three little words, one can do all sorts of things in stories. It's one too few for the classic opening ("Once Upon A Time") and one more than the end to some a very famous bet ("You Lose"), but you can still do quite a few things with it. Three words are enough to start some of the greatest stories:

"In the beginning..."
"Once, there was..."
"In this corner..."

Or they do well in revealing important things about plot or characters:

"Snape Kills Dumbledore."
"It's his sled."
"...one more question..."

Catchphrases tend to be three words long:

"Eat my shorts."
"Make My Day."
"Life is good."
"Two thumbs down."

And some people spend their lives searching for a very specific set of three words:

"I love you."
"Je t'aime."
"Marry me, please."

So in three words, there's a lot that can be expressed. In three words, the plot hinges, the characters come to a realization foreshadowed six chapters earlier, Chekov's gun fires, and every trope in the world can collapse into the Trope Singularity... or it all falls apart. You see, in three words, it's also possible for the whole thing to go entirely to hell.

"Don't come back."
"It's over, [name]."
"Game over, man."
"Sic Semper Tyrannus."

All in those three little words. Were this actual Idol, I'd probably go for the cheese-type ending and say...

"Vote for me."

(This has been an entry for Shadow Idol. Feel free to leave commentary on whether or not this entry would be anything other than scraping the bottom of the barrel. If it would scrape the bottom, well, that's worth mentioning too, hopefully with suggestions to make it better.)