Hilariously horrible.

The winner of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, honoring the worst opening sentence to a work of fiction, has been announced:

As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting. — Cathy Bryant, Manchester, England

View all the category winners and runners-up here.