The noise level would steadily build in the house until Harry would finally explode in anger and the process would begin anew.

Samantha hated old photographs of herself, preferring those taken in the present, which she would then destroy, if possible, to ensure that her memories remained pure.

"Where are we?" asked Sasha sleepily looking over at her husband who, she realized with a start, was gripping the steering wheel forcefully and whose eyes were red rimmed and that was when she realized the car was flooded with a ghostly light.

Shelby wrote crime thrillers that had little do to do with reality and perhaps it was this insular mindset that lead him to walk into the darkened bar that was in the midst of being robbed.

When Felice awoke the next morning she couldn't decide which of the two dreams she recalled was the more disturbing, the one in which she was being pursued by the Devil or the other in which she was being courted by Michael Douglas.

As the government's reign of terror increased Basil felt comforted by the fact that he had already been stripped of any power and was living in the middle of nowhere all but forgotten.

Tumbling down the mountainside, battered by rocks and heading towards possible death, Frank—angry and scared—couldn't get a certain song by the band Jane's Addiction out of his head as he began to pick up speed.

Living in a family of performers, the dinner table was a place where all of Ira's siblings would vie for attention, out singing, elucidating or sometimes even tap dancing each other, but for Ira it was a setting in which he could secretly maneuver these players towards his own ends, a talent he would later use in a sterling career as a politician.

The concert was teeming with old hippies and Eric, who had only gone as a favor to his friend Glenda, could barely stand what he perceived as the stench of patchouli and hypocrisy.

Janet loved old time music so for her birthday her friends got her a cd of music from the 1930s and 40s that happened to include old radio shows as well and that was when she discovered that the stories she had been told by her grandfather about his childhood weren't his memories, but were actually based on old Amos n' Andy routines.

He smashed his favorite guitar on the street outside his apartment one drunken night to prove he didn't need it and would often metaphorically do the same to his relationships.

"It's like watching paint dry while getting your teeth pulled without anesthetic," Raditz explained to his replacement about his job duties, "that's why I'm quitting, besides the meager pay of course."

The extremists hated and feared the women separatists who flaunted their sexuality and fire power and who often made raids against the misogynists from their stronghold in the wastelands.

Banging around the kitchen like a bear pursued by bees, David, behind in cooking his first meal for Denise, mistook the Cayenne for the Cinnamon for his "famous" apple tart and after that night it would become the most infamous dessert in certain DC circles.

Drinking tequila in a decrepit border town bar, Smokey wondered at the last 24-hours in which the complete destruction of his former life had been achieved.

They were nomads in a way, moving from apartment to apartment every few months as the bills piled up along with the empty drug vials.

The girl, a long-legged beauty with swaying hips, walked towards him with a dog trailing slightly behind and as they came abreast of him he stopped to flirt and give the dog a pat on the head, but as distracted as he was by the woman's beauty, he momentarily turned his attention to the dog and unconsciously let out a scream like a little girl due to the hideousness of the creature's face—the eyes bugging out, the greenish-tongue lolling and the lower jaw facing impossibly to the left while the snout pointed the other way.

It was unclear as to the exact details of the incident, but what was obvious was that fact that the young boy's questions as to the nature of politics was enough to rock Washington's power elite.

Punitive measures of all kinds were heaped on Petey, but nothing seemed to work until it was discovered that he had an abiding love for the music of Paul Anka and when the crooning began he was as docile as a babe.

The governmental investigation into the killing of the low level paper pusher, like all governmental investigations in the small, landlocked country, ended with a round-up of undesirables and a limp explanation of events, but this time a bubbling up of resentment concerning the white-wash soon had the government on the edge of collapse.

He lived a quiet, boring life and didn't make much of dent in people's memories until he won the lottery, at which time people he barely knew told the press wild, impossible stories about him.

Standing in the middle of the clubhouse he had just burst into, Morris shouted "I'll fight any man here," and as he was rushed by every person there at once he realized he should have added the caveat "one at a time."

Like a child swinging blindly at a piñata, Jared railed against anything he believed was inequity in his city, from a sidelong glance made by an mayoral candidate at a press conference to the appointment of those he considered stupid to various menial posts and while most of the time he was off the mark, sometimes, just sometimes, he was right.

Working for the family business wasn't working out for Warren since it was a workout center and Warren was lazy, hating work of any kind especially working out.

"Well yes, dear, I do believe we're still in love," said April, a knife hidden behind her back, as Terry stood across the kitchen from her, his bloody fists clenched, "but unfortunately,  I think we're both completely psychotic."

Transposing his father's notes for a memoir, Sylvan was shocked to find out his father had doubts as to his legitimacy.

After reading about an orca pod sinking a pleasure boat, along with various other reports of animals attacking people, Stanley began to see a pattern and became convinced that the Earth was finally making a concerted effort at striking back at humanity.

Like ants in a rainstorm they continued to live their lives while the war raged all around.

As he traveled the globe in a never-ending search for happiness he carried with him a dim recollection of a night in Shanghai where, for one fleeting moment, he had found something akin to contentment.

The long walk home, hair in disarray, make up smeared slightly, had become a little too commonplace for Tina, who made a hung-over decision to stop dating Philippe during what she considered her forced march.