Felix had rehearsed his speech for days, but when someone in the audience snickered, he began an impassioned diatribe on the lack of civility in today's society that left the crowd stunned and embarrassed.

Standing on the hill they watched the river overflow its banks and begin the inevitable destruction of all they had worked towards for the second time in five years.

Like a siren's song the scratching of the squirrel's feet drove the dog into a frenzied fury.

In memoriam F.C.A.

When Simone anonymously turned in her drug dealer to the police, an act of revenge for cheating her on her last bag, she didn't expect that she would become a pariah among her fellow addicts, who had quickly discovered her betrayal.

The old men stared across the room at one another unable to place where they had met, but both feeling hatred bubbling up from the depths of their memories.

The sun began to set and with its departure went their hopes of being rescued for another day.

slipping in and out of consciousness, stuck between dream and reality, he stumbled towards the door desperate to get away from the woman who was still sitting at the kitchen table, a smile on her lips and a cold glass vial clutched in her hand.

Jean Paul hated the fact that his paintings of flowers sold so well, while his "serious" work sat collecting dust, but was enough of a pragmatist to keep on churning out poppy after poppy, daisy after daisy, crocus after crocus.

From the window they could see the paint on the empty house next door slowly chip away, a visual reminder of their days slipping from their grasp.

The whispering kept up and those ol' demons jus kept on harping on about how Jimmy had done me wrong and it jus wasn't right and what was I gonna do bout it, but I jus shut my eyes tight and tried to ignore em...eventually they won out like they always do.

Janet shot up in bed and scanned the unlit room sure that someone was there, but saw nothing except a patch of darkness that seemed deeper than the rest of the gloom.

Fortified from his visit to the neighborhood bar, he walked over to the office to give his boss a talking to, only to find that his boss had the exact same plan.

Clarke, walking by a newsstand on his way to work, was unpleasantly surprised to see his ex-girlfriend's face on the cover of a national magazine, an evil gleam in her eye that he knew was directed at him and only him.

Crawling through the cramped tunnel, Forrest felt for the first time the mind-gnawing fear of becoming stuck in the small space, something that a world-famous spelunker, in the midst of the making of a documentary, should not be experiencing.

Flanked by his guards who secretly hated him for his arrogance and stupidity, the warlord strode confidently through the streets and straight into a trap involving the very men sworn to protect him .

The hurricane's winds weren't only physical, but psychological as well, gusting through the hearts of those who had already had their homes destroyed, as well as others who never felt it blow across their doorsteps, but had large holes ripped through their souls nonetheless.

As the waves battered the sides of the flimsy boat, the three men drew straws, a decision that would haunt two of them for many years.

Watching the books—all trash that is full of lies and filth—burn, I feel a giddiness inside and know God is happy with me and can't wait to see me fulfill the second half of our plan.

Their footfalls echoed off the buildings' walls as they made their way through the narrow alley in the half-light of early evening towards the rendezvous.

Stephanie would often unroll the Gustav Doré print she stole from her employer and stare at it for hours, knowing that it truly belonged to her since she would never be able to sell it or even show it to another person.

When Davis woke up that morning and realized spring had finally come, his heart sank knowing that with the warm weather the blood would soon be flowing in the streets.

After accidentally stumbling on to a website on Nazi history, the Senator discovered that his great uncle had been an SS officer with a litany of war crimes under his belt and it was then that the politician began to systematically destroy all evidence of his family's past.

The jagged tree branches twisted upwards like gnarled hands clawing at the moonlit sky.

The old man's tattoo had faded like the memory of the woman whose initials were at the center of the blotchy, gun-metal blue heart.

The sunlight slowly faded from the courtroom as the jury continued to deliberate in the next room and the guards and attorneys traded stories of a simpler time.

When Smith's creative juices stopped flowing, he quit writing for good and took up boxing, which as it turned out, he was even less suited for.

The fear that haunted Sean that morning slowly burned off, like the fog from the hillsides he passed on the way to his next hit.

The desolation hung in the air like the smell of stale beer and garbage on a Sunday morning.

She exuded innocence, but her eyes were those of a killer—nothing behind them but a cold darkness.

"My pants stopped fitting me years ago, but they're in good condition, so why stop wearin' em'," said Peanuts McAllister in reference to his incredibly tight slacks that seemed to pain him whenever he moved and gave him a somewhat purple complexion.