She burned her bridges so thoroughly her ex-boyfriends never dared cross the gulf.

The figure that approached, backlit by the blazing sun and seeming to glow at its peripheries, remained unrecognizable to him.

The sunflowers hung their heads like mourners at a funeral.

The tears rolled down his cheeks, not for the numerous men he had killed in battle, but for the nameless comrades he had never even known.

Janey "Jugs" McCalister was tired of the world of burlesque and wanted to pursue her true passion—juggling—and felt her nickname might help in the career transition.

With the gambling house shut down the men of Forestrock Ridge were reduced to betting on the humdrum activities of the town, from how many times in an hour Mr. Kneedum would pick his nose to the length of a sidelong-glance bestowed on young Tom by old Mrs. Crumb.

McDougall sat in his foxhole wondering whether it wouldn't just be better to get picked off by a sniper rather than suffer through another night of malaria, trench foot and the annoyance of the million mosquitoes that were slowly draining him dry.

The lipstick traces looked like blood stains.

That night shimmered with possibility—friends, romance, good times—but ended as usual with drunken stumblings and a fist-fight with a stranger.

"Hey Joe, get over here...I think we found the head," the sergeant shouted at me from the culvert.

He waited just behind the front door, his finger on the trigger, as they came to take the house that had been built by his father's father away from him.

Those fish-like eyes stared blankly in my direction, uncomprehending of what was about to happen.

The owl sat in a tree near their bedroom window, sounding like a lost soul forced to wander in eternity and happy to share its fate with anyone in earshot.

The trees swayed with menace and the moon hung low and bloody.

Reginald hated God and believed the feeling was mutual.

"Flying high in April, shot down in May,"warbled the old drunk sitting next to me.

When Colin discovered the myth of Sisyphus while in prison he fell in love, understanding completely the endless rolling of a boulder, since he was a recidivist himself.

The smattering of applause did nothing to diminish her sense of greatness.

After the third meteor crashed through Winston's roof in five months he was secure in the belief that aliens were out to get him.

Their entrance into the room was like an old-fashioned circus coming to a small town.

"I used to think that when people talked about New York as 'the city that never slept,' they were referring to the fact that people here were having too much fun to get any shut-eye," Said Stokes, taking a deep drag from his cigarette, "but when I finally moved here I realized they were talking about how much everybody had to work just to stay alive, that or the insomnia from job stress."

The heron stood silently in the mist covered water.

Staring at the blank screen hour after hour she began to wonder if she had finally killed too many brain cells to write a decent story.

There was always something unseemly about his roommate's love of children's cereal, with it's brightly colored and highly sweetened orbs floating in milk that was quickly taking on the hues of the rainbow.

The horse reared up, sending Tom sprawling towards the ground, the air leaving his lungs less from the fall than from the fear of the strange creature that had just crossed the path before them.

They finally gave up on waiting for a bright and shiny future that was never going to come, settling into a life of sitcoms and mediocre jobs.

The rash spread quickly and before daybreak Skippy resembled a redder and much itchier version of the Michelin Man.

The days at work that Cissy considered "good" soon became further and further apart and were interspersed by those she thought of as "crappy," "God awful," and "ready to go postal," depending on her schedule.

He raised the fireplace poker and brought it down hard.

fishnet stockings and a drink in each hand was how Sandy liked to roll.

"The truth shall set you free," he said wagging his finger at me, while I stared past him into the void of my own heart, my teeth clenched.