The toddler ran straight into Paul's arms and as he picked the boy up, glancing around to see who the child belonged to, he saw her—the stripper he met at his bachelor party who almost convinced him not to get married.

The old man, his eyes clouded over, told them the stories of the long-dead, weaving the town's dark history.

When the workers tore up the floorboards they discovered a child's secret cache—a pair of small white gloves, a pocket knife, a brass horn—deposited there 100 years ago by a now long dead boy.

Rye Toast Thompson never did much like working, so when his wife finally threw him out he began his journey to Florida on foot where he planned to sleep on the beach and try his luck at picking the pockets of fat cat tourists.

Like a gerbil on a wheel, the government spent its time holding inquiries into the ramifications of all the split-second decisions it had made earlier.

Teetering on the edge, it only took one rude comment from Mark's coworker to light the fuse that ended in an explosion of violence.

The town, which once did a brisk business in the tourist trade before the Interstate was built, had slowly collapsed in on itself.

The editors, realizing that hard news just didn't sell, began to slowly add more and more puff pieces about what Hollywood stars were wearing this week and how to land your man, which seemed jarring next to items such as "the genetic make up of MRSA" or "the exploration of the meaning of Dacian architectural structures found on Trajan's column."

He dreamed of a room with a thousand crickets inside.

The new year brought with it a slew of crimes from robbery to murder and didn't bode well for the small police force trying to hold the city's tattered fabric together.

While suffering a bout of depression and unwilling to leave his apartment, Rory began to photograph the everyday items around him, beginning an obsession that helped his career but led to an inability to throw anything out.

The ice crystals twinkled like diamonds on the darkened streets.

By the 10th generation of the the city's founding family, the resolute determination that had put the Van Warts on top had now descended into foppishness and rowdyism.

Fritz had yet to convince any publisher to pay him up front for the works of genius he would one day write.

When Sasha, a 1970s-era sex symbol, turned 50 she celebrated by buying a ranch in Montana and turning her back on her old life and its parties, drugs and cavorting, instead focusing her attentions on the cattle, sheep and horses now in her charge.

The door, one hinge long since rusted away, swung back and forth with the wind and the smell of decay and old perfume told the story of the lives once lived in the now darkened interior.

In college he kept a pet roach and wrote poetry using math equations, neither of which endeared him to the ladies.

The bluish-black mountains, backlit by an explosion of burnt-orange, mauve and blood red, were reflected in the ice and water that flowed slowly toward the ocean.

Labeled a monster by the media and spit on by his neighbors when he passed by, Alton craved the anonymity of the city but needed one last score for bus fare out.

Lying in the dirty bed, milky light slanting in through the broken shade, I realize that I have no idea what day it is or how long I've been asleep.

Katherine lay on the dirty floor refusing the hand of the man with the runny nose trying to help her after she careened through the subway car due to her unwillingness to touch anything in the germ-filled space.

Ralph was a hugger, but far worse, in Terry's opinion, was the odd murmuring sound he made while clinging to his chosen victim coupled with the seemingly endless time it took to accomplish his goal.

Every morning he walked outside and scanned the horizon in hopes that he would see her coming down the road towards home.

She kept the sweat stained towel on the mantle next to the special collector's bourbon bottle in the shape of Elvis and counted that night in Vegas as the highlight of her life.

The statue of the semi-nude goddess, which once sat atop the city's train station and had stirred both controversy and the hearts of many young men, now sat gathering dust in a darkened basement.

Rattled by her recent encounter with what she believed was a UFO, Janice, in a desperate attempt to prove she wasn't crazy, began incessantly calling 911 whenever she saw anything out of the ordinary.

"Hell, I don't live close to the bone, pal, I'm subsisting on the damn bone," said Smiley, his gaunt features taut, sallow eyes boring into mine.

Many mornings began with calls from the criminal class either angry at seeing their names in print or ready to tell-all on friends who managed to get better deals from the DA.

Turner bent down low and followed the movement of the paint stroke across the canvas, awed by the masterly form used by his rival.

In the distance a dark shape perched on the top most branch of a dying tree backlit by a steel-gray sky heavy with snow and cawed mournfully in response to its nearby brethren.

The junkie sitting across from me nodded off and began to descend towards the subway floor, her head incrementally inching downward as if in a slow motion fall.