Through the crackling and hiss of the scanner he heard his name and knew the game was about to end.

They move towards one another with the inevitability of the seasons.

Bert, who had survived a Japanese prison camp and the vagaries of Wall Street, felt these were nothing compared to his struggles with the violin, an instrument he had taken up late in life.

Her daydreams were complicated.

When cornered on the subject, Billy finally admitted his top three loves in order of importance—beer, guns, God—this was, of course, after much soul searching and Budweiser number 12.

It was only a matter of weeks after the artists took up residence that the neighborhood suddenly began to change; rents went up and two coffee shops sprang into existence.

When the folk singer's life spiraled out of control his fan base suddenly increased a hundred fold.

Modernization became the regime's catchphrase, but it was the total destruction of the past that it was really after.

She slipped in through the back door unnoticed and headed for where the money was kept.

It wasn't until years later that he recalled a snide remark he had made to a now dead companion and wished he could somehow take it back.

The debt collectors haunted her stairwell.

The dog became a fairly competent painter under Brutus' tutelage but refused to paint dogs playing poker, feeling the subject was too "low" and instead concentrated on still lives of big, beefy bones and chew toys.

Nicolas, whose painting career never went anywhere, decided never to show his work again in his lifetime, believing that after his death they would finally be hailed as masterworks, unfortunately they were instead thrown out along with his old shoes and magazine collection by his children.

Dane's plan to make a million dollars by transcribing a new novel by Samuel Clemens via a Ouija board didn't pan out due to his only being able to contact the spirit of a door-to-door salesman named Ned who insisted on talking about the merits of Britannica encyclopedias.

Their faces betrayed nothing.

"Promises were made to be broken," Benadette quipped before turning off the lights in the room where Dale still sat stunned.

When Archie began the long walk to the gas chamber he was still convinced he wouldn't die, since as a young boy he had been told by a gypsy that he would live a very long life.

As the couple sat talking over drinks, their conversation turned to former lovers and this was when they discovered they had briefly dated (and apparently broke the hearts of) each other's siblings in college.

Clara, an aspiring novelist, woke up in the middle of the night with the perfect sentence to finish her great American novel, only to forget it by the morning, with its dog walkings, baby feedings and rush-hour headaches.

Squirrels reside within the walls of his home.

The city, known for its penchant for partying, exploded in revelry like never before.

Dick Johnson hated his name for obvious reasons.

Bumbling through the most important speech of his career, Harvey tried to picture his audience naked to calm himself, which instead made things worse as he could only think of the multitude of rolled and wrinkled skin of the retirees before him.

Another weekend comes and goes for Helana without a call from Thomas, but considering she never gave him her phone number she shouldn't be surprised.

"When I arrived here illegally, I had no work so I began to transport weed from the city and that's how I ended up here," I mumbled in the direction of my new cell mate, who didn't seem to care about the answer to the question he had just asked me.

When the car flipped, Steve began to question his actions that day—the petty argument, the dingy bar and a flirtatious conversation with a stranger—that inevitably led to this moment.

"Well, I guess things could have worked out better for you," said Toby with a smirk, standing over me, his boot pressed against my neck.

Something twinkled in the dark periphery, drawing Tara closer.