The kids were in bed, but instead of making love the couple made late-night sandwiches and watched TV.

Susan switched to writing erotic thrillers after she realized the market for historical gardening novels was a rather small niche.

As Brett got older he saw his waistline expand and his savings shrink.

The old farmer stood silently watching his life's work burn.

Lucy scratched her pockmarked arms and stared wistfully at the word "Bich" that her old boyfriend had tattooed on her wrist back in high school.

The dun-colored field hid a secret.

George sat on his porch mumbling to himself about the lack of gratitude shown by his neighbors, town and country for his service during wartime, which was spent behind a desk shuffling papers.

I had stumbled onto the greatest story ever, an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth and the public had no idea, of course it didn't really matter since they caught it too late and we were all going to die.

The sea came ever closer.

Her writing was filled with flights of fancy, but like Icarus she would often crash to earth, brought down not by the sun's rays, but by a lack of facts in her stories, something required in the work of a journalist.

"The Democrats are all rich and like to give to the poor, while all the Republicans are poor and like to give to the rich, so it all works out, ya see?" said Flip, a toothy grin covering most of his wide face.

"That's what happened to the 60's, they became old doddering men," he said watching the once-famous musician shuffle across the street.

The banging on the door kept up while Cherry hid in the closet waiting for the inevitable.

The darkness was all pervasive, blinding, filling his lungs, pinning him down.

Their house, like the family, was slowly falling into disrepair.

They stared out at the shimmering desert and watched the train move across the horizon.

The old woman's tales tottered along as she sipped her scotch by fire light.

"Summer is upon us," grumbled the police detective as the scanner crackled to life and a voice began to rattle of a number of 911 calls.

"Give me a cutesy-pie balloon kid and a real bloody fight picture," shouted Sturgess to the photo department from behind his desk that was stacked with random papers, old coffee cups and cigarette butts.

The arrow whizzed by his face so close he could feel its heat on his cheek.

Phelps had no wife or family and considered his shop as such, so when it went belly-up, he was left with a gaping hole in his heart and its demise was akin to losing a busload of kin.

They traded lawsuits like baseball cards.

The sound emanated from deep within Smithy, a belch so loud it rattled the restaurant's windows, scared several waiters into dropping trays overflowing with food and caused one rotund diner to shriek and run from the building shouting that a terrorist attack had just been perpetrated.

She danced like she lived her life, with no apparent control but with great beauty.

The cat stalked my toes, waiting for the right moment to strike.

They verbally jousted on a daily basis and spent their time parsing out the words each chose to use, even in the most mundane of conversations.

The flowers were dead and the balloons had lost their air.

"You're good looking, you don't think too much and you're a gun owner," commented Trapman, champing on his cigar, "please tell me you're going into politics."

She slipped out of her dress like a snake shedding its skin.

The abandoned rag doll lay on the road like all the lost hopes of youth.

The storm was approaching and the sky, looking like a three-day-old bruise, throbbed with anticipatory energy.