Terry stood over a burning pile of Republican memorabilia he had collected over a lifetime of service to a party he know realized had become a haven for a neo-Gilded Age mentality where the middle class would find no perch.

The whiskey-swilling, table-dancing, caterwauling couple annoyed their fellow patrons at the concert, which featured the music of Chopin.

Sassy, Lassie's sister, preferred chasing gophers and whiling away her days at the pond to following Jeff around to make sure the dumb kid didn't get himself killed.

Their life was such a constant scramble to get somewhere or to get something done that it slowly unwound around them without their knowledge.

The chairman, tired of the the lies, pulled the trigger.

Looking back, Ainsley realized it had been a year of important decisions of which he was know feeling the effects as he sat shivering in his jail cell.

The Tiki bar was shut down, the Hawaiian shirts and leis packed away.

"Las Vegas makes L.A. seem more like New York," said Chad.

They danced like they were blockers in a game of flag football.

Phil, once a rock legend, had a regular gig at a small pub and would become extremely angry when customers would recognize him and shout out for tunes that his bandmates had written.

Dale wondered how he had gotten so far outside the laws he had spent the better part of his life enforcing.

The press corps was full of swaggering drunks and secretive sex addicts.

Marc lived in a world of numbers and symbols, preferring them to human contact.

She couldn't shake the dream of the screaming hare.

The road trip ended in disaster when it was discovered that they had been reading the map incorrectly, likely due to the hallucinogens, and were in Michigan instead of Michoacán.

Her composure cracked, revealing not the happy-go-lucky hippie, but rather a woman seething with hatred for humanity.

They huddled in the boat, surrounded by an expanse of black water, waiting without hope.

Recompense was not forthcoming, forcing Rudolph's hand, which now contained a broadsword.

Time slipped from between his fingers in a rivulet of video games and Facebook posts.

The mourning suit hung at the ready.

The march of folly continues.

Before the revolution the kids considered class warfare a spitball fight in homeroom.

The hot wind blew across the badlands as the bloody sun slipped above the mesa.

The tale was at its end.

The fever broke like rain after a long drought.

His father smelled of campfires and bacon, two scents that Bobby would come to associate with manhood.

He put the makeup on for the last time with a shaking hand, knowing in a few hours when the stage lights clicked off they wouldn't be coming on again.

The metal ripped away with a loud screech and for a minute Ted had a panoramic view of the skyline before the plane plunged earthward.

The metal glinted in the streetlight.

What Starlene lacked in grace on stage, she more than made up for in sheer exuberance and shimmying power.

The house was dark, foreboding.