They watched the elderly jogger slowly make her way around the track, a woman just barely able to outrun death.

He thought of himself as a new Tom Sawyer, living on a small skiff on the river, fishing for his dinners, tethered to no one, while others just thought he was creepy.

Even though he was registered in the hotel under a false name it didn't take Darlene long to figure out "Hondo" was her cheating husband, a man obsessed with John Wayne films and blondes.

The political orgy was cut short by God's wrath.

George was a genius with a faulty memory which often stymied his "eureka" moments.

The rain of blood and plague of locusts did nothing to deter them from their misguided course.

The kingdom was plunged into darkness at the wave of the old woman's hand.

Tipper was a tippler who when drunk loved to tickle the ivories.

Sometimes Raul, as a public defender, felt like an assembly line factory worker, the faces, names and alleged crimes of his clients flashing by.

She stared through him while his gaze roamed lazily across her body.

They celebrated that night like it was the end of the world and for them it would be.

He stared at her face in the half light of dawn — the curve of her jaw brightly lit, the rest of her face in shadow — and knew this would be the last time.

Startled awake by the telephone's ringing, his confusion is swiftly superseded by fear, his body tingling with the foreknowledge of what he is about to learn.

"The spirit don't come here much, but when it does, oh boy!" the old woman slurred, holding my hands, tears streaming down her face.

"When I get what I have coming to me all y'all are gonna pay!" he yelled out the window of his apartment.

The rat's shadow loomed.

The wind carried the smell of smoke and fear.

Suzy wasn't sure at what point she began thinking of herself in the past tense.

The toast of the town until Tuesday when the newest fresh face arrived, Tilda did not take her new circumstances lightly, spreading malicious gossip about her rival, which back-fired, since the old adage about any press being good press seemed to apply in this situation.

The Bowery bums danced in the street as the rum poured down from Heaven.

There was another world inside the mirror's crack.

Alberto Shatters was a man of loose morals and bad habits, but his love of animals, children and flowers helped balance the scales.

He returned to the jungle 50 years later, weeping at the sounds and smells, the forgotten and overwhelming greenness.

They traveled a crooked road.

What Ted lacked in business acumen he made up for in sheer stupidity.

She was a tattler, always running to tell of her playmates dark secrets, but managing to keep the others from learning anything about her.

The tiger eyed the moon with jealousy for she never had to hunt.

Surviving off of stale popcorn and half-eaten corn dogs, Ernesto managed to live incognito at the circus for seven seasons.

The bow skidded over the fiddle and the feet began to stomp.

The trees began to sway, the sky darken, nature to turn against us.

The fickle crowd soon turned on both fighters, hurling curses and anything that wasn't tied down.