Dan shook his snow shovel at the sky and vigorously cursed winter.

"Today's the day I'm going to leave the house," thought Grace, knowing it was a lie.

They were a ragtag staff who thought of themselves as the Bad News Bears of the magazine business.

Her world shrank to a bedroom and her social life to chiding her cat.

I stared at the blank screen wondering what lies I would tell my editor.

He believed himself to be a genius, even though he couldn't spell the word.

She chased her hat into the street as a passing bus turned the corner.

That sinking feeling never left.

In their dreams they were still young and in love.

Things began to slip — his clothes were dirty and wrinkled, the house a mess — but his writing saw marked improvement.

The next morning was as drab and quiet as the night before had been lively and loud.

The drunken parade danced its way through the reveler-filled streets.

Derek drunkenly weaved through the massive Mardi Gras crowd, parting the sea of revelers with his giant sombrero as he ping-ponged his way through them towards the parade.

The dinner party quickly descended into drunken debauchery with the hostess allowing the guests to slurp cognac from her navel while a naked conga line snaked its way through the chateau.

His gentlemanly facade hid a penchant for righteous violence against those who mistreated the powerless.

"I was too tired to make a quip so instead I shot him," Vance shrugged, stepping over the body on his way back to the bar.

He walked a razor's edge between the life of the streets and the the storied halls of the university.

As he straightened his tie and combed his hair, Darren wondered if all the lies and skulking around were worth it.

The killer caught up with the turncoat mafioso as he sat eating a plate of pasta.

They had been so cocooned in technology that when their car skidded off the road on a desolate stretch of highway they assumed help would be just a cellphone call away.

The kidnappers returned Priscilla without waiting for any ransom because of her her constant whining that a gag did nothing to curtail.

Sally was the envy of the neighborhood since the gap between her front teeth allowed for the perfect spit stream with which she was able to hit a fly from 50 paces.

Glenn became so entwined with the tough guy character he played in the movie he kept getting himself into tight situations with nary a stunt double in sight.

The noise of the forest at night made it impossible for the city dwellers used to car horns and foot traffic to sleep.

In dreams she walked with me.

"Last night, I thought of the perfect sentence, but I didn't write it down and now it's gone," she said, breaking down in tears.

Coughing up blood and shaking violently Joe wished he could go back in time and beat his younger self senseless for the lifestyle he had chosen.