He yearned for the return to a time in politics when obese men with long beards was the norm.

When the banks closed we began to barter and when we ran out of things to trade we turned to banditry.

He wrote about drunken losers because he was one.

The flowers did little to hide the stench.

Time seemed to be accelerating at an ever increasing pace, except at the DMV. 

Ike left the numbers racket and went into insurance after he realized there was more money in the legit business of selling suckers the same line he always had.

The band "Cop Killers" began to question their choice of names after constant police harresment on their first nationwide tour. 

The woman's moonscape of a face matched her demeanor. 

Hubert's pretty speechifying got him elected mayor, but once in office the promises he'd made drifted away like the smoke from his ever-present cigar. 

There was nothing left to keep them together but fear.

We shall overcome.

Exiled to the outer reaches of the empire, I had nothing but time to plan my revenge.

The city came to them.

Bill's career finally took off when he realized people were less frightened of sad clowns, especially the kind with a tendency to break down in tears while making balloon animals. 

The sentence just wouldn't come.

Sometimes he felt like setting his desk on fire.

We saw the writing on the wall, but then it was a chalkboard, so that made sense.

Walt's wit was outmatched by his penchant for wine.

The narcoleptic gondolier often found himself and his frightened passengers miles out to sea.

Linda was about to drop one bombshell of a story in the lap of a washed-up reporter who cared more about cocktail hour than beltway politics.

Pat realized her tendency to procrastinate was tied with her love of high-pressure situations.

The day after Dave finished his novel he felt as if he had awoken from a year-long dream and was once again faced with the humdrum ins and outs of reality.

Snot running down my nose, tears blinding me, I ran wildly from the game I had singlehandedly lost for the team.

Matt turned the memories of his miserable job into a money-making sitcom idea.

Some called him a hero, others, a snitch.

The volcano finally spoke its peace after two millennia and it was a terrible tale it told.

Our misery was due to our own doing.

It turned out the Devil they knew wasn't any better than the one they didn't know.

He went from law school to culinary school to clown college to driving class.

She was crafty, but her enemies were more so.