The wherewithal to break the stalemate came down to the masterful stratagem of the chess-loving son of the ambassador.

And yet the universe continued to toss out mysteries seemingly without end.

"Right now they're keeping people out, but before long they're gonna be keeping us in," said my father as we packed up the house.

Their first order of business was to ban the teaching of history for if the people understood the past they would be less inclined to allow their leaders to repeat it again and again.

Billy liked the Old Testament best, the "eye for an eye" way of thinking, rather than the New Testament with its emphasis on loving thy neighbor since his neighbor was a liberal asshole.

"The day I realized everyone else was as lost and confused as I was, no matter what kind of facade they show the world, was the day I gained an edge over my competition," he said with a wry smile.

The old man stood on the stage with just his guitar, but when his shaky hand hit that first chord, the years seemed to melt away and his tales of heartache and dreams shook the audience to their core.

Blake waited his whole life for the moment when he wouldn't feel like a scared child anymore, but it never came.

Her eyes still held within them that darkness he had never been able to escape even after twenty years apart. 

The women held their signs aloft and let the world know they weren't going to rollover, especially not for a bunch of misogynistic old men.

In those final moments they were all shocked to discover that the world wasn't going to end with a bang or even a whimper but with a Tweet featuring a smiley face and the phrase "say goodbye."

Through the cracks and fissures in the gilded facade could be seen a boiling, broiling, putrid chaos that was at that very moment threatening to spill out.

As Dale crossed into the city he realized Hell was a lot closer than anyone believed.

If she ever took notice of the crumbling edifice of her life, she surely never showed it.

The amusement park's management quickly realized that incorporating real crocodiles and an easily spooked hippo into their jungle ride wasn't that great of an idea.

The were able to kill the man, but not his ideas.

The sound of the men's boots trampling over the fallen echoed across the water, but we convinced ourselves it came from a distant shore.

They were just children then but it seemed they knew far more than the old men controlling their fate.

The wind's mournful tune stirred up the discontent of the unfulfilled desires of his youth.

The dizzying heights had been her home for so long that when the adulation finally dried up she shot back to earth in a blaze of cocaine, pills, and alcohol.

"Here's the secret to a happy life," the old man said, leaning in conspiratorially, "a good woman to love, a comfortable chair, a dog at your feet, a decent book to read, and a pipe in the evening."

The sound of the ice-choked river—cracking, roaring, shifting, sliding—seemed to echo through the eons, viscerally connecting him to the ancient past.

We snickered at her homemade dress and scuffed shoes but not a one of us could deny she was the most beautiful creature who ever set foot in the county.

Bill's boy went from the terrible twos to the tyrannical tens to the fascist forties, or so the rest of the family felt.

Frank liked life in the gutter since there was no chance of falling any further and all that was left was up.

Nothing was as it seemed.

Through the web of memory she reached back to touch the face of her mother, trying to remember every line, angle, ridge, and contour.

The only question, William believed, was whether to accept the inevitable and get along as best you could or to take up arms in a vain attempt at revolution, but neither choice seemed tenable.

Through the silently rolling fog I could just make out the half-frozen creek and the mountains beyond.

In the twilight hours between dreams came the niggling demons well versed in woe making.

As the hangover began to lift, the fear of the future began to sink in.