Smeared lipstick traces of a half-recalled dream kept him on edge that day.

It looked like love but felt like death.

It was storytelling that drove all, whether in court where attorneys attempted to convince juries of their clients' innocence or the halls of Congress where senators tried to sway their colleagues and constituents, and even at home where children pleaded their innocence about the broken vase in the hall.

Since, claimed Isabelle, she hardly remembered the decade that stretched from age twenty to thirty it was as if that lost period of her life had never happened and that was why she felt much younger than she actually was.

In this cutthroat world where the top prize was the sunny spot in the living room the pets were willing to try anything to achieve the endgame.

Constantly tumbling down rabbit holes, untethered by time, my days were lost to shadows and memes.

Each year her highest highs and lowest lows seemed to creep ever closer to one another.

The spiderweb connections linking us together through time and space were what made us human.

That morning in the predawn darkness a light switched on in his head that changed the course of all their lives.

What had we loosed upon the world with our casual cruelty and egoistic boasting?

Like a cracked funhouse mirror our lives had become impossible to decipher—shattered and reflected a thousand times; warped beyond understanding. 

The shuttered windows and barred doors couldn't keep out the fear.

The blackness of his heart was hidden behind a new suit and a broad smile.

The accordion wheezed out a mournful tune while the old dancers shuffled listlessly around the floor.

Sometimes Adelaide wished she could be as vacuous as her friends who seemed to breeze through life without a worry in their empty heads.

The sweetest dreams and saddest days were forever locked in a lover's embrace.

Out of his element among the others Bill felt that once he opened his mouth they would know that he really didn't have a clue about the finer things, so instead he kept quiet and came off as aloof and arrogant.

Touching down in her hometown Isabelle's heart skipped like the tires on the tarmac.

Stupidity and vociferousness often went hand in hand.

Whether it would be a leap to greatness or a fall into the abyss remained unclear.

The return to day-to-day living was always a rough transition that required a period of leisurely dinners and drinks before Dana could get back to work.

Reality could shift and warp suddenly in the jungle where death and abundance held sway in tandem.

The veins of the city slowly disappeared as the plane rose into the clouds. 

The song stayed the same but Sheila's interpretation of its meaning shifted as she aged.

Reading the newspaper had become for her akin to shoving her hand into a dark crevice to discover what was inside and hoping there wasn't a venomous creature sleeping within.

The "to do" list just kept getting longer.

The only thing that managed to puncture the sense of laziness brought on by the summer's wet heat you could feel heavily in your lungs was the sudden spikes of frenzied violence that everyone blamed on the weather.

The slate sky mirrored the country's mood.