The wild wind made a mockery of their lives in an instant.

The inner voice came like the crack of a whip and was both a guide and a warning.

The tug of time's undertow got stronger and stronger with each passing year.

The multiplicity of a single moment was a good indicator for the plausibility of a multiverse, in Matt's opinion.

David remained a dapper dresser in a slovenly age.

Lilly's life felt like a bunch of deleted scenes that could only be accessed via laserdisc.

It was hard to think over the constant Twittering.

The arrogance was swept from his face and he wept like a baby in the face of the truth.

The van door slid open with a sudden bang.

We were in thrall to an unshakable lie.

My hands, now slick with sweat, began to lose their grip and my eyes refused to look away from the hundred-foot drop below.

His silent resistance just wasn't enough anymore.

Her mind reeled at the heights of human kindness and the depths of depravity of which our species was also capable.

What had once been unthinkable was now mundane.

"It's too bad the world isn't flat," Sheila remarked, "because if it was I'd push all the flat-earthers, climate-change deniers, birthers, and the rest of their ilk right off the edge."

The old places were now long gone and the tastes, sights, sounds, were just half-remembered memories.

Wendy was drawn to depressing flora and fauna like weeping willows and mourning doves. 

The birds' chirping interrupted the classical concert in a clash between brute nature and human creativity.

They tore out the old to make way for the new but the dead would not be dislodged.

He was always searching for something and changed religions and political points of view as if he were a Long Island bride-to-be at a wedding-gown sample sale.

They were the scavengers, the ones who survived off of what no one else believed to be of value.

The off-kilter painting in the living room that wouldn't stay level no matter how much her mother fussed with it became, for Karen, emblematic of her family's dynamics.

The only time Will was ever in the moment was when his thumb got in the way of a hammer or he stubbed his toe while barefoot in the summer.

Ticking, ticking, ticking time, denying us the chance to fulfill our ...

The producers eventually dropped their plans for a blockbuster summer hit about a dystopian future knowing they'd never outdo the one America was currently living through.

Entertainment is everything.

The thin veneer on the new Gilded Age was starting to flake, revealing the maggot-filled and rotting flesh beneath.

The sparkler's shimmer lit up her joyous face.

Every day there was a new slap in the face for the nation to endure.

The hills may not have had eyes but our cellphones certainly did.

Desire trumped duty.