Every forgotten word reinforced her fears for her future. 

 Every sentence can't be a zinger but every sentence is a sentence even if it's a run-on sentence, unless of course, it's just a fragment (is this a run-on sentence or merely a sentence that's running on, and on, and on?).

The sound of letters dropping through the mail slot that once elicited joy now only brought fear to Joyce's heart. 

The sky remained a bright beatific blue even as the earth was stained a deep crimson. 

 She was back briefly like a cactus bloom that lasts a single day. 

Starting is the hardest pa —no wait, not repeating repeating yourself is harder. 

The dinosaurs (old, white, and male) roared and cursed but the asteroid came anyway.

When Arthur hit fifty he started doing the mental math on how many paintings he thought he could produce before he died at seventy-nine (the average death age for males in the United States barring any unfortunate accidents). 

 Sheila slowly weaned herself off of the daily dose of outrage she'd become addicted to through Twitter. 

There was nothing left to do except dance in the rain and hope for a better day. 

You kept one hand on the scale and held the other out to shake my hand. 

 Truth be told (if we could just agree on it).

The creases in his trousers were as sharp as his wit. 

Unlike in the movies, mysterious don't get solved, personal growth doesn't come from overcoming an obstacle, and no one is coming to save you (probably, but you never know). 

 The mention of a name or the look in a stranger's eye as they passed would bring back her face in a sudden spasm of painful memory. 

All Alfred wanted was a feeling akin to what his dog experienced lying in a sun spot on a spring afternoon, but he found these things to be rare. 

The nefarious activities of the neighbors made for better viewing than any reality television program. 

 The lies we tell ourselves differ from those we tell others. 

 Stare at the screen until dawn and hope for enlightenment. 

Ike wore his hat at a rakish angle so all the world would know what to expect from him. 

 We're all dying slowly (because that's what life entails). 

She needed a drink but settled for a poem. 

 Today the soundtrack to her life, she decided, was Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain." 

 The flagpole clanked ceaselessly in the wind like a bell tolling mournfully. 

Complaining was a lot easier than dealing with the problem. 

 I watched a spider crawl across my ceiling and felt no desire to do anything about it. 

Frank's preoccupations, tics, and phobias only grew with age until they consumed most of his free time and even found their way into his dreams. 

The promise of spring was a lie, or so it seemed on that snowy April day. 

 Spending time with her ex gave Erica the same feeling she got wandering around a casino after she'd spent all her money. 

 It's not enough for nature, through storms and fires and earthquakes, to wreak havoc upon us, but humanity (for some reason) feels the need to pile on the ruin to speed things along.