Brad hated packing so much that he only went on overnight trips that didn't require a change of clothing. 

 Ellen shrieked into the abyss and to her surprise, the abyss shrieked back. 

 Sometimes the only thing that saved him was a simple melody. 

From time to time the puppy still shown within that old dog's gray face and it broke Pat's heart every time she saw it. 

 Stacey stared unblinking into the depths of her morning coffee as if within its murky recesses she might find an answer. 

The darkness descended, slithered and choked, and though they could no longer see, they hailed it as a victory. 

 The minutes ticked away toward oblivion. 

 Every day at work Frank figured it was a toss-up whether he'd get shitcanned or promoted for his incessant incompetence. 

He felt as helpless as a tiny hatchling fallen from its nest. 

The cat seemed to know dark secrets but the sunspot in the parlor was calling and so destroying humanity would have to wait. 

 While listening to honky-tonk break-up songs, Will suddenly realized he was the villain in all those Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn lyrics. 

I sentence you to read this. 

The wind, the wind, blew and blew, and became the only sound, eclipsing all. 

Artists and armed robbers steal in equal measure. 

It was hard to make a living as a painter and being a poet was no easier so Eric became a priest since he was at least guaranteed a glass of wine on Sundays. 

She liked to overthink things and he preferred underthinking them. 

Looking back, what he believed (at the time) to be insurmountable turned out not to be. 

The older Owen got the harder it was to keep the mask—now worn and cracked and held together with tape and glue—from slipping off to reveal his true and terrible self. 

Cam's past continued to reinsert itself into his present so much so that he wished he could somehow tell his younger self to lay off the pills, booze, and philandering and stay on the straight and narrow. 

 Sometimes in the darkness, we can discover a bright burning light we never knew existed. 

 The sun in a sky saturated in crimson and aubergine slips below the indigo mountain like a secret snaking from your lips that makes my heart flutter. 

Sheila had lost her taste for small talk.

 With words you can do anything except force yourself to write them. 

The roses withered and dropped their petals (nature's reminder that nothing lasts). 

You could hear her laugh from two blocks away. 

Helen had been alone so long she'd forgotten that talking to oneself aloud was considered odd. 

 He continued to shout into the void hoping to hear something, anything, even just the echo of his own voice. 

Shane suddenly realized his blathering on about his day was so boring that his eyes had glazed over (as had everyone else's) yet he kept going as if unable to stop himself. 

 If the wing flaps of a single butterfly can create a hurricane, I thought, will my new butterfly house be the destruction of the world?

Anna's fantasy world was so well constructed that a thousand truth-tellers could not storm its ramparts.