Helen haggled herself into a corner filled to overflowing with things she didn't need or even want. 

They hated his old man for never just paying lip service to anything he truly believed in. 

Somehow, Shelly was both intensely private and an oversharer all at once. 

The boats went into drydock, the beach bars began to close for the season, and only the hardiest of oldtimers remained to face the coming winter.  

 Ike considered the snoring coming from his wife, dog, cat, and hamster, an insult to injury for his insomnia. 

 They only communicated with each other through memes. 

They huddled together in the trench and told each other their most intimate secrets between shell bursts but afterward went back to trying to kill each other.  

The abandoned dog toy at the foot of the bed reminded her of all the dreams she still had yet to fulfill.  

 "What are you blathering on about now?" the superego asked the id. 

 Two miles seemed more like 20 even downhill since Hank was now over the hill. 

 The lost love letter arrived on Luciano's last day on earth.

Spike watched the state funeral only for the sake of posterity, he told himself (as he cried silently). 

"Clean up on aisle...your life," Gloria shouted at her husband before walking out for good. 

 Lying down with dogs was just fine with Lyle, fleas be damned. 

The sullen dancers slowly circled the floor to the saxophone's somber solo. 

 New love made Marie pine all the harder for the old one. 

 Puppy breath kisses cure all ails. 

Erica always had a strange urge (one she never acted on) to push people over just to see their expression change from bewilderment to something else — what it would be was part of the mystery. 

 Tides and tribulations came and went. 

 They stuffed their sandy clothes back in their bags and gingerly slipped into the car so as not to aggravate their sunburns and headed back to reality. 

 The moon's reflection on the night waves called to her. 

 The monster truck rally in their motel parking lot had them second-guessing their vacation destination. 

The fog was so thick that for a second Sarah convinced herself that she'd died and was now blindly stumbling around in the afterworld. 

The puppy began training his humans from the outset and quickly had them in hand (an outcome he had wagered on with his litter mates when he learned he'd be going to a new home). 

Along with religion and politics. they had to add weather to the list of banned subjects at dinner parties when they discovered a climate change denier among their companions. 

 The gravity of gravity was not lost on Greg as he hurtled earthward. 

The searcher sought the seeker who taught the teacher who lost the lover to her insatiable desire to see the world. 

 That morning the politician woke hungover and with only a hazy memory of what he'd done the night before — he knew it involved social media — and hoped he could get away with blaming hackers for whatever profanity-laced diatribes against the oppressed he'd drunkenly sent out into the world. 

 The crispness of the morning air signaled the beginning of her favorite season.

Dusty always wore his hat at a rakish angle and looked you in the eye (even on his deathbed).