The neon-tinged night called to them.

That night, sleeping on $1,000 sheets, Phil wondered when the shoe would drop and he would once again be living out on the street.

They tore open the box to find not cash, but a smaller container with the international symbol for radiation stamped on the top in a garish yellow paint. 

Their vacation to the sunny south of France was a wind-whipped, soggy misadventure.

Ralph was a painter who hated artists, a poet who despised poesy, a gentleman farmer who disliked animals and plants.

I stood in a darkened corner of the school yard, achingly aware of my patched, second-hand clothing and what I imagined was the smell of poverty clinging to me.

She hated being seen unless dressed to the nines, hair and make-up perfect, so when Becky accidentally locked herself out of the house that morning before her ablutions, she was forced  to hide out in the yard for the next eight hours waiting for her husband's return.