Smeared lipstick traces of a half-recalled dream kept him on edge that day.

It looked like love but felt like death.

It was storytelling that drove all, whether in court where attorneys attempted to convince juries of their clients' innocence or the halls of Congress where senators tried to sway their colleagues and constituents, and even at home where children pleaded their innocence about the broken vase in the hall.

Since, claimed Isabelle, she hardly remembered the decade that stretched from age twenty to thirty it was as if that lost period of her life had never happened and that was why she felt much younger than she actually was.

In this cutthroat world where the top prize was the sunny spot in the living room the pets were willing to try anything to achieve the endgame.

Constantly tumbling down rabbit holes, untethered by time, my days were lost to shadows and memes.

Each year her highest highs and lowest lows seemed to creep ever closer to one another.