Weathered storms, tethered connections

"She exited my mouth and everything came roaring out of me like some cataclysmic devil, all over Melissa Maher's virgin-white blouse. She punched me square in the nose, blood filling my mouth, changing the taste of the kiss forever."

"My wife makes curry for dinner and Tonya stays at the table for the entire meal. She asks if we are getting a divorce and I tell her no I just hate my life and she says join the club and we smile like a familiar pain masking a deeper one."

"She looked at Newt for the last time, questioning each brush stroke, each caress. Patsy would never ride again."

"He hopped onto the bus and felt the world unfolding. His eyes bent the trees; only sky remained. He felt the bus slide on its skeleton and rise from the earth, its shell a vibrant yellow and its innards an elaborate circuitry. The engine fluttered and new wheels emerged, spinning him down the hill like life without brakes."

"She walked to the keg and ordered two jocks to hold her legs. She looked like an inverted umbrella hanging from two trees. From a battered green couch in a room full of sin, I lit a joint."

"He spoke of hate and love and regret and forgiveness, of how much his hand hurt and how small the world had become."

"He had to think fast. Mr. McGovern was probably in Belize by now, starting up a car dealership with a fleet of new lemons disguised as mangoes."

"The World War II military warbird had taken two years to finish. The last time I worked on it was the last time I worked on anything. My wing wouldn't stay on and I stormed off, never to sit next to my father again. Yet here I was, holding his hairy hand as his soul exited his body."

"There are six steps up the trunk of the tree we painted the rainbow colors. We sit on stacks of books, telling our innermost secrets."

"Whatever comes out of me flows in ripples, then waterfalls, then drops like snow and kicks up like autumn leaves. I exhale deep, profound regret for a life unlived. Every note is part of a long rope attached to an anchor that rakes along the bottom of the sea. My eyes search the back of my head and my fingers slide across barbed metal tightropes."

"Terrance wasn't supposed to die like this. I'd pictured him running out of oxygen on top of a mountain, hang gliding into an abyss, or surfing a death wave into the barrier reef. I think he tried to move faster than the disease, but it came with him, wedged maliciously between the supplies in his daypack. The whole thing was maddening, not sad or sullen. Marty would be sad, though. It was his job to be sad."