"I feel boxed in," she said.

"I'm sorry?" he replied, not quite understanding.

"Well, the basic thing is this: the image is quite boring, and the color scheme is obnoxious, a weird, misguided attempt at the painterly surrealism that Richard Linklater's Waking Life first presented in film. Add to that two gigantic butterflies, and the whole thing just falls apart. But despite the silliness of the painting, however, there's really no room for absurdity. Characters can't wave pistols around or smoke cigars or get hit in the forehead with boards. I'm boxed in. I have nowhere to go. It's too...

Too saccharine. Too weepy. No dice.

Drudgery of the everyday. There's really nothing else to explain it. Banality of sadism. John, standing at the dump, Alka Seltzer pill wrapped in a piece of bologna for the birds. Has he ever thought what a bird might feel while its innards explode? That's not really the point. He wants to know if it can work. If he can leave a wake of destruction with nothing but everyday objects.

He watches the bird gulp down the bologna and retake flight. He sees it hesitate, and pop, it falls from the air, guts hanging out of its mouth.

Adam, working...

In these parts, they could not afford trains. Instead, they strapped the Jews and leftists and gypsies and cripples and social undesirables onto sleds on the back of a Volkswagen and hauled them to the camp, which was really a slapdash cardboard affair. The guards were lazy and disinterested. They really didn't see a point in the whole thing, but they did their jobs nevertheless, smoking cigarettes with the more gregarious prisoners. They resented the prisoners and beat them - After all, they thought, why should I have to waste my life standing around guarding these people that the Reich...

Drink, row 18, seat f. Coca Cola. Seat g. Orange juice. Wants vodka. That'll be $5. I can charge it to your credit card or take cash. Comes back, gets vodka, goes back, give vodka.

Jacob tells the co-pilot to take the controls. "I'll be right back."

Snack, row 23, seat b.

Jacob eyes her, and she eyes back, but is helpless to move. He makes for the lavatory, but she doesn't follow.

Orange joice, row 23, seat c. Call light, row 5, seat c.

He unzips his fly, pulls down his pants, and begins to play with himself, expecting,...

Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up. She realized her mistake. Cheeks going red, the burning feeling of all eyes on her, she wanted to sit back down but froze in that position, the terror rendering her unable to go further and unable to sit back down. Why did she want to be noticed? What had prompted such a stupid exercise in self will. The teacher stopped her lesson and looked at her. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

She didn't know what to respond. Was everything okay? No,...

Private Morlane. Rooster. Let the regiment sleep. Gun. Trigger. Regiment sleeps.

The quality of the sex we were having in the wheat field is indescribable. It was better than any sex that I have had before. The sex would make the toes of a dead woman curl. It was great sex. I am quite certain you'd be jealous if I went into any lurid details about the sex that we were having in the wheat field, her legs up in the air, me doing things that you have only read about in books. The sex was great. It was not just great, it was amazing. This was amazing sex.

We were...

Price of a roll of Kodachrome: $5
Cost of the Canon camera: $200
Wage per photo published in Life Magazine: $25
Price per bushel of corn: $2
Day's wages for detasselers: $0.25

For some reason, Zombies love wedding veils. Maybe it's a snare mechanism, much like how Venus flytraps look beautiful on the outside before they devour their prey. Or maybe it's some attachment to the things that matter in life, that is, in non-Zombie life. In any case, this one had fooled that part of Ricky that had been longing for companionship of any sort. He had been holed away with canned beans, month-old cooked rice, and a shotgun for far too long not to feel the pangs of desire as she approached him from the woods.

Big mistake.

She lurched...