Upon entering the hallway leading to the stairs, Winston was stunned to see a hole in the wall. It clearly pierced the wallpaper and was a few inches in diameter. Having lived in the house for years and walked down that hall many times daily, he figured that he would surely have noticed such an anomaly before, and his parents would never have allowed such to remain.

That evening Forsythia Farmer turned into the parking lot of Gator Tales, the state’s largest strip club, to park by the private back entrance manned by a large, intimidating bouncer. Despite being one of the club’s most popular attractions, the dancer known as Domino Double-D Dean still drove a fifteen-year-old car with fading paint. Between providing for her two-year-old son, rent, university tuition, and various other never-ending bills, plus investing as much money as possible toward her son’s education, Forsythia figured she was better off holding onto her old Toyota.

    “The UFOs are back!” Hampton exclaimed as soon as Helayna answered his call. “WDUN’s reporting a whole heap of ’em were just seen flying over the north end of Sam Benton County around Pitts Peak. We’re hearing a slew of sirens, and Macon just called to say a bunch of cop cars just flew by his house with their lights flashing and all heading north.”

Though slightly nervous, Radford McGinniss caught himself smiling en route to a fifteenth annual high school reunion thrown at a classmate’s home Saturday evening. Despite his four years at Theophilus Holmes High being his most miserable, littered with the usual adolescent angst and aggravated by a severe strain of shyness, Radford still managed to make some friends and many friendly acquaintances there. By his thirties, he concluded that the fault of his terrible teens lay not with tyrannical teachers or constipated educrats, but his own failure to summon the courage to confront pronounced personal problems, especially his shyness.

He opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. Was this where all those degrees, the late-night studying, stress, and student debt were leading? Was it all just for this? He wondered.

Keaton’s excitement grew the closer he got to his friend Zita’s place. She and her roommates were throwing a house-warming party that Friday night, and Keaton hoped to see many buddies from high school and college, including several not seen in years.

Deputy Sheriff Freddy McTavis eased his large waistline into his chair to face the nervous man and his attorney across the interrogation room table. Deputy McTavis had never liked the well-tailored gentleman he brought in for questioning, recalling all the times he saw handsome Gram Tanner cut up in school and never get in trouble.

I think this qualifies, she concluded. Heretofore too afraid to use illegal drugs, yet disappointed with anti-depressants, she asked, why not? What else has worked? I just want a break from everything, and I know exactly where this dreadful day’s desolate path is headed.

Ray thoroughly enjoyed all the easy banter. These were his two favorite couples since they seemed to be always joking and having fun. Their almost constant chatter also took the pressure off him. Though he had been friends with each of them since kindergarten, he was still nervous speaking in a group. But the fast-moving conversations and humor more than made up for any discomfort. He was grateful to be included, but so wished he had a girlfriend to bring too.

“Are you coming or not?” An exasperated Dorinda Thompson called from the bottom stair as her 20-year-old son Oliver fussed with his hair. He had skipped the last three Thanksgiving family reunions at Aunt LaDonna and Uncle Mooney’s house two hours away.

Turning to the left side of the booth to see who spoke, Raleigh blinked and felt his face break into a full smile. Framed by thick swirls of long brown hair was a fabulous face featuring hazel-green eyes and a slightly flirty grin. The young lady wore a bronze tan and appeared to be glowing in a bright yellow dress accentuating a voluptuous figure.

He loved going to China more than anywhere in the world, and with a Chinese wife, he got to go there every few years to visit her family. How blessed he felt having his own personal tour guide who was fluent in Mandarin.

Heading to his first summer class, Huxley Madison walked ever slower toward Erasmus Burt University’s Foreign Languages Building. Though he did well in high school Spanish, learning another tongue had not been easy or particularly fun, and he had put off fulfilling his college foreign language requirement as long as possible

The dinner invitation was totally unexpected since Josiah Gorgas had not heard from his high school and college buddy Austin Ervin in well over a decade.

As expected on a Monday morning, the clinic’s waiting room was crowded. There were a few old couples who were quiet, with the wives generally reading and the husbands looking around or watching TV.

On the first day of ninth grade, Fitzhugh Hardee Rainwater met the girl who immediately took up permanent residence deep in his heart.

At 10 o’clock on a warm August morning, an old but immaculate big blue Buick slowly pulled up and parked by the front gate of the largest section in Serenity Springs Cemetery, Azalea Falls’ oldest, biggest burial ground.

“The Police are coming to the Omni!” Addison shouted across the campus quadrangle in early October of 1983.

After such a pleasant stay at the conference in New Mexico, where his talks had gone well, and everyone had been so kind, it was distinctly uninspiring to fly home to a wife whose love for him had long been in doubt.

Retirement had been rougher on Dudley DuBose. Always way more career-focused than his wife, it had been tough adjusting to the record amount of free time.

Red’s Place was the starting point for what would arguably become the most (in)famous story in the history of Semmes County.

Though he would normally look away from such people, for some reason he kept examining them from the back of the elevator. Do I know these losers? He wondered.

Mimosa Mitchell was an 85-year-old “pillar of the community” and matriarch of one of the most prominent families in Petunia Springs.

“Guess who’s coming to the campus coliseum?” Zora greeted Zarius in the hall with a wide-eyed grin as he left the classroom.

Ensconced in bed reading his history textbook, Delphus McManus was startled when the phone rang.

Paisley Parker was the dark-haired, freckle-faced, green-eyed girl in Fitzhugh’s freshman English class who had said nary a word the whole term.

Born weeks apart, Julep and Ellis were playmates from the start and had been classmates through 10th grade.

After lunch the family sat on the back porch chatting leisurely, watching who was walking down the street, and speaking to those they knew.

ulissa Ye relished all the comfortable little routines and quietude defining her part-time job at The Bookery, downtown’s last small, locally-owned bookstore.