May 6 - Dad lives like an astronaut, tethered to the end of that long, green, oxygen lifeline, floating in his wheelchair from one end of the house to the other. - Jerry Fisher

May 7 - The fog unfurled down by the river, gulping fallen branches and rotting logs until the opposite shore vanished in one last swirling bite of mist. - Rochelle Weidner

May 8 - A cool breeze made Hobie shiver and he walked out at the far end of the mill, his good eye studying the face of the mountain, the one where he'd once looked down from straight up at the speck that was a sawmill and a line of bunkhouses and rows of stacked lumber and the blackened, jammed pond and trucks and bulldozers and the less than specks that made up the labor force darting here and there like so many dust mites, all clinging to the snake that was a river. - Wayne Willison

May 9 - The old restaurant's sawdust-covered floor caused patrons to unconsciously scuff their feet as they made their way to sit on long benches before tables that were rough wood intaglios of names and dates—a history of over a hundred years of seafood gourmands. - John Thornborough

May 10 - Olivia turned the bedside clock face down and buried it at the bottom of a drawer, but hiding time did not slow it—the sun wavered on the edge of the horizon then gave way to the dusky twilight that soon became a night black as the eye of a raven. - Bette Lee Crosby

May 11 - "I knew he was a Navy man," he said, scanning the area with binoculars, "because he was always using ship metaphors." - Kenneth Sayers

May 12 - She had the knack—a quiet, graceful authority that flowed not from her words, but from her actions. - Ramona Patterson

May 13 - She didn't really expect an answer because right after she asked it, she broke into song. -  Isabel Kellett

May 14 - The Skylark convulses when I stomp the gas, but after a few encouraging words from me and Peter Frampton, who's leaping out of the speakers, it puffs out its chest and takes the hill like a resigned donkey. - Amanda Cook

May 15 - "You got room for another corpse?" - Mike Everett

May 16 - Horns blow, coffees spill, a middle finger is raised in the car I almost hit, yet I cross the busy intersection unscathed and unseen by her. - Luke Henley

May 17 - He felt like a hypocrite, pretending that his life was good, that everything was moving along as it should, that he never once thought of sucking on his Smith & Wesson. - JoAnne Rubin

May 18 - When he stepped into the hall, he let loose a long lonesome moan that floated through the house like a restless ghost. - Jim King

May 19 - Janine Smith was the thirty-five-year-old, messy-haired, full-breasted cashier who lent quarters to the junior high truants so they could play Pole Position, the Circle K’s only video game. - James Holt

May 20 - The Spring air in Georgia drips with a lemony-sweet scent that hangs so thick it's almost edible. - Melanie J. Gross

May 21 - Sometimes I think the only thing that kept her home was the watermelons. - David Thornberry

May 22 - The silence, as loud as thunder, seized the night, refused to let go, and rolled on and on with no clear end in sight. - Elizabeth James

May 23 - The detritus of her daydream swirled down the drain, dragging yellow-brown remnants of scrambled eggs and hope. - Cathy C. Hall

May 24 - The books were all there in the boxes, ready to line up like literary soldiers on parade, and maybe he’d open their ranks now and then for a porcelain lighthouse or a model ship.  - Hillary Metts

May 25 - “But those martinis were so tasty,” she said, “and the olives had little chunks of garlic inside them and I’m not used to waiting that late for supper so... where the hell am I?” - Elizabeth Barker

May 26 - “Think how cool you’ll be with a knitting needle wedged in your lobe.” - Jeff Owens

May 27 - One thing's for sure, he weren't no weakling because somewhere in that waterless cracked ground, he'd managed to dig a grave. - Glenn Wilson

May 28 - “You know, you stand there talking sweet with that smile on your face as if our whole world is turning the way it should, but when I look in your eyes, I see you're not there.” - Matthew Sedgwick

May 29 - Some nights I awake and feel it at my bedside table, perhaps listening for my last breath, or at least hoping for it. - Cindy Kennard

May 30 - Just look at that pond, will you, there it sits, in a hole in the ground, so you’d think it’d stay put, but no, it must reach out and encompass within it an entire upside-down universe: houses in their nests of coconut fronds, servants torturing clothes and denting pots and pans at the pond verges, men returning along the redbrick paths toting woven plastic marketing bags, the whole jing-bang lot! - Sunipa Basu

May 31 - We're like twisted branches intertwined with vines of hope. - Jeanette Cheezum