Teaching school is like having jumper cables hooked to your brain, draining all the juice out of you.

For a woman a man will do many things that he'd turn his back on in an instant when alone; things he'd back away from, nine times out of ten, even when drunk adn with a bunch of his friends egging him on.

Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.

He removed his unvaluable valuables and dumped his shirt, pants, and skivvies into a letter slot.

Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story.

Crying was like pissing everything out on the ground.

I never have a thematic intention at the outset. The story informs the theme for me rather than the other way around. But as it happens... this is, at least to a degree, about getting old and the rapid passage of our lives.