He woke to the sound of voices coming from the front porch, voices which traveled easily through his open window two stories above. They were male voices. The man lay still, listening.

He heard one of them say, "Hello! Anybody here or do we gotta come in?"

"I'm about to bust the door in," the other voice said, a more authoritative tone to his speech. "Slap the warrant in his face and tell him to kiss the floor."

"It's possible nobody's home," the other guy said....

Stars

Chay slept: Dreaming of a teenage girl roaming the halls. Her shadow only altered by the bouncing sash of her dress. Laughter preceded her arrival and then with a sidearm toss she let the Tracer Stars go. One by one they overwhelmed their victim until he lay barely conscious like beneath the stars of old. Pop! Whir! Pop! they concussed jumping through the air and bouncing off the tunnel walls until the purple sparks faded out....

One guy was tapping the bird on the head with what looked like a pipe while the other guy poked at his eye with a pencil.

My friends and I began shouting at them. I stepped forward and yelled at them. They continued their assault on the hawk, so I spit on the one with the pipe. The guy turned toward me. Immediately, I realized I had done a bad thing. What with the spread of aids and everything, spitting is not the innocent thing it used to be....

Chapter one: In search of Identity

My eyes opened and I realized that I was resting on a soft bed. I was covered with a soft baby blue blanket. The birds outside chirped rhythmically and the sunlight reflected from the window adjacent from the bed was hurting my eyes. I could easily tell the time of day was morning....

Lil heard, “I’ll have another Beetle Juice Bomb” come from her boyfriends’ lips for the fifth time in an hour. The cicada behind the stick bar poured another glass full, reluctantly. Beeter took the shot in an instant. His gazed turned, but a foggy look had come over his face. He grinned into the blurriness; his mind was blank of thought and Lil could tell. “Why do you have to get like this every time we go out?” she asked angrily. She moaned in angst because Beeter had no valid response....

The heat index was at a hundred ten degrees Fahrenheit. Cee took a swig from the plastic bottle of Coke he'd bought at a convenience store in Eastern Market. It was two thirty in the afternoon when he was sitting in the stop-and-go traffic just before the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge he had to cross to make the recording session in Forestville....

I arrived at the beach town on a cold, rainy Thursday. I drove down the main drag looking at the small shops and liquor stores that dotted the road, barely able to stay in the seat of my car from the excitement that boiled inside of me. The salt air filled my lungs and produced an ecstasy of feelings and emotions that welled up from deep inside of me. Inside I was all sunshine, but the weather had other ideas that day....