The couple stood in line at Bellevue Hospital. They were on the fourth floor. They were first in line. Three workers sat behind the main desk. One of them, a slim woman, said, Step down. Doug and Sandra looked at each other. Step down? There was no s...
It's coming along, said Byron. Your files are a real mess. I've spent 3.5 hours on your computer, but I haven't retrieved everything. Excuse me? Bill said. What do you mean, 3.5 hours!? How much money is that? That's $375! Byron said, Well, actually,...
Bill's laptop stopped working. He looked in the phone book under Computer Repair. He called a repair place near his apartment. Byron answered the phone. Bill said, My laptop has crashed. Can you retrieve the files? If so, how much will it cost? Byron...
The man looked at John. Sit, sit, he repeated. John smiled. He waved goodbye to the man. Maybe I should buy a few drawings on my way back, he thought. Maybe that old man will be famous some day. Maybe my drawings will be worth millions. He could see...
Next to the man were about 30 drawings. They were clipped to the fence beneath the handrail. There were drawings of bridges and buildings. There were drawings of people's faces. All the drawings were black and white. John thought they were beautiful....
The pedestrian path and the bike path gradually rose above the cars. John looked down at the cars. He was walking east, toward Brooklyn. The eastbound cars below were moving quickly. But the westbound cars, coming into NYC, were creeping along. There...
It was a beautiful summer day in New York City. It was a day made for walking. John was standing at an intersection near the Brooklyn Bridge. He had driven over the bridge before. But he had never walked over the bridge. He started walking uphill on...
The cat and the dog were talking. The cat said, Humans treat us better than you. If we turn up our nose at the cat food they serve us, they buy us another brand. If we're sleepy, we can sleep on the pillows in their bed. The dog said, But humans take...
He bought a six-pack of an energy drink. He'd never tried it before. The ads promised four hours of energy. He drank the little bottle. He waited for the energy to kick in. He needed to cram for a test the next morning. Nothing happened. I can't wait...
What's the weather going to be like? he asked. She said there was a 20-percent chance of rain. Twenty percent? he said. Last week they said 20 percent, and it didn't rain a drop. I'm not going to take my umbrella. Twenty percent means zero percent. S...