Ping Ballon

“Phil, we're the laughing stock of the nation,"
    said Hobbs Creek mayor to police chief, "We
    have a cop who faints at the sight of blood!”
― Kyle Keyes, Under the Bus

“He wasn’t sure if his parents would be proud that their child had served his country or not.  There had always been something unnatural about parents burying their children.”
― Harvey Havel, The Odd and The Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction

“No one else could share his quandary. His agonies were a mixture of shame, of loss fueled by profoundly rooted fury—solitary burdens he had carried with him like pockets of sorrow weighing him down, forcing him to become stronger. When the Devil was gnawing at him, he’d withstood the pain.”
― Tom Baldwin, Macom Farm

“Each day a whole world passes away, largely unappreciated, numbly relegated to obligation, commerce and routine. One day seems as unremarkable as the next. It's only through the inexorable accretion of days, weeks, months and years, that we come to appreciate with heartbreaking clarity how incredibly unique and precious each lost day has been.”
― S.W. Clemens