Example- Happiness: "can one love continuously for many years?" (1/5)
"they were speaking of love, discussing that old subject, saying again the things that have already been said so many times before." (1/5)

SHORT STORY: love conquers all

Example- Happiness Machine: "Dozens of birds fluttering around in the air stirring up ripples like colored stones thrown into an incredibly clear stream ."(178)

SHORT STORY: "Jumping on the bed like a monkey

Example- Happiness Machine: "to help boys change from peach fuzz to brier bramble, girls from toadstool to nectarine."(43)

SHORT STORY: "She could see the flames in her father's eyes."

Example- The Happiness Machine: "Leo Auffmann moved slowly through his garage, expecting some wood, a curl of wire, a hammer or a wrench to leap up crying."(177)

SHORT STORY: "Michelle stared out the window while lightning danced across the sky."

Example- Happiness Machine : "Lena Auffmann froze. she sniffed the air. "Oh, my god look what you done!" she yanked the over door open. A great cloud of smoke poured through the kitchen."(177)

SHORT STORY: "She had two pigtails tied with little bells that jingled every time she took a step. The sparkles on her shirt matched the rhinestones on her elf shoes."

Example- The Painted Door: When Steven was persuading Anne to get into bed with him. Anne made the choice to get into bed knowing in her heart, John, would return home.
SHORT STORY: when Sandra made a claw with her fingers to scoop out anything that she could grab from Megan's mouth.

Example- Happiness: "I suddenly saw the terrible misery of life, the isolation of everyone, the nothingness of everything, and the black solitude if the heart, deluding itself with dreams until death."(3)

SHORT STORY: "There was nothing that could make it worse than not knowing what was happening behind the shiny metal doors."

Example- Happiness Machine: ""Happiness!" she wailed. "and for the first time in six months we have a fight! Happiness, and for the first time in twenty years it's not bread, its charcoal for supper!""(177)

SHORT STORY: faintly saying, " I will be right back."

Example- The painted door: Anne and John were a happy married couple. As john walked to his fathers house to help with chores, a snow storm was approaching. Steven, their neighbor, came over to keep her company. as an outlet to keep her calm, Anne painted her bedroom door yellow. Steven tried to keep her mind off of john as she wondered when he was going to return home. The tension between them rose when he continued to talk about their times together. Betraying john, Steven and Anne slept together. In the morning, Anne found John dead with paint on his hand, realizing he came home and saw them together.

SHORT STORY: it was Christmas eve and the Bui family was eating dinner at their grandmas house. the youngest daughter didn't want to eat any of it so she snuck under the table and wandered around the house. She went into her grandmas room to find 20 different vials of prescription drugs and she believed they were tic-tacks. one by one she banged the lids open jugged the pills. her parents then found her then rushed her to the hospital where she got her stomach pumped. but, they had a missed step and causes internal bleeding. she passed away and they were not able to get over quickly but in the end they did. they also had exciting news when the mom announced that she was preganant with a baby girl.

Example- Never stop on the motorway: "Diana's mind began to drift."(223)

SHORT STORY: 3rd person "they"

Example- Happiness machine: "The children, who had been screaming horribly at each other, fell silent, as if the Red Death had entered at the chiming of the clock."(178)

SHORT STORY: " The walls were closing in on the nurse, almost disappearing into a black hole at the end of the hallway."

Example- The Land Lady: "Her body was half-turned towards him, and he could feel her eyes resting on his face, watching him over the rim of her teacup. Now and again, he caught a whiff of a peculiar smell that seemed to emanate directly from her person."(380)

SHORT STORY:  "They jumped on her bed with as they laid with joy and sorrow. Tears were sniffed away, wanting a moment of just love and family."

Example- Never stop on the motorway: "in a flood, the details of the murder that had taken place on the same road a few months before came rushing back to her. A woman had been raped before having her throat cut with a knife with a serrated edge and dumped in a ditch."(229-230)

SHORT STORY: The car ride home was dreadful. not a single sound passed through the car."

Example- The Land lady: " now, the fact that his landlady appeared to be sightly off her rocker didn't worry Billy in the least. After all, she was not only harmless - there is not question about that - but she was also quite obviously a kind and generous soul.(300)

SHORT STORY: "The smell of her mother's traditional Vietnamese cuisine."

Example- Land Lady: Dog and the bird were dead. but she stuffed them. "The back was hard and cold, and when he pushed the hair to one side with his fingers, he could see the skin underneath, grayish-black and dry and perfectly preserved.(460)

SHORT STORY: "They gathered brown boxes from the local grocery store". The boxes represent despite their lose they are able to move forward and put it in the past.

Example- never stop on the motorway: "a woman had been raped before having her throat cut with knife with a serrated edge and dumped in a ditch. For weeks there had been signs posted on the A1 appealing  to passing motorists to phone a certain number if they had any information that might assist the police were still searching for the killer."(229-230)

SHORT STORY: "Megan's faced turned upside, as the smell reminded her of last week, when her mom tried to make homemade mac and cheese."

Example- Land Lady: "but the trouble is that I'm inclined to be just a teeny weeny bit choosy and particular."(180)

SHORT STORY: "and she knew she had made a mess."

Example- Land Lady: "But haven't there been any other guests here except them in the last two or three years? no my dear, she said "Only you.""(480)

SHORT STORY: counting down with the clock, every tick was another moment of wonder, another stitch or another cut in the operation room."