A puppy

Erin couldn't understand why Rock had agreed to keep Tommy Smith, a local radio personality, as a house pet.
"He isn't housebroken?" she said. "What were you thinking?"
"I know it seems crazy, but it's not as bad as all that," Rock said. "He just doesn't like to be outside. I mean, he's not going to go on the floors or anything."
Later, just as dawn began to break, Tommy was a puppy—a boxer who seemed eager to dash out of the front door with Jo the cat.

How to fly

Rock had just left a large group of friends and acquaintances in the lobby of a hotel in downtown Hot Springs, Arkansas, and was on the way to his car, parked on a lakeshore close to the hotel. His legs had felt particularly strong and springy throughout the morning, and he felt compelled to run as he proceeded along a sidewalk. Shortly after he began to run, he jumped to see how long he could remain airborne. To his pleasure, he immediately knew he could float as long as he wanted, but as he approached a wide flight of concrete steps that descended to the street and beach below, he decided to opt for safety and land just short of the stairwell.
Rock guessed he had experienced this ability to fly a dozen or more times over the course of his life, including at least once in 2014. Unlike those times, though, this time he knew he wasn't dreaming. He was disappointed no one had seen him. https://hypoglycemicdreams.blogspot.com/search?q=jump+phase

Pam's place

Other students were fully aware of Rock's cat Pam. She had become somewhat of a fixture on the walkways and the mezzanine near White Hall, a dormitory on the southwestern edge of the University of Wyoming campus. It was still warm out, and Pam was as pretty as she had ever been, and she looked on fearlessly as students hurried past between classes.
Rock watched her walk up a short, wide concrete stairway and leap onto the base of its guardrail to make way for a group of coeds passing through.
"You have a beautiful cat, Rock," one said.
Rock was of course delighted, but he had already begun to worry about Pam's place in the cold weather to come.

Crazy

Rock and a literary professor friend of his walked together at dusk in the downtown of a major American city. They had just learned that The New Yorker agreed to publish an excerpt from Rock's novel A Different Closet and to pay him eight-thousand dollars.
"Has any student of yours had a story published in The New Yorker?" Rock said.
The professor considered for a moment.
"Yes," he said. "One, a long time ago, but I don't think they paid him eight-thousand for it."
"That was crazy," Rock said. "Heck, I can't understand why they paid me anything. I don't think I will ever write anything worthy of The New Yorker. I hope I'm not embarrassed by this."

You're dead

Someone decided to take a shortcut through Rock's apartment, which was easy since Rock left the kitchen door unlocked. He watched from the parking lot as the overweight man walked right through.
The solution was simple enough; Rock walked in and to the back door in the kitchen and engaged both its doorknob and bolt locks. He then returned to the living room and locked the front door, but as he stepped away, he saw through his front window a handful of Latino men and boys approach the door and knock.
Rock considered ignoring them, but he figured they had seen him through the window, so he unlocked the door. "What can I do for you?" he said.
"We hoped you would let us walk through your apartment." The man who spoke was the oldest of the group, perhaps thirty years old, Rock estimated.
"I hate to tell you, but I don't think that's a good idea," Rock said. "I hope you understand, but I just don't think it's a good idea to let people use my apartment as a shortcut."
Just then, a teenage boy appeared from behind Rock. He held a handful of small black plastic electronic equipment of some sort and was smiling.
"Look what I've already stolen," he said.
"Wait a minute," Rock said. "What's going on?"
The thirty-year-old smiled. "We're robbing you."
The group forced its way past Rock, and their leader shoved him against a wall. "You're dead," he said. "There's nothing you can do."

Shorthand

She was cute in a boyish sort of way, perhaps lesbian, Rock thought. He had come to the Arkansas-Little Rock sports information office at the Trojan Fieldhouse to interview her for a feature story he planned to write about one of her teammates on the school's women's basketball team. This particular player was no more than five feet tall and weighed perhaps a hundred pounds. She had short brunette hair, with bangs she frequently swept from her eyes.
Before Rock began the interview, he realized he had forgotten to bring a quote pad, but it occurred to him that he may have a left one years earlier in an office closet. He looked to find he indeed had. It appeared at a glance, and he opened it to see the names Tony Chime and Fred Summers scribbled on the first page. They were players from the early 1990s.
Rock was stunned. "Wow," he said. "Take a look at this."
He handed it to the player seated before him. "Have you ever heard of Tony Chime?"
Of course she hadn't. "How do you read this writing?" she said. "Is this shorthand?"