His arms extended like an old-fashioned crooner's
The narrator uses a simile to directly compare the way that Walt Cormeau's arms extended to the way a crooner's arms extend. This direct comparison facilitates imagery and enhances the narrator's description of the character: "THE BELL JINGLED above the door, and Walt Comeau danced inside, his arms extended like an old-fashioned crooner’s, his silver hair slicked back on the sides, fifties style."
lobsters looked like cockroaches
When Miles goes to change her plates from Marcia, he tells her that the lobster plates were being made fun of. Miles uses a simile to emphasize the fact that the lobsters on the plates looked like cockroaches. He says: “People from out of state made fun of them. Said the lobsters looked like cockroaches.”
Tick's painting
While in the art class, the first assignment presented to the participants is to paint their most vivid dreams. As Tick starts drawing a painting of her clutching a snake in her fist, the narrator compares the earlier stages of her drawing of the snake to an eel. This comparison plays the pivotal role of promoting imagery in the reader's mind with respect to the painting. It also emphasizes on the striking resemblance between the painted snake and an eel: "The painting is going pretty well. The snake started out looking like an eel, but now it’s less flat, more serpentine, except it’s not as scary as the snake in her dream, which, no matter how tight her grip, manages to squirm up to where it can turn and look at her."
Candace's bending back and forth at the waist
After Candace injures her hand, she screams as the imagery of the blood oozing from her hand becomes more and more established. She wraps her hand around the wound and bends rapidly back and forth, a situation that the narrator compares to the way a mechanical bird sips water from a pool, only this time the pool was imaginary: "Candace, still screaming, wraps her thumb in the palm of her other hand and bends rapidly back and forth at the waist like one of those mechanical birds sipping water at an imaginary pool."
Tick's blurred vision
After the accident that sees Candace injure her hand, Tick develops a case of a panic attack. The narrator then uses a simile in which he compares the blurry vision that Tick has to the blurred edges of a television dream sequence. This particular comparison enables the reader to conceptualize the striking resemblance between the two events: "Tick’s left arm now hurts so bad that she’s beginning to feel light-headed, and the whole room takes on an odd sheen, blurred at the edges like a television dream sequence."
