Against The Ropes Quotes

Introduction to Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

Ara?" She jerked her face up. "Huh? Where were we?" But his expression had grown serious, the lesson forgotten. He interlaced his fingers and said, "We are bound." "Bound?" He collected a piece of rope, knotting it. "Oh, you mean bound?" He gave a nod, then drew in the sand. An infinity symbol? "Clever demon, how did you know that...?" He was gazing at her with a question in his eyes. "Bound forever?" And somehow she met his gaze and lied, "Yes, demon. Bound forever." As if to make her feel guiltier, he gathered her into his arms, cupping her face against his broad chest. His voice a deep rumble, he said, "Carrow is Malkom's." She wanted to sob. "Yes?" "Yes," she answered, wishing that it could be so simple between them. Demon meets girl. Girl might be falling for demon.

He smoked a cigarette, standing in the dark and listening to her undress. She made sea sounds; something flapped like a sail; there was the creak of ropes; then he heard the wave-against-a-wharf smack of rubber on flesh. Her call for him to hurry was a sea-moan, and when he lay beside her, she heaved, tidal, moon-driven.

He kept telling me I was queer, and I didn't like it. The word, I mean. Shutting you away, somehow; roping you off with a lot of people you don't feel much in common with, half of whom hate the other half anyway, and just keep together so that they can lean up against each other for support.

It had become a chimney poking from a vertical universe of bookshelves. There was motion below her. There were people on the shelves. They clung to the edges of the cases and moved across them in expert scuttles. They wore ropes and hooks and carried picks on which they sometimes hung. Dangling from straps they carried notebooks, pens, magnifying glasses, ink pads, and stamps. The men and women took books from the shelves as they went, checked their details, leaning against their ropes, replaced them, pulled out little pads and made notes, sometimes carried the books with them to another place and reshelved it there. ... I'm Margarita Staples." She bowed in her harness. 'Extreme librarian. Bookaneer.

But I need you.” “Need me?” “Yes. Don’t you see? If I’m spending all my time with you, then Queen Levana can’t rope me in to any conversations or…” He shuddered. “Dancing.” Cinder reeled back, her gaze losing focus. Queen Levana. Of course this was about Queen Levana. What had Peony told her, ages ago? Rumors of a marriage alliance? “Not that I have anything against dancing. I can dance. If you want to dance.” She squinted at him. “What?” “Or not, if you don’t want to. Or if you don’t know how. Which is nothing to be ashamed of.

Tell me the truth,” he rasps. “Admit it made you hot. It made you wet. You are coiled so tight I could slide my hand down your panties and make you come before you could tell me to stop.

Fine. But remember, little rabbit, not a word to anyone." He moved close enough that the dark heat of him lapped against her in a quiet threat that made her glad for the blade. "I'm not a nice man when I'm angry." She held her position, a ragged attempt to erase the humiliation of the panic attack. "I'm fairly certain you're not a nice man at all." His answer was a slow smile that whispered of silk sheets, erotic whispers, and sweat-damp skin. The unhidden intent of it had her heart slamming hard against her ribs. "No" she said. Voice raw. "A challenge.” He wasn't touching her and yet she felt caressed by a thousand ropes of fur, soft and lush and unmistakably sexual. "I accept

I was crying and laughing, snuffing tears and blood, bumping at him with my bound hands, trying awkwardly to thrust them at him so that he could cut the rope. He quit grappling, and clutched me so hard against him that I yelped in pain as my face was pressed against his plaid. He was saying something else, urgently, but I couldn’t manage to translate it. Energy pulsed through him, hot and violent, like the current in a live wire, and I vaguely realized that he was still almost berserk; he had no English.

Adventure isn’t hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day to day obstacles of life – facing new challenges, seizing new opportunities, testing our resources against the unknown and in the process, discovering our own unique potential.

Suicide was against the law. Johnny had wondered why. It meant that if you missed, or the gas ran out, or the rope broke, you could get locked up in prison to show you that life was really very jolly and throughly worth living.

Matthias nooded, and the bronze girl took a knife to the ropes binding him. “I belive you know Nina,” Brekker continued. “The lovely girl freeing you is Inej, our thief of secrets and the best in the trade. Jesper Fahey is our sharpshooter, Zemeni-born but try not to hold it against him, and this is Wylan, best demolition expert in the Barrel.

Rampage frowns. “If you can’t even hear about it, how are you going to watch the fight?” Bucket on head. Facecloth over eyes. Torment has given me lots of options.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Does the friend have a name?” “Mac.” “Doesn’t suit you. Do you have a different name?

Misery tells me to shut my mouth or he’ll shut it for me with something so big, I’ll never be able to talk again. I hope it’s a big slice of pizza.

He explains he is going to mount me. Yes! And take a dominant position. Oh, yes!

As Elijah collapsed, shaking, against him, Baz wrapped his arms around his lover, shut his eyes and let the velvet rope Elijah had used to lead him here settle comfortably around his heart.

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken. And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for this is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

Deep Throat stamped his foot. “A conspiracy like this . . . a conspiracy investigation . . . the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone’s neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished—they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level.

Cardan grabs my face, fingers splayed against my neck. His breath is against my cheek. His other hand grabs my hair, winding it into a rope. --- "Get down on your knees," Cardan says, looking insufferably pleased with himself. His fury has transmuted into gloating. "Beg. Make it petty. Flowery. Worthy of me.

My default answer to everything is no. As soon as I hear the inflection of inquiry in your voice, the word no forms in my mind, sometimes accompanies by a reason, often not. Can I open the mail? No. Can I wear your necklace? No. When is dinner? No. What you probably wouldn't believe is how much I want to say yes. Yes, you can take two dozen books home from the library. Yes, you can eat the whole roll of SweeTarts. Yes, you can camp out on the deck. But the books will get lost, and SweeTarts will eventually make your tongue bleed, and if you sleep on the deck, the neighborhood racoons will nibble on you. I often wish I could come back to life as your uncle, so I could give you more. But, when you're the mom, your whole life is holding the rope against those wily secret agents who never, ever stop trying to get you to drop your end.

The sun was low in the sky, casting slant regal light. As they plodded along, the golden radiance intensified until it seemed to emanate from every feature of the land. Trees, brush, snow, hills. She couldn’t stop looking. The road led past frozen sloughs that bristled with scorched reeds. Clutches of red willow burned. The fans and whips of branches glowed, alive. Winter clouds formed patterns against the fierce gray sky. Scales, looped ropes, the bones of fish. The world was tender with significance.

So never give in,” continued the girl, and restated again and again the vague yet convincing plea that the Invisible lodges against the Visible. Her excitement grew as she tried to cut the rope that fastened Leonard to the earth. Woven of bitter experience, it resisted her. Presently the waitress entered and gave her a letter from Margaret. Another note, addressed to Leonard, was inside. They read them, listening to the murmurings of the river.

Deep Throat stamped his foot. “A conspiracy like this . . . a conspiracy investigation . . . the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone’s neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished—they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level. If you shoot too high and miss, then everybody feels more secure. Lawyers work this way. I’m sure smart reporters must, too. You

Deep Throat stamped his foot. “A conspiracy like this . . . a conspiracy investigation . . . the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone’s neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished—they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level. If you shoot too high and miss, then everybody feels more secure. Lawyers work this way. I’m sure smart reporters must, too. You’ve put the investigation back months. It puts everyone on the defensive—editors, FBI agents, everybody has to go into a crouch after this.” Woodward swallowed hard. He deserved the lecture.

You took something that belonged to me.” He let go of my arm and pushed to his feet. My mouth fell open and a loud gasp escaped as he took two impossible steps forward. Pinning me against the wall with his hard body, he lifted a hand to my throat and glided it up until his thumb stroked over my bottom lip. Using my chin, he turned my head and dragged his nose up my neck, stopping at my ear. After sucking in a deep breath, he released it on a gravelly demand. “And I want her back.

Deep Throat stamped his foot. 'A conspiracy like this...a conspiracy investigation...the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone's neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and the Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished - they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level. If you shoot too high and miss, the everyone feels more secure. Lawyers work this way. I'm sure smart reporters must, too. You've put the investigation back months. It puts everyone on the defensive - editors, FBI agents, everybody has to go into a crouch after this.' Woodward swallowed hard. He deserved the lecture. -- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

To be sure, I had, and have, spent the better part of my post-college life growing up in the public eye, with my shameful warts, big and ugly, looming there for the world to see; and it has been a mighty battle trying to be a man, a Black man, a human being, a responsible and consistent human being, as I have interfaced with my past and with my personal demons, with friends and lovers, with enemies and haters. As Tupac Shakur once famously said to me, “There is no placed called careful.” On the one hand, Tupac was right: There is not much room for error in America if you are a Black male in a society ostensibly bent on profiling your every move, eager to capitalize on your falling into this or that trap, particularly keen to swoop down on your self-inflicted mishaps. But by the same token, Tupac was wrong: There can be a place called careful, once one becomes aware of the world one lives in, its potential, its limitations, and if one is willing to struggle to create a new model, some new and alternative space outside and away from the larger universe, where one can be free enough to comprehend that even if the world seems aligned against you, you do not have to give the world the rope to hang you with.

...Is there a more monstrous thought, a more convincing spectacle, a more patent affirmation of the impotence and madness of the brain? War. All our philosophies, religions, arts, techniques and trades lead to nothing but this. The finest flowers of civilization. The purest constructions of thought. The most generous and altruistic passions of the heart. The most heroic gestures of man. War. Now and thousand years ago. Tomorrow and a hundred thousand years ago. No, it's not a ...more "...Is there a more monstrous thought, a more convincing spectacle, a more patent affirmation of the impotence and madness of the brain? War. All our philosophies, religions, arts, techniques and trades lead to nothing but this. The finest flowers of civilization. The purest constructions of thought. The most generous and altruistic passions of the heart. The most heroic gestures of man. War. Now and thousand years ago. Tomorrow and a hundred thousand years ago. No, it's not a question of your country, my German or French friend, or yours, whether you're black or white or Papuan or a Borneo monkey. It's a question of your life. If you want to live, kill. Kill so that you can be free, or eat, or shit. The shameful thing is to kill in masses, at a predetermined hour on a predetermined day, in honour of certain principles, under cover of a flag, with old men nodding approval, to kill in a disinterested or passive way. Stand alone against them all, young man, kill, kill, you are unique, you're the only man alive, kill until the others cut you short with the guillotine or the cord or the rope, with or without ceremony, in the name of the Community or King. What a laugh.

Merry kept talking, but he lost the thread. She wandered closer. With the knots banished, she gripped the tail of the rope in her fist, making an L of her arm and winding the length around her elbow in uniform loops. Rough, rasping rope against that smooth, perfect skin. And Rob on his knees.

He didn't want to think about this, didn't want to feel this, so he thought about the Foxes instead. He clung tight to the memory of their unhesitating friendship and their smiles. He pretended the heartbeat pounding a sick pace in his temples was an Exy ball ricocheting off the court walls. He thought of Wymack holding him up in December and Andrew pushing him down against the bedroom floor. The memories made him weak with grief and loss, but they made him stronger, too. He'd come to the Foxhole Court every inch a lie, but his friends made him into someone real. He'd hit the end of his rope before he wanted to and he hadn't accomplished everything he'd hoped to this year, but he'd done more with his life than he'd ever thought possible. That had to be enough. He traced the outline of a key into his bloody, burnt palm with a shaky finger, closed his eyes, and wished Neil Josten goodbye.

I brace my hands against the bark of the nearest tree as I feel my mind falling. It plummets to a dark and empty place, devoid of hope. There is no ladder or rope to climb back out. There is not end in sight. No light to guide my way.

and yet she continues to skip rope in my mind and on my canvases, raising her dark, hopeful face to the sky, innocent of the depth of people’s cruelty toward “the other”—those who, for whatever reason, must swim against the tide instead of letting it carry them. . . .

The naked man had lost hope now; he would never be able to return to the earth's surface;he would never leave the bottom of this shaft, and he would go mad there drinking blood and eating human flesh, without ever being able to die. Up there, against the sky, there were good angels with ropes, and bad angels with grenades and rifles, and a big old man with a white beard who waved his arms but could not save him.

What is it?” There is almost nothing I could refuse him at this very moment. Sex on the picnic bench? Check. Strip off and do the Macarena on the grass? Check. Crawl under the table and do naughty things? Not much experience in that department, but…check. Ride off into the sunset? Double check.

One night he sits up. In cots around him are a few dozen sick or wounded. A warm September wind pours across the countryside and sets the walls of the tent rippling. Werner’s head swivels lightly on his neck. The wind is strong and gusting stronger, and the corners of the tent strain against their guy ropes, and where the flaps at the two ends come up, he can see trees buck and sway. Everything rustles. Werner zips his old notebook and the little house into his duffel and the man beside him murmurs questions to himself and the rest of the ruined company sleeps. Even Werner’s thirst has faded. He feels only the raw, impassive surge of the moonlight as it strikes the tent above him and scatters. Out there, through the open flaps of the tent, clouds hurtle above treetops. Toward Germany, toward home. Silver and blue, blue and silver. Sheets of paper tumble down the rows of cots, and in Werner’s chest comes a quickening. He sees Frau Elena kneel beside the coal stove and bank up the fire. Children in their beds. Baby Jutta sleeps in her cradle. His father lights a lamp, steps into an elevator, and disappears. The voice of Volkheimer: What you could be. Werner’s body seems to have gone weightless under his blanket, and beyond the flapping tent doors, the trees dance and the clouds keep up their huge billowing march, and he swings first one leg and then the other off the edge of the bed. “Ernst,” says the man beside him. “Ernst.” But there is no Ernst; the men in the cots do not reply; the American soldier at the door of the tent sleeps. Werner walks past him into the grass. The wind moves through his undershirt. He is a kite, a balloon. Once, he and Jutta built a little sailboat from scraps of wood and carried it to the river. Jutta painted the vessel in ecstatic purples and greens, and she set it on the water with great formality. But the boat sagged as soon as the current got hold of it. It floated downstream, out of reach, and the flat black water swallowed it. Jutta blinked at Werner with wet eyes, pulling at the battered loops of yarn in her sweater. “It’s all right,” he told her. “Things hardly ever work on the first try. We’ll make another, a better one.” Did they? He hopes they did. He seems to remember a little boat—a more seaworthy one—gliding down a river. It sailed around a bend and left them behind. Didn’t it? The moonlight shines and billows; the broken clouds scud above the trees. Leaves fly everywhere. But the moonlight stays unmoved by the wind, passing through clouds, through air, in what seems to Werner like impossibly slow, imperturbable rays. They hang across the buckling grass. Why doesn’t the wind move the light? Across the field, an American watches a boy leave the sick tent and move against the background of the trees. He sits up. He raises his hand. “Stop,” he calls. “Halt,” he calls. But Werner has crossed the edge of the field, where he steps on a trigger land mine set there by his own army three months before, and disappears in a fountain of earth.

Max attacks Misery with the kind of vigor only reserved for really dirty ovens

potatoes off his pants. “Carbs,” he moans. “I’m going to gain at least ten pounds.

When men climb on a great mountain together the rope between them is more than a mere physical aid to the ascent; it is a symbol of the spirit of the enterprise. It is a symbol of men banded together in a common effort of will and strength, not against an imagined foeman of the instant but against their only true enemies; inertia, cowardice, greed, ignorance and all weaknesses of the spirit.

But we can certainly play hangman, the national preteen sport. I guess a letter, then another, then stumble on the third. My heart is not in the game. Grief surges over me. His face not two feet from mine, my son Théophile sits patiently waiting—and I, his father, have lost the simple right to ruffle his bristly hair, clasp his downy neck, hug his small, lithe, warm body tight against me. There are no words to express it. My condition is monstrous, iniquitous, revolting, horrible. Suddenly I can take no more. Tears well and my throat emits a hoarse rattle that startles Théophile. Don’t be scared, little man. I love you. Still engrossed in the game, he moves in for the kill. Two more letters: he has won and I have lost. On a corner of the page he completes his drawing of the gallows, the rope, and the condemned man.

They had met one another, at first not very often, throughout the heady autumn of the first London air raids. Never had a season been more felt; one bought the poetic sense of it with the sense of death. Out of mists of morning charred by the smoke from ruins each day rose to a height of unmisty glitter; between the last of sunset and first note of the siren the darkening glassy tenseness of evening was drawn fine. From the moment of waking you tasted the sweet autumn not less because of an acridity on the tongue and nostrils; and as the singed dust settled and smoke diluted you felt more and more called upon to observe daytime as a pure and curious holiday from fear. All through London the ropings-off of dangerous tracts of streets made islands of exalted if stricken silence, and people crowded against the ropes to admire the sunny emptiness on the other side. The diversion of traffic out of blocked main thoroughfares into byways, the unstopping phatasmagoric streaming of lorries, buses, vans, drays, taxis past modest windows and quiet doorways set up an overpowering sense of London’s organic power – somewhere there was a source from which heavy motion boiled, surged and, not to be damned up, force itself into new channels.

I would like to know who thinks this heart is worth one million dollars. Or maybe, I already do. A low murmur builds, rolling from the back of the room, gaining momentum as the crowd parts. I hold my breath, and

Ready?” she asked. Nina clutched the rope. “To be lowered like a sack of flour into the heart of witchhunter power?” “This was your idea. We can still turn around.” “Do not second-guess the sack of flour. The sack of flour is wise beyond her years.” Hanne rolled her eyes and braced her feet against the edge of the roof, and Nina stepped out into nothing. Hanne released a grunt, but the rope stayed steady. Slowly, she lowered Nina down. The first two windows she tried were locked tight, but the third gave way and she wiggled inside, landing on the carpeted floor with a thud. She was in a stairway. For a moment, she couldn’t orient herself, but she descended another story, and soon she was at the door to Brum’s office. This time, she didn’t have a key. It had been too risky to steal it again, so she would have to pick the lock. It took an embarrassingly long time. She could almost hear Kaz laughing at her. Shut up, Brekker. Talk to me when you’ve done something about that terrible haircut. Maybe he had by now. She hoped so for Inej’s sake.

And then there was one last body that stood out from the rest. It had signs of of bruising on all four ankles and all along its side. Brownie had said that all the dogs that didn't die from being hanged were drowned, except one. As that dog lay on the ground fighting for air, Quanis Phillips grabbed its front legs and Michael Vick grabbed its hind legs. They swung the dog over their head like a jump rope then slammed it to the ground. The first impact didn't kill it. So [they] slammed it again. The two men kept at it, alternating back and forth, pounding the creature against the ground, until at last, the little red dog was dead.

Picking oranges in Florida. Pushing a broom in New Orleans. Mucking out horse-stalls in Lufkin, Texas. Handing out real estate brochures on street corners in Phoenix, Arizona. Working jobs that pay cash. ... The faces on the currency don't matter. What matters is the sight of a weathervane against a violent pink sunset, the sound of his heels on an empty road in Utah, the sound of the wind in the New Mexico desert, the sight of a child skipping rope beside a junked-out Chevrolet Caprice in Fossil, Oregon. What matters is the whine of the powerlines beside Highway 50 west of Elko, Nevada, and a dead crow in a ditch outside Rainbarrel Springs. Sometimes he's sober and sometimes he gets drunk. Once he lays up in an abandoned shed-this is just over the California state line from Nevada-and drinks for four days straight. It ends with seven hours of off-and-on vomiting. For the first hour or so, the puking is so constant and so violent he is convinced it will kill him. Later on, he can only wish it would. And when it's over, he swears to himself that he's done, no more booze for him, he’s finally learned his lesson, and a week later lies drunk again and staring up at the strange stars behind the restaurant where he has hired on as a dishwasher. He is an animal in a trap and he doesn't care. ... Sometimes he asks himself what he thinks he's doing, where the hell he's going, and such questions are apt to send him in search of the next bottle in a hurry. Because he's really not going anywhere. He's just following the highways in hiding and dragging his trap along behind him, he's just listening to the call of those roads and going from one to the next. Trapped or not, sometimes he is happy; sometimes he sings in his chains like the sea. He wants to see the next weathervane standing against the next pink sunset. He wants to see the next silo crumbling at the end of some disappeared farmer's long-abandoned north field and see the next droning truck with TONOPAH GRAVEL or ASPLUNDH HEAVY CONSTRUCTION written on the side. He's in hobo heaven, lost in the split personalities of America. He wants to hear the wind in canyons and know that he's the only one who hears it. He wants to scream and hear the echoes run away.

Septimus had no need to untie Spit Fyre as the dragon had already chewed his way through the rope. They followed Aunt Zelda and Jenna out the side door at the foot of the turret and down to the Palace Gate. Aunt Zelda kept up a brisk pace. Showing a surprising knowledge of the Castle’s narrow alleyways and sideslips, she hurtled along. Oncoming pedestrians were taken aback at the sight of the large patchwork tent approaching them at full speed. They flattened themselves against the walls, and, as the tent passed by with the Princess, the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice and a feral-looking boy with bandaged hands—not to mention a dragon—in its wake, people rubbed their eyes in disbelief.

Having lost his mother, father, brother, and grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history—his home—the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an easy escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags, and crates, from handcuffs and shackles, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire frozen continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt—especially right after the war—a worthy challenge.

By itself,” he said, “pain is not always enough. There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something unendurable—something that cannot be contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It is merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed.

I found the sea air invigorating, and the unfamiliar smells and sounds I encountered every day fascinated me. There was, first of all, the pervading sea-salt odor, and the smell of the wind, bringing with it the faintest tang of the land it had blown over. There was the rich smell of the fresh-caught fish—so different from those sold in markets—and the musty dampness of the soaked ropes. The tar and resin found everywhere on board gave off a warm, raisinlike aroma that grew stronger as the sun rose. As for the sounds, I loved the slap-slap-slap of the water against the hull of the ship; it lulled me to sleep. The creaking of the rigging and the whoosh of the sail as it filled and deflated was like nothing else. How ordinary the sounds of street and market were by comparison. Water had lost its terror for me, for which I was deeply grateful. First I had ventured the harbor, then the Nile, now the open sea—I was cured of my fear, thanks be to all the gods!

Is this where it was?” Royce asked, stopping and studying the base of the tower. “How should I know?” Hadrian replied as his eyes coursed up the length of the south tower. Up close, it blocked everything else out, a solid wall of black rising against the light of the moon. “I can never understand why such small people build such gigantic things.” “Maybe they’re compensating,” Royce said, dropping several lengths of rope. “Damn it, Royce. It’s been eight years since we did this. I was in better shape then. I was younger, and if I recall, I vowed I would never do it again.” “That’s why you shouldn’t make vows. The moment you do, fate starts conspiring to shove them down your throat.” Hadrian sighed, staring upward. “That’s one tall tower.” “And if the dwarves were still here maintaining it, it would be impregnable. Lucky for us, they’ve let it rot. You should be happy—the last eight years would only have eroded it further. It should be easier.” “It’s granite, Royce. Granite doesn’t erode much in eight years

Er Lang examined his shoes in dismay. “You should have told me there was mud down here.” “Is that all you can say?” But I was glad, so glad to see him that I hugged him tightly. Despite his concern about his shoes, he didn’t seem to mind as I pressed my grimy face against his shoulder. “Last time it was a cemetery, and now the bottom of a well,” he remarked. “What were you doing anyway?” As I explained, his tone became icy. “So, you saved a murderer and let yourself be abandoned. Do you have some sort of death wish?” “Why are you so angry?” Pushing back his hat, I searched his face. It was a mistake, for faced with his unnerving good looks, I could only drop my eyes. “You might have broken your neck. Why can’t you leave these things to the proper authorities?” “I didn’t do it on purpose.” Incredibly, we were arguing again. “And where were you all this time? You could have sent me a message!” “How was I supposed to do that when you never left the house alone?” “But you could have come at any time. I was waiting for you!” Er Lang was incensed. “Is this the thanks I get?” If I had thought it through, I would never have done it. But I grasped the collar of his rope and pulled his face to mine. “Thank you,” I said, and kissed him. I meant to break away at once, but he caught me, his hand behind my head. “Are you going to complain about this?” he demanded. Wordlessly, I shook my head. My face reddened, remembering my awkward remarks about tongues last time. He must have recalled them as well, for he gave me an inscrutable look. “Open your mouth then.” “Why?” “I’m going to put my tongue in.” That he could joke at a time like this was really unbelievable. Despite my outrage, however, I flung myself into his arms. Half laughing, half furious, I pressed my mouth fiercely against his. He pinned me against the well shaft. The stone chilled my back through my wet clothes, but my skin burned where he held my wrists. Gasping, I could feel the heat of him as his tongue slipped inside. My pulse raced; my body trembled uncontrollably. There was only the hard pressure of his mouth, the slick thrust of his tongue. I wanted to cry, but no tears came. A river was melting in me, my core dissolving like wax in his arms. My ears hummed, I could only hear the rasping of our breaths, the hammering of my heart. A stifled moan escaped my lips. He gave a long sigh and broke away.

His eyes are cold and restless His wounds have almost healed And she'd give half of Texas Just to change the way he feels She knows his love's in Tulsa And she knows he's gonna go Well it ain't no woman flesh and blood It's that damned old rodeo Well it's bulls and blood It's dust and mud It's the roar of a Sunday crowd It's the white in his knuckles The gold in the buckle He'll win the next go 'round It's boots and chaps It's cowboy hats It's spurs and latigo It's the ropes and the reins And the joy and the pain And they call the thing rodeo She does her best to hold him When his love comes to call But his need for it controls him And her back's against the wall And it's So long girl I'll see you When it's time for him to go You know the woman wants her cowboy Like he wants his rodeo

Those who visited that exhibition-room found an auto-de-fé of immense skies in ignition, globes blotted out by bleeding suns; hemorrhages of stars, flowing down in purple cataracts over tumbling tufts of clouds. Against this background of terrible din, silent women passed, nude or appareled in jeweled stuffs, like the bindings of the old Evangelists; women with hair of shaggy silk, with pale blue eyes, hard and fixed, and flesh of the frozen whiteness of milk; Salomes holding, motionless upon a platter, the head of the Baptist, which shone, soaked in phosphorus, under the quincunxes with shorn leaves, of a green that was almost black; goddesses galloping on hippogriffs and streaking, with the lapis lazuli of their wings, the agony of the clouds; feminine idols, in tiaras, upright on thrones, at the top of stairs submerged in extraordinary flowers, or seated, in rigid poses, upon the backs of elephants with green-mantled foreheads and breasts strung with pearl-ropes like cavalry bells, stamping about upon their own heavy image, reflected in a sheet of water and splashed by the columns of the ring-circled legs!

He walked back to St George's-in-the-East, which in his mind he had now reduced to a number of surfaces against which the murderer might have leaned in sorrow, desperation or even, perhaps, joy. For this reason it was worth examining the blackened stones in detail, although he realised that the marks upon them had been deposited by many generations of men and women. It was now a matter of received knowledge in the police force that no human being could rest or move in any area without leaving some trace of his or her identity; but if the walls of the Wapping church were to be analysed by emission spectroscopy, how many partial or residual spectra might be detected? And he had an image of a mob screaming to be set free as he guided his steps towards the tower which rose above the houses cluttered around Red Maiden Lane, Crab Court and Rope Walk.

According to St. Augustine, the left hand represented the temporal, the mortal, and the bodily, as opposed to the right, which stood for “God, eternity, the years of God which fail not.”25 For centuries the preference for the right hand over the left governed how people fished, ploughed fields, twisted rope, and ate their meals. The Greeks and Romans, for example, always reclined on the left side, propped on the left elbow, leaving the right hand free for the business of eating and drinking. Plutarch noted that parents taught children to eat right-handed from a young age, and “if they do put forth the left hand, at once we correct them.”26 The prejudice against the left hand persisted during the Renaissance, with parents freeing a child’s right hand from its swaddling clothes to ensure right-handedness at the dinner table as well as at the writing desk.

While Molly stood off to the side laughing, both dogs bounding around her, Priss snuggled up against Matt and got twirled right off her feet. She put her head back and laughed aloud. Her hands clung to Matt’s shoulders. Her pelvis flattened against his. Long ropes of hair wrapped in silver foil stuck out around her head. She wore a cape and she had cotton wrapped in and around her toes. For a woman set on murdering her father, she looked mighty happy. Liger was the only one to notice Trace’s entrance. The big cat jumped down from the windowsill and started his way. Chris and Dare crowded in behind Trace. And still Trace stood there in the open doorway, frozen with some anomalous, churning emotion. Yeah, Matt was more than able to handle Priss. The son-of-a-bitch had just picked her up off her feet. Again. And again, Priss held on to him. Near his ear, Chris said, “Yeah, uh, this might be a good time to remind you that Matt is gay.” “Somehow,” Trace told him, “that’s not mattering to me much right now.” Dare said, “You never know when to quit, do you, Chris?” As Matt twirled her around, Priss laughed without reserve, and Trace wanted her so damn bad that he couldn’t see straight.

Theon returned to the Great Keep through a covered stone walkway, the echoes of his footsteps mingling with the ceaseless rumble of the sea below. To get to the Sea Tower on its crooked pillar, he had to cross three further bridges, each narrower than the one before. The last was made of rope and wood, and the wet salt wind made it sway underfoot like a living thing. Theon’s heart was in his mouth by the time he was halfway across. A long way below, the waves threw up tall plumes of spray as they crashed against the rock. As a boy, he used to run across this bridge, even in the black of night. Boys believe nothing can hurt them, his doubt whispered. Grown men know better.

Set your ambitions, even if you are uncertain about what they should be. The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity. Knowing this, tie a rope to a boulder. Pick up the great stone, heave it in front of you, and pull yourself towards it. Watch and observe while you move forward. Articulate your experience as clearly and carefully to yourself and others as you possibly can. In this manner, you will learn to proceed more effectively and efficiently towards your goal. And, while you are doing this, do not lie. Especially to yourself.

The Irish were poor, but not enslaved. He had come here to hack away at the ropes that held American slavery in place. Sometimes it withered him just to keep his mind steady. He was aware that the essence of proper intelligence was the embrace of contradiction. And the recognition of complexity was to be balanced against the need for simplicity. He was still a slave. Fugitive. If he returned to Boston he could be kidnapped at any time, taken south, strapped to a tree, whipped. His owners. They would make a spectacle of his fame. They had tried to silence him for many years already. No longer. He had been given a chance to speak out against what had held him in chains. And he would continue to do so until the links lay in pieces at his feet.

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken. And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

I may not be holding you with a magic rope anymore, but I will never let you go, and I will never leave you. I would defy creatures, and Gods, and terrible, brutal queens to keep you safe and by my side. I would move Mount Olympus itself to hold you in my arms and feel your heart beat against mine. You are my soul, and yes, I will fight for you and protect you until my dying breath.

The heartwood," Rob murmured, looking at me. "You wanted to marry me in the heart of Major Oak." I beamed at him grateful that he understood. "And Scar," he whispered. I leaned in close. "Are you wearing knives to our wedding?" Nodding, I laughed, telling him, "I was going to get you here one way or another, Hood." He laughed, a bright, merry sound. Standing in the heart of the tree, he reached again for my hand, fingers sliding over mine. Touching his hand, a rope of lightening lashed round my fingers, like it seared us together. Now, and for always. His fingers moved on mine, rubbing over my hand before capturing it tight and turning me to the priest. The priest looked over his shoulder, watching as the sun began to dip. He led us in prayer, he asked me to speak the same words I'd spoken not long past to Gisbourne, but that whole thing felt like a bad dream, like I were waking and it were fading and gone for good. "Lady Scarlet." he asked me with a smile, "known to some as Lady Marian of Huntingdon, will thou have this lord to thy wedded husband, will thou love him and honour him, keep him and obey him, in health and in sickness, as a wife should a husband, forsaking all others on account of him, so long as ye both shall live?" I looked at Robin, tears burning in my eyes. "I will," I promised. "I will, always." Rob's face were beaming back at me, his ocean eyes shimmering bright. The priest smiled. "Robin of Locksley, will thou have this lady to thy wedded wife, will thou love her and honor her, keep her and guard her, in health and in sickness, as a husband should a wife, forsaking all others on account of her, so long as ye both shall live?" the priest asked. "Yes," Rob said. "I will." "You have the rings?" the priest asked Rob. "I do," I told the priest, taking two rings from where Bess had tied them to my dress. I'd sent Godfrey out to buy them at market without Rob knowing. "I knew you weren't planning on this," I told him. Rob just grinned like a fool at me, taking the ring I handed him to put on my finger. Laughs bubbled up inside of me, and I felt like I were smiling so wide something were stuck in my cheeks and holding me open. More shy and proud than I thought I'd be, I said. "I take you as me wedded husband, Robin. And thereto I plight my troth." I pushed the ring onto his finger. He took my half hand in one of his, but the other- holding the ring- went into his pocket. "I may not have known I would marry you today Scar," he said. "But I did know I would marry you." He showed me a ring, a large ruby set in delicate gold. "This," he said to me, "was my mother's. It's the last thing I have of hers, and when I met you and loved you and realized your name was the exact colour of the stone- " He swallowed, and cleared his throat, looking at me with the blue eyes that shot right through me. "This was meant to be Scarlet. I was always meant to love you. To marry you." The priest coughed. "Say the words, my son, and you will marry her." Rob grinned and I laughed, and Rob stepped closer, cradling my hand. "I take you as my wedded wife, Scarlet. And thereto I plight my troth." He slipped the ring on my finger and it fit. "Receive the Holy Spirit," the priest said, and kissed Robin on the cheek. Rob's happy grin turned a touch wolflike as he turned back to me, hauling me against him and angling his mouth over mine. I wrapped my arms around him and my head spun- I couldn't tell if we were spinning, if I were dizzy, if my feet were on the ground anymore at all, but all I knew, all I cared for, were him, his mouth against mine, and letting the moment we became man and wife spin into eternity.

Why? That was Half Tail, passed along and scent-marked. Perrin hesitated before answering. He had dreaded this. He felt about the wolves as he did about Two Rivers people. They have caged Shadowkiller, he thought at last. That was what the wolves called Rand, but he had no idea whether they considered Rand important. The shock filling his mind was answer enough, but howls filled the night, near and far, howls filled with anger and fear. In the camp horses whinnied fearfully, stamping their hooves as they shied against the picked ropes. Men ran to calm them, and others to peer into the darkness as if expected a huge pack to come after the mounts. We come, Half Tail replied at last. Only that, and then others answered, packs Perrin had spoken to and packs that had listened silently to the two-legs who could speak as the wolves did. We come.

I’m guessing you don’t have to share a bathroom at your house,” I say with the casual tone of someone who isn’t waving her half-naked bottom in the air in front of a hunky, semi-stranger and soon-to-be- boss. I push myself to my feet and edge my way back to the dresser, this time keeping my back to the wall. He snorts a laugh. “No. Nor do I have a back door in my bedroom or a collection of random people walking around my house.

She could be in a warehouse, someone’s home. She might not even be in Kerch anymore. It didn’t matter. She was Inej Ghafa, and she would not quiver like a rabbit in snare. Wherever I am, I just have to get out. She’d managed to nudge her blindfold down by scraping her face against the wall. The room was pitch-black, and all she could hear in the silence was her own rapid breathing as panic seized her again. She’d leashed it by controlling her breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, letting her mind turn to prayer as her Saints gathered around her. She imagined them checking the ropes at her wrists, rubbing life into her hands. She did not tell herself she wasn’t afraid. Long ago, after a bad fall, her father had explained that only fools were fearless. We meet fear, he’d said. We greet the unexpected visitor and listen to what he has to tell us. When fear arrives, something is about to happen. Inej intended to make something happen.

A star hit in the hills behind our house up where the grass turns brown touching the sky. Meteors have hit the world before, but this was near, and since TV; few saw, but many felt the shock. The state of California owns that land (and out from shore three miles), and any stars that come will be roped off and viewed on week days 8 to 5. A guard who took the oath of loyalty and denied any police record told me this: “If you don’t have a police record yet you could take the oath and get a job if California should be hit by another star.” “I’d promise to be loyal to California and to guard any stars that hit it,” I said, “or any place three miles out from shore, unless the star was bigger than the state—in which case, I’d be loyal to it.” But he said no exceptions were allowed, and he leaned against the state-owned meteor so calm and puffed a cork-tip cigarette that I looked down and traced with my foot in the dust and thought again and said, “OK—any star.

Nesta stretched out her legs, leaning her bruised palms on the stone. 'Enjoy your exercises.' Cassian bristled. But he held out his hand again. 'Please.' She'd never heard him say that word. It was a rope thrown between them. He'd meet her halfway- let her win the power battle, admit defeat, if she would just get off the rock. She told herself to get up, to take that outstretched hand. But she couldn't Couldn't bring her body to rise. His hazel eyes were bright with pleading in the morning sun, the wind dancing in his dark hair. Like he was made from these mountains, crafted from wind and stone. He was so beautiful. Not in the way that Azriel and Rhys were beautiful, but in an uncut way. Savage and unrelenting. The first time she'd seen Cassian, she couldn't take her eyes off him. She felt like she'd spent her life surrounded by boys, and then a man- a male, she supposed- had suddenly appeared. Everything about him had radiated that confident, arrogant masculinity. It had been heady and overwhelming, and all she'd wanted, all she'd wanted for so many months, was to touch him, smell him, taste him. Get close to that strength and throw everything she was against it because she knew he'd never break, never falter, never balk. But the light in his eyes dimmed as he lowered his hand. She deserved his disappointment. Deserved his resentment and disgust. Even if it carved something vital from her. 'Tomorrow, then,' Cassian said. He didn't speak to her again for the rest of the day.

Not everyone believes in marriage then. To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too – that history and tradition and hope could stay knitted together to hold you up. But the war had come and stolen all the fine young men and our faith too. There was only today to throw yourself into without thinking about tomorrow, let alone forever. To keep you from thinking there was liquor, an ocean's worth at least, all the usual vices and plenty of rope to hang yourself with. But some of us, very few in the end, bet on marriage against the odds.

...Is there a more monstrous thought, a more convincing spectacle, a more patent affirmation of the impotence and madness of the brain? War. All our philosophies, religions, arts, techniques and trades lead to nothing but this. The finest flowers of civilization. The purest constructions of thought. The most generous and altruistic passions of the heart. The most heroic gestures of man. War. Now and thousand years ago. Tomorrow and a hundred thousand years ago. No, it's not a question of your country, my German or French friend, or yours, whether you're black or white or Papuan or a Borneo monkey. It's a question of your life. If you want to live, kill. Kill so that you can be free, or eat, or shit. The shameful thing is to kill in masses, at a predetermined hour on a predetermined day, in honour of certain principles, under cover of a flag, with old men nodding approval, to kill in a disinterested or passive way. Stand alone against them all, young man, kill, kill, you are unique, you're the only man alive, kill until the others cut you short with the guillotine or the cord or the rope, with or without ceremony, in the name of the Community or King. What a laugh.

As youngest among us, but small no more, Your life can be trying, for we have the chore Of becoming your teachers, a terrible bore. "We've got experience! Take it from me!" "We've done this all before, you see. We know the ropes, we know the same." Since time immemorial, always the same. One's own shortcomings are nothing but fluff, But everyone else's are heavier stuff: Faultfinding comes easy when this is our plight, But it's hard for your parents, try as they might, To treat you with fairness, and kindness as well; Nitpicking's a habit that's hard to dispel. Men you're living with old folks, all you can do Is put up with their nagging -- it's hard but it's true. The pill may be bitter, but down it must go, For it's meant to keep the peace, you know. The many months here have not been in vain, Since wasting time noes against your Brain. You read and study nearly all the day, Determined to chase the boredom away. The more difficult question, much harder to bear, Is "What on earth do I have to wear? I've got no more panties, my clothes are too tight, My shirt is a loincloth, I'm really a siaht! To put on my shoes I must off my toes, Dh dear, I'm plagued with so many woes!

Against Fate Hey, Fate! When you fail a man, you spend all your time digging a well to trap him. Then you untie the well's wheel rope so that it can roll. And you keep the poor mortal struggling up, only to fall back. You show him a bushel of means and say "This is it. Worry about it, and dream." Meanwhile you spin the wheel of fortune and fill the house of the wicked with jewels, while you force the just and scrupulous to sweep up the pieces. And the man who should not even tend pigs rides a horse as a cavalier. And without a shovel, you scoop ruin onto the house of the honorable and the just. Fate, if I speak evil of you, you'll claim the man is jealous and confused But why do you look crossly at the learned and make the ignorant the landlord? Hey, why toss the bread of the wise so far down the valley? And why should I believe in your justice When you don't serve it to anyone important? Not that you keep either oath or bargain, treacherous one. Whomever you love today and who is raised to a golden throne, tomorrow may be sitting in ashes. How can such a fraudulent judge make a just decision? Fate, friend of the deceitful and devious, you are harsh to the honest. What more can I say except that someday I expect you to mix up sky and earth and sea.

A snap and roar of fury echoed across the lands, scattering the birds. When I climbed out of the tree and walked into the little clearing, I merely crossed my arms and looked up at the High Lord, dangling by his legs from the snare I’d laid. Even upside down, he smiled lazily at me as I approached. “Cruel human.” “That’s what you get for stalking someone.” He chuckled, and I came close enough to dare stroke a finger along the silken golden hair dangling just above my face, admiring the many colors within it—the hues of yellow and brown and wheat. My heart thundered, and I knew he could probably hear it. But he leaned his head toward me, a silent invitation, and I ran my fingers through his hair—gently, carefully. He purred, the sound rumbling through my fingers, arms, legs, and core. I wondered how that sound would feel if he were fully pressed up against me, skin-to-skin. I stepped back. He curled upward in a smooth, powerful motion and swiped with a single claw at the creeping vine I’d used for rope. I took a breath to shout, but he flipped as he fell, landing smoothly on his feet. It would be impossible for me to ever forget what he was, and what he was capable of. He took a step closer to me, the laughter still dancing on his face. “Feeling better today?” I

Let us grant courage and the love of pure adventure their own justification, even if we cannot produce any material support for them. Mankind has developed an ugly habit of only allowing true courage to the killers. Great credits accrue to the one who bests another; little is given to the man who recognises in his comrade on the rope a part of himself, who for long hours of extreme peril faces no opponent to be shot or struck down, but whose battle is solely against his own weakness and insufficiency. Is the man who, at moments when his own life is in the balance, has not only to safeguard it but, at the same time, his friend's- even to the extent of mutual self-sacrifice- to receive less recognition than a boxer n the ring, simply because the nature of what he is doing is not properly understood? In his book about the Dachstein, Kurt Maix writes: "Climbing is th emost royl irrationality out of which Man, in his creative imagination, has been able to fashion the highest personal values." Those personal values, which we gain from our approach to the mountains, are great enough to enrich our life. Is not the irrationality of its very lack of purpose the deepest argument for climbing? But we had better leave philosophical niceties and unsuitable psychoanalisis out of this.

When he’d ordered the Aphrodite converted to accommodate passengers, the builder had given him an option. Did he want four gentlemen’s cabins, similar to the ladies’? Or would he prefer to squeeze six smaller berths into the same space? Gray’s answer? Six, of course. No question about it. Two extra beds meant two extra fares. He hadn’t dreamed he’d one day occupy one of these cramped berths. Six feet of angry man, lashed into a five-foot bunk, in the midst of a howling gale-it wasn’t a recipe for a good night’s sleep. Gray craved the space and comfort of his former quarters aboard the Aphrodite-the captain’s cabin. But as his brother had so officiously pointed out, Gray wasn’t the captain of this ship anymore. Throw his arse in the brig, had Joss threatened? Gray tossed indignantly, his chest straining against the ropes hat held him in the child-sized bed. The ship’s brig didn’t sound so bad right now. He’d put up with a few iron bars, the rancid bilgewater and rats, if it meant he could stretch his legs properly. Hell, this room was so damned small, he couldn’t even get his blasted boots off. He kicked the wall of his berth, no doubt scuffing the shine on his new Hessians. He hated the cursed things anyway. They pinched his feet. Why the devil he’d thought it a brilliant notion to get all dandified for this voyage, Gray couldn’t remember. Just who was he trying to impress? Stubb?

They were still quite near the ship; she saw its green side towering high above them, and people looking at her from the deck. Then, as one might have expected, Eustace clutched at her in a panic and down they both went. When they came up again she saw a white figure diving off the ship’s side. Edmund was close beside her now, treading water, and had caught the arms of the howling Eustace. Then someone else, whose face was vaguely familiar, slipped an arm under her from the other side. There was a lot of shouting going on from the ship, heads crowding together above the bulwarks, ropes being thrown. Edmund and the stranger were fastening ropes round her. After that followed what seemed a very long delay during which her face got blue and her teeth began chattering. In reality the delay was not very long; they were waiting till the moment when she could be got on board the ship without being dashed against its side. Even with all their best endeavors she had a bruised knee when she finally stood, dripping and shivering, on the deck. After her Edmund was heaved up, and then the miserable Eustace. Last of all came the stranger--a golden-headed boy some years older than herself. “Ca--Ca--Caspian!” gasped Lucy as soon as she had breath enough. For Caspian it was; Caspian, the boy king of Narnia whom they had helped to set on the throne during their last visit. Immediately Edmund recognized him too. All three shook hands and clapped one another on the back with great delight.

Dominic, with the powerful aura, got under my skin before I had a chance to ward him off and now I’m screwed. Even more now I know his taste and how hard he feels against the soft, wet parts of me. Dominic just introduced me to the most dangerous man in New York. Fuck. Fuck. Clarity pours over me. Does this mean Dominic is a member of the mafia after all? Only it wasn’t only a little kiss, was it? I’m sexually frustrated and Dom is standing there with his hands in his tailored pants pockets, aroused. The bulge is unmistakable. “Gabriella…” God, I’m wet too. If I rub my thighs together, I’ll feel how much. He’s hard, I’m wet… it’s a match made in heaven. “Gabriella…” he says again, thick and tarnished as I look him up and down. “Yeah?” “I said you’re too far away,” he murmurs, cutting his dark gaze my way. Stirring me. “Come here to me, cara.” he hooks two fingers with a motion and smirks like a devil with the key to all my desires. I swear my belly bottoms out as my feet carry me forward. Unable to refuse the invisible rope he has around my waist, pulling me closer. “Bossy aren’t you?” “I am your boss.” “I don’t think you want to remind me of that.” He hums and the rumble hurtles down between my thighs. How does he do that? Turn me on with just a noise. “I guess you’d like it if I called you sir, wouldn’t you?” His eyes flare and then darken, he drops his chin to his chest. “Do you really wish to turn me on right this moment?” Oh, fuck. Do I? I do. Yeah, I really do.

Naturally, society has an indisputable right to protect itself against arrant subjectivisms, but, in so far as society is itself composed of de-individualized human beings, it is completely at the mercy of ruthless individualists. Let it band together into groups and organizations as much as it likes – it is just this banding together and the resultant extinction of the individual personality that makes it succumb so readily to a dictator. A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally short-sighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hand of a single madman. Unfortunately, this realization does not seem to have penetrated very far - and our blindness is extremely dangerous. People go on blithely organizing and believing in the remedy of mass action, without the least consciousness of the fact that the most powerful organizations can be maintained only by the greatest ruthlessness of their leaders and the cheapest of slogans. Curiously enough, the Churches too want to avail themselves of mass action in order to cast out the devil with Beelzebub – the very Churches whose care is the salvation of the individual soul. They too do not appear to have heard anything of the elementary axiom of mass psychology, that the individual becomes morally and spiritually inferior in the mass, and for this reason they do not burden themselves overmuch with their real task of helping the individual to achieve a metanoia, or rebirth of the spirit – deo concedente. It is, unfortunately, only too clear that if the individual is not truly regenerated in spirit, society cannot be either, for society is the sum total of individuals in need of redemption. I can therefore see it only as a delusion when the Churches try – as they apparently do – to rope the individual into a social organization and reduce him to a condition of diminished responsibility, instead of raising him out of the torpid, mindless mass and making clear to him that he is the one important factor and that the salvation of the world consists in the salvation of the individual soul.

Because there’s a silent, shrugging, stoical acceptance of all the things in the world we can never be part of: shorts, swimming pools, strappy dresses, country walks, roller-skating, ra-ra skirts, vest tops, high heels, rope climbing, sitting on a high stool, walking past building sites, flirting, being kissed, feeling confident. And ever losing weight, ever. The idea of suggesting we don’t have to be fat –that things could change –is the most distant and alien prospect of all. We’re fat now and we’ll be fat forever and we must never, ever mention it, and that is the end of it. It’s like Harry Potter’s Sorting Hat. We were pulled from the hat marked ‘Fat’ and that is what we must now remain, until we die. Fat is our race. Our species. Our mode. As a result, there is very little of the outside world –and very little of the year –we can enjoy. Summer is sweaty under self-conscious layers. On stormy days, wind flattens skirts against thighs, and alarms both us and, we think, onlookers and passers-by. Winter is the only time we feel truly comfortable: covered head to toe in jumpers, coats, boots and hat. I develop a crush on Father Christmas. If I married him, not only would I be expected to stay fat, but I’d look thin standing next to him, in comparison. Perspective would be my friend. We all dream of moving to Norway, or Alaska, where we could wear massive padded coats all the time, and never reveal an inch of flesh. When it rains, we’re happiest of all. Then we can just stay in, away from everyone, in our pyjamas, and not worry about anything. The brains in jars can stay inside, nice and dry.

Hope, though; now there’s a real pest. Hope doesn’t just nibble your cheese and chew holes in your skirting boards. Hope keeps you plodding on when it really is time to call it quits. Hope drags you to sixteen auditions in a single day, when there’s a nice job in your brother-in-law’s tannery just waiting for you. Hope keeps you going in Old Stairs or Paradise, even though there’s no money and nothing to eat and the landlord just took your chair and your chamber pot. Personally, I can see no great merit in simply being alive if you’re miserable and in pain, but Hope won’t let you go. She’s a tease, like bad children teasing a dumb animal, and I’ve made a point of avoiding her whenever I can. Still, sometimes she runs you down and there’s nowhere left for you to go. You can turn and fight her and lose, or let her scoop you up and turn your brain to mush. Hope against hope. We had human chains shifting those blocks with levers and rollers, through the narrow alleys where carts couldn’t go. We had shifts digging the ditch by lamplight, in the rain. And in every working party there was at least one man who cheerfully announced that it wasn’t going to work, the whole idea was stupid, the enemy’ll find a way round this in two shakes, just you see; and even he didn’t really believe it, because of Hope. Hope turns a hundred men and women ripping the skin off their hands on a coarse hemp rope into a street party. Someone tells a joke, or clowns around, or starts singing a favourite song from one of the shows, and Hope bursts through, like sappers, and next thing you know she’s everywhere, like smoke, or floodwater, or rats. We’re going to beat Ogus, she whispers in every ear, and this time it’ll be different.

He didn't want to think about this, didn't want to feel this, so he thought about the Foxes instead. He clung tight to the memory of their unhesitating friendship and their smiles. He pretended the heartbeat pounding a sick pace in his temples was an Exy ball ricocheting off the court walls. He thought of Wymack holding him up in December and Andrew pushing him down against the bedroom floor. The memories made him weak with grief and loss, but they made him stronger, too. He'd come to the Foxhole Court every inch a lie, but his friends made him into someone real. He'd hit the end of his rope before he wanted to and he hadn't accomplished everything he'd hoped to this year, but he'd done more with his life than he'd ever thought possible. That had to be enough. He traced the outline of a key into his bloody, burnt palm with a shaky finger, closed his eyes, and wished Neil Josten goodbye.

The crowd as silent,holding their breaths.Hot wind rustled in the trees as the ax gleamed in the sun.Luce could feel that the end was coming,but why? Why had her soul dragged her here? What insight abouther past,or the curse, could she possibly gain from having her head cut off? Then Daniel dropped the ax to the ground. "What are you doing?" Luce asked. Daniel didn't answer.He rolled back his shoulders, turned his face toward the sky, and flung out her arms. Zotz stepped forward to interfere,but when he touched Daniel's shoulder,he screamed and recoiled as if he'd been burned. And then- Daniel's white wings unfurled from his shoulders.As they extended fully from his sides,huge and shockingly bright against the parched brown landscape, they sent twenty Mayans hurtling backward. Shouts rang out around the cenote: "What is he?" "The boy is winged!" "He is a god! Sent to us by Chaat!" Luce thrashed against the ropes binding her wrists and her ankles.She needed to run to Daniel.She tried to move toward him,until- Until she couldn't move anymore. Daniel's wings were so bright they were almost unbearable. Only, now it wasn't just Daniel's wings that were glowing. It was...all of him. His entire body shone.As if he'd swallowed the sun. Music filled the air.No,not music, but a single harmonious chord.Deafening and unending,glorious and frightening. Luce had heard it before...somewhere. In the cemetery at Sword&Cross, the last night she'd been there,the night Daniel had fought Cam,and Luce hadn't been allowed to watch.The night Miss Sophia had dragged her away and Penn had died and nothing had ever been the same.It had begun with that very same chord,and it was coming out of Daniel.He was lit up so brightly,his body actually hummed. She swayed where she stood,unable to take her eyes away.An intense wave of heat stroked her skin. Behind Luce,someone cried out.The cry was followed by another,and then another,and then a whole chorus of voices crying out. Something was burning.It was acrid and choking and turned her stomach instantly. Then,in the corner of her vision,there was an explosion of flame, right where Zotz had been standing a moment before. The boom knocked her backward,and she turned away from the burning brightness of Daniel,coughing on the black ash and bitter smoke. Hanhau was gone,the ground where she'd stood scorched black.The gap-toothed man was hiding his face,trying hard not to look at Daniel's radiance.But it was irresistible.Luce watched as the man peeked between his fingers and burst into a pillar of flame. All around the cenote,the Mayans stared at Daniel.And one by one,his brilliance set them ablaze.Soon a bright ring of fire lit up the jungle,lit up everyone but Luce. "Ix Cuat!" Daniel reached for her. His glow made Luce scream out in pain,but even as she felt as if she were on the verge of asphyxiation, the words tumbled from her mouth. "You're glorious." "Don't look at me," he pleaded. "When a mortal sees an angel's true essence, then-you can see what happened to the others.I can't let you leave me again so soon.Always so soon-" "I'm still here," Luce insisted. "You're still-" He was crying. "Can you see me? The true me?" "I can see you." And for just a fraction of a second,she could.Her vision cleared.His glow was still radiant but not so blinding.She could see his soul. It was white-hot and immaculate,and it looked-there was no other way to say it-like Daniel. And it felt like coming home.A rush of unparalleled joy spread through Luce.Somewhere in the back of her mind,a bell of recognition chimed. She'd seen him like this before. Hadn't she? As her mind strained to draw upon the past she couldn't quite touch,the light of him began to overwhelm her. "No!" she cried,feeling the fire sear her heart and her body shake free of something.

I had started climbing trees about three years earlier, or rather, re-started; for I had been at a school that had a wood for its playground. We had climbed and christened the different trees (Scorpio, The Major Oak, Pegagsus), and fought for their control in territorial conflicts with elaborate rules and fealties. My father built my brother and me a tree house in our garden, which we had defended successfully against years of pirate attack. In my late twenties, I had begun to climb trees again. Just for the fun of it: no ropes, and no danger either. In the course of my climbing, I learned to discriminate between tree species. I liked the lithe springiness of silver birch, the alder and the young cherry. I avoided pines -- brittle branches, callous bark -- and planes. And I found that the horse chestnut, with its limbless lower trunk and prickly fruit, but also its tremendous canopy, offered the tree-climber both a difficulty and an incentive.

In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused. At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against? Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken. And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can

Release him or else.” Remy groaned as he couldn’t help imagining the jests he’d have to put up with. What male allowed himself to get saved by his woman? “What are you doing, Ysabel? I have this under control.” “Really, because from here it looks like you’re all tied up.” She strode into view with a cool smile, wearing an outfit that would look even better on the floor. “Bah, as if something like rope could hold me.” He yanked his arms apart and showed her his freed hands, a moment before a sharp point pressed against the back of his neck. “Move and he dies!” Francisco yelled. Cocking a hip, and crossing her arms, a smirk crossed his witch’s lips. “I don’t think so. That demon belongs to me, and I’d prefer him in one piece. So move the dagger away before I hurt you. Or don’t. But know this, if you even so much as scratch him, I’ll make sure your return to Hell is even more painful.” “I knew you cared,” Remy exclaimed. “Apparently, the insanity in your family is contagious,” she replied dryly. “Besides, you already forced me into admitting I loved you. As such, I realized I couldn’t exactly let Francisco kill you. That should be my pleasure alone.” “You say the sweetest things,” Remy teased.

Akos sprinted to my side, bent over me, and wrapped an arm around my waist. Together we ran toward the rope. He grabbed it with one hand, and it jerked up, fast. Too fast for Vas to grab. Everyone around us was roaring. He shouted into my ear, “I’m going to need you to hold on by yourself!” I cursed at him. I tried not to look down at the crowded seats below us, the frenzy we had left behind, the distant ground, but it was hard not to. I focused instead on Akos’s armor. I wrapped my arms around his chest and clamped my hands around the collar of it. When he released me, I gritted my teeth--I was too weak to hold on like this, too weak to support my own weight. Akos reached up with the hand he had been using to hold me, and his fingers approached the force field that blanketed the amphitheater. It lit up brighter when his fingers touched it, then flickered, and went out. The rope jerked up, hard, making me whimper as I almost lost my grip, but then we were inside the transport vessel. We were inside, and it was deadly quiet. “You made Vas feel pain,” I said, breathless. I touched his face, ran a fingertip down his nose, over his upper lip. He wasn’t as bruised as he had been the last time I saw him, cowering on the floor at my touch. “I did,” he replied. “Eijeh was in the amphitheater, he was right there. You could have grabbed him. Why didn’t you--” His mouth--still under my fingers--twitched into a smile. “Because I came for you, you idiot.” I laughed and fell against him, not strong enough to stand anymore.

The date rape drug he’d intended to give me has knocked him out so hard he’s barely even flinched, despite being dragged to the top of a twelve-storey building, stripped naked and bound to a post. His head lolls towards his chest. I stand back to admire him, taking in his slumped frame as he wilts against the pressure of his rope bindings. He looks Christ-like, vulnerable. His skin is grey in the murky moonlight. His body is incredible. Hardly surprising, since he seems to spend half his life at the gym. His stomach is taut, rippled with abs. His pecs are straight from a swimwear ad, his broad shoulders and ripped arms are built like a boxer’s. His biceps are strong, lined with veins that will soon cease to pump blood. He has the kind of arms that could pin you down so tightly you wouldn’t be able to move a muscle. His hands are large – the least attractive part of him: dry, thick, stubby. They’re the type of hands that could grip your wrists and stifle screams. Hands that could have killed me tonight. Hands that would have hurt me. Hands that would have held me in place while he raped me. I let my eyes wander down to his cock, which would probably have been pounding away inside me around now if things had gone his way. I could tell pretty early into our date that he was a predator. Perhaps it takes one to know one, but I could see it in his dark eyes and sly glances, the hungry way he took in my body, the type of questions he asked, his eagerness to buy me drinks. He probably didn’t think I had it in me to notice. Of course he didn’t. He just saw my shiny, sweeping hair, my lashes, my clothes, my smile. He saw what everybody else sees: my mask.

Was it a convent you escaped from, Miss Turner?” He turned the boat with a deft pull on one oar. “Escaped?” Her heart knocked against her hidden purse. “I’m a governess, I told you. I’m not running away, from a convent or anywhere else. Why would you ask that?” He chuckled. “Because you’re staring at me as though you’ve never seen a man before.” Sophia’s cheeks burned. She was staring. Worse, now she found herself powerless to turn away. What with the murky shadows of the tavern and the confusion of the quay, not to mention her own discomposure, she hadn’t taken a good, clear look at his eyes until this moment. They defied her mental palette utterly. The pupils were ringed with a thin line of blue. Darker than Prussian, yet lighter than indigo. Perhaps matching that dearest of pigments-the one even her father’s generous allowance did not permit-ultramarine. Yet within that blue circumference shifted a changing sea of color-green one moment, gray the next…in the shadow of a half-blink, hinting at blue. He laughed again, and flinty sparks of amusement lit them. Yes, she was still staring. Forcing her gaze to the side, she saw their rowboat nearing the scraped hull of a ship. She cleared her throat and tasted brine. “Forgive me, Mr. Grayson. I’m only trying to make you out. I understood you to be the ship’s captain.” “Well,” he said, grasping a rope thrown down to him and securing it to the boat, “now you know I’m not.” “Might I have the pleasure, then, of knowing the captain’s name?” “Certainly,” he said, securing a second rope. “It’s Captain Grayson.” She heard the smirk in his voice, even before she swiveled her head to confirm it. Was he teasing her?

I work as fast as I can. Binah will come soon looking for me. It’s Mother, however, who descends the back steps into the yard. Binah and the other house slaves are clumped behind her, moving with cautious, synchronized steps as if they’re a single creature, a centipede crossing an unprotected space. I sense the shadow that hovers over them in the air, some devouring dread, and I crawl back into the green-black gloom of the tree. The slaves stare at Mother’s back, which is straight and without give. She turns and admonishes them. “You are lagging. Quickly now, let us be done with this.” As she speaks, an older slave, Rosetta, is dragged from the cow house, dragged by a man, a yard slave. She fights, clawing at his face. Mother watches, impassive. He ties Rosetta’s hands to the corner column of the kitchen house porch. She looks over her shoulder and begs. Missus, please. Missus. Missus. Please. She begs even as the man lashes her with his whip. Her dress is cotton, a pale yellow color. I stare transfixed as the back of it sprouts blood, blooms of red that open like petals. I cannot reconcile the savagery of the blows with the mellifluous way she keens or the beauty of the roses coiling along the trellis of her spine. Someone counts the lashes—is it Mother? Six, seven. The scourging continues, but Rosetta stops wailing and sinks against the porch rail. Nine, ten. My eyes look away. They follow a black ant traveling the far reaches beneath the tree—the mountainous roots and forested mosses, the endless perils—and in my head I say the words I fashioned earlier. Boy Run. Girl Jump. Sarah Go. Thirteen. Fourteen . . . I bolt from the shadows, past the man who now coils his whip, job well done, past Rosetta hanging by her hands in a heap. As I bound up the back steps into the house, Mother calls to me, and Binah reaches to scoop me up, but I escape them, thrashing along the main passage, out the front door, where I break blindly for the wharves. I don’t remember the rest with clarity, only that I find myself wandering across the gangplank of a sailing vessel, sobbing, stumbling over a turban of rope. A kind man with a beard and a dark cap asks what I want. I plead with him, Sarah Go. Binah chases me, though I’m unaware of her until she pulls me into her arms and coos, “Poor Miss Sarah, poor Miss Sarah.” Like a decree, a proclamation, a prophecy. When I arrive home, I am a muss of snot, tears, yard dirt, and harbor filth. Mother holds me against her, rears back and gives me an incensed shake, then clasps me again. “You must promise never to run away again. Promise me.” I want to. I try to. The words are on my tongue—the rounded lumps of them, shining like the marbles beneath the tree. “Sarah!” she demands. Nothing comes. Not a sound. I remained mute for a week. My words seemed sucked into the cleft between my collar bones. I rescued them by degrees, by praying, bullying and wooing. I came to speak again, but with an odd and mercurial form of stammer. I’d never been a fluid speaker, even my first spoken words had possessed a certain belligerent quality, but now there were ugly, halting gaps between my sentences, endless seconds when the words cowered against my lips and people averted their eyes. Eventually, these horrid pauses began to come and go according to their own mysterious whims. They might plague me for weeks and then remain away months, only to return again as abruptly as they left.

New trout, having never seen rain on the river, rise eagerly to ripples on the Mink. Some windows close against the moist and some open for the music. Rain slips and slides along hawsers and chains and ropes and cables and gladdens the cells of mosses and weighs down the wings of moths. It maketh the willow shiver its fingers and thrums on doors of dens in the fens. It falls on hats and cats and trucks and ducks and cars and bars and clover and plover. It grayeth the sand on the beach and fills thousands of flowers to the brim. It thrills worms and depresses damselflies. Slides down every window rilling and murmuring. Wakes the ancient mud and mutter of the swamp, which has been cracked and hard for months. Falls gently on leeks and creeks and bills and rills and the last shriveled blackberries like tiny dried purple brains on the bristles of bushes. On the young bear trundling through a copse of oaks in the woods snorffling up acorns. On ferns and fawns, cubs and kits, sheds and redds. On salmon as long as your arm thrashing and roiling in the river. On roof and hoof, doe and hoe, fox and fence, duck and muck. On a slight man in a yellow slicker crouched by the river with his recording equipment all covered against the rain with plastic wrap from the grocery store and after he figures out how to get the plastic from making crinkling sounds when he turns the machine on he settles himself in a little bed of ferns and says to the crow huddled patiently in rain, okay, now, here we go, Oral History Project, what the rain says to the river as the wet season opens, project number …something or other … where’s the fecking start button? …I can’t see anything … can you see a green light? yes? is it on? damn my eyes … okay! there it is! it’s working! rain and the river! here we go!

Among the people who asked about them was Bradley Cooper, thanks to Jason, who’d championed Chris and the book. Cooper was already a huge star, one who had a reputation for taking big risks and trying a variety of roles (including one in the TV series Alias the connection I promised earlier). None of that was important to Chris. If there was a movie, he wanted the actor who portrayed him to be a true American. He couldn’t stand actors who would make unpatriotic statements against the war and then turn around and do war films. He’d told Jim he didn’t want a hypocrite playing him. I think he would have chosen not to let a movie be done rather than agree to let people proceed with it whom he didn’t consider patriotic. And so for Chris, the most impressive thing about Bradley Cooper was not his acting ability or the enormous research he put into his roles, but the work he’d done helping veterans. He was a supporter of Got Your 6, an organization that helps veterans reintegrate into family life and their communities. He had also done some USO tours. I couldn’t imagine a better match. Still, Chris didn’t just say okay. He talked to Bradley before deciding to let him option the book and his life rights. I remember Chris coming out of his home office after the final conversation. He was smiling; Bradley had a great sense of humor, which was probably the first thing they bonded over. “How’d it go?” I asked. “Went good. I told him, ‘My only concern with you, Bradley--I might have to tie you up with a rope and pull you behind my truck to knock some of the pretty off you.” Bradley laughed. Still, he did just about everything short of that to prepare for the movie. He grew a beard, studied photos and videos, and worked out like a madman, getting himself into the proper shape to play a SEAL in the movie.

Having lost his mother, father, brother, an grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history—his home—the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags and crates, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire frozen continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt—especially right after the war—a worthy challenge. He would remember for the rest of his life a peaceful half hour spent reading a copy of 'Betty and Veronica' that he had found in a service-station rest room: lying down with it under a fir tree, in a sun-slanting forest outside of Medford, Oregon, wholly absorbed into that primary-colored world of bad gags, heavy ink lines, Shakespearean farce, and the deep, almost Oriental mistery of the two big-toothed wasp-waisted goddess-girls, light and dark, entangled forever in the enmity of their friendship. The pain of his loss—though he would never have spoken of it in those terms—was always with him in those days, a cold smooth ball lodged in his chest, just behind his sternum. For that half hour spent in the dappled shade of the Douglas firs, reading Betty and Veronica, the icy ball had melted away without him even noticing. That was magic—not the apparent magic of a silk-hatted card-palmer, or the bold, brute trickery of the escape artist, but the genuine magic of art. It was a mark of how fucked-up and broken was the world—the reality—that had swallowed his home and his family that such a feat of escape, by no means easy to pull off, should remain so universally despised.

against the velvet rope force fields that kept everyone without an invitation at bay. As I walked toward the entrance, the crowd bombarded me with a mix of insults, autograph requests, death threats, and tearful declarations of undying love. I had my body shield activated, but surprisingly, no one took a shot at me. I flashed the cyborg doorman my invitation, then mounted the long crystal staircase leading up into the club. Entering the Distracted Globe was more than a little disorienting. The inside of the giant sphere was completely hollow, and its curved interior surface served as the club’s bar and lounge area. The moment you passed through the entrance, the laws of gravity changed. No matter where you walked, your avatar’s feet always adhered to the interior of the sphere, so you could walk in a straight line, up to the “top” of the club, then back down the other side, ending up right back where you started. The huge open space in the center of the sphere served as the club’s zero-gravity “dance floor.” You reached it simply by jumping off the ground, like Superman taking flight, and then swimming through the air, into the spherical zero-g “groove zone.” As I stepped through the entrance, I glanced up—or in the direction that was currently “up” to me at the moment—and took a long look around. The place was packed. Hundreds of avatars milled around like ants crawling around the inside of a giant balloon. Others were already out on the dance floor—spinning, flying, twisting, and tumbling in time with the music, which thumped out of floating spherical speakers that drifted throughout the club. In the middle of all the dancers, a large clear bubble was suspended in space, at the absolute center of the club. This was the “booth” where the DJ stood, surrounded by turntables, mixers, decks, and dials. At the center of all that gear was the opening DJ, R2-D2, hard at work, using his various robotic arms to work the turntables. I recognized the tune he was playing: the ’88 remix of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” with a lot of Star Wars droid sound samples mixed in. As I made my way to the nearest bar, the avatars I passed all stopped to stare and point in

I’m telling you, you bastard, you’re going to pay for that rum. In gold or goods, I don’t care which.” “Captain Mallory.” Gray’s baritone was forbidding. “And I apply that title loosely, as you are no manner of captain in my estimation…I have no intention of compensating you for the loss of your cargo. I will, however, accept your thanks.” “My thanks? For what?” “For what?” Now O’Shea entered the mix. “For saving that heap of a ship and your worthless, rum-soaked arse, that’s what.” “I’ll thank you to go to hell,” the gravelly voice answered. Mallory, she presumed. “You can’t just board a man’s craft and pitch a hold full of spirits into the sea. Right knaves, you lot.” “Oh, now we’re the knaves, are we?” Gray asked. “I should have let that ship explode around your ears, you despicable sot. Knaves, indeed.” “Well, if you’re such virtuous, charitable gents, then how come I’m trussed like a pig?” Sophia craned her neck and pushed the hatch open a bit further. Across the deck, she saw a pair of split-toed boots tied together with rope. Gray answered, “We had to bind you last night because you were drunk out of your skull. And we’re keeping you bound now because you’re sober and still out of your skull.” The lashed boots shuffled across the deck, toward Gray. “Let me loose of these ropes, you blackguard, and I’ll pound you straight out of your skull into oblivion.” O’Shea responded with a stream of colorful profanity, which Captain Grayson cut short. “Captain Mallory,” he said, his own highly polished boots pacing slowly, deliberately to halt between Mallory’s and Gray’s. “I understand your concern over losing your cargo. But surely you or your investor can recoup the loss with an insurance claim. You could not have sailed without a policy against fire.” Gray gave an ironic laugh. “Joss, I’ll wager you anything, that rum wasn’t on any bill of lading or insurance policy. Can’t you see the man’s nothing but a smuggler? Probably wasn’t bound for any port at all. What was your destination, Mallory? A hidden cove off the coast of Cornwall, perhaps?” He clucked his tongue. “That ship was overloaded and undermanned, and it would have been a miracle if you’d made it as far as Portugal. As for the rum, take up your complaint with the Vice Admiralty court after you follow us to Tortola. I’d welcome it.

What’s he doing?” I asked, leaning over the side of the boat, searching for him beneath the water. If the tow rope had gotten tangled, he might need help. And someone would need to go in the water with him, perhaps accidentally sliding against him down where no one else could see. “Boo!” A handful of bryozoa rushed up at me from the lake. I screamed (for once I didn’t have to think about this girl-reaction) and fell backward into the boat. Sean hefted himself over the side with one arm, holding the bryozoan high in the other hand. It dripped green slime through his fingers. “Bwa-ha-ha!” He came after me. I squealed again. It was so unbelievably fantastic that he was flirting with me, but bryozoa was involved. Was it worth it? No. I paused on the side of the boat, ready to jump back into the water myself. He might chase me around the lake with the bryozoa, but at least it would be diluted. On second thought, I didn’t particularly want to jump into the very waters the bryozoa had come from. Sean solved the problem for me. He slipped behind me and showed me he was holding the ties of my bikini in his free hand. If I jumped, Sean would take possession of my bikini top. I had thought about double knotting my bikini. I’d hoped against hope that Stage Two: Bikini would work, and that Sean might try something like this. Of course, I didn’t really want my top to come off in front of everyone. Nay, in front of anyone. But I’d checked the double knots in the mirror. They’d looked…well, double knotted, for protection, sort of like wearing a turtleneck to the prom. I’d re-tied the strings normally. Now I wished I’d double knotted after all. Sean brought the dripping slime close to my shoulder. “Go ahead and jump,” he said, twisting my bikini ties in his finges. “Sean,” came McGullicuddy’s voice in warning. This surprised me. My brother had never taken up for me before. Of course, none of the boys had ever crossed this particular line. But that was nothing compared with my surprise when the bryozoa suddenly lobbed out of Sean’s hand, sailed through the air, and plopped into the lake. Adam, standing behind him, must have shoved his arm. Which meant I owed Adam my gratitude for saving me. Except I didn’t want him to save me from Sean, and I thought I’d made that clear. Saving me from Sean with bryozoa…that was a more iffy proposition. I wasn’t sure whether I should give Adam the little dolphin look again when our eyes met. But it didn’t matter. When I turned around, he was already stepping over Cameron’s legs to return to the driver’s seat.

Holy gallnipper, how long till we hit the magic trail? It’s gloomier than my own funeral I here.” Camille adjusted the bag’s rope and looked at Ira. “Don’t even joke about that.” Since the moment they’d entered the forest, she’d felt like something was listening. Like they’d woken some sleeping creature, and now it followed them with silent cunning. The deafening chants had not returned to pierce her eardrums, but danger still felt close. A few paces ahead of her, Oscar peeled away another cobweb, the octagonal spinning so massive Camille didn’t even want to imagine the size of the spider that had created it. “Mate, you got a stomach made of iron,” Ira said. A flash of orange and black swept in front of Camille’s eyes and she felt an odd tug on her dress. She looked down and froze. A spider with a body the size of her first flexed its hairy legs on her skirt. It started to scuttle up. Her scream echoed through the forest as she swiped the spider off. It hit the marshy ground and scampered under a log. Oscar grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. “Did it bite you?” She shook her head, arms and legs stiff with fear. “I’ve never seen one so bloody big,” Ira said, running past the log as though the spider would leap out at him. Oscar started walking again, his hand on the small of her back. She exhaled with more than one kind of relief. He was at least still concerned for her. As they started to pick up their pace, another black critter swung down from a nearby tree. Camille say it flying toward them, but her warning shout was too slow. The spider landed on Oscar’s shoulder, fat and furry and swift as its legs darted up his neck. Oscar shouted an obscenity as he whacked the giant from his skin. Camille heard it thud against the leafy forest floor. Unfazed, the spider quickly sprang to its finger-length legs and darted toward her boot. Her shrieks echoed again as it leaped onto her hem. With his foot, Ira knocked the spider back to the ground, and before it could bounce back up, Oscar smashed it with a stick. The squashed giant oozed yellow-and-green blood onto the marshy ground. Camille gagged and tasted her breakfast oats in the back of her mouth. “What in all wrath are those monsters?” Ira panted as he twisted around, looking for more. Camille looked up to the trees to try and spot any others that might be descending from glossy webbing. Terror paralyzed her as her eyes landed on a colony of glistening webs in the treetops. An endless number of black dots massed above their heads, dangling from tree limbs. Oscar and Ira followed her horrified stare. “Run,” Oscar whispered. Camille sprinted forward, her skin and scalp tingling with imaginary spider legs. The bag of provisions slammed against her back, tugging at her neck, but she didn’t care. They didn’t slow down until the gigantic spiderwebs grew sparse and the squawk of birds took over.

The captain? Sophia stood staring numbly after him. Had he just said he’d introduce her to the captain? Of someone else was the captain, then who on earth was this man? One thing was clear. Whoever he was, he had her trunks. And he was walking away. Cursing under her breath, Sophia picked up her skirts and trotted after him, dodging boatmen and barrels and coils of tarred rope as she pursued him down the quay. A forest of tall masts loomed overhead, striping the dock with shadow. Breathless, she regained his side just as he neared the dock’s edge. “But…aren’t you Captain Grayson?” “I,” he said, pitching her smaller trunk into a waiting rowboat, “am Mr. Grayson, owner of the Aphrodite and principle investor in her cargo.” The owner. Well, that was some relief. The tavern-keeper must have been confused. The porter deposited her larger truck alongside the first, and Mr. Grayson dismissed him with a word and a coin. He plunked one polished Hessian on the rowboat’s seat and shifted his weight to it, straddling the gap between boat and dock. Hand outstretched, he beckoned her with an impatient twitch of his fingers. “Miss Turner?” Sophia inched closer to the dock’s edge and reached one gloved hand toward his, considering how best to board the bobbing craft without losing her dignity overboard. The moment her fingers grazed his palm, his grin tightened over her hand. He pulled swiftly, wrenching her feet from the dock and a gasp from her throat. A moment of weightlessness-and then she was aboard. Somehow his arm had whipped around her waist, binding her to his solid chest. He released her just as quickly, but a lilt of the rowboat pitched Sophia back into his arms. “Steady there,” he murmured through a small smile. “I have you.” A sudden gust of wind absconded with his hat. He took no notice, but Sophia did. She noticed everything. Never in her life had she felt so acutely aware. Her nerves were draw taut as harp strings, and her senses hummed. The man radiated heat. From exertion, most likely. Or perhaps from a sheer surplus of simmering male vigor. The air around them was cold, but he was hot. And as he held her tight against his chest, Sophia felt that delicious, enticing heat burn through every layer of her clothing-cloak, gown, stays, chemise, petticoat, stockings, drawers-igniting desire in her belly. And sparking a flare of alarm. This was a precarious position indeed. The further her torso melted into his, the more certainly he would detect her secret: the cold, hard bundle of notes and coin lashed beneath her stays. She pushed away from him, dropping onto the seat and crossing her arms over her chest. Behind him, the breeze dropped his hat into a foamy eddy. He still hadn’t noticed its loss. What he noticed was her gesture of modesty, and he gave her a patronizing smile. “Don’t concern yourself, Miss Turner. You’ve nothing in there I haven’t seen before.” Just for that, she would not tell him. Farewell, hat.

Here before you lies the memorial to St. Cefnogwr, though he is not buried here, of course.” At her words, an uncanny knowing flushed through Katy and, crazy-of-crazy, transfixed her. “Why? Where is he?” Traci stepped forward, hand on her hip. A you’re-right-on-cue look crossed the guide’s face. She pointed to the ceiling. Traci scoffed. “I meant, where’s the body?” Her American southern accent lent a strange contrast to her skepticism. Again, the tour guide’s arthritic finger pointed upward, and a smile tugged at her lips, the smokers’ wrinkles on her upper lip smoothing out. “That’s the miracle that made him a saint, you see. Throughout the twelve hundreds, the Welsh struggled to maintain our independence from the English. During Madog’s Rebellion in 1294, St. Cefnogwr, a noble Norman-English knight, turned against his liege lord and sided with the Welsh—” “Norman-English?” Katy frowned, her voice raspy in her dry throat. “Why would a Norman have a Welsh name and side with the Welsh?” She might be an American, but her years living in England had taught her that was unusual. “The English nicknamed him. It means ‘sympathizer’ in Welsh. The knight was captured and, for his crime, sentenced to hang. As he swung, the rope creaking in the crowd’s silence, an angel of mercy swooped down and—” She clapped her hands in one decisive smack, and everyone jumped. “The rope dangled empty, free of its burden. Proof, we say, of his noble cause. He’s been venerated ever since as a Welsh hero.” Another chill danced over Katy’s skin. A chill that flashed warm as the story seeped into her. Familiar. Achingly familiar. Unease followed—this existential stuff was so not her. “His rescue by an angel was enough to make him a saint?” ever-practical Traci asked. “Unofficially. The Welsh named him one, and eventually it became a fait accompli. Now, please follow me.” The tour guide stepped toward a side door. Katy let the others pass and approached the knight covered in chainmail and other medieval-looking doodads. Only his face peeked out from a tight-fitting, chainmail hoodie-thing. One hand gripped a shield, the other, a sword. She touched his straight nose, the marble a cool kiss against her finger. So. This person had lived about seven hundred years ago. His angular features were starkly masculine. Probably had women admiring them in the flesh. Had he loved? An odd…void bloomed within, tugging at her, as if it were the absence of a feeling seeking wholeness. Evidence of past lives frozen in time always made her feel…disconnected. Disconnected and disturbed. Unable to grasp some larger meaning. Especially since Isabelle was in the past now too, instead of here as her maid of honor. She traced along the knight’s torso, the bumps from the carved chainmail teasing her fingers. “The tour group is getting on the bus. Hurry.” Traci’s voice came from the door. “Coming.” One last glance at her knight. Katy ran a finger down his strong nose again. “Bye,” she whispered.

Wherever you go, Provincetown will always take you back, at whatever age and in whatever condition. Because time moves somewhat differently there, it is possible to return after ten years or more and run into an acquaintance, on Commercial or at the A&P, who will ask mildly, as if he’d seen you the day before yesterday, what you’ve been doing with yourself. The streets of Provincetown are not in any way threatening, at least not to those with an appetite for the full range of human passions. If you grow deaf and blind and lame in Provincetown, some younger person with a civic conscience will wheel you wherever you need to go; if you die there, the marshes and dunes are ready to receive your ashes. While you’re alive and healthy, for as long as it lasts, the golden hands of the clock tower at Town Hall will note each hour with an electric bell as we below, on our purchase of land, buy or sell, paint or write or fish for bass, or trade gossip on the post office steps. The old bayfront houses will go on dreaming, at least until the emptiness between their boards proves more durable than the boards themselves. The sands will continue their slow devouring of the forests that were the Pilgrims’ first sight of North America, where man, as Fitzgerald put it, “must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” The ghost of Dorothy Bradford will walk the ocean floor off Herring Cove, draped in seaweed, surrounded by the fleeting silver lights of fish, and the ghost of Guglielmo Marconi will tap out his messages to those even longer dead than he. The whales will breach and loll in their offshore world, dive deep into black canyons, and swim south when the time comes. Herons will browse the tidal pools; crabs with blue claws tipped in scarlet will scramble sideways over their own shadows. At sunset the dunes will take on their pink-orange light, and just after sunset the boats will go luminous in the harbor. Ashes of the dead, bits of their bones, will mingle with the sand in the salt marsh, and wind and water will further disperse the scraps of wood, shell, and rope I’ve used for Billy’s various memorials. After dark the raccoons and opossums will start on their rounds; the skunks will rouse from their burrows and head into town. In summer music will rise up. The old man with the portable organ will play for passing change in front of the public library. People in finery will sing the anthems of vanished goddesses; people who are still trying to live by fishing will pump quarters into jukeboxes that play the songs of their high school days. As night progresses, people in diminishing numbers will wander the streets (where whaling captains and their wives once promenaded, where O’Neill strode in drunken furies, where Radio Girl—who knows where she is now?—announced the news), hoping for surprises or just hoping for what the night can be counted on to provide, always, in any weather: the smell of water and its sound; the little houses standing square against immensities of ocean and sky; and the shapes of gulls gliding overhead, white as bone china, searching from their high silence for whatever they might be able to eat down there among the dunes and marshes, the black rooftops, the little lights tossing on the water as the tides move out or in.

Reaching the door of his mother’s apartments, Marcus found it locked. He rattled the handle violently. “Open it,” he bellowed. “Open it now!” Silence, and then a maid’s frightened reply from within. “Milord… the countess bade me to tell you that she is resting.” “I’ll send her to her eternal fucking rest,” Marcus roared, “if this door isn’t opened now.” “Milord, please—” He drew back three or four paces and hurled himself against the door, which shook on its hinges and partially gave with a splintering sound. There were fearful cries in the hallway from a pair of female guests who happened to witness the astonishing display of raging frenzy. “Dear God,” one exclaimed to the other, “he’s gone berserk!” Marcus drew back again and lunged at the door, this time sending chunks of paneling flying. He felt Simon Hunt’s hands grasp him from behind, and he whirled with his fist drawn back, ready to launch an attack on all fronts. “Jesus,” Hunt muttered, retreating a step or two with his hands raised in a defensive gesture. His face was taut and his eyes were wide, and he stared at Marcus as if he were a stranger. “Westcliff—” “Stay the hell out of my way!” “Gladly. But let me point out that if our positions were reversed, you would be the first to tell me to keep a cool—” Ignoring him, Marcus swerved back to the door and targeted the disjointed lock with a powerful, accurately aimed blow of his boot heel. The housemaid’s scream shot through the doorway as the ruined portal swung open. Bursting into the receiving room, Marcus charged toward the bedchamber, where the countess sat in a chair by a small hearth fire. Fully dressed and swathed in ropes of pearls, she stared at him with amused disdain. Breathing heavily, Marcus advanced on her with bloodlust racing through his veins. It was certain that the countess had no idea that she was in mortal danger, or she would not have received him so calmly. “Full of animal spirits today, are we?” she asked. “Your descent from gentleman to savage brute has been accomplished so very quickly. I must offer Miss Bowman my compliments on her efficacy.” “What have you done with her?” “Done with her?” Her expression taunted him with its innocent perplexity. “What the devil do you mean, Westcliff?” “You met with her at Butterfly Court this morning.” “I never walk that far from the manor,” the countess said haughtily. “What a ridiculous asser—” She let out a strident cry as Marcus seized her, his fingers wrapping around the pearl ropes and tightening them around her throat. “Tell me where she is, or I’ll snap your neck like a wishbone!” Simon Hunt seized him from behind once more, determined to prevent a murder from occurring. “Westcliff!” Marcus closed his hand in a harder grip around the pearls. He glared without blinking into his mother’s face, not missing the flicker of vindictive triumph that lurked in her eyes. He did not take his gaze from hers even as he heard his sister Livia’s voice. “Marcus,” she said urgently. “Marcus, listen to me! You have my permission to throttle her later. I’ll even help. But at least wait until we’ve found out what she’s done.” Marcus tightened the tension of the pearls until the elderly woman’s eyes seemed to protrude from their shallow sockets. “Your only value to me,” he said in a low tone, “is your knowledge of Lillian Bowman’s whereabouts. If I can’t obtain that from you, I’ll send you to the devil. Tell me, or I’ll choke it from you. And believe that I have enough of my father in me to do it without a second thought.

(p.112-114) This past, the Negro's past, of rope, fire torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation; fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for this women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect; rage, hatred, and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible - this past, this endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority, yet contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful. I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering - enough is certainly as good as a feast - but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch manhood, his identity, out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth - and indeed, no church - can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. This is because, in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words. If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne. And at this level of experience one's bitterness begins to be palatable, and hatred becomes too heavy a sack to carry. The apprehension of life here so briefly and inadequately sketched has been the experience of generations of Negroes, and it helps to explain how they have endured and how they have been able to produce children of kindergarten age who can walk through mobs to get to school. It demands great force and great cunning continually to assault the mighty and indifferent fortress of white supremacy, as Negroes in this country have done so long. It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate. The Negro boys and girls who are facing mobs today come out of a long line of improbable aristocrats - the only genuine aristocrats this country has produced. I say "this country" because their frame of reference was totally American. They were hewing out of the mountain of white supremacy the stone of their individuality. I have great respect for that unsung army of black men and women who trudged down back lanes and entered back doors, saying "Yes, sir" and "No, Ma'am" in order to acquire a new roof for the schoolhouse, new books, a new chemistry lab, more beds for the dormitories, more dormitories. They did not like saying "Yes, sir" and "No Ma'am", but the country was in no hurry to educate Negroes, these black men and women knew that the job had to be done, and they put their pride in their pockets in order to do it. It is very hard to believe that they were in anyway inferior to the white men and women who opened those back doors. It is very hard to believe that those men and women, raising their children, eating their greens, crying their curses, weeping their tears, singing their songs, making their love, as the sun rose, as the sun set, were in any way inferior to the white men and women who crept over to share these splendors after the sun went down. ... I am proud of these people not because of their color but because of their intelligence and their spiritual force and their beauty. The country should be proud of them, too, but, alas, not many people in this country even know of their existence.