Ball Don't Lie Quotes

Why aren't you in school? I see you every day wandering around." "Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher. That's not social to me at all. It's a lot of funnels and lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not. They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lampposts, playing 'chicken' and 'knock hubcaps.' I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right. I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I'm abnormal. But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?

Life has a funny way of creating it's own tests. It throws curve balls that make you do and think and feel things that are in direct conflict with what you had planned and don't allow you to operate in terms of black and white.

I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond! I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive. Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin the wave, dodgin the bullet and pushin the envelope. I’m on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. I’ve got no need for coke and speed. I've got no urge to binge and purge. I’m in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic. A working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial! I’ve got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up. You can’t dumb me down because I’m tireless and I’m wireless, I’m an alpha male on beta-blockers. I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last! I’m a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and I’ve got a love-child that sends me hate mail. But, I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing-- a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant. I like rough sex. I like tough love. I use the “F” word in my emails and the software on my hard-drive is hardcore--no soft porn. I bought a microwave at a mini-mall; I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast-food in the slow lane. I’m toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear and I come in all sizes. A fully-equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically-proven, scientifically- formulated medical miracle. I’ve been pre-wash, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, vacuum-packed and, I have an unlimited broadband capacity. I’m a rude dude, but I’m the real deal. Lean and mean! Cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Rough, tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide. I’ve got glide in my stride. Drivin and movin, sailin and spinin, jiving and groovin, wailin and winnin. I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty and lunch time is crunch time. I’m hangin in, there ain’t no doubt and I’m hangin tough, over and out!

All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.” At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical causes. “The key word here is roots,” Maestra had countered. “The roots of depression. For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression.” “Yeah but Maestra—” “Don't interrupt. Now, unless someone stronger and wiser—a friend, a parent, a novelist, filmmaker, teacher, or musician—can josh us out of it, can elevate us and show us how petty and pompous and monumentally useless it is to take ourselves so seriously, then depression can become a habit, which, in tern, can produce a neurological imprint. Are you with me? Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way. One thing'll go wrong and it'll automatically switch on its blender and mix us that black cocktail, the ol’ doomsday daiquiri, and before we know it, we’re soused to the gills from the inside out. Once depression has become electrochemically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it; by then it's playing by physical rules, a whole different ball game. That's why, Switters my dearest, every time you've shown signs of feeling sorry for yourself, I've played my blues records really loud or read to you from The Horse’s Mouth. And that’s why when you’ve exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I’ve reminded you that you and me— you and I: excuse me—may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let’s not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It’s preventive medicine.” “But what about self-esteem?” “Heh! Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you’re a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace—and maybe even glory.

I don’t know what game you and geek boy are playing, Gautier. But you get in my way as I leave and I’ll wipe my boots on your balls. (Brett) Before he realized what was happening, Simi had taken Brett’s hand and squeezed it so hard Nick heard the bones break.) Nick is a friend of the Simi’s. You threaten him and you make the Simi really unhappy and want to eat your head. Trust me, not something you want me to think about. Now go away mean person or the Simi will tell akri she don’t know what happened to you and your masticated form. Not that I like to lie, but there are deceptions to every rule. And you’re about to become one. Now get in there and be quiet. (Simi)

I hate to burst your bubble, but you're really not as scary as you think you are. I don't find you scary at all, actually," I lied casually. He stopped, raising his eyebrows in blatant disbelief. Then he flashed a wide, wicked smile. "You really shouldn't have said that," he chuckled. He growled, a low sound in the back of his throat; his lips curled back over his perfect teeth. His body shifted suddenly, half-crouched, tensed lika a lion about to pounce. I backed away from him, glaring. "You wouldn't." I didn't see him leap me - it was much too fast. I only found myself suddenly airborne, and then we crashed onto the sofa, knocking it into the wall. All the while, his arms formed an iron cage of protection around me - I was barely jostled. But I still was gasping as I tried to right myself. He wasn't having that. He curled me into a ball against his chest, holding me more securely than iron chains. I glared at him in alarm, but he seemed well in control, his jaw relaxed as he grinned, his eyes bright only with humor. "You were saying?" he growled playfully. "That you are a very, very terrifying monster," I said, my sarcasm marred a bit my breathless voice. "Much better," he approved.

I reach out and take his hand. “Well, he probably used up a lot of resources helping me knock you out,” I say mischievously. “Yeah, about that,” says Peeta, entwining his fingers in mine. “Don’t try something like that again.” “Or what?” I ask. “Or . . . or . . .” He can’t think of anything good. “Just give me a minute.” “What’s the problem?” I say with a grin. “The problem is we’re both still alive. Which only reinforces the idea in your mind that you did the right thing,” says Peeta. “I did do the right thing,” I say. “No! Just don’t, Katniss!” His grip tightens, hurting my hand, and there’s real anger in his voice. “Don’t die for me. You won’t be doing me any favors. All right?” I’m startled by his intensity but recognize an excellent opportunity for getting food, so I try to keep up. “Maybe I did it for myself, Peeta, did you ever think of that? Maybe you aren’t the only one who . . . who worries about . . . what it would be like if. . .” I fumble. I’m not as smooth with words as Peeta. And while I was talking, the idea of actually losing Peeta hit me again and I realized how much I don’t want him to die. And it’s not about the sponsors. And it’s not about what will happen back home. And it’s not just that I don’t want to be alone. It’s him. I do not want to lose the boy with the bread. “If what, Katniss?” he says softly. I wish I could pull the shutters closed, blocking out this moment from the prying eyes of Panem. Even if it means losing food. Whatever I’m feeling, it’s no one’s business but mine. “That’s exactly the kind of topic Haymitch told me to steer clear of,” I say evasively, although Haymitch never said anything of the kind. In fact, he’s probably cursing me out right now for dropping the ball during such an emotionally charged moment. But Peeta somehow catches it. “Then I’ll just have to fill in the blanks myself,” he says, and moves in to me. This is the first kiss that we’re both fully aware of. Neither of us hobbled by sickness or pain or simply unconscious. Our lips neither burning with fever or icy cold. This is the first kiss where I actually feel stirring inside my chest. Warm and curious. This is the first kiss that makes me want another. But I don’t get it. Well, I do get a second kiss, but it’s just a light one on the tip of my nose because Peeta’s been distracted. “I think your wound is bleeding again. Come on, lie down, it’s bedtime anyway,” he says.

Life has a funny way of creating its own tests. It throws curve balls that make you do and think and feel things that are in direct conflict with what you had planned and don't allow you to operate in terms of black and white.

Maybe this is kind of cliche, but animals, well, dogs, are what I do for a living. One reason I like spending time with them so much is they seem to think people are really good. They live with us, and obey our rules, most of which make no sense to them. And the main reason they do it is because they like us. When I watch them, sometimes I'm so blow away by how enthusiastic they are about everything we do that I have to go out and buy them something squeaky or chewy. Just because I love proving to them that it's not a mistake to see the world as a great benevolent place. I hope one day to react to something with as much pure ecstasy as I see in Chuck's face every time I throw the ball. Sometimes he looks so happy, it reminds me of the way blind people smile way too big because they can't see themselves. And if none of this links to anything in you, well... I think you don't know who I am.

I'd hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don't talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don't hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over, handing out little treats when you finally say "potty" or "wawa." It got to the point where I'd see a baby in the bakery or grocery store and instinctively ball up my fists, jealous over how easy he had it. I wanted to lie in a French crib and start from scratch, learning the language from the ground floor up. I wanted to be a baby, but instead, I was an adult who talked like one, a spooky man-child demanding more than his fair share of attention. Rather than admit defeat, I decided to change my goals. I told myself that I'd never really cared about learning the language. My main priority was to get the house in shape. The verbs would come in due time, but until then I needed a comfortable place to hide.

That's it, I think, crumpling the pages into one tiny ball of suck. I'm done banging my head against this stone wall; I don't care if I have to begin my article, "Vlad likes three things: fencing, himself, and killing off his siblings." I don't care if I have to lie and —oops— report that Vlad likes finger painting with dolphin blood in his spare time. We're now entering full investigative mode.

My father says that if I hit 2,500 balls each day, I’ll hit 17,500 balls each week, and at the end of one year I’ll have hit nearly one million balls. He believes in math. Numbers, he says, don’t lie. A child who hits one million balls each year will be unbeatable.

Andrew said nothing for a while, then, "You're more a raccoon than a fox." Neil stared. "What?" "A raccoon," Andrew said, and mimed holding a ball in front of his face. "Exy is the shiny object of your sad little world. You know you're being hunted and you know the hounds are closing in, but you won't let go to save yourself. You once told me you don't understand why a person would actively try to die, but here you are. I guess that was another lie.

And of course, in rounders, the balls don’t usually come at you with homicidal intent. That’s hockey.

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time... For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars... And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined our street... Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper... And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird... And Janie... And Janie... And... Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday.

If there's one thing I'd like most for you, it's that you'll find your calling in life. That's where true happiness and purpose lies. Whether it's taking care of abandoned animals, saving old houses from the wreckin' ball, or reading to the blind, you've got to find your fire, sugar. You'll never be fulfilled if you don't.

She glanced over her shoulder at the house, which was now bathed in a warm tint of yellow from the sun. "Yes, everyone needs to find the one thing that brings out her passion. Its what we do and share with the world that matters. I believe its important that we leave our communities in better shape that we found them. Cecelia Rose," she said, reaching for my hand, "Far too many people die with a heart that's gone flat with indifference, and it surely must be a terrible way to go. Life will offer us amazing opportunities, but we've got to be awake to recognize them." She rested her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. "If there's one thing I'd like most for you, its that you'll find your calling in life. That's where true happiness and purpose lie. Whether its taking care of abandoned animals, saving old houses from the wreckin' ball or reading to the blind, you've got to find your fire, sugar. You'll never be fulfilled if you don't." "But how will I know what my fire is?" "Oh, you'll know. One day you'll do something, see something or get an idea that seems to pop up from nowhere. And you'll feel a kind of stirring- like a warm flicker inside your chest. When that happens, whatever you do, don't ignore it. Open your mind and explore the idea. Fan your flame. And when you do, you'll have found it.

Pigeon?” “Yeah?” A few moments passed, and then he sighed. “Nothing.” Travis hesitated. “I can’t shake this feeling,” he said under his breath. “What do you mean? Like a bad feeling?” I said, suddenly nervous. He turned to me with concern in his eyes, “I have this crazy feeling that once we get home, I’m going to wake up. Like none of this was real.” I slid my arms around his waist, running my hands up the lean muscles of his back. “Is that what you’re worried about?” He looked down to his wrist, and then glanced to the thick silver band on his left finger. “I just can’t shake the feeling that the bubble’s going to burst, and I’m going to be lying in my bed alone, wishing you were there with me.” “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Trav! I’ve dumped someone for you—twice—I’ve picked up and went to Vegas with you—twice—I’ve literally gone through hell and back, married you and branded myself with your name. I’m running out of ideas to prove to you that I’m yours.” A small smile graced his lips. “I love it when you say that.” “That I’m yours?” I asked. I leaned up on the balls of my feet, pressing my lips against his. “I. Am. Yours. Mrs. Travis Maddox, forever and always.” His small smile faded as he looked at the boarding gate and then down to me. “I’m gonna fuck it up, Pigeon. You’re gonna get sick of my shit.” I laughed. “I’m sick of your shit, now. I still married you.” “I thought once we got married, that I’d feel a little more reassured about losing you. But I feel like if I get on that plane….” “Travis? I love you. Let’s go home.” His eyebrows pulled in. “You won’t leave me, right? Even when I’m a pain in the ass?” “I vowed in front of God…and Elvis…that I wouldn’t, didn’t I?” His frown lightened a bit. “This is forever?” One corner of my mouth turned up. “Would it make you feel better if we made a wager?” “What kind of husband would I be if I bet against my own marriage?” I smiled. “The stupid kind. Didn’t you listen to your dad when he told you not to bet against me?” He raised an eyebrow. “So you’re that sure, huh? You’d bet on it?” I wrapped my arms around his neck and smiled against his lips. “I’d bet my first born. That’s how sure I am.” And then the peace returned. “You can’t be that sure,” he said, the anxiousness absent from his voice. I raised an eyebrow, and my mouth pulled to one side. “Wanna bet?

See the stars, Lily?" She sighed, surrendering. "Of course." "Do you think they can see the sun coming up?" "I don't know. Probably?" "Do you think they're scared?" "They're burning balls of gas, Calder." "Oh, c'mon. Where's the poet in you?" She exhaled, and I sensed her smile. "I see. Well, in that case, yes. They've finally come home. They are triumphant in their midnight kingdom. But the enemy approaches. They have the numbers on their side, but the enemy is bigger, stronger, with a history of winning that goes back to the dawn of time. They're definitvely terrified." I nodded. She understood my analogy. "But they don't run, Calder.

What's left? Romance. Love's counterfeit free of charge to all. Fall into my arms and the world with its sorrows will shrink up into a tinsel ball. This is the favorite antidote to the cold robot life of faraway perils and nearby apathy. Apathy. From the Greek A Pathos. Want of feeling. But, don't we know, only find the right boy, only find the right girl, and the feeling will be yours. My colleagues tell me I need just such a remedy. Buried up to my neck in pink foam nothing can hurt me now. Safe to feel. All I can feel is you darling.

The eternal feminine is a massive joke. It seems that male identity depends on keeping up this lie...femme fatale, bunny girl, nurse, Lolita, whore, kindly mother, or ball-breaker. All of it an act. A carefully choreographed and costumed production. And what comfort does it all provide? We don't know exactly what they fear, should these artificial archetypes collapse: whores are just average individuals, mothers are not intrinsically good or brave or loving, and the same goes for fathers. It depends on the person, the situation, the moment.

It's just one of those things, like some people don't sink when they go in the pool, some know how to throw a ball so it goes toward the person holding the mitt. I have no idea how people do those things; I'm good at schoolwork. That works out well because it frees up my time for my hobbies, like lying on the couch eating M&M's.

Who else knows about this besides us?” “Just Patti...” “Okay. That should be okay. Is that it?” “And Kaidan,” I added. My eyes darted everywhere but his face. I was in for it. “Who?” There was an edge to his voice. His eyes searched mine. I didn't want to tell him a single thing about Kaidan. I knew how it would sound. I took my hands from his, pulling the braid over my shoulder to mess with it. “He's my friend. He's the one who drove me here to see you.” “You told some human kid?” I coughed, buying time. “He's Neph, too.” Jonathan LaGray went rigid and his ruddy cheeks paled. I squirmed as his eyes bored into mine. “Which one's his father?” he asked through clenched teeth. “Richard Rowe. I guess you'd know him as Pharzuph.” Oh, boy. He wasn't pale anymore. “You came across the country—” “Shhh!” I warned him as people looked over. He lowered his voice to a shouted whisper. “-with the son of the Duke of Lust? Son of a—” He pounded a fist down on the table and a guard stepped toward us. I waved and nodded at the man, trying to reassure him it was fine, and my father pulled his balled hands down into his lap. After a moment the guard walked back to the wall and looked away. “Don't worry!” I whispered. “I told you; we're just friends.” He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with his fingers to calm his temper. “You tell him that his father is never to know about you or whatever Sister Ruth tells you. Understand?” “He would never tell his father anything. But, um...” I swallowed. “Unfortunately, Pharzuph already knows about me.” His eyes flashed red again and it nearly stopped my heart. I pressed my back into the seat, causing it to wobble. “Aren't you worried people will see your eyes when you do that?” I asked, sure that my own eyes were gigantic at that moment. “Humans can't see it. And don't try to change the subject. I know Pharzuph,” he growled. “He's a real bastard on earth and in hell. He'd do anything to gain favour.” “Kaidan thinks he'll forget about me if I lie low.” “Maybe momentarily, while he's busy or distracted with his work, but you'll cross his mind again someday.

Mathematicians still don’t understand the ball our hands made, or how your electrocuted grandparents made it possible for you to light my cigarettes with your eyes. It isn’t as simple as me climbing into the window to leave six ounces of orange juice and a doughnut by the bed, or me becoming the sand you dug your toes in, on the beach, when you wished to hide them from the sun and the fixed eyes of strangers, and your breath broke in waves over my earlobe, splashing through my head, spilling out over the opposite lobe, and my first poems under your door in the unshaven light of dawn: Your eyes remind me of a brick wall about to be hammered by a drunk driver. I’m that driver. All night I’ve swallowed you in the bar. Once I kissed the scar, stretching its sealed eyelid along your inner arm, dried raining strands of hair, full of pheromones, discovered all your idiosyncratic passageways, so I’d know where to run when the cops came. Your body is the country I’ll never return to. The man in charge of what crosses my mind will lose fingernails, for not turning you away at the border. But at this moment when sweat tingles from me, and blame is as meaningless as shooting up a cow with milk, I realise my kisses filled the halls of your body with smoke, and the lies came like a season. Most drunks don’t die in accidents they orchestrate, and I swallowed a hand grenade that never stops exploding.

Stand in front of this fantastic machine, my friend, and for just 99¢ your likeness will appear, two hundred feet tall, on a screen above downtown Las Vegas. Ninety-nine cents more for a voice message. “Say whatever you want, fella. They’ll hear you, don’t worry about that. Remember you’ll be two hundred feet tall.” Jesus Christ. I could see myself lying in bed in the Mint Hotel, half-asleep and staring idly out the window, when suddenly a vicious nazi drunkard appears two hundred feet tall in the midnight sky, screaming gibberish at the world: “Woodstock Über Alles!” We will close the drapes tonight. A thing like that could send a drug person careening around the room like a ping-pong ball. Hallucinations are bad enough. But after a while you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip—the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.

I don't know if you can empathize, but it hurts when someone you love dumps you." "You're joking, right?" said Chuck. "How do you think I wound up in the pound? At least grid boy didn't try to have you gassed. I still don't know what I did to those people. Or why you like that grid asshole so much." "He's not only an asshole," I said, sorry to have to defend him. "At first he was smart and sexy and fun." "How was he fun?" said Chuck. "Did he play ball? No. Did he bring meaty snacks? No. And he made such a big fucking deal when I drooled on his pants. How much fun was that?

don’t take the tablets he prescribed for my depression and anxiety, I want to curl up into a ball and die.

You know all of the young gentlemen better than I do,” Lady Manston continued. “Are there any we should avoid?” All of them, George wanted to say. ''What about Ashbourne’s son?'' “No.” “No?” his mother echoed. “No, as in you don’t have an opinion?” “No, as in no. He is not for Billie.” Who, George could not help but note, was watching the mother-son exchange with an odd mix of curiosity and alarm. “Any particular reason?” Lady Manston asked. “He gambles,” George lied. Well, maybe it wasn’t a lie. All gentlemen gambled. He had no idea if the one in question did so to excess. “What about the Billington heir? I think he —” “Also no.” His mother regarded him with an impassive expression. “He’s too young,” George said, hoping it was true. “He is?” She frowned. “I suppose he might be. I can’t remember precisely.

Once you get into it, it's all you can think about. Look, I know you don't trust my judgment because I eat cat shit. Someday I'll explain that to you. But right now do what I say. Just pick up the ball and throw it.

I don't know whether you're lying to me or you're telling me the truth. But if you're telling me the truth, that she's dead, it's the best news that I ever heard. Nobody else is going to say this to you. Everybody else is going to commiserate. But I grew up with you. I talk straight to you. The best thing for you is for her to be dead. She did not belong to you. She did not belong to anything you were. She did not belong to anything anyone is. You played ball--there was a field of play. She was not on the field of play. She was nowhere near it. Simple as that. She was out of bounds, a freak of nature, way out of bounds. You are to stop your mourning for her. You've kept this wound open for twenty-five years. And twenty-five years is enough. It's driven you mad. Keep it any longer and it's going to kill you. She's dead? Good! Let her go. Otherwise it will rot in your gut and take your life too." That's what I told him. I thought I could let the rage out of him. But he just cried. He couldn't let it go. I said this guy was going to get killed from this thing, and he did.

You don’t—” “Shut up,” Cerena whispers, grabbing my balls and giving me a warning squeeze. “This belongs to me now. You belong to me, and if I want to suck your balls out through your cock, all you need to do is lie back and enjoy what I give you.” I swallow, my cock throbbing with her commanding tone. “Yes, Cerena,

I’ll teach you not to look at me like that,” Charles snarled through his hair before pushing it off his face. “Do you think I didn’t notice? The way you look at me when you think I’m not watching?” Oh, God! He had to get out of there. Slip out of his grip as soon as possible, before he lost control of his body. He was already feeling it in his groin—the fire Rochester had lit was already making his balls throb. His reply was desperate, a whisper, a tiny, brazen lie: “You’re mistaken.” “Oh, that’s how it is, then? You have the nerve to tell me it’s not true?” The next moment he felt something firm pressing against his buttocks. Something hot and shameless. Charles’s rock-hard erection. Dorian’s lips parted in a surprised moan. The air escaped his lungs and treacherous arousal rose all the way to his throat, breaking his voice and his willpower. “No…” I don’t know. “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t spying on you on purpose.” “But you did. You always do.

The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the smiling fox. The job of the Negro civil rights leader is to make the Negro forget that the wolf and the fox both belong to the (same) family. Both are canines; and no matter which one of them the Negro places his trust in, he never ends up in the White House, but always in the dog house.54

Alex, please.” He balls his fists. “Stop saying my name. You don’t know me anymore.” “I do know you.” I’m still crying, swallowing back spasms in my throat, struggling to breathe. This is a nightmare and I will wake up. This is a monster-story, and he has come back to me a terror-creation, patched together, broken and hateful, and I will wake up and he will be here, and whole, and mine again. I find his hands, lace my fingers through his even as he tries to pull away. “It’s me, Alex. Lena. Your Lena. Remember? Remember 37 Brooks, and the blanket we used to keep in the backyard—” “Don’t,” he says. His voice breaks on the word. “And I always beat you in Scrabble,” I say. I have to keep talking, and keep him here, and make him remember. “Because you always let me win. And remember how we had a picnic one time, and the only thing we could find from the store was canned spaghetti and some green beans? And you said to mix them—” “Don’t.” “And we did, and it wasn’t bad. We ate the whole stupid can, we were so hungry. And when it started to get dark you pointed to the sky, and told me there was a star for every thing you loved about me.” I’m gasping, feeling as though I am about to drown; I’m reaching for him blindly, grabbing at his collar. “Stop.” He grabs my shoulders. His face is an inch from mine but unrecognizable: a gross, contorted mask. “Just stop. No more. It’s done, okay? That’s all done now.” “Alex, please—” “Stop!” His voice rings out sharply, hard as a slap. He releases me and I stumble backward. “Alex is dead, do you hear me? All of that—what we felt, what it meant—that’s done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.” “Alex!” He has started to turn away; now he whirls around. The moon lights him stark white and furious, a camera image, two-dimensional, gripped by the flash. “I don’t love you, Lena. Do you hear me? I never loved you.” The air goes. Everything goes. “I don’t believe you.” I’m crying so hard, I can hardly speak. He takes one step toward me. And now I don’t recognize him at all. He has transformed entirely, turned into a stranger. “It was a lie. Okay? It was all a lie. Craziness, like they always said. Just forget about it. Forget it ever happened.” “Please.” I don’t know how I stay on my feet, why I don’t shatter into dust right there, why my heart keeps beating when I want it so badly to stop. “Please don’t do this, Alex.” “Stop saying my name.

When she realized what was really happening, she almost couldn’t believe her own eyes. Jay was there, and he was standing over Grady, who was now lying in a crumpled heap at his feet. The look on Jay’s face was as murderous as Violet had ever seen on anyone before, and he was clenching and unclenching his fist as he glared violently at Grady. She looked down and saw that Grady was holding one hand over his mouth, and there was blood seeping from between his fingers. He held his other hand up in surrender. “Stop! Stop!” Jay seemed to have a difficult time deciding. And then he leaned over, his fist balling up again, ready to strike, as he reached in and jerked Grady forward by the collar of his shirt. “Isn’t that what Violet said to you, you jerk? Didn’t she tell you to stop?” Grady recoiled, curling up as tightly as he could and pulling his arm around his face. “Please! Don’t—” But he didn’t finish his sentence as his voice cracked vulnerably. Violet was stunned. Silent and dazed, she could only stand there and watch, a million unanswered questions spinning in her head. Where had Jay come from? How long had he been there? And the one question she was afraid to ask: where was Lissie tonight? She hated the conflicting feelings that plagued her at that moment. She was grateful that someone had saved her from Grady’s unwanted advances, and even more grateful that that someone turned out to be Jay. At the same time she was appalled that he’d punched Grady, and she felt sort of sorry for Grady despite his overzealous hands and mouth. She was also shocked by the undisguised fury she saw on Jay’s face, but she had to admit that she kind of liked that she could stir such a reaction in him. It meant that he cared. Even if it wasn’t in the way she’d hoped for, he still cared. She watched as Jay let Grady fall back to the ground. Well, not fall exactly, it was more of a shove, releasing him and making him smack his head against the car as she collapsed backward. But he wasn’t quite finished with his warning to Grady, and he snarled at him from between gritted teeth, “If you ever . . . ever . . . touch her again, I swear to God, Grady, I’ll fucking kill you. Do you hear me?

You’ve been shot,” she tells Rachel. “You shot me, you crazy bit—“ “We don’t have time for the ER protocol crap, Mom,” I cut in. “She knows she’s been shot. She’s alert. Help. Her.” Mom nods. She looks at Rachel’s clenched fist where it’s balled against her lower stomach. “I’m sorry I shot you. I need to look at that. Please.” Rachel gives her The Stank Eye. Rachel is very good at The Stank Eye. “I’m a nurse, remember?” Mom says, her voice dripping with impatience. “I can help you.” Rachel inhales and eases her hand away from her stomach, but I can’t bring myself to look at it so I just watch Mom’s face to maybe gauge how bad the wound is. I imagine dark blood and entrails and… “What the…?” Mom gasps. As an ER nurse, Mom’s seen a lot of things. But by her expression, she’s never seen this. I’m thinking it must be way serious. Also, I’m thinking I might throw up. Until Rachel slaps a handcuff around Mom’s wrist. “I’m sorry, Nalia. I hope you understand.” Then she clinks the other end of the cuff around her own wrist. I steal a glance at Rachel’s very clean, very intact, very non-bloody-entrails T-shirt. Rachel is a smart woman. Mom lunges for her, hands aiming for her throat. Rachel pulls some karate-chop-move thing and slams Mom against the door behind her. “Knock it off, hon. I don’t want to really hurt you.” “You…you told Galen you’d been shot,” I stammer. “I heard you tell him that. Why would you lie to him?” Rachel shrugs. “I was shot.” She glances down at her feet. There’s a good-sized hole near the big toe of her boot, and bit of red staining the edges of it. “And I’d better be able to wear high heels after this, or one of you is going to swim with the fishes.” Then she laughs at her own stupid Mob joke. Mom plops down beside Rachel and leans against the car, too, in obvious surrender. She looks up at me. It’s a look brimming with “I told you so.” And I already know what she’s going to say next. We won’t make it very far before someone notices two women handcuffed together. Bathroom breaks will be impossible. Any public place will be impossible. I’m guessing Mom didn’t anticipate needing a hacksaw on this vacation of ours. But I know what she expects from me now. And that’s just too freaking bad.

Then the events leading up to her collapse came back to her in a flash. Her hands flew automatically to her belly and she was only partially reassured to feel the tight ball there. Was her baby okay? Was she herself okay? She blinked harder to bring the room more into focus. There was light shining through a crack in the bathroom door. A glance at the blinds told her that it was dark outside. Then her gaze fell on the chair beside her bed and she found Ryan staring at her, his gaze intense. She flinched away from the raw emotion shining in his blue eyes. “Hey,” he said quietly. “How are you feeling?” “Numb,” she answered before she could think better of it. “Kind of blank. My head doesn’t hurt anymore. Are my feet still swollen?” He carefully picked up the sheet and pushed it over her feet. “Maybe a little. Not as bad as they were. They’ve been giving you meds and they’re monitoring the baby.” “How is she?” Kelly asked, a knot of fear in her throat. “For now, she’s doing fine. Your blood pressure stabilized, but they might have to do a C-section if it goes back up or if the baby starts showing signs of distress.” Kelly closed her eyes and then suddenly Ryan was close to her, holding her, his lips pressed against her temple. “Don’t worry, love,” he murmured. “You’re supposed to stay calm. You’re getting the best possible care. I’ve made sure of it. They’re monitoring you round-the-clock. And the doctor said the baby has an excellent prognosis at thirty-four weeks’ gestation.” She sagged against the pillow and closed her eyes. Relief pulsed through her but she was so tired she couldn’t muster the energy to do anything more than lie there thanking God that her baby was okay. “I’m going to take care of you, Kell,” Ryan said softly against her temple. “You and our baby. Nothing will ever hurt you again. I swear it.” Tears burned her eyelids. She was emotionally and physically exhausted and didn’t have the strength to argue. Something inside her was broken and she had no idea how to fix it. She felt so…disconnected.

stretch my lips, force it to smile. But my chest feel full of birds flapping their wings inside of it. The birds are pounding their feets and pecking their beak and I want to cry so loud and beg the birds to stop making my heart to jump. I want to shout at the night and tell it never to become a tomorrow, but Kayus is sleeping like a baby, and I don’t want to wake him, so I take the edge of cloth, make it like a ball, and bite on it hard and taste the corn from this afternoon and the salt of my tears. When my spirit cannot cry any more tears, I spit the cloth from my mouth, sniff up my nose. Tomorrow will come. Nothing I can do about that. I lie down and close my eyes. Open it again. Close it. Open it. There is a sound beside me, a shaking. Kayus?

Please,' she says, her head bent. 'Please. You must try to break the curse. I know that you are the queen by right and that you may not want him back, but-' If anything could have increased my astonishment, it was that. 'You think that I'd-' 'I didn't know you, before,' she says, the anguish clear in her voice. There is a hitch in her breath that comes with weeping. 'I thought you were just some mortal.' I have to bite my tongue at that, but I don't interrupt her. 'When you became his seneschal, I told myself that he wanted you for your lying tongue. Or because you'd become biddable, although you never were before. I should have believed you when you told him he didn't know the least of what you could do. 'While you were in exile, I got more of the story out of him. I know you don't believe this, but Cardan and I were friends before we were lovers, before Locke. He was my first friend when I came here from the Undersea. And we were friends, even after everything. I hate that he loves you.' 'He hated it, too,' I say with a laugh that sounds more brittle than I'd like. Nicasia fixes me with a long look. 'No, he didn't.' To that, I can only be silent. 'He frightens the Folk, but he's not what you think he is,' Nicasia says. 'Do you remember the servants that Balekin had? The human servants?' I nod mutely. Of course I remember. I will never forget Sophie and her pockets full of stones. 'They'd go missing sometimes, and there were rumours that Cardan hurt them, but it wasn't true. He'd return them to the mortal world.' I admit, I'm surprised. 'Why?' She throws up a hand. 'I don't know! Perhaps to annoy his brother. But you're human, so I thought you'd like that he did it. And he sent you a gown. For the coronation.' I remember it- the ball gown in the colours of the night, with the stark outlines of trees stitched on it and the crystals for stars. A thousand times more beautiful than the dress I commissioned. I had thought perhaps it came from Prince Dain, since it was his coronation and I'd sworn to be his creature when I'd joined the Court of Shadows. 'He never told you, did he?' Nicasia says. 'So see? Those are two nice things about him you didn't know. And I saw the way you used to look at him when you didn't think anyone was watching you.' I bite the inside of my cheek, embarrassed despite the fact that we were lovers, and wed, and it should hardly be a secret that we like each other. 'So promise me,' she says. 'Promise me you'll help him.' I think of the golden bridle, about the future the stars predicted. 'I don't know how to break the curse,' I say, all the tears I haven't shed welling up in my eyes. 'If I could, do you think i would be at this stupid banquet? Tell me what I must slay, what I must steal, tell me the riddle I must solve or the hag I must trick. Only tell me the way, and I will do it, no matter the danger, no matter the hardship, no matter the cost.' My voice breaks. She gives me a steady look. Whatever else I might think of her, she really does care for Cardan. And as tears roll down my cheeks, to her astonishment, I think she realises I do, too. Much good it does him.

We sit here and we talk about sports. We talk about our home improvement projects. We gossip about family members we don’t care about. We self-victimize and complain about petty problems we've created ourselves. We work like dogs to keep up with the Joneses but have no time to enjoy the things we work for. We work purposeless jobs that keep us mildly happy, never really enjoying what we do, but we also never get the balls to leave the job. We drink on the weekends to numb the pain but it never really cures it. We criticize anyone who tries to break away from the rat race, because the idea that there is a way out scares us more than dying in the state we’re in. We only give to causes that affect us personally, only follow religions that suit us, only listen to people who agree with us, and worst of all,” he paused, and in a sad, defeated finale to his rant, he said, “We lie to ourselves.

It is understandable how this shame came into being. The nation made the black man's color a stigma. Even linguistics and semantics conspire to give this impression. If you look in Roget's Thesaurus you will find about 120 synonyms for blacK, and right down the line you will find words like smut, something dirty, worthless, and useless, and then you look further and you find about 120 synonyms for white and they all represent something high, noble, pure, chaste - right down the line. In our language structure, a white lie is a little better than a black lie. Somebody goes wrong in the family and we don't call him a white sheep, we call him a black sheep. We don't say whitemail, but blackmail. We don't speak of white-balling somebody, but black-balling somebody. The word 'black' itself in our society connotes something that is degrading. It was absolutely necessary to come to a moment with a sense of dignity. It is very positive and very necessary.

I whirled on him. He was spattered with blood, breathing hard, head down, eyes narrowed, and fury was rolling off him in thick, dangerous waves. How dare he be furious with me? I was the wronged party! My battle was interrupted, bloodlust was bottled up inside me, a turbo engine revved to redline. “The vamp was mine< Barrons.” “Inspect his teeth, Ms. Lane,” he said tightly. “They were cosmetic enhancements. He was no vampire.” I punched him lightly in the shoulder. “I don’t care what he was! It was my fight, you bastard!” He punched me back with the same light, warning force. “You were taking too long to finish it up.” “Who are you to decide how long is too long?” I gave him another tap in the shoulder. He returned the blow with equal force. “You were enjoying it!” “I was not!” “You were smiling, bouncing on the balls of your feet, egging him on.” “I was trying to end the fight!” I punched his shoulder, hard this time. “You were way past trying to end it,” he snapped, punching me back. I nearly fell over. “You were prolonging it. You were glorying in it.” “You don’t know what the feck you’re talking about!” I shouted. “I couldn’t tell the difference between the two of you anymore!” he roared. I smashed my fist into his face. Lies roll off us. It’s the truths we work hardest to silence. “Then you weren’t looking hard enough! I’m the one with boobs!” “I know you’re the one with boobs! They’re in my fucking face every fucking time I turn around!” “Maybe you need to get a grip on your libido, Barrons!” “Fuck you, Ms. Lane!” “You just try. I’ll kick the shit out of you!” “You think you could?” “Bring it on.” He grabbed a fistful of my T-shirt, and dragged me up against him until our noses touched. “I’ll bring it on, Ms. Lane. But remember you asked for it. So don’t even think about trying to tap out on the mat and quit the fight.” “You hear anybody crying ‘Uncle’ here, Barrons? I don’t.” “Fine.” “Fine.

After the plates are removed by the silent and swift waiting staff, General Çiller leans forward and says across the table to Güney, ‘What’s this I’m reading in Hürriyet about Strasbourg breaking up the nation?’ ‘It’s not breaking up the nation. It’s a French motion to implement European Regional Directive 8182 which calls for a Kurdish Regional Parliament.’ ‘And that’s not breaking up the nation?’ General Çiller throws up his hands in exasperation. He’s a big, square man, the model of the military, but he moves freely and lightly ‘The French prancing all over the legacy of Atatürk? What do you think, Mr Sarioğlu?’ The trap could not be any more obvious but Ayşe sees Adnan straighten his tie, the code for, Trust me, I know what I’m doing, ‘What I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don’t care. The age of Atatürk is over.’ Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye. ‘Atatürk was father of the nation, unquestionably. No Atatürk, no Turkey. But, at some point every child has to leave his father. You have to stand on your own two feet and find out if you’re a man. We’re like kids that go on about how great their dads are; my dad’s the strongest, the best wrestler, the fastest driver, the biggest moustache. And when someone squares up to us, or calls us a name or even looks at us squinty, we run back shouting ‘I’ll get my dad, I’ll get my dad!’ At some point; we have to grow up. If you’ll pardon the expression, the balls have to drop. We talk the talk mighty fine: great nation, proud people, global union of the noble Turkic races, all that stuff. There’s no one like us for talking ourselves up. And then the EU says, All right, prove it. The door’s open, in you come; sit down, be one of us. Move out of the family home; move in with the other guys. Step out from the shadow of the Father of the Nation. ‘And do you know what the European Union shows us about ourselves? We’re all those things we say we are. They weren’t lies, they weren’t boasts. We’re good. We’re big. We’re a powerhouse. We’ve got an economy that goes all the way to the South China Sea. We’ve got energy and ideas and talent - look at the stuff that’s coming out of those tin-shed business parks in the nano sector and the synthetic biology start-ups. Turkish. All Turkish. That’s the legacy of Atatürk. It doesn’t matter if the Kurds have their own Parliament or the French make everyone stand in Taksim Square and apologize to the Armenians. We’re the legacy of Atatürk. Turkey is the people. Atatürk’s done his job. He can crumble into dust now. The kid’s come right. The kid’s come very right. That’s why I believe the EU’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us because it’s finally taught us how to be Turks.’ General Çiller beats a fist on the table, sending the cutlery leaping. ‘By God, by God; that’s a bold thing to say but you’re exactly right.

Who cheats? Well, just about anyone, if the stakes are right. You might say to yourself, I don’t cheat, regardless of the stakes. And then you might remember the time you cheated on, say, a board game. Last week. Or the golf ball you nudged out of its bad lie. Or the time you really wanted a bagel in the office break room but couldn’t come up with the dollar you were supposed to drop in the coffee can. And then took the bagel anyway. And told yourself you’d pay double the next time. And didn’t. For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it. Cheating may or may not be human nature, but it is certainly a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor. Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more for less. So it isn’t just the boldface names — inside-trading CEOs and pill-popping ballplayers and perkabusing politicians — who cheat. It is the waitress who pockets her tips instead of pooling them. It is the Wal-Mart payroll manager who goes into the computer and shaves his employees’ hours to make his own performance look better. It is the third grader who, worried about not making it to the fourth grade, copies test answers from the kid sitting next to him. Some cheating leaves barely a shadow of evidence. In other cases, the evidence is massive. Consider what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987: seven million American children suddenly disappeared. The worst kidnapping wave in history? Hardly. It was the night of April 15, and the Internal Revenue Service had just changed a rule. Instead of merely listing the name of each dependent child, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number. Suddenly, seven million children — children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous year’s 1040 forms — vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United States.

Beside him Mr. Harris folded his morning newspaper and held it out to Claude. "Seen this yet?" "No." "Don't read it," Mr. Harris said, folding the paper once more and sliding it under his rear. "It will only upset you, son." "It's a wicked paper... " Claude agreed, but Mr. Harris was overspeaking him. "It's the big black words that do it. The little grey ones don't matter very much, they're just fill-ins they take everyday from the wires. They concentrate their poison in the big black words, where it will radiate. Of course if you read the little stories too you've got sure proof that every word they wrote above, themselves, was a fat black lie, but by then you've absorbed a thousand greyer ones, and where and how to check on those? This way the mind deteriorates. The best way you can save yourself is not to read it, son." "No, I... " "That's right, if you're not careful," Mr. Harris went on, blue-eyed, red-faced, "you find yourself pretty soon hating everyone but God, the Babe, and a few dead senators. That's no fun. Men aren't so bad as that." "No." "That's right, you begin to worry about anyone who opens his mouth except to say ho it looks like rain, let's bowl. Otherwise you wonder what the hell he's trying to prove, or undermine. If he asks what time it is, you wonder what terrible thing is scheduled to happen, where it will happen, when. You can't even stand to be asked how you feel today - he's probably looking at the bumps on you, they may have grown more noticeable overnight. Soon you feel you should apologize for standing there where he can watch you dying in front of him, he'd rather for you to carry your head around in a little plaid bag, like your bowling ball. There's no joy in that. Men aren't so very bad." Mr. Harris paused to remove his Panama hat. Water seeped from his knobby forehead, which he mopped with a damp handkerchief. "I've offended you, son," he said. "Not at all, I entirely agree with you." Mr. Harris replaced his hat, folded his handkerchief. "I shouldn't shoot off this way," he said. "I read too much." "No, no. You're right...

I have stopped loving you. I have stopped caring about you. I have stopped worrying about you. I have simply . . . stopped. This might come as news to you but despite everything, despite the cruelty, the selfishness and the pain you have caused, I still found a way to care. But not any more. Now, I am putting you on notice. I no longer need you. I don’t think fondly of our early days, so I am erasing these memories and all that followed. For much of our time together I wished for a better relationship than the one we have, but I’ve come to understand this is the hand I have been dealt. And now I am showing you all my cards. Our game is complete. You are the person I share this house with, nothing more, nothing less. You mean no more to me than the shutters that hide what goes on in here, the floorboards I walk over or the doors we use to separate us. I have spent too much of my life trying to figure out your intricacies, of suffering your deeds like knives cutting through scar tissue. I am through with sacrificing who I should have been to keep you happy as it has only locked us in this status quo. I have wasted too much time wanting you to want me. I ache when I recall the opportunities I’ve been too scared to accept because of you. Such frittered-away chances make me want to crawl on my hands and knees to the end of the garden, curl up into a ball on a mound of earth and wait until the nettles and the ivy choke and cover me from view. It’s only now that I recognise the wretched life you cloaked me in and how your misery needed my company to prevent you from feeling so isolated. There is just one lesson I have learned from the life we share. And it is this: everything that is wrong with me is wrong with you too. We are one and the same. When I die, your flame will also extinguish. The next time we are together, I want one of us to be lying stiff in a coffin wearing rags that no longer fit our dead, shrunken frame. Only then can we separate. Only then can we be ourselves. Only then do I stand a chance of finding peace. Only then will I be free of you. And should my soul soar, I promise that yours will sink like the heaviest of rocks, never to be seen again.

This is the fact the world desperately hides from us from birth. Long after you find out the truth about sex and Santa Claus, this other myth endures, this one about how you’ll always get rescued at the last second and if not, your death will at least mean something and there’ll be somebody there to hold your hand and cry over you. All of society is built to prop up that lie, the whole world a big, noisy puppet show meant to distract us from the fact that at the end, you’ll die, and you’ll probably be alone. I was lucky. I learned this a long time ago, in a tiny, stifling room behind my high school gym. Most people don’t realize it until they’re laying facedown on the pavement somewhere, gasping for their last breath. Only then do they realize that life is a flickering candle we all carry around. A gust of wind, a meaningless accident, a microsecond of carelessness, and it’s out. Forever. And no one cares. You kick and scream and cry out into the darkness, and no answer comes. You rage against the unfathomable injustice and two blocks away some guy watches a baseball game and scratches his balls. Scientists talk about dark matter, the invisible, mysterious substance that occupies the space between stars. Dark matter makes up 99.99 percent of the universe, and they don’t know what it is. Well I know. It’s apathy. That’s the truth of it; pile together everything we know and care about in the universe and it will still be nothing more than a tiny speck in the middle of a vast black ocean of Who Gives A Fuck.

When everyone is seated, Galen uses a pot holder to remove the lid from the huge speckled pan in the center of the table. And I almost upchuck. Fish. Crabs. And...is that squid hair? Before I can think of a polite version of the truth-I'd rather eat my own pinky finger than seafood-Galen plops the biggest piece of fish on my plate, then scoops a mixture of crabmeat and scallops on top of it. As the steam wafts its way to my nose, my chances of staying polite dwindle. The only think I can think of is to make it look like I'm hiccupping instead of gagging. What did I smell earlier that almost had me salivating? It couldn't have been this. I fork the fillet and twist, but it feels like twisting my own gut. Mush it, dice it, mix it all up. No matter what I do, how it looks, I can't bring it near my mouth. A promise is a promise, dream or no dream. Even if real fish didn't save me in Granny's pond, the fake ones my imagination conjured up sure comforted me until help arrived. And now I'm expected to eat their cousins? No can do. I set the fork down and sip some water. I sense Galen is watching. Out of my peripheral, I see the others shoveling the chum into their faces. But not Galen. He sits still, head tilted, waiting for me to take a bite first. Of all the times to be a gentleman! What happened to the guy who sprawled me over his lap like a three-year-old just a few minutes ago? Still, I can't do it. And they don't even have a dog for me to feed under the table, which used to be my go-to plan at Chloe's grandmother's house. One time Chloe even started a food fight to get me out of it. I glance around the table, but Rayna's the only person I'd aim this slop at. Plus, I'd risk getting the stuff on me, which is almost as bad as in me. Galen nudges me with his elbow. "Aren't you hungry? You're not feeling bad again, are you?" This gets the others' attention. The commotion of eating stops. Everyone stares. Rayna, irritated that her gluttony has been interrupted. Toraf smirking like I've done something funny. Galen's mom wearing the same concerned look he is. Can I lie? Should I lie? What if I'm invited over again, and they fix seafood because I lied about it just this once? Telling Galen my head hurts doesn't get me out of future seafood buffets. And telling him I'm not hungry would be pointless since my stomach keeps gurgling like an emptying drain. No, I can't lie. Not if I ever want to come back here. Which I do. I sigh and set the fork down. "I hate seafood," I tell him. Toraf's sudden cough startles me. The sound of him choking reminds me of a cat struggling with a hair ball. I train my eyes on Galen, who has stiffened to a near statue. Jeez, is this all his mom knows how to make? Or have I just shunned the Forza family's prize-winning recipe for grouper? "You...you mean you don't like this kind of fish, Emma?" Galen says diplomatically. I desperately want to nod, to say, "Yes, that's it, not this kind of fish"-but that doesn't get me out of eating the crabmeat-and-scallop mountain on my plate. I shake my head. "No. Not just this kind of fish. I hate it all. I can't eat any of it. Can hardly stand to smell it." Way to go for the jugular there, stupid! Couldn't I just say I don't care for it? Did I have to say I hate it? Hate even the smell of it? And why am I blushing? It's not a crime to gag on seafood. And for God's sakes, I won't eat anything that still has its eyeballs.

Then she bent her head over at the waist and tossed her head around to separate the curls. The elevator stopped and she heard the door open. She straightened up to find some big guy in a ball cap and sunglasses right in her face, charging into the elevator before she could even get out of it. He had both hands full of carry-out bags—Mexican food, judging from the smell. She looked at them, her mouth watering. Yep. Enrique’s. The best in town. He whirled around to punch the door-close button. “Hey,” she said. “I’m getting off here.” Some girl outside in the lobby yelled, “We know it’s you, Chase. You shouldn’t lie to us.” Startled, Elle looked at the guy’s face and saw, just before he reached for her, that it really was Chase Lomax in ragged shorts and flip-flops. He grabbed her up off her feet and bent his head. Found her mouth with his. “Wait for us,” another girl yelled. The sound of running feet echoed off the marble floor, slid to a stop. “Oh, no!” Kissing her, without so much as a “Hi, there, Elle.” Burning her up. She tried to struggle but he had both her arms pinned to her sides. And suddenly she wanted to stay right where she was forever because the shock was wearing off and she was starting to feel. A lot more than she ever had before. The door slid closed. The girls began banging on it. “We know your room number, Chase, honey,” they yelled. “See you there.” Loud giggles. “We’ll show you a real good time.” The elevator moved up, the voices faded away. But Chase kept on kissing her. She had to make him stop it. Right now. Who did he think he was, anyway? Somebody who could send lightning right through her whole body, that’s who. Lightning so strong it shook her to her toes. He had to stop this now. But she couldn’t move any part of her body. Except her lips. And her tongue . . . When he finally let her go she pulled back and away, fighting to get a handle on her breathing. “What’s the matter?” he demanded. Her blood rushed through her so fast it made her dizzy. “You’re asking me? It’s more like, what’s the matter with you? How’d you get the idea you could get away with kissing me like that without even bothering to say hello?” She touched her lips. They were still on fire. “You have got a helluva nerve, Chase Lomax.” He grinned at her as he took off his shades. He hung them in the neck of his huge, baggy T-shirt that had a bucking bull and rider with Git’R’Done written above it. He wore ragged denim shorts and flip-flops, for God’s sake. Chase Lomax was known for always being starched and ironed, custom-booted and hatted. “I asked if you’re all right because you were bent over double shaking your head when the doors opened,” he said. “Like you were in pain or something.” “I was drying my hair.” He stared, then burst out laughing. “Oh, well, then.” His laugh was contagious but she wouldn’t let herself join in. He could not get away with this scot-free. He’d shaken her up pretty good. “Oh. I see. You thought I needed help, so you just grabbed me and kissed me senseless. Is that how you treat somebody you think’s in pain?” He grinned that slow, charming grin of his again. “It made you feel better. Didn’t it?” He held her gaze and wouldn’t let it go. She must be a sight. She could feel heat in her cheeks, so her face must be red. Plus she was gasping, trying to slow her breathing. And her heart-beat. “You nearly scared me to death to try to get rid of those girls. And it was all wasted. They’re coming to your room.” Something flashed deep in his brown eyes. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings. I don’t think it was wasted,” he drawled. “I liked that kiss.

Zap. Sports channel. Normal is nine innings, four balls, three strikes, somebody wins, somebody loses, there’s no such thing as a tie. Zap. Normal is unreal people, mostly rich unreal people, having sex with rappers and basketball players and thinking of their unreal family as a real-world brand, like Pepsi or Drano or Ford. Zap. News channels. Normal is guns and the normal America that really wants to be great again. Then there’s another normal if your skin color is the wrong color and another if you’re educated and another if you think education is brainwashing and there’s an America that believes in vaccines for kids and another that says that’s a con trick and everything one normal believes is a lie to another normal and they’re all on TV depending where you look, so, yeah, it’s confusing. I’m really trying to understand which this is America now. Zap zap zap. A man with his head in a bag being shot by a man without a shirt on. A fat man in a red hat screaming at men and women also fat also in red hats about victory, We’re undereducated and overfed. We’re full of pride over who the f*ck knows. We drive to the emergency room and send Granny to get our guns and cigarettes. We don’t need no stinkin’ allies cause we’re stupid and you can suck our dicks. We are Beavis and Butt-Head on ’roids. We drink Roundup from the can. Our president looks like a Christmas ham and talks like Chucky. We’re America, bitch. Zap. Immigrants raping our women every day. We need Space Force because Space ISIS. Zap. Normal is Upside-Down Land. Our old friends are our enemies now and our old enemy is our pal. Zap, zap. Men and men, women and women in love. The purple mountains’ majesty. A man with an oil painting of himself with Jesus hanging in his living room. Dead schoolkids. Hurricanes. Beauty. Lies. Zap, zap, zap. “Normal doesn’t feel so normal to me,” I tell him. “It’s normal to feel that way,” he replies.

I tell you, I know what it is.” “What is it? What is it? Is it hard or soft? Harry. Is it blue? Is it red? Does it have polka dots?” It hits Rabbit depressingly that he really wants to be told. Underneath all this I-know-more-about-it-than-you heresies-of-the-early-Church business he really wants to be told about it, wants to be told that it is there, that he’s not lying to all those people every Sunday. As if it’s not enough to be trying to get some sense out of this crazy game you have to carry around this madman trying to swallow your soul. The hot strap of the bag gnaws at his shoulder. “The truth is,” Eccles tells him with womanish excitement, in a voice embarrassed but determined, “you’re monstrously selfish. You’re a coward. You don’t care about right or wrong; you worship nothing except your own worst instincts.” They reach the tee, a platform of turf beside a hunchbacked fruit tree offering fists of taut ivory-colored buds. “Let me go first,” Rabbit says. “ ’Til you calm down.” His heart is hushed, held in mid-beat, by anger. He doesn’t care about anything except getting out of this tangle. He wants it to rain. In avoiding looking at Eccles he looks at the ball, which sits high on the tee and already seems free of the ground. Very simply he brings the clubhead around his shoulder into it. The sound has a hollowness, a singleness he hasn’t heard before. His arms force his head up and his ball is hung way out, lunarly pale against the beautiful black blue of storm clouds, his grandfather’s color stretched dense across the north. It recedes along a line straight as a ruler-edge. Stricken; sphere, star, speck. It hesitates, and Rabbit thinks it will die, but he’s fooled, for the ball makes its hesitation the ground of a final leap: with a kind of visible sob takes a last bite of space before vanishing in falling. “That’s it!” he cries and, turning to Eccles with a grin of aggrandizement, repeats, “That’s it.

When he reached the doorman, he stopped. “Did you see Miss Christian come in a few minutes ago?” The doorman nodded. “Yes, sir. She got here just before you arrived.” Relief staggered him. He bolted for the elevator. A few moments later, he strode into the apartment. “Kelly? Kelly, honey, where are you?” Not waiting for an answer, he hurried into the bedroom to see her sitting on the edge of the bed, her face pale and drawn in pain. When she heard him, she looked up and he winced at the dullness in her eyes. She’d been crying. “I thought I could do it,” she said in a raw voice, before he could beg her forgiveness. “I thought I could just go on and forget and that I could accept others thinking the worst of me as long as you and I were okay again. I did myself a huge disservice.” “Kelly…” Something in her look silenced him and he stood several feet away, a feeling of helplessness gripping him as he watched her try to compose herself. “I sat there tonight while your friends and your mother looked at me in disgust, while they looked at you with a mixture of pity and disbelief in their eyes. All because you took me back. The tramp who betrayed you in the worst possible manner. And I thought to myself I don’t deserve this. I’ve never deserved it. I deserve better.” She raised her eyes to his and he flinched at the horrible pain he saw reflected there. Then she laughed. A raw, terrible sound that grated across his ears. “And earlier tonight you forgave me. You stood there and told me it no longer mattered what happened in the past because you forgave me and you wanted to move forward.” She curled her fingers into tight balls and rage flared in her eyes. She stood and stared him down even as tears ran in endless streams down her cheeks. “Well, I don’t forgive you. Nor can I forget that you betrayed me in the worst way a man can betray the woman he’s supposed to love and be sworn to protect.” He took a step back, reeling from the fury in her voice. His eyes narrowed. “You don’t forgive me?” “I told you the truth that day,” she said hoarsely, her voice cracking under the weight of her tears. “I begged you to believe me. I got down on my knees and begged you. And what did you do? You wrote me a damn check and told me to get out.” He took another step back, his hand going to his hair. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. So much of that day was a blur. He remembered her on her knees, her tear-stained face, how she put her hand on his leg and whispered, “Please don’t do this.” It made him sick. He never wanted to go back to the way he felt that day, but somehow this was worse because there was something terribly wrong in her eyes and in her voice. “Your brother assaulted me. He forced himself on me. I didn’t invite his attentions. I wore the bruises from his attack for two weeks. Two weeks. I was so stunned by what he’d done that all I could think about was getting to you. I knew you’d fix it. You’d protect me. You’d take care of me. I knew you’d make it right. All I could think about was running to you. And, oh God, I did and you looked right through me.” The sick knot in his stomach grew and his chest tightened so much he couldn’t breathe. “You wouldn’t listen,” she said tearfully. “You wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say. You’d already made your mind up.” He swallowed and closed the distance between them, worried that she’d fall if he didn’t make her sit. But she shook him off and turned her back, her shoulders heaving as her quiet sobs fell over the room. “I’m listening now, Kelly,” he forced out. “Tell me what happened. I’ll believe you. I swear.” But he knew. He already knew. So much of that day was replaying over and over in his head and suddenly he was able to see so clearly what he’d refused to see before. And it was killing him. His brother had lied to him after all. Not just lied but he’d carefully orchestrated the truth and twisted it so cleverly that Ryan had been completely deceived.

At the diner where we went for our snack, there was yet another curious thing that made me think. White people like us would come in and take seats at the counter, but black people would place an order and then stand against the wall. When their food was ready, it would be handed to them in a paper bag and they would take it home or out to their car. My father explained to us that Negroes weren’t allowed to sit at luncheon counters in Washington. It wasn’t against the law exactly, but they didn’t do it because Washington was enough of a Southern city that they just didn’t dare. That seemed strange too and it made me even more reflective. Afterwards, lying awake in the hot hotel room, listening to the restless city, I tried to understand the adult world and could not. I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted—stay up all night or eat ice cream straight out of the container. But now, on this one important evening of my life, I had discovered that if you didn’t measure up in some critical way, people might shoot you in the head or make you take your food out to the car. I sat up on one elbow and asked my dad if there were places where Negroes ran lunch counters and made white people stand against the wall. My dad regarded me over the top of a book and said he didn’t think so. I asked him what would happen if a Negro tried to sit at a luncheon counter, even though he wasn’t supposed to. What would they do to him? My dad said he didn’t know and told me I should go to sleep and not worry about such things. I lay down and thought about it for a while and supposed that they would shoot him in the head. Then I rolled over and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t, partly because it was so hot and I was confused and partly because earlier in the evening my brother had told me that he was going to come over to my bed when I was asleep and wipe boogers on my face because I hadn’t given him a bite of my frosted malt at the ball game, and I was frankly unsettled by this prospect, even though he seemed to be sleeping soundly now. The world has changed a lot since those days, of course. Now if you lie awake in a hotel room at night, you don’t hear the city anymore.

It’s true I sometimes imagine my life is different. That I’m somebody else. Maybe more than sometimes. But I’m not the only one around who makes stuff up. Adults are always telling you you can be whatever you want when you grow up, but they don’t mean it. They don’t believe it. They just want you to believe it. It’s a fairy tale. Like the tooth fairy. Something they tell you that gets you excited about something not so fantastic. If you think about it, it’s pretty gross—your teeth just falling out of your head, leaving bloody sockets for your tongue to poke through. But the story makes it better and the dollar makes it worth it. Then one afternoon you sneak into their bedroom and open the drawer of their nightstand, looking for the DS that they confiscated as punishment for your jumping on the roof of the car again, and you find the little Tupperware full of a dozen jagged pearls, caked brown with your own dried blood, your name written in black Sharpie across a piece of Scotch tape, and you stare at them for a moment in disbelief, wondering if maybe they aren’t what you think they are. Maybe they are somebody else’s teeth. They can’t be yours, because your teeth are in Neverland. Or Toothtopia. Or outer space. Or wherever kleptomaniac fairies live. So you confront them, your lying, scheming parents. Over breakfast, you ask your mom about the tooth fairy: where she lives, what she does during the day, how she manages to collect so many teeth each night, and how come some kids’ teeth (like Robbie Dinkler’s) are worth five bucks when yours only fetch a dollar apiece. And you see her search for some explanation that is at once both magical and believable, but you know she’s just making it up as she goes. It’s the same with all grown-ups. They tell you what they think you want to hear and let life tell you the truth later. You can be an astronaut or the president of the United States or second baseman for the White Sox, but you can’t really because you hate math, aren’t rich, and can’t even hit the ball. It’s just another fairy tale. So when your next tooth falls out, you figure you’ll just ask them if they’d like to keep it or throw it away, because you’re not buying it anymore. Or maybe not. Maybe you won’t tell them. Maybe you’ll still put your teeth under your pillow. Because sometimes it’s better to believe in the impossible. To believe you are a secret agent or a private detective or a superhero and not just a kid with freckled cheeks and gangly arms who is too clumsy to leap a tipped-over garbage can in a single bound. Until you are lying in the middle of the sidewalk, with a throbbing ankle and bloody chin, wishing you hadn’t even tried.

Boys will be boys, and ballplayers will always be arrested adolescents at heart. The proof comes in the mid-afternoon of an early spring training day, when 40 percent of the New York Mets’ starting rotation—Mike Pelfrey and I—hop a chain-link fence to get onto a football field not far from Digital Domain. We have just returned from Dick’s Sporting Goods, where we purchased a football and a tee. We are here to kick field goals. Long field goals. A day before, we were all lying on the grass stretching and guys started talking about football and field-goal kickers, and David Wright mentioned something about the remarkable range of kickers these days. I can kick a fifty-yard field goal, Pelfrey says. You can not, Wright says. You don’t think so? You want to bet? You give me five tries and I’ll put three of them through. One hundred bucks says you can’t, David says. This is going to be the easiest money I ever make. I am Pelf’s self-appointed big brother, always looking out for him, and I don’t want him to go into this wager cold. So I suggest we get a ball and tee and do some practicing. We get back from Dick’s but find the nearby field padlocked, so of course we climb over the fence. At six feet two inches and 220 pounds, I get over without incident, but seeing Pelf hoist his big self over—all six feet seven inches and 250 pounds of him—is much more impressive. Pelf’s job is to kick and my job is to chase. He sets up at the twenty-yard line, tees up the ball, and knocks it through—kicking toe-style, like a latter-day Lou Groza. He backs up to the twenty-five and then the thirty, and boots several more from each distance. Adding the ten yards for the end zone, he’s now hit from forty yards and is finding his range. Pretty darn good. He insists he’s got another ten yards in his leg. He hits from forty-five, and by now he’s probably taken fifteen or seventeen hard kicks and reports that his right shin is getting sore. We don’t consider stopping. Pelf places the ball on the tee at the forty-yard line: a fifty-yard field goal. He takes a half dozen steps back, straight behind the tee, sprints up, and powers his toe into the ball … high … and far … and just barely over the crossbar. That’s all that is required. I thrust both my arms overhead like an NFL referee. He takes three more and converts on a second fifty-yarder. You are the man, Pelf, I say. Adam Vinatieri should worry for his job. That’s it, Pelf says. I can’t even lift my foot anymore. My shin is killing me. We hop back over the fence, Pelf trying to land as lightly as a man his size can land. His shin hurts so much he can barely put pressure on the gas pedal. He’s proven he can hit a fifty-yard field goal, but I go into big-brother mode and tell him I don’t want him kicking any more field goals or stressing his right leg any further. I convince him to drop the bet with David. The last thing you need is to start the season on the DL because you were kicking field goals, I say. Can you imagine if the papers got ahold of that one? The wager just fades away. David doesn’t mind; he gets a laugh at the story of Pelf hopping the fence and practicing, and drilling long ones.

Don’t provoke Cheat,” Arin said as they stepped out of the carriage and onto the dusky path that led to the governor’s palace, which looked eerie to Kestrel because its impressive façade was the same as the night before, but the lights burning in the windows were now few. “Kestrel, do you hear me? You can’t toy with him.” “He started it.” “That’s not the point.” Gravel crunched under Arin’s heavy boots as he stalked up the path. “Don’t you understand that he wants you dead? He’d leap at the chance,” Arin said, hands in pockets, head down, almost talking to himself. He strode ahead, his long legs quicker than hers. “I can’t--Kestrel, you must understand that I would never claim you. Calling you a prize--my prize--it was only words. But it worked. Cheat won’t harm you, I swear that he won’t, but you must…hide yourself a little. Help a little. Just tell us how much time we have before the battle. Give him a reason to decide you’re not better off dead. Swallow your pride.” “Maybe that’s not as easy for me as it is for you.” He wheeled on her. “It’s not easy for me,” he said through his teeth. “You know that it’s not. What do you think I have had to swallow, these past ten years? What do you think I have had to do to survive?” They stood before the palace door. “Truly,” she said, “I haven’t the faintest interest. You may tell your sad story to someone else.” He flinched as if slapped. His voice came low: “You can make people feel so small.” Kestrel went hot with shame--then was ashamed of her own shame. Who was he, that she should apologize? He had used her. He had lied. Nothing he said meant anything. If she was to feel shame, it should be for having been so easily fooled. He ran fingers through his cropped hair, but slowly, anger gone, replaced by something heavier. He didn’t look at her. His breath smoked the chill air. “Do what you want to me. Say anything. But it frightens me how you refuse to see the danger you risk with others. Maybe now you’ll see.” He opened the door to the governor’s home. The smell struck her first. Blood and decaying flesh. It pushed at Kestrel’s gut. She fought not to gag. Bodies were piled in the reception hall. Lady Neril was lying facedown, almost in the same place where she had stood the night of the ball, greeting guests. Kestrel recognized her by the scarf in her fist, fabric bright in the guttering torchlight. There were hundreds of dead. She saw Captain Wensan, Lady Faris, Senator Nicon’s whole family, Benix… Kestrel knelt next to him. His large hand felt like cold clay. She could hear her tears drip to his clothes. They beaded on his skin. Quietly, Arin said, “He’ll be buried today, with the others.” “He should be burned. We burn our dead.” She couldn’t look at Benix anymore, but neither could she get to her feet. Arin helped her, his touch gentle. “I’ll make certain it’s done right.” Kestrel forced her legs to move, to walk past bodies heaped like rubble. She thought that she must have fallen asleep after all, and that this was an evil dream. She paused at the sight of Irex. His mouth was the stained purple of the poisoned, but he had sticky gashes in his side, and one final cut to the neck. Even poisoned, he had fought. Tears came again. Arin’s hold tightened. He pushed her past Irex. “Don’t you dare weep for him. If he weren’t dead, I would kill him myself.

Hey, hold up!” I drop the pickax to the ground and jog after K.T. I pull a roundish piece of amethyst about half the size of my palm out of my pocket and hold it out. “Would you give this to her?” K.T. tilts her head to the side as she takes the stone and examines it. “Pretty. Is it amethyst?” “Yeah.” “Why don’t you give it to her yourself?” I shove my hands in my pockets and shrug. There’s no answer I can give that wouldn’t either sound crazy or be an outright lie. K.T. smiles and slips the stone into her pocket. “All right, Romeo. I’ll go see if I can get Juliet to come to the ball tonight.” K.T. winks and walks around to the front of the house.

Retirement’s for young people, because they have other things they can do.’ At 70 years of age, with idleness, the system breaks down quickly. You have to have something in place when you retire. Right away, the next day, not after a three-month holiday. When you’re young, the 14-hour days are necessary, because you have to establish yourself, and the only way to do that is by working your balls off. By those means, you establish a work ethic for yourself. If you have family, it’s passed on to them. My mother and father conveyed the fruits of their labour to me and I have done so with my own children and beyond. With youth you have the capacity to establish all the stability of later life. With age you have to manage your energy. Keep fit. People should keep fit. Eat the right foods. I was never a great sleeper, but I could get my five to six hours, which was adequate for me. Some people wake up and lie in bed. I could never do that. I wake and jump up. I’m ready to go somewhere. I don’t lie there whiling my time away. You’ve had your sleep – that’s why you woke up.

Sabine dear, you behaved so wonderfully, so poised and mature. I was very proud of you." Huh? Was I hearing right? My mother-proud of me? "You looked lovely and I was very impressed with your young man," she continued. "Has Josh ever considered modeling? I could put him in contact with some key people if he's interested." "I don't think so. But I'll tell him." "Also be sure to tell him he's welcome to visit anytime." "Should I come, too?" "Don't make jokes, Sabine. I'm being sincere." "Well ... thanks. I'll tell josh and we'll plan a visit." "Excellent. He's exactly the sort of young man I'd hoped you'd find, and clearly a very good influence to help you overcome your past problems." "You don't have to worry about me." "I'm not-but I'm concerned about Amy." "Why?" I asked cautiously. "She's at an impressionable age, and I don't want her to experience anything unnatural. I wouldn't have allowed her to stay with you if I hadn't thought you'd outgrown all the woo-woo nonsense." Yeah, like I'm going to take Amy to a coven meeting where we'll dance naked with spirits in the moonlight. Mom hadn't changed at all-my abilities still freaked her out. She'd only called to make sure I didn't corrupt my little sister. Her sugary compliments were as fake as artificial sweetener. Arguing would just bring a quick end to Amy's visit. So I said what Mom wanted to hear-lying through my clenched teeth for Amy's sake. Then I slammed the phone down.

Finn?” “Yeah?” “Remember how you said the ball was in my court?” He pressed his forehead to hers for a beat, like he was working on control. She knew she should be as well but she didn’t want him to leave, didn’t want to be alone in this. ”Don’t go,” she whispered softly.

Handsome as the devil,” Samantha commented, following her gaze. “Is he as wicked as they say, Lottie?” “Not in the least,” Lottie lied. “Lord Sydney is as mild-tempered and obliging a gentleman as could be found anywhere.” It was a case of unfortunate timing that at that moment, Nick happened to glance in her direction. His gaze encompassed her in a smoldering sweep that threatened to singe her clothing to ashes. Knowing what that look meant, and what would happen in the evening hours after the ball, Lottie felt a thrill deep inside, and she struggled to maintain her composure. Samantha and Arabella, meanwhile, had snapped open their fans and were employing them vigorously. “Good heavens,” Samantha exclaimed in a low voice, “the way he looks at you is positively indecent, Lottie.” “I don’t know what you mean,” Lottie said demurely, though she felt her own cheeks heating. Arabella giggled behind her own painted silk fan. “The only time I’ve ever seen that expression on my Harry’s face is when a plate of Yorkshire pudding is set before him.

There it is—his million-dollar smile. I can’t see his dimple winking at me, but I know that it is. He runs his hand through my long, thick dark-brown curls and starts to massage the back of my neck. As he leans towards me, I find myself playing with his pierced nipple. His lips are centimeters away from mine, my heart is pounding in my head, and I can barely remember to breath. His other hand slides up my bare thigh, and I close my eyes. I can feel the heat from his breath along my jaw. His lips graze the bottom of my ear lobe, and when I hear him whisper those three little words in my ear, I wonder if I am actually dreaming. When he brushes my bottom lip with his tongue, I know that I am wide awake. I can feel my heart beginning to crack, knowing that this will not be able to last much longer. He begins to graze kisses along my jaw. When our lips meet, I know that I will be broken for a long time. I could kiss him forever, and I want to, but I only have minutes. I want days. I want weeks. I want forever! As he pulls away and our eyes meet, I realize that I don’t get any of those things. All I get is one last swift kiss before he’s gone. I lie down on my bed, curl into a tight little ball, and begin to cry. When I hear his car start, I feel the crack in my chest getting bigger, and as the sounds of his engine start to dissipate, knowing that’s he’s gone, realizing that I was head over heels in love with him but didn’t tell him, that’s when my heart shatters completely.

I want to go out with you. On a date.” “First of all, you don’t date. Remember? And you think I’m the kind of girl who goes out with a guy like you?” Cedric shrugged. “Yes.” Ellie looked like she wanted to kick him in the balls so he stepped out of reach. “I mean, no. I think you are the kind of girl who would go out with a man who’s like me. Kind. Considerate. Not crazy at all. And I wasn’t lying, I was just confused. And I’m not a bastard either. Well, technically I am since I don’t have a father, but—”  “I must be getting some bad karma. Maybe from something I did in a past life.” Cedric grinned. “Karma is why I met you.” “What is that supposed to mean?” “Good karma. We had to meet.” “Serendipity?” Cedric nodded. “I’m John Cusack.” “I will punch you if you tell me I’m Kate Beckinsale.” “You’re a hundred times more beautiful than her.

I’m Captain Florida, the state history pimp Gatherin’ more data than a DEA blimp West Palm, Tampa Bay, Miami-Dade Cruisin’ the coasts till Johnny Vegas gets laid Developer ho’s, and the politician bitches Smackin’ ’em down, while I’m takin’ lots of pictures Hurricanes, sinkholes, natural disaster ’Scuse me while I kick back, with my View-Master (S:) I’m Captain Florida, obscure facts are all legit (C:) I’m Coleman, the sidekick, with a big bong hit (S:) I’m Captain Florida, staying literate (C:) Coleman sees a book and says, “Fuck that shit” Ain’t never been caught, slippin’ nooses down the Keys Got more buoyancy than Elián González Knockin’ off the parasites, and takin’ all their moola Recruiting my apostles for the Church of Don Shula I’m an old-school gangster with a psycho ex-wife Molly Packin’ Glocks, a shotgun and my 7-Eleven coffee Trippin’ the theme parks, the malls, the time-shares Bustin’ my rhymes through all the red-tide scares (S:) I’m the surge in the storms, don’t believe the hype (C:) I’m his stoned number two, where’d I put my hash pipe? (S:) Florida, no appointments and a tank of gas (C:) Tequila, no employment and a bag of grass Think you’ve seen it all? I beg to differ Mosquitoes like bats and a peg-leg stripper The scammers, the schemers, the real estate liars Birthday-party clowns in a meth-lab fire But dig us, don’t diss us, pay a visit, don’t be late And statistics always lie, so ignore the murder rate Beaches, palm trees and golfing is our curse Our residents won’t bite, but a few will shoot first Everglades, orange groves, alligators, Buffett Scarface, Hemingway, an Andrew Jackson to suck it Solarcaine, Rogaine, eight balls of cocaine See the hall of fame for the criminally insane Artifacts, folklore, roadside attractions Crackers, Haitians, Cuban-exile factions The early-bird specials, drivin’ like molasses Condo-meeting fistfights in cataract glasses (S:) I’m the native tourist, with the rants that can’t be beat (C:) Serge, I think I put my shoes on the wrong feet (S:) A stack of old postcards in another dingy room (C:) A cold Bud forty and a magic mushroom Can’t stop, turnpike, keep ridin’ like the wind Gotta make a detour for a souvenir pin But if you like to litter, you’re just liable to get hurt Do ya like the MAC-10 under my tropical shirt? I just keep meeting jerks, I’m a human land-filler But it’s totally unfair, this term “serial killer” The police never rest, always breakin’ in my pad But sunshine is my bling, and I’m hangin’ like a chad (S:) Serge has got to roll and drop the mike on this rap . . . (C:) Coleman’s climbin’ in the tub, to take a little nap . . . (S:) . . . Disappearin’ in the swamp—and goin’ tangent, tangent, tangent . . . (C:) He’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (Fade-out) (S:) I’m goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (C:) Fuck goin’ platinum, he’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (S:) . . . Wikipedia all up and down your ass . . . (C:) Wikity-Wikity-Wikity . . .

I felt tired, but I pitched the ball back at her. "You want me to talk about myself, right? Let me tell you what 'self' means to me. The self, myself, the self as I see it, is composed mainly of selected memories from my history. I am not what I am doing now. I am what I have done, and the edited version of my past seems more real to me than what I am at this moment. I don't know who or what I really am. The present is fleeting and intangible. No one in China wants to talk about his past, because nobody wants to paint his face black. Our past is not a flattering picture, and no one wants to look at it for long. Yet what we were in fixed and final. It is the basis for predictions of what we will be in the future. To tell you truth, I identify with what no longer exists more than what actually is. We have lied about what we actually are, and that, unfortunately, will be your book. So would you still like me to talk about myself?

night, there was a real bad thunderstorm. But what woke me up wasn’t the thunder and lightning. It was Winn-Dixie, whining and butting his head against my bedroom door. “Winn-Dixie,” I said. “What are you doing?” He didn’t pay any attention to me. He just kept beating his head against the door and whining and whimpering; and when I got out of bed and went over and put my hand on his head, he was shaking and trembling so hard that it scared me. I knelt down and wrapped my arms around him, but he didn’t turn and look at me or smile or sneeze or wag his tail, or do any normal kind of Winn-Dixie thing; he just kept beating his head against the door and crying and shaking. “You want the door open?” I said. “Huh? Is that what you want?” I stood up and opened the door and Winn-Dixie flew through it like something big and ugly and mean was chasing him. “Winn-Dixie,” I hissed, “come back here.” I didn’t want him going and waking the preacher up. But it was too late. Winn-Dixie was already at the other end of the trailer, in the preacher’s room. I could tell because there was a sproi-i-ing sound that must have come from Winn-Dixie jumping up on the bed, and then there was a sound from the preacher like he was real surprised. But none of it lasted long, because Winn-Dixie came tearing back out of the preacher’s room, panting and running like crazy. I tried to grab him, but he was going too fast. “Opal?” said the preacher. He was standing at the door to his bedroom, and his hair was all kind of wild on top of his head, and he was looking around like he wasn’t sure where he was. “Opal, what’s going on?” “I don’t know,” I told him. But just then there was a huge crack of thunder, one so loud that it shook the whole trailer, and Winn-Dixie came shooting back out of my room and went running right past me and I screamed, “Daddy, watch out!” But the preacher was still confused. He just stood there, and Winn-Dixie came barreling right toward him like he was a bowling ball and the preacher was the only pin left standing, and wham, they both fell to the ground. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Opal?” said the preacher. He was lying on his stomach, and Winn-Dixie was sitting on top of him, panting and whining. “Yes sir,” I said. “Opal,” the preacher said again. “Yes sir,” I said louder. “Do you know what a pathological fear is?” “No sir,” I told him. The preacher raised a hand. He rubbed his nose. “Well,” he said, after a minute, “it’s a fear that goes way beyond normal fears. It’s a fear you can’t be talked out of or reasoned out of.” Just then there was another crack of thunder and Winn-Dixie rose straight up in the air like somebody had poked him with something hot. When he hit the floor, he started running. He ran back to my bedroom, and I didn’t even try to catch him; I just got out of his way. The preacher lay there on the ground, rubbing his nose. Finally, he sat up. He said, “Opal, I believe Winn-Dixie has a pathological fear of thunderstorms.” And just when he finished his sentence, here came Winn-Dixie again, running to save his life. I got the preacher up off the floor and out of the way just in time. There didn’t seem to be a thing we could do for Winn-Dixie to make him feel better, so we just sat there and watched him run back and forth, all terrorized and panting. And every time there was another crack of thunder, Winn-Dixie acted all over again like it was surely the end of the world. “The storm won’t last long,” the preacher told me. “And when it’s over, the real Winn-Dixie will come back.

In an email to Robertson, the whistleblower Sunny described how Ranbaxy used hidden areas of the plant to store and cover up testing machines that were not connected to the company’s main computer network. He was referring to the crucial high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) machines, the workhorses of any good testing laboratory. The bulky machines looked like a stack of computer printers. Once a drug sample is mixed with a solvent, injected into the machine, and pressed through a column filled with granular material, the machine separates out and measures the drug’s components, including impurities. It displays them as a series of peaks on a graph called a chromatogram. In a compliant laboratory, HPLC machines would be networked with the main computer system, making all their data visible and preserved. During a recent inspection, Sunny wrote, the unauthorized HPLC machines were kept in two ancillary labs: “Ranbaxy creates small such hidden areas where these manipulations can be done.” Sunny estimated that some thirty products on the U.S. market did not pass specifications and advised Robertson that the agency needed to raid Paonta Sahib and Dewas, just as it had done in New Jersey, to find the evidence. He warned, “The move has already started in Ranbaxy to share such details of problematic products personally and not on emails or letters.” But because the U.S. Attorney had no jurisdiction in India, the FDA couldn’t execute a search warrant there. Robertson felt thwarted: “People said, ‘You need to go to India.’” But her response was, “What am I going to do [over there], knock on people’s doors and hope they talk to me? I don’t have authority over in India. It’s all a voluntary, good-faith system.” The case had crashed like a wrecking ball into the overtaxed agency, exposing the fact that the FDA had no effective way to police a foreign drug company.

They took off again, padding along on the balls of their feet so as not to make as much noise. The two reached another turn in the tunnel. Tommy sped around it without thinking and ran face-first into a tangled mass of cobwebs. He grasped at his face and hair, panicking, nearly dropping his flashlight in the process. Fortunately, he didn’t make a noise other than spitting the cobwebs out of his mouth. Sean stepped by him, putting his hand out in front and pulling the remaining webs out of the way. “Come on,” he whispered. “I don’t have one on me, do I?” Tommy asked. He swiped his hands around in panic-stricken paranoia. “Dude, there are no spiders down here anymore. We have to move.” Tommy followed, though he still swiped at his neck and hair occasionally just to make sure Sean wasn’t lying.

Will you be attending the Duchess of Worthingstone’s ball tomorrow evening?” Lord Burkham asked Rose. She is, and if you dare to break her heart again, I’ll be breaking every bone in your body. Iain took every effort to keep from revealing his annoyance. Lady

Will you be attending the Duchess of Worthingstone’s ball tomorrow evening?” Lord Burkham asked Rose. She is, and if you dare to break her heart again, I’ll be breaking every bone in your body. Iain took every effort to keep from revealing his annoyance. Lady Rose only nodded. “I am. But please, Lord Burkham and Miss Everett—” She sent a pleading look toward the chaperones as well. “My family does not know that I’ve begun walking again. It was my intention to surprise them at the ball.” “Then may I ask that you save your first dance for me?” the viscount asked with a warm smile. “For old times’ sake?” When I’m cold in the grave, Iain thought. But Rose blushed and answered, “Of course.” Miss

Lord Ashton, exactly what did you want for your prize?” “The first dance with your sister at the Worthingstone ball,” he answered quietly. The

And I don't even know you. It's too soon for you to take me home. I'm scared of getting attached to you. Really scared." "The feeling's mutual." Mentally, I stopped dead in my tracks. Whatever train my thoughts had been on screeched to a halt between stations. I looked in his eyes, searching for a bit of guardedness, a little double meaning, but there was none. He wasn't lying.

Hi, Dale, it’s Gabby...Clay’s girlfriend.”  It felt weird giving myself that title, but I pushed it aside.  Bigger issues to deal with.  “If he’s there, can I talk to him?” Dale chuckled.  “Sure, but I don’t imagine it’d be much of a conversation.” I heard him call out to Clay.  A moment later, a husky voice said, “Hello?” After not talking to me for so long, hearing his voice startled and annoyed me slightly.  He would talk to a perfect stranger, but not me?  I opened my mouth to say something about it, but the pain in my head insistently prodded me to get on with the important news. “Clay, I did it again.  I’m at the diner where we had breakfast.  I need you to come get me before it gets worse.” He didn’t say anything for so long that I looked at the phone to see if I still had a signal.  The screen said disconnected.  Would it have killed him to say “Okay” or maybe even “Bye” before hanging up?  His hello had been too shocking to recall the sound of his voice. I sighed and put my cell away.  With Sam’s frequent calls and Rachel’s occasional texts, my remaining minutes dipped into the double digits.  I needed to adjust my budget to buy more airtime.  Did life really need to throw me this many curveballs?  And all at once? I forced myself to eat more of my mostly untouched meal so the waitress wouldn’t bother me as I waited. The last of the waves hit me.  Only determination and a hand over my mouth kept me from whimpering.  After about ten minutes, I settled the bill and watched out the window for Clay, barely checking the need to curl into a ball and lie down on the padded bench.  The waitress kept a close eye on me, probably thinking she would need to clean up barf soon.  She might. Dale’s huge tow truck pulled into the parking lot.  Clay opened his door and leapt out while it still rolled to a stop.  Through the window, he spotted me.  His eyes never left me as he strode in and Dale pulled away. Clay still wore his greasy coveralls, and with his hair pulled back, he looked like an angel—a grimy one—coming to save me.  Again. “Hi,

That’s how I met Griffin, you know.” “What, at the racetrack?” She gazed at him again for several long moments. “You must be really bored.” “I’m . . . interested in . . .” He took a deep breath. “The truth is, you’ve been handling all this shit really well, and I’m, well, curious about you. You’re tougher than I thought—smarter, too. Frankly, I just don’t get how someone like you got hooked up with Lamont and Trotta in the first place.” “Ah,” she said. “There’s that refreshing honesty again. It’s very appealing, Harry, the way you put all the cards out on the table for everyone to see.” Her voice hardened. “Except the last time you did that, you had an entire deck still up your sleeve. You can’t blame me for wondering what you’re hiding from me this time.” Alessandra was staring out the window again, her chin held self-righteously high. But it was just an act. She was working hard to hide her hurt. He could see it trembling in the corner of her mouth. It was there, too, lurking in her eyes. I thought you were special. “Jesus,” Harry said, hating the guilt that pressed down on him. “You want complete honesty? Sweetheart, I’m more than happy to give it to you. No secrets, no tactful white lies, just the hard truth—is that really what you want?” “Yes.” “Great,” he said. “Let’s see. We can start with the fact that I’m scared shitless about seeing my kids again. I don’t know if Emily’s going to recognize me—or worse, if I’m going to recognize her. I’m dreading talking to Marge, and I’m still worried about George. I knew a cop who was recovering nicely from a gunshot wound. One day he seemed fine. The next day he was back in the ICU with an infection. Day after, we were sitting shivah at his house. But I digress. When you sit that way, you look kind of like a beach ball with a head,” he continued. “Your haircut is really, really bad, I’m probably going to lose my job for helping you this way, and I’m dying to fuck you.” He glanced at her. “Honest enough for you?

Far too many people die with a heart that's gone flat with indifference, and it surely must be a terrible way to go. Life will offer us amazing opportunities, but we've got to be wide-awake to recognize them. If there's one thing I'd like most for you, it's that you'll find your calling in life. That's where true happiness and purpose lies. Whether it's taking care of abandoned animals, saving old houses from the wreckin' ball, or reading to the blind, you've got to find your fire, sugar. You'll never be fulfilled if you don't.

But, Father Murray didn’t want to say Mass, he wanted to play a round of golf. Father Murray told his associate pastor that he wasn’t feeling well, and asked him if he would say Mass for him at nine o’clock. The younger priest agreed, and suggested that Father Murray go back to bed. Father Murray loaded his clubs into the trunk, drove to a distant golf course, where he hoped not to be seen, and started his golf game. Up in Heaven, Saint Peter was appalled. He said, ‘Lord, are you going to let him get away with this?’ and the Lord replied, ‘Patience, Peter.’ Meanwhile, Father Murray was playing the game of his life. He was driving the ball three hundred and fifty yards, and making forty foot putts. Again, Saint Peter asked the Lord, ‘Lord, surely you don’t intend to reward Father Murray’s behavior?’ Again, the Lord told Peter to be patient. Finally, Father Murray reached the last hole. He lined up the tee shot, and hit a sizzling shot which headed right for the cup. It dropped, rolled, and fell in for a hole-in-one. Father Murray was overjoyed. Saint Peter was baffled. ‘Lord, why would you allow Father Murray to skip Mass, tell a lie, and then play the best golf game of his life?’ The Lord answered, ‘Who’s he gonna tell?

But don’t sit here and think that you’re cured, because that’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. People who want to get better, they work at it. They don’t lie to themselves and everyone else. They don’t sit on their ass and sink deeper into a pathetic existence while denying anything’s wrong at all. They have balls not bullshit. And I’m pretty much fed up with yours.

It was tedious work; they had to reheat the dagger several times to cauterise all the wounds. The Falconer was half-mad with pain by the time they’d finished; his eyes were closed and his teeth clenched. The air in the enclosed room stank of burnt flesh and scalded blood. ‘Now,’ said Locke, sitting on the Falconer’s chest, ‘it’s time to talk.’ ‘I cannot,’ said the Bondsmage. ‘I cannot . . . betray my client’s secrets.’ ‘You no longer have a client,’ said Locke. ‘You no longer serve Capa Raza; he hired a Bondsmage, not a fingerless freak with a dead bird for a best friend. When I removed your fingers, I removed your obligations to Raza – at least the way I see it.’ ‘Go to hell,’ the Falconer spat. ‘Oh, good. You’ve decided to do it the hard way.’ Locke smiled again and tossed the dagger to Jean, who set it over the flame and began to heat it once more. ‘If you were any other man, I’d threaten your balls next. I’d make all sorts of cracks about eunuchs, but I think you could bear that. You’re not most men. I think the only thing I can take from you that would truly pain you to the depths of your soul would be your tongue.’ The Bondsmage stared at him, his lips quivering. ‘Please,’ he whispered at last, ‘have pity, for the gods’ sakes, have pity; my order exists to serve – I was carrying out a contract.’ ‘When that contract became my friends,’ said Locke, ‘you exceeded your mandate.’ ‘Please,’ whispered the Falconer. ‘No,’ said Locke. ‘I will cut it out; I will cauterise it while you lie there writhing. I will make you a mute – I’m guessing you might be able to conjure some magic without fingers, but without a tongue?’ ‘Please!’ ‘Speak,’ said Locke. ‘Tell me what I want to know.’ ‘Gods,’ sobbed the Falconer. ‘Gods forgive me. Ask. Ask your questions.’ ‘If I catch you in a lie,’ said Locke, ‘it’s balls first, and then the tongue. Don’t presume on my patience. Why did Capa Raza want us all dead?

Jacob,” Shmuel interrupted him. “Lie to yourself all you want. But do me a favor, okay? As your friend and business partner of over a decade who’s risked everything with you on this Matzah Ball...don’t lie to me.

After that we had Math Class. Pencils ready! she yelled. If you’ve got a two thousand-piece puzzle of an Amish farm and you manage to add three pieces to the puzzle per day, how many more days will you need to stay alive to get it done? Math Class was interrupted by the doorbell. Ball Game! yelled Grandma. Who could it be? The doorbell ringer is set to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” which Grandma forces me to sing with her during the seventh-inning stretch even if we’re just watching the game in our living room. She makes me stand up for the anthem at the beginning, too. Mom doesn’t stand up for the anthem because Canada is a lie and a crime scene. It was Jay Gatsby. He wants to tear our house down. I went to the door and opened it and told him, It’s yours for twenty million dollars. He said, Listen, can I speak with your mother. You said the last time— Twenty-five million dollars, I said. Sorry, said Jay Gatsby, I’d like to speak with— Thirty million dollars, capitalist, do you understand English? I slammed the door shut. Grandma said that was a bit overkill. He’s afraid of death, said Grandma. She said it like an insult. He’s lost his way! Jay Gatsby wants to tear down our house and build an underground doomsday-proof luxury vault. Jay Gatsby bought a house on a tropical island once and then forced every other person living on the island to sell their house to him so that he had the whole island to himself to do ecstasy and yoga with ex-models. He forced all the models to take pills that made their shit gold and sparkly. Mom said he’s had fake muscles put into his calves. She knows this because one day she saw him on the sidewalk outside the bookstore and his calves were super skinny and three days later they were bulging and had seams on them. Mom said he went to a place in Cleveland, Ohio to get it done where you can also have your vag tightened up if you feel like it. Then you can just sit around with your S.O. vaping all day with your giant fake calves and stitched-up wazoo and be spied on by your modern thermostat which is a weapon of the state they just call “green” because of sales and Alexa and shit and practicing mindfulness hahahaha and just be really, really, really happy that you don’t have half a fucking brain between the two of you.

Like Wheeler and Feynman, Cramer proposed that the wavefunction of a particle moving forward in time is just one of two relevant waves determining its behavior. The retarded wave in Cramer’s theory is complemented by a response wave that travels specifically from the particle’s destination, in temporal retrograde. In his theory, a measurement, or an interaction, amounts to a kind of “handshake agreement” between the forward-in-time and backward-in-time influences.13 This handshake can extend across enormous lengths of time, if we consider what happens when we view the sky at night. As Cramer writes: When we stand in the dark and look at a star a hundred light years away, not only have the retarded waves from the star been traveling for a hundred years to reach our eyes, but the advanced waves generated by absorption processes within our eyes have reached a hundred years into the past, completing the transaction that permitted the star to shine in our direction.14 Cramer may not have been aware of it, but his poetic invocation of the spacetime greeting of the eye and a distant star, and the transactional process that would be involved in seeing, was actually a staple of medieval and early Renaissance optics. Before the ray theory of light emerged in the 1600s, it was believed that a visual image was formed when rays projecting out from the eye interacted with those coming into it. It goes to show that everything, even old physics, comes back in style if you wait long enough—and it is another reason not to laugh too hard, or with too much self-assurance, at hand-waving that seems absurd from one’s own limited historical or scientific standpoint. In short: Cramer’s and Aharonov’s theories both imply a backward causal influence from the photon’s destination. The destination of the photon “already knows” it is going to receive the photon, and this is what enables it to behave with the appropriate politeness. Note that neither of these theories have anything to do with billiard balls moving in reverse, a mirror of causation in which particles somehow fly through spacetime and interact in temporal retrograde. That had been the idea at the basis of Gerald Feinberg’s hypothesized tachyons, particles that travel faster than light and thus backward in time. It inspired a lot of creative thinking about the possibilities of precognition and other forms of ESP in the early 1970s (and especially inspired the science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick), but we can now safely set aside that clunky and unworkable line of thinking as “vulgar retrocausation.” No trace of tachyons has turned up in any particle accelerator, and they don’t make sense anyway. What we are talking about here instead is an inflection of ordinary particles’ observable behavior by something ordinarily unobservable: measurements—that is, interactions—that lie ahead in those particles’ future histories. Nothing is “moving” backwards in time—and really, nothing is “moving” forwards in time either. A particle’s twists and turns as it stretches across time simply contain information about both its past and its future.

She was close, almost there. I could tell by her frenzied movements and erratic breathing. Her pussy pulsated, aching, throbbing against my fingers and I didn’t let up until she couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t wait any longer. Within seconds, her legs started to shake, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Her hands immediately gripped onto my hair, and I grunted in pleasure. “Hmm … ah … mmm…” she exhaled, coming hard. Fast. All the way down my face and neck. “And she’s a squirter. That’s a nice unexpected surprise. I’m just learning all these new things about my girl.” “That’s never happened before.” I smiled, feeling damn proud of myself. Tugging off my shirt over my head, I wiped my face and neck and tossed it on the floor next to her clothes. Unbuckling my belt and jeans next, I slid them off, along with my boxer briefs. She opened her eyes and glanced down my body. “Huh, imagine that.” I crawled my way back up to her face. “Imagine what?” “You weren’t lying about your big main man.” “My cock?” “You just want to hear me say it.” I scoffed out a chuckle, now hovering above her. “Fuck.” “What?” “I need to get a condom and I’m honestly terrified what will happen if I go down that ladder with how hard I am right now.” She kissed my lips. “I’m on the pill.” “I’ve never gone bareback before.” “Me either.” For the first time in my life, I turned into a wild animal. Growling like I was a fucking lion and king of the jungle, I claimed her mouth, aggressively kissing her. Positioning my cock at her entrance, I held it there. In between kissing her, I muttered, “If I thrust balls deep inside of you, Mila, everything will change, and I don’t want to fuck up our friendship. It’s too important to me.” “Are you saying that you don’t want to do this with me?

Nonstop To Nowhere" I'm on the lame train, I got a first class ticket On the nonstop to nowhere Where it takes me I don't know I guess the tracks you lay are your own It's five o'clock in the morning And I can't fall asleep again Times are changing and moving fast Way too fast for me Seems like only yesterday I was skipping school and stealing gasoline I've been talking, I guess you can call it talking a white lie One minute I'm on the top of the world And the next thing you know Sometimes I just sit and daydream And I just slip away from here If only I had a crystal ball Or could invent a time machine I'd go into the future and take a good look around And what life has in store for me I've been walking, I guess you can call it walking a thin line One minute I'm on the top of the world And the next thing you know I'm on the lame train, I got a first class ticket On the non-stop to nowhere Where it takes me I don't know I guess the tracks you lay are your own It's like a chain gang I know the exit but my problems Seem to follow me wherever I go Nonstop to nowhere I don't believe the preachers They're just sticking out their hands I don't believe the government And who in the hell's this Uncle Sam Mr. conductor will you help me off this train Well I believe I'm on the wrong one And it's taking me down the drain Faster Pussycat, Whipped (1992)

If you like wearing slim skirts, there’s nothing uglier than having two additional bulges just below where the hips naturally curve. And of course if you have them you can’t possibly wear pants. The first three exercises, all done from the same starting position, are good for the buttocks as well as the outside of the thighs. They should be done as often as possible, on both sides, and as long as possible for the quickest results. 1. Lie on your side with one arm stretched out under your head. Bring the knee of the upper leg slowly up to your chest, and slowly back into position again. Do this a few times (to dreamy music) and then roll over and do it with the other leg. 2. In the same position on your side, raise the upper leg and move it forward and back as far as you comfortably can. Roll over and do this with the other leg. 3. Raise the top leg and raise the bottom leg up to meet it. Slowly lower the bottom leg, and then the top one. 4. For the inside of the thighs, lie on your back with your knees up, feet flat on the floor, and a small rubber ball between your knees. Squeeze the ball, and hold it with all the muscle pressure you can. 5. Kneel, with your knees apart, and try to bring the knees together. But don’t let them move. Pull until you feel the tug on the inside thigh muscles and hold it as long as you comfortably can – or a little longer. 6. Now sit on the floor, and press the soles of your feet together. Press your knees down, to either side, as far as you can. Keep pressing till it hurts. 7. The simple old ballet warm-up of kicking will wake up the thigh muscles all around. Put one hand on a sturdy chair or railing and, HOLDING YOURSELF ABSOLUTELY ERECT and keeping both legs straight, kick forward as high as you can, several times. Then kick out to the side, making sure your body is straight as a ramrod. Then kick straight back. Do the same thing with the other leg. You may not get very high kicks the first day or two, but you’ll be surprised at the way you can gain an inch in altitude each time until you’re making a pretty good showing.

The award-winning American TV series Breaking Bad has a scene in its second season set in the murder capital of Ciudad Juárez. In this episode, American and Mexican agents are lured to a patch of desert just south of the border looking for an informant. They discover the informant’s head has been cut off and stuck on the body of a giant turtle. But as they approach, the severed cranium, turned into an IED, explodes, killing agents. The episode was released in 2009. I thought it was unrealistic, a bit fantastic. Until July 15, 2010. In the real Ciudad Juárez on that day, gangsters kidnapped a man, dressed him in a police uniform, shot him, and dumped him bleeding on a downtown street. A cameraman filmed what happened after federal police and paramedics got close. The video shows medics bent over the dumped man, checking for vital signs. Suddenly a bang rings out, and the image shakes vigorously as the cameraman runs for his life. Gangsters had used a cell phone to detonate twenty-two pounds of explosives packed into a nearby car. A minute later, the camera turns back around to reveal the burning car pouring smoke over screaming victims. A medic lies on the ground, covered in blood but still moving, a stunned look on his face. Panicked officers are scared to go near him. The medic dies minutes later along with a federal agent and a civilian. I’m not suggesting that Breaking Bad inspired the murders. TV shows don’t kill people. Car bombs kill people. The point of the story is that the Mexican Drug War is saturated with stranger-than-fiction violence. Mexican writer Alejandro Almazán suffered from a similar dilemma. As he was writing his novel Among Dogs, he envisioned a scene in which thugs decapitate a man and stick a hound’s head on his corpse. It seemed pretty out there. But then in real life some gangsters did exactly that, only with a pig’s head. It is just hard to compete with the sanguine criminal imagination. Cartel thugs have put a severed head in a cooler and delivered it to a newspaper; they have dressed up a murdered policeman in a comedy sombrero and carved a smile on his cheeks; and they have even sewn a human face onto a soccer ball.

Little lies,” Reggie said sotto voce. “Little lies, they turn into big lies. And those big lies, they become wrecking balls.” He swung a leg off the sofa bed, got up and towered over Israel, face expressionless. “I don’t care why you lied, Is. I care that you thought it was okay. No big deal.

going to get to the ball? I don’t think your guards will let you just walk out.” Celaena shot Philippa a sly look. “We’re both going to pretend that I was invited by the Crown Prince—and right now you are going to make such a fuss about me being late that they won’t object.” Philippa fanned herself, her face reddening. Celaena grasped her hand. “I promise,” she said, “if I get into any sort of trouble, I will swear to my last breath that you were deceived by me, and had no knowledge of anything.” “But are you going to get into trouble?” Celaena gave her most winning smile. “No. I’m just sick of being left to sit around while they have grand parties.” It wasn’t quite a lie. “Gods help me,” Philippa muttered, and took a deep breath. “Go!” she suddenly cried, herding Celaena toward the door to the hall. “Go, you’ll be late!” She was a bit too loud to be totally convincing, but … Philippa flung open the door to the hallway. “The Crown Prince won’t be pleased if you’re late!” Celaena paused in the doorway, nodding at the five guards who were posted outside, then looked back at Philippa. “Thank you,” Celaena said. “No more dawdling!” the servant woman cried, and almost knocked Celaena off her feet as she pushed her out the doorway and slammed it shut. Celaena turned to the guards. “You look nice,” one of them—Ress—said shyly. “Off to the ball?” grinned another. “Save a dance for me, will you?” the third added. Not one of them questioned her.

Once you develop a model, don’t pat yourself on the back just yet. Predictions don’t help unless you do something about them. They’re just thoughts, just ideas. They may be astute, brilliant gems that glimmer like the most polished of crystal balls, but hanging

Giving her a second, I stood up and walked into my room, threw a pair of sweatpants over my shorts, and shrugged into a sweatshirt. God, how was she shivering? I was already sweating with this on. But if I couldn’t comfort her in the way I wanted to, I was going to do it in the only other way I knew how. I’d just be there for her. When I walked back through the living room, her sobs had quieted, but she was still in a ball. Heading into the kitchen, I grabbed two bottled waters, a spoon, and the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she always made sure I had in the freezer. I put everything on the coffee table, grabbed the remote, and searched the DVR until I found Bridesmaids. I didn’t give a shit about the two hundred dollars or breakfasts I would owe her for this. Sitting down next to her this time, I picked up the water and ice cream, balanced them on my legs, and turned the volume up. When the movie started, she brought her red face up and glanced at the TV with a furrowed brow before looking over at me. Her eyebrows shot straight up when she saw me. “What are you wearing?” Her voice was hoarse from crying and I handed her the bottle of water. “Well, you came over in sweats. I figured I missed the memo or something and had to get in on the party.” She looked at the TV and back to me, and a small smile cracked when she took the ice cream and spoon from me. I’d pushed her enough today. I hated knowing what I knew and vowed to one day find out who this guy was. Hopefully now that she knew she could talk to me, she’d open up more when she was ready. But anything more today would be too much. So I settled into the couch and pretended to watch the movie instead of her every move. After a while, she handed me back the half-empty container and leaned against my shoulder. My arm automatically went around her and I pulled her close to my side. “Thank you, Kash,” she whispered a couple minutes later. “Anything for you, Rach. I’m here whenever you need to talk.” Pressing my lips to her forehead, I kept them there as I said, “And I will always protect you.” We were still sitting there watching the movie when Mason came back from his run. He nodded at us, and when he came back out of his room after a shower, he was dressed in sweats as well. He grabbed the melting ice cream and tried to squeeze himself onto the couch on the other side of Rachel. She laughed and curled closer into my side. “You guys are the best.” “You think we’re going to let you veg on the couch alone?” Mason said, scoffing. “Sweetheart, you obviously don’t know us that well. I mean, it’s gonna be a hundred degrees today. How else would I spend the day than in sweats?” Rachel kicked at his leg and he squeezed her knee. After a few minutes of watching the movie, Mason caught my gaze over Rachel’s head. He quickly looked down at her and raised an eyebrow, the question clear in his eyes. I nodded once and the color drained from his face. He swallowed hard and grabbed one of Rachel’s hands. She laughed lightly at something from the movie and his eyes came back to mine. They were determined, and he looked like he was struggling at relaxing his now-murderous expression. I knew exactly how he felt. He didn’t have to say anything to me. We’d worked together long enough to know that we’d both just agreed to find the bastard. And make him pay.

People say I have a wild imagination. I don't. You see, what I do consists in analyzing the patterns of peculiar stupidity that emerge from their head, the same patterns that make their life boring and dramatic, full of problems and stress, and then recombining that into a beautiful multicolored ball that I throw back at them in the form of a joke or a lie that makes them laugh. But I didn't really create it; I merely gave use to their own nonsense.

What are you going to say to Mr. Rohan?” she asked hesitantly, putting the spectacles on. “I don’t know yet. But for the next two days, until the damned ball is over, I’m going to put some distance between us. Because our relationship seems to have become a bit too flammable for either of us to manage. Afterward, however, you and I are going to talk. No evasions, no lies.” “Why?” she asked through dry lips. “We have to make some decisions.” What kind of decisions? Was he planning to dismiss her? Or was some kind of indecent proposition in the making? “Perhaps I should leave Hampshire,” she said with difficulty. Leo’s eyes glinted dangerously. Taking her head in his hands, he bent down to whisper in her ear, in what could have been either a promise or a threat. “Anywhere you go, I’ll find you.

Ultimately, the DoJ’s report found that Brown’s rights were not violated, and it even addressed the incessant “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative: “Although there are several individuals who have stated that Brown held his hands up in an unambiguous sign of surrender prior to Wilson shooting him dead, their accounts do not support a prosecution of Wilson. As detailed throughout this report, some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence; some of those accounts are materially inconsistent with that witness’s own prior statements with no explanation, credible for otherwise, as to why those accounts changed over time. Certain other witnesses who originally stated Brown had his hands up in surrender recanted their original accounts, admitting that they did not witness the shooting or parts of it, despite what they initially reported either to federal or local law enforcement or to the media. Prosecutors did not rely on those accounts when making a prosecutive decision. While credible witnesses gave varying accounts of exactly what Brown was doing with his hands as he moved toward Wilson – i.e., balling them, holding them out, or pulling up his pants up – and varying accounts of how he was moving – i.e., “charging,” moving in “slow motion,” or “running” – they all establish that Brown was moving toward Wilson when Wilson shot him. Although some witnesses state that Brown held his hands up at shoulder level with his palms facing outward for a brief moment, these same witnesses describe Brown then dropping his hands and “charging” at Wilson.

Will he be back?” “Buck or the bear?” Her lips quirked. “The bear.” “Not today. Hopefully, never.” “Was it a grizzly?” “Black bear.” “It must have been a grizzly. It wasn’t black--it was brown.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe her. “Black bears come in lots of different colors. Grizzlies are a whole different species. You have to learn which is which and you have to react to each of them differently.” “I don’t know what you mean.” “I mean you have to be aggressive with black bears. With grizzlies, the best thing to do is lie down, pull yourself into a protective ball, and play dead. The bear might maul you a little, but at least you won’t be killed…not usually, at any rate.” She sagged back against the trunk of the pine tree, her face pale again. “That’s comforting.” Call sighed in exasperation. “Dammit, Charity, don’t you know anything about living out here?” “Obviously not as much as I should.” “I can’t imagine what a woman like you is doing up here by herself in the first place. You did come on your own? No husband, no boyfriend, right?” She straightened, beginning to get annoyed. “I don’t need a husband to do something I’ve always wanted to do. Maybe I should have learned more about the animals around here and less about the history of the area, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have come.” “This is hard country. Bad things happen up here. Unless you’ve been wearing blinders, by now you’re beginning to see that. Why don’t you accept my offer, sell this place, and go home where you belong?” Home where you belong. They were fighting words to Charity, right along with be a good little girl. Her lips tightened. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? For me to sell out and go home. Then you could have your precious privacy back. You wouldn’t have to worry about someone making noise when they worked next door. You wouldn’t have to worry about saving some greenhorn from a bear. You wouldn’t have to think about--” She gasped as he took a threatening step toward her, his eyes snapping as he backed her up against the trunk of the tree. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have to worry about what mischief you might get into next. And whenever I saw you, I wouldn’t have to think about what it might be like to kiss that sassy mouth of yours. I wouldn’t have to drive myself crazy wondering what it would feel like to reach under that silly panda sweatshirt and cup your breasts, to put my mouth there and find out how they taste.

Honesty under tears! I spoke to nobody and I was blind to read the writings of a hammer to stammer, my axe missed the sharpening rock and my needle lost its sharpness. The shadow of earth showed the blind man there are only intelligent lies and misleading result. Fake has conquered the universe, I’m still at the original shop yet to be copied. Everyone’s thought is forensic, I’m a teacher who teaches my soul and my body are third party elements to each other. I’m a lawyer myself to the court of my own, I have no offerings, no fake friends. My point of action and seeing is like a water from the pipe challenging waterfall. I shed my tears for honest world. But I smile to let it go. I am sensitive to this fake world, bring back integrity. I know I’m the ball of the pen, lead of the pencil and the blade of sharpener. Face original, don’t be copy.

REACHING GAMES To encourage your baby to reach and to expand her horizons, try holding attractive toys just out of her reach: above her head, in front of her, to the sides. See how close you have to get the toy before she makes her move. Remember, the object here is not to tease or torture the baby, it’s to have fun. You can add another layer of complexity by putting the out-of-reach object on a blanket or towel. Then slowly pull the blanket and show her how it gets closer. Will she try that herself? TOUCHING GAMES Try this: let your baby play with a small toy without letting her see it (you could do this in the dark or with her hands in a paper bag). Then put that toy together with several other toys she’s never played with. Many babies this age will pick up the familiar toy. Although this may sound fairly easy, it isn’t. You’re asking your baby to use two senses—touch and vision—at the same time, and to recognize by sight something she’s touched but not seen. If your baby isn’t ready for this one, don’t worry. Just try it again in a few weeks. It’s a concept that can take a while to develop. IF … THEN … GAMES There are thousands of things you can do to reinforce cause-and-effect thinking. Rattles, banging games, rolling a ball back and forth, and splashing in the pool are excellent. So is blowing up your cheeks and having the baby “pop” them with her hands. Baby gyms—especially the kind that make a lot of noise when smacked—are also good, but be sure to pack them up the moment your baby starts trying to use the gym to pull herself up; they’re meant to be used while sitting or lying down and aren’t sturdy enough to support much weight. OBJECT PERMANENCE GAMES When your baby is about six or seven months old, the all-important idea that objects can exist even when they’re out of sight finally starts sinking in. • Object permanence develops in stages. If you’re interested in seeing how, try this: Show your baby a toy. Then, while she’s watching, “hide” it under a pillow. If you ask her where the toy is, she’ll probably push the pillow out of the way and “find” it. But if you quickly move the toy to another hiding place when she’s not looking, she’ll continue to look for it in the first hiding place. • Peek-a-boo and other games that involve hiding and finding things are great for developing object permanence. Peek-a-boo in particular teaches your baby an excellent lesson: when you go away, you always come back. This doesn’t sound like much, but making this connection now lets her know she can count on you to be there when she needs you and will help her better cope with separation anxiety (see page 222).

People say I have a wild imagination. I actually don't. You see, what I do consists in analyzing the patterns of a peculiar form of stupidity that emerges from the head of most I interact with, especially when dealing with groups; the same patterns that make their life boring and dramatic, full of problems and stress. And then, I merge and recombine that into a beautiful multicolored ball that I throw back at them in the form of a joke or a lie that makes them laugh. But I didn't really create it; I merely gave a positive use to their own nonsense. And they love it. And yet, they always think I am the crazy one, the one with the wild imagination. But I am just an artist. I can only be creative by using the colors and forms given to me through observation. If I am good at everything I do with art, as with jokes, is because I am a good artist.

Daniel.” “Ma.” “Are you well?” She was angry. If the straight-to-voicemail treatment for the last week hadn’t tipped me off, her tone now was a dead giveaway. “I’m great,” I lied. “And how are you?” “Fine.” I laughed, silently. If she heard me laugh, she’d have my balls. “Did you get my messages?” “Yes. Thank you for calling.” I waited for a minute, for her to say more. She didn’t. “I leave you twenty-one messages, three calls a day, and that’s all you got for me?” “I’m not going to apologize for needing some time to cool off and I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Who do you think I am? Willy Wonka? You missed my birthday.” She sniffed. And these weren’t crocodile tears either. I’d hurt her feelings. Ahh, there it is. The acrid taste of guilt. “Ma . . .” “I don’t ask for a lot. I love you. I love my children. I want you to call me on my birthday.” “I know.” I was clutching my chest so my heart didn’t fall out and bleed all over the grass. “What could have been so important that you couldn’t spare a few minutes for your mother? I was so worried.” “I did call you—” “Don’t shit on a plate and tell me it’s fudge, Daniel. You called after midnight.” I hadn’t come up with a plausible lie for why I hadn’t called on her birthday, because I wasn’t a liar. I hated lying. Premeditated lying, coming up with a story ahead of time, crafting it, was Seamus’s game. If I absolutely had to lie, I subscribed to spur-of-the-moment lying; it made me less of a soulless maggot. “That’s true, Ma. But I swear I—” “Don’t you fucking swear, Daniel. Don’t you fucking do that. I raised you kids better.” “Sorry, sorry.” “What was so important, huh?” She heaved a watery sigh. “I thought you were in a ditch, dying somewhere. I had Father Matthew on standby to give you your last rights. Was your phone broken?” “No.” “Did you forget?” Her voice broke on the last word and it was like being stabbed. The worst. “No, I sw—ah, I mean, I didn’t forget.” Lie. Lying lie. Lying liar. “Then what?” I grimaced, shutting my eyes, taking a deep breath and said, “I’m married.” Silence. Complete fucking silence. I thought maybe she wasn’t even breathing. Meanwhile, in my brain: Oh. Shit. What. The. Fuck. Have. I. Done. . . . However. However, on the other hand, I was married. I am married. Not a lie. Yeah, we hadn’t had the ceremony yet, but the paperwork was filed, and legally speaking, Kat and I were married. I listened as my mom took a breath, said nothing, and then took another. “Are you pulling my leg with this?” On the plus side, she didn’t sound sad anymore. “No, no. I promise. I’m married. I—uh—was getting married.” “Wait a minute, you got married on my birthday?” Uh . . . “Uh . . .” “Daniel?” “No. We didn’t get married on your birthday.” Shit. Fuck. “We’ve been married for a month, and Kat had an emergency on Wednesday.” Technically, not lies. “That’s her name? Cat?” “Kathleen. Her name is Kathleen.” “Like your great aunt Kathleen?” Kat wasn’t a thing like my great aunt. “Yeah, the name is spelled the same.” “Last month? You got married last month?” She sounded bewildered, like she was having trouble keeping up. “Is she—is she Irish?” “No.” “Oh. That’s okay. Catholic?” Oh jeez, I really hadn’t thought this through. Maybe it was time for me to reconsider my spur-of-the-moment approach to lying and just surrender to being a soulless maggot. “No. She’s not Catholic.” “Oh.” My mom didn’t sound disappointed, just a little surprised and maybe a little worried. “Daniel, I—you were married last month and I’m only hearing about it now? How long have you known this woman?” I winced. “Two and a half years.” “Two and a half years?” she screeched...