Bother With Those That Bother With You Quotes

I painted stars and the moon and clouds and just endless, dark sky.” I finished the sixth, and was well on my way sawing through the seventh before I said, “I never knew why. I rarely went outside at night—usually, I was so tired from hunting that I just wanted to sleep. But I wonder … ” I pulled out the seventh and final arrow. “I wonder if some part of me knew what was waiting for me. That I would never be a gentle grower of things, or someone who burned like fire—but that I would be quiet and enduring and as faceted as the night. That I would have beauty, for those who knew where to look, and if people didn’t bother to look, but to only fear it … Then I didn’t particularly care for them, anyway. I wonder if, even in my despair and hopelessness, I was never truly alone. I wonder if I was looking for this place—looking for you all.

In those seconds, I was mourning everything I'd lost. How I'd never get to see you walk down an aisle toward me, how I'd never get to see your face in our children, how I'd never get to see streaks of silver in your hair. But, at the same time, I couldn't be bothered. If me dying meant you living, how could that be anything but good?

It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can't help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect. I explained this to Jeeves, and he said much the same thing had bothered Hamlet.

Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.

I wonder if some part of me knew what was waiting for me. That I would never be a gentle grower of things, or someone who burned like fire - but that I would be quiet and enduring and as faceted as the night. That I would have beauty, for those who knew where to look, and if people didn't bother to look, but only to fear it... Then I didn't particularly care for them, anyway. I wonder if, even in my despair and hopelessness, I was never truly alone. I wonder if I was looking for this place - looking for you all.

When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying. Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you.

What's bothering me is that you dare to stand there and tell me what I do and do not feel about last night. That kissing you and holding you meant nothing to me. Then, to top it all off, that you were only reactiong to me because you were impaired? That's rich. You know what those drugs did to you in the first dose, before the second one made you comatose? They killed the bug up your arse?" said Bones.

I'm not telling you what I look like in any detail. I hate those endless descriptions of a heroine's physical attributes... First of all, it's boring. You should be able to imagine me without all the gory details of my hairstyle or the size of my thighs. And second, it really bothers me how in books it seems like the only two choices are perfection or self-hatred. As if readers will only like a character who's ideal - or completely shattered. Give me a break. People have got to be smarter than that.

Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else.

Because it's one of those things I never expected in my lifetime," he told me. "Like a comet. Or world peace. I'm just used to you being single." For some reason, that bothered me. "What, you don't think any guy would ever be interested in me?" Actually," said Adrian, sounding remarkably serious, "I can imagine lots of guys being interested in you.

Don't you think I have sense enough to worry about my motives for saying the prayer? That's exactly what's bothering me so. Just because I'm choosy about what I want - in this case, enlightenment or peace, instead or money or prestige or game or any of those things, doesn't mean I'm not as egotistical and self-seeking as everybody else. If anything, I'm more so!

Gaea snarled in frustration. "Don't be cowards! It's very simple. You take this sharp pointy blade and you cut your dad into small pieces so he can't bother us again. Whichever of you does this will be the ruler of the universe! Also, I will make you those cookies you used to like, with the sprinkles.

So afterward, when you no longer love him, it bothers you just to think that you once wanted him.

Many have given up. They stay home and watch the TV screen, living on the earnings of their parents, cousins, bothers, or uncles, and only leave the house to go to the movies or to the nearest bar. "How're you making it?" on may ask, running into them along the block, or in the bar. "Oh, I'm TV-ing it"; with the saddest, sweetest, most shamefaced of smiles, and from a great distance. This distance one is compelled to respect; anyone who has traveled so far will not easily be dragged again into the world. There are further retreats, of course, than the TV screen or the bar. There are those who are simply sitting on their stoops, "stoned," animated for a moment only, and hideously, by the approach of someone who may lend them the money for a "fix." Or by the approach of someone from whom they can purchase it, one of the shrewd ones, on the way to prison or just coming out.

To the most inconsiderate asshole of a friend, I’m writing you this letter because I know that if I say what I have to say to your face I will probably punch you. I don’t know you anymore. I don’t see you anymore. All I get is a quick text or a rushed e-mail from you every few days. I know you are busy and I know you have Bethany, but hello? I’m supposed to be your best friend. You have no idea what this summer has been like. Ever since we were kids we pushed away every single person that could possibly have been our friend. We blocked people until there was only me and you. You probably haven’t noticed, because you have never been in the position I am in now. You have always had someone. You always had me. I always had you. Now you have Bethany and I have no one. Now I feel like those other people that used to try to become our friend, that tried to push their way into our circle but were met by turned backs. I know you’re probably not doing it deliberately just as we never did it deliberately. It’s not that we didn’t want anyone else, it’s just that we didn’t need them. Sadly now it looks like you don’t need me anymore. Anyway I’m not moaning on about how much I hate her, I’m just trying to tell you that I miss you. And that well . . . I’m lonely. Whenever you cancel nights out I end up staying home with Mum and Dad watching TV. It’s so depressing. This was supposed to be our summer of fun. What happened? Can’t you be friends with two people at once? I know you have found someone who is extra special, and I know you both have a special “bond,” or whatever, that you and I will never have. But we have another bond, we’re best friends. Or does the best friend bond disappear as soon as you meet somebody else? Maybe it does, maybe I just don’t understand that because I haven’t met that “somebody special.” I’m not in any hurry to, either. I liked things the way they were. So maybe Bethany is now your best friend and I have been relegated to just being your “friend.” At least be that to me, Alex. In a few years time if my name ever comes up you will probably say, “Rosie, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years. We used to be best friends. I wonder what she’s doingnow; I haven’t seen or thought of her in years!” You will sound like my mum and dad when they have dinner parties with friends and talk about old times. They always mention people I’ve never even heard of when they’re talking about some of the most important days of their lives. Yet where are those people now? How could someone who was your bridesmaid 20 years ago not even be someone who you are on talking terms with now? Or in Dad’s case, how could he not know where his own best friend from college lives? He studied with the man for five years! Anyway, my point is (I know, I know, there is one), I don’t want to be one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant memory. I want us to be best friends forever, Alex. I’m happy you’re happy, really I am, but I feel like I’ve been left behind. Maybe our time has come and gone. Maybe your time is now meant to be spent with Bethany. And if that’s the case I won’t bother sending you this letter. And if I’m not sending this letter then what am I doing still writing it? OK I’m going now and I’m ripping these muddled thoughts up. Your friend, Rosie

He sighed heavily. "You pissed me off." Well, that was totally unexpected....sort of. "Hey, I said I was sorry about hitting Mitch with that sword. How was I supposed to know the thing would leave a welt?" she said defensively. "That's not what I'm talking about. That didn't bother me." "Is it because I kicked your ass at skee ball?" "No! And that game is rigged anyway so it doesn't count." "Riigghhht," she said, drawing out the word. She thought over the rest of the night and couldn't figure out what she'd done. "Okay, you're gonna have to help me out here because I'm drawing a blank." "I'm pissed because all those men hit on you and not once did you tell any of them to f*ck off because you had a boyfriend!" he yelled. Her face went expressionless. She blinked once and then again. Then she burst into uncontrollable laughter.

I’m really not comfortable with you being naked,” I said, struggling for a normal tone and failing. His brow arched. “Why should it unsettle you, pet? After all, you just said I meant nothing to you beyond mere gratitude. And you’ve seen a man’s body before, so don’t pull that blushing act with me. What could be bothering you, then? I know what’s bothering me.” The smoothly bantering tone changed to a low, furious growl. “What’s bothering me is that you dare to stand there and tell me what I do and do not feel about last night. That kissing you and holding you meant nothing to me. Then, to top it all off, that you were only reacting to me because you were impaired! That’s rich. You know what those drugs did to you in the first dose, before the second one made you comatose? They killed the bug up your arse!

It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing "How High the Moon" on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could ever improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished. It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.

Those two in the antechamber," he added, eyes sparkling, "might not be on that list of people you should bother knowing, if they keep banging on the door like children." Another pound, emphasized by the first male voice saying, "You know we can hear you, prick." "Secondly," Rhys went on, "in regard to the two bastards at my door, it's up to you whether you want to meet them now, or head upstairs like a wise person, take a nap since you're still looking a little peaky, and then change into city- apropriate clothing while I beat the hell out of them for talking to his High Lord like that.

You've walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here. Regret none of it, not one of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing, when the lights from the carnival rides were the only stars you believed in, loving them for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved. You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake, ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

Lost" they say that hell is crowded, yet, when you’re in hell, you always seem to be alone. & you can’t tell anyone when you’re in hell or they’ll think you’re crazy & being crazy is being in hell & being sane is hellish too. those who escape hell, however, never talk about it & nothing much bothers them after that. I mean, things like missing a meal, going to jail, wrecking your car, or even the idea of death itself. when you ask them, “how are things?” they’ll always answer, “fine, just fine…” once you’ve been to hell and back, that’s enough it’s the greatest satisfaction known to man. once you’ve been to hell and back, you don’t look behind you when the floor creaks and the sun is always up at midnight and things like the eyes of mice or an abandoned tire in a vacant lot can make you smile once you’ve been to hell and back.

One night a powerful sorcerer knocks on the door of a less-powerful sorcerer. "I'm starting an exclusive guild," he says. "Join me now or I'll blast you out of your fucking boots right where you stand." So naturally the second mage says... "You know, I've always wanted to join a guild!" Right. Those two go bother a third sorcerer. "Join the guild," they say, "or fight both of us, two on one, right here and right now." Repeat as necessary, until three or four hundred guild members are knocking on the door of the last independent mage around, and everyone who said no is dead.

She said no, okay?" All the eyes that had been on me suddenly jerked toward Adrian. He leaned forward, fixing his gaze on Sonya and Dimitri, and I saw something in those pretty eyes I'd never seen before: anger. They were like emerald fire. "How many times does she have to refuse?" Adrian demanded. "If she doesn't want to, then that's all there's to it. This has nothing to do with her. This is our science project. She's here to protect Jill and has plenty to do there. So stop harassing her already!"" "Harassing is kind of a strong word," Dimitri said, calm in the face of Adrian's outburst. "Not when you keep pushing someone who wants to be left alone," countered Adrian. He shot me a concerned look before fixing his anger back on Sonya and Dimitri. "Stop ganging up on her." Sonya glanced uncertainly between us. She looked legitimately hurt. As astute as she was, I don't think she'd realized how much this bothered me. "Adrian... Sydney... we aren't trying to upset anyone. We just really want to get to the bottom of this. I thought all of you did too. Sydney's always been so supportive. "It doesn't matter," growled Adrian. "Take Eddie's blood. Take Belikov's blood. Take your own for all I care. But if she doesn't want to give hers, then that's all there is to it. She said no. This conversation is done.

The leap of faith is this: You have to believe, or at least pretend you believe until you really believe it, that you are strong enough to take life face on. Eating disorders, on any level, are a crutch. They are also an addiction and illness, but there is no question at all that they are quite simply a way of avoiding the banal, daily, itchy pain of life. Eating disorders provide a little drama, they feed into the desire for constant excitement, everything becomes life-or-death, everything is terribly grand and crashing, very Sturm and Drang. And they are distracting. You don't have to think about any of the nasty minutiae of the real world, you don't get caught up in that awful boring thing called regular life, with its bills and its breakups and its dishes and laundry and groceries and arguments over whose turn it is to change the litter box and bedtimes and bad sex and all that, because you are having a real drama, not a sitcom but a GRAND EPIC, all by yourself, and why would you bother with those foolish mortals when you could spend hours and hours with the mirror, when you are having the most interesting sado-machistic affair with your own image?

You’re a slave? (Eleni) I was. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. (Acheron) Take your cloak off and sit, Acheron. You’ve done nothing to apologize for. I admire you all the more for stopping to help us. It’s nothing for a nobleman to do so, yet they seldom bother to help those less fortunate. For a freedman to speak up in defense of another takes great courage and character. What you did is all the more noble and kind, and I would be honored to have you sit at my table with us. (Acheron)

You'll be bothered from time to time by storms, fog, snow. When you are, think of those who went through it before you, and say to yourself, 'What they could do, I can do.' - Guillaume

-and nobody’s getting laid!” I practically shouted. “You think I don’t know that?” He shifted his body beneath me, making me painfully aware of something. Two somethings, in fact, one of which was how far up my short skirt was. The other wasn’t my problem. I wriggled, to shimmy my hem down, but his expression perished the thought. When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying.

I intercepted Chaol, and he informed me of your ‘condition.’ You’d think a man in his position wouldn’t be so squeamish, especially after examining all of those corpses.” Calaena opened an eye and frowned as Dorian sat on her bed. “I’m in a state of absolute agony and I can’t be bothered.” “It can’t be that bad,” he said, fishing a deck of cards from his jacket. “Want to play?” “I already told you that I don’t feel well.” “You look fine to me.” He skillfully shuffled the deck. “Just one game.” “Don’t you pay people to entertain you?” He glowered, breaking the deck. “You should be honored by my company.” “I’d be honored if you would leave.” “For someone who relies on my good graces, you’re very bold.” “Bold? I’ve barely begun.” Lying on her side, she curled her knees to her chest. He laughed, pocketing the deck of cards. “Your new canine companion is doing well, if you wish to know.” She moaned into her pillow. “Go away. I feel like dying.” “No fair maiden should die alone,” he said, putting a hand on hers. “Shall I read to you in your final moments? What story would you like?” She snatched her hand back. “How about the story of the idiotic prince who won’t leave the assassin alone?” “Oh! I love that story! It has such a happy ending, too—why, the assassin was really feigning her illness in order to get the prince’s attention! Who would have guessed it? Such a clever girl. And the bedroom scene is so lovely—it’s worth reading through all of their ceaseless banter!” “Out! Out! Out! Leave me be and go womanize someone else!” She grabbed a book and chucked it at him.

Fundamentalist Christianity: fascinating. These people actually believe that the world is twelve thousand years old. Swear to God. Based on what? I asked them. "Well, we looked at all the people in the Bible and we added 'em up all the way back to Adam and Eve, their ages? Twelve thousand years." "Well, how fucking scientific, OK. I didn't know that you'd gone to so much trouble there. That's good. You believe the world's twelve thousand years old?" "That's right." "OK, I got one word to ask you, a one word question, ready?" "Uh huh." "Dinosaurs." You know, the world's twelve thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, and existed in that time, you'd think it would been mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point: And O, Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus... with a splinter in its paw. And the disciples did run a-screamin'. "What a big fucking lizard, Lord!" "I'm sure gonna mention this in my book," Luke said. "Well, I'm sure gonna mention it in my book," Matthew said. But Jesus was unafraid. And he took the splinter from the brontosaurus paw, and the brontosaurus became his friend. And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he lived in a loch, O so many years, attracting fat American families with their fat fuckin' dollars to look for the Loch Ness Monster. And O the Scots did praise the Lord: "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!" Twelve thousand years old. But I actually asked this guy, "OK, dinosaur fossils-- how does that fit into your scheme of life? What's the deal?" He goes: "God put those here to test our faith." "I think God put you here to test my faith, dude. I think I've figured this out." Does that-- That's what this guy said. Does that bother anyone here? The idea that God might be fucking with our heads? Anyone have trouble sleeping restfully with that thought in their head? God's running around burying fossils: "Ho ho! We'll see who believes in me now, ha ha! I'm a prankster God. I am killing me, ho ho ho!" You know? You die, you go to St. Peter: "Did you believe in dinosaurs?" "Well, yeah. There were fossils everywhere. (trapdoor opens) Aaaaarhhh!" "You fuckin' idiot! Flying lizards? You're a moron. God was fuckin' with you!" "It seemed so plausible, aaaaaahh!" "Enjoy the lake of fire, fucker!" They believe this. But you ever notice how people who believe in Creationism usually look pretty unevolved. Eyes really close together, big furry hands and feet? "I believe God created me in one day." Yeah, looks like he rushed it. Such a weird belief. Lots of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he's gonna want to see a fucking cross, man? "Ow." Might be why he hasn't shown up yet. "Man, they're still wearing crosses. Fuck it, I'm not goin' back, Dad. No, they totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes, I might show up again, but... let me bury fossils with you, Dad. Fuck 'em, let's fuck with 'em! Hand me that brontosaurus head, Dad.

I’m staring at him with my mouth open—again—as he tucks his shirt back in. When he’s finished, he takes a step closer to me. I stand perfectly still. His grin dies into a seductive curve of his lips that makes my knees feel funny. I’m completely spellbound and embarrassingly turned on when he bends to whisper in my ear. “You’d better close those lips before I’m tempted to kiss them and really give you something to be all hot and bothered about.” -Cash

I enjoy solitude. It's probably selfish, but why bother about it. Life is much too important, as Oscar Wilde said, to be taken seriously. I feel so sorry for those mothers who are devastated by loneliness when their children fly the coop and don't want to live at home anymore. They feel lost, but look what exciting things can be done. Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it!

It exasperated her sometimes. The way men could be so sure of themselves. They put words together like sheds or shelves and you could stand on them they were so solid. And those feelings which overwhelmed you in the small hours turned to smoke.

There are no real personalities apart from God. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most 'natural' men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerers have been; how gloriously different are the saints. But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away 'blindly' so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality; but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him...Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

What are you smiling about?" Benedict demanded. She didn't bother to glance up as she replied, "I'm plotting your demise." He grinned-not that she was looking at him, but it was one of those smiles she could hear in the way he breathed. She hated that she as that sensitive to his every nuance. Especially since she had a sneaking suspicion that he was the same way about her. "At least it sounds entertaining,"he said. "What does?" she asked, finally moving her eyes from the lower hem of the curtain, which she'd been staring at for what seemed like hours. "My demise," he said, his smile crooked and amused. "If you're going to kill me, you might as well enjoy yourself while you're at it, because Lord knows, I won't." Her jaw dropped a good inch. "You're mad," she said.

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?

He opened the door wearing an oversized wife-beater and dirty trunks to match. Funny, but he recognized me withouta struggle. Immediately, I assumed he was sober, which was a good thing. Yet, seeing me wasn’t expected or desired. For sure, I was the last person on his list of surprises. Jerry adjusted his head and sharpened his bloodshot eyes. It wasthen his booze-bated breath greeted me well before he did. Ok, he was in a stupor or maybe on the rebound. Next, soiled diapers stole the little oxygen I had left—and I was still OUTDOORS. Yet somehow, I mustered enough wind to greet my brother. I tried to beat him to the punch and said, “What’s up bruh?” What happened next stomped my soul me for years to come! He never bothered to truly acknowledge me. Yet, heresponded without hesitation, “You know I can’t have any company!” Then he violently slammed the door shut! Jerry was gone! I couldn’t differentiate from being stupid or dumbstruck. I just stood silent on his porch all alone for about five minutes. I’d dealt with Jerry’s nastiness many times before. But he would initially warm up before dropping his hammer. Without a doubt, l was lost, confused, and bewildered like a teen-age boy losing a prom date. Foolishly, I used logic to dissect my embarrassment. First, the guy scolded me as if I should’ve known better! To be fair, Jerry was the breadwinner. His wife left him years ago. That part I understood. Only a fool would have hung around his crazy ass. It was amazing they got together, let alone stayed that way long enough to create those children. Yet, all his kids were pushing the ages of twenty andabove. What the hell did he mean, “I can’t receive any company!” Of course, I heard those crying babies which madehim a granddaddy. That was strangely obvious to his existence. Yes, the cycle continues! Second, I really didn’t care to go inside. I didn’t want to be in his business. I just wanted his input on Aunt Kathy’s memorial.

Believe me when I say: 'Out of all those around, she’s the best locksmith in town.' Her stethoscope ears know when the dials of your heart click into place. She’s been cutting keys for years. You don’t stand a chance with that flimsy case. Alas, no matter how you lock your heart— bolt, fixture, and key— she’s got nimble fingers that pick locks for free. Padlocks and deadbolts are all in vain. Why do you even bother with that chain? She’s way too smart. Along with ours, she’ll have your heart. And you will see that the best locksmith in town is she.

Avoiding problems doesn't make them go away - you think it does, but it really doesn't. They're just postponed. Those problems just stay inside your subconscious and brew until your body gets to a point where it's had enough and decides to release some of the stress itself. That's what an anxiety attack is! It happens when you don't know how to vent your frustration, fears, stress, sadness, madness, whatever it is that bothers you, the things you should be confronting and getting closure with. If you don't confront these things and deal with them, your body does it for you.

But you know,” he continued, “in all the regrets I have, the one thing that never bothered me were the decisions I made with my heart. The rational ones, the ones I made while I was scared or desperate, those hammer at me constantly.” - Nero

You’re implying that I’m not presentable in public unless I have a full face of makeup on.” “No. I absolutely did not imply that.” “I suppose I should take three hours to curl my hair, too, right?” I make my voice tremble. I am the victim of horrendous misdeeds. “Because I’m not pretty enough the way I am? I suppose you’re embarrassed to bring me around your family unless I conform to society’s impossible beauty standards for females?” His eyes narrow. “You’re right. Your hair’s an embarrassment in its natural state and your face is so anti–female beauty that if you go out like that, I’d insist on you walking backward and ten feet away from me. I want you to go upstairs right now and paint yourself unrecognizable.” He arches his eyebrows. “Did I do that right? Are those the words you’d like to put in my mouth?” My chin drops. He lowers his gaze to a newspaper and flicks the page. He did it for dramatic effect. I know he didn’t get a chance to finish reading the article he was on. “Actually, I’d like to put an apple in your mouth and roast you on a spit,” I say. “Go ahead and wear pajamas to dinner, Naomi. You think that would bother me? You can go out dressed as Santa Claus and I wouldn’t care.” Now I genuinely am insulted. “Why wouldn’t you care?” He raises his eyes to mine. “Because I think you’re beautiful no matter what.” Ugh. That’s really low, even for him.

Something that’s bothered me for a while now is the current profligacy in YA culture of Team Boy 1 vs Team Boy 2 fangirling. [...] Despite the fact that I have no objection to shipping, this particular species of team-choosing troubled me, though I had difficulty understanding why. Then I saw it applied to Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy – Team Peeta vs Team Gale – and all of a sudden it hit me that anyone who thought romance and love-triangles were the main event in that series had utterly missed the point. Sure, those elements are present in the story, but they aren’t anywhere near being the bones of it, because The Hunger Games, more than anything else, is about war, survival, politics, propaganda and power. Seeing such a strong, raw narrative reduced to a single vapid argument – which boy is cuter? – made me physically angry. So, look. People read different books for different reasons. The thing I love about a story are not necessarily the things you love, and vice versa. But riddle me this: are the readers of these series really so excited, so thrilled by the prospect of choosing! between! two! different! boys! that they have to boil entire narratives down to a binary equation based on male physical perfection and, if we’re very lucky, chivalrous behaviour? While feminism most certainly champions the right of women to chose their own partners, it also supports them to choose things besides men, or to postpone the question of partnership in favour of other pursuits – knowledge, for instance. Adventure. Careers. Wild dancing. Fun. Friendship. Travel. Glorious mayhem. And while, as a woman now happily entering her fourth year of marriage, I’d be the last person on Earth to suggest that male companionship is inimical to any of those things, what’s starting to bother me is the comparative dearth of YA stories which aren’t, in some way, shape or form, focussed on Girls Getting Boyfriends, and particularly Hot Immortal Or Magical Boyfriends Whom They Will Love For All Eternity. Blog post: Love Team Freezer

The feminine always seems chaotic and complicated from the perspective of the masculine. The next time you notice yourself trying to fix your woman so that she will no longer _____ (fill in the blank), relax and give her love by touching her and telling her that you love her when she is this way (whatever you filled in the blank with). Embrace her, or wrestle with her, or scream and yell for the heck of it, but make no effort to bring an end to that which pisses you off. Practice love instead of trying to bring an end to the quality that bothers you. You can’t escape the tussle with the feminine. Learn to find humor in the unending emotional drama the feminine seems to enjoy so much. The love that you magnify may realign her behavior, but your effort to fix her and your frustration never will. The world and your woman will always present you with unforeseen challenges. You are either living fully, giving your gift in the midst of those challenges, even today, or you are waiting for an imaginary future which will never come.

You'd better close those lips before I'm tempted to kiss them and really give you something to be all hot and bothered about.

Here a man can live. All right, it's a 'special' camp. So what? Does it bother you to wear a number? They don't weigh anything, those numbers.

Read any women's magazine and you'll see the same complaint over and over again: men - those little boys ten or twenty or thirty years on - are hopeless in bed. They are not interested in "foreplay"; they have no desire to stimulate the erogenous zones of the opposite sex; they are selfish, greedy, clumsy, unsophisticated. These complaints, you can't help feeling, are ironic. Back then, all we wanted was foreplay, and girls weren't interested. They didn't want to be touched, caressed, stimulated, aroused; in fact, they used to thump us if we tried. It's not really very suprising, then, that we're not much good at all that. We spent two or three long and extremely formative years being told very forcibly not even to think about it. Between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four, foreplay changes from being something that boys want to do and girls don't, to something that women want and men can't be bothered with. (Or so they say. Me, I like foreplay - mostly because the times when all I wanted to do was touch are alarmingly fresh in my mind.) The perfect match, if you ask me, is between the Cosmo woman and the fourteen-year-old boy.

Ah, Robert?” “Shhhh, not while I’m praying,” he said, momentarily losing his place before he started again, “thank you for letting us survive that trip from hell. Thank you for ignoring my prayers for a quick death when I didn’t think that I’d be able to survive another day of starvation,” he said, making her roll her eyes in annoyance. “You were given three full meals a day just like everyone else,” she pointed out, not bothering to mention the fact that, on most days, he’d received second helpings. She sat down on a bench near their luggage, wondering just how much longer he was going to keep this up. “I’m sorry for all the cursing that my wife forced me to do while I was on that boat,” he continued, ignoring her even as he amused her. “As you know, she’s been such a bad influence on me. Thank you for pulling me from near death and somehow giving me the strength to survive.” “Near death?” she asked, frowning. “When were you near death?” “When was I near death?” he asked in stunned disbelief as he opened his eyes so that he could glare at her. “How could you forget all those times that I could barely move? When I struggled to find the will to live so that I wouldn’t leave you a young widow? Did my struggle for survival mean nothing to you?” he demanded in outrage, terrifying the people that were forced to walk past him to get to the docks and making her wrack her brain as she struggled to figure out what he was talking about. “Do you mean those few times when you had a touch of seasickness?” she asked, unable to think of anything else that he could be talking about since he’d been the picture of health during the majority of the trip. “A touch?” he repeated in disbelief. “I nearly died!

Dear Waves, You have been restless all your life? Or maybe uneasy? I don't know quite. Oscillating between faiths, swinging between shores! Yet when we sit next to you on those sands, do you never feel like sharing what bothers you so much?

And do you know the oddest thing about murder and war and violence?' 'Oh, Mary Shelley, please stop talking about those types of things.' 'The oddest thing is that they all go against the lessons that grown-ups teach children. Don't hurt anyone. Solve your problems with language instead of fists. Share your things. Don't take something that belongs to someone else without asking. Use your manners. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Why do mothers and fathers bother spending so much time teaching children these lessons when grown-ups don't pay any attention to the words themselves?

I would be quiet and enduring and as faceted as the night. That I would have beauty, for those who knew where to look, and if people didn’t bother to look, but to only fear it … Then I didn’t particularly care for them, anyway. I wonder if, even in my despair and hopelessness, I was never truly alone. I wonder if I was looking for this place—looking for you all.

Start ringing things up then. This won't take long." "Which ones?" "I don't care." I push some at her. "These." "These?" She looked dubious. "Why not these?" She glanced at Ray. "'Cause if that's your man, I'd say you can leave these off." "Oh, no, you didn't." Ray said. "What's this shit?" Ray demanded, looking at the saleclerk. "Honey, truth hurts, but ain't no way you're a Magnum." "Well, I ain't no medium!" The clerk smiled. "Yeah, but I was being generous." "What are you doing?" The clerk demanded as Ray grabbed another box. "I ain't rung those up yet." Ray pulled out a foil package and tossed the box back on the counter. "So ring it up." She arched an eyebrow, but didn't bother, maybe because she was watching him unbutton his fly. I caught his wrist. "What are you doing?" "Proving a point." "Not in the middle of the store, you're not." "Ain't nobody here," the cashier reminded me. "And ain't no way he's filling that thing out.

...if you were to bother to read my books, to behave as any educated person would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

How those girls enjoyed putting their nest in order! As Phil said, it was almost as good as getting married. You had the fun of homemaking without the bother of a husband.

If you knew what those [pork rinds] did to your body, you wouldn't eat them.' 'If you knew when the last time I ate was, you wouldn't bother me.

Only people who've been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I'm as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Like that lovely pair we just met.” He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. “Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas-- none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't. With those women--I should've just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can't do “do that. I say things I shouldn't, do things I shouldn't do. I can't control myself. That's one of my weak points. Do you know why that's a weak point of mine?” “'Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there's no end to it,” I say.

People are tired of this mainstream shit; television and radio is ghastly and the public can smell the corporate meeting. When you watch a show with Simon Cowell, you know no human touch has been near it, that they've carefully engineered the outcome and picked those they're going to humiliate. We live in an age of information glut, but so many people don't question what they're spoon-fed or bother to search for themselves.

But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to. Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas – none of them bother me. I don’t care what banner they raise. But what I can’t stand are hollow people. [...] Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it's important to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive.

Of course people have insulted me... that's just the reality of living a life in which you stand out. Does it bother me? No. Those people overestimate the weight I give their opinion. I'm just going to be me, unapologetically. You don't have to applaud, you don't have to cheer... but I know you're watching.

You know how when you ask someone what they'd do if the sun was headed for Earth and they had twenty-four hours left to live? And everyone always says they'd be with family, eat their favorite food, go someplace they've always wanted to go? Nobody ever says they'd spend the last day curled up in bed crying- because they wouldn't. That's not what anyone wants to do with their final hours. I mean, yeah, you'd cry. And you'd be scared because you're gonna die. And you'd find yourself looking at the sky throughout the day, knowing what's coming because that's just human nature. But for the most part, you'd just enjoy the time you had left. Especially because there's nothing you can do about it. There's no escape, nowhere to hide. So why bother? Obsessing over the end is pointless. If you spend your life dwelling on the worst possible thing, when it finally happens, you've lived it twice. I don't want to live the worst things twice. I try really hard not to think about the bad stuff. But every once in a while I'm human and I look up. Yesterday was just one of those days that I looked at the sun.

How do you irradiate the humbly trivial - the sneezes and waiting in bus-queues - with the lofty, and at the same time cherish above all in the lofty those things that nourish you here, today, in all your ordinariness? I cannot understand, in other words, what sort of God would bother to count every hair on my head.

One of the most important steps in therapy is helping people take responsibility for their current predicaments, because once they realize that they can (and must) construct their own lives, they’re free to generate change. Often, though, people carry around the belief that the majority of their problems are circumstantial or situational—which is to say, external. And if the problems are caused by everyone and everything else, by stuff out there, why should they bother to change themselves? Even if they decide to do things differently, won’t the rest of the world still be the same? It’s a reasonable argument. But that’s not how life generally works. Remember Sartre’s famous line “Hell is other people”? It’s true—the world is filled with difficult people (or, as John would have it, “idiots”). I’ll bet you could name five truly difficult people off the top of your head right now—some you assiduously avoid, others you would assiduously avoid if they didn’t share your last name. But sometimes—more often than we tend to realize—those difficult people are us. That’s right—sometimes hell is us. Sometimes we are the cause of our difficulties. And if we can step out of our own way, something astonishing happens.

Have you ever sat around while someone held their breath? For a while, it doesn't bother you, but eventually you start holding your breath with them, willing them to breathe. it's one of those automatic reflexes. (Mercy)

I hope you’re not planning on kicking me,” he said, not even bothering to look up from his book, “as hard as you did those doors.” “I will,” I said, “if the next words out of your mouth are Pierce, you just need to relax.

I’m not trying to make you cry. I’m trying to make you see. You’re just like the colorful sky, Lilla, this beautiful creation, forgotten. Hidden wonders unseen, by those who don’t bother to look any longer. I look. I can see them.

Does it bother you to wear a number? They don't weigh anything, those numbers.

Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us- how capricious they all are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space- and most of it uninhabited. How many people there will be to admire you, and who they are.

Eventually, I developed my own image of teh "befriending" impulse behind my depression. Imagine that from early in my life, a friendly figure, standing a block away, was trying to get my attention by shouting my name, wanting to teach me some hard but healing truths about myself. But I-- fearful of what I might hear or arrogantly trying to live wihtout help or simply too busy with my ideas and ego and ethics to bother-- ignored teh shouts and walked away. So this figure, still with friendly intent, came closer and shouted more loudly, but AI kept walking. Ever closer it came, close enough to tap me on the shoulder, but I walked on. Frustrated by my unresponsiveness, the figure threw stones at my back, then struck me with a stick, still wanting simply to get my attention. But despite teh pain, I kept walking away. Over teh years, teh befriending intent of this figure never disapppeared but became obscured by the frustration cuased by my refusal to turn around. Since shouts and taps, stones and sticks had failed to do the trick, there was only one thing left: drop the nuclear bomb called depression on me, not with the intent to kill but as a last-ditch effort to get me to turn and ask the simple question, "What do you want?" When I was finally able to make the turn-- and start to absorb and act on the self-knowledge that then became available to me-- I began to get well. The figure calling to me all those years was, I believe, what Thomas Merton calls "true self." This is not the ego self that wants to inflate us (or deflate us, another from of self-distortion), not the intellectual self that wants to hover above the mess of life in clear but ungrounded ideas, not the ethical self that wants to live by some abstract moral code. It is the self-planted in us by the God who made us in God's own image-- the self that wants nothing more, or less, than for us to be who we were created to be. True self is true friend. One ignores or rejects such friendship only at one's peril.

The American College of Sports Medicine found that the productivity of people after exercise was an average of 65 percent higher than those who did not exercise. If I have something that's really bothering me, so much that it almost hurts my head to try to sort it out, I always find the solution in a puddle of sweat! Intense exercise is like taking a magic pill that gives you the ability to solve problems like a superhero.

Once you master the art of self-love, you become so content with yourself that what other’s say or do, it stops bothering you. At the same time, It’s very important to know the difference between those who just casually make fun of you and those who make fun of you to bring you down. It’s a really good trait to be able to laugh at yourself but not at the cost of your dignity.

Never have I trusted Fortune, even when she seemed to offer peace. All those blessings which she kindly bestowed on me - money, public office, influence - I relegated to a place whence she could claim them back without bothering me. I kept a wide gap between them and me, with the result that she has taken them away, not torn them away.

When a half-assed job doesn’t bother you, it speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. And until you start feeling a sense of pride and self-respect in the work you do, no matter how small or overlooked those jobs might be, you will continue to half-ass your life.

During those times, they'd stand there watching me watching them. I'd pray, please. Put a pillow to my face. Clench a hand around my throat. Stab me. Shoot me. Put me out of everyone's misery. Why did you give birth to such a loser? Why didn't you admit I was hopeless and fat and stop trying to make me fit in? This world wasn't meant for me. I was born too soon or too late. Too defective. I wish I could tell my parents, "If you want to help me, help me die." I wonder, Are they required to fill out a 24-hour suicide watch form? Is the Defect at home? Check. Is It alive? Check. Why did they bother with the constructive surgery on my throat anyway? Waste of money. They threw away or hid from me everything with sharp edges or breakables. Picture frames. Pottery. Did they think they could suicide-proof this place? I want to tell them, "Chip, Kim, there is no way to suicide-proof a person

all i know about the bible is that wherever it goes there's trouble. the only time i ever heard of it being useful was when a stretcher bearer i was with at the battle of dundee told me that he'd once gotten hit by a mauser bullet in the heart, only he was carrying a bible in his tunic pocket and the bible saved his life. he told me that ever since he'd always carried a bible into battle with him and he fled perfectly safe because god was in his breast pocket. we were out looking for a sergeant of the worcesters and three troopers who were wounded while out on a reconnaissance and were said to be holed up in a dry donga. in truth, i think my partner felt perfectly safe because the boer mausers were estimated by the british artillery to be accurate to eight hundred yards and we were at least twelve hundred yards from enemy lines. alas, nobody bothered to tell the boers about the shortcomings of their brand-new german rifle and the mauser bullet hit him straight between the eyes...which goes to prove, you can always depend on british army information not to be accurate, the boers to be deadly accurate, and the bible to be good for matters of the heart but hopeless for those of the head, and finally, that god is in nobody's pocket.

He wasn't like those handsome men you see on the fashion billboards. He was handsome in a rugged way like a wood cutter with an unkept beard or a man who just finished fixing the engine of his car, wiping his oily hands over his white flannel shirt. Like a man who knows that he has starry eyes that can bring stars closer but doesn't even bother to look.

I remember a relative of mine who used to pick on me all the time, constantly ridiculing my every move and making me feel inferior. One day she had a pimple on her face and was devastated. I told her "Why would you let a little thing like that bother you in such a way? It's just a pimple!" And she cried and said "You can say that, because you're perfect and even if you have ten pimples on your face, it wouldn't even matter!" And I never forgot how I felt in that moment, that moment taught me some important things! First, I realized that the whole time she was picking on me, she actually was feeling that I was perfect! And secondly, I realized that when people think you're perfect, they try to make you feel bad about yourself! I was so taken aback in those few minutes— I couldn't even say anything! I just looked at her while all my realizations flooded my mind and I decided that just because you think someone is perfect, doesn't give you the ticket to make them feel bad about themselves.

...a kid, maybe eight years old, ran up and poked her in the ribs with a plastic laser weapon, making electric zinging noises as he repeatedly pulled the trigger. “You’re dead,” he said victoriously. His mother came hurrying up, looking harassed and helpless. “Damian, stop that!” She gave him a smile that was little more than a grimace. “Don’t bother the nice people.” “Shut up,” he said rudely. “Can’t you see they’re Terrons from Vaniot.” The kid poked her in the ribs again. “Ouch!” He made those zinging noises again, taking great pleasure in her discomfort. She plastered a big smile on her face and leaned down closer to precious Damian, then cooed in her most alienlike voice, “Oh, look, a little earthling.” She straightened and gave Sam a commanding look. “Kill it.” Damian’s mouth fell open. His eyes went as round as quarters as he took in the big pistol on Sam’s belt. From his open mouth began to issue a series of shrill noises that sounded like a fire alarm. Sam cursed under his breath, grabbed Jaine by the arm, and began tugging her at a half-trot toward the front of the store. She managed to snag her purse from the buggy as she went past. “Hey, my groceries!” she protested. “You can spend another three minutes in here tomorrow and get them,” he said with pent-up violence. “Right now I’m trying to keep you from getting arrested.” “For what?” she asked indignantly as he dragged her out of the automatic doors. People were turning to look at them, but most were following the sounds of Damian’s shrieks to aisle seven. “How about threatening to kill that brat and causing a riot?” “I didn’t threaten to loll him! I just ordered you to.

It bothered me that the bag bothered me more than head did, but what are you going to do? A person doesn't conciously choose what he focuses on. Those things choose you, and, once they do, nothing, it seems, can shake them.

Labels. I stuck them on everything. 'Good.' 'Bad.' 'Right.' 'Wrong.' 'Square.' 'Hip.' 'Queer.' 'Normal.' 'Friend.' 'Enemy.' 'Success.' 'Failure.' They're easy to use. They save you the bother of thinking. Those labels stay stuck. They proliferate. They become a habit. Soon, they're covering everything, and everybody, up. You start thinking reality is the labels. Simple labels, written in permanent marker. The trouble is, reality's the opposite. Reality is nuanced, paradoxical, shifting. It's difficult. It's many things at once. That's why we're so crummy at it. People harp on about freedom. All the time. It's everywhere. There are riots and wars about what freedom is and who it's for. But the Queen of Freedoms is this: to be free of labels.

I just like the idea of looking back at my life and feeling like I made different choices than everyone else, you know? Most people are inherently boring if you really dig deep. They don't want much, they don't veer from their chosen path, and they're generally scared of change. I don't know, at least that's how my grandfather tells it. I don't want to be like fifty and realize that I was one of those people who didn't bother to think outside the box.

GO BACK TO DALLAS!” the man sitting somewhere behind us yelled again, and the hold Aiden still had on the back of my neck tightened imperceptibly. “Don’t bother, Van,” he demanded, pokerfaced. “I’m not going to say anything,” I said, even as I reached up with the hand furthest away from him and put it behind my head, extending my middle finger in hopes that the idiot yelling would see it. Those brown eyes blinked. “You just flipped him off, didn’t you?” Yeah, my mouth dropped open. “How do you know when I do that?” My tone was just as astonished as it should be. “I know everything.” He said it like he really believed it. I groaned and cast him a long look. “You really want to play this game?” “I play games for a living, Van.” I couldn’t stand him sometimes. My eyes crossed in annoyance. “When is my birthday?” He stared at me. “See?” “March third, Muffin.” What in the hell? “See?” he mocked me. Who was this man and where was the Aiden I knew? “How old am I?” I kept going hesitantly. “Twenty-six.” “How do you know this?” I asked him slowly. “I pay attention,” The Wall of Winnipeg stated. I was starting to think he was right. Then, as if to really seal the deal I didn’t know was resting between us, he said, “You like waffles, root beer, and Dr. Pepper. You only drink light beer. You put cinnamon in your coffee. You eat too much cheese. Your left knee always aches. You have three sisters I hope I never meet and one brother. You were born in El Paso. You’re obsessed with your work. You start picking at the corner of your eye when you feel uncomfortable or fool around with your glasses. You can’t see things up close, and you’re terrified of the dark.” He raised those thick eyebrows. “Anything else?” Yeah, I only managed to say one word. “No.” How did he know all this stuff? How? Unsure of how I was feeling, I coughed and started to reach up to mess with my glasses before I realized what I was doing and snuck my hand under my thigh, ignoring the knowing look on Aiden’s dumb face. “I know a lot about you too. Don’t think you’re cool or special.” “I know, Van.” His thumb massaged me again for all of about three seconds. “You know more about me than anyone else does.” A sudden memory of the night in my bed where he’d admitted his fear as a kid pecked at my brain, relaxing me, making me smile. “I really do, don’t I?” The expression on his face was like he was torn between being okay with the idea and being completely against it. Leaning in close to him again, I winked. “I’m taking your love of MILF porn to the grave with me, don’t worry.” He stared at me, unblinking, unflinching. And then: “I’ll cut the power at the house when you’re in the shower,” he said so evenly, so crisply, it took me a second to realize he was threatening me… And when it finally did hit me, I burst out laughing, smacking his inner thigh without thinking twice about it. “Who does that?” Aiden Graves, husband of mine, said it, “Me.” Then the words were out of my mouth before I could control them. “And you know what I’ll do? I’ll go sneak into bed with you, so ha.” What the hell had I just said? What in the ever-loving hell had I just said? “If you think I’m supposed to be scared…” He leaned forward so our faces were only a couple of inches away. The hand on my neck and the finger pads lining the back of my ear stayed where they were. “I’m not

I have never been one of those people—I know you aren’t, either—who feels that the love one has for a child is somehow a superior love, one more meaningful, more significant, and grander than any other. I didn’t feel that before Jacob, and I didn’t feel that after. But it is a singular love, because it is a love whose foundation is not physical attraction, or pleasure, or intellect, but fear. You have never known fear until you have a child, and maybe that is what tricks us into thinking that it is more magnificent, because the fear itself is more magnificent. Every day, your first thought is not “I love him” but “How is he?” The world, overnight, rearranges itself into an obstacle course of terrors. I would hold him in my arms and wait to cross the street and would think how absurd it was that my child, that any child, could expect to survive this life. It seemed as improbable as the survival of one of those late-spring butterflies—you know, those little white ones—I sometimes saw wobbling through the air, always just millimeters away from smacking itself against a windshield. And let me tell you two other things I learned. The first is that it doesn’t matter how old that child is, or when or how he became yours. Once you decide to think of someone as your child, something changes, and everything you have previously enjoyed about them, everything you have previously felt for them, is preceded first by that fear. It’s not biological; it’s something extra-biological, less a determination to ensure the survival of one’s genetic code, and more a desire to prove oneself inviolable to the universe’s feints and challenges, to triumph over the things that want to destroy what’s yours. The second thing is this: when your child dies, you feel everything you’d expect to feel, feelings so well-documented by so many others that I won’t even bother to list them here, except to say that everything that’s written about mourning is all the same, and it’s all the same for a reason—because there is no real deviation from the text. Sometimes you feel more of one thing and less of another, and sometimes you feel them out of order, and sometimes you feel them for a longer time or a shorter time. But the sensations are always the same. But here’s what no one says—when it’s your child, a part of you, a very tiny but nonetheless unignorable part of you, also feels relief. Because finally, the moment you have been expecting, been dreading, been preparing yourself for since the day you became a parent, has come. Ah, you tell yourself, it’s arrived. Here it is. And after that, you have nothing to fear again.

At teenage parties he was always wandering into the garden, sitting on a bench in the dark . . . staring up at the constellations and pondering all those big questions about the existence of God and the nature of evil and the mystery of death, questions which seemed more important than anything else in the would until a few years passed and some real questions had been dumped into your lap, like how to earn a living, and why people fell in and out of love, and how long you could carry on smoking and then give up without getting lung cancer.

With a deliberate shrug, he stepped free of the hold on his shoulder. “Tell me something, boys,” he drawled. “Do you wear that leather to turn each other on? I mean, is it a dick thing with you all?” Butch got slammed so hard against the door that his back teeth rattled. The model shoved his perfect face into Butch’s. “I’d watch your mouth, if I were you.” “Why bother, when you’re keeping an eye on it for me? You gonna kiss me now?” A growl like none Butch had ever heard came out of the guy. “Okay, okay.” The one who seemed the most normal came forward. “Back off, Rhage. Hey, come on. Let’s relax.” It took a minute before the model let go. “That’s right. We’re cool,” Mr. Normal muttered, clapping his buddy on the back before looking at Butch. “Do yourself a favor and shut the hell up.” Butch shrugged. “Blondie’s dying to get his hands on me. I can’t help it.” The guy launched back at Butch, and Mr. Normal rolled his eyes, letting his friend go this time. The fist that came sailing at jaw level snapped Butch’s head to one side. As the pain hit, Butch let his own rage fly. The fear for Beth, the pent-up hatred of these lowlifes, the frustration about his job, all of it came out of him. He tackled the bigger man, taking him down onto the floor. The guy was momentarily surprised, as if he hadn’t expected Butch’s speed or strength, and Butch took advantage of the hesitation. He clocked Blondie in the mouth as payback and then grabbed the guy’s throat. One second later, Butch was flat on his back with the man sitting on his chest like a parked car. The guy took Butch’s face into his hand and squeezed, crunching the features together. It was nearly impossible to breathe, and Butch panted shallowly. “Maybe I’ll find your wife,” the guy said, “and do her a couple of times. How’s that sound?" “Don’t have one.” “Then I’m coming after your girlfriend.” Butch dragged in some air. “Got no woman.” “So if the chicks won’t do you, what makes you think I’d want to?” “Was hoping to piss you off.” “Now why’d you want to do that?” Blondie asked. “If I attacked first”—Butch hauled more breath into his lungs—“your boys wouldn’t have let us fight. Would’ve killed me first. Before I had a chance at you.” Blondie loosened his grip a little and laughed as he stripped Butch of his wallet, keys, and cell phone. “You know, I kind of like this big dummy,” the guy drawled. Someone cleared a throat. Rather officiously. Blondie leaped to his feet, and Butch rolled over, gasping. When he looked up, he was convinced he was hallucinating. Standing in the hall was a little old man dressed in livery. Holding a silver tray. “Pardon me, gentlemen. Dinner will be served in about fifteen minutes.” “Hey, are those the spinach crepes I like so much?” Blondie said, going for the tray. “Yes, Sire.” “Hot damn.” The other men clustered around the butler, taking what he offered. Along with cocktail napkins. Like they didn’t want to drop anything on the floor. What the hell was this? “Might I ask a favor?” the butler said. Mr. Normal nodded with vigor. “Bring out another tray of these and we’ll kill anything you want for you.” Yeah, guess the guy wasn’t really normal. Just relatively so. The butler smiled as if touched. “If you’re going to bloody the human, would you be good enough to do it in the backyard?” “No problem.” Mr. Normal popped another crepe in his mouth. “Damn, Rhage, you’re right. These are awesome.

Look what the cat dragged in," Ms. Skoglund said. "Were you waylaid by all your female admirers?" "It's nothing like that," the boy said. "Besides, you know I only have eyes for you." "Sure you do," Ms. Skoglund said. "I mean, why bother with one of those skinny little things your age when you can go for someone who's trying to lose another thirty pounds before her twenty-year class reunion next summer? That makes sense.

You know,sometimes when people leave us,they leave big holes in our hearts.Some people talk about those holes all the time,hoping words will close them up.Other people pretend the hole aren't there,so that maybe they'll heal if they aren't bothered with so much

God, woman.” He closed his fist, not bothering to count off the dozens of other things she shouldn’t do. “You give me heartburn.” “No. Those are orgasms I give you, baby.

Ask about those whose names are learned by heart, and you will see that they have these distinguishing marks: X cultivates Y and Y cultivates Z – no one bothers about himself.

You'll be bothered from time to time by storms, fog, snow. When you are, think of those who went through it before you, and say to yourself, 'What they could do, I can do.

Well, I’ve got news for you, Lucian. No one feels worthy. Everyone feels like an imposter. It doesn’t matter what family you come from, your net worth, or how many powerful friends owe you favors. None of that is going to make you feel like you deserve to be here.” “Everyone? I find that hard to believe.” “The ones who don’t? The ones who think they deserve it all? Those are the ones you have to watch out for. Those are the ones who inflict the real damage. They’re the ones who don’t spend years in therapy trying to better themselves. They’re the ones who don’t bother asking themselves if they’re the good guy or the bad guy.

No new beginnings. Damn it, it shouldn’t bother her! But it did. She tried to turn away, but his hand flashed out and caught her by the chin. “Let me go,” she snapped. “Nay.” His grip was implacable on her jaw. There was little point in fighting for control of her face; he could have hoisted her into the air with that one big hand on her jaw, if he’d wished. He searched her gaze a long silent moment. “You truly doona ken it, do you? Excepting with you, Jessica. You, lass, are the exception to everything,” he said softly. As if he’d not just knocked the breath out of her with those words and left her feeling weak-kneed, he released her chin, turned away, and began pushing the cart again.

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read to the end just to find out who killed the cook. Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark, in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication. Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot, the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones that crimped your toes, don’t regret those. Not the nights you called god names and cursed your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,b chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness. You were meant to inhale those smoky nights over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches. You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here. Regret none of it, not one of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing, when the lights from the carnival rides were the only stars you believed in, loving them for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved. You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake, ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

This is where I go, when I go: It's a room with no windows and no doors, and walls that are thin enough for me to see and hear everything but too thick to break through. I'm there, but I'm not there. I am pounding to be let out, but nobody can hear me. This is where I go, when I go: To a country where everyone's face looks different from mine, and the language is the act of not speaking, and noise is everywhere in the air we breathe. I am doing what the Romans do in Rome; I am trying to communicate, but no one has bothered to tell me that these people cannot hear. This is where I go, when I go: Somewhere completely, unutterably orange. This is where I go, when I go: To the place where my body becomes a piano full of black keys only—the sharps and the flats, when everyone know that to play a song other people want to hear, you need some white keys. This is why I come back: To find those white keys.

Sometime the witch hunting takes on atrocious dimensions — the Nazi persecution of Jews, the Salem witch trials, the Ku Klux Klan scapegoating of blacks. Notice, however, that in all such cases the persecutor hates the persecuted for precisely those traits that the persecutor displays with a glaringly uncivilized fury. At other times, the witch hunt appears in less terrifying proportions—the cold war fear of a "Commie under every bed," for instance. And often, it appears in comic form—the interminable gossip about everybody else that tells you much more about the gossiper than about the object of gossip. But all of these are instances of individuals desperate to prove that their own shadows belong to other people. Many men and women will launch into tirades about how disgusting homosexuals are. Despite how decent and rational they otherwise try to behave, they find themselves seized with a loathing of any homosexual, and in an emotional outrage will advocate such things as suspending gay civil rights (or worse). But why does such an individual hate homosexuals so passionately? Oddly, he doesn’t hate the homosexual because he is homosexual; he hates him because he sees in the homosexual what he secretly fears he himself might become. He is most uncomfortable with his own natural, unavoidable, but minor homosexual tendencies, and so projects them. He thus comes to hate the homosexual inclinations in other people—but only because he first hates them in himself. And so, in one form or another, the witch hunt goes. We hate people "because," we say, they are dirty, stupid, perverted, immoral.... They might be exactly what we say they are. Or they might not. That is totally irrelevent, however, because we hate them only if we ourselves unknowingly possess the despised traits ascribed to them. We hate them because they are a constant reminder of aspects of ourselves that we are loathe to admit. We are starting to see an important indicator of projection. Those items in the environment (people or things) that strongly affect us instead of just informing us are usually our own projections. Items that bother us, upset us, repulse us, or at the other extreme, attract us, compel us, obsess us—these are usually reflections of the shadow. As an old proverb has it, I looked, and looked, and this I came to see: That what I thought was you and you, Was really me and me.

And this country's so bloody willing to put billions into weapons and fighter jets, but when those boys come home and they've seen the shit they've seen, no one can be bothered to listen to them even for five minutes.

grew up with guns and I needed them. Most people don’t. All these high-capacity guns flashed by the nutcakes? They’re a disaster. If I had my way, there’d be no guns but single-shot hunting rifles and single-shot shotguns. You could do all the target shooting you want with those. You could hunt to your heart’s content. Of course, you’d actually have to learn how to hunt or how to hit a target, and most of those dimwits don’t want to be bothered.

It doesn’t bother you that you weigh only x or y pounds and not three hundred. Why should it bother you that you have only x or y years to live and not more? You accept the limits placed on your body. Accept those placed on your time.

You aren't like your mom." "I am.But I don't want to be like that anymore,I want what I want." He turns to me again,his face anxious. "I told my father's friends that I'm studying at Berkeley next year.It worked.He's really,really angry with me,but it worked.You told me to go for his pride.You were right." "So." I'm cautious,hardly daring to believe. "You're moving to California?" "I have to." "Right." I swallow hard. "Because of your mom." "Because of you. I'll only be a twenty-minute train ride from your school,and I'll make the commute to see you every night.I'd take a commute ten times that just to be with you every night." His words are too perfect.It must be a misunderstanding,surely I'm misunderstanding- "You're the most incredible girl I've ever known.You're gorgeous and smart, and you make my laugh like no one else can.And I can talk to you. And I know after all this I don't deserve you,but what I'm trying to say is that I love you,Anna.Very much." I'm holding my breath.I can't talk,but my eyes are filling with tears. He takes it the wrong way. "Oh God.And I've mucked things up again,haven't I? I didn't mean to attack you like this.I mean I did but...all right." His voice cracks. "I'll leave.Or you can go down first,and then I'll come down,and I promise I'll never bother you again-" He starts to stand,but I grab his arm. "No!" His body freezes. "I'm so sorry," he says. "I never mean to hurt you." I trail my fingers across his cheek. He stays perfectly still for me. "Please stop apologizing,Etienne." "Say my name again," he whispers. I close my eyes and lean forward. "Etienne." He takes my hands into his.Those pefect hands,that fit mine just so. "Anna?" Our foreheads touch. "Yes?" "Will you please tell me you love me? I'm dying here." And then we're laughing.And them I'm in his arms,and we're kissing,at first quickly-to make up for lost time-and then slowly,because we have all the time in the world.And his lips are soft and honey sweet,and the careful, passionate way he moves them against my own says that he savors the way I taste,too. And in between kisses,I tell him I love him. Again and again and again.

But when you try to stop your rising anger, [your mind] is split between your angry thoughts and your thoughts of stopping them. It’s as if you’re chasing after someone who is running away, except that you’re both the runner and the one pursuing him as well! [...] So the idea of trying to stop [your thoughts] is wrong. Since that’s how it is, when you no longer bother about those rising thoughts, not trying either to stop them or not to stop them, that’s the Unborn Buddha Mind.

When I tell someone that the most important thing a young woman can do to avoid being raped is to avoid places with lots of young men (and if you absolutely have to go to those place, don't drink) the dumb responses range from: 'Girls have a right to have fun' to 'You're just blaming the victim' all the way up to the ludicrous, 'A woman should be able to walk naked into a biker bar and not be bothered.' These are political ideals. They might even be the way the world should work. They are not the way the world actually works. The responsibility for self-protection has to rest with the potential victim because the potential rapist has no interest whatsoever in her safety or rights. The potential victim is the one who cares.

Steve didn’t like the stairs. It bothered him that they hung in midair, unsupported. Steve said this “weirded him out." This wasn’t surprising. The list of things that Steve found objectionable was long and growing. It included the Library itself (“How can the furniture hang on the ceiling like that? It’s creepy.”); the jade floor (“Jade isn’t supposed to glow.”); the apothecary (“What the hell is that thing? I’m out of here.”); the armory (David’s trophies made him throw up); the Pelapi language (“It sounds like cats fighting”); her robes (“Did you borrow those from Death?” She hadn’t.); and, of course, Carolyn herself.

I pick those I watch very carefully. They need to be special. Sometimes I pick them because I love them and I know how much they need me, and sometimes I pick them because I hate them. I never pick anyone in-between. Why bother if you don’t feel strongly?

Do you want to know the first time I ever saw you?" he said with his lips at my ear. I knew the story,but I nodded anyway, frantically. "Your family had just moved in. You were...how old were you,Becks?" I shrugged,and he ran his fingers over my head, calming me.He knew the answer. "You were eleven," he said. "I was twelve.I remember Joey Velasquez talking about the pretty new girl in the neighborhood.Actually his exact words were 'the hot chick.' But I didn't think a thing about it until I saw you at the baseball field. We were having practice at the park and your family showed up for a picnic.You had so much dark hair,and it was hiding your face.Remember?" I nodded. "I know what you're trying to do." He ignored me. "I had to see if Joey was right,about the hot chick part, and I kept trying to get a good look at your face, but you never looked over our way.I hit home run after home run trying to get your attention, but you couldn't be bothered with my record-shattering, supherhuman performance." I smiled,and breathed in slowly. I'd heard this story so many times before.The familiarity of it enveloped me with warmth. "So what did you do?" I asked, fully aware of the answer. "I did the only thing I could think of. I went up to the bat,lined my feet up in the direction of your head,and swung away." "Hitting the foulest foul ball anyone had ever seen," I continued the story. I felt him chuckle next to me. "Yep. I figured in order to return the ball,you'd have to get really close to me, because..." He waited for me to fill in the blank. "Because someone made the mistake of assuming I would throw like a girl," I said softly. He pressed his lips against my head before he went on. "Which,of course, was stupid of me to think. You stood right where you were and chucked the ball farther than I'd ever seen a girl, or even any guy,chuck it." "It was all those years of Bonnet Ball my parents forced on me." "The entire team went nuts. You gave a little tiny shrug, like it was no big deal, and sat back down with your family. Completely ignoring me again. So my plan totally backfired. Not only did you get the attention of every boy on the field-which was not my intention-but I got reamed by the coach, who couldn't understand why I suddenly decided to stand perpendicular to home plate.

We could just chill if you want." Emma raises a brow at Rachel. Rachel shrugs her innocence. "Nuh-uh. Don't look at me. I didn't teach him that." "Picked it up all on my own," he says, retrieving his pencil from the floor. "Figures," Emma sneers. "Aww, don't hate on me, boo." "Okay, I'm drawing the line at 'boo.' And don't call me 'shorty' either," Emma says. He laughs. "That was next." "No doubt. So, did anyone explain how you chill?" Galen shrugs. "As far as I can tell, chillin' is the equivalent of being in a coma, only awake." "That's about right." "Yeah. Doesn't sound that appealing. Are all humans lazy?" "Don't push it, Highness." But she's smirking. "If I'm Highness, then you're 'boo.' Period." Emma growls, but it doesn't sound as fierce as she intends. In fact, it's adorable. "Jeez! I won't call you Majesty either. And you Will. Not. Ever Call me 'boo' again." His grin feels like it reaches all the way to his ears as he nods. "Did...did I just win an argument?" She rolls her eyes. "Don't be stupid. We tied." He laughs. "If you say I won, I'll let you open your present." She glances at the gift bag and bites her lip-also adorable. She looks back at him. "Maybe I don't care about the present." "Oh, you definitely care," he says, confident. "No. I definitely do NOT," she says, crossing her arms. He runs a hand through his hair. If she makes it any more difficult, he'll have to tell her where they're going. He gives his best nonchalant shrug. "That changes everything. I just figured since you like history...Anyway, just forget it. I won't bother you about it anymore." He stands and walks over to the bag, fingering the polka-dot tissue paper Rachel engorged it with. "Even if I say you win, it's still a lie, you know." Emma huffs. Galen won't take the bait. Not today. "Fine. It's a lie. I just want to hear you say it." With an expression mixing surprise and suspicion in equal parts, she says it. And it sounds so sweet coming from those lips. "You won.

When you're a little kid, you think people are just one thing; but then you get older, and you realize it's not that simple. Chris wasn't that simple. He was cruel and he was kind. And he didn't like realizing that. It bothered him, that he wasn't just one thing. It made him feel fragile. Like he could break into pieces any time, because he didn't know how to hold himself together. That was why he did that with those other girls, went with them and kept it secret: so he could try out being different things and see how it felt, and he'd be safe. He could be as lovely as he wanted or as horrible as he wanted, and it wouldn't count, because no one else would ever know.

You talk about piling up treasure - money, property, culture, knowledge, and so on and so on. In going ahead with the Jesus Prayer - just let me finish, now please - in going ahead with the Jesus Prayer, aren't you trying to lay up some kind of treasure? Something that's every goddam bit as negotiable as all those other, more material things? Or does the fact that it's a prayer make all the difference? . . . There's something about the way you're going at this prayer that gives me the willies . . . but I would like you to clear up for me just what the hell your motives are for saying it . . . As a matter of simple logic, there's no difference at all, that I can see, between the man who's greedy for material treasure - or even intellectual treasure - and the man who's greedy for spiritual treasure. As you say, treasure's treasure, God damn it, and it seems to me that ninety per cent of all the world-hating saints in history were just as acquisitive and unattractive, basically, as the rest of us are." Don't you think I have sense enough to worry about my motives for saying the prayer? That's exactly what's bothering me so. Just because I'm choosy about what I want - in this case, enlightenment, or peace, instead of money or prestige or fame or any of those things - doesn't mean I'm not as egotistical and self-seeking as everybody else. If anything, I'm more so!

So even though you have some difficulty in your practice, even though you have some waves while you are sitting, those waves themselves will help you. So you should not be bothered by your mind. You should rather be grateful for the weeds, because eventually they will enrich your practice.

An awfulness was deep inside me, and I couldn't fight it; forced into submission and taken hostage by it, I could only just lie there, let it wash over me, and let myself be consumed by it. If I cooperate, maybe it won't stay too long; maybe it'll let me go free. But if I fight it, it might stay longer just to spite me. So I decided to let The Feeling inhabit me as long as it desired, while I lay still, cautious not to incite me, secretly hoping it would leave me soon and bother someone else, but outwardly, pretending to be its gracious host. The most discouraging element of what I felt was my inability to understand it. Usually when I was filled with an unpleasant feeling, I could make it go away, or at least tame it, by watching a light-hearted film or reading a good book or listening to a feel good album. But this feeling was different. I knew non of those distractions could rid me of it. But I knew nothing else. I couldn't even describe it. Is this depression? Maybe once you ask someone to describe depression, he can't find the words. Maybe I'm part of the official club now. I imagined myself in a room full of people where someone in the crowd, also suffering from depression, immediately noticed me-as if he detected the scent of his own kind-walked over, and looked into my eyes. He knew that I had The Feeling inside me because he, too, da The Feeling inside him. He didn't ask me to talk about it, because he understood that our type of suffering was ineffable. He only nodded at me, and I nodded back; and then, during our moment of silence, we both shared a sad smile of recognition, knowing that we only had each other in a room filled with people who would never understand us, because they didn't have The Feeling inside them.

This was one of those odd thoughts that came out of the blue and struck me as both clever and logical. Hot chocolate wouldn’t be something desert people would naturally gravitate toward. (There are cold deserts, of course, but with two suns I always assumed Tatooine is mostly pretty warm. Now, of course, the Star Wars Essential Atlas and other official material backs up that assumption.) I also caught way more grief for this than I ever expected. Quite a few people took me to task for putting an Earth-based drink into the Star Wars universe. Of course, those same people apparently weren’t bothered by the Millennium Falcon, or lightsabers. It was, though, a reminder that you never know what word or image might jolt someone out of their suspension of disbelief. Anyway, why would anyone want to live in that Galaxy Far, Far Away if they don’t have chocolate? Inconceivable …

Organization, the watchword of women everywhere, magazines overflowing with advice, save time, do this, that and the other... but it's really a method of sticking yourself with the most work possible in the least amount of time without pain or suffering because that would bother those around you.

One thing my father taught me that I actually bothered to listen to - always know what those who work for you do with their free time, just in case they're using it to betray you.' Fox's eyebrows rose slowly. 'That's... really quite paranoid,' he told her, and she nodded. 'Completely, but it works.

I understand it was Derian who spoiled everything. He purposefully tainted your view of me and forced you to go along with him. I know none of what happened was your idea or your desire, Eena.” She didn’t bother getting up, but spoke from her curled position. Her voice was weak, still heavy with despair. “Derian didn’t force me to do anything.” “But had he not influenced you, we would be enjoying a pleasant dinner again, telling stories and laughing. I’m sure that would be the case. You would be happy… and so would I.” Eena chuckled briefly without amusement. “You must admit we shared some enjoyable evenings, didn’t we? There’s really no reason we can’t put this whole mess behind us and start from where we left off.” He sounded genuinely serious. “You forget,” she reminded him, “I overheard your conversation with the Ghengats. This isn’t about Derian, it’s about you.” “Alright,” he admitted, sighing a sound of acquiescence, “so I’m not everything you’d hoped for. But really, what man can ever live up to a woman’s terribly high expectations?” This got her attention. She almost stood up to face him, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Leaning forward, she retorted, “Expecting a man to respect you, to be honest with you, and, oh yes, to not be a shameless murderer—I don’t think those are overly high expectations!” He shrugged, casually excusing his faults. “Nobody’s perfect.” “What do you want?” she finally asked with exasperation. He squatted to her level to state his desire. “I want you.” The expression on his face—the look in his weary blue eyes—appeared strangely sincere. But there was one thing Eena had learned from all of this: never trust a master of deceit.

(Danni) “I was kinda busy on the way back, too,” she admitted, her face reddening. Tommy frowned. “I thought you said Dillon was passed out?” “He was, but Derek wasn’t.” She grimaced. “I guess he got a little hot and bothered by the action in the back seat and wanted a little for himself.” “Chrissakes,” exploded Ray. “Did anyone not get blown on this trip?” Danni’s gaze came up then, her eyes glinting with tears and suppressed anger. “Yeah. Those of us without dicks.

Love is an act, not a feeling. Love is effort and time. It’s caring and acceptance and allowing them to be. It’s a decision. It’s saying, ‘I will love this person the best way I know how because to do otherwise would hurt them.’ Love is something you do. Don’t bother with all those stupid lists. Choose to love instead.

(My vanishing act) when I got sick of the bar and I sometimes did I had a place to go: it was a tall field of grass an abandoned graveyard. I didn’t consider this to be a morbid pastime. it just seemed to be the best place to be. it offered a generous cure to the vicious hangover. through the grass I could see the stones, many were tilted at strange angles against gravity as though they must fall but I never saw one fall although there were many of those in the yard. it was cool and dark with a breeze and I often slept there. I was never bothered. each time I returned to the bar after an absence it was always the same with them: “where the hell you been? we thought you died!” I was their bar freak, they needed me to make themselves feel better. just like, at times, I needed that graveyard.

Whatever talents, gifts, opportunities, happiness, and blessings someone has, are granted by God. Some people for whatever reason are bothered by those touched by His grace. There's nothing you can do about that. They should bring those grievances directly to Him. If they really feel that way, that talk is overdue anyway.

A boat was a place where no one could reach you, a place where some boy couldn't slide into your path to make you a prop in his joke. Even when the boys rowed past us, all we'd do was holler or chant; we didn't have to drop everything to watch them, which was the usual expectation. (Do you remember, for instance, the fake Woodstock that Marco Washington and Mike Stiles set up on the quad? They hauled couches from the dorms, used extension cords for guitars and stand mics. I joined the audience to listen to their terrible playing because it was the thing to do. Just as Open Dorm nights were for girls to feign interest in boys playing video games. Just as the only sporting events with full stands were for boys' teams. At the time, what rankled was the idea that we were supposed to see these boys as the stars, to fall at their sweaty feet. What bothers me now is those boys internalizing girls as audience, there only to act as mirrors, to make their accomplishments realer.)

In those seconds, I was mourning everything I’d lost. How I’d never get to see you walk down an aisle toward me, how I’d never get to see your face in our children, how I’d never get to see streaks of silver in your hair. But, at the same time, I couldn’t be bothered. If me dying meant you living, how could that be anything but good?

What is you, Sam?" I hesitated, trying to think about how I visualized myself. All I came up with was how other people visualized me. I was visualized as a daughter, a wife, a mother, a best friend by those people in my life, but I had no clue as to how I viewed myself as a person. I'd never bothered to carve out an identity for myself.

So who told you that you had a chip on your shoulder?" "Never mind." I shoved a piece of lasagna int my mouth so I couldn't answer. "It was a cute guy, wasn't it?" Kelly said. "Those types pf statements only bother you if cute guys say them." I didn't answer, and I didn't look at them. "Must have been a really cute guy." Aleeta said. Kelly leaned forward. "Who was it, and do you like him?" I took another bite of lasagna. "She likes him." Aleeta said with a smile. "Ryan Geno?" Kelly asked. "Arnold Carrillo?" "Colton Taft." Aleeta said as though sure she was right. Kelly nodded. "Which means we're really talking about Bryant, aren't we?" Aleeta leaned closer to the table and lowered her voice. "Charlotte likes Bryant?" "No," I said quickly. "No," Kelly repeated, "She doesn't like him, which is why Colton thinks she has a chip on her shoulder." She turned to me then, wearing a triumphant smile. "I'm right, aren't I?" I shuffled pieces of lasagna around my plate. "I should stop hanging out with smart people.

Life is lived through things which are not true. We pretend ourselves foolish in order to show our wisdom. We find things funny, which are sad. We smile at those who we would destroy, make alliances with those we do not respect, admire ourselves for our intellect and always look for the ultimate prize. We would be great, every one of us, and to achieve greatness do not bother to look at those we have destroyed in our path. A game is all of this and more, and nobler, for those who play at last transcend themselves, and see both the consequences of their choices, and the board as a whole. I do not think there is a nobler calling than the game, and I would have you a part of it.)

Because there are two types of people in this world. Those who are capable of greatness, but don’t bother trying. And those who still try even though they’re not capable of greatness.” Her face screws up. “I do—” “You’re neither.” I wipe her tears away with my thumbs.  “You’re the type of girl who can do anything she sets her mind to and succeed.

Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us—how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space—and most of it uninhabited

He wasn't like those handsome men you see on the fashion billboards. He was handsome in a rugged way like a wood cutter with an unkempt beard or a man who just finished fixing the engine of his car, wiping his oily hands over his white flannel shirt. Like a man who knows that he has starry eyes that can bring stars closer but doesn't even bother to look.

Friends will always matter to you, but the ones who’ll really stay the course, and still be your besties in your 50s, are the two or three who make you laugh and love you as you are. Please don’t waste time befriending people who play games or with whom you need to walk on eggshells. And don’t bother with those you feel you need to impress. Life isn’t that long.

In those seconds, I was mourning everything I’d lost. How I’d never get to see you walk down an aisle toward me, how I’d never get to see your face in our children, how I’d never get to see streaks of silver in your hair. But, at the same time, I couldn’t be bothered. If me dying meant you living”—he did his one-shoulder shrug again—“how could that be anything but good?

It’s shocking to me that boys are where your thoughts are focused at this time in the morning, so unlike you.” Ami laughed off my sarcasm. “No need to be so grumpy, just get some make-up on those bags and you’ll be fine.” “Sure, sure,” I agreed without enthusiasm. “Oh! I know what I wanted to tell you – you’ll never guess who Thomas is chasing after now…” Hmmm, never guess or can’t be bothered to guess – it was a hard call. I yawned again, glancing at the bed, which was inviting me to clamber back inside and pull the sheet over my head. So tempting, but not practical.

Gustavo Tiberius speaking." “It’s so weird you do that, man,” Casey said, sounding amused. “Every time I call.” “It’s polite,” Gus said. “Just because you kids these days don’t have proper phone etiquette.” “Oh boy, there’s the Grumpy Gus I know. You miss me?” Gus was well aware the others could hear the conversation loud and clear. He was also aware he had a reputation to maintain. “Hadn’t really thought about it.” “Really.” “Yes.” “Gus.” “Casey.” “I miss you.” “I miss you too,” Gus mumbled into the phone, blushing fiercely. “Yeah? How much?” Gus was in hell. “A lot,” he said truthfully. “There have been allegations made against my person of pining and moping. False allegations, mind you, but allegations nonetheless.” “I know what you mean,” Casey said. “The guys were saying the same thing about me.” Gus smiled. “How embarrassing for you.” “Completely. You have no idea.” “They’re going to get you packed up this week?” “Ah, yeah. Sure. Something like that.” “Casey.” “Yes, Gustavo.” “You’re being cagey.” “I have no idea what you mean. Hey, that’s a nice Hawaiian shirt you’ve got on. Pink? I don’t think I’ve seen you in that color before.” Gus shrugged. “Pastor Tommy had a shitload of them. I think I could wear one every day for the rest of the year and not repeat. I think he may have had a bit of a….” Gus trailed off when his hand started shaking. Then, “How did you know what I was wearing?” There was a knock on the window to the Emporium. Gus looked up. Standing on the sidewalk was Casey. He was wearing bright green skinny jeans and a white and red shirt that proclaimed him to be a member of the 1987 Pasadena Bulldogs Women’s Softball team. He looked ridiculous. And like the greatest thing Gus had ever seen. Casey wiggled his eyebrows at Gus. “Hey, man.” “Hi,” Gus croaked. “Come over here, but stay on the phone, okay?” Gus didn’t even argue, unable to take his eyes off Casey. He hadn’t expected him for another week, but here he was on a pretty Saturday afternoon, standing outside the Emporium like it was no big deal. Gus went to the window, and Casey smiled that lazy smile. He said, “Hi.” Gus said, “Hi.” “So, I’ve spent the last two days driving back,” Casey said. “Tried to make it a surprise, you know?” “I’m very surprised,” Gus managed to say, about ten seconds away from busting through the glass just so he could hug Casey close. The smile widened. “Good. I’ve had some time to think about things, man. About a lot of things. And I came to this realization as I drove past Weed, California. Gus. It was called Weed, California. It was a sign.” Gus didn’t even try to stop the eye roll. “Oh my god.” “Right? Kismet. Because right when I entered Weed, California, I was thinking about you and it hit me. Gus, it hit me.” “What did?” Casey put his hand up against the glass. Gus did the same on his side. “Hey, Gus?” “Yeah?” “I’m going to ask you a question, okay?” Gustavo’s throat felt very dry. “Okay.” “What was the Oscar winner for Best Song in 1984?” Automatically, Gus answered, “Stevie Wonder for the movie The Woman in Red. The song was ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You.’” It was fine, of course. Because he knew answers to all those things. He didn’t know why Casey wanted to— And then he could barely breathe. Casey’s smile wobbled a little bit. “Okay?” Gus blinked the burn away. He nodded as best he could. And Casey said, “Yeah, man. I love you too.” Gus didn’t even care that he dropped his phone then. All that mattered was getting as close to Casey as humanely possible. He threw open the door to the Emporium and suddenly found himself with an armful of hipster. Casey laughed wetly into his neck and Gus just held on as hard as he could. He thought that it was possible that he might never be in a position to let go. For some reason, that didn’t bother him in the slightest.

But it is a singular love, because it is a love whose foundation is not physical attraction, or pleasure, or intellect, but fear. You have never known fear until you have a child, and maybe that is what tricks us into thinking that it is more magnificent, because the fear itself is more magnificent. Every day, your first thought is not “I love him” but “How is he?” The world, overnight, rearranges itself into an obstacle course of terrors. I would hold him in my arms and wait to cross the street and would think how absurd it was that my child, that any child, could expect to survive this life. It seemed as improbable as the survival of one of those late-spring butterflies—you know, those little white ones—I sometimes saw wobbling through the air, always just millimeters away from smacking itself against a windshield. And let me tell you two other things I learned. The first is that it doesn’t matter how old that child is, or when or how he became yours. Once you decide to think of someone as your child, something changes, and everything you have previously enjoyed about them, everything you have previously felt for them, is preceded first by that fear. It’s not biological; it’s something extra-biological, less a determination to ensure the survival of one’s genetic code, and more a desire to prove oneself inviolable to the universe’s feints and challenges, to triumph over the things that want to destroy what’s yours. The second thing is this: when your child dies, you feel everything you’d expect to feel, feelings so well-documented by so many others that I won’t even bother to list them here, except to say that everything that’s written about mourning is all the same, and it’s all the same for a reason—because there is no real deviation from the text. Sometimes you feel more of one thing and less of another, and sometimes you feel them out of order, and sometimes you feel them for a longer time or a shorter time. But the sensations are always the same. But here’s what no one says—when it’s your child, a part of you, a very tiny but nonetheless unignorable part of you, also feels relief. Because finally, the moment you have been expecting, been dreading, been preparing yourself for since the day you became a parent, has come. Ah, you tell yourself, it’s arrived. Here it is. And after that, you have nothing to fear again.

You know, love isn't the twin-soul business. With you, for instance, women are like apples on a tree. You can have one that you can reach. Those that look best are overhead, but it's no good bothering with them. So you stretch up, perhaps you pull down a bough and just get your fingers round a good one. Then it swings back and you feel wild and you say your heart's broken. But there are plenty of apples as good for you no higher than your chest.

want something in life, you can’t focus on the problem. You have to focus on the solution, or rather, focus on what you truly want. When we stress, we dwell on the things that bother us, and the more attention we give to those things, the more we attract that negativity into our lives. Whether someone believes in the attraction component or not, at the very least, the book teaches the obvious, which is that dwelling on negative shit gets you nowhere.

People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul. Especially if you have other things to rely on. An instant’s recollection and there it is: complete tranquillity. And by tranquillity I mean a kind of harmony. So keep getting away from it all—like that. Renew yourself. But keep it brief and basic. A quick visit should be enough to ward off all < . . . > and send you back ready to face what awaits you. What’s there to complain about? People’s misbehavior? But take into consideration: • that rational beings exist for one another; • that doing what’s right sometimes requires patience; • that no one does the wrong thing deliberately; • and the number of people who have feuded and envied and hated and fought and died and been buried. . . . and keep your mouth shut. Or are you complaining about the things the world assigns you? But consider the two options: Providence or atoms. And all the arguments for seeing the world as a city. Or is it your body? Keep in mind that when the mind detaches itself and realizes its own nature, it no longer has anything to do with ordinary life—the rough and the smooth, either one. And remember all you’ve been taught—and accepted—about pain and pleasure. Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us—how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space—and most of it uninhabited. How many people there will be to admire you, and who they are. So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self. Above all, no strain and no stress. Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal. And among the things you turn to, these two: i. That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. ii. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many changes you’ve already seen. “The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.

The chances of having a successful career in fashion journalism are so slim, but you don’t let that dissuade you. You know the odds aren’t in your favor, but you’re giving it your best shot anyway. The other interns have wealth, status, connections, trust funds. I mean, even I have those things—they’re practically table stakes for a career in journalism. Most people in your situation wouldn’t even bother, but you’re still giving it your all. I admire that. I wish I had your kind of courage.

Kierkegaard, in 'Either/Or,' makes fun of the 'busy man' for whom busyness is a way of avoiding an honest self-reckoning. You might wake up in the middle of the night and realize that you're lonely in your marriage, or that you need to think about what your level of consumption is doing to the planet, but the next day you have a million little things to do, and the day after that you have another million things. As long as there's no end of little things, you never have to stop and confront the bigger questions. Writing or reading an essay isn't the only way to stop and ask yourself who you really are and what your life might mean, but it is one good way. And if you consider how laughably unbusy Kierkegaard's Copenhagen was, compared with our own age, those subjective tweets and hasty blog posts don't seem so essayistic. They seem more like means of avoiding what a real essay might force on us. We spend our days reading, on screens, stuff we'd never bother reading in a printed book, and bitch about how busy we are.

On Domestic Violence: So allow me to pass a few judgements on those whom are always passing judgement: you’re probably sitting at home right now in an abusive relationship that you’re downplaying and calling “simple fights” not that bad or something that doesn’t bother you. I just hope that when you figure it out one day and decide to tell your story, that the people you’ve called dumb and stupid for “staying as long as they did” and “not speaking up sooner” are still willing to listen to your dumb and stupid ass

...Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country. He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively if he must. He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional. He can march until he is told to stop, or stop until he is told to march. He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity. He is self-sufficient. ...He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts. If you're thirsty, he'll share his water with you; if you are hungry, food. He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low. He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands. He can save your life-or take it, because that is his job. He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay, and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed. He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to "square-away" those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking. ...Just as did his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom. Beardless or not, he is not a boy. He is the American Fighting Man that has kept this country free for over two hundred years. He has asked nothing in return, except our friendship and understanding. Remember him, always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood. And now we have women over there in danger, doing their part in this tradition of going to war when our nation calls us to do so. As you go to bed tonight, remember this. A short lull, a little shade, and a picture of loved ones in their helmets.

You know what bothered me about it? Everyone was supposedly committed to the pursuit of truth and beauty, or at least one of those things, but no one was actually doing anything about it, and it seemed all wrong to me. The inertia, I mean. The inertia made everything seem fraudulent. There we were, talking about art, but no one was doing anything except Lilia. She was taking pictures. She spoke four languages.” “Five.” “You’re counting Russian? Anyway, what I’m saying is that no one was doing anything important except her. She worked as a dishwasher, she lived cheaply, she took beautiful pictures and translated things. She never made any money off it, it was just something she did. The point is, she never talked about it. She never seemed like she was posing. She never theorized or deconstructed. She just practiced her art, practiced it instead of analyzing it to death, and it rendered the rest of us fraudulent. There aren’t many people in the world . . .” He stopped talking and shook his head. He didn’t trust himself to continue.

You stand there all tan and glowing and wonder why I use Voice on you?” he bellowed. “Where the hell do you get off? You’ve been with V’lane again. How many slaps in the face do you think I’m going to take, Ms. Lane?” He grabbed my fist and held it when I tried to punch him again. I swung at him with the other. He caught that, too. “I warned you not to play us against each other.” “I’m not playing you! I’m trying to survive. And I don’t slap you when I go off with V’lane!” I tried to yank my fists from his hands. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you. I’m trying to get answers, and since you won’t give me any, you can’t blame me for going somewhere else.” “So, the man who doesn’t get laid at home has the right to go off and cheat?” “Huh?” “Which word didn’t you understand?” he sneered. “You’re the one who’s crippled by illogic. This isn’t home, it never will be, and nobody’s getting laid!” I practically shouted. “You think I don’t know that?” He shifted his body beneath me, making me painfully aware of something. Two somethings, in fact, one of which was how far up my short skirt was. The other wasn’t my problem. I wriggled, to shimmy my hem down, but his expression perished the thought. When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying. Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you. “Let go of my hands.” “Make me,” he taunted. “Voice me, Ms. Lane. Come on, little girl, show me some power.” Little girl, my ass.

I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other. When you are five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties, you know how old you are. I'm twenty-three you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties, something strange starts to happen. It is a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm--you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you are not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it. You start to forget words: they're on the tip of your tongue, but instead of eventually dislodging, they stay there. You go upstairs to fetch something, and by the time you get there you can't remember what it was you were after. You call your child by the names of all your other children and finally the dog before you get to his. Sometimes you forget what day it is. And finally you forget the year. Actually, it's not so much that I've forgotten. It's more like I've stopped keeping track. We're past the millennium, that much I know - such a fuss and bother over nothing, all those young folks clucking with worry and buying canned food because somebody was too lazy to leave space for four digits instead of two - but that could have been last month or three years ago. And besides, what does it really matter? What's the difference between three weeks or three years or even three decades of mushy peas, tapioca, and Depends undergarments? I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.

That was interesting.Who was that?" Matt looks unhappy. "What?" I ask him. "You'll talk to that guy,but you won't talk to us anymore?" "Sorry," I mumble, and climb out of his car. "He's just a friend.Thanks for the ride." Matt gets out,too. Cherrie starts to follow,but he throws her a sharp look. "So what does that mean?" he calls out. "We aren't friends anymore? You're bailing on us?" I trudge toward the house. "I'm tired, Matt.I'm going to bed." He follows anyway.I dig out my house key,but he grabs my wrist to stop me from opening the door. "Listen,I know you don't want to talk about it,but I just have this one thing to say before you go in there and cry yourself to sleep-" "Matt,please-" "Toph isn't a nice guy.He's never been a nice guy. I don't know what you ever saw in him.He talks back to everyone, he's completely unreliable, he wears those stupid fake clothes-" "Why are you telling me this?" I'm crying again.I pull my wrist from his grasp. "I know you didn't like me as much as I liked you. I know you would have rather been with him,and I dealth with that a long time ago.I'm over it." The shame is overwhelming. Even though I knew Matt was aware that I liked Toph,it's awful to hear him say it aloud. "But I'm still your friend." He's exasperated. "And I'm sick of seeing you waste your energy on that jerk. You've spent all this time afraid to talk about what was going on between you two,but if you'd bothered to just ask him, you would have discovered that he wasn't worth it. But you didn't.You never asked him, did you?" The weight of hurt is unbearable. "Please leave," I whisper. "Please just leave." "Anna." His voice levels, and he waits for me to look at him. "It was still wrong of him and Bridge not to tell you. Okay? You deserve better than that. And I sincerely hope whomever you were just talking to"-Matt gestures toward the phone in my purse-"is better than that.

Dear Mr. Weston, Hello again. We were beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I guess things have been pretty quiet since the Salvation Army tried to take over the world. We are sorry, but after much deliberation we have elected not to assign any men to Protect Trillium Air Base. We feel that the Forces can protect themselves, and if they can't, who is going to protect the country? Also, thank you for sending us that shard of broken glass with the fingerprint on it. It was yours. Our mail clerk required four stitches and a tetanus shot. Relay our condolences to your Mr. Waghorn. We have no idea what unfortunate circumstance (for him) drew him to your ever-watchful attention, but he has no criminal record and his face is not known to us. Yours Sincerely, Bruce Hmmm, thought Sidney, Waghorn has no criminal record. "Let me see one of those," said Tom. "I'm sorry, Tom, but I can't show you the letters." Tom muttered something about a lack of trust. He was extremely alarmed at the intensity of Sidney's expression. As Sidney himself would have put it, the investigation was progressing. That meant trouble. There was always trouble when his brother got to the letter-writing stage. Tom would have to stay on his toes. Sidney opened the last letter. Dear Mr. Weston, Please stop bothering us. Cordially yours, The Ontario Provincial Police.

What happened to the dead bodies?” Question after question, a chorus of them, all melding into one roar of confusion. As for Thomas, he didn’t bother. The stranger wasn’t going to tell them anything. Couldn’t they all see that? Rat Man waited patiently, ignoring them, those dark eyes darting back and forth between the Gladers as they spoke. His gaze settled on Thomas, who sat there, silent, staring back at him, hating him. Hating WICKED. Hating the world. “You shanks shut up!” Minho finally shouted. The questions stopped instantly. “This shuck-face ain’t answering,

Eating was still a sore point with Smriti.She failed to understand,when interesting options like mango juice or chocolates were available,why was she forced by her stupid mother to eat boring regular meals? After much contemplation,Nikhil came up with a suggestion'Don't give her food till she herself asks for it'. His idea'starve-to know-the-worth-of -food'made sense to Abhilasha,though it took her a great deal of resolve before she could actually try it out. So on a sunday,the'lady with an iron will'took over from'the soft and kind hearted mother'.she did not give her anything to eat and waited for the golden moment,expecting a hungry Smriti to beg for food. But the much awaited moment never came.Smriti was not at all bothered about her meal and kept playing happily. The day turned into evening and still there was no trace of hunger in her. "Aren't you feeling hungry?' now a worried mother had no option but to eat the humble pie and ask the daughter. "No Maa. My friend Pinky had brought wafers and chocolates. Those were so yummy that I ate them all......" And that was the end of her'starve-to -know-the-worth-of-food-mission.

Insight, then. Wisdom. The quest for knowledge, the derivation of theorems, science and technology and all those exclusively human pursuits that must surely rest on a conscious foundation. Maybe that's what sentience would be for— if scientific breakthroughs didn't spring fully-formed from the subconscious mind, manifest themselves in dreams, as full-blown insights after a deep night's sleep. It's the most basic rule of the stymied researcher: stop thinking about the problem. Do something else. It will come to you if you just stop being conscious of it... Don't even try to talk about the learning curve. Don't bother citing the months of deliberate practice that precede the unconscious performance, or the years of study and experiment leading up to the gift-wrapped Eureka moment. So what if your lessons are all learned consciously? Do you think that proves there's no other way? Heuristic software's been learning from experience for over a hundred years. Machines master chess, cars learn to drive themselves, statistical programs face problems and design the experiments to solve them and you think that the only path to learning leads through sentience? You're Stone-age nomads, eking out some marginal existence on the veldt—denying even the possibility of agriculture, because hunting and gathering was good enough for your parents. Do you want to know what consciousness is for? Do you want to know the only real purpose it serves? Training wheels. You can't see both aspects of the Necker Cube at once, so it lets you focus on one and dismiss the other. That's a pretty half-assed way to parse reality. You're always better off looking at more than one side of anything. Go on, try. Defocus. It's the next logical step.

He never had a craving in him that he couldn’t slick away on his guitar. You have to be native to the red-clay hills of Kentucky to understand that. There the guitar players don’t bother with any fingering; they do it by running a knife blade up and down the stops. Most of the good slickers down where he was born would say that a thin blade made the most music. But he liked the heft of a good, heavy hog sticker. It took a born player to handle one of those. And maybe that’s why his mother changed his name to Melody when he got old enough for a name to mean something beside “Come get tit.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I looked around the empty lot. I wavered on getting out when a giant lightning bolt painted a jagged streak across the rainy lavender-gray sky. Minutes passed and still he didn’t come out of the Three Hundreds’ building. Damn it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped out of the car, cursing at myself for not carrying an umbrella for about the billionth time and for not having waterproof shoes, and ran through the parking lot, straight through the double doors. As I stomped my feet on the mat, I looked around the lobby for the big guy. A woman behind the front desk raised her eyebrows at me curiously. “Can I help you with something?” she asked. “Have you seen Aiden?” “Aiden?” Were there really that many Aidens? “Graves.” “Can I ask what you need him for?” I bit the inside of my cheek and smiled at the woman who didn’t know me and, therefore, didn’t have an idea that I knew Aiden. “I’m here to pick him up.” It was obvious she didn’t know what to make of me. I didn’t exactly look like pro-football player girlfriend material in that moment, much less anything else. I’d opted not to put on any makeup since I hadn’t planned on leaving the house. Or real pants. Or even a shirt with the sleeves intact. I had cut-off shorts and a baggy T-shirt with sleeves that I’d taken scissors to. Plus the rain outside hadn’t done my hair any justice. It looked like a cloud of teal. Then there was the whole we-don’t-look-anything-alike thing going on, so there was no way we could pass as siblings. Just as I opened my mouth, the doors that connected the front area with the rest of the training facility swung open. The man I was looking for came out with his bag over his shoulder, imposing, massive, and sweaty. Definitely surly too, which really only meant he looked the way he always did. I couldn’t help but crack a little smile at his grumpiness. “Ready?” He did his form of a nod, a tip of his chin. I could feel the receptionist’s eyes on us as he approached, but I was too busy taking in Grumpy Pants to bother looking at anyone else. Those brown eyes shifted to me for a second, and that time, I smirked uncontrollably. He glared down at me. “What are you smiling at?” I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, trying to give him an innocent look. “Oh, nothing, sunshine.” He mouthed ‘sunshine’ as his gaze strayed to the ceiling. We ran out of the building side by side toward my car. Throwing the doors open, I pretty much jumped inside and shivered, turning the car and the heater on. Aiden slid in a lot more gracefully than I had, wet but not nearly as soaked. He eyed me as he buckled in, and I slanted him a look. “What?” With a shake of his head, he unzipped his duffel, which was sitting on his lap, and pulled out that infamous off-black hoodie he always wore. Then he held it out. All I could do was stare at it for a second. His beloved, no-name brand, extra-extra-large hoodie. He was offering it to me. When I first started working for Aiden, I remembered him specifically giving me instructions on how he wanted it washed and dried. On gentle and hung to dry. He loved that thing. He could own a thousand just like it, but he didn’t. He had one black hoodie that he wore all the time and a blue one he occasionally donned. “For me?” I asked like an idiot. He shook it, rolling his eyes. “Yes for you. Put it on before you get sick. I would rather not have to take care of you if you get pneumonia.” Yeah, I was going to ignore his put-out tone and focus on the ‘rather not’ as I took it from him and slipped it on without another word. His hoodie was like holding a gold medal in my hands. Like being given something cherished, a family relic. Aiden’s precious.

Well, I’ve got news for you, Lucian. No one feels worthy. Everyone feels like an imposter. It doesn’t matter what family you come from, your net worth, or how many powerful friends owe you favors. None of that is going to make you feel like you deserve to be here.” “Everyone? I find that hard to believe.” “The ones who don’t? The ones who think they deserve it all? Those are the ones you have to watch out for. Those are the ones who inflict the real damage. They’re the ones who don’t spend years in therapy trying to better themselves. They’re the ones who don’t bother asking themselves if they’re the good guy or the bad guy.” I

What happened?" he asks,voice laced with concern. "I..." I merged with a cockroach-caught a ride next to your twin's Calvin Klein underwear label-and after I watched him play with a demon coyote and snack on bloodied bits that could've been either animal or human, he fed glowing, white orbs to the walking dead-then crushed me under the hell of his boot... "I'm not sure," I say,willing my head to feel better,to stop spinning, and a moment later it does. "I guess I passed out,or something..." I cringe,hating the lie but knowing there's no way I could ever present him the truth. I start to stand,pretending not to notice when he offers a hand. "I need to call my ride." I fumble for my phone, reluctant to bother Paloma and Chay at this hour,but they're pretty much my only real option. "Don't be silly.I'll drive you." Dace follows me out of the stall,watching as I call Paloma's number,then Chay's-face scrunching in confusion when they both fail to answer.It doesn't make any sense. "Daire-why won't you let me help you?" he says.My name on his lips sounding just like ti did in the dream. Our eyes meeting in the mirror,mine astonished, his chagrined,when he adds, "Yeah,I asked around.Uncovered your real name. So shoot me." And when he smiles,when he smiles and runs a nervous hand through his glossy,dark hair-well,I'm tempted to shake my head and refuse him again. Maybe he goes by the name of Whitefeather, but technically,he's still a Richter.A good Richter-a kind Richter-still,I need to do what I can to avoid him.To ignore that irresistible stream of kindness and warmth that swarms all around him. Need to cleanse myself of those dreams once and for all.We are not bound.Nor are we fated.I'm a Seeker-he's the spawn of a Richter-and my only destiny is to stop his brother from...whatever it is that he's doing. But,more immediately,I need to get home.And there's no denying I could do a lot worse than catching a ride with gorgeous Dace Whitefeather.

Thomas paused. “You’re hiding something,” he finally replied, finishing off his last bite and taking a long swig of water. The frustration at getting no answers from anyone was starting to grind his nerves. It only made it worse to think that even if he did get answers, he wouldn’t know if he’d be getting the truth. “Why are you guys so secretive?” “That’s just the way it is. Things are really weird around here, and most of us don’t know everything. Half of everything.” It bothered Thomas that Chuck didn’t seem to care about what he’d just said. That he seemed indifferent to having his life taken away from him. What was wrong with these people? Thomas got to his feet and started walking toward the eastern opening. “Well, no one said I couldn’t look around.” He needed to learn something or he was going to lose his mind. “Whoa, wait!” Chuck cried, running to catch up. “Be careful, those puppies are about to close.” He already sounded out of breath. “Close?” Thomas repeated. “What are you talking about?” “The Doors, you shank.” “Doors? I don’t see any doors.

It’s no one’s fault really,” he continued. “A big city cannot afford to have its attention distracted from the important job of being a big city by such a tiny, unimportant item as your happiness or mine.” This came out of him easily, assuredly, and I was suddenly interested. On closer inspection there was something aesthetic and scholarly about him, something faintly professorial. He knew I was with him, listening, and his grey eyes were kind with offered friendliness. He continued: “Those tall buildings there are more than monuments to the industry, thought and effort which have made this a great city; they also occasionally serve as springboards to eternity for misfits who cannot cope with the city and their own loneliness in it.” He paused and said something about one of the ducks which was quite unintelligible to me. “A great city is a battlefield,” he continued. “You need to be a fighter to live in it, not exist, mark you, live. Anybody can exist, dragging his soul around behind him like a worn-out coat; but living is different. It can be hard, but it can also be fun; there’s so much going on all the time that’s new and exciting.” I could not, nor wished to, ignore his pleasant voice, but I was in no mood for his philosophising. “If you were a negro you’d find that even existing would provide more excitement than you’d care for.” He looked at me and suddenly laughed; a laugh abandoned and gay, a laugh rich and young and indescribably infectious. I laughed with him, although I failed to see anything funny in my remark. “I wondered how long it would be before you broke down and talked to me,” he said, when his amusement had quietened down. “Talking helps, you know; if you can talk with someone you’re not lonely any more, don’t you think?” As simple as that. Soon we were chatting away unreservedly, like old friends, and I had told him everything. “Teaching,” he said presently. “That’s the thing. Why not get a job as a teacher?” “That’s rather unlikely,” I replied. “I have had no training as a teacher.” “Oh, that’s not absolutely necessary. Your degrees would be considered in lieu of training, and I feel sure that with your experience and obvious ability you could do well.” “Look here, Sir, if these people would not let me near ordinary inanimate equipment about which I understand quite a bit, is it reasonable to expect them to entrust the education of their children to me?” “Why not? They need teachers desperately.” “It is said that they also need technicians desperately.” “Ah, but that’s different. I don’t suppose educational authorities can be bothered about the colour of people’s skins, and I do believe that in that respect the London County Council is rather outstanding. Anyway, there would be no need to mention it; let it wait until they see you at the interview.” “I’ve tried that method before. It didn’t work.” “Try it again, you’ve nothing to lose. I know for a fact that there are many vacancies for teachers in the East End of London.” “Why especially the East End of London?” “From all accounts it is rather a tough area, and most teachers prefer to seek jobs elsewhere.” “And you think it would be just right for a negro, I suppose.” The vicious bitterness was creeping back; the suspicion was not so easily forgotten. “Now, just a moment, young man.” He was wonderfully patient with me, much more so than I deserved. “Don’t ever underrate the people of the East End; from those very slums and alleyways are emerging many of the new breed of professional and scientific men and quite a few of our politicians. Be careful lest you be a worse snob than the rest of us. Was this the kind of spirit in which you sought the other jobs?

But they had been down on all fours naked, not touching except their lips right down there on the floor where the tie is pointing to, on all fours like (uh huh, go on, say it) like dogs. Nibbling at each other, not even touching, not even looking at each other, just their lips, and when I opened the door they didn't even look for a minute and I thought the reason they are not looking up is because they are not doing that. So it's all right. I am just standing here. They are not doing that. I am just standing here and seeing it, but they are not really doing it. But then they did look up. Or you did. You did, Jude. ... And I did not know how to move my feet or fix my eyes or what. I just stood there seeing it and smiling, because maybe there was some explanation, something important that I did not know about that would have made it all right. I waited for Sula to look up at me any minute and say one of those lovely college words like aesthetic or rapport, which I never understood but which I loved because they sounded so comfortable and firm. And finally you just got up and started putting clothes on and your privates were hanging down, so soft, and you buckled your pants but forgot to button the fly and she was sitting on the bed not even bothering to put on her clothes because actually she didn't need to because somehow she didn't look naked to me, only you did. Her chin was in her hand and she sat like a visitor from out of town waiting for the hosts to get some quarreling done and over with so the card game could continue and me wanting her to leave so I could tell you privately that you had forgotten to button your fly because I didn't want to say it in front of her, Jude. And even when you began to talk, I couldn't hear because I was worried about you not knowing that your fly was open ... Remember how big that bedroom was, Jude? How when we moved here we said, Well, at least we got us a real big bedroom, but it was small then, Jude, and so shambly and maybe it was that way all along but it would have been better if I had gotten all the dust out from under the bed because I was ashamed of it in that small room. And you walked past me saying, "I'll be back for my things." And you did but you left your tie.

She looked at him. She was feeling reckless, emotional, out of sorts, and she was tired of his constant hints. “I found the experience so unpleasant with Wilfred that I kicked him out lest he want to repeat the whole thing.” She shuddered. “I was expecting someone younger and healthier than Sir Thomas would convince me that lovemaking was worth the trouble. It isn’t. It’s nasty and ugly and dirty.” He stared at her for a long moment. And then he spoke. “Dear girl,” he said softly, “don’t you know that any reasonable man would take that as a challenge?” She jerked her head up to look at him, into those very dark green eyes. “Don’t be absurd. Why would anyone bother when there are so many willing females around? I’m too much trouble. And besides, I don’t consider you a reasonable man.” His smile was fleeting. “I’m an eminently reasonable man.” And before she realized what he was doing she was back in his arms and he was kissing her, openmouthed and hot and wet, no teasing approach, just raw, sexual demand that should have filled her with disgust and dismay. He didn’t like mysteries, any more than he liked emotions, weaknesses or unsatisfied lust.

Not me, of course. I was only eight years old. But during those days I noticed that the Elder Malakai was not celebrating with everyone else. He alone was solemn and grim. I don’t know why it bothered me so, but it did. I took him a glass of wine to drink, but he said, ‘I will not partake.’ I said, ‘You do not drink to my grandfather?’ He replied, ‘I do not celebrate.’ His words angered me. ‘Then you do not accept my grandfather as our new leader?’ ‘That is not why I do not celebrate,’ he said. ‘Your grandfather is a great man. And I mourn for him.’ ‘Mourn?’ I said. ‘Why would you mourn?’ He looked at me and said, ‘There is evil to come in this world. Evil without a name. Evil that will, in time, reach even our small islands. It is that I mourn. For what begins with a crown will end with a cage.’ 

If you're on a tightrope, when you first set off you don't know how much play there is in the rope. But when you get into the middle, between the ages of twenty and forty, the thing rocks like mad and it's too late to go back, even to to look back. But if you go on as carefully as you can, you see the other platform and then you just make a dash for it, not bothering what the audience thinks, or waving your arms, or looking dangerous and difficult and prodigious. What you see when you get to the other side is, in fact, the edge of your coffin. And you get into it, and you lie down, and you think; my cuffs are frayed, I haven't written to my mother and all those other things. And then you think; it doesn't matter. Because I'm dead. And this is a message of hope. It will come to an end. It will come, we cannot be blamed for it and we shall be free

If you're on a tightrope, when you first set off you don't know how much play there is in the rope. But when you get into the middle, between the ages of twenty and forty, the thing rocks like mad and it's too late to go back, even to to look back. But if you go on as carefully as you can, you see the other platform and then you just make a dash for it, not bothering what the audience thinks, or waving your arms, or looking looking dangerous and difficult and prodigious. What you see when you get to the other side is, in fact, the edge of your coffin. And you get into it, and you lie down, and you think; my cuffs are frayed, I haven't written to my mother and all those other things. And then you think; it doesn't matter. Because I'm dead. And this is a message of hope. It will come to an end. It will come, we cannot be blamed for it and we shall be free.

As for having reached the top, with only one way to go from there, Lee had a point, no? I mean, if you cannot repeat a once-in-a-lifetime miracle—if you can never again reach the top—then why bother creating at all? Well, I can actually speak about this predicament from personal experience, because I myself was once “at the top”—with a book that sat on the bestseller list for more than three years. I can’t tell you how many people said to me during those years, “How are you ever going to top that?” They’d speak of my great good fortune as though it were a curse, not a blessing, and would speculate about how terrified I must feel at the prospect of not being able to reach such phenomenal heights again. But such thinking assumes there is a “top”—and that reaching that top (and staying there) is the only motive one has to create. Such thinking assumes that the mysteries of inspiration operate on the same scale that we do—on a limited human scale of success and failure, of winning and losing, of comparison and competition, of commerce and reputation, of units sold and influence wielded. Such thinking assumes that you must be constantly victorious—not only against your peers, but also against an earlier version of your own poor self. Most dangerously of all, such thinking assumes that if you cannot win, then you must not continue to play. But what does any of that have to do with vocation? What does any of that have to do with the pursuit of love? What does any of that have to do with the strange communion between the human and the magical? What does any of that have to do with faith? What does any of that have to do with the quiet glory of merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations?

THE GHOST OF THE AUTHOR'S MOTHER HAS A CONVERSATION WITH HIS FIANCÉE ABOUT HIGHWAYS ...and down south, honey. When the side of the road began to swell with dead and dying things, that's when us black children knew it was summer. Daddy didn't keep clocks in the house. Ain't no use when the sky round those parts always had some flames runnin' to horizon, lookin' like the sun was always out. back when I was a little girl, I swear, them white folk down south would do anything to stop another dark thing from touching the land, even the nighttime. We ain't have streetlights, or some grandmotherly voice riding through the fields on horseback tellin' us when to come inside. What we had was the stomach of a deer, split open on route 59. What we had was flies resting on the exposed insides of animals with their tongues touching the pavement. What we had was the smell of gunpowder and the promise of more to come, and, child, that'll get you home before the old folks would break out the moonshine and celebrate another day they didn't have to pull the body of someone they loved from the river. I say 'river' because I want you to always be able to look at the trees without crying. When we moved east, I learned how a night sky can cup a black girl in its hands and ask for forgiveness. My daddy sold the pistol he kept in the sock drawer and took me to the park. Those days, I used to ask him what he feared, and he always said "the bottom of a good glass." And then he stopped answering. And then he stopped coming home altogether. Something about the first day of a season, honey. Something always gotta sacrifice its blood. Everything that has its time must be lifted from the earth. My boys don't bother with seasons anymore. My sons went to sleep in the spring once and woke up to a motherless summer. All they know now is that it always be colder than it should be. I wish I could fix this for you. I'm sorry none of my children wear suits anymore. I wish ties didn't remind my boys of shovels, and dirt, and an empty living room. They all used to look so nice in ties. I'm sorry that you may come home one day to the smell of rotting meat, every calendar you own, torn off the walls, burning in a trashcan. And it will be the end of spring. And you will know.

I was there that day, you know,' Alis said, folding her spindly arms across her chest. 'I saw the Morrigan arrive. Saw her reach into that cocoon of power and pick you up like a child. I begged her to take you out.' My swallow wasn't feigned. 'I never told him that. Never told any of them. I let them think you'd been abducted. But you clung to her, and she was willing to slaughter all of us for what had happened.' 'I don't know why you'd assume that.' I tugged the edges of my silk robe tighter around me. 'Servants talk. And Under the Mountain, I never heard of or saw Rhysand laying a hand on a servant. Guards. Amarantha's cronies, the people he was ordered to kill, yes. But never the meek. Never those unable to defend themselves.' 'He's a monster.' 'They say you came back different. Came back wrong.' A crow's laugh. 'I never bother to tell them I think you came back right. Came back right at last.

Eat it. It’s your reward,” she said through her teeth. “You’ve earned it.” Abraxos sniffed at the cluster of purple flowers, then flicked his eyes to her. No meat, he seemed to say. “It’s good for you,” she said, and he went right back to sniffing the violets or whatever they were. If a plant wasn’t good for poisoning, healing or keeping her alive if she were starving, she’d never bothered to learn its name—especially not wildflowers. She tossed the leg right in front of his massive mouth and tucked her hands into the folds of her red cloak. He snuffed at it, his new iron teeth glinting in the radiant sun, then stretched out one massive, claw-tipped wing and— Shoved it aside. Manon rubbed her eyes. “Is it not fresh enough?” He moved to sniff some white-and-yellow flowers. A nightmare. This was a nightmare. “You can’t really like flowers.” Again those dark eyes shifted to her. Blinked once. I most certainly do, he seemed to say. “You never even smelled a flower until yesterday. What’s wrong with the meat now?” When he went back to sniffing the flowers rather delicately—the insufferable, useless worm—she stalked to the leg of mutton and hauled it up. “If you won’t eat it,” she snarled at him, hoisting it up with both hands to her mouth and popping her iron teeth down, “then I will.” Abraxos watched her with those bemused dark eyes as she bit into the icy, raw meat. And spat it everywhere.

Baruk looked up, then twisted in his chair to regard his guest, who was busy preening herself on his map-table. ‘Crone, the inconsistencies in this text are infuriating.’ The Great Raven cocked her head, beak gaping for a moment in laughter, then said, ‘So what? Show me a written history that makes sense, and I will show you true fiction. If that is all you want, then look elsewhere! My master concluded that Dillat’s nonsense would make a fine gift for your collection. If you are truly displeased, there are plenty of other idiocies in his library, those that he bothered to extract from Moon’s Spawn, that is. He left whole rooms crammed with the rubbish, you know.’ Baruk blinked slowly, struggling to keep his horror from his voice as he said, ‘No, I did not know that.’ Undeceived, Crone cackled. Then she said, ‘My master was most amused at the notion of falling to his knees and crying out to the Hundred Gods-’ ‘Thousand. The Thousand Gods.’ ‘Whatever.

In the center of the room Sarra the demon hung upside down by one leg, its arms bound behind its back, its suit scuffed-looking. Beneath it, crawling around an intricately scribed circle, a woman with short, curly red hair drew binding symbols with a gold stick. She looked up as I fanned away the smoke that was billowing up from the crack in the tile. "You're a Summoner. Hullo. I'm Noelle. Did you know that you have mismatched eyes?" I walked around the demon. It glared at me. "Yes, I know. Why do you have Sarra strung up by one leg?" She drew another symbol. It flared bright green as soon as the stick lifted from the circle. "It was getting a bit stroppy with me. The Hanged Man always teaches them a few manners. It's retaliating with the smoke. Are those spirits I saw yours, then?" "Yes, they are. There are four others as well. I hate to be a bother, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, what with Christian being held by this one's master and all, so if you could possibly just give me the abbreviated version of what's going on here, I'll be on my way to rescue him." She leaned back on her heels and sucked the tip of her gold stick. "Asmodeus, eh?" The demon snarled. A chunk of ceiling fell behind me. We both ignored it. It just never does to give a demon the satisfaction of knowing it's startled you. "It's a nasty bag of tricks, but I heard through the demonic grapevine that it was weakened and searching for a suitable sacrifice to regain its power," she added. "Well, it can't have Christian; he's mine. Back to the demon, if you don't mind…" She looked up at Sarra, still sucking the stick. "It's a pretty specimen, isn't it? I like the hair gel. Nice touch. The mustache is a bit much, though, don't you think? Makes it look so smarmy." "Um…" "I'm destroying it, so I suppose it really doesn't matter." I blinked and avoided two wine bottles as they flew out of a rack when the demon hissed at the Guardian.

Look, Jordan, you’re not alone any more. It’s my job to protect you while I’m here and I can’t do that if you keep pushing me away.” “That’s the problem, Michael,” I shot back. “You have more responsibilities to your boss than you do to me. You taught me how to defend myself, how to heal myself, and that should be good enough. You can’t keep babysitting one little human when you have an entire cosmos to worry about.” He faced me again, those green eyes boring into mine as if he could see straight through me. “Are you saying you want me to leave?” My chest tightened. I hadn’t expected him to say that. I bit my bottom lip, glancing away. “That’s not what I mean.” “Then what do you mean?” “Since when have I ever known what the hell I mean?” He touched my right cheek, making me face him. “You do when it counts.” Staring up at him, shirtless, vulnerable, and wounded, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. He had a knack for picking my walls apart brick by brick. It bothered me. He took a step closer, casting a shadow over me. “Stop,” I mumbled, fixing my eyes on the floor. He brushed a lock of hair behind my ear, sliding his warm hand to lift my chin so I’d have to look at him. “Stop what?” he murmured. “Looking at me.” “Why?” “That’s how Terrell used to look at me before we kissed.” His lips parted to say something but I pushed past him, gathering up my duster from where it lay on the bed next to the dress. “Get dressed. We have more ghosts to help.

And now there’s another thing you got to learn,” said the Ape. “I hear some of you are saying I’m an Ape. Well, I’m not. I’m a Man. If I look like an Ape, that’s because I’m so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old. And it’s because I’m so old that I’m so wise. And it’s because I’m so wise that I’m the only one Aslan is ever going to speak to. He can’t be bothered talking to a lot of stupid animals. He’ll tell me what you’ve got to do, and I’ll tell the rest of you. And take my advice, and see you do it in double quick time, for he doesn’t mean to stand any nonsense.” There was dead silence except for the noise of a very young badger crying and its mother trying to make it keep quiet. “And now here’s another thing,” the Ape went on, fitting a fresh nut into its cheek, “I hear some of the horses are saying, Let’s hurry up and get this job of carting timber over as quickly as we can, and then we’ll be free again. Well, you can get that idea out of your heads at once. And not only the Horses either. Everybody who can work is going to be made to work in future. Aslan has it all settled with the King of Calormen—The Tisroc, as our dark faced friends the Calormenes call him. All you Horses and Bulls and Donkeys are to be sent down into Calormen to work for your living—pulling and carrying the way horses and such-like do in other countries. And all you digging animals like Moles and Rabbits and Dwarfs are going down to work in The Tisroc’s mines. And—” “No, no, no,” howled the Beasts. “It can’t be true. Aslan would never sell us into slavery to the King of Calormen.” “None of that! Hold your noise!” said the Ape with a snarl. “Who said anything about slavery? You won’t be slaves. You’ll be paid—very good wages too. That is to say, your pay will be paid into Aslan’s treasury and he will use it all for everybody’s good.” Then he glanced, and almost winked, at the chief Calormene. The Calormene bowed and replied, in the pompous Calormene way: “Most sapient Mouthpiece of Aslan, The Tisroc (may-he-live-forever) is wholly of one mind with your lordship in this judicious plan.” “There! You see!” said the Ape. “It’s all arranged. And all for your own good. We’ll be able, with the money you earn, to make Narnia a country worth living in. There’ll be oranges and bananas pouring in—and roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons—Oh, everything.” “But we don’t want all those things,” said an old Bear. “We want to be free. And we want to hear Aslan speak himself.” “Now don’t you start arguing,” said the Ape, “for it’s a thing I won’t stand. I’m a Man: you’re only a fat, stupid old Bear. What do you know about freedom? You think freedom means doing what you like. Well, you’re wrong. That isn’t true freedom. True freedom means doing what I tell you.” “H-n-n-h,” grunted the Bear and scratched its head; it found this sort of thing hard to understand.

Before she could say anything more, Sabella swung around at the sound of Noah’s Harley purring to life behind the garage. God. He was dressed in snug jeans and riding chaps. A snug dark T-shirt covered his upper body, conformed to it. And he was riding her way. “Is there anything sexier than a man in riding chaps riding a Harley?” Kira asked behind her. “It makes a woman simply want to melt.” And Sabella was melting. She watched as he pulled around the side of the garage then took the gravel road that led to the back of the house. The sound of the Harley purred closer, throbbing, building the excitement inside her. “I think it’s time for me to leave,” Kira said with a light laugh. “Don’t bother to see me out.” Sabella didn’t. She listened as the Harley drew into the graveled lot behind the house and moved to the back door. She opened it, stepping out on the back deck as he swung his legs over the cycle and strode toward her. That long-legged lean walk. It made her mouth water. Made her heart throb in her throat as hunger began to race through her. “The spa treated you well,” he announced as he paused at the bottom of the steps and stared back at her. “Feel like messing your hair up and going out this evening? We could have dinner in town. Ride around a little bit.” She hadn’t ridden on a motorcycle since she was a teenager. She glanced at the cycle, then back to Noah. “I’d need to change clothes.” His gaze flickered over her short jeans skirt, her T-shirt. “That would be a damned shame too,” he stated. “I have to say, Ms. Malone, you have some beautiful legs there.” No one had ever been as charming as Nathan. She remembered when they were dating, how he would just show up, out of the blue, driving that monster pickup of his and grinning like a rogue when he picked her up. He’d been the epitome of a bad boy, and he had been all hers. He was still all hers. “Bare legs and motorcycles don’t exactly go together,” she pointed out. He nodded soberly, though his eyes had a wicked glint to them. “This is a fact, beautiful. And pretty legs like that, we wouldn’t want to risk.” She leaned against the porch post and stared back at him. “I have a pickup, you know.” She propped one hand on her hip and stared back at him. “Really?” Was that avarice she saw glinting in his eyes, or for just the slightest second, pure, unadulterated joy at the mention of that damned pickup? He looked around. “I haven’t seen a pickup.” “It’s in the garage,” she told him carelessly. “A big black monster with bench seats. Four-by-four gas-guzzling alpha-male steel and chrome.” He grinned. He was so proud of that damned pickup. “Where did something so little come up with a truck that big?” he teased her then. She shrugged. “It belonged to my husband. Now, it belongs to me.” That last statement had his gaze sharpening. “You drive it?” “All the time,” she lied, tormenting him. “I don’t have to worry about pinging it now that my husband is gone. He didn’t like pings.” Did he swallow tighter? “It’s pinged then?” She snorted. “Not hardly. Do you want to drive the monster or question me about it? Or I could change into jeans and we could ride your cycle. Which is it?” Which was it? Noah stared back at her, barely able to contain his shock that she had kept the pickup. He knew for a fact there were times the payments on the house and garage had gone unpaid—his “death” benefits hadn’t been nearly enough—almost risking her loss of both during those first months of his “death.” Knowing she had held on to that damned truck filled him with more pleasure than he could express. Knowing she was going to let someone who wasn’t her husband drive it filled him with horror. The contradictor feelings clashed inside him, and he promised himself he was going to spank her for this.

Diana” was the first thing out of her mouth. “I’m dying,” the too familiar voice on the other end moaned. I snorted, locking the front door behind me as I held the phone up to my face with my shoulder. “You’re pregnant. You’re not dying.” “But it feels like I am,” the person who rarely ever complained whined. We’d been best friends our entire lives, and I could only count on one hand the number of times I’d heard her grumble about something that wasn’t her family. I’d had the title of being the whiner in our epic love affair that had survived more shit than I was willing to remember right then. I held up a finger when Louie tipped his head toward the kitchen as if asking if I was going to get started on dinner or not. “Well, nobody told you to get pregnant with the Hulk’s baby. What did you expect? He’s probably going to come out the size of a toddler.” The laugh that burst out of her made me laugh too. This fierce feeling of missing her reminded me it had been months since we’d last seen each other. “Shut up.” “You can’t avoid the truth forever.” Her husband was huge. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t expect her unborn baby to be a giant too. “Ugh.” A long sigh came through the receiver in resignation. “I don’t know what I was thinking—” “You weren’t thinking.” She ignored me. “We’re never having another one. I can’t sleep. I have to pee every two minutes. I’m the size of Mars—” “The last time I saw you”—which had been two months ago—“you were the size of Mars. The baby is probably the size of Mars now. I’d probably say you’re about the size of Uranus.” She ignored me again. “Everything makes me cry and I itch. I itch so bad.” “Do I… want to know where you’re itching?” “Nasty. My stomach. Aiden’s been rubbing coconut oil on me every hour he’s here.” I tried to imagine her six-foot-five-inch, Hercules-sized husband doing that to Van, but my imagination wasn’t that great. “Is he doing okay?” I asked, knowing off our past conversations that while he’d been over the moon with her pregnancy, he’d also turned into mother hen supreme. It made me feel better knowing that she wasn’t living in a different state all by herself with no one else for support. Some people in life got lucky and found someone great, the rest of us either took a long time… or not ever. “He’s worried I’m going to fall down the stairs when he isn’t around, and he’s talking about getting a one-story house so that I can put him out of his misery.” “You know you can come stay with us if you want.” She made a noise. “I’m just offering, bitch. If you don’t want to be alone when he starts traveling more for games, you can stay here as long as you need. Louie doesn’t sleep in his room half the time anyway, and we have a one-story house. You could sleep with me if you really wanted to. It’ll be like we’re fourteen all over again.” She sighed. “I would. I really would, but I couldn’t leave Aiden.” And I couldn’t leave the boys for longer than a couple of weeks, but she knew that. Well, she also knew I couldn’t not work for that long, too. “Maybe you can get one of those I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up—” Vanessa let out another loud laugh. “You jerk.” “What? You could.” There was a pause. “I don’t even know why I bother with you half the time.” “Because you love me?” “I don’t know why.” “Tia,” Louie hissed, rubbing his belly like he was seriously starving. “Hey, Lou and Josh are making it seem like they haven’t eaten all day. I’m scared they might start nibbling on my hand soon. Let me feed them, and I’ll call you back, okay?” Van didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, Di. Give them a hug from me and call me back whenever. I’m on the couch, and I’m not going anywhere except the bathroom.” “Okay. I won’t call Parks and Wildlife to let them know there’s a beached whale—” “Goddammit, Diana—” I laughed. “Love you. I’ll call you back. Bye!” “Vanny has a whale?” Lou asked.

Just because I look like a human being doesn’t mean I am. This body has more genetic material that’s not strictly human than it does material that is human. And it heavily integrates machines as well. My blood is actually a bunch of nanobots in a fluid. I am and every other CDF soldier is a genetically-modified cyborg.” “But you’re still you, right?” Lowen asked. “You’re still the same person you were when you left Earth. Still the same consciousness.” “That’s a question of some contention among us soldiers,” Wilson said, setting his arm back down. “When you transfer over to the new body, the machine that does the transfer makes it at least seem like for an instant you’re in two bodies at once. It feels like you as a person make the transfer. But I think it’s equally possible that what happens is that memories are transferred over to a brain specially prepared for them, it wakes up, and there’s just enough cross talk between the two separate brains to give the illusion of a transfer before the old one shuts down.” “In which case, you’re actually dead,” Lowen said. “The real you. And this you is a fake.” “Right.” Wilson took another sip of his drink. “Mind you, the CDF could show you graphs and charts that show that actual consciousness transfer happens. But I think this is one of those things you can’t really model from the outside. I have to accept the possibility that I could be a fake Harry Wilson.” “And this doesn’t bother you,” Lowen said. “In a metaphysical sense, sure,” Wilson said. “But in a day-to-day sense, I don’t think about it much. On the inside, it sure feels like I’ve been around for ninety years, and ultimately this version of me likes being alive. So.

Ye came to me on the parapet. Was it to tempt me?” “It would take me the rest of the night to dry my clothes and hair and to warm my body- a little to extreme for sport. I thought you were going to jump. I wanted to prevent it if I could.” He almost laughed, until he saw her eyes glisten as she drew her cloak tightly about herself and turned toward the fire. “ I think you should go now. It will be daylight soon. I need to dry my hair and get out of these wet clothes.” “And would it bothered you if I had jumped?” She whirled around, her eyes flashing angrily. “Of course it would! I am not a hard-hearted wretch! You saved my life. I owe you a tremendous debt. How could I hope to gain anything by your death when you have treated me with every kindness and sheltered me in your home?” “Those are the only reasons?” She shrugged. “I like you. You are brave and strong, yet your heart is kind, your manner gentle, and you heart pure. You have a great future ahead of you. Your clan and your country need you. And I am indebted to you why would I want to watch you jump if I could prevent it?” – Isobella Douglas & Alysandir Mackinnon

He didn’t know how to help. If Max were anyone else, Jules would sit with him for a while, looking out at the night, and then start to talk. About nothing too heavy at first. Warming up to get into the hard stuff. Although, maybe, if he tried that now, the man would either open up—Ha, ha, ha! Riotous laughter. Like that would ever happen—or he’d stand up and move outside of talking range, which would put him away from the window with nothing to look at, at which point he might close his eyes for a while. It was certainly worth a try. Of course there were other possibilities. Max could put Jules into a chokehold until he passed out. So okay. Start talking. Although why bother with inconsequential chitchat, designed to make Max relax? And weren’t those words--Max and relax--two that had never before been used together in a sentence? It wasn’t going to happen, so it made sense to just jump right in. Although, what was the best way to tell a friend that the choices he’d made were among the stupidest of all time, and that he was, in short, a complete dumbfuck? Max was not oblivious to Jules’s internal hemming and hawing. “If you have something you need to say, for the love of God, just say it. Don’t sit there making all those weird noises.” What? “What noises? I’m not making weird noises.” “Yeah,” Max said. “You are.” “Like what? Like . . .?” He held out his hands, inviting Max to demonstrate. “Like . . .” Max sighed heavily. “Like . . .” He made a tsking sound with his tongue. Jules laughed. “Those aren’t weird noises. Weird noises are like, whup-whup-whup-whup”-- he imitated sounds from a Three Stooges movie—“or Vrrrrrr.” “Sometimes I really have to work to remind myself that you’re one of the Bureau’s best agents,” Max said.

Did you have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn't keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn't playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. There's hiding and there's finding, we'd say. And he'd say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we'd all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn't play with him anymore if he didn't get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He's probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know. As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, "GET FOUND, KID!" out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It's real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes. A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn't want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn't need them, didn't trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn't say good-bye. He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. "I don't want anyone to know." "What will people think?" "I don't want to bother anyone." Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found. Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines - by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end. "Olly-olly-oxen-free." The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says "Come on in, wherever you are. It's a new game." And so say I. To all those who have hid too good. Get found, kid! Olly-olly-oxen-free.

She was suddenly self-conscious of the fact that she and Jay were on the bed together, even though they'd been there, together like that, hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times before. And it had never bothered her then, when they were still just friends; but somehow with her father just a few feet away, especially right after they'd been making out, she felt like they were doing something wrong. "We're fine, Dad!" she called back, trying to sound cool and composed. And then she glared at Jay for his part in making her shout to begin with. They listened to the sound of her father walking away, and Violet noticed that even his footsteps were soft and unobtrusive. There was a long silence once they were alone again. Words that needed to be said, and maybe some that didn't, were like invisible fireworks exploding in the empty space between them. Jay was the first to give in. He reached out and took her hand, wrapping it tightly in both of his. "Look, Vi, I don't know exactly how to say this, but I don't want anything bad to happen to you. I don't think I could handle it if something, or someone, hurt you." The tone of his voice was still immovable and stubborn, despite the sweet sentiment lurking behind it. He squeezed her hand, though...firmly, as if emphasizing his point. "I know it's selfish, and I don't really care if it is, but I'm not gonna stand by and let you put yourself in danger, even if it is to catch a killer." He eased up on her throbbing fingers, and his voice got all husky and rough again. "I can't lose you," he explained, shrugging as if those weren't the most wonderful words she'd ever heard before. "Not now that I finally have you." She felt tears prickling in her eyes, and she blinked hard to try to stop them from coming. She was completely overwhelmed by what she'd just figured out...she'd realized it even before he'd finished talking. She knew what it was that he wasn't saying while he lectured her about safety. He loved her. Jay Heaton, her best friend since childhood, was in love with her. He didn't say it, but she knew that it was true. And the part that really freaked her out, the part of it that caught her completely off guard, was that he wasn't in it alone. Because even though she'd been denying it for a long long time, it had always been there...waiting just beneath the surface of their friendship. And now that it was out, there was no going back. And it was so weird to even be thinking it, but... ...she was in love with him too.

What if my da is Breccan?” Frae kicked a pebble on the road, keeping her eyes on the ground. “Would you still want to walk me home?” Ella was quiet for a moment, but maybe only because the question had taken her by surprise. Frae snuck a glance at her. For the past several days, Ella had walked her home from school and the boys had not bothered her again. But there were still whispers and pointed glances. A few times during class, no one had wanted to partner up with Frae. “If your da is a Breccan,” Ella began to say, “then yes, I’d still walk you home, and I’d still be your friend, Frae. Do you want to know why?” Frae nodded, but she could feel her face flush, her relief knotted with shame that she even had to ask this question when no other children she knew did. “Because your heart is good and brave and kind,” Ella said. “You are thoughtful and smart. And those are the kind of people who I want to be friends with. Not the ones who think they are above everyone else. Who scowl and judge things they don’t understand and throw mud and have cowardly hearts.” Frae soaked in Ella’s words, which were warm and soft as a plaid, and she suddenly could walk faster, her chin held higher. “And,” Ella added with a mischievous smile, “you make the best berry pies.

Of real sensational journalism, as it exists in France, in Ireland, and in America, we have no trace in this country. When a journalist in Ireland wishes to create a thrill, he creates a thrill worth talking about. He denounces a leading Irish member for corruption, or he charges the whole police system with a wicked and definite conspiracy. When a French journalist desires a frisson there is a frisson; he discovers, let us say, that the President of the Republic has murdered three wives. Our yellow journalists invent quite as unscrupulously as this; their moral condition is, as regards careful veracity, about the same. But it is their mental calibre which happens to be such that they can only invent calm and even reassuring things. The fictitious version of the massacre of the envoys of Pekin was mendacious, but it was not interesting, except to those who had private reasons for terror or sorrow. It was not connected with any bold and suggestive view of the Chinese situation. It revealed only a vague idea that nothing could be impressive except a great deal of blood. Real sensationalism, of which I happen to be very fond, may be either moral or immoral. But even when it is most immoral, it requires moral courage. For it is one of the most dangerous things on earth genuinely to surprise anybody. If you make any sentient creature jump, you render it by no means improbable that it will jump on you. But the leaders of this movement have no moral courage or immoral courage; their whole method consists in saying, with large and elaborate emphasis, the things which everybody else says casually, and without remembering what they have said. When they brace themselves up to attack anything, they never reach the point of attacking anything which is large and real, and would resound with the shock. They do not attack the army as men do in France, or the judges as men do in Ireland, or the democracy itself as men did in England a hundred years ago. They attack something like the War Office--something, that is, which everybody attacks and nobody bothers to defend, something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic papers

Rhysand opened his mouth, but then the silhouettes of two tall, powerful bodies appeared on the other side of the front door's fogged glass. One of them banged on it with a fist. 'Hurry up, you lazy ass,' a deep male voice drawled from the antechamber beyond. Exhaustion drugged me so heavily that I didn't particularly care that there were wings peeking over thier two shadowy forms. Rhys didn't so much as blink toward the door. 'Two things, Feyre darling.' The pounding continued, followed by the second male murmuring to his companion, 'If you're going to pick a fight with him, do it after breakfast.' That voice- like shadows given form, dark and smooth and... cold. 'I wasn't the one who hauled me out of bed just now to fly down here,' the first one said. Then added, 'Busybody.' I could have sworn a smile tugged on Rhys's lips as he went on, 'One, no one- no one- but Mor and I are able to winnow directly inside this house. it is warded, shielded, and then warded some more. Only those I wish- and you wish- may enter. You are safe here; and safe anywhere in this city, for that matter. Velaris's walls are well protected and have not been breached in five thousand years. No one with ill intent enters this city unless I allow it. So go where you wish, do what you wish, and see who you wish. Those two in the antechamber,' he added, eyes sparkling, 'might not be on that list of people you should bother knowing, if they keep banging on the door like children.' Another pound, emphasised by the first male voice saying, 'You know we can hear you, prick.' 'Secondly,' Rhys went on, 'in regard to the two bastards at my door, it's up to you whether you want to meet them now, or head upstairs like a wise person, take a nap since you're still looking a little peaky, and then change into city-appropriate clothing while I beat the hell out of one of them for talking to his High Lord like that.' There was such light in his eyes. It made him look... younger, somehow. More mortal. So at odds with the icy rage I'd seen earlier when I'd awoken... Awoken on that couch, and then decided I wasn't returning home. Decided that, perhaps, the Spring Court might not be my home.

Who’s that hot piece of cowboy standing with Nathan?” She pointed toward one end of the barn by a stack of hay bales. A scowl tightened all the muscles in his face as he followed the length of her arm to the direction of her fingertip. Before he could answer, she was already pulling him again. This time toward his cousin. “Nate, who’s your friend?” she asked, not bothering with hellos. Letting go of Caleb’s hand and leaving him feeling empty, she shifted her weight to her toes when she stopped in front of Preston. “Your eyes remind me of those old Sprite bottles. I found one at a flea market once. I think it’s still lying around somewhere in my room.” Nathan’s chuckle caught her attention. “Diana Alexander, let me introduce you to Preston Grant. He’s a childhood friend of mine and Caleb’s. Pres, this is Didi.” “Can I paint you naked?” she asked, unabashed, looking up at him. Nathan’s chuckles became full-blown laughter. She hiked her thumb at Caleb. His scowl deepened. “This one’s too shy.” “It’s nice to meet you, Didi,” Preston said. He seemed unperturbed by her request. The bastard. She danced to Nathan’s side and leaned in conspiratorially, not taking her eyes away from Preston. “Between you and me,” she whispered loud enough for Caleb and the object of her fascination to hear, “just how far does his tan go?” That had done it. The words came out of his mouth without thinking. “If you’re going to paint someone naked, it will be me.” With impatience running through his veins, he laced their fingers together and tugged. “Come on.

I find it hard to talk about myself. I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors - values, standards, my own limitations as an observer - make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I've always been disturbed by the thought that I'm not painting a very objective picture of myself. This kind of things doesn't seem to bother most people. Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. "I'm honest and open to a ridiculous degree," they'll say, or "I'm thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world." Or "I'm very good at sensing others' true feelings." But any number of times I've seen people who say they're easily hurt or hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they're doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those "good at sensing others' true feelings" are taken in by the most transparent flattery. It's enough to make me ask the question: how well do really know ourselves? The more I think about it, the more I'd like to take a rain check on the topic of me. What I'd like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That's how I'd grasp a clearer sense of who I am. These are the kind of ideas I had running through my head when I was a teenager. Like a master builder stretches taut his string and lays one brick after another, I constructed this viewpoint - or philosophy of life, to put a bigger spin on it. Logic and speculation played a part in formulating this viewpoint, but for the most part it was based on my own experiences. And speaking of experience, a number of painful episodes taught me that getting this viewpoint of mine across to other people wasn't the easiest thing in the world. The upshot of all this is that when I was young I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with, I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person's attitude so that they wouldn't get any closer. I didn't easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music. As you might guess, I led a lonely life.

Can I tell you a funny story?” Gina asked. She didn’t wait for him to say yes or no. “It’s about, well . . . You know the whole age-issue thing?” “The age-issue thing,” Max repeated. “Are you sure this is a funny story?” “Does it still bother you?” she asked. “Being a little bit older than me? And it’s more funny weird than funny ha-ha.” “Twenty years isn’t exactly ‘a little bit,’” he said. “Tell that to a paleontologist,” she countered. Okay, he’d give her that one. “Just tell me the story.” “Once upon a time, when Jones first came to Kenya,” Gina said, “I didn’t know who he was. Molly didn’t tell me, and he came to our tent for tea, and . . . Maybe this isn’t even a funny weird story. Maybe it’s more of an ‘I’m an asshole’ story, because I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was there because he was all hot for me. It never occurred to me—it never even crossed my narrow little mind—that he might’ve been crushing on Molly. And she’s only maybe ten years older than he is. I remember sitting there after I figured it out, and thinking, shoot. People do make assumptions based on age. Max wasn’t just being crazy.” She smiled at him. “Or at least not crazier than usual. I guess . . . I just wanted to apologize for mocking you all those times.” “It’s okay,” Max said. “I just keep reminding myself that love doesn’t always stop to do the math.” He looked at her. “I’m trying to talk myself into that. How’d I sound? Convincing?” “That was pretty good.” They sat in silence for a moment, then Gina spoke again. “Maybe I could get a T-shirt that says, ‘I’m not his daughter, I’m his wife.’” Max nodded as he laughed. “Yet still you mock me.

Your turn. A thought for a thought. He pressed a kiss to my stomach, right over my navel. 'Have I told you about the first time you winnowed and tackled me into the snow?' I smacked his shoulder, the muscle beneath hard as stone. 'That's your thought for a thought?' He smiled against my stomach, his fingers still exploring, coaxing. 'You tackled me like an Illyrian. Perfect form, a direct hit. But then you lay on top of me, panting. All I wanted to do was get us both naked.' 'Why am I not surprised?' Yet I threaded my fingers through his hair. The fabric of my dressing gown was barely more than cobwebs between us as he huffed a laugh onto my belly. I hadn't bothered putting on anything beneath. 'You drove me out of my mind. All those months. I still don't quite believe I get to have this. Have you.' My throat tightened. That was the thought he wanted to trade, needed to share. 'I wanted you, even Under the Mountain,' I said softly. 'I chalked it up to those horrible circumstances, but after we killed her, when I couldn't tell anyone how I felt- about how truly bad things were, I still told you. I've always been able to talk to you. I think my heart knew you were mine long before I ever realised it.' His eyes gleamed, and he buried his face between my breasts again, hands caressing my back. 'I love you,' he breathed. 'More than life, more than my territory, more than my crown.' I knew. He'd given up that life to reforge the Cauldron, the fabric of the world itself, so I might survive. I hadn't had it in me to be furious with him about it afterward, or in the months since. He'd lived- it was a gift I would never stop being grateful for. And in the end, though, we'd saved each other. All of us had. I kissed the top of his head. 'I love you,' I whispered onto his blue-black hair.

You squeeze and crinkle the toothpaste tube even though you know it bothers your spouse. You complain about the dirty dishes instead of putting them in the dishwasher. You fight for your own way in little things, rather than seeing them as an opportunity to serve. You allow yourself to go to bed irritated after a little disagreement. Day after day you leave for work without a moment of tenderness between you. You fight for your view of beauty rather than making your home a visual expression of the tastes of both of you. You allow yourself to do little rude things you would never have done in courtship. You quit asking for forgiveness in the little moments of wrong. You complain about how the other does little things, when it really doesn’t make any difference. You make little decisions without consultation. You quit investing in the friendship intimacy of your marriage. You fight for your own way rather than for unity in little moments of disagreement. You complain about the other’s foibles and weaknesses. You fail to seize those openings to encourage. You quit searching for little avenues for expressing love. You begin to keep a record of little wrongs. You allow yourself to be irritated by what you once appreciated. You quit making sure that every day is punctuated with tenderness before sleep takes you away. You quit regularly expressing appreciation and respect. You allow your physical eyes and the eyes of your heart to wander. You swallow little hurts that you would have once discussed. You begin to turn little requests into regular demands. You quit taking care of yourself. You become willing to live with more silence and distance than you would have when you were approaching marriage. You quit working in those little moments to make your marriage better, and you begin to succumb to what is.

The next time you enter a temple of Gautam Buddha, just sit silently, watch the statue. Because the statue has been made in such a way, in such proportions that if you watch it you will fall silent. It is a statue of meditation; it is not concerned with Gautam Buddha. That’s why all those statues look alike—Mahavira, Gautam Buddha, Neminatha, Adinatha … . The twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas … in the same temple you will find twenty-four statues all alike, exactly alike. In my childhood I used to ask my father, “Can you explain to me how it is possible that twenty-four persons are exactly alike—the same size, the same nose, the same face, the same body … ?” And he used to say, “I don’t know. I am always puzzled myself that there is not a bit of difference. And it is almost unheard of—there are not even two persons in the whole world who are alike, what to say about twenty-four?” But as my meditation blossomed I found the answer—not from anybody else, I found the answer that these statues have nothing to do with the people. These statues have something to do with what was happening inside those twenty-four people, and that happening was exactly the same. We have not bothered about the outside; we have insisted that only the inner should be paid attention to. The outer is unimportant. Somebody is young, somebody is old, somebody is black, somebody is white, somebody is man, somebody is woman—it does not matter; what matters is that inside there is an ocean of silence. In that oceanic state, the body takes a certain posture. You have observed it yourself, but you have not been alert. When you are angry, have you observed? Your body takes a certain posture. In anger you cannot keep your hands open; in anger—the fist. In anger you cannot smile—or can you? With a certain emotion, the body has to follow a certain posture.

Something is bothering you. I have sensed it all morning.” He slid his communicator back into his pocket then took her hand in his, linking their fingers together. The action took her off guard, but she welcomed it. The first time she’d held his hand he’d been confused by it, but this was the second time in the last few days he’d initiated it. She loved it. “Nothing, just… I was hoping that this evening we could talk about something.” His shoulders stiffened just the slightest fraction. She was getting good at reading the subtle changes in his body language. “What about?” “Not now. I know you need to get to one of your job sites. Or there’s an emergency at the Samio.” He raised a dark eyebrow. “How do you know this?” “Because your communicator has been buzzing like crazy since we…” Her cheeks heated up and she cleared her throat. It had started going off when she’d been sitting on his face this morning. They’d both ignored it. Then when she got out of the shower she’d found him responding to what seemed like dozens of communications, one buzz after another. The sounds had been maddening. He’d stopped responding when they left his place, but she understood how busy he was and didn’t want to get in the way of that. “Since we what?” he murmured, leaning closer as they came to a stop in front of another elevator. This one had a shiny, sleek-looking silver door. “You know what,” she whispered, glancing around. There were two males waiting at the next elevator and though they weren’t looking in their direction she wasn’t going to talk about that in public. “I want to hear you say it.” “That’s because you’re a pervert.” He gave her one of those grins that made her wonder how she’d ever lived without knowing this male. It still stunned her how much he’d come to mean to her in the past week and a half. “That’s very true where you’re concerned.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. -Con & Leilani

I felt the ripple in the darkness without having to look up, and didn't flinch at the soft footsteps that approached me. I didn't bother hoping that it would be Tamlin. 'Still weeping?' Rhysand. I didn't lower my hands from my face. The floor rose toward the lowering ceiling- I would soon be flattened. There was no colour, no light here. 'You're just beaten her second task. Tears are unnecessary.' I wept harder, and he laughed. The stones reverberated as he knelt before me, and though I tried to fight him, his grip was firm as he grasped my wrists and pried my hands from my face. The walls weren't moving, and the room was open- gaping. No colours, but shades of darkness, of night. Only those star-flecked violet eyes were bright, full of colour and light. He gave me a lazy smile before he leaned forward. I pulled away, but his hands were like shackles. I could do nothing as his mouth met with my cheek, and he licked away a tear. His tongue was hot against my skin, so startling that I couldn't move as he licked away another path of salt water, and then another. My body went taut and loose all at once and I burned, even as chills shuddered along my limbs. It was only when his tongue danced along the damp edges of my lashes that I jerked back. He chuckled as I scrambled for the corner of the cell. I wiped my face as I glared at him. He smirked, sitting down against a wall. 'I figured that would get you to stop crying.' 'It was disgusting.' I wiped my face again. 'Was it?' He quirked an eyebrow and pointed to his palm- to the place where my tattoo would be. 'Beneath all your pride and stubbornness, I could have sworn I detected something that felt differently. Interesting.' 'Get out.' 'As usual, your gratitude is overwhelming.' 'Do you want me to kiss your feet for what you did at the trial? Do you want me to offer another week of my life?' 'Not unless you feel compelled to do so,' he said, his eyes like stars.

You are the lifemate of a senstive, modern male. Julian's lazy amusement warmed her further, confirming what she already suspected, that he often stayed a shadow in her mind. How fortunate for me. Desari smiled at herself in the mirror. Her dark hair cascaded in waves down her back. There was a sparkle in her eyes. She knew Julian had made her feel more alive than she had ever been. Sensitive, modern men are so to my liking. Men? I am certain I did not hear my lifemate use the word men.The plural.No man is allowed to be to your liking other than myself. He sounded stern, the fierce Carpathian male at his most menacing. Desari laughed aloud. I suppose I can see your point, Julian, but really, it is so difficult to keep from noticing all of those handsome hunks in the audience. Handsome hunks? His voice dropped low with the affront. They are more like lovesick fops. If they could feel the vibrations in the air, they would show sense and run for their lives. It is bad enough to read their fantasies and hear them talk their trash, cara,but it is altogether worse to hear that my woman is looking back. One smile at the wrong man, lifemate, and trouble will find the man quickly. You sound jealous,she accused him, amusement curving her soft mouth. The first rule for all women to know and never forget is that Carpathian makes do not share their lifemates. Your brother has much to answer for that this was not drilled into you since birth.It was his job to prepare you for my coming. It was said somewhere between jest and complaint. Desari drew in her breath sharply, finding herself wavering between laughter and exasperation. My brother had no idea of your existence, you arrogant male. Besides, how could he possibly prepare me for your total ignorance of women? More likely, had he known you were coming to speak your ritual words, he would have been waiting to ambush you.I myself would have burrowed deep within the ground until you passed beyond my surroundings. You would have burst from the ground staight into my arms,cara mia, and you know this to be true. Now he was laughing, that smug, taunting, male amusement that should have set her teeth on edge but instead made her laugh. I think you are trying to find something to dictate to me about just so you do not lose your ability. Go away and practice this male art form on someone else. You will be singing to me tonight, piccola,and to no other man. You are a spoiled little boy,not a grown man. Should I come show you what a grown man I am? His voice was suddenly low and warm, so sexy she felt a rush of answering heat. She could feel the brush of his fingers against her throat, trailing down the valley between her suddenly aching breasts. Go away,Julian, she laughed in answer. I cannot have you getting me hot and bothered just now. As long as I know you re hot and bothered for me, I will do as you request and go back to work. I can only hope.

I'm sorry.' I blinked. 'What do you possibly have to be sorry for?' 'His hands were shaking- as if in the aftermath of that fury at what Keir had called me, what he'd threatened. Perhaps he'd brought me here before heading home in order to have some privacy before his friends could interrupt. 'I shouldn't have let you go. Let you see that part of us. Of me.' I'd never seen him so raw, so... stumbling. 'I'm fine.' I didn't know what to make of what had been done. Both between us and to Keir. But it had been my choice. To play that role, to wear those clothes. To let him touch me. But... I said slowly, 'We knew what tonight would require of us. Please- please don't start protecting me. Not like that.' He knew what I meant. He'd protected me Under the Mountain, but that primal, male rage he'd just shown Keir... A shattered study splattered in paint flashed through my memory. Rhys rasped. 'I will never- never lock you up, force you to stay behind. But when he threatened you tonight, when he called you...' Whore. That's what they'd called him. For fifty years, they'd hissed it. I'd listened to Lucien spit the words in his face. Rhys released a jagged breath. 'It's hard to shut down my instincts.' Instincts. Just like... like someone else had instincts to protect, to hide me away. 'Then you should have prepared yourself better,' I snapped. 'You seemed to be going along just fine with it, until Keir said-' 'I will kill anyone who harms you,' Rhys snarled. 'I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing it.' He panted. 'Go ahead. Hate me- despise me for it.' 'You are my friend,' I said, and my voice broke on the word. I hated the tears that slipped down my face. I didn't even know why I was crying. Perhaps for the fact that it had felt real on that throne with him, even for a moment, and... and it likely hadn't been. Not for him. 'You're my friend- and I understand that you're High Lord. I understand that you will defend your true court, and punish threats against it. But I can't... I don't want you to stop telling me things, inviting me to do things, because of the threats against me.' Darkness rippled, and wings tore from his back. 'I am not him,' Rhys breathed. 'I will never be him, act like him. He locked you up and let you wither, and die.' 'He tried-' 'Stop comparing. Stop comparing me to him.' The words cut me short. I blinked. 'You think I don't know how stories get written- how this story will be written?' Rhys put his hands on his chest, his face more open, more anguished than I'd seen it. 'I am the dark lord, who stole away the bride of spring. I am a demon, and a nightmare, and I will meet a bad end. He is the golden prince- the hero who will get to keep you as his reward for not dying of stupidity and arrogance.' The things I love have a tendency to be taken from me. He'd admitted that to me Under the Mountain. But his words were kindling to my temper, to whatever pit of fear was yawning open inside of me. 'And what about my story?' I hissed. 'What about my reward? What about what I want?' 'What is it that you want, Feyre?' I had no answer. I didn't know. Not anymore. 'What is it that you want, Feyre?' I stayed silent. His laugh was bitter, soft. 'I thought so. Perhaps you should take some time to figure that out one of these days.' 'Perhaps I don't know what I want, but at least I don't hide what I am behind a mask,' I seethed. 'At least I let them see who I am, broken bits and all. Yes- it's to save your people. But what about the other masks, Rhys? What about letting your friends see your real face? But maybe it's easier not to. Because what if you did let someone in? And what if they saw everything, and still walked away? Who could blame them- who would want to bother with that sort of mess?' He flinched. The most powerful High Lord in history flinched. And I knew I'd hit hard- and deep. Too hard. Too deep. 'Rhys,' I said.

He leaned in, held his breath so as not to make a noise, went close to her, inhaled the scent that emanated from the pores of her forehead; inhaled the air that bounced back from her head. He stopped there, listening intently to the blood flowing, heart beating, pulse pulsating, her hair drifting slowly below her ear resting where the carotid artery was. He closed his eyes as if picturing everything. Like a dexterous doctor discerning the malfunction in a patient or an adroit maestro listening to every note to discern where the one note is missing. He stacked everything neatly in his head, still the intent hearing continued. Finally, a smile came to his face just as easily as breath came to him. A ecstatic smoke rose in his head, he had heard the murmur of her thoughts, she was in a peaceful world now. She had drifted into slumber, through the doors to the dream worlds, nothing was troubling her now. He was filled with an air of comfort and triumph, he was there when she needed it. He was happy that nothing bothered her anymore, how he wanted to ostracize the world just a few moments before!? He wanted to drag this drab world out of her dreamy gleaming eyes, petal covered, almond eyes. She was stumbling in her own world now, as he sat beside her bed. He kissed her forehead, whisked the world with those thin lips of his; he whisked that pile of rubble. He leaned to the side and below, not knowing which side; right or left, it didn't matter; whispered in her ear: "I love you". A smile played on her lips as if she heard that. Again he kissed her forehead, had a good look at her closed eyes. His taverns, he thought; where he got drunk, placed so adjacent to each other. He was happy, that she was happy, she was happy so he was happy. The rest of the world didn't matter; No! No! There was no "Rest" she was his world the whole and entire of it, there was no "Rest of the world". He got up collected his phone, which played slow Beethoven, turned it off, switched the lamp off, pulled the blanket over her, got up, patted the dog along, made out of her room; into her balcony. He didn't want to go yet, he stood there as many thoughts danced in front of him, slow in the moonlight.

Spill-what’s the deal with Hottie McDreamMan?” “Sage?” I laughed. “No, I mean Minister Sanders.” She threw a pillow at me. “Of course I mean Sage! He’s the one, right? The guy from your dreams. Oh my God-he’s real and he’s hot! Does he kiss as well in real life as he did in your dreams?” “I wouldn’t know,” I admitted. “We haven’t kissed.” “What are you waiting for?” “So the whole randomly-popping-up-in-pictures thing doesn’t bother you?” “Nope.” “The whole strange-cultists-chasing-after-him? That doesn’t bother you either?” “Nobody’s perfect, Clea.” “How about if I told you he might be a serial killer? Would that bother you?” “Debatable. Elaborate.” I told her about the nightmares and about what I’d seen in his house. As I unrolled the story, her expression went from flip and giddy to openmouthed and riveted. “Oh my God, Clea.” “Crazy, right? And I still have no idea how he got into all those pictures.” “That part’s easy.” “Really?” “Of course,” she said. “You’re soulmates. “Rayna…” “Fine, I know, you don’t like that word. But you can’t possibly deny that you have a deep, powerful soul connection. By definition you have that. You said yourself, he found you in four different countries and four different times. Out of all the people in the world at any given time, he found you. The only possible way he could have done that is if your souls were connected. He’s a soul-seeking missile.” “But he told me he wasn’t there for any of the pictures.” “Yes, he was! Don’t you get it, Clea? Your souls are connected-he’s always with you, whether he’s there physically or not. And you’re the one who told me about cameras capturing people’s souls, right? So that’s what it’s doing-capturing the soul that’s always with you, because you’re always connected. It’s very romantic.” I thought about what she said, ignoring the last sentence because I knew by now that everything was very romantic to Rayna. “Okay,” I ceded, “I’ll give you the connection. But what about the serial killer thing? What fi we’re connected because he tracks these women down, acts like he loves them, and then kills them?” “Kills you. You’re them.” “Yeah, thanks, that’s a much nicer way to put it,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Anna: Right. I can only imagine. Etienne: And what, exactly, ist hat supposed to mean? Anna: Forget it. Etienne: No. Let’s not forget it. I’m sick and tired of forgetting it, Anna. Anna: You’re tired of forgetting it? I’ve had to do nothing BUT forget it. Do you think it’s easy sitting in my room every night, thinking about you and Ellie? Do you think any of this has been easy for me? Etienne: I’m sorry. Anna: You tell me I’m beautiful, and that you like my hair and you like my smile. You rest your leg against mine in darkened theatres, and then you acta s if nothing happened when the lights go up. You slept in my bed for three nights straight, and then you jsut … blew me off for the next month. What am I supposed to do with that, St. Clair? You said on my birthday that you were afraid of being alone, but I’ve been here this whole time. This whole time. Etienne: Anna. I am so sorry that I’ve hur you. I’ve made terrible decisions. And I realize it’s possible that I don’t deserve your forgiveness, because it’s taken me this long to get here. But I don’t understand why you’re not giving me the chance. You didn’t even let me explain myself lad weekend. You just tore into me, expected the worst of me. But the only truth I know is what i feel when we’re together. I thought you trusted those feelings, too. I thought you trusted me, I thought you knew me … Anna: But that’s just it! I don’t know you. I tell you everything, St. Clair. About my dad, about Bridgette and Toph, about Matt and Cherrie. I told you about being a virgin. And what have you told me? Nothing! I know nothing about you. Not about your father, not about Ellie … Etienne: You know me better than anyone. Andi f you ever bothered to pay attention, you’d understand that things with my father are beyond shite right now. And I can’t believe you think so poorly of me that you’d assume I’d wait the entire year to kiss you, and then the moment it happened, I’d … I’d be done with you. OF COURSE I was with Ellie that night. I WAS BLODDY BREAKING UP WITH HER! You say that I’m afraid of being alone, and it’s true. I am And I’m not proud o fit. But you need to take a good look at yourself, Anna, because I am not the only one in this room who suffers this problem.

Will you never forgive me for what I did so long ago, Jane?” The soft question caught her off guard. “Would you do it again if you had the chance?” She could hardly breathe, awaiting his answer. With a low oath, he glanced away. Then his features hardened into those of the rigid and arrogant Dom he had become. “Yes. I did the only thing I could to keep you happy.” Her breath turned to ice in her throat. “That’s the problem. You still really believe that.” His gaze swung to her again, but before he could say anything more, noises in the hall arrested them both. “It’s gone very quiet in there.” It was the duke’s voice, remarkably clear, sounding as if it came from right outside the door. “Perhaps we should knock first.” Oh no! As Jane frantically set her gown to rights, she heard Lisette say, “Don’t you dare bother them, Max. I’m sure everything’s fine. Let’s come back later.” With panic growing in her belly, Jane glanced around for her tucker. Wordlessly, Dom plucked it from the back of a chair and handed it to her. Without meeting his gaze, she pinned it into her bodice, hoping to hide the tiny holes where Dom had unwittingly ripped it free of its pins. “Besides,” drawled Tristan, “it’s not as if Dom will seduce her or anything. That’s not his vice.” Sweet Lord, were they all right outside the door? “I’m not worried about that,” Max answered. “Miss Vernon isn’t the sort to let him seduce her.” As Jane tensed, Dom hissed under his breath, “Do the blasted idiots not realize we can hear them?” “Apparently not.” Dom furtively adjusted his trousers, which seemed to be rather…oddly protruding just now. Ohhh. Right. This was one time she wished Nancy hadn’t been so forthcoming about what happened to a man’s body when he was aroused. So that, not his pistol, had been the odd bulge digging into her. Definitely not a pistol. Her cheeks positively flamed. Faith, how could she even face his family after this and not give away what she and Dom had been doing? Mortified, she hurried to the looking glass to fix her hair. While she stuffed tendrils back into place and repinned drooping curls, Dom came up behind her to meet her gaze in the mirror. “Before we let them in, I want an answer to my question about Blakeborough.” Curse the stubborn man. How could she tell Dom she was so pathetic that she hadn’t even managed to find another man to love in all the years they’d spent apart? That she’d been foolish enough to wait around for Dom all this time, when he’d happily gone on living his life without her? Her pride couldn’t endure having him know that. To her relief, Tristan said, “Well, whatever they’re up to, we have to get moving.” A knock sounded at the door. “Dom? Jane? Are you done talking?” She met Dom’s gaze with a certain defiance, and he arched one eyebrow in question. So she took matters into her own hands and strode for the door. Caught off guard, Dom swore behind her and snatched up his greatcoat just as she opened the door and said, “Please come in. We’re quite finished.” In more ways than one. Their companions trooped in, casting her and Dom wary glances. Jane looked over to see Dom holding his greatcoat looped over his arm as if to shield the front of him. That brought the blushes back to her cheeks. She caught Lisette furtively watching her, and she cursed herself for wearing her emotions on her sleeve. Better shift her attention elsewhere before Lisette guessed just how shameless she’d been.

Are you sure you don't remember? Your mind seems to be working just fine to me." "You know what? Just forget it. Whatever it was, I forgive you. Give me my backpack so I can go back to the office. We're about to get busted anyway, just standing here." "If you really do forgive me, then you wouldn't still be going to the office." He tightens his hold on the strap of my backpack. "Ohmysweetgoodness, Galen, why are we even having this conversation? You don't even know me. What do you care if I change my schedule?" I know I'm being rude. The guy offered to carry my things and walk me to class. And depending on which version of the story I believe, he either asked me out on Monday already, or he did it indirectly a few seconds ago. None of it makes any sense. Why me? Without any effort, I can think of at least ten girls who beat me out in looks, personality, and darker foundation. And Galen could pull any of them. "What, you don't have a question for my question?" I ask after a few seconds. "It just seems silly for you to change your schedule over a disagreement about when the Titanic-" I throw my hands up at him. "Don't you see how weird this is for me?" "I'm trying to, Emma. I really am. But I think you've had a tough couple of weeks, and it's taking a toll on you. You said every time you're around me something bad happens. But you can't really know for sure that's true, unless you spend more time with me. You should at least acknowledge that." Something is wrong with me. Those cafeteria doors must have really worked me over. Otherwise, I wouldn't be pushing Galen away like this. Not with him pleading, not with the way he's leaning toward me, not with the way he smells. "See? You're taking it personally, when there's really nothing personal about it," I whisper. "It's personal to me, Emma. It's true, I don't know you well. But there are some things I do know about you. And I'd like to know more." A glass full of ice water wouldn't cool my cheeks. "The only thing you know about me is that I'm life threatening in flip-flops." That I won't meet his eyes obviously bothers him, because he lifts my chin with the crook of his finger. "That's not all I know," he says. "I know your biggest secret." This time, unlike at the beach, I don't swat his hand away. The electric current in my feet prove that we're really standing so close to each other that our toes touch. "I don't have any secrets," I say, mesmerized." He nods. "I finally figured that out. That you don't actually know about your secret." "You're not making any sense." Or I just can't concentrate because I accidentally looked up at his lips. Maybe he did talk me into swimming... The door to the front office swings open, and Galen grabs my arm and ushers me around the corner. He continues to drag me down the hall, toward world history. "That's it?" I say, exasperated. "You're just going to leave it at that?" He stops us in front of the door. "That depends on you," he says. "Come with me to the beach after school, and I'll tell you." He reaches for the knob, but I grab his hand. "Tell me what? I already told you that I don't have any secrets. And I don't swim." He grins and opens the door. "There's plenty to do at the beach besides swim." Then he pulls me by the hand so close I think he's going to kiss me. Instead, he whispers in my ear, "I'll tell you where your eye color comes from." As I gasp, he puts a gentle hand on the small of my back and propels me into the classroom. Then he ditches me.

I’ve experienced all kinds of discrimination,” Oshima says. “Only people who’ve been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I’m as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to. Like that lovely pair we just met.” He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. “Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas—none of them bother me. I don’t care what banner they raise. But what I can’t stand are hollow people. When I’m with them I just can’t bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn’t. With those women—I should’ve just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can’t do that. I say things I shouldn’t, do things I shouldn’t do. I can’t control myself. That’s one of my weak points. Do you know why that’s a weak point of mine?” “’Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there’s no end to it,” I say. “That’s it,” Oshima says. He taps his temple lightly with the eraser end of the pencil. “But there’s one thing I want you to remember, Kafka. Those are exactly the kind of people who murdered Miss Saeki’s childhood sweetheart. Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it’s important to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. They’re a lost cause, and I don’t want anyone like that coming in here.” Oshima points at the stacks with the tip of his pencil. What he means, of course, is the entire library. “I wish I could just laugh off people like that, but I can’t.

Raising both of her glowing palms, she beckoned him with wiggling fingers. “Come on, then. I’ll go another round. Though by now even an amoeba would’ve learned not to fuck with me.” Everyone grew still, silent. Then Cade started back down for her, redoubling his speed. “No, Cade, I’ve got this,” she said evenly, never looking away from Bowe. Meanwhile, Bowe had subtly pulled his head back, feeling as if he’d just been presented with a species of creature he had never seen. Then he caught Rydstrom’s look of amusement—the demon was obviously loving this—and he found himself . . . grinning. “Kitten’s quick to bear those claws, is she no’?” Rydstrom ruefully shook his head at Bowe, as if sorry for his unavoidable and imminent demise, then got everyone, including a reluctant Cade, moving again. As Bowe passed Mariketa, he leaned in close. Not bothering to hide his surprise, he murmured to her, “And damn if she does no’ have them sunk into me.” Her gray-eyed gaze was wary. He noted that she kept her palms fired up for some time after they continued on. Even after her blatant show of magick, he felt so proud she’d held her ground that he wanted to stand tall and point her out as his female. That’s my lass. Mine. But his heart was also thundering because he realized that in the heart of the full moon, when he was completely turned, she might not run from him. He still intended to get her away from him before this full moon, but for the future . . . Excitement burned within him, and he found himself closing in on her and saying, “You’re bonny when you’re about to strike.” “You would know.” “Come, then, sheath your claws, kitten. And we’ll be friends once more.” “We weren’t friends to begin with!” “You’re warming to me. I can tell.” “True. I only throw guys I dig. And don’t you dare call me kitten again!” “You look like one with your wee, pointed ears.” “Are you done?” “Canna say.” He was silent for a moment, then added, “Think you’re the bravest lass I’ve ever seen. Though I doona care for your using magick against me so readily. Do you enjoy it?” She seemed to mull this for a moment, then raised her brows. “I do. Besides, I think you need someone to threaten you now and again. To remind the great and powerful Lykae that you’re not so unbeatable.” “Aye, I do.” He clasped her hand in his. “Sign on.” She pulled out of his grasp. “I don’t do temp jobs. And that’s all you’re offering.

Recently, I was in New York with most of the Robertson family promoting the season-four premiere of Duck Dynasty. We were staying at the Trump International Hotel, which is a really nice place near Central Park. I was already uncomfortable being in the big city. I don’t like traffic or concrete, and there are a lot of both in New York. After we checked in, we gathered downstairs to go to a Broadway musical show. I know it might seem bizarre for me to be going to a musical, but my very attractive wife can be mightily persuasive, especially when I have nothing else to do. As we were waiting or the others in the lobby, I asked a doorman if there was a nearby bathroom. He gave me directions to the nearest restroom, which included a walk through the hotel restaurant. As I entered the restaurant, a well-dressed staffer offered his assistance. I informed him I was only going to the restroom. But he very nicely continued to offer assistance and took the role of my escort, which I thought was quite courteous and professional. At his direction, we took a quick left turn and walked out of the hotel. Befuddled, I asked him, “Where is the bathroom?” He painted down the street or maybe toward Central Park and said, “Good luck to you, sir. Have a nice day.” I circled back around to the main entrance of the hotel, where I found Missy, who had witnessed the entire episode. “I thought you had to go to the bathroom,” she said. I laughed and told her I had been escorted out of the hotel because of the way I looked. It was no big deal to us, and I laughed about the incident later that night with my family over dinner. I shared the story the next day with Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan on Live! with Kelly and Michael because I thought it was funny. Well, the story went viral and was all over the news and Internet the next few days. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing and various media outlets were trying to contact me. I’d jokingly labeled the incident “facial profiling” because in my mind that’s exactly what it was. People were surprised that it didn’t bother me, but my family and I have endured those kinds of things our entire lives. I figured the hotel employee was only trying to protect other hotel guests. The incident culminated with a call from Donald Trump’s office. They offered an apology for any inconvenience. I assured them that no apology was needed, and I asked them not to punish my courteous escort.

In ninety seconds they were naked and he was nibbling at her ear while his hand rubbed her pubic mat; but a saboteur was at work at his brain. 'I love you,' he thought, and it was not untrue because he loved all women now, knowing partially what sex was really all about, but he couldn't bring himself to say it because it was not totally true, either, since he loved Mavis more, much more. 'I'm awfully fond of you,' he almost said, but the absurdity of it stopped him. Her hand cupped his cock and found it limp; her eyes opened and looked into his enquiringly. He kissed her lips quickly and moved his hand lower, inserting a ringer until he found the clitoris. But even when her breathing got deeper, he did not respond as usual, and her hand began massaging his cock more desperately. He slid down, kissing nipples and bellybutton on the way, and began licking her clitoris. As soon as she came, he cupped her buttocks, lifted her pelvis, got his tongue into her vagina and forced another quick orgasm, immediately lowering her slightly again and beginning a very gentle and slow return in spiral fashion back to the clitoris. But still he was flaccid. 'Stop,' Stella breathed. 'Let me do you, baby.' George moved upward on the bed and hugged her. 'I love you,' he said, and suddenly it did not sound like a lie. Stella giggled and kissed his mouth briefly. 'It takes a lot to get those words out of you, doesn't it?' she said bemusedly. 'Honesty is the worst policy,' George said grimly. 'I was a child prodigy, you know? A freak. It was rugged. I had to have some defense, and somehow I picked honesty. I was always with older boys so I never won a fight. The only way I could feel superior, or escape total inferiority, was to be the most honest bastard on the planet earth.' 'So you can't say 'I love you' unless you mean it?' Stella laughed. 'You're probably the only man in America with that problem. If you could only be a woman for a while, baby! You can't imagine what liars most men are.' 'Oh, I've said it at times. When it was at least half true. But it always sounded like play-acting to me, and I felt it sounded that way to the woman, too. This time it just came out, perfectly natural, no effort.' 'That is something,' Stella grinned. 'And I can't let it go unrewarded.' Her black body slid downward and he enjoyed the esthetic effect as his eyes followed her— black on white, like the yinyang or the Sacred Chao—what was the psychoses of the white race that made this beauty seem ugly to most of them? Then her lips closed over his penis and he found that the words had loosened the knot: he was erect in a second. He closed his eyes to savor the sensation, then opened them to look down at her Afro hairdo, her serious dark face, his cock slipping back and forth between her lips. 'I love you,' he repeated, with even more conviction. 'Oh, Christ, Oh, Eris, oh baby baby, I love you!' He closed his eyes again, and let the Robot move his pelvis in response to her. 'Oh, stop,' he said, 'stop,' drawing her upward and turning her over, 'together,' he said, mounting her, 'together,' as her eyes closed when he entered her and then opened again for a moment meeting his in total tenderness, 'I love you, Stella, I love,' and he knew it was so far along that the weight wouldn't bother her, collapsing, using his arms to hug her, not supporting himself, belly to belly and breast to breast, her arms hugging him also and her voice saying, 'I love you, too, oh, I love you,' and moving with it, saying 'angel' and 'darling' and then saying nothing, the explosion and the light again permeating his whole body not just the penis, a passing through the mandala to the other side and a long sleep.

The same song was playing the second I met my ex–best friend and the moment I realized I’d lost her. I met my best friend at a neighborhood cookout the year we would both turn twelve. It was one of those hot Brooklyn afternoons that always made me feel like I'd stepped out of my life and onto a movie set because the hydrants were open, splashing water all over the hot asphalt. There wasn't a cloud in the flawless blue sky. And pretty black and brown people were everywhere. I was crying. ‘What a Wonderful World’ was playing through a speaker someone had brought with them to the park, and it reminded me too much of my Granny Georgina. I was cupping the last snow globe she’d ever given me in my small, sweaty hands and despite the heat, I couldn’t help imagining myself inside the tiny, perfect, snow-filled world. I was telling myself a story about what it might be like to live in London, a place that was unimaginably far and sitting in the palm of my hands all at once. But it wasn't working. When Gigi had told me stories, they'd felt like miracles. But she was gone and I didn't know if I'd ever be okay again. I heard a small voice behind me, asking if I was okay. I had noticed a girl watching me, but it took her a long time to come over, and even longer to say anything. She asked the question quietly. I had never met anyone who…spoke the way that she did, and I thought that her speech might have been why she waited so long to speak to me. While I expected her to say ‘What’s wrong?’—a question I didn’t want to have to answer—she asked ‘What are you doing?’ instead, and I was glad. “I was kind of a weird kid, so when I answered, I said ‘Spinning stories,’ calling it what Gigi had always called it when I got lost in my own head, but my voice cracked on the phrase and another tear slipped down my cheek. To this day I don’t know why I picked that moment to be so honest. Usually when kids I didn't know came up to me, I clamped my mouth shut like the heavy cover of an old book falling closed. Because time and taught me that kids weren't kind to girls like me: Girls who were dreamy and moony-eyed and a little too nice. Girls who wore rose-tonted glasses. And actual, really thick glasses. Girls who thought the world was beautiful, and who read too many books, and who never saw cruelty coming. But something about this girl felt safe. Something about the way she was smiling as she stuttered out the question helped me know I needn't bother with being shy, because she was being so brave. I thought that maybe kids weren't nice to girls like her either. The cookout was crowded, and none of the other kids were talking to me because, like I said, I was the neighborhood weirdo. I carried around snow globesbecause I was in love with every place I’d never been. I often recited Shakespeare from memory because of my dad, who is a librarian. I lost myself in books because they were friends who never letme down, and I didn’t hide enough of myself the way everyone else did, so people didn’t ‘get’ me. I was lonely a lot. Unless I was with my Gigi. The girl, she asked me if it was making me feel better, spinning the stories. And I shook my head. Before I could say what I was thinking—a line from Hamlet about sorrow coming in battalions that would have surely killed any potential I had of making friends with her. The girl tossed her wavy black hair over her shoulder and grinned. She closed her eyes and said 'Music helps me. And I love this song.' When she started singing, her voice was so unexpected—so bright and clear—that I stopped crying and stared at her. She told me her name and hooked her arm through mine like we’d known each other forever, and when the next song started, she pulled me up and we spun in a slow circle together until we were both dizzy and giggling.

He’d promised she would be “safe,” which she now realized left a great deal of room for personal interpretation. “If I’m going to remain,” she said uneasily, “I think we ought to agree to observe all the proprieties and conventions.” “Such as?” “Well, for a beginning, you really shouldn’t be calling me by my given name.” “Considering the kiss we exchanged in the arbor last night, it seems a little absurd to call you Miss Cameron.” It was the time to tell him she was Lady Cameron, but Elizabeth was too unstrung by his reference to those unforgettable-and wholly forbidden-moments in his arms to bother with that. “That isn’t the point,” she said firmly. “The point is that although last night did happen, it must not influence our behavior today. Today we ought-ought to be twice as correct in our behavior,” she continued, a little desperately and illogically, “to atone for what happened last night!” “Is that how it’s done?” he asked, his eyes beginning to glint with amusement. “Somehow I didn’t quite imagine you allowed convention to dictate your every move.” To a gambler without ties or responsibility, the rules of social etiquette and convention must be tiresome in the extreme, and Elizabeth realized it was imperative to convince him he must yield to her viewpoint. “Oh, but I am,” she prevaricated. “The Camerons are the most conventional people in the world! As you know from last night, I believe in death before dishonor. We also believe in God and country, motherhood and the king, and…and all the proprieties. We’re quite intolerably boring on the subject, actually.” “I see,” he said, his lips twitching. “Tell me something,” he asked mildly, “why would such a conventional person as yourself have crossed swords with a roomful of men last night in order to protect a stranger’s reputation?” “Oh, that,” Elizabeth said. “That was just-well, my conventional notion of justice. Besides,” she said, her ire coming to the fore as she recalled the scene in the card room last night, “it made me excessively angry when I realized that the only reason none of them would try to dissuade Lord Everly from shooting you was because you were not their social equal, while Everly is.” “Social equality?” he teased with a lazy, devastating smile. “What an unusual notion to spring from such a conventional person as yourself.” Elizabeth was trapped, and she knew it. “The truth is,” she said shakily, “that I am scared to death of being here.” “I know you are,” he said, sobering, “but I am the last person in the world you’ll ever have to fear.

You are personally responsible for so much of the sunshine that brightens up your life. Optimists and gentle souls continually benefit from their very own versions of daylight saving time. They get extra hours of happiness and sunshine every day. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life The secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by slowing down and inventing some imaginary letters along the way. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life “There is nothing more important than family.” Those words should be etched in stone on the sidewalks that lead to every home. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life I may be uncertain about exactly where I’m headed, but I am very clear regarding this: I’m glad I’ve got a ticket to go on this magnificent journey. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life When your heart is filled with gratitude for what you do have, your head isn’t nearly so worried about what you don’t. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life Don’t let cynical people transfer their cynicism off on you. In spite of its problems, it is still a pretty amazing world, and there are lots of truly wonderful people spinning around on this planet. – Douglas Pagels, from Required Reading for All Teenagers All the good things you can do – having the right attitude, having a strong belief in your abilities, making good choices and responsible decisions – all those good things will pay huge dividends. You’ll see. Your prayers will be heard. Your karma will kick in. The sacrifices you made will be repaid. And the good work will have all been worth it. – Douglas Pagels, from Required Reading for All Teenagers The more you’re bothered by something that’s wrong, the more you’re empowered to make things right. – Douglas Pagels, from Everyone Should Have a Book Like This to Get Through the Gray Days May you be blessed with all these things: A little more joy, a little less stress, a lot more understanding of your wonderfulness. Abundance in your life, blessings in your days, dreams that come true, and hopes that stay. A rainbow on the horizon, an angel by your side, and everything that could ever bring a smile to your life. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Each day brings with it the miracle of a new beginning. Many of the moments ahead will be marvelously disguised as ordinary days, but each one of us has the chance to make something extraordinary out of them. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Keep planting the seeds of your dreams, because if you keep believing in them, they will keep trying their best to blossom for you. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things I hope your dreams take you... to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Love is what holds everything together. It’s the ribbon around the gift of life. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things There are times in life when just being brave is all you need to be. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things When it comes to anything – whether it involves people or places or jobs or hoped-for plans – you never know what the answer will be if you don’t ask. And you never know what the result will be if you don’t try. – Douglas Pagels, from Make Every Day a Positive One Don’t just have minutes in the day; have moments in time. – Douglas Pagels, from Chasing Away the Clouds A life well lived is simply a compilation of days well spent. – Douglas Pagels, from Chasing Away the Clouds

One day, out of the blue, they just became too much. The faces of people who thought nothing of making endless demands, of being constantly given things. The way they sat at the table simply waiting to be served, not lifting a finger. Their certainty that they would be taken care of, without even having to try. I began, in an instant, to hate them. I couldn't be bothered to buy seasonal ingredients, prepare them, cook, choose the plates, serve up the food, then clear away the dishes and wash up for people like that. When I stopped being in touch, when I stopped doing the housework and the cooking, they panicked. Some of them became hyper-suspicious and their behavior took on a stalkerish air. Some of them, after returning to life alone, began neglecting themselves, and suffered physically as a result. Like babies, all of them, whose mother had ceased looking after them. It's odd, isn't it? Once I had found their incompetence, their reliance on me adorable. I believed, up until that point, that I liked pleasing them. Yet I suddenly saw that it was always just me, working away frenziedly, all alone." Rika didn't fail to notice the slightest change in Kajii's expression, the note of sorrow that went sliding across her peach-hued face. "Don't get the wrong idea. I like serving men and giving them pleasure. Women who don't don't deserve the name. But being with just one man, a changeable woman like me gets bored." "And yet you haven't given up looking for a marriage partner?" "It's just that I haven't met the right person yet." "I feel like what you're saying isn't---" "Cooking is enjoyable, but the moment it becomes a duty, it grows boring. The same is true of sex, and fashion, and beauty. When you're forced to do something, it becomes a chore, and the pleasure disappears." Rick's body felt heavy. She knew this was important, and yet she couldn't bring herself to ask a question. "The kind of wife that the men on those sites are looking for is, at base, a woman with no sense of life about her. Their ideal partner would be a kind of ghost." It wasn't at all hot in the room, and yet Rika's armpits were slick with lukewarm sweat. Even the gap between her sleeves and her wrists felt clammy. "The quickest way for a modern Japanese woman to gain the love of a man is to become corpse-like. The kind of men who want those women dead are dead themselves. Indeed, it's because they're dead that they're so terrified of anyone with a sense of life about them. If those men hadn't met me, if I hadn't rejected them, they'd quite probably have died anyway. They were never really here to begin with.

I have never been one of those people—I know you aren't, either—who feels that the love one has for a child is somehow a superior love, one more meaningful, more significant, and grander than any other. I didn't feel that before Jacob, and I didn't feel that after. But it is a singular love, because it is a love whose foundation is not physical attraction, or pleasure, or intellect, but fear. You have never known fear until you have a child, and maybe that is what tricks us into thinking that it is more magnificent, because the fear itself is more magnificent. Every day, your first thought is not “I love him” but “How is he?” The world, overnight, rearranges itself into an obstacle course of terrors. I would hold him in my arms and wait to cross the street and would think how absurd it was that my child, that any child, could expect to survive this life. It seemed as improbable as the survival of one of those late-spring butterflies—you know, those little white ones—I sometimes saw wobbling through the air, always just millimeters away from smacking itself against a windshield. And let me tell you two other things I learned. The first is that it doesn't matter how old that child is, or when or how he became yours. Once you decide to think of someone as your child, something changes, and everything you have previously enjoyed about them, everything you have previously felt for them, is preceded first by that fear. It's not biological; it's something extra-biological, less a determination to ensure the survival of one's genetic code, and more a desire to prove oneself inviolable to the universe's feints and challenges, to triumph over the things that want to destroy what's yours. The second thing is this: when your child dies, you feel everything you'd expect to feel, feelings so well-documented by so many others that I won't even bother to list them here, except to say that everything that's written about mourning is all the same, and it's all the same for a reason—because there is no real deviation from the text. Sometimes you feel more of one thing and less of another, and sometimes you feel them out of order, and sometimes you feel them for a longer time or a shorter time. But the sensations are always the same. But here's what no one says—when it's your child, a part of you, a very tiny but nonetheless unignorable part of you, also feels relief. Because finally, the moment you have been expecting, been dreading, been preparing yourself for since the day you became a parent, has come. Ah, you tell yourself, it's arrived. Here it is. And after that, you have nothing to fear again.

So? When do you want to be turned?” “I didn’t agree to turn,” Valerie squawked with amazement. “You haven’t, but you will,” he said with a shrug. “What makes you think that?” she asked warily. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to have to wipe your memories and have you returned to your life and neither of us wants that,” he said simply. “Anders said I could have time to decide,” Valerie protested, and then frowned and added, “And what do you mean, neither of us wants that? Why would you care?” “You saved my wife and children, Valerie. And Leigh adores you. You’re family now.” “Oh.” She stared at him nonplussed, wondering if he meant that. “I mean it,” he said firmly. “Leigh has decided it’s so, so it’s so. She’d be disappointed if you didn’t become one of us and I won’t have her disappointed.” Valerie scowled slightly. The last part sounded like a threat. “As for Anders saying you could have time to decide,” Lucian continued. “What do you need time for? The nanos have paired you, you’re meant to be together.” “You make it sound so simple,” she said wearily. “It is simple. Don’t make it hard.” “Great, the nanos paired us. But what about love?” she asked. Lucian shifted impatiently. “Do you like him?” “Yes,” she admitted. “Respect him?” She nodded. “Trust him?” “Of course,” she said without hesitation. Lucian nodded and said dryly, “I don’t need to ask if you want him sexually.” Valerie flushed and raised her chin. “All those things combined make up love,” Lucian assured her. “Whether you realize it or not, you already do love him.” Valerie swallowed, knowing in her heart he was right. She bit her lip, and then blurted, “But does he love me?” “Ah.” Lucian nodded. “So that’s the holdup, is it? He hasn’t said it yet.” Valerie sighed and looked away, muttering, “When he asked me to be his life mate he went on about finding peace and being able to relax and be at peace. It was all peace, peace, peace,” she added with frustration and glanced to Lucian, eyes narrowing when she caught his lips twitching. If he laughed at her, she would— “Don’t you feel at peace with him?” he asked, and then added, “When you’re not hot and bothered, I mean.” “Well, yeah, but—” “But you want to hear that he loves you,” Lucian said and shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to ask him then.” “Ask him if he loves me?” she asked with dismay. Lucian sighed with exasperation. “You took on Igor and staked him, saving yourself and six other women in the process—” “Four,” she corrected unhappily. “Two died, remember.” “And then,” he continued heavily, ignoring her interruption. “You took on Ambrose and saved my wife and unborn twins by crashing the van you were all in and repeatedly bashing the man over the head until help got there. You are not a coward, Valerie, so stop acting like one. Ask him. And when he says yes he loves you, I will personally oversee the turning and pay for the wedding.

Bannon thrived on the chaos he created and did everything he could to make it spread. When he finally made his way through the crowd to the back of the town house, he put on a headset to join the broadcast of the Breitbart radio show already in progress. It was his way of bringing tens of thousands of listeners into the inner sanctum of the “Breitbart Embassy,” as the town house was ironically known, and thereby conscripting them into a larger project. Bannon was inordinately proud of the movement he saw growing around him, boasting constantly of its egalitarian nature. What to an outsider could look like a cast of extras from the Island of Misfit Toys was, in Bannon’s eyes, a proudly populist and “unclubbable” plebiscite rising up in defiant protest against the “globalists” and “gatekeepers” who had taken control of both parties. Just how Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty figured into a plan to overthrow the global power structure wasn’t clear, even to many of Bannon’s friends. But, then, Bannon derived a visceral thrill anytime he could deliver a fuck-you to the establishment. The thousands of frustrated listeners calling in to his radio show, and the millions more who flocked to Breitbart News, had left him no doubt that an army of the angry and dispossessed was eager to join him in lobbing a bomb at the country’s leaders. As guests left the party, a doorman handed out a gift that Bannon had chosen for the occasion: a silver hip flask with “Breitbart” imprinted above an image of a honey badger, the Breitbart mascot. — Bannon’s cult-leader magnetism was a powerful draw for oddballs and freaks, and the attraction ran both ways. As he moved further from the cosmopolitan orbits of Goldman Sachs and Hollywood, there was no longer any need for him to suppress his right-wing impulses. Giving full vent to his views on subjects like immigration and Islam isolated him among a radical fringe that most of political Washington regarded as teeming with racist conspiracy theorists. But far from being bothered, Bannon welcomed their disdain, taking it as proof of his authentic conviction. It fed his grandiose sense of purpose to imagine that he was amassing an army of ragged, pitchfork-wielding outsiders to storm the barricades and, in Andrew Breitbart’s favorite formulation, “take back the country.” If Bannon was bothered by the incendiary views held by some of those lining up with him, he didn’t show it. His habit always was to welcome all comers. To all outward appearances, Bannon, wild-eyed and scruffy, a Falstaff in flip-flops, was someone whom the political world could safely ignore. But his appearance, and the company he kept, masked an analytic capability that was undiminished and as applicable to politics as it had been to the finances of corrupt Hollywood movie studios. Somehow, Bannon, who would happily fall into league with the most agitated conservative zealot, was able to see clearly that conservatives had failed to stop Bill Clinton in the 1990s because they had indulged this very zealotry to a point where their credibility with the media and mainstream voters was shot. Trapped in their own bubble, speaking only to one another, they had believed that they were winning, when in reality they had already lost.

You invest so much in it, don't you? It's what elevates you above the beasts of the field, it's what makes you special. Homo sapiens, you call yourself. Wise Man. Do you even know what it is, this consciousness you cite in your own exaltation? Do you even know what it's for? Maybe you think it gives you free will. Maybe you've forgotten that sleepwalkers converse, drive vehicles, commit crimes and clean up afterwards, unconscious the whole time. Maybe nobody's told you that even waking souls are only slaves in denial. Make a conscious choice. Decide to move your index finger. Too late! The electricity's already halfway down your arm. Your body began to act a full half-second before your conscious self 'chose' to, for the self chose nothing; something else set your body in motion, sent an executive summary—almost an afterthought— to the homunculus behind your eyes. That little man, that arrogant subroutine that thinks of itself as the person, mistakes correlation for causality: it reads the summary and it sees the hand move, and it thinks that one drove the other. But it's not in charge. You're not in charge. If free will even exists, it doesn't share living space with the likes of you. Insight, then. Wisdom. The quest for knowledge, the derivation of theorems, science and technology and all those exclusively human pursuits that must surely rest on a conscious foundation. Maybe that's what sentience would be for— if scientific breakthroughs didn't spring fully-formed from the subconscious mind, manifest themselves in dreams, as full-blown insights after a deep night's sleep. It's the most basic rule of the stymied researcher: stop thinking about the problem. Do something else. It will come to you if you just stop being conscious of it. Every concert pianist knows that the surest way to ruin a performance is to be aware of what the fingers are doing. Every dancer and acrobat knows enough to let the mind go, let the body run itself. Every driver of any manual vehicle arrives at destinations with no recollection of the stops and turns and roads traveled in getting there. You are all sleepwalkers, whether climbing creative peaks or slogging through some mundane routine for the thousandth time. You are all sleepwalkers. Don't even try to talk about the learning curve. Don't bother citing the months of deliberate practice that precede the unconscious performance, or the years of study and experiment leading up to the gift- wrapped Eureka moment. So what if your lessons are all learned consciously? Do you think that proves there's no other way? Heuristic software's been learning from experience for over a hundred years. Machines master chess, cars learn to drive themselves, statistical programs face problems and design the experiments to solve them and you think that the only path to learning leads through sentience? You're Stone-age nomads, eking out some marginal existence on the veldt—denying even the possibility of agriculture, because hunting and gathering was good enough for your parents. Do you want to know what consciousness is for? Do you want to know the only real purpose it serves? Training wheels. You can't see both aspects of the Necker Cube at once, so it lets you focus on one and dismiss the other. That's a pretty half-assed way to parse reality. You're always better off looking at more than one side of anything. Go on, try. Defocus. It's the next logical step. Oh, but you can't. There's something in the way. And it's fighting back.

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.

Tamlin's claws punched out. 'Even if I risked it, you're untrained abilities render your presence more of a liability than anything.' It was like being hit with stones- so hard I could feel myself cracking. But I lifted my chin and said, 'I'm coming along whether you want me to or not.' 'No, you aren't.' He strode right through the door, his claws slashing the air at his sides, and was halfway down the steps before I reached the threshold. Where I slammed into an invisible wall. I staggered back, trying to reorder my mind around the impossibility of it. It was identical to the one I'd built that day in the study, and I searched inside the shards of my soul, my heart, for a tether to that shield, wondering if I'd blocked myself, but- there was no power emanating from me. I reached a hand to the open air of the doorway. And met solid resistance. 'Tamlin,' I rasped. But he was already down the front drive, walking towards the looming iron gates. Lucien remained at the foot of the stairs, his face so, so pale. 'Tamlin,' I said again, pushing against the wall. He didn't turn. I slammed my hand into the invisible barrier. No movement- nothing but hardened air. And I had not learned about my own powers enough to try to push through, to shatter it... I had let him convince me not to learn those things for his sake- 'Don't bother trying,' Lucien said softly, as Tamlin cleared the gates and vanished- winnowed. 'He shielded the entire house around you. Others can go in and out, but you can't. Not until he lifts the shield.' He'd locked me in here. I hit the shield again. Again. Nothing. 'Just- be patient, Feyre,' Lucien tried, wincing as he followed after Tamlin. 'Please. I'll see what I can do. I'll try again.' I barely heard him over the roar in my ears. Didn't wait to see him pass the gates and winnow, too. He'd locked me in. He'd sealed me inside the house. I hurtled for the nearest window in the foyer and shoved it open. A cool spring breeze rushed in- and I shoved my hand through it- only for my fingers to bounce off an invisible wall. Smooth, hard air pushed against my skin. Breathing became difficult. I was trapped. I was trapped inside this house. I might as well have been Under the Mountain. I might as well have been inside that cell again- I backed away, my steps too light, too fast, and slammed into the oak table in the centre of the foyer. None of the nearby sentries came to investigate. He'd trapped me in here; he'd locked me up. I stopped seeing the marble floor, or the paintings on the walls, or the sweeping staircase looming behind me. I stopped hearing the chirping of the spring birds, or the sighing of the breeze through the curtains. And then crushing black pounded down and rose up beneath, devouring and roaring and shredding. It was all I could do to keep from screaming, to keep from shattering into ten thousand pieces as I sank onto the marble floor, bowing over my knees, and wrapped my arms around myself. He'd trapped me; he'd trapped me; he'd trapped me- I had to get out, because I'd barely escaped from another prison once before, and this time, this time- Winnowing. I could vanish into nothing but air and appear somewhere else, somewhere open and free. I fumbled for my power, for anything, something that might show me the way to do it, the way out. Nothing. There was nothing and I had become nothing, and I couldn't even get out- Someone was shouting my name from far away. Alis- Alis. But I was ensconced in a cocoon of darkness and fire and ice and wind, a cocoon that melted the ring off my finger until the folden ore dripped away into the void, the emerald tumbling after it. I wrapped that raging force around myself as if it could keep the walls from crushing me entirely, and maybe, maybe buy me the tiniest sip of air- I couldn't get out; I couldn't get out; I couldn't get out-