Cabin Fever Quotes

So I've started wearing sweatpants to bed because I really don't need Santa seeing me in my underwear.

I've seen a lot of movies where a kid my age finds out he's got magical powers and then gets invited to go away to some special school. Well, if I've got an invitation coming, now would be the perfect time to get it

I realised all the good ideas were taken before I was even born.

When you're used to having electricity and then all of a sudden it's taken away, you're basically just one step from being a wild animal.

I don’t want this,” Sirus uttered, his voice stripped bare. “Me either.” Grey sounded as if he were in agony. Swearing, they flew at each other in a furious kiss.

I like turtles!!!!

I want inside, and I want it bare.

fish and visitors stink in 3 days.

I'm probably something like 95% chicken nugget

Sirus let his gaze drop and linger over the fine lines of Grey’s body that no amount of winter clothing could hide, and he cursed under his breath at the waste of such a thing of perfection attached to such an asshole of a person.

They're all gone, my tribe is gone. Those blankets they gave us, infected with smallpox, have killed us. I'm the last, the very last, and I'm sick, too. So very sick. Hot. My fever burning so hot. I have to take off my clothes, feel the cold air, splash water across my bare skin. And dance. I'll dance a Ghost Dance. I'll bring them back. Can you hear the drums? I can hear them, and it's my grandfather and grandmother singing. Can you hear them? I dance one step and my sister rises from the ash. I dance another and a buffalo crashes down from the sky onto a log cabin in Nebraska. With every step, an Indian rises. With every other step, a buffalo falls. I'm growing, too. My blisters heal, my muscles stretch, expand. My tribe dances behind me. At first they are no bigger than children. Then they begin to grow, larger than me, larger than the trees around us. The buffalo come to join us and their hooves shake the earth, knock all the white people from their beds, send their plates crashing to the floor. We dance in circles growing larger and larger until we are standing on the shore, watching all the ships returning to Europe. All the white hands are waving good-bye and we continue to dance, dance until the ships fall off the horizon, dance until we are so tall and strong that the sun is nearly jealous. We dance that way.

Flakes of snow swirled and danced across the porch. The Overlook faced it as it had for nearly three-quarters of a century, its darkened windows now bearded with snow, indifferent to the fact it was now cut off from the world… Inside its shell the three of them went about their early evening routine, like microbes trapped in the intestine of a monster.

You know, back in the old days adults were respected because of how wise they were, and people went to them to help settle disputes. Nowadays it's a whole different world, and half the time I wonder if grown-ups should really be in charge.

Over-arousal doesn’t produce anxiety so much as the sense that you can’t think straight—that you’ve had enough and would like to go home now. Under-arousal is something like cabin fever. Not enough is happening: you feel itchy, restless, and sluggish, like you need to get out of the house already.

I’ve realized is that every time you get something cool for your birthday or for Christmas, within a week it’s being used against you. (We'll be taking this away until your English grade improves)

Thank god. I thought I had cabin fever or something.” “High school fever.” “High school fever: like The Shining, but with teenagers.

I tried to imagine cabin fever. I tried to imagine this getting old: that smile, those rumpled clothes, the language only Gus and I spoke, the joking and crying and touching and not touching.

I would like to learn how to do that--to recognize the gift of enough.

Now there's a black market for toys at our school. Christopher Stangel brought in a bunch of Legos from home yesterday, and I hear a single brick will set you back fifty cents.

Mom always says I need to spend less time on the couch and more time being active. But the way I see it. I'm just conserving my energy for later on. When all my friends are in their eighties and their bodies are broken down, I'll just be getting started.

Introverts have wide-open information channels, causing them to be flooded with stimulation and over-aroused, while extroverts have tighter channels, making them prone to under-arousal. Over-arousal doesn’t produce anxiety so much as the sense that you can’t think straight—that you’ve had enough and would like to go home now. Under-arousal is something like cabin fever. Not enough is happening: you feel itchy, restless, and sluggish, like you need to get out of the house already.

They say that February is the shortest month, but you know they could be wrong. Compared, calendar page against calendar page, it looks to be the shortest, all right. Spread between January and March like lard on bread, it fails to reach the crust on either slice. In its galoshes it's a full head shorter than December, although in leap years, when it has growth spurts, it comes up to April's nose. However more abbreviated than it's cousins it may look, February feels longer than any of them. It is the meanest moon of winter, all the more cruel because it will masquerade as spring, occasionally for hours at a time, only to rip off its mask with a sadistic laugh and spit icicles into every gullible face, behavior that grows quickly old. February is pitiless, and it's boring. That parade of red numerals on its page adds up to zero: birthdays of politicians, a holiday reserved for rodents, what kind of celebrations are those? The only bubble in the flat champagne of February is Valentine's Day. It was no accident that our ancestors pinned Valentine's day on February's shirt: he or she lucky enough to have a lover in frigid, antsy February has cause for celebration, indeed. Except to the extent that it "tints the buds and swells the leaves within" February is as useless as the extra r in its name. It behaves like an obstacle, a wedge of slush and mud and ennui holding both progress and contentment at bay. If February is the color of lard on rye, its aroma is that of wet wool trousers. As for sound, it is an abstract melody played on a squeaky violin, the petty whine of a shrew with cabin fever. O February, you may be little but you're small! Where you twice your tiresome length, few of us would survive to greet the merry month of May.

I know I need to eat healthier, but if you take fast food out of my diet I'm in big trouble, because I'm probably something like 95% chicken nugget.

A stack overflow error caused cabin fever and the reset button was Pattaya.

Dancy can hear rain beginning to fall on the tar-paper roof of the cabin. Fat summer raindrops, and it’s the sweetest sound, almost, sweet as the end of a fever, as ripe as red apples.

Mmm, God, I love that.” He settled her thighs on either side of his hips until she rested on the thickness of his fully impaled cock. “Don’t need to come. Just want inside.” He brushed his lips across her mouth, cheek, and temple, and let her head come to rest against his shoulder. “Try to get some sleep. Morning comes early.

Grey refused to shy away from the intensity heating in Sirus's eyes to charcoal. As he waited for the man to roll over, Grey watched, unwavering, challenging the fire burning hot in Sirus's gaze. Sirus lifted up to his elbows, but didn't make any effort to shift his position. In fact, he looked downright defiant, and Grey's pulse started to race. "I want a nice view of my cock taking your sweet ass." "You want me to flip you over and hold you down, fuck you that way?" "Yeah, you want it." Grey said to Sirus. "But is it the fucking that has you leaking so damn hard, or is it the thought of force?" "Don't try to overtake me," Sirus bit Grey's lower lip and tugged, letting it pull through his teeth until it released, "unless you're ready to be the one who ends up on the bottom, with my cock buried in your ass." Grey wrapped his hand around Sirus's throat, yanked the man's head back and took his mouth in a hard, thrusting kiss, going deep and aggressive enough to make Sirus jerk and go compliant. An almost silent whimper escaped the man, begging without words for more. Knowing he was in charge fully once again, Grey reached between their bodies, positioned the head of his cock and drove his length home.

I am not what happened to me, but what I choose to become

She knew heartbreak. She also understood the pretzels one folds oneself into for love. She had followed one soulful man down perilous class-IV rapids. Still, he cheated on her. She moved into another boyfriend’s cabin without running water, where her hay fever was so bad she sneezed her way through sex. But by the end of it all, she knew what she wanted and who she was.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see who it was. My jaw dropped! Ralph and I exchanged looks of dismay and resignation. Standing behind us were our three top PJ bosses. Somehow they had tracked us down. We were caught red-handed and there was no escape. The air went out of my emotional sails, and I felt deflated. I didn’t even begin to try to talk my way out of this. I said, “OK. You got us. What can I say?” The PJ bosses looked at me funny and started to laugh. Then a long line of PJs streamed into the bar. The bosses were just the vanguard of a boisterous posse of PJs. Cabin fever had become unbearable and apparently almost every single PJ had decided to sneak off base! Everyone was loud, animated, and ready to do some serious drinking. Thus began a spontaneous and epic night of partying. Somehow, everyone made it back onto base afterwards without incident.

Glenskehy is outside Dublin, tucked away in the Wicklow mountains near nothing very much. I'd lived half my life in Wicklow without getting any closer to it than the odd signpost. It turned out to be that kind of place: a scatter of houses getting old around a once-a-month church and a pub and a sell-everything shop, small and isolated enough to have been overlooked even by the desperate generation trawling the countryside for homes they can afford. Eight o'clock on a Thursday morning, and the main street - to use both words loosely - was postcard-perfect and empty, just one old woman pulling a shopping trolley past a worn granite monument to something or other, little sugared-almond houses lined up crookedly behind her, and the hills rising green and brown and indifferent over it all. I could imagine someone getting killed there, but a farmer in a generations-old fight over a boundary fence, a woman whose man had turned savage with drink and cabin fever, a man sharing a house with his brother forty years too long: deep-rooted, familiar crimes old as Ireland, nothing to make a detective as experienced as Sam sound like that.

I would put How Green Was My Valley in the same class as Uncle Tom’s Cabin: a work that leaves an ineradicable “scratch on the mind,” to borrow Harold Isaacs’s useful phrase. There was another element as well. At a certain point, on some springy-turfed Welsh hillside far above the scenes of alienation and exploitation that lay below, young Huw contrived to part with his irksome virginity. Richard Llewellyn handled this transition with very slightly too much quasi-poetic euphemism, his crucial error being (to my fevered imagining) the idea that the inflamed heat of young manhood could be assuaged only by the relative “coolness” of a feminine interior. One had had a vague hope that the ardency would be appeased by an even greater heat, rather than sizzled like a red-hot horseshoe dipped in water, but at this stage I would have been willing to settle for anything that offered incandescence in either direction.

Reaching the bottom of the ladder, she turned around, but had only taken a few steps down the swaying passageway when her path was blocked by a large, formidable silhouette: Rohan stepped out of his cabin and stood waiting for her. He loomed in the darkness ahead as she approached, his angular face cast in shadow, his black shirt hanging open down his sculpted chest. Kate felt an instantaneous awareness of him in her most primal core, but she hesitated before the fevered intensity in his stare. "I-I thought you went to bed." "Can't sleep." She did not need to ask why. Who could sleep after the night he'd had? She stopped in front of him, wondering what to say. His hungry gaze stayed fixed on her, and something in his silvery eyes made her heart begin to pound. "What did you think of what my father said?" "I don't want to talk." As he reached out and cupped her cheek, Kate swallowed hard, but she hardly had to ask what he wanted to do. She could feel the heat of his need coming off him in waves. She drew in her breath as he ran his hand down from her cheek along the side of her neck. He threaded his fingers into her hair, moving closer as he drew her toward him. He bent his head and claimed her mouth, his lips, burning, silken, against hers; she quivered with temptation as he consumed her tongue. The fierce demand in his kiss threatened to overwhelm her. "I want you," he whispered, breathing heavily. His bold advance jarred her somewhat back to her senses. "You must be joking," she uttered, yanking away from him and trying to hide her mad desire behind a mask of self-possession. "I'm not your harlot anymore." "You said you love me. Prove it," he murmured. He captured her hand and brought her palm to his loins, making her feel the massive evidence of his sincerity. She bit her lower lip, striving to reason against passion. Letting her palm linger on his rigid shaft a heartbeat too long, she withdrew her touch, determined to get around him. "Rohan." "Sleep with me," he ordered in a whisper, too proud to beg, but then again, he'd never have to.

The buzzards over Pondy Woods Achieve the blue tense altitudes Black figments that the woods release, Obscenity in form and grace, Drifting high through the pure sunshine Till the sun in gold decline. (...) By the buzzard roost Big Jim Todd Listened for hoofs on the corduroy road Or for the foul and sucking sound A man's foot makes on the marshy ground. Past midnight, when the moccasin Slipped from the log and, trailing in Its obscured waters, broke The dark algae, one lean bird spoke, (...) "[Big Jim] your breed ain't metaphysical." The buzzard coughed, His words fell In the darkness, mystic and ambrosial. "But we maintain our ancient rite, Eat the gods by day and prophesy by night. We swing against the sky and wait; You seize the hour, more passionate Than strong, and strive with time to die -- With time, the beaked tribe's astute ally. "The Jew-boy died. The Syrian vulture swung Remotely above the cross whereon he hung From dinner-time to supper-time, and all The people gathered there watched him until The lean brown chest no longer stirred, Then idly watched the slow majestic bird That in the last sun above the twilit hill Gleamed for a moment at the height and slid Down the hot wind and in the darkness hid. [Big Jim], regard the circumstance of breath: Non omnis moriar, the poet sayeth." Pedantic, the bird clacked its gray beak, With a Tennessee accent to the classic phrase; Jim understood, and was about to speak, But the buzzard drooped one wing and filmed the eyes. At dawn unto the Sabbath wheat he came, That gave to the dew its faithless yellow flame From kindly loam in recollection of The fires that in the brutal rock one strove. To the ripe wheat he came at dawn. Northward the printed smoke stood quiet above The distant cabins of Squiggtown. A train's far whistle blew and drifted away Coldly; lucid and thin the morning lay Along the farms, and here no sound Touched the sweet earth miraculously stilled. Then down the damp and sudden wood there belled The musical white-throated hound. In pondy Woods in the summer's drouth Lurk fever and the cottonmouth. And buzzards over Pondy Woods Achieve the blue tense altitudes, Drifting high in the pure sunshine Till the sun in gold decline; Then golden and hieratic through The night their eyes burn two by two.

The madness surged around him, and Rhy tore himself away from the breaking city and turned his sights again to his quest for the captain of the Night Spire. There were only two places Alucard Emery would go: his family estate or his ship. Logic said he’d go to the house, but something in Rhy’s gut sent him in the opposite direction, toward the docks. He found the captain on his cabin floor. One of the chairs by the hearth had been toppled, a table knocked clean of glasses, their glittering shards scattered in the rug and across the wooden floor. Alucard—decisive, strong, beautiful Alucard—lay curled on his side, shivering with fever, his warm brown hair matted to his cheeks with sweat. He was clutching his head, breath escaping in ragged gasps as he spoke to ghosts. “Stop … please …” His voice—that even, clear voice, always brimming with laughter—broke. “Don’t make me …” Rhy was on his knees beside him. “Luc,” he said, touching the man’s shoulder. Alucard’s eyes flashed open, and Rhy recoiled when he saw them filled with shadows. Not the even black of Kell’s gaze, but instead menacing streaks of darkness that writhed and coiled like snakes through his vision, storm blue irises flashing and vanishing behind the fog. “Stop,” snarled the captain suddenly. He struggled up, limbs shaking, only to fall back against the floor. Rhy hovered over him, helpless, unsure whether to hold him down or try to help him up. Alucard’s eyes found his, but looked straight through him. He was somewhere else. “Please,” the captain pleaded with the ghosts. “Don’t make me go.” “I won’t,” said Rhy, wondering who Alucard saw. What he saw. How to free him. The captain’s veins stood out like ropes against his skin. “He’ll never forgive me.” “Who?” asked Rhy, and Alucard’s brow furrowed, as if he were trying to see through the fog, the fever. “Rhy—” The sickness tightened its hold, the shadows in his eyes streaking with lines of light like lightning. The captain bit back a scream. Rhy ran his fingers over Alucard’s hair, took his face in his hands. “Fight it,” he ordered. “Whatever’s holding you, fight it.” Alucard folded in on himself, shuddering. “I can’t….” “Focus on me.” “Rhy …” he sobbed. “I’m here.” Rhy Maresh lowered himself onto the glass-strewn floor, lay on his side so they were face-to-face. “I’m here.” He remembered, then. Like a dream flickering back to the surface, he remembered Alucard’s hands on his shoulders, his voice cutting through the pain, reaching out to him, even in the dark. I’m here now, he’d said, so you can’t die. “I’m here now,” echoed Rhy, twining his fingers through Alucard’s. “And I’m not letting go, so don’t you dare.” Another scream tore from Alucard’s throat, his grip tightening as the lines of black on his skin began to glow. First red, then white. Burning. He was burning from the inside out. And it hurt—hurt to watch, hurt to feel so helpless. But Rhy kept his word. He didn’t let go.

I don't know where I'm going. I just want to walk. Or maybe to pray, as that's how the best walks seem, like an emptying and opening.

At the Colony Club, Barbados, you could swim straight from your hotel room to the swimming pool, via a small stream off your balcony, lined with stunning waterfalls and plant life.

I just want to be away. Away. Faster, better, more. Away. I live my life wanting to be somewhere other than where I am.

Why March?" I wondered. I finally realized it wasn't that there was anything special about the month of March - it just wasn't good for much else.

People were then forced to consider whether many of the people who marched and carried signs were truly committed to Black lives and Black liberation or whether some, deprived of rites of passage, parties and proms, had simply developed a cabin fever racial consciousness, using the protests as congregational outlets, treating them like a social justice Coachella, a systemic racism Woodstock.

He found himself pacing, stoopshouldered, up and down the tiny limits of his cabin, and checked himself furiously. The iron-​nerved captain of his dreams would not allow himself to work himself into this sort of fever, even though his professional reputation was to be at stake in four hours' time. He must show the ship that he, too, could face uncertainty with indifference.

I kissed him again and again, on his lips, the corners of his mouth, then trailed wet, openmouthed kisses all over his face, his temples, his eyebrows, his nose, his chin… He

My beautiful fuckhole,” he murmured. “You taste of our cum and nothing else, baby.

honest joy from simply running in the woods and bantering with old moody me.

You are my fuckhole, for my cock and my cum only. I own your ass. Understand?” “Yes, Daddy.” “You’re not allowed to shower tonight. You’ll sleep on filthy sheets, full of cum, like the horny slut you are.

When I was empty, I bent over and gathered him to me carefully so my cock wouldn’t slip out. I carried him, and we sat on the couch, Michael in my lap, straddling me, my cock tucked in his hole. He cuddled to me, roping his arms around my neck.

No money can compensate for what you’re doing to me, Mikey.

So I stripped naked in the middle of the room and knelt on the floor while Vincent stared, mouth parted, eyes burning. I bent my head in complete submission, arms hanging limply by my sides, and spoke quietly. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I promise I won’t break the rules again. Please, forgive me.

Thank you, thank you.” He left his finger there, tucked in my hole, and I fell asleep again, sated and happy.

From now on, you are my hole, boy. I decide what goes in you and when.

It was entirely my pleasure. Honestly, it felt a little ridiculous. He said “please” and “thank you” as if I was giving him a gift by fucking him silly and coming inside his lithe, gorgeous body. He was the gift. And I took and took…

You know your place, boy. My little cocksucker. Eat my cum. Eat it all.” I swallowed again and sucked on his slit, trying to catch the last drop.

You’re always horny. My little slut.” “Please, Daddy. Will you give me your cum?” “I won’t fuck you. You’re sore from last night.” “Please, Daddy. I just want your cum.” “On your front.

Please kiss me more. I kissed him again and again, on his lips, the corners of his mouth, then trailed wet, openmouthed kisses all over his face, his temples, his eyebrows, his nose, his chin… He fell back asleep, glued to my side, like he needed me to breathe.

Yes, Daddy.” I strolled past him to my room, swaying my hips as I went. “Little fucker,” Vincent muttered. I laughed.

Spellbound, I leaned closer and licked the base of his throat, tasting the salt. I moaned softly.

My eyes are up here, Michael!” I looked up, startled by the sudden harsh tone of his voice.

rubbed against him like a cat, dragging my cheek across his denim-covered hardness. A moan escaped my mouth. A fist grabbed my hair and tightened, making my scalp prickle. He rocked his hips and pressed his cock against my face, the denim chafing my lips. I was groaning with pleasure from just that.

You need a thorough spanking. Someone to keep you in line. Someone to fuck you hard enough so you finally shut the fuck up and be grateful. But, boy, I’m so much more than you think you can handle.” He pressed down, circling my gland with his finger, making me whine. “I won’t fuck you nice and slow and call you a good boy for simply spreading your legs,” he growled. “You think you want me? I can tan your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit for a week. Then I’d rip your hole apart.

He hit me with the artificial dick. The wet silicone smacked me on my ass cheek, the sound obscene. Oh wow. Only I craved more. “You want cock?

he grew limp, only my thrusts making his body move back and forth on the tabletop. Beautiful. Mine. I came, roaring like an animal.

He needed to be somebody’s priority. He wanted someone to keep him in line, to protect him from himself, to fuck him ruthlessly and take care of him with tenderness. He was asking me to do it because I was the one around while he couldn’t trust a soul and felt the most vulnerable in his life. Sex and physical pain were his outlet, his coping mechanisms.

Then it changed. The end of the rope landed in my crease, hitting my hole, and I wailed. Jesus.

he was so beautiful it hurt me in my core.

I waited for a half hour, then went back to his room. He was asleep, wrapped in his blanket like a burrito. I took the fucking gun and left. I should never have taken this job.

I took my chance. My heart thrashed in my chest as I sank onto my knees in front of him. I leaned closer and pushed my face into his groin.

I wasn’t scared for me, you idiot. You were gone, your phone unresponsive. I was terrified for you. Fucking hell, Vincent!

I’m sorry, Mikey. Shh. I’m sorry, baby.” I tilted my face up, searching his eyes. His finger traced underneath my eye with infinite gentleness, and a warm hand cupped my face while he stared at me with regret and devotion. “So sorry, I made you cry, my sweetest boy.” I kissed him.

placed my palms on his unshaven cheeks and just stared in awe. It didn’t take long. He had me rocking my hips and fucking his throat in a minute.

He pulled out and licked my balls, my hole. Ignoring the lube, he thrust his tongue inside me, worshipping my body.

No, Uncle Bart. You don’t understand. I need you to pull all the strings. All of them!

The next one was painful in its beauty. I was naked, my hands the most detailed of the picture, and was holding a roughly sketched body in my lap. My fingers dug into the skin, and the head of my lover, drawn only in a thin outline, was thrown back in obvious pleasure. Michael drew us making love.

I was disgusted with myself. How could I have been so thoughtless? Michael had given himself to me, his body and soul. He’d laid his entire life by my feet, generous and trusting. Instead of treasuring him, I’d sent him away.

I want to deserve your forgiveness. I’m going to keep you safe and happy.

He lifted his gaze, his eyes pleading. “I can come live with you. I don’t care where we are. Just… not apart.” Oh, my sweetest boy.

In the Upper Midwest, newcomers often receive a classic piece of wintertime advice: “The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.” Here, people spend good money on warm cloth-ing so they can get outdoors and avoid the “cabin fever” that comes from huddling fearfully by the fire during the long frozen months. If You live here long, you learn that a daily walk into the winter worldwill fortify the spirit by taking you boldly to the very heart of the sea-son you fear. Our inward winters take many forms – failure, betrayal, depres-sion, death. But every one of them, in my experience, yields to the same advice: “The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.” Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives. But when we walk directly into them – protected from frostbite by the warm garb of friendship or inner discipline or spiritual guidance – we can learn what they have to teach us. Then, we discover once again that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life-giving, even in the most dismaying season of all.

Ever wonder what it’s like to kill someone?” William asked me one morning. Such a weird thing to say, but truth be told, I had always wondered the same. Until that night.

The ancient Greeks devised a term that accurately represented every inexplicable feeling that tormented humanity. Hoping that each word carried some relief within its letters. As if somehow a vague definition of such an intricate concept will fix the feeling of emptiness that follows its experience. But there was a word that the Greeks had not thought of: one that could define the smell of death. Evidently, there were a myriad of adjectives that could define this morbid aroma, yet I wondered if there were any words that could truly capture the revolting feeling that this smell evoked. It was an absolutely gut-wrenching sensation, and it vexed me so much that I couldn't pinpoint it to a single, distinct element of speech. Fuck the Greeks.

Because, you see, it wasn't just the scent of a dead body itself but death hanging heavy on the air and its indisputably enthralling presence. It carved a hole so deep inside your stomach that you could physically feel it for the rest of your life. It was nothing like I thought it would be. Maybe, under different circumstances, I would have been able to examine the beauty in it. Perhaps if we had killed someone else.

To an adventurous spirit any place is an unexplored land

By afternoon Jack found her down on her hands and knees scouring the bathroom floor around the toilet and tub. “For the love of God,” he said. “What?” “What the hell are you doing? If you want the bathroom cleaned, why don’t you just tell me? I know how to clean a goddamn bathroom.” “It wasn’t all that dirty, but since I’m in the cleaning mood, I thought I’d whip it into shape.” “David is ready for his nap. Why don’t you join him.” “I don’t feel like a nap. I’m going to vacuum the area rugs.” “No, you’re not,” he said. “I’ll do that if it has to be done right now.” “Okay,” Mel said, smiling. “I’ve been tricked.” “Only by yourself, darling,” she said, whirling away to get the Pledge and Windex. After that was done—and there was a lot of wood and glass and stainless steel to occupy her—she was sweeping off the porch and back steps. Not long after that, she was caught dragging the cradle into the master bedroom. “Melinda!” he shouted, startling her and making her jump. “Jack! Don’t do that!” “Let go of that thing!” He brushed her out of the way and grabbed the cradle. “Where do you want it?” “Right there,” she said. He put it beside the bed. “No,” she said. “Over there, kind of out of the way.” He put it there. “No,” she said. “Against that wall—we’ll put it where we need it when she comes.” He moved it again. “Thank you,” she said. The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” he said. He picked up a pencil and put it in her face. “If you lift anything heavier than this, I’m going to beat you.” Then he turned and left the room. He has cabin fever, she thought. Spending too much time at home with me, making sure I don’t pick up anything heavier than a pencil. He should get out more, and out of my hair. When Jack was done with the phone, she was on her knees in front of the hearth, brushing out the barely used fireplace. “Aw, Jesus Christ,” he said in frustration. “Can that not wait until at least frickin’ winter?” She sat back on her heels. “You are really getting on my last nerve. Don’t you have somewhere you can go?” “No, but we do. Go shower and get beautiful. Paul and Vanessa are back and after they view the prom couple, they’re going to the bar for dinner. We’ll all meet there, look at some pictures.” “Great,” she said. “I’m in the mood for a beer.” “Whatever you want, Melinda,” he said tiredly. “Just stop this frickin’ cleaning.” “You know I’m not going to be able to do much of this after the baby comes, so it’s good to have it all done. And the way I like it.” “You’ve always been good at cleaning. Why couldn’t you just cook?” he asked. “You don’t cook anything.” “You cook.” She smiled. “How many cooks does one house need?” “Just go shower. You have fireplace ash on your nose.” “Pain in the ass,” she said to him, getting clumsily to her feet. “Ditto,” he said. An

Huh?” she said. “What’s this?” “I think you have a fever. Might be from damn near freezing to death, might be from something else. First we try aspirin.” “Yeah,” she said, taking them in her small hand. “Thanks.” While Marcie took the aspirin with water, he fixed up the tea. They traded, water cup for mug of tea. He stayed across the room at his table while she sipped the tea. When she was almost done, he said, “Okay, here’s the deal. I have to work this morning. I’ll be gone till noon or so—depends how long it takes. When I get back, you’re going to be here. After we’re sure you’re not sick, then you’ll go. But not till I tell you it’s time to go. I want you to sleep. Rest. Use the pot, don’t go outside. I don’t want to stretch this out. And I don’t want to have to go looking for you to make sure you’re all right. You understand?” She smiled, though weakly. “Aw, Ian, you care.” He snarled at her, baring his teeth like an animal. She laughed a little, which turned into a cough. “You get a lot of mileage out of that? The roars and growls, like you’re about to tear a person to pieces with your teeth?” He looked away. “Must keep people back pretty good. Your old neighbor said you were crazy. You howl at the moon and everything?” “How about you don’t press your luck,” he said as meanly as he could. “You need more tea?” “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll nap. I don’t want to be any trouble, but I’m awful tired.” He went to her and took the cup out of her hand. “If you didn’t want to be any trouble, why didn’t you just leave me the hell alone?” “Gee, I just had this wild urge to find an old friend…” She lay back on the couch, pulling that soft quilt around her. “What kind of work do you do?” “I sell firewood out of the back of my truck.” He went to his metal box, which was nailed to the floor from the inside so it couldn’t be stolen if someone happened by his cabin, which was unlikely. He unlocked it and took out a roll of bills he kept in there and put it in his pocket, then relocked it. “First snowfall of winter—should be a good day. Maybe I’ll get back early, but no matter what, I want you here until I say you go. You get that?” “Listen, if I’m here, it’s because it’s where I want to be, and you better get that. I’m the one who came looking for you, so don’t get the idea you’re going to bully me around and scare me. If I wasn’t so damn tired, I might leave—just to piss you off. But I get the idea you like being pissed off.” He stood and got into his jacket, pulled gloves out of the pockets. “I guess we understand each other as well as we can.” “Wait—it’s

Take the loaf. I see you don’t have any loaf left. I still have loaf. I’m sharing my loaf with you,” she insisted. She wanted to stop saying loaf, but she couldn’t. Maybe this was cabin fever.

It feels surreal that out of the three young girls who once did everything together and embarked on what was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime, I'm the only one still alive. You have to live for all three of you

Something we have in common, you and I, is living a lie. And when you live in the shadow of one lie, you build more and more lies around that lie until nothing is true or real

You're in the woods, You're alone. You've never known aloneness like this before, but now that you do, it will remain beside you like an unshakable shadow for the rest of your life. So much will be lost in the far recesses of your mind; no life can ever be retained in all of its moments, but you will remember this - the bitter, sickly taste of blood in your mouth, the thousand shades of green enveloping you, the taste, and color, of death. The deafening rumble of your heart echoing through your blood. The sharp-edged leaves knifing your arms and face as you crash through the foliage. Your fear - this vast and uncontrollable fear, as black and deep as a Norwegian forest lake.  It will surge through you forever, prompted by big and small triggers entirely unrelated to these moments, and you'll learn to live with it; you'll have to.

Eirik's decision to go from international corporate law into politics was a joint decision and I knew full well that it would be demanding on our marriage. Or did I, really? There are so many things in life we can only truly understand once we're actually living and feeling them

Someone once told me that when it comes to writing, you start off with an earthquake and then work your way up to the climax

Haven't you always said to me that the truth is never ugly, unlike lies, and that we will live better if we live by it?

Kristina Moss, the mind doctor who was saved by the dysfunction of her own mind

Looking at my sleeping husband, I feel a sliver of fear run through me for how little we actually know of another person, how little we can ever know of what goes on inside their head. Life, and love, are like therapy sessions at the end of the day - we only know what someone says and shows.  But what about the things they choose to hide, and go to great lengths to keep hidden?

The three friends stayed safe inside, but then they began to catch cabin fever. Being

I’m comfortable with old, old places, places hostile to evolved life. My longest and best home, Alaska, is such a one: a vast, wind-blasted vista of mountain and river and sea as ancient as the bedrock of the world itself. Large and largely empty. Inhuman, yet aware on some primal frequency. Palpably malevolent in its indifference, Alaska is a land where winter kills off wolves and caribou alike and breeds creeping, deadly cabin fever that does in scores of men and women every year.

Is that your idea of flirting? Get half naked and tease me with your talk of sheep?

Pilgrims with no vision of the promised land become proprietors of their own land … Instead of looking upward at [the Lord] they look inward at themselves and outward at each other. The result? Cabin fever. Quarreling families. Restless leaders. Fence building. Staked-off territory. No trespassing! signs are hung on hearts and homes. Spats turn into fights as myopic groups turn to glare at each other’s weaknesses instead of turning to worship their common Strength.2

I was sure that the wedding would be off if I killed my chaperone in a fit of cabin fever/twat-induced twat-induced rage, but some sacrifices were worth it.