“
Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.
”
”
Miranda July (No One Belongs Here More Than You)
“
As leaves cover the forest floor in a carpet of vibrant rusts, orange and gold, autumn proves that sometimes death too can be a beautiful thing.
”
”
Nikita Gill
“
October's Party
October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
”
”
George Cooper
“
Nightfall.
“What a strange word.
‘Night’ I get.
But ‘fall’ is a gentle word.
Autumn leaves fall, swirling with languid grace
To carpet the earth with their dying blaze.
Tears fall, like liquid diamonds
Shimmering softly, before they melt away.
Night doesn’t fall here.
It comes slamming down.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Faefever (Fever, #3))
“
If on a winter's night a traveler, outside the town of Malbork, leaning from the steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down in the gathering shadow in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect, on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave-What story down there awaits its end?-he asks, anxious to hear the story.
”
”
Italo Calvino
“
Places do not lose their identity, however far one travels. It is the heart that begins to erode over time. The face in the hotel mirror seems blurred some mornings, as if by too many casual looks. By ten the sheets will be laundered, the carpet swept. The names on the hotel registers change as we pass. We leave no trace as we pass on. Ghostlike, we cast no shadow.
”
”
Joanne Harris (Chocolat (Chocolat, #1))
“
Do not listen to her," Alaric said. "She is going to tell you in some kind of code only the two of you will understand, because you are siblings, to call the police on your cell phone. But if you do that, I will kill you and dispose of your body in a place where no one will find it. The river, I think. Your doorman is so stupid, he won't notice if I leave this building carrying a body in a rolled-up carpet.
”
”
Meg Cabot (Insatiable (Insatiable, #1))
“
To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year, Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed, The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.
”
”
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes, #5))
“
He turned to leave, then hesitated. "One more thing."
He walked up to me. "I've also been thinking about your declaration of undying love or whatever."
"I didn't - it wasn't -"
He clamped his hands on the sides of my gooey face and kissed me.
I had to wonder: was it possible to dissolve into chocolate on a molecular level and melt into a puddle on the carpet? Because that's how I felt. I'm pretty sure Valhalla had to resurrect me several times during the course of that kiss. Otherwise, I don't know how I was still in one piece when Alex finally pulled away.
He studied me critically, his brown and amber eyes taking me in. He had a chocolate moustache and goatee now, and chocolate down the front of his sweater vest.
I'll be honest. A small part of my brain thought, Alex is male right now. I have just been kissed by a dude. How do I feel about that?
The rest of my brain answered: I have just been kissed by Alex Fierro. I am absolutely great with that.
In fact, I might have done something typically embarrassing and stupid, like making the aforementioned declaration of undying love, but Alex spared me.
"Eh." He shrugged. "I'll keep thinking about it. I'll get back to you. In the meantime, definitely take that shower."
He left, whistling a tune that might have been a Frank Sinatra song from the elevator, "Fly Me to the Moon".
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #3))
“
Where am I?" Magnus croaked.
"Nazca."
"Oh, so we went on a little trip."
"You broke into a man's house," Catarina said. "You stole a carpet and enchanted it to fly. Then you sped off into the night air. We pursued you on foot."
"Ah," said Magnus.
"You were shouting some things."
"What things?"
"I prefer not to repeat them," Catarina said. "I also prefer not to remember the time we spent in the desert. It is a mammoth desert, Magnus. Ordinary deserts are quite large. Mammoth deserts are so called because they are larger than ordinary deserts."
"Thank you for that interesting and enlightening information," Magnus croaked.
"You told us to leave you in the desert, because you planned to start a new life as a cactus," Catarina said, her voice flat. "Then you conjured up tiny needles and threw them at us. With pinpoint accuracy."
"Well," he said with dignity. "Considering my highly intoxicated state, you must have been impressed with my aim."
"'Impressed' is not the word to use to describe how I felt last night, Magnus."
"I thank you for stopping me there," Magnus said. "It was for the best. You are a true friend. No harm done. Let's say no more about it. Could you possibly fetch me - "
"Oh, we couldn't stop you," Catarina interrupted. "We tried, but you giggled, leaped onto the carpet, and flew away again. You kept saying that you wanted to go to Moquegua."
"What did I do in Moquegua?"
"You never got there," Catarina said. "But you were flying about and yelling and trying to, ahem, write messages for us with your carpet in the sky."
"We then stopped for a meal," Catarina said. "You were most insistent that we try a local specialty that you called cuy. We actually had a very pleasant meal, even though you were still very drunk."
"I'm sure I must have been sobering up at that point," Magnus argued.
"Magnus, you were trying to flirt with your own plate."
"I'm a very open-minded sort of fellow!"
"Ragnor is not," Catarina said. "When he found out that you were feeding us guinea pigs, he hit you over the head with your plate. It broke."
"So ended our love," Magnus said. "Ah, well. It would never have worked between me and the plate anyway. I'm sure the food did me good, Catarina, and you were very good to feed me and put me to bed - "
Catarina shook her head."You fell down on the floor. Honestly, we thought it best to leave you sleeping on the ground. We thought you would remain there for some time, but we took our eyes off you for one minute, and then you scuttled off. Ragnor claims he saw you making for the carpet, crawling like a huge demented crab.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (The Bane Chronicles)
“
November came roaring in with gusty winds and more wet weather. Mandy's depression would not go away. Her garden seemed sad, too. It was virtually empty now, and the few brave flowers that remained there were flattened by rain, their yellows stalks sprawling in all directions. Most of the trees were bare, and the woods had a wet carpet of leaves.
”
”
Julie Andrews Edwards (Mandy)
“
The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch. The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze. The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet. Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her. The dried brown leaves crackled beneath her feet and gave off a delicious smoky fragrance. No one had ever told her about autumn in New England. The excitement of it beat in her blood. Every morning she woke with a new confidence and buoyancy she could not explain. In October any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible.
”
”
Elizabeth George Speare (The Witch of Blackbird Pond)
“
We were in the autumnlands.
Dim as it was, the forest glowed. The golden leaves flashing by blazed like sparks caught in the updraft of a fire. A scarlet carpet unrolled before us, rich and flawless as velvet. Rising from the forest floor, the black, tangled roots breathed a bluish mist that reduced the farthest trees' trunks to ghostly silhouettes, yet left their foliage's luminous hues untouched. Vivid moss speckled the branches like tarnished copper. The crisp spice of pine sap infused the cool air over a musty perfume of dry leaves. A knot swelled in my throat. I couldn't look away. There was too much of it, too fast. I'd never be able to drink it all in...
”
”
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
“
Hey Meg! Communication implies sound. Communion doesn't.' He sent her a brief image of walking silently through the woods, the two of them alone together., their feet almost noiseless on the rusty carpet of pine needles. They walked without speaking, without touching, and yet they were as close as it is possible for two human beings to be. They climbed up through the woods, coming out into the brilliant sunlight at the top of the hill. A few sumac trees showed their rusty candles. Mountain laurel, shiny, so dark a green the leaves seemed black in the fierceness of sunlight, pressed toward the woods. Meg and Calvin had stretched out in the thick, late-summer grass, lying on their backs, gazing up into the shimmering blue of sky, a vault interrupted only by a few small clouds.
And she had been as happy, she remembered, as it is possible to be, and as close to Calvin as she had ever been to anybody in her life, even Charles Wallace, so close that their separate bodies, daisies and buttercups joining rather than dividing them, seemed a single enjoyment of summer and sun and each other.
That was surely the purest kind of thing.
Mr. Jenkins had never had that kind of communion with another human being, a communion so rich and full that silence speaks more powerfully than words.
”
”
Madeleine L'Engle (A Wind in the Door (Time Quintet, #2))
“
The fear of death haunted me for a year. I cried whenever anyone dropped a glass or broke a picture. But even then that passed, I was left with a sadness that couldn't be rubbed off. It wasn't that something had happened. It was worse: I'd become aware of what had been with me all along without my notice. I dragged this new awareness around like a stone tied to my ankle. Wherever I went, it followed. I used to make up little sad songs in my head. I eulogized the falling leaves. I imagined my death in a hundred different ways, but the funeral was always the same: from somewhere in my imagination, out rolled a red carpet. Because after every secret death I died, my greatness was always discovered.
”
”
Nicole Krauss (The History of Love)
“
Yesterday, I had a dream... A dream I have had since long ago. In that dream, we had yet to turn 13. We were in a vast countryside, completely covered with snow. The lights of the houses extended far into the distance, a dazzling sight. We walked on the thick carpet of fresh snow, but didn't leave any footprints.
”
”
Makoto Shinkai
“
The tree-lined streets formed golden archways of autumnal colour, and whatever foliage had already fallen formed a russet carpet that came alive and danced around our wheels as we drove over it.
”
”
Alex Kefford (Two Jeeps)
“
A forest," William said, his expression distant. "Where the ground is dry soil and stone. Where tall trees grow and centuries of autumn carpet their roots. Where the wind smells of game and wildflowers."
"Why, that was lovely, Lord Bill. Do you ever write poetry? Something for your blueblood lady?"
"No."
"She doesn't like poetry?"
"Leave it."
Hehe. "Oh, so you have a lady. How interes--
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Bayou Moon (The Edge, #2))
“
You will leave now," she said softly, " or I will drag you out of here by your hair."
The man had breath like a day-old tuna sandwich. "I hate dykes. You always think you're tougher than you really----"
Xhex grabbed the man's wrist, turned him in a little circle, and cranked him arm up to the middle of his back. Then she clipped her leg around his ankles and shoved him off balance. He landed like a side of beef, the wind getting knocked out of him on a curse, his body plowing into the short-napped carpet. In a quick move, she bent down, buried one hand in his gelled-up hair, and locked the other on the collar of his suit jacket. As she draggep him face-first to the side exit, she was multitasking : creating a scene, commiting both an assault and a battery, and running the risk of a brawl if his buddies in the Hall of Fucktards got involved. But you had to put on a show every once in a while. To keep the peace, you had to get your hands dirty every once in a while.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover Enshrined (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #6))
“
The site of his thinking and writing was a small office wedged in one corner of his shaggy house, on whose door he’d installed a lock to keep his sons out. They gathered wistfully outside it, his boys, with their chipped, heartbreaking faces. They were not permitted to so much as knock upon the door to the room in which he thought and wrote about art, but Ted hadn’t found a way to keep them from prowling outside it, ghostly feral creatures drinking from a pond in moonlight, their bare feet digging at the carpet, their fingers sweating on the walls, leaving spoors of grease that Ted would point out each week to Elsa, the cleaning woman. He would sit in his office, listening to the movements of his boys, imagining that he felt their hot, curious breath. I will not let them in, he would tell himself. I will sit and think about art. But he found, to his despair, that often he couldn’t think about art. He thought about nothing at all.
”
”
Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad)
“
The rule apparently is – once a social revolution takes place there’s
no need to stoke the boiler. But I ask you: why, when this whole business started, should everybody suddenly start clumping up and down the marble staircase in dirty galoshes and felt boots? Why must we now keep our galoshes under lock and key? And put a soldier on guard over them to prevent them from being stolen? Why has the carpet been removed from the front staircase? Did Marx forbid people to keep their staircases carpeted? Did Karl Marx say anywhere
that the front door of No. 2 Kalabukhov House in Prechistenka Street must be boarded up so that people have to go round and come in by the back door? What good does it do anybody? Why can’t the proletarians leave their galoshes downstairs instead of dirtying the staircase?’
‘But the proletarians don’t have any galoshes, Philip Philipovich,’ stammered the doctor.
”
”
Mikhail Bulgakov (Heart of a Dog)
“
They program you to have no emotion – like if somebody sitting next to you gets killed you just have to carry on doing your job and shut up,‘ Steve Annabell, a British veteran of the Falkan War … ‘When you leave the service, when you come back from a situation like that, there’s no button they can press to switch your emotions back on. So you walk around like a zombie. They don’t deprogram you. If you become a problem they just sweep you under the carpet.
”
”
Chris Hedges
“
But you may feel differently. Maybe you’re one of those church members who get annoyed by the noise that comes with children or you get offended by the stains they leave behind in a perfectly clean church. If that’s you, I hope you’ll have the courage to reconsider. To start, maybe you’ll go to one of those marks on the wall or the stain on the brand-new carpeting and ask yourself this question: did Jesus die to save the carpet you’re standing on or the kid who made the stain?
”
”
Todd Burpo (Heaven Changes Everything: The Rest of Our Story)
“
But this was not what Blue was told. Again and again, she had her fingers spread wide, her palm examined, her cards plucked from velvet-edged decks and spread across the fuzz of a family friend’s living room carpet. Thumbs were pressed to the mystical, invisible third eye that was said to lie between everyone’s eyebrows. Runes were cast and dreams interpreted, tea leaves scrutinised and séances conducted.
All the women came to the same conclusion, blunt and inexplicably specific. What they all agreed on, in many different clairvoyant languages, was this:
If Blue was to kiss her true love, he would die.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1))
“
How I hate this world. I would like to tear it apart with my own two hands if I could. I would like to dismantle the universe star by star, like a treeful of rotten fruit. Nor do I believe in progress. A vermin-eaten saint scratching his filth for heaven is better off than you damned in clean linen. Progress doubles our tenure in a vale of tears. Man is a mistake, to be corrected only by his abolition, which he gives promise of seeing to himself. Oh, let him pass, and leave the earth to the flowers that carpet the earth wherever he explodes his triumphs. Man is inconsolable, thanks to that eternal "Why?" when there is no Why, that question mark twisted like a fishhook in the human heart. "Let there be light," we cry, and only the dawn breaks.
”
”
Peter De Vries (The Blood of the Lamb)
“
TIME WENT ON, life with the children unfolding in its own ecosystem, small plastic toys seeming to grow up from the carpet like mushrooms, clothes falling to the floor like autumn leaves. Every once in a while she would blaze through the house and clean everything--at which point, the process would start all over.
”
”
Erica Bauermeister (Joy for Beginners)
“
Only two weeks since he had left, and it was already happening. Time, blunting the edges of those sharp memories. Laila bore down mentally. What had he said? It seemed vital, suddenly, that she know.
Laila closed her eyes. Concentrated.
With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when Laila would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by Tariq's name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion—like the phantom pain of an amputee.
Except every once in a long while, when Laila was a grown woman, ironing a shirt or pushing her children on a swing set, something trivial, maybe the warmth of a carpet beneath her feet on a hot day or the curve of a stranger's forehead, would set off a memory of that afternoon together. And it would come rushing back. The spontaneity of it. Their astonishing imprudence...
It would flood her, steal her breath.
But then it would pass. The moment would pass. Leave her feeling deflated, feeling noting but a vague restlessness.
”
”
Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
“
My feet scuffed through the golden leaves carpeting the wide sidewalks. Sunlight and shadow danced on ivy-covered walls.
”
”
Ben Carson (Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story)
“
If on a winter's night a traveler, outside the town of Malbork, leaning from the steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down in the gathering shadow in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect, on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave-What story down there awaits its end? - he asks, anxious to hear the story.
”
”
Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler)
“
Finnikin met her eyes, wanting desperately to make sense of her request. Why Pietrodore? But in a moment the realization hit, and he smiled in wonder. “It’s not chance, Trevanion,” he said, kicking the golden carpet of leaves at his feet. He ran back toward her, sliding part of the way until he could grab her by the waist and swing her around. “You are a goddess, Evanjalin of the Monts.
”
”
Melina Marchetta (Finnikin of the Rock (Lumatere Chronicles, #1))
“
The marks life leaves on everything it touches transform perfection into wholeness. Older, wiser cultures choose to claim this wholeness in the things that they create. In Japan, Zen gardeners purposefully leave a fat dandelion in the midst of the exquisite, ritually precise patterns of the meditation garden. In Iran, even the most skilled of rug weavers includes an intentional error, the “Persian Flaw,” in the magnificence of a Tabriz or Qashqai carpet…and Native Americans wove a broken bead, the “spirit bead,” into every beaded masterpiece. Nothing that has a soul is perfect. When life weaves a spirit bead into your very fabric, you may stumble upon a wholeness greater than you had dreamed possible before.
”
”
Rachel Naomi Remen (My Grandfather's Blessings : Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging)
“
Vienna’s leaves burst from green into a riot of color—flame red, mustard yellow, warm gold, and honeyed ochre—before falling from the branches and carpeting the imperial boulevards with their used remnants.
”
”
Allison Pataki (Sisi: Empress on Her Own (Sisi #2))
“
Nobody sees it happening, but the architecture of our time
Is becoming the architecture of the next time. And the dazzle
Of light upon the waters is as nothing beside the changes
Wrought therein, just as our waywardness means
Nothing against the steady pull of things over the edge.
Nobody can stop the flow, but nobody can start it either.
Time slips by; our sorrows do not turn into poems,
And what is invisible stays that way. Desire has fled,
Leaving only a trace of perfume in its wake,
And so many people we loved have gone,
And no voice comes from outer space, from the folds
Of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this
Is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew
How long the ruins would last we would never complain.
”
”
Mark Strand
“
If you, like me, are essentially a city person, then the chances are that when you imagine a wood you picture a simple thing: matching green trees in even rows, a soft carpet of dead leaves or pine needles, orderly as a child’s drawing. Possibly those earnestly efficient man-made woods are in fact like that; I wouldn’t know.
”
”
Tana French (In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1))
“
I’ve grown more comfortable working with the dead. With parts of them, really. A few teeth, a vertebra, a piece of carpet that lay underneath a body for awhile. One of my German shepherd’s standard training materials is dirt harvested from sites where decomposing bodies rested. Crack open a Mason jar filled with that dirt, and all I smell is North Carolina woods—musky darkness with a hint of mildewed alder leaves. Solo smells the departed.
”
”
Cat Warren (What the Dog Knows: The Science and Wonder of Working Dogs)
“
Letty allowed her to ramble on while she looked around the wood, remembering its autumn carpet of beech leaves and wondering if it could be the kind of place to lie down in and prepare for death when life became too much to be endured.
”
”
Barbara Pym (Quartet in Autumn)
“
I knew it was a trap, itchy witch," the demon said, but then a flash of white exploded against the inside of the circle. I felt the bubble go down, leaving a white disk of ash where the carpet had burned away. "But I didn't know it was a lethal one," he continued,
”
”
Kim Harrison (Black Magic Sanction (The Hollows, #8))
“
The piano became a kind of flying carpet by which I could travel to an entirely different place, and I would leave the room with the half-dazed sensibility that children sometimes show when they have discovered a new and agreeable and utterly private world of their own.
”
”
Thad Carhart (The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier)
“
After forty-odd years you stop asking," she says. "Want some free advice?"
I nod.
"Don't trip over yourselves trying to be a perfect couple, love. Get out of each other's way; don't be afraid of falling out, shutting up, or telling little porky pies; do your share of the cleaning; don't leave your dirty undies inside out on the carpet; leave the seat down; buy her flowers once a month; and pinch her bum once a week - the rest's up to you.
”
”
Andy Jones (The Two of Us)
“
And then the leaves break out on the trees, and the petals drop from the fruit trees and carpet the earth with pink and white. The centers of the blossoms swell and grow and color: cherries and apples, peaches and pears, figs which close the flower in the fruit. All California quickens with produce, and the fruit grows heavy, and the limbs bend gradually under the fruit so that little crutches must be placed under them to support the weight.
”
”
John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath)
“
He saw the kind of beauty yellow flowers have growing over a carpet of dead leaves. The beauty of cracks forming a mosaic in a dry riverbed, of emerald-green algae at the base of a seawall, of a broken shard from a blue bottle. The beauty of a window smudged with tiny prints. The beauty of wild weeds.
”
”
Michelle Cuevas (Beyond the Laughing Sky)
“
That’s life. It’s a series of knock-down, drag-out fights with yourself and others that will leave you lying on the ground bruised and bloody and drooling all over your shag carpeting. But all that doesn’t define you, your reaction to it does. Your environment doesn’t make you who you are, your choices — your beliefs, do.
”
”
J.S.B. Morse (Now and at the Hour of Our Death)
“
So,Batman,eh?"
Effing St. Clair.
I cross my arms and slouch into one of the plastic seats. I am so not in the mood for this.He takes the chair next to me and drapes a relaxed arm over the back of the empty seat on his other side. The man across from us is engrossed in his laptop,and I pretend to be engrossed in his laptop,too. Well,the back of it.
St. Clair hums under his breath. When I don't respond,he sings quietly. "Jingle bells,Batman smells,Robin flew away..."
"Yes,great,I get it.Ha ha. Stupid me."
"What? It's just a Christmas song." He grins and continues a bit louder. "Batmobile lost a wheel,on the M1 motorway,hey!"
"Wait." I frown. "What?"
"What what?"
"You're singing it wrong."
"No,I'm not." He pauses. "How do you sing it?"
I pat my coat,double-checking for my passport. Phew. Still there. "It's 'Jingle bells, Batman smells,Robin laid an egg'-"
St. Clair snorts. "Laid an egg? Robin didn't lay an egg-"
"'Batmobile lost a wheel,and the Joker got away.'"
He stares at me for a moment,and then says with perfect conviction. "No."
"Yes.I mean,seriously,what's up with the motorway thing?"
"M1 motorway. Connects London to Leeds."
I smirk. "Batman is American. He doesn't take the M1 motorway."
"When he's on holiday he does."
"Who says Batman has time to vacation?"
"Why are we arguing about Batman?" He leans forward. "You're derailing us from the real topic.The fact that you, Anna Oliphant,slept in today."
"Thanks."
"You." He prods my leg with a finger. "Slept in."
I focus on the guy's laptop again. "Yeah.You mentioned that."
He flashes a crooked smile and shrugs, that full-bodied movement that turns him from English to French. "Hey, we made it,didn't we? No harm done."
I yank out a book from my backpack, Your Movie Sucks, a collection of Roger Ebert's favorite reviews of bad movies. A visual cue for him to leave me alone. St. Clair takes the hint. He slumps and taps his feet on the ugly blue carpeting.
I feel guilty for being so harsh. If it weren't for him,I would've missed the flight. St. Clair's fingers absentmindedly drum his stomach. His dark hair is extra messy this morning. I'm sure he didn't get up that much earlier than me,but,as usual, the bed-head is more attractive on him. With a painful twinge,I recall those other mornings together. Thanksgiving.Which we still haven't talked about.
”
”
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
“
A feeling of calm always fell over her like a cloak of happiness settling on her shoulders when she entered her father’s woods. Tall trees welcomed her under their canopy, offering her protection, while a carpet of yellow lesser celandine, with their shiny star-like flowers and dark green heart-shaped leaves, tickled her ankles as she walked amongst them.
”
”
Ellen Read (The Treasure)
“
If green carpet grew on trees instead of leaves, I’d pick off a few cats—with my rifle.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks (This isn't really my best book))
“
October passed. Leaves that his mother had once looked at loosened from the trees and twisted through the air, gathering in a slippery carpet at Byron’s feet.
”
”
Rachel Joyce (Perfect)
“
The Geranium
When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine -
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)
The things she endured!-
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.
Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me-
And that was scary-
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.
But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely.
”
”
Theodore Roethke (Selected Poems)
“
I may have smiled to myself as I watched the familiar pattern of the town pass, the bus cruising through shade to sunshine. I'd grown up in this place, had the knowledge of it so deep in me that I didn't even know most street names, navigating instead by landmarks, visual or memorial. The corner where my mother had twisted her ankle in a mauve pantsuit. The copse of trees that always looked vaguely attended by evil. The drugstore with its torn awning. Through the window of that unfamiliar bus, the burr of old carpet under my legs, my hometown seemed scrubbed clean of my presence. It was easy to leave it behind.
”
”
Emma Cline (The Girls)
“
Yet whatever her enthusiasm for independence, with time Chloe nevertheless began leaving things behind. Not toothbrushes or pairs of shoes, but pieces of herself. It began with language, with Chloe leaving me her way of saying not ever instead of never, and of stressing the be of before, or of saying take care before hanging up the telephone. She in turn acquired use of my perfect and if you really think so. Habits began to leak between us: I acquired Chloe's need for total darkness in the bedroom, she followed my way of folding the newspaper, I took to wandering in circles around the sofa to think a problem through, she acquired a taste carpet.
”
”
Alain de Botton (On Love)
“
Luckily, Coe had done so at the fag-end of a series of events so painfully compromising to the intelligence services as a whole that—as Lamb had observed—it had put the “us” in “clusterfuck,” leaving Regent’s Park with little choice but to lay a huge carpet over everything and sweep Slough House under
”
”
Mick Herron (London Rules (Slough House, #5))
“
Nights with bright pivots, departure, matter, uniquely voice, uniquely naked each day. Upon your breasts of still current, upon your legs ofharshness and water, upon the permanence and pride of your naked hair, I want to lie, my love, the tears now cast into the raucous basket where they gather, I want to lie, my love, alone with a syllable of destroyed silver, alone with a tip of your snowy breast. It is not now possible, at times, to win except by falling, it is not now possible, between two people, to tremble, to touch the river’s flower: man fibers come like needles, transactions, fragments, families of repulsive coral, tempests and hard passages through carpets of winter. Between lips and lips there are cities of great ash and moist crest, drops of when and how, indefinite traffic: between lips and lips, as if along a coast of sand and glass, the wind passes. That is why you are endless, gather me up as if you were all solemnity, all nocturnal like a zone, until you merge with the lines of time. Advance in sweetness, come to my side until the digital leaves of the violins have become silent, until the moss takes root in the thunder, until from the throbbing of hand and hand the roots come down.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Residence on Earth (New Directions Paperbook Book 992))
“
The taste for books was an early one. As a child he was sometimes found at midnight by a page still reading. They took his taper away, and he bred glow-worms to serve his purpose. They took the glow-worms away, and he almost burnt the house down with a tinder. To put it in a nutshell, leaving the novelist to smooth out the crumpled silk and all its implications, he was a nobleman afflicted with a love of literature. Many people of his time, still more of his rank, escaped the infection and were thus free to run or ride or make love at their own sweet will. But some were early infected by a germ said to be bred of the pollen of the asphodel and to be blown out of Greece and Italy, which was of so deadly a nature that it would shake the hand as it was raised to strike, and cloud the eye as it sought its prey, and make the tongue stammer as it declared its love. It was the fatal nature of this disease to substitute a phantom for reality, so that Orlando, to whom fortune had given every gift--plate, linen, houses, men-servants, carpets, beds in profusion--had only to open a book for the whole vast accumulation to turn to mist. The nine acres of stone which were his house vanished; one hundred and fifty indoor servants disappeared; his eighty riding horses became invisible; it would take too long to count the carpets, sofas, trappings, china, plate, cruets, chafing dishes and other movables often of beaten gold, which evaporated like so much sea mist under the miasma. So it was, and Orlando would sit by himself, reading, a naked man.
”
”
Virginia Woolf
“
Spring time in Florida is not a matter of peeping violets or bursting buds merely. It is a riot of color, in nature—glistening green leaves, pink, blue, purple, yellow blossoms that fairly stagger the visitor from the north. The miles of hyacinths are like an undulating carpet on the surface of the river and divide reluctantly when the slow-moving alligators push their way log-like across. The nights are white nights as the moon shines with dazzling splendor, or in the absence of that goddess, the soft darkness creeps down laden with innumerable scents. The heavy fragrance of magnolias mingled with the delicate sweetness of jasmine and wild roses.
”
”
Zora Neale Hurston (Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance)
“
Spring time in Florida is not a matter of peeping violets or bursting buds merely. It is a riot of color, in nature--glistening green leaves, pink, blue, purple, yellow blossoms that fairly stagger the visitor from the north. The miles of hyacinths are like an undulating carpet on the surface of the river and divide reluctantly when the slow-moving alligators push their way log-like across. The nights are white nights as the moon shines with dazzling splendor, or in the absence of that goddess, the soft darkness creeps down laden with innumerable scents. The heavy fragrance of magnolias mingled with the delicate sweetness of jasmine and wild roses.
”
”
Zora Neale Hurston (Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance)
“
The limbs of a stand of birch tree hold up the forest's form like women's bones. This grove has a magnetic pull, beckoning toward a carpet of blue-green mosses where I long to lie on my back and sing into the leaves. But it is a place where bodies were stacked, and I don't want to make friends with trees that once hid the dead.
”
”
Vesper Stamper (What the Night Sings)
“
Her heels grind uselessly into the carpet. Her toes curl at the fibers. She stands in the quiet womb of the room, waiting for a signal from the root brain, the ancient network from which the invader has been exiled. She lifts her arms until they are fully extended, her fingers turned outward. Her ears prick up like sharp leaves, alert for moisture.
”
”
Joe Hill (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (The Best American Series))
“
By far the largest single organisms that ever lived are plants, and an impressive percentage of the world’s biomass is locked up in plants. [...] The surface of the land is green because of plants, and the surface of the sea would be green too if its floating carpet of photosynthesisers were macroscopic plants instead of microorganisms too small to reflect noticeable quantities of green light. It is as though plants are going out of their way to cover every square centimetre with green, leaving none uncovered. And that is pretty much what they are doing […] From a plant’s point of view, a square centimetre of the Earth’s surface that is anything but green amounts to a negligently wasted opportunity to sweep up photons.
”
”
Richard Dawkins (The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution)
“
There was a man who found two leaves and came indoors holding them out saying to his parents that he was a tree.
To which they said then go into the yard and do not grow in the living-room as your roots may ruin the carpet.
He said I was fooling I am not a tree and he dropped his leaves.
But his parents said look it is fall.
Hilarious, obviously. That this is a "man" and not a child is important. I imagine someone in their late twenties still living with his parents and acting childish. He comes in and begins to play a game, he is a tree. His parents use the game as an excuse to kick him out of the house, playfully (but with a serious undercurrent) threatening him with expulsion. He sees this and feels threatened and ends the game, dropping his leaves. But his parents -- clever -- interpret his refusal to play as another part of the game, and now he is trapped in his own metaphor, unable to escape. The fall, of course, is the season in which things are done ripening and are ready for harvest, just as it is time for him to leave home. Games and metaphors are always more insidious than we know.
”
”
Russell Edson
“
One morning she at last succeeded in helping him to the foot of the steps, trampling down the grass before him with her feet, and clearing a way for him through the briars, whose supple arms barred the last few yards. Then they slowly entered the wood of roses. It was indeed a very wood, with thickets of tall standard roses throwing out leafy clumps as big as trees, and enormous rose bushes impenetrable as copses of young oaks. Here, formerly, there had been a most marvellous collection of plants. But since the flower garden had been left in abandonment, everything had run wild, and a virgin forest had arisen, a forest of roses over-running the paths, crowded with wild offshoots, so mingled, so blended, that roses of every scent and hue seemed to blossom on the same stem. Creeping roses formed mossy carpets on the ground, while climbing roses clung to others like greedy ivy plants, and ascended in spindles of verdure, letting a shower of their loosened petals fall at the lightest breeze. Natural paths coursed through the wood — narrow footways, broad avenues, enchanting covered walks in which one strolled in the shade and scent. These led to glades and clearings, under bowers of small red roses, and between walls hung with tiny yellow ones. Some sunny nooks gleamed like green silken stuff embroidered with bright patterns; other shadier corners offered the seclusion of alcoves and an aroma of love, the balmy warmth, as it were, of a posy languishing on a woman’s bosom. The rose bushes had whispering voices too. And the rose bushes were full of songbirds’ nests. ‘We must take care not to lose ourselves,’ said Albine, as she entered the wood. ‘I did lose myself once, and the sun had set before I was able to free myself from the rose bushes which caught me by the skirt at every step.’ They had barely walked a few minutes, however, before Serge, worn out with fatigue, wished to sit down. He stretched himself upon the ground, and fell into deep slumber. Albine sat musing by his side. They were on the edge of a glade, near a narrow path which stretched away through the wood, streaked with flashes of sunlight, and, through a small round blue gap at its far end, revealed the sky. Other little paths led from the clearing into leafy recesses. The glade was formed of tall rose bushes rising one above the other with such a wealth of branches, such a tangle of thorny shoots, that big patches of foliage were caught aloft, and hung there tent-like, stretching out from bush to bush. Through the tiny apertures in the patches of leaves, which were suggestive of fine lace, the light
”
”
Émile Zola (Delphi Complete Works of Emile Zola)
“
The chokecherries -- gregarious and chatty, perched on their branches calling out to everyone to strip them off. Wild plums -- sarcastic and timid at the same time -- called out from behind their leaves only to retreat into the brushy brambles where they lived. Raspberries and blackberries -- royal and corrupt princes -- braved it out in the full sun of forest clearings. Gooseberries and huckleberries -- reticent, tradition-bound and private -- lived on unbothered in the swamps. Cranberries and pincherries (those party-goers) draped themselves over the furniture of the branches and invited all passerby, birds and people, to join the party. The blueberries and wintergreen grew undisturbed -- calmly bourgeois -- in the carpeted hush of the big woods.
”
”
David Treuer (The Translation of Dr Apelles: A Love Story)
“
This is madness,” he whispered against her ear. But he made no move to let her go.
Her reply was an incoherent, confused moan, and her body became slightly more pliant in his arms, allowing him to mold her even closer to his form. He knew he should stop, knew he damned well shouldn’t have started, but his blood was racing with need, and she felt so . . .so . . .
So good.
He groaned, his lips leaving hers to taste the slightly salty skin of her neck. There was something about her that suited him like no woman ever had before, as if his body had discovered something his mind utterly refused to consider.
Something about her was . . . right.
She felt right. She smelled right. She tasted right. And he knew that if he stripped off all of her clothes and took her there on the carpet on the floor of his study, she would fit underneath him, fit around him— just right.
It occurred to Anthony that when she wasn’t arguing with him, Kate Sheffield might bloody well be the finest woman in England.
Her arms, which had been imprisoned in his embrace, slowly edged up, until her hands were hesitantly resting on his back. And then her lips moved. It was a tiny thing, actually, a movement barely felt on the thin skin of his forehead, but she was definitely kissing him back.
A low, triumphant growl emerged from Anthony’s mouth as he moved his mouth back to hers, kissing her fiercely, daring her to continue what she’d begun. “Oh, Kate,” he moaned, nudging her back until she was leaning against the edge of the desk. “God, you taste so good.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2))
“
Thus is the defining characteristic of gay millennials: we straddle the pre-Glee and post-Glee worlds. We went to high school when faggot wasn’t even considered an F-word, when being a lesbian meant boys just didn’t want you, when being nonbinary wasn’t even a remote option. We grew up without queer characters in our cartoons or Nickelodeon or Disney or TGIF sitcoms. We were raised in homophobia, came of age as the world changed around us, and are raising children in an age where it’s never been easier to be same-sex parents. We’re both lucky and jealous. As the state of gay evolved culturally and politically, we were old enough to see it and process it and not take it for granted–old enough to know what the world was like without it. Despite the success of Drag Race, the existence of lesbian Christmas rom-coms, and openly transgender Oscar nominees, we haven’t moved on from the trauma of growing up in a culture that hates us. We don’t move on from trauma, really. We can’t really leave it in the past. It becomes a part of us, and we move forward with it.
For LGBTQ+ millennials, our pride is couched in painful memories of a culture repulsed and frightened by queerness. That makes us skittish. It makes us loud. It makes us fear that all this progress, all this tolerance , all of Billy Porter's red carpet looks can vanish as quickly as it all appeared.
”
”
Grace Perry (The 2000s Made Me Gay: Essays on Pop Culture)
“
A sudden gust made the branches of the trees shiver, raining down a few bright green leaves. A fly buzzed in the grass near her shoulder, making her think suddenly of the bodies inside, of the way flies would be landing on them, of the opalescent maggots that would hatch and tunnel, multiplying endlessly, spreading like an infection, until black flies covered the room in a shifting carpet. Until all anyone could hear was the whirring of their glassy wings.
”
”
Holly Black (The Coldest Girl in Coldtown)
“
In Green Grandeur by Stewart Stafford
Under towers of green pillars,
Grow those leafed palaces,
Stretching out their tall limbs,
Up skyward in thanksgiving.
Saplings with peacock foliage,
A forest floor carpeted thickly,
With dead leaves, kindling and,
Subterranean roots peeking out.
Storm-crooked trunks stooping,
To the lightning-shattered bows,
Fingers of dying sunlight reach,
To caress the ivy-entwined bark.
© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
There was a knock on the bedroom door and Romeo stiffened. “What!” he yelled.
“I hope no one’s naked, ‘cause I’m coming in!” Braeden hollered. A few seconds later, the door opened and he stepped inside. One of his hands covered his eyes.
“Is it safe?” he asked.
I giggled. “Is that a no for tacos?”
Romeo shook his head and rolled his eyes. “We’re dressed, man.”
Braeden dropped the hand over his eyes and he zeroed in on me. It took everything in me not to shrink back from embarrassment. He came across the carpeting and held out my glasses. “Here,” he said. “I figured you might need these.”
Ah, that explained why everything still looked so blurry.
I slid them on and smiled as my sight adjusted back to normal. I noticed Braeden was soaking wet.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “You have to be freezing!”
I rushed around the room, pulling out clothes and socks and tossing them at Braeden’s feet. “Here! Put this stuff on.”
“She’s giving away your clothes, man,” Braeden said to Romeo.
“Chicks.” He sighed.
Braeden shook his head.
“You’re dripping on the carpet!” I reminded him.
He laughed and went in the bathroom to get dressed.
“Just leave your clothes with ours. I’ll wash them for you,” I yelled through the door.
He laughed. “Laundry service? Damn! I’m moving in.”
Romeo shook his head.
I yawned. This entire day was catching up to me. Romeo frowned. “I’ll make everyone leave…” He began.
“No!” I exclaimed. “This is your victory party! Go enjoy it. I’ll stay here.”
He seemed torn on what to do. Braeden came out wearing Romeo’s clothes (they fit him pretty well) and ran his eyes over me in concern. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Did you jump in the pool to get my glasses?”
He nodded.
“Actually, he jumped in the pool right after I did. In case I needed help towing you out.” Romeo corrected.
I glanced at Braeden for confirmation. He shrugged. “What kind of brother would I be if I let you drown?”
Without thought, I walked over and wrapped my arms around him. He seemed a little taken aback by my display of affection, but after a minute, he hugged me back. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“Anytime, tutor girl.” His voice was soft and his arms tightened around me just slightly. For all his witty humor, sarcastic one-liners, and jokes, Braeden was a really good guy. “We need to teach you to swim.” He observed.
I shuddered. “I know how to swim.”
“Well, you sank to the bottom like an anchor,” he grumbled.
”
”
Cambria Hebert (#Hater (Hashtag, #2))
“
Hiking around like this, they experience the kind of joy that makes you eager for life, and eager to lead a fuller life. Whenever they walked past a leafy green enclosure they felt, not that happiness was there in that leafy green enclosure, but that happiness was like that, had the silent majesty of those leaves, the dimensions of that buoyant enclosure, the dreamy depths of its carpet of grass, and that they needed to have all these forces and qualities coursing through their life.
”
”
Anne Serre (The Governesses)
“
As Nouri entered the sacred space, he could feel his breath catch and a shiver run down his spine. The floor was lined with fine woven carpets, the walls were graced with filigreed windows, and the dome—which spread out over their heads—was richly painted with flowers and leaves and suns and moons and stars. But what thrilled Nouri the most was the fact that wherever he looked—on the walls—on the doors—on the frieze that ran in a circle beneath the dome—were the most exquisitely calligraphed words.
”
”
Michael Golding (A Poet of the Invisible World)
“
There is a visitor, Countess.”
“A visitor?” Mother looks toward the rain-drenched windows. “Who would be out in this mess? Has their car given out?”
“No, My Lady. The young woman says her name is Nancy Herald. She apologized for not making an appointment and provided her card. It seems to be a business proposition.”
My mother makes a sweeping motion with the back of her hand.
“I have no interest or time for business propositions. Send her on her way, please.”
Stanhope places a business card on the table, bows, and leaves the room.
Penny picks it up as she sips her drink, looks it over—and then spits her brandy all over the carpet.
“Penelope!” mother yells.
My sister stands up, waving the card over her head like Veruca Salt after she got her hands on the golden ticket to the chocolate factory.
“Stanhope!” she screams. “Don’t let her leave! She a television producer!”
Penny turns to me and in a quieter but urgent voice says, “She’s a television producer.”
As if I didn’t hear her the first time.
Then she sprints from the room. Or . . . tries to. Halfway to the door, her heel catches on the carpet and she falls flat on her face with an “Ooof.”
“Are you all right, Pen?”
She pulls herself up, waving her hands. “I’m fine! Or I will be, as long as she doesn’t leave!”
The second try’s the charm, and Penelope scurries out of the room as fast as her four-inch heels will take her.
My mother shakes her head at my sister’s retreating form.
“Too much sugar, that one.”
Then she drains her glass.
”
”
Emma Chase (Royally Matched (Royally, #2))
“
There is another system, more beaded than weather or murder, that is moving up into the province. As Les leaves the chair to investigate his son’s crying a thousand zombies form an alliterative fog around Lake Scugog and beyond, mouthing the words Helen, hello, help. This fog predominates the region; however, other systems compete, bursting and winding with vowels braiding into dipthongs so long that they dissipate across a thousand panting lips. In the suburbs of Barrie, for instance, an alliteration that began with the wail of a cat in heat picked up the consonant “Guh” from a fisherman caught in surprise on Lake Simcoe. The echoing coves of the lake added a sort of meter, and by the time these sounds arrived in Gravenhurst, the people there were certain that a musical was blaring from speakers in the woods. All across the province, zombies, like extras in a crowd scene, imitate a thousand conversations. They open and close their mouths on things and sound is a heavy carpet of mumbling, a pre-production monstrosity. In minutes the Pontypool fog will march on the town of Sunderland and over the barriers south of Lindsay.
”
”
Tony Burgess (Pontypool Changes Everything)
“
It was slow at first, dead things slowly mouldering away. The flies in the corners, the dried flowers in their clay pots. The stuffed bird Alfie bought, only because he was both fascinated and disgusted by it in equal measures, was molting on it's perch. It's feathers falling like leaves then laying, parched and cracking dry. The sea shells I kept on my windowsill turned slowly back into sand and the wind filtering through the curtains blew the pieces into the creases of my bedsheets. When I pulled them over my head at night they felt like waves crashing against my ears. It made my thoughts sodden and heavy like impalpable clay, they dredged through my mind like half-forgotten things. Wave: a face, a feeling, the ghost of a name balancing on my teeth and ready to- crash: and now gone, like a dream I once tried to remember though it was already evaporating quick from my morning-shaking fingers. I started dreaming of crumbling sandcastles and the ocean lapping at my feet. I woke in waves and lay, rocking, until I got up to place my feet in the quiet carpet and watch through my down-turned, dream-filled lashes, as it exhaled dust at every step.
”
”
KI (The Dust Book)
“
In this I was like Elstir, who, unable to leave his studio on certain spring days when the knowledge that the woods were full of violets made him desperate to see some, would send his portress to buy a bunch of them; then, his heart melting, almost hallucinating, he would see not the table on which he had placed the small botanical specimen, but all the carpet of the undergrowth where formerly, in their thousands, he had seen the twisting stems bending under their blue, beak-like blossoms; his eyes created an imaginary zone, marked off in his studio by the pure scent of the evocative flower.
”
”
Marcel Proust (The Prisoner: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 5 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition))
“
The guard locks the gates of the turbeh, letting the heavy sound of the lock fall into the dark interior, as though leaving the name of the key inside. Dispirited, like me, he sits down on the stone beside me and closes his eyes. Just when I think he has dozed off in his part of the shade, the guard lifts his hand and points to a moth fluttering above the entrance to the tomb, having come out of our clothes or the Persian carpets in the turbeh.
"You see," he says to me casually, "the moth is way up there by the white wall of the doorway, and it is visible only because it moves. From here it almost looks like a bird in the sky. That's probably how the moth sees the wall, and only we know it is wrong. But it doesn't know that we know. It doesn't even know we exist. You try to communicate with it if you can. Can you tell it anything in a way it understands; can you be sure it understood you completely?"
"I don't know," I replied. "Can You?"
"Yes," the old man said quietly, and with a clap of his hands he killed the moth, then profered its crushed body on the palm of his hand.
"Do you think it didn't understand what I told it?"
"You can do the same thing with a candle, extinguish it with your two fingers to prove you exist," I commented.
"Certainly, if a candle is capable of dying... Now, imagine," he went on, "that there is somebody who knows about us what we know about the moth. Somebody who knows how, with what, and why this space that we call the sky and assume to be boundless, is bounded-- somebody who cannot approach us to let us know that he exists except in one way-- by killing us. Somebody, on whose garments we are nourished, somebody who carries our death in his hand like a tongue, as a means of communicating with us. By killing us, this anonymous being informs us about himself. And we, through our deaths, which may be no more than a warning to some wayfarer sitting alongside the assassin, we, I say, can at the last moment perceive, as through an opened door, new fields and other boundaries. This sixth and highest degree of deathly fear (where there is no memory) is what holds and links us anonymous participants in the game. The hierarchy of death is, in fact, the only thing that makes possible a system of contacts between the various levels of reality in an otherwise vast space where deaths endlessly repeat themselves like echoes within echoes...
”
”
Milorad Pavić
“
I Am the Highway"
Pearls of swine bereft of me
Long and weary my road has been
I was lost in the cities
Alone in the hills
No sorrow or pity for the leaving I feel
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
Friends and liars don't wait for me
I'll get on all by myself
I put millions of miles
Under my heels
And still too close to you
I feel
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightening
I am not your autumn moon
I am the night
Chris Cornell (July 20, 1964 - May 18, 2017)
”
”
The Friends and Fans of Chris Cornell
“
I gaze like one enchanted. Only when the woman stands up and moves noiselessly to the table do I step back hastily. My heart is beating fast. In the wild light of the rockets and among the shattered ruins of front-line villages, I had almost forgotten such things existed—such street-long, walked-in peace of carpets and warmth and women. I should like to open the door and go in and curl myself up on the settle; I should like to stretch out my hands to the warmth there and let it flood over me; I should like to talk and to thaw out there the hardness, the violence, all the past; to leave it behind me, peel it off like a dirty shirt.
”
”
Erich Maria Remarque (The Road Back)
“
In the ensuing two weeks Ian managed to buy back Elizabeth’s emeralds and Havenhurst, but he was unable to find a trace of his wife. The town house in London felt like a prison, not a home, and still he waited, sensing somehow that Elizabeth was putting him through this torment to teach him some kind of well-deserved lesson.
He returned to Montmayne, where, for several more weeks, he prowled about its rooms, paced a track in the drawing room carpet, and stared into its marble-fronted fireplaces as if the answer would be there in the flames. Finally he could stand it no more. He couldn’t concentrate on his work, and when he tried, he made mistakes. Worse, he was beginning to be haunted with walking nightmares that she’d come to harm-or that she was falling in love with someone kinder than he-and the tormenting illusions followed him from room to room.
On a clear, cold day in early December, after leaving instructions with his footmen, butler, and even his cook that he was to be notified immediately if any word at all was received from Elizabeth, he left for the cottage in Scotland. It was the one place where he might find peace from the throbbing emptiness that was gnawing away at him with a pain that increased unbearably from day to day, because he no longer really believed she would ever contact him.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
Nights with bright pivots, departure, matter, uniquely voice, uniquely naked each day. Upon your breasts of still current, upon your legs ofharshness and water, upon the permanence and pride of your naked hair, I want to lie, my love, the tears now cast into the raucous basket where they gather, I want to lie, my love, alone with a syllable of destroyed silver, alone with a tip of your snowy breast. It is not now possible, at times, to win except by falling, it is not now possible, between two people, to tremble, to touch the river’s flower: man fibers come like needles, transactions, fragments, families of repulsive coral, tempests and hard passages through carpets of winter. Between lips and lips there are cities of great ash and moist crest, drops of when and how, indefinite traffic: between lips and lips, as if along a coast of sand and glass, the wind passes. That is why you are endless, gather me up as if you were all solemnity, all nocturnal like a zone, until you merge with the lines of time. Advance in sweetness, come to my side until the digital leaves of the violins have become silent, until the moss takes root in the thunder, until from the throbbing of hand and hand the roots come down. VALS Yo toco el odio como pecho diurno, yo sin cesar, de ropa en ropa, vengo durmiendo lejos.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Residence on Earth (New Directions Paperbook Book 992))
“
Astarte has come again, more powerful than before. She possesses me. She lies in wait for me.
December 97
My cruelty has also returned: the cruelty which frightens me. It lies dormant for months, for years, and then all at once awakens, bursts forth and - once the crisis is over - leaves me in mortal terror of myself.
Just now in the avenue of the Bois, I whipped my dog till he bled, and for nothing - for not coming immediately when I called! The poor animal was there before me, his spine arched, cowering close to the ground, with his great, almost human, eyes fixed on me... and his lamentable howling! It was as though he were waiting for the butcher! But it was as if a kind of drunkenness had possessed me. The more I struck out the more I wanted to strike; every shudder of that quivering flesh filled me with some incomprehensible ardour. A circle of onlookers formed around me, and I only stopped myself for the sake of my self-respect.
Afterwards, I was ashamed.
I am always ashamed of myself nowadays. The pulse of life has always filled me with a peculiar rage to destroy. When I think of two beings in love, I experience an agonising sensation; by virtue of some bizarre backlash, there is something which smothers and oppresses me, and I suffocate, to the point of anguish.
Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night to the muted hubbub of bumps and voices which suddenly become perceptible in the dormant city - all the cries of sexual excitement and sensuality which are the nocturnal respiration of cities - I feel weak. They rise up around me, submerging me in a sluggish flux of embraces and a tide of spasms. A crushing weight presses down on my chest; a cold sweat breaks out on my brow and my heart is heavy - so heavy that I have to get up, run bare-foot and breathless, to my window, and open both shutters, trying desperately to breathe. What an atrocious sensation it is! It is as if two arms of steel bear down upon my shoulders and a kind of hunger hollows out my stomach, tearing apart my whole being! A hunger to exterminate love.
Oh, those nights! The long hours I have spent at my window, bent over the immobile trees of the square and the paving-stones of the deserted street, on watch in the silence of the city, starting at the least noise! The nights I have passed, my heart hammering in anguish, wretchedly and impatiently waiting for my torment to consent to leave me, and for my desire to fold up the heavy wings which beat inside the walls of my being like the wings of some great fluttering bird!
Oh, my cruel and interminable nights of impotent rebellion against the rutting of Paris abed: those nights when I would have liked to embrace all the bodies, to suck in all the breaths and sup all the mouths... those nights which would find me, in the morning, prostrate on the carpet, scratching it still with inert and ineffectual fingers... fingers which never know anything but emptiness, whose nails are still taut with the passion of murder twenty-four hours after the crises... nails which I will one day end up plunging into the satined flesh of a neck, and...
It is quite clear, you see, that I am possessed by a demon... a demon which doctors would treat with some bromide or with all-healing sal ammoniac! As if medicines could ever be imagined to be effective against such evil!
”
”
Jean Lorrain (Monsieur De Phocas)
“
But as yet, the neighbourhood was shy to own the Railroad. One or two bold speculators had projected streets; and one had built a little, but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider farther of it. A bran-new Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting nothing at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms; but that might be rash enterprise—and then it hoped to sell drink to the workmen. So, the Excavators’ House of Call had sprung up from a beer shop; and the old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the Railway Eating House, with a roast leg of pork daily, through interested motives of a similar immediate and popular description. Lodging-house keepers were favourable in like manner; and for the like reasons were not to be trusted. The general belief was very slow. There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer-houses, and carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster shells in the lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded cabbage leaves in all seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts, and rails, and old cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses, and patches of wretched vegetation stared it out of countenance. Nothing was the better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable waste ground lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to scorn, like many of the miserable neighbours.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Dombey and Son)
“
Only two weeks since he had left, and it was already happening. Time, blunting the edges of those sharp memories. Laila bore down mentally. What had he said? It seemed vital, suddenly, that she know.
Laila closed her eyes. Concentrated.
With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when Laila would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by Tariq's name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion - like the phantom pain of an amputee.
Except every once in a long while, when Laila was a grown woman, ironing a shirt or pushing her children on a swing set, something trivial, maybe the warmth of a carpet beneath her feet on a hot day or the curve of a stranger's forehead, would set off a memory of that afternoon together. And it would all come rushing back. The spontaneity of it. Their astonishing imprudence. Their clumsiness. The pain of the act, the pleasure of it, the sadness of it. The heat of their entangled bodies.
It would flood her, steal her breath.
But then it would pass. The moment would pass. Leave her deflated, feeling nothing but a vague restlessness.
”
”
Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
“
The Phantastic Phantasms by Stewart Stafford
Halloween Henry sitting on top of a pumpkin he made
Eyes are ablaze
Morbid Melissa breastfeeding strychnine to all of the babes
Her smile never fades
Don’t you see that darkness creeping?
It’s a nightmare without sleeping
Trick-or-Treat Trevor knocking on doors with no head to display
It’s his headless way
Emmet The Clownface
Haunting the grounds of an old children’s school
He’s nobody’s ghoul
On a carpet of Autumn leaves
They’re around every All Hallow’s Eve
Sam O’Terry counting the bones of his earthly remains
None of them lame
Simon-Whose-Head-Hurts taking his 920th overdose
Chemically verbose
They will always do their worst
On October the 31st
©Stewart Stafford, 2018. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
If people cannot ever develop into one of our top three cooks, servers, managers, or maître d’s, why would we hire them? How will they help us improve and become champions? It’s pretty easy to spot an overwhelmingly strong candidate or even an underwhelmingly weak candidate. It’s the “whelming” candidate you must avoid at all costs, because that’s the one who can and will do your organization the most long-lasting harm. Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave on their own or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you can’t get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; they’re comfortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of getting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired.
”
”
Danny Meyer
“
Sam,” says Gonzo, “if we are ambushed in the next twenty minutes by anthropophagous plants or by giant fish-rabbits looking for their horrid young, I am going to let them have you. In fact I will serve you to them on a plate made of banana leaves. I will put a white napkin over my arm and I will carry you into their dining room with an apple in your mouth, and I will offer to carve you. I will recommend a fullbodied red wine, because I suspect your meat will be gamey or even smoked, and I will bow until my nose touches the vile, gobbet-covered carpet of their lair and wish them bon appétit, and then I will walk out and consider myself richer and the world a better, less arsehole-ridden place.” Sam just stares at him, because this sort of discourse is not his daily fare, and Gonzo sighs. “Sam,” Gonzo says, “don’t do that again.
”
”
Nick Harkaway (The Gone-Away World)
“
Heaven preserve us! what a hotch-potch!” cried Hubert. “Is that what they are doing nowadays? I very seldom read a novel, but when I glance into one, I’m sure to find some such stuff as that! Nothing irritates me so as the flatness of people’s imagination. Common life — I don’t say it’s a vision of bliss, but it’s better than that! Their stories are like the underside of a carpet, — nothing but the stringy grain of the tissue — a muddle of figures without shape and flowers without color. When I read a novel my imagination starts off at a gallop and leaves the narrator hidden in a cloud of dust; I have to come jogging twenty miles back to the denouement. Your clergyman here with his Romish sweetheart must be a very pretty fellow. Why didn’t he marry her first and convert her afterwards? Isn’t a clergyman after all, before all, a man?
”
”
Henry James (Delphi Complete Works of Henry James)
“
Good lord, you’re bleeding!” the woman called. “Dovie, sit him down before he dies.” Dovie pulled a chair out from the kitchen table, situated between the kitchen and living room. She raised an eyebrow at him and her glittered shadow caught the light. He slipped out of his shoes, though she’d left hers on, and walked across the living room, leaving depressions in the green carpet. The woman disappeared down a hall and came back with a first aid kit and a wet washcloth. “These the only boo-boos?” He looked at her, uncomprehending. “Yuri’s Russian,” Dovie said, then explained, “she wants to know where you’re hurt.” “Oh. I have multiple superficial abrasions and small laceration to forehead and left lateral mouth, with localized swelling. So, compromised skin integrity and risk for infection, but no skeletal issues.” “I see,” Mrs. Collum said, smiling.
”
”
Katie Kennedy (Learning to Swear in America)
“
From seaport to seaport, papers accumulate on the captain’s desk. “Paperwork has become the bane of this job,” he says. “If a ship doesn’t have a good copying machine, it isn’t seaworthy. The more ports, the more papers. South American paperwork is worse than the paperwork anywhere else in the world but the Arab countries and Indonesia.” Deliberately, he allows the pile on his desk to rise until a deep roll on a Pacific swell throws it to the deck and scatters it from bulkhead to bulkhead. This he interprets as a signal that the time has come to do paperwork. The paper carpet may be an inch deep, but he leaves it where it fell. Bending over, he picks up one sheet. He deals with it: makes an entry, writes a letter—does whatever it requires him to do. Then he bends over and picks up another sheet. This goes on for a few days until, literally, he has cleared his deck. The
”
”
John McPhee (Looking for a Ship)
“
February gave way to March, with its bursting colors of a too-early spring. Such warm weather was a welcome contrast to the near freezes of the previous year, as if this newborn century was impatient to exhibit its glory and all the unforeseen changes it would bring. Alice’s heart expanded at the sight of white snowdrops in lieu of absent snow; the vivid purples of wild petunias, pincushion flowers, and irises laced with the varying hues of tulips; and the glorious flowering shrubs---azaleas and camellias---lighting up the shade, covered entirely in blossoms as if they nurtured blooms but no leaves. She had seen the prairie carpeted in wildflowers, but this display was unlike that wild one of nature, somehow singularly intimate and welcoming, whereas the prairie engulfed and dwarfed her. There is not one thing that humankind has done on earth that is equal to one square inch of this, she thought.
”
”
Diane C. McPhail (The Seamstress of New Orleans)
“
A home is the only space that aspires to be a constant. But a home is also a space that always represents everything we can be, and because of this, the perfect home is an insatiable thirst. Buoyed by a façade of stability, you start accumulating things. The strategically placed bookshelf in your study behind you during online meetings as a nod to your intellect. The scented candles and artwork on the wall that guests compliment you on at dinner parties. A portrait of a smiling family casually sitting on top of the piano, to flaunt domestic bliss. The instruments and amps scattered across a carpeted floor, a cabinet full of jazz records. You want to leave your past behind, a decade of putting roses in a beer can in lieu of a vase. You want an ever-expanding place that deserves these things. But what if you live in a city where there was never any space for this to begin with, where permanence can never be promised?
”
”
Karen Cheung (The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir)
“
Jack took two steps towards the couch and then heard his daughter’s distressed wails, wincing. “Oh, right. The munchkin.”
He instead turned and headed for the stairs, yawning and scratching his messy brown hair, calling out, “Hang on, chubby monkey, Daddy’s coming.”
Jack reached the top of the stairs.
And stopped dead.
There was a dragon standing in the darkened hallway.
At first, Jack swore he was still asleep. He had to be. He couldn’t possibly be seeing correctly.
And yet the icy fear slipping down his spine said differently.
The dragon stood at roughly five feet tall once its head rose upon sighting Jack at the other end of the hallway. It was lean and had dirty brown scales with an off-white belly. Its black, hooked claws kneaded the carpet as its yellow eyes stared out at Jack, its pupils dilating to drink him in from head to toe. Its wings rustled along its back on either side of the sharp spines protruding down its body to the thin, whip-like tail. A single horn glinted sharp and deadly under the small, motion-activated hallway light.
The only thing more noticeable than that were the many long, jagged scars scored across the creature’s stomach, limbs, and neck. It had been hunted recently. Judging from the depth and extent of the scars, it had certainly killed a hunter or two to have survived with so many marks.
“Okay,” Jack whispered hoarsely. “Five bucks says you’re not the Easter Bunny.”
The dragon’s nostrils flared. It adjusted its body, feet apart, lips sliding away from sharp, gleaming white teeth in a warning hiss. Mercifully, Naila had quieted and no longer drew the creature’s attention. Jack swallowed hard and held out one hand, bending slightly so his six-foot-two-inch frame was less threatening. “Look at me, buddy. Just keep looking at me. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you. Why don’t you just come this way, huh?”
He took a single step down and the creature crept forward towards him, hissing louder. “That’s right. This way. Come on.”
Jack eased backwards one stair at a time. The dragon let out a warning bark and followed him, its saliva leaving damp patches on the cream-colored carpet. Along the way, Jack had slipped his phone out of his pocket and dialed 9-1-1, hoping he had just enough seconds left in the reptile’s waning patience.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“Listen to me carefully,” Jack said, not letting his eyes stray from the dragon as he fumbled behind him for the handle to the sliding glass door. He then quickly gave her his address before continuing. “There is an Appalachian forest dragon in my house. Get someone over here as fast as you can.”
“We’re contacting a retrieval team now, sir. Please stay calm and try not to make any loud noises or sudden movements–“
Jack had one barefoot on the cool stone of his patio when his daughter Naila cried for him again.
The dragon’s head turned towards the direction of upstairs.
Jack dropped his cell phone, grabbed a patio chair, and slammed it down on top of the dragon’s head as hard as he could.
”
”
Kyoko M. (Of Fury & Fangs (Of Cinder & Bone, #4))
“
Finally, I ask our managers to weigh one other critical factor as they handicap the prospect. Do they believe the candidate has the capacity to become one of the top three performers on our team in his or her job category? If people cannot ever develop into one of our top three cooks, servers, managers, or maître d’s, why would we hire them? How will they help us improve and become champions? It’s pretty easy to spot an overwhelmingly strong candidate or even an underwhelmingly weak candidate. It’s the “whelming” candidate you must avoid at all costs, because that’s the one who can and will do your organization the most long-lasting harm. Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave on their own or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you can’t get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; they’re comfortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of getting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired. And
”
”
Danny Meyer
“
He just wanted a walk- and a few books. It had been an age since he'd even had free time to read, let alone do so for pleasure.
But there she was.
His mate.
She was nothing like Jesminda.
Jesminda had been all laughter and mischief, too wild and free to be contained by the country life that she'd been born into. She had teased him, taunted him- seduced him so thoroughly that he hadn't wanted anything but her. She'd seen him not as a High Lord's seventh son, but as a male. Had loved him without question, without hesitation. She had chosen him.
Elain had been... thrown at him.
He glanced toward the tea service spread on a low-lying table nearby. 'I'm going to assume that one of those cups belongs to your sister.' Indeed, there was a discarded book in the viper's usual chair. Cauldron help the male who wound up shackled to her.
'Do you mind if I held myself to the other?'
He tried to sound casual- comfortable. Even as his heart raced and raced, so swift he thought he might vomit on the very expensive, very old carpet. From Sangravah, if the patterns and rich dyes were any indication.
Rhysand was many things, but he certainly had good taste.
The entire place had been decorated with thought and elegance, with a penchant for comfort over stuffiness.
He didn't want to admit he liked it. Didn't want to admit he found the city beautiful.
That the circle of people who now claimed to be Feyre's new family... It was what, long ago, he'd once thought life at Tamlin's court would be.
An ache like a blow to the chest went through him, but he crossed the rug. Forced his hands to be steady while he poured himself a cup of tea and sat in the chair opposite Nesta's vacated one.
'There's a plate of biscuits. Would you like one?'
He didn't expect her to answer, and he gave himself all of one more minute before he'd rise from this chair and leave, hopefully avoiding Nesta's return.
But sunlight on gold caught his eye- and Elain slowly turned from her vigil at the window.
He had not seen her entire face since that day in Hybern.
Then, it had been drawn and terrified, then utterly blank and numb, her hair plastered to her head, her lips blue with cold and shock.
Looking at her now...
She was pale, yes. The vacancy still glazing her features.
But he couldn't breathe as she faced him fully.
She was the most beautiful female he'd ever seen.
Betrayal, queasy and oily, slid through his veins. He'd said the same to Jesminda once.
But even as shame washed through him, the words, the sense chanted, Mine. You are mine, and I am yours. Mate.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
“
She did not answer. Or, rather, she answered by sliding long fingers across Kassad’s chest, ripping away the leather thongs which bound the rough vest. Her hands found his shirt. It was soaked with blood and ripped halfway down the front. The woman ripped it open the rest of the way. She moved against him now, her fingers and lips on his chest, hips already beginning to move. Her right hand found the cords to his trouser front, ripped them free. Kassad helped her pull off the rest of his clothes, removed hers with three fluid movements. She wore nothing under her shirt and coarse-cloth trousers. Kassad’s hand slid between her thighs, behind her, cupped her moving buttocks, pulled her closer, and slid to the moist roughness in front. She opened to him, her mouth closing on his. Somehow, with all of their motion and disrobing, their skin never lost contact. Kassad felt his own excitement rubbing against the cusp of her belly. She rolled above him then, her thighs astride his hips, her gaze still locked with his. Kassad had never been so excited. He gasped as her right hand went behind her, found him, guided him into her. When he opened his eyes again she was moving slowly, her head back, eyes closed. Kassad’s hands moved up her sides to cup her perfect breasts. Nipples hardened against his palms. They made love then. Kassad, at twenty-three standard years, had been in love once and had enjoyed sex many times. He thought he knew the way and the why of it. There was nothing in his experience to that moment which he could not have described with a phrase and a laugh to his squadmates in the hold of a troop transport With the calm, sure cynicism of a twenty-three-year-old veteran he was sure that he would never experience anything that could not be so described, so dismissed. He was wrong. He could never adequately share the sense of the next few minutes with anyone else. He would never try. They made love in a sudden shaft of late October light with a carpet of leaves and clothes beneath them and a film of blood and sweat oiling the sweet friction between them. Her green eyes stared down at Kassad, widening slightly when he began moving quickly, closing at the same second he closed his. They moved together then in the sudden tide of sensation as old and inevitable as the movement of worlds: pulses racing, flesh quickening with its own moist purposes, a further, final rising together, the world receding to nothing at all—and then, still joined by touch and heartbeat and the fading thrill of passion, allowing consciousness to slide back to separate flesh while the world flowed in through forgotten senses. They lay next to each other.
”
”
Dan Simmons (The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion)
“
Clouds, unrolling like carpets, spreading, trailing wisps and rag-ends, rushed towards a point near mid-heaven, dampening the dayblue sky to a pearl-gray from which the translucence slowly ebbed, as additional layers were healed above, banking, mounting higher, pressing lower, darkening, dining, hazing the outlines of trees and Rocky heights, transforming the lower figures of men and animals into shifting things a quarter of shadow and going for half, while the rains were yet withheld, the mists rolled and rose, dew came afresh to the grasses, windows were filmed and beaded, moisture collected, ran upon, dripped from leaves, sounds came distorted, as though the entire world had been bedded in cotton, birds flew near to the ground in their courses toward the hills, the wings died down and caressed, small animals paused, raised their muzzles, turned them slowly, shook themselves, cocked their heads, then moved was if seeking some hidden Ark, beyond the foothills, in the mist, above the places the searchers combed, and the thunder held its breath, the lightning stayed its stroke, the rain remained unshed, the temperature slipped downward, cloud feel upon cloud and, super drawn from the spectrum, the colors drained out of the world, leaving behind a newsreel frame or the impression of a cave, shadows sliding on it's farther walls, changing, irregular, wet.
”
”
Roger Zelazny (To Die in Italbar)
“
I still cherish my childhood memories of the sun opening the dusky eyelids of the west and the misty mornings against the backdrop of of Kgalatlou Mountain. The green prime of summer, twingling leaves of acacia yrees of Manthakge Plains, pure clear sky, the smooth plough fields and lush green meadows.
In winter, that green carpet will be replaced by drearily looking land like a dim picture of the drowned past, all signs of life and feeling gone out of it, with the plough fields scorched and naked, the streams of Manyane silent, and the grass of the meadows looking like burned powder.
I still remember and cherish the touch of autumn nights and the ruddy moon leaning over Madibong.
When I think about this, a sorrowful silent tear always roll down my cheek, I become sad and gripped by grief because of what has now become of the land of my forefathers. I have known and cherished its distinguished rocks, fauna, and flora since I could stand and walk. I know its mountain slopes, plains, its rocks, and bushes like the veins and knuckles at the back of my hand. The ever changing beauty of Leolo Mountains, from the aloes of Segodi Boulders to the lilies of Legaletlweng; the imposing Letheleding Boulders towering over Manyane Dale. The interesting contrast of granite ingenious sedimentary rocks of Leolo Mountains and the red sand rock of Seolwane Mountain, the red sandy soil of Leruleng, the dark clay soil of Marakane and the red fertile loom soil of Sehalbeng Plains. The Magnetite rocks Ga - Sethadi and the shale rocks of Malatjane.
”
”
Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala
“
For most people moving is a tiring experience. When on the verge of moving out to a new home or into a new office, it's only natural to focus on your new place and forget about the one you’re leaving. Actually, the last thing you would even think about is embarking on a heavy duty move out clean. However, you can be certain that agents, landlords and all the potential renters or buyers of your old home will most definitely notice if it's being cleaned, therefore getting the place cleaned up is something that you need to consider.
The process of cleaning will basically depend to things; how dirty your property and the size of the home. If you leave the property in good condition, you'll have a higher the chance of getting back your bond deposit or if you're selling, attracting a potential buyer. Below are the steps you need to consider before moving out.
You should start with cleaning. Remove all screws and nails from the walls and the ceilings, fill up all holes and dust all ledges. Large holes should be patched and the entire wall checked the major marks. Remove all the cobwebs from the walls and ceilings, taking care to wash or vacuum the vents. They can get quite dusty. Clean all doors and door knobs, wipe down all the switches, electrical outlets, vacuum/wipe down the drapes, clean the blinds and remove all the light covers from light fixtures and clean them thoroughly as they may contain dead insects. Also, replace all the burnt out light bulbs and empty all cupboards when you clean them. Clean all windows, window sills and tracks. Vacuum all carpets or get them professionally cleaned which quite often is stipulated in the rental agreement.
After you've finished the general cleaning, you can now embark on the more specific areas. When cleaning the bathroom, wash off the soap scum and remove mould (if any) from the bathroom tiles. This can be done by pre-spraying the tile grout with bleach and letting it sit for at least half an hour. Clean all the inside drawers and vanity units thoroughly. Clean the toilet/sink, vanity unit and replace anything that you've damaged. Wash all shower curtains and shower doors plus all other enclosures. Polish the mirrors and make sure the exhaust fan is free of dust. You can generally vacuum these quite easily. Finally, clean the bathroom floors by vacuuming and mopping.
In the kitchen, clean all the cabinets and liners and wash the cupboards inside out. Clean the counter-tops and shine the facet and sink. If the fridge is staying give it a good clean. You can do this by removing all shelves and wash them individually. Thoroughly degrease the oven inside and out. It's best to use and oven cleaner from your supermarket, just take care to use gloves and a mask as they can be quite toxic. Clean the kitchen floor well by giving it a good vacuum and mop . Sometimes the kitchen floor may need to be degreased.
Dust the bedrooms and living room, vacuum throughout then mop. If you have a garage give it a good sweep. Also cut the grass, pull out all weeds and remove all items that may be lying or hanging around.
Remember to put your garbage bins out for collection even if collection is a week away as in our experience the bins will be full to the brim from all the rubbish during the moving process. If this all looks too hard then you can always hire a bond cleaner to tackle the job for you or if you're on a tight budget you can download an end of lease cleaning checklist or have one sent to you from your local agent. Just make sure you give yourself at least a day or to take on the job. Its best not to rush through the job, just make sure everything is cleaned thoroughly, so it passes the inspection in order for you to get your bond back in full.
”
”
Tanya Smith
“
Except then a local high school journalism class decided to investigate the story. Not having attended Columbia Journalism School, the young scribes were unaware of the prohibition on committing journalism that reflects poorly on Third World immigrants. Thanks to the teenagers’ reporting, it was discovered that Reddy had become a multimillionaire by using H-1B visas to bring in slave labor from his native India. Dozens of Indian slaves were working in his buildings and at his restaurant. Apparently, some of those “brainy” high-tech workers America so desperately needs include busboys and janitors. And concubines. The pubescent girls Reddy brought in on H-1B visas were not his nieces: They were his concubines, purchased from their parents in India when they were twelve years old. The sixty-four-year-old Reddy flew the girls to America so he could have sex with them—often several of them at once. (We can only hope this is not why Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on H-1B visas.) The third roommate—the crying girl—had escaped the carbon monoxide poisoning only because she had been at Reddy’s house having sex with him, which, judging by the looks of him, might be worse than death. As soon as a translator other than Reddy was found, she admitted that “the primary purpose for her to enter the U.S. was to continue to have sex with Reddy.” The day her roommates arrived from India, she was forced to watch as the old, balding immigrant had sex with both underage girls at once.3 She also said her dead roommate had been pregnant with Reddy’s child. That could not be confirmed by the court because Reddy had already cremated the girl, in the Hindu tradition—even though her parents were Christian. In all, Reddy had brought seven underage girls to the United States for sex—smuggled in by his brother and sister-in-law, who lied to immigration authorities by posing as the girls’ parents.4 Reddy’s “high-tech” workers were just doing the slavery Americans won’t do. No really—we’ve tried getting American slaves! We’ve advertised for slaves at all the local high schools and didn’t get a single taker. We even posted flyers at the grade schools, asking for prepubescent girls to have sex with Reddy. Nothing. Not even on Craigslist. Reddy’s slaves and concubines were considered “untouchables” in India, treated as “subhuman”—“so low that they are not even considered part of Hinduism’s caste system,” as the Los Angeles Times explained. To put it in layman’s terms, in India they’re considered lower than a Kardashian. According to the Indian American magazine India Currents: “Modern slavery is on display every day in India: children forced to beg, young girls recruited into brothels, and men in debt bondage toiling away in agricultural fields.” More than half of the estimated 20.9 million slaves worldwide live in Asia.5 Thanks to American immigration policies, slavery is making a comeback in the United States! A San Francisco couple “active in the Indian community” bought a slave from a New Delhi recruiter to clean house for them, took away her passport when she arrived, and refused to let her call her family or leave their home.6 In New York, Indian immigrants Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani were convicted in 2006 of bringing in two Indonesian illegal aliens as slaves to be domestics in their Long Island, New York, home.7 In addition to helping reintroduce slavery to America, Reddy sends millions of dollars out of the country in order to build monuments to himself in India. “The more money Reddy made in the States,” the Los Angeles Times chirped, “the more good he seemed to do in his hometown.” That’s great for India, but what is America getting out of this model immigrant? Slavery: Check. Sickening caste system: Check. Purchasing twelve-year-old girls for sex: Check. Draining millions of dollars from the American economy: Check. Smuggling half-dead sex slaves out of his slums in rolled-up carpets right under the nose of the Berkeley police: Priceless.
”
”
Ann Coulter (¡Adios, America!: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole)
“
I barely remember drawing this." Daniel sounded disappointed in himself. "I don't know what it is any more than you do."
"I'm sure that once you get there, you'll be able to figure it out," Gabbe said, trying hard to be encouraging.
"We will," Luce said. "I'm sure we will."
Gabbe blinked, smile, and went on. "Roland, Annabelle, and Arriane-you three will go to Vienna. That leaves-" Her mouth twitched as she realized what she was about to say, but she put on a brave face anyway. "Molly, Cam, and I will take Avalon."
Cam rolled back his shoulders and let out his astoundingly golden wings with a great rush, slamming into Molly's face with his right wing tip and sending her lunging back five feet.
"Do that again and I will wreck you," Molly spat, glaring at a carpet burn on her elbow. "In fact-" She started to go for Cam with her fist raised but Gabbe intervened.
She wrenched Cam and Molly apart with a put-upon sigh. "Speaking of wrecking, I would really rather not have to wreck the next one of you who provokes the other"-she smiled sweetly at her two demon companions-"but I will. This is going to be a very long nine days."
"Let's hope its long," Daniel muttered under his breath.
Luce turned to him. The Venice in her mind was out of a guidebook: postcard of boats jostling down canals, sunsets over tall cathedral spires, and dark-haired girls licking gelato. That wasn't the trip they were about to take. Not with the end of the world reaching out for them with razor claws.
"And once we find all three of the relics?" Luce said.
"We'll meet at Mount Sinai," Daniel said, "unite the relics-"
"And say a little prayer that they shed any light whatsoever on where we landed when we fell," Cam muttered darkly, rubbing his forehead. "At which point, all that's left is somehow coaxing the psychopathic hellhound holding our entire existence in his jaw that he should just abandon his silly scheme for universal domination. What could be simpler? I think we have every reason to feel optimistic.
”
”
Lauren Kate (Rapture (Fallen, #4))
“
I continued my explorations in a cobbled yard overlooked by broken doors and cracked windows. Pushing open a swollen door into a storeroom, I found a stream running across paving stones and a carpet of slippery green moss. My explorations took me beneath a gateway surmounted by a clock face, standing with hands fixed permanently at eleven o'clock. Beyond stood derelict stables; then the park opened up in an undulating vista, reaching all the way to a swathe of deep forest on the horizon. In the distance was the twinkle of the river that I realized must border my own land at Whitelow. The grass was knee-high and speckled with late buttercups, but I was transported by that first sight of the Delafosse estate. In its situation alone, the Croxons had chosen our new home well. I dreamed for a moment of myself and Michael making a great fortune, and no longer renting Delafosse Hall but owning every inch of it, my inheritance spinning gold from cotton. Turning back to view the Hall I took a sharp breath; it was as massive and ancient as a child's dream of a castle, the bulk of its walls carpeted in greenery, the diamond-leaded windows sparkling in picturesque stone mullions. True, the barley-twist chimneys leaned askew, and the roofs sagged beneath the weight of years, but the shell of it was magnificent. It cast a strange possessive mood upon me. I remembered Michael's irritation at the house the previous night, and his eagerness to leave. Somehow I had to entice Michael into this shared dream of a happy life here, beside me.
Determined to explore the park, I followed the nearest path. After walking through a deep wood for a good while I emerged into the sunlight by a round hill surmounted by a two-story tower. A hunting lodge, Mrs. Croxon had called it, but I thought it more a folly. It had a fantastical quality, with four miniature turrets, each topped with a verdigris-tarnished dome. Above the doorway stood a sundial drawn upon a disc representing a blazing sun. It was embellished with a script I thought might be Latin: FERREA VIRGA EST, UMBRATILIS MOTUS. I wondered whether Michael might know the meaning, or Anne's husband perhaps. As for the sundial's accuracy, the morning light was too weak to cast a line of shadow.
”
”
Martine Bailey (A Taste for Nightshade)
“
HER HUSBAND’S ALMOST HOME. He’ll catch her this time. There isn’t a scrap of curtain, not a blade of blind, in number 212—the rust-red townhome that once housed the newlywed Motts, until recently, until they un-wed. I never met either Mott, but occasionally I check in online: his LinkedIn profile, her Facebook page. Their wedding registry lives on at Macy’s. I could still buy them flatware. As I was saying: not even a window dressing. So number 212 gazes blankly across the street, ruddy and raw, and I gaze right back, watching the mistress of the manor lead her contractor into the guest bedroom. What is it about that house? It’s where love goes to die. She’s lovely, a genuine redhead, with grass-green eyes and an archipelago of tiny moles trailing across her back. Much prettier than her husband, a Dr. John Miller, psychotherapist—yes, he offers couples counseling—and one of 436,000 John Millers online. This particular specimen works near Gramercy Park and does not accept insurance. According to the deed of sale, he paid $3.6 million for his house. Business must be good. I know both more and less about the wife. Not much of a homemaker, clearly; the Millers moved in eight weeks ago, yet still those windows are bare, tsk-tsk. She practices yoga three times a week, tripping down the steps with her magic-carpet mat rolled beneath one arm, legs shrink-wrapped in Lululemon. And she must volunteer someplace—she leaves the house a little past eleven on Mondays and Fridays, around the time I get up, and returns between five and five thirty, just as I’m settling in for my nightly film. (This evening’s selection: The Man Who Knew Too Much, for the umpteenth time. I am the woman who viewed too much.) I’ve noticed she likes a drink in the afternoon, as do I. Does she also like a drink in the morning? As do I? But her age is a mystery, although she’s certainly younger than Dr. Miller, and younger than me (nimbler, too); her name I can only guess at. I think of her as Rita, because she looks like Hayworth in Gilda. “I’m not in the least interested”—love that line. I myself am very much interested. Not in her body—the pale ridge of her spine, her shoulder blades like stunted wings, the baby-blue bra clasping her breasts: whenever these loom within my lens, any of them, I look away—but in the life she leads. The lives. Two more than I’ve got.
”
”
A.J. Finn (The Woman in the Window)
“
for later. Keep it safe. If the child has collapsed into a tantrum in a place where he might hurt himself, move him to an area where he will be safe—an open, carpeted area, away from the glass coffee table. A child in the midst of a tantrum often flails, grabs for things to throw, or reaches for people to hit. Keep the child away from everything, including your body. Sometimes very young children feel totally out of control and will need you to contain them. Sit on the floor and gently but firmly hold your child’s back to your front, on the floor between your legs, both arms crossed in front of him. This is not an angry hold, but rather one that says I am keeping you safe. Soon (or maybe not so soon!) he will stop resisting you, relax a bit, and take it down a notch to crying. This hold should not become a physical battle. It is, instead, a form of support and safety that you provide for your child. Do not leave the child alone. There are those who believe in sending the child to his room to have the meltdown. I believe the child is better served by your not abandoning him to his out-of-control feelings and behavior. Stay close by. Even though you are not talking to him, he knows you are there, and your presence is comforting. He might command you to “Go away” or “Leave me alone,” but he doesn’t mean it. Sit in a chair across the room and pick up a magazine. If the child is holding on to your leg, try to ignore it. In fact, try to ignore him altogether as best as you can. You can say: “You are really angry right now. I will wait until you are done.” Or, “Let me know when you are done.” If the child is trying to hurt you, hit you, or grab at you, stand up and step away. Tell him: “I will not let you hurt me. Let me know when you are done, and we can talk.” When you are standing, your legs are the only target he can reach. He’ll wrap his arms around your calves in a death grip. Ignore it. It will end eventually, I promise. The End Save. You can usually tell when the tantrum is winding down. When you hear and see that your child is starting to come back down to earth—his crying has calmed to sobs, his breaths are broken and quick, he is sniffling a bit—it is a good time to step in and accompany him on his journey back. Scoop him up and say something diverting, like: “C’mon, Sam, let’s go see if there are any squirrels outside.” By this point, most children are ready to be saved. They just don’t know how to do so gracefully. A paradigm shift offers the child the chance to reenter the world and save face.
”
”
Betsy Brown Braun (Just Tell Me What to Say: Simple Scripts for Perplexed Parents)
“
Are-are you leaving?”
She saw his shoulders stiffen at the sound of her voice, and when he turned and looked at her, she could almost feel the effort he was exerting to keep his rage under control. “You’re leaving,” he bit out.
In silent, helpless protest Elizabeth shook her head and started slowly across the carpet, dimly aware that this was worse, much worse than merely standing up in front of several hundred lords in the House.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he warned softly.
“Do-do what?” Elizabeth said shakily.
“Get any nearer to me.”
She stopped cold, her mind registering the physical threat in his voice, refusing to believe it, her gaze searching his granite features.
“Ian,” she began, stretching her hand out in a gesture of mute appeal, then letting it fall to her side when her beseeching move got nothing from him but a blast of contempt from his eyes. “I realize,” she began again, her voice trembling with emotion while she tried to think how to begin to diffuse his wrath, “that you must despise me for what I’ve done.”
“You’re right.”
“But,” Elizabeth continued bravely, “I am prepared to do anything, anything to try to atone for it. No matter how it must seem to you now, I never stopped loving-“
His voice cracked like a whiplash. “Shut up!”
“No, you have to listen to me,” she said, speaking more quickly now, driven by panic and an awful sense of foreboding that nothing she could do or say would ever make him soften. “I never stopped loving you, even when I-“
“I’m warning you, Elizabeth,” he said in a murderous voice, “shut up and get out! Get out of my house and out of my life!”
“Is-is it Robert? I mean, do you not believe Robert was the man I was with?”
“I don’t give a damn who the son of a bitch was.”
Elizabeth began to quake in genuine terror, because he meant that-she could see that he did. “It was Robert, exactly as I said,” she continued haltingly. “I can prove it to you beyond any doubt, if you’ll let me.”
He laughed at that, a short, strangled laugh that was more deadly and final than his anger had been. “Elizabeth, I wouldn’t believe you if I’d seen you with him. Am I making myself clear? You are a consummate liar and a magnificent actress.”
“If you’re saying that be-because of the foolish things I said in the witness box, you s-surely must know why I did it.”
His contemptuous gaze raked her. “Of course I know why you did it! It was a means to an end-the same reason you’ve had for everything you do. You’d sleep with a snake if it gave you a means to an end.”
“Why are you saying this?” she cried.
“Because on the same day your investigator told you I was responsible for your brother’s disappearance, you stood beside me in a goddamned church and vowed to love me unto death! You were willing to marry a man you believed could be a murderer, to sleep with a murderer.”
“You don’t believe that! I can prove it somehow-I know I can, if you’ll just give me a chance-“
“No.”
“Ian-“
“I don’t want proof.”
“I love you,” she said brokenly.
“I don’t want your ‘love,’ and I don’t want you. Now-“ He glanced up when Dolton knocked on the door.
“Mr. Larimore is here, my lord.”
“Tell him I’ll be with him directly,” Ian announced, and Elizabeth gaped at him. “You-you’re going to have a business meeting now?”
“Not exactly, my love. I’ve sent for Larimore for a different reason this time.”
Nameless fright quaked down Elizabeth’s spine at his tone. “What-what other reason would you have for summoning a solicitor at a time like this?”
“I’m starting divorce proceedings, Elizabeth.”
“You’re what?” she breathed, and she felt the room whirl. “On what grounds-my stupidity?”
“Desertion,” he bit out.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))