Chunk On Earth Quotes

Erick had underestimated the distance, both to the ground and the cliff above me, yet the texture of the cliff wall was better than I'd hoped for. Vines and plants grew dense and well rooted, and there were many rocks and missing chunks of earth. I didn't know whether I could make it to the top on one leg or not, but I thought it was a great day to try.

This one is called "Chunky Munky".' Nadia stopped with the spoon halfway to her mouth. 'But isn´t a monkey a small chattering Earth creature that lives in trees?' she asked faintly. 'Are ... are you telling me I´m eating chunks of its flesh?' 'Ugh.' Sophia shivered. 'What a thought! The poor monkeys!' Nadia felt ill. 'Is that why this stuff is called 'I Scream?' Because the animal screams when they make it into dessert?

Consider a single piece glowing in your family’s stove. See it, children? That chunk of coal was once a green plant, a fern or reed that lived one million years ago, or maybe two million, or maybe one hundred million. Can you imagine one hundred million years? Every summer for the whole life of that plant, its leaves caught what light they could and transformed the sun’s energy into itself. Into bark, twigs, stems. Because plants eat light, in much the way we eat food. But then the plant died and fell, probably into water, and decayed into peat, and the peat was folded inside the earth for years upon years—eons in which something like a month or a decade or even your whole life was just a puff of air, a snap of two fingers. And eventually the peat dried and became like stone, and someone dug it up, and the coal man brought it to your house, and maybe you yourself carried it to the stove, and now that sunlight—sunlight one hundred million years old—is heating your home tonight . . .

A piece of the sky and a chunk of the earth lie lodged in the heart of every human being.

This isn't how it should be, God. Thousands of graves marking thousands of lives--so much focus on death. Did the gravediggers spend their lives just serving the dead? How many Numbers ticked away for the sake of carving headstones no one would read? As I stare at this scene, I decide I don't want a headstone when I die. I don't even want to be buried. I want to disappear--save that chunk of earth for people to live on. This land I stand on is worthless now. No one can build a house here. No one can plant gardens or start a new village. Is that what the people buried beneath me would have wanted? Earth wasn't intended to hold only dead bodies. I stand. God, I need to live.

I just believe that us as women— should not criticize nor pull down other women. And why? Because we’re all just trying our best to be beautiful! We all just want to be loved, we want to be beautiful, we’re all trying to leave our own legacy! The good news is that the universe is unending and that means there is enough space for each woman on earth to leave her own mark and to be her own legacy. To be her own kind of beautiful. So why spend even a second on trying to take away from another woman? Trying to steal, trying to criticize, trying to oppress? There is enough space for every woman and every kind of beautiful, in this vast cosmos! When you waste any amount of time trying to take what is another’s— you are wasting your huge chunk of a galaxy that’s already been given to you!

With today's work, I'm about one-fourth of the way through the whole cut. At least, one-fourth of the way through the drilling. Then I'll have 759 little chunks to chisel out. And I'm not sure how well carbon composite is going to take that. But NASA'll do it a thousand times back on Earth and tell me the best way to get it done.

Sunday had spread all over the city. It looked as if the sun had smacked into the earth and broken into pieces and chunks of wet light were scattered everywhere -- in the streets, on the window panes, on puddles and roofs. I remembered a day long ago when Grandmother had cleaned a big fish. Her forearms were splattered with shiny scales. It was as if she had Sunday in her whole body. When my father got angry, he had Tuesday.

Did you just call me chunks?” I asked. What on earth could that mean? “Choonks,” she corrected. “It means sweetheart in Trinidad.

He'd end up back in his room again, moodily smoking whatever he could get his hands on, the sole source of light in the room the faint radioactive glow coming from the commemorative chunk of Earth in its crystal cube, inscribed with the famous quote from the Administration. AT LEAST WE GOT THE TERRORISTS, it said.

Asteroids are craggy chunks of rock. Comets are balls of dirt, ice, and frozen gases. And meteors are, quite simply, whatever falls through and burns up in Earth’s atmosphere from outer space. Asteroids

That telephones can connect us in seconds to any creature on earth foolhardy enough to lift its own chunk of plastic is wonderful. But it’s also terrible, given what a lot of people think and feel about each other. That’s why, until they’re equipped with some sort of flush or filter or waste-disposal system for the billions of words that ought not to be spoken, I’ll not trust the things.

Mountains could be what happens when Father Earth eats something that doesn’t agree with him. When he burps, mountains pop up." "That’s absurd," Keselo said, trying not to laugh. "If you’ve got a better theory, I’d be happy to hear it," Red-Beard said mildly. "Anyway, a burp isn’t anything but air that boils up out of a man’s stomach, so Father Earth’s mountains have chunks of empty air in the middle of them—burps that didn’t quite manage to make it to the surface, you understand.

The rock I'd seen in my life looked dull because in all ignorance I'd never thought to knock it open. People have cracked ordinary New England pegmatite - big, coarse granite - and laid bare clusters of red garnets, or topaz crystals, chrysoberyl, spodumene, emerald. They held in their hands crystals that had hung in a hole in the dark for a billion years unseen. I was all for it. I would lay about me right and left with a hammer, and bash the landscape to bits. I would crack the earth's crust like a piñata and spread to the light the vivid prizes in chunks within. Rock collecting was opening the mountains. It was like diving through my own interior blank blackness to remember the startling pieces of a dream: there was a blue lake, a witch, a lighthouse, a yellow path. It was like poking about in a grimy alley and finding an old, old coin. Nothing was at it seemed. The earth was like a shut eye. Mother's not dead, dear - she's only sleeping. Pry open the thin lid and find a crystalline intelligence inside, a rayed and sidereal beauty. Crystals grew inside rock like arithmetical flowers. They lengthened and spread, adding plane to plane in awed and perfect obedience to an absolute geometry that even the stones - maybe only the stones - understood.

It had all dropped into place, like the last bit of the jigsaw, which you thought all along was a bit of left-hand sky, but when you turn it over you realise it's the last chunk of right-hand sea, or the sky tricksily reflected in the surface of the pond.

The metabolic rate of history is too fast for us to observe it. It's as if, attending to the day-long life cycle of a single mayfly, we lose sight of the species and its fate. At the same time, the metabolic rate of geology is too slow for us to perceive it, so that, from birth to death, it seems to us who are caught in the beat of our own individual human hearts that everything happening on this planet is what happens to us, personally, privately, secretly. We can stand at night on a high, cold plain and look out toward the scrabbled, snow-covered mountains in the west, the same in a suburb of Denver as outside a village in Baluchistan in Pakistan, and even though beneath our feet continent-sized chunks of earth grind inexorably against one another, go on driving one or the other continent down so as to rise up and over it, as if desiring to replace it on the map, we poke with our tongue for a piece of meat caught between two back teeth and think of sarcastic remarks we should have made to our brother-in-law at dinner.

But in fact, the earth was nothing but a chunk of rock floating in one little corner of the universe: a temporary foothold in the vast emptiness of space. It – and all of us with it – could be blown away tomorrow by a momentary flash of something or a tiny shift in the universe’s energy.

With bare feet in the dirt, fulmia, ten times with conviction, will shake the earth to its roots, if you have the strength, Jaga’s book had told me, and the Dragon had believed it enough not to let me try it anywhere near the tower. I had felt doubtful, anyway, about conviction: I hadn’t believed I had any business shaking the earth to its roots. But now I fell to the ground and dug away the snow and the fallen leaves and rot and moss until I came to the hard-frozen dirt. I pried up a large stone and began to smash at the earth, again and again, breaking up the dirt and breathing on it to make it softer, pounding in the snow that melted around my hands, pounding in the hot tears that dripped from my eyes as I worked. Kasia was above me with her head flung up, her mouth open in its soundless cry like a statue in a church. “Fulmia,” I said, my fingers deep in the dirt, crushing the solid clods between my fingers. “Fulmia, fulmia,” I chanted over and over, bleeding from broken nails, and I felt the earth hear me, uneasily. Even the earth was tainted here, poisoned, but I spat on the dirt and screamed, “Fulmia,” and imagined my magic running into the ground like water, finding cracks and weaknesses, spreading out beneath my hands, beneath my cold wet knees: and the earth shuddered and turned over. A low trembling began where my hands drove into the ground, and it followed me as I started prying at the roots of the tree. The frozen dirt began to break up into small chunks all around them, the tremors going on and on like waves. The branches above me were waving wildly as if in alarm, the whispering of the leaves becoming a muted roaring. I straightened up on my knees. “Let her out!” I screamed at the tree: I beat on its trunk with my muddy fists. “Let her out, or I’ll bring you down! Fulmia!” I cried out in rage, and threw myself back down at the ground, and where my fists hit, the ground rose and swelled like a river rising with the rain. Magic was pouring out of me, a torrent: every warning the Dragon had ever given me forgotten and ignored. I would have spent every drop of myself and died there, just to bring that horrible tree down: I couldn’t imagine a world where I lived, where I left this behind me, Kasia’s life and heart feeding this corrupt monstrous thing. I would rather have died, crushed in my own earthquake, and brought it down with me. I tore at the ground ready to break open a pit to swallow us all.

Sancho tried to be gentle. In his way. He was, for his kind, as Joshua would learn, exceptionally intelligent. But he was a humanoid, the size and strength of a large orang-utan, and he had performed no action in his life more delicate than the chipping of a blade from a chunk of rock. He picked Joshua up and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of coal. Joshua

...And you probably have little idea of how delicious - how toothsome - how scrumptious - they are when eaten fresh. Of course, I have my worm larder -" He corrected himself. "Worm larders, well stocked, but the earthworm pursued, or promptly pounced upon, and eaten fresh - as I've said - Ah! the earthworm, there's nothing like it! You can have your slugs and your wireworms and your leatherjackets and as many ground beetles as you like to eat - snap! crackle! crunch! You can have them all! There's nothing to equal the near liquefaction of worm meat as I pass its length through my fingers, sieving out the earth granules from the creature's incessant feeding. Or alternatively tear it to eat at once in great guzzling, gulping chunks.

The churchyard was brick-hard clay, as was the cemetery beside it. If someone died during a dry spell, the body was covered with chunks of ice until rain softened the earth. A few graves in the cemetery were marked with crumbling tombstones; newer ones were outlined with brightly colored glass and broken Coca-Cola bottles. Lightning rods guarding some graves denoted dead who rested uneasily; stumps of burned-out candles stood at the heads of infant graves. It was a happy cemetery. The

Futuristic as this may sound, the vision of individuals and groups as so many objects to be continuously tracked, wholly known, and shunted this way or that for some purpose of which they are unaware has a history. It was coaxed to life nearly sixty years ago under the warm equatorial sun of the Galapagos Islands, when a giant tortoise stirred from her torpor to swallow a succulent chunk of cactus into which a dedicated scientist had wedged a small machine. It was a time when scientists reckoned with the obstinacy of free-roaming animals and concluded that surveillance was the necessary price of knowledge. Locking these creatures in a zoo would only eliminate the very behavior that scientists wanted to study, but how were they to be surveilled? The solutions once concocted by scholars of elk herds, sea turtles, and geese have been refurbished by surveillance capitalists and presented as an inevitable feature of twenty-first-century life on Earth. All that has changed is that now we are the animals

His booted feet pounded out an insane, frantic rhythm underneath him as he raced into the cavern across from Baba Yaga’s den at a dead sprint. Pieces of dragon dung flew off him and hit the ground behind him in miniature chunks. He didn’t dare look behind him to see if the dragon had risen from the ground yet, but the deafening hiss that assaulted his ears meant she’d woken up. Icy claws of fear squeezed his heart with every breath as he ran, relying on the night vision goggles, the glimpse he’d gotten of the map, and his own instincts to figure out where to go. Jack raced around one corner too sharply and slipped on a piece of dung, crashing hard on his right side. He gasped as it knocked the wind out of him and gritted his teeth, his mind screaming at him to get up and run, run, run. He pushed onto his knees, nursing what felt like bruised ribs and a sprained wrist, and then paled as an unmistakable sensation traveled up the arm he’d used to push himself up. Impact tremors. Boom. Boom. Boom, boom, boom. Baba Yaga was coming. Baba Yaga was hunting him. Jack forced himself up onto his feet again, stumbling backwards and fumbling for the tracker. He got it switched on to see an ominous blob approaching from the right. He’d gotten a good lead on her—maybe a few hundred yards—but he had no way of knowing if he’d eventually run into a dead end. He couldn’t hide down here forever. He needed to get topside to join the others so they could take her down. Jack blocked out the rising crescendo of Baba Yaga’s hissing and pictured the map again. A mile up to the right had a man-made exit that spilled back up to the forest. The only problem was that it was a long passage. If Baba Yaga followed, there was a good chance she could catch up and roast him like a marshmallow. He could try to lose her in the twists and turns of the cave system, but there was a good chance he’d get lost, and Baba Yaga’s superior senses meant it would only be a matter of time before she found him. It came back to the most basic survival tactics: run or hide. Jack switched off the tracker and stuck it in his pocket, his voice ragged and shaking, but solid. “You aren’t about to die in this forest, Jackson. Move your ass.” He barreled forward into the passageway to the right in the wake of Baba Yaga’s ominous, bubbling warning, barely suppressing a groan as a spike of pain lanced through his chest from his bruised ribs. The adrenaline would only hold for so long. He could make it about halfway there before it ran out. Cold sweat plastered the mask to his face and ran down into his eyes. The tunnel stretched onward forever before him. No sunlight in sight. Had he been wrong? Jack ripped off the hood and cold air slapped his face, making his eyes water. He held his hands out to make sure he wouldn’t bounce off one of the cavern walls and squinted up ahead as he turned the corner into the straightaway. There, faintly, he could see the pale glow of the exit. Gasping for air, he collapsed against one wall and tried to catch his breath before the final marathon. He had to have put some amount of distance between himself and the dragon by now. “Who knows?” Jack panted. “Maybe she got annoyed and turned around.” An earth-shattering roar rocked the very walls of the cavern. Jack paled. Boom, boom, boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom, boomboomboomboom— Mother of God. The dragon had broken into a run. Jack shoved himself away from the wall, lowered his head, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

In the afternoon he sat in the compound breaking ore samples with a hammer, the feldspar rich in red oxide of copper and native nuggets in whose organic lobations he purported to read news of the earth's origins, holding an extemporary lecture in geology to a small gathering who nodded and spat. A few would quote to him scripture to confound his ordering up of eons out of the ancient chaos and other apostate supposings. The judge smiled. Books lie, he said. God dont lie. No, said the judge, he does not. And these are his words. He held up a chunk of rock. He speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things. The squatters in their rags nodded among themselves and were soon reckoning him correct, this man of learning, in all his speculations, and this the judge encouraged until they were right proselytes of the new order whereupon he laughed at them for fools.

If mind belongs to humans alone, then stones, trees, and streams become mere objects of human tinkering. We can plunder the earth's resources with impunity, treating creeks and mountaintops in Kentucky or rivers in India or forests in northwest America as if they existed only for economic development. Systems of land and river become inert chunks of lifeless mud or mechanical runs of H2O rather than the living, breathing bodies upon which we and all other creatures depend for our very lives. Not to mention what 'nature as machine' has done to our emotional and spiritual well-being. When we regard nature as churning its way forward mindlessly through time, we turn our backs on mystery, shunning the complexity as well as the delights of relationship. We isolate ourselves from the rest of the creatures with whom we share this world. We imagine ourselves the apex of creation -- a lonely spot indeed. Human minds become the measure of creation and human thoughts become the only ones that count. The result is a concept of mind shorn of its wild connections, in which feelings become irrelevant, daydreams are mere distractions, and nighttime dreams -- if we attend to them at all -- are but the cast-offs of yesterday's overactive brain. Mind is cut off from matter, untouched by exingencies of mud or leaf, shaped by whispers or gales of wind, as if we were not, like rocks, made of soil. And then we wonder at our sadness and depression, not realizing that our own view of reality has sunk us into an unbearable solipsism, an agony of separateness -- from loved ones, from other creatures, from rich but unruly emotions, in short, from our ability to connect, through senses and feeling and imagination, with the world that is our home.

As soon as we take our seats, a sequence of six antipasti materialize from the kitchen and swallow up the entire table: nickels of tender octopus with celery and black olives, a sweet and bitter dance of earth and sea; another plate of polpo, this time tossed with chickpeas and a sharp vinaigrette; a duo of tuna plates- the first seared and chunked and served with tomatoes and raw onion, the second whipped into a light pâté and showered with a flurry of bottarga that serves as a force multiplier for the tuna below; and finally, a plate of large sea snails, simply boiled and served with small forks for excavating the salty-sweet knuckle of meat inside. As is so often the case in Italy, we are full by the end of the opening salvo, but the night is still young, and the owner, who stops by frequently to fill my wineglass as well as his own, has a savage, unpredictable look in his eyes. Next comes the primo, a gorgeous mountain of spaghetti tossed with an ocean floor's worth of clams, the whole mixture shiny and golden from an indecent amount of olive oil used to mount the pasta at the last moment- the fat acting as a binding agent between the clams and the noodles, a glistening bridge from earth to sea. "These are real clams, expensive clams," the owner tells me, plucking one from the plate and holding it up to the light, "not those cheap, flavorless clams most restaurants use for pasta alle vongole." Just as I'm ready to wave the white napkin of surrender- stained, like my pants, a dozen shades of fat and sea- a thick cylinder of tuna loin arrives, charred black on the outside, cool and magenta through the center. "We caught this ourselves today," he whispers in my ear over the noise of the dining room, as if it were a secret to keep between the two of us. How can I refuse?

Last night I had the dream again. Except it's not a dream I know because when it comes for me, I'm still awake. There's my desk. The map on the wall. The Stuffed animals I don't play with anymore but don't want to hurt Dad's feelings by sticking in the closet I might be in bed. I might be just standing there, looking foe a missing sock. Then i'm gone. it doesn't just show me somthing this time, it takes me from here to THERE> standing on the bank of a river of fire. A thousand wasps in my head. Fighting and dying inside my skull, their bodies piling up against the backs of me eyes. Stinging and stinging. Dad's voice. Somewhere across the river. Calling my name. I've never heard him sound like that before. He's so frightened he can't hide it, even though he tries (he ALWAYS tries). The dead boy floats by. Facedown. So I wait for his head to pop up, show the holes where his eye used to be, say somthing with his blue lips. One of the terrible things it might make him do. But he just passes like a chunk of wood. I've never been here before, but I know it's real. The river is the line between this place and the Other Place. And I'm on the wrong side. There's a dark forest behind me but that's not what it is. I try to get to where Dad is. My toes touch the river and it sings with pain. Then there's arms pulling me back. Dragging me into the trees. They feel like a man's arms but it's not a man that sticks its fingers into my mouth. Nails that scratch the back of my throat. Skin that tastes like dirt. But just before that, before I'm back in my room with my missing sock in my hand, I realize I've been calling out to Dad just like he's been calling out to me. Telling him the same thing the whole time. Not words from my mouth through the air, but from my heart through the earth, so only the two of us could hear it. FIND ME

The bast, dispersing in shreds in the sunset whispered "Time has begun." The son, Adam, stripped naked, descended into the Old Testament of his native land and arrayed himself in bast; a wreath of roadside field grass he placed upon his brow, a staff, not a switch, he pulled from the ground, flourishing the birch branch like a sacred palm. On the road he stood like a guard. The dust-gray road ran into the sunset. And a crow perched there, perched and croaked, there where the celestial fire consumed the earth. There were blind men along the dust-gray road running into the twilight. Antique, crooken, they trailed along, lonely and sinister silhouettes, holding to one another and to their leader's cane. They were raising dust. One was beard-less, he kept squinting. Another, a little old man with a protruding lip, was whispering and praying. A third, covered with red hair, frowned. Their backs were bent, their heads bowed low, their arms extended to the staff. Strange it was to see this mute procession in the terrible twilight. They made their way immutable, primordial, blind. Oh, if only they could open their eyes, oh if only they were not blind! Russian Land, awake! And Adam, rude image of the returned king, lowered the birch branch to their white pupils. And on them he laid his hands, as, groaning and moaning they seated themselves in the dust and with trembling hands pushed chunks of black bread into their mouths. Their faces were ashen and menacing, lit with the pale light of deadly clouds. Lightning blazed, their blinded faces blazed. Oh, if only they opened their eyes, oh, if only they saw the light! Adam, Adam, you stand illumined by lightnings. Now you lay the gentle branch upon their faces. Adam, Adam, say, see, see! And he restores their sight. But the blind men turning their ashen faces and opening their white eyes did not see. And the wind whispered "Thou art behind the hill." From the clouds a fiery veil began to shimmer and died out. A little birch murmured, beseeching, and fell asleep. The dusk dispersed at the horizon and a bloody stump of the sunset stuck up. And spotted with brilliant coals glowing red, the bast streamed out from the sunset like a striped cloak. On the waxen image of Adam the field grass wreaths sighed fearfully giving a soft whistle and the green dewy clusters sprinkled forth fiery tears on the blind faces of the blind. He knew what he was doing, he was restoring their sight. ("Adam")

The temple was in a field of graves suddenly a pitiful-looking skeleton appeared and said: A melancholy autumn wind Blows through the world; the pampas grass waves As we drift to the moor, Drift to the sea. What can be done With the mind of a man That should be clear But though he is dressed up in a monk's robe, Just lets life pass him by? Such deep musings Made me uneasy, I could not sleep. Towards dawn I dozed off... I found myself surrounded by a group of skeletons, acting as they had when they were still alive. One skeleton came over to me and said: Memories Flee and Are no more. All are empty dreams Devoid of meaning. Violate the reality of things And babble about 'God' and 'the Buddha' And you will never find the true Way. Still breathing, You feel animated, So a corpse in a field Seems to be something Apart from you. If chunks of rock Can serve as a memento To the dead A better headstone Would be a simple tea-mortar. Humans are indeed frightful things. A single moon Bright and clear In an unclouded sky; Yet we still stumble In the world's darkness. This world Is but A fleeting dream So why be alarmed At its evanescence? The vagaries of life, Though painful, Teach us Not to cling To this floating world. Why do people Lavish decoration On this set of bones, Destined to disappear Without a trace? The original body Must return to Its original place. Do not search For what cannot be found. No one really knows The nature of birth Nor the true dwelling place. We return to the source And turn to dust. Many paths lead from The foot of the mountain, But at the peak We all gaze at the Single bright moon. If at the end of our journey There is no final Resting place, Then we need not fear Losing our Way. No beginning. No end. Our mind Is born and dies; The emptiness of emptiness! Relax, And the mind Runs wild; Control the world And you can cast it aside. Rain, hail, snow, and ice: All are different But when they fall They become to same water As the valley stream. The ways of proclaiming The Mind all vary, But the same heavenly truth Can be seen In each and every one. Cover your path With fallen pine needles So no one will be able To locate your True dwelling place. How vain, The endless funderals at the Cremation grounds of Mount Toribe! Don't the mourner realize That they will be next? 'Life is fleeeting!' We think at the sight Of smoke drifting from Mount Toribe, But when will we realize That we are in the same boat? All is in vain! This morning, A healthy friend; This evening, A wisp of cremation smoke. What a pity! Evening smoke from Mount Toribe Blown violently To and fro By the wind. When burned We become ashes, and earth when buried. Is it only our sins That remain behind? All the sins Committed In the Three Worlds Will fade away Together with me.

The smell of sewage flooded into the car and I saw rotting vegetables and chunks of garbage floating in the clogged water on the streets. The city's very own soup of decay, served cold, and each one of us was sipping it bit by bit.

Fourteen of the world’s twenty biggest cities are currently experiencing water scarcity or drought. Four billion people, it is estimated, already live in regions facing water shortages at least one month each year—that’s about two-thirds of the planet’s population. Half a billion are in places where the shortages never end. Today, at just one degree of warming, those regions with at least a month of water shortages each year include just about all of the United States west of Texas, where lakes and aquifers are being drained to meet demand, and stretching up into western Canada and down to Mexico City; almost all of North Africa and the Middle East; a large chunk of India; almost all of Australia; significant parts of Argentina and Chile; and everything in Africa south of Zambia.

And that is precisely the goal of your morality, the duty that your code demands of you. Give to that which you do not enjoy, serve that which you do not admire, submit to that which you consider evil—surrender the world to the values of others, deny, reject, renounce your self. Your self is your mind; renounce it and you become a chunk of meat ready for any cannibal to swallow. “It is your mind that they want you to surrender—all those who preach the creed of sacrifice, whatever their tags or their motives, whether they demand it for the sake of your soul or of your body, whether they promise you another life in heaven or a full stomach on this earth. Those who start by saying: ‘It is selfish to pursue your own wishes, you must sacrifice them to the wishes of others’—end up by saying: ‘It is selfish to uphold your convictions, you must sacrifice them to the convictions of others.

A throat cleared. “Earth to Arik. Come in, boss.” With brows drawn, Arik glared at his beta. “What?” “I was asking what had your boxers in a knot.” “You know I go commando.” “Usually, but something obviously has your panties in a twist. Spill.” Oh, he spilled all right. Arik yanked off the hat and flung it against the wall and then swiveled his chair to get it over with. Indrawn breath. A snicker. A full-on guffaw. Arik swirled again and tossed deadly visual daggers at his second. “I fail to see the humor in my butchered mane.” “Dude. Have you seen it? It is bad. What did you do to piss Dominic off? Seduce one of his daughters?” “Actually one of his granddaughters did this to me!” He couldn’t help the incredulous note. The effrontery of the act still got to him. A thump and a shake of the wall as Hayder hit it, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “A girl did that to you?” His beta convulsed with mirth, not at all daunted by Arik’s glower and tapping fingers. “This is not amusing.” “Oh, come on, dude. Of all the people to have a hair mishap, you are the worst.” “I look like an idiot.” “Only because you didn’t let her finish hacking the rest off.” His fingers froze as he took his gaze off the screen for a moment to address the travesty. “Cut off my mane?” Was his beta delusional? “Well, yeah. You know, to even it out so it doesn’t show.” A growl rumbled forth, more beast than man, his lion not at all on board with any more trimming. “Okay, if you’re not keen on that, then what about a hair weave? Maybe we could get you a platinum one, or pink for contrast since you’re being such a prissy princess about it.” That did it. A lion could take only so much. Arik dove over his desk and tackled his beta. Over they went with a thump and a tangle of limbs. As he was slamming Hayder’s head off the floor, snarling, “Take it back!” to his beta’s chortled, “We’ll get your nails done while they’re weaving,” Leo strode in. A giant of a man, he didn’t even have to strain as he grabbed them each by a shoulder and yanked them apart. But he didn’t stop there. He slammed their heads together before shoving them down. Arik and Hayder sat on the carpeted floor, nursing robin’s eggs, united in their glare for the pride’s omega, also known as the peacemaker. Of course, Leo’s version of peace wasn’t always gentle, which was why he was perfect for the pride. The behemoth with the mellow outlook on life took a seat in a chair, which groaned ominously. “You do know that the staff two floors down can hear the pair of you acting like ill-behaved cubs.” “He started it!” Arik stabbed a finger at his beta. He had no problem assigning blame. Delegation was something an alpha did well. Hayder didn’t even deny his guilt. “I did. But can you blame me? He was pissing and moaning about this precious mane. All I did was offer a solution, and he took offense.” “I assume we’re talking about the missing chunk of hair on our esteemed leader’s head?” Leo shook his neatly trimmed dark crown. “I keep telling you that vanity is your weakness.” “And chocolate chip ice cream is yours. We all have our vices,” Arik grumbled as he heaved himself off the floor and into his leather-padded seat— with built-in heating pad and massager because a man in his position did enjoy his luxuries. “My vice is beautiful women,” Hayder announced with a grin, adopting a lounging pose on the floor. Felines were king when it came to acting as if embarrassing positions weren’t accidental at all. “Don’t talk to me about women right now. I’m still angry at the one who did this.” “I think I’m missing a key point,” Leo stated. It didn’t take long to bring Leo up to speed. To his credit, the pride omega didn’t laugh— long.

Okay, let’s do this.” “That’s my girl.” He kissed me hard before wrapping his arm around my waist and walking me toward the house. “I mean, honestly, how could they not love you and your bitchy personality?” “You’re such an asshole, Kash,” I hissed at the same second the front door opened and his mom stepped out. Oh good Lord, kill me now. This is where I need to run away. Mrs. Ryan’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline, and Kash tried to choke back his laugh but failed miserably. It felt like my stomach was simultaneously on fire and dropping. Not a good feeling, I was going to be sick. I was the freaking Queen of First Impressions with the Ryan family. When I’d met Kash at the beginning of last summer, I’d been a bitch to the extreme, and our first three run-ins had gone over about as well as a bale of turtles in a sprinting race. Now there I was, cussing in front of his mom in the first seconds of ever seeing her. I started feeling light-headed as I held my breath, waiting for Mrs. Ryan to tell me I was not good enough for her son, or to reprimand me. Instead she crossed her arms over her chest and leveled a glare at Kash that impressed even me. “What on earth did you say to the poor girl?” He raised his hands in surrender before wrapping his arm around me again. “No clue what you’re talking about. And why do you automatically think it had to be something I did?” “Because I know you, Logan.” “Eh . . . so anyway. Mom, this is Rachel. Rachel, this is my mom.” She brushed back a chunk of black hair that had fallen into her eyes and smiled brightly at me. I still felt like I was frozen and didn’t know how to breathe properly. “Rachel, it’s so good to meet you, honey!” I almost blurted out “But I just called your son an asshole right in front of you!” Instead I plastered a smile on my face and tried to relax my body as Kash let go of me and she wrapped me in a hug. “It’s nice to meet you too. Thank you for having us to dinner.” “Of course”—and then softer, so only I could hear—“he gets the obnoxious, asshole gene from his father. But, unfortunately, it’s one of the things I love most about my guys. You just get used to it and become a master at slyly flipping them off with a smile.” My

He dreamt of the Earth: a ball of rock hurtling around a naked fire. Four and a half billion years old, the product of a grand melee of smashing dust, gas, and boulders, it was bombarded on all sides by lethal radiation and surrounded by an infinite expanse of lethal, frozen vacuum. A fragile sheen of gas and some lucky magnetism were the only things that kept it from succumbing to the black. Its core was as hot as the surface of the sun. Its crust, nearly 4,000 miles removed, was where his entire species lived: ants swarming on a chunk of decaying bread. Every nation, every religion, every story and every life had happened there, suspended precariously between the lethal darkness of space and the crushing heat of the Earth's interior.

High buildings fall, black oceans rise, and coins sink in height Where weapons smash in every grace, with every black and white The east drops, the west too, children die and so do old With every sin, and every crime, people drop by their gold The ground wrecks to chunks where people tend to fall And gardens turn dumps but the tiny bird’s soul Fire, Wind, Water and Sun, all kill a birth It just goes on to be the Last day on earth

Of course, a literary work is a kind of nest: an elaborately and painstakingly woven nest of words incorporating chunks and fragments of the writer's life in an imagined structure, as a bird's nest incorporates all manner of items from the world outside our windows, ingeniously woven together in an original design.

trading CSI remains for two chunks of what-the-fuck wrapped in oversized leaves.

Beyond Borders and Dogma (Sonnet 1590) Monkeys obsess over chunks of land, takes a human to home the world. Leeches obsess over guns and badges, takes a human to deck the halls. Beyond borders and dogma, beyond division and doctrine, beyond malignant maleficence, everyone is my kith and kin. Any ape can boast about their culture, I'll die roaring for every culture on earth, except my own. Monkeys obsess over chunks of land, I stand guard till all are one. Nationalists mark borders by raising guns, like dogs mark their territory by raising legs. Monkeys seek refuge in archaic sovereignty, Human am I, my refuge is the human race.

the briefest of moments before he let out a strange laugh and punched my arm and broke off into a breathless run. There was the empty look on the faces of farmers the year the rains never came, the stoop in their shoulders as they wandered barefoot through their barren, cracked fields, bending over every so often to crumble earth between their fingers; and their desperation the following year when the rains lasted for over a month, swelling the river and fields until the streets gushed with water and swept as high as my waist and families scrambled to rescue their goats and their hens even as chunks of their huts washed away.

I just felt astronomy was an undrillable chunk of iron. Sociology is a plank of wood, and there's bound to be someplace thin enough to punch through. It's easier to get by.

This morning, Allegra said that my pinkie looks good and will probably heal up okay. Not a hundred percent, but pretty okay. She had these big clunky chunks of something like cloudy stones. Like big opals.” “It sounds like divine light glass.” She laughs a little at that. “Is that like holy water? A priest blesses it and suddenly it’s magic.” I set down my cup. “Nope. It’s part of one of the vessels that God used to make the first stars.” “Get out of here.” “It’s true. One of the vessels broke. The glass fell to Earth and created life. Including us.” “You’re fucking with me.” “I’m not. We’re one gigantic cosmic mistake.” Fuck Hollywood stares off into space for a minute. Eventually, she looks at me. “That’s kind of cool when you think about it,” she says. “I mean, if we’re just a mistake it means that anything nice we do is special. Any music or paintings or movies or people we love. They’re all special because we’re not even supposed to be here.

There was a time in the beginning when I too questioned the plan—staring out over the deadlands, the wastelands, at the dry, desert landscape, the hellfires that burned over the horizon, the masses growing in number, filling in one valley after another. The way the earth cracked open, strange appendages and tentacles spooling out of the steaming cracks. The forests at the edge of the mountains spilling creatures on four legs, humping and galloping over the foliage, and into the high grasses as the growth turned into spoil. And up over the range lurked flying beasts with cracked, leathery wings—thick purple veins running through the expanding, unfurling flesh—elongated skulls holding back rows of sharp teeth, chittering in the settling gloam. Below the hills, pools of water, sometimes blue, but more likely a mossy green, a dark scum, filled with gelatinous blobs, covered with spiky hairs, a collection of yellowing eyes atop what might have been considered some kind of head. And snapping at my own heels, the furry creatures with mottled, diseased skin revealed in chunks, snouts exposed to show the fractured, bony skulls beneath it all, long, slavering tongues distending, lapping at the foul air around us. (In His House)

Telephones are, without question, useful devices. But they are also, it seems to me, the verbal equivalent of houses without toilets. Telephones allow minds to communicate with minds (or tongues with ears, at least) in clarity or turmoil, in semisomnolence or drunkenness, in lust, joy, hysteria, stupefaction or any other state that fails to render a human physically incapable of holding up a quarter-pound chunk of perforated plastic—which is most every state there is. That telephones can connect us in seconds to any creature on earth foolhardy enough to lift its own chunk of plastic is wonderful. But it’s also terrible, given what a lot of people think and feel about each other. That’s why, until they’re equipped with some sort of flush or filter or waste-disposal system for the billions of words that ought not to be spoken, I’ll not trust the things.

How would you like to spend your limited time here on Earth? Do you want to look back on your life and realize that you spent huge chunks of it keeping up with the Kardashians? Or do you want to focus on what matters and create art that you’re proud of? Remember Annie Dillard’s timeless wisdom: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

last night, more people than i can count offfered their shoulders as places to cry, their kindness was the only thing that warmed me. when you left, you took all of us with you and we inherited all the hurt this morning, we awoke for the first time in a world without your smile. the icicles began melting today, slipping from the trees in chunks. in dripping water. all the earth wept with us, too.

Thanks to the soy-sauce-based kaeshi sauce, the broth does have a clean aftertaste, yes... but you would never expect this strong and sweet an umami flavor just at a glance!" "How on earth could she- Oh! The vegetable toppings... I've seen this combination before... Kozuyu." "Kozuyu?" "Yes, sir! I made this dish based on Kozuyu but with a paitan stock and soy sauce for the kaeshi. It's Kozuyu Chicken Soy Sauce Ramen." KOZUYU It's a traditional delicacy local to the Aizu area in Northwestern Japan. A vegetable soup, its clear broth is made with scallop stock. Considered a ceremonial meal, it is often served in special bowls on auspicious days, such as festivals and holidays. "Oh, so that's what it is!" "She took a local delicacy and reimagined it as a ramen dish. How clever!" "The scallop and paitan stock forms a solid foundation for the overall flavor of the dish." "Who knew that ramen and Kozuyu would complement each other this well?" "It looks like she also used a blend of light soy sauce and white soy sauce for the kaeshi sauce." White soy sauce! While most Japanese soy sauces are made with a mix of soy and wheat... white soy sauce uses a much higher ratio of wheat to soy! This gives it a much sweeter taste and a far lighter color than regular soy sauce, which is why it's called white. Since Kozuyu broth is traditionally seasoned with soy sauce, using white soy sauce makes perfect sense! "But white soy sauce alone isn't enough to explain this umami flavor! Where on earth is it coming from?" "In this dish, the last, most important chunk of umami flavor... ... comes from the vegetables. The burdock root, shiitake mushrooms, string beans... every vegetable I used as a topping... were first dried and then simmered together with the broth!" Aha! That's right! Drying vegetables concentrates the umami flavors and increases their nutritional value! It also ameliorates their natural grassy pungency, giving them a flavor when cooked that is much different than what they had raw! Megumi has captured all of that umami goodness in her broth!

As in most mining towns, the people of Broken Hill were not expecting the minerals to last forever, so they built the dwellings accordingly. As a result, our house required ongoing maintenance. Every day when explosives were fired underground at 7 am and 3 pm to prepare the mines for the next shift, the ground rumbled, the house shook and it became a sport spotting the new bits of damage – mostly chunks of cement falling off the outside walls, which didn’t make the house look very pretty. The blasts were like small earth tremors, so Mum never bought ornaments for the mantelpiece or shelves; they would only end up as jigsaw puzzles on the ground around 7 am or 3 pm.

I have always found hot tea beneficial when chunks of the earth start breaking free of their moorings. Also when one is cold and wet.