Clean Bed Sheets Quotes

Life’s too short to walk around with your arms crossed and bottom lip poked out. Find a way to smile for yourself even if it’s as simple as licking the spoon clean or putting clean sheets on your bed.

When we spend time together, I feel this peace that I don't get when you're not around. It's kind of like when you're a kid, and you put on fresh PJs after a bath and get into a made bed with clean sheets straight out of the dryer. That's what being with you feels like.

You told me, Sleep, I’ll wake you in the morning. I asked, What is morning? and you said, When everyone who fucked with me I’d dead. When everyone we loved has gone or fled, That’s morning. Empty’s just another word for clean. Let’s put this first draft dream of mine to bed. I the appointed hour I’ll pull up your sheets. I’ll kill the light, Lie down beside you; die; and sleep the night. This time will be the time we get it right; Forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long; Our graves will be less deep, our lies less true You held aloft the sword. I still love y

The history of the world? Just voices echoing in the dark; images that burn for a few centuries and then fade; stories, old stories that sometimes seem to overlap; strange links, impertinent connections. We lie here in our hospital bed of the present (what nice clean sheets we get nowadays) with a bubble of daily news drip-fed into our arm. We think we know who we are, though we don't quite know why we're here, or how long we shall be forced to stay. And while we fret and write in bandaged uncertainty - are we a voluntary patient? - we fabulate. We make up a story to cover the facts we don't know or can't accept; we keep a few true facts and spin a new story round them. Our panic and our pain are only eased by soothing fabulation; we call it history.

I can't give you up now. When we spend time together, I feel this peace that I don't get when you're not around. It's kind of like when you're a kid, and you put on fresh PJs after a bath and get into a made bed with clean sheets straight out of the dryer. That's what being with you feels like.

Childhood is a time for pretending and trying on maturity to see if it fits or hangs baggy, tastes good or bitter, smells nice or fills your lungs with smoke that makes you cough. It's sharing licks on the same sucker with your best friend before you discover germs. It's not knowing how much a house cost, and caring less. It's going to bed in the summer with dirty feet on clean sheets. It's thinking anyone over fifteen is 'ancient'. It's absorbing ideas, knowledge, and people like a giant sponge. Childhood is where 'competition' is a baseball game and 'responsibility' is a paper route.

There is nothing more wonderful than feeling head-to-toe clean after you've been filthy, having a comfortable bed with clean sheets, being able to sleep in it in safety.

I watched the water swirl away entirely before I twisted my head to look at him. His fingers were gentle, but firm where he’d fisted them in my hair. “You never failed them,” I rasped. “I did … horrible things to ensure that.” Those violet eyes near-glowed in the dim light. “So did I.” My sweat clung like blood—the blood of those two faeries— I pivoted, barely turning in time. His other hand stroked long, soothing lines down the curve of my back, as over and over I yielded my dinner. When the latest wave had ebbed, I breathed, “The flames?” “Autumn Court.” I couldn’t muster a response. At some point, I leaned against the coolness of the nearby bathtub and closed my eyes. When I awoke, sun streamed through the windows, and I was in my bed—tucked in tightly to the fresh, clean sheets.

With a damp palm, I turned the knob and cracked open the door. She was asleep in her freshly made bed. I can’t explain how relieved I felt for this simple mercy. She was here and safe on clean sheets.

I thought of crawling in between the bed sheets and trying to sleep, but that appealed to me about as much as stuffing a dirty, scrawled-over letter into a fresh, clean envelope. I decided to take a hot bath. There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.

Once I had her clean, I wrapped her in a towel and carried her back to the bed. A small red bloodstain was on the sheets, and again the possessive monster inside me threw back his head and roared his pleasure. I stood there holding her and letting the proof I was the only man to be inside her wash over me. Blythe turned her head, and I felt her stiffen in my arms. “Oh, I can clean that up,” she said, starting to wiggle. I pulled her tighter to my chest. “No. I’m going to dry you off and hold you some more. I like seeing that blood. I did that,” The pleasure in my voice made Blythe smile.

ROSE: I married your daddy and settled down to cooking his super and keeping clean sheets on the bed. When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave some room for me. For my part in the matter. But at that time I wanted that. I wanted a house that I could sing in. And that's what your daddy gave me. I didn't know to keep up his strength I had to give up little pieces of mine. I did that. I took on his life as mine and mixed up the pieces so that you couldn't hardly tell which was which anymore. It was my choice. It was my life and I didn't have to live it like that.But that's what life offered me in the way of being a woman and I took it. I grabbed hold of it with both hands.

Then you must also spend the night. We are miles from an inn, and I can promise you that the sheets are fresh and clean." And the beds are lumpier than those at any posting house.

You told me, Sleep, I’ll wake you in the morning. I asked, What is morning? and you said, When everyone who fucked with me is dead. When everyone we loved has gone or fled, That’s morning. Empty’s just another word for clean. Let’s put this first draft dream of mine to bed. I the appointed hour I’ll pull up your sheets. I’ll kill the light, Lie down beside you; die; and sleep the night. This time will be the time we get it right; Forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long; Our graves will be less deep, our lies less true You held aloft the sword. I still love y

You told me, Sleep, I’ll wake you in the morning. I asked, What is morning? and you said, When everyone who fucked with me is dead. When everyone we loved has gone or fled, That’s morning. Empty’s just another word for clean. Let’s put this first draft dream of mine to bed. In the appointed hour I’ll pull up your sheets. I’ll kill the light, Lie down beside you; die; and sleep the night. This time will be the time we get it right; Forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long; Our graves will be less deep, our lies less true You held aloft the sword. I still love y

The duty of the inn-keeper,is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, dirty sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty small purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling families respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick the child clean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the chimney-corner,the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the feather-bed, the mattress and the truss of straw; to know how much the shadow uses up the mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five hundred thousand devils, to make the traveller pay for everything, even for the flies which his dog eats!

they didn’t go out; the pleasure of small acts of domestic intimacy – sharing a bath, preparing meal side by side at the stove, putting clean sheets on the bed, smoking the day’s last cigarette in the garden while they looked at the night sky – these were all still delightful.

For the liquor of Miss Amelia has a special quality of its own. It is clean and sharp on the tongue, but once down a man it glows inside him for a long time afterward. And that is not all. It is known that if a message is written with lemon juice on a clean sheet of paper there will be no sign of it. But if the paper is held for a moment to the fire then the letters turn brown and the meaning becomes clear. Imagine that the whisky is the fire and that the message is that which is known only in the soul of a man – then the worth of Miss Amelia's liquor can be understood. Things that have gone unnoticed, thoughts that have been harbored far back in the dark mind, are suddenly recognized and comprehended. A spinner who has thought only of the loom, the dinner pail, the bed, and then the loom again – this spinner might drink some on a Sunday and come across a marsh lily. And in his palm he might hold this flower, examining the golden dainty cup, and in him suddenly might come a sweetness keen as pain. A weaver might look up suddenly and see for the first time the cold, weird radiance of midnight January sky, and a deep fright at his own smallness stop his heart. Such things as these, then, happen when a man has drunk Miss Amelia's liquor. He may suffer, or he may be spent with joy – but the experience has shown the truth; he has warmed his soul and seen the message hidden there.

My dad picked me up and rocked me in the chair. I felt small and weak and I wanted to hold him back but I couldn’t because there wasn’t any strength in my arms, and I wanted to ask him if he had held me like this when I was a boy because I didn’t remember and why didn’t I remember. I started to think that maybe I was still dreaming, but my mother was changing the sheets on my bed so I knew that everything was real. Except me. I think I was mumbling. My father held me tighter and whispered something, but not even his arms or his whispers could keep me from trembling. My mom dried my sweaty body with a towel and she and my dad changed me into a clean T-shirt and clean underwear. And then I said the strangest thing, “Don’t throw my T-shirt away. Dad gave it to me.” I knew I was crying, but I didn’t know why because I wasn’t the kind of guy who cried, and I thought that maybe it was someone else who was crying.

It’s been twenty-four years now that I’ve been coming here. And every summer, Célia spends the day before my arrival filling up the fridge and putting clean sheets on the beds.

Every woman deserves the simple dignity of dying in a bed with clean sheets and an electric light at hand.' -spoken by Sara, the missionary doctor, during a moment of indignation.

I was dead. That was really the only explanation I had for the sensation that I was lying in a comfy bed, cool, clean-smelling sheets pulled up to my chin, and a soft hand stroking my hair. That was nice. Being dead seemed pretty sweet, all things considered. Especially if ti meant I got to nap for all eternity. I snuggled deeper into the covers. The hand on my hair moved to my back, and I realized someone was singing softly. The voice was familiar, and something about it made my chest ache. Well, that was to be expected. Angels’ songs would be awfully poignant. “’I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, when I met you…’” the voice crooned. I frowned. Was that really an appropriate song for the Heavenly Host to be- Realization crashed into me. “Mom!

Because I live in south Florida I store cans of black beans and gallons of water in my closet in preparation for hurricane season. I throw a hurricane party in January. You’re my only guest. We play Marco Polo in bed. The sheets are wet like the roof caved in. There’s a million of me in you. You try to count me as I taste the sweat on the back of your neck. I call you Sexy Sexy, and we do everything twice. After, still sweating, we drink Crystal Light out of plastic water bottles. We discuss the pros and cons of vasectomies. It’s not invasive you say. I wrap the bedsheet around my waist. Minor surgery you say. You slur the word surgery, like it’s a garnish on a dish you just prepared. I eat your hair until you agree to no longer talk about vasectomies. We agree to have children someday, and that they will be beautiful even if they’re not. As I watch your eyes grow heavy like soggy clothes, I tell you When I grow up I’m going to be a famous writer. When I’m famous I’ll sign autographs on Etch-A-Sketches. I’ll write poems about writing other poems, so other poets will get me. You open your eyes long enough to tell me that when you grow up, you’re going to be a steamboat operator. Your pores can never be too clean you say. I say I like your pores just fine. I say Your pores are tops. I kiss you with my whole mouth, and you fall asleep next to my molars. In the morning, we eat french toast with powdered sugar. I wear the sugar like a mustache. You wear earmuffs and pretend we’re in a silent movie. I mouth Olive juice, but I really do love you. This is an awesome hurricane party you say, but it comes out as a yell because you can’t gauge your own volume with the earmuffs on. You yell I want to make something cute with you. I say Let me kiss the insides of your arms. You have no idea what I just said, but you like the way I smile.

October's Double by Stewart Stafford Light a fire in flinty February, As the evening time comes down, Welcome all the family home With shopping bought from town. Hear the logs crackle and roll, And the sparks pop and hiss, A storm roars down the chimney, To deliver its tempestuous kiss. Drowsiness in the living room, As the expiring embers fade, Up we go to those clean sheets, And beds so neatly made. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

The minister spoke in a well-modulated voice. Then we joined in singing. I could not help but make comparisons: the dirty prison dormitory, infection-ridden and filthy, the beds full of lice, and now this. Clean sheets and pillow cases and a spotless floor. The hoarse voices of the slave drivers and the mature, melodious voice of the minister. Only the singing was the same, for we had sung at Ravensbruck. Singing was one of the ways we kept up our courage.

Tildy warned us the Winter King could identify a person by scent,” Summer said. “Since he thinks you’re Autumn, Tildy said the wedding night should take place here, in Autumn’s bedroom, where her scent is already absorbed into everything.” “She added the flowers and incense to help mask your own scent,” Spring added, “and deliberately arranged the candles so he won’t be able to get a good look at your face so long as you keep to the bed.” “Where’s Autumn?” she asked. “Here.” Khamsin turned. Her sister emerged from the connecting wardrobe room wrapped in a forest green satin robe. Her long auburn hair spilled around her shoulders in ringlets. “Scenting up your nightclothes.” Autumn grimaced. “I know I’m clean. I bathed this morning, but there’s still something wrong about rolling on sheets and rubbing myself on clothes all day. It just seems so . . . so . . . dirty.” Despite everything, Khamsin laughed. For some reason, Autumn’s complaint struck her as funny. “You rolled on the sheets?” “Tildavera suggested it.

These I have loved: Pork with apple sauce; tea in a heavy mug; The smell of new books, and musty ones; A girl with red coils for curls --Her scream--Her smile; The slap of a blonde dog's tongue Against my face; and an old face--Nana's; A broken fence--a secret pathway between two houses; The sinking into a familiar bed; Sheets white and crispy clean; The return of a woman in a green coat-- Imperfect and human; The sound of poetry; And of pencil lead scuffing the page as I write; Made-up stores; and Truth. These I have loved.

Saturday was general cleaning day in accordance with the rules laid down by the Foundress. Every nun, professed or lay, scrubbed down her cell, took her linen to the laundry room, made up her narrow bed with fresh sheets and changed her underwear for the second time in a week.

Sometimes Lily thought about having a baby one day, and then wondered how she could when she was the baby in her own life. Trying to remember to drink water or eat vegetables, to clean her teeth and to actually change her sheets instead of sleeping on the other side of the bed.

he had developed a system that enabled him to sleep in clean sheets every night without the trouble of bed changing. He’d been proposing the system to Sarah for years, but she was so set in her ways. What he did was strip the mattress of all linens, replacing them with a giant sort of envelope made from one of the seven sheets he had folded and stitched together on the sewing machine. He thought of this invention as a Macon Leary Body Bag. A body bag required no tucking in, was unmussable, easily changeable, and the perfect weight for summer nights. In winter he would have to devise something warmer, but he couldn’t think of winter yet. He was barely making it from one day to the next as it was. At moments—while he was skidding

Sorry, it’s such a mess.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “I cleared off the bed, though, and the sheets are clean.” My eyebrows practically hit my hairline. “To sit on.” His accusation is made jokingly, but his skin turns melon pink. “Nice shoes, by the way.” I’m wearing flats. “Nice deflection, by the way.” “Nice to see you, by the way.” “Nice save, by the way.

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges? I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want. When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking 'Is this the one I am too appear for, Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar? Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules. Is this the one for the annunciation? My god, what a laugh!' But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me. I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button. I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year. After all I am alive only by accident. I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way. Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains, The diaphanous satins of a January window White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory! It must be a tusk there, a ghost column. Can you not see I do not mind what it is. Can you not give it to me? Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small. Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity. Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam, The glaze, the mirrory variety of it. Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate. I know why you will not give it to me, You are terrified The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it, Bossed, brazen, an antique shield, A marvel to your great-grandchildren. Do not be afraid, it is not so. I will only take it and go aside quietly. You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle, No falling ribbons, no scream at the end. I do not think you credit me with this discretion. If you only knew how the veils were killing my days. To you they are only transparencies, clear air. But my god, the clouds are like cotton. Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide. Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in, Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million Probable motes that tick the years off my life. You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine----- Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole? Must you stamp each piece purple, Must you kill what you can? There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me. It stands at my window, big as the sky. It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history. Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger. Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it. Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil. If it were death I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes. I would know you were serious. There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday. And the knife not carve, but enter Pure and clean as the cry of a baby, And the universe slide from my side.

He’s almost finished when Bertha walks back in. “Look at you!” she crows. “Somebody looks happier.” Do I? I guess so. It’s good to be clean. She doesn’t say a word about the steam in the air or our damp hair and bare feet. Instead, she gathers the sheets up off the bed and disappears, returning a minute later with a clean set. She puts them on while Wes finishes smoothing the last bits of shaving cream off my face.

system that enabled him to sleep in clean sheets every night without the trouble of bed changing. He’d been proposing the system to Sarah for years, but she was so set in her ways. What he did was strip the mattress of all linens, replacing them with a giant sort of envelope made from one of the seven sheets he had folded and stitched together on the sewing machine. He thought of this invention as a Macon Leary Body Bag. A body bag required no tucking in, was unmussable, easily changeable, and the perfect weight for summer nights.

He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books; the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa.

Ms. Mori offered me her cheek to kiss and Sonny offered me his hand to shake. He showed me the door and I slid home through the cool sheets of night and into my own bed, Bon asleep and hovering above me in his rack. I closed my eyes and, after a spell of darkness, floated on my mattress across a black river to the foreign country that needed no passport to visit. Of its many gnomic features and shady denizens I now recall only one, my mind wiped clean except for this fatal fingerprint, an ancient kapok tree that was my final resting place and on whose arthritic bark I laid my cheek. I was almost asleep within my sleep when I gradually understood that the knot of gnarled wood on which my ear rested was actually an ear itself, curled and stiff, the wax of its auditory history encrusted in the green moss of its twisted canal. Half of the kapok tree towered above me, half was invisible below me in the rooted earth, and when I looked up I saw not just one ear but many ears swelling from the bark of its thick trunk, hundreds of ears listening and having listened to things I could not hear, the sight of those ears so horrible it hurled me back into the black river. I woke drenched and gasping, clutching the sides of my head. Only after I kicked off the damp sheets and looked under the pillow could I lie down again, trembling. My heart still beat with the force of a savage drummer, but at least my bed was not littered with amputated ears.

He helped me clean out my head in time for floweret sunshine, while I raked dead leaves from underneath the bed of my nails that were waiting to be organized in diaries. As the 'Forbidding Numb' piled up, he laundered my abandoned hope clean. All that I could smell on my hands were the roots of the root words I had diluted with extra letters and slushiness. There isn't a corner that we missed; and, in no time at all, I will forget the wretchedness of this winter. Soon, I will only smell peonies and calla lilies, fresh cotton sheets, and maybe—just maybe— the paperless books that I have written being pressed like petals; yet, no longer incinerators burning perished wood that already pushed up daisies right when autumn left its leaves behind me.

Go back. Open the bedroom door and send young Aster down the stairs. Place the groom on his feet and draw him away from the bed. Wipe the sheet clean of the bride’s blood. Shake it straight and flatten its wrinkles. Slide off that necklace and return it to the girl as she races to her mother. Fix what has been broken in her, mend it shut again. Clothe him in his wedding finery. Let there be no light. Allow only shadows into this kingdom of man’s making. See him alone in the room. See him free of a father’s attention. See him step beyond the reach of elders and all who advise growing boys on the perils of weakness. Here is Kidane, shaking loose of unseen bindings. Here he is, gifting himself the freedom to tremble. All advice has been taken back and he is no longer the groom instructed to break flesh and draw blood and bring a girl to earthy cries. See this man in the tender moment before he takes his wife. See him wrestle with the first blooms of untapped emotion. Let the minutes stretch. Remove the expectations of a father. Remove the admonishments to stand tall and stay strong. Eliminate the birthright, the privilege of nobility, the weight of ancestors and blood. Erase his father’s name and that of his grandfather’s father and that of the long line of men before them. Let him stand in the middle of that empty bedroom in his wedding tunic and trousers, in his gilded cape and gold ring, and then disappear his name, too. Make of him nothing and see what emerges willingly, without taint of duty or fear.

Just meat on a stick with the vague sense that somewhere between lavish femininity And state violence lay a mediocre thing called liberty. Still, to be able to sleep at all’s a procedure of waking. Everybody Has to live somewhere being that we are here where most Of us are not welcome. Did you know transcendental Homelessness was a thing. But I dreamed this dream On a physical mattress. On an actual floor in a room with a door That I pay and pay for. If you write you can forge A substance that is other than the woman of substance You are. If you do it to such a point you can find Yourself declining substance altogether. It happens. It is a danger. But there will Always be the idea of a bath or a sleep in a bed or a dream In the head of a woman who is even beautiful visibly Or at least groomed, or somewhat fresh Or like that most domestic of bugs the cockroach Dragging his ponderous suit of armor across the floor Or clean sheets when it’s raining and I love you so much And I think Gimme Shelter, which is a movie I’ve never seen.

With one final flip the quarter flew high into the air and came down on the mattress with a light bounce. It jumped several inches off the bed, high enough for the instructor to catch it in his hand. Swinging around to face me, the instructor looked me in the eye and nodded. He never said a word. Making my bed correctly was not going to be an opportunity for praise. It was expected of me. It was my first task of the day, and doing it right was important. It demonstrated my discipline. It showed my attention to detail, and at the end of the day it would be a reminder that I had done something well, something to be proud of, no matter how small the task. Throughout my life in the Navy, making my bed was the one constant that I could count on every day. As a young SEAL ensign aboard the USS Grayback, a special operation submarine, I was berthed in sick bay, where the beds were stacked four high. The salty old doctor who ran sick bay insisted that I make my rack every morning. He often remarked that if the beds were not made and the room was not clean, how could the sailors expect the best medical care? As I later found out, this sentiment of cleanliness and order applied to every aspect of military life. Thirty years later, the Twin Towers came down in New York City. The Pentagon was struck, and brave Americans died in an airplane over Pennsylvania. At the time of the attacks, I was recuperating in my home from a serious parachute accident. A hospital bed had been wheeled into my government quarters, and I spent most of the day lying on my back, trying to recover. I wanted out of that bed more than anything else. Like every SEAL I longed to be with my fellow warriors in the fight. When I was finally well enough to lift myself unaided from the bed, the first thing I did was pull the sheets up tight, adjust the pillow, and make sure the hospital bed looked presentable to all those who entered my home. It was my way of showing that I had conquered the injury and was moving forward with my life. Within four weeks of 9/11, I was transferred to the White House, where I spent the next two years in the newly formed Office of Combatting Terrorism. By October 2003, I was in Iraq at our makeshift headquarters on the Baghdad airfield. For the first few months we slept on Army cots. Nevertheless, I would wake every morning, roll up my sleeping bag, place the pillow at the head of the cot, and get ready for the day.

A private car was waiting for us and Renée and I were driven back to the Pleasure Prison. As we rode along I was thinking, “Why do I feel so inflated, so pumped up, so on edge? I have been here eight weeks and worked only eight days.” I mean, talk about mad dogs and Englishmen, the British were incredible. A sixty-year-old makeup man stood for hours each day in the burning sun, just to press ice packs on our necks so we wouldn’t faint, and I was complaining? I was feeling ravaged, all spoiled and puffed up. But, oh, how I was going to miss it. How I was going to miss it. Riding in the car, I said a silent farewell. Farewell to the fantastic breakfasts, the pineapple like I’d never tasted and probably never will taste again. Farewell to the fresh mango and papaya, farewell to the Thai maid and the fresh, clean, cotton sheets on the king-size bed every night. Farewell to the incredible free lunches under the circus tent with fresh meat flown in from America every day. Roast lamb, roast potatoes and green beans at 110 degrees, in accordance with British Equity. Farewell to the cakes and teas and ices at four. Farewell to the Thai driver with the tinted glasses and the Mercedes with the one-way windows. Farewell to the single fresh rose in the glass on my bureau every morning. And just as I was dozing off in the Pleasure Prison, I had a flash. An inkling. I suddenly thought I knew what it was that killed Marilyn Monroe.

IN T H E last twenty-five years I have had a lot of people staying with me and sometimes I am tempted to write an essay on guests. There are the guests who never shut a door after them and never turn out the light when they leave their room. There are the guests who throw themselves on their bed in muddy boots to have a nap after lunch, so that the counterpane has to be cleaned on their departure. There are the guests who smoke in bed and burn holes in your sheets. There are the guests who are on a regime and have to have special food cooked for them and there are the guests who wait till their glass is filled with a vintage claret and then say: "I won't have any, thank you." There are the guests who never put back a book in the place from which they took it and there are the guests who take away a volume from a set and never return it. There are the guests who borrow money from you when they are leaving and do not pay it back. There are the guests who can never be alone for a minute and there are the guests who are seized with a desire to talk the moment they see you glancing at a paper. There are the guests who, wherever they are, want to be somewhere else and there are the guests who want to be doing something from the time they get up in the morning till the time they go to bed at night. There are the guests who treat you as though they were SOME NOVELISTS I HAVE KNOWN 459 gauleiters in a conquered province. There are the guests who bring three weeks* laundry with them to have washed at your expense and there are the guests who send their clothes to the cleaners and leave you to pay the bill. There are the guests who telephone to London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and New York, and never think of inquiring how much it costs. There are the guests who take all they can get and offer nothing in return. There are also the guests who are happy just to be with you, who seek to please, who have resources of their own, who amuse you, whose conversation is delightful, whose interests are varied, who exhilarate and excite you, who in short give you far more than you can ever hope to give them and whose visits are only too brief.

went off, without waiting for serving men, and unsaddled my horse, and washed such portions of his ribs and his spine as projected through his hide, and when I came back, behold five stately circus tents were up—tents that were brilliant, within, with blue, and gold, and crimson, and all manner of splendid adornment! I was speechless. Then they brought eight little iron bedsteads, and set them up in the tents; they put a soft mattress and pillows and good blankets and two snow-white sheets on each bed. Next, they rigged a table about the centre-pole, and on it placed pewter pitchers, basins, soap, and the whitest of towels—one set for each man; they pointed to pockets in the tent, and said we could put our small trifles in them for convenience, and if we needed pins or such things, they were sticking every where. Then came the finishing touch—they spread carpets on the floor! I simply said, "If you call this camping out, all right—but it isn't the style I am used to; my little baggage that I brought along is at a discount." It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables—candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks. And soon the bell—a genuine, simon-pure bell—rang, and we were invited to "the saloon." I had thought before that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing but an eating-saloon. Like the others, it was high enough for a family of giraffes to live in, and was very handsome and clean and bright-colored within. It was a gem of a place. A table for eight, and eight canvas chairs; a table-cloth and napkins whose whiteness and whose fineness laughed to scorn the things we were used to in the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soup-plates, dinner-plates—every thing, in the handsomest kind of style. It was wonderful! And they call this camping out. Those stately fellows in baggy trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose, potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the table made a finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and other finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a very long trip, and promising to do a great deal better in future! It is midnight, now, and we break camp at six in the morning. They call this camping out. At this rate it is a glorious privilege to be a pilgrim to the Holy Land.

Plains (part III) Down Zabia Street through a Polish city walks Rose in white feathers It’s not a costume ball for a long time the wind will carry feathers from the beds of those departed Their bodies will not leave impressions in the grass of May meadows nor on the waves which shimmer under the saffron fins of fishes their bodies will not leave impressions in the hay when a black lightning bolt of swallows flies with a squawk through an empty barn with dirt floor Their bodies will not leave impressions on any bed sheets Down Zabia Street through a Polish city walks Rose on uneven cobblestones past houses with blue stars and boarded-up windows walks through a temple where stray cats have found their lair She walks amidst the glowing feathers on this black day she walks through your cities neutral Swedes she walks through your homes theaters places of worship she walks through your villages neutral Swiss through your clean towns clean as tears She passed as clouds pass across the sky across the earth without a trace Within me I preserved her heartbeat the silence of her eyes the warmth and hue of her lips the heft of her insides her fleeting thighs in the shadow of love the shape of her head and the reddish dusk of her falling hair and the small sun of her smile She passed as clouds pass but from where is this immeasurably long shadow being cast

Mummy?’ Anna called ahead, as was her habit, making her way along the hallway of their flat, stepping over her school shoes that were lined up side by side underneath the radiator. Their laces had been looped on the outside, making it a doddle for her to slip them on. This was just one of the small things her mummy did to make her life easier. She also cut Anna’s toast into soldiers so she could hold a slice in her fingers and still colour in with her free hand. And she turned down Anna’s bed at night so when her teeth had been cleaned, Anna could, with no more than a hop, a skip and a jump from the bathroom across the narrow hallway, land in her bed and onto the stripey, bobbly, flannelette sheet

It took the better part of six miles before he quit thinking of the beast he’d left on the trail. After that, he thought of the town. There would be hot baths, smooth whiskey, clean beds with cool sheets, and, of course, women. Walking, he began putting them in order of which he would take first. Each, after all, had its own advantages and pleasures. The trick was deciding how to mix them. Before he could come to any firm conclusions, the town appeared beyond an unexpected turn in the trail. It lay down a smooth slope of a hill, laid out like on a map. From a distance, it wasn’t much to look at. Eight or nine solid buildings of wood and perhaps double that many tents and lean-tos. It was what he expected of the Nevada mining town that had seen better days. Although never an outright boomtown, the place had managed

When we're married, we'll make a place for your cousin in the household. Never fear, dear duchess. I will love her as you do." Eleanor flushed. Mr. Knight had a way of saying the right thing and lighting a glow in her heart. He would hate her when he found out the truth. But she wouldn't let that dismal prospect ruin tonight. Tonight he belonged to her. As she moved with him, he filled her vision, soaked into her pores. Occasionally she would catch a whiff of his essence, like bracing cold air, spicy cinnamon bark... clean white sheets. While around him, she must not think of things like pleasure and beds. It might lead to... pleasure and beds.

How good would Flynn be in bed – a real bed, with crisp, clean sheets? She’d seen and handled enough of his body to create a solid mental picture of him naked. Very solid. Honed, strong, with a dusting of blond hair on his tanned chest and maybe a few tattoos. Long muscular legs, a sculpted butt, a narrow waist sliding into a broad back that would undulate under her fingers as he moved against her.

Already, a few petals had fallen, heavy and waxen, to the pavement after a windy night. The air was fresh but not too cold. A night's buffeting had left the new day feeling rumpled but clean, like a fresh sheet on the bed

The striking almond shape and easy softness of his eyes draws you in and are likely the most attractive you've ever seen on another person, even if they're eclipsed by darkness from obvious lack of sleep and pupils blown wide from ecstasy. He feels familiar and inexplicably heart-warming, like the anticipated change of seasons or the scent of an extinguished candle after a family holiday, your bed when lined with clean sheets or the sound of a loved one's voice on the phone after not hearing it for some time.

In the bedroom I put on a sweatsuit I've had since high school, take the sheets off my bed, pick clothes up from the floor - dirty or clean it doesn't matter - put them all in the hamper, put clean sheets on the bed, pause to retch and weep, gather all the pillows and blankets from the rest of my apartment, get my computer, cocoon myself, watch TV. I order a pizza. I drift in and out of consciousness, letting their reality be my reality, eat the pizza, fall asleep with the TV on, wake up with the TV on, in and out, in and out, alone and lonely like I like it.

Mariamma feeds him, holds his urine bottle for him, cleans him, doing her best to spare the busy nurses. By watching the probationers, she’s learned how to change soiled sheets under a bedridden patient, how to turn him, and give him a proper bed bath. It’s humbling. Shouldn’t every physician learn this? Isn’t this what medicine is really about? The

Once in a while a kind nurse will call me that there is a bed available in the ward from the unfortunate death of a patient. They have cleared the bed and put a clean bed sheet on it. That was good enough for me. At last a bed to sleep in! Who cares if some dead patient has just occupied it? A bed was a bed. I have no qualms about sleeping in the bed, with a ghost of a patient who has just departed.

How does one go on? How does one get up and face another day? Another night in the dark without sleep? I have no answer, nor even a hint of how it is done... those of us who have others depending on us to be strong, to feed and clothe them, to protect them, to lead them, to mother them, we have not the luxury of finding oblivion. And so we rise each day and find a way through the endless hours to put food on the table and clean sheets on the beds, and we wait for the next dawn and do it all again.

disobeying your earthly father? I do. In fact, one of my most memorable experiences with my dad came after I had spilled a paint can all over the carpet while my parents were remodeling a room. They didn’t see it happen, so I went flying up the stairs and dived under my covers. In a few minutes I could hear the muffled voice of my father discussing how I had ruined the carpet. I tightened the sheet over my head and tried to prop up stuffed animals and pillows so he couldn’t find me. I heard him call out to me. Then I heard his feet coming up the stairs. “Hugh Thomas, where are you?” Trying not to even breathe, I remained silent. Then the door opened with a creak, and I felt his feet moving toward the side of my bed. I was terrified. I knew he had found me. I expected him to grab me by the ankle, jerk me out of the bed, hang me upside down, and whale away on my hind end with a wooden spoon. But he didn’t. I just remember him gently grabbing the corner of the sheet, slowing pulling it up, sliding his face under the covers where he could make eye contact with me, and then saying, “Son, you ruined the carpet, but I love you. Why don’t you come down and help me fix this? I’m not mad, but we have to clean it up, okay?” When God came to find Adam, He was upset, for sure.

I mean, he asked for the keys to the truck last night and brought them back earlier this morning.  Truck’s fixed.  I checked myself.  So, I’m wondering what you said to him.” My mouth popped open.  I couldn’t believe he’d actually listened to me.  A silly smile tugged at my mouth.  Did this really mean he’d let me go?  My barely formed smile faded.  Or would I just wake up back in this apartment tomorrow morning if I tried to leave? Sam continued to remake the bed with the clean sheets from the hidden compartment in the matching sofa ottoman. There had to be a catch.  Sam had told me a tied pair didn’t part until completing the Claim.  When Clay had scented me, and I’d recognized him openly, the Elders saw us as a pair.  They, in turn, announced it to everyone over their mental link.  Every werewolf, whether in a pack or Forlorn, recognized our tie.  If my words truly changed Clay’s mind, great—but Sam’s question caused me to begin to doubt that possibility, and I struggled to come up with what I’d overlooked. “The truth,” I said answering Sam’s question.  “Let’s say he is my Mate.  He’s an uneducated man from the backwoods.  How are we going to live?  I can’t turn on the fur like you guys can and live as a wolf like he’s done for most of his life.  Where does that leave us?  I just pointed out that I had to go to school to get the education I needed to land a good job to support myself because he can’t.” Sam had stopped remaking the bed and looked at me in disbelief. “Well, I said it nicer than that.” He gave me a disappointed look. “You don’t know anything about him, Gabby.  He may have lived most of his life in his fur, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t intelligent or that he’s more wolf than man.  You may have caused yourself more trouble than you intended.” I shifted against the door.  “Hold on, I didn’t say either of those things to him.”  Granted, I did tell him he needed to bathe.  “And what do you mean ‘more trouble’?” “He said that you suggested he live with you so you could get to know each other better.” I froze in disbelief.  That is not what I said. “Wait.  Did he actually talk to you?” “Well, I had to put on my fur to understand him since he was in his, but yes.” Sam’s kind communicated in several ways when in their fur—typically, through body language or howls.  Claimed and Mated pairs shared a special bond using an intuitive, mental link.  Once establishing a Claim, the pair could sense strong emotions as well as each other’s location.  Mated pairs had the same ability to communicate with each other as the Elders had with everyone in the pack. I closed my eyes and thought back to my exact wording. “I didn’t say we should live together, but that he should come back with me to get an education.”  Fine, I hadn’t worded it well, but how did he get “hey, we should live together” out of that? “Like I said, you’ve got trouble.”  He gave me another disappointed look, folded the bed back into the sofa, then picked up his bag from the floor.  He strode to the bathroom and closed the door on any further conversation. Crap.  I needed to talk to Clay again and find out what he intended.  I’d been counting on his feral upbringing and his need for freedom to cause him to reject my suggestion—a suggestion that hadn’t included him living with me.  I’d meant he should find a place nearby so we could go through the motions of human dating, which was the extent of my willingness to compromise.  I hadn’t thought he’d take any of it seriously but that, instead, he would just let me go. I

That’s very trusting.” Iris watches Anke search our backpacks. “We’re saving people’s lives. We thought we could be,”Anke says. I’m more fixated on her arm in my backpack than on what she’s saying, though. That bag is nearly empty, but it’s mine. She’s messing it up. Her hands might not even be clean. When she does stop, I immediately wish she hadn’t. “Denise,” she says, “I need to search your bed next.” My gaze flicks to my pillow. “I. I. Could I.” “She doesn’t like people touching her bed.” Iris stands, guarding me. “You’re touching it,” Captain Van Zand’s brother says. Iris shoots him a withering look. “I sat at the foot, which is the only place that’s OK for even me to touch, and I’m her sister.” Anke’s sigh sounds closer to a hiss. “Look, we have more rooms to search.” I squirm. No. Not squirm. I’m rocking. Back and forth. “Wait,” I say. “You can’t—” Iris goes on. “Just ’cause she’s too precious to—” the man argues. “Wait,” I repeat, softer this time, so soft that I’m not even sure Iris hears it. “Can I, can I just, wait. I can lift the sheets and mattress myself. You can look. Right? Is that good? Right? Is that good? If I lift them?” I force my jaw shut. No one says anything for several moments. I can’t tell if Anke is thinking of a counterargument or if she really is trying to make this work. Her lips tighten. “OK. If you listen to my instructions exactly.” “You’re indulging her?” Captain Van Zand’s brother says. “She’s just being difficult. Have you ever seen an autistic kid? Trust me, they’re not the kind to take water scooters into the city like she did.” “Denise, just get it done,” Anke snaps. I don’t stand until they’re far enough away from the bed, as if they might jump at me and touch the bed themselves regardless. I blink away tears. It’s dumb, I know that—I’m treating Anke’s hands like some kind of nuclear hazard—but this is my space, mine, and too little is left that’s mine as is. I can’t even face Iris. With the way she tried to help, it feels as though I’m betraying her by offering this solution myself. I keep my head low and follow Anke’s orders one-handed. Take off both the satin and regular pillowcases, show her the pillow, shake it (although I tell her she can feel the pillow herself: that’s OK, since the pillowcases will cover it again anyway)—lift the sheets, shake them, lift the mattress long enough for her to shine her light underneath, let her feel the mattress (which is OK, too, since she’s just touching it from the bottom) . . . They tell us to stay in our room for another hour. I wash my hands, straighten the sheets, wash my hands again, and wrap the pillow in its cases. “That was a good solution,” Iris says. “Sorry,” I mutter. “For what?” Being difficult. Not letting her help me. I keep my eyes on the sheets as I make the bed and let out a small laugh.

So, you put in a no-show for the turkey,” Sean said. “What’s up with that? You’re stateside, you’re not that far away….” “I have things to do here, Sean,” he said. “And I explained to Mother—I can’t leave Art and I can’t take him on a trip.” “So I heard. And that’s your only reason?” “What else?” “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, as if he did know what else. “Well then, you’ll be real happy to hear this—I’m bringing Mother to Virgin River for Thanksgiving.” Luke was dead silent for a moment. “What!” Luke nearly shouted into the phone. “Why the hell would you do that?” “Because you won’t come to Phoenix. And she’d like to see this property you’re working on. And the helper. And the girl.” “You aren’t doing this to me,” Luke said in a threatening tone. “Tell me you aren’t doing this to me!” “Yeah, since you can’t make it to Mom’s, we’re coming to you. I thought that would make you sooo happy,” he added with a chuckle in his voice. “Oh God,” he said. “I don’t have room for you. There’s not a hotel in town.” “You lying sack of shit. You have room. You have two extra bedrooms and six cabins you’ve been working on for three months. But if it turns out you’re telling the truth, there’s a motel in Fortuna that has some room. As long as Mom has the good bed in the house, clean sheets and no rats, everything will be fine.” “Good. You come,” Luke said. “And then I’m going to kill you.” “What’s the matter? You don’t want Mom to meet the girl? The helper?” “I’m going to tear your limbs off before you die!” But Sean laughed. “Mom and I will be there Tuesday afternoon. Buy a big turkey, huh?” Luke was paralyzed for a moment. Silent and brooding. He had lived a pretty wild life, excepting that couple of years with Felicia, when he’d been temporarily domesticated. He’d flown helicopters in combat and played it loose with the ladies, taking whatever was consensually offered. His bachelorhood was on the adventurous side. His brothers were exactly like him; maybe like their father before them, who hadn’t married until the age of thirty-two. Not exactly ancient, but for the generation before theirs, a little mature to begin a family of five sons. They were frisky Irish males. They all had taken on a lot: dared much, had no regrets, moved fast. But one thing none of them had ever done was have a woman who was not a wife in bed with them under the same roof with their mother. “I’m thirty-eight years old and I’ve been to war four times,” he said to himself, pacing in his small living room, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “This is my house and she is a guest. She can disapprove all she wants, work her rosary until she has blisters on her hands, but this is not up to her.” Okay, then she’ll tell everything, was his next thought. Every little thing about me from the time I was five, every young lady she’d had high hopes for, every indiscretion, my night in jail, my very naked fling with the high-school vice-principal’s daughter…. Everything from speeding tickets to romances. Because that’s the way the typical dysfunctional Irish family worked—they bartered in secrets. He could either behave the way his mother expected, which she considered proper and gentlemanly and he considered tight-assed and useless, or he could throw caution to the wind, do things his way, and explain all his mother’s stories to Shelby later.

with bleach and scrubbed the washbasin and the bath. He’d put a clean under-sheet on the bed and a fresh cover, in a pretty shade of lilac,

Who do you think he was, Kash? Who the fuck do you think he is to me?” “Other than Candice’s cousin, I don’t know! I want you to explain what I saw.” He reached around me and tried to turn off the shower but I smacked his arm back. “No! I need to get clean, please!” “You can take a shower after we’ve talked this out.” “Think about it!” I shrieked, and whirled on him. “Did I look like I was enjoying seeing him? I couldn’t even look at him. Think about when Candice said I was ‘dating’ him. Think. About. It.” Steam was filling the tiny bathroom and again, I tried to go into the shower. I just needed to wash him away. “Please, let me get clean,” I cried. “Clean,” he whispered like that word had finally sunk in, and sucked in a quick gasp. “Oh my God, Rach—” “I hate him, Kash. I hate him with everything in me. If I never see or hear from him again, it will be too soon! He tried to ruin me. And today—he saw us kiss. He started texting me. He said I forgot who I belonged to.” Kash’s hand dropped from my arm and I cried in relief when my body hit the stinging water. I grabbed a loofah and poured shower gel on it before hastily scrubbing at my body. I was grabbing for more shower gel when Kash caught my wrist. I looked up at him and saw his horrified expression. “Baby, please—don’t . . . don’t tell me he was right there and I did nothing.” My jaw trembled and I blinked back the tears that began to cloud my vision. Kash’s face drained of color and his shoulders slumped. “Son of a bitch. You said he worked at UT, I thought—I thought he was a professor. I was expecting some old, sick bastard, not . . . that.” I shook my head quickly and began scrubbing myself again. “He’s a personal trainer there. He’s only twenty-six.” His body swayed before going rigid, his eyes wide. “And he’s Candice’s cousin? Her goddamn cousin raped you?!” Sobs filled the bathroom and I continued to scrub vigorously. “That’s why she didn’t believe me,” I explained when I could take a deep enough breath in. “She was so mad, said I was just accusing him because I didn’t want to date him.” “What the fuck? She—how could she—” “He’s her family. She loves him, I get it.” “There’s nothing to get. That shouldn’t make a difference. Rachel, I’m so sorry. I’m . . . I’m sorry.” He grabbed the loofah out of my hand and tossed it in the tub. Cupping his hands to catch the water, he tried to help wash the suds off me and turned the water off when I was soap free. “You don’t need to get clean, baby. You aren’t dirty. You’re okay.” He wrapped a large towel around my body and pulled me close as I trembled. “You’re okay. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize, I’m sorry I was upset with you.” I face-planted into his chest and let him lead me into my bedroom. Letting me go for a moment, he flipped off the lights, quickly undressed until he was only in his boxer-briefs, and walked back up to me. Grabbing the comforter off the bed, he had me let go of the wet towel and let it fall to the floor before wrapping me up in the comforter. I climbed onto the bed after him, and he got under the sheet and pulled me close to him, his arms tightening around my shaking body. “I’ve got you,” he whispered against the top of my head. “You’re safe.” My

How is it,” Douglas asked his patient, “your fever responds only to her touch, hmm?” “Shut up,” the earl replied tiredly. “She put something in the water, if you must know. I think it helps.” By the time Douglas had clean sheets on the bed and Westhaven extracted from his morning bath, the patient was once again growing drowsy. Douglas forced more willow bark tea down the hapless earl’s gullet, tucked him in, and left him dozing peacefully beside his borrowed guardian bear.

Hide Taking steps toward your door I hadn't let myself before. Hear your name called, She screams your name out As you take her to the floor. Think she likes it? I feel so haunted in your bed. Is it me or is it her that's in your head? And you found it, And you drowned it, And you washed it clean. Feed me words while you had her between your sheets, Bet she likes that. See you dancing in the dark. Can you see me count to three, no I won't play your hide and seek (x4) See you dancing in the dark.

To transport this way along bouncy mountain roads is not the way to die. Every woman deserves the simple dignity of dying in a bed with clean sheets and an electric light at hand. They wanted me to participate in a horrible abomination. I simply will not countenance the lack of respect for the poor mother of those boys. Imagine how she would feel if she woke up and saw her sons piled at her side." -spoken by Sara to Matt regarding a victim of Amanita Phalloides [poisoning

IN T H E last twenty-five years I have had a lot of people staying with me and sometimes I am tempted to write an essay on guests. There are the guests who never shut a door after them and never turn out the light when they leave their room. There are the guests who throw themselves on their bed in muddy boots to have a nap after lunch, so that the counterpane has to be cleaned on their departure. There are the guests who smoke in bed and burn holes in your sheets. There are the guests who are on a regime and have to have special food cooked for them and there are the guests who wait till their glass is filled with a vintage claret and then say: "I won't have any, thank you." There are the guests who never put back a book in the place from which they took it and there are the guests who take away a volume from a set and never return it. There are the guests who borrow money from you when they are leaving and do not pay it back. There are the guests who can never be alone for a minute and there are the guests who are seized with a desire to talk the moment they see you glancing at a paper. There are the guests who, wherever they are, want to be somewhere else and there are the guests who want to be doing something from the time they get up in the morning till the time they go to bed at night. There are the guests who treat you as though they were SOME NOVELISTS I HAVE KNOWN 459 gauleiters in a conquered province. There are the guests who bring three weeks* laundry with them to have washed at your expense and there are the guests who send their clothes to the cleaners and leave you to pay the bill. There are the guests who telephone to London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and New York, and never think of inquiring how much it costs. There are the guests who take all they can get and offer nothing in return. There are also the guests who are happy just to be with you, who seek to please, who have resources of their own, who amuse you, whose conversation is delightful, whose interests are varied, who exhilarate and excite you, who in short give you far more than you

I can’t give you up now. When we spend time together, I feel this peace that I don’t get when you’re not around. It’s kind of like when you’re a kid, and you put on fresh PJs after a bath and get into a made bed with clean sheets straight out of the dryer. That’s what being with you feels like.

It hadn't changed. To grasp that constancy was the point of roaming, room by room, through the cottage. And once we'd been assured of that indelible sameness, the unpacking could begin. Off went the remaining white sheets covering beds and dressers. Out came the vacuum to gather three seasons' worth of dust. There was the front porch to be swept clean and the kitchen table and counters to be wiped down.

maybe even shave my legs, just so I can rub them together like a cricket when I climb into my bed with clean sheets.

I pointed my fingers in his face and listed every instance he did something with or to my body without my consent. For years, I woke up to him inside me, opened my eyes and stared blankly at the wall until he finished, rocking back and forth like an empty canoe. He would roll over after while I stayed awake, sticky against the sheets until the discomfort became too much and I had to climb out of bed to clean myself in the bathroom. Two hours later, I was there, again, in the same bathroom, shadows tucked neatly beneath my eyes. Voice like an alarm reminding my kids to get up, get ready for school.

On some nights it's best to stop thinking about the past, and all that's been won and lost. On nights like this, just getting into bed, crawling between clean white sheets, is a great relief. It's only a June night like any other, except for the heat, and the green light in the sky, and the moon. And yet, what happens to the lilacs when everyone sleeps is extraordinary. In My there were a few droopy buds, but now the lilacs bloom again, out of season and overnight, in a single exquisite rush, bearing flowers so fragrant the air itself turns purple and sweet. Before long bees will grow dizzy. Birds won't remember to continue north. For weeks people will find themselves drawn to the sidewalk in fount of Sally Owen's house, pulled out of their own kitchens and dining rooms by the scent of lilacs, reminded of desire and real love and a thousand other things they'd long ago forgotten, and sometimes now wish they'd still forgotten.

Lifting from the bed, I stare down at the mess I made. I don’t want my come to go to waste. Bending down, I suck my seed into my mouth, cleaning the sheets before it’s too late and it dries.

Indeed there is something comforting about an ordered life, kept agreements, and the simple act of cleaning up after one's self. The smooth surface of a clean sheet, pulled taut over the mattress is refreshing. It feels better than laying in a bed of wrinkles. That the mind could be as clear as a freshly ironed sheet! (From "The Handkerchief" in New to North America)

Corpses were wrapped in sheets, pushed into corners, left there sometimes for days, the horror of it sinking in deeper each hour, people too sick to cook for themselves, too sick to clean themselves, too sick to move the corpse off the bed, lying alive on the same bed with the corpse. The dead lay there for days, while the living lived with them, were horrified by them, and, perhaps most horribly, became accustomed to them.

By now I was talking to my mother, as the wounded and the dying do, I was begging for comfort, just this last once, this last time. Put your cool hand on my brow as you did when I was little and had a fever and you came in the middle of the night and tucked me in. Sometimes she would take off all of my blankets and then one by one waft them back over me; first the sheet, she'd lift it up again, and it would flutter down, so cool, so clean. How happy children can be in their beds.

Bottomless I took a deep breath. Olivia would be back. I suddenly felt so much better. I had plenty to do to keep myself busy while I waited. A shower was first on the agenda. I sniffed my shoulders as I undressed, but I couldn't smell anything but the brine and seaweed scent of the ocean. I wondered what Olivia had meant about me smelling bad. When I was cleaned up, I went back to the kitchen. I couldn't see any signs that Mr. Anderson’s child was eaten recently, and he would be hungry when he got back. I hummed tunelessly to myself as I moved around the kitchen. While Thursday's casserole rotated in the microwave, I made up the couch with sheets and an old pillow. Olivia wouldn't need it, but Mr. Anderson would need to see it. I was careful not to watch the clock. There was no reason to start myself panicking; Olivia had promised. I hurried through my dinner, not tasting it-just feeling the ache as it slid down my raw throat. Mostly I was thirsty; I must have drunk a half-gallon of water by the time I was finished. All the salt in my system had dehydrated me. I went to go try to watch TV while I waited. Olivia was already there, sitting on her improvised bed. Her eyes were liquid butterscotch. She smiled and patted the pillow. ‘Thanks.’ ‘You're early,’ I said, elated. I sat down next to her and leaned my head on her shoulder. She put her cold arms around me and sighed. ‘Bell. What are we going to do with you?’ ‘I don't know,’ I admitted. ‘I have been trying my hardest.’ ‘I believe you.’ It was silent. ‘Does-does he…’ I took a deep breath. It was harder to say his name out loud, even though I was able to think about it now. ‘Does Marcel know you're here?’ I couldn't help asking. It was my pain. I'd deal with it when she was gone, I promised myself, and felt sick at the thought. ‘No…’ There was only one way that could be true. ‘He's not with Chiaz and Esme?’ ‘He checks in every few months.’ ‘Oh.’ He must still be out enjoying his distractions. I focused my curiosity on a safer topic. ‘You said you flew here… Where did you come from?’ ‘I was in Denali. Visiting Tanya's family.’ ‘Is he here? Did he come with you?’ She shook her head. ‘He didn't approve of my interfering. We promised…’ she trailed off, and then her tone changed. ‘And you think Mr. Anderson won't mind my being here?’ she asked, sounding worried.

When we spend time together, I feel this peace that I don’t get when you’re not around. It’s kind of like when you’re a kid, and you put on fresh PJs after a bath and get into a made bed with clean sheets straight out of the dryer. That’s what being with you feels like.

Oh, the airport’s not far from downtown. It’s just a little over an hour commute each way, thanks to this amazing Seattle traffic. The hotel’s not much, but it’s all we need. There’s ten channels’ worth of cable on the TV, and clean sheets on our twin beds, and a picturesque view of the gentlemen’s club next door.” Jimmy thought he saw Agent Miller’s left eye twitch. Jimmy said, “I’m sure that’s very entertaining.” Miller couldn’t take anymore. “It might be,” he said, “if we had a view of the inside, but all we can see is a parking lot full of desperate, lonely men, all of whom seem to look in our window. They seem to be fascinated by the sight of two middleaged men lying in twin beds like Ernie and Bert, watching The Weather Channel because it’s the most exciting thing on. It’s like being an exhibit in an alien zoo, on the planet of the scabby pervs!

Oh, the airport’s not far from downtown. It’s just a little over an hour commute each way, thanks to this amazing Seattle traffic. The hotel’s not much, but it’s all we need. There’s ten channels’ worth of cable on the TV, and clean sheets on our twin beds, and a picturesque view of the gentlemen’s club next door.” Jimmy thought he saw Agent Miller’s left eye twitch. Jimmy said, “I’m sure that’s very entertaining.” Miller couldn’t take anymore. “It might be,” he said, “if we had a view of the inside, but all we can see is a parking lot full of desperate, lonely men, all of whom seem to look in our window. They seem to be fascinated by the sight of two middleaged men lying in twin beds like Ernie and Bert, watching The Weather Channel because it’s the most exciting thing on. It’s like being an exhibit in an alien zoo, on the planet of the scabby pervs!

And there's the happiness, again. Flickering, moth-like, just under her sternum. She presses a hand up to the place. If she could leave the embered blackness behind her eyelids and travel to the spot where feelings are made, perhaps she could farm the right ones. She has recently become attuned to the way Dad takes the temperature of her mood and attempts to chart it... Every night before bed, he says, 'Three happy things?' It's pretty easy. There's always weather of some sort: sun, snow, rain, wind. There's food - her favourite cereal or a nice pudding. And one other bit of happiness, which can be absolutely anything: clean sheets, a book, one of Dad's ideas - it doesn't matter whether the idea will actually happen, the optimism dominoes from him to her, regardless.

I envy those who can keep their bedrooms clean who don’t have to be reminded every few minutes to put away dirty dishes who remember to pick up dirty clothes and wash them instead of just picking them up off the floor and wearing them again I envy those who remember to shower regularly instead of just remembering because their hair starts to feel gross who remember the last time they used shampoo and when they need to use it again I envy those who remember to change the sheets on their bed instead of just changing them when they finally get pushed off one night who remember that you’re supposed to change your pillowcase I envy those who remember to care for themselves because I cannot

We shared a room, with two child's beds. I looked at his, untouched, and the darkness outside the window where he was, and I turned over between the sheets, experiencing, perhaps for the first time, the joy of being undressed, barefoot, in a warm white bed, and as if at the same time sensing his discomfort, tied up in the rough blanket, his legs laced into their gaiters, unable to turn, the bones aching. It's a feeling that since that night has never left me -the consciousness of how fortunate it is to have a bed, clean sheets, a soft mattress! In that feeling my thoughts, for so many hours directed toward the person who was the object of all our anxieties, closed over me, and so I fell asleep.

While she soaked, I stripped the bed and put it all in the washing machine. I washed her sheets daily, compliments of my OCD. If she was going to be in her bed for twelve hours a day, at least the sheets could be fresh. My endeavor was to keep her and everything around her clean and comforting.

The Clock Cell A Poem by Rosa Jamali Something happens to die And the sunlight which has been soaking is wet and obscure If I carry on the lines The frozen object which has been captured in your hands will drop Otherwise, the day has come to an end. Void When I get home; staring at all those cubical shapes; Standstill current of water And the sunlight which is never damp On the blank sheets of writing bursting into tears over old sheets on my bed. The elements Its essence has been painted by my blood The rain of cats and dogs on my field The moon is encompassing the land! Here with the frostbite on the iron post, I left the time on the river bank Time was a whim slipped away from my fingers The moments have been cleaned and cleared. The wall has turned blue Me and the black gown Have taken the flow of the river. It's a calf death breast-fed. What is it? Sediments on a neutral background It could be in a different colour It's been many days since I started walking on the rope The creased moon is hanging down the ceiling. Blizzard A flimsy stone The frostbite on the window glass The bridge has fallen down Silence on a metal tape Ending to a blind full stop. (TRANSLATED FROM ORIGINAL PERSIAN TO ENGLISH BY ROSA JAMALI)

Any given room, behind any given door, someone else’s life was on fire. Not the life lived at home, not the cable-and-bed-by-9: 00-p.m. life, waiting around to die. The hotel life: boundless, foreign, debaucherous, freshly laundered, exploratory, scantily clad, imaginative, frightening, expensive, and brand fucking new. I wandered the hallways every day like a guard keeper in the house of reinvention. Whatever these people were getting into, whatever their lives had become, I made sure that if they vacated the room for an hour’s time, they had clean sheets to do it on, new soap to scrub it off with, fresh towels to wipe it down, a clean robe to cover it up, and a fresh pillow to sleep it off on.

The door across from his bed was open, revealing the great room beyond—clean and empty and bathed in sunshine. The sheets he slept between were crisp and silken, the pillows plush, the mattress impossibly soft. Exhaustion coated his bones, and pain splintered through his side, but dully. And his head was infinitely clearer as he looked toward the source of that even, deep breathing and beheld the woman asleep in the cream-colored armchair beside the bed. Her long, bare legs were sprawled over one of the rolled arms, scars of every shape and size adorning them. She rested her head against the wing, her shoulder-length golden hair—the ends stained a reddish brown, as if a cheap dye had been roughly washed out—strewn across her face. Her mouth was slightly open as she dozed, comfortable in an oversized white shirt and what looked to be a pair of men’s undershorts. Safe. Alive. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Aelin.

Within a year Ballou, whom Steinbeck would eventually consider a “fine” and “sensitive” man, but too gentlemanly to fight New York publishing battles, remaindered both The Pastures of Heaven and To a God Unknown and rejected Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat manuscript as unsuitable. For a while Steinbeck was back in a familiar situation: writing under stressful circumstances (both his parents were seriously ill) and trying not to worry about publication. Arguably, the time he and Carol spent caring first for his mother, then for his father, probably did as much as anything else to end Steinbeck’s interest in heroic, larger-than-life literary characters. Frequent interruptions to clean his mother’s bed-pans and wash loads of soiled sheets, and later to witness his father’s decline into senility, refocused Steinbeck’s attention on common life, on the realm of “clerks” who, when they broke through reality at all, broke into a far more limited, even dubious, kind of heroism than Henry Morgan’s or Joseph Wayne’s. Steinbeck had already struck that chord in Pastures, but it would be with In Dubious Battle and with Of Mice and Men that a gritty style and an uncompromising vision of beleaguered humans caught in overwhelming circumstances would carry his “new conception of realities” to yet another stage of achievement.

But I wasn’t let out of the cage. It would have been nice to take a bath, and to go to bed between clean sheets, and to sleep until I died.

A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster.