Clicked With Love Quotes

To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.

When you find somebody you love, all the way through, and she loves you—even with your weaknesses, your flaws, everything starts to click into place. And if you can talk to her, and she listens, if she makes you laugh, and makes you think, makes you want, makes you see who you really are, and who you are is better, just better with her, you’d be crazy not to want to spend the rest of your life with her. (Carter Maguire)

Something inside me clicks. It's like I've spent my whole life fiddling with a complicated combination only to discover I was toying with the wrong lock.

Sometimes when you meet someone, there’s a click. I don’t believe in love at first sight but I believe in that click. Recognition.

Everyone I have lost in the closing of a door the click of the lock is not forgotten, they do not die but remain within the soft edges of the earth, the ash of house fires and cancer in sin and forgiveness huddled under old blankets dreaming their way into my hands, my heart closing tight like fists. - "Indian Boy Love Song #1

As soon as I look up, his eyes click onto my face. The breath whooshes out of my body and everything freezes for a second, as though I’m looking at him through my camera lens, zoomed in all the way, the world pausing for that tiny span of time between the opening and closing of the shutter.

Some automatic device clicked in her big brain, and her knees felt weak, and there was a chilly feeling in her stomach. She was in love with this man. They don't make memories like that anymore

I thought about my mother, and the words she said to me almost a lifetime ago. That’s when it clicked: she had asked me not to settle, to fight for the person I loved, and for the first time, I did what she expected of me. I had finally lived up to who she wanted me to be.

Why do you keep coming?" she asked. "Because," he said. Click on this word, he thought, and you will find links to everything it means. Because you are my oldest friend. Because, once, when I was at my lowest, you saved me. Because I might have died without you or ended up in a children's psychiatric hospital. Because I owe you. Because, selfishly, I see a future where we make fantastic games together, if you can manage to get out of bed. "Because," he repeated.

Sometimes you meet a person and you just click--you're comfortable with them, like you've known them your whole life and you don't have to pretend to be anyone or anything.

It's not about changing--it's about growing, together," he said, like the wise soul that he was. "I wanted to let you know--that I am with you. Always. Forever. We don't have to be separated by the sun, school, or even the night. Now I'm just a click away." ~Alexander

Love lies in those unsent drafts in your mailbox. Sometimes you wonder whether things would have been different if you'd clicked 'Send'.

The way you seem nervous makes me think you don't know that I'm in love with you." I looked up at him, eyes wide and hands froze. Click. "I love you, Petal. I've known it for a while now, but everything changed for me last night.

No matter how much crap you gotta plow through to stay alive as a photographer, no matter how many bad assignments, bad days, bad clients, snotty subjects, obnoxious handlers, wigged-out art directors, technical disasters, failures of the mind, body, and will, all the shouldas, couldas, and wouldas that befuddle our brains and creep into our dreams, always remember to make room to shoot what you love. It’s the only way to keep your heart beating as a photographer.

At lunch I turned my phone on to check my messages. Georgia always sent me a few inane texts during the day, and sure enough there were two messages from her: one complaining about her physics teacher and a second, also obviously sent from her phone: I love you, baby. V. I wrote her back: I thought I told you to buzz off last night, you creep-o French stalker guy. Her response came back immediately: As if! Your beet-red cheeks this morning suggest otherwise ... liar! You're so into him. I groaned and was about to turn my phone off when I saw that there was a third text from UNKNOWN. Clicking on it, I read: Can I pick you up from school? Same place, same time? I texted back: How'd you get my number? Called myself from your phone while you were in the restaurant's bathroom last night. Warned you we were stalkers!

What do you have there?” Mouse perked up at her interest. “I’m making ski masks to have on hand for bank robberies. Last night I finished the fingerless mermaid gloves for Eve. She likes her fingers free for gunplay.” Mouse’s needles clicked together in a peaceful rhythm.

And when her eyes met mine, I felt something click, like a key turning in a lock. Believe me, I'm no romantic, and while I've heard about love at first sight, I've never believed in it, and I still don't. But even so, there was something there, something recognizably real, and I couldn't look away.

She couldnt let that happen again. She would have to be strong. Fearless. Gird herself with righteous armor. She jumped when the door clicked shut. Oh great, that was real fearless of her.

So what don't you get?" "The way people talk and act like they're crazy in love, and then, ding, suddenly they're not. It's like it was all just pretend. Like it's just a game." He crunched on an ice cube. "Well, sometimes it is just a game." "Then how are you supposed to believe someone when it isn't?

In the beginning it was always the same. But. I kept trying. Then one day I accidentally moved as the shutter clicked. A shadow appeared. The next time I saw the outline of my face, and a few weeks later my face itself. It was the opposite of disappearing.

I love you, too." Click. "But I'm terrified." He lowered the camera, eyes on me. "I didn't want to fall in love with you,' I said. He took a step closer. "If it makes you feel any better, you put up a very impressive fight." He didn't put the camera down when he stepped forward again to kiss me. He just moved his hand to the side and cupped my face with the other, pressing his mouth to mine. "I'm scared, too, Sara. I'm scared I'm your rebound. I'm scared we'll cock it up somehow. I'm scared you'll tire of me. But the thing is," he said, smiling, "I don't want anyone else. You've rather ruined me for other women.

But let me tell you, West, no matter what happens, no matter where you go, I will also always be in love with you. And  you  don’t  have  to  love  me  back.  Hell,  you  don’t  need  to   ever talk to me again. Will I be hurt? Yes. Will I want you back? Yes. But it will all still be worth it, because you have made it worth it. Because loving you has  made  it  worth  it.

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

Who's the young man beside you?" Helen suddenly asked. "Oh, I see, you're one of us." She turned to Nonie. "And you did introduce us before." She tapped a finger against her right temple. "Every once in a while this old clock up here forgets to click to the next second. I apologize for that.

A storm was brewing. The wind has picked up and a mass of purple clouds was coming in from the West. It felt good to have my hair whipping around my head. I thought it might feel good to have hail beat down on me. Sometimes storms outside are the only relief for storms inside...

I shook my head, sweeping my lips across hers. Not good enough. “I need to hear you say it. I need to know you’re mine.” “I’ve been yours since the second we met,” she said, begging. I stared into her eyes for a few seconds, and then felt my mouth turn up into a half smile, hoping her words were true and not just spoken in the moment. I leaned down and kissed her tenderly, and then she slowly pulled me into her. My entire body felt like it was melting inside of her. “Say it again.” Part of me couldn’t believe it was all really happening. “I’m yours.” She breathed. “I don’t ever want to be apart from you again.” “Promise me,” I said, groaning with another thrust. “I love you. I’ll love you forever.” She looked straight into my eyes when she spoke, and it finally clicked that her words weren’t just an empty promise.

I had a love affair with books, with characters and their words. Books kept me company. When the voices of the book faded, as with the last long chord of a record, the back cover crinkling closed, I could swear I heard a door click shut.

Click. The door swung open. "Three," James said with a slightly self-satisfied smile. "Well done," Caroline said. He smiled back at her. "I've never met a woman or a lock that didn't love me.

Our talks are wonderful, interplays, not duels but swift illuminations of one another. I can make his tentative thoughts click. He enlarges mine. I fire him. He makes me flow. There is always movement between us. And he is grasping. He takes hold of me like a prey.

...But the heart is not a computer that can be upgraded so quickly and easily with the latest version of love. Love cannot be sealed hermetically inside a tight box like any other on the store shelf; even though the word itself is in public domain, its quality is not. Love cannot promise a full customer satisfaction garanteed or a whole lifetime of dreams shared refunded, with no questions asked. Love cannot be agreed to in terms and conditions as quickly as the "Next" button being clicked. These unspoken terms and conditions grow and develop over time until it gets very messy, and no one remembers how such a mess of accusation and anger was able to overshadow their pure ecstasy of love, the spark between two people turning on a new operation system of togetherness for the first time. Love is always beta; never a golden master. If love were a computer, constant bug reports and subsequent fixes are the name of the game, and there are many unexplained breakdowns. The heart is too stubborn for explanations and too impatient for forgiveness, and there is usually no one at the tech support line. Forgive me stan, if I've crashed so often. It's just to hard to boot up to a whole new future without you. I am an empty monitor in search of a "hello.

Someday in the far future, when the Milky Way has turned another cosmic click, will someone carry a chair to your grave site and keep you company forever? Can you imagine someone loving you that much?

We sat in silence, both of us looking up at the stars. He was probably envisioning a machine headed for Pluto. I wished i was on that machine.

That was the moment I fell in love with Josh Walker. Everything clicked into place, mending the broken parts of my soul enough to finally breathe freely, to soak in everything about him, and the beauty of what we were together.

I love Amazon 1-Click ordering. Because if it takes two clicks, I don't even want it anymore.

Carelessness, when it's continual, is as bad as intentional jerkiness.

I notice that I have to pay careful attention in order to listen to others with an openness that allows them to be as they are, or as they think themselves to be. The shutters of my mind habitually flip open and click shut, and these little snaps form into patterns I arrange for myself. The opposite of this inattention is love, is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.

Ever notice how really smart people enjoy making silly jokes?

What I saw transformed with a click like a shaken kaleidoscope. I stopped falling in love with her and started to like her immensely.

How easily we can remove someone from our lives today. Within a click. I wish it was that easy. Friend. Unfriend. Like. Unlike. Love. Unlove.

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

Fame is the responsibility, the perennial discipline, the concubine who solicits and imbibes, bit by bit, the love, the relations, the serenity, and the soul, leaving behind the subaqueous plaudits that pinch to the core..

Beside Mama, in my own folding chair, with my feet sticking out in front of me, I thought about my own innards. Just a few months before I'd had no idea whether my reproductive equipment worked. There was no evidence. But that week I had become a full-fledged bleeder and was still absorbed by this first change in myself that I had ever noticed. The click and buzz of my synapses kept making the same connection. If you can change, you can also end. Death had always been a theory to me. Now I knew. The terror hurt good and I nursed it and played it like a loose tooth.

You need a place just a click over middle range. Don’t want to go all-out first time, but you don’t want to run on the cheap either. You want atmosphere, but not stuffy. A nice established place.” “Bob, you’re going to give me an ulcer.” “This is all ammunition, Cart. All ammo. You want to be able to order a nice bottle of wine. Oh, and after dinner, if she says how she doesn’t want dessert, you suggest she pick one and you’ll split it. Women love that. Sharing dessert’s sexy. Do not go on and on about your job over dinner. Certain death. Get her to talk about hers, and what she likes to do. Then—” “Should I be writing this down?

I regret not telling her how much she meant to me, how much I'd miss her, how devastated I'd be to see her go. If I could have one more second more with her, I would spend it whispering how much I love her into her ear and hugging her, just hugging her, and not letting go until she finally slipped away into nothing.

I heard the click of a shutter followed by Max's deep voice. "The way you seem nervous makes me think you don't know that I'm in love with you.

You've seen those pictures of couples kissing in front of a Christmas tree, or clasping hands on their wedding day, or holding a newborn baby between them-a snapshot of joy. But what do you really know about them? Just that at the second the shutter clicked, they loved each other. You have no idea what trials came before, or after. You don't know if one of them cheated, if they grew apart, if a divorce loomed on the horizon. You simply see that in one static moment, they were happy.

This is how it feels in the split second you suddenly become aware that you’re falling in love with someone. The click of a jigsaw’s last piece, the rainfall of coins in a jackpot slot machine, the right song striking up and your being swept away by its opening bars. That conviction of making complete sense of the universe, in one moment. Of course. You’re where I should be. You’re here.

Most young dealers of the Silicon Chip Era regard a reference library as merely a waste of space. Old Timers on the West Coast seem to retain a fondness for reference books that goes beyond the practical. Everything there is to know about a given volume may be only a click away, but there are still a few of us who'd rather have the book than the click. A bookman's love of books is a love of books, not merely of the information in them.

There they are, held like flies in the amber of that moment—click goes the camera and on goes life; the minutes, the days, the years, the decades, taking them further and further from that happiness and promise of youth, from the hopes Aunt Sadie must have had for them, and from the dreams they dreamed for themselves. I often think there is nothing quite so poignantly sad as old family groups.

You should really, like, dump her and date me instead,' May heard herself saying, all confidence. 'I'm not as irritating. I mean, I'm irritating, but I'm not as bad as she is. And you know me better. Wouldn't that be funny? I mean, we've already hooked up, so we're good.' We broke up,' Pete said quickly. His voice was so bright that May could hear the smile coming through. For a moment she was confused. Who, you and me?' No. Nell and i.' Oh . . .' The meter in her brain clicked once or twice, signaling May that she'd probably said enough. I have to go,' she said suddenly. 'Okay? I think that's great. Cool. Okay. Gotta go now. Hey, Pete, I love you!

She fit against him like a teaspoon inside a tablespoon, curves angling together in all the right places to lock them into place with a nearly audible click of perfection

Love is about connecting yourself with the Universe and being a part of it.

I love you. I'll love your forever." She looked straight into my eyes when she spoke, and it finally clicked that her words weren't just an empty promise.

It’s like the P-38 is an old skeleton key I’m trying to fit into an old padlock and when I make that connection I’ll hear a click and a door will open and I’ll walk through and be saved.

As she was working out the calculations in her head, she forgot to really worry about all the physical things that were getting in the way--the balancing of the bow, the aiming, the fear she wasn't going to get it right--and suddenly it all just clicked. She felt it come into sudden, sharp focus, like a spotlight had suddenly focused on her, and she let go of the arrow. That instant, she knew it would hit the target. She let the bow rock gracefully forward on the balance point, watching the arrow, and it smacked into the exact center of her crudely drawn paper circle. Physics. She loved physics. Shane arrived just as she put the arrow into the center, and slowed down, staring from the target to Claire, standing straight and tall, bow still held loosely in one hand and ready to shoot again. "You look so hot right now," he said.

A year later we were in a coffee shop, the kind taking a last stand against Starbucks with its thrift-store chairs, vegan cookies, and over-promising teas with names like Serenity and Inner Peace. I was curled up with a stack of causes, trying to get in a few extra hours of work over the weekend, and Andrew sat with one hand gripping his mug, his nose in The New York Times; the two of us a parody of the yuppie couple of the new millennium. We sat silently that way, though there wasn't silence at all. On top of the typical coffee-shop sounds - the whir of an expresso machine, the click of the cash register, the bell above the door - Andrew was making his noises, an occasional snort at something he read in the paper, the jangle of his keys in his pocket, a sniffle since he was getting over a cold, a clearing of his throat. And as we sat there, all I could do was listen to those Andrew-specific noises, the rhythm of his breath, the in-out in-out, its low whistle. Snort. Jangle. Sniffle. Clear. Hypnotized. I wanted to buy his soundtrack. This must be what love is, I thought. Not wanting his noises to ever stop.

In the old days – or so I’ve heard – you could go round someone’s place and rifle through their record collection, take a look at their bookcases. Now you have to scroll through their iTunes or click on their Kindle.

This is a love story about astronomy, he thought. Twin souls collide and love each other forever. And no one ever goes crazy. And no one ever dies. And the universe folds back on itself and clicks into place, and the pylons holding up the electrical wires are really trees. And the trees are really gods.

The click of seat belts, the ding of the blinker, the gentle swish of breath past lips -- it all feels like it's being projected through a megaphone, filling my car with deafening sound..

I could smash the measured clicking sound that haunts me - draining away life, and dreams, and idle reveries. Hard, sharp, ticks. I hate them. Measuring thought, infinite space, by cogs and wheels. Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that- I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much- so very much to learn.

But I love to drink. I can’t help it. I mean, I love it Bryson-love the taste, love that buzz you get when you’ve had a couple, love the smell and feel of the taverns. I miss dirty jokes and the click of pool balls in the background, and that kind of bluish, under lit glow of a bar at night.

In a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle if we wish to sustain moments of solitude. E-reading opens the door to distraction. It invites connectivity and clicking and purchasing. The closed network of a printed book, on the other hand, seems to offer greater serenity. It harks back to a pre-jacked-in age. Cloth, paper, ink: For these read helmet, cuirass, shield. They afford a degree of protection and make possible a less intermediated, less fractured experience. They guard our aloneness. That is why I love them, and why I read printed books still.

Washington reflected bitterly. He was short of money, gunpowder, shot, and food. All he had going for him was The Cause, the Rights of Man. Very noble and all that. But just add a whiff of money, gunpowder, shot, and food, and the old Cause might really click. Congress had pledged more help, of course, which, knowing Congress, meant that the aid might come in a decade or so, after the war was lost. He sighed and gazed heavenward. Was a tiny miracle too much to ask?

I know this doesn't exactly make me unique, but I love the internet. I love it. I think the way I feel about the internet is the way some people feel about the ocean. It's so huge and unknowable, but also totally predictable. You type a line of symbols and click enter, and everything you want to happen, happens. Not like real life, where all the wanting in the world can't make something exist

He was standing in the Inner Court, shouting for his enemy. When Guenever saw him, and he saw her, the electric message went between their eyes before they spoke a word. It was as if Elaine and the whole Quest for the Grail had never been. So far as we can make it out, she had accepted her defeat. He must have seen in her eyes that she had given in to him, that she was prepared to leave him to be himself-to love God, and to do whatever he pleased-so long as he was only Lancelot. she was serene and sane again. she had renounced her possessive madness and was joyful to see him living, whatever he did. They were young creatures-the same creatures whose eyes had met with the almost forgotten click of magnets in the smoky Hall of Camelot so long ago. And, in truly yielding, she had won the battle by mistake.

I left this morning saying ‘I love you’ as if setting out for some unknown country instead of the corner shop. I wanted you to be sure, in case this time - out of, say, 10,000 departures I never made it back: although after 50 years together, 2 countries, 3 children, and several former journeys that would put this one to shame you’d think there’d be no need to pause on my own doorstep, suddenly afraid of the distance between us, of your absolute beauty, of the growing aloneness when I clicked the latch.

Here, her hand in mine was the one reality that severed us from the cold click-clack of Hell. I rubbed her hand and she sighed; wasn’t that meaning? Wasn’t that something we could cling to? I could be with this other. I could form no other relation, but maybe her hand in mine was enough, both sufficient and necessary. In Hell there was no sense of place, because all places were the same. Uniform monotony. A place without place. A place without context. But, here, now, I could rub her hand and she would sigh. She was a difference. Perhaps each person was the only difference in all these halls of unchanging ranks of books, kiosks, clocks, and carpet, and that, and that, at least, we had to hold to.

It seemed like I had completed a task, overcome an obstacle. I thought about my mother, and the words she said to me almost a lifetime ago. That’s when it clicked: she had asked me not to settle, to fight for the person I loved, and for the first time, I did what she expected of me. I had finally lived up to who she wanted me to be.

How are you holding up?" "I'm good.And still untouched," she added. "Are you alone in that bed?" "Except for the six members of the all-girl Swedish volleyball team.Helga's got a hell of a spike.Aren't you going to ask what I'm wearing?" "Black Speedos,sweat,and a big smile." "How'd you guess?So,what are you wearing?" Slowly,she ran a tongue around her teeth. "Oh,just this little..very little..white lace teddy." "And stiletto heels." "Naturally.With a pair of sheer hose.They have little pink roses around the tops. It matches the one I'm tucking between my breasts right now. I should add I've just gotten out of the tub.I'm still a little..wet." "Jesus.You're too good at this.I'm hanging up." Her response was a long, throaty laugh."I'm going to love driving the Jag.let me know when to expect the shipment." When the phone clicked in her ear,she laughed again,turned, and found herself nearly face to face wth Kate. "how long have you been standing there?" "Long enough to be confused.Were you just having [hone sex with Josh? Our Josh?" Carelessly,Margo brushed her hair behind her ear. "It was more foreplay really.

...to have watched a human being you loved deeply, that you had gotten real close to, held and slept with and kissed and worried about and befriended and most of all admired—to see that warm living person burn out from the inside, burn from the heart outward. Until it clicked and clacked like an insect, repeating one sentence again and again. A recording. A closed loop of tape.

Peace, he knows, can be shattered in a million variations: great visions of the end, a rain of ash, a disease on the wind, a blast in the distance, the sun dying like a kerosene lamp clicked off. And in smaller ways: an overheard remark, his daughter’s sour mood, his own body faltering. There’s no use in anticipating the mode. He will wait for the hushed spaces in life, for Ellis’s snore in the dark, for Grete’s stealth kiss, for the warm light inside the gallery, his images on the wall broken beyond beauty into blisters and fragments, returning in the eye to beauty again. The voices of women at night on the street, laughing; he has always loved the voices of women. Pay attention, he thinks. Not to the grand gesture, but to the passing breath. He sits. He lets the afternoon sink in. The sweetness of the soil rises to him. A squirrel scolds from high in a tree. The city is still far away, full of good people going home. In this moment that blooms and fades as it passes, he is enough, and all is well in the world.

Deal resistance a death blow and make sweet love to your art all night long. Put on your fishnet thigh highs and your patent leather stilettos and your special occasion lingerie. Seduce the hell out of your own creative soul. It’s time for an epic lap dance. Dance for your paint and canvas, for fingers tripping across keyboard, for the open arms of motherhood, for the layers of flavor in the meals you create. Wind your hips down for the click of the shutter, for the 3 a.m. bathroom poem, for the late night lesson planning

You're a handsome one, aren't you?" she cooed. "So strong and sturdy. What a good hasp you must have; what a firm sense of your purpose. But you've been holding your place for so long. You can't be expecting to stay closed forever. Why, that isn't fair! The people who put you here don't appreciate you the way I do. They don't understand how difficult it is to be a lock, and do the things you do. I would appreciate you always. I would never leave you alone in the rain to rust." "Are we watching a woman try to seduce a lock?" asked Andrew. "I'm not objecting if we are -- your kink is okay and all -- but I just want to confirm that everyone else is seeing what I'm seeing, here." The lock clicked as it released, popping open. "No, we're watch a woman successfully seduce a lock, said Jeffery. "Fascinating." "Her love life must involve a lot of handcuffs," I said, earning myself a snort from Ciara as she reached out and removed the padlock from its place on the door. "Don't ask about mine and I won't ask about yours," she said, making the lock disappear into her pocket.

A lot of people like to listen to people talk about death because we don't do it enough...We make it taboo, and I think that gives it too much power...I hope that for some of you, this made sense. That the uncertainty I felt while typing it clicked something into place for you. In a world where we strive to be different, to stand out, to be unique and not be like anyone else, sometimes it's nice to know that we aren't different...We're all scared little apes burdened with thoughts, worries, and uncertainties. Even our fight to be different proves we're the same.

Gate C22 At gate C22 in the Portland airport a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed a woman arriving from Orange County. They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking, the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other like he’d just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island, like she’d been released at last from ICU, snapped out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing. Neither of them was young. His beard was gray. She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish kisses like the ocean in the early morning, the way it gathers and swells, sucking each rock under, swallowing it again and again. We were all watching– passengers waiting for the delayed flight to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots, the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling sunglasses. We couldn’t look away. We could taste the kisses crushed in our mouths. But the best part was his face. When he drew back and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost as though he were a mother still open from giving birth, as your mother must have looked at you, no matter what happened after–if she beat you or left you or you’re lonely now–you once lay there, the vernix not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth. The whole wing of the airport hushed, all of us trying to slip into that woman’s middle-aged body, her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses, little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

There are two different kinds of glee club in this world. The first sing barbershop favourites and Gershwin tunes, they swing gently, moving from side to side and sometimes clicking their fingers and winking. Howard could basically deal with that type. He had got through those occasions graced by glee clubs of that type. But these boys were not of that type. Swaying and clicking and winking were just how they got warmed up. Tonight this glee club had chosen as their opener ‘Pride (In the Name of Love)’ by U2, which they had taken the trouble to transform into a samba. They swayed, they clicked, they winked. They did coordinated spins. They switched places with each other. They moved forward, they moved back – always retaining their formation. They smiled the kind of smile you might employ when trying to convince a lunatic to quit holding a gun to your mother’s head.

derelict. my voice cracked and yolk poured out. wind chimes rigid, no breeze, no song. my wings found hidden in your suitcase. pleas for help mistaken for a swan song. i'm stuffing pages from my journal down my throat as kindling. hoping the smoke will get the taste of you out of my mouth. he looks at me from across the room and all i want is to push him against the wall. ravage. ravage. carnage has never been more vogue. is it still art if it doesn't bring you to your knees? lover, let me prey at your altar. let me bare my fangs in praise. don't i look so pretty in a funeral shroud? i keep time with the click of my creaking bones. dance with me under the milky translucence of a world suffocating. how did you find me? i buried myself beneath the cicadas. is a girl trapped in glass still a prize? let me get under your skin. i want to know what your fears taste like. i want to consume.

You are the king of all the fears that ruled my life, a man of ferocity and passion and balls to the wall determination and endless, boyish enthusiasm. You crack the soul of life open in your palms and drink your fill. A man like that needs a queen by his side,” I murmured, repeating my excuse for our breakup back to him in a way that had his eyes clicking to life like flashlights. “And I’m that queen. I will match your ferocity. I will exceed your passion and challenge your balls to the wall determination. I will see your boyish enthusiasm and raise you my newborn love for life. I will stand beside my biker King and be his rough-and-tumble Queen, even if it takes me the next ten years to convince you to take me back.

Next question.” He swipes the screen of his phone, but he’s not looking at it; he’s staring at me. Trying to intimidate me. Trying to see who’ll blink first. “Did you leave DC because (A) you couldn’t find any hotties to make out with? Or (B) your East Coast boyfriend is an ankle buster and you’d heard about legendary West Coast D, so you had to find out for yourself if the rumors were true?” he says with a smirk. “Idiot,” Grace mumbles, shaking her head. I may not understand some of his phrasing, but I get the gist. I feel myself blushing. But I manage to recover quickly and get a jab in. “Why are you so interested in my love life?” “I’m not. Why are you evading the question? You do that a lot, by the way.” “Do what?” “Evade questions.” “What business is that of yours?” I say, secretly irritated that he’s figured me out... Porter scoffs. “Seeing how this is your first day on the job, and may very well be your last, considering the turnover rate for this position? And seeing how I have seniority over you? I’d say, yeah, it’s pretty much my business.” “Are you threatening me?” I ask. He clicks off his phone and raises a brow. “Huh?” “That sounded like a threat,” I say. “Whoa, you need to chill. That was not . . .” He can’t even say it. He’s flustered now, tucking his hair behind his ear. “Grace . . .” Grace holds up a hand. “Leave me out of this mess. I have no idea what I’m even witnessing here. Both of you have lost the plot.

You know what I love? The spaces between I love you. The tap of your fork against the plate and how my cup of wine clicks against our table. The scratchy voice coming from the radio in the other room. The quiet sound of your hand reaching across the table and whispering over mine. How your voice sounds like your mouth on the back of my neck. The soft murmur of our easy conversation. Between these quiet Tuesday night routines, following every comma and right after every pause for breath, is I, love, and you. In the middle of every I love you is a sink full of dishes, whisper of socked feet tangled in white sheets, and gentle kisses against curved cheeks. We lyric ourselves into the laundry that needs to be finished, into the ends of every smile that follows me repeating your name. We write ourselves into the grocery bags we need to carry, the cracks running up our rented walls, the sides of the bed we choose to drag up the sails of heavy eyed dreams. Like the spaces between our fingers, in the spaces between I, love, and you, we wait. The in-betweens have always been my favorite.

My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life. You can redefine it. You don’t have to live in the past. I found that not only did I have fight in me, I had love. By the time we clicked, I had had enough therapy and enough friendship and enough beautiful moments in my life to know what love is and what I wanted my life to feel and look like. When I got on my knees and I prayed to God for Julius, I wasn’t just praying for a man. I was praying for a life that I was not taught to live, but for something that I had to learn. That’s what Julius represented.

How to describe the things we see onscreen, experiences we have that are not ours? After so many hours (days, weeks, years) of watching TV—the morning talk shows, the daily soaps, the nightly news and then into prime time (The Bachelor, Game of Thrones, The Voice)—after a decade of studying the viral videos of late-night hosts and Funny or Die clips emailed by friends, how are we to tell the difference between them, if the experience of watching them is the same? To watch the Twin Towers fall and on the same device in the same room then watch a marathon of Everybody Loves Raymond. To Netflix an episode of The Care Bears with your children, and then later that night (after the kids are in bed) search for amateur couples who’ve filmed themselves breaking the laws of several states. To videoconference from your work computer with Jan and Michael from the Akron office (about the new time-sheet protocols), then click (against your better instincts) on an embedded link to a jihadi beheading video. How do we separate these things in our brains when the experience of watching them—sitting or standing before the screen, perhaps eating a bowl of cereal, either alone or with others, but, in any case, always with part of us still rooted in our own daily slog (distracted by deadlines, trying to decide what to wear on a date later)—is the same? Watching, by definition, is different from doing.

Is that a no?" I said. "No. I mean.." He struggled for the smile again. "I'm just waiting for the punch line. Something about making it date so I need to pay. Or you expecting flowers. Or.." He trailed off. "There isn't a punch line," I said. I rose onto my knees and inched over, in front of him. Then I stopped about a foot away. "No punch line, Daniel," I said. "I'm asking if you'll go out with me." He didn't answer. Just reched out, his hand sliding between my hair and face, pulling me toward him and.. And he kissed me. His lips touched mine, tentatively, still unsure, and I eased closer, my arms going around his neck. He kissed me for real then, a long kiss that I felt in the bottom of my soul, a click, some deep part of me saying, "Yes, this is it." Even when the kiss broke off, it didn't end. It was like coming to the surface for a quick gasp of air, then plunging back down again, finding that sweet spot again, and holding onto it for as long as we could. Finally it tapered off, and we were lying on the picnic blanket, side by side, his hand on my hip, kissing slower now, with more breaks for air. until I said, "We should have done that sooner." He smiled, a lazy half smile, and he just looked at me for a moment, our gazes locked, lying there in drowsy happiness, before he said, "I think now's just fine." And he kissed me again, slower and softer now, as we rested there, eyes half closed. "So, about Saturday, did you ask me?" he said after a minute, "Because I'm pretty sure that means yo're paying." "Nope. You were imaging it. Considering how you eat, the meal bill is all yours. But I will spring for the movie. And bring you flowers." He chuckled. "Will you?" "Yep, a dozen pink roses, which you'll have to carry all night or risk offending me." "And what happens if I offend you?" "You don't get any more of this." I leaned in and kissed him again. And we stayed out there, on the blanket, as the sun fell, talking and kissing mostly, just being together. We had a long road ahead of us, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy. But I had everything I wanted-everything I needed-and I'd get through it just fine. We all would.

It’s like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is . . . I don’t know . . . weird. But a lot of days I get over that, because I do really hate the demon.” “You often try to understand your experience through metaphor, Aza: It’s like a demon inside of you; you’ll call your consciousness a bus, or a prison cell, or a spiral, or a whirlpool, or a loop, or a—I think you once called it a scribbled circle, which I found interesting.” “Yeah,” I said. “One of the challenges with pain—physical or psychic—is that we can really only approach it through metaphor. It can’t be represented the way a table or a body can. In some ways, pain is the opposite of language.” She turned to her computer, shook her mouse to wake it up, and then clicked an image on her desktop. “I want to share something Virginia Woolf wrote: ‘English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. . . . The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.’ And we’re such language-based creatures that to some extent we cannot know what we cannot name. And so we assume it isn’t real. We refer to it with catch-all terms, like crazy or chronic pain, terms that both ostracize and minimize. The term chronic pain captures nothing of the grinding, constant, ceaseless, inescapable hurt. And the term crazy arrives at us with none of the terror and worry you live with. Nor do either of those terms connote the courage people in such pains exemplify, which is why I’d ask you to frame your mental health around a word other than crazy.

When we were fighting the other night, everything just suddenly clicked. When you asked me if you make me happy. That's all that matters right? I've never been happier. You're it for me, Keira." He put his other hand on my cheek. "And I thought that I'd be scared of making the next step with you too. But I'm not. The only thing I'm scared of is losing you. And when we make this official, that's it. You're the one. And I want to make that step. I'm in love with you. I'm so in love with you, Keira." Oh my God. I put my hand over my mouth. "I don't want another roommate ever again. I want to fall asleep every night with you by my side. And I only want to wake up next to you." "Rory..." "And I know I'd be happiest with you by my side for the rest of my life. Keira, I want you to be my roommate forever." He got down on one knee and pulled a box out of his pocket. I wiped away the tears that had started to fall from my eyes.

FatherMichael has entered the room Wildflower: Ah don’t tell me you’re through a divorce yourself Father? SureOne: Don’t be silly Wildflower, have a bit of respect! He’s here for the ceremony. Wildflower: I know that. I was just trying to lighten the atmosphere. FatherMichael: So have the loving couple arrived yet? SureOne: No but it’s customary for the bride to be late. FatherMichael: Well is the groom here? SingleSam has entered the room Wildflower: Here he is now. Hello there SingleSam. I think this is the first time ever that both the bride and groom will have to change their names. SingleSam: Hello all. Buttercup: Where’s the bride? LonelyLady: Probably fixing her makeup. Wildflower: Oh don’t be silly. No one can even see her. LonelyLady: SingleSam can see her. SureOne: She’s not doing her makeup; she’s supposed to keep the groom waiting. SingleSam: No she’s right here on the laptop beside me. She’s just having problems with her password logging in. SureOne: Doomed from the start. Divorced_1 has entered the room Wildflower: Wahoo! Here comes the bride, all dressed in . . . SingleSam: Black. Wildflower: How charming. Buttercup: She’s right to wear black. Divorced_1: What’s wrong with misery guts today? LonelyLady: She found a letter from Alex that was written 12 years ago proclaiming his love for her and she doesn’t know what to do. Divorced_1: Here’s a word of advice. Get over it, he’s married. Now let’s focus the attention on me for a change. SoOverHim has entered the room FatherMichael: OK let’s begin. We are gathered here online today to witness the marriage of SingleSam (soon to be “Sam”) and Divorced_1 (soon to be “Married_1”). SoOverHim: WHAT?? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? THIS IS A MARRIAGE CEREMONY IN A DIVORCED PEOPLE CHAT ROOM?? Wildflower: Uh-oh, looks like we got ourselves a gate crasher here. Excuse me can we see your wedding invite please? Divorced_1: Ha ha. SoOverHim: YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY? YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK, COMING IN HERE AND TRYING TO UPSET OTHERS WHO ARE GENUINELY TROUBLED. Buttercup: Oh we are genuinely troubled alright. And could you please STOP SHOUTING. LonelyLady: You see SoOverHim, this is where SingleSam and Divorced_1 met for the first time. SoOverHim: OH I HAVE SEEN IT ALL NOW! Buttercup: Sshh! SoOverHim: Sorry. Mind if I stick around? Divorced_1: Sure grab a pew; just don’t trip over my train. Wildflower: Ha ha. FatherMichael: OK we should get on with this; I don’t want to be late for my 2 o’clock. First I have to ask, is there anyone in here who thinks there is any reason why these two should not be married? LonelyLady: Yes. SureOne: I could give more than one reason. Buttercup: Hell yes. SoOverHim: DON’T DO IT! FatherMichael: Well I’m afraid this has put me in a very tricky predicament. Divorced_1: Father we are in a divorced chat room, of course they all object to marriage. Can we get on with it? FatherMichael: Certainly. Do you Sam take Penelope to be your lawful wedded wife? SingleSam: I do. FatherMichael: Do you Penelope take Sam to be your lawful wedded husband? Divorced_1: I do (yeah, yeah my name is Penelope). FatherMichael: You have already e-mailed your vows to me so by the online power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride. Now if the witnesses could click on the icon to the right of the screen they will find a form to type their names, addresses, and phone numbers. Once that’s filled in just e-mail it off to me. I’ll be off now. Congratulations again. FatherMichael has left the room Wildflower: Congrats Sam and Penelope! Divorced_1: Thanks girls for being here. SoOverHim: Freaks. SoOverHim has left the room

Last Night’s Moon," “When will we next walk together under last night’s moon?” - Tu Fu March aspens, mist forest. Green rain pins down the sea, early evening cyanotype. Silver saltlines, weedy toques of low tide, pillow lava’s black spill indelible in the sand. Unbroken broken sea. — Rain sharpens marsh-hair birth-green of the spring firs. In the bog where the dead never disappear, where river birch drown, the surface strewn with reflection. This is the acid-soaked moss that eats bones, keeps flesh; the fermented ground where time stops and doesn’t; dissolves the skull, preserves the brain, wrinkled pearl in black mud. — In the autumn that made love necessary, we stood in rubber boots on the sphagnum raft and learned love is soil–stronger than peat or sea– melting what it holds. The past is not our own. Mole’s ribbon of earth, termite house, soaked sponge. It rises, keloids of rain on wood; spreads, milkweed galaxy, broken pod scattering the debris of attention. Where you are while your body is here, remembering in the cold spring afternoon. The past is a long bone. — Time is like the painter’s lie, no line around apple or along thigh, though the apple aches to its sweet edge, strains to its skin, the seam of density. Invisible line closest to touch. Lines of wet grass on my arm, your tongue’s wet line across my back. All the history in the bone-embedded hills of your body. Everything your mouth remembers. Your hands manipullate in the darkness, silver bromide of desire darkening skin with light. — Disoriented at great depths, confused by the noise of shipping routes, whales hover, small eyes squinting as they consult the magnetic map of the ocean floor. They strain, a thousand miles through cold channels; clicking thrums of distant loneliness bounce off seamounts and abyssal plains. They look up from perpetual dusk to rods of sunlight, a solar forest at the surface. Transfixed in the dark summer kitchen: feet bare on humid linoleum, cilia listening. Feral as the infrared aura of the snake’s prey, the bees’ pointillism, the infrasonic hum of the desert heard by the birds. The nighthawk spans the ceiling; swoops. Hot kitchen air vibrates. I look up to the pattern of stars under its wings.

If you threw a brick at someone you would be responsible for them feeling pain, presumably,' Libby said. 'But if you do the right thing and it makes someone feel bad, isn't that their problem? Then again, how do you even know what the right thing is? Who decides?' 'It's so confusing. I am sure about Mark, but I was sure about Bob before that, and Richard before that. Maybe Mark isn't for ever, I just think he is now when I can't have him. I have to face up to this about myself. I fall in love like that.' She clicked her fingers. 'I always have. For other people, love is like some rare orchid that can only grow in one place under a certain set of conditions. For me it's like bindweed. It grows with no encouragement at all, under any conditions, and just strangles everything else. Good metaphor, huh?

I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I spin to leave. “No fucking way.” It clicks in his mind. “Little Vee?” Here he is. “You’re that girl Finn and I used to…” He doesn’t complete his sentence, but I know all too well what he was going to say. “Annoy? Tease? Torture? Why, yes, that would be me. Did you seriously just figure that out? A bit slow, are we?” I snark. My outburst only seems to amuse him. “Look, in my defense, your mom only ever called you ‘Vee.’ I thought it was short for Vicky or Vivian or something. And it was ten years ago. I can’t even remember what I had for dinner last night.” “Whatever.” I shrug. “Shit, I’ve got to say, Vee.” He gives me a once-over. “Puberty did you a solid.” My cheeks combust. “Wish I could say the same about you,” I lie through my teeth. Xavier smiles at my failed attempt to deny the undeniable. Let’s not pretend like puberty didn’t do every female on earth a solid when Xavier Emery went from “cute” to “sinfully hot” in the span of a summer. “I think you mispronounced thank you.” He flashes a smug grin that makes me want to knee him where it hurts.

During my first few months of Facebooking, I discovered that my page had fostered a collective nostalgia for specific cultural icons. These started, unsurprisingly, within the realm of science fiction and fantasy. They commonly included a pointy-eared Vulcan from a certain groundbreaking 1960s television show. Just as often, though, I found myself sharing images of a diminutive, ancient, green and disarmingly wise Jedi Master who speaks in flip-side down English. Or, if feeling more sinister, I’d post pictures of his black-cloaked, dark-sided, heavy-breathing nemesis. As an aside, I initially received from Star Trek fans considerable “push-back,” or at least many raised Spock brows, when I began sharing images of Yoda and Darth Vader. To the purists, this bordered on sacrilege.. But as I like to remind fans, I was the only actor to work within both franchises, having also voiced the part of Lok Durd from the animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It was the virality of these early posts, shared by thousands of fans without any prodding from me, that got me thinking. Why do we love Spock, Yoda and Darth Vader so much? And what is it about characters like these that causes fans to click “like” and “share” so readily? One thing was clear: Cultural icons help people define who they are today because they shaped who they were as children. We all “like” Yoda because we all loved The Empire Strikes Back, probably watched it many times, and can recite our favorite lines. Indeed, we all can quote Yoda, and we all have tried out our best impression of him. When someone posts a meme of Yoda, many immediately share it, not just because they think it is funny (though it usually is — it’s hard to go wrong with the Master), but because it says something about the sharer. It’s shorthand for saying, “This little guy made a huge impact on me, not sure what it is, but for certain a huge impact. Did it make one on you, too? I’m clicking ‘share’ to affirm something you may not know about me. I ‘like’ Yoda.” And isn’t that what sharing on Facebook is all about? It’s not simply that the sharer wants you to snortle or “LOL” as it were. That’s part of it, but not the core. At its core is a statement about one’s belief system, one that includes the wisdom of Yoda. Other eminently shareable icons included beloved Tolkien characters, particularly Gandalf (as played by the inimitable Sir Ian McKellan). Gandalf, like Yoda, is somehow always above reproach and unfailingly epic. Like Yoda, Gandalf has his darker counterpart. Gollum is a fan favorite because he is a fallen figure who could reform with the right guidance. It doesn’t hurt that his every meme is invariably read in his distinctive, blood-curdling rasp. Then there’s also Batman, who seems to have survived both Adam West and Christian Bale, but whose questionable relationship to the Boy Wonder left plenty of room for hilarious homoerotic undertones. But seriously, there is something about the brooding, misunderstood and “chaotic-good” nature of this superhero that touches all of our hearts.

Baudelaire" When I fall asleep, and even during sleep, I hear, quite distinctly, voices speaking Whole phrases, commonplace and trivial, Having no relation to my affairs. Dear Mother, is any time left to us In which to be happy? My debts are immense. My bank account is subject to the court’s judgment. I know nothing. I cannot know anything. I have lost the ability to make an effort. But now as before my love for you increases. You are always armed to stone me, always: It is true. It dates from childhood. For the first time in my long life I am almost happy. The book, almost finished, Almost seems good. It will endure, a monument To my obsessions, my hatred, my disgust. Debts and inquietude persist and weaken me. Satan glides before me, saying sweetly: “Rest for a day! You can rest and play today. Tonight you will work.” When night comes, My mind, terrified by the arrears, Bored by sadness, paralyzed by impotence, Promises: “Tomorrow: I will tomorrow.” Tomorrow the same comedy enacts itself With the same resolution, the same weakness. I am sick of this life of furnished rooms. I am sick of having colds and headaches: You know my strange life. Every day brings Its quota of wrath. You little know A poet’s life, dear Mother: I must write poems, The most fatiguing of occupations. I am sad this morning. Do not reproach me. I write from a café near the post office, Amid the click of billiard balls, the clatter of dishes, The pounding of my heart. I have been asked to write “A History of Caricature.” I have been asked to write “A History of Sculpture.” Shall I write a history Of the caricatures of the sculptures of you in my heart? Although it costs you countless agony, Although you cannot believe it necessary, And doubt that the sum is accurate, Please send me money enough for at least three weeks.

The phone was laid on a desk thousands of miles away. Once more, with that clear familiarity, the footsteps, the pause, and, at last, the raising of the window. "Listen," whispered the old man to himself. And he heard a thousand people in another sunlight, and the faint, tinkling music of an organ grinder playing "La Marimba"— oh, a lovely, dancing tune. With eyes tight, the old man put up his hand as if to click pictures of an old cathedral, and his body was heavier with flesh, younger, and he felt the hot pavement underfoot. He wanted to say, "You're still there, aren't you? All of: you people in that city in the time of the early siesta, the shops closing, the little boys crying loteria nacional para hoy! to sell lottery tickets. You are all there, the people in the city. I can't believe I was ever among you. When you are away I: from a city it becomes a fantasy. Any town, New York, Chicago, with its people, becomes improbable with distance. Just as I am improbable here, in Illinois, in a small town by a ' quiet lake. All of us improbable to one another because we are not present to one another. And it is so good to hear the sounds, and know that Mexico City is still there and the people moving and living . . .

For about five minutes, as I tried to get the Vespa to start, I fell in love with her. The oversized raincoat made her look about eight, as though she should have had matching Wellies with ladybugs on them, and inside the red hood were huge brown eyes and rain-spiked lashes and a face like a kitten’s. I wanted to dry her gently with a big fluffy towel, in front of a roaring fire. But then she said, “Here, let me—you have to know how to twist the thingy,” and I raised an eyebrow and said, “The thingy? Honestly, girls.” I immediately regretted it—I have never been talented at banter, and you never know, she could have been some earnest droning feminist extremist who would lecture me in the rain about Amelia Earhart. But Cassie gave me a deliberate, sideways look, and then clasped her hands with a wet spat and said in a breathy Marilyn voice, “Ohhh, I’ve always dreamed of a knight in shining armor coming along and rescuing little me! Only in my dreams he was good-looking.” What I saw transformed with a click like a shaken kaleidoscope. I stopped falling in love with her and started to like her immensely. I looked at her hoodie jacket and said, “Oh my God, they’re about to kill Kenny.” Then I loaded the Golf Cart into the back of my Land Rover and drove her home.

Aisling tumbled out, his gold eyes going wild about the room to take in all of them. His beak clicked as he worked it in silence. Then, as the breaking of ice may bring a cascade of water from winter’s falls, the griffin’s voice—no longer that small shrill copy of Taryn’s, but his own true voice—poured plaintively from him. “Mom!” Taryn jerked around, her mouth dropping open. Aisling bounded toward her and she swept him up into a tight embrace. He clutched at her shoulders with his talons, burying his head under her chin, and cried, “Mom! Yoo…rrrrr…oh…kay!” “Great gods,” Antilles heard himself say and he shot Tonka a startled glance. “He cannot be speaking?!” The horseman merely smiled. “And why not?” he murmured, resettling himself on his padded bolster. “For has he not been a miracle from the very first?” “You’re talking,” Taryn cried, true delight painting itself over the grief that had seemed to mask her since the dawning of this terrible day. She was radiant once more, burning with a joy and a healing light all its own as she hugged her griffin close. “Oh, my fierce prince! My big boy!” “Yoo…rrrr…Ai-sing,” whispered the griffin. His raptor’s eyes flicked to Antilles and his naked wings fluttered. “Tilly. Yoo…rrrr…sun-shy?” Taryn giggled, her face pressed to fur. “Aye, lad,” Antilles said, tossing his broken horn. “My sun and my moon and all my starry skies.

What passed in the mind of this man at the supreme moment of his agony cannot be told in words. He was still comparatively young, he was surrounded by the loving care of a devoted family, but he had convinced himself by a course of reasoning, illogical perhaps, yet certainly plausible, that he must separate himself from all he held dear in the world, even life itself. To form the slightest idea of his feelings, one must have seen his face with its expression of enforced resignation and its tear-moistened eyes raised to heaven. The minute hand moved on. The pistols were loaded; he stretched forth his hand, took one up, and murmured his daughter's name. Then he laid it down seized his pen, and wrote a few words. It seemed to him as if he had not taken a sufficient farewell of his beloved daughter. Then he turned again to the clock, counting time now not by minutes, but by seconds. He took up the deadly weapon again, his lips parted and his eyes fixed on the clock, and then shuddered at the click of the trigger as he cocked the pistol. At this moment of mortal anguish the cold sweat came forth upon his brow, a pang stronger than death clutched at his heart-strings. He heard the door of the staircase creak on its hinges—the clock gave its warning to strike eleven—the door of his study opened; Morrel did not turn round—he expected these words of Cocles, "The agent of Thomson & French." He placed the muzzle of the pistol between his teeth. Suddenly he heard a cry—it was his daughter's voice. He turned and saw Julie. The pistol fell from his hands. "My father!" cried the young girl, out of breath, and half dead with joy—"saved, you are saved!" And she threw herself into his arms, holding in her extended hand a red, netted silk purse.

Sheila and Hugh Resting in arms Testing your charms Repeating a ritualized “I love you” Sharing a fight Or a kiss in the night Shrugging when friends ask “What’s new?” After the wedding Her hips started spreading His hair line began to recede They remained together Out of habit now And not out of any great need He’ll show up from work Showing signs of strain While her day was spent cleaning Letting the soap operas wash her brain . . . He reads the evening paper She calls him in to eat They share their meal silently She’s bored, he’s just beat Then they climb the stairs Multiplying the monotony With each step they take The hours spent sleeping They find more satisfying Than those spent awake He removes his work clothes She puts on her curlers and cream Hoping the sheets will protect them From the demon of daily routine Then he clicks off the lamp And the darkness holds no noise For in the dark you can be anyone Housewives will be girls And businessmen boys . . . “I love you, Sheila” I love you, Hugh” But she’s deciding on dishes And his thoughts are all askew And the sheets supply refuge For this perpetual pair Neither really knowing anymore Why the other one is there

Can you do it again tonight?" "The Catamounts were a wretched team," Andrew said. "They brought that ridicule on themselves." "Can you or can't you?" "I don't see why I should." Neil heard the click of a lock coming undone and knew the referees were opening the door. Andrew wasn't moving yet, but Neil still put an arm in his path to keep him where he was. He pressed his gloved hand to the wall and leaned in as close to Andrew as he could with all of his bulky gear on. "I'm asking you to help us," Neil said. "Will you?" Andrew considered it a moment. "Not for free." "Anything," Neil promised, and stepped back to take his place in line again. Neil didn't know what he'd gotten himself into, but he honestly didn't care, because Andrew delivered exactly what Neil wanted him to. Andrew closed the goal like his life depended on it and smashed away every shot. The Bearcat strikers took that challenge head-on. They feinted and swerved and threw every trick shot they had at Andrew. More than once Andrew used his glove or body to block a ball he couldn't get his racquet to in time. That might have been enough, except Andrew didn't stop there. For the first time ever he started talking to the defense line. Neil only understood him in snatches, since there was too much space and movement between them, but what he caught was enough. Andrew was chewing out the backliners for letting the strikers past them so many times and ordering them to pick up the pace. Neil worried for a moment what they'd do with Andrew's rude brand of teamwork at their backs, but the next time he got a good look at Matt, Matt was grinning like this was the most fun he'd had in years.

Lord, what will I be? Where will the careless conglomeration of environment, heredity and stimulus lead me? Someday I may say: It was of great significance that I sat and laughed at myself in a convertible with the rain coming down in rattling sheets on the canvas roof. It influenced my life that I did not find content immediately and easily - - and now I am I because of that. It was inestimably important for me to look at the lights of Amherstn town in the rain, with the wet black tree-skeletons against the limpid streetlights and gray November mist, and then look at the boy beside me and feel all the hurting beauty go flat because he wasn't the right one - not at all. And I may say that my philosophy has been deeply affected by the fact that windshield wipers ticked off seconds too loudly and hopelessly, that my clock drips loud sharp clicks too monotonously on my hearing. I can hear it even through the pillow I muffle it with - the tyrannical drip drip drip drip of seconds along the night. And in the day, even when I'm not there, the seconds come out in little measured strips of time. And I wind the clock. And I look at the windshield wipers cutting an arch out of the sprinkled raindrops on the glass. Click-click. Clip-clip. Tick-tick. snip-snip. And it goes on and on. I could smash the measured clicking sound that haunts me - draining away life, and dreams, and idle reveries. Hard, sharp, ticks. I hate them. Measuring thought, infinite space, by cogs and wheels. Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.

What happened to your arm?" she asked me one night in the Gentleman Loser, the three of us drinking at a small table in a corner. Hang-gliding," I said, "accident." Hang-gliding over a wheatfield," said Bobby, "place called Kiev. Our Jack's just hanging there in the dark, under a Nightwing parafoil, with fifty kilos of radar jammed between his legs, and some Russian asshole accidentally burns his arm off with a laser." I don't remember how I changed the subject, but I did. I was still telling myself that it wasn't Rikki who getting to me, but what Bobby was doing with her. I'd known him for a long time, since the end of the war, and I knew he used women as counters in a game, Bobby Quine versus fortune, versus time and the night of cities. And Rikki had turned up just when he needed something to get him going, something to aim for. So he'd set her up as a symbol for everything he wanted and couldn't have, everything he'd had and couldn't keep. I didn't like having to listen to him tell me how much he loved her, and knowing he believed it only made it worse. He was a past master at the hard fall and the rapid recovery, and I'd seen it happen a dozen times before. He might as well have had next printed across his sunglasses in green Day-Glo capitals, ready to flash out at the first interesting face that flowed past the tables in the Gentleman Loser. I knew what he did to them. He turned them into emblems, sigils on the map of his hustler' s life, navigation beacons he could follow through a sea of bars and neon. What else did he have to steer by? He didn't love money, in and of itself , not enough to follow its lights. He wouldn't work for power over other people; he hated the responsibility it brings. He had some basic pride in his skill, but that was never enough to keep him pushing. So he made do with women. When Rikki showed up, he needed one in the worst way. He was fading fast, and smart money was already whispering that the edge was off his game. He needed that one big score, and soon, because he didn't know any other kind of life, and all his clocks were set for hustler's time, calibrated in risk and adrenaline and that supernal dawn calm that comes when every move's proved right and a sweet lump of someone else's credit clicks into your own account.

Neliss, why is this rug wet?” Legna peeked around the corner to glance at the rug in question, looking as if she had never seen it before. “We have a rug there?” “Did you or did you not promise me you were not going to practice extending how long you can hold your invisible bowls of water in the house? And what on earth is that noise?” “Okay, I confess to the water thing, which was an honest mistake, I swear it. But as for a noise, I have no idea what you are talking about.” “You cannot hear that? It has been driving me crazy for days now. It just repeats over and over again, a sort of clicking sound.” “Well, it took a millennium, but you have finally gone completely senile. Listen, this is a house built by Lycanthropes. It is more a cave than a house, to be honest. I have yet to decorate to my satisfaction. There is probably some gizmo of some kind lying around, and I will come across it eventually or it will quit working the longer it is exposed to our influence. Even though I do not hear anything, I will start looking for it. Is this satisfactory?” “I swear, Magdelegna, I am never letting you visit that Druid ever again.” “Oh, stop it. You do not intimidate me, as much as you would love to think you do. Now, I will come over there if you promise not to yell at me anymore. You have been quite moody lately.” “I would be a hell of a lot less moody if I could figure out what that damn noise is.” Legna came around the corner, moving into his embrace with her hands behind her back. He immediately tried to see what she had in them. “What is that?” “Remember when you asked me why I cut my hair?” “Ah yes, the surprise. Took you long enough to get to it.” “If you do not stop, I am not going to give it to you.” “Okay. I am stopping. What is it?” She held out the box tied with a ribbon to him and he accepted it with a lopsided smile. “I do not think I even remember the last time I received a gift,” he said, leaning to kiss her cheek warmly. He changed his mind, though, and opted to go for her mouth next. She smiled beneath the cling of their lips and pushed away. “Open it.” He reached for the ribbon and soon was pulling the top off the box. “What is this?” “Gideon, what does it look like?” He picked up the woven circlet with a finger and inspected it closely. It was an intricately and meticulously fashioned necklace, clearly made strand by strand from the coffee-colored locks of his mate’s hair. In the center of the choker was a silver oval with the smallest writing he had ever seen filling it from top to bottom. “What does it say?” “It is the medics’ code of ethics,” she said softly, taking it from him and slipping behind him to link the piece around his neck beneath his hair. “And it fits perfectly.” She came around to look at it, smiling. “I knew it would look handsome on you.” “I do not usually wear jewelry or ornamentation, but . . . it feels nice. How on earth did they make this?” “Well, it took forever, if you want to know why it took so long for me to make good on the surprise. But I wanted you to have something that was a little bit of me and a little bit of you.” “I already have something like that. It is you. And . . . and me, I guess,” he laughed. “We are a little bit of each other for the rest of our lives.” “See, that makes this a perfect symbol of our love,” she said smartly, reaching up on her toes to kiss him. “Well, thank you, sweet. It is a great present and an excellent surprise. Now, if you really want to surprise me, help me find out what that noise is.